The Mistake

by Wendy James

  I live in the small town of Milton, near Arding, which is where Jodie grew up. Since I had my first stroke five years ago I have required full-time care and now live in Restwell Nursing Home. Jodie’s older brother Jason and his four children also live here in Milton, so the gossip that is around the place is having a bad effect on more than just Jodie.

  I just wish it to be known that my daughter is not quite the do-gooder she makes out to be as she has to all intents and purposes abandoned her natural family. It has been almost eight months since her last visit here, even though Arding is only a ten-minute drive from Milton. She has not been in contact with her brother or his children for over five years, and so far as I know her children have never even met her father, Bob, who now lives somewhere on the north coast.

  This is just to give you a picture of the sort of woman Jodie is. She is a social climber who couldn’t wait to get away from her background and who has always been ashamed of her parents and her family. We were only ordinary battlers – Jodie’s dad was a truck driver and I worked as a barmaid here in Milton, so we were never what you would call a rich or high and mighty family, but we were hard-working and tried our best to give all our kids a decent life. But even as a little girl Jodie was always wishing she came from somewhere else. She was always working hard to be friends with kids who came from real posh families – doctors’ and teachers’ and university people’s children, for instance.

  So it didn’t come as a surprise to any of her own family, or those who have known her all her life, to find out that she had got rid of that baby all those years ago. She wouldn’t have let anything at all come in between herself and Angus Garrow, who she had her sights set on since she was only sixteen or so. I never knew she was pregnant, but I would like it to be known I would have encouraged her to keep the poor little thing, that I would have supported her and there would have been no shame for her in bringing up a little one alone. I would have loved to have been able to be a proper grandma to my daughter’s children. It’s a great sadness to me that I barely know the two kiddies that she’s kept – I suppose we are not good enough for the Garrows!

  Anyway, just to set the record straight, it was not our doing or with our approval or in order to not upset us that Jodie did what she did, as we would have been more than happy to welcome her baby and help rear it as best we could despite our own difficult circumstances.

  Yours sincerely,

  Mrs Jeannette (Jeannie) Evans

  18

  Jodie reads the letter on the news website on the morning of its publication, though someone thoughtfully pushes the cutting under her door later that day. She spends the rest of that morning cleaning the bathrooms – scrubs every surface, every tile, every millimetre of grout, using the strongest bleach she can lay her hands on, the fumes so strong that it is impossible to tell whether the tears that run in a continual stream, virtually blinding her, and the violent churning of her stomach are chemically or emotionally induced.

  Fiona Silvers calls a few days later, her voice uncharacteristically breathy as she leaves a message for Jodie.

  ‘I thought you might like to know,’ she says, ‘your mum is going to be on telly – on Today Tonight. I thought … I thought you had a right to know.’ As if she were doing Jodie a favour.

  Jodie cannot bear to watch it, but Angus locks himself into the lounge room and listens through headphones. He calls the station immediately and demands a written transcript – a single mention of the word libel and they’re more than eager to comply. They email it the following day, and Angus hands it to Jodie on his arrival home. ‘It’s pretty bad,’ he says, his expression full of pity, concern. ‘But you shouldn’t take it too much to heart, Jodes – she’ll have done it for the cash, you know. For the notoriety. And everyone will know that.’ She cannot respond, can’t even read it in front of him. She snatches the document without making eye contact, walks stiffly into the bedroom, locks the door, sits down on the bed.

  ‘JODIE’S Devastated Mum Tells All’

  Interview Transcript

  Reporter: Abi Cartwright

  Producer: Samuel Townsend

  Melissa Cartwright: Mrs Evans, you wrote a letter to the media last week about your daughter, Jodie Garrow, who’s currently under investigation following the revelation that, unbeknownst to her friends and family, she’d given birth to a baby as a young woman – a baby that has since disappeared. I’ll just read an extract to the audience.

  (Reads excerpts from letter)

  Melissa: Well, it was a very honest letter, Mrs Evans, and quite a surprising one. I wonder if you could tell me what prompted you to write such a revealing and heartfelt letter? To make your sentiments so very public?

