The Mother-in-Law

by Sally Hepworth

  ‘I will.’

  There is movement, and I lift my hand to knock, like I’m just arriving. Archie is throwing rocks at Diana’s Land Rover. ‘Stop that,’ I whisper, as Diana appears in the foyer.

  ‘Lucy.’ Diana frowns. Her gaze is panoramic, sweeping the front yard, stopping briefly at Archie who has frozen in a guilty stance. She gives him a stern look and, one by one, he lets the rocks drop back onto the driveway.

  ‘We just arrived!’ I say brightly.

  ‘I see that.’ She turns away from me, to face the man who has joined her in the foyer. ‘Thank you for coming by, Hakem.’

  ‘Thank you for seeing me. I will not forget your kindness.’

  We watch the man get into his Volvo and roar away. Then I grab Archie’s hand and yank him off the pebblestones. Diana picks up Harriet, who has woken up and is watching us intently with blue startled eyes. Harriet, I realise now, doesn’t cry any more when Diana holds her.

  ‘Who was that?’ I ask, guiding Archie up the front steps.

  ‘Hakem is an engineer who works for Tom.’

  ‘He seemed very grateful to you.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Diana. Obviously you did something for him.’ I’m venturing into pushy territory, but it’s not like I have a wonderful relationship with Diana that I could potentially destroy. Having nothing to lose has its upsides. ‘Tell me.’

  Diana rolls her eyes. It’s as if I’m a pest that she doesn’t want to encourage. ‘He was having trouble getting a job, that’s all. He wasn’t being given a chance. I just made sure he was given one.’

  ‘That’s wonderful of you.’

  Diana sighs. ‘Yes, well. You probably don’t think I’m especially wonderful. But I do feel strongly that everyone should be given an equal chance. Hakem was not given one. My children, on the other hand, have been given every chance. Now it’s time for me to stay out of the way and see what they make of the opportunities they’ve been given.’

  It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a proper conversation with Diana and for a second, I get a glimpse of who she is.

  ‘What a good philosophy,’ I say.

  We look each other straight in the eye for a second or two and I think something like mutual respect passes between us.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ she says and she takes my children and bustles into the house.

  26

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  ‘Higher,’ Archie shouts. ‘Higher! Make it go weely high.’

  He’s already soaring so high he looks like he might go loop-the-loop.

  ‘Okay,’ Nettie says. ‘Here we go!’

  Nettie has taken the day off work to help me with the kids. She’s done this a handful of times since Harriet was born and each time, afterward, I feel like I have a new lease on life. Right now Nettie has Harriet strapped to her chest while she pushes Archie on the swing. All morning she’s been tossing a ball to Archie, climbing trees and playing hide and seek. She’s nothing if not a devoted aunt.

  Unlike Diana, Nettie comes to my place because ‘you don’t want to be strapping all those kids in the car to come to my place’. (Hallelujah.) She nearly always arrives with treats for the kids (and asks me if it’s okay before handing them over), coffee for me and a ready-to-eat dinner for Ollie and me to eat that evening. Sometimes she takes the kids out to give me a break; other days, like today, we amble around together, doing errands and visiting the park. Usually when she’s around she’s always upbeat, radiating happy energy, but today she seems off her game. Her hair is unwashed. She’s wearing leggings, a long cardigan and trainers which, while perfectly appropriate for a day in the park, are a good step down from her normal stylish attire. And while she’s been talkative enough with Archie, she’s barely said a word to me all morning.

  ‘Are you all right, Nettie? You’ve been quiet this morning.’

  Her gaze creeps sideward. ‘Have I?’

  In fairness, Nettie isn’t usually a big talker, especially about herself. She plays her cards close to her chest, preferring to ask questions than to give information. But I see an internal struggle in her eyes now, and it occurs to me that maybe she does want to talk about her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

  She steals another look at me and then exhales. ‘Okay. The truth is . . . I had a miscarriage a few days ago. That’s why I’m off work this week.’

  ‘Oh Nettie, I’m so sorry.’

  She remains focused on pushing the swing, shrugs a little. ‘It’s fine. It’s not my first, actually. Patrick and I have been trying to have a baby for three years. We’ve lost three others, all early, during the first trimester.’

