The Pause (22 page)

Kate. She recently finished her honours degree in biology (big shock there) and is now studying for her PhD in neuroscience so she can finally understand or dissect her own brain, I imagine. When it comes to academics, she kind of makes me look like a sea monkey – and I'm currently doing my master's in English literature. As far as I'm aware, she's only had one serious-ish relationship, and that was with a guy (‘Donga', if you can credit it) who worked on a fishing trawler. Watching them together (and they
are
still together as far as I'm aware) is kind of like watching Madam Curie dating Fred Flintstone. Donga had a thing for neck tattoos, the Southern Cross – his ute was covered in stickers of them – and a strong belief
that the only degree worth having was awarded by the university of life. Seriously, holding a conversation with Donga on anything other than fishing, engines, football (rugby league) and refugees (he held some pretty strong views there until Mum shut him up one Sunday lunch) is like trying to communicate with toast.

Dad. He moved to New York and actually married Mindy (Bindy, Cindy, Windy) who is now – hold onto your stomach – pregnant. I started spending time with them because part of Dad's package to relocate to New York was six-monthly visitation trips for his children. (Though before I became engaged to Kim, I would insist on his paying for the triangle – Sydney, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney – so that I could catch up with Lisa.) Dad eventually bowed to societal pressure (well, me and Mum) and either shaved off or melted his hair and now sports the shorn-down look. Just as I thought, we
do
work better as adults, and though we
still
haven't been fishing, I really do like spending time with him.

Lisa. We lost touch for a little while in our early twenties when we started seeing other people but reconnected after she got married, when she started emailing me again. She started studying languages like Susanne had but added on nursing when she realised she could combine the
two. Lisa's husband, Gary, works in finance. Just why she married him is a complete mystery to me. They met through their church and my guess is that he represented safety for her. Boring to the point at which you would seriously consider throttling him rather than hear him utter one more word on the subject of derivatives or the share price index (whatever the hell derivatives and the share price index are), Lisa's husband has the emotional intelligence and warmth of a lump of wood. Spending time with him is about as interesting as watching a four-hour instructional DVD on basket weaving. God knows what Lisa was thinking. On one of my trips, shortly after they were married, they took me out to dinner. Gary had recently been on one of those corporate personal development courses and so he spent the evening regaling us on how he could cure misery and depression. The secret, he maintained (and the alarming thing was that he was deadly serious), was to draw a smiley face on one of your fingers and if people started to get you down, you simply hold up your smiley-face finger and everyone would fall about laughing at the sheer side-splitting hilarity of it all. When the evening was finally over, I wanted to hold up my finger to Gary, only it didn't have a smiley face on it. I was disappointed with Lisa for settling when she could have had anyone.

When we said goodnight outside the restaurant and Lisa gave me a kiss and a hug, Gary said, ‘Steady on there, Declan. She's
my
wife.' I then had to endure the agony of watching them stroll off with Gary's arm wrapped around Lisa's shoulder.

And that thought, that image, plagues me for the remainder of the flight. The best thing I ever did in my life was pausing on the station that day. The worst thing I ever did was letting Lisa go.

Susanne is just emerging from Lisa's room when I arrive. She's shocked to see me, which is not surprising, I suppose, given that in our hasty exchange on the phone this morning I neglected to tell her that I was coming.

Susanne leads me towards a small waiting room that is just along the corridor.

‘What's the latest?'

Susanne asks me if I want a coffee. When I decline she makes one for herself.

‘The good news is that she's out of danger.' Susanne's voice cracks. I can see that there's more to come. I help her into a seat and finish making her coffee.

‘And the bad news?'

‘She'll never walk again.'

Now
I
need to sit down. I want to scream at the injustice of it all but there's no one to whom or nowhere I can direct my anger so I just have to choke it down for Lisa's sake. For Susanne's.

‘She also lost the baby.'

‘She was pregnant?' I reply, stating the bloody obvious.

Susanne nods. ‘It was only a few weeks. I guess I'm not going to be a grandmother after all.'

I gently rub Susanne's back.

‘Is Gary in there with her?' I gesture towards Lisa's room.

‘He's at work.'

‘What the …?'

‘Reckons he had a meeting that he couldn't get out of. Said it was pointless him being here while she was unconscious. Wants me to call him if there's any change.'

‘Oh, so he
can
get out of this meeting.'

‘I know, Declan,' says Susanne. She takes a sip of coffee. ‘He's a jerk. But he's her jerk.'

‘And has there been any change?'

‘She came round just a minute ago. I was coming out to phone Gary when I ran into you.'

‘Does she know? About not being able to walk?'

Susanne nods. ‘How on earth is she going to cope, Declan? She loves her work. Lives for it.
How can she reach the beds and look after her patients in a wheelchair? Before she fell pregnant, she was even thinking of going back to uni and studying to become a doctor.'

