Last Chance Café

by Liz Byrski

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘If you think she’d like it.’

  ‘Wow! Really? That’s totally brilliant – oh shit!’ Blood drips in dark spots onto a slice of bread. ‘Bugger, so sorry, I’ve cut myself in my excitement.’

  She regrets it immediately, regrets it as she dabs the cut finger with tea tree ointment and applies a plaster, as she makes the sandwiches, and as the evening continues, and while she thoroughly enjoys Patrick’s company. Aunty Win, she thinks, must be the price she’ll pay for such a pleasant evening.

  And she regrets this and more, much more, later that evening, when she thinks about what else she has agreed to do. How did he do that, get her talking about the past, dragging out her books of clippings and photographs? She has made a complete fool of herself, behaved like a boring old fart, the sort of old person that young people dread. But Patrick had started it with all his questions, asking how it all began, her career, her activism, and the Push, of course, most of all the Push; people always wanted to know about the Push. Dot blushes at the realisation that she has been name dropping: dead names, names still living, people she’d been with on campaigns, worked with, slept with. Oh lord, did she actually tell him that too? Perhaps not, but she may have implied it with a tone, the twitch of an eyebrow, a particular sort of hesitation that spoke more clearly than words. Well, too late – who cares a stuff these days anyway?

  ‘How important we thought we were, back then,’ she remembers saying, ‘so entirely up ourselves. We thought we were shaping a new world.’

  ‘In many ways you were,’ Patrick had said, ‘and it’s fascinating. I’m running a course on subcultures in cities and the Sydney Push is one of them. It would make it so real for my students to meet someone who was a part of it – an activist.’

  ‘Well, we certainly thought of ourselves as libertarians and tried to live that way, but I don’t think we really were activists; we spent a lot of time in the pub talking, setting the world to rights. We analysed everything, came up with ideas and solutions, wrote papers, talked about how things ought to be. I mean, some people in the Push were activists, but a lot of them were armchair or bar stool activists.’

  ‘You were an activist,’ he said. ‘The anti-Vietnam protests, weren’t you arrested several times? And then later there was Women’s Lib – all that would be very interesting.’ He’d paused then, grinning. ‘And according to today’s paper, you’re still protesting.’

  Dot groans. ‘So that shopping centre thing got in the paper?’

  ‘Front page.’

  ‘Oh dear, how embarrassing.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose I could …’ and the words were out of her mouth before she knew it.

  ‘Really? You’re sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘Not entirely,’ she’d said, ‘but unusual things seem to be happening this weekend. I think it’s a sign I should go with the flow.’

  It had been flattering, but now that Patrick has gone Dot feels embarrassed and ridiculous.

  ‘Thanks so much,’ he’d said as he left. ‘I’ve had a terrific evening. You’re a living archive, Dot. The students will love meeting you.’

  She’d paused, looking at him closely in the shadowy light of the porch. He’d seemed genuine.

  ‘Living archive,’ she mutters to herself now, ‘more like the eternal egoist. You just can’t let it all go, can you? Drop out, leave town, leave the country, try to get over yourself, and now at the first opportunity you rake it all up again. Well, this was an error of judgment on both our parts, probably too much wine.’

  She drops the empty bottle into the bin and snaps off the kitchen light. Ah well, too late now. She’s made this pathetic, ego-driven grasp at the past, a last ditch attempt to reclaim a vestige of what was only ever minor celebrity, and now she’s stuck with it. ‘You’re a boring, selfish old woman,’ she tells herself. ‘Lunch with Aunty Win, for goodness sake, and talking to students; you’ll make a fool of yourself with them no doubt, but Aunty Win is probably a very nice woman and you are going to smash all her illusions.’ And she pads up the passage in the dark, wondering if there is a remote possibility that Patrick might call tomorrow and tell her it’s all off, and if he does whether she will be relieved or disappointed.

  THREE

  ‘You look very nice, Margot,’ Phyllida says as they wait for the guests to arrive. ‘That colour suits you; you should wear it more often.’

