IS THERE AN easy way for a seventeen year old to break it to people that she’s pregnant? It was difficult enough with Lou-Anne and Jenny. What the hell am I going to say to my parents? And Nathan? I haven’t even worked out how to tell Indu and Bindi.
The Easter holidays have arrived. I’m always tired and sometimes sick, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep ‘the news’ from people who count. There will come a point – there has to, though I can’t really imagine what it will feel like – when everyone will know. But how do I come out with it now?
‘You’ve got to tell Nathan,’ says Lou-Anne. ‘Like, today.’ We’re in the bathroom, getting ready to meet Bindi and Indu at the Easter Show. They’ve already packed up and left the dormitory for the holidays. Lou-Anne and I aren’t leaving Sydney for home until tomorrow.
‘I can tell him anytime,’ I say, trying to sound detached.
‘What are you afraid of, Shauna?’
What am I not afraid of?
‘I don’t know. His reaction, I guess. He’ll probably run a mile.’
‘Then he’s a bastard and you don’t want him anyway.’
‘I could not tell him. You know, if I wanted. Save everyone the trouble.’
‘But then your baby won’t know its dad. That’s not cool.’
‘Charlotte and Chelsea don’t know their dad.’
‘Their dad’s a dropkick and not worth knowing,’ replies Lou-Anne assuredly. ‘You’ve got to give this guy a chance. Even if you think he’s going to run. You must still like him or else we wouldn’t be going to see him.’
‘I do like him, but the stakes are really high now.’
‘Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion.’
‘Maybe.’
We catch the train out to Sydney Olympic Park, dressed as aggy as good taste will allow. We’re both wearing white linen shirts, and luckily jeans and ankle boots are in at the moment.
Bindi and Indu are waiting for us at the gates.
‘Omigawd,’ Bindi scoffs when she sees us. She’s wearing a mini-dress and wedge heels.
‘You’re going to get cow poo between your toes,’ I taunt her.
Getting into the Easter Show costs a bomb, even when you’re a student. Luckily Nathan’s mum is on some committee of the Royal Agricultural Society and has access to a certain number of complimentary passes. He’s sent me four, which means we’re all getting a free ride.
We go through the turnstiles and dive into the overwhelming crowds and noise.
‘Look!’ cries Indu suddenly, and all eyes shoot to the direction she’s pointing. It’s a kebab stand. We raid it, even though it’s only ten o’clock in the morning. Everyone buys one except me. I’m too nervous to eat.
We park ourselves in the midst of the thronging crowd, getting shoved and squashed. We look at each other and stifle laughs. This is the way it is with us when we fly the Oakholme coop. We look forward to outings, talk about them and prepare for them, twist ourselves inside out over them, and only when we arrive at the much-coveted venue do we realise that we were much happier belly-down in our beds in the dorm in our uniforms. All of a sudden I realise that this feeling is a relic, a phenomenon of the past. Everything is about to change.
‘So where’s this cow shed?’ asks Indu.
‘Just follow the cowboy hats,’ says Bindi.
This is more or less what we do.
I get so nervous that I start to have this feeling of not being attached to my legs. I’m just floating along above, carried by the crowd. I have an inkling that something major is about to unfold.
The incidence of cowboy hats spikes as we enter the cattle pavilion, and the hot, sweet, shitty barn smell hits us like a slap.
Bindi pulls a face. ‘At moments like these, I sometimes wonder whether I’ll ever eat meat again,’ she says, pushing the last piece of her kebab into her mouth.
‘Really?’ says Lou-Anne. ‘Looking at cows makes me hungry for steak.’
‘What colour are Nathan’s cows?’ asks Indu.
‘I think . . .’ I begin, trailing off into nothing, taking a few seconds to realise that I don’t know. ‘The breed is called Santa something-or-other . . .’
Then I see him in one of the wash bays at the front of the pavilion, standing side-on to a huge, chestnut-coloured cow, a brush in one hand and a rubber mitt over the other. I see him before he sees me and I begin to wave as our eyes meet. Nathan’s pale blue eyes soften and crinkle at the edges.
‘Shauna!’
I break away from my friends and plunge into the wash bay.
‘Well, here we are,’ I say awkwardly.
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘here you all are. Thanks for coming.’
My friends gather around cautiously, oohing and aahing about the cow, a two-year-old heifer called Gemma. I don’t know how any creature could get so big in just two short years.
‘Our first class is in about an hour,’ Nathan explains. ‘I’m just doing her hair.’
