Sweet Damage (22 page)

Anna and Marcus had never discussed the night they'd spent together, never made a single reference to it. They weren't more physically intimate afterwards, or closer, or more casual. It was as if it had never happened at all. Anna wasn't offended. She knew it was just the way Marcus was, and that his reticence had nothing to do with her. He was just far too self-contained to want or need that kind of relationship. Romantic love, he had told her once, wasn't something he understood. And that was fine by her. She liked things the way they were between the three of them, and a more intimate relationship with Marcus would only change things unnecessarily. The baby didn't need to change anything. The baby was his, yes, but that didn't matter. Nobody had to know. It could be their secret. They would never have to discuss it, or even properly acknowledge it. It would just be.

‘And the father?' Fiona asked eventually. ‘Where is he? What does he think?'

‘Oh.' Anna waved her hand dismissively, made sure she didn't look at Marcus. She willed herself not to blush. ‘He's nobody. He doesn't want to be involved. He's not really the type. I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, but it's just not important.'

Fiona sighed again and Anna thought she was going to argue, insist on knowing who the father was and forcing him to take responsibility. But instead she came and stood behind Anna's chair, put a hand on Anna's shoulder.

‘I know you must be afraid,' she said. ‘But we're here. We're here with you. You're not alone.'

*

Fiona and Marcus moved in and the next few months were some of the happiest of Anna's life. With people in the house, it was transformed. Marcus and Fiona helped her paint her bedroom – a soft green, a beautiful, calming colour – and together they hung fresh curtains and filled the room with new things for the baby. A white cot, beautiful bed linen, an upholstered chair, things for the baby to chew on and squeeze.

And as the months went by Anna grew bigger, slower. She spent a lot of time dozing, content to do nothing but wait. Wait for Marcus and Fiona to come home from work and keep her company, wait for the weekends, when they would play Scrabble, take long, slow walks in the sun. Wait for the baby to come.

Anna and Marcus never discussed the baby's paternity. But Anna knew that he knew. When the baby started kicking, she suggested that he try to feel it. He refused at first, becoming shy and uncomfortable, but one day he succumbed, put his hand on the taut skin of her stomach and waited. Anna watched his eyes become wide and round. His obvious amazement made her laugh. In the later months, when the baby was much more active, kicking visibly through her skin, he'd willingly put his hand on her belly when invited. And he would look at Anna as if she was amazing, the first woman in the world to grow a baby. A miracle. And even though she'd really done nothing at all, except have unprotected sex, beneath his gaze Anna felt clever, unique, irrationally proud of herself.

*

Labour started in the middle of the day, which surprised Anna. She'd always assumed it would happen at night, while she was in bed. But it started while she was shopping at the mall. She was buying baby clothes – impossibly tiny little T-shirts and socks, things that seemed far too small to fit an actual human being. The first pain was in her back, and though it was sharp enough to make her stop and take a breath, she assumed she'd pulled a muscle, or twisted herself the wrong way. She was thirty-eight weeks and didn't expect the baby to come early. She didn't expect to feel it in her back.

The pains kept coming as she strolled around the mall until she found herself standing still during each contraction, pressing her hands into her back, breathing deep. They had agreed that she'd ring Fiona when labour started so Fiona could take her to the hospital, but she found herself wanting Marcus. She called his mobile.

‘Marcus?' she said when he answered. ‘I think it's started. I think I'm in labour.'

‘Where are you?' he said. ‘I'm leaving now. I'll come and get you.'

He drove her to the hospital. On the way she became convinced that it was a false start, that she'd be sent home again, but after they'd parked and were on their way to admissions, she was seized with such an overwhelming pain that she had to stop and lean on Marcus. It seemed to last for such a long time, and hurt so much, she assumed she must be well advanced, that she would have a quick labour. But she was only in the early stages, and the pain continued for hours, getting worse and worse as the night went on.

‘I can't have a baby when I'm in this much pain,' she cried, during a brief lull between contractions. ‘It's stupid. It hurts too much. There must be something wrong.'

But the midwives, with their calm, mellow voices, their annoyingly smug faces, assured her that everything was going perfectly.

