Rose Boys, page 22
There was a conference with his doctors the following day. They recommended more surgery. Robert declined. Again he said it would be too hard on Mum and Dad. They had suffered enough. Having none of this, Mum and Dad told him they were willing to look after him for as long as necessary. They said the whole family believed that a full recovery was possible and that he should fight on. So Robert had the operation. The doctors inserted a peg in his stomach, which had filled with gas. Brian Martin was alarmed when he heard about this. He knew someone who had been pegged: he never ate normally again. Brian went in to see Robert that afternoon. They were allowing more visitors now, knowing how low Robert’s morale was. He was quite calm when I saw him. My parents seemed more relaxed. In some ways the ordeal of confidence had been cathartic. Everyone knew where they stood now. There were no limits. There had never been any limits, but Robert needed to hear it again.
Knowing how critical things were, I cancelled some readings in Britain and the United States. I told Peter Porter that I wouldn’t be able to MC his seventieth birthday celebration at Australia House in London.
When I saw Robert two days after the operation he was still groggy. His condition hadn’t changed, except that one of the lobes in his right lung had collapsed. A physiotherapist tried to straighten his arms, which had become bent from lack of exercise. This involved placing each arm in an inflatable brace. I helped her as she secured the crooked limbs. Once so muscular, they felt bony and breakable. His wrists were slender and white.
The following day Robert became so agitated they had to sedate him. Whatever they gave him worked like a vault of Valium. He slept for a week. Next visit, a nurse told me they were planning to do an EEG to determine why he was sleeping all the time. It was probably related to his medication, but they wanted to rule out seizures, presumably epileptic ones. A few days later Dad was shocked by Robert’s condition. Conscious but unresponsive, he stared at the ceiling all day. Dad seemed desperate. What were they going to do to help Robert? Why hadn’t they performed the EEG?
Finally, almost unbelievably, Robert’s condition improved a little. In early February, five weeks after becoming ill, he was well enough to leave Intensive Care. He went back to Ward Thirteen where he shared a small room with a young Fijian who had recently become a quadriplegic during a social game of soccer. The Fijian’s wife visited him each day with their irrepressible two-year-old son, who romped around the ward and rapidly got bored. He wanted to be outside playing soccer with his father. His mother sat there for hours threading rings through plastic labels. They had a new house to pay off.
C. and I visited Robert on 6 February, his forty-seventh birthday. It was the only time they met. I had never introduced Robert to any of my partners before. Robert was in excellent form. He still had the capacity to lift on special occasions. He spoke softly to us, despite being partially respirated. He asked me what was new, then told us that he was due to have two operations on his tail the following week. I gave him a CD for his birthday. My choice of music may not have been appropriate. It was the blues, sung by his favourites. Above his bed were stray photographs from Salli’s wedding and a warm fax from Dennis Lillee. Robert began to fade. As we left I asked him if we were the last of his visitors. ‘I hope so,’ he said, smiling.
A few days later they finally removed the tracheotomy, so he was able to eat once again, though only mushy food. I went down to the kiosk and surreptitiously fed him a meat pie. He told me how good it was to speak. He seemed vague, unusually forgetful. Neither of us acknowledged that it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accident.
Brian Martin, intensely worried about his old friend, visited him each week. Mum was there one day as he was leaving. Brian turned to Robert at the door and said, ‘I love you, mate’. ‘I love you, too,’ said Robert.
The pattern during the next few weeks was erratic. Robert’s mood varied. One day he was depressed, the next quite chirpy, in the old way. ‘I’m sick of this,’ he told me one night, but that was all he said. He changed the subject and asked me what I had been up to. Usually this involved predictable slog at OUP or frenetic interstate rendezvous, so I mentioned other things. He always liked hearing about my late nights.
