by Brandy Scott
‘Bloody hell, Melinda,’ Nick said, as his knees buckled. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’
No one at the newspaper had been surprised when Aimee quit. Everyone at home, however, was horrified.
‘But you love writing,’ said Melinda. ‘This is your dream job.’
‘And after you gave up your degree and everything,’ fretted her mum.
‘Won’t you miss the city?’ said her dad.
But Aimee didn’t want to go back to the city. She wanted to stay at home, where she felt safe. She took casual work picking grapes with the local grey army — no responsibility, no worry about messing anything up.
‘But of course you’ll go back to uni now,’ said the retirees, ex-teachers mainly.
‘Take a few months to clear your head and give it another bash,’ advised her dad.
‘Careful,’ said her mum. ‘You don’t want to get stuck in bloody Hensley.’
But Aimee refused to listen. She shook her head when Melinda suggested joining her in Europe, turned down the university when they offered her another place. Nick’s parents put a note up in the pub asking for help with the harvest. Aimee wore low-cut vests and short shorts, her figure shapely from all the manual labour, her cleavage brown. Melinda had never had breasts.
Aimee started hanging round the house at the end of the working day, having a few glasses and listening to Nick rant. ‘You don’t have to bugger off to London to be a success. You don’t have to have to go overseas to have a career. There’s lots you can achieve right here.’
Aimee refused to comment, saying she didn’t want to be disloyal, and began working on the reception desk at the local dentist.
‘All your potential,’ wailed her mother.
‘Straight As and you’re reminding people to floss?’ said her father.
But any woman Nick married would need to have a job. He spoke approvingly of other winemakers whose wives worked in town. Teachers, shop assistants. ‘A safe second income.’ Because he had so many dreams, about buying more land and planting new varieties. Turning his father’s hobby winery into something commercially viable. They’d need other money coming in. Aimee allowed herself to be poached by the local GP for a twenty-five per cent pay rise. A bit more responsibility than she was comfortable with, but it seemed worth it.
Yet by the time Nick finally asked Aimee out, the nervous checking had returned. Only small things: phoning patients to make sure she’d told them the right appointment time, repeating Dr Malcolm’s requests back to him. But with it came the worry that the whole circus would start up again. That her thoughts would start looping like a Ferris wheel and she wouldn’t be able to shut them down.
She downplayed it to Nick, said the job was making her a little anxious.
‘I’d hang in there,’ he said. ‘The money’s good. You won’t make that anywhere else in town.’
Aimee had said she’d try. They’d only been dating a few weeks; she didn’t want him to think she was a nutter.
‘Good girl,’ he said, and took her to Adelaide to celebrate the end of the vintage.
At the surgery, things got worse. Aimee began taking children’s temperatures in the waiting room, in case of undetected meningitis. She rubbed in sanitiser after every patient, to her elbows, so she didn’t accidentally pass something on.
‘You keep using that stuff, you’re going to have no skin left,’ Nick joked as he held her poor, chapped hand at the movies on their fifth date.
Dr Malcolm gave her a written warning after she turned up at a patient’s house to check they were taking their medication correctly.
‘I’m sorry, Aimee,’ he said, ‘but there’s a line.’
But it didn’t matter because by then there were actually two lines, blue, at the end of a stick. She was pregnant.
The frame was clearly her mother’s work. More puffy gingham — apple green this time — surrounded by white rickrack and hardened pearls of escaping glue. Lou picked up the photo and sat down heavily on Tansy’s bed. Are you enjoying this? she challenged the picture. My turn, to deal with the hard decisions and the wilful pregnant teenager? You’d say it served me right, if you were here. But the photo contained no secret messages. Just her exhausted, overwhelmed mother, looking improbably young. And baby Lou herself — red and angry, but perfect. The right number of chromosomes, all doing what they should.
Tansy had stuck a similar maternity-ward picture of herself and Lou up on her new bulletin board. Lou reached over and unpinned it, held it next to the yellowing seventies shot, comparing. Would Tansy’s baby have the same features? Would it even live long enough for them to take a photo like this?
