Too Close to Home (22 page)

LOUISE'S BABY SHOWER FALLS on the afternoon of the election date announcement.

‘Everyone is far more interested in discussing who's going to win than my impending arrival,' she jokes each time she welcomes a new guest. ‘But here's hoping this –' and she pats her stomach – ‘will enter the world as we welcome in the first female Prime Minister of Australia.'

She's holding the party in Scot and Alistair's house. Originally an old shop near Clovelly Beach, it has a large front room that opens onto the street. Brisk sea breezes lift paper napkins and swing white lampshades stiffly from side to side. Presents have been left at one end of the room, and Freya cannot bear to think of the amount of useless crap hidden beneath reams of wrapping paper, baby contraptions far cheaper than they should have been, and all ready to break. She knows this ongoing obsession of hers will feature in her next play, she's just not sure as to how she will use it, but there's a character on a crusade she thinks, one that's lost all perspective in her battle against Stuff. And there, she has it, an excellent title. She smiles to herself.

At the other end of the room, there's a long table set out with food – cupcakes, chicken sandwiches, rolls of smoked salmon filled with cream cheese and capers, devils on horseback, and bowls of chips. At the end are jugs of homemade lemonade, and in a bucket filled with ice, champagne and crisp white wines.

Ella tries to fit as much on her plate as she can, the carefully arranged pile threatening to topple as she carries it back to a chair in the corner of the room. She is, once again, the only child. It won't be that way for long, Freya knows, but still the next lot will be much younger, and boring to Ella. Freya realises she'll soon see less of these people, probably settling more into life near where she lives, with the parents of the people that Ella gets to know, and it is strange to realise the panic that she would have once felt about this is no longer there.

Mikhala is by the table talking to a woman Freya has never met.

‘Rachel,' she introduces herself. ‘I was set designer on Louise's last film.'

She looks like a designer, Freya thinks, noting the size of the ring on her finger, a twist of silver and opal fashioned in the seventies, and the turn of the heels on her deep green suede boots.

‘So, what do you think? Labor will scrape back in again?' Mikhala asks the question of both of them.

‘I bloody well hope so.' Rachel raises her glass.

Freya doesn't know. ‘They're both despicable,' she says, shaking her head. ‘I can't believe how they're acting. It's hard to separate the two parties. They're each saying they'll get tough on refugees, and neither of them have the guts to do anything real about climate change.
They're just trying to appeal to this small margin that swings, and it's poll after poll and decisions made in response to the polls. What was that famous Russian quote? “There go the people. I am their leader, I must follow” – or something like that.' She winks at Ella sitting on the other side of the room. ‘But I think Abbott has the edge. Both parties are so similar but he's less careful in how he speaks. He's more real.'

Mikhala grins. ‘Horrifyingly so.'

Rachel downs her glass. ‘We used to all say we'd move to New Zealand if we had another term of John Howard. Now we can't even go there.'

Across the room, Freya can see Matt with Frank and Marianne. She glances in their direction and then away. It has been years since she has seen Marianne. She is tall and slender, her pale blonde hair and golden skin mark her as a beauty, even though her face is drawn, and there is a heavy-lidded sadness to her eyes. She leans forward to hand Lola to Frank and then heads to the food table, only a few feet from where Freya stands.

They look at each other momentarily and then Marianne smiles.

‘Is that Ella over there?'

Freya nods.

‘She looks just like you. And she's grown so much.'

‘She's at school now,' Freya says. ‘I have my life back again – it's all consuming when they're little.' And then, hating her own hypocrisy, she adds: ‘It must have been hard on your own over the last few months.'

Marianne shrugs. ‘It's not like he did all that much when he was around.'

‘Still, I'm sure you'll be glad to have him back.'

Marianne's lips are pursed. ‘Perhaps.' She steps away from the table with a plate of food in her hand. ‘I hear the play's going well.'

‘Apparently.' Freya smiles. ‘You know what directors are like. Never want the writer in the room.'

