You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  As she reached the 15 ml line, hand cramping, nipple like sandpaper, Stu came in to suggest they get a move on. Elaine wanted them back by 9.30 p.m. at the latest and soon it wouldn’t be worth going. Abi uncoupled herself from the apparatus, capped the bottle and went through to where Elaine was perched on the sofa with a basket of knitting things on the floor beside her. Jude squirmed unhappily in her arms.

  ‘I couldn’t really do much,’ Abi said, holding up the bottle which, under Elaine’s scrutiny, felt like an embarrassing pathology sample. ‘Maybe I’ll just, I’ll pop it in the kitchen. You won’t need to heat it or anything if you use it before ten apparently.’

  ‘We won’t be needing it,’ Elaine said. ‘Will we, baby? Will we?’

  ‘Well, we definitely won’t be later than 9.30 anyway. Or earlier even.’

  ‘Good. I don’t like driving in the dark,’ Elaine said.

  ‘Abs, let’s go babe.’ Stu was waiting by the door.

  ‘Call if he gets upset? I don’t really let him cry, yet, that much? I’m happy to come home if he needs me.’

  Elaine didn’t look up. ‘Goodness. Who’s got his mother wrapped around his little finger?’

  ‘Abi, come on,’ Stu said from the hallway. She wanted to kiss Jude goodbye but it would mean leaning uncomfortably close to Elaine’s chest, so instead she squeezed his bare foot and hoped he knew that was code for I love you.

  There was a restaurant at the back of Stu’s pub and if they went there, he explained on the way to the bus stop, they’d only have to pay staff rates.

  When they arrived, Stu introduced Abi to the three boys behind the bar. They were all close in age, with names that sounded like in-jokes. Stu leaned on the bar and carried on a loud conversation as they moved away and back, to serve customers. As Abi listened, Stu’s accent became broader with every word. His laugh got louder, he swore more, and finally he punched a passing workmate hard in the arm. At one point, to Abi’s horror, he laid a heavy arm around her shoulders and let his hand dangle in the exact vicinity of her nipple.

  When someone who Stu had introduced as Luggage winked at her and asked what a girl like her saw in a dickhead like Stu, Abi suggested they should probably go and sit down.

  ‘Righto babe,’ Stu said, carrying two large beers he let slop onto the carpet.

  ‘Well this is all very Australian, isn’t it?’ Abi said as they sat down. ‘You sounded like Steve Irwin before. The crocodile person.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Stu said, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back on his chair until the front legs lifted off the floor. Abi tried not to laugh.

  ‘Finally, just you and me, eh?’ Stu said.

  ‘Mm, finally,’ Abi said. ‘I miss Jude though. I just love him so much. He was so sweet today. When we . . .’

  Stu sucked foam off his beer without lifting the glass. ‘Maybe we should have a night off the Jude talk? Since we’re doing something fun.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Abi rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry. I just hope he’s all right, that’s all. I’ve never left him before. Not counting last week when your Mum took him out to the garden while you moved that pot.’

  Stu seemed not to remember. ‘Babe, he’ll be fine. Mum knows what she’s doing. Anyway, what do you think, nachos? Or will I go a burger? You look hot by the way. You suit skirts.’

  It was a dress, but Abi said, ‘Thanks. You too. Not the skirts but –’

  ‘Hang on,’ Stu said. ‘Hey, Slowmo. Get over here, you bastard.’ A lanky figure sloped over to their table. He had fried-looking white-blond hair tucked behind his ears and his forehead was peeling from sunburn. ‘Slowmo, this is the missus. Abi, this is Slowmo. Worst fucking waiter on the North Shore.’

  ‘Stewed,’ the waiter said in a drawl, ‘you are on the wrong side of your apron this evening, my friend.’ He whomped Stu on the back, shook Abi’s hand with a series of slow tugs, then dragged a chair over from the empty table next to them. ‘Nice to meet you, Abi. Think I speak for everyone here when I say we’re glad to see you’re real and that this prick has not been making you up. We’d started to wonder?’

  Stu picked a damp cardboard coaster off the table and frisbeed it at him.

