Читать книгу Ricochet - Robyn Neilson - Страница 6

This is when and how the wild lime starts. Lime in name only. Because of course it is foolish to believe the Tilia x Vulgaris will bear fruit. But it will bear a bough of heart-shaped leaves whose tea, it is said will comfort you.

The girls and Loup have been helping me reverse the blackberry invasion and its violation of our front fence and garden. A Mother’s Day present. For me, there is no greater pleasure than us all working outside together. I had resisted spray, hence the passers-by and we could avail ourselves of the purple berries all summer long. But now the hedge is marauding across the footpath, attacking the legs of school children. The four of us go into battle, and come out covered in blood, the traces of thorns in serrations up and down our arms, staining our faces.

My daughters retreat to their tree house, clambering high, hurling themselves on their rope swing off the giant old oak. Their fearlessness, when I look up and see how far off the ground they are, provokes an involuntary flutter in my belly. Loup and I work until dark, burning off mountains of thorns. The autumn air carries a twilight chill. But I am loath to go inside the house, sensing a mystery gathering inside my body. I lie on the cool grass with sweet exhaustion. Feeling that this fatigue is new, I slip my hands under my overalls, and note the roundness of my belly, which is also new. My breasts are tender and swollen. My period is late, but that is not unusual. Being a distance runner, my menstrual cycle is all over the place. Never regular. Mother’s Day, could it be?

The unexpected pregnancy settled in, and grew upon me as an unsought delight. This baby was the gift I thought I would never again be given, having tampered with my previously unsought conceptions. Confounded by Loup’s silence I wondered: was my happiness an outrage? He retreated. Occasionally a joyful smile would break apart his resistance; his heart and mind in silent battle.

Once, we argued over something minor, which escalated into something major. Loup slammed the door and left in the dark and did not come back. At three months, my belly pushed out beyond my jeans, bursting buttons. I boasted a rare cleavage. I was blissful, but solitary in my sea of endorphins. For his own reasons, which were born of wounds he would not communicate, Loup was in denial to the point of indifference. As is his method, he locked me out.

My eyes dried up after two days of sobbing, and a sombre Loup returned to my side. In a tender show of solidarity, he came with me to share our baby news with my mother. She chose her words with care: ‘I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when your Father finds out.’ Nevertheless I clung to the notion she was privately pleased. The conservative cloth from which my parents were cut could not openly condone a child born to their divorced, unmarried, and as they saw it, unhinged daughter having an inconveniently protracted fling with a Frenchman. My little sister and my best friend alone congratulated me. I could not yet tell my daughters. I was afraid they might feel abandoned. I could hardly expect their young hearts to suddenly adopt my joy. They would want to protect their father, despite our five-year separation.

Two nights later the cramps started. I was on the phone to a friend to wish her Happy Birthday when the pain crippled me mid-sentence. Like nothing I have ever experienced. A long stifled howl… choking on a mouthful of hot sand.

A few mornings later, lying in bed with both my bedroom door and the front door wide open, the unseasonal winter sun is warm. A small consolation but gladly appreciated. Loup comes inside to join me under the covers; his old gentle self. He is sad for me, perhaps also for himself, confused and out of his depth. Softly he caresses me, buried down below.

From outside I hear ‘Hello, Frey?’ in a familiar accent, and my Polish friend and neighbour walks in the front door, straight into my bedroom. Without hesitation, Zena starts.

‘How are you today? You’ve got a bit more colour in your face…. What did Dr Dunmead say? Is it confirmed?’

‘Afraid so… think I saw it in the toilet’.

‘Oh I’m really sorry mate… really sorry,’ says she who could never have her own children, and suffered a marriage breakdown because of it. Another betrayal. I couldn’t rightly go on and on about my little mishap to Zena.

‘But Frey, don’t you think it’s all for the best? Anyway, Loup didn’t seem the fathering type…he’s still a boy himself! I reckon your body got pregnant because you were desperate to hold onto Loup…you know Frey, sorry to be so blunt, but you’re more serious than he is… I don’t get the feeling he’s going to commit… or to stay… And do you really want to bring up another child at 41 on your own? Hell, the risks and cases I’ve seen! And what about your girls? How will they take it? By the way, where is Loup? I thought I heard him chopping wood before I came across…’

Loup lay dead still under the fluffed up doona, next to my tired vagina and my vacant uterus and I pulled the sheets up over my mouth, stifling a weary grin.

‘Well Zena, I can see your point of view…like most things, you’re probably right. But you’re wrong about Loup. He just needs more time. Anyway, he’s gone under the side of the house to fix some wiring. Do you need him for something?’

‘Nah, just wondering, that’s all.’

I can feel Loup’s breath hot against my thigh. Might he suffocate?

‘Well my dear, sorry to be blunt in return, but I’m pretty tired, I might try and get some rest now…. if I’m feeling up to it, want to go for a walk up cemetery hill tomorrow arvo?’

‘Sounds good. But don’t push it…I’ve got strong painkillers if you need.’

‘I’m ok ta. See you tomorrow Zena’

My candid childless nurse friend and I share a hard-won empathy. We have been through some mess together, including her fronting up to my former husband’s house and offering her services as both his new mate and new mother to our daughters, seeing as my own mothering was now questionable.

‘Putain, can I come up now?’

Loup whispers from below, his beetroot-face emerging, sheepish. We burst into laughter.

‘Christ your friend’s got l’audace…doesn’t she ever keep her opinions to herself? I thought she’d never leave!