Tiddas (3 page)

The least academic of the group, Nadine had dropped out of Mudgee High in Year 10 before she got expelled for wagging for the tenth time by May that year. She was creative, though, good with her hands and had an eye for fashion and grooming, or so she thought after successfully braiding all her tiddas' hair during a winter slumber party. She quickly found a traineeship as a hairdresser but she soon dropped out of that too. Back then and for years after, the girls all sang the
Grease
hit ‘Beauty School Dropout' to her, laughing in hindsight at the dreadful dye jobs they had each allowed her to perform on them at the age of sixteen. Even though they were now all heading towards their fortieth birthdays, stories of Nadine's hairdressing past could still make them laugh.

‘But you've done so well,' Izzy said, proud that Nadine was the most famous Mudgee woman anyone knew, and that she married Izzy's brother who only cracked it with the gardening business after they'd moved to Brookfield. In many ways they were the perfect match professionally once they both found their niche. Nadine was good at writing novels, she liked it, and didn't even think about ‘dropping out'; while Richard not only had a green thumb, he had
two
, so he was
also able to maintain interest and output without any effort or real challenge.

‘I agree,' Ellen said. ‘Thirteen novels, some made into their own TV series and one a feature film. Hell, you're an advertisement for
not
going to school. Maybe if I'd followed your lead I'd have a much more interesting love life instead of finding blokes at barbecues,' Ellen joked.

They all cracked up at Ellen's way of describing her job as a funeral celebrant. She often came to the book club with bizarre cremation stories and others of dates she'd had with family members of those she'd helped laid to rest. Ellen was happily single, but getting tired of the lack of dating potential in Bris-Vegas. She'd said at the last meeting she was ready to do something drastic, but her tiddas didn't really know what that meant. Neither did she.

‘As I was saying . . .' Nadine, although the reluctant celebrity, was often the most outgoing, the loudest of the group, especially when juiced up, and therefore remained desperate to stay in the limelight and determined to keep her friends out of it. ‘I let Richard guide their schooling, and he loves hanging out with the mothers. They all think he's hot, which he is, and he gets a little ego boost there.'

Nadine was sizzling herself: with a lean build, she stood six feet tall and although she drank like a fish, almost everything she ate was organically grown at home or locally produced. Her personal Pilates instructor visited three times a week and her body was as taut and toned as any woman could hope for. Unlike the women at the school with their Botox parties, Nadine had vowed never to let the bacteria that causes botulism go anywhere near her head.

She ran her manicured nails through her blonde hair and continued. ‘Quite frankly, when I tried to be part of the parenting community there, all they wanted to do was sit around all day, eat sticky date pudding, discuss the latest cosmetic surgery or talk about the next school fair. I realised pretty quickly that if I spent too much time with them I'd write a book with characters based on them and have them all killed off and then we'd have to leave Brookfield altogether. And I don't want to leave here, it reminds me so much of Mudgee.' She swept her arms through the air towards the trees and rolling hills beyond. ‘This is where I want to stay.'

Nadine took a seat at the table and the five women watched the sun finally disappearing behind some jacaranda trees. While the signature purple flowers had disappeared, the fine green foliage was still something to appreciate.

‘Who'd have thought we'd all end up in Bris-Vegas, eh? Mudgee is a world away from here,' Izzy said, contemplative and momentarily forgetting about her situation, recalling how she had arrived in the northern city at twenty-three years of age, straight out of uni in Bathurst, inspired by Veronica and grateful that she had already settled there with her family three years prior. Richard and Nadine had followed Izzy within the year because Trish was worried about her daughter, and they'd had enough of Mudgee. They weren't sure where they wanted to be but having at least one family member in Brisbane helped them decide. It was another four years before Xanthe arrived, via Sydney University, to work with a local Aboriginal community organisation, sharing a flat with Izzy for the first couple of years and partying hard. When Ellen
showed up three years later ready to take over Murri funerals in Brisbane, it was like old times.

