The House Guest Read online

  Even Robin realised she was pregnant. They seldom spoke nowadays; a wave sufficed, a smile. Their relationship was compounded of childhood goodwill, mutual lack of interest and stuck-with-it propinquity. Over the next few months she seemed to inflate slowly but inevitably like a balloon which has been filled with technical assistance, helium perhaps, or a foot-pump at a party. Her clothes did not change. Emmeline drifted about, floating in virtually transparent shifts or waddling in dungarees, clutching her stomach with affectionate wide-stretched hands.

  She came up the concrete path one Saturday morning when he had his head under the bonnet peering morosely at the engine. The brake fluid was down again. Engines, plumbing and people have something in common. Once they have been opened up you need experts, specialists who charge like bulls and what can you do. And the spare tyre was shot and tutors get peanuts and he was trying to save and stuff it.

  ‘Hey Rob,’ she called.

  He lifted his head.

  ‘Oh. Hi, Emmie.’

  ‘Hi.’ She leaned one arm against the thing and smiled at him. Vast, friendly, hair floating, tendrils wafting, Emmeline was pleased to see him.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ he said quickly.

  She looked around, still smiling. ‘Where?’

  He opened the door of the driver’s seat. ‘Here.’

  She laughed. Full-throated and infinitely happy, Emmeline laughed. ‘I might get stuck, matey.’ She patted his arm. Some Orthodox Jewish women don’t touch men other than their husbands. Not even to shake hands. And Chinese women dislike being kissed in public. It just goes to show, as Maureen would say.

  ‘The other side maybe.’ Emmeline waded round the back, opened the front passenger’s door, lowered herself gently into the seat, held her stomach for a moment then patted the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t you like being called matey?’

  He took off his glasses, wiped them and put them back. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Robin then.’ She patted the seat again. ‘I want to ask you something.’

  He climbed in, watched his feet and waited.

  She was looking at him with attention, excessive attention, her eyes bright. ‘Would you do me a favour?’

  He hesitated for a moment, spoke quickly. ‘Yes, of course. What?’

  She laughed again, patted his knee.

  ‘Oh, Rob,’ she said. ‘Now promise me you won’t say yes unless you’re quite happy with the idea.’

  Oh shit.

  ‘What?’ he said again.

  ‘Would you drive me to the Maternity Annexe when …’ Again those cradling hands, that stomach. ‘When the baby’s coming.’

  He could feel his dropped mouth.

  ‘Well … But what about? I mean …’

  ‘What about what?’ Her eyes were candid, she was not kidding, she simply hadn’t caught on.

  This was ridiculous. Why should he be the one to be choosing his words with care. ‘The father,’ said Robin loudly.

  Her voice did not change. She was calm, serious. It was no joke. ‘He’s gone. He shot through.’ She glanced at him. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  He was disgusted with the windscreen. ‘No, I would not.’

  Her hand brushed his for a second. ‘No.’ She paused. ‘Well, will you?’

  Why the hell should he? Even as the thought surfaced he felt the sands shifting beneath him, the quicksands of decency dragging him into embarrassment at the best, into God knows what at the worst. His shoulders moved.

  ‘Why not a taxi?’

  ‘I’ve hardly ever been in a taxi,’ she said dreamily. ‘It’s amazing when she moves.’ She took his hand. ‘Do you want to feel?’

  He snatched it back. Unwilling, ungracious, Robin tried again. ‘Is it a girl?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t had a test or anything. I just assume it is.’ Vacant in the mind if not in body, flaky as peeling skin, Emmeline smiled yet again. ‘Aunt and I wouldn’t know what to do with a boy.’ She began climbing out of the car. Mountainous, heaving about like a cast cattlebeast, she hauled herself up and bent her head again. Amiable as ever, Emmeline had something else to say.

  ‘Don’t give it a thought, Rob. It was dumb of me to ask. I’ll phone a cab.’

  He was out of the car, clutching her pale arms, insisting, ‘No. No. Of course I will. I was nuts.’

  He had to work hard to convince her that nothing would make him happier, that it would be both a pleasure and a privilege for him to drive her to the Maternity Annexe when the time was, he almost said ripe, rephrased: ‘When the time comes. I mean it.’

