17.

Ted stumbled with Andrew’s assistance to take his place beside the referee. Lights exploded around him, blinding him from all angles and amplifying the thunderous drilling in his skull.

‘And your winner,’ said the rumbling voice of the ring announcer. ‘By a stunning tenth-round knockout … Teddy – Little Boy Blue – Tay-lor!’

The familiar acid taste of bile boiled up Ted’s oesophagus as the referee raised his hand.

‘Incredible scenes. Ted Taylor just shocked the heavyweight division.’

‘I don’t know where to begin, Jim. An explosive opening, followed by a tactical chess match, and then a tenth-round classic.’

‘Reggie looked like he had Taylor on toast, but Taylor took it to a new level. Not sure how this would resonate with Ted, but that was the sort of round that his father in his prime was able to produce when he needed it the most.’

‘And we’ll soon find out if he still can.’

‘Despite the victory, there are concerns for Teddy after he vomited and collapsed in the ring after the fight. We’ll keep our viewers abreast of any developments.’

Ted was fading in and out of awareness as they pushed through the media frenzy of hungry photographers. He was supported by Andrew and Vinnie as they made their way to the locker room.

‘Out of the way!’ yelled Andrew as they hit a wall of media that security struggled to contain.

‘Teddy!’ Pop opened a door next to where they stood. ‘Bring him this way.’

Ted was led into Ron’s locker room to escape the commotion. Ron, with his gloves strapped on and his pre-fight robe hanging over his shoulders, stood face-to-face with Tony, who was a sweaty mess. The two men interrupted their heated exchange and halted. Tony stepped back and drove a finger into Ron’s chest. ‘You better fucking understand!’

Ron’s hands had been hanging by his side. He delivered a short punch to Tony’s midriff. Tony collapsed to the floor and Ron snarled, ‘I fucking understand, all right!’

The next thing Ted remembered was being lifted into the back of an ambulance with Talia holding his hand, puffy-eyed. It was a brief memory, with nothing but darkness between then and wak­ing the next morning in a hospital bed, with Talia still beside him.

‘Ted?’ asked Talia. ‘Are you awake?’

‘What happened …?’ he began, but his words trailed off as fragmented memories, paired with his current surroundings, filled the gaps. He wanted to know everything but he also didn’t want the situation to be as bad as he suspected it might be. Had he won the fight? He didn’t want to ask her.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to piece it together. The clearest memory was Ron punching Tony in the locker room. He exhaled and his shoulders dropped. He must have lost. Tony asked Ron to throw his fight, ensuring the Taylor versus Taylor showdown they all wanted.

Talia squeezed his hand. ‘Take your time. We’re at the hospital.’

‘I told you you wouldn’t enjoy being a spectator.’ His voice was croaky.

Talia looked away. ‘Wouldn’t have been any better watching at home.’

His gums were a mashed mess after being pounded against his teeth and mouthguard. Blood moistened his mouth, and he swallowed a mouthful he’d been avoiding, knowing it was going to hurt. Just the subtle movement strained his jaw. He tried not to grimace. ‘How’d Ron go?’

She let go of his hand. ‘Dion Rushkin’s next door. Your dad knocked him out.’

Tony will be pissed.

Talia paced around the room with her arms crossed. ‘I suppose you’re happy he won. You can finally get your revenge.’

‘What do you mean?’

Talia stopped at the edge of his bed. ‘You don’t know if you won or lost, do you?’

Ted answered with his eyes. Talia shuddered, then burst into tears and hurried out the door.

Numbness overcame him. He pressed the morphine button and the relief was almost instant, but even the numbness hurt. At that moment, as he lay helpless on the bed, back in the ring was the last place he ever wanted to be again. He pushed thoughts of his father aside. His judgement couldn’t be trusted. Perhaps he was jumping to the wrong conclusions.

‘Knock, knock.’

Ted didn’t know how long it had been since Talia left. It could have been minutes or hours.

