‘It’s good to speak to you. What are you doing today?’
‘Oh, nothing much. I’m afraid Charlotte’s not here.’
‘That’s all right. I wanted to speak to you.’
Emily could think of nothing to say.
‘Emily?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve sent you a package for Christmas – a few things I thought you might like. Some clothes – I hope you don’t mind me choosing them – the girl at the shop was only a bit older than you and I took her advice.’
‘No, that’s all right – I mean, thanks.’
‘I was wondering if you’d had any thoughts about coming home.’
Emily remained silent.
‘It’s just that – you know, if you wanted, you could live here with us, with Mahalia.’
‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought . . .’
‘Well, think about it. Mahalia’s been visiting us on her own – staying the night. She’s a lovely little thing.’
Emily was silent. she imagined her baby staying with her mother.
‘I have to go now,’ she said abruptly.
‘Oh – all right then. Bye, darling. I’ll ring again.’
Emily put the receiver back onto the cradle.
She put her face in her hands, but no tears came. Retreating to her bed, she curled up on top of the cover. The cat came inquiringly into the room and jumped up onto her, but she pushed it away, and started to pick at a join in the wallpaper. She didn’t want to think, and somehow the picking helped. It was slow work, for the paper was glued on tight. She had picked away a patch the size of a fifty-cent coin by the time she noticed that the cut in her hand had somehow opened up again. She squeezed it till it bled.
‘Emily?’
She hadn’t heard Charlotte come home.
‘Having a nap?’
Emily hauled herself up with difficulty. ‘Just a lie-down,’ she said.
She followed Charlotte out to the kitchen, still feeling disoriented. ‘Did you have a nice . . . chocolate cake?’ she asked feebly.
Charlotte patted her on the arm. ‘I see you licked the bowl, then. Do you feel like a driving lesson? You’re going so well, it’d be a shame not to keep up the momentum.’
Emily looked around. ‘Don’t you want . . . a cup of tea first?’ she said, hoping to put it off. She had no energy for driving today. She rarely had the energy for driving.
‘I’m stuffed to the gills with tea,’ said Charlotte. Instead of dropping the car keys onto the bench, she said, ‘Catch.’
To her own astonishment, Emily caught them.
5
(A postcard with a picture of dolphins)
Dear Emily,
Well, we’re here at the coast at last, and it’s everything the beach should be: sunny, with cool, perfect water. Pete’s having a great time swimming every day, and there’s an icecream shop almost next door to the camping ground, so he’s set.
Sorry to have missed you the day you called round. Hope to see you when we get back. Have a lovely Christmas.
Love, Martin and Pete
PS We did see some dolphins. One jumped out of the water only about 50 metres in front of us!
6
Sometimes, when she woke, she imagined herself at her parents’ house, even though she’d lived in several places since she’d left it. She imagined that the light coming through the window was the light of a North Coast summer, and outside, her father would be tinkering with his old car. Dressed in his shabby weekend pants, he’d be leaning into the bonnet, polishing the engine and pulling out the oil gauge to view it critically and wipe it clean.
Her mother . . .
Emily forced her eyes properly open and saw the wall where she’d been picking away the wallpaper. It was now a patch the size of an orange. The house was quiet. In the doorway, the cat sat staring at her.
Emily remembered Charlotte leaving before sunrise to drive to the station. She was catching the train down to the city for the day to have Christmas with her family. Emily had been firm about not wanting to go with her; she had put on a show of normality the day before, getting up early and sitting down to breakfast, and later on eating two slices of Christmas cake. She swore to Charlotte that she’d be all right on her own. ‘It’s no big deal, is it? It’s just a day.’ Finally she’d resorted to saying callously, ‘Anyway, I’d be so bored down there with them all.’
Charlotte had tiptoed into the room earlier in the half-dark and put something on the end of her bed. Now, stretching her toe to feel for it, Emily made the object fall onto the floor.
