by Brandy Scott
Melinda let her eyes well up. ‘I wouldn’t even have a company if it wasn’t for her. She made me realise that I needed to think beyond myself, to create a business that actually helped women, not made money off the back of them. Her struggle might not have been mine, but I witnessed it, and it taught me the values that have made LoveLocked a success.’
There was scattered but earnest applause from the women who were left. Melinda congratulated herself on having dodged a bullet.
‘It’s still not the same as going through it yourself,’ Stacey persisted. ‘You don’t really know what it’s like to be a working mum, to not even have the time to take a shower on your own.’
And something small inside Melinda snapped. ‘But I’m going to,’ she said. ‘If everything goes to plan.’
Several women in the front row gasped; Melinda grinned at them. ‘No, I’m not pregnant. That’s just too much dim sum.’ She ignored the warning bells going off in her head and smiled dangerously at Stacey. Don’t you dare try and make me look bad, suggest I’m out of touch because I don’t have children. ‘This is not for publication,’ she continued, ‘but I’m trying to adopt. So I will know what it’s like to cope with a baby, on my own. Or at least, I hope so.’
They decided on McDonald’s, Tansy’s childhood treat. Lou’s too; it was where her parents used to take her after church. For ten-year-old Lou, the reward for sixty minutes of earnest worship was never a shot at everlasting life, it was skinny fries and a small chocolate milkshake.
‘But you’re going to have to drive,’ she said, tossing Tansy the keys.
‘Really?’ Tansy only had her learner’s permit. Melinda was the one who took her out for practice, and never in Lou’s car. Lou was far too worried about insurance premiums.
‘Can’t drive with these.’ Lou held up her bandaged fingers. ‘Plus, I’ve had a few.’ The Cointreau had been followed by a large glass of white when she’d discovered her old diaries tossed in a pile of ancient magazines in the shed.
‘Okay.’ Tansy glowed with trust, or maybe it was just the late afternoon sun. ‘I’ll be really careful.’
And she was, ferrying them gingerly to Meadowcroft as though there was a newborn in the back. Bang on the speed limit, using mirrors, indicating at every turn. Lou murmured encouragingly. Maybe she could rethink her not-my-car policy. It would be useful, Tansy able to get about under her own steam. Regardless of what happened next.
‘You can have whatever you want,’ she told her daughter, as they stood in front of the giant menu.
‘I’m really hungry, though,’ said Tans.
‘Me too,’ said Lou. ‘But don’t worry about it. Let’s just go nuts.’
They carried the paper bag reeking of fat and good times over to the park and got comfortable on top of a picnic bench. Tansy fussed about with napkins and straws, but Lou just sank her face into a Big Mac. God, that was good. Better than alcohol, almost. Better than fags. Lou realised she hadn’t had a cigarette all day. Hadn’t needed to. She smiled over at Tansy, who was demolishing some kind of special chicken burger that didn’t look any different from the regular chicken burgers, despite costing a dollar fifty more.
‘Do you remember when I used to take you down here?’
Tansy nodded, cheeks bulging.
It was one of the places they’d go after kindy, in that golden period when Lou thought she’d finally got it all figured out. Tansy had come out of her terrible tantrum phase and started talking properly, developing a quirky little personality Lou couldn’t get enough of. And she was working, finally, only part time and minimum wage but it felt like they had a bit of money, even if really they were sliding deeper into debt. She’d finish just after lunch, pick up Tansy and take them off on adventures. The park, with its friendly duck families, was a favourite. They’d run and swing and slide then head home exhausted, Tansy earnestly telling her mother all about the afternoon they’d just had as though she was an interested third party. Lou would fall asleep happy in the living room of her crappy flat, Tansy unconscious in the only bedroom.
Tansy stuck her hand in the bag for another burger. ‘You didn’t want this, did you?’ she said. ‘I feel like I didn’t even eat that first one.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Lou. ‘I put on fifteen kilograms with you.’
‘God, really?’
‘Eating was the only thing that stopped me feeling nauseous,’ said Lou, remembering her toast marathons. ‘And I had bad fluid.’
