Ali clenched her jaw against the sudden rush of emotion. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’
‘I was scared of slipping up,’ Hazel said. ‘Almost did a few times. But I’ve been going to AA. I’ve got a sponsor who’s helped me get through it. I even got a job at the Foodland near me. But I knew I had to get better so I could help you.’
Ali’s head was still thick with alcohol, but she was lucid enough to know that she didn’t want her mother’s help now. The betrayal was still there, deep inside her. Hazel should have been there when she was mourning her father. She should have been there when she was trying to get through year twelve. She should have been there when she’d married Tom, when she’d had trouble falling pregnant and then staying pregnant. She should have been there when Ali lost her own child. But she wasn’t. And now Ali didn’t need her.
‘I know you don’t trust me,’ Hazel went on. ‘But I’m going to help you get through this.’
Ali fixed her mother with an angry glare. ‘You’re right, Hazel. We are different. You had a daughter to look after. I was a child, for god’s sake.’
Hazel let out a short laugh. ‘Oh, you didn’t think you were a child at the time. Reckoned you knew everything. Stubborn little bugger.’ She gave a small smile.
‘In spite of you!’ Ali snapped. ‘You had responsibilities, but you gave up like a coward.’
‘I’m not making excuses, Ali. But you’ve got responsibilities too—to Tom, to your friends. To me.’
Her husband’s name sent a spear of pain through her. ‘No. There’s no one left. Tom’s moving to Sydney.’
‘I know. He called me yesterday. He wanted me to look out for you.’
Ali gave her a withering look. ‘As if he’d come to you for that.’
‘Tom knows I’ve been sober for almost six months.’
‘He knows?’ Ali recalled Tom’s comment, right before he’d left, that Hazel would surprise her one day. Had he known then and hadn’t told her? Would it have changed anything if he had?
Hazel nodded. ‘I promised him I’d try to get you out of this. It’s taken me this long to work up the courage to come here.’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered.’
Ali walked away from her mother and collapsed onto the couch. It’d been long enough since her last drink that the alcohol was beginning to wear off, and she felt weak and shaky. She wanted to find another bottle, but she knew Hazel wouldn’t let her.
Hazel brought her a mug of tea and she took it without a word. The smell of the casserole began to permeate the room and her stomach rumbled, triggering a wave of nausea. Ali closed her eyes and willed it away.
‘Drink your tea,’ Hazel instructed. ‘It’ll settle your stomach.’
Ali took an obedient sip, and the taste of honey brought an immediate flood of tears to her eyes. Her mother’s remedy for everything. Her problems now were too big for tea to fix, but nevertheless, a door inside her edged open and let in a whisper of air. She met Hazel’s eyes, soft with sympathy, and the door slammed shut again. You’re nothing.
After a while, Hazel got up to retrieve the casserole from the oven. She brought over a small bowl of steaming meat and vegetables, and Ali’s stomach lurched. She was hungry— starving, in fact—but the thought of eating was unbearable.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said.
Hazel ignored her words and pressed the bowl into her hands. ‘Tough luck. Eat slowly. And sip this.’ She handed her a glass of water.
Ali was suddenly thirsty. She longed to down the entire glass in a few gulps, but she knew from experience how that would turn out, so she took a few tiny sips, speared a round of carrot with her fork and brought it tentatively to her mouth. It was delicious. The gravy was luscious and savoury without being too rich; the vegetable tender and sweet. She swallowed carefully and chose a small chunk of meat.
‘Good girl,’ Hazel said.
Ali ate the whole bowl and requested more, but Hazel refused.
‘If you eat too much you’ll chuck, and I’ll never get it out of this fancy bloody couch of yours.’
Ali tried to glare at her mother, but as the first proper meal she’d eaten in weeks settled in her belly, she was too tired to argue. She lay back against the cushions, her eyes heavy. Hazel left the room, but Ali didn’t have the strength to watch where she went.
She was almost asleep when Hazel shook her shoulder gently. ‘Come to bed, love.’
