by Cate Kendall
In the past Sera would have meekly agreed with Bella while internalising her resentment. At least now she could snap back her frustration.
'Look, sorry I sound snippy; bloody traffic. What's Mum's problem this time?'
'The caravan park is putting up the rent and she's beside herself.'
'So I suppose she wants money?' Sera said.
'Well, she didn't mention it. Just talk to her, will you?'
'I'm really busy, I'll see how I go.' Sera wasn't about to make any promises. They said goodbye and hung up.
Sera sat at the same red light she'd been stopped at for three changes now. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and flicked on the radio to distract her thoughts. She stabbed each button to change the inane chatter and commercials of each annoying station, then punched the off button.
Bloody Mum and Dad, she thought. Can't they sort out their own lives for a change? What's the point of them, I mean really? Parents are supposed to be there to help their kids. Not the other way around. Look at me, she thought, that's my job, I run around after my kids constantly and love it. It's my duty, it's what I'm here for. So where's the payback? When do I get to be a little girl, indulge in a whinge and get some support? It's just not my job to be a counsellor for every petty problem the woman has.
She glanced at her watch. She still had an hour before she needed to pick up the kids. Chantrea was in town; she might pop in and have a chat with her. Chantrea's no-nonsense attitude could be brutal at times, but at least you got guidance. She texted her. The reply came back immediately.
Yep, drop in, just grabbing Sally from crèche, back in 5.
*
Dara Kim opened the door. 'Come in, come in, Chantrea will be back very soon. Look at you. Too thin. You girls all too thin. Why don't you eat? Come here, sit down. I will feed you.'
All the protestations in the world wouldn't stop Dara from unloading the fridge, so Sera sat at the kitchen table to enjoy a moment of being mothered.
She looked around the tiny little kitchen. She loved the craziness of Dara's knick-knack collection. One entire shelf was devoted to animal salt and pepper shakers. Another wall groaned under the weight of photos of Sally and Chantrea. Souvenirs from the family's travels around Australia took pride of place on another bookcase: a gold nugget from Broken Hill, an opal letter opener, a koala snowglobe, a Santa-in-boardshorts ornament.
'Here, you eat this,' Dara said and shoved a dish of rice and very fragrant chicken in front of her. 'You want tea? Green tea? Black tea?'
'Yes please, a black tea with one sugar would be lovely.'
'You don't want milk in it, do you? Milk in tea, still can't understand that rubbish.'
'Er, just a dash would be great.' Sera felt like apologising for her appalling western taste.
A derisive puff burst from Dara's lips as she slapped the milk carton on the table. 'You do it,' she said, as if it were too disgusting a request for her to participate in.
Having set her guest up with all she could possibly offer, Dara sat down opposite Sera.
'So how are you, Dara?' Sera asked as she lifted her chopsticks. 'Working hard still?'
'As always. I did fifty hours last week, but I don't complain.'
'You're good, but you're allowed to, you know,' Sera said and tucked into the chicken. It was delicious. What was that herb?
'No, how could I complain? Look at this wonderful life I have. Look at this wonderful city I live in and my Sally, what a princess. I'm sure she's royal, you know, the bearing, the grace. Very talented girl. Nothing to complain about. Too much complaining nowadays. People are too greedy, want too much.'
Sera noticed Dara grimace as she stood to pour the boiling water into the teapot.
'Are you in pain, Dara? Does your leg hurt?'
'Oh, it's nothing, just my knee. Doctor says I might need an operation. But it's nothing. I'll survive. It's the lifting. We don't have a boy at the shop at the moment so I have to lift the big boxes. But they'll get a boy soon who can do that, then all will be okay again.'
'You're amazing.' Sera didn't like to let on that she knew about Dara's past from Chantrea, but the woman was something like a hero to her. What she'd endured, how she'd managed to single-handedly set up a new home in a new country for her daughter. 'I wish my mum was like you.'
'She is,' Dara said simply and looked point blank at Sera.
