POISONED CHALICE
by
Ian Irvine
February 1999
This is the unedited version and probably contains the odd error and typo. The corrected manuscript was donated to an institution (Fisher Library at the University of Sydney) along with other papers from the period and is not readily available to me.
1: The Physical
I don’t deserve to live.
I want to but I have no right. I’ve always known that. I’m a defective, you see. A cripple. Short leg, twisted foot, extra toe. An it.
I should have been smothered at birth. How could my mother have kept such a thing? How did she get me through the physical?
I’m not well-educated, no chance for that, but I read. I know that once the deformed were only stared at, or ignored, or kept out of sight. I’ve even read, though it must have been a lie, that there were places where people like me had a right to work, to play, even to mate. Not even I could come at that though. No one could, since the Genes Act.
I ruined my mother. She had to leave her wonderful job at the University, her friends, her beloved Sydney. Anyone might have betrayed me. Then, termination for me.
We went to live in a shack up the north coast, in the mountains. In the summer it rained so much that mould grew on the walls. On winter nights even the water in the toilet froze solid, and the only warm place was in her arms. My mother became a drab and a drudge, living on her wits, an occasional gentleman caller, and a scabby vegetable patch. She could get no social security for me — the annual physical, remember!
She cut off the extra toe when I was a baby — I never remember having it. But how could I forget her next attempt to make me normal? She broke my foot and my ankle, forced them into the right shapes and plastered them up for a month, until they healed.
It didn’t work. My foot looks like a wrung-out cloth; my ankle is a gnarled lump. It still hurts like blazes when I walk, though with a special boot I can almost conceal the limp. I tell people that I had an accident when I was a child. But the doctors who do the physical won’t be fooled.
She died when I was fourteen. Just willed herself to death, refused to eat. I suppose she couldn’t stand the shame any longer. Her only bequest was a Citizen’s Card in my name, good for five years. How did she manage it? I’ll never know. She was a very clever woman, my mother, and good with computers. But a failure with bones.
No one with a card can go more than five years without a physical. Without a card you have no education, no social security, no job but the ones that no one else will do.
The card got me a bit more school, just enough to show me what I can never have. So I went back to the city and found one of those jobs. It’s a miserable living, packing things in boxes, but it doesn’t require the physical.
I sometimes walk up Parramatta Road to the University, where my mother worked. I love the old yellow stone, the calm, the sacred aura of books. Once I even dared to go inside, and there was a jacaranda tree in flower. How I yearn for the place, but that is impossible. I think you know the reason by now.
More than four years have gone by since she died. Soon the computers will call me to the physical. And then?
Australia is a civilised country. A panel of doctors, all the evidence reviewed, process followed to the letter. After all, it could have happened in an accident, my deformity. X-rays, ultrasound, gene testing, whatever that is.
Finally, by letter — ‘We regret to inform you ...’
Apparently scientists know which genes are no good. The law allows no option, if you have bad ones. I understand that. I don’t want us to become a race of monsters.
Termination. But in a very civilised way. Our society doesn’t care about a lifetime of suffering, but it insists that my death be painless.
I still don’t want to die.
Happy birthday! Nineteen today.
And I’ve found the answer, shameful and shocking though it is. I will have a baby. Our civilised society would not terminate a mother with a baby to look after. Surely not!
I’ve got a mate. I chose him with care, from the small pool I can fish in. Of course I’m not tall, or pretty, or clever with words or glances, but I’m told I have a nice face and a sweet smile. I’m a woman, in spite of my handicap.
He, on the other hand, was just a youth — big ears, freckles, shy, bewildered eyes. He had no defects, though.
He knew even less about it than I did, but he learned quickly enough, and it was warm in his arms. I liked that part very much, the sex. I loved to take him in, enclose him within me, knead him. It would have been good to do more of that, but each time was a risk. One day he would no longer be happy to do it in the dark. I couldn’t bear to see his disgust when he realised what I was like.
As soon as I was sure about the baby I had to break with him. I tried not to hurt him, but I did. I loved him, in a way.
There was a physical for pregnancy too, but I got through that all right. They didn’t tell me to take my socks off.
Twelve weeks, and I bled and bled. I was sure I would lose my beautiful baby, my saviour, but it was loyal. It knew my need and wouldn’t abandon me.
NowI’m four months gone. Strangely, no letter has come. No physical. Maybe they’ve lost my file. Maybe I didn’t need the child after all.
Labourday. A home birth. They pry so, those hospital nurses.
I hadn’t realised that anything could hurt so much, though the price was low if it bought me life.
I complained bitterly about cold feet, and the midwife let me keep on my long woollen socks. But I didn’t know that there would be so much mess, so much blood. It got everywhere, even on my socks, and before I realised what was happening she had stripped them off.
The midwife stared at my disability in horror and disgust. There was no point in the story about the accident.
‘Please,’ I begged her between contractions. ‘Don’t tell. Who will take care of my baby?’
She threw me another pair of socks. ‘I don’t know you!’ she cried.
She ran outside, hand over her mouth, and I heard her retching in the garden. Then the gate banged and I was alone.
There was more pain, but I don’t remember it very well, and eventually my beautiful baby emerged. The child that will save me. Her grip is very strong, my lovely baby. She is pink, healthy, flushed with new life.
She is the image of me too — petite, fine-boned, thick dark hair. Even to the twisted little left foot and the extra little toe.
I flee out into the night, the mud and the rain. The gate clangs behind me like the doors of hell. Which of my choices is the least hideous? Her life? My life? Without her I might continue in my drab existence, since the letter about my physical has never come. But I never dare try for anything better, for that would require the physical.
Walking is agony. It feels like I am torn down there. A bus comes along and I flag it down, and sit up the back in the empty dark. My baby is crying softly. I brush the raindrops off her cheek and put her mouth to my breast. She sniffs around for a moment then latches onto the nipple with such force that I am hard put not to cry out. What life there is in her, my lovely darling.
What can I offer her? No more than my mother could give me. Go to some place so backward that they don’t even bother about the Law, as long as you are careful. Give up the little I have, in exchange for nothing for either of us!
Cut off the evil toe, break the bones and twist them into shape, hoping that I can do better than I was done to. Give her a lifetime of pain and fear and endless tedium, until the inevitable physical exposes her.
Or stay in Sydney? All newborn must have the physical. The same result, only sooner — termination.
The bus has come to the end of the line.
I get up, leaving blood on the seat. Wipe it off with my hand. I walk up the curves of the road, street lights gleaming on wet bitumen. She is warm in my arms.
Now the sea roars far below. My steps have brought me to The Gap, a fitting place. People in despair have sometimes found the answer here.
The moon comes out, shining on the welcoming rocks. Temptress!
My baby whimpers and I give her the breast. What kind of a life can there be for her? Should I just leave her to fate? Here? By the cliff? The easy way out?
Maybe if we were to go together. Life isn’t worth this pain.
How eagerly she sucks. How she wants to live. I thought she would save me. I didn’t realise my duty to her.
I pull her off the breast, her mouth making a little wet plop. I stand on the precipice, holding her away from me. Her life, my life. Our lives. The waves cry out for a sacrifice. The glossy rocks beckon. They know there is only one solution.
My baby opens her eyes and stares up at me. She knows too. She is loyal.
I am just as loyal. I will do what’s best for her, whatever the cost.
The wind is cold on my abandoned breast. It is blowing right into my heart. Why didn’t I give her a name?
Last night was the coldest I have ever been. Where are my mother’s arms? Where are my lover’s arms? Where is my babe-in-arms? All gone.
A letter came from the Medical Inspector’s Office today. I haven’t bothered to open it.
Such a decent world.
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