Chapter 30 PHYLLIDA
PHYLLIDA
As she entered the hospice grounds, a voice called to her from beyond the carpark. ‘G’day, Phylly!’
Tom Thompson was grinning and holding a can of what she presumed to be fuel, his foot on a push-mower.
‘Hello.’ The heaviness was all through her and her usual smile, the lift of her eyebrows, her face, even her hand, did not accompany the greeting. Tom hesitated, then put down the can.
‘What are you doing here?’ Tom worked as a gardener at various places around Bowral.
They attended the same garden club. He was a lovely person, married to a less lovely person.
Often the way, Phyllida thought. Not that Phyllida didn’t get along with Henrietta Thompson.
She made it her business to get along with everyone.
But Henrietta was someone who liked to find fault with things.
Henrietta and Tom had been on a cruise this last month, Phyllida recalled, and before that, two months in England, staying with their son who was a top investment banker and extremely successful, with a ‘pile’ (as Henrietta insisted on calling it) in St George’s Hill in Berkshire (pronounced ‘Bark-shuh’, Henrietta reminded everyone).
He was flying them business class, which you apparently got used to after the first time, and you simply could not go back.
Phyllida’s brain felt disconnected, as if she was watching a vignette of Tom and his wife in some other world where David was well, and Phyllida was repeating ‘Bark-shuh’ in her most elegantly modulated accent right back at Henrietta.
After all, Phyllida was English, and this fact pleased Henrietta no end, because all the best people were English, including the Queen, and for some reason Phyllida liked to please Henrietta, while at the same time chiding herself because she was probably, on some level, also poking fun at the woman. Because, really, who could resist?
Tom was waiting for her to speak. It seemed he had not heard about David, and she did not wish to have the conversation that was coming. ‘Was your cruise wonderful, Tom?’
‘Lovely.’ He didn’t elaborate and he was eyeing her curiously.
She knew that she was supposed to say something, but David was so ill and Tom and Henrietta’s cruise was of no interest to her, and yet some strange societal pull kept her rooted to the spot.
Some dreadful mannerly obligation to spend a minute, even when that minute was more precious than gold, and she knew this was idiocy.
Her mind was blank. She had snatched a few hours of sleep, had hurried to get back here, to take over from Miriam.
Phyllida had witnessed Miriam’s deep care for David in these last few months.
Her devotion, as her stomach grew and the pair made plans for how their baby would be raised.
Until a few days ago, when he still had the energy, David had insisted on placing both his hands on Miriam’s belly whenever she came into the room, and the intimacy of the gesture moved Phyllida.
Her son wanted to feel the baby kick. They thought it would be a boy.
They would call him Charles. A lovely, strong name, they agreed.
Phyllida sensed it would be a girl, though had no intention of voicing the thought.
But that discussion about baby names was a full week ago, a lifetime ago, when David could still walk unassisted to the bathroom.
He was showing no signs of recovery, even though modern medicine was so advanced, and her herbal remedies had been religiously dished up and she had prayed and prayed, to God and Allah and Shiva and Apollo.
All gods were welcome to contribute, because who knew how miracles worked?
She had not given up, but she needed to hurry. ‘David is in there.’
‘What? Your boy?’
‘Yes.’ She looked down at her feet and noticed that for some inexplicable reason she was wearing her gardening shoes.
She hadn’t gardened for weeks. There was a surreal sense of detachment, a numbness, so that she was not herself and yet she walked and stood as if she were her ordinary self.
She had walked through the tulip gardens to get here and thought about all those times David had run around those gardens as a boy each September or October, and all the photographs of him in the climbing tree in those gardens, or holding fairy floss during the tulip festival.
Photos with grins and poked-out tongues and then acne as the years went on, until fairy floss was no longer cool and he wouldn’t pose anymore.
That was when he was fifteen, which was when everyone said they were difficult—and that was barely yesterday for goodness’ sake.
God help her, it was moments or minutes later now, and Tom was still staring at her while her beautiful boy was wasting away.
‘He’s sick?’ said Tom, frowning, a fleeting panic in his eyes as he realised this was not the conversation he expected.
And that perhaps he was ill-equipped for such a conversation.
Henrietta took care of their conversations.
Tom was the backup. He fetched the tea. Henrietta would know what to say. Tom had no clue.
Phyllida looked at her shoes again and realised the caked-on dirt from her garden might be a problem, because of germs, which might be fatal to the people inside the hospice where her son was lying, and then she almost laughed except her breath fell out of her.
Her mouth was dry so that thick spittle coated her tongue, making her words sound strange. ‘I need to go in.’
He nodded, this near stranger from her garden club, whom she saw just a few times a year. ‘I’m sorry, Phyllida.’
She nodded back at him, and for some reason she could not explain, she reached out and took his hand.
‘You are a good man, Tom Thompson.’ Her eyes flooded with tears as his warm, weathered hand squeezed hers.
Deep brown eyes, unwavering. She felt the rough hands, was returned to childhood, to the steady wisdom of her grandmother in that dark shed; the love of a silent heart.
And for some reason she didn’t have time to ponder now, she felt less alone.