by Kylie Ladd
‘Great,’ Bronte replied. ‘I’ve got this fabulous art teacher, Ms Drummond.’ She blushed and stared at her lap. Would Janey understand about Ms Drummond? ‘She thinks my drawings are really good. I mean, she probably says that to everyone, but still . . .’ Bronte took a deep breath and rushed on. ‘She wants me to take her fashion design class next year. We have all these electives for art in year nine—fashion’s one, but there’s also ceramics and woodcraft . . . and I really want to, but I’m not sure what Mum will say. I think she wants me to stick with French. What would you do?’
She turned to Janey, but Janey wasn’t listening. She had her earbuds in and was mouthing the words of a Rhianna song.
Caro shifted in her seat, uneasy. To her right, Fiona sat with her eyes closed and her body frozen in position, turned away towards the wing; to her left, Morag was reading a guidebook, highlighting every second or third paragraph. Behind them Janey stared out the window nodding along to her music while Bronte flicked through a magazine. Had this been a mistake?
When she’d first come up with the idea for the trip, she’d imagined Fiona, Morag and herself giggling together on the flight, feet curled beneath them, leaning in to exchange confidences about the bikinis they’d packed or the waxing they’d endured. She’d pictured Janey and Bronte reconnecting, chatting about their schools or their nail polish, whatever it was fourteen-year-olds were interested in. Instead, they were already an hour out of Melbourne, and barely anyone had said a word to each other.
It would be alright once they were there, she told herself. Amira would put them all at ease, would enfold and include them. She was the one who had brought them together, after all. Eight years, Caro thought, leaning back in her seat. Nearly nine. You knew you were middle-aged when you found yourself wondering where the time had gone. But where had it gone? She still remembered that morning—the humid February drizzle, remnant of a cool change; Janey in a too-big uniform, starched and pleated, her hair in plaits. All summer she’d been excited about going to school, boasting about being a big girl, but when the day actually arrived she’d gripped Caro’s hand so tightly that her fingernails almost drew blood.
Amira had noticed. Amira, a total stranger, had seen Caro hesitate, seen Janey’s face quiver, and had swooped down and complimented the girl on her bright blue ribbons. ‘They match your eyes,’ she’d said, the perfect praise for a girl like Janey, who even at six couldn’t walk past a mirror without assessing her reflection.
‘I like your hair,’ Janey said in return, reaching out to touch it. ‘It’s all fuzzy.’
Amira had laughed. ‘That’s because of the rain.’ She tried to smooth it down, but the black curls sprang back undeterred. ‘Actually, it’s always pretty crazy. My daughter Tess thinks I look like a sheep. Would you like to meet her? She’s in this class too.’
‘OK,’ said Janey, dropping Caro’s hand and allowing herself to be led to a table where a dark-eyed child sat quietly colouring in a picture of a koala.
‘Thank you,’ Caro said once the two girls were exchanging textas.
‘Sorry—I hope you didn’t think I was rude, or interfering,’ Amira replied. ‘It was just that I could see she had her hands full.’ She nodded towards the teacher by the blackboard, one crying child clinging to her hip, another sitting at her feet calling for its mother.
‘Rude? I thought you were brilliant.’
Amira smiled. ‘Thanks. I’m a teacher myself. I know what first days are like, but most of the kids just need to be distracted.’ She held out a soft brown hand. ‘I’m Amira. Nice to meet you. They look fine, don’t they?’
Tess was peering over Janey’s shoulder offering encouragement while Janey carefully coloured the animal pink. A sliver of tongue protruded from her mouth, and her eyes were fierce with concentration.
‘They do,’ Caro said and shook Amira’s hand, feeling herself relax. ‘Caroline. And thank God. I don’t know who was more nervous about this morning, me or Janey, particularly when Alex couldn’t come. That’s my husband,’ she explained. ‘He’s away for work. He travels a lot. Is yours here?’
Amira shook her head. ‘Single parent. It’s just me and Tess.’
‘Oh. Sorry,’ Caro said.
‘Don’t be,’ said Amira. ‘The best thing he ever did was leave.’ She’d smiled, her white teeth a bright flash of light in her face.
