The Mother-in-Law

by Sally Hepworth

  ‘So how’s the house hunting going?’ Julia asks us once the waitress has disappeared. Her face creases with worry, as if she is asking about a rare disease with which one of us has been recently diagnosed. ‘You know, we used a great buyer’s advocate when we bought our place in South Yarra. Why don’t we give you his details?’

  The fact that Ollie and I rent a home is an endlessly perplexing fact to all of Ollie’s friends. At some point it seems to have been universally accepted that we simply can’t find the right place, the assumption being that Ollie’s parents would foot the bill for the place of our choosing. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Instead, in the year since we married, Ollie and I have been saving hard for a down payment. Currently, with both of us working, we earn a good income but soon, fingers crossed, I’ll be home with a baby. And sadly, no buyer’s advocate will be able to help us if we don’t have any money.

  If it were up to me, I’d simply point out the fact that Ollie’s parents aren’t footing the bill, but Ollie can be oddly coy about these things. And so I say nothing and play along.

  ‘Why not?’ Ollie says. ‘Can’t hurt, can it?’

  Julia nods, delighted she can be of assistance, and Eamon fumbles with his phone, firing off the contact to Ollie. I really don’t understand the games Ollie’s friends play, spinning every failure or downturn as ‘a wonderful opportunity to go in a new direction’. I’d love to see Eamon’s and Julia’s faces if we were to say, Actually I can guarantee your buyer’s advocate would not be advocating properties in the areas we’re looking at! Ha, ha, ha.

  ‘Anyway,’ Eamon says, sliding his phone back into his jacket pocket. ‘S’meals!’

  Eamon has been trying in vain to explain his new business to Ollie from the moment we arrived. Lord knows why! Every time I see him, Eamon appears to be cooking up a new business idea, claiming it is going to be the next big thing, talking about how people need to get on board early. For a while he franchised mobile spray tan businesses, then he manufactured children’s fingerprinting kits. He’d had varied success, according to Ollie, and you couldn’t fault his tenacity. I just wished he’d stop discussing it all in painstaking detail over dinner, when anyone could see Ollie was entirely focused on figuring out how we could get out of the restaurant for less than five hundred bucks.

  ‘They’re a smoothie for a meal. Chock full of superfoods. The fresh food is delivered to your door in ziplock bags, you just have to stick it all in your Nutribullet and voilà!’

  I blink. ‘So . . . fruit and vegetables? In bags? That’s what it is?’

  ‘Not fruit and vegetables.’ There’s a note of triumph in Eamon’s voice. ‘Nutritionally balanced meals. You can drink it at your desk and call it lunch.’

  ‘Like meal replacement shakes?’

  ‘But with actual fresh food instead of chemicals. Superfoods.’

  Eamon has said ‘superfoods’ at least seventeen times since we arrived and I find myself desperate to ask him what a superfood is because I suspect he doesn’t know. But again, for Ollie’s sake, because they have been friends since kindergarten, and their parents know each other, I force myself to abstain.

  ‘Interesting. Well good luck!’ I say.

  He’ll need it.

  But Eamon isn’t listening to me, he’s too focused on Ollie. ‘How are things with you then, old boy? How are things in the recruitment world?’

  ‘Things are good,’ Ollie says. ‘Did a great placement last week, actually. The guy, Ron, was sixty, and he’d been out of work for six months. He really needed to work for another five years before he could retire, but everyone was telling him he had no hope because his entire specialty was in a system that was now obsolete. I promised him I’d find him something and then boom, last week, I found a client who was upgrading their ERP from a system that Ron virtually wrote during the eighties. Now he’s the head of data conversion. Neither Ron nor the client could believe their luck.’

  Ollie beams. I love seeing him like this. He lives for putting the right candidate in the right job, particularly the ones that are hard to place. He listens to candidates during interviews and by the time they leave they are usually friends. Unfortunately it is an asset that is rarely rewarded in an industry that values goals and targets above human relationships, and for this reason most of Ollie’s colleagues have risen ahead of him into management while he has stayed exactly where he started, agonising over placements for candidates like Ron.

