Into My Arms (35 page)

They came for him two days later, early in the morning—an orderly, a different nurse, a theatre technician. He was given a gown to change into, then prepped for surgery: his abdomen marked with texta, an IV inserted in the back of one hand. The anaesthetist dropped in, asked some questions and told him to relax, but Ben found that he couldn’t. The last few days had been so frantic—he’d had to organise things at home, reschedule an upcoming camp, spend some time with the youth worker who was going to fill in for him at the drop-in centre—but even now that was all done he couldn’t seem to shut down his thoughts. The nurse noticed his agitation, and brought him a small white tablet and a paper cup filled with water. ‘Just a pre-op,’ she said. ‘Something to keep you calm.’ He swallowed it thankfully, legs restless on the trolley as he waited to be wheeled into the OR.

He was still waiting ten minutes later when she poked her head around the door. ‘There’s a visitor here for you. Shall I send them in?’

Ben nodded. The tablet was beginning to work. He felt drowsy, boneless, lighter somehow, as if he might float up from where he was lying, through the ceiling and out of the hospital, into the silver dawn sky. It was a pleasant sensation. He’d thought the visitor might be Arran, but was surprised when Nell came in instead. She sat down next to him and took his hand, her face lined with worry.

‘I’m glad you’re still here. They just took Skye in, so you won’t be long.’ Her other hand reached for his hair, tucked it back beneath the surgical cap as if he were a child. ‘Thank you, Ben. It hasn’t been easy on you, has it? You must rue the day you met any of us.’

‘No,’ he mumbled.

The orderly returned and adjusted something at the foot of the trolley. Ben closed his eyes. Nell’s hand in his hair reminded him of something, a stifling summer evening when he was six or seven. He’d had chickenpox and couldn’t sleep for the itching, but Mary had sat beside him for hours stroking his forehead, her fingers as cool as the water at the bottom of the dam.

‘Wait!’ he called out as the bed jerked forward and the lights above him swam. The orderly stopped, confused. ‘Nell,’ he cried, clutching tighter to her hand. ‘Can you ring my mother? I want you to tell her what’s happening. The nurses have her number.’ He sank back against the trolley, felt it lurch once more beneath him. His eyelids were growing heavy. The world was closing in around the edges. He was going now. It was too late . . . but with a monumental effort he sat up again and shouted down the corridor, ‘Tell her I told you to! Tell her to come.’ There was a reason that he’d separated himself from her, he knew there was—only he couldn’t remember it now. Everything was fuzzy, and he was so sleepy. It wasn’t important anyway. He’d had one mother with him, but now he wanted his real one.

39

The phone rang six times before it was answered.

‘Hello?’ said the voice at the other end of the line, then, as the silence lengthened, ‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?’

‘Sorry,’ gulped Arran, hanging up in a panic. ‘Wrong number.’

He sat back in his seat, pulling a file from his desk. Who was it he’d been ringing? He’d made the bloody call, but then he must have zoned out before it was picked up. Arran opened the manila folder and flicked through its contents. The Asantis. Damn. He needed to talk to them about their visa application—the reminder was right there, scrawled on the notepad in front of him. Still, at least he knew they were home now. He’d give it fifteen minutes so they didn’t connect him with the startled silence, then try again.

The morning was dragging. Arran forced himself back to his computer, but the mess there depressed him. Half-read emails, most of them marked urgent, reports he needed to comment on, notes for letters he was supposed to have written. He should have scheduled a home visit, he realised, something that would have distracted him. Why hadn’t Nell called? She’d texted when the surgery began, almost two hours ago now, and had said she would ring when it was over. It shouldn’t take long, Dr Gow had told them when they’d visited Skye the previous evening. There was no reason to fear that it wouldn’t go well. Skye and Ben were both young, and Ben was fit and healthy. So was Skye usually, Arran thought, and surely that counted for something? He pulled out his mobile for about the tenth time that hour. Molly grinned at him, fat-cheeked, from the screen, but there were no new messages. Arran closed it again and put it on his desk. He’d have called Nell, except he knew she’d have her phone turned off in accordance with hospital regulations. The wait must be killing her too.

Skye would be OK, he told himself. So would Ben too, though the thought of his friend produced a niggle of guilt. He’d dragged Ben into this. Just say it didn’t work out, that there were complications, that Ben couldn’t go back to running camps? He’d told Arran recently that he loved what he did and he never wanted to work in a classroom again. Imagine, too, if Ben’s remaining kidney packed it in, and then
he’d
need a transplant . . . Arran shook his head to clear it, glancing around his desk for something to focus on. The Asantis, he thought, he’d ring them back, but when he picked up the phone it was another number he dialled.

‘Hey,’ said John. ‘I’ve been dying for you to ring. Did it all go OK?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard. It’s doing my head in.’ Arran paused, then made up his mind. ‘I’m going to the hospital. I’m not achieving anything here, and it’s almost my lunch break.’

‘Good idea,’ said John. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

‘You will?’ said Arran, touched. ‘I just rang to let you know, in case you tried to call and no one answered . . .’

‘Of course I will. I’m not getting anything done either. I keep thinking about your mum when I’m meant to be concentrating on Australia’s top ten spots for meeting Swedish backpackers.’

Arran laughed. ‘That can’t be helping. OK, I’ll see you soon. Thank you.’ He shut down his computer, pushed the folders into a pile in the middle of his desk and headed out of his office. By the time he got to reception his fingers were curled around his car keys in his pocket; once he was out on the street he began to run.

