by Averil Kenny
Finally, Olive raised her eyes, pencil clutched awkwardly. Her face was a gaping wound. ‘Oh, Sonnet. You girls were my second chance – my unearned, undeserved blessing. You’re the daughters I always wanted . . .’
*
‘Power’s out in town, too. And the bridge out of Noah just went under,’ Gav said, placing the phone back into its cradle. ‘Our bridge into town will be next.’
‘In less than, what, twelve hours’ rain? Must be a new record, dear.’
Plum pressed close, eyes flying between aunt and uncle.
‘Yeah, we’ll be cut off in the valley for a week if this holds up. Weather Bureau says this system may be packing over forty inches of rain.’
‘What about the cottage?’ Plum asked, clutching at her uncle’s arm.
‘No fear, Plum-pie! Old Malcolm knew what he was doing. He drew a line in front of the cottage in nineteen twenty, and he told that old serpent – thus far, but no further.’
But Plum knew. The serpent was already there. She needed redoubtable Sonnet, and she needed her fast.
Sonnet was holed up in the candlelit bathroom, staring at herself, hands to cheeks. Plum hung back in the hallway, shocked by the vulnerability of her sister’s expression, made grotesque by humidity’s thick sheen, and the wavering light.
‘Sonny, are you crying?’
Her sister turned at her timorous tone, without truly seeing Plum. ‘Just got some things on my mind. What’s the matter?’
‘There’s a snake at the cottage. And I don’t want Fable and the baby to be down there with it.’
Sonnet gave an exasperated sigh.
Plum tried again, harder. ‘I don’t want Fable to be left at the cottage alone . . . in the cyclone. I want us to get her now!’
‘We don’t even know if it’ll cross us yet, Plummy. It’s just a lot of rain at the moment. Fable will come up if she wants us.’
‘We can’t leave her there!’
Sonnet was irritated now. ‘Don’t be stupid, we’re not leaving her anywhere. She’s more than capable herself to handle some rain. We’ll go down later.’
Plum planted her feet. ‘If you won’t go save her, I will!’
‘Now you’re just being dramatic.’
‘We need to go to the cottage!’
‘For pity’s sake, listen to the rain – you want to go out in that?’
‘Pleeeease!’
Sonnet groaned. ‘Fine! Go ask Olive for a flashlight, then. And umbrellas. And some bloody sense while you’re at it, Plum. What a ridiculous idea . . .’
*
Sonnet swore under her breath as another wave of rain sought to sweep them off the hill.
‘I should have given in and just let Gav go instead of us,’ she cried. ‘No wonder Fabes didn’t want to come up – this is awful, Plummy!’
Her sister didn’t answer, eyes fastened on the meek cottage glow below.
‘Look!’ Sonnet said. ‘She’s cosy and happy, probably reading a book by candlelight. You’d better tell Fable this was all your idea.’
Well, that wasn’t quite true. Sonnet had pandered to Plum’s paranoia and refused Gav as chaperone for her own reasons, too. After last night’s discovery, curiosity was a nest of fire ants underfoot.
Had Fable turned her bedroom into a personal exhibition for Archer Brennan on purpose? How could she?! Whatever Fable knew, Sonnet would have it out of her by the time this storm blew over!
At the cottage, Plum ran ahead of Sonnet, scouring the garden from the safety of the porch, not the slightest bit relieved at what she didn’t find. They sloshed inside on a blast of wetness. The lounge and kitchen were empty; filled with torrential roar. A single candle burned on the bench.
‘Faa-bes!’ Sonnet called, hauling off her raincoat and boots. ‘It’s only us.’ She waggled her eyebrows at her youngest sister. ‘Plum just wanted to come and check on you.’
Her flashlight swept the darkness, finding the lounge and sunroom empty. There was a whimper, only the tiniest of whimpers, from the bathroom. Sonnet followed her beam of light into the bathroom, followed its track up the figure stooped over the sink, with face pressed against the faucet and arms braced against the rim.
‘Fable?’
