Fireshadow

by Anthony Eaton

  Alice nods. So far only her doctor has talked to her about it, and he described the process in cold, clinical terms. I’m scared, she tells Anne.

  I was too. But you get through it. And once it’s over and you’re holding your baby, trust me, it’s all worth the pain.

  And they talk about it, and Anne tells her all about her two experiences. By the time her friend leaves, Alice feels much better.

  In the late afternoon she can’t bear the thought of staying in bed any longer, so she gets up and pulls on a dress. It is the one her mother made her for Christmas. On a hanger it looks like a cross between a tent and a flour sack. When she shrugs it over her head, though, it fits her perfectly.

  She splashes cold water over her face and straightens her hair. Her skin is terrible at the moment, but she knows it could clear up again almost overnight. It doesn’t worry her.

  What are you doing up? There is concern all over her mother’s face when she enters the kitchen. Is everything all right?

  I’m fine, Mum. She sits at the table and watches her mother prepare the dinner. Watching her chopping carrots, she realises for the first time what fine fingers her mother has. You’ve got lovely hands, Mum.

  Her mother stops for a moment, puzzled, flexing her fingers and looking at them closely. They’re like my mother’s. If the baby has them perhaps we should give her piano lessons. I always wanted to play the piano. There is a slight wistfulness in her mother’s voice and eyes, and Alice watches as she visibly shakes it off. Do you feel up to hanging out some washing for me?

  Of course, Alice replies.

  That night, she begins a new list in her journal.

  To learn to play the piano. To camp in the bush. To swim at Cottesloe with his or her father.

  The experiences her baby will not miss out on.

  7 March 1947

  Frannie has borrowed the car to drive Alice in to town for her check-up. It is too hot for you to be catching trams, she says.

  In Perth they find a parking spot not too far from the doctor’s rooms. Frannie says that she will take Claire and go shopping, and they will come back in half an hour. Alice watches her go, carrying her baby. Soon they will be able to take their children for walks together.

  She is sweating heavily by the time she has travelled the few hundred yards to the surgery. A nurse offers her a glass of water which she gratefully accepts. Another woman is waiting for an appointment ahead of her. She is also pregnant, probably five or six months, Alice guesses.

  The other woman smiles across the room. Not long now for you, by the looks of things.

  No. Alice smiles back, though she doesn’t feel very happy. Just another three or four weeks.

  You lucky thing. You must be excited.

  No, not really. Alice thinks for a moment. It doesn’t seem quite real.

  Oh. The other woman returns to her magazine and after a few moments the nurse comes and takes her through to the doctor. Won’t be long, she tells Alice over her shoulder.

  Alice picks up a magazine but nothing in it grabs her interest and after flicking idly through the pages she drops it back onto the low table and just stares out the window.

  The sunshine today seems different from normal. It seems to have lost some of its bright brilliance and there is a hazy, subdued feel about it. It is humid, too, and Alice can feel her dress clinging to her, and her hair frizzing.

  Finally the other woman comes out and it is Alice’s turn to go into the tiny office.

  Good morning, Alice. The doctor greets her. Would you mind climbing up onto the bed here for me?

  The examination takes only a few minutes. The usual routine of temperature, stethoscope and gentle probing of her abdomen.

  No more problems with pain? he asks her.

  No.

  Excellent. He washes his hands at a small sink while she slides off the bed and back to her feet. Well, both you and the baby seem to be in perfect health as far as I can tell. Only three weeks to go now, right?

  That’s right.

  Good. Well, make sure you get plenty of rest to build your energy up, but do a little bit of exercise each day if you can. Just gentle walking, that sort of thing. If you find your back getting too sore, a hot bath might help.

  With the weather the way it is, Alice can’t imagine anything worse than a hot bath.

  Then there’s not a lot else you need to do now. Apart from knitting some baby clothes, of course. He smiles a little. This is his idea of a joke and Alice fakes amusement.

  Have your father call me if you need anything. Other than that, I’ll see you again in a week.

  Francesca is waiting in the car by the time she gets back. Everything is good? she asks.

  Fine, Frannie.

  Alice holds Claire as they drive home. The little girl gurgles and tries to grab a handful of Alice’s hair, but still doesn’t have the coordination.

  Where do you get this car from, Frannie?

  Her friend gives her a sly look. You are not telling Günter I told you this . . . she begins.

  I promise. Our secret.

  He is borrowing it from some Australians, some people who were living near Marrinup but now are being in Perth. They have boarder, a German man, friend of Günter’s, also from prison camp. He is . . . how do you say? Escaping? Not going back to Germany.

  Alice laughs. That’s why he won’t tell me.

  Si. Very big secret. His friend have new name now, and also sweetheart here.

  As they round the corner at the end of her street, Alice smiles and plays with Claire.

  28 March 1947

  The last few weeks are the worst. They seem to drag out for almost as long as the previous eight months. Each day brings with it routines and habits, and Alice moves through them feeling disconnected. Like acting a part in someone else’s play.

  More letters arrive from Germany. Mathilde has been moved into a good hospital, on the outskirts of a small village near the Black Forest which hasn’t been too badly damaged in the war. It is costing most of the family money that Erich has managed to recover, but it is her best chance of a quick recovery.

