by Emily Brewin
‘Jesus,’ he says, putting his briefcase down to stare at the table.
‘Surprise.’ She pours two flutes before pulling the chook, still limp, from the oven.
He frowns and stuffs his hands in his pockets. ‘What’s all this?’
She lights candles along the kitchen bench and asks him to sit. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’
Marcus loosens his tie then sits and stares at her across the starched tablecloth. ‘Me too,’ he says slowly.
The sight of him on the edge of his seat, disregarding the champagne, makes her want to eat her words. She doesn’t want to hear what he has to say.
Her father calls again and this time she picks up, grateful for the interruption.
‘Hello.’
Silence.
‘Dad?’ She watches Marcus shift the cutlery away from his plate.
‘Pet … it’s your mum.’
Marcus looks up at her but this time she’s the one to turn away.
Rosie
ISOBEL HUTCHINS—CRIMINAL DEFENCE LAWYER, the business card says.
It’s sharp against her fingers in her pocket. She finds a corner and slits it under her nail until it hurts. She should just go home. But it’s not home without Petey. It’s a hollow space he used to occupy. The park bench is solid against her back, comforting.
There are signs of him all over their flat. She’s made sure of it so he never feels too far away, his Lego in a pile under the window and his socks dried stiff in front of the heater. Some days she raids the dirty laundry basket just to get the scent of him. In those brief moments, it’s like burying her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in.
In the middle of the night, when she can’t sleep, she listens to the shouting and pissing about going on in the flats around her and pretends he’s in the next room, his hair tousled with perspiration from the layers of blankets he likes to sleep with, legs hanging out the side. His bed creaks and he snores gently because his nose is blocked. Only the wall separates them. It doesn’t take much to convince her that if she looks, she’ll see him in the moonlight streaming through his bedroom window.
The floor’s freezing on her feet and her heart’s so desperate for the sight of him it plays tricks with her mind. She bursts into his room, but the bed’s empty. The covers are pulled messily up the way she left them and his teddies stare at her glassy-eyed from the pillow. Her brain is slow to catch up, then the life ebbs out of her like a tide going out and she slides to the floor. It might be easier if he never existed in the first place.
It took her all morning to work up the balls to text Isobel, a whole morning of sweating on it until she got fed up and sent the message. She needs legal advice. Wants to talk to someone apart from the police. Plus, Petey liked her. He saw something in her that Rosie missed. He was good that way, at seeing past all the bullshit.
She curls her fingers around the edge of the park bench either side of her legs as the doubt sets back in. But maybe Isobel really is just stuck-up. Maybe she feels sorry for them, thinks Petey’s a good charity case, the way rich people do. She stands to leave as Isobel’s shiny four-wheel drive pulls into the car park on the other side of the playground.
‘Hi,’ Isobel calls as she gets out of it, adjusting a thick woollen scarf around her neck.
Rosie waves and sits again, slipping her fingers between her thighs to keep them warm. In the silver light of day, meeting with Isobel seems stupid. She has no idea what to say or what to ask. She’ll talk for a while then make an excuse to go, a doctor’s appointment or something.
Isobel drops to the bench beside her.
‘Hi.’ Rosie glances at the shadow on the ground in front of them, a double-headed freak.
‘Why are there no children in this park?’ Isobel asks finally.
The question is surprising. ‘It’s a school day.’
Isobel glances down at the hands in her own lap. ‘Right.’
Up close, the skin on her face is waxy and her eyelids are pink. Suddenly the park bench isn’t big enough for both of them.
‘Sorry.’ Rosie scuffs her boot across the gravel. ‘You’re probably too busy for this.’
‘No, no,’ Isobel replies. ‘I’m glad you called.’
They stare at a willy-wagtail hopping along the sleeper in front of them. It stops to eye them curiously. Rosie tries to think of a question to ask. Then it occurs in a flash: Isobel defends crims, that’s what her card says. Maybe she defended Joel.
‘Do you have work today?’
Isobel loosens her scarf. ‘I’m not working at the moment.’
