Ella arranged and rearranged the furniture with exacting precision; Vivian was firmly reprimanded if he so much as moved a thing.
‘I am not having a messy nursery. Or a messy child,’ Ella insisted, folding baby clothes which had already been folded fifty times before.
Vivian was baffled, he’d never seen her remotely like this before. Pregnancy was turning her into a mystery.
‘Calm down,’ he said, placing his hands on her shoulders.
She shook him off. ‘We’re not the visitors in this house, our child is,’ she growled while aligning a stack of bunny suits.
Vivian stood, unsure of what to do. Ella was rifling through a stack of baby singlets. She grew frantic. ‘Damn, I haven’t got any triple zeros, how could I not! I need a dozen triple zero singlets, right now! Right now!’
‘The shops are closed. Go first thing in the morning,’ said Vivian.
Ella glared at him. ‘They’re the first thing I’ll need when the baby’s born.’
‘You’ve got weeks and weeks yet.’
Ella felt besieged, as though she was standing in the path of danger, about to be shredded by this fast approaching machine called motherhood.
Vivian saw her distress and put his arms around her. ‘Tomorrow morning, we’ll buy a dozen triple zeros.’
Ella wanted to say, ‘This pregnancy is a mistake,’ but instead she heard herself say, ‘They need to be pink.’
‘Pink?’
‘It’s a girl. I had an ultrasound.’
‘Oh.’
32
Vivian walked through the family home in search of his father with Ella two paces behind him. It felt odd to be moving easily through the rooms with the sound of their footsteps echoing around them. Who’d have thought this house would ever echo? And the aroma of freshly painted walls gave a sense of things happening, of a future yet unknown.
The house revealed itself in ways he’d never seen before. Sunlight, warm summer air and a variety of sounds were pouring into the place, washing the rooms. The house was spacious and homely. It took him by surprise, and filled him with sadness. All this had been hidden from them and their mother for far too long.
They found Arnold in the laundry, on his knees, shuffling plastic garden pots. He looked up, slightly confused on seeing a young woman standing behind his son. ‘Hey there,’ he said.
Vivian’s cheeks burned and his stomach rumbled. The significance of the occasion almost overwhelmed him.
Arnold sensed something important was about to happen and stood up, dusted down his T-shirt, and readied himself with a deep breath.
‘Dad, I want you to meet Ella, my fiancée.’
‘Fiancée,’ uttered Arnold feebly. He had a feeling of deja vu.
Ella gave Arnold one of her best-rehearsed smiles. ‘Hello, pleased to meet you.’
‘Ella the dentist?’ stammered Arnold, careful not to add the word pregnant.
‘Sure am.’
Arnold thrust out his hand. To his surprise Ella grabbed it and shook it with both of hers. ‘Vivian’s certainly kept you a secret, Mr Budd-Doyle.’
Arnold laughed nervously. ‘Call me Arnold. Hey Vivian, wake up.’
‘The house is great,’ offered Vivian.
‘Looks like you’ve been doing a bit of renovating,’ Ella enthused. ‘You know I’ve just finished doing a little myself. The baby nursery. Geez! What a mess, but not now. And even though I’m having a girl, I had the room done in yellow. Didn’t want, you know, over the top girlie stuff. Then I couldn’t decide if it was best to have blinds or curtains for a baby. Decisions! So I went for curtains. With curtains it’s softer, kinder on a baby’s eyes. Do you think I did the right thing?’
Arnold stood dumbfounded, but his eyes went to her belly.
‘Ella’s pregnant,’ squeaked Vivian.
She patted her abdomen, ‘Just a speed bump at this stage though, seventeen weeks.’
Arnold tried to do the maths, but things had gone from simple arithmetic to trigonometry. He was tiptoeing on landmines. Best to stop calculating and just be grateful.
Ella sensed Arnold’s confusion. ‘You did know about me and the baby, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, for sure,’ answered Arnold, unable to reconcile the revelation of Ella’s existence and her being pregnant to Vivian, not Gabriel. He shook his head in wonder.
