by Anna George
It’d been almost forty-eight hours. Working or not, functional or not, that mother wasn’t coming. No one was looking for Jessie.
When Neve’s phone rang, it jarred her, but then, though ignoring her Melbourne friends, she answered it. She had an urge to speak with him. Not to interrogate him, this time, but to unburden herself. And to get an objective opinion. It wasn’t, though, a conversation for the telephone.
Fifteen minutes later, when he arrived, he was dressed in well-fitting blue jeans and a black jumper, black leather boots. His hair was brushed from his face; his black eyes, warm. His eyelashes like fronds. Sal Marioni was a different man clean. She was, she realised, pleased to see him.
‘This is very kind of you.’
In his hands was a picnic basket containing a blue casserole dish and another covered plate, a loaf of crusty bread and another jar of something red. In short, more gifts.
‘Mum used to say “New parents can never have enough food”,’ he said.
Without moving, she surveyed the foyer and beyond it the kitchen-living room. She suspected Jessie would stay in the bedroom. Sal waited, politely, for her to take the food, or to point him in the right direction. He was shorter than she’d realised. She wondered how to invite him in.
On cue, her baby murmured, this time, perhaps with wind. She picked Cliff up and he quietened on her shoulder.
‘On the bench okay?’ he said.
Sal crossed to her kitchen. Thankfully, she’d wiped the bench and swept the rigatoni from the floor. Then again, like Kris, he may not know the dining habits of babies.
Sal was progressing slowly. Efficiently, he produced a plate of antipasto. A tomato chutney. Bread. Her mouth watered at the sight of so much food that she hadn’t prepared.
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He loped towards the door. ‘Enjoy.’
Her hand accelerated as it patted Cliff’s back. Abruptly, seemingly in protest, he burped. Please don’t follow through, she thought.
‘So you’re . . . on your way out?’ By luck, she had him on a line but he was slipping away.
‘Yeah, meeting my brothers at the pub.’
‘Oh.’
Cliff burped again. This time, warm milk did indeed shoot across her shoulder to land with a splat on the bamboo floor. She resisted the urge to swing around and survey the damage.
‘Do you need a hand?’
‘No, no.’ Any second Jessie would spring from the bedroom with wipes or a flannel. Removing Cliff from her shoulder, Neve wiped his milky chin with her hand. ‘I’ve got it covered.’ Her smile was brave.
She stood, looking up at him. Her baby quiet, the milky vomit on her shoulder, on her fingers. He seemed to sense she had more to say.
‘Are you doing anything for dinner?’ she said.
Sal seemed as surprised by her question as she was. She’d hoped for another chat not a pseudo-date. He glanced about her space, as if an appropriate answer was behind a painting or under the rug. His eye avoided the slightly pungent puddle.
‘I don’t mean to put you on the spot but you could come back . . .’
She didn’t want to overstretch his kindness. She’d spoken without thinking, again. She smiled, slightly less bravely this time. Everything in her life had contracted to such a point, the smallest things seemed enormous. She felt horribly embarrassed. Vulnerable.
His focus returned to her. She had crossed a line. Several. She felt colour spring to her cheeks.
‘Well, I can . . .’ he said slowly. ‘On one condition.’
She felt herself stiffen.
‘I’ll put it together?’
Neve’s smile was buoyed on relief. Her emotions were swelling. If she wasn’t careful, they would break their banks.
‘Eight okay?’
‘Yes. Perfect.’ She glanced towards the guest wing. ‘I’ll have them in bed by then.’
She frowned. Them? But he didn’t react, hadn’t heard. With a wave, he left, swiftly, as if sensing her fragility. Or eager to be gone.
31
Getting away from four children took time even in an emergency. Last-minute nappies and fights had to be dealt with. Honey sandwiches and bottles of water had to be made and handed out, and packed for Tayla.