  ‘Are you two kicking on with us tonight? Logan’s putting on a little open house after we’ve finished here. Should be good. We’ve already started laying down a good alcohol baseline out the back.’ Slowmo winked at Abi, who was growing accustomed to the gesture now.

  Stu paused, glanced at Abi. ‘Nah. Another time. Me and Abs are after a quiet one.’

  Fighting the sense of being the third wheel on her own night out, Abi looked from Slowmo to Stu and shrugged. ‘You could go and I could –’

  ‘Would you mind?’ Stu’s excitement was palpable. ‘Logan’s a mate, that’s all, and I could really use some downtime before uni goes back. We’ll still have dinner and everything.’

  Abi tried to look grateful, although the beginning of the semester was still a month away and it seemed like there would be other opportunities to have downtime with Logan.

  ‘Ooh, mate,’ said Slowmo, palms raised. ‘Might leave you to it. Looks like I’ve started something here.’

  ‘Wait up, mate,’ Stu called after him. ‘Where’s your little waitress pad? Take our order, that’s a boy.’

  Slowmo took his time writing ‘one large nacho to share’ on his pad, and wandered off after calling Stu a massive tool. Stu reached out a hand and took hers under the table. ‘Thanks, babe. You’re such a legend.’

  ‘All your friends seem really nice,’ she said. ‘Fun I mean.’

  ‘They’re all right, yeah. Mostly students though, except Luggage, who surfs all day and sleeps in his van. No other commitments to speak of, eh.’

  ‘Why do they call you Stewed?’ Abi asked.

  ‘As in drunk, I spose.’

  ‘Oh yeah, of course. That’s funny.’

  ‘Better than what I used to get, anyway,’ Stu said with a touch of nostalgia. ‘Before I settled down.’

  ‘What did they call you before?’

  ‘Helen Kellett.’

  Abi bit her thumbnail and thought for a moment. ‘Oh like, because of being blind?’

  ‘You got it.’ Abruptly, Stu pulled his hand out of hers and stood up. ‘Back in a sec, I need another one. You right with that?’

  Abi nodded and took a series of small sips to catch up. When Stu returned his mood had shifted. His foot tapped furiously under the table as he finished his beer in three enormous slugs.

  ‘Thanks for taking me out,’ Abi said.

  ‘Yeah, no problem. It’s just, it’s weird being here with you. I mean, it’s great but I sort of feel like this weird old dad.’

  Abi did not mind that his workmates kept coming over to chat as they ate. It gave her a chance to check her phone in case Elaine had tried her – no new messages – and although she hadn’t expected it, she was fine to get the bus home by herself as soon as they finished eating. Stu wanted to crack on and there was no point them both going back, he said, kissing her goodbye at the curb. It was all so fine. She’d had a great time, she told herself, leaving Jude for the first time so she could eat nachos with the crocodile hunter.

  19.

  A complete milk food

  Abi could hear Jude crying as she climbed up the dark stairs. She took the last flight in bounds, arms folded across her chest against the sharp tingling of a sudden letdown.

  As she tried to force the key in the door, she pictured Elaine on the other side, pacing with him, screaming and rigid in her arms. But when she entered, Elaine was sitting perfectly still on the pull-out, knitting, while Jude howled from behind the closed bedroom door.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said, without breaking the rhythm of her stitches.

  Abi ignored Elaine’s look of censure as she rushed past her to the bedroom and found Jude in his cot, struggling against a too-tight swaddle with all the force in his small body. His face was the colour
of a deep bruise and his mouth open to expose the wave-like ridges of his palate and a tiny epiglottis quivering with every fresh bellow.

  ‘It’s all right, Mummy’s here, Mummy’s here,’ Abi said, over and over, self-consciously once Elaine began calling out from the next room.

  ‘Abi, really. He’s perfectly fine. If you pick him up every time he cries, he’ll only learn to manipulate you.’

  The idea that a baby who could startle himself with his own hand was already putting together elaborate cause and effect scenarios based on Abi’s picking him up or not seemed ridiculous, although she still flushed a deep red. ‘Yeah, no, I know,’ she said, forcing herself back out into the living room.

  Elaine raised a finger to signal quiet while she counted stitches.

