Peeling the Onion (4 page)

Busy Butt strips me, slides me onto another chair with its own personal crane, cranks it up and lowers me into the tub. (Does anyone get used to just how
weird
hospital is? Would it be easier if you joined a nudist colony first?)

'Don't get the frame wet,' she says. 'The padding might come unstuck.'

Oh well, I didn't want to wash the top half anyway. At least I'll have nice clean legs—if I can see them through the regrowth.

'How about I shave them for you?' she offers.

Feels strange. Strange but nice.

And now Alex, gorgeous dark-eyed Alex, so kind—and so disappointingly unaware that I'm female he must be gay—is kneeling before me, swaddling my right foot in bandages and plaster.

'I'll put a heel on it,' he says. 'You'll be able to walk when it's dry.'

But I need a lesson first, in case I've forgotten how to walk in the last two weeks.

'We'll give you a sling,' the physio says, 'to keep that thumb out of the way. You couldn't use crutches anyway.'

Thank God for that! My head in a cage, my arm in a sling and foot in plaster . . . that's about enough.

We head off down the hall. It doesn't feel natural; I'm light-headed and wobbly, hugging the walls for safety, step after tentative step. But I'm walking; I'm getting better.

And I'm glad to get back to my room!

'Well done,' says Mrs Hogan. 'You'll be up and about in no time.'

Ruby dissolves into giggles. 'You look like a robot!'

'Can you dance like the man on TV now?' Matt asks.

'You know,' Bronwyn adds hopefully, while Matt demonstrates, 'the one with a plaster on his foot and crutches.'

I remember the ad, but skip the dancing. Their faces fall—'But you can sign my cast!'—and they cheer up again.

Matt draws a fat cat and a misshapen dog; Sally and Ben, waiting for me to come home.

Ruby's got one new hip and is waiting for a second; Mrs Hogan's got a new knee . . . why couldn't I have a new neck?

'Or put us all together and you'd get one good person!' 'There aren't that many bits of me you'd want!' 'Your pretty young face,' Mrs Hogan says kindly.

Mrs Hogan lied.

It's the first time I've been allowed to walk to the toilet. It's the first time I've stood to wash my hands in the sink and seen the mirror above it.

It can't be a mirror
—
it's a sick joke, someone's painted a face from a haunted house onto the glass! That back-from-the-dead scarecrow woman
can't
be me!
The face is grey and gaunt, the cheekbones sharp. The hair is so greasy it's almost grey too. The only colour comes from the angry red scars below the mouth and left eye.

I can see that Alex might not be gay. I can see even more why Hayden didn't kiss me.

Jenny's unlucky enough to be the next visitor. 'Why didn't you tell me I looked like a witch?'

She laughs and says it's not that bad, I just look like I'm not feeling the best. Nice try. It doesn't convince me.

But Jenny has more important news. She's in love.

'Do you remember the new guy, the morning we picked up our books?'

Vaguely. Might be easier if I'd made it to school for a day.

'Costa. Costa Mavronas.' The name says it all. At least the way she says it.

'Let me guess. He's gorgeous?'

'Unbelievable!'

'I must be sicker than I thought. A gorgeous guy in the same room and I didn't notice?'

'Actually I didn't either at first. Not till I talked to him. It's his eyes; they're . . . ' 'Brown?'

She doesn't even realise that I'm taking the mickey. She actually shivers! This is serious; I've never seen her like it before. 'They're incredible. You have to meet him!'

'Jenny, I don't care how good friends we are—there's no way I'm meeting a gorgeous guy while I look like this. Not even the love of your life.'

If I give in to the pain, will the blackness suck me in? If I give in to the blackness, will the pain let me go?

I can't do much about the rest of me, but this hair is unbearable. I've got to wash it.

Maria says she'll do it. She lies me flat in my foam collar, my head at the foot of the bed. I hope she knows what she's doing: it'd be stupid to die for the sake of clean hair. But it's
so
dirty!

Maria is tiny and wiry with a faint moustache; she's a nurse's aid, not a sister. She washes my hair carefully, almost lovingly; dries it gently and styles with mousse and pride. I feel clean, new and fresh; for at least an hour I feel like a human being. Are there any new humiliations left? My period's early—and torrential. Blood floods onto the sheets, the floor, the shower; onto my new plaster cast. Ingenious Maria draws pictures with fat black texta, a house with a long path and flowers, to disguise the blood.

