A Place Like This

by Steven Herrick

  She won’t sleep without one story, at least.

  She’s quiet, like me, but smarter.

  And Emma, angry with the world.

  You can see it, can’t you?

  But then, she’s got reason to be.’

  George’s voice trails off.

  We both keep quiet.

  He’ll tell us if he wants.

  ‘When she first told me,

  I wanted to get my gun.

  Yeah, I know,

  just what you’d expect from a father.

  And I would have,

  if her mother was around.

  I would have made a big show of being angry,

  shouted, stormed around looking for bullets,

  vowing to chase the kid out of town.

  But without Emma’s mother here

  it seemed pointless.

  So I sat and talked, and listened too.

  I’m glad I did.

  She dismissed the boy, whoever it was.

  Someone who’s left town.

  Some boyfriend I never knew.

  You know, I’m still not sure

  if she’s telling me the truth,

  or if she’s protecting somebody,

  but it doesn’t matter.

  What matters is the kid.

  I keep telling myself that.

  I don’t think of becoming a grandad.

  I just think of my little girl

  becoming a mum.

  Sometimes I wish her mother was here,

  for the baby. For Emma.

  Not for me.

  Emma’s mother is dead for me.

  She died the day she left.’

  George looks at us,

  as if he’s just noticed we’re here.

  I’m sure he’d been working all that stuff

  through these last few months,

  here in the orchard,

  and it’s finally out.

  ‘I talk too much.

  She’s not dead.

  But I’m glad of one thing.

  When she left, I’m glad she took her clothes,

  her jewellery, even most of the money,

  and, by Christ,

  I’m glad she left me the kids.

  I’d be lost without them.

  Lost and bitter.

  With them here, I’m only bitter.’

  George gets up,

  tips the tea out under a tree,

  packs the esky with what’s left

  and says,

  ‘Come on, the apples won’t pick themselves.

  You two are good workers.

  I hope you’ll stay for the season.

  You’ll see Emma’s baby too, maybe.

  By the way, have you ever seen a baby being born?’

  Now that was something for Annabel and me

  to think of all afternoon.

  Like a drunk ...

  The night of the day

  George told us about seeing the baby,

  Annabel and I got drunk.

  We sat on our favourite hay bales

  and drank beer, cold and bitter,

  straight from the bottle.

  As the evening light dimmed

  we climbed into our makeshift bed

  and made noisy love,

  like farm animals in the barn;

  like a drunk falling into a pub, penniless;

  like a bird caught in the crosshair of a gun;

  like a truck with no brakes, half-way down a hill;

  like a kid with a match and a paddock of dry grass;

  like George without a wife;

  like Emma without a lover;

  like a baby, crying to be born.

  Emma and the memory

  Sometimes,

  I think I can feel it happening.

  I mean,

  I can remember how it felt.

  It wasn’t the pain –

  not real pain, like when you cut your hand,

  or tread on a rusty nail or anything –

  more an irritation,

  a dull irritation,

  pressing on me.

  And I can smell it too,

  like dirty socks left in the laundry basket too long,

  and stale beer, but that was probably me.

  And I can taste salt – my own tears?

  I wasn’t crying, surely? I was passed out!

  Maybe he was crying, the bastard.

  I hope he was. Crying with shame.

  The only woman he could get was unconscious.

  The thought gives me pleasure, at least.

  That’s all.

  I lie in bed, thinking of how it felt.

  Not knowing if it’s my imagination,

  or suppressed memory,

  or what really happened.

  I remember waking up.

  I walked into Jenny’s bathroom and vomited.

  Only then did I realise I was naked.

  Naked, sore, wet, sticky

  and slowly becoming

  very, very

  suspicious.

  Staying at school

  Dad says I should have stayed at school,

  should have kept going right up to the day.

  Now wouldn’t that be a sight,

  me in a school uniform.

  Size 18 wouldn’t even fit this belly.

  And Personal Development classes

  would have had special meaning, don’t you think?

  Me, six months pregnant,

  learning about the correct use of condoms

  and other devices.

  And you know what I would have said

  to that Mrs Barber, our teacher,

  as she was showing us condoms on carrots?

  I would have put my hand up right there,

  and said,

  ‘Miss, how do you keep from getting pregnant

  when you’re passed out drunk

  and someone takes advantage?’

  It would almost be worth going back to school

  just to ask that one question …

  Emma’s dream

  Sometimes, when I’m asleep,

  I have a dream where

  I’m living in a city,

  going to work in fancy clothes,

  and I have a boyfriend,

  and a house of my own

  on a normal city street,

  you know,

  with neighbours and a shop down the road.

