He hangs up. ‘What’ll we get for tea, then? What d’you feel like eatin’?’ He pulls me out of the phone box.
‘What was all that about? With Mum?’
‘Ah, she just wanted to say sorry for not being able to tell me about … about you and the baby, when I went around your place that night.’
‘Yeah. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me like that, she said.’
‘Fair enough. I’m glad you told me in the end. I mean, I’m glad just to know, but I’m glad you told me.’
I’m not used to seeing Pug at this hour. I’m not used to having the whole night ahead of us. I’m not used to being pregnant to someone, linked to them, having them know, walking along beside them in the knowledge, their arm around me. Every now and again my lungs give a little gasp of straight untainted happiness.
The shop-lights spill gold across the pavement. Around us wanders a zoo of people, all colours, styles, countries, sexual persuasions, states of health. Down to the last scabbed staggering derro, down to the last sneering dreadlocked neo-hippy, down to the last grubby white pseudo-waif measuring out her life with cigarettes, I love youse all.
3
BIRTHING SUITE
I’m looking normal. Everyone thinks I should
be very tall, with big muscles. I’m not.
Everything is inside me.
Kostya Tszyu
The night is fantastically long. Pug’s room is quite different by night. The mess disappears and becomes shadows, draped and piled. The window enlarges and fills with frangipani fingers lit up by the street lamp. I notice the trains more, individual car engines along Erskineville Road. Every night is like this for Pug.
He turns over to find me awake, lies there watching me.
‘Still can’t believe it,’ he says for the umpteenth time.
‘Wait till it comes out,’ I say. ‘Then you’ll believe it all right.’
He sits up, gropes at the foot of the bed, pulls a T-shirt on. ‘You scared?’ He lies down again, puts his hand on my belly.
‘Yeah, I’m scared. You ever see that movie Alien, where the baby alien comes out of the guy?’
He laughs. ‘That’s a movie, but. That’s an alien. We’re talkin’ a real baby here.’
‘But that idea of being busted open. And maybe its head getting stuck, you know, for hours and hours—’
‘Nah, they’ll get it out some other way if you get in trouble. Don’t panic. Kids are born every day.’
‘It’s all right for you. It won’t be happening to you.’
‘I’ll be there, won’t I?’
‘Will you? You won’t be up the pub with Ed?’
He huffs. ‘You really think I’d do that, go off drinking while my … my daughter or my son was being born?’
‘I don’t know you that well. I don’t know what you’d do.’
‘Well, not that. Jesus!’ Stubble glitters along the edge of his jaw.
‘So it’s a daughter you want? You said daughter first.’
‘We-ell.’ He rolls onto his back. ‘Better that it takes after you, I think.’
‘A girl won’t necessarily take after me, you know.’
‘God, I hope so. Aren’t many openings for women boxers.’
‘Oh, like there are heaps for high-school dropouts?’
Pug laughs. ‘It’s not like you’re going to be a dropout forever. No reason why you had to drop out in the first place, except the shit you were copping from other kids.’
‘That’s a pretty big “except”, if you ask me.’
‘Yeah, but there’s other schools, or you can do, you know, a year at TAFE or whatever. That gets you into their courses. I know blokes who done that.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What I mean is, when you have the baby, that’s not the end of your career or anythink. Plenty of women have careers and kids.’
‘And nervous breakdowns.’
‘And shitheads of husbands that don’t give them any help. You’ve got me. What else have I got to do during the day but push a pram round Newtown while you study?’
‘Oh, Pug, are you a saint or are you a saint? You’d go nuts.’ I sit up, laughing.
‘No more nuts than I go now. I’m serious! What’s so funny?’
‘You would do that? Would you want to, after the first fifty times?’
‘Well, would you want to? Man, I don’t know. Ask me then, see how I feel. All I’m saying is, it’d be a waste not to do something, for a person so brainy.’
For the God-knows-how-manyeth time the future picks itself up, rearranges itself and settles back down. I’m staring out at the fat tree-fingers while this happens, when Pug gets up, crouches in front of me.
