Christmas in Canberra

by Nicole Taylor

David’s enormous smile got bigger. “Yes, she’s a lovely old girl, isn’t she?” he said proudly. “I love this place.” And he clearly did. “I’m pretty pleased with tonight’s turn out, too – even though it clashes with the Miss A.C.T. dinner over at the West Lakes Football Club.”

  “I had to wriggle out of that one myself,” said David’s companion. Louise was surprised to recognize Aidan.

  Margot and Louise had never heard of the “Miss A.C.T. dinner” and wondered how David knew of it.

  “What do you mean, David?” asked Margot.

  “Well, a few of my friends couldn’t make it because they had already committed to attend the dinner. It’s a fund raiser for the Miss Australia entrant from the A.C.T.” David spoke as though this was common knowledge. “That’s where Andrew is tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Margot. “So will he be coming later?”

  “I don’t think so. He may show up at the Private Bin around 1 am, but I doubt it. Look,” he said, preparing to move on, “I’ll be pretty busy tonight, but if you need anything at all, come and grab me, won’t you?” He leant towards them conspiratorially. “I’m glad you appreciate the place. I’m so sick of mushroom-pink velvet and hanging plants. It’s time for a bit of old style class.” And he was gone.

  Meanwhile, Louise turned to Aidan who was trying not to appear to be waiting for her to notice him.

  “Hello Aidan,” Louise smiled her surprise.

  “Hello Louise,” Aidan smiled back at her. “I was wondering whether you would remember my name.” He was trying to look brash and nonchalant while blushing ever so slightly.

  “Well, normally I probably wouldn’t be able to remember it,” Louise confessed, “but you made quite an impression on me.”

  Aidan’s smile widened. “Did I?” He asked. “A good impression I hope.”

  “Neither good nor bad.” Louise shrugged slightly. “Just an impression.”

  Aidan scoffed and shook his head.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Louise asked.

  “I’m David’s accountant,” answered Aidan.

  “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?” Louise opened her eyes wide at him.

  “I know exactly what you are doing here,” said Aidan. “I’m also David’s marketing manager. I told him to invite the most beautiful women in Canberra, so of course I expected to see you here tonight.”

  Louise was dumbstruck. Fortunately she was saved by the timely appearance of Margot, who turned to join them. “Margot,” said Louise, “This is Aidan. We met at the Hall B & S while you were off talking to Bob, I think.”

  “Hello Aidan,” smiled Margot.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Aidan. “So, were you the woman I saw Louise running off with when she abandoned me in the middle of a conversation at the B&S?”

  “Guilty,” agreed Margot, clinking her glass to Aidan’s as she spoke. “Did you stay for the whole thing?”

  “Had to,” Aidan shrugged. “I’m on the committee and I couldn’t very well leave Kate there all alone.

  “Are you and Kate –” Margot inquired.

  “No! No,” Aidan shook his head with confusion. “Not that Kate isn’t very lovely and a great girl, but no. We are neighbours; that’s all.

  “I’ve been trying to engage your friend Louise’s attention as a matter of fact.” Aidan sipped his drink and waited for a response.

  Margot raised her eyebrows at this revelation, looking at Louise to see her response. But Louise was busily observing the other guests. She had spotted Gordon among the same group she recognized from the Hyatt.

  “Well, Gordon’s here anyway,” said Louise.

  “Gordon?” inquired Aidan.

  Margot brought him up to date. “Gordon has a brother whom I was hoping to see here tonight. They usually travel together.”

  “And Louise and Gordon?”

  “Who knows! But at least he’s here,” and Margot indicated Gordon, who was smiling and waving at them from his group of friends.

  “Ahh; got it,” said Aidan knowingly. He turned to Louise and bowed slightly. “In that case, I must be off,” he said.

  “Must you?” asked Louise. Suddenly she felt that without Aidan, it would be just the two girls amidst a sea of strangers. She wondered why she felt that way.

  “Yes. I must mingle. You sound sorry!” Aidan teased her. “Don’t worry, here comes Gordon. You won’t miss me for long.” And he left before Gordon had arrived by her side.

