‘Thank you, very reasonable. Elle?’
‘Well, Simon—’ Elle sat a little taller in her seat ‘—my children have slept through the night from six weeks old. I know, I know, ladies, don’t hate me. I strongly believe that if your baby feels loved and secure, and you follow a calming routine from an early age, any baby can sleep. I think—and Leisel, I hope you’re not offended by this—’
‘You weren’t worried about that before.’
‘—I think that lazy parents can’t put in the effort required to get their children into a happy night-time routine. It takes discipline and effort, I really believe that. And my boys have been excellent sleepers as a result.’
Simon’s earpiece buzzed again—probably one more instruction to stir the pot. ‘Leisel? You want to respond to that?’
She suddenly felt exhausted to her bones. She wasn’t sure if she could reply without crying, and she didn’t want to be a grown woman crying on national TV. She shook her head and, as she did, she felt a hand on her knee. It was Abi.
‘Simon,’ Abi said, in a loud, authoritative voice, ‘I think the less time we spend on silly topics that only divide women, the better, don’t you? I mean, really, you have three mothers on the panel, so you think you have to ask us about babies and schoolyards and controlled crying to stir up some kind of catfight?’
‘You three women are mummy bloggers—did you expect us to ask you about peace in the Middle East?’ Simon’s patience had apparently run out.
‘Why the hell not?’ Abi asked. Elle laughed delicately. Leisel swallowed hard.
Simon wrapped it up. ‘That’s all we have time for. After the break, Dom is going to show us how to cook the perfect rib-eye for a Sunday barbecue. Be right back.’
A producer rushed over. ‘That was awesome! You guys should be on every week!’
‘If they are, I’m not,’ said Simon Hedley, pulling out his earpiece and stomping away from the desk while signalling madly to the control room.
Leisel turned to Elle and said, ‘What was that? You just attacked me on national television. Lazy? Aggressive? Seriously, who ARE you?’
‘You know exactly who I am, Leisel,’ said Elle, slipping off her stool with an elegant shimmy.
‘Yes,’ said Abi. ‘And so do I.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LEISEL
‘Thank everything that’s over.’ Leisel kicked her front door closed, dropped her armful of tiny backpacks and fell into the living-room armchair.
Maggie came over and curled up on her knee. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’
‘Nothing, darling. I just feel like I’ve been at war for months. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.’
Maggie curled up tighter. ‘Well, I love you.’
‘I love you, too, my girl.’ Leisel kissed her on the head, wrapping her into a hug.
Rich came barrelling over, waving a Lego rocket. ‘MUM! Look what I made!’
‘That’s great, Rich.’
Leisel felt absolutely empty. Drained dry. As if this morning’s TV slot hadn’t been dramatic enough, she’d endured a photoshoot with Abi and Elle for Sunday’s awards. Elle and Abi refused to speak to each other. Leisel, still bruised from the onscreen combat, had tried to play her natural role of peacemaker, but her heart wasn’t in it.
‘See you all Sunday,’ she’d called half-heartedly as they’d left each other at Channel 8.
‘Can’t wait,’ said Elle, and it had taken Leisel a minute to identify her tone: contempt.
The headlines had started instantly:
MUMMY BLOGGERS IN BREAKFAST! WAR
CATFIGHT! BITCHY BLOGGERS LEAVE SIMON SPEECHLESS
‘LAZY, SHOUTY’ MOTHERS DO WOMEN NO FAVOURS, SAYS BLOGGER
And there were endless tweets and DMs and comments on the cheery post that Leisel had put up before the show, with a shot the publicist had taken of the three of them in the green room.
About to have Breakfast! with these two amazing women.
That had been overly optimistic.
After the shoot, Leisel had to go to the office, where everyone had seen Breakfast! and wanted a full debrief, mostly about what Elle Campbell looked like in the flesh. Then she’d had to pivot to meetings with Zac and various editors and clients until four-thirty, when she’d had to excuse herself and leave under her boss’s furious gaze to make the pick-up times for Rich and Maggie.
