The Mothers

by Genevieve Gannon

  ‘No. Let’s not. I can’t face another shopping centre,’ she said. The specialist store where she bought the molasses was on the other side of the freeway. ‘I have some left over from Easter.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Let’s just go home.’

  When Nick eased the car into the driveway, crunching the drifts of leaves that formed each autumn, Priya stayed strapped into her seat, staring straight ahead.

  ‘Pri,’ he said as he unbuckled his seat-belt and swung open the door, ‘are you coming?’

  ‘No. I think … I think I’ll go see Viv.’

  ‘What for? I thought you wanted to do this cake for tonight.’

  ‘I forgot I said I’d go over there.’

  She unclipped her buckle and climbed across to the driver’s side, hovering over the gear stick and the console where the phone was still sitting.

  ‘When will you be back?’ Nick held the door open.

  ‘Not sure.’ Her eyes involuntarily flicked down to his mobile. Without a word, he slowly leaned across her and picked it up.

  ‘You’d better get going then.’ He stepped back, watching her. The silence pooled between them as he studied her face, his hand on the doorframe. ‘Say hello for me.’

  Priya nodded and started the engine.

  ‘I thought you had the big dinner tonight.’

  Priya’s sister, Vivian, opened the door, filling the porch with the blare of cartoons from deep in the house. ‘Avani!’ Viv shouted over her shoulder. ‘I said to turn that television down.’

  ‘Dinner’s not until later.’

  ‘Come in then. What’s wrong? You look like something’s wrong.’

  ‘Let’s go to the kitchen.’

  Priya followed her sister down the hall, stepping over dolls and Lego bricks. Viv bent, collecting a lone sock and a bib as she went. Her house was narrow and cramped and filled with the smells of tamarind and talcum powder. Vivian’s firstborn had arrived forty weeks to the day after she confided in Priya that she and Rajesh were trying to have a baby. When Avani was just seven months old Viv discovered she was pregnant again.

  ‘That’s what they call Irish twins,’ Rajesh had said at the clinic.

  ‘Nope,’ the doctor smiled, pointing at the ultrasound. ‘Just regular fraternal twins.’ Shanti and Shanaya were born six months later.

  Viv took Priya into the kitchen and shut the door gently behind them. ‘Now, sit, tell me everything.’ She lifted her teapot from the drying rack and spooned in some loose-leaf tea.

  ‘It’s um—’ Priya stopped as Avani pushed the door open and toddled into the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, little one.’ Priya smiled.

  When Avani saw Priya her dark eyes widened and she hurried on unstable legs to her aunt, her chubby arms outstretched. Priya lifted the little girl onto her lap, savouring the clean smell of baby shampoo. Avani made babyish noises—‘lok’ and ‘abuk’, monosyllabic attempts at talking—as she touched Priya’s earrings and lips, which were painted the colour of a pink tropical flower. ‘Puc! Puc!’ the little girl said. Priya laughed as Avani investigated her with her soft baby paws.

  ‘She’ll make a mess of you. Come here, bub.’ Viv took her daughter from Priya and used a tea towel to wipe the lipstick smudge from her hands. Avani resisted and tried to squirm away, but Viv outmanoeuvred her. ‘So, tell me,’ she said, as she rubbed her child clean.

  Priya took a mandarin from the fruit bowl and began peeling it. ‘I think Nick—’

  She was interrupted by a baby’s squeal.

  ‘Shanti, how did you get in here?’ Viv asked. One of the twins was in the kitchen doorway on all fours. ‘They’ve started crawling,’ she said. ‘I’m terrified.’ Viv slotted Avani into her highchair, then bent and picked up Shanti. ‘You said you think Nick …’

  Priya lifted Avani out of her chair and held her close. ‘I think he’s going back to his old ways.’ She paused and looked at the baby in her lap. She didn’t want to say it out loud, that would make it real. She hugged Avani. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I’d better get out of your hair.’

  ‘Don’t go. Tell me what it is.’ Viv put her hand on Priya’s arm. ‘The tea’s nearly ready. Stay.’

