Tiddas

by Anita Heiss

  ‘Darling,’ Nadine said, approaching her half-sloshed and yet looking far healthier than Izzy had felt all week.

  ‘Hi there, lovey,’ Izzy said, kissing her sister-in-law on the cheek and handing over a bottle of sauv blanc, knowing that any gift of alcohol would be appreciated. She wanted to drown her sorrows but was determined not to drink a drop. Just in case.

  ‘Ooh, you know I love this, thanks. The girls are on the veranda, books in hands, bottles at the ready. What can I get you?’ Nadine was the perfect hostess, and at least usually appeared to be happy and upbeat, depending on how many drinks she’d had.

  ‘Nothing just yet,’ Izzy said. At least tomorrow she wouldn’t have a hangover.

  ‘Don’t be silly, we always have a bevy on book club night.’

  Nadine raised a wine glass the size of a small ice bucket in the air. They did always have a bevy on book club night because it was the one guaranteed night a month they all got together – using a book as an excuse – to catch up on each other’s lives. Izzy knew of other book clubs that functioned in the same way. She also knew women who used their book club as an excuse to get away from their husband or partner or kids for a few hours each month, to drink, goss and have a laugh. She didn’t want to become one of those women, though; she had a life, and didn’t need any excuse to get away from people she was supposed to love. A pang of panic struck her, but with Nadine busy opening another bottle, the flash of horror on her face went unnoticed.

  ‘Hello!’ Izzy said with some effort, attempting to be cheery as she walked outside onto the veranda.

  The sun was setting; citronella coils were burning to ward off the mozzies. It was still steaming hot weather for March and with no breeze Izzy desperately wanted to be inside under a blast of air-conditioning.

  ‘Hey,’ the women all chorused, and hugs and kisses followed.

  Izzy pulled up a wooden chair and put this month’s novel on the table, hoping no-one would notice anything different about her. She was convinced she looked pregnant, but wasn’t quite sure how that could be; by her calculations she was only about a month. She thought back to the moment she realised she was late; going to the toilet in the middle of the night for the third day running was something out of the ordinary and kept her awake long after she’d finished peeing. On the third night she decided to do some work, cracked open her diary and while flicking pages realised her bleed was overdue. The tenderness in her breasts she thought was related to her period was in fact not. She was frightened that night, and she was frightened now that Veronica and Xanthe, who were obsessed with children and having children, would notice something, and she wasn’t ready to dissect it.

  ‘Where’s Richard and the kids?’ Ellen asked Nadine, as she carried a platter of food to the table.

  The mere thought of eating dolmades or blue vein cheese turned Izzy’s stomach, let alone the smell of them.

  ‘There’s something on at the school tonight, they’re all there,’ Nadine said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be there?’ Xanthe sounded mortified. ‘We could’ve changed our night.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be there too?’ Izzy exclaimed, embarrassed that she hadn’t enquired first about her own family.

  ‘God no, Richard always does the school thing, not me. I hate that school; they let the kids run amok, do whatever they want. Cam wants to paint, they let him paint. These fancy independent schools shit me. It’s nothing like when we went to Mudgee Public where all the families were working class, parents pitched in and did working bees, and we were all disciplined. No, at this school everyone’s uppity. We just get a bill for whatever needs doing at the school and the kids pretty much run their own race. A “worldy” approach – ’ Nadine made quote signs in the air with her fingers – ‘to getting the kids to be grown up, apparently.’ Her tone was noticeably sarcastic. ‘I get in an argument every time I go there, so it’s best I don’t go.’

  Nadine set about making small plates for each of the girls, loving her role as hostess. Book club was the only real social life she had outside of book tours and talks, which she increasingly resented.

  ‘Why do you send them to that school then, if you don’t like going there?’ Veronica asked. ‘I was always at the school where my boys went. I did tuckshop, P & C, was a voluntary reader in the classroom. Not for my boys, though; they were brilliant readers, of course. Did I tell you that John was writing publishable short stories in 6th class?’

  ‘Yes,’ the others answered in unison.

  Veronica – mostly referred to by her tiddas as ‘Vee’ – was so proud of her boys they could never do wrong. And even though they’d all finished school and only one still lived at home, Veronica’s sole identity remained that of being mother to Jonathan, Neil and Marcus. Her conversation nearly always focused on her sons.

