by John Clanchy
‘Well, where is he?’ I said.
Her shoulders shot up, and it must have been this which produced the soft yowl of protest from beneath her cardigan.
‘Can we please go now?’ said Philip who’d followed us.
I hate being the last to arrive at a party, getting there when everyone else is already liquored up, or stoned, and flying. You have this feeling you’ll never catch up, and you rarely do.
‘He’ll take silk, that young man of yours,’ Justice Fletcher said as soon as we got in the door. ‘In two years,’ he said, ‘three at most.’ And, to show that I was grown-up, and willing to enter into the spirit of things, to let everything else go for a while and not be a spoil-sport, a party-pooper for once for Christ’s sake, I left the claim of Justice Fletcher’s hand linger for a moment where it had fallen, on my bare shoulder. He was standing just inside the hallway, greeting everyone as they arrived, as though he was the host and not just another guest, like us. As though it was his night, not Philip’s or anyone else’s. Giving all the wives and girlfriends a welcoming, presumptive feel – just in case. ‘Three years,’ he said again to me, as though he was dispensing the prizes personally.
I ducked my head in appreciation, and smiled past him at Philip. Who was pleased, and smiled back. But nervously, I thought. Like a prospective son-in-law. Taking silk was part of a private, joking bedroom language between Philip and myself. Justice Fletcher saw the look that passed between us, and squeezed my shoulder once, lightly – just to make it seem he was in on the joke. I took my chance, then, and moved away. Later, in the kitchen, I saw him propositioning Amanda, the Aboriginal wife of one of Philip’s colleagues. Taking velvet, I thought – that’s what he must have meant. My own mind, I realized as I found myself thinking this, was no better than Justice Fletcher’s. Amanda caught my eye. She winked at me over Fletcher’s shoulder, and I was able to grin back. Just.
Ease up, I kept saying to myself, let go. Greeting, but barely able to take in what people were saying to me. What’s wrong with you?
I went outside to get some air. People were stretched out on the lawn at the back of the house, or lounging about the pool, drinks in their hands. Tony Ryle, a work friend of Philip’s, offered to roll me a joint.
‘Oh,’ I said. And my face must have showed.
‘What,’ he laughed, ‘you disapprove, or something?’
‘No, of course not, Tony,’ I said. Nor did I. And the setting was perfect, the early summer air soft and already filled with jasmine and frangipani. A couple – the girl in white – were lying upright, kissing and fondling one another, between the legs of a giant fig at the bottom of the yard. The leaves over their heads were black and shiny in the lights gleaming off the pool. Behind us, the house glowed in subdued light, like a luxury ocean liner, John Lee Hooker bluesing away softly from an upper deck. ‘Of course I don’t disapprove,’ I said again. ‘It’s just –’
‘Just what?’
‘Well, you know,’ I said. Hearing myself age, even as I said it. ‘The kids are at home, and they’re babysitting.’
‘They’re at home and they’re babysitting?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Not intending to explain. ‘But if something happened,’ I said, ‘and I needed to go quickly –’
‘Oh,’ he said, already bored, and looking around. ‘I see.’
‘Philip,’ I say, as we drive across the bridge, ‘I’m sorry. I know you wanted to stay.’
‘That’s okay,’ he says, and looks at me for the first time since we got in the car. ‘Miriam, it’s okay.’
‘Let’s go parking,’ I say then.
‘What –?’ he says.
‘How long is it,’ I say, looking at Philip, the neatness of his head, the boyishness of his body in the car beside me, ‘since we last went parking?’
‘I thought you were the one who was keen to get home,’ he says, barely slowing.
‘Yes,’ I say. And, listening to him, the impulse is already gone. In the fog lights of the bridge I see myself, just for one second, reflected greenishly in the windscreen. I remember the mirror in that bathroom, my nipples hardening against the cloth of my dress. It is the only young thing about me.
At home, everything is quiet. Laura and Katie are in their rooms, both asleep. I kiss them, take the books from their hands, switch off their lamps, Laura’s radio, and go to check on Mother. She too is sleeping or pretending to. Later she’ll rise, wander through these rooms, ours. Hopefully no further. She can no longer manage the double deadlocks on the front and back doors. For the moment, though, her face is a blank. There is no intention, no motion or expression on it at all. It is as though all the years of her life have somehow been wiped clean. Even her skin has become smooth, has unwrinkled itself. In the nightlight, which does not quite reach her hair, she might be a child. My third. Another girl. As I watch, she stirs – or something does beneath the sheets. Then settles again, with a soft sigh or purr. Yogi, I remember. ‘Goodnight, Mother,’ I say from the doorway. Just in case.
