The Three of Us

by Kim Lock

  The question rose up in Elsie’s chest and she struggled against it, worried it might burst rudely from her. Why didn’t your parents keep the baby, when they said they would? She hoped Aida might offer more, but Aida’s eyes fixed on something over Elsie’s shoulder.

  ‘Hey,’ Aida said, ‘over there, beyond the hedge. Is that crown land?’

  Elsie looked over and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It looks pretty unowned to me.’

  ‘Lovely big old fig tree.’

  Aida moved off, towards a narrow gap in the hedge. Elsie hurried after her and slid through, spiked stems clutching at her clothes.

  They emerged into a verdant space, bordered on one side by the cemetery hedge and on the other by a thick, curving copse of eucalypts. Grass bent about their knees, insects sprung from the disturbed stalks and Elsie swatted their winged bodies from her arms. Beyond the gum trees, farm land rolled into the horizon.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be careful of snakes?’ Elsie asked, wary.

  Picking up a stick, Aida thrashed it about the weeds and thumped her feet on the ground. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Now we’re safe. Come on.’ She pushed through the grass, carving a path towards a large leafy tree stretching its limbs over the ground.

  The weeds reached the lowermost branches of the tree, and Aida bent over and scrambled through. Elsie followed, flinching at the feel of a sticky cobweb that stretched and broke across her forehead. She tried not to imagine its owner, infuriated at the intrusion, crawling beneath her collar.

  ‘There isn’t anything in here that’s going to sting or bite, or otherwise maim us?’

  From somewhere inside the tangle of branches Aida said, ‘I promise you’re safe. And when we’re eating baked figs with ice cream, you won’t regret it.’

  Elsie brightened. ‘That does sound good.’

  At the base of the trunk, Aida was pulling off her cardigan and looking up into the branches. Handing her cardigan to Elsie, she tucked her shirt into her waistband, hitched up her skirt and began to tuck it into her underwear.

  ‘Stop,’ Elsie said, suddenly woozy at the thought. ‘You can’t climb it!’

  Aida paused. ‘The figs aren’t going to come down by us standing here and asking them.’

  Elsie looked up into the branches. She felt dizzy. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, unconvincingly. Aida had stopped wearing a bandage on her right hand, but Elsie had seen her wince with pain if she gripped anything tightly. Plus, she had recently given birth, for heaven’s sake. What if she fainted? What if she fell? With more conviction Elsie repeated, ‘I’ll go.’

  Elsie imitated the way Aida had tucked in her blouse and skirt, giggling nervously. She assessed the trunk, trying to ascertain the most elegant way to ascend, but after deciding there was nothing else for it, she grabbed the nearest branch and hauled herself up.

  ‘A little higher,’ Aida called up to her. ‘There, stop there. Now sit on that branch and slide across it.’

  ‘Simply slide across it?’ Elsie glanced down, saw the way Aida’s head was tipped right back to watch her, and her vision swam. ‘Don’t look down,’ she muttered. At the end of the branch she could see fat clusters of fruit. Carefully she edged along, placing her hands one after the other while her skirt screwed itself tight around her hips.

  Reaching the fruit, she called, ‘Catch,’ and let one fig drop. It landed with a soft plop into the grass at Aida’s feet. She plucked more, stuffing each soft morsel down the front of her blouse and filling it like a sack. She tried not to contemplate how far she was from the ground. When her blouse was full, she climbed down. On the lowermost branch her foot slipped, and she winced as a twig carved a stinging weal up her shin. Finally, her feet touched the ground. The front of her blouse sagged with fruit. When she looked down, her body went still at the way it ballooned out at her front, soft and rounded and ripe.

  Aida took a step towards her, picked up the fig that Elsie had dropped to the grass and handed it to her.

  The skin was velvety and purple-black. Elsie took a bite, exposing a fleshy pink interior stippled with seeds. The burst of sweetness drew along her jaw like a sharp fingernail and syrup slid down her chin. With the back of her hand she wiped her face, and offered the remaining fruit to Aida.

