Mothers and Daughters

by Kylie Ladd

  Someone thumped down beside her. ‘Fiona!’ Amira shrieked in her ear. ‘Are you alright? Do you need a doctor? Can you sit up?’ She started tugging at Fiona’s blouse and Fiona pushed her away, scared she was going to tear it.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, struggling to rise. A trickle of blood seeped down her chin and she swiped at it with the back of her hand, embarrassed.

  ‘We need to get you back to the table so I can have a look at you,’ Amira said, hauling her to her feet. ‘Do you want me to fetch Bronte?’

  ‘What use would she be?’ Fiona snapped. She allowed herself to be led away, careful not to meet the gaze of any of the development squad.

  Amira eased Fiona into her chair, then dabbed at her mouth with a serviette. ‘I think it’s OK,’ she pronounced. ‘You’ve cut your top lip, but everything else seems intact. Have a rinse with this so I can be sure.’ She handed Fiona a glass of water, and Fiona took it obediently, swishing the tepid liquid around her mouth, then spitting it onto the ground.

  ‘Are my teeth all there?’ she asked, leaning across the table and opening her mouth as wide as she could.

  ‘They’re fine,’ said Amira.

  A surge of relief washed through Fiona. It must have been dirt she had felt, or sand or grit, something off the football.

  ‘God, I’m an idiot,’ she said. The relief was quickly ebbing, replaced by shame. ‘Fuck, I thought I was so good, mixing it with the big boys.’

  Amira allowed herself to smile. ‘You were good. Right up until the moment you got one in the gob.’ She reached for Fiona’s hand. ‘It must have hurt. Are you sure you don’t want me to find Bronte? We can get going if you like.’

  Fiona shook her head. ‘I told you, she’s no help. She’d only get all upset and go to pieces.’

  Amira sighed. ‘You’re too hard on her, you know. She’s a lovely girl—clever, attractive, caring.’

  Fiona laughed, then winced. Her lip was throbbing. ‘She cares too much, that’s her problem. She’s always mooning over books or pictures, or fretting about something someone said to her. She couldn’t sleep last night, and when I told her to stop tossing and turning she said she kept thinking about what your friend Mason said yesterday, about what happened to his wife’s mother.’ Fiona peered around the table. Bloody hell, had the waiter cleared the wine while she was off being Jesaulenko? ‘If I’m hard on her, as you say, it’s because she needs to toughen up. Otherwise the world’s going to eat her alive.’

  With her free hand, Amira rolled the bloodstained serviette into a ball and dropped it on the table. ‘Maybe she needs to find that out herself. Maybe she’ll surprise you. And maybe, too, the world would be better off with more people like Bronte in it, people who give a damn.’

  ‘I’m just thinking of her,’ Fiona said stubbornly. ‘She’s smart—she’s really smart, you know that. She got that scholarship without even being coached for it, without me lugging her off to Kumon every week like the Asians do with their kids. I just don’t want her to waste her opportunities, to end up spending her days caring for sick kittens or homeless people or something, or with a huge mortgage around her neck like us. She’s better than that. I want her to have it all.’

  ‘Yeah, but what does she want?’ Amira asked. ‘If it is to look after sick kittens, what are you going to do? You can’t change that. Kids are who they are. We all are.’

  Fiona risked a glance at the footballers. They’d gone back to their game, leaping and spinning as gracefully as if they were in a ballet. ‘I wanted to study volcanoes when I was fourteen,’ she said eventually. ‘I thought they were fascinating. Still do. The way they just erupt like that and no one can predict it. I told my mum when we had to choose my subjects for year ten, and she laughed at me. Said only really smart people got to do stuff like that, and that I should learn typing instead because it would always come in handy.’ She picked up a wine glass although it was empty. Her mouth stung. God, she needed a drink. ‘I didn’t get a choice, and sometimes I still wonder what would have happened if I had. I’m not going to let Bronte waste hers if it kills me.’

  ‘Oh, Fiona,’ Amira said, still holding her hand. ‘What are we going to do about you?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Fiona said. She felt stupidly as if she might cry. It must be the sun, or the knock to her mouth. ‘Maybe open that bottle in the esky for a start.’

  Thursday

  Thump.

