The End of Cuthbert Close

by Cassie Hamer

  ‘Ah, I would.’ Alex put up her hand. ‘And I already do, remember?’ She patted Beth’s arm. ‘I couldn’t survive without your meals.’

  ‘But I do that because you’re my neighbour, and I hate you paying me, you know that,’ Beth protested. ‘Besides, I don’t think I’d have time. There’s the children to think of …’

  ‘Haven’t you been saying for a while how little they need you, and how you now have time for more in your life? This could be it.’ Alex tapped the table with her index finger.

  ‘It’s actually a great idea,’ said Cara. ‘But a business like that could take ages to make a profit and I’m sort of desperate.’

  Alex nodded. ‘I know it won’t make you a million overnight, but it’s a start. Every dollar will count, after all, and it’s not like you’ll need extra equipment to begin with. Between us, we have three kitchens, which should be more than enough to get you going. And Beth has her deep freezer for storing meals. C’mon, you should at least think about it.’

  Cara took in Alex’s eager face, her shining eyes. Her neighbour had such faith, such confidence.

  Squid ink pasta.

  The thought popped into her head. People were like dishes, in Cara’s view – a dash of this and a pinch of that, which, when mixed together, made a complete dish. Alex was brave and challenging. Also surprising. Silky black pasta. Of course.

  Beth gave her a sympathetic glance. ‘Cara already has a lot on her plate, what with Poppy, and her own work. She might not have the time.’

  Beth? Beth was a bowl of hearty pumpkin soup. Deceptively simple, always comforting.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ Cara went to collect the near-empty mugs, which now contained nothing more than little pools of muddied vanilla ice cream. A meal delivery business wasn’t the worst idea. Far from it. But just how quickly could she get it up and running? Not quickly enough to buy Cuthbert Close from the Parry family, but perhaps enough to start paying higher rent. Absentmindedly, she dipped in a spoon and licked at the remnants. She loved that aspect of cooking, how it was the chef’s prerogative to lick the spoon, scrape the bowl, dip a finger. All the secret tastes. Everything and nothing.

  I am not one particular dish … I am the bits and pieces that are left behind.

  In the years since Pete’s death, she’d prided herself on her strength. Her resolve. Her commitment to being there for Poppy and avoiding useless self-pity. She had her way of handling things and that way was through cooking. It was the perfect distraction from her emotions because it required total focus. Complete immersion. No doubt that’s why she’d suggested making the mug cake to Beth and Alex. It was a diversion from having to deal with the fact that death had once again stalked into her life and threatened the stability she so desperately craved.

  Picking up the scourer, Cara started scrubbing the mugs in the sink while the other women chatted behind her. She would think about it later, once they were gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alex settled in to the waiting room chair and tried to relax. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation, Dr Vin had managed to squeeze her in at short notice, which was nothing short of remarkable. She was an incredibly popular doctor and what Alex remembered of the waiting room from when she was pregnant with the twins was that it had been consistently full of bumps and babies.

  Oh, how she had looked longingly at the neat little basketball bellies that other women grew, and the sweet, doll-like babies that emerged from them. Surely, after the emotional and physical roller-coaster of IVF, Alex deserved one of these perfect, pretty pregnancies and a set of matching cabbage-patch babies?

  Sadly, the fertility gods hadn’t agreed and had gifted her with a body that bloated beyond recognition and two little boys who were skin and bone, consistently ravenous, and very cross about it too.

  Alex shivered. Nothing about this waiting room had changed. Bumps and babies abounded, all against the background of mint green. Chairs, carpet, the walls, the reception desk – everything tinged in a colour that was no doubt supposed to be soothing but only served to remind Alex of baby puke after pureed peas. A gentle yet twisted sign to the mums-to-be of all they had to look forward to.

  Alex sat across from the only other splash of colour in the room – a poster on the wall that read ‘Are you getting enough folate?’ and featured a food basket, overflowing with bread, broccoli and various legumes.

