Truly Madly Guilty

  'What are Clementine and Sam doing?' asked Erika.

  'Ruby wanted them to try to play tennis with her on the Wii,' said Tiffany. 'She's too little for it really, and then I think they forgot Ruby and started to get competitive with each other.'

  'Ruby needs her nappy changed,' confided Holly to Erika. She waved a hand in front of her nose.

  'They'll need the bag then,' said Erika, picking up Clementine's nappy bag. It was so typical of Clementine and Sam to start playing some computer game while their child needed changing, and they were visiting people they barely knew. They were like teenagers sometimes. 'I'll take it up.'

  'It's the room at the end of the hallway.' Tiffany's tone became abruptly sharp. 'Not on the marble!' She spun Vid back towards the stove just before he dumped a hot baking dish on the island bench.

  Erika put the bag over her shoulder and walked up the softly carpeted curved staircase. At the top of the stairs there was a huge landing without any furniture, like an empty carpeted field. Erika stopped to allow her five-year-old self to relish the feeling of space. She let her arms float from her sides. There was an enormous painting of an eye on one wall, with a four-poster bed reflected in the pupil of the eye (nonsensical!), illuminated by a single low-hanging light fitting, like an upside-down milk bottle. It was like a room in a gallery of modern art. How long would it take her mother to ruin a 'space' like this with her crap?

  Erika walked down the hallway towards the murmur of voices in the end room. The carpet was so plush she bounced along like an astronaut. Whoops. She swayed a little and her shoulder brushed the wall.

  'She should have asked me in private.' It was Clementine, speaking quietly but perfectly clearly. 'Not with all four of us there. With cheese and crackers, for God's sake. That stingy little piece of cheese. It was so weird. Wasn't it weird?'

  Erika froze. She was close enough to the room to see their shadows. She stood back against the hallway wall, away from the door.

  'She probably thought it involved all four of us,' said Sam.

  'I guess,' said Clementine.

  'Do you want to do it?' said Sam.

  'No. I don't want to do it. I mean, that's my first instinctive response. Just, no. I don't want to do it. This sounds so awful but I just ... hate the thought of it. It's almost ... repulsive to me. Oh God, I don't mean that, I just really don't want to do it.'

  Repulsive.

  Erika closed her eyes. No amount of therapy or long hot showers would ever get her clean enough. She was still that dirty, flea-bitten kid.

  'Well you don't have to do it,' said Sam. 'It's just something they're asking you to consider, you don't need to get all worked up about it.'

  'But there's no one else in her life! There's only me. It's always only me. She hasn't got any other friends. It's like she always wants another piece of me.' Clementine's voice rose.

  'Shh,' said Sam.

  'They can't hear us.' But Clementine lowered her voice again and Erika had to strain to hear. 'I think I'd feel like it was my baby. I'd feel like they had my baby. What if it looked like Holly and Ruby?'

  'That shouldn't worry you too much, seeing as you'd rather poke your eyes -'

  'That was a joke. Erika shouldn't have passed that on, I didn't actually mean -' Clementine's voice rose again.

  'Yes, I know, sure. Look, let's just get through this thing and we'll talk about it when we get home.'

  'Daddy!' Ruby's little voice piped up. 'Play again! Right now. Now, now, now.'

  'That's enough, Ruby, we need to go back downstairs,' said Clementine.

  'We need to change her, that's what we need to do,' said Sam. 'Where's the nappy bag?'

  'It's downstairs, of course, it's not attached to my wrist.'

  'Jeez, don't get snippy on me, I'll get it.' Sam came out of the room and stopped short.

  'Erika!' he said, and it was almost funny the way he took a step back, his eyes wide with fear, as if she were an intruder.

  chapter twenty-five

  Tiffany was searching through the bottom drawer of Dakota's chest of drawers for an Alannah Hill white cardigan with a scattering of tiny white pearls on the shoulders that suddenly seemed like exactly the right sort of thing for a private school mother to wear to a 'compulsory' Information Morning.