And then she’d fallen in the door to the flat with the kids and felt what was waiting: the silence. No one was there. No Mark to tell about her awful day, no Harri to cuddle and sniff and tease. Just her and two hungry kids and a godawful mess from the morning.
‘Is Daddy coming?’ asked Maggie, from Leisel’s knee.
Leisel squeezed her tighter. ‘I think so, sweetie.’
Mark had called her after the show, but she hadn’t picked up. He’d sent a worried text, Are you ok? I thought you were great. But she hadn’t replied.
What was he trying to do? How did he think this was okay, disappearing on them like this?
‘Mum?’
‘What, Mags?’
‘I was meant to go to the dentist today. Daddy said it was Friday, after school.’
‘Oh.’ Leisel’s stomach plummeted, and internally she began to shape this story into a post:
There is no worse feeling in the world than the one when you feel like you’ve let down your child, the person who needs you most in the world. A knife entering your flesh is nothing in comparison. My heart is twisting…
And then she stopped herself from mentally composing such melodramatic tosh, and said to Maggie, ‘I am so sorry, Mags. I hate letting you down. I really am sorry. But it’s okay, the dentist isn’t going anywhere. We will make another appointment and I will take you, I promise.’
‘I don’t care if I don’t go,’ Maggie said. ‘Dentists are weird.’
‘It’s important, Mags, and I’ll come in with you.’
Rich crawled up on Leisel’s knee, too, almost spiking her with his Lego rocket. She held one of her children in each arm. Closed her eyes.
I am so lucky, she thought. I am so fucking lucky.
A key was in the door, but the chain was on. ‘Hello, anyone home?’
‘Daddy!’ In a second, Maggie and Rich jumped off Leisel’s knee and were at the door. ‘Mum, it’s Daddy. It’s Daddy! Let him in.’
Leisel rested her head back on the top of the armchair and smiled. Then she jumped up, too, rushing to get her baby in her arms.
• • •
Mark had taken care of stories and bathtime, while Leisel had cleaned up and put some spaghetti on.
They were back in the kitchen, sitting together at the table. The Returns were finished, the house was quiet. Mark and Leisel were looking at each other over drippy red pasta.
Leisel’s anger at Mark was mixing with relief at seeing him back at home.
‘I missed you so fucking much,’ she said suddenly.
‘You did?’ said Mark, smiling at her. ‘What I do, or who I am?’
‘What a stupid question.’ Leisel stuffed some spaghetti into her mouth. ‘What you do, of course,’ she said through a mess of gluten and cheese. ‘I’m the world’s worst housewife.’
‘I want you to stop that,’ Mark said softly, seriously.
‘Stop what? Talking with my mouth full?’
‘Talking about how shit you are all the time. Online, in real life, whatever. It’s bullshit.’
She stared at him. He seemed tired—rumpled and handsome, like he always did to her, but the circles under his eyes were deeper, his face more drawn.
‘I’m so angry with you for leaving,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you that.’
‘That’s fair enough. But I wasn’t really leaving. I just needed to stop being angry with you. Living in the middle of all that tension is…’ He paused and looked down.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘Have you been okay, while you’ve been at Dan’s? Have you been going to Meetings?’
He looked up. ‘Are you asking me if I’ve been using?’
‘Well…’ Leisel didn’t want to say yes. But she meant yes.
‘I haven’t been using, Lee. I would never… Well, I’m not supposed to ever say never. I mean, I would never, never, with Harri with me. You can always trust that, whatever happens.’
‘Whatever happens? What’s going to happen?’ Leisel felt her little bubble of happiness, the one that had blocked out some of the day’s anxiety, shrinking.
‘I’m just tired, Lee. Sleeping on the couch. Looking after Harri.’ He put his hand on hers. ‘Missing you and Maggie and Rich.’
Leisel’s bubble started to reinflate.
‘Okay. So where are we? I feel like a teenager, asking you where this is going. But I’m a 43-year-old woman, and you’re my husband.’ She smiled into the spaghetti. ‘It’s getting kind of embarrassing.’
