Those Faraday Girls

by Monica McInerney

  Sadie was at the cinema on her own. She had decided to skip her lecture. She hadn’t finished reading the book they’d be discussing so it was really a waste of time.

  In a bar on the waterfront, on a high seat next to the fire, Miranda took a long drag of her cigarette, crossed her legs and blew smoke at her own reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

  ‘Another drink, Miranda?’ The elderly barman knew her well. Miranda and her friend Liz came here as often as they could afford.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Richie. Two gin and tonics.’

  One for her and one for Liz, if she ever came back from her flirting session in the corner. She’d been talking to that man for the past ten minutes and it was supposed to be her round. With a sigh, Miranda reached for her purse. Farewell to her latest savings plan, then. Thank God Leo had told them all he would waive their board for the time being, on account of them all being such a help to Clementine and Maggie. Not that Miranda had been able to offer much help in any practical sense yet. She saw herself more as an emotional support to Clementine. Juliet, Eliza and Sadie were much better at that hands-on work. Clementine seemed to be managing very well, too, juggling her study with looking after her daughter, either taking Maggie to her lectures or organising babysitting rosters between Eliza and Sadie for the few hours she was away.

  It was just a pity Leo hadn’t decided to pay them all for helping Clementine. Even without the expense of paying board, Miranda still found it hard to keep herself in the manner to which she dearly wanted to become accustomed. Perhaps she should be grateful for Leo and his obsession with keeping the family together.

  The barman delivered the two drinks and took her money. ‘Everything going well for you, Miranda?’ he said as he delivered the change.

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  It was and it wasn’t. She’d had a phone call that day from Tom. A lying phone call. He was ringing to let her know that it broke his heart to tell her, but he was being moved to another sales area. He’d be looking after Victoria and South Australia from now on.

  ‘Your wife asked for that, did she?’

  He went silent.

  Miranda laughed. ‘It’s all right, Tom.’ And it was. He was too old for her anyway. She thought about telling him that, but decided she’d save that line for another time. He’d been becoming a little possessive anyway. Ringing her nearly every day at the pharmacy, even at home once or twice. Tom’s wife had obviously been checking the phone records. Miranda had thought herself in love with him, but she realised then she’d been mistaken. She’d miss him, but not too much. And after all, there were plenty of visiting salesmen fish in the —

  ‘Miranda, I’d like you to meet Kevin. He’s down from Sydney on business and said he’d love to buy us both a drink.’ It was Liz, back at last.

  Miranda spun around on her stool, put out her hand and gave a big, welcoming smile. ‘Kevin, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Hobart.’

  Clementine was in trouble. She thought she’d known what to expect. From the moment she knew she was pregnant she’d decided to be organised about it. She’d read all the books. She’d spent the final weeks of her pregnancy talking to maternity nurses. She’d arrived at her doctor’s appointments before Maggie’s birth with lists of questions and taken down the answers in her neat handwriting. She borrowed an idea from her mother and started a scrapbook, filled with handy tips on minding a newborn, coping with a three-month-old, what to expect at nine months. She knew what to do if the baby had colic, wasn’t sleeping or developed a rash. She knew the symptoms for more than a dozen rare childhood diseases.

  She’d coped with all the talk at school and the gossip among the neighbours. As the pregnancy progressed, she’d become used to her changing shape, to being rounded where she had always been thin, heavy when she had been light. All her sisters had started stroking her bump as though it was a cat she had sitting in her lap. She’d wanted to ask them to stop until she realised she actually quite liked it. From them at least. It was the stroking from near strangers that she didn’t like so much. She was almost an exhibit at school. She thought about charging her classmates five cents per touch.

  She turned seventeen the week before she sat her final exams, at a table that had to be brought into the exam room specially because she was finding it difficult to fit behind the usual desks.

  The birth had been painful but, as the books said, once it was over she truly had forgotten about it. The midwife told her she had the right idea to have a baby when she was so young. The body was supple then. It would practically ping back into shape afterwards, you wait and see.

