ONE

It's that edgy time just before the equinoctial gales slash all the weeping cherry blossoms to smithereens and break the hearts of the early irises. Usually people in the Hutt would be moaning about those damn blackbirds fossicking in their newly weeded flower gardens and throwing soil all over their paths. They would remark how last year the strong winds sculpted the river into quite high waves and wonder if the same thing would happen this year. In supermarket aisles they would recollect other edgy springs, other blackbirds, other high tides. But not this Friday. Not this spring. This Friday there's not a lot of talk over the trolleys. The black planes cutting off the tops of the black towers have taken over people's eyes and throats. The thought of those poor people in the planes, those in the New York Disaster and those who died in a Pennsylvanian field or at the Pentagon. There doesn't seem much point in drawing attention to blackbirds or high tides when five thousand people are said to have died in the towers, when people in wheelchairs had to be left by the able-bodied because the lifts weren't working and there was no time to steer a wheelchair down the flights and flights of stairs. People in New York streets gasp and weep over small black figures falling out of windows and the sight of firemen injured and bloody, going back into the chaos. People in the Hutt Valley gasp and weep too, remembering other tragedies, other heartaches. This is too big, too much. The images play on, over and over, as though if they're repeated enough times the world might actually get a grip on it. At the fringes of their consciousness in the Hutt Valley they hear the sound of tapping. 'Oh,' they say, gratefully, 'wind's getting up.' Tap, tap go the bony feet of the Skeleton Woman, tap tap, tap tap, as everyone's life changes forever.

On that blustery Friday, early evening, Rose Anthony reaches into a cupboard in her kitchen, grabs the gin bottle and a glass, deliberately moves her thoughts away from black planes and black towers against a blue, blue sky, and focuses on her Skeleton Woman wall hanging which she has designed and which is in Auckland being judged (this process is called being juried but Rose always thinks judged) for the prestigious Stacy Wall Hanging Competition. She must hear soon.

Rose has spent most of the day — in between listening to her customers express shock, grief, outrage, what should be done to the terrorists — furtively living and reliving the row with Olga. It seems self-absorbed in the extreme, but she can't stop it any more than she can stop her concentrated, intense, addictive listening to the news full of stories about last phone calls from sons and wives trapped on the planes, speculations regarding the identity of the terrorists, President Bush's face as he says what the people want to hear, and the mayor of New York, who inspires the television presenters to think of words like inspired, calming, heroic. Earlier, on the day before the planes, she'd canvassed all the witty, sarcastic, cutting things she could and should have said to Olga, had rehearsed her attitude (more hurt than angry), her words (I have said all I'm going to say), and her tone (distantly courteous), when Olga apologised. Which she hasn't. In fact she hasn't contacted Rose at all, not even over the tragedy in the States. Rose is sick of it. Surely Olga wants to know how Rose is feeling. About the planes, the blue skies, the people running through the debris, their faces, the priest who had a heart attack and died as he went to rescue people. Evidently not. Rose doesn't ask herself why she hasn't rung Olga. That doesn't come into it. Rose is not at fault so why should she take the first step? To be home, alone; to have the freedom or determination to think about, speculate about her wall hanging's future glory is restful, relaxing.

Especially since Sibyl's phone call.

'It's come back,' Sibyl had said.

'Oh shit,' Rose said.

'Chemo this time,' Sibyl said.

Rose knew Sibyl had this appointment with the specialist, had meant to remember to ring her this morning and wish her luck. A year ago she and Sibyl had met in the ward where they were wheeled after their respective operations for breast cancer. They each knew who the other was of course, the Hutt being a relatively small place. Sibyl was a schoolteacher (English and drama) and Rose had, until four years ago, been one too.

Rose thought Sibyl probably knew why she'd left the profession and come back to the Hutt, why she'd set up a secondhand bookshop, but if she had she'd waited until Rose broached the subject before she said anything.

'Sometimes I get really sick of life,' Rose had replied to Sibyl, thinking of a building falling and people running.

'Yeah?' Sibyl said.

I'll kill myself, Rose thought. 'What are you doing tonight?' she asked.

'Off to a work do of Kitty's. A farewell for someone on transfer. Drinks and nibbles. Hope they have better Riesling than they did last time.'

'I'll be in touch tomorrow.'

Rose vows to remember this time and has written it on the small jotter pad on which she writes her grocery lists and anything else she has to do. Signs of age, she thinks, when I have to write down stuff like this, although she's actually been making lists since she was at school.

The Skeleton Woman has survived the first round of the Stacy, where the judges look at photographs and choose what they want to see in the flesh, as it were. The Skeleton Woman is dancing, top hat at a jaunty angle, cane held just so, both legs off the ground in one of those leaps you see dancers do which makes them appear to be floating. Behind her is a skyline which at first appears to be a city; a closer look reveals that it's a river with blotches of light, silver and gold and blue lights. The river merges with trees and ends on the right in a stark area with stones and a large bird. Three borders frame the work. The middle one has keys, boxes, envelopes, diaries, cupboards, letters, all the items that conceal secrets appliqued on it. The other two are the same deep bluey purple. It's worked in hand and machine applique and embroidery with various flourishes of beads, sequins and buttons.