Tansy flicked the gherkin onto the grass. ‘I suppose putting on weight is normal,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have to make sure I’m really good afterwards.’
Lou held her breath.
‘I don’t want to be one of those women who never shifts it, you know? Who looks pregnant forever? But if you didn’t have a problem, then I should be fine.’
Lou set her Coke down. ‘So are we keeping this baby then?’ she asked, trying for casual.
The traffic stopped humming, the ducks quacking, waiting for Tansy’s answer.
‘I don’t know,’ Tansy said finally. ‘What do you think I should do?’ She turned to Lou with big eyes, looking so much younger than she was, which really wasn’t very old at all. Too young to vote or buy alcohol or get married. To make this decision. But Lou was determined to do things differently.
‘Oh no. Tansy, this isn’t up to me. This is your call.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘Well.’ Lou chose her words carefully. ‘I think it’s a big decision. And it’s still quite early, so you don’t actually need to make it yet. You can sleep on it. Not for long, but another week or two is okay.’
‘But what do you think about me having the baby?’
Lou had never asked her parents’ opinion, but they’d given it anyway. And not just an opinion — a pronouncement.
‘Well, of course you’re not having it,’ her mother had exclaimed, the Archangel Gabriel in reverse.
‘Well, I can’t not,’ Lou had retorted. ‘It would be a sin.’
‘Sin is relative,’ hissed her mother, perm twitching. ‘Throwing away all the opportunities your father and I have worked so hard to give you is also a sin, but that doesn’t seem to bother you.’
‘Having a baby doesn’t have to mean the end of my life. I can still do stuff.’
Lou’s mother had laughed, a particularly joyless sound. ‘Louise Marie Henderson, if you have this baby you will never go anywhere or do anything interesting, believe me. You’ll ruin both your lives.’
Her prediction hadn’t entirely come true. Lou had been to Sydney, and Tasmania, spent a whole week once in Hobart. She was admin manager now at the council. Her own designated parking spot and all the staples she could pilfer.
Lou swept aside the McCrap and shuffled closer to her daughter. ‘I think it’s a big responsibility,’ she said, aiming for a middle ground between condemnation and anything that could be wrongly interpreted as encouragement. ‘A life-changing responsibility. And it’s not really about having a baby, it’s having a child. For the rest of your life.’ Lou squeezed Tansy’s shoulder. ‘I don’t want you to feel like you’ve missed out on anything. I don’t want you to have any regrets.’
‘Do you regret having me?’
Oh God. ‘Tansy, of course not.’
‘But do you feel like you having a baby — not me, necessarily, but just, you know, a baby — was the wrong choice?’
They didn’t prepare you for this at the jolly post-natal checkups. ‘Not wrong, as such,’ Lou said carefully. ‘But I’m not going to lie — there were moments when it felt like I’d made a mistake. I had no idea what I was doing, and everyone else was heading off to uni and starting these big exciting lives. And I was stuck here, exhausted and out of my depth.’
Lou took a deep breath. ‘Look, babies aren’t fun, or cute, most of the time. They’re screaming, crying, pooping, vomiting, round-the-clock energy suckers. I didn’t spend my days lying on a picnic blanket gazing lovingly at you li
ke some kind of mummy blogger. I was busy sponging diarrhoea off the couch.’ Was she laying it on too thick? ‘And doing it on your own is bloody difficult. There’s a reason it takes two people to make a baby. It’s a two-person job to raise one. And pay for it.’ Wait, had her mother said that? ‘Look, I’m just saying being a single mum is hard. You know that. And it affects everything. We don’t have a nice big house like Aimee, and I don’t have a proper career like Melinda. Although,’ quickly, ‘I still think I made the right choice. Obviously.’
‘And you’ve made it work.’
Had she? ‘I’m not sure I have.’
‘Of course you have. And no one’s life is perfect. You’re always telling me that. Aimee can be really mental, and Melinda’s lonely, I reckon.’
‘She’s thinking of adopting.’
‘Melinda?’
‘I know.’
They sat in silence, Tansy throwing fries to the ducks waddling hopefully around their picnic bench.
