by Gary Crew
We shuffled along, Lootie first, then me, Chanteleer behind, his finger in my back, stiff, insistent. ‘A little further,’ he said.
There were rooms to the right and to the left, some doors shut, several open. I glanced in (so far as the gloom would allow), surprised at the bareness of the place, the lack of furnishings, of any degree of permanence. In one room I saw a solitary occasional table standing askew, in another an armchair, its back to the door, in another a pile of books on the floor. None of these spaces appeared inhabited. All was in a state of flux.
‘Still settling in?’ I ventured.
Chanteleer said ‘Um,’ dangerously close to my left ear. I quickened my step.
‘Next on the left,’ he said, and Lootie stopped before an open door. I came up behind her, Chanteleer behind me. I was struck by the cloying scent of eau de cologne. That smell of old lady’s handbag. I knew it from my mother’s clients. Chanteleer said, ‘Mother…’
In a corner, a parchment-shaded reading lamp cast an insipid glow. Beneath the lamp was a square of purple carpet and a chair, the same as the straight-back dining chairs I had apologised to in the hall. And on that chair, her pink-slippered feet crossed on the carpet, sat the mother. I recognised her from the garden party. Her head was bent, reading a book. A Bible, I could see. ‘This is Alice, from that school,’ Chanteleer said, pushing past us to enter the room. ‘And…’
‘Charlie,’ I said. ‘Charlie Bloome.’
The woman looked up. Bird-like. Alert.
‘I was reading the book of Jeremiah,’ she said looking directly at me. ‘Do you know the prophet says that the human heart is wicked and deceitful above all things?’
‘Mother…’ Chanteleer began, embarrassed, but the old woman went on.
‘If that is true,’ she continued, ‘why did God make us?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ I shrugged, making the goofy face.
‘And why,’ she persisted leaning forward to stare even more closely, ‘why does it say that our hearts devise wicked imaginings?’
I felt my face colour, and stepped back, but Chanteleer had evidently experienced her ravings before.
‘Mother,’ he said firmly, ‘Enough. Alice and her friend have come for dinner. They don’t need a sermon.’ As he spoke, I recognised a chink in his armour. He too had a crazy old mother. Is this what Lootie had meant when she said, ‘That’s why he asked you’? Knowing that I had nursed my own mother, was I expected to bond with Constance Chanteleer while Sebastian and Lootie talked their talk? While Sebastian and Lootie sneaked away to canoodle?
I felt a surge of anger, a monstrous jealousy, my hand gripping an imagined pen, that dark ecstasy as I plunged it into the writer’s throat. Thus and thus and thus…But now the old woman was on her feet, tottering towards me still adrift in the doorway. I gripped Lootie’s hand.
‘Let’s have a drink before dinner,’ Chanteleer said, indicating that we should step away from the door. That irrespective of elderly mothers, we should move things along.
‘I brought champagne,’ Lootie said, holding out the bottle. ‘It’s lovely and cold.’ She was suffering, I could tell. Nervous. Things were not proceeding as expected, whatever that meant. (And her with her new hair and dress.)
We followed the mother along the dark hall. There were more empty rooms. I kept my eyes out for the writer’s study but saw no sign. A flight of stairs led up to the bedrooms above, I imagined. I noticed a pair of richly stained double doors (closed), which I presumed would open onto a big room (a living room? a dining room?). Next was a kitchen (old fashioned but promising) and finally I saw the night sky.
Chanteleer turned on a light, a harsh fluorescent tube. We had entered a sun room, a conservatory. The space was glassed-in with sliding windows; there were four wicker chairs and two occasional tables, one of which sported a solitary silver bell, the other a pair of gardener’s gloves, all crumpled and grubby alongside a wilting begonia, the pot tied with a red satin bow (a neglected gift?). One window was open to the night and to the right a door was ajar, leading to a balcony and the garden below. I saw the shape of a balustrade. This was where Chanteleer and his mother, posing as royalty, had first appeared on the day of the garden party.
‘Take a seat,’ he said, settling the old lady. ‘Dinner is almost ready. I’ll get some glasses.’ He took the champagne from Lootie and left, his empty scotch glass still in his hand.
