She stares up at the ceiling. This was once a lovely room. Flashes of lightning reveal its generous proportions. It has oak panelling. A chandelier hangs from its coved ceiling. Of a morning she watches the crystals come alive as sunbeams dance across the plasterwork. Tonight, there’s a tinkling of crystals in the volatile air currents. She hopes the chandelier is well anchored to its rose. She rolls onto her stomach to protect her face. Too uncomfortable. She rolls right way up. The musty smell means water damage is underway. Have her senses been sharpened? The drawing room’s decay wasn’t apparent by day. Now the rain, gentle during the evening, builds. Hal and Cyn, their bedroom being underneath the tower, have volunteered to go down with the ship. Claire’s thankful that Alex sleeps nearby.
Through the muslin curtaining flares of sheet lightning illuminate banks of cloud; each flare is followed by a thunderous boom. Unlike the remainder of the roof that’s slate-clad, the portico has a corrugated iron roof. She loves the squeak and thrum of iron sheets rising and falling in time with wind gusts; it’s a familiar sound from childhood.
She sleeps fitfully until awakened by a branch from the monkey-puzzle tree outside the sitting room; it scratches at the windowpane; Claire envisions a wood sprite clawing at the warped old glass for entry with its long fingernails. She has awakened from a troubling dream. She wishes she could latch onto the dream’s webby trail and follow it hand over hand back into the vortex of her dreamscape.
No. Let it go, Claire. Fall back into sleep’s deep furrow, she tells herself. But, she can’t. She’s wide awake. A boy was flying a kite on a beach. A wind gust lifted the kite, then let it fall to earth.
Earlier in the evening, Alex had carried her to the recliner chair in the conservatory; he’d adjusted its mechanism, organised pillows and a rug before attending to the fire.
Cynthia and Hal were jousting at chess. Eventually, they’d gone to prepare supper.
Alex, crossing to the board, had given her a wink, then shifted a chess-piece of each parent.
“Now I’ve disadvantaged them equally,” he said. “Things will get lively.” He’d returned to the fire. “Are you bored?” he’d asked.
“No, I love watching flames. I’m glad there’s no TV. It leaves my thoughts content-free.”
“You make your own content,” said Alex ambiguously.
“It’s a luxury musing,” she said, flipping through a ‘Country Life’ magazine. “If sloth is a sin, I’m morally bankrupt; I’ll never win at Snakes and Ladders. But I’m up for a chat if you want.”
Alex wastes no time in bringing a beanbag to her side. They chat and play furtive footsie games.
Wheeling the trolley in, Cynthia doesn’t notice the disarray of the board. “You’re on light rations until the wedding, Claire,” she’d said, her voice fluting girlishly.
“But I’d rather have the cake than the wedding!” said Claire, shocking herself. How full of cheek she’s become! Yet Cynthia seems to respect her now she’s asserting herself.
Hal gives a surprisingly loud cackle, considering his slight build. “Atta girl, Claire.”
“Why pin one’s hopes upon a single day?” Claire had said. “I want a long, happy life.”
“Heirloom wedding lace anchors us in the past,” said Cyn.
Claire had made a grimace at this remark. “I need freeing not anchoring.”
Alex had taken some cake, mimed the eating of it and folded it in a napkin and hidden it.
“Aterlo,” he says in pig Latin.
“Oodgo,” she’d replied.
At bedtime, Mama, anxious to see them tucked into their respective beds, clanks cutlery and stacks dishes in the kitchen until they’re settled. She retires when Alex, on his bedroll, pretends to snore.
Cyn smiles sweetly at Claire and wriggles her fingers, “Goodnight dear, I’m not trying to starve you like poor Gretel. I’ve your best interests at heart,” she says, closing the door and mounting the stairs laboriously.
Claire’s wakened by a loud boom. She’d been dreaming but she can’t get back to sleep. Her bladder is sending communiqués from the front line. Bloody bladder, she grumbles. She lies there ruminating over the day’s events.
Why does Mama accept quite equably that Alex and she are in love one minute, yet next day, she’s once again adamant Claire should marry Clive? And why is Clive the sole heir to Ced’s fortune?