  ‘Cool, cool,’ Eamon says. ‘You’ve been there a while though, right? Don’t suppose you’ve thought about extending your wings a bit? You’ve got some pretty valuable contacts now. The world’s your oyster. You can’t keep working for the man forever.’

  This little speech reeks of someone who wants something. I feel myself brace.

  ‘All right, spit it out,’ Ollie says, clearly interpreting Eamon’s speech as I did. ‘You want me to join your business, is that it? Or start a new business with you? Or invest in a business?’

  Eamon tries to look insulted. ‘Can’t a guy be interested in his old mate’s career? But, since you mention it, I might be looking for a business partner.’ He grins.

  ‘In your smoothie business?’

  ‘Meal replacements,’ Eamon corrects. ‘With superfoods!’

  ‘How could I possibly help you with that?’ Ollie asks.

  You could give him money, I think to myself. Or, rather, your father could. At least that is what Eamon is thinking.

  ‘Don’t undersell yourself, mate,’ Eamon says. ‘You’d be a massive asset to any business. You’re a people person. Every business needs that.’

  Ollie doesn’t respond right away, and for a horrible moment I think he might be considering joining Eamon in his smoothie business. I look at him. He appears to be thinking deeply. But this proposition doesn’t require even a moment’s thought. Does it? Unless . . . have I missed something? Is Ollie not happy in his job? He sounded happy when he was talking about placing Ron. Surely then he wouldn’t be considering a career move just because his friend suggested it over dinner?

  ‘Have you all had a chance to look at the menu?’ the waitress says, appearing at the table. I use the distraction to try to catch Ollie’s eye. Don’t do it! Don’t go into business with Eamon! But Ollie has snatched up his menu and has started perusing.

  ‘Why don’t I tell you about the specials?’ she suggests when none of us speak. ‘We have a lovely thrice-cooked pork belly tonight and the fish is blue grenadier with a parmesan crust.’

  ‘Give us a few minutes,’ Eamon says to the waitress, his eyes not leaving Ollie. He’s practically salivating, ready to go in for the kill. ‘What are you thinking, buddy? Walk me through your thought process.’

  Ollie’s eyes are skyward, his lips pinched. ‘I’m thinking pork belly,’ he says, ‘But the fish really does sound good.’

  ‘Fish!’ Eamon explodes. ‘I thought we were talking about S’meals!’

  ‘About what?’ Ollie frowns. ‘Oh, your smoothie business. No, listen I wish you all the best, mate, but come on. Mixing business with pleasure. Bad idea, right? Everyone knows that.’

  I feel Ollie’s hand squeeze my leg under the table and I exhale in relief. Ollie isn’t dumb enough to go into business with Eamon Cockram, I realise. He’s right, I just worry too much.

  But as it turns out, I am wrong, on both counts.

  7

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  The next day I focus on the children. Despite the police showing up last night, the kids seem to be blissfully unaware that anything is up, even though Edie has been allowed to chow through seven squeezie-fruit pouches (normally her limit is two per day), and Archie and Harriet haven’t been taken to karate or gymnastics or forced off their devices at midday on a Saturday. But now we have to tell them. We might not be able to tell them how she died, but at least we can tell them Diana is dead. We can say that we don’t know why yet, that the doctors are looking into it. That will satis
fy them. Honestly, they’d probably be satisfied with ‘she was very old’.

  I look at Ollie. After yesterday’s protesting that it couldn’t be real, he seems to have moved into another stage of grief. All morning he’s been sombre and quiet, apart from the odd spasm of bizarre emotion. Like a few minutes ago when Harriet—in the middle of a spontaneous arabesque—slipped on a cushion and went, quite literally, head over heels. She landed flat on her back, face up on the floor and promptly began to wail. Ollie stared at her for a second or two, then began to laugh. By the time I made it over to Harriet, he was positively wild with hilarity.

  Grief.

  I catch Ollie’s eye on the couch and mouth, ‘Let’s tell them now.’

  I half-expect him to keep staring into space, but he nods, picks up the remote control and turns off the screen.

  ‘Hey!’ Archie cries. Harriet and Edie glare at us. I sit on the arm of the sofa and the kids look back at the television, more comfortable with the blank screen than with actual human faces.