  ‘Anyway,’ Nadine said, ‘the suburb was my choice and the school was Richard’s. He’s quite happy running the house day to day and looking after the kids.’

  Izzy wasn’t convinced her brother was completely happy keeping the household on an even keel while his wife was earning most of the money, but they seemed to be content so she never said anything; it wasn’t her place to anyway. The other tiddas thought Nadine was the luckiest woman on the planet having her man do the domestics, chase after the kids and, as Ellen had always put it, look drop dead gorgeous to boot.

  ‘I trust his judgement completely on the schooling front,’ Nadine said seriously. ‘It’s not like it was when we were kids where you had no choice but to go to Mudgee Public if you lived west, north or east of the train line, and to Cudgegong Valley if you lived south. And it was just lucky that we all went to Mudgee High, and school and home were almost the same. Remember? We were hardly ever separated and never inside on weekends.’ Nadine smiled at the women she’d had sleepovers with as a teenager, recalling weekends together down by the river learning to smoke, school dances where they’d snuck some moselle behind the hall and how in summer they could be at the local pool from daylight until dark. ‘I worry teen life won’t be the same for Cam and Brit. Everything is about technology these days.’ They all thought back to how it had been in Mudgee, with boundaries always dictating who went where. ‘As for me and school, let’s face it, I’m not the best person to be advising on education, not having finished school myself.’

  The least academic of the group, Nadine had dropped out of Mudgee High in Year 10 before she got expelled for wagging for the tenth time by May that year. She was creative, though, good with her hands and had an eye for fashion and grooming, or so she thought after successfully braiding all her tiddas’ hair during a winter slumber party. She quickly found a traineeship as a hairdresser but she soon dropped out of that too. Back then and for years after, the girls all sang the Grease hit ‘Beauty School Dropout’ to her, laughing in hindsight at the dreadful dye jobs they had each allowed her to perform on them at the age of sixteen. Even though they were now all heading towards their fortieth birthdays, stories of Nadine’s hairdressing past could still make them laugh.

  ‘But you’ve done so well,’ Izzy said, proud that Nadine was the most famous Mudgee woman anyone knew, and that she married Izzy’s brother who only cracked it with the gardening business after they’d moved to Brookfield. In many ways they were the perfect match professionally once they both found their niche. Nadine was good at writing novels, she liked it, and didn’t even think about ‘dropping out’; while Richard not only had a green thumb, he had two, so he was also able to maintain interest and output without any effort or real challenge.

  ‘I agree,’ Ellen said. ‘Thirteen novels, some made into their own TV series and one a feature film. Hell, you’re an advertisement for not going to school. Maybe if I’d followed your lead I’d have a much more interesting love life instead of finding blokes at barbecues,’ Ellen joked.

  They all cracked up at Ellen’s way of describing her job as a funeral celebrant. She often came to the book club with bizarre cremation s
tories and others of dates she’d had with family members of those she’d helped laid to rest. Ellen was happily single, but getting tired of the lack of dating potential in Bris-Vegas. She’d said at the last meeting she was ready to do something drastic, but her tiddas didn’t really know what that meant. Neither did she.

  ‘As I was saying . . .’ Nadine, although the reluctant celebrity, was often the most outgoing, the loudest of the group, especially when juiced up, and therefore remained desperate to stay in the limelight and determined to keep her friends out of it. ‘I let Richard guide their schooling, and he loves hanging out with the mothers. They all think he’s hot, which he is, and he gets a little ego boost there.’

  Nadine was sizzling herself: with a lean build, she stood six feet tall and although she drank like a fish, almost everything she ate was organically grown at home or locally produced. Her personal Pilates instructor visited three times a week and her body was as taut and toned as any woman could hope for. Unlike the women at the school with their Botox parties, Nadine had vowed never to let the bacteria that causes botulism go anywhere near her head.

