The Mothers

by Rod Jones

  ‘So!’ Henry grinned. ‘Today’s the big day! Congratulations, you two!’

  ‘Have you voted?’ David asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. I voted at the Town Hall before I left.’

  In the car, Henry sat in the passenger seat, David in the back with his bottle, while Cathy drove.

  Henry seemed cheerful enough, she thought. He was looking out with interest at the passing summer countryside.

  ‘We’re going to beat the Liberal scum,’ David said.

  ‘But what if the Liberal scum win?’ Henry asked. ‘What will you do if Gough loses?’

  ‘You remember what Joyce says? Silence, exile and cunning.’

  Henry laughed in appreciation. He turned to Cathy. ‘So you’re still planning to go and live in Greece?’

  ‘We’ve got a baby to settle in first. Then we’ll see.’

  ‘I can’t wait to get out of this fucking country,’ David said from the back seat.

  Cathy stood in her wedding dress, a loose caftan of tie-dyed cotton, looking out over the shimmering fields of wheat. It was one of those glorious, early summer days, anticipation in the air. None of the other guests had arrived yet.

  Behind the trestle table at the end of the garden was the eighteen-gallon keg Dad had brought from town on the back of the ute. David was trying to get the gas pressure right; Henry, even more impractical, was trying to help him. Beer spurted from the pluto gun like something alive. David was drinking the beers as soon as they filled the glasses. He’s going to spew, she thought.

  Later, she followed David as he wandered off alone past the machinery shed. The open, corrugated shed smelled like gum trees and petrol. David was on his hands and knees on the hard, oily ground beside the header. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked from the doorway.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve drunk too much.’

  ‘A bit,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been sick. Do you feel better now?’

  ‘I feel like I don’t want to be here.’

  ‘Come on back to the house and sit with Henry. He’s our friend. He wants to be here with us.’

  ‘I love Henry,’ David said.

  He is really drunk, she thought. It was the first time she had heard David say that he loved anyone.

  Next to the machinery shed was the barn, set high off the ground on pylons to protect the seed from mice. This was where their friends from Melbourne would set up their sleeping bags tonight, people at one end of the bare boards, bags of wheat leaning against one another at the other.

  David climbed into the ute. Dad always kept the keys in the ignition. ‘Maybe we can drive out to the Yerri-yerri and hide there until it’s over?’

  ‘But it’s our wedding!’ she said indignantly.

  The Yerri-yerri. The old house with the ballroom on the other side of the water. It seemed so long ago already that she’d had the pipe dream of them living there.

  Cathy had wanted to celebrate their union in the wheat fields she loved, with the lambs and the gums and the crows and the carrion, the cycle of farm life she knew so well. From behind the machinery shed now a crow cawed out its single derisory note. Down on the road, the first cars were arriving. They came from Bordertown, from Naracoorte, from as far away as Adelaide, from Warrnambool and Colac and Portland. Some of them arrived in utes; most came in family sedans, newly washed, like themselves. Red-faced farmers, friends of her father she hadn’t seen in years, their wives in floral frocks, faces like those from the early days of television.

  After the first few introductions, David hardly bothered. If a hand was offered, he shook. If he was congratulated, he thanked. He was going through the motions. It was Cathy who went back and forth, greeting this one and that.

  She passed the kitchen window and glimpsed Molly in there, laying out plates with a posse of local ladies. She had mentioned a few sponges, but she must have been baking for a week. Her famous pavlovas were puffed up on the kitchen table, waiting for her to add the whipped cream. Crystal bowls of trifle were steeping in wine. Tiers of wedding cake looked as if they’d topple at any moment.

  The afternoon was already hot. More and more people were arriving now. For an instant, they seemed to Cathy like aliens approaching over the uneven ground, bearing gifts. The afternoon slumber of the Saturday paddocks was broken by the thumps of car doors. ‘Did you remember to vote?’ they kept asking each other.

  Their friends from Melbourne had WE WANT GOUGH and I’M A LABOR LOVER stickers on the rear windows of their cars and vans. They tumbled out with their long hair and flared jeans and bright Tshirts, peering around as if stunned to find themselves suddenly in these fields of high ripe wheat. Murray and Vanessa were already steeling themselves against the likely election results.

  A tarp over the Hills Hoist provided some shade, and there were seats for the older guests. Family members took up their designated stations. Some city and country guests introduced themselves, while others sat apart. Cathy stood watching Henry, behind the trestle table, exuberantly pouring glass after glass of beer. As often as not, the beer spurted everywhere. She kept walking.

  Olive was helping Molly and the other woman to bring out plates of sausage rolls and party pies. The plate in Olive’s hand made her tremor more noticeable. David’s Aunt Rosie was helping too, a large, happy woman, her eyes watering from laughing so much.