  29

  It wasn’t a long walk to the shop, but to Aida it felt like a marathon.

  She squinted behind her sunglasses and pulled her hat lower over her face. Taking the back roads wasn’t an option – the detour stretched around the back of Milson’s dairy farm. So, strolling conspicuously along the suburban streets, Aida chain-smoked and hugged the front fences of house yards, lingered in the shade of overhanging jacarandas and pepper trees, and kept her face down.

  The walk was Elsie’s idea. Let’s get you out of the house, she’d said that morning, adding the promise of a block of chocolate to share.

  Now Elsie glanced at her as she tugged yet again at the brim of her hat. ‘Are you really that worried about someone recognising you?’

  Aida didn’t know how to answer. What was she afraid of? She could no longer tell where her fear ended and her shame began. The edges of her feelings were all smashed in together, one crushing chunk of betrayal and anger and disgrace.

  They reached Swaffer’s shop; the bell above the door jangled. From behind the counter, Mr Swaffer called out a greeting. ‘Mrs Thomas Mullet, what can I do for you?’

  Elsie gave a warm response to the shopkeeper and wandered to the counter to enquire after dried apricots. Aida slunk into an aisle and studied the tins of soup. She picked up a cream of chicken and a cream of mushroom. She imagined heating them in a saucepan on the stove, sipping hot soup in bed late at night. The thought was both comforting and alarming.

  Because in the image that came to her, Elsie was beside her.

  Aida clunked the tins back onto the shelf, and joined Elsie at the counter.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Mr Swaffer said. ‘Have we met?’

  ‘I’m visiting my friend,’ Aida recited.

  ‘Very good. Are you from Gawler?’

  ‘Uh, nearby.’

  ‘Barossa way?’

  Aida opened her mouth. Just say Adelaide, she scolded herself. What’s the harm in it?

  ‘So what can you recommend today?’ Elsie broke in, and Aida’s shoulders softened.

  ‘We have fresh peas,’ the shopkeeper went on, unperturbed. ‘Please take some, lovely in a shepherd’s pie for Mr Mullet’s tea.’

  Elsie murmured responses, mm-hmming at appropriate junctures and offering answers to the shopkeeper’s stream of questions: how was Mr Mullet’s work, was he keeping busy, wasn’t business booming these days?

  ‘I hope to see you again, dear,’ Mr Swaffer said to Aida as Elsie paid for the groceries. ‘I never did catch your name?’

  ‘I’m sorry, how rude of me,’ Elsie said, turning to Aida. She shot her a look of apology. ‘This is Aida.’

  ‘Aida . . . ?’ Mr Swaffer repeated, with a polite but definite upward inflection.

  Why hadn’t she prepared for this? Of course the local shopkeeper would want to know her full name. Her rank, status, background – it was a small town and she was a new face. Desperately, Aida cast about and lit upon the peas Mr Swaffer had pointed out: fat, grassy green pods heaped in a bucket.

  ‘Shepherd,’ she said. ‘Aida . . . Shepherd.’

  ‘Goodness is that the time?’ Elsie said, taking Aida’s elbow. ‘I’m going to be late for knitting group. Goodbye, Mr Swaffer.’

  Aida smiled wanly and tugged her hat lower. When they were safely outside the store and had walked for several minutes, she finally sighed and began to breathe easier.

  ‘Aida Shepherd, huh?’

  ‘I panicked,’ she said. ‘He mentioned the pie and . . .’ she shook her head. ‘So now I’m Aida Shepherd, wife of an absent miner.’ She was unsure whether
to laugh or burst into tears. ‘I’ve never had to –’

  She was silenced by a sudden whoop whoop of air at the back of her head. Elsie cried out and ducked. Aida turned in time to see a magpie whip around in the air in a flurry of black-and-white feathers, and swoop back down towards them. Wings outstretched, sharp beak aimed like an arrow.

  ‘Oh, damn bird!’ Elsie cried. She clutched her basket tight to her chest. ‘Go away, we’re not near your babies – aak!’

