‘How are you feeling?’ Mark asked as we crossed the car park.
‘Oh, alright,’ I said. ‘Are you going to be the new face of Tip Top ice cream?’
‘Yes.’
‘Congratulations. Wearing only a pair of Speedos and three girls in teensy little bikinis?’
‘Just the one girl, actually,’ he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and tossing them idly on the palm of his hand. ‘Tam Healy.’
A vision appeared ready-made in my head, in which he and the delectable Tamara were frolicking in the surf with an ice cream apiece. Or, even worse, an ice cream between them.
‘Want me to pick something up for tea?’ he asked.
The Tamara of my imagination shook her hair out of her eyes, laughing, and the evening sunlight turned her smooth wet skin to gold. ‘Hmm?’ I said. ‘No, don’t worry, I’ve got stuff at home.’
‘Okay,’ said Mark, ‘see you there.’
I walked into my kitchen ten minutes later to find him trying to feed my cat. This would have been simpler had Murray’s head not already been in the bowl.
‘Don’t you ever feed this poor animal?’ he asked, trickling cat biscuits between Murray’s ears.
‘I didn’t have time to come home before work this morning,’ I said. ‘I left him heaps to eat, but he’s never grasped the concept of rationing. Breathe, little dude.’
‘Can’t breathe; must eat,’ said Mark, putting the cat biscuits down on the bench.
‘How is your shoulder?’ I asked abruptly.
‘Bit sore. It’ll be right; it’s no big deal.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Alan and Saskia have invited us out on their yacht for a few days after Christmas,’ he said. ‘Are you keen?’
The mere thought of a few days on a boat made my stomach stir uneasily. ‘I think it’d probably be the end of me,’ I said. ‘I get seasick even when I’m not pregnant.’
‘Right.’
‘You go,’ I said. ‘It sounds wonderful.’
He shook his head, and my tears welled up quietly and overflowed.
‘Look, it’s no big deal, we’ll do something else,’ he said, just a trifle impatiently.
I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘Sorry. Ignore it, it’s just h-hormones, and I feel so s-sick . . .’
Mark sighed and put his arms around me. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘Are you going to tell them why I can’t go?’
‘I won’t if you don’t want me to.’
‘I guess you might as well,’ I said. ‘It’s going to become obvious in a few months, anyway.’
‘Mm,’ he said. ‘You know, I think your breasts are getting bigger already.’ And he ran his hands up my front in an investigative sort of way.
‘Bigger than Tamara’s?’ I asked, regretting the words even as they left my mouth.
He let me go. ‘Helen, it’s just an ad.’
‘I know,’ I said.
Later that night, in bed, where deep-and-meaningful conversations don’t feel quite so much like scenes from Days of Our Lives as they do in daylight, I said into the darkness, ‘It’s just that having a baby makes everything so much more serious. All of a sudden we’re not just cruising along and enjoying it anymore – it’s like we have to decide whether we love each other enough to stay together for the rest of our lives, and it’s too soon to have to think about it. I’m not putting it very well, but do you know what I mean?’
And Mark, in the voice of someone who is at least nine-tenths asleep and has heard your words as merely a murmur on the edge of hearing, said, ‘Unghf. Nigh’,’ as his arm slackened around my waist and he dropped the rest of the way into unconsciousness.
18
AT THREE THIRTY ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, HAVING written Doctor across my column on the day sheet, I walked straight past the door of the medical centre. I paused along the street beneath a small faded sign reading E. Morgan and J. Bennett, Broadview Independent Midwives, looked furtively from left to right, pushed the door for a few seconds before thinking to pull it, and at last scurried inside. A buzzer sounded, and someone called, ‘Helen? I’ll be with you in a minute. Just take a seat.’
I sank onto a plastic chair and nodded to the woman across the waiting room. She was both overweight and hugely pregnant, and had chosen for some reason to swathe herself in purple lycra. I was just deciding she looked like Violet Beauregarde and sniggering internally when her stomach rippled, which made me think less of Violet Beauregarde and more of Alien.
