‘Ssh, Margaret. Let him die in peace.’
‘Oh, very well. I’ll go. Damnation!’ And the kitchen door slammed.
Matthew heard Gran hurrying about. The coughing which had ceased briefly began again. He crept out of bed, through the kitchen and into the parlour. The door to his father’s verandah room was open and a sickly trail of light fell like spittle across the parlour floor. He could hear Gran moving about in there, murmuring in a lifeless monotone. The coughing was intermittent now but the breathing desperate: the thin whine suffocated in congested narrow tubes, like the struggling gasp emitted from a mirror leaf when he folded it, stretched it taut and forced the air through its thinned passage.
The struggle terrified him. Once, years ago, he had fallen into the river. Not where he caught yabbies but further along the bank where it dropped steeply into a dark pool. He felt again the water closing over his head sealing off light and air. His legs floundered without ground to stand on and his hands found nothing to hold.
He came up, saw the sky dip into the river at eye level, saw the darkened red of the river gum water-logged in the flood and Gran’s hand which found and pulled him out.
‘Nearly lost you,’ she laughed. And as he shivered: ‘Bit of water won’t hurt you. Good thing you held your breath. Only fishes can breathe down there.’ He had gasped, sucked in air, ejected it, sucked it in again. Gradually his breath returned to automatic and he was no longer aware that he breathed.
Now he breathed with his father, gasps which part filled his lungs but left those deeper recesses unsatisfied vacuums. His head felt light. The thin spittle of light on the floor broke up into tiny balls and like mercury slid wildly in all directions, catching the light, dazzling him.
Gran, coming back, saw him swaying and white. ‘Matthew!’ She caught him, pulled him down into a chair and put his head between his knees. Her presence returned the room to normality, diverted his attention from his father. He breathed naturally, filling his lungs and the colour flowed back into his face.
‘It’s all right, darling. You know your father has been very ill for a long time now. There is no need to be frightened. Go and make yourself some hot milk but don’t touch the towels on the floor. I can’t do anything for you until I have washed. Go on. Off you go.’ And she pushed him toward the kitchen.
He made his milk, cut himself a piece of cake and putting both on the table drew up a chair. He averted his eyes from the towels on the floor. They reminded him of the chopping block and the blood sprayed there after Clicketty beheaded a fowl. Clicketty did these things for them occasionally because Edward said it was a ghastly job, and he’d rather eat just vegetables than be the murderer. One chop from the axe and the head with its limp red comb, stringy like old Peter’s neck, fell to the ground. But the rooster, as if still alive, rushed about the yard headless, mutilated like the lizard without its tail but more horrible because blood stickied and stained its feathers. What should have flowed secretly and healthily inside burst out, distorting and dissolving his image of what was whole and alive.
Then Edward snatched him up under one arm and ran with him up the path, beating himself on the chest and scratching himself under one arm, saying to Gran: ‘Here we are. The great gorilla and his little banana.’ And he’d made as if to peel and eat him until Matthew had giggled and screeched. But he remembered the old rooster and at dinner that night he had pushed his serving of chicken to the side of his plate. ‘I don’t feel well,’ he lied, and Gran looked at Mother and shook her head and neither had insisted he should eat it.
Matthew drank and ate very slowly. It was lonely in the kitchen with the emptiness of night. He had noticed before how when people did things at night it was as if they were moving or working in empty spaces. Day activities filled everything but night had spaces never completely filled.
The doctor came and the priest in black. They disappeared into the little room. Mother returned, her dress stained like the towels and the feathers of the beheaded bird. Shadows of exhaustion darkened her eyes so that their greenness looked like the centre of a bruise. She washed her hands, soaping up her arms, scrubbing her nails. She bathed her face but a rim of blood like a painful scratch hardened down the hairline of her cheek. She didn’t look in the mirror and was unaware of it.
The doctor reappeared. He shook his head, took Mother’s hand, patted it and went away. Gran came out and also shook her head.
‘Should I?’ Margaret looked terrified.
‘No … the priest … leave them. There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Great heavens,’ Margaret whispered.
Gran looked at her, sighed and shrugged a little. ‘It’s better. The priest will see him out. You needn’t go.’
‘No. I needn’t, need I?’ And she sank over the table, her head propped on her hand as if she could no longer support it on her neck.
Gran put an arm about Matthew. ‘You should be in bed, Matthew. It’s very late.’
Mother looked up. ‘Matthew! What are you doing here? You should be in bed.’
‘Gran,’ he said, ‘Gran. What is it like in Father’s room?’
‘Don’t ask, Matthew. It’s awful, awful,’ said his mother and began to cry.
Gran looked at her, angry. ‘Ssh, Margaret. We’ve done what we can. All living things must die sometime. It’s natural, not horrible, natural. It can make us sad because people don’t like things to end …’
‘That awful little room. For years now he hasn’t come out, just lain there, imprisoned. All that blood, all over the bed, all over him.’
‘Ssh, Margaret. Matthew’s too young.’
‘He doesn’t
