Mothers and Daughters (2 page)

‘You’re a freak,’ said Janey mildly, placing a tab of bubble gum in her mouth. She offered Bronte the packet. ‘D’you want some? My ears always hurt at take-off and landing if I’m not chewing on something.’

‘No, thanks,’ Bronte said. She had no idea if her ears would hurt. This was only the second flight of her life. The first, seven years ago, was when her parents had taken them to Sydney one Easter. Dom had got some sort of tummy bug and vomited all over their hotel room; when he was finally well enough to do a tour of the Opera House, their father had been so appalled at the cost of the tickets that he’d stormed out of the building, claiming they could look at it for free from the harbour. Since then any family holidays had taken place at her grandmother’s house in Rosebud, with its splintery decking and seagrass matting. It was different for Janey, Bronte thought as the plane began to vibrate, then started rolling slowly along the tarmac. She flew all the time—most term breaks, it seemed, with her parents and sister to Noosa or Port Douglas; with her swimming team to their various meets around the country. She was fiddling with her phone again now, not even listening as the flight attendant carefully lifted a banana-yellow lifejacket over her hairdo, then gestured, arms stiff, towards the exits. This was all old hat for Janey, as boring as a maths class, or a cafe with no wi-fi.

Not for her mother, though. Bronte leaned forward, peering between the seats for a glimpse of the three women in the row in front of her. Morag’s fair head was buried in either a magazine or the safety guide; Caro was watching the attendant and absently playing with the strand of pearls around her neck. Bronte watched as her hand lifted automatically to smooth her silvery-blonde bob, then, satisfied that everything was in place, returned to her throat. Pearls to Broome. Coals to Newcastle. Bronte smiled to herself, but she knew Caro couldn’t help it.
She was wedded to those pearls, to always looking immaculate. In contrast, her own mother’s dark hair stuck out from her head. She had her eyes tightly closed, hands clenched in her lap. She probably wanted the others to think she was napping, but Bronte knew the truth. For all her bravado, her mother was ridiculously afraid of flying. Bronte had watched her growing steadily more tense as their bags were weighed and check-in was completed; had stood with her in the public toilet next to the boarding gate and held her purse while her mum took a swig of water straight from the tap and washed down a sleeping tablet, then two Valium. She’d offered Bronte one, but Bronte had refused. Maybe she shouldn’t have, she thought. She probably could have sold it to Janey.

The engines roared and the plane shot forward. Behind them, in the galley, bottles burst into tinkling conversation, as if exclaiming over the sudden movement; Caro’s carefully coiffed hair defied its coating of lacquer and swung momentarily free around her face. Bronte grabbed the armrest and felt her stomach contract. Up, up . . . the brown Tullamarine paddocks tilted outside her window and fell away, replaced by blue. The plane lurched, shuddered, and hauled itself into the air. Beside her, Janey blew a large purple bubble and then popped it with her tongue.

‘Are your ears OK?’ Bronte asked.

‘Fine,’ said Janey, licking shards of gum from her lips. She stared despondently at the silenced phone in her lap. ‘But it’s such a drag to have to turn my mobile off. I wanted to text Caitlin. She gave me a card to give Tess, but I left it at home.’

‘Do you miss Tess since she left?’

Janey looked surprised, as if this was the first time the idea had occurred to her.

‘I guess so, but it’s not as if she’s my BFF or anything.’

‘But you were, weren’t you?’ Bronte persisted. ‘All through primary school, and in year seven too, I thought.’ She’d spent every one of those primary school years in the same class as Janey and Tess—it was how their mothers had met. Morag too, though she had twin boys, Callum and Finn, who liked to pull Bronte’s ponytail when she was looking at the board, then blame the other when she turned around. Bronte had often been jealous of Janey and Tess’s friendship, their contrasting blonde and black heads always bent together over the desk or whispering furiously in a corner. It wasn’t that she liked Janey, especially—being with Janey was like sleeping with an echidna, her mum had once said: no matter how careful you were, you were bound to get hurt—but what she did envy was their closeness. Bronte had friends, but not ones that called her every night to talk for two hours about nothing, or who nagged their mothers into buying the much-coveted heart-shaped charms sold at Bevilles in the city. Gold and shiny, the charms split down the middle into two matching halves, to be worn ostentatiously by besties wanting to flaunt their allegiance.

