Australian Love Stories

by Cate Kennedy

  Christos worked hard. He saved enough money to pay for the bond on the apartment and filled it with beautiful things. He married Vicky, who smiled and giggled when he asked her, and they lived together in the apartment. He leased his own cafe, then bought a house in the suburbs where they raised their family, three girls, then watched as they too grew up and got married and had kids of their own. He lived his life, made his memories and before he knew it, he was an old man.

  It was almost time for the family to arrive and she couldn’t find him anywhere. Her yiayia was sitting at the dining table arranging the dips and bread and humming along to the radio. She was worried about her papou. In the haste of the day, she had forgotten about waking in the night to hear his sobs and it was only now that she remembered. He had been quiet the past few days since the letter had arrived. She had opened it for him and handed him the contents. He looked at the photograph blindly, his glasses in the other room.

  ‘What is it?’ he had asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s written in Greek. It’s from Stavros. He’s your brother, right? I don’t know any of the words. Wait, I think I know this one. Pethane. That’s dead, right? Has someone died?’

  She looked closely at the picture. There was someone who looked like her papou, Stavros she assumed, and an old woman, with what looked like a whole lot of children and grandchildren around them. She looked at the letter again.

  ‘Gynaika. That means wife, right? Stavro’s wife must have died. How sad.’

  He had stood very still for a moment and then took the photo from her and shuffled out of the room. She had spotted him from the corridor sitting on the bed with his glasses on looking closely at the picture.

  The family arrived, exchanging kisses and presents, talking about who had grown, who hadn’t, who was doing what and who wasn’t. There was food and laughter and more food. Then a cake with candles in the shape of ‘80’ that the grandchildren had to help him blow out. Then someone put on a CD of Greek music, a birthday gift, and red-faced from wine, people had started to dance and laugh. He had jolted in his chair and then slowly risen to his feet and shuffled out of the room. Amidst the laughter and chatter, no one noticed but her. She followed him out and watched him shuffle down the corridor and into his room. She peeped through the crack in the door as he opened his bedside drawer and pulled out the photograph. An old woman, smiling, surrounded by her family. Who lived and loved then left this world, leaving behind her secrets and her sorrows. It starts as a romance and ends as a tragedy. There are tears, there is hubris, there is a damnation and regret. It is, after all, Greek.

  A SWEETLY ALIEN CREATURE

  The Contract

  CAROLINE PETIT

  Before Lola and Henry married, they signed a contract. Lola agreed to have a child; Henry agreed Lola had the right to have a cat. Implicit in the agreement was the understanding that Lola could now give up her day job—flight attendant on a regional airline that flew nowhere interesting and had few wealthy passengers. Henry had been the first forty-year-old single rich passenger to come aboard. Fed up with not having a real home, housemates allergic to fur, downy pillows and other creature comforts, Lola pounced. Henry loved the fact that he had somehow attracted a good looking woman who literally purred with pleasure in bed, and was smitten.

  Lola was soon pregnant. Henry refused to permit Lola to have a cat until after the baby was born. Unfair, Lola argued. Pregnancy absolutely signalled compliance. Henry was adamant: toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis was a huge risk factor during pregnancy caused by excessive cat handling and disposal of kitty litter. It could kill her and their baby. Lola gave in.

  She took to reading cat books. She was torn between a Burmese Blue and a Persian. Henry read books depicting foetal development week by week and kept detailed records of Lola’s weight gains and increasing girth. When he sat in the living room exclaiming over the changes, Lola could almost feel Henry’s fingers digging around.

  Henry wanted a home birth. Lola would be under a patchwork quilt, her silky black hair plastered to her forehead, her eyes beseeching his and attended by a white-haired male doctor asking for hot water. What he got was Mr Walker with smarmy banter agreeing with Lola’s insistence on a caesarean and drug relief.

