Call Waiting

by Dianne Blacklock

  Ally drained the bottle into her glass. “Well, anyway, he’s not.”

  “Not what?”

  “Lush as, or luscious, or anything else.”

  “I think he’s gorgeous.”

  Ally climbed languidly back onto the bed. “Oh, I guess, if you like that sort of handsome, rough-around-the-edges, macho type.”

  “And you don’t? What would you rather? The ordinary, neat-as-a-pin wussy type?”

  “You just described my last boyfriend exactly!”

  They both burst into laughter. Ally hadn’t had a drink or a real laugh since she was back in Sydney with Meg. Nic was good value, at least Matt had got that much right.

  “So you and Rob are…?” Ally asked tentatively.

  “We are.” Nic smiled.

  “Has Rob said anything to you about me?”

  Nic shook her head, frowning. “No, what do you mean?”

  “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, he doesn’t say much…” Ally tried to explain.

  “He’s just shy,” Nic dismissed. “Poor darling. He grew up in a family full of beefy, football-loving blokes, the youngest of four boys, and all he wanted to do was cook. You can imagine the ribbing he got. He learned pretty early to keep his head in. Once you get to know him, he’s a teddy bear.” She jumped up. “Time for the chocolate, I believe!”

  Ally liked Nic unreservedly. And maybe Rob wasn’t so bad after all. Perhaps she should stay on, help out for the next couple of months. It wasn’t as though she actually had to resign. She could just take leave.

  The morning after

  “Here you go, love. Drink this up, it’ll strip that woolly jumper off your tongue.”

  Ally opened her eyes, but the room was too bright. She squinted, focusing on the figure leaning above her. It was Nic, with a glass in her hand.

  “Come on, sit up,” she coaxed. “Now, drink this, it’s only soda water.”

  Ally struggled to sit, but as soon as she was upright, her head started buzzing.

  “Ohh,” she groaned. “What did I drink last night? I thought there was only one bottle between us?”

  “You’re forgetting the port!”

  “Ugh,” she shuddered. She sipped from the glass Nic handed her. It was icy cold, and it did seem to penetrate through the furry coating on her tongue.

  “You must think I’m a rotten drunk,” she moaned.

  “I was hoping so!” Nic exclaimed, a little too loudly for Ally’s liking. “I’ve had nobody to go out with around here. They’re all too sedate!”

  “Well, you’re going to have to at least pretend not to feel so well the next day, or I’ll never drink with you again!”

  “Darling, it was like this. You had the lion’s share of the port last night. I hardly got to sniff the cork!”

  Ally dropped her head onto her knees. But then she suddenly looked up, her eyes wide. “Shit, Evelyn and the breakfasts! What’s the time?”

  “Don’t worry about any of that,” Nic assured her. “Breakfast is well and truly over. I helped Evie this morning.”

  “Then I have to go and see Lillian.”

  “She’s not expecting you till later. I’ve been in already.”

  “My God, what is the time?”

  “It’s half past eleven.”

  “I really have to get up!” Ally said, scrambling off the side of the bed. “I should visit Lillian, and there’s so much to do today, with her not here.”

  “Ally, she was glad you were taking the morning off. She said you haven’t had a morning free since you started.”

  Ally needed to sit down again as soon as she was upright.

  “Are you alright?”

  She nodded feebly.

  “I think you’re worn out. You’re going to have to pace yourself, if you’re staying on.”

  “Staying on?” Ally frowned.

  “Yes,” Nic looked warily at her. “Oh, don’t tell me that was only the drink talking last night? Oh bollocks, and I’ve gone and told Lillian and all!”

  “Calm down, don’t worry,” Ally sighed. “It’s true, I was thinking about staying around. I guess I don’t have to think about it anymore!” She smiled.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Lillian needs me here now. I couldn’t leave her anyway.” Ally stood up again gingerly. “I’d like to go and see her.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, you go and have a shower, that will clear your head. And I’ll get you some breakfast.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I could eat.”

