Dark Oasis

by Dulcie M. Stone

  How to explain, without being misunderstood, the strengthening suspicion of Amy’s unfailing help? How to express, without losing credibility, the untested conviction that the Campbells aimed to oust her? Impossible. No one would believe her. She wasn’t sure she believed herself.

  “Mothers-in-law,” Beth commiserated. “They mean well. Even though sometimes it doesn’t look that way.”

  An invitation to intimacy; she couldn’t take it. She’d gone far enough. She dared risk no more. The Campbells were powerful. Instead, she asked, “Do you think it could it be true? Could Jess sense I’m scared? A baby? Can they do that?”

  “You’d be surprised what babies sense. Though even if it was, it couldn’t explain why she isn’t gaining weight.”

  “It’s just. she tires so quickly. She goes off to sleep after a few minutes.”

  “Then do as I suggest. Wake her up and try again.”

  “I do, but …”

  “But you’re tired too.”

  “I’m worn out. Maybe she should be on the bottle. Maybe it’s not the quantity of my milk. Maybe it’s the quality. The nights are exhausting.” As an explanation it would have to do.

  “It’s what mothers do, Gail.” Beth was brusque.

  She stiffened.

  “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

  “I shouldn’t be bending your ear with my problems.” Distancing herself, she gathered the cups and saucers. “I’ll see you next week.”

  “For God’s sake, Gail! Take it easy! You’re touchy as hell.”

  “That’s what happens to people who don’t get enough sleep.”

  “Been there and done that, too,” Beth laughed. “So come on … sit down and talk sense.”

  She hesitated.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Gail. Talk to me …”

  “What do you think about changing doctors?”

  “You’re right,” Beth nodded. “In my view, it’s essential. Do you want me to look into it?”

  “Would you?”

  “Happily. I honestly don’t understand why it hasn’t already been done.”

  “I think they want to be consistent. That’s the way they do things. Family loyalty’s primary.”

  “What about you?” Beth pressed. “Is family loyalty more important than Jess’s health?”

  “Of course not!”

  “You want the truth, Gail? Or do we keep this game going?”

  “What do you think? The truth of course.”

  “Okay. The truth it is.” Beth was unusually serious. “You should be suspicious. They employed me to keep watch.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would they do that?”

  “Because you weren’t well. Because you weren’t experienced. Because …”

  “To spy on me!”

  “God, Gail! There you go again!”

  “Get out!”

  “For God’s sake, Gail. Settle down. Trust me.”

  “That’s a joke! Next report, tell Amy to go to hell.”

  “Please,” Beth begged. “Calm down. I’ve never told them anything you wouldn’t want me to. I’m here to help you. Surely you know that by now.”

  “You’re here to keep watch. You even admit it.”

  “Of course I was employed to keep watch. Especially at first. You hadn’t the stamina. You hadn’t the experience. With Jess’s condition, she …”

  “Jess? You’re watching Jess?”

  “You know I am.”

  “But you said …”

  “We’re at cross purposes,” Beth’s eyes brightened. “You have this thing about the family. True or false, I haven’t a clue. It’s not my business. My business is Jess.”

  “Something’s wrong! What’s wrong with her?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “What’s wrong with her!”

  Half an hour later, she understood what she should always have understood. The long labour had totally exhausted both of them. They’d told her, she’d listened. She’d thought that because she’d recovered, so had Jess. She hadn’t understood that only time would tell if Jess suffered permanent brain damage. They’d employed Beth as nurse and watchdog.

  In the nursery, Jess was asleep; too quiescent, too good. The signs she’d not known how to read were in the blue lips and the flaccid muscles and the shallow rise and fall of the chest. Signs she should have known; signs she’d grown up with!

  “You will take her to the doctor?” Beth was at her side.

  “What does it actually mean?” Very frightened, she bent over the cot.

  “Oxygen deprivation at birth can mean lots of different things.”

