Gucci Mamas

by Cate Kendall

  Exactly, thought Mim, for my age.

  When did I stop being twenty-two?

  When did the last fifteen years happen?

  What is going on with my pores?

  Oh God, what am I doing?

  Is this that ‘transference worry’, like I read in Sahara Sheldon’s Me-time and a Half?

  Am I wasting my time worrying about petty, meaningless issues and avoiding the real problems in my life?

  Or am I really worried about my pores?

  Ohmigod. I’ve turned into someone who worries about their pores.

  ‘Just relax,’ cooed the therapist as she attempted to wrestle Mim’s arms back onto the bed.

  I’m not shallow, I care about lots of serious things, I only ever worry about my pores in my own time … really.

  She began to compile a mental list of really important worrying issues. The children; James; their financial situation. Then she really gave herself a good dose of reality and decided to worry about the Middle East situation and world hunger.

  ‘Seriously, if you would just relax, your lymphatic system will purge the toxins with greater intensity,’ urged the therapist with concern.

  It’s not happening, it’s not happening, Mim started to meditate. The therapist started the oil drip on her forehead to realign her chakras and Mim’s worries finally began to recede.

  The insistent chirruping of birds snapped her back to reality. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to the girl, rummaging in her Louis Vuitton for the mobile. ‘Kids … can’t turn it off … just in case … you know.’

  As Mim pushed the receive call button she caught a look from the carefree, single therapist that said, no, she didn’t know.

  Driving to the GP, Mim’s initial worry over Charley’s mysterious rash began to dissipate. Stupid school. That’s a whole day session at Moi wasted. And they hadn’t even started to work on her pores.

  ‘Mrs Woolcott,’ the school nurse had boomed into the phone, ‘Charley appears to be displaying the early symptoms of a nasty little infection.’

  Clasping the towel around her, Mim had held the phone away from her ear and wondered why the woman hadn’t simply shouted to her from the gate of the school – with that massive voice she’d certainly have heard her.

  ‘He has a peculiar rash on the backs of his hands and we urge immediate medical attention from your chosen physician.’

  Mim sighed. This was the fourth time this year she’d been called to school for a ‘medical’ issue. Langholme Grammar was paranoid about its legal position should any child infect another with anything worse than a computer virus. Last year the Tonkon-Websters had won an undisclosed settlement for breach of care when their young son, Gordy, had missed his cello exam due to a savage dose of chickenpox picked up in the Early Learning Centre.

  Mim took one look at Charley when she arrived at sick bay and, apart from the angry red rash on his hands, she felt that it wasn’t serious. Best to have it checked out, though.

  Luckily, Dr Winterbottom was able to squeeze them in; there was some benefit in paying an extra sixty per cent per consultation.

  The doctor took one glance at Charley’s hands and asked the crucial question: ‘So where have your hands been, Charley?’

  ‘Well, we were in Art class and Lochie Williamson painted them with PVA glue.’

  ‘And why did he do that, Charley?’

  ‘Cos my gloves kept falling off.’

  ‘Why don’t your gloves fit you, Charley?’ interrupted Mim.

  ‘Cos they’re Dad’s.’

  Oh, Jesus, thought Mim. The new leather, fur-lined driving gloves James had bought on his last trip to New York were obviously goners.

  ‘He’s fine, Mrs Woolcott,’ Dr Winterbottom assured her. ‘It’s just a reaction to the glue. This Aloe Vera gel will have his skin back to normal in no time.’

  The doctor applied the gel. Mim paid the hefty bill.

  ‘Sensational,’ said Charley, ‘what a ripper way to get off school. And it’s not a wasted day cos I’m not too sick to enjoy it!’

  ‘Think again, champ!’ replied Mim. She frog-marched him back into his class and went to discuss the incident with the art teacher – one of her least-favourite people.

  In fact, Mim had decided she had serious issues with Mr Maurice. Whippet-thin and waxed to within an inch of his life, Mr Maurice had all the charm of a rattlesnake and about as much artistic ability as far as Mim was concerned. If there was one thing in life Mim was sure of, it was that she knew art, and appreciated it in all its forms, from the works of the masters hanging at the Louvre to a preschooler’s interpretation of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. She was passionate about nurturing and encouraging a love of art in children and allowing them to express themselves freely.