'Oh, no, she's not. You haven't met her. She's nothing like you.'
'She's a woman. She's like me. She's like you. Same.'
'But she's not a real nurturing type of mother, you know? She's always got her own problems, she complains a lot, she doesn't seem to cope with life like you do.'
'She's a person. She has . . . what's that new word? . . . issues too, maybe she doesn't have friends to talk to. Maybe she trusts you and wants to share with you.'
'Well, I hadn't thought of it quite like that before,' Sera said. 'But it's really her job to be there for me, and my job to be there for my kids. You know, the cycle goes on.'
'Oh, pshaw. You should be a grown-up by now. What are you? Twelve?'
Sera looked up at Dara, startled. She could see where Chantrea got her forthright manner from. 'No, it's not like that at all, it's just that she's always whining on the phone to me about stuff. And never listens to me at all.'
'That's what she's like. She is the person she is. What about that Jacqueline woman, she's your friend isn't she?'
'Well, yes, she's my friend.'
'Well, at the brunch at her house, she was going on and on and on about her two boys. Very good to have boys, yes, very proud woman but not very humble. She wouldn't shut up about them.'
'Oh, yes, Dara, I know, but that's fine, that's what she's like. She needs validation. I actually feel sorry for her, she doesn't get any attention from her family, she doesn't have parents anymore, she needs her friends to listen to her. I don't mind at all being her sounding board. And you know, she's getting so much better now that she has her business up and running. And now that she has a group of girlfriends to listen to her, she doesn't seem to shout for attention anymore.'
'Hmmm,' Dara said cryptically and just sat and stared at Sera.
Sera understood that was her cue to think about what she'd just said. 'Oh, you think I should give my mum the same respect. That's different though. She's my mother.'
'Not mother, woman – woman first. If you treat her like you treat your friends, you would get along much better.'
Just at that moment Sally barrelled into the room and threw herself at her grandmother. 'Gaela Yay!' she said from the depths of Dara's bulk.
'Gaela Sally, little one, how was crèche?'
'Very good. I am the best at collage. See?' She thrust a piece of board with all manner of backyard detritus glued all over it at her grandmother.
'This is very good.'
'Yes, I have to agree,' Sally said. 'And now I'm going to stick it on the wall in my room. Hi Sera, bye Sera,' she said and was out the door.
'What a nice surprise!' Chantrea said as she walked in the room carrying bags of shopping. 'Sorry I took so long. I had to stop at the supermarket. Wine?'
'No, I won't darling, thanks anyway. I have to fly, I've got to pick mine up now. We'll catch up soon, promise.'
'But I just got here!' Chantrea said. 'Didn't you say you wanted to talk about something?'
'Nope, changed my mind, sorry. I'll call you. Bye, darling. Bye, Dara, thanks so much for the snack and the chat.' Sera hugged the two women and left.
As she walked down the long drive to where her car was parked in the street, she felt like she was taller, stronger, more independent. Dara had made so much sense just then.
Why hadn't she seen it from this angle before? Marlene was a woman, with her own upbringing, her own story, her own life all coming together and making her the person she was today. Sera needed to readjust her thinking. This person was struggling with her own difficulties, feeling her own joys. They were all in this tog
ether. What on earth had Sera been expecting?
As soon as she shut the car door, she pressed speed dial number four on her mobile. After two rings it was answered. 'Hello?' came her mother's voice.
'Hi, Mum, it's me. How are you?'
~ 48 ~
Joan found it was impossible to be in the house with the builders constantly crashing and banging about. There was too much noise for her to watch television in the living room – not to mention the filthy mouths on the lot of them – so she'd had to remain in her bedroom.
She'd read the Women's Weekly and New Idea from cover to cover and realised with a start it was already 2 pm. She was well overdue for her daily ablutions. Buggered if she was going to use the downstairs bathroom. With the amount of times those bloody great men lumbered down the hall to do God-only-knows-what in her private bathroom, one of them would be sure to burst in on her. If she went upstairs to use the family washroom she'd be guaranteed her privacy.
