Friends Like These

by Wendy Harmer

  ‘Ten thousand dollars!’ Jo knew that was a fortune to Suze. Most of the money she’d won had been used to set up Geraniums Red. She had managed to keep Jess and Bobby at DPLC through scholarships but the money for every uniform, musical instrument, excursion, book and pen was hard to come by. Suze was amazing, the way she managed it all. Jo had often told

  her that.

  ‘So that’s what all the fights were really about and why you kicked him out?’

  A whole lot of seemingly random incidents suddenly made sense. Jo had spent hours listening to Suze complain about Rob, but it was mostly nit-picking stuff about dirty towels on the floor, his snoring and that he never listened to what she was saying—the usual litany of marital complaints. Sometime in the middle of last year, when Jo was wallowing in her own misery, Suze had announced she had told Rob to leave. Jo recalled asking for more details, but they hadn’t been forthcoming, so she had gratefully let the subject drop. And then Suze had been caught up with setting up the shop. Frantically busy. They hadn’t had the chance to have a proper talk.

  The excuses were all there, but Jo knew she was guilty of negligence. ‘I just thought it was like you said...that you were arguing all the time. Didn’t want to be together so decided to separate. I thought you were happy with that. That’s why I was so shocked yesterday when you said you were still sleeping with him.’

  ‘I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth. It’s all just so stupid and...’ Suze gave way to shuddering sobs. She hid her face in her apron. ‘And I do still love him. I know I said I didn’t, but...’

  Suze was expecting an argument. But Jo couldn’t find anything to say. Love for her family had made her stay with JJ long after she knew there was no point; it made Simon and Kim want to get married against all the odds, and apparently Gemma Brigden was about to go behind her mother’s back for the same reason. There was nothing rational about love. There was bugger all to be said.

  ‘And I know he loves me. But I can’t have him back until he shows me he’s not an addict anymore. He’s in counselling, he says, but I still want him to see the girls. He’s their father. They love him to death. You know he’s living at his mum’s, but he still comes over for dinner most nights and then one thing leads to another...So there. That’s why I’m still sleeping with him and hiding my purse under the floorboards. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘Bloody men,’ Jo muttered as she went to embrace her friend.

  ‘Bloody marriage!’ Suze stepped back to the counter. ‘Send all your lovebirds over to me and I’ll give ’em a reality check.’ She retied her apron, tucked her hair under her scarf and brandished her sharp secateurs under Jo’s nose. ‘And wouldn’t I love to make a mother-of-the-bride corsage for Didi Brigden. Deadly nightshade and thistles, tied with a barbed-wire bow. Hah!’ She decapitated an orange gerbera.

  ‘I’ll bet you would,’ said Jo. ‘Oh, sorry—I suppose I shouldn’t have said “bet”...And I probably shouldn’t have said that either. Sorry.’

  ‘And you can stop bloody well apologising for everything! That goes for Carol Holt and all those skinny bitches at Darling Point. You owe Didi one for all that crap in the newspaper. You can pay back that slut by depriving her of her big day sitting in the first row of St Anne’s in her Valentino suit and “fuck me” shoes in front of the glitterati. And you’d be doing Gemma a favour by getting her out of that godawful three-ring circus.’

  This was a variation on an obscene diatribe Jo had heard before, but she wasn’t thinking about Gemma and Didi. She was trying to figure out the blank spaces in a cryptic crossword. ‘Thank God you won that money when you did. Funny you winning the lottery...’

  Suze attacked an oriental lily.

  ‘You know, that gambling should have saved you in the end.’

  Suze was grabbing stems and ferociously stabbing them into a block of green florist’s foam.

  ‘So you’re giving Rob money. Why? I mean, can you afford it? How’s the shop going?’ asked Jo. ‘And please don’t just tell me it’s “fine”. You know I think you’re extraordinary, the way you’ve managed all these years, but are you actually making money? Enough to keep up with everything the girls need?’

  ‘I dunno. I’ve still got enough in the bank for their fees next year. But you know that’s only the half of it. It’s like they’re growing about three inches a week at the moment. And the amount they eat! I wish they’d get anorexia or something.’