  Phyllida herself is looking exceptionally elegant this evening in a three-quarter length black crêpe dress stitched with an intricate pattern of sparkling jet beads. A little ageing, Margot thinks, but exquisite taste, as always.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Emma says, looking critically at her mother, taking in the deep purple top that fits around her narrow shoulders and flares out around her waist and hips and the straight, ankle length black skirt. ‘It’s very nice, different. You don’t usually wear things like that, but Aunty Phyl’s right, it looks really good.’

  Emma and her aunt are two of a kind, clothes horses both of them, a two-woman combat arm of the fashion police, so it’s interesting for Margot to be approved of as she is tonight. She is used to being treated as a serial recidivist when it comes to fashion crimes.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Phyllida asks.

  ‘Central Park, yesterday,’ Margot says. ‘Em, why is it that there is virtually nowhere for bigger women in these shopping centres? Even a size sixteen is hard to find these days, and if you ask for an eighteen they look at you as though you crawled out from under a stone. Anyway, I bumped into an old friend –’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Phyllida cuts in, ‘you don’t get the Sunday Telegraph, do you? That friend of yours who used to write the column in the Age was at Central Park yesterday too, she’s on the front page.’ She looks around for the paper. ‘Now, where is it? I put it aside for you. There’s a picture – apparently she chained herself to some railings, ranting on about beauty treatments and … now what was it I read? Ah! Here it is. Yes – the new sexism.’ And she pulls the folded newspaper from a rack near the door and hands it to Margot, who unfolds it and stares at the picture with a sinking heart.

  ‘Shit!’ Emma says, leaning over her mother’s shoulder. ‘This is dreadful. Oh my god, listen to this: In addition to her controversial views on what she calls the “sexualisation of women and girls in the service of consumerism,” Dot Grainger believes that shopping centres should provide more choices and more diverse representations of women in their advertising and promotions. “It’s all part of the new sexism that defines women by how they look. Women are made to feel that they are not beautiful enough, young enough or glamorous enough as they are,” Ms Grainger says. “The shopping centres capitalise on that with the promise that they offer everything women need to make themselves over and they are caught in the cycle of before and after in which after becomes the next before, always drawing women back in.” How could she do this? And the blasted paper hasn’t bothered to get a comment from me or even from the centre manager!’

  ‘Don’t start worrying about that now,’ Donald says, topping up her glass. ‘Party time, time to forget about work and enjoy yourself, isn’t that right, Margot?’

  Margot nods distractedly, and reads on.

  ‘But we ought to have been asked for a response,’ Emma says. ‘Bloody journalists; you’d think they’d want a comment from the centre manager. And my mobile’s always on, they could have called me.’

  ‘You have delusions of grandeur,’ Donald says benignly. ‘You PR bods can’t shape every message, you know. Now drink up and forget about it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, no one will take any notice,’ Phyllida says. ‘It’s just attention seeking. She was always like that, always going on about something. Wasn’t she, Margot?’

  ‘She’s always been an activist if that’s what you mean,’ Margot says sharply. ‘Have you finished with the paper, Phyl? Can I keep this?’

  ‘Of course. We never actually read it. I don’t know why Donald buys
it.’

  ‘Cartoons,’ Donald says. ‘I like the cartoons. Now, where is everyone?’

  ‘Grant won’t be long,’ Emma says. ‘He and Wendy were picking Rosie up from a party on the way.’ She smooths down the skirt of the cream silk Collette Dinnigan dress that everyone has already admired at length, crosses to the window and tweaks the blind to look out onto the street, clenching and unclenching her fists.

  For years Margot has wrestled with herself about where she went wrong with Emma. She was always a restless child and now she is a restless woman, but it’s more than that – is it tension, anxiety, anger? Margot is never quite sure but sometimes she aches with concern and with the frustration that however and whenever she attempts to reach out to Emma it never quite works. All that seems to work for her is constant shopping and endless beauty treatments, all the things that Dot was attacking in the newspaper. Margot doesn’t understand it. Emma is not stupid; she’d begun as a receptionist at Grangewood and worked her way up to become a publicist and now she’s responsible for the publicity for three of the shopping centres. Every time Margot has, as she is having now, a stab of panic about her younger daughter’s well-being and state of mind, she reminds herself of the professional Emma, and tries to merge the Emma she knows into the woman who everyone outside her family seems to see. She glances at her watch. Still no Lexie, and she hadn’t turned up earlier in the day to help either, which is most unlike her.

