The Honourable Midwife

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘I like those frithy things,’ he said when they’d finished in the playground and were walking around again.

  ‘Yes? OK. Let’s not buy the frithy ones, though,’ Emma advised.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If you buy the ones that haven’t quite frithed yet—the ones in bud—they’ll do it at your place and look nice for longer. If you buy the ones that are in full frith right now, the flowers will have gone droopy and brown by the time you get them in the garden.’

  ‘Can’t I get them in today?’

  ‘They should sit for a few days in their pots, to get used to their new home. And you have to prepare the beds and dig the holes.’

  ‘I’m going to need more soil.’

  ‘Definitely, and something to enrich it with. It all takes time, you know.’ She frowned at him sternly, then added, ‘They’re azaleas, by the way. Which colours do you like?’

  ‘Hmm, let’s think…’

  They’d loaded up two big wheeled trolleys with trees and shrubs and seedlings and a stone birdbath and numerous bags of composted manure by half past eleven.

  ‘It’s going to be a lot of work, putting all this in,’ she told him finally. ‘Are you doing it yourself?’

  ‘Not if you’ll help me.’

  ‘I’d—’ she began.

  ‘No,’ he cut in. ‘Don’t answer.’ He stopped and looked at her. ‘I didn’t mean that. Sorry. It just slipped out. You’re already doing way too much. I’ll get a bloke in, by the hour.’

  ‘And you should probably test the acid balance of your soil,’ Emma said quickly, as if she was thinking purely of Pete’s garden, not Pete himself. As if this was so bone-meltingly nice purely because it was such fun to plan a brand-new garden, not because it was such an aching, important pleasure to plan a garden with him.

  She would have helped him, if he’d really wanted her to. She’d been about to say so. She would have come round to his place the whole of next weekend and slaved for hours if he’d meant what he’d said, just to be in his company.

  But he hadn’t meant it. Perhaps he was a little more sensible than she was. And perhaps he had stronger emotions pulling him in another direction. Plenty of people felt attractions they never acted upon. This was just some time out for him. It was a necessary holiday from his problems with Claire.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ he said. ‘Let’s pay for this lot and arrange to have it delivered. It’s not going to fit in the car. The girls must be getting hungry, and I certainly am. Should we make it lunch?’

  ‘Um, might as well, I suppose,’ she said.

  They had soup and a salad each, and the girls had toasted sandwiches, but were eager for scones with strawberry jam and whipped cream as well.

  ‘You need some, too,’ Pete told Emma. ‘With tea.’

  ‘This is taking longer than you wanted, I’m sure.’

  ‘And it’s you that’s holding us up, is it?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Let me make the most of this, Emma.’ His voice fell to a low, serious pitch suddenly, and the safe feeling—the pretence to each other, and to themselves, that they were just friends, and were just talking about gardens—shattered. Nothing about this was safe at all.

  The sun shone on one side of his face, and he’d let his legs jut out sideways. His knees were brown, and a little soil-stained. Beneath the tilted brim of the hat, his eyes sat in shadow, but Emma could read more than just his eyes. She could read every movement he made.

  ‘You’ve got something in your hair,’ he said, and reached across the table. ‘Lean forward a bit, and sit still.’

  He barely touched her, just pulled a shrivelled leaf from her hair. She felt the light brush of his wrist against her temple, and watched the flick of his fingers as he tossed the leaf away. There was a stillness to the moment that made it seem to last much longer than it really did.

  And he didn’t kiss me, so it’s all right, she thought later, after he’d dropped her home so that she could get ready for work.

  He’d thanked her warmly, but he hadn’t touched her, and he hadn’t got out of the car. Perhaps because he’d known that if he did…

  He would have kissed me. He wanted to.

  Emma touched her fingers to her lips, and felt the soft pressure of his mouth as vividly as if it had been real. She closed her eyes, tasting him, feeling him, and aching all over.

