Is This My Beautiful Life?

by Jessica Rowe

  I couldn’t let my fear show with my little daughter by my side. I dropped the takeaway coffees in the bin and rang my sister Harriet. She was planning on meeting us at the hospital with her little boy Elliott, owner of the blue pyjama pants that my eldest daughter was currently starring in at day care.

  ‘I’m here at the hospital but Mum’s not here. She’s missing,’ I said.

  ‘Missing? How can she just go missing? I thought they were meant to be keeping an eye on her,’ my sister exclaimed. This sudden change of events didn’t fit with her rational approach to everything.

  We decided to meet at the adjoining cafe and come up with a plan. What sort of plan do you make when your mother goes missing? Caffeine seemed to be a good place to start, especially since I had tipped my latest fix in the hospital bin. I ordered some more coffees and pretended not to hear the barista joking about how much we must like his coffee.

  When Harriet arrived we bribed the little people with apple juice and gingerbread men to get a few moments of peace so we could talk.

  ‘Bang, crash, bang, crash, bang,’ my daughter sang exuberantly, whacking her juice bottle on the table.

  ‘Surely she hasn’t got too far. Mum hasn’t got a car,’ my sister reasoned. Our conversation was being accompanied by the constant bang song from Giselle.

  ‘Will you get that child to be quiet?’ a woman yelled from the counter as she waited for her order. Most of the time I’m a polite and pleasant person, almost to the point of irritation. However, my good manners deserted me at that moment.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ I yelled back. Harriet and I kept ignoring Giselle’s ‘song’ while we decided to have our own search party for Mum. Then as we got up to leave the cafe I walked over to the woman and said in a cold and bitchy voice, ‘I hope you ruin someone else’s day. You have no idea what is happening in peoples’ lives.’ What I said was so out of character for me but I was finding it almost impossible not to be hysterical about what Mum had done. I almost wished I had long hair to flick over my shoulder as my tone-deaf toddler and I stumbled out. Ms Judgemental couldn’t see the tears running down my cheeks.

  Thankfully, today my daughter was happy to be strapped into her car seat, ready to sing along to yet another round of nursery rhymes on the CD player. I glanced in the rear-vision mirror as she made the actions to go with ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, grateful that she was oblivious to the unfolding family crisis.

  I got on the phone. ‘Petee, it’s me, I’m worried about Mum,’ I said, unable to articulate the details properly.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m about to do a news update.’

  ‘She’s gone missing. I need your help.’ All the calm had disappeared from my voice.

  Peter didn’t miss a beat. ‘Are you at the hospital? Wait there, I’m on my way.’

  My husband, sister and I made an unlikely convoy, trawling the streets of the leafy well-to-do neighbourhood looking for a runaway mother. The hospital told us she’d been wearing a pink kaftan top with white pants, so I kept a lookout for a flash of pink as we drove. Thinking of that colour helped me stay in the present; I would not let my mind leap into panic mode. One steep street led to a ferry wharf that on any other day I would have thought was a beautiful spot to look out across Sydney Harbour, but today the deep blue water just frightened me. Don’t let your ugly imagination go there, I thought. Then I prayed, something I had not done in a long time. The last time I had properly prayed I’d begged the god, goddess or unicorn of the holy spirit to nourish the microscopic embryo that was implanted inside me. Now I was begging the universe to keep another fragile soul alive.

  Please God, let Mum be okay. Please God, don’t let her die. God, stop her from hurting herself. A small voice interrupted my muddled prayer.

  ‘Mumma, what we doing?’

  ‘Ah, we’re on an adventure.’ Yeah right, some adventure, I thought. ‘Daddy and your Aunty Lade and Yel are all having a drive in our cars. They’re going to meet us here.’

  It didn’t take long for the others to arrive at the ferry wharf. While the children ran around on the grass nearby, we tried to work out what to do next.

  ‘Do you think your mum could have got on the ferry?’ Peter asked.