And today of all days. Her right hip was really playing up. It had stopped her from getting around a lot lately. Not that anyone cared. Sera was forever gallivanting around town and poor Tony was working tirelessly of late. Poor dear.
She'd booked in to see the doctor, but since her regular doctor had retired she'd had to visit some young upstart who looked like he was straight out of primary school and clearly his inexperienced flibbertigibbet of a receptionist knew nothing, otherwise she wouldn't have made a woman in terrible pain wait until Friday for an appointment.
Joan mumbled and grumbled her way up to the stone-tiled haven and took her time drawing a lovely hot bath. She poked in the bathroom cabinet for some Epsom salts to ease the ache in her hip. But nothing so practical existed in this Aladdin's cave of luxuriant lotions and potions, she noted with displeasure. There'd have to be thousands of dollars worth of top-end nonsense here, she thought as she picked up one, wrinkling her nose at the ingredients. We made do with a tub of cold cream in my day, she thought.
She found a sample of Clarins bath gel and poured a liberal dose into the water. 'Probably have me break out in a rash,' she muttered as she sank into the hot water.
After a long soak, Joan emerged from the bath feeling a lot less cantankerous. She finished drying herself and wrapped her body up in her old favourite chenille dressing gown, then wandered into the master bedroom to look out over the construction site. At least the idiot builders were packing up early and heading off.
The roof of the new renovation covered what used to be her beautiful patio. A huge lump of sadness came up into her throat. She knew that Tony and Sera were planning on landscaping a beautiful courtyard at the rear of the property, but that didn't reduce the pain she felt about losing the patio.
They didn't know how much it meant to her. They didn't know what had happened there so many years ago and how that had changed her life forever. But how could they? How could anyone know? Only one other person had been there and even he didn't know the full story.
She pulled herself out of her miserable trance and left her memories in the broken patio.
Halfway down the steep staircase, Joan stepped on one of the kids' toys. Her right foot folded into an instant sprain that threw out her failing hip. She fell forwards and tumbled gently down the stairs to lie in a heap at the bottom. She tried to move, to crawl to the phone, but the searing pain from her dislocated hip prevented even the slightest movement. She was stuck. In agony. And there was nothing she could do. Nothing at all, except wait until someone came home.
*
Oh my head, Sera thought, climbing the stairs from the carport, loaded down with shopping bags and with two children in grizzly tow. What a day. What an enormous, ridiculous day. She'd had one too many at Icebergs the night before.
Since getting up at six am, she'd completed enough tasks to make a ward-nurse look like a lay-about. The builders had arrived at seven, as always, and having grown quite accustomed to kicking off their work day with early morning caffé lattes, espressos and cappuccinos, were unable to pick up a tool until Sera the barista had done her duty.
Maddy had a last-minute show-and-tell requirement involving a permanent marker and sticky tape. The makeshift laundry kitchen was having ventilation issues so the burnt toast smoke not only filled the house but also triggered the ear-splitting smoke alarm, accompanied by Harry's terrified scream.
Joan moaned and complained about her dicky hip; Tony had to fly, with apologies, to another building site. 'What's wrong with this bloody building site?' Sera had bitterly complained a little too loudly to his retreating back, which had sparked an entirely unnecessary marital spat. They might have just had fantastic make-up sex, but they were still a normal couple.
Then her day seemed to just get worse. Each Freedom Furniture sent her to another more out-flung Freedom to view a couch in a particular colour of Greige that was guaranteed to be on the floor. But at each outlet she found the couch had been mysteriously misplaced by a Stone couch. Not Greige at all. Very different. And the five-centimetre-square fabric swatch the staff kept showing her was hardly sufficient information for a furnishing decision.
She'd only just made it in time for her afternoon shift at DJs. It was pension day, so the department store was full of old ducks clucking over gloves and hats, sampling creams and perfumes and enquiring after each of her product lines in the most minute detail before purchasing a bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care and popping off to Dot's Diner for the Soup and Sandwich Senior's Special ($4.95 on Tuesdays).
