The Mothers' Group (23 page)

‘Well, for me,' said Pippa suddenly, her eyes serious, ‘all of you are
my
village. I couldn't have made it through the last eleven months without you. Seriously. I've got no other support, apart from Robert.' She looked around the room. ‘I remember when I was a teenager, thinking that one day I'd get married and have kids and that it would be this
natural
sort of process.' She swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘But it didn't happen that way at all. I had no idea what motherhood
really
involved. The way my body's changed, how it's affected my relationship with Robert . . . I mean, I love Heidi of course, but I had no idea how
depleted
I'd feel.'

‘It's funny, isn't it?' said Miranda. ‘All those things no one ever tells you about motherhood. It's like secret mothers' business. Lots of my friends had babies before me, but not one of them
ever
told me it would be this hard. Now I ask them about it and they say, “Oh yes, but you can't tell a pregnant woman the negatives.” It's like a code of silence.'

‘So much for the sisterhood,' agreed Pippa. ‘My specialist told me that one-third of women have serious pelvic floor problems after birth. But most of them are too ashamed to ask for help, so they end up having prolapse operations in their sixties.' She reddened. ‘This past year there have been times I've felt like I couldn't go on. It was only this mothers' group that got me through, really.'

Made leaned forward. ‘Yes, for me like that too.' She smiled. ‘Gordon is good husband, but moving to Australia very hard. Easier for me now with friends like you.'

Ginie cleared her throat. ‘Well, I admit I was a bit of a sceptic about mothers' groups at the beginning.' She drained her glass. ‘But now I tell people it's like having my own board of directors for babies.'

Everyone laughed.

‘And given how different we are,' added Suzie, smiling in Ginie's direction, ‘it's so nice that we've been able to give each other support. I've really needed it, with Nils leaving and everything. And now with Bill gone . . .' She bit down on the inside of her mouth, willing herself not to cry. She was the only one in the group who seemed to do so, at the drop of a hat. ‘It's really good to have your friendship.'

Cara stood up. ‘Well, given the negative content of tonight's book, it's great to end on a high note. I think we've agreed that it takes a village to raise a child, and that we trust each other with that task. And I say, bottoms up to that.' She raised her glass to the group.

Everyone clinked their glasses together.

Miranda

4.57 am
Miranda squinted at the alarm clock in the semi-darkness. I should be thankful, she reasoned. At least it isn't 3.57 am. Willem had left for the airport half an hour earlier, creeping across the floorboards in Egyptian cotton socks, gathering his things as quietly as he could. His efforts were futile, of course. She was so attuned to waking at the slightest sound. The muffled zipping of his suitcase jolted her out of sleep and she'd lain on her back, listening to him shower and shave. Preparing himself for that liberating moment when he could close the front door on family life, straighten his tie, climb into a taxi and enter an easier world.

There was no sound from Rory's room, for a change. Most days, he would wake before dawn and coo softly in his cot until she tiptoed in with a bottle of milk. The silence was unusual, but she resisted the urge to check on him. Digby, however, had stirred and called out just as soon as Willem had closed the front door. She'd crept into his room and, in a forceful whisper, told him it was still time for sleeping. Miraculously, he'd rolled over and slipped his thumb back into his mouth, nuzzling his ragged blue comforter. She'd pulled the blanket up over his shoulders and stooped to kiss his cheek, warm with sleep. As her lips brushed his skin, she'd felt a sudden bolt of tenderness. But as she closed his door behind her, she felt relieved, more than anything else.

Is this what a battle-fatigued soldier feels like? she wondered.

She shook her head, chastising herself for the analogy. I've never known true adversity, she thought. And Digby is not the enemy.

She climbed back into bed and retreated under the blankets, cocooning herself against the dawn.

And then Digby called out again, more insistent this time.

She glanced at the clock.

5.13 am

She always found it difficult to manufacture chirpiness this early. She pushed back the blankets and sat up in bed. Why couldn't he sleep just a little longer? Her head throbbed and the aftertaste of last night's ravioli seemed to linger in her mouth. She'd laboured for hours over the recipe, rolling out sheets of homemade pasta and carefully shaping delicate parcels of spinach and feta. But Willem had winced when he'd sampled one, setting his fork aside.

