The Mothers' Group (6 page)

Daniel grunted. ‘Growing up, it was always the three of us—Mum, Dad and me. Then suddenly it was just me. I'd never wanted a sibling until then.'

Ginie reached for his hand, unsure what to say.

‘My aunt was great,' he continued. ‘She didn't try to pretend it away. The night I moved in to her house, she said, “Dan, I'm never going to be your second mother, but I'll always be your friend.” And she has been.' His eyes were watery.

‘I understand,' said Ginie, although she wasn't sure she did. ‘Were you lonely?'

‘Not really,' he said. ‘When I wasn't at my aunt's place, I hung out with my best mate, Chris. He's like a brother to me now. And I wrote pages and pages in my diary. Lots of bad poetry.'

Ginie smiled.

‘And I got serious about surfing. It was my lifeline.'

Ginie nodded. Somehow she'd sensed that Daniel's connection to the ocean was more than just a hobby.

‘I've asked Chris to be my best man.' He passed her a list of names. ‘But I don't have too many people to invite, really. Aunt Emma and Uncle Dave are the only family I've got.'

Ginie scanned their two lists: sixty-four on her side, twenty-three on Daniel's. Why did he have such a limited circle of friends?

‘What?' asked Daniel.

She gave him the benefit of the doubt.

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘I just can't imagine what you've been through.'

They were married on Curl Curl beach on a Sunday afternoon in early January. The day was stifling, a typical summer scorcher, but by mid-afternoon a bracing southerly had sprung up. The theme was ‘Barefoot on the Beach' and, much to the bemusement of Ginie's mother, most of the guests were shoeless. Ginie wore a simple champagne-coloured slip with spaghetti straps and a beaded bodice. It was a floating, summery kind of dress, not particularly bridal. She knew she could wear it again.

Her whole family attended, apart from her brother, who couldn't extricate himself from his work in London. The market was skittish, Jonathan had explained, and trading across equities had slumped. A holiday to Australia was out of the question, even for his sister's wedding. Ginie hadn't been particularly disappointed. His absence was more than compensated for by a swarm of other friends and relatives.

‘You've got dozens of cousins.' Daniel laughed as they stood side by side, greeting arrivals near the North Curl Curl Surf Club.

It was all over in thirty minutes. The celebrant, a woman in her fifties with wild red hair, had difficulty projecting her voice above the wind. But Ginie didn't care. She stood, goosebumps creeping across her arms and chest, looking into Daniel's eyes. Her world was changing right now, she realised, in this very moment. The predictability of her former existence was gone forever: this was day one of the rest of her life. It was terrifying and thrilling in equal measure.

They exchanged white-gold wedding bands and kissed as the crowd cheered. Ginie had never envisaged herself as a crying bride, but the tears came. She clung to Daniel, beaming and snivelling. This must be what true love feels like, she thought, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands.

Afterwards, guests milled about at the top of the dunes, sipping champagne and nibbling canapés. Ginie felt positively buoyant as she watched them. She was a married woman now, a surprisingly satisfying thought. The guests appeared to be enjoying themselves, despite the persistent wind. She closed her eyes and inhaled the sea air. When she opened them, she found Daniel among the throng, talking to her sister. Ginie stared at Paula's transformation from dowdy housewife to flirty coquette, twittering like a canary in Daniel's presence. Ginie downed the rest of her champagne, before realising she'd just flouted the alcohol guidelines for pregnancy. She touched her belly reflexively. She'd have to be more careful in future. At eighteen weeks, her slightly rounded form was still concealed by the contours of her dress. No one knows what's inside me, she thought.

‘You look beautiful,' said a voice behind her. She turned to see Chris, the best man, holding out a bottle of champagne. ‘Can I get you another one?'

‘No thanks,' she replied. ‘That's enough for me.' She nodded towards the horizon. ‘I don't think we'll be here much longer anyway, by the look of that.' Dark clouds were rolling in from the south, hanging low over the ocean.

‘Great ceremony,' said Chris. ‘Very Daniel. I'm glad you've made an honest man out of him. I didn't think it would happen.'

