The Honourable Midwife

by Lilian Darcy

  Nell had phoned her acceptance to Emma’s answering-machine that night, and the other two women replied yes on the spot, although Kit’s acceptance was contingent on her fiancé Gian or her future mother-in-law Federica being available to look after her soon-to-be-adopted daughter, Bonnie.

  ‘Why do we have to help cook?’ Caroline had asked.

  ‘Because that’s the really fun part. I loved the cooking course I took in Paris.’

  ‘But I’ll taste everything, and it’ll go straight to my hips!’

  ‘You won’t have time to taste much. You’ll be making impossibly delicate julienned vegetables and stirring temperamental sauces non-stop.’

  Sunday afternoon was glorious. Emma had shopped for her ‘restaurant’ on Friday afternoon. She’d been late getting off work the previous afternoon, following the drama of baby Alethea’s newly discovered and potentially fatal heart condition, and concern for the baby’s survival still simmered persistently in the back of her mind, dampening her initial enthusiasm for today’s occasion.

  Her months in Paris already seemed like a distant dream this afternoon, and the showing off of cooking skills and new hair and dress completely trivial in a way they hadn’t even two days ago.

  As certain as she could be without further testing that Pete’s theory fitted the facts, Nell had started the drug treatment at once, and it had successfully reopened the rapidly closing ductus arteriosus. This had maintained the idiosyncratic but workable flow of blood through the baby’s heart while an ECG machine had been brought in, confirming the diagnosis of hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

  Arrangements were then made to transport Alethea to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital. She had been scheduled to fly out by plane in the hands of a retrieval team of trained medical people at five-thirty that same afternoon.

  Rebecca had received the news of her baby’s life-threatening heart defect with the same miserable ambivalence she’d shown all along. ‘Is she going to be all right?’ she’d asked.

  ‘We hope so,’ Nell had told her. She’d continued, ‘At this stage, she’ll probably undergo what’s called a Norwood procedure. It’s delicate and difficult, it will take seven or eight hours, and there are only a couple of surgeons in Australia who can do it. She’ll probably need follow-up surgery in a couple of months, and she’ll be in hospital the whole time. Count on three months, I’d say.’

  ‘Three months!’

  ‘I know. But you should realise that if you’d been born with this condition, nineteen years ago, you wouldn’t have lived. The odds are a lot better now for your baby.’

  As usual, Nell hadn’t minced her words. Pete’s face and voice had been softer, but he hadn’t tried to pretty the picture either.

  ‘We’re very hopeful, Rebecca,’ he’d said, ‘but it’s not like waving a magic wand. She may need further surgery over the next few years, and by the time she’s grown up she may need advances in medicine and surgery which haven’t happened yet. And you’re going to have to take a crash course in courage. Alethea can tutor you. She’s already working so hard.’

  Rebecca had given a short spurt of disbelieving laughter. ‘How can a tiny baby work?’

  ‘She can. She has. You’ll see if you watch her closely. She’s survived! You have to believe in her, Rebecca.’

  ‘Can I go to Melbourne with her?’ Rebecca had blurted suddenly. She’d blinked back tears, and there had been something desperate and defiant in her tone. ‘Is there somewhere for me to stay? There has to be! I’m her mother. I don’t want to be so far from her. I couldn’t!’

  These were the words they’d all wanted to hear after their concerns about Rebecca’s lack of emotional involvement, and Emma had spent some time on the phone, making arrangements for Rebecca’s accommodation near the hospital.

  Nell, the first arrival at Emma’s, was in one of her snippiest moods on Sunday afternoon, and perhaps this was partly due to the extra work and worry she’d put in over the past few days with little Alethea.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to bore us with too much detail about Paris,’ she told her friend. ‘There’s nothing worse than having people rave about their overseas holidays. Although I did enjoy your postcards,’ she added, softening her statement a little.

  ‘I’m not going to bore you with any details at all, Nell,’ Emma answered calmly. She was used to Nell, whose bark was always worse than her bite. ‘It’s all experiential and visual. In other words, cooking and looking at my dress. But I want details from you first. Did Alethea’s transport go according to plan? Have you heard from anyone at Royal Children’s?’

