by Judy Nunn
‘It’s shocking, Jennifer,’ Beatrice was saying to her sister. ‘That child’s entire personality has changed. She was an open, affectionate little girl. You’ve never given her enough attention. Can’t you see what it’s done to her?’
Emma’s mother looked guilty but she was nevertheless very much on the defensive. ‘She’s as healthy as a horse, she always has been. Vivien’s the weak one.’
‘I’m not talking about her physical condition, for God’s sake – I’m talking about her emotional state, and you know it. That little girl is craving love. She plays it strong and remote and when you give her a crumb of affection she clings to you like a starving animal. What you and Bob have done is disgraceful.’
Jennifer stared at the patio pavement. She didn’t say anything but blinked hard, trying to fight off the tears.
Beatrice didn’t let up. ‘You promised me when I left you’d try and give the girls equal attention. You promised. Both you and Bob.’
‘I did try, I swear I did. And so did Bob.’ Jennifer’s voice was muffled. ‘It’s easy for him, he’s away most of the time. I’m the one left trying to live a lie. How can you pretend to a love you don’t feel, day in, day out?’ Jennifer gave in to the tears. She sobbed quietly, racked with guilt. ‘It ’s hard, Bea. So hard.’
Beatrice put an arm around her sister’s shoulder and her voice softened. ‘It shouldn’t be, Jen. She’s a little girl. It’s easy to love a little girl.’
‘But she ’s not my little girl,’ Jennifer sobbed, ‘and I can’t change the way I feel about that.’
Emma stood rooted to the spot. Surely it couldn’t be true? But the words rang in her head. She’s not my little girl. Of course it was true. It explained everything.
‘We would never have adopted her if we’d known we could have Vivien,’ Jennifer said, fumbling for a tissue. ‘Bob didn’t want to adopt at all.’
‘I know, I know,’ Beatrice answered.‘But the fact is you did. And you’re responsible for the child now. You owe it to her.’
Emma had heard enough. She crept back to the lounge room and sat down to watch the magician. But she didn’t see him. Her mind was numb, but somewhere there was a sense of relief. It wasn’t her fault that they didn’t love her; there was nothing wrong with her after all. They didn’t love her simply because she wasn’t theirs.
After the party, when the other children were going home, Emma sought out her aunt.
‘Auntie Bea, can I talk with you please?’
‘Yes, of course, darling.’ The girl looked so serious Beatrice hoped there was nothing wrong. They walked together out to the back patio.
‘I’d like you to help me find my real mother, ’ Emma said.
Beatrice stared back at her, horrified. ‘You heard,’ she said. Emma nodded. ‘Oh, my darling.’ Beatrice gathered the girl in her arms but Emma didn’t respond.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, freeing herself from the hug. ‘It explains a lot of things to me. But I want to meet my real mother.’
The child suddenly looked so grown up, Beatrice thought, and so resolved. ‘Sit down for a moment, Emma, and let me explain a few things to you that I think you should know.’
They sat together on the patio for half an hour and Beatrice told Emma that her mother and father had tried for years to have a child. ‘Medically there didn’t seem to be anything wrong,’ she explained, ‘but they just couldn’t conceive. For five years they tried. And then your mother was thirty and time was running out and they adopted you.’
Emma watched her aunt but she didn’t say anything. ‘Then, three months after your adoption, your mother fell pregnant,’ Beatrice continued. ‘I suppose, because they thought they could never have a child, that made Vivien extra special … I don’t know … ’ Beatrice’s voice petered away lamely. It wasn’t much of an excuse for a loveless childhood, she thought.
‘I understand,’ Emma said. She supposed she did but that wasn’t the important issue to her at the moment. ‘Will you help me find my mother?’
‘Yes, Emma. Yes, I will.’
Beatrice devoted herself to the search for over two years. After a seemingly endless succession of stumbling blocks and blind alleys, she made her breakthrough.
It was a Saturday when she drove young Emma to the small duplex house in Redfern. There had been no telephone number listed so they’d been unable to ring.
