Borrowed Light (27 page)

It was shameful. Someone down there ought to kick her. Wipe the smile off her face. Imagine Mr and Mrs May seeing that girl. Mr's eyes would roll in disgust. He'd see her get up from the newspaper, glimpse the dirty black smudges on her thighs where the ink had smeared. He'd see her lying on the
grass on her back, bitten by insects. Her undies would show. He'd see her gritting her teeth. Smiling.

I didn't want to go back in there. It was dangerous. It was better to be a ghost.

But there must have been a time, I thought, when I said ‘No'. You heard mothers talking about the ‘terrible twos', when toddlers stamp their feet and say ‘No' all day long. Did I do that?

‘Cally's better off without me,' Mum wrote.

Well, I wasn't, I wasn't. How did
I
know what to do? And now look where I was. The lady on the phone had said, ‘Don't come to the clinic in your school uniform, dear, change first.' She'd said that because no school would want a girl who got herself into this mess. They'd pretend they didn't know you. It was as bad as being a bank robber and getting caught. When they're arrested, robbers always put their coats over their heads as the police lead them away. The lady on the phone should tell women to bring their coats, as well as their Medicare cards.

‘Do you need some more time to think about this?' Rosa asked softly.

Her voice pushed me back down there, into the white room. ‘What?' I said. ‘I mean, I beg your pardon?'

She repeated the question. Our eyes met. As I looked at her, I wasn't thinking of what she was saying, or this particular afternoon. I was thinking of the enormity of living life like this. I saw the way I grabbed on to people like life rafts, barely checking if they were afloat. It was only luck that I hadn't drowned by now.

‘Look, I really do want to go ahead with this,' I said. I blew my nose. I tried to make my voice firm. ‘It's just, you know, the sadness. I feel like I'm throwing away a little bit of me. Of what might have been. You know, a possibility. I've never been any good at making decisions.'

Rosa waited.

I twisted in my chair. ‘The thing is, well, do you think I'm doing the right thing? I mean, it won't change my mind or anything, but it would just be good to know, you know?'

Rosa smiled at me. ‘You are the only one who can make this decision. I think you are extremely brave. And I know you will do the best you can.'

I shuddered. Who'd leave all this up to me? But then I felt a wave of certainty. As Rosa said, there really was no one else.

I stood up. Rosa did too, and I took her hand. I felt quite tall. I towered over her, in fact. ‘I want to have the operation,' I told her. ‘I want a second chance, I really do.'

For once, I was trying to do the best thing I could for myself. When I knew how to do that—after about ten years of practice, maybe—I'd be able to do the best thing I could for my child.

D
R
K
AVAN POINTED
to a crisp white folding bed, and asked me to lie down. He turned back to his desk. He was finding instruments, or putting on gloves, or something. I was wondering—should I take my jeans off now, or wait for him to tell me? There should be a guide for young girls: ‘What to Do at the Doctor's without making a Fool of Yourself. He was still over there, with his back turned, fiddling on the desk. I didn't like to be bold and strip off before he told me to. I couldn't sit on that clean sheet with my bottom all bare. He'd think I was a slutty girl, always dying to get my pants off. I mean here I was, in this situation. I left them on.

‘Well, now, we'll need those jeans off,' he said briskly as he turned around.

It's probably one of the most embarrassing things there is, being examined in the private area by a stranger of the opposite sex. I lay there sweating, my heart pumping away.
This was the flight or fight reaction, common in stressed animals. You know, a perceived dangerous situation floods your body with adrenalin to help you survive. Embarrassment can practically kill you.

The doctor was nice. When he put his gloved fingers inside me, he didn't wrinkle his nose or shake his head or call me a naughty girl. He just poked about with an expression of detached curiosity. I felt like a quite ordinary flower being inspected by a kindly botanist.

‘Good, good,' he said. ‘You're not very far along.'

I felt bold enough to ask how far.

‘I'd say just a few weeks. The sac is only as big as your little fingernail.'

I thought of those pictures held up outside. There weren't any fingernails amongst them. Someone ought to tell those people. Their signs could be a lot smaller, and they wouldn't have to strain all their arm muscles carrying them around.

