Chocolate Cake for Breakfast (34 page)

When, blearily, I opened them again, the light had changed. It slanted across the far wall, the dull warm gold of evening, and gleamed on the battered varnish of the chest of drawers in the corner. The wrong corner, now that I came to think of it, and the window was in the wrong place too. It was too high and too far away, and I was drowsily wondering why when the hand cupping my left breast moved down to rest on my stomach instead.

I had, until then, failed entirely to notice that hand. It was big and very brown against my skin, crisscrossed with the faint silvery lines of old scars. I looked at it wonderingly for a few seconds, and then covered it with mine.

‘Hey,’ said Mark.

Tears rose, stinging, behind my eyelids. ‘Hey.’

‘Nice bump.’

I moved his hand sideways. ‘Feel there. You have to press quite hard.’

He did. ‘Foot?’

‘No, I think it’s a bottom. There’s a foot over here somewhere.’ I felt for it in its normal spot, beneath my ribs. ‘There. He’s started getting the hiccups – it feels really weird.’

He prodded the little foot gently, and it withdrew. ‘I bet it does,’ he said. Then, almost under his breath, ‘In a couple of months we’re going to be parents.’

‘It’s terrifying, isn’t it?’

‘Yep,’ he said.

I squirmed around in his arms to face him. ‘Em says I’ve been acting like the baby’s none of your business. Have I?’

There was a short silence, which effectively answered the question before he spoke. ‘Yeah. A bit.’

‘Mark, I’m so sorry,’ I said.

He smiled at me. ‘That’s okay.’

‘I just – I didn’t want to pressure you, when you’ve got the World Cup and your shoulder and everything else to worry about already. I didn’t want you staying just because I’d guilted you into it.’

‘I’m not that noble, McNeil. And I don’t think staying with someone you’re not happy with does your children any favours.’

‘Is that what your parents did?’ I asked.

He was silent for so long I thought he wasn’t going to reply at all. ‘Mum used to say that if it wasn’t for Rob and me she’d leave,’ he said finally. ‘But why the hell she thought having divorced parents would be worse for us than growing up with that shit is completely beyond me.’

I lay very, very still, holding my breath lest he stop talking.

‘We spent our whole time creeping around trying not to make a noise,’ he said. ‘When they weren’t fighting you could feel the pressure building up until you almost wished they were. They’d get pissed and start shouting at each other – sometimes I think Mum did it on purpose. It was like if she could wind him up enough to make him lose it and thump her, she’d won.’ His voice was level and matter-of-fact, and he turned his head to rub his cheek against my hair. ‘Once Rob got in between them. I was about five, so he must have been seven or eight. Mum was screaming – he’d split her lip, I think; her face was covered in blood, anyway – and Rob ran in, and Dad picked him up and threw him against the wall.’

I buried my head in the hollow of his shoulder and hugged him tighter. His skin was hot and smooth, and he smelt faintly of Deep Heat. When I was five I was my mother’s best helper, and my father’s right-hand girl, and I had never seen either of them drink more than a glass or two of wine with a meal.

‘Broke his collarbone, poor little sod,’ he added.

‘What about you?’ I asked.

‘Me? I was fine. I probably ran away and hid. I wasn’t the bravest kid.’

‘You were
five
! Did it happen very often?’

‘Not really. I think the threat of violence was worse than the violence itself, if that makes sense.’

I nodded.

There was a short silence, and then he said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t ever hit you or the baby.’

I stiffened, horrified that he should think I needed reassurance. ‘
Mark!
I know that!’

‘Well, you know what they say about the cycle of domestic violence. And then rugby players are pretty dodgy. All that subduing and penetrating.’

I giggled, and then sobered abruptly. ‘That’s not funny.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Would you sing something for me?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What?’

‘That thing you sang for Bel about closing your eyes.’

I sang it, and he lay and watched me in the fading light as though I was something rare and precious that he couldn’t quite believe was his.

I will never forget this
, I told myself.
I will never forget how
this feels, right this moment.

He reached for my hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said. And then, in order to save us from being overwhelmed completely by the beauty and significance of the moment, he added, ‘You don’t know any Megadeth songs, do you, McNeil?’

‘How was your flight back from South Africa?’ I asked, reaching a tin of crushed pineapple down from the top shelf of the pantry.

Mark, who was buttering bread shirtless and with his hair standing up on end, yawned and scratched his stomach. ‘Long,’ he said. ‘We left Jo’burg at around six on Saturday evening and got in last night about ten.’

‘That’s hideous.’

‘Well, you lose half a day with the time difference.’ He put down his knife and turned to open the fridge. ‘What do you want on your toasted sandwich?’

‘Pineapple and cheese, please. Do you want bacon?’

‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Why not? The Hawaiian toastie.’

‘I only saw the highlights of your last game,’ I said, putting my tin of pineapple down on the bench beside him. ‘But that try off the end of the lineout was brilliant.’

‘Yeah, it worked out well. It always makes Bob happy when his set-piece moves come off. Do you want me to put the stove back?’

‘Yes, please.’

As he pushed the stove back into its corner, the phone began to ring, and I crossed the kitchen to retrieve it from the end of the table. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, sweetie.’

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘How was the concert?’

‘It was fine,’ said Em. ‘Caitlin did very well. Now, how are you?’

‘Really good.’

‘
Are
you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. I went back across the kitchen to lean against Mark, because any moment not spent touching him was a moment wasted. He slid his arms around me and pulled me back against him. ‘Mark’s here.’

