Tiddas

by Anita Heiss

  Praise for Tiddas

  ‘Brisbane through jacaranda-tinted glasses, the river and a group of loud-mouthed, big-hearted girlfriends flowing through it. Generous, witty, a paean to BrizVegas, friendship and sophisticated urban Aboriginal life: only Anita Heiss is writing this new contemporary women’s story.’ – Susan Johnson

  ‘This enjoyable and human story is impressively interwoven with historical and contemporary Aboriginal issues.’ – Sun Herald

  Praise for Not Meeting Mr Right

  ‘Heiss creates the genre of Koori chick lit in Not Meeting Mr Right’ – The Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘Anita is Aboriginal Australia’s answer to Whoopi Goldberg.’ – Jackie Huggins

  Praise for Avoiding Mr Right

  ‘Sassy, intelligent, strong, independent and brilliantly funny’ – Deborah Mailman

  ‘Black Chicks Talking meets Bridget Jones in this sassy, sexy novel.’ – Sunday Times

  ‘Great witty entertainment from a clever young Aussie author. More please.’ – Woman’s Day

  Praise for Manhattan Dreaming

  ‘Captures all the wide-eyed excitement of Manhattan: the sights; the shopping; the history; and – of course – the men. It’s a contemporary romance with spunk.’ – Australian Bookseller and Publisher

  ‘With the classic romantic ending up the Empire State Building … this may well get you appreciating Aboriginal art and dreaming of life in the Big Apple.’ – The West Australian

  Praise for Paris Dreaming

  ‘Heiss writes with flair and gives readers what they look for in chick lit as well as added political and cultural interest.’ – The Daily Telegraph

  To my tiddas, for lifting me from life’s moments of darkness into the light again

  ‘Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.’

  Virginia Woolf

  1

  VIXENS

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ Izzy said nervously, squeezing her eyes tight with fear of the expected response from down the phone line.

  ‘Oh, you’re hilarious. Save the humour for TV,’ Tracey said with a laugh, not believing her pseudo-celebrity client. ‘Have you had a chance to read the contract I sent through? It’d be good to turn it around before the end of the week.’

  Izzy looked at the still unopened yellow envelope on her desk sitting next to three empty pregnancy test boxes.

  ‘I’m really pregnant,’ Izzy said seriously but softly, hoping she wouldn’t have to say it again. The words only reminded her of what was now an unfathomable situation.

  ‘Honey, it’s not funny a second time.’

  Izzy could hear a tinge of fright in Tracey’s voice and could picture her sitting upright at her desk in Sydney. It was the first time she was glad her agent was in another state and they weren’t having the conversation face to face.

  ‘I’m not trying to be funny,’ Izzy said cautiously, still waiting for the fallout from the best contract negotiator in the business.

  Tracey was tiny and friendly, but like a pit bull terrier when it came to cutting deals for Izzy. And while they had never argued, Izzy had seen how angry her passionate and determined agent could get with people who stuffed her around. Tracey had already spent eighteen months negotiating a deal with a new digital station about her client hosting a chat show on their network. Izzy knew she’d be pissed off if it all fell through now because of an unexpected ‘situation’.

  ‘You can’t be pregnant, you don’t even like kids,’ Tracey said, affirming a decade of what Izzy had professed at every opportunity. ‘Careers before kids. Moët over breast milk. Stretch limos not stretch marks!’ These had been Izzy’s mottos since deciding upon a career on camera at thirty. ‘And you don’t even have a boyfriend,’ Tracey added. ‘Or do you?’

  Izzy stood shaking her head. She was pregnant, she didn’t like kids and she didn’t have a boyfriend – just Asher, her friend with benefits.

  ‘Izzy?’

  There was silence.

  ‘Izzy?’ Tracey pressed. ‘Tell me this isn’t true. It’ll be the end of your yet-to-even-begin mainstream television career, the one I’ve been busting my bony arse to help you build for the last decade.’ Her voice got louder and more aggressive. ‘The career we’ve been strategising over, waiting for the big break. The break that is in that contract I sent you.’

