by Jane Jago
‘Probably a few weeks.’
‘Are you sure you shouldn’t take some time off?’
‘I’d like to work as long as I can.’
‘My mother always resented my father because she had to work right up until I was born,’ he volunteered.
Catherine looked at him in amazement. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk about your mother.’
Liam’s mind was in turmoil – he wasn’t even sure exactly what he had just said. ‘I mean, she had n-no choice. She had to w-work . . . I’ve told you about my mother before?’
‘You’ve given me the family history.’
‘Well, she worked. That’s all.’ He got up abruptly from the table.
‘Did you love her?’
‘Of course I did.’ He rinsed his plate vigorously at the sink.
‘It’s all right, Liam . . . You just talk so little about your family, and never about your feelings.’
Liam felt he was being tested in some way.
‘Wouldn’t you like to get in touch with your father?’
‘I’ve told you, he’s an alcoholic.’
‘I know that, but now that you’re going to have children of your own, wouldn’t you like to get in touch?’
‘What the hell for? He made our lives a misery.’
She was staring at him. ‘I just want our child to have a family.’
‘Look, you’ve got enough to worry about with . . .’ he struggled to say the words ‘. . . being pregnant.’
Catherine was looking at him incredulously.
She just didn’t get it. How could she? Suddenly it struck him – a revelation: he would have to tell her everything. Then she would understand that she had to have a termination. Even Catherine would see that she couldn’t bring his baby into the world.
‘I’m going outside for a cigarette.’
From somewhere in the living room the phone rang. Liam went towards it, lifting the red scatter cushions on the couch until he found it. ‘Hello.’
‘Liam?’
‘Margaret. How are you?’
‘In an uproar as usual – the dishwasher’s just fallen out of the wall again. I suppose you pair are very busy?’
‘No. Not at all, just having a quiet Saturday morning . . . It doesn’t happen very often, not for me anyway.’
‘Can I have a word with my Catarina, then?’
‘Yeah, sure, I’ll just –’
‘And, by the way, Liam, I couldn’t be more pleased for you both. Congratulations! Gavin was just so thrilled.’
‘Oh . . . yeah, thanks . . . It was a huge surprise.’ Liam held out the phone to his wife. ‘It’s your mother.’ Catherine took it from him and sat on the couch.
Liam went outside, lit a cigarette and began to pace up and down on the patio, watching her through the glass as she talked and laughed. Was she ever going to consult him about anything again? Or had he already served his purpose as a sperm donor, a disposable commodity in a process that was only ever about her? He stubbed out his cigarette and flicked it over the rail.
‘When did you tell them?’ he asked, when she had hung up.
‘A few days ago, why?’
‘Oh, nothing. What’s it got to do with me anyway? Who else have you told?
‘What’s wrong with telling people?’
‘Everyone at work knows already, do they?’ Liam pulled on his jacket.
‘No. Why? Where are you going?’
‘Out! Out of this house, away from you.’
Catherine was staring at him in astonishment.
Outside in the driveway he reached into his pocket for his keys and remembered that Catherine’s car was being serviced. He was supposed to pick it up for her later that morning. If he took the car she wouldn’t have any transport. Fuck that! He needed the car: he needed to drive, to get far away. He wondered if Catherine had ever gone without anything she wanted in her entire life. In the absence of other choices he was beginning to hate her.
He drove through the central business district, past the busy Ice-Creamery and the Saturday-morning market crowds. Parents dragging children, children dragging parents, and the sort of children who hang around the energy of other people’s families, skirting through the market on bikes or milling about in pairs waiting for something to happen, anything that would connect them to the greater whole.
His mobile phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, saw Catherine’s name, turned it off and threw it onto the passenger seat. He stopped at the intersection near the Creighton and Davis offices, where Colin was leaning on his silver Jaguar, arms crossed over his ever-expanding belly. Liam watched his mouth moving soundlessly as he lectured his colleague, Paul, on some area of his expertise. Liam sickened at the thought of the crude innuendo he would have to put up with from Colin when he found out about Catherine’s pregnancy. He accelerated rapidly through the intersection. They were probably talking about it right now for all he knew.
He could forget any notion he had of telling her the truth. Tell her what? ‘You’re carrying the child of a monster. Kill it before it’s too late’?
Liam crossed the railway bridge and drove blindly through the industrial estate, soon leaving the car yards and warehouses of the township behind. He drove through the open countryside, past the speedway and its empty, makeshift stands. His eyes took in only the road ahead and the broken white line that measured out the endless kilometres before him. He wondered how far he could drive without running out of fuel. How far he could distance himself from the nightmare reality of his life. How far he could drive ‘away’ from himself and how long he could stay there.
Slowly he began to look at, and really see, the physical details of the world around him. Yellowing paddocks, a distant green shadowed hill, a stand of camphor laurel trees, a bare farmhouse, a dairy, the endless still sky. He wound down the window and let the air rush past him. How could he change what was already done? He still existed – blood still flowed through his veins – but for him the world had stopped a long time ago.
