‘NATHAN!’
He’s sitting alone in the food court in Tamworth Plaza, which at this hour of the day has the same atmosphere as feeding time at the zoo. He wanted to pick me up at home, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want him to meet my mum without first knowing of Fred the foetus’s existence. So we agreed to meet with the rest of the Tamworth lunch crowd.
‘Nathan!’
He looks up at me, then looks past me. I realise he hasn’t recognised me.
‘Hey.’ I’m standing next to his table now.
‘Shauna!’ He stands up and grabs my hand, squeezing it. He can’t help giving me ‘the elevator’. I suppose my shape has changed a lot since the last time we saw each other at the Easter Show.
‘So shearing, eh?’
‘It’s really well paid. I’m regretting it now, though. I’m fairly bent and broken.’
‘Your hands are soft,’ I tell him.
‘That is one advantage of being elbow deep in wool all day.’
‘Should we get something to eat?’ I suggest.
We buy sausage rolls and Cokes from a nearby patisserie and settle back into the thronging crowd of the food court. Nathan watches me cautiously as I lay into my lunch with what must seem like frightening gusto. I don’t even feel the need to come up with an excuse. He’ll understand soon enough.
I’m going to tell him, really I am. I don’t feel anywhere near as nervous about breaking the news as I did at the Easter Show. Damn his mother and her prejudices. She can do as she pleases with the information. Nathan and his family’s reaction won’t change what I do.
In the last few days, I’ve seen two people I love – my mum and Olivia Pike – emerge well and cheerful from the most awful long-term traumas. If they have the strength to do that, then so do I.
‘You’ve probably noticed that I’ve put on some weight,’ I begin.
Nathan shrugs awkwardly. What can he say? Nah, you haven’t. . .
‘Nathan, I’m pregnant.’
Nathan stops chewing. His soft eyes widen.
I’m not sure exactly why I add, ‘Sorry.’
He swallows with difficulty and puts down his sausage roll. ‘Is it mine?’
‘How many men do you reckon I slept with on New Year’s Eve?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Aren’t you?’ I lift up my jumper and shirt to expose my outrageously stretched and swollen brown bump. ‘I guess the morning-after pill doesn’t always work.’
‘You took the morning-after pill?’
‘Yeah, and it made me puke my guts up for a whole day.’
‘I’m sorry . . .’
He reaches for my belly and I slam my clothes back down over it.
‘Oh, I’m sure you are sorry, Nathan.’
‘I . . . I thought it was all fine . . . and now . . .’ He grasps for words, breathing hard.
I wish he wouldn’t sound so panicky. To be fair, I suppose I’ve had a long time to get used to the idea.
‘Well, you should have told me earlier, Shauna!’ he says finally. ‘How long have you known?’
‘A couple of months.’
‘A couple of months!’ He looks around us wildly without really looking at anything at all.
This is not the reaction I was hoping for. What I was hoping for was a hug.
‘So you knew about this when I saw you at the Easter Show?’
‘I wanted to tell you, but your mum was such a bitch—’
‘A bitch?’ His mouth hangs open.
He’s getting shrill and upset. I suppose I could have used a different word.
‘What the hell are you talking about, Shauna? She hardly said a word to you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Exactly what?’
The people eating at the tables on either side of us have started to steal glances. I don’t give a hoot.
‘I saw the way she looked at me.’
Nathan blinks at me rapidly, a dozen little blinks in a row. Then he becomes suddenly articulate. ‘I told Mum about you before the show. Quite a lot, actually. I was really embarrassed when you left the pavilion and never came back. It was humiliating. Now you tell me you’re pregnant, and that you’ve known for months, and I’m humiliated all over again.’
‘You’re humiliated. Oh, poor you! I’m the one who’s gotta be in the world. Like this.’ I stand up awkwardly and the legs of my chair scrape against the hard floor. Our corner of the food court goes silent. No one’s pretending not to listen now.
‘Goodbye, Nathan,’ I say dramatically, turning on my heel.
‘Shauna, wait . . .’ he calls half-heartedly after me, but he doesn’t follow.