  They didn’t know the sex of the baby: Henry because it was part of the wonder and Lola because, regardless, it would be a baby. At various times, Henry attempted to steer the conversation towards what shall we name the baby? Always, Lola swung the conversation back into a litany of complaints—her swollen ankles, indelible stretch marks, terrible bouts of heartburn that kept her awake far into the night, and Henry’s snoring. It was why, she explained in that throaty voice of hers he found so damn sexy, she liked to prowl around the house at night. Always, he felt guilty when he found her curled on the living room couch, her black hair spread around her like a furry cape. He loved her so much; she was doing this for him and he stroked her hair.

  She woke and stretched. ‘I’ve chosen names, Henry. They mean a great deal to me.’

  ‘My mother,’ he pressed, ‘if it’s a girl. I always wanted to name her Genevieve after my mother. She was a wonderful mother.’

  ‘Please don’t make me. I just couldn’t. Genevieve is a dog’s name. Genevieve saved Madeline, the little French girl in the children’s book, from drowning.’

  ‘My mother was not a dog.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve seen pictures and like her you’re loving and kind.’ She rubbed up against him, placed his hand on her tummy.

  There was a pronounced wave of movement under his hand. It was the baby stirring, trying to communicate with him. He kissed her tummy. What a mystery—life. Maybe it was better for a baby to have its own name. No associations.

  ‘Dinah, if it’s a girl or Tom, if it’s a boy.’

  ‘A bit catty,’ Henry ventured, coming back to earth.

  ‘No,’ said Lola as she and her burgeoning breasts pressed against him, ‘adorable,’ and she stuck her pink tongue into his ear.

  Later in bed with Lola purring next to him, he decided he liked the names.

  Henry surprised Lola by bringing a well-known children’s stylist home to advise on decorating the nursery. Lola hugged Henry and announced, ‘I’ve chosen a Burmese Blue.’

  ‘Blue is considered calming,’ the stylist said. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it for a baby’s room. Bright colours are best. More stimulating. Fun.’

  ‘It’s a breed of cat,’ Lola explained. ‘I’m getting a cat after the baby’s born.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid the cat will sit on the baby’s face, steal its breath and smother it?’ the decorator blurted.

  Henry went ashen.

  ‘That’s an old wives’ tale,’ Lola said. ‘It’s not true. And we’ll paint the room a deep blue violet.’

  Lola’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  ‘Great idea,’ the decorator said.

  The next week when the painters arrived so did a man with bundles of wire mesh. ‘For the cat walk,’ Lola explained.

  Now the large back yard contained a maze of wire looping along the top of the fence like a miniature railroad. It made Howard dizzy. He wasn’t sleeping well. He kept having dreams about cats with claws, snapping sharp teeth and babies dripping blood. He took to sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the nursery. He liked to drift into sleep to the tinkling music of the wind-up star mobile and then wake to see the tiny clothes neatly arranged on the shelves.

  Lola refused to attend childbirth classes. ‘Not necessary. I’m having a C-section.’ Henry went secretly to the classes telling the childbirth educator Lola was working in Singapore and attending classes there. He brought his own pillow, was allowed to assume the birthing role and do the breathing exercises.

  At night he’d sneak into the living room where Lola was sleeping to whisper childbirth pointers into her ear: ‘Breathing slowly is vital. When transition comes, you may become agitated. It’s normal. Breast is best.’

  In the morning Lola
complained about annoying gnats and stinging bee dreams.

  As the date for the Caesarean approached, Henry went to the office in the morning, but returned home…just to check. His drop-ins irritated Lola. He was neglecting important work, she said. Henry knew Lola was right, but still anxious, he bought a second mobile phone in case the first wasn’t charged. Worried that mobile phone radiation might hurt the baby, he made five, eight, a dozen calls a day asking: ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yes, I—’

  ‘Roger,’ and then hung up.

  Lola turned both mobiles to silent.

  Big as a house, Lola retreated to their bedroom. When Henry arrived home in the evening, he’d tiptoe into the darkened room. Inevitably, Lola would be propped up in bed watching the black and white DVD, The Cat People. He hated the old film. He hated how the beautiful Irena Dubrovna refused to have sex with her new husband for fear arousal might awaken the curse of her ancient Serbian village and change her into a panther. It was sick. Most of all he detested the part where Irena swam alone and enormous feline shadows played on the cement walls of the indoor pool. Torture.