'Dramatic,' Olga said, 'beautifully dramatic but sinister.' She suggested Rose have a card printed explaining the story of the Skeleton Woman and that this is sent with the slide of the hanging when it's couriered up to Auckland for the first judging.

Rose thinks the more mystery the better. The trouble with most people is that they shy away from mental effort. Rose shies away from emotional effort, but that's a different matter.

Or so Rose thinks.

Now Rose waits for the organisers' letter telling her how her hanging has fared. It's her first big competition so she can't expect to get better than a Highly Commended, but she does want that. Not just Commended but Highly Commended. For a week now every time she goes to the letter box at home or takes the mail from the postie at the shop she holds her breath until she's inspected the envelopes. Rose is not sure she actually wants the letter. Perhaps it's better to still be able to dream, although indulging in dreams about the possible success of a wall hanging seems almost immoral at the moment. But the dreams will stop anyway once she's received the letter and its probable bad news, and she can stop kidding herself she's made something really special.

Rose's mother Ada, who told her about the Skeleton Woman, would be delighted if she could see Rose's version. Her mother was, no doubt about it, an oddity. A staunch socialist whose hobby was fine needlework. Every room in her house a mess of papers except the sewing room where there was neatness and order, threads, needles, pins, scissors, tailor's chalk, transfer paper, all precisely set out in drawers, all transfers labelled, all books and magazines filed alphabetically, fabric colour coded and then graded according to what Ada called value. Now that Rose is the sole occupant every room in the house is neat, clean, tidy, free of papers, while you can hardly get in the door of the sewing room for the mess of fabrics, threads, rulers, rotary cutters, cutting boards, scissors, jars of sequins, beads, buttons, drawing pads, pencils, rubbers. Rose knows where everything is though, can lay her hands instantly on that small piece of yellow fabric, that metre or so of silver thread, those fine small scissors. She will clean the room up when she hears about the hanging. If she does it now she'll interrupt progress, dam up a channel, impede a communication between the judge and the hanging. Or so she feels. Rose distrusts the notion that one should go with one's instinct except where her needlework is concerned. Her needlework is the one area of her life that is constant, can be relied upon, is not going to provoke rows or suffer a return of cancer. It can be relied upon to cause frustration, sore neck, sore arms, tender fingers, headaches and tired eyes, but also huge delight and pleasure. It provides balance. Most other things in her life, Rose finds, sooner or later end up on the debit side with absolutely no delight or pleasure at all.

'You're a pessimist,' Olga told her.

'No,' Rose argued, 'I'm a realist.'

There's probably nothing inherently strange about mixing socialism and needlework at all. Perhaps it's a class thing to think that. In Rose's head, as she is sure is in everyone's, there are stereotypes that have one kind of person getting involved in socialist politics and the other in the perhaps quieter (more genteel middle class perhaps?) craft of embroidery, cross stitch and appliqué. What would Ada have thought of those planes? Of those poor people trapped inside them, not knowing exactly when, but knowing without any equivocation at all that death was going to be the end of this journey. At least with the cancer, Rose had had hope. And so far, fingers crossed, she's OK. Although that's what Sibyl had thought. Rose has an appointment at the hospital clinic on Monday, when the specialist will examine her breasts, her glands, under her arms, and tell her what the latest mammograms reveal. She has determinedly not thought about it, will not think about it until she's walking into the hospital, but Sybil's news has buggered that plan.

Rose has had a busy Friday. The Book Stops Here had a good day. Perhaps it's those frisky little breezes blowing dust into the gutters and snatching newly delivered copies of Hutt News out of the letter boxes and onto the streets so that sheets of it slap against cars and snap into shop doorways. People who felt a lift of the heart because winter has ended now feel that — in view of what's happened in New York — this was precipitate. The idea of going home with a good book, pulling the curtains and settling where it's safe, still and warm, is very appealing. Books have practically walked out by themselves. Lots of general fiction, practically a shelf of Mills & Boons and Westerns, that really nice old Bible, some Auden and Spender (sold to the same man) and that big coffee-table-sized book of Life photographs which has been in the shop since Rose first opened the doors. Eight Georgette Heyers (coming back into fashion) and at least five Goosebumps (going out of fashion), plus the only two Harry Potters she's got. Ten people had come in with cartons of books to sell, only one of which Rose bought. Some gems there. One, to Rose's astonishment and pleasure, a Margaret Atwood in very good condition, some Marge Piercy and Amy Tan. The Margaret Atwood sold thirty minutes after Rose placed it in the window. When she got back from doing the banking there were these two women, grey-haired, tracksuited, fit, both out for their daily walk. Both had decided at exactly the same moment to have a quick look in Rose's window, both wanted Margaret Atwood, both thought they were first and had a right to it. In the end Rose flipped a coin. The one who chose tails won The Robber Bride and went off triumphantly. 'I know I shouldn't be going on like this about a book,' she said, 'but on the way home I'm going to take a Lotto.' Rose tried to interest the other one in an Alice Munro or a Carol Shields thinking well, they're all Canadians. No luck. The woman knew Alice Munro was good, but she didn't like short stories, and she reckoned Carol Shields was actually born in the States in the same place Hemingway was born so she wasn't really Canadian was she. Then she saw one of Ian Rankin's she hadn't read and grabbed it. While she was waiting for her change she said, 'When I really want a book I feel as though there's a cat inside me snarling and lunging and I get all jangly and horrible, but once I get the one I want, the cat settles down and begins purring and I'm OK. I've always felt that. And reading a book's sort of comforting after watching television.'

