The Mother-in-Law

by Sally Hepworth

  ‘You should congratulate Dad,’ Ollie says, but he looks pink-cheeked and pleased with himself. ‘He’s been angling for this for years. And I’m not exactly doing it myself. I’ve got a business partner.’

  ‘Oh? Who is your business partner?’ I ask.

  ‘Eamon.’

  A whisper of dread crawls up my back. ‘Eamon Cockram?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I try for a smile but it feels more like a grimace. Eamon Cockram. I’ve never liked that smarmy boy. He’s the insufferable type who thinks he is charming the mothers by telling us the years have been kind (sadly the years have not been quite as kind to him—the last time I saw him he’d grown tubby and quite bald). I heard through the grapevine that his wife Julia has left him, and I can’t say anyone blamed her.

  Tom is grinning from ear to ear. ‘We’ll have to have Frank and Lydia over for a drink, won’t we, Di?’

  I make a non-committal noise. Frank and Lydia are Eamon’s parents, and I will be going to the utmost lengths to avoid having a drink with them. Still, there is no point telling this to Tom who is practically floating around the front room, buoyed by the close proximity of his family and his son’s business venture.

  Nettie, on the other hand, looks particularly melancholy. She’s gained some weight and has a sheen of sweat across her face. As she reaches up to pull her sweater over her head, her shirt rides up and, even though she said she’s not pregnant, I find myself looking hopefully for a bump. I don’t see one. Instead, to the left of her belly-button, I see a faint, oval-shaped bruise. I open my mouth to ask about it, but she gets in first.

  ‘So tell me about this recruiting firm,’ she says to Ollie, balling up her sweater and resting it in her lap. ‘Will you specialise in a certain industry?’

  ‘We’ll focus on IT roles to begin with because that’s our background—’

  ‘That’s your background. What about Eamon?’

  If Nettie’s tone is anything to go by, she shares my opinion of Eamon, and I feel a swell of solidarity with my daughter.

  ‘Well, Eamon has done a lot of things,’ Ollie admits.

  ‘Anything relevant to recruiting?’

  Ollie raises an eyebrow. ‘With due respect, Nettie, do you think I’d be going into business with him if I didn’t think he had anything to add?’

  ‘I think Eamon could sell sand in the desert,’ Nettie says and she has a point. Besides, Ollie isn’t stupid, nor is he irresponsible. He wouldn’t have gone into business with Eamon if he hadn’t thought it through. At least I hope he wouldn’t have.

  ‘Is it time for cigars, son?’ Tom asks. ‘Patrick, are you interested?’

  Patrick, of course, is very interested. He, Ollie and Tom wander toward the den. Tom has his arms around them as he goes. I know all he wants is the best for his family, but he can be so single-minded about it.

  I glance at Lucy, sitting quietly on the other end of the couch—I’ve almost forgotten she was here. She is enormously pregnant. This must be unsettling for her. Starting a new business is a stressful time for anyone, let alone when you are weeks away from giving birth. I wonder, as I have wondered so many times, why she hadn’t gone back to work herself. Even working part time, keeping her toe in the water, would surely give them extra security when starting a new business.

  ‘How do you feel about the business, Lucy?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ she says. ‘Ollie is really excited.’

  She smiles, the image of the doting wife, but I see in her eyes that she is worried. And while I know I should be grateful that she is so supportive of my son, all I want to do is grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shake.

  The next morning I’m up and about early. I’ll admit it’s a strange arrangement I have with the refugee girls I work with. Generally, it’s a very intense relationship in the lead-up to the baby’s birth that peters out when the babies reach a few months old. I keep in touch where I can—a phone call every so often or a Christmas card—but I quickly become busy with new pregnant girls, and they become busy with their own lives. Still, I’m always pleased when I have reason to hear from them again. Like when Ghezala tells me she’s having another baby.

  I pull into the driveway of her home—a different one, only a few streets away from the first but just as rundown. The lawn is overgrown and the gate is hanging from one hinge. I know Ghezala has been cleaning supermarkets at night to make ends meet, but as far as I’m aware Hakem hasn’t worked since they arrived in the country. He’s sitting in a faded deckchair on the front porch smoking a cigarette when I pull up.