Emma insisted upon going to the front door alone. ‘Please, Auntie Bea,’ she said gently, ‘will you stay in the car?’
Beatrice nodded and she watched as the girl walked up to the shabby front door of the shabby little house. She watched as Emma rang the doorbell and the door opened. A woman stood there but Beatrice couldn’t see her clearly. Emma said something and then she stepped inside and the flywire screen door flapped shut.
Emma stared at the woman. She was in her thirties, but looked older than her years. Worn out. But she’d once been pretty. She had fair, sandy-coloured hair in the process of turning grey and, beneath the fatigue, her hazel eyes were impressive.
‘What are you after, kid?’ she asked. ‘If you’ re selling something I don’t want it.’
‘Are you Julia Bridges?’
‘Yes.’
‘My name’s Emma. I’m your daughter.’
Julia stared at the girl. She knew it was true. The girl looked the way she herself had looked a very long time ago. She nodded. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
Emma sat in the poky little kitchen while Julia busied herself making tea. The door to the adjoining room was open and a baby started to cry.
‘How old are you?’ Julia asked, taking no notice of the baby.
‘I’ll be fifteen next birthday.’ Emma’s birthday wasn’t for another six months but she wanted to appear as grown up as possible.
‘What do you want from me?’ Julia looked the girl up and down briefly. ‘You don’t look as though you need money and I’m a bit short on maternal love – I’ve got three young kids who burn up most of that.’ It was said good-naturedly – she didn’t mean to be tough, but she was confused. The girl brought back so many memories.
‘I just want to know about myself,’ Emma said. ‘Who is my father?’
‘He’s dead.’ Julia poured the hot water into the pot. ‘Died about the time you were born. Terry Ross. Terence George Franklin Ross.’
She pushed the sugar bowl in Emma’s direction. ‘Do you take milk?’ she asked, crossing to the refrigerator. Emma nodded. ‘He was married and he didn’t want to know about a baby, so … ‘Julia shrugged as she handed the cup to Emma. ‘It wouldn’t have worked out anyway.’
The look on the girl’s face made her realise she’d sounded a little brutal. She hadn’t meant to.
‘Emma, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I loved him, Emma. And he loved me – I know he did. He was handsome and charming and …’ Julia gave a rueful smile.’… and he was as weak as piss.’ She sipped her tea for a moment. ‘I seem to have a knack for picking the weak blokes, I fell for another one only a couple of months after Terry and I broke up. I suppose I was on the rebound, I know they say that happens, but I was mad about Steve.’
‘I was five months pregnant by that time,’ she continued, ‘and, as it turned out, Steve didn’t want to know about a baby either. Certainly not a baby that wasn’t his, which is fair enough, I suppose. So I decided to give you up for adoption as soon as you were born.’
Julia stared into her teacup. The baby’s cries from the next room were less urgent now. ‘I’d had every intention of keeping you, you know.’ There was nothing ingratiating in her tone, no plea for forgiveness, just a simple statement of fact.
‘The Ross family paid me off,’ she said, ‘and I’ll never forget that day when I walked out of their mansion with a fifty thousand dollar cheque in my pocket. We were going to conquer the world, you and me.’
She shrugged, picked up her cup and drained it. ‘Want another one?’ she ask
ed, starting to pour herself a second cup.
‘What happened?’ Emma asked.
‘Well I met Steve, didn’t I, and he didn’t want a baby and that was that. We got married about six months after you were adopted out and four years later we decided to start a family. Well, I did; I don’t know if he was really all that keen. But I must say,’ she admitted, ‘whatever else he was, Steve was a good father to the girls.’
‘Was?’
‘We split up over a year ago. He fell in love with someone else.’
Emma glanced towards the adjoining room where the baby’s cries had been reduced to the occasional sleepy whimper.
‘Oh, the baby’s his.’ Julia answered the unspoken query. ‘But I didn’t tell him I was pregnant.’
