Unzipped (21 page)

‘Congratulations, Peta. I heard you did it.’ ‘If this is about BJ, I’m hanging up.’ ‘Go ahead. I’m coming around.’

She must have been in the car. Less than five minutes after I hang up, Ruby is on my doorstep. ‘Peta, let us in.’

Us? I open the door, walk away from them to the kitchen. Ruby and Mark follow me down the hall. Mum’s teacups here we come.

‘It’s good to see you, ex-wife.’

Mark hasn’t seen me since he built the change table.

‘Can I touch your enormous belly?’

‘If I let you, will you go home?’

‘No, but we won’t stay all night either.’

My belly isn’t the only thing that’s grown. Mark’s hair is longish, untidy. He’s sporting a shaggy, beachcomber look. He looks good, loose, relaxed. His hand, bigger than
BJ’s, gets more mileage on my belly. The baby kicks; it’s been kicking for most of the day.

The kettle on, the teapot prepared, Ruby joins in.

‘Did you feel that?’ Ruby says. ‘She’s a tough little thing.’

‘It might be a boy.’

Up until he said that, I haven’t minded what sex the baby is. Now I want it to be a girl. There’s another knock at the door.

‘That’ll be Taylor.’ Mark lets her in.

‘What is this?’ I say to Ruby. ‘An intervention?’

‘No. It’s a coming together.’

‘A coming together of busybodies is called an intervention. I’m going to the toilet. For the fiftieth time today. You can make tea while I’m gone, Ruby.’

When I’m in the toilet, I hear my name and BJ’s and the words strategy, compulsive, stupid and fat.

When I return I sit opposite Taylor and she places her feet on mine.

‘Who’s got the kids?’

‘They’re with Dave. He’s taken them to his mother’s. He said I looked like I needed some time off. Pinch me.’

Taylor’s holding one of Mum’s teacups secure in the knowledge I won’t get physical. ‘I can’t believe you let her go. She came back, threw herself at your feet—and in your back seat so I’m told. How old are you anyway, Pete?’

‘She’s right, Pete. This girl loves you,’ Mark says. He snatches up his teacup, splashing tea over the rim. Must have been my look. He’s leaning against the bench, Ruby next to him.

‘What do you care, Mark?’ I say. ‘You saw her off in the first place.’

‘And when she came back to you, you did,’ Ruby says.

‘Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives? Are you never going to be on my side again?’

‘Peta, Ruby is on Mark’s side,’ Taylor uses air quotation marks, ‘because he is right. And Mark, in case I die before I get to say this, you let BJ hear you and Peta? Brilliant work. Inspired crassness.’

‘Shut up, Taylor.’

‘It’s okay, Ruby. Taylor’s right,’ Mark says. ‘If I’m ever such an arsehole again you can shoot me.’

‘Listen, we’re achieving nothing. I’d like to get something happening before Carole gets here.’ Taylor’s used to getting things done.

‘You’ve dragged Carole into this?’

‘She wanted to come. She says BJ sits in her room all day, playing the same four songs over and over, and hasn’t eaten anything decent since Sunday.’

I bet they’re the same four songs I’ve been playing. Gin Wigmore. Now she’s music for break-ups.

There’s a knock at the door.

‘I’ll get it.’ I check my keys are in my pocket, grab my phone on the way, and open the front door. ‘I’m sorry they made you come to this. Go in, Carole, there’s a fresh pot brewing. I’m just checking the mail.’

I race down the steps to my car.

My gobsmacked neighbour is putting his bins out. Has he never seen a pregnant woman running? I open the car with the key, don’t beep it open, and take off.

I shouldn’t have run. A little bit of wee came out.

The intercom at Carole’s front door is low. Who installed it? Nobody of a decent height.

‘Yeah?’ BJ sounds worn out.

‘BJ, let me in.’

‘Go away, Peta. I’ve had enough and, actually, you’re right.’

‘I’m right?’ I let go of the button, wait.

‘Yeah, I’m too young for this shit. I don’t have the energy to keep up with you, Pete. You don’t know what you want and when you get what you want, you get sick of it. Good luck having a baby.’

All this through a speaker at Carole’s front door. The street is a cul-de-sac and BJ is echoing across the asphalt bowl of the court. I don’t care. I’m too tired and cold and upset for embarrassment.

There’s a rough lump in my throat. ‘Give me another chance? Please?’

‘Like you gave me? I came back from Paris, you were having a baby, and it didn’t matter. I drew a little picture of us in my head. I even bought one of those baby sling things, for fuck’s sake. I was ready for nappies and spew and nights of no sleep.’

‘You can have all that.’

‘I’m going to bed now, Pete.’