  I looked up the ferries number on my phone and gave a garbled explanation to the woman who answered the call. ‘We can’t find our mum. She’s missing, she managed to get out of her psychiatric hospital. And she …’ Before I could finish, the measured voice on the other end of the line told me she would put me through to the ferry control room. My call was transferred, and this time a man answered. Gently he asked me to describe what Mum was wearing when she was last seen.

  ‘Pink. A pink top,’ I said.

  I repeated the information about her leaving the hospital and gave him the address of the wharf we were standing on. He told me he would put a call through to all the ferries on the waterways, give them Mum’s description and call me right back. Fifteen minutes later my mobile rang.

  ‘We’ve found her,’ he said.

  ‘They’ve found her!’ I yelled to Peter and my sister, who were keeping an eye on the kids somersaulting on the grass.

  ‘Oh my god, is she okay?’ I asked the man, silently thanking the goddess and unicorn and everyone else.

  ‘She’s sitting quietly, gazing out the window. The crew haven’t said anything to her. We don’t want to frighten her or cause her to do anything unexpected. Now we’re going to divert the ferry to where you are,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, thank you so much for your help, oh it means so much to us, thank you,’ I babbled.

  ‘Darlin’, it’s our job. Pleased we found her.’

  It was going to take a while for the ferry to return, so Peter headed back to work, back to the serious business of news and tragedies happening to somebody else’s family. My sister and I took the kids to wait for Mum under the shade of the ferry shelter. Stuck along the top of the wooden walls was information about ferry tickets, ads for the latest way to blast flab away from your stomach, plus some pictures of seahorses and fish found in the water nearby. We chattered about sea creatures and made some half-heartened attempts to sing silly songs about them to distract the kids. The relief and let-down of adrenaline made us light-headed and giggly. I felt drunk with relief, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to yell at Mum or give her a hug when I saw her.

  Suddenly I could see a ferry heading to the wharf. I told my sister to stay in the shade with the children and seahorses and I would hop onto the boat to get Mum. As it pulled up, one of the crew helped me aboard.

  ‘I haven’t told your mum that you’re here. She’s just through there.’ He gestured through the glass doors of the ferry, pointing to the row of seats along the window.

  I tried to look confident as I pulled open the door and walked across to the window seats. Ignoring the curious looks from other passengers wondering about the unexpected detour of their ferry route, I walked up to my mother. She was slumped against the window, her eyes looking desolately across the harbour and cityscape. When I reached out to touch her shoulder, she turned around and screamed in fright.

  ‘Mum, it’s okay, it’s me, Jessica. Your daughter. I’m here to get you. Let’s get off,’ I said.

  ‘No, no, no! I’m staying here—this ferry is going to Circular Quay. I’m not getting off until we get to the city.’

  ‘Come on, it’s time to go. Let’s hop off here together.’ I found myself taking the same tone I used to cajole my daughters into doing something they didn’t want to do.

  ‘No’, Mum said.

  ‘Alright, I’ll sit here with you and we’ll get off at the Quay together.’

  ‘No, go away, go away!’ Mum said. She wouldn’t look at me.

  ‘I’m not going away. I am not going anywhere. Harriet and the kids are waiting for you on the wharf,’ I said.

  ‘What? What are they doing here? They shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to see them.’
/>   ‘Come on, Mum, let’s go.’

  Then I just stood there; I had run out of things to say. This woman with the mad eyes wasn’t my mum, not the mum I knew. Begrudgingly she got up, but brushed my upturned hand away.

  ‘The only reason I’m getting off is because I don’t want to hold up all the other passengers,’ she said. Refusing to look at me, Mum staggered towards the ferry exit. I hovered right behind her, willing myself to focus on her fuchsia kaftan and not make eye contact with any other passengers.

  ‘Thank you so much for helping us,’ I said to the ferry hand, as he slid the gangplank across so we could step onto the wharf. I tried to take Mum’s arm to help her, but she pushed it away. She was unsteady on her feet, a side-effect from the heavy doses of medication. Mum tried to shove past me, but I put my hand on her shoulder as she walked past my sister and her grandchildren. Their little faces were full of confusion, as just moments before they had rushed up to give their beloved grandmother a cuddle. I did my best reassuring smile and told Giselle to stay there with her aunty and cousin.

