Room for a Stranger

by Melanie Cheng

  ‘I should have come to Melbourne more often,’ she said. ‘But it’s such a long drive with all the traffic, and with all the kids’ after-school activities, it’s hard to find the time. Who would’ve thought that after all those years of studying commerce I’d end up an unpaid chauffeur.’

  Andy took this to be an apology. He thought back to the day of the exam, when he’d seen his aunt drinking and laughing at the café. ‘That’s okay,’ he said.

  ‘And what a stupid idea, getting you to live with an old woman. You’re not a carer. You’re a child. You need someone to look after you.’

  ‘It wasn’t Mrs Hughes’ fault—it was her pet parrot. I developed an allergy to it.’ As he spoke, Andy realised how ridiculous the words sounded.

  Winnie stared at him with her black eyes. ‘You know, when I first came to Australia with Uncle Craig, I found it hard too. That was twenty years ago, and we were living in Geelong. Can you imagine? From Hong Kong to Geelong! It wasn’t even Melbourne. Everybody went surfing and camping on the weekends, and I’d never even sat on grass before.’

  Andy looked down at his toes, poking out from beneath the bedsheets.

  ‘I was lonely,’ Winnie said. ‘But I didn’t give up.’

  ‘It was an allergy,’ Andy said again.

  ‘Now look at me!’ his aunt went on. ‘My pavlova was voted the best dessert at my daughter’s school fete last year. I barrack for the Cats. I can even stand up for a good five seconds on a surfboard.’

  ‘Are you happy?’Andy said.

  Winnie paused. ‘Of course I miss things about Hong Kong. The food. The efficiency. The way you can buy something without talking to somebody about how your day was—I mean, how good can my day possibly be if I’m spending it in a supermarket buying yoghurt and tampons?’

  Andy laughed.

  ‘But thoughts like that will poison your insides.’ She shuddered, as though shaking off any lingering nostalgia. ‘Best to try new things.’

  So his aunt knew everything.

  ‘What did Dad say?’

  ‘I called him the day the hospital notified me. He said he’d get on the next plane to Melbourne, but it’s taken him a while to get the money together and flights are always crowded this time of year. I would have come up earlier too, but I had a bit of a crisis of my own. It’s all sorted now, though, thankfully.’

  Andy thought of his father—his greying hair, and the stooped way he walked, as if he bore the weight of the universe on his shoulders.

  ‘I didn’t tell him everything, of course,’ Winnie added, reading Andy’s mind. ‘Your mother gives him enough stress.’

  Andy’s mother hated Winnie. When he was a boy, she used to say his aunt had the voice of a crow, the head of an ox and the tongue of a cobra.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘His plane arrives tonight. I’ll stay with him in a hotel in the city. We’ll pick you up first thing tomorrow morning.’

  Andy couldn’t tell if he felt relieved or anxious. He was happy he had somewhere to go and overcome with a strong desire to see his father. But he was worried. He wasn’t sure he could bear to see the disappointment on his dad’s face. The last thing Andy wanted was to make his father hang his head any lower.

  42

  Meg hadn’t been to a doctor in years. When her knees had first played up she’d spent a lot of time at the surgery down the road, where the doctors had given her painkillers that made her nauseated and drowsy. They’d insisted on doing lots of other tests too—things completely unrelated to her arthritis. She’d eventually grown tired of walking out of the consulting room with a list of tasks—lose weight, eat better, join a gym, try pilates—or referrals for investigations that came with their own set of instructions—don’t eat anything for ten hours, call this number, do a poo into an old ice-cream container.

  It had been so long, in fact, that she didn’t recognise any of the doctors’ photos pinned to the corkboard. But the waiting room—in spite of its new carpet and fresh coat of paint—still prompted memories of Helen shuddering with a forty-degree fever.

  Meg was glad that Jill had insisted on accompanying her. She didn’t want her friend inside the consultation room, but it was reassuring to know she’d be just outside the door, ready and waiting to put her back together again. As Jillian flicked through a tattered magazine, Meg practised in her head what she would say to the doctor. It’s rather embarrassing. I should have come earlier. I’m afraid I might be bleeding to death.

