Chocolate Cake for Breakfast Read online

  He picked me up and hugged me, and I clung to him with my face buried in the curve of his shoulder. His skin was very warm. Don’t cry, I told myself savagely. Don’t you dare.

  ‘God, I missed you, McNeil,’ he said, carrying me back up the steps and inside. He removed one arm to shut the door, and put it back around me.

  ‘You too,’ I said into his neck.

  ‘Oi,’ he said, loosening his arms so I slid to my feet. ‘Look up.’

  I did, and he took my face in his hands and kissed me.

  ‘I love you,’ I said when I could talk again, departing from my rehearsed script right at the start.

  ‘I love you too.’ He kissed me again. ‘I got you something.’ He dug in the pocket of his scruffy shorts and pulled out a tiny gauze bag, tied with a ribbon.

  ‘Mark . . .’ I said shakily.

  ‘Open it.’

  And because I was a snivelling coward, and I couldn’t bear to ruin everything just yet, I undid the ribbon and tipped a gold chain and delicate enamelled pendant into the palm of my hand.

  ‘I found it in this tiny little shop in Cardiff,’ he said. ‘I’m not very good at jewellery, but I thought maybe it was your kind of thing.’

  ‘It is. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.’ I shut my eyes, trying to scrape together a few pitiful crumbs of courage. ‘Mark, I have to tell you something.’

  He rested his chin on the top of my head. ‘You’re leaving me for Hamish?’

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I said.

  Mark didn’t move, and he didn’t speak. He went very still, and I backed away from him. Something was hurting my hand – after a few seconds I realised it was the edge of the pendant, which I was clutching as if for dear life. I put it down on the table beside the front door, amid the junk mail and strapping tape and spare mouthguards, and said hurriedly, ‘It’s my fault. A cat bit me and I put myself on antibiotics, and I forgot that stuffs up the pill. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘How long have you known?’ he asked. His voice was flat and remote, as though it was coming from a long way away.

  ‘Friday. I did a test. I – Mark, I couldn’t tell you on the phone.’

  ‘Do you want to have it?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘You mean you want an abortion?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I could live with myself. It’s not its fault, it’s mine.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, and he sounded suddenly very, very tired.

  ‘This isn’t your problem. I mean, I won’t ask you for anything. It’s all my fault – we can get your lawyers to draw something up to say it’s my fault and you don’t owe me anything. I’ll –’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ he snapped, interrupting this torrent of selfless eloquence. ‘Just what kind of arsehole do you think I am?’

  I had never seen him angry before, and I stared at him with my mouth open. ‘I – I don’t. But you didn’t sign up for this.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he said grimly, ‘neither did you. Come on, I made tea.’

  A rich, meaty smell filled the kitchen. He had set the breakfast bar with two knives and forks, two wineglasses and a tea light in a glass dish. That tea light made the tears well up again, and I choked them back. He opened the oven door to remove a lasagne that looked to be all you could ever ask for in a lasagne, baked golden on top and bubbling at the edges. My stomach gave an ominous lurch, and I turned and bolted for the downstairs bathroom.

  When, five minutes later, I crept back up the stairs, Mark had removed the lasagne from sight and was leaning against the bench with a beer in his hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. ‘Morning sickness. It smells b-beautiful . . .’ And I burst into tears.

  ‘Do you want some toast or something?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘No, I – can I have a shower?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I stood under the hot water for a long time, but I couldn’t get warm. At last I gave it up and got out, and a parboiled, wretched specimen with dark hair plastered down over its scalp and huge dark-circled eyes faced me in the bathroom mirror. Bloody marvellous, I told myself bitterly. You could be Gollum’s twin sister. This’ll really encourage him to keep you on.

  A hair dryer might have helped, and some serious, industrial-strength makeup. I had neither, so I bundled my wet hair up in an untidy knot, took a sweatshirt from the suitcase lying open across Mark’s bed and went slowly back downstairs.

  He had removed all traces of food and cleaned the kitchen, and as I approached he tossed the dishcloth into the empty sink and said, ‘Think you’d keep down a cup of tea?’

