‘Oh, sure.’
Jenny gives me a sidelong look. I shrug. I can’t wait to feel normal again.
Later that afternoon, just when my energy levels and general outlook on life have hit an all-time low, who should come knocking on my dorm room door but Olivia Pike? This is the first time she has ever solicited my company, and her timing couldn’t be worse.
‘Come in!’ shrieks Lou-Anne. I do a huge double take when Olivia shuffles into the room with her arms folded across her chest.
‘What is it?’ grunts Lou-Anne.
‘I’m sorry about the other night,’ says Olivia at a volume barely audible to the human ear.
‘So you should be. And if I ever catch you in this room again, I’ll finish the haircut that Shauna started.’ I have never heard Lou-Anne sound so mean. She was obviously very attached to that moustache.
Olivia turns on her heel.
‘Olivia. Wait.’ I prop myself up on my pillows.
‘I won’t bother you if you’re busy,’ she says, turning side-on.
I give Lou-Anne a ‘beat it’ look and she rolls her eyes.
‘Fine, I’ll go to prep. hall.’
She stalks off, muttering under her breath, leaving Olivia and me alone in the room.
‘What is it?’ I really don’t have an ounce of patience left in my body. I’m not feeling well and I’m dreading what’s in store for me in the coming days. What do I have to give to anyone else, and of all people, Olivia?
‘You said that if I ever wanted to talk . . .’
‘You’ve been refusing to talk to me for weeks.’
She’s still turned sidelong, not looking at me, slouched over her folded arms.
‘But we talked today.’
‘Yep.’
‘About my foster family.’
She turns to face me. Without an invitation she walks to my bed and sits on the end. I’m so shocked by this voluntary closeness that I scoot away up my bed and pull my knees to my chest.
‘Don’t you ever miss your family?’ she asks.
‘Sort of. Sometimes they drive me crazy. Sometimes I’m so happy to see them that I just want to stay in Barraba and never come back to Sydney. You?’
‘I miss my foster parents, Auntie Marilyn and Uncle Frank. They’re the nicest foster parents I’ve ever had. Their kids are grown up, so I’m like their only child.’
Her voice is trembling and it’s obvious that her guard is down. I’m not expecting any barbs, but you never know with Olivia. She’s a storm cloud on a summer’s day.
‘Have you had foster parents who weren’t nice?’
She nods. Then she turns her head away and I see the tears shining in her eyes.
‘Sure have.’
‘Maybe we could talk about it sometime, Olivia, but I’m really sick at the moment. And I’ve got a huge day tomorrow. Could we take a raincheck on this conversation?’
Olivia blinks away her tears. She’s a tough little thing.
‘Sure.’
I feel like a moll for sending her packing, but what use am I to her at the moment? Soon enough I’ll feel normal and able to talk. Soon enough the problem will be solved.
It takes hours to get to sleep that night. Though my mind’s more or less made up about the abortion, it keeps ticking over and over. This is the natural outcome for pregnant teenagers, I tell myself. This is the responsible thing to do. It’s what’s expected. I’m not the first girl to terminate a pregnancy and I won’t be the last. (Didn’t I hear a statistic once that one in three Australian women has had an abortion?) No one ever has to know about it, if that’s the way I want it. I might forget about it in six months, and then it will be as if it never happened. Only Jenny will know.
To take the other option would be so hard. I’d have to leave school. I’d have to scrap all my plans and expectations. I wouldn’t be able to finish Introduction to Legal Systems and Methods.
Most importantly, I wouldn’t go to Paris with Jenny. I’d be stuck in Barraba with my disappointed parents. Nathan would dump me, or maybe I’d dump him. In short, I’d lose everything I’ve got. I’d be destroyed.
Destroy or be destroyed. Those are the options, it seems. And I feel like I’ve come too far to let myself be destroyed. This time tomorrow, the inconvenient tissue will be gone and I’ll have my life back.
Why, then, do I wish there was someone – someone other than silly Lou-Anne – who loved me enough to bloody well talk me out of it?
