You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  Abi raised the beer to her mouth and drank for as long as he did, watching him over the rim. They were both panting when their glasses hit the table with a dull crack.

  ‘I guess I still have it,’ Abi said.

  ‘I never lost it. How cute was Jude this afternoon though? I think he could be gifted.’

  Abi kept a straight face. ‘Do you really?’

  ‘Yeah, genuinely. I do. He said “na” while I was wiping his face and I turned around and he was looking smack at a banana.’

  Abi laid her hand over Stu’s and gave it a little pat. ‘How about we have a night off the Jude talk.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry about that,’ Stu winced. ‘Sorry that I can be a . . . sub-optimal boyfriend sometimes.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m sorry for being . . . whatever.’

  ‘Mega-ly intense. But who cares, babe.’

  They picked up their glasses and knocked them together, beer sloshing over the edges.

  After two more rounds, a pleasant numbness was spreading through Abi’s limbs and everything became excessively funny.

  Stu looked at her lovingly and stifled a burp. ‘You may be shit at birth control but otherwise you are . . . very sweet.’

  ‘Birth control is something it’s good to be good at, though. My tongue feels so . . . tonguey.’

  Stu reached out and took her hand, managing on the second attempt. ‘You can’t be good at everything, Abi. No one can’t be good at everything. For example I am a good architect student but I am bad at not moving out when I feel like I want to. Move out.’

  Something told Abi she should follow up the point but at that moment, she was fully occupied with licking tequila from between her fingers. ‘My hand is very sticky. Stu. Do you know that?’

  When they stepped outside some time later, the whole of York Street developed an unmanageable gradient. They leaned shoulder to shoulder, staggering towards no particular destination. It was like trying to come down a hill in very high heels, Abi thought, before breaking into a hard cackle for no particular reason.

  ‘Woss-so funny?’ Stu asked, taking a misstep and putting his hand out for a lamp post.

  ‘Stu, stop, stop. I have to tell you something.’ Abi put both hands on his face, feeling around like a blind person learning a new acquaintance. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘I want to buy you some wedges. Abi, I do. You are so beautiful, I want to get you some wedges. Or a potato scallop.’ He stabbed his own chest with a finger to emphasise the truth of it. ‘I do.’

  ‘I don’t eat fish. I love potatoes though.’

  ‘I love potatoes as well.’

  ‘I do too. I love them.’

  ‘Stu?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My hands is very sticky.’

  Stu nodded and with supreme concentration, led on to a takeaway that glowed from the mouth of the train station. The pavement continued to undulate like a hellish tilt-a-whirl and their progress was slow.

  ‘Stu, Stu, Stu. I don’t have any money,’ Abi spoke in a loud whisper as they approached the counter.

  ‘I got money, babe.’ Stu plunged a fist into each jeans pocket and pulled out two crumpled handfuls of fives and tens. ‘Look, I got all this, Abi. I got all this. Take it. Take this. I want you to have it.’ He pressed the notes on her and she tried to catch them up in cradled arms. ‘You deserve it so much.’

  ‘You’re so amazing to me, Stu.’

  ‘What’ll it be?’ A man in a greying apron frowned at them from the other side of the counter.

  ‘Wedges, large please. We are no seafoods people,’ Abi said, sounding quite business-like in her own mind. ‘How much? I’ve got all this.’ She released all the money onto the counter.

  The man picked up a five-dollar note and pointed towards a bank of fridges. ‘This’ll do. But I’d think about a soft drink too if I were you. Wait over there.’

  When the order came, they walked towards Hyde Park, weaving through crowds and taking turns to forage in the oily bag. Abi waited on the footpath while Stu ran into a bottle shop for two more longnecks. She tried to save the last wedge for him, but couldn’t. Soon they were lying side by side on their backs on the cool grass of the park. Stu opened the beers by screwing the lids into the skin of his forearm, and they drank without sitting up so that beer ran down their necks.

  Fairy lights in the Moreton Bay figs glowed like a string of pearls in Abi’s peripheral vision and she thought how nice it would be if she could just stay here, except for Jude who she loved so much even when he cried and went psycho and made her go psycho because he could be so psycho. ‘I could sleep here for a hunjid years. This is the best birthday Stu, ever. The best. When I turned ten my mum said let’s not bother about presents anymore eh love? And all my birthdays have been shit since then. True. I have never liked any birthday, except, have you seen Cool Runnings? I saw that on my birthday once, I don’t know when.’

