Chocolate Cake for Breakfast

by Danielle Hawkins

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s polishing. Not a good sign.’

  She looked at Dad with her head on one side. ‘Tim?’

  ‘Hmm?’ He ceased to polish and swung his glasses by one stem instead.

  ‘What’s wrong, love?’ asked Em.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said testily. ‘I’m just not convinced that Helen rushing off to live in Auckland at a moment’s notice is the best move.’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ she said. ‘It’s the first sign of intelligence she’s shown for months!’

  Harsh, I thought. True, quite possibly, but harsh nonetheless.

  ‘And anyway, it’s got to be better than having her mope around here with big, lost eyes like a baby seal’s.’

  ‘Hey!’ I said indignantly.

  ‘You have been. For months! We’ve been beside ourselves with worry!’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘That’s alright. We love you. But it’s high time you did something a bit more proactive.’

  ‘I am!’ I cried.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Tim, they’ll be fine.’

  I was quite touched for a moment, until she added, ‘And if it doesn’t work out, sweetie, remember you’ve always got us.’

  Torn between amusement and affront, I went home to my small cold house and found Murray waiting at the door with his tail wrapped around his feet. He sat companionably beside me on the bench while I transformed a packet of two-minute noodles, one limp carrot, half an onion and the dregs of a frozen bag of mixed veggies into possibly the world’s least interesting stir-fry, then draped himself across my lap when I sat down on the sofa to try to eat it. I took a mouthful, grimaced and pulled my phone from my pocket to text Mark.

  Good day?

  He answered straight away. Yes esp waking up and u there.

  Same. Love you.

  Yr door locked?

  Yes.

  Actually, no. But good point. I put down my stir-fry, and Murray, who ate almost everything but lettuce, didn’t even glance at it. Instead he yawned and began to wash his bottom. ‘It’s not that bad,’ I told him, struggling to my feet.

  The kitchen door opened with a click and a groan, and I jumped about a foot.

  ‘Liar,’ Mark called.

  34

  ‘DID YOU GET THE LINEOUT SORTED?’ I ASKED WHEN WE’D finished acting like the reunion scene from The Notebook and settled on the couch.

  ‘Yep,’ said Mark, pulling me more closely up against him. ‘Running like a well-oiled machine. Hey, I’ve been thinking about you moving this weekend –’

  ‘All organised. I rang the second-hand shop this afternoon, and they’re happy to take all my furniture.’ At a fraction of the price they had originally charged me for it, but you get that.

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘And Sam and Alison are coming on Saturday afternoon to help me load it all up. Everything else’ll fit in the car, and I’ll just have to do a bit of cleaning between after-hours calls. Easy.’ I slid my fingers down between his.

  ‘You are not loading furniture in your state.’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I pointed out. ‘Not crippled.’

  ‘Look, why not wait till Sunday, when I can give you a hand?’

  ‘You’ ll be crippled on Sunday.’ Post-match blood tests of professional rugby players, according to an article that had done nothing for my enjoyment of Mark’s games, show levels of muscle damage comparable to those of car-crash victims. ‘Anyway, Sam and Alison are going to the beach. Honestly, love, it’ll be fine. I promise not to lift anything heavy.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Mark. He detached his hand from mine, took his iPhone out of his pocket and googled commercial cleaners Broadview.

  ‘Are you casting aspersions on my housekeeping skills?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m trying to help.’

  ‘It’s very sweet of you, but the cleaning really won’t be a big deal.’

  He lowered the phone and looked at me. ‘Would you please stop being so bloody self-sufficient and let me do something for you?’

  Oh. ‘Sorry,’ I said meekly. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  I spent Saturday morning from nine till twelve at the clinic, where I microchipped one puppy and admired the speed at which Zoe’s thumbs moved across the keypad of her cell phone (a speed she never exhibited when doing anything else).

  Sam, Alison and her mother’s horse float arrived promptly at one. We loaded up the furniture, and Sam, although he obviously thought I was burning my bridges to a crisp, drove the lot to the second-hand shop while Alison and I packed everything else into my car.

