Читать книгу Worlds Apart - Ber Carroll - Страница 8

‘Look at you! You haven’t changed a bit. You still look exactly the same as you did in college. Bitch!’

Erin laughed at Mel’s exuberant greeting and gave her a warm hug in return. ‘I think you need glasses, Mel. But what about you? You’re completely different.’

Melissa had changed hair colour, body shape, everything. Blonde, tanned, wearing a skimpy top and a very short denim skirt, she looked nothing like the mousey-haired girl who’d been Erin’s best friend in college. She seemed taller than Erin remembered, but maybe that was because she was thinner, and she looked remarkably young – significantly younger than her thirty-four years.

She seized Erin’s arm. ‘Come on, come in. Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport. I had a beginning-of-year staff meeting I couldn’t get out of. Blah, blah, blah … it went on forever. Totally bored out of my senses.’

Mel even sounded younger than her years, if that was possible. However, the mere mention of a staff meeting, even in such irreverent terms, was enough to make Erin want to gag. Oh dear, if she was going to teach at Melissa’s school she would have to start feeling more enthusiastic about it.

‘This is lovely, Mel,’ she said, looking around the living area of her friend’s one-bedroom attic-style apartment. The living space was small, with correspondingly small pieces of furniture, and it was a little dim. The cream walls and sofas had clearly been chosen to introduce more light, and provided a gorgeous contrast to the wooden floorboards, which had a dark, burnished sheen, their age the most striking feature of the room.

‘Come on.’ Melissa ushered her further into the apartment. ‘Fling your bags over there. Now let’s have a drink.’

A short while later, Erin was sitting out on Melissa’s tiny balcony, a glass of sparkling wine in her hand as she absorbed the vista and the smells and sounds around her. Melissa’s apartment was in Balmain, which, she informed Erin, was an old, originally working-class suburb in Sydney’s inner west. Dusk shrouded the narrow streets and houses but did not disguise the obvious character and charm of the area. The houses, squashed together in terraces, had minuscule front gardens and ornate cast-iron balustrades on their first floors. Trees dotted the streets; in fact there was a surprising amount of greenery given that the area was so built-up. Cars were bumper-to-bumper along the kerbs: it looked as though finding a park would be a nightmare.

Melissa, who had seen the view thousands of times, was much more interested in being updated on their old circle of friends than in discussing the charms and challenges of living in Balmain. ‘How about Orla O’Brien?’

‘Married, two children,’ Erin replied dutifully.

‘Angela Harris?’

‘Married, four children.’

‘Deirdre Flynn?’

‘Separated, two kids and another on the way.’

‘Didn’t you just say she was separated?’

‘She is. She has a new fiancé, and he’s the father of the new baby.’

‘Bitch! How can she get two men to marry her when I can’t even get one?’

Erin laughed. ‘I must admit, the same thought occurred to me.’

University had been a much happier experience for Erin than her years at school. She and Melissa had been part of an eclectic group of friends: Angela Harris, a plump girl whose raucous laugh could carry for miles; Orla O’Brien, skin and bones next to Angela, with frizzy hair that was the bane of her life; Deirdre Flynn, a self-confessed slapper and party girl; Mel, enthusiastic and always ready for adventure; Erin, still lacking in confidence but happier than she’d ever been. Everyone in the group had a place, their differences accepted and even celebrated. They used to tease each other, roll their eyes on occasion, but they had never ever sneered.

‘Bitch,’ Melissa repeated, her good-natured grin making the word sound quite harmless, almost affectionate. ‘Well, at least you’re here now and we can be shamelessly single together. It’ll be just like the old days. Remember?’

Though it felt like a lifetime ago, Erin did remember. She pictured herself and Melissa twelve years younger, their faces softer and full of wonder as they travelled through Europe; drinking cold, fizzy beer as they sampled the nightlife of each new city; that sense of invincibility as high-speed trains whizzed them from one country to the next; lugging backpacks and guidebooks and an emergency supply of instant noodles to each new destination. France, Italy, Greece. Then on to Asia: India, Nepal, Vietnam and finally Thailand, where she’d got the call about her father.

‘You have to come home,’ Moira had sobbed. ‘I’m sorry, Erin, but you have to come home.’