Up ahead at a small junction there was a general store. The fuel gauge was nearly on empty. He resisted the urge to turn off into the nearby patchwork of farms, accelerated towards the carefully restored stone building and pulled in alongside the single petrol bowser. A group of Jersey cows were feeding on the ridgeline opposite as he filled the car.
Inside the Berridale Emporium a round man in work-shorts and a singlet carefully stacked apples on open tiered shelves. He looked towards Liam and ambled over to the counter.
‘Twenty bucks worth of fuel,’ said the man, looking at the readout on the terminal. ‘Anything else?’
Liam hesitated and took two packets of crisps from a tray on the counter. ‘Just these.’
‘Twenty-four ninety.’
Liam fished the exact amount from his pocket and placed it in the man’s hand; he noticed crescents of black earth beneath the shopkeeper’s fingernails.
‘Makes a nice change from plastic,’ said the man, clamping the twenty-dollar note in the till. ‘Most people don’t know what real money looks like nowadays . . .’ He smiled in such a friendly way that Liam felt almost bereft at the thought of leaving the store so soon.
‘Do you have a farm here?’
‘The whole ridge, a bit of dairy, orchards.’ The man pointed in various directions with his thumb to indicate the vicinity of each enterprise. ‘Root crops. Dairy. That’s our milk there.’ He pointed to a glass-fronted fridge. ‘Best milk you’ll get, not homogenized. Pasteurized but not homogenized. Got some unpasteurized too. Have to label it “Pet food only”. Drink it meself. Been drinkin’ it since I was born. Pasteurization just allows farmers to get sloppy. A clean dairy farm don’t need no pasteurization.’ He walked over to the fridge and opened the door. ‘Here, have one on me.’ He handed Liam a two-litre container of milk. ‘You’ll taste the difference.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Of course, if you want the big supermarket chains to buy up
your milk for a pittance you gotta do what they tell you. Me? I like to keep things small.’
The rhythm of the man’s steadily building argument was having a soothing effect on Liam’s frayed nerves.
‘You looking for a farm?’ asked the man.
‘No, just taking a drive. As a matter of fact I’m a real-estate agent,’ added Liam, awkwardly, ‘but it’s my day off.’
The farmer eyed Liam curiously, his youthful clean-shaven face, his tailored pants and well-cut shirt. ‘Aha!’ He shook his finger. ‘That’s another story! No end of you people coming round here talking up land prices. I wouldn’t even look at selling this place under one million.’
‘Well, from what I’ve seen you’d probably get it.’
‘Then where would I go? People round here start getting that sort of selling price they’ll need the same kinda money to buy back in.’ He pointed to his head several times. ‘Loony tunes – only people who benefit is you lot!’
Liam nodded: he could hardly deny it.
‘It’s all arse-up. My granddaughter won’t be able to buy into a shoebox in the outer limits, let alone anywhere else. Whole generations are going to be held hostage by the wealthy. People should hang on to their land and hand it on to their kids. You got kids?’ He lifted a box of butternut squashes from behind the counter and deposited it in a nearby trolley.
‘Thinking about it.’
‘Don’t think about it. Best investment you’ll ever make. What’s all this for,’ he waved his hand over his head, indicating the entirety of his business, ‘if you don’t have someone to hand it on to? Apart from you and your greedy lot!’ He laughed.
‘So you’re definitely not interested in selling, then?’
‘No, but plenty are,’ said the man, turning back to his work.
‘Thanks again for the milk.’
‘My pleasure. I know you’ll be back for more when you taste that . . .’
In the car, Liam propped the milk between the front seats, and started the engine. The farmer’s dog emerged from the rear of the adjoining shed and rounded the building. The black-and-white collie barked excitedly and ran towards Liam’s departing vehicle.
As the Berridale Emporium receded into the distance Liam’s momentarily raised spirits began to sink. The farmer’s rapture for ordinary life, his relentless enthusiasm and cheerful wisdom had lifted him out of himself for a short while. He had been fascinated to meet someone so rooted in his life, so vitalized and defined by what he did. You are what you do. An integration of body and soul not possible for Liam, whose very survival depended upon separating himself from what he had done. He would never be whole again.
The road crossed a small creek and cut sharply into the hills. At the top of the ridge, where the paddocks unfolded, Liam left the car at the edge of the pasture and began walking. He waded through the tall oat-grass, carrying the farmer’s milk. He followed the ridgeline for a time, then made his way across a cultivated field of turnips, towards a copse that straddled a narrow gully. Here behind the trees several outbuildings took him by surprise; further along behind a windbreak of monastery bamboo, he found a small, well-kept weatherboard farmhouse, freshly painted in tones of pale green and cream. He could clearly see the dormer windows of the north-facing attic.
Not wishing to trespass, Liam walked the full boundary, following the line of the bamboo until he arrived at the front of the property. Access was via a narrow but sealed road that led down the opposite side of the ridge and reconnected somewhere with the main road he had driven along.
