Tremble (45 page)

“You look so ripe. It’s kind of hard to believe—my child hiding in there.”

He stares at my belly, running his hands across its curve. I watch him, smiling. All is as it should be: Robert won’t die, he will leave his wife, move in with me, we will have the baby in five months, it will be a boy.

The afternoon he was getting his result I was also in a hospital room, by myself, shivering as they ran that cold slippery thing across my skin and staring at the fuzzy outline of life floating defiantly on the ultrasound screen. An undeniable manifestation of our love. Thinking: whatever happens I will mother this child.

I prop myself up. We’ve just made love and he was gentle, too careful, as if he was frightened of hurting the baby. It’s ironic: of the two of us I have the power now. No more waiting around for the phone to ring; no more clandestine meetings stolen between work and home.

“When are you going to tell her?”

“Today, as soon as I leave here. I mean it this time. I’ve made a pledge to God and that is my decision. I will be a good father.”

A pledge to God? I’ve never heard Robert talk like this before. I stare at him, unsure he isn’t being sardonic.

“A pledge to God, Robert? Don’t you just love me?”

“Of course I do. It’s just that I feel I’ve been given a gift, the gift of life, and I mean to do something constructive with it.”

For a moment I wonder whether his dermatologist has put him on antidepressants as he stands naked from the waist down in the middle of my bedroom, wearing a T-shirt advertising an ancient AC/DC tour, his flaccid penis dangling comically under his belly, his face aflame with a fervor that would make even a Scientologist nervous.

“Robert, you sure you’re all right?”

“I’ve never been clearer. Maddy, this is going to be a whole new start, for both of us. I’ll buy Georgina out, get us a small townhouse with an extra bedroom—only what if it’s twins?”

“It’s not twins, don’t worry.”

“You’ve had an ultrasound?”

I nod, feeling a little guilty about being so manipulative.

“And?”

“It’s a boy.”

“A boy.” He gazes at my womb again, enraptured. He loves the idea that it will be a little clone of himself, I think, slightly resentfully, but adore him for his excitement anyway. A flash of the future shoots through me: Robert pushing a stroller wearing board shorts and T-shirt,
looking fatter and older, me walking next to him, pregnant with our second child, his hand in mine.

“What’s that?”

He walks over to the chair and picks up the hair shirt. For one terrible second I’m scared he’ll recognize his own hair, his own smell. But no, he’s examining it like it’s just another shirt. Funny how we’re so oblivious to our own debris, the pieces we leave behind, the emotional chaos that erupts when the door closes behind us.

“Just a top I had made.”

“It’s beautiful, a really good weight. What’s the fabric?”

“Oh, this new goat’s hair that’s become fashionable. I was thinking of giving it to you for your birthday.”

“That’s so sweet.”

He holds it up against him. Naturally the color of the hair shirt suits his eyes and skin tone perfectly. He stares at himself in the mirror as if he is seeing himself for the first time. A shiver runs through me; he’s displaying an intense narcissism I’ve never seen in him before. It’s almost as if the shirt has possessed him.

“Madeleine,” he murmurs in a low formal tone.

I stiffen. I hate it when he uses my full name, it usually means he’s going to announce something portentous—like he’s changed his mind and is going back to Georgina. But instead he takes my hands and kisses them.

“It’s been a ride, the last few weeks, but I really feel like I’ve come out on the other side. This—us, you, the baby, the cancer—has forced me to a new level of maturity. Of responsibility. At forty-seven I feel like I’m really becoming a man.”

Well, fuck, what do you say to that? Naturally I’m touched and naturally I’m suspicious. This is the man who wasn’t answering my calls three weeks ago. Besides this isn’t the streetwise, emotionally burned-out Robert I’ve known and loved for the past three years. The best I can hope for is that once he’s got over the shock of surviving cancer and becoming a father he’ll settle back into the cryptic pessimist I love sparring with intellectually as well as fucking.

“It’s like I’m reborn,” he announces, his eyes wandering back to his own reflection as he smooths down the hair shirt, almost as if he’s caressing himself.

“Can I take the shirt today? As a memento.”

“Sure, babe. Now, you are going to ring me the second you tell her? I’ve got the study ready for your things if you want to move out immediately.”

“Absolutely.”

He kisses me briefly on the lips, throws off his T-shirt, slips the hair shirt over his head, then pulls on his trousers. A second later his pager goes off and he’s out of there, leaving me glowing with post-coital victory.

