Ora's Gold Read online

  For Christmas, Dione gives me two pre-paid driving lessons—they’re mega expensive and it seems kind of redundant to be learning, but she says she’s saving for an electric car. Dione loves my present—a silk scarf I coloured with natural bush dyes.

  It takes me a while to decide what to wear. I’ve never been good at dressing up, but Melissa always looks so nice. In the end I choose the funky patterned top that Lucy gave me on our last day together and a pair of nice shorts. It’s going to be hot.

  When we’re almost there, Dione asks if we’re going to a horse property. I nod, and explain that Melissa is looking after her sister-in-law’s horses.

  ‘I’ve been here before.’ Dione is smiling broadly as we turn into the driveway. ‘I know the couple who live here.’

  I get a sour taste in my mouth. Surely not in that way?

  Melissa comes out to meet us. She doesn’t recognise Dione, so that’s a relief. Melissa’s brother is called Tom. He has a toddler—Little Tom—who looks like he lives in the crook of his dad’s arm.

  ‘Dione!’ Tom booms, giving her a massive hug. The writing’s on the wall, especially when she starts cooing over Little Tom, saying how big he’s got. I’m seething inside but I don’t want to ruin the atmosphere, so I smile at Tom when Melissa introduces us. He must be at least ten years older than Mel.

  ‘Where’s Sarah?’ Dione asks, looking around—for the mother, I assume.

  Tom shakes his head and looks forlorn. ‘She’s in the Program.’

  ‘What?’ It’s Dione’s turn to be shocked.

  He nods. ‘She’d had this eye infection for weeks so went in for some tests. Why they tested for pregnancy too, I have no idea, but they found out before we did. There was no getting around it, Dione. I tried to get into the system, but it’s a lot harder taking people off the records than putting them on. Before we knew it, she was gone.’

  Dione has her hand over her mouth, like Sarah has just died.

  What is it with her and birth, and why can’t she get away from it? I feel like spitting nails at the pair of them. It’s like she’s this magnet for birth-related bullshit.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Tom.’ Dione is shaking her head. They start talking about how terrible the Program is.

  ‘Do you want to look around?’ Melissa suggests. I’m out the door before she can finish her sentence.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Melissa asks, catching up with me.

  There’s no point in complaining to her, she probably agrees with them.

  ‘Sure. Come on, show me around.’ I force another smile.

  We walk through dry horse paddocks—there are acres of them, stretching to the bottom of a mountain range. Towering gums dot the landscape, majestic and ancient, standing with their giant limbs spread open, saying, ‘This is my land’.

  Melissa moved up here when Sarah left, to help out with the horses and Little Tom. She wants to show me the new foal. The horses are Sarah’s—Tom runs an IT business. I suppose he’s into hacking, too, I think snidely, but I hold my tongue.

  ‘They’re paying me really well—Tom earns heaps—so I’m saving for a new sewing machine. One of the shops in the city is going to start selling my clothes, can you believe it? Hey, did you bring your sketchpads?’

  ‘I just want to work on them a bit more before I show you.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re great. You have to show me next time, okay?’

  I nod my agreement. I wish I was sure.

  The foal is extra cute. His spindly legs look like they’re about to shoot out from under him. He makes me laugh as he runs around playfully, and I forget my anger. I can’t change what’s in the past, and there haven’t been any women around recently—maybe Dione is trying to change.

  *

  ‘Thanks for not saying anything,’ Dione says after a while, on the way home. The sun’s just gone down and there’s an orange pink tinge to everything. ‘I know it was a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Too right!’ There’s an uncomfortable silence that drags on for a bit, then I break it, ‘It’s like we can never get away from it. How many births have you actually been to?’

  She doesn’t answer immediately. ‘Probably over a thousand, all up, including the hospital.’

  ‘A thousand?!’ Why did I ask? But I don’t have the energy to fight with her. And besides, she sounds kind of apologetic.

  I’m just starting to doze off when she pipes up. ‘Hey, guess what I found out?’

  ‘What?’ It better not be birth related.

  ‘One of Tom’s cousins helps out on the property and guess what his name is?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jake!’ I look at her and sit up straighter in my seat.

