by Kim Lock
‘I love you,’ Jenna said, her voice cracking. ‘But we’re not the same.’
‘That just occur to you?’ Fairlie huffed as she rose to her feet, setting her bag back on the chair. ‘Haven’t noticed that for twenty-odd years, I’ve been obese and black and you’re skinny and white?’
Jenna softened. ‘You’re not obese.’ She sighed, lifting Fairlie’s bag from the chair and setting it on the table. ‘Just a little pudgy, maybe.’ She sank onto the chair and scrubbed at her face, trying to slough away the thoughts in her mind.
‘Fine. I’m a well-risen soufflé.’ Fairlie sat beside her, frowning. ‘You’ve never said anything like this before.’
Jenna’s gaze slid to the ceiling, to a lace of cobweb quivering across the cornice. She felt trapped by that ceiling; she wanted the roof to lift off so she could soar out into the night.
‘Jen?’ Fairlie prompted quietly. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jenna said, ‘I don’t know.’
Dear Jenna,
I don’t know if you’ll read this. Perhaps you’re still too angry, or confused, or hurt. I understand – really, I do. But I want to tell you everything. There’s so much more to the story than what you’ve heard. All I can do is write, and hope that maybe one day I’ll have the courage to send you this letter.
Over the years I’ve tried to figure out the moment when it all changed. I’ve tried to pinpoint that mark in time where everything began to run in a direction entirely out of my control.
No. That’s not quite right. Forgive me. Saying it like that, it sounds as though I’m trying to absolve myself of responsibility. Of course it was all within my grasp; everything happened as a direct result of my actions. I know that now, and so do you, obviously, as you haven’t spoken to me for a year.
But I need to begin somewhere, so where better than the day that it all changed?
I felt particularly ebullient after work one day in late May. I’d wanted to leave work early but that day’s recording had dragged – the cameraman was new, and I’d had to recite the headlines a few times before he’d managed to get it right. Eventually, with that evening’s news recorded and ready to be broadcast, I dashed from the studio.
That night, I was going to tell him.
I tried to imagine the look on Stephen’s face, tried to picture what his reaction would be. His firm had just taken on a lucrative new client and your father’s hours had recently soared. Back then, we would always smile at each other – even if it was close to midnight, and even if we’d forgotten the last time we had done something as simple and reassuring as washing the dishes together.
You wouldn’t remember any of this, of course. All that ease, all that contentedness – that was all long gone by the time your earliest memories would begin to set. But there was a time, Jenna, when your father and I . . . well, we just worked.
I swept through the entire house – six bedrooms, two living rooms and the echoing foyer, the type of place that I had never dreamed myself living in – snapping on all the lights; I wanted warmth, I wanted brightness. I wanted my soul to sing with my news so I could feel nothing but the elation it deserved. I would have touched up my lipstick, teased up that dark brown perm that was so fashionable in the 80s.
I was thrilled that for once my insistence that morning had worked and Stephen kept his promise – he was home in time for dinner.
Austerity was a notion incompatible with Stephen Walker. The charisma in his speech, the joviality in his short, muscular stature. That strip of moustache that always, somehow, accentuated the depth of the words he spoke. It was what had first piqued my interest: the effervescence of his prose seemed animated by the line of hair atop his lip.
How can I begin to describe that attraction to you? I suppose you could say I was a flower-child, blown into Mount Gambier in a rattling banana-coloured Kombi at the age of fifteen with your grandma and grandpa and our two pet budgerigars. How could I not find Stephen’s worldly charm novel and irresistible? It wasn’t about the money – despite what they all said. I loved that Stephen had bucked the trend of his family’s haulage company and chosen instead to practise law. It wasn’t about the money, Jenna, it never was. You must believe that.
As we sat down to eat, Stephen smiled and said, ‘You’re hiding something. What’s going on?’
Involuntarily, I winced at his choice of words. Hiding something.
And then I told him: ‘I’m pregnant.’
There. I’ve told you the moment when it all changed. For now, I will leave you with this. But there’s more, Jenna, so much more.
If only I could know if you will ever hear it.
And so, until next time.
