The Best Thing

  I find myself on a corner looking up at another barracks. The children’s hospital. Corridors and corridors, wards and wards, bed after bed of burned, broken, bandaged children, children recovering, children dying, children hanging right on the edge, their parents holding their hands, holding their breath, talking them away from death. Wondrous and unthinkable things going on all day, all night, in there, just like back there at the maternity hospital, and none of it to be seen out here, just a big ugly building almost as bad as the Housing Commission towers opposite. This time next year I could be in here, with my baby, watching it battle for breath, pacing the lino while the surgeons fix its congenital heart defect.

  A truck passes, whirling grit into my eyes. I was right first time around; it is too big and scary. The world is too big and scary—if we lived in a little house in the country, with no cars around or planes or fires or hard surfaces to fall on or lakes to drown in or murder-suicides or rapists or wars, maybe then … If we lived in a Polly Pocket of a world, pastel coloured, round cornered, populated with tiny harmless people …

  I lean against the traffic-signal pole, my hand over my eyes. I have a very clear memory of myself a couple of years ago standing in the loungeroom in a rage, yelling ‘Why did you have me, then, if you were never going to let me do anything?!’ Some day some green-eyed wavy-haired child’s going to be screaming at me, ‘Why did you have me?’ Umm, because I forgot not to? Because you didn’t disappear of your own accord like your half-brother or -sister? Because it didn’t occur to me that you could be real, that you could one month not be, and the next be? Because I was that stupid (sjupid)? God, if I’m ‘too smart for’ Pug, what does that make him?

  The memory of the public is short and the names which have made boxing news are quickly forgotten, to be replaced by those of other simple, ignorant young men with sound brains.

  ‘Oh.’ Bloody hell. Dad on our doorstep like a visitor. Looking hunted, fists pushed into his jacket pockets.

  ‘Is Mum in?’ He doesn’t just walk in past me.

  ‘She’s upstairs. I’ll get her.’

  ‘I’m here. What is it, Dave?’ Mum looks down from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Just come to pick up a couple of things. Is that okay?’

  ‘Depends what they are,’ Mum says flatly.

  ‘Just clothes and things. Nothing you’d be able to use.’

  He goes up the stairs. I hear him in the bedroom and the bathroom. He comes down, goes to the kitchen, comes out with the things in a plastic shopping bag.

  He stops uncertainly by the couch where I’m staring at the TV. I look up and turn the sound off.

  ‘Mum tells me you’re having a baby.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say, expecting to hear it all again. Slut. You’d do it with anybody.

  ‘Whenabouts?’

  ‘November.’

  ‘Phew.’ He regards me. ‘Hardest thing in the world, being a parent.’

  I raise my eyebrows. What does he mean, that I’ve failed him? That I’m making a big mistake?

  ‘It’s the whole point, though.’ He starts moving towards the door.

  ‘Yeah?’ I turn around in my seat. He’d say that and then just walk out?

  ‘You’ll see,’ he says with a little smile. The door closes quietly behind him, the gate clicks shut. The people on TV mouth at each other.

  The ultrasound is like dolphins echolocating in the ocean. You lie down, the operator spreads a cold green jelly on your abdomen, then she beams in sound with a little black handpiece and a picture comes up on the screen. She doesn’t warn you, because she’s seen it a million times before.

  Your baby appears on the screen.

  There it is.

  Perfectly recognisable as a small human being.

  ‘Oh my God. That’s me? That’s it?’ It must be a test pattern or something.

  ‘Sure is. Looks good. See, little heart? The black thing—good strong heartbeat, nice and clear. Oops, lively little beggar. Here we are, top of the head. Thirteen, fourteen weeks maybe. Hold still while I get an image of that … Right. Spine.’

  ‘Oh, shit, look at it!’ A fragile white S of miniature bones.

  ‘Arms. Legs. There you are, hullo Mum.’ The white arm-bones twitch. A twinkle of white fingerbones. ‘All in order. Too early to tell what sex.’ The handpiece slips across the jelly, the image rolls and a skull-face peers out. Around the curled skeleton the ghost of flesh, within it the black heart blinking white, fast, like a cursor.

