Little Bird Read online

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I asked her, feeling golden and dizzy. ‘Let’s get you something to eat.’

  Maisy was very patient as I clumsily buckled her into her high chair. Her wide blue gaze followed me around the kitchen as I retrieved an ice-cube tray and struggled to pop out a colourful assortment of the cubes. I microwaved them for ten seconds at a time, nervously poking the icy lumps around with a spoon. Microwaving wasn’t a natural gift with me.

  The feeling of love hit me again as I sat down in front of Maisy and offered her a spoonful of food. Something about the trusting way she opened her mouth wide, like a baby bird, flooded me with a sense of peacefulness. It was a feeling I recognised from when I was little, lying in front of the heater on a wintry night, listening to the wash of my parents’ voices and the background hum of the television.

  After dinner I lifted Maisy from the chair and took her into the lounge room, where I laid her out on the rug. Maisy smiled up at the light fittings and kicked her legs joyfully while I gobbled hastily reheated, but still half-frozen Spaghetti Bolognese.

  A slow, wet, blurting noise rumbled from Maisy’s lower half. Her expression was thoughtful, and she didn’t seem at all bothered, but panic surged in me again. Poo! Could I deal with poo? Colette hadn’t told me anything about poo.

  As I carried Maisy into the bedroom, a distinct smell wafted around her (not entirely unlike the smell of Spaghetti Bolognese, which grossed me out a little). I laid her down on the change table. Her outfit had buttons everywhere, to get at her nappy without completely undressing her, I assumed. I unsnapped the buttons at her crotch, but I couldn’t see how to get her pudgy legs out without bending them the wrong way. I undid more and more buttons, until I may as well have just taken the whole stupidly complicated suit off her anyway. She kicked her legs in the air and laughed at my distress.

  ‘Oh, help!’

  There was poo everwhere. Somehow, by the time I got the nappy undone, Maisy managed to put first one foot into it and then the other. It oozed out of her nappy onto her back and all over her clothes. I armed myself with a wad of wipes, and dabbed gingerly at her private parts, making little impression. Clearly the only way to deal with it was with firm vigour. As I grew more confident Maisy didn’t seem to mind me hauling her from one side to another; she grinned up at me through her legs when I folded them over her head to wipe her bum and back. Every time I thought I was done, I found another sneaky crevice that needed cleaning.

  In the end I gave up. I bagged up the dirty nappy and the used wipes and ran Maisy a bath. I lowered Maisy’s body into the shallow warm water, her legs curled up to her chest. She poked at the water experimentally with her toes and then stuck her feet in. She slapped the top of the water with her hand and solemnly swished her tiny fingers back and forth like little fish.

  I soaked a flannel and squeezed it, dribbling warm water onto Maisy’s back, and Maisy grew quiet and thoughtful and still. ‘You like that?’ I asked and did it again.

  Being with Maisy made me feel wonderful, and it also made me a little sad, but I didn’t know why.

  All I had known about babies before was that they cried, fed and slept. Maisy hadn’t cried once. She was full of joy, like her little life was an endless series of happy possibilities.

  When Maisy was dry and snuggled into a soft all-in-one pyjama suit, looking like a teddy bear, I held her in my arms and fed her a bottle of formula. Maisy gazed up into my face as she drank the milky concoction and the expression on her face mirrored the utter bliss I was feeling. As Maisy drained the bottle her gulps slowed into a shallow suckling, and her eyes blinked dreamily. I tried to remember a lullaby and the only one I could think of was Silent Night. It felt a bit weird singing a Christmas carol in April, but the familiar tune sounded magical in the quiet of the apartment. Maisy watched me as I sang. All my life I’d felt transparent, as if people saw through me – even the people I loved, like Shandra or Tegan. But Maisy saw me. She looked at me as if I were full of possibility too. As if I were as amazing to her as she was to me. And then she drifted off to sleep, her eyelids blinking heavily closed.

  I carried her to the bedroom and lowered her gently into the cot. I watched her sleeping face for a while in the dim light. Then I curled up on Colette’s couch and drifted off too, under the Klimt print of the mother and the child and the cascading hair and the flowers.

