You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  ‘Unwise, dearest. But the minute I’m moved out, officially and properly, things will be infinitely easier. I know it’s all so tedious, but being in the public eye means these things have to be managed very precisely. I beg patience.’

  After he kissed her again, Brigitta gave up and watched him get out of bed and pull on his trousers. Imagine, she thought after he’d collected his things and closed the door behind him, a man with a son and his soon-to-be ex-wife. What would Philly make of all that?

  25.

  Dear as he is

  The rain did not return and the summer re-exerted itself with force. It was a hot, bright morning and Abi managed to get dressed while alternating bites of a hard-boiled egg with quick puffs on a cigarette out the window before Jude began his burbling chorus.

  When he woke and Abi leaned into the cot to get him, Jude’s dark eyes found focus on her face and then after a moment of consideration, the corner of his mouth hitched into a smile.

  ‘Hello!’ Abi said, surprised almost to tears. ‘Are you smiling? Are you smiling at me?’ she cooed, and then as though to prove it wasn’t wind, Jude smiled again, revealing his rosy gums.

  ‘Hello little boy, hello!’ she said over and over, as though they were meeting properly for the first time. Stu didn’t answer his phone, so Abi jogged straight to the pool, bursting to show someone.

  ‘Guess what!’ Abi called out as soon as she saw Phil toeing the water that was back to its usual colour. The moment was perfect. A baby who knew his mother and Phil who was always around. Phil always interested, Phil in her same robe, with basket and dog. Reliable reactor to news, filler of empty mornings, giver of advice, sayer in low tones of terrible, hilarious things about her own children, always so sure.

  ‘Jude smiled! Just now.’ Abi was panting as she sat down and held Jude so that he faced them both. ‘I’ll see if I can get him to do it again.’

  ‘Ah! Isn’t that wonderful,’ Phil said when he obliged. ‘As though you needed another trick, Jude!’

  They watched for a while longer, poking and prodding at him in the hope of a reaction. Phil blew gently on his tummy, which worked twice, and Abi, desperate to prolong the moment, sang a made-up song and only felt self-conscious towards the end when he didn’t smile again, and she couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with ‘Cremorne’ except for forlorn, which wasn’t right.

  ‘Will I hold him for you while you have a whiz up and down?’ Phil asked, standing and removing her robe. ‘I promise I won’t make off with him, dear as he is. I realised just this morning I’m yet to see you have a proper plunge.’

  ‘That’s fine, thank you though,’ Abi demurred. ‘I’m a bit of a cat when it comes to water, actually. It has to be really boiling for me to go in properly.’

  Phil looked at her quizzically. ‘How much hotter can it get, really dear, before things start melting? It must be thirty degrees and it’s not gone ten.’

  ‘Well, to be honest.’ The impulse to lie rose sharply and she spoke slowly, struggling against it. There was already too much held in balance, facts to be glanced over and careful sidesteps to be made. ‘I don’t really like having my face under. It’s probably an English thing. We’re not massive swimmers like antipodeans.’

  Abi tried to reach a section of hair into her mouth. Phil narrowed her eyes as she batted Abi’s hand away from her mouth, as though she’d told her a thousand times to stop sucking her hair. ‘Abigail, do you swim?’

  ‘There’s not really any pools like this in Croydon so . . .’

  ‘Of course not, but can you swim or am I getting a load of flannel? I suddenly realise I’m yet to see that costume wet above the waist.’

  With her hand still tingling where Phil had batted it away, Abi said, ‘Um, not really. Not as such. No.’

  ‘Well then, let’s not have any more fibs. Although –’ Phil laid a hand on her chest ‘– I’ve been insensitive. There’s been no one to teach you.’

  Abi longed to tell Phil the whole truth but again the words did not come.

  ‘Well then, yes.’ Phil was resolute. ‘You shall have to learn, if you’re to become a proper Australian.’

  ‘No, really. I don’t think I can.’

  ‘Abigail. I have taught four children to swim in this pool and I don’t expect this’ll be any different. And we shan’t wait. You’ll need to teach Jude tricks by next summer so you’d better be ahead of him. And Lord knows I need a project, lest Polly threaten me with another bichon. It is pointless to resist.’