Ali allowed herself to be led to her bedroom. The sheets she hadn’t changed for weeks had been replaced with new ones. Even the pillow looked new. Everything smelt fresh and clean. Hazel helped her onto the bed and drew the sheet up over her. Ali felt small as she gazed up at her mother’s worried face. Too small to push her away. Too small to order her out of her house. Hazel smiled and landed a light kiss on her forehead. Ali felt sleep tugging at her before her mother had even left the room.
* * *
Her mouth was thick and dry when she woke. The room was dark. Her head was going to split open and spill out her brains. The casserole swirled in her belly.
She needed a drink. Now.
She scrabbled in the drawer beside her bed for the vodka bottle she’d stashed there. It was gone. Her chest tightened. Her whole body shook violently. She threw aside the sheet and stumbled into the ensuite. The bottle from the bathroom cabinet was gone too. Desperate now, she pulled all the towels out of the narrow cupboard. Nothing. Hazel had found them all.
Her lunch rose up her throat and she threw her body over the toilet to release it in a dark torrent. Hazel had obviously cleaned the toilet while she slept. The synthetic pine scent prickled her nostrils and she retched again.
She’d forgotten how much it hurt to throw up when she was sober. Every heave propelled her chest against the toilet seat, burnt her throat, wrenched her guts apart.
Then Hazel was there. Smoothing her hair back from her face. Rubbing her back. Murmuring to her in a low voice, nonsense that Ali barely understood. Finally, stomach empty, she sat back on the bathroom floor. Hazel cradled her in her arms.
‘Before you ask, I got rid of them all,’ she said.
Ali pushed her away and got shakily to her feet. ‘Drink them yourself, did you?’
Hazel looked up at her from the floor with a sad smile. ‘I was tempted. Probably always will be. Anyway, wine was always my poison. Could never stand the taste of spirits.’
‘I need it.’ Ali’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘I’m not going to get through the night without it.’
‘Yes, you bloody will,’ Hazel said. ‘I’ll make sure of it.’
Fury burned through Ali and she swung out of the ensuite. One by one, she checked all her customary places. Hazel hadn’t missed one. They were all gone. No, not quite. Six bottles stood at the end of the bench, mocking her with their empty bellies. She grabbed one and tipped it back, catching the final few drops on the end of her tongue. It was only water.
‘I hate you!’ she screamed at her mother, who had followed her into the kitchen. ‘You of all people should understand how much I need this!’
‘You bet your arse I understand!’ Hazel shouted back. ‘I’m trying to save you from killing yourself.’
‘Have you ever thought maybe that’s what I want?’ Sweat poured down Ali’s back and pooled between her breasts. ‘I don’t want to be here anymore. I’ve got nothing left.’
Hazel was crying now. ‘You’ve got me.’
Ali laughed savagely. ‘Is that supposed to be a comfort?’ Her head pounded. She was in pain, and she wanted to inflict some in return. She took a step closer to her mother. ‘Did you think you could just pick up where you left off?’
‘I know I’ve got a lot to make up for,’ Hazel said as she wiped her eyes. ‘I was a terrible mother, but—’
Ali pointed a shaking finger at her. ‘Yes. You were a terrible mother. And you still are. Just leave me alone.’
It was a long night. Ali spent most of it lying curled up on her bed,
unable to stop shuddering and convulsing. The sheets were twisted and damp. She hurled insults at her mother, but Hazel never left her side. She bathed Ali’s hot forehead with a damp flannel, helped her to a sitting position so she could sip water, offered a steady stream of encouragement despite the abuse she received.
Finally, just as the first fingers of light edged into the room, they each gave up the last of their resistance and slipped into sleep, lying side by side on the bed.
Before
Ali smiled up at Tom as he refilled her glass with riesling. The afternoon was lazily warm and she was feeling mellow from the wine. She loved Sundays, when she’d had two whole days to spend with Tom and another week of work to look forward to.
