Mothers and Daughters

by Kylie Ladd

  ‘Just once, though it would have been different. Every funeral song is. The Aborigines sing the sacred names of the dead person’s waterhole and country, so their spirit will be enticed there.’ Amira hugged herself as if she was cold. ‘I did some reading about it after I heard it the first time. It scared me a bit, I have to say. It sounded so eerie. The song gets right inside you, like the wind. But it’s beautiful too, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ Macy said. ‘I’d love my friend Micah to hear it. I wonder if we could do something like that together?’

  Amira shook her head. ‘You can’t. It’s not yours; it belongs to them. Anyone who hears it today and knows the person who has died will join in. It might go for hours—for days, sometimes.’

  The song wound between them, a wail, a chant, insinuating itself under their skin. Bronte closed her eyes and gave herself up to it, felt it vibrate in her bones. She wondered if they could hear it back at Kalangalla. Her mum was really going to hate that.

  ‘Right, who’s next?’ Janey’s eyes narrowed, peering around for her next target. ‘Macy,’ she pronounced. ‘You haven’t had a go yet. Truth or dare?’

  Macy had her earbuds in and lay, oblivious, on her towel with her eyes closed behind her sunglasses. Tess had been surprised when she’d joined them for their late afternoon swim—you never usually saw goths at the beach—but Macy had pulled off her long, shapeless dress to reveal a tiny bikini, and gone straight in. It was black, of course. Black hair, black nails, black bathers. You had to admire that degree of dedication.

  ‘I don’t think she can hear you,’ Bronte said unnecessarily, her own skin covered by a sarong and a cotton shirt with the collar up and sleeves buttoned to her wrists.

  ‘Duh,’ Janey replied, then leaned across the sand and pulled out the nearest earbud.

  The older girl’s eyes shot open.

  ‘Fuck, Janey, I was listening to that.’

  ‘Truth or dare?’ Janey repeated, then, as Macy snatched the earbud back, quickly said, ‘Truth, then. How old were you when you first had sex?’

  ‘Janey!’ Bronte exclaimed.

  Macy rolled onto her stomach, turning her head away from them. ‘As if I’m going to tell you. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘It’s a game.’ Janey pouted. ‘I’d tell you.’

  You mean you’d make it up, Tess thought, but didn’t have the guts to say the words out loud. Instead she caught Bronte’s eye and raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Hah.’ Macy jeered. ‘Because you’re soooo experienced, right? Like with the wine last night at dinner.’

  Janey coloured. ‘I’ve had boyfriends. Plenty of them.’

  ‘Macy, do you want me to put some sunscreen on your back?’ Bronte interjected. ‘You can still get burnt, even at this time of day.’

  ‘Nah. I’ll put my clothes on in a minute,’ Macy said. ‘I’m just enjoying the warmth. It still felt like winter in Melbourne when I left. God, it’s amazing here.’

  Tess smiled to herself and picked up The Bell Jar. It was. She loved this time of day almost as much as she loved the clear, still mornings; loved how the sun turned the water golden as it sank in the sky, loved the cicadas warming up and the cool caress of the first evening breezes.

  ‘You lot are so boring,’ Janey complained. ‘Worrying about sunscreen. Reading books.’ She glared at Tess. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t bring your knitting with you—or maybe we should have a nice game of bingo. It’s all so lame. What happened to Truth or Dare?’

  ‘Fine,’ Macy said, raising her head. ‘I’ve got a dare for you, Janey: a skinny dip. In the lagoon.’

  ‘Now?’ asked Janey. ‘It’s broad daylight.’

  ‘Hey, you wanted to play,’ Macy said. ‘Are you chicken?’ She started making clucking noises at the back of her throat. ‘Burk, burk, burk burk.’

  Tess couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

  ‘I’m not chicken!’ Janey protested. ‘But I’m not doing it by myself. You’d probably all run off with my clothes or something. I’m only doing it if everyone does . . . but I bet you’re all too gutless.’

  Tess swallowed. She’d swum once or twice at night without her clothes, but only when there was no moon and she was certain she wouldn’t get caught.

  ‘No way,’ said Bronte. ‘I can’t even bear to look at myself naked. You’d all just laugh.’