  ‘You’ve had four miscarriages?’ My mind reels back over all the times she might have been pregnant or miscarrying and I had no idea. I think in horror of all the off-the-cuff comments I must have made.

  ‘You can have this pram when I’m finished with it . . .’

  ‘Just wait until it’s your turn—’

  ‘I’ll repay you when you have your kids.’

  Narcissistically, I’d thought Nettie would tell me about something like this. Foolishly, I thought I’d know.

  ‘I assumed you were focusing on your career,’ I say weakly.

  Nettie shakes her head, laughs blackly. ‘I couldn’t care less about my career. I want a family. I have PCOS, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I never thought it would be this hard.’

  ‘Have you seen a fertility specialist?’

  ‘Two. We’ve tried Clomid and IUI. I’ve injected my belly with hormones for months on end. The next step is IVF.’

  ‘Well I know dozens of people who have had babies using IVF. Half the kids in my mother’s group were IVF babies,’ I say eagerly.

  ‘I know, but it’s not cheap. With the mortgage and all this fertility stuff, I’ve got nothing left over. And Patrick’s business, well, it’s not exactly thriving.’

  ‘Surely your parents will help you?’

  ‘Of course I had to go through that hideous formal process of asking them. Then Mum said no.’

  My jaw drops. I know Diana’s rule on giving money, but I can’t fathom that this would extend to Nettie’s IVF.

  ‘Dad’s given me money in the past, for the IUI and some of the testing. But Mum doesn’t know, and Dad hates lying to her. So . . . I guess we’re on our own for the IVF.’

  ‘Sometimes I really hate her,’ I say before I can stop myself. Immediately I want to take it back. Diana is Nettie’s mother. No matter what she does, Nettie will be loyal to her. ‘Nettie, I’m sorry I—’

  ‘Sometimes I do too,’ Nettie says, and with that, we drift into silence, pushing robotically as the swing chains squeak in the cold morning air.

  27

  LUCY

  The past . . .

  ‘I want to pop a cracker with Harriet,’ Archie says, sidling up to me in the kitchen.

  He’s already wearing an orange paper Christmas hat on his head and has a green plastic whistle around his neck, which tells me it wouldn’t be his first cracker of the day. My dad and the entire Goodwin family are jammed around our dining table, dipping prawns into thousand-island dressing. The table is lined with festive serviettes, paper plates and decorations made lovingly by Archie at daycare.

  ‘Pop it with me, champ,’ Ollie says.

  ‘But I promised Harriet!’

  ‘I don’t think Harriet will mind, Arch,’ I say and we both look at her in Nettie’s lap, blinking uselessly.

  Our Hampton rental isn’t as small as our South Melbourne workers cottage but it isn’t huge by any stretch, particularly with the Christmas tree taking up half the living room. We are short two chairs, so Patrick and Ollie sit on bar stools at one end, looming over the rest of us. Tom looks politely befuddled by the whole thing, and Nettie has said how great it all is enough times to make me wonder who she is trying to convince. In the past, Christmas has either been at Dad’s or with the Goodwins at their Bright
on home, and this year was set for the same, until I intervened. It felt to me like time to take some control back.

  Ollie was surprisingly enthusiastic. (‘Doing our own Christmas,’ he said. ‘Being the grown-ups, setting new traditions. I like it.’) It was sweet, even if he’s been less than useless when it comes to preparations.

  ‘Ollie, can you give me a hand in here, please?’ I ask from the kitchen. My face is unbearably hot and, I’m guessing, beet-red. I underestimated the effort it takes to cook a turkey for seven adults and two kids, plus vegetables and gravy and plum pudding and a seafood starter. Like a fool, I refused when Diana and Nettie offered to bring something, saying, as I’ve always yearned to, ‘Just bring yourselves’ (it always sounds so generous and carefree when other people say that). Unfortunately, it also meant I’ve had to spend the morning in a sweat-drenched sundress, cooking up a dinner that was never designed to be eaten at a hot Australian Christmas in a house without airconditioning.