‘Mum?’ Tansy appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking nothing like any of the Henderson women. Her eyes were slits from crying, her face blotched and puffy. Lou braced herself for the explosion — Get out of my room, stop going through my stuff — but it didn’t come.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Sorry, love. I can’t stop looking at it.’ Lou glanced down at the photo again, trying to figure out why it bothered her so much. Was it because her mother looked human for once? Scared, uncertain. Like Lou felt, but couldn’t let Tansy see.
‘Are you wondering what my baby will look like?’
Careful, Lou. ‘Well, of course I am. Everyone does.’
Tansy shuffled further into the room, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. ‘I don’t want to have the test,’ she said.
‘Tansy —’
‘But I will, on one condition. Well, two conditions.’
Her chin was jutting forward — another family trait. Lou had a sudden flash of her own pregnant self, telling her parents what she would and wouldn’t do, her mother laughing in her face at the gall. Like you’re in any position to dictate terms. You’ve got two choices, Lou had been told. If it goes, you can stay. And if it stays, you have to go. ‘Tell me,’ she said, patting the doona beside her.
Tansy continued to stand. ‘If there’s anything wrong with the baby, we don’t tell anyone. Till it comes.’
Till it comes. Lou took a silent breath through her nose.
‘Not Aimee, not Melinda, no one.’
‘And?’
‘And you don’t try to talk me into getting rid of it. No matter what. You need to promise.’
‘Why don’t we wait and —’
‘I mean it. Or else I’m not doing the test.’
The second ultrasound had been inconclusive; the baby was still too tiny to give up any of its secrets on the screen.
‘Promise?’
Lou nodded.
‘Say it.’
As though Lou was one of her school friends. ‘I promise.’
‘And no googling. No freaking ourselves out.’
Lou had already used up half her phone data, finding out all she could about what they were facing. She pulled herself awkwardly up off Tansy’s bed. ‘No googling,’ she agreed. ‘Good idea. No need to drive ourselves any crazier than we already are.’
Tansy hugged her, hard. ‘Thank you.’
‘But, Tansy, you and I need to have a proper talk now. You have to tell me everything.’
The cut above Nick’s eyebrow wasn’t deep, but it was long — a good two centimetres where the tip of the umbrella had caught it, the skin had split over the bone. ‘I think you might need stitches,’ Melinda said, as she dabbed at it with a makeup-remover pad.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Nick. ‘It’ll be fine. Just stick a band-aid on it.’
‘Like I’m the type of person who has a first-aid kit.’ But she did, under the sink, bought in anticipation of inspection by Claudia Lang. It even had tiny butterfly plasters. ‘Hold still,’ Melinda said, as she doused the cut in isopropyl, careful not to get any on the furniture.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Nick. But he didn’t move as she carefully pulled the edges of the wound together, just breathed deeply as she worked the plaster up and over. His breath still smelled the same, of mint and carrots.
Melinda moved her face so it wasn’t so close to his.
‘Nearly done,’ she promised, working as gently as she could. ‘There.’ She sat back on her calves, pleased with her own practicality. ‘Who says I’m not bloody maternal?’ The skin around the plaster was slowly turning purple, all the way to his hairline. ‘You’re going to have one hell of a bruise though.’
‘Bugger,’ said Nick, as he struggled to sit up on the sofa. Melinda pushed him back down, her palm on his chest. There was a dizzying sense of déjà vu with the gesture, a sense that it should be followed by her swinging a leg over him, straddling him on her Irish-linen couch, kicking the carefully coordinated neutral cushions to the floor. Melinda pushed herself back up onto her feet instead. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she said, as she made her way over to the sink.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I came to sort out your store cupboard.’
‘Your boxes were all over the place,’ he’d claimed, as she helped him off the floor. ‘I noticed when Byron and I carried your stuff up the other day. I was scared one of them was going to fall on you.’
‘But why now?’ Melinda said, as she washed his blood off her hands. ‘Surely you should be home with Aimee, given everything this morning.’ She placed a beer on the coffee table next to him. ‘Careful, don’t knock that.’