Caro had liked Amira immediately, she recalled now: her confidence, her warmth, the way her gold hoop earrings gleamed against her hair. When Fiona bowled up, demanding to know if this was Prep L, Caro had wanted to shoo her away, to keep this lovely woman all for herself, but Amira had welcomed and soothed her too, positioning Bronte on the other side of Tess. Fiona was also by herself. ‘I didn’t even think of asking Todd to come,’ she’d murmured, looking around the classroom at all the fathers there to see their children launched upon the seas of formal education. She shrugged. ‘He probably wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.’ Then Morag had struggled into the room with a tow-headed boy tugging at each arm and a belly that arrived a full minute before the rest of her. Morag’s husband Andrew was there, Caro remembered, but it was Amira who had detached the twins and shown them where to put their bags, had urged Morag to sit down lest she go into labour on the spot, had quietly handed them all tissues when Prep L’s teacher finally told them it was time to go and the small faces of their children had turned towards them wreathed in doubt and anticipation and a perfect blank innocence that would never be there again.
It was strange, Caro thought. Theoretically, Amira was the one who needed help, the single parent with the useless ex—trying to get by on a teacher’s pay cheque and whatever else she could scrape together from the jewellery she made and sold at local markets. The rest of them had husbands, superannuation funds, mortgages that were almost paid off . . . Yet it was Amira who looked after them, Amira who was always there. She picked up Bronte and took her home on the days Fiona had to work late; she reassured Caro when Janey was hauled before the principal for hitting another child in the playground; she organised a class meals roster after Morag gave birth to Torran the day after the sports carnival.
‘She’s got three kids,’ Amira had demurred when Caro had commended her for her initiative. ‘It’s the least I could do.’
‘Three and a half,’ Fiona had said, because by then they all knew about Macy.
Caro peered down the aisle, hoping to spot the drinks trolley. It would be wonderful to be with Amira again. She’d missed her. That was why she’d organised this week, for them all to see Amira, and for Janey to see Tess. True, Janey didn’t exactly seem to have been pining for her friend, but maybe that was just Janey. She didn’t give much away. The trip would be valuable for all of them. It would be good to spend some proper time with her eldest daughter, rather than just ferrying her to training or nagging her about the mess on her bedroom floor; it would be good for Tess, Janey and Bronte to be together again, as they had been in primary school. And there were her own friends too—Morag must need a break from all those boys and the upheaval that came with Macy two weeks a month, while Fiona . . . Caro shook her head. Fiona definitely needed to get out of that house. Not that you could tell her, especially now Bronte was going to St Anne’s and Caro and Fiona didn’t run into each other every day at pick-up. The girls were still in the same netball team, of course, playing every Saturday morning from nine to ten thirty, but Fiona rarely came to watch, dropping Bronte at the last possible minute without getting out of her car, then racing off to rush through her supermarket shopping before the game had finished.
The truth was that they’d drifted. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Bronte at a different school, Tess off in the back of beyond, Callum and Finn preoccupied with their skateboards and the latest surf report . . . with the children all moving in different directions, what hope did the mothers have? Still, it bothered Caro. Just a few years ago they’d been thrown together almost every day: at drop-off, on tuckshop duty or classroom reading, at the innumerable spor
ts days and recorder recitals and choir concerts, at the gate every afternoon where they gossiped and bitched while they waited for the bell to ring. Fiona hadn’t made every event and neither had Caro, but back then there was always another one coming up behind. The school, it turned out, had organised their social lives for them, had knitted them together. Caro sighed. It was a relief to attend one less class assembly, it was only right that their children were growing up and able to make their own way home from school, but she missed those daily meetings with her friends: hearing about Morag’s latest saga with Macy, all the more entertaining for Morag’s droll, dry delivery; Fiona sniping at another mother’s outfit and making them all laugh; Amira asking them back to her place for a drink, because it was Friday afternoon and that was what they always did.
‘I’d forgotten Australia was so big.’ Morag remarked. She closed her guidebook, tucking the highlighter into its spine. ‘I can’t believe we still aren’t even halfway there.’
Caro turned to her, relieved. She needed to talk to someone. She was getting maudlin.
‘You’ve never been up north before, have you?’ she asked.
Morag shook her head.
