Is This My Beautiful Life?

by Jessica Rowe

  I didn’t know how much longer I could manage the girls on my own with Peter’s frequent overseas travel. We would fight just before he left because neither of us wanted to be apart, and we’d fight again when he returned. I had no patience for his tiredness or jet lag. Often I would tell him to stay in a hotel to get over his travel and get rid of his bad language after being on the road with three other blokes for weeks at a time! My tiredness amplified the resentment I still had about my lack of clear career direction.

  Thursday pizza nights with Georgia and her two boys kept me sane. She was also struggling with her new life. In her previous existence she had been a solicitor, and now the main topic of our conversation was toilet training and how to scrub poo off wooden floorboards. The pair of us let our kids eat their margarita pizza on the couch in front of the television while we commiserated about our lives. Laughing together while we piled four small people in the bath together helped give me the energy for another week of wiping bums, endless washing and preparing small, nutritious meals.

  Although I loved being a mum, I still rebelled against what had happened to my life. It was chaotic and mundane all at once. I had never been a patient person, but now I had to focus on staying as calm as possible in the eternity it took the three of us to leave the house. We were only going to visit Mum, who lived a short drive away, but by the amount of stuff I’d packed you’d think we were travelling to Antarctica.

  Allegra was onto question 251 and it was only 9am, and while concentrating on getting through the snarl of traffic on the way to Mum’s place I wasn’t listening properly to my daughter’s latest query.

  ‘Mummy, does Elmo have a penis?’

  ‘Mmmm, yes,’ I answered, not thinking through the consequences. Stupidly I thought this was the end of the discussion and we could move on to question 252, however, my inquisitive daughter had her follow-up question ready.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s hiding under his fur,’ I say as authoritatively as I can manage.

  Hooray, I’ve got through that, I think rather smugly to myself. But my satisfaction doesn’t last long. On the way home from Mum’s we stop off at the butcher.

  ‘Mummy, does he have a penis?’

  ‘Aaah, some sausages please,’ I ask the butcher as my face goes the colour of Elmo’s fur.

  Next stop is the chemist.

  ‘Mummy, does she have a penis?’ Allegra continues her investigation.

  ‘Umm, no,’ I whisper.

  ‘Why not?’ she replies at full volume.

  ‘Because she’s a woman.’

  ‘Women don’t have penises?’

  ‘No, we have vaginas …’

  ‘What is your vagina for?’ My daughter wasn’t going to give up just yet. At least we had left the chemist and were back on the footpath so no one else could hear this part of the conversation. I was tempted to just ignore her. However, as we walked home, Allegra kept asking and asking. She wore me down with her persistence.

  ‘Mmmm, your vagina is for doing wees and it’s also how you were born.’

  ‘Did I come out of your vagina?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘No, my darling, I am not.’ If only I had told Allegra that Elmo was a sexless Muppet! Instead I was the Muppet …

  Every day was full of other unpredictable Elmo-like moments, but what I could count on was it all going pear-shaped every afternoon in the dreaded witching hour. Trying to singlehandedly juggle dinner, bath and bed with tired babies and children meant that most afternoons I was ready to have a tantrum as well. But soon there was hope that I wouldn’t always be facing the afternoons on my own when Peter was offered the news anchor position for Channel Nine’s six o’clock news. The timing couldn’t have been better. This was the job he had dreamt about since he was seven years old, and I had dreamt about us all living together as a family since we had our girls. It meant we could plan weekends, outings and holidays. At last his career was more family friendly.

  Weekends would now see the four of us walking down our street together, Peter and I taking turns carrying Giselle or pushing Allegra in her tricycle. Now when she got tired of putting her feet on the pedals I could unstrap her and hold her soft warm hand while Peter pushed the handle on the trike.

  ‘Family,’ she said, looking up into my eyes.

  ‘Yes, my darling, we are a family,’ I replied, squeezing Peter’s hand as we walked past the bougainvillea tree, ignoring the squashed dirty-pink petals on the footpath.

