Mothers' Day

by Fiona McArthur

  He gestured to the silver coffee pot. ‘More?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I read in a magazine that too much coffee could be bad for the baby.’ It wasn’t the worst thing she’d turned down, not by a long shot.

  ‘That’s true. The baby can have withdrawals from caffeine after birth,’ he said, as if he knew what he was talking about. For a moment he looked as though he was going to ask something else, then changed his mind. Changed the subject back to Pedro.

  He studied his long fingers, his face tight. ‘Was he good to you?’ She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. It’s a bit late to play daddy, she thought grimly.

  ‘I knew Pedro was gay from the first moment,’ she said to comfort him – unsure why she felt she needed to. She’d been fine, and the truth was it could have been way worse. ‘That was a plus.’

  Iain stared at his hand on the mug, not looking at her. ‘How old are you, exactly?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

  ‘I mean, when’s your birthday? I’ve worked out that you’re seventeen, but I’d like to know the date,’ he clarified.

  She sighed. Okay, maybe she could stop being a bitch, but it was all a bit much to be ‘saved’ by her new dad. Excuse her if the fact that she just might have the backup plan she’d been searching for took a bit of getting used to.

  She sighed. ‘I turned seventeen three weeks ago. Pedro taught me to drive last month.’ She didn’t say she had the feeling it was so she could be the one behind the wheel of a getaway car. She suspected her new daddy wouldn’t like that. Wickedly, she imagined the horrified expression on his face and it almost made her want to say it out loud.

  But what if he threw her out like Nick the Nasty had? Then she’d be back on the street. She’d been desperate to figure out what she was going to do when this baby was born. To have actual plans for the future. This was her chance.

  ‘How long ago did you move into that place? How did you buy food?’

  ‘Five months.’ Get over it, she wanted to tell him. She’d been glad to have a real roof over her head after the park bench.

  ‘I work a few hours at the local drycleaners on weekends, ironing fancy clothes to give myself some cash.’ Pedro had said she didn’t have to pay rent, but she’d at least started an emergency fund for when baby was born. Just in case she needed to run.

  She’d developed impressive skills with an iron at an early age when her mother had first become ill, and that expertise still helped with the bills. Her back had ached, though, lately.

  ‘And the father of your baby?’

  ‘Threw me out when he found out I was pregnant.’ When she looked up she blinked at the cold anger in Iain’s face. She shrugged. ‘It was a good thing, really. Pedro’s turned out to be much safer. It’s okay. I was ready to leave.’

  This time it was she who changed the subject. A little mockingly, but she couldn’t help herself. Thinking about her baby’s father made her angry. ‘So, have you always wanted to be a daddy?’

  He looked at her and she refused to shift under his gaze. But it was difficult. Then he looked away with a smile and said, ‘Yes.’

  That surprised her. ‘So why aren’t you married with two-point-two private school kids?’ She’d seen them, girls with black tunic uniforms and white shirts. Black stockings in the winter and a tie. So up themselves. They always walked by in twos and threes, giving her filthy looks, the street girl. She’d wondered what they talked about. What their homes were like. What their mothers were like.

  ‘My ex-wife didn’t want to adopt and was unable to have children herself.’

  Jacinta wished she’d had some choices. ‘Well, you’re not adopting me.’

  He sat back, looked at her, and then laughed. ‘I don’t have to. I have a copy of your birth certificate and my name’s on it.’ Then he shrugged and smiled. ‘We could try to get on for the sake of your baby?’

  ‘You could just pay for a flat and I could stay there,’ she countered.

  ‘Or you could stay here.’

  Chapter Two

  Noni

  The antenatal class was held in the grounds of the Burra District Hospital. The grass surrounding the two-storey building was brown from the dry summer, and it crunched underfoot as Noni Frost walked across it. Gums reached for the sapphire-blue sky and the roses were ecstatic, blooming like vivid-pink smiling faces against the white walls. Autumn was here, but the warm breath of wind pretended it wasn’t.

