Ricochet Baby (2 page)

W
HY GO ALL
the way to New Zealand for a husband, Orla’s family said to her. You’ll end up a heathen, you mark my words, her mother said. This man you’re planning to marry, his father’s not even a Catholic, just his mother, if you can take his word for that, and she can’t be loyal to the faith and all, if she’s married out of the church. The priests are lax and they’ll probably let you get away with anything, you might even end up not having your babies baptised in the church. Why is this Bernard walking round and about here in Ireland when he says he has a farm on the other side of the world? Who’s looking after his farm, and what is he running away from? You can tell with some men that they have a secret — what’s his? You’ll get in with the blacks, you’ll get
contamination
.

These are things they said to her, and now Orla knows that all of it was a lie and most of it is true. Which is to say that, ten years later, marriage to Bernard Nichols does not seem such a good proposition to her as it had done in Belfast, where he proposed to her on his one and only overseas trip, the big OE as the New Zealanders called it. And now they hardly ever see her. Oh, it’s all very well and all to have aeroplanes that take you here, there and everywhere, but Bernard is not the kind of man to make many trips. It’s all up to Orla, who has been home twice, but her mother can’t face the idea of such a journey.
Find
me
a
ship,
she tells Orla in her letters,
that’s
something
I
could
put
up
with
if
I
had
to,
if I
had
to
sit
quiet
on
board
a
boat for
months
at
a
time,
with
the
thought
that
I
would
see
my
daughter
at
the
end.
But
put
me
inside
one
of
those
flying
sardine
tins
with
no
way
out,
and
not
God
Himself,
hail
Mary
full
of
grace
for
give
me
for
speaking
this
way
but
I
cannot
say
otherwise,
could
tell
me
whether
or
not
I
would
make
it
there.
No
Orla,
you’ll
have
to
come
home
to
me
again,
that’s
all
there
is
to
it.

Bernard, her husband, the object of her mother’s suspicions, takes off his gumboots and pads into the kitchen in his dank work socks.

‘Where’s smoko?’

It’s his stock phrase, as if it were not waiting for him each day.

‘It’s ready.’ She lays out scones and cream and fruitcake. He is a tall, big-boned man, with shoulders like two legs of ham under his woollen shirt. His dark hair is tousled above the collar of his thick plaid shirt, his sideburns like those of a hillbilly. She has seen pictures of the family of Arthur Allan Thomas, who had been accused of murder and languished in jail while he fought for years and years to prove his innocence. They were country people, with narrow, bewildered eyes, the men sprouting hair on their faces, and this is what Bernard has come to remind her of, only less open.

He didn’t always look like that, not as she remembers it. He had seemed a plain man, but rosy-cheeked and strong, with a wide, white smile. He had swept her off her feet and she couldn’t work out why he had chosen her. It’ll be a comfortable living, he told her modestly. But it is more than that. How can he have come so quickly to this, unkempt and complaining, when there is so little to complain about? They have a house on the farm, made of solid brick with concrete foundations, built up the hill a little way so they can see down the valley and across the river.
I
can
see
the
Maori
houses
from
where
I
live,
Orla writes to her mother,
but
it
is
all
right
they
don’t
come
near
us,
they
have
their
own
ways,
they
are
not
like
the
South
Africans
…

No,
Mother,
we
do
not
have
to
have
bars
on
the
windows
or
any
thing
like
that,
though
I’ve
heard
they
do
up
north,
some
places.
The house has carpet in every room, and a kitchen with a microwave and a dishwasher. There are three bedrooms, one for Bernard and Orla, and one for boy children and one for girls.
You
would
like
it
here,
Mum,
we
have
plenty
of
room
for
you
to
come
for
a
good
long
stay,
and
you’
d
find
Bernard’s
parents
would
make
you
very
welcome.
The main bedroom has its own en suite.
We
have
a
toilet
and
handbasin
just
next
to
our
room,
Mum,
so
you
wouldn’t
have
to
share
the
bathroom
with
us
…

Her mother writes back:
Orla,
you
must
do
something
about
that
lavatory
next
to
your
room,
it
cannot
be
healthy.
Can
you
get
that
hus
band
of
yours
to
do
something
about
it?
I
knew
he
had
strange
ways
the
moment
I
set
eyes
on
him.

But it is not strange ways that have driven them apart into silence broken by occasional bursts of bickering like pattering
gunfire
. It is their childlessness. That, and the doctor who says there is no reason why they shouldn’t have children. Blame and
appeasement
go hand in hand, but Bernard and Orla cannot enjoy either.

‘Are you working at the house today?’ Bernard asks. He speaks of his parents’ house as if it’s still his home and they are camping out somewhere. His mother has a magnificent garden which she opens to the public and hires out to charities for
fund-raising
functions.

‘Did her majesty say if she was expecting me?’

‘Don’t talk about Ma like that.’

‘I’m sorry. What on the good earth could have got into me? Has she had a drink this morning?’

‘I didn’t see her. I expect she’ll need a hand with the thinning.’

‘I’ve got accounts to do down here,’ says Orla, and turns away.

Of late, Orla has been thinking it might be safe to carry out a plan she has in mind. In this country, she could perhaps get away without her own mother learning of a mortal sin. She is thinking of leaving the sacred institution of marriage.

