The Valley of Lost Stories

by Vanessa McCausland

  ‘Will I see you again?’ he asked.

  She was suddenly acutely aware of the stranger’s gloves she wore, the unfamiliar shoes on her feet, and that there was no way to discard them. She shot him an apologetic look and disappeared into the night.

  CHAPTER 6

  Emmie

  She typed The champagne mothers, and uploaded the selfie she had taken of herself, Nathalie and Alexandra at the Melbourne Cup party. They were laughing over glasses of champagne, the light soft behind them, lending their faces a sheen, a luminosity. She thought about uploading it to her Instagram account, but it was such a different photo from the everyday domestic ones that populated @Emmiewriter that on a whim she found herself creating a new account. The name came to her easily: @TheDaysofInnocence. She captioned it: Mothers, love, friendship.

  The words flowed out of her. I heard them before I saw them. They spoke in whispers, the secret language of women. Of mothers. The perfect shape of them transfixed me as they started across the hot asphalt. Her hands hovered above the keyboard. She took a sip of tea and sat staring at the screen.

  No, I can’t, she thought and snapped the screen of the laptop shut. She should actually just go and bake that cake she’d promised Seraphine for afternoon tea. Emmie gathered the two empty teacups from her desk. She must stop drinking so much tea. She was certain Nathalie and Alexandra drank herbal blends, or something equally healthful, not pots and pots of English Breakfast with milk and sugar. She sighed as she ran her hand over the lovely smooth blond wood of her desk. She had a mood board for inspiration, a gorgeous French-style lamp, various expensive pens and note papers and a sleek laptop. It was a working-from-home study fit for Instagram, but the truth was, she had no work.

  She went to the kitchen where she took the eggs and milk out of the fridge and began mashing three bananas with an aggression that made her arm hurt. There were probably loads of mums who would love to be baking a cake from scratch for their child to enjoy after school instead of working, she told herself, and paused to give her aching arm a break. First-world problems, she admonished herself. She took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. I am lucky, I am grateful. She repeated the phrase in her head, willing positivity into her mind. Her shoulders slumped. She was even crap at gratitude. She just wished there was another aspect to her life. Something to take the focus off trying for another child and failing at it. Something just for her; something that allowed her to use her brain. She thought of her half-finished arts law degree. Maybe she could start that again. But she should be making money, not spending thousands on a degree that might not even lead to a job.

  She was so lucky to have Dave. He would support her no matter what she decided. He was the one encouraging her to write while they tried for a baby. His faith in her writing talent was unwavering, which was beautiful, but she thought, misguided. She felt as though her real ‘job’ at the moment was getting pregnant, which her body was refusing to do. The image of her sweet husband’s hopeful face as ‘that’ time of month rolled around nearly broke her. The way he raised his eyebrows, the eager twitch of his mouth, so ready to break into a smile. She had begun hiding her pain from him. Forcing a brightness onto her face and pretending it wasn’t hollowing out her insides.

  She sighed as she broke the eggs into the banana and added coconut oil. She took out her phone and took a picture for her blog. Homemade banana bread. She’d take another picture after it was baked, or maybe a selfie with Seraphine enjoying it later. Her life felt like a thin, brittle surface ready to crack. Everything she did felt fickle. Maybe if she actually had more than a handful of followers, it would make it all seem a bit more worthwhile. When had mummy blogging become a profession and the pressure to record the domestic monetised and scrutinised?

  She thought about Alexandra and her chic gallery space, Nathalie and her effortless beauty and gorgeous baby, and Pen and her photojournalism. She knew that all of these things were superficial scratchings, the surface of complex lives underneath, that she was lucky to have even one child, and time to herself, but it didn’t make the pain any less real. Of course, she knew there were other sides to these women. That was what made them so fascinating. Nathalie had a haunted air about her that Emmie sensed strongly but couldn’t figure out. Pen struggled with her brilliant little boy, Will. And Alexandra was like a caricature of a successful working mother, with a famous husband to boot. But she was certain there was more to that story.

