Tiddas (38 page)

‘Make it a double,' she instructed the barman.

‘Everything all right?' Xanthe asked when Nadine sat back down, looking flushed.

‘Of course,' she said, paranoid that they could tell what she'd done. ‘I just called Richard to check everything was okay at home.'

And that was the first of the lies she'd need to keep telling in order to drink for the rest of the evening.

Ellen's phone vibrated and she saw Craig's name flash on the screeen. Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded faster and harder. She hadn't heard from him for two months. She didn't expect to hear from him again. She didn't want to. She didn't answer it, let it go to voicemail. But when she got home she listened to the message seventeen times and memorised the words:
Hello Ellen, it's Craig. Happy birthday. I miss you and wondered if you wanted to go out for dinner, just to talk.

At 9 p.m. Nadine texted Richard and said Veronica would drive her home, and that he should go to bed. At 10.30 p.m. she told the girls that Richard was out the front waiting for her. She left alone and caught a cab while the other tiddas were finishing their desserts. When she arrived home Nadine checked that Richard was asleep and then went to the cellar. It had been eight weeks since she'd been down there. She didn't concern herself with the wine she chose; they all were quality. She just wanted to get the cork out, pour liquid into a glass and feel the taste of cab sav or merlot or pinot or anything on her tongue. She finished the bottle quickly and opened another. She felt her sight go blurry. The guilt was pumping through her. A moment later she passed out.

As the sun rose, Richard realised Nadine wasn't beside him. He jumped out of bed. From the doorway of the kitchen
he could see his wife wrapped in a doona and crashed out in the double hammock.

‘Nads!' Richard was seething with anger, and hurting with disappointment. An empty bottle lay on the veranda and in her sleep Nadine was dribbling into a cushion. He shook his head, grateful that the kids were still asleep.

‘You've got a beautiful, healthy baby girl, with a
lot
of hair,' the doctor congratulated Izzy and Asher.

Asher wiped the tears from his eyes, kissed Izzy on her dry mouth and sat down to take hold of the little bundle he had helped create. He gazed at his tiny, tightly wrapped daughter and immediately fell in love.

‘This is my best dish ever,' he said softly.

Izzy was exhausted, but as she looked at Asher her feelings for him were as strong as the love she now felt for her baby girl. Asher sat on the edge of the bed so they could both see and touch her.

‘Our little Murri miracle,' Asher whispered.

‘Koori miracle,' Izzy whispered back, smiling.

Within hours flowers were being delivered to the room, and Asher's text message to family and friends had been sent far and wide. ‘News spreads like wildfire on the Murri grapevine,' he said, looking at the dozens of messages waiting to be read and listened to on the phone.

That night Richard visited with Brittany and Cameron.
The two cousins were besotted with the newest member of the family and arrived armed with enough stuffed toys to satisfy most of the maternity ward. They took turns at holding the yet-to-be-named baby and made noises about wishing they had a baby brother or sister.

‘Where's Aunty Nadine?' Izzy asked.

Richard smiled. He looked at the kids. He had no choice but to lie. ‘She's got a sore throat and didn't think it was a good idea to be near the baby.' He hated the dishonesty and ached with disappointment about Nadine's fall from grace, but luckily Izzy took what he said at face value.

Ellen and Veronica visited the next morning, both cooing, although neither wanted babies in their own home unless as passing visitors. Xanthe arrived shortly after with a bright purple elephant that was immediately the most popular item in the room.

‘Hiiii,' she said, poking her head round the door of the private room. ‘How's the new mum doing?'

Izzy was grateful to see her, knowing it would have been difficult for Xanthe to face someone else living her dream. To Xanthe's surprise, however, she felt at peace, joyful for her tidda, knowing the magic of motherhood her bestie would now be experiencing.

‘This is Aunty Xanthe,' Izzy told her daughter. ‘Would you like to hold her?' she asked Xanthe.

Xanthe could feel the lump forming in her throat. ‘Yes.' It was all she could manage before sitting down on the chair next to the bed and putting a pillow under her left arm for support. She took the precious bundle carefully, not taking
her eyes off her once, and held her close, as if she were her own.

‘She's perfect, Izzy, just perfect,' Xanthe said, as a single tear fell.

Ellen sat in the Restaurant Venice, perched high on the bend of the Brisbane River and looking across to the Story Bridge. She was sick with nerves and trying to calm the butterflies doing somersaults in her belly. She couldn't recall the last date she'd been on. She couldn't remember the last man she'd allowed to tug at her heartstrings. She didn't want to expect too much from dinner with Craig, but she couldn't help herself. It had been four days since his call, and she'd barely slept with excitement and anxiety. Never had she been so grateful for having a lot of deaths and funerals to deal with, but she realised how awful it was to be glad that other people's grief had kept her preoccupied and taken her mind off her own emotional turmoil.