  6

  Apparently Colette and Shandra had had some kind of argument over the bridesmaid dresses. I gathered, blearily, that they’d more or less made up by the time they got to Colette’s flat. Still, Shandra said no to a cuppa and propelled me, still half-asleep, down the external staircase. Stepping into the cold air was like being slapped awake, though my skin still felt gluey with sleep and my brain was tight and grumpy.

  ‘What about the dresses?’ I asked, blinking as I climbed into the car.

  ‘Colette wants to make them. She wants to adapt some vintage fifties sundress pattern.’

  ‘Like the dresses in Grease?’ I yawned, trying to remember if Grease was fifties or sixties. Or was it seventies?

  ‘I don’t want a homemade wedding. I want to do it properly. I want everything to be perfect.’

  I nodded, yawning. I tuned out again. The night blurred past, the dark streets and the pooling streetlights.

  I wasn’t thinking about weddings. I was thinking about Maisy, the weight of her in my arms as she snuggled into me and drifted off to sleep.

  On Monday at recess I was standing in line at the cafeteria, waiting to buy Tegan a Coke. Tegan was still barely on speaking terms with me. I hated myself for being such a suck, but life was easier when Tegan was talking to me.

  ‘Hi,’ a low male voice said close to my ear. ‘Rosie-lee, isn’t it?’

  I turned around. It was Spence. He wasn’t that much taller than me and his blue eyes looked deeply into mine. He smiled at me. My heart beat faster. Behind him, the overheated, airless cafeteria began to spin.

  ‘Ruby-lee.’

  ‘Right, Ruby-lee. I heard on the grapevine that you looked after my princess on the weekend.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Isn’t she absolute perfection?’ Spence asked.

  My tongue was dry in my mouth. I’d got the impression from Colette and Shandra that Spence wasn’t interested in Maisy. ‘She’s adorable,’ I croaked, as if I hadn’t used my voice for months. I struggled for something interesting to say, but my mind was a whirl. The faint syrupy scent of Spence, like Maisy’s anzac biscuit smell, clouded my head.

  He pulled out his wallet and flashed it open.

  ‘You’ll appreciate this. I don’t show many people.’

  I looked down at a photograph of Maisy as a sleeping newborn. She looked different, all curled up and pale like a witchetty grub, but her face was the same, her closed eyes, her puckered lips, like she’d been born with a kiss on her mouth.

  ‘Oh,’ I breathed.

  Spence had stepped around beside me to look at the photo, and my blood quickened when our shoulders touched.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he said in his husky voice, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose and fell at his breath.

  We reached the front of the queue. The woman serving handed Spence a coffee in a paper cup. ‘Here ya go, Darls. For my best customer.’

  ‘Thanks, Mary. You’re the only one who can give me what I want the way I like it. When are you going to throw all this in and marry me?’ Mary giggled. I’d never seen her so much as crack a smile before. Spence took his coffee and sipped. ‘Gotta run.’ He winked at me. ‘See you again, Ruby-lee.’

  ‘You’re not going to have his baby too, are you?’ Tegan said, after I’d stupidly told her about the photograph.

  ‘Get stuffed,’ I said, but a rosy blush crept over my cheeks.

  ‘You fancy him!’ Tegan shrieked.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Good. He’s fully old and creepy. Teachers shouldn’t hang out with students – it’s so wrongtown.’ I didn’t say anything
. I was remembering him brushing up against me, and the Maisy-sweet scent of him. ‘So are we wagging English, or what?’ Tegan asked. ‘Did you do that memory piece yet?’

  ‘Oh crap. I forgot.’

  ‘Let’s go into town. Come on, I’ll be your best friend.’

  ‘Why not?’ I was just thrilled that Tegan was talking to me again.

  That week Spence went out of his way to say hello to me everyday, which I could see made the music girls jealous. I felt strangely special when the girl groupies who dogged Spence’s every step muttered about me and stared at me with narrowed eyes. For the first time I felt like I was someone at Derwent College.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ Tegan said. ‘Be careful or he’ll have you babied up and brainfried like Colette.’

  Tegan was just jealous – it wasn’t often that someone showed interest in me. Tegan was used to being the one that people whispered about. I thought smugly of the photo Spence had shared with me. He’d never show that picture to Tegan, probably not even to his goth groupies.