  ‘I suppose I haven’t got anything else to do, much.’

  ‘Well then, this will be our work.’ It was decided.

  ‘Okay then. Thank you. I suppose. As long as Jude won’t end up an orphan.’ Abi said with a weak smile. ‘Oh also, I meant to say, I got that book you told me about, Love in a Cold Climate?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I love it. Aunt Sadie, and that Uncle Matthew, how he’s always raging at them and chasing after them with farm equipment.’

  ‘Ah yes. Perhaps I’ll bring an entrenching tool tomorrow so I can prod you along. Now excuse me will you, I ought to drag myself up and back a few times.’

  With that, Phil eased herself into the water and began her elegant breast-stroke. Abi sat and watched her smooth progress towards the other end, wondering how on earth a person could ever learn to do a thing like that.

  26.

  Are you on drugs?

  Brigitta had been waiting outside a nondescript Vietnamese in Camden for nearly an hour by the time Guy finally called and explained in a whisper that something had cropped up and he wasn’t going to make it. There was an odd echo on the line that made his voice sound tinny and far-off.

  Starving and blue with cold despite the Max Mara, Brigitta said, ‘Are you in the toilet, Guy? It honestly sounds like you’re calling me from a nasty men’s room.’

  ‘Birj, don’t be tedious. I said I’m sorry, I’ll come to the bedsit tomorrow night. But this evening’s buggered. I forgot about a thing, so you’ll just have to be a good girl and wait until tomorrow. We’ll have fun, as long as you’re not boring, please, darling. Can you be lovely?’

  Brigitta sighed and stamped her feet against the cold. ‘Fine.’

  They hung up and Brigitta looked at the time on her phone. 8.40 p.m. Already out and not madly keen on going back to her room, she hailed a taxi and gave Polly’s address in Ladbroke Grove, hoping her sister would be home and, just as much, that she’d have cash for the fare. It was well after nine by the time he stopped in front of a tall white terrace house. The driver had refused to take the Westway and wound confusingly through the back streets of Kilburn instead, until Brigitta became convinced she would be murdered in a laneway behind a Carpet One. He waited while Brigitta bounded up the steps and rang the bell. Mark opened the door, wearing an embarrassing pair of loose drawstring trousers.

  The fourteen years between Mark and Polly was the sort of age difference that Phil had once said will make a man ‘vulnerable to fashion . . . they feel a pressure to keep current, do you see, which only gets worse if they’re the kind who eventually runs to fat.’

  Brigitta would have remarked on this latest experiment except he had already lifted his wallet out of the big bowl on the hall table and started down towards the taxi.

  ‘I swear the bell rings differently when it’s you,’ Polly said when Brigitta found her in the reception room, sitting on one of the vast sofas with a thick file open on her lap and a blanket tucked around her. Heavy drapes were drawn across the tall windows to the street, puddling on the carpet at the bottom and giving the room, at least twice the size of Brigitta’s studio, a pleasant cocooned quality. It was the nearest thing, Brigitta always felt, to being at home. Polly closed the file and held the blanket open. Brigitta shed her coat and shoes and nestled in beside her.

  ‘Ugh, your feet are freezing,’ Polly said as Brigitta forced them under her sister’s bottom.

  Polly had their father’s squa
re jaw and Phil’s ash-coloured hair, expensively picked out with blonde. Brigitta felt that the seven miles Polly ran each morning, supposedly for stress relief, was making her unattractively thin, although she could not help feeling simultaneously jealous. Her only compensation, according to Phil, was that Brigitta had got both their allowances of bust.

  No one ever guessed they were sisters by appearance or manner; Brigitta languid to the point of draping, Polly with the quick, darting manner of a pigeon, which became the basis of her hated childhood nickname thought up by Freddie.

  ‘Give me a sip, Pidge,’ Brigitta said, gesturing towards the bulb-like wine glass Polly had beside her. As she finished it in a single go, Brigitta watched her sister’s gaze move beyond her to the mountain of coat abandoned by the door.

  ‘Is that Mum’s? Did she give that to you?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Brigitta wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  ‘I bet. Well, stolen goods suit you is all I can say.’

  ‘Are the boys awake? Can I go and smell them?’