  She was pleased. Delighted in fact. ‘You’re an old smoocherama.’ Her mouth brushed his cheek, light as Lisa’s first baby kisses. She smelled fierce, musky, drenched in something distilled from ambergris and sex glands. No floral overtones for Emmeline.

  ‘I could ask dozens but you’re so reliable,’ she said. ‘Of course I shouldn’t ask anyone. Girls can do anything. I just thought it’d be

  more fun.’

  ‘Just give me plenty of warning. Time, I mean,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to …’

  She didn’t, of course. For years afterwards the night of September 14th 1989 stayed with him.

  She came beating on his door at one a.m., Miss Bowman’s plastic raincoat over something long and trailing, her feet in jandals, an unravelling kete in her hand. ‘Rob, you’ve got to believe me, Rob! She’s coming.’ She jumped into the front with unexpected agility. Both hands clutched the kete to her stomach in a disturbingly matron-like gesture. ‘Why didn’t you answer the phone?’ she said crossly as they hurtled across the sleeping streets of the eastern suburbs.

  ‘Didn’t hear it.’

  ‘Huh.’ Her body, he noticed in glancing terror, had stiffened, arched. ‘Christ,’ she panted. ‘I didn’t think it’d be like this.’

  ‘How long’s it been happening?’

  ‘Not long.’ She relaxed, breathed deeply. ‘Have you got a watch?’

  They took a corner at speed. Robin’s arms were rigid, his glasses misting. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m meant to time the contractions. The time between. They said.’

  He tugged it off, flung it at her. It fell to the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she gasped. ‘Just get there.’

  Her hair was damp. He could see the glint of anger on her sweating face. ‘I won’t tread on the damn thing,’ she muttered.

  ‘You promised we’d start early.’ He couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, his back was stuck to the seat, she was moaning beside him.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ she gasped. ‘It’s meant to take hours. That’s better, that’s better. It’s just in the—Christ! Just get there man! Get there.’ She was writhing, slipping to the floor, out of control. ‘Get there!’

  They made it. Robin fell in the sliding doors. ‘Quick! Quick!’

  They were calm. This sort of thing had occurred before. They were pros. They assumed, not unnaturally, that he was her partner. ‘This way please, Rob, is it? Aren’t you lucky. It’s going to be a quickie, this one. Must be a girl.’ Large, cheerful, steeped in the miracle of birth and death, Carole and Kura took over. ‘Come on,’ they said. ‘This way.’

  ‘The poor guy’s not the father,’ muttered Emmeline, now supine, breathing deeply, doing what she was told to do. ‘Just gave me a lift in. Shove off, Rob.’ She stopped, overtaken by concentration and a breathy moan to Jesus.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Kura. ‘It’s nicer with a friend but it’s over to you. You didn’t say, did you Emmie? Not on the admission sheet.’

  Gasping, sweating, Emmeline dragged the word from somewhere. ‘No.’

  ‘Would you like to come, Rob?’ Rooted to the spot, his feet clamped to the ground in horror, his head began the brisk shake of dismissal. His eyes met hers above the huge draped stomach.

  ‘Shove off Rob,’ she muttered again. She heaved in sudden convulsion, a gasp, a scream, something.

  He grabbed her hand. ‘I’ll stay.’
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  She moved her blind head. ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll tell Aunt,’ she said, long bony fingers draped around a cup of tea.

  ‘Yes.’ He wouldn’t take his eyes off her or the bundle in her arms, the slick of orange down on the scalp. ‘What’re you going to call him?’

  She lifted her face; dried sweat and hollows grinned at him.

  ‘How about Robin? Just kidding,’ she said quickly. ‘You’ll break it to Aunt. About him being a boy.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘She won’t mind, of course, but she’s not very well. You’ve noticed?’

  How could he not have noticed. Weight was falling from Miss Bowman. She was now gaunt, her face yellow, her hair tugged back in sparse grey wisps. She was undoubtedly far from well.

  ‘Otherwise of course she would have come with me, but I didn’t tell her all hell had let loose. I think she’ll be still be asleep. It’s the pills. Don’t wake her, will you? Leave it till the morning.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She put her cup down on the saucer on the locker, centred it carefully and told him, ‘She’s my mother, you know.’