  The hospital was a long, early-1900s brick edifice painted white and had three large arches at the centre leading to the administration, kitchen and utility sections. Past those arches, up the stairs or the ancient lift, were the wards. At the end of the corridor the sound of a baby crying drifted down the hallway.

  The verandah tucked under the corrugated iron roof caught afternoon breezes before it soared into an attic. Somewhere, a switch tripped and the security lights outside came on with the dusk.

  Noni glanced at her watch and saw it was six-fifteen. She was late again. She unlocked the door for the new antenatal class and switched on the subtle pan flutes to play in the background. Some of the station hands from the surrounding sheep stations didn’t like the flutes, and she wished she could find a decent relaxation album with a more country-music feel. She shrugged. The boys would just have to try a new experience. Maybe she could get some of Aunt Win’s muso friends to try a low-key instrumental with banjo and harmonica.

  She rolled her right shoulder and grimaced. Trying to bowl overarm in the nets at her son’s Kanga cricket practice made her shoulder feel odd. She doubted she’d get elected as bowler or coach of the year. Hopefully, someone else would volunteer there soon – with a town of five thousand, surely someone was waiting in the wings. Maybe one of the new dads in her class would take it on if she asked them. But she couldn’t do that the first week.

  Actually, she’d prefer to have someone save the maternity service in town, instead. Confirmed today, it was only six weeks until Dr Soams’s retirement. That gave them until April to find a new GP obstetrician or Burra District Hospital would close its labour unit. Not only would the birthing women have to drive to the Base Hospital, an hour and a half away, but some of the midwives would have to find new jobs. And as she was the last midwife hired, she’d likely to be the first out. Noni had only just found her feet presenting these classes and she loved them with a passion, but unless a new doctor was found, this could be her last group.

  She inhaled the light scent of lavender as it wafted past her towards the screen door of the little outbuilding where she took her classes, and tried to relax. Noni wished she’d started the music in her headphones earlier for her own stress relief. It might have helped the first-night butterflies as well.

  The entrance door scraped open and she turned to see a tall, painfully thin woman standing uncertainly in the doorway. Dressed in ripped jeans, heavy black boots and a black singlet top that stretched over her baby belly, she looked like a rapper about to go into labour. Noni didn’t recognise her, which was a little unusual, as she’d done all her schooling here, so she knew most families. This woman looked like she was in her late teens or early twenties, so not that far from Noni’s age, and she would have remembered those distinctive dark eyebrows under the thick fringe of kinked almost-blonde hair. Noni made a quick calculation based on the size of the girl’s stomach and decided the she’d be lucky to finish the classes before her baby was born.

  Hopefully, she’d be able to give birth at Burra before the maternity ward closed for births. Noni clamped down on the negative thought and moved towards the newcomer.

  ‘Hello. I’m Noni, the antenatal teacher.’ She smiled encouragingly and waited for the woman to offer her name.

  ‘Right place then,’ she said, and pushed her protruding stomach past Noni to enter the room until she could lower herself slowly into a chair with a soul-weary sigh. It wasn’t a good start. Noni decided the young woman might be young
er than twenty.

  Noni blinked and turned to follow, intrigued by the way the girl had tied an untidy knot in her long hair to keep the strands at the back away from her face, rather than use a hair tie. Noni had never seen anybody do that before.

  ‘I gather this is the antenatal class?’ The deep, rich tones came from behind her, and Noni found herself spinning back towards the new voice. This time, she blinked for another reason. The man in front of her screamed city-slicker, not something they saw a lot of in their working-class town, and he appeared at least ten years older than the girl he followed.

  Disconcertingly, he stood a good foot taller than Noni – it made her think of a skyscraper, but they didn’t do skyscrapers in Burra. A really tall tree, then. Unconsciously, she straightened her spine and jutted her chin. ‘Yes, it is.’

  I do not have an attitude about my height, she reminded herself. ‘Good evening, I’m Noni. I facilitate the antenatal class.’