The woman rubbed her side and remarked, ‘Little sod’s trying to kick his way out.’
‘Does it hurt?’ I asked, fascinated.
‘Nah, just pisses you off when you’re trying to sleep,’ she said. ‘You’re the vet, aren’t you?’
‘Um, yes,’ I said, having not the faintest recollection of ever having seen her before. This was surprising, because she wasn’t the type you’d have thought you could forget.
‘When are you due?’
‘July, I think,’ I said unwillingly. ‘But no-one really knows yet; it’s very early.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ she assured me.
‘Thank you. What about you?’
‘Tenth of January.’
Crikey. Almost a month to go. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how she was going to get any bigger without exploding.
A door opened beside my new acquaintance, and a pleasant-looking woman in her fifties with smooth brown hair came out. ‘Hello, Sharon,’ she said. ‘I’m sure Janet won’t be long. Helen, come on in.’
She closed the door behind us and sat down gracefully at her desk, knees together and feet crossed at the ankles. ‘Do sit down,’ she said, gesturing for me to sit on the bed in the middle of the room. ‘I’m Eloise Morgan. I don’t suppose you’re Tim and Glenys McNeil’s daughter, by any chance?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and she smiled.
‘I wondered if you might be. My dear, I delivered you. Or, to be more accurate, I tried to deliver you. But you decided to turn around at the last moment and come out bottom first, and your poor parents were rushed to Waikato Hospital for an emergency caesarean. You were my first really difficult birth, and you scared me nearly to death.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, smiling back.
‘Apology accepted,’ said Eloise. ‘It only seems like last week, and yet here you are, expecting a baby of your own.’ She flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the knee of her trousers and added, ‘I’m sorry your mother isn’t here to be a part of your pregnancy. She was a lovely, lovely person.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, restraining myself with some difficulty from throwing my arms around her neck and bursting into tears.
She turned and picked up a plastic wheel from her desk. I had a very similar one on my own desk, except that mine was for working out bovine gestation dates instead of human. ‘Now, how far along are you, according to your dates? Did you take note of when the first day of your last period was?’
‘I was on the pill,’ I said. ‘But I took a course of antibiotics around the fifteenth of October, and I can’t possibly have got pregnant after the twenty-first because my boyfriend wasn’t in the country. I – I forgot you’re supposed to take extra precautions with antibiotics.’
‘Did your doctor not remind you?’
‘I didn’t go to the doctor. I just put myself on amoxicillin for a cat bite. I’m a vet.’
‘I see,’ said Eloise, putting her plastic wheel back down on her desk. ‘And how do you know you’re pregnant?’
‘I did a test,’ I said. ‘Actually my friend Alison did it for me, and she’s a nurse at the medical centre. And I feel awful, and my breasts hurt.’
‘That does sound fairly conclusive,’ she said. ‘So you weren’t planning on having a baby just now. But you’ve decided to go through with the pregnancy?’
I nodded.
‘Alright,’ she said evenly
. ‘Well, my dear, the first thing to do will be to book you in for an ultrasound. This week, if possible – the smaller the baby the more accurately they can give you your due date. Are you taking folate?’
‘No.’
‘It’s recommended that you do, both before you get pregnant and for the first twelve weeks. It’s been proven to decrease the risk of spina bifida. You can get it at the chemist’s.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I would have to visit a chemist in Hamilton; I might as well announce I was pregnant on national television as buy folate from Aunty Deb.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘let’s fill in the paperwork. You’ll need some blood tests, just to confirm the pregnancy and make sure you’re healthy.’ She turned in her chair and pulled a pad towards her. ‘What’s your full name and date of birth? I should remember, I know, but I’ve met a lot of babies between then and now.’
‘Helen Olivia McNeil,’ I said. ‘Twenty-ninth of March, 1985.’
‘Who is your doctor?’
‘Dr Hollis.’