  ‘It’s really not important,’ Priya said. ‘Don’t worry. You’ve got your hands full and I’m going to be late. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Nick’s stereo was blasting AC/DC when Priya got home, so she retreated to her studio out the back of the house, where she put on some of her own music. As the opening notes of Rayella drifted into the room she filled her lungs with air, held it, and then exhaled. Nick had rigged up speakers in the four corners of the studio so Priya could be surrounded by song as she painted. He had also helped her discover the group she was now listening to.

  ‘There’s an opening act I think you’ll really like,’ he’d said to convince her to join him at a concert. ‘Promise.’

  Priya had been sceptical, but she went along, and when the father–daughter group had proudly raised their instruments she was touched by their resonant, mournful voices. Nick’s understanding of her musical tastes and the care and thought he had put into building her private sanctuary complicated her anger. She walked over to her phone and jabbed the stop button with her finger, cutting out the music and leaving her in silence.

  The space had originally been intended as an extended dining area that would stretch into their large backyard. But when he had recovered from the wasp attack, Nick had instead built Priya a glass studio so that she had somewhere to paint and forget about her day job at the auction house.

  He’d fashioned a desk out of a solid piece of timber recovered from a renovation site and installed a sink so Priya could clean her brushes. Glass jars with murky green necks stood along the window sill. Priya burned incense to hide the smell of turpentine. She sat cross-legged on the floor, anxieties stewing in her stomach, until the rumble of his rock music stopped and Nick’s voice sailed out from the main house.

  ‘Pri, time to go.’

  Priya remained quiet through the Archer family dinner. They had agreed not to tell his family they had booked to see a fertility specialist—a decision for which she was now doubly grateful.

  She grew steadily more apprehensive as she thought of the appointment. She needed to know just how bad things were before they saw the doctor. She longed for a baby, a cousin for her nieces, but she was terrified of what Nick was doing behind her back. She watched him take a swig of his beer, his second.

  ‘What do you say, Priya? Can I rely on Nick?’

  ‘Huh?’ She snapped out of her trance.

  Her brother-in-law Scotty described the new home sound system he had just bought. ‘Sure could use a hand hooking it up tomorrow.’

  In answer, Nick shovelled apple pie into his mouth, excavating the apple filling from the calorie-laden pastry crust. ‘I can’t, Scotty, not tomorrow, sorry.’

  ‘Sure you can. It won’t take long. There’s some beer in it for you.’

  ‘What’s so important that you can’t spare an hour for the guy who helped you refinance your house?’ Nick’s sister, Mel, asked. Priya and Nick glanced at each other.

  ‘I’ve got something on.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘I’ll clear, shall I?’ Priya said, standing.

  Nick followed her into the kitchen, carrying plates. ‘The appointment’s not till eleven—maybe I should go over there first thing and help him out to avoid more questions.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ Priya scraped leftovers into the bin.

  ‘I really wanted tomorrow to be a day for us and our baby.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’ She reached into the fridge, pulled out a can of full-strength beer, snapped it open and passed it to him.

  ‘Pri, I’m on the light beers. We’ve got the appointment in the morning.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘One won’t hurt.’

  Nick fell heavily to sleep not long after his head hit the pillow
. Priya lay awake in the dark, staring at the green bars radiating from his alarm clock, waiting for the minutes to pass while Nick’s breathing grew shallow.

  Once she was sure he was in a deep slumber, she eased off the mattress, crept around to his side of the bed and picked up his phone. It was tethered to the wall, charging. She typed in his code and fumbled, panicked, when it let out a melodic tingle as it granted her access. The room was filled with a bluish glow from the home screen, and Priya cupped her hand over it and hunted through the apps for the beehive.

  As she searched she felt a flash of hope it had been deleted, or that she had been mistaken. But there it was: the wicked yellow hive, squatting on the screen, full of secrets. Her stomach somersaulted.

  She took a breath and clicked. A string of faces appeared before her. All fair skinned. Mostly blonde. Some were marked by a blue dot, indicating they had sent unanswered messages. She stabbed one icon at random. ‘Collette’ had reached out to Nick. ‘Hi. I like your dog. What’s his name?’ A winking face hovered next to the question mark.