  ‘Hello, Hakem,’ I say, slamming the door. He’s aged since I saw him last. He’s still a young man, barely thirty at a guess, but his black hair is swept through with grey and he’s paunchy around the middle. His eyelids are drooping, as though he’s drunk or half-asleep. I go around to the back of the car and retrieve the basket of maternity things I’ve brought for Ghezala. ‘How are you?’

  He doesn’t respond. I let myself in the wonky gate.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ he mutters. He’s dressed in a flannel shirt, grubby beige pants and thongs. ‘Ghezala is inside with the boy.’

  I stop, rest the basket on my hip. ‘How’s the job hunt going?’

  ‘Fine. Fine.’

  ‘What kind of jobs are you applying for?’

  He stubs out his cigarette, shaking his head. ‘Oh. This and that.’

  ‘Need any help? I might have contacts I could—’

  He stands, yanking open the screen door. ‘Ghezala?’

  ‘Have you applied for any jobs, Hakem? Ghezala found her cleaning job quite quickly, as I understand it. Surely you should be able to find something too.’

  He cocks his head. ‘And what jobs would you have me apply for? Taxi driver? Supermarket packer?’ He laughs, revealing a mouth of eggshell-coloured teeth. ‘In Kabul, I was an engineer. I built skyscrapers for the big western chains. This is one of the reasons we were run out of there. Now that I’m here, no one will let me build their dog kennel.’

  ‘So you’re happy to let your pregnant wife clean supermarkets but you’re not willing to do the same?’

  He jabs a finger at my Land Rover. ‘You drive this car to my house and then ask me what I’m willing to do?’

  ‘I’m driving this car so I can deliver a double pram to a pregnant woman in Dandenong, Hakem.’

  ‘Tell me this,’ he continues, turning his finger on me now. ‘What would you be willing to do?’

  ‘I’d be willing to do anything for my family. I might not be happy about it. It wouldn’t be fair. But life’s not fair, is it?’

  He shakes his head, makes a pah sound. After a moment, he extends his finger again, over my shoulder. ‘See this building?’ he says, pointing to the shabby three-storey block across the road. ‘The guy who lives there was a respiratory surgeon back home. He used to live in a five-bedroom house! He lives in a one-bedroom apartment now with his wife and three kids.’ He takes a step toward me and I can smell his breath, cigarettes and spice. It’s unclear if he is doing this to intimidate me or is simply fired up making his point. ‘Have you actually thought about what it would be like to go from having everything to having nothing?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ The screen door slaps closed again and I see Ghezala standing there with a little boy at her ankles. He is the spitting image of his father. ‘Hakem?’

  He pulls back from me, and I feel the welcome rush of fresh air in my face.

  ‘Aarash,’ Hakem says, patting the boy on his head. ‘Come. Let Mâmân talk with her friend.’

  She watches them wander out toward the street, then turns to me. I smile and hold up my basket. ‘I brought you some maternity clothes. And some information about a doula service in case you’d like to have this baby at home with a little medical assistance this time. Shall we talk inside?’

  Ghezala nods and I hold the door open to let her walk back into the house. Before
I enter, I glance over my shoulder at Hakem. I was wrong, I realise, to think he is angry. He’s more than angry, he’s bitter. It worries me. Because when left to their own devices, bitter people can do bad things.

  19

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  ‘You’re not happy about me going into business with Eamon, are you?’

  Ollie is merely a disembodied voice as he removes a load of laundry from the washing machine in the next room and tosses it into the dryer. For all of Diana’s foibles, I will never resent her for making the man learn how to do laundry. I lower my pregnant body onto the couch and, after trying and failing to remove my wedges, I lift my feet and thunk them on the coffee table, shoes and all.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  We’ve just returned from dinner at the Sandringham Pub, a virtual heaven for parents due to its indoor playground that allows mums and dads to consume their beers and chicken parmigianas in relative peace while their offspring get into fights with other kids on brightly coloured play equipment behind a pane of glass. Usually I enjoy the Sandy Pub for what it is—a change of scenery, a chance to drink wine and chat with Ollie without being surrounded by children—but tonight I was simply too pregnant to enjoy anything. The saving grace, at least, was that Archie fell asleep on the way home and didn’t rouse as Ollie carried him to bed.

