Mothers and Daughters

by Kylie Ladd

  Amira pushed her fingers through her hair, holding it away from the nape of her neck. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘I thought I would, but I don’t, not really. It’s easy enough to have an orgasm—you don’t need anyone else for that.’ She dropped her hands and let her thick curls settle back onto her shoulders. ‘What I do miss is the intimacy, the being held. And not just that, not just the physical stuff—it’s those times when somebody at a party says something, or there’s a scene on the TV, and you look over at your partner and he looks at you, and you both know what the other is thinking. It’s the knowing I miss.’ She paused. ‘It’s better up here though. I haven’t felt as lonely here as I sometimes did in Melbourne. There everybody stays shut away inside their own four walls, and if you talk to someone you don’t know they won’t look at you, as if you might be mad. Here it really is a community. I can always wander out to the beach or the shop or even just stand in the street if I need a bit of company—but I can get away from it too, if I don’t. You’ve got the best of both worlds. It’s a good way to be if you’re single.’

  ‘It’s probably a good way to be, regardless,’ murmured Fiona. ‘You can get lonely in a marriage too.’

  Caro poured them all another glass of champagne. The clouds overhead parted for a moment and Morag glimpsed the stars behind them. There were so many stars in this part of the world, away from the cities, from civilisation—almost more stars than sky. Despite the wine with dinner and now the Veuve she felt curiously clear-headed, alert, each of her senses alive. In all their years as friends they’d never talked like this before. They’d discussed toilet training their children, and their own incontinence suffered after childbirth; they’d confided in each other about abortion (Fiona) and the odd one-night stand (Amira); they’d argued about politics and climate change. But this was new, this was something apart. She felt closer to them than she ever had.

  Fiona picked up her glass and drained it in one gulp. She could kick herself. What on earth had she said that for, about being lonely in her marriage? Now they’d all laugh at her. Worse, they’d look at her with big sympathetic eyes, pat her arm and nod consolingly. They’d pity her, for God’s sake, and pity was the one thing she couldn’t bear. She didn’t want it, and she certainly didn’t need it.

  Only no one turned to her at all. They were listening to Caro, who was mumbling something with her eyes firmly fixed on the table. Fiona leaned in, straining to hear.

  ‘I don’t get lonely, but I do get jealous,’ Caro said. Her hand went to her throat, toyed with her pearls. ‘Not that I think Alex is going to run off with someone, or have an affair . . . he travels so much by himself that I’d go mad if I let myself worry about that. It’s not that there’s another woman.’ She hesitated, the lustrous beads around her neck now clenched between her fingers. ‘Or rather, there is. There’s two women. The girls.’

  Fiona’s mind raced. Secretaries at his office, maybe—or was Caro talking about some of his contacts in Italy?

  ‘You mean Janey and April?’ Amira asked softly.

  Caro nodded, still staring at the ground. ‘It’s stupid, isn’t it?’ she said, voice wavering. ‘He’s a great father, and of course I know he loves them—I want him to! But he’s so fascinated by them as well. Whenever he’s away and he rings it’s them he wants to speak to; his eyes light up when he returns home and sees them again. Even if we’re just having dinner, all he wants to talk about is how their day was, how squad went for Janey or what April learned at school . . . I watched him put April to bed the other night. We’d been out with clients, and the babysitter had let her fall asleep in front of the TV, so Alex carried her to her room. He tucked her in, but then he bent down, kissed her forehead and started stroking her hair. April didn’t wake up, but he just sat there like that for another five minutes, gazing at her with such devotion that I wanted to cry—and not because I was touched.’ Caro finally looked up, her eyes darting around the table. ‘I was jealous. Is that mad? I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’

  Amira shook her head. ‘It’s not mad. You wanted him to look at you like that too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’ Caro cried. ‘It’s nuts. He remembers our anniversary, he cooks if I’m stuck at work, we have regular sex—he’s Italian, of course we do . . . I know he still loves me. But he’s not fascinated by me anymore, the way he is with the girls; he knows too much about me. I’m familiar, I’m all about what has to be done in the garden and did the rates get paid, and they’re fresh and new and changing all the time.’ She stopped. A puff of wind stirred the air, made the candles flicker. ‘But I get that too. I look at them some days and can’t believe that I had any part in making something so beautiful.’