‘Geez, I missed you,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know what the fuck I’d done, where you were, anything. I thought I was better just waiting, not hassling you, and then I couldn’t hack it any more. I couldn’t hack not knowing, you know? I thought, “Even if she doesn’t want me any more, I have to hear her say it.” So I come round your place. I knew you’d be pissed off at me, but I reckoned that was better than just sitting round hoping.’
The sheets are a war-zone, crumpled, smashed. My heart is wedged in my throat.
‘Your mum was great. She’s really smart. She was so much like you, too; it was funny, I kept wanting to point it out to her. “Oh, you do that thing with your eyebrows, just like Mel.” She was really kind, but. I mean, I felt like an idiot, you not even being there, but she just said, “Come in, I been wanting to meet you”, gave me a cup of tea and stuff. She’s real easy to talk to; I just ran off at the mouth. It was shockin’.’ He’s kneeling in front of me, leaning forward, laughing. ‘Man, I was sitting there, in this great house, feelin’ like, “Jesus, no wonder she doesn’t want me, living here, having someone like this to talk to—’”
‘You’re making me feel terrible, Pug—’
‘No, no! This’s all—because of today. You know? It all cancels out.’ He sits closer, puts his legs around me, leans to one side so the window-light shows him my face. ‘That’s what I’m saying. She’s telling me, “Well, you know, Mel’s pretty stubborn, but I’ll have a word with her,” and I’m like, “What’s the point?! I’ll just go and lie down on the bloody train tracks,” and—’
‘Pug!’
‘—and I see you on the street and … and everything just … comes right! But, God, for a while there—’ His arms are around me, his voice muffled in my shoulder.
I can’t speak. Maybe if I hold onto him hard enough he’ll feel how sorry I am.
‘It was bad, mate. I never felt that bad before. In my life.’
My muscles are wires under his weight. The baby comes to a rolling boil. Out beyond the tree, a few pinprick stars tremble in the smog.
Waking up next to Pug. The morning light lies weak and cold on the shambles. I try to imagine how the room would look, cleaned up and with a little cot in the corner, but the mould defeats me, creeping greeny black up the wall beside the dead fireplace. If we used the fireplace, maybe the mould would go. But then, the chimney’s probably blocked with birds’ nests, and the whole house’d go up in flames. And I don’t want to live here, in a house full of slobby boys.
I turn over. The sky outside is bright grey. It’s the first day of winter, I remember. The first day of winter, and the baby will come mid-spring. It’s not long, and it’s forever; I lie watching the shrink and stretch of time.
Pug draws a deep breath, opens his eyes. ‘Hey.’ He puts a hot arm over me and works himself closer. ‘Definitely we should live together,’ he says. ‘This is too good.’ He dozes off again, breathing next to my ear.
It is good, I have to admit.
When he gets up for training I dress too. ‘I’ve got to go home and get changed. Have a shower. My hair’s disgusting.’ In fact, I can’t stand the idea of waiting here for him, or going along to training. Everything’s too raw and real this morning.
‘Can I come and see you, after?’ h
e says. ‘Like, can we spend a day together? That’d be cool, eh.’
Sitting on the bed, I pull on my socks and boots. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ The smile I give him seems to take a lot of energy.
‘We don’t have to,’ he says gently. ‘I don’t want you getting sick of me or anything.’ I put out my hand, and he pulls me to my feet. ‘Like, if you wanna sleep or something. You still look tired.’
‘Up half the night, yakking on.’
‘Yeah, was great.’ He pushes some coils of hair out of my eyes. ‘Should do it every night.’
‘You should come over. After training, I mean.’
‘Yeah, and you go and put your feet up. You right to get over there?’
‘It’s the best exercise for a pregnant woman, walking.’ I pick up my string bag from the foot of the bed.
‘Well, take it easy.’
‘Geez, get off my back. I’m fine!’ I smile to soften the words. ‘I’m only pregnant, not terminally ill!’
