by Fiona Kidman
Miss Borrell nodded, full of reassurance. ‘I’m sure that won’t be a problem,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I can see you’re very respectable people.’
Sheila didn’t add that she hadn’t been a virgin: there was no point in advertising that, and it was her and Monty’s business what they’d got up to before the wedding. She reckoned they’d got lucky because she hadn’t fallen, like so many of her girlfriends. It was odd, the way you moved away from the girls who’d had babies. She felt she’d failed a test of friendship because it could just as easily have been her. Now it felt she and Monty had failed God, not worshipping after they got married. There was so much to do in those first years: their jobs, buying a section, getting their house built in one of the new subdivisions near Wellington. She liked that their address wasn’t quite Lower Hutt, even though she went to school there. Wellington was just a better address.
They used contraception in those first years. Sheila wore a diaphragm when Monty was keen on having a bit, as he called it. How about we have a bit, old girl? he would say, and they’d start cuddling in the kitchen, and next thing they’d be in bed. The diaphragm was a rubber dome that she had to use with sticky jelly, and it always made her aware there was something there. It was a relief when they began trying for a baby and she didn’t have to put the damn thing in any more.
The trouble was, nothing happened. She went on getting her periods every month, regular as clockwork, and all the headaches, and feeling sorry for herself. Her job was in a typing pool in the city. There were days when the clamour of all the typewriters going at once made her want to scream. The doctor said there wasn’t a thing wrong with her, and they should just keep going. If she could relax and enjoy herself a bit more, it would be sure to happen. That didn’t make sense to Sheila: there was nothing wrong with their sex life. Or not that she could tell, not having had much experience beyond Monty. One evening, Monty stood up and turned off the television, a firm look in his eye that meant they were going to have a serious conversation.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ he said. ‘You’re upsetting yourself too much over this baby thing. We can do without kids if we have to.’
Sheila thought of her spotless house, the three bedrooms laid out in a perfect floor plan that would make it easy to reach the children at nights, the rumpus room that lay in wait for when they were older.
‘The doctor said it might be you. You know, your sperm count or something.’
Monty gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’ve had a test.’
‘You did? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m telling you now. I’m fine.’
Sheila twisted her wedding band round on her finger. They had had it made to match with her engagement ring, a tiny crust of diamonds inset in the gold. She took both her rings off when she washed up in the evenings in order to keep them sparkling.
‘It’s been five years,’ Monty said. ‘Five years of banging on and nothing happening. Ten years since we got married. The doctor, well, he said the chances are getting less.’
‘I know,’ Sheila said. Her thirty-fourth birthday had been and gone. The camellia bushes they had planted when they built the house were sturdy shrubs that massed with bloom in early winter. ‘Do you want a divorce? Is that what you’re saying?’
Monty looked at her then as if she really were mental. ‘Of course not. Dumb cluck. We can adopt. There’re plenty of babies out there that need a home. I reckon we’d be sitters.’
Sheila felt her heart lifting. Her husband, with his red hair and fair skin that burned so easily in the sun, was excited. ‘I never thought you would,’ she said. ‘Oh golly, I wonder if we can get a redhead?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Boy or girl?’
‘It’s not important. Well, you know, it’d be nice to have a boy to kick a ball around with.’
So she could see then, that he had been hiding it all these years, how much he wanted a kid. He was a joiner with a building company, not always one to tell you what he was feeling. He worked long hours and lived in a man’s world. But he had his little ways of showing that he cared about her, turning up with a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates on a Friday, springing surprises for her birthday. Come to think of it, he treated her like a princess.
‘We’ll have to see the welfare people,’ she said. ‘Do you think they’ll like us? Do you think we’ll be good enough?’
He laughed, as if he could see every thought in her head, pulling her down close beside him on the sofa. ‘Of course they’ll like us, you’re meant to be a mum.’
‘I’ll have to spring-clean. Monty, we should pray.’
After that, she had started making a list of things they had to offer: the house, a tick for that, income, yes, they had good jobs, saved money, they would have enough when she stopped working. She wasn’t sure if they were well enough educated, but perhaps it didn’t matter, so long as they took good care of this child, who was already taking shape and substance in her imagination. Well, there wouldn’t be any problem about that.
‘The mother’s a clever girl,’ the social worker told Sheila and Monty when she came around to check out the house.
‘We’re not clever,’ Sheila said, all her doubts rushing to the fore. ‘Well, you know, not clever, if you know what I mean.’
‘She’s a girl with a difficult background,’ the social worker said carefully. ‘But I’m sure you and this baby will be up to each other.’
She added that, of course, they could have a look at the baby before they made a decision, but she had reason to believe it would turn out a light-skinned child and might have had a well-educated father. The girl wasn’t very forthcoming. She could have been with more than one boy, of course, so there were no guarantees, but Miss Borrell had them at the top of her list for this child. And apparently red hair ran in the girl’s family — now wouldn’t that be a nice surprise?
