‘Up to you. But make sure she’s all right, Pat. She’s your mum.’
‘She’s a viper,’ said Patrick. ‘She doesn’t deserve anything.’
‘She’s still your mum.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the cricket game, and the pedestal fan whirring and clicking in the corner.
‘Patty,’ said Ray suddenly. ‘I want you to give them the flowers.’
‘Who?’
‘The boys next door. At Christmas they said they were getting married. The boys from the band.’
‘Paul and Brian?’
‘Yes. No one was listening but Brian said they wanted to get married in the garden. I want you to cut all my roses and give them to the boys for their wedding. Robert would have hated that so much.’ He tried to laugh. ‘I’d have liked to arrange them myself. Don’t pick them until the night before, at the earliest. Morning of would be better. And you help them, Pat, with the arranging. I have a book about it, on the shelf in the living room. There are lots of good ideas in that. You help make Brian and Paul a beautiful wedding. There’s nothing Robert would have liked less than a gay wedding in his precious garden, with flowers by yours truly.’
‘That’s a very sweet Fuck You, Dad.’
‘Kill ’em with kindness, Patty.’
* * *
Simon went back to the cricket match and Molly stayed on her bed, stroking Petula’s forehead as she fell asleep, which she somehow managed through the din of Annie thundering on the piano. Something had happened to her mother. Finding those drawings of Granny’s had tipped her over the edge, and now she seemed like a stranger. A stranger with a fringe that had appeared out of nowhere while Molly was in the hospital. She’d never replied to Molly’s text, with all the little duck emojis, the day she went into labour. Maybe she hadn’t seen it, since Molly had followed it with scores of desperate where are you messages in the hours that followed.
She needed to ask again. She needed to know there would be some help, a little bit of relief from the relentlessness of this new life. It felt like her mother was drifting away, and Molly couldn’t let her. Not now, when she needed her more than she ever had.
The music had stopped. Molly went out to the living room. Her mother was sitting on the piano stool, staring straight ahead.
‘Mumma?’ Molly hadn’t called her that for years.
‘Yes?’
‘She’s asleep.’
‘Good.’
‘Can we talk?’
Annie sighed. ‘About me looking after Petula when you go back to work?’
‘Or sooner?’ Molly was close to tears. ‘It’s harder than I thought it would be. When I’m with her I can’t stop thinking about all the things that could happen. I get so scared. It’s only when she’s with someone else that I feel okay. I feel like I can’t breathe when she’s with me.’
‘That’s normal,’ said Annie. ‘But it won’t get easier by not being with her. I know you’re tired, love, but, honestly, the best thing you can do is spend as much time with Petula as you can. Bond with her. Don’t push her away.’
‘I’m not pushing her away. I just need some help.’
‘I’m happy to help, when I can, but I can’t commit to what you say you need from me.’
The words hung in the air.
‘Oh,’ said Molly. She stood still. ‘All right. Why? Are you going to be doing something else?’
‘I’m going back to work.’
‘What work?’
‘Music.’
‘You’re going to be teaching again? Workshops like you used to do with Dad? That would be after school, wouldn’t it? Could you help me with Petula during the day?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘Not teaching music. Songwriting. Maybe performing.’
‘Can’t you do that on the weekends? It doesn’t need to be full-time.’
‘I want it to be full-time. I want to see what happens if I devote time and energy and focus to it. I’ve managed to finish quite a few songs lately, even with everyone here, and I want to see where it takes me. It might be nowhere, but it might be somewhere and I think I’ve earned the right to this time. I’m sorry.’
‘I understand,’ said Molly. ‘You need to do your thing.’
‘Maybe Dad can help. What if he stayed on for a bit after Brian goes home, and he does some days with Petula?’
Molly wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t want Dad. I want you. I sort of don’t know him.’
Annie swallowed a sigh of frustration. ‘Then get to know him. He loves you just as much as I do. And wouldn’t help from him be better than nothing?’