  Mrs Evans: (clears throat) Well, dear, a few people around here – those who never really knew us, I’m talking about, because anyone who knows the Evanses will know that we aren’t the type of people who’d kick our daughter out if she came home pregnant or with a baby, but there were a few people about who have been making certain, um … intonations. Saying that poor Jodie couldn’t come home, that she couldn’t tell her family about it because she’d of been scared. And anyone who knows us knows that there’s no truth in that – even though we’ve had our troubles the same as anyone else, I suppose, there was never any violence or anything like that, but just troubles, like everyone has. But there’s no way I’d ever of kicked Jodie out or done anything except what was right by her. When my oldest boy, Jason, was in prison a few years back – it was nothing serious, just a … a misunderstandment, and he can be a bit of a lad when he’s on the grog – I took on two of his kiddies for a couple of years when his fiancée Laura went off the rails. They’re better now, no harm done. And Jason’s out and got two more.

  Melissa: I can understand you wanting to protect your family’s good name, Mrs Evans. But it hasn’t occurred to you that in defending your own good name, you may have done some very public harm to your daughter’s reputation at this very difficult time?

  Mrs Evans: Well, I’m only speaking the truth. We would of welcomed Jodes back with open arms. I’d have loved that poor wee baby like she was my own – there was no need for her to do whatever it was she did. It would of been hard – I never had a lot of spare time – or cash – since Jodie’s dad left. A deserted mum I was, with three little kiddies, and barely heard from him since. Now I come to think of it, Jodie’s a chip off the old block really, he always thought too highly of himself, thought he was too good for us, for Milton.

  Melissa: And what is it that you think happened, Mrs Evans? As a mother – and who knows a daughter better than her own mother? – what do you suspect really happened to baby Elsa Mary?

  Mrs Evans: What do I think happened? Well, really, dear – I’ve got no idea, have I? It’s a real mystery, isn’t it – like they’re saying on the telly. I suppose she might of adopted it out, like she says. I mean, there are all sorts of people out there, aren’t there? Though, I have to say, I’d have thought Jodes was a bit smarter than to do something like that. Even as a little girl she was quite … clever … and not just in a schoolwork type of way. You know what I mean: she always knew which way was up, always good at looking after number one. She wasn’t the type of girl you really had to worry about – with boys, getting pregnant and all that. She was a good girl in that way. (pause) But I guess we were wrong about that, weren’t we? She might of been too good for us, but she wasn’t quite as clever as she thought.

  Melissa: Perhaps I can rephrase that question slightly. Do you think your daughter would be capable of harming a baby?

  Mrs Evans: Oh. I see what you mean. Well, I guess she could of, couldn’t she? But she was never a cruel girl. Oh, I guess she had a barney or two with Jason and Shane when they were little. But I don’t ever remember her hurting anyone – not physical, anyway.

  Melissa: You don’t think she’d have been capable of killing the baby, then, and disposing of the body? Perhaps because of her fear of being caught, of putting
her relationship with her future husband at great risk? It’s not possible that all this, combined with the shock of childbirth, might have driven her to such an act?

  Mrs Evans: Well, I … I don’t … I really don’t know, dear. I suppose if she’d had to choose between Angus and the baby … oh, deary me. Really, I don’t think she would. But then, what do I know. She’s a bit of a cold fish, Jodie. She’s sort of an unfeeling type of woman, if you know what I mean. She’s not been a real daughter to me at all, you know, barely has anything to do with me. My sons are wonderful, but at a certain time of life a woman really needs a daughter.

  Melissa: Well, thank you for that, Mrs Evans.

  Anchor: That was Melissa Cartwright speaking to Mrs Jeannie Evans, mother of Jodie Garrow, from her home in Milton, near the regional city of Arding in Northern NSW.

