How the Light Gets In

by Hyland, M. J.

  I decide to spend a few hours getting to know the other inmates. There are five girls including me. Other than Miranda, I share with Rachel and Veronique. Rachel was sent here because she drove her host-father’s car into a wall. She has the bunk above mine. She tells me she has persistent nightmares about bricks being in her bed and is haunted by the sensation of tiny shards of brick in her ears.

  Veronique smothered her host-family’s dog, allegedly because she believed that her host-parents weren’t paying her enough attention. She says it was an accident.

  The fifth girl, Kris, has a dorm to herself. I don’t know why she is here. She never comes downstairs to the common-room.

  The six boys are here for drinking, drug-taking, drug-selling, stealing, attempting or conspiring to escape from their host-families in order to avoid returning home, and for driving cars under the influence.

  All but Lishny. He is accused of drowning his four-year-old host-sister in a bath.

  During the day the inmates wander in and out of each other’s dormitories, while Lily moves from room to room wearing her sack-like dresses, checking the dormitory bunks in pursuit of inmates in the act of sexual wrongdoing. This morning I went into Lishny’s room and saw Lily with her arm under his bedclothes.

  Unlike in a real prison, there are no locks on the bedroom doors. Sometimes it’s as though we are all sedated passengers on the same long train journey, desperate to be the first one off; wishing in the meantime that we had a carriage of our own.

  I wish I had a private silent carriage with a door that slides shut. A carriage in which I could draw the small curtains then lie down, swathed in soft blankets that I have found in the cupboard in my first-class compartment (along with two small white pillows), and gaze out at the passing landscape until I fall into a deep sleep.

  The days are long and cold. So much snow has fallen, and the sky is so dark, that during the day, when you look out the barred kitchen window, it’s not possible to see the cathedral spire, which usually juts into the pale sky as blunt as a shape cut from a sheet of black cardboard. Our coats, scarves and hats, along with our suitcases, are locked in the attic behind a thick wooden door, bolted and chained. But who would seriously consider escaping in these conditions?

  It’s morning and the heater has been fixed. I haven’t heard from the Hardings. I take my bowl of cereal to the window of the common-room and stare down at the mannequin lighting up in the dress shop window across the road. It’s an untidy haberdashery; a few bolts of sombre, sensible material leaning against the dusty window. Only elderly women go inside, where they rub against each other’s fur coats for warmth, and talk at the counter.

  The window dressing is always the same: four dark woollen dresses dangling from stiff wire, like dead trapeze artists, and a female torso on a stick wearing a white, thermal top. The torso is made of a glassy translucent material and has no arms or legs. At night, its bulb lights up in the darkness at four-second intervals, glows as white as larvae, then blinks off again, casting a ghostly wash across the pavement.

  19

  It’s the evening of my tenth day. Gertie comes to my room. I have only my bra and underpants on.

  ‘I have good news for you,’ she says.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Harding are coming to Chicago tomorrow. They’d like to meet with you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, happy for a moment.

  But then I imagine sitting with Margaret and Henry in some bare room on hard-backed chairs, embarrassed, giving them my tearful apologies, hands cold, wishing I could simply start again and that I could change my personality – and theirs – completely.

  ‘We have an apartment for host-family reunions and farewells, just out of town. The Hardings would like to rent it this weekend so you can all get together again.’

  ‘To see if things can be patched up?’ I say.

  ‘To see if there’s any way forward.’

  She tells me I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘But I hope this won’t be a farewell for you and the Hardings,’ she says, watching as I pull my jeans on. ‘I hope you’ll all make the most of it.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I say, this time picturing a fancy apartment with good heating, a full fridge, big TV and a soft warm bed.

  ‘Will Bridget and James be there?’ I ask.

  Gertie smiles. ‘Would you like to see them again?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say, hoping this is the right answer. ‘I’d love to see them all again.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see what can be arranged.’

  I want to touch her. I rub my arms.

  ‘A hug?’ she says.

  ‘Yup,’ I say.

  Lishny isn’t back yet so I spend the night sitting on the couch with the others watching a boring movie set in Spain and I realise that I’m not as excited about seeing the Hardings as I should be. I’m sure I want to go back to their house and back to school. But I’m fantasising about how great it would be if I could be in the house with just Henry and Lishny. We could sit in Henry’s study and he would smoke his pipe and we’d read books and I’d learn to play the piano. These are the things I think while I wish the movie could distract me more than it does.

  It’s Friday afternoon and I’m leaving for my reunion with the Hardings. Flo Bapes comes to get me in the Organisation’s black car. She’s driving again and the bearded men are with her.

  ‘We’re not coming with you all the way,’ says the longer beard. ‘We’re getting dropped off at head office.’

  We drive slowly though heavy traffic and they have a good time drilling me about my rehabilitation.

  ‘Are you craving alcohol?’ asks the beard in the back seat.

  ‘Not one bit,’ I say.

  I wish the back seat were much bigger so that when I turn to look at him I didn’t have to see up his nostrils.