‘What's wrong?' she'd asked.

‘You used feta, not ricotta.' He'd wrinkled his nose. ‘No Italian would ever make it that way. Too salty.'

Willem was fond of referring to his Italian ancestry, when he wasn't dropping names in Dutch. His father, Marco, the Australian-born son of Italian migrants, had met his mother, Hendrika, a stunning KLM flight attendant, on a flight from Rome to Amsterdam. After their engagement, Hendrika willingly made her home in Australia, but they named their first son, Willem, after her father. For all of Hendrika's Dutch blonde beauty, Willem had inherited his grandfather's Latino looks.

Miranda opened the top drawer of her bedside table and groped around for the packet of aspirin she kept under a jumble of socks, art journals and half-completed lists. She tore three tablets free of the foil and dropped them into the glass of water that stood on the bedside table. She listened to the comforting fizzing sound as the tablets dissolved.

‘Mum. Mum. Mum.
Muuuuuum
.
Muuuuuum
.' Digby's usual refrain was gaining momentum.

Her body had become used to the numbing fatigue, but her mind continued to rebel. Before children, she'd been a devotee of yoga and meditation retreats, where she'd often sat straight-backed on hard wooden floors at ungodly hours of the morning. It had all seemed so virtuous at the time; she'd applauded herself for her mental and physical fortitude. Now, she could only fantasise about such solitude, the pleasure of cold floorboards pressed against her backside. Just one blissful hour of contemplation followed by a bowl of unpalatable gruel for breakfast. To be alone again, focused exclusively on the evolution of her soul. What bliss.

‘
Muuuuuum
.
Muuuuuum
.'

She pushed her feet into her Birkenstocks and walked into the ensuite. She sank onto the toilet, her head in her hands. Her urine stank; it was acrid and yellow. I really must remember to drink more water today, she thought. It was a daily resolution that she never seemed to accomplish. She stood up from the toilet and held her hands under the cold water, staring into the mirror. At 33, her face had changed. Her skin was dull, her eyes bloodshot, and faint lines were beginning to crease her forehead. Not that long ago, Willem had called her beautiful.

‘
Muuuuuum
.'

Digby's voice had disturbed Rory; she could hear him stirring in the next room.

She opened Digby's bedroom door.

‘Good morning,' she whispered. ‘Please can we use our quiet inside voices while baby Rory is still asleep?'

‘Noooooo!' he shrieked.

She said nothing. According to the parenting manuals she'd devoured, the twin pillars of toddler behaviour management were, first, ignoring negative behaviours and, second, the art of distraction. She opted for the latter.

‘I wonder what the weather is like this morning, Dig. Shall we see?'

She began to open the curtains.

‘I do it,' shouted Digby, launching himself from under the covers. He grabbed a fistful of curtain and began yanking it towards the floor.

‘That's not how we open curtains, Digby. Please let it go.'

‘No!' he shrieked again.

‘Let me show you how to do it so we don't break anything. Then you can try.'

‘
Noooooo!
'

‘Digby, honey,' she said, her tone firm, ‘I'm going to count to three and then I'd like you to let go of the curtain, or Mummy will have to ask you to start the day again. Let's not pull the curtain until it breaks. Please, Digby, I'm starting to count now. One . . . two . . .'

Digby looked at her, expectant.

‘Three,' she said. ‘Right, lie down.' She prised his hands from the curtain. ‘We need to start the day again.'

Digby began to snivel. ‘But I don't
want
to start the day again.'

‘It's not discussion time, Digby. I asked you nicely to stop pulling the curtain, and I told you what would happen if you didn't. Now, lie down.' It was utterly predictable: misbehaviour, warning, repeated misbehaviour, action. Consistency in consequences was the key, so the manuals said.

She tried to pull him down onto the bed.

‘
Noooooo
.' He slid off his bed and ran towards the train table, diving underneath and rolling towards the wall.

‘Nyah nyah nyah-nyah-nyah, can't catch me,' he sang.

She got down on her hands and knees.

