QUORN,
17 NOVEMBER 2012

Sheila put two strong flat whites down on the table in the tiny courtyard garden of the Quorn Café.

‘Right,’ she said, sitting down opposite Ali. ‘Time to spill.’

Ali added sugar to her coffee and stirred – her habitual delaying tactic in such situations – then she looked at Sheila.

‘You can’t share this,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t. Even with Dora. At least, not until we leave.’

Sheila nodded. ‘Understood.’

Ali sighed. ‘Stella’s pregnant,’ she said.

Sheila, to her credit, didn’t wince or grimace or miss a beat. ‘Ah, right, so that’s it. I see.’

‘We’re not discussing it, unless Stella wants to,’ Ali said. ‘This trip’s a temporary escape.’

‘Yes, well, this town’s perfect for that,’ Sheila said.

It was, thought Ali: a perfectly preserved little frontier town in the back of beyond. Right now, Stella was off with Ali’s Nikon, taking arty shots of the disused rolling stock on the train tracks, and the faded, filigree grandeur of the Victorian shop fronts. The sky here seemed bigger and emptier than in Adelaide; the sun blazed, unhindered by cloud, on to the tin roofs of the houses, and the heat shimmered and danced above the surface of the roads. It was shady right here, though, under a plane tree in the café courtyard; and a bubbling water feature, a beatific cross-legged stone Shiva, supplied the sound – if not the sensation – of liquid coolness. Now and again, a resident pair of sulphur-crested cockatoos left their leafy perch to dip their beaks into the pool of water in Shiva’s cupped hands.

‘Does she want to be pregnant?’ Sheila asked now.

‘She says so,’ Ali said. ‘But that might only be because Thea’s loudly insisting she has an abortion.’

‘Do you know the boy?’

Ali shook her head. ‘Nope, Stella won’t tell us. It was just the once, apparently.’ Tears sprang to her eyes, and she groped blindly in her bag for a tissue. ‘God, Sheila, I feel such a failure.’

Sheila pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and passed it across the table. ‘Alison,’ she said.

Ali took the hankie, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, sniffed disconsolately. ‘What?’

‘Your success as a mother isn’t in doubt here.’ She pointed at Ali’s cup, still full, untouched. ‘Drink some coffee,’ she said. ‘It’s excellent. And don’t heap blame on yourself.’

‘Hard not to,’ Ali said. ‘I feel I took my eye off the ball. I’ve been so distracted lately, I do feel I’ve let her down.’

‘Stella’s going to be just fine,’ Sheila said. ‘She has the same beautiful determination as you, and Lord knows you had a far worse start.’

Ali looked hard at her coffee and Sheila said, ‘Oh, sweetheart, we never talk about your life in Sheffield, do we?’

‘No need,’ Ali said, glancing up, then down again.

‘Catherine gave you such a difficult—’