A Precious Bundle of Joy
Trevor had been deciding who was Australian for twenty-three years.
When the citizenship test came in, they gave him a book and a computer. Most of the answers were in the book. By now he could usually tell what people were asking before they finished.
On Tuesday, Lidia arrived. Fifty-two. Born in Poland. Twenty-six years in Australia.
Her second attempt.
“Been here a while.”
“Yes.”
“Like it?”
“Mostly.”
He liked that answer. He had lived here his whole life and couldn't have improved on it.
She worked at the Royal Brisbane. Her shift started at three.
Trevor showed her the computer and unwrapped his sandwich at the next desk. Sixteen dollars fifty. He lifted the bread to see whether the ham had slipped to one side. It hadn't. That was all the ham.
Her result came through before he'd finished.
Fourteen. She needed fifteen, with all five values questions correct. She had those.
“Bit of bad news.”
Lidia looked at the screen.
“Can you check?”
He opened the result again.
“That's what it's given you.”
“I can see that.”
He found another test date.
“Tuesday week. Nine.”
“I work nights on Mondays. Is there an afternoon…”
“Same place. Bring this notice.”
She waited until the printer stopped, then asked him again.
He found a Thursday.
“That'll be your third appointment,” he said. “If you don't pass, it goes back for a decision. They can refuse the application.”
“Even with fourteen?”
“Fifteen's the pass mark.”
She put the notice in a plastic sleeve, smoothing the corner that had caught. He folded the sandwich wrapper over what was left.
Downstairs, the coffee machine was broken. A notice said MATTER ESCALATED.
Someone had underlined ESCALATED in biro. Trevor wondered who had done that, and whether the coffee machine had found the experience useful.
Lidia stood inside the entrance watching the rain.
“Everything alright?”
“My neighbour's car won't start. He drove me. His wife's in hospital.”
Trevor had jumper leads.
Park Jung-ho was beside an old Corolla, wet across the shoulders. He introduced himself twice. Trevor had already opened the boot.
They tried the leads. Nothing. Jung-ho checked his phone.
“Hospital?” Trevor asked.
“My wife. She wants her glasses.”
“Battery, I reckon.”
“I know it's the battery.”
They tried once more.
“Come on,” Trevor said. “I'll take you.”
He got his phone out to ring upstairs. Stephanie would ask how long he'd be. He put it away.
On the way, Jung-ho complained about hospital parking fees. Lidia corrected Trevor's directions. Trevor objected to a ute changing lanes without indicating.
The ute had personalised plates. Trevor considered this further evidence that money was no guarantee of character.
At the entrance Jung-ho tried to shake his hand.
“No worries,” Trevor said, escaping before it became an occasion.
He returned thirty-one minutes late.
Stephanie was at his desk.
“Your one o'clock waited half an hour. I took her in.”
“Car wouldn't start.”
“Yours?”
“Someone else's.”
“You could have rung.”
“It was the Royal. I thought I'd be back.”
“You weren't.”
He took off his wet jacket. Water had gone through the lining and darkened one sleeve of his shirt. He'd expected her to ask about the hospital.
“She needs a letter for her employer,” Stephanie said. “The time she arrived and…”
“I'll send the usual one.”
He sent it before opening his next appointment.
The next morning Stephanie brought his personnel file.
The identity check recorded when he joined referred to an attachment. The attachment was missing. Human Resources had asked him twice for replacement evidence. He had sent the hospital notice his mother kept in an envelope.
Stephanie put the scan on his screen.
A stork carried a baby in a blue blanket. Beneath it were two purple footprints, his name, a date and the words A Precious Bundle of Joy.
“That's me.”
“It's a hospital souvenir, Trevor.”
“I wasn't responsible for the artwork.”
“We need an official document.”
“It's what I've got.”
She enlarged the scan. Beside the date his mother had written his weight in blue biro. Seven pounds six. He recognised her seven.
“The registry?”
“Still looking.”
She gave him a letter.
He had until five o'clock the following Friday to supply acceptable evidence of identity and citizenship. After that his authority to conduct citizenship assessments would be suspended pending a formal employment review.
“Because you've lost an attachment.”
“Because we can't establish what was checked.”
“Ask someone. Half of them are still here. Ask Barry. He did the bloody induction.”