‘Why not?’ Emma asked. ‘Surely he would have … ’
‘Oh yes, he would have stayed all right. He wasn’t a bad man, only a weak one.’ Julia smiled. ‘Rather like your father. It would only have been a matter of time before he left with the next young pretty girl. He couldn’t resist them.’
‘Emma … ?’ There was a tap at the front door which Julia had left open. She started to rise but Emma jumped to her feet.
‘No, it’s all right. That’s my aunt.’ She’d completely forgotten that Beatrice was waiting in the car. ‘I’ll be out in a minute, Auntie Bea,’ she called. Then she turned back to Julia. ‘Can I come and see you again?’
Julia deliberated for a moment, then she nodded. ‘Make it about the same time next week. The girls spend Saturdays with their father and the place is quieter then.’
Emma had found Julia’s story so fascinating that she’d had little time to dwell on her own place in the scheme of things. She only knew that she liked this woman who was her natural mother and she wanted to get to know her. ‘But the baby,’ she said. ‘If he’s here each week he must know that the baby …’
‘Yes, he knows about the baby now. And he knows it’s his.’ They started walking down the hall together. ‘And he keeps feeling guilty and insisting that he has to come back and look after us. But it wouldn’t work out.’ Julia smiled at the girl. ‘I’ll see you next Saturday.’
The Saturday visits became a regular event which Emma and Julia both looked forward to. They didn’t develop a mother-daughter relationship as such. Julia didn’t want it, so Emma didn’t seek it, but a bond was formed between them. A bond of mutual respect and a shared knowledge that they’d both been lonely and that they filled a gap in each other’s lives. Emma and Julia became friends.
They talked occasionally about Terry Ross. Julia deliberately painted him in favourable colours – charming, debonair, handsome – it was the way she preferred to remember him, after all. ‘A smile and eyes that could charm the devil’ was the way she put it. But when Emma broached the subject of meeting her grandparents, Julia dismissed the Ross family altogether.
‘Don’t even think about it, love,’ she said. ‘You’d only give yourself pain; they’re a hard lot and they’d refuse to recognise you. The old man told me so.’ Julia could still remember Franklin’s very words. ‘We don’t recognise bastards in this family,’ he’d said.
One weekend, Julia had a surprise for her. ‘Come in, love – there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’ An elderly woman was sitting in the front lounge. ‘This is my mother, Grace,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother.’
The old lady rose and embraced Emma. There were tears in her eyes as she stood back and looked at her. ‘You’re just like Julia was when she was a girl,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, dear.’ And she disappeared quickly into the kitchen.
After that, Grace too became quite a regular feature in Emma’s life and the girl basked in her newfound affection. For the first time in her life, she felt that she had a family which was truly hers.
Julia and Grace encouraged Emma’s writing and, in her final year at school, it was through a contact of Grace’s that she landed a freelance job as a cadet reporter covering minor social occasions for the North Shore Times.
It was a period of growth for Emma and she blossomed into a strong, confident girl with an easy, outgoing nature.
She confided her burning ambition to Julia. ‘I’m going to write a book one day,’ she said. ‘I’m going to write a book that’ll take the world by storm. A best-seller. I want to see my name on the covers of thousands of copies in every bookshop in the country.’
‘Good for you.’
Emma checked to see if maybe Julia was laughing at her. But she wasn’t.
One day, she arrived at Julia’s rather subdued and, for once, hoping that Grace wouldn’t be there. She wasn’t. Julia knew the moment she saw the girl that something had happened.
‘I need to talk to you,’ Emma said.
‘I thought so. Come on, let’s sit out on the back verandah. It’s too nice a day to be inside.’
Julia opened a couple of cans of lemonade and they sat on the tiny back verandah looking out over the scruffy little back yard with its ugly Hills Hoist rotary clothes line. Emma studied the baby clothes flapping in the gentle breeze.
‘Well?’ Julia asked.
‘I think I lost my virginity the other night.’
‘What do you mean, you think?’
‘Well I’m pretty sure I did, but I didn’t mean to.’
Julia wanted to laugh but she didn’t dare. Emma looked far too serious. ‘What happened?’