Marianne just looks at her. ‘Well, you'd be the first woman he hasn't wanted in the room, or on the stairs, or in the garden – anywhere for that matter.'

Freya wonders why she's telling her this. They barely know each other. The bitterness slakes over her, and she would like to say:
Leave. If he makes you that unhappy, leave.
But she's in no position to advise, and so she tries to switch tack, asking Marianne if she's gone back to work or whether it's been too hard with Lola so young.

Marianne hasn't. But she has been volunteering with an organisation that teaches English to new immigrants – ‘the ones that actually make it out of the detention centres and are allowed to stay'. She loves it, and for the first time there's a light in her eyes, a joy.

‘There's a lot of people doing good work now,' she says. ‘I have another friend who ran a very successful restaurant and now has an underground catering company. They employ people who don't have work visas. It's all cash, private parties, and it's making such a difference to people's lives.'

The room is filling now. People are clustered in the doorways and spilling out onto the street. Someone is handing around a bucket for donations to the nappy service, and Freya grimaces as she searches for something smaller than a fifty.

‘Do you have any money?' she asks Matt.

Matt hadn't wanted to come, although he hadn't
complained. They are being careful with each other, neither willing to lift the rock of a potential hurt. In the last few days, Lisa has told them she's going; she has found a flat for her and Lucas and they will be moving there at the end of next week. But the initial relief that Freya felt at the news has dampened with the ongoing realisation that they are not going to just disappear.

As Matt looks for his wallet, Frank leans over. ‘I wondered when you were going to come and say hello.'

She hasn't seen him since the morning she left his flat, exhausted from lack of sleep. She had kissed him in the doorway, and in the harsh sobriety of morning, there'd been no desire, only a sense that this was what you should do when you left someone after a night of sex which, coupled with the staleness of her breath, as well as guilt and tiredness, made it a kiss she wanted only to forget.

Neither of them have called each other in the intervening days and she has avoided having anything to do with the theatre. Now, as she stands opposite him, under the gaze of so many people they both know, she feels embarrassed, idiotic. She takes the money Matt hands her, and says she's going to check on Ella.

Anna is sitting with her, both of them trying to make the strangest food combinations they can concoct. Ella has a cupcake sandwich, while Anna pours herself a devil on horseback lemonade.

‘I've been telling her about pregnancy cravings,' Anna grins. ‘How you can get up in the middle of the night and eat a gherkin ice-cream sundae.'

‘Only if you're in an American sitcom,' Freya replies.

Anna's smile is now brittle. ‘Your mother can be so pedantic.'

Behind them Scot has come out in a ‘Mommie Dearest' outfit to shrill wolf-whistles and applause. Alistair is clapping his hands loudly. ‘We have a show,' he calls.

Lifting Ella onto a chair so that she can see, Freya tells her she will be back soon. ‘And your daddy's over there if you need him.' She points to where Matt leans against a window frame, still with Frank and Marianne.

The music is turned up, a medley of songs, starting with ‘Baby Love', Scot and Louise dancing and lip-synching in a burlesque parody of motherhood. Alistair follows, waving the bucket for the nappy service collection in front of all the guests.

Out in the kitchen, it's quieter. A couple of young men employed to clear plates and stack the dishwasher are clattering crockery in the corner. Paolo greets her with a kiss on each cheek, telling her he's searching for a wineglass for Anna. He looks at the dishwashers and mouths the words:
No English
. He shrugs his shoulders.
No help at all.

‘She wants a cigarette too. But, you know, they are so hard to find these days. Particularly at baby showers.'

‘Isn't she having a baby?' Freya just looks at him. She speaks the words without thinking, aware as she utters them that perhaps she's making a terrible mistake and Anna has been hiding her pregnancy from Paolo, although the likelihood of this is so small as to be ridiculous.

There is a loud cheer from the other room, a clanging of forks and a call for a speech.

Paolo shakes his head. ‘I thought she had told you.'

The music has been turned down.

‘She miscarried. Two nights ago. There is no more baby. Me, I am a little relieved. But not for her. For her, it has not been good.'

