The Mistake Read online

  ‘Oh, Hannah, sweetheart, I’m not trying to upset you, it’s only because I care about you …’ Jodie’s aware that her protestations are not only feeble, but pointless. It’s so hard to know how to handle this newly sensitive Hannah – the most innocuous observation can be construed as an affront, eliciting a defence out all of proportion to the original statement. More often than not, Jodie gets it wrong.

  ‘I’m going to sleep.’ Her daughter squeezes her eyes shut, turns her face away.

  But Jodie has seen the tears welling, heard the slight quaver in her voice. Her own eyes sting in response. She sighs, reties the gaping gown, tugs the blankets across Hannah’s rigid body, pats her shoulder gently. She leans over and kisses her daughter gently on the forehead. Receives a sobbing hug in return.

  ‘Oh, Mum. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  By the time the nurse returns, Jodie has provided Hannah with a stack of magazines, a few pieces of fruit and several blocks of chocolate, all bought for exorbitant prices from the hospital kiosk. The specialist has made his visit, has recommended Hannah stay overnight again – just to monitor the effects of the anaesthetic, watch her pain levels. They can travel home tomorrow.

  Jodie sits beside the bed, reading a magazine, while Hannah sleeps, sprawled awkwardly, the blankets bunched around her again. The nurse fusses over Hannah for a moment, then approaches Jodie with a clipboard and pen.

  ‘Now, I think we need to get some details from you, Mrs Garrow. If you could just fill out these forms. It’s ridiculous, I know – all this paperwork. When I first started out it was nothing like this …’ She chats away, distractedly clearing the chaos that Hannah has somehow managed to create despite being immobilised and confined to a hospital bed. Jodie fills out the forms, only half listens.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. Our matron – well, we don’t actually call them matrons, haven’t for years, though it’s a pity. I like the old titles: matron, sister – they had some dignity. I liked the hats too. And all the starch,’ the nurse adds wistfully. ‘But anyway, our nursing unit manager was wondering, when she saw your girl’s – what’s it called, the webbing, the dactyl something or other, between her toes?’

  ‘Syndactyly.’ Jodie doesn’t look up, responds automatically.

  ‘Right. That’s it. Syndactyly. Well, she said that she’d only ever seen one other person with both feet webbed like that. A newborn, years ago. She thought at first that it might’ve been Hannah here …’

  ‘Oh.’ Jodie stops writing, looks up. ‘That is odd. I haven’t … I haven’t heard of it either. I mean, I have heard of it, obviously – it runs in the family. But I’ve never met anyone else …’ She returns to the form, which has blurred. Her hand shakes.

  The nurse rattles on. ‘But then the matron, Debbie, had the records pulled – and of course it was the wrong date. Another baby, about eight years before Hannah here was born. But here’s a funny thing – the mum’s name was the same as yours: Jodie. But it’s a common enough name, isn’t it? She was from Sydney – Newtown or around there somewhere.’

  Jodie forces herself to respond. ‘Well, that is an interesting coincidence, isn’t it? Maybe she’s some,’ she hears herself give a weird, high-pitched laugh, ‘some long-lost cousin.’

  The nurse flicks through the patient file. ‘She’s left them here for you to look at. Now, what does it say …’

  Jodie moves to her side quickly. ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll have a look.’ Her voice is low, she looks pointedly over at her sleeping daughter but the nurse ignores her appeal.

  ‘Oh, yes. Here it is: Jodie Evans. I’m not sure what she was doing having her baby here then – it wasn’t exactly her local hospital. But look how young she was – only nineteen —’

  ‘Really, I’d love to look, but —’ She looks at Hannah again, who is stirring now, yawning, her eyelids flickering.

  The nurse goes on, oblivious to Jodie’s silent entreaty. ‘A little girl, it says here. Elsa Mary Evans. Her mum was only nineteen, but I always think young is better than the alternative. Awful to start pushing ’em out in your forties. I hope this next generation doesn’t leave it all too late. I had my first when I was only twenty-one – didn’t make the big fuss these older mums do, and I have to say it’s kept me young. Plenty of time to do other things —’ Her observations are interrupted when a woman, another nurse, squeaks across the threshold, beaming.

  ‘Jodie. It is you. I thought this little miss must be your girl.’

