‘I’ve been on antidepressants now for over a year.’
Frankie slid off her stool, stepped closer and wrapped her arms around her big sister. ‘Oh, Lucy,’ she said, ‘I had no idea.’
Lucy began to cry into her shoulder and Frankie rubbed her back.
‘Frankie,’ said Lucy, pulling back a bit, ‘do you miss Mum and Dad?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. I miss them a lot.’
‘Me too.’
* * *
Poppy couldn’t find Annalise anywhere. It occurred to her to check the ladies’ bathroom. When she walked in, she almost immediately turned around to walk back out again. Leanne, the woman from MOP was in there. She might have cleared the air with Yasmine, but she wasn’t ready to try to explain herself to someone else.
But as soon as Leanne saw her, she spoke up. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she said, ‘I need help. I think the woman in this stall is sick but I can’t get her to open the door. I didn’t want to leave her and I’ve been waiting for someone else to come in.’
Poppy hesitated. ‘So should I go and ask for help …’ she began, but then she heard the moan from inside the stall and stopped still. It didn’t sound like the drunken cry of someone who was feeling a bit under the weather. It sounded like an anguished cry from someone who was really, really not okay.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Poppy asked.
‘I don’t know. I can’t make sense of what she’s saying.’
The voice spoke. ‘Poppy?’ it said, full of tears. ‘Is that you?’
‘Annalise! What’s wrong, honey, what’s going on?’
It sounded like she was about to respond but instead she let out another shriek of pain.
‘Open the door,’ Poppy said. ‘Let us help you.’
‘I … I can’t,’ she whimpered. ‘I can’t reach, I can’t get up. If I move … If I move I might make it worse.’
Leanne exchanged a terrified look with Poppy. ‘Make what worse?’ she said.
And before Poppy had the chance to respond, Leanne had dropped down onto her belly on the damp tiles, and was commando-style crawling her way under the door to get to Annalise – not even pausing to worry about her silk cocktail dress. A moment later, the lock clicked from the inside and the door swung open to reveal Annalise curled up in a ball on the floor, her knees tucked into her stomach, tears streaming down her face. Leanne was crouched next to her, hands on her shoulders.
‘What’s happened?’ Poppy looked at Leanne. ‘Do you think it’s food poisoning or something?’
But Leanne pointed down at something on the floor. Poppy realised it was Annalise’s knickers that she must have kicked off, and she saw the blood stain.
‘Is she pregnant?’ Leanne asked.
‘Pregnant?’ Poppy exclaimed. ‘She couldn’t be —’ but she stopped short as Annalise tipped her tear-stained face towards her and their eyes met.
‘Yes,’ Poppy said. ‘Yes, I think she is.’
‘Then she might be miscarrying,’ said Leanne. ‘Come on, let’s move her out of here so she can lie down properly.’
They both tried to take hold of Annalise’s arms gently, but she cowered away from them. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘no, don’t move me, don’t make me move. I have to stay still, I don’t want it to come out of me, I don’t want to lose it. I can’t. I can’t lose this one as well.’
Poppy didn’t register the strangeness of her words. This one as well. She was too busy panicking. She was too busy hurting for her friend. She couldn’t stand to see her in so much pain, so distraught.
‘We have to, honey,’ she said, ‘you can’t stay in here. We have to get you to a hospital.’ She looked at Leanne. ‘Wait, what are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘We’re in the middle of the harbour, how are we going to get help?’
‘Shit, I don’t know,’ Leanne replied. ‘But I’m going to run out and get my phone while you stay with her. I’ll call triple zero. They’ll tell us what to do.’
She stood up and hurried towards the door.
‘See if you can find someone else on board to help,’ Poppy called after her. ‘A doctor or a nurse or something.’
Left alone, Poppy managed to ease Annalise out of the small compartment gently and lay her down on the bathroom tiles, resting her head on her lap and stroking her face. ‘It’s okay, Lisey,’ she said, ‘it’s going to be okay, we’re getting you help. You’re going to be okay.’