‘No further than the Gold Coast. We took the boys there a few years ago to do the Worlds, remember? Only Torran was still too small to go on half the rides, and Callum and Finn spent the whole time teasing him about it. Fun for all the family.’
Caro laughed.
‘I’m really glad to be going, though,’ Morag continued. ‘I can’t quite believe I’ve been here so long and have never seen the top end.’
‘I haven’t either,’ Caro said. ‘The closest I’ve got is a school trip to Ayers Rock thirty years ago now, and I don’t think that counts. They don’t even call it that anymore.’ Her legs were getting cramped and she stretched them out in front of her, kicking off her shoes. ‘You take it all for granted, I think. You just assume you’ll get there someday, but I bet most don’t. I wouldn’t be doing this if Amira hadn’t moved.’
‘It’ll be good to see her, won’t it? It must be such a different life . . .’
There was a pause, and Caro looked around again. Where the hell was the drinks trolley?
‘So how’d you go getting away?’ she asked. ‘Andrew’s taking the boys to Tasmania, isn’t he? Did you have to pack their bags for them?’
‘Hell, no,’ Morag said. ‘If they’ve forgotten anything, that’s their lookout. They won’t forget it again.’
‘Even Torran?’ Caro asked.
‘Even Torran. He’s nine now. That’s quite old enough to throw together some socks and jocks and t-shirts. I did have to talk him out of taking his Nintendo, though. He’d probably leave it by the river.’
‘I wouldn’t have even attempted to separate Janey from her phone,’ said Caro. ‘She would have found a way to smuggle it in anyway. I assume there’ll be somewhere we can charge them?’
Morag shot her a look. ‘I don’t think it’s that primitive.’ She picked at the price sticker on the cover of her book, pushing back a corner. ‘It was amazing, actually. I didn’t have to do anything—Andrew organised it all. It helps that it’s Macy’s week with Janice, of course, but he’s really been looking forward to the trip. You know, four men against the elements—hiking, fishing, cooking over an open fire . . .’
‘Ugh. Sounds disgusting. I bet none of them change their jocks all week.’
Morag laughed. ‘I thought it sounded great. I would’ve liked to have gone too. Maybe another time.’ She bent over the guidebook, working at the sticker, her fair hair hiding her face. The sticker came away, taking a segment of the cover with it.
‘What about you?’ she asked, looking up. ‘Is Alex taking care of April?’
Caro shook her head. ‘Not a chance. He’s in Italy again, left yesterday.’ Alex was away even more now than he had been when Janey started school. Caro understood that he needed to travel for his job, but she’d never truly got used to it. It was always a shock and a nuisance to have him gone once more, disappearing from their lives just when she’d adjusted to him being at home.
‘So April’s with Maria?’
Caro nodded. ‘She could have gone to stay with a friend, but Maria insisted. I didn’t have a chance. She rang Alex at work and told him she wouldn’t hear of anything else, that April should be with family. Anyone would think I was leaving her for a month, not eight days.’ She sighed. ‘Then when I dropped her off Maria said something to April in Italian about how lucky I was to be having a holiday. She doesn’t think I understand her, but I do. All those bloody family dinners I’ve had to sit through—you’d think she’d realise that I must have picked up some of the language by now.’
Morag laughed. ‘You are lucky,’ she said simply.
‘I know, but I’ve earned this, and I’m taking Janey—it’s not as if I’m flitting off and abandoning everybody. Alex is away half of every month, but she never says anything to him.’
‘Ah, but that’s different.’
‘Why?’ asked Caro. ‘Because he’s working?’
The drinks trolley finally lumbered, clanking, to their seats. Morag waited as Caro gratefully ordered a gin and tonic.
‘Because he’s her son,’ she said.
The flat was a mess. Older people’s homes often were, crammed with old jam jars and catalogues, plastic bags and odd bits of string, the collections seemingly first hoarded, then curated. Morag knew that it gave her clients a sense of security, offered some sort of buffer against destitution, but it made her job that much harder. She had to bite her lip as she came into the tiny kitchen and nearly tripped over a stack of newspapers just inside the door.
‘Mrs Griggs,’ she said, when she’d recovered her balance, ‘these are dangerous. How do you get your walker around them?’