  ‘Kids, we have something to tell you.’

  ‘What?’ Archie moans, throwing down the Xbox controller.

  ‘We’ve had some sad news.’

  Both Archie and Harriet spin around. Sad news. We have their attention now. They’ve watched enough kids movies (is it just me, or do the parents die in every damn kids movie?) to know about sad news.

  After Tom died the kids were devastated. Archie began wetting the bed again, and Harriet panicked if Ollie was even a little bit late home from work (‘Is he dead?’ she’d ask, her little saucer eyes gawping up at me). Edie, of course, was none the wiser back then, but this time it’s different. She adores Dido (the name Diana insisted upon). They all love Dido. Loved Dido.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Dido died yesterday.’

  Harriet is the first to react, with a gasp. Her hands rise, forming a tent around her mouth, and she breathes in and out loudly. There’s something false about it, like she’s re-enacting something she’s seen on television.

  Archie is still yet to react, so I focus my attention on him. ‘Did you hear me, mate?’

  Archie nods. His expression is sombre-ish, but more collected than if, say, I’d told him he couldn’t have ice cream for dessert. ‘Dido died,’ he repeats, hanging his head.

  Harriet drops her hands from her face and bursts out laughing. ‘Dido died. That rhymes.’ She falls back onto the empty couch, chortling so hard she has to hold her belly.

  ‘It doesn’t rhyme, idiot,’ Archie says.

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Doesn’t.’

  ‘Does!’

  ‘Kids,’ I say. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Remember when Papa died? He went up to Heaven and we couldn’t see him any more. Well . . . now Dido has died.’

  Harriet laughs again. ‘Sorry! It just sounds funny.’

  Archie lets out a chuckle. Then Edie, of course, joins in, though she has no idea what’s going on. I stare at their cheerful little faces, baffled. I knew kids could react in strange ways to grief, but I’d never for a moment doubted their love for Diana. I expected them to be devastated.

  ‘Aren’t you sad that Dido’s dead?’ Ollie asks, a slight inflection to his voice. A wobble. The kids also register the wobble, and one by one stop laughing.

  ‘Yeah,’ Archie says, but he doesn’t sound sad. He sounds like he knows that’s what he is expected to say. Archie is dutiful like that. Edie is looking at her feet, marvelling at the spot where her big toe peeks through her sock. Harriet is rolling her eyes and inspecting her fingernails, which are covered in chipped lolly-pink sparkly nail polish.

  ‘I’m not sad,’ she mutters.

  I look at her defiant little face. ‘Why aren’t you sad, Harriet?’

  She shrugs. ‘Dido was mean to you. I don’t like people who aren’t nice to my mum.’

  Ollie and I look at each other, and all I can think is . . . I failed. I’ve always tried to protect them from my issues with Diana, as I never wanted it to affect their relationship with her. I thought it had worked. But I failed.

  ‘It’ll be much nicer now that she’s not here, won’t it, Mummy?’ Harriet continues. She bounds out of her seat and flings her limbs around, trying for, perhaps, a leaping pirouette. But she misses her footing and this time she lands flat on her face. She howls. Edie squeals. And Archie, in a delayed reaction, suddenly bursts into tears.

  8

  DIANA

  The past . . .

  I pull up at the traffic lights and glare at the enormous stuffed teddy bear on my passenger seat. Tom had bought the ridiculous toy, obviously, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he insisted that I be the one to take it along to the hospital to give to Lucy.

  ‘What on earth for?’ I said to him on the phone. ‘It’s not like Archie will be playing with it in the next few days!’

  ‘It’s our first grandchild,’ he replied. ‘Besides, Lucy will love it.’

  He is probably right about that. His perfect understanding of our daughter-in-law’s psyche is almost as spectacular as my lack thereof. Lucy gave birth to Archie in the early hours of this morning, after a short, uncomplicated labour. Tom wanted to go to the hospital the instant we heard the news, but I’d managed to convince him to go into work for a couple of hours to give them some time alone with the baby. Now though, even I’m itching to get there. Tom is going straight from work and I’m meeting him there.

