Mothers and Daughters (36 page)

‘They should be back by now.’

Morag checked her watch. Three minutes to eleven, just two minutes on from when she’d last consulted it. Amira had finally said out loud what Morag had been thinking, what Caro was clearly thinking, and maybe even Fiona too if she could be forced to admit it. For the previous half hour they’d all gamely acted as if nothing was wrong, that they were happily enjoying a last-night drink by the pool at The Mangrove, where they’d returned after finishing dinner, but slowly, inexorably, the conversation had dried up.

‘Yes,’ she sighed. The girls had been told to return by ten. They’d only gone three or four blocks away, at least according to Amira. Where the heck were they?

Fiona held up the sweating bottle marooned in the middle of the table. ‘Drink?’ she asked, then plonked it back down when no one responded. ‘Oh, relax,’ she chided. ‘They’ve probably just lost track of the time. They’re young. And it’s their last night too. They’ll be fine.’

Caro turned to Morag. ‘Try ringing Macy again.’

Morag dutifully picked up her phone, entered the number and held it to her ear.
Please answer please answer please answer
, she chanted to herself, but the call went through to voicemail, as had all the previous calls. This time she hung up without leaving a message.

‘Bugger,’ said Caro. ‘We should have realised that only one of them had a phone before we let them go. I just assumed . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Morag knew what she was thinking, that in this day and age everyone was immediately contactable all the time, but Bronte, it turned out, had never wanted a phone, while Tess had stopped using hers after moving to Kalangalla. ‘There’s no coverage, so she couldn’t,’ Amira had explained. ‘I don’t even know where it is now.’ As for Janey, they all knew what had happened to her mobile.

‘Well, it wasn’t
my
idea,’ Fiona said, pouring herself a drink. ‘Cheers,’ she added, holding the glass aloft. ‘To our best-laid plans.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Caro snapped. ‘I didn’t hear you protesting when Tess suggested it. You were only too happy to have Bronte off your hands for a couple of hours. Not that you even notice her when she’s here.’

Fiona straightened in her seat, eyes sparkling. ‘Glasshouses!’
she hooted. ‘Because you’re right on top of everything Janey’s doing, aren’t you?’

‘OK,’ said Amira, standing up. ‘I’m sure everything’s alright, but I’m going to go and look for them—then we can all enjoy what’s left of the night without anyone getting their eyes scratched out.’

Fiona pretended to pout. ‘I was only warming up. And she started it.’

Just then Morag saw some figures emerge from the shadows beyond the pool.

‘Hey,’ she cried. ‘I think they’re back.’

Each of the women turned to look, their heads swivelling like clowns in a sideshow game, but it wasn’t all four girls, just Bronte and Tess. Spotting the women, Bronte broke into a run.

‘Is Janey here?’ she asked, pulling up at their table.

‘No,’ said Caro. ‘She’s meant to be with you.’

‘We . . . um . . . separated,’ Bronte admitted.

‘What?’ Morag said. ‘You were meant to stay together! When? How long has it been since you saw her? And where’s Macy?’

Tess joined her friend. ‘It wasn’t Bronte’s fault,’ she said. ‘Macy wanted to sing—she got asked by this band—and we didn’t want to spend all our time just hanging out there, so we agreed that we’d meet later.’ She cast a look at Morag. ‘She’s still singing. We couldn’t get her to come back.’

‘And Janey—what about Janey?’ Caro asked. One of her hands clutched the table; the other had gone straight to her throat.

‘She said she needed a drink, so we told her the same as
Macy—meet at the stage at ten to ten.’ Bronte hung her head as if anticipating the next question.

‘You couldn’t have just gone with her?’ Caro didn’t bother to hide the anger in her voice.

‘I didn’t feel much like being with her,’ Bronte said, not meeting Caro’s eyes. ‘Sorry.’ Morag thought she might start crying.

Tess put her arm around the taller girl.

