Being Here by Barry Jonsberg

Author:Barry Jonsberg
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: book, JUV000000
ISBN: 9781742692463
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2011-01-26T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

LUCY AND I SIT in our usual chairs.

Dinner has been and gone and the lounge is empty. The other residents are in the television room. When I first arrived here, the lounge was dominated by a huge television, but I changed all that. There was nowhere, other than your own room, to enjoy peace, or quiet conversation. It took considerable effort to have the television relocated. Places like this are resistant to change.

But I am stubborn.

Lucy is like me. She doesn’t value noise for its own sake.

So we sit. Sometimes she reads. Sometimes we talk. Tonight I need to talk.

‘Are you afraid, Lucy?’ I say.

‘Of what?’

‘Dying.’

‘Oh, that.’

There is silence for a minute or two. I let it brew. She will answer when she has thought things through.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Of course. Aren’t we all?’

‘Oh, you know. You hear stories of old people who welcome it. Embrace it like a lover. It is these, apparently, who “died as one that had been studied in his death; to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as ’twere a careless trifle.” ’

Lucy sighs. She reaches across the gap between us and pats me on the arm. ‘You know, Leah, just sometimes it would be nice if we both spoke English.’

‘It is English, you ignoramus. By the greatest writer the world has ever known.’

‘Catherine Cookson said that?’

I laugh. Lucy does that to me sometimes. It is a great gift, to burst bubbles of pomposity with the blade of humour. I admire it. We sit, wrapped in silence, for a few minutes.

‘So are you scared of dying, Leah?’ she says.

‘I am terrified,’ I reply. ‘And I don’t know why. My body is falling apart and my mind is following suit. I am in pain and it can only get worse. But why should I be scared? There is nothing I can do to ward off death, and anyway, in many ways it will be a blessed release. Yet I know that when the end comes I will struggle for just one more breath. Just one more. I will fight for it to the last of my strength. Isn’t that sad? Isn’t that pathetic?’

Lucy gets to her feet and struggles to move her chair until she is directly opposite me. I haven’t the energy to help her. She sits and now her face is silhouetted against the French window, her hair a dizzying white aura. She takes my hands in hers.

‘No. I think it’s just the way it is for all of us. It’s hardwired.’

‘It’s what?’

Lucy smiles. It is a ghostly thread within the darkness of her face.

‘It’s a term my daughter favours.’

‘“Hardwired”? That’s ghastly. It makes me sound like a toaster.’

‘Your petticoat is showing, Leah. Vocabulary is changing, as the world changes.’

‘I wouldn’t take much pride in vocabulary that is an affront to good taste. Not all change is good.’

The ghost smile flickers again.

‘And what about your God, Leah?’ she says. ‘Doesn’t He make a difference to your feelings about mortality? I would think He should.

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