by Rod Jones
She was full of chaos and uncertainty. Anna realised she was praying to Bogey because, deep down, she had begun to lose faith in Mum and Dad. She was terrified they were not going to let her take her baby home, after all.
There was a door at the end of the hallway upstairs that led to the balcony. Anna loved to go there in the mornings and look out over the Edinburgh Gardens. For a few minutes, out there, the heavy feeling vanished. One morning she went onto the balcony as usual, but something felt different. The sun was shining, a perfect, still day at the beginning of summer. She noticed that one of the oak trees was moving. The branches were trembling, light danced in the leaves, even though there was no wind. How could this be?
To Anna, God was something felt but seldom seen. But she was seeing Him now, she thought. This dancing green light belonged to some divine world, not to the Salvos with their sermons and psalms, and she was moved. She concentrated all her attention on that lovely light. She drew it into her body so she could hoard it there and let it nourish her spirit. For the first time she felt that what was happening to her had a purpose. The new life swelling inside her was connected to the same vast, unknowable power that was moving the tree.
Later, she lay on her narrow bed and closed her eyes. She was alone, the other girls were still at work. Anna kept thinking about the mysterious light she had seen in the tree. She would always love her baby, she understood now, no matter who he grew into or whatever he did. This was something the Salvos could never take away.
She managed to get out to the balcony again in the early evening. The Edinburgh Gardens were now thick with shadows. Her soul was dark, like the gardens. The energy, the feeling, was gone. It was night-time again.
Visitors were allowed on Christmas Day, even though it was a Thursday. The girls’ families arrived with their greetings and gifts; there was no one for those who lived too far away, or for girls who had been disowned.
Anna’s parents arrived in the downstairs sitting room at eleven o’clock on Christmas morning. Robert came inside with them this time. He carried Anna’s present, a one-pound tin of Cadbury’s Roses chocolates. Mum had also brought in the Women’s Weekly, of course. On the cover was MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Sara quads—four children in hats playing on a toy car with coloured streamers. Anna felt embarrassed that she had nothing to give Mum and Dad and Robert. After they left, there was Christmas dinner put on by the Salvos, chicken with stuffing, baked potatoes, plum pudding with custard. The girls pulled crackers and sang Christmas carols. Anna hated the sentimental atmosphere in the dining room that afternoon, the forced jollity, the institutional insincerity, and before long she went upstairs to the dormitory to be alone. She opened the magazine Mum had brought her. There was the young Queen smiling, wearing a diamond tiara crown, in her horse-drawn royal carriage.
In the spooky quiet of a hot Melbourne January, her incarceration continued. Usually in January she would be up in the hills, at Cockatoo. It was cooler up there; she remembered waking to the fresh summer mornings last year.
How long ago it all seemed! She remembered the time she and Neil had talked about a wedding, and the dam burst. All the old memories came flooding back: the bread and newspaper smell of the milk bar at Cockatoo, the films they had seen on Saturday nights, the first time Neil had taken her in his arms and kissed her—she had been lifted on a wave of desire she had never known before.
Even when she was well enough to work in the laundry again, she kept watch with a kind of sick excitement in her heart. ‘He is coming to save me,’ she told herself. ‘Who?’
Not Bogey, not Charlie Allnut.
Neil.
Then, when her mind cleared and reason returned, she was disgusted with herself for giving in, yet again, to this desperate fantasy.
At least she had found a temporary escape. Every day she walked in the Edinburgh Gardens for a few minutes, for half an hour, and came back to life. No one tried to stop her. She did not ask anyone’s permission. She simply walked out the front door, down the steps, through the iron gate and across the road. The long branches of the trees swayed in the wind, the summer leaves as thick as hair.
One hot afternoon when there was a northerly, as she walked under the trees, the fronds flapping at her mouth, she turned her head and saw a man standing at the edge of the park, beside a car, a guilty smile playing on his lips. She made an effort to control herself, to hide her delight, but it came out in her face by itself.
‘Neil?’ she called to him.
The man raised a hand in a surreptitious wave, then turned and got into the car. She had been mistaken. It wasn’t Neil. Not even Charlie Allnut. It was some other man, a stranger, who had been watching her. She thought it might have been the same man who had watched Leanne from the upstairs window of the big house next door.
She turned sharply and walked towards the middle of the gardens. When she had gone a few steps, she stopped and watched the car glide off in the sunshine and disappear around the bend of Alfred Crescent. Anna gave a deep sigh and stared at the empty road.
The 4th of February was an unusually hot day. Even the interior of the Haven, usually so dark and cold, was oppressive that afternoon. Anna lay on her bed, sweating. On doctor’s orders, she was again excused from work.
At five o’clock the other girls came in, complaining about the heat, grumbling to Anna about the events of the day. Anna got up to go to the window for a breath of air, and suddenly had a very strange feeling. It felt like a balloon popping inside her. A gush of warm fluid spilled from between her thighs, soaking her underpants. It trickled down her legs and spread around her feet on the parquet floor. ‘Crikey, I’ve wet my pants,’ she said. She felt so embarrassed. Every time she tried to move, another gush came out.
