Mothers and Daughters (11 page)

The bedroom was dark, so she couldn’t see Tess’s or Bronte’s face, but she listened to their gasps with satisfaction.

‘Wow, Janey. Really? That’s amazing. How?’

God, had Tess become that much of a hick? ‘Easy, you idiot. You just go to the doctors and ask for it.’ Janey lay back, hands
behind her head. The mattress was a bit lumpy, she thought. Tomorrow night she was going to sleep in her own room in a proper bed, or maybe she’d talk Tess into giving her hers and Tess could sleep on the floor. That was only fair, after all. Janey was the guest.

‘But don’t you need your parents’ permission if you’re under sixteen?’

Janey sighed. ‘Mum’ll give it to me,’ she said, speaking with far more confidence than she felt. ‘Anyway, I can easily pass for sixteen. You know Ro, from the year above us? She got into Chasers on the Saturday night before we left. I heard her group talking about it in the dunnies at school. She used her sister’s ID, but still—I look heaps older than she does, especially if I wear make-up.’

‘Who’s the lucky guy?’ Tess asked. ‘Anyone I know? Someone in year eight?’

Janey sniffed. ‘As if—those babies. All they know how to do with their dicks is tug them.’ She paused, letting the suspense build, then admitted, ‘No one in particular. I just want to be prepared. I’ll be fifteen next year.’

‘Not until July,’ Tess said, then quickly added, ‘But that’s still incredible. Mum’s pretty cool, but I don’t think she’d let me do it.’

Bronte spoke up out of the darkness, surprising them. It was so easy to forget she was there. ‘I’ve heard that some girls get the pill by saying that they need it for their skin, or to control their periods.’

‘Yeah, well, clearly I don’t need it for my skin, do I? And my periods have been fine ever since I got them, apart from
the first few months. Still, I was only eleven then, remember?’ Janey smirked at the memory. Eleven, and the first in grade six. She’d acted horrified, but secretly she’d been thrilled.
Beat you all.

‘You could say you needed it for swimming. The pill, I mean. To skip your period when you have a big meet. You can do that, you know.’

‘Duh, Bronte,’ Janey said, rolling her eyes even though no one could see her. But she hadn’t known. Could you really? she wondered. That would be so convenient. She hated racing at that time of the month. She felt so crampy, and she was always worried that the string would slip out of her bathers and hang down her leg like it had that time for one of the older girls, Jo. She’d been bent over on the blocks for the start of a practice relay and half the team were pointing at it and laughing, or at least that’s what it felt like. Janey shuddered.

‘Bloody hell, Bronte,’ Tess said, sounding impressed. ‘How do you know so much? Anything you’d like to share with us?’

‘We learned it in sex ed. It’s part of biology. We just did it this year.’ Bronte’s voice was low and Janey knew she was blushing. She was so uptight. Sex ed at year eight, though. That was impressive. At Janey’s school they didn’t get it till year ten. Too late for some by then.

‘So is it your stroke coach?’ Tess went on, unwilling to let the subject drop. ‘The one you told me about last year. What was his name—Alan?’

‘Adam,’ Janey replied automatically. She rolled over onto her stomach. ‘I can’t believe you remember that.’

‘I can’t believe you think I’d forget.’ Tess giggled. ‘Janey had this coach,’ she explained to Bronte, ‘not her main one, a younger guy who helped out, and one day when he was teaching her butterfly he made her get out of the pool and he put his arms around her to show her what to do.’

‘Breaststroke,’ Janey corrected. ‘And he wasn’t
teaching
me, he was helping to refine my technique.’

Tess continued unfazed, her voice rising with excitement. ‘Anyway, to get his arms all the way around he had to press right up against her, and Janey could feel his . . . his . . . you know, his erection!’ she exploded, delighted at her own daring in using the term.

‘Shh!’ said Bronte. ‘You’ll wake Amira.’

‘Fat chance of that,’ said Tess, falling back on her pillow, breathless with laughter. The mothers had all gone to bed early, worn out by the sun or the drive or because they were getting old.

Had
it been his erection? Janey wondered. Maybe it was his belt, or his notebook. It could have been, though. Adam had certainly looked at her often enough, was always pulling her aside to impart this or that piece of wisdom, staring earnestly into her eyes until he thought she understood. Then again, maybe it was just because she was good. He wasn’t the first coach to single her out. Whatever the case, she remembered now that she’d told Tess she’d given Adam a blowjob one night after training. She hadn’t, duh, but it made Tess squeal and gasp and ask for all the details. That had been a bit trickier, but Janey had read
Cleo
for years so it was easy enough to
make something up. There wasn’t much to it, surely. How hard could it be?

