Chapter 19 #2
The officers approached Mima’s table. She shifted her attention to them, curious but still mulling over the words spoken by her former roommate, who had retreated up the street towards the hospital with a ramrod-straight back.
“Miss Everest? Miss Jemima Everest?” one of the officers asked. He had a ginger moustache that twitched as he spoke. His hazel eyes were cold.
She nodded. “Yes. How can I help you, Officer?”
He was behind her in a flash, pulling hard on her arm. “I am arresting you under the Vagrancy Act for having no visible lawful means of support and for being in moral danger of falling into a life of crime.”
“What? What do you mean? I’m not a vagrant!” Mima tried to struggle free from the officer’s grasp, but the second officer stepped up and held her fast.
“Don’t struggle, Miss,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt you in your state.”
Mima’s heart was in her throat. A flood of panic washed over her. She felt lightheaded. This couldn’t be happening. Tilda had turned her into the police—there was no other explanation for it.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as they pushed her out of the café.
“Hey! Who’s paying for the tea and scones?” the waitress cried after them.
The police ignored the waitress and bustled Mima along the street to their waiting FJ Holden with the words POLICE printed on a sign above the windscreen.
A single loudspeaker sat mounted above the left headlight.
Mima had never been in trouble with the police before.
Her heart sank, and suddenly she thought she might throw up.
But she countered the urge with a smile.
She needed to think clearly. Perhaps she could talk her way out of this.
She was good with words. Everyone had always said so.
“I’m sorry, Officers, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” she began in as sweet a voice as she could muster.
“No mistake. Watch ya head.” One of the officers pushed down on her crown. She collapsed onto the seat in the back of the vehicle.
“I’m not a vagrant. I’m perfectly fine, in fact. I was let go from my job today—that’s true. But I’ll find another one in no time. I’m a midwife, you see.”
“Who’s going to hire a single pregnant woman?” the officer asked pointedly, staring at her with one eyebrow quirked. “That’s right, no one,” he said without hearing a response. “Now, co-operate or it’ll go badly for ya, miss.”
Mima expected to be taken to the police station, but instead they drove in the opposite direction away from the foreshore.
She sat in the back of the police car listening to the two officers banter back and forth.
They ignored her as she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Hopelessness washed over her. What now? How had her life come to this?
If only she could find a way to get out of this situation, maybe she could go home.
Her parents had barely spoken to her in years, but perhaps if she showed up at their front door, they’d let her in. They’d have to.
How could Tilda do this to her? And the sister?
She’d come to think of the entire midwife team at the hospital as a kind of surrogate family.
But they’d all treated her with such cold indifference.
Her throat constricted. She could barely see through the tears, and her entire body shuddered with sobs.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, but it came out as a whisper the cops didn’t hear.
She tried again, louder. “Where are we going?”
The men stopped their chatter. The one in the passenger seat turned to look at her, his eyebrows arched. “You’ll be safe there. A roof over your head. Food in your tummy. That’s all you need to know.”
After a while, she stopped sobbing, wiped her eyes dry and looked out the window.
Resigned to her fate, her emotions filed themselves behind a wall of acceptance as she stared out across the landscape of suburban streets.
Squat houses with neat gardens whooshed past her window like a flash of a life she’d never know.
She wouldn’t have the husband and children, the white picket fence, the small three-bedroom bungalow.
What role did she have now? What kind of society was willing to arrest her as a moral danger and squirrel her away in a police car?
She began to feel sleepy in the warm back of the car as the adrenaline faded.
Then it pulled to a stop in front of a large house with sharply steep gables.
The house was painted white, but it had seen better days.
Its windows were hemmed in on either side by drab draperies.
The verandah that skirted the first and second stories was flanked with intricate metal railings.
The garden was neat but nondescript. It looked sad, like it’d once been lively and full of colour but had faded under the hot Australian sun, sagging under the weight of decades lived.
“Come on. Out you get.” The cop who’d driven her opened the door and yanked her from the car by one arm.
Mima winced. She squashed a cry, determined not to let them see her pain again. They bustled her into the house and waited by the front door. One officer wandered to a staircase and peered up, then called out a hello and meandered back again to where she stood.
Before long, a woman appeared. She wore a long grey skirt, a white buttoned blouse, and a light blue cardigan. Her sensible shoes made barely a sound on the hardwood floor, and her hair fell in soft curls around a hard face.
“Good morning, Officers. Who do we have here?”
“Good morning, Mrs Thompson, lovely to see you again. This is Miss Jemima Everest. She’s suspected of being a vagrant and likely to fall into moral decline. We phoned ahead. You should be expecting her.”
“Ah, yes, the phone. I still haven’t quite gotten used to it.
It’s in the kitchen, and we don’t always hear it ring.
Funny thing, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I didn’t get that message.
However, we do happen to have a bed open at the moment.
She’ll bunk in with Francine, although I’m sure she won’t mind sharing, and will be grateful for the roof over her head.
” She turned to look at Mima as she finished speaking, directing the last at her pointedly. “Isn’t that right?”
Mima looked at the floor and gave a small nod.
“The officers will leave you here to stay with us, but before they do, I need to ensure you’re aware of the conditions of your time here. Otherwise, I’m certain they will be happy to oblige any rebelliousness with a stay in the clink. Is that correct, Officers?”
“Too right, Mrs Thompson.”
Mrs Thompson offered the police a firm smile of approval, then returned her focus to Mima.
Her gaze was cold, hard and authoritative.
“This is a maternity home. That means we have married women coming here on a daily basis to have much-loved babies and expand their families. They pay for our services and the facilities you see here. Their fees make it possible for women like you…” Here she sneered at Mima. “… to live here until your time comes.”
Mima wasn’t sure what response was expected, but Mrs Thompson waited in silence as if seeking affirmation of what she’d said. So, Mima gave her a quick nod.
“If you stay here, you will work for your keep. We don’t accept lazy or entitled behaviour.
You will work, and you will work hard, as your way of showing gratitude for the roof over your head and the meals we provide.
This institution has sixty beds and is run by the Salvation Army as a form of charity.
You are a guest here, but you are expected to contribute to your keep and to always reflect the good reputation of this hospital.
” Here she sniffed. “You’re unclean now—there’s no denying it.
No man will ever want to marry a second-hand girl such as yourself.
You’ve been ruined for polite society, and I’m sorry for you.
There’s nothing can be done about that. Your best chance for a future is to stay here, work hard, do as you’re told, and hopefully you can find a way to reclaim some semblance of a life for yourself.
Do you understand the terms of your stay here? ”
Mima’s chest had constricted with every word the woman said.
But she realised, as hard as it was to hear, that Mrs Thompson was right about one thing—there was nothing for her out there in the world.
No one who would take care of her, nowhere for her to lay her head, nothing to eat.
She wished she’d taken more care to save money, but her meagre paycheque hadn’t seemed to stretch far, and she had only enough saved for maybe three months of austere living arrangements, which wouldn’t get her through to the end of the pregnancy, never mind life with a baby.
Where would she live with an infant in tow?
Who would give her a job? She had no way of figuring all of that out right now.
But maybe if she spent some time here at the maternity home, it would give her a chance to come up with a plan.
“Thank you, Mrs Thompson. I accept,” she said in a quiet voice. She had no other option.