  ‘And apparently he’s this amazing swimmer!’

  ‘No way!’

  She nods, keeping her eyes on the road. I told Dione about Jake a few days ago. I couldn’t get hold of Lucy and I had to talk to someone. I was feeling so down about not seeing him.

  ‘That would mean Melissa is his cousin too!’

  She’s nodding, ‘Tom said he’s in Queensland at the moment training to be a lifeguard.’

  ‘Queensland?’

  ‘His mum lives there, apparently. He went up for Christmas. But how small is Adelaide, hey? Can you believe it?’

  11

  Second Birth

  The day I get my driver’s license is the day everything turns to shit.

  It starts well. I pass without a hitch thanks to the top-up driving lessons and all the hours I’d clocked up with Lucy’s parents. They were so good to me, letting me drive them everywhere, even after the petrol rations came in. When I get home, Dione has made a celebratory lunch. She says she knew I’d pass. She pulls out a bottle of French champagne that one of her clients gave her years ago. The bubbles go up my nose and we both get giggly. It’s the best time I’ve had with her yet.

  In the afternoon, she has to go and collect her water—they don’t deliver this far up.

  The sun is shining but it’s not baking hot, so I offer to put the compost around the veggies. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. And excited—Melissa told me Jake is coming back in a couple of weeks.

  I’ve got the radio on and my head’s under a bush when a man’s voice makes me start.

  ‘Quick! Help!’

  I stand up too quickly and lose some hair in the foliage. I’m cross that he’s startled me out of my gardening haze. A woman is sitting on the tomato vine bench, leaning forward, holding her belly. I didn’t even hear them arrive. They must have parked out the front. He shoves her bag against my chest and turns to go.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ he says to her, and takes off, back around the house.

  I’m gobsmacked.

  ‘He’s scared of getting caught,’ the woman says, rocking backwards and forwards. Then she roars like a wild woman.

  I drop the bag. A bead of sweat trickles down my spine. Think. Get her up to the cottage. Call Dione. Towels. What?

  I can’t move. This isn’t happening. Tell her to go. Now.

  She’s left it too late. Her noises assault my ears and I know she’s left it too late. The sound reverberates deep in her throat, in and around her body. She’s trying to squat and take off her undies at the same time.

  Here in Dione’s veggie garden.

  ‘I can feel its head,’ she says urgently, her hand between her legs.

  My hands reach out towards her and I snatch them back.

  Why isn’t Dione here?

  I’m moving towards her before I can stop myself, taking off the gardening gloves.

  She’s lowered herself into a kneeling position and shifts forwards, onto her hands. She crawls a little way forward and then another wave takes her. She’s on all fours and roaring, bearing her baby down. I could let the panic take me—it’s rising fast—but there isn’t time. I move in beside her.

  She kicks off her undies and shifts back into a squat, grabbing my arm and the bench, squeezing me like she’s trying to squis
h my bones.

  I dare to kneel down and look between her legs.

  It takes all of my self-control not to grimace.

  ‘Breathe,’ I say, more for me than her.

  She goes back onto all fours. The head is coming! An orb with black hair, coated in creamy stuff. The woman’s skin is stretching and arcing around the head and being pulled taut, like a rubber band. She pushes again and the head comes out a bit more, then goes back again. This happens a few times, and I see more of the baby each time. Then suddenly, with one deep, guttural chant, the head is there, just between her legs.

  It looks dead, face pointing to the sky. It isn’t moving. The baby’s skin is purple and it isn’t moving.

  The mother reaches between her legs, feeling the baby’s head. Then she puts her hand on the grass again and makes another powerful, low tone, and in one slimy glide it’s coming out. I don’t know what I’m doing but there are my hands, reaching, guiding, touching the slippery body. My jelly-like grip tightens as the baby half falls into my hands and lap. The cord is around its neck and I fumble, my breath getting stuck in my throat. The warm, wet body, streaked with blood and oily cream, almost slips away from me. I’m trying to unravel it. Instinct is moving me.