Where was the owner of the other male voice?
I sat beside Lootie, opposite the mother. She wore a pink dress, buttoned down the front. One button was undone. I saw her fleshy silk petticoat.
I felt uncomfortable, confined, even though the door was open to the garden. ‘Do you mind if I take off my coat?’ I asked, and since nobody objected, I stood up and draped it over the back of my chair. I sat again, settled, the loss of the coat and the two brandies skolled in our kitchen starting to relax me.
‘Who is the gardener?’ I said, satisfied that it was only polite to initiate small talk while Chanteleer was away.
The old lady didn’t answer (perhaps I had spoken out of turn, perhaps she didn’t understand), then Chanteleer reappeared, a tray of glasses in his hand, the champagne under his arm. He put the tray on the table, removing the gardener’s gloves. ‘Adrian does the grounds,’ he said.
I nodded, remembering the red-headed gardener, the camellias.
‘He sometimes sits in here. Adrian is my second son,’ the mother explained. ‘He is Sebastian’s brother.’
She might have hit me in the face. She might have spat at me, but I did not flinch. I remained calm, unmoved, staring at the wilting begonia, true to my resolve to silently observe. To listen and learn. But Lootie gulped. I heard her cough and choke. Whatever else she knew, Chanteleer had not told her this.
‘He is my youngest,’ the mother said, her face bland as blotting paper. ‘He is not what you might call…sociable.’ Evidently, she saw no drama in admitting this. No shame.
Sebastian blushed and turned away. Lootie sat, recovering. Shaken (as was I) but determined to weather this. To make it work. ‘It’s a big garden,’ Lootie said to Sebastian. ‘Do you have any time yourself?’
‘Sebastian is an author,’ the mother said helpfully. ‘He is most often in his study.’
Chanteleer wrestled with the champagne bottle. Happy to do something, I took the bottle from him and popped the cork through the open door into the garden. The old lady jumped. ‘I’ll take you to my study after dinner,’ Chanteleer said, pouring. ‘I’m sure that Alice would like that,’ and handing her a glass, he smiled at her. I let the slight go. ‘Tally ho!’ he toasted, then sat, adjusting his trousers. I noticed his odd socks, one yellow, one blue. No one could make such a mistake. And why was he wearing a bow tie? This was his home. I looked away, towards the old lady. She raised her glass, readying her lips.
At the garden party she had appeared assured; a dignified, if elderly, royal. Mechanical almost in her performance of the welcoming routine. An automaton, meeting and greeting, doing what she was programmed to do.
I realised now that I had her wrong. That I’d imagined her as something else. Something cold, a thing to be wheeled out in public, to be shown around. But now she looked human, vulnerable, and I thought of what she said about Jeremiah and the fact that she had been reading the Bible.
And now there was Adrian, the other son to consider. Different. Crazy even. And yet, it seemed, we must proceed. We must pretend. There were standards to maintain.
But why had she said, ‘Sebastian is an author’? Did she think we didn’t know? Or was it a statement of fact, much like saying (off the cuff, as an aside), ‘Adrian is not sociable’?
Perhaps her first son, for all his fame, his posturing, meant no more to her than her second?
She was, after all, a mother.
I watched her, warming to her. As she sipped, her lips trembling and expectant, I noticed that she too had a moustache, not stiff and dark like my mother’s, but downy gr
ey, flecked here and there with specks of creamy powder. And I imagined her bedroom, her cluttered dressing table, its oval mirror of aged glass, the tapestry-covered stool set before it, the cut crystal decanter of eau de cologne, the rosy powder puff, the silver-backed brush with matching comb, the worn lipstick, lolly pink.
I knew old ladies. There had been many among my mother’s clients. Not always the society harridans wanting sleek cloche hats of black felt with black silk appliqué (a red silk rose to one side) but ordinary women who wore basic straw decorated with cherries and plastic daisies (‘Something pretty, dear.’). Women who offered me scented gum drops in crinkled brownpaper bags.
I knew mothers.
Since Chanteleer and Lootie were talking (about what, I was damned if I could catch), I leaned forward (I had the time, the evening would be long. I could catch up.) and said, ‘Mrs Chanteleer, Constance, you have a button undone.’