And so Erin had gone home, and left Melissa on her own to spend another couple of weeks in Asia before she flew to Australia, the next stop on their itinerary. Melissa fell in love with Australia, so much so that she applied for a permanent visa and stayed on, living a life that could have been Erin’s too – if only her father hadn’t got cancer.

‘How is your mother?’ Mel asked gently, obviously sensing Erin’s disquiet.

‘The same,’ she replied with a heavy sigh. ‘She has good days and bad days, and even on the good days she’s liable to do anything … I really shouldn’t be here, Mel – Mum’s in no state to be left alone.’

‘Now, Erin, listen to me,’ Mel began in her most formidable teacher’s voice. ‘You’ve put your life on hold for twelve years. First for your father, and now your mum. She could live with this Alzheimer’s for another five to ten years. Where would you be then? It could be twenty years – twenty of your best years – you’ll have given up.’

What Mel was saying made sense, and Erin had heard it plenty of times before – from Laura and the rest of the family, and even from her own doctor. It seemed that everyone agreed it was unreasonable to expect a daughter or a son to give up ten or twenty years to care for a sick parent. And it seemed that everyone had some kind of threshold (‘I’d sacrifice one or two years, but not five’). But how could one apply a threshold without knowing the full picture? Without knowing at the outset what time period was involved? How long the illness might last? How bad it might get? Without that information, all one could do was make the decision day-by-day – and day-by-day it had been inconceivable to leave her father when he was terminally ill, and just as inconceivable to leave her mother when she began to show signs of memory loss straight after her husband’s death. In fact, leaving had been out of the question until Erin’s health and own mental state had become a problem.

‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ she said with forced brightness. ‘Top up my glass and tell me everything I need to know about Sydney.’

Much later on, lying on Mel’s surprisingly comfortable sofa bed but not feeling the slightest bit sleepy, Erin put her guilt to one side and allowed herself to feel a sense of accomplishment. She was here. She had put the final few bits and pieces into her suitcase, weathered the emotional goodbyes to her mother and Laura, and got on the plane. She was here. She had made it. Step one: tick. Step two was to get a job; she was meeting the department head at Mel’s school tomorrow. Step three: find somewhere to live; using Mel’s tiny living room as digs was obviously not going to be feasible in the long term. And step four, she impulsively decided, was to have a relationship, any kind of relationship, even a dead-end one. It had been far too long.

She still felt scared, and each of the ‘steps’ she’d just decided on was more frightening than the last. But adrenaline was rushing through her veins, tingling her fingers and toes, and diluting her fear to the point where she hardly even knew that it was there. In fact, the adrenaline was so powerful that it was all she could do not to leap from the bed and rush outside to meet this new life head on.

It’s the dead of night, she told herself sternly. Settle down.

Easier said than done. An hour or so later, her throat dry and scratchy, she got up to get a glass of water. Drinking at the kitchen sink, she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t taken her vitamins since she’d left Ireland. Her sanity hinged on those vitamins; it was no wonder she couldn’t rest tonight. Turning on the lamp in the front room, she moved around the clothes in her suitcase until she located the small plastic container that held all the pills: gingko, Omega-3, Gotu Kola, vitamin C, vitamin E and the all-important vitamin B Complex. She swallowed each tablet with a gulp of water, and returned to bed feeling even more alert. Rummaging in her luggage once again, this time in her cabin bag, she located her book of Sudoku puzzles. On the plane she’d completed eight of the ten medium-difficulty puzzles in the book: long-haul flights were perfect for brain training. Tomorrow she would walk to the closest shops and buy herself a sim card for her phone and another Sudoku book.

She finished the remaining two puzzles, drowsiness creeping over her at last. Switching off the lamp, sinking deep under the soft, cotton duvet, she drifted away into a sound sleep.

* * * * *

Laura stood at the kitchen counter gripping her phone with one hand and her coffee mug with the other, trying to stay calm. Kasia was starting this morning – she would be knocking on the door any minute now – and Laura had planned to take the day off work. She’d wanted to settle Kasia in, show her where she would be sleeping and run through some basic house rules while taking the opportunity to observe how she interacted with Olivia. The only problem was that Johan, one of her staff, was on the line declaring that he was sick. Johan was never sick. He was tall and muscular and German, a perfectionist in everything, including health.

