Ora's Gold Page 5

  ‘But this isn’t about lying down, Dione.’

  ‘Women never got up off their backs!’

  ‘How would you feel if a baby died? Or a woman? I can’t believe you’re being so blind. The hospitals and government wouldn’t have made the rules if it wasn’t in our best interests.’

  ‘How can you be so naive?’ She looks shocked.

  ‘How would you feel if a baby died?’ I’m starting to raise my voice.

  ‘I didn’t realise how much of your dad you had in you.’

  ‘Leave him out of this.’ I’m shouting now. I pull in my breath sharply. ‘Will you just answer my question?’

  ‘There are two reasons I do this; for the women who dare to birth the way they want to, and for the babies, who deserve to come into this world without being pumped full of drugs to “save them”.’

  I stab at the ice in my glass.

  Dione’s eyes are shining and her cheeks are flushed. ‘It all starts with birth, Ora. New babies need to be with their mothers, skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart, to give them the best chance of connecting deeply for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ I say in a sing-song voice.

  ‘Do you realise we’ve buggered everything up? We’ve never been sicker, as a race.’ Her words are grating on my nerves. ‘The reason there are so many autoimmune diseases, where the body’s own cells turn against themselves, is because we’ve buggered up our ecosystems—with antibiotics, with chemicals, with electromagnetics. Just like we’ve buggered up the earth’s ecosystems.’

  ‘You’re insane, Dione.’

  ‘And just like we cut the earth up to extract all the resources, now we’re cutting open—’

  ‘—I’m not listening anymore.’ I stand up. The waitress appears and I ask for the bill.

  Dione is simmering down. ‘I’m sorry. I just want you to understand.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ I say for the hundredth time.

  A group of people come and sit at the table beside us. Dione follows me out. When we’re in the car she asks me if I want to go back to the beach. A wall of exhaustion hits me.

  ‘I just need to sleep,’ I say, overwhelmed. I can’t decide anything right now. All I want is to get into bed.

  As we come to a stop outside the house, she says slowly, ‘Every birth I attend, I weigh up the odds of the baby dying or the mother dying, or both. I’m not so blind as to think it won’t happen. If you’re talking about birth you have to talk about death too—they’re two sides of the same coin. Not even the doctors can prevent death sometimes.’ She’s talking gently now, not lecturing. ‘If it happens, I’ll have to live with my conscience for the rest of my life, but … maybe it won’t … or maybe I’ll get caught first.’ She smiles thinly and I see a massive crack zigzagging through all her fighting words.

  As we climb the veranda steps I say, ‘I still don’t agree with any of it. None of this is about freedom of choice. Not really.’

  She looks at me, puzzled, still lost in her activist world. I carry on talking.

  ‘It’s about your own shadows, Dione. What you’re running from. Do you remember when you called to persuade me to go to New Zealand?’

  She nods and pushes against the door, stumbling into the passage, then stopping to look at me.

  ‘I was complaining about Lucy leaving Australia and you reeled off this long list of things to weigh up in my decision making: health, friendships, money, the SIF. You said it was part of the human condition to suffer but the most important thing was to know your priorities and stay busy.’ She nods.

  ‘You never mentioned family in your list, or loss.’ I pause, watching her closely. ‘Do you know, today was the first time you’ve mentioned losing Mum and Holly?’ I see her face hardening, but I push on.

  ‘You haven’t come close to facing your grief. You are so in denial. It’s rubbish, all that stuff about keeping busy! Look at Dad with his job, and you! All this birth stuff, it’s just to distract you.’

  I look at her accusingly. She stares back at me, a mixture of disbelief and truth.

  She speaks very quietly. ‘It’s not rubbish. It is better to stay busy. If I stopped … Where would all the mothers be? They need me Ora.’

  Her eyes fill with tears. The tougher Dione feels safer, but this one is more real. I reach out to squeeze her fingers before she turns and goes into her bedroom, shutting the door.

