by Kim Lock
‘Yes and no.’
The raised eyebrows again. A question.
‘None of us were that close to our own families,’ Thomas told him. ‘We were able to hide it from them. If we visited anyone – my brother, for instance, or Elsie’s mother or sisters – Elsie and I went alone. If they visited us, Aida had her own house to go to. When she was growing up, I think Aida was closer to her parents, but after her baby was taken . . .’ he spread his hands. ‘I can’t blame her for not forgiving them for what they did.’
‘What did they do?’
Thomas ground his teeth. ‘I only know dribs and drabs of what happened. She doesn’t like to talk about it.’ He hesitated, aware that he had ventured into a story that wasn’t his to tell. ‘She says they lied to her – that they made her a promise they never intended to keep, just to keep her quiet.’ He thought about it and gave a long sigh. ‘I suspect Elsie knows more than I do about what happened, with Aida and her baby. They’ve always had each other, like that. There’s more women can say to each other than they can to a man.’
It was true, Thomas understood that now. For years it had needled him that the women shared something with each other that kept him on the periphery, looking in. Trusted, yes, but not quite privy. But he realised that now, this fact was – could be – a source of comfort.
Because even when he was gone, Elsie and Aida would still have each other. His beloved Elsie would still be loved.
Harvey let a long silence fall. When it became clear Thomas wasn’t going to elaborate, he said, ‘Five decades is a long time. You and Elsie weren’t exactly hermits. You ran a successful business, Elsie had her ladies’ groups and so forth. Then there would be the kids’ schools, extra-curricular activities and so on . . . it seems like –’ he paused, thoughtful. ‘So much hiding. How did that make you feel?’
‘What can I say?’ Thomas lifted his shoulders. ‘It was middle-class suburbia in the sixties and seventies. Everyone liked to think they knew everyone else’s business but at the same time, no one really knew anyone on a personal level. It was all –’ Thomas held his hand out at arm’s length from his face, palm facing in. He ran his hand up and down, demonstrating an invisible wall. ‘It was all facades. All fronts, put up to make it look like everyone was the same.’
‘Was it as easy as that for Elsie and Aida, though?’
Thomas stared at him, unsure what to say. He wasn’t answering the man’s questions. He was also one-quarter of the way through his second hour with this therapist – almost fifty dollars down the drain already – and he was still no closer to getting to the damn point. Thomas sighed and rubbed his head, a weariness coming over him.
‘Tell me why you’re here. It’s not just to reconcile your death, is it?’
The sudden directness caught him off guard. ‘I know something,’ Thomas said quietly, his gaze avoiding the box of tissues. ‘I’ve known it for a few years now, but I’ve never said anything. I’ve kept it to myself because to be honest, I had no bloody clue what to do about it.’
‘What do you know?’
The shrink was being frank because up until this point, Thomas hadn’t been. But now that the questions were asked so plainly, Thomas faltered. It didn’t feel right to dump it out without giving the back-story. Context always clarified things, didn’t it? Even those shameful secrets one kept to oneself – the sharp edges could be taken off if there was a frame of information around it. An explanation, a padding to soften the blow. And Thomas knew all about secrets. The way they warp and twist the inside of you, scabs that scar in folds and wrinkles.
Thomas cleared his throat. ‘Okay, let me fast forward the story. There’s a lot to cover.’
Part III
. . . and two children
43
On a late autumn evening in 1963, Thomas awoke in that unexplainable way. A sudden awakening, abruptly conscious in the night. Around him the house was silent and still. The moon pushed blueish light through a crack in the curtains.
On his right, Elsie snuffled in her sleep, her foot hot against his ankle. Lifting his head, he looked across Elsie and saw the other edge of the bed was empty; Aida was missing.
Thomas’s left arm was cold. In his sleep he had flung it out of the blankets and now it dangled off the edge of the mattress. His fingers brushed against the wall.
