The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy (30 page)

Stuart smiles; maybe he too has passed through the garlic capital of the world.

‘But I know for sure no one forced the drink down my throat. It was me had to be accountable for that. No one put those needles in my arm and shot all that heroin and cocaine into my veins. Getting clean means getting real. Growing up and beginning to take responsibility for my own actions and letting others get on with their own stuff, follow their own paths. Listening to what's said at these Meetings has taught me to be responsible for myself.'

He stares in the middle distance, looking deep into the past.

‘Like I say, I feel like I know you a whole lot better and there's lots I could identify with in your story. The craziness. The blackouts. Oh, the blackouts. I was only just telling Anthony here, in the car coming over, the kind of insanity that happened to me in blackouts. You know the last time I was drunk with a woman …'

And I think of Kilburn High Road and the day I was due to meet Matilda and Lottie, the shopping bags and the woman in the pub with the red hair. Then as Wayne is talking, I'm listening, but another memory comes, from some deeper place, filed away under ‘to be forgotten'.

In my memory we walk away from the pub, this strange woman (with blue hair this time) and me. I have a half-drunk bottle of whiskey in one hand. The air is cold, but the whiskey and the excitement warm me. I feel her arm linked with mine, the soft promise of her body at my side. I look at her, she smiles. I see our reflection in a shop window. She and I. A woman and me, arm in arm.

The night is clear. Our breath tracks our trail as we walk slowly along the lane. I say nothing. She says nothing. There is no need. I unscrew the top of the bottle and take a long drink. The whiskey courses through my body like a fire. I pass it to her and she takes a swig. I take another drink, though I am long drunk. She has to steady me as I stagger and lurch to one side. When we get to the tunnel under the railway bridge she stops and turns to me. We are alone and she smiles.

‘Well?' she says, cocking her head to one side. She opens her coat and stands with her hands on her hips.

‘Well?' she repeats. ‘Don't you want to kiss me?'

I look down. She wears white high-heeled shoes. They are almost luminescent in the moonlight. I look at my own shoes. They are worn and scuffed. In need of a polish. If I had known a beautiful girl would ask me to kiss her I would have gotten the old tin from under the kitchen sink and used the tatty brushes to polish and buff them. She gives a little laugh. A slightly exasperated laugh, and then she pushes me back against the wall. I can feel the cold roughness of the bricks through my clothes as she puts her arms on my shoulders and moves close to me. I taste the whiskey on her breath, feel the softness of her lips on mine as she leans forwards and kisses me. I think I hear a train in the distance, rounding the bend in the bay.

‘Well,' she says, her mouth close to my ear, ‘was that good?' She kisses my neck, then looks up at me quizzically. ‘Is there nothing you want to do, lover boy?'

I love you, I want to say, as she holds me closer, the firmness of her body calling out to me. You are all I have waited for. I drink the rest of the bottle, then let it drop onto the soft gravel underfoot. Then I kiss her back. Hard and rough, fuelled by a love waiting and longing at the core of my being. The train is coming closer. It must be up by the level crossing; the sound changes as it rattles over the cattle grid. I love you, I want to say. Forever I will love you. But I say nothing, my hands under her coat, exploring her body. There is a whistle from the engine, alerting the station of its imminent arrival. Her scream is drowned by the clatter of the train passing overhead as I slap her hard on the side of the face.

‘I love you,' I shout above the din. ‘I love you,' I say, as I hit her again, catching her on the neck as she jerks back, stunned. She holds her hands to her cheek, her mouth wide open, the paralysis of the prey. Then she turns to run, but I grab her by the arm and pull her close to me, sinking my face into the deliciousness of her thick hair. She is shaking, sobbing quietly, her heart racing, gulping for air. But she will be alright, for I love her forever. Don't go my love. I hold her tight. Don't ever leave me now I have found you. My hands are around her neck. I kiss her again as she chokes and splutters. And I cuddle her close to me. For life. For love. She is crying and shivering, but she will be alright, because I love her forever.

Finally she says, ‘Please, let go of me now.'

I stroke her hair and release my hold. She steps away a pace, pushing me backwards, my head cracking against the unyielding brick wall. When I look up she is running off down the tunnel under the bridge.

