Page 49 of The Mother-in-Law

‘Pop it with me, champ,’ Ollie says.

‘But I promised Harriet!’

‘I don’t think Harriet will mind, Arch,’ I say and we both look at her in Nettie’s lap, blinking uselessly.

Our Hampton rental isn’t as small as our South Melbourne workers cottage but it isn’t huge by any stretch, particularly with the Christmas tree taking up half the living room. We are short two chairs, so Patrick and Ollie sit on bar stools at one end, looming over the rest of us. Tom looks politely befuddled by the whole thing, and Nettie has said how great it all is enough times to make me wonder who she is trying to convince. In the past, Christmas has either been at Dad’s or with the Goodwins at their Brighton home, and this year was set for the same, until I intervened. It felt to me like time to take some control back.

Ollie was surprisingly enthusiastic. (‘Doing our own Christmas,’ he said. ‘Being the grown-ups, setting new traditions. I like it.’) It was sweet, even if he’s been less than useless when it comes to preparations.

‘Ollie, can you give me a hand in here, please?’ I ask from the kitchen. My face is unbearably hot and, I’m guessing, beet-red. I underestimated the effort it takes to cook a turkey for seven adults and two kids, plus vegetables and gravy and plum pudding and a seafood starter. Like a fool, I refused when Diana and Nettie offered to bring something, saying, as I’ve always yearned to, ‘Just bring yourselves’ (it always sounds so generous and carefree when other people say that). Unfortunately, it also meant I’ve had to spend the morning in a sweat-drenched sundress, cooking up a dinner that was never designed to be eaten at a hot Australian Christmas in a house without airconditioning.

‘Well, Merry Christmas,’ Tom says, raising his beer to knock against Diana’s wineglass. He seems amused, though not disappointed, with his bottle of Victoria Bitter, and Diana is uncomplaining about her glass of lukewarm chardonnay; in fact, she’s had more than one glass. It’s one area where I’d like to give her credit—especially since last Christmas we got through several bottles of Bollinger at her place—but after hearing Nettie’s confession that Diana refused to help her pay for IVF, I’m not feeling like giving Diana any credit whatsoever.

‘Merry Christmas,’ Nettie says, chinking her wineglass with her dad’s beer bottle. She arrived with two bottles of wine and has already polished off one of them. I can’t say I blame her. She’s saved up and been through one round of IVF, which yielded two embryos but neither had transferred successfully. Now, at thirty-nine, she is going to have to start saving for another round, by which point she will be nearly forty and her chances of becoming pregnant will have decreased even further. All the while her parents have more money than they could ever possibly spend. Where is the logic in that? I told Diana I liked her philosophy once, but there is nothing I like about this.

Nettie has held Harriet on her lap for most of the day, refusing to put her down, even as we ate our seafood starters. Now that she is showing signs of being a little sloshed, I wonder if I should take Harriet away. But Patrick seems to be keeping a close eye on her, and he’s only on his first beer, so I decide to leave her be.

‘Reporting for duty,’ Ollie says, joining me in the kitchen. I hand him a pair of oven mitts and he slides them on and disappears into the oven. ‘Maybe, by next Christmas,’ he calls, reaching for the turkey, ‘there’ll be another baby around the table, huh, Nets?’

Everyone pauses, their mouths full of prawns and Thousand Island dressing.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Ollie continues, oblivious, setting the turkey on the counter. ‘Are you going to be one of those types who has the baby while answering emails on her iPhone, then heads from the hospital straight back to the office?’

I send him a death stare, but it’s wasted because he’s happily basting.

‘Actually,’ Nettie says, ‘if I was lucky enough to have a baby, I’d quit my job in a heartbeat. Take a few years out of the rat-race and stay home with my kids, like Lucy has done. I really respect what you’ve done, Luce, and I think you’re a wonderful mother.’

I smile, but I’m feeling nervous.

‘But,’ she continues, ‘it’s all pretty moot since I’m not pregnant and I can’t evenstartanother IVF cycle until we’ve saved up five thousand dollars and I’m thirty-nine and growing older every second.’

Nettie is drunker than I thought, slurring on the word ‘second’ so it sounds more like ‘shecond’. Harriet is balanced precariously on her lap and Tom, as if reading my mind, takes Harriet from her. Ollie has finally stopped basting the turkey and is paying attention. He shoots me a panicked look. Meanwhile Diana takes a careful sip of wine then replaces her glass on the table. ‘So you want to be like Lucy, do you?’

‘Yes,’ Nettie says. There’s a trace of defiance in her voice that has me steeling myself.

‘I see.’ Diana’s voice is calm and controlled and there’s something sinister about it. It puts me on edge. ‘And what do you think would happen to Lucy if Ollie died?’

I open my mouth, but Nettie doesn’t miss a beat.

‘I imagine that Ollie has life insurance.’

‘Enough that Lucy wouldn’t have to work?’ Diana laughs. ‘I doubt it. She has two children to feed, clothe, educate. And what kind of job will she be able to get after taking all these years out of the workforce?’

‘Mum!’ Ollie says.

‘What?’ Diana looks around the room. ‘You all look horrified, but tell me, what would you do, Lucy?’

‘Mum, that’senough!’ Ollie says.

‘Lucy hasn’t even thought about it,’ Diana says, turning away from all of us to look at Nettie. ‘Is that the kind of mother you want to be?’

Nettie and I rise to our feet and Tom and Ollie struggle to insert themselves between us and Diana.

‘You want to know what kind of mother I’d like to be?’ Nettie screams. ‘The kind thathelpsher children when they come to her for help. The kind that makes them feel good about themselves, instead of like lazy, worthless spongers.’

‘So you’ll give your children anything they want?’ Diana says. Her pitch rises slightly and I can see she is starting to get flustered. ‘Teach them they can have something for nothing and not have to work for anything?’

‘You think I haven’tworkedfor a child?’ Nettie’s voice is ragged, her face red. ‘I’ve been trying for three years. I’ve been on every fertility drug known to man. I’ve done two failed rounds of IVF. I’ve had four miscarriages.’