‘Well, are you happy, or sad, about becoming a grandfather?’ demanded Ella.
Arnold snapped to attention. ‘Happy. Very happy,’ he exclaimed, feeling the muscles of his face tighten and his eyes water. He momentarily turned to his pots to try and compose himself.
Ella put her hands on her abdomen. ‘Glad to hear it, I had been thinking of putting her up for adoption.’
Vivian cringed as Arnold swung towards her. ‘Adoption,’ he gasped.
‘Joke,’ explained Ella half-heartedly.
Arnold felt jubilant, confused and relieved, all at the same time. In an instant any sense of betrayal and antagonism he’d felt towards his family had dissolved on meeting Ella and discovering that she did, in fact, bear his grandchild. A granddaughter!
*
Astrid rushed into the bookshop, and spying Gabriel and Penny at the counter enquired, ‘And how are you two lovebirds?’
‘Waiting for you to buy a book,’ answered Gabriel.
‘What would I do with a book?’
‘You could try reading it.’
Astrid chortled, ‘Always cheeky, you are Gabriel. Now, where is your mother?’
Gabriel pointed to the maze.
Astrid found Helen in the Gardening section. ‘Helen, oh Helen, I have such news. Vivian took Ella to meet Arnold. And Arnold is like … like a new man.’
Helen put a hand to her mouth.
‘Arnold told me that he thought she was a wonderful young lady, maybe a bit nervous.’ Astrid paused, and gave a small chuckle. ‘As if Arnold wasn’t.’
‘Isn’t it amazing,’ said Helen.
Astrid placed a hand on Helen arm, ‘And you will never, ever believe this piece of news. Ella is my Doctor Ipp, my dentist! Oh, Helen she is an astonishing woman. And an excellent dentist. Very professional. Strict though,’ said Astrid, wagging her forefinger as though this last detail was the most admirable virtue.
Helen felt reassured that Vivian’s young woman passed not only Arnold’s approval but Astrid’s.
‘Brush and floss or your teeth will rot, is her motto,’ said Astrid, and touching her own teeth briefly as if afraid they might be harbouring plaque.
Helen decided it must be Gabriel’s assessment of Ella that didn’t square up. Clearly, in response to having been jilted, he had taken to denigrating her unfairly.
She felt saddened that Gabriel should adopt such an approach, and in an instant she blamed herself. Maybe she hadn’t been an attentive enough mother when her sons had been younger, hadn’t built up and strengthened their sense of self; hadn’t equipped them for life’s hardships.
Leif’s death had robbed Gabriel and Vivian of her undivided attention. And there was a price to pay for her grief.
*
Ella was at work in her surgery when she recognised the movement within her abdomen. From chapter twenty she recollected the words, the first small flutters of the baby moving.
She tried to ignore the strange sensation as she picked up her probe and dental mirror. ‘Open wide Mrs House. And no biting.’
‘Doctor Ipp, I don’t mean to. I know it’s a dreadful thing to do. Please forgive me,’ the elderly woman pleaded. ‘It’s just when I get nervous, I bite. I’ve told you this before.’
Ella lowered her instruments and considered her patient. It was true Mrs House had tried explaining her problem before.
‘Really? You get that nervous?’
‘Well, I don’t go around biting people for the fun of it. It’s just when I see those instruments so close to my mouth I go into a blind panic, and well, you know …’
Ella remembered previous bitin
g episodes, the effort involved in wrenching Mrs House’s strong and relatively healthy teeth off her hand. Now, for the first time in her young life, Ella appreciated what it meant to go into a state of sheer panic.
‘I understand, believe me,’ she said.
Mrs House leaned forward, and peering at Ella she enquired in a kindly fashion, ‘Are you all right? You look as though you’re going to cry.’
Ella shook her head as the fluttering continued in her uterus.
‘Perhaps it’s being pregnant,’ offered Mrs House. ‘Your receptionist told me you were expecting.’
‘Expecting trouble,’ replied Ella, trying to control the tremor in her voice.
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs House. She paused, and then said, ‘Or is it you who feels like biting someone?’
