Falling into Place

by Pamela Mc Casker

Hal puts the shot glass in his lumberjack shirt pocket, the bottle goes under his arm. Like Clive does, Claire thinks.

  “Whom are we expecting?” Bonnie calls after Hal.

  “I haven’t been informed. I only pay the rates,” Hal says, flicking the tablecloth over his shoulder as he leaves. “Ask Cynthia. She’s in the study, doing the books.”

  “How come you’re so good at it, Bonnie?” Claire asks.

  “At cooking?”

  “Getting rid of men. Staying cheerful.”

  “I’ve had years of practice, worse luck. Bread needs slicing.”

  “Sure, I just wish I’d had more…”

  “Men?”

  “No. More experience.”

  “You’re having an experience now. Experience comes from experiencing things.”

  “That’s an epigram, Bonnie. You’re clever. Know anything about coat hangers and gin? I’ve created massive problems for this child. I’m unready for motherhood. If only its origins weren’t so…”

  “Uncertain? Would your love for the child depend upon the father’s identity?”

  Claire’s eyes narrow. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Good! Stock’s ready,” Bonnie says, tasting it. She scrapes artichokes and spuds into the pot, adds chopped herbs and replaces the lid.

  Chapter 53

  Luncheon

  It’s a rare gathering of humans one can’t learn from. At school, Alex learned his ABC.

  Nowadays, he learns from everyone he meets.

  This ability, developed at Melbourne Uni during his brief sojourn there, and stayed with him as he moved on to lesser things. Why, he’d asked himself, with his broad interest in life, the universe and almost everything, should he waste years on an obscure thesis? Angus from school had committed years of his life to ’Endogenizing the Exogenous’ whatever that meant.

  Instead of specialising in arcane matters Alex collected glints of gold from his immediate surroundings. He maintained his awe and learned something of worth wherever he landed.

  At uni, boring came in different gradations, some so mammoth they trailed their own microclimates like comet tails. He subjected himself to challenges: if he could remain vertical during his interminable calculus sessions, he’d reward himself by taking the afternoon off kayaking.

  This strategy was only partly successful, his arms soon turned into tree trunks, while his brain didn’t atrophy too much. However, the nubile female students, who might have been impressed by the sinewy arms draped casually across the backs of the metal seating units, paid attention to the lectures, not to him. The developed parts of his anatomy languished undiscovered along with the rest of him. His university days were numbered.

  He gained one skill from mathematics: poetry. He wrote odes to the lackadaisical young beauties wilting in the summer’s heat in the seat in front of him. Mediocre poems to swan-like necks accumulated in notebooks during fallow hours. Nothing was worth nothing it seemed, barring his own poetry.

  Cynthia’s surprise guests turn out to be the Marconis – sons and all. It amazes Alex that these taciturn, hunky guys, known as ‘the Italian stallions’ – despite being half Irish – would come to a tame neighbours’ lunch on a Saturday. Surely, they had their own busy lives to live.

  Why has Ma invited them? Is she hoping to off-load Claire onto one of the cocky, affable sons?

  Is she hoping to buy, sell or swap pastures with them for their mutual benefit? Or is this payback on Gwenda for breaking the Sin/Laws friendship compact and socialising promiscuously?

  Is Cynthia putting Gwen on notice that her best friend status is under review? In any case, Alex looks forward to observing the Maccas’ grief when forced to eat the squash he’d nicked from their side of the common fence-line earlier. Will they eat with relish, knowing the outrage of the theft?

  Maureen has dressed to a formula; it hits the right note. Clearly, she’d known in advance that Cynthia is no fashion plate and has toned down the haute part of her couture. She’s a chameleon, Alex decides. She could dine with anyone and know how to impress her hosts; she’d challenge, bamboozle or seduce, depending on the circumstances.

  She’s up with fashion, though not a slave to it, whereas Cynthia hasn’t a clue there’s such a thing as being ‘up to date’. She’d reject the very notion. For when did pearls and cashmere twin-sets ever date?