Her sister shook her head, without lifting it. Another tiny whimper escaped – with a hurried draw of breath after it. Plum came to stand beside Sonnet, her flashlight joining the first, illuminating Fable more brightly. Fable swayed, clenching at the sink, writhing on her feet. One last whimper came – softening – then she sagged heavily against the porcelain.
Sonnet took a step forward and Fable raised her head. The two women locked eyes: Sonnet aghast, Fable terrified.
Fable straightened, turning the low-slung ball of her belly towards them, gaping at a spot between her feet. Sonnet’s torch swung down, just in time to watch the flood of water hit the floor. Fable gasped; one hand clutching at the sink, in case she was washed away.
‘No!’ Sonnet cried, finding her voice. ‘It’s too early!’
‘Why are you weeing?’ Plum whispered.
‘It’s not wee!’ Sonnet cried. ‘It’s the baby! And it’s coming now! Oh, Fabes, what are we going to do – we can’t get out of Noah!’
Fable’s eyes were wide, desperate rounds. Sonnet’s hand flew to her forehead, raking hard through her hair. ‘The cyclone! What if it comes in on us now? We don’t have any power. We don’t even have a phone! Why the hell don’t we have a phone?’ Her voice had risen frantically. Fable’s eyes mirrored her fear.
‘We need Dr Fairley,’ said Plum.
‘Yes!’ Sonnet cried, rounding on her sister. ‘Yes! We have to get Jake – before it’s too late! Plum, you need to go up to Heartwood. You need to run, and you need to tell Gav to take the Ford, before our bridge goes under, and get Dr Fairley!’
Plum’s head shook violently, eyes bouncing between her sisters. ‘I can’t!’
Sonnet gripped Plum by the shoulders. ‘You need to help me save Fable’s baby. That’s why we’re here, remember? Because of you, Plummy. You knew something was wrong, and now we’re got to make it right. Go, Plum!’
Plum’s moving head changed direction, became an unsteady nod. She scampered from the room. ‘I’m going!’
Fable turned again to the sink on another whimpering surge.
*
Olive blew into the cottage, with Plum stumbling after her, issuing a stricken demand – ‘What can I do?!’ Sonnet looked up from her kneeling position at Fable’s back, bent over the bathtub’s edge.
Olive’s eyes remained fixed on Sonnet. From her hands dangled two garbage bags filled with towels and sheets and candles. A box of aspirin was tucked underarm.
‘Just tell me you’ve already sent Gav to get Dr Fairley!’
‘He’s going full throttle!’
‘Will he make it before the bridge goes under?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know. They’ll be cutting it fine. I just . . . I don’t want Gav caught on the other side of the bridge.’
Sonnet heard the quaver of dread. ‘I had to send him, Olive. We need a doctor!’
‘I know. Are you sure it won’t fizzle out, though?’
Sonnet motioned towards the spill of amniotic fluid across the tiles. ‘We’re past the point of no return here.’
Only then did Olive finally allow herself to take in the form of her labouring niece. It was too much – her face quaked, a hand pressed against her lips. She turned back to Sonnet. ‘Please give me something to do.’
‘Light. We need light – everywhere!’
*
Ensconced in the bathroom, Sonnet nonetheless sensed Jake’s arrival outside. It was warmth coursing into her solar plexus.
Thank you, she mouthed into the silence. Her hand trembled against Fable’s sweat-soaked back.
She half expected him to come sprinting in. He arrived, however, with an unhurried ease which comforted when it should have infuriated her.
‘Look
s like we’re having a baby, then,’ he said, filling the doorway with height; the room with confidence.
Fable, slumped between surges, looked mutely up at him. Her face did not change – only Sonnet detected the relieved outbreath.
Jake’s face was all calm professionalism. His eyes, though, lingered on Sonnet with compassion. The look made her feel like a cat inclining its head for a petting.
‘You made it,’ Sonnet said. There was a catch in her voice.
‘And here I was thinking my first cyclone was going to be the only excitement of the evening.’ He came to kneel on the other side of Fable, with only eyes for her now. ‘How are you getting on here, Fable? Can you tell me how close these contractions are?’
Fable shook her head and dug her hands into the lip of the bath, bowing as another contraction reared up.
Sonnet pressed her hand hard against Fable’s back, as she seemed to prefer, and they all waited in silence until the pain subsided.
