The Mistake

by Wendy James

  ‘The nurse told me she would be going to a good home,’ Mrs Garrow told the media, in a short news conference, ‘and at the time I was happy to believe her, relieved that the business had been taken out of my hands. I didn’t really understand that not going through the proper channels was a mistake. Over the years, like many relinquishing mothers, I have become increasingly eager to establish contact with my daughter.’

  Mrs Garrow was not told the adoptive parents’ full names but thinks they may have been ‘Simon’ and ‘Rosemary’. Baby Elsa Mary’s toes were webbed on both her feet – a rare genetic anomaly shared by her mother and half-sister – and she may have received cosmetic surgery at some point to rectify this.

  Mrs Garrow, who is married to Arding solicitor and mayoral nominee Angus Garrow, and who now has two other children, placed advertisements in a number of city and regional newspapers and magazines throughout Australia several weeks ago in an effort to locate her daughter.

  If you have any information on the current or previous whereabouts of Elsa Mary, please contact Silvers Wood and Watson, Arding. (02) 6777 2331 or p.silvers@sww.com.au

  DECEMBER, 1986

  Later Jodie will wonder at the speed of it all, the smoothness of the operation – will wonder whether perhaps she was not the first, not the only young mother to have made this very deal with Matron Sheila O’Malley. But at the time haste seemed necessary – how did she have any choice but to gratefully accept the offer, the conditions? She couldn’t take this baby home; there was no time for second thoughts, no time for doubt. Expedition was all.

  ‘There are so few adoptions these days,’ Sheila tells Jodie; ‘young girls – and you, my dear, are the miraculous exception to this – would rather commit murder, kill their unborn babies than carry them to term and give them to all those desperate couples who are not so blessed.’ Jodie hears the steel in Sheila’s voice, takes a moment to realise that she’s talking about abortion and not infanticide.

  ‘And because these babies are so scarce, there are more and more hoops to jump through. So many couples are disqualified while they’re waiting to reach the top of the list, betrayed by time, grown too old, the children given to more suitable – younger – couples.

  ‘No one,’ Sheila’s voice is suddenly full of passion, ‘thinks anything of it when a woman gives birth to a child in her mid-forties – it’s a natural process and what’s to stop them? But for adoption it’s different. They’re trying to set them up with the “perfect” parents, you see, though how age comes into that, I don’t know.

  ‘Anyway,’ she goes on, calm again, ‘I have some very good friends – I’ll call them Ro— Rosemary and um … Simon. They’re good, clean-living, respectable, happily married professional people – the only thing missing in their life is a child. They’d dearly love a little baby – they’ve been trying for years, but with no luck – poor things. And now they’re officially too old to adopt. They’d find one from overseas – a black one or one of those poor little Asian bubbies – but they haven’t got the money for all that. And they’d rather a white baby anyway, to be honest. They’re not racists,’ she adds quickly, though Jodie hasn’t made any sort of comment.

  Right now Jodie isn’t at all curious about this couple and their trials and tribulations, their questionable racial predilections. Her interest in them is far more immediate, far more practical: they want a baby; she has a baby she doesn’t want. It all seems beautifully simple – a transaction made in, well, if not heaven, somewhere close by.

  ‘Now, I’ve told them about you and your lovely little girl, and they’re all excited. Over the moon. They wanted to rush over right away and talk to you, see the little bub, but I said they should wait, let me discuss it with you, settle the terms.’

  ‘The terms?’

  ‘Well, as you can imagine, they don’t want there to be any … repercussions, later in the piece. Sometimes mums want to give the baby away, but still have visiting rights and so on. They don’t want that. It has to be a clean cut, if you know what I mean. And they want to make sure you don’t change your mind later.’

  ‘But you know I won’t. How many times —’

  ‘Hold on a bit.’ Sheila shushes her gently. ‘So they’re willing,’ and her lips suddenly purse as if she’s holding in excitement – or perhaps it’s disapproval, it’s hard to tell which – ‘they’re willing to give you a little bit of cash to smooth things over for you, so to speak. It might make the decision – and all the hardship you’ve been through already – that much easier.’

