One True Thing (26 page)

The show is running late and I spend most of the time in the wings, wishing I'd never started a band in the first place. It's hot and uncomfortable and I'm not even on stage yet. I slip out the side entrance and spend the next fifteen minutes remembering how to breathe.

I'm about to go back in when a bunch of kids from school show up, Travis Matthews in the lead. I could slink back inside and no one would see me. I
could
.

‘Travis!' I call out, heading towards the group.

‘Yeah?' He's not exactly welcoming but he hasn't insulted me yet, so that's got to mean something.

‘Listen …' I look at his mates, hanging around. I have no idea if they've seen the news yet, if they know the
truth about Colin. It won't matter to them. They've never let the truth get in the way of a good story, either. ‘Have you got a minute?'

He studies me briefly, then waves at his mates. ‘See you inside.'

There's the expected chorus of guffaws and obscene suggestions about what Travis and I are apparently about to do, but it's just noise. Noise and bullshit. They can't hurt me if I don't let them, and I won't.

Travis looks slightly embarrassed.

‘Hey, I know Mum's thanked you officially and everything, about Luke. The award nomination is cool.'

He looks at the sky. ‘I already thanked her for nominating me.'

‘I didn't mean that.' I brush my hair behind my ears, wondering how he became this difficult, angry boy, so different from the one I knew. I think about his dad, what it would have been like for Travis to lose him so young. Maybe it's as simple as that. Or maybe this is just who he is. ‘It doesn't seem enough but … thanks.'

Travis looks around, as if he would rather be anywhere than here, and quickly nods.

‘Did you see the news?' I press on, because this is the thing I want to thank him for myself. He probably knows – after all his crap this term, I have to assume he's got Seamus Hale's blog bookmarked. But Travis hasn't said a word. Not one. In fact, in the few days since the hospital,
he's barely spoken to me at all. Even when I gave him his iPad, all fixed and new, and apologised for breaking it, he just blew me off. Maybe that's the best he can do.

‘Nah. I don't watch the news.'

I should have known. ‘It'll be in the papers soon enough – everyone will be talking about it.'

‘About what?'

‘Colin.'

His jaw firms. ‘What about him?'

‘He's actually my brother. Half-brother.'

Travis's eyes widen, but he recovers quickly. ‘So?'

I take a deep breath, determined not to be defeated. ‘Thanks for taking care of that woman at the pool.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.' He glances over at his mates.

‘You took her phone and stopped everyone from taking photos, from filming it. You helped us. That was really nice of you.'

Travis laughs. ‘I have no idea what you're talking about.' But he turns his enormous body on an angle, effectively blocking his mates' view of me.

I study him closely. ‘Right.' I shake my head. ‘I guess I misunderstood.'

Travis cocks his head. ‘Anything else?'

I sigh. ‘No. Sorry.'

He turns to go and I do the same, heading back towards the side entrance. His mates have lost interest
and are already disappearing inside, and then I sense I'm not alone and I turn to see Travis standing there, having followed me, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

‘Was there something else?' I ask.

‘If he hurts you, he'll hear from me.'

‘What? Who?'

‘D'Angelo.'

‘Jake's not going to –'

‘Whatever.' And then he's gone and I have no idea what just happened.

We end up going on stage an hour later than scheduled. Jake is in the front with Gran, and even though it's against the rules, he is secretly recording our show so Luke can watch it later. Mr Campaspe is there too, hanging out with other teachers he knows.

I squint into the audience, barely able to make out any faces because the lights are hot and unbearably bright, but I know roughly where they are, and when Kessie announces ‘Love Song', I move to the front of the stage.

She beams and the whole band seems to ramp it up. Kessie sings the first line of the original lyrics but, like we'd planned before the show, she shifts into a different key, making room for the harmony.

I step up to the microphone and join in, our voices melding smoothly, hers high, mine deeper, lower but
the right match. Then Kessie steps back, leaving me to sing on my own, and even though a thrill of terror runs through me, I don't falter. I don't stop. I let the music take me in, feel it surround me so completely. It feels
right
. It feels exactly like it's supposed to. I smile as she takes over, keeping the love song just like it was, but she's singing at Tyler,
for
Tyler. Tyler winks boldly at my best friend, and the heat of those lights is nothing compared to the heat between them.

As I take over for the last chorus, letting the lyrics and the band take me away, I close my eyes and see this new thing in my mind. This shiny, new thing – my friends, my maybe-boyfriend and my band, formerly known as No Politics.

‘Thank you!' Kessie says at the end of the set, grinning at me. Tyler and Van stand up for the applause before they take their positions for the final song.

‘This is a new song,' Kessie says, ‘called “One True Thing”, and you've been listening to The New Normal!'

Hours later, showered and ready for bed but too pumped to even attempt sleep, I switch on my laptop. I can hear Mum and Dad in the kitchen, moving about in companionable silence. I'm tempted to join them but decide they don't need me getting in the way. I don't need them right now, either.