  ‘That’s the best movie,’ Stu said with total passion. ‘That team never gived up Abi even though . . . they had no snow!’ Stu rolled onto his side as though they were home on the mattress. Their faces were inches apart. ‘I love you and shit Abi. I always have. I just forgot and now I’ve remembered. And I love Jude so much. I’m so glad we had him even though it wasn’t on purpose and we only found out like, whoa you’re having a baby tomorrow basically.’

  Because Stu was suddenly kissing her on and all around her mouth, Abi was sure she wasn’t speaking her thoughts aloud. It was not until Stu pulled away from her and struggled to his feet, knocking both longnecks over, that she realised she had.

  ‘What do you mean? What?’ Stu was shouting.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said, that’s why you didn’t tell me what?’

  Abi raised herself onto all fours but the ground lurched again. She grabbed two fistfuls of grass to ride it out, and tried to think. ‘I mean, I knew you would love him when you saw him, so you just had to see him first. And that’s . . . might be why I didn’t tell you and because the right moment didn’t come up.’

  Stu reached down and dragged her to standing by one arm. ‘Did you know?’ He was too close, she turned away from his reeking breath. ‘Did you know you were pregnant and keep it from me until it was too late?’

  ‘What? No. I mean, yes. But only – ow, Stu you are hurting me. I just waited for a bit, but the right moment . . .’

  ‘Did you get pregnant on purpose?’

  ‘No! I promise. I was really careful. Mostly.’

  ‘Mostly! Fuck!’ He shook her like a child. ‘When did you find out? How soon did you know?’

  ‘Um, three weeks? Or a bit less maybe?’

  ‘Why would you do that? How could you do this to me?’

  ‘Because, you mighted – you might take him.’ No that wasn’t right, she closed her eyes and tried to sober up. ‘I had to have him, Stu. I had to. You might have said no. Please let me go, please. But he was the first nice thing that had ever happened to me and I didn’t want you to take my best thing. But it doesn’t matter because you love him now! Don’t you? Don’t you?’

  ‘You lied to me. All this time, you’ve been lying to me. I don’t believe this.’

  Abruptly, Stu released her, so she pitched backwards. He began jogging towards Elizabeth Street. Abi tried to keep pace, with a slurry of alcohol and potato churning in her stomach, until he strode into traffic and stopped a slow-moving cab by slamming two hands down on the bonnet. While the driver cursed him out the window, Stu yanked the door open and roughly helped Abi inside. She pawed her way across the back seat expecting him to follow but when she turned, the door slammed. With her hands pressed to the greasy window, she watched Stu jog unsteadily towards the train.

  The next thing she knew the taxi was stopped outside the flats. ‘Miss,’ the driver said. ‘Miss, time you get out.’

  63.

  More than you ever will

  Hard sunlight shining into her eyes woke Abi the next morning. She was still
wearing her clothes from the night before and as she forced herself to roll off the pull-out, she saw that her knees were stained with dirt and grass. With her arms crossed over her engorged chest, she stumbled to the bathroom and relieved each hard, throbbing breast into the sink. A fine needle-spray of clear white milk shot into the basin and beaded around the plughole. The sight of her milk draining away made her ache for Jude. As she drank water from the tap, blood temperature, tasting of rust, she tried to think how to get herself to Gordon. Stu would be there, but as pieces of their drunken exchange came back to her, she knew it was over now. He would not talk to her. He would never forgive her. She told the truth and now it was all broken. How could she have explained to Stu how much she needed to have the baby? From the moment she found out, she was always going to keep him. There would be no more loss, no more missing people, no more ghosts.

  Abi looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was streaked with dirt and there was a smear of dried blood in the corner of her mouth. As she tried to clean it off with a clod of toilet paper, there was a brisk rap on the door. Stu. Abi ran through, ignoring the pounding in her temples that accompanied each step. She flung open the door and there in the hallway was Elaine, holding Jude and his small bag of things and an empty cooler.

