The Mistake

by Wendy James

  But now doesn’t seem to be the time to push it. Her mum clearly isn’t in the mood, has other things on her mind, and Hannah doesn’t have the energy anyway – the analgesics aren’t as strong as the morphine, and the dull ache is ratcheting up in force moment by moment. She lets herself drift off.

  The Sydney excursion had promised to be a fun interruption to the usual tedium, a much needed escape from school and family, and Hannah is disappointed that her visit has been so painfully cut short. She and Assia had had a few more unauthorised adventures planned – there was meant to have been a visit to Bondi this afternoon, under the guise of an overnight visit to Assia’s parents. The other girls had been sick with envy, their own afternoon and evening filled to the brim with various cultural delights – a visit to the art gallery, the maritime museum and then some lame musical. But despite her disappointment, and perhaps because of the analgesics, Hannah is feeling pretty lucky. Not just because this morning’s X-rays have shown that the break is far less complicated than they’d thought, that she won’t need a pin, additional surgery. No one in their right mind would call being hit by the car itself good luck, exactly. But she has to admit that there is an element of extreme good fortune in the fact that the driver didn’t hang around to tell anyone what had really happened. She didn’t blame the driver one bit – it was her own (and to a lesser degree, Assia’s) fault entirely. Somehow they’d got away with the issue of them being outside at that time of the night by telling Miss French that Assia had dropped her mobile out the window and they’d come out to retrieve it, and that the car (driven by some drug-or alcohol-affected maniac) had veered wildly and knocked her down, then sped off again without stopping.

  So things could have been and probably should have been far worse. If Assia had been hurt as well, then two lots of parents would have had to retrieve their wounded daughters – what a scandal! The bishop would have been consulted, no doubt and maybe the board. And the teachers – poor unsuspecting dupes – their heads would have rolled. Just the thought of Assia’s parents and the fuss they would have made is enough to make Hannah quake.

  Oh, not Assia’s magistrate father, he’s old and vague and completely wrapped around Assia’s little finger. But her mother, Manon, is another matter: a weird little elf-like creature with her wild hair, her black eye-makeup, her trendy wardrobe and her wispy, high-pitched voice. The way she can turn hard and sharp, suddenly go on the attack, pulling spiky legal words out of the air, making incontestable arguments, so easily, so coolly. Hannah witnessed her in professional mode once, battling the vice principal over some aspect of the school’s disciplinary code. She’d won easily, her eyes slanted with laughter throughout the confrontation, a slightly malicious smile never leaving her face. And Hannah suspects she always wins. So they needed to keep the truth from Manon at all costs, though a part of Hannah thinks it would almost be worth getting her involved, just to witness her rage. Hannah has seen it directed once or twice at poor Assia, who has inherited neither her mother’s sharpness of wit nor her father’s easy-going nature, and is therefore utterly defenceless against her.

  And there’s a fair chance that Assia’s mother – unlike Hannah’s own darling mum, innocent, unsuspecting – would work out that the accident wasn’t merely the consequence of the innocent high jinks of spirited teenage girls (like something from Girl’s Own Annual, where Penelope and Lucy daringly sneak out of their dorm at night, camouflaged by their dark skivvies and black ski pants in a quest to discover the whereabouts of the mysterious trench-coated fellow they’ve spotted gazing wistfully at their virginal Sports mistress, hoping to somehow orchestrate a romantic union …). Manon was certain to sniff out the reality.

