She turned on the radio to 6KG, the local station—a distraction for an hour or so before she’d lose the signal—then flipped open the glove box with her left hand to find a tape for later. Eyes on the road, she felt around until she found one, pulled it out and held it up—Fleetwood Mac. Oh, God, how many times had she played that at parties? How many times had she floated away to ‘Gypsy’, imagining herself that free spirit, dancing around the room when no one was watching? When no one was watching—that’s when she’d trusted herself. That’s when she’d let down her guard, when no one could see. Except Lee, that night when she’d had too much to drink and Lee had danced with her, mirroring her movements, holding her hips from behind—before she’d pulled away.
She dropped the tape and gripped the steering wheel with both hands as a B-Double road train honked a passing greeting, its bulk side-shifting her little car. With a belated one finger wave, she concentrated on the road and tried to distract herself with the coming weekend. Tomorrow she had an appointment at the women’s counselling service, then Saturday, her father’s birthday and Sunday, she was coming home. Home. Where was home? She loved Kal, the people, the sense of community and reciprocity, the stark landscape that surprised her with its vastness and colours; not so much the heat and the dust, but that passed. She felt connected.
The reality punched her brain. Her jaw tightened. Connected? Oh, yes, she was connected all right. The horror of it filled her lungs and despite fighting it for over a month now, assuaging it with tears, she screamed, loudly, into the safety of her car. It didn’t stop her from driving, in fact it felt good, and she screamed again, releasing the anger that had been waiting, waiting, under the lid of grief. She banged the steering wheel. Angry, angry, angry. She was angry—angry that this had happened to her, angry at the decisions, the choices it would force her to make.
Again.
And angry at him. And at herself. But she couldn’t have imagined this happening. Whose idea of a joke was this? It didn’t seem real. Charmian, Amber. Kerry was right—she did look like an Amber—precious. Precious to Kerry.
Aimee shook her head. Amber is my daughter.
A question buried for so long, slithered unchecked into her mind, stealing her breath with its savagery. Amber’s father?
Shane? Her heart pounded.
Or her … her father?
She swerved to the side of the road and slumped across the steering wheel. She had lived an alternate reality, where that wasn’t possible. How else do you have your family? How else do you stay sane? She squeezed her eyes tight against the tears. A truck rumbled past. She sat up and stared at the long, straight stretch of shimmering road.
A new thought slid in, over and around the other, squeezing the life out of it.
I wanted to protect Amber.
Aimee threw back her head and wailed. She didn’t try to stop the tears. They ran down her cheeks, a river of solace.
The beep of a car horn, and a slow drive-by from an oncoming vehicle, pulled her back to the present. She performed a quick thumbs up to indicate she hadn’t broken down. Well, at least the car hasn’t, she thought, her lip curling. She sighed deeply. I’m not broken, she told herself. She took hold of the steering wheel and turned back onto the road ahead.
The outskirts of a small town emerged on the horizon and she slowed down. Southern Cross already. The only good thing about this incessant thinking was her altered sense of time. She looked at her watch—coffee time—and pulled in at a small café.
Back in the car, she drove off, regretting not waiting until Northam for a real coffee. The cup of ‘dust’ was twice as strong as usual and tasted awful but at least it would keep her alert for the next hour or two.
As she drove into Northam, she was unsure alertness was a good thing. Her mind had been on overdrive, trying to make decisions. She pulled up at a smart looking café with wicker chairs and small tables out the front. The midday heat covered her like a blanket as she climbed out of the car. Her head felt light; she needed to eat something. At a table in the shade, she played with a caesar salad and drank a proper coffee. She reached for The West Australian newspaper on the table beside her and read the headlines: ‘The Largest Stock Market Crash Since 1929.’ ‘The long 1980s bull market has ended its run,’ it continued, underneath. For a brief moment she wondered what it would mean for her father’s government, then, unable to concentrate, placed it back on the table and looked out across the street. A young woman and her daughter were walking past, hand in hand, laughing together. Her mind filled again with her dilemma, both ethical and moral. Discomforted, she jumped up, paid her bill and hopped back in the car.
