Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis

Author:Lia Louis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2020-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

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WhatsApp from Eliot Barnes:

Hi closed book. How are things looking this morning? Brighter, I hope. I’m in France for the next fortnight. Ana’s sister’s wedding & I’ve got to press on with Mum and Jean’s bandstand while they’re away. Hopefully see you soon. E, x

Fishers Way is silent. In the eighteen months I have lived here, I have never known to wake up to no sound at all. There is always the rumbling of a kettle, of a distant radio presenter, the clanging of pots, or of Louise, humming a song. It’s 10:30 a.m. Louise is an early riser. I am not. So there hasn’t been a time, I don’t think, that I have woken to no Louise. She doesn’t really go out either. “A bit of a recluse, then,” as Lucas once suggested, and I suppose he is right.

I go down to the kitchen and make a cup of tea, and realize before I switch it on that the kettle is stone cold. The air is silent, unnervingly so. Before the kettle has finished rumbling, I duck my head through to the conservatory and then to Louise’s large, cluttered lounge. Nothing. I tread the stairs, heart pounding a little now with anxiety. I remember waking up to a silent home so many times, and sometimes, I would feel so alone that I would go straight to a window to see a car drive by, or a person stroll past, just so I knew I hadn’t slept through the end of the world and woken as the only human left.

I find Louise in her bedroom, in bed. She is sitting up, the silver, tripod-legged walking stick flat on the floor, out of reach. Her hair, which she always keeps up in a loose teacher’s bun, is long and frizzy, and flowing over the shoulders of her button-down pajama top.

“Sorry,” I say from the doorway, ready to duck back out again. “I just wanted to check you were okay. When I saw you weren’t up, I was worried.”

Louise swallows. “I can’t get up,” she says.

“Do you need me to pass you your stick?”

She shakes her head. “No. No, that won’t be much use. I just…” She stops herself, then sighs. “Some days I just can’t get up. Vertigo.”

“God, I’m sorry, Louise.” I edge into the room a little more. It smells of patchouli and fabric softener. “Can I get you anything?”

She grimaces, as if it is paining her to tell me all this, and says, “I’ve been here five hours, since I got up and just about made it to the en suite. Could you get me something to eat and drink please, Emmie? Toast would be fine.”

“Of course. Tea too?”

She nods, smiling weakly. “Please.”

Downstairs, I set a tray of two slices of buttered toast with marmalade—her own homemade, from a Kilner jar—a banana, a couple of napkins, and a cup of mint tea. She thanks me and, taking in the silent, cluttered bedroom, I offer her my television.

“I don’t care for television,” she says, “but thank you.

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