The Golden Child Page 17

  After work she picks up the girls from Margie’s, and things go from bad to worse. She is running late, naturally, although Margie assures her (of course) that it doesn’t matter. ‘I’d half planned to go to zumba this evening, but it’s on again on Thursday.’ Margie understands perfectly, she’s been a working mother herself, these things happen. As always there is no possible response – any apology will be swept aside, magnanimously, as unnecessary. Beth apologises anyway, and tries not to prolong the farewells, to hurry the girls to the car, but Charlotte, excited, holds them up, insisting that she read Beth a note from the sports mistress first: she’s been asked to try out for the rowing team after the holidays. ‘Rowing?’ Margie frowns. ‘Good heavens. I don’t think your parents are going to have time for that, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s Charlotte. I don’t see why not, Nanny. A heap of other girls do it. And their parents work.’ Charlotte’s voice is haughty, dismissive.

  ‘Yes, why not, Margie?’ Beth can’t think of anything worse, really, but her hackles rise immediately at her mother-in-law’s unasked-for opinion.

  ‘Well, of course I’ve never had anything to do with rowing – only the private schools do it – but I do know it’s a huge commitment. The teams train very early in the morning. Before five, I believe. And then they have regattas all over the place. Every weekend. I suspect it’s all hideously expensive. You and Dan have enough on your plates right now, it seems to me. And I think Charlotte probably has enough to do, too.’

  ‘I guess that’s something for Dan and me to discuss.’ If Margie notices that Beth’s smile is forced, her voice dangerously polite, it doesn’t deter her.

  ‘You’re right, it is none of my business. But you know, Beth, it is okay to say no to the girls every now and then. In the long run, it’ll actually do them good.’ She smiles benignly, handing Beth a portion of the banana loaf she and Lucy made that afternoon.

  In the car, Charlotte is scathing. ‘You see. I told you Nanny doesn’t like me. It doesn’t matter what I tell her, she has to be negative about it. I told her about Harriet’s Doctor Who party, and about us dressing up as the angels, and she just said it was an awful lot of expense for no good purpose. And that modern parents have more money than sense.’

  ‘That’s not really what she said, Charlotte. She was actually talking about the Tardis cake – you told her it cost three hundred dollars.’

  ‘Oh, whatever. You would say that. But do you see what I mean, Mum? And do we really have to spend whole days with her during the holidays? Can’t we just stay home?’

  ‘We’ve discussed this already, Charlotte – I have to work. Anyway, I’m sure it’s not personal. And maybe Nanny actually has a point about the rowing, darling.’ It hurts her physically to say it.

  ‘What do you mean, she has a point? Are you saying I can’t do rowing, Mum? That’s totally not fair and you know it.’

  She isn’t sure that she does. In many ways, Margie is right: they very rarely say no to the girls’ requests. Beth knows this is something Dan’s become increasingly uncomfortable about since they’ve been under his mother’s critical eye. He’s mentioned once or twice that saying no is something they need to make a point of doing, on principle – to teach the girls about values, about their own privilege. But almost everything they ask for, everything they want, seems perfectly reasonable. They need phones to stay safe, to be in contact; they need iPads and laptops for school. Why shouldn’t they learn music, dance? Why shouldn’t they play a variety of sports? And it’s not that she fears saying no, as Margie – and, she expects, her own mother – seems to imagine; surely she just wants her girls to be as engaged and active as possible, to be contributing and successful members of their community? It’s yet another of the paradoxes of modern middle-class parenting that Beth can’t bring herself to think about too deeply.

  And there is no time to think about it at present. Right now she can think of nothing worse than the prospect of getting up before five several days a week to take her daughter to rowing. Right now she has to go home and make dinner, take an interest in everyone’s day, organise the washing, lunches, homework, bedtime – when what she really wants to do is curl up in her pyjamas, pour a glass of champagne and watch reruns of Friends.

  ‘We’ll talk to your father about it, Charlotte. Later.’

  But as it turns out, the rowing conversation never happens.