  Macy’s eyes flew open. Something had knocked into her bed. She lay in the half-dark, ears pricked, trying to work out where she was and what was going on. Was it her dad’s place this week? In that case it was probably only Torran trying to climb in beside her to snuggle up. Callum and Finn had long since grown too old for that, but while she sometimes pretended to complain whenever Torran came creeping under her doona to wake her up, she was secretly glad he still did it. It felt good to be loved like that, so simply, without strings, to lie in the warmth of two bodies, an arm flung around you, without having to think about how you were going to get home afterwards and if this really was such a great idea.

  The room was still. Perhaps she’d dreamed it. Macy closed her eyes. She was just drifting off when it came to her—she wasn’t at her dad’s or her mum’s, she was in Broome. Some place near it, anyway, though ‘near’ was a relative concept given that interminable red road she’d endured yesterday.

  There was another thump, this one heavier.

  ‘Ow!’ hissed Morag, then added ‘Sorry.’

  Macy lay perfectly still, pretending to be asleep, in case Morag thought she’d woken her and took the opportunity to talk. She heard Morag breathing softly, in, out, as she hovered above her in the shadows, then she quietly left the room, latching the screen door behind her.

  When she’d gone, Macy turned over, trying to get comfortable. Did the woman ever relax? She’d probably gone for a run, even though she was on holidays. In all the years she’d been spending alternate weeks at her father’s house, Macy had never once got up before her stepmother, had invariably sloped into the kitchen with sleep in her eyes to find Morag showered and dressed and just about to put out the second load of washing for the day in between making the boys pancakes. Pancakes! What was wrong with toast or Weetbix? Why did Morag always have to go the extra mile? Once when Macy had returned from her allotted seven-day stay still smarting at some now-long-forgotten rebuke from Morag, she had told her mother about the pancakes. Her mother had sneered, as Macy had known she would, but then added, ‘She’s probably only doing it to impress you, you know.’ The idea had stunned her. Why on earth would Morag be trying to impress her? Macy wasn’t anyone Morag needed to impress. She was just the stepdaughter, an irrefutable reminder that Morag’s husband had once loved—and slept with—someone else. Macy should probably be grateful Morag wasn’t chopping her up and mixing her into the batter.

  Still, Morag was alright, she thought, pulling the sheet around her body, twisting it tight across her breasts and about her shoulders. She liked it like that, liked the sensation of being swaddled, constrained, gently held in place. Morag was driven and way too neat and got her knickers in a twist about them all having dinner together every night, but otherwise she was OK. She gave Macy her space; she didn’t arc up at the smallest thing. Not like her mother . . . Macy clenched her teeth as she remembered the scene of two days previously. So she’d missed her cue. It happened—and it was only a rehearsal, anyway, not the real thing. She’d been getting ready to go on when she’d suddenly had a fab idea about how to end the number. She knew she had to tell someone right that minute or she’d forget, so she’d started looking for the music director. He was usually backstage, watching in the wings like she was, but for once he wasn’t there, so instead she’d gone to find Micah, who she knew was rehearsing in the boys’ dressing room, awaiting his own call. Micah was cool. He got her, and he loved her idea. She knew he would. They got so involved in talking about it, trying out different harmonies, that she forgot to go back in time. The loo
k on Miss Bateman’s face when she found them together . . . silly old cow. It wasn’t as if she and Micah had been doing anything other than singing. Everyone knew Micah was gay. Alright, she’d been caught hanging out in the boys’ dressing room once before, and yes, that time she was smoking, but chillax! It could have been worse. At least she wasn’t going down on them one by one, as she’d once seen Leisa do.

  Macy tried to roll over again but the sheet rode up and stopped her, tangling around her neck. She lay there, tethered, staring at the wall, tears welling in her eyes. It was so unfair! She couldn’t believe they’d thrown her out of the eisteddfod for that—she was the lead vocalist. And her mother hadn’t even taken her side! Janice was probably just worried about how it reflected on her, thinking that everyone would be whispering about how the president of the Parents Association couldn’t even control her own daughter. The goth one, that’s right. Sweet voice, but have you seen what she looks like? Her mother should have just made her apologise and promise never to do it again, should have cut her some slack. That’s what parents were for, weren’t they? She hadn’t asked to be born, and her mother was meant to support her. She was doing year eleven. She was under pressure.