  It hadn’t ‘pinged’, but she had got her old figure back more quickly than she expected. She’d breastfed as advised. All things considered, everything was going as expected.

  Except one thing.

  Maggie.

  Clementine may have read all the books, but her seven-month-old daughter definitely hadn’t. Maggie did as she pleased. She cried for no reason. She slept one night and not the next. She fed happily one day and wasn’t interested the following one, gazing about with her dark, bright eyes instead. She roared if she was left alone. She roared if she was put into her room to sleep. Sometimes she just roared for no reason at all. If she wasn’t vomiting, she was weeing or pooing. Sometimes all three at once. Clementine felt her own body was out of control too. Her breasts leaked at the first cry from Maggie, sometimes at just a passing thought about her daughter. Some days her clothes were no sooner washed and on than they were covered in little calling cards of white milky vomit, first one shoulder, then the other. Although nothing could beat the incredibly sweet, brand-new, fresh smell of Maggie when she was clean and dry and dozing in Clementine’s arms, sometimes it felt like she was surrounded from the moment she woke by the combined odour of washing powder, baby sick and nappy contents.

  The first few months it was as if Maggie had five mothers. Juliet, Miranda, Eliza and Sadie couldn’t do enough for her, competing over who got to hold her, dress her, bathe her. One afternoon Juliet and Eliza almost came to blows about whose turn it was to change a nappy. Clementine caught Sadie waking Maggie up, after Clementine had spent nearly an hour getting her to settle.

  ‘I missed her,’ Sadie said in explanation.

  Miranda offered to mind her for a couple of hours another day, while Clementine caught up on some sleep. ‘We’ll have a little cuddle and then I’ll lie her down, I promise,’ Miranda said.

  When Clementine emerged from her bedroom two hours later it was to find Maggie still wide awake on Miranda’s lap, with her hair – what there was of it – tied into dozens of little ponytails.

  ‘She’s a baby, not a doll,’ Clementine said.

  ‘You mean she’s real? I thought she had very lifelike eyes.’

  Week by week, though, her sisters had drifted away. Clementine couldn’t blame them. They’d put up with enough disruption in the early months, especially the long sleepless nights when Maggie’s crying kept everyone awake, before Leo had the brainwave about the egg cartons. They had their own lives, after all.

  Leo was still the doting grandfather – he was besotted with Maggie, Clementine knew that – but his attention wavered depending on what was happening in Shed Land. He’d started a new project and went out there straight after dinner most evenings. Clementine had once been able to rely on him to help with the nightly bath. She now found she was doing it on her own.

  She hadn’t said anything to any of them. She was conscious of not upsetting anyone, and making Maggie blend as seamlessly into the family as possible.

  The only consolation was Maggie seemed happy enough. Her eyes were bright, she was putting on weight, she was lively and when she did deign to sleep, it was deeply and calmly. It was Clementine who hadn’t slept properly in weeks. Her hair was in its long plait down her back day after day. She didn’t have the time or energy to wash it regularly.

  That’s what she hadn’t expected: the constancy and intensity of looking
after a baby, the loss of time to herself. Before Maggie, she could go for a walk whenever she wanted. Arrange to meet friends. Go to the library. Study. Sleep. Now nothing could be done without planning and preparation. And even if she did organise everything, have Maggie dressed and ready, a sudden nappy change or a vomit or a crying fit and everything was delayed, postponed or cancelled.

  David had flown back from Melbourne twice to visit them, once in the hospital just after Maggie was born. He had looked at the baby in his arms as if it was a large slug. Clementine saw him try to hide it, but his youth overwhelmed her again. He wasn’t ready for this. Swept up in the aftermath, the attention, the presents, the fun of a homecoming to the newly decorated bedroom, she told herself it didn’t matter that she was on her own as a parent.

  It was only in the middle of the night, when she finally got Maggie to sleep, that she let herself be upset, shedding silent tears into the pillow. All the things her father had said kept coming back to her. Her life was on hold now, buried under an avalanche of nappies, wipes and bibs. She had insisted that of course it wouldn’t be like that; of course she could manage everything.