  He would be home by now, awaiting the delivery of his plants. Minutes had passed since he’d driven away, but her mouth was still sensitised and expectant after the flash of opportunity in the car when it could have happened—the moment when he’d thanked her, and she’d had her hand on the doorhandle, and they’d been looking at each other, and it would have been easy for him to lean across and brush her lips with his. The moment when, because the girls had been watching, it could have been brief and light and would barely have meant anything at all.

  But Pete hadn’t even done that.

  So it was all right.

  No betrayals, no complexities, no promises, no illusions.

  Five days passed.

  Liz Stokes had reached what she’d begun to call ‘the magic thirty-seven-week mark’ and was due to go down to Radiology for her ultrasound scan today. She was impatient about it.

  ‘If it looks good,’ she asked Emma, ‘would Dr Croft do the Caesarean today, do you think?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Emma answered. It was already two o’clock. Caesareans were usually done in the morning, and Friday wasn’t the best day, in any case.

  ‘Because the weekend is coming, right?’ Liz guessed. Her tone was bitter and frustrated. ‘If he was in real estate, he’d really know what working all hours means, and every weekend. I don’t know why doctors complain! I’m going to tell him I realise he’s only protecting his golf game.’

  Emma resisted the urge to sketch out Pete’s far more serious problems at home, and his need to spend time with his daughters.

  ‘It’s more than that,’ she told Liz instead. ‘Certain hospital departments aren’t staffed so fully on weekends. Pathology and Radiology, for example. If you or the baby needed extra tests or treatment, we might have to wait while extra people were called in.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Liz snorted. ‘Babies are born naturally on weekends all the time!’

  ‘Don’t give that little boy of yours any dangerous ideas,’ Emma teased. She could understand Liz’s short temper after so many weeks of bed rest.

  In the event, Pete’s unforgivable decision to schedule a weekend for himself didn’t enter into the matter. Liz went down for her ultrasound, endured an uncomfortable wait with a full bladder as Radiology was running behind, and then returned to await Pete’s verdict after he’d looked at the scan and read the report.

  He phoned the news to Emma in the late afternoon.

  ‘Tell Liz I’m sorry, but I think we should wait a couple more weeks,’ he said. ‘The baby’s still pretty small, possibly as a result of the bleeds she had earlier in the pregnancy. I’d hate to deliver him and have him end up in Special Care.’

  ‘She’s not going to like this.’

  ‘I know. Now she isn’t. But I’m not looking at now. I’m looking at the rest of the little guy’s life.’

  ‘I’ll break the bad news.’

  ‘Before you go…’

  ‘Yes, Pete?’ Oh, hell, it was ridiculous! Just the tiny change in his tone had set her heart thudding!

  ‘I’ve got my garden bloke for the weekend, but he’s made it clear he’s just the brawn. He’ll cart dirt—in fact, he’s doing that today—and he’ll dig holes, but he won’t decide on where to put things.’

  ‘You want me after all,’ she blurted, careless in her choice of words.

  ‘I…uh…always wanted you, I just didn’t think I had the right to ask if you could,’ he answered.

  There was a thick silence. Emma could almost hear him wondering how to escape gracefully from a trap of language use that they’d both helped to create. T
he double meaning was as clear as subtitles on a screen. He wanted her, and she wanted him.

  She took a breath and said, ‘I’ll bring my gardening books and some of my tools. What time to do you want me? What time should I get there?’

  ‘Well, my bloke’s an early bird.’ She could hear the roughness and the struggle in his voice, even on the phone. ‘He likes to start at seven-thirty.’

  ‘Ugh! On my day off!’

  ‘Yes, I know. Don’t come that early.’

  ‘How about eight-thirty? Is that early enough?’

  ‘Perfect! I’ll give you breakfast. Croissants, or something.’

  ‘Yum.’

  As expected, Liz wasn’t happy about Pete’s verdict on the ultrasound. ‘How much difference can a couple of weeks make?’

  ‘A lifetime, Liz,’ Emma said seriously. ‘Most babies born at thirty-seven weeks will do fine, but occasionally there can be a problem. Even at very low odds, do you want to take any kind of a chance on your baby’s long-term health?’