  Morag shifted in her seat. ‘They didn’t put any of this in the parenting manuals, did they?’ she said. ‘I don’t think it sounds crazy. Everyone wants to feel valued, special, as if they’re someone’s one true love. That’s why when you first meet someone it’s so intoxicating, because they’re not interested in anything but you, and vice versa . . . but it doesn’t last. It can’t. The kids come along or you just get used to one another, and you stop thinking about true love and start wondering if anyone else is ever going to put the washing away.’ The champagne was finished now, so she poured herself a glass of water. ‘It does my head in that Andrew and I are so busy going to work and keeping everyone clothed, clean and fed that we rarely look at each other properly.’ She smiled, a faint flush appearing along her cheekbones. ‘That’s what sex is for. Like Amira said, it’s not just the physical release, but that it becomes a . . . a refuge. It clears us a space that’s separate from the family; it lets us be a couple again. There’s nothing more erotic than not being mummy for twenty minutes, than locking the bedroom door and telling the boys they can’t come in.’

  Amira laughed. ‘Good on you. Do you tell Macy too?’

  Morag pulled a face. ‘Oh, Macy would be horrified at the very idea of it. She thinks she owns sex, that she’s the first person to ever discover it. I imagine every sixteen-year-old girl does.’

  ‘I remember being like that,’ Caro remarked wistfully, but Fiona barely heard her. Morag’s words were echoing in her skull. Refuge. Sex wasn’t a refuge in her marriage—sleep was, wine was, but sex? Not a chance. Had it ever been? Maybe, very early on, but those days were lost now, as out of reach as the size-ten jeans she’d been wearing the night she first met Todd. These days sex was combat, was about giving in; it was something she weighed up to decide if she could bear. It had been like that for years, but suddenly the thought made her incredibly sad. Once upon a time she couldn’t keep her hands off him, would dissolve when he’d ring to tell her that he was on his way home and she should get in bed naked. If he did that now she’d probably just hang up. When had things changed? Was it when the kids were born, or when she realised he wasn’t as good at running a business as he thought he was and she would have to go back to work? Was it when he put on weight, or when she did? Was it when his comments had started, the snide remarks about anything and everything—her arse, her cooking, her mother, her clothes?

  God, she thought, Caro had no idea. Complaining because Alex adored his daughters? Try the opposite, try a husband who barely knew his was alive. Todd hardly spoke to Bronte. Neither, as a result, did Dom, following his father’s lead in this as in so many other ways, the two of them ignoring her at dinner or changing the channel if they weren’t interested in what she was watching on TV. And Bronte put up with it! Bronte just sat there and said nothing, or got up and went to her room. Fiona felt a sharp flash of anger at her daughter. It was no wonder she stooped. She had no backbone.

  A stronger gust of wind stirred the tree branches above and blew Fiona’s serviette from the table. She bent to retrieve it, her head pounding as she did so. It was time to stop drinking, to go to bed. She was drunk and worn out. She wouldn’t feel so angry in the morning. And really, she couldn’t just point the finger at Bronte, could she? She’d been complicit in th
ings reaching this point. She’d let Todd get away with it too—with Bronte, but with herself as well—the barbed remarks, the subtle and not-so-subtle put-downs. Sometimes she fought back, met fire with fire, but mostly she was too tired. She worked so hard, she was so flat out keeping them afloat financially—not that Todd would ever admit that—that most nights when she got home she just wanted a drink, not an argument, wanted to ignore him until the alcohol kicked in and blurred his edges, made him more bearable. Besides, it wasn’t as if he hit her or anything like that, and his tradie’s hours meant he could do the after-school stint at home while she was still at the practice. Did that make it OK? Was that why she put up with it? That, and the alternative, the thought of starting again, having to move out and find somewhere to live, spending her weekends viewing grotty flats in dodgy suburbs miles from her friends . . .