  “Nonsense, you have to eat. You’ve got the drunken hunger, you’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”

  * * *

  Ally arrived at the hospital feeling almost normal, if a little fragile. It was amazing the effect a shower, strong coffee and a plate of hot scrambled eggs could have on a hangover.

  She had hoped Lillian would look better today, but she didn’t. She looked like an old woman lying against the pillows. Her hair was lank and flat against her head, and her skin was pearly gray. Ally watched her stir. She fixed a smile on her face as Lillian opened her eyes and looked up at her.

  “Oh hello, Ally! You shouldn’t have rushed in.”

  “I’ve hardly rushed, Lillian. It’ll be one o’clock soon.”

  “Nicola told me you stayed up late last night, getting to know each other.”

  “We did, and I slept in far too late as well.”

  “I’m glad. You haven’t stopped since you got here, Ally. You’ll be exhausted going back to Sydney.”

  Ally frowned. “Nic said she talked to you about me staying on for a while?”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.” Her voice sounded like an old lady’s voice. Ally had never noticed that before.

  “But why not? I’ve been thinking about it anyway, Lillian.”

  “You’re just saying that.”

  “You can ask Matt. We were talking about it only yesterday, before I even knew you were in hospital.”

  Lillian looked at her suspiciously. “You were?”

  “Yes, I told him how much I’ve been enjoying the change here, and he was trying to talk me into staying.”

  Ally thought she saw Lillian’s eyebrows lift slightly.

  “Now, what about Richard?”

  “What about him?”

  Ally tried to sound firm. “Lillian, he’s going to be absolutely furious when he finds out you’ve been in the hospital and he wasn’t told. And I’ll probably bear the brunt of it.”

  Lillian sighed. “Then I’ll call him. I just wanted to have a little rest first.”

  “You’ve been so tired lately, Lillian. I’ve been worried about you.”

  “To be honest, Ally, I didn’t really feel up to the trip to Melbourne this year. But if I’d said that to Richard he would have had me booked into specialists and God knows what. I just thought it was easier to go. I suppose it hasn’t turned out that way.”

  Ally smiled reassuringly at her. “So what tests have they done so far, Lillian?”

  “They’ve only taken blood. I’m to have an MRI this afternoon.”

  “That’s like a CAT scan, isn’t it?”

  “Apparently so. They must want to see if my brain is still switched on.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find that it is.” Ally grinned.

  Lillian reached out for her hand. “It’s good to have you here, Ally. I want you to know that.”

  “It’s good to be here.”

  “Are you sure about taking leave?”

  “Absolutely. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to going back, Lillian. This will give me a breather, time to think about my options.”

  “We’re booked out solidly for another month at least, I’m not sure it’s going to be much of a breather.”

  * * *

  When Ally arrived back at Birchgrove, she found Nic stretched out on a settee in t
he conservatory.

  “Hello, love!” she greeted Ally brightly. “Just putting my feet up before I get started for the night.”

  Ally smiled. “You don’t have to make excuses to me.”

  “But you’re the big boss lady now, aren’t you?”

  “No way, I’m not in charge.”

  “Well, someone has to be.”

  “We’ll be in charge together.”

  “That’ll never work.”

  “Then I’ll be in charge if you tell me what I have to do.”

  Nic screwed up her face, thinking. “Right, then. Oh, by the way, your boyfriend brought these around.” She indicated a large bunch of crimson roses, still in their cellophane, lying across one of the armchairs.

  “Bryce was here?” Ally frowned.

  “Who’s Bryce?”

  “Who brought these?”

  “Matt, of course.”

  “Matt?”

  Nic peered up at her. “Hey, your face has turned exactly the same color as the flowers.”

  Ally sat opposite her. “Mm, glandular problem,” she murmured, staring at the roses. “Did he say anything?”