  The doctor was a man in his fifties with a sad face and a tired voice. She followed him down the corridor to the consulting room. He was already seated at his desk by the time she walked through the door.

  ‘How can I help?’ he asked in the bored tone of a supermarket cashier.

  Meg looked at the doctor’s desk. There was an empty coffee mug that read Sometimes the best thing about my job is that the chair spins. Next to the mug was a messy pile of papers. On the wall above the desk there was a framed medical degree. The words Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery were just visible through a furry layer of dust on the glass.

  ‘I’m bleeding. From down below. I don’t think that’s supposed to happen at my age.’

  He took her blood pressure with a machine, taking care not to let his fingers touch her skin. He printed a referral form for an ultrasound.

  ‘We should probably do a pap test,’ he said, looking at the computer screen. ‘But I’m sure you’d prefer a female doctor.’

  Meg didn’t care about the sex of her doctor, but she did prefer one who didn’t seem completely repulsed by the idea of examining her.

  ‘Go to the girls at reception. They’ll make you an appointment with one of my colleagues.’

  When Meg returned to the waiting room, Jillian stood up and scanned her face. Meg smiled a tight-lipped smile and Jillian breathed a sigh of relief. The entire consultation must have taken less than ten minutes, and in a way Meg was grateful. She’d been anticipating a painful, teary breakdown. She knew that with the right GP—someone who leant in and looked at her with caring eyes—she would have dissolved into a blithering mess. But with the sad, tired doctor such displays of emotion would have been impossible.

  They said nothing as they walked to the car. It was only when they’d stopped at the first set of lights that Meg mentioned the ultrasound.

  ‘Of course I’ll take you,’ Jillian said, even though Meg hadn’t asked her to.

  In all their years of friendship, Meg had never thought of Jillian as a caring person. She’d listened to her moan about flying to Sydney to rescue her daughter from yet another failed relationship, and she’d heard her complain about paying the night nurse to care for her dying mother. Jillian could perform when she needed to—like she had that day at Anne’s memorial—but Meg knew that, deep down, her friend was pragmatic and unsentimental. In a way she still was—there were no tears, no hands on arms or reassuring words—but there was a thoughtfulness to her behaviour that was both moving and unexpected.

  ‘I got the call from BreastScreen on a Friday,’ Jillian said as they rounded the bend towards Meg’s house. ‘I spent the whole weekend not knowing if I had cancer. I stood for hours in front of the mirror staring at my left breast and trying to figure it out.’

  Meg’s hands migrated again to the fleshy spot above her pubic bone.

  Jillian flicked her sunglasses down from her head to cover her eyes. ‘My sister-in-law who had a similar experience last year said the not knowing was the hardest thing. She said that once she knew, she could just get on and deal with it. But I think that’s bullshit. I’m pretty sure finding out you have cancer is worse than not knowing if you do.’

  Whatever comfort Meg had taken from the doctor’s matter-of-fact manner was quickly dissipating. ‘What are you saying?’

  Jillian parked the car in front of Meg’s home and pulled up the handbrake. She looked through the windscreen at the old house and mumbled, ‘I don’t know.’

  43

/>   Andy could feel his heart beat faster as the morning wore on. He hadn’t seen his parents in nine months. Even though Andy knew his aunt had shielded his father from the worst of the news, Andy was anxious about their impending meeting. As sick as he was, he’d still failed his exams, and his father was still paying the exorbitant university fees. Up until now, Andy had only seen things from his own point of view—the pressure to perform, the lack of affection, the fact that he’d had to give up his flat and move in with a stranger because his parents could no longer cover his rent. As he packed his things into a plastic bag—the T-shirt and jeans he’d been wearing the day he collapsed, the chocolates from Ming and the toiletry bag Mrs Hughes had kindly brought from home—he imagined the dismay his father must have felt when Winnie called to give him the news.