  Which was this: the two girls had met up with a random guy during their few hours of free time between visits to exceedingly dull tourist attractions. Somehow, during a crazy conversation about the origins of LSD, he’d managed to talk them into buying some E. Both Hannah and Assia were novices, both scared shitless, but still curious to try. They’d convinced two of the other girls that they should pitch in, promising that they’d take the pills together when they got back to Arding – in a safe environment, to limit the dangers – and had arranged to meet the boy at the park across the road from their hotel that evening. During the day he had seemed an unlikely enough source – thin, stooped, bespectacled, acne-scarred – and they’d doubted that he’d turn up. But in the gloom of the unlit park, he’d seemed less nerdy, had been satisfyingly sinister, his thin face shadowed, his glasses obscured beneath the regulation hoodie. They had paid up, received their baggie, and were about to hurry back when the boy offered them a complimentary half pill each. There was no real hurry: back at the hotel Sam and Bella were prepared with excuses for Assia and Hannah’s absence, and had a coded text message ready to send if the girls needed to return in a hurry. Assia had hesitated, they should stick to their original plan, she’d said, who knew what might happen? – but the boy had been persuasive, and eventually she’d swallowed her fear along with her half of the E. And as he’d promised, it was good stuff.

  Hannah couldn’t quite remember what happened next, the exact order of events, all she knew was that somehow she and the boy had ended up playing chicken with the traffic. Assia had sat in the gutter, giving an insane commentary on their dangerous antics, giving scores out of ten. Hannah had enjoyed the bizarre game, wondered at her newly discovered co-ordination, her precision, her almost supernatural ability to jump at the critical moment. But this one time the car had sped up, or she’d just plain misjudged the timing, and she’d been winged. If the driver had been a concerned citizen, properly appalled, eager to help, there really would have been hell to pay. A broken leg seemed like a gift by comparison.

  Hannah had not admitted to taking anything when the paramedics had asked during her ambulance ride – no drugs, no alcohol – had looked the picture of outraged innocence. Drugs? What do you think I am! Despite numerous lectures from parents and teachers about the importance of telling the truth about drug usage in times of medical crisis, she’d decided to keep that bit of information to herself – and luckily Assia had kept quiet too. The effects were wearing off anyway, and by the time she’d been given a shot of pethidine, had X-rays taken, and a surgeon was found to set the bone, there was no need. They’d gotten away with it. And they still had the baggie – Hannah had managed to pass it to Assia when no one was looking.

  It seems that Hannah’s lies have been more successful than she’d expected – the details of the accident are clearly not bothering her over-protective mother. There’s not even the barest hint of doubt; it’s as if the butter in her mouth has miraculously hardened to the consistency of a boiled lolly. Jodie’s so uncharacteristically preoccupied that there’s obviously something else going on, Hannah’s certain of that. Just what it is, though, she has no idea.

  3

  Jodie sits at the outdoor table with Angus. Away from the little pocket of warmth provided by the patio heater, the evening is cold – the temperature forecast to fall to zero overnight, a frost expected in the morning. Mellowed by a few glasses of red, Angus is in a cheerfully chatty mood. He’s made it very clear that he’s glad to have them return safely, to see for himself that Hannah’s condition is not too serious. He has missed Jodie in theory, if not in practice – she knows he will have been far too busy for her short absence to have had any real impact, but even after so many years of marriage, she’s oddly relieved to discover that he still cares, that he wasn’t happier alone.

  She knows that this particular anxiety is one of her own making. It would be easy to assume that her need for reassurance stems from those occassions when Angus has fallen short (and there have been a few), but Jodie knows that it’s not that simple, that her uncertainty goes far deeper. That it has no real connection to Angus’s behaviour, his stated (and restated) love for her. Even on a night like tonight – when he has clearly made a huge effort to make a little ceremony of their homecoming: leaving work e
arly, bringing wine and Indian takeaway, producing treats for Hannah and Tom, and a sweetly wilting bunch of chrysanthemums for Jodie; when the evening has been filled with laughter and good cheer – even now Jodie worries that perhaps it isn’t real, that he’s just pretending, making the best of a decision he has come to regret.

