Mothers and Daughters
Read Mothers and Daughters Online
Authors: Kylie Ladd
Kylie Ladd is a novelist and freelance writer. She has previously published three novels:
After The Fall, Last Summer
, which was Highly Commended in the FAW Christina Stead Award for fiction, and
Into My Arms
, chosen as one of Get Reading’s ‘50 books you can’t put down’ for 2013. With Leigh Langtree, she also edited the anthology
Naked: Confessions of Adultery and Infidelity.
Kylie holds a PhD in neuropsychology and lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.
Also by Kylie Ladd
After the Fall
Last Summer
Into My Arms
Edited with Leigh Langtree
Naked: Confessions of Adultery and Infidelity
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events have evolved from the author’s imagination. The names of some geographical locations have been changed and are not necessarily described as they are in real life.
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. In cases where these efforts were unsuccessful, the copyright holders are asked to contact the publisher directly.
The epigraph on p. vii is reproduced by arrangement with the Licensor, The David Campbell Estate, c/- Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd.
Published by Allen & Unwin in 2014
Copyright © Kylie Ladd 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
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ISBN 978 1 76011 066 6
eISBN 978 1 74343 873 2
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For my mother, Sue, and my daughter, Cameron, who have both taught me so much.
And for Craig, who gave me Broome.
The cruel girls we loved
Are over forty,
Their subtle daughters
Have stolen their beauty;
And with a blue stare
Of cool surprise,
They mock their anxious mothers
With their mothers’ eyes.
D
AVID
C
AMPBELL
, ‘M
OTHERS AND
D
AUGHTERS
’
Contents
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Morag!’
Fiona winced and pushed Morag’s case off her big toe, then bent to study it. Thirty bucks she’d paid for her pedicure, and she’d kill Morag if it was chipped before they even left Tullamarine.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Morag, yanking her Samsonite away so abruptly that it almost hit the legs of the man queuing in front of them.
‘Christ, that thing weighs a ton,’ said Fiona, rubbing her foot. ‘What the hell have you got in there—an iron?’ Her dark red nail polish was intact, she was pleased to see, but the inspection had revealed that her feet were already swelling in her new sandals, even though it was cool in Melbourne, and nothing like the heat they’d experience up north. Fuck. Fiona sighed. She should have gone with the size ten. Who was she kidding? She hadn’t been a nine since before she had Dominic;
since then everything had spread. Her feet were the least of it. She stood back up, surreptitiously hoicking her cargo pants from where they’d snagged between her buttocks.
‘Weights, actually,’ Morag said.
‘Weights?’ asked Caro, as the line snaked forward a metre. Everyone picked up their bags and shuffled forward obediently.
‘For running,’ Morag said. ‘Hand weights. I take them with me so my upper body gets a workout too. I don’t have time to go to the gym for that.’
‘Very efficient.’ Caro nodded.
‘You’re nuts,’ said Fiona. ‘You already look like a praying mantis with anorexia—you need to eat, not lift weights.’
‘I eat!’ Morag protested. ‘And they’re not that heavy, only five kilos. Keeps the tuckshop arms at bay.’
Fiona was glad she hadn’t worn a singlet like the other two. ‘Whatever, but this is meant to be a holiday. Jeez—you’re the only one of us who’s completely footloose and fancy-free. You’ve got a week in the tropics, the boys are with Andrew . . . you should be sipping cocktails, not racing around pumping your skinny arms in the air.’
Caro giggled, then glanced apologetically at Morag, but she was laughing too.
‘As if I’d do that. That went out years ago. God forbid you should know anything about exercise, Fiona, other than jumping to conclusions.’
Caro snorted. Fiona smiled too, to show she wasn’t bothered.
Yeah, yeah
, she thought.
Mantis arse.
‘Plus I like running,’ Morag went on. ‘It’s not a chore. It
relaxes me. Maybe Janey would like to come with me, Caro? She jogs, doesn’t she, as part of her training?’
Caro looked across at her daughter, blonde head bent over her phone, as it had been ever since they’d arrived at the airport, and shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Well, anything involving sweat isn’t my idea of relaxation,’ Fiona said, prodding her bag forward as the queue moved up again. ‘Unless it’s the sweat I’m going to work up sitting on the beach, under an umbrella, waiting for someone to bring me a drink.’ She paused for effect. ‘Ideally a black man.’
‘Fiona!’ Caro protested, right on cue. ‘You’re a shocker.’
‘Why? There should be plenty where we’re going, shouldn’t there? I bet Amira’s surrounded by them, lucky bitch. That’s probably why she went.’
Morag shook her head. ‘You know it isn’t, you stirrer. She lowered her voice. ‘Keep it down. Bronte’s right behind you.’