Anthea sat down across the table from her and picked up her own wine glass, which had sat untouched for the last hour while she ran around after her daughters. She took a sip, screwed up her nose and placed it back on the table.
‘Ugh.’ She grinned at Ali. ‘That’s the problem with having kids, you get accustomed to drinking cold tea and warm wine.’
Ali could think of many more inconveniences that came with children, but she’d learnt long ago to keep such thoughts to herself. Most people who found out she didn’t want kids continued to insist that she’d change her mind one day, which never failed to irritate her. Ali was happy. She had a fulfilling job and a husband she was madly in love with, and she saw no reason to change anything in her life.
Lily and Caroline came running over to Anthea and both tried to climb into her lap at once.
‘Steady on, girls!’ Anthea laughed. ‘Mummy’s talking to Aunty Ali right now. You two are getting too big for this. Lily, why don’t you sit in Ali’s lap?’
‘Oh no, I was just about to—’ Ali began to protest, but the little girl had already clambered onto her legs and turned to face her mother and sister.
Ali set her wine glass down on the table and put her arms awkwardly around Lily’s waist. Other than Tom’s nephews and Kayla’s and Claudia’s kids, she hadn’t been around children much. But Anthea kept on chattering away, unaware of her awkwardness, and Ali allowed herself to relax.
Tom glanced over from where he stood at the barbecue with Jason. His hand, holding a beer, paused on its trajectory to his mouth, and he raised one eyebrow at her. Ali gave him a wry look, but he just stared at her with a curious smile she’d never seen on his face before.
Tom
Anthea was glowing when she answered the door to Tom. She’d abandoned the scarf and cropped her patchy hair close to her scalp as it began to grow back. Tom hugged her. She felt so frail in his arms, and yet she stood up straighter, smiled wider, seemed somehow stronger than she’d ever looked before.
‘I hear you’re leaving us, Tom?’
‘I am,’ he said.
Her eyes searched his face. ‘And Ali?’
Tom shook his head. He hadn’t called or visited Ali again. The image of her screaming at him to shut up before running off up the street, desperate to escape from him, still haunted him.
‘When do you leave?’ Jason interrupted his thoughts, holding out a frosty beer.
‘In three weeks.’ Tom took the beer and tried to look more positive than he felt.
Anthea gestured at the outdoor patio, where the table was already laid with placemats, plates, cutlery and a large green salad, and they all stepped outside. ‘That happened quickly.’
‘Too quickly, maybe. But there didn’t seem much point in dragging it out, and it’s a great opportunity for me.’ He sat down at the table, watching the twins, who were jumping inside the gauzy cage around the trampoline, giggling madly. Family. It was what he’d wanted ever since that day a few years ago when he’d seen Ali sitting right here, holding Lily in her lap, and now it looked as if he might never get it. He turned back to face Anthea. ‘How are you doing, anyway? You look great.’ Despite the initial shock of her shaved head with its fuzzy regrowth, the bony protuberances from her skull that had always gone unnoticed beneath her thick head of hair, she looked strong. New.
‘Still getting my strength back.’ Anthea smiled. ‘But much better. Thank you.’
Jason lifted the lid off the smoking Weber, releasing the delicious smell of slow-roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary. The three of them maintained a mutual hungry silence as Jason carved the bird and transferred the pieces to a platter with the roast potatoes and pumpkin, then they each served generous helpings onto their plates and began to eat.
‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Anthea was watching him shrewdly.
Jason was his best mate, but it was Anthea who always looked beneath the surface to find out what was really going on, who always knew the right thing to say. She was the heart of their friendship.
‘It depends what time of day you ask me that question,’ Tom said. ‘It’s a great career move. But I’d be lying if I said the circumstances were right.’
‘It doesn’t have to be forever,’ Jason said. ‘You could come back one day.’
Tom knew what Jason was implying. That Ali might change her mind. But the image of her running from him, the loose T-shirt she wore billowing from her gaunt frame, flashed in his mind again. He couldn’t imagine a way back from that.