“They can confirm you worked here.”
“I still work here.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we talking as if I've been caught coming through a window?”
Stephanie moved the letter closer to him.
“I need you to read it.”
He read the letter again.
“What happens while they review it?”
“I can put you on records.”
“For how long?”
“I don't know.”
He had four years left on the flat. He had recently paid extra off the loan and told the woman at the bank he was on the home stretch. She had agreed. Neither of them had mentioned the stork.
Stephanie printed the list of alternative documents. He had never needed a passport. Bribie Island had been far enough. He had been to Tasmania once, years ago, and had spent most of the visit watching rain come sideways across a paddock. There had been no border formalities. He remembered that favourably.
She also reminded him about the staff refresher he had been putting off.
“Will passing that help?”
“With the refresher.”
At home he spread his mother's papers across the kitchen table. Electricity bills, appliance guarantees, a receipt for curtains. The hospital notice was in the envelope where he had left it after scanning.
She had given it to him when he was helping empty her flat. He'd been unplugging the freezer.
“The nurse had to do that foot again,” she'd said.
He'd asked where she kept the mop.
“Look at the toes.”
“Mum, I need the mop.”
There had been water inside his shoes. He remembered that. He remembered the black line beneath the freezer where the lino had never been cleaned. He could not remember taking the envelope from her.
He turned the notice over. Nothing.
She had kept the receipt for the fucking curtains.
He pushed the papers away. A guarantee slid off the table. He left it on the floor.
“All this shit, Mum.”
He said it loudly enough to hear how he sounded.
The fridge cut out. In the sudden quiet he picked up the guarantee and sat down.
He looked at the left heel. Two edges, one barely visible. The nurse had held his leg and tried again. His mother had watched. Later she had wanted him to look at the toes.
She had been like that. Capable of remembering the smallest physical detail while forgetting entirely what she'd gone into a room for. He had found it irritating when she was alive. Now he was depending on it.
He put the notice under the kitchen light.
He supplied the registry with the hospital's name, his mother's maiden name and an address he hadn't thought about in forty years. In the box asking for any other relevant information, he typed his birth weight.
He left it there.
The woman from Caboolture had written again.
His letter had confirmed she attended an appointment. It hadn't given the times. By the time she got back, her employer had put someone else on for the whole afternoon. Six hours' pay.
She attached the letter and asked for a formal complaint number.
Trevor drafted a reply explaining that he had been assisting two people who needed to reach hospital. He mentioned the failed attempt to start their vehicle.
It ran to half a page.
He read her email again. She hadn't asked where he'd been.
He deleted the explanation and put in the times, checking each against the log. Beneath them he wrote that the appointment had started late because he had left without arranging cover.
He took it to Stephanie.
“You can say the delay was on our side.”
“It was me.”
She checked the times and corrected the departure by four minutes.
He rang the woman before sending it.
“I've done the letter properly this time.”
“They've given her my Tuesdays.”
“Sorry?”
“The woman who covered. She's doing Tuesdays now.”
He looked at the six hours in her email.
“Have you explained…”
“Yes.”
“I can speak to your employer.”
“I don't want you ringing my employer.”
“I was only offering to explain.”
“And I'm asking you not to. I still have to work there.”
He had the corrected letter in front of him. He folded it once while she was speaking, then opened it again.
“Right,” he said. “I won't.”
“Can you just send the thing?”
Afterwards Stephanie gave him the complaint number and a written warning about leaving without cover.
He signed the warning.
There was a box acknowledging that the contents had been explained to him. He ticked it. He had understood every word.
On Monday Lidia called to check the room for Thursday.
“Same room.”
“You're sure?”
He checked.
She said Jung-ho had bought a battery. His wife was home.
Trevor told her about the staff refresher. Then, before he could find a way to stop, he told her about the stork.
“Have you read the book?” she asked.
“Most of it.”
They arranged twenty minutes in the hospital cafeteria. She wanted to practise too.
She had a sandwich and a leaflet for a local candidate's meeting. Beside his photograph she'd written DRAIN and underlined it twice.
“Water through my laundry again,” she said when Trevor looked.
“You think he'll do anything?”
“I want to ask him.”
She opened the book.
“Who appoints the Governor-General?”
“The King.”
“On whose advice?”