‘I am feeling very ill,’ he pronounced in a sad, little-boy voice.

‘But today’s the deadline for the documentation,’ she groaned, forgetting, in her distress, to show him any sympathy. ‘They’re shipping the product tomorrow. It’ll cost thousands if there’s a delay.’

‘I know, I know. I would go in, you know I would, but it is very possible that I would vomit all over the documentation.’

Though she loved Johan, he had a tendency to be too detailed on occasion, and now he’d managed to make her feel queasy too. What was she going to do? Johan was the only German translator on staff, and though they used a number of freelancers for overflow, would she be able to recruit one at such short notice?

‘It’s okay, Johan, I’m sure that I’ll be able to find someone to fill in,’ she said, trying to convince herself as she spoke. ‘But I’ll have to be able to reach you throughout …’

‘I must go,’ Johan yelped and dropped the phone before she could finish.

Oh, dear, he really was very ill. Damn, damn and damn! There was no way she could recruit a freelancer from home. She would have to go into the office. And assuming she actually managed to find someone, she’d have to stay to liaise between the freelancer and Johan at home to ensure that the job was completed to the appropriate standard. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Of all days. And she’d never seen Johan with as much as a sniffle.

The doorbell rang. Kasia. Laura put down her barely touched coffee and somehow mustered a welcoming smile as she walked through the hallway to the front door.

Kasia stood outside in the half-light of the morning, flanked by two large backpacks which apparently contained her belongings. She wore a cotton long-sleeved top, and tight faded jeans. Her feet were clad in cheap-looking ballet pumps. She had no socks or jacket, and though she wasn’t shivering she looked very cold.

‘Welcome, Kasia. Come in. Let me take one of those bags.’

As Laura closed the door behind Kasia, she noticed Olivia standing on the stairs, clutching her teddy in one hand and her baby blanket in the other, her cheeks flushed and warm, her eyes bleary but curious. Her daughter wasn’t shy. In a moment she would walk carefully down the stairs and engage her new nanny in very adult-like conversation. But for now, standing on the steps with her halo of tousled hair, Olivia seemed extraordinarily vulnerable.

How can I go into work and leave her with this stranger? What kind of mother am I? If only Esteban were here …

But Esteban was in Prague and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. He was never at home when things went wrong. Laura felt a spurt of anger. How bloody nice for him to be waking up in a comfortable hotel room and not being torn in two between his child and an emergency at work!

Why am I always the one who’s being compromised?

‘This is your room, Kasia. We’ll leave your bags here. Olivia is across the way, and we’re over there. You can use this bathroom …’

Back downstairs, she showed Kasia the layout of the kitchen, how to work the dishwasher and the location of Olivia’s colouring books and craft. She moved quickly, Kasia and Olivia trailing mutely behind her.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave you to get to know each other without me,’ she said a little breathlessly when she felt the basics had been attended to. ‘Something has come up in the office.’

Kasia and Olivia looked equally disapproving at her announcement.

‘I’ve written down everything you need to know, Kasia. It’s all in this manual.’

Laura indicated the display folder she’d set neatly on the kitchen counter last night in anticipation of this morning. She grinned rather ruefully, acknowledging that a manual was a poor substitute for her presence, but got no response from either of them.

The traffic on the way into the city was appalling. Her stomach clenched with each enforced stop, protesting that a half cup of coffee didn’t qualify as breakfast. Esteban would have enjoyed a sumptuous Czech breakfast by now. And his hotel was in the centre of the business district, a quick stroll and he’d be at work. None of this maddening stop-start traffic for him.

Now she wasn’t being fair. Esteban worked hard, too. In fact, he was one of the hardest workers she knew. Had she really just begrudged him his breakfast?

Sorry, love. She apologised to him in her head. I am such a grump these days. Sorry.

* * * * *

The department head at Melissa’s school was not at all what Erin had expected. She’d imagined that the students would be good-looking, but not the staff, and certainly not her potential boss! He was young, only a few years older than her. Tanned, cropped dark-brown hair, a completely different species from her old department head at St Patrick’s (Ted, a lovely man, but sixty-odd and overly fond of his grey woollen cardigan).

