by Kris Webb
Gordon was still unconvinced when he rang off. I wasn’t sure I believed my argument either. The evidence the other side was stacking up was definitely a worry.
Next I resumed my phone calls to bookstores in an attempt to find a replacement for Jonathon’s book. Finally I spoke to the owner of a small store who sounded excited by the challenge and promised to track me down a copy.
As I put the phone down, I heard Jack stirring.
In a fit of enthusiasm I decided that it would be fun to bake a cake for the playgroup together. Why I decided this would be fun when I hadn’t baked a cake since high school, I have no idea. Half an hour later, Jack had eaten a cup of flour, pulled half a dozen eggs onto the floor and was screaming because I’d taken the sugar packet away from him. I abandoned my obviously misguided efforts and tipped the odd-looking mixture into the bin.
The next couple of hours disappeared as I fed Jack lunch and fielded a couple more calls relating to Gordon’s case. Looking at my watch, I realised that we were due at playgroup in an hour and I had nothing to take. Maybe I could just give it a miss. But as Jack’s noise increased in volume, I realised that staying home for the rest of the day was not an option. We needed to get out.
Which meant I needed some food. So after pulling shorts and a T-shirt on Jack and wrestling him into his shoes, we headed out to the supermarket. I scanned the aisles, hoping to see a selection of home-baked goodies that I could pretend to have pulled steaming from my oven an hour ago. There was nothing and in desperation I moved on to the frozen section.
‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed as I spotted the quiches. Pulling out an egg and bacon version, I headed for the cash register.
‘Things are under control,’ I told Jack confidently. ‘We’re due there in half an hour – plenty of time.
‘Do you think that a “plate” is constituted by something in a box?’ I asked as we walked in the door at home.
He looked up at me seriously.
‘No, you’re right,’ I acknowledged. ‘We’ve got to at least take off the wrapper.’
As I opened the box, I glanced at the instructions on the back. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ I exclaimed, freezing mid tear as the words ‘Leave out of the refrigerator for two hours before cooking, microwave defrosting is not recommended’ jumped out at me.
Surely that defeated the purpose of prepackaged food, I fumed. Not only did I have to cook the quiche, but I had to wait two hours to do it. Did the manufacturers not realise that if I had that kind of time I could have made the damn thing myself?
Deciding that I had no other option, I pulled the quiche out of its metal tray, slid it onto a plate and stuck it into the microwave. I hit the button marked high and, hoping for the best, headed into my room.
Standing in front of my wardrobe, I pondered the appropriate dress code for a children’s playgroup. If the other women’s lives bore any resemblance to mine over the last week, they probably never got to wear anything that was ironed, let alone remotely fashionable. Maybe this was their big chance to dress up?
I looked at my ‘business casual’ bone trousers and crisp linen shirts and back at Jack. He was smearing his jam sandwich as far up the doorframe as he could reach, and I quickly discarded that idea. Trying hard not to think about when it was last washed, I left my denim skirt on and grabbed a red T-shirt with strawberries on the front. Pulling it over my head, I carried Jack into the living room while trying to keep out of range of his sticky grasp.
When the microwave finally dinged, I opened the door gingerly, wondering what I would find.
Not too bad, I concluded optimistically. Sure, one half of the pastry had subsided rather badly and a large crack had opened across the middle, but at least it still resembled a quiche. The middle felt rather solid, while the outside was piping hot, but I was sure that would resolve itself before we actually sat down to eat.
My next dilemma was what to put it in. Where did mothers get their vast stores of Tupperware? Every mother I had ever met had cupboards bursting with all shapes and sizes of plastic containers, while my entire collection consisted of two ice-cream containers, neither of which had matching lids. Maybe women were sent home from hospital with their new baby and a crateload of plastic tubs and lids?