Rose agreed. Rose nearly always agrees with customers.

Rose longs for a large gin and tonic to ease the ache across her neck and shoulders, dull the ache of those firemen's faces with their mixture of hopelessness and optimism, quieten the burning under the scar on her breast, comfort the pain the row with Olga has left in her chest, ease the terror induced by Sibyl's news. If it can happen to Sibyl it can happen to Rose. For one instant after Sibyl had told her, Rose felt a quick charge of relief. This time the bad news was not for her. Immediately she was bathed in guilt, hotter and sweatier than the menopausal hot sweats which began two years ago. She hoped this wasn't obvious in her voice, but was afraid it was. You got pretty sensitive to that sort of thing when you were the one with the bad news. Rose should not get cocky, she still has her own appointment to get through. They'd taken forever doing the mammogram. 'It's the staples,' the woman said, 'we need to establish clearly that what's on the screen is staples and not —.' Once, Rose had to redo the mammograms because the specialist had not been happy with those ominous blurs at the top of the breast. When he rang to say the blurs were staples Rose began breathing properly again. Then thought staples? Staples? I'm walking around held together with staples? Don't exaggerate Rose, she hears her mother say. The awful anxiety between that clinic visit and the doctor's phone call had stayed with her, although submerged, but with Sibyl's news was up above the surface, clearly visible.

While she's sipping the gin and tonic she will have a read of the morning paper — she'd only had time to read the headlines. Then she'd have another gin and tonic and something delicious to eat. She feels better already. Smiling, one hand tightening around a glass, the bottle in the other hand, Rose is stopped in her tracks by a mewing sound. It pierces the kitchen, and Rose swings round. She becomes aware her mouth has dropped and is mildly irritated. In a section of books in her shop, people's mouths are always dropping, along with their members throbbing and their breasts heaving. There was one customer, late thirties, who appeared every Wednesday lunchtime for her fix. She picked one of these books off the shelf, turned to page seventy-nine (she said there's always a steamy sex scene on page seventy-nine), and read avidly. She and her husband made love on Wednesday nights because they both played bowls on Saturday evenings. She liked to read about heaving breasts and throbbing members, to get her in the mood. Not enough to buy the books however.

Rose has ceased to be surprised at what her customers say to her, what they confide. It's like she's a priest or a minister. They have absolutely no qualms about telling her intimate details of their lives, that they have sex with their husband every Wednesday, that they think their mother is having an affaire with a real-estate agent, that their brother is very angry because his sister has got a blue vase of their dead mother's and he always wanted it. 'I said to him, 'Take it then, if it means so much,' and he goes, 'No. Mum didn't want me to have it or why would she put your name on the bottom of it? It wouldn't be right.' I said to him, 'Did you tell Mum you wanted it?' And he goes all huffy and says, 'No, but she knew.' I mean, what can you do?' Rose doesn't know, and even if she did, she wouldn't say. Her customers don't tell her things actually seeking advice, they just want to tell her. It might be that they think that because she owns a second-hand bookshop she will listen. Only staff in independent bookshops know anything about books these days, the big chains just want people to shift product, but even the staff in independent bookshops are too busy to listen to their customers' worries. Someone in a second-hand bookshop will have read everything, will know the full extent of human passion and perfidy, and what's even better will have, or make, time to listen. It might be because she's had cancer that they think that. People, in the main, are funny about cancer. They either spill all their furtive, mysterious, sad or spiteful skeletons out of the closet, or they walk away, frightened witless at this revelation of their own mortality. If Rose and Sibyl's bodies can produce lumps, it could happen to them. Rose and Sibyl think they pour out these confidences out of a kind of compassion. To make them see they're not alone. That others are suffering too.

It might be nothing to do with either Rose being a secondhand bookshop proprietor or having had cancer, it might just be that Rose's customers sense that Rose is good with secrets, particularly her own.

