Mothers and Daughters

by Kylie Ladd

  ‘Yeah. I just assumed you wanted to be left alone.’

  Bronte’s hair was lit from behind by the moonlight, her cheekbones thrown into sharp relief. She was beautiful, Fiona thought. She was growing up. There wasn’t much time left. She had to make an effort, for Bronte’s sake; she had to break the cycle, be there for her. She didn’t want them ending up essentially estranged, as she had with her own mother. And she needed Bronte, she thought with a sharp stab of panic. Todd was the one who was useless; Dom was heading that way. Who else did she have except her friends and Bronte?

  ‘Mum, are you listening to me?’ Bronte said. ‘I was telling you that Janey, Caro and Amira are at the hospital, and Morag went off to find Macy. Tess has gone to bed, but I just had an idea. Can you do me a favour?’

  Janey stared at the ceiling as her mother’s footsteps receded down the hospital corridor outside. There was a stain in one corner, as if a vase of flowers had been knocked over and the water had drained out. That was ridiculous though, she chided herself. The drugs they’d given for the pain must be fogging her mind. You didn’t put flowers on the ceiling. It was probably from the airconditioning, or a tropical storm. She made herself concentrate on the dark smudge. If she stared at it long enough, maybe she’d wake up at home, in her own bed with all her limbs still intact, and all of this would have been a dream.

  No chance. A trolley clattered past her room and she jumped at the noise, then winced as pain shot through her leg. She wondered dully what was wrong with it. She’d clearly broken something—the radiographer had muttered ‘Ouch’ as he inspected her X-rays—but how badly? Janey let her head fall to the side, gazing now at the wall. It didn’t matter. Her ankle would mend. She wasn’t so sure about the rest of her.

  He’d fucked her. He’d fucked her and she’d let him, but oh, how she wished she could take it all back now. She winced again, remembering Roo’s hands on her body, his tongue in her mouth, his . . . thing between her legs. Ugh. Janey fought the urge to vomit. She felt so dirty. She needed a shower. There was sand in her hair, mud under her nails and Roo’s semen on her thighs. She hadn’t even had a chance to pull her undies back on, so intent had she been on getting away, and they were balled up somewhere in her bag. She’d throw them in the bin the first chance she got. She’d throw out her handbag too, and all the other clothes she was wearing . . . anything that might remind her of last night. Her skin crawled. She’d thought having sex would change her somehow, transform her, but she was just the same, only grubbier.

  ‘Janey . . . hey . . . are you awake?’

  She turned her head to the other side to find Bronte hesitating in the doorway.

  ‘Hey,’ she replied weakly. ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Bronte. ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘She went off with Amira to talk to the doctor and fill in some forms. I think I need an operation.’

  Bronte came into the room and seated herself gingerly on the edge of Janey’s bed.

  ‘Oh, that’s awful. You poor thing. Does it hurt much? And you’ve got state champs coming up!’

  Janey blinked. So she had. Funny how the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind in the hours since the accident. Funny, too, how she couldn’t care less. It was just swimming. It was just going up and down a pool and seeing who could do it the fastest. It didn’t mean anything.

  ‘I brought something for you.’ Bronte reached into her pocket. ‘I didn’t know how long you were going to be in here, and I thought you could probably use something to take your mind off it all . . .’ She held out an iPhone.

  Janey stared at it, puzzled.

  ‘It’s my mum’s,’ said Bronte. ‘She said you can borrow it. They have wi-fi here—I asked a nurse—so you can listen to music or watch some videos or even check your email. It’ll be better than just lying around doing nothing.’

  Tears came to Janey’s eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s so nice.’

  ‘Well, I knew you didn’t have your own with you.’ Bronte smiled shyly, ducking her head, then turned to examine Janey’s ankle. ‘Yow. It hurts just to look at that. How did you do it?’

  Janey’s shoulders heaved and she started to sob. Bronte’s kindness had undone her.

  ‘I went to the beach with a boy . . . the one I was with in the pool on the first night . . . and . . . and stuff happened and I was running away and I fell over a rock—’

  ‘Oh God, Janey,’ Bronte interrupted. ‘Did he rape you? You have to tell someone.’