  ‘Well, Merry Christmas,’ Tom says, raising his beer to knock against Diana’s wineglass. He seems amused, though not disappointed, with his bottle of Victoria Bitter, and Diana is uncomplaining about her glass of lukewarm chardonnay; in fact, she’s had more than one glass. It’s one area where I’d like to give her credit—especially since last Christmas we got through several bottles of Bollinger at her place—but after hearing Nettie’s confession that Diana refused to help her pay for IVF, I’m not feeling like giving Diana any credit whatsoever.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ Nettie says, chinking her wineglass with her dad’s beer bottle. She arrived with two bottles of wine and has already polished off one of them. I can’t say I blame her. She’s saved up and been through one round of IVF, which yielded two embryos but neither had transferred successfully. Now, at thirty-nine, she is going to have to start saving for another round, by which point she will be nearly forty and her chances of becoming pregnant will have decreased even further. All the while her parents have more money than they could ever possibly spend. Where is the logic in that? I told Diana I liked her philosophy once, but there is nothing I like about this.

  Nettie has held Harriet on her lap for most of the day, refusing to put her down, even as we ate our seafood starters. Now that she is showing signs of being a little sloshed, I wonder if I should take Harriet away. But Patrick seems to be keeping a close eye on her, and he’s only on his first beer, so I decide to leave her be.

  ‘Reporting for duty,’ Ollie says, joining me in the kitchen. I hand him a pair of oven mitts and he slides them on and disappears into the oven. ‘Maybe, by next Christmas,’ he calls, reaching for the turkey, ‘there’ll be another baby around the table, huh, Nets?’

  Everyone pauses, their mouths full of prawns and Thousand Island dressing.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Ollie continues, oblivious, setting the turkey on the counter. ‘Are you going to be one of those types who has the baby while answering emails on her iPhone, then heads from the hospital straight back to the office?’

  I send him a death stare, but it’s wasted because he’s happily basting.

  ‘Actually,’ Nettie says, ‘if I was lucky enough to have a baby, I’d quit my job in a heartbeat. Take a few years out of the rat-race and stay home with my kids, like Lucy has done. I really respect what you’ve done, Luce, and I think you’re a wonderful mother.’

  I smile, but I’m feeling nervous.

  ‘But,’ she continues, ‘it’s all pretty moot since I’m not pregnant and I can’t even start another IVF cycle until we’ve saved up five thousand dollars and I’m thirty-nine and growing older every second.’

  Nettie is drunker than I thought, slurring on the word ‘second’ so it sounds more like ‘shecond’. Harriet is balanced precariously on her lap and Tom, as if reading my mind, takes Harriet from her. Ollie has finally stopped basting the turkey and is paying attention. He shoots me a panicked look. Meanwhile Diana takes a careful sip of wine then replaces her glass on the table. ‘So you want to be like Lucy, do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nettie says. There’s a trace of defiance in her voice that has me steeling myself.

  ‘I see.’ Diana’s voice is calm and controlled and there’s something sinister about it. It puts me on edge. ‘And what do you think would happen to Lucy if Ollie died?’

  I open my mouth, but Nettie doesn’t miss a beat.

  ‘I imagine that Ollie has life insurance.’

  ‘Enough that Lucy wouldn’t have to work?’ Diana laughs. ‘I doubt it. She has two children to feed, clothe, educate. And what kind of job will she be able to get after taking all these years out of the workforce?’

  ‘Mum!’ Ollie says.

  ‘What?’ Diana looks around the room. ‘You all look horrified, but tell me, what would you do, Lucy?’

  ‘Mum, that’s enough!’ Ollie says.

  ‘Lucy hasn’t even thought about it,’ Diana says, turning away from all of us to look at Nettie. ‘Is that the kind of mother you want to be?’

  Nettie and I rise to our feet and Tom and Ollie struggle to insert themselves between us and Diana.

  ‘You want to know what kind of mother I’d like to be?’ Nettie screams. ‘The kind that helps her children when they come to her for help. The kind that makes them feel good about themselves, instead of like lazy, worthless spongers.’

  ‘So you’ll give your children anything they want?’ Diana says. Her pitch rises slightly and I can see she is starting to get flustered. ‘Teach them they can have something for nothing and not have to work for anything?’

