Gracious Living

by Andrea Goldsmith

  ‘An extreme example, Elizabeth, you can’t base all men and all marriages on that.’

  ‘Extreme examples help portray ordinary occurrences more clearly,’ Vivienne said.

  Elizabeth nodded her agreement.

  ‘So what happened to Janine and John?’ Kate asked. ‘You can’t stop in the middle of the story.’

  ‘Well, the marriage dragged on another three months, during which time John continued to accuse Janine of pathological behaviour. But she was less inclined to believe him now, and – ’

  ‘She should have just left,’ Kate interrupted, ‘and the fact that she didn’t simply proves my case about women and marriage.’

  ‘Yes, in a way, Kate, but there was something else with Janine, something else with all women who have committed themselves to a marriage. She had believed John to be a kind, sensitive, humane man. After all, he was a minister of the church and a well-respected psychologist. As the marriage ground down she was faced with two possibilities, neither of which was palatable: either she had misunderstood John all these years and he had always been a liar and a cheat, and if that were the case it said little for her own judgement, or he was ill, enduring some sort of crisis alone.’

  ‘Or the other woman offered a little more fun and excitement,’ Kate suggested.

  ‘Yes, that had already occurred to her, so she had lost ten pounds, bought new clothes, had her hair restyled, read some recent psychology books, and still it made no difference. Only then did she look around for another reason, any reason would do as long as her husband of ten years was not revealed as a bastard. “I’m sure he still loves me,” she would say to her friends. “This woman must have bewitched him.” And her friends, wanting her to see reason, told her the current woman was not the first. “You can’t prove that,” Janine would say and then quickly change the topic.

  ‘Finally John left, on a Tuesday while Janine was at work. He stripped the house of most of their possessions, left a letter from his solicitor on the table: the house was jointly owned, he wanted to liquidate his share. Janine was angry, but not overly so, still she insisted that something had gone wrong, something had caused him to behave in this uncharacteristic way.

  ‘Six months later I saw a brochure advertising a seminar on relationship breakdown.’ Lydia started fiddling with Kerri’s dress, relationship breakdown? What was Elizabeth doing with a brochure on relationship breakdown? She wanted the story to finish, wondered how long she could sit quietly while guilt ricocheted through her. But the story was not finished, not quite. Elizabeth continued, ‘The brochure listed John among its speakers. His topic? “The Pain of Separation” and he was described as an expert in the area. As for Janine, she had been ruined, emotionally and financially, by this new expert in the pain of separation, by this man who had lied and cheated and brought a ten-year marriage to an end, who had felt no qualms whatsoever in trying to convince his wife she was crazy. This expert on separation had been perfectly happy to do all this without a single word of explanation.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ Lauren said. ‘And were there any children?’

  ‘None, John didn’t want them.’ There was a silence and then Elizabeth turned to Kate. ‘Are you lonely?’ Kate shook her head. ‘And what about support? Are you lacking support?’ Again Kate shook her head, she had a circle of devoted friends. ‘And money? I know you don’t have much, but you manage?’ Yes she did. ‘And I’ll guarantee your self-esteem is healthier than mine. You study, you have a job, you don’t waste precious energy gilding a life that collapses under close scrutiny.’

  There seemed to be no answer to that. Shortly afterwards, the children woke and everyone collected their belongings and returned to their homes. It would have been preferable, Lydia decided later, if Elizabeth had shown some emotion during the story, had broken down, asked for comfort. But she had been sure and fluent, almost pragmatic; she knew what she was talking about. A few days after the party Lydia asked Adrian whether he was sure Elizabeth was unaware of their relationship. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. And then he started to laugh. ‘You’re not becoming paranoid are you?’

  It was the only time Lydia had heard Elizabeth complain. But now, more than fifteen years later, as she stopped the car in front of the Dadswell house, it occurred to her that Elizabeth might have been very unhappy. But she had never said anything, she simply looked after the child and maintained the Dadswell home. Lydia twisted in her seat and gazed at the old place, it was largely unchanged, still so handsome with its dark brick and smiling gargoyles, its bay windows and tiled verandahs. The garden had flourished; the camellias in the front now reached the eaves and the rose bed with its border of begonias was a mass of colour. And there was the gardenia Lydia had bought to celebrate Ginnie’s birth, before they knew something was wrong. The bush had thrived, if only the child had done so well.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Lydia looked up with a start; peering in through the passenger window was a young woman with wet hair wearing a towelling robe.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ The stranger spoke again. An odd way of speaking, as if the words were being chewed. Lydia stared at the face. Familiar. The face was familiar.

