paintings at the local gallery, where Jennifer had sold half of them. It didn’t make him any nicer. Adjust your expectations, bitch. OK. That last part was her.
When she got up in the morning, wrapped in her printed sarong, Andrew was prone on his karate mat in the awning’s shade, reading. She stepped into the shadows and put a foot in the centre of his back, over his bumpy spine.
‘Is that foot clean?’
‘Shall I stand on you?’
‘Could I handle it?’
‘I doubt it.’ She stepped off and sat on the edge of the deck.
After coffee, he walked her down the hill to the maternity home, and traffic trundled past. Appreciate the little things. Green light from the palm leaves surrounded his head. ‘So I hear there’s another nuke ship out there,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the invisible harbour. A bird purred from the bushes by the roadside.
‘Yeah, apparently junk. It’s circling while they find a place to process it. Debt cancellation.’ She was repeating what stood in for news, what presented itself as news these days although nobody trusted the source. Maybe debt would be cancelled; maybe it wouldn’t.
‘I thought it was a Chinese deal.’
‘Could be. Law firms, tax havens, whatever.’ Knowledge had been replaced by phrases that induced a vague paranoia. Like everyone they knew, Dot and Andrew had stopped looking out into the frames of the world. They crossed the road to dodge a couple of beige dogs that were snarling and chewing at each other’s necks.
‘So. When are we going to talk about what we’ve got to talk about?’
Dorothy fanned herself with a piece of paper from her bag. It was going to be a scorcher. ‘What do you want to talk about? Jennifer? I’ve got nothing to say about Jennifer. I’m running late.’
‘You agreed we would talk.’
‘Here on the road? Is this why you’re here? I’m late for work.’
‘OK, you’ve got your work. Sure.’
‘Do some paintings. Or go and see Jennifer. I like Jennifer. Say hi from me.’ Lying is counterproductive. Or Fake it till you feel it. Or Speak your truth. Or Have high expectations. Or How about a reality check or Listen to yourself or Get out of your own way.
‘ “Do some paintings”? That’s a fucking emasculating thing to say.’
‘Sorry.’ A fly zipped past her ear. ‘We’ll talk when I get back. Later. If you’re there.’ Through the low shop-buildings a view cracked open of the city and the sky above it, clouds banked in deepening shades of grey against each other, piles of rocks in the sky.
As Dot crossed the courtyard, Sondra intercepted her with the news that Jo’s waters had broken, the baby was coming early, maybe too early, and they’d taken her to hospital. ‘It’s my fault.’
Dorothy hugged her close. ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘It’s because I cut her. Now the baby’s going to be deformed.’ Dee-formed, that was how she said it.
‘Listen, she’ll be fine. Where’s Carmen? Are we still going to see Tina?’
The central hospital was a van ride away. Carmen, the maternity home director, organised them, Dorothy and the girls, all except Jo who was doing the hard yards in the birthing unit on another side of town. Sondra was not allowed to go. Dorothy hated Carmen’s kind of discipline. She left the girl lying on her bunk bed, reading. ‘Do you want my iPod?’ Sondra said nothing. Dot laid it on the blanket near her feet.
The van’s air conditioner was broken. The mothers sat on the splitting vinyl seats with legs apart, fanning themselves.
‘Has she seen her baby?’ Dot asked.
‘I think so.’
‘Imagine it, having a newborn, then next thing you know you wake up and you’ve got a kid who’s nearly one.’
‘Sounds like normal life,’ Carmen said. ‘Boom.’
Dorothy shut her eyes; let her body be rocked by the vehicle’s bad suspension.
‘Hey, Dorothy,’ one of the girls in the back called over the engine, ‘what would you draw on the paper bag? Your self-portrait?’
She thought about it. ‘Breathe into this?’
The girl squinted. ‘What?’
At the hospital she would find a moment to call Andrew, suggest they go for a walk later or dinner. This was an adjustment period, without the kids. A new way of being. It was natural they had no clue how to handle it.
The smell of the hospital was just the same. Emerging from the lift into the neurology ward, Dot felt her mouth parch up. Almost expected to see the same nurses or that man with half a head, leering round a corner. But