  ‘You think I haven’t worked for a child?’ Nettie’s voice is ragged, her face red. ‘I’ve been trying for three years. I’ve been on every fertility drug known to man. I’ve done two failed rounds of IVF. I’ve had four miscarriages.’

  Diana shakes her head, looking away. But as she folds her hands in her lap, I notice they’re shaking. ‘Helping is the worst thing I could do for you, Nettie.’

  ‘In that case, you’ve been fantastic,’ Patrick says from his bar stool at the end of the table. He raises his beer, a ‘cheers’ to the room. ‘Merry Christmas to us, eh?’

  28

  LUCY

  The present . . .

  Patrick throws his head back and lets out a long, loud, wrong laugh. Gerard and Nettie and Ollie look away uncomfortably, but I can’t stop looking at Patrick. He looks . . . different. His lips move in jerky, twitchy movements, as if they can’t decide whether to curve up or down. ‘Are you saying Diana hasn’t left her children anything?’ He presses the thumb and forefinger of his right hand to each temple and shakes his head.

  Gerard looks down at the documents in front of him. ‘Just some personal effects.’ He lifts a page and places his glasses on his nose. ‘Photo albums, furniture from your childhood bedrooms to be retrieved at your convenience. Nettie has been left Diana’s engagement ring and Ollie has been given his father’s cigar collection. Lucy has been left a necklace—’

  Patrick releases a spasm of air that might be a laugh or possibly a gasp. ‘And the cash? The properties?’

  ‘Diana’s charity will continue operating and a board will be appointed to oversee the running of it. The cash will support the running of the business, as well as any other ventures deemed by the board to be in the interests of the charity. The properties will be sold and the proceeds will also go to the—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ollie interrupts this time, holding up a hand. ‘Can we back up a second? We don’t get anything aside from personal effects? No. This must be some kind of mistake.’

  Gerard looks sombre. ‘I can assure you, there is no mistake. Diana made her wishes very clear.’

  He blinks, pauses. ‘Can we contest it?’

  ‘You can,’ Gerard says, clearly expecting this. ‘But it wouldn’t be a quick process.’

  ‘Would we win?’

  ‘You might.’ He hesitates. ‘I can’t be the one to advise you on this, as the executor, but I suggest you get advice once you’
ve had a chance to think it over.’

  ‘We don’t need to think about it,’ Ollie says. ‘We’ll be contesting it.’

  ‘I . . . agree,’ Nettie says.

  ‘So do I,’ Patrick says.

  ‘Lucy?’ Gerard says. ‘What do you think?’

  I swivel in my chair and look from Patrick to Nettie to Ollie. Their faces are etched with hurt and bewilderment. There’s something else in their faces too, something ugly. So ugly, in fact, that I have to swivel my chair back again.

  ‘It has nothing to do with me,’ I tell Gerard. ‘Nothing at all.’

  29

  DIANA

  The past . . .

  Apparently our house has over thirty rooms. I still find that hard to fathom. The first time Tom brought me to look at it, I point blank refused to live here. I spend my days with women who live in homes the size of a carparking space, why should I live in a palace? But Tom, as usual, talked me into it. It’s funny how quickly things become normal. Funny how morals can bend.

  Tonight, Tom and I are in the den. I’m down one end of the Chesterfield and Tom is down the other. His trousers are pushed up to the knees and I am massaging his calves. His legs have been giving him some trouble lately. (‘It’s the old age,’ he always says when I tell him to go to the doctor.) At night I often find him pacing around the bedroom, walking off cramps.

  ‘Mmm,’ he mutters now from behind his newspaper. ‘That’s better.’

  It’s been two weeks since what Tom is calling ‘Christmasgate’ with a smile. He can smile, because the children are still speaking to him. It’s irritating. It’s easy to be popular if all you say is yes. In fact, he’s the reason I have to be the way I am. Heaven forbid there was no bad cop. If they had two parents like Tom Goodwin, what kind of entitled brats would they be?

  I haven’t told Tom what got me hot under the collar at Christmas lunch. In truth, I’ve hardly been able to process it myself. It was a few days before Christmas when Kathy called me out of the blue and suggested we meet up for a coffee.