One Way or Another (5 page)

‘Sweet dreams, Persephone,' he grinned and disappeared. As I settled in for the drive home the driver frowned disapprovingly into his rear-vision mirror.

I felt something unusual. A sea nymph had taken over my soul. I called it love.

In March 1983, Labor swept into office with Bob Hawke at the helm. My dad was over the moon. We dutifully studied the election in modern history class, but the details left me cold. The Senate. The ballot. The lower house. Where was my delicious Poet?

He had mentioned he would be heading for Europe before too long. I marvelled at how little I knew about him. Who was he? What was his favourite food? What made him smile? What was he afraid of? I wanted to study the history of him. Every-thing else swirled past my ears like dandelion fluff, utterly unimportant.

It was a hot March. The pavement blistered like a barbecue grill. The nation was still numb with shock after February's Ash Wednesday fires and the threat of more hung over the hinterland like a spectre. Sweat trickled between my shoulderblades and I imagined the Poet's tongue lapping at my salty skin. In class, I put my head down on the desk and shut my eyes, letting the talk of parliaments and preferences wash over me. I woke up ten minutes later with saliva dribbling down my chin. Kids bumped and kicked my chair as they shuffled out of the classroom.

‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,' my teacher sighed. ‘Make sure you hand that essay in tomorrow.'

*

By now the Vulture Club was little more than an occasional phone call, but my friendship with Sam had deepened and I felt I could confide in her. Pouring out my feelings for the Poet, I plied her with details of my midnight antics. She loved it. ‘Tell me more' became her greeting to me every morning.

On the Monday after my briny second encounter with the Poet, I bailed Sam up at morning tea and breathlessly told her I'd brought a joint to school.

‘I'm up for it, if you are,' she said, cocking an eyebrow.

‘Where, though?' I wondered.

During ancient history class, Sam came up with a brilliant and possibly insane idea: we would smoke it in the staff toilets near the library.

‘All the teachers will be at lunch,' she whispered. ‘The librarians have their lunch down the other end of the building and there's a toilet down there as well ... so for at least the first fifteen minutes we'll have the place to ourselves.' Her plan was sound and getting sounder. ‘Plus, the window opens out over the car park, not the playground. There's no-one out there, ever.' We nodded and the time was fixed.

It became a mission of exact precision. We went in one at a time to smoke, while the other stood guard at the door with a book. During sentry changes the crumpled joint sat perched on the edge of the basin, smoking itself. We contorted ourselves, standing on a toilet seat, in order to blow all the smoke out the high window.

It was only after we'd rinsed our mouths and returned to the library that the intense paranoia set in. They'd smell it. Someone had seen us go in. Our eyes were red. We found the most inane things amusing and our laughter took on a life of its own, sabotaging our ridiculous efforts to appear ‘straight'. Every frown thrown our way was a direct accusation and eventually we took refuge in the darkroom, giggling until the photography teacher sent us outside with a camera. We ran about accosting people and screaming ‘Smile!', and returned with a selection of portraits of startled students and staff.

The next few weeks passed uneventfully. I had no interest whatsoever in going out. The walk to Surfers had become tiresome and repetitive and after my romance with the Poet, it felt wrong to chase other musicians. When I told Rhonda this by phone, she said I was obviously unwell and should take a few aspirins, lie down and wait for it to pass. She also suggested I should ditch the Poet.

‘He's bad news. Get yourself back to an Aussie Crawl gig. That'll knock some sense into you.'

Sister Annie was irritable. She was used to earning five dollars a night but now I was on hiatus.

‘You should go out again. Give me three dollars and I won't tell. Goanna is playing at Bombay Rock tomorrow night.'

I narrowed my eyes at her. She knew more about my adventures than she should. I wondered if she'd found my diary, wedged beneath my mattress.

‘What do you spend all this money on, Annie? You're not on drugs, are you?' I teased.

‘Holy cards from the presbytery shop.' She smiled like a lizard.

*

We were arguing this way one afternoon when Mum came into my room behind Annie and threw me one of her ‘you're in trouble' looks.