  Izzy put the phone on speaker, picked up the envelope and pulled out the pages with yellow tags where she was meant to sign. It was the contract she’d wanted and worked for all her professional life: her own show; her own brand; her own audience; the first Blackfella to host a mainstream talk show on free-to-air television. She was going to be Australia’s Oprah. She held her dream carefully in her hands, and her nightmare unwillingingly in her belly.

  She slid slowly into the red leather bucket chair she’d bought herself when she landed the Brisbane-based contract to host the news channel for Queensland Arts and Culture. Her stories specifically focused on Brisbane’s cultural precinct and events, and artists associated with the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, the State Library, the Queensland Museum and the nearby art galleries. The show was broadcast on Arts Queensland’s own online station. It was a valuable stepping stone for Izzy and she loved it. So proud of her achievement in simply landing the job, she ordered the chair and had it shipped from the US as a gift to herself. It was where she sat to read scripts, her research notes, the newspaper and books for her book club. She’d been known to nap in the chair too.

  ‘Izzy,’ Tracey said gently, ‘are you sure?’

  Izzy looked with nausea at the half-eaten Mars Bar and sultana sandwich over on the breakfast bar, something she assumed came from what were known in the pregnancy world as cravings. She’d also been drinking more water and was wanting to eat oranges and pickles at odd times of the day.

  ‘Three pregnancy tests and some . . . symptoms,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘So, yes, I am sure.’

  ‘Who have you told?’

  Izzy could hear Tracey’s mind ticking over, going into damage control, as was her job when things didn’t go to plan.

  ‘Just you.’ Izzy’s voice quivered. She could feel her tear ducts beginning to fill.

  ‘What about your mother? Because if you’ve told her then we may as well say goodbye now.’ In her mind’s eye Izzy could see Tracey pacing the mezzanine floor of her office and running a hand through her thick black hair. ‘You know the Koori grapevine will be spreading the news like there’s no tomorrow, and there’ll certainly be no tomorrow for your career if this gets out.’

  Tracey was the only Black agent in the country and she knew the value of confidentiality on every level. Izzy knew she had to appease her though, aware her anxiety levels would be rising.

  ‘I haven’t told Mum.’

  Izzy couldn’t fathom telling her mother. It was a call to Mudgee she wasn’t willing to make just yet, and maybe never would. Trish wanted to start knitting booties whenever Izzy told her she was simply going on a date; she’d buy up the whole of Baby World if she thought there was actually another grandchild on the way. More importantly, Izzy’s mum had never forgiven her only daughter for breaking off her long-term engagement to Jack – the perfect son-in-law-to-be – because she wanted to have a career on the screen and not in the school canteen. Izzy knew that her mum’d completely disown her now if she chose a job over a child. And Trish would never approve of an abortion, or of Izzy being an unmarried mother – not as a Catholic, not as a woman wanting more grannies and not as a Wiradjuri Elder conscious of the role women had in growing the mob. Izzy and Tracey were both avoiding the subject of a termination in the conversation, and it was one that Izzy was trying not to think about at all.

  ‘What about the father? Have you told him? Do you know who it i
s?’ Tracey’s questions came bullet-fast and hit Izzy just as painfully.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, of course I know who it is.’

  Izzy thought back to the last time she’d seen Asher. It had been four weeks ago and they’d loved each other more than usual because he was going to Townsville for six weeks to train young Murri wanna-be chefs. She smiled, remembering the glow that had lasted the entire next day, but then remembered the condom that had somehow disappeared, needing to be retrieved with some skill and a lot of giggles. The penny dropped and so did her chin.

  ‘Izzy?’ Tracey pressed down the line. ‘Well?’

  ‘No, I haven’t told him.’ She was suddenly consumed by nausea and wasn’t sure if it was morning sickness or fear causing it.

  ‘Good! Don’t tell anyone else. Keep it to yourself for now,’ Tracey demanded, taking control of the situation. ‘I have to go to a meeting, I’ll call you later.’ She sounded businesslike but she was worried about her client, who was also a friend. Izzy’s career was important, but so too was her emotional and mental wellbeing. As if reading Izzy’s mind, Tracey added warmly, ‘And don’t beat yourself up, that won’t help the situation.’