  ‘I hate this bit,’ Phyllida says, ‘waiting for everyone to arrive. It’s like being in limbo.’

  ‘Better than purgatory though, old thing,’ Donald says, patting her shoulder. ‘Limbo leads somewhere splendid, purgatory goes on forever. I’ll check on the kitchen. Guests’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Don’t you go near that kitchen, Donald,’ Phyllida says. ‘Emma has organised everything down to the last detail, and the caterers can manage perfectly well without your interference.’

  Emma has certainly organised everything. The invitations, the caterers, the wine, the string quartet playing softly in a corner of the entrance hall; even the DVD with the continuous slide show of photographs from Phyllida and Donald’s fifty years together has been scanned and compiled by Emma. Margot wonders where she gets the time and the energy.

  ‘Lexie’s late,’ Emma says irritably and seems about to say something less than charitable but is silenced by a ring at the doorbell.

  ‘Oops, here we go,’ Phyllida says with a frisson of excitement. ‘First guests,’ and with a quick glance at herself in the mirror over the fireplace, she hurries out to the door.

  Margot loathes the prospect of this party; she is not keen on most of Phyllida and Donald’s friends, and cocktail parties are not her thing. But she’s happy for her sister tonight, not just because of the anniversary, but because last month Donald announced his retirement and she knows that Phyl has been hanging out for this. He’s been promising to retire for the last five years – it’s not as though they need the income now – but he’d kept putting it off, reluctant, Margot suspects, to give up the hallowed status of consultant and the ever present band of surgical groupies and nurses hanging on his every word. Well, now it is done and Phyllida is determined to mark the start of what she’s been calling her new life, beginning with plenty of midweek golf, and next month a visit to friends in California followed by a cruise to the Bahamas.

  There are several people at the door, among them Ross, who, having kissed Phyllida and shaken hands with Donald, makes straight for Margot.

  ‘Where’s Lex?’ he asks, kissing her cheek and almost choking her with the scent of his aftershave.

  Margot leans away in self-defence. ‘Crikey, Ross, whatever is that perfume?’

  ‘Ralph Lauren for men,’ he says, ‘costs a bomb.’

  ‘Well I think Ralph Lauren may have meant it to be used more sparingly,’ Margot says, stifling a cough. ‘I thought Lexie would be coming with you.’

  Ross shakes his head and lifts a glass from the tray of a passing waiter. ‘Been on a fishing weekend,’ he says. ‘Left lunchtime Friday and got home this evening and she’s not there, so I thought she’d be here with you.’

  It’s almost an hour later, when all the guests have arrived, the champagne is flowing, the food circulating, that Margot, worried now by Lexie’s non-appearance, decides to call her. In the spare room where she left her coat and bag she switches on her mobile and discovers a text message: Can’t make party. Have to get away for a few days. Love and apologies to P and D. Don’t worry. Don’t call, will email soon. Love Lex xxx PS Don’t tell Ross.

  Margot takes a couple of deep breaths to quell maternal anxiety. She is accustomed to worrying about Emma, but worrying about Lexie is something new; she is almost boringly conscientious and reliable. Even as a child she’d been four going on forty, as though there was a part of her always programmed into restraint and thoughtfulness. Margot is torn between concern at this unpredictable and unexplained absence, and satisfaction that Lexie, for once in her life, has done something totally uncharacteristic. And don’t tell Ross what? What is there to tell?

  Margot hesitates, decides to ignore her daughter’s request, and dials her number. The phone switches to the answering service and she gets ready to leave a message, only to find that Lexie’s greeting has changed, and instead of being asked to leave a message she is being told, in Lexie’s irritatingly calm voice, that she is not accepting messages. Margot switches off the phone and sits for a moment before getting to her feet. ‘Good on you, Lex,’ she says aloud, ‘about time.’ And she glances in the mirror, pats her hair and returns to the party.

  ‘Lex isn’t answering her phone,’ Ross says after he tracks Margot down. He looks anxious and irritable.