  Which made having Mr Maurice as her boys’ artistic adviser hard to swallow.

  Mr Maurice was teaching art only temporarily while he waited for his painting career to take off. It had been thirty years so far and as each year passed, with his talents as yet unrecognised by the art community, Mr Maurice became increasingly bitter.

  He was critical of those students who couldn’t create and jealous of those who could. There was no joy to be had in his art class and there was certainly no room for creativity. He ran a tight ship of controlled art activities with clear parameters that went well beyond colouring within the lines.

  ‘Mr Maurice, Charley’s back after his brush with PVA,’ Mim said, walking into the art room and quietly congratulating herself on her clever opening line.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Woolcott,’ Mr Maurice simpered, ‘I do hope that disfiguring rash is not contagious, I really can’t be compromising the other children’s safety.’ He pressed a paisley hanky to his mouth as if to protect himself from dangerous germs.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Mim said smoothly. ‘It was a simple reaction to the glue one of your boys painted all over Charley’s hands. Now, I’m not adverse to body art, but may I suggest something a little less toxic next time?’ she added sarcastically.

  ‘Honestly, Mrs Woolcott, it’s all I can do to keep the Grade One boys quiet, let alone have them produce the required pieces. I turn my back for one minute and they get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Those boys are well aware that we have a very strict glueing policy in this room. The rules and regulations are to be adhered to. If it was up to me I wouldn’t have Lower Primary in art class at all. They’re just too silly, they have no concentration span and their minds are too unformed to appreciate any of the nuances of the syllabus anyway.’

  Mim was outraged. She took a deep breath, folded her hands in front of her and smiled sweetly at Mr Maurice: she was going to enjoy this.

  ‘Mr Maurice, might I suggest if your art classes were a little more stimulating, offering a more age-appropriate program, you wouldn’t find these “shenanigans” occurring so frequently. If the boys weren’t so damn bored by your inane, dull, so-called artistic offerings then they might have a bit of fun and surprise you with their abilities. You completely underestimate children’s imaginations and as an art teacher you are a disgrace.’

  Mr Maurice recoiled in horror and small balls of spittle sputtered from his thin lips.

  ‘And,’ Mim continued, ‘in future please ascertain the cause of any “distasteful” rash before you send my child to isolation.’

  With that, Mim turned and stormed out.

  As she sat in the carpark clasping the steering wheel with her chipped nail-polish (another casualty of the aborted Moi day), she felt drained and fractious as her adrenalin rush petered out.

  But, honestly, that self-important little man was personally responsible for destroying all those young people’s potential for art appreciation! Someone had to set him straight.

  She drove quietly home. She felt like having a Bex and a good lie down, as her nanny used to say. If the best school in inner-city Melbourne wasn’t good enough for her boys, where else could they go?

  A snowstorm of steaming milk sprayed over James, spotti
ng his starched black apron and the pristine black trestle-table with white droplets. An angry hiss of steam sent more milk flying as he wrestled desperately with the controls of the espresso machine.

  ‘James! What are you doing!’ Mim squealed, shielding her face from the spray of milk with her hand. ‘Christ, you’re lucky there are no customers yet, they’d all be drenched.’

  ‘Oh, cripes, sorry, honey. How do you work this bloody thing?’

  ‘Give it here,’ Mim said patiently, ‘I’ll show you. It’s a disgrace that we’ve had this machine for two months and you’ve never even used it.’ She gently elbowed her husband aside and showed him how to effectively froth the milk with their new appliance.

  It had been her idea to pool the espresso-machine resources of several families as their contribution to the Langholme Grammar Fete. The other mums clamoured to be on her stall, where the smallest amount of effort would no doubt bring the highest kudos – who wanted to be popping corn or stirring fairy floss all day when they could be kicking back with a double decaf macchiato? Besides, the coffee stall was bound to be the most popular, given the caffeine dependency levels of most of the Langholme parents.

