Room for a Stranger

by Melanie Cheng

  ‘I’ve learnt to speak Australian English in this waiting room,’ Ash said. ‘I’ve learnt a couple of words in Italian, Arabic and Mandarin too.’

  Meg looked at the boy’s thick lashes and brown skin. Curious, she asked, ‘Is Ash short for something?’

  ‘Ashmal. It means perfect.’ Ash waved a hand over his face. ‘I’m Indian.’

  She wondered if he’d chosen the anglicised nickname or if it had been chosen for him. ‘I’m Margaret,’ she said. ‘A friend told me it means pearl.’

  Ashmal’s face lit up. ‘I love pearls. I’m doing honours in zoology at university. Molluscs are my specialty.’

  Meg smiled, fascinated by this young man whose interests included molluscs and talking to people.

  ‘Do you know how pearls are formed?’ he asked, sitting up.

  Of course she did, but she shook her head—he seemed so thrilled at the prospect of educating her.

  ‘It all starts with a foreign body. A parasite, a bit of grit. The mollusc creates a layer of cells around the intruder, which eventually calcifies to form the pearl.’ Ashmal’s eyes glistened as he spoke.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t it? Something so beautiful from something so small and accidental.’

  Just then Meg heard a nurse call her name. Flustered, she stood up and walked off. It was only when she reached the nurse that she realised she’d forgotten to say goodbye to Ashmal. She turned to wave, but when she glanced back through the double doors he was already chatting to somebody else.

  The nurse ushered Meg into a small room with a painting of yellow tulips on the wall. She pointed to a couch beneath the painting and Meg sat down.

  ‘Can I get you something? A cup of tea?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Meg couldn’t remember the hospital staff being so forthcoming with hot beverages when her mother was dying. Perhaps this was a new thing—a cheap and easy way of improving scores on some annual hospital survey.

  The nurse regarded her with sympathetic eyes. ‘I’ll get one of the doctors.’

  Meg had spent time in these ‘family rooms’ before. They were horrible places—a kind of badly furnished limbo. She braced herself for the worst.

  When the doctor arrived, he looked about Andy’s age, but was probably much older. By then Meg was feeling steely. She listened politely to the doctor’s preamble. He was like a taller and more confident version of Andy. His voice was steady, but there were tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip. She wondered if this was the first time he’d had to break bad news to a patient. She imagined a senior doctor sending him forth with a militant slap on the back—a young soldier on a mission.

  ‘We gave him something to reverse the effects of the overdose. But he’s still very sedated. And we’re running some tests on his lungs. He’s been a little difficult to ventilate.’

  Meg exhaled. Andy was alive.

  ‘What I wanted to clarify with you, Mrs Hughes, is Andy’s home situation.’

  ‘He rents a room in my home. I’m the owner.’

  ‘And do you know anything about his family?’

  ‘The agency handles all that.’

  ‘And do you have the details of the agency?’

  Meg pulled her wallet from her handbag. She found the agency’s business card and handed it to the doctor. As she did so, she felt a tremendous relief, both that Andy was alive and that she wouldn’t have to call the agency herself.

  The doctor scribbled the phone number on his clipboard. He seemed more relaxed too, perhaps pleased that his task was nearly complete. ‘Do you have any questions?’

  ‘What do you mean, difficult to ventilate?’

  The doctor’s smooth brow became furrowed again. ‘I mean that we’re needing to use greater pressure than normal to inflate Andy’s lungs. As I said, we’re running some tests. Hopefully it’s nothing.’

  Meg smiled. She didn’t believe the doctor, but she wanted to relieve him of his misery.

  The agency was called. A representative would be sent out to assess the situation straight away. At a later date they would arrange a meeting with Meg at home. Meg sat with Andy in the ICU. The bed was so high and the chair was so low, all she could see was Andy’s unmoving hand on top of the sheets. After half an hour the nurse told her to go and have a cup of tea. Meg was thankful. Ever since the discussion in the family room she’d been waiting for permission to leave—to eat, to rest, to use the toilet. She supposed ICU nurses, used to seeing people reduced to hapless shells of their former selves, were trained to sense such things.

