Unzipped (19 page)

Mobile phones. You can talk to yourself in the car, cry, sing loud, role-play your argument for a pay-rise, and nobody knows what you’re doing. You don’t look as though you’ve taken a big step off the deep end, your hair floating upwards in chlorinated water. I practise what I’m going to say.

The funniest thing happened…

I’m well, the baby is well…

Listen, how do you feel about having two mouths to feed?

The phone rings for a year before it’s picked up. Hearing BJ’s voice is better than the earrings, better than being offered the phone number of somebody gorgeous.

‘Did you have a good birthday?’

‘The best, BJ. The best.’

There’s an echo, it’s bass-deep. I hear myself say ‘the best’ four times.

‘You liked the present?’

Tell her about the baby.

‘Campagnolo, BJ, of course.’

‘I’m glad, Pete.’

She sounds so young, there’s a little quiver in her voice.

‘I’m coming home soon.’

I punch the air, jump up and down, get breathless, compose myself.

‘When?’

‘Not sure, I haven’t booked yet.’

‘Are you out of money?’

Please say no.

‘No. I’ve got more than I left with. I’m just missing my life.’

‘I’m missing your life, too.’

Tell her about the baby.

‘Listen, I’ve got to go. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about the girl from uni.’ She’s crying and I feel it.

‘Cowboy girl, it’s okay, we both made mistakes.’

I can’t tell her she’ll have a competitor for my time, someone who might keep her up nights, that I’m fat and getting fatter.

A whistling. Can a whistle have a French accent?

‘I’ve gotta go.’

‘Bye.’

‘Did you tell her?’

Only Ruby calls me in the middle of the night. I wasn’t asleep anyway.

‘I couldn’t.’

‘I’m hanging up.’

‘Ruby?’

Back to my insomnia.

‘What did BJ say when you told her?’

‘Taylor, I couldn’t.’

My invisible suit of armour is present. It may work this time.

‘Why? Hang on a sec.’ She leans out the kitchen window: ‘Miranda, put that down. Good. Now come in here and we’ll wash your hands. Gus, I asked you to keep an eye on her.’

Taylor picks Miranda up and holds her hands under the tap, straightens her T-shirt. ‘There. Off you go.’ She turns to face me. ‘So? Why?’

‘I thought she’d hang up on me.’

‘She may have. But she probably would have called you back. Peta, you’re having a baby, not growing a hump, losing your hair, and having all your teeth fall out. Sorry, we read Roald Dahl last night. You know what I mean. Tell her, give her a chance.’

‘Okay, okay.’

‘Hang on.’ Taylor runs into the backyard and hauls Miranda out of a tree. She carries her inside. I hear the word, ‘Wiggles’.

My body is a disgusting machine, all leaks and brakes. Twelve weeks to go. I’m not going to make it. My joints feel loose, my hair is crazy, my fingernails are off-tap. I haven’t had a decent poo since Christmas. I have no patience, my stupid pretend library is not pretend enough and everybody wants everything before they know they want it. If one more person asks me anything other than
would you like fries with that?
I’ll snap. For ten days I hold everybody off and the quiet is good.

Mark is in Chicago again and Ruby is feeling lonely. She comes round to make dinner. I don’t let her in until she agrees we won’t discuss calling BJ until after we’ve eaten. I eat as much as I can as slowly as I can.

‘I know you’re eating for two but you’re not achieving anything, Peta, and you’re getting fat, fatter, while you do it.’

‘I am meant to be getting fatter. You’ve got love handles now. Did you grow them for Mark?’ Being a big sister is bitchy work.

‘At least I haven’t got love handles on my face,’ she says.

‘Be quiet and pass me the bread.’

Dishes done—I washed, she dried—Ruby gets back on it. ‘If you don’t tell her, Pete, I will. Call her now,’ she hands me my phone, ‘while I’m here.’

‘She’s not answering.’

‘Leave a message.’

‘I can’t. No really, listen.’ There is a beep, beep, beep.

‘You dialled the wrong number.’

‘I can’t have, it’s in my phone. Look.’

‘Try a text.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m not texting something like this.’

‘Okay, text
call please, urgent.’

‘She’ll think something has happened.’

‘It has. Just text her.’

My fingers shake and I keep hitting the wrong letters. Ruby tries to take my phone but I nudge her away. ‘I’m doing it, Rube.’

BJ, I love you, I’m pregnant, will you still love me?

I press send.

Message send failure.

I nearly throw my phone across the room. I’d done it with my last phone, a base-model Nokia with only a bell and no whistles. It exploded into sixteen-hundred plastic pieces. I was so disappointed when I jigsawed it back together and it still worked.

‘Call Loz.’

‘Rube, it’s eleven o’clock. I’ll call Loz tomorrow. Are you going home or staying here?’

‘I’ll stay here. We can try again in the morning.’

