by Liz Byrski
It was strange to be back in the heart of what had been Colin’s territory and yet be separate from the responsibilities and expectations of that life. Sylvia relaxed into her chair and while Veronica produced tea and a delicious banana cake, she told her about her trip to England, and her work in preparing the gallery.
‘So, a time for big decisions,’ Veronica said, setting the tea on a small side table. ‘Practical decisions. Have you had a chance to work out what you really want?’
Sylvia shook her head. ‘No, there seems to be something hovering just over my shoulder but I haven’t yet worked out what it is. So many years of doing what other people wanted – now I’m not clear about what it is that I want.’
‘I suspect that your daughter isn’t making things any easier,’ Veronica said. ‘Young people do tend to see things in black and white, and there’s nothing like a beloved child wanting something from you to get the maternal guilt going.’
Sylvia nodded vigorously as she stirred her tea. ‘Tell me about it! The guilt and anxiety are crippling. I feel that if I decide against it I’ll be a bad mother, and a worse grandmother, that it ought to be the thing I want most. But you know, Veronica, even if they were here in Australia I’m not sure that I’d want to lock myself so fully into Kim and Brendan’s lives, but there aren’t many people I’d admit that to.’
Veronica went to the dresser and picked up a framed photograph of a smiling couple flanked by two rangy teenage boys and a rather younger girl. ‘My daughter Heather, her husband Brian and my grandchildren,’ she said. ‘This was taken about ten years ago. The boys are in their twenties now, and Linda’s nineteen this year. They live in the Northern Territory, a remote cattle station. Brian’s a cattle farmer, and Heather’s one of those people who does everything, makes butter, rides with the stockmen, she even educated the children through the School of the Air.
‘Twenty years ago they begged me to move there with them to look after the babies. Financially, it would have been very practical for me, and of course I would have had a very special relationship with them all, but I couldn’t do it, Sylvia. I’m a city person, I like to be near cinemas and libraries, good cafés and bookshops, go to concerts and be involved with the church and my work for the Red Cross. Some women would have jumped at it and I admire them for that, but it would have been death for me.
‘I see them now, once or twice a year, and we all get on well, but I don’t think Heather has ever really forgiven me for not going. But I would have been no good to her or the children because I would have been resenting the fact that I had sacrificed what I wanted for them. I made an uncomfortable and unpopular decision and it took a while for the dust to settle, but at least I was true to myself.’
Sylvia sat for a moment, staring down at the photograph and then gazing thoughtfully out of the window. ‘Did you have something you very clearly wanted to do?’ she asked. ‘A sense of purpose, a direction?’
‘Not really. And I think that made it harder for Heather to accept. I wasn’t saying no thanks, I’ve got a relationship I don’t want to leave, or a job I want to stick with. I was just saying no thanks, it doesn’t suit me because I want to do a whole range of other interesting things which I can only do here. After all, it’s assumed that we mothers and grandmothers want to take on this sort of care and involvement, but not all of us do. Anyway, it should be more straightforward for you, you have got a job, but the most important thing, surely, is your creativity – you never had time to develop that with the church always around your neck. Now you have, and it’s tapping you on the shoulder.’
Sylvia stared at her, feeling as though a very large penny had dropped inside her. ‘My creativity …’
‘Yes,’ Veronica said, pouring her another cup of tea. ‘Your beautiful designs, the children’s costumes you made, the clothes you created for yourself.’ She paused. ‘I remember you showing me a wonderful selection of designs for lingerie based on the fashions of the thirties … surely you haven’t forgotten?’
The stillness in the room was broken only by the entrance of Veronica’s tabby cat pushing his way in through the cat flap and looking imperiously around for a place to settle.
‘Won’t you be developing all that through your gallery?’ Veronica asked, looking up to see Sylvia still staring at her in surprise. ‘You’re not just thinking of buying and selling other people’s work, surely? You have a real gift, Sylvia, now is the time of your life you can really explore it.’