‘You crazy psycho,' she shouts, her words echoing and amplifying. ‘You're a mental case … I'll get you … Somehow I'll get you.'

She disappears around the corner and I am alone. The train is long gone. Her words leave an imprint in the bricks of the tunnel wall. There at my foot is one of her shoes. I pick it up and hold it in my hands. White. My Cinderella, my true love, gone down the track with the rat-a-tat-tat of the night train.

Next morning I wake up on the bedroom floor. I am still dressed. The room swims into focus as I reacquaint myself with my surroundings. Bit by bit, my memory opens up before me, an unfolding flower stretching with the morning. I turn my head to one side. My eyes blur in and out of focus. Then the object takes form. Sitting in pride of place on the middle of the mantelpiece. A white high-heeled shoe.

When I tune back into Wayne, though a part of me, like osmosis, has been absorbing all he's said, he's talking about his kids.

‘… now I keep my promises. If I say I'm going to have them for the weekend, I turn up. It's about actions not words. Not empty promises anymore. And it's taken them years, and I mean years to trust me again. I was always in the bar telling everyone what a great father I was, but the kids can tell you how often I let them down. Drunk in a god-forsaken motel somewhere, hundreds of miles away when I was supposed to be at a graduation or birthday party. Like you said, Stuart, I'm responsible for myself and my own actions and now I don't worry about how other people choose to live their lives. But back in those days, as someone once said to me, some kind of therapist or counsellor it was: “It sounds like you've got an over-exaggerated sense of your own responsibility for those around you”. And they were right. I know that now. But nowadays I put in the footwork and let go of the results. And I sleep easy. For years I was destructive, now I'm the opposite. I try to be constructive in the things I do.'

I realize I am taking in what these two men have to say to me. What their experiences can teach me. Not their opinions, not their philosophies, but their experiences. Like Warren. Like Sandro. Maybe for the first time, I'm really listening.

I look up at one of the kids' pictures on the wall. It is yellow and sunny and in the foreground is a huge grey house surrounded by a grassy garden and picket fence. A little boy stands in the corner by the gate. He is holding a beautiful blue flower in his hand, but there is no one else in the picture. No one for him to give the flower to. Then I realize the room is silent. Stuart and Wayne are looking at me.

‘So, Anthony,' says Wayne, ‘we have plenty of time left, would you like to share with us now?'

I glance again at the picture of the little boy. Something about the bright yellow sky and the harshness of the grey building disturbs me. There is someone looking out from one of the upstairs windows. The shimmer of a figure, the shadow of an occupant. Is this who the flower is for? Is this who the little boy waits for in the corner of the garden? And then I feel the tears well up inside me. Like a deep and heavy weight shifting from one place to another. I cry. Not just a trickle of tears, but a torrent. I put both hands to my face, but the salty tears cascade through my fingers and run down my wrists. There are tears tasting old and tears tasting new. I give in to the flow and let them run their course, even though I might drown in the deluge. I splutter and choke as the tears fill my nose and my mouth. I feel as if I am dissolving; yet there is relief and reconciliation, surrender and acceptance. I am being washed clean; a dam has been breached under an unbearable weight and slowly, slowly, the flow quietens as the torrent spends itself. I breathe in some air, I rub my face and chuckle.

‘I wasn't quite expecting that,' I say, as the other two look on, saying nothing, allowing me the moment.

Then I tell my own story. For once, I recount the truth. I describe my childhood of concerns heaped on tiny shoulders, secrets whispered into youthful ears. I speak of my work and the weight of expectation. Of the growing hopes I had for my invention, as if somehow it is my responsibility to save the world, the children, the drug injectors. When Sandro told me it would not work for drug users, I felt as if I had failed. But I know the vaccination programs will benefit from my syringe. I will have made a contribution and I am not responsible for everything, for everyone. And I speak of Caitlin and the sharp and rasping horns of my dilemma. I tell these two men, strangers before an hour ago, of the intrigue and connivance that could send me to jail for decades. I speak of Lottie and the guilt that racks me every morning on awakening. But I have to unburden my heart and something convinces me this is the only place to do so.

