Friends Like These

by Wendy Harmer

  Down at Darling Harbour the neon lights of the Star City Casino winked and beckoned. This Sunday night, for the first time anyone on the main floor could remember, Rob hadn’t shown. Someone suggested they should call 000 for the police or an ambulance, and that was pretty funny because no-one knew where he lived or even if ‘Rob’ was his real name.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ‘So which ones do you like best? I like this one where you can see the council workers in the background and you just know they’re feeling confronted by the whole spectacle.’ Tory held up a black-and-white print and passed it across the kitchen bench to her mother. ‘It transforms the wedding from the personal into a radical political act, don’t you think?’

  Jo regarded the photograph and put it into a pile with all the others she’d silently rejected. Her initial fears were well founded. There was hardly a shot Simon and Kim could put in a silver frame as a family keepsake. These were odd, arty shots of shoes, disconnected hands, the sun shining through the canopy of the fig trees. One of a kookaburra sitting on a green wheelie-bin lid. Jo opened her mouth to offer praise, but hesitated longer than was diplomatic.

  ‘You hate all of them, don’t you? Fucking hell! You hate them all!’ Tory shouted.

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ Jo shouted back. ‘And don’t you speak to me in that fashion.’ She was in no mood to shore up Tory’s insecurities.

  ‘Oh yeah? What will you do, Mrs Blanchard? Put me on detention?’ Tory swept the prints from the bench and they fluttered to the floor. She fled, slamming the door of the spare room. There were no surprises left in Jo’s fights with Tory, apart from the obvious—that she didn’t think they would be still having them after all this time.

  Jo put the kettle on. She recalled that Father Patrick had said that ministering was emotionally draining and it wasn’t clear just what you got back. Being a mother, a teacher, a friend—Jo had spent years working at all of them. She was reminded of another of Patrick’s favourite sayings: ‘You don’t create yourself in isolation. You discover yourself through your engagement with others.’

  Maybe one day, after years of toil in the mine of human relationships, Jo would break through a wall of rock and see her own nature, hardened by years of living and experience, shining in front of her like a precious gem. Would she have the wisdom to recognise it when she saw it?

  The door Tory had slammed behind her was just another pile of stone that had to be chipped at. She took up the burden of her motherly pick-axe, walked down the hallway and tapped on the door. ‘Tory? Honey?’ (Golden Aphrodite. Love of my life.) ‘I love your photographs, I truly do. I’m so proud of you.’

  Silence.

  ‘But the point is, that when you’re hired to photograph a wedding, or any other person’s special occasion, you’re there to record it the way they want it. Almost all your shots—and so many of them are so beautiful, they really are—so many of them are about you. About Tory the artist, not Simon and Kim’s wedding.’

  More deathly silence.

  The kettle wailed and Jo made tea. She wearily retrieved the pile of photographs from the floor and spread them across the bench. They were indeed beautiful. She could see how Tory had found the faintest, most watery rays of light shining through the fig trees in the Botanic Gardens and rendered them as if they were shining through the stained-glass clerestory windows of Notre Dame cathedral.

  Looking at this photograph, and the next, Jo now saw that Tory had taken immaculate care in recording the very same details she, Jo, had lavished such attention upon. There was an image of the embroidered hem of the antique linen cloth she had spread on the little table. She saw another tabletop composition of her treasured dog-eared book of Shelley poetry alongside two golden wedding rings and a bunch of chantilly roses. A photograph at the bottom of the pile that Jo hadn’t noticed before was a close-up of her own hands cradling her treasured album inscribed with golden calligraphy. But never doubt I love. These were the precious words visible in the gaps between her long slim fingers.

  It was with some shame that Jo realised Tory had been more intent on honouring her mother’s first wedding ceremony than recording Simon and Kim’s nuptials. She was a fool for not seeing it sooner.

  And then, as she looked through more and more images, Jo noticed something odd. There weren’t as many shots of Simon and Kim together as one might have expected. In most photographs, Simon was with his friends and Kim was with his. When Jo looked at the photos taken later at the party, she was stunned to see Kim with someone she recognised. The last time she had seen this face it had leaned from a taxi on Oxford Street and shouted at her, ‘We’re going home to fuck each other, Mother. Have a wank on us!’

