Julia was in love. It might not be obvious to the casual observer but Ro was an expert. Both on Julia and on love. When Julia was late for breakfast at the Market, Ro was suspicious, but it was a certain softness that filled her with dismay. Julia had come unstuck, and Ro had never seen that before, not with her, not with Maddie, not with any other lover.
In recent years Ro and Julia had drifted back into a comfortable arrangement whereby they had sex when no one else was in the offing. For Ro it was important, since she’d had no serious lover for years. For Julia it was occasional fun, nothing to make her late for appointments.
Ro turned this new development over in her mind for several days. Not asking too many questions was part of how their arrangement worked. But this was serious. She waited till the two of them had finished cleaning out Maddie’s gutters and were perched on the roof with a breeze from the Gulf and a fine view of the tiny garden.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t hedge, Julia. You’ve got off with someone. I can tell.’
‘Um. Yes.’
‘Spill the beans. Who is she?’
‘Her name’s Anne.’
Ro waited patiently while Julia stared, apparently absorbed, at the corrugated iron roof of the house next door.
‘And?’ Ro asked, when no more details were forthcoming. ‘Why are you frowning? Why aren’t you happy?’
‘It’s complicated.’
Ro groaned. ‘She’s on with another woman. God, Julia. I thought we’d grown out of all that serial-monogamy stuff.’
‘No. It’s not that. She’s been single for a while. I’m her first woman lover.’
Ro’s hackles rose. ‘An experimenting het?’
‘No! I don’t think so. She’s a great woman. You’ll like her.’
‘So what’s the complication?’
‘Kids. She has kids.’
‘Oh hell.’ Ro flopped backwards and stared at the sky. Kids. This was bad.
These days you had to be tolerant about lesbians having babies. But Ro remained suspicious of women who were mothers first, and lesbians later. At best, it was bad luck. They obviously stumbled into motherhood before they saw the light.
About the children themselves Ro was ambivalent. Her nieces had taught her that the presence of children wasn’t entirely negative. But not everywhere. Not making demands on a woman you were trying to have a conversation with. And how would it be in a full-on relationship with the mother? How would you ever get a look-in?
‘Why are the kids a complication?’ she asked.
‘Apparently they’re angry. Anne doesn’t think I should stay over yet.’
‘What do you mean, angry?’
‘Angry that Anne’s got a lover. Angry that the lover is a woman. Angry with me.’
Ro was indignant. It was one thing for Julia to disapprove of the children, if she did. It was quite another thing for the children to disapprove of Julia.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I know that. But they have to blame someone. I’m handy.’
‘So where do you go to fuck?’
‘We don’t.’
‘Bloody hell. I thought you said you’d got off together.’
‘A couple of times. It’s okay when the kids are with their dad.’
‘How often is that?’
Julia was saved from replying by Maddie, calling from the garden below.
‘Are you two finished? Cassie’s here and I’ve made coffee.’
Ro followed Julia down the ladder and into the house, washed her hands, greeted Cassie and accepted a coffee, all the while deep in thought. The problem was serious. This was no time for chat about gutters. On the other hand Julia might not want to talk about such a new relationship in front of Cassie. Ro would have to be diplomatic.
‘What do you think about getting into a relationship with a woman with kids?’ Ro asked the room at large.
‘Ro,’ Maddie said warningly.
‘Hypothetically I mean. If a friend of yours was going to do it.’
‘Subtle, Ro,’ said Julia.
‘I’ll pretend I’m not here, will I?’ said Cassie.
‘Sorry Cass,’ said Julia. ‘It’s me she’s talking about. It’s very recent so I haven’t told people yet.’
‘I won’t say anything. I think everyone should get at least a month before the grapevine starts humming.’
‘I agree,’ said Ro, momentarily diverted. ‘So you can go through a whole menstrual cycle and see if you still like each other when the hormones dip.’
‘Have you allowed Julia a month?’ asked Maddie.
Ro made a face. ‘No. Sorry Julia.’
‘Her name’s Anne,’ said Julia, giving in to the inevitable. ‘She has two girls and a boy. Teenagers. Or almost. They aren’t too happy about it.’
‘Not Anne Stapleton?’ asked Cassie.
Julia threw up her hands. ‘Yes Anne Stapleton. And you’re all under a heavy oath of secrecy. I mean it. Especially you, Ro.’
‘Anne’s great,’ Cassie said. ‘We did women’s studies together. She was getting out of a marriage. She has a lovely shack on Yorke Peninsula, or her family has. A bunch of us went down for a weekend.’