  The mother is breathing heavily, waiting for me to pass her baby between her legs so she can hold it. Finally it’s free and I breathe out.

  I lean forward with her treasure and see that it’s a boy. I let out all my breath when a tiny yowl sounds from his mouth.

  He is alive!

  She holds him close, wondrously, her eyes drinking him in. He gazes back with a heavenly newborn stare; two souls meeting in the flesh. Sacred.

  I am lost in their moment, where only the two of them exist, inside a mystical sheath. She has opened her shirt and put him against her breast and he’s nuzzling, searching for her nipple.

  When she looks at me, her eyes are so clear.

  I smile then look at the baby again.

  We can’t stop looking at him.

  In the distance a car horn sounds and I’m flung back into reality. I’ve got to hide them. Gently but urgently I coax her up to a kneeling position. As she starts to stand, legs shaking, a fierce contraction courses through her. I’ve seen enough nature docos to know that the placenta’s coming out.

  I squat down and make a better job of receiving it. It’s like this mega chunk of liver, warm and wet with the grey, rubbery cord stretching from it to the baby. It’s disgusting, but I don’t have time. I’m pure action, placing it carefully on the bench beside her. I register the colour of blood against the wooden slats. Her legs are still shaking. Into the laundry I run, reaching for the picnic rug and a couple of towels.

  When I see my blood-soaked hands a drop of fear slides through me, then more adrenaline kicks in. All I’m seeing is the need to get this woman up to the cottage.

  Dione’s ute arrives in the backyard as I’m coming out the door. I point at the woman in the garden with her baby and Dione drives over the plants to park beside her. She wraps the baby and placenta in a towel and I put the rug around the woman. Dione opens the passenger door and bundles them in.

  ‘I’m bleeding,’ the woman says, looking between her legs. Dione is in the driver’s seat already. I jump up onto the tray at the back, landing awkwardly on the water container. We tear up to the cottage and Dione rushes inside, reappearing in seconds with a syringe, which she injects into the mother’s thigh. She instructs me to go and get more blankets from upstairs, and bends to examine the amount of blood coming out of the mother.

  ‘We’ll get you warm,’ I hear her tell the mother. ‘You’re going into shock.’

  It’s all a blur and I’m holding my breath again. Dione is speaking to the mother in a soothing voice. She’s still holding the baby feeding at her breast. Some colour is returning to her cheeks. Dione nods at me reassuringly. She’s going to be alright.

  It’s only when they’re tucked up in the room downstairs that it hits me. I start shaking uncontrollably. Dione tells me to go upstairs and have a hot bath—there’s enough water. She gives me a towel and a big hug, rubbing my back hard and telling me what a great job I did. I feel completely numb as I stand there, shivering. I can’t move. She has to guide me up the stairs and into the bathroom. She turns on the taps then puts her wet hands on either side of my face.

  ‘You’re going to be fine, Ora.’ Her face is so close to mine. ‘You did great. The mother’s safe, the baby’s safe and you’re safe.’ She gives me a little shake. ‘Come on, into the bath with you.’

  *

  I’m a hotchpotch of flashbacks—good and bad—and flash-forwards, where fear, with a red-hot branding iron, stamps ‘SIF’ all over my body. One minute I’m seeing the joy and the wonder of new life, the mother’s eyes, her tiny baby, and the next I’m getting my limbs ripped off by the SIF.

  The bad flashbacks keep running in my head like an old projector reel, spinning uncontrollably—the man’s bulgy, fear-filled eyes; the woman’s vagina stretched around the baby’s head; the baby’s slippery body; the cord around his neck; his purple face. What if he had died? What if the mother had died? Dione spends hours with me, debriefing. For the first couple of days, she keeps urging me to go up to the cottage to visit, but I refuse.

  My anger returns full throttle. I shout at my aunt, a lot. WHY is she running this place? Is she insane? Putting us both in danger. And what about the mothers and babies? Someone is going to end up dead. Why can’t she stop? What if she hadn’t had that syringe? How could she have stolen so many supplies when she worked at the hospital? What happens when they run out? The conversations go around and around until I’m tired of them. It’s like I’ve used up all my energy on asking too many questions, trying to make her see that she has to stop.