They’d already exchanged presents the night before, so this was extra. Emily was still wearing the glass bead necklace that Charlotte had given her. Now she peeled away the tape and out tumbled some bath bombs and two cakes of soap that looked and smelt like something to eat.
In the kitchen, she looked at the clock. It was eleven-thirty. This time last year she and Matt had been at his mother Julie’s place, high on a mountain surrounded by forest. Emily had sighed a lot in the heat, putting her hand on her belly to feel the baby kick and turn over. There’d been an assortment of people there: some friends of Julie’s, and a few stray people she’d felt sorry for. It was sad, she said, to have to spend Christmas on your own.
That was probably where Matt and the baby were now. While Emily stood in a deathly quiet kitchen in the Blue Mountains, her baby would be sitting on a verandah surrounded by wrapping paper, or crawling around under the feet of people Emily had never met. The sky would be a brilliant blue, but clouds would be already gathering for an afternoon storm.
The fridge door creaked as she opened it. Charlotte had left a large festive platter of meats and salads, and a plum pudding she’d told Emily she could have with icecream. Peeling up the corner of the plastic covering, Emily extracted a slice of cold ham, folded it, and put it into her mouth. She gave a slice to the cat, and ate some potato salad with her fingers.
She ran a deep bath and immersed herself, lying on her back with her hair floating around her. She thought she heard the phone ringing; sitting up, she listened until it stopped, then ran more water into the bath.
A wave of water sloshed over the edge when she hauled herself out. She left the deluge on the floor and towelled herself dry. With her hair dripping down her back, she trailed around the house naked. She wondered if other people felt like this – as though they weren’t quite real. The light on the answering machine blinked, but she ignored it.
Wrapping a sarong around her, she sat for a long time under the tree in the back yard. Finally, mid-afternoon, she went inside and dressed in the clothes that her mother had sent her. She almost smiled at herself in the full-length mirror in Charlotte’s room, where she’d gone to see how she looked. She was surprised that she still looked okay – just like any other girl in the short, layered skirt and lacy halter-neck top.
She was all dressed up with nowhere to go. She moved a pile of art books and sat down on one of Charlotte’s many sofas, staring up at the angel in the green dress, who looked mysterious in the shadowy afternoon light. Late afternoons were the worst, just before nightfall. She’d often been around at Martin’s place at that time, watching Pete while he had his bath, or cooking with Martin in the kitchen before Cat came home from work. It had helped her, to be absorbed by something at the wolfish time of day that threatened to eat you up with its loneliness.
7
Emily had felt detached and removed from the world in the weeks before her baby was born. She and Matt had moved to a caravan in the hills outside the town, and she’d delighted in everything she found there at first – the way the clouds changed shape continually, the starry nights when they lay outside on the grass talking and staring at the sky, the rocky creek at the bottom of the hill where they swam naked, and the big old tree under which they lay for hours afterwards on the hottest of days.
Then Emily found all her energy becoming concentrated somehow inside herself – she felt she must
be giving it all to the baby. When Matt spoke to her, she found herself responding from a long way away. She wasn’t with him, not really.
It was vaguely pleasant, this remoteness. She knew that she was storing herself up, gathering herself together, for the big thing that she would have to do.
Emily had imagined their baby being born somewhere spacious and beautiful and calm, perhaps under the spreading fig tree in the paddock where she and Matt lay after swimming in the creek. She’d wanted something magical and otherworldly.
The labour room in the hospital was far from her fantasy, even though there was a forest scene on the wall, and the nurses played music that was meant to be soothing. None of it helped. Emily had disappeared inside a small burning circle of pain.
When she emerged, she was not the same person, and she had a child. The tiny creature had slipped from her in a rush, so that she felt it must be a seal, not a human being.
Matt had loved the baby at once, unable to take his eyes away, marvelling at her fingers and toes and her perfect little face. His enthusiasm had made Emily smile, but already she was beginning to be afraid.