My mother told me once about her friend whose child had died. Standing there by his empty bed, she began to bleed, out of control, as if her body had opened to pour out grief. Can a uterus understand the death of a child, a child it nourished patiently, from seed to fish to babe? How could it not?

My mind flits from one disaster story to another, searching for meaning.

It's nearly time for my friends to come after school. I get what I need from my drawer and ask Busy Butt to take me to the toilet. She walks me across the hall and leaves me in privacy.

And doesn't return. I ring the bell, ring it again . . . go on waiting. The price of privacy.

When the door does finally open, it's still not a nurse. It's Caroline—Ruby's decided that I'm stranded and has sent her to collect me. As I wash my hands she says, 'Oh, Anna!'; wets a paper towel and dabs at my legs, at the unnoticed, unreachable trickle of blood.

If I say anything I'll cry. I'm too embarrassed to be grateful.

'That's what friends are for,' she says.

I don't know if I believe in you, God, but I'm so angry now that I'd rather think there was something there to hate. So angry: if you were here I'd spit in your face and tell you how I felt. You're a fraud
—
you trick people into worshipping you, you and your mercy are nothing but lies. I don't know what you think I did to deserve this, but I will never forgive you and never, never, stop hating you.

'A woman like that! Haunches on her like a working bullock!'

It's the middle of the night; the 'bollocks!' voice again. It hasn't woken anyone else. Maybe I dreamt it.

The bed in the corner creaks as the old woman tosses and mutters.

The nurses hate my frame, the nail-breaking clips, the responsibility of the wobbling head before it's braced; the nuisance of finding two nurses to do it at once. A new nurse is on this morning; she's done it before, nothing to it; she doesn't need a helper.

She whacks me across the neck with a red-hot branding iron.

I scream.

'Behave yourself!' she snaps. 'It barely touched you!'

She does up the final clip with a jerk to let me know who's boss.

The world turns black; I can't see. As it comes back I explode. Scream, shout, swear. Rage like this and I could spar with van Damme.

Tablet Sister comes in to see what the trouble is.

'I've bloody broken my neck!' I shout. 'Don't tell me it doesn't hurt!'

Ruby and Mrs Hogan begin to clap.

Apart from those mysterious midnight outbursts, the old woman in the corner hasn't woken since I've been here. Her son comes at lunchtime to spoon soup and custard into her mouth; she won't eat much for the nurses. If that's a choice, it's the only sign of life she gives. The last few nights I've woken to hear the nurses, clucking quietly, working by torchlight to wash her and change her sheets.

But tonight the sounds are different. There are no suppressed giggles or the occasional 'Oh, yuck!' that makes me try not to picture what they're cleaning. Curtains are pulled—mine, Ruby's and Mrs Hogan's—then whispered commands and the sound of wheels. When I wake again in the morning her bed is gone—and so is Mrs McPherson. I didn't even know her name till she died.

Shouldn't I be just a little bit shocked . . . sad . . .
something?
It'd be cold enough not to feel anything, but what I feel is worse—a superstitious feeling, as if death really is a Grim Reaper, out hunting to fill his quota for the night. What I feel is relief that he found the right person.

Plus a bit of frustration. Now I'll never find out about the woman with haunches like a working bullock.

Mum's found someone to work in the nursery. A friend's son who's just quit uni after two years of business studies; said it wasn't what he wanted out of life and came home to sort out what was.

Dad's not impressed. He wonders what had to be sorted out and why. And if Mum thinks that two years of business studies would actually make any difference to running a nursery, she'd better think again.

'Luke's okay,' says Mum. 'He's keen to work, and he's interested in plants.'

Dad snorts. 'You'd better check what kind.'

Dad's been so cranky since I've been here! It's not like him—Mr Conservative Accountant, maybe, but usually pretty tolerant underneath.

Valentine's Day. Hayden comes in after school and hands me a card. Not too mushy, just 'To my Valentine' with a picture of red roses—and inside, 'Love, Hayden.' Love. He stares out the window while I read it. He looks like a little boy when he's embarrassed. If I could reach I'd hug him.

'Thanks,' I say instead. 'It's nice.'

'When you get out of here . . when you're a bit better . . . do you want to go out?'