It was Greenmount before her dilemma forced its way back in. She’d distracted herself listening to Stevie Nicks sing ‘Gypsy’ and to interviews on ABC radio, enjoying the lush environs of the Avon Valley as she descended into Perth. But as the city appeared before her, spread out like a quilt, its multiple squares dot-painted with ubiquitous orangetiled houses, fringed by the pewter blue of the sea, fear rose in her throat as she contemplated her choices.
She hardly noticed the familiar landmarks as she drove through the city, the glaring Burswood Casino on her right, the Swan River sliced by the Narrows Bridge on her left, Kings Park looming above her. She realised her decision, her choice to relinquish Charmian—Amber—turned the world for more than the two of them, traced a line down time she could never envisage. Now, clumsily, unintentionally, she had fallen into her child’s life, having abandoned her to fate’s drift, to imprint upon her after all. What imprint did she plan to leave? Was this take two, second chance, try again? See if you can do better this time? She wanted to scream again. How did this happen? What kind of twisted sense of fate was this? What were the chances? An Old Testament dilemma, sent to test her, requiring the Wisdom of Solomon—a dilemma of love that must, in its resolution, strike pain. A bittersweet suffering.
Again.
No! This time would be different.
She turned into the leafy street where her parents lived, hardly conscious of having driven there. Her mind was in turmoil.
Last time, she realised, was in her own best interests. Yes, she could argue, and she had a million times, that it was in Amber’s best interests and put a case for that. And—it was and, not but—and it had been in Aimee’s best interests to relinquish Amber. That was her truth, uncloaked, known. She could not regret, she could only accept—herself, her decisions. And now, and only now, was she ready to face it, to understand and forgive the eighteen-year-old who did the best she could, with what she knew, the resources she had, the societal constraints, at the time, then, in that foreign country—the past. This time, as best she could divine, her decision would be in Amber’s best interest.
As she approached her parents’ house, its orange-tiled roof just visible behind high walls, she was confounded by cars and camera crews crowded outside. She slowed her car to a crawl and stared, perplexed. Why are they here, what’s making news? she thought, then remembered the headline in the paper at Northam. Were they seeking her father’s comment?
She edged her car through the narrow gap between cars parked on both sides of the street and pulled up in the driveway outside the closed double-door garage. There was nothing for it but to run the gauntlet of the reporters and make her way inside, through the high wrought-iron front gate. She grabbed her overnight bag off the backseat, her handbag from the front, and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. Upon alighting she was approached by several reporters but stared straight ahead, making her way to the gate, smiling politely as they asked her who she was and why she was there.
She hurried up the stepped path to her parents’ front door, past the landscaped gardens, into the columned portico of their entry, anxiety about her reason for coming rising in her throat. Yet reason would presume a clarity of purpose, a considered argument, a desired outcome. Instead, it floated, a chimera, like that memory of long ago, imagined, somewhere above her, unable to be fully known.<
br />
‘Oh, darling, how wonderful to see you,’ her mother cried, hugging her. She pulled her in the front door and closed it quickly behind her. ‘I’m so sorry about all that, did you have any trouble getting in? Here, let me take your bag, I’ve put you in the downstairs sunroom, it’s closer to the pool, I thought you might like to get up and have a swim in the morning, I know how you …’
She followed her mother across the wide, open plan lower floor of the house, only half listening as she looked out the sliding glass doors to the patio and the pool outside. It was similar to the one she’d grown up with, but bigger, like everything about her parents’ lives now. This was only the second time she’d stayed over in their new home. Two years ago, after she’d left Lee’s house, she stayed briefly, but her father had been overseas on business then. Her mind swirled, her hands felt clammy.
‘Your father’s in his study,’ she heard her mother say.