  Nic swung her legs around and sat up. “Well, he wanted to speak to you, naturally. But I told him you were at the hospital. He thought about going there, only he didn’t want to bother Lil, so I suggested he stay and wait for you, which he did, for a little while, but then I think he felt a bit naff, just sitting here waiting for you, holding a bunch of flowers.”

  Nic took a breath.

  “Did he say anything?” Ally repeated, seriously wondering if he would have got a word in.

  “He said that apparently he said something that upset you last night, and he didn’t really know what it was, but he wanted to apologize anyway. I told him just as well, because you really had the shits with him.”

  “Nic!”

  She looked at Ally innocently. “What’s wrong? You did.”

  “But I didn’t expect you to tell him!”

  “And you said there was nothing going on,” Nic scoffed.

  “There isn’t!”

  “Then why did he bring you flowers?”

  “I don’t know. Because, um,” she stammered, “to make up for what he said.”

  “To ‘make up,’ exactly. Sounds like something’s going on to me.” Nic folded her arms behind her head, grinning.

  Ally stood, picking up the roses. “We are friends. That’s all. I’m going to put these into some water.”

  Imagine! Boardroom

  Meg sat staring across the room at the remnants of a sign from the building’s factory days. She was playing a game of Wheel of Fortune with herself, trying to decipher the message. Some letters were missing, some were faded, some were just impossible to make out. For a while all she had was “lard tarts something, something, something, 11 limes.” She had just realized it was “Hard hats must be worn at all times.”

  Another day, another meeting, another waste of time. Meg found her eyes drawn to Simon. He was staring at her, he’d obviously been trying to get her attention. He dropped his gaze pointedly to the pencil Meg was tapping on her notebook. She hadn’t even realized she was doing that. She sat up straight in her chair and cleared her throat. She didn’t want to disappoint Simon. He was the only person she was doing this for.

  Meg looked back at the meeting agenda, trying to work out where they were up to. Then she saw the swirly letter “J” she’d been doodling all over the page. What? She started to scribble over them. She hadn’t even heard from Jamie since they’d been to lunch that day. Though that hadn’t stopped her from thinking about him, and dreaming about him. And fantasizing about him. She felt like a desperate, sad, middle-aged woman.

  “You’re not middle-aged,” Chris had tried to reassure her last night as she squinted into the mirror counting her crow’s feet.

  “My grandparents died in their early seventies. I’m past the halfway mark, so that makes me middle-aged.”

  “Well, mine died in their nineties, so that means I’m not middle-aged, even though I’m older than you. So how do you figure that?”

  Meg didn’t try to, she just slapped on her new, sixty dollar a jar, wonder cream for eyes, not believing for a moment it would make a scrap of difference, but scared of not doing it. She seemed to be aging at an unsettling rate, despite the assortment of tubes and jars that lined her bathroom cabinet. But if she didn’t apply them religiously, who knows how she might look now? It was like when she was a child and her mother used to tell her that if she swallowed watermelon seeds, a watermelon vine would grow inside her and they would have to take her to the hospital to have it cut out. Even after Meg learned about photosynthesis she still had a basic fear of swallowing seeds. Better safe …

  “Finally to the last item,” Barry, the MD, announced. “I think this will be of interest to you, Meg, and I’d really like to hear your thoughts on it.”

  Meg roused herself. Focus. “Sure, Barry.”

  She looked across at Simon. He lifted an eyebrow at her, as much as to say, “Here’s your chance.”

  “I was watching Gladiator the other night,” he began.

  There was a Mexican wave of appreciative murmurs around the table. “Great movie.” “Classic.” “Epic.” She knew it had won the Academy Award and all, but Meg had been disappointed. Not enough of Russell Crowe shirtless in her opinion. God, she was getting desperate.

  “Did you know that the actor, what’s his name, the drunk…”

  “Oliver Reed.”

  “Yes, that’s him, did you know he died during the making of the movie?”

  Everyone did.

  “And they still had scenes to shoot?”

