The kid’s too much.
‘That’s for older children, mate.’
‘But can’t you just put straight, mate?’
‘Alright, Max. Straight. Right, name of your father.’
That question crushes him into silence.
‘What’s wrong, mate?’
He’s gone pale.
I tell him, ‘Hey. Kid. I don’t know who my father is.’
He looks up at me. ‘You don’t?’
‘No. Could be anyone. Could be Postman Pat for all I know.’
He laughs at that but then his face crumples into a frown. ‘My daddy is dead . . . ’
Shit.
‘Sorry, kid.’
‘Mummy said he died because the drugs didn’t work.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Yeah . . . I found him. He was naked and his willy looked all weird. It was pointing up . . . Tarek said that’s what adults call a boner. Is that right?’
The hell am I supposed to say to all of that?
I feel sorry for the kid. Sounds like his dad died from a drug overdose.
‘Kid, that can’t have been easy for you.’
Then Max gets serious again. He makes himself taller and stiffer. He’s years above his age. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
‘Mummy says you’re a doctor who fixes people’s heads.’
‘Yeah . . . ’
‘What’s wrong with their heads? Are they shaped funny?’
I laugh. ‘Dark stuff, kid.’
‘What dark stuff?’
‘Not all parents love their children the way your mum loves you, Max. Never forget that, kid.’
15
ME
An intense vision slams into my head while I ride my sports bike on the road in The Valley.
Four walls.
Closing in . . .
Rain thunders down, blurring my sight. I manage to navigate the bike to the side of the road. I coast to a stop and narrowly miss a parked car. I lift off my helmet, I need fresh air. My breaths feel razor-sharp. A man exits the car I nearly crashed into.
‘You okay?’ he says. ‘I’m a paramedic. You need help?’
I know what happened. After years of suffering, I know the signs. A pain at the base of my skull. A rapid heart rate. And a fatigue, a deep fatigue that creeps into my bones and makes me feel like sleep’s been the enemy for too many goddamn years.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, mate. Just leave me be,’ I hiss. I don’t mean to bite. It’s second nature now. It’s how I deal.
He holds his hands up in supplication, says he’s only trying to help. Yeah, I think, people have tried to help for years. But a damned soul is damned for eternity, and there is no saving me.
I look beyond the off-duty paramedic. Moving cars, falling rain. Shivers strike my spine as the rain pelts against my face.
I live in a world of hailstorms and flying crickets. Not sunshine and butterflies.
‘Listen, just come and take a seat in my car,’ he says.
‘I’m fine. Just leave it,’ I warn. I shove him away.
‘If it’s seizures, you need to see a doctor. You might not want to drive.’
I don’t have time to discuss my shit and get therapy on the side of the road. When I reach hold of the handlebars, I notice how much my hands are trembling. Pulling my bike back into traffic, I mutter to myself, ‘I’m fine. I’m always fine.’
But I don’t believe a word of it. Time’s a healer and all, is bullshit. I still haven’t been able to convince myself I’m okay. That I’ve moved on and slipped free of the past.
I ride all the way back to Swan Lake. There isn’t any razor wire surrounding it, but it still looks like a prison. Reminds me of Nazareth.
I give myself a mental shakedown. I need to collect my thoughts whole and get ready to face Diana. I can’t go inside rattled to the bone.
I park up and curse when I glance at my watch. I’m running late. I go down the long corridor that leads into the back of Magpie Ward. The thick odour of disinfectant barely covers the rot and decay underneath. I find the dayroom where the art show is scheduled to take place.
First thing I see is sunshine and gemstones.
Amy is sitting near the front of the room. I spot Diana sitting close by in a plastic chair. I slip in quietly. When I settle in the seat next to Diana, I don’t receive so much as a glance.
Today, Shepherd Lawson doesn’t exist.
The art therapist, Pandora, smiles and points to the paintings.
‘And now,’ Pandora says, ‘we have a painting by our very own Diana Dunn.’ She nods toward Diana who smiles uncertainly, like somebody made a joke in another language. ‘Isn't this wonderful work?’
The painting is crude, black paint in thick strokes on white paper. It shows a house, child-like. A square with a pointed roof and two windows, a squiggle of smoke curling from its chimney. There’re trees around the house, straight lines for trunks and swirling, ragged-looking leaves.
I feel my heart stab in my chest. Diana, an adult human being, reduced to being praised for producing something a six-year-old child could do. They said it could help her brain, so I gave the go ahead.
‘Diana?’ Pandora says. ‘Do you have anything to say about this?’
Diana doesn’t speak. She’s tuned us all out, gone to that faraway place. But then she clears her throat, sits up a little straighter.
‘That's my boyfriend’s house,’ Diana says, and looks over as if seeing me for the first time. ‘Peter,’ she says. ‘That's my boyfriend. That's Peter. He lives in the house.’
Diana was sweet sixteen and Peter was the love of her life. A year later, he was killed in a road accident.
‘We're so glad Peter could come and join us,’ Pandora says.
She knows full well I’m not Diana’s boyfriend. The only mother figure I had as