  He is well too, working as a labourer, clearing rubble and debris from bombed-out sites, and visiting his sister whenever he can find the time. He is missing Alice, is worried about their baby, wishing he could be there for the birth.

  She writes back. Stories about her and her grandfather, and Günter and Frannie, and Annie and her kids. Don’t feel like you need to return before you are both ready. I understand, she tells him, even though inside she really wants to beg him to come back. She’ll be all right in the hospital now. Let someone else look after her . . .

  But instead she writes I love you, signs her name, and slips her understanding into an envelope. She addresses it carefully, stamps it and consigns it to the red mailbox in front of the greengrocer’s, knowing that by the time it reaches its destination its recipient will be a father.

  Walking to the park is too much effort now, so most afternoons Anne brings the kids around and they play in the backyard, climbing the old Moreton Bay Fig at the bottom of the garden, while their mother and Alice sit on the back porch and drink tea and chat. Frannie often joins them too, things seem to be a little better between her and Günter now.

  It’ll all be over soon, love, Anne tells her. Nothing to worry about.

  But she does worry, and she lies in her room at night and listens to the house ticking and cooling around her, and feels her child kicking inside, and knows that tomorrow morning will bring the same routines, the same sensations and aches and pains, and she just wants it all to be over, now. Alice has had enough of being pregnant.

  5 April 1947

  All day the humidity has been building, and in the early afternoon a low cast of thick grey cloud rolls over the city. It traps the heat close to the ground
and the temperature climbs into the eighties, then the low nineties. Alice dozes in her chair on the back verandah, a fitful, disturbed sleep.

  When Anne arrives and wakes her, the air feels charged, electric.

  I think we’re in for a bit of a storm, you know that? Anne has told the kids they’re not to climb the tree this afternoon.

  Frannie isn’t coming by today. She and Günter are looking for a house to buy. They have some money saved and want a place of their own. Günter wants to find somewhere near bushland, on the outskirts of the city, where there are birds.

  Are you feeling okay? Anne notices that her friend is very quiet.

  Yes. Just a little strange. I think it’s the weather.

  Evening approaches and her mother comes outside to sit with them. The dropping sun slants up from below the cloud layer, illuminating everything with a dirty yellow light. Alice watches dust particles float, suspended in the air.

  We’d better get moving. Kids! Lizzie and Harry come tumbling in off the lawn. It’s time to go. Give your Aunt Alice a kiss. Harry dutifully pecks her cheek, his face serious and round, hands in the pockets of his shorts. Lizzie tries to throw her arms around Alice’s middle, giggling. Can I feel the baby? she asks. Of course. The little girl’s hand is warm and sticky against her belly, and, almost as if in response, the little creature inside her kicks out, making Lizzie squeal and pull her hand back quickly. Everyone laughs.

  He’s restless tonight, Alice says. Anne and her mother exchange a look.

  A few minutes later, with the light fading, the first fat drops of rain fall. They make miniature craters in the dusty patch at the bottom of the stairs and plonk a sporadic chorus onto the tin roof. They are accompanied by a peal of distant thunder.

  Anne leaves and her mother goes back inside to prepare dinner. Alice sits alone again, watching the rain. It isn’t a constant fall, just random drops which have forced themselves to earth. The rain does nothing to release the tension in the air, just the opposite in fact. As the evening grows darker, the air seems to get thicker, dryer, more charged, more claustrophobic.

  After dinner, Alice goes to bed early but can’t sleep. The baby is kicking, hard. Sharp little stabs of tiny feet against the inside of her uterus. She runs her hands lightly over the curve. Shhh. Sleep, she tells it.

  But it doesn’t and both of them are still wide awake at half past ten when the storm finally breaks over Perth with a roar of water. The downpour is almost tropical in its strength, and finally Alice rises from her bed and makes her way through the darkened house out to the front verandah. She remembers making this same trip all those months ago, kissing her father, turning off the light and the radio, walking in the winter rain. Tonight the front room is empty and silent. Her father hasn’t slept there in several months. Tonight, as every night now, her parents share a bed.

  She stands under the shelter of the verandah, watching the energy pour itself from the sky. The rain seems to pound into the pavement with an almost living strength. The street is flooded, the drains not able to cope with the flow.

  Alice steps into the deluge. Unlike last time it is warm, blood-like. She is instantly soaked, her nightdress clinging to her and the water cascading around the bulge of her belly, down her legs, pouring into the ground. Alice laughs and spreads her arms wide to the sky, savouring the sensation, the incredible release of it. The baby kicks again.

  Then the first contraction shudders through her and she gasps and has to sit down, right there, in the street, in the rain which continues to pour down onto her.

  Through tears that mix with the rain, she laughs again.

  6 April 1947

  By morning, the contractions are close. The midwife has been there, since being summoned in the middle of the night.

  We need to get her to the hospital. Soon. I can’t understand why her waters haven’t broken.

  Günter and Frannie have gone to fetch the car. They should be here any moment.

