The Golden Child Page 21

  ‘Oh, Mum.’

  It is bad news for all of them.

  When Dan confronts her, Charlotte denies it, of course she does. Just as she denied her mother’s earlier accusations of bullying, admitting only to making a couple of nasty anonymous comments on ASKfm, and to one dubious physical encounter that someone at school told Lucy about – Oh, that? That was nothing, Mum. We were just being silly. We were acting, pretending to be scary. We were practising being those angels from Dr Who. For Harriet’s party, remember. It was a game. Nobody could call it bullying – and the initial outrage is still burning brightly when she is presented with this further evidence of her involvement.

  The outrage quickly morphs into icy scorn, despite the fact that her parents are presenting her with proof that is almost painful in its undeniability: the pictures of Sophie, the short video clip, are there in her Photo Stream – Sophie undressing, in her underwear, the close-ups of her buttocks.

  ‘But we were just mucking around. We Photoshopped the pictures and made them look like all these weird things. I didn’t even look at that recording again. I’d forgotten all about it. I don’t know how any of it got on that website. I didn’t send anything to anyone except Sophie. And I didn’t make that website. Do you really think that if I was going to do something like this that I would make it so obvious? That I would keep these photos? A five-year-old wouldn’t be so stupid.’

  Listening to Charlotte, watching her daughter, her arms crossed tightly against her chest, her voice low and calm, her attitude clearly defiant, but somehow still composed, with no sign of distress or guilt or even anxiety, Beth feels something cold settle on her. Lucy displayed more emotion, surely, more compunction on her sister’s behalf, more distress, when she showed her mother the compromising pictures.

  ‘Charlotte, honey, I don’t think there’s any way you can keep on denying this.’

  ‘So?’ The look Charlotte gives her father is full of scorn. ‘It could still have been someone else. Everything’s in my Photo Stream – so it’s on all my devices. Anyone could have taken whatever they wanted. It’s too easy. We all use each other’s stuff all the time.’

  ‘What – so you think it was one of your friends, do you?’

  She is glad that they agreed that Dan would handle the situation. Beth doesn’t trust that she won’t lose her composure completely. She is so close, just being here, witnessing this, seeing her daughter in this clear cold light, to breaking down. To saying or doing something she might live to regret.

  ‘Oh God, Dad. I don’t know who it was.’ Charlotte shakes her head. ‘I just know it wasn’t me. The fact that I took the photos doesn’t mean anything. Anyone could have put that website up. Maybe Sophie did it herself.’

  ‘Charlotte. This is ridiculous. You have to stop. You’re just making it worse.’ Beth suspects that the look of horror on her husband’s face mirrors her own.

  ‘Actually – maybe that’s it. Sophie had all the pictures, so maybe she did the whole thing. And then took the pills. Maybe she was trying to set me up. I wouldn’t put it past her – she’s so . . . passive aggro or whatever it’s called.’

  Beth’s horror turns to nausea. The cold vehemence of her daughter’s argument only emphasises its implausibility, the child’s desperation.

  ‘Oh, Charlotte.’ Beth can hardly bear to look at her.

  ‘Oh, Charlotte, what?’ She turns on her mother. ‘I’ve admitted that I said some mean things on ASKfm, and I’ve admitted that I was involved when we . . . played that joke on her.’

  Dan interrupts, his face red, his breathing ragged. His anger, so rare, is shocking.

