Small Joys of Real Life

by Allee Richards

  I’d been so anxious to hear from him it felt like I had morning sickness again. I exhale reading his reply, but, like running cold water over a burn, the relief doesn’t last. I wish I’d waited the two weeks. It was an easier awful feeling, worrying about Fergus. Now I’m back to feeling shaky and unhinged, thinking about Travis. Wanting him to contact me. Wondering if I should message him. Wanting to know that he registers my existence.

  THE BABY KICKS me throughout the day, harder now. It used to be a fluttering, like swimming legs. Now it’s like someone pushing me in the back, but coming from within. I joke with the girls that my baby is angry with me already.

  ‘That’s a good sign!’ says Sarah.

  I’m breathless. One of the midwives told me to go for short walks every day. I’m light-headed before I even reach the end of the street, so I walk around the apartment. I constantly knock into things. The bench. The doorframe. I open a drawer and it hits my belly. Sleep doesn’t happen in large blocks anymore. I wake every hour, needing to shift position, unable to breathe or with my legs cramping. I wish I had a job, so I had something to distract me from my physical pain, but also thank God I don’t have a job. I catch hours of sleep at any moment I can. This is what I imagined labour would be like. Walking in small circles, intermittent sleep and moments of relief. It’s close enough now that it’s harder for me to avoid thinking about giving birth. I sit on the floor of my room with no pants on, spread my legs in front of the mirror and watch my vagina contract as I push. Sometimes after I do this I feel buoyed, ready to punch labour in the face. Other times I collapse on my bedroom floor, breathless and bereft. There’s an episode of Friends where Rachel, Monica and Chandler watch a birthing video. Rachel can’t look; she’s too scared. I’m scared of the aftermath, the permanent damage to my body described in the book of essays Annie gave me. My body is like an elastic band. The pregnancy is stretching it out, out, out. After the birth it snaps back in but slackened, beaten. Never back to what it was. I’m afraid of that, but in a sickening way I’m looking forward to the main event. I’ve attached a symbolism to my being ripped open. I see it as something that will change me irrevocably, marking the fact that this part of my life is over.

  Annie and Sarah come with me to a birthing class at the Abbotsford Convent. It’s run by a woman who looks to be in her early forties. I figure this is deliberate: they need someone who’s given birth more than once, but not someone who did it too long ago. Other women here are with their male partners, except for one lesbian couple. They smile warmly at Sarah and Annie and me and it feels like we’ve been accepted by the coolest girls in the room. We learn about labour, the signs you’re going into it, false labour, how to tell the difference. Sarah takes notes. We’re handed plastic models of cervixes and pamphlets on breathing techniques. We’re encouraged to make a birth plan and given a long list of things to consider – drugs, positions, comfort items. We’re told to make sure our support person is familiar with the plan as when we’re in labour we won’t remember our own names, let alone a plan.

  ‘Just as there’s no right or wrong way to give birth,’ the facilitator says to the class, ‘there’s no wrong way to provide support. Just do your best and listen.’

  Sarah rolls her sleeves up when the pamphlets come our way.

  At the end of the course I feel bored and frustrated, like I might as well have attended a workshop on what careers our children should pursue after school. Like acting, there are different methods of giving birth: Lamaze, Bradley, Alexander, Lecoq, Meisner. I’ve decided I’ll approach labour like I approach acting – don’t think too much, just do it.

  We eat delicious pasta at the convent for dinner. Sardines and currants with soft, chewy house-made fettuccine. The girls share a bottle of red and for the first time in a while I crave alcohol. I allow myself one glass. I smile smugly at the waiter who pours it and will someone from the birthing class to walk by and see me drinking. I barely touch it, though. Just two sips make me feel blurry and I feel guilty.

  After dinner Sarah gets a digestif and then a Scotch. I order dessert. I get up to pee at one point, leaving my friends at the table. I stay on the toilet for a while after I’m finished. I take my phone out, always on private call mode now, and phone Travis. Hearing his voice on the other end of the line brings me a strange comfort. I’ve taken to calling him in the early hours of the morning. When he answers, it’s always the same. He says hello, and when I don’t say anything back he says it again. I stay on the line, silent, with the overwhelming feeling that we’re both thinking about Pat and also that I’m possibly losing my mind.