Relief surges through her. The bastard who took Petey will need a lawyer. At least it won’t be Isobel. A man’s taken him for sure. Men can’t be trusted. On better days, she can believe a woman might have. It makes the pain easier to handle.
The willy-wagtail hops closer to the seat, turning its head this way and that, prepared for escape. The silence is ear-splitting.
This was a fucking stupid idea. Dulcy said she’d come over in her lunchbreak and Skye has been hassling all week with sad-faced emojis. Either would have distracted her for a while. They could both talk the leg off a chair. But then they would have demanded something in return. And she didn’t have it in her.
The silence becomes a bubble, giving her room to breathe.
‘I bring Petey here after school sometimes,’ she says finally, and scuffs her shoe again. ‘He loves the space. He runs around in circles mostly. Wears himself out before dinner.’
Isobel offers a small smile. ‘I used to do the same when I was a kid. At the beach.’
Of course she grew up near a beach.
‘In Altona.’ She sniffs. ‘My parents used to take us there on Sundays. It was my mother’s favourite spot. I’d run and run and run …’
‘You grew up in Altona?’
‘Mmm.’
Rosie nods once, trying to imagine the woman beside her wandering down Pier Street, casting an eye over the scuzzy two-dollar shops and charity stores. The willy-wagtail pecks near their feet.
‘I see him everywhere.’ Something softens inside her. ‘Thought I heard him down near the lake while I was waiting for you.’
Isobel puts a hand over Rosie’s. The warmth of it reaches a cold spot.
‘He’s missing’ cause of me.’ It comes out broken.
‘You said he was out of eyeshot for two minutes. That’s not exactly neglect.’
Rosie shakes her head, ignoring the damp streak on her cheek. ‘I was an addict … Heroin.’
Isobel’s hand tightens a little.
‘Didn’t even know I was pregnant till someone pointed it out.’ It sounds pathetic, echoing its way around the park. The willy-wagtail cocks its head at them.
She waits for Isobel to let go of her hand completely. It doesn’t happen.
‘Afterwards the doctor told me I could have killed him, withdrawing the way I did. I wanted to be clean. Didn’t want methadone.’
They watch the bird.
‘But you didn’t,’ Isobel says softly.
‘He’s really smart.’ She wipes her face with the back of her other hand. ‘He could count to two hundred by the time he was three.’
Petey singing out numbers, pants crumpled around his ankles as he holds on to the toddler toilet seat, shoots into her brain.
Isobel squeezes.
‘He’s different from other kids. He doesn’t know how to play with them.’
Isobel sighs. ‘I was the odd one out at school too. The other girls never let me forget it.’
It’s even harder to imagine Isobel not fitting in.
‘I hit him.’ Rosie winces, the fistful of Petey’s red jacket still fresh in her hand.
A jogger passes by, ponytail swinging.
‘And now he’s gone.’ She shudders.
Isobel moves closer. ‘My mother died …’
Rosie’s head jerks up, frightening the willy-wagtail away. ‘When?’
Is
obel examines the sky, the hazy stretch of cloud above. ‘Yesterday.’
Isobel
THE FINALITY OF IT HITS HOME with the impact of a runaway train. Her mother is dead. All those years she didn’t want her around, when she was just a phone call away or a trip across town; all that resentment. And now, just as Isobel realises how much she needs her, she’s never coming back. The shock of it cuts deep. She has to lean forward to stop herself moaning.
‘I’m really sorry.’ Rosie slips her hand away and places it on Isobel’s back, just between her shoulderblades.
It’s an odd gesture considering they don’t know each other. But it’s comforting too, more comforting than the awkward embrace Marcus offered beside the dinner table or Lachie’s sobs down the phone line.
For a moment, the park is haunted with their lost ones, Petey and the baby and her mother, flickering just out of sight.
‘She was ill for months.’
Isobel glances down at the rumpled shirt she threw on to come here. It’s satisfying, as if the pressure to be perfect is gone. All that primping and preening she does each morning in front of the mirror to keep up appearances are worth nothing now. Or further back, the hours spent trying to get rid of the kink in her hair, so it sat just right, like the other girls’. None of it matters. She wishes she hadn’t wasted so much time. She wishes she’d talked to her mother more.