“Sometimes first instincts are right after all,” Cyn had said during their pow-wow in the study. It strikes Claire that Cedric’s letter must have arrived that morning; the very same morning she had read Claire’s diary and she’d wondered if Claire might be pregnant.
Claire had been wondering too; but she’d managed to push her fear of pregnancy to the back of her mind ever since it wormed its way into her consciousness earlier today. Yes! Of course, Cyn hopes she’s pregnant to Clive. Once a child is born, Clive will be Cedric’s heir. Shit!
She reaches for the bell. She rings it softly. Bas, the dog, stirs and nuzzles her hand. She calls out, “Alex, come quick.”
She hears a yawn, a groan and a drunken stumbling issuing from his side of the room.
“Claire? You want me?” Loaded question.
“Yes, Alex, I’m desperate for the commode.”
“If you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. Just a sec.” He stands over her trying to get his balance. She can just make out his features. He lifts her onto the commode and leaves. But his legs buckle as he deposits her back in bed.
“Hop in, Alex, or you’ll catch your death.” She holds the bedclothes open.
“Oh, Claire. I’ve been feeling like Basil, forbidden the mistress’ chamber. Except he’s allowed on the bed. I’m not.” He pats the dog who’s taken a shine to Claire, much to the disgust of Cynthia who spoils Bas but he never finds her worth fussing over. Bas snuffles in his sleep. “I promise not to lick or paw you.”
“Don’t you lick me anymore?” she jokes. “Just lie here beside me, Alex.” Claire pats the blanket.
“You’re shivering.” He rubs her arm. “Is it the storm?”
“No, a dream.” She tells him the gist of it. “What could it mean?”
“A beach is wildness, liberation. The kite means freedom. Submitting to the elements, risk-taking. The broken kite could be you, injured. You flew too high, you fell in love, and then the wind changed, dropped you back to earth. Are you accident-prone? Should you fly again?”
“Of course, I should!”
“Good on you, Claire. I love the new courageous you.”
She smiles to herself in the dark. He loves me, she thinks, feeling smug. “Alex,” she says, “Did my subconscious mind invent these symbols? If so, how come I need you to decode them for me?”
“Your subconscious mind is wise. Trust its insights.” He gets up. Leaves the room. Comes back with carrot cake. He breaks off a piece and feeds it to her.
“The icing’s the most delicious part but it’s no good without the cake.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Life needs it’s high and low points. It’s like over-dosing on love, way too rich!” He sighs.
He hands her the slice.
She feeds him tiny crumbs. He curls his tongue and rolls them around his mouth. “Sweet of you to share your cake.” He kisses her hand. “There’s something better than exquisite food,” he says.
“I know there is, and I want you, Alex.”
“No, Claire. First you must tell Clive about us.”
“Are you withholding sex like those Greek women?”
“Yes!”
They lie side by side, two friends holding hands.
The storm grows wilder. Its epicentre seems directly above them. Alex opens the curtains. “Look!”
“It’s the deities’ sound and light show,” he says. “Promise me you’ll never sleep through another storm.”
He rolls the divan towards the window. The clouds have shifted. Lightning splits the sky into jigsaw pieces. One second later thunder booms. It’
s wild, exhilarating and frightening all at once. Alex reaches for her hand; they lie there, hardly daring to breathe.
“Alex, could you at least hold me?”
In the morning Hal wakes them on his way to the stables to check on the horses. Alex’s arm is still slung across Claire’s flank when he opens the door. He stands for a moment in the doorway. Coughs loudly. “What a night! Good of you, Alex, to comfort Claire,” he says. “Well, I’m off to see if any trees have shed branches. Now hop up quick, Alex, Mama is on her way downstairs. We wouldn’t want her to get the wrong end of the stick, would we?”
Chapter 49
Cyn at Dawn
I climb the tower; open the sash window giving onto the lookout. I fight my way through to the flimsy platform overlooking the gnarled stumps of vines planted in a triumph of enthusiasm over realism. I lean my weight upon the rusted wrought iron railing. What would happen if the railing gave? The view is to die for but I’m not one to give in without a fight.
