Desert Fish (12 page)

You'd think it would be difficult, the not looking, the deliberately not seeing what's right there in front of you. And it's true. At first you have to practise. But after a while it's not so hard.

After that one time I bathed my baby in the sink I didn't go to her at all. I thought I would wait and see if they'd notice. Perhaps they did. After a day and a night, a midwife with a perm and silver stud earrings brought her to me. She was chewing gum and the smell of the spearmint cut through her coffee breath.

‘Baby McPherson,' she said. I felt a strange mix of pleasure and jealousy at how the nurse used Pete's name. Pleasure because it was his and I felt I deserved it after all that had happened. It was penned on my plastic identification bracelet and it was on the nameplate above the bed. The jealousy was because I didn't think the baby should have what she hadn't earned.

‘I said to call her Missy,' I murmured.

‘Yes, but she's not my baby, is she?' The nurse put her in my arms and rolled a cot up against the bed. Then, mercifully saying nothing more, she began to change the sheets.

I wasn't afraid to look at the baby. I was surprised at how she had come from inside me not even two days before. There were reddish spots on her face that gave her a neglected look and she had a gummy eye too. I got a wobbly feel in my stomach, and I thought perhaps I was too close so I held her away from me.

‘It's just a blocked tear duct,' the nurse said, looking up from the freshly tucked sheets.

‘Oh.' I was amazed that she might be complete enough to have tear ducts.

‘But she won't cry real tears yet,' the nurse said.

The baby was still. Her eyes were open and she blinked, staring at a point just beside me.

‘Can she see me?' I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

‘Not really. She'll only see a little way in front of her.'

The nurse went into the corridor and returned with a trolley stacked with glass bottles and tall tins of formula milk. She took the baby from me and laid her in the cot. Then she handed me a bottle. The glass was still warm. She got busy pointing out the ounce marks on it and telling me how much water and how much powder I should use but I wasn't listening. I unscrewed the rubber teat. It smelled pungent and there was a bleachy whiff about the inside of the bottle. The nurse took it from me. ‘You mustn't touch the teat,' she said. ‘It's been sterilised.'
She took a fresh bottle and spooned in some formula, mixing it with water. When this was done she upended it and let a drop fall onto my arm.

‘But it's hot,' I said.

‘Yes, it's a little too hot,' she agreed. ‘To be the perfect temperature, you shouldn't be able to feel it on your skin.'

The drop of milk sat there like a planet, round and white, clean-edged. I reached for a muslin cloth and dabbed it away. But I could still smell it, thick and sour. My breasts were hard. They hurt and there was a creamy yellow smear on my nightie.

‘I'll just leave it to cool for five minutes,' the nurse said. She put the bottle down on the bedside table and picked up the baby, arranging her in my arms. ‘When it's tepid, you can give it to her. You've seen it done, haven't you?'

‘Yes,' I lied.

‘Good. Then you'll know if she's taking it right.' She stood back. I noticed her freckles. Sometimes when I'm concentrating, I don't really see what people look like. Their features take a while to come into focus. The nurse wore her hair tucked behind her ears and I could see freckles spread right to the edge of her face. ‘Call out if you need anything,' she said as she went, pushing the trolley in front of her.

There was nobody in the room then except the baby and me. The women from across the ward had wheeled their own babies out into the shade of the trellised garden. I lifted the baby into the cot again. I thought she might
fuss or bawl but she simply closed her eyes. I lay back and stared at the bottle. I listened to her breathing, soft and shallow. Fragile.

I closed my eyes and tried to see her, but nothing came. Her image had dropped out of my mind as soon as she was out of my sight. She was not like Pete was to me, where even when I couldn't picture the whole of him, parts stayed sharp and clear. I could recall with absolute clarity how the skin beneath his eyes pleated with certain changes in expression; I could picture without hesitation the knots of the joints in his fingers, how the hair grew thick above his forehead. He was always there in my mind, but she was gone as soon as my eyes were closed.

I looked at her again, lying there, breathing and sleeping and still as a secret. Then I turned over and slept with my back to her. When I woke she was crying and her hungry sounds stabbed at the air. I put my hand out for the bottle but it was cold.

I stay in the motel bed all morning, until the light in the room grows sharp and the milk in my coffee has formed a skin. My stomach is cramping and the ache I felt earlier has progressed and settled across the back of my shoulders. Beneath the covers is the sour smell that made me ill just days ago and as soon as it finds me I get up and climb into the shower with my shirt on, pressing down on my breasts until I can feel the milk draining from me. I soap the shirt and then peel it off to rinse it. Beneath the stream of water I feel clean and empty, closer to the memory of my old body.