Love, Mum
3
NOW
The day grows relentlessly hot. One of those scorching summer Fridays when living creatures grind to a halt and exhausted eucalypts discard limbs like clothing.
With a finger, Fairlie lifts the gauze curtain aside. The windowsill digs into her chin. Yellow-brown paddocks shimmer across the road, crispy-skinned from the sun. Heat touches her face through the glass. Town is silent; no cars slip along the road, her neighbours are bunkered inside their houses. Not that Penola is usually a hubbub of noise – the length of the main street, doubling as the highway between Adelaide and Mount Gambier, can be strolled in a pinch of minutes.
By Fairlie’s feet, Henry selects another crayon and waves it blithely across a piece of paper. Crayons spread in a shattered rainbow between the couch and the television cabinet. Yodel, having decided to drop the offence, squints indifferently atop a pile of unfolded laundry on the couch. Fairlie’s attention wanders to a comet-shaped brown stain on the carpet, stretching from the couch almost to the centre of the room: a cup of coffee kicked over as Jenna had fled the room. The stain is only a couple of weeks old. Panicky sobs threaten to rise, and she presses a hand to her mouth to restrain them.
A car pulls into the drive. Hearing the sound of the engine, Henry pauses mid-scribble and asks hopefully, ‘Is Mummy?’
Fairlie cups the crown of his head with her palm. ‘No, love, not your mummy.’
The front door clicks open and the round moon of Pattie Winter’s face leans into the room. ‘Did you know there’s a veal parmigiana and passionfruit sponge cake on the step here?’ The beads of her mother’s necklace clack against the door.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Fairlie says, picking her way over crayons, sultana boxes and balls of paper. ‘Mrs Soblieski must have dropped them and ran.’ Poking her head outside, Fairlie squints across the bright courtyard. ‘Usually she at least knocks on the door.’
Pattie heaves a grocery bag inside, its fabric sides bulging as she sets it down. Stooping, she collects the fragrant bounty from the step.
‘There’s enough food here for ten people!’
‘Sounds about right,’ Fairlie replies absently, bending to effuse over Henry’s proffered artwork before collecting the grocery bag.
Fairlie sets the bag on the kitchen counter and her mother busies herself emptying its contents. Milk, cheese, eggs and bread sail into the fridge, rice crackers and two-minute noodles into the pantry while Fairlie mumbles her gratitude.
‘Dad sends his love,’ Pattie is saying. ‘He’s stuck at work, but he’ll be up as soon as he’s done. They’re grading a bunch of unsealed roads out at OB Flat. Again.’ She gives Fairlie a look of wretched apology before turning her gaze to Henry. Pattie folds her hands in front of her waist, almost respectfully, as though standing in front of a war memorial. Her thin arms, covered with fine hair and overcrowded with freckles, are pale against a floral sleeveless dress. Her waist is still trim despite age oozing inches onto her hips. Hers is the prim, neat countenance of a 1950s housewife, despite being born in 1961. A weighted silence passes between them.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,’ Pattie
says. ‘I came as quick as I could.’
‘He seems fine enough,’ Fairlie tells her as they watch the child pull washing from the couch onto the floor. ‘It hasn’t even been a full day yet, I guess he’s still waiting for her. He hasn’t been too shy with me, I thought he’d treat me as a stranger . . .’ She lowers her voice and adds, ‘He keeps asking for her, though.’
‘Have you heard from Ark yet?’
‘No.’ Fairlie sighs. ‘What am I supposed to tell him?’
‘Henry?’ Her mother frowns. ‘You don’t have to tell him anything – leave that to Ark. I just can’t –’ she breaks off, contemplating the scope of it. ‘I can’t believe it. What was she thinking?’
A mental flash: blood ballooning into bath water. When she sliced her forearms open the pain must have been indescribable.
‘Maybe she wasn’t,’ Fairlie says. ‘Maybe she wasn’t thinking at all.’
Silently, they watch as Henry moves around the lounge room: he lunges at the cat, who disappears in a ginger streak; he smears his fingers across the black television screen. Picking up the remote, Fairlie flicks to ABC2 and Peppa Pig appears on the screen.
‘I can’t help but wonder,’ Pattie says, ‘this – is it unexpected?’