  ‘But I thought you said they didn’t have any money – and anyway, I don’t …’ The dubious nature of the offer is suddenly apparent. ‘I don’t want to sell the baby. It wouldn’t be right. It’s not – it’s not moral.’

  ‘Now now, Jodie, don’t take it the wrong way; you wouldn’t be selling her. It’s just to ensure that it’s all above board, that you’ll be getting something for your trouble, so to speak. And it’s not a great deal, they don’t have that much money, just a few thousand – just something to tide you over for the next few months, while you get over all this. So you can have some kind of break, and don’t have to rush back to working right away. Of course, you don’t have to spend the money on yourself – you could donate it to some charity, if you’re truly opposed to taking anything. That would be your business. The thing is – they’re not just willing to pay, they really want to pay, as a sort of thank you.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘First, though,’ Sheila goes on, ignoring Jodie’s interjection. Her voice is brisk now. ‘First you need to give the bubba a name.’

  ‘Oh, but I —’

  Sheila interrupts her protest again. ‘Now, you don’t want anyone here thinking there’s anything odd going on and calling social workers and the like. You will have a visit from the infant health sister at some point, I can’t stop that – but we can talk about how to deal with all that later. Now, come on – a name.’

  Jodie shrugs, desperate, stricken. ‘I can’t think of anything.’ She has a list of beloved names, names for her fantasy children – but those are not names for this infant, unexpected, unwanted, unknown.

  The matron rolls her eyes, impatient. ‘It doesn’t have to be anything special – it won’t be permanent, you know. How about your mother. What’s her name?’

  ‘Oh, no, I —’

  ‘Your grandmother?’

  ‘Elsa.’ Jodie gives the name – her mother’s mother, dead before she was born – without thinking, half in a daze.

  The woman nods, satisfied. ‘And your other grandmother? For a middle – you need a middle name.’

  ‘Mary.’ Her father’s mother – long gone too.

  ‘Perfect. That wasn’t so hard was it? A good, simple, old-fashioned name: Elsa Mary.’

  It’s surprising just how easy the whole deception is. Sheila’s not there every shift, of course, but she makes it clear to all the other midwives that young Jodie, though finding the transition to motherhood particularly painful, is responding well to her attentions. She is Matron’s special protégée, best left to Matron’s care. And most of the other midwives, are happy enough to do the minimum, to leave her be.

  Jodie’s main priority during her stay in hospital, Matron insists – as a single mother without support – is to regain her strength. She’s to be bothered as little as possible with the baby, who is to be bottle-fed and kept in the nursery as much as possible. The nurses are happy to look after the babies – first time mothers, with their nervous uncertainty, their tendency to weep, their endless lactation difficulties – are seen as slightly troublesome, especially by the older midwives, and as likely to unsettle their own baby as not. So Jodie’s desire to see the baby as little as possible isn’t regarded as completely outrageous.

  And luckily the baby is a placid little thing, sleepy, easily contented, and requires little more than bottle-feeding and changing and the occasional nurse. All of which can be just as effectively done in the nu
rsery. By others.

  11

  Just as Angus’s mother had predicted, their social freezing out, which has all the hallmarks of an old-fashioned shunning, begins slowly, but gains momentum remarkably quickly.

  Knowing the viral qualities of small-town gossip, Angus and Jodie forewarn their closest friends one by one before the notices hit the paper. They call them on the phone, or let them know what’s coming over coffee, drinks, dinner, in an effort to stem – or at least reduce – the inevitable gossip. Angus tells his good mate David the story, almost casually, over drinks after an afternoon game of tennis and is relieved by Dave’s nonchalance, his easy acceptance of the facts as Angus relates them. Angus has already been pleasantly surprised by the supportive attitude of the few people he’s told, but still he is hugely grateful for Dave’s lack of curiosity.

  ‘Shit, mate.’ Dave frowns thoughtfully, gives his bushranger beard a characteristic tug. ‘That’s got to be a bit of a shock. For all of you.’

