by Meg Bignell
‘Right,’ said Henry, who knew he was defeated. Because with that, everything seemed, in very slow motion, to click into place.
So, Brynkirra is re-booked and we’re back on our cheery-up track. Raffy gets his special birthday, the children will all be doing ripping, outdoorsy things and everything will be utterly Pollyanna. Also there’s a swanky restaurant in Stanley so Hugh and I can still have a just-the-two-of-us dinner. Also we can have our own wing, away from the children and animals, so sex is more than possible. And I still have (slightly) better hair and smooth pubic bits. I’ve instructed everyone to pack but they don’t know where we’re going yet. I feel very, very excited, and so light! This ol’ rocking chair must be loving the loss of such weight. And beside me there’s a viola-shaped space on the shelf where my guilt used to be.
SATURDAY 15th APRIL
We are in Ross, on the way to Brynkirra. Hugh and I, Eloise, Raffy, Jimmy, Mary-Lou and Barky. And Valda.
Valda was a last-minute addition. She was miserable when I went to say goodbye. She wasn’t on the verandah but all hunched up in the sitting room, looking like Mary-Lou when she’s coming down with something. I couldn’t just leave her.
‘Are you all right, Valda?’ I asked. ‘We’ll be back on Monday.’
‘Yes. Have a good time.’ But she seemed sort of shrouded in something heavy.
‘Would you like to come?’ I asked without really thinking. ‘We’re going to Stanley.’
I expected her to prod me out with orders not to fuss, but there was a pause. She looked at me. ‘Yes. I like Stanley,’ she said. ‘And I need to get out of this house. Neville is furious about the Valiant. I knew he loved that thing more than me.’
‘Come on, then,’ I said, not wanting to delve into any dementics and also trying to swallow the idea of Valda on our family holiday. ‘There are plenty of rooms, we might as well use them.’ Thirty-one of them, I thought, to be precise.
All the way up the Midlands Highway I’ve been seeing lovely things I’ve never noticed before. The unlikely dash of a proud pencil pine against the sparse hills, an arch of autumn leaves, a pretty laced verandah … Valda wanted to pop into the Ross Village Bakery because she’d heard that they have good eclairs. And the children were clamouring for a hot chocolate. The Ross Bakery has brilliant vanilla slices. I must tell Dad. Perhaps Rosa Bianchi works there. Actually, I should have just asked Mum and Dad to come. But then I’d have had to ask Alison and Laurence and we can’t have that.
Hugh isn’t entirely rapturous about an unscheduled long weekend. I heard him say on the phone to the office, ‘I won’t be in on Monday. I have to go to Stanley,’ as though he had to attend a trigonometry convention. He’ll change his tune when he sees our manor house. Perhaps I should have asked his parents. He often hints that we should make more effort with them.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER:
I phoned them all. Mum, Dad, Alison and Laurence. They’re all coming. Might as well. I mean, thirty-one rooms and a butler.
Look at me go, putting the sun in everyone’s corner.
MUCH LATER:
This place is truly incredible. Like a house in a colonial drama, except renovated: all the trimmings. ‘Displaying consummate taste and finest of luxuries’ said the website, ‘a garden like a poem’. Everyone is completely blown away. Thank God. All that panic and angst and convoluted rearrangements have paid off in shovels and spades. This was meant to be!
It is like a poem. Or a symphony. That’s it, a symphony. (I’ve had two glasses of French champagne. Is it obvious?) There’s a pool, a games room, a gym, an enormous kitchen, nine bedrooms, a tennis court, a ballroom, a croquet lawn, a dining room and six reception rooms. We should be receiving people!
And, oh, the children’s faces when we drove along the driveway! Priceless.
‘How the hell can we afford this?’ Hugh said in amazement after we were greeted by a softly spoken, impeccably polite uniformed man and shown in. ‘Did you rob someone?’
‘No.’ I laughed.
‘Jesus, you didn’t take Valda’s Valiant money, did you?’
‘No!’ I didn’t laugh; he looked serious. ‘You can’t really think I’d do that?’
‘Well, she might have offered. You never know with her.’ He tapped his head.
