A collection of evening dresses were draped over the couch and armchairs – long swathes of satin, velvet, brocade and chiffon. Their patterns and colours glowed in the lamplight. By the fireplace, pairs of shoes were lined up – high-heeled slippers in gold and silver, and different shades of black, brown, blue. Pieces of jewellery were displayed on the dining table: brooches, strings of pearls, gold chains, and a necklace sparkling with diamonds. William walked up and down, looking intently at everything, like a merchant in a bazaar. Grace stood in the middle of the room, dressed in a long petticoat. Her hair was already pinned up into an elaborate coiffure, her lips painted a deep pink.
Stella observed the scene from her place by the window. She cast her gaze over her mother’s body. Grace had the shape of a young woman – her breasts were firm and her abdomen flat. But there was a hardness to her form: beneath the ivory silk, Stella could see the rigid lines of a long-line bra and roll-on girdle. The garments made Grace look powerful, impenetrable – vaguely inhuman. But they meant she could still wear the evening gowns of her youth.
Stella had always been proud of how her mother looked in the dresses she’d brought with her from England – each of them was beautifully tailored, and made from expensive fabric. Some were surprisingly revealing. For eveningwear, William was prepared to tolerate low necklines and barely covered shoulders – styles that he would despise if worn in daylight. On special occasions he seemed to enjoy transforming his wife into a younger and more glamorous version of herself. When Grace walked into the pub dining room, all the other women would suddenly appear overdressed and ordinary.
But tonight, as Stella watched Grace, she felt her lips curling with contempt. This evening Grace had not even attempted to choose what to wear. She’d just stood there passively while William picked over her timeworn clothing. She was like a doll waiting to be dressed, so that she could be led out into the world, to play the part she had been given.
Tonight was to be Grace’s big step back into the world – her re - appearance in the community after having been so crippled with back pain that she had barely been seen by anyone in months. She was to sit at the dinner table, chatting happily while the meal was served. Then, as soon as the band began to play, William would take Grace by the hand and lead her into the middle of the dance floor. They would waltz together – expertly and elegantly, as they always did – showing off the fact that Grace’s spine was now healed.
Everyone would be told that the cure was all due to the uninterrupted rest that had been made possible by their daughter – their wonderful daughter – who was now about to depart for England. Stella could picture the nodding heads, hairdos stiff with spray, as the women clucked over the girl’s good fortune. She was to take up her studies again, under the care of her Great Aunt Jane. She’d be living in London. Going to one of the top English schools for young ladies.
The lies had all been picked out for the evening – everything matched up as carefully as the gown, shoes and jewellery. Fortunately there was no need for a story to explain Stella’s absence: the Rotary Club Annual Dinner Dance was not the kind of function that young people were expected to attend.
Grace held out her arms as William passed his chosen items to her, piece by piece. A record had been playing earlier – the one William had bought this last Christmas. The music had ended now, and dusty crackles played on through the speakers.
‘There’s a steamed chicken fillet in the fridge,’ Grace said. ‘And some barley custard pudding.’ She turned to Stella as she waited for a response to her words.
‘I don’t feel like eating,’ Stella said.
It was true. She had sat in the shed earlier in the day, eating hard green apples from a box. Their tartness had felt good on her tongue. But she had eaten too many, too quickly, and her stomach had rebelled. When her parents had gone, she planned to go to the bathroom and be sick.
Grace tightened her lips into a small smile. When she spoke again, there was a pleading tone in her voice.
‘You should eat. Try a little taste.’
Stella just looked at her.
In this last week before her daughter was due to leave for the mainland, Grace had abandoned cooking for William and turned all her attention to Stella. She’d made every dish in the section of her recipe book called ‘Meals for Invalids’ – using arrowroot, gelatine and semolina. She’d coddled eggs and prepared twice-minced meats, and cut thin fingers from plain toast. She carried her offerings to Stella’s room and placed them down in front of her. Later, she cleared them away, untouched.
Stella fed herself on scraps from the fridge and whole jars of smoky honey scavenged from the shed. She ate in her room. She let sticky strings of the syrup fall onto her clothes and she wiped her hands through her hair.