  She told herself that again now, as she sat in her bedroom trying to get Maggie to sleep. She put her in the cot, but Maggie started wailing as though she was being dropped into hot water. She paced around the soundproofed room – the cell, as she had started to think of it – to no avail. If Maggie had been sleepy after the last feed, she was nothing of the sort now. Her eyes were alert. Clementine spoke to her in a low voice, urging her to sleep, for both their sakes. The unblinking gaze back. Clementine stroked her little face, her nose, her eyebrows. The eyelids flickered and for a moment she was optimistic. A second later, Miss Bright Eyes was back again.

  Clementine took her into the living room, where the fire was lit. Even though it was late spring, the nights were still cold. She turned off the main light, lit the lamps, made it as peaceful as possible. She changed position, holding Maggie up on her shoulder. She liked the way her head felt, tucked into her neck, the tiny tickle of Maggie’s breath on her skin, the sound of her breathing. She had lain there night after night listening to it, fearful at first, almost counting the breaths, urging each one on. She had read about cot death, about sleep apnoea, measles, chicken pox. All the childhood diseases. She was so well informed she was filled with as much anxiety as love.

  Because she did love her daughter, didn’t she? Is that what she called this feeling she had for her? She didn’t know for sure. She’d thought she had loved David, after all. She rarely thought of him now.

  She felt something so strong for Maggie, something that made her want to be with her, yearn for the feel of her warm little body against her own. Hours passed when all she wanted to do was stare into Maggie’s eyes, marvel at the almost-blue of the whiteness around her dark irises. Long minutes passed stroking her soft cheeks, counting the tiny spiky eyelashes, tracing her almost invisible eyebrows, touching the tiny – so tiny – fingernails and toenails. She could smell her constantly, a soft, powdery smell of… what? Washing powder? Baby powder? Not just that. It was as if Maggie had her own special scent that only Clementine could smell. The same way that her head seemed to be shaped to fit exactly into the curve between Clementine’s chin and shoulder. All those moments were beautiful. But the physical side of it, the sheer work of it, was taking up room in her head that she’d expected to fill to overflowing with love and maternal feelings.

  But she couldn’t complain. She wouldn’t complain. She didn’t want any of them saying, ‘We told you so’, or ‘Didn’t we say this would happen?’ If she had to keep up this being-capable act, she would do it, until it killed her.

  As she sat up in the small hours, night after night, trying to get Maggie to settle, she realised what she wanted was her own mother. She wanted to go to her mum and ask, How do I do this? What does it mean when Maggie cries? What is that rash? Am I burping her right? Can she sleep on her side like that? Should I be getting these pains in my breasts?

  She tried to imagine her mother across the living room now. It was difficult. What would she be doing? Knitting? Sewing? Clementine couldn’t remember if her mother had ever done either of those things. Would she be watching TV, the sound turned low so as not to disturb Maggie’s light sleeping? Would she be reading? Doing a crossword?

  Clementine attempted to summon up an image of her mother’s face. If she turned around she wouldn’t even have to try. The entire back wall was covered in framed photos: first day of school, family holidays, birthday celebrations. More than half of them featured their mother. Clementine didn’t want to look at photos of her mother. She wanted her here, now. Alive.

  She heard a thump in the hallway and silently cursed, checking to see if the noise had woken Maggie. It hadn’t. Sadie always jumped the last few rungs of the attic ladder onto the bare floorboards below, no matter how many times Leo asked her not to. She’d been up there looking for the Christmas decorations, even though it was weeks off. Moments later she came into the living room, carrying a dusty box. ‘I do love having two Christmases a year, don’t you? I’d eat roast turkey every week if I could.’

  Clementine put her finger to her lips, gesturing towards Maggie. Sadie pulled a face, mouthed the word ‘Sorry’ and sat on the floor in front of the fire, emptying the box of decorations with a clatter. ‘Sadie!’ Clementine hissed.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sadie whispered.

