The Life of Houses by Lisa Gorton

Without speaking, Scott placed the shopping bags in the car at Kit’s feet and closed the door. Kit looked back at him through the window. Hand raised, palm towards her, he was saying something she could not hear.

Part II

Chapter Nine
    A udrey’s room was at the end of the passage. Opening the door, Kit came up against the side of a grey metal filing cabinet. She had to step out of its way to close the door. Every morning, propped up in bed in the lamp-lit room, Audrey confided the history of the house into a tape recorder. The library had given the name of someone who could type up the tapes for a small fee. Ordinarily it was Treen’s job to sort these notes into the filing cabinets. There were three of these spaced out along the wall, the last blocking a window. All the blinds were down; the lamp was on. The room’s concentrated airlessness brought out the synthetic sweet smell of medication. Audrey was sitting up in bed on an oversized pillow. Her rose-printed nightie emerged hugely from the quilt.
    â€˜I hope they fed you last night.’
    â€˜Yes…’ The effort of speaking stopped Kit where she was, halfway between door and bed. ‘Are you feeling better?’
    â€˜Still fat and old.’ Audrey relaxed her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. ‘I confused my medication.’
    â€˜Treen said, heart problems.’
    â€˜I expect you know all about it. I would not have, at your age.’
    â€˜Well, it was a class in science.’
    â€˜They told me you were clever. Are you a reader?’
    â€˜Sometimes. For school.’
    Treen knocked and without waiting stepped into the room. ‘Everything alright?’
    Audrey closed her eyes. She might have become her own effigy, hands crossed on her chest. With a little fussy sound, Treen went to open the blinds. Morning came into the room in shafts, pale-grey from the window’s dust. The open blinds did not so much let in the garden as show how far off it was. Kit felt what it was to be old. The room was full of days indoors: loose scraps of paper on the filing boxes; Reader’s Digest s stacked on the floor; knick-knacks and pill bottles on the bedside table. In this room morning itself was out of place.
    Treen glanced between Kit and Audrey. ‘Well! These all need filing.’ She set a stack of papers down on the rug. ‘I spread them out.’ She gestured at the filing cabinets. ‘The drawers are labelled. I use this list, too.’ Treen handed Kit a yellowing page marked down one margin with her careful handwriting: House, design of, early history of, unusual features of, haunting of, 20th C. history of; Furniture, proper care of, makers of, the purchasing of…Family, English history of, settlement of, military service of, first generation of…
    Treen went on with determined brightness, ‘I make my piles first. Then I fit them into their folders.’ She pulled open one of the drawers. Some of the folders were empty, others stuffed so full they dragged off their casters, spilling pages and newspaper obituaries soon to be creased and lost under the other files. ‘I’ll be in the garden. If you need me.’
    The air seemed to solidify after she left.
    â€˜Your mother was always reading. Cooped up in her room. Treen was more outdoorsy—more of a people person.’ Audrey stared out at the garden, which, if it shut in the view, was still part of the vast machinery of the heat. Out there the sun in its white glare had emptied other colours out. ‘Yes, things would have been different for Treen if she’d managed to have that baby. That was it for her. Came back.’
    Audrey moved her hands as if to dismiss, once and for all, the garden. ‘Sit here,’ she said, patting the bed. ‘Where I can see you.’
    She heaved sideways and stared at Kit. Her flesh, seen this close, gave up its appearance of solidity. It seemed to be multiplying by its