‘No, it's not a world away at all,' Nadine said, passing a white ceramic bowl around. ‘These are Mudgee olives,' she smiled.

‘And the wine?' Ellen raised an eyebrow.

‘Well, someone's got to keep the wineries afloat,' Nadine laughed, raising her glass.

Even without the book sales and TV deals she'd always had money. Always had the best, and always had whatever she wanted, including Richard, who for a long time as a teenager had loved her, but never thought he was up to her standards. Nadine could easily have been a snob with her wealth, but she'd grown up knocking around with all the other working-class kids, and money had never changed her.

‘Oh!' Xanthe exclaimed. ‘I just remembered, my cousin asked if she could join our book group, but I said I'd have to ask.' She smiled, hoping for a positive response.

‘No,' Nadine said adamantly.

‘That's not very kind,' Xanthe said, wounded, as she was quite easily prone to be.

‘Well, this group is really the Mudgee group. Did your cousin go to Mudgee High with us?'

Nadine sounded a little nasty and a tad crazy but Izzy tended to agree with her. She didn't like the thought of someone else coming into their little tidda gathering and changing the dynamics. It could be complex enough at times with the diversity of personalities already within the group without adding another one to the mix.

‘No, she grew up in Wagga,' Xanthe said, ‘but she's my family.'

‘Well?' Nadine looked around the table for comment from the others.

‘Wagga Wagga is Wiradjuri country too, so there's another link,' Veronica said, always the peacemaker and hating conflict. She didn't care who else joined the group, given the monthly meetings were her only chance at conversation with other women, and she wanted and needed as much intellectual stimulation as possible.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

‘I know she's family, and she's Wiradjuri and Wagga also has a great boutique winery at the Charles Sturt Uni in case you didn't know,
and
they have a fabulous writers' centre, right opposite the winery, which of course makes it the perfect setting for any writer . . .' Nadine sounded like she might be coming round. ‘But – '

‘But what?' Xanthe cut in. ‘What's the problem then?'

‘It's just that I had an idea about the name of our group.' Nadine grabbed a small gold gift bag from the chair next to her as she spoke, and pulled out professionally produced name tags. ‘I think we should call ourselves the “Vixens”! She made air quotes and looked rather proud of herself.

‘The what?' Ellen asked.

‘Why do we need a name, especially one like
that
?' questioned Xanthe, the most conservative of the group.

‘Hear me out,' Nadine said. She took another long sip from her wine glass. ‘Vixen is the acronym our names spell.'

She pointed to each woman as she spoke: ‘Veronica, Izzy, Xanthe, Ellen and Nadine.' She poked herself in the chest to make the point.

‘Right,' Izzy said. ‘Makes sense.'

‘So, unless your cousin's name begins with an “S”, dear Xanthe, then the answer is no, she cannot join because she will ruin my acronym, and
I
am the writer and
I
get to choose the words around here.' Nadine was only half kidding. Although she rarely talked about her work, she did pull authorly rank when it suited her.

‘I don't like it though; it's kind of like cougars,' Veronica said. ‘And
I
am
not
a cougar. I certainly don't prey on – or want – young men.'

‘None of us are cougars,' Nadine laughed.

‘Speak for yourself,' Ellen chimed in. ‘I'll take what I can get at this stage!'

‘Look, aside from Ellen, who is joking, I'm sure,' Xanthe said, sounding somewhat unsure of herself, ‘some of the group are actually happily married.' She held up her ring finger with its stunning, princess-cut stone surrounded by tiny pink Argyle diamonds.

‘I think I'd rather be a cougar than a vixen,' Ellen said. ‘Let's face it, who wants to be known as a malicious woman with a bad temper?'

‘I thought we'd simply make the word a positive. You know, use artistic licence.' Nadine was walking up and down the veranda, a firm grasp on her glass, as if she were pacing out a storyline for one of her novels. ‘Let's see,' she was thinking out loud. ‘Vixens can also spell out . . . Very . . . intelligent . . . xenophilian . . .'

‘Xeno what?' Ellen asked.