  Aida grabbed her arm, and they ran. Their footsteps pounded up the street as the magpie’s furious squawking rained down on them, the beat of its wings brushing the backs of their heads. At one point Aida heard the sharp clack-clack of its beak so close to her ear she felt a hot sting. Dashing up a side-street, Aida pulled Elsie beneath the bowl-like limbs of a pepper tree. They huddled beneath its shelter, their breath coming hard.

  ‘I think it’s gone,’ Elsie panted. Setting the basket at her feet she leaned against the tree’s thick trunk and put a hand to her chest. ‘I can’t catch my breath,’ she said, giggling. A flash of alarm crossed her face. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you have blood on your ear. Here.’ She held out her hand.

  Aida stepped closer. Elsie licked her finger and touched it to Aida’s ear. Between her thumb and forefinger, she gently pinched Aida’s ear lobe.

  ‘There,’ Elsie said softly. ‘All better.’

  With the touch of Elsie’s fingers, all the terror and loneliness and deception of the past weeks shunted itself into a knot of pain in the middle of her. Her baby, her baby. Perhaps it was this rope of panic, or the beat of her own pulse, or the wind fingering the limbs of the tree, or the way Elsie’s skirt lifted in the breeze. Whatever it was, something stole the air from her lungs and when she leaned forward it seemed there was nothing else to do.

  She kissed Elsie’s mouth.

  30

  What was happening?

  Elsie’s entire body had disappeared; she had vanished as though she’d never existed. All she could feel was Aida’s lips – small, exquisite, soft – pressed against her own. That’s all there was. It occurred to her that she should move, pull away, do something, but in that time Aida shifted.

  Aida pulled away; she stepped back. A sudden deprivation.

  Neither of them spoke.

  A car drove past on the street and the sound of it snapped Elsie awake. Straightening, she brushed at her skirt and waved to the driver. Nothing to see here, only doing a spot of shopping and stopped for a rest.

  Casting her eyes to the ground, she backed up a few steps, turned and walked away.

  Aida’s footsteps hurried behind her. ‘Say something,’ Aida said.

  Elsie didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Elsie, wait.’

  She wanted to stop, to turn around, to say something and make it better but all she could think of was the feel of Aida’s lips and so she kept walking, one foot in front of the other until she reached the end of the street and her house came into view. Elsie hurried up her front steps, her basket swinging, forgotten, at the end of her arm, its contents bashing together.

  Elsie went inside and shut the door.

  31

  Thomas was worried about Elsie.

  Not overwhelmingly worried – more like a mild level of concern. The kind of sticky apprehension one feels before a routine doctor’s visit: it’s likely everything is fine, but one can’t help but niggle over possible unknowns. For the past week Elsie had been absent-minded, distant. Off-colour. When she made tea Tuesday night, a layer of casserole had burned itself to the bottom of the pot – thick clumps of chewy brownish matter had nestled on Thomas’s plate alongside his buttered bread. When she was making the coffee on Thursday morning, she stared out the kitchen window for several minutes between adding the milk and the sugar; his coffee had been lukewarm and too sweet – she had unknowingly sweetened it twice. And yesterday she had attempted to mop up a spilled cup of tea with an empty, dry bucket.

  So by Saturday morning, when Thomas had the day off and slept late as usual, he’d awoken and rolled over to cuddle his wife – as was their weekend routine – only to discover her side of the bed was empty.

  Of all of Elsie’s unusual behaviours over the past few days, her absence in their Saturday morning bed was the most unsettling. Didn’t Elsie love their weekend morning lie-ins? The way he would stroke her back and nuzzle into the space between her jaw and her collarbone and tell her how beautiful she was?

  So what in the blazes was she doing banging around in the lounge room at 6.50am?

  ‘Elsie? What in the blazes are you doing?’ Thomas stood in the lounge room in his robe and watched his wife hammer nails directly into the plaster. She wore a knitted jumper over the top of her nightdress.

  She said, ‘Hanging some pictures.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday, we normally lie in together.’

  Tap – tap – tap –

  ‘I don’t think you should –’

  Crash. The hammer went straight through the wall.