Fairlie meets her mother’s gaze, says nothing.
‘I’m sorry, honey, but I have to ask,’ her mother begins as she makes her way to the couch. ‘Did you have any idea that she might be considering . . .’
A fresh stab of guilt thuds into her. ‘No,’ Fairlie answers, but it feels like a lie. With a hint of desperation she repeats, ‘No. Despite everything, despite her fading away into herself this past year or so, I never saw that it was . . . this bad. I know she had some rough days – the baby, Ark working all the time. But . . .’ She tips her face to the ceiling, hands limp at her sides. ‘I failed her.’
‘Fairlie –’
‘I should have done something.’
‘What could you have done if she didn’t tell you anything?’ Pattie says, and starts to sort washing into piles. ‘Maybe she . . .’ Her mother stops, looks at her pointedly. ‘Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing?’
‘Pretty fucking impulsive thing to do.’
‘Fairlie.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Look.’ Pattie picks up a singlet and folds it neatly in her lap. ‘She’s always been a bit flighty. Done things rashly, you know.’
Fairlie frowns. ‘She’s not “flighty”, she’s . . .’ What? she thinks, Lonely?
‘She flew off the handle at Evelyn and never spoke to her again,’ her mother is saying, ‘then she got married on a whim and even you’ve said over the past year she’s disappeared –’
‘All right, enough,’ Fairlie interrupts. ‘I’m not going to judge Jenna because we can’t understand. Obviously, she was hurting and no one paid enough attention.’ The cushions give out an arduous huff as Fairlie slumps onto the couch. ‘If we’re going to judge anyone, it needs to be the people around her – the people who failed her. Starting with me. Why didn’t I see how desperate she was?’
‘Because she loved you.’ Pattie avoids her gaze, hands busy with a towel. ‘If she wanted to do this, the last person she’d tell would be you. Obviously, you’d have done something about it.’
‘This is my fault.’
‘Don’t even think that. It’s ridiculous.’
Henry whines, hurrying over to clutch at Fairlie’s knee. ‘Mummy,’ he says, looking longingly towards the door. ‘Where’s Mummy?’
Fairlie pulls him into her lap. But Henry resists, his chubby body stiff and uncompliant as he gives a frustrated yelp. ‘No! Mummy!’
Fairlie lets him sit rigidly on her knee, carefully murmuring kind, empty condolences that skirt purposely around the truth. ‘Mama’s not here right now,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry. Daddy will be here soon.’ Sliding from her knee, Henry wanders to the door and peers out the window, as though standing sentry to Fairlie’s insincere assurances.
With Henry out of earshot, Fairlie says, ‘I don’t understand how she could leave him.’
There’s a heavy pause, the room thick with unspoken obviousness. Almost before Pattie opens her mouth, Fairlie knows what her mother is about to say.
‘It can be the hardest thing in the world,’ her mother says, ‘to leave a child. But sometimes, there are reasons.’ Briskly, she snaps the wrinkles from a crumpled t-shirt. ‘We might not understand a mother’s motives. We might not even agree. But we should always forgive. Besides,’ leaning across the pile of washing, Pattie gives her daughter’s hand a pat, ‘sometimes, the most wonderful things come of it.’
Fairlie doesn’t know whether to smile or feel enraged. ‘You can hardly compare adopting me with Jenna’s suicide.’
A ghost walks across Pattie’s face. If Fairlie didn’t know differently, she might suggest her mother was frightened. But this is a look she has seen before, the quiet reclusiveness of internal conversation.
At length, Pattie’s face relaxes and she offers Fairlie a tired smile. ‘We’ve always tried to be honest with you,’ she says, smoothing out a pair of shorts, ‘but there’s things we don’t know.’
Familiar with this vein of ambiguous introspection, Fairlie lets it drop. She opens her arms for Henry and he climbs onto her lap again, rubbing his eyes with clenched fists and leaving biscuit crumbs on his lashes.
Pattie continues, ‘Sometimes, we just have to accept that people have their reasons.’
‘I know.’
‘Life is complicated, people are complicated.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Sometimes acceptance –’
‘Mum,’ Fairlie stops her. ‘Please, can we not do this now?’
