But she looked into Madeline’s eyes and saw such longing, such honest wanting, that she simply couldn’t free her own emotions. She too had felt the rapport, the closeness that Madeline had mentioned. And she couldn’t hurt this other, innocent woman whose only crime was in loving Con as Verna did.
But even less could she fall in with Madeline’s wishes, Verna realised. It would be nothing less than a form of suicide, for herself, and she’d never in a million years be able to carry it off successfully. She took a quick gulp of drink. Play for time ... you must play for time, she thought, shutting her eyes as if in thought.
‘Con, I think I need a decent drink after a real surprise like that,’ her voice said. ‘A brandy, I think ... yes, a large brandy, please.’
Then she turned to meet Madeline’s eyes again, and forced calmness into her voice. ‘Madeline, are you sure you’ve thought this over enough?’ she began. 1 mean, really, we hardly know each other and ...’
Madeline waved a casual dismissal, her jewellery glinting in the suddenly harsh light. ‘Of course I’ve thought it over. I don’t really have many friends, Verna, not real friends. And I’ve never met any woman that I could take to as I have you. No, you’re my choice and I’m sticking to it, provided you’ll agree. And you will, won’t you? Oh, Verna, you simply must!’
‘But where is the wedding going to be?’ Verna asked. ‘I mean, I have my work to consider and ..And I don’t want to know where it’s going to be, she thought. I don’t want to know anything about it, except that it’s over and I can start trying to forget...
‘Well, we were thinking of Sydney, but I’ve changed my mind now that I’ve seen this house. It’ll be here, of course,’ said Madeline.
‘Here? Oh..,’ Verna was stuck for words after that. Her mind whirled in a totally useless pattern of gabbling noise that refused to let her speak.
‘Yes, definitely here. In the back garden, or maybe even down on the beach if it’s nice enough weather. Oh, but that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you agree to be the bridesmaid. We’ll sort out the details later; that’s half the fun of it all.’
Fun? It would be agony. It would be impossible.
‘Oh, but I’m not sure I’ll even be here,’ Verna said, desperately seeking an excuse, any excuse. ‘I’m not going to be staying in Bundaberg, you see. I’ve already got several possible jobs lined up, and ...’
‘You can’t possibly leave without three months’ notice," Con’s rumbling voice interrupted. ‘And this wedding is going to be held on the eighteenth of March, so there’s no problem.’
‘Now you stay out of this, Con,’ Madeline warned. ‘This has to be Verna’s decision and I won’t have you browbeating her; you do enough of that as it is.’
‘The eighteenth of March,’ Verna mused. ‘Oh, but that’s a Tuesday.’ She breathed an inner sigh of relief. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Madeline, but Tuesdays for me .,.’
‘It’s a Wednesday.’ Con interrupted again, ignoring the warning look from Madeline,
‘Verna, I don’t quite understand you,’ he continued, waving aside Madeline’s half-voiced protest with a blunt gesture of his huge hand. ‘Now you know that you don’t have these job problems you mentioned. And even if you did, you know I could wangle time off for you from Reggie. And Wednesday’s the easiest day in your week ...’
You know ... you know ... you know ... But you don’t know anything, Verna thought. How could you possibly expect me to stand up with your bride at your wedding? Knowing that it will kill me. How could you make love to me up on the Hummock? How could you play with my emotions and treat me like this? And how could I ever have fallen in love with you?
She could feel the brandy burning in her stomach, lifting and rolling with real, scorching flames. Lifting, searing, rolling...
She didn’t dare to speak as she lurched from her seat and fled for the staircase, holding her skirts high as she scampered up the stairs in a desperate bid to reach the bathroom before ...
And she made it — barely. Through the sounds of her own sickness she could hear voices from the lounge room, voices raised in growing anger, one throaty and alive, the other rumbling like thunder.
Then the door opened and Madeline knelt beside her, a warm, moist washcloth in her fingers as she dabbed at Verna’s brow.
The spasms ceased and Verna moved to get up, but Madeline’s hand on her shoulder kept her there.
