by Rose Hartley
‘Mum!’ I shouted. ‘Stop hitting me.’
She reeled back. ‘Maggie?’
There was a slight pause, during which the side of my face began to throb like crazy, and then she found the light switch and the room flooded with brightness. Mum was clutching a rolling pin and wore a confused expression.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asked.
‘My caravan got stolen. I needed somewhere to sleep.’
‘Well, why didn’t you bloody say so?’
I rubbed my face, which was swelling rapidly. ‘You said I couldn’t stay here! Who did you think was breaking in? Dad? He lives on the Gold Coast now. I spoke to him two months ago.’
‘You are unbelievable. Unbelievable.’
I raised my hands, palms up. ‘I know.’
‘Why didn’t you stay at Jen’s house?’
‘Jen and I had a fight.’
‘What about?’
I swallowed. ‘Jono came home while I was badmouthing him to Jen. He said she had to choose between us.’
She flung up her hands. ‘I don’t blame him. You think you have the right to badmouth anyone? You’ve spent ten years failing the same degree and coming round here to complain about how none of your boyfriends will put up with your cheating.’
‘I’ve spent ten years cultivating my talents.’ Self-defence mode: it’s my automatic response, but tonight exhaustion was wearing away at the facade, and my voice sounded drained and weary.
‘Talents? Blowjob artist is not a career!’ She breathed out, as if to try to stop herself from shouting. ‘I worked hard. I was never a bloody genius but I worked hard, and if I’d married the right man I’d be on a cruise ship right now, deciding where to take my next overseas holiday and planning upgrades to the beach house. But I had to marry a lowlife gambler like your father. And then I had to go and have a daughter just like him.’
I took a step back but she moved forward, jabbing a finger in my face.
‘Even so,’ she continued. ‘Even so, I cared for you and loved you and tried to help you see that you had to take some responsibility for your life.’ She dropped her head, ferreted around in the pocket of her bathrobe, and pulled out a fifty-dollar note. ‘Here.’ She shoved it at me. ‘This should get you a night in a youth hostel.’ She turned and took one angry step towards the door. Then came a loud crack, and a shriek, and half of her disappeared.
‘Mum?’
My eyes had trouble adjusting to the sight: my groaning mother sprawled in a ditch that had opened up at the end of the bed. The floorboards had given way. She was spreadeagled in a mess of sagging, shredded carpet, splinters of wood sticking through it like castle spikes. She groaned again, dazed and blinking, arms flapping like an upended turtle, one hand still wrapped around the rolling pin.
‘I think I’ve broken my ankle,’ she said.
Chapter 23
‘It was your fault, really,’ I said. ‘You made me agree to an impossible deal, and I needed somewhere to sleep.’
I was sitting at the end of Mum’s hospital bed at 7 am, munching on her cheese and pickle sandwich left over from the night before. My CT scan was all done, and aside from a slight concussion and a black eye, I was fine. My mother, on the other hand, had a fractured ankle and a mean expression. She’d narrowly avoided needing surgery but the cast would have to stay on for six weeks. Half an hour ago, I had taken the opportunity to text Jen with the news: Mum broke leg. In hospital. I added the ward number as an extra hint.
Mum tapped her fingers on a blue blanket that smelt distinctly of washing powder, sucking in her cheeks as if to inhale the sour words she wanted to spit at me.
‘So you let me waste money on new security doors.’
‘You got the security doors so cheap, it was practically a steal. And you’ll be safe from real robbers!’ I brushed crumbs from my lap. ‘Now that I’ve broken the terms of our deal, can I stay at your place again?’
Fast as a snake, Mum snatched the open container of jelly from her table and pitched it at me. The tub bounced off my forehead and cool jelly splattered over my face, leaving green blobs in my vision. I wiped a couple of green flecks from my eyelashes and licked my finger.
‘I take it that’s a no?’ I asked.
‘You are permanently struck from the will, and – and’—she clenched a fist—‘you are uninvited from family dinners!’