P
EOPLE CAN’T TAKE
their eyes off Marise. Her hair is the colour of pale grey dawn watered silk, hanging in two curtains, like the wings of an exotic butterfly. She is paper thin and nearly everything she wears is grey Only a slashing scarlet mouth illuminates the fragile whisper of her presence. She owns a beautiful red Porsche to match her lips.

Marise is Roberta’s supervisor in the tax department. She worked for an accountancy firm that went under when one of the partners fiddled a client’s money. Roberta is sure Marise could do better than this job, which seems to go nowhere.

Roberta is not sure why she is in the job herself; it is
something
that filled a gap, a job when there were staff redundancies in the last government department where she worked. It was meant to be temporary but three years have passed and she tells herself it is not bad, some days she even likes it, and she thinks she is good at the work.

‘I wouldn’t mind being an investigator,’ she tells Marise. The best thing she can do is make a go of it, not let the baby slow down her career.

‘Why ever would you want to do that?’ Marise asks, her silver eyebrows raised. Roberta is sure that the eyebrows aren’t real;
eyebrows
are the last part to go grey, and Marise is only forty. Her
scepticism
about everything isn’t real either, she has decided. Only the
way she hangs out for anything in pants is frightening. Marise is married to the most handsome man Roberta has ever met. He has dark tanned skin and white teeth that look as if they have been capped, only Marise says they are not, and crinkly greying hair that he parts slightly to the left of centre.

‘Rules are rules,’ says Roberta.

‘And people who break them get into trouble. How very Puritan you are!’

Roberta flushes angrily. She has pale creamy skin that she doesn’t allow to tan and her throat goes bright red when she is angry, like that of an older woman. ‘Well it’s true, or at least that’s what I thought.’

‘What a very repressed childhood you must have had, Roberta.’

Roberta is convinced there is nothing wrong with chasing defaulters who owe money to the department. There are always people who moan about taxes and feel they are entitled to get something back, even if it means cheating the system now and then. There is a certain virtue in the idea of keeping people on the straight and narrow.

But today her arguments seem hollow and she thinks doubts may have surfaced since her pregnancy began. The thought comes unbidden that, for some poor families, a new baby may be the last straw. She doesn’t know whether she really wants to come back to the job, even though she has been told it will be kept open for her. Her stomach is beginning to swell and the baby moves at night. Some days she will be sitting here and the baby will poke his foot out; she feels him doing this now. He is telling her he is in there and she is distracted by his presence, already in love with him.

‘I can’t sit still,’ she says abruptly. It is ridiculous to be
arguing
the morality of her job with her supervisor; surely they have got things back to front. Roberta stands and walks around her desk with a show of stretching herself.

Marise says nothing, just sits in front of her computer
terminal
watching Roberta. ‘Time to go home and put your feet up,’ she says. Roberta can tell something is really bugging her.

‘Don’t be silly, I can work for months yet. Besides, I promised Paul I’d make some more payments on the mortgage before I stopped work.’ They have one of those mortgages that can be paid off quickly to save some amazing amount like a hundred thousand
dollars. She is not sure how much it matters because they are well off, as far as Roberta can see, but Paul gets indignant when she says this. Marise snorts and Roberta thinks that her instincts are right, but she doesn’t like the derisory way Marise is reacting, as if
nothing
she says is of consequence. ‘What’s the matter with you
anyway
?’ she asks.

‘Nothing. I just hate this damn job.’ Marise speaks with such vehemence that Roberta believes this is partly true, even if she’s also holding something back. ‘It’s coming between me and Derek. He says the system’s iniquitous and everyone who works in it is tainted by it. I sometimes think it’s true.’

Roberta says, ‘I could ask Paul if he knows of anything.’

‘I already have.’ Her bright red mouth tightens bitchily into a small flame of disapproval.

Roberta has forgotten, for the moment, that Marise and Paul don’t get on. They are two people who apparently cannot bear to be in the same room as each other. She sees again a nasty little scene at a staff party. ‘I wouldn’t recommend you for any kind of job, you’re too unstable,’ Paul had said that night. ‘If you walked into my office, I’d show you the door.’ Maybe they were drunk, but Paul is not a drinker, not one you would notice anyway, and Roberta knows about these things. She sits at her desk again and rolls the chair backwards and forwards as if to make room for her stomach, even though it’s not very big. ‘I’d like to move this desk, make some space.’

‘Oh yes, for the
baby
.’
Marise rests her arms on the edge of her desk.

So now Roberta knows what’s eating her. They are about to have one of
those
conversations, which follow a predictable course.

‘Is it because you’re a Good Girl, Roberta?’

‘I’m not,’ she says quickly, but she knows that, by
comparison
, she has been very good.

‘How come you make a baby so easily? I screwed everything that moved. Count yourself lucky, I wouldn’t mind looking like an elephant.’

‘I don’t. Not yet.’

‘No, but I’m sure you will,’ says Marise, with vindictive relish.

Roberta tries to concentrate on her screen, but she’s not in the mood and, besides, she really likes Marise. All the same, she’s
trying
to imagine what else they might talk about.