by Lauren Sams
‘Good. I was sick once. But nothing major.’
‘Have you been able to eat properly?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Eating was not my problem. Putting the Cadbury’s block down was my problem.
‘And is there any particular reason you haven’t sought medical assistance before now?’
How long have you got? I wondered. ‘Well … it was an accident. I didn’t want to have a baby. Like, ever. I never wanted them. So when I found out I was pregnant … I, uh, had some thinking to do.’
Dr Tan nodded. ‘The pregnancy has progressed too far to –’
‘I know,’ I said, quickly. ‘I’m going to have the baby.’
‘OK. Well,’ she said, placing a measuring tape along the line of my belly button to my pelvis, ‘you’re right on track for twenty-six weeks. Have you given any thought to where you might like to have the baby?’
I shook my head. Wouldn’t I just go to the hospital when my waters broke, like every woman in every film about pregnancy I’d ever seen?
‘Well, we’ll get you booked in today. RPA is a great hospital, with a wonderful maternity ward. But there are other places, too.’
I nodded, suddenly aware that this whole baby caper was going to require planning and effort and work. Until this point, everything had happened seamlessly. A little too seamlessly.
‘Oh, OK.’
‘Do you have private health insurance?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘It won’t really make much of a difference now – the health funds like you to be with them for at least a year before you can claim any pregnancy-related costs.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Did everyone know this except me?
‘Would you like to hear the heartbeat?’
‘Um … sure. Yes. Thank you.’
Dr Tan smiled and flicked the switch on a giant machine that had somehow slipped my attention until this point. She lifted my gown and rubbed cold jelly onto my stomach. A wand touched my belly and the room filled with the whumpwhumpwhump sounds of my baby’s heartbeat. Holy shit. That was my baby’s heartbeat. My baby has a heartbeat.
‘Oh my god,’ I said, as I felt goosebumps spring to life all over me.
‘That’s her,’ said Dr Tan.
‘What?’ Her?
She shook her head. ‘Sorry. Don’t mind me. I always do that – talk about the baby like I know the sex.’ She held her hands up and furrowed her brow in an apologetic way.
‘It’s OK.’
‘If you’d like to find out, though, we can do an ultrasound in about a week.’
‘OK. Maybe.’ I was still listening to the sounds of the heartbeat. ‘It seems really fast.’
‘They’re all like that,’ Dr Tan said.
‘So it’s nothing to be worried about? I had a coffee this morning …’
Dr Tan smiled. ‘No, it’s OK. Trust me, they all sound like that. And trust me, every parent worries that it’s too fast. But it’s not.’
‘Oh.’
‘OK,’ said Dr Tan, pulling the wand away from my stomach. The sounds stopped abruptly. ‘I’m done here, so you can get changed if you like.’
I wiped the sticky jelly from my stomach and put my made-from-actual-fabric dress back on. I was folding my hair behind my ears when I remembered that I had once been the poster girl for not wanting children. Meg had even encouraged me to be on a breakfast TV panel where I argued that some people just didn’t want children, that there was no heart-tugging backstory to explain it, it was just the way things were for them. For me.
I remembered the way the smug presenter had probed me for what seemed like hours (it was actually only thirty seconds).
‘What about if you meet someone who wants children and you won’t give them to him? Isn’t that a bit unfair to him?’ he’d asked with a smarmy smile.
‘I would say it’s unfair to expect someone who doesn’t want to have kids to have them simply because someone asks her to, Ken,’ I said. I heard the woman next to me – my opponent, apparently – tut-tut.
‘I just don’t think anyone ever really means it when they say they don’t want kids,’ she said, staring at Ken, who really did look a lot like his namesake doll. ‘I think – and this may make me unpopular – that women say it because they think it’s what men want to hear.’
