Lessons from the Heart (10 page)

‘That's what I mean.'

‘What, partying?'

‘No, the noise. She
is
making a noise, and to me it sounds like distress. And I just think something's got to give, to happen soon.'

‘Do you think it's me and Philip?'

‘You?
'

‘Cos we're together all the time, and it always used to be me and Toni.'

‘No,' Mum says. ‘Or yes and no. No, because I don't really think you're the cause at all – it was going to happen anyway. But yes, just now, if you weren't with Philip, maybe …'

‘I think it is.'

‘But, darling, who knows? How can you ever tell?'

‘We don't talk like we used to. Not about real things. If it's about boys, it's just about how this one's a great spunk, or so-and-so's a great kisser or he likes this music or that – you know. But actual –'

‘Feelings?'

‘Yes. We don't –'

‘It would have to happen this year, wouldn't it?' Mum says, and she keeps coming back to this. ‘If only she'd been able to get through the year.'

‘She still might get through, it's only the end of March. The year's just started.'

‘Darling, you don't believe that? She can't be doing any work. Or nothing like you are.'

‘I don't do that much.'

‘You work like crazy, and I'm very proud of you because you do it all of your own free will.
And
you fit in your music, and sport and Philip.' She stops.

‘Do
you
think Toni's a bike?' I say.

‘I don't know what to think. Things are so different. Everything's changed so much in such a short time.'

‘A slut?'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘It's what you meant.'

‘I just meant it's hard then to get back people's respect. Once you've lost it.'

‘Even if she isn't one?'

‘It can be even harder then. If she isn't one, but people –'

‘Boys?'

‘If they think she is.'

‘Cos she's just holding out on them in particular?'

‘Yes.'

‘But you didn't mind when I started sleeping with Philip.'

‘Darling, that's a completely different case, and you know it.'

‘If Toni's Mum and Dad thought she was having sex, they'd beat her black and blue. But with me and Philip, you approved it.'

‘Did I?'

‘You said we could, it was our decision – if we thought the time was right and we were ready for it.'

‘I said I wouldn't stop you. You were the one who asked me if you should, remember. I didn't come up to you and say, “Hey, isn't it time you started sleeping with Philip Gardner?” So, be fair. Let's discuss it if you want to, but be fair. Do you want to discuss it?'

‘No.'

Toni, of course, had been appalled when I originally told her I'd asked Mum's advice – about me and Philip, I mean. ‘You've got to be joking,' she shrieked. ‘I know Miriam's modern and that, but she's still your mother. You're not telling me you discussed sex with your
mother
? Laura, it's obscene.' Which only shows Toni doesn't really understand Mum and me, how we discuss everything. And how different we are, I suppose, from her and her own mother. ‘Anyway,' she said, ‘what would mothers know about
sex,
for God's sake.'

‘Darling?' Mum says now and stops whatever else she's doing. ‘Do you regret it – the decision you made? Are you regretting it?'

‘No,' I say, and then think for a moment. ‘Or only for Toni.'

‘Laura, you can't start feeling guilty about that now. And Toni can't live her life through you. All you can do, all either of us can do, is help her. What's that dreadful phrase everybody uses nowadays? –
be there for her,
when she needs us.'

‘I know. I worked that out.'

I plump myself down on a stool next to the bench where Mum is working and watch her cut up the vegetables. I like watching her hands, seeing the shallots and capsicum and lemon and garlic part under her sharp knife, the freshness of the flesh inside, smelling the sharp scents that are released into the air. ‘
And
,' I say to her, ‘you did the right thing.'

‘I did? That's a change,' she says. And then: ‘The right thing about what, precisely?'

Precisely
is one of Mum's favourite words. She's not like other people where you can get away with murder by vagueing things up. She always wants to know where you've been, why, with whom, till when.
Precisely.

‘The right thing about me and Philip.'

‘Good,' she says. ‘I'm glad.'

* *

‘If you're absolutely sure, darling,' Mum had said. I think she'd agonized over the whole thing.

‘You don't want me to.'

‘Is that what you want me to say – that I'm against it, I forbid it? So you can fight me over it?'

‘No.'

‘Well, what's the problem? I'm agreeing with you. I'm saying if you and Philip feel you're ready for it, and you're not being pressured into it …'

‘Philip's always been ready.'

‘Of course,' Mum said. ‘That's how it works.'

‘And I don't want not to any more.'

‘That sounds a slightly negative way of putting it.'

‘All right,' I said then. ‘Mum, I'm
dying
to do it with him. I love him and –'

‘Okay, okay, so what are we arguing about?'

‘You don't want to hear about it.'

‘Darling, there is nothing I won't discuss with you. Ever. We decided that a long time ago, remember?'

‘But I just feel –'

‘What?'

‘Deep down you don't really want it. You're saying
yes
because I want it and you've always been modern and a feminist and that, but actually you don't want me to. You keep saying “If you're absolutely sure,” but how can you be absolutely sure about anything? And I get worried then, because that means you're against it.'

‘Does it really feel like that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh dear,' she said, and wandered about with her hair in her hands. Her hair was longer then, but she's swimming again now, after having Thomas, and it's short and spunky, like Toni's, only without the fringe. But back then it was a birdsnest, and it was like she was trying to pull owls or something out of it.

‘Maybe you're right,' she said, at the end of all this pacing while I just sat on my bed and watched her. And I found I didn't care about me or Philip or whether she agreed or not – because I'd decided to do it anyway – I was just anxious for her, and hadn't meant to worry her like this. And I hadn't expected her to be like this, I suppose. It just wasn't that big a deal – for me anyway. I mean, it
was
a big deal but I loved Philip and I believed he loved me. So for me it all felt right, it was simple. World War III or something wasn't going to break out just because I couldn't play Mary in the school play any more.

