Darwin looks up at me warily. He doesn’t move or try to speak. He has on a makeshift diaper. I made it for him. A towel with a plastic Superphosphate bag, clipped together with safety pins. He’s had it on two days. At first the plastic smelt of fertiliser. Now the smell is different, like ammonia.
“Hospital wash,” I say. “Armpits and crotch.” I unclip the pins and put them on the bedside table. “It’s not the armpits I’m worried about,” I say. Darwin snorts through his nose, it might be a laugh. I pull the diaper out from underneath him and put it in a pillowcase. The plastic is wet but not soiled.
He looks small on the bed, his belly is sunken. His rib cage is swollen, yet each of his ribs still shows. He labours each breath but at least they are even. But the air only goes to his chest, it doesn’t swell in his belly. I need to keep talking, the sound of my voice keeps the tears from my eyes.
“Remember how you’d feed a raw egg to a calf, make it swallow the shell?” I talk as if those days were fun. I soap the sponge in the bucket and start down his arm. His muscles feel tight and reluctant. “But that was for diarrhoea,” I say. I fill the air with words, focus on the freckles on his shoulder, some that are raised and blackened from sun. Dark spots on pale skin.
“I was hoping Leonie would be here for this,” I say.
Up as far as possible and down as far as possible. I wash him like it’s no big deal. “Did you know I’m circumcised?” I ask him. “They must have done it on the boat.” I don’t turn him over, I’m afraid he’ll fall from the bed.
Callie comes in with a jug of fresh water. I’m glad of the diversion. “I haven’t told Darwin what’s going on in the rest of the house,” I say.
“I’ve started drinking,” she says to Darwin.
I cover him up so she can’t see. His feet poke from the end of the sheet, his toenails are ridged and long, but I can’t deal with them now. Callie fills a yellow cup with water.
“Would you like some whiskey in it?” she asks him.
“He needs prunes,” I tell her.
She leaves the room and goes down the hall. I don’t know where she’ll find them.
I decide not to tackle his hair. I don’t know how I’d wash it without wetting the bed. Instead, I sprinkle powder on it, muss it about so his hair doesn’t look so greasy. As I put the tin down, I realise it’s tinea powder. “You won’t be getting athlete’s foot,” I tell him.
Callie returns with a plastic kite. “I thought you were looking for prunes,” I say. The kite has yellow banners and a red Chinese dragon. “That’s mine,” I tell her. “I got it one Christmas but there wasn’t any wind.” The sun was so hot the plastic expanded, it didn’t stay taut on its frame.
“I thought we could hang it from the light so Darwin has something to look at,” she says. She brings it over and stands on the chair, her paddock boots on the velvet. She doesn’t ask him if he wants a kite. I put my knee on the seat to keep it firm, hold her still as she reaches around the hanglight. I steady her hips with my hands and lift her a few inches higher, my face in the small of her back. It feels nice being against her, the smell of her unwashed shirt. I wonder if I’ll forgive her.
“Looks good,” she says as I let her down. “Brightens up the room.” She puts the electric fan on the chair and faces it upwards. The kite pitches and flits without rhythm or logic, like a bird that’s trapped inside. The way it angles and dives above Darwin’s head is unsettling.
“It’s too low,” I say. I turn off the fan and get on the chair, try to tie the string shorter.
“Did you hear about Day and Dickie?” Callie says to Darwin. “Day hit him seventeen times.” I shorten the string with a series of hitches. Darwin just looks at her. His eye is watery as always. I can’t tell if he likes her or not.
“Would you have let Dickie kiss you if you hadn’t been drunk?” I ask her. I angle the fan more towards Darwin and not so high up in the air.
Callie looks up at the yellow dragon as it wafts about the room. “It was an accident,” she says.
Darwin watches her. His head is shaking slightly. It might be the tremors that old people get, but it looks like disapproval.