  She’d made the pretentious introduction coolly on instinct. The guy could stop traffic, if there’d been traffic in town at this time of night, with his carved cheekbones and startling blue eyes. Quite the alpha male – her least-favourite type – and she didn’t have a thing for new dads-to-be. Especially older, condescending ones who made her feel like a garden gnome.

  She gestured towards the names in the attendance book on the table. ‘If you could write your name on the name tags for the first couple of weeks, I should have all your names sorted out in my head by week three.’

  She smiled her heck-I’m-blonde smile, but he didn’t smile back. Crash and burn. She gave a mental shrug. Sense of humour missing there, too.

  She watched him add the last two names, Jacinta and Iain McCloud, as late entries – so they were married. His writing stood starkly uniform and perfectly positioned on the stick-on label. He took one for his wife.

  He carefully placed his own name tag so it sat squarely on his pocket. Clearly, the man was a control freak. Noni smiled to herself and turned to the next couple walking in the door.

  Chapter Three

  Jacinta

  Jacinta surreptitiously scanned the room for anyone, apart from the short chick at the front who seemed to be running the show, who was somewhere near her age. No-one else was. Either this hick town didn’t have anyone pregnant under twenty or it had a class somewhere else with normal people, where you didn’t take your new freakin’ parent. This just got worse and worse.

  Her back ached in the stupid chair because they’d driven southwest all day, and once they’d left the city it had been all rocky hills, sheep and brown rivers to this hole of a place. She turned her head and narrowed her eyes at the man who had dragged her here as he sat down. She’d been working herself up all day.

  It was all his fault.

  His fault her mother had had to slave herself to death.

  His fault she’d had to live on the streets until she’d hooked up with Pedro.

  It would have been so much more sensible if he’d left them a fortune in his will and died instead. Preferably years ago, like her mum had always told her.

  Jacinta’s eyes stung and she screwed up her face hard to stop the stupid tears from falling. Since he’d found her, she always seemed to be on the edge of tears. Why now? She’d vowed to stop the blubbering that seemed to engulf her every time she thought of her mum and that horrible breathing before she died. The day when the only person in the world who’d really cared about her had floated away while everyone else had celebrated their mum.

  Somewhere inside, she suspected that maybe the floodgates had opened because, despite Iain being the biggest pain in the arse, she did feel safe for the first time since her mum had gone, and she finally had the luxury of grief. But this was ridiculous. She didn’t want to cry so she replaced the choked throat with seething anger towards this man beside her and felt her emotion stabilise into fury again.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d gone with him when he’d turned up at Pedro’s door that morning. The opportunity to hear about her mother; to find out what she had seen in this man to begin with; and the possibility of being in a better place when her baby arrived were all factors. Plus there was the worry that Pedro’s drug dealings were becoming more dangerous. If he didn’t get himself killed he’d end up in jail, and where would she be then? Not as safe as she was under Pedro’s protection, that was for sure.

  So, when Iain had arrived and promised her a nice flat and food, she’d gone. She almost wished she hadn’t because this guy acted like a freakin’ school teacher, always watching her in case she ran away. But she wouldn’t run. Not yet, not until after the baby was born anyway. She owed her baby that safety at least. She had wanted to visit Pedro and tell him she was fine, but as soon as she’d suggested that, the next thing she’d known she was in Iain’s car and they were speeding away from the city.

  So here she was at freakin’ antenatal classes in the back of woop woop, waiting to fatten up like a turkey for Christmas. Not that she’d ever had a turkey for Christmas.

  Jacinta glanced at the poster on the wall of an unborn child nestling inside a Madonna-like mother’s uterus, and sighed as her gaze returned to her father. The way he made executive decisions like, ‘We are heading to the Riverina for the rest of your pregnancy’ annoyed her. With his bossiness, she couldn’t see what her mother had seen in him apart from his looks. And his money.

  That was the point, wasn’t it? If you had money you had control. If you didn’t, you were screwed.

