Gucci Mamas (19 page)

Liz’s thoughts had wandered as the reality of Mim’s
money woes became clear, but she looked up as she realised Mim had stopped talking, and gave what she hoped was an encouraging murmur.

‘Thanks,’ Mim sniffed to the waiter as he put down the smoked salmon and caper foccacia at her place and a blackberry muffin at Liz’s.

Mim nibbled the edge of the foccacia and quickly made a face and dropped it back on to her plate in disgust. ‘For God’s sake, can’t this place get a simple meal right? I wouldn’t feed a street-kid this rubbish, the salmon’s dry on the edges.’

‘Mim!’ Liz cried. ‘What an incredibly spoilt brat you are sometimes!’

Mim’s face crumpled with hurt and confusion.

Liz sighed. It had been a brutal morning at the mission and sometimes stepping back into her other world was difficult. She was exhausted with the effort of keeping her two lives separate. But that was no excuse for speaking so harshly to Mim. It was time to come clean, she decided.

‘Mim, I’m so sorry, that was a terrible thing for me to say,’ Liz began. ‘It’s just that, well, I haven’t been entirely honest with you girls, and I think it’s time I started being more truthful.’

Mim pushed her dry salmon foccacia away and stared wide-eyed at her friend. ‘What is it?’

‘I got upset with what you said just now about street-kids because since 6 a.m. I’ve been at a mission in St Kilda serving up scrambled eggs to homeless teenagers,’ Liz told her with a serious look on her face. ‘I’m not normally rostered on for breakfast, but they were desperate.’

‘Normally rostered on? Is this, like, a regular thing then?’ Mim asked in disbelief.

‘Yes, it is. I’ve been doing it since Roman was two years old.’

Liz told Mim her story. She held back the personal
details, of course, but her volunteer work at the St Kilda Angels was revealed, and Liz felt incredibly relieved to finally share this part of her life.

Mim drove home, astounded after the long talk with Liz. Who would have thought that Liz, of all people – with all her money – would be leading such a giving, selfless double life. And, more importantly, why was she doing it?

Everybody in their social set attended money-raising functions for various causes: children, whales, rainforests – they donated by buying tickets to fabulous do’s and winning expensive items at charity auctions, and therefore felt truly benevolent because they were ‘giving to the poor’. But to actually be hands-on – well, it just wasn’t done!

‘What on earth is in it for her?’ Mim found herself thinking, and then abruptly realised the selfishness of the thought.

Oh God, no wonder she sounded like a spoilt brat – or princess, as James would say.

She thought hard for a few minutes. What did she actually do for anyone else?

Nothing, she realised, her face hot with shame. Somehow labels, the right invitations, fashion and keeping up with the Smith-Kline-Joneses had become the causes closest to her heart.

Shit, I think maybe I am a Private School Princess, she thought. Maybe it’s time for a change?

Ellie drove the Porsche through the Langholme Grammar circular drive and picked up Rupert, who was wrestling with another Grade Two boy on the lawn.

‘Hi, possum, hop in,’ she called from the window of the car. ‘Oh shit,’ she said under her breath as Rupert’s teacher strode toward the car, ‘it’s Mrs Creighton. Quick, darling.’ Rupert chucked his bag on the back seat and Ellie pressed the accelerator to escape the unwelcome onslaught.

‘So, how was school?’ She glanced over at her first-born as he gazed out the window.

‘All right,’ was the unenthusiastic reply.

‘What was the best bit?’

‘Lunchtime, but there wasn’t enough food. Can I’ve two packets of chips tomorrow?’ he whined.

‘We’ll see. And the worst bit?’

‘Art.’

‘How could you not like art? It’s meant to be fun,’ Ellie said.

‘It’s so boring. He makes us all do the same thing and I
got in trouble for punching Tarquin. But he started it. He called me Fatty Boombatty.’

‘Oh, sweetie,’ she stroked his chubby little cheek, ‘he doesn’t understand you’ve got a gland problem.’ At least Ellie now knew the reason Mrs Creighton had wanted to bail her up.

With the Porsche double-parked outside TJs, Ellie rushed in and grabbed Paris. She really wanted to have a minute to talk to Miss Haughton about Paris’s social skills (or lack thereof ) but the parking situation forced her to grab and run. Next time, she promised herself.

Pulling up into their four-car garage, the children jumped out and ran for the house, leaving Ellie carrying the bags and following the trail of discarded items they left in their wake.

Stepping over socks, shoes, jumpers, school notices, craft and an unidentifiable pink bit of goop with beads stuck onto it, which she skirted as if it was radioactive, Ellie made her way to their Italian marble kitchen. ‘Rupert, sweetie, out of the cupboard. Paris, what happened to your beautiful new stockings?’ She eyed the huge hole torn in the stockings lying on the floor.

