Jean took the delicate gold case in her fingers. It was an Elizabeth Arden lipstick. She painted her top lip and then pressed her lips together. The movement was fluid. Her body remembered. All those times she had applied her lipstick this way, without a mirror, when her life had necessitated the painting of lips.
Clara stood and stretched her arms. ‘I can’t bear to go back in there. I might take a walk around the grounds. I hear the whole valley is haunted. The massacres of the Aborigines here at first settlement. It was a long time ago but still it’s terrible. That’s what the other wives whisper about anyway. But I don’t find it frightening here. Well, it’s not the bush that I’m frightened of.’ Clara removed the red hairclips and let her long hair fall down her back. It made her appear younger. ‘But I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’
Jean shook her head. If there were ghosts anywhere, they would be here. She too had heard about the Black people being killed by the whites in this area. Women and children, too. She hugged her arms close.
‘Here. These would look pretty in your beautiful dark hair.’ She pinned one of the red clips behind Jean’s left ear. Clara stretched her hands to the sky, slipped off her heels and walked barefoot away from the hotel.
‘Are you sure you should go walking by yourself? And barefoot? You could step on a snake.’ Jean was about to tell Clara about the snake Robert had found curled under their front step a few days ago, but that would have given herself away. ‘I could come,’ Jean said.
‘Oh, no, I want to go by myself.’ Clara waved a hand and slipped off one of her long red gloves and then the other and flung them behind her. Jean had to stop herself from gasping.
‘Don’t you ever just want to be alone? The cool night air on your skin, no one knowing where you are? Sometimes it can be like a prison in this valley. So far from everyone and everything.’
Jean nodded. I know that feeling, she thought. She picked up the gloves from the ground. She ran her fingers over the smooth silky fabric. She did know that feeling of wanting to be alone. That’s what had brought her here, to the hotel, late in the evening while her child and husband slept. She could never tell Clara this. It was one thing getting some air by yourself slightly giddy at a party, it was another sneaking away from your family for a glimpse into another life.
‘I shall be back. You keep a watch out for devastatingly dashing men. But don’t send them my way.’ Clara laughed.
Jean laughed too and watched the night claim her, the luminous white of her hair fading into the shadows. Jean’s heart was beating fast. Maybe she shouldn’t have let her go off alone. She seemed a little dreamy with wine. But she’d be back. She slipped her foot out of her dusty black pump and into one of Clara’s beautiful red shoes. It was a little too big, but it fit. She admired the way the shoes shone, even in the low light. She would never own a pair of shoes this beautiful. She put both on and stood up, wobbling as she did. She looked around self-consciously as she slipped the gloves up to her elbows. They felt right. Like a second skin. Suddenly this life, the valley felt like the ill-fitting costume. She felt so glamorous. No longer did she have on only a boring black dress. She caught the reflection of herself in a dark window. She was about to peel off the gloves when the heavy door to the hotel swung open and two men and a woman stumbled out, bringing with them the sound of loud, upbeat music and the smell of cigarettes and perfume.
‘Oh my, it’s deliciously cool out here.’ The woman fanned herself with her hands. ‘Hello. You have the right idea. Oh, can we pinch a cigarette?’
Jean realised that Clara had left her beautiful silver cigarette case on the seat. She looked around, feeling guilt tighten her throat. She glanced in the direction she’d seen Clara go but there was nothing but the glowing nymphs, the dark garden.
‘Of course,’ she said and offered the woman a cigarette. One of the men produced a box of matches and lit it. The woman’s eyes were made up with dark kohl, lending her an exotic and mysterious air. None of the women Jean was around in the township wore eye make-up. She wished immediately to make this effect on her own eyes.
‘What are you doing out here all by yourself?’ One of the men was looking at Jean in a way that made her breath shallow. She was still wearing Clara’s shoes and gloves, her own shoes lying suspiciously at her feet. She was going to be found out. Here she was wearing another woman’s things.
‘Just catching my breath.’
The man stuck out his arm for her to take. ‘Well, these two will no doubt be kissing soon, so will you join me back on the dance floor? The band is rather good, even for these parts.’
