Excerpt from Between the Lines


A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.

He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.

The bush.

On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.

He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.

She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.

He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.

If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

17 weeks

Time for a baby update, I guess- we're now 17 weeks into the whole crazy process- only three weeks off the halfway mark.

I was really hoping to find out if we're having a boy or a girl at the ultrasound on Friday, but it was a no-go. I even followed some nutty advice and drank a big glass of juice before I went to the appointment, because it's been suggested that can help to make the baby skittish so it doesn't sit there with legs crossed, blocking the view. It didn't help, though- not because the baby was uncooperative, but because the equipment wasn't up to it. We have to wait for the fancier scan.

I've gotta say, I don't think there's been a point so far at which the baby has _not_ been hopping up and down like a lunatic (if one more person says "just like its mother!" I'll be forced to smack 'em), and evidently the juice did contribute to that, because this time the kid was standing on his or her head doing a nice little backstroke paddle with the old feet. I can tell this is going to be a fun favourite trick in a few weeks time, when it's likely to cause me plenty of rib pain.

I've almost definitely started to feel the baby move this week- they say 16 weeks is the earliest you can usually feel it, and the doctor was surprised that I would be able to identify the feeling of baby movement so early in a first pregnancy, but I can't see what else it might be, and on explaining how it feels she agrees with me. It's not so much the bubbles/ tickling/ butterflies I keep hearing about, but more of a light tapping or flicking just a little distance below my belly button. I feel it about three times a day at the moment, and it usually lasts for a few minutes. Today I had the cat being cold and pathetic and squishing up on my lap, and the little taps really kicked into gear. I can't wait for the day they can be felt on the outside- I want to see the cat's face when she gets prodded by my belly. Mwa ha ha.

Meanwhile, everything else is going well, the work stress of the last few weeks notwithstanding. I'm not getting sick anymore (it doesn't seem like that much of an achievement, since I was only barfing from week 12 to 15) and I'm less tired and much more able to use my brain rationally.

We've been having many discussions about babies, ranging from how the kid will get on with the dog and cat, to whether it'll have much hair when it comes out, to what kind of school lunches are the best. It's amazing to realise just how much future there is in a child- a whole lifetime of experiences. While we're also periodically remembering that it would have been just a few weeks before our trip to Turkey kicked off , we're also getting excited about the idea of having our child with us when we eventually take that holiday. I fear an experience like that at a young age may create another born archaeologist...

We have the 19-week anatomy scan in two weeks' time, where we will have a much better chance of learning whether it's a boy or a girl in there. Until then, it's onwards and outwards, by the looks of my belly- it's certainly sticking right out there now, and there's no doubting I have a baby on board.
Posted by Claire Gregory at 8:43 PM
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