You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

  ‘Oh mate,’ Stu said, when he eventually got the nappy open. He’d changed him before. Loads of times. But not for a while, and not since he’d started eating eggs and oranges and meat. Stu breathed through his mouth and looked around for the wipes, noticing them on top of the drawers. In the second it took to reach them, Jude managed a series of seal-like rolls across the bed, leaving a set of perfectly spaced imprints behind him – half a dozen small brown butterflies floating diagonally across the doona, wings spread.

  ‘Oh come on.’ Stu picked Jude up under the arms. His bare bottom half, below his little shirt, seemed especially naked and vulnerable – like a fat kid who’d been pantsed. With his foot, Stu dragged the doona off the bed and kicked it behind the door to be dealt with later. He held Jude away from him, suspended from the armpits, and as he made to carry him towards the bathroom a bright yellow stream of warm liquid arced out of Jude’s penis, leaving a rainbow of wetness across Stu’s T-shirt. ‘You’re actually joking me.’

  In the bathroom, he tried to fit Jude’s bottom half under the tap and give it a quick rinse off. After jamming a nappy on him, Stu strapped him pants-less into the pram and parked it in front of the television. He clicked through the channels until he found live golf.

  ‘Ladies, but still. You watch that while Dad has a little break. Actually, let’s give Mum another try and see what’s happening at her end.’

  Abi’s phone went through to voicemail again and this time, Stu left a message. ‘Hey babe. Just seeing how you’re going. Jude and I are just hanging. Okay, well, give us a call when you get this and also does he have lunch or – yeah, well maybe just call me back.’ He hung up. The time on his phone said 9.42 a.m.

  Stu rubbed his chin. His fingers smelt like shit and fragranced wipes. ‘Shall we go for one of those walks your mum likes? We’ve got a bit of time to kill before she gets back.’ He looked at his phone again. Still 9.42.

  Unable to thread the overalls back on without the hassle of taking Jude back out of the pram, Stu decided a bath towel over his legs would achieve the same end. As they made their way down the stairs, Jude made a sort of er-er-er noise with each bump, and Stu made a mental note to tell Abi how much fun Jude had had.

  It seemed colder outside than it had been on the way over, and Stu leaned over and tucked the towel in tighter, wishing he’d gone the pants option after all. Jude tried to sit up, straining against the straps because Stu had successfully dropped his seat back in case Jude wanted to sleep, and now he couldn’t make it go back up. Jude’s bottom lip began to quiver as they approached the Point and Stu decided to duck into the kiosk and get him a biscuit or something.

  It was deserted except for a brigade of old people sitting in one corner, who waved as though they recognised Jude. Stu scanned the menu board.

  ‘Mate, can babies eat toast?’ he asked the man behind the counter.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s fine. No worries. We’ll take our chances. Just one piece probably and two macchiatos for me.’

  Stu downed his coffees like shots and noticed as he pegged the paper cups into the bin that the older group was still watching him. When the toast came, he passed it whole to Jude, who pushed it straight into his face, anointing his own forehead with Vegemite. The group whispered amongst themselves and Stu turned his back before using the edge of his T-shirt to wipe Jude’s face, remembering too late that it would contain traces of Jude’s own wee. 10.14 a.m.

  He left three more messages for Abi and spent the rest of the morning on the cusp of an unfamiliar panic. Jude refused to go in his cot, refused to sleep in the pram even when Stu rolled it back and forth across the same square foot of living room for half an hour. He refused to take the bottle, cold or warm, and filled another two nappies despite sucked-on toast being his only nourishment since breakfast.

  As Stu knelt on the floor and tried to hook a wad of soggy tissue out of Jude’s mouth that he hadn’t seen going in, he couldn’t shirk the realisation that Abi worked this hard, all day. Every day. No help, no other mums, no boyfriend coming home with a Prawn Pad Thai and a bunch of whatever the best flowers were. She did it all by herself, made the best job of it and never complained. After dredging the last bit of tissue out of Jude’s cheek, Stu picked his son up and held him at eye level. ‘Jude, your dad is going to get his shi . . . get himself sorted. A hundred and ten per cent, from now on.’

  Many hours later or so it felt, Stu heard Abi’s key in the door.