13
DR BAKER WARNED me that there might be pro-life protesters outside The Choice Foundation clinic on Macquarie Street, but when I arrive at 10 a.m. in casual clothes, the coast is clear. I check over my shoulder to make sure no one’s followed me and then enter the building. The clinic is on the third floor. I can hardly believe how easy it’s been to get this far.
Not that I haven’t had to sneak around. I left school without signing out this morning, naughty me. I have two free study periods before lunch, and I’m hoping to slip back through the school gates by the end of lunch. I’ve left Jenny with instructions in the event that I’m late for French (fib: I’m in sick bay) and I’ve lied to Lou-Anne that I’m going to the clinic for a blood test. As long as the procedure doesn’t take more than a few hours, I should be able to get away with it.
I’m opting for light sedation rather than a general anaesthetic, so that I’ll be out sooner. Apparently the operation itself only takes about ten minutes. It’s the checking in, preparation and after care that chews up all the time. Though I’m supposed to have someone waiting to help me back to school after the procedure, I haven’t arranged anything like that. I have a feeling that if I do it all by myself, it’ll be like it never happened. After a morning of fasting (so that I don’t spew during the procedure) I’m not quite present anyway.
My heart begins to pound in the elevator and is still pounding when I reach the front desk. The receptionist who greets me is very friendly and kind. She takes my Medicare card and gives me a clipboard with a form to fill out. The questions are easy to answer, except for the last one: Why are you seeking an abortion? I think about it and I write: Because I feel sick and I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the HSC. Also, I plan to travel to Europe next year and I won’t be able to do that with a baby.
The doctor, who’s about forty-five and introduces himself as Dr Phillip Goldsmith, comes into the waiting room and leads me into his office. When I walk past the front desk, there’s a woman of about thirty opening her wallet to pay for her abortion. I don’t know where it comes from, but I feel a surge of hostility towards her.
Her hair is blonde-streaked and blow-dried. Her skin is so stained with fake tan that she’d be perfectly camouflaged on a dish of Tandoori chicken. Her nails and lips are painted the same Hollywood red. She looks well groomed and perfectly nice, but she disgusts me. Maybe it’s because I assume (and how dare I!) that someone who has the time and money to preen herself so vainly has the resources to look after a baby. Even the sound of her zipping up her wallet repels me. Your transaction has come to a close, lady, I think. And mine is about to open.
This is the moment when I begin to think that what I’m about to do is not as routine, casual and natural as it seemed when I was sitting opposite Dr Baker and the only thing on my mind was relief from great mortification.
My heart’s drumming crazily when I join Dr Goldsmith at his desk. He takes the clipboard from me and reads through it. Then he starts to read what I’ve written aloud.
‘Because I feel sick and I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the HSC,’ he says. His tone isn’t sarcastic, but there’s something feeble about my excuses when they’re read back to me. He continues: ‘Also, I plan to travel to Europe next year and I won’t be able to do that with a baby.’
He looks at me through black square-framed glasses. He puts the clipboard down and picks up a pen.
‘So you’re pretty busy at the moment, err, Shauna?’
‘Yes.’
‘Having
a baby’s a huge commitment.’
‘I know that.’
He looks down at another piece of paper on his desk. I watch him write on it: Patient believes she is too young to cope emotionally with the pregnancy.
I’m shocked. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Look, this is my paperwork,’ he explains. ‘You don’t need to worry about it, but I’m legally required to come to a view that continuing the pregnancy would pose a serious threat to your mental or physical health.’
‘That’s fine,’ I tell him, feeling my cheeks burn with shame. I feel so uncomfortable standing up to someone as important as a doctor, but I feel even more uncomfortable letting him stuff words into my mouth. ‘But I never said anything about being too young or not coping emotionally.’
He shrugs at me and then puts a line through the comment with his pen.
‘I said that I feel sick, and that I want to do the HSC and go overseas.’
