The Golden Child Read online

  It isn’t just Beth’s choice of confidant, but her lack of discretion that has upset him. ‘So what?’ he says. ‘You have to control yourself a bit better, Beth. You can’t just go blurting this stuff out to everyone. Newcastle is a small town. Couldn’t you have said you were sick or something, and just waited to tell me? Look, I expect that he’s right and it’s just some sort of . . . ambit claim or whatever they call it, and it probably won’t go any further. But it’d be better if we could keep this to ourselves. The situation is bad enough as it is. The more people who find out what’s happened, the worse it’ll be.’

  She tries to placate him with the fact of Drew’s legal knowledge, the news that he is on the phone right now, working hard to find a solution, but that only makes things worse. ‘Jesus, Beth. We don’t need a Drew Carmichael solution. He’ll find some dirty Liberal Party stooge and before you know it we’ll be tangled up in a fucking corruption scandal.’ His laughter is bitter. ‘Why didn’t you ring Mum? She’d know what to do, who to talk to.’ His mother is the last person Beth wants to speak to. She can imagine Margie’s barely concealed satisfaction at receiving more evidence of Beth’s dubious character, her dark, possibly conservative, heart.

  She disconnects, picks up the coffee, heads back to the office. Drew is still on the phone, very obviously on hold, tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk. When she comes in he mutters and hangs up. ‘I can sort that later.’ The smile he gives her is still fairly low-beam, but the fact that it is a smile reassures her.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The good news is – I’ve asked a mate who deals with this stuff, and it’s as I thought – it’s just a scare tactic. There’s no way it’s going to get anywhere. I doubt they even intend to lodge it.’

  ‘The bad news?’

  Now the smile is completely extinguished. ‘I’ve been talking to our Sydney office. They’ve just had a call from some writer who wanted to know about you, asked if she could talk to anyone here. Apparently, she’s interviewing the mother for a syndicated feature. And there was something about a book, too.’

  ‘A feature? But they can’t mention names or anything . . . surely?’

  ‘It’s unlikely. Not when it’s kids. But they can mention where you live, the school.’ He pauses for a moment. ‘And the fact that she’s been in touch with our office . . . Even if they don’t name names, they just have to mention that you work for a local Liberal politician. I’m afraid it won’t take long to make the connection. People aren’t stupid. They’ll work it out.’

  Her concern is all for Charlotte. ‘But isn’t there some way we can stop the story? What can we do? Don’t you know someone else?’

  Drew ignores her questions, doesn’t quite look at her as he speaks. ‘The thing is, Beth, I’ve been talking to our people in Sydney and they’re a bit worried. It’s possible that it could be used as ammunition against me and against the party – the fact that you work here. I know it’s ridiculous, but that’s how it works. So, we’re thinking it might be better for everyone if we let you go. Not necessarily permanently; just until this dies down.’

  Beth looks at him blankly, his words only slowly sinking in.

  ‘In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do.’ His eyes meet hers directly now, his smile’s energy returning. ‘You know I know everyone, Beth. I’m sure this can all be fixed.’

  DizzyLizzy.com

  Let Sleeping Friends Lie

  C and I are going through a car wash, listening to the swish and batter of the brushes across the top of the car. C is entranced by the whole wax and polish show, but I have to avert my eyes, so I don’t feel seasick. Going through the car wash used to be a regular and important feature of our NJ life, but we never seem to get around to it here. I’ve taken time off work to catch up on some important life admin stuff (including washing this incredibly filthy vehicle) so I thought I’d take the opportunity.

  You see, in the quiet moments, our car wash conversations can be pretty profound. So many important things revealed (the enforced intimacy, the lack of eye contact); so many lessons given and taken. Surely these moments (and I’ve missed so many of them lately) are what mothering’s all about?

  The topic du jour is friendship – or more specifically, the frenzied dance that passes as friendship when you’re a teenage girl. But suddenly, shockingly, C wants to know about my life.

  ‘So, who’s your best friend, Mum?’

  Who’s my best friend? That’s not something I’ve thought about, lately. I’m not sure I even know what a best friend means at this stage of life.