  Twice in one night someone had trusted him. With transport. With a secret which had once seemed necessary. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  One finger circled the rim of her cup. ‘Yes. Well, she’s never said a word but she must be, mustn’t she? Wouldn’t you say? I wish she’d tell me, tell me the lot.’ She hugged her child. ‘We need to know, don’t we, matey?’

  ‘She must’ve said something.’

  ‘Oh yes, there’s the whole scenario, farming in Vermont, maple syrup, antique butter churns I shouldn’t wonder. Photographs. All that. But not much about the Mommas and the Poppas.’

  ‘But why did she come here?’ He must stop nagging. She was exhausted.

  ‘That’s the big one,’ she murmured. ‘Or one of them. There’s Aunty Martha who married a Canadian in Cold Lake and an uncle who died. And my mother Marie who died. The only thing that’s missing is the family bible. And me.’

  She shook her head in dismissal, glanced around the gleaming white room, sniffed briefly. ‘If this is hospitals I don’t think much of them. But Carole and Kura were great, weren’t they, and I couldn’t handle a home birth. All that aromatic oils and herbal massage and homeopathic potions and the music and loved ones in rows sounds great but … And can you imagine Aunt?’ She shrugged, a large generous heave of skinny shoulders. Her lips touched the sleeping head.

  ‘He’s going to be a redhead,’ he said.

  She grinned. ‘Mustn’t grumble. I hope Aunt’s all right.’

  He put his hand on hers. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  She nodded, dragged her hair back. Victorian maidens with consumption, he had read somewhere, had had their hair cropped short. It was thought to sap their strength when they had so little left. Looking at Emmeline he could understand it. Even as drenched rat-tails her hair was a threat.

  She put out her hand; formal, gracious, Emmeline O’Malley was offering her thanks. ‘You were fantastic.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ He kissed her cheek and left.

  He sent her flowers. He sent her chrysanthemums and lilies and alstroemerias and pittosporum for backing as the florist suggested. ‘To you both,’ he wrote, ‘with love, Rob and Lisa.’

  She came home by taxi the next day, without them. They were lovely she told him over the fence. She couldn’t think how she’d forgotten them. She was so sorry.

  Lisa thought the whole thing was a bit funny, well not funny but you know what I mean. ‘And you were there all the time.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stood in silence, processing the thought, letting it seep in. ‘Why?’

  ‘She had no one else. Miss Bowman’s not at all well …’

  ‘Anyone can see that.’ Lisa paused. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing. Held her hand, rubbed her back. You know.’

  In fact Lisa didn’t. She was not over-pleased but her good nature plus a sense of drama came to her aid. The other girls were impressed by Robin’s role. Padma less so. And the baby, oh the baby. Lisa crooned, she cooed, she knitted a kiwi. ‘When he’s older, I’ll knit him a rugby shirt. No, no, for the kiwi I mean. Then he can be a mascot, eh Calvin? A mascot for the Seatoun Midgets.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Emmeline. She and Lisa did not dislike each other but the age difference had always precluded much interest. Emmeline’s former passion for ballet had held no interest for Lisa despite the endlessly en pointe ballerina tinkling through her life. And Emmeline looked a mess and Bernie said it was just what she’d been expecting for years and who was the father.

  Emmeline thought of Lisa, when she thought at all, with a kind of awe. She was astounded that a bright little snuggle bunny like Lisa should wear the clothes of a funky up-front player, should love her job and do it well and at the same time assume the persona of some goddamn lady-in-waiting. Someone holding herself in readiness, waiting for her white wedding to the groom of her choice whereupon she would live happily ever after. In this day and age! With a sensible down-to-earth old bat like Maureen for a mother and a father who had walked out on her. It was beyond comprehension. And look at Murray. Why didn’t she take a good look at her brother occasionally. A warning surely. Murray glued to his student’s desk, his dreams of white coats and stethoscopes and Yes Doctor and No Doctor and Please Doctor and Oh Doctor coming nearer every moment and the Bernina overheating in hopeless pursuit. On the rare occasions when Emmeline met Murray she watched him with interest. He puzzled her.