‘I’m not,’ Annalise cried. ‘I’m not okay. This is my punishment.’ And she let out another wail as her body twisted in pain.
‘Punishment? Punishment for what? No, no, honey, you’re not being punished, you’re going to be fine, I promise you.’
‘My punishment for hurting everyone. Frankie. Lawrence. You. I lied to you, Poppy. I’ve been lying to you for so long.‘
‘Sweetie, it’s okay, you don’t need to worry about that. I don’t care that you didn’t tell me you’re pregnant. It’s fine, it’s so fine. Forget about it.’
‘Not that,’ she said, and she turned her face into Poppy’s lap and cried out again as another cramp took hold of her. ‘About me. About who I am. I lied about so much.’
‘I don’t care about your past. I swear to you, I don’t. You’re my best friend and all you need to worry about is getting better. Just hold on, okay? Help is coming.’
Oh God, where is Leanne? What is going on out there?
‘I have to tell you this,’ Annalise sobbed, ‘I have to tell you the truth.’
She twisted again and tipped her head back so she was looking right up at Poppy.
‘I was already a mum,’ she said. ‘I’ve been betraying you from the beginning. I was always an imposter in your group. I lied about everything.’
Then she rolled back onto her side again. Her head slipped off Poppy’s lap and she only just caught hold of her in time before she might have smacked her head on the hard tiles.
Her brain was racing with what Annalise had just told her, but she had to put it aside. She had to ignore it and focus on her right now. Focus on getting her better, focus on getting her through this. She could worry about what she’d told her later.
The door swung open and Leanne burst back into the bathroom, flanked by two other people who immediately rushed in and knelt down either side of Annalise.
* * *
Annalise didn’t know why it mattered so much that she told Poppy the truth there and then. Maybe it gave her something else to focus on.
She couldn’t say all of it out loud though. As much as she wanted to, beyond that one simple admission, the words wouldn’t come, so she closed her eyes and sifted through her memories, and she relived the story in her mind.
When Annalise was still a baby, her mother met a man. A man who she found so intoxicating, so mesmerising, that she dropped everything to follow him. Maybe Annalise should be grateful that she didn’t drop her too. That she didn’t leave her behind. That despite her love for this man, she still loved Annalise, enough to take her too. But perhaps it would have been better if she had left her behind. She could have had a different life.
What really mattered is what did happen. She took Annalise with her and her life changed so completely from what it could have been. This man she followed lived in a compound in the middle of the bush outside Hope Vale in Far North Queensland. That was where he led his cult. Annalise never knew if her mum regretted her choice once she settled in to life there. She didn’t know if she was disappointed to discover that she wasn’t the only one he loved, or the only one who loved him.
On the one hand, you might think the fact that Annalise grew up knowing no different meant she would have been happy there. But she wasn’t. She could never be. She hated him. She hated the way he looked at her and the other girls. She hated the way he drew her mother’s attention away from her.
And the older kids told her stories. Some had moved there when they were older, so they knew about the outside world. God, how Annalise wanted to be a part of that outside world. She wanted to meet
other people. She wanted to live a different life. She wanted to escape. From the moment she knew she could have a different life, she wanted to escape.
There were a few of them who plotted and planned. She didn’t know how serious the others were, or how many of them were just playing out fantasies they never thought would come to fruition. But Annalise believed it. She knew her place wasn’t there. She tried to tell her mum that she wasn’t happy, that she wanted to leave. But her mother wouldn’t listen.
She was fourteen when she finally made it out. There had been failed attempts before that, and each time she failed, he would punish her. And her mother would let him. Each time she let that happen, Annalise’s hopes of her mum coming with her would diminish, further and further.