  ‘Charlotte. That joke you played on her, those comments online, and now this disgusting website. It’s not fun and it’s not games: it’s bullying. This is such serious stuff. Sophie tried to kill herself because she was bullied. And people are saying you were the main perpetrator. Don’t try and play it down, for Christ’s sake. If she dies, or if she ends up with any sort of health problems, you’re going to be judged as being partly responsible. It’s something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Yeah, right: like nobody else was involved. Whatever. They were my pictures but I didn’t send them to anyone except Sophie, and I didn’t do the website. I did see it. But everybody saw it. There were links on Instagram. I probably should’ve told someone that they were mine, I guess, but I didn’t see the point.’ Her self-righteousness is indestructible. And intolerable. ‘I mean, it’s awful what Sophie did, but this stuff happens on the net all the time; it’s really not such a big deal.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. Can’t you just stop? Jesus. It is a big deal, Charlotte. It really doesn’t get any bigger. It was a big enough deal for Sophie to try and kill herself. And what if she doesn’t wake up? What if she dies? You’ll have to live with it if you’re in any way involved. This could affect your life forever, too. You could be expelled from school. And what if the police trace this back to you? It could even mean criminal charges. Can’t you see how serious this is?’

  ‘Okay. I really can see. I can. But nobody’s going to trace it back to me because I didn’t do it. And I don’t understand why you don’t believe me.’ Charlotte’s voice wavers a little. ‘I didn’t write that website,’ she took a deep breath, ‘and I’m not ever going to say that I did. So, you can all . . .’ She turns to glare at Beth, her eyes fierce. ‘You can all just fuck off.’

  Beth watches, unable to pull her eyes away, barely able to breathe, as her daughter storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Dan follows. She listens to the feet pounding up the timber stairs, hears more slamming, more pounding. Yelling. Screaming. She is a stranger, surely, this girl. Not her baby – her lovely Charlie. Or has she just never seen her properly before? Is this who her daughter has always been?

  Beth has never thought her children perfect; what mother ever does? But she thought that they were something better than the average, both of them – special. But now, now she has to question everything. Because if Charlotte’s actions are questionable, to say the least, what part has Beth played in shaping those actions?

  They are good parents, she and Dan, she knows they are. They’ve both devoted so much of their energy not only to making things good for the girls, but to making them good. They have both tried hard to make their girls understand that being good is more than just a list of ‘nots’ – not lying, not cheating, not stealing, not murdering – that it is also about doing good, about being kind, about understanding that what the girls do affects others.

  But now, now she must rethink everything. Because if good children are proof of good parenting, then what about bad children?

  Bad children. She’s known a few. She’s come across them in various settings, children whose outrageous naughtiness takes your breath away. And their cunning is just as breathtaking: these are kids who pull the wool right down over their besotted parents’ eyes.

  There always seems to be some sort of consensus about these children; they’re the ones whose reputations precede them wherever they go. They’re the kids who can be guaranteed to spoil things for everyone else: the ones who throw tantrums at birthday parties, scream over a denied toy or sweet, storm off a playing field in an explosive display of bad sportsmanship. The ones who constantly induce rolled eyes, raised eyebrows, compressed lips, whispered conversations between the other parents, teachers, shop assistants, innocent bystanders.

  There’s generally a consensus about their parents too. It’s inferred, if not said outright. Not only are these parents generally deluded about their little darlings, they’ve clearly done something wrong. The child’s bad behaviour can always be traced back to them: they’re too lax, too hard, too adoring, too one-eyed, never there.

  Even in books, on television, there’s a direct correlation between effort and outcome. Eva’s Kevin – wasn’t he meant to be a product of an ambivalence that Beth has never experienced? She loved both her children absolutely from the moment
they arrived, and before – there’s been no postnatal depression, no marital strife, no overzealous career orientation, no over-the-top devotion. She’s tried to keep everything in perfect equilibrium, and everything that’s happened since her children were born, every tiny moment of delight – first smile, first step, first word, first friend, first prize – every childhood triumph, has, until now, only validated her effort.

  All that effort. For what? If her daughter is not who she thought she was, if she’s not the girl they’ve both watched grow and bloom, then who is she?

  And if Charlotte isn’t Charlotte – then who is Beth?

  DizzyLizzy.com

  Que Sera Sera?

  Oh, parenting.

  So many agonising decisions.

  Let’s start with the birth – though sometimes that’s not really a decision. Natural or caesarean? To drug or not to drug? Home birth or hospital stay?