They had always needed a bigger bed. Trouble was, nothing larger would fit in the room. Over a year ago, after that first night when Elsie and Aida took him by the hand and led him to bed, the three had curled together, night after night, in Elsie and Thomas’s double bed. It hadn’t mattered so much back then, Thomas going to work bleary-eyed, barely having slept. He had run on the novelty of it: the nervous excitement, the sense of curiosity, the unfathomable thrill of three.
Three! It had felt forbidden, exotic. Something that happened to other people, to characters in risqué stories – not to nice, polite people from the suburbs with politicians and farmers for fathers.
Thomas sat up and eased the blankets away, careful not to disturb Elsie.
After a time, as the initial roaring flames settled and a sense of normality eased itself into their three-way union, they had all craved more sleep.
Especially so when Elsie became pregnant.
He looked across at the shape of his wife in the moonlight. They had been married for two and a half years. Elsie was always complaining of the heat now, despite how the morning grass was laced with ice. Her nightie was tangled about her thighs and her bare arms were curled about her vast belly. He watched the swell of it, heaving softly with her breath.
He listened into the silence for any sounds, but wherever Aida was, she was quiet. The clock read 1.30am.
Not long after Elsie learned she was expecting, Thomas had brought home a single bed mattress. He had extended the double bed base with pieces of pallet timber and butted the single bed mattress snugly alongside the double. Elsie had sewn sheets together to cover the whole bed, and knitted a huge blanket out of grey and red squares. It had taken her four months.
Sliding out of bed, he made his way into the hall, opened the back door and tasted a soft gust of cigarette smoke.
On the porch, Aida stilled the chair swing and let him sit alongside her.
‘She’s taking up too much of the bed.’ The glowing tip of her cigarette bounced as she spoke. ‘She’s the size of a bloody whale.’
Only Aida could get away with saying so.
As soon as Elsie had missed her monthly, she had told them. Thomas was so thrilled he picked her up and spun her around. Aida had cried tears of joy. But Elsie hadn’t let herself feel any excitement until her fourth month.
‘That rooster’s going to start up soon,’ he said.
Elsie, sympathetic in her maternal state, had finally relented and put some fertilised eggs beneath the hen that seemed in a perpetual state of broodiness. Two tiny, fluffy chicks had hatched out, one of which had turned out to be a rooster. For the past few days its half-strangled attempts at crowing had begun to assail the neighbourhood well before dawn was even thinking about it.
‘I’ll do it tomorrow,’ Aida said. ‘She won’t. But she’ll happily put him in a pot for soup.’ She crushed out her cigarette and exhaled. ‘It’s unlike you not to be able to sleep. Something the matter?’
There was an unsettling tone in her voice. As though she wasn’t one hundred per cent set on the question, or the answer. She wasn’t all there. He knew what she was thinking.
‘You tell me,’ he said.
She let out a small, humourless laugh.
He hesitated, uncertain if he’d be overstepping. ‘You’re thinking about her?’
Aida pulled her robe tighter. ‘I remember what it was like, being that close to the end. That big. You can’t think of anything else.’
Thomas was taken aback. When he’d said ‘her’, he hadn’t ex
pected for Aida to assume he had meant Elsie. He waited, letting Aida swing them back and forth.
‘But you didn’t mean Elsie,’ she said, reading his thoughts. ‘And yes, I’m thinking about her. She’d be almost two years old now. I’m trying to picture her newborn face and turn it into a two-year-old, but I can’t.’
Thomas gazed out into the moonlit yard. The trunk of the gum tree caught a slat of moonlight. He wished Elsie were here, squeezed on the seat between them. When Aida became pensive, brooding like this, Elsie always knew the right thing to say. Or the right silence to adopt.
The swing came to a halt and Aida shifted closer. She leaned her head on his shoulder and pushed with her feet, setting the swing in motion again.
‘I remember what labour felt like,’ she said. ‘I remember the pains. The fear. It’s going to be so different for her.’
It was the first time Aida had spoken of it to him. He knew she had hinted, on occasion, to Elsie about what had happened to her at the lying-in home, but never had she disclosed anything to him directly. He paused, choosing his next words with care. He wanted to hear it; he wanted her to speak – instead of the clammy, stoic silence she usually kept. A silence that made him feel uneasy.