‘I’m giving her a bit of space,’ he said. ‘Besides, I wanted to talk to you.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh, come on, Mel, what do you think? Aimee! What’s going on with her?’
Melinda wandered back into the safety of the kitchen. ‘You know, I’m not the one you should be —’
‘Because it’s not just today. She’s been really twitchy.’
‘Twitchy?’ Melinda pulled her head out of the cupboard. ‘Why, what’s she done?’
‘She’s edgy. Preoccupied. A bit like —’
‘Like what?’
‘Like she was before.’ Nick grabbed the bowl of nasty cheese puffs she held out. ‘Awesome, you still buy these.’
‘Yeah, I developed a taste for them.’
‘I’m worried it might be coming back. The panic stuff.’
‘She hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘About what?’
His fingers were yellow with fake cheese dust; she passed him a paper towel. ‘Get that on my sofa and I’ll kill you.’
‘Do you know?’ he said. ‘What’s going on? Has something happened?’
It was weird, discussing Aimee with Nick. Uncomfortable. Usually there were three of them, or four, or more. The protection of a crowd. These days, on the rare occasions Nick and Melinda were alone, they talked about safer subjects. Business. The economy. And back in that golden period when they were often alone, they sometimes didn’t bother to talk at all.
Melinda fiddled with a coaster. She didn’t want to be disloyal. But on the other hand —
‘She’s stopped taking her medication,’ she said finally.
Nick paused, cheese curl suspended in midair. ‘Shit.’
‘Yeah, I didn’t know either, till Lou mentioned it.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last year, I think. A good few months ago, anyway.’
‘So this could be about anything.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a habit Melinda had once found disgusting, but that now seemed raw and masculine. Her stomach flipped.
‘Anything or nothing.’ She stopped herself from reaching over, wiping a glowing smear of cheese dust from his cheek. ‘Anything and nothing. You remember.’
‘Bugger,’ he said, but softly. He shuffled forward on the sofa, his leg inches from where Melinda sat cross-legged on the floor. ‘What do I do?’
‘Talk to her?’ Don’t talk to her.
‘Do I make her go back on her medication? I mean, can I insist?’
Melinda leaned back, head resting on the sofa next to him. The day was just starting to lose its heat. Wine o’clock. Melinda had a sudden urge to get crazily, irresponsibly drunk. She took a swig of Nick’s beer, her lips cool on the glass where his had just been.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he said, as she took another. His old pet name for her. Her ginger curls. Or giraffe, as he also used to call her, because of her freckles; his giraffe. Nick was the first man to make her feel truly beautiful.
Melinda set the empty bottle down on the floor. ‘Shall I get us some more?’ she asked. Nick looked down at her, considering. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
Half past six, and still no family. Aimee stared blankly out into the vineyard. At some point over the past few days, Nick had put the nets out; the vines were swathed in funeral-black mesh. A row of rosellas glared accusingly at her from a wooden fence: How dare you spoil our fun? But their high-pitched chatter was the only sound. Aimee pulled the window shut. Normally the nets reminded her of Halloween, cheap fun-fair spookiness that didn’t scare anyone. The kids used to play hide and seek among them; Aimee and Nick had had sex under them even, for a laugh. Not any more.
He could have asked her to help. It used to be a family activity — Nick slowly driving the tractor, her and the kids feeding the nets out of their old wool bales, pulling and straightening, shouting ‘stop, stop’ when things got tangled. It was good, therapeutic work. Rough on the hands, and you finished up a bit stiff. But there was a satisfaction in it, of knowing you could ease off after this. The berries had begun to change colour, the training and spraying had been done. All that was left was to keep them safe and watch them grow. Like pregnancy, after the all-clear scan. But Nick hadn’t even mentioned he was doing them. He clearly didn’t expect her to take an interest.
