The Bit In Between (13 page)

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘What?'

‘It's just . . .' Oliver paused. ‘What do you know about raising a child? You've never been a mother.'

‘No, but I've been a child.'

Oliver conceded that this was true.

Rick's band met twice a week in a big room under­neath
his house. The room could have housed an entire Solomon family, but for Rick it held two guitars, a bass, a drum kit and an assortment of other percussion instruments, as well as a giant poster of Bob Marley on the wall, across which Rick had drunkenly scrawled ‘Rock'n'Roll means dying from a gangrene toe'. Oliver had expected the band to consist entirely of other expat workers but was pleasantly surprised to see a few local faces in the room. Rick was wearing a T-shirt with Kurt Cobain's anguished face printed on it. He'd cut the sleeves off and was wearing a red bandana. He greeted Oliver with a complicated handshake that ended with a double fist bump and casually gestured around the room.

‘Band, Oliver. Oliver, band.'

Oliver smiled awkwardly at the band members, who smiled awkwardly back. Rick cleared his throat.

‘Okay, introductions. I'm lead guitar, vocals and axe-master extraordinaire, obviously. On drums we have Boris the crazy German, who is a mild-mannered monitoring and evaluation adviser by day but a beast behind the bongos at night.'

The small blond guy behind the drums gave a quiet nod and went back to adjusting the high hat.

‘Then we have Junior the bass master and Clive on rhythm guitar. When they're not tearing the world a new ear hole with their manic skills, they're my security guards.'

Junior and Clive shook hands with Oliver.

‘And guys, this is Oliver. Oliver is a writer who can't dance.'

Oliver blushed. ‘Um, so tell me about the band. What's your name?'

‘The Clintons –'

‘Pacific Waves –'

Rick and Boris replied at the same time. Rick shot Boris an irate look.

‘Yeah, well, we're still working on that,' he said shortly, ‘but as I keep telling Boris, we're not going to be named after something that sounds like a fifties covers band that plays cruise ships and bar mitzvahs.'

Boris glared at him then did a comedic ‘ba-doom-ch' on his kit.

‘Don't Yoko this band, Boris. Just don't.'

Oliver cleared his throat. ‘So have you had many gigs?'

‘Not exactly,' Rick replied. ‘We're currently looking for the right time to launch our sound.' Behind him Junior shot a look at Clive, who snickered. Boris opened his mouth to say something but Rick cut him off. ‘All I can tell you is that we're not going to be launching our sound at Boris's team building day at work.' He turned to Boris. ‘We're not, dude. We're just not. Anyway,' Rick said, ‘let's get our jam on.'

They picked up their instruments. Oliver looked around. ‘So, um, what do you want me to play?'

Rick appeared genuinely surprised by this question. ‘Oh, yeah. Right.'

He looked around the room. ‘Let's see . . .'

Alison climbed out of the taxi, looked around and then quickly yanked one side of her bathers out of her bum. She hadn't realised when she put the bathers on that they hadn't been properly washed since she last went to the beach and the crotch was still full of sand. This was proving to be a slight inconvenience.

‘Alison!'

She turned around and saw Sera with a tall, handsome man in a suit. She smiled and hoped they hadn't seen her adjusting her wedgie. Judging by the twitch at the corner of the man's mouth, she suspected they had.

She stuck out her hand. ‘Hi, I'm Alison.'

The man shook her hand with the warmth and affability of a seasoned politician.

‘Peter,' he said. ‘It's a pleasure to finally meet you.'

‘Congratulations,' Alison gushed. ‘I mean about the baby. It's such wonderful news.'

Sera held out a pair of dangly earrings and then grabbed Alison's arm. ‘Let's go into the party and find the chocolate cake!'

Peter smiled at them. ‘Yes. Let's.'

The party was in the Australian high commissioner's residence, a sprawling property with a tennis court and pool. The place was packed and as they made their way through the crowd Alison could pick out a range of local and international accents.

‘What's this for again?' she whispered.

‘The Australian–Solomon Partnership Initiative,' Peter whispered back.

‘And what's that?' she asked.

‘It is our countries' renewed commitment to work together
to promote peaceful and harmonious co-­development,' Peter replied, and handed her a brochure that said this in big letters across the front.

‘And what does that mean?' Alison asked.

He chuckled. ‘Every so often we sign a new agreement like this. It's basically just a show of goodwill and it makes a nice story for the papers here and in Australia. You promise to keep giving us money and we promise to not harbour terrorists.'

‘Terrorists in the Solomons? Is that a thing?' Alison asked.

‘Not if you keep giving us money,' Peter replied and laughed loudly at his own joke.

‘Plus, there's cake,' Sera said, eyeing the trays as they passed.

‘Always wanting cake,' Peter laughed. ‘Our baby will be the size of a whale.'

Eventually there was cake, but first they had to listen to a speech by someone who worked for the Australian high commission. Alison didn't understand most of what was being said, but the words ‘cooperation', ‘sustainability' and ‘capacity building' were mentioned an inordinate number of times. Whatever he was suggesting, everyone seemed to agree that it was in all of their national interests to do it. The speaker paused for applause and then stepped aside to allow more speeches to be made. He stood by watching with a fixed smile on his face whilst his eyes glazed over and he watched the cake tray out of the corner of his eye.