  ‘Yes, and no you can’t. You’ll get Max completely wound up and Toby’s already been down four times. Why is it you’re here, darling? I’m guessing the lipstick wasn’t applied with Mark and me in mind?’

  ‘I had a thing cancelled and I was nearby.’

  As she spoke, Mark put his head around the door. ‘I wouldn’t call fifty-two pounds nearby, Briggy. We’ll put it on the tab, will we? Anyway, excuse me. Hong Kong’s about to wake up.’

  A phone buzzed somewhere inside his pocket and he rummaged it out.

  ‘Mark Crouch. Shoot,’ he said loudly as he disappeared.

  Polly waited until he was out of range. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Brigitta. There’s clearly something going on, so just tell me.’

  ‘Okay,’ Brigitta took a deep breath, knowing to go carefully on subjects liable to touch off Polly’s hyperactive sense of responsibility.

  She had been like that – well always really, when Brigitta thought about it – but in a concentrated way since James died and their mother went into a fog that lingered until Brigitta had almost finished school. Polly had been the one to get her through exams. Polly had taken her to David Jones for her formal dress and driven to collect her from an address in Point Piper that Brigitta had gone to afterwards and thrown up a pepperminty streak of crème de menthe in the indoor spa. Polly had helped her with money and drama school and flats, and although Brigitta was grateful for all of it, she sometimes wished they could just be sisters.

  ‘Well as long as you literally do not say a single thing to anyone, not even Mark . . . I’ve sort of started seeing my director. Guy. Can you believe it? It was just stupid fun at the beginning, Pidge, but he’s so lovely, and he thinks I’m –’

  ‘Guy –’ Polly stopped her. ‘As in Guy Kidd, of Guy Kidd and Sylvie Allen Kidd?’

  ‘They’re split up, Poll. They’re getting divorced but it takes forever, because of having to work out custody and all that. And being in the public eye, it’s got to be managed a certain way. He has to stay living there for the time being so Sylvie doesn’t get the house. She’s a total nightmare apparently. Real scissors to the trouser legs sort.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Polly flung the blanket off both of them and got up. ‘Brigitta, are you on drugs?’

  Polly would not be taking the news in a spirit of sisterly confidence then.

  ‘A man who is technically still married and not just technically but actually living with his wife is going to chuck all that and a child as well for a girl he’s just met on a play? Is that what you honestly think Brigitta? Are you really that woman?’

  Brigitta was twisting a blanket tassel into a tight coil.

  ‘Look at me! Is this a delayed rebellion or your form of grieving? Genuinely. I want to know.’

  ‘They were broken up before I even met him,’ Brigitta said, sulking. ‘He sleeps in their media room.’

  Polly let out a caustic laugh. ‘My God, he sounds like a complete invertebrate. Besides which, it’s just as tacky as fuck.’

  ‘Apart from the fuck, you sound exactly like Mum at the moment I hope you know. Are you worried I’m being common?’

  ‘How can you say that, Brigitta? I’m worried you’re going to get your heart broken! Again. I’m worried you’re going to get yourself in trouble. And fine, yes, I am worried you’re going to upset Mum.’ Polly’s eyes narrowed. ‘Although why do I feel like she doesn’t know?’

  Brigitta’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Can you not tell her, please?’

  ‘Believe me! Sorry, can you imagine? Oh, hello Mum, remember how Daddy just died? Well guess what, Brigitta’s a mistress!’

  ‘Polly, don’t be so mean. Fuck. I wish I hadn’t said anything now.’

  ‘Me too, don’t worry.’

  Sarcastic Polly always made Brigitta quail and she said nothing.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Polly said, gathering up her files. ‘I’ve got a call first thing. You can sleep there if you want.’

  Wounded, Brigitta would have loved to refuse but the sofa was so soft, and home was two Tubes and a lengthy walk away. ‘Okay. Fine. I will.’

  ‘Good,’ said Polly. ‘We can’t afford another one of your cab rides anyway.’

  Brigitta drew her feet up onto the sofa and lay down. At the doorway, Polly paused and looked back at her sister. Her entire being seemed to deflate.

