Free The Mothers' Group by Fiona Higgins Page B

downtrodden and demoralised.’
    â€˜Oh come on,’ she scoffed. ‘What could you possibly need support for? You’ve got me and Nicole. Don’t tell me she’s not working for you?’
    He couldn’t refute it, she knew.
    â€˜Right you are, Counsel.’
    Ginie stared at the gridlock, snaking across the Spit Bridge and up into Mosman. She sipped at her takeaway coffee. Some mornings were better than others, when she left Rose with Nicole. There were times she practically ran down the driveway, eager for the sanctuary of her car. But other days, and today was one of them, she felt a peculiar tightness creep across her chest as she slipped into her charcoal grey two-piece. She’d watched them in the rear-view mirror, a lump in her throat, as she drove away. Nicole standing in the driveway, flapping Rose’s hand madly before turning back towards the house to start on the breakfast clean-up.
    She glanced at her watch. Right about now Nicole would be putting Rose down for her morning sleep and Daniel would be taking a shower before retreating to his home office. Sometimes he’d take Rose for a walk at midday while Nicole had lunch, sending a digital snap of Rose to Ginie’s iPhone. Receiving such images in the middle of a meeting would instantly affect her: she’d flush red with pride or love or, sometimes, a wave of jealousy. She envied Daniel all the time he spent with Rose—unencumbered fun time, with Nicole at the ready to do the drudgery of changing nappies, bottle-feeding, or baths. All the things that Ginie automatically did on the weekends, by virtue of her role as mother.
    Ginie sighed and stared out the car window. She hated thinking like this. All these petty resentments, percolating non-stop. I’ve turned into a bloody whingeing mother, she thought. Just like my mother, always bitching about something. Quit it, Ginie, she said to herself. You chose this path.
    As if on cue, her iPhone chimed.
    Where are you? Arnold wrote. You have an eight o’clock. Kentridge and Co.
    â€˜Oh, fuck.’
    She’d arranged it the Friday before, she remembered, on her day off. But somehow she’d failed to put it in her calendar. Thank God she had an ally in Arnold. She hurriedly texted him back.
    Cover me? Buy you lunch.
    She shook her head, castigating herself. Her job wasn’t working for her anymore, in so many ways. She’d been back at Coombes Taylor Watson for more than two months and, on the surface, she’d slipped seamlessly back into corporate life. Nothing had changed in the office, yet she was different somehow. Things she hadn’t noticed before were becoming regular irritants in her day: the partners’ expectations of acceptable working hours (arrival by eight, dinner at your desk); the extended networking lunches with boozy clients; the hours wasted on water-cooler trivia or nonessential meetings. All of it was precious time she could have been spending with Rose. She loved her work—the intellectual stimulation, the expertise she’d accrued, the relationships she’d developed in the office. But for all of that, she loved Rose more.
    She remembered the exclusive Catholic girls’ school at which she’d been educated. The headmistress, Sister Ursula—a formidable woman of indeterminate age—had drilled her charges with the mantra ‘girls can do anything’. As a teenager, Ginie had admired her energy and conviction in assembly, as she exhorted her students to study law, medicine, engineering. The world had been hard for women once, Sister Ursula had said, but not now. These days, girls, biology isn’t destiny. You’re limited only by your imaginations. You can do it all.
    Only now, with Ginie back in the office and her four-month-old daughter at home, Sister Ursula’s words rang hollow. The worlds of work and family weren’t that easily reconcilable. Contrary to the propaganda, Ginie