Mothers and Daughters (39 page)

Amira nodded. ‘You sound like a mother to me. I’m mad at them too—and did you see Morag’s face when Bronte and Tess came back from the markets and she found out Macy wasn’t with them either? I thought she was going to explode.’ She ran her hands through her hair as if trying to tame it, then gave up. ‘You can tell them what to do until you’re blue in the face, but they still seem to think it’s optional. Thank God I only teach primary kids.’

‘But it’s not just that she disobeyed me,’ Caro said. ‘What if the operation isn’t a success? No offence, Amira, but we’re not exactly at the cutting edge of medical practice here, and they said it was a bad break. Just say they can’t fix it properly? What happens then? Just say Janey goes
lame
?’ Her voice broke. The tightness was back, radiating from her sternum out across her chest and rib cage, pinioning her arms. It was as if she’d been grabbed from behind, she thought. It was like being abducted.

‘I’m sure everything will be fine—’ Amira began, laying a soothing hand on Caro’s lap.

‘But what if it’s not?’ Caro demanded. She was shaking, she was losing it, coffee slopping from the cup onto the floor.
Breathe
, she told herself.
Breathe
. . . Breathe, for God’s sake. She sucked at the air, her vision beginning to swim.

Amira shot from her seat. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ she said.

‘No!’ exclaimed Caro. There it was—the oxygen finally rushing to her lungs, punching through, reinflating them. She gulped at it greedily, inhaling until the room stopped spinning
and her pulse rate slowed. ‘No,’ she said again, more quietly this time. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s all my fault anyway. I’ve spoiled her.’

‘Oh, Caro,’ Amira said, sinking back into her chair.

‘Yes, I have,’ Caro insisted. ‘I’ve been too soft on her. I’ve always told her how beautiful and how clever she is, and now she believes it.’ The words calmed her somehow, so she kept talking. ‘I wanted her to be perfect, because it made me look good, so I acted as if she was. I knew she could be selfish, maybe even a bit cruel, but I told myself—and Alex—that she was just resourceful, determined. I thought that if I believed it enough I could make it true.’ She felt her chest loosen, her head clear.
And I felt guilty
, she realised,
so I just gave in to her . . . Guilty that Alex was always away, that I worked much more than the other mothers, that I didn’t even know how to be a proper mother. But how could I?
The rictus grin, the mouth hanging open . . . Caro screwed her eyes shut and willed the memory away.

Amira put her arm around her. ‘I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. We’re all making it up as we go along. And Janey will be fine, I know it—her ankle, and the rest of her too. They’re teenagers. It’s not terminal.’

Caro laughed, surprising herself. Talking to Amira had shifted something. She felt lighter, somehow, as if she was full of helium.

‘You’re a good mum,’ Amira continued. ‘You are. I know how much you love your girls, and what an amazing job you do looking after everyone, with Alex hardly home. He must be so proud of you.’

Was he? Caro wondered. She hoped so. She felt a sudden fierce longing for him. Strange, when she’d spent all week thinking about Mason; but Mason was just a fantasy, a holiday whimsy, and Alex was real, the father of her children. He was just as much their parent as she was, but she’d been doing all the work—and the worrying. They needed to start being a team. Maybe she needed to step back and get him more involved with his daughters. Maybe she needed to ditch work for a bit and go with him next time he headed off to Italy. Maria could mind the girls. She was clearly enjoying having April.
Ditch work
. The idea was delightfully transgressive, as novel as the thought of going to bed before stacking the dishwasher and straightening the cushions on the couch.

‘Your colour looks better,’ said Amira. ‘Can you breathe OK now?’

In response, Caro drew in a long breath through her nose, feeling it sink into her lungs and make its way through her body, lighting up arteries and capillaries, causing alveoli to blossom like roses, and then just as slowly released it.

‘I can,’ she said, smiling. ‘I can. It feels wonderful.’

‘And for you?’ the waitress asked.

Morag glanced once more at the menu. She was starving, even though she’d slept in and hadn’t exercised. She’d had a fabulous night’s sleep, actually—in contrast, it seemed, to everyone else.

‘The same, I think—the Bircher muesli. With sourdough toast if you have it, and the scrambled eggs. And a latte, please—as hot as you can.’

The girl nodded and slipped her pad into her pocket before turning away.

‘Thanks for this,’ said Macy, sitting opposite her. ‘It’s nice.’

‘It is,’ agreed Morag, then didn’t know what to say next. Nice, yes, but a bit awkward too. It was pretty much the only time they’d been alone together all trip, and certainly over a meal. It felt a bit like a first date. She wanted to be liked, to impress, but she’d probably just end up with oat flakes stuck between her teeth.

‘I didn’t think you’d be speaking to me after last night, never mind inviting me out for breakfast,’ Macy continued.

Morag leaned back in her seat, staring up through the branches of the huge boab tree spreading above them. She hadn’t even noticed it when she’d last been here, on the first night of the holiday, though they must have sat directly beneath it. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.

‘I think I was just so glad to see you alive and well I was willing to forgive you anything,’ she admitted. ‘For a while there you had me imagining how I was going to break the news to Janice that I’d lost you.’

Macy laughed. ‘That would have gone over well.’

‘Yeah.’ Morag felt her stomach tighten at the thought. ‘I probably would have got your dad to do it, to be honest. It was his fault that you came here in the first place.’ She stopped abruptly, embarrassed, her eyes darting across the table at Macy. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I meant . . .’

‘It’s OK,’ said Macy. ‘It
was
his fault. And mine, for getting thrown out of the eisteddfod.’

‘I can see now why you want to do it,’ Morag said. ‘You were really good last night. Seriously good. I’m not just saying that, either. I mean it.’