In our own room, Philip, already in bed, is still closed, resistant. Hurt.
‘Darling?’ I say, touching him, then – as he pretends not to respond – swinging one leg across him, straddling him. But listening, too, as I’ve become used to doing. I’m seventeen again, with a boy in my room for the first time, listening for my mother. Who steps quietly about the house. At all hours. Who doesn’t knock. What if she were to wander in here now, my arse in the air? Let go, I tell myself yet again, let go. You’re thirty-nine. You’re married, this is Philip, your husband, you’re not seventeen. This is your own house for Christ’s sake, not hers. Let go, let go.
‘Darling?’ I say again, rolling over and pulling him on top of me. Pulling the sheet up to cover his naked back at the same time.
Honey, the girl in the bathroom had said, you don’t know what you’ve lost.
‘Miriam –’ Philip says, at some point, in that voice, and – since it’s his night – I shut my eyes. To him, and to myself. And fake it.
‘Ahh –’
He is pleased. The night changes. Tomorrow, I remember thinking, will be better.
Grandma Vera
Inside I’m still Vera. I’ll always be that. Vera. Always be Vera. Aloe Vera, Bill used to say sometimes. As a joke.
It’s just that I get confused. I know that. I can tell that. No one needs to tell me that. I get woozy. The the the … white man in the coat says it’s vertigo, but it’s not. I just get dizzy, that’s all. And words. I can’t – In the dark I can’t. It’s dark in here. In some places in here. I get angry, I get frightened when I can’t –
The fat woman was here again. Mrs Johanson. I don’t know why Miriam lets her come here when she steals from them all the time. She slaps me when they go out. Miriam doesn’t believe me. She pretends she doesn’t even know her.
‘Mrs Bloodstock?’ Miriam says. ‘But I don’t know any Mrs Bloodstock, Mother.’
When she does. She lets her in. I lock all the doors when I know she’s coming, but then I forget, and the next thing I turn around and she’s there. Miriam’s let her in. Old Fatso. Or he has. Prick Philip has.
‘Johanna,’ I tell her. ‘Johanna Bloodstock.’
‘Well, I don’t know her, Mother.’ And then she says in that cunning voice as if I was a child or crazy or something, ‘Maybe she’s just your own special friend.’
As if I’d made her up. As if I was the only one who could see her. Where Miriam’s the one who lets her in in the first place.
‘The fat woman,’ I tell her again.
‘Mrs Johnson? Is that who you mean?’
Why does she do this, I wonder. Pretend like this when she knows all along, and then only has to admit it in the end. She never looks at me when she talks. She’s always fussing with something with her hands as if she’s too busy, or looking past me at the windows or the walls or the dorkthings as if she’s just seen some dirt there.
‘That’s a good idea,’ I tell her.
‘Mother, I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that.’
‘Well, it is,’ I tell her.
‘Je-sus.’
I like the little girl best, like her, like her. Katie. Like her. Have to protect her. It’s disgusting. Only six. Katie’s six. Greeks are disgusting. They’re only after one thing. Look at Homer – or was it the other one? It’s disgusting. His own daughter. Prick Philip. The Prince of Something Something. I liked the other one best. Even though he took Miriam away from me. Philip wants to send me away. So he can get the girl. Six, it’s disgusting. It killed her father, Miriam’s father. We met at the Town Hall. Or the Affiancé Francaise. That was a long time ago. But I remember it like it was yesterday. We –
Her father and I –
Her father and I –
His name. His name …
Ooh – To say it. Just to say it.
But I can’t. I can’t.
Fuckit.
There.
I’ve said it.
Philip
‘You didn’t mind leaving early?’ Miriam says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’ To tell the truth, I had enough on my mind as it was at that moment, worrying about breathalysers and speed traps.
‘It’s just that Laura’s got exams next week,’ Miriam says, ‘and I didn’t want her up all night. Besides, it wasn’t such a great party,’ she says. At this point I’m too pissed off to answer, so I just stare straight ahead through the windscreen.
