Which was a bit odd, but he insisted that was the way he wanted it to be and, in the end, what does it matter? We’re both going to be together for a very long time. As long as the sun rises in the morning and the stars come out at night, Max and I are going to live the life we deserve. And we do deserve it, don’t we?
Happy New Year my love. I know this year is just the start of something very special.
Friday, 13th February 2009—Lucky for some!
Dear Diary,
I’m so excited, I just have to come out and say it: we’re going to have a baby! Yes, it’s true, it really is. At first I couldn’t believe it, but… OMG, my hands are shaking. It’s all very sudden. Very unexpected. I’m a bit in shock. I really don’t know what to do or say at the minute. Then again, how many women can honestly say they’re prepared for the first time they find out they’re carrying another life inside them?
I was feeling a bit under the weather for the last two days, like I was coming down with the ‘flu or a bad head cold or something—my muscles were sore, my head ached, my energy was sapped, I just didn’t feel right—but then something inside me just ‘knew’ what was actually happening, feminine instinct I guess. So I made my excuses to Max, not willing to tell him until I had definite proof, and drove to the pharmacy in Strathalbyn to buy a pregnancy test. Two, actually, just to be 100% sure.
Sure enough, both of them lit up like fairy lights. I didn’t know what to think at first. I know I’m not the smartest ticket in town, but I’ve never had my mind go completely blank before. Which is what happened. I took the first test—positive. I took the second test—also positive. Then I just stared at them, back and forth, the first test, then the second, then back to the first one again, over and over. I must have done that for several minutes, just staring, not knowing what to think. Not thinking at all, actually, just staring, mind blank.
Then the euphoria hit. We were going to have a baby! Max and me, both of us, together. We were going to be parents. We were going to have a family, a little boy or girl to love and hold and care for, a little child who would call me ‘mummy’ and Max ‘daddy’.
Then the doubts hit. Did Max actually want to have kids? Did he actually want to be a father? Were we ready to start a family? Neither of us have jobs at the moment; could we honestly afford to look after another addition to the household? The doubts and questions seemed endless. In the past we’ve discussed having children, more in passing commentary than serious planning, but it’s easy to talk about in theory, much different now when it’s in your face reality.
But when is anybody really ready to be a first-time parent? Is there really a ‘perfect’ time to have a child? I figured I could talk myself out of having children for the rest of my life with one excuse or another, that I wasn’t ready, or Max wasn’t ready, or we didn’t have the money. But I consoled myself that there was really only one perfect time, and that was now. If not now, when?
So now I just have to tell Max.
Saturday, 14th February 2009—Valentine’s Day!
Dear Diary,
What a perfect day to tell Max we were going to have a baby! Max had secretly organised a hamper and champagne for Valentine’s Day behind my back and surprised me with a picnic down by the creek that runs at the bottom of our property. Despite all his bravado, he’s such a romantic when he wants to be! After we ate the food (and drank all the champagne!) we made love under the river gums in the bright open air, and I figured this was as good a moment as any. As we lay in each other’s arms, I told him the good news—he was going to be a daddy!
I actually didn’t know how he would react. I could tell he was as surprised and shocked at hearing the news as I had been when I saw the results of the pregnancy tests yesterday, but he took it very well I must say. I could see a flash in his eyes the same doubts I’d also had, but he didn’t mention them. Instead, he smiled and told me he couldn’t wait to hold ‘her’. I corrected him, saying we wouldn’t know for a while what sex the baby was; it could be just as much a ‘he’ as a ‘she’. He laughed, and kissed my belly, saying he didn’t mind if it was a boy or a girl, that he was honoured I wanted to have his child.
I too am honoured. I just wish mum and dad were here to see their first grandchild, and to see how happy I am with Max. I feel so blessed. My life is more than I could ever have hoped or imagined it could be. Please don’t wake me up if I’m dreaming.
