Moonlight Sonata

by Eileen Merriman

  ‘I’m not hungover,’ she says, scuffing outside and down the back stairs. She slows when she hears voices from below, Molly and Richard.

  ‘Why are you so keen to stay on?’ Richard asks. ‘I thought you’d be dying to get away by now.’

  ‘It’s important for Noah,’ Molly says. ‘He’s loving it here, and who knows when we’ll make it back?’

  ‘So I’m driving to Auckland by myself, then?’

  ‘If you can’t wait three more days, then yes, you are. We’ll bus.’

  ‘This isn’t about Noah, is it?’ Richard’s voice drops, so Lola can’t hear what he says next. She continues down the stairs, her head lowered, and into the downstairs lounge.

  ‘Hey,’ she says to Austin, who is stretched out on the couch, his headphones clamped over his ears. Austin doesn’t reply.

  Lola trudges into the bedroom and flops face down on her unmade bed. Closing her eyes, she lets her mind drift to a few hours back, when she was in Noah’s tent.

  Lola, Lola, I do love you.

  Even though she knows it’s wrong (is it?), she wishes she could be back in Noah’s arms — sweat mingling, limbs intertwined, chasing the best feeling in the world.

  Am I too young? What if he never talks to me again?

  No, that’s stupid. He loves me. And …

  Can we just pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist for a few days?

  Three more nights, they’ve got three more nights.

  A lot can happen in three nights.

  When Lola climbs upstairs a couple of hours later, the only people left in the lounge are Nana and her father.

  ‘Where’re the others?’ Lola asks, taking a piece of lukewarm pizza off the tray on the bench.

  Her father yawns. ‘Your mum went to the supermarket. Tom and Noah were heading into Whangarei, and Molly and Joe went for a stroll.’

  ‘And Richard left for Auckland,’ Nana says, her knitting needles moving furiously, click-click-click. Lola can’t work out why she’s knitting jerseys when it’s at least twenty-seven degrees in the shade.

  ‘The great escape,’ her father says, flipping the tab on a bottle of ginger beer. Lola sits on the arm of his chair and takes the bottle off him, raises it to her lips. The gingery bubbles fizz over her tongue. The pizza is greasy with cheese, just what her stomach needs.

  ‘What are Tom and Noah doing in Whangarei?’ Lola asks, feeling clammy. The heat is really getting to her, but she’s not sure she can be bothered changing to go for a swim.

  Her father scratches his head. ‘Picking up girls?’

  The mouthful of pizza turns to glue in her gut. ‘Really?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m just remembering back to when I was eighteen.’

  ‘They don’t need your sort of encouragement,’ Nana says, picking up another vomit-coloured ball of wool. Lola wanders outside and leans over the balcony railing. On the lawn below, Beckett and Sully are using disintegrating wooden bats to hit a tennis ball attached to a pole.

  ‘Aargh,’ Beckett roars, hitting the ball head-high. Sully dodges it and nearly falls on his butt.

  ‘Ah, Jesus, I need a beer,’ her uncle complains.

  Beckett looks up. ‘Want to play?’

  Shaking her head, Lola moves back inside. She hasn’t forgiven Beckett for asking Austin if he was gay last night.

  ‘I’m off for a swim,’ her father announces. ‘Want to come, Lola?’

  Lola, unsure of what she wants anymore, says, ‘Sure.’

  Lola feels about fifty per cent better after the swim. Afterwards, they sit on their towels, watching the waves collapse onto the sand.

  ‘You’ll be looking forward to getting back to cricket.’ Her father fingers his greying chest hairs.

  ‘Cricket, yeah.’ Lola tosses a shell in the air and catches it.

  ‘You don’t sound so sure.’

  ‘I’m just tired,’ Lola says. ‘Dad …’

  Ants rests back on his elbows. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Was Grandad really an alcoholic?’

  Her father squints at her. ‘Well. I guess he was. It was our normal, I suppose. But he drank most days, and some days he drank an awful lot.’

  ‘Did he and Nana fight a lot?’

