‘Well.’ Grace turned around, leaning against the stove, and looked at Abi. ‘I’m sure that will help a lot.’
‘Grace, here’s the thing.’ Spoon down. ‘We are up against the big guns here. Adrian’s idiot wife and her endless duck-face selfies are getting more followers by the minute. I lost Abbott’s smoothies, you know—that should have been mine, it should have been The Green Diva’s first big contract. Fucking chia seeds! And, I’m sorry to say this, but now your sister, well, she’s all over the headlines…’
‘For being stabbed, Abi.’
‘Yes, I know. And I’m not a monster, Gracey, I’m as horrified by that as anyone, of course. But the fact is, I need to get a look-in. We need to make some noise or we’re just going to be the also-rans, the country mice.’
‘Abi, I don’t think that calling parents “killers” is going to attract the big bucks. Brands will run a mile.’
‘The wrong brands, Gracey, the wrong brands. We are the real deal here—we’re having important conversations. Engagement is going to be through the roof. I know plenty of companies with integrity who want to talk to the people who are listening to us. And so does Shannon.’
Grace sighed.
Seeing that she was softening, Abi went over and put her arms around her. ‘I know it’s a risk. But it’s a calculated risk. And believe me, it’s not a risk to us and our family. There aren’t that many nutters in the world. Leisel was unlucky to meet one.’ She pulled Grace into a bear hug. ‘People will understand we’re not being literal, babe. It’s just a conversation.’
‘I wish I had that much faith in people,’ Grace said into Abi’s neck. ‘Okay. Okay. I’d better go and find Otto. He could be halfway to the highway by now.’
‘Go on.’ Abi kissed Grace’s lips. They smiled. Crisis averted. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’
As Grace headed out to the car, Abi went back to her granola. Got to get some of the shine back on this day, she thought. It’s going to be a glorious battle.
Grace was right about Spiked. A week before its release, campaigns to stop it from screening were popping up everywhere. More than one change.org petition was asking cinemas to refuse to show it, while many Facebook groups had been set up to debunk every detail that it expressed. The cinemas who had agreed to host it were getting hate-mail by the bucketload. As was Abi. But that was nothing new.
You are aiding and abetting the spread of dangerous lies. You will have the blood of babies on your hands. #spiked #howdoyousleep
You and your woo-woo mates need to sit down and shut up. You are anti-science, anti-common-sense, anti-child. #spiked #dangerouscunt
The link between vaccines and autism has been so thoroughly debunked you might as well talk about the link between breathing and autism. Shut up, you idiot #spiked The truth was, Abi had no trouble sleeping. The way she saw it, there would always be people who disagreed with the status quo, and it was healthy to give them a voice.
It was an argument that she knew didn’t fly with her father. The Doctor was another one to add to the list of people who were angry with her right now.
• • •
Three nights ago, Abi and the girls had been at her parents’ place in Armadale. ‘There are no sides in this debate, Abi,’ her father told her over dinner. ‘There is scientific fact. And there are lies.’
‘So those parents who are convinced their children became ill after getting their vaccines, are they all lying?’ Abi asked him.
‘They are misguided.’ Graham, now seventy-four, could say ‘misguided’ in a tone that made it interchangeable with ‘stupid’. ‘They are looking for simple answers to complex problems. It’s understandable.’
It was remarkable how you could be a 41-year-old woman and still feel like a foolish girl in the presence of your father.
Luckily for Abi and the way this conversation was going, he did not follow The Green Diva. Her mother would sneakily turn to the commercial channels when Abi was on AEA or The Process, but she knew her father only watched the ABC and listened to the World Service, blissfully unaware of the full extent of her medical treachery.
Even her mother didn’t always quite get the gist of Abi’s lifestyle change. ‘I worry about you living up there with all those hippies,’ Sarah said, passing the potatoes.
‘HA!’ Arden laughed out loud so hard that Abi almost jumped. Her dad certainly did. ‘Mum is a hippie, Gran! She’s one of the biggest hippies around.’
