Authors: Margo Lanagan
The strangest is the evening Dad turns up with a beautifully wrapped box, and holds it out to me as if he’s really not sure whether I’ll take it. Mum, Pug and I are out on the veranda taking turns holding a very awake, alert Bella.
‘It’s something Rick made,’ says Dad. ‘For the baby,’ he adds, thrusting the box at me, almost pleading.
Bella doesn’t hate us, yet, does she?
‘Ricky?’ says Mum.
‘Knitting?
’ She manages to sound incredulous and neutral—you can
hear
her damping down the sarcasm.
‘She sewed it.’
Mum’s thinking,
Whatever for?
It’s one of those parcels it’s a shame to unwrap. I take off the rosette and stick it on Bella’s forehead while I unwrap the rest. Inside the box I push aside layers of cream tissue paper, to find a nightdress of soft cream cotton, with a collar, a pin-tucked yoke and three pearl buttons down the front. It’s very simple, but about the classiest-looking garment Bella owns.
‘Oh, that’s lovely! Look, Mum, not a bow or a flower or a piece of lace anywhere.’
‘It is nice,’ Mum has to admit. Then she’s biting her lips closed.
I don’t know what to say—it’s a lovely present, but if I’m too nice about it I’ll be betraying Mum. I can’t quite think what Ricky’s trying to say here—is this her brown-nosing, or has she too been bitten by the baby-welcoming bug? I’m stuck there, the nightdress in my hand, not knowing whether I’ve actually accepted it, not knowing whether to laugh or shudder.
Pug comes to the rescue. ‘You’ll have to tell her thanks,’ he says to Dad. ‘Mel and me’ll drop by one time with the baby and say hullo, hey Mel?’
‘O-okay. I suppose.’ I can’t imagine it, though.
Here it is—she’s nearly a week old and every day and night is like a whole lifetime—people coming and going, feeds, burps, nappy changes, cries, sleeps, baths—I look back and all I see is posset cloths and yellowed nappies and milk-stained T-shirts and
pots of pawpaw cream and bottles of surgical spirit and cotton buds, and my huge clumsy hands wavering over Bella, learning to hold her steady in the bath and ignore her screaming for long enough to wash all her linty, sweaty, rash-spotted crevices.
The worst time so far has been when Pug was away at training and Mum hadn’t got back from work, and Bella had this huge poo after having screamed for half an hour. I thought she was
dying
until I remembered to check her nappy and it was filling, filling with that yellow, sweetish-smelling froth that just goes on and on. I hung onto her while she screamed in my ear, put a tea-towel round her when the stuff started leaking down her legs (but not before it was all over my T-shirt—which was already pretty cheesy—and had blobbed on the loungeroom carpet). I cleaned her up in my room, discovered she had nappy rash, slathered her with cream—then the pooing continued. I stood there watching it go all over the freshly applied cream, all over the nappy, tears running down my face,
ridiculously
upset when you consider what a tiny thing it was, not exactly a disaster. While I cried and Bella pooed I changed my top, then when she’d finished (it was all over her feet as well, of course) I cleaned her up again, put on a fresh nappy and lifted her onto my shoulder, where she did a huge burp and sicked up milk all over herself, me, the floor and my bedspread.
I never thought I could feel even the tiniest bit angry with my own baby, let alone angrier than I’ve
ever
been in my life before! I felt like a madwoman, actually
shaking,
terrified I was going to throw her against the wall. I heard Mum’s voice in my head, saying ‘I did
warn
you!’ and that made me even wilder—like, why didn’t she make me
listen,
why didn’t she tell me
properly
what this was going to be like?
Then I put Bella down really, really carefully on the change table. They say never leave them there, but I went to the bathroom and got a washer, came back, took off my T-shirt, washed myself, sponged the vomit off my shorts and shoes, off the carpet, off the bedspread. Bella was crying all the time, dark red all
over, her arms and legs up in the air
vibrating.
It was like having screws drilled into my skull. When everything was cleaned up I went and got another washer, changed Bella’s clothes and wiped her top half down (not as gently as I could have—I feel terrible when I think of it), put a clean suit on her and finally picked her up again when this gigantic rush of pity swept over me, cancelling out my anger and making
me
cry. At least she stopped crying when I picked her up. I tidied up all the mess one-handed, carrying her around, back and forth with cloths, out the back to the bin with the nappies, and then she was asleep, worn out with all the
trauma,
so I put her down in the Family Heirloom. Then I got out of there—went out and perched on the garden bench and read one of Mum’s house magazines and pretended I was childless and fashion-conscious like all the people in the pictures, all the writers of the articles. It took me the whole magazine to stop shaking.
