Some nonsense of flowers and lace on her hair; the blue silk dress made that morning and the quickly basted hem already coming down at the back. Tiny blue shoes.
Dim faces and introductions to people looking as if they had all dressed at a jumble sale. Vere screeching in the background. A jolting arm spilling beer all over Lila’s dress and then (wasn’t it then, at the moment when she was concerned only with her dress?) someone detaching himself from the crowd and coming towards them, tall and unhurried.
‘Him,’ Sinden said.
Well, no wonder.
That smile. No wonder.
Even Lila’s resentment faltered at that smile. It could take anyone by surprise. Had taken Sinden.
‘Hello, Lila.’
The same amused casualness as Sinden, but with the gift of listening with total absorption, so that his sudden glances said, gratefully, Thank you for your rare intelligence. Said, Be my friend. Then, squashed into a group of strangers at a brass-topped table, they drank cool shandies while Sinden and Logan explained (but explained nothing), seeming to rediscover every few minutes that they were together and married so that they laughed and fell into little silences, letting the rest of the talk rush by them while they gazed transfixed at the miracle; withdrawing from the present moment, they embraced secretly without touching; returned slowly and reluctantly to what was being said around them. Pardon? What? Lila, locked out, felt unmarried by comparison and drab as a mouse in the glare that seemed to come from them. She could hear nothing and could only watch the dumb show of their hands moving, for they were alike in gestures, constantly building structures in the air.
Occasional words filtered through.
‘Then my lovely Logan said—’
‘So my impulsive girl here said.’
‘Oh, but you left out the marvellous part about—’
‘But you said that.’
‘No, wasn’t it you?’
‘We both nearly fell out of the cab when—’
We. We. Marvellous, hilarious us. Something about lost shoes and going off in a hansom cab to Tom Ugly’s Point in the dead of night for oysters.
Even George was laughing, but Lila couldn’t get the point and sat mopping at her beer-stained dress until that curious little Pony Wardrop (and hadn’t Sinden introduced her as Miss Wardrop? Then how could she look so suspiciously pregnant?) stood up and screamed that everyone must drink to the fifth anniversary.
‘Of what?’ asked Lila, finding her voice.
‘Our meeting.’
What, weeks? ‘Weeks?’ she asked.
It sent them into fits of laughter.
‘Days,’ the two of them said automatically, and seeing the consternation on her face, put arms around her and drew her towards them, saying, ‘Five days that shook the world, Lila,’ but as though this were the most natural thing in life, as though any other arrangement would be unthinkably pedestrian, and Lila, marvelling at the identical look of pleased innocence on their faces, thought, They’re as alike as two peas.
Against her will, she found that moment by moment she was thawing, melting unwillingly into smiles, so that once when Logan pressed her arm and winked at her, she turned completely liquid, washing over him with assurances that she was glad, so glad for them and sure, absolutely positive that he would look after their little Sin.
He seemed surprised that she felt it necessary to bring this up, merely nodding as though she had made a remark about the weather and the next moment they were all talking about curry. ‘Lila’s marvellous curry,’ Sinden was saying, ‘for which I yearn.’ Logan too. Already one of the family, Logan was longing for one of Lila’s good home-cooked dinners and Lila, all protests gone, said, pink with pleasure, ‘I put in a little ginger and sometimes little white seedless grapes.’
But they were already on another tangent, on to this and that subject which led always back to one shining thing: themselves. Only once, rousing herself from the lethargy of being in the presence of this enormous happiness, did Lila voice one question, quickly and aside, under the safety of babbling voices.
‘Sin, what about Ernest? Does he know?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, I mean—is he terribly wounded?’
‘Oh, Lila, Ernest and I love each other.’
That was all.
Useless, as Mater used to say, ever to question Sin, senseless to pry, so save your breath to cool your porridge and anyway they were darting up now, tipping over chairs, saying it was time to go, time to go, darling, and thank you, thank you.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ they said.
