Rose Pickles has hated her mother since 1943. Not a silent hate, but a roaring, angry, viscous hate. This hate was a living, breathing thing. A voice in her head whispering foul and violent words to her. Words she can have only learnt from the frequent outbursts of her drunken mother. She hated her mother when she came home staggering, slurring her words, smelling of grog and sweat and strange men. She hated her mother’s abuse and torments. She hates her mother because her mother hates her. But above all, she hates her mother for not even trying to change for Rose, for Sam, for Chub and Ted. She’s out of Cloudstreet now, away from it all, but Rose knows she’ll hate Dolly until the day she’s six feet under.
Rose scares herself by how much she actually can hate. She is appalled at herself for not loving her mother at all. Was she just as bad as the Old Girl? Had she let herself become nasty, pessimistic, without a kind word to say about anyone? Sometimes, rarely, she’d catch a smile or a twinkle in her eye and she’d think she really was beautiful; wrinkly and saggy; teeth yellowed; mouth like a cat’s bum, but still beautiful. But then she remembers who the Old Girl is. Rose can’t let herself go soft now, that would be surrendering. Because, even though it was never said, both mother and daughter know there is a full blown war raging between
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She’s got the husband. One of the Lamb boys. Rose would never admit it, but she knew she married Quick just so she could see the look on her Mother’s face when she said she was marrying a Lamb. The Lamb’s were far from perfect, but in Dolly’s eyes they represented everything she could never provide to her family. It was Rose’s final act of rebellion, her parting message. So Rose looked at the Old Girl, her leg bandaged up, her make up smeared, and her face looking 10 years older than it was. I’ve won. She