The Precipice

by Virginia Duigan

  I know – Sandy. Sandy Fay, the Leaning Tower of Lisa’s. Davy’s polar opposite. I knew there was someone in the back of my mind. It’s a perfect opportunity to have Sandy over after the Xmas drinks in the bookshop. He’s an oddity, they may well think, but endearing in his oddness. His enthusiasms keep him youthful.

  Joan’s in China. Barb’s ill. Bill and Monique would like them, they like everybody, but they’re so old too. I wonder if their grandson could be roped in. He’s their age, and he comes up here most weekends. And his girlfriend’s pleasant enough. What are their names? Oliver, no – Olivier. And hers is what? Was it Polly? Ollie and Polly, that’s right. Easy to remember.

  If they all came that would be six, plus the newcomers. And me, of course. A grand total of nine. Quite a party, more than I’ve had in the dump for donkey’s years. What about the morose daughter – Kim, wasn’t it? She was much more interested in Teddy the other night, which showed good judgement. She’d be better off staying home and watching a DVD. I’ll suggest that. They’re sure to have a DVD player. Everyone has them now, except us. I don’t like modern films as a rule, and I’ve seen all the old ones of any interest.

  Teddy would be much happier out of the house. He responded well to her, I could even let her borrow him for company. It might do him good, be a little adventure for him. He’s not himself when there are other people milling about. One or two others is the most he can handle, he prefers it when it’s just us. We’re alike in that, as in so many other ways.

  Lisa’s is a silly name for a second-hand bookshop owned by a man called Sandy Fay. It sounds frivolous, whereas Sandy is seriously devoted to what he does. It’s typical of him that he didn’t bother to change it when he took over. He must have had the shop for twenty years at least. Most people would rush to change it to something catchy or punning, like Pre-Loved Pages or Ye Olde Hoary Tomes. That’s not Sandy’s way.

  Why in the name of fanciful heaven am I doing this? Correct etiquette was drummed into me, but I have long outgrown my dismal upbringing, surely. Am I obliged to do it?

  No, absolutely not. One of the consolations of old age, and imaginary god knows there are few, is that you don’t have to do anything. You can say whatever you wish and behave as badly as you like. No one gives a fig because no one even notices. Not only are you invisible in our youth-centred world, you’re also inaudible and irrelevant.

  When do they say women become invisible overnight? After the age of fifty? Isn’t that the cut-off point for women? In that case, no one except Teddy has noticed me for twenty-seven years.

  But this is not quite the case, to revert to my novel habit of brutal honesty inculcated by Oscar. I was noticed for a time, I think I can safely say that, even though I was over the cut-off point by then. Over it by what, getting on for ten years? When that little idyll was abruptly terminated I would have jumped at invisibility. The option was not on offer at that stage, however. I had to roll with the punches, in full public view.

  But now that it is the only available option I find it suits me very well.

  It wouldn’t matter who had bought my house, I would feel the same towards them. I expect I would feel the same about Sandy, for example, if he had bought it.

  Do I feel guilty about this? I don’t think so. Should I feel guilty that I am as fallible as everybody else?

  Nine people. I need not go to those lengths. Perhaps I’ll simply have the three of them over and be done with it. On the other hand, it does provide an opportunity to announce, in no uncertain terms, that no one should be concerned about me because I am perfectly all right, in my imperfect way. I may have taken a second body blow in my life but I am rolling with the punches, just as I did before.

  I’ll sleep on it.

  I wonder how old they think I am? I suspect that once they see you have arrived in the country of the elderly, the tundra of the irrelevant, the young cease to think of age in gradations of years. You’re just generically ancient to them. Not that I or most of my acquaintances are yet toothless and babbling, or excessively deranged. Or not that I know of. Verily, for such consolations let us all be truly thankful.

  But would I necessarily know? For instance, I’ve noticed that the local chemist is full of incontinence pads. People must be buying them up in droves, and the odds are I know a few of their names. My bladder’s not perfect, not by a long chalk, but it does a tolerable job. Teddy’s might be more of a worry. There’s been the odd dribble lately.

