Unzipped

by Nicki Reed

  The last time I was in the bath was when Loz tried to warn BJ about me. Loz is smarter than we knew. It occurs to me that a hot bath might not be good for the baby. I pull the plug and lie back as the water low-tides it down the plug hole, the heat shrinking away from my body. I block my ears and remember running down the hallway with Ruby, scared of the screaming wail of the water vanishing. Two sets of soggy little footprints run along the carpet.

  I have to fix my relationship with Ruby. Again.

  We’ll be friends. She’ll forget I’ve been ignoring her for the last month. I’ll forget she’s with the man who put the brakes on my relationship with BJ. And I’ll acknowledge I’d been applying them myself.

  40.

  ‘Oh, so you’re alive then?’ Ruby submits to my hug.

  ‘I have to talk to you.’

  ‘Who says I want to talk to you?’

  ‘You do. Every day, twice a day, for the last three weeks. Can I come in? Is Mark home?’

  Ruby sighs. She steps aside, closes the front door.

  ‘No, he’s not home. Do you suppose we’ll ever get back to communicating without the need for an ambush?’

  ‘I thought he was dialling it back.’

  ‘He’s dialling, but they’re not picking up. He’s about to walk.’

  She fills the kettle. I sit at the kitchen table.

  ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘None of us knows what we’re doing.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Ruby. I know what I’m doing Wednesday at 10.30 a.m. I even know what I’m having for breakfast.’

  I play with my keys, twirling them back and forth on the tabletop. They sound like pocket money.

  ‘Can I have a look at that?’ Ruby says, pointing to my keys. I hand them to her and she throws them into the corner. They clang a hard landing between the toaster and the juicer. The kettle has boiled. Ruby pours boiling water into the teapot, steam hisses. ‘So, what are you doing then?’

  ‘I’m having an ultrasound to see how far along my pregnancy is.’

  She doesn’t face me. ‘I don’t suppose BJ is the father?’

  ‘No, Rube. It’s Mark.’

  ‘Fuck!’ She slams the teapot into the sink. It explodes. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

  Boiling water and tea-leaves spray up the window, the curtains, and burst down the front of Ruby’s T-shirt. I’m up and pulling it over her head, careful, careful.

  I sit her on a chair, then soak a tea towel in cold water. Kneeling in front of her, I apply it to the burn.

  ‘Isn’t that my bra?’

  ‘It’s not like you’ll be needing it.’ Her voice is soft and tired. She speaks into my hair. ‘I’m sorry, Pete, this is going to sound a little selfish…’

  ‘Rube, it’s fine.’ I’m still kneeling next her and we’re both pressing the wet tea towel onto her stomach. It has become warm. ‘I don’t want him back. I’m sure he’ll feel the same way. He was never prepared to reduce his work hours for me.’

  ‘But he’s the father…’

  ‘We’ll work something out. I’m not breaking new ground. You should see how much co-parenting information there is on the internet.’

  ‘Hello, ladies.’

  I turn around to see Mark at the kitchen door, satchel in hand.

  ‘So, I spend a little too much time at work and this is what you get up to. And it’s not even my birthday.’

  ‘The teapot broke,’ I say.

  Mark kneels on the other side of Ruby, kisses her on the cheek, rubs her nose with his. He never did that with me. ‘You okay?’ She nods and he moves closer. I get out of the way, start to clean up the tea.

  He lifts Ruby to her feet. ‘Ruby-roo, let’s get you cleaned up and then you can tell me what happened to the teapot. Because it didn’t just break. There’s a piece of it under the fridge.’ He looks up. ‘And there are tealeaves on the ceiling.’

  Mark returns to the kitchen first.

  ‘Rube says you’ll tell me why she smashed the teapot.’

  She enters the kitchen, slings an arm around Mark’s waist. ‘I smashed the shit out of it, didn’t I?’

  ‘Why?’ he looks from her to me and back, an umpire at the tennis, first serve safe return, out of court.

  I play my shot. ‘Mark, I’m pregnant. It’s due in July.’

  He seems to be searching for another teapot to break. He plonks himself onto a chair. He’s dazed. We all are. ‘How did this happen?’

