Bella's Run

by Margareta Osborn

  Bella found herself transfixed by his face and easy manner. They hadn’t had the chance to enjoy this sort of time together the first time round. And she’d forgotten that being around Will when he was relaxed was so enjoyable.

  After lingering over sweets they moved to the fire, Will bringing the bottle of wine and his rum, Bella careful to sit on Maggie’s old, battered and single leather chair. Will reached out to refill her near-empty wine glass.

  ‘Oh no, no more.’ She put her hand over the glass. ‘It’s lovely, thank you. But if I have more I’ll be anybody’s.’ She immediately cursed herself. And they’d been doing so well. She flicked a look at Will.

  They held each other’s gaze for seconds that dragged out like minutes and Bella’s heart tripped into fast beat. Flustered, she broke eye contact, jumping up to play at stoking the fire.

  Will watched her move in front of the flames, wine glass in one hand, poker in the other. Tonight her ringlets floated seductively from her shoulders and her face shone from the recent doses of fresh air and sun. She wore a soft cotton shirt, her buxom bosom nestling softly within its folds. Well-washed denim clung to her long, slim legs and pink explorer socks peeped out from under her cuffs.

  She seemed to glow more than usual, standing in the bright firelight. A trick of his imagination, he reasoned to himself. Isabella Vermaelon was a temptress who was possibly still engaged to another man. Hands off, bucko. He forced his body to sit alone on the hard vinyl couch. She might not be wearing the bloke’s ring, but he was still out there somewhere.

  Chapter 36

  ‘What do you mean I’m pregnant? Unless things have changed, you actually have to have sex to get pregnant!’

  Dr Weir waved the disk holding the pink plus sign. ‘It’s definitely a plus, my dear, so you must have had sex with someone.’

  Bella closed her eyes, disbelief flooding her mind. Quickly she tried to calculate how many months she’d been at Maggie’s. Over two. Nearly three, maybe?

  ‘How many weeks am I?’ she managed to squeak.

  Dr Weir leaned back in his well-creased leather chair, pulled his half-moon glasses from his nose and started to polish them with his jumper.

  ‘Well, I can give you an idea now by feeling your uterus and so forth but for a concrete answer you’ll need to have an ultrasound down in Narree. Do you remember when your last period was?’

  Bella valiantly tried to put her brain in gear to think back over the past couple of months. Her mind was a total blank. She couldn’t get past the words ‘You’re pregnant.’

  ‘The father can attend the ultrasound too, you know.’

  ‘Whose father?’

  Dr Weir leaned forward, placed his glasses back on his nose and peered with concern into Bella’s pale face.

  ‘The baby’s father,’ he said with gentle concern. ‘Bella . . . um, forgive me for asking but, you do know who the father of your baby is, don’t you?’

  Bella attempted to pull herself together.

  ‘Yes . . . yes, of course I do,’ she said with haste. ‘I’m engaged to him.’ One little white lie wouldn’t hurt in these circumstances. ‘I’m just . . . well . . . shocked. Yes, I’m shocked. I’m on the pill, you know, and it’s just . . . We weren’t expecting it so soon.’ Bella tried to smile brightly.

  ‘Yes, well the pill isn’t infallible, my dear. There are some instances where accidents do happen, people have been caught out, especially if you’ve been ill. The pill isn’t reliable then and you should use another form of contraception just to be on the safe side.’

  Bella thought back to the gastro bug she had suffered in Melbourne, the week before Caro’s wedding, all those months ago. Alarm bells rang, adding to her dismay.

  Bella slid off her chair and strode to the bed in the corner of the room. ‘Well, maybe you’d better check just how far along you think I am. That’s if you’re sure I’m actually pregnant.’ She couldn’t quite choke off the slightly pleading note to her voice.

  ‘My dear, I’m as sure of your pregnancy as I am of my wife’s intention to do the flowers for Sunday-morning church.’ Dr Weir’s tone was wry.

  Bella knew then there was no going back. Dr Weir’s wife Julia had arranged the church flowers for the last twenty years. Annual holidays in the Weir family were scheduled from Monday to Saturday, returning in time for church on Sunday – without fail. This pregnancy was for real.