‘Yes. She goes down quite often.’
‘So, Anne’s on the turn. Well well. And her kids are angry.’
‘Yes.’
‘Not surprising. They’ve had her to themselves for a while now. They’ll put up a fight. Kids don’t give in easily.’
‘Come and look at what I’ve done in the garden,’ said Maddie, seeing that Julia was not cheered by Cassie’s prediction. Julia and Cass followed her out the back door but Ro put her feet up on a chair.
A beach shack, eh? That sounded more hopeful than three kids.
The question of children did not go away.
‘Cassie was right,’ Julia said to Ro a few months later. ‘They hate me. Even Brett.’
It was unnerving to observe Julia brought low by three children.
‘I thought you said it was easier with Brett.’
‘It is. When it’s me and him it’s fine. We can kick a soccer ball around. But he doesn’t want his friends to know about me.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘Gemma hates me because she’s worried it will get around at school that her mother’s a lezzo. Tara hates me because she thinks she can get her mum and dad back together again and I’m in the way.’
‘Sounds great. Another happy family supporting traditional Australian values. Hatred and homophobia. How does Anne cope?’
‘She thinks the girls will come round. But she’s … defensive, I suppose. Very protective of them all, especially Brett. She says it’s been hard for him ever since she became a feminist. You know, women’s camps, picnics, parties. He wasn’t welcome.’
‘Well, they’re women-only events,’ said Ro impatiently. ‘That’s important.’
‘I know. But where does it leave those boys?’
Ro wanted to argue. She felt the old irritation rising up. Why did they choose to have babies in the first place? And expect everyone else to make space for them? And complain about how hard it was?
‘He thinks men are bad,’ Julia said. ‘He told me all men are rapists.’
‘Well …’
‘No, don’t say it. Brett is twelve. He may be confused. He is NOT a rapist. And what can he look forward to, if he thinks he’s going to turn into a bad man?’
‘I guess …’
‘We got it wrong. We need to haul men along with us, not abandon them.’
Ro thought about the fights at the Shelter when counselling services for violent men were first funded. Diverting money from the victims to the perpetrators.
Men. They sopped up everything.
The shack was a small square box, shielded on three sides by scrubby trees. The fourth side was open to the bay. Like the trees, the house leaned away from the ocean in an attempt to avoid the wind. A sleep-out tacked on to the main structure prevented it from falling over backwards.
It was one of a row of similar shacks, several with dinghies upturned beside them. There was no one else around. Ro wandered to the end of the beach and sat with her back against a boat, pulling her jacket more tightly around her.
For the others this was a spontaneous get-away, but for her it was a challenge, the first time she had stayed under the same roof as Julia and Anne, witnessed them sharing a bed.
She wasn’t happy.
She was forty-three years old, capable, adult. She knew all sorts of things about all sorts of subjects and had a heap of friends. And none of it was worth shit. She might as well have been fourteen, unloved and misunderstood, with the world stacked against her. She stared at the heaving grey water and wondered if she could hitchhike back to Adelaide without anyone noticing.
Mothers. Just when you thought you’d sorted out your own mother, thought you’d grown up, thought you could let it all go, along came a mother of your own age and brought it all up again.
Your best friend, your sex buddy, the woman (here honesty overcame her) that you’d always adored, hooked up with a mother and disappeared off the radar, swallowed up in the maelstrom of family life, harassed, preoccupied, distracted. Julia was putting more effort into Anne and Anne’s kids than she’d ever put into Ro. And one of the kids was a boy!
There were times when kids were unbearable and times when they were adorable. Either way, it was a completely full-time job. There was no room for childless friends. Julia, Ro’s Julia, had been abducted by a mother and a bunch of spotty adolescents. Ro couldn’t have lost her more thoroughly.
Where was Alby? She would run off and join Alby. Alby’s life was the furthest thing from motherhood that Ro could think of.
The weekend hadn’t started badly. Ro was looking forward to seeing the shack and happy to drive down with Sue so they could have a catch-up. Sue talked about the medical world and the house that she and her partner were renovating in spare moments. Ro sat back and let it wash over her. For Sue to take a whole weekend off was rare and Ro appreciated it.
When they arrived it turned out that Cassie and Maddie had been invited, too. Ro was surprised. She thought that she’d been singled out to get to know Anne, with Sue to make up numbers for cards. Being one of a crowd wasn’t such an honour.
Never mind. Six would be more fun than four. But this small misunderstanding put her on the back foot. Her greeting to Anne wasn’t as effusive as she had planned.