I’d been planning to go shopping for fat clothes after lunch, but I’m just too upset. I go straight to the bus stop and hightail it back to Barraba, barely able to stop myself from bursting into tears.
‘How did it go?’ Mum asks as soon as I walk in the door. She and Dad have been nagging me about telling Nathan all holidays.
‘Just great!’ I call sarcastically as I stomp in the direction of my room. I slam the door and roll onto my bed. Mum knocks gently at the door.
‘If you’re coming in here to harass me, forget it!’
She opens the door. ‘Shauna, I just wanted to know when you’d like to go and see Dr Skinner.’
‘I don’t want to think about it now, Mum!’
‘You have to see a doctor. You can’t just show up at the hospital when your waters break.’
‘I’ll see Dr Baker after the holidays.’
‘That’s what you said last holidays.’
‘Jesus Christ, get off my case!’
Mum sighs heavily. ‘Don’t worry about the boy. He has to pay child support. He can’t get out of his responsibilities.’
‘Mum! Out!’
‘Wait until your father speaks to him!’
‘Mum, get the bloody hell out!’
She sighs again and leaves me be.
I heave onto my back and close my eyes. I can’t wait to return to school and get on with my life.
When I do get back to school two weeks later, I find that my life isn’t quite so easy to get on with. Disaster strikes when I can’t squeeze into my winter uniform. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it being a problem before the first morning of school. I guess I’ve been in some denial about my appearance. Lou-Anne cuts the tunic down the back so that it can splay out and give me room up front. I put my blazer over the top to cover her handiwork.
‘We should break into the clothing pool,’ suggests Lou-Anne.
‘Why is crime always your first resort?’
I end up borrowing twenty bucks from Jenny at lunchtime. She hands it over reluctantly enough to make me feel bad.
‘Did you end up seeing a doctor during the hols?’ she asks, forcing me into eye contact as I fumble around for an answer.
‘I just . . . err . . . well, I ran out of time. Between seeing Olivia and everything else . . .’
Her clear eyes hold mine in a disapproving, almost parental gaze that I don’t much like. I’d give her back the twenty dollars, except that I need it desperately. Indignities like this just can’t be avoided when you have no money.
‘I was busy, Jenny.’
She nods as if she understands, but I feel like she’s scrutinising me, judging me. Does she think she’s better than me? Since I pulled out of HSC University Pathways I don’t think she even likes me that much. Paris was the icing on the cake. That was not the way I thought our friendship would roll this year. I thought we’d be much closer. I thought we’d be studying together and sharing everything, but Fred has driven a wedge between us.
I toddle to the clothing pool, manned by some mother from the Oakholme Ladies’ Auxiliary who somehow knows my name.
‘Don’t you want to try it on, Shauna?’ she asks as I hand over Jenny’s money for the biggest circus tent of a tunic I can find on the rack. ‘It looks like it might be a bit big for you.’
She holds the bottle-green monstrosity out in front of me. It’s old. It’s tatty. It’s enormous. It looks like it’s been passed from generation to generation of obese (or maybe pregnant) Oakholme teenagers since Reverend McBride was in charge.
‘It’s perfect!’ I lie, bundling it into my arms like a parachute. I take it, along with my five dollars in change, up to the dorms and get changed. I look at myself in the full-length wardrobe mirror and cringe at the sight of the girl looking back at me. There’s no nice way of putting it. She’s fat. Everything’s fat except her wrists and ankles. Something tells me I won’t be going to the Year 12 formal. I also realise that the jig could be up before our exams if someone has the guts to confront me about my billowing figure.
After lunch, I cross paths with Mademoiselle Larsen. She tries not to stare at my new threads. I plead with her telepathically not to say anything. Anyone can put on a little weight. . .
‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m running some extra dictée sessions in the language labs every Friday until stuvac,’ she says.
‘Cool!’ I respond with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.
‘So, I’ll count you in.’ She pauses, seeming to take me in. ‘Jenny, too?’
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to talk to Jenny about that.’
Then Mademoiselle asks the question I’ve never quite been able to stomach.
‘Is everything all right, Shauna?’