  Quality is paramount with Maureen; she lets her prosperity show without being showy. Her well-cut frock hasn’t come off the hook of any dress shop in these parts. It has a twist of fabric at the solar plexus that indicates the location of her breasts without unveiling them. It’s as if she has an invisible arrow pinpointing the spot near her cleavage where her heart would be, in case a medical emergency occurred. She hasn’t proffered her bosom for viewing by all and sundry, although she understands the advantage of a good figure in a woman. She is proud of her shape but she’s not bringing it to the table, and Alex is certain that this is a negotiating table. Has Cynthia gone off the idea of forcing Clive and Fliss to reconcile? Is she on to her next scheme? Alex wonders. Clearly, more than neighbourliness is afoot.

  Maureen assumes the role of moderator. Cynthia, a bit lack-lustre today, accepts her role as underdog. Maureen can speak intelligently on a range of topics: politics, the arts, farming or regional matters.

  She’s just completed a distance education degree from the ANU and cannot help but mention her excellent results; she’s been accepted into an honours degree. Cynthia becomes animated upon hearing this and asks whether they offer philosophy courses.

  Maureen promises to drop in with brochures. Alex sees Cynthia’s prejudices start to melt away, since she has nothing against nouveaux if they admit they need improving.

  Her second husband, Giuseppe Marconi, doesn’t give too much away. Progenitor of the aforesaid stallions, like Hal, he seems overwhelmed by his spouse. He’s the nuggety, silent type, not uncomfortable when hemmed in by strong women. Beppe and Hal have re-drawn Cynthia’s seating plan and cornered themselves a pair of chairs from which to confer on proceedings sotto voce. Alex guesses the two codgers have already forged an over the side-fence mateship they’ve neglected to mention to their spouses.

  The phone rings. Alex takes the call in the hall. He expects it’s Bonnie’s, who had had to return to Koroit almost as soon as she’d finished making the soup. Her brother has had a ‘funny turn’.

  But no, Mary is on the line; she’s been staying with her Port Fairy relatives since her heroic drive with Bonnie through the storm-front last night. “Should she go straight to Melbourne?” she asks.

  “Please don’t go home yet,” Alex says. “Claire’s desperate to see you. Something has upset her. Late or not, come to Ma’s luncheon party. We’re eating hors oeuvres, it’s more a meeting than”a lunch and there’s a hunky pair of bachelors who’d love to meet a sweet young thing of marriageable age…I’ll pick you up from the bus station."

  “Me, sweet? Hope not. It’ll take an hour at least.”

  “We’ll eat slowly and save you a few scraps…”

  “Hope the men aren’t scrappy.”

  “They look as fit as Mallee bulls.”

  Cynthia comes into the hall and snatches the phone from Alex. “We need you here, dear girl.”

  “With Bonnie gone again, suddenly our menu’s changed,” says Cynthia. “I don’t think Bonnie’s bunnies will do the trick today,” she says, half to herself. “Alex will need to pick up finger food for a grazing sort of lunch. So, we’ll delay our second course until you get here, Mary. It’s a business lunch, really, dear. Don’t rush. We’ve a lot to talk about.” The old black phone thumps back onto its cradle.

  Chapter 54

  Bathroom

  At lunch, a pleasant enough affair, given the surprise of the guests, Claire whispers to Alex that she needs the bathroom. Her complexion matches the artichoke soup – greige. Alex wheels her from the room without delay. Cynthia tells him to be quick about it or he’ll miss out on conversi
ng with the boys. She points out that he’s a few mates short of the full complement in Warrnambool.

  “It’s time Claire managed the wheelchair on her own,” she says.

  “No, Ma,” Alex replies, “there’s no way Claire could negotiate the oak door on her own; the weight of the oak alone calls for a body-builder.”

  “Mm. I suppose,” she agrees, but with reluctance. “Well, get it over with quickly. With Bonnie gone, I’ll need your help serving the rabbit stew. And then you’d better head off to pick up Mary.”

  “Why don’t we take a break? You can introduce our guests to the ancestors and the orangery, Mama. I’ll collect Mary from the bus station and buy something from the deli on the way back. That way we’ll have Mary’s company. Let’s leave the stew. It will freeze and thaw again in time for the next emergency.” Cyn glowers at this remark.

  The guests’ faces soften with pleasure at having escaped the threatened rabbit stew. “We’d love to have a wander around the garden, says Maureen. And visit your ancestors of course.”