‘George happened,’ Paris replied. ‘I HATE him,’ and she stomped off to the TV room.

With the children snacked-up and in front of the television, Ellie went upstairs to pack. She opened her overnight bag and threw in jeans, runners, windcheater and T-shirt, and a tracksuit to sleep in. It gets cold there, she thought. She momentarily picked up her silk robe, and lay it back on the bed. No, she thought, that’s inappropriate.

She grabbed her overnight Louis Vuitton case and headed back downstairs to check on the children, greeting Ursula in the kitchen. What a little treasure. She was already starting dinner and had the children up at the bench eating a second snack of carrot sticks and dip.

‘Oh, hello Ursula, thanks so much for getting the dry-cleaning.’

‘No problem, Mrs Ashcombe, it’s my pleasure.’ Ursula smiled at Ellie while simultaneously removing a dip-coated carrot stick from Rupert who was threatening to stick it into Paris’s hair.

Ellie went into the office to make a couple of phone calls and then ducked back upstairs to get changed into black wool pants, a cream turtleneck and flat black ankle boots. Grabbing her quilted cream jacket, overnight case and black Prada sac, she headed to the car.

‘Bye kids,’ she said, kissing them on the way past. ‘You behave for Ursula now, see you tomorrow.’

And she was out the door.

As Ellie zoomed down the highway, heavy clouds that had been threatening all day finally unleashed their fury and the Porsche wipers were going full pelt. She was anxious to be there, yet apprehensive, and wished she didn’t have to go at all.

She started reflecting on who she was about to visit and the past they shared. Ellie’s past was not exactly as she made it out to be. She felt dreadfully guilty misleading most of her friends, but, she justified to herself, they loved her, the today-Ellie, not the twenty years ago Ellie. That Ellie was a very different person.

Ellie had been a normal girl, who thought, like all little girls, she was probably a princess. But, as she looked out of the only skinny window letting grimy light into her cell-sized room, she thought, how could a princess live here? Unless, of course, it’s a princess who has been locked in a tower by a wicked stepmother and is guarded by a dragon.

Only it wasn’t a stepmother, it was her real mother, who was being chased by demons of her own. Addictive, terrible demons.

Every night Ellie walked her sister home from school to their three-room workman’s cottage. The front door was barely a metre from the street, joined at each side to other cottages so close that the fights and shouts of desperate and often dangerous inhabitants permeated the lathe and plaster day and night. The cottage was on the edge of the city, years before the edge of the city became trendy and started pumping out litres of latte and mountains of foccacia. This was a suburb originally built in the 1800s for the working-class poor, and it had gone steadily downhill since. The first architects to discover the wonders of ‘warehouse space’ and ‘urban living’ were years away from Ellie’s little patch.

She had been a very quiet girl. She had discovered early on in life that if you stay as quiet as possible, you won’t draw attention to yourself. She had become a master at making herself invisible. She made lunch for herself and her little sister Sarah every day and then the girls walked to the local state primary school, and years later to the high school across the road.

Ellie loved her sister and would help her with her homework each night, talk to her about her friends and problems, and make her dinner. Ellie tried really hard to keep her own grades up, but found it very difficult. She had little time after maintaining their household, as pathetic as it was.

Often her mother would party long into the night with the strangers she brought home. On those nights the girls would shut the bedroom door and lie in bed together in fear as they remembered the terrible night when one of the ‘guests’ had come into their room with probing fingers and an evil laugh.

Returning abruptly to the present, Ellie shook her head. She didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to think about that right now. She left the freeway and before long was on the quiet road she knew so well. Great tall ghost gums lined
the driveway as the Porsche made its left-hand turn and crunched up the gravel towards the big, old house.

The porch light was on and a figure waited in the doorway. Another blonde, long-haired beauty with legs that went on forever stood with the light shining out around her, making her glow like an apparition. With her arms folded, blocking out the cold, she hugged the woolly cable-knit cardigan around her. The baggy cords and ugg boots did nothing to belie her angelic appearance.

Ellie parked the car and, grabbing her bag and case, strode across. The women were of equal height when they embraced.

‘You’re here,’ said the woman.

‘Thank God,’ Ellie replied.

Ellie’s feet echoed on the ancient floorboards in the draughty hall. Dozens of memories – some sad, some joyful – flooded back as she breathed in the familiar smells of the house. She dropped her bags at the foot of the imposing timber staircase and looked around for anything new, but it was all as it had been for decades.

From above came the soft sounds of a woman weeping. Ellie gave her companion a wry smile and they moved together into the huge, toasty warm kitchen. They sank into a pair of threadbare, overstuffed club chairs pulled up close to the open fire.

