Room: A Novel

by Emma Donoghue

  I don’t see the nurses.

  “But my other T-shirts—” They’re in Dresser, in the lower drawer. They were yesterday so I guess they are now too. But is Room still there when we’re not in it?

  “We’ll figure something out,” says Ma. She’s at the window, she’s made the wooden stripes go more apart and there’s lots of light.

  “How you did that?” I run over, the table hits my leg bam.

  She rubs it better. “With the string, see? It’s the cord of the blind.”

  “Why it’s—?”

  “It’s the cord that opens and closes the blind,” she says. “This is a window blind, it’s called a blind — I guess because it stops you seeing.” “Why it stops me seeing?”

  “I mean you as in anyone.”

  Why I am as in anyone?

  “It stops people looking in or out,” says Ma.

  But I’m looking out, it’s like TV. There’s grass and trees and a bit of a white building and three cars, a blue and a brown and a silver with stripey bits. “On the grass—”

  “What?”

  “Is that a vulture?”

  “It’s just a crow, I think.”

  “Another one—”

  “That’s a, a what-do-you-call-it, a pigeon. Early Alzheimer’s! OK, let’s get cleaned up.”

  “We haven’t had breakfast,” I tell her.

  “We can do that after.”

  I shake my head. “Breakfast comes before bath.”

  “It doesn’t have to, Jack.”

  “But—”

  “We don’t have to do the same as we used to,” says Ma, “we can do what we like.”

  “I like breakfast before bath.”

  But she’s gone around a corner and I can’t see her, I run after. I find her in another little room inside this one, the floor’s turned into shiny cold white squares and the walls are gone white too. There’s a toilet that’s not Toilet and a sink that’s twice the big of Sink and a tall invisible box that must be a shower like TV persons splash in. “Where’s the bath hiding?”

  “There’s no bath.” Ma bangs the front of the box sideways so it’s open. She takes off her paper dress and crumples it up in a basket that I think is a trash, but it hasn’t got a lid that goes ding. “Let’s get rid of that filthy thing too.” My T-shirt pulls my face coming off. She scrunches it up and throws it in the trash.

  “But—”

  “It’s a rag.”

  “It’s not, it’s my T-shirt.”

  “You’ll get another, lots of them.” I can hardly hear her because she’s switched on the shower, all crashy. “Come on in.” “I don’t know how.”

  “It’s lovely, I promise.” Ma waits. “OK, then, I won’t be long.” She steps in and starts closing the invisible door.

  “No.”

  “I’ve got to, or the water will spill out.”

  “No.”

  “You can watch me through the glass, I’m right here.” She slides it bang, I can’t see her anymore except blurry, not like the real Ma but some ghost that makes weird sounds.

  I hit it, I can’t figure out the way, then I do and I slam it open.

  “Jack—”

  “I don’t like when you’re in and I’m out.”

  “Then get on in here.”

  I’m crying.

  Ma wipes my face with her hand, that spreads the tears. “Sorry,” she says, “sorry. I guess I’m moving too fast.” She gives me a hug that wets me all down me. “There’s nothing to cry about anymore.”

  When I was a baby I only cried for a good reason. But Ma going in the shower and shutting me on the wrong side, that’s a good reason.

  This time I come in, I stand flat against the glass but I still get splashed. Ma puts her face into the noisy waterfall, she makes a long groan.

  “Are you hurting?” I shout.

  “No, I’m just trying to enjoy my first shower in seven years.”

  There’s a tiny packet that says Shampoo, Ma opens it with her teeth, she’s using it all up so there’s nearly none left. She waters her hair for ages and puts on more stuff from another little packet that says Conditioner for making silky. She wants to do mine but I don’t want to be silky, I won’t put my face in the splash. She washes me with her hands because there’s no cloth. There’s bits of my legs gone purple from where I jumped out of the brown truck ages ago. My cuts hurt everywhere, especially on my knee under my Dora and Boots Band-Aid that’s going curly, Ma says that means the cut’s getting better. I don’t know why hurting means getting better.