  Everything else consisted of three boxes of kitchen equipment, four of books, a wicker laundry basket full of shoes, a shoebox of CDs, three green shot-silk cushions, a black plastic rubbish bag full of bedding and another of towels, my mother’s spade, a vacuum cleaner and two suitcases of clothes, most of which didn’t fit me. Also one pissed-off cat, yelling from his cage on the porch. It seemed a fairly meagre haul – I had intended to start accumulating grown-up stuff like lounge suites and nice crockery when I got home from overseas, but I was distracted by an All Black.

  I crammed the last cushion into the last available bit of space, and Alison sat on the boot to close it. ‘Done,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. You’re wonderful.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  My cell phone beeped, and I extracted it from my jeans pocket.

  Hows it going?

  All packed. You? I wrote back. ‘Sorry, Ali.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Is that Mark?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The phone beeped again. All good x

  xx, I typed. Then I thought for a moment, deleted an x in case he should think I was starting one of those tiresome ‘no, I love you more’ exchanges, pressed send and put the phone back in my pocket.

  ‘Has your dad got used to the idea of you leaving yet?’ Alison asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s still shaking his head and muttering. Poor Dad – I can totally see his point. Last week it was all over, and this week we’re moving in together. It’s enough to worry any parent.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Do you think I’m making a terrible mistake?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t matter what I think, as long as you’re sure.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Good.’

  She left for Dad and Em’s in my car, and I went slowly back across the lawn and up the porch steps. Empty, the cottage looked smaller, shabbier and depressingly unloved. I made a little farewell tour, retrieving a stray sock and a bottle of body wash as I went, and in a burst of sentimentality kissed the kitchen doorframe on the way back out.

  I left the key in the door for the cleaners and turned to look out over the lawn. The grass was the lovely luminous green of autumn and a flock of goldfinches swirled past to settle in rows on the wires of the fence. Just the setting for a bit of pensive contemplation on the closing of a chapter in one’s life – except that it’s impossible to be properly pensive with a caged cat wailing at your feet. I gave up the attempt, carried Murray out to the ute and went to Dad and Em’s, where I spent the rest of the day making plaster-of-Paris fridge magnets, having my toenails painted Smurf blue and stitching up a wounded pig dog.

  I had a midwife’s appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Originally billed as the Birth Plan appointment, it had, due to my imminent departure from the district, been scaled down to a referral and farewell chat. Mark came, which was particularly nice. I wanted to show him to Eloise and prove I honestly wasn’t a delusional rugby groupie, and he and Dad were well overdue for a catch-up. I’d been so morbidly aware of pressuring Mark that I had carefully shielded him from all family contact since Christmas, which probably isn’t the best way to reassure your father that your boyfriend’s a top bloke.

  Mark arrived at the clinic at four twenty, and my cunning time-saving plan to meet him in the car park was foiled
by a phone call from a woman whose dog may or may not have eaten the plastic wrapping from around a bacon hock. Once inside the clinic, Mark was instantly surrounded and it was quite difficult to extract him again, but it was only four thirty-three when we left for our four-thirty appointment.

  We sped across town to the maternity unit, a white-painted prefab tucked in behind the rest home. We parked and made our way along a concrete path between beds of ornamental cabbages to the door, where a handwritten sign on yellowed A4 paper informed us that visiting was strictly by appointment only.

  There was nobody in reception, but a buzzer sounded as the door opened and we could hear the murmur of voices from somewhere down the hall. I hadn’t been here since visiting Em and a tiny crumpled Annabel six years before – my midwife’s appointments to date had been at Eloise’s office on the main street – but the decor had changed very little. Even the Breast Is Best poster on the wall across the room was the same.

  ‘Lovely,’ Mark said, eyeing it doubtfully as we sat down.

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ The poster was of a large woman sitting on a park bench with her knees spread, a toddler on tiptoe beside her straining to reach the large white boob she was liberating from her shirt. Startling stuff. ‘Oh, how was your photo shoot?’