She raised her eyes to mine, then closed them, knowing, and holding her glass out to steady it (age had not cost her class), she looked down to the offending button. ‘And you can see my slip,’ she said with a giggle and a shrug. She put her drink on the table beside her, steadied it so as not to lose a drop, then did up the button. ‘The arthritis,’ she apologised, holding out her twisted fingers. ‘I wrote once too, you know.’
She had me, as surely as if she had offered me gum drops. As surely as if she had ruffled my hair, there on the floor of my mother’s workroom, all those years ago.
I leaned forward, losing my resolve, ready to talk, to open a friendship (a new mother to attend to) when Chanteleer’s voice arrested me, ‘…and you’re letting teaching go?’
I turned my attention to him, sitting back in his chair as he was, one leg crossed over the other, those mismatched socks in clear view, his champagne in one hand, the other waving limp-wristed in the air.
‘As I said the other day,’ Lootie answered, ‘I’m checking my options. I’m thinking seriously of transferring to Librarianship.’
‘Ah,’ he said, bringing his free hand to his chin (to signify thought, I presumed, as authors often do). ‘Ah…’
Not able to contain myself, I said, ‘Lootie, you love kids.’
They turned to me, astonished. Had they been the shepherd and shepherdess in a Swiss weather clock, their movements could not have been better synchronised. Only then did I fully appreciate that Lootie and this writer were of one mind.
‘Oh?’ Chanteleer said, as if I had farted.
‘Charlie…’ Lootie said, warning me.
‘Oh, don’t take any notice of Sebastian,’ the mother threw in, ‘Sebastian knows nothing about children!’ And she gulped her champagne.
My ears roared.
‘Shall we eat?’ Chanteleer said over the silence, ringing the silver bell.
Our host led us back into the hall, opening the double doors to the dining room. Lit by a fine chandelier, I saw a twelve-seater table, and on the far wall three double-hung windows, each topped by a lunette of stained glass. Because it was night, and no light shone behind, they were not shown off to perfection but it was clear that their unifying theme was flight: on the left butterflies, in the centre birds, on the right insects. ‘Beautiful,’ I said, the compliment escaping before I could prevent it.
‘Those are by Tussaux,’ Chanteleer said, savouring the French. ‘Imported from Paris in the 1860s.’
‘The house is that old?’ I said, impressed. I hated to be, but a nice room is a nice room, and not to say so would be mean spirited.
‘I believe so,’ he said. He put the silver bell on the table, and offered a chair to his mother. ‘The place was built on gold. Ballarat, Bendigo…’
‘You don’t say?’ I said, determining not to be awed again.
‘Oh,’ the mother said, ‘but the house isn’t ours. We could never afford it. We rent, you know.’
The roaring came again, her honesty too much. And I said (or shouted), ‘Where would you like us?’
‘Alice here, to my right,’ Chanteleer said, giving me a limp smile. ‘You opposite mother.’
The slight in the ‘you’ (meaning ‘loser’) registered, but I sat nevertheless. He took the head. I saw then that the table was set for four. Apparently brother Adrian was very antisocial.
‘I brought the china with me from the Old Country,’ Constance said. ‘It was passed down to my mother. Family you know. They were somebody.’ She tapped her nostril. ‘The Duke and Duchess of Hartley.’
I’d never heard of them. All blue bloods were the same to me. We all eat. We all shit. We all die.
‘And the glasses?’ Lootie said, picking one up and turning it to the light.
‘Ah!’ Chanteleer crowed. ‘The glasses are mine. Part of the British Children’s Fiction Award. Lovely, aren’t they?’
‘Really?’ Lootie cooed. ‘And what title did you win that for?’
Chanteleer chuckled. ‘Not one title, my dear. Three!’
‘Three?’ Lootie gasped.
‘The Aryon Trilogy,’ he declared, beaming. ‘Among my best, if I do say so myself.’
‘Of course,’ Lootie gushed. ‘Three of my favourites.’
I said nothing. I was observing. Learning.
‘Right!’ Chanteleer said. ‘Dinner.’
He rang the bell again.
