Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Violet

Honeysuckle

People come and visit her here, moving quietly over the grass towards the veranda. They stand around her, talking in hushed voices, and she would like to ask them if she is already dead. She cannot always tell who is who, like the card game when different heads are put on different bodies.

She does not see her usual doctor for some time, and she wonders if he has forgotten that he left her here, like the pencil and pebble that he used to leave in her hospital room. But when she asks the grey nurse with hair like twisted wool, she says the young doctor and Merry Eyes have both left the hospital.

She tries to imagine all the places they might have gone. She pictures the two of them riding an elephant decked out in ribbons and jewels, like in a book she once saw. She tries to find out more from the grey nurse and whispers to her of the jolly elephant. Thegrey nurse's laugh is like the harsh sound of a rake being dragged over stone. She says that HE, no doubt, will be working in a great hospital, but as for HER… She does not finish the words, but ends with a pat of her twisted wool hair.

After this, she asks no more questions. She slips her hand under the pillow that once hid envelopes to be collected by a nurse with merry eyes, who had pretty, shiny hair and who smelt of freesias.

She closes her eyes. She can no longer see the flowers but she can smell them on the warm air flowing over her skin. The heat no longer troubles her but a great weight still presses down on her chest, making each breath a journey. Her younger brothers once sat on her all at once, but it wasn't like this. She squirmed and pushed and kicked and got away. She can't get away now. Maybe her mother and father are on top, too. And sitting on the very top of them all, she imagines a small bird singing.

A noise bounds into the garden and scatters the birdsong. It rolls across the grass towards her. The weight when it comes topples the great imaginary pile off her chest and she pictures her brothers and her father flying through the air. All that is left is the weight of her mother. And the scent of honeysuckle. She can smell great wafts of it, as though a blanket of petals has been spread over her. She imagines her mother's worn, red hands tucking the blanket in around her and thinks of her doll. She cannot smile, although she wants to.

But she can open her eyes.

From that day on, her mother always says it is the honeysuckle that saved her. Once she has an audience, she starts, ‘Weren't you lying there in the hospital garden, tucked up in that big bed– you were such a small thing. You looked like death itself. They swore nothing could save you and that the infection had finally won. But I leant over you with that big bunch of honeysuckle. I knew they were your favourite so I carried them for half a day to get them to you. The doctors had done their best, God bless them, but didn't the smell of those flowers bring you back to us. It was a miracle.'

She will never tell her mother that honeysuckle is not her favourite flower.