  A thin, elderly man was sitting on a folding chair near the bay window. He had withdrawn into the shadow as if intent on making himself invisible. Uncle Hoppy was wearing an ancient double-breasted suit with wide lapels, his hat pushed back, a hand-rolled cigarette in the corner of his mouth, his usual long-suffering smile. Cathy felt an affinity with Uncle Hoppy, she couldn’t explain why.

  David’s Uncle Teddy stood rigidly beside Hoppy, his brilliantined hair completely white, still a handsome man with his powerful frame. Cathy was reminded again how Molly’s fair complexion was completely different from Teddy and Olive’s swarthy skin and dark eyes. Hoppy and Teddy were talking together in their usual laconic way, the same few phrases endlessly repeated, as they must have been doing since the 1920s. She knew they all still lived in Footscray, within a couple of streets of each other.

  Cathy looked around, continuing to put names to faces. She felt satisfied. For the moment, all was well: David’s earlier chunder seemed to have taken all the aggression out of him; now the more beer he drank, the more his speech and movements slowed, as if in a masquerade of patience and tolerance.

  Mr and Mrs Anthony, neighbours, wanted to be introduced to David.

  ‘This gentleman must be the groom,’ Mrs Anthony said. Groom. It was one of those words like husband that David disapproved of. ‘People usually ask if you’re on the bride’s side or the groom’s side, as if the war has already started, ha-ha!’

  Their teenage son, Tony, had come straight from cricket, his face flushed above his white shirt. He had that liniment and rubber smell of the change rooms. Cathy nudged David to offer his hand, but when they had finished shaking, David’s hand hung in the air, as if his mind had wandered. ‘You’re a lucky fella to bag yourself a nice lass like Cathy,’ Mr Anthony said to David. His wife’s frock, handbag and hat would not have been out of place at Flemington.

  Mr and Mrs Anthony probably didn’t see this as a proper wedding, Cathy thought. To them, a wedding
is white, a veil, the bride being given away by her father. There should have been a church, there should have been bells ringing to spread the good news. But, white wedding or not, they were getting married, and Cathy was grateful. It meant a lot to her father that the baby would be born in wedlock, the good opinion of his neighbours vouchsafed.

  As the late-afternoon sunshine streamed through the venetian blinds in the dining room, the civil celebrant, a local insurance salesman, quoted his bit of Kahlil Gibran. Cathy felt that the ceremony was over before it had really started. Kodak Instamatics flashed, bottles of Bodega popped and the toasts were made.

  Molly was standing between her brother and sister, their faces solemn, bearing witness. Cathy could see there was something in the set of Olive’s and Teddy’s bodies that was still protecting Molly. Their faces were alert and watchful, as if they were still on the lookout for some predator who might at any moment come looking for her. Molly’s face was filled with pride, pity, love, fear.

  By six o’clock, the party had divided into two camps. The Melbourne people were in the living room, lamenting the election results on television; the rest of the guests were around the barbecue in the garden, celebrating the victory of the conservatives. David had been ducking inside to the television all evening to see the latest from the tally room. Cathy heard him saying, ‘I’d shoot Fraser and Kerr, if I had half a chance. I’m not kidding.’ But the bravado of those boozy Fitzroy nights sounded out of place here.

  Cathy was fiddling with the wedding ring, sliding it on and off her finger. She was married, then not. Married, then not. Her wedding was not supposed to turn out like this.

  Sometime after midnight, they got to bed. Finally things went quiet outside. David slept peacefully but Cathy was wakeful, thoughts racing. She tried to convince herself that everything was going to be all right. They would survive as a married couple. In a year or two they would go and live in Europe—David was convinced Australia had now lost its chance at greatness.

  Next month: the baby, the three of them a family. No matter what time might do to them—disappointments, failure, lack of money—they would support each other. She was David’s wife now. He was her husband. This was their baby on the way. That was all that mattered.

  She reached over and took David’s hand and placed it over her belly. She felt a fierce love for him just then, but also pity. She leaned across and kissed the side of his head. He seemed calmer, chastened in sleep. No rage, no struggle now.

  She left the bed at dawn and went outside. Morning mist covered the paddocks. The sound of bagpipes. She saw Henry wandering down the dirt track. Suddenly, Henry looked up. He had heard the bagpipes, too. At that moment, the piper came into view through the mist. It was her dad, marching through the wheat field, bagpipes wailing out a skirl that sounded like a lament for something.

  Anna

  COCKATOO, 1990

  ANNA THOUGHT SHE heard the postman. She was whipping egg whites; the Red Cross luncheon was on Thursday. She turned off the Mixmaster, listened. Hearing nothing, she turned it back on again. When she went to the front gate later, there was just one letter in the mailbox, her name and address typewritten on the envelope. The letter gave her an uneasy feeling.

  She phoned Mum every night at six o’clock. On Monday, Mum was apologetic: someone had rung. An old friend, he’d said. He’d lost Anna’s address. Forgotten her married name. Mum gave him Anna’s address without thinking. When she asked who was speaking, he said it didn’t matter and hung up.