‘Knowing and loving are different. But we don’t need to go into it. It’s fine. I’ll be okay. I’ll figure it out. I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘No, you were right to ask. I don’t know how to answer you. I want to go away. I want to travel and live overseas for a bit. The last five years, here with my parents, they haven’t been easy. I’m exhausted but at the same time I have all this energy I want to use. But I know I do owe you this help. My mother did it for me. I should do it for you.’
‘But you don’t want to.’
Annie looked her daughter in the eyes. ‘No, I don’t want to. And if you don’t want Dad to do it, then . . . I don’t have a solution.’
Molly looked away, past her mother to the piano. She stared for a moment, then rose. ‘I should go move Petula to her basket. She’s on the bed.’
‘Molly, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just want it to be my turn.’
‘It’s all right,’ Molly said, and she walked away, closing the door quietly behind her.
Annie sat at the piano, and felt like she’d just abandoned her newborn in a basket on the steps of a church.
Chapter 31
When her phone beeped quietly, once, at six o’clock the next morning, Molly woke like a bomb had gone off. She sat bolt upright in bed, looking around wildly. Where was the baby? The room was still dark and she felt around in the bed for Petula, convinced she had fallen asleep while feeding, certain her baby was lost, tangled in the sheets, smothered to death. When she couldn’t find her, Molly started to panic.
She shook Jack’s shoulder. ‘Jack, Jack. She’s gone. I can’t find her. Where is she? Jack?’
‘Mmmm what?’ Jack was groggy. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked into the bassinet. ‘She’s in her basket, Molly. She’s fine.’
‘What? Oh.’ Molly saw the baby’s calm sleeping face. ‘I thought I’d lost her in the bed.’
‘Nup,’ said Jack, as he rolled over and went back to sleep.
Molly lay back down, her heart still racing. She reached for her phone and checked it. The beep had been from an app she’d installed the night before. It was supposed to give you little parenting tips and reminders at useful times of the day. After her mum had said she wasn’t going to help with Petula, Molly had searched the internet for ways to become a proper mother. There were apps for everything. There had to be one to teach you maternal instincts. She had downloaded eight different apps.
This one — Mum-Ah, it was called — hadn’t got off to a great start. The beep that had woken her was for the first reminder, which, despite the fact that Molly had informed the app that she had a five-day-old baby, was Have you filled your child’s cup today?
What was that supposed to mean? Even read metaphorically, which presumably this was supposed to be, how were you meant to fill a newborn’s cup? Molly clicked the link and was treated to six paragraphs telling her how children need their symbolic cups filled with love regularly or they would run low on emotional fuel. Apparently this could be achieved through eye contact or play. But although Petula stared hard when she was awake, Molly wasn’t sure that what she could see in her baby’s eyes was exactly love. It seemed more like Petula was waiting for something. What, though? What did she want?
Molly’s heart wasn’t slowing down. She tried some deep breaths, which only made her feel more panicky. The air woul
dn’t go all the way in. Something was blocking it. She sat up.
Outside. She needed to be outside. She’d been cooped up for days. But her legs were restless now, and even though every muscle in her still hurt from the birth, she rose and pulled on a pair of shorts and her sneakers. Her stomach was still so swollen, and when she bent to tie her laces it squished uncomfortably. It was probably there for good. In the bathroom she changed her pad for a fresh one. These revolting adhesive surfboards were such an indignity: when would the bleeding stop? How could this be normal?
Returning to the sunroom she paused a moment outside the door. Maybe she wouldn’t go back in to Petula and Jack right away. Could she go for a walk on her own? All she wanted was to walk out the door — carrying nothing, pushing nothing — and just keep going until she felt better and left behind this heaviness and fear that had wrapped itself around her the day she left the hospital. But Petula would wake again soon and need to be fed. The only way to get out was to take her along.
Molly felt the heaviness grow tighter around her. Now she was trapped, forever. She could never again be herself. She was always part of Petula now too. Quietly she scooped up the baby and tiptoed out.