  Janey shook her head, tears flying onto the sheets. Snot was pouring from her nose, but she was past caring what she looked like. ‘It wasn’t rape. I let him, but it hurt—and he said he was going to pull out but he didn’t and now I’m terrified that I’m pregnant.’ Her voice cracked. She couldn’t stop crying. She wanted to go home. She wanted to die.

  Bronte moved up the bed and wrapped her arms around Janey. ‘The bastard. What an awful thing to do.’ She rocked Janey gently back and forth as if she were a child. ‘I could kill him . . . But I’m sure you’re not pregnant. It hardly ever happens the first time. You’d be so unlucky.’ She stopped and drew back without letting go of her, peering into Janey’s eyes. ‘Will you tell your mum?’

  Janey shook her head again. She’d rather die. She’d already let her mother down enough by disobeying her instructions and breaking her ankle. All those hours of training wasted, all the money her parents had spent on squad fees and meet entries, all those five a.m. starts when her mother, who liked her sleep, had uncomplainingly got up and driven her to the pool. That was bad enough, but Caro would be even more devastated if she knew what else Janey had thrown away.

  ‘I think she’d be OK, Janey, she really would. She’s pretty good, your mum.’ Bronte was silent for a moment, waiting for Janey to respond. When she didn’t she gently pulled Janey back to her. ‘Ok then, but you need to see a doctor when we get back to Melbourne. I’ll come with you, if you like. I can organise it. Macy will know someone. And the morning-after pill—you’ve got a few days for that, and you don’t need a prescription. I’m guessing you’ll have to stay in bed for a while, but I could go to a chemist and ask for it, I suppose. They won’t need to know it’s not for me.’

  Despite her fears, despite everything, Janey found her mouth twitching. She’d never even seen Bronte talking to a boy, yet here she was prepared to brazenly dupe a pharmacist for some emergency contraception.

  ‘That sex-ed program at your school really is good, isn’t it?’ she snuffled.

  ‘It is.’ Bronte passed her the box of tissues next to the bed. ‘I’m serious though. It will all be alright. I promise.’

  Caro reappeared as Janey was blowing her nose.

  ‘Janey, the doctor says—’ she began, then broke off when she spotted Bronte. ‘Oh, Bronte, I didn’t know you were here. That was good of you to check on Janey.’ She bent to smooth back the hair from Janey’s face, then frowned. ‘You’ve been crying!’ ‘She was a bit upset about her ankle,’ Bronte said. ‘They’ll be able to fix it though, won’t they?’

  Caro nodded. ‘They’re going to operate tonight,’ she said, studying Janey’s face. ‘That way they’ve said you can still fly home tomorrow, as long as everything goes well. It’s not ideal, and you’ll need lots of painkillers, but there’s not another direct flight to Melbourne for another week—and I’d rather have you back there anyway, so I can get you checked by a specialist.’

  ‘I’ll go then,’ said Bronte, standing up. ‘Good luck, Janey.’ She squeezed her hand. ‘It will all be OK, remember? I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Janey mumbled, then added, ‘And thanks, Bronte. Thanks for everything.’

  Caro watched as Bronte left the room.

  ‘That was good of her,’ she repeated. ‘If I’d had to guess who’d be the first to come visit you . . .’

  ‘I know,’ said Janey.

  ‘A nurse is going to give you a pre-op soon,’ Caro said. She looked tir
ed, Janey thought, the lines around her eyes longer and deeper. ‘The doctor said he’d sedate you enough so you can sleep afterwards, through the rest of the night, which is good. When you wake up it will be time to go home.’

  ‘Will you stay?’ Janey asked, suddenly nervous. ‘Here, I mean, in the hospital, not at The Mangrove.’ She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry about tonight. I know I mucked up. But I really want you to stay, Mum.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ her mother said, stroking her cheek. ‘I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Here,’ said Amira, handing her a polystyrene cup. ‘White, with two sugars. That’s how you take it, isn’t it?’

  Caro nodded. It wasn’t—she’d cut back to one sugar—but there was no point telling Amira that now. ‘Thank you for staying,’ she said. ‘You didn’t have to. You must be exhausted after all the driving today.’

  Amira sat down next to her, hands around her own cup. ‘There’s no way I’d leave you here alone. You wouldn’t have left me if our situations were reversed, would you? And Fiona and Morag both wanted to come too, but I told them to stay with the girls.’ She lifted her coffee to her mouth and blew on it, sending ripples across the cloudy surface. ‘Anyway, I can catch up on my sleep tomorrow, once you’re all gone. There won’t be anything else to do.’

