Every time a nurse or a lady doctor touched me below the neck, I got an erection. Most of them noticed and ignored it, but some kindly told me that it was nothing to be embarrassed about and that it was a totally normal reaction, especially at my age. I felt less like a freak by the day.
I had a laceration across my hairline where my head had hit the rear-view mirror. Nine stitches across my head made me look a little bit like Frankenstein’s monster. The food was regular and about as wholesome as whatever Dad and I had cooked. I shared a ward with four other men, all much older than me. I had never shared a room with anyone before, not since those two nights when I was seven years old. These men spoke to me sympathetically. A nurse told me she had turned away a local journalist who wanted to ask me about my father’s last moments. They were all disturbed when I explained that I had no living relatives. They referred to me as the orphan.
Everyone in the hospital felt sorry for me. I got anything I asked for, including a haircut and new clothing.
The police ruled that my dad’s death was accidental. I said I had swerved to avoid a dog. It wasn’t unusual to see dogs everywhere around Rotorua, so it was entirely believable. The police were kind. They handed me a bag of what they were able to recover from the car and from my dad’s burnt corpse: his broken watch with its melted strap, his fake wedding ring, his large set of keys and a briefcase containing some tax forms and that day’s newspaper that had been thrown from the car.
The Rotorua Daily Post did a fundraiser for me. The people of Rotorua were exceptionally generous. I allowed Jill Nicholas, the local reporter, to interview me. The social worker told me that while technically I was old enough to live on my own, she strongly recommended that I stay with friends for a while. I refused the offer, insisting that I had been living independently for years, that I cooked and shopped and earned my own money with my vegetables. She was surprised that I hadn’t been to school, and that I wasn’t registered with a local doctor. She arranged for a solicitor to telephone me in the hospital to discuss my dad’s estate. When I was well enough, I could visit him in his office, but in the meantime, the generous donations from Rotorua’s finest would keep me going. I could buy a replacement car, which was what I needed most urgently.
Ten days after the accident, I was discharged on two crutches with a recommendation to rest as much as possible. A district nurse would visit every day at 11 a.m. The social worker drove me back home from the hospital, stopping off to pick up groceries on the way.
She took a tour of the house, satisfied that there were no steps. Everything was conveniently laid out. She had no interest in investigating the barn, but she did take a walk around my vegetable plot. She asked me again if there was anybody I wanted to call. I asked for her help to install a phone and she registered surprise and dismay that we didn’t already have one. She said that she would look into it ‘as a matter of urgency’. She reluctantly left me on my own. The nurse would be there in the morning. The social worker patted me on the arm and told me I was a brave boy. I glowed under her touch.
I had missed Lindy, but I knew she had access to water. Her food might have run out but I was home now. She’d be okay. And she’d never have to face my dad again. He was the reason she wanted to leave. It was just going to be the two of us. She would be happy to stay with me.
As soon as the social worker was gone, I took the key off the latch on the back door and stumbled my way out to the barn, dangling the bag of groceries off one crutch.
43
Sally
I moved into the cottage the following week, the last week of September. All of the structural work was done. I had a working bathroom and kitchen, but no carpets or curtains. The walls were plastered but not painted. The patio area wasn’t finished, and the floor tiles in the hallway had yet to be laid. Most of the furniture hadn’t been delivered, but I hung sheets for curtains and took the old sofa and the kitchen table and chairs from the house. None of my friends had wanted them anyway. I bought some cheap rugs to scatter on the floor as a temporary fix.
Nadine introduced me to all the tradesmen and women who were coming to finish their various jobs. It was uncomfortable with people coming and going at all times of the day. I spent as much time as possible out and about.
I missed my piano dreadfully, but I couldn’t install it in the cottage while the builders were still working because of the dust, so for one whole week, I went to stay with Aunt Christine in Dublin and played hers every day.
She was shocked to hear all about Mark Butler/Norton. But she had a vague recollection of Mum telling her that Denise had a brother. ‘Jean was much more in touch with Denise’s family than Tom was. I recall her saying something about the brother being too old, that Denise wouldn’t have recognized him as the four-year-old she had last seen.’
Why had Dad thrown out Mum’s files? Aunt Christine sighed. ‘Your dad wasn’t perfect, Sally.’ I was beginning to understand this. I was always stubborn as a teenager, but Mum often forced me to do things I didn’t want to do. Now, after nearly two years of therapy, I could appreciate that Mum had been trying to integrate me, encouraging me to join clubs and go to school discos and parties. Dad overruled her and allowed me to do what I wanted, taking notes all the time. I recalled overhearing a row once and my mother shouting at my father, ‘She’s not your case study, she’s our daughter.’
In the meantime, Tina and I worked specifically on anger management. When I told her about the overwhelming rage I’d felt towards Caroline, she helped me to see that I was taking on anger that I had learned from my birth mother. Through her files, especially from those tapes, and possibly from repressed memories.
‘You have often said to me, Sally, that you can’t relate to her as your mother, but you must have witnessed things or at least seen some of the aftermath of the most extreme emotional and physical abuse. When you or someone or something you love is threatened’ – she was referring to the time I attacked Angela when she took Toby from me – ‘you want to lash out, like Denise probably did. Anger is a secondary emotion. Rage can be sparked by fear or any emotion where we feel vulnerable or helpless. But now you’re an adult, you’re not locked in a room. You can use different powers. You can use your voice and you can walk away. Two of the most important tools you have. Remember, you are not a child locked in a room. Violence is almost never an appropriate response.’
I had a lot to think about.
Mark never replied to my text, and when Angela put me in touch with Elaine, she hadn’t heard from him either.
‘I am worried,’ she told me, ‘but he has done this before, disappeared for weeks when he got stressed and then surfaced again, full of apologies and promises never to do it again. It’s a pattern with him. I guess you’re my ex-niece-in-law?’
She was friendly and offered to meet me.
‘I don’t think so. We’re not properly related, you and I.’
‘Okay, if that’s the way you feel.’
‘It would be strange, though, wouldn’t it? All we need to do is exchange information. We can do that over the phone. You’re not my family.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Mark is my uncle and he should have told me.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
Sue asked me if anything had happened after the party. Kenneth had told her Mark was the talk of Mervyn Park. Apparently, he was on stress leave, and wasn’t in his apartment. They were full of speculation about what had happened. I told her, because she was my best friend. Sue was as shocked as Angela, Aunt Christine and me.