  Macy stood up. ‘I will,’ she said, hooking her thumbs through the sides of her bikini bottoms and pulling them down, then undoing the top. Both pieces fell to the sand, and she casually stepped out of them, completely unselfconscious. ‘Bronte, you’re mad,’ she said, but not unkindly. ‘You’ve got a fabulous body. The best of all of us.’ Then she turned and started walking towards the sea, her petite pale buttocks rising and falling with each step.

  ‘Wow,’ breathed Bronte. ‘Did you see?’

  Tess nodded. Not only was Macy’s navel pierced, as they’d already noticed, but both her nipples were too—a small silver ring through one, two diamante studs adorning the other. ‘That’s gotta hurt,’ she said. ‘I wonder if her mum knows? Or Morag?’

  ‘As if,’ Janey snapped. ‘God, what a show-off. She only suggested that dare so we’d have to look at her. She’s such a fake.’

  ‘The dare was for you,’ Tess said. ‘You were the one that said we all had to do it—and I notice you’ve still got your bathers on. If anyone’s a fake it’s you.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them; grew wings and flew away across the turquoise lagoon, where Macy was paddling in the shallows.

  Janey swung around, face red. ‘You bitch! You total bitch. It’s not like you were ever going to get your gear off either, you’re so bloody uptight. And you.’ She turned to Bronte. ‘Macy needs a guide dog. Fabulous body, my arse. You should be in a fucking circus.’ She jumped up and started sprinting up the beach, towards the community, then spun around and yelled, ‘Don’t you go anywhere! We haven’t finished this game yet. I’m coming back.’

  Bronte made a small strangled sound. Tess put a hand on her arm. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, then realised that Bronte was laughing, not crying.

  ‘Oh, the look on her face when you said she was a fake. I thought she was going to explode!’ Bronte giggled. ‘And when Macy took off her bathers! Janey knew she’d been outplayed. It was beautiful. It was worth coming on this trip just for that.’

  Tess grinned. It had been funny, though she couldn’t say why. She’d just insulted her best friend—she should be feeling remorse, not this soaring elation, this adrenalin. ‘I think I need a swim after that,’ she said. ‘Shall we join Macy?’

  ‘That was sick,’ Macy said as the three of them walked back to their towels. ‘The water’s so warm it’s almost like having a bath. I could stay in there all day. I might tomorrow.’ She paused to squeeze the moisture from her hair, silver droplets running down her wrists. ‘Though maybe I’ll wear bathers. Don’t want to give Morag a heart attack—or have her telling Dad on me.’

  ‘Do you think she would?’ Tess asked, glancing again at Macy’s nipples. It was hard not to look at them, the two diamantes flashing in the sun.

  Macy shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. It would depend on how much I’d pissed her off at the time.’ She retrieved her dress and pulled it over her head, extinguishing the tiny lights on her chest.

  Tess lay down on her towel without drying herself. There was no point. It was almost five, but the air was still balmy; would be for another few hours.

  Bronte reached for her shirt. ‘Where do you think Janey went? To check on her mum?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Tess said. ‘That would involve having to think about someone other than herself.’ It was addictive, this criticism, these gloriously subversive thoughts. Now that she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop.

  ‘You can ask her,’ Macy said. She settled herself on her towel. ‘Here she comes now.’

  Tess looked up. Sure enough, there was Janey flying towards them, her feet skimm
ing the sand, a piece of paper clutched in one fist. She pulled up, panting, in front of them, tiny beads of sweat on her upper lip, blue eyes malicious as she looked at Tess.

  ‘Right, Tess, your turn,’ she said. ‘Truth or dare? Actually, I think we’ll go with truth. Who’s your secret love in Melbourne?’

  ‘I-I don’t have one,’ Tess stammered. She didn’t feel so brave all of a sudden.

  Janey tutted. ‘You’re not telling the truth, Tess, and so you’ll have to be punished.’ She unfolded the sheet of paper and in a loud voice began to read. ‘That’s pretty much all the news. Nothing has really changed here, I just wanted to see how you are and to say that I still think about the year seven—’

  ‘Janey!’ Tess yelped. It had taken her a moment to work out what was going on, but now she lunged for Callum’s letter, trying to yank it from Janey’s grasp. Janey held on tightly though, and the letter tore apart, leaving the bottom third of the page still in her hands. ‘Janey,’ Tess cried again. ‘How could you? Where did you find it?’

