Authors: Cate Kendall
Okay, that's a bit too excited, Sera thought, noticing
the high flush in Jacqueline's cheeks as she proffered the
spoons. 'Yeah, they're great, too,' Sera responded warily,
taking them from her neighbour's hand. She put them
down gently next to the rest of the shopping and started
backing away. 'Now, is there anything else you need
from me?'
Jacqueline, back in the safe territory of catering, asked
Sera if she could possibly whip up some cupcakes.
Sweetheart, Sera thought to herself, you must be high
if you think I'm 'whipping up' fairy cakes between now
and seven pm. Out loud she simply suggested, 'What about
party pies? Lots of people like savoury.'
'Party pies?' Jacqueline said with distaste.
'Home-made, of course,' Sera quickly fibbed.
'Oh, home-made. Well, all right then. I guess it'll be
okay.'
'Great, well, see you later on then.' Sera made a quick
escape.
When she'd left, Jacqueline turned back to her shopping,
her eyes resting for one happy second on the parfait
spoons until the joy was replaced by a surge of bile in the
back of her throat.
'Onions caramelising, children not punching on, mother-in-law
with cuppa, reflection in kitchen mirror not quite
swamp monster,' Sera murmured to herself as she checked
her end-of-the-day list.
'Darling,' she said as Tony walked in from work, 'how
was your day?'
'Hello, beautiful lady,' he said, grabbing her around the
waist and leaning her back for a big smooch. She laughed
uneasily and wriggled out of his grasp.
'Hi yourself,' she replied brightly to cover up the brush-off.
'Can I pour you a wine?' she asked sweetly.
'Yes please,' he replied, popping into the living room for
a quick wrestle with the kids and a hello to his mother.
'Sera?' Tony said as when came back into the kitchen.
'Yes, darling?' she replied brightly, but in her head she
was screeching
Fuckety fuck fuck bloody bloody buggery bugger
,
because she'd been married long enough to know that
when your husband started a conversation with your christian
name it meant trouble.
'Can we talk?' he asked.
'Sure, honey,' she said with a smile. What the bloody hell
have I done now? she thought. Whatever he says, whatever
he wants, just agree with him. Don't cause a scene in front
of Joan and the kids, swallow your pride, just nod and tell
him he's right and he'll stop and go away, she told herself.
Tony checked that the doors to the living room and
corridor were both closed.
'Darling, I'm just really worried about you, about us,
about everything at the moment,' he began.
I wonder if I'll be able to make Stitch 'n' Bitch in time,
Sera thought, surreptitiously glancing at the microwave
clock.
'You know I love you, don't you? You know I
think you're the most wonderful woman in the world?
I think you're clever, a great mum . . .'
She couldn't let her face betray her anxiousness at
being late. Bother, she thought, smiling and nodding in
agreement at the words as they came out of her husband's
mouth.
'And you're so beautiful, just the way you are, without
the make-up, the heels, the elaborate outfits –'
'Huh!' The exclamation exploded involuntarily from
her lips.
'Sera, you are. I don't know why you have it in your
head that you need to spend so much time and money on
your appearance. It's starting to impact on our family.'
Okay, she was cross now, no point in just playing along.
Her hands went to her hips. 'Everybody pays attention to
their appearance in our social group. Especially now that
we're on the wrong side of thirty-five! Don't be so selfish.
I'm not the spunky little twenty-something anymore you
know, Tony. It takes hours to get my hair to look halfway
decent, hours of work each week to get my complexion to
look unblemished.'
'But, Sera, this is my point: nobody is as concerned as
you are. You're becoming obsessed!'
'Oh, rubbish.'
'Really, what time did you pick up the kids from childcare
last Tuesday?'
'Six o'clock,' she said, guiltily averting her gaze.
'Again? It's happening so often. Why so late when you
finish work at three?'
'What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? What I do with
my time is my business. How dare you?!'
'Look, Sera, I don't want to be a tyrant here, tracking
your every move, but I don't think it's fair that our kids
have to stay in childcare until after dark just so you can
have a pedicure.'
'IT WAS AN EMERGENCY!' she shrieked at him.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the opaque glass of the
sliding door shut behind him. That banshee with hands
on hips, leaning forward, lips snarling, gums bared was no
beauty queen.
'Please don't scream at me, Sera,' Tony replied quietly.
'We can talk more about this when you're calmer.' With
that he left to chase the kids upstairs to start their bath and
bed routine.
The only sound that trickled into the kitchen was the
whoop of audience participation from the game show until
Joan's sharp sentence cut across the cheers. 'Airs and graces,
my girl.'