Around lunchtime there's a knock at the door.

Janice stands back when I open it and says, ‘I noticed your husband going out. I wondered if you might like to lie by the pool again.' The sun glares on the water behind her and I squint against the brightness. ‘I had such a lovely time with you yesterday,' she adds. She lifts her arm a little to indicate the beach bag hanging over her
shoulder. ‘I've got goodies. And we could go in for a dip if you like.' She demonstrates heat, fanning herself with her hand. Even her fingers are brown. The nails are painted an orangey tan colour today. ‘It's too hot for words,' she says, smiling.

Looking at her now, you'd never know she sent me away last night. The way she talks, as though we're best friends. As if she's read my thoughts, she says, ‘Sorry about last night, you caught me at an awkward moment. I saw your husband leaving this morning. He must have got back okay then.'

‘Yes.'

‘I knew he would. I didn't think you'd have anything to worry about.'

I clasp my arms and look at the floor, allowing the silence to grow awkward.

‘So, what do you think?' Janice makes herself sound chirpy. ‘Poolside?'

‘I'm really sorry,' I say, ‘but I can't.' I shiver. ‘I don't feel too good today,' I explain. ‘I think I just need to lie down.'

‘You do look a bit peaky,' she observes.

‘Yeah.' The thing is, I really would like to lie out with her, despite how she was last night. Her company would take my mind off feeling sick. ‘Maybe I will, just for a while,' I say. ‘It might make me feel better.' Without thinking, I rest my hand on my stomach.

‘Period pain, eh?' she says, with a note of sympathy, and I nod automatically in agreement. ‘I could make you
a cup of tea,' she offers, ‘and I've got some painkillers if you need them. I get terrible cramps.' Her eyes fall to my fingernails, still pearly pink from yesterday, and her face lights up. ‘Oh, don't they look lovely. You'll keep it on, won't you? Did your husband notice?'

‘Oh, yes,' I say. I laugh and try to make myself sound less awkward.

She looks down at her feet. She doesn't want to know any more.

‘Well, let me see then.' She's resting her weight on one hip now, leaning into the doorframe and she's got her hands out. I realise I'm supposed to show her my nails. I offer them but as she reaches out there's a rush of warm wind from outside and a shiver ripples right through me.

‘Geez, Missy, your hands are hot'. She lays her palm flat against my forehead, and before she can say any more the floor starts to darken and disappear beneath me. I drop my head into my hands. She catches me before I fall.

When I come to, I'm lying on the floor and Janice is crouched beside me. A damp cloth cools my forehead and as I open my eyes she leans over and peels it away. She lays her hand there and murmurs, ‘That's better. Now let's get you up on the bed.'

‘Sorry,' I say. ‘I didn't know that was going to happen.'

‘People rarely do,' she says. ‘You shouldn't be on your own though, not if you're blacking out.'

‘I'm alright, now,' I insist. But when I stand my legs
feel like something separate from the rest of my body. Janice has to guide me to the bed. She wets the cloth at the sink, squeezes it and dabs at my forehead.

‘I'll wait here for a while anyway,' she says. ‘Just to make sure you're okay. Why don't you rest for a bit.'

I give in and lie back, closing my eyes.

 

When I wake again Janice is sitting on one of the vinyl chairs with the
Women's Weekly
from beneath the tray and a cup of Maxwell House.

‘How long have I been sleeping?'

‘Only an hour or so. But you were snoring. You were dead beat, weren't you?'

‘I suppose so.'

Her coffee smells strong, a little acrid. She picks it up and sips, grimaces. ‘I don't usually drink it black,' she says.

‘We put our milk in the fridge over at the office. You can go and get some if you like.'

‘Oh no,' she says. ‘It's not that bad. They should have refrigerators in the rooms with heat like this. It seems silly to have colour television but no fridge. Ah well, at least they have magazines. Even if it is the
Women's Weekly
.'

‘Don't you like
Women's Weekly
?'

‘Bit old-fashioned for me.'

‘I like the problem pages,' I tell her.

She laughs. ‘Do you? Well, they're much the same in
any magazine. I like makeovers. And I'm afraid they're not quite up to scratch in here.'

‘Do you read the problem pages?'

She shrugs. ‘Not really. I think they make them up,' she says.

‘The answers?'

‘No, silly,' she says. ‘The problems. I can't imagine writing in to a magazine with a problem. Can you?'

‘No, I guess not,' I say, even though I probably would if I could find the right questions. I wonder who Janice talks to if she's worried about something. ‘I still like reading them,' I tell her.

She puts her hand to my forehead again. ‘That's better. Your temperature's nearly back to normal.'

