‘How did that happen, Lulu? It’s weeks away, and we haven’t even begun to advertise it yet.’
‘It’s all Willowers,’ I said, ‘coming for a stickybeak.’
‘As long as they pay, Lulu,’ he said, ‘no local discounts, remember.’
‘Yes, Andrew, you’ve told me, now just back to Frank for a minute, do you think your friend might find some loopholes for us to work with? You must or otherwise you wouldn’t bother giving it to her, right?’
‘Lulu,’ said Andrew, ‘you concentrate on getting Barney’s Bed and Breakfast up and running and I’ll concentrate on stopping them from pulling down Frank’s tree house.’
‘Thanks, Andrew,’ I said.
‘Don’t thank me, Lulu, just get on with things at your end.’
I put down the phone and was just going to start sorting out the old storeroom when the front doorbell rang.
*
‘Surprise!’ Stella said, beaming as I opened the door to find both her and Simone standing behind it.
‘Don’t freak out,’ said Simone, ‘we’ve come to help, your boyfriend Will brought us over.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said.
‘Well, you’re mad if he isn’t,’ Simone said, ‘he even got old Saint Stella’s motor running on the way over, didn’t he, Stell?’
Ignoring her, Stella said, ‘Anyway, Lulu, we’ve come to help, we’re only here for a couple of days but your mum told us all the linen and crockery’s arrived so we thought we could help make the rooms up for you, fill the cupboards.’
‘Roll the bandages for our boys on the front line, that sort of thing,’ added Simone. ‘Are you going to let us in?’
They wouldn’t let me make them a cup of tea, instead getting straight to work – Stella stocking all the cupboards I hadn’t got to yet, and Simone helping Will clean up the old lawnmower shed. They worked all day with only a brief stop for lunch, before flopping down on the lawn with me to watch the day turn into night.
‘Lord, I am bone tired.’ Simone stretched her entire body, head to toe.
‘Don’t say Lord,’ Stella reprimanded her.
‘All right,’ Simone answered her. ‘Fuck, I’m tired – there, is that better?’
I giggled, enjoying the endless tug-of-war between my two oldest friends, the push and pull of them.
‘So,’ Simone said, sitting up, ‘I’ve been offered the weekend news shift, if I want it.’
‘You didn’t tell me that, Simone!’ said Stella.
‘I’ve only just been asked myself, and besides, there’s a lot I don’t tell you, Stella.’
That was true, there were some things in Simone’s world – her sex life, her occasional visits to the land of illegal substances, the fact that she was a card-carrying member of GALA, the Gay and Lesbian Atheist’s Alliance – that she could not see any earthly good in sharing with Stella, and I had to agree.
Besides, Stella didn’t necessarily share everything with Simone either, I thought, like the fact that she was pregnant again.
I always knew when Stella was expecting, her face became even more serene than it usually was.
The three of us headed up to our rooms early, completely knackered by the day, and I sat on Stella’s bed and asked, ‘How many weeks, Stella?’
‘Twelve and a half, don’t tell Simone.’
‘I won’t, but you shouldn’t have worked so hard today.’
‘I didn’t, you gave me all the easy jobs.’
‘So, are you all right? How do you feel about it?’
‘Like I always do, grateful.’
I smiled at her.
‘I do, Lulu, I know six kids seems like such a lot these days, and it is, but it doesn’t faze me, you know, I just think, “Good, one more to love for all of us”.’
‘You’re lucky.’
She nodded. ‘How did you know?’
’You’ve got that whole “Lady Madonna” thing going on.’
She propped herself up with the pillow. ‘I wish you’d have a baby, Lulu – you and Simone.’
‘Together? That’s very liberal of you, Stella.’
‘Very funny – but I really would like you to have a baby one day, and Simone too, I think she’d be a fantastic mother.’
‘You do?’
She nodded.
‘My mind’s been open to a lot more things, Lulu, since Billy had sex with that girl from the agency – you know, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own?”’