Caro stretched out on the lounge with Rebekah, replete from a recent feed, sleeping on her chest. She picked up one tiny hand, examining the rosy fingers that curled strongly around her own even in sleep, and nuzzled the sweet-smelling warmth of her daughter’s head. This, she decided, must be the reward for a ghastly pregnancy and a sudden shock birth, this extraordinary connection to another being who seemed to know her so intimately without the need for words.
‘She’s three weeks old today, you know,’ she said to David, who was sitting across the room from her. ‘Three weeks, imagine that.’
‘You look positively angelic,’ he said with a half-smile. ‘Is this really the same tortured delinquent of six months ago?’
She stuck her tongue out at him, and stared down again at the baby. ‘Be nice to me, I’m a mother, I deserve respect.’
David rolled his eyes and groaned. ‘Oh please! Do me a favour and promise you won’t say that to Mum.’
Caro laughed. ‘All right, all right, I know, discretion is not my strong point but I’m not that stupid even if I am demented from loss of sleep.’
‘How will you cope when you go back to work?’ David asked.
‘Ugh! Don’t remind me,’ Caro said with a groan. ‘I said two months – that’s only another five weeks. I can’t bear the thought of it.’
‘Don’t tell me you want to be a full-time mum?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Caro said defensively.
‘Nothing at all, it just doesn’t sound much like you.’
‘I’m not really like me anymore, that’s the problem.’ Caro sat up, cradling Rebekah in one arm while she folded her own legs underneath her to sit cross-legged. ‘Like, I don’t want to go back to work. I guess I will want to work eventually, but not as soon as I thought, and not full time. And definitely not at Desmond Records. Going back there seems like a death sentence.’
‘I thought you loved it there,’ David said.
‘I did, but now, well, it doesn’t seem so great. I mean, they’re nice guys but they’re such dags, they’re like a load of fifty-year-old teenagers. That’s probably why I liked it but it feels different now.’
David shrugged. ‘Doesn’t suit the new holistic earth mother? So, will you look for something new?’
‘I suppose so,’ Caro said, ‘but not till after Christmas at the earliest. I just don’t think I can cope with work and motherhood quite so quickly. Anyway, I can’t bear the thought of putting her in child care just yet.’ She got up and carried Rebekah over to David.
‘You have her for a bit.’ She walked over to the window, stretched her arms above her head and then dropped over from the waist to touch her toes. ‘I still have a roll of fat around my middle,’ she said, pinching it as she stood up straight. ‘By the way, d’you think Mum’s lost weight?’
David shrugged and stroked Rebekah’s head with his finger. ‘Dunno, hadn’t noticed.’
‘I think she has. She told me she was doing some low-carb diet from the Women’s Weekly. She’s certainly looking better.’ She bent again, hanging lower this time until she could get her palms flat on the floor. ‘Jodie came over the other day, she was asking about you. Said she hadn’t seen you in the coffee shop for ages.’
‘I stopped going there,’ David said, not looking up. ‘I go to the one down the other end.’
Rebekah, eyes still closed, opened her mouth in a huge yawn and stretched her tiny arms.
‘You are such a dickhead, David,’ Caro said, straightening up. ‘Don’t
you like her or what?’
‘Jodie? Sure, I like her a lot, a helluva lot, but I stuffed it up. Couldn’t get my head around talking to her about … you know. By the time I got up courage she was on with some other guy.’
‘She is not!’ Caro said as vehemently as if she herself had been accused of infidelity.
‘She is,’ David said. ‘I saw her with him, saw them a few times, although I don’t think she saw me. First time was only a few days after she called to ask me to a party. He’s a tall guy, wears an old brown leather flying jacket with a fleecy collar, looks vaguely familiar. They get their coffee together in the mornings.’
Caro looked at him, hands on her hips, head on one side. ‘Duh! That’s her brother, stupid. He was at school with us, name’s Owen. We were in year nine, Owen was in year ten and you were in year twelve. Don’t you remember? He’s just moved back here from Brisbane. One of Jodie’s housemates moved out and he moved in. Honestly, David, you can really be a thicko sometimes.’
She walked over and reclaimed Rebekah. ‘Come back to Mummy, darling, dopey Uncle David can’t be trusted to look after himself, let alone beautiful girls!’