  It’s just the two of them now – Tom is in bed, asleep, and Hannah is holed up in her room for the evening, on no account to be disturbed (no doubt enjoying the 2-litre bottle of Coke, bag of corn chips, and family-sized block of Cadbury’s that her father has so thoughtfully provided, along with the entire third season of Sex and the City). Angus is telling Jodie about a case he’s working on, is explaining some obscure, incomprehensible point of law in exhaustive – and exhausting – detail, and though she nods in the right places, hmm, hmms here and there, knowing the patterns of these conversations so well, in reality Jodie is not even half listening.

  She makes a decision, breaks into his monologue. ‘Darling. Angus.’ She puts her hand on his arm. ‘I need to tell you something.’

  He pauses mid-sentence, and frowns in surprise. ‘Oh, okay. Am I boring you?’ He sounds huffy, mildly embarrassed.

  Jodie strokes his arm in an attempt to soothe him. ‘No, of course not. It’s …’ She falters.

  ‘What?’ His voice is suddenly anxious. ‘It’s not Hannah, is it? Her break really is straightforward?’

  ‘No. It’s got nothing to do with Hannah, Angus. It’s to do with me. It’s something I’ve done.’

  He raises one eyebrow, gives his best impression of a patronising smirk, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been driving by Braille again – I’ve told you before that you should stick to embroidery and …’

  She interrupts before he gets to the end of the well-worn family gag. ‘No. It’s not the car, Angus. And it’s not a joke. I wish it was. It was … well, there’s no easy way to tell you this, I suppose. It …’ Jodie is finding it hard to locate the words. She casts about for a place to start the story, but there’s nowhere safe, no easy way in.

  ‘Do you remember when you went to London, not last year – the first time. The year before you went to uni – when you were clerking?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘Well, when you were away – before I came over … I had this thing.’

  ‘A thing? What sort of thing? What are you talking about?’

  She clears her throat, her voice descends to a whisper. ‘I slept with someone else – a boy. It was nothing – just one night.’

  She can’t go any further. Her husband is gazing at her incredulously – as if she’s mad – and then, then he’s smiling. ‘Jesus, Jodes. Is this something you’ve had on your conscience all these years? Sweetheart, I don’t mean to disappoint your desire for, well, whatever it is – penance or forgiveness or closure or whatever – but that was a long, long time ago. We weren’t married, and we were very young, and I have to tell you, I wasn’t exactly celibate myself.’

  She clutches his forearm. ‘No, Angus. It’s more than that. Much more. Just listen, will you? Please?’

  DECEMBER, 1986

  She comes in to the hospital far too early in the labour, panicked by the first signs of mild cramping, ignorant and afraid, having no idea of what is ahead and not wanting to face it alone. A middle-aged Irish nurse – the matron, she finds out later – is the midwife on duty, and she accepts without question Jodie’s carefully prepared story: her parents are travelling in Far North Queensland; her boyfriend, the father of the child, is absent too.

  The woman, short and stocky, with her hair in a tidy grey bob, examines her expertly, cool fingers pressing down here and there on her distended abdomen, her eyes distant, face thoughtful. When a pain arrives she stretches her hands firmly along Jodie’s belly and smiles down at her reassuringly.

  ‘Well, that’s a nice solid contraction, love,’ she says. ‘There’s no doubt you’re in labour.’ When the pain subsides, she takes a stethoscope and moves it across Jodie’s stomach, then stops, listening intently. ‘Well, the bub’s fine – its little heartbeat is just perfect,’ she says soothingly, as if Jodie has made some sort of anxious inquiry. ‘Now, how often are these coming?’

  ‘How often? Well, that’s about the tenth one, I think. I had to pull over a couple of times, getting here.’

  ‘The tenth one!’ The nurse laughs. ‘You haven’t been timing them then, love?’

  ‘Well, no. I didn’t know … I thought that once the pain started it meant … and then there was a bit of blood, earlier this morning, in my undies.’ Jodie is suddenly sharply aware of her ignorance, of how stupid she sounds. How stupid she is.

  But the nurse’s smile is kind; she isn’t laughing at her. ‘That’s okay. The tenth one since when, darling?’

