Etiquette for a Dinner Party (5 page)

Two days before the race, he took Velocity to meet the pigeon truck. She was safely tucked in her travel hamper, sufficient food and water for the long journey south. Once he'd handed her over, he raced home, hitched the caravan to the ute and took off.

I know, I know — crazy, stupid plan.

Turns out he could run but he couldn't hide. Velocity had spent enough time eyeing up that caravan through the chicken wire of her loft to bond with it, or whatever it is those racing pigeons do. When she arrived home from Invercargill and found no one there, she simply followed State Highway One north until she spotted the caravan.

'Did you know that racing pigeons actually follow, from the air, roads that they have already travelled on by car or truck?' Jack asked me. 'That they will take left and right turns directly above the roads?'

'No,' I said, 'I didn't know that.'

So, that first day of playing fugitive, Jack woke up in a camping ground on the outskirts of Cambridge to find Velocity sitting on the bonnet of his ute.

He tried again. And again. He'd drop that bird off in Whangarei, run for Auckland. She'd track him down.

To this day, she tracks him down.

I've told Jack to bring Velocity with him sometime, when he's coming through Tirau. Told him I wouldn't mind seeing the little bird again, holding her tightly in my hands. He just does the Hugh Grant thing on me when I suggest it.

Never mind. It's always nice to see him, when he passes through.

Mrs Harrison is dying. She has cancer in her brain, stomach and throat. Possibly other places.

Her body is shutting down, her organs are failing. First dehydration set in, then her kidneys stopped functioning. After that, her liver. Her heart will be last to go.

Her death has been under way for five days, although the cancer is much older than that.

She is asleep in her hospital bed, her head propped up on bloated white pillows. A sheet covers her, up to her armpits. She wears a pale pink nightie, broderie anglaise trimming pure cotton. The straps of the nightie are thin strips of plaited satin.

Mrs Harrison is a widow and seventy-nine years old. The lines on her face look like furrows in a field. Her false teeth have been removed to reduce the discomfort of gum abscesses. This has given her supermodel cheekbones, but her lips have fallen into her mouth.

Her sun spotted arms lie uncovered on the bed, and her hands, stripped of their rings, rest on the sheet. A small clear plastic gadget is attached to her nostrils, and a tube runs from the gadget to a plug in the wall behind the bed. Above the plug, on an adhesive label, is the word OXYGEN.

The hospital room is small but sunny. There is enough space around Mrs Harrison's bed for three armchairs and a long bench stool. One of the armchairs is a recliner, used as a bed by whoever stays the night. French doors open out onto a long veranda running the length of the wing. Beyond the veranda, the grounds resemble a park. .

Mrs Harrison's overweight, middle-aged son Ewan is asleep in the chair; awkwardly foetal, a blanket fallen to one side. The chair's footrest is broken and it slips downwards when extended. He and his sister June take turns to stay with their mother overnight. One or both of them have been here at all times during the last five days and nights.

The room is cluttered — there are supermarket plastic bags of biscuits, fruit, bottles of lemonade and juice. Mrs Harrison's friends, who are also elderly, bring books and food and drink when they visit. They think she can still sit up in bed and read. Eat and drink. They get frightened when they see the state of her. They quietly shove the bags of food into corners and under chairs, wherever there is a space. They stay for the shortest time possible without appearing rude. Generally they visit only once.

There are plastic dishes with leftover Thai takeaways in them, grubby plastic spoons and forks sitting on the dishes. The air smells of garlic, lemongrass, orange peel, disinfectant and Ewan's body odour. Mrs Harrison emits no discernible smell.

Mrs Harrison's breathing is of her own effort. The oxygen is an aid, not a necessity. The white sheet across her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. She has been given the maximum amount of morphine possible to ease the pain without killing her.

Some time during the night an uninformed nurse has arranged Mrs Harrison's grey hair into an awkward do. If that nurse had been on duty when Mrs Harrison was admitted, she would have seen how her hair should be brushed. Parted on the other side, then flicked back off her face. .

Ewan wakes and sits up. The recliner chair creaks as he manoeuvres on to his side. He props himself up on one elbow and looks at his mother, frowns at her hair. Her chest rises and falls, rises and falls beneath the white sheet.

She sleeps on.

He slides forward off the chair, catching his shin on the broken footrest. 'Shit,' he mutters. His heel pushes the footrest in as he stands, stretches, and stumbles towards the door. He needs the toilet and he has a headache from the stale air.

Before he leaves the room, he checks the white sheet again. Waits to see it rise and fall before he steps out into the blue-white light of the hospital corridor.

He is surprised to see that it is just after nine in the morning, that he has slept so long. He would like a coffee. But he is afraid to stay away too long.

Ewan returns and his mother snores just once: a grunty, horsy snort. He holds his breath. Then he checks the white sheet.

Up, down.

Ewan reaches for his mother's hairbrush from the bedside table. It is still dark in the room, but he gently brushes her hair back off her face, then across to where it wants to go. Dragged through a hedge backwards, that's how his mother would describe the look of it brushed the other way.

A nurse bustles in, pulls back the curtains and opens the French doors.

'And how are we this fine morning!' she singsongs. 'Any change?'

Ewan is caught mid-stroke, the hairbrush waving in the air like a conductor's baton. He blushes, startled by her jolly irreverence.

'No,' he whispers. 'Just the same. She's still sleeping.'

'Right you are then,' the cheerful nurse says. 'I'll come back soon and give her a wash.'

'Thanks,' he says.

He knows there is little point to quiet tones and darkened rooms. They are waiting for someone to die, not to get better.

But still.

The nurse returns with a large stainless steel bowl and an armload of towels.

'Right then, let's bath you, Mrs Harrison,' she says. 'Why don't you pop out and get some fresh air, Mr Harrison?'

'You'll call me back when you're done?' he asks.

'Of course.' .

June is tall — about six foot — and a strong woman; she has an air of capability about her. She wears dark-rimmed glasses that make her look like Nana Mouskouri. She has brought her three children, Luke, Hannah and Josh. They are visiting their grandmother in hospital for the first and last time.

The children grab and hold on to their mother. They stare at the woman on the bed. At a person they have been told is their grandmother, but who looks like someone that's had the insides of her face sucked out. June pulls one of the armchairs out of the way, then picks up the long bench seat and lifts it to the bedside. She sits on the end nearest her mother and the children slide in next to her.

Luke and Hannah watch their grandmother sleeping. They begin to understand that this is what dying looks like, and they start to cry. The tears roll down their cheeks but they stay quiet, as they have been told to.

Josh, who is three, stares too. His little face creases in concern, then he leaps off the end of the seat and runs to the other side of the bed.

'Wake up Gran,' he shouts. 'It's us. We're here.' He prods at the tissue-paper skin of his grandmother's arm.

Ewan grabs the little boy as he tries to clamber on to the bed, and wrestles him into an armchair.

'Shush now Josh, your Gran's asleep.'

'Is she tired?' Josh stares on.

'Yes. Very tired.'

They watch the white sheet rise and fall some more. .

'Any change?' June asks Ewan.

'No, she had a good night. Slept through.'

'Has she woken at all?'

'No.'

'That's good then. She's getting plenty of rest.' .

After a time.

'Has a doctor been in?'

'No. Just the nurses. She's had a wash.' .

'I'm hungry,' says Josh. .

'Did you get much sleep?' June asks Ewan.

'Not bad. Cold though. Colder than the other nights.'