  ‘Suze! Don’t even joke about it.’

  ‘Anyway, maybe Rob’s right. What the hell’s a family like ours doing with kids in private school? It’s stupid. Do you know that in the past five years they’ve never had a friend to stay? It’s just understood that our home isn’t up to Darling Point standards, daarling.’ Suze looked up at Jo and grimaced. ‘I mean, how disgusting is that?’

  Jo couldn’t find anything to say in defence of the rampant snobbery at DPLC. ‘But they’re doing so well,’ she rallied. ‘They’re so bright and the fact that they went to Darling Point will mean—’

  ‘That they’ll feel second-class all their lives? Great! Sometimes I wish you’d never talked me into sending them there.’

  Jo was about to protest that she hadn’t ‘talked’ Suze into anything, but she could see through the fussing with tissue and cellophane that this furious activity was the only thing keeping Suze from a torrent of tears.

  ‘I’ve got a few jobs on,’ Suze sniffed as she shredded a paper ribbon with her scissors. ‘But whether it’s enough? I need to sell a shitload of flowers right now to keep everything going.’ She waved her scissors. ‘So you’d better start marrying people and push some business my way.’

  A rattle of the doorknob on the front door of Geraniums Red, followed by an agitated knocking, startled them both. It was Juanita, Suze’s shop assistant, red-faced and puffing, back from her delivery run.

  Suze thrust a bunch of yellow tulips at Jo. ‘Here you go. Enjoy. In the language of flowers they mean “hopeless love”.’

  Jo stared at the dumb fat tulip buds with their thick waxy leaves. If flowers did have something to say, she couldn’t speak tulip. No matter how carefully you painted them, they always ended up as fake ugly lumps that ruined any composition. ‘Let’s go for a coffee and talk some more,’ she pleaded. ‘I mean, what can I do, Suze? How can I help?’

  ‘You can’t help me. No-one can. Except Rob. And the only person who can help him is him. And he can’t help himself. So, we’re stuffed. Isn’t that hilarious?’

  ‘But...you could...’ Jo began. Suze could...what? Jo had no idea.

  Suze brushed past and turned the sign in the window to Open. It was the signal that, for now, the conversation was closed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I love making people happy. It was the mantra for the hundreds of civil celebrants who advertised their services on the internet. I have a genuine love of people and a warm, caring, helpful, loving, calm, relaxed disposition and my own sound system. Some specialised in Celtic hand-fasting rituals or love knots, others the pouring of sand or wine and the twirling of ribbons. Couples could order up themes of roses, butterflies, doves or hot-air balloons. And a ceremony for every possible religious or spiritual persuasion was likewise available, from Apache to pagan.

  Jo perused a website featuring a startling scene of a Cinderella carriage cantering across the screen to a door-chime version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Another had an illustration of what was supposed to be a dove towing a festoon of flowers but looked more like a cartoon chicken dragging a string of popcorn. The possibilities were endless. All tastes catered for. Especially for the happy couple with no taste whatsoever. Her favourite site belonged to one Kerrie Cranitch CMC, who announced in heavy black Gothic script on a noxious aqua background that she was expert in divorce ceremonies. In her photo she had that thousand-yard stare which made Jo think the ceremony was bound to include the vengeful ritual of inserting prawns in a curtain rod as a farewell memento.

  However, the
most important thing to remember was—according to each and every celebrant—It’s YOUR Special Day. Do it YOUR way.

  Did modern couples really understand what a revolutionary idea this was? When Jo had married, her mother had been adamant that a university student would have no time to devote to the matter of a wedding. Jo was left to lick stamps as Mrs Brown sent out the invitations and arranged the venue and the menu. Her own father, Reverend Albert Brown, had officiated and everything had been done by the good book. Unthinkable now. The modern bride and groom almost went out of their way to defy their parents’ wishes. It often seemed to be the whole point of the exercise.

  That was one reason why Gemma Brigden wanted to marry her Japanese boyfriend Yoshi. And, she suspected, why they had chosen her to officiate. It would infuriate Didi. When Jo had ushered Gemma and Yoshi out her front door only minutes ago, she had asked them why they had chosen her. It was important research for her marketing strategy—all part of the game. The answer had left her blinking back tears.

