The Lone Child

by Anna George

  Jessie lifted the blankets and cast a peek Neve’s way.

  ‘Was the bed too big?’

  The girl’s fair eyebrows puckered.

  ‘Are you used to a cot?’

  The girl shook her head, once.

  ‘Where do you usually sleep?’

  The bottom lip jutted. ‘With Mummy. On the couch.’

  Neve felt the collision again of her reality and the girl’s, like a form of culture shock. She made her smile widen. She needed to be more sensitive, less blundering. She took a step from the mirrored panels, saw herself bifurcated. As much as she wanted this child returned to her real family, Neve realised, she didn’t. If the girl was gone, truly gone . . . Neve wasn’t sure she could bear it. Alone again, with her baby. Strung out and talking to herself.

  The girl rose to her feet. Her borrowed t-shirt was wet and the blanket where she’d slept was damp. Her face was cloudy, her chapped mouth wilting properly, and she was scratching, digging into her inner arm. She was as close to tears as Neve had seen her.

  This time, Neve managed to keep her own mouth closed. Think. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, finally. ‘An accident. Let’s get you something fresh, eh?’

  The girl’s eyes pulsed with relief. Disbelief, as well. When Neve smiled, the girl stopped scratching and hugged herself, her eyes glistening. Kindness, it seemed, was her undoing. Too.

  Jessie was rolling up the mothball-y jeans, as Neve stood back. In the striped windcheater and cherry-patterned jeans, Jessie looked like a version of Neve’s younger self. The ravages of grief on her face were achingly familiar. Neve hadn’t realised until then how similar they were: slight, sorrowful nymphs mourning their mothers. She tried to call forth what she’d most needed to hear, three decades ago. This morning, she had this one brief chance to inoculate the child against the pain – the disappointments, betrayals and loneliness – that lay ahead.

  ‘People will disappoint you,’ she said. ‘Even when they love you. Whatever you do, don’t take it to heart, okay?’

  When Jessie nodded solemnly in the wide mirror, Neve vacillated. She had a whole second stanza ready: You are precious and very lovable. Don’t let anyone make you feel you’re not . . . But what was she doing? Giving life lessons to a five-year-old? Even at sixteen you couldn’t be told. Such pithy truths had to be lived to be learnt.

  Neve squared her shoulders. ‘Want some toast?’

  Once Jessie had eaten, they would leave.

  Beyond the window, a silhouette flitted. This time, without a doubt, someone was there. In her mind’s eye, Neve pictured a sequence of faces. Sal’s. Senior Constable Jenkins’. The mother’s, though she didn’t know it and couldn’t have picked it from a crowd. She was expecting all of them and none of them.

  ‘Stay put, you two.’

  As she winked, the doorbell chimed, an insistent, aggressive peal. So it wasn’t Sal. Approaching the front door, Neve could see a figure, with its back turned. Long, slender, adult. Not the mother, nor a female figure, not Jenkins either. As he stepped nearer the adjacent window, she stopped. She knew those soulful, pale eyes. The grey, whiskery cheeks. His fair, cropped hair and those sticking-out ears. Though he’d lost weight and condition, his features were still fine, his mouth, generous. His elegance, unaffected. That said, peering in, he did look a lot like Cliff, especially when Cliff had wind.

  Abruptly, she retreated, pressing her spine into the stone wall. Three months compressed into an instant and she doubled over. Was this normal? Surely not. She was aware only vaguely of Jessie appearing beside her in the hall. The girl was bent too, with her hands on her knees and her neck twisted to study Neve. Neve glimpsed the upside-down face and its powerless concern. Its fearful lack of comprehension seemed familiar.

  ‘Do you need a bucket?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she whispered.

  The last time Neve had seen Kris, he’d been bawling. Huddled on their bed, he’d talked for six hours. ‘I hate myself for this and I’m sorry,’ he’d said. ‘But I can’t do it, not to Bec . . .’ Mute with shock, she’d lain beside him and stared at the ceiling fan. This is it, she’d thought. The moment I lose everything: again. As she listened, she tried to console herself – though the pain was bad, she’d had worse. But the lesson was the same: no matter how hard she tried, how diligent, meticulous or independent she was . . . she was not enough. As the hours passed, her only movement had been the baby turning inside her. But by nightfall, she’d ceased feeling even that, as if the umbilical cord had been somehow severed in utero.