  ‘Is it your car? Has it broken down?’

  Of course! Adrian. Adrian’s square face, his dark eyes, the straight dark hair. Adrian’s face, less full, but Adrian’s face. A rush of possibilities scuttled through her mind: a sister? impossible, Cathy was the only sister. Another daughter? Couldn’t be, this girl was too old. A chance likeness then, and the girl was unrelated? As for the obvious explanation, it defied reason.

  ‘You’re not – you can’t be that child.’

  Ginnie smiled. ‘I certainly am. And you? You can’t be that woman?’

  Lydia paused: insulted, embarrassed, nervous, horrified. The child knew!

  ‘I’m Ginnie Dadswell. And you’re Lydia, aren’t you?’

  Lydia nodded. ‘Lydia Branch.’ Not knowing what else to do, Lydia leaned across the passenger seat and offered her hand.

  ‘Easier if I don’t.’ Ginnie waved one of her sticks in the air.

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t see. I thought – I mean you look so – ’

  ‘Normal?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘My best features are from the chest up.’ The girl was smiling again. ‘Now, can I help you? Although I don’t suppose you want me. Is it my mother you’re after, or am I expected to believe you stopped here by chance?’

  ‘Oh no, not chance, not really. And no, you can’t help me, and your mother – ‘She sighed deeply, ‘Oh god!’ She leaned her head against the steering wheel and shut her eyes. What a madness this was. She rubbed her forehead across the cool leather, back and forth, dragging the skin.

  Ginnie watched, unsure what to do. Part of her wanted to respond to the anguished woman as one would want to with anyone in distress, but another part was repelled by her. Ginnie chose the middle ground.

  ‘My mother doesn’t hate you, does it help you to know that? Doesn’t much admire you either, Adrian even less, but she doesn’t hate you.’

  The girl sounded so calm, so assured, she could be speaking about the weather. Lydia raised her head,

  ‘And you, what about you?’

  ‘I scarcely remember you, although I suppose, to me at least, the most incomprehensible aspect of the whole thing was your choice of Adrian over my mother.’ Lydia’s eyes flickered, just a momentary escape from Ginnie’s gaze and back again. Ginnie frowned. ‘You’re not still seeing him, are you?’

  Lydia nodded.

  ‘Still? I can’t believe it! You’re not going to tell me he’s turned over a new leaf and become the model partner.’

  Lydia shook her head.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. As inconsiderate as ever?’ Lydia inclined her head. ‘And unfaithful?’ Lydia barely nodded. ‘And still you can’t leave?’

  No, she could not.

  ‘You should speak to my mother. It wou
ld do you good. I’ve heard she’s the only woman ever to have left him.’

  Lydia leaned forward, eyebrows raised. But no, Ginnie said, Elizabeth was not home, she was shopping for their friend Kate.

  ‘You could wait if you like.’

  But Lydia would not. ‘I must be going. I’m sorry for disturbing you.’

  Ginnie stepped back on to the pavement, the car moved forward a couple of metres and then stopped. Lydia got out and spoke across the dark gleaming roof.

  ‘And you know everything about your father and me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘And Elizabeth? Your mother?’

  ‘Of course, from the very beginning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Lydia sat in the car and drove off.

  She was livid. Adrian had always maintained that Elizabeth had not known; even after the breakdown of the marriage ten years before, Adrian had assured Lydia that Elizabeth had accepted their version of events at the races. As for the divorce, he used to joke that the best piece of legislation to be enacted in the years since Federation was no-fault divorce: both he and Lydia were fully protected under the law. Lydia, wanting to believe that Elizabeth was ignorant of the betrayal by her oldest friend, had accepted Adrian’s assurances, and even when she and Elizabeth stopped seeing each other, Lydia had hoped Elizabeth would simply think they had drifted apart.

