‘Phyllida didn’t say a word.’
‘Well, she’s far too nice and doesn’t judge, even when something is sickening.’
‘Our love was not sickening!’ Miriam snaps. ‘It was pure and strong. Don’t you dare comment on something you have no idea about.’ Miriam has fire in her eyes now. ‘Get out!’
I finish my water then wash my glass carefully at the sink; a petulant act made all the more intolerable for her because she would usually whinge if I left a dirty glass in the sink. I take a clean tea towel from the drawer and place it neatly on the bench and put my empty glass upside down to dry, just as she is always asking me to do. I leave, wondering about all the secrets Phyllida has been hiding, and how she ended up in this village indelibly tied to a woman who resents her, all because the boy she raised, who might not even be hers, requested it on his deathbed.
36
PHYLLIDA
1995, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
The nurse brought tea. She was kind, this nurse. Eliza. They were all kind. It must be a requirement for the job:Can you be kind to desperate people in their worst moments even when your feet are hurting and your boyfriend is annoying you, and said desperate people are behaving badly?Tick.
Phyllida was sitting in the chair by David’s bed in her dirty gardening shoes.
She wondered if this nurse knew how different David was from the others in this hospice. How he had more of a fighting spirit. It wasn’t something she felt she could say out loud, but it was true. He’d always been stronger than the other boys on the hockey team, and better at running and chess and mathematics, and so much moredeterminedthan his peers. He was incredibly humble, given that he was so excellent at everything. And so, PhyllidaknewDavid wouldn’t let this cancer get the betterof him. Of course, she hadn’t voiced any of this. Nobody liked a braggart, did they? But still, David always overcame the odds.
Phyllida wrestled with these thoughts and with others she could not speak aloud. Part of her wanted him back in the proper hospital, so they could continue his treatments, but the doctors had said there was nothing else to be done, which was unacceptable.
She didn’t dare release David’s hand to sip the tea Eliza had brought. Her hand was sending energy to him. She had been here for hours, and this must be the third cup of tea. She drank one of them, she was sure. Miriam left soon after Phyllida had arrived, at Phyllida’s insistence. ‘Get some sleep. You’re worn out, my dear.’ Miriam had made a feeble protest, but she was clearly exhausted, grey rings beneath her beautiful eyes. Phyllida had said, ‘It’s not good for the baby,’ and Miriam had lowered her elegant neck to consider her neat baby bump and given Phyllida a look of pure confusion.
While David slept, she whispered the secrets of her heart; that she didn’t think it was his time for the next realm just yet. She hadthe knowing, you see. She’d never spoken of it openly, because it felt disrespectful to say it aloud. A sort of pagan idolatry. But she was sure it was a comfort for him to know she sensed a future for them.
Phyllida gazed at his hollowed-out face as she talked. She told him about the days spent in her grandmother’s shed, learning the secrets of herbs and plants. She knew other things too.Knewthem even though there was no possibility of knowing them. She could tell, you see, if a woman was newly pregnant; and she knew this about Miriam on the day they both met her.Of course, if David wished, she would treat the baby as his, because even though he was mistaken in this, she would doanythingfor him. Miriam’s baby would be very loved. It didn’t matter it was not his child. You need not share a child’s blood to love it with all your heart. When called, love simply arrived; two souls destined to meet. So, David must get well. Blood or not, this baby was his future.
During the times when he was awake, David insisted that he was dying, but she didn’t listen. It made him agitated when she disagreed, so now she just reassured him she would honour his promise to support Miriam financially, so he wasn’t to worry. She would always take care of the child. And she would not leave him, not now, not ever. She would be with him every moment, until his final breath, but, fate willing, that would be when he was an old man.
Eliza came back into the room. ‘Miriam has asked for him to be transferred home today, Mrs Banks. He told us he wanted to die at home.’
Phyllida looked at her with incomprehension.
‘I’ve sorted the paperwork,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m just waiting for a transfer ambulance to become available. We’ll send someone to make sure he’s settled in, then we can have someone pop in twice a day to make sure he’s comfortable and to assist with medication.’