‘I can't do it!' she screamed in the early hours of the morning, just as the nurses changed shift. ‘I've had enough. I'm going home!'

An hour later Benjamin slithered out between her legs and cried gustily. She reached for him and the pain miraculously stopped. All of a sudden she loved the midwives, she loved Marcus and Fiona, she loved the entire world. Most of all, she loved her new baby son.

54

A
S SHE TALKS ABOUT
B
ENJAMIN
'
S BIRTH AND HIS SHORT LIFE, HER
entire manner changes. She seems softer, more open, and her eyes glow with an almost palpable sense of pride and happiness. It's good to see – however temporary it is – her face so clear and free of shadows. For a moment it's as if she has forgotten. But when she comes to the next bit of her story, Benjamin's death, her bearing changes dramatically. She hunches over and her face draws down. Her hands twist in her lap. And the only thing left in her eyes is pain.

55

T
HE DAY BENJAMIN DROWNED WAS A CLEAR, SUNNY DAY, AND THOUGH IT WAS
winter, it was warm enough to open the windows, let some fresh air into the house. Benjamin was eight weeks old – and for Anna those eight weeks had been miraculous. She hadn't realised that love could be so expansive, so consuming. Had never realised how willing she'd be to surrender every minute of every day and every night to take care of another human being
.

She seemed to waste hours and hours each day just gazing at him, staring at the wonder of his little body, his hands and feet, his eyes, his breathtaking smile.

And while on the one hand she felt busier than she ever had, and more productive, and far more needed, she also felt somehow looser and more free than she had before. She felt liberated from worrying about normal things like time, or studying, or cleaning the house. She existed purely for Benjamin. She slept when he did. Woke up when he needed her. She carried him everywhere, spent hours sitting in one spot either nursing him or patting him to sleep over her shoulder. She wandered around the house in big T-shirts and long skirts, her hair piled high on the top of her head in a loose bun. Her breasts were much larger than normal, swollen with milk, and she felt bounteous and beautiful, voluptuous, womanly. She felt strong and capable and serene.

On this particular morning Benjamin was fractious and irritable. She'd been up since four and when Marcus came into the kitchen she was relieved to see him.

‘Let's take him out,' Marcus said, pushing open the French doors, letting the warmth of the day in. He was in one of his rare cheerful moods. He was usually so serious and reserved – not grumpy exactly, but certainly not full of easy smiles – and when he was in a mood like this it was hard not to respond, hard not to feel infected.

Anna laughed. ‘Okay. Yes. What a brilliant idea.'

He crouched down beside Anna so that his face was level with Benjamin's. He used the voice he reserved specially for the baby. ‘Would you like to go out, young man? Enjoy the day? See some of this beautiful country you've been fortunate enough to be born into?'

Fiona came down to the kitchen a while later and as she helped herself to a bowl of muesli Marcus asked her what she'd like to do.

‘Why don't we take the ferry over to the botanical gardens?' she suggested. ‘Have a picnic.'

‘A picnic's a brilliant idea,' Anna said. ‘But let's not go anywhere on the ferry. What if Benjamin starts crying? We'll be stuck.'

‘We could walk down to Fairlight Pool?'

‘We always do that. Let's go somewhere else,' Anna said. ‘Somewhere we can drive to. Just in case.'

‘I know a place,' Marcus said. ‘Haven't been there for years. But there's plenty of shade. You can walk, Fiona, and Benjamin and Anna and I can relax on the grass.'

Fiona made sandwiches while Anna went upstairs to pack a bag. She was ludicrously excited – she'd barely been out of the house since Benjamin had been born. She ran around her room shoving things in her bag: sunscreen and sunglasses, nappies and creams. A big hat for her, a little one for Benjamin.

Marcus drove, and when they got there they carried the pram down the stairs to the picnic area and spread blankets beneath a tree. They ate sandwiches and grapes, drank cupfuls of cold orange cordial. Fiona read a book; Marcus lay on his back, hands behind his head, and dozed. Anna fed Benjamin, then lay on the grass beside him and showed him things – blades of grass, smooth stones, green leaves. After a while Fiona put her book down and said she was going for a walk.