‘Between me and Jenny?’
‘Generally. Life.’
‘Fine.’
‘You know that offer of the apartment in Paris still stands.’
When she says that, I shrink. All my rich dreams and great expectations are withering before they had a chance to ripen. It kills me to be reminded of that reality. The reality of ambition foregone. Best case scenario, I study journalism online from my parents’ place in Barraba between breastfeeds. I feel both brittle and ashamed standing before Mademoiselle Larsen in my maternity tunic.
‘I just can’t go to Europe next year and that’s that,’ I croak.
‘Are you having some kind of personal problem?’ she asks gently. ‘This is probably the most stressful time of your life.’
I shrug in agreement. She’s not wrong.
‘If there’s anything you want to talk about – anything at all – I’m here for you.’
I nod awkwardly. The bell rings and I waddle off to my next class.
Olivia and I have been keeping in touch since I visited her in Bourke. A couple of weeks into the third term, she hits me with the good news – she’s returning to Oakholme! I have a meeting with SRF, during which she congratulates me on convincing Olivia to come back.
‘This time, Shauna, you need to keep a closer eye on her, and I don’t just mean physically. You need to be aware of what’s going on with her emotionally, not just during the mentoring sessions but in general. We can’t afford another incident like the last one. It’s not good for Olivia or the school or the Indigenous scholarship program.’
‘Yes, Reverend Ferguson.’
‘The other thing is that Olivia will have to apologise to Keli Street-Hughes.’
‘But—’
‘There are no buts, Shauna. It’s one of the conditions of her return to the school. So you talk to her about it, okay?’
And I do. Olivia has a few choice words to say about Keli. In the end, though, she gives her the most grudging, insincere apology I’ve ever heard. A single ‘sorry’ is muttered in the aisle while we’re filing into chapel one Sunday, with God as Olivia’s witness.
‘There, I did it,’ she grunts to me. Keli just scoffs.
Other than that, there’s very little fanfare around Olivia’s return to the fold, except that Lou-Anne, sensing the competition, begins to make some jealous remarks when the third wheel is in our presence. Actually, she has no idea how close Olivia and I are now.
The whole Wish Upon A Star debacle seems to be over. Needless to say, Olivia and Keli are also ‘over’, and, after the ‘apology’, they no longer speak. They studiously ignore each other, and for a while Keli ignores me, too.
I begin to toy with the idea that perhaps my grand feud with Keli is over. Perhaps now that she’s won and been vindicated in every way, she will leave me to lead my dusty little black life unmolested.
Oh, how wrong I am.
It seems like Keli still has a gigantic chip on her shoulder about the incident in the shower, which must have been – let’s face it – pretty humiliating for her. The chances of an event like that being kept quiet in the Oakholme College boarders’ dormitory were zilch. All the boarders know about it now and the latest piece of gossip is that I am a lesbian. I was so overcome with desire for Keli that day that I peeped at her in the shower. Yeah, right.
Poor old Lou-Anne gets dragged into it, too. Of course she’s my lesbian lover because she and I usually have showers together. Never mind that we shower in separate cubicles with the curtains drawn!
Considering what Lou-Anne and I have been through in our lives, it’s not that hard to laugh off this ridiculous nonsense. I’ve got bigger problems than lesbian rumours, anyway. I’m nearly seven months pregnant and I’m well and truly showing. Fred the foetus is turning into Bob the baby. Even the bottle-green monstrosity begins to tighten up. Still, if anyone suspects anything, they’re not willing to accuse me. With my blazer on I just look fat, and according to the grapevine, jokes have been made at my expense on that topic. Luckily, I am far from being the fattest boarder, and it’s still cold enough to get around in leggings and big jumpers. It will only be a matter of time, though. Surely I can’t get through the entire pregnancy with no one twigging? Or maybe I can.