‘Povo,’ Jennifer Mason whispered at her sometimes.
It was muttered when she aced exams or was presented with another award. In the end, Isobel duxed the school and got into law at Melbourne Uni. You couldn’t wipe the smile from her mother’s face, but by then Isobel didn’t care.
‘Well done, povo,’ Jennifer giggled on graduation night, as if it was a joke they shared.
Her mother heard it, standing at Isobel’s shoulder while Miss Timmons congratulated her after the ceremony.
‘Excuse me?’
Isobel forgot to let go of Miss Timmons’s hand at the sound of her mother’s voice.
‘What did you say?’
The chatter in the foyer of the Great Hall faded away. Finally, she let go of Miss Timmons and turned around to see her mother, towering in her strappy sandals, glaring at Jennifer.
‘Nothing, Mrs Taylor.’ Jennifer was the picture of innocence, all pressed pleats and shiny shoes. Even her school hat sloped at just the right angle.
‘Why don’t you say it so we can all hear?’ Her mother’s chest heaved.
A group of parents nearby glanced over; one cleared his throat.
Her mother’s lips pursed and Jennifer’s face lost its bravado. It was thrilling to see, as if her bullying was suddenly thrust under a spotlight.
Her mother stood, hands planted firmly on her hips, calling Jennifer to account.
Mrs Mason approached. ‘What’s going on?’ She put a manicured hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
Isobel soared, high above the hatted heads of the other girls, their teachers and parents as her mother shot a sassy smile at Mrs Mason, one of her best. In that instant, Isobel forgave her everything.
But Mrs Mason just issued a small wave in return, as if swatting a fly, and walked away with Jennifer in tow.
Isobel crashed back to earth. What was she thinking? Jennifer would never be held to account. Isobel was the problem. The academic accolades that meant so much to her mother were nothing to the other girls. It was the final humiliation.
The willy-wagtail flies down and hops back to the sleeper edging the playground.
‘I resented her for so long.’ Isobel covers her face. The force of her guilt is frightening.
She pictures her mother’s body laid out, barely making a dent in the bed. The coffee-coloured lipstick her father applied that made her look like a stranger. She would have hated it.
Fire-truck red was her colour. And it’s everywhere now, as if the world is shades of grey except for the Australia Post boxes on the street corner and her neighbour’s new Barina. Red is bold, the same way her mother was, determined to make a better life for her children whatever the cost. Isobel wore black, or beige at a push. Her mother, she realised, was braver.
‘Me too,’ Rosie snorts slightly.
Isobel exhales and leans back. ‘I didn’t tell her how much I loved her.’
A dog barks in the distance.
‘She would have known.’ Rosie puts a hand on hers this time. ‘Mums know stuff like that.’ And squeezes.
Suddenly, Isobel’s chest unlocks and the air rushes in.
Rosie
IT’S WEIRD SEEING VERA folding washing. But nice too, as if she’s finally cottoned on that’s what mums do.
She takes her time though, laying each crumpled garment on the lounge room floor before folding it in half and half again. The jeans and trackpants are easy. It’s more complicated when she gets to the socks and Rosie has to show her how to ball them together.
The concentration it takes creases Vera’s brow and makes the pockets of skin under her eyes puff out like miniature shopping bags. She smells like a passionfruit UDL.
It’s amazing how many clothes there are to wash. ‘Scattered from arsehole to breakfast time,’ Vera said when she walked in that morning. A mystery really.
No matter how hard Rosie tries she can’t remember why her singlet is tangled in the antennae on the telly or how her jeans ended up by the stove. Most days she can’t think past breakfast, and that’s when she’s remembered to eat at all.
‘Not those,’ she says before Vera picks Petey’s flannel jamies off the couch. She folded them herself, the same way she does before he has his shower each night. They’re covered in skateboards. One hundred and five of them, Petey once told her.