  Jennifer Gowrie-Smith was in charge of the cake stall and had decided she’d do something different than simply gathering home-cooked goodies made by the nannies and housekeepers of Langholme families. She certainly didn’t want to have to cook anything herself; her state-of-the-art kitchen was more aesthetic than functional and she shuddered to think of dirtying her Gaggenau appliances. And what with trying to balance the dietary needs of the lactose-intolerant, wheat-intolerant, gluten-intolerant, diabetic, preservative-intolerant, fat-free, fibre-enhanced, vegan and nut-allergic pupils, home-baking was just too hard. The last thing Jennifer wanted to do was to kill some wretched child, for God’s sake. She wasn’t even sure her public-liability insurance would cover accidental poisoning, so it was best to stay on the safe side and outsource the whole thing. Through her connections on the tennis circuit Jennifer organised for a delivery from Patersons Cakes, reputed to be Melbourne’s best cake shop. Which meant all she had to do was mark up the price tags and take the money – or at least her housekeeper could.

  There was little of the traditional or home-made at Langholme’s fete: the quilts-and-craft stall merchandise had been flown in from Pottery Barn in the States, and there was nary a jar of chutney or jam in sight, save the raffle hamper donated by Tangelo, of Malvern Road, Toorak, the only place in town to get home-made.

  The Devonshire tea stall was outsourced to Lorenzos. The freshly squeezed juice stall was also a well-known franchise whose owners were school parents. The crêpes Suzette stall, decorated in red and white gingham, dispensed delicate, air-light concoctions sprinkled with a lacework of icing sugar; produced by a St Kilda Esplanade Market regular roped in by a friend. The barbecue stall (the Butcher Boys of Camberwell) did a great trade in Steak Diane but found it hard to push the preservative-free, gluten-free, free-range chicken and semi-dried tomato sausage in bread line. The traditional second-hand book-stall was superseded by two mothers signing copies of their latest bestsellers and selling them at full retail. Even the garage-sale stall was more treasure than trash, selling largely antique and vintage pieces from a well-known High Street retailer.

  The Langholme parents were not the types to parade broken toys and discarded clothes in front of society. Toys were thrown away the minute interest in them waned; or their batteries wore down; or they created too much clutter in minimalist interiors, or their various noises gave the adults of the house a migraine. Wardrobes were savagely cleared out every season to ensure no child would be caught wearing a Fred Bare or Oililly past its prime.

  Most families simply bundled these items up for throwing on the tip, but Mim and her friends were solicitous about ensuring the cast-offs went to charity. In fact, Ellie liked to justify her over-consumption of all things material as really only a clever way to help out the less fortunate.

  On the morning of the fete all Mim’s Mothers’ Group girls were rostered onto the coffee stall. By the time Mim and James arrived, Liz and Sebastian were, of course, organised and already serving the few early-birds, Monique and Malcolm were struggling across the carpark with their machine, and Ellie had, naturally, yet to turn up, and would probably send Ursula in her place.

  Much to Bindi Munt’s annoyance, her navel-piercing-stall idea had been turned down, due to occupational health and safety regulations, so she was forced to be a last-minute entrant into the coffee stall. As Bindi scanned the thin early-morning crowd for likely punters (husbands, not customers), Mim took in her incredibly inappropriate ensemble of black stretch calf-hugging jeans teamed with silver court shoes and plunging black singlet filled to brimming with her latest cosmetic enhancements. Mim was certain Bindi had dragged herself straight to the fete after a big night out, and could see that she was already tucking into her own contribution to the stall – whiskey shots to liven up the cappuccinos and long blacks.

  With ten minutes to go until the fete officially opened, Mim patiently went through the coffee-making procedure with James again to ensure that he knew what he was doing.

  ‘Take the ground coffee, pack it into here – but not too tight mind – then it slots under the machine and a sharp pull to the right fits it fast.’

  James followed Mim’s instructions to the letter and acted as interested and focused as any student could be. But he had managed to trap Mim in between his body and the machine. His right hand went through the motions as directed by Mim, but his body and his lips followed a very different agenda.

  ‘Now, James,’ said Mim, grinning and ducking away from the impromptu nape-nuzzling.