I felt my face become stiff with anger. I cleared my throat – something you’re never, ever meant to do on live TV, because it sounds less like a human throat and more like a character Michael Bay dreamed up – and laughed. ‘You’re right, that’s a very offensive thing to say. The idea that my desire not to have children is some sort of dating tactic is ridiculous and really insensitive. I don’t want to have kids because I don’t want to have kids. It’s really as simple as that. And I hope people realise I’m not the only one like this. Lots of people don’t want to have kids, and we’re lucky to live in an age where we can make those choices for ourselves. If you –’
‘Uh, thanks very much, Georgie, but that’s all we’ve got time for,’ said Ken, cutting me off before turning to the camera to begin a segment on the benefits of power-walking.
My panel nemesis turned to me and smiled. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m awful,’ she said in a sing-song voice. ‘The producers told me to go really hard on you and play up the stereotype, you know.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘And what stereotype is that?’
‘You know, the cold bitch who won’t have kids,’ she said casually, peeling her fake eyelashes away and walking off, leaving me rooted to the spot.
I wondered what Ken and that Barbie on the panel would think if they could see me now. They’d probably be even more smug: ‘See, she thought she didn’t want kids but she was wrong. Everyone wants kids, most people are just more upfront about it. We knew she’d come around eventually; everyone does.’
‘When you’re ready, Georgie, I’ll get you to step on the scales. Just a routine thing – don’t worry,’ Dr Tan said, typing away at her desk.
‘Uh-huh.’
I stepped out from behind the curtain separating Dr Tan and I. My face must have paled at the breakfast TV memory; when I looked up at her, her brow knitted with worry.
‘Are you OK? Do you feel faint?’
I shook my head. ‘No, no. Just … uh … just adjusting, I suppose.’
She laughed gently. ‘Yeah, that’ll keep happening. For about the next twenty years or so.’
*
I kept having the same dream, almost every night. The one where Nina’s mum died. I could remember every detail of it, and approximately every second night, it played over in my subconscious.
The morning after Nina’s mum died, I didn’t eat any breakfast.
I remember not being hungry – not even a little bit – for only the second time in my life.
The other time was when I had appendicitis. Mum hadn’t believed that I really was sick until I’d turned down a Space Food Stick. Things were serious when eight-year-old George refused a Space Food Stick.
I sat up in bed and watched my own mum cry as she told me that Mrs Doherty had ‘gotten too sick’. She didn’t actually tell me that she’d died, so for a few minutes I pictured Nina’s mum, Jan, throwing up over and over and over. I wondered what had made her so sick.
‘Where is she now?’ I asked.
Mum looked up, tears still drizzling from her eyes. ‘She’s gone, Georgie,’ she said after a while.
‘Where?’
Mum’s shoulders slumped. She whispered, just barely. ‘She … died. She didn’t make it, Georgie.’
It didn’t make any sense. Frankly, even twenty years later it still didn’t make sense. How could Jan be gone? She was one of the only adults who I really knew. When you’re a kid, adults are basically indistinguishable from each other. But I knew things about Jan. One: she let me call her Jan, not Mrs Doherty. Two: she had curly hair like mine but blowdried it straight. She had promised to show me how to blowdry my own hair one day, something my own mum had never let me do. Three: she l
iked listening to Shania Twain. A lot. Possibly too much. Four: she went swimming with Nina and Jill every Saturday morning.
‘Did she go swimming yesterday?’
‘Who?’
‘Jan.’ Who else would I be talking about?
Mum shook her head. ‘I don’t know, honey. Why?’
‘Because she always goes swimming on Saturday mornings. With Nina and Jill. She always takes them and she even goes in the pool.’ My mum did not go in the pool. She had a perm that couldn’t get wet.
‘Well, then, she probably did take them yesterday.’ Mum pulled me a little tighter. She got a cold, I thought.
She must have got a cold from the pool.
‘Did Jan get a cold?’
‘No, honey. She had a heart attack.’
A heart attack? A heart attack was something that happened to old people. People with grey hair and walking sticks and fake teeth. Jan had red hair and swam and wore pink Revlon lipstick that showed off her (real) white teeth.
It didn’t make any sense.
