Is This My Beautiful Life?

by Jessica Rowe

  ‘Doe rayyyy, meee, faaaaarrrr, soooooo, larrrrrrrrr, teeeeeeeee,’ I sang.

  ‘Again, listen to me,’ Margi said. ‘Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti. Try it again and imagine you’re singing straight through the window, out into those trees.’

  ‘Do, rayyyy, mee, farrrrrr, soooo, larrrrr, teeeeee,’ I sang again, as Carlotta flicked her black tail.

  I gradually found my equilibrium in those weekly lessons. That hour each week was my time, my bubble, just for me. In Margi’s little room I was just Jessica, stripped bare and unplugged. There was no one there to judge, snigger or criticise me, so I let the notes, rhymes and vibrations caress me. Singing scales, flubbering my lips, and blowing fart sounds while making a cat’s bum face brought me simple joy, something that had been missing since I lost my high-profile co-hosting gig on Today. Although I had my girls and my Petee, there was still a part of me that felt a failure. The technicolour notes of ‘Sing a Rainbow’ were helping to mend the part that still thought it was not good enough. I knew I had to find joy in my professional life again and to work with people who made me feel good, not people who made me second-guess every word, sentence and loud laugh.

  Finally I got a second crack at Play School. Jay went over the moves I needed, coaching me through the steps known as the grapevine. My singing teacher got me as close to the right notes as I was ever going to be. This time there was no out-of-body experience as I shook my head and wiggled my tail for the director; even my dinosaur drawing wasn’t too bad. I finished the audition, knowing there was nothing more I could have done. The phone call came a few weeks later, but unfortunately I still wasn’t quite good enough. I sulked for a few days but kept drawing a blank on how I could reinvent myself.

  My cars tyres crunched on the wet, gravelly road. Or maybe not—it was hard to hear anything over my daughter’s screams.

  ‘I don’t want to go to the party! Don’t make me go, Mummy. I don’t want to go!’

  ‘Come on, let’s give it a go. Draw on the bravery and courage that I know is inside of you. You know, Mummy still gets shy. I don’t like walking into a room full of people. I’m nervous too.’ Then I noticed that my car’s parking sensors were suddenly going nuts.

  Beep, beeeep, beeeeeeeeeeeeep.

  ‘I am not going!’ Allegra yelled, oblivious to the fact that our car was now jammed between two other vehicles. My attempt at a U-turn to grab the only free spot on the narrow street on this wet Saturday morning hadn’t gone well, and now I knew what the crunching noise was. There was a large dent in the side of the expensive sedan I had reversed into because I hadn’t turned the wheel far enough to clear the car on the other side of the road. We were already an hour late for the birthday party. The mermaid-themed event was Allegra’s first party invitation since starting at big school, so I wanted to make an effort to get her there. Why was I letting a six-year-old’s birthday party freak me out?

  Allegra’s litany of excuses for not getting out of the car was relentless from the backseat. Bribery was the only way we were going to get to this party. I had already bribed myself with a new purchase, the brown and black sequinned handbag that was lying beside me on the passenger seat.

  ‘We don’t have to stay long. Let’s just go and have a look. And if you do that we’ll go and get hot chips afterwards,’ I said. The sound of my cheery voice with its upward inflection even irritated me.

  ‘Sooooooo, I only need to have a quick look,’ Allegra said. She was already a skilled negotiator at just five years of age.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying not to look at the dented panel door of the car as we crossed the road to the party. Although I was tempted to drive away to the safety of home, leaving the damage and anxiety behind, I was not going to give up just yet. I sifted through layer upon layer of junk on the floor of the car, trying to find a scrap of paper and a pen to place a note on the windscreen of the European car I’d left quite an impression on. The task reminded me of an archaeological dig: forget carbon dating, I could recount my entire week by what I excavated from inside my car. Pink ballet slippers, a pink lunchbox, a purple fairy wand, scraps of popcorn stuck to the carpet, polka-dotted tap shoes, takeaway coffee cups, one pussycat gumboot, Mac lipsticks, tweezers, green nail polish, shredded polystyrene (from a snow storm in the backseat when stuck in traffic on Wednesday), a yellow school hat, a library bag, a black cocktail dress still covered in plastic from the dry cleaner, and a nit-infested pale pink Mason Pearson hairbrush. But there was no paper or a pen. I ripped the party invitation in half and used a half-melted orange lip liner that I found in the glove box to scribble down an apology and my mobile number. Slipping the torn note under the damaged car’s windscreen wiper, my daughter took a vice-like grip on my jeans. The pair of us walked tentatively towards the house with the pink and white balloons tied to the front gate.