‘Not yet, there may be more,’ the other girl’s voice was soft, flowing with honest compassion. ‘Oh, Verna, I’m so sorry. I never meant to upset you.’
‘It ... it wasn’t you,’ Verna gasped, feeling the shudders gradually weaken and her body begin to relax.
‘Well, I started it,’ Madeline said. ‘But maybe you’re right. It must be absolute hell to love a man like that. He’s my brother and I love him, but sometimes I could wring...’
‘Your what? Verna couldn’t believe her ears, and she felt the rest of the brandy flaring up again inside her.
‘My brother. You know — the tall, dark, handsome stupid one downstairs ..Madeline’s voice broke off in sudden comprehension, then she fell silent as the rest of the brandy exploded like a bomb.
When that was over, Verna pushed away Madeline’s hand and struggled up to seat herself on the edge of the bathtub, oblivious to any possible harm her dress might suffer.
The two girls looked at each other, a tremendous flow of knowledge passing between them like a silent, invisible river. Verna spoke first.
‘And he knew,’ she whispered, recalling his jests about her jealousy on the day they went for that drive. ‘He knew!’ she cried aloud.
Madeline looked even more shocked than Verna felt, if that were possible. Her ice-blue eyes flashed from cold to warm to flaming heat, and Verna shivered at the way they reminded her of Con’s eyes.
‘I was going to warn you that he’s inclined to be a games player, a manipulative sort of devil,’ Madeline said softly. ‘But I guess you already know.’
‘I do now.’ Verna thought for a second she was going to be sick again, but the heaving changed to a cold, freezing lump of bleak nothingness that filled her stomach, her heart and her entire soul. ‘I do now.’
She looked at Madeline and saw tears coming to match her own, and then both girls were in each other’s arms, but it was Madeline’s strength that provided the comfort, the stability, that finally ended Verna’s weeping.
‘Cunningham is my professional name, by the way, and if it’s any consolation, you’ve really got to him,’ Madeline said then. ‘Knowing him as I do — and believe me, I do! — I’d say he’s fallen just as hard as you have, only he’s fighting it much more effectively. But cruel, so damned, awfully cruel. I’m ashamed to be related to him, and I never thought I’d ever say that about Con. The stupid so-and-so has got himself so engrossed in the game he’s forgotten the people.’
‘I could kill him,’ Verna said coldly, barely even listening to Madeline as her mind raced back to that horrible incident in her own kitchen. ‘I should kill him! I could have, once — and God help me, I should have.’
It was as if they were each talking to somebody else, or to themselves.
‘He’s scared, that’s it. My big, brave, bachelor brother is scared to death. He’s fallen in love and he actually doesn’t know how to handle it,’ said Madeline with a sad, weary shake of her head.
‘He knows I love him. He’s known it all along,’ said Verna. ‘But he can’t love me. How could he? Not and do things like this. Not so cruel, so selfishly, coldly cruel. It’s because I’m a ... he said once I was too rare for him,’ she faltered. Then anger flared again. ‘I’ll kill him ... I’ll kill him ... I’ll kill him!’
‘You might have to stand in line, honey. Blood’s thicker than water, and he’s been manipulating me too,’ said Madeline with a deadly softness. ‘I think I’d like a little chat with my dear, soon-to-be-departed brother …’
‘Oh, no,’ Verna broke in. ‘No, please, Madel
ine.’ She rose to her feet and stared into the mirror, seeing her blue- green eyes reflecting the emptiness that poured like ice water through her body. "No, don’t say anything. Nothing at all. It doesn’t matter any more. Now that I know ... she faltered only briefly, ‘... now that I know it was only a game, I can handle it. Honestly I can. And I don’t want anything at all said, by either of us. It’s over!’
Madeline’s voice was soft and warmed by her compassion. ‘You know better than that, or you will tomorrow ... or the next day,’ she whispered. ‘But we’ll do it your way, only there are a few things I want to say first. So you start tidying yourself up, O.K.? You can listen at the same time.’
Verna accepted the directive silently, staring at the stranger in the mirror as she did so.