A plastic bag seemed to be the only option. I opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled one from the snarling mess lurking in there. Slamming the door shut in an attempt to stop the hundreds that remained from escaping, I tried to figure out why I felt as though I was being environmentally conscious by not throwing them away. At least a pelican couldn’t choke on them if they were safely imprisoned under my sink, I decided virtuously.
‘Right, Jack, we’re off.’ I grabbed him with one hand and hefted my bag and the quiche with the other.
The kindergarten that ran the playgroup was only a couple of kilometres away and I pulled up outside, glancing at my watch.
‘Only fifteen minutes late,’ I congratulated myself, pleased to see that my time-management skills hadn’t altogether disappeared.
After inspecting a sparrow and the contents of the gutter and diving on and eating what I hoped was a sultana, Jack finally allowed me to manoeuvre him to the front of the building.
Opening the door, I hesitated as all of the adult eyes in the room turned towards me. Feeling like the new girl at school, I gripped Jack’s hand tighter – for his security, I told myself. To the right of the door was a large desk, behind which sat an equally large woman with the name Marjorie written on her badge.
I stood awkwardly, uncertain how to proceed. Despite the slam of the door behind me, Marjorie scribbled intently on the paper in front of her for at least another thirty seconds before sighing and looking at me imperiously over the top of her half-glasses.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
‘Ah, we’re here for the playgroup,’ I volunteered, wondering what else she thought I and the small person standing beside me could possibly be after.
‘Ah, yes . . .’ She shuffled through the papers in front of her. ‘You must be . . . Julia and Jack.’
‘That’s right.’ I smiled.
‘Fine,’ she said without an answering smile. ‘Shoes off and please put your food over on the counter out of reach of the children. Afternoon tea is at three o’clock.’
‘You’d better appreciate this, Jack,’ I whispered in his ear as I bent over to take off his sandshoes. I wondered whether there was any chance of escaping before the nominated finishing time of four o’clock. Right now, that seemed an eternity away.
Oblivious to our frosty reception, Jack tore off towards a tower made of plastic bars. What did I do now? I looked around hopefully in search of some form of coffee machine. None was visible and I presumed that beverages were strictly limited to snack time. Unable to think of what else to do, I followed Jack. He totally ignored me as he conquered the tower and then settled himself in a child-size car from which he gave no indication of ever moving.
For the first time since Jack had arrived, he was in a room designed for kids and I couldn’t spot one thing he could destroy. He clearly didn’t need me and I felt silly hovering near him.
There were a couple of knots of mothers around the room. I sidled over to one of them and smiled at a woman standing to one side.
‘Ah, hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Julia.’
‘Hi,’ she replied warmly. ‘I’m Stacey. Your little boy is lovely.’
Astonished that I didn’t stand out as a learner parent, I felt a quick flare of pride that this woman could think that the gorgeous little boy standing by my side was my son. I swallowed an explanation about Anita and replied simply, ‘Thanks. Which one is yours?’
‘The little girl in the red,’ she replied, gesturing towards a rack of musical instruments where the fattest child I’d ever seen was erratically banging a musical shaker against a bookshelf. ‘She goes to music class each week and I can’t seem to keep her away from the musical instruments here.’
‘Really?’ I
replied lamely, trying to hide my concern. Her daughter was barely even crawling but was already having culturally enriching lessons. I had thought I was being pretty impressive by enrolling Jack in one playgroup, but it seemed as though I was way behind.
Despite it being the first playgroup for the year, the women obviously all knew each other and while they weren’t rude, they didn’t fall over themselves to make me feel comfortable. The situation was not helped by the fact that my baby-related small talk was pretty shaky.
An hour later Marjorie looked up from the paperwork that had kept her so intently occupied all this time and announced, ‘Right, afternoon tea time.’
Dragging my feet, I headed towards my offering, uncertain as to what I would find. I unwrapped the layers of plastic to find that it still looked vaguely quiche-like. Encouragingly, a surreptitious jab of my finger under the pastry seemed to indicate that the frozen middle section had defrosted in the last hour. Quickly I deposited the plate on the table and jumped back, hoping that no one had witnessed my association with it.