  ‘I always admired you as a teacher, Mrs Blanchard—sorry...Jo,’ Gemma had said with heartfelt sincerity. ‘All the girls did. I always thought that you really listened to what we were saying. You always had time for me and I really appreciated that. I know I can trust you.’

  Jo stood, stretched and headed for the kitchen and the kettle. As she set out her teacup and milk, she reflected that her meeting with Gemma and Yoshi had confirmed for her exactly why she wanted to be a celebrant. She had liked them both enormously and felt—what would Father Patrick say?—that she now had a ‘duty of care’. Was this what ‘ministering’ felt like?

  Over the past year Patrick and Jo had spent hours in each other’s company talking about the ‘journey to meaningfulness’ (which, Jo pointed out, was not even a real word). The ‘surrender of the self’ led, through ‘purification’ and ‘mysticism’, to ‘true enlightenment’. The concepts came easily to Patrick as a scholar of theology for some quarter of a century. Jo had listened to everything he’d said and now thought that it might be something as simple as ‘doing good things for others made you feel good’. And the more you did it, the better you felt. That was enough for her to be going on with.

  Listening to Gemma and Yoshi speak about their vision for a marriage ceremony that might, through Jo’s efforts, unite their vastly different cultural backgrounds and inspire them, their friends and family for a lifetime...Right there, that made her feel good’. On a high. And from this happy vantage point she caught a glimpse of everything she had hoped her new vocation might offer.

  On her own website Jo had written: It would be my privilege to help you create a ceremony which will be long remembered for its simple beauty and sacred intent. Where words and deeds come together, deeper meaning is found. She felt confident she could strike the right marriage of symbol and language. Her readings on ritual, rites and celebration were utterly absorbing. Dozens of volumes were stacked by Jo’s bed and on her desk, and whenever she had the chance she was hunting through bookshops to find more.

  The kettle whistled furiously. Calpurnia, snoozing on the bench in the last patch of late-afternoon sun, woke, scrabbled on the benchtop and sent a cup smashing to the floor. As Jo bent to pick up the pieces she thought that maybe she was doing that with her own life. Reassembling herself. But when, despite a thorough search, she couldn’t find a large chunk from the rim, Jo wondered if what she would be left with would never be a teacup again, but a patched and fragile thing that would shatter with the slightest bump. A confrontation with a furious Didi Brigden would be enough for her to end up in bits.

  Had she actually agreed to officiate at Gemma and Yoshi’s wedding? Keep their secret pact behind Didi’s back? How much of that decision was about her own ego? How would she feel if Tory did that to her?

  Jo’s panicky self-interrogation was rudely interrupted by a loud banging on her front door. Padding across the cream carpet, she could see through the frosted glass that it was, coincidentally, Tory.

  ‘Mum. Hi, hello!’ Tory fell through the front door shedding tote bags and suitcases like a pack camel on the edge of the Gobi desert. ‘Did I just see Gemma Brigden out the front?’ she gasped. ‘Was she here? What the hell was she doing visiting you on a Monday afternoon? Who was that bloke she was with? Didi’s not hiding in the bushes somewhere, is she?’

  ‘Hi, honey,’ Jo singsonged, using the tolerant, amiable tone she had cultivated through years of living with an excitable, argumentative teenage daughter. And still used, even though Tory was twenty-one. One day Tory would use it on her when Jo was old and equally irritated by life. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

  ‘I brought this.’ Tory thrust a bottle of vodka at her mother. ‘Got any ice? Tonic? Lime?’ She shrugged off her denim jacket—onto the floor, Jo noted with exasperation, then ran her fingers through her spiky dark hair, pulled her T-shirt down over her midriff and headed for the kitchen. Jo picked up the offending garment and hung it on the coat rack. It reeked of tobacco. She stepped over the pile of bags and hoped Tory wasn’t planning to stay. Not in her gorgeous sunny office. Not now, when she needed to get to her computer. Surely.

  ‘Jesus! I’m desperate for a drink,’ Tory yelled over her shoulder as she ransacked the refrigerator. ‘Want one?’

