The room was pleasant, the fire was lit and through the window Peter looked out at the dense bushland behind the hotel where lazy kangaroos grazed. He wished Theo was there to see the kangaroos. He felt a pain in his chest and the pain started the coughing. Peter bent over until it stopped, then he put his few clothes in the drawers and pulled back the rose-patterned cover on the bed and lay down and stared at the timber ceiling. He wondered if this room was the room he would die in, and that the ceiling would be the last image to fill his eyes, or whether Doctor Trudeau’s treatment would work. It seemed too simple.
As agreed, the Gervasonis left a meal outside his door with just a knock, and when he heard the footsteps retreat down the hall Peter collected his food and tried not to think about the pain in his chest that was not the consumption but the spaces that were usually filled by Lilly and Theo.
When he woke in the morning it took him a moment to remember where he was and why. Then it all came back to him so he got out of bed and started his regime. He wanted to return to Theo and Lilly and the only way he could do that was to get well. He went for a long walk, down the main street, around into the mineral water reserve, down to the sulphur spring and back to the hotel. When he got back breakfast was waiting for him. Fat bull-boar sausages and scrambled eggs and, as ordered, a large glass of milk. He ate, washed and went for another long walk. He only allowed himself to rest for two hours in the afternoon when he sat out on the verandah and wrote long letters to Lilly which he dared not post in case he contaminated the paper. He asked Missus Gervasoni for old milk bottles and collected mineral waters from the natural springs every day and drank them down even though they smelt like rotten eggs, and he sucked the fresh air into his damaged lungs. When winter came he purchased another coat and another woollen scarf and gloves and still walked and when it snowed and he really couldn’t walk he sat rugged up on the verandah breathing in the still purity of the air. He had meals of freshly made macaroni from Lucini’s over the road with Angelo’s sauces and fat sausages smothered in rich gravy with mash and osso buco and he learnt the names of the different types of macaroni and every day he thought of his Lilly and Theo and convinced himself that he was doing the right thing — Doctor Le Sueur had told him to stay away and stay away he must. He wasn’t out of the woods. Doctor Le Sueur had told him he would most likely get worse before he got better.
One day, about eighteen months after Peter had walked out the front gate, Lilly received a letter that made her cry. She sobbed loud retching sobs and Theo ran over to her and put his head on her shoulder. He was surprised when she smiled at him through her tears and said, ‘It’s all right, Theo, these are happy tears,’ and then wiped her face on her apron and sat at the table and scrawled out her own letter and she and Theo together put it in the letterbox for the postman to collect that afternoon.
At four o’clock Theo waited for his father on the third step from the bottom as he always did, wearing his coat and a scarf because it was September and cold and his mother brought him a bacon and cheese sandwich and warm milk. The next afternoon she brought him lemon delicious pudding and the afternoon after that she brought him golden syrup dumplings with custard, and anything Theo didn’t eat she ate for him — one way or another she would fatten the boy up and make him healthy and strong.
On the fifth afternoon as Theo sat on the third step from the bottom, he hadn’t touched the cinnamon scroll Lilly had made. Lilly came and sat with him, bringing a rug for their knees.
‘I’ll finish that off for you, shall I?’ she said and he passed her the windmill tray with the cake and the empty glass white in patches from the milk he had drunk.
‘I should stop waiting for him, shouldn’t I?’ Theo asked. After all, he was older now and he knew that sometimes you just had to accept the way things were.
‘Oh no,’ said Lilly, ‘never stop waiting for what you truly want.’
Lilly was wearing her dress covered in red rosebuds; she washed it each night and hung it to dry by the fire and put it on again the next day. About a year ago she had let out the seams, and then again six months ago. Now the dress stretched uncomfortably over her middle and her breasts, pulling hard at the seams, but she couldn’t bear to throw it out. She wore a thick woollen cardigan over the light summery dress. Theo studied the rosebuds, he touched them one after the other with his finger. It had been his father’s favourite dress, he knew that because his dad had said, ‘She’s my rosebud. Your mum agreed to marry an old codger like me when she was nought but a sweet young rosebud.’
Theo didn’t know why he looked up at that moment but he did and there he was, standing at the gate.
And that was how Theo learnt the art of being quiet and waiting.
Eight
The Hole
Saturday, 11 November 1905, when the neighbours
