Mandy’s hands were wrapped around the Bulldogs mug. She continued, ‘Not long after that, in Year 7 or 8, their teacher invited some of the kids’ mothers to come and talk about their careers. Ash’s mother was one of them. Rae talked about being a school principal. They invited a lawyer, a woman who worked for Greenpeace, a journalist — professional women. Jo asked me if I’d talk to her class about working in the supermarket. I didn’t think, just said yes. But Mrs Kintle said they had enough speakers. One of the other girls told Jo, “They only want educated women with important jobs. They don’t want us to work in supermarkets.” I should’ve known. I should’ve warned her and saved her the embarrassment. Motherhood is a litany of mistakes.’ There was a slight crack in Mandy’s voice. But she didn’t cry. Instead she put down her mug, stood up, and poured herself a glass of water. ‘Water?’ she asked Sarah.
Sarah shook her head.
Mandy drank slowly and sat back down. ‘It’s that moment you realise the child who adored you, the child you adore, has turned into someone else. Your worst critic. She banned me from school pick-ups. Not long after that, we fought about something minor and she yelled, “I hate you. I wish you weren’t my mother.” It was the first time Jo said that to me. We didn’t speak for days. And when we did speak again, everything had changed.’
Sarah never dared say those things to her mother, though she’d wanted to many times. Some nights, especially in her early adolescence, she’d shut herself in the bedroom, Talking Heads or AC/DC up loud, and instead of singing the lyrics, chanted, I hate you, I hate you, like a mantra.
‘It was hard,’ Mandy continued. ‘I didn’t have anyone else. I know it happens to all mothers, but it’s bloody hard. From then on, everything I did was wrong: my clothes, my friends, my teeth… She came home one day insisting I get my teeth fixed — apparently the dental care nurse at school had said, “Some people don’t have their priorities right and dental care is like putting money in the bank.” As if we had money in the bank, as if we could afford to spend thousands of dollars we didn’t have on my teeth. Of course, in Ash’s family everyone had beautiful white teeth. She kept telling me that she didn’t want to be like me. That was fine, I wanted her to have a better life… We fought about everything. She wanted to buy clothes we couldn’t afford, she wanted to go out late, she didn’t do her homework. Her schoolwork suffered and there were complaints from the teachers and poor reports. It was so tiring, so exhausting. After a while I gave up.’
Mandy rose from the table and wandered over to a wooden sideboard that took up one wall of the kitchen. From the top drawer, she took out a photo album. As Mandy brought over the spiral-bound album, with a horse galloping through a meadow on the cover, Sarah stifled a sigh. She had scheduled an hour to interview Mandy, but she knew from experience that once the mother took out the photo album, the present world and its demands became meaningless. It was the past that mattered. It was there that stories dwelled, and the only way to get a story was to allow people to tell it. This meant abandoning her other commitments so she could give herself over to the storyteller. It meant trusting that Mandy had a story to tell. Sarah checked her phone.
‘Do you have to go?’
‘It’s fine. I have another meeting but I’ll reschedule,’ Sarah said, typing a message to her boss.
‘Everyone has their photos on computers now, but I like looking at the albums,’ Mandy said.
Sarah nodded. The album was old, the edges a nicotine yellow. The plastic acetate sheets had lost most of their stickiness. Some of the photos had shifted out of their place, covering other photos, leaving empty spaces. Sarah’s mother’s photos were in elegant thick albums — archive quality — and now of course backed up on CDs. ‘Precious memories,’ she called them.
‘The problem with photos on computers is no one looks at them anymore. We snap at everything and then store the images away,’ Sarah said.
The photos in the first few pages were of the baby Jo and a young Mandy. There was one photograph of a young man with shoulder-length blond hair, standing next to the bed as Mandy held the baby. They were both smiling.
‘Jo is older now than I was when I had her, and I can’t imagine how she’d look after a baby,’ Mandy said, lifting the acetate sheet to adjust the photograph. ‘I had a perm before Jo was born. Mary, David’s mother, insisted it was dangerous to have a perm while you were pregnant. She was furious. But I did it anyway, to spite her I think. I hated it. I looked like one of those scary clowns that make children cry.’
‘Jo’s father?’ Sarah asked, pointing to the photo.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he still in Adelaide?’
‘Yes. With his wife and sons.’
‘Will he come down to Melbourne to see Jo? I’d like to talk to him too.’
‘He won’t come. Not sure why you’d want to talk to him, but it might have to be by phone.’
‘When did you separate?’ Sarah asked as she wrote in her notebook.
‘We weren’t married, we were living in sin… Does anyone say that anymore? My mother died when I was fifteen and I went off the rails, I didn’t know what to do with myself. David was a distraction. We were young and infatuated, in lust. Then I was pregnant, and we were both in school. His parents hit the roof, but my dad helped David get an apprenticeship with the local electrician. I left school. Suddenly we were parents. We had no money and a baby. We lived in a one-bedroom flat in Braybrook, on Ashley Street, surrounded by factories and warehouses, not many neighbours. I felt so isolated. It’s amazing that it lasted as long as it did.’
‘It must’ve been hard on your own with a little baby.’
‘It was easier after we split up. He gave us some money — not much, apprentice wages were hardly enough for one person to live on. His parents helped out. Dad helped out. And there wasn’t the fighting.’
‘So you’re on good terms?’
Mandy grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t say good terms. He doesn’t want to have any involvement in Jo’s life — he pays child support and occasionally he sends her money, pays her off. His father left Jo that bloody car and money for driving lessons. That’s how she got her licence.’
The doorbell rang. Mandy looked up and hesitated.
‘Should you get that?’ Sarah asked.
‘Sorry. I don’t know who that could be,’ Mandy said as she stood.
There’d been a couple of abusive phone calls since the accident. No one had come to the house, but still Mandy felt nervous. Slowly, she made her way down the hall. At the door she waited for several seconds before she opened it.
‘Rae,’ Mandy said, shocked to see Ashleigh’s mother standing on her doorstep. Rae flinched at the sound of her name.
Mandy could see the visceral impact of the grief on Rae. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face pale, her hair uncombed. She looked fragile and adrift; half woman, half ghost.
‘I’m so sorry, Rae, so sorry about Ashleigh —’
‘Stop,’ Rae interrupted. Her voice was brittle. ‘Please stop. Please don’t say my daughter’s name.’
Mandy held her breath. She waited in silence for Rae to continue, but she didn’t say anything, so finally she asked, ‘Do you want to come in?’