  “Like what!”

  “It’s different in every case, Gail. Especially when there’s doubt. Come milestone times, we should have indications.”

  “She’s so good! Even when feed times are due – she’s so good!”

  “It happens that way sometimes. Too good, too quiet. Too tired. You have to make the effort for her. Wake her up, do the work for her. Help her take the breast. Bottle feeding won’t make any difference.”

  How could she have not known? “Isn’t there anything else – anything?”

  “You must play with her, stimulate her, make sure you spend lots of time together – just you and Jess. Have fun. Play with her – you know the sort of thing …”

  “But I don’t!”

  “Then learn!”

  Disturbed, the sleeper stretched, yawned, and fixed her intense blue eyes on her mother’s face.

  Her heart leapt. Rick’s eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Beth steadied her.

  “I didn’t think. I didn’t know.”

  “You should have.”

  “They didn’t tell me.” A half truth.

  “Maybe they did and you weren’t listening. Or …” Beth hesitated. “I don’t know about the family, Gail. I can’t even begin to suggest how this was allowed to continue.”

  It continued because they didn’t trust her. They didn’t know what she’d do. They were right. Her response to the watch-dog professional friend and nurse was calculatedly generous. “They meant well.”

  She was in the kitchen when Amy called in at lunch time. Jess was asleep in the nursery at the back of the house.

  “How is she today?” Amy started for the nursery.

  “She’s asleep.” She barred her mother-in-law’s path. “Don’t go in there.”

  “What’s wrong!” Amy was alarmed.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Don’t go in. Leave her.”

  “What’s wrong!”

  “We have to talk.”

  “After I’ve seen Jessica.”

  “We can talk here. I’ve made tea and sandwiches.”

  “I can’t stay long, Gail.” Amy balked in the open doorway. “I’ll just see Jessica, and then …”

  “This won’t take long.”

  “I have to get back. I left.”

  “I know. You left the men. You still manage to leave them every day, Amy. Why is that?”

  Amy warily entered the kitchen. “It’s hot in here.”

  “Don’t worry. The fan’s in the nursery.”

  “But surely …”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Jess could be brain damaged?”

  “What an odd thing to say.” Amy pulled out a chair, set the sandwiches aside, added sugar to her tea, and steadily stirred it.

  Careful … Careful …

  “Are you sure you’re quite well, Gail?”

  She feigned equal composure. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s my understanding you were told. Do you think, perhaps, you weren’t listening?”

  She’d been listening; she hadn’t understood.

  “Or perhaps,” Amy suggested, “you were more concerned with your own condition. After all, it was an inordinately difficult labour. Really, Gail, you must not beat yourself up over this. Beth has always been there for you. She still is.”

  “Why didn’t they do som
ething? Why did they let it go on so long? Why didn’t they help me?”

  “Because there was nothing to be done.”

  “The lady in the next room had a caesarean section. Why didn’t I?”

  “Because she had a different obstetrician. Because you were doing just fine. Jim was supremely vigilant. He’s very experienced. Do you know how many babies he’s delivered? You have so many reasons to be grateful to him.”

  “I wasn’t doing fine! Jess wasn’t! She isn’t!”

  “My goodness, Gail. Such drama! Really, it’s not necessary. You mustn’t upset yourself so much. You should be thinking of Jessica. You are breast-feeding.”

  “There had to be something.”

  “Trust me, Gail. If there was, it would have been done. You know that.”

  “Does Jake know?”

  “You know he does. Of course he does. He keeps Beth on. He makes sure I see you both every day. He worries about both of you, of course he does.”

  “You don’t have to! I can manage!”

  “If you think I come all this way just for your sake, young lady.”

  “Don’t! I don’t give a damn who you come for! I can manage without you!”

  Rising, Amy pushed back the chair, emptied the dregs of tea in the sink, crossed the room, and paused in the open doorway. “You are going to tell Jake – what?”