  There’s a super thick white towel we can use each, not one to share. I’d rather share but Ma says that’s silly. She wraps another third towel around her head so it’s all huge and pointy like an icecream cone, we laugh.

  I’m thirsty. “Can I have some now?”

  “Oh, in a little while.” She holds out a big thing to me, with sleeves and a belt like a costume. “Wear this robe for now.” “But it’s a giant’s.”

  “It’ll do.” She folds up the sleeves till they’re shorter and all puffy. She smells different, I think it’s the conditioner. She ties the robe around my middle. I lift up the long bits to walk. “Ta-da,” she says, “King Jack.”

  She gets another robe just the same out of the wardrobe that’s not Wardrobe, it goes down just to her ankles.

  “ ‘I will be king, diddle diddle, you can be queen,’ ” I sing.

  Ma’s all pink and grinning, her hair is black from being wet. Mine is back in ponytail but tangledy because there’s no Comb, we left him in Room. “You should have brung Comb,” I tell her.

  “Brought,” she says. “Remember, I was kind of in a hurry to see you.”

  “Yeah, but we need it.”

  “That old plastic comb with half its teeth snapped off? We need it like a hole in the head,” she says.

  I find my socks beside the bed, I’m putting them on but Ma says stop because they’re all filthy from the street when I ran and ran and with holes in. She throws them in the trash too, she’s wasting everything.

  “But Tooth, we forgot him.” I run to get the socks out of the trash and I find Tooth in the second one.

  Ma rolls her eyes.

  “He’s my friend,” I tell her, putting Tooth in the pocket in my robe. I’m licking my teeth because they feel funny. “Oh no, I didn’t brush after the lollipop.” I press them hard with my fingers so they won’t fall out, but not the bitten finger.

  Ma shakes her head. “It wasn’t a real one.”

  “It tasted real.”

  “No, I mean it was sugarless, they make them with a kind of not-real sugar that’s not bad for your teeth.”

  That’s confusing. I point at the other bed. “Who sleeps there?”

  “It’s for you.”

  “But I sleep with you.”

  “Well, the nurses didn’t know that.” Ma’s staring out the window. Her shadow’s all long across the soft gray floor, I never saw such a long one. “Is that a cat in the parking lot?”

  “Let’s see.” I run to look but my eyes don’t find it.

  “Will we go explore?”

  “Where?”

  “Outside.”

  “We’re in Outside already.”

  “Yeah, but let’s go out in the fresh air and look for the cat,” says Ma.

  “Cool.”

  She finds us two pairs of slippers but they don’t fit me so I’m falling over, she says I can be barefoot for now. When I look out the window again, a thing zooms up near the other cars, it’s a van that says The Cumberland Clinic.

  “What if he comes?” I whisper.

  “Who?”

  “Old Nick, if he comes in his truck.” I was nearly forgetting him, how could I be forgetting him?

  “Oh, he couldn’t, he doesn’t know where we are,” says Ma.

  “Are we a secret again?”

  “Kind of, but the good kind.”

  Beside the bed there’s a — I know what it is, it’s a phone
. I lift the top bit, I say, “Hello,” but nobody’s talking, only a sort of hum.

  “Oh, Ma, I didn’t have some yet.”

  “Later.”

  Everything’s backwards today.

  Ma does the door handle and makes a face, it must be her bad wrist. She does it with the other hand. We go out in a long room with yellow walls and windows all along and doors the other side. Every wall’s a different color, that must be the rule. Our door is the door that says Seven all gold. Ma says we can’t go in the other doors because they belong to other persons.

  “What other persons?”

  “We haven’t met them yet.”

  Then how does she know? “Can we look out the sideways windows?”

  “Oh, yeah, they’re for anyone.”

  “Is anyone us?”

  “Us and anyone else,” says Ma.

  Anyone else isn’t there so it’s just us. There’s no blind on these windows to stop seeing. It’s a different planet, it shows more other cars like green and white and a red one and a stony place and there’s things walking that are persons. “They’re tiny, like fairies.”

  “Nah, that’s just because they’re far away,” Ma says.

  “Are they real for real?”

  “As real as you and me.”