The pram was on the front verandah. She settled Petula into the bassinet attachment, and slowly, step-by-step, wheel-bounced the whole contraption down the front stairs.
The streets were so quiet. Everyone was away or sleeping off Boxing Day.
She trudged along, pushing the pram and doing her best not to think. But even that was too difficult. Ray’s skeletal face kept floating into her mind. He looked so ill. Even her grandfather hadn’t looked that bad just before he died. And that woman, Heather. Awful, so awful. Her mother had told her about Heather’s life since she’d left Ray. She’d just wandered all over the world, doing exactly as she pleased, giving her kid no stability, or family, or home.
How selfish. How cruel. How entirely heartbreaking to realise that Molly would be judged like that now: the rules had changed. Everything else she had ever been was now eclipsed by her status as mother. ‘I’m not ready for this,’ she said aloud to the empty streets and the cool morning air. ‘I chose wrong.’
* * *
‘Morning, all,’ said Jack as he wandered into the kitchen, his hair sticking up like a cockatoo’s crest. He looked wrecked.
‘Morning, love,’ said Annie. ‘Rough night?’
Jack frowned. ‘I don’t know. I think it might have been all right. I can’t remember too many wake-ups. I might have actually had a few hours in a row.’
Naomi smiled at him. ‘Sometimes that makes you feel worse. I remember that. Your body’s just getting used to all the waking up and if it gets a taste of sleep you end up feeling like you’ve got a terrible hangover.’
‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ he said. He reached for the coffee plunger and poured a mug full. ‘What time is it?’
Annie checked her phone. ‘Nine fifteen.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Jack. ‘How is it so late?’
‘Nice of Molly to let you have such a long lie-in,’ said Annie.
‘She’s not here. I thought it was about seven. When did she go?’
‘When did who go where?’ Annie wasn’t following.
‘Molly. I just woke up and she and Petula weren’t there. I assumed Molly had taken her out for a little walk. But you guys would have seen her go, right? How long have you been up?’
Annie thought. ‘I was up at six thirty. I’ve been reading in the living room. She didn’t come out of your room. She must’ve left before I got up.’
Jack looked concerned. ‘Nearly three hours? She can’t have been walking for that long.’
Annie looked at Jack. ‘I’ll give her a buzz. She’s probably at the beach or the park, or she might have taken herself out for breakfast.’
She pressed Molly’s number and waited.
A ringing sound came from the sunroom. Jack followed it and came back holding Molly’s phone. ‘She didn’t take her phone. She never goes anywhere without her phone.’
‘Love,’ said Annie, swallowing her own concern to forestall Jack’s panic. ‘She hasn’t slept for five days. She’d forget her head. Don’t worry. She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.’
Jack sat back down. ‘Yeah, you’re right. She’s fine. They’ll be back soon. Probably both asleep under a tree in that park by the beach.’
* * *
Everyone was sluggish that morning. The children were cranky after too much sugar over the preceding days, and even Naomi agreed it would be best for everyone if they were each given an iPad, a charger, some headphones and unrestricted screen time. The adults wanted to be left alone. Simon stayed up in his room: Diana came down at ten to report that he was refusing to get out of bed.
‘Leave him there, Di,’ advised Annie. ‘Let’s let the dust settle, and then we can start looking at ways to sort things out.’
Paul and Brian left for a long-planned lunch with friends in the Blue Mountains. At the last minute Annie had a brainwave, and sent Diana off with them. The poor girl deserved some time away from the house, her child, and most of all her wretchedly behaved layabout husband. Annie couldn’t undo what Simon had done, but she felt driven to at least try to help Diana in some way.
Brian quietly asked Annie if she needed them at home, but she waved them off. There was so much to think about and sort through, but the days between Christmas and New Year were useless. They felt like a full bar rest in a song: you couldn’t skip them but there was nothing to do while you sat through them. There was certainly nothing Paul and Brian could do for the moment. They might as well go drink wine with their friends, celebrate their engagement properly, and get some mileage out of the horror stories from Christmas.