Kissed everyone in the room twice and together, like children leaving a party, then off down the marble stairs with Vere’s arm hooked through Logan’s so that Conchita Ewers, that huge vulgar woman, asked in her booming voice, ‘Is Vere going with them?’ Then out into the street, everyone shrieking at once because of course Sinden had forgotten her suitcase, someone running back for it, a wretched suitcase for a bride—with the handle broken, bursting at the seams with all the things she possessed in the world. Now where was Logan? Disappeared. ‘Left you already, Sin,’ the friends roared, crowding to the curb and throwing confetti over her, standing there with her terrible suitcase and with her hem coming down at the back and while Lila was searching in her handbag for pins, another cheer broke out and looking up, they saw Logan arriving in a decrepit hansom cab and leaning out to help Sinden get in, and Sinden was saying quickly to Lila, ‘You see? How could you not marry a man like that?’ But why a hansom? Why not a sensible taxi? Why, that thing would break down long before they got to wherever they were going. But that’s the joke, George was saying, and why didn’t Lila listen? They’d explained all about it being their hansom and how they’d hired it to go to Tom Ugly’s Point the night they met. But you never listen, George said. So she shut up and watched them wobbling away down Castlereagh Street and holding up all the traffic so that angry motorists leaned out and yelled to ‘get that bloody thing off the road!’ Disgraceful, really. What on earth would people think? George said, ‘He’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s going to be something.’
Lila said, watching the ancient hansom totter around the corner out of sight, ‘Just the same, I’d love to know who paid for that party.’
She was still staring down the street when someone asked her something about her stomach.
‘What?’
‘I said, is your stomach up to lobster?’
Vanessa was holding out a plate to her.
Oh, yes. ‘Oh, thank you, Ness. Dreaming. Sorry. Oh, lobster. What a treat for us. What a jolly party. Isn’t this a jolly party, PS?’
Everything that Vanessa did, she did slowly. Like lighting her cigarette, drawing in the smoke and holding the match until the little flame almost reached her fingers, then blowing it out in a blue puff. When she laughed, it was slow too. Not like Vere’s sudden screeches, but beginning low inside of her and coming up gradually to the top and breaking like soda water bubbles in a silvery way that was pleasing and which brightened her face so that her funny green eyes flicked on and off with light.
She talked slowly too, using wonderful-sounding words that he didn’t understand. Things were ‘obtuse’ and ‘oblique’, she said, and somebody was ‘artificial’. When she sat, it was graceful, one long leg crossing over the other, one foot moving up and down in the air like the end of a cat’s tail while all the time she ran her fingers through the strings of bright beads around her neck or touched the big dark-red bun of hair as though to make sure it was still there.
But she seemed to have forgotten all about him, simply talking in her low voice to all the others, over his head and around him so that he made excuses to be near her, to make her look at him, but she took no notice and said nothing to him except once, rather sharply, ‘Careful of my cigarette! Don’t want to burn you.’
She asked them all questions, except him. ‘George, what is it exactly that you do at the Trades Hall? Oh, I see. But I don’t see how you c
an have much arbitration when there isn’t any employment.’ ‘Agnes, how’s your work going? Oh, really? Well, but I’m an unbeliever and anyway I never read pamphlets. Oh, you wrote it, jolly good! Arresting title, isn’t it?’ ‘But, Vere, how on earth do you survive?’
They all seemed to want to please her, especially Lila, who laughed at everything Vanessa said, whether it was funny or not, but with the laugh she used only when she wasn’t amused at all really and which always ended in her saying, ‘Well I never.’ Once Vanessa said, ‘But, Lila, I’m serious about that,’ and Lila said quickly, ‘Oh, goodness, I know you are, Ness. Heavens, I didn’t mean it that way.’
Then suddenly Vere screamed that, my God, it was after four o’clock and she had to meet a beastly man for drinks at Usher’s. Oh, hell, it was a thwart, my dear, but a free meal. They all got up and found coats and hats and he heard Lila say:
‘But, Ness, when are we going to talk?’
Vanessa said, watching the flame on her match, ‘Oh, I don’t know. There’s no hurry and we’re going to be jolly busy looking for a house.’
‘Do you have our phone number?’