We giggle at this, and I feel a huge gush of affection for him. This is the first time I’ve laid eyes on him knowing what’s inside me and that, one way or another, I’m going to be joined to him for the rest of my life. As he moves confidently and gently around a beast that must literally weigh a ton, I notice little things about him that I haven’t given much attention until now. The leanness of his body and the lightness of his movements. The way he looks down when he’s listening to someone. Perhaps it’s because he’s in an environment he feels comfortable in, but he seems manlier. Or maybe I just need him to be.
‘Nathan!’ a woman’s voice calls out. I don’t want to seem too eager to catch a glimpse of Nathan’s mum, but I can’t help turning and glancing over my shoulder. A short woman with a stubby, blonde ponytail bustles over. She’s about fifty, overheated and smudged in her all-denim outfit. She looks like a scrubchook. I know that she’s his mother before he calls her ‘mum’ because they have the same pale, down-turned eyes.
‘Is she dry yet?’
She arrives with a pump pack of hair gloss in her hand, not seeming to notice us.
‘Almost,’ says Nathan, glancing quickly to me. ‘Just a bit damp around the legs. Mum, this is Shauna.’
Nathan’s mother looks around at us.
‘Hi.’ I smile at her, but there is something about the shuddering way her gaze settles on me that knocks all the confidence out of me. It’s an unmistakable double take and of course I know what it’s about. Her eyes pan briefly over my friends and flutter back to me.
‘How are you?’ she says without meeting my eye, and she walks to the other side of the cow before I can answer.
I turn to Lou-Anne. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What? I thought we were going to . . .’
I scowl at her and she stops dead.
‘Okay,’ she says quickly.
‘We might see you later, Nathan,’ I say in a shaky voice.
Nathan’s blonde brows gather in confusion.
‘Are you coming back to watch the classes?’ asks Nathan, still brushing the cow.
I don’t smile or even nod. ‘I guess.’
‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,’ he says. ‘Could we talk in private later?’
‘Maybe,’ I answer coldly.
We leave the stifling pavilion, with Bindi whining about how bad it smells.
‘Yeah, the smell really was starting to get to me too,’ I mutter, feeling as limp as a wet sail on a windless day.
Lou-Anne gives me a wide-eyed, reproachful stare as we sink back into the crowds outside.
‘I want to go,’ I tell her.
‘You want to leave the show?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But he gave us the tickets. We can’t just leave.’
We stop to let Bindi and Indu catch up.
‘I think I’m going to go back to school,’ I say. ‘I’m feeling pretty dodgy.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m dizzy. I need to sit down.’
‘I guess you don’t feel like going on the rides then?’ says Bindi.
‘No, Bindi, I don’t,’ I snap, not meaning to. I apologise straight away.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Bindi, folding her arms over her chest. ‘It’s just that you were the one who wanted to come.’
In the end, Bindi and Indu decide to stay at the show and make the most of it. Lou-Anne can’t be talked out of coming back to school with me.
‘What happened just now?’ Lou-Anne demands as we head towards the train station.
‘Did you see the way his mother looked at us?’
‘How?’
‘Oh, come on, Lou-Anne!’
‘If she didn’t want to stop and chat, so what? She was busy.’
‘I just don’t like being looked at like I’m a piece of dog shit.’
‘Did she really do that?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well, she doesn’t know that you’re pregnant with her grandchild.’
‘And she’s never going to. Buggered if I let that family have anything to do with my baby.’
‘Shauna, I think you’re choosing to take it the wrong way. Was she really throwing shade?’
‘Yes, she was.’
‘But that’s not Nathan’s fault.’
‘Like mother, like son. I think he was about to dump me anyway. He said he wanted to talk to me in private. What else could that have meant?’
‘Well . . .’ Lou-Anne trails off.
She lets me simmer for a while, which is probably the right thing to do. When I’m in one of these states, no one can talk to me without getting their head bitten off. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do if she tells me I’m jumping to conclusions because I know I’m not. Jumping to conclusions is something that people like Nathan’s mother do.
On the train back to the city I fume. Every racist experience I’ve ever had whooshes through the floodgates. The open, barefaced name-calling. The smaller, pettier slights. The nasty looks and the standoffishness. The pity and the overniceness. I hate it all. I hate them all. And now I’m bringing a child into the whole fetid mess.
When we get back to school I ask Miss Maroney whether there are any messages for me. There aren’t. I want to call Nathan and tell him about the baby but I just can’t. I decide that I’m never calling him again.
I just want to run to a place where people already love me.