  So you’ve survived that one. Now, what about feeding? Breast or bottle? How long? And, should you choose to be so wicked, which formula?

  Once you’ve made it through the minefield of sleeping (controlled crying, anyone?), it’s exponential: you have to decide which toys you’re going to let them play with, which (if any) TV programs they’re allowed to watch, which morsels of food can pass their lips, whether or not you’re going back to work, which daycare or preschool – and then, OMG, it’s time to sort out schools, encourage suitable friendships . . . If you’re not there yet, believe me when I tell you that it doesn’t miraculously get easier when they hit five. Actually, it gets progressively more complicated.

  But lately I’ve noticed that each of these decisions, all of them overwhelmingly important when they’re made, come to seem completely insignificant. When your five-year-old walks into their kindergarten class for the first time, happy and healthy and raring to learn, you’re not still thinking about whether it was a bad decision to give up breastfeeding at six months. By the time they’re heading off to high school, you’ve probably forgotten that they didn’t start reading chapter books until they were eight. And when they graduate from high school and are about to head out the door to college, my guess is you won’t be worrying about whether you should have let them watch The Hunger Games when they were thirteen.

  As my own get older, I’m beginning to think I should try and relax a little, try not to agonise over every minor decision, try to actually enjoy the kids while they’re still ours.

  Because, who knows, maybe we’re fooling ourselves. Maybe this whole parenting caper is out of our hands, anyway. And maybe our kids are going to be who they are whatever we do.

  36

  EXPATTERINGS:

  @BlueSue says:

  I’m not so sure about this, Lizzy. I know it can be regarded these days as overparenting, but I think all the little things really do matter. Doesn’t each small step add up to something? Doesn’t every little bit make them who they are, shape who they become? I think our input – all of it, even when they’ve grown up – is crucial.

  @OzMumInTokyo says:

  Oh, Lizzy. You always put things so beautifully. XO

  @GirlFromIpanema says:

  Oh, man. I hope you’re right. Just had a note home from the school: apparently my ten-year-old daughter’s favourite show is Girls. She told the teacher that she’s already up to season three. Who knew? I’m thinking a bit of overparenting wouldn’t go astray around here.

  @BlueSue replied:

  Oh, dear. I couldn’t bring myself to watch further than the first few episodes of Girls. I hate to think this is the life our lovely twenty-somethings are leading. You’ll have to make your little one understand that this isn’t the sort of behaviour she should be emulating – explain that there are better ways of being. I don’t envy you.

  @GirlFromIpanema replied:

  Hmmm. Pity I can’t just wash out her mind with soap, eh, @BlueSue?

  ANDI

  ANDI CONSULTS A COLLEAGUE FROM HER SYDNEY DAYS ABOUT the prospects of a suit. Such a course of action has never been taken here, the woman tells her, and would be unlikely to succeed – there have been cases in some US states where parents and the children themselves have been sued, but they have specific laws that make it possible. Here, it isn’t as clear-cut, and liability would be almost impossible to prove. Filing any such suit would almost certainly be a waste of time and money. The school is a better bet, if it’s damages Andi’s after. But even there the outcome would be uncertain. Particularly, she adds carefully, if Sophie survives.

  Andi snorts at the idea, explaining that she doesn’t think the school is the problem, and that she doesn’t actually want money – what she wants is the girl’s parents to understand, to feel some of her fear, her pain. ‘What if we just threaten some sort of legal action,’ she suggests. ‘It doesn’t matter that it’s bullshit; it’ll take them a while to work it out. It’ll hurt them. They’ll have to see a lawyer; they’ll have to tell people. They’ll have to think about their fucking bullshit parenting.’

  Her friend, who diplomatically ignores her outburst, reluctantly agrees; a letter is drafted and sent. But it does nothing to counter Andi’s rage – her anger towards Beth and Charlotte still roils in her stomach, rises in her throat like bile, burning everything in its wake. Threatening to sue is one thing, but Andi wants to inflict something more permanent. And she wants the damage to be public. For once she wishes that it was more like the US here, that it was easier to make such things a matter of public record. She wishes that public outrage could be encouraged, that the Mahony girl – along with her parents – could be placed in virtual, if not physical, stocks.