  Afterwards, he sat on the edge of his bed and waited. It was a hot, clear November day. The only clouds were white wisps, like strands of fairy floss drifting across the sky. Though Melbourne had a reputation for terrible weather, Andy knew his lasting memories of Australia would be of that big blue dome of sky. He was still staring out the window when Winnie and his father arrived.

  ‘Here he is!’ his aunt announced loudly in Cantonese.

  Andy turned around to see his father, small and embarrassed, hiding behind Winnie’s bouffant hair and bright lipstick.

  His father stepped forward and placed a cool hand on Andy’s shoulder. ‘Your mother wanted to be here, but the doctors said she shouldn’t travel.’

  Andy looked at the floor. He wasn’t ready to see what emotions were bubbling behind his father’s eyes.

  ‘Is this it?’ Winnie asked, picking up the plastic bag with a disgusted look.

  Andy nodded. ‘I’ll have to collect the rest of my stuff from Rose Street.’

  ‘The house where you lived with the old lady and her bird?’ his father asked.

  Andy flinched. His father was not an animal person. He often recoiled in horror if a pigeon perched on the windowsill of their apartment.

  ‘It’s not the parrot’s fault,’ Andy said, and watched his father shake his head.

  At that moment, a junior doctor came in brandishing an envelope with Andy’s discharge documents. Andy grabbed it and buried it in his pocket before his father could ask to see it. There was probably nothing to worry about—his father couldn’t read English and his aunt wouldn’t translate it truthfully for him—but he still felt better when the paperwork was safely out of sight. After the doctor left, the pharmacist arrived with prednisolone tablets and a steroid inhaler. He checked Andy’s technique and reminded him to rinse his mouth with water after using the puffer. Andy’s aunt and father watched on silently—Winnie grinning, his father frowning.

  Once the nurse said Andy was free to go, they climbed into Winnie’s four-wheel drive in the hospital car park. Next to his aunt, who was barely five foot tall, the mud-splattered car looked the size of a tank. Andy was surprised she could reach the pedals. But she drove it expertly, and fast, handling the machine as if it was a bulky extension of her body. Once or twice Andy saw his dad grip the armrest so hard his knuckles blanched bony white.

  ‘Do you still have your key?’ his aunt asked as she weaved between vehicles.

  ‘Yes, but I should probably let her know we’re coming.’ Andy pulled his phone from his pocket. He hoped Mrs Hughes wouldn’t answer, that he could just leave a message—anything was better than having an audience for their conversation—but she picked up on the second ring.

  ‘Andy!’ She sounded pleased to hear from him.

  ‘They discharged me.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news.’

  Andy could hear Atticus whistling ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in the background. ‘I’ll need to pick up my things,’ he said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Make sure she removes the bird from the house before we get there!’ his aunt shouted, loudly enough for Mrs Hughes to hear.

  ‘Would it be okay,’ Andy said, glaring at his aunt in the rear-view mirror, ‘if you put Atticus outside? For five minutes while I pack?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Andy wanted to give her some kind of warning, a preemptive apology for his family, but it was impossible. ‘We’re on our way from the hospital.’

  ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘I should never have suggested you move in with that filthy old woman,’ Winnie said when Andy had hung up the phone. Andy knew this was his aunt’s way of apologising to his father. He could tell from his dad’s folded arms and tight lips that he hadn’t forgiven her.

  When they pulled up in front of the house, Winnie opened the glove box and three crumpled face masks fell to the floor.

  ‘One for each of us,’ she said.

  Andy felt a rising nausea. It was as if two worlds were colliding at great speed and he could do nothing to stop them.

  As they walked up the short gravel path to the house, Andy’s father bent his head to avoid an overhanging tree branch. The garden was even more overgrown than when Andy had first moved in—the weeds more unruly, the boundary between house and yard less defined. Andy didn’t need to see his father’s face to know what he was thinking. It was the same repulsion he’d felt on arriving at Rose Street a few months ago. Except now that feeling had been replaced by something quite different—a defensiveness and protectiveness that Andy wasn’t used to. He supposed somewhere along the way he’d become fond of the house on Rose Street.

  Winnie made way for Andy, who inserted his key into the lock. His mask hung loose around his neck—he couldn’t bear to put it on. When Winnie pulled it above his nose he felt as if he was suffocating.