‘Fairlie –’
‘You’ll listen to me now, then?’ Fairlie snaps. ‘Is that it? You’re feeling sorry for me so you’ll actually consider my side?’
‘I’ve always considered your side.’
‘Growing up different to your own parents? Feeling like a white person even though you’re black?’
‘I –’ Pattie’s mouth opens, then closes. She shakes her head.
‘But that’s right, I’m supposed to be grateful. To feel lucky.’
‘You are lucky.’ Her mother’s voice has taken on a sharp edge.
Sighing, Fairlie drops her head back against the cushions. The conversation is over; her mother marks it with a small nod. Setting aside her pile of folding, Pattie stands.
‘Right. I’m going to get started on your dishes. It looks like it’s been a while since you did them.’ As Pattie moves past, she bends to kiss the top of Fairlie’s head. ‘My goodness, what happened here?’ Her mother is pointing to the coffee stain on the carpet.
‘I knocked over my drink.’ To Fairlie’s surprise, the lie comes out like a reflex action.
Pattie tuts at her. ‘You should have put some bi-carb on it straightaway.’
Fairlie stares at the stain, hoping the brown smear might offer some answers, relieve her of her guilt. Because she tried, didn’t she? But Jenna had fled.
‘I’m sorry,’ her mother says softly. Fairlie acknowledges the olive branch by returning the apology. Pattie squeezes her shoulder, then touches the top of Henry’s head and moves into the kitchen.
Fairlie sinks deeper into the couch. Never again will Jenna’s shriek of laughter contagiously set off her own, never again will they quote lines in unison from films or make each other exactly the right drink without asking first. As Henry slumps disconsolately onto the cushion alongside her, Fairlie feels a yawning black hole of awareness move across her.
Oh God, Jenna. What have you done?
ii
Finally, as filmy-gold light spills through the front windows onto the carpet like paint, Fairlie hears the rattle of Ark’s LandCruiser out front.
Twenty-four hours have passed since Jenna died. Waiting for Ark’s silence to break, Fairlie has held Henry, confused and whimpering, clinging to her skin as though his mother might be hidden inside it. But as the day has worn on, Fairlie has begun to wonder if perhaps it isn’t she clinging to Jenna’s child as though his weight might counterbalance her guilt.
Watching Jenna’s husband cross the driveway – his sullen gait, the drop of his head and shoulders – part of her wants to reach out and hold him. But another, more surprised and cautious part of her wants to hate him, to blame him. This conflict feeds her angst like kindling.
Opening the door, Fairlie snaps a finger to her mouth before Ark can speak.
‘I’ve just gotten him to sleep,’ she hisses. ‘He’s been so unsettled, I had to lie with him for over an hour.’
Ark fills the tiny space. He flashes her a glance: a brief, blue-eyed instant analysis. Ark Rudolph is striking, it’s undeniable. But Fairlie struggled to see what Jenna did. Tall, but not exceptionally. Strong and artfully shaped through hard physical work, but he’s no body builder. There was always an effortless exaggeration in his presence, a command of attention without trying. Now he’s dishevelled in a faded orange t-shirt, cheap rubber thongs on his feet, rusty hair in wild spikes. No RM Williams or Country Road today.
Fairlie allows her anger to well up, an ephemeral, junkie-like fix for the waiting grief. ‘Where have you been?’ she demands, fists propped on her hips.
‘When my wife dies, I’m sure it’s within my rights to take some time to grieve,’ he says.
‘Ark, you walked out on your kid.’
‘I know.’ Abruptly he looks wretched. ‘I just couldn’t . . .’ He takes a few uncertain steps across the room, placing his feet with caution. His gaze flits across the crayon and cracker mess on the beige carpet, the bookshelf overflowing with creased paperbacks, to alight on the wall dividing the kitchen and living room: rows and rows of photographs, crookedly hung, frames mismatched and touching at the corners. Jenna’s face peers out of so many of those pictures: jubilant, serious, laughing, contented. A selfie of them both atop a sand dune on the Coorong where the Southern Ocean thunders onto the shore, their faces wind-whipped and sand-stung, they squint, cheek to cheek, hair in each other’s mouths. An eerie, voyeuristic peek back through time.