The children were ahead of us with the polite man (Rodney the butler!!) and Valda. They were pacing silently along the hallways, stunned. I suppose grandeur like this would elicit good behaviour in anyone. The house is a bit like a scary grandfather. (One who is quite soft-hearted and likes a bit of poetry in his garden.) We caught up with them and Valda, who said, ‘It’s all a bit showy. Don’t think we’ll be having Gravox with our lamb.’
‘It’s chicken on tonight’s menu,’ said Rodney. ‘And ice cream. And for you’ – he paused and smiled down at Barky – ‘kangaroo stew, I believe.’ Barky looked at me as if to make sure it was all right to be pleased.
‘I’d like to read up on the history of this place,’ Hugh stated.
‘There are historical records in the library,’ said Rodney. (The library!) ‘And I am happy to answer questions.’
‘The owners, are they gamblers?’ asked Valda.
‘Ah, no,’ he said with a smile. ‘Wool.’
‘Same thing,’ said Valda. ‘I should have known. Graziers love their shoes shiny and their carpets plush.’
‘The family brought the first sheep into Tasmania,’ Rodney went on.
‘Are they still here?’ asked Jimmy.
‘Well, the sheep are certainly still here,’ said Rodney. ‘On a smaller scale. The family, no. They sold the house and land to a group of investors.’
‘Foreign ownership,’ said Valda crossly.
‘It’s an Australian consortium,’ said Rodney kindly. ‘New South Wales, I believe.’
‘Like I said,’ Valda snapped. ‘Foreign.’ Rodney remained neutral. There must be butler schools that teach that. I tried to think of something else to say but Valda added, ‘And I’d say the family are still here. Places like this hold them in the walls.’ She tapped a solid wall. ‘They won’t have gone far.’
Barky made a small growly noise. My skin prickled. Raffy’s eyes widened. Eloise looked thrilled. Mary-Lou, who hadn’t been listening, tugged at Rodney’s sleeve and said, ‘Are you the only slave?’
‘Ah!’ said Hugh later when the children’s excitement had overrun their awe and sent them flying around, choosing bedrooms. ‘You got the film money, didn’t you! Did Ria send you a sneaky cheque?’
I smiled.
‘I knew it! See what your music is capable of!’ And he pushed open the door to the most opulent bedroom I’ve ever seen.
I didn’t lie. It’s almost the truth. It was my music, in a way. The viola was my music … Anyway, there’s a flower room where someone arranges bouquets! The window dressings look like something out of the Theatre Royal. There’s a curtained window seat in the bedrooms – a reading nook? And a huge four-poster bed that made me want to sing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’. And Hugh isn’t cross that I haven’t saved the money for school uniforms or garden mulch. This is the best! Hugh and me on our own for three days might have been too much anyway. What would we have talked about all that time? I feel all unbridled and gallopy. Frisky. Just as well there are no chandeliers in our bedroom. There are four in the ballroom, though.
Mum and Dad drove Alison and Laurence up. Alison had to go and have a lie-down immediately because she said that Dad’s driving made her carsick. She was trying to be impassive to all the splendour, as though she was entirely used to it, but I know she was taken; I saw her rub the chintz on the chaise longue.
Mum’s been running about with the children, pretending to be a ghost. (Valda told her about the ancestors in the walls theory.) Mum’s expert at giving frights. Once when I was little Mum hid in the box that the washing machine came in and burst out of it when I arrived home from school. I screamed blue murder; she laughed about it for years.
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nbsp; It’s late. I might hop into our huge feathery bed. Should I wake my husband and seduce him? There’s a romantic colonial feel to this room. But Hugh was so exhausted that he was asleep by nine-thirty. I think I’ll save seduction for our romantic evening tomorrow. Sigh.
What was that sigh? Sex drive still on low setting, methinks. Also, there was a fight over the blue room because it has gold curtains, Mary-Lou wouldn’t eat her chicken and Barky left grubby marks on a cushion. Even in a palace, there are the same old things.
SUNDAY 16th APRIL
We’ve had the most lovely, active, rosy-cheeked, Raffy’s birthday day. The discovery of the river and the bathhouse was a revelation. There’s a clinker dinghy! And in the bathhouse are fishing rods and kites and other wholesome delights (and poetry everywhere). The garden has a folly! I’m not sure what you do with a folly but I sat in it for a minute. There’s a love seat. I sat on that too, with Valda and Mum. (Hugh was busy baiting up fishing lines.)