William had kept watch on his daughter, his eyes following her movements with a blend of pity and dismay. The man had not left the house since his return from sea, except to go to St Louis to collect the air tickets. He carried with him an air of injured kindness. But even Stella could see that – underneath – he, too, was scared.
Darkness had invaded the house. No one spoke unless they had to. Television programs sounded empty and glib; and even the most sombre music seemed heartless. When the skies were grey, they matched the mood that pervaded the place. When the weather was clear and the sun shone, the colours of the sea and sand looked falsely bright. The three stepped around one another if they met in the hallway. They spoke in strained, unnatural tones. As if someone were dead. As if everyone were dead.
Stella spent all the time she could in her room. She lay on her bed, picking at the candlewick bedspread. She pulled out the tufted threads and rolled them between her fingers, leaving a large patch plucked bald. She had not even the energy to hide the bride doll away in the drawer, or to remove a dead moth that had landed on the stone angel’s shoulder. She felt tired, and sick with swallowed anger. She could feel it inside her like a cold stone. She blamed Grace for being weak, and William for being strong. She blamed Zeph for breaking his promise. She blamed herself for the fact that somehow she’d ended up at the mercy of them all.
And she blamed the baby as well.
It had begun slowly: the thought that the baby inside her wished her ill – that it did not care who Stella was, or whether she kept it or gave it away. The creature was just a parasite feeding on her from within. It was insatiable, intent on sapping the energy from her bones as it grew. And it had robbed her of her real girl’s body – exchanging it for something fat and ugly. Stella could no longer fit into her own clothes – she wore old trousers of William’s with the ends rolled up and a belt biting into her skin. She showered in the dark so that she could not see her breasts – swollen and patterned with blue veins – or the belly that she could no longer hold in, even for just a few minutes, so that she could pretend to be normal.
Stella could see now how she had been made to sacrifice everything to the faceless presence that inhabited her body. William and Grace – the mother and father she’d loved – seemed like characters out of a book that would never come to life again. She’d lost her friends – they’d all gone away to school. Soon she would lose her home as well. She would be sent to a place she’d never heard of – far from the sea – and work for strangers, like a prisoner. Her body would swell until it was ready to be torn open. The baby would begin its life, separate from her. She’d be left behind, spent, a worthless husk.
She turned her thoughts inward, bitter cold shafts probing her flesh. She was like a fisherman hunting in the shallows, armed with a light and a long sharp spike. She wanted to destroy this hidden presence – to wind back the clock and unmake its very beginnings.
She thought often of how time might be reversed, and history replayed.
If she had not gone to the coves that first morning, she would not even have met Zeph.
If she had not gone back again, to take him food …
If she had not kept the secret, and instead had told Spinks that Tailwind was there …
But, somehow, the coldness inside her evaporated when she tried to take this course. She forgot the Zeph who had failed to return, and saw instead the boy with the green eyes. Hair the colour of sand, mingling with her own. His lips pressed against her cheek. The way he smiled into her eyes.
And then, as she lay looking up at the ceiling, tears welled in her eyes. They flowed out from the corners, running back over her temples, making hot tracks into her hair. She felt then that the boy was the only human in all the world who could offer her comfort.
But he no longer existed in space and time. He was a spirit person, locked inside her.
She clutched her pillow close to her body, and let her tears fall onto its cotton case.
William stood at the bedroom door with a rug folded over his arm. He always covered the seats in the ute when people were wearing good clothes, as a protection against fish scales and loose flakes of rust. He had his hair smoothed down with cream. His tie, pulled tight, puckered the skin of his throat.
‘We’ll be back at eleven,’ he said. He peered into the gloomy room, lit only by the glow from the hallway. Stella was lying on the bed. ‘It’s late, I know, but there will be speeches after the dancing and we can’t leave before they finish.’
He snapped on the light. Stella blinked at him. Her hand went automatically to her shirt, making sure it was pulled down.
‘Why don’t you get up and do something?’ he suggested. ‘There’s that nature program on television soon.’
‘I might, later,’ Stella replied.