‘Maybe,’ said Ella.
‘First time round is scary. I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful mother though.’
Ella lifted up her instruments, ‘Right, apart from your kind words, I think we’d better see what else is inside that mouth of yours.’
But on seeing the look of dread on Mrs House’s face she lowered her tools of trade.
‘I think it’s time,’ said Ella ponderingly. ‘To do something about your fear of dentistry. Here, hold these, one in each hand,’ and she presented Mrs House with a probe and dental mirror. ‘Just hold them.’
Mrs House laughed. ‘You certainly are special Doctor Ipp, you will make a wonderful mother.’
*
Stepping outside into the autumn air with its familiar whiff of winter, the promise of rain not far away, Helen felt a sense of things turning. She stood on the pavement and looked up. Clouds were juggling themselves into a pattern as they moved across the sky. Indecisive.
She thought of the people who drifted through her shop and like the sky couldn’t make up their minds. But eventually they did. She stood opposite the shop now, and looked, her eyelids blinking like a camera as she took in the image; a brightly coloured shop with a wide doorway allowing for easy access. No one could doubt it was a bookshop with its large sign and bins of books that were selling for half price out on the street. Dirt cheap.
It was a fine-looking building.
She looked at the jacarandas lining the street. Their leaves had already surrendered their summer colour, were now yellowish brown with tinges of red. Shrivelling up and thinning fast, they fell to the pavement where the wind scattered them.
33
Penny and Gabriel were in love and their romance, though peculiar, had its own poignant beauty.
At night, in the kitchen, Penny wrote while Gabriel talked. As fast as Penny wrote, Gabriel spoke. If she paused to rub her sore hand, he paused to stare at her. If she stopped to eat or drink, he did likewise. If she decided to sleep, he followed her and slept beside her, his body a warm coat that never left her until she woke to resume her ritual of showering, eating and writing.
‘Like synchronised swimmers,’ was Vivian’s assessment of their relationship.
When Gabriel wasn’t in her presence, he always needed to know of her whereabouts as though fearful she might disappear on him. But she gave him no cause for such paranoia. Though he tagged her with a persistence others would find unnerving, Penny had been born and raised in the shadow of another. She was comfortable with his constant closeness.
For Penny such ownership was security and she thrived on it; soon her stuttering began to fade away.
*
Ella was sitting up in bed with her book reading. In chapter twenty-eight she read, Its heart can be heard distinctly by the doctor.
A feeling of terror spread through her. It was a feeling she didn’t comprehend and didn’t want to share with anyone, even Vivian. Her sense of shame forbade it.
She got up and examined her naked body in the bathroom mirror and moaned with despair. The stranger within her was altering her shape.
*
Slow as Razoo was in learning to read, Helen matched his pace with her patience. ‘You’ll be a book reader yet,’ she exclaimed as way of encouragement.
‘It all looks like shit to me,’ he replied.
‘One day it won’t look like shit,’ Helen replied. ‘You’ll be able to read all these squiggly words, and it’ll be good and it’ll all be worth it. Books are wonderful.’
Razoo looked at Helen through smudged reading glasses. The left lens had a crack running along the bottom and was sealed with sticky tape; the bridge was padded with several bandaids. ‘Why are you so crazy about books?’
‘Because they take us to other worlds,’ Helen replied dreamily. ‘We can escape from the humdrum of everyday life. More than that, through books we can engage with the world.’ Although when she looked at Razoo hunched over his tattered Western with his large stained hands slowly moving over the pages she wondered if he would ever make it. Maybe some people were meant to be illiterate.
*
The frog woman with her herd of kids couldn’t get enough of crime. Ten books at a time, she always haggled over the price with Vivian, until she wore him, and the cost of the books, way down. Satisfied with her purchases she would sit and read while her kids bawled, misbehaved and generally drove other customers insane.
Vivian theorised that the woman was hooked on crime because she fantasised about getting rid of her brats. He thought it curious that Helen never reprimanded them. On the contrary, she would run and gather books for them. They were children, she told him, and in some ways reminded her of her own sons when they were young.
