by Steve Hawke
‘Meaning?’
‘We’ve cut through so much of the shit, Joe. Or got past it. All that angst about your career. And mine for that matter. Your “great expectations”. I know it still burns you. But for me, honestly, looking back now I’m truly glad I’m just a teacher still—even if I do have my moments. I know it’s not what I said at the time, but if I was a principal—or worse, an administrator of some sort like Jenny—I’d be hating it, every blessed minute of it.
‘I know it’s different for you, stuck with the rubbish work you’re getting. But I’m not talking about our work lives. I’m talking about us. We’ve got past that external bullshit at last, and worked each other out. And the miracle is that we still dig each other don’t we. Buggered if I know why sometimes, but we do. That’s why the sex is so good my man.’
‘You leave me speechless.’
‘That makes a nice change.’ She stroked his cheek harder. ‘Fancy getting post-coital again?’
He had been too drunk to carry her all the way. But she has learned to take pleasure in the journey and the surge, even if the wave doesn’t always break. She can hear him snoring in the other bedroom, as expected. Her smile becomes a grin.
And the bugger’s right about the tenderness. It is the best part.
Her good mood persists as she goes about her Saturday morning rituals. A cup of tea in the bench chair slung beneath the liquidambar, gently swinging, watching the honeyeaters squabbling in the grevillea with a western spinebill hovering on the fringes, and a pair of robins making merry in the birdbath. A stroll around the garden for a check on the health and status of each plant, a smile for the first sign of budding on this one, a murmur of concern at a branch browning at the tips of that, an inward groan at the roar of a leaf blower firing up two doors down, a mental checklist of any garden jobs to be done over the course of the weekend.
She thinks about ringing Greta—they have a loose sort of arrangement for Saturday morning coffee most weekends—but decides not to, she just feels like cruising this morning. She scribbles a note: Gone nursery shopping. It is a private joke, born of long years of her getting lost in the aisles of every nursery between Mount Lawley and Mundaring. All it really means is that she’s not sure when she’ll be back; he’ll see her car in the driveway and know she hasn’t gone far. She taps her pockets to make sure that her wallet and mobile phone are on board, and off she heads.
As usual, the first stop is the foreshore park on the north bank of the Swan River. She is thankful as ever that it is only a two-minute walk away. How many hundreds of hours has she spent here, in all weathers and seasons, at all hours of day and night? With Claire as babe, toddler and boisterous youngster. Sometimes with Joe; oftimes with a girlfriend. But mostly just herself.
Yes, there is a tameness about it. The ever-mown lawn, the council-managed neatness of it all. But it is a river of substance and some quiet majesty still, even if the city has domesticated it. Over on the far side the Helena trickles in, what is left of it below the Mundaring Weir. It is a river with a scent of earthy water that ripples in the faintest breeze and remembers still its ancient provenance. Derbal Yerrigan; it rolls off her tongue and resonates in her mind with a richer flavour than ‘the Swan’ as she called it for so long.
Old Frank from the house on the corner is there at the end of the little pier in his foldout chair, rod in hand. Once she actually saw him catch a fish. A couple of kayakers glide past and exchange nods with him. A kookaburra starts a startled cackle and whooshes off. It seems to have come from the hollow she has been keeping an eye on lately. Yes, the bees are still streaming in and out. Did kookie get a stung bum? If the chortling of the corella pair three branches up is anything to go by, maybe he did.
As usual she loses track of time. But nor is she inclined to check it. She thinks this is the Saturday for the Girl Guides stall. Second of the month isn’t it? Last time they had this beautiful raspberry shortcake. Yes, she’ll wander home via the shops. Even if there’s no stall, she can sit with a coffee, and get some baklava at the deli for afternoon tea.
She is just leaving the park when her pocket starts ringing. She pulls out the phone, looks, smiles. She settles herself on a park bench as she answers. ‘Hi Claire.’
