Page 69 of Kiwi Gold
“Nah,” I said. “Just the tutu.” The baby was lying in a pile of yellow cloth arranged to look like a flower. Buttercup, something like that. She was meant to be a flower fairy, I guessed. There was another photo next to hers, too. That baby was wrapped in green, with a pointy green hat like an elf’s, or possibly the stem of a pumpkin. It had green wings, and was nestled into an oversized version of a koru—the fiddlehead of a fern. I said, “I’m guessing that’s a boy. Fat little fella, isn’t he? Put a few fuzzy green balls on his belly, and he’d be a pea pod.”
“Yes,” she said, “if I were just entertaining myself. Are you more of a pea-pod man than a fairy man, then?”
“I reckon so,” I said. “Uncultured, eh. A funny baby photo, though? I could live with that.”
Wait. I didn’t want kids. Not dressed as fairies, as pea pods, or any other way.
“So,” she said. “Obviously, I’m not ready.”
“No,” I said. “I see that. Never mind. No rush. It’s a walk on the beach and a burger at the café.”
“Chosen,” she said, “so I’ll let you pay for all of it.”
“Glad you remember our agreement.” I’d be paying the babysitters, too, if I had my way. Which I very much doubted I would, but I’d give it a go.
“The problem is,” she said, “there’s something I need to do first. It can’t wait, and I’m fairly sure that it’s going to kill the mood.”
30
HOW TO BE THERE
Lachlan
I didn’t understand what was going on. Laila had told me she needed to pop by the hospital to photograph a baby, and that it would probably make us an hour late, and I’d thought,Couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow? Didn’t we make this date?I hadn’t said it, though, for some reason, had just tossed the bag with her togs and the one with my go-to-dinner clothes into the car’s boot and driven her.
And, yes, a woman so wrapped up in her work that you couldn’t count on her to keep your dates should have been a dealbreaker. Have I mentioned the other things that didn’t work for my life? The twins? The dead husband? The more-than-awkward family complication? The no-sex? The father who hated me? Not the woman I should be thinking about at night, when I heard the skittering feet stopping next door, the occasional giggle following it, and knew she’d put the girls to bed, and they were lying in their bunks in the tiny room, still talking, because those girls always had something to say. Then, later, the faint sounds of a door closing, a light tread across the floorboards. I didn’t need to imagine Laila on the other side of the wall, walking through the flat in her nightdress, turning off lights, climbing into bed alone and lying there, looking into the darkness.
Maybe thinking about me.
Or did I need to get over myself? When a woman doesn’t touch you and you don’t touch her, it’s hard to read the signals. There was a way she’d look at me that told me one thing, but when she shut the door at the end of the evening as if she couldn’t get it closed fast enough, I got the exact opposite message.
She didn’t talk during the drive, though she’d seemed normal enough back at the flat, and after a couple of abortive efforts at conversation, I dropped it and wondered again whether I was mad.
Probably. But it was just three dates. Just dating school.
So she could go out with somebody else.
Now, I was sitting in the maternity unit’s waiting room, doing what one did. Which was waiting. There were a few groups in here—grandparents, maybe, and some more who looked like they might be aunties and uncles, chatting and laughing and drinking coffee. Either the world’s oddest place for a party, or Baby Number Four.
The man sitting across from me, on the other hand, who was probably somebody’s brand-new grandfather, wasn’t chatting and laughing. He was frowning at me from underneath a pair of those eyebrows that look like two furry caterpillars have taken up residence on your face.
I wasn’t looking at him. That wasn’t how I knew. I knew because his basilisk stare had practically burnt a hole through me by now.
When he asked me, “Don’t want to be in on the action, mate?” it was a relief, honestly.
“Pardon?” I looked up from my phone. What, I was meant to be the photographer’s assistant? I knew how to photograph rocks. Well, cracks in rocks. Somehow, I doubted that would be very useful.
He said, “Bit hard on her, surely, having to go it alone. She didn’t get into this by herself, eh. You were there for that.”
“Thomas,” the woman said, putting her hand on his. “You don’t know. Maybe he gets sick at the sight of blood.”
The man snorted. He had gray hair, a ruddy complexion, and looked like a farmer. “Doesn’t look like he’s suffering. Pretty bloody cool, if you ask me. He could look at her face and hold her hand, if he can’t handle anything else. Or he could harden up. If I could do it, mate,” he told me, “you can. Get in there.”
“The poor man,” the woman protested. “What’s he done to you? I know you’re worried about Caroline, and thinking that Alan won’t be doing everything he should, buthonestly.Maybe Mum doesn’t want him there.”
It took me a moment to realize she was talking about Laila. I got it when she said, “Could be she wants to preserve a bit of mystery. Not sure how alluring you could possibly have found me, after watching all that mess three times over. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d sat outside for them, and that’s the truth.”
“Try to keep me out, that’s all,” he said. “Of course I was there. Of course I was.” And glared at me some more. As I’ve mentioned, it was a pretty good glare.