  I nodded, and he turned to make it. ‘Any idea when this baby’s due?’ he asked, filling a mug from the amazing boiling-water tap.

  ‘Middle of July, I think. I’ll have to have a scan and find out exactly.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I started, and then saw his face and stopped. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘No, thanks. I don’t think it’d stay down.’

  ‘How long’ve you been throwing up?’

  ‘About a week,’ I said. ‘Throwing up and crying. Hormones, I guess.’

  ‘Sounds like a riot,’ he said, passing me my tea.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great.’ I took a cautious sip. ‘I don’t know why they call this morning sickness; it’s constant.’

  Mark stretched himself out on the couch, and I curled up in one of his enormous leather armchairs with my tea. We didn’t talk as the light faded from golden to pink to silver, and at last I unfolded myself and crept upstairs to bed.

  He came up twenty minutes later, shed his clothes without speaking and got into bed beside me.

  ‘What’s your middle name?’ I asked, watching the shadows move across the ceiling as a car passed beneath the French doors with a throaty expensive purr. Mark’s neighbours’ cars all sounded like that.

  ‘Russell.’

  ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

  ‘I don’t know – blue. Why?’

  ‘We don’t know each other very well, do we?’

  He was silent for a minute, and then he said, ‘Your middle name is Olivia.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s written on your degree. Helen Olivia McNeil, Bachelor of Veterinary Science with Distinction.’

  ‘Full marks to you,’ I said. All of our degrees hung on the wall behind the front counter at work, in order to try to convince the public that we knew what we were talking about.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Olivia was my grandmother’s name.’ Mum’s mum, my nice grandmother.

  ‘Apparently I was conceived in Russell,’ said Mark. ‘Yuck.’

  I gave a small, watery gulp of laughter.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, rolling over and putting his arms around me.

  I hugged him back tightly. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  Mark wiped my eyes with a corner of sheet and said, ‘Apologise again, McNeil, and you’re sleeping on the floor.’

  17

  ‘WHAT NOW?’ I ASKED. ‘DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT?’

  ‘No,’ said Alison, ‘you need a midwife. Eloise Morgan’s lovely, and she’s been doing it for twenty-five years – I’ll get you her number.’

  ‘Thank you.’ We had abandoned our lunchtime walk and were sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of the Broadview War Memorial, Alison with a Tupperware container of salad and me with a Vegemite sandwich. Bread was good, I had discovered; it tended to stay down.

  ‘You told him?’ she asked, carefully spearing a cherry tomato.

  ‘Yep.’

  She glanced at me for a moment, and then turned her attention back to her tomato so as not to pry. Very tactful girl, Alison.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘he hasn’t broken up with me yet. And it must have been fairly tempting, when the first thing I did was burst into tears and throw
up.’

  She smiled. ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s not going to break up with you.’

  ‘It’d be a miracle if he didn’t,’ I said morosely.

  ‘I think you’re being just a tad pessimistic,’ said Alison.

  ‘You try starting the day by spewing out the bedroom window, and we’ll see how optimistic you feel.’ The alarm on my phone had gone off at five that morning, and then to make absolutely sure Mark was awake I had stumbled to his bedroom window (that being closer than the bathroom) and thrown up copiously into the garden below. There may be a better way to dispel the mystery and romance of a relationship, but I can’t think of it offhand.

  ‘I haven’t done that since I was seventeen and Leah Koroheke and I drank about twenty of those revolting Purple Goanna things,’ she said.

  I shook my head. ‘Fine behaviour from the head girl, I must say. So, when were you planning to tell me about you and Sam?’ It would be impossible to compete with Alison for tact and reticence, so I don’t try.

  ‘Soon. When the moment was right.’ She foraged through her salad and added, blushing a delicate shade of pink, ‘He – I really like him.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ I said. ‘And you could have done a lot worse. I was starting to worry that Hamish would grind you down.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘You’d have gone drag racing with him if Sam hadn’t rescued you,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I would not,’ said Alison. ‘I would have developed a terrible stomach bug the night before and been forced to stay home.’

