Эндрю Миллер - Oxygen

She couldn’t move her right hand, then saw that Larry, sitting beside her on the edge of the bed, was holding it. And there, between his knees, was her granddaughter, solemn as a little Chinaman. Girl should be out in the garden, not stuck inside seeing things that would give her dreams. She asked who had bought the flowers. Alec nodded to Dennis Osbourne and she laughed, wheezed, coughed, and told the reverend that he was putting on weight and there was not the least hope of her going with him now, even if he dug up his entire garden. Samuel, she said (did she say it?), Samuel knew how to make a woman happy.

Finally, she turned to Brando and instructed him to make sure that everyone did as she asked, though rather rudely he talked across her to Una. She thought she might get very cross if he did that again. He was a foreigner, of course, really. A pastry chef. She said the funniest thing she had ever heard was Kenneth Horne in Round the Horne. Am I repeating myself? she asked. No, said Alec. Thank you, dear. She told him she didn’t mind him not coming to the hospital. You could die of sheer heartbreak in those places. And when you were too weak to make trouble, people did what they liked with you. She said she loved them all and would they please get out and come back later. Goodnight, she said, though it was still a little before midday, and when the curtains blew the light danced over the walls.

Larry walked Dr Brando to his car, a silver-blue Audi estate parked in the shade of the trees. He thanked him for coming. He asked: ‘What do you think?’

‘Well,’ said Brando, glancing at his watch, ‘she’s obviously a bit disorientated but that should settle down. I’m sure this business of speaking in French will pass too, though at least you have an expert on hand. How’s your French?’

‘I don’t,’ said Larry.

‘I’m sure Alec will pass on anything relevant.’

‘What comes next?’ asked Larry.

Brando had the key in the door of the car. When he turned it, the locks snapped up in unison. ‘It’s difficult to make predictions, Larry. Particularly at this stage. The tumours have been more aggressive than I’d hoped. A lot of it’s up to the individual, of course, though clearly she’s going to need an increasing amount of nursing care. Isn’t your wife coming over soon?’

‘Next week.’

‘So there’ll be another woman in the house. That’s good. Call me if there’s anything at all you want to discuss. And talk to Una. She knows her stuff. She’ll be able to give you plenty of good advice.’

‘OK,’ said Larry. He had other questions. About pain. About what exactly happened at the end. But the doctor was in a hurry and the questions would have to wait. He watched the car move up the drive with that big-car hum and crunch of gravel, then shut his eyes and turned his face to the sun. He was still struggling with the jet-lag. The previous evening, after speaking with Kirsty (‘Sure, sure. Everything’s just fine’), he had fallen into a profound sleep, only to wake two hours later and spend the remainder of the night listening to the labour of his heart and to his daughter mouth-breathing in the other bed. He knew he would be no use to anyone until he could relax, but he was working in a range of emotions the Xanax was not equipped for. He decided to run a bath. A long soak might unlace him a little, then perhaps he could nap for an hour and get some of this weight of sleep off his shoulders. He went back into the house, fetched his wash bag, and set off for the bathroom at the far end of the first-floor corridor. On the stairs – where he managed to avoid more than a fleeting glimpse of the PLEASE! spread – he met Ella and the reverend coming down. Evidently, Osbourne had shaved that morning without the use of a mirror. His throat was nicked and there was a little crust of dried shaving cream by his left ear. When Larry asked Ella what she wanted to do, she bunched her lips and shrugged. The reverend said he’d go into the garden with her and see whether there were any early cherries.

‘Got your inhaler, El?’ asked Larry.

She showed it to him.

‘OK.’ He tousled the girl’s hair. ‘Play nicely.’

On the landing, Alec was coming out of Alice’s room, pulling the door shut.

‘Una still with her?’ whispered Larry.

Alec nodded.

They moved away from the door towards the window that overlooked the garden.

‘What was she saying?’ asked Larry.

‘Una?’

‘Mum. All that French.’

‘A lot of things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as who brought the flowers. What it was like at the hospital. She said she wanted to go back to the old house. To Granny Wilcox’s.’

‘Wow. I don’t even remember how to get there. Do you?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘You think she’s well enough to go anywhere?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We practically had to carry her up the stairs.’

‘It’s what she wants.’

‘Does she know what she wants?’

‘You think you know better?’

‘Of course not. Jesus. No need to bite my head off.’ He almost said: She’s my mother too. Being back at home he suddenly felt about fourteen. ‘Maybe we should talk to Una about it. Brando says she knows her stuff.’

‘She does.’

Pause.

‘I’ll be in the summerhouse,’ said Alec.

‘Fine.’

‘She’s got a bell.’

‘I know.’

‘She said she was glad you’re back.’

‘Yeah. Me too.’

Passing the orchard, Alec heard the reverend counting.

‘Sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three…’

Ever since coming down from London he had longed for others to share the burden with him. Shield him. But now that they were here he found he missed the solitude of the week before when the garden’s great resource of quiet had begun to tease out something equivalent in himself, which now all these voices drove away. It made it hard to be civil. It certainly made it harder to think.

The air in the summerhouse was flat with heat and heavily scented with the honeysuckle. He left the door open and set the manuscript on the table by the window. On the shelf, where clay flowerpots had once been stored, he had put his dictionaries and other useful books, including copies of Sisyphus Rex and Flicker in the Eliard translations. His own effort had ground to a halt a third of the way through the second act. After Alice’s fit, which had taken on in his mind the dimensions of mythology, he had found it almost physically impossible to concentrate. It was like lying with his head below a finely suspended anvil, trying not to think of what would happen when it fell. He couldn’t do it. Not even a letter from Marcie Stoltz, forwarded by Mr Bequa, in which she confessed herself ‘intrigued’ to know how the work was progressing, had made any difference. Anything beyond the white front gate of Brooklands had a remoteness that beggared the imagination, though he thought Stoltz might start to phone (she had his number at the house), and he would have to start lying to her, saying how well it was going and how excited he was.

He polished his glasses with the tuck of his shirt, then took a pencil, sharpened it, and opened the manuscript:

Mineur un: J’ai revé de ce moment cent fois. Même quand j’étais éveillé.

Mineur deux: Et comment termine le rêve?

He didn’t think Larry understood a thing. Larry was thinking about Larry. Or about Kirsty or America or something. But not about Alice. Of course he cared, they all cared, but the others were just looking on, and that wasn’t enough. He didn’t believe any of them could see what he saw: the complete impossibility of letting it go on and on for weeks and months. But what could he do? Did he still believe in fairytales? In stumbling across a magic cure? He thought perhaps he did, and this seemed funny in an utterly bleak sort of way, and he was laughing to himself when Una tapped on the timber by the open door.