SKETCHES
Unless he has fishing plans Joe likes to take things slowly on a Saturday morning. Kettle on, get the papers from the front gate, settle in with a cuppa and make a start on the puzzles. The head’s a bit fuzzy this morning; he puts the papers aside to just enjoy the warmth for a bit. A memory of last night’s loving ripples across his consciousness like the backwash of a receding wave. He puckers his lips to the thought of Anne. What were they talking about before it started?
Nah, can’t remember.
Second Saturday. It will be the first for a long time that he hasn’t driven across the river to visit Prof. He grimaces at the thought of the last time, and rouses himself to head into the kitchen. As he fixes his bacon and eggs he finds himself thinking of his approach to Johnson yesterday, wondering whether he messed it up completely.
It’s a beautiful project. A complete new multipurpose civic centre with some state government money to boost the budget, and a council with an open mind. He couldn’t help getting excited when he read the specs in the tender brief. But he knows from bitter experience that there is no point bidding in his own right. Any cachet that his name once held is good in strictly limited circles these days, and a one-man firm operating out of shared offices in the Bayswater light industrial space isn’t going to cut it for this gig.
Why Johnson?
Why not. He’ll be greedy for the tender, and canny enough to realise that having a motivated Joe on his team will increase his chances. What terms though?
Gunna have to think about that … You’ve put the iron in the fire Joseph, don’t pull it out before it’s got the chance to get warm.
He is already making sketches in his mind. Then with a pencil on the blank spaces of a full-page ad opposite the crosswords page.
INVITATION
By the time he hears Anne returning, Joe has moved from doodles on the newspaper to the A3 pad that lives on his old drafting table in the shed. Already there is the very rough blocking of a layout, and the first lines of a sketch of the main building that is starting to form in his imagination. He decides it is a bit early in the piece to share this new enthusiasm, but he wouldn’t have got the chance anyway. Anne has news.
‘Claire rang.’
‘And how’s our darling daughter? All well?’
‘The obstetrician says she’s doing brilliantly.’ She can’t keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘They’ve asked us to come up!’
‘I bet she had to twist his arm.’
‘Stop it will you. Geoffrey’s not that bad. And it’s about time you got over it. For Claire’s sake.’
‘Tongue runs ahead of the brain sometimes.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Anyway, look at you, acting all surprised. “They’ve asked us to come up!” You’ve been waiting for the invitation since the day you got the news.’
‘I’m that transparent?’
He laughs as he nods a confirmation. She grins back, only slightly abashed.
‘She’s convinced it’s a girl. She got up the nerve to do the ring test on Thursday, but she reckons she knew before that. And she wants me—I mean us—there at the birth. The three generations, she reckons. I went all gooey when she said that, Joe.’
‘Gooey Anne. Can I have a lick?’
She pokes her tongue out at him.
‘When’s she due again?’
‘March the twenty-third. You should know that by now.’
‘I had trouble remembering your due date, if you recall.’
‘So you did, you useless bugger.’
‘I’ll have to look at the diary. There’s a couple of jobs with deadlines around then. Besides, it’d be a heap cheaper if you go on your own.’
�
��Joe Warton! We’re talking about your granddaughter!’
‘It’s definitely a girl now is it?’
‘You’re starting to play your word games. What’s up Joe? Don’t think you’ll surly me into not going.’
‘As if! Claire’d be shattered if you didn’t.’
‘What is it mister? You know you can take a week off. I want to share this with you.’
Joe runs the tap and puts the kettle on. He needs a break in the conversation more than he needs the cup of tea. He speaks with his back to her.
‘I’m looking forward to this bub almost as much as you, but …’
The tightness in his voice has her on edge. ‘But?’
‘I don’t want to spoil it. If I stuff things up with Geoffrey—and I always do don’t I, why can’t he just be fucken Geoff like any normal bloke—it’ll put Claire on edge. Those first few days—god, don’t you remember them—everything should be perfect. I’d never forgive myself if I bugger it up for her Anne.’ He dredges up a rueful smile as he turns back to face her. ‘Anyway, she’ll be down here before long for one reason or another, I bet you.’