‘Och, I just lift it up and then put it on the other side,’ said her client, unperturbed.
‘But what about if it’s dark or you’re in a hurry?’ asked Morag. The lino was uneven too, she noticed; she reached into her bag for Mrs Griggs’ file, so she could write it all down. ‘You shouldn’t be lifting your frame anyway, should you?’ she scolded. The older woman had already fractured one neck of femur. If she did it again she wouldn’t be coming back here other than to collect her things for the nursing home.
‘Ahh, you all fret so,’ said Mrs Griggs, shuffling—without her walker—towards the sink. ‘Would you like some tea? You look a bit peaky.’
If she looked a bit peaky it was because of cases like this, Morag thought. How she hated basement flats: damp stone, not enough natural light and far too many steps. Mrs Griggs’ were outside, leading down from the street, which made things even worse in a climate like Scotland’s. How on earth did she get her walker up and down them, or her shopping, come to that? Morag winced at the image of her teetering on the slippery stone with heavy bags. Rails, she thought, lots of them—on the stairs, above the step between the front door and the hallway, next to the toilet. Then non-slip mats, and the lino nailed down, a new light in the bedroom . . .
Mrs Griggs placed the kettle on the stove, her sleeve brushing a hot plate as she did so. Cordless kettle, wrote Morag, though would the old woman be able to learn how to use it?
‘Sugar, love?’ asked Mrs Griggs. In the distance there was a muffled thump. Out of habit, Morag glanced at her watch. The one o’clock gun. Amazing how you could hear it even all the way out here in Portobello. She needed to be getting back to the Royal Infirmary—she had a family meeting at two, and Mrs Griggs to write up before that. The details would be lost if she didn’t, the dangerous stairs, the cramped kitchen merging into all the other stairs and kitchens and dank, dark flats she’d visited and despaired over.
‘There you go,’ said Mrs Griggs, placing a chipped floral teacup before her. ‘Please raise your seat and put your tray in the upright position.’
Morag woke with a start. She wasn’t in Edinburgh, she didn’t have a meeting to get back to—she must have drifted off du
ring the movie. Covertly she wiped some drool from her chin and quickly checked to see if anyone had noticed, but Fiona was still asleep and Caro’s seat was empty.
How strange to dream of her old job like that, she thought. She supposed it must have been because she’d mentioned Edinburgh earlier, to Caro, but it had seemed so real. She closed her eyes again, clutching at the fading remnants . . . she could almost see herself hurrying across the Meadows, awash with students and tourists; feel the Castle, ever-present, hovering over her above the trees; see the grey stone of the Royal Infirmary looming ahead, the man who sold coffee in the old police booth out the front nodding to her as she came past. Only, the Royal Infirmary was gone, she remembered, fully awake now, torn down to make way for boutique apartments, the doctors and nurses and other allied health workers like herself moved to a soulless new building out in Little France. She’d almost been pleased when she’d heard that, a few years after she’d moved to Australia. She missed Edinburgh, missed it keenly, and the Royal Infirmary was one less thing to mourn. Still, it was almost impossible to imagine it gone, it had been such an important part of her life—with her work, of course, as deputy head of the occupational therapy department, but even more so when she was pregnant with the twins. She’d first seen Finn and Callum at her twelve-week scan on a tiny black and white screen in the obstetrics department in the basement of the hospital; she’d given birth to them on an August evening three floors up in the Simpson Pavilion. Pavilion, she thought, smiling. Such an odd name for a maternity ward, as if the occupants were playing cricket, not moaning through labour. And moaned she had, though hardly anyone had heard her. It was the last night of the Festival, with the fireworks from the Princes Street Gardens going off so loudly outside the window that at the first barrage the midwife had sworn and dropped her stethoscope.
Caro reappeared in the aisle. Morag pulled in her knees so that her friend could get back to her seat in the centre of the row. White pants, she thought as Caro squeezed past, her bottom inches from Morag’s face. Linen, just to top it off. Only Caro could get away with that—almost five hours of travel, drinks, a meal, and they were still spotless. Morag glanced down at her own navy-blue tracksuit, feeling vaguely embarrassed. Some women had the knack of wearing the right thing at the right time. She didn’t.
