Rose Leopard by Richard Yaxley Read Free Book Online Page B

clicks and puffs — this is a smorgasbord of stainless-steel efficiency.
    â€˜Kaz?’
    Her head stays still but I can feel her eyes, nearly closed and yellowed by disbelief, slide towards me.
    â€˜Vin …’ she murmurs.
    I close the space between us. Near the bed, the heat rises from her like steam. The hand remains mercifully hidden.
    A sliver of spittle snakes from her lips. I wipe it carefully with a convenient tissue.
    â€˜Kids?’ she asks.
    â€˜With Stu.’ I find a seat, drop into it, grasp her good fingers. ‘On a sacred quest for the world’s BIGGEST ice-creams.’
    Her smiles flickers, sends a TV-special of lost memories channelling into my mind.
    â€˜So let’s talk about cheerful things,’ I tell her, or maybe I’m just telling myself. ‘Make you feel better before we go home to the drudge and the sludge and the home-made fudge.’
    Beyond us, there is the steady tick of machinery that I can never hope to understand.
    Monitors gasp, neon displays show red numbers. Somewhere I can hear a rattle of discarded metal.
    Outside, through the window, I can see a young melaleuca bending in deference to the freshening wind.
    Kaz turns her head.
    â€˜What’s happening?’ she murmurs. ‘What … what are they doing to me?’
    I look at her good fingers, rotate the tiny silver ring that I gave her when she was pregnant with the boy. The ring has a tiny Yin and Yang cut neatly into her birthstone.
    â€˜Cheerful things,’ I tell her quickly. ‘It’s always good to remember cheerful things. I know — Otis … Sara and the snow holiday! Remember? We were packing up to go and you said — ‘‘Okay, go try your gloves and beanie on ’cause that’s what skiers wear. Let’s make sure they fit.—’ So next thing we know she’s back in the kitchen, naked, absolutely nothing on — but the gloves and the beanie! Do you remember?’
    No reaction, or maybe I’m not searching her face properly.
    I love that face, love its roundness and simplicity, tiny flaws like the cicatrix on her upper lip, the truth that flows from her eyes.
    Normally.
    â€˜Or — what about that time we stayed at your mother’s, and the kids got excited because she had carpet rather than good old vinyl. And Milo, um Alex, liked it because he found out it tickled his nose so he spent the day on all fours, sniffing the carpet like a bloodhound. Ended up with a burned chin and asthma. Kaz?’
    But the echo of my voice sounds hollow and unconvincing, and our subsequent silence — long, taut, heavier than storm-clouds — is worse than anything I have ever experienced.
    â€˜Kaz?’ It comes from afar, like my voice has retreated into my solar plexus, there to hide from the raw confrontations of now.
    Tears have gathered in the corners of her eyes.
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ she whispers desperately. And I think, This is the truth of the matter, isn’t it? We learn to accept pain and accidents, mistakes, malice, evil synergies, action and consequence — but to be left out of all understanding … surely there is nothing worse. To be randomly selected … stick your God, I silently tell all Christians. Where’s His benevolence now? When my wife lies as she lies and suffers as she suffers — where’s the Saviour touch, proof that those who warrant it are indeed blessed?
    * *
    Not Kaz. Never Kaz. Damn me, damn those who deserve it. But not Kaz.
    I lift her good fingers to my lips.
    â€˜It’ll be okay,’ I tell her, once, twice, maybe several times. ‘It’ll be okay. There’ll be an operation then in a few days we’ll be home again … it’ll be okay. Home again, doing the things we always do, snipping flowers from the garden, sharing stuff … it’ll be okay.’
    A monitor beeps. Outside the wind picks up fallen leaves and tosses them