by Liz Byrski
Lila laughed. ‘Twinges, of course, twinges, horrible stretchy feelings, nasty tightening-up feelings when you think you’ll explode or your eyes will bulge out of your head, pressure on the bladder, backache, nerves in your legs going dead, indigestion, swollen ankles. It’s pretty awful, really. I don’t go along with all the stuff they tell you these days about how wonderful having babies is. It’s a ghastly business if you ask me, the whole pregnancy thing, and as for the birth itself – ’
‘Thanks, Gran,’ Caro cut in, feeling the fear prickling the back of her neck. ‘Just wanted to check, that’s all. I’ll get you to tell me the rest of it at the weekend. Better go now – I’m at work.’
‘It’s the worry that’s the worst, of course,’ Lila continued, ‘thinking that the baby might be dead and you wouldn’t even know. Happened to a woman I knew, she walked about with a dead baby inside her for weeks before they found out. Anyway, dear, I won’t hold you up if you’re busy. Thanks for ringing. Give my love to Mike.’
Caro put down the phone and rested her head in her hands. The phone call hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Maybe she should slip downstairs and talk to Sarah in accounts; she had a two year old. She stood up, swaying slightly as another wave of nausea assaulted her. The trouble was, she knew nothing at all about pregnancy or babies, and despite his reassurances she didn’t think Mike knew much either; she wasn’t too sure of the extent of the midwifery part of medical training. She’d start with Sarah and go from there but first of all she thought she might just take the rest of the week off.
EIGHT
Bonnie sat on the deck outside the scruffy boatshed kiosk watching the seagulls duck and weave and realising that it was probably the worst spot she could have chosen. A real estate agent’s board fixed to the boardwalk announced that the kiosk was closing and alongside it, on the wall of the boatshed itself, another announced that the building was for sale with permission for certain commercial developments. The end of an era, she thought sadly. So many teenage dreams had been built around the boatshed; here they had loitered shyly, hoping to catch the eye of some dazzling young man on a yacht, and fantasised about what they’d wear as they relaxed on deck, sipping cocktails at sunset.
Bonnie drew her coat more tightly around her and wound her scarf around her neck. She needed to be out in the air, with the smell of the sea and the harsh cries of the seagulls wheeling in the distance. She wasn’t sure why she’d walked up here, only that she had to get out of the empty house.
‘No, I really don’t want you to take me to the airport, Bonnie,’ Irene had insisted. ‘It would just complicate things. The minibus is picking up all twelve of us and they’ll organise all our luggage. There’s a special arrangement for us to check in away from the other passengers so we don’t have to queue. They must think we’re really decrepit but never mind, it’s an excellent arrangement.’
Bonnie, who had been awake since five, tortured with apprehension and anxiety, had lugged Irene’s bags down the stairs and placed them just inside the front door. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything? Tickets, passport, glasses, money, credit card, mobile phone?’
Irene checked everything and looked up smiling. ‘All present and correct.’ A horn sounded outside and Irene opened the front door and waved towards the elderly faces peering from the windows of the bus.
‘There they are, perfect timing. Look at them all in there, see – there’s Marjorie! Goodness, it’s just like being a teenager going to school camp – so exciting.’ She supervised the driver putting her bags into the bus and then turned back to Bonnie, reaching out to hug her. ‘Well, darling, here I go! I promise I’ll take care and I’ll phone you once a week and you have to promise not to worry.’
Bonnie hung on to the hug and then stood back with a watery smile. ‘I promise to try. Have a really wonderful time and, Mum …’
‘Yes?’
‘I really love you and I’ll miss you.’
Irene hugged her again. ‘I love you too, darling, and I always miss you, but I’ll be back in no time at all, boring you silly with my geriatric adventures.’
The bus pulled out of the drive and disappeared down the road and Bonnie’s composure, which had been under tight rein, immediately evaporated. The empty stillness of the house settled on her and as she walked back into the kitchen she began to weep with the same desperate intensity as she had during the weeks following Jeff’s death. It was two hours before she could get her head together and compose herself to cope with the weeks of isolation ahead. Knowing she needed some fresh air, she’d washed her face, grabbed her coat and sunglasses and made her way straight to the kiosk, hoping for … hoping for what? She didn’t even know.