‘Con is thirty-seven years old,’ Madeline began, ‘which means he’s pretty set in his ways. He’s a hard man, a tough one, but he’s always been a gentle and a fair man and I believe he still is, despite the evidence against it. And he’s terribly proud, which is why I think he’s gone so strange about this. He told you about his tear-jerker romances — oh, yes, he told me about that. In fact I’ve heard nothing but Verna this and Verna that since I got here, although I knew there was something up when he started sending me your paper every week. He’s not exactly shy, but he’s not the type to brag about things like his restaurant column, either. At least not to me.’
She made a parody of breast-beating, crying ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa ... damn it, I should have picked it all up quicker! But it’s too late now and it doesn’t matter. What I must say is this, Verna. When you two finally get it together, and you will, you must stand up to him better. He can’t help being a manipulator; it’s the way he was raised and he’s too old to change.’
Madeline grinned wryly. ‘Whole damned family’s like that; I’m even worse than Con, but my man knows how to handle me. Oh, you’ll love my Danny, I just know you will. Whenever I get out of hand he takes me over his knee and paddles some sense into me, but I suppose Con’s a bit big for you to try that with ...’
Verna interjected, her own voice cold with the horrid vast emptiness inside her. ‘Madeline, I know what you’re trying to say,’ she said quietly. ‘But it doesn’t matter, don’t you see? It’s over. Over, finished, kaput 1 I don’t care any more. All I want to do is get this evening over with and forget it ever happened ... forget it all ever happened.’
‘What a load of ... oh, all right. There’s no sense in me badgering you as well,’ said Madeline. ‘O.K., it’s over. You hate him and I hate him a little myself. But tonight we’ll just keep our cool, and then we’ll split.’
She stamped her foot angrily. ‘But some day I’ll get even with him — for both of us. You can’t deny me that’
Verna looked at her with empty eyes. ‘Whatever you say, Madeline. Now let’s get going before we’re late. I just want to get this over with.’
‘Are you sure you ought to even try?’
1 must,’ Verna said flatly. ‘It’s part of my job.’
The two girls descended the staircase together, and Verna saw them through a new awareness. Her own beauty, for certainly it was such, was the perfect foil for Madeline’s. While Madeline was tempestuous, wild and free, Verna knew that she was elemental, fire and ice, water and air.
And she saw in Con’s eyes that he saw her beauty, and that it was affecting him. Then she ceased to notice. For her, he simply ceased to exist.
When he took her arm to help her into the car, and later, out of it at the Civic Centre, she neither flinched from his touch nor responded to it. He didn’t exist.
During the judging of the pageant entrants, most of whom Madeline said walked like barnyard cows, she neither listened to Con nor spoke directly to him. She held herself in a reserve so complete, so all-encompassing, that he couldn’t reach her if he’d tried.
She drank too much. Far too much, in fact, but it didn’t affect her in any way except to fan the growing ember of cyclonic rage that whirled inside her, growing with every passing minute as her mind worked.
She thought of their first meeting, that lonely morning on the beach, and then rejected it. That wasn’t Con Bradley. The stranger on the beach had been rough, but had given her compassion, tenderness, and caring. He had cherished her. Not Con.
She thought of her own responses to the real Con Bradley, the man who had almost made love to her on the Hummock, who had trained her dog, nursed her, and laughed at her. How could he? How could anyone be so deliberately cruel, so deliberately callous?
He had manipulated her from the beginning, treating her like one of his fictional characters. Without regard for her humanity, for the fact that she bled, she hurt, she cried. A game, that was all she’d been.
When the dancing began, Verna joined in with apparent enthusiasm, her eyes bright and sparkling and her body responding to the rhythm as it never had before in her life. But her mind was elsewhere, deep in a black, remote cavern where it stirred at a cauldron of bubbling hatred.
As the evening passed, she danced with Reg Williamson, laughing at his jokes and even twitting him about his relationship with old Mrs Lansing-Thorpe. She danced with one of the other organisers, and with several of the townsmen she had come to know. She did not dance with Con Bradley.
His first request met with a blunt refusal, and when it was seconded by his sister a moment later, he gave in to the demands from the winning Queen candidate and later her runners-up.