  The phone went dead and Izzy put her head back against the cold leather of the chair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose, sighing outwardly through her mouth. Her iPhone alert went off. It was a text from Xanthe –

  See you at book club tonight 7pm.

  The last thing Izzy wanted to do was see Xanthe. How could she sit there and listen to her tidda discuss the desperate lengths she and her perfect husband – the English humanitarian lawyer they called ‘Mr Darcy’ – were going to in order to fall pregnant? They’d been married for five years already and for at least the past twelve months Xanthe had been trying to conceive. They wanted to be parents. Xanthe actually wanted morning sickness and a bulging belly and someone to knit her baby booties. How could Izzy possibly face her pregnant with a baby she didn’t plan, couldn’t really look after and didn’t actually want?

  Her phone went again. This time it was her sister-in-law Nadine.

  Looking forward to a decent drink and a yarn about a book that’s not mine. XX

  Bugger! Izzy thought. She loved her tiddas; they were her closest friends, they were her sistas in an Aboriginal sense, even though Nadine and Veronica were white. She had supported them, and vice versa, since school, and theirs was a bond stronger than words could define. And yet, today Izzy wanted to move the sisterhood boundary a little because she knew Nadine would be urging her to drink so she wasn’t the only lush, Xanthe would unknowingly be making her feel guilty about having the ‘luck’ she didn’t, Ellen would be complaining about the lack of eligible men in Brisbane and Veronica would be talking about her three perfect sons. Izzy didn’t want to talk about children or men at all. And she was fairly sure she wasn’t supposed to drink either. She just wanted to be alone. She wasn’t ready to talk to the girls about ‘it’ yet. That would only make ‘it’ more real.

  Her mobile beeped again. She’d have to go.

  Izzy took a few deep breaths as she drove to her brother Richard and Nadine’s mansion in Upper Brookfield. Her sleek, fast, no-good-for-passengers silver convertible wasn’t designed for a baby seat in the back. The convertible that she’d convinced herself she could have because she would never have to pay school fees. The convertible that had caused one or two Blackfellas to accuse her of selling out, becoming white, turning too flash for her own good. Her convertible: the most comfortable place after her bed and her red chair.

  She parked the car and checked her lipstick in the rear-view mirror. She needed an eyebrow wax and her chin lasered. She wondered if the hormone changes during pregnancy would mean more facial hair. She hoped not. For the time being she was grateful that being in the public eye meant that all her beauty needs were tax deductible.

  She looked down the length of Richard and Nadine’s driveway and at their perfectly manicured front garden – full of roses, gardenias and camellias – and realised how different her brother’s life was to hers in West End, and indeed, to her own personal life. Izzy could never imagine living on an acreage, but Nadine wanted the semi-rural life, and with the inheritance from her father’s winery when he passed on, she and Richard had built an amazing, architect-designed house. It was on the top of a small mountain with 360-degree views, a lift, a chef’s kitchen, five bedrooms all with built-ins and ensuites, and a beautiful outdoor spa perched on top of an adjacent ridge. It was extravagant by any measure, and especially by Black standards, but Izzy was pleased her older brother had married for love, a love that just coincidentally came with money. The property was worth around six million so none of the girls ever argued when Nadine offered to pay for dinner. If anyone could afford to shout them, it was her.

  Although wealthy, Nadine was still thrifty; she always had been. She was completely unaffected by how much money she and Richard had in the bank. To her, money was a means to an end. She knew she was lucky, very lucky compared to most, and that her tiddas would pull her into line if she ever forgot it. Apart from living in the massive mansion with top-of-the-range everything, buying outrageously generous gifts for her tiddas come birthdays and Christmas, and having a private Pilates instructor, she shipped an endless supply of wines and gourmet treats from Mudgee to her pantry – to support her home-town community, she’d tell Richard, because she didn’t want to be one of those people who took money out of the region and never gave back. She might be a lush but she was a loyal one. Her generosity was only kept in check by her sometimes penny-pinching ways; she made Richard shop for the basics at Aldi in Ashgrove because Veronica swore they were the cheapest.

