Authors: Fiona McGregor
‘You’ve been crying, haven’t you?’
‘I lost the Coke account.’
‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry.’
‘Terry’s furious.’ Blanche began to cry again.
Marie watched her with pity.
Blanche walked rapidly to the bathroom but once inside found she couldn’t vomit. She didn’t know why she was crying. Because of the lost account, because of the lost house and the
pathos of picking herbs there? Because her mother might be dying, because she might be pregnant. Because along with the dread that this possibility brought was a flash of soft baby’s skin,
the wondrous lightness of a newborn. She hadn’t cried for years: this tear-streaked fragile woman of the last few weeks was a stranger to her. She was poise, cool, and smarts personified. She
braced herself over the sink, wanting to purge all of it.
Four hours later, Blanche rang her mother with the test results. ‘I can’t believe it. You knew, didn’t you.’
‘I’m not sure I knew anything much this afternoon, Blanche.’
‘Are you feeling better? Have you eaten?’
‘Much better. We’ve just had pumpkin soup.’
Blanche could hear the television in the background, tuned to Channel Ten news like hers. When she spoke to Clark there was a delay, but the transmission on her mother’s set came in
perfect synchronicity.
Marie said, ‘You didn’t want this did you.’
‘I finally get the promotion I’ve been working towards for years, I bodge a big job. Now this.’
‘It’s not your fault, Blanche. Now listen. What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Hugh wants it.’
It
, she thought. This thing in her body. This replicating cell that her husband wanted, as something of his. And it
was
partly his.
The simple biological imperative of reproduction — a part of one organism entering another to make something new — seemed preposterous.
‘Of course Hugh wants it. You’re thirty-seven, Blanche. Do you want children?’
‘I don’t want to have another abortion.’ Blanche’s voice trembled. ‘I couldn’t stand it. And I do want to have kids but I’m not sure if I’m
ready.’
‘I’m sure abortions are less traumatic these days.’
‘No, they’re not; the procedure hasn’t changed at all, we’re just older. But that can make it worse!’
‘Try not to get worked up. You’re not going to do anything you don’t want to do.’
As she soothed Blanche, Marie wondered if she had sounded as though she was encouraging her to have an abortion. She didn’t want that. She would have loved another grandchild. The mere
idea of holding a little baby made her glow and Blanche in her opinion was leaving it too late. At the same time she was afraid that encouraging her to have the child would be seen as disregarding
her career. Imagining Blanche in labour, Marie felt her blood rush towards her daughter in empathy. Helping Blanche through her abortion was, paradoxically enough, a happy memory for Marie.
It was the beginning of the HSC. An end-of-school drunken-night pregnancy, no doubt. Marie knew the boy, John Reid, and thought he was nice, but just nice, nothing else. He and Blanche
weren’t in love. She remembered Blanche haemorrhaging. Marie had bundled up the bloody sheets and gone down through the rumpus room to the laundry to avoid Ross. Instead she walked right by
him, because he had taken his coffee with the weekend papers to the bottom garden.
He lifted his head as she passed. ‘Blanche still in bed?’
‘I don’t know.’ Marie went into the laundry and ran the tap.
‘It’s midday.’ His voice approached. ‘She’s got a Maths exam on Monday.’
‘She’s also got the flu.’
He stood behind Marie in the doorway. Always the dandy, he was dressed in bone linen trousers and a salmon silk shirt. He watched her press the sheets into the tub. She angled her body to hide
the bloodstains but it was too late. ‘She got her periods?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, she can clean up after herself, can’t she? We’re due at the Tottis’ at one.’
‘She has the flu, and she has studying to do. I’ll be ready in time, Ross.’
Ross went upstairs. Marie could hear him moving through the rooms above. He was tyrannical with all the children when they did their HSC, reminding them constantly,
Your mother and I
weren
’
t lucky enough to get a private-school education
.
Marie never knew how Ross had found out: if he had found the papers from the Family Planning clinic or if he had found Blanche in a weak moment, easy enough as she had spent two days in bed
crying and bleeding. By the time Marie had gone back up to the kitchen, Ross was fuming in Blanche’s bedroom above.
This isn
’
t the time to be slutting around
.