With coffees and paper plates balanced on our hands, conversation flowed easier and I was chatting amiably to a couple of interesting women when Marjorie clapped her hands imperiously.
‘All right everyone, time to vote on the best dish. As some of you might already know, our parent body, Child’s Play Australia, is compiling a playgroup recipe book this term to raise funds. Each group has to choose one recipe to submit. Whoever we vote for today can submit their recipe and have it published.
‘You can vote first, Stacey,’ she commanded.
‘Hmm . . .’ Stacey clearly hadn’t given the issue a lot of thought. ‘You know, I think my vote would have to be for the quiche.’
Unfortunately my sharply indrawn breath coincided with my swallowing a large chunk of carrot cake and I choked loudly.
‘Sorry,’ I apologised with watering eyes as everyone turned towards me. ‘Just went down the wrong way.’
The voting continued and despite some late support for the honey and banana cake, the overwhelming majority favoured my offering.
‘And who brought the lovely quiche?’ Marjorie asked.
There was a moment of silence as I considered pretending it wasn’t mine, but images of us all having to stand beside the table with our hands on our plates made me speak up.
‘It was me,’ I ventured timidly.
‘Our newcomer!’ Marjorie smiled at me with the first sign of approval she’d given me. ‘We’ll need you to bring in a copy of your recipe next week.’
Somehow I hadn’t expected to face a moral dilemma at play-group. I toyed with the idea of saying nothing and never showing my face here again. Alternatively, bringing in any quiche recipe I could find sounded like a good option. Reluctantly I decided on the truth.
‘Ah, that’s actually a bit of a problem.’
‘Why?’ Marjorie demanded. ‘Don’t tell me it’s a secret family recipe.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ I said, playing for time, hoping for a natural disaster to get me out of this. No flood or famine appeared to be immediately forthcoming, however. ‘Actually it’s a frozen quiche I bought from the supermarket,’ I muttered, unable to let the silence stretch any further. ‘I’m happy to tell everyone the brand, though,’ I continued with sudden inspiration. ‘I’m sure the box is somewhere at home.’
I braced myself for a barrage of disapproval and was surprised when, beside me, Stacey let out a loud laugh. ‘Now that would be a truly useful recipe book. Bought food that can be passed off as homemade.’
‘Yeah,’ one of the other mothers added. ‘We could call it “Don’t make it – fake it.” It’d be a runaway bestseller.’
Everyone laughed and after a moment I joined in. It looked as though I was going to have to take my successes where I found them.
NINE
I pulled on the handbrake and stared unenthusiastically at the corner shop across the road. This wasn’t what I’d expected of Anita’s globetrotting aunt.
The faded blue shop was not much more than the front room of an old worker’s cottage set close to the street. Racks of magazines on either side of the open front door promised exposés of the lives of various celebrities, and a handwritten sign declared that Mrs Jones’s award-winning chutney was back in stock.
Robert had said that Carla was looking forward to seeing Jack. But she’d called on Tuesday when Jack and I were in the backyard and left a message saying she was in bed with the flu and thought it would be better to wait until she was well again.
She’d called again yesterday while I was trying unsuccessfully to convince Jack to eat some mashed potato. We’d spoken briefly in between his protests and I’d suggested that Jack and I drop around today.
Unfortunately Jack didn’t seem to feel like socialising. He’d cried when I strapped him into his car seat, a fact that I couldn’t really blame him for, given that it still took me forever to figure out how to work the clasps. The drive hadn’t improved his spirits and halfway to Carla’s I realised I’d forgotten Harold. But we were late as it was, so there was no time to go back.
Unable to face chasing him around Carla’s shop, I decided putting him in the stroller was the best option. But as I tried to do up the straps, he let out a squawk of indignation which turned into a full-throated yell. Abandoning the effort, I headed towards the shop. In one swift move Jack pushed himself into a crouch, teetering precariously over the front of the stroller.
