The Bit In Between (25 page)

Alison and Sera arrived back at Aunty Patti's house just as the sun was starting set. Sera waddled in, excited to tell everyone how well the meeting had gone. Alison followed her, hoping that the retelling would be comparatively short by Solomon Island standards and that she could organise a lift.

They found Aunty Patti in the middle of a meeting. She was a member of a group of local and expat businesswomen who met to mentor and support each other in their individual professional pursuits, usually assisted by a bottle or two of wine. They all stopped what they were doing so Sera could relay her story, including the bit about the flat tyre. Everyone oohed and aahed and complimented Alison on her cleverness and she blushed and batted away the compliments.

She arrived at the little blue house excited to share her adventure with Oliver, only to find that the door was locked. Oliver was out. At Rick's, she assumed. She let herself in, slipped off her sandals and lay down on the couch. She was exhausted – her eyes felt like they were being dragged down with weights. She nestled into the cushions, hoping to drift off to sleep for a while, but then felt something press into her spine. It was Oliver's notebook. Moving it to one side, her eyes skimmed the page then froze. Oliver had written a note reminding himself to include a brief paragraph about Geraldine's successful interview with the grants panel for the women's centre she and Mary hoped to establish. According to Oliver's notes, the panel were so impressed they'd already made their decision, and the submission of a written proposal was now a mere formality. She threw the notebook onto the coffee table in front of her. She felt tears pricking her eyes. It wasn't that she believed any of this nonsense about him making things happen, she told herself – but
he
did. And this was
hers
. The grant was meant to be hers, but now, even if they got it, it would somehow feel . . . less. Flustered and annoyed, she wandered outside to wait for him. She sat on the porch of the little blue house and suddenly her head was between her knees and she was gasping for breath as the whole world spun. There were no happy endings. Everything cracked, and it was cracking now. She was so angry with him. He needed to explain himself. If he could explain himself, he could maybe make things better. And he would stop what he was doing. And she would stop whatever she was doing. And they would make things all one hundred per cent okay again. Where was Oliver? Why wasn't he here?

She pulled her mobile from her pocket and dialled his number. When Oliver answered she heard laughter in the background. He was having fun with Rick and this irritated her immensely.

‘Where are you?' she demanded, though she knew.

‘I'm at Rick's,' Oliver said. ‘Are you okay?'

‘When are you coming home?' she barked, ignoring his question.

‘Um, soon. Now. Do you want me to come home?'

‘Whenever. Whatever. Shouldn't you be writing? You're so lazy.'

Alison hung up and felt instantly ashamed of herself. She was angry about a line in a notebook that her boyfriend thought might have magical powers to change the future. On a list of irrational things to argue about, that was definitely near the top. She shouldn't have mentioned his writing, shouldn't have called him lazy. It wasn't true and she knew exactly how it would make him feel, but it was too late to take it back. A tiny part of her felt good about this. Maybe she should call to apologise.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down, wondering what Oliver had to say. But it wasn't Oliver, it was Ed.

I'm back. Come see me, Coops.

She stared at the message. She knew she shouldn't. She knew she should just delete it and pretend it had never been there. She definitely shouldn't reply. The phone buzzed again in her hand and she jumped. This time it was Oliver.

On my way. See you soon.

Alison watched her phone until she was sure the messages had stopped. She didn't respond to Ed's message but she didn't delete it. And when Oliver returned home, consumed by a guilt she couldn't identify, Alison didn't mention anything to him about the message or the notebook. Instead, she lay on her side of the bed, listening to him fumble around the bathroom, pretending to be asleep.

Alison left the house early the next morning before Oliver awoke, leaving him to spend the day alone with his manuscript. She had an early appointment with Sera and they'd planned to spend the day sourcing secondhand computers. Inside the office, she opened the curtains to let in the light and waited for Sera to arrive. Time passed. Alison checked her phone, stretching out in an office chair and continued to wait. More time passed and she began to worry. Eventually, her mobile rang.

The sun was sinking low on the horizon when Alison stormed into the little blue house and grabbed Oliver's laptop from him, holding it threateningly over her head.

‘What are you doing?' he yelped.

She shook with rage and grief as the afternoon flashed before her eyes. The missed appointment. The dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach. The frantic unanswered phone calls and the trip to the hospital.

‘Did you do it?' Alison cried.

‘What?'

‘Did you do it?' she yelled.

‘Did I do what?'

‘Did you take her babies from her? Did you write it?'

She lowered her arms and started scanning the laptop screen, jabbing at the down arrow again and again. Oliver went pale and carefully took it from her trembling hands.