Why wasn’t I surprised when Adrian the stutterer appeared wearing gloves (white-rabbit-like), a domed silver serving dish in his hands?
‘Adrian helps out,’ Chanteleer said, by way of apology.
As he served his mother, I tried to catch Adrian’s eye, to say hello, considering we had met before. He saw me look, I know he did, but chose not to let on. Either he had forgotten (was he so dim?), had chosen to forget, or I had made no impression. I made no further attempt to be friendly, content that he had his reasons. But I did note that he looked at his brother in a peculiar way when he reached down to serve him. He hesitated as he stretched out, a plate in his hand, almost inviting (almost demanding) that Sebastian look up and catch his eye, which his brother did, sharply, and a message was relayed.
Though what, exactly, I could not read.
The conversation was all one way; Chanteleer moaned about the shortcomings of travel, the problems with airport security and lost luggage. Having never travelled, I lost interest early although Lootie managed to join in. But the meal was good.
I said, ‘Who is the cook?’ and noticed the mother make eye contact with her son. ‘We share,’ Sebastian informed me.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I thought your brother might be responsible.’
‘My brother is limited,’ Chanteleer replied dryly. ‘And what do you do?’
I was flattered that he bothered to ask. ‘I’m at uni,’ I said. ‘I’m studying Literature. This semester it’s Australian Lit.’
‘A bit of a cultural desert, eh?’ he scoffed, aiming his sad humour at Lootie upon whom it was lost.
‘Actually…’ I began, but the phone rang in the room next door.
Chanteleer left the table to answer it. I guess that the limited brother was not trusted with outside communication. ‘Do your best,’ we overheard Chanteleer begin, calmly enough, then ‘You need to try harder’ and finally, ‘Well if you can’t I have no option.’ Which he shouted.
Whether he knew that we heard and whether he cared seemed to matter very little. Indeed, when he returned to the table (having first rung the silver bell—curtly, urgently—and shouted ‘Coffee’ in the direction of the kitchen), he resumed his seat, saying casually to his mother, ‘That Eve has to go.’
Embarrassed, I studied my napkin but Lootie (oblivious) said cheerily, ‘I’m so looking forward to seeing your study, Sebastian. Would it be okay if we took our coffees with us?’
‘Mother and I won’t have coffee, being so late,’ our host replied. ‘Although you can, of course.’
A po-faced Adrian duly arrived to serve from a wonderful silver pot. He leaned forward to put it down.
‘Watch the table,
’ Sebastian spat. ‘Set it on the coaster. We don’t want marks.’
His brother winced. ‘I- I’m not s- s- stupid,’ he said.
Sebastian looked at us, raising his eyebrows, extending his lips to express his doubt.
‘The coffee pot,’ I said, wanting to avoid a scene. ‘Is that some sort of semi-precious stone set in the lid?’
‘The inset is a cabochon garnet,’ Constance said, all too eagerly. ‘Deco, you know.’
‘There is a lizard comes to visit me, on our garden wall, at home,’ I told her. ‘The stone is the colour of his eye. Is it really a garnet? And yellow?’
‘So I am told,’ she said, alert to the retreating Adrian. ‘The Hartleys again. We owe so much to the Hartleys.’
Evidently, I thought. But what exactly do you owe to Sebastian?
When we were gathered at the head of the stairs, our host opened the door to the study with a theatrical gesture that I found rather sad. Worse, upon glancing in, Lootie gasped.
The ceiling light was covered by a green fabric shade with tassels of gold, so the upper half of the room was dim. Above this shadow line I could make out a series of framed illustrations encircling the room. They appeared to be prints, all about twenty by thirty centimetres, mounted in identical gilt frames.
I was also struck by an impressive desk, possibly of red cedar judging by its glow, and two very classy black leather chairs of the sort once found in gentlemen’s clubs, if my Illustrated Sherlock Holmes serves me right. Against one wall stood a low table, originally designed as a side-dish table for a dining room, I would think. On it had been placed various velvet-lined cases, all open and tipped towards the viewer. Some held a medal, either silver or gold, and some pens or letter openers, all evidently (if not ostentatiously) celebrating achievement.