That bloody cat from next door must have got itself locked in the pantry again. Serve it right. She'd only taken to shutting the door because it persisted in sneaking inside. The cat doesn't do anything in the pantry except sleep on the window sill, but Rose is not going to be blackmailed into providing shelter for every stray cat which chooses to ensconce itself in her pantry. The window sill is not even in the sun. Well, the cat can wait. Might teach it to steer clear. She walks back past the table and the mewing sounds again, though louder this time. It isn't coming from the pantry, Rose, it's coming from the box of tomatoes. Surely Wesley Neville hasn't — well accidentally of course, somehow or other, one never thinks logically in these circumstances — surely Wesley hasn't shut a kitten inside the box with the tomatoes? He's a rip, shit or bust man, is Wesley. Always busy, busy, busy, racing to work through the list of jobs in his head so he can get everything done and then rush out and save a few people from damnation. Although she dislikes almost everything else about Wesley Neville, she has to respect his ability to work. Maybe a wild kitten jumped in when he wasn't looking. Or perhaps his mind was on his wife Jo, who is acting — has been acting — strangely all winter. Jo, whom Rose has known forever, since before they were both at primary school, in fact. Jo and she, once very good friends. Best friends. In fact Jo's birthday is the day before Rose's, which means Jo turns fifty tomorrow. Once that would have been cause for celebration, now it's of only mild nostalgic interest. Lately, Jo has taken to coming over in the evenings and just sitting. Which is unnerving. 'Are you all right?' Rose asked many times. 'Fine,' Jo said. But she still turned up around this time, sat in Rose's kitchen for an hour or two, saying little. She even did it when Olga was there. 'She'll say something eventually,' Olga said, 'they always do.'

'Who?'

'People. When some people are upset they don't talk. For ages sometimes. But sooner or later they do.'

Rose puts the gin bottle and glass down on the bench and approaches the box. Definitely the source of the sound. She pulls carefully at the plastic, noting, for the first time, the holes pierced in it. She inches it back. The sound becomes louder. This is no cat. Her heart gives a sort of sick jolt. If it was an earthquake it would be about three on the Richter scale. Not strong enough to do any real damage but enough to remind her, if she needs reminding, of her body's vulnerability. Her heart hesitates, settles to a jerky flutter in her throat, she tells herself she is hallucinating. Her heart is as strong as an ox. Perhaps she's having an attack of something. Maybe she's dying? Maybe this is it, the big whammo.

Rose, not exactly whooping for joy at turning fifty in two day's time, worried about the possible return of the breast cancer, nowhere near recovered from the shock of the sudden death of her mother in a road accident two years ago, not to mention the other thing that happened four years ago that she doesn't talk about to anyone, thinks that with the addition of the row with Olga, the ongoing puzzle that is Jo, plus Sibyl's news, and over all, over all, those black planes cutting the tops off those black towers under a blue, blue sky, that maybe her heart has finally had enough. Or perhaps something in her brain is giving way. Does the Skeleton Woman make clear that final mystery with such sound effects though? Who would know? There are those who claim to have had near-death experiences, have seen tunnels, lights, have felt a huge happiness, but nobody really knows for sure, do they? Rose has always thought the huge happiness is probably relief that they're actually still here.

The noise gets louder and Rose thinks oh for fuck's sake, whoever's in charge, let me have the gin and tonic first. Rose is definitely having a problem with reality today. She knows there is no one in charge, that it is all random. Random acts of cruelty. Random arguments. That's what it's all about.

She isn't having a stroke, or a heart attack, and the cancer hasn't struck her brain. There in front of her, eyes screwed tight shut, mouth open, cries developing at the speed of light into a piercing wail, there is, definitely, no question about it, there is a baby.

Something between a shout and a scream comes out of Rose's mouth and the crying halts, then starts up again. 'Christ almighty,' Rose says. She has never invented a god either as a crutch or a comfort, but the sight of a baby in a cocoon of something soft and pale of no discernible colour, in a cardboard carton on the table in her kitchen, acts like a trigger into some sort of atavistic speech pattern lurking inside her. A baby? This is the face of an enraged apple. Tears spurt down its cheeks, saliva oozes from its open mouth. Ugly, noisy and the last thing she expects to see in her kitchen. Perhaps it's someone's idea of a joke. 'Oh shit,' Rose says, 'oh God, oh shit, oh God.' She sees a piece of white card tucked down between the rug thing the baby is wrapped in and the side of the box, sees her own name. 'For Rose Anthony', the words on the card say. For Rose Anthony? Black felt tip, the letters large and round like a child's, easy to read, no possibility of a mix-up. For Rose Anthony. That's me, thinks Rose, I'm Rose Anthony all right. Someone has given me a baby. Someone's given me a baby? Yes, Rose, she tells herself, some bloody fool has given you a baby. 'Bloody hell,' Rose says. The baby's screams turn into hysterical bawls.

What should she do? Ring the police? Social Welfare? The ambulance? She'd read — everyone's read — about babies left under bushes by young girls afraid to tell their families they'd had a baby, but she'd never read about one being left on a doorstep. Except in Fairy Tales of course. Perhaps this is why she dislikes Fairy Tales. Everyone is so bloody irresponsible in Fairy Tales. People leave babies all over the place in Fairy Tales. They abandon them in woods in the depths of winter, drop them down dark holes, shut them in secret rooms, give them to little men in exchange for gold. Rose has never been able to suspend her disbelief long enough to accept the basic tenet of Fairy Tales, that such beings as fairies exist. Rose is never comfortable with fantasy, only ever opens a science-fiction book to check there are no pages ripped out, is the only reader in the world, she believes, who does not warm to a hobbit or an elf. Rose enjoys fiction, and it is true that Fairy Tales are fiction, but even in fiction she likes stories rooted in things she knows can and do happen without any magical interference. Down-to-earth things. Hate, love, betrayal. Things like that. Her mother liked non-fiction for the same reasons.