CHAPTER 17
Although it wasn’t yet the end of May, the unseasonal autumn weather had brought a chill to the air at nights and more rain than Max would’ve expected at this time of year. The creek at the bottom of the property was constantly flowing, the surrounding vineyards in the area had already turned shades of yellows and reds and were beginning to drop their leaves, and the daylight hours were becoming suddenly shorter. He figured the high-altitude climate in the hills had more to do with his perspective of the changing weather patterns than anything else. Most of all, he wanted to make sure everything was in readiness for the birth of his son in just over five months’ time.
When he and Lorraine went for her twenty-week scan at the local district hospital in Mt. Barker, the technician asked if they wanted to know the sex of their child. Both he and Lorraine were eager to know. The technician pointed to the grainy picture on the monitor screen and said, “See that? That’s not the umbilical cord. You’re going to have a boy.”
Since then, Max devoted much of his time getting the cottage in order, painting the nursery blue, building shelves and a changing table, fixing leaks in the roof, setting possum traps in the attic, chopping wood for the wood burner, trying to make it as perfect for Lorraine and the baby as he could. He even built a rocking chair for Lorraine to sit in while she breastfed and somehow managed to construct an old-style rocking horse for the kid out of old bits of wood.
Max was splitting logs at the front of the cottage when Lorraine arrived back from another shopping expedition in town. She pulled the Commodore up next to him, smiled and got out. Max leaned the handle of the wood splitter against the pile of wood he’d made and went over to her. The entire tray of the ute was filled with grocery bags, Huggies boxes and nappy wipes.
Lorraine caught the direction of his gaze. “An expectant mum can never be too prepared,” she said, smiling. She rubbed her belly, which had recently started to show the telltale bump of pregnancy.
Max shook his head and laughed. “You can say that again,” he said, glancing up at the grey skies. “Here, let me help you before the rain comes.”
When he’d brought all the grocery bags and boxes inside to the kitchen, he left Lorraine to unpack them and went outside to finish the backbreaking chore of splitting the wood before the weather turned for the worse. After fifteen minutes of swinging the heavy splitter into unforgiving blocks of red gum, he stopped to catch his breath and wipe his brow. He caught Lorraine staring out of the kitchen window at him, clasping the silver locket to her chest. He smiled at her but she didn’t seem to see, as if she was staring right through him. A little disconcerted, he raised the wood splitter back over head and slammed it down onto a block of redwood. It barely made a dent in the hard wood.
Out of the corner of his vision he saw Lorraine hadn’t moved. She was still staring at him as though he wasn’t there, although he did notice she wasn’t clasping the locket anymore, which he could no longer see dangling around her neck. Worse, dark rings had formed around her eyes and her face had turned ghastly pale, as if all the blood had drained from her face. Even her lips, usually flushed ruby red with vitality, looked white and almost transparent.
What the hell? he thought, and went to her.
He entered the kitchen still holding the wood splitter. She seemed to start when her detached gaze fell onto the splitter’s sharp edge. Then she blinked, swaying and catching her balance on the side of the sink. He leaned the splitter against the door and went to her, worried she was about to fall, worried there was something wrong with either her or the baby.
He held her shoulders, looking into her vacant eyes. “Lorraine? You all right?”
She flinched at his touch, but seemed to catch herself, as if not wanting him to notice her reaction. She looked down at the floor, averting his gaze. “I, I’m feeling a bit off,” she said, now biting her bottom lip.
“Is everything okay?” he asked again. “Is the baby okay?”
Still biting her lower lip, Lorraine nodded, absently rubbing her belly bump, and said, “Yes… yes, the baby’s good. It’s… it’s just the pregnancy.” Her voice seemed as detached as her gaze. She looked up, trying to reassure him. “I just think I need to lie down for a while.”
As she left, she detoured past the kitchen table and picked up the newspaper she’d brought back from the shops, taking it with her to the bedroom. Drizzle had commenced outside, so Max went to the fridge to help himself to a bottle of West End. Twisting the beer top, he noticed the silver locket lying in the sink. Its chain was broken, as it had been when he’d wrenched it off Sal’s neck. He picked it up, examined it for a moment, then put it on the kitchen table, thinking she must have broken it by accident.