‘Digby, I have to give Rory his bottle now. When you're ready to start the day again, you just let me know.' She stood up and walked towards the door.

‘I hate you, Mum,' he bellowed.

I'm
not
your mother, she thought, closing the door behind her.

5.26 am.

Rory was lying on his back, gazing at the rainbow mobile suspended above his cot.

‘Hi, sweetie.'

He turned towards her voice and smiled, as always. At eleven months old, he had only just learned to crawl. The other babies in the mothers' group had all developed that skill much earlier. Some, like Astrid, had started commando crawling at just six months, pulling themselves up flights of stairs, onto chairs and into cupboards. But Rory had seemed reluctant to join the world of the upright, and Miranda hadn't been too concerned by it. She'd wanted to savour Rory's infancy for as long as possible, to linger in his babyhood. She loved everything about him: his mischievous smile, his lively eyes, his placid temperament and calm acceptance of the world as he knew it, so unfairly monopolised by the hyperactive Digby.

‘How did you sleep?' she asked, leaning over and tickling the folds under his chin.

‘Ma-ma-ma-ma.' Rory smiled up at her with a lopsided, toothy grin. She loved hearing him say her name.

She scooped him out of his cot and onto the change table. It was immediately obvious that he'd soiled his nappy.

‘Oh, that's a smell only a mother can love. Let me change that.'

He kicked his feet in the air and giggled.

‘
Muuuuuum
, I'm ready to start the day again,' Digby called from his bedroom. Miranda sighed. She'd hoped Digby might stay in his room and sulk just a little longer, so that she could enjoy Rory in the interim.

‘Okay, Dig,' she called back.

She picked up Rory and gave him a squeeze. ‘Let's get Digby.'

She turned the doorknob to Digby's room and stepped back, allowing him to race past her.

‘You be the backhoe loader, I'll be the bulldozer,' he yelled on his way to the lounge room.

She rolled her eyes. ‘I'm just changing Rory's nappy, Dig. I'll come and play in a moment.'

Since he'd turned three, Digby's favourite activity was what the parenting books called ‘imaginative play'. This inevitably involved some kind of role-play in which Miranda found herself acting the part of an inanimate object. She'd spent hours conducting mind-numbing conversations with Digby as a backhoe loader, a steamboat, a lampshade. Sometimes Digby would choose household objects (‘You be the dustpan, I'll be the brush') or gardening equipment (‘You be the rake, I'll be the broom'). One rainy afternoon, he'd looked up from a drawing activity and thrust a crayon her way. ‘You be the red crayon, I'll be the blue crayon,' he'd said, grinning. She'd almost cried with frustration. I
used
to be someone, she'd thought. Important people asked me for my opinion. Her life before children, as an art curator and gallery manager, had never felt so remote.

As she lowered Rory onto the change table once more, Digby appeared in the doorway. ‘Has Rory done a big poo?'

‘I'm not sure, Dig. I'm about to find out.'

She wanted him out of the bedroom. ‘Do
you
need to go to the toilet?' she prompted, hoping he would take her cue and head to the bathroom.

‘Nah.' He sauntered over to the change table and began to scale its side.

‘Digby, please don't climb up.' She threw the soiled nappy into a flip-top bin.

‘But I want to give Rory a kiss.'

She looked at him, doubtful. ‘Okay.'

With his feet balanced on the shelf below, Digby pursed his lips and leaned forward. Rory smiled at him with the trusting adoration of a younger sibling. As Digby pressed his mouth against Rory's face, Rory screamed. The shock and indignation in his cry was palpable. She pulled Digby away and gasped at the teeth marks on Rory's cheek.

‘Digby.' Her voice trembled. ‘Go to your room now.'

‘Nah.'

Her rage exploded out of her. ‘How dare you!' She whisked Rory off the change table and onto the floor. Then she seized Digby by the shoulders, marching him into his bedroom and pushing him onto the bed.

‘You will stay here until you learn how to behave properly!' she shouted.

Instantly he bounced off the bed and ran towards the door. She caught hold of his pyjamas and rammed him back onto the bed, shaking him as he rebounded on the mattress.

‘
Muuuuuummmy!
' he screamed. ‘Mummy, let go of me.'