  ‘Are you watching? The coffee drips into the cups, only about one-third full. Keep your eye on the crema, it should be thick and rich. It’s a slow stream and should take about thirty seconds,’ she continued.

  James, thoroughly enjoying the proximity to his wife’s body, whispered into her ear, ‘Thirty seconds – what on earth will we do for thirty seconds?’ and he leaned in even closer to indicate his suggestion.

  ‘James!’ Mim giggled, and wiggled her hips, enjoying the sizzle his hot whispering ignited on her skin.

  ‘MUM!’

  Mim jumped a mile.

  ‘Yes, yes, what is it?’ she said, quickly stepping away from James.

  ‘C’n I’ve some money?’ demanded Jack, hand outstretched.

  ‘Please may I …’ Mim corrected, hands on hips.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Mim caved, handing him fifty dollars. ‘That has to last all day, you know,’ she called to his back as he scarpered towards the fairy floss machine.

  ‘Dad, Dad, Dad,’ yelled Charley and Chloe, running to the stall where they jumped up and down on the spot, ‘please, please, please, please, pleeeeeeasssse do mini golf with us!’ Chloe added some more pleases for extra emphasis.

  ‘Hey guys, what’s going on?’ James leaned over the front counter to smile at his two youngest children.

  Bindi scowled at the family group and slammed down her Jackie O sunglasses as if bringing children to the fete was just sheer bad taste.

  ‘You HAVE to!’ insisted Chloe. ‘It’s got a clown face and a windmill and even a scary skeleton one.’

  ‘Yeah, come on, Dad, you’ll love it, seriously!’ said Charley.

  ‘But guys,’ stage-whispered James, ‘I can’t. I’m trapped here like a slave, working. You know your mum is so meeeeann!’

  ‘No she’s not,’ Chloe retorted with her trademark cackle at such a ridiculous notion. ‘She’s not mean!’

  ‘Mum,’ said Charley, using his serious negotiation face and his very best manners. ‘Can Dad please come and play mini-golf with us?’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Mim, resting her lips on her fingers and affecting to take the request seriously. ‘We’re going to be pretty busy …’

  The children clasped their hands in a begging motion.

&n
bsp; ‘… and we’re short-staffed as it is …’

  The children’s eyes switched to puppy mode.

  ‘But your dad did spray the milk everywhere and make a great big mess, and I don’t think he’s much good at making coffees, so …’ Mim trailed off as the kids bounced up and down in anticipation of her answer. ‘… I guess it’s okay.’

  ‘YAYYYYY!!!!’ shouted Charley, Chloe and James (the latter almost more excited than the kids, Mim noted). James whipped off his apron and leapt over the front counter and weaved through the colourful bunting, melodious rides and gaily-draped stalls, hand-in-hand with his children.

  Jack, finishing up his fairy floss, caught sight of them running off and, whooping in delight, ran to catch up.

  Mim smiled at the four of them, tears welling in her eyes. There was her whole life in that little group. Suddenly a cold wind bellied out the canvas wall at the back of the stall and chilled Mim’s neck. She pulled up the collar of her sleeveless pink quilted vest-jacket and zipped it up to her chin. The few clouds scudded across to momentarily cover the sun and turn the once sunshine-filled morning dull.

  As if on cue, LJ Mahoney came stalking across the playground with Langholme mums Carleen Osborne and Melody Waite in tow. Carleen and Melody were new to LJ’s entourage and hoping desperately to claw their way to some social status through the new association, after each had committed the sin of rising from family nanny to stepmother. LJ would let anyone into her inner sanctum if they sucked up enough, laughed at her nasty comments and fetched and carried like well-trained poodles.

  LJ’s accent of choice today was sea-green – a hoody track-top that she wore over black wide-leg track pants and tight black tee. Her Adidas runners had complementary green markings.

  Mim, dealing with an increasing line of customers, watched the group stop, smile and chat with the principal and his five-year-old daughter.

  LJ’s friendly countenance and bright chatter indicated thorough enjoyment at the interaction, although Mim knew it was as fake as her acrylics. She even went as far as squatting down to the child’s level and asking her a few questions about her outfit, to the principal’s obvious pleasure.