‘He left the club earlier this year,’ Janey said. ‘Went to AquaPower. Traitor.’

‘What’s his replacement like?’ asked Tess.

‘God, you’re a pervert. His replacement’s a woman. She’s nice, but no way I’m turning lez.’

Tess laughed. Janey shifted onto her side, trying to get comfortable. As if she’d have gone on the pill for Adam, with his skinny legs and his try-hard goatee. She’d liked the extra attention he’d given her, liked that the other squad swimmers had noticed it too, but the idea of fucking him? Eww. Plus he’d probably want to time her. Janey pictured it, her lying on her back with her legs apart, and Adam standing there naked, clicking his stopwatch before he dived between them. Yuck. She
was
ready to fuck someone though, she was sure of it. Boys were all she could think about . . . the gaggle at the bus stop who whistled when she walked past on her way home; the older guys on the swim team, the way that line of hair curled from their navel to their Speedos; Bryce Jennings in year eleven who had invited her to the school formal—a rare honour for a year eight girl—and pushed his hands beneath her taffeta bodice when they were kissing at the after party. She’d liked it and pushed back, but the host’s mum had walked in on them and made them go back to the others. Janey sighed. Adults were always interfering. If her mum had had her way, Janey would be going to that stupid school that Bronte went to, where boys weren’t allowed. No boys! The idea made her shudder.

‘Bronte’s gone to sleep,’ Tess whispered.

‘Figures,’ Janey said, not bothering to lower her voice. ‘So what about you? Any talent up here?’

‘Nah, not really. There’s a few guys, and they’re nice, but they’re more like friends, you know?’ Tess was quiet for a while, and Janey couldn’t tell if she was thinking or drifting off too. ‘I got . . .’ Tess said at last, then seemed to change her mind. ‘My friend Tia has a boyfriend,’ she murmured instead. ‘He has a car. Last week he took a day off work and drove us down to Middle Lagoon. You’d love it there.’

That boy in the pool last night, Janey thought. Was he a local? Did Tess know him? But that was ridiculous. Broome wasn’t
that
small. She pressed her thighs together underneath the cotton sheet, enjoying the warmth that spread through her. He’d been nice—handsome, funny . . . He’d called her a mermaid, she thought, squeezing harder. The idea aroused her. She hoped Tess had fallen asleep too.

Tuesday

Five thirty. Surely that couldn’t be right? It was already so light, the sun well up in the sky. Morag checked her watch again. Maybe she hadn’t adjusted it correctly when they’d arrived in Broome, but wouldn’t she have noticed that before now? She finished her stretches and pushed off along the track leading into the bush, still confused but determined to put it out of her mind. She was awake now. She might as well run.

For the first fifteen minutes the track was narrow and winding and Morag had to concentrate so that she didn’t roll an ankle. Just as she was getting fed up, the path suddenly opened onto a wide sandy beach, empty apart from a lone dark figure casting a net at the shoreline. She slowed to a walk, then impulsively dropped to one knee and pulled off her shoes. Running barefoot was best for your body, but there were so few opportunities for it in the city. Morag took one step and then another, testing the grip of her feet on the powdery grains,
gradually gaining pace, accelerating away from the fisherman and her own relentless thoughts.

Within a kilometre she’d found her zone. Her legs sailed across the sand, strong and flexible; her shoulders dropped and relaxed; her mind shut down. This was why she ran: not because she was some sort of fitness fanatic, as Fiona seemed to assume, nor because she was worried about her weight. She ran for her health, yes, but her mental health. She ran to clear a space in her day. She ran so that for an hour every morning she ceased being a wife and a mother and an OT, and became simply bone and sinew and cool, clear air.

Only the air wasn’t so cool, Morag thought, slowing to a trot. Each breath she drew felt as if it was expanding inside her lungs, singeing her windpipe. The sun bit at her calves and the back of her neck; the glare from the white sand and the sparkling sea made her squint. She should have worn a hat and sunglasses, but who’d have dreamed she’d need either at six am? Morag peered along the coast. By her calculations she was west of the cove where they’d swum yesterday. She’d been gone about half an hour . . . if she turned around and ran to the cove she’d probably get back to her room quicker than if she returned the same way she’d come, but then she’d be under the full blaze of the sun the whole way, not sheltered by the bush.