They arrived in the town centre as the sun hid behind the paddocks. A quick drive through the main drag showed no sign of Tayla or pretty much anyone else. Leah couldn’t tell if the streets being mostly empty was good or bad. The only people about were in the restaurants or at the pub. As they turned onto the woman’s unmade road, above the beach, they were met by a family of rabbits. Standing stock still, with their ears high, the rabbits looked spooked but Leah took them as a good omen. Tayla loved those bouncing fluffballs. Almost as much as African wild dogs.
Kelly cut the engine and let the car roll the last 30 metres. They didn’t go right up to the woman’s house in case they needed a hidden getaway. Even before the car stopped, Leah leapt out into the cold air. She made her way by the pointy shrubs on the side of the road. With a mumble, Kelly followed. They hadn’t spoken much. There wasn’t much to say. They were going to search the woman’s property first. Then the others. Kelly wasn’t happy about it but she’d do it. Leah broke into a run with her head down. The road swayed, but she ignored it and kept running.
Tayla was here somewhere, she knew it.
Outside the woman’s house, Leah didn’t look at the work being done to the wall. She tried not to touch the stone in stacks, as she climbed over. The property ran east-west and the wall went right around it. The house, like heaps on the peninsula, was facing the sea, as if it was waiting for someone to arrive. Hardly any windows faced inland. Which was handy. She picked her way into the woman’s garden and, for a crazy moment, she fantasised that Tayla was inside the house. She pictured Tayla asleep in a bed with a pillow and a doona. Clean and warm and cosy. As if she’d played three wishes and that’s what they’d been: clean and warm and cosy. And that woman had granted them.
As if. She grunted. That woman was like her house – hard and cold, facing out. If it wasn’t for her, Leah realised, none of this would’ve happened. If the woman hadn’t yelled at her, she wouldn’t have driven off in a state, and left Tayla. Probably wouldn’t have hit Tayla earlier, after the beach, either. But in a split-second that woman had made up her mind. To treat her like shit!
Leah felt a stab of anger. People like that woman and Mitch’s boss . . . They didn’t see who was in front of them. They didn’t listen. Couldn’t look inwards, into their hearts. But then, when everyone else got angry, they were shocked! And scared.
They should be too. Just looking at the woman’s house was firing her up. It was big enough for four families. Judging by the drawn blinds, it was mostly unoccupied: another wasted holiday house. Could it get any more unfair? Cross, she snuck down the path cut into the hill. On the beach side of the house, lights on the top floor were on. Classical music played . . . very la de da. Leah paused. The woman could flick a switch and she’d be sprung. This time, though, she wasn’t going to run. If that woman had a go, Leah’d give it right back. Desperation was giving her courage. Somehow, over the last few hours, her shame had turned. Into anger.
Slipping down the side path, she could hear rustling beneath the music. She stopped. The rustling stopped.
‘Tayla?’ she whispered. ‘Tayla?’
Her voice was rising, sounding nervy. She didn’t want to give Tayla a fright. Or make her run. Leah flicked her torch up and down the side of the house. She waved to Kelly, then whistled Come down. But Kelly didn’t. Too chicken.
‘Tayla?’ Leah said again, trying to sound calm.
Leah was drawing near to the bottom of the block, by the beach, when another light went on in the big room. The woman walked to the window and lifted the blind. Leah sank to the ground, as the music was turned down.
She fumbled with her torch, pushed a button.
The woman hesitated. She seemed small up there, in her big house. Sad someho
w. Leah wondered if she was alone with her baby. No matter who you were, babies sucked the life out of you. The woman seemed to be staring right at her. Her torch, Leah realised, was still on. She swung it around, found another button. Pressed it hard. Off.
Kelly’s light bobbed up near the road.
A moment later, the woman moved out of sight and the blind dropped.
Hallelujah!
Leah ran towards the bottom of the block, in the dark, looking for a gate. A way out. But, within five paces, she collided with a wall. Her wrist smarted from the contact but her hope grew as she realised what she’d found. A shed. She crept to the door and tried it. Unlocked.
‘Tayla? You in here?’
The air in the shed was that fusty, she could almost taste it. But, it seemed watertight; the floor was dry. She switched her torch on again and, keeping its light low, swept it across rakes and gardening gloves, drawers and bags of fertiliser. The place was tidy but unoccupied. Frustrated, she shivered. Rubbed her arms. Somewhere she’d lost her jacket. She thought of Tayla in those damp, skimpy clothes.
