"MARBELLA" by Erin Horgan
©2003 by Erin Horgan vcaoriginals@yahoo.com.au
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Written in Australia. I welcome all comments. Post a review and/or e-mail me at vcaoriginals@yahoo.com.au. This chapter introduces the family, and contains a violent incident.
CHAPTER ONE: MY MOTHER
It is only natural for daughters to view their mothers as role models. In one respect, mothers are the closest things young girls have to knowing what they, themselves, might be like when they grow to their mothers' age. Mothers are the closest things to our selves. If they are "successful," in our vision, then we tend to believe that we will be, too, and so we want to be like them, basing ourselves on them, if we can. We adopt their mannerisms, and little quirks, and while doing so, we may lose our own, and lose our sense of identity. We try to become our mothers.
Like many other young girls, I tried to model myself upon my mother. I used to be such a quiet child, I'd been told. It took me much longer than it should've to learn how to speak. When I first uttered a comprehendible word, it was "Mama," and so from then on, that is what I called my mother. Other people growing up in my land called their mothers "Mum," but I always referred to mine as "Mama."
My father told me that as soon as I'd spoken that one word, he knew that I'd try to model myself after my mother. "Dada" was a much easier word for young children to say, and therefore he expected me to say that, but alas, I did not.
As I grew up through the months and years, I took note of almost everything my mother did, when she was around. I noticed how she breezed quickly into the house, walking with the speed of a woman on a mission. But she never had a mission, I thought. She'd come to me, bringing with her the scent of roses in her perfume, and she'd kneel down to cuddle my small, young frame.
Her white-blond pin-straight hair fell in a professionally frizz-free sheet of satin, the ends touching the very bottom of her linen-covered breasts. Her eyes were an almost indescribable blue, so pale that people would refer to the colour as "ice-blue," though I personally believed that ice was clear. Her dainty nose, her thin lips and delicate smile were all inherited from her Scandinavian ancestors, people who lived so far north that their looks couldn't help but reflect the icy conditions. I'd never really thought that blond people were very attractive, at least not in comparison to my mother. I believed that white-blond was truly the only blond in the world, and if it wasn't white-blond, I would call it "yellow," a colour I never thought deserved to be a hair colour. I hated yellow, for I knew that I didn't look good in it. Yet, that may have been a trait that I copied after my mother, who had never worn yellow at
all, as far as I knew.
Her strawberry-painted lips would turn up at the sides into a smile, and I couldn't help but smile, too. I knew she'd want me to. She never wanted me to be unhappy, ever. I always had to smile for her, never was I not to. She wanted to surround herself in all things happy, calm and peaceful, her own personal Wonderland. But I knew that such a place would never exist for me. I wasn't my mother, and therefore I couldn't ever have what she had.
I almost wondered if she cringed when she cradled my head in her hug. I couldn't help that my hair was so dark, but surely darkness disturbed her light, and so I was afraid that she would stop loving me at any moment, and I just hoped that that would happen later, rather than sooner - though not at all was my number one priority.
But she would pull back gently after her hug, not jerking herself away as if she'd been zapped. And she'd still be smiling. "Layla," she would say, "it's been a good day." She would never elaborate on that, but simply stood up straight, and would wander around the house, searching for my father to greet.
And there I'd be, alone again.
I knew what she did for a living. She was an actress, had been so for many years. She spent a lot of time in America, auditioning, filming and whatever else actresses did to fill in time off set. My father would stay with me at home, sending me to public schools for my education.
But I still thought of Mama while she was away, and I tried to memorise all I could of she. I visualised her vibrancy, how she lit up every room with invisible fairy lights when she entered, the people turning to her, and she would greet them all in turn, spending enough time with each of them for them to believe that she truly was interested in them and what they had to say. But I knew she was not. Australian society was just "too different," she'd say, to that of America's. Did "different" mean better, or worse? I wanted to know, but I was afraid to ask, afraid to hear the answer. I feared hearing that we were worse here, that we'd never have what America had. But I didn't want what America had, though. America seemed too false a place for me to ever believe, or take seriously. Australian life seemed just more down-to-earth, more understandable, more on the level… but maybe I believed that because it was mine, and it was what I knew, what I had experienced.
I wanted to be vibrant like her, I wanted to capture attention, I wanted to soar with the birds as high as I could go… and I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be loved like she was. I wanted people to find me as enchanting, and more so, than they found she. An impossible dream, I told myself, but it was what I wanted.
So I was never a true "wild child," but I tried to make sure that I had a bright and bouncing personality, not enough to generate electricity like she did, but enough for people to make notice of me, and to enjoy my presence. I never got into mischief, but I went through my childhood with a dazzling smile, or so I thought, trying to build rooms with my merriment. I was lively, or so I chose to believe in my rose-tinted vision.