  She stopped stirring the cake batter. She probably shouldn’t use her new friends’ pictures on Instagram without their approval. She laughed at herself. What did it matter? No one would read it anyhow. It would be lost in the sea of pretty pictures and pretty lives. She wouldn’t use their names. Maybe she’d write fictional musings about motherhood. Short poems. Poetry was having a resurgence on Instagram, wasn’t it?

  Her failed attempt at a novel was proof that her creative writing wasn’t really anything special, maybe she should try poems. The woman she’d hired to do a manuscript appraisal had told her that her voice was just not strong or engaging enough to make the story sing in a way it needed to. Of course, she’d charged her nearly $1500 for this piece of advice, along with lengthy changes to her manuscript to find the music, which Emmie never followed through with. She wasn’t even sure why she was attempting to keep up the ruse that she was somehow a writer. Well, actually, she was. Her mother had been a successful literary novelist and Emmie had watched her from the vantage point of a young child who worshipped their parent. She had been tall and slim with pale hair that she’d worn just touching her shoulders. There was such a grace and elegance about her mother. She suspected it had skipped a generation and landed in her daughter’s gorgeous looks and easy manner.

  Emmie had done well in English at school and it was always assumed that she had inherited her mother’s talent with words. Everyone had said so, but it was so many years ago now, and she had produced nothing of worth. People who knew about such things had even told her that she was no good. Why did she persist?

  With this thought agitating in her head she unloaded the dishwasher, heaved the overflowing washing basket into the laundry and sorted the lights from the darks. She cleared the dining table of Sera’s stickers and cuttings and coloured textas and the minefield of Lego from the rug. She was just finishing her cup of herbal tea when she smelled burning. Her heart fell as she opened the oven to a plume of smoke. The cake was blackened and the acrid taste of it was in her eyes and throat. She threw the pan in the sink and it hissed as it hit the cold water. She put her face in her hands. Why are you crying? she asked herself. Why the hell are you crying?

  CHAPTER 7

  Alexandra

  ‘So, the girls and I are going away for a week.’ Alexandra kept her voice light and upbeat. She could see Maxwell was in a good mood. He’d had an attractive fitness guru on the show this morning and his ego had obviously been well stroked.

  It was rare for the two of them to be at home together before dark. They both worked ’til later the nights the nanny came, and the nights Alexandra left work at 5 pm and picked the boys up from after-school care, Maxwell was often at a work function of some kind.

  He made a sound to indicate that he’d heard what she’d said but was not going to answer because what he was studying on his phone was more important. It was funny how all the tiny gestures meant something this far into a marriage. She waited. A small part in her contracted.

  She sighed but she could tell he didn’t pick up on her frustration. ‘So, we’ve come up with a few dates and I just wanted to check in with you first. Or I can ask Kara.’

  Maxwell’s producer knew more about her husband than she did. Maxwell had always insisted that this was completely normal.

  Silence. Expected.

  ‘It’s this magnificent beach house one of the mums at school owns. To be honest, I think it could do with an interiors overhaul, but the location is stunning.’

  ‘We live on the beach,’ he said, withou
t looking up.

  ‘Different beach. Bigger house. So, would early January work?’ There was a false note of brightness to her voice. She hated how she sounded.

  Alexandra straightened and breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth just like yoga told her to. She managed to fit in yoga – her one luxurious hour to herself in the hectic week – on a Thursday morning, but that was only if the nanny came early to do the school run. She had tried everything to get the nanny to come early, but she was unreliable, skittish and prone to exaggeration about slight ills. Alexandra had been tempted many times to get rid of her, but the overwhelming anxiety she faced at the prospect of interviewing and finding a new nanny and then the possibility that she would leave abruptly, as some of these young women were inclined to do, deterred her.