  I go into my room and get under the covers. My ring catches on Mum’s crocheted blanket.

  Dione’s blanket. I think it’s time to give it back.

  8

  Mum & Holly

  ‘Where are you? I can hardly see you.’ Lucy’s squinting face peers out from my phone.

  ‘I’m under the covers.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the day Ora!’

  ‘It’s after four o’clock here. I’m just exhausted, that’s all.’

  ‘You look it. Can you put the light on? I want to see how bad you look.’

  ‘No.’ I feel terrible. I needed to talk to her but now I wish I hadn’t called.

  ‘Just tell me what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing is the problem, Ora. You’re not doing anything up there. It’s not good for you, all that wilderness. You need some friends. And you need to decide on a uni course. All the places will have gone by the time you get your act together.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘And Dione clearly isn’t the wonder aunt you thought she was.’

  ‘Too right!’

  ‘So start TALKING!’

  ‘She … she interrupted my first ever conversation with Seaboy.’

  ‘What?’

  I can tell her some of it.

  ‘I’d just got brought in by the lifesaver and Seaboy saw everything but came over to say hi anyway, and then Dione stormed up and scared him off.’

  ‘What? You’re breaking up. Will you sit up so I can see you?’

  I come out of my cocoon slowly, taking a weird pleasure in her frustration.

  ‘Did you nearly drown Ora?’ She looks so serious, I crack up.

  ‘No! The stupid lifesaver was on a power trip. I was fine. But it was really embarrassing.’

  She still looks serious. ‘Get me Dione. I want to talk to her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get her, Ora. She’s not looking after you. I can see. I’m going to tell her.’

  ‘Lucy, I’m fine, really. The move has just been harder than I expected.’ She looks at me. ‘That’s all.’ I sigh. ‘I’ll find a friend before I next talk to you, I promise.’

  ‘DIONE! DIONEEEEE!’ Lucy starts shouting her lungs out.

  I turn the volume down and watch her face getting redder and wilder as she shouts. I laugh, and a couple of tears escape. It’s too much. I turn the camera off so she can’t see me.

  ‘I have to go,’ I whisper when she finally stops. I don’t want her to hear the waver in my voice. ‘I love you.’

  *

  My heart hurts and my mind won’t shut up. I miss Lucy. She was right about me needing friends. Echoes of Dione’s words keep swirling round and round in my head. Images of the woman in the tub are disturbing me—she was so peaceful, until she noticed me. The memory of Dione’s tenderness makes me fidget. And the warmth. And the normality. I see myself crying in the sea, and the lifesaver … and Seaboy. Jake.

  I should get up, go for a walk. I need to still my mind.

  A drum journey …? I haven’t done one for years. Not since we moved into the flat.

  I hated that flat. After Mum and Holly died, we stayed at Lucy’s for a bit. Each night, I’d cling to Dad, sandwiched between him and the wall, never letting go. But her house was small, with paper thin walls that couldn’t contain our grief.

  The new flat was all hard, with furniture fit for an office. I yearned for Mum’s handmade cushions. She’d got some bright pink and orange fabric from an Indian woman at the m
arket and made about ten cushions to hide the sofa. They screamed at you whenever you walked in the room, even she’d laughed at them, but eventually we stopped noticing them.

  I’ve wondered about those cushions, whether the flames took on their colour before they were burned to ashes.

  Holly died instantly, Mum two days later.

  Dad was on shift. Mum managed to drag me out of the house in my sleepy, smoke-filled state, then she went back in for Holly. Holly’s room was at the back, where the fire had started, so I don’t think she would have felt pain. Just drifted off into another world, carried on the smoke.

  To the stars, Mum would have said.

  A neighbour got Mum out, but the damage was done.

  The hospital let us wash her after she’d gone. We couldn’t do the same for Holly. There was no chance to say goodbye. But I’d had two days to think about this goodbye, and I convinced Dad we should do it.