  ‘Who is that man?’ whispered Jessie.

  Neve tried to keep the agitation from her voice. ‘That’s Cliff’s dad.’

  Jessie’s frown etched itself in. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Probably to talk about how terrible he feels, she thought. His guilt. She wouldn’t let herself look out at him again. His very presence reminded her of his spinelessness. She couldn’t bear to witness it anew.

  Jessie’s face was a study in distress: her hazel eyes colossal, her lips small. Neve inhaled. She must not inflict her stuff – her adult, emotionally illiterate stuff – on this dear, overloaded child.

  Kris tapped on the window. ‘Neve? Are you in there?’

  ‘Is he here because of me?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  Neve tried to smile reassuringly at her mini-me. The illusion of a daughter. She reconsidered her house: the cleared surfaces, the immaculate kitchen, the vast balcony. Hopefully the garage’s roller door had stayed down and he hadn’t seen her car.

  She tried to think rationally. It wasn’t easy . . . but if she opened the door, he might not leave for hours. She would be embroiled in his stuff. She counted to ten. By nine she decided it’d be best, for everyone, if he simply fucked off.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she whispered.

  22

  When Leah woke the second time, it was light and noisy beyond her curtain. The bed-side phone said 12.26 . . . but that was impossible! She pushed the buzzer by her bed. Someone was watching TV. A show about some new law in the US that said you could take a newborn to a hospital and leave it, for good, and not get in trouble. Leah tried not to listen. But in one state two dads took in their whole families. One dad left five kids, including teenagers, at the hospital doors. Another dad dropped off three. Her neighbour laughed then broke into a cough. But it wasn’t funny. Leah felt for those dads. But she wouldn’t think like them ever again.

  ‘Nurse?’ she said. ‘Nurse!’

  A nurse appeared between the green curtains. Leah read her nametag: Diana; she had a friendly face and extra cheeks. Because she was a bit fat, it was hard to tell how old she was. Maybe thirty-five. She was wearing a thin gold watch, too small to read.

  Diana smiled at her, like she really cared.

  Leah hiccupped. ‘Is that the right time?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Someone was meant to wake me.’ Her tone surprised the nurse. It surprised her too. But she was sick of her feelings being ignored.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that, sorry. How are you feeling?’ asked Diana. ‘Anything hurting?’

  ‘No . . . Not as much . . .’

  Her thoughts were sharper. The world seemed in focus.

  Diana eyed her bony frame. ‘Would you like a biscuit and a cup of tea?’

  ‘No.’

  Diana’s smile faded.

  Leah didn’t mean to sound grouchy. It wasn’t Diana’s fault that they’d let her sleep. She just felt wrong, without her girls climbing on her. Like she was missing an arm.

  ‘Are there any messages for me?’

  ‘Not that I know of. I’ll check.’

  Leah looked at the clock again: that time didn’t make sense. They should’ve been in to see her by now.

  Diana moved off.

  ‘Wait . . . Can you . . .’

  She wished Diana would close the curtain. Her neighbour turned down the TV.

  ‘Wou
ld you please . . . do me a favour?’

  ‘If I can.’

  She sank into the mattress; she couldn’t face the woman’s concern. Any second, she was going to lose it.

  ‘Can you call my sister for me, please?’ she asked, focusing on a freckle above Diana’s right eyebrow.

  ‘You can do that, Leah, there’s a phone right there.’

  Leah peered at the phone. She had a horrible feeling that no news was bad news.

  ‘Please? I don’t . . . um, I’m not that up to it.’

  For the first time, the nurse frowned. Leah made her eyes not blink, without watering. The bloke in the next bed was staring at her.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Ask . . . Um, if my kids are okay?’

  The nurse’s posture changed. She seemed taller, like a dog with its hackles up.

  Leah felt her face go red, with shame. And fear. Again.