‘Arden…’ Abi shot her eldest daughter a very serious look.
‘We don’t even go to school anymore, she’s such a hippie,’ said Alex helpfully. ‘We haven’t been all year. Grace teaches us now.’
The good doctor generally tuned out any dinner conversation that didn’t involve him holding forth with his own particular expertise, but now he was listening again. ‘What’s that? You’re not going to school?’
Sigh. Internally, Abi prepared for battle. ‘They are going to school, Dad. Just at home. Grace used to be a teacher, you know.’
Abi had always had a good relationship with her parents—as in, they didn’t argue, they were polite. She had never gone to therapy, but if she did, she had a suspicion the therapist might tell her that her current combative career choice—if you could call it that—had something to do with her formative years of saying nothing and smiling.
When Abi was little, she hadn’t considered her parents conservative. The dinner table had often been a place of ‘enlightening discussion’. But now she understood that her father liked his children to expand their minds as long as they snapped straight back into line after any debate. From where she sat, she could see that Graham and Sarah were as conservative as retired, white, middle-class Australians come.
Graham had been a GP, eventually heading his own practice, and he had always told Abi that he was energised by the different people and their stories coming in and out of his office—but clearly he preferred the ‘characters’ to stay at work. Sarah had never worked outside the home: she was a diligent mother and a conscientious volunteer. Abi and her brothers had spent much of their childhood hiding under tables at fundraisers and bake sales and CWA meetings and hospital committees.
When Graham had retired ten years ago, he and Sarah had sold the family home and bought a classic double-fronted cottage just down the road. It was tasteful to the point of suffocation.
Dinner visits were a semi-formal occasion at the cottage, with a dry sherry at six and soup at six-thirty. Arden and Alex’s presence at her parents’ long, formal dining table seemed so strange to Abi—they were like parakeets at a dove convention. She knew the very sight of them made her parents uncomfortable, but when she thought about the fact that this kind of family meal would never be ‘normal’ to her girls, it gave her a twinge of satisfaction.
‘Home-schooling?’ Graham’s voice suddenly boomed. ‘Abi, have you lost your mind? Why is this the first we have heard about it?’
Abi didn’t get down to Armadale so much since her divorce: this was quite possibly the reason. She left a lot of the grandparent-pleasing duties to her brothers, who lived nearby and were still following the script: Toorak. Blonde wives. Private schools. Range Rovers.
Alex seemed alarmed by Graham’s questions, but Arden was smiling, shifting her roast around on her plate. Little trouble-maker.
‘Darling, we can help you with the school fees if that’s the problem,’ offered Sarah.
Graham shot her a sharp look.
‘That is not the problem.’ Abi summoned all of her GD confidence. Oh, how she missed her phone at these dinners—with her phone in her pocket, she had an army at her side. Of course, it was out of the question at the cottage table. ‘It’s a considered decision that Grace and I have made. It’s what’s best for the girls right now.’
‘How could it possibly be better for them than Fintona?’ Graham boomed back.
‘Or Melbourne Girls’?’ added Sarah.
‘We don’t live here anymore,’ Abi said firmly
. ‘And we have decided on a different kind of life for our family.’
‘Our family.’ Graham snorted. ‘As if there’s such a thing.’
At this, Abi felt her daughters’ eyes on her. Arden had stopped smiling.
‘Dad,’ Abi said, putting down her fork, ‘you might be right about vaccination. In fact, I am certain that you are. But you are not right about everything. And on the matter of how Grace and I are raising our family…’
‘This is not her family…’
‘About how we’re raising our family, Dad, you are not right. In fact, you do not even have a right to an expressed opinion about that. Come on, girls.’ Abi pushed back her chair.
‘Abi…’ Sarah started.
‘No, Mum. I can feel what Dad wants to say. I can feel it underneath my skin. And I won’t have it. Not in front of my girls. You—’ she looked straight at Graham ‘—have a choice. You accept that my family doesn’t look like it used to, or you’re no longer welcome to be a part of it. Your call.’