‘Jack Thornton.’ Well dressed in dark trousers and a Ralph Lauren blue-and-white striped shirt, he shook her hand with the same conviction in which he’d stated his name.

‘Hello, Jack,’ she replied, feeling quite self-conscious and underwhelming in her far-from-new charcoal-grey suit. Her hair fell loosely to her shoulders, wisps straying over her face and constantly giving her the urge to gather it up in a ponytail (in fact, it had been in a ponytail until Mel had commanded her to take it down). Inside the open collar of her plain white shirt she wore two delicately twisted strings of small black beads, a going-away present from Lisha. Now she worried that the necklace jarred with the rest of her outfit and didn’t look professional. No, it was fine – otherwise Mel would have insisted she take it off.

‘Sit down, Erin.’ Jack gestured to one of the two seats across from him. ‘Would you like a tea, or a coffee? A glass of water?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, her voice uneven from this belated attack of nerves.

‘Melissa tells me that you went to university together. In Dublin, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what have you done since then?’

Jack already had a copy of her resumé, and a cursory glance through would have told him that she hadn’t ‘done’ an awful lot.

‘I’ve been teaching – at the same school,’ she replied, nerves continuing to play havoc with her voice and causing it to sound raspier than usual. ‘St Patrick’s is a public school in a working-class suburb of Dublin. I taught French to a variety of year groups.’

‘Did you stay so long because you loved the job, or was there another reason?’

Jack asked the question in an open, nonjudgmental tone of voice and in return, Erin tried to be as honest as possible.

‘My father had a terminal illness, and soon after he died my mother developed Alzheimer’s. It was hard to think about my career development when all that was going on at home.’

Jack nodded, as though her answer resonated with him. ‘When we have instability in certain areas of our lives, it’s natural to want to keep everything else as constant as we can.’

Was he admitting that he had instability in his life, too? Or was he simply doing his best to be empathetic and put her at ease? Whatever his intentions, her nervousness seemed to be finally abating and a grateful smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.

‘In fact, it might shock you to discover that I’ve been teaching at this school going on ten years now,’ he revealed with a rueful shrug. ‘So we’re similar in that regard.’

He understood. He knew how it felt to get stuck somewhere, in a rut that seemed to get deeper and more entrenched and hopeless with each passing year.

‘Okay, I’m shocked.’ Her smile, completely of its own volition, turned into a grin. ‘But in our defence, I think every teacher should stay long enough to see at least one year of students progress the whole way through. There’s a lot to be learnt from seeing how much they grow and develop, and when you see them graduate you get a better appreciation of their journey, and your own part in it.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

Jack used this thread of conversation to talk about the values of the school and what kind of young adults they wanted to release into the world. He was openly passionate about the students and the role of languages and other cultures in their development. Erin added her own opinions and experiences where appropriate, and the more they spoke the less it felt like an interview, and more like a chat – with someone she liked.

‘Let me show you around before we finish,’ he offered when he had clearly covered all the things he wanted to say. ‘I can’t expect you to get a feeling for the school when you’ve been stuck inside my stuffy office.’

His office was far from stuffy. It was bright, relatively new and well organised, but Erin declined to point this out.

Jack walked her around the school, proudly showing off some of the classrooms and facilities, smiling and nodding at students along the way (he was obviously quite popular). Erin asked questions as they went, drew mental comparisons with St Patrick’s, and asked him to deposit her at Mel’s office when he eventually glanced at his watch and said that he had a meeting to attend.

‘Well, that’s everything, I think.’ Jack smiled as they stood outside Mel’s half-open door. His eyes glittered when he smiled, she noticed now that she was close up, and a very attractive dimple appeared at the right side of his mouth. ‘I don’t see the point in beating around the bush, Erin. I can see you fitting in here, and I hope you feel the same, and as the academic year has already begun, I’m keen to have you on board as soon as possible.’

Erin struggled to find an appropriate reply, both his proximity and his openness catching her off guard.

‘I suppose you will need at least a few days to sort out your tax file number and legalities like that.’

She nodded somewhat distractedly. ‘Yes, I’ll need some time to get organised.’

One last flash of that affable smile. ‘Well, give me a call as soon as you’re ready.’

‘I will.’