Rose wishes she could stop thinking about Ada. It's pathetic, a woman a couple of days off fifty grieving so bitterly for her mother, who after all was nearly seventy-four when that car, driven by tourists, came round the corner on the wrong side. But seventy-four is not old, Rose thinks, not these days. She has a deep resentment, as though she's been cheated of something. She might be nearly fifty, but she needs her mother around. She needs to say out loud, 'You were right and I was wrong.' And if Ada was actually standing in this kitchen, she would deal with this baby.

Bad smells always make Rose heave. She's tried everything. Holding her breath, visualising something sweet-smelling, affirmations, deep breathing. Nothing makes any difference. She starts heaving and then she's sick. She never travels on the ferry over Cook Strait because if she smelt someone being sick she would be sick too. She avoids hospitals when at all possible, dodges away from anyone who says they feel sick. She has got better over the years, but only marginally.

She stares at this screaming apparition in front of her. Even in hospital when she'd had those ghastly nightmares, her brain had conjured up nothing as awful as this. She can see that, even with its face all red and screwed-up, this baby is not all that new. Newly born babies have a red, wrinkled, sunburned look to them, some even have peeling skin. This one looks more settled into its skin than that. And it's had lots of voice practice by the sound of it. Think, she tells herself, think. What would Ada do?

Her mother had determined ideas about what kind of a daughter she would raise. Her daughter would not be demanding, bad-mannered, illiterate, lazy, all those unattractive traits Ada saw in the daughters of neighbours and friends. Ada might not have had much say in the nature side of things, but she could definitely do something about the nurture. Ada was successful in her ambitions. Rose grew up to be good-looking, intelligent; she loved books and was as hard a worker as her mother. Rose's dark hair and olive skin were her father's, as was her care about her appearance. Ada's curly brown hair was always a mess, her strong, thick eyebrows always frowning over a government report or a piece of needlework, while Rose, once she was old enough to buy the creams and lotions herself, was always peering at her face, patting it with moisturiser, dabbing it with crème powders, brushing on eye make-up, mascara, spraying behind her ears with perfume. She went to the hairdresser regularly to have her dark hair cut and wore it in a very short stylish cap. Rose took vitamins, went on walks, drank glasses of low-fat milk, ate yoghurt, tossed up delicious salads, looked after her body. This is why she got so angry with it when it produced the lump. Here was she who has practically made a career of looking after herself, and here are these other people, eating takeaway foods dripping with saturated fats, whose main exercise is flipping through the channels on their television, who wouldn't reach for an apple if there was a chippie in sight, here they are with not a sign of a lump. There is something seriously wrong somewhere. Rose reaches out and touches the carton, looks closer.

This baby is no changeling, no fairy prince, no princess stolen away by elves as revenge for some malicious slight or broken vow. This is a human baby. And this human baby is actually addressed to her. For Rose Anthony. In black and white. Why do we say that? In black and white. If it was written down in red and yellow, would it be less true? Although, given a choice, Rose goes for black and white every time. She loves black. She loves the look of herself in black. Wears it a lot. 'Like my aunties,' Olga reckoned, 'they live in black.'

That her daughter actually cared about clothes, make-up, liked nothing better than a wallow in Vogue or Vanity Fair to see what the latest trends were, Rose knew, was always a puzzle to Ada, whose recreational reading was The Socialist Worker. Rose has never had a lot of money but she dresses well because Ada taught her to sew and she buys at sales. Rose is prone to quick irritations and angers, inclined to hasty judgements, remembers hurts and injustices forever, is a worrier, but when she sews is creative, patient, takes great care.

Rose also turned out to be a lesbian, but you couldn't have everything, Ada decided, after her first denial: 'You can't be a lesbian, you wear mascara and shave your legs.' Ada hadn't much time for Rose's tendency to be sick at the drop of a hat either and at first was sure that if Rose just pulled herself together — bad smells are part of life after all — she would grow out of it. Rose never has, but Ada thought perhaps she would grow out of being a lesbian. Rose didn't and Ada got used to it. It's the way Rose is made and that's the end of it.

Ada would have liked a grandchild and Rose didn't want children, but it could be worse. Like Ada, Rose could have married someone who had a heart attack in her neighbour's bed. Ada never said so to Rose, but she hoped intensely that Rose would find someone who appreciated her. Someone who saw that under that stylish exterior, the sharp intelligence, hidden carefully beneath the stoicism, under that surface worry-wart, there was someone vulnerable and sensitive who needed looking after. Ada knew this was foolishly protective, that most mothers had dreams of this sort, that most mothers thought there'd never be anyone who would understand their offspring as well as they did, so she was not too surprised when her hopes were not realised. Her daughter had a few shortlived love affairs and two longer-term relationships framing these. The first transformed itself into a long and affectionate friendship which saw Rose and Erica enjoy an occasional shared holiday. They kept in touch by letter, now emails, and were interested in each other's love lives. The last, with Marcy, ended in absolute disaster four years ago. The trouble is, Rose has always acted impulsively in affairs of the heart. Her excuse is she doesn't intend to wait around for the knife to fall. She sees it coming, gets in first.