  Nell waved her hand tiredly. ‘Let’s not talk about that now.’ Then she took a deep breath and started talking about it anyway. ‘But, yes, she got there. I’ve heard from the cardiologist, Adrian Fitzgerald. She survived.’

  ‘That’s great. A positive step, anyway.’

  ‘They’ve confirmed the diagnosis with another ECG, and they’re doing more tests to map the exact nature of the problem. Every heart with that sort of defect is different. They don’t want any surprises when she’s actually on the table.’

  ‘Heavens, no!’

  ‘They’re planning the surgery for Tuesday. Rebecca has settled in, apparently, and is spending a lot more time with the baby.’

  ‘I can see you’re still concerned, Nell.’

  Nell laughed, then lifted her dark blonde hair off her neck, as if her skin needed air. ‘You know me. Can’t switch off. Would the baby’s chances have been better if I’d looked more closely at that heart murmur straight away?’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made a difference, would it? You focused on her breathing, and because of that she was stronger when she had to travel.’

  ‘I suppose so. If only she’d had better prenatal care and a routine scan, then she could have travelled in utero because we would have known. That would have been safest of all. People don’t realise—’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘OK, we’re really not talking about it any more. Distract me.’ Her blue eyes darted around the kitchen. ‘What’s all this cooking I’m supposed to do? Give me my equipment and my recipe.’

  They began to talk about marinades and glazes, and Kit and Caroline arrived. Caroline Archer was another of the notorious Sydney netballers from seventeen years ago, while Kit McConnell was a newer recruit to the group.

  She had family connections in Glenfallon—a widowed aunt with whom she’d come to live. She and Emma had clicked quickly at work, some months previously, and she’d been a listening ear back then when Emma had needed to talk to someone about her fraught relationship with her stepmother, whose move to Queensland thankfully now looked permanent.

  With Kit’s recent engagement to obstetrician Gian Di Luzio, she’d instantly become a local girl. Emma hadn’t had much of a chance to catch up with her since coming back from Paris, and she was eager to hear about Kit’s future plans. How did she feel, for example, about taking on an adopted daughter as well as a husband?

  ‘Oh, I’ve always wanted children,’ Kit said quietly, with an expression on her face that Emma couldn’t read. ‘I already feel as if Bonnie is mine, and she has no memories of another mother. I know Gian’s mother will be falling over herself to babysit, too.’ She smiled.

  Federica Di Luzio had cared for Bonnie at her family farm for more than a year. The adoption arrangement was new, however—part of Gian’s brother’s realisation that he had to make a permanent decision about his daughter’s future. Mrs Di Luzio, too, had accepted that caring for her granddaughter full time was becoming too much of a strain at her age.

  ‘It’s not as if Gian and I will never have any time to ourselves,’ Kit went on. ‘This afternoon, for example, Gian’s on call and Freddie has Bonnie at the farm. She’ll stay the night, and I’ll pick her up in the morning. After the wedding, we’re going to swap. Freddie will live in Gian’s unit in town, and he and Bonnie and I will live on the farm.’

  ‘Is ther
e a wedding date in your sights yet?’ Caroline asked eagerly. She was a die-hard romantic about other people’s weddings, although her own youthful marriage had ended in divorce some years ago, leaving her with a son who was now eleven, and ‘not even the shadow of a man in my life’ she sometimes said wistfully.

  ‘We’re stalking one, and about to go in for the kill,’ Kit said, picking up on Caroline’s hunting metaphor. ‘Probably mid-November. The fifteenth. Pencil it in, but very lightly. It may still change. We may need more time.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got the dress already,’ Emma teased. ‘So don’t wait too long, or it’ll go out of style.’

  ‘Oh, the Paris designer creation that you wrote about in a postcard?’ Caroline said.

  ‘Put it on,’ Nell ordered. ‘I can’t believe you were so extravagant, Emma!’ She frowned sternly.

  ‘Neither can I, but it was worth every cent. Or Euro, if we’re going to be accurate.’

  ‘Hmm. We’ll see.’

  ‘You will!’