  He still hadn’t responded. Being ignored by your husband is normal. This is the reality of marriage. That’s why everyone jokes about it, she told herself. She studied the man bent over his phone as though he was devouring a meal and felt a twang in her chest. She began counting. She reached ten and looked out the kitchen window. The ocean was a slate blue, flat and opaque, like a drawing of an ocean. When had she stopped swimming in the sea? When had she stopped noticing it out her kitchen window? Suddenly the desire to feel the sting of salt on her skin was overwhelming. Her counting was up to 30 now.

  ‘You’ll have to check in with Kara.’

  There it was. A full half a minute to get a response that she already knew.

  ‘But you’re taking them with you, aren’t you? The boys? What do you need me for?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t. I just thought you might like to know when your family was going to be away.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m going swimming.’

  He looked up. ‘What, at the holiday house?’

  She didn’t even try to disguise the resentment that she knew was on her face. ‘No, now. In the ocean.’

  He made a flicking movement with his hand, as though banishing an annoying insect. ‘Just swim in the pool. That’s what we bought it for. It’s better for doing laps.’

  ‘I don’t want to do laps.’

  ‘Well, take the boys with you, will you? I’ve got to work. Oh, and make sure Kara knows about the weekend.’

  She felt a hot seam of anger open in her chest. She worked one day less than Maxwell, but it was as though she didn’t even have a job. She earned much, much less, which somehow mattered a great deal in the power dynamic between them. She had fought and fought to get the nanny because somehow Maxwell believed it was solely her responsibility to raise their family. They had enough money for her to be a stay-at-home mum, but Alexandra knew Maxwell’s stinginess would drive a wedge between them and that she’d have to beg for her own money. Besides, she wanted to work.

  Sometimes her job felt like the only thing she had for herself. The boys, of course, felt like hers – all hers all too often. Maxwell seemed to regard his family in the same detached way he regarded his fans. Their marriage felt like it belonged to someone else. It was above and beyond her. It felt out of reach. An ideal rather than a real living thing, like an object behind glass in a museum. Something that other people admired but that behind the glass felt stultified, the air stale.

  But, if she was honest, it had always been that way. There had been no big romance. No big emotional connection. They had met at a party and she’d been flattered by the attention of a young up-and-coming TV journalist. Twenty years ago, she’d had the kind of face and body that a man with Maxwell’s looks and growing status was predisposed to pursue. And twenty years ago, she didn’t even have a name for how she felt about women. Sexual orientation wasn’t something to be pondered or explored, it was something to be concealed. And they’d both shared a dry humour, love of wine and that had been enough. He was a good catch. She’d benefited from the status of his growing fame, and she’d been an accessory for him. Now that the shine of those early lures had dulled, she wondered how they had ever been enough.

  Alexandra began tapping out an email to her husband’s producer on her phone, but she stopped. This is shit, she thought. I need to swim. She just wanted 20 minutes to herself, to sort out the strength of her feelings. Why was she reacting so strongly? Why was she on emotional tenterhooks and questioning her life choices? Life was always like this. He was always like this.

  She left the room wordlessly. The boys were playing Lego in front of the TV. A flush of love ran through her, as strong as the resentment that had preceded it.

  ‘Want to go for a swim with Mummy?’ she asked, and the boys looked up. At least they notice I’m here, she thought, bending down to inhale the sweet, sweaty smell of them.

  ‘Yeah!’ they shouted in unison and it was a race to the bedrooms to get their swimmers.

  ‘Meet me on the back step and bring your buckets.’

  Jasper, who at six, had perfected the sort of whimper whine that needled into her skull like a tiny drill, started up. ‘I don’t waaaaant to go to the beach. I don’t waaaaant to. I want to swim in the pool.’

  Thomas joined in, breaking out his best puppy dog face. ‘The beach is booooring. There are no pool noodles.’

  Alexandra closed her eyes for a beat, counselling herself not to completely lose it.