A losing streak at hearts on the first night didn’t help. And there was the challenge of dossing down in the sleep-out while Julia and Anne crawled into the double bed in the main room. Before she saw the shack Ro had assumed, without giving it much thought, that they’d all sleep singly but together. Lined up in a row, she thought now, like a scene from Six Go Camping. Isn’t that what they would have done in the good old egalitarian days?
But the shack wasn’t set up for that. By lunchtime on Saturday, a tight band was closing around Ro’s head.
It was Sue who turned the conversation to motherhood. Her intentions were good. Here were five childless lesbians welcoming a new sister, and the sister had children. It was courteous to name the fact.
‘So you’ve got three kids, Anne?’
Anne was forthcoming about the children and the fact that they were with their father this weekend.
‘Does that work okay?’
‘Yes. Touch wood. It was a bit bumpy at first. It was mostly that the kids found it hard to adjust. Ben’s been great.’
Huh, thought Ro. An apologist for men. One of those women who’s never been able to see the sexism under her nose. Insisting that her husband isn’t the same as all the others.
But Maddie, also an ex-Shelter-worker, was already responding.
‘That must make things easier.’
‘Yes. I don’t suppose it’s ever straightforward, but at least we’re friends.’
‘How’s he taken you coming out?’ Ro asked. The acid test.
Anne looked at her, face composed. ‘So far so good.’ If it was a challenge, Anne wasn’t accepting it.
‘I think you’re amazing,’ Cassie said. ‘I can’t believe you manage three kids and a full-time job.’
‘Four days a week.’
Cassie laughed. ‘Oh good. A whole day for shopping and cleaning and talking to teachers and getting the hot water service fixed.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier with fewer kids?’ asked Ro.
‘I don’t know,’ said Anne.
‘It’s that same old problem of where women’s energy is directed,’ said Ro. ‘Is it for their sisters, for the cause? Or do they waste it on men? Or children?’
The atmosphere tightened. Five people breathing in at once.
‘There’s always foster care I guess,’ Ro continued airily. ‘If a woman finds she has too many kids.’
‘Ro,’ Maddie protested.
‘Perhaps,’ said Anne. ‘It’s a bit hypothetical, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Hypothetical. Of course.’
‘You can’t discuss children as though they were spare socks,’ Sue said. ‘Disposable commodities.’
‘But don’t we have to?’ asked Ro. ‘If we’re worried about the environment. Zero population growth and all that. Perhaps everyone could have one dog or one child? No cats of course, unless they’re in cages.’
This brought everyone down on her head. There was an outbreak of indignant exclamation.
Anne started to gather dirty plates. ‘Let’s go and see the rock pool,’ she said. If her teeth were gritted it didn’t show.
She was used to dealing with fractious children.
Ro hurled a clod of seaweed down the beach. It wasn’t even a good place to swim. Too much seaweed.
She was well aware that she had behaved badly. The fact that Anne had kept her temper made Ro crosser. What was it with mothers?
It was because they were having a bob each way. Ro deeply resented the approval that mothers earned simply by having a baby. Fulfilling their destiny as women. Where did that leave Ro and her childless sisters? And that approval would offset the disapproval the mothers copped by becoming lesbians. See, I’ve done the womanly thing. Now I can have fun.
But at this point Ro had to reconsider. Was social approval bankable? Did a credit in one area offset a debit in another? Unlikely. And given the hysteria about lesbian teachers it might actually be worse to be a lesbian with kids than to be a lesbian without kids.
‘Ro?’
Ro jumped. Sue must have walked along behind the shacks.
‘Oh. Hi.’
Sue sat down and leaned back against the boat with a sigh, stretching her legs. She closed her eyes. ‘This is good. I should be painting the bathroom but I’m glad I’m not.’
‘I was rude.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it bad?’
‘Pretty bad.’
‘Shit. What will I do?’
‘Apologise.’
‘Shit.’
‘You don’t have any choice. If you want Julia in your life then you’re going to have to have Anne, too. And her kids.’
‘A mother is a colonised territory.’
Sue frowned. ‘Ro.’
‘And her woman partner is a sacrificial lamb.’
‘Ro! Stop it.’
‘Okay okay. I heard you. At least they don’t live together.’
Julia herself had never felt less confident. She was unnerved by the presence in her life of three people who hated her bitterly.
‘They don’t hate you,’ Anne kept repeating. ‘They’re panicking.’
But she was clearly worried.
Gemma, the oldest, was on a crusade. Her entire energy was focused on getting rid of Julia. And where Gemma led, Tara followed.