Over the Western District plains dawn’s progress seems glacial. Shouldn’t it come all-of-a-rush? Once over the Great Dividing Range, there are few topographical features to impede the light.
According to predictions in ‘The Age’ of yesterday, dawn is late. Or is it Papa’s old watch that’s gone bung?
Whatever, dawn always inspires awe. Even the most jaded of us wonders what the day will bring. We go from still-but-only-just night to almost-but-not-quite day so subtly it’s imperceptible. It’s like that mathematical paradox in which a door can be open or half-open. Or a quarter open, one-eighth, one sixteenth and so on. On that basis, the door can never quite close. And yet doors close.
Somehow. Are mathematical principles unreliable or what??? I’ll ask Hal when he’s up. I moisten my lips. From my vantage point in the tower you can see earth’s curvature. My breath fogs up the windowpane. At last a proof of life.
Last night was midwinter’s eve! And my life’s nadir. “You’re no ‘lioness in winter’ just a ‘grizzly bear’ all year long,” Hal said last evening, but with fondness. Overall, I’ve been lucky with Hal. Little passion. But a solid partnership.
The house is falling to bits around us – the pipes are rusted out, and our son a plumber who’d rather play around being creative! Then there’s Hal’s prostate, and he too embarrassed to raise the issue with our urologist son. I try stifling a yawn but I give up. Why cover my mouth? No one is watching.
How generously we rearrange our lives to fit in with Bonnie’s family dramas. However, last night being a Friday, Bonnie wasn’t well pleased at how things turned out.
Events have overtaken me since my chat with Claire in the café two days ago. That day I’d said, follow your heart – marry Alex – but since then the world’s done a 180-degree turn; now it’s her duty to Clive that counts. Poor thing’s confused. Me too.
The chess win Hal grants me of a Friday evening mustn’t be mentioned or the game would be up. No one would win if our charade were known about. Bonnie doesn’t notice the sleight of hand we use to ensure Hal loses, despite him being smarter than me. It was less fun tonight without Bonnie’s stern eyes on us. And Alex had wrought some mischief with the board before supper. Made it harder for his father to lose. But eventually, Hal succeeded – in losing, that is!
I struggled out of bed early this morning but not before giving Hal a smart tap on the shoulder. A tendon in his neck twitched. I’m onto him. There’s no malice in me really. Just annoyance at our situation. We’re like three circus clowns balancing on a rubber ball – we stay aloft, provided our blamey feet keep moving unceasingly.
It was nice to have Hal to myself last night and him seeming as faithful as if he actually were faithful. I achieved my obligatory chess win. But the ‘win’ wasn’t so enjoyable without Bonnie’s sharp eye surveying the scene. I even won Hal last night. A storm-brought bonus!
While Hal snores from the whiskey he tippled, I take my torch from the bedside table, where it’s lived since the pull cord conked out and remains broken for reasons too tedious to mention.
Descending in the semi-dark, I miss a half step by the angle turn and step off into empty space.
Landing, my ankle twists. “Blast!” I exclaim, crumpling onto the stair tread. Luckily, my centre of gravity is low or I’d have rolled downwards, killed myself. I sit holding my head in my hands. It’s hard making our ‘situation’ work. To what end? So, we three can pretend to live normal lives? The truth will out eventually.
Frustrated, I weep tears of the dry heaving sort that involve one’s body in a workout. I stagger downstairs, intending to limp up to Alex and whisper the things I ought to have said long ago.
Young Alex was the more loving son, though his boons weren’t boast-worthy. He wasn’t the spitting image of Michelangelo’s David, nor had he prodigious exam success. Today Alex would be deemed ‘creative’, thanks to his cleverness in taking things apart, and learning how they work.
He talks philosophy as if he knows about it. None of us is qualified to contradict him. Did we fail Alex?
I shine my torch on Alex’s camp bed – he’s not there. He’s in with Claire. Of course! We sent him in last night when the storm worsened!
I rehearse my guilt about Alex; had I compromised my integrity by insisting on certain legalities back at the time of the boys’ births? Is it therefore my fault that Alex wants to bed Clive’s fiancée? Was he denied the mothering he needed? Alex wasn’t mine. It was wrong of me to pretend otherwise.
