Gucci Mamas (22 page)

Mim didn’t throw the bottle of scotch in her hand at James, but it took all her willpower to relinquish it to the safety of the bench. It was as if the world had suddenly tilted after their vicious argument and Mim was struggling to stand upright. The room seemed muted and blurred.

She took careful, deliberate steps up the stairs to her bedroom, where she fell on her bed and gave in to great wrenching sobs. Somewhere, even in this pain, she remembered her sleeping children and tried to muffle her cries with a pillow.

God, why was it all going so badly? What the hell was she doing so wrong that her life was such a mess? Who was there to look after
her
? To help
her
sort out this mess? She felt utterly alone.

Finally, worn out from crying, she lay on her back and watched her thoughts spin.

James had basically just told her to piss off. What a fucking bastard. But did he really mean it? Surely they were just words shouted in anger? But the words had
come so easily. Maybe he’d been considering ending their marriage?

Mim gave a post-sob shudder and nestled deeper in her goose-feather cocoon.

Self-pity overwhelmed her.
Poor me!
She wanted to shout.
Poor Mim. Who’s looking after poor Mim?

‘Oh God, you’re pathetic,’ she muttered under her breath, and even managed a grim smile at her indulgent thinking.

Mim was never one to wallow for long, so she soon turned her thoughts to problem-solving and damage control. Right, she thought, staring at the crack in the blinds. Where to from here? First things first, James and I need some space. We need some thinking time, time alone to sort out our feelings about this relationship. Then we need a communication opportunity.

She mulled over her strategy for another half an hour before triumphantly announcing her first move to the empty room.

‘First thing tomorrow, I’m going home to Mother.’

‘Darling!’ her mother threw open the door and reached to hug Mim in one efficient move. ‘Come inside out of the rain. Children, look at you, you’ve all grown so much. Don’t touch that, Chloe. Come on into the kitchen, everyone.’

Mim’s mum was the ultimate power-woman. It was for her and her contemporaries that the phrase ‘super-mum’ was coined.

Entering the workforce in the misogynistic 1950s, Julia Jones had to be everything to everyone and do it extremely well. After a remarkable career in stockbroking (remarkable for anyone, not just for a woman), she finally had the respect of all the big men on campus. She had smashed the glass ceiling with a perfectly executed karate roundhouse kick,
without ruining her Chanel shoes, and managed to simultaneously sugar a French teacake and supervise the household staff.

Julia never relinquished her shoulder pads, never wore trousers, and only wore pearls on Sunday.

‘Cup of tea, darling? Or a chardonnay?’ she asked Mim.

‘Mum, it’s 11.30 in the morning,’ protested Mim.

‘Oh, of course, tea it is then.’

The children hit JJ’s toy cupboard ( JJ is what Julia insisted they call her, she was far too young to be someone’s grandmother), and were soon entrenched in constructing the elaborate Brio train-set.

Mim’s parents lived in the affluent outer suburb of Donvale. Pristine English gardens bordered huge haciendas and were surrounded by gum trees. They had never felt the urge to ‘downsize’ their five-bedroom home. They enjoyed a weekly game of tennis on their court and would frequent the local club for a game of golf or the occasional cards night.

‘Where’s Dad?’ asked Mim.

‘Oh, somewhere, off tinkering, I don’t know what he’s up to. He mentioned a trip to the hardware store,’ Julia said vaguely as she placed the tea service on the coffee table. ‘I must say I was quite surprised with your phone call. You haven’t stayed the night out here for quite an age.’

‘Yes,’ Mim murmured. ‘I had to get away. James and I needed to have a bit of space.’

‘Oh dear,’ said her mother sympathetically, ‘sounds like a little trouble in paradise?’

‘Well, yes, I guess you could say that.’

Mim sat in her mother’s immaculate sitting room and told her the whole story: her fears for her marriage; the money worries; the stress she was under and the continual sinking feeling that enveloped her that perhaps this path she was committed to was not, in fact, the right one.

‘Mum, I think I’m going insane,’ she whispered. ‘You know how your housekeeper had that breakdown last year – I think I’m headed for the same thing. I can’t seem to keep a thought in my head, or put a sentence together. I think I’m losing the plot.’ Tears welled in her eyes and she brushed them away with a shaking hand.