‘Oh?' said Ginie. ‘Why's that?'

‘You know, with his parents and everything. Dan's always been a rolling stone.'

Ginie looked at Chris, wondering what else he knew about her husband that she didn't.

‘It's a good thing we can all change, isn't it?' she said, feeling a little queasy.

Suddenly the clouds opened overhead and splinters of rain fell across the beach. Guests scrambled for cover, holding handbags, esky lids and overcoats above their heads.

‘Time to go!' called Daniel. She ran towards him, giggling and kicking sand behind her.

She was thirty-two weeks pregnant when she fronted the interview panel, wearing black to minimise her bulge.

Ginie wanted the role of partner more than anything, but she knew she didn't stand a chance. Not now, anyway.

The week before, Arnold had printed out a confidential email and slipped it into her in-tray. He'd risked his job to do it, transgressing the firm's privacy protocols.

‘Sorry, hon,' he'd whispered, raising a finger to his lips and backing out of her office.

As she'd read the email, from the firm's managing partner to the selection panel, the blood had drained from her face. It confirmed the candidates shortlisted for interview and singled out Ginie for comment:

While I have added Ginie's name to the shortlist, in my view she will
struggle to be the preferred candidate. While her pregnancy should not,
in itself, be an impediment to her appointment, we all know what kind
of commitment a partnership requires. It is important, however, that due
process be observed.

She reread the email countless times.

‘Due process'? What the fuck is this, the Middle Ages?

The panellists had clearly made up their minds before the interview. Or, if they hadn't, the managing partner had set her up for failure. She scanned the list of other interview candidates and recognised them all. She was their junior by at least ten years.

In the days leading up to the interview, she considered her position. It was a patent contravention of the Sex Discrimination Act, a breach that the Equal Opportunity Commission would relish. She'd win the battle, she knew, with publicity and compensation. It was unthinkable that an established law firm such as hers, with overt diversity guidelines and an impeccable record of gender equality, couldn't ensure a fair recruitment process. She pictured the front-page headline:
OLD
BOYS NETWORK SHAFTS PREGNANT LAWYER
. But she'd be practically unemployable afterwards.

She imagined confronting the firm internally. But what would she demand from them? An apology? Hush money? Unless she was prepared to leave her job, the prospect was untenable. Not to mention the position she'd put Arnold in, when forced to reveal her source. She contemplated withdrawing from the process altogether, citing ill-health or a change of circumstances. But the fundamental injustice of it all prevented her from pulling out, on principle. So she resolved to make them sit through an interview with her, despite the foregone conclusion.

Arseholes, she thought, smiling at the five panellists.

‘Ginie, why do you want the role?' asked the managing partner.

It was an unoriginal opener.

‘I have the leadership skills and technical experience to take our venture capital and private equity practice to the next level,' she replied. She rattled off several examples of her pivotal role in gaining, and servicing, several of the firm's existing clients.

‘And in terms of the way the current partners run the firm as a whole, how would you do things differently?'

I'd sack a few swinging dicks around here. And I'd offer paid maternity
leave.

‘The current partners are well-respected,' she replied. ‘It would be an honour to join them. I have a few ideas for innovation, of course. But my partnership style would be one of refinement, not revolution.'

‘Now, Ginie,' said the only female panellist, the director of a recruitment firm. ‘You're obviously pregnant. That has no bearing at all on our decision today. But tell us, how do you think you'll cope with a new baby
and
a partnership?'

Ginie swallowed. They're clever, she thought, getting a woman to ask that question.

‘Look, I have female staff members with children on my team and, in my experience, they're actually
more
productive than most people in the office. But I have good support mechanisms in place, including a husband who's committed to shared parenting.' She could feel her face reddening. ‘It shouldn't impact on my capacity at all.'

She eyeballed the managing partner. He jotted some notes on the edge of his paper. He was just going through the motions.

The managing partner called her late on a Monday evening from Beijing. The line was poor, but the message clear.

‘I understand, thank you.'