She wrote busily for a few seconds, and then looked up at me. ‘And your partner’s name?’
‘Mark Russell Tipene.’ Lucky I asked.
‘Just like the All Black,’ Eloise observed brightly.
‘No, he is the All Black,’ I said.
She sat back in her chair and blinked at me.
‘Honestly. I’m not some delusional rugby groupie, I promise.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Okay. Right. And – and you’ve spoken to him about the baby?’
‘How was the midwife?’ Mark asked that night.
I held the phone between ear and shoulder and opened the bread bin. It contained one stale crust and the end of a baguette I’d bought at least a week ago, which was a bit of a blow. ‘I don’t think she believed you were the baby’s father,’ I said, checking the crust for obvious mould before putting it into the toaster. ‘I think she thinks I’m mentally unstable. But she’s lovely.’
‘She doesn’t sound lovely.’
‘She is, really. She delivered me – or actually she didn’t, because I ended up being a caesarean, but she was Mum’s midwife. She’s written me a referral for a scan and for some blood tests.’
‘When’s your scan?’
‘Five thirty pm on Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday,’ he said. ‘Oh, shit, that’s the night of the Mangere Christmas parade. Is that the only appointment they had?’
‘The lady on the phone said it was the last one this week,’ I said. ‘And I think I’d better take it, because the longer I leave it the less accurate they can be about when the baby’s due. I’m sorry.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll make sure I get a photo to show you. I don’t think they look like much at this stage, anyway. How’s the visit going?’ He was spending a few days at his father’s place.
‘Fine, if you like spraying blackberry.’
‘Is that good for your shoulder?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, it’s okay. And it beats hanging out with Jude,’ Mark said.
All I knew about Jude was that she and his father had been married for six years and that Mark hated her with a deep implacable hatred. ‘What wouldn’t you think was better than hanging out with Jude?’ I asked.
‘Nothing probably. No, it’s all good.’ From somewhere beyond him came the sound of voices raised in some indistinguishable query. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Are you feeling a bit better?’
‘Yes, a bit,’ I said. I wasn’t, but there was nothing he could do about it. My toast popped up and I looked at it without enthusiasm.
‘That’s good. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?’
‘Okay. Bye.’
The next morning I was texting with one hand and wiping the kitchen bench with the other. I had written Need blood test c when I had to pause and hang over the sink for a while, breathing deeply. But the wave of nausea ebbed, and I picked the phone back up to continue.
ant walk lunchtime. Sorry.
After work? Alison replied.
Cool.
Hope you get Raewyn x
At seven minutes past five that evening, when we met at the post office corner halfway between the vet clinic and the medical centre, I held my arm out wordlessly to show off the deep purple bruise in the crease of my elbow.
‘Heather?’ she asked.
‘Yep.’
‘Bad luck.’
We had two phlebotomists in Broadview, and Heather’s technique consisted of shoving the needle through her victim’s skin and then making vigorous subcutaneous sweeping motions in the hope of meeting a blood vessel. It was hideous.
‘I don’t know why she doesn’t just make a cut in your ear and hold a dish underneath to catch the blood,’ I said. ‘It’d be a lot less traumatic.’
Alison smiled. ‘Booked in your scan yet?’ she asked.
‘It’s tomorrow night,’ I said. ‘Mark can’t come; he’s going to be on a float in the Mangere Christmas parade.’
‘Will he be wearing a tutu?’
‘Just his Blues uniform, I think,’ I said. ‘Was it Sam’s tutu that first caught your eye?’ During last year’s Broadview Christmas parade, which I’d got home from London just in time to see, Sam had driven the length of the main street on a tractor, towing a urea spreader and dressed as a Christmas angel.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He’s going to be an elf this year.’
‘Sexy,’ I remarked.
‘We can’t all go out with gorgeous All Black locks,’ she said. ‘Some of us have to make do with elves. Now, are you up to Birch Crescent today?’
‘I’ll try,’ I said bravely.