‘Is it? Oh, thanks, Janice,' I say, flooded with relief and with gratitude. ‘I hate being on my own when I'm ill,' I confide.

‘Me too,' she agrees. She folds her arms and leans back into the chair. ‘And my husband's useless when I'm sick. Especially when it's my period.'

‘Hmmm. I know what you mean.'

I close my eyes for a moment, because my head feels light and there's still that ache across my shoulders and low down in my belly too.

The chair creaks as Janice moves in it. She puts her hand on my arm. I don't open my eyes straightaway. I concentrate on the warm dry sense of her, the comfort that radiates from somewhere between her skin and mine and how reassuring it is not to be alone.

Then she speaks again and her words are hollow and a little tinny. They drift towards me as if from a great distance. ‘But it's not your period, is it, Missy?' She rises and puts her coffee on the table, then goes over and opens the door. From beneath my lashes I watch her looking outside before she pushes the door properly shut. ‘You wouldn't have a fever like that with your period,' she says.

I'm not sure what to tell her so I say nothing. When she turns to me, she says, ‘I took your track bottoms off. When you were sleeping. Because of your temperature.'

I scissor my legs beneath the sheet, notice for the first time their bareness.

‘I saw your stomach.'

My heart is racing now and I'm trying to think of what Pete would say.

‘Should you be here, Missy? Because whatever's happened to you, I don't think you're well enough to be travelling.'

‘But I'm fine. Nothing bad happened to me. I'm okay.'

‘Then why did you faint?'

I clasp my hands together and look down at the pink sheen on my fingernails.

‘Look,' she continues, ‘it's none of my business but you need to be careful about yourself. That fever – it's probably an infection.'

‘I'm okay, Janice.'

‘After what's happened to you, well, it's not unusual to feel a little unwell.' She doesn't say it, and I'm grateful for
that. Neither Pete nor I have said the words yet. ‘Were you in a hospital?' she asks carefully.

‘I was,' I tell her, ‘but it was time to go. I couldn't stay.'

I close my eyes again and turn my head to the side, away from her.

‘It was time to go? Or you couldn't stay?' She's quiet and I have to turn again and look at her. ‘I doubt they'd have let you go if you were ill,' she says. She eyes me carefully, leaving a space for me to say something. To explain. When I am silent, she says, ‘You should at least see a doctor. To make sure that fever isn't something more serious.'

Her cup scrapes the surface of the table, her feet move across the carpet. She empties the remains of her coffee into the bathroom sink. The tap runs, she rinses the cup and brings it clean to the table, sets it down carefully. She doesn't say anything else and I know I have to speak. I cast about for the right words. I want her to stay and I want her to go. I want to talk about magazines and nail varnish and makeovers.

‘I wasn't ill when I left,' I say. ‘And I had to go.' I sit up slowly. ‘It's dead. I couldn't stay there, Janice. The baby died.'

Janice's face falls. I put my head in my hands. I let myself cry properly now. Not quietly, like last night. I don't stifle my noise, I make the kind of sounds that fall away from you. And when Janice puts her arms around me and strokes my hair with her hand I find I can't stop.
The weight of the last few days, my body, strange and unfamiliar, and all those other secrets, things lost and left behind, that I can't talk about. When I calm down and sit away from Janice there's a sticky damp patch on the shoulder of her shirt.

Janice is tactful, asking no further questions when I offer no details. She fills the clean mug with water from the bathroom and when she gives it to me she says, ‘You still should see a doctor, Missy.'

‘But I feel better now.'

‘That fever, it might come back. They don't just up and go, you know. You need to know what's causing it.'

‘Yeah.' I sniff and wipe my eyes. ‘Okay.'

‘They'll have a number over at the office. Do you want me to get it?'

‘No. Don't worry. I'll get Pete to sort it out.'

Just then a car pulls in. Panicked, I sit up, thinking of explanations for Pete but when Janice peeks out the venetians I know who it is by the change in her voice.

‘Trev,' she says.

‘Is it late?'

‘It's after five. Are you sure you'll be okay, Missy?'

‘Yes, of course,' I say. ‘Pete will be back soon. He'll take me to a doctor.'

‘Well, you know where I am. Anything you need,' she says, looking in my eyes, searching my face. I can sense her impatience. I'm fading right before her eyes. ‘Anything at all,' she reiterates. ‘You come and get me.' But she doesn't really mean it.

‘Yeah. Thanks, Janice. I will. Thanks so much.'

The door closes quietly and I listen to the light rush of her feet on the paved terrace.

When she's gone I get out of bed, pack my things and wait for Pete.