I’ve told my parents to stop worrying, and for God’s sake stop calling. They want to know if I’m having any problems (no) and when I’m going to see a doctor (when I have time). I have consulted Dr Google a few times on the computers in prep. hall. The first time I did it, a couple of Year 8s walked in and I had to slam the tab closed. The next time I looked up ‘what to expect when you’re expecting’, I found a website which said that at this stage of the pregnancy I should be seeing a specialist obstetrician every week! Of course this completely freaked me out because it’s impossible. How could I ever get out of school that often without arousing suspicion? Where would my parents or I get the money to pay a specialist? So I’ve stopped looking up that rubbish, assuring myself that women have been giving birth for thousands of years without the help of doctors. As for the birth itself, I don’t want to think about it because it terrifies me.
Recently I’ve taken to googling ‘Nathan O’Brien’ and staring for ages at an online photo of him leading a cow at the Tamworth Show. He’s so handsome that I long for him, but I’m also angry with him. I need to stop googling him – longing and anger are an unpleasant combination.
It’s Nathan I’m stewing about while I’m in the bathroom with Lou-Anne (in separate showers) early one morning before class. I’m replaying my mental tape of that scene at the Easter Show, the sidelong looks of his scrubchook mother. It’s all too easy to remember the ugly implications in her gaze. And then Nathan’s pouty, out-of-line reaction at Tamworth Plaza. Could he have made me feel any worse?
When those feelings spit and sizzle to the surface, I feel totally justified in enforcing my scorched-earth communications policy against Nathan. After a few unreturned messages and telephone calls, he appears to have given up. I don’t care. I want Bob the baby to have a family, but not that family.
I have no idea how long I’ve been in the shower when I hear someone come into the bathroom.
‘Showers are full!’ Lou-Anne calls out beside me, but I don’t hear the bathroom door shut again.
A few seconds later my shower curtain is ripped open. Keli Street-Hughes is standing inches from me in her school uniform. She has her contraband iPhone in her hand and she’s pointing it right at me. Annabel Saxon is beside her. I hear Lou-Anne scream as Annabel pulls her curtain aside.
‘Oh. My. God.’ Keli gapes at my obscenely rounded belly. She’s so shocked that she lets her phone drop to her side. ‘Annabel! Look!’
I pull my shower curtain back across before Annabel gets the chance.
‘Get out of here, you bloody perverts!’ squeals Lou-Anne. ‘Bloody lezzos!’
I hear Keli gasp, ‘She’s lathering up for two!’ before they both run giggling out of the bathroom.
‘It’s none of your business!’ I shout after her.
Lou-Anne and I dive out of the showers and grab our towels.
‘She’s going to tell everyone, you know!’ I shriek, realising that the moment I’ve been dreading is about to arrive. My chest feels tight, my head is spinning, and my fingers are so thick and clumsy that I drop my tunic on the floor three times before managing to pull it on.
‘What should I do?’ I ask Lou-Anne.
‘Put your blazer on.’
‘I mean, what should I do about Keli and Annabel?’
‘Well, we could kill them, but that’s the only way I can think of shutting them up.’
What else can I do but finish dressing and go to roll call? I’m not about to beg them to keep it quiet. I know that within ten minutes, every boarder at the school is going to know about Bob.
‘Remember that it’s nobody’s business but yours,’ Lou-Anne says as she walks me to my roll call room. ‘Nobody has any right to know or even to ask.’
Keli’s not in my roll call class, but Annabel is. I stare daggers into the back of her head, willing her to keel over and die before she can do any more damage. I look around the room, searching for huddles of gleefully gossiping girls, but no one seems to be looking at me.
‘Are you okay, Shauna?’ Jenny asks. ‘You look worried.’
I lean in and whisper into her ear. ‘Keli and Annabel know.’
‘Know what?’ asks Jenny at regular volume.
I widen my eyes at her.
‘Oh. Well. No one’s said anything to me.’
‘Tell me if they do,’ I say, though God only knows what I’m going to do with the information. What can I do? Anyone who takes a long, hard look at me is going to know it’s true. All I can do is wait. It’s torture.
I spend the day slumped over my work, pulling in my blazer to cover the bump. I meet Lou-Anne in our dorm room at recess and then again at lunch.
‘No one’s said anything to me, Shauna. Maybe Keli and Annabel are going to do the right thing and keep their big mouths shut?’