  I try and believe it but it’s hard work.

  There’s one woman that’s not really one, I can tell because she’s gray, she’s a statue and all naked.

  “Come on,” says Ma, “I’m starving.”

  “I’m just—”

  She pulls me by the hand. Then we can’t go anymore because there’s stairs down, lots of them. “Hold on to the banister.” “The what?”

  “This thing here, the rail.”

  I do.

  “Climb down one step at a time.”

  I’m going to fall. I sit down.

  “OK, that works too.”

  I go on my butt, one step then another then another and the giant robe comes loose. A big person rushes up the steps quick quick like she’s flying, but she’s not, she’s a real human all in white. I put my face on Ma’s robe to be not seen. “Oh,” says the she, “you should have buzzed—”

  Like bees?

  “The buzzer right by your bed?”

  “We managed,” Ma tells her.

  “I’m Noreen, let me get you a couple of fresh masks.”

  “Oh sorry, I forgot,” says Ma.

  “Sure, why don’t I bring them up to your room?”

  “That’s OK, we’re coming down.”

  “Grand. Jack, will I page an aide to carry you down the stairs?”

  I don’t understand, I put my face away again.

  “It’s OK,” says Ma, “he’s doing it his way.”

  I go on my butt down the next eleven. At the bottom Ma ties up my robe again so we’re still the king and the queen like “Lavender’s Blue.” Noreen gives me another mask I have to wear, she says she’s a nurse and she comes from another place called Ireland and she likes my ponytail. We go in a huge bit that has all tables, I never saw so many with plates and glasses and knives and one of them stabs me in the tummy, one table I mean. The glasses are invisible like ours but the plates are blue, that’s disgusting.

  It’s like a TV planet that’s all about us, persons saying “Good morning” and “Welcome to the Cumberland” and “Congratulations,” I don’t know for what. Some are in robes the exact as ours and some in pajamas and some in different uniforms. Most are huge but don’t have long of hair like us, they move fast and they’re suddenly on all the sides, even behind. They walk up close and have so many teeth, they smell wrong. A he with a beard all over says, “Well, buddy, you’re some kind of hero.” That’s me he means. I don’t look.

  “How’re you liking the world so far?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Pretty nice?”

  I nod. I hold on tight to Ma’s hand but my fingers are slipping, they’ve wet themselves. She’s swallowing some pills Noreen gives her.

  I know one head high up with a fuzzy small hair, that’s Dr. Clay with no mask on. He shakes Ma’s hand with his white plastic one and he asks if we slept well.

  “I was too wired,” says Ma.

  Other uniformy persons walk up, Dr. Clay says names but I don’t understand them. One has curves of hair that’s all gray and she’s called the Director of the Clinic that means the boss but she laughs and says not really, I don’t know what’s the joke.

  Ma’s pointing me a chair to sit beside her. There’s the most amazing thing at the plate, it’s silver and blue and red, I think it’s an egg but not a real one, a chocolate.

  “Oh, yeah, Happy Easter,” says Ma, “it totally slipped my mind.”

  I hold the pretend egg in my hand. I never knowed the Bunny came in buildings.

  Ma’s put her mask down on her neck, she’s drinking juice that’s a funny color. She puts my mask up on my head so I can try the juice but there’s invisible bits in it like germs going down my throat so I cough it back in the glass real quiet. There’s anyones too near eating strange squares with little squares all over and curly bacons. How can they let the food go on the blue plates and get all color on? It does smell yummy but too much and my hands are slippy again, I put the Easter back in the exactly middle of the plate. I rub my hands on the robe but not my bitten finger. The knives and forks are wrong too, there’s no white on the handle, just the metal, that must hurt.

  The persons are with huge eyes, they have all faces different shapes with some mustaches and dangling jewels and painted bits. “No kids,” I whisper to Ma.

  “What’s that?”

  “Where are the kids?”

  “I don’t think there are any.”

  “You said there was millions in Outside.”

  “The clinic’s only a little piece of the world,” says Ma. “Drink your juice. Hey, look, there’s a boy over there.”