  And the only animal is a pet dog,

  and the only trees are for shade

  or flowers or decoration.

  In this dream

  I go out to the movies

  with my boyfriend

  and we eat dinner

  in a restaurant,

  and on weekends I don’t have to do anything

  but enjoy myself.

  And in this dream

  I’m walking to work on Monday

  and I’m nearly there,

  and I remember the baby –

  my baby –

  and it gets kind of strange

  in my dream,

  because I’m standing outside my work

  trying to remember

  if I have a baby

  or not,

  and where it is.

  And that’s when

  I’m not sure

  if my dream

  is a dream,

  or a nightmare.

  Sunday Annabel

  Another Sunday of sunshine,

  no work and swimming in the channel.

  Emma sits by the bank

  watching Jack swing from the rope

  and drop into a welcome of still water.

  I’m lying here, soaking up a day off,

  listening to the sound of nothing

  but Jack being a kid again.

  Emma talks about school

  and her days on this farm

  and how she wants to leave,

  and every time she mentions leaving

  I notice her hand
s touching her stomach.

  I listen and silently vow

  to not mention Jack and I leaving

  as soon as the work’s done.

  I tell Emma about where we live

  in the suburbs

  and the sounds we hear

  and the neighbours,

  and how Jack and I

  just had to get out,

  to end up here.

  Emma looks up quick when I say this,

  and I know what she’s thinking:

  she knows we can leave when we want.

  At that moment Jack falls between us

  and starts shaking the water off himself

  like a mad dog

  looking for some attention.

  Rich, smart or stupid

  You must be rich, smart

  or real stupid, you two.

  That’s what Emma says.

  She says, only way you could be doing this

  is to be rich, smart or stupid.

  She says most people would have to stay home,

  study or work, or have babies maybe.

  She says you two get to drive around the place,

  work when you want –

  she thinks that makes you smart.

  And you don’t worry about money.

  You buy beer whenever,

  you buy each other presents,

  you go into town and eat –

  she thinks that makes you rich.

  She says you’re rich and smart

  but

  she says

  you’re staying here by choice

  when you could drive away.

  You’re staying here working in the orchard

  and sleeping in a shed.

  She says that makes you stupid.

  Annabel dreams

  It comes in the late afternoon.

  I’m in the orchard,

  halfway up the ladder,

  my neck aching with the weight of the bag,

  stretching to reach one full red apple,

  and I suddenly think of university.

  The afternoon lecture:

  fifty of us, all dressed in jeans and T-shirts,

  taking notes,

  searching for the phrase that will guarantee

  good exam results.

  Pages and pages,

  and I’d stop for a second

  to touch my forehead.

  I’d feel the small furrow

  between my eyes

  deepening, it seems,

  with every afternoon lecture.

  I sit on the ladder,

  rest the bag on the lower rung,

  hold that apple, rub it along my cheek,

  my forehead, smoothing away my past,

  and I take long, slow crunching bites

  as the afternoon breeze

  wakens the silver-eyes in the branches.

  And I spend all my education

  on doing nothing but eating and watching

  for just long enough

  to feel clean again.

  Jack

  We came here for the money.

  George happened along at the right time.

  We had no petrol, nowhere to stay

  and no plans.

  When I think about it, we had to say yes.

  It was that or go home

  with nothing.

  I keep feeling I owe George

  and his children.

  I know about the quiet revolution

  in every family.

  I think of my sister and me nine years ago,

  waiting, knowing our mum was going to die.

  Knowing, even at our age.

  It took me years to work out what to think,

  where to put that stuff.

  And I look at Emma here,

  and George, the strain in his eyes

  and his voice.

  I know where it’s coming from

  and it won’t go away, not for awhile.

  I’m glad we came here.

  I work extra hard in the orchard,

  not for the money anymore,

  but for something I can’t explain.

  Something worth more than money.

  The Department lady

  I got a visitor from town yesterday –

  the Department lady.

  Talking about after the baby’s born.

  What I can get to help.

  Money? Not enough.

  Health care: ‘Don’t worry, he won’t get sick,’ I said.

  And New Mothers’ Monday meeting

  where everyone talks about

  how beautiful their baby is.

  I put a stop to that one.

  I asked her if the Department would give me a car,

  you know,

  to make the meeting on time.