  Eventually the phone did ring for me when the then producer of Weekend Sunrise, Michael Pell, asked if I could fill in on some news-reading shifts. I explained that as I was still breastfeeding Giselle she would have to come in to work with me. No problems, Michael said, and his simple answer boosted my confidence. On the weekend Peter could look after Allegra now that he was home permanently and I could leave for work. Hooray!

  On my first day I put my still sleeping baby in her capsule, picked up Rosa in the dark and we drove to Martin Place in the centre of Sydney.

  My friend Annebelle, who was now the head of wardrobe at Seven, had given us her office to set up in. The laminated map of Paris on her desk was the perfect place to put Giselle down for a nappy change. I left Rosa in charge while I headed downstairs to get my hair and make-up done. An hour later I was sitting on the set, having my microphone attached and joking with the hosts. As I got towards the end of my first news bulletin, I heard Giselle’s cries filtering down into the studio and felt my breasts start to leak in response. Luckily I had doubled up on the pads inside my black maternity bra. After I threw to sports presenter Simon Reeve, I rushed upstairs to give Giselle a quick feed.

  The four-hour weekend shift worked a treat for mother and baby, and those small steps back into the television world helped me realise that I could still do it. Even better, I was back home before lunch to spend the rest of the day with the girls and Peter. Life seemed to be settling into a happy rhythm.

  Every Tuesday I’d meet Harriet and Mum at the food growers’ market at Moore Park. Claudia had a stall selling her exquisite jams and chutneys so we’d drop around to see her first before I’d stock up on sugary sweet cupcakes and organic red apples. Once we had our takeaway coffees carefully balanced in hand, we would push our prams to the nearby playground. Mum would excuse herself, making no secret of the fact that she was well and truly over playgrounds, and I would cope with the slippery dip thanks to the company of my sister and sugary treats. While Giselle slept in her pram, Allegra chased around after her cousin Elliott. I was much more relaxed about Giselle falling asleep wherever she could rather than rushing home to get her into the cot, something I had been fanatical about when Allegra was the same age.

  Although now I liked to focus on the light side of life, there was always a dark side lurking in the shadows. My mental health continued to be good and I was still taking my antidepressants, but I worried that this sweet spot wouldn’t last for our family. I knew that life was made up of messy, inconvenient and heartbreaking matters, and despite being a grown-up my Mum’s bipolar disorder could still bring me to my knees when it reared its nasty head over the years.

  ‘Your mother has been hoarding her medication,’ said the nurse at the other end of the line.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We found a stash in her bedside drawer. I think you’d better come in.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ I said, my mind racing. ‘I just have to drop my daughter at an appointment. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  Mum had been in the private psychiatric hospital for ten days. She did not seem to be improving and the phone call confirmed my worries. What was she up to? I didn’t have the energy for this I thought as I drove up the windy hill towards the clinic, oblivious to the glorious beach view. Usually the sight of the ocean lifted my spirits, but on that day the sea just looked angry and grey, the waves dumping surfers off their boards onto the sandbar.

  ‘Wha
t happened?’ I asked the head nurse.

  ‘Your mother told the night nurse she had a stash of tablets and she was frightened about what she might do with them.’

  ‘What she might do?’

  ‘Don’t worry, we took the tablets,’ the nurse reassured me. ‘And we’ve removed the sharp objects from her room.’

  ‘Sharp objects!’

  ‘Yes, you know how she has been doing all that sewing? Well, we’ve confiscated her scissors and sewing needles.’

  ‘Can I go in and see her?’

  I knocked gently on Mum’s door; there was no reply but I pushed it open anyway. She was lying on her bed in the corner of her room. Her eyes seemed to have lost their light, and as I reached over to touch her hand her green eyes met mine, the same colour as my new baby’s eyes. But there was no light and joy in them now. They reminded me of a shark, dead, unblinking, unable to close and switch off. I looked around the sparse pale blue room that Mum had been decorating with the colourful felt Christmas decorations she had been sewing since she was admitted to hospital.

