by Sofie Laguna
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Nurse Patty said, fiddling with the hem of my sheet.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s against the rules.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…because…Justine, you gave him up for adoption.’ She looked at me. ‘You can’t see him. You know that, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Hasn’t anybody explained it to you?’
‘I didn’t give him up.’
‘Yes, you did, Justine. That’s why you’re here at St Jude’s. Because you gave him up. Don’t you understand that?’
‘I don’t know. I want to see him. Why can’t I see him?’
‘He’s going to be adopted. You gave him up.’
‘But I didn’t. I didn’t give him up!’
‘You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t given him up. There’s no point in you seeing him. The baby belongs to the hospital until he is adopted, and then he’ll belong to his new parents.’
I had heard it, did know it, but understanding had been buried. Now I understood, only now. ‘But he’s mine, Nurse Patty. Joe Michael is mine.’
‘He’s not yours, Justine. I mean, he was yours, but you’re so young, with your whole life ahead of you.’
She went to touch my cheek but I pushed her hand away. What whole life was ahead of me? I had never known about it. Everything that had been was finished, over, and now there was Joe Michael. He was the thing that had come. He was the whole life. I wished I had a gun. I would make Nurse Patty put her hands in the air. Then I’d take my baby.
‘But he’s mine. I had him, Nurse Patty.’
‘Yes, you did. But you are too young to take care of a baby. You need to take care of yourself first. You need to finish school and grow up. Make a life for yourself. Find a nice man to marry.’ She smiled at me. ‘Then you can have a baby of your own.’
But I had a baby of my own now. It was the one thing I did have. ‘Can I see him?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Justine—it’s just not possible.’ Her mouth went flat and firm. Not possible…but if I wanted it why wasn’t it possible? Why did everybody else choose what was possible for me?
I turned away from Nurse Patty. I wanted to listen for Joe Michael. I closed my eyes. It was a better way to see him. His face, his small nose, the bow of his lips, his small ears.
‘Don’t be like that, Justine. We’re friends, remember?’ I heard the crackle of paper as she pulled something from her pocket. ‘I’ve brought you lollies.’
The sound came between me and the baby; I didn’t want lollies. Blood trickled from between my legs onto the pad. I wished Joe was here. John Wayne as Quirt held the gun at the face of the enemy. I only want what’s mine.
I heard Nurse Patty leaving. I know she wanted me to say goodbye, as if we were friends, but I didn’t want to. She knew where Joe Michael was. She could hold him, kiss his head, sing to him. She could have taken me to him.
54.
In the morning, when the breakfast nurse wheeled in the trays, she said to Candy, ‘Your mother will be here in an hour. You can pack your clothes into your suitcase.’
‘At last!’ said Candy, throwing back her covers. She pulled her white gown over her head. ‘I feel like I’m getting out of prison.’ She took a yellow dress from the cupboard. ‘I took the pill,’ she said to me. ‘And the milk has just about stopped. I put pads in my bra just in case.’ She stepped into the dress. ‘Imagine if I leaked when I was walking down the street. Disgusting!’
Matron Carting came into the room with a lady who wasn’t a nurse or a doctor. The lady had a necklace of white beads around her neck and wore a brown suit. She said, ‘Hello, Margaret.’
‘Hi, Mum,’ said Candy.
‘Are you ready?’
‘I need to use the toilet before I go,’ said Candy.
‘Don’t dawdle, Margaret. I’ll be at the front desk waiting for you.’ Candy’s mother left the room.
Candy looked at me. ‘It’ll be your turn soon.’
I knew Candy meant my turn to leave, but she didn’t understand. Leave for what? I didn’t want to leave. Candy came and sat on the side of my bed. She glanced over her shoulder. There was no one in the ward but us. ‘They keep the babies on the top floor. You can go up the stairs. They took me there to give the baby the early milk. If you want to see your baby, go at night—there’s only one nurse on duty and she has a lot of babies to check.’
My baby was upstairs? He was here?
‘Thank you, Candy,’ I said.
‘Only go at night, otherwise there’s visitors—the mothers and fathers coming to choose a baby.’