  I give the regulation answer. ‘Well, I guess it’s Dad.’

  C looks doubtful. ‘But don’t you have a real best friend, Mum? I mean a friend who’s a girl – like, someone your own age? Someone who’s not family?’

  ‘It’s different when you grow up.’ I don’t need to see her expression to know that what I’ve said is lame. I’m about to qualify it with a long spiel about how once you have children, everything changes, that suddenly nothing else, not work, not friendship, seems as important anymore, but the brush intervenes.

  When the noise subsides, C turns to me. ‘Actually, I can see why Dad’s your bestie. Life must get so boring once you get to your age. I guess there wouldn’t be any point having an actual best friend – it’s not like you ever go anywhere or do anything fun. What would you even talk about? At least if it’s Dad you can both just go to sleep when you’re bored of one another.’

  Tedious individual that I am, I immediately take the teaching opportunity that my sweet daughter has handed me:

  ‘That should actually be bored with, honey. Or by. Never of.’

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  24

  EXPATTERINGS:

  @BlueSue says:

  Best friends really are something you leave behind when you have kids. For women, family takes centre stage for so many years, and there’s just no time left for anyone (or anything) else. And then when the kids leave home – as they do – I’m afraid we can be left high and dry. My advice is to cultivate strong support networks, ladies – wherever and whenever you can!

  @GirlFromIpanema says:

  From what I’m seeing go on with my little darlings, the sooner so called ‘besties’ are a thing of the past, the better.

  @OzMumInTokyo says:

  Aw, @DizzyLizzy – you know I’ll always be your virtual bestie <3<3<3

  ANDI

  THE JOURNALIST IS DOUBTFUL ABOUT MEETING AT THE BEACH kiosk. ‘It’s winter,’ she objects. ‘Won’t it be cold? Can’t we meet at your place? Or, better still, the hospital?’ But Andi is adamant – she doesn’t want the emotion that she knows would be too close to the surface in either of those places. She wants to stay calm, stay focused, to tell the tale clearly. She wants the outlines to be harsh and stark, not fogged with a sentimentality that might bury the story were the woman to see Sophie herself, or even her bedroom, her home. The stuffed toys on the bed, the family photos, the piano that hasn’t been touched for days – all the soul-shattering – and emotionally loaded – evidence of a young life that might be so tragically truncated.

  No, Andi wants none of this in the article. She doesn’t want it to be a tear-inducing story of a child’s despair, her parents’ agony; she wants a sharp, angry piece, a piece not to wrench at the heartstrings but to ignite fires. She knows that no names can be mentioned, that the most she can do is feed the rumours, that the piece will have to be phrased carefully. But she doesn’t care: she wants, she needs, to respond in kind to the cold, wicked indifference of those children – and of that particular child.

  It’s revenge she’s after – not consolation.

  The beach is the right choice. She arrives early, finds a spot in the sun, out of the wind. The crispness of the air, the tang of the salt calm her and strengthen her resolve.

  She orders a coffee, a latte. It’s the first proper coffee she’s had, she realises, since this all happened. Her appetite’s shot, and a
nyway there’s no real coffee in the hospital. To go out and buy a drink elsewhere seems like an indulgence, evidence of some sort of pleasure principle that’s beyond her right now. And eating itself has become nothing more than an irritating necessity. There have been several deliveries of food left on their front verandah – offerings of cupcakes, brownies, chocolate slice, soup, quiche, big slabs of lasagne. Meals that can be frozen and are easy to portion and reheat in the hospital kitchen. Someone at the school must have organised a cooking bee – all those good community-minded women who volunteer to help out in times of emergency, tragedy. Steve has eaten the meals most nights, forking the food in hurriedly, but Andi can hardly bring herself to touch them. The nursing staff have chivvied her – you have to eat, you need to keep up your strength. You’re a nursing mother. Think of Gus. Think of Sophie. But when she looks at the bag of pap that’s keeping her daughter alive, the act of chewing and swallowing turns her stomach. She eats enough to keep alive, like Sophie, that’s all she can do. When she looks in the mirror she barely recognises herself. Her hair is wild, her face is gaunt, her eyes stare out of her head like a mad woman’s. She may be thinner than she has been for years, but like all the other things that once seemed important, this fact has no bearing on her happiness.