‘What do you mean, the trade fair?’ Fran said, staring at Bonnie in horror. ‘I can’t go to Sydney, Bon, we have to interview chefs and then I’ll have to work with him or her on testing the menus. There’s the signature products, we’ve got find a floor manager, there’s far too much to do.’
‘It’s only for three days and it’s a great promotion opportunity,’ Bonnie said, perching on the edge of Fran’s new desk. ‘It’ll be seething with useful people from the tourism and hospitality business and publishers who do gourmet type books and, most importantly, the media. Food editors from magazines, restaurant review writers.’
‘Look, Bonnie, I know what it is,’ Fran said. ‘I went once a few years ago and it’s quite nice, but there’s too much to do here. There’s no way you’re taking on a chef without me vetting him or her.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Bonnie said. ‘We can do that before you go. Lenore has got you the spot as guest speaker at the dinner. You can do your stuff and they’ll mock up coloured samples of the cover of your book, posters, all that …’
‘But I haven’t finished it yet,’ Fran protested. ‘Nowhere near.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Bonnie said. ‘Advance publicity. It’ll get your name out and around the traps, in somewhere other than Melbourne. We can rush through some of the Boatshed publicity for you to take with you, and we’ll overstamp it with the opening date. We can’t afford to miss this, Fran. We need you to go.’
‘Bloody Lenore,’ Fran grunted, sifting through the label designs for the Boatshed products.
‘Oh yes, and she says you can stay at her place in Surry Hills,’ Bonnie continued. ‘She’s got plenty of space and it’ll be really convenient.’
‘Oh no! Don’t do this to me, Bon, not three days and nights of Lenore.’
‘Well, there’s always the gorgeous Jack as compensation,’ Bonnie said with a grin. ‘Now that you’ve signed the contract it’s okay to have sex with him on the table!’
‘Fall asleep underneath it is more like it, the way I feel,’ Fran wailed. ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do this, Bonnie.’
‘I’m marketing you and the Boatshed, Fran,’ Bonnie said with a smile and a wave. ‘All in the cause of business and profits. Anyway, you’ll probably enjoy it once you stop whingeing.’
Fran stared out of the window trying not to think about the trade fair. She was just getting on top of things and now this. She looked around her at the room that was slowly taking shape as her office, just like Bonnie’s room next door. Both had desks, shelves and telephone, but as yet no chairs. Fran’s, though, had a light box for transparencies, a luxury she had never had before, and both had wall-mounted whiteboards.
Even through her dismay, Fran’s pleasure wasn’t diminished for long. Her delight in her granddaughter and the sudden release of years of tension between her and Caro had her waking each morning with enthusiasm for the day rather than the anxiety that had been a constant presence for longer than she could remember. Being out of debt and knowing exactly what income she could expect had increased her confidence. For once her financial situation was under control, and even her eating habits seemed to be changing. As she assumed her role in the decision-making about the Boatshed, Fran felt she was sprouting new muscles that she would soon start to flex.
‘Okay, okay, of course I’ll go. Anything you say, Madame Lash.’
Bonnie laughed and struck a whip-wielding pose. ‘By the way, that long narrow room at the back, up that little flight of steps? Sylvia’s asked if she can use it.’
‘Whatever for?’ Fran asked. ‘It’s not good for stock, she’d have to keep carrying stuff up and down the staircase.’
‘It’s not for stock,’ Bonnie said. ‘A studio of some sort, she said she’d tell me more later, but if we weren’t using it she’d like to.’
Fran shrugged. ‘Fine by me. It’s very narrow but the light and the view are lovely, almost like the bridge of a ship. Impractical for us, though. Where is Sylvia, anyway, getting more stuff for the gallery?’
‘Suppose so,’ Bonnie said. ‘It’s a bit different now she’s in the cottage. I don’t see her come and go. I really miss her being in the house, but I’m trying not to interfere. She was out until very late last night – I heard her drive in after midnight. Maybe she did find herself a toy boy in Hong Kong. I’m dying to ask her. On the other hand, I could ask Will, he arrived the night before last and he’s coming over to look at the Boatshed this afternoon. Maybe he knows what Sylvia got up to in Hong Kong.’ She turned back to look at Fran. ‘How much weight have you actually lost?’