  If I were lost in the land of dementia, the worst ogre of all, certain characters such as Barb and Davy would undoubtedly have let me know. But would I remember if they had?

  I thought I was going fairly well today but I got worse as the day wore on. The invaders went backwards and forwards outside their house like a team of scurrying ants. I think he and the girl took a load of empty boxes to the tip. There was some friendly waving. I pretended not to notice.

  If I hadn’t made the calls already I would have decided against the blessed drinks business. Now it’s too late, unless I invent a sudden-onset catastrophe. Spleen ruptured from excessive venting? Mad cow disease? Rinderpest, perchance? I don’t want to saddle myself with something terminal.

  Why, exactly, am I going ahead with this? I think it must be true, that I feel some remnant pangs of conscience. A few residual pangs, nothing like fully-fledged guilt. I would certainly recognise that, would I not?

  It’s not their fault that they, an ordinary, inoffensive young family, happened to buy my house. They couldn’t have had any inkling of the baggage they were taking on. Does this twinge of conscience mean my character is not completely irredeemable after all?

  What a waste, when the Great Redeemer is so conspicuous by her absence.

  Sandy seemed pleased to be asked. I could hear that in his voice, as well as surprise. He probably thinks it’s good for me to invite people over because I’m too reclusive. They all think that. A hermit without a permit, according to Davy. To that I say this: thanks be to imaginary god you don’t need one to be one.

  I could point out to them that real hermits do not attend writing classes. Oscar wants us to dredge out our first memories. What on earth could they be? At my age one is supposed to have no short-term memory left, but I don’t seem to have much of a long-term one either. Which could just mean I don’t like looking back.

  And why would you? I’ve never seen the point of deliberate self-abuse.

  Only five of us there today. Bearded Greg was a no-show. He is the sole man in the class and only in his forties. I’ve already said I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he drops out, and he may have done so already. If so it was Gilda who drove him away. Gilda, the faded lily in need of gilding. She said she thought he was feeling intimidated by a queen and five old bats. She talks nonstop and only ever says the obvious and/or the offensive. A common characteristic of people who talk too much.

  My first memories were as dull as ditchwater. But so were those of the others, with one fanciful exception. They were all along the same, inconsequential lines. Being lifted into a cot, or walking downstairs holding on to a banister. Fleeting, formless memories of no conceivable interest to anyone. You couldn’t even say they were privileged glimpses into the past. You couldn’t do anything with them, as a writer, but perhaps that was the point of the exercise.

  Except for the Gilda-lily, who claimed to remember a temporary nanny, a Bulgarian with warts who force-fed her until she was sick on her hamster. It was clear to everyone she must have been at least six, even assuming it happened, which I doubt. The details were a giveaway. How could she have any idea of a fill-in nurse’s nationality, or know what a nationality was?

  I believe I am the only one who has obeyed Oscar’s order and embarked on a journal. I stayed behind to tell him. He asked if I had been veracious, or mendacious? Brutally and voraciously honest, I said. Aren’t I always? To which he replied: ‘You’re blunt, Thea. I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.’

  He added a further en
igmatic postscript: ‘I’d like you to keep it up for me. I think you may find it liberating. Even,’ and he tipped me a wink – I’m not at all sure they’re right about Oscar being gay – ‘madly therapeutic.’

  Interestingly, that seems to be true. Although madly could be overstating it.

  Our new assignment might have been tailor-made with me in mind. We are to give a detailed description of a place that has special meaning or significance in our lives. Perhaps a particular city, house or room, a garden maybe, or somewhere exotic in a foreign country.

  Or it might be a certain landscape formation.

  Unlike the last session, when I had nothing to say, this time I have an embarrassment of riches. I have a choice of three. There have been three places of life-changing significance to me. They are a house, a rocky outcrop and a narrow ledge.

  ‘Think of somewhere that you are not ambivalent about,’ Oscar prescribed with an expansive gesture. ‘Somewhere with such potency in your life that you can’t even think of it without your heart skipping a beat. The place where once you gathered wildflowers in spring, perhaps. Or where you were wildly deflowered.’