Then the builders rang to say they were knocking off early because the materials they needed hadn't been delivered. She'd winced. Her fault: she'd forgotten to order the splashback last month.
She was the last to pick up her kids at crèche, and the children certainly weren't going to let her get away with that. With empty tummies and exhausted bodies, they squabbled relentlessly on the way home. 'Why is red?' Harry asked her repeatedly, growing increasingly enraged by her apparently insufficient answers.
When Sera finally reached the back door, she was emotionally and physically drained. She put the key in the lock. What else could possibly go wrong today?
At the base of the stairs lay Joan's bizarrely twisted body in a crumpled heap. The voice that floated up from the depths of her dressing gown was muffled and weak.
'About time you got home. Where in the hell have you been?'
~ 49 ~
The cyclists' bells behind her forced Bella to the side of the Centennial Park running track. She'd left Parklands restaurant two kilometres ago and was feeling quite chuffed that she hadn't stopped for a breather yet.
Since her tentative Palazzo Versace epiphany, Bella had re-discovered so much about herself. And one of her most exhilarating realisations was that she loved to run. She'd stopped her daily jog several years ago when Curtis had cringed at her ruddy-cheeked appearance and sweaty armpits.
But now she was back on track, beating the asphalt with little care that wet strands of hair plastered her face and neck. It was so lovely to be back in Sydney and she couldn't believe she'd been avoiding the city for so long. But while the spectre of her failed marriage had loomed, and as her sister had grasped onto her like a drowning woman, it had been a difficult place to enjoy. But now that both situations had eased, she felt free to revel in Sydney's remarkable views, architecture and entertainment.
Bella was enjoying her sister's company more than ever since the dynamics of their relationship had shifted. They were now more like equals than big sister and little sister, and able to enjoy a healthy friendship.
Bella was also relieved to see that Sera had been able to accept their mother's limitations and manage a warmer relationship with her. She was never going to be an ideal mother – her needy and demanding behaviour would be likely to continue – but with her daughters now ringing her on alternate days she spent her phone conversations talking more and complaining less.
*
The restaurant was coming back into view and Bella was thrill
ed at how much faster her time was getting. She didn't run to keep her figure trim, she ran because she loved the power of pounding the pavement. It was her meditation.
A horse clopped past and blew an equine raspberry in her direction. Bella laughed and brushed the droplets of horse spit from her face.
She wasn't rostered on with Air Australia for a whole week and was using her free time to meet up with one of her old friends each day. There were a lot of new baby and house-warming presents to buy. There was so much to catch up on. Her next flight was to Hong Kong on Saturday and for the first time in years she felt disappointed about leaving town.
Bella increased her pace at the final one hundred metre mark and sprinted to complete the circuit. She walked in a circle, hands on hips, until she stopped panting. Wiping the sweat from her forehead with her forearm, she cringed as she noticed the streak of grime left on the back of her hand. She wiped it off with her T-shirt. It was going into the wash anyway.
A bus full of office Christmas party revellers unloaded at Parklands for their end-of-year celebration. Bella's breathing eased off as her heart rate slowed.
A great idea suddenly flashed in Bella's mind. A girls' weekend – just Bella and Sera – in Hong Kong would be perfect. This time, without a massive fight. She could book them both in at The Peninsula, they could go shopping, and it would give Sera a much-needed break. And besides, now that Sera didn't need her so much, Bella was free to give her treats whenever she felt like it.
Bella pulled her iPhone out of her back pocket and rang her little sister with the exciting invitation.
~ 50 ~
Sera flew out of the childcare centre and rushed to the car. Right, six glorious hours to do ten hours' worth of jobs. The painters were putting on the final coat today, so she had to duck back home to let them in. She'd have to ring Joan in the hospital and see how the nurses had offended her today. The new furniture was being delivered this morning and Telstra had promised to arrive sometime between nine am today and Christmas to install a new telephone outlet.