She wanted, more than anything, for her mother to come and tell her that everything would be all right.
Once, she’d contained this baby inside her. Now, the child seemed contained within herself. She must have been that way all along, floating inside Emily with that self-possessed set to her mouth, her eyes tightly closed and inward-looking.
The baby lay in its crib beside her bed, and Emily had rolled over to face the wall, so she didn’t have to look at it. The baby was self-possessed, yet helpless, and Emily wondered how she – weak, imperfect, headstrong Emily – could ever give her everything she would need.
Matt’s mother Julie came, and stood beside the crib gazing into the baby’s face with tears in her eyes. ‘She is so beautiful – just so beautiful.’ She reached out one tentative finger to touch the baby’s sleeping face. She’d brought armfuls of flowers from her garden, and so many presents that Emily felt overwhelmed. She was still a little in awe of Julie, who had raised Matt all on her own, and built her house with her own two hands, and had a job as a social worker.
Emily had waited for her own mother, and waited.
8
Emily got up and wandered restlessly around Charlotte’s house. She opened the refrigerator and stared into it, but she wasn’t hungry. While she was prowling about, the phone started to ring, and she stood nearby and watched it until the answering machine cut in.
‘Hello, Emily, this is Dad. Just ringing to wish you – and Charlotte of course – a happy Christmas. Mum rang earlier and left a message, but I suppose you were both out – and still are . . .’
Her father’s voice faltered. He wasn’t used to giving messages to machines.
‘Anyway, love, I hope you’re having a nice day. Give us a ring when you get back? Bye for now.’
The machine clicked off. Emily, who’d been almost ready to reach out and pick up the receiver, turned and walked out of the house.
9
When her mother had finally come to the hospital, she’d glanced at the baby in the cradle almost in embarrassment, and planted a dutiful kiss on Emily’s cheek. Then she stood awkwardly, holding a bunch of flowers and a present that Emily didn’t unwrap until long after she’d left.
For a long time she and Emily had not got along; Emily felt that her mother too often tried to tell her what to do, while at other times she seemed a little afraid. Emily had reacted to both these approaches with a dismissive sigh.
Her father had been more welcoming. ‘Hello, Emmy, my darling?’ peering anxiously around the door before he came in, as though afraid of surprising her in some unspeakable medical procedure. He held her close for a long time.
‘So this is the little one.’ He turned back the edge of the baby blanket, and said coyly, ‘May I?’ before picking her up and cradling her in her arms. ‘Oh, look, Margaret,’ he said. ‘Our first grandchild.’
Emily’s mother allowed the baby to be thrust into her arms; Emily saw her soften slightly, before returning the child to her husband.
‘What is the babe’s name?’ he asked shyly.
‘Mahalia,’ she said.
He didn’t quite understand, and she had to repeat it.
‘Mahalia,’ he said. ‘That’s . . . unusual, isn’t it? But I like it, I think,’ he said warmly, turning to his wife, who nodded, curtly.
Emily remembered the way her parents had always made her feel hemmed in. Her childhood dream of horses had been a way of escape from them. A horse had strength, and swiftness, and unpredictability. You could be free on a horse. She’d written a story when she was in primary school about running away on her imaginary horse. In the story she’d gone as far as Western Australia, and when she saw headlines in the paper that her parents were looking for her she hadn’t felt one bit of remorse.
When she was too young to know what she was doing they’d stuck her in a white dress and taken her to the church and had her confirmed in a faith that she could never take seriously. Years later, she had coaxed the priest into allowing her to climb up the church tower. And she’d taken Matt with her, pulling him up the dim stone staircase, and kissed him for the first time right on top of the tower. She hoped that everyone would see them, but feared that no one had.
And she’d jumped into the river one day, just to see what it felt like. It had been cold and muddy and exhilarating. She’d wanted to shock herself awake, to experience everything. She’d wanted more than the pretty pink bedroom in her parents’ house.