  I rather like the outré way Oscar talks. It’s alarming at times, but in a way exhilarating to a member of my wildly more stitched-up generation. Is it spontaneous? It certainly gives that impression.

  Thinking it over, I wonder whether he gave us the first memories assignment in order to identify those who are prepared to be honest from those who cheat. If so, it achieved its objective.

  I suppose I could ask him to the drinks thing, but I have a feeling it would be too stuffy for him. I think he’s the kind of person who prefers less conventional pursuits, whatever they may be. He knows Sandy because he frequents his shop. Sandy is very tolerant, but even he might find Oscar at close quarters a fraction in your face, so to speak.

  I feel liverish. Nobody calls it that today, but it must be the aftermath of the drinks. I had too many drinks, that’s the trouble. Odd, to get to this advanced age and still be doing stupid things. Some of the same stupid things you did in your youth. Well, perhaps that’s a blessing in disguise. It gives you a point of contact with the young, should you ever desire one.

  But I felt exceptionally foolish when I introduced the invaders, euphemistically, to Sandy. I told him they and their daughter had come to live opposite me, in my house. Sandy was late, and I suppose I’d already sunk a couple of Davy’s lethal martinis. But two egregious blunders in one sentence.

  Ellice and Frank spoke at once. Oh no, Kim wasn’t their daughter, she was Frank’s niece. She couldn’t be theirs, she was half-Vietnamese, hadn’t I noticed that? Kim was Frank’s brother’s child, Frank was her uncle. And besides, she was twelve years old.

  ‘Ms Farmer must have thought we were thrillingly precocious,’ Frank said to Sandy. Davy was listening in. He enjoyed that.

  ‘I would have been pregnant at thirteen,’ Ellice laughed. Gurgled, actually. They high-fived each other with delight.

  Sandy was in a world of his own as usual, but of course the old Davy couldn’t resist. ‘You have to make allowances for Thea,’ he said, pursing his lips in that arch ‘thespian’ way that is so irritating. ‘She’s not losing it yet – at least, we must give her the benefit of the doubt – but she’s always had a touch of the innocent abroads. Doesn’t always draw the obvious conclusions, do you, love?’

  He cocked an eyebrow, also in the way he does. He thinks it looks whimsical and endearing, when it induces in one an urgent compulsion to dry retch. The little speech meant nothing to them, of course, and I could see Sandy wasn’t even listening, but I could have taken an axe to Davy’s head.

  ‘Shit.’ Ellice was looking aghast. ‘You must have thought I was thirty at the very least, Ms Farmer. Mid-thirties even. Aaagh, the horror!’

  I had to smile.

  ‘Uh-oh.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Franko. That makes you over forty.’

  The sepulchral way she pronounced it – thirty was the gateway of doom, the beginning of the end. Forty? Might as well be six feet under.

  They fell about a bit more, then remembered they were hemmed in by three old codgers who were over the forties hump by several decades. We were concentrating on knocking back our drinks, the time-honoured way of drowning out what you can do bugger all about, like death and taxes and bloody old age. Not to mention bad luck and wretched judgement and the whole damn thing.

  Then they launched into voluble apologies. How could they have been so rude? Each had assumed the other had told me. Honestly, give poor Ms Farmer a break, how could she be expected to know?

  All the evidence aside, Ms Farmer, Davy murmured. They didn’t pick up this sly little dig, of course, but once again I could have kicked him.

  My second gaffe, the one about ‘my house’, seemed to pass unnoticed.

  Ellice and Frank recognised the name Davy Messer. They’d even seen his last performance, as it happens, his dribbling Polonius, which gave the old boy a kick he didn’t deserve. He’s a vain little sausage, like all actors.

  He professed bafflement as to why they’d come to live here. ‘Out in the back of beyond, miles from anywhere, with only Thea as a neighbour? What can you have been thinking?’ He performed his gargoyle grimace.

  But that’s the whole point, they chorused. Where else would you find such an incredible place to live?

  ‘They came here specifically to get away from suburban professional bores like you,’ I said. Just because Davy prefers to live slap-bang in the middle of a country town, he always insists on calling this the back of beyond. He dislikes driving on the long, unmade road, which is why he hardly ever comes here. He cadged a lift this time with Bill and Monique.