  Emma went to her bedroom, and did the thing properly. Swishy, silky, sparkling, gorgeous dress in dark wine red and black, heeled shoes, make-up she’d purchased and practised with at an exclusive Paris salon, and hair twisted up onto her head with a clip. How was it going to look?

  She approached the mirror with trepidation, and saw the fatal flaw in the picture at once.

  Yes, her ears stuck out. This was her lifelong, tragic secret.

  For years, she’d hated them so much that she’d hidden them behind a thick, tangly perm. The stylist she’d consulted in Paris had been horrified at this, however.

  ‘But, no, they’re cute!’ she’d exclaimed in French. ‘Like a pixie. Believe me, I’ve seen far worse! And for this you keep your hair in that frizz? No!’

  So Emma had obediently let her comfortable, woolly perm grow out and had returned to the stylist at the end of her Paris stay for a hair relaxing and conditioning treatment which had left it shiny and straight, and put her pixie-like-but-not-jug-handle ears openly on display.

  Was it cute?

  Emma took a longer look in the mirror, pressed her ears back against her head, then let them sproing out to their natural position again and studied them. There was no doubt on the issue. They really did stick out, but perhaps the stylist was right. They weren’t nearly as bad as she’d always thought, and she loved all the things she’d learned to do with her new straight, silky hair.

  Having been an absent hostess for more than twenty minutes, Emma hurried back to the three apprentice chefs, whom she’d left slaving over various tasks in the kitchen. The doorbell rang just before she got there, an irritant at that moment. She did an about-face in the corridor and answered it.

  Pete Croft stood on the front veranda, dressed for the weekend in jeans, navy T-shirt and running shoes. His dark green car was parked in her driveway, and Emma saw two blonde moppets bouncing around in the back seat.

  ‘Wow!’ he said, stepping back a pace at the sight of her in the dress. He repeated himself in a slightly different tone. ‘Wow.’

  ‘Oh.’ Having almost forgotten what she was wearing as soon as she saw Pete, Emma looked down, then smiled. ‘I’m showing it off.’

  ‘You certainly are!’ Pete said.

  Damn!

  He immediately felt that he’d sounded crass and suggestive, which hadn’t been his intention. He knew he’d been sending out mixed signals to Emma lately but, then, his feelings were mixed, which made it hard to do anything else.

  ‘To some friends,’ she explained quickly. ‘It’s from Paris. Part of my…’

  She stopped.

  ‘Transformation?’ he offered, trying too hard to be helpful. ‘Glenfallon isn’t used to this level of glamour.’

  ‘Makeover,’ she said, then waved her hand. ‘Hair and so forth.’ She grinned, and looked like Audrey Hepburn, with those two little pink elfin ears. ‘It’s a girl thing. You probably didn’t even notice.’

  ‘I noticed,’ he admitted, his voice rough. ‘Your first day back. And it’s obvious I’ve come at a bad time.’ He turned and they both looked at his girls, who were climbing out the back windows of the car, one on each side. ‘They’ve lost a favourite toy. A turtle. Green and brown, which means it’ll be impossible to find if they’ve left it outside. I was wondering if it might be here, but I should have phoned first.’

  ‘No, come in,’ Emma said. ‘I found a horse. And some aftershave.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, that! That was a gift. I never use the stuff. I’m sorry. As for the horse…’

  ‘A Lego horse. Please, come in, Pete.’

  ‘Um…’ Pete looked behind him again.

  The girls were running around the car, about to get into serious mischief. Emma looked stunning, and for some reason this fact had muddied his thought processes totally. The dress clung to her like a surgical glove, baring her shoulders and her neck, wrapping her curves in a dark, shimmering caress. Her hair sat in a shining twist on top of her head, showing off a long neck and a clean jaw.

  He could hear women’s voices coming from behind her, inside the house. Emma’s guests. Should he corral the girls back in the car and leave?

  His hesitation on the issue was only keeping Emma here on the doorstep, he realised, and wasn’t helping the situation.

  ‘You look after your friends,’ he said, finding his decisiveness at last with a deep relief. ‘The girls can help me look in the back garden, if you don’t mind. I know they were playing with it there. They had a sort of cubby house under the hydrangeas. Fairies live there, too, apparently.’