  He had not answered, or initiated the conversation. Nick grunted and stirred in his sleep. At the top of the screen was a picture of his grinning, carefree face. Bastard, Priya thought.

  She touched more of the blue dots, opening messages women had sent. They said things like, ‘Hey cutie,’ and ‘Nice to meet you, Nick,’ followed by a trail of love hearts. Priya was embarrassed by how forward the women were, but she could feel the knots in her chest loosen as she worked through them one by one and discovered Nick hadn’t replied to any of their advances. Still, he had downloaded the app. And what if someone she knew came across him? The thought made her breathless with rage and shame.

  The last message had been opened. It arrived about 4.45 that afternoon, while Priya had been in her studio, listening to Rayella and contemplating her apparently crumbling marriage. Nick hadn’t replied. Feeling nauseous, she tapped the icon next to a blonde named Megan.

  Megan’s face filled the phone in a column of little circles, alternating with Nick’s face. It was a long conversation back and forth. Priya’s eyes registered words, not sentences. They popped out at her: Sexy. Breasts. Hard. Taste. Wet. Want. Each like a dart hitting her in the chest. She scrolled through the exchange, her eyes bulging at the sickening flirtation unfolding before her. Her throat tightened. She threw down the phone in disgust. The name was burned onto her brain: Megan. Megan. Megan. After a moment, she picked the phone up off the carpet and flicked through the woman’s profile.

  Megan was thicker than Priya around the waist, with large cantaloupe breasts that were starting to sag. Priya had been spared that so far, at least. She was thirty-seven but looked younger. Her body and face were well preserved.

  Megan was tanned, beachy and sun-kissed. Her blonde hair was dry, like rope, and brittle from what looked like years of applying peroxide in a home bathroom. Priya imagined it would be crunchy to touch. Her hand self-consciously went to her own very long, very thick black hair, presently tamed in a plait. She didn’t like the childish look but it was a necessity sometimes. As much as she loved her long hair, it got everywhere. She removed the elastic from the end and unwound the strands, letting them cloak her as she sat on the floor hugging her knees, trying to order her thoughts. In twelve hours they had their consultation with Doctor Carmichael to see if they were fit candidates for IVF.

  A voice in her head was telling her the messages were just the beginning, and that he was cheating. Get out, it said. Get out. Get out. Get out.

  Priya woke up alone. Nick had left for his run. She fanned her arm out across his side of the mattress and imagined what life would be like without him.

  Her skull felt heavy. She groaned. Her sleep had been fitful and she had overslept; soon they would have to leave for the appointment. There was no question of cancelling. There had been a gauntlet of tests to even get this far—screening for hep B, hep C and HIV. The concept of IVF didn’t sit well with her, but it had been two years since they had done away with contraception and they hadn’t had so much as a pregnancy scare. Nick adored his nephews and Priya’s sister’s girls, and enthusiastically attended tea parties with their dolls and teddy bears. Angry tears filled Priya’s eyes as she remembered seeing Nick sitting with Avani, his gigantic legs jutting over her table, a tiny plastic teacup pinched between his thumb and forefinger. As hard as it was for him to admit they might need help, he had been the one to suggest that they talk to a fertility specialist.

  The waiting list for the Empona clinic in Alexandria was long, so they had put their names down then had gone for an initial consultation at a clinic in Parramatta. There they filled out a whole forest’s worth of consent forms and submitted their bodily fluids for testing. A softly spoken red-haired doctor told them they would need to undergo parental counselling before the process could begin.

  ‘Counselling?’ Priya had nearly stormed out. It was bad enough she had to suffer the ignominy of infertility, but now that she couldn’t conceive naturally, her capacity to parent was being called into question.

  ‘I’m sure it’s standard procedure,’ Nick had soothed, eager to prove himself top dad material.

  They attended a session of parental counselling and undertook one unsuccessful round of IVF. The clinic had the depressed air of an underfunded public health facility, and Priya was not surprised when the kindly red-head physician told her the procedure had not been a success. Nick was genuinely shocked.

