Angler’s Bay, 2050
The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude.
James Russell Lowell
Saturday, mid-afternoon.
I rest my forehead on the desk.
Just a short nap, I think, drifting
into a lazy sleep till my skinfone’s
frog trill wakes me and I stir,
baffled by what time it is, or day.
The frogs increase their chorus;
electronic, shrill. A name appears
on my lobal screen in candy font.
—Yeah, Cello, I mumble. Yep, it’s me.
—North, I’m in labour. Come over, please?
My right eye twitches involuntarily.
Birth and car accidents are the same
to me. I glance at my work, unfinished.
—North, says Cello. We agreed.
She takes a sharp breath in.
—Contraction, she gasps. Sorry. Shit.
—Okay. I sit up groggily. Just give me
a minute. I’ll grab my things.
I arrive at Cello’s place, shaking
off shreds of sleep.
—North, says Jo through the flexi screen,
Come in. Not much happening yet, really.
—Mum! roars Cello. Argh! Urrgh!
—A little progress, says Jo Green.
Big Cat’s tawny bulk pads to and fro.
I step inside the house and follow
where Jo leads, not ready for Cello’s
nakedness engulfing the bedroom as she stands and leans down hard
upon a chair. Her black hair’s damp
and tangled. Her belly is immense,
the button protrudes. Her flanks
shudder. On her back, sweat gleams.
It’s hot in Cello’s house. Heat lamps
suck all moisture from the air. I peel
off my jumper and just stand there,
unsure of what to do or say now
that I’m here.
—North! says Raoul. Excuse us please
but Cello insists she be in her own skin.
He clutches a white sheet anxiously.
Ah well, we’re all girls here…I mean,
not me. I try to cover her with this
but she gets, how do you say…
He scans the walls, as if they will
assist his search for a word in this
new language.
—Cranky? I say.
—Yes, yes! That’s it!
Cello lets out a groan. Her eyes
are closed. Her fists are clamped.
I place my hands uncertainly
across her own, which grip the chair
like a boat’s railing. Besides empathy,
there’s not much else that I can offer.
—Breathe, says Jo. Breathe, Cello, breathe,
Because look, Raoul, she’s not!
—Yes, yes! But what?
—Shut up! screams Cello.
Another contraction comes on her
and falls away. Her fingers loosen.
Her breath grows strong as a westerly
taking ships out to the open sea.
Already she’s someplace far from me.
The security sensor scans and beeps.
—That’s Sarah, Jo says. I’ll get it.
—About fucking time, says Cello,
—Cello, says Jo, labour is no excuse
for belligerency.
—I’ll get it, I say and exit before
an argument erupts. I know how
they end; molten, volcanic.
—Sarah! Sarah! Raoul says,
over-demonstrative with relief.
He grabs her hands and pulls her
into the maelstrom where Cello
is labouring. The room assumes
a new order then, neat as the case
Sarah carries lined with vials,
forceps, gloves, syringes, sharps
and other scary things.
—It’s okay, darlin’, Sarah says
Let’s take a look down there.
She snaps on gloves, her gestures
efficient as her hair, a neat helmet
of green implants. She inserts a hand.
Cello grabs my wrist, inhales a short
unsteady breath and emits a moan;
bestial and deep-wounded.
Sarah withdraws bloody fingers.
—Well, says Sarah, that all feels fine.
But Cello’s hand is woodlouse-tight
around my wrist. I uncurl it but she
resumes her grip. My left arm aches
with old and undiminished bruises.
And in the soupy warmth, nausea
rises and crests in me just as I reach
the garden where I hurl up breakfast
and all remnants of anything else
that was not digested.
—North, says Raoul. Are you okay?
As if that’s not obvious, I think.
Dickhead.
The clock reads four a.m. and yet
it seems time loses all artifice.
The hours elongate and shrink,
the clock’s hands wheeling past
unnoticed by those who gather
in Cello’s house. Light wards off
the winter dark. The fog that drifts
upon the lawn settles and disperses,
unobserved. Even the bone-white sky
of dawn feels leached and insignificant.
A child is being born, I want to shout
to the sleeping world. But the world
keeps sleeping as if it hasn’t heard.
All hangs then for three more hours
on the pain that flowers inside Cello
and subsides, blooms and subsides
until the baby’s head at last appears
at the bloody rim. Sarah pulls it clear.
