AFTER THE GIG the others are heading to Joe’s Shoe Store for a knock-off. I decide to go home. Annie insists on joining me for the bike ride and I insist she doesn’t. She and James stare at me hesitantly.
‘I’m fine,’ I tell her, emphatic. I shout goodbye to the rest of our friends, who are already walking south down High Street, and they wave. Travis just holds his hand up like someone stopping traffic. I smile, he doesn’t.
I don’t know if Travis knows I slept with Pat. I figure it’s most likely he does – they were housemates and good friends. What Travis can’t know is whether I’ve slept with anybody else since sleeping with Pat. Or whether I slept with someone the day before I slept with Pat or the day before that. All he can know is that it is possibly Pat’s child. But he may not even know that. Maybe Pat never mentioned it.
I coast slowly through Northcote’s quiet back streets, and when I arrive home I continue riding a few laps around the block. I love cycling on warm nights. Something about a mild night makes it feel safe to be out late on my own after dark. I let the warm air soak into my skin. I cruise through my neighbourhood and remind myself I’m not trying to fool anybody. I’m just hoping my friends will agree not to know.
At home in bed I write several messages to Travis that I don’t send.
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT YOU I can list.
You were twenty-eight – one year older than me.
You were born in Warrnambool. You liked your hometown a lot more than I liked mine.
In primary school you sang Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’ for show-and-tell and were told that show-and-tell was about showing something: you were meant to bring something to class. You never participated again.
You studied environmental science at Melbourne Uni. You met Travis there and he was your best friend. The two of you were living in Fitzroy North when you died.
I’m not sure where you worked and whether it was related to the environment.
The best things I know about you are what cannot be listed. Like that you were attractive in a way that is hard to distil. You were a strawberry blond, freckly boy with crooked front teeth and translucent eyelashes.
I hardly thought anything about you the first time I saw you, but I liked you more each subsequent time.
I HOPE IT’S a boy so he looks exactly like you. I want him to have that sheen of kindness about him.
I DON’T KNOW when your birthday was. I don’t know what your parents did or when they moved to Warrnambool. I don’t know what they’re doing now. I don’t know their names. I don’t know what music you listened to in the last few years of your life. I don’t know where you went to high school. I don’t know how you met Travis, who studied creative arts. A few years ago you used to post photos of tables on Facebook Marketplace, you’d built them yourself. Sometimes when I’m scrolling through your old Facebook profile I find things that don’t fit with the image I’ve created of you. You didn’t go to a party in your first year of uni dressed as a terrorist – you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t! I imagine asking you about these things. There is some justification that makes it okay. Or you admit to regretting it. We talk about being young and dumb and exchange our most mortifying memories.
SOMETIMES I THINK about what you must have known about me. You knew what I studied and where. You knew I got a TV role straight out of drama school. You knew I hated acting. You knew where I lived. You knew the sheets on my bed were forest green. You knew most of my friends, but not very well. Did you know that I love ambling through museums alone? And going to the movies on a weekday? Did you know how much I love the people around me, my mother and Sarah and Annie?
It was obvious how much you loved Travis and that made me want to love you.
Sometimes I’m thankful that I don’t know some things about you because I think if there is less there then it will be easier to forget. I want to forget you. I want to be old one day, with an adult husband I love in a daggy way, and to not remember you.
THIS IS WHY I hope it’s a girl. So there’s nobody left who looks like you.
I KNOW YOU have three brothers. I’ve no idea where they live. I’ve never been to Warrnambool and I don’t foresee ever going.
THERE’S ONLY SO much, and for only so long, that you can control a child’s life, and that is a very small amount. Maybe one day our baby will have a friend whose family lives in Warrnambool. There will be some family event and the child is allowed to bring a friend along. Our child goes to this gathering and your parents are there and they will see our child at six or seven or eight years old – the image of you at that age. Their breath will catch in their throats and they will blame the grief.
ANNIE COMES OVER DURING THE week to find me on the couch groaning into a pillow. She asks what’s wrong.
‘I think I’ve broken a rib.’
‘Maybe your baby kicked you,’ she suggests.
‘I don’t think it does that yet.’
‘Your ribcage is growing.’ Sarah left the room when I started speaking and now she’s back, book in hand. ‘It expands to make room for your uterus.’
I keep thinking I’m breaking and then being told it’s normal. The other night I spat bright pink toothpaste into the sink – apparently I can expect my gums to bleed.
When Sarah finds the correct page she reads straight from it. ‘You can get an exercise ball to stretch or you can go for a walk.’
‘I’m too tired to walk.’ I shift delicately on the couch.
‘Don’t worry, Daddy will buy you an exercise ball.’ Sarah puts What to Expect down and picks up her phone. This is a joke inspired by the book – it opens with a short acknowledgement that not all support people are partners and that not all partners are male, then continues to refer to ‘tips for Dads’ for the remainder of its pages.
KATE TEXTS TO tell me she has a role in an ad and suggests we meet up in the city to discuss it.
