THREE

Alice's jacket is rain spattered and tiny drops sparkle in her fair hair. Until Doctor Alice Hudson was in her forties she had a square body; now, approaching fifty, she's slimmed down (ageing, she says) and it's more oblong. Alice was once Alice Moore who was in the same class as Jo and Rose. Different times, different lives. Alice removes her jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair. 'Is this OK?' she asks, 'it might drip.' Rose nods and then wonders if Alice is being sarcastic. Jo looks at Alice and Alice looks at Jo. 'Hello Jo,' says Alice.

'Hello Alice,' says Jo.

Rose wonders how long it is since Jo and Alice met as adults. Probably Ada's funeral. Alice Hudson is Rose's doctor and they get on well. She's been great all through the cancer business. Alice has a husband, recently retired. From whizzing around in some high-powered job in the city he now happily spends most of his time making furniture. They have four grown-up children, a couple of them with spouses and young children, who come home at Christmas and school holidays. Alice's books at the surgery are closed as far as new patients are concerned, but she still finds time to be involved in Safe and Secure. Astonishing.

Rose puts the baby on yet another clean towel — at this rate she'll be washing towels for days — and Alice bends over him. Her touch on his body is sure and kind. Jo and Rose watch intently. 'Nothing broken,' Alice says, while the baby, who has not enjoyed being unwrapped from his warm coverings, gives fretful little cries. 'How did he hurt his arm?'

'I don't know,' Rose says. Then immediately sees, or thinks she sees, what Alice is meaning. She rushes into speech. 'It wasn't me,' Rose says, 'it isn't anything I did, if that's what you're thinking. We just discovered his arm like that. Ask Jo. He was left on my porch. Someone,' she insists as though Alice is arguing the opposite, 'someone left him on my back porch. I thought he was a box of tomatoes. There was a card. He's addressed to me.' Rose reaches for the card and shows it to Alice who regards it in silence. Rose dashes into more explanation, hears herself babble, is unable to stop. 'I just thought you might think — silly — of course you don't — must be the shock I suppose. You don't usually expect to find a baby on your doorstep, unless you're Pharaoh's daughter of course.' Rose runs out of breath.

'Take it easy Rose,' Alice frowns, 'of course I don't think you did it.' The lines deepen in her forehead.

'I should think not.' Jo sounds affronted on Rose's behalf, then spoils it by adding, 'but the strangest people, people you'd never suspect — ' catching Rose's eye, 'not that I'm suggesting — oh for goodness' sake Rose, you know what I mean.'

'You'll need to report it,' Alice says, 'someone's hurt the baby, or there's been an accident or something.'

Alice reaches for a clean nappy from the packet and changes the baby. Her hands are brown and the nails cut short and neatly filed. 'Circumcised,' she says, 'that might be a clue, not as popular as it used to be except, of course, for religious or cultural reasons.' She folds the large, soft towel around his body and gives the boy back to Rose. 'Someone knows you,' she says, 'and that someone trusts you.'

'I can't look after a baby.' Rose sounds aggressive and means to. 'I really can't.' She offers the baby the bottle, which still has a little liquid in it. 'I don't have time. I've got the shop, the garden, my sewing, the house. I think leaving him on my doorstep without asking my permission is a bloody cheek.' The baby stops sucking and moves uneasily. 'And don't you start,' Rose glares at him but lowers her voice.

'Will you ring the police?' Jo asks.

This is exactly what Rose wants to do but she says, her voice rising, 'Don't stir the pot, Jo.' The lines on Alice's forehead carve deeper runnels. 'I've had enough for the moment. Besides it's Friday night, the police'll have enough on their plate. Alice says there's nothing broken. Anything else can wait until tomorrow.' What the hell did I say that for, she thinks.

'What about your shop?' asks Alice, 'aren't you open on Saturdays?'

'I'll have to take him with me.'

'I'll look after him,' Jo says decisively.

'No,' Rose is equally firm, 'he wasn't left with you, he was left with me. I'll take him with me.' We're like two kids arguing over a doll or a teddy, she thinks. 'He'll be OK.'

'Well I for one can't go on calling this baby 'him',' Jo recovers. 'He has to have a name. Charles. That will do.'

'Charles? Like hell. We're not all royalists Jo.'

'Well what then?'

Rose clicks her tongue irritably. 'George,' she says, remembering Byron for some reason. Probably because she's reading a book about Ada Lovelace, née Byron.

'Weeell,' Jo says, then stops whatever it is she is going to say about royal names not being confined to Charles.

'George.' Anything less like George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron, than this baby in her arms, Rose has yet to see. George Byron, sometimes called Geordie, a beautiful baby, born with a crippled foot and a leg shorter than the other, had suffered tortures as various doctors subjected him to racking, stretching, straightening that leg. Poor, beautiful Geordie who became a poet and political agitator, given to excesses of all kinds, especially sex and drugs; a man who made his wife very unhappy during their short married life and whom she suspected, along with the rest of the world, of having sex with his sister. A short man who worried about his weight and who, it is speculated, was manic-depressive, now called bipolar, a disease that the daughter he disdained allegedly inherited. Maybe this isn't such a good name. George the Fourth. George Formby. There is an actor though. George. Curney? Oh well, never mind. George will do until the parent or parents come to claim him. Clooney, that's it.