I sigh and sink onto the ice-cold flagstones by the lounge room door. I listen attentively.
There’s nothing to be heard. I’m not spying, just being a mother. Should I play the avenging angel flinging wide the door, sweeping off sheets, confounding evil, being a prude?
‘Prude’ is the wrong epithet for me. Early one morning in the late fifties, here, at Arcadia, during a house party, I, Cynthia, a virgin at 26, arrived at Hal’s door begging a Craven A of him but hoping he’d offer so much more.
But that was then. Now I’m celibate, not by desire – an unfortunate word ‘desire’, considering Hal’s medical problem! Is Hal’s merely a plumbing problem or a partner specific problem? I wonder. I’d never ask for fear he’d tell the truth.
I limp back upstairs to the alcove off the bedroom – my office cum dressing room. There’s always something practical to do. I’ll go along with Cedric’s plan to entail his estate upon Clive – the presumed father of Claire’s son. Hal knows nothing of my recent efforts to secure our future.
I hope he won’t be cross on learning I’ve invited the Marconis for an informal lunch. I’m not even trying to put Gwenda’s nose out of joint for betraying our friendship, as one might reasonably expect me to do. No. I’m just covering our backs in case Claire goes home pregnant – marries no one. We need a second string to our bow. Cedric was adamant that without a child, whose middle name was Gordon after ‘our lot’, the bequest would lapse.
Yesterday when she phoned me gleefully to give me the gossip on Claire and Alex, I sounded out Maureen Marconi on a business proposition. Would she be interested in the sale of our creek flats to them? Would she what! Hal is reluctant to carve up his land but Maureen and Beppe are salivating at the possibility of creek access.
We’re meeting in the dining room at midday for a preliminary discussion. By the time Hal has tippled several glasses of French Champagne, we’ll have carved up his birthright and convinced him it’s a bargain.
Chapter 50
Morning After Alex and Hal
Alex and Hal busy themselves with outdoor chores, orbiting the garden like planets destined never to collide.
Hal watches his son’s lithe form as he deals with the cedars that bore the brunt of last night’s battering. He sorts fallout from the gale with an efficiency of movement that’s a sight for sore eyes, or would be, under different circumstances. Limbs are sized, removed to the woodpile by the shed with despatch. Marvellous how Alex tackles outdoor tasks! Could have been a dancer
, his movement is so fluid.
But what dispiriting circumstances! Hal thinks. Storm damage might be a metaphor for their lives.
Ruined trees! Damaged families! Extinguished hopes!
“Over here, Da!” Alex calls. He beckons Hal over to a particularly fine specimen of the genus.
Upon inspection it’s found the tree is rotten to its core.
Hal feels physically ill. “The blight will have them all,” he says. This scourge attacks trees as silently as ill-judged lust undermines families, he thinks; it leaves the outer foliage intact, while burrowing down to the core and once you’re cored…
“What do you reckon, Da?”
“Borer,” Hal says. “Got to come down. But not today. It’d kill Cynthia. Tidy them up so they’re okay cosmetically, Al,” he says.
“A tree surgeon might save them,” Alex says.
“He charges extra for hopeful diagnoses,” Hal says. “It’d look like a mouth with missing teeth.” Hal wishes Alex didn’t always look on the bright side. It’s as if Alex is critiquing his own hopelessness. Hal carries smaller off-cuts to the pile, telling himself they’re branches and not limbs.
Hal is glad he’s old. Old age insulates one from disappointment. It protects one from emotional entanglements, except those pre-diarised for Friday evenings in the room off the library.
In his mind’s eye, Hal safeguards his image of ‘B’ as a lithe young girl. She still has the power to light up his synapses brighter than the Manhattan skyline after dark.
Eventually, Hal pushes away the image of young B or nothing would get done. In any case, he’d never swap the mature B for her younger tomboy self; B, the woman, has magnificently fulfilled the template of her youth. Her perfect oval face is hardly lined, she’s slender yet womanly, her complexion hasn’t faded in the way of olive-skinned persons. She’s gracious, confident, at ease and even if at times she regrets the decision made all those years ago, she never says so.
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