As a boy, Henry had watched a movie in which the main character was a diplomat. This man was smart, worldly, had amazing experiences and, best of all, was a hit with the ladies. As the credits started to roll and his mother led him out of the cinema, Henry knew that he wanted to be a diplomat one day, whatever that might be. He worked hard, volunteered in his spare time, and never lost sight of his goal: to travel all around the world, accompanied by a beautiful foreign wife. Eventually, he found her, a gorgeous, intelligent, successful woman who worked for the United Nations and spoke three languages and came from a country where they sang different songs and practised different customs, and she loved Henry just as much as he loved her. Henry had everything he had ever wanted – until his contract in Kenya ended and he was relocated to the Solomon Islands. The beautiful, intelligent, successful woman made the most heartbreaking decision of her life and chose to remain behind in Nairobi, where she felt she was making a real difference in the world. They called their relationship long distance but each time one of them travelled across the world to see the other, they had fewer and fewer things to talk about. Neither of them was prepared to sacrifice their career in order to be together, but neither of them was willing to acknowledge it, so every phone call hurt a little more and every email said less about their future and more about the weather.

After all the speeches had finished, Peter went to schmooze and Alison and Sera retreated to a corner of the yard where Sera unveiled a plate full of cake she had pilfered from the kitchen. They sat stuffing their faces and looking at the stars.

‘Do you think it hurts?' Sera asked, gazing up at the Southern Cross.

‘What?'

‘Childbirth.'

‘I think it probably hurts more than anything in the world,' Alison told her. ‘And at the rate you're going with all the cake, your baby is going to be the size of a toddler.'

Sera reached across and held her hand. ‘I know. Will you be there?'

Alison's eyes blurred with tears. ‘Of course,' she said, but her voice wobbled. There weren't any words that were even close to adequate, so she just shoved some more cake in her mouth and squeezed Sera's hand as tight as she could, feeling like her heart was about to burst, and they both looked up at the stars sequinned across the sky, dwarfed by the magnitude of the universe.

Later, Peter and Sera saw her to a taxi then stood on the curb side by side, their shoulders pressed tightly together. As the taxi drove off, Alison saw them turn to offer each other a secretive smile and something unknown inside her ached.

When she arrived home, Oliver was asleep in bed. She pulled off her swimsuit, sand raining down at her feet, and climbed in under the sheets, cuddling up to him.

‘Ollie?'

He stirred and made a barely awake noise.

‘Ollie?'

He groaned again.

‘Ollie. Do you think I'd make a good mother?'

‘Huh?' he said, still groggy.

‘Never mind,' she said, then she lay awake for hours in the darkness, too restless to sleep.

The next day Alison arranged a Skype date with her father. She connected the dongle and waited for him to appear online. When he rang, her heart jumped at the sight of his familiar bearded face before her. Her father examined the screen and she could tell he was trying to work out how to get her picture up on his computer.

‘It's the big button on the right, Dad,' she said and watched his brow furrow as he cursed under his breath and the call suddenly disconnected. She waited patiently for him to dial again.

‘On the right, Dad. The one that looks like a movie camera.'

Her father's face lit up. ‘There you are!'

‘Here I am.'

‘How are you, love?'

Alison smiled. ‘I'm good, Dad. How are you?'

‘Oh, yeah, you know,' her father replied in a typically Antipodean way.

‘How's Mum?'

‘She's all right. Busy preparing Gemstone for the show.'

Gemstone was the family's Pekinese, whose high and mighty attitude was far beyond reasonable for a dog who had placed last in every competition she had ever been entered into. She refused to eat dog food, slept on a special dog bed in what used to be Alison's room and didn't deign to acknowledge anyone but Alison's mother and younger sister, Rosie. When Alison visited, Gemstone acted as if she wasn't there. One day Alison had confronted her mother and asked if the dog was deaf and blind. Her mother had looked adoringly at Gemstone.

‘Of course she's not. She's just selective about who she gives her time to.'

As if to make a point, Gemstone had glanced at Alison and yawned. Since then Alison had refused to acknowledge Gemstone and their strained relationship continued to this day.

Alison's father squinted at the screen again.

‘You're looking very brown. Have you been wearing sunscreen?'

‘Of course I have,' Alison lied.

‘And how's your chap? What's his name?'

Alison was about to roll her eyes but then remembered the camera.

‘Oliver's fine. Busy writing. I told you he's an author, didn't I? A published author?'

Alison's father nodded. ‘Good-oh. Your sister's doing well. I reckon she and Dwayne might start trying for a baby soon.'

Alison's sister Rosie was several years younger than her and had so far beaten Alison to every major milestone her parents thought of as important.

‘Good for them,' Alison said, then hesitated. ‘Dad . . . do you think I'd be a good mother?'

Her father looked horrified.

‘Dad, video call, I can see you.'

His face snapped back to a neutral expression.

‘What do you think, Dad?'

‘I don't know, love. Remember Superman?'

Superman had been Alison's pet lorikeet. He had proven not to have particularly astute super powers after he failed to conquer the leaf blower.