  “I suppose so. It will give Alex time to pick up Mary. Claire’s friend is a dear girl and most helpful,” she says, “without Bonnie’s help we do feel a bit lost entertaining these days…”

  “Okay, Claire.” Alex wheels her from the room

  The McCance/Marconis stare at Alex’s departing back. Cyn had pointedly introduced Claire as Clive’s fiancée not Alex’s.

  ‘What’s he doing taking his brother’s girlfriend to the loo?’ they’re all thinking.

  “Oh, it’s all above-board,” Alex says, turning towards them in response to their unuttered query. “It’s not as if we actually ablute together,” he says, intending to be flippant, but it comes out sounding crude.

  Once he settles Claire into the downstairs bathroom, he can hear her retching sounds even in the hallway. He knocks. Hears gulping sobs, goes in.

  “You poor old thing,” he says. He wipes her face again but tenderly. She starts dry retching; he picks up the vibe of desperation she gives off. “Gees,” he says, “you are pregnant, aren’t you? That’s why last night’s dream, upset you so.”

  There is no response. Just a rueful expression on her sweet, sad face. Alex wishes he could be happy for her and Clive; hell, he wishes Clive were here and happy. Poor Claire! A pregnancy and everyone horrified at the very idea of it; he wishes she was pregnant with his child. “Theoretically, it could be mine, couldn’t it?” he asks.

  “Unlikely!”

  He checks Claire’s face. It’s slick and green. The 40s bathroom tiles reflect their sickly sea-green hue onto Claire in the neon-lit room.

  “God, Alex. I was a virgin two months ago. To be pregnant already – shit! It should be impossible. I’m still on my L-plates. It’s so unfair!” she says.

  He gives a cynical bark. “Don’t expect life to be fair,” he says.

  “Maybe it’s a bug,” she looks up at him hopefully.

  “You’re off your food.”

  “I’m sick; sick of being here with Cynthia.”

  “Your period’s late, and you’re nauseated into the bargain. You could always have an abortion. Level with me, Claire. You’re sure it is Clive’s child?”

  Disoriented, she answers honestly. “I’ve done the maths. It’s got to be Clive’s child: 30 to one.”

  “And mine one to 30?”

  “Mm.”

  “I wish I were the father, your lover. I won’t give up hoping yet. People buy Tatts tickets on slimmer odds.” He rubs her hair.

  “Don’t mess my hair up, Alex, please. I’ve got to go back in there and face them all.”

  “Typical woman! One minute you’re in despair. Next moment you’re worried about messed up hair!”

  This earns him a wan smile from Claire. “Listen, our baby would be wonderful,” he tells her.

  “Clive’s will be too. It’d be perfect if I’d known you first.” She goes quiet after that. She winds her arms around her torso and rocks back and forth on the varnished loo seat. “I can’t bear the thought of twenty years with Clive. I could script our every conversation now!”

  Alex runs possible scenarios through his mind. “Listen, Claire, will you come away with me, baby or not?”

  “You’d raise your brother’s child?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, shit, shit, shit! I wish you weren’t such a great guy, Alex, then I wouldn’t feel so bad…about what I’ve got to do. About leaving you. Alternatively, if Clive was just a bit worse than he really is then maybe I could leave him.”

  “I should have been a right bastard to you, so you’d feel better about dumping me?”

  “Don’t be idiotic! Still, if you had been a horrid love rat, I suppose I’d have married Clive with less reluctance.”

  “And you’d be happy being only 50% unhappy?” He gets a smile out of her now.

  “I guess no one’s totally happy.”

  “Then I want you partially happy with me, not Clive.”

  “Mm, me too! It’s what I’d want, ideally.”

  “Let’s run away!”

  “No. I’ve got to face this. If I ducked out, I’d be ashamed. I’ll never regret knowing you, Alex. It’s so sad for the three of us. There’s four of us now.” Claire rips out a wad of tissues. Wipes her eyes. “Alex, I’d be with you in a second if I had it in me to be a cruel bitch, to deprive Clive of his child. But would you want me then?”

  Alex shrugs. “No. Yes. What about me? I’ll be forced to play the best man, when I am the best man…to love you.” He sinks onto the ledge of the bath. “Let’s not blame each other. It’s fate.”