  ‘It’s been quite the week, hasn’t it?’ Caro shifted on the hard plastic chair, trying to get comfortable. When Janey had been wheeled into surgery Caro had asked to be directed to the waiting area, only to be told she was already in it: a dimly lit corridor opposite the nurses’ station sporting four chairs, two dog-eared Woman’s Days and a vending machine humming to itself. Still, she could hardly complain. At least Janey hadn’t broken her ankle in Kalangalla, where the doctor only visited weekly and there were certainly no operating facilities. It could have been worse, she told herself, and yet right now it was hard to feel that way.

  ‘How long does the doctor think she’ll be in plaster?’ Amira asked.

  ‘He said they won’t know for sure until they’ve had a proper look at it, but at least a month to six weeks. She’ll have to miss states, that means, and the district cross-country trials, which she always does well in.’ Caro sighed. ‘And I suppose she’ll need crutches and rehab and I’ll have to drive her to and from school . . .’ She stopped, ashamed. ‘Sorry. I’m not sounding like much of a mother, am I? I do feel sorry for Janey, of course I do, but I just keep thinking that this was all so avoidable. If they’d only stayed together, like we asked—why the hell did she have to go off by herself? It’s infuriating.’

  Amira nodded. ‘You sound like a mother to me. I’m mad at them too—and did you see Morag’s face when Bronte and Tess came back from the markets and she found out Macy wasn’t with them either? I thought she was going to explode.’ She ran her hands through her hair as if trying to tame it, then gave up. ‘You can tell them what to do until you’re blue in the face, but they still seem to think it’s optional. Thank God I only teach primary kids.’

  ‘But it’s not just that she disobeyed me,’ Caro said. ‘What if the operation isn’t a success? No offence, Amira, but we’re not exactly at the cutting edge of medical practice here, and they said it was a bad break. Just say they can’t fix it properly? What happens then? Just say Janey goes lame?’ Her voice broke. The tightness was back, radiating from her sternum out across her chest and rib cage, pinioning her arms. It was as if she’d been grabbed from behind, she thought. It was like being abducted.

  ‘I’m sure everything will be fine—’ Amira began, laying a soothing hand on Caro’s lap.

  ‘But what if it’s not?’ Caro demanded. She was shaking, she was losing it, coffee slopping from the cup onto the floor. Breathe, she told herself. Breathe . . . Breathe, for God’s sake. She sucked at the air, her vision beginning to swim.

  Amira shot from her seat. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ she said.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Caro. There it was—the oxygen finally rushing to her lungs, punching through, reinflating them. She gulped at it greedily, inhaling until the room stopped spinning and her pulse rate slowed. ‘No,’ she said again, more quietly this time. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s all my fault anyway. I’ve spoiled her.’

  ‘Oh, Caro,’ Amira said, sinking back into her chair.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Caro insisted. ‘I’ve been too soft on her. I’ve always told her how beautiful and how clever she is, and now she believes it.’ The words calmed her somehow, so she kept talking. ‘I wanted her to be perfect, because it made me look good, so I acted as if she was. I knew she could be selfish, maybe even a bit cruel, but I told myself—and Alex—that she was just resourceful, determined. I thought that if I believed it enough I could make it true.’ She felt her chest loosen, her head clear. And I felt guilty, she realised, so I just gave in to her . . . Guilty that Alex was always away, that I worked much more than the other mothers, that I didn’t even know how to be a proper mother. But how could I? The rictus grin, the mouth hanging open . . . Caro screwed her eyes shut and willed the memory away.

  Amira put her arm around her. ‘I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. We’re all making it up as we go along. And Janey will be fine, I know it—her ankle, and the rest of her too. They’re teenagers. It’s not terminal.’

  Caro laughed, surprising herself. Talking to Amira had shifted something. She felt lighter, somehow, as if she was full of helium.

  ‘You’re a good mum,’ Amira continued. ‘You are. I know how much you love your girls, and what an amazing job you do looking after everyone, with Alex hardly home. He must be so proud of you.’