  Meg followed the nurse, whose name was Jacky, to the tearoom. She nibbled the ice-cold cheese sandwich Jacky fetched for her from the fridge. She drank the mug of hot tea Jacky poured her from the kettle. It felt good to be looked after. So good, in fact, she felt her eyes prick with tears. She supposed she’d been looking for that kind of care when she’d signed up to the homeshare program, but now she realised Andy was just a child, too unwell to help himself, let alone her.

  ‘Thank you,’ Meg said.

  Jacky smiled above the brim of her mug. ‘I should thank you. I’d normally be smoking on my tea-break—you’re effectively saving my life.’

  Meg laughed.

  ‘I suppose you think I’m terrible,’ Jacky said.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘The thing is, working here, seeing all the things I see… it makes me want to take what little pleasures I can get.’

  Meg looked at the nurse. She must have been in her late twenties. She had clear skin and straight teeth.

  ‘But I will quit,’ Jacky said. ‘For my three-year-old son. He’s got asthma.’

  Meg felt her eyelids grow heavy. She stood up, brushed her skirt with her hands, hitched her handbag onto her shoulder.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll call you if anything changes.’

  ‘Please do.’

  As Meg walked through the door she felt the nurse’s fingers like an iron clamp on her wrist.

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  Meg turned around. She followed the nurse’s eyes to the seat of her chair. Suddenly she was in second form again and her period had arrived a week early. It was Jillian who had saved her then, fetching a spare skirt from lost property.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Meg said and searched her purse for a tissue.

  ‘Don’t worry about cleaning up,’ Jacky said, and loosened her grip. ‘I’ll take you down to emergency.’

  ‘Oh, no. That won’t be necessary. It’s all being sorted by my doctor. I have an appointment for my test results next Monday.’ The lies slipped out fast and easy. She watched the nurse’s pretty face relax into a smile.

  ‘Make sure you get plenty of rest. Eat lots of things with iron.’

  The sun was rising when Meg got home. She jumped straight into the shower. Thankfully there was no more bleeding. She felt an ache, like period pain, above her pubic bone. After her shower she lay on her bed, relieved to be off her feet. It had been years since she’d done so much walking, and she was surprised her knees weren’t more painful. She supposed it was all the adrenaline pumping like a wonder drug through her body. She could feel it now, keeping her awake, making her heart beat violently. As she lay there she heard a noise like a hand drill coming from Andy’s bedroom. Atticus must have heard it too—he screeched.

  She found the vibrating phone just in time to press the green button.

  ‘Hello?’ she said.

  There was a mumble and a cough. ‘Uh, sorry, wrong number.’

  ‘Are you looking for Andy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you a friend of his?’

  There was a long pause. ‘Who is this? And why have you got Andy’s mobile?’

  ‘I’m Margaret Hughes. The woman he lives with.’

  Another pause. Meg could hear the rumble of a tram, people talking.

  ‘Is Andy okay?’ asked the voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘He will be.
But he’s in hospital.’

  ‘Shit!’ More talking in the background. ‘Sorry, miss.’

  ‘That’s okay. I can give you the details of the hospital if you want to visit him.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I can tell you more at the hospital. The main thing is that he’s okay. Do you know if anything might’ve been troubling him? Anything with university or his family?’

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t know. There’s this girl, her name’s Kiko, I think he likes her. I don’t know anything about his family.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘I should have asked him.’

  Meg detected a change in the stranger’s voice. It had been brusque when she’d first picked up the phone; now it was gentle, apologetic.

  ‘I should have too,’ she said.

  36

  There were beeps, low-pitched and regular. His tongue felt like a fat piece of cloth inside his mouth. He moved his lips to speak but, hard as he tried, he couldn’t utter a sound. When he opened his eyes, the light was blinding and he had to close them again. He felt movement at his elbow. When the woman spoke her voice was muffled, as if he was submerged under water.

  ‘He’s rousing.’

  He could feel fingers, light and warm, on his arm. He tried his eyes again. A white face in a haze of light.