  Ants sits upright, brushing sand off his clothes. ‘Oh yeah, they’d have some blazing rows. One of the worst ones was over the Guns N’ Roses concert.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Molly and Joe were dying to go, so asked for tickets for an early Christmas present. Mum said over her dead body, so they hitchhiked down to Auckland. They stunk of weed when they came home, and when Mum was telling them off, Dad said, come on, why don’t you let them live a little, and Mum said, if you want your daughter to turn into a druggie drop-out and waste all that talent, then it’s on your head, and so on, and so on.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lola can’t imagine her aunt hitchhiking or smoking weed. ‘So … what happened?’

  ‘So Dad yelled at Mum for being too hard on Molly and pampering Joe, and Mum yelled at the twins for hitchhiking, and Molly yelled at Mum for … well, I can’t remember now.’ He shrugged. ‘Dad slept in the garage for two weeks after that. And Molly moved out.’

  Lola blinks at her father. ‘That was a big fight.’

  ‘Yeah, almost as big as when Mum and Molly moved to Christchurch.’ Her father peels a strand of seaweed off his leg.

  ‘That must have been a really big fight.’ Lola hesitates. ‘What was that one about?’

  ‘Apparently Dad had an affair. That’s Mum’s story anyway. I don’t think anyone will ever really know.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lola frowns. ‘You must have missed Nana heaps.’

  ‘Yeah, it was horrible.’ Her father stares out to sea. ‘I cried a lot. If Sully cried, he never showed us, but he was really grumpy for ages, kept wagging school. Dad didn’t have the heart to give him the belt for the first month or so. Grandma Lily — that’s your great-grandma, Dad’s mum — moved in with us for a while, but then she had a stroke and had to go into a rest home.’ Her father inclines his head. ‘It was worst for Joe, though. He and Molly used to share a bed, not because they didn’t have one each, but because they preferred it that way. We’d find them curled together in the morning, like kittens. Joe cried every night for a year after they left, maybe longer.’

  Lola gets a weird feeling, like she might cry too. Lonely, they must have been so lonely without each other. ‘Aunt Molly must have missed Uncle Joe when he went overseas too.’

  ‘Yeah, some of the time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lola’s headache is returning. Hangovers suck. Do they last all day? She’ll have to Google it.

  ‘They weren’t talking to each other for a year or so. Don’t know what that was all about exactly, but it was around the time Molly met Richard and …’ He glances at her. ‘Anyway. Everyone’s talking to each other now, water under the bridge and all that.’

  ‘Except for Grandad,’ Lola says, and her father laughs.

  ‘I dunno. Reckon he’ll still be ranting from wherever he is, if you believe in Heaven and Hell.’ He grabs his cap and sticks it on his head. ‘Think I’ll head back now. You coming?’

  Lola shakes her head. ‘Not yet. I might go for another swim.’

  ‘Right-o, see you back at the ranch.’ Her father kisses the top of her head and starts squeaking up the sand.

  Lola steps along the water’s edge, but the urge to swim has disappeared. Instead, she meanders to the pohutukawa tree at the end of the beach, kicking her feet through the shallows. The remnants of last night’s fire are still there, charcoal and ash, along with an empty beer can.

  After climbing up onto the rocks, Lola picks her way towards the cliff. There’s a cave around the corner that’s only exposed at low tide, a cave they used to play in as kids. Maybe she can sit in there for a while, have some time to herself. Maybe that will help clear her foggy head.

  A trio of seagulls alights from the promontory, calling out to each other. Once a
t the end of the cliff, Lola holds the rocks with both hands as she pivots around to the other side. It’s quieter here, away from the bashing of the waves, and she can see the mouth of the cave. She jumps down, the wet sand sucking at her feet, takes a few steps towards the entrance.

  And freezes. Was that a voice? Lola tilts her head. No, must have been a seagull. She steps closer and halts once more. Not a voice, but a moan, a very human moan. Holding her breath, she hears it again, a rhythmic moaning. It sounds like a woman. Flattening herself against the side of the cliff, she inches closer, and that’s when she hears a man’s bass grunt, hears him say, ‘Lolly, Lolly.’

  She has to look now. She can’t not look. And suddenly there’s the back of Uncle Joe’s head, and his bare buttocks, and he’s lying on top of Aunt Molly and all she can see is skin, skin, skin.

  Lola turns and runs. She runs and runs and runs.