  ‘Because,’ Ollie says, appearing in front of me, ‘you’ve been quiet since I brought it up.’

  The problem, of course, is that unlike my mother, who was happy to silently support my father in everything he did, I find it difficult to keep my opinions to myself. Or maybe Dad just never made any decisions as questionable as going into business with Eamon Cockram.

  ‘I know you don’t like Eamon.’ Ollie sits on the coffee table. ‘And I know I’ve joked about his business sense in the past. Obviously I’d never get on board with one of his ridiculous enterprises. I mean S’meals? Come on.’ He laughs. ‘But I know recruitment. This isn’t a bad business idea, Luce. In fact, I think Eamon and I are well suited in this venture. I have the expertise and Eamon has . . . the hustle.’

  It’s hard to argue with that. The one thing Eamon is probably good at is hustling. And while no self-respecting recruiter would ever refer to themselves as such, we are, in essence, hustlers. Or at least salespeople. The candidates are the product, the client is the consumer. Ollie is dedicated to the candidate to a fault, and Eamon, on the other hand, is excessively interested in the client. Perhaps Ollie is right. Perhaps they are a match made in Heaven?

  Ollie takes my feet in his lap and begins undoing the buckle of my left shoe. ‘Look, I should have had this discussion with you earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t. But if you really don’t want me to do it, I won’t.’

  He takes the shoe from my foot and drops it onto the carpet. I believe him. I believe that if I told him I didn’t want him to do this, he wouldn’t do it. At the same time, I think it’s no coincidence that Ollie made the announcement before asking me this question.

  Perhaps he’s not such a bad hustler after all?

  Dad’s job is to look after us, our job is to look after him.

  ‘Of course you should do it,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I may not like him but it’s not as if Eamon is a criminal! Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?’

  20

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  ‘Everything okay?’ I ask Ollie.

  Ollie and I sit in the reception area of police headquarters, holding white plastic cups of water. Dad is babysitting, though the poor man was out of his mind with worry when I explained we had to go to talk to homicide detectives. But Dad is the least of my worries right now, and by the look of it, the least of Ollie’s. His eyes dart around and he can’t seem to sit still. I am caught between a feeling of dread and a feeling that I’m in a TV set, like The Truman Show, and soon someone with a clipboard is going to call ‘Cut!’

  ‘Lucy and Oliver Goodwin?’

  A woman—who is neither Jones nor Housseini—is standing by a sliding door, looking around. Ollie and I put down our water and rise in unison.

  ‘This way,’ she says.

  The woman smiles, but it’s the polite kind of smile rather than the friendly kind. She is young, late twenties, but hard-faced, like she’s seen some stuff.

  We take a lift to the third floor in silence, then exit down a corridor with doors along the left, narrow enough that we fall into single file. As we pass room after room, I can’t help but wonder about the people who have walked this path before us. Guilty people, presumably. And innocent, I guess. I notice Patrick in one of the rooms and am momentarily surprised, but then I remember . . . Jones mentioned on the phone that both he and Nettie were coming in.

  The woman leading us stops about halfway down the corridor. ‘Mr Goodwin, you’re in here.’

  Ollie frowns. ‘Lucy and I aren’t together?’

  ‘It’s standard procedure.’

  ‘Why is that standard procedure?’ Ollie’s voice sounds different, more clipped than usual. ‘We’re not under arrest, are we? We’re here to get the autopsy results for my mother’s death.’

  The woman is unflustered. She smiles again. ‘It’s just the way we do it.’

  Ollie glances at me and I shrug like it’s no big deal. I know this type of woman. She’s the type who doesn’t deviate from standard practice. The type that makes a great debt collector, because they stay on message even in the face of terrible extenuating circumstances (I’m sorry your wife just died and your house has been repossessed, sir . . . You owe eight hundred and fifty-eight dollars, we take cheque or EFT.). So I recognise immediately that any resistance to the separate room situation is likely to be futile.