‘Oh.’ Phyllida’s hand fluttered to her mouth. Her first thought wasdo not say he is dying, but then she knew this transfer was what must happen. ‘Yes! Of course! I hadn’t realised—I mean, he hadn’t said …’ She stopped, looked at David. ‘I didn’t know it was what he wanted. But that is obviously very good news.It won’t take me long to move things out of the office. That has the best access, and the nurses might just need to show me how to … sort things out for …’ She was out of breath, because David had not expressed this wish to her but now that this inevitablerightnesswas placed before her, she realised David would be able to see the old oak tree out the French doors any time he wished, and he would have the scents of the spring garden instead of this sterile room, andof coursehe must come home because it would be his only chance of recovery. She was grateful that Miriam had begun the process, and gutted she hadn’t thought of it earlier. ‘I’m sure anything I need to know is easily sorted out. You nurses are all so wonderful.’ She tried to smile but found her eyes were moist and her chest heavy.
Eliza was looking concerned. ‘I mean, Miriam’s.’
‘Sorry?’ Phyllida was so very tired. She put her hand to David’s papery cheek, noticed his lips were a little blue.
Eliza smoothed the bedsheets. ‘Miriam has asked for him to be transferred to her house. David was awake when she asked, two days ago now. He was lucid at the time. He agreed that was what he wanted. She’s organised a room at her house.’
Phyllida inhaled sharply. Her body stiffened against Eliza’s questioning gaze, her thoughts spinning in a vortex, collecting the detritus of her burgeoning grief, her breaking heart.
‘We’ve put in the paperwork for him to be moved to Miriam’s house, Phyllida. They insisted they were de facto partners. So, we thought it was appropriate. But you’ll be right there, won’t you? Isn’t it just across the road from you?’
Phyllida forced her feet up Miriam’s front stairs, and thought again how inappropriate this house was for David, with no view to the garden. The bedroom looked onto the side path that held therubbish bins. Some overgrown privet was all he could see. Miriam had snapped at Phyllida when she’d mentioned the privet; said he didn’t need to see the trees, because he was sleeping now, and he just wanted to have his hand held. His eyes couldn’t even focus as far as the window, she’d said. But how was David supposed to get better if his soul wasn’t nourished by nature? They had stood together awkwardly in Miriam’s kitchen; Phyllida a stranger in her own life.
Now, two days later, she had stewed on this. At home, he could have had sunshine, and more herbal remedies. Flower essences in every sip of water. Miracles happened.Shewasn’t giving up. She was praying to every deity she knew. She had nurtured that child every day of his twenty years, through every phase. After Lego and marbles came the books.
They had read and read together, every day after school, every Saturday as they worked in the bookshop.The Wind in the Willows,Swallows and Amazons,The Hobbit,Lord of the Flies,The Bell Jar. David hadn’t been so keen on Plath, but Phyllida felt a kinship with Esther’s struggle to live a life forced on her.Let me find you another one, Phyllida wanted to tell her.Away from expectation and the struggle for breath.Phyllida was proof you could live a good life, if you chose its parameters. The past was a burden, but she wrote down her guilt and despair in letters. She didn’t post them, but that was hardly the point. She kept them as touchstones of her heart.
She sat now at David’s bedside. He was shrunken beneath the covers, no longer eating. Each day he drank less, slept more. The skin clung to his cheekbones, his deep brown eyes prominent; saucers in a face that no longer pushed back against gravity. He reached for the handle that swung above his bed, and Phyllida felt nothing but love for the sinew that had become his arm. His voice was soft. ‘Mum,’ he murmured. His eyes opened and she saw a smile. Miriam had not shaved him for the last few days, and the hair on his face still grew. She clasped his hand, kissed his cheek. ‘Darling boy.’
‘Tired,’ he said, and Phyllida murmured as she stroked his forehead, ‘Yes, darling.’ She remembered the day he was born, the first time she held him.
Miriam hovered in the doorway. Phyllida had tried her very hardest to be welcoming to her son’s first love. David loved this woman, and so Phyllida should love her too. Automatically! But now, at the point where it mattered, she was struggling.