The newborn’s wail undoes the spell
that Cello’s labour has cast on us.
Then everyone’s crying: Cello, Raoul,
Jo, Sarah and me, cleaved open
by this infant who rests on Cello’s
abdomen, traced with membranes
and fluid.
They name the baby Ambré
after Raoul’s father. Ambré Eliot.
—Good strong names to see him through,
says Raoul on the fone to France,
twirling an eyebrow with one hand.
—Well, that has truth, I murmur,
thinking of this broken thing we call
the world and its almost untenable
future. Yet the world still turns.
Raoul holds Ambré in his arms
like a bowl of exquisite fruit.
—Oui, oui, Mama! Un petit fils!
The baby’s legs kick out at air.
One star fish hand lies open
and the other’s curled up tight
beneath its chin as if in embryonic
thought flying towards words
unknown yet felt: milk, sleep,
mother, warmth and breath.
It’s seven a.m. and fourteen hours
since Cello first went into labour.
—I’m so hungry, she says, I could
eat my own placenta.
She plonks Ambré into my arms
and takes the tray of sandwiches
and cake Jo carries in. I make
an awkward cradle of my arms
and somehow hold the baby there,
feeling the hammer of his heart;
mottled, ancient, new-boned thing
no heavier than a handful of earth,
emitting bird-like squeaks.
It’s ten a.m. before I leave, the sky
swaddled with clouds. No sun.
My left wrist aches from Cello’s
monkey clamp. I wrench the Flute
eastward to Angler’s Bay, tune in
to yesteryear’s soft rock: Pink,
The Veronicas, Britney Spears.
When Jewel sings Save Your Soul
I’m bawling, and I keep on bawling
till I get home.
And somewhere on the edge of sleep
I dream I give birth to a foal that leaves
my body galloping, circles the garden
and returns. Its mane and tail blood
clotted, pelt unlicked. I’m uneasy,
not knowing how to raise a foal
or feed it. Yet it knows exactly
what to do and tugs hard at my teat
until the hot milk spurts. Its teeth
clamp on my breast so urgently
I wake and feel them still.
Waverley’s given up the reefer
sticks and only eats organic food.
She seems to be getting over Jill,
but I’m vigilant. She’s vulnerable
and liable to topple without warning.
I watch her wiry legs as she assumes
the down-face dog, a pose her yoga
coach advised was good for grief
and hepatitis.
—Bloody hippy scientist! I say. What next?
—It works! she says, and flips herself
back off the bench. You should try it.
Perhaps. But yoga’s not for me.
Too contemplative for my liking.
If I empty my head the thoughts
rush in. Memory is a lethal thing.
Waverley dips a slender hand
in the closest tank and peels
a star fish from the wall of it.
—Good star, she says, as if she’s
talking to a dog and rubs its belly
with her finger till its five feet curl.
—Look, she says, it’s laughing, as she
points to the mouth in its abdomen
pulsating in and out. Oh, my little star,
she croons and rocks it like a baby
in her skinny arms. Just imagine,
she says, if you healed hearts.
She puts the star fish back. It sinks
down into sand. It’s almost dark.
The chill of night seeps in. Beyond,
the stars hang sharp as brittle shards
of glass. A cold moon wanes.
—Ah well, says Waverley. There goes
the mother gene. Back into the big blue sea
of my stupid dreams. Jill wanted kids.
Waverley can’t. I know that much,
even with the latest surgery.
It’s too expensive anyway.
—Do you want babies? she asks.
—Babies are for grown ups, I say.
—You’re all grown up.
—I’m not, I say.
—Me either, says Waverley. I cry too much.
I think of the tears I’ve yet to shed.
—No one can cry too much, I say.
I enter a final stat and put the lobal
screen to sleep.
—Come on, I say. Cook you a meal?
—Macro? says Waverley.
—Yeah, yeah, I say. We’ll stop and grab
some things.
I pack my satchel, grab my coat,
put my heat wrap on.
—Ready? I say, but Waverley doesn’t
answer. Just makes a muffled sound.
She’s crying again. I sigh.
—Look, Waves, this’ll take some time.
I lead her out into the night. Bloody Jill,
I think. Hope her ovaries fry.