He patted me on the shoulder and said we'd be ready to go ahead soon.

Back in the waiting room I found a vacant chair. I put my bag down and went to get myself a magazine. A woman at the urn was dunking a teabag in a steaming cup. She looked up and gave me a friendly grimace. I grimaced back. For the next half hour, while I had my blood pressure and weight checked and talked to the nurse, I must have exchanged about a hundred of those smiles. And each time I felt a little warmer, a bit more connected. Bank robbers never smiled like that.

Jeremy was still drawing bats at Lily's desk. He came out to show me, although he shouldn't have. He showed me the King Bat, who had black wings shaped like Dad's umbrella. He'd even drawn little green men playing golf along the scalloped edges.

‘How much longer will you be?' he asked, looking at me mournfully. If he'd been Batman's dog, he couldn't have
looked more pathetic. His ears practically drooped. His shoulders slumped. I spied the biscuit tin near the urn. He took a handful and trudged back to Lily, leaving a little trail of shortbread crumbs after him. He looked like Hansel lost in the forest.

Soon it would all be over. I wished I could give Jeremy some of my confidence. I felt quite energetic sitting there, sort of springy, as if anyone could hurtle lightning bolts at me and I'd just catch them in my teeth. Maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast—you weren't allowed to if you were having IV sedation. Not having lunch makes you stay alert. Still, I'd made a decision—all on my own. I wasn't doing this to please anyone else. It was just something I had to do. And I was doing the best I could.

You might think it's pathetic, a girl sitting there in that clinic, congratulating herself in a situation like that. But I'm telling the truth, once you make a decision, you feel better. You really do. And that's the way it was.

T
HE
IV
SEDATION
method was definitely the best choice. You mightn't agree. Everyone is different. But it worked for me. They attach a little cannula to your vein, and drip the stuff through. It makes you sleepy and the world crumples softly all around you. The softness is like a downy pillow, and you want to sink into it, pressing your head down further and further into the feathers, and there's only ever deeper layers of softness.

Sometimes I wish you could have a permanent cannula attached to your brain. But I suppose your conversations would suffer. You'd only talk mush, like a paddock after too much rain.

As the doctor and nurses worked, I floated away again.
I thought I saw Richard. I smiled at him. It seemed stupid now, not telling him. The world was infinitely understanding. I couldn't wait to see him again. I'd tell him everything, and he'd say I was the one who was brave.

I think Rosa was there for most of the operation. She pressed my hand and murmured things to me, but I can't remember what she said. For a minute, when her back was turned, I thought she was my mother. My mother with her hair brushed.

Afterwards, they wheeled me into the recovery room.

Other women were lying on stretchers too. We all had our sheets up to our chins. We were too tired to smile. We were like those white pools of light dropped by street lights. We lay silent and pale, enclosed in our own circles of thought.

I was quite content to lie there forever. Time passed softly. The doctor came round to see how we were. I had an ache in my belly. It was a dragging feeling, like when you have a period. He said I was doing well.

I began to notice things. There was a print on the wall. It was a Van Gogh, I think, the one with the butter-yellow sunflowers in a vase. I propped myself up on my elbows. I looked at my watch. It was 6.30.

God, Jeremy. Lily would be gone by now. Jeremy would still be sitting at her desk. I hoped he had plenty of paper. Would anyone have noticed him there? Surely Lily would have given him a drink. I wondered how much longer I'd have to stay here.

When a nurse came in, I asked if she could find Jeremy. ‘Tell him I won't be much longer, will you?' He must have been starving. He'd usually have had dinner by now and be choosing a toy to take into his bath. It would be dark outside.

It seemed ages before she came back. As soon as she walked in, I could tell something was wrong. You could see it in her face.

‘There's no one by the name of Jeremy in the clinic,' she said.

My heart clamped in my chest. Then I breathed again.

‘Oh, sorry, I forgot,' I laughed with relief. ‘His stage name is Robin—you know, as in Batman?'

But her face wasn't changing.

‘I'm sorry, but there are no children out there in the waiting room.'