She draws her arm back from the carton. She cannot physically touch this shitty mess and that's that. She'll ring someone. Olga? She instantly dismisses the idea. She will not ring Olga. Although Olga is much more experienced with babies than Rose. She's only had one of her own, but she has numerous sisters and cousins who all have babies and who all come to stay with Olga for holidays, usually all at the same time. It would drive Rose mad, it's a wonder to her that Olga survives as she does. 'They do everything themselves,' Olga said, 'I provide the accommodation, the beds, and they do the rest. And it means they get to know each other.'

The row has shown very clearly that Olga is totally blind to Rose's needs. Their arrangement had suited Olga when it suited her. If it doesn't suit her any longer that's no reason for Rose to change it. It was a shock to discover Olga was far from happy with the one night a week they'd agreed to. 'The one night a week you decided was the way you wanted it, Rose,' Olga said, when Rose reminded her about it. Leave it, she tells herself, leave it, deal with this damn baby.

The world has slipped a cog, nothing is the same, planes crash into towers, lovers leave, cancer comes back, babies turn up in tomato cartons. It started tipping a year ago, Rose sees that. 'I'm sorry Rose, the results have come back. The lump's cancerous all right.'

You dealt with that, thinks Rose, a baby's nothing compared to that.

'I can't say no chance,' the surgeon said at the first clinic after the operation, the lab report open on the desk in front of him, 'but I can say there's a very low chance of a recurrence. We'll need to monitor things of course,' he said. 'I don't expect any changes, but we'll keep an eye on you for five years.'

Just so Olga and Rose didn't get too carried away, as they were walking out of the hospital they met a woman who said, 'My mother had breast cancer and she had an operation and it was thirteen years before it came back.'

Olga always came with her to the clinic. 'You can't go on your own,' Olga said, 'you don't know what they might say. In any case, two lots of ears are better than one.' Which was true. Rose quite often missed or forgot something the surgeon or radiographer said, but Olga was there, Olga remembered. 'I'm Rose's partner,' Olga would say, holding out a hand to these white-gowned men and women who would take it and smile. They couldn't help it. Who could help smiling back at Olga when she smiled at you?

Rose feels a wrench, as though somewhere in those deep waters inside her a large creature is waking, lumbering painfully to the surface. Tears scorch her eyes but don't fall. Olga will just have to understand she likes her life to herself, her house to herself. It's different for Olga. She's used to people around. It's the way she and her family operate — open homes, particularly for family. Any birthdays, weddings, christenings in the area, Olga's immediately making up beds, getting out sleeping bags, checking the cupboards. The last tangi there'd been ten staying and they had to hire a minibus. Of course everyone contributed, but even so. Now Olga had accused Rose of not liking her family and even hinted at something worse. 'Lucky I know you're anti all people,' she said. Rose was so offended she got up and walked out of Olga's café where they were supposed to be having dinner. How dare Olga. How dare she. Practically accusing her. Rose walked home and Olga didn't follow her to apologise and has not contacted her since.

The reason she's not been touch with Rose probably has nothing to do with the row at all. She's probably been landed with yet another desperate woman to accommodate in one of her spare rooms. Rose just could not do what Olga does for Safe and Secure. She's sorry for those unfortunate women and children and she will help in other ways — a donation, clothes — but she won't have them in her house. 'Anything could happen,' she said to Olga, 'I could get a visit from an irate husband, possibly a gang member, they could wreck the place. I'm not taking the risk.'

'Believe me, they're not all gang members,' Olga said, 'but that's all right.' Although it obviously wasn't.

Rose sees herself through Olga's eyes. Mean, selfish, hard. As far away from being her mother's daughter as it is possible to get. Why couldn't Olga leave things as they were? Why ruin everything? Hasn't Rose made compromises too? Don't go there Rose.

'There, there,' Rose says to the baby. Weak, but anything's better than delving into that stinking carton. The baby takes absolutely no notice. It probably thinks she's speaking another language. It isn't alone in that. Rose often thinks she's speaking another language. Probably no one says 'there, there' these days. Perhaps they say something like 'Cool it, kid.'

'Cool it, kid,' says Rose, but the baby continues to ignore her. Food, she supposes. Food? She can feel panic rising. She looks at the gin bottle, Sairey Gamp popping into her head for obvious reasons. Don't even think about it Rose. Now come on. Pull yourself together. You're a grown woman, time you got over this nonsense. You are not going to be defeated by this absolutely unbearable stench. She takes a deep breath, holds it, gingerly puts both arms into the carton and scoops the baby out. An even stronger smell of shit comes with it. 'Oh shit,' says Rose, heaving violently. She grabs the towel hanging by the bench and tucks it under the little body. No sense in her being covered in shit as well. Too late, something yellow and wet has stained her red cotton shirt. Rose grabs another towel and holds it to her mouth. Her entire body is shaking with the effort not to actually be sick. Bugger, fuck, shit. The pillow in the carton is soaked. The baby's been lying in this mess a while. It's heavier than she expected. Like a lump of warm clay with damp wadding around it. Rose holds it slightly away from her and jiggles it awkwardly. It continues crying. She sees another, smaller box at the end where the baby's feet had been and (thank God!) a wad of what looked like throwaway nappies at its head. Rose doesn't approve of throwaway nappies, but one's principles are as straw in the wind when fragrant theory meets stinking reality.