  She made a mental note to buy more supplements and started flicking through her phone to the emails she needed to forward to Cara and Beth. After the cooking session with the girls, Alex had gone home completely buzzed. A catering business was the perfect solution for her neighbours. At 11 pm, Alex had sent out an email to the other working mothers she knew through the twins’ school, asking if they’d be interested in having a meal delivery service that was healthy, delicious and wouldn’t cost the earth. She’d barely finished typing before the responses came flooding back. One mum was finishing off her son’s make-a-rocket project for school. Another was ironing shirts and one of them was up to her eyeballs in vegemite sandwiches for the week ahead. They were IN! When would it begin? Could they sign up straight away?

  Since then, there’d been more. Twenty-eight affirmative responses that Alex forwarded to Cara and Beth with the shouty subject line: I TELL YOU, THIS IS A THING!

  The receptionist was off the phone. Alex closed her email and stood to let her know she was there.

  ‘You’re back!’ The woman beamed at Alex.

  ‘You remember me?’

  ‘Twin boys, six years ago, correct?’

  ‘Yes. That’s amazing. Do you remember all Dr Vin’s patients?’

  ‘Only the memorable ones.’ She said it with a smile but Alex couldn’t help feeling that the word memorable wasn’t necessarily a compliment. She recalled her last visit to the obstetrician’s office, when the twins were a mere six weeks old and Alex had hit a personal rock-bottom in terms of personal hygiene. She couldn’t remember the details of those early days, but she could remember how they smelt – and the words overripe blue cheese were the ones that came to mind.

  Was that what this perky blonde receptionist was remembering? The cheesy aroma of her?

  ‘How are the boys?’ asked the receptionist, leaning her elbows on the desk.

  ‘Oh, they’re great. Beautiful.’ Noah told me this morning that I had a hairy bum, while Jasper ate his toast into the shape of a gun and fired it at me.

  ‘Do you have a photo?’

  ‘Of course!’ Alex opened her phone and started scrolling. ‘Sorry, um, looks like one of them took a few selfies.’ Bloody Jasper and his obsession with photographing his own nostrils. Alex kept scrolling. Fifty-three photos of a hairy black hole later she came to a shot of the boys standing arm in arm on the first day of school. She’d had to bribe them with a chocolate bar to do that.

  ‘But Mummy, you always say no lollies before 9 am,’ Noah had said with a worried face.

  ‘Today is special, honey. Your first day of Year One. It’s okay on special days,’ and when Mummy is heartily sick and tired of scrolling through her friend’s pictures of perfectly pressed, shiny children.

  Alex held up the phone. ‘Here they are.’

  The receptionist leant in. ‘They’re exactly like you.’ She leant back and even though her mouth was in the smiling position, there was a definite furrow between her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, thankfully not in all ways.’ Alex laughed and took a seat, discreetly sniffing her armpits. She was quite certain she’d put on deodorant this morning. Or was that yesterday? Whatever. There was definitely perfume on her wrists and no hint of blue cheese, of that she was quite sure. She picked up a well-thumbed magazine and tried to concentrate. The Primal Guy’s Top Ten Tips for LGN (Looking Good Naked!).

  Ugh. What a bore. Alex could count on one hand the number of people who saw her naked and she gave precisely zero shits about impressing them. Noah and Jasper watched her in the shower like she was a museum specimen, while Ja
mes was nothing less than grateful for any nudity he received. No, it was the people who saw her clothed that she was more concerned about. Like the receptionist.

  ‘Alexandra?’ Dr Vin stood at the doorway to the surgery. She was always immaculate. Pearl earrings set off beautifully by her deep brown skin. Ladder-free opaque tights beneath a chic grey skirt suit. And she always called Alex by her full name, which made her feel like she was possibly in trouble.

  Dr Vin briskly closed the door behind her.

  ‘So, are we here today for babies or pap test?’

  ‘Babies, I think,’ said Alex.

  Dr Vin raised her eyebrows. ‘You think?’

  Alex poured out the story, including the parts about Henrietta and Banjo. At this, Dr Vin’s nose wrinkled, which Alex liked to think was an expression of judgement over Charlie Devine’s appalling manners. Ugh! That woman. This morning, Alex had ducked behind the bushes as she sprinted past in all-white activewear. White Lycra. Bizarre. Didn’t she worry about sweat patches? Or people seeing her pubes? But even more weirdly, it actually looked good on her. No doubt, she was headed off on a lengthy run to ensure she still looked good naked for her husband.