In the end, it was just Annalise and one other person who left together – a lanky fifteen-year-old boy named River. They hitched a ride all the way down to Brisbane and made their way in and out of shelters; sometimes they slept on the streets, sometimes they squatted in abandoned buildings. He was the one she fell pregnant to. She thought they were in love. She thought the two of them could find a way to live, find a way to raise a baby together. And she thought she would be a different mum. A completely different mother from the one who had loved that man more than her. She didn’t know if her mother ever looked for her.
But she was just a kid! She wouldn’t have known how to look after a baby. She was kidding herself. They were camped out in an abandoned warehouse when she gave birth to her baby. River helped, but she knew he was terrified. He wasn’t ready to become a father. Somehow, they got her out alive, even though they had no clue what we were doing. They cleaned her and cut the cord and Annalise hugged the baby close to her, and she fed her just as she’d seen the women in the compound do with their own babies. They named her Opal.
River lasted four nights before he vanished. He was way out of his depth. Three nights after he left, Annalise woke in the early hours of the morning to find her baby blue. She’d fallen asleep with Opal in her arms but she realised she must have rolled on her as she slept. She tried to bring her back. She tried to revive her.
‘Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die,’ she said over and over again as she massaged her chest and breathed into her mouth.
But she was already cold.
She never had a chance of bringing her back.
She wrapped her up in a blanket and she walked. She walked and walked until her heels were rubbed raw and blisters appeared on her soles. She left the city and she continued on through the suburbs, past darkened red-brick bungalows with neatly mown lawns and curtains drawn tight.
When she laid her daughter to rest, she wanted to say a prayer, but she didn’t know any.
So instead she asked the earth to take her. She asked Mother Nature to love her.
She didn’t ask God. She didn’t know God.
And then she ran.
She told herself she would start over. That she would be a different person. A person who didn’t deserve love or a family. A person who just lived one day to the next. A person who simply got by. She stole things. She invented things about her past. A primary school, a high school. As she grew older – a uni degree if she needed it for a job. Fake credentials, fake work experience. She slept with people. Sometimes her lies worked, sometimes someone checked her out and caught on to the lies. And so she’d move on to somewhere else and try again. She was good at charming people, good at talking her way in.
She did write to her daughter though. Letters with no address, letters that could never be sent. But she did write them. Opal became her conscience. She shared her deepest, darkest thoughts. She confessed to her when she knew she’d done wrong. When she pretended to be happy, to be fine, Opal was the one she told the truth. What Poppy didn’t spot when she snuck a look at that red notebook, were two words, Dear Opal, scribbled, on the inside front cover.
8 June
When you walk the streets instead of catching the bus or taking the train, the world is a different place. Because you notice the smaller things. The tiniest of details. A dent in the side of a letterbox. A dilapidated side gate. A gutter with overflowing leaves.
A mound in the earth in the middle of the bush that shouldn’t be there.
That shouldn’t exist.
* * *
Frankie was sitting with her arm slung around her sister’s shoulders when she heard that there was a medical emergency. For a minute, her mind jumped to Linda. She hadn’t seen her all night since they’d talked about Paul and about the mistakes she’d made. Where had she been all this time? What if she’d stayed out on the deck after they’d spoken? And there was that big wave as well! What if she’d fallen overboard?
But no, there was Linda, back at their table, drinking alone. Frankie admonished herself for being overly dramatic.
Then the rumour reached Frankie and Lucy that a woman in the toilets was suffering a miscarriage.
Not Annalise, she thought, as she remembered how she’d looked at her just an hour earlier when she’d told her how much she wanted this baby.
There was nothing Frankie could do to help. Aside from the fact that she was far too drunk to be of any help to anyone, apparently there was already a nurse in there looking after her and paramedics were on their way via water taxi.
When the paramedics arrived and they were making their way back towards the waiting water taxi with Annalise, Frankie pushed her way through the crowd and caught Poppy’s arm. She gave it a squeeze and Poppy took her hand and squeezed back. Then they were gone.