  A sudden fierce squall shook the frangipani petals from their branches and snuffed the candles into darkness. Caro’s wine glass teetered, then fell to the ground, shattering; Fiona felt drops of rain strike her uncovered shoulders. There was the crash of thunder, then lightning illuminated their faces, simultaneously shocked and apprehensive.

  In the midst of it all, Amira laughed.

  ‘I was talking to Mason before dinner. He told me it was old Jabu who died—he used to live up here, but lately he’s been over at La Djardarr Bay, across the other side of the peninsula. I reckon this might be his spirit passing through.’

  Fiona’s skin erupted in goosebumps, though the air was still warm. She glanced around apprehensively, thoroughly spooked. For all her earlier resentment, she couldn’t help wishing that Todd was there.

  Friday

  Tess rolled over for at least the tenth time, trying to find a cool spot on her pillow. There wasn’t one. The whole bed felt overheated, scalding, as if, like her, it might combust at any moment. Fuck Janey. She was supposed to be her best friend. What on earth had she done that for? Tess relived the moment yet again: Janey running towards them across the sand, her small mouth set tight; Janey producing the letter and reading out Callum’s words in a mocking falsetto; Janey laughing and snatching the sheet of paper away from Tess when she tried to grab it. It was terrible, all of it, but what had hurt most was that laugh and the spiteful blue gleam in Janey’s eyes when she saw she’d found her mark.

  I should have hit her, Tess thought. I should have stepped up and slapped that smirk off her face. I should have broken her nose. Tia would have. Tia wouldn’t have put up with that crap for a moment. But tears had threatened, and rather than compound her humiliation by breaking down she had fled for home instead.

  They threatened again now, pushing against her aching eyeballs, welling in her throat. Tess sat up and turned on the light. There was no point trying to sleep; maybe reading would help, would shut down the scene replaying on a loop in her brain. She picked up The Bell Jar but couldn’t bring herself to open it. She didn’t want to hear about Esther’s problems. She had enough of her own.

  She set the book down again and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the memory of Janey advancing across the beach, her fingernails hot pink against the white sheet of paper clutched in her hand. Even her gait had been different, Tess realised, so . . . determined, somehow. She and Janey had fought before—Janey was a high-maintenance friend and didn’t bother hiding it if you’d somehow pissed her off—but this was different. In the past, whenever they’d been out of sorts with each other, Janey had simply stopped talking to her, never offering an explanation; she’d avoided their usual spot in the quadrangle or made a point of giggling with other girls whenever Tess was around. Then a week or so later she’d materialise at Tess’s side again as if nothing had happened, flicking her hair and asking for some of Tess’s chips. It had stung Tess the first time it occurred—in grade three, from memory—but she’d got used to it. Janey never sulked for long, and at least, as Janey herself had once remarked in a rare moment of candour, she always came back. Tess had come to see that the mood swings were just the price of being Janey’s bestie.

  This overt aggression was different, though. Was there any coming back from it? Tess got out of bed, dropped to her knees and pushed her arm between the mattress and the base, feeling around until she found the letter. It was pointless, she supposed, to still be hiding it here, but now she was hiding it from herself; she didn’t want it anywhere in her room she might stumble across it and be reminded of its desecration. She unfolded it gingerly and smoothed it out on the fraying carpet. She’d stuck it back together with sticky tape, but it would never be the same. The tear went straight through Callum’s words about the disco, rendering them almost unreadable.

  Funny that it had been Janey who had given her the tape, thrusting it with the top section of the letter behind the screen door of Tess’s house, before turning and walking away. After running back from the beach, Tess had been crying in her bedroom for an hour, but when she heard the door bang she went out to see if it was her mother, and recognised instead Janey’s retreating back. Now she picked up the sticky tape from where she’d left it on the floor, rotating it in her fingers. On one side of the roll, $3.70 was written in black marker. Janey must have gone to the community shop to buy it before she dropped it off with the other section of the letter. Tess almost laughed. The idiot, to spend that much. Amira was a primary school teacher; they had more gluesticks and sticky tape than they knew what to do with.