  ‘Thank God,’ he said, punting Jude into her arms. ‘Where have you been?’

  * * *

  Abi took Jude and let his hot, sticky head, rest against her shoulder. His shirt was damp. His nappy was on backwards. He wasn’t wearing pants and there was a raised red oval the size of a quail’s egg on the left side of his forehead.

  Abi held her lips to it as she surveyed the room. Balled-up nappies strewn across the carpet, the pull-out missing both its seat cushions, the television turned up, and Jude’s favourite dummy perfectly sterile in a Ziploc bag precisely where she’d left it. Abi hated mess. It made her feel ill, the way it could creep across a room, spread up stairs. She spent more hours of her childhood hauling bags of rubbish out to the bins and scrubbing the bath than threading beads and drawing horses like other girls, and her rising impulse was to shove Stu aside and set the room to rights as fast as she could. But with Phil’s voice in her head, she turned back to Stu and gave him a loving smile. ‘So, what did you two get up to today?’

  ‘What? Nothing. This. I wiped stuff all day. He hasn’t really eaten anything and I reckon he slept for three minutes, altogether. I think he might like ladies golf though. Abi, I cannot believe that you do this every day.’ Stu picked up his abandoned textbook and put it in his bag.

  ‘All day though,’ Abi said, feeling momentarily cheered. She could clean up as soon as he left. It would only take her a minute.

  ‘What time is it now?’

  ‘One-thirty. Well, almost.’

  57.

  Currants in the cake

  A cold, drizzly fortnight passed, during which their only contact was the exchange of literary titbits via text message. Phil dispatched choice lines of Mitford and Abi wondered if she was reading them over again. In the pinch of crisis, Phil had once told her, she always did ‘the complete Nancy’, and Abi hoped it was only the miserable weather that had compelled her to begin at Christmas Pudding and go all the way through to Don’t Tell Alfred. In exchange, Abi sent lines from her assigned reading. The Yellow Wallpaper, An Angel at My Table and The Bell Jar, until Phil asked if they might have a little break from female lunacy. ‘But what about this from Pursuit of Lv. Life is sometimes sad and dull but there are currants in the cake. Isn’t that lovely? Our dear Sadie.’

  Now, at the kiosk, Phil seemed as hungry for actual conversation as Abi felt. ‘Tell me, is young Stuart nibbling at our bait?’ She leaned back so the chap could set down the two coffees she had ordered with her usual gesture.

  ‘I think it’s going quite well. He minded Jude on my first day of university. Although he had to leave straight away, because he said he needed a shower and a sleep. Stu did, I mean, not Jude.’ She looked over at Jude who was asleep in the pram, his two tight little fists at ear height.

  ‘Ah, yes, perfect. Perfect.’ To Abi’s eye, Phil looked tired and a bit flat.

  ‘The second time he’s had him was better, insofar as everyone was cleaner and had no head injuries when I got home. And now Elaine’s taken over, which I’m just being strong about.’

  ‘I am so glad to hear it, Abigail. An eye to the main chance. Has he made any noises about returning to the perch?’

  ‘Not so far. But we’ve had some really nice walks and whatnot. Oh and I’ve done the moussaka, that curried beef thing twice and a roast chicken.’

  Phil sucked her cheeks in. ‘Towelette in or out this time?’

  ‘I opted for out.’

  ‘Best, I think. And studies?’
/>   ‘Oh, yes. Apparently my essay demonstrated keen insight and a measure of original thought, marred only by its lack of obvious structure.’ Abi had read the teacher’s remark until she knew it by heart. It was so nice and specific and nine lines long. Social work was only ever graded on a pass or fail.

  ‘Ah well, you’d better set about picking your next subject and then we shall see about shifting you over to a little BA perhaps.’

  Abi beamed, and felt she ought to shift the conversation on from her now glorious future. ‘What about you though, Phil, how have you been and everything?’

  ‘Ah.’ Phil found an earlobe and massaged it slowly. ‘Also marred by a lack of obvious structure, I’d say, but otherwise well. Very little to report. Briggy seems to be over the acting bug, thank heavens. She’s actually nannying for the boys and living with Polly after giving up that dire flat. But of course they’re warring so I imagine Briggy will pack it all in soon and come home for good.’