  ‘What star sign are you?’ Keri asked that afternoon, picking up the newspaper on Thomas’s desk. Jill Murphy was due any minute with a constipated Maltese terrier, and we were hanging around out the front waiting for her to arrive.

  ‘Aries,’ I said.

  ‘With Venus and Mercury about to leave your work sector, now is the time to say what you mean and mean what you say,’ she read.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s so helpful.’ My personal theory is that next week’s horoscopes are a collaborative effort between everyone in the newsroom, written late on Friday afternoons after the first half dozen beers.

  ‘Read mine,’ Thomas ordered. ‘Aquarius.’

  ‘Aquarius,’ said Keri. ‘Hmm. Oh, here we are. You’re under the influence of the waning moon, and you need to be careful not to take your loved ones for granted.’

  ‘So it’s okay to take them for granted when the moon’s waxing?’ I asked.

  ‘S’pose so.’

  ‘What a heap of shit,’ Thomas said.

  The automatic doors slid open and Jill Murphy came in, small fluffy dog under her arm. ‘With any luck,’ said Keri brightly, ‘that’ll be just what we say when Buffy’s had his enema.’

  Buffy, as it happened, was quite impressively constipated. According to his owner he had spent most of the previous weekend working his way through a rotten possum – which was no mean feat, seeing as he was only the size of a medium-sized possum himself. Sadly, though, the possum’s fur had failed to navigate the length of his digestive tract, and his large intestine was blocked from end to end. We could feel the hard, distended loops of bowel through his abdominal wall. Why, I wondered, hadn’t he left the fur behind? Surely it’s not all that tasty. And imagine the feel of it in the back of your throat . . . I did imagine it for a moment, and then wished I hadn’t.

  We knocked Buffy right out to unblock him. It’s not a very sophisticated job; you administer enema solution per rectum to grease everything up a bit, knead the abdomen to break the blockage down and winkle the bits out with a gloved finger. Keri and I took turns kneading and winkling, swapping every five minutes or so, while Zoe stood at the patient’s head to monitor the anaesthetic.

  It was hot in the treatment room and I was concentrating on keeping my Vegemite sandwich down when Keri shouted, ‘Zoe! Turn him down!’

  Zoe jumped and dropped her cell phone into the pocket of her scrub top. ‘What?’

  Keri yanked off her gloves and made a dive for the anaesthetic machine’s dial. ‘He’s on four! Is he still breathing?’ She turned off the gas, pushed the button that floods the machine’s circuit with pure oxygen and began to squeeze the rebreathing bag.

  I snatched a stethoscope off the table and pressed it feverishly to Buffy’s chest – his heartbeat was slow and faint, but it was there. ‘His heart’s beating.’

  ‘What’s his colour like?’ Keri asked.

  I peeled back the little dog’s upper lip. His gums were pale grey. ‘Terrible.’ And offering up a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for having put the dog on IV fluids before anaesthetising him, I increased the flow from his drip. Shock rates are ninety mil per kilo per hour – he’s seven kilos – nine times seven is sixty-three – six hundred and thirty mil per hour is about ten mil a minute – a hundred drips in sixty seconds – almost two drips per second . . . There’s nothing like panic for speeding up your mental arithmetic.

  For several tense minutes Keri breathed for Buffy while I listened to his heart. ‘Eighty beats per minute . . . ninety . . . a hundred and ten . . . He’s getting pinker. Stop breathing for him for a minute, Keri – see if he’ll do it himself.’

  He wouldn’t, but after another five minutes we tried again, and were rewarded by a quick heave of breath. I turned down the drip and we regarded one another wide-eyed across the patient. And then, as one, our gazes swivelled towards Zoe.

  ‘Did you look once at that dog?’ said Keri in a soft, menacing voice.

  Zoe opened her mouth, shut it again, burst into tears and fled. Bel does that too – defensive crying in an effort to divert blame from its rightful source.