‘Thank you.’
She squeezed my hand. ‘Good luck.’
Candy walked out of the room. The babies were upstairs. Joe Michael was upstairs.
I stayed in bed that day, waiting for night to come. A new girl was brought into the ward. She lay on her side, the blanket pulled up to her ears, and never spoke. When she woke she cried. I watched the light change outside the window. I turned from the clock to the changing light. Night was close now. The other girl woke and cried and slept and cried. The nurse pulled a curtain around her, then she went behind the curtain so I could only see their shadows bending and reaching.
I lay on my back and listened to the voices coming from the corridor. Once, when I was at the Worlleys’ farm, I saw a cow with its calf hanging from its backside. The calf ’s tongue was blue and the cow twisted and turned, trying shake out the baby. The cow had been trying to push out the calf for a long time; it was too big. The cow moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head. The cow that looked so wide from the outside must have been small on the inside, its bones a trap that the calf couldn’t pass through. The cow wanted to be close to her baby, to lick him clean, to smell his coat, to help him walk, but it didn’t matter how far she turned around, she couldn’t reach to help him out; she was like a dog chasing its tail. The calf ’s tongue turned blue, its eyes closed, its long, damp legs stuck out under its chin, one across the other. Is it alright? I asked Ian Worlley. Nobody answered. Later they cut the calf out in pieces to save the cow. Only the cow was saved.
At last the night nurse drew down the blinds and dinners were brought into the ward. I pushed the tray away.
‘You need food,’ said the nurse. She smiled at me. ‘If you want to leave this room and go home you’ll need food in your stomach.’ She was nice. Not as pretty as Nurse Patty, but nice. Nurse Patty hadn’t come back since I saw her the last time. ‘Come on, it isn’t that bad. It’s meant to be chicken Maryland, but let’s just say it’s chicken with mash.’ The nurse helped me to sit up in the bed.
If you want to leave this room…I did want to leave this room. Tonight, to see my baby. I stuck my fork into the chicken.
The new girl who had taken Candy’s bed had stopped crying and was sitting up against her pillows. She had no colour in her cheeks and had not eaten any of her dinner. There was nobody else in the ward. I said to the girl, ‘They keep the babies upstairs. Yours will be there too.’ She turned to me, her face blank. ‘You can go and see your baby,’ I said. ‘It’s upstairs.’ She turned away from me.
Later, after the dinner trays had been cleared, a nurse came and helped the other girl to the toilet. After she left, the sounds of the hospital settled. Soon it would be time. My heart began to race. What if I couldn’t find the way upstairs? What if they’d already found a home for Joe Michael? He had ten fingers and ten toes like Candy’s baby. What if he was gone? Please don’t let him be gone. When I found him I would take him from here. He didn’t belong in St Jude’s. I was his home. He belonged with me.
The only light in the room was coming from the corridor outside. I sat up. Blood came from between my legs, heavier than my rags. I got out of the bed; my scar stung. I felt swollen. I closed my eyes against the pain; I could hear the baby crying. It went from loud to soft then louder again. He was calling for me.
I went to the door; just
as I was about to step into the corridor two nurses walked out of one of the other wards. They were talking and laughing, looking at a chart. I held my breath and waited. When I couldn’t hear the nurses anymore, I looked out again. There was nobody there. Further down the corridor I saw another door. I walked as quickly as I could to the door and opened it. I was in a concrete stairwell. I closed the door behind me.
I climbed the stairs in the darkness, the concrete cold under my bare feet. My heart beat fast. What would happen if a nurse saw that I wasn’t in my bed? They would come after me; they would stop me from seeing Joe and he would be taken. Joe would be given away. I started to run.
I pulled open a door at the top of the stairs and heard voices and babies crying. Candy was right—this was where the babies were kept! I put my head into the corridor. I could see a nurse at the far end. She was measuring something into a bottle, with her back to me. Then she went through a door and was gone. I could hear babies crying, but muffled, as if they were behind a wall.