  Elsie dropped the hammer and it bounced harmlessly on the carpet. She flung down the handful of nails she’d been holding, scattering them into a starburst.

  Thomas picked up the hammer and inspected the jagged hole in the plaster. ‘That’s quite a hole. What are you wanting to hang?’ He turned to Elsie with a grin on his face but was dismayed to see his wife sobbing.

  ‘Never mind, love,’ he said, putting an arm about her shoulder. ‘Forget the wall. I’ll fix it later. How about we make a cup of tea?’

  Elsie let Thomas guide her into the kitchen. He filled the kettle and set it on the stove while Elsie spooned tea leaves into the pot. Then he sat down at the kitchen table while Elsie waited for the water to boil.

  Of course, Thomas missed the baby, too. Over and over he upbraided himself – how could he miss something that had never existed? But it was there. An uncertain kind of grief, a not-quite longing for what could have been. Perhaps they both needed a distraction. To take their minds off it and help them move on. After all, it had been – how long? – at least two months since Elsie’s incident.

  ‘My love,’ he said, ‘how about tomorrow we pack a picnic and take a drive into the hills? The weather is fining up. Mr Bagnoli told me about this lovely spot . . . Else?’

  The kettle was whistling; Elsie was staring out the window.

  *

  Picnicking in the hills on a glorious spring day was bound to cheer Elsie up. Whatever malaise had come over her the past week would surely dissolve beneath that gorgeous curve of blue sky, with the gladdening sounds of the magpies and wattle birds – the opportunity not to think of all her jobs in the home, if only for a few hours.

  Thomas reassured himself with these things as he navigated the car through the steep and winding roads traversing the hills. Dodging potholes the size of milk crates, slowing to a crawl and sticking to the rocky edges around blind hairpin turns, he brought them to a clearing in the vast expanse of cream-trunked gums and scrubby acacias. They got out of the car and Thomas whistled; the sound echoed out into air sharp with eucalyptus. Elsie gave a vague smile.

  ‘Should we sit in the sun?’ Thomas took the blanket from the boot of the car along with the esky, and they wandered down a grassy slope to the edge of the trees, where the valley stretched out below them. The tops of the gum trees rippled in the breeze as the wattles cast the last of their yellow blossom to the ground. Thomas spread the blanket in a pool of sunlight.

  Elsie took out the sandwiches while Thomas poured sweet milky tea from the thermos. They ate in a silence that Thomas told himself was easy, that conversation was spare between them because they were listening to the wind moving through the casuarinas like a flute and the young magpies calling to their parents. But when the sandwiches were finished, and Elsie had turned down the orange he offered to split with her, he rustled up some courage.

&
nbsp; ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked her. ‘You seem faraway lately.’

  Elsie crumbled a bread crust between her fingers and dropped it onto the grass for the ants. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she told him.

  He wanted to believe her. Anxiety at even asking the question knotted in him and her dismissal of his concern felt like an act of mercy. Although the lines in her brow and the half of a sandwich she had left uneaten, and the way she jumped when he spoke, as though she’d been caught her with her hand in someone’s wallet, continued to gnaw at him. The picnic wasn’t grand enough, he decided. Too quiet. They needed an activity more energetic, bigger. A few weeks after they had moved into their marital home, they had invited some of his colleagues and a few neighbours over as a house-warming party. He recalled Elsie’s bright laughter as virtual strangers handed her gifts of platters and butter dishes, as plates of melon balls and cheeses on toothpicks were passed around, as second and third beers were opened. His wife hadn’t known anyone well, but despite feeling shy she had glowed and smiled and chatted. How long ago was that now? He decided he had let them become closeted and self-pitying. Tucked away on their quiet street and grieving a baby that never was.

  ‘Let’s throw a dinner party,’ he said. ‘Have some of the neighbours over.’

  A frown crossed her face. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Nothing too fancy. We’ll do a barbecue. What do you think?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Come on, love. It’s been ages. It’ll be fun! I know Mr and Mrs Adelman are keen to see how the garden is coming along . . .’