  ‘Under your mattress, Einstein,’ Janey said coolly. ‘Dumb choice. It’s the first place anyone ever looks.’

  Tess gazed down at the letter, its serrated edges fluttering in the evening air. Ruined. It was ruined, and she could never get it back. A sob rose in her throat. She wanted to kill Janey. She wanted her mother. As the tears began to fall she got up and ran for home.

  Dinner had been finished for half an hour, but still their plates sat in front of them, fish bones gleaming with grease, scraps of salad wilting in puddles of oil. No one could be bothered clearing the table. Usually darkness brought a release from the heat, but tonight it only seemed to have increased, the humid air cloaking them in a stifling embrace. Morag wiped a bead of sweat from her temple. They had eaten outside, and the evening sky seemed lower somehow, closer to them. Something was brewing.

  ‘The girls were quiet,’ Caro ventured.

  Fiona reached for the bottle of wine. ‘Quiet? They didn’t say boo—just ate and then pissed off again.’ She filled her glass. ‘At least it was a nice change from having them chucking up in the bushes.’

  Caro flushed. ‘I think Janey had sunstroke last night. She never wears a hat. Wants her hair to go blonder.’

  ‘How’s your arm?’ Morag asked before Fiona could respond.

  Caro held it up. The welts had gone down somewhat but were still visible in the light from the candles placed along the table.

  ‘It’s not throbbing anymore,’ she said. ‘Still hurts if I brush it against anything though. I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep tonight.’

  ‘Alcohol,’ Fiona said. She lifted the bottle again and proffered it to Caro. ‘Best painkiller I know.’

  Morag expected her friend to decline—she’d already had a few over dinner—but Caro pushed her glass towards Fiona.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said. ‘God, what a day. The sting, that weird humming, the girls . . . What should we do about them? Should I go and talk to Janey? I hope nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘Too bad if it is,’ said Fiona. ‘Bugger them! They’re not babies anymore. They can work it out themselves.’

  ‘They’re probably just tired,’ Amira said. ‘It takes a while to get used to the heat, and they had a long day yesterday. I’m sure they’ll be fine in the morning.’

  ‘But Tess is used to the heat,’ Caro persisted, ‘and she was the quietest of them all. I don’t think she said a single word.’

  Morag felt her shoulders tighten. ‘I bet it’s because of Macy,’ she said. Two ants were scurrying across the tablecloth in front of her, carrying crumbs of bread. She flicked one off, then pressed her index finger down on the second. ‘Having her here has probably altered things between the others. I could kill Andrew. I’m never going to sleep with him again after this stunt.’

  ‘What? You still do?’ asked Fiona.

  Amira giggled, then glanced guiltily at Morag. ‘Don’t judge everyone by your standards, Fiona.’

  Fiona sat back in her seat and fanned herself with a serviette. ‘I just think sex should be optional after five years of marriage. You’ve done it all by then, anyway. It’s just another chore, like emptying the dishwasher.’

  Caro lifted her glass to her mouth. ‘What about if you’re trying to conceive?’

  ‘Pffft,’ Fiona said, waving her hand. ‘Fine. Go for it. But you should probably try and have kids in the first five years too, while you still like each other. Better chance your partner will actually change a nappy if he’s trying to score points with you.’ She paused, drank, swallowed. ‘Not that it actually worked like that with Todd, but still. He’s different.’

  Morag regarded her across the table. Fiona was still pink from her first day’s sunburn, and there were deep lines etched in her cleavage. ‘So no sex then, right? And Todd’s OK about that?’

  ‘Oh, he gets his leg over occasionally, when I can’t bear the nagging anymore or I don’t have the energy to keep avoiding it.’ Fiona spoke breezily, but her face had hardened. ‘That’s what frustrates me. When he doesn’t get any, it’s my fault. It’s because I’m frigid, or a bitch, or he thinks I’m punishing him for something, for not washing up or for forgetting my birthday or whatever. He doesn’t think for a moment that maybe it’s because of him . . . that I’m not interested not because I’m sulking or trying to teach him a lesson, train him to do better, like a performing seal, but because there’s nothing there that would make me want to sleep with him—no warmth, no consideration, just his fucking boner prodding me in the thigh.’ She stopped and peered around at them. ‘Shit, that’s a bit deep for me, isn’t it? He does have a nice cock though, I’ll give him that. It’s a bit of a waste, really. A nice cock, attached to a great big dick.’