Ali
Ali had assumed that things would get easier once she’d got past the physical cravings. But now, after a week sober, she realised this part was much harder. Without the booze, there was nothing. She was nothing, just like the voice in her head had been telling her all this time. One by one, every single thing she cared about had disappeared from her life, for the most part by her own doing. She had to face up to what she’d done, what she’d become, and the pain was almost unbearable.
The protective armour she’d carefully assembled, the only thing that had been holding her together, had fallen away, and she could barely stand without it. She was raw, naked, unprotected, and utterly convinced that she wasn’t worth saving.
Hazel was still staying with her, sleeping in the spare room, cooking her meals, making sure she didn’t relapse, and a shaky truce seemed to have settled between them. But whenever Hazel tried to speak to her about anything more serious than what she was going to make for dinner, Ali shut her down. The voice in her head still taunted her constantly, and she knew there was something buried deep inside her, but she wasn’t ready to face it yet. First she had to get better, stronger.
One afternoon, when she was looking for a spare quilt cover in the space above the top shelf of the walk-in robe, her hand brushed against something stuffed up the back of the cupboard.
She grasped it and dragged it towards her.
It was a black garbage bag; the one she’d found and then forgotten when she was looking for the vodka bottle.
Curious, she pulled it out further and it fell down onto her head, almost knocking her to the floor. Kneeling beside it, she picked at the knot at the top with trembling fingers until she was able to loosen it and open the bag.
Pink. White. Purple. Green. Tiny little growsuits: soft fleecy ones and lighter, short-sleeved styles. Impossibly small beanies, mittens and socks. Muslin wraps, fluffy baby towels, soft toys of every type imaginable. Her heart began to swell until she was sure it would burst out of her chest.
Elizabeth’s things. Tom had kept them all.
Ali gathered up the little clothes to her face and inhaled, searching desperately for Elizabeth’s scent, even though they’d never known her body. The memory of the moment she’d seen her daughter for the first time flooded her, squeezed the breath from her, sent that same rush of pure love coursing through her entire body.
Slowly, slowly, the pain spread through her, bleeding into every crevice, expanding within her, splitting her apart.
And finally, she surrendered to it, allowing that day to come back to her in exquisite, searing detail: the stillness inside her body; the dread; the pain of the labour and the birth that wasn’t a birth at all, that was an ending rather than a beginning; the insub
stantial weight of the baby’s body, her eyes forever closed against the world; the feeling of placing her soul in that bassinet along with her daughter and walking away.
And then the tears came. The ones that she’d held back for so long, dried up in the emotional wasteland of her own making. She’d tried so hard to forget, throwing everything away that could have reminded her—the ultrasound pictures, the gifts the hospital had given them before they left, the positive pregnancy test. They hadn’t even had a funeral.
She’d erased her. Her own daughter. As if she’d never existed. Ali knew what she had to do next.
* * *
‘I’m ready to talk about it,’ Ali said as she sat down in the seat opposite Meena.
Meena looked like she was trying not to smile. ‘I’m so glad you came back, Alison.’
Ali smiled for her. ‘I suppose you heard about my monumental fuck-up?’
‘Uh, yeah. How have you been since then?’
‘Drinking myself almost to death,’ Ali said. ‘My mother saved me, believe it or not.’
‘You’ve reconciled with your mother?’
‘I’m not sure reconciled is quite the word for it. But she’s staying at my house. And she’s been sober for six months. Tom left me, so…’ Ali bit her lip. The tears came easily now—they rose to her eyes, spilled out onto her cheeks without warning, and she’d stopped fighting them.
Slowly, haltingly at first, Ali told Meena about the day her life had been ripped asunder. She wept as she recalled Tom’s enthusiasm at the baby store, his childish delight as he’d twirled the prams around. Her voice strained taut as she spoke of the moment they had found out the baby had died. Her body rattled with sobs as she described the silence of the birth, and the bittersweet experience of holding the tiny body for hours. She dropped her head into her hands as she remembered leaving the hospital with empty arms.
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