Unzipped

by Nicki Reed

  ‘Could you be in labour?’

  ‘No. I haven’t got time!’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘It’s Peta and the hurt one is BJ.’

  She keeps me on the phone, her voice is soothing. I would hate to be alone for this. She’s calm. The clock ticks.

  The back door opens, voices.

  ‘Up here! Up here!’

  Two white circles of light bounce up the stairs.

  The paramedics have rescued someone from a bathroom before. They set up torches, bigger, more useful than any I’ve ever seen. They talk between themselves. I can’t hear what they are saying. They lift the door up and off its hinges. One of them crouches over BJ.

  ‘Is there a pulse?’ I say.

  Carole appears at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Carole, BJ’s here!’

  The beam of Carole’s torch sweeps the short hallway, shines in my eyes. I nod at the bathroom and the light

  leaves my face. I follow its path across the hallway.

  ‘Belinda! Belinda!’

  The paramedics are business in blue overalls. They instruct Carole: check on the pregnant woman.

  I haven’t moved since one of the paramedics inspected me and said something I couldn’t hear to his partner. I’m crouched in the hallway, my back against the wall.

  ‘Carole, I’ve wet myself.’

  ‘It’s your waters.’

  ‘There’s water in the bathroom.’

  ‘Peta, look at me.’ Carole takes my chin, tilts my face. ‘Your waters have broken, we need to get you to hospital.’

  ‘The water isn’t due for weeks.’

  ‘All the same, you have to get to hospital.’

  ‘BJ needs the hospital.’

  ‘I’m going to call Mark. Don’t move. Stay out of the way. They’re taking her downstairs.’

  After they leave there is nothing. Car doors slamming, a tap dripping. I imagine the drip forming at the spout, bursting, the spilt-second freefall and the wet splat. The process repeats.

  Carole returns. It’s still dark.

  ‘I need you to stand up. I’m going to put your arms around my neck and I want you to clasp your hands behind my head. Ready?’ She leans down, lifts my arms around her neck and hauls me to my feet.

  ‘I wet myself again.’

  ‘Yes, Peta. I’m going in front of you. Hold the banister with both hands.’

  ‘My back is sore, sore back.’

  ‘We’ll be there soon.’

  Carole Smart is standing at the window looking into the Fitzroy Gardens. I don’t know what she’s doing here. She seems older. It could be the hospital lighting. It may be the underarm-pink colour of the walls. Private health cover gets you your own room, the best obstetrician, but it does nothing for the decor.

  ‘She doesn’t remember a thing,’ Carole says, resuming her seat. ‘You could be carrying my grandchild if my daughter remembers what’s good for her.’

  The baby hasn’t been moving much. When I was admitted I was hooked up to a foetal monitor and it was reassuring to watch the baby’s heart rate. Without the monitor I’m back to being worried. Still, listening to Carole blather on is helping.

  ‘I didn’t know what I’d walked into,’ she continues. ‘You crouched in a corner and Belinda, BJ, out cold on the bathroom floor. I’ve told her about using too much soap and making the bath slippery. That and the power going out…This better be the last head injury in the bathroom we have to experience.’

  Ruby arrives, arms full.

  ‘Bathroom head injuries come in threes.’ She kisses my cheek and drops her bag on the end of my bed.

  She’s bought a bouquet of gerberas that she arranges in a tall vase on the bench opposite my bed. ‘I thought you’d know about signs of early labour, Pete. Don’t you have sixty-seven pregnancy sites in your favourites?’

  ‘Not that many. I know what you’re saying, but I never looked at early labour. I followed my weeks and jumped ahead to bringing baby home. I guess I won’t need the antenatal classes. I’m thinking about trying to transfer them to you, Ruby.’

  ‘Eh? I’m not pregnant.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘But it won’t be long, will it? Always wanted babies, man of your dreams and all that.’

  Ruby turns bright pink, changes the subject: ‘So, what are they saying?’

  They. The owners of clipboards, who have no problem waking a pregnant woman in the middle of the night to check how you are and admonish you for not sleeping.