‘I renewed these ridiculous magazines once and I can't do it again. They're overdue.' She glared at me, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Pardon, Mum?'

‘The library! I'm not going to pay your fines. Your pop magazines.' She read from the library notice in her hand. ‘Two
Countdown
magazines and three
Rolling Stones
. Rubbish. They've been out for more than five weeks now. I renewed them at two weeks and now they're overdue again. Are you listening, Nikki? Dad's driving to Pacific Fair and he'll drop them back on the way.'

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out so I nodded dumbly. A deep sense of dread began to creep up my legs. A memory. Pedalling my too-small bike to the Broadbeach library to research the Poet after our monumental tryst. And then another memory. I had come home at breakneck speed because my period had made an appearance at the library and I'd been unprepared. That seemed a long time ago. Too long.

Pulling the magazines from the top drawer of my bedside table, I looked at the stamps on the front pages. Some quick calculations. Not good. I grabbed a piece of paper and counted out each day with a tick, just to double-check. Every day from then until now. One week. Two weeks. A little over five weeks.

I was late. I was overdue. My first period had trickled into my life at the age of twelve and for five years I'd been like clockwork. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight days. Never thirty-seven. I felt like I'd crested a roller-coaster and come racing down hard. People were late all the time, I was sure. It couldn't always be exact. Surely.

*

With a good deal of stealth and even more terror, I stole into the dining room and put the magazines on the table. Trying to look casual, I scoured the well-stocked bookcases, looking for Mum's copy of
Everywoman: A gynaecological guide for life
. This book had played a large part in my sex self-education and its sketch of an erect penis was a lasting memory from my early teens. I had pawed over the illustrations of various sexual positions and richly fantasised. It had been my first taste of educational pornography but this afternoon I needed a different kind of help. Finally I found its blue spine and whipped it out in one razor-sharp manoeuvre, sticking it up my T-shirt and racing back to the safety of my room. I hadn't had sex in over three weeks. It had been in the surf. Surely that was safe. An instant douche!

I read and read and did not like what I found. I had been with the Poet mid-cycle, which was the most fertile time. Shit. Shit. Shit! My lips quivered and my breath came in little dry gasps. Symptoms. Symptoms. Tender breasts. I squeezed. Ouch. Fuck. They were heavy and definitely sore. Deep purple labia. I grabbed my hand mirror, pulled down my undies and stood as if I were attempting the splits. Jesus Christ! I reeled a little. I wasn't expecting to look like that. I guess it was kind of purple. I'd never looked before. I squinted and peered again. How ironic that I had seen more than a baker's dozen of penises but never a real live vagina, not even my own. What a bizarre arrangement, I thought, replacing the mirror on the dressing table. I stared ahead into the larger mirror and tried to look within myself. I leaned forward and studied my face. Did I look different? Yes. I looked ... I looked … terrified.

All I knew of pregnancy I had learned from the gestations of my two youngest siblings. Rachel was born when I was ten and David when I was twelve. I had enjoyed the days before their births, sitting on the end of Mum's bed, going through baby-name books. As a little girl I'd had Barbie dolls, but I'd never been charmed by baby dolls or cribs or bottles and nappies. I used to chop my dolls' hair off, subject them to tragic deaths and bury them in the backyard. Our back lawn was littered with Barbie carcasses. I was appalled by baby poop – that orange mustard – and had worn my fair share of it during my little siblings' first years. I remembered warmly my dad's ecstatic reaction to the birth of his only son. The two of us had sat up in the wee hours after Dad returned from the hospital. We ate half a pig of bacon and Dad told me how brave Mum had been and how beautiful David was. I had changed nappies. I had held bottles. I'd cuddled and loved my little siblings and I'd always assumed I'd be a mother one day – but I hadn't planned for that day to be in 1983.

My first line of defence was denial. Any twinge of pain in my gut must be an early sign of menstruation. I did fifty star-jumps a day, hoping to shake something loose. I checked the gusset of my knickers like a woman possessed, inserting a testing finger at every opportunity. My finger came up clean and the fabric remained unstained. I tempted fate by wearing white pants and leaving the house without tampons. Pale blue veins appeared on my breasts and I began to spend more time in the loo – not just for checking purposes, but because my bladder seemed suddenly to have the capacity of a thimble.

