Free The Newspaper of Claremont Street by Elizabeth Jolley

Nastasya was trembling, her hands were shaking but she gave a little laugh.
    â€˜The silly, silly nurses!’ she said. ‘See Veekly, they have put his transfusion without first to take off his pyjama so they will have to cut off the sleeve to take off. Always they do this silly, silly thing!’
    When Torben looked at Nastasya before he closed hiseyes, Weekly saw how he looked, and understood something of his love and devotion. She felt in some way privileged to be present at a time of this tender look which lay for a moment on Nastasya. Weekly had loved Victor; she had been devoted to him in her own way. Had she been able to look at Victor again now, she would have looked at him as Torben had looked for the last time at Nastasya.
    She tried not to think of Victor when she went to bed, at last, after her long day. She put Crazy out on the verandah and climbed into her bed. It was time to have the room to herself. She enjoyed the privacy and quietness of her ugly room.
    Sometimes when she was very tired Weekly’s money stopped being a mountain and became a cradle. Instead of hoisting herself up onto the top of her shining money mountain she sank into a golden cradle; it had unlimited gentle musical depths and she lay resting, listening to her own lullaby of coins dropping softly as she fell asleep.

Eight
    Weekly first went to look at the valley one Tuesday after work. All the morning she was thinking about the long drive and how she would be very late home to Nastasya. She had thought it better not to say anything of it to her. Since Torben’s death Nastasya, unable to bear being alone, had implored Weekly, ‘Do not leave me Veekly,’ she sobbed.
    She beat her breast and tore her clothes and hair in her grief after the funeral. Weekly did not know what to do.
    â€˜I cannot bear the noise of cars and people goink home at five o’clock and when it’s half past five and Torben is not coming I really cannot bear! Veekly do not leave me all alone in this flat.’
    â€˜I’ll come in every day,’ Weekly promised, and for a long time went in after work, forcing herself to do this.
    â€˜Hi Newspaper!’ Valerie called out to her from the shop. ‘Where are you these days?’ But Weekly hurried across to the flats where always she found Nastasya, redeyed from weeping and her hair not brushed, sitting at the little table surrounded by half-smoked cigarettes and Torben’s photograph, with his kind loving smile unchanged, in front of her.
    â€˜Photographs do not change Veekly even after a man is died,’ and Nastasya howled aloud. ‘It is terrible alone in this flat, all the time I hear peoples but not anyone for me; I hear the lifts, and the wind cries like a woman in pain outside my window, and peoples pass my door laughing and talking. Hear the wind Veekly! Is like a woman moaning. All the time I am crying like the wind. These flats make a person more alone.’ Nastasya sat all the time by herself and did not go out to fetch food and, though Weekly cleaned up, the flat became neglected and Nastasya was dirty and helpless. She seemed entirely without hope.
    Unable to think of any other way of calming Nastasya, Weekly took her back to her own room and put her to bed there.
    â€˜It’s just for one night mind!’ she told Nastasya as she made a bed for herself on two uncomfortable chairs. ‘Justfor one night Narsty, to set you up, and tomorrow you’ll be better. It’s just for one night.’
    A few days later they began fetching things over from the flat. First some bedclothes and then pictures and then Nastasya’s wickerwork trunk and various ornaments and books, and then her bed and all her treasures and Nastasya herself were settled and filling for ever Weekly’s cherished privacy. Even Crazy had never achieved this. One night when the kittens were still very small, Weekly had put Crazy and her family out on the verandah. The next