Tess and Janey, of course, had taken it even further than that. One day in grade four they had gone into the toilets at lunchtime and swapped underwear, proudly lifting their dresses in the playground to show the rest of the girls what they’d done.

‘You’ll get germs,’ Bronte had ventured, to which Tess had replied, ‘No we won’t, because we’re
best friends
.’ The underwear swapping had continued daily, a ritual of devotion and exclusion, till almost the end of grade five, when Janey had suddenly declared it ‘gay’ and the whole thing had stopped. Six months later, when Bronte won a scholarship to a private school, her main emotion was one of relief. Tess and Janey would be going to the local secondary school. She wouldn’t have to endure another six years of watching them together. Bronte pulled at a cuticle. But a week would be OK, she told herself. She could manage a week.

Janey yawned, and pulled her gum out of her mouth with two fingers. Daintily, she rolled it into a ball, then stuck the wad to the side of her seat, dangerously close to Bronte’s bag.

‘It’s different at high school,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s replaceable.’ She looked restlessly out the window, then pulled some earbuds out of jeans so tight Bronte didn’t know how she could even get her fingers in the pocket. ‘How’s St Anne’s?’ she asked grudgingly.

‘Great,’ Bronte replied. ‘I’ve got this fabulous art teacher, Ms Drummond.’ She blushed and stared at her lap. Would Janey understand about Ms Drummond? ‘She thinks my drawings are really good. I mean, she probably says that to everyone, but still . . .’ Bronte took a deep breath and rushed on. ‘She wants me to take her fashion design class next year. We have all these electives for art in year nine—fashion’s one, but there’s also ceramics and woodcraft . . . and I really want to, but I’m not sure what Mum will say. I think she wants me to stick with French. What would you do?’

She turned to Janey, but Janey wasn’t listening. She had her earbuds in and was mouthing the words of a Rhianna song.

Caro shifted in her seat, uneasy. To her right, Fiona sat with her eyes closed and her body frozen in position, turned away towards the wing; to her left, Morag was reading a guidebook, highlighting every second or third paragraph. Behind them Janey stared out the window nodding along to her music while Bronte flicked through a magazine. Had this been a mistake?

When she’d first come up with the idea for the trip, she’d imagined Fiona, Morag and herself giggling together on the flight, feet curled beneath them, leaning in to exchange confidences about the bikinis they’d packed or the waxing they’d endured. She’d pictured Janey and Bronte reconnecting, chatting about their schools or their nail polish, whatever it was fourteen-year-olds were interested in. Instead, they were already an hour out of Melbourne, and barely anyone had said a word to each other.

It would be alright once they were there, she told herself. Amira would put them all at ease, would enfold and include them. She was the one who had brought them together, after all. Eight years, Caro thought, leaning back in her seat. Nearly nine. You knew you were middle-aged when you found yourself wondering where the time had gone. But where
had
it gone? She still remembered that morning—the humid February drizzle, remnant of a cool change; Janey in a too-big uniform, starched and pleated, her hair in plaits. All summer she’d been
excited about going to school, boasting about being a big girl, but when the day actually arrived she’d gripped Caro’s hand so tightly that her fingernails almost drew blood.

Amira had noticed. Amira, a total stranger, had seen Caro hesitate, seen Janey’s face quiver, and had swooped down and complimented the girl on her bright blue ribbons. ‘They match your eyes,’ she’d said, the perfect praise for a girl like Janey, who even at six couldn’t walk past a mirror without assessing her reflection.

‘I like your hair,’ Janey said in return, reaching out to touch it. ‘It’s all fuzzy.’

Amira had laughed. ‘That’s because of the rain.’ She tried to smooth it down, but the black curls sprang back undeterred. ‘Actually, it’s always pretty crazy. My daughter Tess thinks I look like a sheep. Would you like to meet her? She’s in this class too.’

‘OK,’ said Janey, dropping Caro’s hand and allowing herself to be led to a table where a dark-eyed child sat quietly colouring in a picture of a koala.

