‘. . . thirteen, fourteen . . .’
In slow motion the ceiling tilts, the floor ripples, I sink into my weakness, sliding almost sedately into the redeeming blackness, thank you.
‘Papa!’ I hear Hannah as if under water. ‘Mama’s had another fit!’
‘Stabilise circulation!’
Hannah
Sister Ruth asks me what I mean by ‘the cabin’. To begin with, I want to bash her over the head and make her work it out for herself, but then I think that I ought to help her.
‘A cabin is a little house made of wood. In the forest.’
Sister Ruth nods as if she understands, but her eyebrows are pulled into a frown and her jaw is now hanging a little lower, as if it had somehow slipped from where it should be. If you’re smart, you can see a lot in someone’s face.
‘Are you telling me you live in the forest? In a cabin?’
I nod slowly and say, ‘Well done.’ I get praised when Mama tests me and I get something right. She always says, ‘Well done, Hannah,’ which makes thinking about things much more fun. Maybe Sister Ruth feels the same.
‘Have you ever lived anywhere else, Hannah? In a proper house?’
‘A cabin is a proper house! My papa built it specially for us. We’ve got proper air too. The recirculation unit has only slightly malfunctioned two or three times. It needs to be humming gently the whole time, otherwise there’s something wrong. Luckily I’ve got a really good sense of hearing. If something’s wrong with the recirculation unit I notice at once, long before we start to get headaches. But Papa repaired it straightaway. He said it was just a little loose connection, nothing serious. He’s a pretty good handyman.’
Sister Ruth is blinking a lot. ‘What,’ she says, but then stops. I don’t say anything either, because I think she’s finally understood that she needs to make an effort herself. Mama always waits a while if I can’t immediately think of the right answers when we’re doing work. ‘It’s not going to help if I always give you the solutions straightaway. You have to get used to using your own head. Think, Hannah. Concentrate. You can do it.’
‘What,’ Sister Ruth says again. ‘A recir . . . ?’
‘Recirculation. It’s hard to say, isn’t it? Do you know what I do when I come across a difficult word?’
Again Sister Ruth says nothing.
‘I say the difficult word over and over again in my head until it’s stored there. That’s why my vocabulary is much better than Jonathan’s. Sometimes I only have to say the word twice inside my head, but sometimes I have to do it ten times.’
Sister Ruth still isn’t speaking. Maybe she’s trying my trick and practising the difficult word in her head.
Finally something happens and her mouth starts moving again.
‘Will you now tell me what a . . .’ – she takes a deep breath for the difficult word – ‘ . . . recirculation unit is?’
‘Well done,’ I say, pleased at Sister Ruth’s progress and at myself. I’m a good teacher. I get that from Mama. ‘The recirculation unit makes our air,’ I tell her, trying to speak as slowly as possible so Sister Ruth can follow me. ‘A person can’t live without oxygen. Every day we need to breathe in and out between ten and twenty thousand litres of oxygen. In terms of volume, that’s roughly ten to twenty thousand times as much as in one pack of milk. The air we breathe in contains about twenty-one per cent oxygen and nought point nought three per cent carbon dioxide. The air we breathe out contains about seventeen per cent oxygen and four per cent carbon dioxide, full stop. The recirculation unit ensures that the good air comes into our cabin and the bad air is taken away. We’d suffocate otherwise.’
Sister Ruth puts a hand in front of her mouth. I can see she’s trembling slightly. All of her, not just her hand.
‘Why don’t you just open a window if you need air, Hannah.’ I think that’s a question, but it doesn’t sound like one. You’re supposed to go up at the end of the sentence if you want to ask something. I start arranging the pencils on the table in a long, straight line, from light to dark, beginning with yellow and ending with black.
‘Hannah?’ Sister Ruth’s voice goes up this time. I look up from my line of pencils and into her eyes.
‘Will you at least tell me who Jonathan is?’
‘He’s my brother.’
‘Does Jonathan live in the cabin too? With you and your parents?’
‘Yes, of course. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Why should we send him away?’
‘Tell me about the stains on the carpet.’ Now Sister Ruth is looking very strict and she’s even winning the blinking competition. But that’s just because my eyes have started weeping again. I blame the light and because I’m tired.
‘Hannah? Earlier you said that Jonathan was taking care of the stains on the carpet. What stains, Hannah?’
I shake my head and say, ‘I’m tired and I want to see my mama.’
Sister Ruth reaches for my hand across the table. ‘I know but, believe me, the doctors really will let us know as soon as you can go and see her. Maybe you’d like to draw another picture in the meantime? Tell me, is your brother older or younger than you?’
I tear the picture of Mama and Papa in the forest from the pad and put it to one side. Then I pick up the blue pencil and start drawing Jonathan’s face on a new piece of paper.
‘Younger,’ I say. ‘By two years.’
‘Okay, don’t say anything, let me guess. That means he’s . . .’ Sister Ruth says, looking as if she’s working it out. ‘Hmm, it’s hard. I reckon that makes him . . . six?’
I look up from the piece of paper. Poor, stupid Sister Ruth. She doesn’t seem to be any good at maths.
‘Thirteen minus two,’ I say, trying to help, but she just gawps at me.
‘He’s eleven, of course!’ I solve the sum for her. Sister Ruth really has a lot to learn in her life.
‘Hannah?’ Now she sounds as if she’s about to cry. ‘The cabin. And the circulation unit.’
‘Recirculation unit!’ I say in my lion’s voice.
Sister Ruth flinches. Fright, again. Wide eyes and red cheeks. She just won’t make an effort. ‘I’m not going to put up with this!’ my lion’s voice continues and I slap the table. The pencils jump; the green one rolls over the edge and clatters on the floor. You mustn’t be stupid deliberately. I bend under the table to get the green pencil and when I reappear, she apologises. That’s something, at least. You always have to apologise if you do something wrong.