Why would she do it deliberately?
Just as he was sitting at the table, he heard Lorraine rush to the toilet down the hallway and retch into the bowl. After two or three more retches, there was prolonged silence. Max thought of getting up to assist, thinking she might have fainted, but heard the flush of the toilet followed soon by the running of the bathroom shower. As he drank his beer he listened to the sounds coming from the bathroom, thinking he could hear faint sobbing mixed with the wash of the shower head. He went to the hallway to hear more closely, but the sobbing was still faint and indistinct, so he tiptoed to the bathroom door and silently pressed his ear to it.
She’s definitely crying. What the hell’s the matter with her?
Max felt as though he was caught in no man’s land. Should he persist and ask her directly what was troubling her or just let her be? If he interrogated her, did he really want to know the truth of the matter? Was she in two minds about the pregnancy? He’d certainly heard of situations where expectant mothers became depressed while they were still carrying the baby and wanted to get rid of it. Was she even in two minds about him? Had she somehow…
Max heard the shower turn off and the curtain thrown back as Lorraine grabbed for a towel to dry herself. Max tiptoed back down the hallway to the kitchen table and continued drinking his beer, pretending nothing had happened.
Down the hallway, he heard the bathroom door open and Lorraine’s footsteps move into the bedroom. Several minutes later, Lorraine entered the kitchen. Although she had freshened up and changed into a grey tracksuit and sneakers, she looked even worse than before, her face and lips paler, the rings around her eyes darker, her cheeks gaunt and skeletal. Averting his gaze, she went to the kettle and switched it on, then removed a cup from beneath the bench and dropped a teabag into it.
“You don’t look so good,” Max said, genuinely concerned for her wellbeing. “You sure everything’s okay?”
Still not meeting his gaze, she nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
A moment of uncomfortable silence passed between them. Finally, Max said, “You upset about something? I heard you crying in the shower.”
Lorraine shook her head, short rapid twitches back and forth. “No… no, nothing. Might just have picked up a bug or something. Or it might be… you know, the start of morning sickness.”
“Should we see a doctor?”
Lorraine absently felt her belly. Her gaze was distant and detached again. “Wha… What? Sorry? No… no, these things just happen in pregnancy. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
The kettle started to boil but she didn’t seem to notice. Outside, the drizzle had heavied into fuller raindrops.
Lorraine went to the front door. “I, I need some fresh air,” she said.
Max glance out the window. “You’re joking. It’s raining.”
Lorraine bit her bottom lip, wavering, taking a deep breath. “I’ll be okay. I just need some air.”
Max stood up, increasingly worried that Lorraine had become severely affected by the pregnancy, or worse, emotionally and mentally unbalanced. “What if you catch a cold out there? It won’t be good for the baby.”
Suddenly, Lorraine threw her hands to her head and started rubbing her palms against her temples. “I… Will… Be… O’… Kay!” she hissed. She flashed a stare at him, the first time she had made eye contact since returning from the shops. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, almost demonic, and then the moment passed. She put her hand on the doorhandle and said, in a calm and controlled voice, “I’m just going for a walk. I’ll be back later,” but Max thought he heard a slight hesitation in her voice, a deceitful hesitation.
He went to the kitchen window to watch as she walked down the driveway to where it met the unsealed municipal road. Before she crossed the road, she looked back up the hill to the cottage and caught him staring at her through the window. She looked frightened, almost too petrified to keep walking. He knew that look. It was the look of someone who had just escaped a kidnapping and didn’t quite know which way to turn. The same look the rich bitch had given him when he threw her out of Cherokee and told her she had five minutes to save her miserable fuck’n skin—the look that said she was running for her life.