The sun was setting, the orange-pink glow providing a backdrop of light against the frame of green metal struts. Lights were on at the Jazz Club at Kangaroo Point and the city ferry was doing its regular run from one side of the river to the other. She watched people in sports gear powering along the boardwalk below, and didn't notice when Craig finally walked in.

Having not seen each other for months, he did a double take when he first saw the woman he now realised he cared
for. Ellen looked so different. Her hair had grown; it looked softer, more feminine and was a golden brown, the hairdresser having dyed it back to what she remembered was Ellen's natural colour. Ellen had dark lipstick on that exactly matched the blood red, figure-hugging dress she'd bought especially for what was officially her ‘first date' with Craig.

‘You look absolutely gorgeous,' Craig said before he even sat down.

Ellen melted at his words but said nothing.

‘Interesting choice,' Craig said, looking around the restaurant. ‘It's a faux Edwardian look. Kind of like Mardi Gras meets Carnivalé.'

Ellen was surprised that he was even interested in the style of the place, let alone knew anything about its design. ‘How do you know that?'

‘I'm a builder, I know a little about architecture.'

Ellen looked surprised.

‘What? You think I just lay bricks and mix cement all day?' He sounded a little defensive. ‘I hear people talk about stuff all the time.' He pointed to the ceiling. ‘The grapes are a symbol of Bacchus, the god of wine. So I reckon they'd say the style here is Bacchanalian. But I could be wrong.'

Ellen was impressed. She couldn't believe she'd missed this about Craig, but she just smiled.

Craig settled into his seat and looked across at her. ‘I've missed you.'

‘I've missed you, too,' she said, feeling her hands getting sweaty.

The next two hours were a blur of laughter, reminiscing and planning. Craig talked about all the construction going on around the city, and some of the projects he was working on. Ellen thought about her Aunty Molly and Uncle Ron and wondered if this kind of getting-to-know-each-other was the foundation she needed to have a lasting relationship and love like theirs. She and Craig left the restaurant holding hands and with plans in place for the weeks ahead; that in itself, Ellen thought, was a major milestone in her adult life.

‘Richard's furious with me.' Nadine was crying into a chai latte. ‘I need help but I don't want to go to AA, I just don't.'

‘You need something more than yoga and reading books, Nadine, you've got a real problem.' Xanthe was trying to contain her own disappointment in her friend as she reached across the kitchen table and touched Nadine's hand.

‘I know.' Nadine wiped her tears. ‘What about hypnotherapy?' she asked, hoping for an easy way out. She handed Xanthe some brochures. ‘I'll buy these CDs and listen to them at home. Apparently they can help to train your mind away from drinking.'

Xanthe refused to look at the glossy brochures Nadine had passed her. ‘I don't know, Nadine, I think they might be a waste of money, and I know you've got plenty, but if it's not going to help you permanently, then I think it will just be a waste of time too.'

Nadine was disappointed in her tidda's lack of enthusiasm and so she tried another angle. She was desperate to find a way to make everyone happy without having to go to AA.

‘I've been reading about people who used acupuncture to curb their desire to drink. I'm not been a big fan of natural medicine, but I'm willing to give it a try.'

‘Well, I
have
heard of acupuncture helping . . .' Xanthe paused before she used the word alcoholics. ‘. . . drinkers, to help with resisting cravings and assisting relaxation. So I guess it can't hurt.'

Nadine knew what Xanthe was thinking. What everyone else in her life was thinking. ‘You want me to go to AA too, don't you?' She was convinced they all wanted to label her, that they all thought the only way to treat her problem was group meetings with other alcoholics.

Xanthe didn't answer.

‘The thing is,
I'm
not like those other people, Xanthe. I just sit here and keep to myself.'

‘What makes you think alcoholics aren't like that too?' Xanthe asked, gearing up to deliver a dose of tough love. ‘Alcoholics
are
like you; they go to work, they have kids, they do everything other people do. They also abuse the people they love, they forget important things, they have damaged livers and kidneys.'

Nadine found Xanthe's words hard to listen to.

‘They also make a million excuses, just like you do too. Nadine, you're forty, you need to wake up to yourself because if you don't you may not see fifty.'

‘Now you're just exaggerating,' Nadine scoffed.

‘Really?' Xanthe was annoyed. She was trying to help a friend who had asked for help only to be dismissed. ‘Try some of these stats on for size then.' She pulled out her Filofax where she'd made some notes. ‘According to the World Health Organisation, the harmful use of alcohol results in 2.5 million deaths each year, and 320,000 young people between the age of fifteen and twenty-nine die from alcohol-related causes, nine per cent of all deaths in that age group.'

‘Do you think I'm an alcoholic?' Nadine asked, the venom in her voice evident. ‘Is that what you think? Is that what you're trying to tell me with your
statistics
? I'm not in one of your training courses, you know.'