Holy shit! What if she was too late?
On the inside, she screamed. If she didn’t find Tayla, tonight, she’d never forgive herself. Or that woman! She kicked the closest bag of fertiliser. When she kicked it again, the bag puffed open. Before she could stop herself, she upended its contents across the floor and into the drawers and the gloves. Then she emptied another one. When she was done, six bags were empty and the small space stank; bits of fertiliser hung in the air and her hair. The mess didn’t achieve much but it took the edge off her fear and her frustration. And she was hot and sweaty. For a second, she felt good.
32
By 7.50, both children were asleep: Cliff, after a record minimum of ten minutes rocking; Jessie, after putting herself to bed with a spluttering cough. Neve didn’t linger. Perhaps she was getting the hang of this motherhood business. If only it wasn’t so debilitating.
In her bedroom, near-naked and barefoot, she padded about, staring at her clothes. This was not a date. That needed to be clear. She hesitated in front of the mirror. Thanks to her sudden shortage of undies, she’d been forced into a lacy green pair. Not quite the mood she was intending. Worse, the green lace clashed spectacularly with her monstrous white maternity bra. And she didn’t recognize herself. The form reflected back at her was hers but not. Her post-baby body generally was a foreign place. Swathed in surplus flesh, like a puppy’s coat. Her tummy was springy beneath the elastic. Her bikini line wild. Her feet had grown. Her breasts were not her own. She’d suffered, she realised, a little death. The death of the way she was.
How to dress the new her in the old hers clothes? She’d spent so many months in black baggy pants and stretchy skirts, she’d forgotten her dressier attire. Her ‘outfits’, carefully constructed. Unsettled, she hesitated over jeans then pulled dresses from hangers. Not dressing for Sal, but for herself; she wanted to feel as much like herself as she could. Today, particularly, as she was slipping her bearings. She donned a rust-coloured wraparound number, then peeled the dress off and tossed it over her shoulder. Ten minutes later, her bed was papered with clothes. Finally she yanked on black jeans and a black multi-layered top, she’d bought in Barcelona. She studied herself. The longer she took, the more she began to fret – about herself. Usually she was adept at making decisions. Smart decisions. Critical decisions. Usually she acted upon them, promptly. But lately this ability had withered. Unbuttoned, she paused again. What did it matter what she wore?
What mattered was Jessie. She wanted to do the right thing for the girl. The best she could . . . She didn’t want Jessie to be another casualty of the callous adult world. Of injustice. Like that poor boy on the news. But how much could she do for the girl, as a stranger? How far was she prepared to go? She pictured herself telling Sal about the child. Airing her thoughts, her half-cocked plan. Asking his advice. What if he thought her mad? Harbouring someone else’s child. Keeping her . . . Contemplating kidnapping? Was that what she was doing? Perhaps she was mad. The longer this unlikely situation had gone on, though, the easier it was to continue and the more reluctant she was to dismantle it. She sighed at her befuddled reflection. Then she replaced the Spanish top with a silken smock the colour of moss.
In the lounge room, by the window, she tried to anchor herself by listening to the sea. Then she surveyed the dining table and the glasses, the candles and the hand-painted placemats, with their swirls of yellow and green and white on black. Everything looked elegant beneath the dimmed drop lights. Elegant. But wrong. She flung herself at the cutlery, glasses and place mats, repositioning them at one end of her stone bench. She left a single candle, as a centre-piece, on the table. It was almost eight and her nerves were fraying. But the lights in the kitchen were bright and the surfaces were uncluttered, and the setting was – better. Sitting side by side might be peculiar but it was better. Much better.
She turned on the exterior lights. The run of spotlights flanking the entrance path shone brightly, as inviting as a runway.
What if she told him and, then and there, he turned her in?