  They always say that. In movies. Then there’s a cheap laugh as the birds and the bees are explained to a thirty-five-year-old.

  ‘That night, I was so somebody else, I didn’t think of contraception, or I thought you’d withdraw.’

  ‘You weren’t somebody else. You were dumb. So was I. Ironic. We’re with each other, we talk about babies for years and years—all right, I was talking—and you don’t want to get pregnant. We break up and you get pregnant. Margie is going to love this. Why are you keeping it?’

  Fair question.

  ‘Mark, I’ve been tired for weeks, food tastes different, my breasts are tender. The baby has made a mark on my body already. On my life.’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘You’re asking what I want from you?’

  He nods. Ruby waits.

  ‘I don’t want anything. You can have access, whatever. Like I told Ruby—after the teapot—we’ll figure it out.’

  Things are much simpler when you just say them.

  Library housekeeping is good for the pregnant. I spend the afternoon processing. Sticky tape, brand-new barcodes, rubber stamps, royal-blue fading to purple ink. It’s pleasing work. The smell of new books, the satisfaction of finding their homes among the collection, the challenge of containing them in the space allotted.

  Two weeks until Christmas and I put up our tree. It’s small and it used to sit on the reference desk, now it’s taped onto the corner of my partition. Some of the branches have been bent at their tips. The tinsel is fine, gold and red. Jasmine made the star in Grade One. Alfoil and sticky tape, shabby, but I can’t part with it.

  41.

  Taylor’s place is in Box Hill, on a wide street with a hill that has a church at its crest. A half-renovated Californian bungalow. There’s a swing set in the backyard and a trampoline in the front. Their dog, Blackie, is a tenyear-old Labrador with an appetite for footy boots. David is at Friday night drinks. We’ve had dinner, spaghetti bolognese and apple pie with ice-cream.

  ‘Taylor, when you were pregnant I didn’t pay attention. There is so much I don’t know because I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘You did pay attention, just not like someone who’d been there, or was planning to be. That’s fair. Sam is twelve. You probably don’t remember it.’

  ‘Sam’s twelve? God.’

  ‘Peta, your best friend’s son is twelve, you should know this. Gus is ten and Miranda is four. Boys, can you do that quietly, please? I’ve just put Mirrie to bed.’

  Sam and Gus are scraping the plates, loading the dishwasher, and there’s a lot of did not, did too. They’re using their elbows.

  ‘Let’s go in here.’ On the way to the lounge room, Taylor turns back to the kitchen: ‘You two, when you’re finished, you can have twenty minutes each on the computer.’

  I sit in David’s recliner, lean back, feet up. ‘How did I become so dumb?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. When I wanted Glen I was the dumbest person I’d met in a long time. Horny and dumb.’

  ‘How is Glen?’

  Taylor shows me a photo of him on her phone. He’s gorgeous, buff, tattooed and posing in front of a hottedup car. Not the guy you’d bring home to mother but definitely the guy you’d bring home for yourself.

  ‘Holy fuck, Taylor! Shit. Is he even twenty-one?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I tell you, when the guy you’ve been banging on the side turns up on Crime Stoppers in black and white with a deadly weapon, it cools the fire. I got rid of him.’

  ‘Holy fuck!�
�� I’m repeating myself.

  ‘And just in the nick of time too. I was getting outlandish. Last month I went to the movies—there was just me and one other person rows behind me—and halfway through it I had a lady-wank. It couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘Lady-wank?’

  ‘What else can I call it?’ she says.

  ‘I guess. I’m still horny and dumb.’

  ‘Yeah, horny, dumb and pregnant. And single. We should put your profile on one of those internet dating sites.’

  ‘No need. I’m going to get BJ back.’

  Taylor frowns. ‘She’s in France, right?’

  ‘She’s in my global village, we’re neighbours. It’s just that the fence is high and the bits you use to climb over— the railings—are on the other side.’

  ‘I like it.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘How are you going to get her back?’

  ‘I’m waiting her out. We both made mistakes.’ I look down at my stomach. My biggest mistake? On Wednesday I’ll see it up close and televisual. ‘I hope she likes pregnant women.’