  It was the same man. She was sure of it. She recognised the heavy bottom lip pierced with an engraved silver ring. The two of them had hooked their thumbs in each other’s waistbands in an intimate familiarity that could easily be interpreted as just friendship, if you didn’t know it was something more. And it didn’t take any expert emotional detective work to translate the expressions on their faces. Jo saw all too clearly what they were saying. She imagined their message was for her alone.

  There was a knock on the front door and Jo checked the wall clock. Six p.m. She wasn’t expecting visitors.

  Tory shouted from the spare room: ‘That’s Simon and Kim to look at the photographs. You can tell them yourself they’re all crap!’

  Jo’s heart sank. She was heading down the hallway when Tory rudely brushed past her and opened the door. There stood Simon...alone. Just one look at his face told Jo that exactly what she had feared had come to pass.

  An unspoken temporary truce was called on mother–daughter hostilities as they sat and listened to Simon’s story. He was hunched on the sofa, his arms curled around his body, his knees drawn up as if he was trying to take up the smallest physical space possible. His eyelids were swollen from crying and the circles under his eyes were dark and bluish. His usually wide smile was compressed into a thin, grim line.

  ‘He said marriage is for middle-class heteros and conformists and that the whole thing was an embarrassing farce,’ Simon whimpered. ‘And then he left.’

  Jo couldn’t believe heartache could take such a toll in so short a time. At his wedding, Simon had been almost luminous with joy. Radiant. That was the word they always used to describe brides. Now that inner light had been extinguished.

  ‘But Kim cried. I know he did.’ Jo looked to Tory for affirmation and saw her quickly look away. ‘What about your friends? There was so much support for you, so much belief in what you were doing. So much happiness on that day. How could it all...’ Her voice trailed away as Simon snatched up a cushion and buried his face in it.

  Jo dug her nails into her palms as if she could somehow stop the red tide of guilt creeping up her neck. This was all her fault. She hadn’t done the right thing by Simon before the wedding. Patrick and Suze had talked her out of confronting Kim, but she’d been tormented that she hadn’t had the courage to speak up. But then, what if she’d been mistaken? Too late for moral contortions now. If she had said her piece there would have been grief, certainly, but it would be nothing compared to the human wreckage in front of her that seemed beyond salvation.

  ‘There’s something I think you should know, Simon.’ Jo used a firm, calm tone not unlike the voice she used when she had to explain to trusting parents that their daughter had been found with drugs in her locker and was to be immediately expelled from Darling Point. Tory recognised its gravity and sat back in her chair.

  ‘I shouldn’t have married you in the first place.’

  Simon raised his head from the cushion and stared at her. Tory now locked eyes with her mother. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I saw Kim on the night before the wedding. In Oxford Street, with a man, and they were...’ What did she say here? That they were thrusting their hips into each other? That they were obviously going to have sex? They had told her so, after all. Shouted it to anyone
who wanted to hear.

  ‘They were...?’ Tory wanted the details, even if Simon was still transfixed, unable to make a sound.

  ‘They were in a romantic situation. No, that’s not right. They were in a sexual...clinch, I suppose. And I was left with no doubt that they were, or they soon would be...lovers.’

  Jo suddenly needed a glass of water. She bolted to the fridge to retrieve a chilled bottle. By the time she had found a glass, the silence in the room had ceased expanding and fallen back in on itself to a single point.

  ‘What the fuck?!’ Tory was standing now, hands on hips. ‘Are you telling me—or Simon, more importantly—that you knew Kim was having an affair and you didn’t bother to let him know?’

  ‘I’m not sure I really knew. It was just what I saw. And I wanted to say something, but you need evidence. That’s what Patrick—’

  ‘Hang on,’ Tory interrupted. She rocked back on her heels and folded her arms across her chest. It was an ominous gesture. Jo knew what was coming next. ‘You told Father Patrick? You two talked about it and just decided Simon didn’t need to know?’ Tory waved her hand towards Simon, who was still sitting on the sofa cradling his cushion. ‘Who else did you tell?’ she demanded.