I left to get Mum a coffee and as I returned, I heard hushed voices coming from inside her hospital room. I peeked through the door. Jen was perched on the end of Mum’s bed with her back to me. She must have rushed to get to the hospital, because she was still dressed in one of her Jono-is-away-so-I-don’t-have-to-try outfits: faded black trackies with a hole in the left butt cheek and a T-shirt that I’d given her a few years ago with ‘Kill All Men’ scrawled on the back. She was gabbing away to Mum about how Dan was measuring up one of the bedrooms in her house to put in shelves and a wardrobe for when she and Jono had their first baby. My chest filled with dread at the thought. I hung back, listening at the door.
‘With all the dust and paint and VOCs that get stirred up when you renovate, I think it’s better to get the room set up before, so that I’m not inhaling all that stuff when I’m actually pregnant,’ she was saying.
‘Good idea,’ agreed Mum.
I imagined Jen was wearing a faraway smile as she pictured a little peach-coloured blob that smiled at her when she kissed it, instead of the screaming goblin in a cot that she was far more likely to be stuck with.
‘Also,’ she continued, businesslike now, ‘it’s a good distraction from the wedding planning. I was going mental choosing chair covers. Did you know there’s like, ten different coloured sashes that you have to choose from to go with the chair covers?’
‘Can’t you just get chairs that don’t need covers?’ Mum asked.
‘Well, that’s what I finally figured out, but they’re much more expensive. Like, those nice bentwood chairs cost nearly twice as much to hire as the ugly ones with the sashes.’
Mum finally spotted me lurking, and crooked a finger to tell me to come in.
‘Hi, Jen,’ I said.
She almost fell off the bed when she saw my black eye, which was now shiny, purple and swollen enough to blur my vision.
‘Maggie! What happened to you?’
‘Didn’t Mum tell you? She clobbered me with a rolling pin before she fell through the floor.’
‘You deserved it,’ Mum grunted.
Despite the pain in my face, the loss of my caravan, the dread of the Centrelink debt and the four dollars in my bank account, my heart bloomed at the sight of Jen’s face. Now that she’s here, we’ll make up, I thought.
‘I’m glad you’re still getting my texts, even if you’re ignoring them.’ I put the coffees down and threw my arms around her.
She seized up like a tin can and put her hands on my shoulders to gently ease me back.
‘I just popped in to see how Valerie’s doing,’ she said awkwardly. ‘But I’ve gotta go now.’
‘What? Jen, how long is this going to go on?’
Mum buried her nose in a magazine, pretending not to listen.
‘I just . . . need some space,’ Jen said. She turned to Mum. ‘Bye, Valerie. Call me if you need anything.’
After she was gone I sat in the chair next to Mum, feeling numb. She reached over and patted my knee.
‘She’ll come around,’ she said. ‘She’ll realise men aren’t worth anything, anyway.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘She’s got some pretty low standards when it comes to men.’
I could see Mum thinking, And when it comes to her friends, but at least she didn’t say it.
By the time Mum was discharged, it was late afternoon. We’d spent all day listening to the rattle of gurneys across linoleum floors while the nurses popped in and out of Mum’s room, giving us conflicting information about what time we’d be able to leave. I’d drunk a bucketload of cafeteria-grade bitter bl
ack coffee and was full of nervous energy, despite the aching face. Finally we signed the papers and left the hospital, Mum hobbling before me on crutches. Out the front of the hospital, smokers lined the wall in their surgical gowns, puffing away.
‘I can get home by myself,’ Mum snapped.
‘No you can’t,’ I said. ‘You can’t even carry all your painkillers by yourself. Look at them.’ I held up the pharmacy bags containing super-ultra-paracetamol-with-codeine.
Mum and I shared a cab in silence. When we got to Camberwell, I let her pay the driver while I carried her things inside the house. I arranged the painkillers in a tower beside her bed and got her a glass of water, then checked the fridge to see what there was to eat. I brought her reheated spaghetti in bed and put a stainless steel bowl on the floor in case the painkillers made her feel queasy.
‘I’ve put a plastic garden chair in the shower because you’re supposed to shower sitting down like an old person,’ I said. ‘And maybe you should tell me where you’re keeping the unfair will, so if you overdose on painkillers and die I can tear it up before anyone knows about it.’
