Читать книгу The Styx - Patricia Holland - Страница 28

The flight to Brisbane for my assessment was a nightmare. My mother sounded like she was weeping when she wrote in her diary about the trip.

The major airline pilots were on strike, and the only option—one of those ill-fated Beechcraft Barons—fluttered insignificantly for four hours each way. Unmodified altitudinal pressure changes played havoc with my brain, repeatedly triggering epileptic fits, triggering hours and hours of screaming. Mum seriously questioned what she was doing.

“Does education warrant such torture?” she wrote in her diary.

“If I’d known this was the cost, probably not. But there are no specialist assessors locally who have the skills to test someone with the extent of Sophie’s disabilities,” my mother wrote.

In the Brisbane office of Anne Sorenson, testing someone like me didn’t seem to be a problem. The day before, when we arrived at Brisbane airport, we took a stinkin’ taxi to the city and stayed at Lennons Hotel. Lennons is a bit old-world flash, and Mum liked it because it was on street level and she could wheel me straight into the Queen Street Mall. When we walked into the hotel lobby, the man at the desk knew us and spoke to me by name. I liked him.

“Hello, young Lady Sophie, and how are you this fine afternoon?” He’s called me Lady Sophie forever—I can’t remember when he started.

We had spent quite a bit of time in Brisbane over the past few years, when they were trying to find out what was wrong with me, when I was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome.

“Put her in a home,” the diagnosing paediatrician advised. “Get on with your life. She will never be older than ten months of age mentally, less probably.”

I was there, fully mentally functioning at three years old when he said this. I reckon I was more like mentally five years old. I’m way smarter than most kids. Modest too. The specialist was old and meant well, but I had to do something, so I spat on him, screamed and flailed my arms and legs. He didn’t understand what I was trying to say, and he gave Mum some medicine to keep me “comfortable”.

It was a horrendous trip, that diagnosis trip. It was just Mum and me and we took a taxi from the specialist’s rooms at Wickham Terrace back to near Jimmi’s on The Mall Cafe. It isn’t far—only a few blocks, but the hill is very steep and Mum was scared she wouldn’t be able to hold the chair, wheeling down.

The taxi driver was mightily pissed off—because it was just a short trip, I think. When he stopped in Edward Street, he didn’t bother to get out to help Mum. He popped the boot, and left Mum with me in one arm to drag the wheelchair out onto the road. It was one of those old heavy wheelchairs. As soon as she closed the boot, the driver accelerated off leaving Mum, me and my chair in a heap, crumpled in the gutter, bruised, spluttering in exhaust stink.

But on this later get-into-school visit, fortunately for us, the Education Department building was on the flat in Ann Street, just two blocks from Lennons Hotel. The government building was what you would call “serviceable”. Nothing fancy, and very grey. But the lift worked and pinged us to the tenth floor. Anne Sorrenson was youngish, thirtyish, and had a lovely smile. Good teeth. To her, my disabilities weren’t a problem and she talked to me and Mum equally, as if we were equal in every way, except I was a bit more important. My mother’s confessions about setting the Government onto the Heathwood therapists was a story she’d heard before.

“Other towns, other children, same thing, it is a very sad reality,” she said. “I’ve got no idea why things are still like that. You did the right thing. It’s their job to know this sort of stuff. We all need to be able to stand up to scrutiny. Does us good, keeps us on our toes. It’s tragic that so many kids miss out, and that so many people like yourself have to feel guilty about wanting what you’re entitled to. Therapists like them deserve everything they get and more. Feel outraged that you were forced to write to the Minister. Sophie has a right to be educated. You have a duty to make that happen. It just shouldn’t be that hard for you,” Angel Anne said.

“Sophie, are you okay with staying with me to do some assess­ment activities? Just look at the ‘Yes’ on this side, or ‘No’ over there, to tell me.” She pointed in turn to the two A3-size signs on either side of the wall behind her head.

I looked at the A3 sheet of paper on the right “Yes” side of the wall. Ann validated my response with another question.

“Sophie, did you enjoy the flight down?” My eyes snapped to the left “No” side of the wall.

“Difficult trip, was it?” Ann asked. Both Mum and I flicked our eyes to the “Yes”.

My mother’s face reflected a million thoughts and regrets. It couldn’t be that easy. All it took was believing, two pieces of paper, and I was talking! There was no over-enunciating, no raising of volume, no itsy-bitsy baby talk, just normal conversational dialogue, no different from how she was speaking to Mum.

“It’ll probably take an hour or so. Sophie, do you need your mum to stay?” Angel Anne asked.

My gaze had an added confidence. I set my eyes to the left A3 “No” side. My first independent decision. And my mother couldn’t have been happier being ditched.