My father was concerned for me, though. He was well aware of the almost obsession I had with my mother, and he so much wanted me to be different, to make sure that I had my own personality, and not just a false façade of what I wanted to be. He wanted me to realise that I was not my mother, I never would be my mother, and so I would have to think about
myself, which was a word that was scarce to me. What did I know of myself when I had my mother in my life?
But he sat me down at the age of seven, and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I knew what he didn't want me to say, which I think you can predict what, so I chose my words carefully. "I want to be an actress," I said clearly, self-assured. I turned to look at my mother for approval.
She smiled, not displaying any teeth, so it was a small smile, and she gave a slight, almost unnoticeable nod of her fragile head. Then she laughed low, rapid and breathy, over so quickly that I even questioned myself as to whether I had really heard it or not. "Or you could be a comedian… or shall I say a
comedienne," she said in her alto, husky voice, and I feared that she was mocking me. Was this what I had been trying to hold off? Had she lost her love for me, and was she poking fun at me, her very own daughter?
"You've got such vitality to you, Layla, you could probably make many people laugh," she continued. "Do you like making people laugh?"
I hated myself then. I hated the way I acted around my mother, how I was always so very careful as to not ruin her day. I didn't want to displease her, and I never wanted to be embarrassed around her. Why was I so afraid of her? Why couldn't I be comfortable in her presence, like other girls my age were with their mothers?
Did I like making people laugh? Yes, I did - but only conditionally. If I was making light of something that wasn't myself, yes, I
did like making people laugh. But not when people laughed at me, for whom
I was - or rather what I was trying to be.
"Yes," I replied softly, "yes, I do like making people laugh."
"Isn't that brilliant, Grant!" she exclaimed to my father, clapping her hands together, still smiling brightly. "She can be a
comedienne," she emphasised. "Isn't that wonderful!"
"It certainly is something, Selena," he answered, though his tone of voice wasn't anywhere near as lively as hers was. He wasn't enthusiastic about my response, maybe because he thought I was spoiling my mother by always agreeing with her. But I was young and impressionable… was it so wrong of me to be influenced by another?
Yes. It was. It was foolish of me to be so focused on being someone else. I really
was an actress at that tender age, but only in my own mind. My father could see right through me, as though my act was nothing more than a clear sheet of glass, something with its own fingerprints and smudges, and the occasional crack.
My father was a twisting mystery to me. I barely knew where to start with him. I had a feeling that he disapproved of my mother, disapproved of who she was, what she did, her effect on me…
everything about her. Why was he married to she? Why was she married to he? Why did my sceptical father want to spend his life with a Wonderland-believing wife who couldn't face the trouble of the world? Why didn't she worry about poverty and the lack of human rights in Africa? Why didn't she worry about the youth of Australia falling under the power of too much alcohol and drugs? Why didn't she worry that one day her daughter might lead a life in the red-light district of St Kilda? (Of course, this never actually happened, but why didn't she fear it like other mothers did? I knew why she didn't -
she wasn't part of that world, so she knew that I wouldn't be, either.)
My mother, although appearing in public as wonderful, lacked morals, lacked knowing what the real world was like, lacked being a genuine person. Instead, she appeared to be almost a warehouse-manufactured vision of what the "perfect" woman should be in the public eye.
It was time I knew that I should never be like her. But I was still lost in the trance of her ways, as if she was a cult-leader and I was merely just one of her many followers. I knew I should've screamed at myself to get an original thought once in awhile, but I didn't.
I feared myself. I may have feared Mama, but I feared myself in a different way. I was afraid that I didn't know who I was, what I was like and everything else about myself. The stage was for acting, not a real life. I should've been smart enough to know this, but I was probably the dimmest-thinking person I knew, though
I pretended otherwise. My mother wouldn't admit her faults. She wouldn't talk about herself. So neither would I. I wasn't about to break out of the plaster bust I'd created around myself. I wasn't quite ready to be myself yet.
I feared that I never would be.
My mother may have seemed glamorous as an actress, but my father wasn't without his first-class living. He was one of the owners of a rather successful film company, which was how he and my mother met. She had been working in America, trying to get film and television roles, and he had helped oversee the production of a film she was cast in. Both Australians in a foreign country, they'd become instant companions, Mama told me. My father had kept his Australian accent through all the years of his life, but my mother's was a little strange. She was born in Australia, but she didn't really sound like it, and she didn't sound American, either. Her accent was a cross between Australian and English, and I had a feeling that it was put on. I often wondered if everything she did was put on, or if she really
was just the way she seemed.
But I remember one time in my childhood when I didn't smile for her. Instead, I did what was the worst thing to her - I cried, and I cried in front of her. More to the point, I cried because of her, something that she didn't normally do. She intimidated me, surely, but never did I cry, except for this solitary time.
It was the day that every female experiences, when she transforms from girl to woman. This dismayed me. I didn't want to have a problem such as this. I didn't want to have
any problem, whatsoever. However, life was never quite like that. We didn't get what we wanted, we didn't lose what we wanted to lose, and this was how things went. As always, I thought of my mother, and wondered if she experienced what I was experiencing. Maybe she had somehow bypassed that stage in her life. I believed that then, for I wasn't quite sure how children came about, and I didn't have any want of knowing.