  She watched him at Maureen’s Christmas drinks party while Calvin did half press-ups on a blue fleecy cotton rug with clowns in hats. He heaved himself on his forearms, lifted his head and collapsed to resume the struggle. You would think he would have got tired of it, thought Robin, whose proprietary pleasure in Calvin’s existence had lessened since Emmie had resumed her scrambling muddle of a life. Not from lack of enthusiasm but he seldom saw the child. Calvin was with Emmeline at rehearsals, auditions, productions. He slept backstage. He was fed in the interval. In buses and backpacks, by day and by night, he accompanied his mother while Aunt rested or crept about her garden.

  Murray sat with legs spread wide, russet-cheeked and ready to tell them anything they cared to know about parasitology or endocrinology, neither of which he had studied as yet but which were of special interest to him. He sat in his own chair, a deep one with wide curved arms reminiscent of the thirties, built for comfort and almost impossible for Maureen to lift. Fortunately there was little need for her to do so. Murray’s chair sat year by year in the same place, full frontal to both the television screen and the heater.

  The rest of the party—Miss Bowman, Emmeline and Calvin, Robin and Eileen, Maureen and Lisa—sat in a semi-circle around him as though seeking guidance from a counsellor, a change-agent who could set them right for life, who could guide them on the road to recovery.

  George had always asked the neighbours in for a ‘spot’ at Christmas. Maureen, angry and hurt, had not done so the first time after he left. The following year she collected her festive capon from her neighbourhood butcher whom she supported both from loyalty and not having a car.

  ‘Hubby’ll like that,’ said Lance, slapping the immensely naked bird with a modesty square of greaseproof paper before shoving it in its plastic bag. He twisted the ends and presented it with pride.

  Confused, heart thumping, money worrying her like a mauling dog, Maureen drew herself upright. ‘I haven’t got a husband.’

  Lance dropped one eyelid. ‘Good on you,’ he said.

  Maureen marched home, punctured the plastic bag for air circulation, put it in the fridge and rang Miss Bowman and Eileen. ‘Come over,’ she said, ‘and have a Christmas drink with me and the children.’

  They had done so ever since. Miss Bowman disliked crowds but Maureen was a good sort and once a year wouldn’t kill her and she supposed someone should do something vaguely festive at this time of year. She was
grateful it wasn’t her and brought cookies.

  Eileen’s works did not extend to hospitality. If she was asked she came. Reciprocity was unknown to her. She couldn’t see why Robin had to take a bottle but that was his business.

  Having ‘got her ask in’, Maureen went back to the Bernina. Lisa made the guacamole and the sour cream dip as usual, bought the corn chips and the peanuts and more or less left it at that. At the last moment she stuffed some dates with cream cheese for a change. Murray bought a bottle of Henderson Dry and a six-pack with the money Maureen gave him.

  The living room had not changed throughout the years. Christmas cards marched or sulked or fell flat on their faces on the ziggurat of honey-coloured tiles surrounding the built-in heater. It was one of the few changes Maureen had been able to afford since he left. She had had the fireplace ripped out. ‘Ripped straight out,’ she told them each year, demonstrating with heaving gestures both the artisans and their effort. ‘I said, do what you like with it. I don’t want a bar of it. Nasty smoky thing and all that lugging wood and cleaning up.’

  The Bernina sat on a wooden table shrouded in sky-blue organdie for camouflage; generations of pins had been dropped and picked up and dropped again on the maroon carpet squares. A magnetised pin holder, two patchwork pin cushions and Maureen’s double-ended one for every day lay on a trolley beside the sewing table with pinking shears and cutting-out scissors and sharp pointed ones for fine work such as slitting button holes, which frankly Maureen found a bore, especially as they always come at the end. Reels of polyester and silk threads from blush pink to carmine, from palest cream to persimmon, lay jumbled in ancient chocolate boxes nearby. For years Maureen had promised herself one of those reel-holder things you can spin around for instant access to any colour instead of scrabbling. Maureen spent a good deal of time scrabbling; hunting for tape measures, crawling on hands and knees in search of a lost sleeve, a belt, a scrap of Velcro she’d had there a moment ago. Her flattened palm demonstrated, her eyes searched—right there. You wouldn’t read about it.