  ‘This is why we have to go to that good clinic,’ he said in the car on the ride home. ‘This isn’t the area to skimp.’

  So, that’s what they were doing. They had an appointment at Empona and Nick had increased the number of casual labouring shifts he did for Hector on the weekends to help pay for it.

  Priya jumped as she heard the back door slam.

  ‘Pri?’ Nick called out. ‘You ready? Time to make a baby!’

  ‘In a minute,’ she said, her voice hard. She was no longer sure if she was ready. Their baby was being put at risk by his sleazy messages. And that was the cruellest betrayal of all.

  Three

  Grace drove her knife into the kiwifruit as she gazed out the window of the boarding house’s first-floor kitchen. Students were starting to file through the iron gates, and between the bare branches of the oaks that lined the street she saw a familiar car with tinted windows pull into the drop-off zone. The girls on the nature strip pricked up, like spaniels hearing a dog whistle. The Bentley belonged to soapie-star-turned-network-darling Dominic Hawke and his make-up artist wife who sent their two girls—aged five and seven—to Corella College.

  Bonnie Collings, the boarding house’s wiry cook, came into the kitchen carrying a tray of pastries.

  ‘If they really didn’t want a fuss he’d take those little girls around to the junior-school entrance,’ she said, joining Grace at the window.

  Grace scrutinised the famous parents as they stepped, cashmere-clad, from the creamy leather insides of their car. The details of the conception, difficult pregnancy and miracle birth of Hope Harper Hawke had been strung out across various glossy pages and one teary Sunday-night television special. Now here she was, happily running towards the school in a gingham pinny with a little sister in tow. The smaller one’s hem nearly swept the ground, and their miniature Mary Janes made Grace’s heart ache with longing.

  Clusters of secondary-school girls moved towards the fence as Dominic followed his daughters to the gate, where he crouched to say goodbye. His wife stayed by the car, arms folded, cool behind sunglasses.

  The plastic kettle snapped, bringing Grace back to reality. She halved another kiwifruit. Someone had told her kiwis were good for fertility and so she had taken to starting each day with two of the tangy fruits. She bit into the green flesh, wincing at its bitterness, as she watched the girls in blue uniforms fill the schoolyard.

  ‘Surveying the enemy?’ Bonnie asked, handing Grace a plum danish from the pile leftover from the Year Nine pare
nt night.

  ‘Thanks.’ Grace bit into her pastry. ‘I’m surprised Mr Lombardo didn’t hide these in the staffroom fridge.’

  ‘I liberated them,’ Bonnie said, winking and choosing an escargot for herself.

  Outside, the students drifted towards their homerooms. As usual, the older girls dawdled, carrying hot chocolate in reusable silicone cups, trying to look casual as they strained desperately towards adulthood.

  Slow down, Grace wanted to tell them, knowing they would roll their eyes at her if she did.

  She put a hand to her belly. The Empona clinic had performed an embryo transfer nine days earlier and now she and Dan were in limbo while they waited to see if it had worked. Secretly, Grace felt something was different this time, though she tried to bury these thoughts. She had learned the hard way that hope and intuition were difficult to separate.

  ‘I think you’re wanted,’ Bonnie said, nodding out the window. The Year Twelve maths coordinator, Therese Swan, was running across the quadrangle to the boarding house.

  ‘Grace!’ Therese arrived at the door, breathless. ‘Will you watch my homeroom? I just got a call from Jake’s school, he’s had a seizure.’

  ‘Of course.’ Grace stood, dusting pastry flakes from her hands. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’ Therese’s handbag bounced up and down off her hip as she hurried down the stairs and towards the staff car park.

  ‘I hope everything’s all right,’ Grace called after her.

  ‘It must be so hard to have such a sick child,’ said Bonnie.

  Grace murmured agreement but didn’t voice the thought that flashed, unbidden, through her mind. At least Therese has a child. She was mortified that she was capable of thinking such things. She pulled on her jacket and set out for the Year Twelve building, hurrying to beat the bell.

  Grace had joined Corella as a young teacher but it had been years since she had stood in front of a class of her own. Her job now was to manage the boarding house but she stepped in as an emergency teacher when needed.