  Abi had just taken a mouthful of coffee and found herself now unable to swallow it. ‘Really?’ she tried to say without opening her mouth, while scorching liquid pooled under her tongue.

  ‘Well, I can’t think what would keep her there now.’

  When Abi finally managed to get the mouthful down and spoke again, the sides of her tongue felt like they’d been coarsely grated. ‘Right, no, I suppose not. And it is much nicer here.’ They turned in unison to watch a ferry pass, cutting through the swell and leaving a froth of white water behind it.

  ‘Well,’ Phil said, turning back, ‘she hasn’t said she’s coming. Not outright. But a mother can wish. It would certainly be a currant in the cake.’

  ‘It would be.’ Abi kept watching the ferry until it passed the peninsula. ‘Such a big currant. In your cake. Wouldn’t it be?’

  58.

  The Siege of Ladbroke Grove

  Polly toed off one pinching heel, then the other, and rubbed her stockinged feet against the soft carpet under her desk. The fifteenth floor had emptied out and the motion lights above the bullpen outside her glassed office were ticking off, one by one.

  She opened the Pret A Manger salad that had been sitting on her desk since lunchtime, took a bite of wilted greens and set it aside. She was never hungry anymore. The vast bank of windows behind her looked out to Canary Wharf. Polly swivelled her chair to face the glass and gazed out. The clocks had gone forward some weeks ago and the sky behind the towers was deep violet and crisscrossed with the chalk-trails of distant aircraft passing over London.

  Strictly speaking, there was no need to work late this evening, but ever since Brigitta had moved in, the office after-hours had become Polly’s only place of retreat. More and more, she found herself inventing reasons to stay back, only to sit numbly in her chair for an hour or more – at least until she could be sure Max and Toby would be in bed by the time she got home. She felt guilty. Of course she did. That went without saying.

  But if she got in before Mark, the job of unravelling the boys, starting them on homework and dealing with the aftermath of her sister’s overly creative dinners would fall to her. Schoolbags would be untouched by the front door and a coloured wash she had put on before work would be sour in the machine, a wet, tangled wad smelling powerfully of mould.

  And between all that, it was up to her to rebuild relations between her mother and sister. Brigitta was still refusing to ring, insisting that she felt bad enough already so really didn’t need to drink a cup of Phil’s wrath. Over and over, Polly told her Phil had ceased to be angry some time ago and only wanted to talk. The raft of text messages Phil sent daily to both of them confirmed it to be true, but Brigitta held out.

  Polly turned back to her desk and reached into a filing drawer for the very small bottle her father’s preferred brand of whisky. No one ever thanked her for being the go-between, the peacemaker, tough old Pidge, always so strong.

  She poured a generous finger into a Law Society mug. The taste was vile, but the burning feeling as it slid down her throat was deeply comforting. When it was gone, she poured another, picturing her father in his high-backed chair in the study at Milson Road, steepled fingers, crystal tumbler set to one side, listening seriously to whatever school-related problem had arisen for her that day. If only she could tell him about all this, she thought. That was the other convenient aspect of late nights in the office. Nobody had to see her cry.

  According to the therapist that not even Mark knew she had seen, the week she’d returned from the funeral, journeying through the five stages of grief could take many months, even years. The silly woman, who’d been dressed in some sort of burlap sack, told her ‘just to go easy on herself’ and ‘let it take as long as it takes’, pieces of advice that infuriated Polly so intensely she declined a second session and gave herself six weeks to get all the way from Denial to Bargaining. She did not have time for grief to be a journey.

  Her mother would be waiting, Polly realised, glancing at her watch. It would be 8 a.m. at home, and Polly could see her mother sitting up in bed, drinking English Breakfast with the phone beside her. She swept the salad into the wastepaper basket and pressed the one-touch dial on her desk phone. ‘Hello?’ Phil’s voice rang out over the speaker and filled the quiet office. Polly heard the familiar call of a mynah bird in the background, and for an instant, longed to be home. Sitting on the terrace, face to the sun, preferably alone.

  ‘Hi Mum. How are you?’