  She ran her manicured nails through her blonde hair and continued. ‘Quite frankly, when I tried to be part of the parenting community there, all they wanted to do was sit around all day, eat sticky date pudding, discuss the latest cosmetic surgery or talk about the next school fair. I realised pretty quickly that if I spent too much time with them I’d write a book with characters based on them and have them all killed off and then we’d have to leave Brookfield altogether. And I don’t want to leave here, it reminds me so much of Mudgee.’ She swept her arms through the air towards the trees and rolling hills beyond. ‘This is where I want to stay.’

  Nadine took a seat at the table and the five women watched the sun finally disappearing behind some jacaranda trees. While the signature purple flowers had disappeared, the fine green foliage was still something to appreciate.

  ‘Who’d have thought we’d all end up in Bris-Vegas, eh? Mudgee is a world away from here,’ Izzy said, contemplative and momentarily forgetting about her situation, recalling how she had arrived in the northern city at twenty-three years of age, straight out of uni in Bathurst, inspired by Veronica and grateful that she had already settled there with her family three years prior. Richard and Nadine had followed Izzy within the year because Trish was worried about her daughter, and they’d had enough of Mudgee. They weren’t sure where they wanted to be but having at least one family member in Brisbane helped them decide. It was another four years before Xanthe arrived, via Sydney University, to work with a local Aboriginal community organisation, sharing a flat with Izzy for the first couple of years and partying hard. When Ellen showed up three years later ready to take over Murri funerals in Brisbane, it was like old times.

  ‘No, it’s not a world away at all,’ Nadine said, passing a white ceramic bowl around. ‘These are Mudgee olives,’ she smiled.

  ‘And the wine?’ Ellen raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, someone’s got to keep the wineries afloat,’ Nadine laughed, raising her glass.

  Even without the book sales and TV deals she’d always had money. Always had the best, and always had whatever she wanted, including Richard, who for a long time as a teenager had loved her, but never thought he was up to her standards. Nadine could easily have been a snob with her wealth, but she’d grown up knocking around with all the other working-class kids, and money had never changed her.

  ‘Oh!’ Xanthe exclaimed. ‘I just remembered, my cousin asked if she could join our book group, but I said I’d have to ask.’ She smiled, hoping for a positive response.

  ‘No,’ Nadine said adamantly.

  ‘That’s not very kind,’ Xanthe said, wounded, as she was quite easily prone to be.

  ‘Well, this group is really the Mudgee group. Did your cousin go to Mudgee High with us?’

  Nadine sounded a little nasty and a tad crazy but Izzy tended to agree with her. She didn’t like the thought of someone else coming into their little tidda gathering and changing the dynamics. It could be complex enough at times with the diversity of personalities already within the group without adding another one to the mix.

  ‘No, she grew up in Wagga,’ Xanthe said, ‘but she’s my family.’

  ‘Well?’ Nadine looked around the table for comment from the others.

  ‘Wagga Wagga is Wiradjuri country too, so there’s another link,’ Veronica said, always the peacemaker and hating conflict. She didn’t care who else joined the group, given the monthly meetings were her only chance at conversation with other women, and she wanted and needed as much intellectual stimulation as possible.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  ‘I know she’s family, and she’s Wiradjuri and Wagga also has a great boutique winery at the Charles Sturt Uni in case you didn’t know, and they have a fabulous writers’ centre, right opposite the winery, which of course makes it the perfect setting for any writer . . .’ Nadine sounded like she might be coming round. ‘But – ’

  ‘But what?’ Xanthe cut in. ‘What’s the problem then?’

  ‘It’s just that I had an idea about the name of our group.’ Nadine grabbed a small gold gift bag from the chair next to her as she spoke, and pulled out professionally produced name tags. ‘I think we should call ourselves the “Vixens”! She made air quotes and looked rather proud of herself.

  ‘The what?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Why do we need a name, especially one like that?’ questioned Xanthe, the most conservative of the group.

  ‘Hear me out,’ Nadine said. She took another long sip from her wine glass. ‘Vixen is the acronym our names spell.’

  She pointed to each woman as she spoke: ‘Veronica, Izzy, Xanthe, Ellen and Nadine.’ She poked herself in the chest to make the point.

  ‘Right,’ Izzy said. ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘So, unless your cousin’s name begins with an “S”, dear Xanthe, then the answer is no, she cannot join because she will ruin my acronym, and I am the writer and I get to choose the words around here.’ Nadine was only half kidding. Although she rarely talked about her work, she did pull authorly rank when it suited her.