  ‘She never looked away from that bloody phone,’ said Keri.

  ‘Nope,’ I agreed.

  ‘And if he’d died it would’ve still been our fault.’

  I nodded. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the vet, not the nurse. ‘I didn’t look at him either. If you hadn’t noticed he’d be dead.’

  Keri let out a long, shaky breath. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll watch the anaesthetic; you look after the back end.’

  By half past four the aftershocks of Buffy’s near-death experience were fading. He had gone home, de-constipated, along with a prescription for laxatives and some anti-inflammatories for his poor pummelled colon. Zoe was folding washing out the back in icy offended silence, and Nick had agreed to have a word with her about the advantages of the nurse monitoring the patient rather than the social lives of her forty closest friends. He had then hurriedly left the building, muttering something about needing to revisit a sick bull.

  ‘He won’t say anything to her,’ said Keri, jumping up to sit on the counter and glaring at our leader’s departing back. ‘He’s such a wimp.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘She’s had a fright. She won’t do it again.’

  ‘Of course she will. That bloody phone should be constipated.’

  ‘Confiscated,’ I corrected, grinning.

  ‘Oh, whatever. What’s on tomorrow, Thomas?’

  But Thomas’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Hey, Helen,’ he said. ‘Your boyfriend’s here.’

  I turned in surprise and looked through the window. Mark was crossing the car park, looking unusually respectable in dress trousers and a white business shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows. He had been scheduled to spend the day with his management team (he had not one but three people looking after his contracts and sponsorship deals and investment portfolio; it was scary), so he must have come straight on from there. I’d never seen him in corporate get-up before, and I wasn’t at all sure I liked it. He looked like he belonged not with me but in the kind of trendy waterfront bar where Beautiful People hang out, with a martini in one hand and a supermodel in the other.

  Nick changed direction and hurried towards him, hand outstretched.

  ‘God, he’s gorgeous,’ said Keri dreamily. ‘Mark, I mean, not Ni
ck. Helen, what’ve you got that I haven’t?’

  ‘Tits, for a start,’ Thomas said.

  She scowled at him. ‘When I want your input, zit-face, I’ll ask for it.’

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got to say the word and you’re dehorning Joe Watkins’ calves.’ A horrible, horrible threat: Joe liked to wait until the calves were at least six months old before they were dehorned, and you had to chase them around a tumbledown shed through bits of old machinery to catch them.

  Luckily the automatic doors opened before hostilities could develop any further. ‘Thomas!’ called Nick. ‘Grab a box of beer out of the chiller, there’s a good chap.’

  ‘What about that bull?’ Keri asked, but she spoke too softly for him to hear.

  Mark came and leant on the counter beside me, and I rested my head against his white cotton shoulder for just a second. ‘Hey.’

  He gave me a swift one-armed hug. ‘Hey. Hi, guys.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Keri. ‘How was the UK?’

  ‘Great. Freezing cold. It’s good to be home.’

  ‘More importantly, how’s that shoulder?’ Nick asked.

  Entirely preoccupied with pregnancy, I hadn’t even asked, and it occurred to me that I really was a lousy girlfriend.

  ‘Coming right,’ said Mark. ‘By the time it’s had a month’s rest it’ll be good as new.’

  ‘What’d you do to it, exactly?’

  ‘It’s the AC joint,’ Mark said, digging his left thumb into the point of his right shoulder. ‘Round there somewhere. They X-rayed it this morning. The doctor called it a grade-two dislocation – it shouldn’t need surgery or anything like that.’

  ‘So you’ll manage it with physio?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Thomas returned with a box of beer and fished in the drawer under the till for the bottle opener he kept there in readiness for just such occasions. Opening the first bottle, he passed it to me, since I happened to be closest. I passed it on to Mark.

  It was five thirty when we extricated ourselves, and since Thomas never believes anyone who says they’re not in a beer mood, Mark had drunk mine as well as his. I swapped bottles with him at intervals and took the odd micro-sip, and was quite proud of my powers of deception.