‘It’s not Bronte’s fault,’ she said again. ‘I talked her into it. And Janey was the one who didn’t turn up—the rest of us were there. We’ve been looking for her for the past forty minutes.’ ‘Great. Just great,’ erupted Caro. ‘We ask you four to do one thing, just to stick together, and—’

‘Come on, Caro, we’ll go find her,’ interrupted Amira, reaching for Caro’s hand. ‘She can’t have got far. The markets aren’t very big. Maybe she just got confused about where the stage was.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Bronte. ‘It’s really loud. You could find it with your eyes shut.’ Tess elbowed her.

‘I’ll come too, to get Macy,’ Morag said, rising from her seat.

‘No, you stay here,’ said Amira. ‘We need someone to man the phones, and I don’t trust her.’ She cocked her head at Fiona, who had just drained her glass and was already reaching to fill it again. ‘Seriously, Janey might turn up here while we’re searching, then you can give us a ring and we’ll come straight back.’

‘With Macy,’ Morag prompted.

‘Yes, with Macy, of course. Thanks.’ Amira shepherded Caro away into the night. ‘We’ll walk,’ Morag heard her say. ‘The markets aren’t far, and you can never get a park there.
They’re just so busy! I’m sure that’s all it is.’ She stopped abruptly and spun around. ‘Bronte! Tess! You come with us and show us where you were meant to meet up. Morag will look after things here.’

Good old Morag
, Morag thought as she watched them go.
Morag will look after things. Morag always does.
But who the hell was looking after Morag’s child? Stepchild, she corrected herself. Not flesh, not blood, but still, somehow, her responsibility. It didn’t seem fair. If anything happened to Macy Andrew and Janice would blame her, everyone would, even though she wasn’t related to her and hadn’t even wanted her here. Not that anyone seemed all that concerned about Macy—Amira hadn’t even mentioned her when she set off on her rescue mission. Sure, Macy wasn’t missing as such, not like Janey, but it wasn’t as if she was tucked up safely in bed either. Who knew what had happened since Bronte and Tess had last seen her? The band might have finished and she might be wandering around lost, or backstage blowing a roadie . . . Why the hell hadn’t she done what she was told to in the first place? None of this would’ve happened if the girls hadn’t split up—and Macy was the oldest, so theoretically she should be the most responsible, the one you could trust. Hah! Morag could feel herself growing angrier and angrier. It wasn’t like her, and the sensation was disquieting. She wanted to scream. She wanted to go for a run. She wanted to find Macy and shake her until her teeth chattered.

Fiona burped softly. ‘Kids, hey,’ she remarked from across the table. ‘First you lose your figure, next you lose your social
life, then you lose your mind. They’re not worth it. I wish someone had told me.’

Despite her fury, Morag couldn’t quite agree. Yes, having children was tiring, but Finn, Callum and Torran were infinitely precious to her; they were the sum of her days. As for Macy . . . with Macy it was different. Could anything ever come close to that bond of blood? Macy irritated and upset her more easily than her biological children; Macy always had a head start, somehow, in tipping her over the edge. Morag cared for Macy, she knew she did, even loved her on their good days—but that was just the point, wasn’t it, that the love was more conditional, more limited than what she felt for the three boys who had been pulled wet and bloody from her own body. She wondered if every step-parent felt like this; she wondered if things would have been different if she’d known Macy since her birth rather than meeting her for the first time as an already cautious, already defensive seven-year-old. The problem, she thought, was that you chose to be a parent. The twins had been unplanned, but still she’d decided to go ahead, she’d chosen to keep them. No one ever chose to be a step-parent.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied, straining to keep her tone light. ‘It means you’ve got someone to look after you in your old age, at least.’

A shadow passed over Fiona’s face. ‘If you live that long.’

Morag picked up her phone. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said. ‘I can’t sit still at a time like this.’

Fiona hugged herself. ‘You,’ she said, ‘can never sit still.’

Morag’s mobile rang about ten minutes later, on her third circuit of the path between The Mangrove and Matso’s. It was Amira, her words rushed. ‘We’ve found Janey, but she’s injured. We’ll have to take her to hospital. I called for the ambulance, but there’s only one in Broome and it’s already out. Can you bring the troop carrier here? The keys are on the table next to my bed—the room should be open. Just head down the road from Matso’s and keep going until you see the markets.’ She drew in a shuddery breath. ‘Oh God—Caro’s freaking out. Can you hurry?’

