by Cate Kendall
‘Bugger, I love these bloody shoes,’ she cried, but before she could tear up again, Mim interrupted.
‘Sweetheart, you get his balls and I’ll bring the blow torch,’ Mim grinned, and was rewarded with a big smile from Tiffany.
They talked long into the night, drowning Tiffany’s pain in merlot and nicotine. By about midnight Mim thought it was safe to gently broach the Fairy Fanny issue.
‘Sonofabitch!’ shouted Tiffany, when Mim told her about Cliff’s lecherous advance. ‘I had to give him a friggin’ head job as a welcome-home present that night, and what did he give me? A friggin’ bottle of vodka – I have NEVER drunk VODKA in my LIFE. PIG!’
‘Shhh,’ said Mim, almost hysterical with laughter. ‘The kids.’
‘Sorry,’ Tiffany slurred with a very-Merlot giggle. ‘But when I think of how I’ve slaved over a goddamn running machine and stepper every day; how I’ve deprived myself of every known carb – even saying no to the communion wafers at church, and drunk enough bottled water to drown a friggin’ elephant – just to fight for some sort of figure so asshole Cliff could flaunt his trophy wife.’ She paused. ‘Not that it’s ever done me much good,’ she added with a sigh, slapping her J-Lo-esque butt. ‘I’m never going to be a size eight again, I’m afraid – not like Fairy friggin’ Fanny, obviously.’
‘Hey, don’t put yourself down,’ said Mim, serious again. ‘He doesn’t deserve you if he’s prepared to risk your marriage for some slutty stuff on the side.’
‘Actually, I’m surprised he can even manage it,’ Tiffany said with an evil grin. ‘It’s not like he’s got the goods under the sheets. And he’s too proud to go to the doctor for Viagra. Not that I’m that bothered. At least a quick BJ keeps him happy – it’s all over in a few minutes and it saves me the bother of having another shower.
‘So I can’t actually understand what this little tart even sees in him.’ Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘It’s not like he’s packing any serious equipment either,’ she giggled.
Mim choked on her mouthful of wine. ‘Christ, Tiffany, don’t tell me any more, I can’t stand the mental pictures,’ she pleaded, rocking with laughter, tears rolling down her face.
By 3 a.m. they were eventually sipping soothing cups of chamomile tea and were well into planning Tiffany’s revenge.
The stage was set for an execution!
‘Pricked again,’ thought Mim, recoiling in pain as the sewing needle plunged into her finger.
‘Mum, be careful,’ Jack whined. ‘That blood will ruin my costume.’
Mim leaned back on her heels, sucking her finger and quietly contemplating the string of expletives flowing through her head. ‘I’m not going to ruin it,’ she answered in a threatening whisper. ‘I spent hours making it, so I am not going to ruin it, am I?’
She tightened the neck of his voluminous snowman suit a tad tighter than necessary and Jack gulped. ‘Now stand still and let me finish this or we’ll be late for the production.’
Tonight was Langholme Grammar’s annual Appreciation-and-Encouragement-of-Effort-and-Talent Night. It sounded warm and fuzzy, but in reality it was a theatrical bloodbath where the precocious brats who’d scored bit-parts in TV commercials or soaps were given an undeserved spotlight, while ‘nobodies’ like Mim’s children stood at the back of the stage dressed as plants or furniture. Last year Jack had been a cabbage and poor Charley had been the leg of a table.
Mim made the best of it, praising their efforts – but really, how enthusiastic could you be about their interpretation of a vegetable or a piece of wood?
Each February the drama teacher gave the same speech: ‘Our aim is to stimulate an organic process sown in the rich earth of our families which will spring anew each season and flourish with a bounty of talent and success.’
Mim had heard it all before and knew what he really meant was that parents would have to make their kids’ costumes, attend set-building working bees, ferry the children to after-school rehearsals, help them learn their lines, and then pay $25 a ticket for the privilege of watching the whole agonising process unfold.
The school insisted on handmade costumes to reinforce the ‘organic creation,’ making Talent Night and the school cake stall the only two times a year when Mim couldn’t buy her way out of hands-on mothering – though most of the other mums still managed to. Most simply ignored the rules and outsourced the task to the nanny or the housekeeper, then bribed their children to keep their mouths shut.