Dr Goldsmith starts writing again. I watch him like a hawk. He writes: Patient finds physical stress of pregnancy too great to continue.
‘I didn’t say that either.’
Incredibly, Dr Goldsmith attacks me with his furrowed brow, as if I’m the one acting out of turn. He lays down the pen. Is he annoyed with me? Now I’m beginning to wish I’d taken advantage of the free telephone counselling service. The receptionist told me about it when I made the appointment, but I was sure I didn’t need it. I wasn’t expecting the doctor to be as enthusiastic as Dr Goldsmith.
‘This is my paperwork,’ he says again. ‘I can form a view about what effects the pregnancy might have on you based on many factors, not just what you tell me.’
‘What factors?’
He shrugs and at the same time throws his hands in the air, as if I’m being completely unreasonable and tiresome.
‘You’re a seventeen-year-old girl from an Indigenous background. How are you going to cope with a baby?’
‘I haven’t told you anything about my background!’
‘As I said, I can draw my own conclusions, and before I can legally perform an abortion . . .’ He sighs, as if he’s sick of explaining it to me. As if he’s been talking to me for the whole afternoon and not just five minutes. His eyelids flutter in exasperation. ‘Do you want an abortion or not? Because feeling sick and wanting to study overseas are not legal justifications for the procedure you’re asking me to perform.’
I know I’ve gone completely beetroot and I can feel sweat dripping from my hair over my temples and down the sides of my neck. My pulse is slamming in my ears and I can hear myself panting like an overheated dog.
‘Maybe you need to give more thought to it,’ says the doctor. ‘I think we should at least do an ultrasound, though, to make sure you’re really pregnant and find out how far along you are. Once you’re at twenty weeks, you’ll be hard pressed to find a doctor who’ll give you an abortion.’
Give me an abortion? Like a Christmas present?
‘Okay,’ I grunt. All I can do is grunt.
‘Okay, you want the ultrasound, or okay, you want the abortion?’
‘Ultrasound.’
Dr Goldsmith points to the examination table.
I lie down and undo my jeans as instructed. The doctor squirts some goop onto my belly and then runs the ultrasound probe right down on the line of my pubic hair. He pushes so hard that I have to try not to wet my pants.
The ultrasound screen is turned towards him, so that he can see it and I can’t.
‘I’d say you’re at twelve to thirteen weeks,’ he says.
‘Can I have a look?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Can I have a look at the screen?’
He shakes his head. ‘We prefer to keep the images out of patients’ sight because some women do find it upsetting to see the pregnancy.’
‘I want to see the screen.’
‘This is my equipment.’
‘And it’s my baby.’
As soon as I say that, I know I’m not going to have an abortion. Even though this baby could destroy me, I will not destroy it.
With a roll of his eyes, the doctor swivels the screen around so I can see it. Right away I see the human features. A head, body, arms and legs. It’s got fingers, for Heaven’s sake. And there’s something flashing at the edge of the screen.
‘Is that the baby’s heartbeat?’
‘Yes.’
Dr Goldsmith points gingerly to the screen.
‘There’s the sac. The foetus is about eight centimetres long.’
I start crying because I realise I’ve just met someone who’s going to be with me for the rest of my life. Someone who might be with me when my heart stops beating. The doctor puts his hand on my shoulder.
‘It’s a stressful time, I know.’
‘It’s not that,’ I tell him through sobs. ‘I’m happy. That’s my baby. I’m its mum. How could I . . . How could you . . .’
I do up my pants and swiftly sit up. A huge swell of anger rises from my heart into my throat. It’s so strong that I can barely get the words out.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’ My voice is pressured and coarse. ‘Every girl who comes into this place should look at that screen!’
‘If you’re still struggling with the decision . . .’ he chips in as I rush past him out of the room.
I don’t even look at the woman behind the front desk as I leave. I stand with my back to her and wait for the elevator.
While I’m waiting, I overhear a snippet of Dr Phillip Goldsmith’s telephone conversation in his office.
