by Wendy James
‘It’s the baby. Elsa Mary. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Trying to work out what you felt about her. What it must have meant to give up a newborn like that. And I wonder how you feel about it now? Do you wonder who she is, that baby? What she’s doing? Do you wish you’d kept her?’ She asks her questions quietly, looking down at her hands.
It’s a question that no one has ever thought to ask. Jodie fumbles for an appropriate response. ‘Well, I don’t … It’s not … I really try not to —’
‘But actually that’s not really what I want to know,’ Bridie interrupts. ‘The thing is, I feel like I can’t finish this portrait – that there’s something not quite true in the Jodie I’m painting. It’s hard to explain. It’s as if there’s a part of you that’s missing – and I can’t think what it might be. It sounds silly, I guess, but I have to paint what I see – and in a way what I’m seeing is a kind of blankness. And that’s kind of hard to portray. I mean, you seem impossibly together, considering what’s happened. Most of us would be a complete mess in your situation. I know the sort of mess I was in after Iris died. I’m still in it, in a way. And it worries me, your control. And I honestly don’t know how to paint it.’
Now Jodie knows what’s coming. She looks at her friend steadily. Prepares herself. ‘Well, I suppose you’d better ask your question then, Bridie.’
Bridie meets her eye, her own gaze unwavering, her voice clear and cool.
‘She’s dead, isn’t she, Jodie? Elsa Mary. Your daughter. Dead?’
Jodie has signed statement after statement, stat decs, spoken to so many people – lawyers, police, reporters – has told the story over and over and over until she doesn’t have to think before she speaks, doesn’t even really have to remember; it rolls off her tongue like an oft-told fairy-tale, its happily-ever-after ending intact. But there’s another story, too, one with an alternative finale. An ending Jodie has managed to keep hidden, even from herself, for years. But it’s a story that should be recalled, she realises now, a story that needs to be told. A story that needs to be remembered.
It is a relief to finally tell someone – someone who knew her before she became Jodie Garrow, someone who knew Jodie Evans. Bridie, she knows instinctively, will not judge, will understand why it happened. Will understand, too, why she has tried so hard not to remember. Will understand Jodie’s desperation to stop that sad ending – her mistake – from consuming her, defining everything she does, all that she is.
DECEMBER, 1986
The couple – Simon and Rosemary – are waiting, as Sheila said they would be, at the designated pick-up venue: the bottom of the hospital steps. It’s open to the road there, in plain sight and it’s hardly salubrious – there’s a half-dead gum, a bench, an overflowing garbage bin. Jodie has already made two trips to her car, the first to get rid of her bags, the second to shove the baby capsule that Debbie has insisted she take (It’s illegal to drive without one! Just bring it back when you can) into the back seat. So she is carrying nothing but Elsa for this trip. The baby is asleep for once and peaceful, bound tightly by Debbie, who has helpfully reminded Jodie that the blanket must be loosened before Elsa is put in the car.
As Jodie makes her way down the stairs she realises that they are arguing. The man – thin and tall, with a straggly beard – is gesticulating wildly with a cigarette, stabbing it in the air as if to make some point. The woman – considerably older, with coarse grey hair pulled back in a rough bun – looks as if she might be crying. She is shaking her head, her foot grinding into the dirt in an angry sort of dance. They are a grimy-looking pair, unwholesome, somehow. Not sinister, but shabby, their faces tight and pinched, their clothes unkempt, and for the first time it occurs to Jodie that the reasons they have not been able to adopt, through the proper channels, as Sheila so briskly put it, may not actually be due to the inherent unfairness of the ‘system’ but because of some kind of real unsuitability.
Jodie approaches slowly, clutching the baby. She wonders briefly – a forbidden thought! – at the child’s future with this couple; if indeed these really are the people who are to be entrusted with her upbringing. Still, she steels herself – it will be nothing to her, this child’s future. She has done her part; she has given her the gift of life. But from now on, whatever happens to her will be out of her hands.