  Although she was neatly dressed, her eyes had the swollen quality of recent tears. Abi lunged for the baby and Elaine relinquished him without struggle. ‘Stuart has told us the truth about how all this came to be.’ Her tone was venomous and Abi hid her face against Jude’s.

  ‘You must understand that Stuart is my son. My legitimate son and I love him more than you ever will. If, in fact, you ever did.’

  Bowels turning to water, Abi found herself closing the door against Elaine and turning inside and standing with her back against the door. Elaine’s voice continued from the other side. ‘We will come and collect him on Saturday mornings and return him on Sunday evenings, until a permanent arrangement is made. We ask that you do not attempt to contact Stuart. He will not have his life derailed by any further machinations of a . . . of . . .’

  Loudly, Abi began to sing to drown out the sound of the voice – wild, careening nursery rhyme-like things. ‘I love you, Jude, I love you. My little boy, my little boy.’

  Eventually, Elaine’s shrieking died away, and minutes later, Abi heard the angry crunching of Daihatsu gears from below. When she was sure they were safe, Abi ran all the way to the big house, with Jude held tightly against her chest.

  64.

  Let us climb up the rockery

  Phil was shocked by Abi’s appearance at the back door. Her pounding on the leadlight sent Domenica into a fit of yelping and forced Phil to cast aside the Target Word and hurry through the kitchen, expecting flood or fire.

  ‘Good Lord, Abigail. Whatever’s happened?’

  But the girl couldn’t speak. Phil stepped aside to let her in, and seeing then that she was shaking, conveyed her upstairs, just as she had after the demise of one of Brigitta’s high school love affairs or dramatic friendship implosions.

  She chose Brigitta’s room and lifted Jude out of his mother’s arms as Abi sank onto the bed. ‘Go to sleep,’ Phil said, pulling the cover up with her free hand, ‘and when you wake up, I think you’ll find the world is still turning.’

  Abi closed her eyes and Phil watched over her for a moment. As it was, Phil found herself in the mood for motherly ministrations after a brief, frustrating conversation earlier with Polly, who never seemed to require any. She closed the door behind her and carried Jude downstairs, sitting him on the soft carpet of the front room. He amused himself by pulling tissues from a box, and as Phil sat watching she recalled Freddie at much the same age, playing in the very spot. Sitting up but not yet crawling, always a favourite stage – utterly engaging but too young yet to tug at her skirt, hover at her elbow, wanting to know if she’d rather have no head or no legs – a phase she found infinitely more taxing. Phil felt herself edging towards nostalgia and was relieved when it seemed Jude needed something by way of morning tea. In the kitchen, she prepared triangles of bread and Vegemite, which he ate one after another sitting on her lap.

  There must have been a denouement between his parents. Abi’s expectations had been rising vis-à-vis the return of Stuart and Phil felt an uncomfortable twinge of liability. Perhaps she’d encouraged her to overegg the pudding because, of course, they were so young and who was to say they even suited? Although surely, Phil thought, it isn’t wrong to meddle when the object is ultimately noble – a united family, a solid home for the babe.

  Brigitta so often accused her of trying to arrange the affairs of others, but in this case assistance had been required. And once or twice she had spotted Stuart out with Jude, the direct result of her working in the wings, which delivered a measure of private triumph. He seemed like a fairly solid if unspectacular young man who’d simply lost his way and needed shepherding back to the fold.

  ‘Oh well,’ Phil said out loud. She’d have the full story when Abi woke up, and in the meantime, there was Jude to tend to. ‘Now,’ she said, as the final triangle disappeared into his little mouth, ‘what do you say to a story?’

  * * *

  Abi knew that she would not sleep but waited for Phil to close the door before sitting up and looking around the small, dim bedroom. She had only seen it through a crack in the door, and now she was able to run her hand over the wallpaper, pale green, printed with birds and gold bamboo. There was a faded pink slipper chair in the corner and rows of aging children’s novels on a bookshelf beside it. As she lay, feeling the warm, starched bedsheets against her skin, the room seemed to contract around her. Abi felt she was a miniature figure tucked away in the attic of a rich child’s doll house. She burrowed back under the covers and hid her face with a feather pillow. Stu was gone. Stu did not love her. He had once, but he would not again.

