The Mother-in-Law

by Sally Hepworth

  ‘As I’ve said, I have many reasons not to give her the money. But to be honest, yes, I’d rather not help her shackle herself to a man who is unfaithful. She’s already struggling. I couldn’t bear for her to become pregnant, give up her livelihood and her career, only to have it thrown back in her face when he leaves her for another woman.’

  I look at Ghezala, waiting for some words of wisdom or comment or even a question. But Ghezala doesn’t say anything at all, which, I realise, is a much more powerful response.

  31

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  ‘No iPads,’ I tell the kids, to a chorus of moans. They have just got home from school and kindergarten and my front hall is full of bags, my sink is full of lunchboxes and my couch is full of children. ‘Go play a game or read a book.’

  They proceed to go ballistic and I ask myself, why am I doing this? Who cares if they watch the iPad for twenty-four hours straight? Their eyeballs won’t bleed or turn square, their brains won’t rot. It doesn’t matter a single jot. And yet I continue my mothering on autopilot, as natural to me these days as breathing, in spite of everything that’s going on.

  Ollie came home from the will reading and immediately shut himself up in the home office. He didn’t say much in the car, other than that he was still in shock and needed some time to think.

  He hasn’t been back to work yet since Diana died, and I’m starting to worry about that. For the past year it’s been so hard to keep him away from the place—he regularly worked weekends and well into each evening. I hoped that by this point, four years into the business, he’d have been able to back off a little and enjoy what they’d built, but they always seemed to be hurtling toward the next target. (‘When we sign this client, we’ll be able to take the kids to Disneyland.’ ‘When we land this contract, champagne for everyone.’) But they keep signing clients and landing contracts and Ollie keeps placing candidates, yet profits still seem to be thin.

  A year ago I suggested Ollie and Eamon get someone to look at the books, to do an inventory of incomings and outgoings. Ollie liked that idea and came home and reported that Eamon had hired an accountant he knew to do exactly that. But the accountant came back with the same advice that Eamon had been giving. ‘More clients = more money.’ A good philosophy, but with Ollie as the only recruiter, and no money to hire anyone else, it has taken its toll on him. Now, to hear that his mother had disinherited him, it’s got to feel like the final straw in what has been a stressful couple of years.

  From the living room I hear Ollie’s phone ring and then quickly stop. He’s screening the call, probably, he’s been doing that all day. I imagine him in his swivel chair, his forehead resting against the desk. Ollie and I never talked explicitly about the fact that we would one day come into money—it always seemed to be in poor taste, to me—but even I can admit that I thought about it from time to time, and it always made me feel secure to know that even if we were poor now, our retirement would be taken care of. The idea that Diana would cut her children out of her will had never occurred to me and clearly it had never occurred to Ollie either.

  There is a sharp bang bang at the door. My stomach constricts. Lately, a bang at the door has come to signal bad news, and given the amount of force this person is using, it seems unlikely that this time should be any different.

  I tread slowly down the hall. Through the window at the side of the door I notice the distinctive royal blue of Eamon’s suit jacket. When I toss open the door, he straightens his spine, bending his lips upward in what I think is supposed to be a smile. ‘Hi, Luce.’

  ‘Eamon,’ I say. ‘Is everything all right?’

  His expression is tight and he has a slight twitchiness about him that is unnerving. ‘Sure, sure. Everything’s great. Fantastic.’

  Fantastic. Ollie has started using that word too, since being in partnership with Eamon, mostly on the phone. (‘Everything is fantastic, how are things with you, Steve? Fantastic!’ Someone must have told them in a networking course that it is highly important to be fantastic at all times.)

  ‘Ollie home?’ he says.

  Ollie is already behind me, I feel him there even before I turn and see him. I take a step back and watch the men regard each other, squaring up against one another like cats in the street.

  ‘G’day, mate,’ Ollie says, unsmiling.

  ‘G’day,’ Eamon replies equally coolly. ‘Sorry to intrude. Just wanted a quick word.’

  Ollie turns and walks back down the hall, and silently Eamon follows. I find myself overcome by an urge to go after them, to demand to know what on earth is going on. But Ollie closes the door.