  Why, I wondered, did she always get sick before, after or during Christmas time? The months of December and January always filled my sisters and me with trepidation, wondering when the bipolar crash would hit our mother. I had long since given up on the idea of normal family holidays, despite maniacally trying to make my own little family as ‘normal’ as possible.

  A huge stick that was propped against the windowsill caught my attention and I walked over to examine it. It hadn’t been there the day before.

  ‘I got that from the park this morning.’

  ‘The park? Come on, Mum, you know it’s not safe to wander around alone in the bushland early in the morning. Anything could happen.’

  ‘I needed to get my coffee.’

  ‘But the cafe is in the opposite direction, plus there’s the cliffs.’ I said firmly.

  My eyes were suddenly drawn to the bedside table and the now empty drawer as a horrific realisation struck. ‘Mum, what were you doing with those tablets?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You can’t do that, okay?’

  ‘I told the nurse.’ She sounded contrite, like a child.

  ‘I know, I’ve spoken with her.’

  ‘I want my scissors back. I want to do my sewing.’

  ‘No, you can’t have them back yet,’ I said gently. ‘They’re worried about you—we’re all so worried about you. You have to promise me that you’ll talk to me before doing something like that again. You have a daughter here who loves you, two other daughters who love you, and four grandchildren. We all love you. We need you. You can’t die yet, you have to promise me.’

  ‘I can’t promise you,’ said Mum, her voice trailing off into a whisper.

  My mobile started to ring and I recognised the number; it was the clinic telling me I was fifteen minutes late to pick up Allegra. I had to go but I was afraid of leaving my mother alone. I had perfected the role of good daughter. That particular mask had helped me over the years when Mum’s bipolar disorder landed her in hospital for long periods of time. But the mask of motherhood was a harder one for me to hide behind.

  What sort of mother did I want to be? I didn’t want my girls to deal with a miserable mum, to feel responsible for her happiness. I wanted to be in the moment for my daughters but my tap-dancing act of constant cheeriness didn’t cut it anymore. I had been putting pressure on myself to always be upbeat with my girls, laughing, telling stories, entertaining and never sad. That was not a realistic way to live either. Deep down I think I was afraid that if my mothering style included both light and shade, the shade would take over. Despite my medication and regular counselling appointments, I still had a habit of going privately to the worst-case scenario. I needed to remind myself that although I was like my mother in some ways, we were also very different. History was not and would not repeat itself. I had worked hard to get my head together again, I had worked hard on my marriage, and now I was working hard on being the best mother for my daughters.

  But what was my insufferable optimism teaching my girls about how to regulate their emotions? I knew that life was not all about sparkles and rainbows but I wanted to protect my girls from disappointment and pain. I wanted to shower them and myself in the sequins and shimmer I had yearned for in my younger life. How could I tread that delicate path of protecting them but also preparing them for the slings and arrows of life?

  Two sulphur-crested cockatoos sat on the top branch of the Moreton Bay fig, grey beaks touching and yellow crests flicking off the top of their heads. A flash of white wings appeared behind the leaves, then another flash, then another. There must have been about fifty birds high up in the boughs of the tree. Some cheeky cockies were breaking branches and pulling leaves off, spitting them onto the dirt below. The first pair I spotted turned their backs on the brand new morning, too busy squawking at one another and playing to act as lookouts for the rest of their crew.

  ‘How much longer? Are we there yet?’ Allegra sang out. I stopped gazing at the cockatoos and concentrated on finding a parking spot. I’d already done three loops around the block, and I didn’t want to park illegally again. Peter was already cross that I’d got so many parking tickets.

  ‘Mummy, I’m bored of the car, I want to get out!’ Thankfully, a spot appeared close to the playground. Keeping Allegra close while I clipped eight-week-old Giselle into her Baby Bjorn carrier on the front of my chest was always a struggle, then I had to balance my large leopard-print canvas bag on my shoulder. The bag was packed with wipes, nappies, sunblock, sunhats, spare Dora the Explorer underpants, rice crackers, mini packets of apricots, and vegemite sandwiches cut into triangles then squished in plastic ziplock bags to protect them from the leaking Disney princesses water bottle.