Mim couldn’t bring herself to make her children lie, so, inept as she was with her hands, she struggled every year, producing lopsided bunny ears, lacklustre pirate suits and truly tragic dragon tails.
This year the production was to be ‘The Four Seasons’, set to Vivaldi’s symphony, which was no surprise to anyone, as it had been the annual concert for the past twenty-five years. Somehow the drama master managed to weave a cast of elaborate characters into a simple weather allegory, but Mim despaired at the lack of creativity and imagination and couldn’t see why they didn’t try something different once in a while.
As Mim finished the last stitches on the now slightly grubby snowman suit, Chloe ran through the room, draped in Charley’s flower costume, tripped over the long stem and gashed her lip open with her teeth.
Christ, that’s just what I need, Mim thought, as Chloe threw herself dramatically into Mim’s chest and revved her screams up a notch, right into her mother’s left ear. It was all Mim could do not to shake her. As Chloe slumped more forcefully against Mim’s body and wailed bloody-mouthed onto her new Karen Millen shirt, Mim was ready to give it all up. Chuck in this mothering lark altogether.
A deep sense of failure threatened to overwhelm her. She saw herself as though from above – sitting cross-legged on the floor, a screeching child pinning her down with snot and screams, a snowman looking at her like she was a misbehaving servant.
She’d stressed and panicked about this night for weeks, whereas James was briefly apologetic about missing the great event, yet managed to happily swan out of the door for his client meeting several hours before the concert started. ‘Break a leg,’ he’d yelled, heading off to The Flower Drum and leaving Mim to dress the boys and go over their lines one more time: The chill of winter doth embrace me for Jack and The rays of sun warm thine heart for Charley.
These were their first speaking parts and Mim thought they’d have a much better chance at getting them right if only they made any sort of sense.
Mim dreaded the humiliation she was set to face tonight when her desperate attempts at handiwork were revealed. The Reading Mums seamlessly morphed into the Sewing Mums at this time of the year and formed smug little sewing circles that produced beautiful creations – it didn’t hurt that the former wardrobe mistress of the Australian Ballet was among their number, so of course Mim felt like a ham-fisted clod beside their displays of costume prowess.
She knew that Chloe would wriggle and fret on her knee throughout the performance, spoiling it for her – and that the boys would hate their performances, dragging off their ‘stupid’ costumes and ignoring her praise with ill humour, scowls and flushed faces. Several of their mates had been chosen to portray the Soldiers of Spring and Warriors of Winter (no weapons, of course) and her boys would be angry and humiliated in their ‘girly’ costumes.
If all that wasn’t enough, Mim knew she’d face a scathing appraisal from James’s mother, who would meet them at the school hall. Again she’d be judged as too thin, tired or jaundiced. Apparently this was how she’d looked ever since she and James first met.
It’s going to be such a difficult night, Mim thought in defeat, so why are we even going?
She had a brief fantasy about ditching the event, getting a movie and snuggling up in front of the telly with the kids in their jammies.
‘Yeah, that’ll happen,’ she sighed, absently patting Chloe on the back and intoning soothing words as though she were on autopilot. ‘There, there, never mind,’ she said, more
from habit than concern, as Chloe finally stopped bleeding and crying.
She couldn’t even feel sympathy for her little princess. What was wrong with her?
The backstage of Langholme Hall was awash with anxiety and tension – and that was just the parents. One father was shouting at the drama master and pointing angrily at his son, who was dressed as a rather ashamed daisy.
‘Looks like Bernard got back from overseas then,’ Mim thought, as she watched Bernard Worthington III vent his rage at coming home and discovering that Bernard IV, a skinny, spotty kid with braces, was playing a flower.
The drama master finally disentangled himself from the confrontation, leaving Bernards III and IV seething and plucking satin petals from junior Bernard’s elaborate costume to macho it up a bit. ‘No son of mine will be a bloody flower,’ Bernard raged. ‘You can be a weed, boy, but no Worthington has ever been a flower.’