  She could not bear to lie there with her thoughts. From the bookshelf by the bed, she chose a worn copy of Anne of Avonlea. Inside, ‘Polly Woolnough’ had been messily crossed out and replaced with ‘PROPITY OF BRIGITTA WOOLNOUGH DO NOT TOUCH OR ELSS!!!’

  Abi began to read, but her mind ranged over the events of the night before as she tried to put together a version that she could give to Phil. Telling the whole, exact truth only made things worse.

  Soon, the sound of Jude’s unhappy squawking rose from downstairs and Abi forced herself to get up. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard Phil chatting merrily. ‘All right, shall we have another? Goodness me, you’re a reader like your mother.’ There was the sound of movement across the room, followed by some rearrangement on the sofa. Abi pressed her back against the wall, out of view.

  ‘All right,’ Phil said. ‘The Tale of Tom Kitten. This is a favourite Jude, even if Beatrix Potter did go in for such a lot of smacking. Whose was this?’ Abi heard the turning of pages. ‘Ah, it doesn’t say. Well, anyway. I expect it was Poll’s.’

  Abi’s phone was in the pocket of her skirt and she drew it out, scrolling quickly until she found the recorder. She pressed it on just as Phil began reading in a voice rich enough for radio. ‘Once upon a time there were three little kittens, and their names were Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet. They had dear little fur coats of their own . . .’

  Abi could picture Jude nestled against Phil’s side and she longed to be able to tuck in at Phil’s other side.

  ‘Let us climb up the rockery, and sit on the garden wall . . .’

  Phil paused. ‘Perhaps we’ll stop there, Jude. I forgot quite how long this one is.’ After that, she sounded at a loss and Abi slipped the phone back in her pocket and signalled her coming with a cough. The scene was just as she’d pictured it, except Phil had her feet up, and Jude was curled in her lap. ‘Abigail, you’re awake. Come and sit, dear. You’ve had some sort of episode, I see.’

  Abi sat opposite and slowly began. The swimming lesson, the endless crying, her flight to the pub, the terrible night out. Phil listened attentively, let
ting Jude play with her beads until he tried to reach them into his mouth and she peeled his fingers off and tucked them away in her blouse. ‘Dear oh dear, Abigail. But why did you agree to a night out after all you’d been through?’

  ‘I didn’t even want to go but he was so keen. I said yes but I didn’t realise he’d get so drunk.’ A thought dropped whole into her mind and Abi heard herself continue, driven by the prize of being allowed back up to Brigitta’s bedroom and not sent home. ‘And then he got really angry for no reason.’

  Phil’s expression of concern compelled her to continue. ‘He started to shake me, I didn’t know what to do. So I ran.’

  Phil gasped. ‘Oh Abigail. I didn’t think him capable of such wickedness.’

  ‘Only when he drinks, which is a lot I suppose.’ The lie had been told and now it was demanding reinforcement.

  ‘Indeed? Well, I can only apologise. I’ve misjudged him.’ Phil looked rattled as she stood and gave Jude to his mother.

  Abi’s cheeks burned, but it had been her only choice. This or returning alone to the flat. This or going back to Highside.

  ‘Elaine brought Jude back this morning but she shouted at me as well,’ Abi said. ‘She said Stu was finished with me and they’re going to take Jude on weekends.’

  ‘This is all a scandal, Abigail. But we’ll see about the weekend business.’ Phil sounded more certain than she looked. ‘And in the meantime, you’ll stay here. Keep Briggy’s room and do me a list of what you need from home. I’ll get Noel to fetch it all down for you.’

  ‘All right,’ Abi said, gnawing on her thumbnail. ‘Okay.’

  65.

  Eggs and soldiers

  That evening, Phil prepared a supper of eggs and soldiers and set two places at the corner of the kitchen table. Jude was asleep on Freddie’s cadet camp stretcher, set up in the corner of Brigitta’s room and modified for safety with a rolled up quilt along each side. Phil had bathed him in the kitchen sink as Noel made trips in and out with essentials. Abi had hung around watching, uselessly checking her phone, and feeling increasingly peripheral each time Phil moved her out of the way to get to a drawer or locate a suitable towel. But each time she opened her mouth, the spectre of returning to Highside Circuit forced it shut again.