  “I’m going to tell him you’re too damned busy to bother with us.”

  “As you will, dear.” The dark eyes were chill. “On the other hand, I shall tell him the truth.”

  The front door clicked almost soundlessly shut. Going to the front windows, she watched the Mercedes back down the drive and turn sleekly into the empty mid-day street.

  No new Mercedes this last year. The reason could possibly be financial. The weather had turned against the farmers. Fickle as the roaring winds that dumped summer’s desert dust, Autumn frosts had haphazardly wiped out a huge number of crops. The Campbell farm might have been affected. If so, she’d never be told, and she’d never ask. Whatever was happening at the farm in Barclay, she didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

  She couldn’t bear to know. Because, whatever was happening, both management and manpower of the farm would have been affected by Rick’s death. He’d been the prime mover. Gus was ageing. Ryan was drinking.

  There was no question of Jake leaving Real Estate to help them out. He certainly had the brain, and probably the brawn, but not the will. Meanwhile he was climbing his ambitious ladder as if Rick’s death had left him a fortune. His smooth tongue and quick head and dubious contacts were already paying off in tangible ways. Unless …? Jake was Jake. Like their marriage, everything could be smoke and mirrors and shadows.

  She returned to the nursery and the reassuring hum of the fan. The cot, a protective fly-wire contraption, was by the window. Settling in the adjacent armchair, she tried to read. Concentration was impossible. The confrontation with Amy would not be an end, but a beginning. The battle lines had been drawn and the ripples would surely circulate forever. Though she’d been prepared for Amy’s reaction, living with it was going to be daunting. She’d had no choice

  Setting the book aside, she leaned against the fine mesh enclosing the cot to inspect the sleeper. A good baby, ten month old Jess chuckled and smiled when awake, but slept for great slabs of time. Until today, she’d thought the lengthy sleeps a bonus. Today she knew the truth.

  Though she must find a way to keep Amy from interfering in her life, taking Jess away was impossible. Even leaving without Jess, which was unthinkable, was impossible. There was nowhere to go and no one to go to. The run down house in the run down Melbourne suburb had been sold. She had only a hundred pounds in her bank account, no skills, no trade, and no assurance of continuing good health anywhere but here in the dry desert.

  She must stay. She needed not only the arid climate, but access to Jake’s wealth and the influence of the Campbell name. Though she’d use the family, she’d never surrender to them. Jess would have what only she could give. She’d have what her mother had given her – steadfast love, and abiding reliability. Somehow, she must dig deep. Was she strong enough? She’d have to be.

  Opening the mesh top of the cot, she took the sleeping baby into her arms, set the disinterested mouth to her breast, and roused her. This was the first step. Compel her to feed regularly, no matter what the distractions, no matter how tired they both were.

  The blue eyes opened, the tiny mouth left the breast and Jess smiled at her mother. Rick’s smile.

  “There there, love.” She reset the mouth to her breast. “You have to drink up.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jess had been bathed and fed and sealed into her cot for the night. The tall fan, softly purring, stood by the open window. Outside the sun was reddening the blazing sky. She lowered the venetian blinds, leaving the slats ajar.

  He came through the back door just after seven.

  “It’s in the fridge,” she called from the lounge room. “I’ve eaten.”

  Nervously, she listened for the ritual sounds of movement in the kitchen. They seldom ate together. After he’d eaten, his light shoes tap tapped on the polished floor boards from kitchen to bedroom. She went to the kitchen, washed and dried the remaining dishes, set the table for breakfast, and returned to the lounge room.

  Wearing casual slacks, shirt and sandals, he sat in his usual chair by the unlit fireplace. For a brief moment, inevitably, she saw Rick. His meticulously measured whisky and ice on the table at his side, he was reading Belleville’s Daily News. As every night he was home, he re-read the business and financial reports he’d skimmed through at breakfast, then flipped to the gossip column. Every word was potentially important.