‘Jack!’
I stopped dead and he catapulted towards the concrete path. With more luck than skill, I hooked two fingers over the waistband of his trousers and caught him just before his head hit the ground. I eased my way around the stroller and put my other hand under his arm, turning him up the right way and lifting him into my arms.
‘Are you all right?’
The fright in Jack’s eyes was clear and I pulled him into my shoulder to comfort him. Pushing away, he struggled to get down. The rejection took my breath away. I couldn’t even comfort him when he was scared. What on earth did I think I was trying to do?
Jack kept struggling. Suddenly I ran out of energy. My attempts to try to look after him were hopeless. He didn’t want me and I didn’t want him. I was totally incapable of caring for him – I couldn’t even move him five metres without almost killing him. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes and a sob forced its way out of my throat in a strangled hiccup.
‘Why don’t you come inside?’
Through my blurred vision I saw a thin woman with short grey hair put her hand on the stroller. If this was Carla, she must be horrified. I tried to think of a way to explain why her great-nephew and I were both in tears on her doorstep.
Jack screamed at the top of his voice and threw himself onto the ground. My tears turned to sobs and it was all I could do to stop myself doing the same.
The woman moved closer and touched my arm. ‘Julia? I’m Carla. Please come inside,’ she said gently.
I nodded, sure only of the fact that anything would be an improvement on the current situation.
Pushing the stroller ahead of her, Carla walked towards the shop door. I scooped Jack up and, holding him horizontal with arms and legs flailing, followed her inside.
I stepped through the door and stood there with Jack in my arms, trying to wipe the tears away with my forearm. His struggling slowed and I turned him up the right way, then looked around me. The entire wall space from floor to ceiling was covered in large wooden shelves that groaned under the weight of packets and bottles. Two rows of chest-high shelves in the middle of the room were equally laden. As well as the usual milk, bread and soft drinks, there were racks of olive oil, spices, pasta and interesting-looking jars. Towards the back of the shop was a long wooden counter with a cash register and a large coffee grinder. Several bar stools were lined up along the front.
Jack’s screams stopped abruptly as he looked around. He wriggled to get down and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold him for long.
‘You can put him down,’ Carla said.
I looked at her in disbelief. Was she serious?
She saw the look on my face and smiled. ‘Most of my regular customers have kids. The bottom shelves have things that are all unbreakable. Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.’
With trepidation I lowered Jack to the floor and watched as he headed for the nearest shelf. Unable to budge a huge tin of oil, he pulled some cans of olives onto the floor and proceeded to bang them together.
My tears had stopped and I felt a wave of humiliation that Anita’s aunt had not only witnessed the ridiculous scene outside but had seen the need to come out and rescue me.
‘I’m really sorry, Carla. I . . .’
Carla cut me off. ‘Love, you don’t have to explain anything to me. What you are going through . . .’
That was obviously all the discussion of the footpath debacle that was required and I felt myself relax.
Carla was looking at Jack, a bright smile on her face.
‘He’s grown up a lot since the last photo Anita sent. Somehow I was expecting a baby, not a little boy.’
She walked over to where Jack was and squatted down easily beside him. Anita’s mother had been very frail before she died and I’d imagined Carla would be the same. But she was obviously a lot younger and looked strong and confident.
‘Here, why don’t you try this?’ Carla pulled a handful of cans off another shelf and showed Jack how to stack them. He fumbled at first, but with her help managed to balance one on top of another.
‘You did it! Fantastic.’
Jack looked up at her, a triumphant smile on his face, and Carla stretched out a hand and touched his brown curls gently. He turned back to the cans, knocking his tiny tower over with glee and starting again.
‘It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?’ Carla stood up, still looking at Jack.
‘No,’ I answered. ‘It doesn’t.’
‘Well,’ she said briskly. ‘He’s having a nice time, so what about I make us a coffee?’