  ‘We can go separately,’ I say. ‘It’s fine, isn’t it, Ollie?’

  ‘What’s fine?’

  I turn. Detectives Jones and Housseini are ambling toward us down the narrow corridor. It’s Jones doing the speaking, as usual. She’s carrying a bright green KeepCup, and she takes a sip.

  ‘I was just explaining that they are being set up in separate rooms,’ the lady says.

  ‘Yes, sorry, I should have mentioned that,’ Jones says, though she doesn’t sound sorry. ‘It’s standard practice. Is there a problem?’

  She shoots a glance at Housseini. Housseini is wearing a suit today, with tie and all. It looks good on him. Something subtle about the body language between him and Jones makes me think that Jones has noticed this too.

  ‘No,’ I say, even though Jones is looking at Ollie, whose face is saying the opposite. I wonder what’s up with him. Usually Ollie is the calm, unflappable one. Usually he is the one calming me down.

  ‘All right then,’ Jones says. ‘Ollie, you’re with me. Lucy, you’re with Housseini.’

  My first instinct is to be relieved that I have Housseini. Out of the two, he is clearly the good cop, so to speak. But I worry about Ollie going off with Jones given the strange mood he is in. He’s likely to get himself in trouble for something he didn’t do.

  Housseini leads me to a room where a person is fiddling with a video camera. He takes off his suit jacket and hangs it on the back of his chair, and places a manila folder on the table in front of him. ‘Sorry about the monkey suit,’ Housseini says. ‘Been in court this morning.’

  I smile even though the idea of Housseini giving evidence in court makes me nervous. Despite the fact that I am apparently just here for a friendly chat, it occurs to me that it’s only a friendly chat until I’m accused of something. Then that video footage will be wheeled out in court. Then it will be used as evidence.

  ‘So . . . the autopsy report?’ I start, but Housseini interrupts, explaining that we are going to be recorded. Then we go through my particulars, my name, my address, my relationship to Diana. Housseini’s posture is casual, one elbow on the desk, his body angled to the side, one ankle on the opposite knee. As I answer each question, he nods encouragingly. His eyes, I notice, are the colour of
maple syrup.

  ‘Can you tell me where you were between one and five o’clock last Thursday afternoon?’ he says.

  I glance at the camera. ‘Um . . . well, I was at home with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter until around 3.40 pm. Then the other two kids came home.’

  ‘Can anyone verify that . . . other than your daughter?’

  I think about this. ‘Ollie came home from work early, around 2 or 2.30 pm, then he went out again to get our son, Archie. So he can verify part of the time.’

  ‘Why did he come home early?’

  ‘He wasn’t feeling well,’ I say, though it suddenly occurs to me that he didn’t seem particularly unwell. In fact, I recalled thinking he’d been in a good mood that day.

  ‘You said he picked up your son?’ Housseini says. ‘And one of your daughters was home with you. Where was your other daughter?’

  ‘Harriet had a playdate after kindergarten. She was dropped home by another mother, Kerry Mathis, around 4 pm. I came out and waved from the doorstep.’

  ‘And Ms Mathis will verify this?’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ I say, though I cringe at the idea of the police contacting a kinder mum to verify my whereabouts.

  ‘Good.’ Housseini puts down his pen and sits back in his chair. He exhales slowly. ‘I understand that there was an incident between you and your mother-in-law a few years back. Do you want to tell me about that?’

  ‘Incident?’ I ask. I’m just buying some time, as clearly he knows about it. I’m not going to deny it.

  ‘An assault.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘That wasn’t an assault, exactly.’

  ‘You pushed your mother-in-law over, as I understand?’ Housseini watches me. ‘And she was unconscious for quite some time?’

  ‘I wasn’t charged with anything,’ I say. But of course, if Housseini knows about the incident, he already knows this too. He’s feeling me out, trying to gauge my reactions.