Nine Month Countdown

by Leah Ashton

  Hell.

  It still hurt, every time.

  ‘I’m going over to help Tom out with installing latches,’ Angus said, improvising.

  He had, actually. Three years ago, when Scott had started walking.

  His mum seemed happy with that.

  She also looked tired. Impossibly tired.

  For the next few minutes he filled the silence, just as he always did. With bits and pieces about work, about things that happened years ago, things that happened today.

  Hillary soon finished her tea, and Angus called a nurse to help her get ready for bed.

  He kissed her on the cheek, and her hand reached up to curl into his hair and pull him close, just as she always had.

  ‘I love you,’ she said into his ear, as clearly and as firmly as ever.

  A few minutes later, as they stepped outside the building, Ivy once again threw herself into his arms.

  But this time it wasn’t a kiss. There was nothing frantic or desperate in her action.

  She simply hugged him. And held him.

  * * *

  ‘Who is Scott?’ Ivy asked. ‘And Carise and her husband?’

  She’d propped herself up against her pillows, the sheet pulled up over her legs. She wore a faded navy singlet and her underwear, while Angus wore only boxers. Tonight was the first night they’d climbed into bed even partially dressed.

  It was dark in Ivy’s room, the only light glowing from a bedside lamp.

  ‘Carise is the wife of an old friend, Tom,’ Angus said. ‘Scott is their eldest son, although they have a daughter now, too. Maybe more.’

  It had been too long since he’d been in touch. Appallingly long.

  ‘Were they close to your mum?’

  Angus shook his head. ‘No. They visited once to support me. I needed someone else who’d experienced my mum like that, you know? I had no family to come with me. To talk to about how I felt. I thought maybe if...’ Another shake of his head. ‘A stupid idea. It didn’t help.’

  ‘What happened to Tom?’ she said gently. ‘Your mum said he was sick?’

  There was sympathy in her eyes, and Angus realised what that meant.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ he said, very quickly. ‘He wasn’t that type of sick. I mean, he isn’t that type of sick—cancer type of sick. He had PTSD.’

  ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder.’

  ‘Yeah. We worked together.’

  Ivy nodded her head, as if that explained everything. ‘Ah. That doesn’t surprise me. You must deal with such awful, awful things.’

  This bothered Angus.

  ‘Why shouldn’t it surprise you?’ Angus said. ‘It’s what we train for. It’s what we’re built for. It’s what we do. Why should it be such a shock that we manage to deal with it okay?’

  His words were harsh, and far louder than he’d intended.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said. ‘I just said I’m not surprised that some soldiers are impacted by PTSD.’

  ‘And what does that make the rest of us? Robots?’

  Ivy looked taken aback. She reached out for him, but he shifted a little so her hand fell to the sheet without touching him.

  He knew he was being unfair. This wasn’t about Ivy and what she’d said.

  It was about his guilt. For a lot of things.

  He slid from the bed, the thick rug beneath Ivy’s bed soft under his bare feet. Despite how little he wore, Ivy’s state-of-the-art climate-control system meant he wasn’t at all cold.

  Even that irritated him for some reason.

  ‘It doesn’t make you a robot,’ Ivy said, very softly.

  He had his back to her, but he could see her in the reflection of her ornate dresser mirror. She’d pushed herself up from the pillows, as if she’d been about to follow him, but had changed her mind.

  ‘This is what you meant,’ she said, after a while. ‘At the gorge. You said that maybe it should be harder for you to go back. To go to war, to leave your loved ones behind. I didn’t understand at the time.’

  He shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t understand now.’

  Why had he done this? He’d only needed to tell her enough to explain who his mum had been asking about. Ivy didn’t need to hear any of this. He didn’t need to answer any questions to do with this.

  ‘No,’ Ivy said. ‘I’d never truly understand. But I can listen to you.’

  Angus still watched her in the mirror. She hadn’t moved. She looked beautiful, her hair loose, her face freshly scrubbed of make-up.

  And she carried his child.

  The scene was so domestic. They could be a married couple, thrilled at the impending birth of their first child.

  Was this what had happened to Tom? Had he started to realise how much he had, and how much he had to lose?

  Angus wanted to leave. He wanted out of this room and this domesticity.

  But what would that achieve? If he went home, Ivy would still be pregnant. They were tied together for ever.

  ‘When I go away,’ Angus said, ‘I won’t be able to tell you where I’m going. Or what I’ll be doing, or when I’ll be back. Sometimes I’ll get no warning at all, so neither will you. Sometimes I might be able to contact you when I’m away, sometimes I won’t.’

  Ivy’s reflection nodded.

  ‘I’ll probably miss some special occasions,’ he continued. ‘Like birthdays. School assemblies, that type of thing.’

  ‘How do you feel about that?’ she asked.

  ‘Not good,’ he said. ‘But not bad enough to quit my job.’

  Ivy’s eyes widened. ‘It never occurred to me that you would.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. He turned to face her now. ‘You think it’s normal to still want to risk my life and to want to be away from home for indefinite periods of time now that I’m going to be a father?’

