by Kylie Ladd
Molly pushed it away and pursed her lips. ‘No!’ she cried. They sat for a minute regarding each other. ‘Me have spoon please, Daddy?’ she asked again, reaching for it.
Hamish sighed and handed it over. At twenty months she was old enough to be feeding herself, and at least she’d used her manners. His mobile rang in his jacket pocket, and he got up and went into the hallway to retrieve it. Ria’s number flashed on the screen.
‘I’m so nervous,’ she said, without greeting him. ‘How are you? Tell me that you’re relaxed and confident, that it’s in the bag.’
‘I’m relaxed and confident. It’s in the bag. But, uh, we may be a little late. Skye’s only just having a shower.’
‘HAMISH!’ Ria shrieked. ‘Don’t do this to me! I need you there. You have to charm them so I can win them over with the figures later.’
‘You can charm them yourself. You’re full of charm. You are charm personified. Besides,’ he added, ‘surely Darren can hold the fort until I get there? I’m sure he has lots of very interesting things to say about golf.’
‘Ha ha,’ Ria retorted. ‘You’re so mean about my boyfriend that anyone would think you were jealous.’
‘I was being serious!’ Hamish protested, smiling. He was glad Ria couldn’t see his face. ‘Darren is a very interesting man. Especially about golf. I’m sure he knows a lot about other subjects too.’
‘You just get there as quickly as you can,’ said Ria. ‘The first bottle I order is going on your expense account, and it’s going to be a good one. Darren loves Moët. The vintage sort.’
Hamish went back to the kitchen still smiling, though not for long.
‘I finished, Daddy!’ called Molly, proudly showing him her empty bowl. Unfortunately, she hadn’t eaten it, just emptied the contents onto the floor. Spaghetti sauce was smeared across her face and through her hair; limp noodles dangled from one clenched fist.
‘Oh Molly,’ he said, automatically glancing at the clock on the oven. Ten minutes until Nell arrived and they had to leave. There wasn’t time to give Molly a bath. Hamish moved to scoop her up, then thought better of it and took off his shirt. As he lifted her out of the highchair more pasta fell from her lap and onto his shoes. He kicked it off and stepped around it, holding Molly in front of him at arm’s length so as not to get any sauce on his trousers. Nell would have to clean it up.
Luckily Skye was still in the shower. ‘Are you nearly done?’ he asked, barging into their ensuite. ‘I need to put Molly in. She’s made a mess.’
Skye was rinsing her hair and looked up in surprise, then pushed open the door. ‘Give her to me,’ she said. ‘I’m already wet. You go get her towel and her jammies, then make up her bottle.’
Hamish handed Molly over in relief. She was still fully clothed, and he watched as Skye set the girl between her legs, then bent over to pull off her dress and her nappy. Molly gurgled happily and reached for Hamish’s razor on the floor of the shower.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ said Skye, plucking it from her grasp and handing it, with the clothes, out to Hamish. She pulled the door shut again and reached for a face washer. Water ran down her breasts and across her belly; silvered her thighs and pooled in her navel. Hamish felt a sudden sharp stab of desire. Skye’s C-section scar was just barely visible, pink and vulnerable above the golden-brown hair between her legs. How long had it been since they’d last made love? Weeks, he thought, maybe even a month. Skye was always tired; she turned away from him when he reached for her in bed. That was normal, he reassured himself. Everyone said that it happened after kids, and to be honest there were a lot of nights like this one, when they were both tired and a bit pissed off . . .
‘Go on,’ Skye said as she finished washing Molly. ‘I thought you were worried that we were going to be late.’
By the time the entree plates were cleared, Hamish had relaxed. Ria had been charming, as predicted; the food and wine were excellent; the two potential investors were nodding and laughing, and one had taken a distinct shine to Skye. She hadn’t said much, but that was appropriate—he and Ria needed to do most of the talking, and Darren had also been suitably mute. Skye looked gorgeous, and that was the main thing. As she got up from the table to go to the bathroom Hamish watched her with a warm glow of champagne and impending success, and thought how motherhood had improved her body, had smudged its edges. Her gymnast’s muscles had been impressive, but he liked her this way: softer, rounder. Less intimidating, somehow.