  ‘Hello?’ he says now. There’s silence and I will him to say it again.

  Then I hear the bathroom door open and I quickly hang up. I usually let him hang up.

  A second later I hear Sarah’s voice, loud and echoing against the tiles. ‘Eva?’

  ‘Coming.’

  ‘Do you need help getting up?’

  Since finding out that Travis’s song is about Pat, I’ve been feeling the same as I did when I first found out he died. One step removed from everything, hardly aware what I’m doing from moment to moment. But, still, I find myself splitting the bill with my friends, driving them both home, asking what they have on tomorrow and saying goodnight. I think I’m acting fine, although I don’t feel fine at all and I wonder if my friends can tell that something has changed. If they can, I reason, they probably assume it’s the pregnancy.

  THERE’S SOMETHING I HAVEN’T ADMITTED to you yet. It’s about Virginia, the one with the striking face and thick eyebrows, who you taught to make passata. After I saw her comment on your Facebook page I clicked on to her account and trawled through her photos – looking for you, obviously. But there was nothing I hadn’t already found on Travis’s page. There’s a photo of the three of you sitting on bikes in front of a suspension bridge over the Merri. You look sweaty and lively. Her smile is wide, her face alight with laughter.

  Underneath, you had written:

  Fitzroy North Riders.

  Virginia had added:

  Watch out.

  After your death Travis had gone back and added:

  Riders for life.

  Virginia echoed:

  For life.

  I googled her and found she teaches yoga at a studio in Brunswick. I searched the studio’s website and found photos of her looking sweaty but content, with lean, sinewy arms. Missives of health and wellness under the photos. The reason I’m mentioning all this is that very early on – you were dead, I knew I was pregnant, but I hadn’t told anyone – I went to one of her classes. It sounds insane, but it wasn’t really. It was just a yoga class. I scanned the studio’s timetable, found out which classes she taught, then booked myself in for her next session, which was at three o’clock that day. I arrived at the studio and told the woman at reception that I was there to do Virginia’s class. She told me Virginia was not in that day and that she would be taking the class instead. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I told her. She was one of the first people I told. She reassured me she would let me know if any positions weren’t safe.

  I wasn’t sure what I was trying to achieve by stalking Virginia, but I guessed that the reason she wasn’t at work was because she was too upset. Can’t teach a yoga class crying.

  I did the class. I held my body in ways it didn’t want to go until my muscles wobbled, all the while trying to breathe on command, and I decided then that you had left her. You broke her heart once, now twice. I wondered if maybe your relationship didn’t work out because you were too sad.

  I never went back to the yoga studio. I didn’t try to find her again – although occasionally I look at her online.

  AFTER THE BIRTHING class I had a dream about being in labour. Virginia was there, coaching me through the contractions. She held my hand and told me to feel my body and be in touch with it. She exhaled with me, loud and breathy. She told me if one position was uncomfortable, I was welcome to change. I woke suddenly from that dre
am, gasping. It was morning. For a while I lay in bed and imagined you being my support person. I tried to envisage you rubbing my back and counting through contractions. The image was absurd. We were never at that stage of comfort with each other. I wouldn’t be having the baby if you were here. We wouldn’t have been doing this together.

  Just for a moment, I felt relieved that you’re dead.

  FOR THE REST of the day I looked at photos of you, my old favourites. Comforted that they still made me sad.

  March

  I’M IDLY LOOKING ONLINE FOR baby clothes when my phone rings. I almost answer without looking at the caller ID, expecting it to be Mum, as she usually phones me in the afternoon. Luckily, I see the name shining across the screen before I do – it’s Kate. I drop the phone like it’s something hot. Stare at it vibrating on my floor. I never actually had to tell her about cutting my hair, as I was growing so much bigger she wasn’t able to book me for more work anyway. No more banks wanted young, smiley mummies. I’ve only heard from her once since the ad aired. A blunt, smug text saying she can’t believe I’d give up real work to do that. I don’t intentionally let the phone ring out but am paused in shock so long that it does. A moment later I get a voicemail alert.