  But Elizabeth had known all along! Lydia felt the rage gathering, handfuls of it, as she sped across the city to Adrian’s office. That he had lied about Elizabeth suddenly became the worst of his sins – worse than the waiting, worse than the roster of women, and yes, worse than the neglect. The girl was right, Adrian was not worth the pain. He might be attractive with his charm, his energy, his little-boy ingenuousness, but he was driven entirely by self-interest. The negatives shrivelled the winning attributes: his achievements were lost to chronic irresponsibility, his whimsy was swamped by inconstancy, his dependence on her love smothered by his taking her for granted. Only the sex was without a negative, but Lydia knew sex was insufficient to sustain a relationship, particularly after twenty years.

  She turned into a narrow street and stopped in front of Adrian’s office. His car was not in its reserved space. He could be anywhere: still at lunch, down at Eden Park, anywhere. She sat for a moment nibbling her manicured nails, trying to decide what to do, then turned the car and drove the couple of kilometres to Brunswick Street. She parked near the bar where she and Adrian had spent a swag of indolent hours in the early years of their relationship, but it was gone; so, too, the seedy coffee shop and the expensive Italian restaurant always so incongruous in the decaying street. She and Adrian had lived out such exciting days in this broken-down stretch of the city; but now, as she entered a café with lashings of chrome, plastic and neon, she saw how the area had changed. She and Adrian had become shabbier, while Brunswick Street fairly sparkled.

  She sat at a window table and ordered coffee. The waiter was boyish, gay, familiar; try the herb bread, he said, we make it ourselves. He was sweet and attentive so she ordered the bread knowing full well she wouldn’t eat it. Shortly afterwards, he returned with the food; she settled into her chair, sipped the coffee and looked around. At one of the other tables was a woman, young, staring, a caffe latte and a serious camera on the table. While Lydia was watching, the woman took up the camera, focused on a patch of sunlight on the floor and shot one, two, a half dozen pictures. Of sunlight on a dirty floor. Here was an artist at work, young, intense, and clearly devoted to surface detail. Not that Lydia saw it this way, she envied the girl’s indifference to her surroundings, admired her dedication to art.

  Lydia turned away, she had no interests, no work, only a single all-consuming passion which she did not want to think about. She switched her gaze to two people propped on stools at the counter. A common enough charade was being played: the man was inspecting the woman like a fly at a fresh cut, he was sniffing her out. A smartly dressed man reeking of sweat. Why was it, Lydia wondered, that so many men dress with care, shave with care, style their hair with care, and smell so bad. She shifted her attention to the only other customers in the café, hoping that with her head averted the smell would pass her by. They were a couple: she, twenty-five or thereabouts, adoring, blonde, almost pubescent in her thinness; he, fifty, balding, cancer-spotted, the type to own a late model Ford. Lydia grinned, so people still travelled to Brunswick Street for their affairs, although, if the present couple were any indication, the class of lover had declined since Lydia and Adrian’s day. Adrian had never driven anything less than a Mercedes, and even this he had discarded as soon as he could afford a Jaguar; these days it was, of course, the ubiquitous Rolls. But there was nothing Rolls Royce about this couple, even their gestures had been purloined from prime-time television.

  Twenty years ago it had seemed so different. Lydia and Adrian had discovered the street together, drawn by its shabbiness, its dog-eared and torn quality, and by its people – humiliated, clapped-out human beings. There is something about the low life, something enticing and forbidden, that intoxicates a love, blurring its edges with quivering thrills and injecting it with lust. For Lydia and Adrian, a drink, a meal, even a stroll down Brunswick Street always ended in bed.