I stepped into the corridor, following the sound of babies crying. When I saw a nurse coming I went through the nearest door into a cupboard of folded towels. I held my breath. When I opened the door of the cupboard the nurse was gone. I went on down the corridor towards the sound of crying. I came to a set of double glass doors with numbers on a sign. I pushed open the doors and there they were, the babies.
There was nobody guarding them but I knew the nurse would be here soon. I walked along the rows of babies in their cots. What if I didn’t know him anymore? What if he had forgotten me? Then I saw him. My baby! Joe Michael! He was sleeping, his face softer than any face living. He wasn’t yet in the world, but he wasn’t inside me either. He was between worlds. My baby. I would know him anywhere. I picked him up as gently as I could and held him to me. He woke and looked at me and there was nothing between us, as if he was still in me, and yet he wasn’t, he was here, in this world. I put my face to his soft hair, and he curled into me as if he knew me, knew my voice. ‘My baby, my little baby…little Joe, hello, Joe, little baby.’ They were the best minutes of my life. ‘Little Joe, my little one, I am your mother.’ They were the minutes that contained my dream. ‘Little Joe Michael, baby Joe, baby Joe, sweet little baby Joe.’ It was as if I had been empty up till now. The baby was mine. Nothing had ever been mine before. My own body wasn’t mine, but the baby, here, now, in my arms was mine.
He snuffled against me and cried softly. ‘Oh, little Joe, little baby Joe.’ I rocked him up and down, bob-bobbing as if I was a human sea, the perfect size for my baby, who could let himself go in my arms and be rocked by me, Justine, his one and only mother. We both knew we didn’t have long, that we had to work fast. We were stamping ourselves on each other; even after life was finished, we would be forever Justine the mother, and Joe Michael the son.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’ A nurse came through the doors. ‘What on earth? Give me the baby! Give him to me!’ She tried to take my baby from me. But Joe Michael was mine. He’d been in my stomach, I made him and carried him and pushed him into the world.
He started to cry, and I started to cry too.
The nurse pulled Joe Michael from my arms. I had to let him go, I didn’t want him to be hurt. Joe Michael cried louder. The nurse called, ‘Nurse Withers! Nurse Withers! Come quickly!’
Nurse Withers came charging towards me, black wings flapping. ‘What were you thinking?’ Her cold hand was pressed to my back as she took me down the stairs. ‘You could have hurt him!’
I couldn’t speak. I would never have hurt him—never! But I couldn’t find the words, even for my baby. I could only cry for him, and long for him and wish for him to be in my arms.
Back in my bed Nurse Withers gave me a pill and waited until I swallowed.
55.
When I woke the next morning I was the only one in the ward; the other girl was gone. Nurse Undine came into the room. She was cold and hard as sink metal. ‘After breakfast you can change into the clothes you were wearing when you first arrived. Your grandfather is on the way to take you home.’
I pulled my dress over my head. It hung down in folds over my empty stomach.
Matron Carting led Pop into the room. He was pale. The tracks in his face reached all the way to the end. He said, ‘You got everything?’
I didn’t answer. I was numb.
When the nurse gave him pads for me, Pop’s hands shook. He was all made of dry sticks, like kindling. He tried to take my hand but I pulled away. Joe Michael never stopped crying; I had to listen.
Pop and me walked to the glass doors of the hospital; Joe was on one side, the world without him was on the other. Through the doors I saw Pop’s truck parked on the road out the front. Once I was in the truck I would not see Joe again. I knew it now; Erad ot wonk. Nothing came between me and knowing anymore. Pop pushed open the doors and we walked through. Joe’s cry grew sharp as a knife. When I came to the edge of the road I stopped.
Pop said, ‘Come on, Justine.’
I didn’t move.
‘Come on. Be bloody hours before we get home.’
Still I didn’t move.
‘Get in the truck.’
‘No.’
‘Justine, get in the truck.’
‘No.’
‘Get in the bloody truck.’
I pulled away from him. ‘No!’
‘Justine!’ He pushed me towards the truck.
‘No!’ I screamed. ‘No! No! No!’ Joe was there, inside the hospital. He belonged to me. I never had a baby before; I didn’t have anything. ‘He’s mine!’ I shouted. ‘He’s mine, he’s mine!’