‘Did you think?’ she says.
I thought it was a fabulous party. Half of Sydney must have been there – legal Sydney, I mean, Higgisons, Mallets & Ashleys, Paynters, Jacques & Escrocs, everyone. Senior Counsels, magistrates, two judges. Frank Fletcher greeted us by the door as soon as we got inside. ‘He’ll take silk, that young man of yours,’ Fletcher said. It was the first thing he said, as though he’d been thinking of it just before we came in. ‘In two years,’ he said, ‘three at most.’ And Fletcher should know. It’s not just this recent case. He knows me, knows what I can do, I must have appeared before him half a dozen times. And if he says three years … Two, I’m sure he said. Two or three. Plus, he went out of his way to be pleasant to Miriam as well, the big kiss and hug, and all the rest. There was one tricky moment – taking silk – which means something different to Miriam and myself, and hearing it publicly that way from someone else He’ll take silk, that young man of yours was a bit like being caught in the act itself, as if we’d actually been walked in on. But I don’t think Fletcher noticed any of this. If he did, he probably just put it down to professional modesty, to me not wanting to seem over cocky or ambitious. I don’t know if Miriam was embarrassed, but she moved away fairly smartly. It was a bit cool, I thought, to someone like Fletcher. Maybe she was still upset about what had happened at home.
We were late of course – we’re late everywhere these days – and I was supposed to be one of the guests of honour. Not that that mattered so much, the thing wasn’t meant to be that formal, no speeches, it’s a party after all, not a reception. But still. Everyone knows, and they’ve come there partly to say well done, and if you’re not even there to be seen, greet … It’s not so much a black mark, but people do wonder a bit. Talk. Have we had a domestic? A crisis? Is something WRONG? That kind of thing. First sniff in this community, and they’ve got you splitting over cocktails, separating by supper and in the Family Court before they get in their cars for the trip home. When all it was, was the usual trouble of getting Mother to take her bath and eat her supper and then some tomfoolery between herself and Katie. Katie was racing up and down the corridor to Mother’s rooms bowling this cloth ball and making a dreadful racket, doing some kind of radio commentary as she bowled, and then shrieking with laughter. I couldn’t get any sense out of her at all for a while.
‘What’s she saying?’ I said to Miriam.
‘I’ve got no idea,’ Miriam said. She was already tense. I don’t think she was looking forward to the party, even then. I tried to get her to have a drink.
‘Would you like a gin?’ I said. ‘To relax you?’
‘Later,’ she snapped back. ‘Later. I’ve just spent half an hour getting Mother into the bath, and now she’s refusing to get out.
Why don’t you go and ask Katie yourself,’ she said, ‘if you’re so keen to know. She’s your daughter, as well.’
‘Well, pardon me for living,’ I said. But I did yell at Katie, and for a while she stopped her noise. Though the bowling with the cloth ball went on.
‘What are you doing?’ I said finally.
‘Warne’s bowling,’ she said, darting past me and hurling the ball against the wall at the end of the corridor. ‘He’s doing leg-spinners.’
‘I didn’t know you were interested in cricket,’ I said. It was the first I’d heard.
‘Katie, go and get ready for bed,’ Miriam broke in. When she’d just asked me to deal with it.
‘And Grandma Vera’s Steve Waugh,’ Katie said.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Katie …’ Miriam said. In warning.
‘I’m just telling Dad. Grandma Vera’s going to play for Australia. Didn’t you know? As soon as she gets a proper bat.’
‘Katie, I won’t tell you again. Go and get your pyjamas on.’
‘And some stumps and pads. She wants to play with Glen McGrath and Shane Warne. I’m going,’ she said then, as Miriam moved towards her. ‘I’m going. I was just telling Dad.’
‘Oooh – that girl,’ Miriam said as Katie disappeared.
‘What was that all about?’
‘I don’t know. Some … fantasy.’
‘Do they play it often?’
‘What?’
‘Cricket.’
‘Philip,’ she said, but she was still standing with her back to me, gazing after Katie, and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, ‘I thought you were the one who was desperate to go.’
‘I am.’
