It wasn't just Billy. She was sensible enough to realise her attraction to him would fade in time. But her deteriorating relationship with James filled her with an insidious melancholy that was gradually leeching the joy from her life. Oh, she could function — going through the motions with colleagues and students, with James himself. They had meals together and made pleasant small talk, but nothing real, nothing that even skirted near the truth. Nothing that could help.
Even her dreams were filled with hopelessness. Only the previous night she'd dreamt she was on the Titanic, dining at the Captain's Table. For reasons known only to her subconscious, she'd been the lone guest aware of the imminent danger. There'd been people all around her, laughing and eating and dancing while she'd sat mute, her eyes wide with a terror no-one seemed to care about. The Captain, who’d looked suspiciously like James, had smiled benevolently at her and she'd tried to speak, but before she could prise her lips apart he'd moved on to mingle with his guests. She'd become a little girl, too frightened of the censure she'd receive for being impolite enough to shock him with news that his ship was sinking.
And it was sinking. Dee could feel the icy chill of deep water swirling around her ankles.
She'd made no sexual overtures towards James since the Billy incident, and as a consequence he hadn't touched her once in the whole lonely fortnight. She wondered if he ever would again. Or if she even wanted him to. In retrospect, their lovemaking seemed empty and meaningless, like the perfunctory rituals of his good-morning kiss on the cheek, and the solicitous hand on her arm when they were out. Duty and convention, but no… passion.
Had there ever been?
Once, long before James, she'd felt passion but those exultant memories had been crushed by the pain that had followed.
All in the past.
She closed her eyes briefly, trying to draw on some hoped-for inner reserve of strength. Most marriages went through rocky patches. And nothing had actually happened to precipitate her turmoil, all the problems were in her mind. James appeared happy with the status quo and she must simply adjust herself to it. Because what was the alternative? Life as a single woman in the jungle of academia was fraught with difficulties, not the least being the unwanted advances of every male on campus. And would she be happier alone? Would James?
Gradually the soft morning sunlight streaming through the window seeped into her bones and the view soothed her troubled mind. Amid the quiet bushland setting, the pace of activity below her was familiar and peaceful. Students ambled from lectures, some couples with arms around each other, all young, eager, and open to what life had to offer them.
She'd been like that once, but that time was dead, and the girl she'd been with it. As it often did, the painful memory intruded on her consciousness, but this time she paused in the act of suppressing it. Perhaps in the replaying of that memory she could recapture the strength that had helped her move on. She needed it now.
So she closed her eyes and cast back…
'Don't talk about it, Ma,' she'd whispered, her throat painfully dry. 'Just… please.' The general anaesthetic had worn off and she'd awoken to whiteness and sharp odours; disinfectant, a penicillin-like smell, and the metallic scent of the blood she felt oozing from between her thighs.
First the surgeon, and now her mother wanted to talk, but Wendee couldn't bear to hear it.
The throbbing of pain in her body she could cope with. As long as it didn't invade her mind and her heart. Not yet.
'It needs to be talked about, my girl, and I'm too busy to be waitin' on your moods,' her mother said, pushing Wendee's legs aside to settle her large frame on the end of the bed.
The wrenching movement sent a sharp pain through Wendee's abdomen and for a moment she thought she'd pass out.
Was she going to die here, in a strange hospital miles from home, with her life barely started? What of the dream? Would it never be realised?
Through the haze of pain, the dream stood out like a beacon, drawing her back to life, to reality. Gritting her teeth, she forced the pain out of her mind, ignoring its razor edge as she inched further across the bed, away from the overpowering stench of sweat and stale beer emanating from her mother.
'…and if you'd told me sooner about havin' a bun in the oven, you wouldn’t’ve ended up here.' The thin, grotesquely crimson lips twisted in scorn. 'Spreadin' your legs for the teacher. Did you think he'd marry you? Stupid girl. 'Course he'd run back to the city…'
A nursing sister padded silently into the room, taking up a position at the end of the bed. After listening to the tirade for several moments, she met Wendee's eyes over the top of her clipboard and any embarrassment Wendee might have felt about her sordid history being revealed was erased by the older woman's sympathetic smile. Her eyes were warm and dark like the fur of a possum and her calm olive-skinned complexion gave her the air of a peaceful Madonna. Wendee wished she could smile back, but there was no smile inside herself to give.
Her mother finally paused for breath, giving the sister an opening to cut in loudly from behind her, 'I'll give you ten minutes, Mrs O'Connor…' Her mother's huge frame lurched in fright. '…then our young patient will have to rest.' The bed rocked as her mother swivelled, narrow eyed, to see who the intruder was and Wendee experienced fresh pain.
'She's my girl and I — '
'Ten. Minutes,' the Sister repeated with such authority that even her mother was quelled, turning back to Wendee with a surly glance as they listened to the sister's rubber heels retreating across the linoleum floor.
'Bloody sneaky wogs,' her mother said. 'Wouldn't let one of 'em touch me.' But of course, in her mind it was quite all right for a 'dirty wog' to touch Wendee. She was already soiled. 'They come over here and get a bit of learnin' in 'em then they take all the best jobs. I've seen plenty of 'em in my time. Filthy dirty they are. Never wash…'
Wendee closed her eyes, wishing above hope that the lovely sister with the understanding eyes was her mother instead of this fat, ugly, wicked, spiteful…
'…and you with your smart maths brain,' the acid voice jeered. 'Couldn't even work out your monthly was late. Now look at you.'
Wendee swallowed in a dry throat. She should have asked the sister for a glass of water. Her mother would never get her one. Her mother would prefer her to suffer for the embarrassment she'd caused, and Wendee was sure the suffering was just beginning.
She'd never be allowed to forget. Never be allowed to become anything other than a stupid girl with her brains between her legs.
'It's your fault old Doc Wesson messed up,' her mother continued. 'If you hadn't left it so late…'
Her mother went on and on and Wendee squeezed her eyelids tightly shut to hold back the tears. She'd always wanted to have a child of her own, a child she could raise the right way, with love and respect. Not a slave given nothing but an ever-increasing list of chores and no time for school work. Wendee tried to swallow again, wondering how she'd ever been naive enough to believe her mother would sympathise with her desire to keep the child. In her whole life she couldn't remember a single time her mother had sympathised with her about anything.
The fault had been with Wendee since the moment she'd been born; her fault that she'd been a girl instead of a boy — that her mother had been unable to have more children — that the farm had failed and they'd had to move into the nearest country town looking for work. Her fault that her father had died and left her poor mother to raise such an ungrateful child. And now, her fault that the alcoholic old doctor her mother had recruited, with his foul breath and unkempt fingernails, had botched a simple abortion and mangled her insides.
'…so don't you be thinkin' you'll be doin' anything about that scholarship nonsense.'
Dee felt her heart stutter to a standstill inside her chest as she raised her eyes to stare at her mother. 'Why, Ma?' she asked slowly.
'Because you'll be paying me back for all this disgrace is why.'
Her mother stared into her face with such obvious cruelty in her pale eyes Wendee actually shuddered. 'You'll forget about this Astro… this star nonsense and work with me, in the Hotel, so's I can keep an eye on you. Make sure you don't get…' she trailed off as they stared at each other, the unspoken words hanging between them.
But there could be no possibility of Wendee repeating this mistake. The surgeon at the hospital she'd been rushed to had told her the truth as gently as possible the moment she'd woken from the surgery. There'd be no