  ‘Bed rest. Fluids. I’m meant to lie on my left side, and take medication in case of infection and medication to slow labour. I haven’t assembled the highchair.’

  I’m scared. I don’t know anything about babies, except they need a lot of gear and everybody loves one. What if I don’t? I’m on week thirty-five. I had maternal instinct pencilled in for week thirty-eight.

  ‘I’m tired of being in bed. I want the baby out, safe, where it isn’t all up to me anymore. What about this memory loss? Carole, will she know how great she is?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Carole says. ‘She’s concussed. She may have trouble sleeping, have headaches. She seems okay.’

  ‘Do you think she’s coming in?’

  ‘If she remembers you dumped her, she might not.’

  ‘Ruby, this is not the place. You had your chance with your intervention and we know how well that ended.’

  ‘I didn’t make the electricity go out. It’s lucky Peta bailed when she did.’

  ‘Peta doesn’t need you to remind her of what an idiot she’s been.’

  ‘I was an idiot. If I had my time again…’

  ‘You’d still get on the couch.’

  The knowledge of sisters.

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘I wonder if BJ still would.’

  ‘Of course I would.’ BJ is at the door.

  ‘That’s our cue. Come on, Ruby.’

  ‘Yes, it is, get out. Thanks, Mum.’ She gives Carole a kiss, hugs Ruby, and sits on the bed.

  ‘You would still get on the couch? After everything?’

  ‘What everything?’

  ‘Stitches, bruises, being dumped.’ I can go on. I don’t. ‘That’s a cracker of a bruise.’

  ‘You should see people getting out of my way: little old ladies clutching their handbags, blokes holding on to their women.’

  I’m on my left side, as instructed, so there’s room. I pat the bed. BJ lies on her right side and we face each other. I finger the bruise, trace its blurred outline.

  ‘You saved my life,’ she says.

  She takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. I blink tears away.

  ‘You weren’t going to die.’ I draw the blanket up over our shoulders.

  ‘Who knows?’

  I hold BJ tight, make sure she’s listening: ‘I’m ashamed I didn’t understand earlier. You are not just my girlfriend, you’re my partner. You wouldn’t have been simply going out with someone who had a baby—like you hang out with someone with a pool—you’d be a parent. You want to be the baby’s mum. And not just nappies and no sleep. Odd looks, explanations. You’re up for them. I should have known. I’m sorry, BJ.’

  54.

  She’s a pink-wrapped football in my arms. Her tiny lips are pursed. She has long eyelashes and smooth, smooth eyebrows. Nothing can make me stop looking at my little girl. I sniff her head. I get it now.

  ‘What are you going to call her?’

  BJ is our first visitor after my not-quite-emergency caesarean. The rest of the interventionists are waiting outside and I don’t know how long we have. Keith and Catherine are there, too. Jasmine and Margie are on their way. I can hear Ruby. She’s been here every day since I was admitted—five days of waiting, of being excited, of maternal instinct on tap, she’s an aunty on the rise.

  BJ slides a soft finger down the baby’s nose.

  ‘I thought you’d like to name her.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, BJ. Y
ou.’

  ‘I’ll have to have a think.’

  BJ turns her head. The bruise has faded to burnt yellow. She exhales. When she looks back at us she is in tears. I cry every time someone I love cries.

  I pass the baby to BJ. She soft-juggles her into position and touches her nose to the baby’s, a twist of her hair curls onto the baby’s cheek.

  I can see the baby properly in BJ’s arms. When she’s in mine it’s an aerial view, special, but limited. The baby is so little and so pink. I’m romanticising, but even bruised and in black leather, BJ looks the real deal and at least as prepared as I am.

  ‘Can we call her Celeste?’

  ‘You don’t need to ask, BJ. Is Celeste a cycling thing?’

  ‘It is,’ BJ smiles, ‘but it’s beautiful and it’s different.’

  ‘Like you.’

  BJ cups the baby’s lovely little pointed chin. ‘No, like you.’

  ‘Let’s not argue in front of the baby.’

  After months of calling her, the baby, the lump, I correct myself and use the name BJ has given our daughter.

  ‘In front of Celeste.’