  And as for her father . . . normally her dad was pretty relaxed, but this time he’d freaked out too. Sending her all this way for four days was ridiculous, as if she’d self-destruct if she wasn’t supervised. Macy groaned. She was sixteen! She could have just stayed at his place—she had the keys, she’d done it before. ‘Yeah, and that worked out well, didn’t it?’ he’d sighed down the phone. Macy knew what he was referring to. A few months earlier when she was arguing with Janice about something or other, Macy had begged to be allowed to stay at Andrew and Morag’s house by herself for the weekend while they were away with the boys on one of her dad’s beloved camping trips. Morag had been the one who’d talked him in to it, but she was also the one who found the condom wrapper in the bin on Sunday night. Macy had tried to deny any knowledge of it, telling her father that it could have been one of his, but it hadn’t worked. ‘I haven’t used condoms since I was twenty-five,’ he’d shouted, then looked at her in disbelief and said, ‘I can’t believe we’re even discussing this.’ Morag had just muttered that she hoped Macy had washed her sheets, though of course she had. Duh.

  So because of that one stupid little incident she’d had to come here, to the other end of Australia, packed off like a naughty child to boarding school. To kindergarten. How old were those other girls, anyway—twelve, thirteen? She hadn’t seen them for a few years, not since Morag had dragged her and the boys along to some ballet recital in a dusty church hall. It was hell in tutus, from what Macy could remember. She’d tried to beg off, but her stepmother was adamant. She intended to support her friends by watching their daughters perform, she’d said. Andrew was away on business, so the four of them—Macy, Callum, Finn and Torran—were coming with her. It had been a disaster. First Torran had dropped the Nintendo he’d smuggled in, which started beeping incessantly, then one of the junior ballerinas, an awkward, gangly one, had leapt in the air and fallen flat on her face, and Macy couldn’t stop laughing. Morag, at her wits’ end, had shot her a warning glance; when that didn’t work she’d reached across and pinched Macy hard on the thigh to still her giggles. The shock was far worse than the pain. Morag had never hurt her before. She was determinedly anti-smacking, and had put Torran through more time-outs than he’d had hot dinners. For the rest of the performance, Macy stared at her lap, flagrantly refusing to watch one more spin or leap. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d bet it was the tall one that she’d been introduced to last night who had embarrassed herself at the recital. She still had that look, as if she wasn’t quite in control of her arms and legs. Macy’s hand went to the slender metal ring in her navel and rotated it gently, feeling it slide through her skin. What was her name—Belinda? No, Bronte. Then there was a dark girl who’d smiled and held out her hand, and the blonde who kept flicking her hair. Macy had seen her type before. They came to auditions expecting to be given the lead role, and ended up in the chorus instead—or dropped out when they realised that the spotlight wasn’t going to be on them. Thank God it was only four days.

  With an effort, Macy tugged at the sheet caught around her throat and yanked it to her waist. She lay there panting for a moment—the room was already uncomfortably warm—then rolled over and groped for her handbag on the floor. There was no way she’d be able to go back to sleep now, but she didn’t want to have to get up and face the playgroup either. She pulled out her iPod, jammed the buds in her ears, lay back and hit shuffle. At first there was only silence. Her skin prickled. She loved this moment, loved the suspense of waiting, the thrill of anticipation, loved the way the music suddenly flooded her mind as if a tap had been turned on. Macy closed her eyes. Drumsticks tapping, then a gentle electric guitar . . . ‘One’ by U2. She knew it immediately, but then she knew all the thousand or so songs on her iPod, could identify them before the first few notes had faded away. And this was a good one, soothing, hypnotic, perfect for her state of mind. Funny how it was her mother’s music really, how she’d only come to love it because Janice had played the album over and over all through Macy’s childhood. Strange to connect Janice with such a yearning, passionate song. All her mother ever seemed passionate about now was the Parents Association.

  The song finished, and without opening her eyes Macy scrolled back with her thumb, starting it anew. She didn’t want to go on to something else; this was the right song for her now. Sometimes she would listen to the same tune eight, nine times in a row if it was speaking to her, and this one, with its themes of hurt and longing, perfectly captured how she felt right now. Music had always done that for her, taken her out of herself, transformed whatever she was feeling into something rich and pure and true. It had consoled her through those years of primary school before her dyslexia was picked up; it had been the backdrop to everything important that had ever happened to her. First kiss, first job; the first time she got drunk, got laid; the first time someone looked at her in astonishment and told her that she could sing, really sing. And it was true. When she sang she wasn’t herself anymore, Macy Whittaker. When she sang she was the song.