He was a few minutes late, a polite interval, allowing her the space to catch up. And she’d needed it. In that time, she’d managed to pour herself a glass of red, put on some Morricone and light the candle. She was taking her first sip, as he took in her home at night. She’d also lit her two silver orb lamps, dropped the black blinds, and erased every sign of Jessie.
Sal glanced at the space without comment, though she saw him double-take at the sight of the dressed stone bench. If anything, he looked relieved by the more casual setting.
‘That lemony scent is terrific,’ he said.
She smiled and took another sip of wine.
‘Are you hungry?’ she said. ‘I’m starving now.’
When he nodded, his gaze struck her wine glass. She couldn’t read his face. Had he remembered she was breastfeeding? She hoped he wasn’t judging her already. She couldn’t stand judgemental people.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asked. ‘I have white too?’
He shook his head. ‘Water will do me fine.’
‘Damn. Sorry. I should have got some beer.’
‘Makes no difference to me.’ He smiled.
‘You don’t drink?’
‘Not since I was nineteen.’
She was shocked, as if he’d said he didn’t eat. Instantly, she assumed he was a recovering alcoholic.
He was appraising her benignly. ‘You okay?’
She nodded but perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps she was completely strung out.
She’d learnt to drink at university. During Orientation Week in first year. As had most people she knew. It occurred to her then that every one of her friends had gone to university. She took another sip of wine, tried to refocus. How, she wondered, would he approach her dilemma? Would he even see the conundrum?
Out of the blue, she imagined having sex with him, sober. She imagined holding his stare, keeping the lights on. The thought terrified her. When was the last time she’d had sex with a man, for the first time, without drinking? She shook her head, as if these thoughts were watery and might drain out one ear. Why was she thinking like this? It was as if he was taboo; and the more she dwelt on his inappropriateness, the more she imagined him naked. Like driving on a bridge and fantasising about accelerating over the edge. She took yet another sip of red. Get a grip.
He passed her a plate of deli meats, soft cheeses and olives. She thought, Now’s the time.
‘I have a confession to make,’ she said.
When he held the plate mid-air, she noticed his thumbnail was purpling, freshly bludgeoned, presumably by his work. She had a last-minute doubt that his was the appropriate counsel. Of all people, why him?
‘I don’t remember seeing you, years ago, with Bill,’ she gave a tight smile.
‘I was here,’ he said. ‘But not very memorable.’
She took an olive. Perhaps he wasn
’t particularly. But he did come across as engaged, interested – not in her, necessarily, but, she suspected, in people. Engaged and adult. When he smiled, she told herself: he will listen and try his best to help you. Some men remained boys, boyish, into their forties and even fifties. Like her father. While others matured, crossing the final threshold into manhood, in their early thirties, even twenties. Sal was one of the latter. A grown man. She found it appealing and slightly intimidating. At thirty-nine, she remained, in the deep recesses of her psyche, a girl.
She opened her mouth but unexpected words came out. ‘Bill had a team of six; were you here the whole time?’
‘Yeah.’
She nibbled from a heel of the bread and tried again to place him. Couldn’t. He seemed so contained, she felt an almost physical urge to collapse into him. Yield. It was a sensation she’d not had before. Oblivious, he was studying a photograph of the Rumeli Hisari fortress in Istanbul on her wall. She wondered if she could segue from the Middle East to Jessie.
‘Have you been to Turkey?’ She roused at the prospect of this new topic.
He shook his head, chewed. She waited.
‘I haven’t been overseas.’
‘You haven’t?’ She regarded him, as if he were a specimen in a jar.
Sal shifted in his seat, almost defensive. ‘No.’ He met her scrutiny and paused. He seemed to be weighing his answer, his face sombre. She felt as if she was prying, her question inadvertently going in too close to an artery.
‘For a long time I couldn’t afford it. Later I thought I’d take my mum, but what with the business and family . . . There wasn’t a right time to go.’
That was another first in get-to-know-you chit-chat. A fork in the conversation presented itself. Hugely uncomfortable, she stared down each avenue. A sign at the fork said: You really shouldn’t have invited him for dinner. You have nothing whatsoever in common. If you told him about Jessie, he wouldn’t understand. Not one iota.