I press the button again. Again. Again.

I go back to the car. My phone is on the passenger seat. It has twelve missed calls: Ruby, Mark, Taylor, repeat.

I ring Ruby. ‘Rube, Rube, she doesn’t want me.’

‘Come home, Pete.’

‘Rube, I’ve lost her.’

I’m crying. Ruby waits until my volume drops.

‘Do you want me to come and get you?’

‘No, Rube, I’m coming.’

I put the car in gear and pull away from the kerb. Rain pelts the roof, sprays up from the cars in front of me. The roads are crystal. Street lights, traffic lights, headlights and tail-lamps reflected double, halos on halos. Three streets away from Carole’s, I turn the car around. If BJ can come back from Paris, I can come back from Malvern Road.

One street away, I flick my indicator on and turn back. Sit at a red light and wail. A man at the tram stop next to me knocks on the window.

He mouths:
Are you okay
?

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve, shake my head, sniff.

I have to concentrate on the baby.

When I swing back into Carole’s driveway, I expect to see some lights on, but the house is dark. I switch the ignition off. Take the steps to the front door, press the button.

No answer. I press the intercom button again. Still no answer. I’ll try the back door. I squeeze past the wet, thick plants along the side of the house and hike up the steps. On the last step I feel a trickle in my underpants.

Terrific. I’ve been almost-weeing-myself all day. I’ve changed my underpants twice but didn’t think to bring any. Note to self: stash spare underpants in glove box.

I knock on the back door, try the handle.

The door is unlocked. I step inside and run a hand along a wall, find a light switch, flick it. Nothing but the big bakelite snap. Flick the switch again. Snap. All noise, no light. Carole’s place is a-night-in-the-country black.

I pad around the house. My toe catches a pile of magazines and the high stack concertinas to the floor. The noise is loud, packs the air, then full silence.

‘BJ,’ my voice loud, ‘BJ, are you here?’

The silence isn’t silent. My pulse? Stress made aural? Intuition?

I grab the railing on the wall side of the stairs. At thirty-five weeks pregnant, one of the no-nos, along with horse-riding and salami, has to be a midnight-dark climb up an unfamiliar staircase.

‘BJ,’ I say, more for me than her.

Safe at the top of the stairs. Another trickle. For God’s sake. ‘Um, hi BJ, don’t mind me. I wonder if I could borrow your pelvic floor. I seem to have damaged mine.’ I laugh and more wee trickles out.

I have to go to the toilet.

The door won’t open. Something is behind it. My shoulder against the door, I push, one sustained push. I feel another trickle. Jesus, I’m going to wet myself a metre from the toilet. The door opens a little. I slip my arm in.

Nothing high up. I bend down.

‘BJ! BJ!’

She’s on the tiles. Her hair is damp and her skin is cold.

‘BJ!’

I scrabble my phone out of my pocket and dial triple 0. The operator has difficulty understanding me. She calms me down, gets the address out of me.

‘And what about you?’ the operator says. ‘Are you injured?’

‘I’m pregnant.’

‘You’re sounding very confused.’

‘I’ve wet myself and my back is sore.’

‘Could you be in labour?’

‘No. I haven’t got time!’

‘What’s your name?’

‘It’s Peta and the hurt one is BJ.’

She keeps me on the phone, her voice is soothing. I would hate to be alone for this. She’s calm. The clock ticks.

The back door opens, voices.

‘Up here! Up here!’

Two white circles of light bounce up the stairs.

The paramedics have rescued someone from a bathroom before. They set up torches, bigger, more useful than any I’ve ever seen. They talk between themselves. I can’t hear what they are saying. They lift the door up and off its hinges. One of them crouches over BJ.

‘Is there a pulse?’ I say.

Carole appears at the top of the stairs.

‘Carole, BJ’s here!’

The beam of Carole’s torch sweeps the short hallway, shines in my eyes. I nod at the bathroom and the light

leaves my face. I follow its path across the hallway.

‘Belinda! Belinda!’

The paramedics are business in blue overalls. They instruct Carole: check on the pregnant woman.

I haven’t moved since one of the paramedics inspected me and said something I couldn’t hear to his partner. I’m crouched in the hallway, my back against the wall.

‘Carole, I’ve wet myself.’

‘It’s your waters.’

‘There’s water in the bathroom.’

‘Peta, look at me.’ Carole takes my chin, tilts my face. ‘Your waters have broken, we need to get you to hospital.’

‘The water isn’t due for weeks.’

‘All the same, you have to get to hospital.’

‘BJ needs the hospital.’

‘I’m going to call Mark. Don’t move. Stay out of the way. They’re taking her downstairs.’