Pug comes out to help me with the pram—he and Mum probably heard Bella half-way down the block. ‘I couldn’t get a
word
in!’ I’m complaining as we struggle up the stairs, and even I can hear the hysteria in my voice.
‘Gave you a hard time, did she?’ says Mum.
‘I may as well not have gone. This stupid
cow
in the shop comes up and says “Is she a
difficult
baby, then?” as if she was some kind of object in a
specimen case
—I couldn’t hear myself
think
in there! I didn’t even get to buy what I went for! Just for no reason at all she started this up—’ I wave at the pram, in which Bella’s still screaming.
‘Hungry?’ says Mum, lifting out the Bella-bundle and shushing at it.
‘I fed her
heaps,
just before we left, remember?’
‘Wet? No. Dirty? No.
Couldn’t
be cold, on a day like this.’
‘It’s nothing!’ I say. ‘It’s just—she hates me, that’s all. I got her out and rocked her for a while, but she wouldn’t shut up and I couldn’t concentrate, and everyone kept gawping, and smiling,
so I thought, “Blow it, I’ll just go home! I can’t stand this.”’ Pug puts a tentative arm around my waist.
Mum jiggles Bella up and down, examining her bright red face, then holds her against her shoulder. ‘Why don’t you two go for a walk?’ she says above the screaming. ‘Get out of earshot for a while.’
‘I don’t want to go for a walk!’ I shout. ‘I want to know what’s wrong with her!’ I shake Pug’s arm off.
‘Probably nothing, sweetheart. Yelling won’t help calm her down, though,’ Mum says calmly.
I take Bella from her, roughly. ‘
Don’t
you criticise me in front of her!’
Mum’s empty hands stick out in front of her. Pug folds his arms and looks at the floor.
‘She’s
mine!
’ I go on, my voice shaking. ‘I
won’t
let you take her over! You think now because we’re here you
own
us, me, Bella, even
Dino!
You think you can organise everything the way
you
want, monopolise
everything!
’
‘Mel, it’s okay,’ Mum says. ‘Just calm down and Bella will calm down too.’
‘Come on, it’s not your mum’s fault.’ Pug puts his arms out for Bella. I shout past him. ‘You think you know it all! Well, I’m a mother, too, and I have instincts, too, and this is
my
daughter and
I
know what’s best for her.’
Mum’s arms drop and her stunned look gives way to something more decisive. ‘All right. Fine. If you know what’s best.’ The words are barely audible. She pushes between me and Pug and goes out onto the front veranda. Bella’s wailing goes on and on in the silence.
I don’t look at Pug. I’m hanging on to Bella just a little too tightly. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut
up,
’ I hear myself saying. I’m shocked at how nasty I sound.
Pug takes hold of Bella. ‘Give us her,’ he says. I try to pull away. ‘Come on, Mel, don’t be a dickhead. Give us her before you hurt her.’
‘No!’ I growl, trying to step back.
‘Come on! She’s just a little baby.’
‘She’s just a little—fucking—
monster!
’ I go to pieces. I hand her over. ‘She screams at me, she won’t let me sleep, she’s sucking me to pieces. She’s—always here! I’m sick of her! I’m sick of the sight of her! I’m sick of the
sound
of her, and I’m stuck with her for eighteen more years!’ I end up nearly screaming.
‘She won’t be a baby all that time,’ Pug says, far too reasonably.
‘It’s all right for you. You can come and go whenever you want. Even if you
don’t
go,’ I say as he gapes at me, ‘you’ve got the
choice. I
haven’t got the choice. I haven’t got
any
choice—I’m just stuck here
serving
her, feeding, changing, bathing, having a heart attack every time she
twitches
—’
I slam out into the backyard, knowing the bang of the back door will frighten Bella, hoping savagely that it scares her into silence, hoping it scares her to
death.
I sit on the old garden bench by the Hill’s Hoist, listening to Bella screaming on, the noise moving away through the house.
That’s right
—
go and suck up to Mum.