  ‘Just hold your Aunty Lade’s hand. Marmi will be okay. I’ve just got to take her back to the hospital. I’ll see you in a minute,’ I said. My sunglasses were firmly in place so my daughter couldn’t see my tears.

  Mum and I kept walking but somehow I managed to manoeuvre her in the direction of my car. I told her to get in, unsure what I would do if she refused to obey. Thankfully she got into the front seat without a word; I reached across her lap to clip her seatbelt in.

  ‘Mum, we were so worried about you. We love you. We want to help you,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t talk to you. I’m so angry,’ she said as tears streamed down her face but still not turning to look at me.

  ‘We love you. It’s okay. It’s okay,’ I said. The drive back up the hill to the hospital took only a few minutes.

  ‘Stay here, you are not coming in. I can go in myself,’ she said when we arrived.

  ‘No, I’m not dropping you off here. I am walking in with you,’ I said firmly.

  Yet again she shoved my hand away and shuffled up to the hospital doors, with me tagging close behind. When we reached the nurses’ station in the ward she flopped down in one of the blue vinyl chairs.

  ‘Just leave me here!’ she screamed. ‘Go away!’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. I want to make sure you are safe in your room—we don’t want you disappearing again.’

  Thankfully, a nurse intervened. ‘It’s alright, I’ll take you to your room.’

  ‘I’m coming too, Mum,’ I insisted, following dutifully behind. My brave face was back in place to deal with whatever came next. But all I could think about was getting Mum settled and safe in her room.

  That night as I snuggled with my girls in their beds before kissing them goodnight, my mind whirred with the craziness of the day. Our nightly routine was to lie down in the dark together and whisper about the happiest parts of their day. On this night I made a silent promise to shield them from my pain and worry. I wanted to protect them from the chaos of my childhood, and I wanted to be a perfect, happy mother. I shifted White Owlie and Rapunzel doll to the other side of the bed so I could give Giselle a proper hug. She wasn’t yet three and I found the bluntness that came with such an age refreshing.

  ‘You’re hot, Mummy,’ said Giselle.

  ‘Oh, sorry …’

  ‘Take the doona off. I’m hot.’

  ‘When is it my turn?’ asked Allegra.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Is it a long five minutes or a short five minutes?’

  ‘Long,’ said Giselle.

  ‘When is it my turn?’ Allegra asked again.

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Soonish.’

  ‘But how long is soon?’

  ‘Now. I’m coming now.’

  ‘Come closer, Mummy,’ Allegra said, patting her princess pillowcase. I had just spent two hundred dollars at the hairdresser getting them to comb the nits out of her hair. Expensive but worth it because it short circuited the merry-go-round of nit infestation that seemed to last for months. I didn’t want to get too close, even though I was already scratching my scalp at the thought of the creepy crawlies.

  ‘Put your head here. Speak in a louder voice,’ Allegra instructed.

  ‘How’s this? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes. That’s good. Where do you go when you die, Mummy?’

  If I stayed quiet, lying there under the Disney Princess doona, maybe Allegra would ask a different question. Giselle called out from her bed. ‘Die? Did Allegra say die? What’s that?’

  ‘I’m worried about dying. I don’t want you and Daddy to die and leave me alone,’ Allegra said.

  ‘I won’t leave you alone.’

  ‘But will you die?’

  ‘We all die, but not for a very long time.’ I crossed my fingers.

  ‘What’s heaven, Mummy?’

  ‘It’s a place where you feel the happiest. Everything that makes your heart sing will be there.’

  ‘Promise me you’ll never die.’

  I stayed silent.

  ‘When I die, promise me you’ll lie here with me always and never leave.’