  ‘Anyway, we buried Henny and the test was positive, even though you said I’d never get pregnant naturally,’ Alex finished.

  Dr Vin smiled. ‘A doctor never says never. I simply told you it was highly unlikely, given your LPD.’

  LPD. Luteal Phase Defect. In layman’s terms, a too-short menstrual cycle that meant Alex’s embryos could never develop naturally. Or, at least that was the theory behind why she couldn’t get pregnant. No one was exactly sure. There was so much still unknown about pregnancy and conception, said doctor after doctor, as if this was somehow reassuring. More than once, Alex had been tempted to suggest that it was possibly because pregnancy happened to women. You could bet your bottom dollar that if men had to be pregnant that science would have discovered everything there was to know about it.

  ‘And when was your last period?’ Dr Vin opened a folder on her desk.

  ‘It was … um … not long ago, I think. A couple of weeks at most, I’d say. They happen so regularly it’s a bit hard to keep track.’ Alex pulled out her diary and flashed through the pages of the last few weeks looking for the tell-tale P, with a circle around it. ‘Where is it, where is it,’ she muttered as Dr Vin waited..

  ‘Here it is,’ said Alex triumphantly. ‘January 2.’

  ‘Eight weeks ago.’ Dr Vin looked at her. ‘So you’ve missed two periods, then.’

  Alex stared at her diary. Two periods missed without her even noticing. ‘It’s been a busy couple of months,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Up to the table then. Everything off below the waist.’ Dr Vin stood and pulled back the curtain around the examination table. Alex undressed quickly and placed a small white sheet over her knees to protect her modesty, even though Dr Vin was better acquainted with her genitalia than even James was.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she called, and Dr Vin stepped inside the confines of the curtain.

  ‘Bring your knees together, then let them relax to the sides. I’m going to touch the inside of your leg, and then I’ll conduct the internal examination. Let me know if it’s too uncomfortable.’

  Alex closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable discomfort. She opened them again to see Dr Vin looking into the distance and frowning.

  ‘Eight weeks is about right,’ she said, directly, and snapped off the rubber gloves.

  ‘Really? I’m that pregnant?’ said Alex. How had she got to eight weeks without realising? With the twins she’d felt sick from the minute she conceived. She’d budgeted on being four weeks, at most, with this one.

  ‘Let’s check on the ultrasound. If it’s twins, that might be changing the size a bit.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Alex breathed. Her pulse picked up tempo and she felt a small sweat breaking out in her armpits.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Alex raised her top and startled at the cold of the ultrasound gel. She held the bed sheet as Dr Vin used the flat-headed probe to spread the jelly-like substance over her abdomen. Both their faces turned to the screen above the examination table. Grey and grainy at first, then from out of the blur emerged the clear outline of a misshapen kidney bean.

  ‘Your uterus,’ said Dr Vin, manipulating the angle of the probe.

  Alex’s eyes narrowed on the screen. There was definitely something inside the kidney bean. Something that resembled an overgrown tadpole. ‘Is that the head?’

  ‘Yes, that’s baby number one, and here is—’

  Dr Vin pressed another button on the machine and Alex curled her toes.

  ‘The baby’s heartbeat.’

  From the machine came the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh that sounded more like a snorting bull with a terrible cold than a tiny foetus.

  ‘One heartbeat?’ Alex held her breath.

  ‘Just the one that I can see,’ said Dr Vin, frowning at the screen. ‘Let me take some measurements.’ She flipped the probe again and started tapping at the keyboard. ‘Head,’ she murmured. ‘One arm, second arm. Leg number one.’ She shifted the wand. ‘And leg number two.’

  Alex stared. The creature on the screen bucked and jerked.

  ‘Hiccups,’ commented Dr Vin, still tapping notes into the computer.

  The little tadpole stilled, and a second later bucked and jerked again.

  ‘And I can’t feel a damn thing,’ said Alex in wonder.