You might be just freak’n paranoid, Maxy, but she knows someth’n, he thought as Lorraine disappeared down the road out of sight. I don’t know what she knows, but she knows fuck’n someth’n.
Max snatched the car keys from the key hook next to the front door and stormed outside. He jumped in behind the steering wheel, spun the car in reverse and sped down the driveway to the bottom of the hill. He’d seen Lorraine head right along the unsealed road, probably making her way to the main road leading to Strathalbyn. Less than a minute later, his assumption proved correct.
He pulled up next to her on the side of the road. The rain was coming down heavier and the grey of Lorraine’s tracksuit top and trousers had darkened in splashes of wet drops, concentrated mostly over the mounds of her breasts and pregnant belly. Her hair was matted and her face shiny with wetness, but the rain couldn’t hide streaks of tears running down her cheeks.
Max wound down the passenger window and said, “Where the hell are you going? Get in the car!”
Lorraine kept walking, not answering.
Max got out of the car and ran up to her. “Lorraine, please, what’s going on? What are you doing?”
She sped up her pace, again not answering him.
Max grabbed her arm and spun her around. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Tears were streaming from her eyes. “You’re what’s wrong with me!” she screamed. “I know, Max! I know who you are!”
Her words lashed him, the agony of their strike far worse than anything delivered by his father’s horsewhip. He felt physically winded. His knees threatened to buckle beneath him and the ground beneath him seemed to rumble beneath his boots. His head felt dizzy, his vision blurred, and just for a moment he thought he was having a stroke.
“Wha… what?” he managed to say, struggling to comprehend the meaning of what she’d said.
Lorraine wrenched her arm from his grip and broke away from him. “You killed her. Oh my God, you killed that poor girl!” Her eyelids blinked wide and her mouth gaped.
Max was regaining his composure. “What girl?” he said.
Lorraine stared at him in disbelief, an expression that said, ‘Are you fuck’n stupid or someth’n?’ In the end, she said, “The girl in the newspaper. The locket you gave me was hers!”
He had prepared an answer to counter any suspicion she might have a long while ago. “I bought that in a pawn shop! I bought it for you.”
“LIAR!” she screamed, and launched at him, thumping his chest with closed fists, kicking his shins, screaming, “LIAR! LIAR! LIAAAAAR!”
He didn’t resist the attack. He allowed her t
o kick and punch, absorbing the blows and the screams until she weakened and blows ceased to hurt and the screams turned to whispers. He held her as she capitulated, unable to continue, sobbing uncontrollably into his chest, wailing like a newlywed who had just learned the devastating news that the man she loved had just died.
In his heart he knew that to be the truth.
Max poured himself a shot of Jack Daniels and downed it. The bottle on the kitchen table was almost empty and he prepared himself for the moment there’d be nothing left. Like sands through an hourglass, the last drops of whisky would signal that his time was up.
Outside, the night had come early under the heavy clouds and the rain was relentless, splashing into the windows and drumming the corrugated roof like tinkling cymbals. Lorraine was sitting on the couch next to the fireplace, knees to her chest, silently watching the flames through the glass-fronted wood burner. The fire cast a glow into the darkened room, shrouding her in a golden-orange aura. She hadn’t said a word since their confrontation on the roadside.
Max reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels and poured himself another shot. He figured he had two more shots left before the end, which was why the Remy was leaning against the table-top like a prison guard waiting for its prisoner to finish his last meal on death row. He eyed the newspaper in front of him. It was open to page two, where the headline read: SEVERAL BODIES IDENTIFIED NEAR SERENA. Beneath the headline were three photographs. The first of his father, a black and white mug shot seemingly taken in the sixties before he lost all his hair, wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and black tie, but where the fuck the journalist had found that photo was beyond him. The only thing he could think of was a work photo, when he was still employed by the railway department, probably not long before he was made redundant. The second photo was of the German backpacker with his didgeridoo. He caught a sub-headline amongst the columns: PARENT’S QUEST ENDS IN TRAGEDY.
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