‘But just because it was the right choice for me, doesn’t mean that it’s the right choice for you.’ Lou had been practising: an argument that was persuasive, but that wouldn’t make Tansy feel pressured or manipulated in any way. Although Lou was bloody well going to manipulate her. ‘Our circumstances are very different. You’ve grown up with a lot more freedom, and a bigger sense of what’s out there in the world. We barely had the internet when I was your age. I think it would hit you harder, being stuck at home with a crying baby. And you’re younger than I was. That makes a difference.’
‘A year.’
‘Nearly two, and I was a lot more self-sufficient. And Tansy, even though I don’t regret having you, at all, I do feel that you should think very, very hard before deciding whether to have this baby. Because it will be difficult, and unrewarding, and bloody lonely, for a long time. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I struggled, a lot.’
‘That’s kind of why I think I should have it, though.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Because you had me. Even though it was hard, and your parents kicked you out, and you’ve been stuck in that shit job forever because the hours are good for school. I mean, sorry, Mum, but Rex is a bit of a dick.’
‘Tansy.’
‘Well, he is. Anyway. You still had me, regardless. And if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t exist at all. So I don’t feel like I can get rid of it. Because how can I get rid of a baby, when you gave me a chance?’
‘That’s not . . . You can’t really . . . Tansy, it’s not the same thing.’
‘It’s exactly the same thing.’
‘But —’
‘It would be like killing myself.’
‘Oh, Tans.’
‘Imagine if you’d never had me.’
Lou had, often. Fantasised about a life of hotel rooms and wine bars, sexy men she met on business trips and tiny, sporty cars. But then she wouldn’t have this headstrong, stroppy creature making her argument with the same stubborn stupidity Lou had made hers, down to the jutting chin. She closed her eyes. ‘Look, abortion isn’t the only option. If you feel that strongly, you could have the baby and put it up for adoption.’
‘Give it to someone like Melinda?’
‘Not exactly like Melinda, no.’
‘What does Melinda think? Aimee? I’m guessing you’ve told them.’
‘They think I should tell you what to do. Push you into a decision.’
‘But you won’t.’ Tansy wriggled around so they were facing each other. ‘Because you’re not like your parents.’
Lou sighed. ‘Oh, I kind of am.’
‘No, you’re not. You wouldn’t kick me out. You wouldn’t throw all my stuff on the drive.’
Lou rubbed her face. This conversation was exhausting, and not going at all as she’d planned. ‘But I’m trying to talk you out of having it,’ she admitted.
‘I know.’
‘And I was totally my mother in driving you over to Fenton to see someone. That was pure Beverly, behaving as though getting pregnant was something to be ashamed of.’ Another cycle that needed to be broken. Lou gripped Tansy’s shoulder. ‘I’m not ashamed of you, Tans. You know that, don’t you? This is nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘But I’ve let you down.’
‘Tansy, half your class is probably having sex. You were just unlucky to get caught. Come here.’ Lou wrapped an arm around her daughter. ‘I’m only saying all this because I’m scared for you. I want you to have more opportunities than I’ve had.’
Tansy snuggled in. ‘It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, does it? Having a baby? Maybe it could be better for me than it was for you.’
Lou frowned. ‘Maybe. But it would still be a massive sacrifice on your part. Of your freedom. And Tansy, you love your freedom. That’s half the problem.’
‘But I could still have a life. I could still finish school, go to university. There are childcare centres and things. And I wouldn’t be doing it completely on my own. I’d have you. Wouldn’t I?’
Lou watched the ducks waddling towards the lake, not a duckling in sight because they’d all left home, like they were supposed to. Not brought their own chicks back to the mummy ducks to raise. But then the mummy ducks had probably been in stable relationships, not got their duck-selves pregnant in a messy situation that meant they couldn’t even admit who the father was, denying their ducklings a solid male role model and the generous financial support of grandparents on either side.
You mustn’t blame yourself, Melinda had said, but Lou knew deep down she had to. Because that was the thing about being a single parent — there was no one else to blame.