‘Is that one gone?’ Jake asked, leaning to catch Fable’s eyes. Fable nodded, eyes slipping away.
‘She’s been having these pains ninety seconds apart ever since I found her. Sometimes they seem to stampede in, one on top of the other.’
Jake nodded. ‘And when did contractions start?’
Sonnet threw up her hands. ‘She’s not saying anything, Jake!’
‘That’s okay. Some women just prefer to go quietly into themselves. They conduct themselves in birth as they do in life.’
‘But she’s in too much pain! Can you give her something?’
Jake spoke directly to his patient. ‘I can’t give you any medicine here, Fable. I’m sorry; I’m not equipped for it tonight. Do you understand?’
Fable emitted a silent sob, hunching further over the bath.
‘But we’re going to make things as easy as we can for you. We can try some warm water next – the bath can be useful.’
Fable stiffened, breathing hard once more. She grabbed Sonnet’s hand, whacking it against her lower back.
Jake watched quietly. ‘Are you having pain in your back?’
‘I think so,’ Sonnet said, massaging firmly. ‘This is the only thing that helps her.’
‘OK, keep it up. Baby might be posterior.’
When Fable’s huffing ebbed away, Jake leaned in close. ‘Fable, with your permission, I’d like to check baby’s position, and how far along you are. I’m going to have to work between your contractions, they’re very close together. Would that be OK with you?’
Fable made a small, pained sound low in her throat. A lump rose in Sonnet’s.
*
Plum stood back as Sonnet shut the door in her face, sealing off the bathroom.
What were they doing to Fable? Would childbirth just kill Fable – or the baby, too?
Plum wandered into the lounge-room, nursing a sob in her chest. Olive was shaking her head over a stubborn match, foot lighting up her calf on friction alone. Gav sat on the lounge, with his head in his hands. The emergency bulletin sounded, volume low, from the transistor radio.
‘Uncle Gav? What will happen to the baby if the cyclone takes the roof off?’
‘Already told you kiddo; this roof isn’t coming off.’
Plum hated the weariness of Gav’s voice. She tried, and failed, not to take it personally. ‘But what if?’
‘Fable’s in the safest room in the house.’
‘What if the creek comes for us?’
‘It’s not going to breach the flood line. That’s a hundred-year mark.’
‘But what if this is the hundredth year?’
Gav’s big hands closed around his forehead.
‘And what about the python? Is he still out there?’
‘He would have gone long ago in search of shelter.’
‘But what if he’s sheltering in the cottage? Why would he go somewhere else when he could come in here?’
Plum imagined the serpent uncoiling from the rafters above Fable and the baby. ‘Can’t you go and check? Just to make sure he’s not there?’
‘Not where?’ Gav said with a long exhale. ‘If I check and he’s not in the garden, how’s that going to make you feel better? Then you’re going to think he’s in the roof!’
‘Can’t you check the roof, too?’
Gav ejected himself from the couch. ‘Strewth, Plum! Just lay off it!’ He thumped out into the storm, without looking back.
‘He’s only stressed, dear, he doesn’t mean it,’ Olive said from the kitchen, finally striking her match.
Plum cowered under the flimsy cottage roof – already lifting, and obviously hiding a python – and listened to the creek creeping ever closer. The bathroom door stayed barred closed.
When Gav returned, it was with bolstered resolve. ‘Come here,’ he said, drawing Plum to the window seat nook.
‘See that sunbird’s nest?’
‘The one hanging from the wind chime?’
‘Do you reckon they’d be stickin’ around right now if there was a big flamin’ snake nearby? Or if they thought we were about to get swept away? Not a chance!’
‘Oh,’ Plum said.
‘Now look, this is your job, Plum-pie: I want you to sit right here and make sure nothing happens to that nest, OK?’
Plum pressed her nose against the bay window to see the bird’s tiny beak poking out of the pendulous hanging nest. A gale made it sway violently, suspended as it was by the finest of grass cords.
‘Uncle Gav, she’s going to be blown away – the cord will snap!’
‘Baloney! No way she’d build a home for her babies here unless it was safe.’