‘I’m home. We’re home.’
Here we go, thought Leisel. ‘I have to tell you that I’m not going to give up the blog,’ she said. ‘I know you have your issues with it, and that I sound like a wanker when I say this, but… It’s so important to me. And not just me. I feel like it actually does something useful in the world. Also, the truth is, I love it.’
‘You do sound like a bit of a wanker when you say that.’ He smiled back. ‘But seriously, I don’t want you to give up anything. Especially not anything that makes you happy. I was freaked out by the attack, and worried about our kids—but you know, I’ve figured out it’s not about the blog. I’ve realised it’s something else that’s been really getting to me.’
‘Is it my work? That I’m never home? That I’m a shit wife?’
‘It’s that.’ Mark pointed a fork at her. ‘It’s that right there. You’re always so critical of everything. You. Our home. Our family. Sometimes I feel like we’re not good enough.’
‘Well, come on, Mark. Things have been pretty crazy around here the past few years, yes?’
He stood up. Leisel wasn’t sure where he was going—out of the room or to the kettle. But then he came over to her side of the table, leant on it, looked down at her. ‘They have been crazy, Lee, but they’ve also been the happiest of my life. Seriously. What’s so awful about our life?’
‘Well, let’s see.’ She half-smiled before she started the list. ‘The fact we live in a shoebox. The fact that I am stressed out of my mind. And tired. And a terrible mother.’
‘A terrible mother? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Come on, Mark. I’m hardly mother of the year—’
‘I used to score from a woman who had four kids, about twenty minutes’ drive from where we’re standing right now.’
Leisel went quiet, stared at the table.
‘She used her kids as couriers, Lee. From when they were tiny babies. Little wraps of powder hidden in their pockets, in their pram. She’d forget to feed them for days when things got a bit hectic. We used to lie around her house, and they’d be playing in our ashtrays, and we barely even noticed them. SHE was a terrible mother.’
‘Well, she had problems—’
‘Bullshit, Leisel. Don’t make excuses for things you don’t understand.’
‘It’s hard for me to argue with you when you bring up that part of your life.’
‘Why are you trying to mount an argument that you are a terrible mother? You are an excellent mother. You love your kids to bits and you work fucking hard to provide for them. What’s so terrible? They are loved and safe and have two parents who are obsessed with them. Just… stop.’
Leisel looked at him. I know the post I want to write right now, she thought. It’s the post no one wants to read:
I love my husband. He thinks I’m amazing. I love the me that he sees. My kids are spectacular. My life is full and fulfilling.
Leisel knew that was a thought best kept to herself.
Mark pulled Leisel out of her chair and kissed her in the kitchen. Two forty-something parents, kissing against the kitchen table. Look at us, thought Leisel. We are still here.
‘And I’m really glad you got the chain on the door,’ he said, when he stopped kissing her for a moment. ‘That was a sensible thing to do.’
‘How long have we got until one of the kids gets into our bed?’ asked Leisel.
Mark glanced at an imaginary watch on his wrist. ‘About fifty minutes.’
‘Let’s go.’ And Leisel took Mark’s hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ABI
My Dear Green Divas,
There are some things I need to tell you.
It’s been a wild few months on the farm. You’ve been along for a lot of that ride, so I won’t revisit it, but anyone who says life in the country is dull has never been to a gay farmhouse with 24 chickens, four children, two dogs, a podcast shed and one massive ego in residence.
Tomorrow, I’ll find out if our blog The Green Diva has won the Parenting Blog of the Year at these big fancy blogging awards, the Blog-ahhs. Grace and I will be in Sydney town, all dressed up in our finest cheesecloth* and rubbing shoulders with all the great and good of the ‘digital community’.
For the last few months, the outcome of tomorrow night has been preoccupying me above all things. The stakes are high, you see. The rewards are money, influence, connections. These are all things that every day, I rant and rage against.
Every day, I say that’s the kind of bullshit that us GDs just don’t need, that it’s all part of some fucking conspiracy to keep us all buzzing away like worker bees, when really we should be heads up, smelling the roses, planting our own shit and watching it grow.