Susanne is thinking too far ahead. ‘Let's get her through this first. Then we'll see what she can do. One step at a time.' I cringe at my clumsy wording but fortunately Susanne is too caught up in her thoughts to have processed it.

‘Would you like to see her?'

‘Is she up to visitors?'

‘She's resting, but I know seeing you will do her a world of good.'

Susanne and I walk back along the corridor to Lisa's room. ‘She's always talking about you.' She stops and looks at me. ‘You want my opinion?'

I don't think I have much choice.

‘I don't believe in destiny, but if ever two people were supposed to be together, it was the two of you. God knows why you let it go. Now look at her.' Susanne has tears cascading down her face, anger in her eyes. ‘I blame you, Declan.'

What?

‘You'd both been through hell and were drawn to each other because of it. You saved each other, but you stuffed it up. You both did. You let it go and now it's
all
gone to hell.'

We arrive at Lisa's room. Susanne stops,
composes herself as best she can and wipes her face. ‘Sorry,' she says quietly, and gives me a hug. ‘Just needed to vent.'

I hate that she's right.

‘Hey, baby doll,' says Susanne quietly. ‘Look who I found lurking around the corridor.'

Lisa opens her eyes and looks at me. Despite what's happened to her she smiles. My heart quickens at seeing her lying there immobile. I want to crawl in beside her, spoon her, and never let her go.

‘Declan. What are you doing here?'

‘Oh, you know. Just passing. Saw your light on.'

I walk over to her bed. Given her condition, I don't know what I can and can't do. I kiss her cheek and taste the salty tang of grief. I sit down on the chair next to her bed and hold her hand, interlocking our fingers like old times before … before it all went to hell.

Susanne holds up her mobile. ‘I'll just go and call …'

‘No!' snaps Lisa. ‘I don't want him here.'

‘Lisa.'

‘Please, Mum.'

‘Darling. He has a right to know about … things.' It's too big to say.

When Susanne goes, Lisa turns away from me to hide her fresh tears. ‘What are you doing here? You're supposed to be getting married today.'

I shake my head.

She turns back to face me when I don't say anything. ‘Oh, Declan. I ruined your wedding day. I've ruined everything.'

‘It wasn't you. It wasn't working. We saw it just in time. Dodged a bullet, really.'

There's a long silence.

‘I'm going to be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. My baby's gone … I don't want to live, Declan.'

I squeeze her hand. ‘It's awful at the moment but the pain will pass.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I've been down this path, remember? When I thought I'd lost you all those years ago. I didn't want to live then, but I made myself push on. And look at the times we've had – the times I've had – since. You have to give it time. You have to pause. The sun will smile on you again, babe. The good moments are just over the horizon. That's a promise.'

‘Declan,' says Lisa.

‘Yeah?'

‘You just called me “babe”.'

‘Sorry,' I reply. ‘Slip of the tongue.' I've been doing that quite a bit today.

Lisa squeezes my hand. ‘No. I liked it. Reminds me of how things used to be.'

‘Rest now, Lisa,' I say. ‘You need to regain your strength.'

‘For what?' she says.

‘So you can get back to …' I trail off. I don't know her life. Not really.

‘Back to my life?' she asks. ‘What life? My life's over, Declan. All I am now is a burden.'

‘You ever heard of Erik Weihenmayer?' I don't even wait for her to reply. ‘Completely blind but he climbed Everest.'

‘Good for him.'

‘Anne Frank. Holed up in a wall with her family, hiding from the Nazis. Wrote one of the biggest-selling books of the twentieth century. Jean-Dominique Bauby. Locked-in syndrome. Could only move his left eyelid. Managed to blink a book –
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
. And it strikes me that Stephen Hawking has done pretty well for himself. Even appeared on
The Simpsons
and
The Big Bang Theory
.'

‘I know you're making a point but I –'

‘Your life's not over, Lisa. It's just taken a different direction.' I've just decided that tonight, when visiting hours are over, I'm going to go out and buy
The Diary of Anne Frank
,
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
,
A Brief History of Time
, and Erik Weihenmayer's autobiography if he has one, and I'm going to sit by her bed and read them to her. One after
the other. And then, when she's ready, I'm going to take her shopping for a wheelchair …

I've overstepped. It's not my role to do any of that. I lost that right when she said ‘I do' to Gary.

As if reading my thoughts, Lisa squeezes my hand again. ‘When he comes, I want you here. Mum, too. I don't want to be left alone with him.'

‘Why?'

‘Please say you'll stay. Promise me.'

‘I'm not going anywhere. I promise, babe.'

I stroke Lisa's forehead until she drifts off to sleep. I'm tired myself so I shuffle the chair a little closer to the bed and lean back and close my eyes as the minutes, the hours, the years just drift away.

