Please Don't Leave Me Here Read Free Page B

enquire about Papa’s health.
    â€˜He’s doing really well.’ Petula swivels her chair around, away from the computer screen. ‘But you look tired, Brigitte. Those cheeky twins keeping you awake?’ She smiles at them. Phoebe scowls, and Finn hides behind Brigitte’s leg.
    â€˜It gets better,’ Petula says.
    Brigitte forces a smile. Tiger, the resident cat, wanders past, and the twins rush over to pat him.
    They take the lift to level two, where it’s always overheated, and the smells of stale urine, vomit, and cleaning products sting Brigitte’s nose. She sneezes. The twins run down the corridor towards their great-grandfather’s room. They stop and wait outside his door, never brave enough to go in by themselves.
    Papa’s sitting in his old Chesterfield chair — its worn arms mended with gaffer tape — watching TV with the sound blaring. He’s wearing his favourite dressing gown, brown and threadbare, and slippers from Dimmeys. Ten years drops off his face when he sees them. He hoists himself out of his chair to kiss Brigitte and run a hand over her hair. Phoebe’s right: he could do with a shower.
    Brigitte empties the box of fruit into a bowl on his little wooden table. She removes her jacket, turns off the TV, and sits by the window on a green-vinyl chair. Papa finds some Freddo Frogs in a drawer for the twins.
    â€˜Brigi?’
    She looks into Papa’s faded blue eyes.
    â€˜Saw an old blue Camry on Bridge Road yesterday.’
    Here we go again. He pulls a small, no-brand notepad out of his dressing-gown pocket.
    â€˜Got the rego number.’ His hand shakes as he tears off a page and passes it to her. ‘For Sam to check out.’
    She puts it in her handbag — to go into the recycling bin with all the other rego numbers Sam never checks out. Papa has a bigger, leather-bound book with hundreds of old blue Camry registration numbers recorded in his scratchy hand.
    â€˜One of these days they’ll catch the bastard.’ He looks out the window. Construction workers are building another high-rise complex across the road. A tram rattles along Church Street.
    The twins jump on the single bed. Brigitte tells them off, and straightens the bedspread. They play with Papa’s service medals, and turn the hands around on the old mantel clock. They’re fascinated by his egg-shaped paperweight on the bedside table — how the blue-and-green swirls got inside the glass. They fight over it; Phoebe drops it on her foot and bawls.
    â€˜Here.’ Papa produces a pink bag of salt-and-vinegar chips from down beside his chair.
    Brigitte shakes her head.
    â€˜Just potata chips, Brigi.’ He hands the bag to the twins. Brigitte frowns, but it keeps them quiet. Papa talks about the war, and Fitzroy in the old days.
    Brigitte makes listening faces, but she’s distracted — as hard as she tries to stop it, her mind keeps drifting back to Manny’s party. The softness of Aidan’s flannelette shirt … a cold, empty fireplace, cinnamon and bergamot, sailing ships — no! That was somewhere else. Somewhere never to be thought about ... His crooked smile. The citrus cologne mustn’t have been synthetic — it didn’t make her sneeze.
    â€˜I’m all right here. They’re good to me.’ Papa coughs. ‘You tired?’
    She was far away: Where the wild roses grow .
    â€˜Not sleepin’?’
    She shakes her head.
    â€˜Want some of me sleepin’ pills?’
    â€˜No, thanks.’
    Phoebe pushes the buttons on Papa’s cassette player, and Finn pulls her hair. Brigitte wrangles them to the kitchenette at the end of the corridor for some biscuits and milk. She flicks on the kettle, and washes a spoon and a cup from the shelf — doesn’t trust the dishwashing of old people. There’s only instant coffee, so she makes a cup of tea and takes it back to Papa’s room. Papa never