A pot of tea sat brewing on the heavy oak table between them. Sarah poured the tea and handed a steaming cup over to her sister.

‘Mmmm,’ said Ellie appreciatively, ‘you still make the best cup of tea in the world.’

‘It’s all in the brewing,’ smiled Sarah. ‘That, and warming the pot first.’

‘Quiet night tonight?’ Ellie asked.

‘Yes, we had a full house all week but most of them have moved on,’ Sarah explained. ‘There are only two here who are seeing the counsellor tomorrow. I don’t know how long they’ll stay,’ she mused.

‘As long as they want, I should imagine,’ said Ellie with a smile, knowing her sister very well.

‘When they’re ready, there’s plenty of time.’

The women relaxed back in their chairs, warmed by the flames, tea, and just being close to each other again. Ellie’s thoughts finally stopped swirling through her head as she sat mesmerised by the dancing flames. She could feel her face glowing with heat as she revelled in the peace of being here: being with Sarah.

‘So,’ her sister eventually broke the quiet, ‘what’s actually happened?’

Reality hit Ellie hard. For a few moments she’d escaped the horrible facts, but now she had to face it all again. Tears spilled down her face as she leaned forward to grasp Sarah’s hand and begin her story.

‘Bryce rang me in the middle of the school production last week. I could hardly hear him over the noise, but finally I realised what he was trying to tell me. The building –
that
building,’ she looked at Sarah meaningfully, ‘has been sold. But worse than that, apparently it’s like a time capsule inside. They sealed it up in 1984 and nothing’s been touched since.’

Sarah clutched Ellie’s hand harder, turning pale in the firelight. ‘So are the photos still there then?’ she asked.

‘Yes, they are, and one of the other school families has bought the property and now has all the promotional material – the posters, the flyers, it’s all there!’

‘But surely it will just get thrown out?’ Sarah asked.

‘The stupid woman has decided to exhibit it as some kind of wretched retro exercise in self-promotion or something!’

Sarah gave a sharp intake of breath.

‘I know, it’s such bad luck. We had been trying to buy the building ourselves for years so we could torch it and get on with our lives. I just knew that something like this would happen if we didn’t – and now it has.

‘So now it’s too late and I’m ruined, there’s nothing I can do. And when word is out, I’ll be a social pariah. Plus I’ve lied to my friends all this time – except for darling Mim, I told her last week – but how will the others ever trust me again.’ Ellie sobbed hard, leaning in to her sister.

‘Come on, sweetie,’ Sarah comforted her, tucking Ellie’s tear-soaked hair behind her ear, ‘We’ve been through much, much worse together and survived. And we’ll make it through this,
together
– I promise.’ Sarah smiled, giving her big sister a hug and moving into the kitchen to make another pot of tea and grilled cheese sandwiches.

‘But Sarah, you don’t understand: no one will speak to me, no one will want to know me. I’ll be publicly shamed,’ Ellie sniffed, her head leaden from crying.

‘Okay, so tell me the worst thing that can happen,’ Sarah answered in her calm way.

‘Well, I’ll be the laughing stock of the whole school and the whole city. I’ll be dis-invited from all sorts of fabulous events. I’ll be hideously humiliated and I’ll never be able to show my face again,’ Ellie sobbed.

‘Okay, so is that all?’ Sarah asked simply.

‘Hello? Isn’t that enough,’ Ellie snapped sarcastically.

‘But what about your life – your real life? Will that be affected?’

‘Excuse me, that
is
my real life.’

‘No it’s not, that’s all just surface stuff: what the mums at school think of you; what the social set says you did or didn’t do; who likes you or doesn’t like you; whether they gossip about you or not – it won’t be pretty, I know, but it’s not the end of the world.’

Sometimes Ellie could strangle her pragmatic sister. ‘Okay then, you tell me, Miss Straight-and-Narrow, what would be the end of the world then?’

‘Losing Bryce, Paris or Rupert,’ she answered. ‘Is that likely to happen?’

‘Well no,’ Ellie hesitated, realising she’d been outsmarted. ‘But what if the kids get wind of it?’

‘So? Just be honest with them, the truth will never hurt them. It’d do them good to have a small dose of reality in that perfect little synthetic world they live in.’

Ellie visually flinched at that and Sarah quickly apologised. ‘Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, that was mean of me. But your kids could be a lot tougher than you think; and it’s true, it would be good for them to know that actually very little in life is perfect, everyone has hard times – it’s not all designer labels and fancy parties in real life, is it?’

‘I suppose not,’ Ellie conceded. ‘It’s just after what we went through I really want to keep them in a safe bubble of perfection for as long as I can.’

‘But Ellie, is it worth it for the work you have to do maintaining it? Keeping secrets like this will destroy you eventually.’

‘I know. Anyway, it won’t be a secret much longer.’