  ‘My God. I can’t believe it.’ I can’t tear my eyes from the screen. I can’t stop exclaiming. I can hardly breathe.

  ‘It’s a baby, all right.’ She gives me a brief smile.

  Afterwards the receptionist hands me a set of images and a report to take to the birth centre. I rip open the envelope as soon as I’m out the door, but the pictures aren’t anything like as good as on the screen. There is one of the skull, and one in which I can just make out the shape of the body, with the head to one side.

  The uterus contains a single foetus lying transversely with biparietal diameter 28 mm indicating 14 weeks gestation. Foetal contour appears normal. The placenta is implanted on the posterior wall of the body of the uterus. Foetal heart movements are evident. The cervix appears closed. Thank you for referring Ms Dow.

  ‘The uterus contains a single foetus …’ It almost sounds disappointed that there aren’t three or four! It’s all so cool and offhand; it should say, ‘Far out! We looked inside this person and look! We found another person, a fourteen-week-old person—check out this skull, will you? And look at that heart, that spine, that great placenta, smack in the middle of the wall like it should be! And that cervix, all sealed up and intact. Isn’t it a miracle? Isn’t it unbelievable?’

  I get home somehow. I float through the rest of the afternoon, my uterus containing a single foetus. I go from room to room with this miracle inside me, this moving miracle with its own pulse. When I think about that twinkling hand, and the way the body squirmed in irritation when the sensor pushed the womb wall against it … I don’t know, I’ve never had the feeling before. My throat aches, and I’m terrified, and I’m more excited than I’ve ever been about anything. Not a silly, jumping-up-and-down kind of excitement—a giant, world-sized excitement, immobilising, awesome.

  It’s just so hard to believe! How can we all have come into the world like this and just be so cool we never talk about it? Why aren’t we all awestruck, all the time, at this unbelievable thing that happens when we start? How can everyone just carry on like normal? How come I never knew about it before this? I mean, everybody knows, but why doesn’t anyone acknowledge? Why does all this birth stuff happen in books, behind doors, behind screens of medico-speak? Shouldn’t we all stand around amazed, applauding?

  When Mum gets home I show her the pictures, try to explain what it was like, because they didn’t have ultrasounds when she was pregnant with me. She sits there in her work clothes, looking from me to the little skull face and back. I’m so high on it all I make her smile.

  When I finally shut up she sighs, looks down at the image again. ‘My grandchild,’ she says, trying the word out. She stares at its ghostly face, then shakes her head, and hands the pictures to me. ‘I don’t know. Anything can happen. Anything has happened—I never thought we’d find ourselves here, in this situation. You can’t help being frightened for the little … for little ones like that.’ She knows. Why am I so surprised? ‘But you’re right. We are amazing. So complicated. All this from two tiny cells.’ She moves her hand in front of me like a metal detector.

  ‘Why didn’t you and Dad have more kids?’ Today I feel as if it’s all I want to do in life, be pregnant.

  ‘I’m not sure. I think we got into the habit of just having one. Everyone we knew who had more seemed to be so tied down and so cranky all the time. It felt right, both of us being only children ourselves. That’s what a family was—Dad, Mum, child. It seemed like overindulgence to have more.’ br />
  The Magninis invade my mind—their noise, their arguments, the crowd of them around the table. I pick up the photo, feel Pug’s arms slide around my waist—

  ‘And overwork. Babies can be just hard, physical work.’ She bends to pick up her shoes and her bag. ‘Ha! Beside babies, the HSC’s a doddle!’

  [The brain is] like a mushroom swaying in a small sac of fluid. The point at which ‘consciousness’ lies is the point where the brain stem joins the main body of the brain, just like where the stalk joins the mushroom.

  When the human head is hit hard, the brain sways back and forth rapidly and much strain is put on that precise point. That point acts as a hinge, and each time it sways violently, more tiny veins are torn and many brain cells killed. At a certain point of trauma, the brain will just ‘black-out’ and the person is knocked out.

  There is never a total recovery of these brain cells when the boxer comes to. It is permanent. Mike Tyson will seem to be 100 per cent normal to those around him in a few weeks but in fact, he will only be 99.9 per cent. His reaction time will never be quite as good as it was and his ‘hold’ on consciousness never quite so tenacious.

