But Theo just looked blankly at him and Doctor Appleby thought, not for the first time, that Hooley might have got a bit of brain sickness over there in Africa. The place was too damn hot. Just like the blistering summer that was coming again here. Heat was a nasty thing that bred germs on your skin and then the sweat of your body turned the germs to liquid and the liquid seeped into your pores and worked its way to your brain. He had begun as a doctor in his twenties and for thirty-five years Doctor Appleby had seen miners fresh from Cornwall turn mad from the Australian heat. Looked like Hooley had got a germ in his brain over there in the African heat. After all, heat was heat. Didn’t matter which country you got it in.
Hooley still stood, looking vacantly at the door.
‘It’s a fine house, isn’t it son? That’s what you can buy with a barrister’s wage.’
Theo looked at him as if he was the one that was mad, and Doctor Appleby saw the sorrow in Theo’s eyes and realised it wasn’t the house he was mesmerised by but what was inside it.
The doctor sighed. ‘I’m only a country doctor; I can’t keep up with advances from the city. I watch miners die of silicosis before they’re forty, I watch women die giving birth, I watch children die of diphtheria. I can’t cure any of them. If the truth be known I can only cure folk of illnesses they are likely to survive anyhow. But I also know I can’t cure you of standing there gazing at that grand house like a cockatoo that has lost its mate.’
Theo remained silent.
‘They mate for life you know — cockatoos,’ the doctor continued. ‘They mourn if they lose their mate. Maybe I should have been a veterinarian — might have been easier.’ He felt the weight of a bad day’s work. He couldn’t cure anything today.
Theo watched Doctor Appleby walk out the front gate, his short stumpy body on long legs like a spider, his bag swinging at his side. The doctor’s house was twice the size of the Cottingham’s and housed three servants.
Theo looked up at the sky. The sun had exhausted itself and disappeared. Grey clouds filled the sky. There was no warmth left in the air at all, and there was nothing to do but walk home.
‘It’s over with Edith,’ Theo said to Lilly, his mum. He fell into the kitchen chair, put his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He could speak with his mum; his words came freely when it was just the two of them. With her it was like he had never gone to Africa and lost his voice and his insides. It was like he was always a child, the voluminous warmth of her being soaked up his hollowness and kept him safe. She didn’t have one harsh edge to make his words bounce back at him; his words soaked into her motherly softness and found a place to belong.
He watched as she poured soup into a bowl, balanced it on her stout middle and carefully walked to the table with it, trying not to spill any on her apron.
‘I didn’t know it had begun with Edith,’ she said. Lilly had been in the church kitchen after the service getting morning tea ready. She’d made a sultana cake and two-dozen rock cakes, and had cut the cake into thin triangles to get twelve slices out of it, as these would be the first to go, the boys would pounce and gobble them up. She hadn’t seen Edie and Theo under the tree. She thought he was interested in that awful Gamble girl.
‘Yes, I was going to ask for her hand this afternoon but everything has changed.’
‘It’s mulligatawny soup, your favourite — not too spicy, though. I know you like it spicy but I can’t eat it as spicy as you, Theo.’
‘How could it change in such a short time?’ he said, and put his spoon into the bowl and left it there. It slid down the side of the bowl and under the soup.
‘Oh dear,’ said Lilly, ‘you fish that out and I’ll get another spoon.’
Theo put his fingers carefully into the hot soup and grabbed the tip of the spoon and tossed it over the table like a cricket ball. It dropped into the kitchen sink with a loud clatter and clang. She handed him the fresh spoon and pushed the bread over to him.
‘Here,’ she said and reached for the butter and started spreading a slice for him. ‘Hot soup and a nice slice of bread will cheer you up.’
‘Missus Cottingham has died,’ said Theo, and now it was Lilly’s turn to drop her knife. ‘And she’s left a baby, apparently, though Doctor Appleby says it will die soon.’
‘Oh, oh! The poor poor man left alone with a tiny baby.’ She knocked her soup bowl and the soup sloshed from side to side and onto the tablecloth, leaving a greasy stain.
‘Sorry,’ Theo said, even though it wasn’t his fault.
‘Would you like some scones? I’ve made some scones for you. No, no, you’ll want them after with jam and cream.’
‘No thanks, Mum,’ he muttered to the soup.
‘How do you know it’s over with her? Have you spoken to her father? Did he say no?’ Lilly wriggled to get more comfortable, to position herself right in the middle of the chair so she spilled evenly over each side.
‘I don’t need to speak to anyone. I just know. Everything has changed.’ He swirled the soup round and round into a whirlpool. ‘I could feel it. The whole house groaned with it and Doctor Appleby said not to bother her. He said it like it meant ever — don’t ever bother