  The nurse dialled, stabbing at the numbers as Leah recited them. Another nurse appeared with Leah’s clothes, clean and folded.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Despite what’d happened earlier and not wanting to be there, Leah was grateful, more grateful than she could say. Getting a spare bed and having her clothes washed. If things weren’t as bad as they were, this would’ve felt like a holiday. A treat. Normal people didn’t care like most nurses did. She’d learnt that when Gran went. That was partly why she became a personal care attendant. She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath. She hardly ever cried. She hadn’t cried when her mum did a runner, when she was nine. Not when Gran passed, two years ago, in this same hospital; not when Mitch left to look for ‘work’ on the Gold Coast. But the nurses and their kindness . . . They were how mothers were meant to be. She wasn’t used to being on this side of it.

  She concentrated on Diana, relaying information on the phone. She could hear Kelly’s voice through the line.

  ‘Her kids . . . Her kids are . . . Asleep.’

  Leah tried to fight the pain rising in her throat. Kelly sounded cagey and weird. She prayed she heard wrong.

  ‘She says they’re asleep.’ Diana tried to lock her eyes on Leah’s.

  Leah pinched her finger and tried to focus on that pain and not the other one, bursting inside. Her kids weren’t day sleepers. Not even when they were little babies. And Tayla would want to talk with her . . . The nurse was trying to join the dots. The man in the next bed and the one across the ward were both listening.

  ‘What do you want me to say now?’ Diana was sounding tetchy, maybe picking up Leah’s stress. The telephone was between them like a microphone.

  ‘Don’t you want to speak to them?’ said the nurse.

  You bet she did. But they weren’t there, at least not Tayla. The nurse pushed the phone up to her ear. She opened her mouth but couldn’t find a word.

  ‘No!’ said Kelly. ‘She can’t. It took me forever to get them down.’

  Her sister was sounding rude now and Leah couldn’t hear the rest. But she didn’t need to. She shoved the phone away. When Diana hung up, her voice was high and her smile didn’t move to her eyes. ‘She’ll fetch you in half an hour.’

  Leah could only nod. Diana closed the curtain behind her and the volume on the TV went up again. This was serious. Her daughter was lost.

  Surrounded by a thin, green wall, she lay, pinned by fear to her bed.

  23

  Through the laundry, Neve and Jessie snuck out, with Cliff in the pram. Together, they bumped the buggy down the steps to the beachside gate. Running away – not only from Kris but from their morning. Feeling conspicuous and foolish, Neve dragged the pram over mounds of seaweed until she reached the hard sand near the water. Somehow, overnight, she’d lost the sling. Together, briskly, the two of them walked the buggy around the bend and towards the pier. From there, they could head up The Esplanade and into town and the Easter crowds.

  It was a risk, Neve supposed: outing the stowaway. Delaying her return. But if their walk went pear-shaped, it was the fault of only one person: Kris.

  They marched for five minutes before her wariness began to lift. Kris hadn’t seen them, wasn’t following. And no one on the beach was paying them attention. The storm was long gone, the day perfectly calm, the sky, the inside of an oyster. Large rock pools reflected the clouds and laced the shoreline. By her side, Jessie was picking her way, in the musty windcheater and jeans. Despite herself, Neve smiled. Cliff, too, was wide awake and wriggling like a happy if upturned bug, captivated by its own limbs.

  The addition of Jessie, Neve realised, had created something new from what she’d had. A new shape. Three-sided. She had an urge to laugh.

  When Jessie looked up at her, expectantly, Neve said, ‘We did it! We’re out.’

  Up on street level, they passed a new house. It was clad in compressed fibre cement sheets with a flat grey finish and had vertical blinds in a fun pastel palette. The house ceded beautifully to its site’s distinctive native character. Neve was at once envious and impressed. By the time they were approaching the redeveloped Flinders Hotel and the adjacent inset shopping strip, she was enjoying herself. Around them, the township of Flinders was teeming. Everyone else, it seemed, was out, having been housebound for a whole day by the storms. The population had quadrupled. A dozen cars awaited their turn at the roundabout on Cook Street. Pedestrians tottered along the unmade footpaths. Jessie coughed, a throat-clearing sound Neve hadn’t heard before. She considered the otherwise silent child. Her face had become blanched and vacant.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Neve noted the time on her phone: how long to stay away. ‘Let’s . . . shop.’