  It was some time later that Dr Weir finally moved from the bedside to strip the latex gloves from his hands. Dropping them into the bagged rubbish bin he said, ‘Well, Bella, you are in fine health and your baby seems fine too. A good strong heartbeat on the little fellow, although we’ll know more once you’ve had the ultrasound.’

  ‘And how far along do you think I might be?’ Bella asked as she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and wincing slightly. The internal examination had been very uncomfortable.

  The doctor walked to his desk, pulled a form from a document holder and started writing.

  ‘Dr Weir, how far along do you think I might be?’ Bella queried again, her voice squeaking slightly with anxiety.

  Dr Weir looked up from his writing. ‘How long?’ he repeated back at her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bella more forcefully. ‘How pregnant am I?

  ‘Oh, about twenty weeks or so, my dear. It’s a wonder you hadn’t noticed any changes to your body, but then again first baby and all and being so fit. You young girls of today,’ he went on. ‘Too busy running around enjoying life to notice a thing like pregnancy, I expect.’ He kept on scribbling. ‘Here you go, the form for your ultrasound, my dear. Just ring the hospital and they’ll make you an appointment. I think you can take a video tape in and they’ll record it for you too. Jolly good idea if the father can’t get there. Melbourne chap I expect, is he?’ He went on without waiting for Bella’s reply. ‘Best come back and see me in another four weeks and we’ll set up the antenatal visits then. That’s of course if you intend to continue staying out at your Aunty Maggie’s.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ asked Bella in surprise.

  ‘Nothing, dear. I just thought the father might want you and the little one under a flash Melbourne doctor’s watchful eyes.’

  Dr Weir could tell he’d said the wrong thing from Bella’s affronted face.

  ‘Ah . . . yes . . . right,’ he blustered, walking towards the door. ‘Organise it all with Julia out front. That’s unless there are any complications.’

  ‘Complications?’ repeated Bella faintly, wondering what else she had to worry about.

  ‘Yes, complications. Then you’ll have to go to Narree. But that’s for me to worry about and I’m sure with a healthy country girl like you, it’ll all be fine. I’ll see you in four weeks, shall I?’ Dr Weir opened the door to the waiting room. ‘Be sure to pass on my congratulations to the father, won’t you?’ he said as Bella walked on rubbery legs to the doorway.

  ‘Yes . . . yes, of course.’

  Dr Weir’s wife Julia was waiting behind the desk in the waiting room, poised like a pit bull ready to strike.

  ‘Set up another visit for Isabella in four weeks’ time, won’t you, my dear,’ he murmured quietly, as he passed the file over, seemingly unaware his whisper had carried across the room. A gasp of surprise arose from the other woman sitting in the waiting room. Mildred Vincent-Prowse.

  Bella could feel herself blushing. Mildred’s inquisitive gaze bored into her back as she turned to face the formidable Julia on the other side of the desk. She could almost feel Prudence’s mother moving her chair forward to earwig at the conversation that was about to take place. The bloody old gossip.

  ‘So, that’ll be an antenatal in four weeks,’ said Julia with bright interest, after perusing the note on top of the file.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bella, squaring her shoulders and mentally steeling herself for what was to come.

  Julia made an impressive show of flicking through the appointment book while obviously searching for her next pro
bing question.

  ‘Congratulations, my dear. And your fiancé . . . ?’ she said.

  ‘. . . will be very happy with the news,’ finished Bella as she leaned over the desk and pointed to an empty block in the book resting between them. ‘That’ll do, thanks, Julia. I’ll see you then.’ She strode from the room quickly, trying to ignore the two pairs of eyes watching her avidly. She needed distance and space. The door slammed shut behind her and leaning against the red brick wall of the building she slowly exhaled and fought to hold back the tears.

  Gradually, with a few deep breaths, she pulled herself together. Then in a mutter which she hoped was only heard by the black-and-white mudlarks swooping madly at their reflections in the surgery window: ‘The whole problem is, Mrs Weir, I’m not sure if my ex-fiancé is the father!’