One day the woman approached Helen. ‘What happened to that poor fellow who bashed his head and had to be carted off to hospital?’
Helen, momentarily taken aback stammered, ‘To tell the truth, I’m not sure.’
‘Poor man. Dying of a broken heart,’ the woman lamented.
*
Ella was putting the dinner dishes in the dishwasher when she announced to Vivian, ‘I’m renaming my surgery.’
‘Oh?’
‘Tooth Fairy doesn’t suit. It’s dumb. I’m changing it to Tooth ’n’ Nail.’ Ella kicked the door of the dishwater shut.
She was waiting for Vivian to protest, but he was silent. She was angry with him, angry that he should be so lackadaisical about having a baby while her nerves seemed to audibly jangle.
‘I’ve organised new stationery and a neon sign for outside the surgery.’
‘I liked the Tooth Fairy.’
‘You would!’ shouted Ella. ‘I hated it. Tooth ’n’ Nail has got clout, it says I mean business.’
Ella was on her soapbox. ‘As your dentist,’ she proclaimed, ‘I will fight tooth and nail to save your teeth. After all, your teeth are my teeth.’ She paused, as if waiting for her standing ovation.
Vivian searched for something to say. ‘It sounds a little harsh.’
‘Harsh!’
‘Sorry. It’s perfect.’ He smiled convincingly at her, anything for peace.
Soon Ella’s surgery was sporting a huge neon sign bearing the new name, and though it looked subdued enough in the day, it glowered at night.
*
Ella opened her obstetrics book to chapter thirty-two. It was a Herculean task to stay ahead of her ongoing pregnancy. Through narrowed eyes she read, Its lungs have developed and can now support life.
Ella slapped the book shut and threw it under the bed. She could hear Vivian putting the dinner dishes away; he was whistling. He was happy; it was the baby making him happy. She walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. She wanted to express her fears to Vivian but held back. Instead she decided to tell him some other news.
Ella spelled it out to him as though he was a schoolboy. ‘I’ve decided to name the baby Paloma.’
‘Paloma?’ repeated Vivian, mystified.
‘It’s Spanish. It means dove. Pablo Picasso named his daughter Paloma, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’
Our daughter, thought Vivian. Where was his part in this whole pregnancy and
the subsequent raising of their daughter? He decided it was time to fight back. ‘And didn’t Picasso have a lot of mistresses too, right through his two marriages? And what’s good enough for him is good enough for me.’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Ella, but felt thwarted in her attempts to punish him.
34
Jim’s forehead had needed a dozen stitches — a procedure which proved relatively easy for the young doctor on duty that evening in the emergency department as his patient was heavily anaesthetised by the vast amount of alcohol he’d consumed.
Diagnosed with concussion and alcoholism, Jim was accordingly poked, prodded and sent off for a CAT scan, which revealed that he had suffered no damage from the blow to his head but that his brain was noticeably shrunken: probable cause, alcohol. This diagnosis was relayed to Jim as he lay in his hospital bed, heavily sedated so as to control his delirium tremens, and was repeated to him throughout his stay. Miraculously, it sank in, so much so that Jim promised himself to get off the grog. It frightened him witless to think of his brain shrivelling away like a fart.
After a week in hospital and another in rehab, he declared himself to be ‘on the wagon’. Armed with a large bottle of Valium and sporting a bluish yellowish mound on his forehead, Jim made his way back into the Book Maze to make amends.
Sitting in the kitchen opposite Helen he hung his head. ‘I owe you an apology.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said clasping Jim’s hands briefly. ‘Now, you’re dying from a broken head as well?’
Jim lifted his battered head and smiled wryly. He spoke slowly. ‘I took to drinking to fix up my problems. Or forget them. Either way, it hasn’t worked. But I’m off the grog now, for good. See they told me, in hospital, that my brain was shrinking. Sad stuff, because my brain is my most prized asset. I’m still an alcoholic though! And I’ve got to be vigilant if I’m to beat the demon drink — and keep from getting screwed. When you’re an alcoholic, people take advantage of you.’
The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street Page 20