  They crossed the road off the corner to avoid the captive scrutiny of the cars’ occupants. And walked in strides past the surf shop. In every direction, the stores were open, their doors wide and wares displayed. Without speaking, with heads down, they accelerated around pedestrians. The closest cafe was brimming with people lined up, loitering, reading the newspaper. Neve prayed Jessie’s disappearance wasn’t being read as brunch fodder, as they walked by. Or that some bitter, old local wouldn’t recognise Neve, as her father’s daughter. Neve felt her discomfort grow, as they passed long shared tables bearing plates of bacon and eggs, quiche and breadsticks, pots of tea and coffee; and Jessie slowed. The girl took in the colourful splendour of the food. The relaxed bustle. The fat, shiny dogs with their own silver water bowls beneath a fruit tree. The harried young waitstaff weaving around tables bearing cake, croissants and brownies. That it was all gourmet, mostly organic and custom-made, was probably lost on her.

  ‘Jessie, come on!’ Neve whispered from the kerb.

  They waited for a break in a line of homogeneous European cars, spanking four-wheel drives and utes. Neve kept her arm raised across her forehead, as though shielding from the sun, and her body blocking Jessie from the roadside. Eventually, a green Corolla slowed, and waved them across.

  On the other side of Cook Street it was as hectic. A chocolate shop was drawing trade. How it survived the rest of the year in a town of nine hundred was a mystery. But here too a queue crowded the door. Faces turned as they approached. Searching for the familiar: a friend or a neighbour from well-heeled Malvern or bay-side Hampton, or a colleague from the top end of town or one of the hospitals. Neve ignored their casual reckoning and its mild disapproval as she tried to cajole Jessie away from the glass. The girl was peering at the rows of perfect morsels arranged like semi-precious stones. Chilli chocolate; chai tea ganache; morello cherry jelly. Each single chocolate was a work of art, seemingly hand painted and coloured. Watching an immaculate family leaving, bearing regal white boxes, Jessie’s eyes became a pair of coins. Neve had seen that look before. In a hotel restaurant in Chiapas, Mexico, when she’d pushed away a barely eaten meal. How the two Mayan waiters’ eyes had flared at the untouched, gristly meat. She’d felt ashamed then too, as she hurriedly paid the bill.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  An artfully coiff
ured woman, nursing a large box, blustered from the shop. ‘I need a coffee, now,’ she said to her husband-cum-bag carrier. The woman studied Neve and her entourage, her stately gaze falling to the sea weedy pram and Jessie’s dated clothes and sock-clad feet. ‘Ugh,’ she said, as though she’d stepped in something herself.

  Say nothing, thought Neve. Keep moving.

  As they stepped to the curb, a police car approached.

  24

  The man loped from Neve’s property to climb back into the Subaru. He’d spent a good twenty minutes snooping. The woman in the driver’s seat spoke rapidly as he sat, shaking his head. Stacking granite, Sal tried not to watch. They looked reasonably harmless, though. Middle-aged, well-dressed, professional. They were wearing matching black, rectangular spectacles; Sal wondered if they’d noticed or done it consciously. Sometimes people didn’t know the most blatant things about themselves. He’d learnt that negotiating with couples, teasing out their briefs. A moment later, the man climbed, like a daddy-long-legs, back out of the Subaru. Looking mildly uncomfortable, he ambled over to Sal.

  Sal rose to his full height but the man was a good head taller. He had to remind himself he was a stonemason, not a security guard. When the man asked if Neve was at the house, reluctantly, Sal nodded. The man turned and gave the driver an exuberant thumbs up. The gesture struck Sal as indecently expressive.

  The man rubbed his fingers across his mouth like he was reading braille.

  ‘I’m not getting through on the phone.’ He took a step closer to Sal.

  ‘Can I pass on a message?’ Sal propped his hands on his hips and nodded.

  From a jean pocket, the man took out a leather wallet. He passed Sal a simple white card. ‘Thank you. If you could tell her we came by.’

  Reading the card, Sal’s interest piqued. Clinical psychologist. He thought of Neve the day before: her agitation, those letters in the cistern. He didn’t have to say anything, lots of people wouldn’t. He didn’t want to be a busybody. Of all people, he was one to respect a person’s privacy. But, at times, you had to make the call – to step in. It was, in his humble opinion, a question of intention.