This is unusual. Normally she’d just call with the details of an audition. I ring her, but she doesn’t answer. All day I wait for her to ring me back or message, but she doesn’t. In the evening I text back to ask where and when we should meet.
The following morning, I lie in bed wondering what to wear. The mound is small enough to cover with a long shirt. It’s small enough that an unobservant person wouldn’t notice it under tight clothes. Kate will definitely notice: my body was part of her product. Technically it still is. She might just think I’ve let myself go since I quit acting. This time spent deciding is rendered pointless when I start to get dressed and realise none of my tighter clothes fit me anymore. I can’t button up any of my pants. In the end I wear a loose jumpsuit. Such a pregnant thing to wear, I think. Women on TV wear jumpsuits when they’re pregnant.
I take the train into town and stare out the window. I’m anxious, but still I manage to enjoy the journey over the Merri. The railway is raised, the carriage gliding through foliage like a giant, slow bird. Below, the creek cuts a thick line, brown and crooked, through the parklands. They could charge tourists to come on this part of my trainline.
Approaching the city, I start to feel anxious. I’m nervous about seeing Kate, of course, but also it strikes me how long it’s been since I left Thornbury. I hardly even leave the house anymore. I put a hand to my abdomen, steadying myself.
I’m meeting Kate at a small sandwich shop on Flinders Lane. Walking down Swanston Street from the station I stare at all the people I don’t know. It’s as though I’d thought that, returning here, I’d recognise everyone, but I don’t. Obviously I don’t. I pass one small express supermarket after another. A 7-Eleven that I swear I’ve never seen before. But when I try to think back to what was there I can’t remember. McDonald’s and supermarkets and 7-Elevens. A four-block radius, copy and pasted over and over until you hit Carlton.
I spot Kate through the window of the cafe. She’s on the phone, gazing outside. Her mouth pops open when she spots me. She looks happy and I relax a little. When I approach the table she stands and gives me a ki
ss on the cheek.
‘My most troublesome star.’
Kate does this. Refers to me as hers.
When she pulls back from the hug she looks me up and down.
‘Are you pregnant?’
I feel the muscles in my face shift, hovering between a smile and gritted teeth. I sit down.
‘Is this why you quit?’
‘I quit before I found out.’
‘I was expecting you’d have a haircut.’
‘What?’
‘I thought you might cut your hair so then I couldn’t use your headshots.’
‘I thought telling you I quit would mean you wouldn’t use them.’
‘What are you going to do for work?’
‘Tell me about this ad.’
‘There are sets with day care. If you get on a long-running series.’
‘I didn’t like acting.’
‘Nobody likes their job, Eva.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Especially not me.’ She looks smug and disapproving.
No pleasantries – we start straight in on my decision to quit acting and we stay there. Kate knows and hates everyone in the industry. Usually when we spoke, she would spend ages bitching to me before we got to the point. The fact that she’s not doing this now confirms for me what I already suspected – that she is bitching to everyone else about me. Despite this, she seems genuinely concerned for me and wants to help, but all her help is related to getting me to act again, which, to be fair, is probably the only thing she can do for me.
When the waiter takes our order, I say I’m fine. Kate orders herself a steak sandwich, following up with, ‘What do you have that’s vegetarian? She’ll have that.’ As we wait for the sandwiches she looks at me, stern. ‘You’re as pale as a sheet, Eva. Are you taking care of yourself?’
‘I’m trying.’
The sandwich is heavy. Oily bread, falafels the size of golf balls, cheese, garlic sauce, salad. ‘I thought agents were meant to force their actors to be skinny.’
‘Don’t examine it – eat it.’
This is why I’d tried to quit over the phone. When I’m with Kate in person I can’t help but obey her.
Over the food we finally talk about the ad. It’s for a bank. It’s one line. One day’s work. It pays well.
‘I’m not sure what this is going to mean now.’ She points at my stomach as she says this. ‘I’ll have to tell them you’re fat. If they’re still interested in you, your first audition is on Friday.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Aren’t you going to be embarrassed doing ads?’
‘Nobody I know watches free-to-air TV.’
When the bill comes, I slide some money across the table. She pushes it back at me. ‘You’re still my client.’
Before going home, I detour via Bourke Street Mall and buy myself some new clothes. Plain, sensible work slacks that are appropriate for a bank interview. I’m still in Myer when Kate texts me.
Turns out they love the fat. Goes with the family vibe of the ad. Emailing through details of audition.
EVERY DAY BETWEEN seeing Kate and the audition, I look at my stomach in the mirror. I stand side on and run a hand over its curve. I don’t mind how it looks. A curve, not yet a bump. So far unmarked. I’m still getting used to my new arms, though. And my breasts. Padding, ballooning. Being pregnant is like living in a horror film. First the thing possessing you tries to escape from your mouth. Then it pushes in every direction, expanding you from every angle. Then the finale, all that blood.
I’M SELF-CONSCIOUS AT the audition. Nervous, despite Kate having told them about the pregnancy. Having an agent is sort of like having a parent. They’re there to have all the difficult conversations so you don’t have to. They also see your life as a little bit theirs. It’s definitely under their supervision.