  Then she asked me about school,

  if I wanted to go back –

  I could get money,

  I could get my Leaving Certificate.

  I wanted to ask her about it,

  but she was such a cow.

  She started packing up.

  Her visit over. The government’s job done.

  And I didn’t like her.

  The way she looked at the old lino in the kitchen,

  and the dirty dishes,

  and she never looked me in the eye;

  she looked at her paperwork,

  then at our cheap living,

  and she asked too many questions.

  So when she said goodbye,

  I said there was one thing she could do.

  I looked at her straight,

  the way I’m looking at you now,

  and I said,

  ‘You could find out who the father is,

  that’d be a big help …’

  She didn’t have an answer for that.

  People like her only ever have questions.

  Annabel on love

  Mine was Year 10.

  Jack.

  After the movies, at my doorstep,

  like a stupid romance novel.

  He kissed me. Nice, but quick.

  From my bedroom window

  I saw him walking home

  and I wanted more.

  More was months later.

  What can I say?

  It’s embarrassing now to remember.

  He felt heavy and awkward

  lying on top of me.

  I’m trying to kiss him,

  but his mind’s elsewhere.

  He’s trying to put it in

  and he can’t,

  so I reached down

  and did it for him, simple.

  And do you know what was the best bit?

  Afterwards.

  When he lay in me, limp,

  and we held each other

  and started kissing again –

  slow and soft, no pressure –

  and we started giggling

  and kissing still

  and touching each other,

  relieved it was over,

  so now we could start

  to really make love,

  and we haven’t stopped.

  Emma replies

  In Year 9 I kissed a boy

  after school.

  Netball training cancelled,

  and me alone, shooting hoops,

  with an hour to spare, waiting for Dad.

  And Rick Harvey comes over,

  starts shooting with me.

  Offers me a game of keyring,

  twenty cents a basket,

  and he wins a few,

  I win a few.

  He owes me forty cents,

  when I know he’s got no money

  or no desire to give me money,

  but he’s all right.

  And we sit against the clubhouse,

  close enough,

  and he leans over and starts kissing me.

  No questions, no waiting,

  and it’s okay

  so I kiss back.

&n
bsp; For a while we just sit there,

  our lips pressing,

  then I feel his hand

  on my leg,

  tracing a path up.

  And he’s soft and gentle, really,

  so I let him touch me,

  you know, there,

  outside my pants,

  then inside.

  And he’s not pushy or anything,

  and we’re both very quiet now.

  We’ve stopped kissing, really,

  our lips are just together,

  our minds are down below, up my dress,

  and he puts his finger inside me

  and I like it,

  and he keeps touching me,

  inside and out,

  and soon all I’m thinking of is my body.

  I’m hardly sure he’s there.

  It’s me and my body

  and I don’t move a muscle

  in case it all stops,

  and he keeps doing the same thing

  for minutes, for hours,

  for God knows.

  I loved it.

  I tell you,

  it was Christmas and Easter

  and chocolate cake and dreams

  and birthdays,

  and it wasn’t Rick Harvey.

  It was me.

  Me and my body,

  waking up.

  He asks

  A funny thing happened today.

  In town,

  I was in Penney’s department store,

  looking at baby clothes,

  but daydreaming really –

  thinking, how am I going to learn

  to be a good mum?

  You know, stuff like what to feed him

  or her,

  what to do if they look sick

  or hot or cold or they cry too much.

  I’m thinking all this

  as I look through the baby clothes I can’t afford,

  when someone behind me says, Hello.

  It’s Adam Barlow from school. Year 10.

  He’s in his uniform,

  shirt hanging out as usual,

  socks down, bunched over his sneakers.

  He looks nervous,

  here in the baby section of Penney’s.

  He asks how I’ve been.

  He asks how long before the baby’s born.

  He asks what it’s like on the farm

  with no school to worry.

  He asks if I know what I’ll call it.

  He asks what my dad thinks.

  He asks if I’ll come back to school afterwards.

  He asks again how I’ve been.

  Then he says he’s got to go.

  He asks far too many questions,

  and he answers none.

  A gentle kick

  As Adam Barlow

  walked out of Penney’s yesterday,

  I felt my baby kick.

  A gentle tap really,

  as if my child

  was reminding me

  of what’s important

  and what’s not,

  as Adam Barlow

  walked out.

  Jack’s plans

  This is not what I planned.

  I wanted lonely beaches with Annabel

  and bush camping

  beside a river

  and maybe even time in the snow,

  working for a season