The Research Project

Chapter Four

For as long as she could remember, Lainey and her mum, Kate, used to walk to the chicken shop on the corner of their street on a Saturday. They'd buy a whole charcoal chicken, some bread rolls from the bakery two doors up and a bottle of lemonade. It was their treat for their week and Kate could stretch that one chook out for several days worth of lunches. Once the chicken was all gone, it was back to Vegemite on sandwich bread, sometimes there was butter but usually not.

This Saturday was no different, even after all these years, they would treat themselves and as they walked back from the shops Lainey couldn't help but notice how much the neighbourhood had stayed exactly the same. It was working class Western suburbs of Sydney, the only place her mother could afford to rent a tiny town house where Lainey had grown up. She'd had a lonely childhood with her mum having to work all the time as a cleaner, no siblings, and a father who'd abandoned her mum the moment he found out she was pregnant. Lainey's grandparents, who she'd never met, also disowned her. Lainey had always suspected there was more to the story than that, but her mum never went into much detail, only that she'd packed up and moved to the Western suburbs of Sydney to find work and a place for them to live. As a result, they'd become wrapped in their own little world, just the two of them and it was all they needed.

But it hadn't been that bad. Her mum could never afford much and there had been some tough times, like when there was no electricity because her mum hadn't been able to afford the bill. After that, they had never run another heater or fan in the house again just to save money. Lainey looked across at her mum where she waked beside her on the footpath. Yes, her childhood had been lonely, but she had been cared for and Lainey and her mum had each other. That was all they had ever needed.

Lainey had looked after her mum, too, with things like the laundry and cooking meals. Lainey had become very good at cooking over the years. Her mum worked at night, cleaning the local high school after hours. When Lainey had been really young and still in primary school, her mum had cleaned houses for people with a lot more money than them. It was a perfect job for her because she could drop Lainey off at school, do her work and be there in time to pick Lainey up again in the afternoon.

Until that one day, just as Lainey was about to finish primary school. She could remember her mum coming home distraught. Mrs Jackson, one of the home owners she cleaned for, had accused her mum of stealing a Tiffany's diamond ring from her jewellery box. Her mum had always wanted a diamond ring from Tiffany's ever since she'd watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that was just a dream. She knew her mother would never simply take one. She had pled her innocence but was fired anyway. Of course, word got out and all the people she cleaned houses for slowly began to fire her as well.

Lainey could remember that time well. She had never seen her mum so worried. At dinner time, her mother would serve Lainey her food and not eat herself saying she wasn't hungry, but even at that young age Lainey knew her mother was trying to save money. She was too skinny, too many bags under her eyes and always worried. Of course years later, her mum heard that Mrs Jackson had found her ring in her daughter's toy box, she'd been playing a dress up game of fairy princesses and hadn't realised the value of the ring.

Thankfully by then though, her mum had managed to find another job, working with a company who cleaned schools of an evening. She was assigned a school two suburbs over from where they lived which wasn't as convenient for them as when her mother cleaned the houses because it meant Lainey was now alone most evenings. At first she used to go along, sitting in a corner of whatever classroom she was cleaning and trying to make herself as small as possible so that no one would see her. She'd often wanted to help, but she was told just to sit in the corner and read her book. As soon as Lainey started high school though, she got herself to and from school. Her mum simply didn't want to get caught and lose another job. They needed it to survive.