Mr and Mrs Arnold Feint were pleasant enough people, Thomas thought, but the children were dreadful.
Three boys, all late primary school age, had traipsed through the house with an extraordinary sense of licence for the entire ninety-minute demonstration. Sniggering, they had pulled the electrical cord from the socket in the middle of Thomas’s display over the rug, giving the Luxomatic the appearance of having inexplicably died mid-suck. Thomas’s voice, set at a boom to be audible over the noise of the machine, had rung so clamorously into the abrupt silence that Mrs Feint had lifted her hands to her ears. All the while, as Thomas had zoomed the machine swiftly over the vinyl floor and fluffed the pile in the worn carpet back to life, a baby had wailed angrily from a bedroom down the other end of the house.
By the time 9pm arrived, Thomas rolled in the Luxomatic’s cord with relief. He pressed his card into Mr Feint’s palm and shook his hand. ‘We’ll give it some thought,’ the man said, in a tone that suggested to Thomas that ‘thought’ would last about as long as it took him to toss Thomas’s card into the wood stove.
After stowing his equipment in the boot of his new car, Thomas pulled the driver’s door shut and sank into the seat.
Through the windscreen, the night sky was dark and blank, the stars blotted out by low smears of cloud. The gear shift was chilly beneath his hand.
Thomas drove home quickly. Elsie would be waiting up.
*
‘Else?’
The house blazed with light and smelled faintly of tuna. Thomas set his case on the floor and loosened his tie.
‘Elsie?’
The living room chairs were empty. A rumpled magazine lay in the middle of the floor, one page torn and protruding at an odd angle.
From the other end of the house came a strange cry.
The bathroom door was closed and he knocked softly. ‘Elsie?’
The whimper came again. Thomas pushed open the door and found his wife slumped in an empty bath. He uttered a shout at the sight of the blood pooling beneath her dress.
‘I’m okay,’ she held up a hand, smeared crimson. ‘You shouldn’t see this.’ Her face was turned away from him. ‘Quickly, you should go.’
Thomas’s mouth opened and closed in horror. He dropped to his knees and reached for her. ‘I have to call an ambulance!’
‘No.’ The force of her voice rocked him back on his feet. She shook her head fiercely. ‘No. I’ll be okay. But you shouldn’t see –’
‘But you – are you hurt?’ He looked everywhere without seeing anything.
Finally Elsie turned her face to him. ‘It’s the baby,’ she said. ‘The baby is gone.’
Thomas thought he might be sick. He knelt on the tiles and took his wife in his arms. Averting his eyes from the gore, he patted her back as she wept into his shoulder. He didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s because we talked about it,’ Elsie sobbed. ‘It was bad luck.’
‘What can I do?’ Thomas asked.
Elsie pulled away. She wiped her nose on her wrist. ‘This isn’t for a man’s eyes.’ Colour couldn’t even rise in her pale cheeks as she pulled selfconsciously at the hem of her dress, trying to inch the fabric over her bloodied thighs. ‘Go next door. Fetch Aida.’
*
A light flicked on behind the door at the sound of Thomas’s knock. A timid female voice came through: ‘Who is it?’
Thomas swallowed a lump of acid at the sight of the bloodied prints he had left on the door. ‘Uh – it’s Thomas Mullet, ma’am. From next door? I’m sorry to bother you so late, but my wife asked me to fetch you.’
The locks clicked and the door was pulled open a fraction.
‘Is everything okay?’
Many weeks had passed since the night he had run the car into the tree. He recalled with a pang of alarm how Elsie had shuddered that night – had that shock caused irreparable damage? Yet Thomas remembered the green of this woman’s eyes as though it had been yesterday. Through the sliver of doorway, his neighbour was a single bright green eye, a slice of pale, clear skin and a lock of dark hair. A nightdress that touched the floor.
The eyebrow sank lower. ‘Mr Mullet?’
‘It’s my wife,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry to trouble you this late and unannounced, but I’m afraid it’s an emergency.’
The eye widened. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ The door was flung open and she hurried out, knocking straight into him. Thomas leapt backwards and rolled his ankle painfully.