‘Oh,
sweetie
,’ Em cried. ‘That’s just
wonderful
.’

‘I know.’

‘So you’ve managed to sort yourselves out?’

‘Yeah, I think so,’ I said. I tilted my head back to look at him, and he kissed my nose.

‘Thank heavens for that. Well, I won’t hold you up – I’m sure you have
far
better things to do than talk to me.’ Her voice fairly oozed innuendo, and Mark grinned.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Yes, you do that. Have a lovely evening. Has he asked you to move in with him yet?’

I began profoundly to regret holding this conversation eight inches from the man’s left ear. ‘Um –’ I started.

‘Bring it up in bed,’ she said firmly. ‘Now’s the time, while you’re still on a high from making up. All those endorphins, or pheromones, or whatever they’re called, will be zinging around the place – give him a blow job and he’ll probably
propose
.’

I made a small strangled gulping noise, which she interpreted as embarrassment.

‘Good grief, sweetie,’ she said. ‘If you weren’t pregnant I would seriously question whether you understood the facts of life at all.’ And, with a parting snigger, she hung up.

‘I’d say anyone who’d spent more than half an hour with that woman would have a fairly good grasp of the facts of life,’ Mark said thoughtfully, resting his chin on the top of my head.

I put the phone down on the bench. ‘They sure would.’

‘Do you want to move in?’

‘Yes,’ I said recklessly.

‘Awesome. When?’

I twisted out of his arms and stared at him. ‘Really?’

He laughed. ‘Yes!’

‘Are you
sure
?’

‘Of course I’m sure. I think it’s time we stopped mucking around and did this properly, don’t you?’

‘Um, yes,’ I said, slightly dazed.

‘Why don’t you come this weekend?’ he said. ‘Then you won’t have to move twice.’

I began to laugh helplessly. ‘I’m on call this weekend, for a start. And I can’t leave work with less than a week’s notice.’

‘A couple of weeks, then.’

‘The baby’s not due for nearly three months! I can’t just swan around on holiday at your place for three months.’

‘Why not?’ Mark said. ‘You can get things ready for the baby – make me nice things to eat . . . It’ll be great.’

It sounded wonderful. ‘I’ll talk to Nick,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

I smiled. ‘How are we going to fit a baby into your place, by the way?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Babies are pretty small.’

‘Yeah, but they come with such a lot of equipment.’

‘We’ll empty out a drawer or something. It’ll be fine. And we’ll move after the World Cup.’

‘You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?’ I said.

He took my face in his hands. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘I really have.’

32

MARK LEFT FOR TRAINING AT SEVEN THE NEXT MORNING
with extreme reluctance. One day off seemed a little harsh after a fortnight overseas, but apparently a special lineout-overhauling session was needed before Saturday’s game. I spent from seven to seven-fifty drifting around the house in a pink-tinged sentimental daze, and then floated out to the ute and off to work.

‘Good morning, Thomas!’ I said as I passed his desk.

He was frowning at his computer screen, and didn’t look up. ‘Have you got any BVD vaccine in your ute?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘
Fuck
,’ he said. ‘The computer says we’ve got two hundred doses in stock, and there’s fucking none in the fridge.’

‘Didn’t Keri use some last Friday on those calves at Townsend’s? That won’t have been charged yet.’

Thomas dropped his head into his hands. ‘Why can’t you lot let me know when you take the last bottle off the shelf? It’s not
that
fucking hard, is it?’

I thought it safest not to reply, and edged past him to look at the day sheet. At the top of my column were the words
Pryor
take parcel 8.30
.

‘What am I taking out to Pryor’s?’ I asked.

‘Bag behind the counter.’

‘What’s the call for?’

‘Why don’t you go and find out?’ he snapped. ‘Where the hell is Keri?’

Thus I arrived at Kelvin Pryor’s cowshed with no idea of what I was there to do. Kelvin was a gnome-like fellow in his fifties who farmed ten minutes north of town. He walked like a pigeon, with his chest well forward and his bottom well back, and he had a touching faith in his own irresistibility to women.

As I pulled in he appeared in the milk room doorway and beamed at me across the gravel. ‘And how are we today, my dear?’ he asked.

‘Very well, thanks,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, can’t complain. No point: nobody listens.’

I smiled. ‘What can I do for you today, Kelvin?’

‘One old girl with a cold, and a couple of empties to check. Think you can handle that?’

In the race was an elderly Jersey cow with a nasty-smelling nasal discharge, and after catching her in the head bail I pulled three long spiky sticks from her left nostril with a pair of curved forceps. I love pulling sticks out of cows’ noses; not only do you get a pleasant self-congratulatory glow from having done the cow a major service, but removing thirty centimetres of thistle stalk from a nostril looks so nice and impressive. It’s almost as good as lancing a really serious abscess.

I had just removed stick number three and was feeling around cautiously with my forceps for more when the cow sneezed, hitting me squarely in the chest with about a cupful of bloody snot. Squarely in the chest isn’t too much of a worry – it’s squarely in the face that puts you off your stride – and I continued probing undeterred until Kelvin pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, bustled forward and began to wipe me down.

That
did
deter me, and taking a hasty step backwards I turned to rummage in my drug box. ‘Um, right,’ I said. ‘Antibiotics – and we’d better give her an anti-inflammatory, or she’ll push another stick up there to try and stop it itching.’