  I just want to fucking swim in the ocean for 20 minutes, to feel the wind on my face, she screamed inside. I just want to be free. I just want to be loved. How have I ended up with everything except love?

  She felt an ocean of emotion, of longing swell inside her. It was so strong it felt like it was choking her. She swallowed it down and pressed her palms into her eye sockets. She wanted to run. Instead she said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’re hungry,’ Thomas whined. ‘Can we get hot chips?’

  ‘Where are we going to get hot chips?’ Her voice had a hysterical tinge to it.

  ‘Toby’s mum gets them hot chips from the fish and chip shop for afternoon tea,’ Jasper said.

  Toby’s mum is morbidly obese and passing on bad food habits to her children, Alexandra thought.

  ‘How about some watermelon?’

  They both made faces.

  Why was everything such a mission with kids? Why couldn’t they ever just agree to do what you wanted? It was like they were sent with the explicit purpose to test you in ways that only they knew would take you right to the brink. And if you went over, the guilt would consume you like a wave that bashed you against the rocks until you were a bloody mess. She didn’t spend enough time with them. She wasn’t there for every school concert and athletics carnival. Yes, motherhood. It was fun.

  ‘I’m not swimming until we get chips,’ said Thomas, crossing his arms across his skinny chest.

  ‘Neither am I,’ said Jasper, always quick to follow blindly in his older brother’s footsteps.

  She fought the urge to scream. Here was this behaviour again – entitled, demanding. Frankly, the pair of them acting like little shits. They were becoming mini-Maxwells. The set of their mouths frightened her. She wondered if she had somehow enabled this. She wanted to push back, to teach them that they couldn’t just expect everything in life to be delivered to them on a platter, but she felt her strength waver. She didn’t have the energy to fight. There were crisps in the pantry. Wasn’t that a compromise? A good parenting outcome? She hated herself for doing it but goddammit, she just wanted a swim.

  She followed the boys down to the pool, picking up the crisp crumbs as they walked. It really was a nice pool. She had taken months to decide on the tiles. What was she complaining about? The boys hooted as their long legs, tanned by the hot spring sun, kicked and flayed. She didn’t feel like swimming anymore. She looked out over their perfectly manicured hedge towards the sea. The wind had picked up, carrying with it the sound of the waves rasping on the sand, the cries of gulls. She imagined the taste of the salt on her lips and the wet way of the sand between her toes.

  An image of the woman from the shop came to her �
� the strawberry blonde hair, the expensive clothes and more expensive furniture purchases. She hadn’t been able to place her initially. When Alexandra had first laid eyes on Macie, she had no idea who she was. She had changed so much since high school. If Alexandra was going to be entirely superficial, she was beautiful now. At school she’d had wild, curly hair and had been so awkward and shy. She had been an easy target. And Alexandra wasn’t the only one. She didn’t say the worst things. She was positive that Macie recognised her and yet she said nothing, she just kept coming in and buying the most expensive stock for the house she was renovating, as if to say, Look where I am now. Every time Macie came in it felt like Alexandra couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, because the awful truth was that Alexandra had made Macie’s life a living hell 27 years ago.

  CHAPTER 8

  Nathalie

  The girls were playing on the trampoline, Richie was having a late nap and Nathalie was unpacking the dishwasher when she heard the key turn. Mike was home early. She wiped her hands on the tea towel and felt all the breath leave her lungs. Sometimes it felt as though she were clinging onto the side of a sinking ship. Sometimes it felt so easy – the thought of letting go. The thought of just letting herself float adrift. The squeak of his polished leather shoes on the entrance tiles made her skittish. She remembered when her husband coming home had heralded a feeling of relief and happiness. They were the days when they only had Findlay, when Nathalie was still working part-time and home in time to make dinner. Those days felt like another life.

  Mike flung his keys onto the bench and wrestled the tie knot at his throat. Even now after all these years, after everything he’d done, she could still see at moments like these how objectively handsome he was.