Aida was enormous. Her middle swelled forth like she had swallowed a basketball. All he could see was the ripe swell of her, and all he could think of was how hot and firm it had felt and why on earth hadn’t he noticed it earlier?
‘What happened?’ Aida was asking as she strode, barefoot and unflinching, across the gravel, her nightdress fluttering over the stones and her toes darting back and forth from beneath the fabric.
‘It’s uh – women’s issues,’ Thomas said helplessly.
Aida tossed him a strange look but didn’t say anything as he held open his front door for her.
‘She’s in the bathroom.’ He flattened himself against the doorframe as she squeezed past, trailing a warm cloud of sleep-scented skin and mint toothpaste. ‘It’s this way,’ he said, but she seemed to know where to go: through the living room, down the hall, second door on the left opposite the master bedroom.
From the bathroom doorway, he caught a glimpse of his wife – she had gotten up and was seated on the edge of the bath. Towels were strewn across the floor.
‘Else –?’
He was cut off when Aida turned to him and smiled. ‘Thanks, Thomas,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of her. Don’t you worry.’
The bathroom door closed in his face.
*
Driving home from work the following day, Thomas battled with the same frustrated guilt and bewilderment that had plagued him all day. Perhaps he should have stayed home from work. Demonstrated his devotion, shown Elsie that he could be of use.
Although, what use could he have been to Elsie today? More to the point, he asked himself as he braked for an intersection, what use could he have been to Elsie last night in the bathroom, that another lady was not more equipped to provide? Why was he feeling slighted, replaying the closing of the bathroom door in his mind?
Women’s business was women’s business and he had no place in it.
Or did he?
An ancient truck lumbered through the intersection, gearbox yowling. It occurred to Thomas that Elsie’s predicament was as much his as it was hers. After all, the conception had not been immaculate.
He arrived home with no clearer mindset and no less guilt than with which he’d left that morning. But as he got out of the car, he noticed the scent of cooking wafting from the house.
See? Elsie is fine. All that worry for nothing.
‘Hello, my love,’ he called as he stepped inside. ‘How are you –?’
The words dispersed as he saw Elsie on the couch, weeping. Her head tilted to one side and her hand cupped her cheek. Her knees were drawn up, her feet tucked beneath herself. A blanket rested over her lap and she leaned heavily to one side.
Onto the fecund bulk of the lady from next door.
‘Good evening, Aida,’ he said, getting over his verbal lapse. ‘How lovely to see you.’ He realised he was fibbing. It wasn’t lovely to see the young, heavily pregnant woman from next door whose husband seemed never to be home, tenderly cradling his wife while she wept tears of grief and sadness. It was . . . A surprise. No, that wasn’t quite right.
It was an intrusion.
He decided to employ a triage system.
‘Are you in pain?’ he asked his wife, gently.
Elsie didn’t respond. He opened his mouth to repeat the question, closed it again when he saw Aida shake her head at him. She offered Thomas a smile: a sad, wistful expression that told him there was little he could do to rectify things.
‘She’s doing fine,’ Aida said.
Thomas left his case by the door and approached the couch. The two women looked so established in their distress-succour circumstance. Maybe he should leave them to it? Elsie’s delicate face crumpled in sorrow tugged at his heart. Suddenly the sense of intrusion fled, and he found himself looking to Aida, quite desperately, for advice or reassurance.
Then he saw a hand gesturing to him from behind Elsie’s shoulder. Aida’s arm was wrapped around Elsie, and Aida was beckoning him over. She inclined her head, indicating Elsie’s other side and said, ‘Here. Come sit.’
Elsie looked up and smiled at him through her tears. He sat down and gathered Elsie into his arms.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. ‘I’m sorry I talked about it early. It’s just . . . I was so proud.’
Elsie said, ‘I know. I was proud, too. It’s my fault.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he told her. ‘It’s nothing you did.’ He held her closer.
It wasn’t until some time later, when Aida murmured about serving the casserole and stood up, that he realised Aida’s hand had been beneath his own upon Elsie’s shoulder. He only noticed it – the supple heat of Aida’s hand – when it was withdrawn.