52.
Samantha: I was watching the kindy kids do a poem at school assembly the day before the trivia night and I noticed all the Renata supporters were on one side and all the Madeline supporters were on the other side, just like at a wedding. I had a little chuckle to myself.
Pirriwee Public School assemblies always took far too long to start and finish, but the one thing you couldn’t complain about was the location. The school assembly hall was on the second floor of the building and had a huge balcony that ran all the way along the side, with big glass sliding doors that revealed a glorious view out to sea. Today all the glass doors were slid open, allowing the crisp autumn air to flow through. (The hall did get a bit stuffy when all the doors were closed, with all the farting children, perfumed Blond Bobs and their lavishly cologned husbands.)
Madeline looked out at the view and tried to think happy thoughts. She felt ever so slightly snappy, which meant that tomorrow would be her peak day for PMS. Nobody better cross her at trivia night.
“Hi, Madeline,” said Bonnie. “Hi, Ed.”
She sat down on the empty aisle seat next to Madeline, bringing with her a nose-tickling scent of patchouli.
Madeline felt Ed’s hand come down and rest unobtrusively, comfortingly on her knee.
“Hi, Bonnie,” said Madeline wearily, looking over her shoulder. Was this really the only empty chair in the place? “How are you?”
“Very well,” said Bonnie. She pulled her single plait over her white, hippy-like shoulder with its little scattering of dark moles. Even Bonnie’s shoulder felt alien to Madeline.
“Aren’t you cold?” shivered Madeline. Bonnie was wearing a sleeveless top and yoga pants.
“I just taught a Bikram yoga class,” said Bonnie.
“That’s the sweaty one, right?” said Madeline. “You don’t look sweaty.”
“I showered,” said Bonnie. “But my core body temperature is still quite high.”
“You’ll catch a chill,” said Madeline.
“No I won’t,” said Bonnie.
“You will,” said Madeline. She could sense Ed on her left trying not to laugh.
She changed the subject while she still had the last word. “Nathan not here?”
“He had to work,” answered Bonnie. “I told him he probably wouldn’t miss much. Skye is so terrified of performing, she’ll probably hide behind the other kids.” She smiled at Madeline. “Not like your Chloe.”
“Not like my Chloe,” agreed Madeline.
At least you can never take Chloe away from me, the way you’ve taken Abigail.
It seemed quite outrageous to her that this stranger knew what her daughter had for breakfast this morning and yet Madeline did not. Even though she’d known Bonnie for years now, even though they’d had a hundred civil conversations, she still didn’t seem like a real person. She felt like a caricature to Madeline. It was impossible to imagine her doing anything normal. Was she ever grumpy? Did she ever yell? Fall about laughing? Eat too much? Drink too much? Call out for someone to bring her toilet paper? Lose her car keys? Was she ever just a human being? Did she ever stop talking in that creepy, singsong yoga teacher voice?
“I’m sorry that Nathan didn’t tell you about canceling the math tutor,” said Bonnie.
Not here, you idiot. Let’s not talk about family business with sharp-eared mothers all around us.
“I said to Nathan we have to get better with our communication skills,” continued Bonnie. “This is all a process.”
“Right,” said Madeline. Ed fractionally increased the pressure of his hand on her knee. Madeline looked over toward him, and to Perry and Celeste on the other side, to see if she could naturally become involved in conversation with someone else, but Perry and Celeste were looking at something on Celeste’s phone, and the two of them were laughing, their heads close together like young dating teenagers. That strangeness between them over the signing of the petition had obviously been nothing.
She looked back to the front of the hall, where there was still a hubbub of noisy activity, with kids being asked to sit down please, and teachers fiddling with sound equipment, and the Blond Bobs hurrying about looking very involved and important as they did each Friday morning.
“Abigail is really developing a social conscience,” said Bonnie. “It’s amazing to see. Did you know she has some sort of secret charity project she’s working on?”
“Just as long as her social conscience doesn’t get in the way of school marks,” said Madeline in a clipped tone, firmly establishing herself as the awful, misanthropic parent. “She wants to do physiotherapy. I’ve been talking to Samantha about it. Lily’s mum. Samantha says Abigail needs math.”
“Actually, I don’t think she wants to do physiotherapy anymore,” said Bonnie. “She seems to be developing an interest in social work. I think she’d make a wonderful social worker.”
“She’d make a terrible social worker!” snapped Madeline. “She’s not tough enough. She’d kill herself trying to help people and she’d get too involved with their lives—and my God, that would just be so wrong a career choice for Abigail.”
“Do you think?” said Bonnie dreamily. “Oh, well, there’s no rush to make any decisions right now, is there? She’ll probably change her mind a dozen times before then.”
Madeline could hear herself making little puffing noises through her lips, as if she were in labor. Bonnie was trying to turn Abigail into somebody that she wasn’t, that she couldn’t be. There would be nothing left of the real Abigail. Madeline’s daughter would be a stranger to her.
Mrs. Lipmann walked gracefully onto the stage and stood silently in front of the microphone, her hands clasped, smiling benignly as she waited for her royal presence to be noticed. A Blond Bob rushed onto the stage and did something important to the microphone before rushing off again. Meanwhile a Year 6 teacher began clapping a catchy, rhythmic beat that had magical, hypnotic powers over the children, immediately causing them to stop talking, look to the front and begin clapping in the same rhythm. (It didn’t work at home. Madeline had tried.)
“Oh!” said Bonnie, as the clapping rose in volume and Mrs. Lipmann lifted her hands for silence. She leaned over and spoke in Madeline’s ear, her breath sweet and minty. “I nearly forgot. We’d love to have you and Ed and the children over to celebrate Abigail’s fifteenth birthday next Tuesday! I know Abigail would just love to have all her family together. Would that be too awkward, do you think?”
Awkward? Are you kidding, Bonnie, that would be wonderful, glorious! Madeline would be a guest at her daughter’s fifteenth-birthday dinner. Not the host. A guest. Nathan would offer her drinks. When they left, Abigail wouldn’t come in the car with them. She’d stay there. Abigail would stay there because that was her home.
“Lovely! What shall I bring?” she whispered back, while she put one hand on Ed’s arm and squeezed hard. It turned out that a conversation with Bonnie was just like being in labor: The pain could always get much, much worse.