But it’s strange to be upright. After spending so long in that bed, in that room, with that man, I’m cast adrift, floating, off balance. The bleak light ripples like a wobble-board in the sky, and my eyes keep being drawn to gobs of greenish-white spittle on the footpath, smoking cigarette butts, dog turds. People waiting for the buses, walking to the station, all look primped and stiff and unhappy; their soaps and scents and aftershaves are nauseating against the background of diesel smoke. By the time I get to the park I’m sweating, panting from trying to resist it all. My legs are shaking with hunger.
When I close the front door behind me I realise this isn’t what I want either, this intense padded quietness. I turn the TV on as I pass, for the illusion of company, and go upstairs. I feel as if I’m covered in handprints, as if Pug’s left grooves in my head, pushing his fingers through my hair. I smell, of sex and mould, of King Street exhaust and unbrushed teeth. My clothes are crawling on me. I can hardly steady my hands enough to turn on the shower taps. I strip off, step into the steam, lather up shampoo, soap and scrub and rinse. Finally I can feel my own body, my own self, surface from the grime.
Jeff Fenech of trainer Johnny Lewis: ‘I really do love the bloke … Johnny has always been there. The day I met him at the Newtown gym was the greatest day of my life. He means so much more to me than just a trainer. I knew he’d never let me get hurt—in or out of the ring—if he could help it.
‘That’s why I always have my head resting on his back when I’m going into the ring for a big fight. It’s him and me against the enemy and I always give him a little kiss on the back, just to reassure him.’
At the gym, Justin Silva sits next to me on the bench, plucking at his sweat-soaked T-shirt.
‘Dino says you’re havin’ a baby,’ he says to me under all the noise. He’s never spoken to me before.
‘That’s right. In November,’ I add, just to marvel at the fact myself.
He nods. ‘It’s really cool having a kid.’
‘Yeah? You’ve got one?’
‘I’ve got a boy, Paul. He’s just turned two. He’s ace.’ He can’t stop himself smiling. ‘Muckin’ around with your kid, there’s nothin’ like it.’ He glances at me to see if I’m listening. ‘Guys like, here, they can’t understand. You know, Friday night, get off work, you’re supposed to go out, have a few, party. Here I am runnin’ home to Paul, and Nina, that’s my girlfriend, fightin’ over who gets to put him in the bath! It’s crazy. I love that kid. He’s changed my life.’ He laughs at me. ‘I don’t give a fuck what other blokes think any more—and I used to be worried all the time. Just doesn’t bother me.’ He sits up and takes a swig of orange juice, stretches out his legs.
It’s a speech and a half. I’m actually getting a lump in my throat.
‘So what was the labour like?’ I hear myself asking. ‘Did you see him come out?’
‘Oh man, don’t start me off! It’s the one thing that always makes me cry. Yep, I was there. I seen him come out. Best day of my life. Just don’t ask me for the details.’ He bends down and re-ties both shoelaces.
‘What about for Nina?’ I say, laughing.
‘Well.’ He pauses, organising his thoughts. ‘It wasn’t too bad. She went six hours, which is … okay.’
‘Half the usual, from what I’ve read.’
‘Yeah. It’s hard.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘Makes you glad you’re a bloke, face it. But after, she said it was fantastic. Especially when it wasn’t just pains any more and she could do some pushing, help things along. She said pushing him out was just great.’ He smiles into the middle distance, then at me. I make a scared face. ‘You’ll be right. It’s just the best thing. I thought it’d be shocking, the whole deal, not just him being born, but being, you know, stuck with one chick, stuck with a kid and that. And it does stop you doing some things, but … you know, it changes everything. Things you think you’d miss, you just don’t give a fuck about any more, can’t see why you used to bother with ‘em.’
‘You want a go, Justin?’ Jimmy calls from the ring where he’s finishing up with Pug. ‘When you’ve finished chatting up Melanie, that is.’ He winks at me without smiling.
It’s the first time he’s acknowledged me. I wasn’t even sure he knew my name, this god of Pug’s, director of his life. Suddenly I’m visible—whoa! I just wish I could crawl off quietly under the bench to enjoy it.
Loosening the glove laces with his teeth, Pug sits beside me.
‘You didn’t waste any time, spreading the news around,’ I mutter at him.