‘Did you write it?' she demanded, desperately search­ing his face. When he didn't answer, she staggered off towards the bedroom, clutching at her stomach. She couldn't even make it to the bed and instead fell to her knees in the doorway. The world felt like it was shaking with a million-point earthquake and she felt the simultaneous urge to scream, throw up, lash out and run. Instead she lay on the dusty floorboards trembling wordlessly. Eventually she realised her hands were clasped around her middle, cradling her abdomen, which felt inexplicably empty. She curled up into a ball and sobbed – big, muted, gasping sobs that made her whole body shudder. Oliver knelt beside her and tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away.

‘If you did this I will hate you until I am dead in the ground,' she whispered.

Oliver's face collapsed. ‘I didn't. I swear. But . . .'

‘But what?'

‘I . . . I felt like I should. I didn't do it, but it felt like what needed to come next. I didn't write it, but everything in me was telling me that's how the story needed to go. But I couldn't.'

‘Stop this!' she said. ‘Stop doing this.'

‘I didn't, Alison. I promise. Do you believe me?'

She refused to look at him. She refused to look at him for a very long time.

After Sera's babies died, Alison spent three days in bed, not crying, not eating, just staring at the blank wall with vacant eyes. She rose only to make her daily trips to the hospital to visit Sera, who had the same vacant eyes. No words passed between them as they sat side by side, Alison stroking her friend's arm and drying her tears. Sometimes Peter sat on the opposite side, his body slouched defeated in the wooden chair, as he lightly touched his wife's skin. His life was repeating itself, snatching away his unborn children a second time, and Alison was flooded with a horrid relief that this time at least his wife had been spared. When she was at home, Oliver came and went, bringing her cups of tea and toast with jam, and other things that turned cold waiting unwanted on the floor beside the bed. Sometimes he sat in the room with her and tried to make conversation, and other times he just sat.

On the third morning, Oliver found Alison standing in the living room. Something small and green dangled from her limp hand.

‘What's the point?' She looked at the half-finished bonnet in her hand. ‘If we live in a world where babies don't even get the chance to be born, what's the point of any of us trying?'

He stared at the small scrap of wool abandoned mid-stitch.

‘I suppose it just wasn't meant to be . . .'

She looked at him with a coldness he had never seen before in another human being.

‘That is the most unsatisfying fucking answer I have ever heard in my life and I will never forgive you for saying that.'

‘I didn't write it, I promise,' he said quietly.

‘But you thought it,' she said. ‘And you're going to write it, aren't you? Later. Because you think it's what the story needs.'

Alison went back to the bedroom and fell back into the groove in the mattress she had occupied for the last few days. She blinked back tears, surprised that there were any left. She saw their faces, Sera and Peter, exhausted and lost as they sought to comfort one another. She saw this and she saw all the unfairness in the world. It wasn't fair that babies should die here from things they wouldn't die from in other countries. It wasn't fair that bad things should happen to kind people, that these tragedies should be so common and so constant. She wasn't sure how she could help or if she could help or where she belonged in any of this, so she just kept turning up every day to sit with her friend in grief.

Time passed. Not a lot of time, but enough time to slowly, slowly start to mend some of the wounds that would never truly heal. Enough time for Sera's traumatised body to heal and for Alison to answer when Oliver spoke to her.

One day Alison received a call from Sera asking if she would drive her out past the airport for an appointment. Of course she said yes. Sera sat delicately in the passenger seat of Aunty Patti's car as Alison negotiated their way out of town and along the road that led beyond the airport. Sera was quieter these days, with a slowness that spoke of the incredible distress she had suffered when she was forced to deliver not one but two dead babies. They had talked about it now, and Alison had wept more tears than Sera, probably because Sera had done so much crying already.

Sera shifted carefully in the car seat, then reached out and touched Alison's arm.

‘I'm okay. I'll be okay. He has a reason for everything and one day maybe we might know what this one was.'

A lifetime of atheism howled inside Alison. ‘Do you believe that?' she asked quietly.

Sera didn't reply.

‘You don't want answers?'

Sera's eyes remained on the window watching the world pass by.

‘Of course I do,' she said. ‘I want to blame everyone. The doctors, this country, myself. But that still doesn't give me any answers. Maybe God will.'

‘Will you try again?' Alison asked gently, but Sera didn't answer her.

After she dropped Sera at her appointment, Alison drove back along the road passing time. She drove without thinking and found herself pulling up at the international terminal of Henderson Airport. As if in a dream, she watched herself stop the car, turn off the ignition and then wander into the terminal. A flight had just arrived and the airport was full of excited, sweaty people embracing each other and commenting on the day's heat. She pushed past them and sat down on a bench beneath a TV screen that showed a short tourism film on repeat. Alison realised that in recent times she had done an incredible amount of thinking in airports, en route to China, Malaysia, Australia and the Solomon Islands. And now here she was at Henderson Airport, another airport and another chance to escape.