Dr Koski entered the room and approached the monitors at Ted’s bedside. He made a quick inspection before placing the folder tucked under his arm onto the bedside table. ‘You don’t have any pain, do you?

‘No,’ said Ted. ‘Where should it be hurting?’

‘Your ribs are badly bruised, but no breaks. They’ll be sore as hell soon enough. I’m going to get a physio in for your neck. A lot of soft tissue damage.’

‘That all?’

‘No,’ Dr Koski replied curtly. His eyes flicked to the folder and then back to Ted. ‘You suffered a serious concussion. How’s the memory?’

Ted bit his lip. He thought about lying. ‘Did I lose?’

The doctor frowned. ‘You won. Knocked him out in the tenth. And took some severe damage doing it.’

There was no sense of pride or elation. No joy in victory. It was like learning a cold, hard truth he’d always known but suppressed in fear. There was nothing to be gained. ‘I hear Ron won too. You want tickets to the family reunion?’

‘Ted, firstly, I don’t give a shit about your boxing career.’ Dr Koski placed his hands on the bed rails and leaned forward. ‘I take that back. I was on the edge of my seat cheering you on last night. Did I want to see Ron win? Given the circumstances, no. I don’t want to see you in the ring with your old man. To me it just doesn’t sit well. Any father, any son. But that’s not up to me. I’ll never know what really happened within the walls of your family home, but I know it wasn’t happy.’ He stood upright and looked to the window. ‘Your father was always a loose cannon, but a loyal friend too. I always thought he had a good heart, even if he kept himself in harm’s way.’

‘What are you trying to say, Shane?’ said Ted. ‘You going to tell me what’s in that folder?’ Ted’s face was puffy and his swollen eyes felt like they were being pushed in different directions, making it difficult to see.

Dr Koski faced Ted. He was a tall, friendly man but at that moment his gaze was hard. ‘Before I have a conversation with you as a doctor, I want to have one as a friend.’ He stopped, searching for where to begin. ‘I remember the day Ron told me your mother was pregnant. The rumours had already spread through the schoolyard. The girls were giggling about it. Some idiot decided to make a wisecrack and your dad threw him into the cow paddock. I asked him if it was true. You never got much out of Ron – he just shrugged and said, “Yeah.” Everyone assumed they’d abort – wouldn’t be the first time someone at our school had. A few weeks later the rumours said they were keeping it. I mean you, sorry. Those rumours got out, but no one was brave enough to ask Ron. Walking home from rugby training one day, he told me Monique’s parents took them to the abortion clinic, but when they got there your mother couldn’t do it, and that he wasn’t going to force her … in fact, he wasn’t so sure about it to begin with.’

There was a part of Ted that couldn’t deal well with stories that cast his father in a warmer light than the monster he had grown up with. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

Dr Koski leaned on the railing again. ‘Because, seeing how your father likes to keep things close to his chest, I’m guessing you probably didn’t know this.’

‘It doesn’t matter what happened before I was born. I only know what happened after.’

Dr Koski kept going. ‘Monique couldn’t do it. She had a child inside her. Her parents, on the other hand, said it was abort or find a new family.’ He shook his head. ‘They weren’t the kindest of people, your mother’s folks.’

‘I know about the grandparents I never met.’

‘It wasn’t the day you were born that your old man became a father. It was on that day – the day he decided he was taking Monique home.’

‘And they lived happily ever after.’

‘Ron told me he was scared shitless. Between him and your pop, they could barely keep a roof over their heads. I didn’t grasp the significance at the time, but I remember him saying, “I don’t know what a father’s supposed to do.” Make of it what you will. I’m not making excuses for him. As per previous discussions, we were going to continue to monitor your head trauma, and I was going to get the opinions of the experts in the field.’ He picked up the folder. ‘These are the brain scans taken a few months ago. I sent them off to two separate experts without giving them any information. I didn’t tell them they were yours. As far as they were concerned they were just an everyday Joe’s. Both independently concluded that your brain is considerably damaged.’