When they saw the baby, it was love at first sight, never mind that he didn’t have red hair. It was Monty who picked the child up first, his face alight with joy. ‘Hey, little guy,’ he said. ‘Are you ever coming home with me?’ He handed the boy over to Sheila. ‘Don’t you reckon, old girl?’
Her hands trembled as she received the shawled bundle into her arms. Sheila didn’t need to answer. She kissed the top of his head with its soft fontanelle, the smell of baby shampoo in the fair hair. Her face was radiant. ‘When can we take him?’ she asked.
‘You could take him tomorrow if you like,’ Miss Borrell said. ‘We can get the paperwork done this afternoon. Can you come back then? The sooner the better, actually; the mother’s a bit of a handful at the moment.’
They stayed in a motel for the night, so they didn’t have to drive all the way home to Wellington again, and back the next day. Monty chose the nicest place he could see on the drive into town, one that had an extra big bed and fluffy white pillows stacked up high. Sheila said they should get takeaways, but Monty said that they should celebrate with a good dinner and wine. After all, this was the last night they would be able to go out without getting a baby-sitter. They looked at each other, amazed laughter bubbling up inside them.
Over dinner, they talked about names. Up until now they had avoided this, because there had been so many disappointments that it felt risky. Nothing fancy, they thought. A good strong name. He was a sturdy boy. ‘Peter,’ Monty said, his voice almost shy. ‘Well, it’s a saint’s name.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Sheila said. ‘He looks like a Peter. You’re clever, Monty, getting it right straight off like that.’
They made love in the big bed when they got back to the motel. In the morning, Monty kissed the tip of Sheila’s nose.
‘Wake up, Mummy,’ he said.
Sheila held Peter close to her all the way home the next day. She couldn’t believe how peaceful he was. It’s as if he knows he’s going home, she remarked to Monty.
‘IT’S A BOY,’ BELINDA HEARD someone say. They let her hold him for a few mome
nts, then he was taken away so quickly she didn’t really know what he looked like. She struggled to clear her brain, to retain the image of him, as though she could somehow stamp it on her retina and summon it up whenever she wanted, for the rest of her life. She didn’t think he resembled her, or her own dead mother, or, thankfully, her father Jock Pawson; just a small complete person who was entirely himself, but beautiful, his skin unmarked, ivory pale, fuzzy tufts of fair hair covering his scalp. It seemed to her, thinking back, that he had stared at her, fierce, demanding, willing her to take care of him right there and then. But she had dozens of stitches to be inserted where he had torn his way into the world, and while that was done, her son was whisked away. For months she had talked to him, her small companion, kicking and squirming. She was sure it was a boy. At night, in her bed in the farmhouse, she had placed her hands around her belly and whispered to him. ‘It’ll be all right. You and me, we’re in it together.’
It seemed to her now that parents lied to their children from the beginning, made them promises they could never keep. She had said to her unborn child that she would love him and care for him for her whole life. What on earth had possessed her to say that to him, and what would he make of it when he was grown-up? Because she knew he would remember, how could he not, the fierceness of her love? And then her abandonment of him.
They kept her in hospital for two weeks while the episiotomy healed. Two weeks in a long ward with ten beds, each with a new mother in it, their babies brought to them from the nursery at feeding times. The other mothers, who wore wedding rings, could go down and see their babies in the nursery. As she lay and cried silently behind the drawn curtains, one of the new mothers pushed her way through and sat down beside her. ‘Why don’t you come and look at your baby?’
‘I’m not allowed.’
‘They can’t stop you. I saw your baby this morning. He’s gorgeous.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Belinda said.
‘Well, I do, that’s the thing. They thought I was going to lose my baby, but she’s come through all right. It would have killed me to lose her.’
‘Miss Borrell told me if I tried to go along there, they’d lock the doors. She said it would just make it worse if I saw him.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Yes, no. Please, just leave me alone.’ She had rolled on her side, unable to control her sobs.
But the following morning, after a sleepless night, Belinda got out of the bed, pulled on her dressing gown and made her way to the corridor of the maternity wing. She took small painful steps, because her stitches were still sore and her vagina ached whenever she moved. At that moment, the matron appeared, almost as if she had been expecting this, and had been lying in wait.
‘He’s gone,’ the matron said. ‘He went first thing this morning, straight after his early feed.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘We didn’t have to tell you. You had all of that explained to you. Now go back to bed, Belinda.’ As if she were a child who had strayed from a classroom. She fainted in the corridor. That much she remembered.
She worked now in a toy shop in Palmerston North, where mothers came every day with toddlers in pushchairs, new babies strapped on their backs, or in front-packs. ‘They like to feel their mother’s heartbeat after they’ve come out,’ one mother told her. ‘They get lonely and scared if they don’t feel you near them.’ It was as stupid a job as she could possibly have taken, but it was all that was going in the town right then because students were on vacation and wanting work. Christmas wasn’t far away and business was picking up so the shop was busy.