She shakes her head sadly, realising how much this truth is costing him. ‘I’ll tell her she has to come down, if you refuse to go up.’
‘That’d be better anyway. Just the three of us and the bub.’
‘You can’t go on like this forever.’
‘Tea?’
‘No.’
‘No I can’t. It’s a dilemma I’ve got, isn’t it? Maybe the scales’ll fall from her eyes one of these years, and she’ll realise she deserves better than him.’
‘How can you wish that for her?’
‘I’m not saying that I do wish it. At least not yet. Not while they’re doing the baby thing, and in love and all that. But surely it won’t last? They’re not a fit. Not really. And you know it’s true. Not like you and me. It’s not just him. Claire’s changed. This Christian shit is so … It’s like she’s given her brain away.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘All right then … Closed part of it down? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘Tom’s a Christian. So are Sue and Charles. You don’t have any trouble with them.’
‘You can still argue the toss with them. They’re semi-rational about it. It’s not the Jesus stuff per se, anyway. It’s the evangelical rubbish. I used to love talking to our daughter—talking, arguing, either or—about any little thing. But now it can’t go five minutes without bloody religion creeping into the conversation. I’m not even allowed to swear in her presence. Remember the mouth she used to have on her!’
‘And we know where she got that from. I wouldn’t have chosen Geoffrey for her. Not in a million years. But I’m not the one doing the choosing. Nor you. He’s a decent man.’
‘He’s a prig. And personally I think I’d take a prick over a prig. He’s got this bloody tightness about him Anne. There’s no generosity in him.’
‘He dotes on Claire.’
‘It’s a jealous love. That’s my fear.’
‘Stop it Joe. Just stop it. It’s like you’re wishing evil on them. At this time.’
‘Far from it. But I can’t unthink what’s there in my head. One day you and I are going to be helping Claire to pick up the pieces.’
She stares at him open-mouthed. Somewhere between wounded and angry.
‘Sorry.’ He has to wipe an eye before he can pour his tea. He apologises again as he retreats back out to the shed with his mug.
BAKLAVA
Is there anyone can kill a good mood like him? Anne wonders, taking a great big bite from her piece of baklava.
The trouble is, although she would express it differently, deep down there is not much he has said that she disagrees with.
Doesn’t mean he needs to say it though.
She does her best to shrug the negative vibes off along with her skirt and top as she changes into her gardening clothes. And it works. By the time she is lacing up her old boots she has started mentally reconstructing the trip north that she has been imagining since Claire’s call. Already it seems easier for Joe’s absence. She won’t have to manage the Joe/Geoffrey thing. No being on her guard. Just the sheer joy that she is anticipating.
The Pilbara! The last time she was there was the Christmas holidays between year twelve and her first term at teachers’ college, before her folks moved back east. That was Tom Price, not Karratha. She doesn’t know how yet, but she will abandon Claire for at least half a day and find a way to get out amidst that red rock and spinifex country to watch the topknot pigeons skittering about.
She picks up the second slice of baklava on her way back through the kitchen, meaning to take it out to Joe. But with her mind on perky pigeons and which pair of binoculars she should take up, before she knows it she has taken a bite.
Serves you right, Mister Grump.
She laughs and pushes the rest of the slice into her mouth as she heads out into her garden.
THE MULLOWAY
Joe can’t recapture the flow or the feel of his idea when he returns to the drafting table. He doodles for a bit, but knows himself well enough to not force the issue. He tries to think about tactics for a meeting with Johnson, but his head isn’t in that space either. He oils his reels; even tries ringing Eric to suggest an impromptu session on the river, but gets no answer. He lingers over the cryptic crossword, but the last half-dozen clues defy him.
He knows he made the right call this morning, refusing Claire’s invitation, but fears that if he lets himself think about it too deeply he may come undone. He has known this was coming, but has stubbornly tried to ignore the looming, undefined dread; the point at which he would have to deal in a concrete way with the chasm that has opened between him and his daughter.