Julia could manage tea and feigned sympathy, but was so damned balanced and capable that she couldn’t really empathise with Mim’s confusion. ‘Darling, are you sure you’re not over-analysing everything?’ Julia said kindly. ‘I mean, thinking you’re getting depression is a bit dramatic, isn’t it? Why don’t you just have a good brisk walk and blow the cobwebs away? It’s amazing the power of a solid constitutional.’

Mim rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Christ, Mummy,’ she began, grappling for a way to explain herself. ‘It’s just not fair. It’s all his fault, how come I have to do everything?’ She realised too late that she sounded like a petulant teenager. What was it about being around her mother that made her regress?

‘Darling, let’s just look at this in a clear-minded way. I’ll just nip into the bar and open a bottle of wine and we’ll really nut this thing out – ’ The phone interrupted their conversation. ‘Just as soon as I deal with this …’ Julia changed direction, grabbed her mobile and headed for the office.

Julia had been a terror on the trading floor in her day and still wielded mighty clout as a broker. Her clients made big money, and therefore so did Julia, though now she worked from home part-time. Mim watched her mother through the double-glass office doors. Julia smoothed a stray brunette lock into her sleek chignon, fiddled with her chunky gold chain and frowned into space as she listened to her client.

Funny kind of mother, really. Not exactly the apron and jam-sandwich sort, Mim thought.

Mim knew her mother loved her family, but she preferred a certain distance. She coped with visits from the grandchildren – but only in small doses.

‘I’ve already done my time with children,’ she’d tell Mim whenever the babysitting word came up, and eventually Mim got the message and stopped asking. Julia over-compensated with generous gifts and shouted wonderful holidays (as long as she didn’t have to go too).

Mim was massaging her earlobes to fight off the sensation of a headache (Ellie swore it worked wonders) when her father wandered in. ‘Hello, Midge,’ he greeted her with a bear hug. ‘How’s my baby girl? I just saw my beautiful grandchildren in the rec room. Aren’t they all getting tall? Gee that Jack’s as smart as a whip. And Charley, what a build on that little guy, he’ll be a formidable full-back one day. And precious Chloe: every bit as beautiful as her mother.’

Mim returned her father’s warm greeting with a smile. ‘It’s so good to see you. I haven’t seen you since lunch at Lynch’s last month. How have you been?’

‘Grand, my dear girl, simply grand. Absolutely loving life. This retirement caper’s all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you.’ Donald Jones hitched up the leg of his Ralph Lauren Polo chinos and sat with his ankle resting on his knee and linked fingers supporting his head. His steel-grey hair was as thick and wavy as twenty years earlier. ‘Where’s your mother … Oh, don’t tell me: client call?’ he smiled with the well-worn patience of a man married to a workaholic.

‘Dad, how come you never minded Mummy working so hard?’ Mim asked, suddenly curious about her parents’ relationship. ‘Didn’t you care that there was never a home-cooked meal on the table in the evening?’

‘Well, Midge, I knew what I was getting into when I married the woman. In fact, it was what attracted me to her in the first place. She wasn’t like all the other girls, all insipid
and just out to please their man.’ Donald shifted in his chair and crossed his legs, keen to indulge in his favourite role as raconteur. ‘Of course, after the first few years of marriage, the novelty of having this career woman as a wife wore off a bit and I started getting sick of dining at the club or coming home to a dark, cold, empty house. I put my foot down!’

‘You didn’t!’ said Mim, amused at the thought of anyone standing up to her mother.

‘A lot of good it did me!’ Donald guffawed at the memory. ‘But we needed to meet in the middle somehow, to find a system that suited both of us, so I whisked her away for a surprise getaway to a lovely little rooming house in Lorne, which was just a sleepy little coastal town in those days.’ Donald started to go off on a tangent. ‘I remember it as if it was yesterday. It was next to the Pacific Hotel, overlooking the pier. We spent the day walking on the beach, looking for fossils, and talking. We sorted out all kinds of issues. We found out where each of us stood in the relationship, what we needed and what we were prepared to compromise on. We sealed the deal that night on the Pacific’s front veranda with a Pimms and lemonade. Or was it a Gin Sling? I don’t know. I know it had mint leaves in it though. We shared the most delicious fisherman’s basket that night and then I had chocolate mousse for dessert and your mother had crème caramel. Or apple crumble. I don’t remember.’