  That insane apartment on the harbour reminded her of an art gallery, not that she’d let him see it intimidated her. He was already too full of himself. Too much ‘my way or the highway’.

  How different her life would have been if he’d known the consequences of that one summer he’d had with her mother.

  ‘We’ll start soon.’ The little blonde at the front had set the chairs out in a complete circle around the room, even across the front whiteboard, and Jacinta tried to settle beside Iain. Be the good girl in class, Jacinta thought.

  Her father leaned towards her. ‘Try to look a little less like you’ve been sentenced to the gallows, Jacinta. You might even enjoy this.’

  She opened her eyes wide. ‘Why, thank you, wise one.’ Really? Who was he kidding?

  They stared at each other, clashing looks, and finally Iain looked away.

  This sleepy country town was the last place she wanted to be, but she wasn’t sure what constituted a better place to be in her disaster of a life. And apparently, her new ‘daddy’ was terrified she’d run back to the Cross. She’d heard him talking on the phone.

  They’d only stayed two nights in his posh flat. And hadn’t that been awkward’r’us, with Iain watching her, until some doctor friend of his had suggested they travel out to this quiet country town and disappear until the baby was born. Just as soon as she’d had an ultrasound and some blood tests, which she hadn’t realised you could get on such short notice. They’d also done some shopping because her clothes weren’t up to his standard. She’d rather have banked the money if he wanted to spend it, but the next best thing to do was to buy what she wanted and he hadn’t blinked at the cost.

  It appeared that her pregnancy care would be good with this Dr Greg Soams. Considering she hadn’t had any till now, theoretically it could only improve.

  From the moment they hit the long stretch of country road, Jacinta could feel the loss of her freedom; the familiarity of the city slipping away. The brown hills, the gum trees everywhere, the heat of summer still in the air despite the fact that it was autumn weather in Sydney. It had taken five hours to arrive at the big white guesthouse on the hill this afternoon. Her room overlooked an old-fashioned town, apparently a thriving goldrush centre in the past, but now the wide empty streets echoed and strange bird and animal sounds closed in on her. Then, once unpacked, they’d been strong-armed in the nicest possible way by their hostess, to enrol for tonight’s course.

  Jacinta had never been outside Sydne
y and here even the cars were different. Bullbars full of headlamps on the glut of utes and men wearing cowboy boots made her feel like she’d woken up in a country music festival. And those never-ending brown paddocks with sheep. Sheep? She was no Little Bo Peep, though the lambs were cute. But what the heck was she doing here?

  She watched her father smile politely at a couple as they sat down next to them. The man, dressed in his RM Williams shirt and elastic-sided riding boots, produced a small soft pillow and nestled it in the small of his wife’s back. Jacinta suppressed a groan and looked cynically towards the door to see how many more doting couples were coming, when she noticed her father’s gaze caught again on the little blonde educator.

  The chick was running through her book-and-nametags spiel again, and Iain’s eyes seemed glued to her face. Jacinta tried to see what he was seeing. The educator’s eyes and mobile mouth seemed too large for her heart-shaped face. Dressed in hospital purple scrub trousers and a gumnut baby T-shirt, she looked young and short. The top of her head would be lucky to reach up to Iain’s shoulders. She was no supermodel, that was for sure.

  Jacinta sighed again and hoped the classes weren’t going to be too airy-fairy.

  Chapter Four

  Noni

  ‘Welcome, everyone. As I said when you came in, my name is Noni Frost and I’m one of the midwives in the maternity unit here. You all have nametags, so we’ll skip the “who I am and why I’m here” bit. Most of us know each other, anyway.’ She smiled at the sighs of relief from the room.

  ‘Unlike school, everyone is here because they want to be.’ Noni found herself looking at the McCloud couple. The girl studied the cracked linoleum floor and the man stared right back at her with a sardonic lift of one black eyebrow. Maybe not you, buster, but we’ll pretend it’s true. She looked away to the eager faces in the class and felt herself relax.