Joe cocks his head to look at the photo of Claire, and chuckles ruefully. ‘You’ve buggered up my day good and proper,’ he tells her. ‘Can’t get anything done.’
The house is full of pictures of Claire that Anne has placed and hung, but here in his space, looking down on the drafting desk, is his favourite. The freckled, frizzle-haired, sun-brown twelve-year-old on the beach up from Dongara with her first and only mulloway; feet planted wide, every muscle straining to hold the big fish up above the sand, cheek-splitting grin, and this look that encompasses joy and pride and love as she beams at him.
‘Life was simpler then, hey girl.’
Claire Bear, Annie Badger and Joe the Drongo.
A young Claire had overheard his Annie Badger endearment one evening, and demanded an explanation. At first he couldn’t remember. Then he caught Anne trying to hide a smile. He raised his hands like claws and screwed up his face. ‘It’s because she’s fierce, and she likes to burrow.’
Anne couldn’t help a snort of laughter. He turned his claws on her, and their eyes twinkled at the shared recollection. But Claire wanted to know, ‘Well if I’m a bear, and Mummy’s a badger, what are you?’
Anne sprung to the rescue with a moment of inspiration that she relished ever after, explaining to Claire that the spangled drongo was a beautiful black bird that lived up in the tropics.
‘Aarrk,’ crowed Joe, flapping his arms.
Anne raised her claws.
Claire squealed with glee, and tried to growl like a bear.
They danced until they collapsed in a gigglesome heap on the kitchen floor.
And thus it was. A vain he-bird and two potentially ferocious she-mammals. A world unto themselves in their riverside nook.
He looks again at the photo and thinks of its companion piece, sitting on his office desk in Bayswater. He and Claire side by side cradling the fish. She is half turned towards him. There is that sly look of complicity layered upon the joy, pride and love. And his expression is a perfect match. They had ganged up on Anne to insist that the packing could wait until that night so they could fit in one more fishing session.
He got her a double cone to celebrate the mulloway. She pic
ked strawberry and honeycomb crunch.
When’s the last time we all went to Dongara, Claire Bear?
The beach shack has been a part of Joe’s life for as long as he can remember.
Auntie Betty and Uncle George picking him up for a week of being spoiled rotten. Ice creams and chips on demand and unconditional love. Long days fishing from boat or beach. Helping Betty to make the batter while George cleaned the catch. Three-handed cribbage that he mysteriously seemed to win despite his mistakes with the counting. Falling asleep on the sofa to the murmur of their voices as they played another round. Waking in the verandah sleep-out and drinking in the sea breeze, eager for another day.
The first trip he and Anne did alone. He was too embarrassed to tell them the mate going with him was a girl when he picked up the key. But he could tell from George’s cocked eyebrow that they had their suspicions.
After they’d returned from Sydney with their tails between their legs, the first time he began to feel alive again, connected to something real, was when the three of them spent a week at the shack with Uncle George and Auntie Betty.
Joe and Anne became the unofficial caretakers after Betty broke her hip. Most years Eric and Lil joined them. The fellers would fish from dawn to dusk. Anne seemed never to tire of roaming the dunes and the river with her binoculars and field guide, and experimenting with the new cookbook she treated herself to each Christmas. Lil’s preferred spot was the hammock with a book and a bottle of white.
Although most of her days were given over to fishing with Dad and ‘Nuncle Neric’, Claire shared her favours. She liked to pull a beanbag into the shade of the peppermint tree, next to Lil in the hammock, to read whichever series of books she was into that year. Usually she would go birding with her mother at least once during the holiday, as long as Anne promised not to walk too far.
By the time she was seven she had established full playing rights in the evening canasta; they had to cut the deck to see who would sit out the first game and do the dishes. And she got more ice creams and chips that week in Dongara than the rest of the year combined; Joe insisted that traditions had to be respected.