  “Yes, his image was computer-animated toward the end,” said Meg.

  Barry looked a little as though she’d stolen his thunder. “Well, it was very impressive, don’t you think? I’ve never seen anything like it. Would you be able to do that, Meg?”

  She frowned. “Well, with the right equipment…”

  “It’s just that I got to thinking,” Barry went on. “There might be a whole new avenue of work for us in this. If they’re going to do this in movies…”

  “I’d imagine that Fox Studios would be pretty well set up for that kind of thing,” said Meg.

  “Okay, but I can see some interesting advertising opportunities.”

  “Using dead actors?” Meg winced.

  “Famous actors who have passed on, yes. We’re facing an increasingly aging demographic, everyone knows that. And old people like to reminisce, they think that everything was better in the good old days. Who better to appeal to them than the stars they idolised when they were young?”

  “Cary Grant says ‘suave,’” said Tim. He was Barry’s PA and the biggest suck-up in the firm. “Jimmy Stewart says ‘dependable,’ John Wayne says ‘tough.’”

  “That’s the way,” Barry enthused. “Bring back a little class into advertising.”

  Class? Meg wanted to scream. It was the most tasteless idea she had ever heard. She tuned out of the buzz that started around the table, and started across at Simon. She knew what he’d think about it, and sure enough, he was staying quiet. He looked at her, shrugging with his eyebrows.

  “So, Meg, any ideas?”

  She looked up at Barry, then back across at Simon, his eyes almost pleading with her just to go along.

  She cleared her throat. “James Dean, Grace Kelly,” she began.

  “Now you’re talking!”

  “… Princess Diana.”

  A slight frown creased Barry’s forehead. “Mm, not too sure about that one, might be a bit too close for comfort for some people…”

  “All in the same campaign,” Meg went on, cutting Barry off midsentence. “All talking straight to camera. All saying the same line—‘If only I’d been driving a Volvo!’”

  * * *

  “Meg, that was the most crass, offensive…” Simon was ranting. He’d marched her back to his office when the meeting
had finished, which it had pretty rapidly after Meg dropped her clanger.

  “I just took his idea to its logical conclusion,” she defended. “He was the one being tasteless.”

  “But he’s the MD, Meg, you made a fool of him in front of everyone.”

  “He did that all by himself.”

  “Meg! You should have shown him a bit of respect.”

  “Simon, he’s not the frigging Pope, he runs an advertising agency!” she cried. “He makes his living selling things nobody needs to people who don’t want them, by convincing them that stuff will make them happy when it won’t!”

  “You’ve been in advertising for ten years and you’ve just figured that out?” Simon had raised his voice. He never raised his voice. “Christ, Meg! It happens to be your livelihood too! And mine.”

  She had never meant to insult Simon. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not me you have to apologize to, it’s Barry.”

  She screwed up her nose and collapsed back onto the sofa, sighing loudly. She looked up at Simon. He didn’t seem angry anymore, just concerned.

  “What’s up with you? You haven’t been yourself lately,” he said, his voice back to its normal level.

  Meg shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Simon walked over and sat on the coffee table facing her. He leaned forward. “Is everything alright at home?”

  Meg didn’t want to spoil his illusions. “Of course it is. It’s always alright. You know that.”

  “Well then, what is it?”

  She sighed. “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a director, Simon. I’m sorry.”

  He got up and sat down beside her on the sofa. She looked sideways at him.

  “Are you cross?”

  “No, I knew it was coming.” He smiled ruefully. “And I’m glad you said it before I had to.”

  “Oh, I’ve been that bad, huh?”

  “Let’s just say your heart wasn’t in it.”

  “All the meetings, and the schmoozing. And I’d have to work every day, Simon. I’m not prepared to go back full-time while Harrison is so young. I don’t want to miss him growing up.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  “Do you think you’ll have another baby?”

  Meg hit her head on the back of the sofa. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  “Well, it’s inevitable.”

  “What, the question or the baby?”