  Emma laughed, and the sound was made of silver. ‘I had a cubby there as well, about thirty years ago. I’m glad those bushes are inhabited again, because there definitely used to be fairies. I made them little green houses out of moss. Let me help you look.’

  ‘In that?’

  ‘In this.’ She smoothed it against her body with graceful hands, and smiled.

  Pete felt his groin tighten unexpectedly, and his heart give the painful little flip that he was getting used to. He needed moments like this so badly in his life right now—not the physical awareness, but the simple connection with another warm human soul—and there were far too few of such moments. Far too few people talked about fairies, and far too many people laughed purely out of cynicism and derision, never out of warmth.

  ‘The dress’ll be fine,’ she added.

  But will I? Pete wondered, still fighting her effect on him—fighting the part of it that he didn’t want, the part that proved his unflagging maleness at a point when that sort of vigour had nowhere to go. He was still technically married to Claire, his life still tangled with hers because of the girls. He wasn’t free in any sense.

  He called Jessie and Zoe and they tumbled into the house. He’d had a lot of trouble explaining to them why it wasn’t their part-time home any more, and this visit would probably confuse them all over again, despite Emma’s presence and her possessions reclaiming the space.

  His heart gave another uncomfortable jolt in his chest. Where was home, for his daughters?

  This was supposed to be Claire’s week, but he’d had Jessie and Zoe since Thursday, when she’d announced over the phone, ‘I’m too busy after the Canberra trip. I’ll drop them off in half an hour, with their gear. There are some important developments that I have to take care of. People are depending on me, and I can’t stop. I’ll collect them again when the project is finished.’

  What project? Had she received a promotion?

  She’d evidently packed in a hurry, too, because she’d stuffed their backpacks full, and added an extra suitcase, but many of the items she’d included weren’t things he imagined the girls could possibly need. Their best dresses. The complete set of books in Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ series.

  In contrast, there’d been a dearth of underwear and socks, and he’d had to buy the girls some new ones. He didn’t have a key to their marital home any more and, as he’d said to Jackie, he
and Claire avoided talking to each other whenever they could.

  On the way through the kitchen, out to the back garden, Pete encountered Nell Cassidy, Kit McConnell and a woman he vaguely realised he’d seen around at the hospital but didn’t know.

  ‘Dropped toy,’ he said. ‘Cooking smells good.’

  They weren’t staring at him, but they probably wanted to. He wished he hadn’t come, and knew he’d counted far too much on finding Emma alone and getting an offer of coffee, or even a beer. Why hadn’t he phoned?

  ‘Hello, Pete,’ Nell said, then added, ‘You were right, Emma. The dress is gorgeous. You just need a white Rolls Royce to go with it.’

  ‘I’d prefer a red Ferrari, I think.’

  ‘A Ferrari is always a good look. The colour combination would be interesting, with that fabric.’

  ‘Tell me later, in detail, guys. For now, I’m helping Pete to look,’ Emma said, in his wake.

  She was an incredibly good sport about it once they got outside, taking off her heeled shoes to pad around the garden in her bare, pretty feet, dress hem lifted daintily off the ground.

  ‘Iridescent purple would have been a more useful if less realistic turtle colour,’ Pete drawled.

  ‘I know. It’s not here,’ Emma said, emerging from behind a forest of suckers which had sprung up beneath an ancient lilac bush.

  She sounded a little breathless, and when she stooped to keep her piled, glossy hair from catching on an overhanging branch, Pete got an unintended glimpse…more than a glimpse…of the enticing shadows and slopes below the neckline of her dress. He took in a sharp breath, fighting to control his response.

  They couldn’t find the turtle. The girls stopped looking and started playing under their favourite bushes. It was definitely time to go. What was happening here? Why was this illusion of closeness, harmony and friendship springing up between himself and Emma again?

  He’d given in to it the other day, telling her far more than he’d intended about his problems with Claire. He’d regretted his loose tongue almost at once. There was no place in his life right now for a female confidante. He had his sister for that.