  ‘Come in, come in, the girls are downstairs, Allegra,’ said the mother who was hosting the party.

  ‘Mummy, come with me,’ Allegra implored, her little fingers digging tightly into my legs.

  ‘I’m coming, I won’t leave you.’

  Downstairs, a pretty twenty-something mermaid in a long red wig, glittering blue singlet and shimmering green tail was surrounded by twenty little girls. Allegra and I sat on the floor, squeezing into the tight circle. We were just in time for pass the parcel, the excited girls passing around the giant newspaper-wrapped parcel while One Direction played in the background. Whenever the music stopped, a layer was unwrapped, revealing a present for each girl. Jemina, the bossy, confident little girl sitting next to us, screamed excitedly when the music stopped and she unwrapped a fluorescent purple hair tie. Allegra was crestfallen; she had hoped it was her turn. The girls around us suddenly became noisier and pressed in tightly, trying to get closer to the mermaid in the middle of the circle. The more the sound bounced off the dark wooden floorboards, the more Allegra burrowed her head into my side. I didn’t have a good feeling about where this was heading. Suddenly the little mermaids leapt up, following the Queen Mermaid as she enticed them into a dancing competition on the grass outside. Spotting the purple hair tie left on the floor, I quickly snatched it up, glancing around to check that none of the other mums had seen me stuff it into my pocket.

  ‘Allegra, I’ve got you that hair elastic.’ She slowly turned her face up to me as I stroked her cheek.

  ‘But Mummy, that’s not mine—it belongs to Jemima!’

  My face flushed pink. I would do anything for my girls, anything to keep them happy, even if it meant stealing another child’s pass the parcel prize! Anyway, that Jemima was annoying, far too dominating and assured for such a small person. Her mother was also an expert on everything who was always on time, didn’t feed her children sugar, and her house always looked tidy. I was envious of her confidence in a role I was floundering in. What had happened to the part of me that could cope, be in control and be good at something? Harriet often told me that I needed to lower my expectations, about everything from park outings to play dates. I had a tendency to aim for perfection, but my sister was teaching me that by expecting only middling success from small endeavours, any other outcome will be a bonus. Instead of berating myself I needed to celebrate small victories and realise that life with kids often goes pear-shaped. And it hadn’t been all bad at the party, I thought as I licked the thick, sweet icing off a slab of birthday cake. While I sat in the car waiting for Allegra to put her belt on, I tucked away an extra lolly bag into my jacket pocket. The freckles would go very nicely with a cup of tea in bed tonight. And I wasn’t going to share them with anyone!

  I felt sure that if I found my professional groove, managing play dates and kids’ birthday parties would be easier. Even though I had recovered from my Play School disappointment, I was still eager for that performance buzz. And that was how I found myself in a musical, Side by Side by Sondheim, sharing the stage with Margi, my singing teacher, and two other incredible singers. Thankfully for the audience, I narrated the show, and sang o
nly a couple of notes. Every evening as I sat on the stage in the pitch-black, waiting for the spotlight to warm my face, a part of me grew stronger and brighter. All that part needed was a gentle nudge, helped along by Sondheim’s lyrics and a warm, funny cast. Our show had a week-long run at the Seymour Centre in Sydney.

  ‘Don’t go, Mummy, you can’t leave!’ Allegra said, her surprisingly strong hands grabbing around my waist and stopping me from getting out the front door.