  This time she doesn’t cry. Jodie’s exhausted her tears, is beyond even anger, stunned, numb. She crumples the printout into a ball, tosses it into a corner of the room. Lies back on the bed with her eyes closed, breathing deeply. She hears Angus’s gentle tapping on the door, his apprehensive inquiry – ‘Jodes. Are you okay? Jodie?’ – but ignores it, feigning deafness, sleep. She can’t bear the thought of his, of anyone’s, sympathy right now, wants to ponder alone the source of this profanity, this betrayal, this clear evidence of her mother’s aversion to her.

  Jodie’s relationship with her mother could never have been described as close – it’s quite true that she rarely sees her, though she does her duty: sending birthday presents, cash, paying for any extra nursing that’s required. But still she can’t understand how their relationship has descended to this. Though she knows that her mother’s shameful public critique of her character is vindictive, is more about her mother than her, still it hurts. It’s the injustice more than anything: Jodie knows she isn’t an overtly warm person – she’s self-contained, reserved if not exactly shy – but she’s not unfeeling, has never been unfeeling. She has always felt.

  Had her mother ever loved her?

  She wonders sometimes whether she only imagines that her mother’s hostility, and their subsequent estrangement, really stemmed from her childhood, or whether they had only developed this mutual antipathy as she grew into an adolescent. Perhaps before that things had been rather more normal; perhaps Jeannie had been an affectionate, well-meaning, good-enough mother – not entirely besotted by her progeny, but what mother really was (in those long-ago days before a mother’s cultivation of self-esteem became more vital to the raising of a healthy child than pasteurised milk)? Or maybe there was some truth to her mother’s accusations. Perhaps she wasn’t an engaging child – was she prickly, withdrawn, critical? Unlovable?

  Her mother’s life had been unimaginably difficult. Jodie’s father had been in and out of work for years, had been a drunk, occasionally violent. He’d finally left Jeannie with the three of them when Jodie was seven, the two boys eleven and five and by any reckoning a handful. Jason was already hanging around with the type of boys he would always attract – older, tougher, always in trouble – and Shane showing signs of some sort of learning difficulty. He’d be diagnosed with something now, ADD, ADHD, for certain. Looking back, her mother had most likely suffered from some sort of undiagnosed depressive illness for years, but back then she’d done what she’d had to do to make sure they had a roof over their heads, to keep food on the table and shoes on their feet. And that had meant work, hard work: as a barmaid, cleaning, whatever employment was on offer in a small, impoverished place like Milton – which wasn’t much, and certainly wasn’t conducive to family life.

  There wasn’t much left of her, Jodie supposes now, to properly nurture her children. Her mother had found her pleasure where she could, obviously regarding her children as an encumbrance rather than consolation. And they – the three kids – well, they’d had a hard time of it too, had virtually reared themselves, had to struggle to survive. There had been a casual arrangement with a neighbour, Aunty Val, who was paid to keep an eye on them – but in reality it was only Shane who needed looking after. Jason’s afternoons were spent out on his bike with his mates, causing trouble, while Jodie was old enough and responsible enough to be at home alone. She had spent much of her childhood on her own, mooching about the place, reading books from the school library, watching TV, pretending to be someone else, wishing to be somewhere, anywhere else.

  It was as if her mother had given her up as a worthless emotional investment – early on, perhaps even when she was a baby. For as long as she could remember Jodie had existed at a distance from her mother – she’d been on the outer reaches of whatever family unit still existed, and if not unwanted then certainly not understood or approved of. From an early age she’d found her mother vaguely shameful, cringed at her broad Australian twang, her chain-smoking, her stinking like grog even at four in the afternoon; had been painfully aware of the squalor of their housing commission home, her mother’s wrong hair, wrong clothes, wrong comments.

  Her mother had a more conventional relationship with Jodie’s brothers, though; seemed to enjoy their company, in her particular offhand way. This is not to say that they didn’t frequently receive the sharp end of her tongue, or the back of her hand, but somehow it didn’t mean anything; it was never serious. However unappealing to outsiders, the boys belonged in Jeannie’s world – she understood them, approved of them, loved them as much as she could love anybody. Despite the inconvenience of their undeniable problems, unlike Jodie they accepted their home, their mother, their lot in life.