When Mum told me, I remember thinking ‘this will be the worst bit’. Hearing it had been bad – the worst – but after that I thought things would get better, a little bit every day, I thought. But the worst bits kept happening. The funeral was the next worst bit. I sat with Mum and Kevin while Nina sat up the front, hands in her lap, wearing her school uniform because she didn’t have a black dress. They played a Shania Twain song and I cried a lot and then felt bad because Nina didn’t cry at all. I told myself to be stronger. If Nina could be, then so could I.
The next worst bit was when Kelly Hooper had a fight with Nina over Ryan Hastings and said she was glad Jan died. I lunged at Kelly but hit the ground instead. I had a graze on my chin for weeks after that. Nina just walked away.
The next worst bit was when Nina slept over at my house, months and months later, and our neighbour, a kid from our year at school, came over. We were talking about another girl at school when Adam said, ‘Isn’t that the chick whose mum died?’
I felt my breath catch in my throat but Nina just said, ‘No, that was me.’
Eventually, things did get better, but it took a long time. A lot longer than I’d thought it would. Through it all, though, it almost seemed like I was feeling it more than Nina was. In hindsight, of course, I know that wasn’t true. But when we were both fourteen, it felt hypocritical of me to cry at the mention of a Shania Twain song while Nina smiled stoically and refused to be a victim.
I turned over and hugged the pillow against me. I tried to switch my brain off. Does that ever work? I hadn’t felt sick in days but I was starving to the point where it had almost become an illness. My body wouldn’t accept just anything, though. Oh no. Salads made me gag on sight and fruit made my stomach flip-flop. I much preferred anything made by Smith’s or in the ‘salty/sweet’ category. Pretzels dipped in icing sugar were my new low point. Or high. I couldn’t quite decide.
Thinking about Jan was making me angry. Why was it OK for Nina to practically pretend her mother hadn’t even died but treat me like a pregnant pariah? I hadn’t wanted this and it wasn’t my fault. OK, it was a little bit my fault, but it was not as if I’d made it happen. OK, I had sort of made it happen but … oh, bloody hell, I had a point. I just couldn’t quite remember it. You win this round, hormones.
I grabbed my phone and flicked to my emails. There was a follow-up invitation from Kelly. Jesus H Christ, she must really want her kid to do work experience. I wondered what eighteen-year-old Kelly had called her baby. Probably Maddee-sunn or Meeyah or something equally unemployable.
To: Georgie Henderson
From: Kelly Burns
Hello, Georgie! I know you are probably so, so busy running your magazine (I read all about it in the paper!), but I just wanted to chase your RSVP for the reunion. It’s at the racecourse – remember, where we had our formal? God, doesn’t that take you back? Jenayah actually had her formal there this year! Can you believe it?? God, we’re old!
Anyway, if you could let me know by tomorrow if you’re coming, that’d be great. I asked Nina if you were but she said she wasn’t sure. So just let me know.
Kisses,
Kelly Burns (nee Hooper)
Jenayah. I was close.
Despite every sane fibre in my body reminding me that I’d never wanted to see anyone from my high school – except Nina – again, I found myself typing back.
Hi Kelly,
Lovely to hear from you.
I can come to the reunion next Saturday. Thanks for inviting me and sorry for the late reply.
I couldn’t help myself.
You’re right: I have been very busy at work.
Looking forward to seeing you all again!
George x
I wondered what Kelly looked like now. Her Facebook picture was, unhelpfully, a pic of her kids (this seemed to be a trend among parents I knew – have a baby and lose your entire identity). Hopefully she was fat around the middle and had a weird scar where her bellybutton ring had been. Probably she wore a lot of jeggings and cheap sandals she bought in Kuta, where she went every year on holiday. She had thick, tacky, obvious highlights and probably still wore singlet tops even though nobody had the arms for that anymore.
I felt a mental jolt. God, George, don’t you have enough drama going on without obsessing over this idiot you haven’t seen in over a decade? This was why I was going to be a bad mother. I couldn’t even focus on my own problems: I just wanted to judge other people on theirs.