‘What?’
‘Matthew – seven, two,’ she answered, ‘although I always thought that if you were walking around with a great big plank of wood in your eye, you’d know about it, wouldn’t you?’
Laughing, I handed her the glass of water on the bedside table.
‘Drink this,’ I said, ‘it was pretty hot here today, I don’t want you getting dehydrated, and you’ve got to promise me you’ll take it easy tomorrow.’
She nodded.
‘Anyway, if it’s a girl I’m thinking of calling her Simone.’
‘Stella,’ I said, ‘that’s really nice of you.’
And it really was, considering that every time Stella announced a pregnancy Simone would do that shuddering thing as if she’d just swallowed a porcupine, and mutter something about ‘the Pope’ and ‘sows’ and ‘vasectomy’ under her breath.
‘Not really,’ said Stella, ‘if I name the baby after her, she’ll have to come to the christening, and I want to see if her eyebrows burst into flame when she walks into a church.’
‘Oh, you’re an evil woman, Stella McNamara!’ I said.
‘I know,’ she grinned happily and settled down into her pillows.
Next, I knocked on Simone’s door.
‘Come in if you’re Ellen DeGeneres,’ she called.
‘That one’s getting a bit tired, Simone,’ I told her, sitting on the chair in the corner of the room, ‘you’ve been saying it for years.’
‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘but there’re just no interesting power lesbians around anymore.’
‘There’s you,’ I said.
‘Mmm, I suppose – and maybe Maxine Mathers.’
‘Maxine Mathers is not a lesbian, Simone.’
‘Are you sure? I thought I was getting some signals from her at Larry Hay’s send-off last week from Channel Nine.’
‘Larry’s retired?’
‘Yes, and you would have been at his party if you were not too busy making your coconut cream pies here on Gilligan’s Island.’
I shook my head at her. ‘Anyway, Maxine Mathers is definitely not a lesbian.’
‘How do you know?’
I told her how Duncan – who always kissed and told, it had been one of his least admirable virtues – had confessed all to me about Maxine turning up to his hotel room the night of Frank’s exhibition.
‘No way!’ said Simone, delighted to hear some tittle-tattle about her nemesis, and I, it must be said, remembering that awful, honeyed dissection of Annie, was equally delighted to give it to her.
‘Mmm-mmm,’ I nodded, ‘they spent the whole night together.’
‘What did Duncan say?’
‘He said her reputation exceeded her,’ and Simone laughed so hard the water she had been drinking came out of her nose.
*
Barney and I were walking along the back dunes, watching the ghost crabs emerge from their homes strewn like potholes along the sand, their eyes resting on stalks trained on the sea. Will had told me this early-evening dash to the ocean had a purpose.
‘They go there to breathe,’ he said. ‘They need to let the water wash over their gills to get oxygen, and then they store it so that in winter they can retreat into their shells and hold their breath for six months.’
>
Ever since he had told me that I loved to watch them enter the water and catch their breath.
This was my favourite time and place on Willow, at dusk, on the beach that lay behind the dunes that met my back fence, in that quiet space between day and night.
Barney and I had given ourselves the afternoon off, stretched out on a couch, one apiece, in the lounge room, where I read and Barney had dreamt whatever pictures he made in his head, making his black, rubbery lips curl.
Simone and Stella had left, but Harry, Rose, Mattie and Sam would be arriving in a few days; there were lists pinned to the corkboard in the office with items to cross off, tradesmen to deal with and inventories to be made, and I had decided that Barney and I would do none of it. Instead we had lain on the lounges until the air had cooled and the shadows had started to play on the shelves.
I reluctantly got up, unfurled my limbs and said, ‘Come on, Barney boy, party’s over.’
He had slowly got to his feet, swaying a little as he took the weight of his great body, looking up at me with those lips, not pulled back, I was sure, but smiling.