  ‘I’ll have some of the white wine that’s open,’ said Jo. She found a stool on the opposite side of the kitchen bench and watched Tory’s long skinny frame curled like a paperclip as she bent to rifle through drawers for a fruit knife and chopping board.

  ‘Well! It’s over with Geordie!’ Tory announced, banging glasses onto the counter. Jo made a quick mental police line-up of suspects and attempted to identify Geordie. He would be the one with the dreadlocks and tatts who was the graphic designer...no...social worker.

  ‘I just couldn’t stand it anymore, hanging around night after night in every friggin’ club in town watching him wank on as a DJ as if he’s some brilliant musical genius. Shit! Even I can play the piano! He couldn’t manage a toy xylophone,’ Tory grizzled as she fired up a cigarette.

  Jo darted across the room to slide open the doors to the courtyard. All the years she had nagged Tory to practise that damned piano and then the saxophone! Tory had abandoned them both to play the didgeridoo. That instrument had ended up in the garden as a stake for a tomato plant.

  ‘He hasn’t got a car. Hmmph! You can guess how impressed Dad was when he turned up to take me out on his pushbike.’

  Ah! Now Jo remembered Geordie the DJ. She’d met him and Tory for a meal in Chinatown some months ago. They’d taken a table for four with the extra chair occupied by a titanium front bike wheel. For security reasons, he’d explained. He’d jiggled his knee against the table leg and she’d spent half the night catching bits of baby corn as they rolled towards her across the laminex.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. I quite liked him,’ said Jo carefully.

  ‘I thought you did too.’ She took her glass of white wine and fanned away the cigarette smoke.

  ‘Not anymore!’ Tory threw back the glass of vodka and poured another. ‘And I’m going to move out of Dad’s place, you’ll be pleased to know.’

  ‘Why would I be pleased to know that?’ Jo had a sinking feeling that her office was indeed about to be occupied by an invading force. ‘Your room there is gorgeous, and your father loves to have you for company,’ she added, hoping to cover her selfish tracks.

  Tory shrugged. ‘Dad doesn’t need me for company. He’s hardly ever there. He’s mostly in China doing business.’

  ‘I know. I tried to ring him to get our property settlement underway. I want to at least sit down face to face before we start spending money on lawyers.’

  ‘About time! Are you going to fight him for Parklea?’

  ‘I’m not going to “fight” with him about anything. Have you ever seen your father and I fight? What a thing to say! And I wouldn’t want that house anyway, it was never my style.’

  ‘Just as well, bec
ause that stupid airhead Carol Holt is there all the time.’

  Jo started at the mention of Carol’s name.

  ‘She’s got the decorators in and Dad’s let her redo the garden. She got some poncy garden designer off TV. They paved over your vegetable patch and ripped out the grapevine.’

  ‘They what?!’ Jo jumped up from her stool and gripped the edge of the bench.

  ‘Yep. Too many nasty untidy leaves in the autumn apparently, and the filthy birds come in and eat the grapes.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! That vine was almost a hundred years old!’

  Jo stalked across the room, her white wine threatening to spill on the carpet. She’d loved watching the currawongs feasting on the fat purple fruit until they were slightly tipsy and teetering on the trellis. What sort of philistine would...And then she remembered that it was Carol Bloody Holt they were talking about. She was capable of anything. ‘Well, you can’t stay there!’ Jo declared. ‘You can move into the spare room until we sort this out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Tory. ‘I’m just going to get online and do some stuff and then we’ll have dinner together. By the way, I’m going vegan, so don’t make anything with meat, fish, eggs, cheese...or butter, honey, oleic oil or lecithin.’

  ‘I’m making spaghetti carbonara and garlic bread. Take it or leave it.’

  Tory huffed with annoyance. ‘Okay, I’ll start being vegan tomorrow. We’ll go to the organic grocer and get everything I need.’ She disappeared to the spare room and the computer.

  ‘And DO NOT smoke in there!’ Jo shouted after her.

  Cupboard doors banged and pans clattered as Jo barged around the kitchen. When the bread was in the oven, a green salad assembled and the water for the pasta on the boil, she found her glass of wine again and sat, still furious about her beloved grapevine.