'But it was an emergency,' Sera whispered. Then she
shook her head. Right, I'm off, she thought, untying her
apron and grabbing the party pies. She called out to her
mother-in-law, 'I'll be at Jacqueline's, Joan. Let Tony
know, please?'
'Hmmmm, that'd be right,' came the response.
Sera shut the kitchen door on Joan and her opinions
and marched down the back steps. 'Airs and graces' – the
expression catapulted her straight back to her childhood.
She sat with a thump on the garden bench. She wanted to
talk to Bella, to have her console her and reassure her that
she was a good person. But Bella was on the other side of
the world; still living the life of freedom that Sera had given
up. She sniffed away tears.
She just wanted to be pretty, was that too much to ask?
She had always been in awe of her big sister's beauty; of her
long, straight blonde hair, her magnificent figure: boy hips
teamed with woman breasts. But most of all, Sera envied
Bella's legs, her long, long, perfect unmarked legs. Legs in
the shower being shaved, legs in a bikini sun-baking, legs
jumping off the jetty into the dam. Legs in mini-shorts
pumping madly down to the pub to fetch their parents
home for dinner, jumping rope, running races, climbing up
to the tree house, stretching out from a shortened school
uniform.
Sera tried so hard to compete. She used to scour
Dolly
magazine, beg her mother for new clothes, fiddle for hours
experimenting with hairstyles and make-up; anything to be
in the same league as Bella.
Her mother was no help at all. She thought her daughter's
titivating was a joke and never missed an opportunity
to tease her in front of her brothers if she caught her
'mucking around with lipstick'.
Sera had lived in her sister's long-legged shadow her
entire youth, even following her over to the mainland
and into the flight industry; anything to get away from the
dour, dopey expressions of her family as they sat around
eating their tinned Spam with their slack jaws wide open.
Tony had been her first love. They had met on a flight.
She liked the way he joked with her. He liked her beautiful
face. She liked his beautiful face.
He told her she was gorgeous and for the first little while
she believed him. By the time she decided that he'd been
making it up just to be polite, they were already married
with a baby on the way. And boy, that was an ugly time
of life; she shuddered, remembering her swollen ankles and
elephantine stomach. She didn't realise that her skin had
glowed, her eyes had sparkled and her hair had grown thick
and glossy. She didn't hear it when Tony had told her over
and over.
So Sera dedicated herself to getting beauty into her life
whenever she could. She was always searching for the next
nail polish, gardenia bush or curtain fabric. All she wanted
was enough lovely things to obliterate the memory of the
shabby farmhouse with its overgrown front lawn, the tin
roof so rusted it could no longer hold onto its gutter and
the ugly kitchen with its dirty smells. And her scar.
Sera looked at her backyard in the late summer darkness.
A heady scent from the last flush of the rose-bushes wafted
over and she smiled as she looked at their full droopy heads.
She thought of her beautiful children tucked up in bed, and
felt a rush of guilt that she hadn't kissed them goodnight.
She looked up at the rich silk drapes over her bedroom
windows. Her world was beautiful. A tiny smile came to
her lips as she stood to go next door. There was beauty
everywhere. She leant down to pick up the box of pies that
had fallen next to the fish pond. She caught a glance of her
reflection in the still water.
Well, nearly everywhere.
Chantrea's car screeched into the Babyface Childcare
carpark. Today of all days, her flight had been delayed.
Parent–teacher interviews freaked her out at the best of
times: she always felt as if she was the student and the
teacher was assessing
her
performance. She glanced in the
mirror and ran her fingers over the temporary tattoo on her
bicep. What had she been thinking? This was not a good
week for experimenting.
Sally's room leader was conservative at her most way-out.
Plaid was her idea of crazy. An eager young graduate,
Nancy Thistlethwaite had rushed into the childcare system
with a knapsack full of good intentions. It had been her
dream to take the clay of the infant mind and mould it into
intricate and sophisticated sculptures.
She had quickly discovered the crèche system was more
about red-tape than cultural enrichment; that there were
more soiled underpants than child prodigies and the thrill of
intellectual conversation with like-minded souls in actual fact
turned out to be bitter twenty-year-olds backstabbing each
other in the tea-room, but Nancy remained steadfast in the
face of tedium and was still determined to make a difference.
Chantrea rushed to the school's front door, passing
a couple of mothers on their way back to the carpark.
Chantrea vaguely knew them both – certainly enough to
know that they prided themselves on being loosely linked
to Sydney's social royalty. In their minds, the closer one's
connection to the Murdoch family the higher up the blueblood
ladder one was.