  ‘Andy? Can you hear me?’

  He mouthed the word for water and almost immediately felt a plastic straw on his lower lip. The thirst was intense and overwhelming. He drank greedily.

  The woman laughed. ‘Anyone would think you hadn’t drunk for weeks!’

  Andy licked his lips. He looked around him. The world was screened on three sides by pale blue curtains. At the foot of the bed a woman in scrubs was scribbling something on a chart.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Andy asked, sounding out each syllable slowly, like a child.

  ‘Two days and two nights. One here in ICU. One in emergency.’

  Andy remembered the tablets. More than anything he felt embarrassed. He ran his hand—the one that wasn’t hooked up to a bag of fluid—along his thigh. He was naked except for a gown. Thoughts tumbled, unbidden, into his brain. He thought of Kiko, of Mrs Hughes, of Ming. He thought of the agency, his parents, the university. Did anyone know what had happened—and if they knew, how much did they know? Exhausted, he leant his head back on the pillow again.

  ‘That’s probably enough exercise for today,’ the nurse said. ‘It only takes a few days of lying in bed for your muscles to become deconditioned.’

  37

  Meg stepped into the hospital lift. She didn’t see Greg behind the bouquet of native flowers.

  ‘Margaret?’

  Meg peered through the mass of gumleaves and crimson waratahs.

  ‘We’ve met a couple of times. I’m Anne’s husband.’

  ‘Greg! Of course.’

  Greg lowered the bouquet. ‘Is everything okay?’

  Meg remembered that she was in a hospital. At her age, being in a hospital was rarely a good thing. ‘Just visiting a friend. And you?’

  ‘The safe arrival of my third grandson. Noah. Eight pounds, three ounces.’

  ‘Congratulations.’ Meg remembered the proud way Anne had held her iPad when she showed them photos of her grandchildren. She had missed the birth of Noah by less than two months.

  The lift arrived at Meg’s floor. She was about to launch into a hurried goodbye when Greg stepped out with her. He seemed desperate to talk.

  ‘And your daughter, is she well?’ Meg asked.

  ‘Tired. It was an emergency caesarean.’ He looked down at the flowers, studied a protea. ‘At times like this she misses her mother.’

  ‘Of course.’ Meg took in Greg’s crestfallen face and felt compelled to add, ‘But she has you. That’s something.’

  Greg shook his head. ‘I’m hopeless with these things. Every time she says the word breastfeeding I’m seized with embarrassment and terror.’

  Meg’s thoughts turned to Anne, of what she might have been like as a mother. She would have taken control, been the expert on everything. ‘It’s a lovely bouquet,’ she said.

  Greg beamed. ‘Pippa likes things native and organic and sustainable. Even this red ribbon is biodegradable.’

  The lift door opened again and they said their goodbyes—an awkward peck on the cheek above spiky flowers.

  The woman at reception in the ICU told Meg that Andy had been moved to a medical ward. ‘It’s a good thing,’ she said, and smiled.

  The ward was in a new part of the hospital. It had wide hallways and white walls. The door was closed when Meg arrived. Through a narrow window she spied a shadow at the end of the bed. Curious, she knocked and entered.

  Andy was only slightly less white than the starched sheets on his bed. His eyes lit up at the sight of her.

  ‘Ming,’ Andy said with a croaky voice, pointing to a slim Asian boy beside the door. ‘This is Mrs Hughes, the lady I live with.’

  Meg smiled in the boy’s direction. ‘We spoke on the phone.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ming was holding a box of chocolates. He turned back to Andy. ‘Mrs Hughes told me the name of the hospital.’

  They made small talk for a few uncomfortable minutes before Ming excused himself. ‘I have to pack. The last exam was today and I’m flying to Hong Kong tomorrow.’ He put the box of chocolates on the bedside table. ‘But it was good to see you, man.’ He patted Andy on the shoulder.

  When Ming was gone Meg found a chair and sat down near the head of the bed.

  ‘In Hong Kong you pay a fortune for a room like this in a private hospital,’ Andy said. ‘When my grandfather died, he was surrounded by five other patients.’