When Freya returns to the room, Louise is standing by one of the open doors that lead onto the street. She is thanking them all for coming, and for their gifts and good wishes.

‘And the nappy donations!' She laughs. ‘Although, I must confess, I may go disposable, but I promise I'll use the money at the cash register in Woollies. I'll be the one there in my slippers, hair in rollers, trolley loaded with Huggies, formula and cartons of cigarettes. Seriously, I couldn't be happier. I thought I was going to miss out on the whole baby thing. I was one of those foolish women who concentrated on her career – which I don't regret – but, you know –' she raises an eyebrow, ‘I left it a bit late to find a man.'

‘Lucky you found two.' It's Frank calling out from the crowd.

Anna is out on the street, talking to Max and Clara. On the pavement near her, someone has drawn up a hop-scotch, and Ella throws a stone onto the next number, calling out to the adults to watch. ‘Look,' she says. ‘I got it in the square.'

No one looks her way.

‘Can someone play with me?'

Freya promises she will. ‘In a moment.' She wants to talk to Anna, just for a second. But she can't of course, not in front of the others. And so she can only join them, hovering in the hope that Anna will disengage, as she half listens to Clara's assertion that there won't be any change in government.

Max says he can't bear the thought of three years of Liberal leadership. He's so convinced it will happen, he's planning on leaving the country. Mikhala has applied for a painting studio in Paris and they intend to spend six months there before travelling to Eastern Europe.

‘Which you'd do anyway,' Freya laughs. ‘I mean it's hardly a political statement.'

The words have a sharpness she didn't intend, and Anna just looks at her, almost smiling as she shakes her head.

‘Your mum is a cranky pants these days,' she tells Ella.

‘A pedantic cranky pants, I believe.' Freya, too, is smiling but there's a stillness, a weight that hovers in the perfection of this winter afternoon.

‘What's going on?' Freya no longer cares that Max and Clara are there; in fact, she's not even aware of the two of them slipping, quickly and quietly, back into the house.

Ella has stopped her game. She sits on the pavement, eyes wide, watching.

Anna doesn't flinch. ‘You are always so fucking judgemental.'

It's a blow Freya did not expect.

Behind them, the music has been turned up again, and there's the sound of shouting, a crash of cutlery as someone dances with too much enthusiasm. Across the road, a woman whistles, the back of her four-wheel drive open as she waits for her dog to jump in, and from further up the street, Freya can hear the sound of a bus, the grind of the gears as it pulls away from the stop.

‘You're harsh about everyone. No one meets your standards. You always think the worst of other people's motives –'

Freya is about to interrupt but Anna speaks over her: ‘When I became pregnant, you acted as though I did something devious, as though I tricked Paolo. I know you didn't say anything but I saw it in your eyes. In the way you looked at me. Having Ella was something you always had over me. I might have everything else, or so you thought, but you, at least, had managed to have a family. And then there I was – laying claim to that too.

‘But it's not just that. You judge Louise and what she's doing, and Mikhala and her relationships. And the way you've been treating Matt – well that's the worst, and what the fuck you think you're doing playing around with Frank, that's simply beyond me.'

Ella.

In a panic, Freya looks to where Ella was sitting. But she isn't there. She didn't hear. The tightness in her breath dissolves and she sees that Anna, too, has realised her mistake and the realisation stops her, for just long enough. Because Freya wants to speak.

‘I've never meant to be harsh,' Freya says. ‘And I'm sorry if you've found me that way.' She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘It's been so hard at home. And I've hated myself for not rising to the challenge.' She bites her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the tears. ‘Believe me. I feel ashamed. So I'm sorry if you feel I've turned it on you.'

They stand opposite each other and Freya looks down at the ground for a moment and then breathes in. She
can see Ella out of the corner of her eye. She is inside the door now, holding Matt's hand, a worried gaze on her mother outside.

‘She didn't hear me,' Anna says. ‘I'm sorry about that. It was stupid of me.'