  ‘I don’t think what you do is normal,’ Ivy said carefully. ‘But that’s why people like me do jobs like mine, and people like you are in the SAS. We’re lucky there are incredibly brave, strong people like you. Australia is lucky.’

  ‘How patriotic,’ Angus said, his tone completely flat.

  ‘Hey,’ Ivy said. She pushed herself onto her knees, crawling to the edge of the bed so she was close to him. ‘Don’t dismiss what you do. What you do is important.’

  ‘What a lucky kid we’ll have,’ Angus said. ‘A mum who works seventy-hour weeks and a dad disappearing for months overseas.’

  ‘I won’t be like my mum,’ Ivy said. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘I know. You’ll hire the very best nannies. And I’m hardly in a position to expect you to stay at home. I—’

  She’d jumped to her feet, and laid her hand flat against his chest—although her push didn’t move him an inch.

  ‘Yes, I will hire a nanny, but not the way you think. I’ve already had preliminary designs drawn up for a nursery and play room on my floor at the Molyneux Tower. That way I can spend all my breaks, and lunch, with the baby. Plus I’ve been reading about breastfeeding, so this way I’ll be able to continue after I return to work after six months.’ She sighed, rubbing her forehead. ‘I know it’s not perfect. I’ve thought about maybe working part time, but I just can’t, not right now. Maybe in a few years, once the company is more established under my leadership. So you’re right, I won’t win any mum of the year awards...but it’s all I can do for now. I can’t give up all I’ve worked for—’ she snapped her fingers ‘—just like that.’

  Her hand still rested on his chest, but it was gentle.

  ‘I can’t understand what you do,’ Ivy said, ‘but I do understand loving what you do. My sisters honestly believe I’ve been somehow forced into my role at Molyneux Mining, as if Mum managed to indoctrinate me into her mining executive regime, bu
t it’s not true. I love it. I love the challenge, the pressure, the responsibility. And maybe it makes me selfish not to give it all up, given I don’t need to work at all. I could be a lady of leisure for every day of my life, and still have more money than I know what to do with.’

  Now she took her hand away, so she could wring her fingers together.

  ‘I don’t think you’re selfish for wanting to do what makes you happy,’ Angus said.

  ‘Ditto,’ Ivy said.

  But it wasn’t the same.

  ‘Tom used to be like me,’ Angus said, unsure why he was trying to explain. ‘We even look kind of the same, about the same height, weight, brown hair—that kind of thing. We did the selection course together and then the eighteen-month reinforcement cycle. We were even assigned to the same squadron and deployed together. Tom was great. I thought I was an insane trainer, but Tom sometimes outdid me. We pushed each other, we competed against each other—we were both just so proud to have made it. We loved the training—honestly, when you get paid to jump out of a helicopter, to storm a passenger ferry or to abseil down a skyscraper, you can’t really believe it. We couldn’t wait for our first mission.’

  He paused, rubbing absently at his bare belly.

  ‘He was fine, at first. Or I thought he was. He asked me, once, whether I ever had bad dreams about what we’d done, and seen, but I hadn’t. I lied though, told him I had. Then he got married, had Scott. Maybe that made it worse? I don’t know. He started seeing one of the psychs at work. He never told me—he never told any of us. But I started hearing rumours, you know?’

  ‘Did you talk to him about it?’

  Angus shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t really want to know. To believe it.’ Which made him a pretty rubbish friend. ‘Shortly after, he was seconded to a non-combat role. And we gradually drifted apart.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  But that wasn’t true. He just hadn’t let himself think about it. So he tried again.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that it made me look at what I do, at what soldiers do, differently. It made me start to think that if someone as strong, as brave and as elite as Tom could be affected in that way, that maybe it might happen to me. At first, it was almost like I thought it could be contagious or something.’

  He laughed without humour.

  ‘But really, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t worried about it happening to me, because I know it wouldn’t. It’s been years now. I’ve been on many more missions. I’ve seen a hell of a lot. And I’m exactly the same. Exactly. I come back home, I debrief, and I carry on with my life. There’s this other guy at work, now, who has just been diagnosed with PTSD. There has been at least one other I know of, too. I’ve read a bit about it. About guys who can’t switch it off when they come home. Who patrol their home, who drive all night, who jump at every little unexpected sound. Yet I’m completely, completely fine.’

  ‘So you think there’s something wrong with you.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I know there are crazies in the army. People who get a kick out of death and destruction. But that’s not me. For me it’s a job. It’s about doing what I’ve been trained to do: protecting my mates and achieving the mission.’

  Ivy touched him again, and he realised he’d turned from her, and was staring at the bedspread.

  Her fingers brushed his arm, then fell away.

  ‘You think there is something wrong with you because you’re not Tom. Because you are capable of doing your job, and also living your life.’

  He rubbed at his eyes. He knew she was right; he’d had the same thoughts himself, many times.

  But to agree, to voice it...

  ‘I’m lacking something,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t be able to leave so easily—to walk away from my mum, my girlfriends and now from my child, and risk everything...for what? At the end of the day it’s a job. A pay packet, no matter how anyone wraps it up in patriotic propaganda.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong,’ Ivy said.