So I don’t think I’m overstating much to say that I’ve lost my way these last few weeks. Let’s face it, the Blog-ahhs nominated The Green Diva community because we are a strong and formidable force, but we are way too dangerous to actually win. So why have I been chasing after it like a kelpie with the sniff of a ewe? Because I have bullshitting myself about what matters.
It’s time for a reckoning. A re-set, as the ‘digital community’ would say. I’ve got some things to tell you. You ready, GDs?
*We will not be wearing cheesecloth, you fools.
Thing 1. I am a proud gay woman.
Sometimes on GD I gloss over the fact that I share my life with one remarkable woman, Grace Adams. She is a mother, a lover, a friend, a teacher, a nurturer of all things. And she is the reason why when my life exploded five years ago, I was not smashed to smithereens, but rose like a slightly battered phoenix.
My marriage was not a bad one. Not really. But for years I was denying who I really was, in so many ways.
If you ever get the chance to be who you really are, GDs, grab it with both hands and run. I was too cowardly to make that choice and I will always regret that. But when it was made for me, I was smart enough to know that I had been handed a gift. The wrapping was a bit soiled, it was tied up with a pretty shitty bow, but it was a gift, all the same.
My life has been immeasurably better for it. And, I believe, so have the lives of my daughters. Their possibilities have opened like fucking lotuses. Divorce doesn’t have to be an ending.
Okay…
Thing 2. I really have been a dangerous cunt. I have worn that moniker like a badge of honour. Some of you might even have the T-shirt. But it’s all smoke and mirrors, sisters.
I believe in choice. I believe that if you want to let your kids run around naked in the woods all day and that Naplan is the devil and gluten is worse, all power to you.
But my belief in choice has a hard limit—a ceiling, and here it is: I believe in vaccination. My daughters are fully vaccinated. I am fully vaccinated. Grace’s boys are fully vaccinated. We all have fluoride in our water and our toothpaste. Our medicine cabinet is overflowing with the product of Big-Pharma.
Yes, I believe in choice, but I also believe in science. I believe in keeping babies safe. Your babies, the babies down the road, the babies three towns over, the babies three continents over.
If I am ashamed of something, I am ashamed of the fact I have cloaked that belief to personally benefit from a nonsense stereotype. That when Samantha Garner calls me and tells me her daughter is dead and that people like me have blood on my hands, deep down I know she’s right.
Do you know why there isn’t a credible scientist in the world who thinks there’s a link between autism and vaccinations? Because there isn’t one. That’s not what I believe, it’s what I know.
So I don’t want to be one of the crazy internet voices on this issue anymore. I know this one of my three things is going to piss off a large section of my followers, but if that’s what you’re here for, you can leave now, because from here on in, I’m going to be using my voice to challenge the anti-vaxxers in our beautiful community.
To quote my father, who is a bit of a dickhead but very smart, there are no simple answers to complex questions.
And lastly:
Thing 3. My ex-husband is a man called Adrian Campbell. We were together for 16 years and married for 12. We have two completely incredible daughters together.
Adrian is now married to Elle Campbell, who you might know as The Stylish Mumma. He is a decent man, a good father, a dutiful son, a maker-of-money.
But here’s the thing: He does not have cancer.
Throw the lawyers at us if you like, Elle, but he does not.
I know I am wading into a fight that is not my own here, but there are two reasons why this is my business: My daughters are terrified that their father is dying. And, this level of deceit is bad for all of us. All of us.
I admitted, earlier, that I have lost my head in the pursuit of this award, but Adrian and Elle have gone farther than that—they have lost their souls.
I am not asking you to attack them, GDs. In fact, I would rather you didn’t.
Taking pleasure from seeing others under siege online is not something I’m particularly proud of.
So I am not asking you to chase them down, but simply that the truth does. Adrian, you are not sick. Or at least not in the way that you are telling the world. Stop punishing your daughters and say so.
The Mummy Bloggers Page 25