We had a moment with Eloise, who was cross there aren’t any ponies. ‘But you’ve never liked ponies,’ I told her.
‘Well, I’ve read the whole ‘Shadow Horse’ series,’ she said.
‘I like ponies,’ said Mary-Lou proudly. ‘I’m getting one for my birthday.’ This is what happens when you place children in a luxury mansion, I suppose, they turn into pompous little pricks get highfalutin ideas.
There was another moment with Raffy, who was a bit disappointed that he got books for his birthday. ‘Come on, Raff,’ Hugh said. ‘This whole thing is your birthday present.’
Raffy looked around at the magnificence and said, ‘Thomas got a phone for his birthday.’
For Christ’s sake. But we bit our tongues and Rodney saved the day with an incredible birthday bundt. ‘Bundts,’ he said, deadpan, ‘are my specialty.’
‘Well, that’s a triumphant bundt,’ I said and Hugh laughed.
Rodney has had an amazing effect on Laurence, because they both dabble in watercolour painting. Rodney set up some easels and paints and Laurence produced a very nice picture of the children flying a kite by the river. Mary-Lou painted Rodney and said she’d like to marry him one day (so would I a little bit, such a Renaissance man). I coerced Hugh into painting me while I painted him (I saw them do this in a film once. It was very romantic). Portraits are very hard. I tried to exaggerate Hugh’s lovely twinkly, smile-crinkled eyes, but he just looked wild and weather-beaten. He said, ‘Jesus,’ then showed the picture of me, only it wasn’t me at all but a bird, flying over the ocean.
‘That’s a very nice painting,’ said Laurence, which got everyone’s attention because it’s about the longest sentence he’s ever uttered. People gathered around.
‘Mum’s not a seagull, silly Daddy,’ said Mary-Lou.
‘But she’s not a bad bird,’ quipped Dad with a wink at me.
‘It’s not a seagull,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s an albatross.’ And then he smiled in a shy sort of way at me and added a stroke of blue to the sea. I felt a warm sort of feeling. But later when I showed Alison the painting she said with glee, ‘Ah, Coleridge’s albatross! “Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung”.’ I felt cold again. ‘Hugh’s always been good at art,’ she added. ‘He won the art prize in secondary school.’
And Mum, who’d been trying to enthuse Raffy with the kites and was late to the scene, said, ‘What have you painted, darling? A demented farmer?’
In the end we gave up trying to engage the birthday boy with the great outdoors and Valda took him into the music room, where they found a cupboard full of CDs. The others turned the croquet mallets upside down and used them as crutches so they could hobble about and be tragic with English accents. They called the game ‘cripples’. They renamed Barky ‘Rover’. Barky seemed put out.
‘At least they’re using their imaginations,’ I said to Hugh, who was untangling a kite string and looking quite relaxed. I realised I hadn’t seen him that way in a while and it took me a moment to work out what was different.
Anyway, I’ve left them all out there to come in early and prepare for The Date. It’s been blissful. Everyone is occupied, so no interruptions. The bath is huge, the floor is heated, everything smells like fresh linen, the little bottles of shampoo, etc. are by Crabtree & Evelyn. There’s a vanity kit with cotton buds and tweezers in it. So I’ve been indulging in some vanity.
I’ve done all my nails (there were flecks of toenail polish still there from when Eloise painted them at Christmas time), curled my hair, applied glowy body lotion, put on some sort of lengthening mascara with fibres (bit cloggy but effective), even whitened my teeth. The latter didn’t go quite as planned as I left the mouthguard in for too long and now have a blister on my gum – not too noticeable if I don’t smile too widely, which is best for my crow’s-feet and eye bags anyway. The box said ‘two shades whiter in ten minutes’, so I thought I’d go for four shades in twenty. A mistake, but I’m not going to let it bother me. Hopefully it won’t hamper any heated kissing manoeuvres.
I’m wearing the op-shop leopard-print dress, which actually looks okay, I think. As long as I don’t overdo the make-up, I think it could be considered stylish. Leopard print does tread a fine line between chic and cheap, doesn’t it? I’ve taken a photo of myself and sent it to Ria, and she gave me her tick of approval:
Helen! Don’t you look smart (growl). You don’t look a day older than the night H took you to McDonald’s for your first date. Is that where you’re headed tonight?!!