Sally-Anne Armaund was loudly suggesting that her son, Michel-Jon, required better lighting for his cactus interpretation, in order for the audience to truly appreciate the veracity of his spikes. Her toddler daughter, Lilly-Jo, sat behind her, happily dumping the contents of Sally-Anne’s fawn-skin purse into her lap. Mim hurried the children away as a box of super-sized tampons spilled across the floor.
She found the Grade One teacher close to hysterical tears in the Lower Primary Boys’ dressing room. Mrs Clark had spent the day fielding objections from a stream of angry parents strenuously voicing concerns about their child’s stage position, lack of lines or on-stage period. A group of Preps was bellowing the ‘Song of Spring’ at the tops of their voices in one corner; a wilted flower sans stem was pulling at the teacher’s skirt, and another was holding her leg and threatening to vomit – again.
A tantrum was in full force near the bathroom, where Julie Simms-Walsh had discovered that her son Barkley had snuck out in his footy boots rather than the pixie boots she’d spent hours watching the nanny sew for him. As Julie jumped up and down on the spot in a fit of rage, Mim felt the corners of her mouth twitching. This was a nightmare and the only thing to do was laugh, she decided.
Mrs Clark stood on a chair and yelled to get their attention. It was time for the parents to take their seats and for the children to get in position.
Mim waved the boys goodbye, gathered up Chloe and headed for her seat. Chloe stroked Mim’s face with her chubby hands and kissed her on the lips, ‘I love my mummy, mummy,’ she said, her angel’s face glowing.
‘Oh darling, I love you too,’ Mim said, her heart melting.
‘You’re my special mummy – and you know what?’
‘What?’ said Mim rushing towards their seat as the orchestra burst into action.
‘I’ve got a big poo in my bum.’
Mim froze. ‘Oh darling, not now,’ she said as the lights dimmed. ‘Can it stay in until the end of the show?’ she asked hopefully.
‘No,’ Chloe answered sweetly. ‘It’s already coming.’
Mim instantly dropped Chloe from the hip of her Ralph Lauren trousers and rushed back to the toilets.
She spied Ellie in the hall, speaking earnestly into her mobile. Ellie, who never had a hair out of place, seemed agitated and troubled, her beautiful features marred by a frown.
‘Oh no, I can’t believe it. I knew this would happen. Now what will I do! What if everything’s still there?’ Mim heard her say as they reached her.
Catching sight of her best friend, Ellie first registered shock and then immediately relaxed her face and trilled into the phone: ‘Anyway, must be off, sweetie, things to do, people to see. Ciao bella.’
Depositing Chloe in a cubicle, Mim caught up with Ellie in the hall.
‘Darling,’ Ellie gushed. ‘You look fabulous. What a bun fight!’
‘Ellie, you seemed upset just then, is everything okay? Who was on the phone?’
‘Oh it’s fine, darling, just the babysitter.’ Ellie waved her manicured hand dismissively. ‘I’ve left Paris at home. My Ursula’s in Sweden so I was forced to book that awful agency babysitter and the nanny-cam is on the blink so I have to ring in every half hour to make sure the stupid girl isn’t drunk again. Anyway, how are the boys? All set for their big entrance?’
Chloe emerged from the toilet with her skirt back-to-front. Mim bent to straighten her out and before she could ask any more Ellie breezed off to chat with another mum.
I’ve never seen Ellie so ruffled, Mim thought as she rushed Chloe back to their seats in the darkened hall.
She caught sight of James Snr and they exchanged broad smiles as he waved her over to their seats in the second row. James’s mother smiled thinly as Mim apologised her way down the row of seats. Mim for once escaped the full force of Mildred’s critical eyes as her mother-in-law was striving for an incognito look behind enormous Dior sunglasses. Obviously the savaging Mildred had received from the nation’s gossip columnists after slyly pocketing the diamond pendant at the charity lunch had taken its toll. But, Mim noticed with a start, not enough to prevent her sporting the flashy rock.
She slumped into her chair with Chloe’s heavy weight on top of her.
‘Hello, Mildred, hello, James,’ she whispered to her in-laws.
‘Darling, you look exhausted,’ Mildred whispered back.
‘Headache,’ Mim said apologetically.