She stood up and grabbed her bag. Alex and Arden, wide-eyed, uncharacteristically speechless, stood with her.
‘Abigail. Sit down,’ her father said. His voice was tired. ‘If I have offended you, I apologise. But you have to admit,’ he added, his hands spread wide, ‘it’s a lot of change in a few short years. For some of us.’
‘Embrace it, Dad. Change keeps you young.’
Abi tried not to storm out of the cottage, but she walked quickly, the girls right behind her.
‘Mum,’ Alex said, when they were standing outside in the cold air, Abi scraping around for her car keys in her enormous carpet bag. ‘It’s a two-hour drive.’
‘She’s standing on her principles,’ said Arden. ‘Can’t sleep at the enemy’s house, can you, Mum?’
Abi found her keys and kissed Arden on the head before she could squirm away.
‘Who wanted to stay there anyway?’ she asked. ‘It’s soooooo boring. Let’s get home to Grace and the boys and the chickens.’
‘They did have cake, though,’ Alex said, as they climbed into the people mover.
• • •
The irony was, Abi thought, as she made her way out to the podshed, she knew that her ex-mother-in-law gave Adrian just as hard a time about his new life. These poor teenage girls and their black-sheep parents—rebelling was going to be very complicated for them.
Abi sat down at the computer and opened the software that would upload the Shannon Smart podcast to the world.
She really was pissed off about the Abbott’s deal going to Elle. The word had been out that they were wanting to pair with an influencer for their smoothie campaign. Why wasn’t it her? Her following wasn’t as big as Elle’s, granted, but it was more passionate, more engaged. If she told them to buy something, they’d buy it. If she sent them to war, they’d go.
She’d been having some small success with ‘crunchy’ brands—like the eco-period people, like the cloth nappy company who picked up your kids’ shitty pants. But, as she had moaned to Grace, she’d like some money from a brand that wasn’t about bodily fluids: ‘Is it something about me? Do people look at me and think “blood and piss”?’
But she knew she could never carry a big mainstream brand, because the Divas wouldn’t deal. Last year, she’d been approached by a major food company that made—among other things—toddler formula. ‘Temptation is knocking,’ she’d told Grace, who’d taken one look at their offer, laughed and said, ‘No way in hell.’
See, Grace really did believe that formula was poison. Abi didn’t have the heart to tell her that both her girls had been bottle-fed after three months. Her supply had been shit-house.
Grace was a counterculture true believer. Abi’s eco-muse. So it was interesting that she felt this Shannon Smart podcast was going too far.
Fuck it. Abi pressed publish, sipped her tea and settled back to watch the fallout.
At that moment, Arden put her head around the door. She was pale under her pale make-up. Serious face.
‘It’s Dad,’ she said. ‘He’s dying.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ADRIAN
Nobody wanted to talk about cancer.
This worked to Adrian’s advantage. All he had to do was allude to ‘the diagnosis’ and people would make sympathetic faces and change the subject.
If I actually had cancer, Adrian wondered, would this infuriate me, or would it be a blessed relief?
He’d had to tell his boss. That was a difficult day—he’d known Dean for more than twenty years. But they were men of a certain age: ‘cancer’ was in their world. It didn’t have to mean that everything changed.
That was what Adrian had told Dean, sitting in his office after a meeting, in the moment when they would usually have been talking about the Magpies.
‘Mate, remember when Ben had chemo and he only missed three days’ work? That’ll be me, mate. It’s going to be fine.’
Yes, Adrian thought, I just used my sick friend Ben’s name in a lie.
Adrian told Dean that he didn’t want to tell his staff. ‘They don’t need to know, mate. Really. I’ll tell Jenny, because she deals with my appointments and everything, but really, the whole bloody company doesn’t need to know. I’ll run my own race.’
‘You’re kidding yourself, mate,’ said Dean, putting a big hand on Adrian’s back. ‘They all read your wife’s website. They probably know more than you do.’
That was true. The women on his team were all a little bit obsessed with Elle. When she came into the office, a jolt of excitement shot down the aisles, as if a celebrity was walking among them. Adrian didn’t hate it, if he was honest, although it was a bit weird when someone whose name he didn’t know would say, ‘Oh, is Teddy’s cold better?’