  It occurs to her that perhaps a degree of publicity is possible, even in Australia with its strictly enforced protection of minors. The press has been circling from the moment Sophie was hospitalised. Andi supposes they have some sort of contact in the emergency services, or perhaps the hospital, because even that first night, when Steve went back to the house to get things for Gus, the answering machine was blinking away. And almost all of the calls were from the media. He listened to the smooth voices, with their messages of manufactured concern, and erased them immediately. He knew two of the journos, one from the Advocate and the other from the local television station, and they’d seemed okay, he said, whenever they’d turned up at various jobs – crime scenes, car accidents, the occasional drunken brawl – or to court. They were irritatingly pushy; of course in that job they had to be. But once you were on the other side it was completely different – they seemed slimy and insincere, utterly opportunistic – and Steve was furious. ‘Fucking parasites,’ he said, ‘feeding on people’s misery.’

  Despite Andi and Steve’s refusal to participate, there was a mention early on in the Advocate, just a few lines reporting that a local twelve-year-old girl had been found unconscious and taken to hospital, following a suspected overdose of prescription pills. She was comatose, the article said, and grave fears were held for her life. There were no names, and no speculation about the cause. Andi only knows because someone, she doesn’t know who, thoughtfully left a cutting for them. Perhaps it was one of the nurses or the cleaning staff who left the bizarre offering, anonymously. The neatly cut-out square of newsprint just appeared on top of Sophie’s cluttered bedside cupboard. She read it quickly and passed it to Steve, who looked at it briefly before screwing it into a tight ball and tossing it, without comment, into the bin.

  Now it seems that every day there is someone new wanting to talk to them – from newspapers, magazines, websites, television stations; all the local outlets as well as Sydney and interstate – wanting interviews, details of their terrible tragedy, as some of them call it, their voices hushed, tones almost reverential. We’ll make sure you remain anonymous, of course.

  A local woman who freelances for the big Sydney papers, and whose name Andi recognises vaguely, somehow gets hold of her mobile number, and Andi actually speaks to her for a few minutes, assuming she is someone from a community organisation, offer
ing therapy or counselling, before politely trying to get rid of her.

  This particular woman is persistent, however, and appears to already know more about their story than any of the others who’ve contacted them. Andi receives an email from her the following day, apologising for the phone call (God knows how she discovered Andi’s email address) and explaining that she heard about their plight from a friend of a friend who has some sort of connection with the school, and that she would very much like to interview Andi. She is currently writing a book on cybercrime and wants to include a chapter on child perpetrators, adolescent male hackers, mainly, but she thinks the malicious actions of teenage girls – the whole cyberbullying thing is out of control, isn’t it? – might add interest and widen the audience. Bullying to the point of suicide, the woman writes in her email, might be regarded as a type of murder, mightn’t it?

  Andi feels her stomach clench at this, wants to write back and remind this woman that though her daughter is hovering somewhere – oh God, where is she, her beautiful girl? – in that limbo land between life and death, she isn’t dead and she isn’t actually a suicide. Not yet.

  Andi googles the journalist’s name. From her website and a number of online articles, it appears that Arabella Agostini isn’t the usual true-crime writer, but a specialist in the sort of offences that don’t often lead to sensational court cases, an exposer of injustice, corruption. She has written a few accounts of murders that were front-page news, but mainly her interviews focus on people who claim to have been ill-treated by faceless institutions, government departments, big business. Andi can remember reading some of them over the years, distinctly recalls being annoyed on a number of occasions by the woman’s too evident sympathy with the alleged victims, with her failure to even attempt any sort of a balanced account. Her defence lawyer’s instinct was insulted: she knows that always there is another side, that it is impossible to properly tell those sorts of stories, to tell the truth, without at least giving the other party the opportunity to respond to the victim’s claims.