  Chapter 20:

  MOLLY 1999

  The email and the phone call arrived within minutes of each other. The email was from Megan, a flatmate from uni days. They’d shared lunches, laughter, tears. Now Megan was sharing the most exciting news ever: Guess what?? In 32 weeks we will be three rather than two! I couldn’t wait until 12 weeks to tell you. I got pregnant as soon as I stopped my pill, can you believe it? Talk soon, M x.

  ‘No,’ Molly whispered. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Something, someone, was ringing. An all-too-familiar mixture of dread and excitement searing the back of her throat, Molly snatched the cordless phone off the table.

  ‘Hello?’ She felt as if she were about to vomit. The cheerful voice on the end of the phone wasn’t making her feel any better.

  ‘Hi, Molly, it’s Nancy from Fertility First here. How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Molly managed. Spit it out, will you? Just spit it out. It was their last funded IVF cycle, their last chance at having a child, and her dreams were about to disintegrate.

  ‘Molly, I’m delighted to tell you that you’re pregnant. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  ‘Oh.’ Molly clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Yes, that’s — oh my God, that’s fantastic.’ Then she ran into the kitchen and threw up in the sink.

  ‘Oh.’ Molly stared at the splatter of blood around the porcelain, at the semi-clotted substance in the base of the toilet bowl. ‘Shit.’ Her fist, which didn’t feel connected to her, pounded the wall. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  Who was that woman sobbing? Not just sobbing, wailing as if she’d lost a child rather than a seven-week foetus.

  At seven weeks your baby’s feet and hands are emerging from developing legs and arms.

  ‘Molly, are you OK?’ Richard asked from the other side of the door. What a stupid fucking question, and why couldn’t he just come in rather than waiting to be invited to this … bloodbath.

  They look more like paddles at this point rather than the tiny fingers and toes you’re dreaming of tickling.

  After further howling (it’s me, it’s coming from me), Richard entered anyway. He crouched beside her on the tiles and gathered her into his embrace.

  ‘Oh sweetheart, no, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Our last chance,’ she choked. ‘Our last chance.’

  ‘Hon, we can …’ Richard coughed. ‘We can put another cycle on the mortgage.’

  Molly swiped an arm beneath her nose, streaking snot and blood. ‘No, we can’t.’ There was no way they could fund any IVF cycles themselves. They could barely afford the mortgage.

  Why was it so easy for some people? Countless teenagers out there were getting pregnant all the time. It wasn’t as though she were old anyway; hell, she wasn’t quite thirty. Molly and Richard had given up alcohol and coffee and any thing that was even remotely satisfying, including spontaneous sex, and now her womb had rejected the only pregnancy she’d ever had.

  ‘I feel so useless,’ Richard said, uselessly.

  Molly twisted out of her husband’s arms and stood up.

  ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she said. Rage boiled inside her chest. She had a Bachelor of Science with first-class honours and a doctorate in Biochemistry. Why couldn’t she solve this? It should have been another rite of passage rather than an impossibly high tower she’d never have any hope of scaling.

  Richard got to his feet. The air smelt earthy, metallic.

  ‘Maybe we need to relax,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’ll just happen if we stop trying so hard.’

  ‘No, we need a fucking miracle.’ After walking into the bathroom, Molly turned the shower on full blast and stepped into the cubicle, fully clothed. She wanted Richard to join her, to hold her, to grieve with her, but he didn’t.

  Alone, she was so alone.

  Molly didn’t want to go home for Christmas. Didn’t want to, even though she knew Joe was flying back on Christmas Eve. He’d texted her from Hong Kong Airport: plsd 2 hear UR imbibing alcohol again bcos I could do with a drink or 3.

  ‘Well, you would hang out with a bunch of teetotalling Muslims,’ Molly said on Boxing Day evening. She and Joe were sitting in deckchairs on the beach, holding Coronas and watching saffron threads of sun suffuse through the sky.

  ‘Hard not to when you’re in Muslim countries.’ Joe drew back on his beer. ‘Everything looks so much clearer here — the sky, the sea, even the leaves on the trees.’

  Molly huffed through her nose. ‘I think we’ve had this conversation before.’ Joe had told her countless times about the crippling heat in Afghanistan, and the dust that got into every crack and crevice. ‘Mum thinks you’re going to get blown up by a suicide bomber.’

