The Convent (16 page)

Mum took her glasses off and looked at me. I was at the fridge pulling out cheese and tomatoes and slamming them onto the bench, giving her snaky little looks while I did. I used to get so ravenous after school. It was probably hunger as much as anything else that put me in such a bad mood.

‘It was the name your birth mother gave you,' Mum said. ‘Remember, we told you that?'

I shrugged. She had told me about being adopted, of course. Right from the start my parents had been totally open with me. But I suppose I wanted to have a fight. ‘So why didn't you change it?'

‘Because you were a gift!' Mum put her arm around my shoulders, but I shrugged her off. So she just stood there alongside me picking cheese from the plate. ‘The most precious gift in the world, and we were so grateful that we wanted to pay her that respect.'

‘Respect?'

‘It seemed the one thing we could do to say thank you.'

‘Did you ever meet her?'

‘No.'

‘So who decided that I would go to you two?'

‘She did. She was given a list of profiles of different couples and photos but she didn't want to meet anyone.'

I knew this already, but I suppose I needed to hear it again.

‘We just felt so lucky that she chose us,' Mum said.

‘Why did she choose you?'

Mum shrugged and smiled as if she still couldn't quite believe it. ‘No idea! She might have liked the idea of us both being doctors. I don't know.'

‘Did she take long to decide?'

‘Not sure about that one, love.'

‘I just hate my name,' I whined. ‘You have to spell it for people all the time. And they give you these weird looks.
Perpetua?
'

‘Well, I suppose it is different,' she said hopefully.

‘I don't want to be different.'

Mum went back to the couch and picked up her book again. She didn't start reading but continued to look at me.

‘Do you want to try to find out more, darling?'

I sighed. Whenever the topic was raised, both she and Dad went into positive overdrive about helping me find out more about my origins. ‘Find out about
what
?' I snapped.

‘Your mother.'

‘You are my mother,' I said quickly.

‘Of course I am.' Mum smiled. ‘But one day you might want find out more about your birth mother. You might want to try to make contact with her. Of course I'll
always
be your mother. Always and no matter what.'

‘Did she see me?'

‘Probably.'

‘So I was loathed on first sight?'

‘No. She would have
loved
you on first sight,' Mum said forcefully. ‘Life can be hard, sweetheart. It was impossible for her to keep you for some reason, but I'm absolutely positive she would have thought you beautiful, and she would have loved you.'

‘Yeah, yeah.'
No need to go overboard.

‘I mean it.'

‘What about her name?' I knew the answer to this too. I just wanted to hear it said.

‘Don't know,' Mum said. ‘She didn't want us to know anything else about her.'

‘Why not?'

‘Maybe she thought it would be easier like that. We could find out, of course, by getting hold of the original birth certificate but … I haven't done that.'

‘Why not?'

‘Just out of respect for her privacy.'

‘Was she married?' If my birth mother was some hazy forlorn figure, then my father was simply a dark, mysterious blob.

‘We're not sure.'

‘God, Mum, you don't know much!'

‘Well, we can try and find out more now, if you like.'

‘Why didn't you at the time?'

‘What she was doing was huge,' Mum said hotly. ‘We didn't want to make it harder for her. She wanted to stay anonymous, but she might well have changed her mind by now. She might really like it if you contacted her.'

I thought about that for about three full seconds, then wrinkled my nose. ‘Nah.'

‘Why not?'

I shrugged, pissed off that I'd even brought the subject up. The earth revolved around me that year, so what did I care about what
she
might like?

‘Just don't.'

‘Okay. Maybe another time.'

‘Maybe.'

I love the Fitzroy Swimming Pool, and so let me count the ways. It's Olympic size, so the laps you do are proper ones. It's open all year round. The water is virtually cold, with just the chill taken off. And best of all it's outside. Indoor pools make me feel like I'm swimming in a soup.

The sky is lighter by the time I get there. Dramatic streaks of white light are breaking through the low cloud, but the rain has scared off the crowds. Suits me. I head into the change rooms. Around me there are women of all shapes and sizes and ages in varying stages of dress. Any body size or shape fits in here. I tell Stella this and she still won't come. I'm changing into my black Speedos right next to a large muscly woman in her sixties with grey hair and tatts on both forearms. She is having an animated conversation with a really old skinny woman – must be about eighty – about hip-replacement operations. They're cackling about how bits of their bodies have begun dropping off. The really old one has plastic daisies hanging from her ears. Her bathers look plastic too.

There is the pack of teenage girls gossiping and preening in front of the mirrors in their skimpy underwear. And next to the showers are two stunning black-skinned women, dressed in bright purple and orange, with wild turbans wound around their heads. They're laughing as they muster about half a dozen little kids who don't want to go home.

I pick up my towel, walk out, pick the fast lane and hit the water.

One lap, two, four, eight.
I surge angrily through the water, the frustration rushing through my arms and legs, making them strong. Before I know it I've done fourteen laps and it feels like I've just started. I could swim forever.

Stella. Det. Ellen.