Mel was eating her lunch, a box of fresh noodles. ‘Well, how did it go?’ she demanded, undeterred by her full mouth.

‘Really well.’ Erin leant against Mel’s desk and folded her arms. ‘He’s nice, very straightforward … I could see myself working with him. In fact, I think he has pretty much offered me a job. I just have to get my paperwork sorted out.’

‘Awesome!’ Mel swallowed and grinned. ‘We can have lunch together every day, go for power walks during free periods, gang up on students who are mean to us …’

Erin eyed the box of noodles, her stomach contracting with a jealous pang. ‘Speaking of lunch, did those come from the school canteen?’

‘Yup. We have a cool canteen. It’s a cool school, really. You’ll love it here. And I knew you’d hit it off with Sir Jack.’

‘Did you?’ Erin asked, more than a little curiously.

‘Yup.’

‘How could you be so sure?’

Mel shrugged as though it were obvious. ‘Because he’s straightforward, as you put it yourself, and he’s easy to like – even when he’s asking me to stay late for meetings, or do extra lunchtime supervision.’

Erin’s lips twitched. ‘You could have warned me, you know.’

‘Warned you about what?’

‘I didn’t expect him to be so good-looking, and it sort of put me on the back foot at the start of the interview.’

Mel snorted. ‘Oh, come on. It’s just Jack. And you can’t fall for virtually the first man you meet over here. That’s so not allowed.’

‘Of course I haven’t fallen for him. I was just commenting, that’s all … Anyway, he’s probably attached.’

Oh God. She was unashamedly fishing for personal details on Jack Thornton. Potentially her new boss and, as Mel had quite rightly pointed out, the first male she had met in Australia. How pathetic!

‘Actually, he’s not attached.’ The bell rang, at which Mel shovelled a last fork-full of noodles into her mouth, somehow managing to eat, sigh and speak all at the same time. ‘Back to the grindstone. This next class is my worst. They’re more like kindergartens than Year 10s.’ Year 10s were the equivalent of fourth-years in Ireland – the different numbering system was something Erin would have to get used to.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’ Erin grinned, very glad that it was Mel who had to face a roomful of immature 16-year-olds, not her. ‘See you later.’

Erin made her way out of the school, taking her time and trying to visualise herself teaching in the neat, well-appointed classrooms she passed along the way. The facilities were undeniably first-class, and the grounds were impeccable. One of the students, a girl on her own, caught Erin’s attention, her head downcast, books clutched to her chest, walking leadenly to her next class. It seemed that no matter what type of school, public or private, religious or secular, or even what country in the world, there was always at least one student like that girl. Erin’s thoughts immediately jumped to Lisha. Was Madame Gallas watching out for her? Were the other students any more friendly? Doubting either possibility, Erin resolved to write to the Nigerian girl. A distant support had to be better than none at all, and now that Erin wasn’t her teacher and bound by all the restrictions that came with that role, she could be a friend.

Some more students passed – girls – and they cast Erin coy yet friendly glances, proving that, for the most part, this was indeed a nice school. But despite that, and despite the lovely modern buildings and grounds, not to mention the rather gorgeous head of department, Erin still couldn’t seem to summon up any excitement or enthusiasm about working in Macquarie Grammar School.

Which left her in somewhat of a dilemma.

* * * * *

Oh God, was that the time already? Six o’clock and the software documentation still wasn’t complete. Johan was on speakerphone talking through a last-minute glitch with Wolfgang, the freelancer – a highly technical conversation in German that Laura couldn’t hope to follow. However, her presence was still required because at some point they would need her opinion – it had been like that all day – and then they would temporarily revert to English. She estimated that they were still two hours from sending the finished file, which meant she wouldn’t be home until at least eight-thirty. She hadn’t mentioned anything about Olivia’s dinner to Kasia – she’d assumed she would be home by then. Neither had she gone through Olivia’s bedtime routine. Oh God. She’d better call Kasia. Apologise again for dumping her in it on her first day, and give her some instructions on what to do.

Laura motioned to Wolfgang that she needed to step out for a minute. Clicking her office door softly behind her, she sat down at one of the empty workstations directly outside and dialled home. It rang, once, twice, three times. Had Kasia gone out? Surely she wouldn’t have decided to take Olivia for a walk at this time of day, when it was cold and dark and busy with rush-hour traffic?