Jean looked around wildly. ‘Well, I’m just . . . my friend . . .’ She peered once again into the night.
The man continued to hold out his arm. ‘I’m Magnus Varesso. And you are?’
Jean was completely taken aback by this man’s name, so foreign and famous sounding.
‘Serpentine Rose.’ The name slid from her mouth before her mind caught up and she pressed her fingers to her lips. The lipstick, the gloves, the shoes. They had tricked her into imagining she was Serpentine Rose again, about to take to the stage, about to surrender her body to the music.
‘Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Miss Rose.’
Jean was shocked he had believed her. She felt a flush of shame rise to colour her cheeks. Serpentine Rose had died a long time ago. She was Jean Peters, married to Robert Peters. But she let Magnus lead her inside the hotel with her red gloves and red shoes and the sparkling clasp behind her ear.
CHAPTER 2
Emmie
November
The mothers stood in cosy groups, their necks bent in understanding, smiles playing on their lips. Occasionally a laugh would bloom, rising brightly above the din like a flower in a hothouse. The school hall was too warm. It smelled like nostalgia; lunchboxes left in the sun too long. But the smell of the mothers, their hair conditioner and perfume overlayed the subtle scent of rotting fruit and sandwich bread.
Emmie watched these women. The sheen of their skin, their soft glances as they touched each other’s arms. She wondered how she had got four years into primary school without a posse to stand with. A group of mums to incline her head towards in mutual understanding. She didn’t mean to feel sorry for herself and she had acquaintances, yes, and there was one mum whose son was in Seraphine’s class who she’d bonded with a bit. But somehow in one of those imaginary dreams of motherhood she had seen cups of tea at other mums’ houses, weekends away together and minding each other’s kids during school holidays. A network. A support group, as so many school mums seemed to have acquired as easily as their glowing skin and svelte bodies. The groups seemed to have formed and solidified early on when everyone was new, but somehow she’d missed out on that. Instead she had women whose names were interchangeable with their children’s. There was no one here, for example, to whom she could confide that she’d just got her period this morning and wept into the toilet paper for ten minutes because it was another month closer to 40 without a second child.
They were all mothers. Why had it been so hard for Emmie to connect? She’d tried to get involved in school stuff – she was there at drop-off and pick-up . . . maybe she was expecting too much. She’d learned that this was one of her weaknesses. The images in her head were idealised versions of some life she must have once seen on TV, or Instagram. It had taken her to almost middle age to realise that she needed to adjust her expectations.
She was observing a group over near the morning tea table – no one was eating the baked goods. They lived by the beach – strictly a sugar-free zone. Emmie longed for the comfort of carbs, but she wasn’t about to be the overweight woman feasting on muffins in a sea of slim blondes. The coffee queue, in comparison, snaked back five or six.
Emmie saw all of the women’s heads turn in unison, like flowers moving towards light. She followed their gaze. A woman had just entered the hall. She was dressed in flowing peach silk, her hair loose; a blonde halo around her he
ad. A feathered white and gold fascinator was pinned above her left ear, lending her the air of a Pre-Raphaelite goddess. This woman looked as though she was ready for a fashion shoot, not a kids’ concert. It was Melbourne Cup day; she was probably dropping into the concert on the way to some lavish event at a city bar. The woman took her little girl’s hand and glided into the room. It was only then that Emmie noticed there was a baby strung to her front. Chubby kicking legs. About eight months old, she guessed. A mixture of desire and shame moved inside her. Desire to be like this woman; the hair, the dress, the elegance, but mostly the baby. And shame at her own lame jeans and T-shirt.
Emmie couldn’t tear her eyes away. She had seen her in the playground. Nathalie. That was her name. She had that thing; that elusive something that life seemingly conferred on some people naturally. One could just call it beauty, but it was more than that. Like the cool girls at school with their easy way of being in the world, their breezy laughter, as though they knew they were cosseted against life’s cruelties. She had long admired these types from afar with a mixture of trepidation, admiration and jealousy. How the hell did you have several kids, including a baby and still look like that?