  It was weird and beautiful and a nightmare. Her body went from warm to cold. She was there but not there, her skin no longer alive to the touch. I wanted to shout at her to stop mucking about, to wake up. Dad and I didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at each other. Lost in the confusion of Mum’s dead body under our hands, our love for her, stronger than ever, breaking our hearts.

  It felt like days before Dad and I spoke again, but we were connected anyway. Forever, I thought.

  The hospital wouldn’t let us take Mum’s body home. Dad didn’t want to anyway, and besides, we didn’t have a home to go back to.

  Faulty electrics, apparently, in the home I used to love. And dead batteries in the smoke alarm.

  The worst thing about my new bedroom was that it didn’t have Dad in it. He told me I had to learn to sleep through the night without him. The sheets were new and scratchy–a perfect match for the cold and empty room. I took to clinging to Dad on the sofa, and he’d have to peel me off at bedtime, pulling and gently nudging me into my room. Shouting at me when I pushed him too far.

  I had to find something to help me sleep, and that’s when I remembered the drum journey download Dione had given me years before. Soon I was listening to it every night, eager for the monotonous beat to take over and lull my anxious mind into a beautiful nothingness.

  Later, when sleep became elusive again, I decided to take myself on a proper drum journey, and called to Lion, who appeared immediately. We went into a forest where thick, green leaves the size of dinner plates hung off willowy branches above our heads.

  A structure lay ahead, like a giant, golden walnut shell. The entrance was a soft arch and the shiny walls curved back into a smooth, candlelit cave. Peace. Except for Snake, who was coiled up inside. But she looked like she was smiling. Beside her sat a large, round cushion, just for me. I sat down and Snake welcomed me.

  After that visit, I went every night. Lion and Snake were always there. We talked a lot. Me mostly, telling them about my days, my grief.

  One night, the round cushion was gone and in its place was our old sofa, with the colourful cushions … and Mum and Holly.

  I flung myself on top of them, intent on holding them forever. There were tears, but joyful ones. We stayed there for a long time, holding hands and looking out at the forest, as I filled up the cracks and the holes that had been crumbling me away.

  I went often over the next few months. Sometimes they were there, sometimes not. I didn’t get it. I’d figured out I was the one controlling it all, so why couldn’t I summon them whenever I wanted? Lion and Snake were always there, but Mum and Holly seemed to have their own visiting hours.

  I would go to sleep curled up with hope in my heart, which was ironic, seeing as they were dead. But it was the closest I got to having them back. A new family, including a big cat and a snake, was forming in my little forest temple. Sometimes I wondered at the weirdness of it but mostly it felt right; they were all a part of me.

  *

  Lying on my bed in the late afternoon sun, I listen to the drumbeat. Lion and Snake arrive instantly, but Snake starts talking all sorts of rubbish and gives me some crazy advice about trusting Dione. I finish it early and go for a walk. When I come back Dione is out—she must be up at the cottage checking on the woman and the baby. I make us some sandwiches and eat mine in my room, not ready to see her yet.

  I wonder if she’ll ever stop.

  9

  The MBD Centre

  I guess she’s my age. I remember her from last month. I like her hippy chic look—except for her boots, which are more farm than French. Her hair is in a Japanese-style bun on the top of her head and I’m just wondering how long it is when she turns and smiles.

  ‘These lines kill me!’ We’re queuing for our showers, donation pots in hand. ‘This whole thing kills me. Donation, my arse! They make it sound like we’re giving out of the goodness of our hearts.’

  ‘The goodness of our wombs, you mean,’ I say, and she laughs.

  ‘Why do they still call it donation? There’s nothing voluntary about it.’ She looks around and sniffs. ‘I used to swim here when I was a kid. Funny how it still smells like a pool, isn’t it?’ I nod, imagining the centre as it once was, full of splashes and shouts. ‘If you were given the choice, would you still give your blood?’ She seems like a bit of a radical but I like her. Kind of earthy, in spite of her tailored clothes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say honestly. ‘I love my shower. And the blood helps a lot of people.’