‘Oh, she’s off in her own little world as usual,’ Fiona scoffed. ‘Probably just as well. If she did hear me she’d blush so much she’d lose circulation in the rest of her body.’ Fiona’s daughter was a mystery to her at times. OK, all the time. Who knew what the hell went on behind those cat-like eyes of hers?
‘I can’t wait to see Amira again,’ Caro said, riffling through her handbag as the check-in counter came into view. ‘It’s been way too long. Nine months. And Tess too. I wonder if she’s enjoyed it? I can’t imagine Janey and April living on a mission.’
Fiona was tempted to say that she couldn’t imagine Janey doing anything Janey didn’t want to do, but Morag spoke first.
‘Community,’ Morag said. ‘It hasn’t been a mission for years and years. I looked it up on the net. It’s called a community
now. Nothing religious. There’s still a church there—I saw it on the website—but I don’t think it’s compulsory.’
Fiona made a show of looking at her watch. ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘and here I was spewing that we’d missed Mass.’
Caro and Morag laughed. Janey looked up from her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, then went back to texting.
The Qantas girl who served them was young and bright-eyed. Too bloody bright-eyed, Fiona thought. Was she on drugs? It couldn’t be that exciting, waving everyone else off to exotic locations while you sat behind a desk in the outer suburbs and heard the millionth upgrade request of your career.
‘And where are you ladies flying to today?’ she chirped, holding out a manicured hand for their documents.
‘Broome,’ Caro replied excitedly. ‘We’re going to see a friend. She’s been working there since the start of the year, and our daughters—’ she indicated Janey and Bronte—‘are friendly with
her
daughter, so we thought we could all catch up, have a bit of a girls’ trip.’
‘Oh, I hear Broome’s lovely,’ the check-in girl trilled mechanically, tapping at her keyboard.
‘Well, it’s not actually Broome,’ Caro went on. ‘It’s about two hours north. Amira—our friend—is teaching at an Aboriginal school out in the bush there. It used to be a mission. She’s always wanted to do that sort of work.’
Shut up, just shut up
, Fiona muttered to herself. Didn’t Caro know that the girl didn’t care? She had only asked them where they were going so she put them on the right plane, for goodness’ sake. Now she’d probably seat them by the toilets
just for boring her. Fiona looked away in exasperation and caught the eye of Janey, who raised one sarcastic eyebrow.
‘God, Mum, you go on,’ she said.
Fuck
, thought Fiona.
You should have been mine.
Bronte hesitated in the aisle, clutching her backpack to her chest. Should she put it in the overhead locker so that she had more leg room? She could always do with that, and the flight from Melbourne to Broome was over five hours—she didn’t want to be any more cramped than was necessary. Then again, it
was
a long flight, and she might need her stuff. She put the bag down on the seat and began to go through it. Magazine, yes, plus her sketchbook and pens. They could all fit in the pocket in front of her. The apple she’d packed in case she got hungry; ditto the rice crackers.
To Kill a Mockingbird
? She had an essay on it due at the start of the term and she was only halfway through, but she hated trying to read anywhere other than in her bedroom at home. There might be a good movie on, anyway, in which case . . .
‘Shit, Bronte, you’re holding up half the plane,’ said Janey, pushing past her to claim the window seat. Bronte turned around and was horrified to discover seven or eight passengers banked up behind her, shifting their own hand luggage from arm to arm. She hurriedly stuffed everything back into her bag and slid into her seat, face burning.
‘Idiots,’ Janey said as they filed past. ‘I wonder how long they would have waited.’
Bronte bent over and wedged the backpack under the seat in front. It fitted, but as she’d suspected there was very little room left over for her feet. Janey watched with interest as she endeavoured to fold it in half.
‘Why’d you bring something so big, anyway?’ she asked, then sighed. ‘Give it to me. I can shove it between my seat and the wall.’
‘Thanks,’ Bronte said, surprised.
‘I guess you need all the space you can get, huh?’ Janey remarked as she took the backpack. ‘How tall
are
you? Six foot? I reckon you’ve grown another inch since our game last Saturday.’
‘Five eleven,’ Bronte said. Not quite six foot, but way too close for her liking. One hundred and eighty-one centimetres, to be precise. Bronte knew the figure because she had begun measuring herself every week before the netball game, horrified at the way her skirt was creeping up her thighs. She was only fourteen, yet she’d already gone past her brother, who’d be eighteen at Christmas; had left her mum in her shadow months ago. Only her father was still taller than her, and she prayed every day that she wouldn’t end up six foot four, like him. Bronte sighed. She’d need a new uniform soon, but hated the idea of asking for one, reluctant to draw any more attention to herself.