He said, ‘I’m sorry you were frightened, love.’
At first she didn’t reply and he closed his eyes regretfully. But then she spoke, and he found himself too afraid to open his eyes again in case even that tiny movement should interrupt her.
‘They told me the labour pains were punishment for my sins.’ Her voice was soft and toneless. ‘The nuns said that the pain was my penance. And I believed them.’
Thomas touched her hand.
‘My parents kept telling me how grateful I should have been that I got to spend most of my time here in a quiet house of my own in the suburbs. It was true enough – some of the girls at St Agnes’ had spent their whole pregnancies there. Scrubbing floors, doing laundry, working in the kitchens . . . But grateful?’ She scoffed. ‘It will be so different for her,’ she repeated.
Thomas kissed the crown of her head. For some weeks now, Aida and Thomas had been able to feel the baby move for themselves. Placing their hands on Elsie’s belly, they would feel the pokes and prods from within. Once, the baby had kicked so hard that tea had sloshed from Elsie’s teacup onto her lap.
He thought how different it was going to be for all of them.
44
‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay?’ Elsie asked, breathing hard.
Aida was seated alongside her on the couch, rubbing her back. ‘Would you stop worrying about me?’ she said. ‘You’re about to have a baby.’
‘I know, but –’ Elsie broke off and gritted her teeth with a groan as another contraction gripped her insides. She had known this was going to be painful, but good Lord in heaven, this went beyond anything she could have imagined.
Time was blurry now, but Elsie was vaguely aware that daylight was disappearing from the room. Aida had called Thomas home from work a while ago, when Elsie’s mild cramps had intensified into pains that took her away from herself, took her away from the lavender hedge she had been pruning, away from Aida.
Thomas, pacing nervously back and forth across the lounge room, finally came to her side. ‘I do think we should go now, my love,’ he said, his voice thin with nerves.
The pain eased and she felt Aida’s arms around her. ‘It’s time for you to go,’ Aida said. ‘I’ll see you in a few days.’ Elsie felt Aida’s cheek pressed against hers as she whispered, ‘Bring me back a baby.’
*
It was close to midnight, they told Elsie. Did she want to have this baby today or tomorrow?
The doctor’s voice: kind, no-nonsense, Okay, Mrs Mullet, it’s time now. She didn’t even feel the injection; a bizarre haziness simply came over her like sinking into water.
Millicent Eloise Mullet (they would always call her Millie) was born at 11.45pm, Wednesday 15 May 1963. Almost three weeks later than expected, she was a whopper at nine pounds, two ounces. Alert, wide-eyed and with her little fists to her chin she came into the world, they told Elsie later. Thomas, seated motionless as a mountain in the tea room, received the news of his healthy daughter from the matron with a blink, a nod and a swallow.
*
The sister bustled into the room, wheeling the trolley.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘We’re all ready for the feeding here. Would you like to do it, or would you like to sleep?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Elsie said, holding out her hands and fluttering her fingers. The sister lifted Millie from the trolley and set her in Elsie’s arms. Millie was four days old now and each time she held her, she still felt the startlingly warm heft of her as though it was the first time. Delicate, plump cheeks and downy skin so soft Elsie imagined she could breathe it in.
Once Millie was settled in Elsie’s arms, snuffling suggestively, the nurse handed her the bottle and Millie wrapped her lips eagerly around the teat. The sister laughed. ‘No issues with her appetite.’
Elsie beamed with pride.
‘She’s taken to it like a duck to water.’ The nurse pulled the sheets out from around Elsie’s feet to re-tuck them, pleating the centre so it wouldn’t drag down on Elsie’s toes. ‘You and her are going to do just fine.’
‘I’d like to go home today,’ Elsie said.
‘Are you sure? Most new mums like to stay a little longer, a week or so.’
Elsie shook her head. Millie’s rhythmic swallows were punctuated with squeaky gulping noises, like a kitten.