‘When have they ever done the right thing?’ I reply shrilly. ‘If they’re holding out, it’s only to torture me!’
Lou-Anne slings an arm around my shoulder. ‘You stay strong, Shauna. They’re not gonna get anything out of me, not even if they waterboard me.’
‘Maybe I should just go ahead and admit the truth to stop the suspense.’
‘You don’t have to do that. Just keep quiet.’
Nothing unusual happens for the rest of the school day.
The hopeful side of me, the part of me that could believe that Keli Street-Hughes has a shred of compassion or decency in her soul, thinks that maybe she won’t tell. Maybe no one will find out. Maybe I’ll have the baby during stuvac and no one will be any the wiser.
But then Miss Maroney’s waiting for me in my dorm room after the final bell.
‘Shauna,’ she says soberly, ‘we need to talk.’
Fucking Keli Street-Hughes. She’s Satan, Lucifer and Jezebel rolled into one giant ranga super bitch demon.
I grit my teeth, suck in my gut, and follow Miss Maroney into her quarters. I remind myself that I’ve gotten through my brother’s death and many anniversaries since, and I can get through this, too.
She comes right out with it. ‘A little birdie told me you’re pregnant.’
I shake my head. ‘Little birdie doesn’t know what little birdie’s talking about.’
‘Come on, Shauna. You’ve put on so much weight over the last few months. I thought you’d been overeating due to the stress.’
I shrug. Miss Maroney crosses and uncrosses her long, athletic legs. Because she’s so young and nice, and she’s been a confidante to me in the past, I have an urge to unload on her. But I know I mustn’t.
‘Can I go now?’
‘No, you can’t. This is not a problem that’s going to go away. How far along are you, anyway?’
I set my jaw and shake my head.
‘There’s simply no point in denying it. You should look into getting appropriate pre-natal care. You can’t just go to a hospital when you start having contractions. You need to have scans and tests first. For your baby’s good as well as your own.’
I say nothing.
‘Have you been to see a doctor about it? I know you went to see Dr Baker a while back.’
She’s trying to hook me, but I won’t bite.
‘Can I go now?’
‘You’ll probably be asked to leave the school, you know. You can’t stay at a school like Oakholme College when you’re pregnant. It’s a religious school. Sex before marriage is a good reason to expel you. They won’t let such an embarrassing situation continue out in the open. Especially not in your case, when the school has been so generous to you. You’ll bring the whole Indigenous scholarship program into disrepute.’
I meet her eye. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘Well, that might not be your decision to make.’
‘Oh, I’m staying here, no matter what. I’m finishing the HSC. I don’t care what you try to do to me.’ I glare at her. ‘If you think you can get rid of me as easily as you got rid of the other scholarship recipients, you’ve got another thing coming.’
‘Do you really think we tried to get rid of the others?’ Miss Maroney frowns deeply at me. ‘You’re so mixed up, Shauna. You are such a disturbed young person.’
‘Can I go now?’ I ask again.
She nods. I go back to my room and pick up some books to take to prep. hall. The battle I’ve been dreading has begun. Let them try to get rid of me. I’ve toughed out this gig for the last five years. I’ve had it in my head ever since Elodie bailed out that I was going to be Oakholme College’s first Indigenous graduate. I’m not giving up that honour without a fight.
My pride in what I have and the fear of losing it sit boulder-like on my chest as I go through the motions of study and going to bed.
‘Can I feel your belly?’ asks Bindi just before lights-out. She takes a seat on the edge of my bed.
I expose the belly in question and she prods it as if it might nip her.
‘You did such a stellar job of hiding it,’ she whispers.
‘The breasts were a giveaway,’ Indu says casually.
‘You knew?’ Lou-Anne and I shriek in unison.
‘No one’s bazookas get that big that quickly without surgical intervention or pregnancy.’
The way she says ‘bazookas’ is just so funny that we fall apart with laughter. Then, suddenly, we start frantically shushing each other.
‘Guys,’ announces Lou-Anne. ‘Lights out. This is serious.’
After lights-out Bindi whispers ‘bazookas’ in Indu’s accent and it starts all over again.