‘Thank you,’ Caro said once the two girls were exchanging textas.

‘Sorry—I hope you didn’t think I was rude, or interfering,’ Amira replied. ‘It was just that I could see she had her hands full.’ She nodded towards the teacher by the blackboard, one crying child clinging to her hip, another sitting at her feet calling for its mother.

‘Rude? I thought you were brilliant.’

Amira smiled. ‘Thanks. I’m a teacher myself. I know what first days are like, but most of the kids just need to be
distracted.’ She held out a soft brown hand. ‘I’m Amira. Nice to meet you. They look fine, don’t they?’

Tess was peering over Janey’s shoulder offering encouragement while Janey carefully coloured the animal pink. A sliver of tongue protruded from her mouth, and her eyes were fierce with concentration.

‘They do,’ Caro said and shook Amira’s hand, feeling herself relax. ‘Caroline. And thank God. I don’t know who was more nervous about this morning, me or Janey, particularly when Alex couldn’t come. That’s my husband,’ she explained. ‘He’s away for work. He travels a lot. Is yours here?’

Amira shook her head. ‘Single parent. It’s just me and Tess.’

‘Oh. Sorry,’ Caro said.

‘Don’t be,’ said Amira. ‘The best thing he ever did was leave.’ She’d smiled, her white teeth a bright flash of light in her face.

Caro had liked Amira immediately, she recalled now: her confidence, her warmth, the way her gold hoop earrings gleamed against her hair. When Fiona bowled up, demanding to know if this was Prep L, Caro had wanted to shoo her away, to keep this lovely woman all for herself, but Amira had welcomed and soothed her too, positioning Bronte on the other side of Tess. Fiona was also by herself. ‘I didn’t even think of asking Todd to come,’ she’d murmured, looking around the classroom at all the fathers there to see their children launched upon the seas of formal education. She shrugged. ‘He probably wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.’ Then Morag had struggled into the room with a tow-headed boy tugging at each arm and a belly that arrived a full minute before the rest of her. Morag’s husband Andrew was there, Caro remembered, but
it was Amira who had detached the twins and shown them where to put their bags, had urged Morag to sit down lest she go into labour on the spot, had quietly handed them all tissues when Prep L’s teacher finally told them it was time to go and the small faces of their children had turned towards them wreathed in doubt and anticipation and a perfect blank innocence that would never be there again.

It was strange, Caro thought. Theoretically, Amira was the one who needed help, the single parent with the useless ex—trying to get by on a teacher’s pay cheque and whatever else she could scrape together from the jewellery she made and sold at local markets. The rest of them had husbands, superannuation funds, mortgages that were almost paid off . . . Yet it was Amira who looked after them, Amira who was always there. She picked up Bronte and took her home on the days Fiona had to work late; she reassured Caro when Janey was hauled before the principal for hitting another child in the playground; she organised a class meals roster after Morag gave birth to Torran the day after the sports carnival.

‘She’s got three kids,’ Amira had demurred when Caro had commended her for her initiative. ‘It’s the least I could do.’

‘Three and a half,’ Fiona had said, because by then they all knew about Macy.

Caro peered down the aisle, hoping to spot the drinks trolley. It would be wonderful to be with Amira again. She’d missed her. That was why she’d organised this week, for them all to see Amira, and for Janey to see Tess. True, Janey didn’t exactly seem to have been pining for her friend, but maybe that was just Janey. She didn’t give much away. The
trip would be valuable for all of them. It would be good to spend some proper time with her eldest daughter, rather than just ferrying her to training or nagging her about the mess on her bedroom floor; it would be good for Tess, Janey and Bronte to be together again, as they had been in primary school. And there were her own friends too—Morag must need a break from all those boys and the upheaval that came with Macy two weeks a month, while Fiona . . . Caro shook her head. Fiona definitely needed to get out of that house. Not that you could tell her, especially now Bronte was going to St Anne’s and Caro and Fiona didn’t run into each other every day at pick-up. The girls were still in the same netball team, of course, playing every Saturday morning from nine to ten thirty, but Fiona rarely came to watch, dropping Bronte at the last possible minute without getting out of her car, then racing off to rush through her supermarket shopping before the game had finished.