  Her voice is irritatingly comforting, like hearing a familiar pop song I once hated.

  ‘Eva McMillan, you need to call me back.’

  The wave of affection I feel for her surprises me. This was the same message she always left, no matter what the reason for her call.

  I ring her back right away. I know if I think about it too much I’ll get nervous, psych myself out of speaking to her. And, anyway, I’m bored.

  ‘Eva McMillan.’ I hear an intake of breath; she’s smoking.

  ‘Kate Gascoyne.’

  ‘How’s life on the other side?’

  Other side of acting or other side of womanhood? I’m not sure which she means. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘For a brilliant actor, you’re a shit liar, you know.’

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure, Kate?’ She doesn’t like to get to the point.

  ‘You’ve been nominated for a Logie for best supporting actress. For your work on the miniseries.’

  ‘Supporting actress?’

  ‘I know, right? It’s, like, just because you don’t have balls you’re a support – and you’ll never guess who’s nominated for best male talent.’ And on she goes. It’s hard to get her to stop talking. Before she can finish a thought, she starts another, so when she finishes her second point she then has to circle back to the original subject. I go to the spare room and refold the baby clothes in the drawers – not because I need to, but because it’s something to occupy my hands.

  ‘So, why the fuck did I call you? That’s right, the nomination. You have to accept it.’

  ‘Do I get any money if I win?’

  ‘No, just honour.’

  ‘Oh, well no, then. I won’t accept.’

  There’s silence on the line, but for breathing. She’s exasperated or smoking, probably both.

  ‘It just seems pointless. I’m not acting anymore.’

  ‘You know the production company will be able to get more money if they have more nominations.’

  ‘Even nominations for a supporting role?’

  ‘Don’t take it too personally.’ Her tone softens.

  There must be a reason why Kate is keen for me to accept the nomination. It reflects well on her too, I suppose.

  ‘How are you, anyway? Are you eating?’

  ‘I’m eating a lot,’ I say.

  ‘How are you paying for it?’

  I surprise myself with how candid I am now. I admit that I think I couldn’t get a job because I’m recognisable.

  ‘They probably thought you were only wanting something between gigs.’

  ‘If only everyone knew how shit being an actor really is.’

  ‘So, does this mean that once you’ve popped that pound of meat out you’re going to want some work from me?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Or maybe yes.’

  ‘No or maybe yes.’ She laughs, then coughs, gravelly, down the phone.

  ‘I want to work in casting.’ If it weren’t for this fact, I doubt I would’ve answered Kate’s call. I’ve been trying to gear myself up to ask her about it for weeks.

  I hear her sucking on the end of her cigarette. She’s quiet for so long it reminds me of my calls to Travis, listening to him breathing down the line.

  ‘So,’ she says eventually. ‘Little Miss Rock-the-Boat comes sniffing around for a job.’

  I want to remind her that she called me, but I resist. It’s the best approach to take with Kate: blunt and ruthless.

  ‘I can’t get you a job in casting,’ she says.

  ‘Can you get me anything?’

  ‘How fast can you lose your baby belly?’

  ‘I don’t want to act. I would be good at casting, though. I know a shit actor when I see one – I’ve worked with enough of them.’

  ‘You have to hate actors to work in casting.’

  ‘I do! I do!’

  ‘You hate yourself. It’s different.’

  When I’d first told her I was quitting the agency she told me I loved myself too much.

  ‘Can you help me, please?’

  ‘Don’t sound pathetic, child.’

  Before we hang up, she asks me a few questions. When I’m due. Who will take the baby if I go to work and how soon after the birth do I think that will be. Questions that are actually feelers for her helping me out. Kate hates everyone, but she’s also always willing to help anyone. She is a horrible and helpful friend.

  A FEW DAYS later I get an email from her.