  She was sure this was the cardigan she'd pulled from her bag and made Dakota wear when they'd gone to Vid's cousin's baby's christening a few weeks back and it had suddenly got cold. It had hung around Dakota's wrists but Dakota never cared much about what she was wearing. Knowing Dakota, she'd come home and jammed it in one of her drawers. It probably needed cleaning but Tiffany was obsessed with finding it, as if it were the only solution to a far more complex problem.

  She pulled out everything from the bottom drawer and placed it on the floor next to her. There was a book jammed right at the back of the drawer. She went to put it on the floor and saw that it was only half a book. The cover was missing. It had been torn in half. Almost every page had been scribbled upon in angry, black marker, in some cases so violently there were holes through the paper.

  She sat back on her haunches, staring at it, breathing rapidly. The title at the top of the page said, The Hunger Games. Wasn't that the book her sister Karen had told her was too grown-up for Dakota? 'You've got to take responsibility for what she reads,' Karen had said, bossily. 'Don't you know how violent that book is?' But Tiffany had believed she shouldn't censor Dakota's reading. It wasn't pornography after all. It was a young adult book. Tiffany knew what the book was about (she'd watched the movie trailer on YouTube) and even fairy tales were violent. What about Hansel and Gretel?! Dakota had always loved the most gruesome fairy tales.

  Had the book had such a profoundly terrible impact on Dakota that she'd felt the need to destroy it? It was like it had been brutally vandalised. Tiffany pulled more clothes out and found the remainder of the book.

  Dakota loved her books and she always took such care of them. Her bookshelf was in beautiful order. She didn't even freaking well dog-ear pages. She used a bookmark! And now she was tearing up a book and hiding it? It didn't make sense. Reading was her greatest pleasure.

  Tiffany looked at the ceiling. Although, was Dakota reading as much as she once had? She had to read for homework, of course, and Dakota diligently sat down at her desk and did all her homework without ever being asked, without Tiffany having to monitor her at all. But what about reading for pleasure?

  When was the last time Tiffany had come across her reading in bed or on the window seat? She couldn't remember. Jeez Louise, had this book distressed her so much that she couldn't even read anymore? Tiffany's negligence was breathtaking. Terrible mother. Terrible neighbour. Terrible woman.

  'Have you finished polishing those shoes yet, Vid?' she called out. 'We don't want to leave late! The traffic will be bad in the rain!'

  Tiffany shoved everything including the book back into the drawer. Obviously she wouldn't say anything to Dakota now, not when they were just about to leave for the Information Morning.

  She put it out of her mind for later.

  chapter twenty-six

  The day of the barbeque

  Sam said 'Erika!' Clementine clapped her hand over her mouth as if to grab back her words and then quickly dropped it as evidence of her guilt. Her stupidity and thoughtlessness were beyond belief.

  'Oh! Hi! Thanks!' she said as Erika came into the room and handed her the nappy bag. 'How did you guess we needed that? Is Holly okay?'

  As she babbled, she frantically rewound the conversation. What could Erika have overheard? Anything? All of it? Oh God, not the part about being 'repulsed'. It was her tone that was the worst. The tone of contempt.

  She kept talking, talking as if she could somehow conceal what she'd said with layers of new conversation. 'Dakota took her to see the dog kennel or something. She wants a puppy for her birthday. Don't you dare give her one, will you, only joking, I know you wouldn't. Isn't this house amazing? I bet even the dog kenne
l is five-star!'

  From behind Erika, Sam widened his eyes and ran his finger across his throat.

  'Tiffany wants us all to go outside to the cabana,' said Erika. She sounded dry and cool as usual. Maybe she hadn't heard anything.

  'I'll go back down, check on Holly,' said Sam. 'You right with Ruby?'

  'Of course I'm right with Ruby,' said Clementine. He always did that when he left her with one or both of the girls, as if he needed to confirm that she would indeed remember to take care of her own children.

  'Where are you going to change her?' Erika looked around.

  This was what rich people called a media room. There were leather couches facing the laughably gigantic screen on the wall. Sam had just about lost his mind with envy when he saw it.

  'Oh God,' said Clementine. 'I don't know. The floor, I guess.' She started laying out the change mat and wipes. 'Everything looks so expensive, doesn't it?'