She glanced over as she walked past and saw him, phone in hand, pacing up and down the room.
‘He’s trying to sort things out, so I’m not sure what his plans are for this evening but we’ll have dinner in, either way. Hopefully by tomorrow things will have calmed down a little and we’ll be able to get out our own front door.’ Her mother gave her high-pitched, worried laugh as she dropped Aimee’s bag on the floor.
She looked at her and noticed grey strands in her beautiful chocolate-brown hair, new lines on her pale face. She’s looking older, Aimee thought, and smaller somehow. In contrast, her father seemed bigger every time she saw him, expanded. Throwing her handbag onto the bed, she turned and hugged her mother, then kissed her soft cheek. Unlike her, her mother never sunbaked and her skin felt like velvet. It was once her greatest comfort, stroking the inside of her mother’s arm. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling window. The gold heart on her mother’s necklace gleamed. She remembered Aggie’s reading: ‘There’s a lot of love here, caring, protective almost. Is that right?’
If only I could have told her. But there’d been no point in them both breaking, she thought. A betrayal, and a broken daughter. Although she hadn’t—thought about it—she’d carried on, in some kind of disassociated haze, until she went to uni. Until …
‘Mum, what’s going on?’
Her mother grimaced. ‘The government’s in trouble, the crash has left them vulnerable I’m afraid. Your father’s beside himself with worry and he’s talking about cancelling Saturday. I’m so sorry, you might have come all this way for nothing.’
‘Right, so that’s why they’re camped outside. How serious is it?’
Her mother looked away and turned for the door. ‘Come on, let’s have a cup of tea, or would you prefer a gin and tonic? I’ve made some nibblies, we won’t eat for another hour or two.’
She followed her mother into the kitchen. It’s what her mother always did to avoid anything unpleasant—pretend she hadn’t heard and change the subject. Despite being a unionist’s daughter, she disliked conflict. Or perhaps that was why, she’d heard too much of it. Not that her mother wasn’t passionate when it was something she cared about. She remembered as a teenager being dragged along to antiwar rallies by her parents, embarrassed by the beaded headband around her mother’s waist-length hair and the flowers she’d braided through it, and by her father’s tie-dyed Che Guevara T-shirt.
She thought of Kerry’s rally. Her skull tightened. Her father’s voice bellowed in the background.
‘It’s a bloody house of cards,’ she heard him yell.
‘Tea or a drink, darling?’
‘Ah, tea,’ she answered distracted. She’d never heard him so angry. Even when they argued.
By the time they’d finished drinking their tea outside on the patio, the sun had set, flaming the sky red and purple. They made small talk to the muted backdrop of the drama unfolding inside. Her mother sat neatly, her legs folded at the ankles. When had she become so contained, Aimee thought. She felt herself drifting away.
‘Your Aunt Beth’s in hospital, you know. Had a slight stroke.’
She stared blankly at her mother. Elizabeth was her mother’s older sister.
‘A stroke? But she’s only in her early fifties.’
‘I know, it’s a shock, but she’s going to be all right. Apparently it’s linked to her taking the pill. I must say I never did like the thought of taking it.’
She noticed her mother blush a little. Except for giving her a comprehensive sex education book when she began menstruating at fifteen, contraception was not a topic they had discussed, although the following year her father had let her read his copy of the previously banned Danish book, The Little Red Schoolbook, which she’d found far more interesting for its subversive content about sex, drugs and revolution. She smiled, remembering the furtive passing around of the book at school.
Her father’s raised voice floated out to the patio. Several late roosting parakeets screeched overhead, drowning him out.
‘What other choices did you have back then?’ she asked out of curiosity.
Her mother looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Umm, well, the diaphragm, but I was fortunate—your father was one of the first men in this state to volunteer for a vasectomy, in 1973. I remember because it was the year before you went to university and your Dad started his election campaign. It wasn’t available before then, in fact it was considered illegal for men or women to be sterilised before the seventies. Hard to believe now, isn’t it?’