  ‘It’s just a movie. I love it. The horror is understated. I love the actress Simone Simon who plays Irena. It’s her eyes, her litheness. Her catness.’

  ‘You need fresh air, Lola.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘I hate going outside. People stare. You’re public property. They feel free to ask you anything. Is it planned? When are you due? What’s the sex? As if it’s any of their business. Some of them try and touch my stomach. I scratched one woman.’

  She smiled at the memory of that scratch.

  Henry sighed. He loved Lola’s roundness, found her pregnant body exciting and exotic. He kissed her cheek. She waved him away. On the screen, Irena sketched the leopard in the zoo. He slunk off to the baby’s room for comfort.

  He awoke to Lola contorted by hurt, surprise and fear. Her waters had broken and her C-section might need to be replaced with messy, harrowing labour.

  Henry bundled Lola into the car. Driving, he puffed and blew expertly, explaining between breaths how to breathe during each stage of labour. The veins in his temples stood out and his face was a disturbing puce. Lola checked his stomach, half expecting to see it swell and contract.

  The birthing suite was horrible. These were not contractions; they were cutting and slicing knives. She howled at the treachery of her body, at the creature trying to get out. Henry tried foot massage. She beat him off. The midwife looked between her legs. ‘Walk around,’ she said. ‘Get through the pain.’ Henry placed an ice chip in Lola’s mouth. She spat it out. A big contraction came and on the crest of the pain, she kicked Henry in the chest. Her insides were falling out and they wanted her to walk. Agony. ‘Medication,’ she pleaded. ‘Pain relief.’

  Nice Mr Walker appeared. ‘Too late. The analgesic will cross the placental barrier.’

  To hell with the placental barrier! She was in a battle for her life against excruciating pain that rose in a surging crescendo and threatened to break her.

  ‘Push, push,’ they all commanded.

  The baby came out in a rush with the umbilical cord twisted tight around its neck. Henry caught sight of the scrawny infant before the nurse swept his daughter away to give her oxygen and keep her warm. He gave Lola rapturous kisses then ran off to the nursery.

  Exhausted, Lola lay back against the pillows and focused on the Burmese Blue that would be delivered to her weaned and housetrained. Mr Walker gave her a shot, sewed her up and called her ‘Mum’. Lola grimaced. Mr Walker was not as nice as she thought.

  In the nursery Henry scrubbed with the clinical soap, used the pedal tap to rinse like a surgeon up to the elbows, and wished he could brush his teeth and shave. It was important. He was going to meet his daughter for the first time.

  There she was: swaddled in a pink blanket with a knitted beanie on her head. She nuzzled his cheek. He breathed in her pure new smell. Ecstasy.

  ‘We’ll take her to your wife’s room now,’ the nurse said.

  He hurried down the corridor. The sun was up and the light golden. Lola lay in the double bed under a downy quilt. Henry sat down next to her, beaming: ‘She’s wonderful. Beautiful. I held her.’

  The nurse wheeled in the plastic bubble cot containing Dinah. Henry lifted Dinah up crooning her name and attempted to put her into Lola’s arms.

  Lola shook her head. The baby was so unfinished, so red, so rat-like in its sausage casing of pink. Its face crumpled into cries—big, hungry cries.

  ‘Here,’ the nurse said, ‘I’ll help you with the latching on. It takes practice to breastfeed.’

  ‘No. I want to bottle feed.’ Lola pulled the covers over her head.

  ‘It’s not what we planned,’ Henry soothed, holding Dinah over his shoulder, patting her back.

  And, as if by magic, the baby stopped crying.

  From under the covers, Lola said, ‘It’s not what you planned.’

  Henry turned to the nurse, ‘She’ll change her mind.’

  Popping up from under the blankets, Lola stared Henry down.

  ‘Get me a bottle,’ she said, swishing her hair.

