BooksBarbecue
Back The Silence Save as PDF
Contents (121)
  1. THE SILENCE
  2. Susan Allott
  3. Copyright
  4. Praise for The Silence:
  5. Dedication
  6. 1
  7. London, 1997
  8. 2
  9. Sydney, 1966
  10. 3
  11. Ivanhoe, New South Wales, 1966
  12. 4
  13. Sydney, 1967
  14. 5
  15. Sydney, 1967
  16. 6
  17. Sydney, 1997
  18. 7
  19. Sydney, 1967
  20. 8
  21. Sydney, 1967
  22. 9
  23. Sydney, 1967
  24. 10
  25. Sydney, 1967
  26. 11
  27. Sydney, 1997
  28. 12
  29. Sydney, 1967
  30. 13
  31. Sydney, 1967
  32. 14
  33. Sydney, 1997
  34. 15
  35. Sydney, 1967
  36. 16
  37. Sydney, 1967
  38. 17
  39. Leeds, 1967
  40. 18
  41. Sydney, 1967
  42. 19
  43. Sydney, 1997
  44. 20
  45. Sydney, 1967
  46. 21
  47. Ivanhoe, 1967
  48. 22
  49. Leeds, 1967
  50. 23
  51. Sydney, 1997
  52. 24
  53. Sydney, 1967
  54. 25
  55. Sydney, 1997
  56. 26
  57. Sydney, 1967
  58. 27
  59. Sydney, 1967
  60. 28
  61. Sydney, 1997
  62. 29
  63. Sydney, 1967
  64. 30
  65. Sydney, 1967
  66. 31
  67. New South Wales, 1997
  68. 32
  69. Sydney, 1967
  70. 33
  71. Sydney, 1967
  72. 34
  73. Sydney, 1997
  74. 35
  75. Sydney, 1967
  76. 36
  77. Sydney, 1967
  78. 37
  79. Sydney, 1997
  80. 38
  81. Sydney, 1967
  82. 39
  83. Leeds, 1967
  84. 40
  85. Sydney, 1967
  86. 41
  87. Sydney, 1997
  88. 42
  89. Sydney, 1967
  90. 43
  91. Victoria, 1967
  92. 44
  93. Sydney, 1997
  94. 45
  95. Victoria, 1967
  96. 46
  97. Sydney, 1967
  98. 47
  99. Sydney 1997
  100. 48
  101. Sydney, 1997
  102. 49
  103. Sydney, 1997
  104. 50
  105. Sydney, 1997
  106. 51
  107. Victoria, 1967
  108. 52
  109. New South Wales, 1997
  110. 53
  111. Leeds, 1967
  112. 54
  113. Sydney, 1997
  114. Author’s Note
  115. Notes
  116. A note about language
  117. Acknowledgements
  118. Questions for Reading Groups
  119. Erin Kelly interviews Susan Allott
  120. About the Author
  121. About the Publisher

It was as bad as she’d feared, then. Her head thumped. ‘Steve, you can’t keep him. You’ll be fired, apart from anything else.’

‘I was going to resign, anyway.’ He hugged the baby to his chest and patted his back. ‘I know you don’t want to get pregnant,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I understand you feeling that way.’

‘Steve, this is not the way to fix things. This is –’

‘But we could still bring a child up.’ His hand closed gently around the boy’s thigh. ‘Bring him up as our own.’

‘This is crazy talk.’ She sat down next to him on the couch. ‘What are you thinking? You can’t bring a black baby home and stick him in a pram, expect people to think he’s our child.’

‘Keep your voice down, Mandy, for God’s sake.’ The baby sighed in his sleep, turned his head away and back again. ‘It doesn’t work like that. We don’t need to pretend he’s ours. We could adopt him.’

‘Adopt him?’

‘Why not?’

Mandy put her head in her hands. This felt like a retribution. She should have given him babies like he wanted. Out on the street she heard the tick tick tick of Andrea Walker’s bicycle.

‘I’m sure Ray could arrange it for us.’ Steve smiled his new, peaceful smile. ‘Why don’t you think it over?’

‘I don’t need to think it over.’ She stood, and the waft of the nappy met her, making her gag. ‘I don’t want to adopt a baby. Have you lost your mind?’

The baby stirred and Steve shunted him higher up his chest. ‘I promised his mother, Mandy.’

‘Take him back to his mother, then.’ She flung the window wide and opened the curtain an inch or two. The child sighed softly in his sleep. ‘If she made you promise her, she must love him. She must be breaking her heart, wanting him back.’

Steve shook his head. ‘Ray wants him removed. You know that. I can’t take him back.’

‘Find another family for him, then.’

Steve closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch. ‘You know how much I want a child, Mandy. You know it’s what I want more than anything.’

She watched him with the boy, the way he held him in his arms. The gentle strength in him. Behind her, through the opened window, she heard Andrea slow up across the street and lift the bicycle onto her verandah; the dull chime of the bell as the front wheel rolled over the steps.

‘He can’t stay here,’ she said, pulling the window shut. ‘That’s final.’

30

Sydney, 1967

At dawn the baby’s cries grew loud enough for Mandy to admit defeat and get out of bed. She could sleep through almost anything, but this was something else. It wasn’t just the noise, it was the fact of this baby being here at all. She splashed her face in the bathroom. She had a stale, grubby feeling in her skin and a pain behind her eyes which had been there for days.