She froze. The air around her seemed to shrink. Her mother was still talking but she could hear nothing. She watched her mother’s lips moving.
Nineteen seventy-three. A vasectomy? A whirring began in her head as if her brain was shifting inside her skull, struggling to comprehend the words. A new thought shunted into her consciousness, the answer to the question she had never allowed herself to ask, the answer she’d refused to give to the nurse with the registration form, after Charmian … after Amber was born. It flooded her mind like ink through blotting paper. Shane is Amber’s father. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
Her mother stared at her, a look of uncertainty on her face.
She held her mother’s gaze. Seconds passed. Her heart thumped in her chest, her breath on hold like the secrets inside her. For a moment she yearned to tell her, to feel her arms around her. ‘Yes, Mum, hard to believe,’ was all she could manage.
Her mother’s brow furrowed. ‘I’m going in to make dinner, do you want to stay out here and relax?’
‘No, I’ll come in with you.’ She stood up and held onto the chair to steady herself.
Her mother picked up their cups and took them inside. She followed behind. She leant on the long marble bench dividing the kitchen from the large family room and watched her mother prepare dinner in the calm way she did everything. The sweet savoury smell of a rich meat sauce wafted across the kitchen. Her mother’s back swayed as she stirred the sauce with a wooden spoon. Maybe her mother was like her, maybe she only looked calm and the turmoil raged underneath. Her heart softened at the thought of her mother hurting. She leant back and looked over at her father’s study. He saw her and stopped pacing. He looked dishevelled, his hair standing on end from running his hands through it, his shirt not tucked in, his tie loose.
Maybe now isn’t the best time, she thought.
But there’d never be a best time. She walked into her father’s study and closed the door.
He raised his eyebrows then frowned at her, but kept pacing. He lowered his voice and a few minutes later told the caller he’d be there once he’d checked that the news crews had gone home. He hung up and slumped into his oversize office chair. She stayed standing, her back against the door.
‘I need a drink, do you want one?’ he offered reaching for a decanter of whiskey on his desk.
She watched as he poured it. ‘No, thanks.’ Usually he would have greeted her with a stiff hug and she would have stiffly accepted it.
‘Has your mother told you what’s going on? I
t’s a nightmare,’ he went on, downing the drink in one gulp, not waiting for her reply. ‘We’ve had it, we’re done for. Everything we’ve tried to do, it’s over.’ He dropped his head into his hands.
‘What’s over?’ she asked, from behind a faint veil of distance.
He looked up at her and straightened up. ‘There’s been a significant failure in our commercial activities due to the stock market crash,’ he said in his more familiar lawyer voice, ‘and there’ll be some unintended consequences that may prove embarrassing to the government, leaving us electorally exposed.’ He leant back now, his hands behind his head.
She remained silent, staring. The veil felt protective. She stepped forward.
‘What? What? Why shouldn’t Labor get into bed with entrepreneurs and business,’ he demanded. He’d mistaken her silence for judgement. ‘Why should it only be the Liberals who deal with the top end of town, eh? We changed that and we needed to. There’s opportunities everywhere in this state for development and we needed to be able to do that. How else do we get the money? You want better housing, better health, better welfare? You want to see change? It takes money, Aimee. Money! And taxes.’ He was standing up now, pacing again. ‘We come off a small base here so it’s going to come from investment and a lot of that is going to be mineral-based. And sometimes you have to bend a little to gain a lot.’
‘You mean like uranium?’ she said calmly.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Aimee, I told you that’s not going to happen. The Labor Party’s a no uranium party. That’s the last thing I’m worried about with this mess.’
‘How did we make such a mess, how did we get it so wrong?’ she asked, thinking of lives destroyed by the choices people make.
He made. She made.
‘What do you mean we?’ He stopped in front of her. ‘What have I done? I’ve worked all my life trying to make a difference. It’s not my fault.’
The Secrets We Keep Page 22