  She opened the letter, read it, put it back into the envelope and placed it against the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. David. David?

  During the afternoon, she began crying uncontrollably. Waves of emotion broke through her body. She thought she must have been having a nervous breakdown.

  When Eric came home from work and saw her like that, he wrapped his arms around her. She cried and cried. Anna didn’t have to tell him what had happened; Eric already knew. ‘May I?’ he asked, and reached for the letter. He removed the single sheet and read in silence.

  All Anna could think was how relieved she was that she’d told him before they were married. Imagine what they’d be going through right now, if she hadn’t!

  ‘We don’t know anything about this man,’ Eric said.

  Anna whispered, ‘It’s him.’

  Eric considered for a moment. ‘He might be after money.’

  ‘Oh, Eric. He’s searching for his mother.’

  ‘He’ll probably want to meet you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s just that—with a stranger—it’s best to be careful. It might have a disruptive effect.’

  ‘On the kids, you mean?’ Anna inhaled deeply, trying to get the weeping under control. ‘What are they going to think of me? All my life a paragon of virtue and then suddenly—this. They’ll think me a terrible hypocrite. They’re going to lose all respect for me.’

  ‘Our children worship you, Anna.’

  ‘I’ve let them put me on a pedestal. But I am not really the mother they know.’

  ‘Of course you are. It’s just that it might be wise to take things slowly.’

  ‘You think I shouldn’t reply! But I can’t just ignore him. I can’t just pretend the letter never came!’

  ‘All I’m saying is that I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘It’s too late for that.’

  ‘You see? It’s hurting us already. Hurting our family. You’ve got four other children who do know you, and do love you.’ Now Eric was angry. He held up the sheet of paper and read, his voice harsh, ‘To whom it may concern!’

  ‘It must be what they told him to write.’ She remembered all too well the day five or six years ago when she had read on the front page of the Sun that the Victorian government had changed the law to allow adopted people to have access to their real birth certificates, and to trace their natural parents. ‘I can’t just go on as before, Eric. This changes everything. Even if it might be uncomfortable for us.’

  ‘We’ve both worked hard all our lives. Don’t you think we deserve a bit of comfort?’

  Eric turned and went out the back. Soon she heard him chopping firewood, even though there was already plenty in the wood bin in the lounge room.

  By tea time, he had calmed down. ‘Anna, you never think of yourself. And perhaps, just this once, you should. Don’t you see? You’re not obliged to acknowledge the letter, you know.’

  ‘I’ve locked him away for thirty-seven years. I had to, so that no one could ever make me suffer like that again. I can’t think of him as he must be now. To me, he’s still Kim, the baby he was that day they took him away. Do you understand that, Eric? My mind wouldn’t let him grow up. But perhaps now I have to.’

  Eric looked down at the table.

  On Sunday morning at eleven o’clock, Eric went into the kitchen to make the call. Anna listened from the next room.

  ‘Anna can’t come to the phone right now. She’s very upset. Too upset to talk. You must understand that your letter was a shock for her.’

  She heard Eric talking to the stranger on the phone. She still couldn’t think of him as Kim. ‘Anna is a fine person,’ Eric was telling him. ‘She is a wonderful mother, and she does voluntary work for the Red Cross, she visits hospitals.’

  Eric spoke about their other children; she was startled at the words ‘half-brother’, ‘
half-sisters’.

  After a few minutes, Anna went into the kitchen. Eric looked at her, then handed her the phone.

  ‘David?’ she asked. Her own voice sounded very far away.

  ‘Yes. This is David speaking.’

  A calm, confident voice. How could this be the voice of her baby?

  ‘I know this must be hard for you,’ he said.

  Despite her resolutions, she felt herself breaking down again.

  He didn’t seem to mind her silence.

  She asked him, ‘You’re married? You have children?’

  ‘Married to Cathy. Two boys and a girl.’

  ‘What are their names?’ Her voice was still shaky.

  He told her the names of his children, her natural grandchildren. She asked about their home, which she knew from the address in the letter was near the beach. How long had they lived there? How big was the garden?

  A hint of impatience in his tone as he replied, ‘We’re not all that interested in material things.’ What an odd thing to say, she thought. Perhaps he was some kind of hippy?

  No one knew what it had been like to be forced to give up her own child. Because she had relinquished him, there would always be that tear in the tissue of the universe. Anna already felt the impossibility of ever knowing him. She could tell right away that there was a certain unhappiness in him. Behind his voice, so full of poise, yet on edge, she sensed a man who was lost—a man who would always be lost. Anna knew already she could never really be part of his life.

  Eric watched her from the other side of the breakfast bar. He was one of those men who always feared the worst. She smiled and nodded, trying to reassure him that things were going well. Then she turned away to face the window.

  The man on the phone said that he wanted Anna and her husband to come to a public reading he was giving in a few weeks’ time. It was to be held at Mietta’s, ‘a posh place in the city,’ he said. ‘It will give us an opportunity to get to know each other.’