‘Get in, Justine!’ Pop pulled open his door and threw me against the seat so hard my nose and chin hit the dashboard. Pads fell from his hands onto the road like bread for the birds. People passing on the street stopped and looked, then turned away.
‘No!’ I screamed.
Nurses coming out of the building saw us, a woman in a dressing-gown and a family of children stared.
Pop got in the truck, reached over me and locked my door. The truck screeched as Pop drove onto the road, bumping over the kerb. Pop was driving me away from Joe Michael. There was nothing I could do. I was leaving him. He was alone in the cot in the hospital without me. My baby! A weight came down over me. Pop kept driving. There was nothing I could do.
He said, ‘You can go back to school. See your friends. Have some fun, hey?’
I looked out of the window; I saw the same trees, the same roads and cars and buildings, the same sky, but everything had changed. The world was not the same. I had a baby.
I put my hands on my stomach and leaned against the seat. I wished I could push him back inside. This time I would understand that it was my baby I was carrying. I would put my hands over my stomach and sing to him, The birds in the sky, singing just for you, and he wouldn’t come out until it was safe. I wouldn’t go to St Jude’s. I would go somewhere else, where I could hold Joe Michael in my arms, where nobody could stop me.
We drove on and on. Pop said, ‘That bastard’s back in town, living at Stacey’s place, but he won’t bother us…Don’t go near him, Justine.’
I heard my pop, and I didn’t hear him. I didn’t care what he said. Didn’t care who was in town. Didn’t care about anything.
When we got back to Pop’s Three there was the line of dirt around the house, there was the ash of Pop’s fire, the empty back-house, my bedroom with its window to the end of the road. What did any of it mean now? What had it ever meant?
Early in the morning, when there was still a moon, still a star in the sky, I woke from a dream. It was baby Joe: his blue-grey eyes were open and he was looking for me. He searched the walls of the hospital, the sides of his cot, the corridors, the stairs, the bathroom, the ceiling, the faces of the nurses, the doctors, the other girls in their beds, but none of them was me. I was the only one in the world who he wanted; there was nobody else who would do. The dream changed and I was inside Donna. It felt
warm, my head was in water, I could breathe through slits in my neck, the way cod do. I heard the beat of her heart through the water. Donna had her hands over my body; I could feel the pressure through her skin. ‘You better turn soon, baby,’ she said, rubbing her hands over me. ‘You better turn soon.’ I could smell Dad’s White Ox and the eggs frying and I could hear Cockyboy and the chooks clucking in the yard.
The light was bright through my bedroom window when Pop knocked on the door. ‘Justine?’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’
Pop opened the door, carrying a plate. ‘Brought you breakfast.’ Pop tipped the plate; he’d made a face, with two yolks for the eyes and a piece of bacon for the mouth. He pushed the pillow up behind me. ‘Sit up, Justine,’ he said, setting the plate on the bed. ‘The girls miss you. Even old Cockyboy misses you.’
I turned away from him.
‘You have to have a bath, Justine. And you can take these aspirin.’ He held out a box of pills. ‘They’ll make you feel better.’
I didn’t want to feel better.
Pop stood and looked at me. ‘You’ll need to bloody eat.’ He shook his head and left the room.
I slept then woke and couldn’t tell the difference. I was in the room with the wave of dirt thundering towards me, then the wave rolled over me, and with its force the baby pushed its way through my scar, splitting me, finishing me, the old Justine, so a new one was born. Justine the mother. My baby was here! He was here! Then I opened my eyes and saw that he wasn’t here, he wasn’t here. The crying came again, and I slept, returning to him in my dream.
All that day I heard the baby, Joe Michael, calling for me. His voice was all he had. It was his weapon, his protection from danger, and he was calling for me every minute.
I got out of my bed and pulled on the same dress and coat I’d been wearing when I came home from the hospital. I would sing to Joe Michael at my keepout—my song would be carried by the river to the sea, to St Jude’s in Geelong, where Joe Michael lay in his box, and he would hear me, and then he would drink his milk and sleep, and know I was his mother.