‘Hello?’

Thank God, thank God she was at home. ‘Hi, Kasia. It’s Laura.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m still at the office. At this stage I don’t expect to be home until half eight, which is after Olivia’s bedtime, but maybe you could keep her up this once so I can see her when I get in?’

‘Okay.’

‘And would you mind making her something to eat?’

‘Okay,’ Kasia repeated in the same unimpressed tone.

Laura felt a stab of irritation. Kasia had sounded just as detached and cold at lunchtime, when she’d called to see how things were going. Couldn’t she make the effort to inject the slightest bit of warmth into her voice? Wasn’t it obvious to her that Laura needed reassurance? Then again, maybe she was pissed off at being abandoned on her first day, and annoyed that she was expected to work overtime without any notice. And Laura could hardly blame her for that.

‘Thanks, Kasia. I’ll get home as soon as I can.’

Laura put down the phone and for the first time that day she sat completely still, doing absolutely nothing, gazing into space as a strange lethargy paralysed her limbs. At that moment she was simply too tired to get up and return to the conference call. If someone had told her that the software problem had been solved and she was in fact free to go home, she would have been too tired for that too.

‘Laura?’

Jadedly, she turned her head to the voice that had called her name. It was Savita, and she was carrying a plastic bag and her usual gentle smile.

‘I made this Tandoori chicken last night,’ she said, holding out the bag, a container visible through the thin plastic, ‘and as usual I have too many leftovers.’

Savita encapsulated everything that Laura loved about her job. Her exotic clothes, jangling jewellery and musical voice coexisted with her ingrained kindness, motherliness and wisdom. She was like a bright star, illuminating the dreariest day, yet it was steady, sustainable light that emanated from her. Her traditional Indian dishes took hours and hours to concoct and she derived great pleasure in divvying them out to her colleagues, just as those on the receiving end derived great pleasure from both her cooking and generosity. Everyone adored Savita. She was like a walking advertisement for all the wonderful aspects of diversity.

‘Thank you.’ Laura smiled humbly. ‘You can’t begin to know how much I appreciate having a ready-made dinner tonight.’

Savita’s lips lifted in a return smile. ‘I think I have some idea. Goodnight, Laura. See you tomorrow.’

‘Goodnight, Savita. Thanks again.’

Laura dragged herself to her feet. Suddenly hungry, she reheated the chicken in the kitchenette’s microwave and shared it with Wolfgang. The unexpected sustenance seemed to clear the freelancer’s brain and soon afterwards he found a solution to the problem that had been causing the delay.

Laura got home at eight, earlier than what she had forecast to Kasia but still appallingly late. As she closed the door behind her, Olivia rushed out to the hallway.

‘Mum!’

Was Laura imagining it, or was Olivia’s hug extra tight? ‘Hello, Floss.’ She leant down to kiss her flyaway hair. ‘Sorry I’m so late.’ Laura looked up to see Kasia standing silently at the kitchen door. ‘Thanks for today. I’d better put Floss here straight to bed. I’ll be back soon.’

Laura and Olivia, clutching hands, climbed the stairs slowly. They were as tired as each other.

‘How was it, Floss?’ Laura asked when Olivia was tucked safely in bed. ‘Did you like Kasia? Did you get along okay?’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Olivia’s response was uncharacteristically brief. Then again, she was very tired.

‘What did you do together?’

‘We played and watched some telly and went for a walk.’

‘Where did you walk to? The park?’

‘No.’ Olivia yawned and snuggled deeper into bed. ‘Just along the streets to see the houses.’

Of course, Kasia would want to have a look around the immediate area. Tomorrow Laura would tell her how to get to the local shops and the park.

‘Was Kasia nice to you?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

Was that a slight hesitation that Laura detected in her daughter’s voice?

Laura tucked Olivia’s blankets a little bit tighter around her and planted a kiss on both cheeks. ‘Night night, Floss.’ Turning out the light, she paused on her way out. ‘What did you have for dinner?’

‘Bread and jam,’ Olivia replied sleepily.

Bread and jam. For dinner.

It was inadequate, completely inadequate sustenance for a child.

Just as she was inadequate, completely inadequate as a mother.