  Tess hadn’t said anything to Janey at dinner. Why should she? Janey hadn’t said anything to her, just shoved her guilt offering behind the screen door without even having the guts to ring the bell. They had maintained their silence throughout the meal, Bronte glancing anxiously between them like a child whose parents are fighting; Macy sizing up the situation and ignoring all three of them, turning her attention to Amira instead. No doubt she thought they were being childish. They probably were, but Tess didn’t care. She had a suspicion that it was caring what Macy thought that had started all this.

  The front door opened and a light went on in the hall.

  ‘Tess?’ called her mother. ‘Are you still awake?’

  Tess snatched up the letter and pushed it back beneath the mattress, then scrambled into bed.

  ‘I was just reading,’ she called back.

  Her mother’s dark head appeared in the doorway. ‘Pretty late to be reading. It’s almost one. Aren’t you tired?’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Tess admitted.

  ‘Any reason?’ her mother asked gently.

  Suddenly the tears were back again, and this time she couldn’t fight them. ‘Janey . . .’ She gulped, then began sobbing in earnest. ‘Janey’s been a total bitch.’

  Her mother was beside her in an instant, cradling Tess in her arms.

  ‘Oh, baby,’ she said, stroking her hair. ‘I thought something was wrong tonight. I should have come back sooner, but I supposed you really were tired and wanted an early night. It’s been a busy week.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Tess. Do you want to tell me about it?’

  Tess shook her head. She did, she did want to, but then she’d have to explain the letter and Callum and why it all mattered so much. Her mother would understand, she knew that, but talking about it would change it somehow. It had been her secret, her own hidden treasure, something she hugged to herself at night or whenever she was alone. It was like the silver locket her grandmother had given her that she wore to school underneath her uniform in contravention of the ‘no jewellery’ rule. No one else knew it was there, but she did; she liked the way it rested, heavy and comforting, between her breasts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ her mother said again. ‘Janey’s always been a bit . . . unpredictable, though, hasn’t she?’ She paused. ‘OK, unpredictable’s probably not the word. You’re right. She’s a bitch.’

  Despite herself, Tess giggled. Her mother never made those sorts of judgements about anyone, at least not out loud.

  ‘She is. She’s a bitch on whee
ls. On steroids.’ She snuggled in closer. Her mother smelled of frangipani, of sorbolene, which she used as a moisturiser, and just faintly tonight of red wine and lemongrass. Tess realised she was hungry. She’d hardly touched her dinner, she’d been so upset.

  ‘Why don’t you wash your face, get a glass of milk and come and hop into my bed?’ her mother suggested, as if she could read her mind. ‘There’s a real wind tonight, and some rain too—did you hear it? We’ll cuddle up and be cosy together.’

  Tess hadn’t slept with her mother in years. She had thought herself past that stage, that she’d outgrown it along with her soft toys. The idea, though, was surprisingly appealing. She was sick of lying here alone with only the memory of the afternoon’s events for company. She reached up and kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘Thanks, Mum. I will. I’m just going to make some toast first.’

  Amira carefully lifted Tess’s arm off her chest and attempted to reposition it on Tess’s side of the bed. The limb hovered for a moment but then came straight back, pinning her beneath it. Amira tried again, not so carefully this time, but the same thing happened. Tess lay spreadeagled on her back in the centre of the mattress, sound asleep. The sleep of a child, Amira thought, the same deep slumber Tess had often fallen into as a toddler—at the table, on the floor, even once, memorably, in the bath. Amira had let the plug out and still Tess hadn’t woken, remained lolling against the chipped enamel as the water ebbed away, one flushed cheek resting on the soap dish.

  Amira extricated herself and moved to the thin strip of mattress that Tess had left her. She’d forgotten all this, forgotten how to share a bed, both the comforts and the compromises. How long had it been since she’d slept a whole night with someone beside her, a fellow traveller on the road towards the day? She reached across and smoothed the hair from Tess’s forehead. God, she was beautiful. She was so lucky to have her, her loving, thoughtful daughter, and not a snake like Janey. Whatever it was Janey had done to Tess, Amira wanted to kill her, though she’d probably have to stand in line for the privilege.