  I peek where she points, but he’s long like a man with nails in his nose and his chin and his over-eyes. Maybe he’s a robot?

  Ma drinks a brown steaming stuff, then she makes a face and puts it down. “What would you like?” she asks.

  The Noreen nurse is right beside me, I jump. “There’s a buffet,” she says, “you could have, let’s see, waffles, omelet, pancakes. .” I whisper, “No.”

  “You say, No, thanks,” says Ma, “that’s good manners.”

  Persons not friends of mine watching at me with invisible rays zap, I put my face against Ma.

  “What d’you fancy, Jack?” asks Noreen. “Sausage, toast?”

  “They’re looking,” I tell Ma.

  “Everybody’s just being friendly.”

  I wish they’d stop.

  Dr. Clay’s here again too, he leans near us. “This must be kind of overwhelming for Jack, for you both. Maybe a little ambitious for day one?” What’s Day One?

  Ma puffs her breath. “We wanted to see the garden.”

  No, that was Alice.

  “There’s no rush,” he says.

  “Have a few bites of something,” she tells me. “You’ll feel better if you drink your juice at least.”

  I shake my head.

  “Why don’t I make up a couple of plates and bring them up to your room?” says Noreen.

  Ma snaps her mask back over her nose. “Come on, then.”

  She’s mad, I think.

  I hold on to the chair. “What about the Easter?”

  “What?”

  I point.

  Dr. Clay swipes the egg and I nearly shout. “There you go,” he says, he drops it into the pocket of my robe.

  The stairs are more harder going up so Ma carries me.

  Noreen says, “Let me, can I?”

  “We’re fine,” says Ma, nearly shouting.

  Ma shuts our door Number Seven all tight after Noreen’s gone. We can take the masks off when it’s just us, because we have the same germs. Ma tries to open the window, she bangs it, but it won’t.

  �
�Can I have some now?”

  “Don’t you want your breakfast?”

  “After.”

  So we lie down and I have some, the left, it’s yummy.

  Ma says the plates aren’t a problem, the blue doesn’t go on the food, she gets me to rub it with my finger to see. Also the forks and knives, the metal feels weird with no white handles but it doesn’t actually hurt. There’s a syrup that’s to put on the pancakes but I don’t want mine wet. I have a bit of all the foods and everything are good except the sauce on the scrambled eggs. The chocolate one, the Easter, it’s meltedy inside. It’s double more chocolatier than the chocolates we got sometimes for Sundaytreat, it’s the best thing I ever ate.

  “Oh! We forgot to say thanks to Baby Jesus,” I tell Ma.

  “We’ll say it now, he doesn’t mind if we’re late.”

  Then I do a huge burp.

  Then we go back to sleep.

  • • •

  When the door knocks, Ma lets Dr. Clay in, she puts her mask back on and mine. He’s not very scary now. “How’re you doing, Jack?” “OK.”

  “Gimme five?”

  His plastic hand is up and he’s waggling his fingers, I pretend I don’t see. I’m not going to give him my fingers, I need them for me.

  He and Ma talk about stuff like why she can’t get to sleep, tachycardia and re-experiencing. “Try these, just one before bed,” he says, writing something on his pad. “And anti-inflammatories might work better for your toothache. .”

  “Can I please hold on to my medications instead of the nurses doling them out like I’m a sick person?”

  “Ah, that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you don’t leave them lying around your room.”

  “Jack knows not to mess with pills.”

  “Actually I was thinking of a few of our patients who’ve got histories of substance abuse. Now, for you, I’ve got a magic patch.” “Jack, Dr. Clay’s talking to you,” says Ma.

  The patch is to put on my arm that makes a bit of it feel not there. Also he’s brought cool shades to wear when it’s too bright in the windows, mine are red and Ma’s are black. “Like rap stars,” I tell her. They go darker if we’ll be in the outside of Outside and lighter if we’ll be in the inside of Outside. Dr. Clay says my eyes are super sharp but they’re not used to looking far away yet, I need to stretch them out the window. I never knowed there were muscles inside my eyes, I put my fingers to press but I can’t feel them.