  On Thursday night at dinner, Shandra said, ‘Colette dropped into the office today and showed me the sketches of the dress. She needs to measure you. I said you’d call her.’

  ‘What are the dresses like?’

  Shandra ate another mouthful of peas. ‘All right. Kind of cute, I guess.’

  ‘But what do they look like?’

  ‘You’ll see, she can show you the sketches when you go to be measured. Go this weekend, okay? She’s so slack these days, takes her ages to get round to anything.’

  ‘Shan!’ Mum admonished. ‘She’s got a tiny baby.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not like she ever goes out! She’s home all the time and the baby just sleeps and stuff.’

  Stefan shook his head, sawing his steak. ‘Those words will come back and bite you on the bum one day, Shan. Babies are hard work.’

  Shandra made a face.

  ‘I think it’s lovely of her to offer to make the dresses,’ Mum said.

  ‘I didn’t ask her to. I wanted shop-bought dresses.’

  ‘She probably can’t afford an expensive dress, Shan.’

  ‘I can’t afford one either,’ I said, but no one paid any attention to me, of course.

  Shandra was unforgiving. ‘She should have thought of that when she agreed to be my bridesmaid.’

  ‘Have a bit of compassion, Shandra,’ Mum said.

  ‘I’m sick of everyone talking about money all the time!’ Shandra said. ‘It’s a wedding! Of course it costs money. Everything has to be perfect.’

  ‘I know, darls,’ Mum said. ‘But you don’t want to start your married life with huge debts. And you can’t expect a single mum to come up with a couple of hundred dollars for a dress.’

  ‘It’s meant to be the happiest day of my life.’ Shandra said, sounding as if she were about to bung on the tears.

  I made a face. Shandra needed to get over herself.

  ‘Shandra,’ I said seriously. ‘At moments like this, you should ask yourself, what would Nana want you to do?’

  ‘Shut up! I can’t believe you’d belittle my connection with Nana. How dare you speak ill of the dead?’

  ‘Girls,’ Mum said, rubbing her forehead.

  ‘What would you know anyway?’ Shandra hissed at me. ‘Who’d marry you?’

  ‘Who said I wanted to get married?’ I sneered like it was a dirty word, but I was enjoying myself. It was a dinner and a show.

  ‘Girls, stop. Can’t we get through one meal without an argument? Ruby-lee will get measured for her dress this weekend,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll drive her on Saturday. It’ll be fine, Shandra. You’ll see. It’ll be the most beautiful wedding in the whole world and Ruby-lee and Colette will be lovely bridesmaids. Colette’s got more fashion sense in her little finger than any of those shops in the mall.’

  I rang Colette after dinner, my heart fluttering. Unlike most of the girls I know, I hated talking on the phone. I was actually happy when I lost my mobile phone and Mum refused to buy me a new one.

  ‘Shan’s got you on the case, has she?’ Colette said. ‘She doesn’t waste any time.’

  ‘You mean Bridezilla?’

  Colette laughed.

  ‘Is Saturday all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Colette. ‘What time?’

  I riffled through my mental diary. Yeah, right. ‘Any time.’

  ‘How about twelve? Then I can go to Salamanca market first and cook up Maisy’s food for the week.’

  ‘Sure.’

  There was a pause then we both began speaking at once. ‘I don’t know if you —’ ‘I wanted to say —’

  We both laughed nervously.

  ‘You first,’ Colette said.

  ‘I was going to say that if you want me to look after Maisy again, I’d be happy to.’ I couldn’t keep the eagerness out of my voice.

  ‘Thanks, Rubes. I can’t pay you though.’

  ‘That’s okay. I mean, I liked doing it.’

  ‘Are you sure? ’Cause, well, I don’t know if it’s too soon to ask, but actually, there’s this gig on Saturday afternoon, it’s the band I used to play with. It’d be too loud for Maisy, but I’d love to go. You could come here for lunch and the measurements and then I could pop out for a couple of hours. You wouldn’t have to stay here. You could take her out in the pusher, to the park or the shops . . . if you wanted. I mean, you’ve probably already got plans.’

  ‘Oh no, I’d love to. I really would.’