  ‘I’ve never left him,’ Abi said. It came out as a growl and Elaine looked at her sharply. ‘I’ve never been away from him.’

  ‘I doubt he noticed. He’s got a full tummy and a clean nappy so I really don’t think he needs to be babied.’

  Abi stared, mute, sure Elaine’s face would show that she was joking, in her way. It did not. As Jude’s pained screeching dropped to intermittent gasps, Abi moved towards the door, hoping to induce Elaine’s departure.

  ‘So did you have to use what I expressed?’

  ‘It would have been nowhere near enough,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Fortunately, I thought to bring reinforcements.’ From under a neatly folded cardigan, Elaine withdrew a barrel-like can with a rubber lid and a picture of a baby wearing feathered angel wings. ‘I might as well leave this here.’

  She looked around for somewhere to put it. PediBest20: A complete milk food for infants 0–6 months. The realisation that Elaine had given it to Jude swept through Abi like a fever.

  Since she had taught herself to feed him, alone at Highside, holding her breath against the pain, it had been the one thing she could do for him – the one perfect thing. If she could not dress him in new clothes, if she could not put him to sleep in a nice nursery with a jungle motif and stimulating mobile above a pretty cot, if she could not be married to his father, she could do this. And she would do it perfectly, following every stern injunction from First Year with Baby.

  Although breastfeeding may be painful at first, mothers are encouraged to persevere . . . Studies show breastfeeding protects baby from asthma, eczema as well as common colds . . . The World Health Organization recommends continuing for 12–24 months.

  Elaine was still holding the can top and bottom like a saleswoman. ‘He gobbled it down,’ she said. ‘It did make me wonder about your supply.’

  Abi wanted to grab it out of her hands and hurl it at the wall, but stood where she was, gripping Jude. As Elaine continued to speculate on Abi’s milk production, the book’s imperious narrator sounded on in Abi’s mind and she pressed one ear to her shoulder against the noise. Be careful to preserve your supply by resisting the temptation to supplement with formula . . . Some less expensive formulas have been found to contain harmful . . .

  Finally, Elaine exhausted her line of thought and carried the tin through to the kitchen. Abi heard the opening and closing of a cupboard.

  ‘Where is Stuart anyway?’ Elaine said, reappearing. ‘Did you lose him?’ Her laugh was a silly titter.

  ‘He decided to stay on with some friends.’ Abi opened the front door and held her arm out, grinning so furiously that Elaine appeared to shrink back as she passed into the hall.

  ‘Oh well, boys will be boys,’ she said. ‘It’s good for him to have some time off, to be young and footloose. He’s got a lot of pressure on him and every year matters in architecture. He’ll need his down time.’

  She paused, waiting to be thanked.

  ‘Drive safely,’ was all Abi could manage after sucking in a huge breath and expelling it through her nostrils.

  As soon as she heard the high whine of the Daihatsu pulling out of the driveway, Abi climbed into bed with Jude, and peeled off his clothes, then hers. She fed him, with his legs folded up against her stomach and her palm pressing him gently to her skin. His shoulders rose and fell with every suck and slowly he extended his arm and twisted his fingers in her hair. Abi stroked the soft space between his shoulder blades with the side of her thumb. ‘I am so sorry, Jude. I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again. Your dad and I can go out when you’re grown up. I love you. I’m home now and I will never leave you with the Brush as long as I live.’

  Stu came home just as it was getting light. He fell face-first onto the mattress, narrowly missing Jude, who had spent the night nestled against his mother. The tang of alcohol and stale smoke rose sharply from Stu’s clothes.

  Abi snatched up the baby and sprang out of bed. ‘Your mother gave Jude formula!’ When Stu didn’t respond, she gave the mattress a sharp kick, which failed to rouse him. ‘Stu. Did you hear?’

  ‘Babe, I’m a bit dusty just at the moment,’ he said into his pillow. ‘Can I just sleep? I just need to lie really still for five minutes.’

  ‘No. Stu, sit up. Listen to me! She gave him formula without asking me!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, I wasn’t going to give him formula. I was going to do it myself, properly. I was going to follow World Health Organization guidelines . . .’