On the tram with Ruby I make another couple of attempts.

Message send failure.

Message send failure.

‘Maybe she has a new phone.’ Ruby is making faces at a school kid two seats away.

‘That’ll be it. Loz will have the number.’

‘So you’ll ring her from work?’

‘Or text her.’

The tram stops behind a car trying to make a righthand turn. The people standing lean forward, take up the hard braking, lean back. Choreography. The driver is on his bell, ding, ding, ding. I love that Melbourne sound, it reminds me of umbrellas and galleries and autumn leaves the size of dinner plates.

‘I thought you didn’t want to text,’ Ruby says.

‘I like what we wrote. It’s concise.’

‘And also, you won’t have to hear her reaction.’

‘And I won’t have to hear her reaction.’

‘You are too easy, Peta.’

‘I cannot wait until you’re messing up again.’

‘Pete, you’re taking all the fuckedupness, nobody can get near it.’

The woman sitting opposite is eavesdropping. She turns her iPod down and there’s a drop in its buzzing. I signal to Ruby that the woman is listening.

‘So, what do you reckon, Peta?’ Ruby lowers her voice, leans forward. ‘Do you think, if we’re going to abort foetuses, we should be able to eat them, or at least use them for pet food?’

Who needs BJ’s T-shirts?

‘Fancy asking a woman who is twenty-eight weeks pregnant that.’

‘If not pet food, maybe we could use them to feed the Third World.’

The woman’s eyes bulge. ‘Well!’ she shakes her head at Ruby and finds another seat further down the tram.

‘Bye,’ Ruby calls out. ‘What were we saying? Oh yeah, how you’re making all the mistakes this year. It’s nice being in the right. Although at times I haven’t known what to do with myself and, now I’m with Mark, I can’t see any big messes in my future.’

‘I love how you say Mark.’

I don’t think I ever said his name the way she does.

‘What do you mean?’ Ruby is blushing.

‘It’s so loving. So squidgy.’

‘Like how you say BJ? Like how you couldn’t leave that bike alone?’

‘Thunder. Now let me read my book.’

Where is Loz? Why doesn’t she answer her phone? What
is the point of all this technology if nobody uses it?

I have thirty-three unread emails and none of them personal. I tick off each as I go. Thirty-three emails in sixty-five minutes. Not bad.

Try again to send the text.

Message send failure.

Jesus. Motherfucker. Shit.

Ten past nine, twenty past nine, nine-thirty, nine fortyfive. At ten o’clock I make the rounds of the office, three floors, collecting for Julie on level thirty who is going on maternity leave on Friday. Having one pregnant woman collect for another may have made people more generous.

At ten forty-five I call Ruby at work. She can’t talk.

Rearrange my stationery drawer.

At eleven o’clock I head downstairs for a coffee. Decaf is not proper coffee. It may taste the same (it doesn’t) and it may have a similar mouth-feel (as if) but it’s lost its kick and my brain knows it.

I’ve made a deal with Anna. One proper coffee a day or two decaf. Today it’s decaf. Takeaway cup in hand, I enter the lift and receive a judgmental look from a woman I don’t know.

I smile. ‘Decaf.’

She nods. I’m deemed safe and we both relax. This is crazy.

Back at my desk I try Loz again. She picks up.

‘Hi Loz, do you have BJ’s number?’

‘Peta? Not on me. On the fridge, though.’

For fuck’s sake.

‘Are you home? Could I come round?’

‘Sorry, I’m doing a prac. I’m going to be here all day.’

‘Okay, Loz. It was just a thought.’

‘Wait. You could use the spare key, let yourself in. It’s under the Elvis gnome.’

‘Really? Okay. Thanks.’

‘The number is on the Vincent postcard.’

‘Thanks again, Loz.’

‘No problem. Go get her, Pete.’

If I leave now, if there’s a tram at the stop when I get there, I can be at Loz’s in less than half an hour. I can have the number, call BJ, tell her, beg forgiveness, propose, and be back in time for lunch.

Bonjour Loz, I’m getting better at remembering the French I forgot. Simone is teaching me. She’s pretty amazing you know, the things she can do with metal are fantastic. Although, she does go to bed early and expects me to come with her. I told her she is too old. She says the sun is better at the start of the day than the end and she doesn’t want to miss it. I thought I’d better give you a landline in case I lost my phone: it’s 8907 0910. I don’t know what the prefix is—you’ll have to work it out. Stay frosty, BJ

‘Bloody Simone. Amazing, is she? I’d like to do some fantastic things with metal to her.’

‘Handcuffs, Pete?’

I jump. Tingles in waves across my arms, knees, hot and numb. Tears. Not sad, they come all by themselves. I’ve lost it.

In her old kitchen, on the other side of the black marble
bench, wearing her jacket, her hair longer but not long, messy and bluey black, is BJ. She has a new piercing, a small silver stud in her nose. It suits her. She is beautiful.