‘So did it help when you got back to town and your real lives?’ Mim asked, trying to get her dear old dad back on track.

‘Absolutely, my dear, best thing we could have done. Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs, every couple does, but a lot of good came out of that week in Lorne. For a start, nine months later your brother arrived. HAH!’ He took in the
look of distaste on Mim’s face and barked a laugh. ‘What, did you think the stork brought you?

‘Anyway, we made it a regular thing; time away together to think and plan our lives – rather than just battling through every day without any direction, we planned what we wanted and took it from there.

‘I wanted a wife at home more often; your mother wanted a high-falluting career – so we discussed, made compromises and it all worked out.’

‘How?’ Mim asked, vainly hoping to hear the meaning of life.

‘We got a housekeeper! I got home-cooked meals and ironed shirts, and your mother had freedom.’ He slapped his thigh and chuckled. ‘At least then when she was home she was all mine and not in the kitchen!’

Mim should have known better.

He meandered over to the bar as Julia swished in. ‘Oh, there you are, Donald. Could you open a bottle of that 2003 Stonier chardonnay please, dear?’

‘Certainly, darling, coming right up.’ Donald whipped out a cork and brought over three glasses. He rested his hand on Julia’s shoulder as he reached forward to place her glass on the marble side table, and just as Mim was thinking that her mother treated him a bit like a waiter sometimes, she noticed her bejewelled hand reach up to give Donald’s an affectionate squeeze.

‘Now, where were we?’ Julia sipped her chardonnay and assembled her best listening face.

‘Well, I think I’ve got it all out of my system, Mum. Since I’ve been talking to Dad I’ve decided you’re right. I think I’ll just go for a brisk walk.’

‘Oh, brilliant, darling, I am pleased.’ Julia sat back relieved, then suddenly gasped: ‘You are taking the children with you, aren’t you?’

‘Mum, we’re back.’ Mim and the children spilled into the house through the garage door, warm packets of fragrant fish and chips in their arms.

‘Mim, thank God …’ Julia was grey with shock.

‘Mummy, what is it?’ Mim cried, dumping the food on the table for the children to squabble over like greedy seagulls. She had never seen her mother so agitated.

Julia led her into the office out of the children’s earshot. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this news. It’s James.’

‘James, my God, what is it? What’s wrong? Is he okay?’ Mim was immediately wild-eyed and panicked.

‘He’s at Epworth Hospital; he’s had a heart attack.’

‘What?’ Mim felt as if she had been punched hard in the stomach.

‘Darling, listen,’ her mother held her, ‘he’s stable now. It happened on the sixteenth hole at Royal Melbourne. His golf partner just called your mobile.’

‘Oh Jesus,’ Mim whispered, the colour draining from her
face as she slumped against her mother. Her mind whirled with fear. ‘Not James, oh please not James, let him be all right.’

‘Look, you must get straight to the hospital, darling,’ Julia said, taking charge as always. ‘Dad will drive you, you’re in no condition to drive yourself. I’ll take care of everything here, just go.’ Her eyes were filled with tears as she hugged her daughter.

‘Okay, yes, that’s the thing to do. I must see him, must make sure he’s okay. Oh my God, oh my God, how could this happen?’

Mim lay her palms flat against the window of the Intensive Care Unit. The glass was cold and unfriendly and offered little comfort. She gazed at her reflection, at the blur of neutral tones from her Saba striped jersey, and that was all she could manage for a few seconds. Then she forced herself to look beyond this, to look at the beds and the bodies behind the glass.

It was all so alien and sterile. Machines beeped and thrummed with cold, clinical purpose as the grey bodies they were attached to lay motionless – lifeless it seemed – on their crisp, white sheets.