William looked at her in silence. ‘We have to go out,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you? I’m accepting a service award on behalf of the Fishermen’s Association.’
‘I want you to go,’ Stella said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
She thought of the hours stretching ahead – five whole hours. She imagined Grace and William driving away from her, dragging the darkness with them – leaving her in peace. She smiled.
Tension eased from William’s face. He smiled back. ‘Good night, then.’
He turned to go, leaving the light on.
‘A giraffe never lies down,’ the man in the safari suit explained as he strolled beneath an acacia tree. His hands moved in front of him while he spoke, dancing in time with his words. ‘If it were to try, the weight of its long neck would mean that it would never get back up on its feet.’
The camera panned across a savannah plain. Giraffes grazed in the canopies of more acacia trees.
‘This means the giraffe mother must give birth standing up. The calf begins its life by falling at least six feet, down onto the ground.’
A newborn giraffe tottered into frame, barely managing to control its gangly legs. Its mother’s head appeared close behind it, keeping watch over its awkward steps. She bent her elegant neck, lowering her face to meet that of her baby. She looked at the colt with huge dark eyes edged with long lashes. She nudged the little giraffe with tender lips.
‘The mother giraffe knows her job,’ the man continued in his sing-song British voice, ‘as animals always do.’
Stella reached to switch off the set. As she leaned forward she felt a wave of nausea. She had managed to make herself vomit after William and Grace had left – but the pain in her stomach had not eased. In fact, it had grown stronger.
She stood up, stretching her back as if to pull loose a knot inside her. Instead, it tightened; the pain grew stronger. When it eased a little, Stella headed for the bathroom, where Grace kept aspirin in the cabinet.
Halfway across the room, she faltered as the pain sharpened again. She clutched at her abdomen. The ache had sunk lower, she realised. It was nothing to do with the green apples. Something else was wrong.
She hurried to the bedroom, pressing her hand against her side, where the pain seemed to be worse. Switching on the lamp by her bed, she searched around for the pregnancy book. She had not looked at it since William had returned from his voyage, and it took her a few minutes to find it, stuck down between the mattress and the wall.
She opened it with clumsy fingers, tearing a page as she fumbled for the right section. She told herself she should turn the main light on, so that she could see clearly – but even that short journey across the room seemed impossible. Then she found the page she was after: ‘When to Seek Emergency Help’.
If in doubt, don’t take any chances – make a phone call.
Call the doctor, or the ambulance.
Call a friend.
Call your husband at work.
She could not stay here, Stella realised. Leaving the book behind on the bed, she made her way to the kitchen.
As she stepped into the room, she breathed in warm baking smells and heard the steady ticking of the clock on the wall. Her gaze rested on folded tea-towels and the chairs pushed in around the table. It all looked so normal, so safe.
Then she felt the pain beginning to build again. She opened the back door, staring over the dark garden to the shed, where she knew her bike – unused for weeks – was propped up beside the freezer. She looked at the sky. It was splotched with clouds, thick and dark as ink. But the moon shone down between them, shedding a grey light. She would not even need a torch in order to see the track. She leaned against the doorpost for a time, deciding on her plan. The closest neighbour was the Lincoln family. The couple would be out at the pub with everyone else, but they had a phone that Stella could use. Should she call Doctor Higgins’ home? Or ask for him at the pub? She tried to calm down and think clearly. She should phone the pub anyway, she told herself, but she should not ask for the doctor – imagine if she were just overreacting and nothing serious was wrong? She should ask only to speak to her father. Make up another lie.
She bent over, holding onto the door handle as the pain gripped her again. This time it lasted longer, and bit deeper inside her. When it passed, she stood still, gulping breaths of damp night air. The smell of rotting seaweed and wet compost made her stomach heave. Her legs were shaking. There was no way she could ride her bike over the rough track and then along the road. She could barely stand.
Back in her room, Stella unbuckled her belt, letting her trousers fall to the floor. She stepped out of them and lay down on her bed. When the next pain came, she raised herself up on her hands, her body writhing in its grip. As she did so, she saw blood leaking onto the bedcover – a bright red blot, spreading out. She would have to soak the cloth later, she told herself, before it set. Using cold water, not hot. This was a good bedspread. Grace had brought it with her from England.