‘. . . she went apeshit at me. . .’
I know he’s talking about me, and I’m kind of proud of myself. People like me do not usually stand up to people like Phillip Goldsmith. It makes me wonder what kind of other undoable things I’m capable of.
Instead of catching the bus, I walk all the way back to school, my mind rolling at the speed of sound. It makes me shiver – literally shiver – to think how close I came to ending the life inside me over a bit of nausea and a trip to Paris. Why did the two doctors involved let me glide through the process so easily?
By the time I get to school, I’ve already made a few decisions. First, I’m going to do the HSC no matter what. I cannot remember ever thinking or making a decision so clearly. Or loving someone as much as I love the eight-centimetre person living inside my belly.
I feel happy. Tired and frightened, but happy.
14
‘PEOPLE ARE GOING to think we’re lesbians if you keep holding my hand like this.’
‘I don’t care if they do, Shauna.’
Lou-Anne has not been able to stop hugging me since I told her the news. Apart from the doctors and Jenny, she’s the only person who knows I’m pregnant. I didn’t tell her about my visit to The Choice Foundation, only that the pregnancy test had been positive. She doesn’t know anything about my little death dance with Dr Goldsmith and I hope she never finds out.
Jenny knows, and she knows I’m still pregnant.
The day after the abortion appointment I tell Miss Pemberton that I need to pull out of the HSC University Pathways. Reverend Ferguson somehow found out and told Jenny before I got the chance, and Jenny figured out why and got seriously pissed off with me. She confronted me in a rage outside our lockers.
‘So all our plans for Paris are shot to hell? Just like that?’ Her voice is flinty with fury.
‘You can still go.’
‘You can still have an abortion, can’t you? Why don’t you?’ Her voice cracks with every inflection.
‘I don’t want one.’
‘Why not?’
‘Jenny!’
‘I’m sorry, Shauna, but if you had an abortion, then life would just go on as usual. We could go to Paris together like we’ve been dreaming about.’
‘I’m not going to kill my baby so we can go to Paris.’
‘A foetus is not a baby. It doesn’t know anything or feel anything. It’s just goo.’
‘I’ve seen it on the ultrasound machine and it’s not just goo. Imagine what I would have felt like afterwards!’
‘My cousin had an abortion and she told me that all she felt was happiness and relief.’
‘Well, good for her. I’m not your cousin.’
‘You’re already giving up so much and it hasn’t even been born. Do you think Mrs Green’s going to let you stay at school with a big, fat pregnant stomach?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I do.’
Jenny looks at me with gritted teeth, both hands clamped into fists and jammed against her thighs.
‘This is incredibly selfish of you,’ she hisses. ‘Does Lou-Anne know?’
‘Lou-Anne diagnosed me.’
Jenny nods, her lips pursed tightly. I don’t know what right she thinks she has to take it all so badly. I’m the one who’s got to deal with the pregnancy. She can still go to Paris.
‘And what about pulling out of Introduction to Legal Systems and Methods? Now you’ll have a big, fat fail on your university record before you’ve even started!’
‘I . . . I . . .’
I hadn’t really thought about that. A failure on my record?
‘You don’t seriously think you can study at university next year and have a baby, do you, Shauna?’
I mouth and stammer. ‘I . . . I don’t know.’
‘I do.’
‘Jenny, I’m sorry.’
‘You should really think about this over the holidays,’ she says. ‘There’s still time.’
She turns and walks off without saying goodbye or promising to call me.
‘Don’t tell anyone, Jenny!’ I call after her, feeling rotten for having let her down so badly. And for the failure on my uni record.
I’m so worried about the blot on my academic record that I go to see Reverend Ferguson in her office. My hands are glistening with nervous sweat.
‘I’ve just got too much on my plate,’ I say when she asks me to explain my decision.
She nods slowly, sympathetically. ‘I thought that might be the case. Miss Pemberton said you missed the last session at St Augustine’s.’
‘It’s just too much,’ I say feebly.
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