Noisily dragging air into her nostrils, head averted, she scrabbles with one hand. A couple of bottles, some teats, a packet of formula and a dummy. That seems to be it. Rage stirs. If she could get hold of whoever left this child on her doorstep she would strangle them. Slowly. What to do first? Her nose wrinkles, her mouth curls, she holds the towel tightly to her lips with her free hand. Keep breathing Rose. Surely there's something more than shit to smell like this.

She will have to ring someone, she can't deal with this. Who? Plunket? Are there Plunket nurses still on tap? No, of course not. She distinctly remembers one on the radio complaining about no funding. Maybe Olga put the baby on her back porch. One of her deserving cases. No. Olga wouldn't do that. Olga thinks Rose is a selfish, egocentric, emotionally stingy obsessive-compulsive because she refuses to share her house with Olga, share Olga's house with her, or consider selling this house and buying one in tandem with Olga. Olga would prefer to run naked through an electrical storm rather than leave a baby in Rose's care.

'Never mind,' she says, patting the towel pressed against the baby's back, 'never mind.' This is addressed more to herself than the baby. Get rid of the stink Rose, wash and change the baby Rose, do something, anything to stop the noise. I can't, she thinks. I just can't. Sweat trickles down her face. It's not a hot sweat, it's the humidity. The rain hasn't cooled the atmosphere one little bit. It's been like this for weeks. It won't get better until after the gales. Here in the Hutt Valley it's always warmer than the rest of the region anyway. Yesterday the radio weatherman said there would be another six weeks of the same. All la Niña's fault of course, he ended cheerfully. Maybe this baby is la Niña's doing as well. Its crying makes the clamminess worse. A north-westerly of course. It's all too much. Rose's head is bursting.

'Shut up,' she yells at the baby, then is immediately guilty. For God's sake Rose, pull yourself together, you don't yell at a baby! 'Please,' she begs. The cries are deafening and so physically intrusive her brain is being stabbed by them. The walls are closing in. 'Right,' she says encouragingly, 'right.' She can't stand in her kitchen jiggling a screaming, stinky baby all night because she's scared of being sick. She has to do something. She walks up and down agitatedly. She really does not want to unpeel this malodorous bundle.

Ringing Olga is out so who else? Certainly it has been a horrible time, and yes, she got tired, but she is over it. No need to take it easy any more. No need to sell the shop. No need to sell this house, no need to do anything. She's felt well all the way, not sick, no pain to speak of. Under her arm, where they've taken the lymph nodes, is numb in parts, the operation scar stings sometimes. Her right breast looks as though someone's pointed it sideways. So what? The radiation staff had been wonderful. Which was great because lying under that big dome — completely alone, invisible rays piercing the skin, bang on the little tattoo they'd done to mark the spot, burning the area where the lump was, hopefully putting a stop to any further betrayal her body might have in mind — was absolutely horrible. She trained herself to think of the wall hanging. She planned the design, the fabrics, the colours, the applique, the embroidery stitches, even the wooden rod she would use to hang it from. She got some odd looks from staff and patients when they saw her reading a book about the skeletal system. The cover had a large skeleton grinning out at the world. That would be why.

She got through the radiation in good shape. Well, she has a breast that looks to the side. There are worse things. Olga said it was a matter of time. The incision under the arm has pulled it a bit, but it will settle down. 'You mean I'll get used to it,' Rose said.

'You have lovely breasts,' Olga said, 'I love them, but I love you more.'

There were a nasty few days after the operation wondering what the lymph nodes would reveal. The whole experience was disturbing, yes she'd never be the same again, yes at times the anxiety is unbearable. Does that mean she has to stop doing everything she likes? She's built The Book Stops Here up from nothing, it's starting to pay its way with something left over, why would she sell up now? It's true there are times when she moans. Whose job is perfect?

'Shush, shush, there now, shush, shush.' Look on the bright side Rose. Olga has done you a favour. You will now have lots more time to think about another needlework project. You will now not have to feel like an immigrant in a strange country every time you're in the middle of her relations, especially her sisters, especially Puti. Puti is Olga's oldest sister, taller and larger than Olga, authoritative and direct like a sergeant-major. Puti was often in charge of her baby sister when they were young and she's forgotten (or ignores) the fact that Olga is now well old enough to run her own life. Rose knows Puti doesn't like her. Which is OK because she's not that struck on Puti either. Her eyes, Rose thinks, weighing, judging, finding Rose wanting. Too bad, thinks Rose, if she doesn't approve of make-up, too bad, although she knows it's not really the make-up, it's because Rose is Pākehā. 'Puti's not as conservative as she seems,' Olga, who loves her oldest sister, said. It's a mystery. Well, no more of that, thank goodness. Rose might, at last, go through Ada's room, sort through her clothes, the dressing-table drawers, that big old trunk she kept underneath her bed. She has dusted and vacuumed, washed and ironed the curtains, brushed the blinds, but that's as far as it goes. She knows she should have done the job of clearing the room out before, but there's been the cancer operation, the radiation, then the wall hanging. Soon she's going to run out of excuses.