  It will be fractionally easier to knock him out next time and then he might be down to 99.8 per cent. It will be even easier the time after that. And so it goes.

  Next day Mum gets home late because she’s been shopping—for presents—for me! She’s got me a bunch of books on pregnancy and birth. ‘Before you get right out of the habit of studying,’ she says, ‘you may as well take some notes from these.’

  One’s about eating and exercise in pregnancy, one’s the birth book the birth centre recommended, one’s a book of interviews with Australian mothers about their pregnancies and births. I stand there feeling the weight of the books, their shiny covers. I’m overwhelmed. This is Mum’s response to the ultrasound—Okay, time to face reality. Mine was so different, so impractical: Wow, this is so amazing!

  ‘And I bought myself one, too,’ she says, pulling out another paper bag and tearing it open. Hers is called Grandparenthood.

  ‘Oh, cool, so you’ll be able to find out where to get a mauve rinse for your hair, right?’

  ‘Yes, and a pair of spectacles that sit on the end of my nose,’ she laughs. ‘It might even have some good knitting patterns in it!’

  After tea I sit down with the books. Oh God, there is so much to know! It’s all pretty scary. The actual birth pictures are—well, mind-expanding. Mum looks over my shoulder and says, ‘Well, that’s what we’re made for—to stretch that wide. That’s why we’re all concertina’d up inside like we are.’

  All the people around the women having the babies look rapt to be there—I mean, none of these people are models or anything, just ordinary people. The women are huge, and most in the pictures aren’t wearing anything, so their great big breasts are sitting on their gigantic tummies like cannon-balls, and the nipples are huge and dark—they hardly look real. I don’t know how they could stand being seen, let alone photographed like that.

  It’s not just the fact that their bodies are so distorted; their faces show a lot, too. There’s no smiling for the camera—except afterwards, when the baby’s in their arms. You can see pain, effort, distress, exhaustion, and these are just split-second images, no sound, no indication of the length of time the whole process takes—like, how long do you have to suffer?

  I’m muttering, ‘Oh, God,’ looking through the pictures. I look up at Mum, all the joy at the fantastic-ness of having a baby inside me burnt off by fear of having it come out of me. I can’t believe—but I have to believe, have no choice!—that this will be me in November, that I’ll be this size and shape, that I’ll be squatting or kneeling or standing there with a baby’s head outside of me and the rest of it inside. It just cannot happen that that little kicking ghost-skulled creature is going to come sliding out and be another person. But then, where did I think people came from before this—a factory production line? Down from the clouds? Why didn’t I ever think of them coming out of people’s bodies? It’s not as if I never saw pregnant women, and then saw them pushing the baby around in a stroller—why didn’t I ever properly wonder what went on in between?

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mum says, smiling at my stunned expression. ‘You get a big prize at the end.’

  ‘It’s worth it?’ I say doubtfully.

  ‘Honey-girl, the birth itself is nothing, let me tell you.’

  ‘Gee.’ What have I got myself into? I don’t ask that question out loud, though, for fear she’ll tell me the answer.

  Dad and Mum negotiating downstairs. It’s like opening the freezer door, listening in. Cold, cold air. I wish they’d get angry and say what they’re thinking, instead of talking about use of the car, and electrical appliances, crockery, CDs.

  Mum’s got it all sorted out and itemised. Every time she brings up an item, Dad says, ‘Oh no, God, you keep all that,’ and she says ‘I’ve sorted out your share—it’s in the study. I want this to be absolutely fair.’ She wants the study cleared by the end of the month. She had a chuckle with me when she was talking about this meeting—‘I want the Lewises’ house to be so chockablock with his stuff that Ricky can’t stand it! I want it to be really inconvenient—everything’s suited him right down to the ground so far.’

  ‘Except Josh and Ambra?’ I said hopefully.

  ‘Josh and Ambra are with Rob, in the flat. Ricky and your dad have got all the privacy they want now. More than they can stand, I hope.’