  Beth diverts to Woolworths to get a few things she needs for the night’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunches (but of course she then remembers all the other things they are out of – mayonnaise, ketchup, conditioner, toilet bleach, coffee pods) and dashes in, leaving the girls in the car. She is standing in the queue (why does the queue Beth chooses always seem to take the longest?), her too-full, too-heavy basket hurting her arm, half tempted to just dump the lot and run, when she receives a tentative tap on her shoulder. Out of context, it takes Beth a moment to recognise the receptionist from the girls’ school, a short, heavy woman sporting the most hilariously unsuitable name, Carla Caress.

  ‘I thought it was you, Mrs Mahony. How are you?’ Her voice is full of meaning.

  ‘Beth,’ she says automatically. ‘I’m good. How are you, Carla?’

  ‘Oh, it’s been such a terrible, terrible day. I haven’t been able to take it in, really. That poor little thing.’ Carla’s eyes are heavy, her face slightly puffy, as if she’s been unwell or crying. ‘You must be finding it really difficult, Mrs . . . I mean Beth. You’re friends with her mum, someone told me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been at work all day. I’m afraid I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. What’s happened?’ Beth feels a sudden sinking, a weakening in the knees, ice racing through her veins.

  ‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry.’ The woman gives Beth’s arm a squeeze. ‘I didn’t realise. I thought you’d have heard. We’ve tried to keep it from the girls, and I don’t suppose her mother has had the chance . . .’ She takes a breath, shakes her head as if to clear it. ‘It’s poor little Sophie Pennington.’ Her eyes fill with tears, her voice quavers. ‘She took something. Pills. An overdose. Her father’s sleeping pills, they think. On the weekend.’

  ‘And . . . is she . . .?’ Beth can barely think the word, let alone say it.

  ‘She’s alive. But she’s in a coma. They can’t tell yet – they don’t know whether she’ll pull through.’ The woman is choking back sobs now. ‘And there’s rumours that she took them on purpose. It’s not right. That poor little thing. She’s only a baby . . .’

  ANDI

  EVENTUALLY ANDI ASKS IT ALOUD, CANNOT KEEP THE question to herself any longer. Why didn’t we know? She whispers the words, agonised, full of shame, to Steve as they sit waiting, one on each side of Sophie, both compelled to hold on to her in some way, clasping her hands, cupping her cheeks, only ever reluctantly breaking the connection. Both of them certain that their touch – and not the medication, the tubes and electrodes, the vigilance of the medical staff – is all that is keeping her grounded, earthbound, keeping her with them. Their touch the only thing that’s stopping her from drifting away forever.

  How can they have loved their girl so well, she asks, all these years, all her life, and yet not known this? Surely they’ve done everything they could to make her feel welcome in the world, to make her feel at home. So how is it that Sophie felt so bereft, so alone? How could she ever have felt bad enough to do this thing – to wish an end to a life they’ve sought to make as good and as happy as any human can reasonably expect?

  Steve remains silent all through Andi’s desperate questioning, his head bowed, as if in prayer, his face expressionless, distant, his jaw tight. ‘Nobody ever knows, Andi.’ He speaks slowly, as if the words are painful. ‘That’s the thing. That’s the awful fucking thing. Sometimes shit happens, and there’s no rhyme, there’s no reason. All this pain – for nothing. There’s no lesson. No meaning. Dad would tell you that it’s part of God’s design, that it’s part of some divine plan. That there’s s
omething to be learned from all of it. But he’s wrong – it’s all just random. Sometimes, life’s just shit.’

  Andi understands that Steve is speaking from experience; this is something he knows from his work, and she’s seen elements of it too, if from a different perspective. But surely what he’s saying can’t be true of their daughter. Surely for Sophie – beloved, talented, privileged – life wasn’t shit. How could it be?

  But then, how to put your finger on what your children really feel? What they’re experiencing?

  Andi thinks about the mystery of Gus, his infant delight in discovering the world, discovering himself – it seems so simple, so straightforward. She has watched him finding his hands, then working out that they’re his to control: waving them in front of his face, shoving them in his mouth. He seems so thrilled just to be feeling himself feeling. Yet the thrill is an observer’s surmise; his real feelings remain unknown, as complete a mystery as the existence of God or the extent of the universe. And his delight can turn in seconds, milliseconds even, to rage or to despair.

