Lullaby by Bernard Beckett

Maggie’s bottom lip trembled. ‘The hospital
has…There’s never been a case like this, and all our energy has gone into making
sure this window doesn’t close before we’ve thoroughly—’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re—’
    ‘She doesn’t know.’
    Three simple words, yet somehow I couldn’t make a shape from them. Maggie locked
her eyes on mine. I saw her fear.
    She spoke slowly. ‘She thinks it’s you. Emily’s in the waiting room, and she thinks
Theo is in here, talking to me.’
    ‘I’m not Theo.’
    ‘No, you’re not.’
    ‘But you know I’m not Theo!’ I shouted at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell her?’
    Now I saw it, the thing that had undone her. Not my mistake, but hers. Maggie had
made a mistake.
    ‘The files came through so quickly. Somehow, I read the names, without registering
the mismatch, between the admission forms and…’
    Her hand went to her forehead. Long fingers worked the flesh.
    ‘You introduced yourself, in the room, and I was, I was trying to watch you, watch
you with your brother, observe you. I’m meant to notice the details. It’s my job
to notice the details. But I missed the names.’
    ‘Our names? You missed our names?’ That seemed impossible. ‘But I’ve been using our
names the whole way through.’
    ‘Yes, yes, I know you are Rene, and I know he is Theo. I just didn’t register that
Rene was the name they used when they admitted him. I assumed Emily knew who she
was with. I assumed she could be trusted to identify her lover.’
    ‘Well you assumed fucking wrong then, didn’t you?’ My head was turning fuzzy.
    ‘Yes, yes, I did.’ Maggie held up her hand, hoping, I suppose, to stop me.
    ‘So, how do you get to be so stupid? Didn’t it seem strange to you, when I told you
about the two of us, that…?’
    ‘We have been working under extreme pressure.’
    ‘You’re under pressure? Try sitting here with your brother dying, and some bitch
who doesn’t even know your name deciding the shape of your future.’
    ‘It’s called confirmation bias.’
    For the first time Maggie didn’t meet my eye. Her hands had balled into little fists
on her knees.
    ‘What you told me, fitted what I thought I’d read, I…’
    ‘It’s called being fucking useless.’
    Maggie’s tears were magnified by her glasses. She stood up, and turned away. I noticed
she wasn’t as tall as I’d thought. I watched her shoulders rise as she breathed deep.
She held it in for four slow beats, and exhaled as she turned. Her mask was firmly
back in place.
    ‘Rene, you are not the victim. Emily is the one who has been deceived.’
    ‘You can’t turn this back on me,’ I said.
    ‘I fully acknowledge my part in this.’
    Her part. The smaller part. That was what she meant. She put her glasses back on,
but she didn’t sit.
    ‘The bigger picture is unaffected. The time constraints are the same. The options
are the same. My assessment of you will be based upon the same evidence. There is
good cause to unpack this, for recrimination and reparation, but not good time. The
thing that has changed is Emily. You need to talk to Emily. I can come with you,
if you like.’
    ‘You bet you’re fucking coming with me.’

11
    The corridor refused to make sense. The walls wobbled, the floor swayed. Strangers
smiled at me, their heads too big for their bodies. All I could think of was Emily,
sitting in a room, surrounded by strangers, certain I was as good as dead. Going
over and over her last moments with me. The picnic, the jokes, the last time we kissed.
Not knowing it wasn’t the last time at all, that the last time sat off in some other
place, maybe in the future, maybe in the past. And I was going to have to tell her.
It didn’t leave much room for getting walls straight.
    I stood in the doorway of the waiting room, with Maggie at my shoulder, as if she
was using me for shelter. Emily’s father walked over, shook my hand, and looked at
me with sorrowful eyes.
    ‘Theo, we’re