  ‘Peta, she likes women, she’ll like pregnant women.’ Taylor looks over her shoulder, makes sure the boys can’t hear her. ‘So, what’s it like to make love to a woman?’

  ‘What’s it like to have a baby?’

  ‘I asked you first.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘but if were going to do this, let’s make it official. Every stupid, impertinent question you ask, I get to ask a question of equal stupidity and impertinence.’

  I predict a big future in vagina talk.

  ‘Deal.’ We shake on it. ‘And the answer?’

  ‘You’re going to have to be more specific,’ I say. ‘Broad questions will get broad answers. What’s it like to make love to a woman? Nice. See what I mean?’

  ‘All right,’ she studies her shoelaces, ‘what is it like to go down on a woman?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask David?’

  ‘I’m not sure he knows.’

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘Just answer the question.’

  I spend the night at Taylor’s. We watch Grease, sing along. Sam and Gus look at us strangely but we don’t care. ‘You had to be there, boys.’ Saturday is taken up Christmas shopping with Taylor and Mirrie. The first year in a long time where I haven’t had it done by October. The shops are filled with angry-looking mums and kids. I don’t have a list and I can’t think. Mirrie wants everything, a drink, something to eat, to sit down, to play on the slide at the toy shop. Taylor looks as tired as I feel.

  When I get home there’s a message on the landline from Keith. I call him straight back. I still have my bag over my shoulder and the only light on in the house is the one in the hallway.

  ‘Dad, thank you for calling.’

  ‘Peta, I’ve been here the whole time.’

  I can’t talk and cry at the same time. I’m quiet.

  ‘Mark has told me you’re expecting. His mother’d be thrilled, I’m thrilled. But Peta, it’s not too late if you’re worrying about this.’

  He’s asking me if I need to terminate his grandchild and suggesting he’d be supportive if I did. He would have handled a little thing like BJ and me. I’m an idiot. I straighten up. Smile. If the homemade adoption certificate was questionable, a grandchild seals it.

  ‘Dad, I’m so proud you’re going to be my child’s granddad. Mark and I will talk about how we’re going to run this, but Dad, don’t worry, we will. He has Ruby, the baby has an extended family and I have you.’

  I don’t have anyone else, but tonight, with Keith on my phone, it doesn’t matter.

  42.

  Ruby picks me up on the morning of the ultrasound. I hear Buttercup turning the corner from my bedroom. We drive in silence to the hospital. I’m nervous.

  I dreamed the baby had an extra pair of hands and a nurse ran out of the room to get a doctor. He peered at the screen: ‘Oh, yes. We call that bihandular duality. It’s rare, but it can be helpful, especially in the kitchen.’ I dreamed Ruby and I were at the scan and it was textbook until the amniotic fluid started turning to sand.

  Ruby parks and I race in, pretending to myself that I’m allowed to go to the toilet. A mind game I can’t win.

  The water cooler across the way bubbles. Big, gulping bubbles. I think the tank might rupture, sending a torrent through the reception area. I’ve had six glasses of water since I got up. I might rupture.

  It’s four days before Christmas and twenty minutes since my appointment time sailed past, and there are three women ahead of me. Pregnancy doesn’t care what time of year it is.

  Ruby sings water songs. ‘Take Me to the River’, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’. She digs at my memory, sings one of Mum’s favourite songs, Manhattan Transfer’s ‘Drip, Drip’.

  ‘Is this the first ultrasound you’ve attended, Rube?’

  ‘Yep, can’t wait. Babies and all.’

  ‘Well, give the water references a rest or you can wait outside with these.’ Stacked on the coffee table are yachting, golfing and photography magazines almost as old as BJ.

  ‘Okay, I’ll dry up.’

  ‘Shut up. How come you like babies so much?’

  ‘Because Mum did.’ Ruby tosses a stamp-collecting magazine back onto the pile.

  I smile and miss Mum.

  ‘Remember when the woman next door had her twins and Mum would go over the minute we’d left for school? All the cooking she did?’

  ‘Casseroles,’ Ruby says. ‘For weeks.’