When the main course arrived, however, she still hadn’t returned. Hamish picked up his cutlery without noticing, caught up in his conversation with the middle-aged man across the table from him. It was Ria who leaned over and asked if they should wait, indicating Skye’s empty chair. He glanced at it, surprised. Skye had got up—what, ten, fifteen minutes ago? She should be back by now. Hamish hoped she wasn’t sick.
‘No start, start,’ he’d urged the table, cutting into his own meat to set an example. ‘Skye won’t be long.’
Ria dutifully picked up her fork, then put it down. ‘I’ll just check, shall I?’ she said brightly, rising from her seat. ‘You continue.’
She was back only moments later, Skye trailing behind her, pushing something into her handbag. ‘Sorry,’ Skye whispered as she sat down beside him, then turned to Darren and made a great show of asking him what his handicap was. Three seats away, Ria raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow at Hamish, then gaily invited their guests to choose the next bottle of wine.
It had been a clever gambit, Hamish thought as he studied the bill two hours later, but an expensive one. Ria was seeing their guests off in a taxi while Skye and Darren waited for the next one in the foyer, no longer chatting. He called Ria over as soon as she came back into the restaurant.
‘I can’t put all of this on my card,’ he hissed. ‘It’s too much—accounts will have a fit. Can we use yours as well?’
‘Sure,’ Ria said, extracting it from her purse. She looked over his shoulder and gave a low whistle. ‘Shit, no wonder that red went down so well. Two hundred and eighty dollars! They clearly think we’re people who can deliver.’
‘Or whom they can milk dry and then decline,’ said Hamish grimly. ‘God, they really better enter the hedge fund now.’
‘They will,’ she soothed. ‘You were great. We were great.’
Hamish signed the credit card slip and put down the pen. ‘We were. Thank you. You’re good to work with, Ria. And thanks for rounding Skye up too. What was she doing?’
‘Drawing,’ Ria said. Hamish looked up, not understanding. ‘Drawing,’ she repeated. ‘Sketching, on some toilet paper. She was leaning on the bench in the ladies room, and all these other women were trying to do their lipstick or check their hair around her, and she was drawing.’
‘Ria!’ Darren shouted from near the door. ‘Taxi’s here. Let’s go. I’ve got to be up early tomorrow morning.’
‘He tees off at six,’ Ria sighed, pulling her coat around her.
‘Good luck with that,’ said Hamish.
‘And you,’ said Ria, as she walked away. ‘And you.’
Their own cab took a further five minutes to arrive. Once they were safely inside, headed towards home, Hamish took Skye’s hand. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know these dinners are pretty boring, but I need you there. You can’t just disappear. It looks bad; it embarrasses me. I had to send Ria to find you.’
Skye barely appeared to hear him. She had her bag open on her lap and was rummaging through it. ‘I had this incredible idea for the sculpture,’ she said, head down, hands sifting. ‘The commission. In the park. I’d been thinking it should have something to do with mothers and children, because that’s who’s always there—maybe a woman pushing her child on a swing? But that’s too predictable—and at the table it suddenly occurred to me.’ She looked up triumphantly, clutching a handful of toilet paper. ‘A reunion. Like Molly and me when she’s been at creche—how happy she is to see me, how happy I am to see her.’ She unfurled the paper
across them both and Hamish flinched, shrinking back. He hoped it was clean. ‘Like this,’ Skye said, grasping the middle section and holding it up. ‘Their arms outstretched; their hands meeting—like an O, a circle, something without gaps. Finished. Complete.’
Hamish made an effort, but in the darkness he couldn’t see anything clearly, just some squiggles on a loo roll. He suddenly felt terribly sad. It was the adrenalin draining away, he told himself, the wine catching up with him, the shock of the bill. God, he hoped those guys signed.
The taxi pulled up outside their house and Skye went ahead while he paid the driver. When he followed her in he thought she’d be checking on Molly or removing her make-up, but instead she was changing—pulling off her evening dress, reaching for a tracksuit and her smock.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. ‘It’s after one.’
‘Going to the studio,’ Skye replied. ‘I have to get this down while it’s still fresh.’