  ‘Because it’s the size of an olive, and it’s buried beneath layers of muscle.’ Dr Vin went to remove the probe and stopped. ‘It’s waving at us.’

  She was right. The tadpole’s miniature arm, more like an oversized ear than an actual limb, waved back and forth on the screen.

  ‘Hello baby.’ Dr Vin used her other hand to wave, her face breaking into a smile. That’s what her patients came for – the little flashes of brilliant humanity that occasionally bolted out from behind the stethoscope and starched white coat. ‘Always amazing,’ she murmured and flicked off the screen.

  Alex felt her eyes growing hot and itchy. ‘Thank you, Dr Vin,’ she said in a shaky voice.

  ‘I’ll give you a minute.’ With that, she rose from the stool and whooshed the curtain open and shut behind her.

  Silently, Alex dressed, her eyes never leaving the screen with her little foetus frozen on it.

  Having paid and scheduled another appointment, Alex stepped out into the busy city street. Usually, she rushed through the CBD, conscious of racing against a ticking clock to get through her work by 6 pm so she could be home in time to see the twins before bed.

  Today, she dawdled, still caught in the heady cloud of post-ultrasound wonder.

  Stopped at the crossing, all the suits and heels rushing about her, Alex looked up at the skyscrapers leaning against the blue sky and cutting the sun into blocks and right angles. It was the same view she saw every day, but after her visit with Dr Vin, it seemed the angle of everything had tilted ever so slightly.

  Her phone buzzed and Alex reached in to her handbag. Twenty-nine unread emails, two missed calls from the office and one text message from James.

  She opened it.

  How was Dr Vin?

  Alex tapped back.

  Professional and lovely as ever.

  You know what I mean! Don’t keep me in suspense.

  All right. Yes. Dr Vin is still wearing the opaque tights that you used to find such a turn-on.

  ALEX!!!!!

  OK. Here’s your baby. Turns out you’re right. When it comes to expiry dates, pregnancy tests are not like lamb chops.

  To the text message, Alex attached a photo from the ultrasound of their baby in profile, its tiny bump of a nose like a miniature ski jump.

  Holy shit. That’s the cutest baby ever. Well done you miracle Mum! I told you so. Celebration tonight? Xx

  Alex smiled.

  James’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she was starting to feel it too. Of course she sti
ll had no idea how she would juggle a baby and the twins and her job. But she would. There was an actual little human being inside of her. You couldn’t dread a tiny tadpole thing that waved at you. You could only love it, and, if she was being completely honest, there was a part of her that felt she had unfinished baby business. The process of conceiving the boys had been so fraught and difficult that even when the tenth round had succeeded and the twin embryos ‘stuck’, Alex had felt nothing but fear. What if she miscarried? What if there were birth defects? At no point had she been able to relax and enjoy the process, certainly not in the way that other women seemed to revel in it, with their Insta-bumps, beatific smiles, and #blessed posts.

  This baby was her chance to make things right.

  Definitely! Let’s crack out the Jatz!

  He’d smile at that. No party in the O’Rourke household was ever complete without the little round crackers. Her mother was a woman of the seventies after all, and it seems James had adopted her jazz for Jatz, plus the mandatory cheese cubes.

  The lights changed. Alex clicked the screen off, but the phone buzzed again.

  Where r u? Boss asking!

  Oh shit. It was Brianna – her secretary-come-paralegal – starting to panic, by the sounds of it. For a young person, she was quite a stress-head about work, which Alex liked, because it meant she was taking it seriously.

  Coming. 5 mins.

  Alex scurried through the city streets, collected a takeaway coffee (decaf – such a waste) and allowed the glass doors of her office tower to swallow her up. Waiting at the lift, she removed her jacket and slung it over her arm to cover her small handbag. She didn’t carry a large one any more. It was such a giveaway. Carrying it to and from the lift, she may as well have emblazoned the words I AM JUST ARRIVING/LEAVING on her forehead. This way, with the bag hidden, anyone who saw her would think she’d just ducked out for coffee, not that she was more than an hour late for work. In the afternoon, she always walked out with a file in her hand, as if she were just off to a meeting, and not racing home to kiss the boys goodnight.