Lying in the hospital bed with her baby beside her, she could see that not only had she hemmed herself in again, she’d also thoughtlessly implicated a child who hadn’t asked for life at all.
10
As Emily walked away from Charlotte’s house, there were very few people about, and the streets had the weary flatness that she remembered from other Christmas afternoons. She walked past Martin’s house through habit. One of Pete’s sneakers still lay sole up on the front verandah in exactly the same position it had been in last time.
In the town centre she went into a milk bar and stood waiting to be served. The girl behind the counter was wiping down the stainless steel with a thick grey rag; it swirled around, leaving beads of water on the gleaming surface. Three people about Emily’s age sat at a booth in the dim recesses of the café. She heard a boy’s voice say, ‘Hey! She’s hot!’ and a girl’s derisive laugh. Finally the shop assistant came up to her with an expression that implied she was being interrupted, and Emily asked politely for a chocolate milkshake.
She glanced towards the back of the shop to the faces in the booth; she noticed only a girl with a plump, freckled face who looked away from her and down into her milkshake with a smirk.
As the shopgirl dipped a ladle into the refrigerator to scoop up the milk, Emily realised that she had come out without her bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ she interrupted her, ‘I’ll have to cancel that – I’ve forgotten my purse,’ and fled without looking back.
She found a park and squirted water into her mouth from a bubbler. The place had an air of desertion, and because of the welcome lack of people Emily sat down on a seat. She didn’t want to go back to Charlotte’s place yet. It would feel at once too constricting and too empty. The light on the answering machine would blink insistently at her. Her parents could even ring again, and she mightn’t be able to resist answering.
An Indian family – people of all ages, including a couple of toddlers – came into the park and spread out picnic rugs. They carried several pots wrapped in teatowels, and picnic baskets. The oldest woman unwrapped the pots and ladled rice and curry onto plates. Another poured steaming tea from a thermos and handed the cups round. The children were given soft drink. The men sat to one side of the picnic rugs and talked and smoked.
Then they ate, laughing and talking all the while, and the toddlers staggered about and collapsed onto their bottoms on the ground when thei
r legs gave way. Whenever one came within their orbit, one or other of the women would press rice into its willing mouth with her fingers.
Emily saw a single figure enter the path at the far side of the park. She knew from the rangy look of him, the bare feet and the matted hair, that it was the lonely boy whose eyes Martin had noticed were so blue. He walked along the path until he came level with the Indian family, stopped and stared at them for a moment, and then walked on with his steady, purposeless trudge. The family did not notice him (as indeed they had not noticed Emily), and Emily wondered if the lonely boy had been there at all, or if she’d imagined it. And she wondered if she was there either, she seemed so nebulous, the world swirling around her as if nothing existed at all, least of all Emily herself.
11
The caravan where they’d lived was high in the hills, and had views of the surrounding countryside; it was like living in an eagle’s nest.
There they had lived in a sort of idyllic dream – had cooked outside on a campfire, and lain under the stars at night when the van became too hot. When Emily and the baby came out of hospital they returned there – both insisted on it, though Matt’s mother had wanted them to come and stay with her for a while.
The place, which to Emily had previously felt like paradise, was now too bleak and uncomfortable. They shared a bath with Kevin, the man who owned the property – it was an old enamel tub in the open, attached to the back of his house. Nappies had to be washed by hand in Kevin’s laundry tub, also in the open air. Everything was a struggle. Emily felt that they were too exposed to the elements. The sun was too hot and relentless, the wind too windy, the nights black.
Matt had been eager to do as much as he could to help. He did all the washing and cooking. He woke the moment the baby cried at night, and gave her to Emily to feed. But she found breastfeeding difficult. The baby hunted for the nipple so frantically, moving her head rapidly from side to side, it was as though she was really fighting to get away from it. And then she’d cry, and Emily would cry. By the time the baby managed to latch on to feed they were both exhausted.
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