‘I suppose,' she said, ‘it's not you I'm really thinking about, it's myself, or it's myself in you.'

‘How do you mean?' I said, but she wasn't listening.

‘Who knows,' is what she said. ‘Maybe I'm even a little jealous.'

‘Of me?'

‘I've watched you for so long.'

‘I'm only sixteen.'

‘That's what I mean. And you can't know at sixteen.'

‘Just because you were nineteen or twenty and an old maid,' I said, and she smiled at that because we'd had this discussion before, ‘by the time you and Dad …'

‘Yes,' she said, and she literally shook herself. ‘It was a different age, and of course for us, there was religion as well.' She said
religion
like it was a disease or something.

‘Grandma Vera was religious,' I said.

‘All that guilt and worrying about sin and punishment. Christ, I hate to think about it now. But it was such a big issue for us.'

‘Sex?'

‘The last thing I want is to see you go through any of that.'

‘But you still think I'm wrong, and I'm not ready?'

‘Darling, I trust you and I trust your judgement. When is a person ready, and how would you ever know? Besides, I'm sure sixteen today is at least equal to twenty when … Isn't that stupid,' she interrupted herself, ‘I was going to say “when I was your age”. You see how confused you've got me.'

‘Are you upset? Really upset?'

‘No, sweetheart.' She came and plonked herself on the bed beside me, and sometimes – not always, because she's still my mother – we can lie around and talk as freely as me and Toni. Nearly. ‘I suppose,' she said, ‘I want everything to be right and perfect for you. But that is about me and not about you, isn't it? And the only person who can tell what's right for you is you.'

‘So, you do approve?'

‘Does it matter to you if I approve?'

‘Yes. It does.'

‘Then,' she sat up and kissed me briskly on the forehead, ‘I approve.'

‘You're sure?'

‘Yes, I approve.'

Though it still sounded to me as if she was convincing herself.

‘Just so long as …'

‘What?' I said. ‘So long as what?'

‘It's safe, you're safe. Just so long as you know how to be safe?'

‘M-um,' I said then. ‘C'mon. This is the twenty-first century, remember?'

‘Yes.' She sighed, and it was weird but something in her voice made me feel sad for her. But then, just as she was leaving my room, as if it was a total after-thought or something, she turned and said: ‘Philip and I are taking Katie and Thomas away for the weekend. So the house,' she said – and, just for one second, it might have been Toni talking, the way she flicked up her brows and weighted each word – ‘will be entirely yours.'

And by the time they got back on Sunday evening, Philip and I – after the first couple of tries which were painful and over in seconds and I was beginning to think I might become a nun if only I could figure out how to become a virgin again – had started to get it and it was lovely and exciting and everything, and we did it I don't know how many times after that, not just in my room but in the lounge room, the shower, the kitchen, and had breakfast in bed for the whole of Sunday and only stopped because I was getting too sore.

And when they got here Mum had to come and find me because I didn't know how to face her or what I should look like, if I should be smiling and happy, like I felt, or just be normal and pretend nothing had happened and complain about the cat coming in and out all night so I didn't get any sleep and that's probably why I looked so slack and worn out. Anyhow, Mum just said, ‘Well?' And I couldn't help it, but I couldn't look at her, I just blushed and got shy – with my own
mother
– and looked at the floor like a four-year-old, or something. But somehow she must have known what I was feeling because she just kissed me and said, ‘Good, I'm glad.'

And then, as she was leaving, she said, ‘And open your window.'

On the stair outside my room, I heard Katie, my little sister, say: ‘I bet she just watched TV all the time and didn't do any homework at all.' And Mum said, ‘Now I don't think that's quite fair, sweetheart. I don't think the TV's even been switched on since we left.' And that's when I was reminded how much I love her.

The wind off the water has cooled everything down. For dinner there's a barbecue that Dave and the two other drivers and Toni and I and the rest of the monitors cook, and it's actually quite fun, and some of the kids even say
thank you
and help clean up so that everybody has to go to their tent then and lie down and recover from the shock, and once they're there they seem happy to stay and keep out of the cold. It's not just me that's missing the warmth and the open space and the red earth. Even Toni, after our mad race by the water, has gone all quiet and thoughtful. Which is something for her.

‘Laura?'

‘Hmm?' I say, only half-listening because I'm writing in my journal. Toni's lying on her sleeping bag, turning the pages of
Who.

‘Why did you tell me now?'

‘Tell you what now?' I'm listening hard all of a sudden.

‘About you and Philip Gardner.'

‘Because I was worried about you.'

‘You don't have to be.' She starts picking at a loose thread from her sleeping bag. She's not even pretending to look at her magazine any more.

‘I know I don't, but I am.'

‘Have you and Miriam been talking about me?'

‘Yes.'

She doesn't explode, as I expect her to. Just thinks about it. And I'm glad I didn't say anything but just
yes
.

‘Why did you think telling me about you and Philip would help?' she asks eventually.

‘I don't know. I just did. It doesn't make sense, I suppose. Maybe it was just wanting to share again.'

‘Sharing Philip? Yuk, no thanks. That arsehole.'

‘I don't hate Philip,' I say, and something in my voice must register because she looks at me properly then.

‘Lolly, you're not pining for him are you?'

‘A bit.'

‘Next time I see him,
I'll
kick him in the balls. That's if he's got any.' She half sits, in a pose of mock aggression. ‘Well,
has
he?'

‘Yes.' I can't help smiling.

‘Consider them crushed.'

We both fall back then and snort with laughter, and my journal falls from my hands onto the canvas floor between us. The flickering light of the lamp on the tent roof is restful, and I find I could look at it for hours.