‘Five kilos,’ Fran said, ‘and not a cross-trainer in sight.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Outside the window of the fourth-floor boardroom on Southbank the sky was a leaden grey. Rain fell as relentlessly this afternoon as it had since daybreak and the room was filled with a dull steely light that seemed to be fading by the moment. At the other end of the boardroom table the recently appointed executive director, who was clearly uncomfortable at this first board meeting, fidgeted and cleared his throat. His lack of confidence irritated Will, nudged him with concern that they may have made a poor decision in appointing him, reminded him that this was the sort of business set-up that he had vowed always to avoid but had drifted into at the start of the year with Jeff’s encouragement, just before he died.
Halfway down the table on his right-hand side, the company solicitor, who had been summoned to attend the meeting to report on the contract negotiations with the Japanese joint venture partners, graced him with a stunning smile and a look that conveyed a great deal more than professional interest. It was the sort of overtly adventurous look from an attractive, confident woman that had always had the power to turn him on. Will had never responded to girlish women who looked up from under their lashes like Princess Diana, as though they were ready to wilt in his arms. It was power and confidence that got his juices flowing, the challenge from someone who could match him, a woman who was ready to play hard. But he let this one go through to the keeper and turned his attention to the papers in front of him, and the tedious monotone of a fellow director explaining his concerns about the environmental impact of the resort development.
The solicitor tossed her head, flicking the fall of blonde hair back from her face, her eyes resting on him in a beam of heat, and he was visited by an unpleasant flashback of how he would so recently have responded. The pattern was familiar: match the gaze, hold it, let her see him appraising her, break the gaze briefly and then lock it in again while planning a strategic move for when the meeting broke up. Now he met her eyes with deliberate coldness, in a look that signalled a dislike aimed really at himself, and he saw her hesitate before switching off the beam and turning her attention to the environmental impact statement under discussion. He was not used to not
getting what he wanted. Powerless was a new feeling, and frustration made it worse.
‘Just come for dinner and stay with us your first night,’ Bonnie had said on the phone before he left Perth. ‘Come and be family before you go off to be a tycoon in the city. It’s weeks since you were here.’
His original plan had involved going straight from the airport to the serviced apartment and meeting Sylvia there. For weeks he had comforted himself by imagining passionate nights and busy days punctuated by intimate breakfasts, cosy lunches, and long romantic evenings. Despite his unease about the depth of Sylvia’s feelings, he had managed to convince himself that once they were together again, everything would be as it had been in Hong Kong. This would be, and he pardoned himself for the pun, the bedding down of their relationship. From here they could plan the future.
‘Why don’t we just tell Bonnie?’ Sylvia had said on the phone when he told her he felt bound to accept Bonnie’s invitation for the night of his arrival. ‘I’m not comfortable about this at all and the longer we hide it the harder it will be to tell her.’
‘No,’ he’d insisted. ‘Absolutely not, not yet. I want to see how she is and we need to pick the right time. Please, Sylvia, don’t say anything just yet. Promise me.’ And he heard in her voice how much it cost her to make the promise.
There was, of course, no reason not to tell Bonnie, no reason except Will’s own fear that her reaction might influence Sylvia in a negative way. Ever since his declaration of love over the telephone he thought he had sensed her drawing back, wary of his intensity. There had been women in the past who would have melted to hear those words from him, but despite everything that Will knew about women, he was not prepared for someone like Sylvia, a woman whose identity was grounded not in a knowledge of sexual attractiveness or her ability to deal at his level in his world, but in an innate and mature female wisdom, a singular spiritual and emotional strength that meant she would not play games of submission and dependence, or compete with him at his own game. He had tried to match her by pulling back a little too, behaving more like the old Will, the one with whom she had been happy to throw snowballs and browse bookshops, to trust as a tour guide on the giddying funicular to the Peak, and as a mature and confident lover in the bedroom of his Hong Kong apartment. The Will he had been before the parting at the airport had sent him into a miserable spiral of lovesick longing.