We had walked the dunes for at least an hour when I whistled for Barney and turned back towards the house. He came lolloping up beside me, then his ears pricked up and a low growl came from the back of his throat as he pushed his body into mine.
‘What is it Barney?’ I said. ‘You all right, mate?’
His great chocolate eyes considered mine, staring directly into them for a sliver of a moment, then they slipped back into his head as he hit the ground.
‘Barney!’
I fell to my knees beside him, put my face close to his mouth, nearly passing out from his fetid breath and relief that I could still feel it underneath my nostrils. But he was not moving, and not responding to his name at all.
‘Wait here, mate,’ I said, ‘just wait here.’
I ran back to the house and saw Will leaning over the fence, nodding at my words, telling me to call Miranda Tate, a retired vet who lived on Willow, while he would go to Barney and wait with him.
‘The number’s on your fridge,’ he yelled, passing me as I ran into the house.
I rang Miranda’s number, and tried to stay calm as I answered her questions.
Was he breathing? Yes, I thought so. Did I think it was a fit? No, I told her, he just keeled over on the spot.
Keep him cool, she said, and try to get some water into him. She would come over as soon as possible; in the meantime just get him some water and wait.
I filled an old milk carton with water and ran back to the dunes where Barney was sitting bolt upright, Will’s arm flung over his back.
‘You gave us a scare, mate,’ Will was saying, while Barney stared, his eyes still and vacant. ‘Look, here’s Lulu with some water for you.’
Later, when we had got him home and into the nest of a bed I had made for him, Miranda arrived.
‘I don’t usually do house calls this late in the day,’ she smiled at me, ‘but Barney’s an exception.’
He had fainted, Miranda said, maybe from the heat, maybe from exhaustion – ‘syncope’ she had said, happened to a lot of dogs Barney’s age and size, probably not serious, but it was probably a good idea to have a follow-up examination on the mainland, where they could run an MRI and check his blood pressure.
‘You might want to check Lulu’s too,’ Will said, looking at me.
Now we lay on either side of the luxury ‘Snoozy Paws’ bed I bought him when we’d first arrived on Willow and which he had never, of course, slept in.
The room grew darker and quieter until Will said, ‘Are you going to stay here all night?’
I nodded across at him.
‘I’ll stay with you – in case anything happens.’
I nodded again.
‘It’ll be like camping.’
I smiled. ‘Sort of.’
‘With a great big bear between us.’
I got us some pillows and sheets and we settled down for the night, our hands meeting across Barney’s heaving chest.
*
The day after Barney’s collapse, I went to find Will in the boat shed – cleaned out, freshly painted canoes stacked on rails like layers of a cake, where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to untangle a roll of recalcitrant fishing line.
‘Hello,’ I said, ‘that looks complicated.’
‘Not really,’ Will smiled, ‘you just have to have the patience of a saint – how’s our boy?’
‘He tried to eat the umbrella stand this morning, so I guess he’s back to normal.’
‘He gave us quite the fright, didn’t he?’
‘He did,’ I said, remembering those chocolate eyes falling into nowhere. ‘Anyway, I wanted to thank you for helping out, Will, you were great.’
‘No problem.’
‘I didn’t even ask you what you wanted when I came running through the gate like a madwoman, was it about the B and B or just a social visit?’
‘Both.’
I waited.
‘Lulu,’ he said, putting down the tangled knot, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you and Andrew want me to do here, and I’m pretty keen, but I don’t reckon we should make it official until we sort out everything that’s not going on between us.’
I smiled at his choice of words.
‘So,’ he said, ‘I wanted to let you know that if I come on board here, you know, become the Water Sports Captain or whatever it is, I’m happy to leave it at that.’
My heart fell just a whisker, taking my shoulders with it.
‘I get it, Lulu, I do – you’ve got a lot to sort out in your head, getting this place up and running for one thing, so I wanted to tell you that I’m not about to go jumping out of the boat in the middle of the night and dripping water all over your front doormat.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ I managed, ‘I was so worried about you catching your death out there.’
