Page 101 of Just Say (Hell) No
The All Blacks were playing the Wallabies, and the stands were full for this first match of the four-nation Rugby Championship. Marko had pulled on the black jersey this afternoon for the fourth time this season, and as always, it had felt like an occasion.
You never took it for granted. Not once. He was about to run out for his country for the seventy-first time in an All Blacks jersey, and it felt very nearly like the first. He’d get the same shiver down his back, the same hair standing up on his arms when he stood with his teammates and sang the anthem, the same rush of his blood when they formed up in the black wedge and Liam Mahaka shouted out the first words of the haka. The same, and new every time, because no match was the same as another.
It was never easy. It was always fast, brutal, and hard. And you’d give anything to be part of it.Almostanything. Therewerethings more important than rugby, which was why he and Hugh would both be on the ground when the squad got on the plane in four days for Buenos Aires. Ella was thirty-six and a half weeks gone, and you couldn’t schedule babies.
Tonight, though, he was here, and so was Hugh. And it was on.
Beside Nyree, Ella shifted like she was trying to get more comfortable. It wasn’t that she looked heavy, exactly. It was that she was all belly, and what a belly it was.
On Ella’s other side, Josie asked, “All right?” At the words, Tom leaned forward from beyond her.
OnNyree’sother side, Ella’s mum said, “I told you it would be too much. All thesestairs.And all that walking in the rain, too.”
“Oh,” Olivia said from beyond Jakinda, “I think they’re good for her, don’t you? It takes strength to carry that weight. Besides, she wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.”
Nobody, in fact, was missing this, or so it seemed to Nyree. Her mum and stepfather were a couple rows back, her mum watching Kane and her stepfather watching everybody. Both of Marko’s parents, and his aunt as well. Josie, of course, and Tom, too, no doubt longing with every fiber of his nineteen-year-old self to be out there in the black jersey, and the rest of the wives and girlfriends and kids, mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers, until you wondered if there would be room for anybody else in the stadium. Which, rain, wind, and all, was sold out, the All Blacks’ sibling-rivalry matchup against Australia guaranteeing it. Nyree was just glad they were in the dry seats. The players would get wet, but they wouldn’t care.
Ella said, irritably for her, “Don’t fuss, Mum. I’m huge as, that’s all. Plus, Wild Baby’s doing his thing.”
“I thought they said the babies would run out of room,” Josie said, “and not be able to move so much.”
“I wish they’d tellhimthat.” Ella grabbed Josie’s hand and put it on the bottom curve of her impressive abdomen, over on the right. “He’s got his head pressingdownon me, and he’sshoving. All right, I can finally breathe some, but being a hundred percent effaced is gross. I think they should just tell you that you’ll feel like you have to poo all the time, but you can’t. That would be, like, job done, you’ve got it. And I don’t carewhatMarko says about how you can’t tell, I think Wild Baby’s going to play rugby. Meanwhile, Zen Baby’s just squirming a tiny bit. Like, ‘Yo, bro, I’ll be over here taking my nap.’ He’s like akoala.”
Nyree laughed and put an arm around Ella, and the girl glared at her and said,“Youtry it, if you think I’m whinging. Sorry, Josie, I know you want to do it and all, but it’s still gross.”
Josie said, “Never mind, love. You can whinge as much as you like. I know it’s hard.”
“See?” Ella told Nyree. “You’re meant to be encouraging, not laugh at me.”
She was smiling, though, so Nyree laughed again and said, “Nah. One sympathetic person’s enough. I’m the mate that jollies you out of it. We’ll see if the All Blacks can distract you. Any moment, eh.” And indeed, the music was swelling, the Wallabies were trotting onto the field, and the crowd was rising, beginning to wave their black flags.
“What was Marko’s card of the day?” Ella asked Nyree, heaving herself to her feet with an impressive effort. “I forgot to ask.”
“The Magician,” Nyree said over the rising roar of the crowd. “Manifest your desires.”
She’d have said, before this year, that she’d seen too many All Blacks matches in her life. On TV, and even in person. She’d never felt them in her blood, though, the way she did this season. During the June series, of course, and even more tonight, because the Wallabies had an edge to them. Tonight, it wason.
When Marko ran out, it was something new. When the chant of the haka came over the loudspeakers, when she saw his hard face on the big screen, looking like nothing anyone would want to come up against, she got a thrill down her spine worthy of her Maori ancestors. And when he sent a hulking Wallabies forward backward with the force of his tackle in the first minute, she stood and screamed like it was three hundred years ago. Like he was fighting, and he was winning. Like he was her man.
Ella went to the toilet twice during the first half alone. When she came back the second time just as everybody else was surging toward the exit doors in search of a halftime beer, Nyree helped her edge her way past and asked, “All right?”
“Yeh,” Ella said, sinking into her seat. “You don’t want to know. Gross again. Ugh. Tummy.” This last under her breath, since Tom was listening.
Nyree had worried, whenshe’dbeen sixteen, about what she’d do with her retainer when she finally kissed a boy. She hadn’t had to contemplate him learning about her pregnancy bowel habits. Horrors.
“Any contractions?” she asked Ella. “You know they said in the classes that they might not be strong to start.”
“Nah.” Ella shifted position. “My back aches, that’s all, same as usual.”
“If anything starts,” Josie said, “tell us. If you eventhinkanything’s starting.”
“What’s starting?” Jakinda asked, already standing up.
“Nothing’s starting,” Ella said. “I’d know if something was starting. I’m being distracted by manly blokes, which is good. Trying to be less of a pill, too.”
“Aw, darling,” Josie said, “not a pill. Never.”
Ella looked expectantly at Nyree, and she laughed and said, “Maybe a bit.” Which made Ella laugh as well, so that was good.