  ‘What about the insomnia? Are you still not sleeping?’

  ‘I’m sleeping like a baby,’ I say. ‘Like a baby.’

  I don’t mention the sleeping pills or the fact that my eyes sting and my jaw feels swollen.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ says Flo. ‘That’s terrific.’ As though she suddenly cares about me.

  The bearded men get out of the car. I stay in the back seat.

  Flo turns to me. ‘That’s very rude, Louise. I’m not your chauffeur.’

  And so I get out and into the front passenger seat.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  We drive for another hour through the snow, in silence.

  We arrive at the apartment.

  Henry and Margaret wait for me outside the smoked double glass doors to the foyer. They are standing side by side, Henry’s arm is over Margaret’s shoulder, her hand resting tenderly around his waist.

  I say goodbye to Flo without looking at her and she drives away with a brutal honk of the horn.

  Neither of them hugs me. Margaret leads me up the narrow, uncarpeted stairs to show me to my tiny room.

  There are two pink towels folded into a neat square bundle, and a small bar of gift soap at the end of the bed. The bed-frame is black cast iron and groans like a sore animal when I sit on it.

  ‘You’ll have a nice view tomorrow,’ Margaret says nervously, as she opens the stiff window about half an inch. The air is bitterly cold. Why is she opening the window?

  ‘That’s great,’ I say.

  I look at the window but all I see is the black of the glass and my tired white face.

  ‘This is nice,’ I say, as I pick up the bar of soap.

  It’s a small round bar, wrapped in lavender paper with a lavender scent, like Gertie’s bedroom. I stare at the squiggly patterns on the bedspread as Margaret starts to put my clothes in the cupboard. The sound of clothes hangers, a tinny, erratic sound, makes me panicky. We are doing it all over again. I feel no different from the first time she showed me my room. I’m nervous and edgy.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ I say, too sharply.

&n
bsp; She stops. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘I meant that I’d do it,’ I say.

  ‘I know what you meant,’ she says, and I sit there and watch as she cries without sound and continues to put my clothes on clothes hangers. The mood between us is tense and I don’t know why she wants this reunion. She seems to be regretting the idea. I want to tell her a good lie, something like that I love gift soap wrapped in paper and that it’s so nice of her to put it on my bed and to make me feel like I’m in a nice hotel. Instead I say, ‘Did you nick this soap from a motel room?’

  Margaret doesn’t realise that I am trying to be funny. She walks over and takes the soap from me, turns it over in her hand and says, ‘No, it was a gift from Henry’s mother. She died last week. It was his idea to come here. He wants you to have a second chance. I don’t know if I agree.’

  She puts the soap in the pocket of her blazer as though it’s contraband.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I say.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m really sorry about everything.’

  She sits on the bed, exhausted.

  ‘I really like you, you know. I don’t understand why you betrayed us the way you did. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  I stop myself from crying by taking a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t understand either,’ I say. ‘But I know I’d never behave that badly again.’

  She stands up and looks down at me. I’ve never seen Margaret look so real, so human, and I realise one of the things I could never understand about her was her almost robotic ease in the world; as though nothing ever got in.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ she says, almost smiling. ‘We’ll see.’

  I wonder if this means I’m coming back.

  ‘Where’s Henry?’

  ‘He’s downstairs. He has a few calls to make.’

  ‘Where’re Bridget and James?’

  ‘Downstairs. Watching TV.’

  I didn’t know they were here.

  She takes me to the shower and points to the taps and to the cupboard where the extra towels are kept. ‘Do you think I could have a shower now?’ I ask. ‘It might help me relax a bit.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says.

  I want to sleep. I want to get into bed while Margaret is still with me.

  ‘Could I just go to bed after my shower? I’m really tired.’

  ‘It’s still early. But if you want,’ she says.

  She leaves the bathroom and I undress quickly.

  I close the window and wrap myself in a towel while I wait for the water to reach the right temperature. The shower water smells like rotten eggs.

  I block my nose and breathe through my mouth, but the smell is gluey and solid and makes itself at home in my stomach.

  I get under the shower. The water pressure is weak and I am so cold when I get out that the bones in my back and legs feel broken. I go back to my room, smelling of sulphur, and get under the cold covers. A few minutes later, I begin to sweat. The inside of my elbows sweat, the back of my knees sweat, and my head sweats.

  I can’t sleep. My legs won’t stay still. I have to run them back and forth across the sheets to stop them from aching.

  It’s the morning and I’m sitting up in bed, not sure what time it is, waiting until I hear the sounds of breakfast being made. I don’t like breakfast, but I like the smells it makes and the sounds of people making it. Henry comes to my door. He looks at the bed and wonders whether it would be wrong to sit down on it, next to me. He stands, a little stooped, and talks to me from the doorway.

  He is skinnier.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good,’ he says.

  Silence.

  ‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ I say.

  He nods.

  ‘I’d have woken you for breakfast,’ he says, ‘but Margaret thought you’d probably prefer to sleep in.’