A few weeks ago things had seemed to be on an upward curve. The Mother’s Day picnic and the evening with Fran and Sylvia had made her feel she was going to be okay. She sensed promise. They were like lifebuoys and with them around she felt she might, somehow, do what her mother kept telling her to do – get a life – but since then things had stalled. She hadn’t heard from Sylvia and in a way that wasn’t surprising. Sylvia had gone home to confront Colin about his affair; coping with that was obviously her first priority, but somehow Bonnie had expected that Sylvia would be in touch to talk, even to take up her offer to stay with her, but she’d heard nothing.
And then there was the business with Fran, and Bonnie knew she’d stuffed that up herself. She’d loved sorting out the tax, it made her feel useful, competent, and they’d laughed their way through most of that day until she’d had to deliver the news about Fran’s tax liability. Bonnie could see now how badly she had dealt with it. Fran was devastated at the size of her debt and Bonnie had only wanted to help when she’d told her not to worry, that it was only a small amount and she’d be happy to settle it for her. Fran’s face, at first white with shock, had flushed crimson with embarrassment, but Bonnie had failed to recognise that look and had gone on to make it worse.
‘Really, Fran,’ she’d said, ‘it’s easy, a drop in the ocean, honestly.’ And as Fran opened her mouth and shut it again, Bonnie realised the insensitivity of what she had said. Money had never been an issue for her. Even when she was bonking the banker she wasn’t hard up, it was just a part of the financial planning that would free her from her parents’ loving but irritating protection. But for Fran it had all been so different. While Bonnie had been a fee payer at St Theresa’s, Fran and Sylvia had been scholarship girls, and they had both struggled to hold their own against the taunts of the girls whose families reeked of old money. And when Fran and Tony had split up, the division of the spoils had been more like a division of the debt. What Fran now owned – a decent house with a mortgage, its contents, a solid six-year-old car and a bit of cash – was the result of years of hard work and financial struggle as a single parent.
Bonnie cursed herself for not fully registering what Fran had said that first day at lunch about struggling with her mortgage. Money meant nothing to Bonnie and she was irritated when people referred to their financial status, good or bad; she knew nothing about life on the financial edge and, even now, despite the time she had spent cursing herself for her insensitivity, she still couldn’t quite comprehend the reality. She could pay Fran’s tax bill without even noticing it, so it had seemed the obvious solution. The fact that her offer would embarrass Fran and trap her between the rock of potential rescue and the hard place of humiliation had simply never dawned on her.
‘I couldn’t possibly let you do that, Bonnie,’ Fran had said, her face crimson, eyes dangerously bright as she battled her pride. ‘I’d feel … it would feel … I don’t know, just terrible.’
‘Then let me lend it to you,’ Bonnie had persisted. ‘It’s attracting interest all the time.’ Fran shook her head. ‘I can’t, you see, I don’t know how or when I could pay you back.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Fran. You will or you won’t, it just doesn’t matter. Think about it,’ she’d said again as she left, ‘but not for too lon
g. Call me.’
Fran nodded, trying to look her in the eye. ‘Honestly, I do appreciate your offer but …’ And her voice had faded away and she ended up with a bleak forced smile on her face as Bonnie backed the car out of the drive. It was ten days now and she still hadn’t called.
Bonnie pushed aside her empty coffee cup and shivered as a cloud drifted across the sun. The temperature didn’t change, it just seemed colder, bleaker, like the house, like the weeks ahead.
Further down the beach a woman with short grey hair was walking slowly. She was wearing old jeans, a sweater and sneakers and she walked confidently across the sea wall and down to the water’s edge where the three of them had walked that first day. The woman looked as though she knew who she was and where she was going. Bonnie longed to be like that; why was it that she was on the edge of everything and involved in nothing, while her friends’ lives were complex, intense, involved, painful? Was that harder, she wondered, than this terrifying emptiness?