I get a call-back that afternoon and then another the following day. The day after that I get the role – not despite the pregnancy but possibly because of it. We shoot the following week. My role involves staring at my first new home with one arm around my pretend husband and my free hand on my stomach. Our pretend home is as white and well proportioned as my pretend husband. I look to him and ask if he is ready. The same words are spoken by a woman to her elderly mother as she moves her from her home to a retirement village. And by a little girl to her friend as they sit on their bikes at the top of a steep hill. Apparently this bank will help you to be ready for all these stages of life.
Only an hour into the shoot my arm is tired from rubbing my belly so much. They ask me if I can rub it higher.
‘I don’t really have anything higher,’ I say. The pregnancy is mostly in my abdomen right now.
They bulk out my stomach in wardrobe. I rub the pillowy bump and feel indignant on behalf of my unborn child.
It’s one day and well worth the money. A whole four months added to my timeline or a few big-ticket baby items. I feel like a good parent, which is a relief, as most of the day I had flashes of Annie, helping people to navigate the legal system, as I lamely patted my stomach. Not to mention the guilt of the past few days. I don’t know much about banks, but I know they make their money by investing in industries that are cutting my child’s and possibly my own life short. I don’t know the specifics, because I read the headlines and don’t read the articles. I switch off the radio when the stories are about burning coal.
At the end of the day my phone screen is stacked with messages. Annie and my mum are asking how the shoot went and, for the first time since I brushed him off weeks ago, there is also a message on my phone from Fergus.
You sure you don’t want to hang out sometime?
And a message from Renee.
Congratulations you amazing woman!
Sarah had one too many wines and told everyone a few nights ago.
‘Ah, fuck,’ she said, walking to my room the next morning as she remembered, one hand to her forehead.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I get so many messages of congratulations that I wonder why I was so worried about telling people. The thing about babies is that everyone is always positive about them. Even if they’re thinking it’s an awful idea – because I’m single or because big banks invest money in burning coal, which will make the planet uninhabitable in my child’s lifetime – nobody says that. They just say that it’s wonderful.
THE DAY AFTER THE SHOOT for the bank ad, I ring Mum. I try to commit to doing this once a week, but I keep putting it off because I don’t want to talk about anything difficult. There’s a sweet spot I’ve discovered. If I block a few of her calls she’ll be worried enough to be so relieved when she hears from me that she won’t ask too many questions. But if I push that line out too far it comes full circle and the only thing she will ask about is the father and how I’m going to eventually work and take care of a child.
I spoke to her only a few days ago, but I know she’ll be happy I’ve done the ad so I call her now, hoping we can focus on that.
‘How was work?’
‘It was great.’ That’s an exaggeration.
‘Does Kate have any more work for you?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’ She doesn’t.
‘You should ask her for more jobs.’
‘All right.’ I won’t.
‘Are you okay?’
I’m trying to keep this short and shallow. ‘I’m tired.’
‘Of course you are. Have you been reading the book I sent you?’
‘Yes, thanks so much for that.’ I don’t know where it is, but I suspect it’s in Sarah’s room. I change the subject. ‘How are you, Mum?’
‘It’s already so warm here, this time of year makes me want to move to where you are.’
She always says this. And any time she visits Melbourne in winter she swears she would never be able to live here.
‘I went to the council meeting with Ken the other day. They hardly talked about the issue with the run-off pooling into our yard, but Marg
next door said she’s getting her stumps checked.’
Mum’s partner, Ken, has been having this long-running argument with the local council, which has been recounted to me in detail many times.
Mum started seeing Ken after I moved to Melbourne. The efficiency with which she met him after I left made it seem like she was replacing a housemate. I see him once or twice each year and we’re always friendly to one another. I’ve met his kids. But I feel like I don’t really know that much about him. Lately, this issue with the council is mostly what Mum talks about in reference to him. It’s tedious, but right now I am thankful for any topic that distracts her from asking about my life.
‘So anyway, when are you going to stop being a pain and talk to the father?’
I’m not sure if it was her intention to catch me off guard or if she noticed I wasn’t really listening and seized the opportunity to pounce.
‘What?’
‘I just think it’s absurd that you’re not asking him for child support.’
I hang up on her.
I’m surprised at how badly my mum is taking this. We’ve hardly argued or said any terse words to one another since I was a teenager. But I suppose distance has meant that I haven’t had to tell her anything about my life that she would disapprove of in a long time. I’ve always thought of Mum and me as close – you can’t not be when it’s just the two of you – but it’s only lately that I’ve realised we were never open about our feelings. We never talk about my father; maybe that’s why I thought I could get away without talking about my baby’s father. Our version of caring about each other didn’t involve a lot of communication. I didn’t have a curfew like my friends. I was never banished to my room. Mum and I ate dinner side by side on the couch, watching reality TV. I was filling in for her husband, she was filling in for my sibling. Now it occurs to me that if you have to be a little bit of everything for each other, you’re spread too thin to perform any of the roles properly.
Small Joys of Real Life Page 7