The Bridge

by Enza Gandolfo

  Mandy told Sarah about falling pregnant at seventeen, about her short-lived relationship with Jo’s father, David, and about the decision to move back into the family home as a twenty-year-old single mother. ‘Dad was a great help, and David’s parents too. Living here with Dad made it easier for me to work — he loved Jo and they got on well. In those days, she thought I was the best mum in the world,’ Mandy said and shook her head. ‘Not anymore. I was a young mum, I thought it’d always be like that … For years and years, when she saw me standing outside the classroom door with the other mothers at the end of the school day, she’d race out and I’d scoop her into my arms; she was so happy to see me.’

  ‘And then she changed?’

  Mandy shrugged. ‘I guess it’s just, she grew up. Became a teenager, started to see that there were other ways of living, other kinds of mothers.’

  Sarah was relieved she didn’t need to do much prodding to get Mandy to talk. Mandy seemed to be in a reflective mood, scouring through the past as if they were on an archeological dig, on the brink of a major discovery, as if by unearthing the moment when her relationship with Jo changed — as if it were possible to reduce it to one moment — she’d have a chance to make things right, to undo the accident, Ashleigh’s death, and the bleak future that lay ahead for Jo.

  ‘In hindsight I can see there were things that happened in Jo’s childhood that I should’ve … I tried to deal with them as best I could. I didn’t think long term. I didn’t think, This might affect her forever. I didn’t know what a mother was supposed to do.’ Mandy’s voice was thin and tight.

  ‘It’s like that for every parent,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I’d no idea what I was supposed to do, especially after my father died. Sometimes I resented Jo so much … At the end of her primary school, I sent her to stay with her father for two weeks. He had two more children and I thought it was important for her to get to know her brothers. And to be honest, I wanted a break,’ Mandy confessed.

  ‘That’s understandable,’ Sarah said.

  Mandy told Sarah how that summer, she’d had a relationship with Theo, the manager of the storeroom at the supermarket, who was newly separated from his wife. He was the first man she’d met in years that she wanted to spend time with and he’d invited her to go away with him for two weeks. It didn’t last long; in the end he’d gone back to his wife.

  ‘Jo and I had never been apart for more than a couple of nights before that. I’d even gone as a volunteer on most of her school camps. And both she and David were keen. It was unusual for David, but he sent the money for her ticket. When she came back, she’d lost weight. She was a chubby kid — not fat, just not skinny …’ Mandy hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. Do you mind me telling you this?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind,’ Sarah said. People were awkward saying the word fat when Sarah was around. As if the mere mention of the word would be offensive. And in a way they were right. Fat, obese, chubby, overweight — even when the speaker wasn’t talking about her, the words slapped Sarah right back into her fat body, to the edges of the chair cutting into her thighs, the tight cling of her trouser waistband, the clammy stickiness of flesh rubbing against flesh between her thighs.

  ‘Anyway, she said she was on a diet. Her father had put her on a diet. I was furious. She was too young for diets. She didn’t need to be on a diet. I told her she was perfect the way she was, you know, said all the right things.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sarah said.

  ‘It turned out that her father and his wife told her that she was fat. Apparently they’re super fit, gym junkies. I didn’t know. David played some football when he was at school, but most of the time he was in trouble with the coach for not turning up to training. Or turning up late and drunk. I had a big fight with David on the phone, but I didn’t find out exactly what happened. Later, all this stuff came out about how she didn’t have many friends and it was because she was fat. And that the reason she didn’t do well at school was because she was fat. And the reason her father didn’t want to see her was because she was fat.’

  ‘So they’d made her feel like her weight was a problem and she had to do something about it?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Yes, and I was to blame. She’d been a normal eater, but she stopped eating properly. I worried about anorexia and bulimia and hassled her about eating and we had some big fights. She didn’t become anorexic. She lost more weight over that summer and she didn’t put it back on. Since then she’s controlled her eating. She pecks at the food on her plate, leaves meals unfinished. When she’s done, she pushes the plate away, as if the remaining food might be toxic.’