  ‘Muuuuum?’

  I startle. It’s Harriet. She appears before me looking utterly appalled. ‘What?’

  ‘Archie is watching the iPad!’

  ‘Oh.’ I walk into the living room. Edie has managed to turn on the television and is staring at Play School, open-mouthed. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in his bed hiding!’ Harriet wails. ‘It’s not fair. Muuum!’

  I follow Harriet to Archie’s room where she points an accusing finger at the suspicious mound in the centre of the bed. I tug off the blankets and Archie looks up guiltily.

  ‘I said no iPad,’ I say without much force. Actually I’m reconsidering this whole no iPad thing. I could really use the time to try to unpack my thoughts, not to mention to eavesdrop on the conversation happening between Ollie and Eamon.

  ‘Now I get it for the rest of the day!’ Harriet says, lunging for the iPad.

  ‘No you don’t!’ Archie cries.

  I grab the iPad and exit the room, and Archie and Harriet tailgate me down the hall, a swishing appendage of fury. I pause outside Ollie’s office door. The volume has risen so I don’t have to strain to hear the sound of a fist hitting something, the wall? The desk? Then I hear Ollie’s voice.

  ‘How the fuck was I supposed to know?’

  The kids freeze. Harriet’s mouth forms a perfect circle. I concentrate on keeping my face neutral as I circle around the kids and start pushing them toward the family room.

  ‘This is bullshit,’ Eamon cries. ‘This is fucking bullshit.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  There is a terrific crash, and the kids and I pull up short at the same time as the door flies open and Eamon comes crashing out. Ollie’s hands are wrapped tight around his throat.

  32

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  There is truly nothing worse than having to ask for a favour when you’re trying to hold the moral high ground. It’s been three months since Christmas and we’re in the sweaty, ‘summer is never going to end’ period where people hang out at the supermarket in bathers and thongs, buying watermelon and ham and bread rolls and sunscreen. I’d like to be hanging out at the supermarket too (since it’s airconditioned), but I’m too ill even to lift my head off the couch. Because I am, unexpectedly, eight weeks pregnant.

  If it wasn’t for Harriet, I could have coped. Archie could have watched The Wiggles on repeat and wouldn’t have bothered me for days (except maybe for food), but Harriet, at ten months, has not yet mastered the art of solid, uninterrupted screen time. Ollie has a full day of interviews at work, but he has promised to come home as soon as he can, and my Dad is down at Portarlington for the week. I think about hiring an agency nanny, but my eyes water at the cost and Ollie has been watching the pennies lately. Finally, I realise there’s nothing else for it and I ring Diana.

  ‘Hello?’ As always, she answers the phone sounding mildly inconvenienced.

  I’m flat on my back on the floor with Archie on my lap and Harriet banging a toy repeatedly against my head.’ ‘Hello, Diana,’ I say. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Lucy?’ There’s a short pause. ‘Are you ill?’

  Leave it to Diana to cut to the chase.

  ‘Actually yes. That’s why I’m calling. I think I might have the flu and I’m . . . well, I’m feeling quite shocking.’


  I’ve decided not to tell Diana I am pregnant until I reach the three-month mark. With my previous two pregnancies I couldn’t wait to tell her, thinking she’d enjoy being in on the early secret, but both times she merely smiled and assured me she’d keep it to herself until we were out of the danger period. There were no congratulations. No hug. (She did, bizarrely, drop off bags of grapes periodically, with both pregnancies.) So this time I have decided she can find out at the three-month mark like everyone else.

  ‘And you need help with the kids.’

  It’s not a question, nor is it an offer, though I have to respect the way she doesn’t waste anyone’s time. ‘Yes.’

  I hear shuffling in the background, Diana flicking through her diary perhaps. She’ll have a full calendar, no doubt, but I’m holding out hope that she’ll find a half-hour slot somewhere (‘between 2.30 pm and 3 pm, but it has to be a 3 pm sharp pick-up because I have to take a pram across town and I’d like to get back before the rush-hour traffic’). Fact is, I’m not too proud to take that half an hour. I’ll take anything I can get.