‘Job for you,’ Thomas said on Wednesday afternoon, looking up as I passed the front counter on my way in from restocking the drugs in the back of my ute. ‘John Somerville’s got a steer with woody tongue, and he’d like you to take another look at that chook while you’re there.’
I came around the counter to look at the day sheet. It was three forty-five now, which meant that even if I left right away I wouldn’t get to John’s until four twenty, and no call there ever took less than an hour. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an appointment in Hamilton at half past five.’
‘Doing what?’ Thomas asked.
There were so many plausible lies I could have told him. I could have said I was going to visit the optician, or to look at a car, or even to have my hair done. But in the stress of the moment I managed only to go red and mutter, ‘Um, I – none of your business.’
‘Fine,’ said Thomas huffily. ‘You call John and change it, then. He asked for you.’
John wasn’t in, and he didn’t have an answer phone. ‘Richard?’ I said, running my colleague to ground in the lunch room, where he was tipping stale biscuit crumbs out of the tin into his cupped palm.
‘Mm?’ He shovelled the crumbs in, rolled them around in his mouth for a while, grimaced and swallowed them anyway. ‘Yuck.’
‘Could you do me a favour? John Somerville’s got a steer with woody tongue to look at, and I’ve got to be in Hamilton at five thirty.’
Richard looked at his watch. ‘Who’s on call?’ he asked. ‘Get them to do it.’
‘I am,’ I said, suddenly remembering. ‘Shit. Look, can you swap?’
‘I was on last night.’
‘Please? I’ll do your next two nights.’
‘I’m shattered,’ said Richard, who had spent the hours between one and three pm tending his virtual garden on Facebook.
‘Please?’
‘Oh, alright. You owe me.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much. While you’re there can you have just a quick look at Esmeralda’s bumblefoot for me?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said heavily, as if I’d asked him to give me a kidney.
‘Just get John to pick her up, and take a picture of the bad foot on your phone so I can see if it’s improving. Okay? Please?’
‘Anything else, Your Majesty?’ he said over his shoulder as he
left the room.
I made it to the imaging centre at five twenty-eight, overshot the turn into the car park and hurried breathlessly through the front door at five thirty-three. ‘I’m Helen McNeil,’ I told the woman behind the counter. ‘I’ve got a five-thirty appointment.’
‘Take a seat,’ she said. ‘They’ll call you.’
I sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair so as not to put undue pressure on my bladder, and picked up a year-old copy of Woman’s Day. I had read an article on Jennifer Aniston’s baby bump (which looked less like a bump and more like a loose-ish chiffon blouse to me) and was flicking through the pictures of celebrities in haute couture gowns at the back when a very pretty Indian girl of about my age came down the hall and said, ‘Helen?’
She arranged me on the bed in a small dark room, minus my shorts and with a towel draped discreetly over my thighs. ‘Ready? The gel’s cold,’ she said cheerfully, squeezing ultrasound gel onto my bare stomach. ‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got.’ And she placed the head of her ultrasound machine firmly on my bladder.
I made a small involuntary squeak.
She took the probe away again. ‘Do you need to go to the toilet?’
‘Yes, but the lady on the phone said I needed a full bladder.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s full and then there’s dangerously close to bursting. Why don’t you go to the toilet next door and let some out, and we’ll try again?’ She wiped my stomach with a paper towel, and I slunk out of the room, holding up my towel with one hand.
‘Better?’ she asked when I reappeared.
‘Much,’ I said, climbing back onto the bed.
‘Good.’ She reapplied the gel with a generous hand, and dug the probe back into my abdomen. ‘Okay, the big black circle’s your bladder – fluid shows up as black on ultrasound – and there’s your baby.’
I had seen it already, a white comma inside a dark circle. I had expected a skeletal seahorse-shaped thing something like a calf in early gestation, on the grounds that we mammals all develop along similar lines, at least at the start, but it looked like an actual baby. It had a round head with a tiny nose, and it waved two arms with recognisable hands at the ends.
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