She once called it her sanctuary.
From the huge window in the lounge she used to gaze on the paradise outside her door, like how others would stare at the cover of a monthly calendar. The land, with its gentle rises and dips, were dotted here and there with sheep—small patches of cotton balls that scattered and gathered again in the pasture grass. To the right stretched the sea on whose churning foams the windsurfers flitted like butterflies on their bright sails. At the entrance to the driveway, the pohutukawa shed its crimson needles, laying down a luxurious red carpet on the path.
The riroriro and pīwakawaka hopped from branch to branch, singing like boisterous children while two kererū, wise and calm, contemplated the din from their silent perch. On the grass, the little bright heads of the rosellas popped here and there like baubles mislaid from last year’s Christmas tree. They gave a curious cry, a pink-pink-pink!, which stood out beneath the concert of the thrush and the tūi.
It was Deborah’s favourite sound to catch in all that cacophony. Her trained ears snatched it from the air like a present from Secret Santa.
The head of her bed—huge, hospital-grade, donated by a local charity—stood flushed against the window. If she could only turn her neck, she would be able to see the rosellas on the grass, but thirty degrees to the right was the most she could do nowadays.
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine them on her lawn. But sounds from the kitchen—metallic clanks, a falling spoon, the rude high-pitched beeping of the oven timer, interrupted her daydream. Sharon must be baking something.
Sharon was one of four support workers who visited her at various times during the day—to help her to eat, to bathe, to turn her on her bed. She should tell her the oven was uneven. Last time Deborah baked a cake, ten years ago, it came out undercooked on one side.
Deborah heard a swoosh above her head. It was a tūi chasing—what? A sparrow? A finch? A tauhou?
She closed her eyes again, but this time along with the birds came a flash of images.
*
The grey herons over the Mahurangi River where she remembered sitting on a boat with her cousin Heather. The cool water rippling through her fingers, enticing, pleading with her to jump in.
She was always teasing Heather to jump higher, row farther, swim deeper. Heather was the only other intrepid child in the family, the only partner of her adventures. They always did what the other dared, but one day, after Deborah’s teasing, Heather dived deeper than any child ever should and she never came up for air. She felt like she had lost a twin—or a shadow.
It was then that life first tried to hold her back. She refused.
Simon, her ex-husband, walked out on her during their honeymoon. He was terrified of heights and had abandoned her in the middle of the crossing on Aoraki-Mount Cook when the bridge rocked and swayed high in the air. She advanced, leaving him behind. She gripped the rope until it scorched her hands. When she reached the other side, she turned back and did it over again. That evening at the bach, Simon and his kit were nowhere to be found. At least he left her the car. She patted drops of iodine on her palms. As she sat amongst the ripped packages of Band-Aid, she considered divorcing him the next day, outraged at his juvenile behaviour. But the purple stain in her hands reminded her of the pansies she used to pick for her mum when she was little. She held them so tight until they became flat and soggy in her hands.
*
She tried to clench her hands now, under the blanket, but of course she couldn’t. Where exactly were they? She couldn’t even tell. She felt out of breath. Panic gripped her. Like a strong wave it rose, crested, and slammed against her heart—a terrifying tide.
‘Sharon!’ she screamed.
She could hear the tap running in the kitchen.
‘Sharon!’ she cried louder. She cried again and again until her voice was hoarse. ‘Sharon!’
The water stopped abruptly. Her voice bounced against the walls, loud in the sudden silence. The short, plump figure of Sharon, rushed in. She was wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
The first time Deborah met Sharon, she despised what she felt was Sharon’s island softness, her brown timidity, her meekness and shirking. But then Sharon told Deborah that she had flown to Auckland on what was the very first flight of her life. That the first night she spent in Auckland was the first night she had ever spent away from her family in Manila. That the panic that devoured her sleep—from being nameless, faceless, friendless—also helped her to sit up and look into the darkness with wide open eyes.
‘Is everything all right?’ Sharon asked.
Deborah wanted to say, Sit with me, but she knew that Sharon couldn’t. There were other homes she had to visit, people she had to attend to. She hopped from one place to the other. Like the birds that taunted her from her own lawn.
‘Could I have some sound on the telly, please?’
In one corner up the ceiling, a young and ridiculously healthy woman was selling exercise equipment. Bicycles that go nowhere.
Sharon picked up the remote control that lay on the nightstand, a few inches from Deborah’s head, and pressed the volume button repeatedly.
The riroriro outside kept on singing.
‘Louder,’ Deborah demanded.
The riroriro was joined by the tūi now.
‘This is too loud,’ Sharon said, when it hit fifty-nine.
‘I don’t care,’ Deborah shouted. ‘I don’t want to hear the birds. And shut the window!’
Sharon latched the window and pulled the blinds down.
‘I have to go,’ Sharon screamed above the noise. ‘There’s pie,’ she said. ‘On the counter.’ She pointed towards the kitchen. ‘Ruth will help you with the pie. Twelve-thirty. See you tomorrow! Take care now.’
Sharon picked up her bag and walked out.
Deborah didn’t hear the front door. Didn’t hear it open to the pandemonium, to the ruction, of the birds, of life. Nor slam shut. She was glad. She’d had enough. And she’d had enough of calling other people too.
She said her own name aloud. Again and again. Shouting it to the television. To the walls. To the mirror on the wall. To the trolley and the shelves and her bed with all its levers. To the useless wheelchair by her bed. Out towards the kitchen and the pie that was lying inert on the counter, and the lawn and the birds who mocked her. She yelled it again and again. Afraid that her throat would forget the way it felt. Or her ears, the way it sounded. She let it rise above everything else. Above the cacophony of the birds. Above the noise of the young woman with the machine that went nowhere.