Fear began to take hold. This was one situation I could not just ignore away. I scanned the back of the Poet's LP, searching for a way to contact him. Rock stars did not give out their phone numbers. I scribbled down the names of managers and record company executives, having no real idea how to track him down. Besides, I didn't want to tell him the news until I knew for sure what I was dealing with. A trip to a doctor seemed unavoidable but I was fearful that my parents would have to be told. My life was an elevator and the walls were closing in.

I confided in Sam. Her blue eyes gaped and her mouth contorted like a giant clam.

‘Tell me more … ' she whispered, although there was no-one within earshot. She held my hand as I cried silently, searching for words.

‘But you're not sure?' she prompted gently.

I shook my head, noisily sniffing back tears.

‘Well, let's find out. I'll wag English and buy you a test from the chemist. I got paid yesterday,' she offered. She had a part-time job, cleaning the offices of the
Gold Coast Bulletin
. A reluctant smile was all I could muster by way of gratitude.

Although I was not quite two weeks overdue, we took a chance on the test. Pale yellow urine sloshed about the bottom of a Styrofoam cup and we waited, both of us, watching the tiny plastic window of the tester. No positive plus sign and I will go back to church. I will never have sex again. I'll give all my allowance to the poor or to Annie. I will never, ever crawl out my window again. I will become a nun. Anything.

But no. The universe was a bastard and the blue cross blinked back at us. We looked at one another. Time stood still. Slowly I emptied the cup into the basin and gave it a rinse, staring at the water gushing from the steel tap. At that moment I wished I could be swirled away along with the condemning juices from my bladder.

Out in the blinding sunlight, Sam put her arm around me and we sat down under our favourite ghost gum. Its papery bark lay stripped and ragged around us. I picked at my fingernails, chewing on them anxiously.

‘They won't do it in Queensland,' Sam said, breaking the silence.

I looked up at her bleakly.

‘It's illegal. But you can go down to Tweed Heads. I knew someone who knew someone who did it last year.'

Tweed Heads was just over the border in New South Wales. There was no other option. We were living under the draconian regime of Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, a self-righteous fellow who had also outlawed condom vending machines. I had heard about a clinic in Brisbane but Sam thought it had been shut down after a raid.

I thought about my lover and felt a wave of nausea.

‘I have to tell him.'

‘No!' Sam slapped a hand over my mouth for such blasphemy. ‘No. If you really do like this guy, you can't tell him. You'll never see him again.'

‘He might … he might ...'

‘Don't even think about it.'

A pensive silence blanketed us.

‘I'll come with you,' Sam ventured at last. ‘It's not even as bad as having a tooth pulled, I heard.'

*

A son or a daughter. It was inconceivable. I imagined I could feel a pulse. A throbbing growth. I stopped myself with a sharp intake of breath. I could not allow myself to think like that. In my guts I knew that there was only one solution.

This was not a baby. Not a life. This was a tragic consequence of my lack of precaution. Rarely did a musician ask me if I was on the pill. It was always an unspoken assumption. I had been too afraid to approach a doctor. I didn't have enough money and I was terrified my parents would find out. I kept a secret diary but it was largely in a code only I could understand. If my parents discovered evidence that I was sexually active, I would never be absolved. For a Catholic girl, nothing was more important than chastity.

Money was a major problem. Disappearing was not an option. I had nowhere to run to. Abortion was my only option. This I accepted with a heavy sadness, pushing away thoughts of the love, beauty and life that were not on offer to me.

‘How much does it cost?' I asked in a monotone.

‘Not sure. We'll ring up and ask. There are numbers in the yellow pages.' She smiled compassionately.

‘You know all this ... how?'

‘I read a story in
Cosmo
.'

Well, that'll be a valuable source of information, I thought cynically.

‘I should tell him.'

‘Why?' She looked at me intensely. ‘What good would that do? He'll just call you a groupie ... how would he even know it was his? He'll run a mile.'

‘It is his,' I sulked. ‘No wonder it was so bloody good. It was ... surreal.'