  ‘I don’t like it though; it’s kind of like cougars,’ Veronica said. ‘And I am not a cougar. I certainly don’t prey on – or want – young men.’

  ‘None of us are cougars,’ Nadine laughed.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Ellen chimed in. ‘I’ll take what I can get at this stage!’

  ‘Look, aside from Ellen, who is joking, I’m sure,’ Xanthe said, sounding somewhat unsure of herself, ‘some of the group are actually happily married.’ She held up her ring finger with its stunning, princess-cut stone surrounded by tiny pink Argyle diamonds.

  ‘I think I’d rather be a cougar than a vixen,’ Ellen said. ‘Let’s face it, who wants to be known as a malicious woman with a bad temper?’

  ‘I thought we’d simply make the word a positive. You know, use artistic licence.’ Nadine was walking up and down the veranda, a firm grasp on her glass, as if she were pacing out a storyline for one of her novels. ‘Let’s see,’ she was thinking out loud. ‘Vixens can also spell out . . . Very . . . intelligent . . . xenophilian . . .’

  ‘Xeno what?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Xenophilia is the opposite of xenophobia, so we love foreigners,’ Izzy chimed in, having learned the word recently while interviewing a former Democrats senator about the latest disaster in refugee intakes and offshore processing on Manus Island.

  ‘And you’re proof of that, aren’t you, Xanthe, married to Mr Darcy and all?’ Nadine smiled at Xanthe who blushed like a new bride.

  ‘As I was saying, very intelligent xenophilian . . .’ Nadine closed her eyes and they all waited for the final words. ‘. . . easy-going natives.’

  ‘No,’ they cried out simultaneously, laughing.

  ‘For one, you’re not a “native”, as you put it!’ Ellen said. ‘And sorry, sleeping with a Blackfella doesn’t mean Abo
riginality has been sexually transmitted either.’

  ‘Let’s brainstorm it then,’ Nadine said. ‘I can wheel my whiteboard out here.’ She had one leg inside the house but Izzy grabbed the back of her cotton dress before she could get her other leg in.

  ‘We’ll go with “Vixens”, okay? Can we just get into the book?’ Veronica looked to the others for agreement mainly to avoid a potential disagreement, which was the norm between Nadine and Ellen.

  The tiddas smiled and nodded simply to move the discussion along. Nadine sat down feeling like she’d won, Ellen poured them all some water and Izzy began the discussion.

  ‘Well, the novel is the fictionalised story of the relationship between the author and her father.’ She stopped abruptly, realising that the issue of parenthood was going to be a large part of the discussion and she wasn’t prepared for it. But to her great relief Veronica jumped in and started listing the political issues covered in the book.

  ‘Aside from the personal relationships portrayed in Legacy,’ Veronica took her role in the discussions far more seriously than any of the others, ‘there’s the cleverly woven history of the tent embassy, as well as a layman’s guide to native title and sovereignty . . .’ She smiled, proud of her immediate contribution.

  The other women looked at the post-it notes throughout her copy of the book and her debating-style cards with a handwritten scrawl across them. Veronica was the only one who took the meetings that seriously, but each in their own head was grateful for it. Veronica read every book twice before each meeting, simply because she had the time. Since her doctor husband of twenty-two years had left her for his oh-so-stereotypical receptionist, she had not only got the house at The Gap and a nice Lexus, but with the ongoing ‘guilt payments’ he made without being asked, she’d never have to work. Not that she’d ever had a long-term or full-time job anyway. Marrying the local doctor in Mudgee because she was pregnant when she was only eighteen was the talk of the town at the time, but she loved him, and that meant something, everything to her. The problem now was this tidda had no real sense of herself; she’d gone from being known as ‘the doctor’s wife’ to being ‘the boys’ mother’ with nothing else in between. They were all working on helping Veronica find a new path, a career, and an interest in something other than her never-can-do-wrong sons. Izzy was always glad to see Veronica; for one thing, she reminded her of why a career was important, and that while a marriage certificate might give you financial security, it didn’t necessarily guarantee relationship longevity.