Читать книгу Bright Girls - Clare Chambers - Страница 9

That first evening at Cliff Street Auntie Jackie made us a prawn stir-fry with noodles, which we ate in the kitchen – the only communal area now that I had taken over the basement. This proved to be the one edible meal she could make, and she soon abandoned proper cooking altogether.

Unfortunately I couldn’t do justice to her initial efforts as about two mouthfuls in I began to feel queasy and had to go and lie down. By ten o’clock my stomach was in spasms, my head was in a bucket and I was puking myself inside-out. Living in Oxford I’d witnessed quite a lot of public vomiting – you really had to watch where you put your feet in Freshers’ Week – and I’d always had a horror of being sick. It was such a disgusting spectacle.

“Sorry” I said to Auntie Jackie in between torrents, as she discreetly wiped the toe of her shoe with a tissue.

“You don’t think it’s the prawns, do you?” she said, passing me a wrung-out flannel so I could mop my face.

I shook my head. I knew the culprit was the fishy ham: traces of the strange, beige film were floating in the bilious slop in the bucket. Besides, I hadn’t eaten any of the prawns.

“No, I bet it’s those sandwiches,” said Rachel from the doorway “I thought they smelled funny at the time. Thank God I never ate mine.”

“Do you think we should ring the doctor?” Auntie Jackie asked her. “Or your dad?”

We had only called him a few hours earlier to say that we’d arrived safe and well. It seemed a pity to phone and retract the good news so soon. The two of them conferred in low voices for a moment and then Auntie Jackie disappeared upstairs.

“Poor old you,” said Rachel, stepping just inside the sickroom with extreme reluctance, and covering her mouth and nose. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

I nodded weakly I was experiencing the momentary relief that follows violent puking. Auntie Jackie returned a few minutes later and shone a torch in my face.

“Ow What are you doing?”

“Does your neck hurt?” she asked, snapping off the torch.

“No. Why?”

“Just checking you haven’t got meningitis. Excuse me. Do you mind?” she lifted my T-shirt and peered at my pale flesh, apparently satisfied.

“You need to drink plenty of fluid,” she instructed me. “But sip, don’t glug. Do you want me to sleep in here tonight?”

I shook my head. I wanted to curl up quietly and die, without any fuss, and that was something best done alone.

They withdrew to the kitchen, and I could hear the murmurs of conversation and the comforting domestic noises of washing up and tea-making. Just before she went up to bed, Auntie Jackie came in again to bring me some fresh water. In her free hand she was holding a large Swiss cowbell. “This is the nearest thing I’ve got to an emergency cord,” she said. “If you want me in the night for anything, ring this and I’ll come down.” It let out a soft clong as she set it down.

When she had gone, I lay there feeling sorry for myself for a while. There were no curtains on the window and the street lamp outside gave just enough light to pick out the shapes of the furniture. I could see the double bass, and the candles in the fireplace, and the papier-mâché pig sitting on the window seat, and the picture of the punting nuns, which made me think of Oxford, and I wondered when or if it would ever be safe to go home.