  Morag sputtered with laughter. She couldn’t help it. She had been thinking she should clear the table, but now she settled back in her seat, her own anger towards Andrew fading.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Amira said. ‘About it being your fault, that is, not the part about the dick. It’s been ages since I’ve seen one of those. Here, give me some of that wine.’

  ‘None left,’ Fiona said. ‘Please tell me someone has some more in their room.’

  ‘I do,’ said Caro, rising from her seat. ‘I’ll get it. It will give me a chance to check on Janey.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have let her go,’ Fiona hissed at Amira as soon as Caro had left. ‘She’ll just meddle, make things worse.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have let her go? What about you? And as if anyone can stop Caro when her mind’s made up. She’s as difficult to control as you.’

  Morag thought Fiona might argue, but she just stuck out her tongue. ‘You’ve missed us,’ she said.

  ‘I have,’ Amira admitted.

  Caro soon returned, triumphantly brandishing a green bottle with an orange label. ‘No wine, but I’ve got this. Champagne!’

  ‘Veuve,’ observed Morag. ‘Fantastic—but are you sure? That stuff ’s not cheap.’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Caro, peeling back the foil. ‘I brought it to share.’

  ‘Now I feel dreadful about all the terrible things we were saying about you while you were gone,’ Fiona said, pushing her glass towards Caro. ‘How’s Janey?’

  ‘Fast asleep. Or pretending to be. I turned on the light and rattled around but she didn’t stir.’ Caro carefully unscrewed the wire over the cork. ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ll find out tomorrow. Oh God, this feels lovely and cold. I bought it for our final night here together, but this is close enough. I know how you love it, Amira, and you probably haven’t had much lately.’

  ‘Are we still talking about champagne?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘Thanks, Caro,’ said Amira. She sounded touched. ‘That was really sweet of you—to remember, and to think of it.’

  Caro angled the bottle away from her and closed her eyes. There was a loud pop and the cork flew off into the night, startling a bat that swooped briefly over their table.

&nb
sp; Amira cheered, then held up her glass for Caro to fill.

  ‘To us,’ she toasted.

  ‘To us,’ Morag echoed.

  ‘To great big dicks!’ proclaimed Fiona.

  ‘So what were you going to say, Amira?’ Caro asked. ‘Earlier, when Fiona was talking about Todd.’ She hesitated, cheeks dusky. ‘It’s none of my business, I know, but it sounded interesting, and we’re all friends here . . .’

  Her voice trailed off.

  Morag took a sip of her champagne and felt herself unwind. Bubbles danced along her tongue; the liquid was tart and cool in her throat. She exhaled. Maybe Macy was causing waves—but Macy wasn’t there right now. She didn’t have to think about her. She could just enjoy the night.

  Amira set her own glass down.

  ‘I just wanted to say that I agreed with Fiona—that it happened to me too, with Davis. The first year we were together I’d sometimes make the big effort: stockings, suspenders, push-up bra, you name it, then I’d surprise him at the door.’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Suspenders! I hate those things. They’re so difficult to do up at the back, and a tight band of elastic around thighs like mine isn’t the greatest look anyway . . . but I thought it was what you did. I thought it was what I should do, that it would keep the marriage ticking over, that it made me a good wife. But I was so busy being a good wife and manoeuvring myself into suspenders that it took me a while to realise that he wasn’t making any sort of equivalent effort himself, that he wasn’t being a good husband. Then when I stopped bothering with all that stuff he accused me of losing interest—he never seemed to realise that it was a two-way street, that you both do the work.’ Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight. ‘I think in the end I used the suspenders to stake the roses along the front fence. Possibly the stockings too. At least they achieved something there.’

  A drop of condensation ran down the neck of the champagne bottle. Caro leaned across and wiped it away with one finger, her nail polish, Morag noticed, still intact. ‘I know you don’t miss Davis, but do you miss sex?’ Morag asked.