‘Aren’t you in the book? Yes; well, I’ll ring up then. Goodbye, Lila. Goodbye, George. Nice to see you looking so jolly fit. Au ’voir, Vere, and pianissimo going out, please. Cheerio, Agnes.’ Cousin Ettie leaned down and kissed him wetly and they all moved in a bundle to the door, still talking while Vanessa leaned on the door, nodding to them and looking now as if she was bored, very bored with the whole thing, glad they were going.
But wasn’t she going to say one thing to him?
Halfway out the door with Lila pulling him ahead, he stopped and held out his hand politely so that Vanessa looked down, trying to remember who he was.
‘Oh, goodbye—PS,’ Vanessa said.
She shook his hand.
‘Ta-ta,’ he said, and the door closed behind them and as they were going down the hall to the lift, Lila said to George:
‘Not a mention. Not even a hint. Isn’t she strange?’
He said, looking up to Lila, tugging at her to get her attention:
‘Vanessa didn’t say when I could go to stay.’
‘She will,’ Lila said, and shut her mouth in a hard line.
Vanessa closed the door and said, ‘Thank God that’s over!’
She crossed the room and seeing that Ettie was sitting down and was ready for a nice gossip about them all, went deliberately past her and into the bedroom.
She took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. In a minute she heard Ettie’s telltale little humming, just loud enough to let it be known that she was unconcerned and would wait for an opinion on things.
Tum-tee-tum-tee-tum. The humming went on, accompanied by creaks to and fro across the floor and the sounds of tissue paper. Take your time, this meant.
But Ettie was rudderless without another’s opinion to guide her, and impatient now to be set on a course, wound up and set off in the right direction, and Vanessa heard the humming grow a little desperate, the creaks grow nearer until there she was, dangling uncertainly in the doorway, her diamond heart glittering and her baby hands making little useless movements in the air; smiling like a sheep.
‘Are you lying down, dear?’
‘No, I’m attached to the chandelier by a cord.’
‘Oh, Ness—are you tired? Upset?’
Vanessa threw one arm across her eyes to blot out Ettie, sighed and let her wait.
‘Ness?’
‘What?’
‘They’re dears, aren’t they?’ Waiting to find out if they were.
So Vanessa removed the arm for a moment, waited and said:
‘Ettie, do you see now? Do you finally see now how important it was for me to come back to that child?’
‘Yes, Ness.’
‘I’m glad you do, dear.’
She got off the bed and went to the dressing table. Pulling hairpins out, she let down her hair and sat at the mirror, starting to brush with long, hard strokes. She saw Ettie’s reflection behind her, waiting patiently, and stopped brushing and said what was in her mind.
‘He’s like Logan.’
After two weeks of silence, Lila went to the phone in order to get relief from her asthma.
‘Carlton Hotel.’
‘Mrs Bult, please.’
‘Bult? Hold on.’ Clicks and then a nervous child’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘Ettie? It’s Lila.’
‘Ahhh, you dear. Ah, how sweet of you to ring up in all this heat. How are you, dear?’
‘We’re all right.’
‘How’s the dear little lamb?’
‘He’s fine. Is Vanessa there?’
‘Yes, dear. Just one moment, dear. Ness? Ness? Are you out of the bath? It’s Lila on the telephone. Can you come?’
Mumblings, whispers. Then the low, disciplined voice.
‘Hello there.’
‘Ness?’
‘Yes. How are you keeping alive in this heat? Is January always so rugged? I’d forgotten.’
‘It’s been worse, I think. This summer. So few busters.’
‘So few what?’
‘Busters. Southerly busters, you remember. The nice cool wind that comes in the evenings—’
‘Oh, yes. Southerly buster. Sounds like a cocktail.’
‘It’s so funny because last summer we had one almost every hot night and this year I simply can’t remember when we had the last. Good one, I mean. Just before Christmas—’
‘Look, I haven’t terribly long, Lila.’