‘What do you think you're doing holding my wife's hand?'

I open my eyes not having a clue where I am. I'm obviously holding someone's wife's hand and her husband isn't at all happy about it. I kind of get it and so I release my grip.

I remember where I am. And although I've just let go of Lisa's hand, she refuses to let go of mine. She squeezes even tighter, so I squeeze right back.

Susanne comes in after Gary, obviously having heard his rant. ‘Relax, Gary. It's only Declan.'

Gary turns on Susanne. ‘If anything happens to him, I'll kill her.'

I don't understand why he's being protective of me, and then it dawns on me. He's talking about their baby. He doesn't know that Lisa has had a miscarriage. Lisa squeezes my hand even tighter.

Susanne glares at Gary. She has fire in her eyes. ‘If anything happens to
her
, I'll kill
you
.'

I'm not fast enough to prevent Gary from pushing Susanne back and calling her all sorts of vile names, his face millimetres away from hers. But I am quick enough to prevent him for doing it for very long. Before I and, more importantly,
he
, realises what's happened, I have his arm behind his back and the rest of him shoved up against the wall.

‘Let go of me!' he yells. He struggles against me but I have him pinned.

‘You need to settle down. Then I'll let you go.'

‘It's too late,' says Susanne. ‘The baby's gone.'

‘Everyone's a little on edge, and that's understandable,' I say, trying to be the voice of reason. ‘But we all need to calm down a little for Lisa's sake.'

‘For
her
sake?' yells Gary. ‘That bitch killed my baby. She should be up for murder.'

‘Get out!' screams Lisa. ‘Get him out of here, Declan!'

I've been calm up until this point but now he's got my hackles up. ‘She's not an incubator. She's a person. And she wants you out.'

I nod to Susanne, who opens the door. I shove Gary outside, letting him go in the process. He turns and glares at me.

‘Get out of my way!' he yells. ‘I'm going to see my wife. That's my right.' He starts towards me.

‘You want to see her, you'll have to come through me. It'll end badly for one of us, and I don't think it'll be me.' He stops in his tracks and so I try reasoning with him again. ‘I don't know what's gone on but I'll do whatever Lisa wants and right now she doesn't want to see you, so you're not coming in. I'll talk to her, and once everyone has calmed down …'

The noise we're making has attracted attention, and a nurse or matron is coming along the corridor with a security guard.

The conversation takes place in Cantonese but I get the gist of it from Gary's gesticulating. He wants to see his wife but
I
won't let him in.

The security guard turns to me. ‘You need to stand aside, sir. This man has every right to see his own wife.'

I eyeball the security guard. ‘Why don't you ask what she wants?'

Fortunately Susanne emerges from the room
and verifies what I'm saying. The nurse goes into the room while there is a stand-off in the corridor.

‘Get out of my way or I'll …'

‘Or you'll what? Sit on me? Quote the latest share price index to me? Bore me to death?'

The nurse returns and informs Gary that he's not allowed in. He looks at me, turns and leaves. I genuinely feel for him. I don't really understand what's going on, but part of Gary's life has been destroyed too and I feel awful that I've taken on a bouncer's role. If I were him I'd hate me, too.

Having returned to check on Lisa, the nurse comes back out and actually apologises to me.

Susanne also comes out and tells me that she's going to duck out and get us some lunch because despite everything that's happened to her, Lisa has a craving for a Quarter Pounder.

Lisa's eyes are all bloodshot when I resume my seat beside her.

I'm still playing catch-up. ‘What just happened? Why won't you see Gary?'

Lisa looks at the wall for a moment. She takes a deep breath. ‘It was our wedding anniversary yesterday and we were having dinner out. Everything should have been perfect. I was pregnant, I only just found out; Gary had just been made partner, and I was excited because I was thinking of going back to uni to study medicine.
But when I told him about studying he laughed at me. He said it was my place to raise the children now that I was pregnant. Nothing more. When I insisted that I could do both he actually thumped the table and said that I was being stupid. That I was selfish. That it was my job to support him and the children and that if I wanted to do something, then after the baby was born I should take up a hobby like yoga or tennis, but there was to be no more talk about further study.

‘I realised right there and then what I had known for some time. I actually loathed him. We never discussed anything. Never talked. Not like you and I did, anyway. He didn't read novels. Thought they were a waste of time. He actually used to laugh at art. Said it was pointless. And if we ever went to the movies, I had to explain what was going on. We went to see an arty French movie once and I think he blew a circuit board in his brain. Anyway, I held my ground. Said that I was going to study and that was that. The argument continued on the way down in the elevator and out onto the street. Eventually he compromised and said that once the baby was born, if I still wanted to study medicine then we would talk about it.