‘Well, then –’
Of course we no sooner had that settled than we ran into the next cartload of nonsense about who was to have Yogi, the cat, for the night – Mother or Katie. And that made us well over an hour late, and it’s hard after that to get around properly and catch up with everyone you have to, especially if some of the most important people are old and deliberately go early. So that the rest of us can then let go a bit. As we do.
By midnight, I’ve had a whisky more than I needed – what with everyone topping me up, pressing a glass into my hand – though I don’t know who’s pressed Maureen Barlow’s generous left tit into my hand or her tongue into my ear and kept it there as we danced. But they’re there, all right, I find, and I glance around at one point and see Miriam looking across the room at us, or rather through us, not mad at all, just slightly glazed and distracted. Something breaks the spell as I watch and she smiles and then notices, and pulls her neck and head back and wrinkles her brow in mock disapproval. She and Maureen are close, she’d know it was innocent. I think. But I can tell she wants to leave. She waves, and goes out towards the back of the house and the pool. She’ll be willing herself to lighten up, to let go, not to be a party pooper. For my sake. I know her. But in an hour she’ll be back, wanting to go. So I’d better stop drinking now. And whatever else I’m doing.
‘I guess I just wasn’t in the mood,’ she says on the drive home. I don’t say anything back. I don’t say you’re never in the mood these days. Miriam’s smart, she’ll be listening to the echo of her own words. ‘I could have got a taxi,’ she says. ‘Or you could.’
‘I suppose,’ I say. That’s if I didn’t value my life, I think to myself.
‘If you’d wanted to stay.’
‘Yes,’ I say, driving on.
‘Did you?’ she says. And I need a moment to think whether I’m going to tell the truth about this.
‘Did I what?’ I say.
‘Want to?’ she says.
And I’ve decided it’s best to say nothing, and hope she doesn’t a
sk again. But I needn’t have worried because the next thing, just as we’re crossing the bridge, she says, ‘Philip, I’m sorry. I know you wanted to stay.’
And there’s something sad in her voice, and it’s not just for me. Two years ago, I’d have been the one having to tear her away from a party like that.
‘That’s okay,’ I say, and as I say it, I find I mean it, and can look at her properly.
‘Let’s go parking,’ she says then.
‘What, now?’ I say. Just from the shock, but knowing too, as soon as she says it, that it’s what she wanted to hear herself saying, rather than really meaning.
‘How long is it,’ she says, giving me a look of such hunger I nearly drive off the bridge, ‘since we last went parking?’
And now I think she does mean it. But against herself somehow. And I don’t know what I’m meant to say. And suddenly I feel confused. And manipulated. And so, when I do speak, it comes out wrong:
‘I thought you were the one who was keen to get home,’ I say, though I do slow the car a bit. As if I’m prepared.
‘Yes,’ she says. And I know I’ve messed it up – whatever it was – and the moment’s gone.
Later, in bed, I know that by force of will she tries to resurrect it – whatever emotion it was she’d felt for a moment back there in the car. She straddles me, tries to let herself go, she goes through the motions. But something is wrong, and whatever it is can’t be forced, and when she rolls over and pulls me on top of her, I know she’s surrendered, given up. And I’m made to understand then that, though you can’t force it – this letting go, this losing yourself – you can still fake it.
‘Ah –’
I pretend to be pleased. Tomorrow is another day. For both of us.
Laura
‘Well you can’t have both, Toni says.
‘But I like them both,’ I say.
‘Yes, but if one comes, the other one won’t.’
We’re up in my room, sitting on the bed, working out the guest list for my party. I’ll be fifteen in two weeks. My birthday’s actually a Thursday but Mum says I can only have the party on the weekend after our exams. Toni’s is a month earlier, we’re exactly thirty days apart. Toni’s my best friend. She sounds like a boy – it’s actually Tonia, but we’ve always called her Toni. Toni Darling. Darling’s her second name, which is funny though she gets sick of it. All the jokes all the time. And even I can’t help laughing at times – though, when I do, she looks at me like she’s never going to speak to me again. Like in school sometimes when the teacher asks a question, especially if it’s a male teacher and he looks around the room and he picks on Toni to answer and he goes, ‘Well … um … let’s see, Tonia Darling?’ and we all go, the whole class goes, ‘Ooooh!’ You can really make some of the teachers blush then – a few just smile but some go really red, especially the younger ones who don’t know how to handle it. The embarrassment and everything.