  ‘I’m free,’ she says after a moment. ‘I’ll come and pick them up right away.’

  I blink. ‘You’ll . . . pick them up?’

  ‘I just have to reschedule a drop-off, but that won’t take long. I’ll be there within the hour.’

  When Diana knocks on my door I’m still horizontal but I’ve moved to the couch. Archie is glued to the iPad and Harriet is sitting on my stomach, whining for attention. The floor is littered with cushions, the coffee table with toast crumbs, plates, mugs and, oddly, one of my wedding shoes (kids!). I don’t try to conceal any of the mess. It’s all I can do to answer the door.

  Diana has pharmacy bags. ‘I stopped at the chemist. I have Lemsip, apparently it’s nothing more than Panadol but I always find it comforting when I’m sick. I also have cold and flu tablets, the good ones with the pseudoephedrine. Take two night-time ones right after we leave and get some sleep.’ Diana takes Harriet. ‘Right, I’ll pack a bag for the kids.’

  Diana swishes about the place, finding a weekend bag and stuffing it full of the kids’ clothes. She finds bottles and formula and a couple of jars of baby food, which she efficiently loads into the nappy bag, along with some nappies and wipes and dummies. I’m helpless to do anything but lie here and watch.

  ‘All right, kids,’ she says when she’s filled two bags. ‘You’re coming for a sleepover at Dido’s.’

  This is exciting enough to tear Archie from his screen. A sleepover? Diana has never had the kids for a sleepover before. Not even Archie. Sleepovers at Dido’s were something that only ever happened in my dreams. Also, evidently, in Archie’s dreams, judging by the way he runs around in circles now. Archie adores Tom and Diana’s house. The games of hide and seek are epic, and he is remarkably unfazed by Diana’s unceasing monologue about how he isn’t to touch or break anything. I do worry about the stairs—marble, of course—and Harriet, who is just starting to crawl, but right now I decide it’s worth the risk.

  ‘Be careful with Harriet on the stairs,’ I say to Diana as she gathers up the kids. Suddenly I realise I haven’t thanked her for anything. I open my mouth to do that, but before I do, another thought jumps into brain. ‘And don’t let them near the pool!’

  Call me crazy but I have a terror of kids and pools. Tom and Diana have an indoor swimming pool (obviously) and they have managed to get around the mandatory pool-fencing laws by having high door handles and auto-closing doors. It’s all well and good except that Archie loves going into the pool area to look at the giant fish tank they have installed (of course), and if Diana gets distracted by Harriet, I don’t want to think about what could happen.

  ‘No one in the pool area,’ Diana agrees, and she disappears out the door with my children.

  That’s when I realise I never did say thank you.

  I sleep. An unfathomable all-consuming orgasm of sleep. Pregnancy will do that to you.

  I haven’t slept like this in years. My dreams are odd and ever-changing, and I rouse every few hours, only to realise that my children aren’t here and I can go back to sleep indefinitely. It’s unthinkably luxurious. I find myself wanting to savour every second.

  Around 5 pm, when I rouse again, the phone is ringing. I snatch it from the bedside table and press it to my ear, eyes still closed.

  ‘Hello?’ It sounds more like ‘nnmmo’.

  ‘Lucy?’

  I open my eyes. It’s Diana, I can tell right away, even though her pitch sounds different, a note or two higher than usual. ‘. . . Yes?’

  I hear talking in the background, unfamiliar voices speaking urgently. I feel a chill slip down my spine, a sluice of ice water. I rise to my elbows.

  ‘What is it, Diana? What’s happened?’

  ‘We’re on our way to the hospital, Lucy,’ she says. Her voice is threaded through with fear. ‘You need to meet us there.’

  33

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  Eamon is gone. Thankfully I didn’t need to break up the fight—as soon as Ollie saw us watching, he released Eamon, who brushed himself off and stalked out the front door. Ollie also brushed himself off, and then turned and walked back into his office without a word. I left him alone only long enough to get the children sorted in front of their screens, and now I knock on the door firmly.

  ‘Come in,’ he says.