  ‘Fantastic. You’re a legend. So see you at twelve then?’

  We said goodbye and I put the phone down. I hummed as I walked up the hall and into my room. I was supposed to be doing my homework, but I lay down on my bed and stared at the white ceiling. In my mind I pictured myself walking through the park, pushing a smiling Maisy in the pram, golden sun streaming down on both of us.

  And then, as if taking on a life of its own, suddenly Spence appeared in my fantasy, walking beside me, with his hand on the small of my back. Maisy was asleep in the pram. Under the trees where no one could see us, we stopped, me and Spence, autumn leaves drifting down. And there under the trees, our bodies warm despite the cold air rushing around us, we kissed.

  7

  Spence was about to kiss me again when Shandra burst into the room.

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of knocking?’ I snapped, sitting upright, embarrassed at being caught out, as though my fantasy was a movie projected on the wall.

  Shandra knocked feebly on the open door. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Hey, Sis. I’ve got a favour to ask.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘What?’

  ‘Daddy Darling is taking me out to dinner tomorrow night to talk about the wedding. Will you come? For moral support? Please?’

  More wedding talk. I groaned.

  ‘Pwease?’ Shandra asked again, fluttering her lashes. ‘Pwetty pwease, with sugar on top?’

  ‘Is Paula going to be there?’

  Shandra snorted, dropping the cutesie act. ‘As if she’d let Dad off his leash! She’s been even worse since she spawned.’

  Even though Dad had left us for Paula, Paula was horribly jealous of Mum, and totally resented any time Dad spent with me and Shandra. I don’t think I’ve seen him on his own since I was thirteen.

  ‘All right, but you owe me. You owe me something huge and tied with a bow.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Shandra threw her arms around me. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you. I wuv you. You’re the best sister in the whole world.’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ I said, pushing her off. She’d interrupted my daydreaming and brought me back to the real world of homework versus weddings for the ultimate suck award. ‘Bugger off. I have to do my English assignment, or Ms Betts will have me kicked out of school.’

  My Memory by Ruby-lee King

  About three weeks before my thirteenth birthday I came home and there were plates broken on the kitchen floor. A lot of plates. ‘What happened?’ I asked Mum.
‘Oh I just dropped some plates,’ she said. ‘Okay,’ I said and went to my room. That night Mum told us Dad wasn’t coming home and Shandra said is he working late again and Mum said no he just wasn’t coming home because he wasn’t going to be living with us anymore. And that was how they got divorced. I already knew lots of kids whose parents were divorced so it was no big deal. At school everyone was like, ‘yeah?’ Then it was my birthday and Dad came to see us. He went to Shan’s room and talked to her and then he came to my room and gave me a present, it was Barbie and I knew he hadn’t picked it or wrapped it or written in the card ‘from Joe and Paula’. Dad was always Dad not Joe and who was Paula? ‘You’re going to be seeing a lot more of Paula,’ Dad said and I already didn’t like her because who buys a thirteen year old a Barbie? Anyway we hardly ever see them.

  As for Barbie that night I cut off her hair and tried to dye it black with shoe polish and when that didn’t work I got my mum’s lighter and I melted her hands and feet then I threw her in the bin and then later I cried because I wished I hadn’t done it because she was so pretty and all new in the box and even if she was a crap present she was mine and Dad had given her to me.

  It was probably Paula who chose the classy fish restaurant in town. She used to work at the university before she had William. She was only a receptionist like Shandra, but she thought it made her important because she hung out with fusty old professors. The restaurant was mostly empty, perhaps because it was so early. Looking around at all the stiffly folded napkins and wine glasses on the empty tables made me feel like an intruder. When we were kids if Dad took us out to eat, we went to the fish and chip place on the wharf, got takeaway and sat in the park to eat it. I missed those days.

  Paula was jiggling baby William against her chest. She looked tired and puffy, still heavy from the pregnancy and her brown hair was dull and limp. A large chocolate-coloured pram, lined with pale blue fabric, sat empty beside her. Mum told me that William’s pram had cost more than the car she and Dad had owned when Shandra was born. William looked awkward in Paula’s arms. He wasn’t crying, just making an uncomfortable whining sound.