‘Generally speaking, the elderly can react differently as their brains and bodies are frailer. But the doctor can tell you more.’
‘Is the doctor around?’
‘She’ll be back this evening.’
Roddy nods. ‘Thanks. I might leave it today then. I’ll pop back tomorrow or the next day.’ There’s not much point going in if he is only going to be worrying about Sienna out here unsupervised, creating havoc.
‘Can you give her this teddy when she wakes up?’ Sienna hands over the pink bear and smiles beatifically at the nurse.
‘Oh, absolutely. What a darling you are.’ The nurse beams as she takes the bear. She turns to Roddy. ‘What a lovely girl. You must be so proud of her.’
Sienna gives a tiny shrug, tipping her head to one side expectantly. Her eyes are wide.
Roddy sighs, wonders about the complex minefield that seems to be a part of parenting. Is he meant to let Sienna get away with it? To publicly praise her for what is, on some level, a thoughtful gesture? ‘Something like that,’ he mutters.
In the lift he says, ‘You need to pay for that bear. You might have meant well, but you can’t just take stuff, Sienna.’
She pulls out the inside lining of her empty pockets. ‘How am I supposed to pay? I don’t have a job.’
The lift doors open. Across the foyer, the woman in the flower shop is eyeing them suspiciously. Roddy pulls twenty dollars from his wallet and hands it to Sienna. ‘Go and pay for it,’ he says with an exasperated sigh. ‘I’ll wait outside.’
8
PHYLLIDA
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
There is a fifteenth-century text,Ars Moriendi, which translates toThe Art of Dying. It says something like: ‘You should not despair by any means. Die well … gladly and willingly.’ Phyllida can’t remember the exact words. Her mind is foggy. Thick and slow. She recalls seeing a copy at an auction. The woodcut illustrations were fascinating—a version by Heinrich Quentell she thinks, circa 1500.
Her mind sticks to a thought. What does it mean to die? Surely between life and death there is barely a crease in time; a mere slip in the universe. If one lives, one must die, and so it goes. There is only the bird that sings, the exquisite emerald sheen of a leaf on the breeze, the silent heat of sun on skin, the smile of a child. They exist, bright and burning, then they are gone.
She feels the touch of a hand, a voice speaking her name, rough cotton against her skin. She has an urge to push openher thick lidded eyes. Has her crease in time been uncreased? Her slip in the universe unslipped? She lies, listening; an erratic leap of her heart as the noises become more familiar and she begins to understand.
She must still be … here.
This outcome is not ideal. She had an inkling, though, as she lay with the photographs of David and Francis to her breast. As sure as the deep double trill of the boobook owl who had sung her to sleep, there came an image of Mary, dropping something. A scream; a splintering. Aknowing.
Phyllida’s lips twitch and curl. She wants to speak but cannot find her voice.
She is still alive.Gracious me.Not food for the beetles, then. Not yet.
So, what on earth does the universe have in store for her now?
9
LOTTIE
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
My hand is shaking as I boil the kettle in the bookshop’s tearoom. My visit to Phyllida in the ICU earlier has unnerved me. My darling grandmother, frail and sleeping, a tube from her nose taped to her cheek, cannula in her arm attached to some fluid, another attached to a machine that glowed and beeped along with several others that hummed and flashed numbers or random signals. Phyllida’s wrinkled hand in mine had felt cold. I made arrangements to talk to her doctor later and that had buoyed me, briefly, until Miriam’s visit to the shop half an hour ago. She was on her way to one of her outings—golf, mahjong, tennis. Miriam has only worked sporadically since I was born and sometimes this feels like a slap, knowing how hard Phyllida works, and how hard I’ve had to work over the years to afford rent in even the most basic of city share houses.
‘You need to tell me what’s going on,’ Miriam had said. ‘I know it’s not a stroke. I went to the hospital to see if I could get some information and when I asked the nurse if Phyllida would walk or talk again after her stroke, she looked at me as if I had two heads.’ Miriam had sniffed, as she often did when she came into the shop. Dust, apparently. ‘I don’t appreciate being lied to, Charlotte.’
‘Why would you think I’m lying? The nurse wouldn’t have shared anything because you’re not her next of kin. I am.’
‘I’m her daughter-in-law and quite entitled to know.’
It amuses me that Miriam calls herself Phyllida’s daughter-in-law when Miriam and Phyllida’s son were never married, and she dated David for all of six months (albeit the last six months of his life) thirty years ago.