Quickly scanning the faces, Mim saw no one she recognised; these were mainly elderly men, worn and battle-scarred. But then she looked again and slowly realised that the man in the corner with the sunken eyes and bloodless lips was James.

James, her vital, fit husband of just forty-two, looked as though he were made up for Halloween. His face glowed with a ghoulish pallor under the savage fluorescence and his skin hung slack in creases around his jaw.

Mim stifled a sob, biting hard on her lip to swallow the emotion that threatened to spill from her.

As Mim prepared herself with a hospital gown and covered shoes in the sterile anteroom, she also prepared herself emotionally. This couldn’t be her life; this was like a bad movie. Husband and wife argue; husband dies; wife lives with guilt and grief for life.

She shook herself. No, her husband was alive; she had been given another chance to erase the awful things they had said to each other and start again.

She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as she realised how close they’d come to losing everything. She couldn’t even remember any more what they had fought about; all remnants of blame or petty differences were banished. It was time to see the big picture.

She crept slowly to his bedside.

James opened his eyes and looked into hers. There was life there, thank God. He made a half-hearted attempt to smile but was thwarted by the oxygen tube in his nose.

‘Oh honey,’ Mim couldn’t hold back the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

‘Mim, the other night. I didn’t mean it,’ James rasped urgently, his words punctuated by the machine monitoring his damaged heart.

‘Shhh, James, don’t.’ Mim leant forward to kiss his forehead. ‘It’s all okay, it’s fine, it’s over. But what about you, how do you feel?’

‘Rooted. It happened on the sixteenth hole. Just like being shot. Someone started CPR, apparently, thank God. Thankfully a golf-course is the second-best place to find a doctor,’ he smiled wanly, attempting a quip.

‘And what did the doctor say?’

‘Pretty straightforward heart attack.’ He gave her a rueful look. ‘Sorry, love.’

‘Oh James,’ she took his hand in hers and kissed it tenderly.

‘Mrs Woolcott?’ A tall, good-looking doctor walked briskly into the ward. ‘Good evening, Kenneth Williams, cardiologist. If you’ll excuse us, your husband needs some more tests, including an ECG and an angiogram. He’s going to be fine; and bar any concerning results you can take him home in a few days. But if you would just wait outside that would be greatly appreciated.’

Mim left them to it and went to sit on a hard bench in an unwelcoming waiting room, drinking something that only remotely resembled coffee.

James could so easily have died today – today, just a regular day on the calendar, could have been his last day. She shuddered and attempted another mouthful of the disgusting beverage.

He could have died and the last things we said to each other were screamed in anger, she thought to herself.

She wiped her hand across her face, her make-up long gone.

How would I have told the kids, what would we have done without him? I had no idea he was under so much strain.

She gazed down at the cracked linoleum and noticed a mark on one of her Chanel loafers. ‘Ohmigod,’ she cried, sitting up in shock, anxiously scrubbing the offending spot with her thumb. Luckily it came off easily and she sat back in relief. These were her favourite shoes, she couldn’t cope if they were damaged.

Then it hit her.

She looked again at the $1200 designer shoes, which she had lovingly coveted for six months before treating herself to a pair. Wearing them had sent a thrill through her. Even seeing them neatly lined up in her wardrobe gave her joy.

Shoes.

Not love or life or moments shared.

Just shoes.

Not her children, her husband, or a close friend.

Fucking shoes!

She stood and looked again through the window of Intensive Care. She saw the relatives, their faces crumpled as they sat beside their loved ones. She saw the nurses bustling efficiently as they monitored their patients, concentrating on their well-being.

She wiggled her toes in her loafers. Her feet felt sweaty and cramped. She was disgusted with her greed.

They’re just damn shoes.

She saw James being wheeled back into the room and for an instant caught his eye and smiled at him. Then she strode down the empty corridor to throw the stagnant remains of her pseudo-coffee in an overflowing bin, crushing the Styrofoam cup triumphantly as she hurried back to see her husband.

Sometime later a harried nurse at the end of her shift was stunned to find a practically brand-new pair of Chanel shoes discarded under a chair in the waiting room.

‘Bugger me,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve hit the jackpot!’ Swooping them up, she rushed home to sell them on eBay.