He laughed and came to stand beside me.
‘It’s okay, Lulu,’ he said, ‘we don’t have to jump in either, we’ll just tread water.’
I nodded at him and turned to head back into the house.
‘For now,’ his voice said behind me.
Barney was lying in his bed beneath the stairs thoughtfully chewing on his own paw when I went back inside.
‘How are you, Barney boy? How’s my little Barnsterooni?’ I said, burying my face in his, and holding his ridiculously floppy ears.
‘Now that really is pathetic,’ Julia said from the doorway. ‘Hope you don’t mind me barging in. I called out but you didn’t answer, so I just followed the cooing noises.’
She put down the tray she was carrying and got down on her knees beside Barney.
‘Hello, how’s my little soldier? How’s my big, brave boy? Julia’s brought you some biscuits, hasn’t she? Biscuits for her big, brave soldier.’
‘Who’s pathetic?’ I said.
Julia smiled. ‘I’m allowed, because I’m his aunt.’
‘Want a cup of tea?’
‘Yes thank you, a cup of tea for me and some biscuits for you, Barney, your favourite, I made them especially, cinnamon apple snaps.’
I rolled my eyes at her and went into the kitchen, where she followed a few moments later, her arms crossed.
‘So, what’s going on with you and Will Barton?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Oh don’t “Excuse me”, Tallulah de Longland, you heard me,’ Julia said, and I noticed her long, grey hair escaping its tortoiseshell clip at the back.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? Doesn’t feel like nothing in those meetings we’ve been having, feels more like watching one of those David Attenborough shows on mating.’
‘Julia!’
‘Well, it does, I told Boris it�
��s like watching two wild bobcats circling each other.’
‘We’re not,’ I said, ‘we’re not at all like that, anyway, we’re not jumping into anything – we’re treading water.’
She shook her head and went out to give Barney his cinnamon snaps, so she did not hear me add ‘for now’.
After Julia went home, leaving a bone for Barney from Lyle and Denise at the post office, the island tom-toms having carried news of Barney’s collapse before he’d even hit the ground, the phone rang.
‘Good morning, Barney’s B and B, how may I help you?’ I practised, feeling slightly ridiculous. Andrew had said it was a good idea for me to start answering the phone this way, and I was working on my proprietor’s voice, aiming for professional and warm at the same time, somewhere between Jana Wendt and Maggie Beer.
‘Tallulah, this is Linda Mayberry. Andrew Lyons gave me your number.’
‘Oh, hi Linda, thanks for calling.’
‘No need to thank me,’ she said crisply. ‘There’s not a lot I can do for your friend, I’m sorry to say – I’m a great admirer of Frank Andrews’ work.’
‘I see,’ I stumbled, not expecting this. I had been, I realised, expecting her to call and say, ‘It’s all sorted out’, because Andrew had asked her to. ‘When you say not a lot?’
‘I mean not a lot. I’ve had a pretty good look at the council’s position, I’ve been to the property and had a good look around, and checked the survey lines, I’ve even attempted to see if I could get the tree house itself exempted from six of the codes as a work of art, rather than a construction, but unfortunately because it’s outside, it’s subject to four clauses that preclude me from taking that line, so you’re in for a bit of a long haul.’
‘I see.’
‘You probably don’t, so I’ve written a full report for you to show Mr Andrews – of course if he really wants to go the whole hog with this, I’d be delighted to represent him.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think he’ll want all that fuss – he hates fuss – but leave it with me, I’m actually seeing him today so we can talk about it then.’
‘Well, he has about two weeks left to lodge his objection.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘two weeks – thank you.’
‘Tallulah,’ she added, ‘one thing I do know is that if you were to make your objection very long, and very hard to understand, and with lots of legal jargon, which I’m happy to provide free of charge, then we could buy ourselves a fair bit of time, during which I’m happy to keep squirreling around.’
Walking on Trampolines Page 28