The spell was broken as the microphone squeaked loudly and hands went to ears. The headmistress asked everyone to take a seat. Emmie always felt uncomfortable in these kinds of situations – who to talk to, where to sit? How to not look like the awkward person she was. Why did it have to be so difficult? She told herself not to overthink things and moved towards a bank of seats to her right.
She realised she was standing next to the woman.
‘Oh, you take these,’ Emmie said, gesturing towards the empty seats, noticing the woman’s painted nails, her luminous skin.
It took Emmie a second to register that the woman was looking around her, her eyes glazed with panic.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Where’s Sim? I was holding her hand a second ago.’
The baby began to cry.
‘Oh, shit. Oh, God.’ The woman’s chin began to tremble, and she looked around wildly, pressing her hands to her cheeks.
Emmie felt her own jolt of upset at the other woman’s distress. ‘Are you okay? Can I help? Have you lost someone?’
The woman reached out and grabbed her arm. Emmie felt the other woman’s desperation rush through her like an electric shock. ‘I’ve just lost my daughter. She has a habit of disappearing on me lately. I don’t know why she’s acting up so much at the moment.’ She shook her head and gestured to her body. ‘And I’m meant to be going to this Melbourne Cup thing today after the concert. I’m so mortified to be this overdressed.’ She worried one of the sparkly rings on her fingers and shook her head.
Emmie blinked for a second, shocked that this incredible-looking woman was embarrassed. She wanted to tell her that every woman in the room thought she looked dazzling, but there was a more pressing situation at hand.
‘What does your little girl look like?’ Emmie asked, her eyes already scanning the crowd.
‘Hair in braids, four years old. Pink dress. I feel sick. I’m such a terrible mother. Here for one second and I’ve already lost a child.’
Emmie smiled. ‘This room is filled with mothers. It’s the best possible place on earth to lose a child. You wait here and I’ll have a scout.’
The woman’s eyes softened with gratitude. She rocked back and forth, and the baby began to settle. ‘Her name is Sim, short for Simone.’
It seemed the room was filled with four-year-olds with hair in various plaits and braids and wearing pink. But Emmie found the likely runaway next to the morning tea table with a chocolate biscuit in her hand.
Emmie crouched down next to the little girl. ‘Hi there, is your name Sim?’
The child nodded, obviously unwilling to stop eating to engage in conversation with a stranger.
‘Well, I’m glad someone’s eating the treats. I don’t blame you. Those biscuits look aaa-mazing.’
Sim inspected her cookie.
‘Now, your mum’s looking for you. She’s a bit worried,’ Emmie said, holding out her hand. ‘Come with me and we’ll find her.’ The little girl thrust her sticky hand into Emmie’s. It broke Emmie’s heart how trusting children were.
‘If you’d all like to take a seat now, we have our first dance act raring to go,’ the principal said over the loud-speaker, her voice infused with a practised patience.
The room began to shift, the huddles of mothers breaking apart and moving towards the seats. ‘Here she is,’ whispered Emmie, handing Sim over.
‘Oh my God, you are an angel. Sim, you can’t just run off from Mummy like that. Thank you so much. Sorry, I don’t think we’ve properly met.’
‘I’m Emmie. my little girl, Seraphine, is in Year 3.’
‘What a beautiful name. My daughter Findlay is too. I’m Nathalie. It’s such a big school. I’m still meeting mums I feel like I’ve never seen before.’
Maybe I’m invisible, Emmie thought, then admonished herself, replying brightly: ‘Findlay and Seraphine. It could be a designer fashion label, couldn’t it?’
Nathalie laughed. ‘I think it’s our modern names. Combine the names of any eight-year-old children and you’ve got a fashion label or a hipster bar. We’d better copyright ours and buy the website domain.’
Emmie nodded, feeling a flush of emotion at the intimacy implicit in Nathalie’s comment. ‘I feel a bit self-indulgent calling my child Seraphine, I’ve sworn that the next will be something like Bob.’ She cringed internally. She rarely admitted that she wanted another child. It was just easier to make it seem like it was a choice. But Nathalie made her feel surprisingly comfortable.