The thought made Stella want to laugh. Maybe it used to be a good bedspread. Before it was picked bare in the middle – all the tufts pulled out like a potato patch after the harvest.
She didn’t laugh, though. She felt that if she did she would not be able to stop. And at the edges of laughter she’d find panic, wrapping her in its grasp.
She felt sweat breaking out on her face. Her heart was beating fast.
She looked up at the stone angel as she struggled to breathe steadily.
Help me, she prayed. Make it stop.
But she did not expect it to stop. The pains were only getting worse. She was being torn apart inside.
She tried to make sense of what was happening – her thoughts kept turning round and round, tangled with pain. What were the chances of her being alone like this, and something going wrong? She had not spent an hour by herself in months. This was no random event, she knew. It was her punishment.
This was what happened to girls who got themselves pregnant.
This was what happened to a girl who hated her baby.
She closed her eyes as another pain wrenched her abdomen. It was like the worst period cramp she had ever felt, but magnified. As if all the pain from each of the months that she’d missed – the numbers on the calendar that she had not been able to circle – was now coming at once. She grasped the sides of the mattress. She had to get up, she knew – she needed to go to the toilet.
There was no time. When the pain tightened across her body, she had to push down. The impulse came from inside her, a force beyond her control. She felt as though her body were trying to turn itself inside out – like the pale-skinned spiky fish the trawl-fishermen brought in. As they were hauled up from the deep, the air pressure inside them changed: their eyes bulged; their guts exploded from their throats …
The bed was now stained with a large patch of blood. In the light of the single lamp it looked dark, like oil.
As her body eased its struggle for a few minutes, Stella lay on her back, dry-mouthed, exhausted. Then the pain began building again, like a wave, carrying her away. She gave in to the need to push. This time it would not stop. It went on and on. Stella ran out of breath, and gasped for more.
Then, after all the effort and pain, a solid weight slid smoothly and easily from her body. She propped herself up on her elbows, looking down.
A grey shape – a bulging oval, smeared with blood – lay in the middle of the bed. Recoiling from the sight of it, Stella scrabbled backwards, her heels pushing into the mattress.
As the space between her and the grey lump widened, a thought came to her, bright and clear. It was over. She was free.
She wiped her hand over her face, spreading wet, salty blood. She began to tremble.
She tore off her shirt, ripping the buttons through the holes. She wanted to throw something over the mess – to hide it all away.
Then she paused, looking back down at the bed. The grey shape was the half-formed baby, she knew, still held inside its sac. According to the book, a birth sometimes happened this way – the sac was delivered unbroken, with everything inside – the placenta, the cord, the baby.
Jamie’s dad had been born like this. Pauline called it ‘in the caul’. It was a good start in life for a fisherman, the woman liked to say. The baby born inside its caul would never be able to drown.
Stella stared at the little bundle wrapped in silvery membrane. She felt tears stinging her eyes, then running down her cheeks. This baby would never drown, she knew – because it was already dead. Too small.
Too small to keep.
These days, a baby born prematurely after the thirty-fourth week has a good chance of surviving outside the womb.
This baby was only eighteen weeks old.
Stella shuddered, imagining a pitiful creature with stumps for arms and a body made of bloody pulp. She spread out the shirt, ready to hide it from view.
Then she paused. The moon shone in through the window. Merging with the yellow glow of the lamp, it painted the scene silver and gold. The sac gleamed, translucent, its surface stretched into a pattern of fine folds. Against the darkness of the bloody stain beneath, it stood out pale, almost glowing.
Suddenly it seemed a thing of beauty – wrapped up like a gift, and laid out for her to take.
Edging closer, Stella drew in a breath. She could see a row of tiny furled fingers. They lay against the sac, as if frozen in the act of trying to break out. There was the outline of a foot, too, pressing against its covering.
Stella’s hands seemed to reach out of their own accord. They grasped the filmy membrane and tore it open. Clear liquid gushed out, spreading a sweet nutty smell into the air. The sac collapsed, lying like a shroud over a pale, still form. The spine was gently curled, like that of a kitten sleeping in a basket. Stella stared at it, her lips parted in wonder.