  Margot is not devoted to Ross; he and Lexie have been together for almost six years and while Margot has found it hard to warm to him, his worst crime, as far as she knows, is just that of being a waste of space. Laurence had told her recently that he thought Ross might be involved with someone else, but they don’t actually know that. Lexie hasn’t said anything and they still live together, although no one pretends that this is due to anything but inertia on both their parts. ‘I got a text, Ross,’ she says. ‘Lexie seems to be taking time out. She’ll be in touch soon.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Ross says. ‘Time fucking out, what’s that supposed to mean? Well, I suppose I know what it means. Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Margot says. ‘And if I did I probably wouldn’t tell you, because then it wouldn’t be time out, would it?’

  Phyllida is having a splendid time, the caterers are excellent, the guests have all arrived, Donald is drinking moderately and being a model host, and there is a tantalising pile of gifts on the hall table which she probably won’t get to open until tomorrow. What a lovely evening; everyone dressed up in their finery for her and Donald. So gratifying; even Margot has made the effort and is wearing a very smart outfit from a proper boutique rather than something eccentric picked up in an op shop. Phyllida often despairs of her sister; ever since they were girls she has been trying to sort her out, but Margot has always gone her own way. She recalls a ridiculous crocheted bikini, a shaggy student look, all in black with an ugly green beret and lots of smudgy black mascara, and later cheesecloth and, worst of all, floral bell-bottom trousers. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that she’s ended up in later life haunting the op shops and coming up with weird things she thinks are bargains.

  A woman with whom Phyllida plays golf once suggested that although she doesn’t have a classic or a fashionable look, Margot has her own style; it was an eccentric style, she’d said, but distinctive and interesting. Phyllida can’t see it herself but it’s a relief to know that not everyone views Margot quite as she does. And she’s so unfortunate with her weight of course, poor Margot, such a shame she inherited their mother’s physique, unlike Phyllida herself who has their father’s lean and rangy genes. Still, one can’t blame one’s parents for these things – not that Margot ev
er does, of course.

  ‘I think I’ll do the speech now, old thing,’ Donald says, ‘that all right with you?’

  ‘Perfect timing,’ she says, smiling at him. ‘Now just remember, not too long. You’re inclined to ramble once you get going.’

  ‘I know,’ he says amiably, swallowing the last of his drink. ‘Short and sweet. Fifty years, eh, Phylly, and you’re still speaking to me.’

  ‘Most days!’ Phyllida says. Affectionate conversation is not something either of them do with ease. ‘When you’re not being a complete pain in the neck. We have done rather well, haven’t we?’

  ‘Bloody well, and I’d do it all again, you know. I really would. So let’s get this show on the road,’ and he picks up a spoon from the table and taps it against his glass.

  He’s an odd sort of man, Phyllida thinks, watching as Donald calls for silence, as he waits for it and shifts his bulky body around getting comfortable, getting ready to speak. Not the easiest of men to live with, demanding really, self-important, noisy, convinced he’s always right, and stubborn of course, absolutely pig-headed and impatient. ‘You’re not in the operating theatre now,’ she often tells him. ‘The nurses might tolerate your tantrums but I won’t.’ But he’s got a good heart, and he’s generous to a fault. And a brilliant surgeon of course, but still really a bit of a boy, and far too accustomed to having everything done for him, but she knows she’s partly to blame for that. He farts a lot too, but apparently men do, or at least that’s what the woman had told her when she went for the colonic irrigation. All men fart a lot, she’d said. She was probably right but it’s difficult to imagine Hugh Jackman or Daniel Craig farting quite as loudly and as often as Donald does, although Prince Philip might and she’s often wondered about Clive James. You get to know a person pretty well when you’ve shared a life, and particularly a bed, for fifty years. You’ve seen the best and the worst of them. There is not much left for Phyllida to learn about Donald and that’s a relief really, no nasty surprises, not like poor Margot finding out about Laurence all those years ago. What a terrible time that was. No chance of any nasty secrets with Donald, certainly not now, and if there was in the past – well, she’d rather not know. This is their time now, California, the cruise … she has waited a long time for this stage of her life to begin.