  Jodie recognises her immediately. She is oddly unchanged after more than twenty years – the slanted blue eyes still sparkling, the friendly smile that makes her look so cheerful, so approachable. ‘Hello, Debbie.’ She is surprised by how casual, how calm, her greeting sounds, amazed that she has even managed to speak at all. Her breath is shallow, blood pounding; she feels weak at the knees.

  ‘I’ll bet you haven’t had a thing to eat since you arrived. I know you mothers. I’m on my tea break – why don’t you come and have a cuppa with me while Miss Hannah catches up on her beauty sleep?’

  Hannah’s breathing is deep and even again, her eyes fully closed. Jodie tucks the sheet around her as best she can, smooths her daughter’s hair. ‘Okay.’ She gives Debbie an airy smile. ‘Why not.’

  The two women sit in the dreary hospital cafeteria, which is almost empty at this time of day. Debbie has ordered coffee but is too busy regaling Jodie with the history of her career to drink it. Jodie sips on watery tea, nodding, dreading the inevitable destination of the conversation, wishing desperately to be elsewhere.

  ‘So, I got out of middy into surgery, and eventually ended up back at Belfield. Bizarre, isn’t it? But it’s a very different hospital these days – there’s no maternity unit, for one thing. It was such a funny little unit, really. That matron – do you remember her? She died a few years ago. Sheila O’Malley?’ She waits for Jodie to give a vague shake of her head before continuing. ‘Anyway, she was a real old tyrant. Had complete control of the place. No one in admin dared say anything to her – it was like her own little private kingdom. You’d remember what they could be like, those old matrons. You finished your training didn’t you?’

  ‘I worked for a few years – a bit of A and E, paediatrics. But I’ve been out for a while.’ Jodie is guarded, reluctant to share more than is strictly polite.

  ‘I took a break after the kids came along … but not for long. Anyhow, I’m in charge of the surgical team here now, and that’s how I got to see your daughter’s feet! They’re almost exactly the same as the other baby’s, aren’t they? And I think I remember you saying you had them too? It’s really very unusual, according to the surgeon – having the webbing on both feet.’ The woman spoons sugar into her coffee carefully – one spoonful, two, hesitates over the sugar bowl and then adds another, smiling ruefully as she stirs. She continues along the same conversational trajectory, determinedly disregarding Jodie’s continued lack of response. ‘So anyway, when I saw Hannah’s toes I thought of you straight away. Initially I assumed that she must have been that baby.’ She looks up at Jodie again, notices her expression, gives a reassuring smile. ‘Oh, it’s okay. I didn’t say anything to Hannah. When I checked the notes I realised that the dates were all wrong, and it couldn’t be her. And then she said she was an eldest child, so I didn’t like to mention it. But, well, I’ve never forgotten you, you know. You were my first birth. And I’ve always wondered how you got on. You were so young, younger than me, but you seemed so level-headed, so cool.’

  Debbie pauses, looks down, tapping her spoon slowly on the side of her cup, before laying it down carefully on the table. She takes a deep breath, then looks up, her expression fierce, intent. ‘So, that little baby. Elsa Mary …’ It takes all Jodie’s willpower to stay seated, to resist the impulse to escape this woman’s relentless gaze. ‘What happened? She … she didn’t die, did she?’

  There’s no way that Jodie can continue her silence. To have to come here was one thing, but this – her
past rearing its head so unexpectedly and so shockingly – is almost beyond belief. If only she could go and not look back, but she can’t. She can see that this woman will demand an answer – that she expects, that she needs to know, regardless of any reluctance on Jodie’s part. Debbie is implacable, determined, curious, her intelligence obvious, and Jodie can sense that’s there’s no way she’ll let her escape without some sort of explanation. Jodie closes her eyes for a moment, composing herself, before replying.

  ‘No. Not that. As far as I know she’s alive and well.’ She can hear a sort of desperate pleading in her own voice.

  ‘As far as you know?’ The woman is frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I … Well, in the end I didn’t keep her. I had her adopted out.’ It comes easily, more easily than she’d ever imagined.

  ‘You’re kidding.’ The woman looks stricken. ‘God, I didn’t realise things were so difficult. You seemed so, well, certain about everything. I mean, I can remember being slightly worried – you were only young, and obviously all alone – but you seemed, I don’t know … so capable.’

  Jodie shrugs, tries to keep her expression neutral.