  But now, sitting alone on a cold metal bench, breathing in the briny air, sipping on the too-hot, too-bitter brew, watching the other people – all immersed in their own worlds, oblivious to hers – she feels some relief. She would be content to stay here by herself for a few hours, just to be. Here, watching the seagulls, the waves, soaking up the sun, it seems almost possible to not-think.

  By the time Arabella arrives, sliding in beside her, silently pushing over another cup of coffee, Andi has lost track of time altogether. ‘I noticed you’d already had one, so I asked the guy at the coffee shop if he remembered what you ordered.’ The journalist’s voice is low, soothing. ‘He didn’t know about sugar, so I brought three.’ She pushes sugar and a stirrer over. ‘I like mine black and unsweetened. But you never know.’

  Andi is surprised by the woman. Although she’s seen her publicity shots, in the flesh she’s not who Andi expects. And she’s certainly not a typical Arabella. It’s a name that Andi associates with the Monty Python version of the English upper classes. A name that seems most suited to haughty, horsey, polo-playing types. But there’s nothing remotely horsey about this Arabella. She’s a big lady, tall and solid. She’s pale and very blonde, perhaps of Germanic or Scandinavian origin, and her face isn’t beautiful, but it’s striking, what would once have been referred to as handsome, Andi supposes. All of her features are large – eyes, nose, lips, chin. Her outfit is loose and layered, the fabric Eastern, hippy-ish. It’s an odd choice for such a statuesque woman, but somehow suits her.

  They sit and watch the waves, sipping their coffee for another ten minutes or so, barely speaking. Eventually Arabella reaches into her bag and brings out a recorder the size of a phone, and places it on the table in front of her. ‘So,’ she says in her measured way, ‘are you ready to tell me this story?’

  There is something reassuring about the woman, her bulk, her calmness, something that adds to the unexpected serenity that Andi feels just being here, away from the muted terror of the hospital room. She tells her the story, slowly, grappling with the order of events, finding it difficult to keep things chronological and coherent. But Arabella asks all the right questions, draws out memories she has all but forgotten. Were there any early incidents of bullying when she was a very small child? There was an incident way back when Sophie was in daycare – another child constantly pinching her. And Sophie had a hard time in kindergarten. It was one particular girl then, who claimed that Sophie was using her pencils, copying her work, but this had been easy to sort out. Sophie was teased by some dreadful girl when she first started at the college. But they thought this was all over; that particular girl had left the school.

  So did you recognise that there was something wrong back then? Did anyone suggest counselling? No, it never occurred to them that it was a real problem. Sophie had bounced back as far as they could see. And made some good friends. It just seemed like one of the ordinary inevitable hardships of childhood. Girl stuff.

  It hadn’t seemed like a pattern then – it’s only now, when Andi adds it up, when recent events are taken into account, that a pattern has begun to emerge.

  She tells Arabella about the events of this year: how Sophie’s only good friends had recently left the school. How when Charlotte arrived she hoped that Sophie and Charlotte would become friends and did everything in her power to encourage the relationship. Charlotte seemed to be a lovely girl – she was smart and friendly – and the two girls seemed to get on so well; Sophie adored her. Andi was friends with Charlotte’s mother, and the older girl, Lucy, seemed lovely too. Andi hoped so much that a friendship would develop that she didn’t notice what was going on under her nose. Until it was too late.

  And so to the crux of the story. Andi tells the journalist about Charlotte’s bullying, gives her all the details she has about what went on. She’s compiled evidence of the virtual crime scene with the help of Bridie and Matty and their parents – links to, and printouts of, all the pages, screenshots of the now missing website, the ASKfm pages, some comments the two girls discovered on Instagram and Twitter. She’s brought the disappointingly inconclusive police report: once they’d confirmed that the ISP was public, the computer untraceable, the police could take their investigations no further. She tells her what she knows about physical terrorising – incidents other classmates have reported or admitted to – cornering Sophie in the hallway, the shunning of her in the classroom and during lunch.