30
Three years. Three years since Ben had left, thought Mary, gazing across the top paddock. The air shimmered and shifted with heat haze; cattle twitched unhappily under the only tree, their tails flicking in one another’s faces. By the late afternoon the dam would be shaded, and they would move down there, but for now they were marooned just like her, prisoners of the long summer hours. Mary shifted in her seat, sweat prickling behind her knees. That day three years ago had been just like this one—hot, with no promise of respite. The dam was down that year, and they’d had to pump water into it from a neighbour’s property to keep the cows alive. She could remember that clearly, but the events of that night were almost unbearable to recall: Ben arriving a stranger, his face distorted by rage; Kirra picking pottery shards out of the carpet, tears streaming down her face.
Mary’s pulse accelerated and her chest tightened painfully. Deep breaths, she told herself. Think about something else. The loss of Ben was still too enormous to endure; she didn’t dare look it straight in the eye. Usually she could control the pain by simply turning off, by sitting and staring out at the land until the world fell away, but today something was different. She had woken that morning knowing immediately that it was the anniversary, and all day her thoughts had been as skittish and unmanageable as startled pigeons. She made another attempt to gather them, to subdue them, fixing her eyes on a fence line in the distance. For a moment she felt her mind relax, grow hazy, but then a car roared past and the spell was broken. A blue ute, she thought with a sudden jolt of hope, just like Ben’s. But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Ben had no need of a ute in the city. He’d have traded it in by now, bought something smaller, more practical.
Mary got to her feet. This was hopeless, useless. Maybe, for once, what she needed to do was keep busy. She looked around the room, searching for inspiration. Frank had vacuumed yesterday, so there was no point cleaning again. She could start dinner, but the thought of cooking in this heat was intolerable, and she was never hungry anyway. Her gaze lit upon some Christmas cards tucked into the blind above the sink. Christmas. That’s right. It had been almost Christmas when she’d last seen Ben. There had been a tree in the corner of the room. She remembered, because its baubles had shook when he slammed the door. Had they put the tree up last year? She didn’t think so, though maybe Frank had for Kirra’s sake. At the thought of her daughter, Mary felt a stab of guilt. Last year she’d at least bought some presents for her. This year she had done nothing.
As soon as Mary pushed open Kirra’s door, Spud jumped up from his place in the kitchen. Since the time he’d chewed some of her shoes as a puppy, Kirra had taken to closing her door while she was at school; Mary made a half-hearted attempt to shoo the dog away but then gave up. She would only be a few minutes, just long enough to look around and see what Kirra might need or like for Christmas. Mary glanced around the room. It was tidy, as she’d expected, but the posters on the wall had changed, and she didn’t recognise the new pair of boots in the corner. Spud leapt up onto the bed and settled himself against one of the pillows. Mary was too shaken to haul him off. How long had it been since she was last in here? She used to come and go from this room as if it were her own—folding washing, making the bed, giving in to her small daughter’s pleas for one last kiss before she went to sleep. Kirra made her own bed now, of course, but the goodnight kisses—who had stopped those? Mary couldn’t remember. Everything was grey.
She turned to the wardrobe, festooned with posters of surfers and rock bands where once there had been gymnastics certificates and pictures of ponies. Bathers, she thought. She’d get Kirra some bathers—she was always in the pool or at training. But what size was she now? To find out, Mary pulled open Kirra’s drawers until she came across the right one, a pile of swimming costumes tangled with goggles and caps. As she reached for a purple pair, her fingers brushed against a bundle of paper. Without thinking, Mary pushed aside the bathers to see what it was. Letters, it looked like, tied together with a green hair ribbon. She recognised the ribbon as one Kirra had worn to school when she was in grade three; it had bounced in her curls as she swung on the gate each night waiting for Ben to come home.
Ben. The letters were from Ben. Mary knew the handwriting on the envelopes even before she opened the top one and yanked out its contents. His sweet slanted script spilled down the pages she held in her trembling hand; he asked after Mary and signed off All my love. Her eyes flicked to the top right-hand corner of the first sheet. The letter was dated two weeks ago. Sorry to hear you haven’t been able to get onto email at school, it began. You should have kept up that IT class! She pawed her way back through the pile. Seven fat missives, the first dating from January 2011, less than a month after he had driven to Tatong to confront her. Mary’s mind raced. Letters, and emails too? All this time Kirra had been in contact with Ben, and she’d never once said a word.
