Tiddas Page 24

  ‘And Izzy.’ She breathed deeply again. ‘I’m sorry you find me an embarrassment to your family. You must know I love Richard more than life itself.’

  ‘Of course I know that,’ Izzy said, but it wasn’t her love for Richard that Izzy was worried about.

  ‘And I love you too,’ Nadine confirmed. ‘And I hate that your mum thinks I’ve shamed your family.’ She hung her head.

  ‘Mum’ll get over it,’ Izzy said, only half-believing it. Her mother wasn’t big on forgiveness but for her son she’d do almost anything. ‘What’s going on though, Nadine? We’re all worried about you, and . . .’ She stopped short of mentioning Nadine’s drinking problem.

  ‘I know it’s not an excuse, but part of the reason I’ve been so crazy lately is that I’m ill.’

  Izzy looked at her sister-in-law and immediately thought liver cancer. Xanthe thought breast cancer. Veronica’s ex-doctor’s-wife mind ran a list through her head, and Ellen just felt bad for all the bitching she’d done about Nadine over the last few months.

  ‘What is it?’ Izzy rested her hand on Nadine’s to stop it from shaking.

  ‘I’m going through menopause,’ Nadine said dramatically.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Nadine!’ Ellen just couldn’t contain herself. ‘It isn’t a fucking illness, it’s a fucking life cycle, like puberty for grown-ups.’

  ‘Thanks for the sympathy, Ellen; you’ll feel differently as soon as you start getting the symptoms.’

  ‘Sympathy? God, you’re so dramatic sometimes. Are you in character or something?’ Ellen was right back where she and Nadine had left off months ago; the apologies and forgiveness and guilt had dissipated as quickly as they had appeared.

  ‘I think I’ve started as well, Nadine, but I think at our age, we’re probably just peri-menopausal,’ Veronica said, feeling some sympathy. ‘I’ve had night sweats, and I’m not sleeping well.’

  ‘Really? God, I have to turn my pillow over constantly for something cool. Richard is going insane. I kick the covers off both of us nearly every night.’

  ‘Sometimes when I’m driving, the heat on my back from the seat is so unbearable I have to lean forward.’ Veronica continued with her symptoms and Nadine was grateful for some understanding, although the others didn’t look overly concerned.

  ‘Aside from the hot flushes, I keep having these strange out of body experiences and they scare me,’ Nadine said. ‘And I find concentrating hard, but this is the worst thing: I’m getting violent.’

  ‘What?’ the other women chorused, concerned for what she had already done, and might do next. Up until now they’d assumed she was just making excuses for her bad behaviour when drinking.

  ‘Guess I better move the butter knife then,’ Ellen said sarcastically.

  ‘Richard swears I nearly killed him a couple of times.’

  ‘What?’ Izzy was shocked.

  ‘My hormones make me insane and his snoring was freaking me out and I tried suffocating him in his sleep. Twice!’ A smirk crept across her face. ‘The only positive is that it gave me an idea for a novel.’

  ‘Nadine!’ Izzy wasn’t impressed.

  ‘I’m joking. I actually cried for a week with guilt.’

  ‘And so you should,’ Izzy said, the only one of the women game enough to have a dig, because she was, after all, family.

  ‘Everything is topsy-turvy for me: my emotions, my mind, my body. I’m completely out of control and the hot flushes not only nearly made me go nuts, they’re also embarrassing.’ Nadine looked around the restaurant to make sure no-one could hear. It was rare for her do that, but tonight she was sober. ‘I was doing a book event when a uni student wanted to ask me some questions about his masters. I’m standing there feeling this flush come over me and my damned glasses fogged up.’

  ‘No way!’ Ellen laughed.

  ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. I swear he thought it was because of him!’

  ‘What did you do?’ Veronica felt for her tidda, knowing exactly what she was feeling.

  ‘Nothing, what could I do? I gave him the advice and moved away as quickly as I could. Richard thought it was hilarious.’