  'I'm stinky,' said Ruby. She tilted her head seductively as if being stinky were something to be prized.

  'Yes, you are,' said Clementine.

  'Wasn't Holly toilet-trained by this age?' asked Erika as Clementine changed Ruby.

  'We've been putting it off,' admitted Clementine. Normally she would have been annoyed by the implied criticism in Erika's question, but now she was anxious to humbly admit her failure, as if that would somehow acquit her of the nasty things she'd said. (My God, she'd complained about the size of the cheese.)

  'Once you start you've got to commit, and you're sort of stuck at home, you can't go anywhere - well, you can, but it's tricky ... and, um, but we're all set, we've got her big-girl undies ready, haven't we, Ruby? And we thought, after we get my audition and Holly's birthday party and Sam's parents' ruby wedding anniversary out of the way, we'd commit.'

  Shut up, shut up, shut up. She couldn't stop talking.

  'Right,' said Erika blankly. Normally she would have had an aggravating counter-opinion. Ever since Ruby and Holly were babies Erika had been reading parenting articles relevant to their ages and passing on tips about 'milestones'. Clementine had always believed this was evidence of Erika's obsessive, bordering on strange, interest in Clementine's life, not her interest in having children of her own. How self-obsessed she'd been.

  'Up!' demanded Ruby as soon as Clementine had finished changing her. She held out her arms to Erika, and Erika lifted her onto her hip. 'Over there!' Ruby thrust her body to one side to indicate which direction Erika should head, as if she were astride a recalcitrant horse.

  'You're a bossy little thing,' said Erika as she took Ruby closer to the bookshelf, where Clementine could see a porcelain doll that Ruby was hoping she could get her hands on.

  'Oh, that's what you want! I don't think we can let you touch that,' said Erika, and she twisted her body away so that Ruby's outstretched hands couldn't grab the doll.

  Erika's eyes met Clementine's over the top of Ruby's head. There was something a little unfocused and strange about the way she looked at Clementine, but she didn't seem hurt or angry. She mustn't have heard. She wouldn't have just lurked outside the door listening. That wasn't Erika's style. She would have barged right in to hand over the nappy bag, to show up their incompetence, to prove how much better she'd be at this than them.

  Clementine watched Erika bend her forehead tenderly towards Ruby's and she felt choked with guilt for her lack of generosity.

  But she still couldn't - she wouldn't - do what they'd asked.

  I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. She bent down to put the change mat back in the nappy bag, and she realised it wasn't Erika she was mentally addressing but her mother: I've been kind, I've been good, but that's enough now, don't make me do this too.

  chapter twenty-seven

  'Oliver?' said Erika quietly, just in case he was still asleep. She stood at the end of their bed, looking at him. One arm was outside the covers, bent at an attractive angle to show his very excellent triceps. He was lean, verging on skinny, but well built. (Early in their relationship they'd gone to the beach with Clementine and Sam and Holly, who was a baby at the time, and Clementine had whispered in Erika's ear, 'Your new boyfriend is unexpectedly buff, isn't he?' It had pleased Erika more than she liked to admit.)

  'Mmmm?' Oliver rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes.

  'I'm ready to go over to Mum's place,' she said.

  Oliver yawned, rubbed his eyes and retrieved his glasses from the bedside table. He glanced out the window at the pouring rain. 'Maybe you should wait till the deluge eases.'

  'I'd be waiting all day,' said Erika. She looked at her bed, made up with snowy-white, crisp bed linen. Oliver made the bed each day with taut hospital corners. She was surprised by how badly she wanted to take off her clothes and get back into bed with him and just forget everything. She wasn't normally a napper.

  'How are you feeling?' she said.

  'I think I might be feeling better,' said Oliver worriedly. He sat upright in bed and tapped under his eyes, checking his sinuses. 'Oh, no. I feel good! I should have gone into work.' Whenever he took a sick day the poor man obsessively monitored his health the whole time in case he was misusing his sick leave entitlements. 'Or I could help you at your mother's place.' He sat up and swung his feet onto the floor. 'I could change it to a day of personal time.'

  'You need one more day of rest,' said Erika. 'And you're not going near my mother's place when you're sick.'