I pushed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up. It was time to get things done. Enough wallowing. Enough thinking. It was time for action.
I found a pen – a miracle, given the large volume of Lucas litter around me – and started writing a to-do list.
Go to work. Make 40th anniversary issue best ever (how?)
Call Lee – set up meeting
Call Jason
And then, finally: Call Nina.
As soon as it was written, I scratched it out and picked up my phone instead. Enough was enough.
‘Hi,’ she said after the third ring.
‘Hey.’
A long pause.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said, trying on my best tough love voice. I wasn’t convinced by it but it seemed that didn’t matter; Nina was.
‘OK,’ she said, after a pause.
‘We’re going to this stupid high-school reunion. And you’re going to be my friend again. I need you, Nina.’
I felt six years old again, sitting just outside a group of friends who I wanted as my own. I also felt thirty-four, letting Colin have a drink with me and then watching him fuck off after he’d been polite enough to the pregnant chick. I hated this vulnerable feeling; I wanted to shake it off like a coat.
‘George …’
‘No. You don’t get to do this, Nina. I get it. Of course I get it. I am your best friend. I know you better than anyone, even Matt. And you know that’s true. You can’t let this define us, that’s not fair.’
I drew a deep breath, hunched my knees to my chest and continued. ‘What if I had been married, huh? What if you couldn’t have a baby but I could, and I got pregnant? Would you still be angry with me? What if you hadn’t asked me to be a surrogate but I’d gotten pregnant anyway? What if I had wanted a baby? Would you still not want anyhing to do with me? I know why you’re angry. I know why you don’t want to talk to me. But … enough’s enough, Neen. I … I’m going to have the baby, and you might not think that’s the right decision, but I think it is. I never really saw myself doing this, but I think it’ll be OK, actually.
‘You can’t keep hating me. I didn’t do this to hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you. I’m sorry that you’re sad, but … but I am, too. I’m so alone, Neen. Everything is –’ I stopped to wipe away tears and realised with a start that I had been crying so long that the blanket covering my knees was damp. ‘Everything is completely fucked, Neen. I’m a dinosaur. And a whale. I mean, what I m
ean is … I’m old. And irrelevant. And I’m fat. I don’t even have belly rolls now. I just have belly. A lot of it. It’s completely gross and I hate it.
‘And Jase has a new girlfriend and Colin didn’t even want to have a second drink with me he found me so obviously repellent, and I can’t find anything to wear and now we have that stupid reunion that I told Kelly I’d go to, and what am I going to wear, huh? Nina? What am I going to wear to this fucking reunion that won’t make me look like I’ve eaten a toddler for breakfast?’
The dam burst and I could no longer contain the flood of tears. Between huge, dramatic sobs I could hear something on Nina’s end. Wow, I thought. Tears from Nina? I never thought I’d see the day.
I listened again. Nina wasn’t crying. She was laughing.
I stopped crying.
‘Are you laughing at me?’
No answer. Just more laughter.
‘Nina! Are you laughing at me?’ I was standing now, indignant. How dare she?
‘I’m sorry, George … I just …’ she made what I can only assume was a valiant attempt to stop finding my tragic life hilarious, but failed. More laughter.
‘For fuck’s sake, Nina, cut it out! It’s not funny.’
‘I’m sorry, George. It kind of is. I mean, you’re right, everything is total shit, but … all you can think about is what you’re going to wear? Come on, that’s pretty fucking funny.’
I let my indignation fall away. It was pretty funny.
After we stopped laughing long enough to construct actual sentences, Nina said, ‘ASOS. That’s where all the good maternity clothes are.’ She paused. ‘So I’m told.’
‘Oh. Thanks. Good one.’
‘I’ll help you find something for the reunion.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you’re going?’
‘Do you think I’d miss a chance to see what that moll Kelly looks like now? She’s probably got those awful hair streaks that look like someone’s literally just painted them with Dulux.’
‘Oh my god, I was thinking the same thing!’
‘Course you were.’
23