  ‘So what are you doing about it then?’ Xanthe asked, hoping that she didn’t slip into peri-menopausal hysteria before falling pregnant, but then perhaps she wasn’t falling pregnant because she was already there. She thought she could feel a hot flush coming on but then figured it was like getting an itchy head the minute someone mentioned the word lice.

  ‘I’m using HRT patches, they’re great.’ Nadine told them.

  ‘Where are they?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘In the fridge.’

  ‘No, idiot, where on your body?’ Ellen said, laughing.

  And the tiddas all joined in. It was the first laugh they’d had together for some time.

  As the laughter subsided the waiter came to take drink orders.

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks,’ Nadine said to everyone’s surprise.

  ‘Not drinking?’ Izzy asked, happy her sister-in-law had finally come to terms with her problem.

  ‘I think we all know it doesn’t help my moods or my behaviour.’ Nadine looked at the table, unable for the moment to look at her friends. ‘I need some help, I know that.’

  ‘We’ll help you,’ Veronica said, concerned for her friend and knowing how much support her tiddas had given her in recent months.

  ‘I’ve got some ideas.’ Nadine reached into her handbag and pulled out some brochures. ‘I need to get out of the house, out of my routine, and I need to do something rather than sit and write and create scenarios for other people, even if they are characters.’ She handed around the pamphlets on Bikram yoga, rock climbing, rowing.

  ‘Wow,’ Xanthe said. ‘You’re going all out, aren’t you?’

  ‘I need to be busy.’

  ‘I can take you to Bikram if you want. I’d love the company.’ Xanthe was genuinely keen.

  ‘Great, and I’m open to other ideas as well.’ Nadine was positive, happy. Best of all, she wasn’t drunk.

  Izzy wondered if her sister-in-law had replaced the grog with pills instead.

  ‘You just need some balance in life, Nadine. You don’t have to go from one extreme to another,’ Xanthe reassured her.

  And you probably should go to counselling, Izzy thought, but didn’t say out loud.

  Ellen woke up with Craig’s leg over hers. She lay face down, naked, exhausted from an afternoon that had made her never want to leave her bed, ever. Craig snored quietly and she didn’t want to wake him. She just repositioned her head more comfortably on the pillow and lay there looking at him; at the lines around his eyes, the bushiness of his eyebrows, the remnants of her lipstick around his mouth. She snorted at the thought of the Clinique red on his dick as well. She’d check that out later, when he was awake.

  As the sun started to set she began to get hungry. She needed to eat, but she didn’t want to wake him. And she had no food in her flat. They’d have to go out or order in. She didn’t care; she just wanted to be with him, near him, next to him, under him. As long as he was not far away.

  Craig’s phone rang and he jumped up, startled.

  ‘Leave it,’ Ellen said.

  ‘I can’t, it might be work.’

  He got out of bed, strolling in all his naked glory to where his jeans lay tangled on the floor.

  Ellen was agitated, anxious; she didn’t want him to leave.

  ‘Yeah mate, no worries, about an hour, yep.’

  She was getting angry and upset.

  ‘Gotta go, darl,’ he said.

  ‘Come here first,’ she said, still naked with the sheet across her.

  ‘Oh, you make me weak. I have nothing left for you, babe, you’ve drained me!’

  ‘Just kiss me.’ She pulled him to her.

  He couldn’t resist, he didn’t want to. They made love again, this time with a sense of urgency, and Ellen wondered if it was because he had to leave. To his credit, Cr
aig wasn’t a selfish lover, not one to ‘eat and run’, as he so eloquently put it once. Post-coital, he cradled her, with what she thought was caring.

  ‘I need to tell you something,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘This can’t be good; it never is when a woman says that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Let me guess, you don’t want to see me anymore,’ he said flatly.

  ‘No!’ She sat up. ‘I want to see more of you. Just you, and just me. I want it to be us.’

  As the words came out she wished she’d scripted it better; less pathetic, less teenager-ish, perhaps even a little less needy. But there it was and once it was out in the universe there was nothing she could do about it.

  ‘Oh babe, why would you change this?’ He gently pinched her nipple as if it were a toy. ‘What we have is good, no?’

  ‘It’s good, yes, but I want more.’ She took his hand in hers awkwardly.