In the middle of March, C. was in Melbourne when his father suddenly died in his sleep. I had met him several times and liked him. Ridiculously, the morning after the funeral, I flew back to Melbourne for a management meeting. Around this time one of my bosses described me, tentatively, aware of its pejorative connotations, as a good company man. I shuddered. Sometimes I feared I would never escape the whirligig of publishing, the turgid meetings, the moral compromises, the bottomless bottom line, the exposing nature of the business. During the past ten years I had turned myself into a kind of public animal by publishing my own and other people’s books. When I looked at that creation—giving talks, programming festivals, making friends, making enemies, airing poems of some intimacy—I became increasingly sceptical. I missed the anonymity and absorption of my twenties. I wanted to write again. I wanted, simply, to be.
Back in Ward Thirteen, Robert was moved from room to room as his condition stabilised. One day in March I found him in a new room with four strangers, all of them fierily tattooed. Robert was most unhappy about the shift. He was nowhere near a window; televisions throbbed all night; he couldn’t sleep. All he wanted was to go home, but he knew that was weeks, even months away. No sooner did the pressure sore begin to close than it would erupt again, requiring further surgery (more than thirty stitches on one occasion). It was doubtful that Robert’s bowels would ever work properly again. We wondered why a colostomy hadn’t been recommended after the second twisted bowel. When I joked that he’d just have to stay well when he got out of the Austin, Robert said there was no way he would ever go back. He meant it. He would sign a form if necessary, refusing further surgery. Indeed, one of the doctors in Intensive Care had already told my mother that there would be no point in Robert’s coming back there if his bowels became twisted again.
Kate Breadmore was still nursing Robert. Despite his prolonged ordeal she found him as self-contained as ever. She was surprised by how normal he seemed, given what had happened to him. He wasn’t self-involved, as she put it when we spoke recently. I told Kate, more bluntly, that I still marvelled that Robert remained sane that year. ‘Absolutely,’ she agreed with alacrity. ‘I didn’t want to say it, but that’s exactly what I meant. To be able to still have the relationships he had with all of you…not to crack.’ She hesitated. She then talked about his composure, his single-mindedness. ‘He directed his own care. He kept quite independent. He never gave that up. He never surrendered to any of his illnesses. He’d keep us on our toes for sure. But that was fantastic, because it meant that he had respect for himself and for us.’ She remembers his concern for the staff and for other patients in the ward. Robert was now in a smaller room. He grew close to Dale Tripcony, a paraplegic who was in the Austin for some treatment. There was much banter across the room between Dale and Robert. The football season had begun. They had that in common, and an irreverent sense of humour.
By early May all of us privately feared that Robert would never leave his bed again. When I asked him how his wounds were faring he told me coolly that he had no idea. He didn’t want to think about it. He said the boredom was killing him. Our parents went away for a few days, their first break in months. For Mum these rare respites were always problematic: she felt she should be by Robert’s side. They rang every morning and were told that Robert’s condition was unchanged. I went in on 5 May and found him depressed and suffering from a bladder infection. By Friday, 7 May, this had cleared and he was in a better humour. The doctors had told him they hoped to sit him up in his wheelchair on Monday. He hadn’t been up in almost six months. I gave Robert his dinner, then we went through the menu for the next two days. Life in the ward was so torpid we actually looked forward to this ritual. I dutifully read out the choices and ticked the familiar staples: orange juice, stewed fruit and custard, anything with beef. Salads he eschewed like a card-carrying carnivore. As always, he wanted to check the menu before I put it away. He never trusted my handwriting—my cacography, to give it its proper name.
As always, we talked about Salli. I asked him what he was giving her for her birthday the following Wednesday. We also went through the television guide. There was a football game on that night. I wanted to stay and watch it with him, but C. was over from Adelaide and a friend of ours was due for dinner. Before I left, Robert wanted to tell me a joke. His jokes were marginally better than mine, which is not saying much. It was one of those ‘Knock, knock, who’s there?’ jokes. I didn’t get it, of course. I never did. As he told me the answer he shot me amused, sidelong glances. We chuckled at the folly of it. I studied Robert’s cheerful, careworn profile. Then, a little awkwardly, I said goodbye and withdrew. That night I wrote in my journal, ‘At one point he told me a silly old joke and watched me laugh, and it broke my heart. No one deserves to suffer as he does.’
I still wish I could remember that joke.
