I shan’t reveal the whole story now, Lottie, because you, like me, enjoy a deftly woven mystery. The story has been written, and you shall discover each chapter at the right time.
And please don’t worry about my own last chapter or the manner of its arrival. If it doesn’t deliver me to David in some distant realm, I’ve popped in a request for God to send me over to the reincarnation room. I’m considering coming back as one of those ice-diving baby penguins. Or a daughterin that French family who design the very comfortable orthopaedic footwear I once tried on in David Jones and have coveted ever since. Free shoes and trips to Paris sound more than acceptable.
I was grateful to your mother for letting David experience great love before he died. They loved each other dearly. It’s sad that your mother and I never became close, but we both loved you very much.
Go well, my dear, and consider buying Lily Beedle’s house with your inheritance. I have a feeling you will probably enjoy it, although there is a big world out there that awaits you. You have plenty of adventures ahead.
In more pedestrian matters, I have left some spreadsheets of my investments in an envelope on my desk. Do with the money as you wish. Roddy will no doubt be able to assist.
Look after the books. They are all yours now. Don’t forget to empty the shop dehumidifier every day and enjoy the buried pasts. I suspect there are few as diverting as mine.
Yours ever,
Phyllida
48
LOTTIE
NOW, NSW SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS, AUSTRALIA
I close my eyes in disbelief.
Some people get through life guided by personal rules.Eat dessert first; apply deodorant after undies; no sex before third date.That kind of thing. I’ve never really seen the point in articulating a personal code, but if I had, it would probably be summarised as something like: (1) Avoid hospitals; (2) Avoid pregnancy; (3) Avoid Miriam.
I open my eyes again, and my headache ratchets up a notch. Miriam is sitting on a chair by the window in what is apparently my hospital room. She has just announced I am pregnant.
I stare at her. A pain shoots through my forehead, almost blinding me.Fuckety fuck fuck.
Before Miriam’s statement about my impregnation, she made another unbelievable statement: that I had walked under a truck, which is why I am now in this blindingly sterile room witha drip in my arm, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant. Around me, monitors and machines are beeping. I am, of course, deeply suspicious of her story. But as I have no evidence to counter it, I don’t bother to argue.
Miriam is frowning and talking about blood test results and the reasons she’d asked them to test for pregnancy: classic food aversion, I’d been getting chunkier according to the finely honed MFR (Miriam Fat Radar) and complaining about smells that were innocuous. I tune out as she wafts on about due dates and glucose tests and my general idiocy. I think about my recent craving for blueberry scones and smoked cheese and wonder how to procure some.
‘Charlotte?’ says a young, male voice.
I open my eyes.
‘Ah, back in the land of the living. Excellent!’
The doctor—I assume he’s a doctor because he appears relaxed in this room, even though he looks sixteen—is at the foot of my hospital bed grinning and running his eyes over my chart. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I was hit by a truck.’ Actually, I feel like crying, but that’s out of the question with Miriam hovering.
He gags and makes a throaty coughing noise. I think it’s a laugh. ‘It didn’t injure your sense of humour, I see!’
I close my eyes again.
‘You took quite a hit, Charlotte. We’ll keep you in overnight to make sure that head knock doesn’t develop into anything nasty and get you downstairs for an ultrasound to check the baby.’
I nod, pretending that checking for the wellbeing of a potential human inside my body is a perfectly ordinary thing fora stranger to suggest. Then I look out the window. I think about the deep satisfaction Miriam took in delivering the pregnancy declaration. The self-congratulation, as if all her predictions for my total ruination had finally come true in spectacular style.
There is a black bird in the tree outside, on a skinny branch that’s swaying in the wind. I wonder if it’s a crow; if Phyllida would see it as a portent of something bad. Although, this situation already seems pretty bad.
‘Charlotte! Pay attention,’ snaps Miriam. ‘The doctor is talking to you.’ She turns to the teenager with the chart. ‘Charlotte has inattentive ADHD. It’s unmedicated, which is fortunate seeing as how she’s gone and got herself pregnant without even knowing it. I imagine ADHD stimulant medication is bad for a foetus.’
Miriam diagnosed me with ADHD from her Instagram feed last year. She sends me dozens of reels every day about things that my brain is supposedly doing when it’s not paying attention to the things she is trying to tell me. It hasn’t occurred to her that I choose to ignore her, because such a thing would never occur to a narcissist. She assumes that any sane person would hang on her every word if their brain was in tip-top neurotypical working order.
‘I probably didn’t getmyselfpregnant,’ I observe.