  ‘How awful for him.’

  ‘I felt sorry for the others, actually, watching him choke on his saliva, and my mum wailing and banging her head against the floor.’ His voice was a whisper now. Spittle collected on his lips.

  ‘You should rest.’

  ‘They said the tube caused some damage to my throat.’

  ‘Can I get you some water?’

  Andy nodded.

  Meg poured him a cup from the plastic jug next to the bed. He drank clumsily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said when he was finished. Without his glasses he appeared younger—even more childlike and vulnerable than before.

  Meg reached out and touched the bed, her fingers close to but not quite touching his arm. ‘I should have put those pills away.’

  Andy studied his hands. ‘My aunt’s on her way from Geelong. My dad’s flying to Melbourne from Hong Kong.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s a good thing?’ she suggested.

  Andy shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say to them. When my dad calls, I don’t answer, I let it ring through to voicemail.’

  Meg saw that she and Andy were made of the same stuff—always wanting to please, to stay quiet, to preserve the status quo.

  ‘Atticus came back,’ she said, keen to steer the conversation to happier things.

  Something like a smile hovered briefly on Andy’s lips. ‘I know.’

  ‘I wonder what he did while he was away.’ Meg turned to the window. They were on the third floor, and she could just see the silver crown of a gum tree. ‘He can speak, but he can’t tell us what he wants, or what he’s thinking. He copies us and we laugh. Sometimes I wonder if he’s taking the mickey.’

  ‘A mockingbird,’ Andy said, before being interrupted by a knock on the door. It opened to reveal a middle-aged man with a messy hair leading a troop of young doctors.

  ‘Andy Chan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’d like to have a word with you.’

  Andy, whose eyelids had been sagging, forced himself to wake up. The man with messy hair eyed Meg expectantly. She picked up her purse.

  Andy shook his head. ‘It’s okay. Mrs Hughes can stay.’

  The man gestured to one of the female doctors.

  When the young woman spoke her voice was
high and broken. ‘The CT scan of your chest revealed some unexpected changes. We think you have a condition called extrinsic allergic alveolitis.’

  Meg started at the ominous name. Rightly or wrongly, she’d always believed that the longer the name of a disease, the more serious it was. Andy’s face was blank.

  Another junior doctor jumped in. ‘We were wondering if you’ve been exposed to any dust or birds recently.’ The baby-faced resident turned to the man with messy hair for approval, but the consultant was studying something on his phone.

  ‘Atticus,’ Andy mumbled.

  ‘Wait. What? You mean to say my parrot is making Andy sick?’ Meg had heard of pigeon handlers getting pneumonia, but she’d always assumed it was a pigeon thing.

  ‘Exactly.’ The junior doctor sounded particularly pleased with himself. ‘Andy is allergic to your pet bird.’

  Meg looked at Andy, but he refused to return her gaze. She turned her attention back to the doctors. They seemed to be waiting for something, a reaction—praise, perhaps, for clinching the diagnosis. Only the female resident looked at them with anything resembling compassion.

  ‘They call it bird fancier’s lung,’ the junior doctor said, when no acknowledgement of his cleverness was forthcoming. ‘Maybe you’ve heard of it?’

  Andy shook his head.

  Meg couldn’t believe it. A bird fancier? Andy could hardly bear to be in the same room as Atticus. The consultant rattled off the list of symptoms: cough, fever, breathlessness, loss of appetite, loss of weight, fatigue. Meg couldn’t attest to the fevers, but Andy had never been a big eater, and lately she’d heard him coughing and spluttering in the early hours of the morning. Perhaps he didn’t hate her spaghetti bolognese after all.

  The doctors took turns listening with their stethoscopes to Andy’s chest. When Andy sat forwards, his naked back showed through the gaps in his robe and Meg averted her eyes.

  ‘Now it’s my turn to say sorry,’ she said when the doctors had left.

  Andy made a tutting noise with his tongue. ‘It’s not because of Atticus that I ended up in hospital.’

  ‘You never know. Maybe it’s because of this sickness that you weren’t able to concentrate on your studies.’