  Over the years they had come to know some of the local drunks, shreds of men with a glimmer in their grimy faces who knew Adrian as an easy touch. And he was, it was part of his charm. He gave them money, shouted them drinks, and on more than one winter’s day had parted with gloves, scarf, even the socks off his feet. It was the same with those he loved: if you expressed even the mildest interest in something it was yours; it could be as small as a handkerchief or as large as a horse – Adrian had given Lydia both. Once Lydia had admired a pretty snuff box; over the next two years Adrian had presented her with sixty-seven snuff boxes, a collection now worth a small fortune so the insurance agent had recently advised her. Another time at a Dadswell party, Lydia, a consummate artist of dinner-table conversation, had complimented Elizabeth on her silver place card holders. When next she saw Adrian he presented her with one hundred and fifty three assorted silver card holders gleaned from two of his favourite jewellers, and, if Lydia were any judge, a wholesaler of Asian arts and crafts as well. Generous, but not always in the best of taste. He was the same with food. On their second meal alone Lydia had hesitated between oysters and caviar for an entrée, she liked both, she said. Adrian summoned the chef and requested Huitres à la Russe – oysters on the shell, a dollop of sour cream, a crown of black caviar, served on ice with a half of lemon. For the next ten years, whenever they ate at a restaurant, Adrian would direct the chef to make Lydia’s special entrée. Finally she was forced to confess that another oyster with sour cream and caviar would make her sick.

  He was even more generous when it came to jewellery, showering Lydia with so many pieces she’d been forced to keep them in a safety deposit box – even David would have noticed the proliferation of precious baubles. Although with David being such a costive sort of fellow she supposed she had been safe enough: he always took in far more than he let out.

  Everyone loved Adrian. Lydia loved him, the drunks of Brunswick Street loved him and the traders loved him – Italians mostly, fresh from the voyage out, with hearts set on a brick home in the outer suburbs. And Adrian had assisted them to their tree-lined, brick-veneer dreams ten miles away, for the old traders had now gone. Indeed, it occurred to Lydia as she watched the lovers at the next table that the most persistent trade in Brunswick Street was themselves. The lovers. In the old days it had been the rich sparking off the poor, now it was suburban ordinariness buying adventure from high-chic, neon-lit, punk-tipped recklessness.

  Twenty years, she thought, it didn’t seem so long. And yet a neighbourhood had changed and Lydia was no longer part of the younger generation. It was twenty years since Adrian had taken her in his arms amid a pile of wedding presents in a small ro
om not far from the Bainbridge kitchen; twenty years since Lydia felt Adrian’s erect penis pressing against the pink spotted voile bridesmaid’s gown, and heard him whisper, ‘Can you feel that? Can you feel me?’ and moments later feeling his large body all over hers, the wet gulping kisses, his hands performing the most extraordinary acrobatics inside her underpants. Twenty years ago when Adrian, having just returned from two weeks honeymoon on Hayman Island, took Lydia to bed.

  It had been a hot and hurried beginning. A couple of years later when Ginnie was born, the affair accelerated. Then it settled, for six, seven years it settled. Until the races, Melbourne Cup Day, November 1977.

  Lydia and David Branch had been up since seven o’clock and still there was the ice to fetch, sandwiches to prepare, the car to pack. The salmon patties were still frozen – it had been Paulé Warby’s idea to make them early and then freeze them: just take them out in the morning, she had said, they defrost almost immediately. Well they don’t, Lydia said to no one in particular, and they wouldn’t if packed in one of the car fridges. On the other hand, if they were left to defrost in the car on the way to the racecourse everyone would arrive reeking of fish. Paulé’s ideas were invariably catastrophic, Lydia should have known better than to listen.

  David walked into the kitchen.

  ‘How many glasses did you hire?’

  ‘The number you asked for: eight dozen champagne and four dozen tumblers. They’re in the laundry on top of the washing machine.’

  David took one of the salmon patties as he walked past, bit into it and spat it out.

  ‘Do you know these things are still frozen?’

  Murder would be too kind, thought Lydia. She took a deep breath, pointed to the large car fridge and suggested he start packing the car.

  As usual, the Branches, the Dadswells and the Warbys had reserved three adjacent car spaces in the members’ parking reserve for their annual Cup Day party. Although there were parties at almost every car, the Branch-Dadswell-Warby celebrations were notorious. They commenced at eleven with pre-race champagne and savouries and continued throughout the day and half the night. Each year some of the less dedicated punters became so engrossed in the pre-race refreshments that they remained in the carpark for the duration, happy to forfeit a day at the races for a twelve-hour party.