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Authors: Tessa Hadley
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brakings. Behind the sternness of his back in its dark hot serge, the girls sat basking in the miracle of their new costumes, which were hardly wet, and which they somehow knew he both wanted and didnât want to look at.
Two
One Friday in November, Kay was hot and whining and clung to Lil. In the evening she was worse, and when they telephoned the doctor and described her symptoms he told them to take her straight to the hospital. Uncle Dick drove; Vera sat in the front seat, and the other children saw Lil put Kay into her arms, wrapped in one of the American quilts. They felt the drama of the occasion, but it did not occur to them that Kay would not come back. Just after the car had driven off they found her bit of old sucky blanket lying on the kitchen floor, and Martin ran with it along the lane after the car, but theyâd turned onto the road before he could catch up with them. Peter even clowned around after theyâd gone, pretending he was ill too, looking up his sleeves and inside his shorts and claiming that each tiny freckle was a rash, squealing and insisting that Lil come to see it, until she rounded on him, asking him if he didnât have any heart. He then undid his shirt and pretended to look anxiously for it.
Lil got undressed and went to bed eventually, after sitting by the telephone for a couple of hours; this was a kind of endurance in itself, as she feared the thing and hated using it, never knowing which bit she was supposed to speak into (even though Uncle Dick had had it put in for her, so she could place her orders for the delivery vans). It was Joyce who heard the telephone ringing in the deep middle of the night and stumbled downstairs in the dark and then stood with the receiver to her ear in the front room, standing on one leg and then the other because the cold flowing into her bare feet from the stone flags was unendurable.
âWeâve lost her, her aunt said, muffled and different at the other end of the line; and confusedly Joyce thought for a moment she meant it literally, that somehow in the confusion and immensity of the hospital, where Joyce had never been, it might be easy to mislay a little girl, particularly one as stubbornly silent and inconspicuous as Kay.
Lil had heard the telephone too and had followed Joyce down the dark stairs more cautiously. Now she was scratching matches, trying to light a candle.
âTell your mother we lost her, Aunt Vera was saying angrily.
A match flared up and illuminated Lilâs face just as she heard. Mutely Joyce proffered her the telephone, but Lil waved it off.
âI canât, I canât talk to her, she hissed, shaking her head. The match went out.
They stood in a cold dark silence, the sulfur smell livid on the air between them. Joyce understood that this was not just her motherâs usual fear of the phone. Lil was thinking that if sheâd been there with Kay, sheâd have prevented this, sheâd have held it off somehow. It was the way Vera was, so full of opinions, so determined to be different, that brought on catastrophe.
âIs she there? demanded Vera.
âIâll go and tell her.
âIt was meningitis. The doctors gave her antipyretic drugs and antispasmodics. There was nothing they could do to save her. They keep them in the dark, because the light hurts them. I was holding ice to the back of her neck, to help the pain, and then she slipped away. They were bringing the serum from the infirmary to inject her with and the nurse had to tell them sheâd gone. About an hour ago. Weâve been sitting with her, your uncle and I.
âAll right, Iâll tell her.
Joyce couldnât begin to find anything appropriate to say to her aunt: she felt herself a strangely neutral quantity, as if she didnât count, in relation to this disaster. After she hung the receiver back on the telephone, she and Lil went on standing in the dark. Lil gave off an intense heatâshe was always
Two
One Friday in November, Kay was hot and whining and clung to Lil. In the evening she was worse, and when they telephoned the doctor and described her symptoms he told them to take her straight to the hospital. Uncle Dick drove; Vera sat in the front seat, and the other children saw Lil put Kay into her arms, wrapped in one of the American quilts. They felt the drama of the occasion, but it did not occur to them that Kay would not come back. Just after the car had driven off they found her bit of old sucky blanket lying on the kitchen floor, and Martin ran with it along the lane after the car, but theyâd turned onto the road before he could catch up with them. Peter even clowned around after theyâd gone, pretending he was ill too, looking up his sleeves and inside his shorts and claiming that each tiny freckle was a rash, squealing and insisting that Lil come to see it, until she rounded on him, asking him if he didnât have any heart. He then undid his shirt and pretended to look anxiously for it.
Lil got undressed and went to bed eventually, after sitting by the telephone for a couple of hours; this was a kind of endurance in itself, as she feared the thing and hated using it, never knowing which bit she was supposed to speak into (even though Uncle Dick had had it put in for her, so she could place her orders for the delivery vans). It was Joyce who heard the telephone ringing in the deep middle of the night and stumbled downstairs in the dark and then stood with the receiver to her ear in the front room, standing on one leg and then the other because the cold flowing into her bare feet from the stone flags was unendurable.
âWeâve lost her, her aunt said, muffled and different at the other end of the line; and confusedly Joyce thought for a moment she meant it literally, that somehow in the confusion and immensity of the hospital, where Joyce had never been, it might be easy to mislay a little girl, particularly one as stubbornly silent and inconspicuous as Kay.
Lil had heard the telephone too and had followed Joyce down the dark stairs more cautiously. Now she was scratching matches, trying to light a candle.
âTell your mother we lost her, Aunt Vera was saying angrily.
A match flared up and illuminated Lilâs face just as she heard. Mutely Joyce proffered her the telephone, but Lil waved it off.
âI canât, I canât talk to her, she hissed, shaking her head. The match went out.
They stood in a cold dark silence, the sulfur smell livid on the air between them. Joyce understood that this was not just her motherâs usual fear of the phone. Lil was thinking that if sheâd been there with Kay, sheâd have prevented this, sheâd have held it off somehow. It was the way Vera was, so full of opinions, so determined to be different, that brought on catastrophe.
âIs she there? demanded Vera.
âIâll go and tell her.
âIt was meningitis. The doctors gave her antipyretic drugs and antispasmodics. There was nothing they could do to save her. They keep them in the dark, because the light hurts them. I was holding ice to the back of her neck, to help the pain, and then she slipped away. They were bringing the serum from the infirmary to inject her with and the nurse had to tell them sheâd gone. About an hour ago. Weâve been sitting with her, your uncle and I.
âAll right, Iâll tell her.
Joyce couldnât begin to find anything appropriate to say to her aunt: she felt herself a strangely neutral quantity, as if she didnât count, in relation to this disaster. After she hung the receiver back on the telephone, she and Lil went on standing in the dark. Lil gave off an intense heatâshe was always
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