On the Saturday, 8 May, my parents got back from the country and went straight to the Austin. Dad asked if he could see the pressure sore while they dressed it. Mum said he was ashen when he rejoined her. The sore was in a dreadful state. It must have opened overnight. One of the nurses was shocked too. Dad said it would be at least a year before Robert could sit on it. They didn’t tell Robert, knowing that he couldn’t bear much more.
The next day there was a family gathering at Salli’s house. C. and I put in a brief appearance. Mum was depressed. They had seen Robert en route. He was sweating profusely, always a bad sign. He was still unaware of the true state of his pressure sore.
On the way home we passed the Austin’s ominous grey tower. I suddenly wanted to go in and see Robert. I thought about him lying there while the rest of us were out and about enjoying ourselves. The unfairness of it, the undeservedness—his torment, my dispensation—haunted me. But C. had to catch an early flight back to Adelaide, so I didn’t mention it.
That night I had a disquieting dream. Robert and I were attending a rather tense party. Also present was a friend of mine with whom I had fallen out rather spectacularly the day before. When she beckoned Robert, I warned him not to trust her, but he went to her nonetheless. I hadn’t dreamt of him walking in years.
The call came the following morning soon after I got to work. Dad told me that Robert had become ill overnight and had some sort of infection. My boss, just back from Oxford, came into my office, obviously wanting to discuss something. I told him about Robert’s deterioration and left immediately. I drove to the Austin expecting to find Robert dead. He was alive, but in a pathetic state. He was still in his room, opposite Dale Tripcony. He had been in good spirits the previous night. When Kate Breadmore went off duty she thought he looked particularly well. Robert and Dale were watching another football game on television. Midway through the game Robert said he was feeling unwell. Within a short time he became seriously ill. By Monday morning he was delirious. ‘Oh, fart,’ he kept saying. ‘Oh, fart.’ We had never heard that one before. He had been raving all night, which must have been terrible for Dale, who had grown fond of him. We tried to comfort Robert but nothing worked. His arms flailed about, as if he was in pain. Now and then he stared at us derangedly. I looked at the untouched breakfast tray with the scribbled menu.
The family conferred with one of the doctors. Terry was there, with Salli and Mark. We reminded the doctor that Robert had been explicit about not wanting more major surgery. He knew this already. The hospital would respect Robert’s wishes. But, while he appreciated Robert’s feelings, he said that if it was something relatively simple they should treat it because Robert had been such a fighter. He sought our permission to perform an MRI to determine whether the problem was minor. Dad, very agitated, was adamant that this shouldn’t happen. Mum and I both felt that if there was a chance that the problem could be ameliorated simply, with drugs, we should authorise the MRI.
There was an absurd moment as we waited for this to happen. A brusque surgeon marched into the room and told Mum that as soon as Robert had had the scan he would be taken straight into surgery. ‘No, he won’t,’ said Mum, repeating Robert’s instructions. ‘Then why on earth is he having the scan?’ barked the surgeon. ‘And how long has he been like this anyway?’ he snapped at my mother, as if she was responsible. Mum was often astonished by the lack of communication within the hospital. She never saw the surgeon again.
We sat in the forecourt for hours while the tests were conducted. Finally the original doctor informed us that Robert had septic poisoning and an acute renal infection. His bowels, this time, were not the problem. They were treating the infection with antibiotics and also administering morphine. Robert wouldn’t be moved to Intensive Care. The doctor was candid about Robert’s chances. He wasn’t optimistic about curing the infection in Ward Thirteen. Mum asked him how the infection could have started so quickly. ‘As simply as cleaning his teeth in here,’ he said.
I went back to work in the afternoon. My boss called me downstairs for a chat. Yet another restructure was imminent. This time I was offered overall responsibility for academic publishing in Australia and New Zealand, and a place on the senior management team. I listened blurrily. I said yes to everything. I didn’t want to think about it. My brother was dying.