  ‘That’s why you were so determined about not breastfeeding, isn’t it? You knew you wouldn’t be keeping her? And why you didn’t want to hold her unless you had to. I guess you couldn’t risk all the … bonding stuff, either?’

  Jodie tries to smile, to lighten the conversation, to divert her. ‘Well, you’ll be happy to know that I tried to breastfeed the —’

  But the woman interrupts, ‘But what I don’t understand is why – well, why you didn’t tell us that you didn’t want to keep her? I mean the midwives, the hospital authorities, the social workers … surely the hospital was the logical place. To start the process, I mean. Usually it’s all arranged before the baby’s even born. But sometimes it happens afterwards, and the procedures are still pretty straightforward.’

  Jodie makes a split-second decision about what to reveal.

  ‘I really hadn’t sorted anything out beforehand,’ she says glibly. ‘I only ever had one antenatal check-up, and then … It was just too hard here. I couldn’t face the … well, the feeling of failure. The maternity wing, the nurses, the other mothers. It was meant to be such a … a happy, joyful event. Everyone was so kind, so helpful, so supportive. I felt that if I admitted that I didn’t want to keep my own baby, here, that I would be letting everyone down. So then I had to arrange it all myself – the adoption, I mean – once I left.’

  Debbie is all wide-eyed sympathy. ‘My God, that’s … So, where did you go – how did you go about it? Did you take the baby home to your parents? What about your boyfriend, the father? There was a boyfriend, wasn’t there?’ She pauses, moves her hand over to Jodie’s and squeezes briefly. Jodie had forgotten Debbie’s casual warmth and easy familiarity, an offhand demonstrativeness that had been – and still is – so foreign to Jodie herself. ‘God. You poor thing. You were so young, and having to do all that on your own. I can’t imagine.’

  Jodie grimaces. ‘It was all so long ago, I can barely remember what happened. It was all sorted out quite quickly – she went to a good family. I try hard not to think about it, really. And now – as you can see – my life’s so busy … and I’m sure she’s happy, and that we’re all better off. It would have been no sort of a life for either of us.’

  Debbie gazes at her, shaking her head. ‘God. Really, it’s just amazing when you think of it. To come back here, now. To this very hospital, after all these years – and to meet up with me. You couldn’t have imagined it, really.’

  Jodie tries to look pleased by the coincidence. ‘No, you couldn’t.’ She glances at her watch. ‘Oh dear, is that the time? Look, it’s been lovely meeting you again, Debbie, but I really —’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. You’ve driven all that way today, and then all the worry – you must be exhausted. And I should get back to work.’

  The two women gather their belongings – bags, papers, keys – prepare to go. Then just as they’re shaking hands, just when Jodie thinks it’s all over, there is one last question – too intimate for such surroundings, the slightness of their relationship, but delivered in such a forthright, disinterested manner that it makes it impossible to take offence.

  ‘Have you ever thought about contacting her? About contacting Elsa? She’d be grown up now, wouldn’t she? In her twenties. There’s a register, you know – she could be on it.’

  ‘A register?’

  ‘Well, the adoption laws have changed since you relinquished her. Parents and children, they can choose now – it’s reasonably simple to make contact —’

  ‘No.’ Jodie’s interjection is instinctive, blunt, surprises them both. ‘I wouldn’t want to contact her. It was … another life. I know I might seem hard, but I can’t … I can’t go back.’

  ‘Oh.’ Debbie pauses, considers her. ‘But it doesn’t just go one way, Jodie. What if she tries to contact you? It’s not unlikely, you know.’

  The woman speaks slowly, tentatively. ‘I could investigate it for you, if you like. I helped a good friend of mine recently – well, in reverse – she was tracking her mother. But I actually have a contact in the department, who can bypass a lot of the official admin stuff. So, if you want some help, I’d be more than happy —’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Jodie says, appalled. ‘Really. Thank you, but I’d rather not.’ Adds more fiercely than she intends, ‘I really don’t want to know.’

  Debbie’s voice is unbearably kind. ‘I understand, of course. But if you —’

  ‘No,’ Jodie repeats firmly, smiling to lessen the rebuff. ‘But thank you. It’s a generous offer.’ She swallows. ‘And if I ever do, I’ll contact you first.’

  Debbie smiles broadly, obviously pleased by this slight concession.