There was a large, noisy family having a barbecue nearby. There seemed to be a lot of kids, aged somewhere between two and fifteen, all of them either shouting or laughing. Once the noise would have bothered Anna but since becoming a mother herself she appreciated children, understood how important they were. She watched the mother tend to one of the smaller children before sending him off with a pat on his bum. The woman looked tired but happy. Anna smiled at the noise and imagined that she might one day have a large family. She imagined she would enjoy the energy and chaos of all those people.

At one stage a ball landed heavily on their blanket, rolling close to Benjamin's head. A kid followed immediately behind, all breathless and red-faced, and grabbed the ball and ran off again, without apologising or even acknowledging his trespass. He stomped over their blanket, upsetting their cups of cordial in his haste and Anna felt a sharp flash of anger at his obliviousness, his lack of care, and then she laughed inwardly at how easily her new sense of tolerance turned to irritation.

After a while Benjamin became tetchy and Anna knew he was tired and needed sleep. She fed him again and put him in his pram. But he wouldn't settle. He clenched his fists and whined, his face scrunching up like an old man's.

‘I think I'll just take him for a walk,' she said to Marcus.

‘U-huh,' he said, without opening his eyes.

Anna was surprised how difficult it was to push the pram through the overgrown grass. It was an expensive pram, but meant for city walking and smooth surfaces, not rough, uneven earth. She found it hard going, the too-small wheels kept getting clogged with grass, blocked by stones. She had to stop frequently, which made Benjamin cry. She thought he would be happy once she could get some speed up, but when she reached the smooth concrete of the ramp his cries only got louder, more frantic. She searched the bottom basket of the pram for his dummy but couldn't find it. Benjamin started crying louder.

‘Sorry, little man,' she said. ‘So sorry. I just need to find your dummy.'

It would take far too long to push the pram back through the grass so she left it on the concrete and dashed back to the picnic area. She searched briefly around their blankets, and in the baskets and bags of food, but with no luck.

‘I'm just going back to the car,' she called out to Marcus. ‘Watch Benjamin for a second?'

He didn't answer her, or open his eyes, but he lifted his hand in acknowledgement.

She grabbed the car keys and dashed up the stairs to the parking lot. When she found the dummy tucked into Benjamin's car seat she sighed with relief. She locked the car and started strolling back down to the picnic area.

It only took a second or two to register the blank space where the pram had been. She didn't panic at first; she didn't think anything at all. She merely turned her head to look around, assuming that Marcus had moved him – that he'd taken him for a walk or back to the picnic area. She wasn't worried.

It wasn't until she happened to glance down towards the bottom of the ramp and saw the familiar black curve of the pram handles arcing out of the water, like two strange exotic birds, that she broke into a run.

56

H
ER STORY EXPLAINS EVERYTHING: HER SADNESS, HER ANXIETY
, her isolation.

‘Anna. My God. He drowned? That's . . .' I shake my head. ‘The poor little boy. Poor you.'

I don't say the obvious thing. I don't say,
I hope you don't blame yourself, Anna
because saying that would be like opening the door to an avalanche of pain. Saying that would be acknowledging something too ugly: the horrible certainty that she must feel terrible, responsible. That she must be racked with guilt.

It was an accident, a freak accident, one of those fucked-up things that happens in life, but still, I know she must hate herself.

‘Can I tell you something?' she asks, looking down at her lap. ‘Something I've never told anyone?'

‘Of course.'

‘I've always thought . . . I've always wondered if something else happened that day.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘The ramp. It barely had a slope. In fact I didn't even notice that it sloped towards the water until later, until afterwards. And I'd left it sideways to the slope, facing towards the picnic area, that's the way I was walking. And I just stopped. I didn't turn the pram around to face the water or anything.' She sighs, pushes her hair back. ‘And I know I locked the brake, Tim. I know I did. I was always so careful about things like that. I really was. I was so scared that something might happen to him. And I could remember pushing the lock down. For days afterwards I could really clearly remember the feel of the plastic bar on my foot, the clicking noise it made when it was locked in place.'