Rose opens the linen cupboard and pulls out some towels and the softest facecloth she can find. With the baby clamped to one side and the towels to the other, dry-retching, she leans against the wall for a few moments, then goes back to the kitchen. Soap can wait. Everything she has is perfumed. She doesn't know much about babies, but she knows they have delicate skins.

While she shushes, rocks, spreads the towels over the table, unpacks the carton, quivers inside from the battering sound which (God alone knows where it gets the strength) goes on and on and on, she remembers Miss Graham who, centuries ago, told her Sunday school class of attentive seven year olds the story of how Moses was found in a basket beside the river. Or was it in the bulrushes? As far as Rose recalls the baby was found by Pharaoh's daughter. Maybe it was Pharaoh's sister? Whatever. The baby was placed there by its mother because the current pharaoh had passed a law decreeing all male babies be killed, or was it all male Jewish babies? Yes it was. Or so Rose remembers. Well now she knows how Pharaoh's sister (or daughter) felt. 'Bloody cheek,' she mutters, 'bloody cheek.' Then she thinks, oh Olga.

Sibyl said Rose was not being fair to Olga. 'Just because Marcy was part of the whole sorry mess doesn't mean you have to turn into a control freak,' she said. Sibyl had a thing about control, about power. She agreed that teachers have power, but she said they should exercise it as little as possible. They should lead by example. Every teacher should start from where the child is, not from where the teacher thinks they should be. Sibyl had her own strong ideas about the way we all learn. 'Show me a lifetime learner and I'll show you a good teacher,' she said. As her students got more School C passes than anyone else in the Hutt the principal was not going to argue, even though Sibyl's paperwork was always well behind. Sibyl pretended not to care about the fierce competition there was to be in her English class. Sibyl was not perfect however. She said she didn't believe in too much control, but in her class non-appearance of assignments was only allowed twice. After the first non-arrival Sibyl would say there seemed to be a personality clash and the student was told to shape up or ship out. After the second, Sibyl showed she meant what she said. She was not persuaded by abject apologies or promises of future diligence, was unmoved by parental grovelling. 'You get two chances and then you're out,' she would tell the student in front of its parents at the beginning of each fifth-form year, 'so you know the score. Between us, we make up your learning plan. You don't have to be an Einstein but you do have to show me you're working. I do my best. If you work I'll stick with you, however long it takes but,' and Sibyl would shrug, 'my personality can't accept lazy students, it affects my teaching of the other ones, so that's the way it is.'

'You're talking about being a control freak?' Rose asked.

Something in Rose's voice made Sibyl laugh. 'OK,' she said, 'OK.'

The baby cries on, drearily, messily. It knows it's unwanted, a nuisance, a piece of flotsam washed up on an unwelcoming shore. Up until this moment Rose would have said the boom box from next door was the most intrusive sound she'd ever heard. Now she knows differently. How do mothers put up with it? How did Ada put up with it? She probably didn't have to. Rose is certain she never bawled like this. Now, where will she bathe this horrible baby. No good unpeeling it without having the water ready.

So much for wanting her luck to change. Well now it has. It's got worse.

Rose runs the water into the sink. Lukewarm. She pads the taps with a tea towel, dips her free elbow in the water twice just to be sure. When the noise from next door started some weeks ago late one afternoon just after the new tenants moved in, she went over and asked them to turn the noise down. 'I can't hear my own radio,' she said. She smiled, was pleasant.

'Turn yours off then,' said the smart-arse who answered her banging on the open front. Knock-Knock was the name he went by, Rose discovered later. He looked like a giant foetus. Horrible. She wouldn't mind betting there were times after he shoved his bug head out of her womb that his mother wished she'd got rid of him when he was just a twinkle. There are people only a mother could love, but in Knock-Knock's case she'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind.

Not satisfied with mere rudeness, Knock-Knock walked down the front steps and over to the tap on the house to the left of the steps. He turned it on, picked up the hose and played it on the steps so that her shoes were splattered. 'Better move honky,' he looked at her as though she was someone from a plague-infested planet, 'or you're likely to get wet.'

Rose was so shocked that that was what she did. Moved very quickly off the steps and away. 'It's the treatment,' she told Olga later, 'must be. I'm still feeling the effects. I'm fragile. He senses that. I'd never have done that before.'

'I'll speak to Puti.'

'No,' Rose said, 'don't. I've got a plan.'

Now. The table is covered with towels, the sink ready. The formula and bottles are on the bench. She's managed to tip the pegs out of the washbasket and line it with towels. She has folded a hand towel and wrapped it in a tea towel for a pillow. When the baby is clean she will lie it in the basket, find something to cover it with and then have a go at making the formula. Then and only then will she decide whether to ring Olga and see if there's anything that organisation of hers can do.

She can't put it off any longer. She must now unwrap this stinking heap, and that's that.