  The old perve was visibly taken with Ellice. She was wearing sandals with heels and an ankle-length skirt in some filmy red stuff, with a sleeveless orange top. Quite daringly low cut. We were taught never to put clashing colours together, but the effect was rather stunning with her full figure and dark, wavy hair.

  It was the first time they’d set foot in the dump, of course. It must have reeked of neglect to them – I haven’t done any upkeep here for donkey’s years. I always thought I would be leaving that dubious pleasure to somebody else. It did seem incongruous having a pair – no, a quartet, with Ollie and Polly – of lively young people in the hovel. Ellice of course made a point of wittering on about how cute it was. Such a terrific period, the Victorian, wasn’t it? I corrected her in mid-gush: I think you mean Federation.

  Then I said, pity about the unstate-of-the-art-kitchen, isn’t it? I could see the reference was lost on her. Then Frank came up later and said what a charming Federation cottage it was. She must have tipped him off. Well, I suppose the old bones are all right in their way. If you overlook the prehistoric kitchen and bathroom and the lack of light and the miniscule, mouldering verandah.

  What they neglected to mention was what a contrast it is to my house. To their house.

  Still, nine people crammed into cramped quarters tends to make a party. Especially if they’re drinking gin martinis mixed by Bill, or worse, by Davy. So much so that nobody would make the first move to leave, and finally I served a pot of scrambled eggs and a pile of hot buttered toast. The youngsters did most of it. I think they bonded.

  Luckily there were plenty of eggs to supplement my two. The Nugents had arrived with a bag, still messy with chook feathers, and Ellice sent Frank over to raid their fridge. He reported that Teddy and Kim were perched on cushions eating baked beans and watching a DVD of Gone With the Wind. Teddy’s seen Gone With the Wind on TV, I said, but not with baked beans on his lap. He’s having his horizons broadened.

  Later, after he’d brought Teddy back, Frank insisted on staying to help me clear up. I was in two minds about this. I’d planned to do it in the morning at my leisure, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It would take no time at all with the two of us, he said.

  We had a little chat. It turned out they thought I was an architect.
Had been one, I mean. When I said my career had been in teaching he expressed surprise. English, I told him, but I ended up as a school principal. A careless thing to say. Reckless. The martinis speaking. I could have bitten my tongue off.

  ‘Did you souvenir Year Three’s blackboard?’ he asked. We were in the kitchen. I explained it’s an aide memoire, for my lists. Just as well I’d remembered to rub off my lines.

  Then he touched me on the arm. Could he let me into a naughty secret? ‘I hope you don’t mind, Ms Farmer, but we’ve all been a bit intimidated. A bit in awe of you. Our Wombat especially. Now we know why.’

  It’s always disconcerting when people come out with things like that. You don’t think of yourself as an awe-inspiring figure. Not in the least. Although I did wield some power for a time, in a small pond. If I had chosen to use it.

  Now I am more a figure of no consequence one way or the other. A woman of negligible importance, as Wilde might have put it.

  He asked what schools I’d worked in. I gathered my scattered wits sufficiently to say, vaguely, that I’d mainly taught in the public sector. True, as far as it goes. Thirty-five years for the ghastly government versus three for the abominable Anglicans.

  Then he inquired if I’d been a terrifying headmistress. I knew from the way he dropped that passé word he imagined I had. It was exactly the same way as his wife pronounced the dreaded forty. A headmistress was a Dickensian, Dotheboys Hall species of female.

  I had no intention of going there. No idea, I said. I had my back turned to him. Then added, ‘How does any of us know what impression we make? It’s just as well we don’t, in my book.’

  That was being both honest, my dear Oscar, and blunt. Although in the interests of accuracy you might prefer to say it was honest up to a point.

  Frank’s response was, ‘We never have the shock of seeing ourselves as others see us, right? One of life’s little mysteries instead of one more in its never-ending sequence of disappointments, as Ellie’s dad often says. I always think he’s referring to me.’