Molly was the first to spot him as he came through the doorway to the waiting area. She’d been busy with some colouring, sprawled on the floor in the middle of the room, but she jumped up to embrace him, a purple crayon clutched in her fist. Arran disentangled her from his legs and swung her onto his hip.

‘Arran!’ Nell exclaimed, pushing herself to her feet. She threw her arms around him, enfolding Molly as well, her scent the one he remembered from his childhood: turpentine and talcum powder.

‘Mummy is still asleep,’ Molly told him seriously.

‘Is she?’ he said, setting her down and turning to Nell. ‘I couldn’t concentrate at work. Thought I might as well come here. John’s on his way as well.’

‘I’m glad you did,’ Nell said. ‘It’s been a long morning.’

‘Where’s Hamish?’ Arran asked.

‘He had to go out and make a call, but he said he’d be quick. He’s been here since six too.’

Behind them something banged and Molly began to cry. Nell sighed and bent down to pick her up. ‘She’s been trying to pull things out of that vending machine all morning. Keeps pushing open the flap, then getting upset when there’s nothing there.’ Molly reached for her grandmother’s necklace, curling the silver beads into her palm.

‘It must be pretty awful,’ Arran said. ‘Seeing everything you want but not being able to have it. Can I buy her something?’

‘Maybe just some Smarties. Don’t tell Skye, but she’s already had two packets of chips. I should have left her at creche, but I wanted her here. As a piece of Skye, you know?’ Nell said quietly. ‘A good luck charm. Like the Catholics, with their bits of the saints that they carry around for protection.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘It’s silly, isn’t it?’

Arran shook his head and held out his arms to take Molly again. ‘It makes perfect sense. Give her to me. She can have whatever she likes.’

Hamish returned just as Molly was gleefully extracting her third packet of chips from the vending machine. Arran shook his hand—funny how they seemed closer now than in all the years they’d known each other, united in their fears for Skye—and then John arrived. He embraced Arran briefly, kissing him on the forehead, then offered to fetch coffees for everybody.

Nell returned to her seat by the window; Hamish took Molly on his lap while she methodically worked her way through the chips; Arran sat down on a plastic chair and picked up a magazine he had no intention of reading. The minutes ticked by. Nell’s eyes were on the door, Arran noticed, no doubt trying to summon the surgeon. She half rose as somebody pushed it open, then sank back down when she realised it was John, juggling four Styrofoam cups. He sat next to Arran and handed him a coffee and a paper bag. ‘I got you something to eat,’ he mumbled. ‘Just in case we’re here a while. Keep your blood sugar up.’

Arran peered inside and smiled. A chocolate iced donut. John knew his tastes; knew that right now he’d be craving sugar or booze or a fag, and only one of the three was permitted in the waiting area. He bit into it gratefully.

John waited until he was finished then leaned in and whispered to him, as if they were in church. ‘While I was waiting for the coffee I got talking to the guy in line next to me. He told me that his wife had just had a baby that morning, and now all she wanted was a Coke. He’d come to get her some, but he didn’t know what sort—regular, diet, Zero, vanilla—so he just bought three cans of each. ‘
It was the least I could do
, he said,
She just gave me a son
.’ John smiled at the memory. ‘It was sweet. It made me wonder about us, about how we’ll be when our baby’s born.’

‘When?’ Arran asked. The idea still gave him goosebumps.

‘It’ll happen,’ John said. ‘Mardi’s from a family of six, you know. She’s born to breed.’

‘So she’s going to be the . . . what? Carrier? Is that the term?’

John’s legs jittered and his feet tapped the linoleum, an impatient, happy little dance. ‘Gestational parent, I think, to be precise. Erica told me that they’re going to take turns trying—Mardi the first month, then Erica, then Mardi again—until one of them gets knocked up. Whoever carries the baby this time, the other will next. If it works out, that is, and we all want to do it again.’

‘I hope so,’ Arran said. ‘Four parents . . . Think of all the attention that child’s going to get. We’ll need to have at least one or two more so the first isn’t spoiled rotten.’

‘Oh, I think he will be,’ John said, his voice still lowered, and reached for Arran’s hand. ‘Or she. I don’t care which. Can you imagine it? Mardi—or Erica, if we get lucky on the first go—will get to hold the baby first, because she’s just given birth. She won’t want to let go, but eventually she’ll pass it to Erica, and when she’s had a cuddle she’ll give it to you, and I’ll take pictures and we’ll all laugh and cry, and then finally someone will say that it’s my turn, and the baby will be asleep by then, or screaming, but I won’t care because you’ll be handing it into my arms . . .’

Nell jumped out of her seat and hurried across the room. Arran started and looked up, expecting to see Dr Gow, but instead there were three people he didn’t recognise hovering uncertainly in the doorway, a man, a woman and a teenage girl.

‘Mary?’ said Nell tentatively.

The woman took two steps forward. She had grey hair but bright blue eyes, and carried a handbag that had seen better days. ‘Nell?’ Her voice trembled. The two women gazed at each other, seemingly frozen to the spot, then all of a sudden they were embracing in the middle of the room. Arran’s mind raced. Mary . . . he’d heard that name before, but when?

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Nell said when they finally pulled apart.

‘Is it over? Is he OK? And your daughter?’ Mary asked. She was crying, Arran saw, her tears catching the light as they slid down her face. ‘We came as quickly as we could,’ Mary continued, heedless, not even reaching for a handkerchief. ‘But Frank was out with the cows, so I had to fetch him in, and Kirra had already left for school. We picked her up on the way through. We couldn’t just leave her there. I knew she’d want to come.’