  ‘Wait, Allegra, hold on to Mummy’s hand.’

  ‘I want my stroller, I want to bring my dolly’s stroller, Mummy. Mummy!’

  ‘Please, Mummy, may I have my stroller is what you say, Allegra. And no, you can’t, it’s too hard for Mummy to get it out of the car. My hands are full.’

  ‘Please, Mummy, please, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’

  I could feel some other mothers’ eyes on me as they walked past. Should I stay strong, for the sake of … what? But if I don’t say no to Allegra now, will she one day become a nightmare teenager and spoilt-brat grown-up who thinks the world owes her a living?

  ‘Mummy, I want my stroller. I want it, I want it, I want it! Please, please, pleeeease …’

  I opened the boot and got the tiny stroller out.

  ‘Say thank you to Mummy …’

  Allegra had already grabbed the stroller and run off, pushing it speedily down the uneven footpath.

  ‘Wait, wait, slow down!’ I shouted, bolting after her. It’s hard to keep up as my centre of gravity has shifted with Giselle strapped to my front. All I could see was the top of Giselle’s white cotton hat, and her little arms and legs flapping out the sides of the bright pink carrier.

  What was it about trips to the park that I still didn’t like? I had hoped I would eventually come to enjoy them since I spent so much time there. Perhaps it was because my life had diminished into the minutiae of swings, slippery dips and seesaws. If only I had some regular paid work every now and then it would be perfect. My lack of confidence when I went out with Peter to his work functions continued because I had nothing to contribute to the adult conversations. I was tired of trying to explain what I was doing and not doing with my career. I filled gaps in the conversation with stories about my husband’s exotic travels. It had been years since I’d been on a plane myself. I had run out of my own stories.

  Instead it seemed that I had become my worst nightmare, an ungrateful, self-absorbed mother. It was clear that getting back into the paid workforce would be good for my self-esteem, and it would also give me something fresh to talk about apart from my current obsession with toilet training. Did you know it is very hard to clean poo off the bars of
a cot? Did you know it can take a whole afternoon to discover your daughter has poo stuck between her toes and has been happily walking it through the house?

  I liked it when Allegra stayed on the swing. That way I could strap her in and she couldn’t go wandering off, and I didn’t have to deal with the brawls between kids over buckets and spades in the sandpit.

  ‘Let’s count to fifty, Allegra, how about fifty more pushes on the swing?’ I suggested, ignoring the little boy dressed in a blue Octonauts t-shirt who was patiently waiting for his turn. I’d successfully avoided any eye contact with his mother, whose laser-beam look said, ‘For god’s sake, get your daughter off the swing, it’s my son’s turn now.’

  But my sense of fair play had long gone; I would do anything to delay our shift to the sandpit. The sand was revolting, a dirty grey colour thanks to the pesky ibises and pigeons constantly shitting in it. Already there were plenty of kids with used takeaway coffee cups to scoop up the foul sand, trickling it through their sticky fingers to make poo-flavoured chocolate cakes and pies. Plus moving to the sandpit might mean I had to unstrap Giselle from my chest, and I loved keeping her close to me. It made my heart sing to put my nose to the top of her head, breathing in her very essence. I even took her sunhat off so I could cover her in kisses. Her cat-shaped eyes would light up when she spotted the grotty pigeons, and her legs kicked out in excitement at the amateur baking going on in the sandpit. Giselle kept me grounded and earthed when I felt like escaping my life. But Allegra was ready to run to the sandpit, and she was desperately trying to slide herself under the safety chain that had kept her in place on the swing.

  ‘Okay, just a sec, let Mummy do it,’ I said, as she tried to wriggle away.

  ‘The sandpit, Mummy. Let’s make cakes in the sandpit.’

  ‘I know, how about we play shops in the cubby house, right next to the sandpit? That will be much more fun. You could be the shopkeeper and I can buy the cakes from you,’ I suggested in desperation.