The Spare Room Read Free Page A

must have missed a beat, for she began to whisper and croak: ‘Sorry, Hel. Ghastly. So sorry.’
    Uttering comforting, hopeful sounds, I fed each of her arms into a sleeve and pulled the threadbare nightdress down to cover her. I got her under the doona. She couldn’t find a position to lie in that didn’t hurt.
    When the two hot water bottles were ready I brought in a second doona, my thick winter one. I wrapped her, I swaddled her, I lay behind her spoonwise and cuddled her in my arms. Shudders like electric shocks kept running down her body. Nothing could warm her.
    But the heater gained command of the room. In a while she seemed to relax, and doze. I began to sweat. I eased back off the bed, turned the venetian blind to dark, and tiptoed out of the room.
    How long had she been this bad? Why hadn’t someone warned me? But who? She was a free woman, without husband or children. No one was in charge. I got a vegetable soup simmering in case she woke up hungry, and then I looked up her niece Iris in the Sydney phone book, and called her. A wheelchair? Oh no—this was way new. Could it have been just the strain of the flight? Oh God. We should absolutely stay in touch—here was her email address. Iris and her boyfriend Gab could come down, but not till the weekend after next—the school she was teaching at wouldn’t give her any more time off. If it all turned out to be too much for me, they would take her home.
    Too much for me? My pride was stung. I was supposed to be useful in a crisis.
    Something rustled at the back door. Bessie slid into the kitchen, beaming, in a floor-length flounced skirt and fringed shawl.
    ‘No, sweetheart—sorry. Not now.’
    Her smile faded. ‘But I’ve got a new dance to show you.’
    ‘Nicola’s asleep. She needs a very quiet house because she’s terribly sick.’
    She stared at me, sharply interested. ‘Is Nicola going to die?’
    ‘Probably.’
    ‘Tonight?’
    ‘No.’
    She began to twist the doorknob, writhing and grizzling. ‘I need you to play with me. I’m bored.’
    ‘Don’t push it, Bess. You heard what I said.’
    ‘If you don’t let me come in, I won’t be able to stop whining.’
    ‘Run home. Come back in the morning when she wakes up.’
    ‘It’s not even night-time yet!’
    ‘She’s asleep.’
    ‘If you don’t let me in, I’ll whine more. I’ll go berserk and do it even worse.’
    I shoved back my chair. Its legs screeched on the boards and she bolted. Her flamenco heels went click-eting across the brick paving and she vanished behind the rocket bed.
    I stopped on the back veranda. Further down the yard, beyond the shoulder-high broad beans with their black-and-white flowers, a small butternut pumpkin sat on the shed windowsill in what remained of the afternoon’s sun. It had rested there, forgotten by both our houses, for months. If it hadn’t dried out I could put it into the soup. I waited till I heard Bessie slam her back door, then I sneaked out and grabbed the pumpkin from the windowsill. It was suspiciously light. I stood it on the chopping board and pushed the point of the heavy knife through its faded yellow skin. Pouf. The blade sank through it. The pumpkin fell into two halves. The flesh was pale and fibrous, hardly more substantial than dust. I hacked it into chunks and shoved them into the compost bin.
    The night, when it came, was long. I woke many times. Once I heard the soft patter of rain. I parted the blind slats. A single light burned in the upper flat across the street: my comrade, that wakeful stranger. Towards four I crept along the hall and stood outside Nicola’s closed door. Her breathing was slow and regular, but coarse and very loud.
    I thought about the rattle that came out of my sister Madeleine’s throat ten minutes before she died. ‘Listen,’ I said to her son who was sitting red-eyed by her bed with his elbows resting on his knees. ‘She’s rattling. She’ll die soon.’
    ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘it’s just a