The Swallow (24 page)

I hadn’t pretended to be sick for months. But they hadn’t forgotten.

Rose

My father went over to my mother.

“Mary, I’m sorry. I— Something came up. I had to leave … I need to talk to you.” He glanced over at me. It was obvious he didn’t want to say more in front of me.

My mother took charge, the way she always did, as if we were difficult employees who needed handling.

“Well, that’s fine, William, we can certainly talk about it. But first I need to hear about this nonsense with Rose. Just let me get my coat off.”

As she disappeared into the hall, Father whispered to me, “Don’t mention Winnie!”

He looked just like one of Polly’s little brothers when he said it. What was wrong with him?

Mother came bustling back into the room, swept my cloak off my shoulders and guided me over to a footstool by the fire.

“Let’s all just sit down quietly and discuss this rationally.”

She sat down calmly in my grandfather’s big armchair and smoothed her skirts. My father pulled the desk chair over and sat on it. They towered over me.

“Now, Rose,” she began, fixing me with a cool look. “What’s all this about being dead?”

MENINGITIS

Polly

The day I was sick, I lay on my bed all afternoon, drifting in and out, up and down, my head pounding. When my mother came in to get Susie up for her nap she sat on the edge of my bed.

“Polly, are you really sick?” she asked. “Or are you still sulking?”

“My head hurts,” I said.

She laid a cool hand on my forehead.

“You are rather feverish,” she said. “Let me get you some aspirin.”

She helped me drink some water and take the aspirin.

“Maybe it’s flu,” she said. “Let’s get you into your PJs.”

She helped me get undressed and into my soft flannel pajamas, then pulled back the sheets so I could get into bed. Then she took Susie downstairs and I was alone again.

The sheets felt cool at first. But the room turned round and round, like I was on a merry-go-round. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel it spinning. Round and round, up and down.

I must have gone to sleep. When I woke up it was very dark. My neck felt stiff. I was itchy, and the walls were still whispering at me.

“Mum?” I called out, but I couldn’t make a noise loud enough for anyone to hear. There was another noise that was drowning it out. The pounding of my head. A drum. Why didn’t everyone in the house hear it? It went on and on. Thumping.

Somehow I got myself out of bed and crawled through the hall to the stairs. I went down them on my bum, one at a time. I stopped a couple of times and called for my mother, but my voice was still too weak for anyone to hear. The stairs spun round and round.

I crawled around the corner to my parents’ bedroom and pulled myself up by the door handle so I was standing in the open doorway and called out one more time.

“
MUM
!”

There was a murmur from the bed, and the covers heaved up and suddenly the room was filled with a flash of burning white light.

“Mum!” I cried, again, the drum pounding in my ears. “Mum, I think I’m dying.”

Rose

Sitting on the footstool, I felt like I was two again, a very small person. My heart was thumping. I knew I was going to sound ridiculous. To make it worse, Winnie had reappeared (in human
form rather than a tempest) and was standing behind my mother, staring at my father with that hungry look.

“In the summer,” I began, “when I was so sick—”

“When you had meningitis,” said my mother.

“Is that what it was?” I asked.

“Yes, you know it was,” she answered. “We told you, Dr. Wolf told you, many times, in the hospital. Meningitis.”

“Dr. Wolf?” I said. “Is that really his name?”

“Yes, of course it’s his name. Don’t be silly, Rose.”

“I don’t remember,” I said. “I don’t remember anybody telling me. All I remember is the headache, and my neck hurt, and throwing up. And the Wolf Doctor—”

“Dr. Wolf, not the Wolf Doctor,” interrupted my mother.

My father looked sorrowfully at me, and Winnie laughed.

“Dr. Wolf,” I said. “Dr. Wolf saying I should go to the hospital and you crying and then everything was so white and cold.”

“You were very, very sick,” said my mother, her mouth tightening into a thin line. “It was an epidemic. Children all over the city were coming down with it, and many of them died. But you didn’t. You got better. What on earth would make you say you were dead, Rose?”

“Because I feel dead! I feel all drifty and foggy and invisible. Nobody ever talks to me at school. It’s like they don’t see me. You and Father are never home. You don’t talk to me! I can go for days and days and no one speaks one word to me. Not even Kendrick.”

It felt good to finally say it out loud. I felt something unlocking inside my throat.

My parents exchanged pained looks.

“Rosie,” said my father. “That can’t be true. You must be exaggerating. We talk to you. We have breakfast with you nearly every morning.”

“
BUT NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING
!” I said, jumping to my feet. “You read the newspaper and ask me to pass the marmalade, that’s all! Even the Breakfast Ghost pays more attention to me than you do. At least he sees me.”

“Breakfast Ghost?” said my mother, frowning. “Rose, you are letting your imagination get out of hand. Of course we speak to you. I speak to you every day.”

“But we don’t talk! You don’t tell me anything! And I heard you crying one night, Mother, crying about losing me. Saying your baby was dead. What am I supposed to think?”

My mother’s hand flew to her mouth. “What do you know about the baby?” she whispered, then turned to my father. “William, did you—?”

He shook his head.

“What baby?” I asked.