  ‘Just Suze, and she agreed. She said, “Why spoil the day?”’ As soon as these words were out of Jo’s mouth she knew she’d blundered into a black hole. ‘What I mean is...’ Jo panicked, trying to unsay what she had just said. Too late.

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Tory was at her sardonic best. ‘You mean you were so focused on your own Big Day, and your fucking poems and tablecloth and your pathetic folders with the multicoloured tabs—all that random crap—that you just let Simon walk into a complete disaster when you could have stopped it?’

  ‘That’s not how it was at all!’ Jo shouted back. ‘Patrick said there’s a certain script you have to...’

  ‘A script? That’s how you see this celebrant thing? As some sort of script you read? This is real life, you know. Not some curriculum you’re given by the Education Department.’

  The more Jo said, the worse it went with Tory. There was no way she could explain herself, and not much point in trying. Although she did try. ‘Of course I feel terrible about it. I didn’t know what to do, and I am so sorry, Simon.’ Jo started to walk towards the sofa, where she thought she might take his hand and express her genuine sorrow. A question from him stopped her.

  ‘What did he look like?’ Simon’s voice was steady, as if he knew only too well what the answer would be. ‘The man who was with Kim.’

  ‘He’s here in Tory’s photographs.’

  Simon rose from the sofa and shuffled to the kitchen bench. A dead man walking. Jo shuffled through the pile of prints and then presented the image she had been horrified to see.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ Simon buried his face in his hands. Jo and Tory caught his muffled words through his utter despair.

  ‘It’s his ex, Gunter. He’s back from Germany. I didn’t want him there. It was Kim who...oh God, oh God! I have to go.’ Simon groped his way along the counter towards the bathroom. Wrong way. He turned back and started blindly for the front door and stumbled over a tapestry-covered ottoman in his path. Jo reached her hand to steady him and he looked up at her. ‘You could have told me, Jo. That’s the least you could have done.’ He wrenched open the door and fled.

  Tory stuffed her photographs back into their folder. ‘I can’t see how we can work together, Mum. Can you? I believe in telling the truth to people. It’s pretty simple. Maybe after all those years at school with its dumb rules and regulations and constant lies about everything you’ve forgotten what truth is.’

  Tory stomped from the room and Jo winced as she slammed the front door behind her. She sighed, picked up a cushion from the sofa to restore order and instead drop-kicked it across the room. She was beginning to doubt if she had the emotional equipment to operate in the big wide world.

  Behind the walls of Darling Point it may have been all rules

  and regulations, and yes, there were lies, but everyone knew what part they were expected to play. In real life the boundaries between right and wrong were not so clear. There was no rulebook to consult or head office to report to. No government website you could consult to see how well you’d done, showing graphs of comparable percentiles and results in bands of red or green. This world she was lost in was just a fog of varying shades of grey.

  Dear Mum,

  I’m in Goa, staying in a hostel with Kita. We visited a Ganesha temple today.

  Did you know the Hindus believe that God has 330,000 faces? They’re all avatars of the supreme being and come to Earth whenever humans need help. Cool idea, huh? That’s better than waiting for the Second Coming. I mean, I see all these kids living in poverty working for all the rich people in luxury hotels. If I were God, I’d drop in NOW!!!

  The other cool thing is ‘Ishta Devata’. That means you can choose the deity you like best. I’ve chosen Hanuman the Monkey God. He’s a bachelor, very strong, loves music and has a great memory. Like me :) He carries a mace and protects people from accidents. Which is good because the people here drive like maniacs. There’s burnt-out wrecks of cars and buses on the side of every road.

  There’s so much stuff to see. The money’s holding out okay, but I want to go to the US next, so I’ll probably need more then.

  Shri Ramajeyam. (That’s his mantra and I have to say it 108 times a day—so, only 107 to go!)