  Stu rolled onto an elbow and looked at her skeptically. ‘What does the World Health Organization say about the mum’s diet being ninety per cent Twix? Not to mention the odd . . .’ he mimed a few fast pulls on a cigarette.

  Abi winced. She thought he didn’t know. ‘I have basically quit and anyway, it can’t be that much worse than what’s in formula. Some less expensive formulas have been found to contain . . .’ She couldn’t remember exactly. ‘. . . talcum powder. And bits of . . . other stuff.’

  ‘I had formula and I turned out all right, didn’t I?’

  Abi felt unable to agree at this particular moment. ‘Well, just don’t blame me if he’s covered in eczema on his wedding day!’

  Stu rolled his eyes. He was finished with the subject. Abi stormed to the bathroom with the baby in her arms. ‘And breastmilk’s free! You should be pleased about that bit at least,’ she called, then slammed the door behind her.

  A minute later, as she tried to break off a length of toilet paper with one hand, she heard Stu on the phone to Elaine, thanking her for a great night out. Abi wiped her eyes and dropped the wet wad of paper into the basin.

  ‘Might be nice if you texted Mum to say thanks at some point,’ he said when she emerged, her face still streaked with tears. ‘Smooth things over. She sounded pretty miffed. And asked for the can back at some point so she can give it away. Cos she hates –’

  ‘Yes, I know! She hates waste.’ Abi sighed. Her rage was spent, replaced only by grinding fatigue. ‘Can you please call in sick?’ She did not want to be alone again today. Families invaded the point on weekends, picnicking in large groups, taking over the shallow end of the pool, fathers piggybacking their children in the water. She didn’t want to sit and watch that, alone with Jude.

  ‘Love to, babe,’ Stu said. ‘But it’s Sunday. Time and a half. I’ll be back in eleven hours anyway. You’ll find something to do. Go to the pool. It’s going to be another scorcher.’

  20.

  A first-rate interferer

  Jude slept much later than usual owing, Abi decided, to the slurry of harmful additives in his stomach. When he woke up, she changed his nappy and found it greenish, and different smelling, and resolved to feed him twice as much for the next few days, to flush out his pipes.

  Abi wasn’t sure if Phil would be at the pool on a Sunday, but late in the morning, unable to think of another way to pass the time, she carried Jude down while eating both halves of a Bounty Bar. ‘Coconut is fruit,’ she said to Jude, who stared back at her solemnly.

  She peered over the gate and, after a moment, saw Phil set up at the other end from usual, exiled by a group of noisy teenagers. Abi unlatched the gate with an easy in-out-up and went over to join her. Phi
l had the Sunday magazine on her lap, and the rest of the paper pinned under her heel. Another striped towel, salmon pink and white this time, was draped around her shoulders like a shawl, and her usual hat cast a wide circle of shade over her face.

  ‘Ah, good morning. I bought you one of these,’ Phil said, plucking a takeaway coffee from a tray on her other side. ‘Rather on faith since I thought perhaps today was a family day. I expect it’s fairly tepid by now.’

  Abi could not think how to respond to the untold kindness and, after settling Jude in her lap, took a sip of its warmish contents. Revived, she looked at Phil square on and said, ‘Tell me if you think this is weird.’

  Phil cast her magazine aside and rubbed her hands together. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Jude’s only had breast milk so far, right? Then last night Stu and I went out and his mother minded him and she gave him a huge bottle of formula. Without asking or anything. I got quite upset, because I wasn’t going to do bottles really and I don’t even know if it was a decent kind.’

  Phil clutched Abi’s wrist. ‘Don’t speak. Who is this woman? That’s appalling, Abigail. Utterly appalling.’

  Abi’s entire body relaxed as Phil worked herself into a lather. ‘I would never wade in on the business of feeding and I’m a really first-rate interferer according to Polly. It’s a sacred thing, the arrangement between mother and babe. Truly, Abigail, I’d say she was having a dig. She ought to know better.’ Phil’s voice softened. ‘Admittedly, I did learn that the hard way. I once gave Polly’s older boy a glass of, what’s it called? Ribena, and you’d have thought I fed him a vodka tonic. Polly practically did his mouth out with a pot scourer. No, you’re right to mind.’

  ‘And studies show,’ Abi began, but Phil cut her off.