Annie went back to bed. Her room was hot, but there were no bickering children in it, and she wanted to think.
Selling the house and giving the proceeds to the kids would buy her a ticket out of there: she’d never stop being their mum, and she’d always come back, but she wanted that to be because she chose family time, not because it was all she was allowed to have. Annie sat up and reached for her notebook on the bedside table. It was so full now. Song after song, scrawled quickly across its pages. For the first time in a long time, she felt proud. This was her future, on these pages.
She didn’t have to look after her children any more. They could manage. Simon had to stick to therapy and Gamblers Anonymous, or whatever group he’d been sneaking off to. He had to rebuild his marriage and learn to act with integrity — illness or no illness. She was pretty sure it was fair enough she’d outsourced those discussions to Paul, seeing as she’d more than done her part on that front and he . . . hadn’t.
Molly would figure out motherhood — everyone did, it wasn’t rocket science. She kept reminding herself she wasn’t the only option for helping, as Molly seemed to think. There was Jack’s family, and now Simon and Diana looked like they were going to be around more. And Paul. Not to mention there were so many resources now that Annie and her peers had just done without — counsellors and helplines and books and websites and online forums and parents’ groups and all the rest.
Besides, all Annie had said was that she wasn’t going to nanny for Molly, not that she wasn’t going to take her calls. She wasn’t refusing to grandparent altogether. Of course she wanted to be part of Petula’s life: just on her own terms, not so Molly and Jack escaped spending money on childcare.
Naomi would go back to leading her own life, her own way. And Annie could fly away.
She reached for her phone and googled songwriting competitions. That was the place to start. The search results were loading when there was a loud knock at the front door.
Who had forgotten their keys? Molly, probably. Annie didn’t get up. There were at least four people downstairs, closer to the door than her. Let one of them get it.
She heard footsteps in the hall, the door opening, and voices floated up over the verandah and in through her open wi
ndow. It wasn’t Molly. The voices were those of two men. Then there was running on the stairs and a violent knocking on her bedroom door.
‘Yes?’
The door burst open and Jack fell in. His face looked stricken.
‘Jack?’ said Annie. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Is it Molly?’
‘Police.’ He could hardly get the word out. ‘There are police, Annie. Police. They have the baby.’
‘Where’s Molly?’ Annie was off the bed now, her heart frozen, then painfully starting up at a gallop, and holding Jack’s shoulders. ‘Jack, where is Molly?’
Jack began to cry. ‘They don’t know. They found Petula in her pram at the playground at Mona Vale Beach.’
Annie felt her insides turn to ice now. Her knees trembled. She grabbed her phone and her shoes and they ran back downstairs.
In the living room, two uniformed police officers stood in front of the sofa. Annie looked wildly around. ‘Where’s the baby? Where’s Petula?’
‘It’s all right,’ said the older of the two. He was solid and grey-haired. ‘The baby is fine. She’s down at the station.’
‘Why? What happened? Why didn’t you bring her here?’
‘Sorry, madam, and you would be . . . ?’
‘Her grandmother. The baby’s grandmother. Annie Jones. My daughter Molly Jones is the baby’s mother. Where is she?’
‘Right. I’m Senior Sergeant Godwin and this is Constable Napier. What we know is that at around eight thirty this morning, your daughter and the baby were at the playground beside Mona Vale Beach. Your daughter approached another woman at the playground, who was there with her small children, and asked if she would keep an eye on the baby for a minute while your daughter went to the public toilet. The woman agreed, and your daughter left the playground. She didn’t return. After about fifteen minutes the woman asked someone else in the playground to go check the toilets, but there was no sign of Molly. So she called the police. Your daughter’s wallet and keys were in the bag under the pram, and a baby health book containing documents listing this as her current address. She doesn’t appear to have taken anything with her. Except possibly her phone. We didn’t find one in the pram.’
This Has Been Absolutely Lovely Page 26