  Love,

  James x

  That kiss. It was a life ring thrown to a drowning woman. She’d already felt as if Suze was pulling her under, then yesterday’s encounter with JJ had sucked the air out of her. She had been trying to catch her breath all day. And the scene with Tory and Simon? It was as if they were each standing with a foot on her head, keeping her gasping, flapping her arms.

  And now a kiss. Jo grabbed at it to keep from sinking.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Was it traitorous of Jo to buy a massive pot of orchids from a florist in Queen Street, Woollahra, when she should have been purchasing them from Geraniums Red? If she was going to save Suze, surely she should be spending her cash there as some sort of protection of her investment. Mind you, with what Suze would owe her she could buy everything in the shop.

  This was one of Sydney’s most prestigious shopping precincts and Jo handed over her credit card knowing the arrangement was overpriced—at least thirty dollars more than Suze would have charged. Good old, generous Suze. She probably would have refused to take any money at all. She always pressed a free bunch of whatever was flowering into Jo’s hands as she left Geraniums Red.

  ‘No pressure.’ That’s what JJ had said. In exactly the same way you were fed that infuriating slogan ‘no problem’ when the problem in front of you was clearly insurmountable. Did she have the courage to let Suze swim for it? Could she be like JJ and shove her out of the life raft into shark-infested waters? Smile and say: ‘Nothing personal. It’s just business.’ Every man for himself. Sulum vir pro sui. That was the motto embroidered on his jacket pocket.

  As she approached her car she saw with a sinking heart that the profusion of pale-green cymbidiums would never fit inside. She’d bought them without thinking, or, to be more precise, when she was consumed by other thoughts.

  ‘It’s never been about money with me, Suze.’ How could she have been so dumb as to say that? It sounded like something JJ would have said. She’d also remembered telling Suze she hoped money would never come between them. Too late. It had. It was as if Suze had spent half a million dollars building an ugly, illegal pergola smack in the middle of Jo’s view of the harbour from the terrace at The Cape. Jo could now understand the warring neighbours who turned their garden hoses on each other. That was nothing compared to what she would like to do to Suze. And she’d never be grateful for Jo’s help. Like Tory and JJ. They’d flung everything back in her face. Jo made a quick inventory of the people who still cared about her and came u
p with precious few. And one of them was a cat.

  Jo attempted to wrestle the pot of orchids into the Mercedes and dreaded to think that her exertions might soon draw a small crowd of spectators.

  ‘Mrs Blanchard. Looks like you’ve got a problem here.’

  It was Linda Priestley, attired in a yellow trouser suit and balancing on towering black heels. An improbably large pair of black sunglasses was clamped on her short, spiky hair and Jo was put in mind of a busy bee. ‘Ms Priestley,’ she puffed, then stood back on the footpath and indicated the recalcitrant plant with a helpless shrug. ‘Damned stupid thing. It’s way too big.

  I shouldn’t have bought it.’

  Linda expertly flipped the lever to lay back the front passenger seat. The whole botanical arrangement was positioned inside with ease—pot towards the windscreen and flowers scraping the back window. ‘There, that’s got it,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘And please, call me Linda.’

  Jo slammed the car door. ‘Thank you so much. It’s ridiculously huge.’

  ‘Consumer items bigger than your car? Happens all the time. It just means you need a bigger car.’

  ‘I’ve been told that before,’ said Jo.

  ‘So, this is a fabulous coincidence, because I was going to call you this afternoon.’ Linda tapped her leather laptop bag with signature crimson nails. ‘I’ve got some information in here that means you will definitely be able to buy a bigger car and an even bigger house to park it in front of. Can you come by the office?’

  Jo hesitated. She’d made her decision, hadn’t she? The five million dollars was almost in her hand. JJ was counting on the fact she’d never abandon Suze. But at what cost, exactly? She’d vowed never to ask. That was probably idiotic. Maybe knowing what was on the table would help her to make peace with her decision. And, after all, had she actually made her decision? She still had a week to think about it. If she didn’t find out how much money she would be giving up, she would just die wondering. And given that she could barely sleep from wondering, that time might come soon.