The plastic bracelets on Vera’s arm clatter as she withdraws her hand. She’s trying, that’s good, but it’s done with a dramatic flair that makes Rosie uneasy.
‘Look at this mess, look at this mess,’ she repeats in a faux Italian accent as she puts dishes in the sink or piles clothes in the laundry basket.
Petey’s pyjamas are not part of the show. They still hold the soapy smell of him. She can still see the shape of his body in them, the soft slope of his shoulders, which are getting so broad, and the skin on his belly. He’ll be a good-looking man one day, she reckons, and not just because she’s his mum.
It scares her sometimes, the thought of him growing into a man, like the creeps who belittled her in their cars at night. But Petey’s different. She holds onto that. And now, seeing him grow is the only thing she wants.
‘I could pop ’em under his pillow.’
‘No.’ She snatches them up, lowering them again when Vera huffs and walks away, bottom squashed square in her too-tight jeans.
Vera insisted on helping out until Rosie didn’t have the energy to make excuses anymore.
When she arrived earlier, Maureen in tow, Rosie let them in then collapsed on the couch to watch the show. They were a couple of old chooks, decked out in showy pink aprons. They flapped their arms and pecked at random objects around the room until she gave them something useful to do. In the end, it was nice. Their pointless chatter and stupid outfits distracted her for a while.
Maureen made her a cup of tea before she left and gave her a hug that made Rosie’s eyes shine. ‘You’ll get him back, love,’ she murmured in her ear. It was easy to believe, in the frilly scent of her arms. Maureen smelt of her childhood, the good bits.
‘Christ, let up,’ Vera cried from the sidelines before shuffling Maureen quickly out the door.
Vera loves a bit of drama and Rosie can’t shift the feeling she’s revel-ling in her new-found fame. The Chinese woman at the milk bar gave her a discount on her ciggies yesterday and Janice from bingo is baking her a cake. She never made a fuss of Petey before, but now she sighs whenever his name is mentioned.
When Rosie comes back from the toilet, Vera’s sweeping the Lego into an ice-cream container. She hums and the light from the window picks up the purple tints in her hair.
/> ‘Leave that too.’
Vera blinks. ‘I’m just trying to help.’
Rosie gets the guilts.
‘You never were very thankful.’
The feeling leaves as quickly as it came. She goes to the fridge for a glass of milk. There isn’t any.
Vera puffs as she gets up from her knees, stepping on a car Petey built. It breaks in two.
Rosie rushes to rescue it, taking the pieces lightly in her hand.
‘I tried, ya know.’ Vera tugs at her pink apron.
Rosie rolls her eyes then attempts to piece the car back together.
‘Gave you a roof over your head and food on the table.’ Her neck grows mottled but Rosie won’t bite. It’s too exhausting. Fights with Vera always end in tears.
‘I even sent you to Sydney on that school trip.’ Her chin juts out. ‘Remember?’
‘Maureen paid.’ Rosie clicks the block into place.
Vera frowns then looks hurt. ‘Well … it didn’t do you much good.’
Rosie steels herself and the Lego car snaps again. Her hands grow clammy as she pictures Petey’s little fingers putting it back together, the concentration on his face. A hole opens up and Vera’s words find their target.
She folds the car into her palm. ‘I might have turned out different if you’d given half a shit.’
Her life rolls out like a carpet, a line stretching from her shitty childhood to Joel to drugs to Petey and now his disappearance. It starts with Vera. Vera sitting on some greasy-haired bloke’s knee while Rosie eats cold baked beans from a tin for dinner. Vera telling her she’d better be in bed when she gets home from the pub. The line is long and tatty, and then she sees red.
‘Half the time you didn’t even know where I was.’ The Lego slices into her fingers.
Vera’s hands hang pathetically at her sides. ‘Where’s Petey?’
The Lego loses its pinch. She examines Vera’s face, ruddy with something that might be hurt, but could be triumph too.
‘Don’t,’ Rosie hisses.
But Vera just raises a pencilled eyebrow.
Pain rushes into Rosie’s palm, deep and sharp. She deserves it.