  He faced her. She was wrong.

  She’d asked why he didn’t have a girlfriend at Karijini. He knew why—he didn’t want a wife, a family that he’d leave again and again without issue. It wasn’t fair to them.

  It couldn’t be normal to be like he was, to be so intrinsically a soldier that nothing seemed to impact him.

  Maybe he was a robot. A machine.

  Ivy was looking at him with so much emotion in her eyes. She wanted to help him, he knew. But he couldn’t be helped.

  This was who he was.

  And right now, he didn’t want any help. He didn’t want words, or reassurances, or all those things that he supposed a wife or partner would offer.

  But he still wanted Ivy.

  So he reached for her, pulling her roughly against him.

  Her eyes widened, but then her hands crept up to his shoulders.

  He kissed her, and he wanted it to just be a kiss. A physical thing, a carnal thing.

  So he wasn’t gentle with her.

  He held her hard against him, but she just gripped him harder back, kissing him with lips and teeth and tongue.

  His hands gripped her bottom, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbing herself against him.

  ‘Angus,’ she breathed against his lips.

  But he didn’t want that, he didn’t want any more talking, any more words.

  He turned, practically tossing her on the bed, then following her immediately, covering her with his body.

  He kept half expecting her to push him away, to say this was too fast, too much...

  But she didn’t. Her hands were everywhere. Skimming the muscles of his chest. Her nails scraping far from gently down his back.

  Somehow he got her singlet off over her head, and she helped him push down her underwear and throw it somewhere over his shoulders.

  In between crazy, passionate kisses he tugged off his boxers. Immediately her fingers wrapped around his hardness, and he sucked in a breath, going still. Her mouth was at his shoulders, and she bit him gently.

  He knew what that meant: Don’t stop.

  So he didn’t. She was wet, hot, perfect.

  And then he was inside her, and it was more perfect, more intense, more everything.

  It was hard, it was fast, and all it took was Ivy moaning in his ear to push him over the edge.

  He groaned, and he was gone.

  For long minutes he lay collapsed partly on top of her, their heavy breathing gradually, gradually slowing.

  But still, neither of them spoke.

  For the second time tonight, Angus considered leaving.

  But this time, because he couldn’t see any point in staying.

  And yet, when Ivy slid out of bed to go to the bathroom, he didn’t move.

  He saw the questions in her eyes when she returned. She’d expected a rapid escape as well.

  But she didn’t ask him to leave.

  Instead, still without a word, she climbed back into bed. He reached for her, pulling her against him, her back to his chest.

  And like that, they fell asleep.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ Angus asked on Saturday morning.

  ‘One hundred per cent,’ Ivy said, her attention on her feet as she pushed down the clutch.

  She sat in the driver’s seat of her little silver hatchback. Not relaxed, of course, but surprisingly okay.

  And very determined.

  She wasn’t going to let a mistake from her past have such an impact on her present, or her child’s future, any more. She needed to do this.

  ‘So I put the car into gear,’ she said, moving the gear stick into first, ‘then I turn on the ignition...’

 
This was the bit that had derailed her last time, and she tensed as she twisted the key.

  But...there. The engine came to life. Not as loud and scary as she’d imagined.

  But still. It wasn’t exactly reassuring, either.

  ‘Good job,’ Angus said. ‘Now—’

  ‘I’ve got this,’ Ivy interrupted. She had to do this herself. ‘I release the handbrake, but my foot is still on the brake pedal, so I’m not going anywhere.’

  Why did this have to be so complicated?

  ‘And now I just need to gently press on the accelerator, while releasing the clutch...’

  Hmm. This part was most definitely easier said than done.

  ‘All I need to do is take my foot off the brake pedal, and put it on the accelerator, and the car will move forward. And I have heaps of space ahead of me, so I needn’t worry about flying into my front fence.’

  Beside her, she knew Angus was smiling.

  ‘So yes, start to release clutch, foot off the brake and on...’

  The car moved.

  At about two kilometres an hour, but it had most definitely moved.

  ‘Oh, my God, I’m actually driving!’

  ‘You’re driving, Ivy!’

  They were approaching her front gate at a snail’s pace, but the road beyond it was still far too close.

  ‘Turn left at the gate, Ivy. There’s a school car park you can practise in only a short distance away.’

  Very firmly Ivy pressed on the brake, and as she forgot all about the clutch the poor little Volkswagen jerked to an inelegant halt.

  She patted the leather steering wheel in apology.

  ‘Nope,’ Ivy said. ‘No roads today. How about you show me how to reverse back the way I’ve come, and we call it a day?’

  ‘This will be the shortest driving lesson in history,’ Angus commented.

  ‘Or the longest, if you count the twelve years it took to get to this point.’

  He nodded. ‘Understood. Great job, Ivy.’

  She grinned at him across the centre console. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  * * *

  The next day, Angus drove her to that school car park.

  It wasn’t exactly vast, but the stretch of bitumen still gave Ivy a relatively reassuring margin of error.