  ‘Oh, Polly, hello darling. Well, much the same really. I was thinking about getting up for a walk but the weather’s been bleak. I realised this morning I loathe June. You’ve still got July to go, and August is always so patchy. The garden’s a tip from all the wind, but I haven’t the will to get out there.’

  ‘Why don’t you start on Dad’s things? It’s got to be done sooner or later.’ Polly berated herself immediately for sounding like a task master when she meant to be kind, suggesting a project.

  ‘Darling, I would. You know I would, but I’m simply not ready to see a no-hoper traipsing through the IGA in your father’s Burberry. It’ll have to wait. I simply don’t share your urgency, I’m sorry.’

  Polly pushed her thumb deep into the muscle of her jaw, which gave off a pleasing pain, like pressing a bruise.

  ‘What about your end though, darling? Tell me peace is restored. I hate the idea of you and Briggy still at loggerheads.’

  ‘We’re not. We’re fine, just staying out of each other’s way really. I’m sorry she hasn’t called you. I’ve been trying but you know how stubborn she can be.’

  ‘Of course, Pidge. But truly, she can’t last much longer dear. The nannying, I’m sorry, but it’s not her bag. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll bore her out sooner or later. The Siege of Ladbroke Grove.’ Phil sighed. ‘I will be glad of the company when she comes home. And perhaps some help.’

  A fragment of something her sister had said in passing rose in Polly’s mind. She cast about for a moment and then said, ‘Brigitta said you’ve had a neighbour helping you. A girl who brings you meals or something? I’ve been meaning to ask.’

  ‘Oh no, that’s nothing. She moved in next door at the beginning of the year with a very dear baby and we struck up a friendship of sorts. But there’s no paid arrangement.’

  ‘That’s a bit unusual.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Why does she want to help you?’

  ‘Well, I like to think we help each other, darling. In fact, I put her on a regime of study, a short course, but she is already hooked I can tell, and I’ve no doubt she’ll keep going with another now that the mother-in-law or whatever you’d call her is lined up for the childcare. We’ve also done a small amount of scheming to get the doltish boyfriend back, you see. It seems to be going rather well. Although of course, I’ve been hoist by my own petard, because now she’s somewhat less available than she was previously.’

  Polly frowned hard as she listened, confused by the sudden outpouring of new information
. It was like being told the plot of a soap opera she’d never seen.

  ‘All right. Well I suppose that’s all right.’ It wasn’t all right at all but she was too tired to wade into it now. She drained the rest of her whisky and turned back to the window. The sky over the city was dark now and the awareness, suddenly, of still being in the office, the effort it would take to get her mother off the line, pack up, leave and get home was overwhelming. It would be easier just to curl up and sleep beneath her desk. ‘Be careful though Mum, please. You don’t need anyone depending on you and you’re a magnet for strays. Dad always said that, remember?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I quite remember. You sound dreadfully tired, Pidge. You’re not in the office I hope?’

  ‘I am, but I’m leaving now. I should get home.’ Slowly, she stood up and felt around with a foot for her heels.

  ‘Oh darling. Your generation, honestly. You’ll die in the harness. You ought to do more for yourself. Anyway, you’ll call tomorrow, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  When Polly arrived home, Brigitta was on the sofa watching television and eating pungent takeaway from a bowl balanced on a shot-silk cushion. Polly imagined a ring of oil settling into the fibres.

  ‘You forgot to put out money for the cleaners,’ she said without looking away from the screen. ‘I told them you’d leave double next week.’

  PART II

  59.

  September can be full of false promise

  ‘What’s that amazing smell?’ Abi asked, setting her teacup down on the grass.

  The morning had been crisp but now, spring sun streamed into Phil’s garden. Clouds of soft, yellow dust filled the air with a sweet, honey scent.

  ‘It is wattle, dear. And it means we have made it. Or near enough.’

  Abi thought Phil was looking much better than she had in weeks. Still, she’d declined a visit to the pool, claiming she never swam before Labour Day and rarely before the Melbourne Cup. Instead, she offered a little sit in le jardin, where they had been for an hour now, Phil in her chair, Jude practising his crawling on a blanket. So far, he could only go backwards and Abi sat behind him, giving him little helps forward. Grass stains on pudgy knees were her new best thing, she decided then and there.