  'Actually I do feel a bit dizzy,' said Oliver with relief. 'Yes, I am now experiencing indisputable dizziness. I could not run the audit clearance meeting. No way.'

  'You could not run the audit clearance meeting. Lie back down. I'll make you some tea and toast before I go.'

  'You're wonderful,' he said. He was always so pathetically grateful for any nurturing he got when he was sick. He had been making his own doctor's appointments by the time he was ten. No wonder he was a hypochondriac. Not that Erika had got much nurturing from having a nurse for a mother, certainly not for sniffles (no warm chicken soup on a tray like Clementine got from Pam) although the few times in her life that Erika had got properly sick her mother had nursed her, and nursed her extremely well, as if she'd finally got interesting.

  'Did I hear you talking to someone on the phone before?' said Oliver as she was about to leave the room.

  'Clementine,' said Erika. She hesitated. She didn't want to tell him she'd said yes. She didn't want to see him sit bolt upright in bed, the colour back in his cheeks.

  Oliver didn't open his eyes. 'Any news?'

  'No,' said Erika. 'Not yet.'

  She just needed to think about it. Today she had that 'emergency' session with her psychologist. Maybe that would get things clearer in her mind. So much to cover at today's session! She might need to bring along an agenda. That wouldn't make her look like a type-A personality at all. Not that Erika had a problem with being type-A. Why would you want to be any other personality type?

  As she made Oliver's tea and toast, she thought about the first time their doctor had said it was time to give up on Erika's eggs.

  'We can pay someone to donate to us, right?' Erika had said. She didn't care. She was almost relieved, because she could forget now about her secret fear of passing on her various genetic stains. There had never been any particular pleasure for her in imagining a child with her own eyes or hair or personality traits. Who would want her thin lifeless hair? Her skinny knock-kneed legs? And what if the child hoarded? It was fine that the child would not be biologically hers. She was ready to move on almost instantly.

  It was Oliver who had seemed to genuinely grieve. It was odd. Touching but baffling. She knew he loved her. It was one of the most wonderful surprises of her life. But to actually want a child who looked like Erika, who behaved like Erika, who shared her physical and mental attributes? Come on now. That was going a step too far.

  Anyway, they had money. They could pay for someone's eggs. They would get this job done, finally, once and for all.


  But apparently not.

  'Well, no,' said their doctor. 'That's illegal here.' Their doctor was American. 'You're allowed to pay your donor for her time and medical costs but that's it. It's not like back home where young college students donate their eggs for money. So Australia does have a real shortage of egg donors.' She looked at them sadly, resignedly. She'd obviously given this spiel so many times before. 'What you're looking for is an altruistic donor. There are women who are prepared to donate to strangers, but they're difficult to find. The easiest, least complicated option, which I would suggest you consider first, is finding a good friend or a relative to help you.'

  'Oh, that's fine. We wouldn't want a stranger's eggs anyway,' said Oliver immediately, and Erika thought, Wouldn't we? Why not? 'We don't want to just build a baby from spare parts,' he said. Their doctor's face went blank and professional as she listened to Oliver. After all, that was her trade: building babies. 'We want this child to come from a place of love,' Oliver said with a tremble of emotion, and Erika blushed, she literally blushed, because what in the world was he going on about? She had no problem talking about ovulation and menstrual cycles and follicles in front of her IVF doctor, but not love. That was so personal.

  Oliver was the one who had suggested Clementine, in the car on the way home, and Erika had instantly, instinctively baulked. No. No way. Clementine didn't like needles. Clementine was so busy trying to balance her family and career. Erika didn't like to ask Clementine for favours, she preferred doing favours for Clementine.

  But then she thought of Holly and Ruby, and suddenly she'd been overwhelmed by the most extraordinary desire. Her own Holly or Ruby. Suddenly this abstract idea she'd been working towards for so long became real. Ruby's beautiful blue cat's eyes with Oliver's dark hair. Holly's rosebud lips with Oliver's nose. For the first time since she'd begun the IVF process she felt true desperation for a baby. For that baby. She wanted it as much as Oliver did. It almost seemed like she wanted Clementine's baby far more than she'd ever wanted her own baby.