  Except she wasn’t going to sing, was she? Macy’s mood plummeted again as she remembered the rehearsal and why she was here. ‘One’ finished for a second time and she lay still in the hush left behind, her stomach churning, sweat breaking out under her arms and between her breasts. It was so unfair! It was all wrong. Her mind raced. There were still three weeks until the eisteddfod after she returned from this hell-hole and term four started. She’d work it out somehow; she’d make them take her back. Surely by then they’d have realised their mistake? Her understudy was crap.

  On the wekend we went to one arm poynt to see my auntie and cosins. My mum took me and my sister and my brother. My dad didnt come because he wanted to watch the footy. My cosins are jack and sam and ruby. There house is right near the beach. we went fishing. Jack caught a baramundie and my auntie bort us coke and we had them for tea.

  Amira sighed and reached for her pen. She read to the end of the page, then went back and circled the spelling and grammatical errors. By the time she had finished, the essay appeared to have developed chicken pox, every line disfigured by bright red circles. Twelve, she thought in frustration. The student who had written this was twelve years old. He was due to start secondary school next year, yet he didn’t seem to know that proper nouns needed a capital letter, or the distinction between there and their. Her grade three class last year could have done a better job.

  She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of orange juice. The sugar would help, she told herself. She shouldn’t be marking with a hangover, but she needed to finish it before the new term started next week, and with the house so quiet it was too good an opportunity to waste. She’d try to get it done before Tess got up, she thought, then she suddenly wondered if Tess was even there. The other girls w
ere bound to be in their beds—on their first day at Kalangalla, Janey hadn’t emerged until almost eleven. ‘That’s the trouble with kids,’ Caro had said. ‘You can never get babies to sleep, and never get teenagers to wake up.’ Amira had laughed—Tess had certainly liked her lie-ins back in Melbourne—but up here she’d changed. Now, some mornings when Amira rose it was to a kitchen with the blinds pulled up and a note on the table that Tess was out swimming or crabbing or simply with Tia and would be back before school or lunch, depending on whether it was a weekday or the weekend. She glanced around to make sure Tess hadn’t left her anything, then sat back down to the marking.

  The next essay was even worse. Again there were no capital letters, but there were also no commas or full stops. Amira’s eyes darted to the smudged name at the top of the page: Jamaya, a skinny girl of nine or ten who was always barefoot. From memory she was in grade four, though it had become apparent to Amira that grades were a fairly arbitrary concept here. They rarely correlated with the same level in the east, and not at all with the new national curriculum that was being so optimistically pushed down everyone’s throats. Still, though, grade four. That gave Amira a bit of time to improve Jamaya’s reading and writing; there were a couple of years left before she’d need to be ready for high school.

  Amira put down her pen. What was she thinking? Time—she didn’t have any time. She was going home in January, just three short months away. Going back to a classroom where daily attendance was a given and not a goal, where the kids wore uniforms and shoes and knew to put their hands up to ask a question, where show and tell had never once involved a very angry goanna with a piece of string around its neck as a leash, as it had in her first week here. The thought worried her. In some ways she was looking forward to returning to Melbourne, but she was needed here. She was needed more here. If her upper primary students could barely put together a few coherent paragraphs about their weekend, how on earth were they ever going to analyse texts in secondary school, or write the essays they’d need to get through year twelve, or even fill out a job application? She’d known that literacy and numeracy levels would be lower here than in Melbourne, of course she had, but what she hadn’t been prepared for was how great the gulf between the two actually was. Some of the older children were still struggling to spell words like house and should . . . At fourteen, Tess had already had far more education than most of Amira’s current class would ever receive. And this was Kalangalla, a relatively stable and solvent community, where by and large her students’ parents were still together and might even try to help the kids with their homework, or at least see if they’d done it. She couldn’t imagine how bad things must be in some of the really remote areas. It was terrible, it was scandalous even, but it was also somehow oddly inspiring. She had always wanted not just to teach but to make a difference. She could make a difference here.