  Upper Brookfield – or UB, as the girls called it – worked for Nadine, who saw herself an ‘eccentric writer’ of sorts; she was often broody and people mistook that for creative genius at work. Life in UB worked for her family too. Her stay-at-home husband did all the maintenance around the house, grew all their vegetables and was the main caregiver for their two overindulged children – Brittany and Cameron – who went to the local independent school. Richard was a landscape architect by trade, and only needed to work on a few properties in the local area to make him feel he was doing something professional and at least making some coin. Hired by the wealthy to make their properties look even better, it was a job he loved and did with ease – and he didn’t have to do much of it to feel useful. It was obvious to all who knew him that Richard continued to work when he didn’t need to because he’d feel completely emasculated otherwise. What he and Nadine had never told a soul, not even Izzy because neither were ‘big-noters’, as they joked to themselves, was that all his income was sent to his and Izzy’s mother back in Mudgee, which meant that in her own circle she bought the RSL lunches and threw the best morning teas. Richard paid it forward to his mum and then Trish paid it forward to her friends. It was the Wiradjuri way.

  When they’d first looked at the property, Richard had met with the local native title body to find out who the traditional owners were and how he and Nadine might negotiate something that acknowledged and respected them as custodians. While Nadine had no problem with some formal recognition of land of the local Blackfellas, she was reluctant to do much more. She did, however, agree to pay a generous donation to the representative body as a form of ‘paying the rent’ and they in turn set up a trust fund for educating their local mob. A local Elder smoked the house and site before they moved in. Together they named the property Bumbar – which was Turrbul for tree blossom or flower.

  Brookfield didn’t have the cafés, bars and groovy shops that Boundary Street in West End was famous for, so when Nadine needed a decent caffeine fix or just something more than grass to look at, Richard would drive his unlicensed wife to the Brookfield General Store, where she would drink the surprisingly good coffee and write for hours. With her laptop or pages from her latest manuscript in front of her, she would sit editing, re-drafting, thinking up new plo
ts and characters, and trying not to get drawn into conversations with any of the locals.

  Nadine had celebrity status but she loathed it. She hated how strangers sometimes thought they knew her simply because they’d bought her books, or heard her on the radio, or seen her on the telly. She hated that she had to be nice all the time, even when she was feeling down or, as she was most days, hungover. If the General Store served alcohol Nadine would have spent even more time there. Instead, she had to wait for Richard to pick her up after he dropped the kids home from school and then have her own happy hour at Bumbar. On Fridays, while Richard did the grocery shopping, she’d sit in the Kenmore Tavern for a couple of hours. Then they’d both have the ‘12 at 12’ luncheon special – Nadine at her thrifty best.

  As Izzy walked up the drive she saw Xanthe’s and Veronica’s cars already lined up perfectly as if they’d been valeted. Nadine had so much money Izzy hadn’t been surprised when she’d hired valets to park cars at a New Year’s Eve party they’d hosted. Izzy was proud of her sister-in-law and her success as a novelist, and glad Nadine had married her brother, who’d never read a book cover to cover until his wife made the bestseller list. Now at least he read his wife’s books, and occasionally the books the women read for book club. Izzy wasn’t a crime fanatic but she had read all of Nadine’s works, secretly searching for a character based on her. There never was one. She hadn’t seen any trace of the other tiddas in them either. In fact, there were no Blackfellas in any of Nadine’s books, which hadn’t gone unnoticed by the media worker and self-appointed lit critic.

  ‘I’d either have to make you the murdered or the murderer,’ Nadine had once said to Izzy, explaining why she never wrote about any of her friends or family in her crime novels. ‘And I don’t want to think of any of you that way.’

  Izzy rang the doorbell as she walked in the front door. It always amazed her that the house was often left completely unlocked, unlike her own chained and deadlocked West End door – a true sign of living in the city. As her phone rang for the third time that day with Tracey’s name flashing, she sent it to voicemail again.