The sun emerged again and Bonnie sighed and stood up, taking a last look at the boatshed before turning back to the car park. She had to face the house again sometime. Maybe she could just call one of them, like she’d called Sylvia once before. Could it be as easy as that?
*
‘I got you an almond croissant from the French bakery,’ Caro said, putting the bakery package down on the coffee table. ‘You look nice in that top.’
Fran, confused by the unexpected visit, the thoughtfulness of the croissant and the unsolicited compliment, chose to ignore the note of surprise that accompanied the latter.
‘Yum, thanks,’ she said, tearing open the white paper bag. ‘Ten o’clock on a Friday morning, how come you’re not at work?’
‘Mental health day,’ Caro said.
Fran raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you have a couple of those the week before last?’
‘Yep. I had a whole mental health week, actually. They owe me. I worked three weekends on the trot helping with the launch of that Scrawny Boys album, and never got paid for it.’
Fran put down the tray with the croissants, coffee plunger, mugs and milk.
‘They’re both for you,’ Caro said, staring at the croissants. ‘I don’t really fancy one today.’
Fran looked up sharply. ‘Really? Are you okay? You do look a bit pale.’
‘I’m fine, just not hungry. Were you off out somewhere?’
‘A celebrity chef interview, a feature for Gourmet Traveller,’ Fran said. ‘But I don’t need to leave till ten-thirty. I hear you went to inspect Gran’s chair.’
Caro nodded, swinging her legs up to rest her feet on the table. ‘We went to take her out for tea, but we did the admiring the chair bit too. I don’t think she can go much further with the purple thing, do you? There’s not much left.’
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ Fran sighed. ‘She hasn’t started on the paintwork, the kitchen cupboards or the bathroom tiles yet, and next week I’m taking her to get new glasses – purple, of course. I suppose we should be thankful that the poem is about purple, not fluorescent lime or mission brown.’
‘Chair looked good, though,’ Caro said, investigating the worn fabric on the arm of the sofa to avoid watching Fran start on her croissant. ‘You should get this suite recovered, Mum, it’s getting a bit scruffy.’
Fran brushed pastry flakes from her lips. ‘Oh well, sometime, I suppose, but it’s not a priority.’
‘Or get something new, why don’t you? You’ve had this for donkey’s years.’
‘It was the first thing I bought on my own after your father and I split up,’ Fran said. ‘I’m really rather attached to it.’ She certainly wasn’t going to give Caro any inkling that a new suite was beyond the realms of financial probability for the foreseeable future. She had never, ever, let either of the kids know the precarious nature of her finances since the divorce. Guilt over their pain had made her determined never to burden them with any of her worries. As she had lurched from one financial crisis to another it was an act of faith to continue to shell out for school trips, new clothes, holiday spending money and college and HECS debts as though she could afford it. Having Bonnie know her present situation was bad enough; having David or Caro know was too horrible to contemplate.
Fran knew she was entirely the wrong sort of person to be self-employed. It was feast or famine, no work at all or so much that she was snowed under but scared to turn anything down. She should really have been working somewhere structured, where she knew what she’d be earning that week, that month, that year, and with tax and superannuation deducted before it ever reached her. But she had never been good at fitting into institutions and had clung to the apparent freedom of freelancing despite the prison of stress it created, and the constant struggle to keep all the balls in the air.
‘More coffee?’ she asked, pushing the plunger across the table.
Caro shook her head. ‘I think I’ll just have a glass of water, thanks. Where’s Davo?’
‘House hunting, or flat hunting really. He’s gone to see something in Collingwood. He’s got a job over there starting next week, so it would be really convenient. Have you decided to have the baby at home or in hospital?’
‘Not sure yet,’ Caro said, pouring herself a glass of water. ‘Mike says hospital, but I’d like to stay at home, or go to that new birthing centre. What d’you reckon?’