  For the next few weeks Bella buried herself in her work, trying to put the pregnancy out of her mind. She organised Landcare meetings across the area, drew up flyers and sent them off to her boss for printing and distribution. She worried over her rusty facilitation techniques and fussed over her meeting-planning notes. But at random moments the realisation she was actually having a baby would hit her again with a jolt. She tired easily, and needed a nanna nap after lunch to get through the rest of the day. Her belly was rounding out and the butterfly movements inside her tummy were becoming stronger. They caught her unawares at the most inopportune moments, reminding her of the little person growing inside her.

  She found a spare day and drove herself to Narree for the ultrasound Dr Weir had requested. And it was there that she came face to face with her future. In her belly. She was going to give birth to a new life.

  She was amazed, as she sat in the ute after the scan, staring at the little black-and-white photo. The blurs and blobs, which vaguely outlined the shape of the body, showed a little baby with an arm in the air like it was waving.

  ‘Hello, Mum!’ it seemed to say.

  ‘Hello, little one,’ she whispered back as she gently put the photo in her purse. Humming quietly, she drove out the hospital gateway, her mind already on how she would manage it all.

  Her first thought was that she was not going back to Warren. She needed more than just playing second fiddle in someone else’s band. She certainly didn’t desire to be the trophy wife; she wanted a life for herself.

  Secondly, she didn’t want to live in the city. She was a country girl. Her baby would not be brought up in a concrete jungle, with no paddocks to run, play and laugh in. Bella knew she could go home to Merinda, or Maggie would have her up here. But a better plan was to get a place of her own somewhere close to her family; she was sure they’d help her cope. Much better to be a happy single mum in the country than a miserable married one living in the big smoke.

  As she pulled the ute up in front of a women’s clothes shop that stocked maternity wear, her thoughts turned to how she would support herself and the baby. She could get more contract work and operate from home; she knew her qualifications were good for that. And the Landcare work she was doing was working out well, so that should stand her in excellent stead.

  Yep, Bella decided, she’d cope – her and the little one. She wondered whether it was a girl or a boy.

  Chapter 37

  Warren appeared early one Friday evening, just as Bella was coming up from the paddocks where she’d been fixing a leaking stock trough.

  ‘Oh shit!’ she muttered to Turbo as she watched his Mercedes turn into the drive. ‘Here comes trouble. Just when life was getting peaceful.’ Bella parked the motorbike, unchained Turbo from the back carryall and went to meet her ex-fiancé at the garden gate.

  ‘How did you find me?’ was her opening line, as Warren slowly got out of the car.

  ‘I just rang the shop. A young lass called Shelley told me where you were.’

  At that moment an old Land Rover rumbled to a halt behind Warren’s car.

  Turbo went nuts with excitement and raced to piss on the leg that appeared. A boot came flying from the cab, sending Turbs rolling across the grass.

  ‘Get out, you little bugger,’ came a gruff elderly voice as Wes Ogilvie exited the cab and walked over to Bella and Warren.

  Standing just over five-foot-six, he nearly met Bella eye to eye. His strides were held up with blue baling twine, and a saggy shirt strained across his protruding stomach. Stains marked the place where his belly button would have sat if you could find it. Bella could make out tomato sauce, greasy butter and Vegemite.

  Warren looked the old bloke over with apparent disgust.

  ‘Gidday, Hells Bells,’ drawled Wes. ‘Brought you some milk for them poddy calves. The mail’s ’ere too if you want it. Gidday . . . ?’ He nodded to Warren, expecting to be introduced.

  ‘Oh, Wes, this is Warren. Warren, Wes lives down the road.’

  Wes went to put out his hand, but then stopped as he looked at the dirt covering his palm. He spat into it before rubbing it down the side of his strides, then had another go, thrusting it towards Warren. ‘How do ya do?’ He smiled a gummy grin and Bella realised with a gasp that he’d left his teeth behind . . . again.