  ‘I won’t be long—it’s only four sleeps, and you’ll have so much fun with Grandyfrog. You love it when he looks after you. He lets you drink Coke and stay up and watch Harry Potter movies,’ I said, wondering why Allegra never gave her father a hard time when he had to travel for work. We were about to tour the Sondheim show well off Broadway, playing to theatres in a couple of country towns in New South Wales and Victoria.

  ‘No one else’s mummy goes away. You always go away. You never have time for us.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous—I never go away! I’ll be back soon. And I’ll bring you a present.’

  ‘A puppy?’

  ‘We’ll see!’

  Each night of the tour, at the time I would usually be dealing with dinner, bath and bed for my girls, I revelled in putting on false eyelashes and slipping into a black sequinned cocktail frock. When I walked out onto the stage, accompanied by the pitch perfect tones of two baby grand pianos and grasping my handheld mic, I knew my butterfly wings were shimmering and, for now, it was my time.

  Once my two week music theatre career finished, I was happy to return to Weekend Sunrise and my ‘freelance’ gig reading the news. Although I still wasn’t on a contract with Seven I was now the regular newsreader for the weekend show. Hooray! Those Saturday and Sunday mornings belonged just to me. I would almost whoop with delight as I snuck out of my slumbering house, celebrating the four and a half hours I had to myself. I barely drew breath from when I sat down in the make-up chair until I drove out of the security car park, still laughing from the antics of the show. Those crazy few hours with Andrew O’Keefe, Samantha Armytage, Simon Reeve and James Tobin kept me grounded for the rest of the week.

  And those weeks could lurch from relatively calm to chaotic, depending on the mood of our family. Allegra had started school and she wasn’t happy about it. On day one I imagined her skipping out of the school gates, beaming about the fun of the asphalt playground and her new friends. The reality was a little less sunshiney.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll go back to school tomorrow.’

  ‘Really? Why not?’

  ‘My teacher is bossy, sitting on the mat is boring, there’s too much lining up, and the bell is annoying.’

  I wanted to say, ‘Welcome to the world, my darling girl,’ but I just smiled and said she had to go back the next day.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because the government says you have to, and Mummy will get into trouble if you don’t go.’

  ‘I think Julia Gillard is stupid …’

  Each morning I had to use my imagination to get her to school. And if my arsenal of persuasion, negotiation, shouting and strawberry and cream lollies failed, there was always my favourite weapon: bribery, with a capital B. The big gun saved for the end of a tricky week was a visit to the local toy store. I knew that was a big parenting fail, but I had discovered the power of gold star stickers on a reward chart. Even if my mild-mannered husband would rip them up in previously unseen moments of frustration when we couldn’t get our daughters to stay in their beds at night.

  Logically I knew that part-time work was my salvation and it would be hard, almost impossible, to take on any more work than the Weekend Sunrise gig. However, I found it hard to ignore the perverse part of my brain that still sought out challenges, adventure and stimulation. There was also the feeling that I had unfinished business on television, and deep down I wanted another opportunity to show people (mainly myself) who I was and what I was capable of.

  My mobile rang one day as I walked home after a fairly successful preschool and school drop-off. It was Rob McKnight, the producer of a new morning show that would be called Studio 10. Media icon Ita Buttrose had already been signed up as a co-host along with journalist Joe Hildebrand. I was in awe of Ita, a trailblazer for women, and someone who had balanced a long and varied career with her family. Over the years I had nervously said hello to her, hoping some of her gravitas would rub off on me!

  I knew Joe because we had worked together on Weekend Sunrise, where he was genius at insightful and controversial commentary. As Rob asked me to audition, for the remaining co-host role, I looked out over the sweep of Sydney Harbour and attempted to sound nonchalant about this exciting opportunity. I winced, hearing the tinge of desperation in my voice as I asked for the details. Once I hung up, there was no stopping my out-of-control excitement as I imagined myself the new Oprah Winfrey of Australian television. I was going to be big! I was going to make it! When I called my agent, David Wilson, in a spin, he calmed me down and told me to focus on the audition first before making plans for world domination.