The mood on the boat was subdued as it cut through the water on its way back to the harbour. The rest of the speeches were cancelled and people milled about, finishing drinks, chatting quietly. Somehow, Frankie, Lucy and Chelsea found themselves sitting at a table with a mix of NOP and MOP women.
A woman named Leanne, who’d apparently been the one to first find Annalise, had a damp dress and a tear-streaked face. Frankie heard she’d crawled under the toilet door to get to Annalise.
Another woman – a member of NOP who was the nurse who’d gone in to help until the paramedics arrived – was sipping a bourbon, the ice clinking against the glass. No one was chatting, everyone was quiet.
Suddenly, Lucy spoke up. ‘I wrote the article,’ she said, a little too loudly, her voice slurred. ‘The article about NOP. I wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry.’
Another woman chimed in. ‘Why do women do this?’ she asked. ‘Why do we tear each other down? Why don’t we support one another?’
‘Because we’re all still the bitchy girls who picked on one another in high school?’ someone suggested.
‘No,’ said someone else, ‘it’s because we’re all too caught up with our own problems. Our own shit. And we forget that everyone else has their own shit going on too.’
A woman across the table stood up. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’m Kellie, and I’ve been a member of NOP for four months.’
Everyone laughed.
‘I loved it because I felt like I was a part of something. And because whenever I got together with my family, I felt like the odd one out because all my sisters and brothers have kids and it was nice to stop being the odd one out.’
She sat down and a woman in a red floor-length gown to the left of her stood up.
‘My name’s Georgia and I’ve been a member of MOP for two years. When my daughter was first born, I went to MOP for everything. I asked about feeding, I asked about sleeping, I asked about cracked nipples, I asked about baby monitors and formula and nappies and anything that came up. The women on there were my saviours and I love them for it.’
Frankie stood up, swayed a little, grasped the table for support and spoke. ‘My name’s Frankie but the NOP ladies would know me as Viv. I was a member of both groups and I saw the good and the ugly from both sides. Sometimes the members from MOP helped and supported me, and sometimes they judged me and made me feel like a terrible mother. Sometimes the NOP women were kind and understanding about mu
ms and sometimes they were arseholes. No one is perfect. And no single group is perfect either. But I do think we can all do better for one another. A little empathy is all that’s needed.’
A woman who looked a little nervous stood up next. ‘Hey, guys,’ she said, ‘I’m Dee, and I was actually supposed to give a speech tonight. I was really nervous about it and I’m finding it hard enough just talking in front of all of you. I’m not a member of either of these groups you’re talking about. But I’ve overheard a lot about them tonight, and I think I’ve got the gist of what’s going on. So I just want to say, I was a victim of domestic violence. I’m no longer a victim. Now I’m a survivor. But unlike the other woman who spoke tonight, I don’t have kids. Now from the perspective of a non-parent, I respect the idea of having a space for women who aren’t mums to get together and connect. I could have used it a few years ago. But as another option … why not merge the two groups? Why not just make it a community of women? Simple as that?’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Might be good. Might not work. Just my two cents,’ she added.
There were nods and murmurs of agreement from around the table and soon after, the women broke off into their own smaller conversations and the moment had passed. Frankie felt like they were on their way towards a change though. Nothing major. It wasn’t like women were going to stop judging one another overnight. But maybe the ‘them and us’ mentality was starting to break down … even just a little.
When Frankie arrived home, Dom was waiting up for her. He put the kettle on as she came through the door and made them each a cup of tea. She noticed the house was tidier than when she’d left earlier that evening. Nothing amazing, but she could see he’d made an effort, which was nice.
She told him about the evening. About Linda’s promise that the bonus was coming after all and that by her calculations, it would see them through long enough that he had a few more months before he had to find a new job.
She told him about Annalise as well, and how angry she’d been with her for not passing on that message. But now, all of that seemed so irrelevant. The kids were fine, it had all been okay. There was no point in holding onto that anger. And now she just wanted for Annalise to be all right.
Those Other Women Page 31