The woman with the platinum bob, Suzette Martin,
spoke with a nasal upper-class twang and was aristocratically
beautiful – as refined as white sugar. Suzette's cousin
had actually sat next to young Sarah Murdoch last year at
a luncheon. Her companion, Virginia Cross, looked like a
duller version of Princess Anne, with her dowdy fashions
and dishwater-brown hair. These women's Bellevue Hill
homes sprawled across one of the city's most exclusive
slopes, with pristine gardens and to-die-for views.
As Chantrea rushed toward them they stopped chatting
and appraised her with critical stares.
'Evening, ladies. Gorgeous night, isn't it?' Chantrea
chirped, smiling widely at them.
'Err, what? Oh yes . . . lovely . . . quite,' Suzette stammered,
clutching at the pearls around her neck.
'Yes . . . rather,' was the best Virginia could manage.
Accustomed to freezing others into embarrassed silence,
both women had expected Chantrea to lower her eyes and
walk past in silence.
Chantrea grinned happily to herself as she watched the
women's reactions. She had learned years ago that attack
was the best form of defence, and the sweeter and more
well-mannered the attack the better.
She glanced through the classroom door to see Nancy
deep in conversation with another mum, so she slipped
back outside to enjoy the warm evening. Sitting on the
playground bench, Chantrea quickly realised she could hear
Suzette and Virginia chatting in the car park, their voices
carrying on the still evening air.
'Of course I'd much rather not have to use childcare at all,
but three short days a week isn't much,' Suzette was saying.
'But of course, darling, it's so good for their development
and socialisation. My young Edward only comes two days.'
'It's just a scandal that some mothers use this facility
almost as a boarding house for their children,' Suzette said.
'Do you know there's a little five-year-old who's always
the first in and last to leave every day of the week?'
'That's just appalling. Why do these people even bother
to have children anyway?'
'Disgusting, isn't it?' sniffed Suzette. 'It's that little
Cambodian girl in the kindergarten room; her mother
is that wild-looking creature we just passed,' her voice
dropped at this point and Chantrea couldn't hear what
was said, but their peals of laughter made it clear it wasn't
complimentary.
She sat grim-faced and shocked. How dare they? Sally
wasn't here
that
often.
'Oh, it's typical though.' Suzette had returned to her
normal speaking voice. 'You know what those Asians are
like.'
'It's terrible how they come to this country just for the
free government hand-outs,' Virgina sniffed.
Chantrea's head was spinning. She sat motionless, trying
to process the ugly racism that made her feel separate –
different and inferior – with just a few casual words and it
didn't feel good. Not good at all.
Just then the kindergarten door opened and it was her
turn. Chantrea felt scrambled and lightheaded, which made
it hard to concentrate on the interview, but she heard
enough to know that all was well with her daughter. As she
nodded numbly, her mind raced. Did she leave Sally here
too much? Were the women right? Was Sally suffering?
As she got up to leave, Nancy made a comment that
brought her hurtling back to the present. 'Of course there
is one thing that interests me,' she said.
'What?' Chantrea asked wearily.
'It's probably nothing,' the young woman said. 'It's just
that she's become fascinated with her culture.'
'Culture? What do you mean? Like ballet? Art galleries?'
Chantrea asked, very confused.
'No,
her
culture – the fact she's Cambodian,' Nancy
explained.
'She's Australian!' Chantrea said defiantly.
'I know she was born here, I mean her heritage. She's
become very interested in her background and has actually
been sharing some fascinating insights into her people,'
Nancy explained.
'Her people! What in the hell . . . ?' Chantrea was now
speechless. What was this woman on about? She glanced
up at the 'Who I Am,' wall behind Nancy and it suddenly
struck her. The rows of children who attended crèche in
this predominantly Anglo-Saxon area all stared back at her,
many with the Nordic blue or green eyes. They had white-blond
hair and English surnames.
And there was little Sally. Chantrea had always looked
at her beautiful brown-eyed daughter with the golden skin
and the dark brown hair and seen her for what she was: a
gorgeous baby girl. But now she could see what others saw.
She had a Cambodian daughter.
Chantrea had thought by giving her an Aussie dad and
an Aussie name her little Sally O'Leary would be able to
fit in. She didn't want her precious little angel to have to
go through all the shit she went through. She didn't want
Sally to have to contend with the racial taunts; the teasing;
the loneliness. And now it seemed Sally was actually boasting
about being different. As a child Chantrea would have
given anything not to have been born in South-East Asia;
not to have been one of the 'chinks' at her western suburbs
primary school.
'It's been wonderful, actually,' Nancy kept raving. 'The
other children are fascinated. She's been telling us about
Angkor Wat, teaching us some Cambodian words and even
bringing in Cambodian food for us to try.'
'WHAT?!' Chantrea exploded. What in the hell was
going on? Even as she asked herself the question she knew
there was only one answer to this mystery.
Her mother.