  Friday night. It’s exactly two weeks since I last saw Pug. I can think about that time, running away from him, without groaning and actually covering my face with my hands, but I still do it in my head. Then I’m lost, don’t know what to think. The wish to see him is exactly balanced out by the instinct not to, the voice that says a sharp ‘No!’ and halts me in my tracks.

  The phone rings. Mum’s in the bath. This’ll be Dad. ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Mel?’ No, I’m not ready. ‘It’s Dino.’

  ‘I know. Hi.’ The effect on my heart! I’ve read you get extra blood when you’re pregnant. Your heart enlarges to take on the extra load. Well, it certainly feels bigger, sounds louder.

  ‘Hi. I got your number out the book. Is that okay? Is this, like, an okay time to ring you up?’ I can hear traffic in the background. I can picture exactly where he is.

  ‘Yeah, well …’

  He clears his throat. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’m kind of … kind of grounded.’

  Silence. ‘They found out, hey?’

  ‘Yeah, for jigging school and all that.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘My dad says indefinitely, so … I don’t know what that means.’ I’m not sure I know what anything means, the way my brain’s scrambling.

  ‘D’you … d’you want me to come round and talk to ‘em?’

  Oh God, no! ‘Um, I don’t think that’d make much difference.’

  ‘They’re really pissed off, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty badly.’

  ‘Shit, I knew it was a bad idea, keepin’ it all secret like that. You shoulda introduced me to ‘em right at the start.’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ I really want to not be having this conversation. If he’d just come out and ask for the truth, I’d be able to tell him, but as long as he goes on believing my lies, I’m caught in them. And I don’t like the feeling.

  ‘Hey, this is terrible. I miss you, mate. I shouldn’t’ve let you go off like you did, all upset, and sick and that. I should’ve walked you home—I feel bad about that.’

  ‘I feel bad too, Dino. But I don’t know what I can do.’ That’s true enough. ‘They’re not letting me out of their sight.’

  ‘Bugger it. Bloody telephones. I feel like, if I could just get to see you, you know?’

  ‘I’m stuck, though. I can’t see a way to get around it.’ That’s true, too.

  ‘There’s got to be some time when
they ease up a bit on you.’

  ‘When they trust me again, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. As soon as you get a break, Mel, come around, will you? ‘Cause, mate, I’m … I’m goin’ a bit crazy here, you know? You know?’

  ‘Feel a bit that way myself,’ I admit.

  ‘Yeah? Oh, man … this sucks, so much.’ I can hear him shifting in the phone box, thumping something with his fist. ‘As soon as you can, okay?’

  ‘As soon as I can.’

  ‘Promise me. Shit.’

  ‘I promise. I will. I’d better go.’

  I stand at the bottom of the stairs, my hands on the big wooden sphere on top of the newel post, my head on my knuckles, the bones digging in. It’s because I’m three months gone, I tell myself. The first thing to go must be your ability to make decisions … And he would be walking home in the cold, or maybe along King Street unable to stand going back to that room, going a bit crazy … I torture myself playing back his voice, his breath, evidence that he breathes still, that he hasn’t just conveniently disappeared off the face of the earth.

  ‘Who was that?’ I straighten up. Mum’s all towelling bathrobe and turban at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Nobody.’ I know she knows I’m lying.

  ‘Your “young man”.’

  I nod, sigh, turn away from the stairs, away from her enquiring eyes.

  ‘Any progress?’

  I squawk ‘No’ into my hands.

  ‘What was that?’ her voice prods.

  ‘No progress, no progress. Nothing you need to be told.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried about me.’ She goes into her bedroom.

  ‘Neither am I,’ I mutter at the ceiling. If anyone ever asks me, I’ll tell them my mother coped with the family breakup disgustingly well.

  There may be a gradual development of dementia with impairment of memory, emotional lability, slurring of speech and ataxia. Fatuous cheerfulness may occur, with little insight into the severity of the mental disability, but there may be significant mood swings with irritability and violent behaviour. Tremor, ataxia and spasticity, either pyramidal or extra-pyramidal in type, a condition similar to Parkinson’s Disease (especially of the post-encephalitic type) sometimes occurs. The tendon reflexes may be exaggerated and the plantar reflexes extensor. Epilepsy has been described, but somewhat surprisingly, is quite uncommon.