  Andi tells her about the hospital visit, confiding that the thing that wounds is that she, too, was so taken in by this child, who on the surface is all friendly charm, but who, in reality, is manipulative and cruel, and only God knows how ruthless. She tells her about the rumours that Charlotte has done something like this before; that her bad behaviour was the real reason for the family’s return from the United States. ‘You need to spell it out,’ Andi tells her. ‘You need to warn everyone that this child is dangerous.’

  It’s an odd conversation; all one way. The woman remains opaque, revealing nothing about herself. When Andi tries to locate her, asking her basic things about her own life – Where do you live? Do you have children? Are you married? – she deflects the questions skilfully. It’s a little like a conversation with a therapist, she imagines, or perhaps a priest.

  Despite the therapeutic dimensions, Andi is very careful about what she reveals. After all, she doesn’t want this story to be about her. So she doesn’t mention her anxiety about her own role, how she didn’t enjoy the initial months of motherhood the first time around, how she put Sophie in childcare and went back to work as early as she could. She doesn’t mention that her first thought was that somehow, inadvertently, Sophie had been pushed too hard with her music. Or that she couldn’t help wondering whether she’d neglected her emotionally during the years of IVF. She says nothing about their distance after Gus arrived and her guilt for resenting her adolescent daughter’s needs.

  She glosses over their family life, too – as far as she is concerned, they are a perfect little family unit, and Sophie, before all this, was happy, talented, well-adjusted. But these omissions are an effort. Part of her wants to tell the woman everything, to find out what she thinks. She is desperate to have someone, anyone, tell her what she wants to hear – to tell her that it’s not her fault, that she couldn’t have done anything to stop it.

  But the woman is a writer, not a priest – and Andi knows her absolution would be meaningless anyway.

  WWW.GOLDENCHILD.COM

  THE GOLDEN CHILD’S TEN LESSONS FOR SUCCESS

  LESSON NINE: PLAYING FAVOURITES

  Some parents, maybe most parents, have a favourite child. There’s always that special one – a golden child – who’s just that little bit more li
ke them, or less like them, or kinder, or smarter, or prettier, or whateverer. It might be unfair, but that’s just how it is.

  But some parents, bless them, just won’t choose. It doesn’t seem to matter that one kid’s just about perfect and the other one’s a complete ass: they just keep on going with all their lame-o unconditional love shit.

  Let me tell you – these kinda parents can be hard work. But with a bit of imagination, a bit of initiative, eventually they’ll come around to your way of thinking.

  You can think of it as a game – it’s just that nobody else knows they’re playing.

  COMMENTS

  @SANDRADEE says:

  Hi there. This might not be the right place, but I’m trying to remember the words to an old clapping game with a rhyme about a child of gold?

  @HESTERIA replied:

  Could it be pot of gold, not child? I remember this one:

  Oh little play mate

  I cannot play with you

  My dolly’s got the flu

  And the german measles too

  Slide down my rainbow

  Into my pot of gold

  @SANDRAD replied:

  Oh, thanks heaps, @hesteria. That’s the one. But I think we said sister, not dolly. ☺

  @RANDOMREADER replied:

  Wtf is a clapping game anyway? Russian roulette with STDs?

  BETH

  ONCE, THIS PARTICULAR SCENARIO WOULD HAVE BEEN HER worst nightmare. Now, even though it has been overtaken by other, more immediate horrors, the prospect of the two women – her mother and mother-in-law – spending time together, being in the same house, the same room even, still makes Beth feel highly anxious. She tries talking to Dan about it, tries to persuade him that just this once the Sunday night dinner at his mother’s could be cancelled, that perhaps they should just spend time with her mother, whose visits are so rare . . . That surely in their current situation, the stress they are all under . . . ‘Look, we don’t have to tell her that Mum is coming – can’t we just say that Lucy’s sick?’