  ‘You reckon? You really think they use it for the H. coli victims?’

  ‘For sure. My dad explained it to me. He’s a doctor.’

  I got my period for the first time when I was thirteen, not long after Mum died. Dad made a big deal about it and bought me flowers, saying how important it was and how in a few years I’d be able to donate and save lives. By the time I had to make my first donation I was living with Lucy, and I was glad to have her there to show me how to use the menstrual cup.

  ‘So he works in diseases?’

  ‘Emergency,’ I say, and she scrunches her nose.

  ‘Doesn’t count. He wouldn’t know what they do with the blood.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She shrugs, ‘Just a hunch.’ She turns away.

  I’ve blown it. I’m not sure if it’s because of Dad’s job or what I said about loving the shower. I don’t want to stop talking to her.

  ‘How about you?’ I ask the back of her head.

  She leans against the wall and looks at me again. ‘Nope. Not in a million years.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The showers are just the carrot to get us here. Brainwashing. Bodywashing. Same thing. Just a ploy to make you believe the government owns your blood as well as the water that falls from the sky. Oh look, right on cue.’

  A long parade of SIF officers marches past, looking straight at us. Their cold eyes make me feel dead inside.

  ‘There they go,’ she says to their backs. ‘Flexing their muscles. Every two hours, like clockwork. Have you ever wondered where they’re going?’

  I shake my head. I have no idea, but it was the same at the other centre.

  ‘Every centre, every two hours—a little march up and down. A little show, just for you and me, to remind us who’s in charge. Works a treat. So if we have children we can tell them what a scary-wary bunch the SIF are and how important it is to be vewy-vewy good.’

  I’m shocked. She is mega-radical. Surely the SIF have a base here too, like they did at the other centre? Maybe I should stop talking to her. She doesn’t care who hears. What if we get reported? But then she leans in close and whispers, ‘I only give them half.’ She smiles, holding up her pot. ‘The other half goes back to the earth.’

  I don’t know what to say. But I’ve worked it out. I knew she reminded me of someone.

  Mum.

  ‘I reckon the plastic company has made a killing.’ She’s talking loudly again. The woman in front turns to give us a dirty look, like we’re a couple of termites.

  ‘Millions
of menstrual pots and trillions of water containers. The government’s probably got shares in them. In fact, they probably own the company.’ It’s like she wants everyone to hear.

  ‘I’m Melissa, by the way.’

  ‘Ora.’ I can’t help liking her, even if she is a radical. Once she’s had her rant, she tells me about her passion for fabric and making clothes. I tell her about my sketches, although there’s not that much to say. But she gets quite excited—she’s looking for someone to work with on fabric design.

  By the time we come out of the centre we’ve exchanged numbers. Who cares what Dad thinks? Maybe he doesn’t know everything after all.

  10

  Christmas

  When I find the courage to go back to the beach I sit as far away from the happy bronze lifesaver as possible. I wait all day, but Jake doesn’t come. It’s the same the next day, and the one after. I’ve a sinking feeling that I’ve missed my chance.

  I sketch him in my pad, even though it makes me feel like a stalker. Finally, after dozens of attempts, I capture him. The image bears a striking resemblance. I pin it up on the back of my door—I don’t want Dione seeing it.

  Dione and I have been getting on better since the day at the beach. Neither of us has mentioned the birth stuff—it seems to work if we stay well away from the subject. We’ve started eating dinner together and have gone on a couple of bush walks, chatting about different courses I could choose. She seems okay with me not knowing what I want to do. I think she understands that I need some time. She’s even talked about Mum and Holly, twice, remembering different things about them.

  It feels good.

  I’ve been to see a movie with Melissa, and last week she came to the beach. She’s invited us for Christmas day—there’s only her and her brother and nephew at the moment, so she said it makes sense to celebrate together and Dione seemed okay about the idea of spending the day with people she didn’t know. She didn’t pull a face when she heard how far away Melissa lives, either. I think she’s really trying.