‘Seraphine and Bob. Yep, I could see that doing well in Bondi,’ said Nathalie, settling into a seat, her hand cradling her baby’s head.
‘We’re definitely onto something.’
Nathalie looked longingly towards the coffee queue. ‘If I creep around the back, do you reckon I could score some of those scones and muffins? I’ve already had two coffees but I’m dying for sugar and carbs. Preferably both.’
Emmie smiled. A woman after her own soul. ‘I’ve been thinking that for the past ten minutes but no one’s eating all that lovely food.’
‘I don’t care if it’s about to start, we are eating the food,’ Nathalie said. ‘Could you mind Sim for a sec? There’ll be a muffin in it for you.’
Emmie nodded and watched Nathalie tiptoe around the seats, her baby still strung to her front.
An expectant hush finally fell over the crowd and the room darkened. The booming beat of The Jackson 5’s ‘Blame It on the Boogie’ filled the hall. Little bodies poured onto the stage in colourful fedora hats to hoots and whistles from the audience. The music was cut short and there was a sudden scrambling of kids off the stage. Someone accidentally started and then paused the next song.
The principal was back. ‘It appears we’re experiencing some technical difficulties, if you’ll just bear with us.’
‘It’s going to be a long hour,’ said Nathalie, returning with a plastic plate full of pastries and muffins and offering it to Emmie. ‘I’m probably going to have to breastfeed Richie the whole time to stop him crying.’
Emmie’s heart melted at the sight of the little boy. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she said, taking a bite out of the muffin.
‘Believe me, he’s no angel. You should have heard him in the car on the way. I nearly ran into a tree just to make it all stop.’ Nathalie shot Emmie a sheepish look. ‘Too much information, sorry. I promise, I’m not really going to kill my baby.’
Emmie laughed. There would have been a time before having children when such a statement would have shocked her. ‘Oh, I get it. I didn’t sleep more than two hours in a row for about three years. Once I left the house and went for a walk and left her for 20 minutes crying in her cot.’
‘Oh, you have to for your sanity,’ said Nathalie. ‘Every mum has done something like that. Most just don’t admit it.’
Seraphine suddenly pranced onto the stage with much more zest than she’d demonstrated in the lounge room. Emmie felt her heart squeeze with a secret pride.
‘That’s Seraphine,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, beautiful red hair,’ said Nathalie.
‘It only took an hour to tame this morning,’ said Emmie.
Modern motherhood was all about keeping up a ruse of cool indifference. But deep down, no mother was really indifferent to her child. She’d have to note that one down for her next blog-post topic.
She felt a cool hand on her arm.
‘Is this seat taken?’
Emmie shook her head. A woman with startlingly blonde hair and woody perfume put her designer bag on the floor and crossed her long, tanned legs. Alexandra Maxwell. She leaned forward and waved to Nathalie, who pointed to the plate of pastries and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.
‘Oh, God, give them to me now,’ the woman hissed. Emmie leaned over and passed the plate.
Emmie had seen these two in the playground together. It was impossible to miss them. Everyone knew Alexandra. Her husband was a popular morning TV presenter. He was known simply by his surname – Maxwell – as though he were a pop star, not a perma-tanned man with gleaming TV teeth. And although Emmie had no idea what Alexandra did for her own work, his glamour was somehow transferred onto her. She realised that she’d always sort of assumed that Alexandra worked in television, too. She also had those glowy white teeth, and something professional and gritty about her that suggested that she may be an investigative journalist or something equally powerful.
These women were the mother equivalent of the enigmatic high school girls. Long hair trailing down their backs, their eyes shining with secrets that everyone else wanted to know. Those insouciant smiles. Even the uniforms could not hide their lustre; they shone and glittered in the dirt and squabble of the playground. It was impossible for Emmie to tell if they were aware of their allure – if it was an affectation or natural. But the last place Emmie expected to be was between them eating muffins.
The Valley of Lost Stories Page 2