‘Oh, yes, yes; well, Ness, I was wondering, well, I thought I’d have heard from you by now. I thought for sure you would have rung me by now and I said to George last night—’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, Lila. But you see—Just a minute; trying to light a cigarette with one hand. There. Well, you see, we’ve been house hunting like mad, couldn’t find a thing we’d even consider and I must say, Australian incompetence! Well, I don’t want to be chauvinistic but at home, I mean in England, agents are co-operative, if you know what I mean. Lila, this dreadful lackadaisical attitude here drives me mad! However, I think we’ve found one at last. A nice large house in Point Piper. We can get it on a long lease because the people are going to England for two years, lucky dogs. Hello?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, thought we’d been cut off, you were so long interrupting me.’
‘Ness, I was wondering—it’s not too long now before PS has to go back to school and—’
‘What do you mean, school?’
‘Well, kindergarten, really. He doesn’t start real school till next year.’
‘I see.’
‘Ness, don’t we have things to talk about?’
‘We can talk without the child.’
‘But don’t you want to see him?’
‘Oh, yes. Give him my love.’
‘When can you come? Or shall I come to the hotel?’
‘Oh, no, I’d like to come and see your house.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow? Well, just a minute till I get my book. Ettie, would you hand me my little red book. No, not that one, the little red morocco—that’s the one. Sorry, Lila. Now let’s see … Oh, no, tomorrow I can’t. Have to sign the lease.’
‘Thursday?’
‘Thursday seems all right. We’ve got something in the evening, some old friends of Ettie’s, but I think Thursday during the day would be convenient.’
‘Thursday then. Come to dinner.’
‘No, I said during the day. I’d have to be back here by five.’
‘Ha ha. We call the midday meal dinner.’
‘Do you? What do you call dinner then?’
‘Tea.’
‘Tea! How confusing. Tea in London means four thirty and it’s always dinner at night unless it’s Sunday, when it’s supper. One dines midweek. One sups on Sundays. I shall come to you for luncheon.’
‘Lunch, yes. Now let me tell you how you get to us. You
take the Neutral Bay ferry from Circular Quay and then the tram to—’
‘Oh, I couldn’t cope with ferries and things, Lila. I’ll take a car.
‘Oh. That’ll be quite expensive all the way from town, but—’
‘Lila, do you have a cold or something?’
‘No, no, just a touch of my asthma.’
‘Oh, do you still get that?’
‘Not very often.’
‘Poor thing. Agony. I remember.’
Vanessa, before dressing for dinner that evening, unlocked her black attaché case and drew out a folder of letters, searching to find the one she wanted.
‘The Laurels (I call it Bedrock), Oct. 25th, ’27. Ness, you love. The dear baby smock and bonnet from Harrods came yesterday and lifted me from a blue mood. Even PS seemed to be pleased, as he kicked hard! I didn’t like opening the box, it seemed so neat, like you. But where are my children? PS seems excited at the idea of living at all but keeps well out of sight. They have given me so much oil that my babe will slide into this vale of tears on his little bottom. I get low at times, wondering what will become of the three of us. Ness, if Logan strikes gold (he says he will daily), we shall all come from the colonies to throw ourselves upon you and Ettie in that gigantic house you describe, so BEWARE. I yearn sometimes for your profound sense of ORGANISATION. Ness, you could run the Tower of Babel. One day when I’m rich, I shall pluck you from Ettie and you shall run my house and discipline my outrageous brats while I’m writing the Great Australian Novel. I’ve always said, “I’ll have the children and Ness will manage them.” My book is selling like very cold cakes and the till is low but I try not to worry or attract trouble if it’s not actually knocking at the door. Lila is the only one allowed to do that, as she owns the door! I will cable you the Glad News the moment they wheel me out of the delivery room. Logan, my five-minute husband, is up north and dying that he can’t get down to me because his foreman had to go and have an accident, so he is in charge. I wish’ (something crossed out here) ‘PS just kicked to say “hello” to his favourite aunt and Cousin Ettie in faraway London. Your Sinden.’
Lila and Vanessa sat on the back veranda in the shade, dulled by the heat and a heavy lunch of Lila’s special cottage pie and a green gooseberry tart with custard.
Careful, He Might Hear You Page 7