Verna danced, and drank, and danced some more. And the witch inside stirred at the cauldron as it bubbled hotter and hotter. Until finally she thought she would explode, and rose from her chair with the idea of seeking fresh air from one of the open fire exists.
She realised it was the wrong move when a large, tanned hand slipped around her wrist and she was literally dragged on to the dance floor, but she felt absolutely nothing as Con slipped his arm around her and stepped into the rhythm. Until he spoke.
‘You’re being very strange tonight, Verna,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think you’re taking this Dragon Lady role a bit too seriously? I’d almost think you don’t love me any more.’
And the cauldron boiled over, spilling white-hot rage through her body as the tears spilled from her anguished eyes. Verna stopped dead in her tracks, eyes flaring as she lifted them to meet the ice-blue chips above her.
‘Love! You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word,’ she spat. ‘You’re nothing but an arrogant, conceited, self- centred, manipulating swine!’
Con recoiled in surprise, then reached out for her.
‘Don’t you touch me!’ she hissed. ‘You’ve done enough already. You’ve taken me and treated me just like one of the silly women in your silly damned romantic trash novels. And I’m not!’
She stamped her foot angrily. ‘Well, let me tell you something, Mr Con Bloody-minded Bradley. You’re nothing! Do you hear me? Nothing! You play games, you manipulate people, you give them feelings and you cut them up and make them bleed, but you ... are … nothing. Even your fictional heroes have more humanity than you, more compassion, more tenderness, more capacity for love. Oh, I pity you. I pity you.
‘And I’d hate you, too, but you don’t exist any more. Not for me. After this minute you are out of my life, out of my newspaper, out of everything I love and cherish and believe in. You ... do ... not ... exist.’
And Verna turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him standing there in the middle of the dance floor, the other celebrants weaving a happy pattern around his rigid, unmoving figure.
Striding to her seat, she grabbed up her handbag and walked mechanically towards the front door, nodding her goodbyes to Reg Williamson and Mrs Lansing-Thorpe as she passed them.
Madeline, returning from the powder room, stopped her only long enough to whisper, ‘I’ll cover for you,’ and Verna barely heard her. Walking tall and proud as any queen, she passed through the doorway and out into the darkened, quiet street.
She caught a taxi before she
reached the corner, and she was home before the clock struck midnight.
CHAPTER TEN
Sleep would be impossible, and Verna knew it even before she had stripped off her new dress and flung it in a heap on the bedroom floor. Even on the taxi ride home, the core o£ anger that had flared so brightly in the face of Con Bradley was beginning to flicker, to spin off some of its fury and solidity; by the time she had sprawled wide-eyed and wakeful for five minutes in her bed, the worst of the fury was dissipated.
Verna didn’t bother to turn on any lights, she merely fumbled through the drawers of her wardrobe until her fingers encountered shorts and a T-shirt; then she shook down her hair from the crowning style of the night before and slung it back into a crude ponytail with a piece of string. She slipped into her thongs and left the house with Sheba an extra black shadow at her heels.
At first, she walked unthinkingly, revelling in the silence of the deserted beaches, the still, calm air of the sub-tropical night. She let her anger spread like a wraith about her, until it faded like night mist as the rising moon brought her shadow into stark relief against the whiteness of the sands.
She had come on to the sands at the north end of Kelly’s Beach, and gradually her aimless wanderings brought her to the still waters of the lagoon, where generations of district children had learned to swim in safety, and where hundreds of sun-seekers would flock like galahs throughout the weekend.
By night it was another world, serene in its own peaceful calm, with only the occasional flurry of a feeding fish to break the stillness.
Verna sprawled out in the coolness of the sand, her thoughts idly retracing her involvement with the man she now realised she would love no matter how badly he had hurt her. She looked back on her reactions when he’d first named her Dragon Lady the Editor, so recently and yet so long ago it seemed to be part of a past dimmed by time.
She remembered with an unexpected fondness how rattled she had been in that restaurant with Garry Fisher, and from there her mind leaped to the Chinese meal with Con, and her laborious trials with the chopsticks.
The Sugar Dragon Page 16