She put down the telephone and began to cry. Daniel cradled her head against his chest.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

‘Fuckers.'

‘You knew it was coming.'

‘Bloody sexist, ageist pigs.'

‘I know,' he soothed. ‘It's terrible.'

She wiped her eyes with the tissue he proffered. She didn't begrudge the successful candidate his partnership. He was an accomplished lawyer and a strategic thinker, a private equity specialist she'd worked with for several years. But she still felt betrayed. By the firm, and by her pregnant body. She had no doubt that if she hadn't been pregnant, she would have had a fighting chance.

‘You never know, Gin,' said Daniel. ‘Maybe it's for the best.'

She lifted her head from his chest. ‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Well, you know,' he said. ‘With the baby and everything. You might end up glad you
didn't
get the role.'

‘I doubt that.' She leaned against the kitchen bench. The baby had started to kick boisterously, particularly at night. She'd heard of other women who enjoyed watching their stomachs ripple as the foetus moved, but she found it disconcerting. It was like watching a science fiction movie.

‘You okay?' he asked, rubbing her shoulders.

‘I'm fine.'

She wanted to slap him. To scream that if she'd known the baby would cost her a partnership, she might have got rid of it.

What sort of person am I?
She was horrified by herself.

She needed to book in with her life coach again, and quickly.

‘Come to bed,' said Daniel.

She nodded.

As she turned off the kitchen light, her mobile rang. It was her mother, again. Ginie had only told her of the pregnancy two months earlier, when it had been impossible to obscure any longer. Since then, her mother had rung on a daily basis, offering some piece of unsolicited wisdom.

‘For God's sake, Mum, it's late,' she muttered, pressing the ‘ignore' button.

It takes a pregnancy to spark her interest in me, she thought. She'll probably make a really great
grandmother
.

‘Come to bed,' insisted Daniel.

She watched him pad down the hall in boxer shorts, the muscles in his back moving beneath tanned skin. For the briefest of moments, she remembered the sweet delirium of their first few weeks together. The taste of sea salt and perspiration, languid words whispered on twisted sheets. That woman was a world away now. Her stomach was a lumbering impediment to intimacy. After one particularly awkward attempt when she was six months pregnant, they'd given up on sex altogether.

She followed him into the bedroom. Wearily, she changed into her maternity pyjamas and rolled the elasticised support band across her abdomen. Bedtime had become an elaborate exercise in the placement of cushions, propping her body at precise angles in an attempt to ease the heartburn that visited her at midnight.

They lay in bed, hands touching.

‘Can you
please
repaint the nursery?' she pleaded into the darkness. ‘It's a shit-hole in there.'

Daniel didn't reply.

‘Did you hear me?'

‘What, babe?' he slurred. She couldn't fathom how he fell asleep so quickly.

‘Nothing.'

‘I can't believe how fantastic Nicole is,' Ginie whispered. They lay in bed listening to her move about the kitchen, fixing Rose's bottle. It had just gone five thirty, the feed Ginie loathed. Anything between midnight and six am was insufferable.

‘I know,' agreed Daniel. ‘You were right, Gin. I was against the idea in the beginning, but she's really great.'

Two months after Nicole's arrival, they could hardly remember life without her. She made herself useful in ways even Ginie hadn't imagined. Planning and cooking their weekly meals, doing the shopping, collecting the dry-cleaning, going to the post office. One week, when something had come up for Ginie at work, Nicole had even attended a mothers' group meeting and written up notes on the topics discussed.
Handwritten notes!
And now she'd offered to do the dawn feed to allow Ginie to return to her jogging routine.

Ginie could hear Nicole in Rose's bedroom now, lifting her from the cot to the change table. She rolled over and looked at Daniel's silhouette in the semi-darkness. He reached out and traced a finger down her cheek. She lay perfectly still. You're the father of my child, she mused. The reality of that fact still amazed her. How they'd moved from two to three, how Daniel had morphed from husband to father. She loved watching him with Rose, playful and tender. And yet for all of that, his sexual advances still left her cold. Why didn't she feel anything, anymore?