‘So, you see, when you talk about using drugs and drink to mask all those issues in life, all those emotions, I know just what you mean,' I say.

Then I stop, nothing left to be told, at least for now. Wayne smiles at me.

‘Thank you for sharing with us,' he says. No judgment, no comment. Then he says it is time for the Meeting to close and reminds us all that what we have seen and heard during the last hour should stay in the room and not be repeated elsewhere.

I look back up at the child's picture on the wall. Something appears to be different. The figure I had a notion of in the window now seems to be no more than the fluttering of a curtain, a trick of the mind. When I see the little boy in the corner of the garden I fancy he is offering the flower to me. A beautiful blue flower he picked fresh from the meadow this morning. The little boy waiting patiently all day, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the songs of the birds, the smell of the tall pampas grass, until I appeared and sat in the tiny chair beneath him and at last stretched out my hand to accept his gift.

15

Black swans, black monks

‘… is our featured bird on today's program. You may think a swan is all black or all white. But that very much depends on where you are. The Northern Hemisphere species of swan has pure white plumage, but its Southern Hemisphere cousins are mixed black and white. The Australian Black Swan is completely black except for the white flight feathers on its wings, and the South American Black-necked Swan, you won't be surprised to hear, has a black neck. The discovery of the black swan, after centuries of only observing white swans, is often used as an example of the philosophy of science's problem of induction.'

Caitlin is half listening to the radio. She coughs, scratching a flake of dead skin from her eyelid. She tries hard to resist, but the itching is intense. She prods and pushes the raw skin on her cheek with her fingernail. The skin burns and throbs under the pressure. She shifts on the mattress, staring at the wall. She scrapes and pulls at her face, then examines the sad, bloody peels of flesh under her nails. She licks the tips of her fingers and dabs at the wounds, pressing them close to the bones of her jaw, knowing when the scabs form she will pick them anew.

‘The Australian Black Swan has been noted for swimming with only one leg, the other leg being rotated over the body and tucked under its furled wings. Cygnets do this from a young age. And, it seems, without going round and round in circles …'

The door opens. It's the One without Eyebrows. She can tell by the feel of the room.

‘What are you listening to?' he asks.

She says nothing, remains still. She wants to see none of these men. Caitlin stays staring at the wall. She wants no one to see the sores on her face. No man to see her matted hair. Even if he is a guard. Even if he has no eyebrows. Even if none of it matters.

‘Well, here's some pizza,' says the One without Eyebrows in a kinder voice. ‘And some cola.'

For days, for weeks, Caitlin has been scratching and eroding a smooth groove in the plaster of the wall. It is the shape of a crescent moon. She crooks her little finger and rests it in the cavity.

‘Swans are often used as a symbol of love or fidelity, because of their long-lasting monogamous relationships. But this is something of a myth. Just like people, swans usually mate for life, though “divorce” does occur, especially following nesting failure …'

The door closes again, Caitlin is left alone. She has a longer chain now, tied to one arm. She can reach the table with the radio and pizza. And she can get to the toilet bucket just beyond. Every few days she is blindfolded, unchained and led by the hand to another room. When the blindfold is lifted, she is in a shower room. On a grubby wooden table is a small tablet of soap, a clean towel, underwear, a T-shirt and the blue or grey tracksuit, depending which is being rotated. She wears thongs on her feet. The door is ajar, but discreetly. She knows the guard stands close by. She strips and leaves the dirty set of clothes on the floor. She washes. The water and soap are harsh. There is no cream. Her skin is dry and rough, forming a crust. A protective layer.

‘…
feature strongly in mythology. The story of Leda and the Swan recounts how Helen of Troy was conceived by Zeus, disguised as a swan, and Leda, who was the Queen of Sparta in Greece. Other references in classical literature include the belief that upon death the otherwise silent Mute Swan would sing beautifully, being the origin of the phrase “swan song”. The Irish have a number of legends and stories with swans at the centre. In the Wooing of Etain, an underground supernatural King of the Sidhe transforms himself and the most beautiful woman in Ireland, Etain, into swans to escape from the King of Ireland and Ireland's armies. Another Irish legend is that of the Children of Lir, where a stepmother transformed her children into swans for nine hundred years.'