  “Hello, Lulu,” said Gordon in his mellifluous voice. He turned to Margot. “You both look lovely this evening.”

  “Thanks, Gordon,” said Margot.

  “You look very well, too, Gordon,” responded Louise.

  “Thanks. I was wondering whether you two would like to join us?” He indicated the group of men he had been talking to. “There seems to be a scarcity of women here tonight and we thought if we didn’t claim you now, someone else would.”

  The girls looked over at the group of Gordon’s friends and recognized Peter, who saluted them with his glass.

  In light of their recent conversation, Louise was loathe to accept the invitation, but Margot knew she badly wanted to, so took matters into her own hands. “Yes, thank you Gordon,” and she began to move towards the group. Gordon walked alongside her. “So, we hear that Andrew is at the Miss A.C.T dinner tonight?”

  “Yes,” agreed Gordon. “I managed to avoid it. I went last year, so it was his turn.” Margot slipped Louise a ‘raised eyebrows’ look without letting Gordon see.

  Gordon navigated them towards his friends and made the introductions. “I remember you two,” said the one called Peter. Then he addressed Margot. “The Hyatt, wasn’t it? Where have you been hiding since then?”

  Margot had decided to make the most of the evening despite her disappointment at not seeing Andrew. She had also taken Louise’s words to heart and, since Peter was attractive and clearly interested, gave him one of her rare, inviting smiles. “Not hiding, Peter,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “Just busy. What have you been up to?”

  “Oh, you know,” he countered affably. “It’s getting harder and harder to find beautiful, single women these days, but I keep looking. It seems that all the best ones are taken.” He looked at Margot over the rim of his glass as he drank, awaiting her indignation. When she didn’t respond, he continued. “So, how come a gorgeous girl like you isn’t married by now?”

  Margot sighed and shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know Peter. I suppose I thought I might skip the first marriage and go straight on to the second one.”

  Seeing that Margot was engaged and engaging, Louise felt more comfortable enjoying Gordon’s attention, now that he had crossed the room to speak to her. “Because that is all he has done,” she reminded herself. “It isn’t as though he picked up the phone and called; or-”

  Gordon turned to her. “I tried to call you last week, but there was no answer.”

  Louise almost spluttered as she sipped her drink. “Oh?” It was with great presence of mind that she stopped herself from asking “And when was that?” Instead, she continued nonchalantly. “Did you need some tax advice?”

  Gordon laughed. “No. I wanted to ask you to go to the movies with me.” He was looking at her in a way that made her feel exciting. “It’s a shame you weren’t there – that’s the first time I’ve ever asked someone out, and it turned out to be a non-starter.” He took a sip of his drink and said “I hope that’s not an omen.”

  “Wait,” Louise was disbelieving. “You say that you have never asked anyone out? What are you, a monk?”

  Gordon smiled and shook his head. “I’ve never had to ask anyone out,” he said apologetically. “Things just always seem to happen anyway, without going out on a ‘date’.”

  Louise could not control her laughter. “Is that right?” she said. “You poor old thing! So, you haven’t called a girl –“

  “No.”

  “And you have never been on a date.
”

  “Nope.”

  “But you still get plenty of action.”

  “Till now.” He reached over and brushed her hip with his fingers to make his point. Right at the side – where only women have hips and men had none. It was an intimate gesture and made her feel very feminine and desirable.

  “Well, you must save a small fortune on phone calls and dinners, Gordon. You may have discovered the secret all men desire to know.”

  “So, do you want to go out sometime?”

  “Yes, I’d love to,” she smiled back at him.

  “How about next Tuesday night?” he asked.

  Louise’s heart sank. A Tuesday night date. It was the lowest card in the pack. The single scene raged from Thursday night to Sunday night. Only seriously interested men asked you out on these nights, and only seriously interested women accepted dates on these nights. On Monday night, everything was closed, which was just as well because everyone needed an early night after the weekend. Tuesday was the night when things were open but no one went out so everything was pretty much dead. Wednesday was twice as lively as Tuesday. A nurse-friend had informed Louise that more suicides occurred on Tuesday night than at any other time. It was the night people had to fend off the ‘lonely and alone’ demons.