  If only, Sarah thought. Of all the diets she’d been on, for more than twenty years now — since her mother put her on her first diet when she was fourteen — if anything her love of food had intensified. She dreamed about food. She planned what she was going to eat days in advance, thinking about treats and food-related outings. Eat to live, don’t live to eat. Another of her mother’s annoying sayings. Sarah made a few notes, but she doubted that she could make much of a story out of an obnoxious father and a chubby childhood.

  Mandy’s hands were wrapped around the Bulldogs mug. She continued, ‘Not long after that, in Year 7 or 8, their teacher invited some of the kids’ mothers to come and talk about their careers. Ash’s mother was one of them. Rae talked about being a school principal. They invited a lawyer, a woman who worked for Greenpeace, a journalist — professional women. Jo asked me if I’d talk to her class about working in the supermarket. I didn’t think, just said yes. But Mrs Kintle said they had enough speakers. One of the other girls told Jo, “They only want educated women with important jobs. They don’t want us to work in supermarkets.” I should’ve known. I should’ve warned her and saved her the embarrassment. Motherhood is a litany of mistakes.’ There was a slight crack in Mandy’s voice. But she didn’t cry. Instead she put down her mug, stood up, and poured herself a glass of water. ‘Water?’ she asked Sarah.

  Sarah shook her head.

  Mandy drank slowly and sat back down. ‘It’s that moment you realise the child who adored you, the child you adore, has turned into someone else. Your worst critic. She banned me from school pick-ups. Not long after that, we fought about something minor and she yelled, “I hate you. I wish you weren’t my mother.” It was the first time Jo said that to me. We didn’t speak for days. And when we did speak again, everything had changed.’

  Sarah never dared say those things to her mother, though she’d wanted to many times. Some nights, especially in her early adolescence, she’d shut herself in the bedroom, Talking Heads or AC/DC up loud, and instead of singing the lyrics, chanted, I hate you, I hate you, like a mantra.

  ‘It was hard,’ Mandy continued. ‘I didn’t have anyone else. I know it happens to all mothers, but it’s bloody hard. From then on, everything I did was wrong: my clothes, my friends, my teeth … She came home one day insisting I get my teeth fixed — apparently the dental care nurse at school had said, “Some people don’t have their priorities right and dental care is like putting money in the bank.” As if we had money in the bank, as if we could afford to spend thousands of dollars we didn’t have on my teeth. Of course, in Ash’s family everyone had beautiful white teeth. She kept telling me that she didn’t want to be like me. That was fine, I wanted her to have a better life … We fought about everything. She wanted to buy clothes we couldn’t afford, she wanted to go out late, she didn’t do her homework. Her schoolwork suffered and there were complaints from the teachers and poor reports. It was so tiring, so exhausting. After a while I gave up.’

  Mandy rose from the table and wandered over to a wooden sideboard that took up one wall of the kitchen. From the top drawer, she took out a photo album. As Mandy brought over the spiral-bound album, with a horse galloping through a meadow on the cover, Sarah stifled a sigh. She had scheduled an hour to interview Mandy, but she knew from experience that on
ce the mother took out the photo album, the present world and its demands became meaningless. It was the past that mattered. It was there that stories dwelled, and the only way to get a story was to allow people to tell it. This meant abandoning her other commitments so she could give herself over to the storyteller. It meant trusting that Mandy had a story to tell. Sarah checked her phone.

  ‘Do you have to go?’

  ‘It’s fine. I have another meeting but I’ll reschedule,’ Sarah said, typing a message to her boss.

  ‘Everyone has their photos on computers now, but I like looking at the albums,’ Mandy said.

  Sarah nodded. The album was old, the edges a nicotine yellow. The plastic acetate sheets had lost most of their stickiness. Some of the photos had shifted out of their place, covering other photos, leaving empty spaces. Sarah’s mother’s photos were in elegant thick albums — archive quality — and now of course backed up on CDs. ‘Precious memories,’ she called them.

  ‘The problem with photos on computers is no one looks at them anymore. We snap at everything and then store the images away,’ Sarah said.