Dean went back around to the seat at his desk. ‘Mate, if there’s anything you need, anything at all—I’m here, mate. We’ll work it out.’
Dean. Done. Tick.
• • •
Five years ago, if anyone had told Adrian that he would lie to his own mother about having cancer, he wouldn’t have just laughed, he might have punched them. Apparently, there can be quite a gap between who you thought you were and who you are.
His mother had not been all that sympathetic, as it turned out.
‘Look at those beautiful boys.’
Bonnie was standing at the bay window of the house she’d lived in with Adrian’s father until his death six years ago. The boys were meant to be playing in the backyard, but since unstructured play was foreign to Teddy and Freddie, they were just standing around, probably wondering whether to pick up a stick.
‘You go through all this trouble to make them, and then you go and get sick. Honestly.’
‘Mum… ’
‘You should never have left Abi. Then you’d have a doctor in the family, and you might not have had to face leaving four children fatherless, instead of two.’
‘I have a doctor, Mum. And it’s going to be fine. Non-Hodgkin is treatable.’
We’re all clichés in the end, Adrian thought. There he was with his young wife and his second family. Here his mother was, a well-to-do Malvern widow with her book club and her volunteering and her barely supressed anger.
‘Come on, boys, let’s go!’ he yelled out the window.
‘Please.’ There was a little desperation in Bonnie’s voice, and a stab of guilt made Adrian flinch and turn around. ‘Please can you ask Elle to cut the boys’ hair? It’s getting ridiculous.’
‘Bye, Mum. We’ll see you next week.’
• • •
Abi hadn’t been so easy to escape. When his phone flashed her name an hour after he’d told the girls, Adrian felt actual fear.
While they were together, he had never considered his wife intimidating. But Abi 2.0 was terrifying. She spoke her mind, and her mind was clear: everyone was a dickhead, especially him.
‘Adrian. What the fuck’s going on?’ There she was. ‘You’re sick?’
‘Abi,
I’ve spoken to the girls. I really don’t want to keep talking about this.’
‘Oh, you don’t?’ He heard the kids’ screeches in the background, and maybe a cockerel crowing. She was living in a madhouse. ‘Well, you’re going to talk to me. What happened? How long has this been going on? What does the doctor say? Have you spoken to my dad? The girls are upset. We need some answers.’
‘Abi.’ Inexplicably, given the circumstances, Adrian found himself getting angry. ‘You don’t get to control this. This isn’t about you.’
Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps, when Elle and I are done with all this, my girls will stop being so entranced by Grace and Abi and that feral farm. They’ll see the lives they could have—travel, a place of their own in the city, the best education money can buy. Food that doesn’t grow in the front garden.
But as infuriating as Abi was, of all the people left in the world, she knew him best. When Elle had first brought up this idea, one of his first thoughts had been: I’ll never be able to fool Abi. She would look at him once and know this was bullshit.
So his plan was to make sure he and Abi were not in the same room together until all this was over.
She had always been able to read him. They were just kids when they met, but what he remembered most about those early days was her looking at him like he was a puzzle to solve. It was seductive.
Before then, Adrian had never felt intriguing or mysterious. He came from a solid middle-class family. He had gone to a blue-ribbon school. His friends were the rowing club. They were all going into finance. At the moment he met Abi, he was staging a mini-rebellion: smoking pot, ranting about politics, threatening to drop out.
She got him. Abi was from his world, but there was a strength about her that he was drawn to. That, and her amazing breasts.
Even then, Adrian had doubted that he could detour from the script handed to him at birth, but Abi was a believer, and he loved her for it. She had dreams for them, even then. She wanted to go to London—so as soon as she graduated, they went. He hated the cold, the low skies and the sleeping on floors, but Abi was adamant there wasn’t a person worth knowing who hadn’t travelled, and he wanted to be a person worth knowing, for her.
The Mummy Bloggers Page 11