  Alice’s hair is sticking to her scalp and with each new set of contractions she whimpers and shudders. Her mother holds her hand. She hasn’t let it go since the previous night when her daughter, soaked and trembling, had stumbled into their bedroom and announced that it had started.

  Her grandfather is standing on the other side of the bedroom feeling helpless.

  Can I have some water? The old man leaves the room to fetch a glass for her.

  The car arrives and they carry her out to it. She tries to walk, but her legs keep collapsing beneath her as waves of pain spasm through her body. Her father supports her on one side, the midwife on the other.

  Alice lies across the back seat, and Frannie and her parents are in the front. The midwife squeezes herself in beside Alice. Now go! There is urgency in her voice.

  The hospital is in Subiaco. The doctor is already there.

  How long between contractions? he asks.

  Three minutes, now, the midwife replies. Still no waters, though she’s almost fully dilated. I don’t understand it.

  Another cramp squeezes her and this time the pain is different, sharper. Harder. Like it has an edge. She screams.

  Get her into the theatre, I want to have a look.

  In the operating theatre, Alice is laid on a table, her legs stirruped up into the air like some absurd puppet. The doctor and two nurses are wearing robes and masks which make them look distant. Impersonal. What’s wrong? she asks.

  It’s fine, Alice. Just try to relax, the doctor tells her. One of the nurses wipes her head with a damp cloth. Another contraction, and the doctor is probing into her with some kind of tool now. She can feel the coldness of it inside her. She feels like she is burning up.

  I think it’s the placenta, he tells one of the nurses. It’s fixed over the birth canal instead of at the top. Prep her for a caesarean, please.

  He leaves the room.

  Then her mother is there again, holding her hand once more. She’s also wearing a robe. Everything will be fine, honey. Just stay calm.

  But it’s too hard to stay calm. Alice cries out in pain as another set of contractions takes hold, and inside herself she feels something tearing. I just want it to stop. Please! she begs her mother. But it doesn’t stop. There are more cramps and more tearing, and she feels something warm and sticky running out of her and pooling on the table beneath.

  She’s bleeding, doctor!

  The doctor swears and her mother is bundled from the room. Alice wishes she still had her hand to hold on to. The pain is constant now, a deep sharp burning inside her, even between the contractions. The room blurs and spins through her tears, and then there’s an injection and a kind of floating sensation, and then, for a long time, nothing.

  There are voices in the room when she wakes. The doctor. Her parents. Her grandfather.

  The baby is fine, but it took so long to get her here that there has been a lot of haemorrhaging and internal bleeding. She’s not in a good way . . .

  Who? Alice tries to speak. No words come out, only a croak.

  She feels so cold, so tired.

  Someone strokes her forehead. Her mother. Her long fingers feel like fire.

  I’m cold.

  Shhh, honey , her mother soothes her. The voice washes around her.

  Something is pressed into her arms. Something tiny, hot and wriggly. Alice tries to lift the little bundle to her lips, but can’t. Her arms don’t seem to be working properly.

  It’s a little girl. A perfect little girl, Alice. Her father is standing at the foot of the bed. He seems to be a long way away. We’re so proud of you, honey. She doesn’t understand why her father is crying. He never cries. So proud . . .

  With an effort that makes her gasp, and ignoring the pain that sears through her belly when she does so, Alice finally manages to raise her child to her lips. She breathes in the baby smell. The little creature coug
hs and hiccups and squawks. Matilda. Her voice is only a whisper, but it’s all she can manage. It’s enough. She whispers it again into the tiny, perfect ear. Matilda.

  She is so cold, even with all these blankets on. And the room is dark. Why doesn’t someone turn on a light?

  For a moment Alice closes her eyes. Just for a moment.

  When she opens them again, there are new people in the room. Strangers.

  Alice.

  An old woman is there with a young man. She is vaguely familiar. She smells of lavender.

  Get up, now. It’s time to go.

  Go?

  Come. This is your Uncle Paul. There’s other people who want to meet you too.

  The old woman’s eyes crinkle when she smiles. It’s warmer and brighter all of a sudden, and there are other people there. More strangers. A handsome man with blonde hair and a woman with him. She has never met them, but she knows them. He has piercing blue eyes. She has seen those eyes before. Hello, Alice. The woman reaches out and takes her hand. Her voice is soft and accented. Alice stands.

  But my baby . . .

  Don’t worry, her grandmother says. You’ll be able to watch her, see?

  Alice looks behind her, in the direction that the old lady is pointing. It’s much darker over there. Her parents are there, and her grandfather. They are all crying.

  She’ll be fine. We promise. The blue-eyed man steps over and wraps an arm around her shoulders, protectively, welcomingly. We’ll all watch over her. Now come . . .

  It is much warmer here. With a last, lingering look behind, Alice follows . . .

  7 April 1947

  The old doctor’s hands tremble as he pulls the paper towards himself. On the desk a lamp casts a dull light across the empty page. In the bin by his side rest seven similar sheets, all half-written, all discarded unfinished.

  He can hear his daughter and son-in-law talking in the kitchen next door. They speak quietly, but he can still hear the shock, the despair in their voices.