  The traffic lights turn green at the same time as my phone rings. I stab at a few buttons on the steering wheel until finally it connects. (Usually I drive my little Ford Festiva around when I’m doing errands, but it has gone in for a service so I’m in the Range Rover and you honestly need a PhD in car mechanics to make the darn thing work.) ‘Hello?’

  The car fills with the sound of heavy breathing. ‘Mrs Diana?’

  I recognise the voice immediately. ‘Ghezala?’

  Twenty-two and pregnant, Ghezala has been in Australia for five months, having escaped from Afghanistan. In recent weeks I’d visited her several times, to drop off a pram, a bassinette and some newborn clothes, and each time Ghezala had put on a pot of kahwa tea and we’d settled in for a good old chinwag. Her English isn’t great and the conversations are often lists of what she has had for breakfast, what the weather is going to do this week, what she’s watched on the television . . . yet I always enjoy the simplicity of it.

  ‘Mrs Diana?’ More puffing and panting. ‘The baby.’

  I pull to the side of the road, calculating dates in my head. It’s a few weeks early, not dangerously early, but early. And Ghezala has no family or friends in Australia. Her partner, Hakem, is at least in the country, but his capabilities as a birth partner remain to be seen.

  ‘You need to go to the hospital, Ghezala. Remember the voucher I gave you for a taxi? Call the taxi and use the voucher to pay the driver. Ghezala? Do you remember the voucher?’

  I hear another contraction take hold, so I wait. The fact that she can’t talk through it worries me and I wonder if I should call an ambulance.

  ‘Ghezala,’ I repeat when the panting stops. ‘Do you have the taxi voucher?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’ She sounds spent. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I’ve already done a U-turn and am headed toward her house, but it’s a good twenty-minute drive from here. ‘Where is Hakem, Ghezala?’

  ‘Outside.’

  I bite back an urge to scream, ‘What is he doing outside?’ and instead ask: ‘And how bad is the pain? Out of ten.’

  ‘It’s . . . a four.’

  But I get the feeling Ghezala’s four is most women’s eleven. Her next breath catches on another contraction.

  ‘Ghezala, I’m going to call an ambulance.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Can you come, Mrs Diana?’

  ‘I’m on my way to your house right now. Ghezala—’

  But the phone goes dead. And when I call back, it rings out.

  It takes twenty-five minutes to get to h
er house and when I get there Hakem is in the front yard, smoking a cigarette. He must spend half his life in the tiny, overgrown courtyard of theirs, smoking cigarettes. I leap out of the car and run toward the house. ‘Hakem? Where’s Ghezala?’

  He gestures toward the house with his head. ‘Inside.’

  ‘Inside? Why aren’t you in there with her?’

  He looks at me like I’ve suggested he book a holiday to the Bahamas.

  ‘Have you called an ambulance?’

  He turns away, takes a drag of his cigarette. ‘You might think you are our saviour, but you know nothing. You are different from us. Different from me. Different from Ghezala.’

  ‘Hakem. Have. You. Called. An. Ambulance?’ I ask through gritted teeth.

  He takes a step toward me. The whites of his eyes are yellow and cracked with little red blood vessels. ‘No. I. HAVEN’T.’

  Hakem is thickset and a good thirty years younger than me, but I match him in height, inch for inch. I square up to him. ‘Do not try and intimidate me, young man. I promise you, you will come off worse.’

  It’s not true of course. I would come off far worse, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that minds win wars, not muscles. And as I’ve made up my mind to get Ghezala’s baby delivered healthy and well, I’ll be damned if I don’t do exactly that.

  I’m still right in Hakem’s face when he holds up his hands in defeat.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ I say as the screen door slaps closed between us. ‘Now!’

  I find Ghezala on the tiled kitchen floor, her back against pillows. I skid and almost fall in a wet patch, gasping when I see the baby’s head is already out. There’s no time for an ambulance, I realise as Ghezala shudders, and I drop to my knees. She gives a great moan and I only have time to grab a tea-towel before Ghezala pushes her baby boy right into my hands, pink and bloody and squirming. I wrap him in a towel and rub him vigorously until he lets out a piercing, glorious cry.