Jodie would like to imagine that it all went to plan. She would like this to be the memory. She wishes – how she wishes – that she had walked down those hospital steps, the newborn held close, and proceeded confidently to the waiting parents: a young, happy, middle-class couple standing expectantly beneath the shady branches of a flowering coral tree, the light dappled beneath, the traffic a dim and distant rush. The young woman a Burne-Jones style of woman, say, generously built, her hair long, skin glowing, but with a serene motherly core apparent to even the most casual of observers. And the man – she imagines him in his late thirties, clean-shaven, his jaw square, his expression earnest, perhaps slightly melancholy (the unspoken sorrow of his own sterility, she surmises). They watch her approach – yet it is not her that they’re watching so avidly, but the squirming bundle that she holds before her now, like an offering. Their faces transform, moving from some undefined anxiety to radiant joy; they’re almost quivering with the anticipation of delight, and she rushes (but careful, careful – she cannot trip, not with her, their, precious cargo) and the transfer is made easily, in one seamless movement from her arms to theirs. The woman takes the child to her chest with a half sigh, half moan, her expression rapturous now, the man radiating his own speechless pleasure. And Jodie’s giving is without qualms, without doubt – for these are the people who will love this infant as she should be loved, as all children should be loved: they will nurture her, make her life secure, give her the sort of privileged childhood that Jodie herself has only ever dreamed of.
And she – the newly unburdened Jodie, all her anxiety stripped away; the heaviness of her breasts, her uterus, the ache and sting of her heart and her body, this too miraculously gone – she is as she was: young, without care, pure. A child herself, really, with a boundless future – unsullied by regret or trauma – ahead of her.
Instead, in the other story, the real story, Jodie’s steps falter as she comes closer to the couple, whose argument has become louder, more bitter.
‘No fucken … can’t expect me …’
‘… be mad. I told …’
‘… didn’t want … hardly …’
‘… need to … baby …’
‘… fucking stupid …’
The man, virulently accusatory, the woman supplicant, entreating, but both full of a suppressed violence, an anger that Jodie is only too familiar with: simmering, easily triggered, volcanic, the culmination of endless grievance against the world and its treatment. She waits on the steps, hoping that they will stop, look up, that something will change – that this impossible couple will disappear and then reappear magically altered and she will be able to continue her approach with confidence, that she, they, will be welcomed.
Elsa has woken, perhaps noticing the sudden lack of movement. She is squirming in her blankets, her face crumpled, her limbs making little convulsive jerks against her bonds – she will be crying, needing to be fed any moment.
Jodie cannot hand the baby over to these people. She cannot go back up those stairs and into the hospital: Sheila has said that she must not contact her again, that her part in the transaction is complete. It must be as if they had never met. But this will not do. These people will not do. Luckily, they still haven’t noticed her; she can creep in the opposite direction before they see, make her way to the car.
She walks numbly across the tarmac car park, seeing her future lying in ruins. She will take the child back to the flat – there’s nowhere else to go – and pray that Sharon hasn’t arrived back earlier than expected. She can ring the hospital from there, see if they’ll give her Sheila’s home number, tell them she asked her to stay in touch.
&nb
sp; She unlocks her car – somehow amazed that she is still capable of doing something so ordinary, so everyday – and tries to work out how the capsule is meant to fit. But it’s impossible – something vital is missing. She gives up and straps the whimpering baby into the bassinet, careful to loosen the wrappings and tighten the velcro band, then manoeuvres the entire contraption, heavy now, from the back to the front passenger seat. She anchors the capsule as best she can, looping the seatbelt through the handle, plugging it in. It’s better than nothing, it will have to do.
She stops the car only once during the long trip home, pulls off the highway into a side street to feed the child, ravenous now and screaming. The baby resists the cool formula initially, spitting it out, but she crams the teat into her mouth, persisting even as the child cries harder. She needs changing: Jodie can see the damp patch creeping up her little singlet, but she leaves it – it’s too awkward in the cramped space, and she doesn’t want to linger. She is desperate to get back, though there is no real comfort in heading back to the flat. But she feels certain that once she has made some sort of return to her own life, however slight, she will find a way to sort out this mess, a way to resolve things.