Fran was so surprised to be asked her opinion she almost choked on the second croissant. ‘Home is a nice idea but it’s a big upheaval and I think you want to be somewhere where you’re sure of being looked after. The birthing centre’s supposed to be lovely, everything you need. I’d go for that.’
Caro nodded. ‘That’s what I think. That’s why I’m on my way to meet a midwife.’ She put her glass on the table and sat down again. ‘There’s a woman at work who’s pregnant,’ she said, carefully avoiding eye contact. ‘She’s about as far gone as me and she’s throwing up all the time. Didn’t start till the fourth month.’
‘Well, there you are,’ Fran said. ‘Just shows how lucky you are.’
‘Mmm … Not only that, she’s terrified all the time that she might damage it. Keeps thinking she might have hurt the baby, or it might be dead.’
‘Has she felt it move yet?’
Caro paused. ‘Probably not. What does it feel like?’
‘Just like nudging or twitching, it’s reassuring at first. Later it’s weird to feel this large thing moving around inside you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes … except that when first you feel it move you sometimes don’t feel it again for several days. Then you start worrying that something awful’s happened to it. She might find that a bit worrying.’ She got up and carried the tray to the kitchen. ‘I’m so proud of you, Caro, coping so well. I was a gibbering wreck when I was pregnant. Perhaps it helps having a doctor in the house.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Caro said awkwardly. ‘I suppose.’
It was after two when Fran escaped from the celebrity chef, his rather overheated restaurant and his obsession with dousing everything in raspberry coulis. She wasn’t far from Bonnie’s place and she’d planned to call in there on the way home. In fact, she’d picked up the phone to call her a couple of days earlier and then, remembering that Irene was off in two days’ time, decided to leave them in peace. She felt better now that she’d had time to think out her options, and she needed to let Bonnie know that, despite her embarrassment, she’d really appreciated her offer to pay the tax bill.
After Bonnie had left that night, Fran spent several agonising hours crying, pacing back and forth across the lounge and eating a tub of Connoisseur double chocolate ice cream, followed by a container of almond and coffee biscotti she’d made as a prelude to using the recipe in her column. She was, essentially, a realistic person; uncertainty was her worst enemy but once she knew the facts she could usually decide a course of action and come to terms with it. There was only one solution: she must sell the house. What did she need a big fou
r-bedroom family home for, anyway? It had been ideal when she and Tony had bought it and when they split up she’d kept it and taken over the home loan. Not only taken it over but increased it by getting people in to do, in six weeks, the renovations she and Tony had planned to do over a period of years.
Getting the kitchen refitted had been the biggest expense but as cooking and writing about cooking were to provide her with a living, the kitchen was a top priority, and while they were messing around with plumbing it made sense to fix the bathroom and add on another small bathroom off the main bedroom. Fran was fond of the house, it had served her well, but she felt no powerful sentimental attachment to it. If she sold it she could pay off the home loan, settle up with the Tax Office and still have enough to buy herself a nice little unit or townhouse without a mortgage. She’d always fancied St Kilda or Balaclava. After all, she only needed a small place, as long as it had a kitchen that could cope with her work needs.
The more she thought about it the more she wondered why she hadn’t done it years ago, when David and Caro left home. There’d be less housework and no guilt-inducing garden to die of neglect. She would accept Bonnie’s offer of a loan to pay off the tax, and then repay her in full when the house was sold. She inhaled deeply and sat up straighter; the prospect shifted a huge burden. She’d wait until David had found a place and moved out, then she’d put the house on the market straight away. Maybe Bonnie or Sylvia, or both of them, would go house hunting with her.
As Fran reached Irene’s house she saw Bonnie walking towards her. Her shoulders were hunched, her head was down and her hands pressed deep into her pockets. She didn’t even seem to notice that Fran had pulled up at the gate.
‘Bon, hi!’ she called, opening the car door. ‘Have you got a minute or am I intruding?’
Bonnie looked up suddenly as though jolted from some painful reverie and her face broke into a smile of relief and delight. ‘Intruding? No, Fran, no way,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see right now. Come on in and I’ll put the kettle on.’