‘I went to the movies with Don. I’ve told you about him, remember? We’ve been going out for three months now and he wants to go steady.’
Julia nodded and Emma continued. ‘We drove to the beach afterwards. And we got in the back of the car and started to fool around a bit.’ She flashed a guilty look at Julia and then studied her lemonade can. ‘We’ve been fooling around for a while now. I mean, nearly all the girls I know have lost their virginity, I figured I should at least experiment. I mean, I’ve turned seventeen, for God’s sake.’
Julia nodded understandingly and waited for the girl to finish justifying herself. It was all sounding so familiar. ‘Go on,’ she said.
Emma sighed. She might as well get it over and done with. ‘Well we went a bit further than usual. I’d let him get my panties off and he had his jeans half down and we were feeling each other and then suddenly … ‘She paused. ‘Suddenly he was trying to do it.’
Emma stopped studying her drink can and looked at Julia. ‘Honestly, Julia, I didn’t want to. I tried to stop him. And he called me a prickteaser and kept trying to shove himself into me. And it was hurting like hell. And finally I managed to get out from underneath and he gave up.’
Julia wanted to hug the girl but she didn’t. ‘What happened then?’ she said.
‘I put my panties back on and he said he was sorry. Well, he sort of said he was sorry, but he was in a rotten mood, I could tell. And then he drove me home and that was it.’ Emma studied the drink can again. ‘There was blood all over my panties, so I suppose that means I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I?’
‘Yep, you sure have.’
Emma looked up and was astonished to see that Julia was smiling broadly. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said and she burst out laughing, unable to contain herself any longer. ‘I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t help it.’
Emma was amazed. It wasn’t like Julia to laugh at her. And certainly not over something as serious as this.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ Julia said when she eventually got herself under control. ‘I’m not laughing at you, honestly.’
‘What are you laughing at then?’ Emma asked, a touch sullen.
‘The story. The way it happened. I think just about every second woman I know lost her virginity like that. I sure as hell know I did.’
Emma started to relax. ‘It was all so tacky,’ she said.
‘Yes, not exactly the true romance one hopes for, but cheer up, love, the next time’ll be better. Oh dear … ’ Julia laughed again and there was sympathy in the laugh. ‘That poor little bastar
d. He was quite right, you were behaving like a prickteaser. You’ll have to put a stop to that, you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I tell you what we’ll do.’ Julia jumped up and went into the kitchen. ‘We’ll toast your womanhood, what do you say?’
She reappeared with a bottle of wine. ‘It’s only cheap stuff, I’m afraid, but it’s got bubbles in it.’
Half an hour later, Emma was completely cheered up. The following week she took Julia’s advice and visited a doctor for a contraceptive pill prescription.
Towards the middle of the year, the sub-editor of the North Shore Times, who had recognised Emma’s diligence from the outset, decided to give her a break.
‘We’re bringing out a magazine around Christmas,’ she said. ‘A "that-was-the-year-that-was" type of thing, and the boss wants a feature on women in power. If you were to write a submission on someone you admire, and if he were to like it, he might use it. What do you think?’
What did she think? ‘Oh Meg, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank … ’
‘I thought you’d feel like that,’ Meg smiled. She liked Emma. ‘Here’s a list of suggestions. Pick a person and see if she’ll grant you an interview. That’s half the test, getting your foot in the door.’ And she left, calling ‘good luck’ over her shoulder.
There were at least twenty women on the list. Politicians, magazine editors, fashion designers, business people. Halfway down the page, under the heading Entertainment Industry, was the name Penelope Ross, Chairman, Ross (Australia) Productions.
Emma stood staring at the piece of paper. She wondered whether she dared. For two days she wondered whether she dared and then she decided.
‘I’m going to interview Penelope Ross,’ she announced to Julia that Saturday.
There was silence.
‘For the paper,’ Emma continued. ‘They’re doing an end-of-year feature on women in power.’
‘Why Penelope Ross? Do you have an option?’
‘Yes,’ Emma answered.
Another silence. ‘Then why Penelope Ross?’ Julia asked again.