That'd be great.'
Now kiss me, go on!
No; no such luck. But he mustn't think I'm completely hideous if he wants to go out.

'There's a present too,' and out of his school bag—better than red roses—comes my trophy. A replacement, he explains; the Association has sent it up, via the club, via Hayden.

'The one you had was smashed,' he says. 'That must be how you wrecked your thumb.'

It stands proudly on my bedside table, gold among the flowers.

'I'd hate to see the guy that lost,' says the tea man.

I'm going home. In a wheelchair, with a neck brace, plaster, sling and occupational therapist Julie and only for a visit—but if I pass today, tomorrow I'll be home for good.

February air is hotter than I'd remembered; in the air-conditioned hospital I cover myself with blankets to stop the shivering, and the nurses wear cardigans. A smell of dust and roses wafts across the carpark; the world is bright and large, as if I've taken sunglasses off. (Was I wearing my sunnies? It was a hot, clear day, a little after four . . . Guess I'll need new ones.)

Julie drives slowly, with exaggerated care over the railway track and speed bumps, but I'm too excited to mind a bit more pain. A white car coming up on our left makes me hold my breath, but I'm not as nervous as I was afraid I might be. My dad's favourite saying: 'Nothing so frightening as fear itself.' But I'm okay. Six months and I'll be eighteen, with a licence and independence. One accident isn't going to change my life.

Dad's waiting in the driveway, looking a bit anxious and tired. I'd never realised he had so much grey in his hair—the worries of looking after other people's money.
It can't be about me, can it, this grey hair and crankiness?

He helps the OT lift the wheelchair out.

No, I say, let me walk.

Dad looks doubtful; Julie says please, she's responsible for my safety—and the path, rock slabs overgrown with thyme, is rough and narrow. I have to give in—'But I won't use it inside!'

Dad pushes me to the door, doing his best to avoid the bumps, yanking a piece of lavender out of the spokes and over the back fence as if it's to blame for everything from car accidents to world recession.

The heavy scent fills the air. Julie breathes in deeply, gazing out over the rockery and knot garden, down to the wattles shielding the river on the far side of the fence, 'It's a beautiful place.' I explain about my mother's herb nursery, grown from hobby to passion to business.

We reach the steps. One, two, three and I've made it, Dad and Julie hovering on either side. The lounge room, left untidy in the early morning rush, still looks fresh and new, bigger somehow, and welcoming. I'm ready to sit down.

The couch is too low. So are the chairs. I try to bend and it doesn't work.

'It's okay,' Julie says. 'You can still go home! We'll lend you a high armchair.'

With that—as well as a shower chair, a shower hose and non-slip mat, a raised toilet frame, a long-handled reacher, a bed cradle to keep the blankets off my sore feet, an angled bookboard so that I can read and write, and of course the wheelchair—I pass.

Tomorrow I can go home and stay home.

Mum arrives at the hospital right after breakfast. After she's packed she has a lesson in putting my frame on and taking it off; in sitting me up and lying me down.

I say goodbye to the new patient in Mrs Hogan's bed, wish Ruby all the best and leave her some of my flowers.

Mum signs me out, we're given tablets and an appointment card to see Mr Osman in a fortnight. Tablet Sister and Busy Butt wish me luck—and for a few moments I feel quite weepy, as if I'm leaving behind some significant part of my life. Maybe I am.

Finally I'm home. Mum and I celebrate with a cup of coffee and a chocolate cake; her face starts to relax. She's as glad to have me back as I am to be here. The house glows with peace, and quiet.

Mum puts me to bed for a nap; I could almost ask for my teddy. In my own bed, in my own room, I sleep for three hours.

C
HAPTER
4

'
H
ow come you've still got that thing on? I thought you'd be all better!'

'Matt, you're so
stupidl
We're supposed to be nice to Anna!'

'And how come they let you bring all those flowers home?'

'Because they're
her
flowers, idiot!'

'Bronwyn, stop calling your brother stupid!' Mum harassed, kids fighting—now I know I'm home.

'Can I have some in my room too?'

'Me too?'

'Okay—just not the carnations.' But they're not interested in Hayden's plain white flowers, they want the biggest, the brightest; the extra ribbons and bows. They choose and change, tearing from mantelpiece from windowsill—with a weird kind of slow-motion tiptoe past my chair—and whisk their prizes back to their own rooms.