  ‘Mum thinks I’m going to turn into a suicide bomber.’ Joe gave her a sideways grin.

  ‘A double agent, how exciting.’

  ‘You should try it sometime.’

  ‘I might.’ After draining the last drop of beer from the bottle, Molly ground the base into the sand. Joe picked up a feather and inserted it into the neck.

  ‘Lolly …’

  ‘Don’t say it.’ There was a gigantic feeling inside her chest. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she were about to have a heart attack.

  ‘How do you know what I was going to say?’

  Molly turned her head, blinking into the breeze. A man was walking along the tideline, his palm curved over the head of a baby in the sling strapped to his front. A baby. His baby.

  At seven weeks, your baby is the size of a blueberry.

  ‘Well,’ Joe said, his hand on the back of her neck. ‘I am.’

  Sorry. The dreaded word was the exact reason Molly hadn’t told anyone apart from her twin about the fertility struggles and miscarriage — not her colleagues at work, not her friends, not the rest of her family, not even (especially) her mother. Because after the person said sorry, then what was she meant to say? It’s OK?

  It wasn’t.

  ‘The worst thing,’ she said, ‘is that they can’t find anything wrong with either of us. I’m still ovulating. Richard’s sperm are fine.’

  ‘Thanks for that detail,’ Joe said, and Molly almost smiled. Only her twin could get away with joking over this, the truth that was threatening to shred her soul. ‘So,’ he said, after taking a large gulp of beer, ‘are they fighting each other then? His sperm and your eggs, I mean? There must be a scientific word for that.’

  ‘There’s been quite a lot of research on anti-sperm antibodies,’ Molly said. ‘But there’s no good test for it yet, and no one knows what to do about it, except use treatments like the ones we’ve already had.’ She waited for Joe to make a joke about anti-Richard antibodies, but instead he said, ‘Did you ever think about trying donor sperm?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t want to look at her baby and see a stranger. Was that selfish?

  ‘OK.’ Joe planted his bottle in the sand beside hers and stood up. ‘Coming for a swim?’

  Molly slipped an elastic band off her wrist and twisted her hair into a ponytail. ‘Do you even have to ask?’ Sometimes she thought Joe knew her better than she knew hers
elf.

  Joe pulled his shirt over his head. ‘Perhaps I should stop talking to you altogether, huh?’

  ‘No,’ she said, watching him run into the waves. ‘No, don’t do that.’

  Molly’s mouth was watering even before Sully passed her the plate.

  ‘Oh, I missed these so much.’ Joe whipped away one of the pieces of toast and jammed it between his teeth, using his finger to push an escaping mound of tuatua and onion into his mouth.

  ‘Hel-lo, that was mine.’ Molly gave Joe a filthy look and reached for the second piece of toast. ‘Perhaps you should move back here if you miss it so much.’

  ‘And do some investigative journalism on the shearing competition,’ Ants said, laughing.

  An irritated look flitted over their mother’s face. ‘There was a murder here last year, you know.’

  ‘Gangs,’ Chloe said, screwing up her nose when her husband waved the pot beneath her chin. ‘Are you trying to make me throw up on purpose?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing out on.’ Sully dipped a fork into the pot and slipped it between his lips, his eyes closed in bliss.

  ‘I hope you know you can’t eat shellfish when you’re pregnant.’ Their mother’s attention turned on Molly. ‘Because of Listeria.’

  Molly tensed. ‘I’m well aware of that.’

  Her mother was always baiting her, always trying to find out whether they were trying for children, or God forbid, not intending to have them at all. Nothing she did was ever good enough, not even a PhD. Hazel hadn’t even come to Molly’s graduation ceremony in Wellington, saying it was too far to travel.

  Richard, sitting beside her, touched her knee. Molly wanted to shake him off, to scream, to cry. Lowering her head, she ran her thumb around the edge of her plate. The tuatua didn’t taste so good anymore, dead flesh between her teeth.

  ‘Don’t leave it too late.’ Her father sauntered out onto the balcony cradling a flagon of beer and his favourite mug. Grey tufts on top of his head and over his ears were all that was left of his hair, once lush and blond.