  ‘In the last couple of hours or so, I think. Perhaps an hour and a half?’

  ‘So, they’re coming every twenty minutes or so, then.’

  ‘I think so.’ She hazards a question, wanting to know more, regardless of revealing her ignorance. ‘Is that good? Does that mean the baby’s not far off then?’

  The woman holds out her hand and helps Jodie pull herself up into a sitting position, panting, breathless.

  ‘Well, it’s your first, so it could be … let me see. Twenty minutes apart means that – all going to plan this baby could come anytime from this afternoon to tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon. Oh.’ Jodie can’t keep the embarrassment, the disappointment from her voice. ‘So, what should I do? It might be ages then, mightn’t it? Should I … should I go back home?’ Her eyes fill, her voice quavers, despairing at the thought of heading back alone to the dank hotel room that has been her home for the past fortnight.

  ‘Well, normally, darling.’ The nurse helps her to her feet, absent-mindedly smoothing down Jodie’s crumpled dress, ‘Normally I’d be telling you to go home and come back in when they’re say, five minutes apart. But as you’re all alone, I’m guessing you don’t want to make the trip again?’

  ‘No.’ She takes a breath, gives a watery smile.

  ‘Well, then,’ the nurse says briskly, ‘let’s get you booked in, get a room sorted. You can watch some telly, have some lunch. It’s been a dull, slow day, and to be honest you’ll be giving me something to do.’

  Jodie is taken to an unoccupied double room. She lies on the bed and flicks through the magazine that the matron has handed her, fearful, unable to concentrate. Her mind grinds over and over the problem, never coming close to any sort of solution: what on earth is she going to do? Who will she tell, what will she tell them? She is almost relieved when a pain comes – at least then she can stop thinking. In a way, now that the time has arrived, bringing moments that just have to be lived through, survived, she feels freer than she has for the past few months. Now at last something must change. One way or another, something will, something must, be decided. A solution will arrive with the baby. This she believes.

  The pains go on all day, never really getting much worse, or even closer together. It’s not unlike period pain, but much, much fiercer, and lasts forty seconds or so before subsiding completely. They recur every twenty minutes, like clockwork – or, as Sheila puts it during one of her frequent afternoon visits, ‘cramp work’.

  ‘And that’s what it is, darling: work. That pain is telling you that your body’s working for you in a good way – opening you up, to let that bubby out.’

  She is casual in her questions, but Jodie can tell Sheila is curious about her circumstances, concerned. And a little suspicious.

  ‘Are you sure your parents know about this?’ she asks during a routine examination. ‘That your young man knows?’

  Jodie makes no answer, gripped suddenly, alarmingly, by a pain of such ferocity that she is unable to do anything but hold her breath. She squeezes the nurse’s hand tightly until it subsides.

  ‘Breathe, darling. Breathe.’ The matron smiles gently, pushes the damp hair away from Jodie’s face. ‘Now, my sweet, now
that’s a labour pain. Might be time to give you an internal now. See how much progress you’ve made.’

  But there is no time for any sort of examination. Jodie yells out and stiffens in response to an unexpected reprise of that insane grip. Sheila holds Jodie’s hand through it again, strokes her forehead, her voice soothing.

  ‘Relax,’ she says, as Jodie bites through her lip in an effort to stifle a moan, a shout. ‘Just relax …’

  Afterwards, when it is safely out in the world (A girl! What a sweetheart, what a little beauty!), Jodie feels herself floating, beyond thought and empty, almost absent, as if mind and body have been split – although they tell her she has been successfully stitched back together. She makes no move to hold the baby when it has been cleaned, weighed, pinned into its first nappy, wrapped, instead asking them to take it – to take her – away.

  Sheila, who, along with a younger midwife, Debbie, has remained throughout the entire ordeal, is used to all sorts of odd postpartum behaviour. She says nothing, exchanges only the briefest of glances with the other nurse. The two women smile sympathetically, understandingly.