Since I didn't know what to do, I found Mama in the house, and told her what had happened. So she brought me into her bedroom, which was separate from my father's, and explained the change in me. I didn't take to it well. I was downright upset about the whole matter, and I knew that I was not acting the way she wanted me to. I wasn't smiling. I was frowning, I was pouting, with my lower lip jutting out.
"Look at yourself, Layla!" she demanded, speaking harshly, which she almost never did. Yet, she had never really seemed to have a reason to. "Look at yourself!" She grabbed me by my shoulders, and positioned me in front of the full-length mirror on the inside of the bedroom door. "Do you see yourself?"
For me, this was a harsh reality. She was forcing me to examine myself. I reluctantly lifted my head, and glanced at my reflection. But it wasn't just a glance, for she held my chin up, making me look and look at myself. It was a harrowing experience, considering I'd never done anything of the sort before, as strange as that may seem.
So I looked. And what I saw hurt me. I was far too different from my mother - how could anyone tell we were related? My hair was not white-blond like hers.
Mine was the colour of dirt. Her eyes were an intriguing ice blue, and mine made me think of a worn-and-torn football oval. There was the green of stomped-upon grass, and the brown-black of the mud. Officially my colour was listed as "hazel," but I could never associate that with myself.
I wasn't growing old gracefully. I was thirteen, and my posture wasn't perfect. Because of my discomfort, my eyebrows were pinched in the centre above my nose. I couldn't hold my fingers straight; they curved inward, where my fingernails would often scratch my palms. This was not a trait I picked up from my mother.
This was something that I had brought upon myself, but had never realised until now. I wasn't smiling. I looked almost ill, with my non-pristine complexion and dowdy facial expression. Who was I kidding? I could never be like my mother, for she was far too different, far above me, and I would never be up to that level. Even though I hadn't really done anything wrong, I felt like a failure. This was the first reality check of my life, and I hadn't taken it in good stride.
"Well?" she persisted. "Tell me what you see, Layla. Are you a woman or not?"
I couldn't stand to look at myself any longer. Maybe she was doing me good, but at that moment I felt like I had an anvil on my chest, preventing me from breathing properly, and it plugged my throat. I couldn't speak. I couldn't handle reality now. I couldn't handle her demands to face myself, and I certainly couldn't face
myself. I didn't like myself. I knew, in those dark alleyways of commonsense in my mind that are rarely on display, that I didn't really have a reason to be so distraught, but I was not a "normal" girl. Despite my usual cheerful exterior, I became upset rather easily, and I took everything personally, which caused me heartache.
My eyes filled with tears like mercury rising, and soon I just burst. I couldn't cry quietly, so I sobbed, and tried to flee from my mother.
"No, Layla, get a hold of yourself!" she said, raising her voice. "Don't you run from yourself any longer! Look at yourself, and accept who you are. You have faults, Layla - get over them. You are not perfect, and you never will be perfect. It's time to stop playing pretend and start facing the real world
now!"
Had she said those words to me when I was older and perhaps more confident I might have been able to retort back that
she wasn't real, and she never would be. But I lacked courage, and I couldn't speak to her because of the weight of the anvil, so I cried on.
"Stop it, Layla, stop it now!" she commanded, and I tried desperately to, but I couldn't. I started choking on my own sobs, hurting my throat even more than the anvil was.
"Layla Marie Westfeld! You stop that right
now, do you hear me?" She was yelling, and this frightened me even more. When earlier I had tried to escape, I was now too frozen to move.
"If you don't shut up, I'll shut you up!"
I had no idea what she meant by that. Without further warning, she grabbed me by the hair, and I didn't put up a fight as she banged my head repeatedly against the mirror. I even stopped crying, which would've pleased her, had she been not so involved in her violence. I could feel that places of my head were bleeding, maybe forming scars later on, but I didn't move. I hadn't known that my mother was powerful enough, but I heard cracks forming in the mirror as it connected with my skull. It was such peculiar behaviour from an ordinarily dainty woman, and even stranger that this was my mother, and not just any other woman in the world.
But I was barely aware of what was happening. It was like I was under her spell once more, although I thought she would've preferred it if I had been paying attention, paying attention enough to hear the sound of my skull against the glass. I thought of my bones, and I imagined them being played like a xylophone.
"Selena, what are you doing?" I faintly heard. My father was home. He'd put a stop to this. He'd stop the pounding of my head against the mirror, crumbling my skull into dust and mixing it with broken glass. I was an old street, all gravel and broken beer bottles and car windows.
Despite my haze, there was something running through my head, thundering like a pack of animals in the savannah somewhere.
"You are not perfect, and you never will be perfect. It's time to stop playing pretend and start facing the real world
now!"
How could I even start? I didn't even know what was real anymore. In that respect, I almost became my mother.
