kitten by Olive Nuttall

Author:Olive Nuttall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2024-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

six

The hospice looked totally different to the hospital. Nana had a room all to herself. It was a pretty big room too. They had cots that the staff rolled in for whatever family were staying overnight. The walls were painted a warm yellow and the bed sheets were regular colours—no gross clinical blues. Even the nurses had colourful mismatched scrubs. I guess it was all a very deliberate ploy to lull you into a false sense of security before you died.

I sat on a cot with Fi and Hannah. The little cousins were playing with bits of board games that had been excavated from cupboards at Nana’s house and brought along by one of the aunties. The kids were doing the kind of group play that little kids do where they mutter and shout bits and pieces of lore to each other without looking up from the scenes they’re building in front of themselves. None of the kids appeared to be playing the same game, as far as I could see, and the stories they were telling each other didn’t seem to match up, but as long as one kid didn’t press the other for direct compliance then their physical proximity to one another was enough. Obviously, that sort of peace is only temporary. Eventually, the kids’ narratives would butt up against each other and a conflict would arise and then the tears would come and someone would get taken outside for a walk in the gardens, or one aunty or another would crack open a Tupperware container of apple slices or rice crackers or raisins or whatever. And then the whole thing would start all over again.

Nana made a sound now, when she breathed. It was a kind of dry gurgle in the back of her throat. I hadn’t heard a person make that sound before, but Nana made it with every breath. I guess that’s what they call a death rattle? You don’t get that on TV.

Fi rested her head on my shoulder. ‘Do you want to stay with Nana tonight?’

I thanked the gods that Fi wasn’t looking at me directly. I did not want to stay with Nana tonight. I wanted to be Daddy’s good girl and get into my bed and do my homework, or, failing that, I wanted to get on a bus straight back to Te Whanganui-a-Tara. I snuck a look at Hannah. Hannah just gave me this wide-eyed raised-eyebrow big-sister expression and I knew I was fucked.

‘Of course I do.’ I gave Fi’s hand a squeeze, and asked Hannah, ‘Are you staying with us too?’ If Hannah was there, maybe I could do this.

‘Me and Fi stayed last night.’ Hannah gave me a little frown. ‘While you were out.’

‘Oh.’ I felt sick.

‘Aunty Deb is staying tonight,’ said Fi. ‘Her boys are overseas, so we thought it’d be nice if you could keep her company.’

Aunty Deb. Okay. Me and Aunty Deb. Oooooookay. I nodded. I didn’t know what to do with my face.

My family has a kind of vitality hierarchy for ranking women.

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