‘No wonder you’ve got a headache, are you starving yourself again? You look like a skeleton,’ her mother-in-law hissed, and her eyes went to the stage, her daughter-in-law summarily dismissed.
Mim sighed inwardly and discreetly studied her mother-in-law in the darkness. Skeletal herself, her bones were draped in a Vera Wang boucle suit, accessorised with matching Chanel bag, pumps and very big rocks. Mildred’s paternal grandfather had owned a shipping company, which had been in the family for three generations before being developed into an international freight operation. When it sold several years ago, Mildred and James Snr’s bank balance zoomed into an even more stratospheric zone – not that it did us much good, Mim thought bitterly.
Mind you, I guess we did get the beach house, she reminded herself, but still a wad of cold cash or assistance with the school fees wouldn’t have gone astray.
James’s dad leaned in front of his wife’s rigid posture as she studied the stage. ‘You’re looking as beautiful as ever, Mim darling,’ he whispered to his only daughter-in-law. Mim was the daughter James Snr had always longed for and he adored her and the amazing grandchildren she’d given him. He was thrilled that his son had married so well.
‘Thanks James,’ she returned and smiled at him and went to return the compliment when Mildred spoke.
‘Oh dear, Mim, you’ve done your own costumes again,’ Mildred sighed, and Mim’s attention was drawn reluctantly back to the on-stage action.
Mim balanced a jar of wasabi in one hand, a tin of smoked salmon and a packet of dried lentils in the other and stood in front of the pantry staring quizzically into space. Moments passed with her standing there motionless until Jack broke her trance.
‘So, what are we having?’
‘What? Oh, yes.’ Mim shook herself back to reality and stared blankly at the foods in her hands. ‘What was I saying?’
‘You said, “What the bloody hell am I going to do with this crap?”’ Chloe said innocently, her blue eyes wide.
‘Oh … yes, that’s right … dinner,’ Mim remembered. ‘Chloe, those aren’t appropriate words for you to use,’ she hastily added.
‘I’m staaarving, Mum,’ Jack whinged again.
‘Wasabi salmon with lentils?’ Mim pondered. ‘No, the lentils will take forever to soften and there’s not enough salmon … maybe eggs on toast … too basic … Oh Christ, I forgot James’s dry cleaning, must get that tomorrow … I could do eggs Benedict but I hate making the hollandaise … Jack why are you doing that to your costume? … Maybe a salmon omelette?’
They’d spent the day recovering from last night’s production. Mim had spent half the morning on the phone ch
ewing over the PPA (Post Production Analysis) with Liz and Ellie. Then there’d been Jack’s dinosaur diorama to build, a finger-painting project for Chloe and suitable educational show-and-tell to find for Charley for school tomorrow.
With everything sorted, Mim realised her cupboards were bare. Coles Online and the Just Fresh organic food delivery both came tomorrow morning.
‘Okay,’ Mim thought. ‘Time for some lateral thinking.’
With James out golfing with clients again it might just be the perfect night to immerse the children in a culinary experience, Mim decided. Yes, this will be a rich learning experience, some quality family bonding time, and a lesson in cultural diversity, she thought happily. All her own strict parenting criteria had been met in one fell swoop, and she felt momentarily brilliant.
The designer-clad family headed to the busy Toorak Village, where the scent from various restaurants firing up their kitchens wafted tantalisingly in the air. They stood on the windy street as Mim avoided chewing her nails, and debated which restaurant to patronise.
The local Chinese was too slimy, according to Chloe; the boys didn’t like the spiciness of the Thai or Malaysian (although Chloe had a very sophisticated tolerance for hot food for a child of her age). Pizza was in the banned junk-food category, as were hot chips.
Japanese was perfect, Mim suddenly decided – it helped that they were right outside the restaurant and Chloe suddenly needed an immediate ‘tinkle, tinkle’ and was holding herself most unattractively; and wasn’t that the Morgans across the road with their new Swedish nanny, well goodness, that was just asking for trouble wasn’t it, hiring a girl with legs like that – and oh dear, tinkle, tinkle on the pavement, let’s get inside right now.
Besides, Mim soothed herself once the bathroom crisis had been sorted, Japanese was divine: delicately battered, lightly cooked and offering all kinds of nutritional benefits.