One of the new girls, Kelly, told her. ‘That’s not piss. Your waters have broken, that’s what’s happened!’
The girls helped her to change her clothes. They walked with her to the hospital wing. The first pains had started.
She was left alone on a trolley in a kind of waiting room. The nursing sister went about her tasks, ignoring Anna. The pains were coming regularly now. It seemed to be taking too long. Could something be the matter? Every few minutes, she asked the nurse, ‘Is it time?’
‘No, not yet,’ she said irritably. ‘Just wait quietly. We’ll be the ones to decide when it’s time.’
Then, without a word, she was whisked along a corridor to the chrome and linoleum delivery room. A metal bed, stirrups, a blazing lamp. Not a trace of rebellion could survive in here.
A young trainee nurse was in charge of Anna. The girl was excited. ‘It’s going to be my first delivery,’ she announced. ‘Don’t worry. Sister will be in the next room. She’ll keep an eye on things.’
Another spasm of pain, and she felt herself pushing. She tried to breathe but the pain tore her breath away. She rode the wild train all through the night. She tottered at the edge, then hurtled into the abyss, over and over, every time a new spasm arrived.
When the pain became too much, she heard a voice screaming, ‘Shit! Oh God! Help me!’ She realised it was her own voice, though the sound seemed to be coming from far away.
The sister came in and told her she was giving her an injection of pethidine. The pain melted away in a haze.
The trainee nurse had to cut her. The sister showed her how to do it. Anna didn’t feel the cut. Her baby was born at 8.48 in the
morning of the 5th of February. He was a big baby. All she saw was the top of his head, thick fair hair. She begged the nurse, ‘Please, can I hold him?’
‘No. He’s marked for adoption. It’s kinder this way,’ said the sister.
She had seen her file in Matron’s office. But Anna had not signed those papers. She had a right to hold her baby.
‘Kinder? What the hell do you mean?’
‘It’s kinder for you. Don’t argue. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen this hundreds of times.’
When the sister had left the room, the nurse let her hold him for a moment. Anna drew in great draughts of breath. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she kept saying, marvelling at his perfect, tiny fingers, which locked around her own forefinger. His grip was so strong already! He belonged to her. Of course she had to keep him now. There could be no question about it. Surely they could see that?
The nurse took him from her as the nursing sister came back through the door. They held him on a table, the sister with a clipboard in her hands, weighing him, counting fingers and toes.
‘Nine pounds, seven ounces.’
‘Ten fingers.’
‘Ten toes.’
‘Eyes open.’
‘Penis? Yes, one of those.’
‘Testicles? Two.’
Anna was still drowsy from the pethidine. ‘Please, can’t I hold him?’
‘I’ve already told you. It’s not allowed. The baby is BFA.’
‘There’s been a mistake. I’m keeping my son. It’s all been worked out with Matron.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the nursing sister said, as she picked up the baby.
‘Where are you taking him?’
The sister did not reply. She carried the baby into the next room.
Later that morning, she went to the nursery. The duty nurse told Anna she did not have permission to enter. The woman looked directly at her, challenging Anna to defy her: I’ll show you who’s boss around here, girl.
Anna went back to bed in the maternity ward, but after lunch she returned to the nursery. This time, she strode through the open doorway and straight over to her baby, the only newborn in there. But just as she was reaching over to him, two nurses took her by the arms and marched her back to the maternity ward, while another one locked the nursery door and called the social worker.
‘Don’t try to make any trouble,’ the social worker said, when she came and stood by Anna’s bed. ‘It’s best that you don’t see the baby again. It’s kinder when the mother isn’t allowed to bond with the baby.’
Kinder. There was that word again. ‘You can’t be talking about my baby!’ Anna said. ‘There has been a mistake!’ She was agitated. Why did she have to explain all this to them? How could they be so stupid?
The social worker was a plain woman of thirty or so, dressed entirely in brown, though it wasn’t a uniform. Anna decided that the woman did not belong to the Salvation Army. She smiled at Anna and tried to reassure her. ‘I’m on your side, you know. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.’
That afternoon Anna went back to the nursery. This time there was a different nurse, a girl named Di, who let Anna pick up her baby and hold him on her knee. Was Di considerate, or unaware of Matron’s orders?
Anna opened the front of her nightgown and put him to the breast. His face and eyes were still puffy. He stared up at her with his dark blue eyes, curious, alert. He held up his miniature swollen blue fists—he was going to be a sportsman, like his father. She uncurled the tiny fingers, marvelling at his delicate fingernails.
How Anna loved that precious little boy already! No one had the right to take him away. She called him Kim, because she had loved the novel by Rudyard Kipling.