  The audition went well and I knew I had done my best; secretly, I was really hoping one of the jobs would be mine. During the week that followed, I frequently rang my mobile number from the home phone to check it was still working. So when I recognised the producer’s number on the phone a fortnight later, I let it ring a few more times, preparing myself for the good news. However, it was not to be: I was told I wasn’t what they were looking for. Instead the fabulous Sarah Harris was the third person to be announced as a co-host of Studio 10. I had met Sarah years before when we both worked at Channel Nine and I loved her warmth and naturalness on air. I stayed civil through the conversation and polite goodbye, then hung up and wailed to my two cats.

  Peter held my hand and tried to comfort me as I started to fall into a pathetic mess of self-pity later that evening. My agent, David, was also reassuring and tried to make me feel better by doing a wicked character assassination of my competitors. While I wallowed, Peter secretly hatched a plan with my agent, explaining how much I was struggling to find ongoing, satisfying work after a run of bad luck. And David, also on the sly from me, spoke with the producer and convinced him to give me another shot at an audition for the remaining co-host. I was unaware of what Peter and David had done, and the next thing I knew I had a call from David saying they wanted me to trial again.

  When I sat down with Ita, Joe and Sarah on the panel I just went for it, wearing my heart on my sleeve. It was fun: I enjoyed chatting, arguing and questioning them. This time I had nothing to lose and felt calm and secure, simply being myself. It was something I’d never really had permission to do on camera before. As I waved goodbye to the crew I was far more realistic, realising that I probably wouldn’t get the job, but it would be okay this time.

  Two days later the phone rang. Again I recognised the producer’s number, but since I had already convinced myself that it would be better for my family if I didn’t get the job, I was just waiting for him to again say thanks but no thanks.

  ‘Hi Jess,’ said Rob McKnight.

  ‘Oh, hello.’

  ‘I wanted to call …’

  I know, to say that you haven’t got the job, I thought.

  ‘… to tell you that you’re our fourth panellist.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got the job, Jess. It was a no-brainer.’

  ‘Oh. My. God!’ I screamed. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Suddenly things started to look up as I finally returned to full-time work for the first time since I had my girls. Ironically, I was returning to full-time work at Network Ten, the place that had taken me to court all those years ago, but none of the senior executives who had tried to sue me were working there anymore. The familiar faces belonged to the studio cameramen, make-up artists and the receptionist. In a strange way, although so much had changed in my life, when I walked into the studio it was like I was coming home. My job description was to be myself, to lau
gh, listen and argue for two and a half hours every day on the television. As a panellist on Studio 10, I worked with three other fine people and we talked, talked and talked about the big and little issues of the day. It was heaven. I skipped out of the house each morning, my handbag packed with my favourite pink lipstick, a padded Pleasure State bra and my shorthand notebook. I always found bras uncomfortable to wear, especially early in the morning, but I needed the extra padding they gave my flat chest. So I tried to remember to pack one each morning. Sneaking out of the front door just as the cheeky kookaburras were clearing their throats, I felt completely happy for the first time in a long, long time.

  Until I had one again, I didn’t realise how lost I’d been without a permanent paid job. Working again helped my brainwaves rediscover their silver, zapping rhythms, independent of bedtime dramas, food-strewn highchairs, playground politics and endless routine. But alas, isn’t there always a sting in the tail? The obstacle that still occasionally broke my stride was my guilt, a tiny voice that sometimes got a little louder, especially when I was tired. Or when I was unable to do canteen duty, or had forgotten to fill out lunch orders or find lost school shoes.

  Despite having managed to lose my self-imposed Wonder Woman crown under the vast collection of Barbies and glitter pens crammed into the pink storage box of my life, I still cannot wipe away my mother guilt. The contradiction, despite relishing going to work each day, that guilty feeling seeps into my soft, mushy heart. Was I depriving my girls because I was not with them 24/7?

  ‘Mummy you’re never here. You’re always working. Don’t leave me,’ said Allegra. Her superpower hearing means she has been woken up by the sounds of me creeping down the stairs to make a coffee before going to work.

  ‘That’s not true,’ I argued gently. ‘I pick you up from school every afternoon, I cook your dinner, read you Diary of a Wimpy Kid each night …’