  ‘Pretty heavy going,’ he said. ‘I had to spray on about four cans of deodorant before they got the shot they wanted. If anyone had struck a match I would’ve gone up like a torch. Probably still would.’

  Publicity shots of Mark were invariably of his head and bare torso, and deodorant is the ideal prop if you want to focus on someone’s upper body. I leant over to sniff his neck. ‘You’re good. You smell nice – sort of citrus-y.’

  He smiled. ‘I washed with lemon-scented Jif. Good tip.’

  ‘Wonderful stuff, isn’t it? You can use it to clean your stove, your toilet, yourself . . .’

  Just then a woman screamed somewhere down the hall. It wasn’t a loud scream, but rather a breathless high-pitched gasp that suggested she was trying really, really hard to be brave but that it really, really hurt. Mark and I stiffened in our plastic chairs.

  The sound stopped abruptly, and there was silence. Then a deep agonised groan, fading to a whimper. Then silence. Then another, louder scream, and a burst of panicked sobbing.

  Of course I had known that labour hurts. As Kirstie Alley once put it so beautifully, you’re pushing something the size of a watermelon out of an opening the size of a lemon, so it’s hardly going to be an enjoyable experience. Then again, I’d delivered quite a few calves and lambs and puppies and I’d never heard any animal make a noise like that. And I’d thought, in so far as I’d thought about it at all, that it couldn’t be that bad. Most women have more than one child, after all. But as we listened to that poor tortured girl down the hall, it occurred to me that perhaps this was going to be a lot nastier than I’d imagined.

  Mark put an arm around my shoulders.

  ‘Why don’t they give her something?’ I whispered. ‘I thought they had gas and stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I began to time her on the clock above the reception desk. Quiet for forty seconds, leg-being-severed-with-a-hacksaw for twenty-five. Quiet, hacksaw. Quiet, hacksaw.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Mark muttered. ‘Let’s go.’

  We got to our feet, although it seemed a horribly craven thing to do. Perhaps we shouldn’t just slink away – we should burst into the room and demand that the poor woman be given some decent pain relief. Surely as a society we were well past the notion that childbirth was a woman’s cross to bear and lessening the agony was somehow immoral.

  ‘Helen, my dear, I’m so sorry, we’re going to have to reschedule,’ said Eloise, appearing in the doorway from the passage in a blue disposable gown. Her face lit up as she saw Mark beside me. ‘Hel-lo! Mark? How lovely to meet you!’

  There was another scream from the depths of the building.

  ‘You’ll have gathered we’re a wee bit tied up just now,’ she said, smiling. ‘All ready for the World Cup?’

  There are times when social chitchat is wildly inappropriate, and this was clearly one of them. ‘Huh? Yes – look, we’ll get out of your way,’ said Mark.

  ‘Oh, it’ll be a little while before we deliver.’

  ‘Can’t you give her something?’ I asked.

  Eloise looked puzzled.

  ‘For the pain.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘She’s got the gas.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be working very well!’

  Eloise smiled at me and patted my arm. ‘She’s doing just fine. Don’t you worry. Now, I’ve organised for your notes to be sent to a midwife at National Women’s Hospital – I’ll give you a ring a bit later this evening. Okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Mark, it’s such a pleasure to meet you,’ she said. ‘I’m a huge fan.’ And with obvious reluctance she went back down the hall.

  35

  WHEN WE CAME INTO THE KITCHEN TEN MINUTES LATER Em was on the phone. ‘. . . Caitlin from music at five, at the Anglican church hall – you go round the back past . . . Oh, hang on, Helen’s just come in.’ She lowered the phone. ‘Sweetie, is there any chance you can go and pick up Caitlin? Bel’s hurt her arm and your father’s been held up at work.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘Deb, don’t worry, Helen can do it. No, no, we’re fine. You’re wonderful. Thank you so much – okay, talk soon, take care.’ She dropped the phone on the bench and hurried into the lounge, calling back over her shoulder, ‘Mark, how lovely to see you. I’m afraid we’re having a bit of a crisis.’