  “We’re star-crossed lovers?”

  “Mm.”

  “You’d rather be a handsome, dead Romeo than…”

  “Than what?”

  “I don’t know. I…we should have managed it better.”

  “How do you manage love?” Alex grasps his head in frustration.

  Chapter 55

  Pub

  Q. Why does a pub feel more like church than church?

  A. Because pubs are shrines to the gods of geniality. Here no sceptic struggles with his faith. Pubs are sanctuaries where blokes, guys, chaps, sheilas, senoritas, hombres congregate for solace, even happiness. All communicants welcome if they’ll have a beer.

  Alex leans against the doorjamb. This is his local, outpost of a worldwide faith: The Believers in the Blessed Ale. No barman’s blood was ever shed for the punters – unless they were involved in the dust-up in Warrney last week. Oh. They were! No matter, they’re welcome anyway! Come. Drink. Eat. Slake your thirst, at least.

  Pubs are a buffer between the rock-hard givens of home and work! Havens from blinding sunlight! Even on corrugated outback tracks, there’ll be a ramshackle pub aquiver in shimmering air-currents, a beacon in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Without, all is parched and dire. Within, it’s as cool as a temperate rain forest.

  A cheesy air current wafts Alex’s way. When did ‘chook pyjamas’ become the national dish?

  Did we vote on it, he wonders.

  Mary’s imminent arrival had provided Alex with an excuse to bail on Cynthia’s luncheon with their neighbours. She’d phoned from Port Fairy to say she was just hopping on a bus. It suited Alex to go and pick her up so he’d told Ma ‘a little white lie’ about Mary’s e.t.a., thereby carving out 20 minutes of peace for himself from this absolute bugger of day. Might he yet salvage something good from the day? Would 20 minutes’ respite cure his shitty mood?

  The news is dreadful! Claire pregnant! And to Clive! Who doesn’t love her. Meanwhile he, Alex, does! Wheeling her back from the loo, his shoulders sagged under the weight of her news.

  It was cruel of him to leave her back there with his family at lunch, her tears plopping onto Mama’s Wedgewood. Alex admits he isn’t perfect. But he’d reminded himself of those airline safety instructions advising parents to look after themselves before saving their dependents.

  Alex is glad no one knows him. H
ere in The Royal, his being anonymous is a boon. The St John Smiths had become infamous six years ago after applying to hive off creek flats after a shire re-zoning went their way. When the story hit the local paper, his father had insisted they wouldn’t profit from it. He’d said, no; it wasn’t worth the bad blood. Their name had turned to mud anyway. Locals had hated the effortless way things favoured the St Johns. Made it even worse they didn’t bother cashing in their luck. Others would have had to. One night, Alex had been worked over in a Timboon pub.

  Today it’s the din that assaults him; it rises like a solid wall. Breaking out of his reverie, Alex finds himself stranded in the doorway. He tries moving, he imagines loping across the room with his usual free-swinging gait. But he can’t move; he’s stuck. His legs require instructions from his brain; his will needs priming even to perform this basic feat.

  Alex trains his eyes on the bar as if the intervening space were a stretch of turbulent ocean.

  He makes the crossing somehow remaining upright. At the bar he props his chin on the heel of his palm.

  The grubby flannel shirt he’d worn to lunch to anger Mama attracts puddles of spilt beer. It’s a sensation he would usually find unpleasant. Today he wallows in its ickiness.

  Fanned across his brow, his skinny fingers hold his head up, like fragile stone arches supporting a cathedral. He shakes his head at the absurdity of this insight. Now the mirrored shelves behind the bar fracture the image of his ugly mug. He feels emotionally fractured. And Claire has a fractured tibia. He laughs mirthlessly.

  He catches the barman’s eye at last.

  “A pot, ta.”

  He watches the barman pulling beers, loving his dexterity. It’s harder than juggling, the balancing of the amber fluid with the head, so the fewest possible drops of beer are lost. The barman angles the glass towards the tap, he flicks the handle around. As beer spurts around the glass tornado-style, he brings the glass up straight, snaps off the tap and holds the vessel up for inspection before placing it in front of Alex.

  “Brilliant!” Alex says. The barman grins.