adelaide sprawls

It is Thursday which makes it five days since anyone addressed her directly by her name. She does not count letters which come in the post, her husband’s endearments - honey, love or hon - or people who ring and begin by saying is this Mrs so and so? Of course she doesn’t count mum.

The calendar code for unaddressed days is red. She marks the days one by one at ten past ten which is a more random time than it seems. She counts, although she knows. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. It is the record since, six years ago, she first began to count.

And then she writes:
I leave pink smudges on white coffee cups and plastic spoons. I drink capuccinos and lick my lips between sips. I carry a black handbag and always have the right change.
I have had jobs – six - but never a career. This matters to me much less than I suppose it should. If I’d had another daughter, she’d be called Amber, Scarlett or Rose.

The phone does not ring. She thinks: perhaps it is time to record the silence as well as the noise. And then she thinks: I would use a golden pen to mark silence on the page.

She writes some more:
My husband brings me duty free perfumes. I store the bottles in the bathroom vanity. He seems not to notice that most of the bottles are more or less full.

She thinks, but doesn’t write: Except that he never brings the same one twice.

She writes:
When I am seeking comfort, I eat plates of noodles with grated parmesan cheese.
And then she writes:
Noodles and spaghetti are variations on a theme, but I would never eat spaghetti with soy sauce.

She thinks of the shopping which must be done, the washing which must be hung. There are two birthday presents to send and she will write love from gran on one. She is not sure what colour she will use.

She writes again:
It is eleven o’clock and I have heard: a kookaburra; a willy wagtail; the neighbour’s cat in the roof. She uses a different colour for each and then goes back to black. Last night: an owl; a rat; and possums danced on the roof.

She looks at her watch and then checks it against the clock. It will be her last entry for today: I want to poison the rat, but not the possum. I’m not too fussed about the cat.

If Sharon thought about it, she could remember she’d had her rags, one at sports day and that’s why she didn’t win the 800 metres or the hurdles or any of the sprints. And there was one in Charities Week, because that was the day the blood had shown on her skirt, and she had to pretend she had sat on a chocolate ice cream, and she’d gone home at lunch time and she hadn’t gone to school for two days until the school rang Dad, and he said I thought those days were over, love so she went back, because she hated to make him sad.

Had there been another one since then? Yeah, another one, or maybe two. Enough. There was no need to feel scared.

Sharon started to count. From now. Because it didn’t really matter, because nothing would go wrong. It was just for something to do.

She checked. Four days, a week, three weeks, a month. Over a month. Two. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She went to the toilet when she woke up, after breakfast, after her shower, when she got to school, at the end of lessons, at the beginning of lunch, halfway through lunch, at the end of the lunch, after school at school, after school at home. With no sign of blood on her knickers or on the paper, she stuck her fingers up there. She stuck them up, and she wriggled them back and forth a bit until it almost hurt. They came out again without a sign of blood. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She said to Pip ‘my rags haven’t come.’

He looked scared and he said shit and that was the moment when she knew he wouldn’t stay.

She tried to pretend there was nothing wrong, she told herself it couldn’t be true, she prayed to God. She filled her prayers with promises and bargains she told herself she’d keep. But why would He listen? He never had before.

She burnt the tea and she burst into tears.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ Dad said. ‘Is it exams? Are you worried you won’t know enough?’ She thought of a million different things to say, of different ways to get the words out, but in the end, she just said ‘I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.’