  ‘Ah, now you’re being greedy. You want more than this?’ He grabbed his larger than average dick, which they both knew was more than most women could handle.

  ‘I’m falling in love with you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Silence fell in the room; all either of them could hear was the traffic on the Story Bridge that had suddenly risen in decibels.

  ‘You’d better go,’ Ellen said, not with anger, not in tears, just matter-of-factly.

  Craig dressed quickly, walked to the bed where Ellen still sat, pretending to flick through stations on the television. He kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘No point.’

  Ellen didn’t want a man who wanted to see other women. Not anymore. She was angry with herself, with her friends for having encouraged her to tell him. It was against her nature to fall in love, to want only one man who would, as Craig had demonstrated, just leave anyway. The rejection stung.

  Her phone beeped with a text five minutes later. She hoped it said he was falling in love too, that he was just scared. That he was on his way back. Instead it simply read:

  Are you okay?

  She responded:

  I’m fine. But a man who wants to fuck you but doesn’t want a relationship with you is an arsehole. Delete my number!

  She waited for a reply but it never came. What could he say to that anyway?

  Ellen showered, crying as the water ran down her face, down her body – the one that had been much loved and caressed over the course of the afternoon. She wasn’t going to take the humiliating blow lying down, well not lying down alone anyway, so she pulled on a pair of jeans and a tight red top and walked with determined steps to the Story Bridge Hotel.

  There were men everywhere when she arrived. The pub was known for being a pick-up joint. Plenty of bars, plenty of options, plenty of mistakes to be made at her local. She had never ‘scored’ at the Story Bridge before, though. She could easily avoid the men there if she wanted; they were all looking at women ten or more years younger than her anyway. But tonight she was on a mission; a revenge root could be had, but all she wanted was a little attention. A little something to tell her she was worth more than an afternoon shag. Craig had made her feel worthless – and worse, she had let him.

  She soon realised she was in the wrong bar for being picked up. A man of about ninety kept winking at her. Another of about fifty with high-waisted jeans and a baseball cap tucked into his belt kept looking at her longingly. She nearly fell off her chair when he saluted her. Meanwhile the eighteen-year-old barman wanted to buy her a drink after his shift ended.

  She looked around at the women, some obviously on the make; it had been a long time since she’d sat at the bar by herself and just observed the mating rituals of others. She thought back to her Sunday morning breakfast, when the waitress had placed the order for blueberry and ricotta pancakes before she had even sat down at her favourite table on the veranda facing the jacarandas across the road. The view from the café was only spoilt by the Australian flag flying outside the apartment block in Deakin Street, the Union Jack a stark reminder of the ongoing colonisation of her mob. Ellen reminded herself that Sunday morning was the best time to go to the Story Bridge, before all the divorcees arrived for the afternoon drinking and jam session. Tonight was no time to be there, especially given the mood she was in.

  After her third glass of wine, she carefully got down from the barstool. She ordered a pizza to take away, went to the bottle shop, grabbed something on special, went home, ate two slices, drank one glass of wine and then cursed herself for the carb, sugar and fat intake. She’d run an extra K the next morning to feel better. And she’d wipe Craig from her life completely.

  15

  FLASH WOMEN

  As Izzy entered the Flash Women exhibition in kuril dhagun

  she heard the soulful voice of Georgia Corowa, then saw the young woman elegantly perched on a stool in a black version of Marilyn Monroe’s plunging neckline dress. She was strumming her guitar to welcome guests on their arrival.

  Izzy wove through the crowds which included the Minister, local Elders, the exhibitors, kids from Doomadgee State School, frocked up women from across the city wearing fascinators, and one or two men supporting their women.

  She blinked twice, taking in the enormity of the Uluru dress with its metres and metres of burnt orange fabric that must have been stretched over a wire frame, Izzy thought, otherwise how did they make it stand up? It was the signature piece of the show and Izzy scanned the room for the designer, Juliette Knox, who was best known as the entrepreneur behind the Little Black Dress Empire. But it was the Warrior Woman dress that carried her back home to Wiradjuri country and the strong women who had led the way for her personally. Izzy stared through the glass at the emu feather cloak and imagined herself in it.