She sat with Blanche later that night, forcing her to drink tea, rubbing her back, thinking a mantra,
Don’t turn out like me, my baby
. Get a great mark, get a degree, don’t
have children so young, Blanche,
don
’
t turn out like me
. And she was happy in that moment. She felt strong. Her daughter needed her. Marie knew that part of Ross’s rage
was due to this mother–daughter bond; he was also threatened by the burgeoning independence of his princess. But together, she felt her and Blanche to be invincible. She was proud of her
daughter’s sexuality and of her support of it. But even as she congratulated herself, an atavistic thought rose from the back of her mind, enjoying the price that Blanche was paying:
Well,
you have choices now, don
’
t you?
Blanche almost failed her Maths exam but passed her HSC with a good enough mark to get into art school. She didn’t turn out like her mother at all. She turned out like her father: moody,
ambitious, demanding. As demanding of herself as she was of others.
‘I’ve never wanted to have an abortion,’ Blanche was saying. ‘I’ve just
had
to. It’s never been my intention. Does anyone ever
plan
an
abortion?’
Marie had only been thinking of that first one but she wondered now how many Blanche had had. And where she, Marie, had been. She knew why she held her at arm’s length: getting involved in
her daughter’s life brought with it so much responsibility. All that love she would have to give, which she didn’t feel she had.
‘Of course not.’
‘Did you want all of us?’
‘I suppose I might have had an abortion with Clark if it had been available. I was barely nineteen. I had to give up uni as you know. I considered giving the baby up for adoption but Ross
wanted him. So we got married. I’ve never said this to Clark and I don’t think you should either. Of course I fell madly in love with him when he was born ... I had an abortion when I
was in my late thirties.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Blanche, you were too young.’
‘Was it before mine or after?’
‘Before. I remember Leon was twelve because I remember thinking I can’t have a child thirteen years younger than his brothers and sisters.’
‘Was Dad supportive?’
‘He picked me up from the clinic, made me a cup of tea. You know we didn’t expect the same things from our husbands then. They didn’t necessarily come to the births, for
instance. And I don’t think I wanted him there, to be honest.’
‘Why not? Wouldn’t you want the comfort?’
‘I didn’t want him to see me like that. Screaming in agony. All that mess. My body like that. I just wanted to get it over with.’
Blanche went silent. Louise Jones had told her she had split half her perineum, and that it hurt so much she nearly passed out. There was blood everywhere; she had to have a drip afterwards.
Seventeen stitches. And her husband saw everything. God, it was barbaric the things that nature put women through. Blanche could hardly bear to think about it. ‘Were you okay
afterwards?’
‘You just forget. You have your beautiful baby, and that’s that.’
‘I mean after the abortion.’
‘It was a horrible experience. I didn’t feel liberated, just robbed of something I hadn’t wanted in the first place. As contradictory as that may sound.’
‘So there might have been four of us.’
‘Five. I had a miscarriage a few years earlier.’
Her mother’s voice began to fade. She must have been exhausted. Chemotherapy had been offered as a means to reduce the tumours and, along with them, the pain, but nobody suggested it would
cure her.
‘Are you going in tomorrow?’ Blanche asked her.
‘Yes. I’m going to see my medicine woman too.’
‘The tattoo woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘God, Mum, don’t get any more tattoos!’
‘Why not?’
‘Haven’t you got enough? Isn’t it a bit ex
cessive
?’
‘The picture isn’t finished yet, Blanche.’
Blanche put the phone down in an even more acute state of distress. Such rare intimacy, then back to the schism. She flung herself onto her bed. Loud disco came through the window. She had seen
André and a woman dancing when arriving home that evening. Through a gap in the blinds, two pairs of feet bounced across the parquet to KC and the Sunshine Band. André’s new
Nikes and a woman’s sandals, to and fro like birds in a mating dance, the sandals tapping on the spot, a trainer insinuating itself in between. The entire place seemed to be shaking with the
honeymooners.
Was it an age or only yesterday that she and Hugh were dancing their own celebration at finding this house? Hadn’t they also been that happy and danced in their living room on a weeknight
just for the hell of it? She had taken it all for granted: the initial daily lovemaking, the comfort, the euphoria. Five years ago, she and Hugh were the couple downstairs and André was her
now, fighting with his ex-wife. And so it continued, the endless circle.