I click through to the news sites and watch Mum's press conference with Seamus Hale from beginning to end. There are lots of questions about Colin's dad and Mum's relationship with him, but she holds steady on that, reminding them that she was young – still a child herself, really – and that she's not here to talk about people who can't defend themselves. They ask about the trip to Ireland with Gran and the decision to adopt Colin out.

‘I didn't know what to do, but I knew I couldn't be a mother. Not on my own,' she says. ‘I thought my mother would change her mind and agree to help me.' She forces a smile. ‘It was a different time – she had already raised me herself, alone. My father left soon after I was born. She did not –
would
not – allow the same thing to happen to her daughter.'

‘Do you blame her?' Seamus asks.

Mum thinks about this. I watch her choose her words with that careful patience that has made her such a powerhouse in Parliament. ‘It has taken me many years to understand that decision, to understand my mother's reasons.' She tilts her head, thinking some more. ‘I have made
peace
with it. Perhaps that's all anyone can do.'

I think about Gran at the concert tonight, acting like a teenager, dancing with Jake in the audience, dominating every space she filled. I should have been mortified. I would have been once. But she was so completely, unapologetically …
herself
.

You really have to admire that.

I watch Mum tell Seamus about the couple from Gran's village in Ireland who desperately wanted a child, the process of handing him over when he was born and how broken and lost she felt afterwards. But that she knew inside herself that it was the better choice for the baby. At least, it felt like it at the time.

‘When my mother and I arrived home, we learnt that the baby's father had passed away.' Her lips tremble slightly. ‘It was a difficult time,' she says, barely able to look at the camera. ‘I was …
bereft
. I couldn't bear to hear from the couple or about the baby. I could only try to get on with my life. And I tried to put it all behind me.'

I watch her hands shake as she talks about the moment she learnt that Colin was never adopted – that the family took him back to the orphanage, and how she began the process of trying to find him that very day. But it was so many years later and the orphanage had destroyed most of the records. When she learnt about the forced adoptions that had happened here, in Australia, she knew immediately that she needed to fix this – to bring these women back together with their babies, to help them find each other even if she could never do the same for herself.

She looks down, studies her hands clasped on her lap, then looks up, collected. And in that instant, she is transformed. Once again, she is Premier Mulvaney, the woman who wants to change the world, or at least her
corner of it. The woman who will not stand by and let evil be done.

I see then, perhaps for the first time, that there are not different versions of Rowena Mulvaney. There is not the Premier, the mother, the daughter and the wife. She is all of them – sometimes all at once. There would be no Premier Mulvaney without the moments – the good, the bad, the difficult – that led up to this one. And that includes the moment she surrendered to her mother's decision. The moment twenty-eight years ago when she handed over her squalling, newborn son.

I'm a part of it – of her – too, and not just a product of her – just as she is a part of me. We all are. The apple needs the tree, just as much as the tree needs the apple. That's what makes us whole.

When Seamus asks if she's going to visit Colin in Ireland, that carefully constructed calm vanishes and she looks like an ordinary mum – one who aches for the child she left behind. ‘Of course,' she says quietly. ‘I would like very much to see him again, in Ireland or here. Whenever he's ready.' There's a long pause as she considers her words. ‘But these things take time and I'm prepared to wait as long as I need to. As long as Colin needs.' She hesitates, her hands twisting in her lap. ‘I also have to be prepared for the possibility that he won't change his mind.' She shakes her head. ‘It's not my decision anymore. It has to be his.' Her voice catches at this, a quiet hiccup that
disappears as fast as it arrives. She squares her shoulders, matches Seamus's gaze and waits.

The inevitable leadership questions come up, and at first she brushes them off, resorting to the old favourite about being focused on the business of running Victoria.

Seamus exhales noisily, perhaps as annoyed with that worn-out line as I am. ‘Premier, you've abandoned a child, your marriage is in tatters and you have lied to the very people you represent. How can you say you're the right person to lead the government?'

That familiar taste of bile rises in my throat as I watch Seamus Hale resort to the performance he's so famous for, and I wonder again if choosing him was such a smart idea. But when I see Mum smooth her skirt and lift her chin, those square shoulders wide enough to carry a whole family, an entire state, I decide that, actually, this was genius. No one will hit harder than Seamus. It's like ripping off a bandaid – do it fast and do it hard, but get it done.

‘I can't agree with that characterisation, Seamus, and I've made that very clear. But if you're asking whether I can lead Victoria, let me say this: I ask the people of this great state, when they stand at the ballot box, to not think about my family or my clothes or my past. I ask you to consider the actions I've taken in my role as your Premier. The choices my government has made. The change we've effected and our vision for the future. If that means we lose government, then so be it.'

I imagine Harry and her party colleagues holding their breath at her words, knowing that setting up that kind of challenge could just as easily backfire. But she looks into the camera, so composed and ready for anything that it's hard not to believe her. Hard not to trust her that everything will be all right.

‘And what of the woman question?'

‘The “woman question”?' Mum asks, a trace of a smile on her lips.