  I can’t remember the woman’s name or the names of her twins, but I can see Mum’s busy-in-the-kitchen face, her cheeks hot pink, the way she’d blow her hair out of her eyes.

  ‘I don’t know how to relate to children.’

  ‘You’re about to find out.’

  ‘I’m about to wet myself.’

  Black and grey and white swirling and pulsing, whooshing whale sounds, my child up on the screen. I can’t believe it.

  ‘God, Peta. This happens every day but it is bloody

  amazing.’

  ‘Rube, the baby.’

  More like the tiny throbbing formation that is my child.

  Ruby is in tears. I’m sticky from the gel and dying to go the toilet. This is an everyday occurrence, as evidenced by the seen-it-all manner of the sonographer, but it is amazing. That little heart beating, like a bird’s, like a wind-up toy on overdrive, I love it. We sniff back tears in the semi-dark. Ruby touches the screen and whispers, ‘Hello, baby, I’m your Aunty Ruby.’ I lose it.

  I thought I was never going to stop weeing. I wash my hands and run cool water into my red eyes, try to look normal, just another day at the antenatal unit. Examine myself in the mirror, not showing yet. My breasts might be bigger.

  ‘Sooking like that. Over this.’ The filmy photo of my baby, a black and white mystery, curled into my tight space.

  ‘Pete, I read on the net, that she’d—I’m saying she because I don’t want to say it—be about three inches long and she’s got her teeth.’

  ‘Well, she—I’m saying she because you have—has got a lot of becoming a person to do before the first of July, hasn’t she? I was going to give Mark the photo, but he can have a photocopy. I’ll make a copy for you too, Aunty Ruby.’

  I plan to make several photocopies. One for my diary, my car, my desk, the bedside table.

  43.

  Christmas Day with your sister and her new partner who is also your old husband is an experience you couldn’t pay for. Ruby is so deferential I feel like one of those old aunts people draw straws not to see.

  I’m desperate for her to tell me to hurry the fuck up and open my presents, or could I move my big fucken body and let someone else sit down. I’m thirteen weeks, not that big, not big at all, but I could do with the rudeness. Normality.

  ‘Are you feeling good? Comfortable?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks, Ruby.’

  ‘Would you like something to eat or drink?’

  ‘I’ll get something when I
want it, Rube.’

  ‘Maybe a lie down on the spare bed?’

  ‘Yes, go on, Pete,’ Mark says.

  He isn’t much better. Is he feeling guilty? I hope not. He’s with Ruby, he’s happy, they both are. It’s good.

  Eventually I fake a headache and go home.

  I walk around the closed shops of my neighbourhood, get bored and drive to Kew Boulevard, park in the same spot BJ and I did all those months ago and stay put until the sun goes down.

  There are bike magazines on BJ’s pile. I’m reading all about road cycling—that’s what it’s called—the bikes are made of carbon fibre and cyclists can ride down hills faster than I’m allowed to drive them. I read about the Tour de France. If I can’t be with her I can at least read about where she is. I move the pile from the spare bed, fold the clothes and put them in drawers, stack the magazines in date order on the floor of the wardrobe, slip the toiletries back into the bathroom cupboard.

  Two days after Christmas I go shopping for a maternity bra. I go on my own. I don’t want Ruby making fun of me. I’ve done my reading: you buy them before the baby because your breasts become larger during pregnancy, and you buy them for breastfeeding. They have cups that can be folded down to give baby (the books don’t say the baby, they say baby) access to the breast. BJ should stay right where she is. Nobody could find maternity bras sexy.

  New Year’s Eve is at Taylor’s. The usual mob is there, except for Alex and Rob who stay home with their attitudes and their baby boy, Zephyr.

  I bail by ten o’clock.

  I have Jasmine tomorrow for a sleepover (Keith must have said something to Margie), and I want to make sure the house is right for her and that I look good, rested and responsible. Also, no BJ to kiss at midnight, I don’t want to be awake for it.

  On New Year’s Day Stephen drops Jasmine off. She kisses him goodbye in the car, doesn’t want him to come in, she’s a big girl now.

  We play Uno and Jenga and watch Harry Potter movies. I let her eat too much junk food on the promise she’ll brush her teeth twice.