  ‘Briggy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry.’ Brigitta could bear Polly’s anger but not her sadness. ‘Can I have an over-the-top cuddle?’

  Polly smiled. She’d forgotten. As children, Polly’s room was the nearest to her sister’s. Whenever Brigitta cried out in the night, it was Polly who would go in and, finding her curled up in a ball, arrange her entire self over her sister, enveloping her in a warm darkness until the whimpering stopped. Phil had admitted much later, after two champagnes, that the rooming arrangement was by design and frequently saved her a job of getting up.

  Polly sat on the edge of the sofa and cocooned Brigitta as she so often had.

  ‘I can’t bear to see you get hurt. These things do only end one way. With a total buggering, and not of him.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’ Brigitta was no longer thinking of Guy. ‘Do you miss Dad all the time?’

  ‘Every minute. I went to ring him tonight and got halfway through his number before I remembered. Whenever I worked late and was by myself in the office, I’d call him on his way to Chambers. He’d ask me what I was working on and tell me what I should do.’

  ‘How are we supposed to know what to do now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Polly got up and Brigitta saw that her face was damp with tears. ‘I’ll figure it out. Go to sleep.’

  She kissed Brigitta on the forehead and turned off the light as she left the room.

  When Brigitta went down to the kitchen the next morning to greet Max and Toby, Polly had already left for work. The boys were eating a grim-looking health cereal while a sullen Eastern Bloc nanny, a different one from last time, leaned against the bench, texting. The morning paper was laid out on the table. A Post-it had been stuck next to the picture of a tuxedoed man above the masthead, escorting his soon-to-be ex-wife up a length of red carpet. ‘This Guy?’ it said, in Polly’s handwriting. It would have seemed unkind, had Polly not given him an elaborate moustache and blacked out one of his wife’s perfect teeth. ‘Let’s talk tonight xxx.’

  27.

  It doesn’t even hurt

  Abi arrived at the pool exhausted and rattling with apprehension. All night, she’d dreamed busily of drowning, dark green water closing over her head, sinking to a silty concrete bottom.

  She could not eat breakfast except for a single finger of KitKat, which she ate looking down at Phil passing back and forth in front of her bay window, first in a nightie, then her swim robe. When finally she saw Phil swing the basket onto her shoulder, Abi knew she had run out
of time to think up a reason why she could not go, and made her way downstairs with the pram.

  They met at Phil’s gate, and Abi noticed a foam kickboard sticking out her basket, with Polly Woolnough written on the side in faded marker.

  ‘Ready, then?’ Phil asked gaily as they arrived at the pool.

  ‘I suppose so. I’ve heard it’s quite peaceful at the end.’

  Phil laughed, as though Abi was joking. Jude had fallen asleep with a tiny hand holding a corner of his muslin. Abi parked him a way away from the pool. ‘So he doesn’t have to watch his mum drown.’

  But it turned out the only thing Phil expected her to do was wade into chest-deep water holding one end of the board and put her chin under. It did not seem enough to warrant a night of turmoil.

  Phil held the other side of the board. ‘Nice and steady. Righto, go.’

  ‘Just my chin?’ Abi asked. ‘Not my mouth as well?’

  ‘We’re only interested in chins today.’

  Abi obliged, feeling the warm water wash over her shoulders.

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Should I try and lift my feet off or something?’

  ‘There’s plenty of time for that. Little by little’s the way,’ Phil said. ‘I don’t want to frighten you off in our first session.’

  As she spoke, the gate clattered behind them and they turned to see a tall, elderly man in sagging Speedos and boat shoes let himself in. He had a thick pelt of white hair on his chest and back and a towel hung over one shoulder.

  ‘Ah, hello Noel,’ Phil called crisply.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Woolnough! Up to something, by the looks.’

  Phil lowered her voice. ‘I think we’ll stop there for today, Abigail. This is a private project and we don’t need all Rabbit’s friends and relations looking on.’

  ‘Who is he?’ Abi asked as she submerged her chin without thinking about it. ‘Is he your special someone? Have you got a secret man-friend?’

  ‘Oh please, you beastly girl. He’s one of the dispossessed of Cremorne Point. A group of them sit for hours down at the kiosk every morning. Awaiting death, I should imagine.’