  As every night, she asked, “Had a good day?”, and he replied “Soso.” Exchange of information about their day was rare. If she asked about his, he’d not tell her. If she offered information about hers, he’d not listen. He was not interested in how she spent the days, whether she talked to the neighbours or made friends or was bored or had heard from Barbara. In daylight encounters verbal communication was limited to the basics of family, food, allowances, and wifely duties associated with his business. At night, in bed, there was no talk.

  Disciplined and careful of his weight, he would probably not go to fat, as Ryan was doing; as he’d once been in danger of doing. Like many in his ambitious world, he played squash at the Belleville Club, worked out in the gymnasium, played golf at the recently established Belleville by the River links and no longer drank or ate or partied to excess.

  But the controlled master of the house sitting in the opposite chair was not the man of the bedroom. That man had not changed. Erratic, unpredictable, ruthless, deceptively gentle and skilfully seductive, he roused her in ways she wanted never to feel again. Until he touched her.

  A man to be feared.

  Not tonight. Jess’s welfare was critical. Tonight he was going to listen.

  Heart pounding, she nervously ventured, “Jake … we have to talk.”

  Flipping the pages impatiently, he grunted.

  “Now, Jake.”

  “Later.”

  “We have to talk,” she persisted. “It’s important.”

  “Later. Do you mind?” As always at such times, he was coolly courteous.

  “I do mind. Put the paper down, Jake. You have to talk to me.”

  Though his face muscles tightened and his fists crumpled the pages, his attention remained fixed on the newspaper.

  Fighting nausea, she declared. “It’s about Jess.”

  “What about her?” No further sign of emotion, none. Even the errant muscles had submitted to control.

  Only a fool would persevere. “She might be brain damaged.”

  Deliberately, he smoothed the crumpled pages.

  “Talk to me!”

  No response, none.

  “Answer me! I’m talking to you, Jake!”

  “I can hear you.” He lowered the paper.
“Is there something more?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Who else knows? Does everybody except me know! Talk to me, Jake!”

  He set the paper on the table, reached for the cigarettes he seldom smoked in the house, opened the pack, set it on top of the paper, and raised the whisky. But he did not drink.

  The only sound was the faint tinkling of ice as he contemplated the untouched glass. He was waiting for her to further antagonise him, to give him reason to attack. He was enjoying himself.

  Not this time Jake. She’d got his attention. She too could wait.

  At last, as though talking about the weather, he dryly commented, “So now you know.”

  “I should have known, Jake.”

  “Mother knows what to do.”

  “That’s what she said. But she’s not coming here any more.”

  “Would you care to repeat that?”

  “You heard. Your mother’s not coming here any more.”

  Though nothing betrayed what he was thinking, his stillness intensified.

  “It had to be done, Jake. For Jess’s sake.”

  “I’ll phone Mother.” He started for the kitchen.

  “Sit down, Jake.”

  Already at the door, he turned back.

  “Sit down, Jake.”

  He paused a moment only, returned to the chair, sat back in the easy chair, and cocked his head in mock attention. “I’m sitting, Gail.”

  “I want …” This was too hard.

  “I’m listening.”

  She had no choice. “I want a separate bedroom.”

  “Ah! Separate rooms. Would you care to spell that out?”

  “You make me too tired! I’m worn out. You get me going. I’m worn out! I can’t think! I can hardly move. If Jess hadn’t been so good. That’s the problem, she’s too good. I have to wake her regularly. I have to help her … you have to listen! If I don’t feed her regularly, she’ll …”

  “Gail! Shut up!”

  She’d let panic win.

  “So you’ve said what you had to say.” He reached for his drink, drained the glass, and resumed reading.

  She dared not move.

  At exactly 10.30 he refolded the paper, set it in on the table beside the empty glass, placed the untouched cigarettes in his pocket, stretched, and left the room. As every night when he was at home.