  The shimmering oasis in Jodie’s lonely desert of a childhood, her one experience of companionship, friendship, is something she still remembers clearly, holds dear, more than thirty years later.

  Jodie, eight, has wandered, bored, one afternoon down to the local park to play on the swings. The park has recently been given a makeover during an enthusiastic but short-lived effort to improve Milton’s civic infrastructure. Originally just a few swing sets in a dusty clearing, the park now has turf laid in a sweeping area from the river bank to the footpath, saplings have been planted, a small pond and fountain constructed. The area, which fronts a small sandy beach on the river, has become the exclusive hangout of the town’s delinquents and bored youths – the perfect place for beer and dope and not-so-surreptitious sex.

  But none of this concerns Jodie, who is really only interested in the fact that the revamped park now boasts a swing set with rubber seats, a smoothly spinning pipe-metal roundabout, two slippery-dips, and a house-shaped climbing frame – the whole lot sitting atop a brightly painted cement base with a generous hopscotch grid neatly marked up.

  Jodie’s mother has been spending most of her afternoons and evenings drinking with a shearer who is in town for an extended bender, and has dumped Shane on her own mother for a period, leaving the older two to look after themselves. Jason, who is twelve, has run wild – joining a bunch of bigger boys every afternoon after school who hoon around town on their bikes and generally cause trouble – while Jodie is more or less left to her own devices, though her mother calls in the late afternoon to check that they are both there, watching television as instructed. He generally cops an earful later, when they’re both around simultaneously for not being there to look after his sister. ‘You bloody little shit,’ their mother yells, swiping at him as he grins and ducks. ‘I’m out there working my arse off trying to support you deadshits. I don’t know what for. Jesus! You need to watch her, Jase. Anything could happen,’ she adds cryptically, her voice full of some dark knowledge that Jodie can’t quite fathom. Even knowing that Jason is never there, her mother makes no arrangements other than a casual directive that Jodie should go over to Aunty Val’s if she’s worried.

  So Jodie, bored and looking for ways to distract herself from the hunger that seems always to gnaw at her, has been venturing alone to the new park, which is only a short walk from home, drawn by the lush grass, the brightly coloured play equipment and the prospect of company.

>   This particular afternoon there are two unfamiliar children playing, a girl of around her own age, and an older boy, her brother perhaps. The boy, who is smoking a cigarette, is swinging fitfully – dragging his feet in the dirt on every downward swing – and watching the girl climb on the frame. She is worth watching; Jodie stands and shyly watches too. She is obviously some sort of expert, better than anyone Jodie has seen before: she swings neatly from rung to rung, as lightly and easily as a monkey, then spins around on one leg until she is sitting atop the bar at the highest point. She hangs from the rail for a moment, her arms dangling, two neat plaits following suit, then pulls herself up and spins again with dizzying speed. After several more graceful spins, she flies off the bar, her legs bent together, hands clamped about her knees like the young gymnasts Jodie has seen on television. Jodie holds her breath in terror, but the girl lands neatly and securely with two feet together. The girl stands upright, arms before her, eyes closed, breathing slowly, swaying slightly.

  Eventually she opens her eyes and turns to the boy, gives him a disdainful look. ‘Told you I could do four in a row. You owe me fifty cents. Hand it over.’

  The boy doesn’t reply, just keeps sweeping through the dirt with his feet. ‘Do eight, then I’ll pay you.’ He flicks the half-smoked cigarette in her direction.

  The girl rolls her eyes. Holds out her hand. ‘No way, crater face. Pay up now, or I’m telling Aunty Del that you’ve been smoking – stealing her fags too, I’ll bet.’

  He mutters as he digs in his pocket, but hands over some change – first a fifty-cent piece, then a few more gleaming coins – before sauntering off.

  The girl gazes at the handful of money for a moment, her eyes wide – then turns and beams at Jodie, who is standing enraptured, still half holding her breath. ‘Hi there,’ she says breezily. ‘He’s given me a dollar. You can get fifty cobbers for that up at Rafferty’s. You want to share?’