After they leave there is nothing. Car doors slamming, a tap dripping. I imagine the drip forming at the spout, bursting, the spilt-second freefall and the wet splat. The process repeats.

Carole returns. It’s still dark.

‘I need you to stand up. I’m going to put your arms around my neck and I want you to clasp your hands behind my head. Ready?’ She leans down, lifts my arms around her neck and hauls me to my feet.

‘I wet myself again.’

‘Yes, Peta. I’m going in front of you. Hold the banister with both hands.’

‘My back is sore, sore back.’

‘We’ll be there soon.’

Carole Smart is standing at the window looking into the Fitzroy Gardens. I don’t know what she’s doing here. She seems older. It could be the hospital lighting. It may be the underarm-pink colour of the walls. Private health cover gets you your own room, the best obstetrician, but it does nothing for the decor.

‘She doesn’t remember a thing,’ Carole says, resuming her seat. ‘You could be carrying my grandchild if my daughter remembers what’s good for her.’

The baby hasn’t been moving much. When I was admitted I was hooked up to a foetal monitor and it was reassuring to watch the baby’s heart rate. Without the monitor I’m back to being worried. Still, listening to Carole blather on is helping.

‘I didn’t know what I’d walked into,’ she continues. ‘You crouched in a corner and Belinda, BJ, out cold on the bathroom floor. I’ve told her about using too much soap and making the bath slippery. That and the power going out…This better be the last head injury in the bathroom we have to experience.’

Ruby arrives, arms full.

‘Bathroom head injuries come in threes.’ She kisses my cheek and drops her bag on the end of my bed.

She’s bought a bouquet of gerberas that she arranges in a tall vase on the bench opposite my bed. ‘I thought you’d know about signs of early labour, Pete. Don’t you have sixty-seven pregnancy sites in your favourites?’

‘Not that many. I know what you’re saying, but I never looked at early labour. I followed my weeks and jumped ahead to bringing baby home. I guess I won’t need the antenatal classes. I’m thinking about trying to transfer them to you, Ruby.’

‘Eh? I’m not pregnant.’

‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘But it won’t be long, will it? Always wanted babies, man of your dreams and all that.’

Ruby turns bright pink, changes the subject: ‘So, what are they saying?’

They. The owners of clipboards, who have no problem waking a pregnant woman in the middle of the night to check how you are and admonish you for not sleeping.

‘Bed rest. Fluids. I’m meant to lie on my left side, and take medication in case of infection and medication to slow labour. I haven’t assembled the highchair.’

I’m scared. I don’t know anything about babies, except they need a lot of gear and everybody loves one. What if I don’t? I’m on week thirty-five. I had maternal instinct pencilled in for week thirty-eight.

‘I’m tired of being in bed. I want the baby out, safe, where it isn’t all up to me anymore. What about this memory loss? Carole, will she know how great she is?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Carole says. ‘She’s concussed. She may have trouble sleeping, have headaches. She seems okay.’

‘Do you think she’s coming in?’

‘If she remembers you dumped her, she might not.’

‘Ruby, this is not the place. You had your chance with your intervention and we know how well that ended.’

‘I didn’t make the electricity go out. It’s lucky Peta bailed when she did.’

‘Peta doesn’t need you to remind her of what an idiot she’s been.’

‘I was an idiot. If I had my time again…’

‘You’d still get on the couch.’

The knowledge of sisters.

‘Yes, I would.’

‘I wonder if BJ still would.’

‘Of course I would.’ BJ is at the door.

‘That’s our cue. Come on, Ruby.’

‘Yes, it is, get out. Thanks, Mum.’ She gives Carole a kiss, hugs Ruby, and sits on the bed.

‘You would still get on the couch? After everything?’

‘What everything?’

‘Stitches, bruises, being dumped.’ I can go on. I don’t. ‘That’s a cracker of a bruise.’

‘You should see people getting out of my way: little old ladies clutching their handbags, blokes holding on to their women.’

I’m on my left side, as instructed, so there’s room. I pat the bed. BJ lies on her right side and we face each other. I finger the bruise, trace its blurred outline.

‘You saved my life,’ she says.

She takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. I blink tears away.

‘You weren’t going to die.’ I draw the blanket up over our shoulders.

‘Who knows?’

I hold BJ tight, make sure she’s listening: ‘I’m ashamed I didn’t understand earlier. You are not just my girlfriend, you’re my partner. You wouldn’t have been simply going out with someone who had a baby—like you hang out with someone with a pool—you’d be a parent. You want to be the baby’s mum. And not just nappies and no sleep. Odd looks, explanations. You’re up for them. I should have known. I’m sorry, BJ.’