  Bel lay on the long sofa, wrapped in a pink velour blanket and looking alarmingly pale. ‘I fell off the jungle gym,’ she whispered, not without pride.

  ‘Did you hurt your arm, McMunchkin?’ I asked.

  ‘Mummy thinks it’s broken.’

  ‘There’s a funny lump above her wrist,’ said Em. ‘Come on, darling girl, let’s get you to the doctor.’

  ‘Want me to carry you to the car, sprat?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Yes, but don’t bump my arm!’ said Bel.

  ‘Yeah, broken arms are pretty sore,’ he said, picking her up. ‘I was about your size the first time I broke mine.’

  ‘Did you have a cast?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Did people write on it?’

  ‘Sure did. My brother wrote Mark sucks. So he got sent to his room, and my mum drew a shark over the top to hide it.’

  ‘I don’t want a shark,’ said Bel as they went up the hall. ‘I want a unicorn and a princess with a tiara.’

  ‘What about a Humvee with a surface-to-air missile launcher?’

  There was a thoughtful pause before Bel said, ‘No thank you.’

  ‘How gorgeous,’ Em hissed. ‘Bless him.’

  ‘What else can we do?’ I asked. ‘Anything for dinner?’

  ‘No, it’s all done, the casserole’s in the oven . . . Oh, you wouldn’t be able to drop Granny hers, would you? It’s all ready for her on the bench, and I was going to take her some carrot cake. It’s in the blue Tupperware container in the fridge. She likes to eat by five thirty.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks. You’re an angel.’ And she hastened down the hallway.

  Mark and I should have realised that Caitlin wouldn’t fit into his car before the three of us were standing on the pavement outside the Anglican church hall. We didn’t, for which our only excuse was that neither of us had quite recovered from our recent brush with childbirth.

  ‘Where am I going to sit?’ Caitlin asked.

  ‘Good question,’ said Mark. ‘Hang on, your ute’s just round the corner, McNeil.’

  So it was, parked behind the clinic where we had forgotten to collect it after the midwife’s appointment. ‘I’ll go and get it while you two take Granny her tea,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Caitlin hastily.

  ‘I’m
not taking her her tea!’ said Mark. ‘She’s your grandmother.’

  ‘Wimp,’ I said, and he smiled.

  ‘Tell you what, you take my car to your grandmother’s and I’ll go and get your ute.’ He handed me his car keys. ‘Man, I must love you.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ I said. ‘But I’ve just remembered the ute keys are in my handbag on Dad and Em’s kitchen bench.’

  The whole operation was only slightly less complicated than the D-Day landings, but in the end a reluctant Caitlin and I set off on foot with Granny’s dinner while Mark shuffled vehicles.

  Granny’s mood that evening was more than usually acidic, and Caitlin and I were quite crushed by the time we emerged from her living room. We found Mark leaning against the ute’s bonnet at the kerb.

  ‘All good?’ he said.

  ‘She told Caitlin she has a sway back – you don’t, Caitlin – and she told me about how the doctor broke her tailbone when he delivered Uncle Simon with forceps.’

  ‘Just what you needed to hear,’ Mark said.

  ‘We forgot the plate!’ Caitlin cried. ‘Mummy always puts the food on one of Granny’s plates, because Granny never gives ours back!’

  ‘Run back in and get it,’ I suggested.

  ‘No way! You go.’

  ‘We’ll get it another time,’ I said feebly.

  The rest of the family were home when we returned. Bel’s self-importance knew no bounds; her cast was fluorescent pink and her arm had been X-rayed. She sat in state in Dad’s armchair, which had been moved across the big open-plan living area so that it was beside the table, with her blanket draped over her legs and her broken arm in a sling.

  ‘Janelle’s allowed to write on my cast, but not Courtney,’ she announced.

  ‘Why not?’ Mark asked.

  ‘She didn’t let me have a turn on the computer at school, even when I said please.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

  ‘I was very brave when my arm got X-rayed. Dr Hollis said I was a star. Didn’t he, Mummy?’