  Sophie. That slippery, red slate-eyed infant who was placed on her chest twelve years ago, cord still attached, squalling, is the same person who lies here now. So deeply known and yet so mysterious. Nothing has changed. Everything has changed. All the potential for being who she is – this child who is at once so intense and so easy, so smart and so innocent, so focused and so uncertain, so obvious and yet so hidden – was present at that moment of birth and, Andi has to suppose, even before that. The twelve years they have been given to get to know her, and she to know herself, have barely scratched the surface of that potential. And now, when Andi tries to really think about her daughter, to fix her firmly in her mind, she seems somehow elusive, simultaneously transparent and opaque, as unfathomable as when she first arrived. We are each of us, she thinks, a miracle of solitude, unknowable to others, and surprising to ourselves.

  What if, she wonders, watching the even rise and fall of her daughter’s chest, what if it was there, right from the beginning? What if, right from the beginning, all the problems of Sophie’s infancy – the initial months of crying, her inability to settle, her refusal to sleep without flesh-to-flesh contact, her difficulties taking the breast – what if they meant something? What if they added up to something of substance, what if they weren’t, as she and Steve were constantly assured by infant nurses, doctors, parents, friends, just commonplace, temporary, infant difficulties? What if, as her parents, they’d failed to see symptoms, neglected to find a cure for some latent, but potentially fatal defect?

  What if the person Sophie has become, the Sophie they thought they knew – obedient, cheerful, talented, focused, a bit shy, awkward physically, but still within the range of ‘normal’ – is just an act that they’ve accepted with relief, a mask worn to satisfy her anxious parents? What if her entire conscious life has been a desperate cover for an essential, elemental void, existential suffering, a despair that can never be eased, regardless of their infinite love?

  What if?

  WWW.GOLDENCHILD.COM

  THE GOLDEN CHILD’S TEN LESSONS FOR SUCCESS

  LESSON SIX: REVENGE AGAIN

  Sometimes revenge doesn’t have to be about anything, really. Because why not?

  It’s because they’re them. Because you’re you. Because it feels good. Because you want to win.

  Because they exist.

  COMMENTS

  @RANDOMREADER says:

  Or because yolo? I thought that was the answer to everything.

  CHARLOTTE

  HER FATHER GIVES HER THE IDEA. HER MOTHER HAS MADE plans to visit Sophie the following day, but as far as she knows there’s been no suggestion that Charlotte should go. Charlotte herself hasn’t even considered it until she overhears her parents arguing in the kitchen as she’s running back upstairs to her bedroom from the shower. She should have brought her clothes down, it’s freezing in the bedrooms, and she hates the gloomy upstairs rooms at night. Hates them even more than during the day, if that is possible. Added to that, the stickiness of the grimy bedroom carpet on her bare feet, damp from the bath, makes her feel slightly ill.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Beth, she’s your friend’s daughter. And she’s Charlotte’s friend. It is upsetting. There’s no way you can get around it. Life can be upsetting. You’re wrong to try and protect her from that. It’s giving her a false sense of . . . everything.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we try to protect them, Dan? Isn’t that our job? Sophie’s unconscious. It’ll be upsetting for Andi and Steve. They shouldn’t have to worry about other people’s kids right now. I don’t understand why you think she should come too. I can’t see how it will achieve anything, for either of them.’

  ‘It’s not supposed to achieve anything, Beth. Christ! Sometimes you really do sound like some idiotic self-help book, you know. We’re not trying to achieve anything, we’re just talking about a really old-fashioned concept – doing the right thing. Sophie was, Sophie is, Charlotte’s friend; Sophie is sick in hospital; Charlotte should visit her. See, it’s really quite simple.’

  ‘She’s only known her for a few months, for goodness sake. Why make it all worse? It’s already upsetting enough. You know they’ve got counsellors seeing all the girls in the class.’ Her mother speaks calmly, quietly, but Charlotte can hear the anger bubbling just under the surface. ‘And what if she dies? What then? Do we have to send her to the funeral? Is that another experience Charlotte really needs to have, Dan?’