  Was he? Caro wondered. She hoped so. She felt a sudden fierce longing for him. Strange, when she’d spent all week thinking about Mason; but Mason was just a fantasy, a holiday whimsy, and Alex was real, the father of her children. He was just as much their parent as she was, but she’d been doing all the work—and the worrying. They needed to start being a team. Maybe she needed to step back and get him more involved with his daughters. Maybe she needed to ditch work for a bit and go with him next time he headed off to Italy. Maria could mind the girls. She was clearly enjoying having April. Ditch work. The idea was delightfully transgressive, as novel as the thought of going to bed before stacking the dishwasher and straightening the cushions on the couch.

  ‘Your colour looks better,’ said Amira. ‘Can you breathe OK now?’

  In response, Caro drew in a long breath through her nose, feeling it sink into her lungs and make its way through her body, lighting up arteries and capillaries, causing alveoli to blossom like roses, and then just as slowly released it.

  ‘I can,’ she said, smiling. ‘I can. It feels wonderful.’

  ‘And for you?’ the waitress asked.

  Morag glanced once more at the menu. She was starving, even though she’d slept in and hadn’t exercised. She’d had a fabulous night’s sleep, actually—in contrast, it seemed, to everyone else.

  ‘The same, I think—the Bircher muesli. With sourdough toast if you have it, and the scrambled eggs. And a latte, please—as hot as you can.’

  The girl nodded and slipped her pad into her pocket before turning away.

  ‘Thanks for this,’ said Macy, sitting opposite her. ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘It is,’ agreed Morag, then didn’t know what to say next. Nice, yes, but a bit awkward too. It was pretty much the only time they’d been alone together all trip, and certainly over a meal. It felt a bit like a first date. She wanted to be liked, to impress, but she’d probably just end up with oat flakes stuck between her teeth.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be speaking to me after last night, never mind inviting me out for breakfast,’ Macy continued.

  Morag leaned back in her seat, staring up through the branches of the huge boab tree spreading above them. She hadn’t even noticed it when she’d last been here, on the first night of the holiday, though they must have sat directly beneath it. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.

  �
��I think I was just so glad to see you alive and well I was willing to forgive you anything,’ she admitted. ‘For a while there you had me imagining how I was going to break the news to Janice that I’d lost you.’

  Macy laughed. ‘That would have gone over well.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Morag felt her stomach tighten at the thought. ‘I probably would have got your dad to do it, to be honest. It was his fault that you came here in the first place.’ She stopped abruptly, embarrassed, her eyes darting across the table at Macy. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant . . .’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Macy. ‘It was his fault. And mine, for getting thrown out of the eisteddfod.’

  ‘I can see now why you want to do it,’ Morag said. ‘You were really good last night. Seriously good. I’m not just saying that, either. I mean it.’

  Their meals were set in front of them, followed by Morag’s coffee. She vacillated for a moment, then picked up the sachet of sugar on the saucer and tore it open. Bugger it. It was her last day.

  ‘Have you enjoyed it?’ Macy asked, spooning yoghurt into her bowl. ‘The trip, I mean. Having a break from everything.’

  ‘I have,’ Morag said. ‘It’s been wonderful to see Amira, of course, and to spend some time with Caro and Fiona, but this whole area has just blown me away. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ She gestured around her. ‘The sky, the water, that moon we saw last night. It’s so different to Melbourne. And I love Melbourne, it’s great, but this has been like discovering another country. It probably sounds stupid, but it’s made me realise just how foreign Australia still is to me, and how much I miss Scotland.’ She paused. She shouldn’t say anything—she still had to discuss it with Andrew . . . But what was there to discuss when her mind was made up? ‘So much so that I’m going to go back.’

  Macy’s spoonful of cereal stopped halfway to her mouth. ‘Hey? When? What about Dad and the boys?’

  ‘Not for good,’ Morag hurried to reassure her. ‘Well, maybe, but not straight away . . . I’ve decided to go back over summer, our summer, for January at least. I haven’t seen my mother in years, and she’s not going to last forever. I want to spend some time with her, proper time, not just a week or two; I want to see Edinburgh again.’ Morag’s hands were shaking, and she set her cup down on the table before she spilled it. It felt dangerous and daring to be saying this to Macy, to be making it real—to be putting her own needs first for once. It felt strange. It felt right. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears just like it did after a really good run.