Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam by Peter Goldsworthy

Author:Peter Goldsworthy [Goldsworthy, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9383-9
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1993-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

10

As the child’s immune system failed, she was fed an exotic daily salad of antibiotics to prevent infection; these in turn suppressed her appetite, she lost weight steadily. She rapidly came to resemble the snapshots of her forgotten foster siblings in Bangladesh and Ecuador: all skin and bones, her eyes sunk deeply into their dark sockets. Her period of self-isolation had passed, she now preferred to sleep in her parents’ bed each night, between them, facing her father — which meant that they slept even less themselves, anxious not to squash her frail bird-bones, or bruise her paper-thin skin. Often Linda would leave father and daughter together, sneaking off into Emma’s room, or into Ben’s room, spending the night squeezed even more uncomfortably into the narrow bed of a boy who was as unwilling as ever to be left out.

And as Rick lay there, sleepless, his daughter’s small milky breath puffing rhythmically into his face, the realisation grew: that if their lunatic plan was ever followed through, if someone did choose to go with her, of course it would be him, not Linda.

Night-thoughts, certainly, bred of insomnia and despair — but he was beginning to suspect that despair was the default state of the human mind, if normally hidden from the mind by lack of imagination, or the balms of warmth and food and love.

This, at least, was clear: the child would want him with her at the end, it was his presence that would most reassure her.

He decided, for the moment, to keep this realisation to himself.

Eve Harrison was visiting the house daily at the time, checking Emma’s temperature, listening to her chest, peering into orifices. And still pricking her thumb-pads every second or third visit, siphoning tiny drops of blood

‘Does she have to go through this?’ Linda asked, although the needles seemed to bother her more than her stoical daughter.

Several times Eve urged hospitalisation, but both parents had decided that Emma would die — although they still couldn’t bring themselves to utter the blunt word — at home, in a familiar world, believing it would be her own wish.

Home had one other advantage, unspoken: although no decision had yet been made, and their lunatic plan had not been discussed again, both knew that it would be impossible to carry out in hospital.

‘How can hospital help her?’ Linda demanded of her friend.

‘She may need a transfusion. Depending on the blood count.’

‘Couldn’t she be transfused at home?’

Eve was reluctant to agree, but it was the reluctance of fixed habits: ‘I suppose I could arrange a home-care nurse,’ she conceded.

This was not enough for Linda: ‘I can do whatever needs to be done — I’m sure I can. With your help, of course.’

‘It’s a 24-hour job. When will you sleep? She will need constant nursing attention.’

‘We’ll work in shifts. I’ll sleep when Rick is awake.’

‘A night-nurse, then. Someone to keep watch overnight. Please, you can’t do it all yourself.’

Rick, listening to the debate, intervened: ‘We don’t want to share the remaining time with strangers, Eve.

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