He followed the rough gravel drive to the front gate where, to his amazement, a vivid new yellow and red Creighton and Davis sign had been posted. To Liam’s professional eye the house appeared unoccupied. On the faded grey timber veranda he pressed his face to a window and peered inside; across the darkened room he could make out a fireplace surrounded by lacquered woodwork and, deeper in, through an open doorway, the black-and-white tiles of a country kitchen. The unfurnished rooms confirmed his first impression. He leant on the timber handrail and looked across the fields at the ‘pleasant rural views’, imagining a life here for himself, Catherine and the child.
Liam continued his walk, travelling upwards over open paddocks until the ground finally began to descend. There, he looked out across the open vista to an expanse of farms and forest. He opened the plastic container he had been carrying and gulped the now tepid milk. He sat on the ground and ran his hands over the wild grass, massaging his palms against the coarse texture. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been alone and at one with the elements.
He lay back and looked at the sky above, clear, blue, blemished with a few hazy streaks of cloud. He breathed in the clean air and felt the endless space around him. Happiness was a possibility, but he was not allowed moments like these and his eyes filled with tears. If only he could go back to a time before he had forfeited the right to be happy, to a time before it had happened.
He tried to remember when he had last felt safe, sifting through memories of his early childhood for remnants of joy, unconditional love, or even security. He found nothing he could hold on to, and quickly realized that what he really longed for was a return to the womb, to be completely unborn.
He let the hot tears roll down the side of his face and cried for the life he had lost and the life that had been taken. He closed his eyes and drifted into oblivion.
Catherine, 2008
‘The mobile number you have called is switched off or unavailable . . .’ Catherine dropped the phone onto the bed, and sat down beside it. Liam never turned off his mobile, never. Her face was disfigured and red from crying. She couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Liam had been gone for nearly eight hours. Why didn’t he call? She was so angry she wanted to pack her things and leave. She wanted to call her mother and get her father to pick her up – Liam hadn’t even left her the car, for God’s sake. What on earth had got into him? She wished she wasn’t carrying his child. What could he have been doing all this time? She had no desire to bring up a baby on her own. If only he would call!
She wiped traces of makeup from her eyes with a tissue and lay down on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. For the first time in her life she felt utterly powerless, humiliated, which made her angry all over again. Who was he to treat her like this? Where the hell was he?
She leapt up off the bed and went to the bathroom. She turned the tap on and watched as the column of steaming water thundered into the bath. Throwing in a handful of lavender salts and watching them sink to the bottom, she recalled Liam’s outburst and faced the unpalatable truth that he really didn’t want the baby. She should have talked to him about her own feelings now that they were married instead of blindsiding him. He had every right to be angry and hurt, to feel as powerless as she did now.
She dropped her robe and stepped into the warm water. Her small breasts were already swollen and the nipples had darkened. She sat down slowly, letting the water close around her abdomen as she ran her hands over the tiny mound of her barely pregnant belly. Is this what happened when you gave your body over to a new life? You lost control of your own? As the heat of the perfumed water pervaded her body, the anger and despair leached out. She had to talk to Liam and take his reservations into account; she should have talked to him before.
Catherine wrapped a towel round her damp hair and began to massage some cream into her shoulders. As she tied her robe around her, the phone rang shrilly. She ran to the bedroom and picked it up. ‘Liam? Where are you?’
‘I’m at a road-house down near Lindisfarne. I’ve booked into a motel across the road.’
‘A motel? What are you doing there?’
‘I’ll be home tomorrow. I’m just too tired to drive any further. I’ve been driving all day.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah . . . Look, I’m sorry I stormed off. It’s not your fault.’
Catherine began to cry. ‘You don’t want the baby, do you?’
‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Cath. I don’t know what I want, but we’ll work it out together.’
‘Okay, Liam . . . I love you.’
‘Bye.’
She held the receiver for several seconds, stunned. She felt that the power in her relationship with Liam had shifted completely and without warning. Hunched naked on the edge of the bed she was swamped by a deep sense of unease: something was off. Imaginings of the future now contained a sense of foreboding.
In the morning Catherine lay alone in bed unable to shake off the apprehension she felt. Even after Liam called again to reassure her that he would be home that afternoon, she had to force herself to get up and face the day. She made tea and sat in the kitchen, thinking about something her mother had said when she had told her that she and Liam were getting married. ‘He seems a very likeable young man, but what do you really know about him after six months?’
At the time Catherine had laughed. They were in love: what else did she need to know?
The only personal records Liam possessed were kept in a shoebox in the linen cupboard. Catherine took it down from the shelf and carried it back to the kitchen with her. The box held a few papers; a résumé, a multimedia diploma, a school report from Meredith Smith-Baxter College and a short reference.
During his time with us I have found Liam to be a cooperative and courteous student, who quietly completes work set to the best of his abilities. He has shown a particular interest in media and computer studies, which is reflected in his results. It is my belief that Liam will be a solid contributor wherever life may take him.
She unfolded a stained and creased birth certificate: ‘Liam Jon Douglass. Born: 1 June 1982. Father: John Scott Douglass, surveyor 5/8/1947. Mother: Brenda Halliwell, domestic, 16/3/1959.’
Wedged into the bottom of the box were two identical photographs of Liam’s formal graduation dinner. Catherine had seen the picture before and had offered to frame it for him but he had seemed as uninterested in it as he was in any reference to the past.