‘Did you look at the reception desk? Maybe he's hiding under it, or in the toilet? Sometimes he plays games like that.'

The nurse bit her lip. ‘I'll just go and have another look. Don't worry, just try to relax.' She helped me lie down. ‘We'll find him.'

I twisted the sheet in my fingers. I was completely awake now. I looked at each of the sixteen Van Gogh sunflowers.

She was coming back already. I could hear her feet on the polished floors. Tip tap, tip tap. It was a cheerful trot. It didn't sound rushed, like an emergency.

She was smiling. ‘It's okay,' she said, ‘I spoke to Jenny.'

‘Who's Jenny?'

‘The receptionist who comes on after Lily. She said Lily left her a note—Lily had to leave at six and in the note she said that your boyfriend was picking Robin up. If he was late—Tim, isn't it?—Jenny was to look after him until he arrived. But obviously he turned up on time.'

‘You didn't find Jeremy?'

‘No.' The nurse looked at me. She had one of those round open faces. The kind that don't tell lies. ‘Tim must have come for him, you see,' she said slowly. She patted my hand. ‘Are you still feeling foggy? Don't worry, your brother's probably at home by now, wolfing down his dinner.'

T
HEY SAID
I had to lie there for another half an hour. Time wasn't soft any more. It was filled with micro-seconds. It was amazing how many disasters you could imagine in a micro-second. For instance: one of the ‘South Africans' hit Jeremy with a sign and kidnapped him; or, he hit one of the ‘South Africans' and they took him to jail; or, a meteorite dropped out of the sky and he fell into the crater.

It was better during those thirty minutes to think about meteorites, things with an absurd statistical probability, than anything else.

I wondered if it were still raining. Jeremy didn't know this part of the city at all. Was he sitting outside on the steps? Why would he do that when it was raining and cold? I remembered him on the porch when I came home that afternoon. Sitting there in the wet and cold.

Oh please, God, let him be there on the steps. I'll give anything. Make him wet and cold if you have to. It's all my fault. All my fault with this stupid sex business and shouting the ‘f' word at him, and him being too sad to run and me making him wait on a vinyl chair in a room full of sad ladies for three hours.

My legs were twitching. I couldn't lie there any more.

Gingerly, I sat up. I found my jeans folded neatly on a chair. I pulled them on. My stomach ached. Blood oozed. There was a thick bulky pad between my legs. I bent down to put on my shoes. A line of cramp started under my belly button. It dragged down all the way to where the hair started. But my head was clear. It was so clear it hurt. It was like those windy cloudless days when your skin chafes and your hair goes flat. All the clutter disappears when panic blows through you. It blows everything else away.

D
R KAVAN DIDN'T
want me to leave. ‘Are you sure your friend won't be coming?' he asked. ‘He may have struck a lot of traffic. You know, with the rain, and peak hour. I'd like you to wait a little longer …' He trailed off. ‘How do you feel?'

‘Fine,' I said. ‘Look, I'll get a cab.' I opened my bag and checked in my wallet. ‘See, I have enough money. I was going to use it to buy a book on contraception but—'

The doctor smiled.

We argued for a little while longer. It was hard to be stubborn with someone like Dr Kavan. He'd been so kind and gentle and he'd seen all my private parts. But compared to Jeremy, everything else was fading in significance.

Dr Kavan waited with me until the cab arrived. ‘The clinic will ring you tomorrow, to see how you are,' he called after me.

‘No, I'll ring you,' I called back.

O
UTSIDE, THE STEPS
were empty. Ten horizontal slabs of concrete. No little boy.

I zigzagged along the length of each step. Just in case.

Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he'd shrunk like Mrs Pepperpot and fallen into a crack in the concrete. Jeremy could vanish like that. But he always got the giggles.

The street was empty too. The protesters had gone home. A fine curtain of rain blew across my face. It made puddles in the gutters. Jeremy loved to jump in puddles. I always yelled at him about that, because the water would go through his boots into his socks, and he'd get cold. Then he'd get earache and he'd suffer the onion treatment. I'd tell him all this and he'd stop. He always listened to me.