She pulls back out onto the highway again, the baby lying contentedly now, her eyes flickering, her little mouth opening in a curiously adult yawn. Jodie doesn’t think; just drives, slowly, steadily, always conscious that the baby is not safely strapped in.
It is almost midday when she arrives. She parks outside the flat and sits for a moment in the car, conscious of her aching body, her tiredness. Her heart is pounding too quickly, her limbs are heavy and aching, her head throbs. She is shaking – it feels like the beginnings of a flu, but with an additional dull pain coming from her breasts, which have swollen into two rock-like masses. Her breasts are hot, too – emitting a radiant heat that rises up her throat, into her face. Sheila has told her that she needs to keep regularly expressing the milk, warned that there is a possibility of infection otherwise, that she should see a doctor immediately at any sign of a fever. That she would find some comfort – oddly enough – from cabbage leaves laid over the hot flesh.
The baby is sleeping in the capsule, pink-cheeked, her breaths in and out making a faint whizzing sound. It seems simplest to just leave her there, undisturbed, while Jodie takes her bags inside. She unwinds the window a little way, and pushes the door shut as quietly as she can, locking it behind her.
She collects the mail from the box on her way in, flicking through the pile quickly. There is one letter from Angus, she recognises his handwriting immediately, and the others are bills, mail for Sharon, her university results. The flat is cool and dark and tidy inside – the blinds are down, the windows closed, just as she’d left it. She calls out to make certain, but there’s no answer. She flicks on the hall light, makes her way to the kitchen, which is spotless – all the benches clear, the sink empty; only the same few cups she’d left drying on the draining board. She taps on Sharon’s door, calling out again, before pushing it open. Sharon’s room is in its usual chaotic state – clothes strewn over every surface, papers and books, make-up – just as she’d left it. As Jodie had hoped, expected, the flat is empty – she is alone. She goes to the lounge room window, where there is a clear view of the car. She cannot see the baby, but the street is quiet; surely nothing can happen on such a brightly sunny day.
Jodie is feeling sicker and sicker, has begun shaking uncontrollably. She needs to take something quickly, then needs to work out what she should do next. She goes to her own bedroom. It is tidy, clothes folded, the bed made neatly. She digs around in her bedside drawer, finds some aspirin, munches them down without water, wincing at their bitter lemony flavour, gagging slightly as they coat her tongue, the back of her throat.
She sits on her bed, looks at the mail. She looks longingly at Angus’s letter, but tears open her university results first. She has passed all her subjects – a credit in Biology, distinctions in Sociology and Psych, and as she had expected, a high distinction for her pracs. She picks up Angus’s letter; it is postmarked November 24th – almost a month ago, a lifetime, ago. It is one of those blue airmail envelopes, the paper thin, the envelope unfolding into the letter itself, so she opens it slowly, careful not to tear the sides.
It is only a short letter, and her stomach gives an anxious twist as she begins reading.
Dear Jodie,
You may have already heard – I broke the news to my mum right away, and know what the town ‘grapevine’ is like – but I’ve been offered another couple of months’ work here, with double the pay and the prospect of a stint in the Hong Kong and then the Amsterdam office – when I actually do my degree – and I have decided to take them up on it. I know it’s disappointing and we will have to cancel our week on the coast, as I won’t get home until just before uni starts, but it was an offer I just couldn’t refuse, as it means that my employment prospects will be that much better – which will be good for both of us in the long run.
They are working me like crazy here and I’m finally getting the hang of it, I think! I will probably keep flatting with Martin – though our flatmate Amelia has recently gone home, so things are a little more expensive for now. We’re advertising so hopefully we’ll get someone else soon.
Anyway, had better get this off to you – I know you were hoping we’d be together sooner, but we’ll just have to settle for a good long (dirty?) phone call.