Lou squeezed Tansy tighter. ‘Of course you would,’ she said, trying not to sigh. ‘You’d have me. I’m not going anywhere.’
CHAPTER 14
Pete had moved the spare key. Cameron ran his hand along the guttering as instructed, felt the little leather fob lying in a crumbly nest of bird gatherings. Three years since he’d been back but the lock behaved as it always had, sticking at first, so you had to really put your weight behind it. Inside, however, the house had undergone a personality bypass. The walls were bare of his mother’s wooden signs begging someone to BLESS THIS MESS, the counters free from her jumble of nail polish and sunglasses and gossip magazines. Cameron stood in the kitchen doorway, slightly disorientated. It was as if all the colour had been surgically removed. What was left looked like the rental home of two slightly dysfunctional male flatmates. A tangle of PlayStation. A giant television. He opened the pantry; a dozen packets of two- minute noodles propped each other up.
There was fruit in the bowl, though. Cameron bit into an apple, then spat it in the sink. He drank deeply from the tap — that hadn’t changed, the cool, pure Meadowcroft water — to dislodge the taste. Right. Might as well get on with it.
The laptop was exactly where Pete had said, charging on the desk in the study. Cameron booted it up, guessing the password in less than a minute. His stepfather might be security conscious, but he was also predictable. He scrolled through emails, forwarding a couple of interesting-looking messages to himself. Lincoln’s iPad passcode was better protected, but his brother’s secrets weren’t what Cameron was after. He put both devices in Pete’s leather hold-all and propped it up next to the door.
Cameron wasn’t exactly sure what he was searching for, but he’d know when he found it. He went through the study filing cabinet, flicking quickly through years of electricity bills and warranties. He fished around the bathroom, free of any telltale female toiletries, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Lincoln’s room smelled of teenage boy; Cameron did a cursory search, then pulled the door shut. His own room was obviously now a guest room and little used — same bed, same curtains, same chunky stereo system in the corner, but a new doona cover, still creased from the packet. Cameron paused, but felt nothing. He didn’t live there any more.
The master bedroom felt abandoned, and for longer than just a few d
ays. Apart from a wedding photo next to the bed — on his mother’s side, Cameron noted — it had all the human investment of a cheap hotel room. He knelt down and began to rifle through the bedside table. An unwound watch. A Lee Child. A bottle of pills, label picked off. He tucked those in his pocket. And a mobile phone.
Cameron sat back on his haunches as he turned the phone over in his hand. Pete had told the investigator quite firmly that his phone had been with him in the plane; Cameron had been standing there. He pushed at the screen, but the battery was dead. Pete wasn’t tech-savvy enough to own multiple gadgets. Maybe a work and a personal number? But he was a small-town teacher, not a CEO. Cameron tapped the mobile against his knee, then pocketed it, along with the charger.
There was nothing interesting under the bed, or in the chest of drawers. His stepfather’s wardrobe was all white shirts and brown shoes, a stack of faded weekend polos that had long ago had the life washed out of them. His mother’s wardrobe was now storage: suitcases and tennis rackets, except . . . Cameron moved further inside, drawn by a flash of colour, as rare in this new monochrome version of their house as an exotic bird. He buried his face in a fountain of hanging fabric — his mother’s scarves. Blue and purple and red and green, the silk waterfall still carried a faint trace of her perfume. Cameron began carefully pulling the fabric down. His stepfather didn’t deserve to have anything of his mother. He folded the lengths around each other and placed the soft bundle in his backpack. He didn’t deserve any memories at all.
CHAPTER 15
The ballroom was already buzzing by the time Melinda came downstairs. She’d taken her time fussing with her makeup, doing her hair, but she could delay no longer. The double doors swung open as each new couple waltzed in, giving a glimpse of the crowd inside. Women in their best dresses, fake-tanned and back-combed. Their husbands/boyfriends/partners, lots of them, getting stuck into the free bar. Melinda hung back, pretending to adjust a shoe. This was the one part of the conference she hated. Meeting people was amazing, the stage was a rush. But the dinner was a plus-one, and Melinda was arriving plus no one. As usual.