Spud jumped off the bed and ran from the room as quickly as his stubby legs could carry him, his tail beating frantically with joy. ‘Hello, boy,’ Mary heard Kirra greet him. ‘Where have you been?’
Mary tried to push the letters back into their paper shrouds, but her fingers felt glued together, clumsy with shock.
‘Mum?’ Kirra was standing in the doorway, schoolbag still over one shoulder. ‘What are you doing?’
Mary turned her back towards Kirra, quickly shoving the letters into the drawer and tucking the purple bathers around them. ‘You’re home early,’ she said, trying to sound unconcerned.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Kirra, stepping towards her. ‘It’s just that I don’t have training tonight.’
Mary eased the drawer shut, but it was too late.
‘Mum, what are you doing?’ Kirra asked again, more urgently this time. She pushed past Mary and yanked the drawer open, then turned on her furiously. ‘You’ve been snooping! I can’t believe it. You’re never interested, you never ask me how I am, but then when I’m at school you come into my room and go through my things.’
‘I wasn’t!’ Mary said, stung. ‘I came in to see what size bathers you wore, so I could get you some for Christmas.’
‘You should already know!’ Kirra screamed. Behind her, Spud’s tail stopped wagging. ‘I’m your daughter, aren’t I? Remember that? And if you did, you’d also know that I don’t need any more bathers. Dad got me some a few weeks ago.’ She stormed towards Mary, eyes wet. ‘But you don’t know, do you? Or you don’t care. You just sit on that couch, staring into space. Dad and I might as well be invisible for all the notice you take of us.’
‘And if you cared you would have told me that you’d heard from Ben!’ Mary’s voice was shaking, her heart a bird in her throat. ‘Years I’ve worried about him, you know I have. Years! I wasn’t even sure if he was alive.’
‘Oh, he’s alive,’ Kirra said, her tone hard and hateful. ‘I’ve seen him twice, in Melbourne.’ She paused to enjoy the shock on Mary’s face. ‘You didn’t know that either, did you? And I didn’t tell you, because he made me promise not to. Why should I lie to hi
m? You’ve already done enough of that.’
Mary raised her hand and slapped Kirra across the face. The sound crackled in the hot air, sent Spud diving under the bed. Kirra put her fingers to her cheek, her mouth an O of surprise. When she spoke her words were so quiet that Mary had to strain to hear them.
‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to lose him, don’t you see that? Especially seeing as I’d already lost you.’ She snatched up the purple bathers from the drawer and ran from the room. Mary heard her sobs fading as Kirra slammed the front door behind her.
There was no point going after her, she told herself. Kirra was angry; she needed time to calm down, but she’d be back. She was still only fifteen, after all. Where was she going to go? Yet as the shadows lengthened across the paddocks and the cows moved from under the tree to drink at the dam she grew worried. Should she tell Frank? But he was working and she didn’t want to bother him; didn’t, if she was honest, want him to know what had happened. Her palm throbbed. She’d never so much as spanked Kirra before. And how could she blame the girl, if Ben had made her promise? She’d have given her word too. She would promise anything to have things back the way they’d been.
An hour later Mary could bear it no longer. She’d checked all around the property, even in Kirra’s old cubby; she’d rung one of her daughter’s school friends to ask if Kirra was there. She wasn’t, and the conversation had been awkward, strained, Gabrielle’s disapproving silence hanging heavy on the line. At five o’clock Mary snatched up the car keys. She hadn’t driven for almost a year; it was possible her licence had lapsed, but that didn’t matter—all that mattered was finding Kirra and apologising to her, bringing her home.
She was out of the driveway and onto the road to Benalla before she even realised that she knew where she was heading. It was a long way to cycle, but Kirra was fit. She’d done it before. When she got there Mary parked the car and hurried through the entrance, ignoring the woman behind the desk who called out to her that she had to pay. For a second Mary thought the pool was empty and her breath caught, but then Kirra emerged from a tumble turn, her brown arms slicing through the water. Mary sat down in the stands, watching as her daughter stroked through a length, turned, and began another. She would wait until Kirra was finished. She would wait all night if she had to.