  The best night to be asked out was Friday night. A Friday night date meant that the guy was hoping to spend the whole weekend with you; that he had no other irons in the fire; preferred your company to his mates (Friday being the traditional boys-night-out, which then morphed into a clubbing night); and that he wanted the whole world to see you out together. A Tuesday night date, on the other hand, meant that you were low on the list of desirable companions.

  So, Gordon ranked her as a Tuesday night date. He was easily a Friday nighter from her perspective. A power shift was required but Louise wasn’t sure how to go about it.

  She recalled the conversation with Margot and decided to take her own advice. “Oh, sorry – I’m busy Tuesday night.”

  Gordon shrugged good-naturedly. “Wednesday?” He asked.

  “I’m free Friday,” she replied.

  “Oh,” Gordon was not prepared for this. “I didn’t realize making a date with someone took so much negotiation,” he said.

  “It probably doesn’t with anyone else.” Louise poked him in the biceps, where the muscle was the hardest. “I’m just being difficult.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if the movie will still be on next Friday,” Gordon said lamely. He knew perfectly well what Friday night out with a girl meant, even though his ‘dates’ were ad hoc affairs and never pre-arranged – not by him, anyway.

  And Louise saw, too, that he had no desire to spend more than one evening out with her. A few years ago she may have been vain enough to think that after one date, he would want more of her company. But these days she knew that she had no interest in luring a man to her side. It was too nerve wracking trying to keep him there and she preferred to be the one chased, not the one chasing.

  Gordon found himself a little annoyed. “So,” he asked, “what are you doing all next week that is so important that you can’t put it off?”

  Louise decided to ace his jack. “I’m going round to the old people’s homes with a group of tax officers, helping the octogenarians do their tax returns. Want to come?”

  Gordon couldn’t decide whether she was telling the truth or not, but decided that she was definitely toying with him, either way. He was used to friendly, compliant women who were happy to rearrange their lives to accommodate him and enjoyed being with him while he was enjoying them. It wasn’t complicated. It was easy, friendly, fun. Louise was something else but he wasn’t sure what. He just knew that she was too tricky for him.

  “No, thanks,” he said carefully. “Is that a Catholic thing?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered Louise. “We say three Hail Mary’s, then calculate the assessable income, then an Our Father, and work out the allowable deductions, and finally, after an Act of Faith, Hope and Charity, we arrive at the assessable income for the fiscal year.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Gordon had not understood a word she had said.

  “It’s just a work thing, Gordon.” Louise decided against pursuing the joke. “The Tax Office is always looking for ways to soften its image and be the ‘good guy’, and I don’t mind doing it.”

  But Gordon had lost interest. He was still offended by Louise’s holding out on him, and disappointed that he wouldn’t get his own way even though he had offered to break his rule and take her out on a date.

  He had always thought men such fools to chase around after a particular girl when there were so many nice available ones to choose from. “Why do you do it?” he had once asked his older brother, Lachlan, who had seriously and nervously pursued a girl, putting himself through long periods of deprivation to achieve her affection. Lachlan had looked back at Gordon with equal puzzlement. “How else can I get her?” he had asked, as though Gordon was an imbecile. “She’s the one I want.”

  “So what?” Gordon had thought at the time. “You can want someone else instead, can’t you? It’s all the same thing in the end.” But he hadn’t shared this thought with Lachlan. It didn’t seem as though they were even talking about the same thing.

  Maybe that was Louise’s position. Gordon could see the possibility there. But Lachlan had ended up married to Alice – the girl he had pursued successfully. And Gordon had no intention of getting married – not yet, and not to Louise. For one thing, he wasn’t ready; and for another, Louise wasn’t the sort of girl he saw himself marrying. She wouldn’t devote herself to him, or give him leave to indulge his manly interests. She would want him to treat her as a complete equal, and would argue with him if he didn’t. Louise might be attractive, and intelligent, and even earn a decent living herself, but she would be a lot of work, too.

  He smiled at her, and spoke less tensely than before. “This isn’t going to happen, is it?”