‘Never.’
While Mum ate her spaghetti, I sat on the other side of her bed and called PC Pink Cheeks to report the caravan stolen. He sounded genuinely upset and asked if I had somewhere to live.
‘Yeah, I’ll probably move in with Mum.’ Mum frowned at this.
‘So, not your friend Jen?’ He was trying desperately to sound casual.
‘Maybe. You know, if you find my caravan you should bring it round to her house. She’ll probably be so happy she’ll make you another lasagne.’ I figured giving him some motivation was my best shot at getting the caravan back.
‘Right, yeah! I mean, sure thing, I can bring it there if I find it.’
I hung up on Pink Cheeks and turned back to my mother.
‘Here, Mum,’ I said, and held out the rolled-up fifty-dollar note she’d shoved at me the night before when she told me to sleep in a hostel. ‘Take it back. I’m moving back home and now that you’re on crutches you’re physically unable to stop me.’ Mum made no move to take the fifty, distracted by Dot, who had padded into the room, jumped onto the bed and was purring in her face.
‘Dot,’ I patted her, ‘I don’t believe in God, but you’ll do.’ I put the fifty on Mum’s nightstand instead, where it unrolled and promptly fluttered to the floor. ‘As Dot is my witness, I hereby renounce my sins. I shall stay in this house and look after my dear mother, who is injured because her lowlife daughter broke into her house and startled her into falling through the floor.’
‘That will work in the short term, but not for much longer.’ Mum sighed into the pillow. She looked old and pale. ‘That day your friend Dan came over, he told me I needed to get the floors and the roof fixed urgently. Oh, and there’s rising damp everywhere. Needs new wiring. Walls sagging. It’s going to cost two hundred thousand.’
‘Is that what you were whispering with him about?’
‘Yes. I asked him not to tell you. The mortgage is maxed out and I can’t cover it.’
‘The house is mortgaged?’ I said faintly. ‘That’s impossible, you inherited it from Granny and Grandpa. It was paid off.’
‘It was,’ Mum said, ‘before your father took out a loan against the house so he could gamble and then skipped out on it, and before I started going into debt to pay the seventy thousand dollars a year it costs in maintenance and rates. But I can’t refinance again, because I have very little equity left.’
‘So you’re saying . . .’ I couldn’t finish.
‘The mortgage is nearly equal to the value of the house, and my salary will not cover this year’s maintenance, taxes and water bills, let alone any major repairs. I am, as you might say, dead fucking broke.’ She pronounced each word like a BB gun pellet hitting a target. ‘I suppose I need that.’ She nodded towards the fifty-dollar note on the floor.
‘The house has to be sold,’ I said, ‘is that what you mean?’
‘Yes. The bank hasn’t made a move to repossess it yet, but it’s only a matter of time. A year, maybe. I should put it up for sale before the market falls further.’
A small scritching sound, probably a mouse, came from underneath the floorboards, as I tried to think of something positive to say. ‘You might get more than you think for it.’
‘I might have enough left over to buy a one-bedroom apartment, if the auction goes well. Hopefully the police will find your caravan, because I won’t be able to afford a bedroom for you. You’ve still got your job, I hope?’
I swallowed. I couldn’t tell her about Centrelink, or that my plan to get the Angels to hire me full-time had failed. ‘Yeah, it’s going well.’
‘Good. You’re a late bloomer, but you’re all right.’ It was the closest she’d ever come to saying I’m proud of you, and I felt dirty lying to her.
‘I should have started making money earlier,’ I said.
She stroked Dot’s chin. ‘A wise man once said, all the money you’ve saved won’t buy your youth again. At least you’ve had fun.’ Her voice was tired and thick. ‘I suppose you blame me for everything. You probably wish you had a different mother.’
‘I don’t. I mean, that was quite the manipulative move, letting me think there was money to inherit just so I’d go and get a job, but still. I don’t.’
‘I bet you wish you had Jen’s mother instead of me.’
‘Jen’s mother is even more awful than you.’