  Then I stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Giselle was already dancing in her dreams. My mum used to pat my head to help me fall asleep. It made me feel safe. Loved.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Red, and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and bluuuue. I can sing a raaaaainbow, sing a raaaaainbow …’

  ‘Stop it, I don’t like it,’ Allegra complained.

  ‘How about this one? The dinosaurs were dancing round the prehistoric swamp, they shook their heads, swished their tails, and …’

  ‘No more singing, Mummy,’ my three-year-old Giselle said bluntly.

  I was still struggling to get regular television work. The occasional fill-in news presenting on Weekend Sunrise wasn’t enough to restore my confidence. Although I wanted to move on from my very public professional fall from grace, it still dragged me down. I had to come up with something drastic. What were my talents? Hey, I play dress-ups and sing with my girls, so I could work as a presenter on Play School, the long-running children’s show on the ABC, right? Of course—that’s what any tone-deaf person would think would be a good career option. At least I hadn’t forgotten to jump in the deep end and take a risk.

  With my daughters pretending to be mermaids wearing their green Princess Ariel tails in the bath, I gave them a concert of the songs I had to perform for my audition. I needed all the practice I could get. And as I knew those tails meant they couldn’t get out of the bath in a hurry, I had a captive audience.

  After numerous phone calls to the executive producer’s office, my persistence had finally paid off and I had been given a break, an audition on Play School. I thought a job starring in a children’s television show would solve all my problems: I would have a title, a purpose, and something to tell the car parking attendant and the butcher.

  And that was how I found myself having an out-of-body experience in one of the vast ABC television studios at Ultimo in Sydney.

  ‘The dinosaurs were dancing round the prehistoric swamp, they shook their heads, swished their tails,’ I sang, valiantly wiggling my bottom at the camera crew filming my audition.

  The pianist with his long groovy hair pulled back into a ponytail looked like a frustrated musician who had no time for impostors like me. Determined to ignore his ‘too cool for school’ vibes, I warbled on through ‘Sing a Rainbow’, a song with far too many key changes for an amateur like me. That part of the audition finally ended as I attempted to trace the shape of a rainbow in a jumble of hand movements.

  For years as a news presenter, I had been paid to read out loud for a living. How hard could it be to tell a kids’ story? I told stories to my girls all the time. All of my enthusiasm, energy, frustration and desperation went into the story of the dinosaur who stomped through the fore
st. I leapt through the air, raised my eyebrows and made spectacular sound effects.

  I floated above the cavernous television studio and spotted the real stars of the show, the toys: Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima and Humpty Dumpty. If someone happened to look through the huge glass windows that surrounded the room, they would be convinced the woman in the red t-shirt, jeans and sneakers had lost her mind. My dinosaur tale was the performance of a lifetime, but instead of applause there was just silence—an awfully long silence.

  ‘Aaaah, ummm, you are definitely an enthusiastic storyteller,’ said the director. I looked at her expectantly, convinced she would offer me the job on the spot.

  ‘Okay then, thank you,’ she said, while one of the cameramen held open the studio door for me to exit.

  Not surprisingly, the powers that be at the ABC didn’t like it either.

  But I wasn’t giving up yet. Realising I needed professional help, I enlisted the expertise of Play School royalty, my friend Jay Laga’aia, who listened patiently while I read him some kids’ stories. Jay told me to lose the newsreader precision and perform like I was simply talking to my daughters. Next he played some songs on his piano while he heard me ‘sing’. The sounds coming out of my mouth weren’t even close to the notes, but Jay was still encouraging and gave me the number of a fabulous singing teacher. My desire to crack the nursery rhyme code led to the beginning of a surprising and special friendship when my singing teacher, Margi, helped me get in tune with myself. It wasn’t about hitting the right notes—my renditions of ‘Little Peter Rabbit’ and ‘Sing a Rainbow’ were still all over the place—it was about finding my confidence again. That unfamiliar sense of contentment sat happily inside my chest as I stood in Margi’s small front room, singing to her black cat, Carlotta, curled on top of the piano.