The Spare Room Read Free

trot, hauling Bessie behind me and scanning the approaching travellers for a tall, striding woman with prematurely white hair. We were almost on top of her before I recognised her. She was tottering along in the press of people, staggering like a crone, dwarfed by a confused young man who was carrying her Indian cloth bag over his shoulder. Bessie got a tighter grip on my hand.
    ‘Hello darlings!’ said Nicola. She was trying for insouciance, but her voice was hoarse, only a thread. ‘This is my new friend Gavin. He’s been so helpful!’
    Gavin handed me the bag, murmured a farewell, and made for the exit. I took hold of Nicola’s arm and steered her towards a row of hard chairs. She collapsed on to the first one. Bessie pressed closer to my other side, staring across me at Nicola with a look of fascinated panic.
    ‘OK,’ I said brightly. ‘Let’s sit here for a second and collect ourselves.’
    But Nicola couldn’t sit up straight. Her back was bowed right over, her neck straining as if under a heavy load. She was stripped of flesh, shuddering from head to foot like someone who has been out beyond the break too long in winter surf.
    ‘Bessie,’ I said. ‘Listen to me, sweetheart. See that lady over there, behind the counter? Past the toilets? I want you to walk up to her and tell her we need a wheelchair. Right away. Will you be a big girl and do that?’
    She stared at me. ‘What if they don’t have wheelchairs at airports?’
    ‘Bess. I need you to help us.’
    Nicola turned on her a smile that would have once been beautiful and warm, but was now a rictus.
    ‘But I don’t want to go without you,’ said Bessie on a high note.
    ‘All right. You stay here with Nicola, and I’ll go.’
    ‘Nanna.’ She gripped me with both hands.
    ‘We have to get a wheelchair. Go to that lady and ask her. Otherwise I don’t know how we’ll get out of here.’
    I pushed her away from me. She set out along the carpeted hall with stiff, formal steps. I saw her rise on to her toes and try to show herself above the counter’s edge. I saw the uniformed woman bend to hear her, glance up to follow her pointing finger, and turn to shout an order.

    We got home to a house that still thought spring had come: all the windows up, the rooms flooded with mild, muggy air. Nicola hobbled down the hall on my arm while Bessie ran in front with her bag. We led her into the spare room and she sat shivering on the edge of the bed. I banged down the window and switched on the oil heater. No, thank you—she didn’t want to drink, or eat, or wash, or go to the toilet. She was silent. Her head hung forward, as if a tiny fascinating scene were being enacted on her lap. I ran to the kitchen and put the kettle on for a hot water bottle. Bessie dawdled at the back door.
    ‘Go home, sweetheart. I can’t play with you now. Go home.’
    She scowled at me and stumped off across the vegetable patch to the gap in the fence, where she hesitated, glaring at me over her shoulder, long enough for me to see her pearly skin, the vital lustre of her pouting lower lip.
    In the spare room the oil was dripping and clicking inside the heater. I crouched in front of Nicola and pulled off her soft cloth shoes. Her bare feet were mottled, and icy to the touch; her ankles were laced with a pattern of blue veins. I hauled the jeans off her. She never wore knickers and she wasn’t wearing any now. I opened the bag. The few garments she had stuffed into it—a wool spencer, a faded pink flannelette nightgown, a large hemp T-shirt—were grubby and neglected, full of holes, like the possessions of a refugee. No one’s looking after her. She’s already lost.
    ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this nightie on to you.’ Like a child she raised both arms. I drew off her worn-out cashmere jumper and rag of a singlet. I thought I was keeping up a nonchalant pace, but when I saw the portacath bulging like an inverted bottle-top under the skin near her collarbone I