  The nurse left to get a bottle.

  Henry laid the baby on the bed and unwrapped her. With her arms crossed, Lola watched. He was amazed at how perfectly formed Dinah was; such long-fingered hands and tiny baby toes. She had cornflower blue eyes.

  ‘Her eyes might change. I hope they’ll be grey like yours with flecks of green. Amazing eyes.’ Delicately, holding her just right, he took off Dinah’s vest to reveal her chest and belly button with its clamp. ‘The clamp will fall off in a week or so. It doesn’t hurt.’ He undid the tapes of the nappy and turned Dinah so that now she rested on her tummy along his outstretched forearm, her bottom exposed.

  Lola stared; Henry stared. Just above her bottom, half the length of his little finger, was a tiny tail. A vestigial tail.

  Lola picked up the baby and held her against her heart. Whether through instinct, evolution or hunger, Dinah reached the breast and began to feed.

  Henry cried.

  A Blast of a Poem

  SUSAN MIDALIA

  Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it… It was one of my mother’s jaunty numbers as she whisked about with a duster. There were creamy songs as well, about moons and stars and rivers, and one that made me shiver without knowing why: do do that voodoo that you do so well. But when she dusted my mother always wore a hairnet and as a child this always made me sad. And once, I remember, when I begged her to release her golden tresses and try to look like a princess, she simply flicked me away. Chimpanzees in the zoo do it, some courageous kangaroos do it… She didn’t miss a beat.

  When I was fourteen years old and gushingly romantic, I asked my mother to tell me how they’d met: she and my longdead father. It was on a train, she said; she was reading a book. He’d tapped her on the arm, pointed to a herd of cows outside the window and told her how to count them in a hurry: add up all their legs and divide by four. A bit of a dasher, she called him, with a roguish smile like a film star. Then she sighed heavily. It could have been a riddle, she said, but he didn’t think to ask me.

  When I was twenty-one, my mother came home tipsy from some outing. She whirled into the kitchen and turned in giddy circles, her dress a crimson swirl as she panted to a halt. Such a good dancer, your father was, she said. He knew how to hold a woman, knew how to glide. Then she leaned on the bench top and glared into my face. But hopeless in bed, she snapped. A taker, always a taker. He never even kissed me.

  And now, when I recall that moment, I’m sorry I didn’t ask her. Not then, not ever. Tell me mother, about your silent longing, the yearning of your body in the stillness of the night.

  When I was twenty-four and my heart was shattered, I fell into my mother’s arms. He was having sex with my best friend: a double and dismal betrayal. My mother could have said plenty more fish in the sea or better to know sooner than later but ins
tead she held me close and slowly stroked my hair. I remember the gentle rhythm of her hand and the loving scent of her, like violets, and how, when I couldn’t stop sobbing, she finally pulled away from me and looked me sternly in the eye. Fidelity, she said. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

  When I first slept with Charlie, I laid down my rule. No sex with anyone else. Sex is a humanly specific activity, I said, and I want you to honour my human specificity (I remember it so clearly: twenty-nine and bookish, sprouting my textbook words). He laughed and nuzzled my neck. And another thing, I said (I was, in those days, what a friend called ‘statuesque’, with unfashionable curves and a full ripe mouth), I want you to listen to what I like and I want you to do more than tweak my nipples and then poke yourself inside me.

  Bloody hell, he said. Is this where feminism has brought us?

  I knew at once that he was joking.

  How did I know that I loved him? It took me less than a week. He asked me what I liked and he knew without asking about all the other things I liked, and he never once poked. He took his time, made himself wait, made me wait, entered me and found me, lost me, lost himself, and I didn’t know where I ended and he began. But it was the poem that really clinched it. I rapped on his door, aching for sex, and he waved at me, book in hand, from the sofa, asked me to sit down and listen. It’s a poem about cows, he said, I mean, who would have thought, spilling out words about a great fat tongue and sweeping lashes, an udder splayed richly on the green, and his eyes were shining and isn’t it a blast, he said.