Damn
, she thought
. Damn damn damn.
She was always so careful with her skin, yet here she was getting sunburnt before breakfast. When would she ever understand Australia? Ten years she’d lived here now, and it still had the power to fool her. It was the size of the country, she supposed. It was
too damn big. She had a handle on Melbourne, but Melbourne was nothing like Broome, and they were both light years away from Edinburgh. Edinburgh. Feeling her eyes grow moist, she swiped at them angrily. It was just the glare, she told herself. She really did need her sunglasses.

Morag gave up trying to run and moved down the beach to trudge along the waterline towards the cove, ankles sinking into the wet sand. It was the softness she missed. The Edinburgh light had a hazy quality, as if filtered through stained glass . . . it took the edge off the city somehow, made it glow and shimmer. It blunted the corners and lit the sandstone of the New Town, it made the castle appear to hover in the misty air above the Princes Street Gardens. Fiona would say it only looked like that because it was always raining, but Morag knew that wasn’t the real reason. It was the age of the place, the patina of history. It was the high grey skies and the blanketing haar, a sea fog that rolled in now and then from the Firth of Forth. Australia, in contrast, was too new, too bright. The colours were still fresh, and they hurt her eyes.

Morag smiled to herself. There’d been a haar on the day she’d first met Andrew. It was May, almost summer, and late in the season for such an event, but as her mother always said,
The weather doesn’t check the calendar
. Morag had been working behind the bar at the Cafe Royal, a pub just off Princes Street, and he’d come in and ordered a pint, a guidebook clutched in one hand and drops of condensed fog still caught in his hair. They’d looked beautiful, like jewels or beads of mercury, and it had been all she could do not to reach out and touch them. Later, when she cleared the empty glass from the booth where
he was sitting, she noticed him frowning over a map and on a whim had sat down beside him and asked if she could help.

He spent the night in her bed at the share house, then the next day too. The first time he had cupped her breasts she had involuntarily flinched at the roughness of his touch, and in the milky morning light the reason was clear. His hands were calloused and scarred, thick ridges of skin built up across his fingertips. She turned them over between her own smooth palms; she held one to her face to feel its rasp, its chafe. He was a furniture maker, he explained, or at least that was what he was becoming. He was two years into an apprenticeship in Australia, but he’d taken six months off to see some of the world before he returned, finished his apprenticeship and found himself a job. Not the sights, he added, lying back against her pillow as the rest of the household stirred and showered. He hadn’t come to see those. What really interested him was design, ceilings especially, and he’d heard Edinburgh had some beautiful ones. He glanced across at her, as if wondering if she was going to laugh at him, then rushed on. Rosslyn Chapel, the carved wooden bosses of St Giles Cathedral, the National Portrait Gallery, the dome at the Central Library . . . they’d all been magnificent. Did she know of any more? She’d laughed, because it was such a delicious and unexpected question, because she was suddenly intrigued by this man she’d only spoken to because of the dew in his hair, and pulled him on top of her. Her own ceiling, she noticed briefly, was grey and flaking, yet it had never seemed more exquisite.

Andrew stayed for the summer. It hadn’t been his plan, but that was what happened. When they’d finally got out of bed,
Morag had taken him to see the Royal Bank of Scotland at St Andrew Square, its high blue vault twinkling as if set with stars, then the City Chambers on the Royal Mile, the arcade between Cockburn Street and the Bridges, the ticket hall at Waverley Station. By then they were both a little in love, with the city as much as each other. Over drinks at Dean Brodie’s tavern she filled him in on her own history—that the bar work was to pay her rent while she got through university; that she was originally from the Highlands, where her recently widowed mother still lived; that she was heading up there to visit her soon. Then she took a deep breath and added that while there weren’t many ceilings of note in Fort William, she was sure there were some other attractions to recommend it. When university finished for the term, she took leave from the bar and they made the trip in a pale blue Combi that Andrew had rented, heading out across the Forth Road Bridge and up through Stirling and Glencoe. During their week in Fort William, Andrew charmed her mother every night over dinner, then waited until he was sure she would be asleep before tiptoeing across the landing to Morag’s room, its walls still hung with the pony posters of her childhood. After that they pushed further north: Inverness, Ullapool, then across in the belly of a ferry to the islands—Skye, Raasay, the Outer Hebrides. The sun went down after midnight and rose again by four am; the days lingered for hours in a gilded twilight, had a short nap, then started afresh. Morag had never spent so much time in bed, and so little of it asleep.