‘You’ve changed.’

‘So have you. That’s not breakfast, is it?’

She’s trying to be angry.

‘I was about to tell you but you had to go.’

‘You should have told me, Pete.’

‘I kept getting message send failure. I thought there was something wrong with your phone.’

‘It’s fine. Did you try turning yours off and on? So. When’s it due?’

‘July. You look beautiful.’

‘No, you do. Fat, though. Is your head pregnant?’

I haven’t sworn for days, weeks. And it’s BJ, the girl who showed me how: ‘Fuck, I love you.’

She leans across the bench. I reach, but the lump is stopping me. She hops up, swings her feet around and sits in front of me, a black leather packet, sitting on the bench like she did in my kitchen. She’s wearing her Spikey bangle.
Forever.

‘I fucken love you, too.’

Her big smile is back. I can feel mine.

The kiss has been so long in coming, months, I want to slow it down. Want my lips to remember. The creak of her jacket, the beat of my heart, the shriek of the kids playing in the backyard next door, air pushing out of her nose onto my cheek. I hear everything.

I open my eyes. She opens hers and we see each other. She smiles. I glimpse the slimmest collection of baby crow’s feet. She smiles bigger. I laugh. Cry. Hold her hard and bawl into her shoulder.

She’s off the bench. Her head on my chest, my chin rubbing her head, sliding rough across her hair, I remember this. My arms around her tight.

‘How about it?’ she says. ‘I’ve never made it with a pregnant woman. Let’s have a shower—God knows I need one—and fuck in Loz’s bed.’

‘I’m not showering with you. It’s too dangerous, especially now.’ I pat the lump. ‘We’ll go home.’

‘But that’ll take ages.’

Petulance. I’ve missed it.

‘What are you, four years old? Stop stomping. We’ll get a taxi.’

‘Can we have a bath?’

‘You just want to see me naked.’

‘Yep.’

She’s as fit as ever. I’m round, I have veins. I can’t see it if I look straight down, the lump has obscured my vision, but I’ve seen in the mirror and I have a lot more hair there. The midwife is going to need a machete to find her way in.

The bath is run and BJ helps me in. She can’t take her eyes off my belly. ‘God, you look amazing.’

‘I look fat.’

‘You look incredible.’

She steps in. Bathwater spills, a tide of bubbles and a rubber duck.

‘Look what you did.’

She stands up. Water runs down her, bubbles like angels’ wings from her shoulder blades along her arms.

‘Turn around,’ she says. ‘No, wait, you scooch up a bit and I’ll get behind you. I want to wash your hair.
Wow, it’s grown.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘Yeah, I noticed. S’okay, I like a challenge.’

We shampoo each other’s hair. I wash BJ. When I wash her arms and hands and fingers, I have a memory of Mum doing the same to me, and me doing the same to Ruby. Soap around Ruby’s little fingers, me showing her how to blow bubbles. One day I’ll be doing the same with the lump.

BJ is captivated by my breasts. ‘They’re so heavy…And the nipples, they’re so big…Their colour, the way they’ve changed…It’s spectacular.’

‘Are you on drugs?’

‘No, Pete, I’m just getting a better idea of what the whole thing is. Life, I guess. How it’s a fucken miracle.’

‘A fucken miracle. That’s what Ruby says. I think you’re a fucken miracle. Can we go to bed now?’

My heart’s banging. Sweat on my face and along my hairline. My legs are trembling. If I craned my neck I’d be able to see BJ’s face over the lump. She sits up and places her hands on my belly.

‘Hello, baby. I’m BJ.’

Why won’t she just kiss me?

The baby is an aspect of my body that is utilitarian, like a cupboard. Better stop. If I’m thinking my body is a cupboard, BJ might start thinking it, too. She’d never want to stay with a cupboard. BJ is too cool for cupboards.

‘Have you felt it kicking?’

‘A little.’

‘I had no idea how sexy pregnancy was.’ She curls into me and, jet-lagged and freshly fucked, falls asleep.

Bent into her shape, listening to her breathe, my arm around her chest, I slide a hand across a nipple, soft, barely there. It hardens. I remember my lessons. You can’t make someone stay. They have to want to.

‘Mmmm.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘I’m not awake, keep doing that.’

Her back arches. She pushes her breast up into my hand.

‘I missed you,’ I say to the tiny hollow behind her ear, my lips tickled by the bristle on her nape. I let go of her breast, slide my hand hard down her chest, her stomach, to between her legs.

‘Ssh, I’m sleeping. I’m having a wonderful dream.’

‘Let’s see if you can come in your sleep then.’

In the spot where Thunder used to live is a pram. In the cupboard where BJ kept her spare tyres, bike clothes, helmet, shoes, is a yet-to-be-assembled highchair and my going-into-labour bag.

Trying not to freak out about having BJ back and the sick chance of losing her.