“Someone in Canberra.”
She kept chewing.
“Prime Minister,” he said.
“Then say that.”
He turned the page back.
“Twenty-three years. You'd think it would count.”
“Have you read this bit?”
“Bit of a performance, though. Making people prove what everyone already knows.”
She put her sandwich down.
“You didn't think that on Tuesday.”
“I'm saying I can see how it…”
“I had six wrong. What were you supposed to do?”
“Yes, but one more. After all this time.”
“Then help me get one more. Ask me something.”
He asked her three. She got them right. On the fourth she changed her answer.
“First one was right.”
“Then why did you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I should try again.”
He hadn't known he was looking at her any particular way. At work he could sit beside a person for twenty minutes without speaking and still be the loudest thing in the room.
Her alarm went. She put the sandwich away.
“We haven't finished.”
“I told you twenty minutes.”
She took the book with her. He had his own.
He watched her go through the cafeteria doors. The people moving around the hospital all seemed to know where they were needed. Lidia would be on her feet until late, doing something Trevor had never quite understood how to do: being useful without making a record of it.
He returned to his sandwich.
On Tuesday he sat the refresher at his usual desk. Nineteen out of twenty.
He printed the result and sent it to Human Resources.
They sent back the list of acceptable documents.
On Thursday Lidia finished in seventeen minutes.
Fourteen.
She kept her hand on the mouse.
Trevor checked the result. All five values questions correct.
“Which one?”
“It doesn't give me the questions.”
“Can I see what I got wrong?”
“No.”
She clicked back. The result stayed where it was.
He opened her appointment record. Three completed appointments. The next action was referral to the case officer.
“Does that mean no?”
“They have to make the decision.”
“And if it is no?”
“You'd have to apply again.”
She looked at the plastic sleeve beside the keyboard. It held all three notices.
“I changed one,” she said.
He waited.
“I had it and I changed it. I don't even know which one now.”
Her hand was still on the mouse. He wanted her to take it off so he could finish.
Trevor could close the appointment and send the file on. That was the next step. He had done it before.
Below COMPLETED was another option: EQUIPMENT FAILURE.
He had used it once when the screens went down. It allowed a replacement appointment without counting the failed session.
There was an empty place at eleven the next morning.
“I could book you tomorrow.”
“You said…”
“I know.”
He turned the screen slightly. She read it.
“The computer worked.”
“Yes.”
“What would you put?”
He pointed to the option.
She moved her hand off the mouse.
“Would it say I told you that?”
“No. It's my entry.”
“If they ask me, I'll say it worked.”
“Tell them.”
“Could they stop my application?”
He wanted to say no. She was looking straight at him, waiting for something she could rely on.
“I don't know.”
“Then don't tell me it's alright.”
“I haven't.”
“You've got that voice.”
He took his hand off the desk.
She sat for a while. Someone at the next desk was being shown how to turn the sound up.
“Eleven?” she said.
“There's a place.”
“I'll come. But I'm not saying the computer broke.”
“Neither am I asking you to.”
He heard the irritation in his own voice. She had failed the test and was now making his help difficult. He turned back to the screen.
Stephanie came over as he selected the option.
“What failed?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at the result.
“Then close it as completed.”
Trevor opened the explanation box.
“Leave it,” she said.
He typed: No equipment fault. I have authorised a further appointment. The result above is correct.
“You can't select a fault and write that there wasn't one.”
“It won't let me book her otherwise.”
“You can ask the case officer to consider another appointment.”
“And when will they do that?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Tomorrow? Six weeks? She's sitting here now.”
“So am I,” Lidia said. “You can both look at me.”
Stephanie turned to her.
“I can send the request today. I can't promise you tomorrow.”
Lidia looked from her to Trevor.
“You already did.”
He had. Before checking, before asking, he had put eleven o'clock in front of her. Now Stephanie had given him a way to withdraw it without losing his job. He could send the request, apologise, go downstairs. By lunch he would be ringing the registry again. He had started taking his phone into the toilet in case they called back.
His name was at the bottom of the box. A tick would confirm that the entry was accurate.
He moved the pointer to CANCEL.
Four years on the flat. The written warning in his file. He could already hear himself explaining this to the woman at the bank, beginning with the hospital and having to be brought back to the loan.