There was a warm softness at her ankles; the cat twined between them, meowing pitifully. ‘Oh, Oscar,’ said Aimee. ‘You’re the only one who cares. And you don’t even like me that much.’ She bent down to pick him up, but he slipped out of her way. ‘Come here, show me some love.’ Maybe she could curl up on the sofa with a good Netflix series and a glass of wine. Or something stronger. There was still half a bottle of vodka in the freezer. ‘Fancy it, Oscar? I’ll mince you some chicken livers.’ As she was supposed to be doing anyway, for the cat’s IBS. ‘I can tell you what the BS stands for,’ Nick had said when he heard the vet’s diagnosis, but Aimee was secretly fixing the special food anyway, or at least when she remembered, and it did seem to be helping. ‘Some of us just need a bit of extra care,’ she told the cat. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that.’
Oscar lifted his tail and shat on the bottom of the curtain.
‘Oh, you’re kidding me.’ Not an accident in weeks, and now he decides to have diarrhoea?
The cat looked at her unapologetically, then scooted his bottom along the floor, leaving a pale brown trail on the wooden boards.
‘No!’ cried Aimee, as she chased him into the kitchen. ‘No, Oscar, outside.’ Another small torrent was released under the table, where the cat was trying vainly to hide. ‘Oscar! Outside!’ The phone rang as she shooed, trying not to get too close to the sticky mess that was Oscar’s backside. ‘Out!’ She nudged him with her bare foot as she grabbed the receiver. Oscar bit her toe in retaliation. ‘Ow! SHIT! What?’
‘Is that Aimee Verratti?’
A broom would do it. Oscar yelped as he was brushed onto the back porch. ‘Maybe. Yes. Unfortunately.’
‘It’s Damien. Damien Marshall.’
Aimee slammed the door shut behind her incontinent cat.
‘From the ATSB? We met a few days ago. At the accident site.’
A clatter as she dropped the broom. ‘How did you get my number?’
‘You guys are in the book.’
‘I didn’t think I’d told you my last name.’ She bloody hadn’t.
‘I asked the receptionist at the police station. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them about your tail-light.’
‘That’s quite an invasion of privacy, don’t you think?’
‘Is it? I didn’t mean to be creepy. I only wanted to say how sorry I wa
s. And check that you were okay.’ He sounded genuinely concerned. ‘Are you? Okay?’
Aimee looked down at the trail of cat shit tracking across the kitchen floor. ‘Not really, no.’
‘No, I didn’t think you would be.’ His accent was broad. It made everything he said sound a bit like laughter. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
He was the only person who’d phoned to see how she was doing. No one else had called: not Lou, not Melinda. Aimee gave a little shudder at the thought of Melinda, who would be horrified by this conversation.
‘I could try and make you muffins in our crappy communal microwave,’ he said.
Melinda, who had virtually blackmailed her.
‘Or I could fix that dodgy tail-light. If no one else is going to do it for you.’
Aimee looked around her silent kitchen. ‘Could you meet me?’
‘Now?’ Flustered. So he didn’t mean it then. Was just enjoying the banter. Fair enough. ‘I can’t right now. We’ve got to get some preliminary notes together, now that the accident is . . . well.’
It was probably for the best. Nick wouldn’t love it either.
‘But I could see you tomorrow.’
Aimee felt her heart rate pick up, a familiar flutter of nervous energy in her chest. Warning signs. But someone had to do something.
‘How about lunch?’ he said. ‘I’ll buy you that muffin. Safer.’
Melinda was going to kill her. ‘Okay, but in Meadowcroft. Not here in town.’
‘Really?’ She could hear him breathing, his voice closer to her ear somehow. ‘Sure, we can do that. If that’s what you want.’
‘Thanks. It’s just off the —’
‘I know where Meadowcroft is. That’s where we’re staying. The Princess Royal Hotel? They do a good chicken parma. Why don’t I meet you there?’
Honesty, Lou told herself firmly, as she carried their mugs out onto the back step. It was the only way. She’d encourage Tansy to be honest with her, and then Lou would tell her the truth in return. As she should have years ago.
‘Ew, yuck,’ said Tansy, brushing off the concrete. ‘Someone’s been smoking and flicking their butts into our backyard.’