  She spotted the first Aboriginal model, Sandra Georgiou, across the room and wished it got cold enough in Brisbane to wear the cream cape that Georgiou had designed.

  Oddly enough, it was the wedding dresses that Izzy spent most time admiring. She’d never thought about getting married before. But with a baby on the way, marriage was just another thing that pressed on her brain, something she knew her mother would want to see happen, sooner rather than later. She looked at Jacynthia Ghee’s wedding dress from 1957 and read her words: ‘Love is not really an emotion – it’s a purity of feeling – it’s different to an emotional state.’

  What does that actually mean? Izzy thought.

  Izzy read out loud a quote by Sharon Phineasa whose carved haircombs were on display: ‘Your appearance is an outward expression of an inward connection.’ It was a positive affirmation for Indigenous women, and reminded her of all her strong tiddas across the country, many of whom were ‘flash women’ indeed.

  Izzy’s back was aching as she interviewed the curator, Walbira Murray, who gave insights into the lives of the women featured in the exhibition.

  ‘I’ve witnessed the lateral violence against our women telling them that they can’t be flash and Black. I wanted to tell them through this exhibition that we as Aboriginal women have always been flash. To think about how their mothers and grandmothers used to dress,’ Murray said into the camera, Izzy nodding in agreement.

  ‘I need to change the battery,’ a young cameraman advised Izzy.

  ‘That’s fine, I think we have enough. Walbira, thanks so much for your time,’ and she kissed the woman who had a queue of well-wishers waiting to speak to her.

  Izzy took a deep breath and sat down, quietly glad that her day was almost over. It was one of the most inspiring events she’d covered at the library and her last before giving birth. She was grateful to be going into motherhood with such fresh memories of deadly women. She finished her piece with a clip of Aunty Ruth Hegarty from Cherbourg, who in launching the exhibition had said: ‘It really doesn’t matter what colour you are. It’s a female thing. We like to dress up. And if our people can look at beauty rather than the scars within, then we’re doing okay.’
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br />   Nadine sat with brochures, pamphlets and business cards strewn across the table. Words like yoga, tennis, bushwalking, meditation, zumba, crossfit and boot camp stared up at her.

  ‘What’s all this, darling?’

  Richard put a cup of green tea in front of her. There had been no glasses of wine on the veranda for weeks now. That, coupled with the HRT, meant Nadine’s moods and behaviour had improved immeasurably. She was suffering with issues of detoxing but had flatly refused to go to a detox centre or even a grog-free spa in Brisbane. She didn’t want to feel more ashamed than she already did, so the night sweats and the shaking and the vomiting were only seen by her and Richard, the kids having been told that their mother had a bad virus. Nadine had upped her vitamin B intake as recommended on various websites she’d researched, and Xanthe had given her a whole set of organic herbal teas to keep up her hydration. Nadine’s body was starting to repair, but it was the psychological and emotional side of her that needed work. Alcohol had been her friend for so long. It was her writing buddy; it gave her characters voice, and her storylines suspense and action. The problem was that Nadine didn’t think she could create any more without it, so she had decided to take a break for a while to recover, rejuvenate, re-think her needs. And being active was one of those needs.

  ‘I need to do something more, something physical to keep me busy. I’m thinking yoga, zumba, maybe even boot camp.’

  Richard laughed. ‘Nads, let’s be serious, you’d hate boot camp! But I love you’re at least considering something that will get you out of the house more.’

  ‘What about Bikram yoga, then? I do Pilates, so I should be able to do yoga.’

  ‘My flexible wife gets more flexible? I’m liking that idea already.’

  ‘You are very naughty.’ She ran her hand down the zip of his work shorts, but he pulled away, smiling. ‘Let me finish sweeping first.’

  Nadine read another brochure and considered the Kundalini yoga class in The Gap. She could go there with Veronica perhaps, although she couldn’t recall Vee ever talking about yoga. Vee went bushwalking, and Nadine was convinced she did scrapbooking too but was too embarrassed to admit it.