The worlds he now inhabited that he’d known so little of before. The hospital. The police. The courts. This morning, in a hungry jostle outside the court building, the media. And perhaps, from this day onwards, jail.
The day: jagged, disconnected, unreal.
Flying in – the view from the banking plane – that mountain, the warning, at the head of its winding river valley.
Meeting Bridget and Jarrah in a café around the corner from the courthouse. Like two strangers. He was already shutting down, moving away from them, preparing.
The cameras and microphones shoved at him outside the courthouse, questions shouted at him, and Edmund trying to clear a path for them to get inside.
The faces of the people waiting for it to begin. Some familiar. Angela and Tom. Bridget’s workmate, who looked away. Meredith, who wouldn’t look away. Some of the police he remembered. Strangers staring, or carefully not staring.
Waiting in the small conference room at the side of the court’s entrance. Realising Bridget would have to stay outside the courtroom until she was called as a witness.
Being led into the court and across to the dock. Understanding he would sit on that exposed seat for the entire proceedings, unless standing to answer questions or when the judge entered or left. The architecture of blame and scrutiny.
Seeing Jarrah levering his way into the front row and sitting down next to Conor and Edmund, his face a blur of defiance and entreaty.
Three knocks on the wood to signify the judge was ready. The all-rise and the bowing, the vivid red robe and the grey wig, the white collar and ruffle, her considered gaze upon him. The Crown Prosecutor, the learned friend, the low voices, the lack of windows, the fear permeating the carpet and the chair and the wooden bench in front of him. The whole human world, and every possible deed within it, held inside that room. The guilty and not guilty feet that had stood where his were waiting. The lives decided. The ‘How say you?’
The legalese, more intimate than he’d imagined. The standing. The deep breath. The oath.
‘Tell us the circumstances of that morning.’
His walk through the gate, his preoccupation, his failure to check the device had closed the gate behind him. The lie, early and strong. And he was back there, in the studio. The acrid smell of ozone burning the insides of his nostrils. The stink of his trade, the metallic taste of it. He was working with welding torch and hands, he was creating that piece, assembling it, watching it grow, watching something emerge from a pile of junk and his own imagination. He’d lost that, forgotten the feeling, and there it was in his memory, the strange joy of art, now the armature of truth upon which his story hung.
‘And when did you realise something was wrong?’
He was absorbed in the pleasure of welding, the sound ringing in his ears, the glow and spit of the slag, the safety mask blacking out the world. The last perfect moment. Then the faint noise, the muffled sound he couldn’t identify that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. The noise of something wrong, the noise that called to him with its distant desperation. And as he flicked off the torch and lifted his mask, it roared into his hearing. A howl that burned its way down inside him.
‘What did you do?’
Turned around into a new, maleficent world. Tore off the mask, ran – tripping, scrambling, propelled – and wrenched open the sliding door. Hurtled headlong into the pool and fought the water like an enemy to get to her. Fought the water, which had rendered his living son into this limp, lolling thing.
Inarticulate animal sounds of horror.
A gap in his memory that he couldn’t fill in.
Next, Toby lying on the ground. Bridget kneeling over him, her fingers exhuming foam from his mouth. Her frantic demand, pointing: The instructions!
They were nailed to the fence. Faded, unread. He ran to them, placed both hands on the plastic, leaned in, tried to focus.
Clear the airways.
‘Take your time, Mr Brennan. We have time. You read out the instructions to your wife and then what happened?’
WHAT NEXT? Bridget had screamed at him.
He had tried to focus. The words and pictures shifted and moved and he couldn’t hold on to them. Tried to instruct Bridget without shrieking.
Tilt the head back and open the mouth. Couldn’t say Toby’s mouth.
Cover the victim’s nose and mouth with your mouth and give five slow, gentle breaths, one breath every three seconds.
He turned. Bridget’s mouth was over Toby’s. She raised her head and bellowed at him.
FOR GOD’S SAKE HELP ME, FINN!