The nurse picked up her chart. ‘Well, she’s taken beautifully to the schedule. Have you been getting sleep?’
‘Some, yes.’ The nurses didn’t bother Elsie at night with any feeding, keeping the baby in the nursery so she could sleep. Sometimes she woke and for stretches of time forgot she even had a baby, until she was reminded by the stinging between her legs. She gazed down at the baby, marvelling at the frown lines of concentration on her tiny forehead, at the soft whorls of dark hair at her temples. It seemed vaguely fantastical, not altogether real, that this tiny human was related to her. Had actually emerged from her body.
‘I’m sure Mr Mullet will be happy to have you both at home,’ the nurse said. ‘Let me talk to the doctor.’
When Millie’s feed was finished, Elsie allowed herself to cradle her for a few moments longer before the baby would have to be returned to her trolley. The living weight of her in Elsie’s arms felt like such a privilege.
A privilege she knew Aida had been denied.
Elsie traced a fingertip over Millicent’s tiny lips, the crescents of her eyebrows. The prickling, tugging sensation in her breasts grew and she tried not to gasp when, after she mentioned it, the sister rebound her breasts tightly with crepe.
‘It could be a few more days,’ the nurse said as she helped retie her robe. ‘Keep the binding applied until you dry up.’ Briefly the nurse described the symptoms of milk fever and Elsie nodded obligingly.
Nothing would bother her, because today she was going home. She was taking Millie to meet Aida.
She was bringing Aida her baby.
45
On a Saturday when Millie was seventeen days old, Aida roasted a joint of beef. Meaty steam baked her face as she opened the oven to retrieve the heavy tray, and fat spat and hissed at her as she set pieces of potato and pumpkin alongside the beef. She returned the pan to the oven. When the vegetables were done she would make gravy from the pan drippings.
Aida herself wouldn’t eat this meal.
Thomas had not seen his younger brother, David, for many months. When David had phoned a few days ago to say he was coming up to Gawler, and asked would Thomas like to join him in wetting the baby’s head, Thomas pointed out his brother was only nineteen, and perhaps David might like to come over for a meal instead. Besides, Thomas had told David, Els
ie would love to see him, too.
As she peeled carrots, Aida listened to Millie’s cries from the bedroom and the muffled sounds of Elsie’s attempts to soothe her. Over the past few days Millie had grown increasingly fussy, spitting up after her bottles and waking frequently, fretfully. They were all equally sleep-deprived, but Aida reminded herself it was Elsie who was recovering from childbirth, and it was Thomas who had to go to work each day. Preparing a tea – even one to which she could not be invited – was the least she could do.
Rounds of carrot skittered in the bowl as Aida slammed it aside. The pitch of Millie’s cries had ratcheted up several notches, drowning out Elsie entirely. Aida pressed her fingers to her temples. Through the window, Thomas was pushing the mower along the fence between the houses. She could make out his mouth moving – he was singing.
Aida sighed. A few potatoes and a piece of meat could be spared, some gravy. She would press them between slices of buttered bread and sit in the quiet, the solitude, of her empty house next door and eat and read a novel in peace. For a couple of hours she would not think of them. Surely she could manage that.
Millie had settled into a rolling wail. The cries suddenly dimmed in volume; a door closed over the top of them. Elsie appeared in the kitchen, her face haggard and wet with tears. Aida wanted to go to her. Instead she stayed at the sink, rinsing string beans under the tap.
‘I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.’
‘You’re not doing anything wrong,’ Aida said. ‘Babies cry.’
‘It doesn’t seem to matter what I do: I pick her up, I rock her, I change her nappy, I give her another bottle. Nothing works.’
Aida turned off the tap and looked out the window, biting the inside of her cheek against a tremor of panic. If the mother who had given birth to that baby could grow tired and resentful of its demands – what about a person who did not have that flesh and blood connection? Would a carer hold and rock and love a needy baby who was not their own? Or would the baby, without a mother’s arms to cradle it, cry until it ceased calling out, until it believed itself abandoned?