I tell Gertie that sometimes at breakfast, when I take a bite of cold toast, I close my eyes and pretend that I am inside his restaurant and that I am sitting at one of his tables, with blue and white check tablecloths, eating soft white bread and drinking strong coffee. I try to imagine that he and his family are sitting at a nearby table and when I run out of coffee he immediately offers me more.
I tell Gertie that I sometimes close my eyes and see a white and blue check cloth in front of me and I see the Italian waiter move towards me with an egg in an egg-cup.
He says, ‘Would you like an egg this morning for a change?’ And I say I would. And he gives me the egg and the radio is playing Vivaldi.
Gertie squeezes my hand. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I sometimes forget to look at the world.’
I smile and squeeze her hand, and her warmth feels very good.
‘You’re going to be just fine.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
I go back to my dormitory.
My roommate, Kris, is Norwegian.
‘Hi,’ she says as I walk towards my bunk.
Her head is heavy on the pillow.
‘I’m so sleepy,’ she says.
If I was staying, I think we would get along.
‘Did I wake you?’
‘Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. There’s a letter on your bed.’
I sit down on my bunk and hope that Kris will go down to the common-room to watch TV. She has the marks from her jacket across her cheek and her eyes are bloodshot. She sits up for a while and then falls down.
‘Shit,’ she says, like she always says, as though something bad has happened.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask.
‘I just want my mind to be quiet. I’m so tired of the chaotic sound it makes.’
She has said this before. I know exactly what she means. I like her, but she doesn’t remember what she has already told you. I have an idea that might help both of us. I pick up the fax.
‘How about you read this for me?’ I say. ‘But don’t read it out loud. Just read it to yourself and only tell me if there’s any information that a person in my position would absolutely have to know.’
She gets what I mean immediately and grins. She takes the fax and reads it, lying on her back. ‘There’s something about a baby …’
I turn over on my stomach, the pillow under my chest. ‘I’m not interested in babies or any of the gossip about what my sisters are doing, or my dad’s cricket games or anything like that at all. Only the big stuff. If there isn’t any big stuff, then I want you to tear it up and stuff it in the bin.’
She reads for several pages, her face devoid of expression. She has big lips but they don’t budge at all. She looks as though she is really thinking, not just reading. She looks intelligent. I try to figure out what it is about her face that makes her look so intelligent. Maybe it’s just the size of her eyes; the way they are neither too open nor too closed.
‘I think this is sigsnificant,’ she says.
‘Sigsnificant. What a beautiful word,’ I say. ‘Your English is so good. Why is it so good?’
‘Everybody learns it at school. I’m not different.’
Her big lips open on a little smile that makes it look like her teeth are bursting to get out.
‘Anyway,’ I say. ‘You’d better tell me about the important bit.’
‘Should I read it out loud or tell you in my own words?’
‘Your own words.’
She puts the fax paper on her chest and closes her eyes. She lies still.
‘Your mother says she has left your father. She is sick of her life at home and is fed up with your sisters too. She has met a man and this man has won …’
She picks the paper up and reads a word, ‘Lottery?’
But something tells me she is not really stuck on this word at all.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘A lottery. A sweepstake. People pick numbers and can win millions of dollars.’
She puts the paper back on her chest and the paper lifts up and down.
‘This man, he has won three and a half millions and your mother says you will find it funny that he was already rich before he won.’
I don’t find this funny.
‘She says she has gone to live with him and that if you want you can stay with them in their house. It has a swimming pool and a spa and a private cinema and a library and horses, and you can stay for as long as you like, and she says she can pay for you to go to university. She says he is not a criminal or anything else you might be thinking.’
I sit up and reach for my cigarettes, but they aren’t there. I take in a big breath of air and it tastes quite good, considering. Now I will give up smoking.
I wonder about my dad. I wonder how he is.
‘She says she will pick you up at the airport.’
‘Is that all true?’ I ask.
She sits up and looks at me. ‘How would I know if it is true?’
I take the pages and tear them up.
She says, ‘There was a last page I did not read, you know.’
I lie down and close my eyes.
Kris stands up and opens the door. ‘I could have made it all up,’ she says.
I look at her; her big lips staying open in case they’ll be needed again.
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to pack my bags either way, and I’ll have to sit in the same seat as myself on the plane.’
We smile at one another, and she leaves.
I lie on my bunk and I think. I think hard about what I have done and what I will do next. The room is darkening slowly with the gloaming. A purple stain drips down the polluted sky; the streetlights not yet on.
I let it get dark and I don’t turn on the light. There’s a light on outside, in the hall, and it’s coming in under the door. A warm, orange band of light. And there’s a smell of cooking too.
I lie on my bed through dinner, even though I’m hungry. I expect Gertie to visit, to tell me to come down and eat, and yet I don’t feel sorry for myself when she doesn’t.
I’m cold, so I get under the blankets. I decide I will lie on my bunk all evening, comforted by the muted din of the TV and laughter and talking downstairs. I hear two boys in their dorm, laughing, and I hear Gertie coming up the stairs to tell them to come back down.
I like this. I like this listening to people moving around downstairs, in other rooms, listening to what they do. If Gertie comes in to ask me how I am, I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her everything. And we can talk until I fall asleep.
If she doesn’t come, I’ll look out the window for a while. I’ll watch people walking in the street below, and wonder which of them I might like to follow home.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author gratefully acknowledges the kind support, advice and encouragement of Stewart Muir, David McCormick, Clare Forster, Danny Lynch, David Lumsden, Marion May Campbell, Evelyn Conlon, Sam Chesser, Fran Martin, Carolyn Tétaz, Alice and Arthur Shirreff, Jamie Byng, Karen McCrossan and Polly Hutchinson.
Without them, this novel would not have been written.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Also by M.J. Hyland
Carry Me Down
About the Author
HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN
M.J. Hyland was born in London to Irish parents in 1968. She studied law and English at the University of Melbourne and, until August 2005, lived and worked in Australia. She now lives in the UK, where she is writing her third novel. Carry Me Down, M.J. Hyland’s second novel, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006.
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by M. J. Hyland
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage an
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First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Canongate Books Ltd.,
Edinburgh, Scotland
Originally published by Penguin Books Australia Ltd., 2003
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-0-8021-9776-4 (e-book)
Text design by Debra Billson, Penguin Design Studio
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How the Light Gets In Page 28