  As the latch gave way, Andy stepped inside. Winnie and his father followed close behind him. It was a hot day, but the old house felt cool. Andy saw the bright kitchen beaming at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Andy?’

  The sun rendered Mrs Hughes a silhouette in the hallway. Her white hair formed a nimbus around her head. As she shuffled closer, Andy saw that she looked washed out, like a jumper that had lost its colour after years of wear.

  ‘You must be Andy’s parents,’ she said, ignoring the face masks.

  Winnie pushed her way to the front. ‘I’m his aunt, and this is his father.’ She spoke in a curt tone unlike any Andy had heard her use before.

  ‘Can I get you a cold drink?’ Mrs Hughes asked. ‘It’s a scorcher today.’

  ‘No thank you,’ Winnie replied for all of them. ‘We’re on our way to Geelong. We’re only here for a few minutes.’

  Mrs Hughes’ pale eyes scanned the three masked faces in front of her. Andy wondered what the old lady was thinking. It was hard to tell from her cheery performance. He hoped she saw in his eyes some of the sorrow he was feeling.

  ‘Take your time,’ she said, and walked back towards the sunny kitchen.

  44

  The radiology centre was located inside a private hospital. Jillian was waiting for Meg in the hospital café. Meg put on the baby-blue gown the sonographer had given her. Like most hospital gowns, it was open at the back. Meg held the two loose edges together with her hand. She followed the sonographer down the dark corridor, her feet padding across the tiles. At the end of the hall they reached a consulting room, unlit except by the ghostly screen of a monitor. Meg lay down on the bed as she was told. Her eyes scanned the giant tubes of lubricant and the long ultrasound probe in its sheath.

  As the sonographer fiddled with the computer, Meg tried to recall another time she’d felt as vulnerable as this—lying on a paper sheet with her legs spread, waiting to find out if she had cancer. The only thing that came even vaguely close was the hour she’d spent in the emergency department immediately after Helen’s accident. She’d been sixteen at the time, not yet an adult, but she was learning to trust her gut instinct. Her gut instinct that day had told her that Helen would never walk again, and her gut instinct today told her that she had a dirty big tumour in her pelvis.

>   The sonographer began with some images of her abdomen. She rolled the probe across Meg’s belly, diving deep into a fleshy valley before gliding gently across dimpled skin. She took a few quick photos before changing probes and directing Meg to the toilet to empty her bladder.

  ‘In postmenopausal women this next bit can be pretty uncomfortable,’ the sonographer said when Meg was lying on the bed again. ‘But we use a generous amount of lubricant to try and minimise the discomfort.’ To demonstrate, the sonographer squeezed the tube of gel enthusiastically. It made a loud farting noise, and for a moment Meg considered making a joke of it—that’s what Helen would have done—but the sonographer said nothing, and so Meg, too, pretended it hadn’t happened.

  Instead she focused on the computer monitor. She watched the white haze form vague and beautiful shapes, like cumulus clouds, across the black screen. Every so often the probe—which the sonographer referred to as a wand—hovered mid-arc, and a tiny cursor appeared. When this happened the sonographer would type something: R ovary or uterus. Other times there was a dotted line between two crosses, and a measurement in millimetres flashed across the screen.

  Lastly an orb of white materialised, glowing like a full moon. The sonographer spent a long time measuring it from various angles. Eventually she froze the picture and went to fetch the doctor, leaving Meg on the bed in the dark, with nothing to look at except the globe, gleaming like a giant Christmas bauble on the monitor.

  The doctor introduced himself as Dr McDougall before unfreezing the picture and picking up the wand. He frowned at the screen.

  ‘Have you been bleeding?’

  ‘Yes.’ Meg gripped the paper sheet beneath her, which disintegrated into ragged pieces between her fingers. She didn’t dare ask him what the white ball was, preferring to lie quietly on the bed as cold gel oozed out of her. The doctor took some more measurements and ordered Meg to see her GP ASAP, which he pronounced A-sap, as if it was a word and not an acronym.