The sisters talked on for hours, and by midnight Ellie was almost starting to feel as if everything would be okay after all.

‘Sarah, you’re a marvel.’ She smiled at her sister. ‘I haven’t had a moment’s peace since this began, but then I came here and you’ve put it all into perspective for me. Like you said, “what’s the worst that can happen?” I mean, maybe I’ll be ostracised by some and lose my social status – but I’ll have what’s most important to me: you, the kids and Bryce. And that’s all that really matters in the end.’ She breathed her first deep breath in days and reflected on the amazingly
therapeutic power of the house. Much of it had to do with Sarah, of course, but it was also the peaceful bush setting and the sense of comfort and serenity that the house itself offered.

It wasn’t the first time she had called on its soothing powers.

One night many years ago, a night that was seared forever into Ellie’s memory like a deep scar, she had woken up in the early hours during one of their mother’s many parties to become instantly aware of another presence in the pathetic little room she shared with Sarah. Her eyes adjusted to the dark as quickly as it took her to sit up and realise what was happening.

A man was on top of her sister. Sarah’s bright eyes were staring in horror over the huge hand that was muffling her screams. Her stick-like white legs were spread and looked like they were threatening to snap under the weight of the man. Ellie picked up the only weapon she had on hand, her science textbook, and whacked him over the head with all her might.

He roared and leapt up, swinging a powerful arm back that connected with the side of Ellie’s head. She went down and whacked her head on the bed leg. When she came to, seconds later, Sarah was leaning over her, calling her name. The stranger was gone.

Ellie had never forgotten the look of horror and pain on her sister’s face. They’d left that night, run to Mrs Mac for help and been referred to this house in the country – a refuge, a place where young girls could seek care and support while they got themselves on their feet. It had been a godsend for the sisters, a balm for their troubled and damaged souls. The fiercely independent Ellie stayed a week with her little sister but, determined to support them both, returned to the city to earn the money for their future.

In those days Mrs Lovell ran the house, and she cared for Sarah like she was her own, seeing that she got the quiet therapy she needed. After their mother’s overdose, and with no other family to turn to, Sarah was given the chance to regain a normal life by going to the local school and grow up in this untraditional, yet loving, surrogate family. She contributed by helping out with the guest meals and housework and Ellie sent her money whenever she could.

After high school, Sarah completed a psychology course at an adult education centre and continued to work with Mrs Lovell. And when the older woman retired, Sarah took over the running of the hostel: her home. She could empathise with the lost souls who found their way there. The girls who needed little more than kindness and understanding; a warm bed and some nutritious food. She doled out all in generous proportions. Sarah was careful to never actually break the law, although sometimes she sailed pretty close to it in order to protect girls terrified of being returned to abusive parents or partners.

Now, as the fire turned to glowing embers and the sisters drank their way through a final pot of tea, Ellie’s anxiety was soothed. They had decided on a course of action. At last it was time for sleep.

‘I’ve put you in your usual room,’ Sarah told her, leading the way upstairs. ‘Sorry it’s so freezing, but the heater’s on the blink. I’ve left lots of blankets in there and tucked in a hot-water bottle for you.’

‘Thanks, gorgeous,’ said Ellie, giving Sarah a hug as they reached the first landing. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Sarah went into her own room and Ellie continued up the next flight of stairs to the top floor. Sarah was right, the house was freezing away from the warmth of the kitchen fire. From outside Ellie could hear the familiar sound of the gum trees swishing against the slate roof, possums moving
around in the ceiling and, from far away, the sea murmuring to itself. They were all sounds that Ellie now associated with safety.

Creeping slowly down the hall on the Persian runner, she found her way to Room 11 by the soft glow of the antique wall sconces. The house was silent, sighing softly to itself as its timbers and beams adjusted themselves into a more comfortable position.

She jiggled the old key in the temperamental lock until it finally gave way and she was standing on the threshold of her own little haven. This was somewhere that Bryce had never been, a place that her children didn’t know about and that was kept secret from even her closest friends. This was a part of Ellie that was truly her own.

Little of the simple decor had changed since her first night in the room all those years ago when she had been a frightened big sister desperate for Sarah’s safety and the hope of a better future for both of them. She flicked on the light and sat on the beautiful worn chintz armchair to pull off her boots. She threw them carelessly (forgetting what they had cost, who had designed them and the reverential treatment they normally commanded) onto the threadbare carpet and turned back the covers of her wrought iron bed.

A white waffle cover that Mrs Lovell had made for her still covered the sheets, which were the kind of simple, soft flannelette that Ellie hadn’t slept under for years. Welcoming and warm, the bed swallowed her problems and lulled her to sleep to the sound of the wind in the eucalypts and the secure thought that her sister slept in the room beneath her.