  When I open the door, Ollie is sitting in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He doesn’t look up.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

  He keeps his head down, which does nothing to ease my anxiety. I think about all the things I know about him—the way he eats his breakfast cereal dry, no milk; the fact that he sleeps naked all year around; his ferocious hatred of celery, so strong that he can tell the moment he walks in the door if it’s been in the house. But clearly, there are a lot of things I don’t know about him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers.

  ‘Why are you sorry?’

  Finally he looks up. His face is tear-stained. My mind goes to the very worst places. Actually it goes to one particular place, very quickly. An image of Ollie appears in my mind, pressing a gold-threaded cushion into his mother’s face.

  Was it possible? Certainly, Diana made me do things I never thought possible.

  Ollie takes a breath. ‘I’m sorry because we’re ruined financially.’

  It takes a moment for the relief to come, but when it does, it is a flood. I drop to my knees in front of him and take his hands in my own. They’re sweaty and warm and I kiss them. ‘Oh, Ollie! No we’re not. Sure, we don’t have millions upon millions of dollars coming our way, but we’re not ruined. We’ve survived so far, haven’t we? And we don’t need much!’ A beat of silence passes. Ollie keeps his eyes on the floor. ‘What?’

  ‘This isn’t about the inheritance. Well . . . I’d hoped the inheritance would save us. But . . .’ He drifts off.

  My mind reels back, suddenly sticking on the bank statement I opened a few days ago. The huge number, the debt, at the bottom. A panicky feeling starts in my chest.

  ‘The business?’

  Ollie nods.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘It’s bad,’ Ollie says. ‘We sunk so much into it the first year, setting it all up. I actually have no idea how we spent so much, the money just seemed to fly out of the account.’

  I sit back on my haunches.

  ‘We kept getting new contracts and I was working my ass off. And we were making money. But not enough, it seems. I should have kept a closer eye on the outgoings, but I thought Eamon had it in hand.’ He drags a hand through his hair. ‘When Mum died, I thought we could pay off our debts and leave the business behind once and for all. But now . . .’

  ‘. . . now we have nothing.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Silence envelopes us. I lift my hand to my temple. Now, not only are we not inheriting millions upon millions of dollars, we
’re also in extraordinary debt.

  ‘And Eamon doesn’t have any money he can . . . invest?’ I ask.

  ‘Eamon was counting on the money too. I’d talked about clearing the debt so he could keep the business operating.’

  I close my eyes. I hear the faint sounds of Sesame Street and the irritating melodic tune of one of Archie’s games on the iPad. ‘And our savings—’

  ‘Our savings are long gone.’ Ollie begins to cry—real, rolling tears. ‘We are in a huge amount of debt. Dad’s dead. Mum’s dead. There is no one to help us.’

  I’m furious with Ollie but I crawl to him and put my arms around his neck. He’s right, there’s no one to help us now. The funny thing is, I realise, this is what Diana wanted all along.

  34

  DIANA

  The past . . .

  The truth is, I’d always intended to let Archie swim. I knew what Lucy had said, but I didn’t see how it could hurt. After all, I was going to watch him. Before Archie could talk and dob me in, I used to do even more things I knew Lucy wouldn’t like. I wasn’t doing it to spite her. It was just that she worried about a lot of things that didn’t matter.

  ‘Make sure he wears his coat,’ she’d always say as I disappeared out of the house with Archie. I’d nod and agree, but when Archie flung off his coat at the park, I wasn’t going to chase after him to put it back on. Natural consequences are better. If the child was cold, he’d put the coat on.

  ‘Did he nap for two hours at 1 pm?’ she’d demand.

  ‘That sounds about right,’ I’d say. All this fuss about naps.

  ‘No junk,’ she’d say when I was taking Archie to the movies, but what child didn’t have popcorn and a choc-top when they went to a film with their grandmother?

  But clearly, she’d had a point. And I should have listened to her.

  Archie had been begging to go in the pool all day. And why not? I enjoyed a swim myself and there was no question I wouldn’t supervise him. I’d shower him afterward and he’d fall off to sleep, exhausted, and Lucy would be none the wiser. That’s what I figured. And now, here we are. On the way to hospital.