  She tries to make me see it’s the world that’s wrong, not her.

  When I realise I’m totally over it and not getting anywhere, I just stop talking to her. I’ve had enough.

  I want to go back to how we were, celebrating my driving test.

  My blood-chilling fear of the SIF slowly subsides and my insomnia is gradually replaced by a low-grade anxiety. I start to feel a lot calmer once I discover something new—I begin to imagine Lion asleep, beside my bed, ready to pounce.

  12

  Phone Call

  My biggest saving grace is the beach. Next is my sketchpad, which I’m starting to take with me to the beach. I’m almost ready to show Melissa. And third is the daily game of Scrabble. I think Dione was as worried as I was about the rift between us—we’d only just found each other again—so when she suggested a game I agreed straightaway. And now we’re hooked, losing track of time, focusing our minds on letters and words, each intent on winning. Here is a place where there is no blame or excuses, just delight in our own genius and the memory of Mum, who loved this game.

  ‘How was the beach?’ Dione asks as I open the back door, sticky and hot.

  ‘It was really good,’ I reply with a smile, brushing sand off the tops of my feet. ‘Jake is back!’ I can’t wait to tell Lucy.

  ‘Jake?’ Dione looks vague.

  ‘You know, Jake! Tom’s cousin?’

  ‘Oh yes. Good,’ she says absently, then brightens, grabbing the Scrabble board. ‘We’ve got time for a game before dinner.’

  I want to tell her how I went and said hello, how we chatted about the surf and the shark that was sighted last week. And how gorgeous his eyes are, but she’s not making the right noises—she’s too busy picking her letters.

  I will definitely ring Lucy later.

  ‘Ok,’ I say, sighing loudly and sitting down at the table, across from her.

  We’re halfway through when her mobile rings, making us tut and scowl, but she answers anyway. She always does.

  I can’t work out who she’s talking to. It’s someone she knows, but there’s an edge to her voice, and she’s taking care with her words.

  ‘Hang on a minute. I’ll get her,’ she says.
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br />   I feel a small flip in my stomach—it must be Dad.

  ‘Hello?’ I say softly into the phone.

  ‘Ora, how are you?’ His voice sounds strange.

  ‘Dad! Hi … Yeah … I’m good thanks.’

  There’s a silence.

  ‘I tried your mobile,’ he says.

  ‘I need to charge it.’ I really should do that, so I can ring Lucy. Another silence.

  ‘How about you? Are you still at work?’ I imagine him sitting at the nurse’s station, looking tired.

  ‘No, love. I clocked off early tonight. What’ve you been up to?’ Is there a tinge of accusation in there?

  ‘Oh, not much,’ I say vaguely. ‘Going to the beach a lot. Why?’ I ask, biting back an accusation about him suddenly remembering he still has a daughter.

  ‘I just thought it was time to check in.’

  ‘My sketchpad’s nearly full and I’m looking into fabric design courses, although I might have missed this round of intakes. And I’m swimming nearly every day. It’s such a lovely beach, Dad. I think even you’d spend some time there.’

  ‘Yeah?’ he laughs a bit.

  ‘Yeah.’ It’s good to hear his chuckle in my ear.

  And my heart.

  He says quietly, ‘I miss you, Floss.’

  ‘D’you know Dad, I’ve been here for nearly four months?’

  ‘God, is it that long?’

  ‘And you haven’t been to visit me once!’

  ‘I’m busy here. You know that.’ He’s closed up again. I shouldn’t have criticised him. ‘I’ve had a call. I’ve just told your aunt and now I’m telling you. I don’t know what you two are up to but I know it’s serious if the SIF are ringing me in the middle of the night.’

  ‘What?’ My world slows and my legs become hollow.

  ‘That’s right. They rang last night.’ There’s a long pause. ‘What’s it about Ora?’

  ‘What? Why would they ring you?’ I am trying to sound innocent, and failing.

  ‘I don’t like it, Ora. You know what they’re like. Once they get a sniff of something, they strike like wildfire. They wanted to know where you’ve been living in Adelaide.’