  The photos in the first few pages were of the baby Jo and a young Mandy. There was one photograph of a young man with shoulder-length blond hair, standing next to the bed as Mandy held the baby. They were both smiling.

  ‘Jo is older now than I was when I had her, and I can’t imagine how she’d look after a baby,’ Mandy said, lifting the acetate sheet to adjust the photograph. ‘I had a perm before Jo was born. Mary, David’s mother, insisted it was dangerous to have a perm while you were pregnant. She was furious. But I did it anyway, to spite her I think. I hated it. I looked like one of those scary clowns that make children cry.’

  ‘Jo’s father?’ Sarah asked, pointing to the photo.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he still in Adelaide?’

  ‘Yes. With his wife and sons.’

  ‘Will he come down to Melbourne to see Jo? I’d like to talk to him too.’

  ‘He won’t come. Not sure why you’d want to talk to him, but it might have to be by phone.’

  ‘When did you separate?’ Sarah asked as she wrote in her notebook.

  ‘We weren’t married, we were living in sin … Does anyone say that anymore? My mother died when I was fifteen and I went off the rails, I didn’t know what to do with myself. David was a distraction. We were young and infatuated, in lust. Then I was pregnant, and we were both in school. His parents hit the roof, but my dad helped David get an apprenticeship with the local electrician. I left school. Suddenly we were parents. We had no money and a baby. We lived in a one-bedroom flat in Braybrook, on Ashley Street, surrounded by factories and warehouses, not many neighbours. I felt so isolated. It’s amazing that it lasted as long as it did.’

  ‘It must’ve been hard on your own with a little baby.’

  ‘It was easier after we split up. He gave us some money — not much, apprentice wages were hardly enough for one person to live on. His parents helped out. Dad helped out. And there wasn’t the fighting.’

  ‘So you’re on good terms?’

  Mandy grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t say good terms. He doesn’t want to have any involvement in Jo’s life — he pays child support and occasionally he sends her money, pays her off. His father left Jo that bloody car and money for driving lessons. That’s how she got her licence.’

  The doorbell rang. Mandy looked up and hesitated.

  ‘Should you get that?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Sorry. I don’t know who that could be,’ Mandy said as she stood.

  There’d been a couple of abusive phone calls since the accident. No one had come to the house, but still Mandy felt nervous. Slowly, she made her way down the hall. At the door she waited for several seconds before she opened it.

  ‘Rae,’ Mandy said, shocked to see Ashleigh’s mother standing on her doorstep. Rae flinched at the sound of her name.

  Mandy could see the visceral impact of the grief on Rae. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face pale, her hair uncombed. She looked fragile and adrift; half woman, half ghost.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Rae, so sorry about Ashleigh —’

  ‘Stop,’ Rae interrupted. Her voice was brittle. ‘Please stop. Please don’t say my daughter’s name.’

  Mandy held her breath. She waited in silence for Rae to continue, but she didn’t say anything, so finally she asked, ‘Do you want to come in?’

  Rae shook her head. ‘No, no, I can’t, I don’t … I don’t want to be anywhere near you or your daughter.’ She was wearing pyjamas bottoms and a thick old cardigan that Mandy recognised as Ashleigh’s. She felt the urge to reach out and touch it. To stop herself, she pulled her arms back behind her and interlaced her fingers. Rae pulled the cardigan tight around her waist and rocked back and forth, as if she were balancing on a narrow beam. She shivered, and Mandy saw the goosebumps, rising like tiny bubbles, on the skin of her neck. The weight of Rae’s grief was an impending tempest; Mandy felt the weakness in her knees, the ache in her belly. She could hear her heart thumping. She slid back and leant against the door frame.

  But the tempest didn’t come. Instead, Rae began to cry, the tears streaming silently down her checks, rivers of sorrow that she wiped with the sleeves of her cardigan. ‘Your daughter … your daughter is alive and my beautiful daughter is … my daughter is dead,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rae.’ Mandy was trembling; her hands were shaking. Behind her she heard the scrape of a chair being pushed away from the table, followed by footsteps coming up the hall. But Sarah didn’t come to the door.