  ‘God. What time is it?’

  ‘Twelve-thirty.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘I must have been very tired.’

  I know I should get out of bed right away so we can start to talk things over. What I really want to do is go back home with the Hardings – see a movie, read a book, watch some TV, play a board game and go back to school. I’ll be much happier this time.

  ‘Well, then,’ says Henry, ‘I’d better leave you alone. I’ll be down in the kitchen if you need anything.’

  ‘Wait,’ I say. ‘I just want to say I’m really sorry.’

  He looks out the window and clears his throat.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Thanks for your letters. But why don’t we see if you can do more than just say the right things, eh?’

  He leaves before I get a chance to answer, ducking under the door frame, putting both hands on his head, to make me laugh, wishing he could have said more; leaving me to wish precisely the same thing.

  My eyes are hot suddenly and full of tears. It is always sad when two people have been thinking the same thing at the same moment and neither can find a way to say it out loud. Henry is like me. He wishes that people could be better than they are, that they could behave more like the way they sound in their letters; that they could say kinder things out loud – the kinds of things I say in my letters. We both wish for more truth, more emotion, less strain, less pretence, but we are both too shy, too self-conscious to even approach behaving like the better selves we carry around in our minds.

  When Henry has shut the door I say ‘I love you’, knowing nobody will hear it. Perhaps simply to test if it is true.

  I get dressed without showering and go downstairs. It’s snowing and a fire has been lit in the apartment’s fireplace. I go into the kitchen.

  ‘Can I have some coffee, please?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Margaret. ‘Where do you want to sit? I’ll bring it to you.’

  ‘I’ll sit in here with you.’

  ‘Do Australians always drink a lot of coffee?’ asks Henry, keen to get some conversation going.

  ‘All the time,’ I say. ‘It’s much more popular than tea or soft drinks.’

  I have no idea whether this is true or not.

  ‘More popular than Coke or Pepsi?’ asks Henry.

  ‘Definitely,’ I say.

  ‘How interesting. In such a hot place.’

  ‘It’s not always hot,’ I say. ‘We have cold winters and the nights are often cold, even in summer.’

  It occurs to both of us that we should have had more conversations like this a long time ago and we look at each other, pleased, happy to be getting along.

  I drink my coffee and when Margaret and Henry start talking about work I go into the lounge room and slouch on the couch in front of the TV. I know I shouldn’t lie about, but I’m so tired, there’s not much else I can manage. I should have taken two sleeping pills last night instead of one.

  Margaret makes my bed and washes my clothes.

  ‘Where are Bridget and James?’ I ask Margaret as she passes through the lounge room.

  ‘They’ve gone to see a film. When you didn’t get up they decided to go.’

  ‘When will they be back?’ I ask.

  ‘They’ll be back by three, then we can sit and talk.’

  I’m not nervous. I just want this to be over so I can get back to the Harding house. I sit on the couch with a book, which I pretend to read.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ I ask. I feel like a cigarette. ‘Do you need anything at the shops?’

  ‘No, you just rest,’ she says.

  Neither of them has said what this reunion is for. Perhaps they don’t know. Perhaps they are waiting for me to say something but I don’t know what to say other than sorry.

  The sounds of Margaret’s domestic industry – her whistling, the smell of soap powder and the opening and closing of doors – causes another wave of nostalgia; causes me to think that I was completely happy with the Hardings from the moment I set foot in their big house.


  I often remember in this false, distorted way, and the memories are often cloaked in the colour of sun. Sometimes I feel nostalgia for things I know I hated when they were happening; for days spent at the beach or the swimming pool with my sisters.

  When I pick my memories apart, I realise that my mind has merely played back the objective ingredients, the clichéd apparatus of happiness; the sun, the sound of splashing water, ice-cream on parched lips and cold fizzy drink on a hot tongue, and laughter too. My memory often peddles in the falsehood of past happiness. I should know this.

  The early months I spent with the Hardings – our summer road trip, our dinners, our nights in the garden under moonlight, our long conversations in the kitchen – flood back to me now as happy times in which I laughed, as other people laugh, at ease in the world, in real and spontaneous enjoyment of life’s great, simple moments. And yet I know that I did not register any part of it as happiness – not any part – and that I was never at peace. But not this time. This time it will be different.

  I drift in and out of sleep, a stale-mouthed, heavy stupor, and my memory lies to me again. It tells me that I was always happy when I lay on my clean white bed, in my clean bright room, at the top of the landing in the Harding house, listening to the sound effects of family.

  My memory tells me that I was happy when I heard the sounds of Margaret and Henry moving about the rooms after dinner, talking and laughing, and the sounds of Bridget and James going in and out of each other’s bedrooms, between bouts of dedicated homework, sitting at neat wooden desks; the sound of pages turning in books I promised myself I would read one day.

  It tells me I was happy then, and a fool not to notice it. It’s too late now, my memory tells me, they were happy times and now that they are gone they will never return. There will never be happiness like that again. I wonder if there is such a thing as happiness.