Madeleine’s shirt is kind of silky with a slight edge to it. It feels great on the skin, like someone’s hugging me. The ideal weight for wool, whatever fucking old goat it was made from, perfect for a Sydney spring day. Walking away from her apartment I feel younger than I have in years. Like a great burden has been lifted off my shoulders and everything is possible.
Daddy, Papa, Da, Father
. The image of a miniature version of myself snuggling up to my bare chest plays pleasantly across the back of my eyes. My son. Aged two, aged four, aged nine, playing soccer as I stand on the sideline screaming support. First girlfriend, first rock concert, first car, wedding speeches, grandchildren, christening. Genetic infinity.

Suddenly nothing else seems important. So what if the next band makes platinum? So what if Play 360 signs to Sony US? What am I planning to become—a name on a plaque in the reception room of some recording agency? A footnote in some outdated history of Australian rock, total print run: ten thousand. Was that going to be my legacy? Not now. Now my life’s taken a sharp left, is running off the tracks and heading for the forest, the deep impenetrable forest, and, my God, does it feel great.

As soon as I opened the door I knew. He had a blissed-out look in his eyes and yet, for the first time in our marriage, he was shut off. An invisible veil drawn between us. I’ll remember that moment until the day I die. Tragedy is like that: it dresses down, hides itself in an arbitrary moment that suddenly spirals out into a drama that will haunt you for life.

He stood there dressed in that thing, that monstrous piece of theft, unable to look me in the eye.

“Georgina,” he stammered, “I’m leaving you for Madeleine. I have to, she’s having our baby.”

“Robert, for Christ’s sake, come in,” I said, “and have a cup of tea.”

We sat opposite each other, the kitchen table running between us like a no-man’s land between enemy trenches. My grandmother’s Victorian teapot stood in the middle like an aberrant watchtower, the sugar bowl a stationary tank that promised to take no prisoners. I kept sneaking glimpses at the shirt, that shimmering travesty that smelled of profound betrayal, of blood.

The gray-gunmetal tint gave it away immediately. I knew; how could I not? I’ve slept with him for sixteen years, saturated in his juices, breathing the shifting nuances of his pheromones as he matured beside me. How many times has his hair fallen across me as he held himself over me making love? How many times have I shut my eyes beneath that gray tent? How many times have I plucked a stray hair from the pillow, out of the plug-hole, from his shoulder as he left for work? Of course I knew.

I couldn’t tell you what we said that afternoon. I vaguely remember talking about splitting the mortgage, sorting out the bank accounts, the stock portfolios. I remember him trying not to weep, his shoulders wrestling with painfully silent tears. But most of all I remember thinking that whatever I did I had to get my hands on that hair shirt.

This morning I put on my pearls, the strand he gave me for our wedding anniversary. It must have been a premonition, as if all the ghosts of all the abandoned wives of my family were guiding my hands to the necklace. Or was I inspired by Vermeer’s blue lady, also on the brink of receiving very bad news?

Whatever, the gesture crystallized into this moment, when I embrace my soon-to-be ex-husband. We move together, and as we do the catch on my pearl necklace snags on the hair shirt. As I step away, that tiny thread pulls a ladder down the fine weave—an innocent little descent into hell.

“Oops,” I say, smiling slightly.

The spasm is sudden, violent and excruciating. Like the worst period pain you could ever imagine. I’m on the balcony, watching the bats streaming across from the Botanical Gardens like they always do, umbrellas of black beating their way heroically against the fading light. I am thinking about Robert, the joy of trust, of being able to plan holidays together, of introducing him to my friends, being Mrs. Tetherhook—when the pain strikes.

I double over immediately, grasping the rail to stop myself from falling over. The contraction passes but before I can catch my breath another sharp jolt shoots through my body. I hobble to the bathroom; already I can feel the sticky gush between my legs. Out of my mind with agony I pull my pants down and place myself on the toilet, just as another heaving pain rips through my abdomen.

Ten minutes later, with tears streaming down my face, somehow I find the courage to stare down between my thighs. There it is: the shiny dome of its forehead showing through the mucus and blood, the tiny arms curled up toward its closed eyes. A perfectly formed male fetus.

Life’s strange. Rephrase that: life’s fucking out there. I used to think we had some control, that things happened for a reason, even the weirdest things, as if a sequence of events created a pattern that made sense. Now, looking back over the past few months, I think that’s total bullshit. We know nothing. All we can hope for is that we survive this terrible getting of wisdom called life.

I still manage bands. Actually Pear Records got voted most innovative Australian record company last week, not that there was that much competition given that there are only two real players in the race. I guess what’s really changed is that I’ve fallen in love for the second time in my life.