  They part ways. Jodie is desperate now to get to her hotel, have a drink. The conversation has left her drained and shaken, but somehow she thinks she managed to strike the right attitude, find the right tone. Anyway, it’s all over; she survived. Debbie will finish her shift and go home. Maybe, while the oddness of their meeting is still fresh, she’ll want to share it with someone – her husband, her best friend. But eventually, surely – and sooner rather than later – she’ll forget all about it.

  2

  Jodie helps Hannah get comfortable in the car. She pushes the front seat right back, reclines it fully and straps her in. It’s like being a baby again, and Hannah submits to her mother’s ministrations without fuss. Her leg, blissfully numb yesterday, is aching a little today, but she’s making an effort to appear in good cheer – the journey ahead of them is long. Hannah’s half looking forward to getting home – it’s not often she gets to experience the helplessness of childhood any more, and there’s a pleasure in relaxing and leaving everything to Mum, being waited on, deferred to, coddled. She remembers the strange pleasure of illness when she was sick in bed as a little girl – not so long ago, really. The back of her mother’s hand, cool against her forehead, the smell of the special eucalyptus steam, the offerings of soup, lemonade, milky tea. Her mother would sit and read to her, plump her pillows, straighten her bedclothes, dim the lights. Quite often Hannah would drag the convalescence out for a few days beyond what she needed, out of sheer enjoyment.

  But now, in the car, her mother isn’t quite as solicitous as she’d hoped. Jodie’s face is set, she’s subdued, inquiring only vaguely into Hannah’s wellbeing as they set off. Hannah is slightly disappointed, but in a way it’s a bit of a reprieve – her mother hasn’t questioned her too closely yet about the accident, and she’s been dreading the inevitable questions. She sets her iPod on shuffle, leans back with her eyes closed, is beginning to get nicely in the zone, when with a giddying lurch she remembers. She opens her eyes and sits up.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Hmm? Is there something wrong? Is your leg hurting?’ Her mother glances at her briefly and then her attention is back on the road ahead, intent on negotiati
ng the unfamiliar city streets.

  ‘No, my leg’s fine. But Mum, what was that nurse talking about yesterday? I was half asleep, but I’m sure I heard her talking about someone having a baby. Someone with the same name as you?’

  Hannah notices her mother’s quick intake of breath, the slight stiffening of her shoulders, but her reply is casual enough.

  ‘Oh, that was nothing, darling. Nothing important.’

  ‘But she said something about a baby …’

  Her mother’s voice is tinged with impatience now. ‘It was just someone else with webbed toes like yours. A newborn. Years ago. I don’t know all the details. It was nothing.’

  ‘And then you went and had coffee with that other nurse. Who was she? How come you know her?’

  ‘She’s just someone I worked with a long time ago.’

  ‘But you —’

  ‘Hannah.’ Her mother’s voice is firm. ‘I have to concentrate on getting us back on the freeway now. Not another word.’

  Hannah rolls her eyes. She bumps the volume up a notch and leans back again, her plastered leg sprawling awkwardly in front of her. ‘Okay, Mum. Whatever.’

  There’s something going on, Hannah senses that much. Even at the hospital her mother had asked her only the most basic questions about the accident. Hannah had been sure she’d be interrogated, had rehearsed her story over and over in anticipation, making certain that there was no way she’d slip up, but weirdly, her mother has barely asked her anything. It’s entirely out of character – she and her mother are really pretty close, and despite the trouble it would no doubt bring, Hannah finds it hard to resist the impulse to confide, to tell her mother what really happened. It’s true that they’re not as tight as they once were, that things have changed between her and her parents, that she stopped telling them everything years ago. But her connections with both her parents have only become strained in common and expected ways – she finds her mother, her rules, her nagging, her insistence on Hannah’s keeping a tidy room and a clean soul, particularly aggravating, and her father, with his irregular but decisive interventions, almost equally so. In this she is no different to most of her friends. For most of them it is as if those formerly powerful symbols of all things good and possible have suddenly appeared in a completely new perspective. Not only have their parents begun to lose their mystery and magic, but they have lost most of their status as major players – have somehow been transformed into hindrances, difficulties to be overcome, mere subplots in the central drama of their own increasingly complex lives. But still Hannah feels enormously guilty about the fabrication, if not about the deed itself, and she would like to get it all over with now, here in the car, get the explanation – the lie – out in the open.