'George? Why George?'

'Does it matter?'

It is Jo's turn to breathe deeply.

The baby's sucking slows down, stops altogether every now and then until he remembers the teat in his mouth and gives a casual pull on it.

Alice's light, quick voice sounds tired. 'The child is between three or four months I'd say. Pākehā. Someone will have to find out who he is and why he was left with you. It's not fair on him otherwise. We need to know how he was injured. There may be other children needing protection. You've read the papers. The statistics are deplorable. Every day, every hour it seems sometimes, another child is hurt. Some of them badly enough to kill them. I think you must tell the police.'

'Oh please,' Jo says. She shakes her head, not denying the truth of what Alice is saying, more to ward it off.

Alice looks at her as she puts her stethoscope back in her bag. 'Just in this region there are thirty-five women in hiding Jo. They have fifty-two children with them. Not all of them at the refuge itself of course, a few are in Safe and Secure homes because of their circumstances.'

'Circumstances?' Jo sounds as though the word offends her.

'Their partner or husband might be a policeman, a social worker, or someone with a lot of money. Someone who knows the location of the refuge or who can find out. Those women need somewhere totally secret. Until their safety can be ensured.'

'And you think this baby's mother could be one of those?' Jo is incredulous and horrified at the same time.

'Perhaps. Many women are too frightened to do anything about it because of what their partner might do if he found out. This baby's mother might be one who decided there was something she could do.'

'Yes, but who is she?' Rose sighs. 'Why leave him with me? I don't know anyone who's had a baby. Well not recently. Some of my customers have babies, but I'm sure they're older than this one.'

Like Jo, Rose is a coward. She wishes Alice hadn't told them those numbers. Out of sight, out of mind. There was another case where a man pinched a baby all over to stop it crying. She hadn't been able to read any further so she doesn't know what else happened to make it a newspaper item.

'There'll be someone,' Alice says, 'there'll be someone. Quite likely someone who comes into the shop. Think, Rose.'

Rose shakes her head. 'I'm too tired. You're right, I should contact the police tonight.' The three of them stare at George who, snug in Rose's arms, closes his eyes. He really is an ugly baby, thin of face, small eyes, prominent chin. Maybe it's the effect of Jo putting royals into Rose's mind, but she thinks this baby is very like photographs she's seen of paintings of that ancient Spanish royal family who all had long, jutting, prominent chins. The males were lucky. They could grow beards. Hapsburgs. Does she know anyone called Hapsburg?

'Damn,' Rose says, but softly, 'I've got to find his mother. Perhaps she'll turn up tomorrow.'

'Needle in the haystack stuff probably,' Alice says, relenting. 'OK then, I'll ring the after-hours number for Child, Youth and Family and tell the duty officer. Establish that you're a respectable member of society. So they'll be quite happy for you to look after him for the time being. They'll visit of course, look you over for themselves.'

'You don't want them poking and prying, do you?' Jo sounds horrified, as though a social worker from CYFS is on a par with the KGB.

'No,' Rose nods. Jo is right. Rose doesn't want to be looked over by anyone, even if it means she gets rid of this child. 'No. I don't want you to contact the police or the social services. I'll leave it for tonight. Someone left this child in my care. For Rose Anthony.' She holds the card out to Alice. 'That's what it says. For Rose Anthony. For some reason, someone decided to leave George with me. So he's not really abandoned or anything. I'll give it till tomorrow But just wait till I see them. I think it's bloody disgraceful plonking a baby on my porch as though he's a carton of tomatoes or a box of vegetables.'

'How will you manage? At the shop.'

'I'll manage,' Rose says, then spoils it. 'Have to, won't I?'

Alice is unconvinced, but she decides to go along with Rose for the moment. 'Call me if you need me. And if the mother hasn't turned up by Monday morning I want you to clearly understand, either you ring the police or I will.'

Rose nods.

'Good,' Alice says. 'Ring me if you need me, otherwise I'll see you Sunday.'

'Sunday?' Rose's mind is blank.

'Your birthday dinner.' Alice smiles faintly at Rose, 'Olga invited me. It's not a surprise is it?'

'No,' says Rose, 'no. I'd just forgotten for the moment.'

Bloody Olga and her bloody 'I know you hate surprise parties so I'm telling you. Potluck dinner at your place.'

'Like hell,' Rose had replied, 'if there's one thing I hate it's potluck dinners. Everyone brings salads and they're not really filling so they all get pissed. If I'm going to have a dinner here on my birthday, I'll cook a proper meal.'