  Warren gingerly grasped the tips of the old man’s fingers and then retreated. Wes looked him and then the shiny Mercedes over in disgust. ‘Don’t they know how to shake a man’s hand properly in the city?’

  ‘Yes, they do have some funny ways, Wes,’ Bella broke in quickly before Warren had time to answer. She guided the old man to his Land Rover, grabbed the drum of milk out of the back and took the bundle of mail Wes held out to her. Turbo had slunk around her heels, and he took a last dive at Wes’s leg.

  ‘Get out, ya mongrel bastard!’ The boot flew again but missed its target. Turbs moved fast when Wes was around.

  ‘See ya, Hells Bells. I’ll catch you again in a few days. There’s a postcard from ya folks in the mail. Sounds like things are goin’ bonza.’ He revved up his old ute and slung out of the drive.

  Bella walked over to Warren, who was still standing by the gate with a horrified look on his face.

  ‘You know, he’s probably the richest man in Tindarra. Probably all of Burrindal too.’ Bella watched as Warren stood up straighter, a gleam coming to his eye as he tracked the Land Rover going down the road. ‘Of course, it’s all in land. Wes reckons you can’t go wrong with land. Not like shares, debentures or global investments.’ She widened her eyes in innocence.

  Warren gave a very English ‘Hrruph,’ and walked to the back of his car. He pulled a leather suitcase from the boot.

  Bella looked at the case with dismay. ‘You’re staying here?’

  ‘Well, of course, Bella. You are my fiancée, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘That wasn’t what I said in the note I left you.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Warren, a placatory hand in the air. ‘But now you’ve had your little fling in the bush, I thought you’d be ready to come back home with me.’ He beamed.

  Then, for the first time, he seemed to take in what she was wearing and the wrench she was wielding in her fist. His expression became slightly unsure.

  Covering her sky-blue cotton drill shirt were fine splats of mud, and she was soaking wet from her waist to her toes. The leaking pipeline that supplied water to the trough down near the river pump hadn’t wanted to play ball, but she’d persevered and won the battle. She’d cut out the section that leaked and found two joiners in the shed. It might have taken her most of the afternoon but they’d been installed and she was damned proud. She’d done it all by herself!

  And now here was Warren suggesting she come back and be a decorative feature hanging from his arm.

  No way, José! Not for this little black duck, said Patty’s voice inside her head.

  Bella turned and walked off towards the house with Warren following closely behind. She climbed the steps to the verandah and then turned back to the man on her heels. ‘You can stay in Maggie’s front room, but when you leave, it’ll be on your own. I’m not coming back.’

  ‘You
really plan to stay here?’ Warren said, throwing his free arm around to encompass all the space, and the mountains hunched in the night’s shadow with eucalypts on their slopes. ‘Out in the boondocks, going no place? I thought more of you, Bella, I really, truly did. I thought you had ambition and drive, a passion to make it big . . . with me.’ He sounded incredulous.

  Bella stood silent and looked at him. She wondered how on earth she could have thought herself in love with this man. He just didn’t get it. And he never would. He didn’t see the bush as freedom, the room to breathe and live a healthy, wholesome life. He saw it as chains and shackles, a road to nowhere, the death of all aspiration.

  ‘I’m staying here, Warren.’

  He lifted his head slightly in challenge. ‘I’m not moving to the bush.’ The final word was twisted in abhorrence and he took a step back.

  ‘I’m not asking you to,’ was her gentle but firm reply.

  ‘So, what now? Are we engaged or not?’

  ‘No. We’re not. I’m sorry.’

  Warren ran his hand through his hair. He lifted his face and stared hard out at the shadowed hilltops then down at the verandah boards, shoving his leather-clad toe into the worn and frayed coir mat outside the door.

  ‘Right. Well then. I guess it’s over.’ Warren took a moment and then looked up. Bella was shocked to see his eyes were glassy. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now. Obviously I’ll not stay long.’

  The next day dawned clear and Bella was out of the house before breakfast. She didn’t want to face Warren after the stand-off last night. He’d come to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, declined her offer of a meal before stating he wished to catch up with Trinity.