‘Xenophilia is the opposite of xenophobia, so we
love
foreigners,' Izzy chimed in, having learned the word recently while interviewing a former Democrats senator about the latest disaster in refugee intakes and offshore processing on Manus Island.

‘And you're proof of that, aren't you, Xanthe, married to Mr Darcy and all?' Nadine smiled at Xanthe who blushed like a new bride.

‘As I was saying, very intelligent xenophilian . . .' Nadine closed her eyes and they all waited for the final words. ‘. . . easy-going natives.'

‘No,' they cried out simultaneously, laughing.

‘For one, you're not a “native”, as you put it!' Ellen said. ‘And sorry, sleeping with a Blackfella doesn't mean Aboriginality has been sexually transmitted either.'

‘Let's brainstorm it then,' Nadine said. ‘I can wheel my whiteboard out here.' She had one leg inside the house but Izzy grabbed the back of her cotton dress before she could get her other leg in.

‘We'll go with “Vixens”, okay? Can we just get into the book?' Veronica looked to the others for agreement mainly to avoid a potential disagreement, which was the norm between Nadine and Ellen.

The tiddas smiled and nodded simply to move the discussion along. Nadine sat down feeling like she'd won, Ellen poured them all some water and Izzy began the discussion.

‘Well, the novel is the fictionalised story of the relationship between the author and her father.' She stopped abruptly,
realising that the issue of parenthood was going to be a large part of the discussion and she wasn't prepared for it. But to her great relief Veronica jumped in and started listing the political issues covered in the book.

‘Aside from the personal relationships portrayed in
Legacy
,' Veronica took her role in the discussions far more seriously than any of the others, ‘there's the cleverly woven history of the tent embassy, as well as a layman's guide to native title and sovereignty . . .' She smiled, proud of her immediate contribution.

The other women looked at the post-it notes throughout her copy of the book and her debating-style cards with a handwritten scrawl across them. Veronica was the only one who took the meetings that seriously, but each in their own head was grateful for it. Veronica read every book twice before each meeting, simply because she had the time. Since her doctor husband of twenty-two years had left her for his oh-so-stereotypical receptionist, she had not only got the house at The Gap and a nice Lexus, but with the ongoing ‘guilt payments' he made without being asked, she'd never have to work. Not that she'd ever had a long-term or full-time job anyway. Marrying the local doctor in Mudgee because she was pregnant when she was only eighteen was the talk of the town at the time, but she loved him, and that meant something,
everything
to her. The problem now was this tidda had no real sense of herself; she'd gone from being known as ‘the doctor's wife' to being ‘the boys' mother' with nothing else in between. They were all working on helping Veronica find a new path, a career, and an interest in something other than
her never-can-do-wrong sons. Izzy was always glad to see Veronica; for one thing, she reminded her of why a career was important, and that while a marriage certificate might give you financial security, it didn't necessarily guarantee relationship longevity.

X
anthe's dark green eyes popped thanks to her smoky eye make-up and blood-red lips. It was 7 p.m. on a Tuesday and she sat in a hip-hugging black Thai silk frock waiting for her husband to arrive. Although they'd both promised to keep the date free to celebrate, she was still grateful that neither had cancelled due to work, as often happened, which was why they were celebrating four months late. They were both workaholics, but still very much in love, and they remained committed to adding to the other's happiness in life.

‘Can I get you something to drink, Xanthe?'

The waiter knew her by name. She was a regular at the popular La Trobe Terrace venue as it was within walking distance of home and had the best desserts around.

‘Just some water for now, thanks, Matt,' she answered with a warm smile. ‘But when Spencer arrives could you bring us a bottle of your finest sparkling?'

Her perfect white teeth looked bright against her dark skin. The eyes she got from her Greek father, the skin from her Wiradjuri mother. As a child she was her dad's ‘Delphorigine Princess' (he came from the island of Delphi), and he still wrote the endearment in her birthday card each year. She was reminded of the anniversary card her parents had sent from Mudgee. She opened it and sighed, missing her parents who seemed so far away.