It was ten weeks since she had given birth to her son. Aunt Agnes had sent twenty dollars to cover her first week’s rent. Her father, she wrote, would send another twenty the next time he got paid. It was money intended for Grant, a bright lad with a good future. With luck, Jock had written to Agnes, he could get the boy a cadetship in the public service after he’d been to university. He would do better than his sister; he’d always known she was no good. Charm had tried to tell him what a bad lot she was, but he’d given Belinda the benefit of the doubt. From now on he wanted nothing to do with her. She was on her own. Her brother and sister didn’t want to see her again either.
Belinda wrapped up Barbie dolls. She demonstrated the way that Buzzy Bee toys with their brightly striped wooden bellies whirred their wings when pulled along by a string. Quite often she thought about dying, putting herself to death. There were several ways she could do this, but jumping off a cliff seemed the least complicated. Trouble was, there weren’t many high cliffs in Palmerston North, a city that sat on rolling plains of grass. She started considering bridges. There were not many tall buildings in the town.
Late one afternoon, she stood behind the counter watching fat rain on the pavement outside. She would have to make a dash for it to the boarding house where she was living. Perhaps Julie Felix would be on the television in the lounge, although she would have to share her with other residents, an older woman, a man who was usually half-cut, and a couple of forestry workers. She liked Julie. She would follow her to San Francisco with flowers in her hair any day if she could. Earlier in the day, Marie had come into the shop with her daughter-in-law, up from Christchurch, in search of a teddy bear for her granddaughter. Belinda had glanced at pictures of children in the farmhouse sitting room. Marie had never spoken of her grandchildren, as though they and the photographs might be sullied by Belinda knowing of them.
‘Hello,’ Belinda had croaked. She was about to call her Marie but caught herself in time, and addressed her as Mrs Norman. Marie looked through her as if she’d never seen her. Belinda thought about dying again with a fresh sweet yearning. It wouldn’t be long.
Then a young man entered the shop. At first she thought he was a new father, come to buy a soft toy for his baby. You could tell them, they were flushed and nervous and excited all at once. They wanted to tell you all about the birth and how the baby’s eyes had followed them the moment it was born, its weight, all those things.
She took a second look and recognised him.
WHEN SETH EMERGED BACK into the world things had changed. The better part of a year had passed since he left for Campbell Island. After his emergency operation, he went home to Masterton to recuperate. First, though, on the day he left hospital, he took the cable car from Lambton Quay up to the university, just to get a feel for the place again. He hung about at the student cafeteria, hoping to see some of the girls he knew. But the term had ended and there was just a handful still around, picking up exam results, returning books. As he sat sipping slowly at a coffee to make it last, he did see some girls, and they were familiar but different, the miniskirts gone, replaced by ugly flared jeans, their sleek bobs standing out in Afro curls. None of them spared a look in his direction. He supposed that, in his checked bushman’s jacket and the beard he’d grown on the island, he looked like some hillbilly come to town to gawp at girls. His head felt strange, as if floating. The night before, when he spoke to his mother on the hospital phone she had said, ‘Now don’t do anything silly, will you? Dad and I will be at the hospital at two to pick you up. We’d be there earlier but your dad’s got the roof off a house right now.’ Seth laid his head in his arms on the table and planned his way back to the hospital.
While he had been in the south, the night he nearly died, his home town had felt like a place he might not see again. The quiet main street, the wooden houses with their graceful verandahs, the town clock and the park were just the same, as though he’d never been away. His mother’s chicken soup warmed him, his sister Rebecca, recently finished school, tiptoed around him, and even his father appeared subdued, unable to resist patting Seth on the shoulder whenever he passed, as if to check that it was really him. The villa was furnished in style by his mother, maintained to perfection by his father. Sunlight fell in comfortable nooks all over the house, bay windows with deep armchairs, shelves of books that his mother had collecte
d over the years, her library she called it, tall vases of flowers picked from the garden. He loafed around, read and felt his strength coming back.
After some weeks had passed in this way, he made his way to a plant nursery near the gardens. He wasn’t sure it was the right place, but he thought it worth a try. ‘I’m looking for Belinda,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant, when approached by a woman wearing a large apron and wielding pruning shears.
She gave him an odd glance. ‘Belinda’s not here now,’ she said.
‘Okay, where would I find her, then?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ the woman said. There was a disagreeable note in her voice, as if he had said something wrong.
‘Do you know if she’s still in town?’
‘I doubt it. Look, I’d be inclined to leave that poor girl alone if I were you, unless you know something about it.’
‘About?’
‘You don’t know?’ She had begun attacking a shrub, snipping off faded leaves, trimming it into shape ready for sale.
‘Know what?’
She turned to view him carefully. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing I can tell you about Belinda Pawson.’