“Send the request,” Stephanie said. “I'll follow it up.”
He looked at Lidia. She wasn't encouraging him. She had put the sleeve in her bag and was waiting to be told which of the things they had said was going to happen.
He wanted the appointment kept. He also wanted, badly now, not to be the man who had offered it and taken it away. He couldn't make those two things separate.
It occurred to him that he had spent years thinking people who broke rules were mostly too lazy to understand them. Now he understood this one perfectly. He could even explain why it was there. That was the irritating part.
“Trevor. You haven't submitted it. We can still sort this out.”
He put his left hand flat on his thigh. The other one had begun to shake against the mouse.
He ticked the box.
For a moment he left it there, a small blue square he could undo.
Then he submitted it.
The result remained fourteen. Beneath it, his name appeared beside EQUIPMENT FAILURE.
He booked eleven.
Stephanie waited until the printer stopped.
“You're going to correct that.”
“No.”
“This is a false entry.”
“I've written what happened.”
“You've also certified something that didn't happen.”
“Read the note, Stephanie. It's right there.”
“I have read it. So will the person who has to ask why you did it with me standing here telling you to stop.”
Lidia stood up.
“Am I supposed to come tomorrow?”
“Keep the notice,” Stephanie said. “I'll ring you.”
“I have to tell work.”
“I know.”
“No. I have to tell them now.”
Stephanie looked at Trevor.
He had no answer she could use.
Lidia put the fourth notice in the sleeve and left.
Stephanie pulled the visitor's chair out from the desk.
“Sit down.”
He was already sitting.
She pushed it back.
“This has to go to Integrity.”
“Alright.”
“No. Don't say alright as if I've asked you to move your car. I've just watched you falsify a record.”
“Fourteen. She got every values question right. She's been here twenty-six years.”
“I know.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“Yesterday you'd have sent her file through.”
He looked away.
“Wouldn't you?”
“I don't know what I'd have done yesterday.”
Stephanie sat in the visitor's chair.
“They could dismiss you,” she said.
He looked at the appointment he had made. Eleven tomorrow. It was still there.
“Did you think writing it in the box would make it alright?”
He had thought it would count for something. An honest explanation attached to the lie. His name on it. He had imagined being asked to justify himself and having, for once, enough to say.
“Can you leave her out of it?”
“She was here, Trevor. You turned the screen towards her.”
He looked at the empty chair beside the test computer.
“I told her it was my entry.”
“It is.”
His access was disabled before lunch.
Stephanie let him collect his things. The sandwich was still in the fridge. He took it because he had paid for it.
At reception she asked for his pass.
“Am I suspended?”
“You're on paid leave while they decide what happens next.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“The identity deadline still applies.”
“Lidia.”
“I'm speaking to the case officer.”
He wanted to tell her about Jung-ho's wife. She was home now. The drive ought to be somewhere in the account of what he had done.
Stephanie held out her hand for the pass.
He pulled the lanyard over his head. It caught on his ear and he had to try again. A man at reception moved aside to let him through, then realised he wasn't going that way.
“Will you ring me?” Trevor asked.
“When I can.”
He gave her the pass.
Outside, the rain had stopped. The pavement was steaming in the sun. He stood under the awning for a moment, holding his sandwich and wondering whether he was supposed to feel different.
He had expected something. A sensation, perhaps. Some private acknowledgement that he had crossed a line.
Instead his collar was wet and he was hungry.
He went home.
On Friday he stayed at the kitchen table.
The registry had the hospital's name, his mother's names, the old address, his school records and a copy of the notice. He had also sent the year his mother died.
At ten-forty he rang the office.
“Did Lidia come in?”
Stephanie was unavailable. He left a message. At eleven he rang again and hung up before anyone answered.
The statement Integrity wanted was due on Monday. He opened it and typed that he had knowingly selected an incorrect appointment outcome.
He sat looking at knowingly.
Then he added the sentence about the hospital.
He made it two sentences. He included the glasses.
He read the paragraph aloud and heard himself telling the woman from Caboolture why she had lost her Tuesdays.
He deleted it.
There was still a space headed Mitigating circumstances. He left the cursor there.
At four-fifty-eight the registry replied.
They had completed the search under all the names and particulars he had supplied.
No matching birth registration had been found.