Eventually I’m able to hear birds, breeze. Insects zoom and tick in the grass. I stop shaking and hating them all, and turn to crying and hating myself. I’m not finished even twenty minutes later when Pug brings a glass of iced water out to me. He sits with me as I sip and sniff.
‘I don’t know how you can stand me sometimes,’ I get around to saying.
‘I can’t, but if I want to see Bella I’ve got to keep things sweet with you, haven’t I?’
Fresh tears roll out, when I’d just got them under control. ‘Don’t laugh at me!’
‘I’m not!’ He laughs. ‘I’m trying to make you feel better, stupid.’ He puts his arms around me while I sob on. I’ll
never
be able to stop.
‘She’s gone to sleep, anyway, that monster,’ he says. ‘Your mum’s got her.’
‘So is Mum going to throw me out for being so rude?’
‘No, I think you’re gunna have to put up with her a while longer.’
‘Oh God, I wish she wasn’t so bloody
perfect!
I sob. ‘I always feel like I’m just slobbing around stuffing things up, and then she comes in and
fixes
everything, and
understands
!’
‘It’s a bad time,’ says Pug. ‘Who could think straight on four hours sleep a night? You’re doin’ okay. Everybody falls apart getting used to having a kid around.’
‘You don’t.’ I look up at him accusingly.
He makes a doubtful face. ‘Well, all I can say is, I’m glad my next fight isn’t till January. I wouldn’t last thirty seconds the way I am now.’
‘You seem steady as a rock to me.’
‘I dunno.’ He takes his arms away, sits the way he does at the gym, elbows on knees, one knee and shoulder pressed against mine. ‘You start thinkin’ about all sorts of shit you never thought about before—like schools and shit, you know? And, God!,
wars,
and bloody
rainforests
and all that
conservation
bullshit that used to make me just wanna chuck. Do you do that?’ he asks me.
‘It’s the future. It’s having someone to pass things on to.
Heirs.
Long-term responsibilities,’ I say glumly.
‘Well, it’s just about sending me nuts, all this thinking. I mean, really
heavy
stuff. Like
everything’s
different.’
I nod. ‘Everything. Sometimes I feel like the person I was has just puffed out like a candle. All that’s left is a mess of wanting-to-do-the-right-thing and being-scared-for-Bella. I look at her and I’m just
petrified,
about all those things you say, about
everything,
about touching her, even. And I want to give up. It’s too much for me. But I’m not allowed.’
‘Yes, you are. Of course you are. But would you, I mean
seriously?
Think of someone else taking her on?’
‘Absolutely! Yes. And then, next second, absolutely no. I mean, I get so exhausted, going
so far
down one minute, and so,
so
high the next. It’s so violent and extreme—it’s hopeless. It’s probably
hormones, but what’s the difference? Biological misery
feels
the same as “real” misery, hey.’
He studies the matted kikuyu grass between his feet. ‘I get it the same, but, and I don’t have any of that stuff going on in my body. I sometimes think, “Shit, this was a
bad
mistake we made here.” But then, you look at her, you pick her up … like, how can anything be so
little,
and still be
human?!
And then, when you think she’ll be talking back to us in a couple of years, walking around, you know, like Paul, playing—’ He grabs his head as if to prevent it exploding. ‘I just reckon, if we can stick it out, this first bit, you know? There’s just so much gunna happen, that’s gunna be so cool. Don’t you think? I mean,
think
about it!’
I already am, smiling. He looks at me. ‘The first six weeks are the worst. That’s what your mum says.’
‘And she knows
everything,
of course.’ I nudge his arm.
‘So, you know, this is the worst it gets. After this things’ll settle a bit and we won’t know why we kept losin’ it every ten seconds.’
‘You’d better be right.’
‘And tomorrow, when we go to that reunion, if Bel chucks a wobbly, just give her to me and I’ll take her off somewhere where you can’t hear, okay? Round the block a few times, or something. You got that?’
I nod. ‘Thanks. Not just for that. Thanks for just sticking around, especially when I’m acting disgustingly.’
‘Give yourself a break.’ He kisses my cheek.
‘What—arm, leg or neck?’
‘I mean it. Go easy. You don’t help no-one puttin’ yourself down all the time. Come round the front and be nice to your mum; that’ll make you feel better. You don’t have to say sorry—’ I resist him pulling me to my feet. ‘Just sit with her and be nice, you know?’