Ted felt himself sink into the bed and rubbed his face. He wanted to hit the morphine button a dozen times and sink into oblivion.

‘I know this is difficult, Ted. We need to get onto this right away. Let’s be frank – we weren’t expecting things to be perfect. As it is, there’s nothing to point at and say you cannot box anymore. But, after last night … I’d like you to go and see these guys so they can make further assessments.’ He locked eyes with Ted. ‘I’m going to make a personal recommendation to the boxing commission that you be suspended due to injury for a year.’

Ted rested his right hand on his face and hid beneath it.

‘I’m not trying to shoot down your dreams, Ted, but based on what I know and what I saw last night … if you were my son, and you told me you were going to step back into the ring, I’d cut your hands off.’ He put the folder down next to Ted. ‘I’ll be telling your father the same thing. There’s a lot of medical mumbo jumbo in these reports. When you’re ready, I can talk you through it.’

Ted lay motionless, his hand still over his face.

‘Ted?’

‘I don’t need to read the reports. You can organise what you need to,’ he said softly. ‘Is Talia around?’

‘She’s gone for a coffee. I told her to take a couple of days off.’ Dr Koski placed his hand on Ted’s shoulder. ‘She’s a good catch, but I don’t think she likes boxing anymore.’ His joke landed flat, and he acknowledged it with wry smile. ‘That was one hell of a fight, Teddy. You shut a lot of people up. You did something special.’

‘Yeah, right. All I did was give them something new to talk about.’

Dr Koski frowned, and Ted could see the man was hurting inside. ‘Your sister’s here. Can I send her in?’

‘Sure.’

He would have liked five or ten minutes – or days – to himself, but Jodie entered straight away. She wore the same brave face as the morning after a fiery night at the Taylor house. ‘Teddy.’ She looked him over. ‘Your face doesn’t look too bad. Like, you look like you’ve been trampled by a stampede, but I thought it might be worse.’

It was a pleasant change of mood. ‘Well, there’s some good news. Where are the girls?’

She bit her lip. ‘Dad’s looking after them.’

Ted laughed. ‘Rushkin couldn’t have put up much of a fight if he’s already on babysitting duties.’

Jodie laughed awkwardly. ‘Pop’s here too. Can he come in?’

Ted wriggled his jaw, testing the strength of the painkillers. He couldn’t feel much but could almost hear the grinding tendons, like a poorly oiled chain pulling across a rusty gear. ‘Fine.’

Jodie left for a moment and returned with Pop, who approached the bed timidly and placed a hand on the rail. ‘In all my years, I ain’t ever seen a fighter dig as deep as you did.’ He tapped the rail twice. ‘I’m proud of you, Teddy.’ He was choking back tears. Pop had yet to make direct eye contact with Ted but when he finally did, he couldn’t hold the tears back any longer, and a stream filtered through the deep lines of his face down to his chin. ‘I should’ve been in that corner with you.’

‘Would you have thrown in the towel?’ asked Ted.

Pop looked down and shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Even now, I don’t know if it would’ve been the right thing to do.’

‘Well, I won, didn’t I?’

Pop controlled the flow of the tears. ‘Yeah. Guess you did.’

Ted knew Pop was thinking about the cost of that victory. ‘So, Ron made sure I had a boxing buddy to share the ward with.’ He was trying to sound chirpy. ‘Well done.’

‘You don’t have to call him Ron, Ted,’ said Jodie. ‘Like it or not, he’s our dad.’

‘Father of the fucking year. I look forward to him kicking my ass again.’

‘Let’s not even go there,’ snapped Jodie.

‘I won’t have anything to do with that fight,’ said Pop.

‘Oh,’ said Ted. ‘You’ll just drop him at my front door and he can let himself in? You could at least strap his wrists. I suppose you created the monster. You might as well stay in his corner.’

‘Edward! That’s not fair,’ cried Jodie.

Ted knew she was right, but the venomous words had spilled out anyway. He didn’t know where they’d come from. He wanted someone else to hurt. ‘Can I have some alone time? I’m tired.’