  ‘Yes. Everyone’s sorry. So sorry. What use is sorry to me?’ Rae’s voice was barely audible, as if her throat were being strangled, as if she’d run out of air.

  ‘It’s a tragedy. Ashleigh —’

  ‘Don’t say her name. Don’t you dare say her name.’

  ‘Please, Rae. I loved her. We, you and me, we looked after each other’s daughters, we watched them grow up together …’ An image came of the two girls at thirteen, racing down the path and into the house. Tossing their schoolbags on the ground, Jo calling out to her, ‘Hey, Mum, we learnt the Nutbush today, I told Ash you have the song on tape.’ They had put the tape on and danced around the lounge room and Mandy joined them, and Mandy watched them dancing and laughing and filling up the room with their energy, their happiness. She wanted to share that memory with Rae but she couldn’t — never again would she share an anecdote about the girls with Ashleigh’s mother. Every pick-up for years, they’d told each other a story or two about the girls. Never again. To avoid looking at Rae, she stared at the front yard — a mess of trees and bushes she’d planted as a filter for the dusty, dirty, oily air and to block the view of the oil tanks across the road, of the trucks and semis, of the bridge.

  ‘My daughter isn’t going to grow up. My daughter isn’t going to go to university, or fall in love, or have children. Ashleigh wanted to work in New York. She wanted to travel the world. I was so worried about all the things she wanted to do and the risks and how I wouldn’t be able to protect her, because I thought she was safe here with me. But she wasn’t and she’s gone and she won’t ever fulfill those dreams …’ Her eyes were tearing up again, and Mandy moved out of the doorway towards her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. Rae recoiled and retreated, almost tripping over the wooden step that led from the small porch to the path.

  ‘No, stop, don’t touch me. People keep trying to hold me, to touch me, to put their arms around me. I don’t want anyone near me. It makes it worse. It makes me … reminds me that I will never touch Ashleigh again, never hold her … Sometimes she’d nuzzle up to me on the couch. I loved the smell of her. And just when I started to fall asleep, she would tickle me —’ The wail that came from Rae was deep and long, and she doubled over with the force of it.

  Mandy was crying too now — she could feel the tears runni
ng down her cheeks — but she had no right to cry. She needed to give Rae the time to say what she needed to say. She owed her that much.

  When she composed herself again, Rae said, ‘I trusted you with my daughter. I loved your daughter. I invited her to all our family celebrations, I included her in everything. She has her own coffee mug in my cupboard, her own drawer in Ashleigh’s room, her own towels.’

  Mandy nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘I blame you. You … why didn’t you stop her driving?’ Rae asked. It was the question Mandy had been waiting for, but she didn’t have an answer, just a series of useless excuses. ‘The police said they were drinking before they left the house, before they even went to the party. I want to know why you let your daughter drive. What kind of mother are you? They were drunk and you let them take the car.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought they’d be alright. It wasn’t that far and Jo said she was fine … I’m sorry.’ Mandy felt as if she might collapse. The effort of holding back sobs made speaking difficult. ‘I should’ve stopped them. I should’ve.’

  ‘It’s parents like you that are the problem. It’s your fault. No responsibility. You’re a bad mother,’ Rae said.

  It hit Mandy with the force of a slap. You’re a bad mother.

  ‘I feel terrible …’ she muttered faintly.

  ‘What does it matter how you feel? What about your daughter? Is she sorry?’

  ‘Of course. Of course, she loved Ashleigh. They were friends, they loved each other. Please come into the house, Rae.’

  ‘My daughter is dead. Your daughter killed her. Why would I come into your house?’ Rae’s gaze was fixed on her, and her voice was imbued with contempt and disgust. Mandy was trapped. A bad mother, an irresponsible mother, worse than a monster. She felt shame and sadness, and anger too. Rae didn’t understand how hard she’d tried to be a good mother. But Mandy knew there was nothing she could say to make things better for either of them.