  He asks after Jodie’s wellbeing briefly, and then the conversation changes tack entirely, moving on to a more pertinent discussion of the local rugby team’s latest disgrace. This reaction, Angus thinks later, is reminiscent of the way any emotionally charged announcement is handled by most of the blokes he’s friends with. With news of an impending birth, a marriage, divorce, death of a parent, there’s never much said, never any fuss made – but there’s a tacit understanding that the friendship’s strong, that nothing has changed, that the mate will be there, unquestioningly, when and if you need him.

  But between this conversation and their next meeting – their regular, longstanding monthly dinner with Dave and his wife, Sue – it appears that something, everything, has changed.

  Jodie and Angus are greeted by their friends with all the usual enthusiasm, welcomed into their home with the expected ceremony, or so Angus imagines. Tom and Harry race off to the rumpus room together to play Wii and stuff themselves with chips and fizzy drink; Hannah and Laura head out to a party, rolling their eyes good-naturedly at their parents’ customary directives not to drink, drug, or drive. Champagne is poured, beer provided; the two women fuss about in the kitchen, while the men decamp to inspect David’s latest motorcycle acquisition.

  Angus would count Dave and Sue Forester as being amongst their closest friends – and certainly their best couple friends. Dave, a stock and station agent, a year or two older, is like Angus, a grazier’s son. They had both been boarders at the New England School before the death of Angus’s father and his family’s subsequent move to town, and though they hadn’t been particular mates in their school days, they’d got to know one another when Dave married Sue, who is almost family to Angus – her mother a friend of his mother. The close proximity of the births of their children, daughters and then sons, had cemented the friendship between the two men. The two women, though cool initially, and with little in common (Sue is an ex-lawyer, now the driving force behind the Arding pony club), have also become good friends over the years.

  Angus is comfortable in their house, comfortable in their company. Everything about them feels known, understood, in the way of family. He can almost imagine having just this life, David’s life: Susan could so easily have been his wife, and this his home. The house itself – a stately old blue brick in the centre of town – is very different to his and Jodie’s contemporary brick veneer on The Hill, but utterly familiar in its run-down grandeur, almost identical to the home he’d grown up in. He is completely at ease with Sue, too. She reminds him of his sisters, some of his Garrow cousins: seemingly devoid of self-doubt, content with herself and her place, reliable and competent, perhaps slightly insensitive to others’ feelings – she can be fearfully blunt – but rarely deliberately unkind.

  By the time the four of them sit down at the table to eat – the small boys having spirited their dishes back to their gaming den – the adults have all had a fair bit to drink. The meal is delicious as always – Sue is an excellent cook, naturally – and though there is some sporadic conversation, the four of them eat with very little talking. So pleasantly preoccupied is Angus with the quail, it takes a while for him to notice that his wife is upset. Jodie is sitting primly upright, her cheeks red, her eyes wide, and when she speaks her voice has the high and slightly fragile quality that he recognises instantly, one it only acquires when she’s feeling out of her depth. He doesn’t know for certain, but assumes that there has been some sort of falling out between the two women.

  Susan’s famous frankness, he knows from experience, can be challenging. She had given him an enormous serve, years back now, when details of his affair with Wanda Robinson had leaked out. She had cornered him at a party and enunciated very clearly her opinion of him (a prick), of Jodie (loyal, blameless), of how he could (and should) redeem himself (go down on his knees and beg forgiveness). ‘You can’t go on feeling hard done by just because you married your first girlfriend, Angus. You had plenty of opportunities to dump Jodie before you married her – and plenty of encouragement, in case you’ve forgotten. But you married her, mate, and it’s too late to regret that now – you’ve got kids, and she’s been a bloody loyal wife – even if she’s not the sort of girl you should have married. Grow up.’ At the time he’d defended himself strenuously, but in retrospect he found her plainspoken vehemence more endearing than alarming, and had thought once or twice in a more sentimental mode that she was probably the sort of girl he should have married. Perhaps she would have kept him in line in a way that Jodie, with her uncertainty, with her feeling that the obligation was all on his side, never could. This sort of anger directed at Angus was one thing – he is her equal – but he knows that for his wife it would be different, that seemingly minor slights could be deeply wounding.