  Louise smiled back. “I don’t think so,” she answered sweetly.

  *

  “Can you believe it?” Margot moaned. She took a sip of her drink. “Now I’m competing with a bloody Miss Australia entrant!”

  “How on Earth did Andrew get mixed up with that lot?” marvelled Louise.

  “Oh, you know – they are probably all ‘Old Grammarians’,” Margot said grudgingly. “Or, her father might have been in the army with the McCarthy’s father. Wasn’t he a colonel or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Lou – I’m so sick of making myself available to Andrew and then getting nothing. He has never even asked me out!” Margot was frustrated and upset. Louise looked at her and nodded sympathetically.

  “This is really unhealthy, you know, Margot. Look at us – we are the equal of every woman here tonight, and yet we are the only two who are without partners.” It was true. Every other woman was with a man.

  “But that is probably because David only knows guys, so he invited guys, and some of them brought women. Besides,” she added with a grin, apparently cheered by the thought, “we wouldn’t have been invited if we had boyfriends. David invited us to even up the female numbers, knowing him.”

  “OK, but is this what we want for ourselves?” Louise was not going to be diverted from her subject. “I think we should take a position, one way or the other.”

  “How can we, when the guys we want won’t respond?”

  “No response is a response, Margot!” Louise was determined to make her point.

  “But,” insisted Margot stubbornly, “we know they like us – otherwise why all the attention every time we run into them? And the invitations back to their place at the end of the night for “coffee”?”

  Louise looked at Margot and shook her head. “You are not seriously asking me that question are you?”

  Margot shook her head and gave an embarrassed laugh. Louise continued. “This has gone on for long enough. From now on, we make the moves. We have tried the ‘path
-of-least-resistance’ method and it is a complete and utter failure. We now have no choice but to accept that the McCarthys have no intention of confining themselves to us exclusively and don’t care whether we are around for them or not. We must move on.”

  “How?” asked Margot. “We really like them! It isn’t as though there are other guys we like.”

  “Margot, we are pushing 30.”

  “We have just turned 28!” Margot protested.

  “And we have to start being sensible. Admit it – we both dressed up tonight as though we were going on a date with them.” Louise stopped, sobered by the truth in her own words. “But the fact is that we didn’t even know if they were coming tonight. We just assumed it. Neither of them checked to see whether we were coming, either. They knew we would be here, expecting – hoping – to see them. Andrew knew you would be looking out for him and he didn’t even see fit to tell you he wouldn’t be here, knowing that if he did, you wouldn’t come, and I wouldn’t come alone, and David needed more women to even up the numbers.”

  “God, Lou – you are making me feel depressed.”

  “Let’s resolve to stop waiting around for the McCarthys. Let’s stop being so available. What have we got to lose? If they miss us, they can always call. They have our numbers.” Margot was nodding glumly. “And,” finished Louise, “if they don’t call, we are in exactly the same position as we are now. Only better, really, because we will have advanced emotionally.”

  “That’s alright for you to say,” whispered Margot before Gordon was in earshot. “Yours was talking to you for most of the night. Mine is out there staring into the cleavage of Miss A. C. bloody T.!” And she laughed despite herself, making Louise laugh, too.

  Chapter 11

  Louise had arranged a meeting with Vera at Marie’s place. Marie had agreed to speak to Vera as an older woman who had had a child when she was only 18 years old. Her son, Alex, was now 18 himself. Louise thought that Vera might be able to shed some natural light on an area they only knew through cinematic drama and latent female nightmares.

  Marie was still not disposed to discuss the issue at all and had only verified her condition when Louise had demanded a ‘first of the morning sample’ and taken it to the chemist herself. She had ventured to estimate her ‘lateness’ and was able to declare herself about to miss her second period. Louise consulted the only book she possessed on female biology, which was Dr Llewellyn Jones’ ‘Everywomen’, and calculated that Marie was approximately 10 weeks pregnant. She also learned that a pregnancy lasted for 40 weeks, which happened to equate to nine calendar months but was in fact 10 lunar months, or ‘ten moons’. Louise found this sort of biological precision fascinating but knew her sister would not care to be educated on this point now.