  Accept the Logie nomination. If you want to work in any part of the industry, accolades help.

  MY CLOTHES DON’T FIT, AND I need something to wear to Annie’s thirty-under-thirty award ceremony. I ask Sarah if I can borrow the black dress I wore to her work party. She says yes then turns up at my apartment wearing it.

  ‘I’m going to borrow something of yours,’ she says. ‘Do you still have that gold dress?’ She takes my old pre-pregnancy clothes from the wardrobe. Tries things on and we remember times I wore them. Nights we got particularly drunk or high. I make us cups of tea and she asks if I have any gin.

  ‘You took all the booze in the move,’ I remind her.

  She settles on a pair of bright blue, high-waisted silk pants and a white shirt. It was an outfit I wore to auditions because it was sophisticated and flattering, feminine but not overly. It was something of a uniform so it’s weird seeing it on Sarah. Like I assume she’s going to act differently now that she’s in my clothes.

  We meet Annie and James and James’s parents at a restaurant in Carlton. Annie looks beautiful. She’s had her make-up professionally done and she’s wearing a shiny black coat that’s long and angular like her. I didn’t want to ask Annie if her parents were coming down from Queensland for this, but I’m not surprised to find they’re not here. Most likely she didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness of having her mum and dad here together – an awkwardness I imagine would be heightened around Ian and Maureen, who are intimidating in their competence as a family. I wouldn’t put it past Annie to have kept the news of her award from her parents. Her determination to remain modest is deranged at times.

  Ian and Maureen greet me excitedly. Maureen touches my big belly as she kisses my cheek. James introduces Sarah.

  I’m using the bathroom when they order pizza for the table. Nobody remembers the pregnancy food rules, which is fine, as tonight isn’t about me and we’re all tired of my condition anyway, me most of all. I enjoy eating pizza with layers of salty prosciutto and big wads of milky mozzarella. Everyone else drinks wine, and when the bottle is empty Sarah orders a second one. Annie looks at her watch.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll scull it,’ Sarah tells her.

  ‘Do you know any of the other people receiving the award?’ I ask Annie.

  �
�I went to uni with one of them, but I haven’t seen her in years.’

  Annie’s unenthusiasm puts me off asking any more about this friend’s work.

  The restaurant is busy. The walls and floor are stone and the space is echoey. It gets busier as we’re eating and we keep having to repeat ourselves to be heard. James’s mum asks me when I’m due and what hospital I’ll be going to. ‘Are you girls going to join her?’ She looks from Sarah to Annie. The way she words it – join her – makes it sound like we’re going on a holiday.

  ‘Fuck yes!’ Sarah shovels almost half a slice of pizza in her mouth. She keeps her wineglass in her hand, not bothering to put it down between sips, or gulps, I should really call them. Maureen asks her about her work and her life. Sarah answers and when Maureen runs out of questions, there’s silence. Sarah doesn’t ask her anything back. James’s dad gently tosses his credit card on the small dish with the bill at the end of the meal. I offer to pay for myself, but he refuses.

  We walk to the university campus after dinner. I spot a few tired-looking students leaving the library, vacant, stoned. Students who study like others party. Go hard and go long, don’t go home.

  The large function room where the ceremony is to be held is filled with rows of chairs and there are plinths in the corners of the room with tall vases of flowers. The decor is dull and unattractive, something between a ceremony and a conference. Annie leaves us to go sit with the other awardees. The rest of us file into a row and sit down.

  ‘Where’s the free piss?’ says Sarah.

  ‘I think that’s afterwards,’ I say.

  ‘This looks boring.’

  ‘You’ll live.’ Although I don’t usually mind Sarah’s social negligence, tonight I’m not in the mood to indulge her. Before the proceedings officially begin, she leaves to use the bathroom. As she’s walking across the room I notice, already, a slight wobble to her. She probably drank a bottle of wine to herself at dinner. When she returns she plonks down in her chair. A few seconds later she sniffs deeply. I look at her and see she’s rubbing her fingers over her nostrils.