Where do
I
fit in?

No one even asks how
I
am anymore. No one says,
Hey, Peach,
what's going on in your life? Are you happy? Are things working out for
you, kid?
I know why. It's because
my
particular drama is so bloody
yesterday
! Who in their right mind would want to talk about a love affair that ended months ago? Who would want to talk about the way I continue to allow him to eat away at my heart? And because I don't talk about it, because I don't shove it in people's faces, everyone assumes it's over, but it's not over.
I'm not over it.

Time to move on, Peach
, they'd say.
Time to put all that behind you.

But what if I can't even imagine doing that? What if the very idea makes me feel shaky? What if my heart feels as smashed as a melon fallen from the back of a truck? No one bothers to stop because there are plenty more where that came from. The back of the truck is full of friggin' melons! Will my heart be left to rot by the side of the road forever?

I remember that first time, standing with a drink against the wall of a bar in Johnston Street, watching my friends dance. I looked up and there he was, watching me. Fluke. We'd met briefly a few months before, and I'd seen him around the traps, always on his own, or at the edge of someone else's crowd. He would stand by the wall watching the band, in his own world, quieter and more self-possessed than the rest of the crowd. And I was always aware of him in some strange way.

This night felt different for some reason. I knew something would happen. As soon as I saw him standing there my heart leapt to life and without warning the words,
You're the one
blasted through my head.
Stop it.
I was panicking a bit.
For God's sake, don't be so
uncool. You're not in a Jane Austen novel.

But as I watched him making his way through the throng to the bar, something in me knew he would turn around before he got there.

And he did.

He hesitated and, without buying a drink, turned and walked straight towards me.

I want you.

‘Hey there … Perpetua?' He held out his hand, his eyes raking over my tight jeans, high-heeled red boots, and the cream lace top that I'd bought that day, landing back on my face, a strangely serious expression in them.

‘Hey,' I laughed and shook his hand, just as though I played these kinds of flirty games every day. ‘How do you know my real name?' No one ever called me anything but Peach.

‘I made it my business to find out.'

‘So, are you going to dance with me?'

‘That's what I'm here for.'

We danced all night and then went for a coffee, and as each minute passed I had this delicious sensation of
falling away
from all I'd ever known. It wasn't that we talked about much. It was just bits and pieces of our backgrounds, where we lived and the music we liked. But the way he smiled, so quietly, as if there was a secret life going on inside him that he was inviting me to share … And his hands, those strong fingers tapping the table in time with the music coming from the nearby speakers. He had calluses on both thumbs and he laughed when he caught me looking at them.

‘Old blisters, and a splinter I can't get out,' he said matter-of-factly.

I dug the splinter out of his palm with the tiny pair of scissors I keep in my purse.

He was twenty-two, and working down on the docks, but he'd just finished his Year Twelve at night school. Getting a grip on Luke's past was like trying to catch a fish with your hands. It slipped away before you could take a proper hold.

But I gradually learnt that his mother had had problems with drugs and money and men. He'd left school at fifteen, barely able to read and write. Teaching himself to read properly by buying the newspaper every day was the best thing he'd done
by far,
he told me. He'd look up words and write them down in a small book he kept in his pocket. He told me this without shame or pride. It was just the way things were.

‘Am I hurting you?'

‘Nah. Ouch! Keep going.' He laughed when I held up the bloody splinter. ‘You're a surgeon like your dad.'

‘Split it?' I said when the bill came.

‘No need,' he said, picking it up. ‘I'll see you home.'

‘But—'

‘Please,' he said with that smile. ‘It's late.'

‘Okay,' I said.

And so he walked me home along the dark Collingwood streets. Past the rows of tiny cottages and the enormous cleaned-out shells of factories and disused warehouses waiting for the developers who had already begun changing them into edgy little apartments for the young professionals moving into the area. It was such a still night. A crane on a half-finished building loomed above us and trucks, graders and building materials lined the narrow streets. In a few hours the place would be filled with guys in yellow hard hats and overalls shouting at each other, but right then it was … perfect.

It is five to three on a Saturday morning. I am eighteen years old and
my life is about to begin.

I will never forget the peculiar fragility of that night. The overstuffed rubbish bins, the stray whiff of jasmine in the air, the cans thrown carelessly in the gutter. Not that anything was happening. We were just two people walking three feet apart along a street after a night out, moving like shadows through the soft air. Any moment it might come undone. Any moment it might smash open and fall away. Lost forever. I knew that. I might have been half expecting it, and I suppose he was too.

At my door I was desperate to kiss him, but he took both my hands in his own and said formally, ‘I'd really like to see you again, Peach.'

‘How about tomorrow?' I laughed, amazed at my own boldness.

‘You're on.' He grinned.

And then he did kiss me. Very quickly, as if we were signing a deal.

He was the first guy I'd ever seriously wanted. That he wanted me too seemed nothing short of a miracle.

Fluke and Peach. Peach and Fluke. In love … in love … in love!

In the beginning love is so easy.