Her hands continued their work, stripping away the torn remains of the sac. The cord was revealed, and the frilled underside of the placenta. But the girl barely noticed them. Her gaze rested on the face. The bowed lips. The snub nose. The eyes peacefully closed.
Her perfect, tiny baby.
There was nothing but gentleness in the tranquil face. It might have been sleeping. Except that there was no movement – no little fluttering breaths, no rising of the chest.
She lifted it up, cupping its head and body in her two hands. It lay there, limp, warm. She saw a fuzz of hair on its scalp. White eyelashes. Fingernails. And she saw, between the folded legs, that it was a boy. A son.
A sob rose up from deep inside her chest. She looked up, staring around, as though hoping to find someone to help her, comfort her. Her eyes found only the stone angel, kneeling on her shelf. The carved eyes – closed in prayer – and the finely moulded features mirrored those of the little baby.
Help me, Stella pleaded.
The angel was silent, her hands folded in a passive, pious pose. But there was the promise of strength in her wings …
Stella laid the baby gently down on the pillow. The cord – bluewhite and thick – draped across its tummy, tying it to the placenta and the sagging remains of the sac. She climbed off the bed slowly, her legs weak and shaky. As she walked to the chest of drawers she was aware of a thin trickle of blood running down the inside of her thigh, and splashing onto the rug. She took her penknife from the drawer – the same sharp knife she used to cut abalone from their shells and to slice up their flesh into strips.
Grasping the handle in a sticky hand, Stella cut through the cord, parting the baby from the placenta. Then, at last, she was able to throw the shirt over the bloody remains of the birth.
Laying the baby on the pillow, she let the watery blood seep away from the wound on its tummy. When it was all gone, she used her pyjama top to wipe the little body until it was clean and dry.
Then she stood there, looking down at him. He looked so bare and cold – with nothing to protect him from the world. Stella glanced at the angel, seeking her strong presence again. It was then that she noticed the bride doll standing there on the shelf beside her. The moon gleamed softly on the white silk gown.
With trembling fingers, Stella undid the fiddly hooks and clasps and lowered the doll’s dress over Miranda’s plastic body. Trying not to smear the cloth with the blood on her hands, she carried the gown over to the bed. Then, she put the dress onto the tiny form, easing it gently down over the head, and pushing the floppy arms in through the sleeves.
She bent over the little boy, tenderly arranging the folds of silk around his body. He looked like a prince adorned for his christening in an heirloom gown passed down through generations.
Cradling the child in her arms, Stella crossed the room and sat down on the floor near the window. Moonshine bathed the delicate face. The baby’s skin was almost transparent. Dark pink veins made a lacy pattern over the head, the hands and the feet. The rest of the baby was now hidden by the long white dress.
Stella shifted the small bundle until he was held in one arm – leaving her hand free to stroke the downy head and trace the shape of eyes, lips, cheeks. She pushed her finger between the soft lips – into the moist mouth to feel the little tongue.
The tongue that would never move to shape a sound.
The sealed-shut eyes that would never see.
The throat that held a voice which would never be heard.
Stella longed to speak to it. To pour her words into the shellshaped ear glued against the head.
She wanted to say how sorry she was. How she could see now why the baby had to leave. Why wouldn’t he? He had no father. His grandparents intended to give him away. And his mother, who had carried him inside her, had let her love for him turn cold.
She had not understood who he was.
This little perfect boy.
As she held his body in her arms, Stella sensed, beyond the stillness, a deep, almost tangible, absence. The essence of her child had gone.
‘Where are you?’ she asked the silent body.
You’ve gone back, she thought. Back to where you came from. She pictured a place of angels, in a garden, perhaps – a French garden.
She let her tears fall down onto his face, bathing his smooth cheeks. The wetness shimmered there, like summer raindrops caught on lily petals.
She tilted his head, showing his face to the moon, the distant stars. It was the best that she could offer him. He would never know the touch of sunshine on his skin. The taste of the sea on his lips. Or hear the sound of a mother’s song drifting into his dreams.