*
‘You’re doing really well,’ Fable heard Dr Fairley say through a haze of pain and exhaustion. ‘You’re already dilated almost halfway and the baby is down low, too. It’s all good news.’
Only halfway? God, this will kill me.
She broke into a silent scream, burying her face in Sonnet’s lap.
Fable felt the looks exchanged once more over her head. She knew what they were thinking: Fable can’t do it, and since no one else can do it for her, guess she’s done for!
She would die in childbirth, in a muggy bathroom full of looks; the newest, saddest Hamilton tragedy.
The serpent crushed around her belly once more; its great mandible opening over her womb. Sonnet’s hand pressed desperately against her back to release its grip on her. The fabric of her sister’s shorts went in and out of Fable’s mouth.
If she had to die, she’d do it quietly.
*
Olive dithered at the door frame. ‘You must be tired, Sonnet. Do you want me to take over and give you a break?’
Sonnet looked around the figure braced and swaying against her. She could do with a toilet break. It was torturous being so close to a loo with such a full bladder. Fable’s head shook violently against Sonnet’s chest and her hands dug in.
‘I think that’s a no,’ Sonnet said, with a wink.
‘I need a job,’ Olive pleaded. ‘And don’t say more candles. Place already looks like a cathedral.’
‘Check on the cyclone again?’
‘Done that. Ceres has been slightly downgraded, still coming in north of us, looks like she’ll make landfall about two o’clock.’
No such downgrading was taking place in the bathroom. A shared question hung heavily in the air. Which would come first – cyclone or baby? Both women turned to look at the doctor leaning quietly against the window. Jake put his hands up, warding them off.
Sonnet spoke over Fable’s head the way one might a truculent child. ‘She’s progressing so well, over halfway dilated now; doing brilliantly.’
The woman in question stamped her feet and kicked at the air, breathing like a bull.
Even Olive understood that. She slipped away.
*
Fable was naked in a blessedly hot bath – knees spread apart, buttocks bared brazenly to the rafters in front of her sister and her wannabe boyfriend. She had
the vague sense she should be embarrassed, though the notion was from another life entirely. This world of obliterating pain was all she knew now.
‘She can’t go on like this, you have to do something,’ Sonnet begged – whether to Dr Fairley or the baby itself, Fable was too far gone to tell. Sonnet sat beside her tub, hands tight on Fable’s flagging fingers.
Fable whimpered in agreement. Yes, do something. Drown me now, before the next one comes along.
Dr Fairley drew near. ‘Fable,’ he said. ‘I want you to remember this is good pain—’
‘Seriously?’ Sonnet muttered, voice dripping scorn.
‘Hear me out,’ he said, dropping to his knees. ‘The uterus is a muscular organ, working hard each contraction to bring your baby down. And when muscle works over and over, it hurts. It’s just your body doing its job well.’
‘OK, that’s better,’ Sonnet said approvingly.
The immense maw stretched wide, and the python crushed again. Fable pounded her hands, wrapped in Sonnet’s, against the porcelain, floundering for breath. She was drowning on dry land.
Sonnet’s voice was a vine thrown from the safety of the bank. ‘Fabes, just imagine you’re climbing a mountain now. Do you hear me?’
Fable nodded, grasping tight.
‘It’s only a muscle burning, because you’re going higher and higher, right to the very top. You beautiful girl, you’re so strong, look how strong you are.’
Fable heard the roar of Moria Falls; saw, on the steep path ahead, a single hiker pushing just beyond her reach.
Wait, Raff.
*
Wind threw itself against the cottage in a demented rage. Plum started from the window after an almighty crash in the back yard.
‘Hills hoist,’ Gav said, not looking up from his Reader’s Digest.
Plum realised she’d been dozing and glanced at the nest. The beak had still not moved – possibly because the stupid mother was already dead, and had smothered her babies beneath her.
The bathroom door whacked open and Sonnet hurried out to the sunroom. From the bathroom came the sound of a tired fist thudding on and on against the bath.
Olive rose hurriedly. ‘Sonnet?’
‘Jake said she’s getting to the pushing stage. I need to make up her bed.’
‘Don’t be silly, I’ll do that.’