Love, always,
Angus xxx
She is disappointed, yes, but she doesn’t know why the tears should come now, when there has been so much else to cry about. They are not gentle teardrops, but like floodwaters, her eyes streaming, spit and mucus mingling; the sobs are coming from some deep dark place, sobs that come almost like vomit, her body heaving and heaving, convulsively, until she can barely breathe.
When the grief has finished with her she lies spent – her head empty, barely able to see through her eyes – waiting for the choking and hiccoughing to subside. She sits up, looks at herself in the mirror; her face puffy and red, her body slumped and misshapen – thick in the middle, her thighs too fleshy, the absurd munificence of her hard bosom. She sits up straight, tidies her hair, pulls in her stomach. She smooths out the counterpane, thinking. She makes a decision – so easily that she gasps, wondering how it has never occurred to her before. She will use her savings, buy a ticket to London, go to Angus, stay with him for the additional few months. She is not going to lose him; if he will not come to her, she will go to him. Soon there will be nothing to stop her, no encumbrance, nothing to put a check on her whereabouts – she will be a free agent again.
She notices, for the first time, the strength of the sun beaming in through the gaps in her venetians; there is even a bite in the filtered streams of sunlight that transect her arms, her head, her lap. She is still warm from the fever, though the aspirin is starting to take effect, but the day is hot, anyway, and getting hotter.
It is time to pull herself together. She will ring Sheila now and get something arranged as quickly as possible, and if nothing can be done that way, if Sheila’s unwilling to help, she’ll go to the authorities, do it officially, take the risk that there will be some repercussions down the line. By then she will have cleared everything with Angus – all this will be in the past, it will be the past. Forgotten. She goes to the bathroom and washes her face, looks at herself in the mirror, and smiles, really smiles, for what feels like the first time in months.
She stands up straight, squaring her shoulders, ready for the difficult tasks ahead. First she should get the baby out of the car; she’ll probably be awake now. It’s time she was fed, changed. Time Elsa was brought in out of the heat.
Artz-Biz
In a decision that has surprised many in the art world, a portrait of Jodie Garrow, the woman at the centre of a recent police investigation into the fate of her missing daughter, has won this year’s $50 000 Archibald Prize. Regional artist Bridget O’Sullivan’s vision of Gar
row – ‘True Story’ – is a striking contrast to the familiar media representation. The cool, fashionably dressed, blonde-bobbed matron is nowhere in evidence. Instead, O’Sullivan’s impressionistic rendering reveals a much younger version of Garrow, her face shadowed, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Though the brushstrokes are bold, the palette is muted, almost sombre. The figure of Garrow is gently backlit, as if by a streetlight, an old-fashioned metal climbing frame providing the only background feature. But it is the eyes – vulnerable, haunted, yearning – that are the distinctive feature of this portrait; the viewer is compelled to meet the subject’s sorrow-filled gaze.
O’Sullivan, who has twice been an Archibald finalist, says that she hopes the painting will act as a reminder of the complexity of the human condition. Garrow, who attended the opening with her husband and two children, declined to speak to the media, but was happy to be photographed beside the winning portrait (see left). The portrait has been purchased, for an undisclosed sum, by the National Portrait Gallery.
Acknowledgements
I’m grateful for the input of those friends who’ve been so helpful in their reading and for their comments and suggestions: Ann Pender, Jane O’Sullivan, Michael Sharkey, Sophie Masson, Rebecca James, and in particular, Felicity Plunkett, whose eleventh-hour edit really made all the difference. And to my daughter, Abi Shepherd, for her thorough proofreading – who’d have thought that one little book could contain so many instances of the word ‘uncharacteristically’…?
My eternal gratitude to Jane O’Sullivan – whose stupendously generous offer of a temporary home in Newcastle, just in the nick of time, made everything so much easier.
A huge thank you (along with a sigh of relief) to my wonderful publisher Belinda Byrne, who managed to see the novel that wasn’t quite there, and to the brilliant Jo Rosenberg, whose editorial suggestions made this book so much better in so many ways. Thanks are also due to Arwen Summers, for the final touches, to Al Colpoys for the eye-catching cover, and to the Penguin team who’ve all been so enthusiastic and welcoming.