But she could idealise her own life as easily as the lives of others. Like her mother, she had fallen pregnant only a few months after she and Hugh got together. She was thirty and working
seventy hours a week at Huston Alwick and loving every minute of it. She had presented Hugh with her decision to have an abortion as a fait accompli and though he accepted it, his grief had niggled
her. On her way into the clinic, she had been surrounded by people with placards chanting,
Murder, murder
. She didn’t haemorrhage as she had when she was eighteen, but the procedure
drained a joy from her life and marriage that took a long time to refill. To this day the sight of right-to-lifers made her tremble.
She went into the kitchen and moved Hugh’s present, an electric hot-chocolate maker, off the counter. He came in and wrapped himself around her. ‘Why don’t we try it
out?’ He was attempting to suppress his jubilation at her pregnancy, unsuccessfully.
‘We don’t even drink hot chocolate, Hugh.’
‘That’s why I got it.’
‘There’s no room for it.’ Blanche indicated the benchtop, crammed with a barista kit, toaster, jaffle maker, juicer, food processor and microwave. The cupboards were stuffed
with gadgets for everything from stopping bottles to opening them. Blanche poured herself a glass of Evian. ‘I’m going to bed. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
The hiss of the new machine travelled up the hall, then the nauseating smell of hot milk. A few nights ago it had been the smell of white wine and peanuts tormenting her. She could hear Hugh
walking down the hall, bearing a gift she would refuse. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said when he came into the bedroom.
He put down the tray. ‘You mean this is making you sick too?’
‘I’m sorry, Hugh, but I can’t even handle the smell.’
Hugh picked up the tray and made his faltering way back to the living room. She heard the television go on. An English football match. Did you hear me, Hugh? She lay there desperately thinking,
I can
’
t do it
.
He returned half an hour later. Blanche said again, ‘I can’t do it, Hugh.’
He lifted the covers and climbed in beside her. ‘You’re not going to have another abortion, are you, pooky? How could you even con
sider
having a third abortion?’
‘Jesus, Hugh! You know how hard it was! Do you think I want to? And how can you talk about what I did when I was barely eighteen in the same breath? It’s easy for you.’
‘It’s not that easy. I didn’t find it easy at all!’
‘Stop shouting at me!’
‘You’re shouting at
me
.’
Blanche grabbed at something. ‘We’ll have to sell Ultimo.’
‘No we won’t. Child endowment isn’t means-tested. And we’ll get the baby bonus.’
‘Hugh, I
want
to work.’
‘We’ve always said we wanted kids and you’re in your late thirties. The agency will have you back.’
‘The way things are now they’ll be thrilled to have an excuse for my permanent departure.’
‘No, they won’t. I believe in you, pooky.’ Hugh wrapped himself around her.
She dreamt all of the usual dreams. A helpless expulsion then innocent tears over the red toilet bowl. She dreamt of a family barbecue where her baby slept peacefully in a pram, her husband was
ten kilos lighter, and everybody got on. She dreamt of Hugh announcing he was leaving, taking with him all responsibility for their separation; or falling ill and she nursing him through to his
demise, her loss, her grieving legitimised. But what would it really mean, death, the ultimate absence? Mothers were different. Husbands could come and go but mothers were unique, mothers were
forever. The death of her mother was a wound gaping invisible beneath the path ahead. All through the night she crashed through the jungle of her uncertain future.
The next morning Blanche made an appointment with the abortion clinic. In the afternoon she cancelled. The following day she made an appointment again.
All week Marie concentrated on the new arrangements, organising Fatima to come more often, giving Mopoke her medication, taking her own. How unreal her life seemed. She
didn’t realise until now how much one lived in the future: perusing university courses online, buying a new house, even reading the news seemed pointless. The relief at not having to house
hunt was so great that Marie found herself smiling at the mere thought of it. She would not even have to do her own packing. The only household chore she retained was washing her clothes. Leon had
a limited cooking repertoire — pumpkin soup, salade niçoise, steak, pesto — but Marie’s tastes had become austere, so this didn’t bother her. Susan had asked Leon to
come and work in her garden and, having no income, Leon accepted.