Their meals were set in front of them, followed by Morag’s coffee. She vacillated for a moment, then picked up the sachet of sugar on the saucer and tore it open. Bugger it. It was her last day.

‘Have you enjoyed it?’ Macy asked, spooning yoghurt into her bowl. ‘The trip, I mean. Having a break from everything.’

‘I have,’ Morag said. ‘It’s been wonderful to see Amira, of course, and to spend some time with Caro and Fiona, but this whole area has just blown me away. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ She gestured around her. ‘The sky, the water, that moon we saw last night. It’s so different to Melbourne. And I love Melbourne, it’s great, but this has been like discovering another country. It probably sounds stupid, but it’s made me realise just how foreign Australia still is to me, and how much I miss Scotland.’ She paused. She shouldn’t say anything—she still had to discuss it with Andrew . . . But what was there to discuss when her mind was made up? ‘So much so that I’m going to go back.’

Macy’s spoonful of cereal stopped halfway to her mouth. ‘Hey? When? What about Dad and the boys?’

‘Not for good,’ Morag hurried to reassure her. ‘Well, maybe, but not straight away . . . I’ve decided to go back over summer, our summer, for January at least. I haven’t seen my mother in years, and she’s not going to last forever. I want to spend some time with her, proper time, not just a week or two;
I want to see Edinburgh again.’ Morag’s hands were shaking, and she set her cup down on the table before she spilled it. It felt dangerous and daring to be saying this to Macy, to be making it real—to be putting her own needs first for once. It felt strange. It felt right. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears just like it did after a really good run.

‘Wow,’ Macy said. ‘That’s fantastic. It’s huge! Will the boys go too?’

‘No.’ Morag shook her head. ‘I doubt it. Too expensive—and too cold. Scotland in the dead of winter isn’t for everyone. They’ll be much better back here, with their friends and their surfboards, and that way I can just concentrate on Mum. Your dad can take some time off. Finn and Callum are old enough to be by themselves during the day anyway, and they probably prefer that. Torran’s a bit trickier—maybe you could help out?’ Her mind started ticking over. ‘Or maybe . . .’

‘Of course I can,’ Macy said. ‘What?’

‘Maybe . . . maybe you could come over for a bit too? With me. It’ll be your school holidays, and Edinburgh has this incredible live music scene—you could see lots of bands, maybe get some more experience.’ Oh God, thought Morag. Had she really suggested that? Was she going to live to regret it? It was a crazy idea, but Macy, she now knew, needed to spread her wings too. Maybe they all needed to let her off the leash a little. Maybe they needed to stop worrying about what she couldn’t do, and concentrate on what she could.

‘Really?’ asked Macy. Her face was lit up from inside—and it was her real face, thought Morag. Her stepdaughter wasn’t
wearing any make-up; hadn’t reapplied it, in fact, since that morning in the mangroves. ‘You’d really do that? You’d let me?’

‘You’d have to behave—no staying out all night—and your parents would have to agree, of course,’ said Morag, ‘but if I told them I’d keep an eye on you . . . You could stay with us, in Mum’s boxroom. She’s got a camp bed. I’m not sure how comfortable it would be, and there wouldn’t be a whole lot of space—’

‘I’ll hardly be there anyway,’ Macy interjected, then rushed on, ‘I mean, I’d be there when you told me to, duh, but I’d be out a lot too.’

‘Don’t say anything when we get back,’ Morag cautioned. ‘Let me bring it up. I’ll have to work out how to do it.’

Macy grinned at her, her muesli forgotten. It was as if they were conspiring, Morag thought. Better, it was as if they were talking as adults for the first time.

‘That would be incredible, Morag.’ Macy reached across the table to squeeze her hand. ‘Honestly. Thank you.’

Morag squeezed back. Macy’s excitement had rekindled her own. She let her thoughts fly for a moment, imagined landing in Edinburgh, and then her first glimpse of the castle, of Princes Street, all lit up for Christmas, of the Balmoral Hotel with its enormous clock set two minutes fast so those heading for Waverley station didn’t miss their trains . . . She imagined the taxi on the cobblestones, delivering her to her mother’s home, imagined Margaret opening the door in delight and throwing her arms around her. It was funny, thought Morag. You spent all your teen years struggling to separate yourself from your mother, to distance yourself, but you never did, not
really. Mothers were innate; they were part of you. One day Macy would know that too.

Bronte angled her chair so that her calves were in the sun. She could enjoy it now, for the ten minutes or so she had left before Amira drove them to the airport. She’d been so careful all week to stay out of the sun—obsessive, almost—but surely even she couldn’t get burnt in such a short time? And it did feel lovely warming her skin . . .

She picked up her sketchbook and flipped through the pages. Though she’d bought it at One Arm Point just three days earlier it was almost full, and she couldn’t wait to show Ms Drummond what she’d done. This one, to set the scene, she thought, pausing at a drawing of the beach at Kalangalla just before sunset . . . And this one too, a few pages further on, where she’d attempted to depict the complex weave in one of the baskets at the gallery. It had made her wonder if the same effect could be replicated in fabric, maybe a kind of vest over a loose white shirt, both futuristic and primitive. Was that even possible? Her mind raced. She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find out. Perhaps if she drew it . . . That was how she worked her ideas out. Ms Drummond had taught her that, just to sit with her pencil on the page, to block all her usual self-censoring reflexes and let it move of its own volition, almost as if she was an eighteenth-century medium attempting to commune with spirits. It wasn’t such a silly idea, Bronte thought. It
was
spiritual, the way inspiration seized you and moved through you, captured you, took you over.