Robert was moved into a private room at the other end of the ward, a recent creation intended for patients with terminal illnesses. When Kate Breadmore came back on duty that Monday afternoon Robert was still delirious. There was one moment of lucidity when Kate asked him how he was. ‘I’m ready,’ he told her. Gradually he relaxed. ‘Maybe he wasn’t accepting of it to start with,’ Kate told me, ‘but then he started to calm down.’ One of the spinal technicians asked him what day it was. ‘Wednesday,’ he kept saying. But it was still Monday. Kate asked me if there was anything special about Wednesday. I told her it was Salli’s birthday.
Salli saw him that evening. He was still saying, ‘Oh, fart…oh, fart.’ It was a pretty good assessment of the situation.
Tuesday dawned murkily. Morning light on such a day, the day of a likely death, is uninviting. Action, like daylight, seems futile, each movement an anomaly.
For Mum, Tuesday started even earlier. Sleep, reviving sleep, was impossible. Insomnia was her reality, almost a responsibility. A mother’s watch, as I would discover, is infinite. At 4 a.m., sitting in the living room so as not to wake Dad, she rang the hospital, unable to wait any longer. She didn’t recognise the perky voice that answered the phone in Ward Thirteen. She asked how Robert was. ‘Oh, he’s well,’ said the nurse. Mum assured her that he couldn’t be, that he was seriously ill. ‘Oh well, he’s well now,’ the woman insisted. Mum thanked her and hung up. She didn’t bother waking Dad and telling him. Let him sleep for a while. She knew it wasn’t true. It was another mistake. They were multiplying. The gods were sporting with them now. She sat there amid the shadows, watching the silhouettes in the garden. Parrots began their wake-up calls. The large house creaked around her, with its empty bedrooms. There wasn’t even a dog to keep her company.
Ten minutes later, one of the familiar nurses rang to ask Mum if she had just called the hospital. The nurse who had spoken to Mum—an agency nurse, as it happens—had briefed her after becoming alarmed by the caller’s incredulous response. Unfamiliar with the ward, she had thought Mum was asking about a different patient—someone who was well. The second nurse apologised to Mum. Quite unsurprised, Mum told her not to worry about it. She woke Dad and began to dress. Soon afterwards they set off for the hospital.
I had heard of a similar error four years earlier. This was shortly before Philip Hodgins’s death. Philip’s leukaemia had advanced to the stage where a final ‘blast’ was both expected and untreatable. He went into hospital for blood tests. His haematologist rang him upon getting the results. He told Philip that there had been a mistake—it was only a minor blast. Philip had another twelve months to live, which, in Hodgins years, considering that he had already lived ten years longer than expected, could mean anything. Philip and his wife, Janet Shaw, both euphoric, began making plans for the future. They rang his aged parents. Then someone called to say that an assistant had put a figure in the wrong column and that it was the fatal blast after all. Philip told me this quite nonchalantly. The grotesque was inevitable by then.
On Tuesday morning I went into work to discuss the new arrangements. OUP wanted me to go to New Zealand to meet my new authors. I had done some odd things in my life—running a medical bookshop, writing poetry—but this seemed especially bizarre. Later in the morning I went to the ABC to help record a tribute to Peter Porter, who was in Australia for the antipodean leg of his birthday celebrations. I had written the preamble, which the producer asked me to record. I had also chosen the poetry, a somewhat morbid selection containing some of Peter’s finest poems, several of them about his unhappy first marriage. Peter was to record three of them. The actor Robert Menzies, with whom I had gone to school, would perform the rest, which was a coup.
Robert read the Porter poems with requisite gravity and sonorous nuances, then Peter took over. Soon he had everyone in the studio laughing. Although he had recorded a thousand talks for the BBC, he pretended to be inexpert behind a microphone, with his trademark self-deprecation. Eloquently he recorded a couple of poems about death (‘the anaesthetic from which no one returns,’ to quote him). Peter is also the most death-haunted person I know. Years ago he told me that he wakes up every night thinking about death. Clive James, another admirer of his, once wrote: ‘in [Porter’s] imaginative universe…everything is about to die about noon next Wednesday’. Peter’s existential terror surprised me. Mortality, as yet, didn’t torment me. The death of others, yes, but not my own.