  Clementine watched as Sadie carefully sorted the decorations into types: stars in one pile, tinsel in another. Her sister looked more peaceful than usual as she went about her work. Clementine decided the time was right.

  ‘Sadie, what was Mum like?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What was Mum like?’

  ‘Look behind you.’

  ‘I know what she looked like. I can’t remember what she was like, though. Her personality.’

  ‘She was… she was Mum, you know.’ Sadie looked uncomfortable. ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘Nothing especially. I just feel like talking about her. Tell me something about her, Sadie. Something you liked doing with her.’

  Sadie put down the length of tinsel she’d been untangling and thought for a moment. ‘I used to like sitting in the bedroom while she got ready to go out. Miranda would always be there too. Mum would go through her wardrobe and say, “Well, Miranda, will I wear this one or this one?” And I’d watch her put her make-up on. She wore lots of it. Lipstick especially. That’s obviously where Miranda got it from.’

  ‘Why can’t I remember that?’

  ‘You were just a little kid, I suppose.’

  ‘You were only two years older than me.’

  Sadie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Clementine. Maybe those are the two years when you get a memory.’ She stood up, picked up the box and left the room.

  A few minutes later, Juliet came in. She made a pretence of looking for a magazine, straightening a cushion, looking at a row of books on the bookshelf, before coming over and sitting beside Clementine on the sofa.

  She spoke in a whisper. ‘Are you okay?’

  Clementine nodded.

  ‘Sadie said you were asking her about Mum.’

  ‘I’m allowed to, aren’t I?’

  It was unusual for Clementine to snap like that. ‘Of course. But why out of the blue like this?’

  ‘I just need to know about her.’

  ‘Because of Maggie?’

  ‘Because of me and because of Maggie. I can’t seem to remember anything about Mum, Juliet. And it feels wrong, that I’m a mother and I can’t ask my own mother what to do. It’s not fair.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘And I hate that I’m the only one who can’t remember her well. You’ve all got proper memories. All I have are the photographs.’

  ‘You don’t remember her at all?’

  ‘I remember her being in the house. Having someone to go to, to ask things, walking to school with her. But then it gets mixed
up in my memory. I think it’s Mum I’m remembering and then I realise I have the timing wrong, and it’s you taking me to school or you packing my lunch.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Clemmie.’

  They were quiet for a moment, both looking into the fire. The burning wood made a spitting, crackling sound. Clementine adjusted Maggie on her shoulder and tucked the blanket a little closer around her.

  ‘She was a busy person,’ Juliet said after a moment. ‘She was always doing something or planning something. Dress-ups. Elaborate parties for our birthdays. She liked organising things, visits to markets or trips out of town. She had lots of energy.’ She smiled. ‘That’s how I remember her. She almost hummed with energy.’

  ‘And what was wrong with her? Those are all good things. There must have been things wrong with her as well.’

  Juliet hesitated. ‘She was a bit distracted sometimes. So many of us, I suppose. It was hard to get time on your own with her. She could be a bit moody sometimes too. Get cross out of the blue, with Sadie especially. With Miranda too, now and then.’

  Clementine smiled, gently stroking Maggie’s head, the movement ruffling the soft black hair. ‘Did she ever get mad at you?’

  ‘No, never with me. That’s one good thing, I suppose. She died before we had a chance to have too many fights.’

  Clementine hesitated. ‘Juliet, did you know Dad still keeps all her clothes in his wardrobe? After all this time?’

  Juliet smiled. ‘I thought it was a secret. That only I knew.’

  ‘Is there something a bit funny about that, do you think, after all these years? Shouldn’t he have, I don’t know, given them away or given them to us?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s normal. Maybe it helps him.’

  ‘I’d love to have something of Mum’s. Something to give Maggie as well.’

  ‘Me too. But don’t you remember what happened that time Miranda asked if she could borrow her —’ She stopped. ‘Sorry, you probably don’t. You were still a little kid.’