‘Calm down,’ said Morag. ‘It’ll be OK. I’ll get there as quickly as I can. Is Macy with you?’

Amira groaned. ‘We haven’t even looked for her yet . . . and I can’t leave Janey, or Caro. We’ll come back and find her as soon as we get Janey to hospital, I promise.’

A preternatural calm came over Morag.

‘Are Janey’s injuries life-threatening?’ she asked. ‘Is she bleeding? Can she breathe?’

‘No, it’s her ankle,’ Amira said. ‘It’s badly broken. She’s deathly pale and she screams every time someone tries to touch it.’

Morag made her decision.

‘Don’t touch it, just keep her as still as you can. I’ll be there soon.’

Soon, she thought, but not straight away. No one else had bothered, no one else was looking out for Macy. She was damned if she wasn’t going to go and find Macy first.

Sunday

‘We’ll keep going, yeah?’

The lead singer looked around at the other band members for confirmation. The guy on keyboards nodded; the drummer simply picked up his sticks, preparing for the next song.

‘You too?’ he asked Macy. ‘It’s the last night market for the year, before the wet sets in. We’ll make hay while the moon shines.’

She hesitated. It was getting late—it must be after midnight, though she was too scared to look at her watch. The crowd had thinned, but there were still plenty of people left, faces raised expectantly to the stage.

‘Sure,’ she heard herself say. Stuff it. It wasn’t as if she got a chance like this every day—to perform with a real live band. She’d had a couple of offers before, but her parents hadn’t allowed it; in fact, the first time she’d asked her mother Janice had laughed and told her she was far too young to be up late
at pubs and that she needed to concentrate on her schoolwork. It didn’t seem to matter that the gigs were on Saturday nights, when she’d be out anyway, and that she’d sworn there was no way she’d be drinking (not a chance when she had a job to do, and anyway, the management would probably know she was underage); her mum had simply held up her hand in that supercilious way that indicated the topic was no longer open for discussion. It was infuriating. You got to sixteen and all the people who expected you to start acting like an adult wouldn’t actually engage with you as such.

‘“Sweet Home Alabama”,’ the guitarist hissed. ‘D’you know that?’

Macy nodded, felt her hips sway in anticipation of the opening chords. It was an old song, but it always got people dancing. Years ago, when she was eight or nine and staying over at her father’s one winter weekend, it had come on the radio while they were eating lunch and her dad had pulled Morag to her feet and twirled her around the room until they were both out of breath and giggling and the soup had gone cold. Morag. A prickle of guilt ran down Macy’s spine. Morag had expected them back by ten . . . But Tess and Bronte must have told her where she was, Macy assured herself, so she wouldn’t be worried. The other girls would have found Janey and headed back, probably ages ago now—and Macy was older than them, so surely she deserved to stay out a bit longer.

The guitarist grinned at her as they went into the chorus.

Home, she sang, feeling better, and she would go home, or to The Mangrove anyway, just as soon as they were finished. It would be a crime to stop now. The band was really good,
so much better than that piss-poor one at school. Besides, her mother was always telling her to seize the moment, wasn’t she? So here she was, seizing.

She threw back her head, harmonising. It was funny how easily the lyrics came to her, even when she had no idea what they meant. If only it was the same with the periodic table, or the cosine rule, or that soliloquy they’d had to learn from
Macbeth
. Why hadn’t someone put
that
to music? It would have made it so much simpler. But nothing about school was simple, she’d accepted that now, and the thought of her final two years looming ahead filled her with terror. When she was little, in grade three, her mum had told her that it was just a matter of working hard and paying attention—that if she did both she’d be fine, that everything would come together like notes gliding up a scale, one flowing seamlessly into the next. But it never had, never, no matter how hard she tried. After the dyslexia was finally diagnosed a year or so later she’d hoped things might get better, but she was already too far behind and after a while she’d simply given up. She knew it upset her mother, who thought she was lazy, but it wasn’t as if Macy had a choice. The song ended and the crowd applauded, someone wolf-whistling from towards the back. Macy tried to see if she could spot them and found herself staring straight at Morag.