  He is so busy observing Jodie, trying to catch her eye, reassure her with a glance, a smile of solidarity, he is barely attending to the discussion. So when the conversation suddenly leaves the safe harbour of the general and enters the more dangerous waters of the personal, Angus flounders, unprepared.

  ‘I take it you won’t be standing now, Angus? For mayor?’ Sue makes the statement quite casually, looking at him levelly across the table. Angus hears a slight gasp from his host, but David glances away quickly, won’t meet his eyes.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’d assumed that since this – news – of Jodie’s you’d have decided not to risk losing the election, that you’d pull out, let them put in someone else. Personally, I’m not sure that it was ever going to happen anyway. You know Greg English has been saying he’d like to stand, and he’s got all Mardi’s family – the Jarvises – behind him, too.’

  ‘Susan. I don’t think this …’ David’s voice is tight, nervous.

  It takes Angus a moment to respond. ‘No. That’s okay. It’s just that – I hadn’t really thought about it. This has all been very sudden, as you can imagine. I mean, obviously, I’ll get advice —’

  ‘Oh, come on, Angus.’ Sue’s always very proper enunciation – there’s a particular Grammar drawl that Angus would recognise anywhere, one of his public-school mates once described it as a kind of a whinny – has become more pronounced, from drink or hostility, he can’t be certain. ‘You don’t really think that you stand a chance of getting in, with all this happening. The mayor of Arding has to be squeaky clean. In theory if not reality. And this – so-called missing child of Jodie’s,’ there is a faint jeer in her voice, ‘makes you look slightly suspect, don’t you think?’

  To his astonishment Jodie responds before him. ‘I don’t see that something that happened to me all those years ago, and that didn’t involve Angus, can have any bearing on him whatsoever. That would be unfair.’ Despite his own sense of mortification, Angus is gratified by the conviction of her statement, the dignity of her reply.

  ‘But you’re Angus’s wife, Jodie. And however absent Angus himself was when your daughter was conceived, your reputation is still going to reflect on him. Short of divorcing y
ou – and I really don’t think he’d do that at this juncture – I don’t see how he can hope to remove himself from the equation.’ Susan takes a few sullen sips of her wine. ‘And the way you spoke about that baby just now, Jodie – and the way you told me the whole sordid story – I have to tell you that it gets up my nose.’ Her voice is growing louder. ‘What sort of woman describes selling off a baby – if that’s what you actually did – as something that happened to them. That’s just appalling. It’s not just something that happened to you, you know – it’s actually something you did to someone else, Jodie. Even if you were only nineteen.’

  Angus takes a great slug of beer, a deep breath, glares at Susan across the table. ‘Now look, Susan, I don’t know where this is coming from, but —’ He can hear how ineffectual he sounds, is almost glad to be interrupted.

  ‘Angus, Jodie. I’m really sorry —’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Dave,’ Susan interjects. ‘Don’t be so feeble. We’ve already had this conversation. You’ve told us your version of the story, and we’ve read the statements and articles and, well, it just seems fishy. Why is it that you’re only searching now that the police are interested? What’s going on? It’s been twenty-four years, Jodie. It all seems too little too late, if you ask me. And you might not have asked me, but if we’re such good old friends, why shouldn’t I say what we think?’

  ‘Susan. That’s enough.’ David’s voice shakes. He pulls at his beard anxiously.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’ Jodie is startlingly pale, her lips move stiffly. ‘Actually, I think you’re right, Sue. It is best if people say what they think. At least then we all know where we stand.’ As if to illustrate the point, she pushes back her chair and gets to her feet. She looks at Angus across the table. ‘I think we should go, darling. You get Tom and I’ll meet you both outside. It’s a nice night. We can walk home.’