  ‘No, none,’ Liz agreed. ‘You’re right. It’s not worth any risk at all. I’ll wait. But don’t leave any sharp objects within reach, because I might start throwing them!’

  Emma got to Pete’s at twenty to nine the next morning.

  His ‘bloke’, an older man named Darryl with crooked teeth and a smoker’s cough, was emptying barrowloads of sand into the shadecloth-canopied sand-pit Pete’s landscapers had made for the girls. Jessie and Zoe jumped up and down, wanting to play in it straight away before it was even full.

  They had sticky, jam-stained mouths, having apparently just finished their croissants, and to Emma’s surprise and pleasure, they both ran up when they saw her, wanting to give her kisses. Did they like her that much, then? She could so easily get deeply attached to them. She bent down and hugged them, and got jam and sand on her cheeks. It set like cement at once.

  ‘Somehow,’ Pete drawled, meeting her on his way out the back door, ‘I don’t think your sticky face is because you’ve already eaten. Want to go and wash?’

  He led the way inside.

  ‘I’d better. They won’t think I’m washing off their kisses, will they?’

  ‘They won’t notice.’ He stopped in the middle of the bright, modern kitchen. ‘They’re a bit funny this morning. Claire was discharged yesterday, and she’s gone to Canberra to stay with her mother. She’ll be seeing a psychiatrist there. It sometimes takes a while to get the medication right, and to work out just what’s going on—whether there are emotional triggers that are important, all sorts of things.’

  ‘Do the girls know?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve told them. It seems to have made her absence more real to them. Mummy’s gone to stay with Granny in Canberra while she gets better. They wanted to know why they couldn’t go, too, to help look after her.’

  ‘Was it a possibility?’ The stickiness on her cheeks pulled and tightened every time she moved her face. It was irritating—trivial yet distracting, when Pete was talking about something this important and she was so desperate to give him the right attention. ‘That they might go, I mean.’

  ‘Claire thought it best not to have them with her,’ he said. The low pitch of his voice seemed to enclose them in greater intimacy. ‘She felt it wouldn’t be fair to them. She doesn’t have much energy or focus for them at the moment, and felt they wouldn’t be safe in her care. I couldn’t disagree, after the way she’s dealt with them recently. Effectively, they’d be her mother’s responsibility, and since the goal is for Hester to help Claire learn to manage her illness…The girls are better off here, but they’re missing her today.’

  ‘Pete, I haven’t been asking you much about all this,’ Emma said. ‘I’ve felt perhaps you didn’t want to dwell on it. But, please, remember that I’m here.’

  ‘I do,’ he said quietly. ‘I remember it every day.’

  He turned to the sink and picked up a dish mop, waved it in his hand then looked at it with a frown on his face, as if he couldn’t remember what it was for.

  ‘I’m glad, Pete,’ she said, her voice too husky.

  He dropped the mop again. ‘Hey, want those croissants and some coffee, once you’ve washed?’

  ‘And get my face sticky again straight away? Yes, please!’

  When Emma had her coffee and a croissant in hand a few minutes later, Darryl finished filling the sand-pit and needed his next instructions.

  ‘Turn the composted manure into the soil, water the beds and cover them with mulch,’ Emma decreed. ‘It’s easier to mulch first and plant second. We can scrape the mulch aside to dig the holes.’

  ‘I’ll open the bags of compost,’ Pete said. ‘Do you want to think about where we’re putting everything, Emma? You’re our expert today.’

  The plants, trees and shrubs he’d bought last weekend made a colourful miniature forest in the angle of newly paved space between the deck and the house. As instructed by Emma, he’d watered them every couple of days, and they were all doing well. She contemplated them thoughtfully, trying to imagine how they’d all look months or years from now, when they were grown.

  Hard! Almost as hard as trying to imagine her own life several years down the track.

  The girls ran back and forth between the garage and the new sand-pit, bringing their sand toys. Pete began chopping open the thirty-litre bags of composted manure with the edge of a shovel, and Darryl raked out the contents and turned the soil over, spreading the rich, dark stuff evenly.