EVERYTHING HURTS

Polly

I don’t remember a lot after that. Voices, arms lifting me up. An ambulance siren and then the hospital. Everything hurt in the hospital. The lights were unbearably bright, the sheets were white and hard, they kept sticking needles into me and then … then … then everything began to fade. All I could feel was rocking, and all I could see was white, and there was nothing but white everywhere, and I couldn’t see my hands and I couldn’t hear anything and I couldn’t see my mother and—

I sat up with a start. I was still sitting in the dark living room. Outside, the white circle of the streetlight was still empty. No Rose.

My head still hurt, but it was a faint, whispering headache, not a bad one. Funny that I’d forgotten all that stuff about being sick and being in the hospital. It must have been after I got better and came home that I fell asleep in the loft, and the twins were looking for me, and I went up to the attic and met Rose. Weird. I’d have to tell her about it and see what she thought. Maybe that bad headache and whatever I had made me lose my memory.

Rose had to be home by now. I let myself out the front door and went silently down the steps. When I entered the circle of light on the sidewalk, the one I’d been staring at for so long, I stopped for a moment and looked up at my sitting room window. It was still dark, but for a moment I thought I saw the figure of someone sitting in the chair, looking out at me. Probably just a shadow, but for a second or two I thought I was seeing myself, looking out at myself. A little shiver went down my spine.

The porch light was on at Rose’s house, and a faint light glowed from the hall, but their living room was dark.

I’d lost my nerve about ringing the bell. Her parents might be home by now. I walked up the dark path beside their house on the cemetery side and opened the gate to the backyard.

The path was lined with uneven paving stones, and I had to walk slowly in the shadows, feeling my way carefully. On my left the ground fell off steeply, and then the hill in the cemetery reared up, gravestones silhouetted against the dark sky. I rounded the corner and slipped behind some bushes so I could look into the back of the house without being seen.

Light poured out from the French doors that led to—to Rose’s father’s study, I guessed. I’d never been in there. I could see bookcases lining the walls, a big desk and … people. They were there. Rose, her father, her mother—and Winnie.

I took a couple of steps closer, taking care not to step inside the light. It was strange, watching them through the window, as if it were a movie. The glass must have been dirty because I couldn’t see through it really clearly. It seemed to
ripple a bit. Their voices were muffled, so I had no idea what they were saying.

Rose’s mother was pretty, but she didn’t look at all like Rose. She was normal-sized, not tiny, and her hair was blond, softly curled around her face. She looked very tired.

I couldn’t see her father very clearly, mostly just his back. He looked tall too, with broad shoulders, but his hair looked like Rose’s—dark and thick and curly.

Winnie stood behind Rose’s mother, staring at Rose’s father. She looked different from the wild, angry girl I’d glimpsed in Rose’s attic. She looked sad—and longing. Like she wanted something so badly but didn’t know how to get it.

I moved a bit to the left so I could see Rose, who was partially blocked by her father. Her expression made me catch my breath. She looked angrier than I had ever seen her. I think she was shouting. She looked—like Winnie. And Winnie looked like Rose.

I turned my head from one to the other. Both dressed in black. Both with white faces. I started to wonder if I had been wrong, and it was Rose who was staring longingly at her father and Winnie standing in front of the fire, shouting at them. Which was which? And which was the ghost? Or were they both ghosts?

Rose

My mother smoothed her skirt and exchanged looks with my father.

“It happened last winter,” she said, trying to gain control of her voice, which wobbled. Not something I often heard from my mother. She cleared her throat. “I was—pregnant. Only a few months. We didn’t tell you because—well, there were complications, and we weren’t sure the baby was going to make it. And—she didn’t. She died.”

Her voice started wobbling again.

“She?” I said. It came out as a raspy croak.

“Yes,” said my mother. Her eyes filled with tears. “A sister. You would have had a sister. I was five months pregnant when I lost her.”

“Five months? And you didn’t tell me?”

“It was always a risky pregnancy. We didn’t tell anyone, except my parents.”

She fumbled in her purse for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

“Is that why you were in the hospital? Is that why you’ve been so sad all this time?”

She nodded, unable to speak. My father went to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“Mary,” he said. “Don’t.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried. “You always treat me like I’m not here! Like I’m not important! I have a right to know what’s happening.”

“We talked about telling you,” said my father. “But—well—your grandmother died not long after, and we decided it was all a bit too much for you to take in.”

I felt the anger rising up again inside me: a hot red wave.

“You don’t
know
what I can take,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to hold the wave back. “You don’t
know
what I have to live with every day.”

My father started looking nervous again. I knew he was afraid I was going to start talking about Winnie and ghosts.

“We made the decision not to tell you,” said my mother, rallying. “Perhaps we were wrong. It’s been a difficult year, Rose, for everybody. There have been a number of grown-up things going on between your father and me, and the business, that you can’t possibly understand. We have tried to protect you from that.”

I opened my mouth and the wave swept out.

“I understand this,” I said. “You don’t love me. You don’t see me. You don’t want to see what’s going on inside me. You’re afraid of me. You think there’s something wrong with me and if you just keep ignoring me it will go away.”

“No, Rosie, that’s not true,” protested my father.

“Don’t call me Rosie!” I yelled at him. “That’s a baby name. I’m not a baby.”