‘But she bought Jen a house.’
‘True. Still wouldn’t trade.’
I psyched myself up before stepping through the front door of the Nicholson Street Angels. It had been a whole two days since Bunny had gazumped me and I’d skived off before lunchtime to get drunk and embarrass myself at Rueben’s place. I was a new woman now. A worse woman. A woman with a shining purple bruise that covered half her face. Mum had really done a number on me with the rolling pin. I was dressed in one of the finest outfits I’d found at the back of my closet at Mum’s place, a black silk jumpsuit I’d bought online with Sean’s credit card when we first started dating. It was a little low-cut for work, so I’d slipped a black singlet top underneath to tone down the cleavage and paired it with flat black canvas shoes.
I trudged to Agnes’s office door, feeling like a dog playing poker in my silk suit. She was at her desk, staring at her computer with her hands steepled before her and glasses slipping down her nose. Her grey hair was up in a bun and she radiated severity.
I knocked on the doorframe. ‘Hi, Agnes.’
She looked up. ‘You’re early. What happened to your eye?’
‘It’s kind of a hilarious story, Mum and I fell through the floor at her house. Well, she hit me with a rolling pin because she thought I was my dad – I mean, an intruder – and then she fell through the floor.’ I was blathering. Nervous. Stop, Maggie. ‘Anyhow, I just wanted to give you the list.’
‘List?’
‘Of wealthy addresses.’ I explained the concept. Separate letters to wealthy potential donors, asking them for higher dollar figures. ‘It’s a spreadsheet for now, but Rueben has figured out how to automate the letters to print different amounts.’
I sensed a warm presence at my back. I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was, because the rush of heat in my underwear told me it was Rueben. Probably my vagina recognised his scent or something.
‘She’s written a great follow-up letter as a reminder to donate, too.’ His voice sent shivers down me. ‘And we’ve worked out how to automate a thank-you email, and a reminder email to those who don’t donate within two weeks of the mail-out.’ Nice of him to say ‘we’ – I had had absolutely nothing to do with the email automation.
Agnes flashed a rare smile. ‘Well done, you two.’
Rueben nodded and slid away. I hung about for a moment, hoping for more praise. Instead, Agnes tilted her chin to indicate my black eye. ‘Still on the outs with your mother, I take it?’
‘I can’t seem to do anything right in her eyes,’ I said.
‘We all disappoint our parents. Mine wanted me to marry a successful Pakistani man.’
‘And?’
‘Well, my Greek-Australian wife is very successful.’
‘But they weren’t happy?’ I asked.
‘Not at first.’
‘What made them come around?’
Agnes tapped the papers on her desk. ‘We just gave it some time. Eventually they got to know Ruth and now they love her. It helped that we installed air conditioning in their house.’
‘I knew it!’ I blurted. ‘All parents can be bribed with house upgrades. Although . . .’ I thought of Mum and her mortgage. ‘It’s going to take a lot to fix my mother’s house. Turns out she’s broke and mortgaged to the eyeballs.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘And now someone’s stolen my caravan. This isn’t fun anymore.’
‘You only liked being poor when you had a rich mother.’ Agnes stood up. ‘Suck it up, princess. Now, I have to go and do damage control. One of our clients stabbed a social worker in the eye with a pencil this morning.’
‘Thanks for letting me take the credit in front of Agnes,’ I said to Rueben at lunch.
‘The credit’s all yours,’ he said, biting into a sandwich. ‘Nice shiner, by the way.’
We were sitting at the kitchen table, and I was hoping that Bunny wouldn’t come in and bring the singers with her. For now, all I could hear was Hannah shouting and singing in the op shop next door. A new felt hat had come in, and Belinda had put it aside for her.
‘She’s happy,’ Rueben said, as we listened to Hannah. ‘Her daughter invited her to Christmas.’
‘So she found her daughter? I never asked in case she hadn’t.’
‘The adoption agency wouldn’t release the files, so Agnes paid for her to do one of those tests where you send away a DNA sample. Turned out her daughter had done one a while ago, hoping to find biological relatives.’