  Emma worked out which way was north, and which parts of the garden would get direct sun at which times of day. They’d roughly planned where to put the five young trees Pete had chosen, so she put down her coffee and the remaining end of her croissant and carried the trees into position, one by one.

  When she got to the last one, Pete took a break, leaning on his shovel, and watched her. Self-conscious as always, she asked him, ‘Here, Pete?’

  ‘Maybe a little closer to the fence?’

  ‘It’ll grow, remember, and this one’ll spread out sideways, too.’

  ‘You’re right. We’re keeping all the Australian natives in this area, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, and we’ll put the…’

  She stopped. Zoe had suddenly fallen on the cement in her eagerness to bring another load of toys to the sand-pit. She was crying loudly. Pete ran to her at once, took her up in his arms and sat down on the new garden wall.

  ‘Ah, sweetheart,’ he crooned. ‘Did you trip?’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  Emma came over and he said to her, ‘She’s got some grazes on her knees and arms. Not deep ones, but they’re bleeding. Could you bring a bowl of warm water from the kitchen, and a towel to pat them dry?’

  ‘Dressings?’

  ‘There’s a packet in the medicine cabinet in the main bathroom. We’ll use a couple to cover the worst spots.’

  Zoe was still crying when Emma got back with the things Pete had asked for. Jessie looked on, round-eyed, while Pete washed the grazes clean and patted them dry. Putting the sticky bandages on, he managed to comment to Emma, over Zoe’s head, ‘It’s psychological more than anything.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘My kids have an unshakable faith in the power of little bits of flesh-coloured sticky plastic, with squares of gauze attached, to alleviate pain immediately.’

  ‘Faith is good,’ Emma said.

  Zoe’s sobs tapered away. ‘I want Mummy,’ she said in a very small voice. ‘Why isn’t she here?’

  ‘We’ve talked about that, love,’ Pete said gently. He kissed the top of her head. ‘She’s gone to Canberra to stay with Granny. She’s not feeling very well, and Granny’s going to look after her until she gets better.’

  ‘We could look after her.’

  ‘We could put bandages on her,’ Jessie agreed.

  ‘She doesn’t have a bandage kind of sickness. She has a different kind of sickness that needs some time and lots of quiet. Do you want to draw pictures to send her later today?’r />
  ‘Now!’ Jessie said. ‘I want to draw one now.’

  ‘Now, this minute?’ Pete said.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’

  ‘Drawing it is, then.’ As an aside, mostly to Emma but partly to himself, he added, ‘Am I spoiling them? Is that going to be the result of everything that’s happening? I find I’m jumping to give them everything they want, the moment they want it.’

  ‘I—I don’t think that’s something you should think about now, Pete,’ she answered him helplessly.

  Both girls had apparently forgotten all about the new sand-pit and the grazed knees and arms, and Pete had to set them up with drawing things at the dining table inside. His face wore a little of its familiar bleak look when he came out again, but he shook it off quickly. Emma could only guess what an effort it must have taken to do so.

  They didn’t finish in the garden until five-thirty, after a break for a sandwich lunch on the deck. Darryl had knocked off an hour earlier, at half past four.

  ‘We’ve done well,’ Pete commented, surveying several mulched beds, where hopeful, green-leafed young shrubs were flowering their little hearts out in a late afternoon breeze. Some of them were already in the ground, while other sat in their pots, marking their future positions so that Pete could plant them the next day.

  ‘We have,’ Emma agreed. ‘Not to downplay Darryl’s role as the brawn.’

  ‘Or the girls, because they’ve put up with not getting much attention today.’

  ‘They’re going to love watching all this growing up, and helping you to keep it watered over summer.’

  ‘You’ll stay to eat, won’t you?’ Pete said, his voice dropping to the more intimate pitch that she recognised easily now.

  She moved away before she answered, bending to cradle a pale apricot azalea blossom in her hand. ‘That’d be nice,’ she said, with her back to him. ‘I don’t have much in the fridge at home.’

  ‘It’ll be simple. We’ll barbecue some sausages and chops. There are salad fixings in the kitchen, and I’ve got a bag of oven fries I can throw in.’