  Charlotte scurries away then, tiptoes up to her room, and quietly shuts the door. She’s heard enough, doesn’t want to hear her father’s response. She stands naked in front of the speckled wardrobe mirror. Her body has a greenish cast in the tepid light, the room’s timber lining seeming to soak up all the brightness. The ancient mirror somehow makes her look wider, shorter, the spotty squatness reminding her suddenly of Sophie. She gazes at her reflection, lets her jaw hang slightly, opens her eyes wide, pulls her hair back off her face, and pushes the flesh on her chest closer to make her breasts bigger. There is no way to create a real resemblance: Charlotte is tanned where Sophie is pale, and her body is bony and angular – even when she pushes her stomach out, hunches her torso down, there is not enough flesh to make her look plump. She pulls on the Dolce & Gabbana pyjamas, gingham shorts with a white poplin vest, that her mother bought her during a trip to New York. They are totally impractical for winter wear in this cold house, but she wears them whenever she needs a physical reminder of her life before here. Her real life.

  Charlotte arranges herself carefully, lying diagonally across the bed so she can see herself in the mirror. She scoots under the blankets, pulls them up sharply, tight under her neck, then wriggles her arms free. She lifts one of her hands in the air and then lets it drop heavily, a dead weight. She clasps both hands loosely over her abdomen and lies still, eyes closed, makes herself calm and cold, her breath shallow, tries to think of nothing, to think of clouds. To be like Sophie in her comatose state, suspended somewhere between life and death. She holds her breath for a moment then sits up slowly, reaching for her iPad. She opens the camera and lies back down, this time arranging her one free arm on top of the blankets, and angles the camera properly. She closes her eyes again, slows her breathing, takes a shot. And then another. The light isn’t quite right and her expression is stupid, it looks like she is about to laugh. She rearranges herself, makes her face as blank as possible, and tries once more. This time she gets it right: captures the arm, the blanket, the side of her face in repose. She looks alarmingly but interestingly absent.

  Charlotte thinks she would quite like to visit Sophie, to see what she looks like. She wonders what would happen if she were to take Sophie’s hand – would it be stiff or floppy? Would there be some sort of response? She would like to feel whether Sophie’s skin is warm or cold, to peel back her eyelids and see what lies beneath. To see if Sophie’s still in there. To find out if she’s ever coming back to tell them where s
he’s been.

  The next morning, instead of taking her breakfast into the lounge room – the only room in the house that is even vaguely warm – Charlotte squeezes in beside her mother at the ridiculous little kitchen nook. Her mother is drinking tea, reading something on her iPad. She gives her daughter a sleepy smile, smoothes back her hair. ‘Did you sleep well, honey?’

  Charlotte shrugs. ‘Not really. The mattress is sooo lumpy. You know, I can actually feel the springs digging into me. And I was cold in the middle of the night. I had to get up and put on a tracksuit.’

  Her mother laughs. ‘Poor princess. I know it’s not exactly a New Jersey winter, but you can’t really expect those pjs to keep you warm.’

  Charlotte grins, but says nothing. She waits for a few minutes, then says casually, between mouthfuls of toast: ‘Do you think it’d be okay with her parents if I visit Sophie?’ She pauses, makes her face as solemn as she can, looks intently at her mother. ‘It’s just . . . I think it’s important. We’re friends, Sophie and me. Actually, I think I’m pretty much her only friend. I should go and see her, don’t you think?’

  Her mother looks surprised and vaguely worried. ‘You want to go to the hospital? I don’t know, Charlotte. I’m not sure that it would be a good idea. It might be upsetting.’

  ‘Upsetting? You mean for her parents?’

  ‘No. I mean for you. I’m not sure that you really need to see her. I think it might be very . . . confronting. Sophie will be wired up to monitors. She won’t really look like herself.’

  She tries to keep her interest hidden. ‘What do you mean? Is she, will there be marks on her or something? Will she look terrible, like those ice addicts we saw on that show?’