Free A History of Silence by Lloyd Jones Page B

loud exuberance of a newly arrived visitor, a large, glowing fellow, his arms filled with flowers and crackling cellophane. That is what the flowers are—a replacement for words and the need to say what cannot be said. Others camp around the bed of a wizened family member. Some perch on the bed-end, numb with boredom. A hand reaches across a skeleton for the bowl with the fat bananas. Behind an open door a number of orderlies in green smocks have their feet up, eating out of chippie bags and laughing in gulps at an episode of The Simpsons .
    I carry two styrofoam cups back to my mother’s room, horribly aware of the length of the corridor, which shines with disinfectant and the sound of my own footsteps.
    It is a moment before she is aware of me standing in the doorway. The old head turns on the pillow and smiles. I put down one cup, and hold the other to her mouth. She manages a sip, and shudders. I wonder if it is too hot. But that isn’t it. I have forgotten she doesn’t take sugar. What was I thinking?
    I hurry out to make a fresh cup. By the time I return she is asleep, so I leave the tea on the cabinet by her bed and tiptoe away to the lifts.

    The next day there is a photograph in the newspaper of a spectacular dying sun taken by Voyager on a journey to the outer reaches of the universe, in effect, to capture old news.
    It is a snapshot of our own sun three to four billion years from now. A sun just like the one that provides our daily existence has imploded into vapour.
    I bring the newspaper to the hospital. I show up to her door with one of my better smiles, one with firm and honest intentions. She is pleased to see me. The doctor has still to make his round. So I sit down on the edge of her bed with the newspaper open to the relevant section. I hold up the photograph of the dying sun. She leans forward, interested, and we go from there. And I continue to circle, ludicrously alluding to the solar system, imploding suns and so forth, until finally I have to say it. ‘You’re on your last legs, Mum.’ It is like telling a child some horrible truth about the world. She looks up at me, concentrating on what I have just said. She seems interested, then annoyed. She turns her head away from me. But the insistent light in the window is no better. When she turns back, I am surprised to find her looking so cross.
    â€˜Are you angry?’
    She nods.
    â€˜With what?’
    And for the first time in weeks she actually speaks.
    â€˜With all of you,’ she says.
    â€˜Of course,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s entirely up to you. But you will need to eat.’
    She reaches for the half-empty container of yoghurt that has sat untouched since breakfast on the arm of the dresser and with my help begins greedily shovelling spoonfuls into her mouth.

    She died at home, and that morning the sun splashed against the end of her house, where she had spent so many hours sitting on the patio surrounded by plants, a cup of tea at her side, a pair of secateurs at her feet. The undertaker was over-dressed, and his ruffian offsider was also, grotesquely, in a black suit, but not quite as successfully turned out. Perhaps because of the rash on his face and the heavy black shoes, I thought of the boys’ home I used to walk past. I would stop to look across the fenced ground and wonder about those boys my own age wandering in that state savannah, unloved as any dog at the pound. As I looked at the offsider’s shoes and up to his face and back to his shoes, I wondered if he had come from there. Then I moved out of this slow tumble of thought because there were a number of practicalities to consider. Such as RIP. Mum’s face was ‘at rest’ and ‘in peace’, and I was happy for her. I would have liked to wake her, were it possible, to pass on just how peaceful she looked in death. She’d have liked to hear. She always said I was too critical.
    The older undertaker spoke in