'We could have it at the café,' Olga offered. 'Here,' Rose said.

'You're so — so hard on yourself,' Olga said but she smiled. 'What will you cook?'

'That's mine to know and yours to wonder,' Rose said, and heard Ada in her voice.

How could she forget her own birthday? More to the point, how could she forget she was cooking a three-course dinner for — how many? Olga (if Olga's still coming), Alice, Uncle Claude and his wife, Elena, who will be there under protest. Elena is not keen on Rose. Not because Rose is a lesbian, she just doesn't like her. The feeling is mutual. Sibyl and Kitty. Then, aghast, Rose remembers she hasn't asked Jo. Partly because if she asks Jo she'll bring Wesley, but mainly because Jo is so off-hand lately, so angry and just so odd. Now she'll have to ask her.

Alice looks amused, as if she realises Rose's dilemma. She hesitates, then says, 'Your birthday tomorrow, Jo, I remember. Have a lovely day.'

Jo sniffs. 'I haven't got time to worry about birthdays.' That seems to be that. But Alice persists. 'How's everyone Jo?'

'Fine, we're all fine.'

'Lizzie and the baby doing well?'

'Blooming,' Jo smiles as she lies. Rose knows this is a lie because she knows Jo hasn't seen her daughter for months, doubts if she's even had more than a passing glimpse of her grandchild. Rose doesn't know what the trouble is and doesn't want to. She'd had little to do with Lizzie who, when young — it seemed to Ada, who reported it to Rose — was either overindulged (Wesley) or over-disciplined (Jo). Thelma Millet, dark and shiningly beautiful even when she was in her sixties, Jo's mother, the woman in whose bed Rose's father died, and who, months later became, to everyone's pleasurable amazement, Ada's good friend, told Ada and Rose that Jo was far too strict with the girl and Thelma wasn't surprised when Lizzie hit puberty and rebelled. 'Jo says Lizzie over-dramatises things, but who doesn't at fifteen?' Thelma asked. Or at fifty for that matter, Rose now thinks.

There'd been some trouble, a party which got out of hand, police called, some of the adolescents, of whom Lizzie, beautiful as her grandmother, was one, arrested for drunkenness and throwing bottles. All smoothed over because Lizzie was under sixteen at the time. As soon as Lizzie turned eighteen she got herself a job (receptionist in a real-estate firm) and took herself off to a room in a mixed flat. Nothing Jo said would stop her. When she was twenty, there was some sort of reconciliation. Probably brought about by Wesley. Or perhaps by Royston Hipp, with whom Lizzie became involved, God knows why. Royston was of average height, average looks, good teeth though, and was, Rose thought, as dull as he looked. He must have hidden charms. The Hipps Senior, like Wesley and Jo, were stalwarts of the Church of the Golden Light. Royston and Lizzie had attended the same Sunday school, endured or enjoyed the same rituals on birthdays, and now, meeting again after a few years' independence, apparently discovered they liked each other in spite of this. After a year they got engaged, and a year later, they married.

Rose was surprised to be invited to the wedding, but she enjoyed it. It involved a combination of wacky rituals amongst which was a ritual called the Entering a New Life ceremony, which consisted of Golden Light members and adherents, plus a number of rather surprised wedding guests, gathering together on a hill with lanterns and flowers and singing songs, despite the pouring rain. No whisky served of course, only weak tea in a thermos, while cheerful and hearty voices sang something about the morning of life and new beginnings. All of which was permeated, Rose has to admit, by genuine goodwill, except perhaps from where she was standing.

'Heard from Claude?' Alice asks Rose. Rose's uncle — with his wife Elena's blessing and the district nurse and Alice's approval — had taken off for a week saying that if they were going to nag about it, he might as well see something of the South Island before he got too old. Alice had arranged the home help to give Claude this break. Elena is crippled by terrible arthritis.

At the mention of his name Rose sees Claude. Grey hair, thin face, big nose, pale-blue eyes always narrowed against something in the distance, wearing his usual loose corduroy pants and checked shirts, an old brown sheepskin jacket when it's very cold, his old red swannie when it's not. Sixty-nine and looking every year of it.

Good old Claude. Reliable, honest, funny, staunch, always ready to get on his soapbox. Her favourite uncle. Well, her only uncle. But he would have been her favourite even if she'd had ten uncles.

'Just a postcard from Reefton,' Rose says.

'I'll see you Sunday,' Alice says. She turns to go. 'Spoken to Sibyl?'

'Yes,' says Rose.

'About Sunday. It's not really a party,' Rose says to Jo, after Alice leaves, 'just a dinner, and I didn't really want it, but Olga insisted, so if you and Wesley are free, six o'clock, here.' Hardly the most enthusiastic of invitations, she thinks.

'Thanks,' says Jo, 'I'll see.'

Hardly the most enthusiastic of acceptances. So we're even, thinks Rose. Now all I have to do is decide what we're going to eat. Bugger Olga.