‘Only Justin, and Jimmy. You’re lucky I didn’t take out an ad in the paper.’
‘You don’t want to spread it around. What if I miscarry and lose it?’
He puts a taped hand on my knee. ‘Nah, we’ll just make another one. Easy.’ He laughs and kisses me under the ear.
‘Pu-ug! You’re not supposed to laugh in here, or kiss people!’ I hiss at him.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s a holy place, isn’t it? Sacred ground? Look, no-one else is smiling.’
‘That’s ‘cause no-one else is happy. Now give us me windcheater and let’s get goin’.’
Selling a house is more complicated than I thought. The agent’s busy playing one potential buyer off against the other, and Mum’s on the phone to Dad nearly every night keeping him up to date with ‘developments’. She’s always very brisk and businesslike during those calls, even though when she’s telling me about what’s happening she’s practically rubbing her hands together with glee. She’s really into the whole process, tells me every little detail, not noticing that I really don’t want to hear, that I just sit like a lump not asking any questions, waiting for her to get on to another subject.
It takes a week and a half to eliminate one of the buyers, and then Mum and Dad go and sign the contracts at the agent’s. ‘Our last date,’ says Mum as she straightens herself up in front of her bedroom mirror. It’s nearly two months since I found Dad with Ricky here, and it seems like no time at all. She meets my eyes in the mirror and I can’t read hers. Then Dad arrives, also looking too neat and combed, and they go off together, careful not to touch each other.
Then there are six weeks to wait until ‘settlement date’, which is the date we’ve got to be out of here, the date ‘I actually get my moolah,’ Mum says.
‘And Dad gets his,’ I remind her. ‘What’s he going to do? Buy a red Ferrari?’
‘Don’t know. Haven’t asked. There may come a time when I care two hoots, but right now it wouldn’t bother me if he flushed the lot down the toilet.’
This conversation takes place at the fruit and vegetable market, Mum checking over every cauliflower.
‘You never act really upset about all this separation business, Mum.’
‘“Act” upset?’ She finally chooses the perfect cauliflower and starts pulling a plastic bag around it.
‘You know, floods of tears, screaming. Breaking things.’
‘You’d like that, would you?’ She raises an
eyebrow.
‘No, but I sort of … I think I keep waiting for it to happen and it doesn’t. It’s like you had a game plan for if you and Dad split up all along, and now you’re just going from step to step. Almost enjoying it.’
She gives me a smile that’s not a smile. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been doing my tears-and-screaming routine, just not when you’re around. And as for breaking things, enough’s already been broken, if you ask me. I’m more interested in trying to build things up.’ She crosses the aisle to check through the herbs. ‘I’ve seen a few people split up, and I know the damage it can do. I’m not about to let it ruin my life, or yours.’
‘How could it ruin my life? It’s your relationship.’ I know that’s not what I want to say, but I want to reassure her somehow.
She puts a thick bunch of rosemary sprigs into a bag. ‘Don’t be daft. He’s your father. We had a family. Now it’s—it’s not gone, it’s just … rearranged, fragmented? No, let’s not fool ourselves. It is gone. What it was is gone. Nobody’s quite the same person now.’ Her hand comes to rest among the celery stalks.
I stand there with the trolley, not moving, hearing her speak my thoughts, my fear.
‘You seem the same,’ I say, ‘only happier. More lively.’
‘Well, those are big differences, I guess.’ She smiles at me, then picks up a bunch of celery, weighing and turning it in her hands. ‘I mean, not that I was unhappy before, but I certainly feel better about myself after all this than I did before. I just don’t want you to think you can’t trust anyone, or any relationship. No, it’s any man, I’m thinking about. Your dad’s your dad; he’s just one person.’
‘That sounds like a contradiction to me.’ I nudge the trolley forward and we move along the aisle. ‘Fathers can’t ever be just one person to their kids, I don’t reckon. When they start behaving like just one person—like, any old person—like, well, having it off with your mum’s best friend, it’s … it’s so insulting, like somehow they’ve just forgotten they’re your father. Fathers don’t do that kind of thing, if they’re doing their job properly.’
The Best Thing Page 13