‘Hi Gemma,’ Julia would say. ‘How are you?’
No response.
‘Hi Tara. How was school?’
No response.
Julia knew that every step-parent went through a version of this. The glaring silences, the slammed doors.
‘It’s not just you, if that’s any comfort,’ said Anne. ‘They give me the cold-shoulder too.’
Perhaps, Julia thought. But presumably Anne had the advantage of remembering them as dear little babies. That might give you more understanding. Make patience easier.
Certainly the whole situation was harder when you added lesbian to the brew.
‘You’re ruining my life,’ Gemma stormed. ‘I can’t ask anyone home.’
‘Why not?’ asked Anne.
‘Well, duh. Because they’ll find out there’s a lezzo in the house. Two lezzos.’
‘Julia isn’t here all the time,’ Anne said, hating her own weakness. ‘Invite them during the week.’
She and Julia lay facing each other in bed, door firmly closed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Anne said. ‘I feel like Judas. I never knew I could be so gutless. But what can I do?’
‘I know,’ Julia said wearily. ‘It’s all about what they’ll say at school. Every adolescent girl’s nightmare.’
Julia knew it was no good expecting Ro to sympathise, nor her other childless friends. Though Maddie, committed child-care worker, might.
‘It’s hard with the kids,’ Julia told her. ‘I’m not making any headway.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Maddie.
‘If I pass Gemma a plate of food, she won’t eat it. If she’s sitting on the sofa and I sit down, she gets up and goes away.’
‘Hard,’ said Maddie.
‘I spent ages thinking about the right birthday present. Bought her a Smashing Pumpkins CD that Anne said she wanted. The next time I was there I found it pushed behind the other CDs. She hadn’t unwrapped it.’
But Maddie wasn’t listening.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Julia.
‘Oh, yes. Sorry. I’m a bit preoccupied. Stuff at work.’
Julia decided to go to a counsellor. If she had to pay for an ally, then so be it.
With her usual thoroughness she covered everything. Her own childhood (only child), her school years (saved by a sports teacher), her relationship with her parents (beloved father, mad mother). She walloped a beanbag with a softball bat, she shouted, she cried—not an activity she’d ever indulged in much.
Probably it all helped. But when the breakthrough came, it was by sheer chance.
Julia was on the tram because her bike was out of action. And it was mid-afternoon because she’d been to see a client. She had not slept the night before and now she dozed, elbows propped on her bag, face buried in her hands.
She was woken by the noisy arrival of five schoolgirls. They were at the shrill stage, and they threw themselves and their bags onto the seats. This was nothing unusual; the tram was full of schoolkids. What was electrifying was the familiarity of one of the girls, sitting with her back to Julia. It was Gemma. No mistaking that pink streak.
What should Julia do? If she made herself known she would embarrass Gemma. If she didn’t, then she would be spying. Either way there would be fireworks later. But as she thought about how to withdraw invisibly, she realised that all was not well. There was tension in the air.
The conversation, as far as Julia could hear, was about the coming Friday night, and what they were going to do. They were all looking at Gemma.
‘Can’t come? Why not?’
Gemma mumbled.
‘Don’t tell her. Sneak out.’
Julia didn’t hear Gemma’s reply but she saw the scorn of the others.
‘You always do what Mummy says?’ said one.
‘What are ya?’ said another, jeering.
Julia was hurt on Gemma’s behalf. Perhaps it was because she had been thinking so recently about her own school years. She saw the ugliness growing and made a quick decision. Gathering her things she stood up and moved forward.
‘Hi Gemma,’ she said, smiling all around. ‘I didn’t see you. Would you like a lift? I’m going past your place.’
She pressed the bell, concentrated on looking relaxed, and waited. After a very long pause, Gemma stood up.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
The tram lurched to a stop to let the two of them off, then trundled on its way.
They stood in silence, not looking at each other. Julia had time to regret her decision. There was no car, and they were several stops from Anne’s place.
‘Er,’ she said. ‘I don’t actually have the car here.’
Gemma was startled into looking at her. ‘We have to walk?’
Julia dropped her head feeling stupid. Now she’d mucked things up.
‘Um, yes,’ she said. ‘Or we could wait for the next tram.’
‘Did you hear?’ asked Gemma, face pink.
‘Not all of it,’ Julia said. ‘I didn’t plan to … I’m sorry.’
‘They’re not always like that.’
‘No, I don’t suppose they are.’
‘It’s just …’
‘You have to fit in?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t actually. But it takes a while to work that out.’
‘You won’t tell Mum?’
‘No.’
They walked to Anne’s.