She tried to time her visits to the nursery when Di was on duty. Anna talked to her baby and sang songs to him and patted him. She whispered to him, her plans for their future together. Anna would find another job with a crèche, they would find a place of their own, and he would go to school. She would always make sure his clothes were new and of the best quality. He would go to university and make a good life for himself.
Two days later Matron caught her in the nursery. ‘What are you doing? Who told you to breastfeed him?’ Then, turning to Di, ‘What is this girl doing? Who gave her permission to be in here?’
Di looked alarmed; her mouth was open but no words came out. Perhaps she really hadn’t known that Anna was not allowed in here.
‘I don’t need permission to feed my baby,’ Anna said to Matron.
‘The BFAs have to be bottle fed.’ Matron was frowning at Di.
Anna felt the dread spreading through her belly. ‘BFA? But my baby’s not BFA.’
Matron turned and smiled at her, and Anna didn’t know where that smile was coming from.
‘Mum knows I’m keeping him. Remember, I told you that?’
‘I have been informed of nothing of the kind.’
It was all such a terrible mix-up. Anna wanted to cry with frustration. Instead, Kim’s little mouth unlatched from the nipple and he began wailing. The sound of his crying filled the room. She lifted him onto her shoulder, facing away from Matron, and rocked him quiet.
Matron said patiently, as if she were explaining something to a child, ‘This institution has a policy. It is not for me to change the policy. You can’t just march in here, when you know full well it is against the rules—’
Anna turned to her in fury now, her baby still over her shoulder. ‘Oh, to hell with your fucking rules.’
Matron’s face froze.
The rage that coursed through Anna’s body was like elation. If Kim hadn’t been in her arms, she would have been afraid of losing her temper completely and assaulting the woman.
Matron seemed to lose her nerve. ‘Well, I don’t suppose a quarter of an hour can hurt,’ she said. ‘A quarter of an hour. Not a minute more.’
She marched off past Di without looking at her.
‘Ha! Well, isn’t that astonishing!’ said Di, when Matron was out of sight. Anna felt sorry for her. She knew that Matron would make Di pay for her kindness.
Anna had her fifteen minutes with her baby. But that night, despite her resistance, she was given an injection to sedate her and, when she woke, she was back in her old dormitory room.
The next morning was Sunday and Mum and Dad came to see her. She took them to the maternity wing. They walked down the corridor to the nursery window and looked through the glass. Visitors were not allowed in the nursery.
‘His name’s Kim,’ Anna said, hardly able to contain her pride.
Mum said he was ‘just gorgeous’ and Dad stood there with his mouth drawn tight, looking at his grandson and nodding. Anna wasn’t sure if he was about to cry. Just then she felt sorry for him.
It must have been a hundred degrees in the courtyard as they headed back to the sitting room in the blazing sun. A fierce northerly was blowing and kept everyone indoors, the curtains drawn. The place had a dismal, abandoned feeling. Anna felt weak as they crossed the courtyard: she was still in pain from the birth. Mum said she was looking a bit peaky, and that she should put her feet up and rest.
At that moment, Matron came out from her green door with a bundle of papers under her arm. She seemed taken aback to see them. She gave them an embarrassed little smile, kept
walking to the deep shade of the porch over the back door, and disappeared inside. Even though the courtyard was like a cauldron, Anna felt a chill of unease.
She stopped dead and told Mum and Dad she was going back to the nursery. They did not move. Dad was sweating in his suit, ribbons of perspiration running down his face from under his hat.
‘If we were able to find a good family,’ Mum began, then fell silent.
‘Have you forgotten what you promised?’ Anna said, her voice shrill, echoing in the empty space. A tide of panic slowly rose through her limbs and she felt dizzy.
‘Listen, love. Before we came to see you, we had to go to Matron’s office. She said she’s got a form for you to sign.’ Mum’s voice was full of pity, almost a whisper. Dad had found something interesting to look at up near the roof.
‘I will be coming home with my baby, with Kim,’ Anna said, just to make sure she had things clear.
‘Yes, love. I know I promised,’ Mum said. They muttered their goodbyes, and left her to go back to the nursery by herself.
For the next few days Anna was left alone. Neither Matron nor the social worker crossed her path. No one stopped her visiting Kim and breastfeeding him whenever she liked. There was no more talk of BFAs or signing a form.
Anna couldn’t understand why things seemed so easy. She was in a state of grace. And yet she couldn’t quite believe that she had won the battle.
A week after her baby was born, the pressure to sign papers began. Anna was changing Kim’s nappy when a woman walked into the nursery. She wore a cream suit and the heels of her tan shoes clicked across the floor. She was tall and slim, with dark hair pulled back in a bun.
‘Anna?’ she asked.
A stab of anxiety in her stomach. This visitor knew her name.
‘My name is Miss Coutts. I’m not with the government, or the Welfare. I’m on the Ladies’ Auxiliary. My title is Official Visitor. I always come to have a chat with the girls.’