She had to bring that up … When I’m lamenting the fact that I didn’t marry a man who knows ballroom dancing and quite likes a rollneck, I add the McDonald’s memory to my regrettables and berate myself for not heeding my alarm bells and running for faraway pastures. But it wasn’t really a first date. Was it?
Hobart, 1993
It happened on one of those terrible Hobart days when winter has decided to put on its best show, complete with hail, sleet and a wind that will freeze your eyeballs and cut you clean in half. ‘You’ve got three chances of getting me to touch footy training today,’ Ria had told me. ‘Buckley’s, Fuckley’s and none.’ This meant that I had to bundle off to training on my own because a strong risk of exposure wasn’t about to keep me from my weekly sighting of Hugh. ‘You’ve been totally brained by love, haven’t you, you poor old fucking twit?’ Ria said as I set off. ‘It’s horrible to watch.’
When I got to training, no one was there. I jigged about on the uni oval for about five minutes and then decided that I was indeed a twit. But then Hugh’s car drove in and I mentally high-fived myself. ‘Now, that’s commitment,’ he said when he’d got out of the car. ‘I wasn’t even going to come but then I thought I’d better drop in in case …’ he trailed off.
‘In case some idiot shows up.’
He laughed. ‘Yes. You idiot, get in the car. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘But I have my bike. I’ll be right.’
‘No, you won’t. I’ll put it in the back. Come on. You’ll freeze your arse off. It’s my job as coach to look after the team.’
So we manoeuvred the bike into the back of the car and jumped in just as another squall came off the mountain and tumbled with a gust of frigid wind from the sea. Even the yachts in the Derwent Sailing Squadron looked tucked up and unwilling. I smiled smugly at them from the girlfriend seat.
Hugh and I bantered a bit as he drove up towards college, had a laugh probably, I don’t remember. And then he said, ‘You know, I don’t feel all that comfortable having you and Ria on the team. I worry that something might happen to your arms or your hands. You can’t play your music without your hands.’
‘Well, you can’t very well engineer things without yours, can you?’ I said. ‘You should worry about your own hands.’
‘Look at yours, though. They’re perfect.’ And he picked one up then and examined it, turned it over. ‘They’re cold too. Would you like to get some dinner?’
It was such an unexpected question. I’m
not sure what I did with my face but it must have looked astonished. ‘I would. I really would. I’d really like that,’ I sort of whispered. Then I blushed, and something in the close atmosphere shifted.
‘I mean, I’m hungry,’ he added awkwardly. ‘And it might warm us up a bit. There’s a cosy place in Magnet Court. I’m always hungry when it’s cold. Why is that?’
I don’t know if I answered, I just remember thinking how adorable Hugh was when he felt awkward. There was a bit of silence then, so Hugh turned on the radio. It was Boyz II Men singing ‘I’ll Make Love to You’, which he quickly switched over. Belinda Carlisle trilled out ‘Mad About You’ and he switched it off. Then there was silence, with a large bumbling elephant in it. I cursed myself for treating his dinner suggestion like a proposal and tried to think of things to say that could steer us back to safety.
But then he made a sudden turn into the McDonald’s drive-through and said, ‘Actually, I really feel like a Big Mac. That okay?’ We bought two burgers and then he dropped me back to college. The whole experience (later labelled ‘The McDonald’s Incident’), was, I believed, a clear ‘friend-zone’ manoeuvre. I cried myself to sleep that night.
(He flung his gherkin out in disgust. I’d already eaten mine. People who love gherkins, I thought, can never expect to win the heart of people who don’t. Perhaps I should have paid that more heed.)
Where on earth is Hugh? He said he’d meet me here for pre-dinner drinks. I’ve already had two. Three. He’ll be here any minute, surely. Perhaps he’s lost in the house, gone to the wrong wing. I’ll phone him.
Found him. He’s on his way. He was playing Roar with the children and forgot the time. This is a very good sign. I can’t remember the last time they played Roar. It’s a game invented by Hugh. He hides, they look for him and if they don’t see him and say ‘roar’ in time, he can leap out with a giant ROOOAAAAARRR, catch them and squeeze their knees on that sensitive reflex spot. Sometimes, in unlikely places like at the theatre or at school speech night, he’ll whisper ‘roar’. I love that man.
