The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

  Lucetta’s radiant beam froze and fell away. Putting on a Scorpio face the way Matthew had! ‘That’s an excellent one,’ Matthew said grinning. The poor girl still didn’t have the drink Harrow was getting for her. He held out the one he was keeping for Bernadette. ‘Here Lucetta, have a daiquiri.’ She accepted the glass he offered. He’d have another made up once Bernadette emerged.

  ‘Thank you, Matthew.’ This was said vaguely. She was still staring ahead, causing Matthew to realise too late that she hadn’t been play-acting a Scorpio moment.

  He turned to see where her gaze led. Harrow was sitting on one of the couches. Bernadette, seated beside him, was drinking the daiquiri meant for Lucetta. The two were chatting casually.

  The insecurity in Lucetta’s eyes compelled Matthew to reassure her. The man might be a perpetual drip, but even he had ethics. Harrow wouldn’t go around chatting up other men’s wives in full view of them. And Bernadette, if nothing else, was a one-man woman.

  To show Harrow’s date that Bernadette was his other half, Matthew nodded towards the copper-haired beauty on the couch and said, ‘Gemini. Sign of the twins.’

  Lucetta’s forehead relaxed. She nodded at Harrow. ‘Also a Gemini.’

  ‘Two Geminis! Trouble times four.’

  ‘Geminis are the best kinds of talkers.’ Lucetta’s lashes lowered. ‘They’ve kissed the Blarney Stone. Nearly all air signs have.’ She watched Harrow delightedly. ‘That includes you, Matthew, since you’re a Libran.’

  ‘Aha!’

  ‘So that’s pretty cool. Does your wife have the moon in an air sign? Astrologers believe it’s a match made in heaven if the husband’s sun harmonises with the wife’s moon.’

  ‘I actually do know that, believe it or not.’ Matthew paused to observe his significant other sitting comfortably against purple cushions. Bernadette certainly had a lot to say to Harrow considering they’d only met twice. ‘My brother’s wife told us the other week when they were out from England. Her moon...My wife’s moon’s in the sign of the goat. Is that an air sign?’

  ‘Capricorn? That’s an earth sign.’

  ‘Better luck next time,’ he said, then thought he’d better add, ‘In guessing a sign element I mean. Not in choosing a marriage partner.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lucetta reassured. ‘Of course!’

  * * * *

  Harrow still hadn’t returned from his spot on the bar’s couch. Matthew continued to keep Harrow’s date company while she waited. The conversation had been pleasant enough, despite it having only surrounded astrology. He launched into a new topic. ‘What’s your specialisation, Lucetta?’

  ‘Er...human rights.’

  ‘Powerful stuff. So how did you find out about astro traits? Do law degrees now incorporate that sort of thing?’

  ‘Wow, I wish they would.’

  ‘Criminology would never be the same again.’

  ‘And anyone like us, with planets in secretive Scorpio, would be considered highly suspect.’ Lucetta’s voice was deliberately bland. ‘Getting back to your question, though, I studied astrology years ago. People’s horoscopes have fascinated me ever since. You sound as though you’ve found out quite a bit yourself. Was that through your sister-in-law?’

  ‘Just the basics. My brother’s wife’s right into all that.’ His sister-in-law had told him that the shifting locations of the eight orbiting planets represented various zodiac signs. A person’s horoscope, she’d said, was a snapshot of where those planets were travelling at the exact time and day of birth. Most people only knew their zodiac or star sign, which happened to be the sign the sun was in during the month they were born, and probably the reason Lucetta had referred to it as a Sun Sign. Turning to Lucetta, he said, ‘But there must be something I’m missing here. As you know, my wife’s Moon Sign is the goat. No-one can deny goats eat everything, and yet my wife is...well...My wife’s...particular about food.’

  Dette, still chatting to Harrow, was shaking her Diondra-inspired chin-length bob emphatically as she spoke. Her bare shoulders looked the colour of citrus peel, obviously a trick of the light. Blond-headed Harrow looked much the same colour. Two orange-skinned Geminis, conversing as only Geminis could.

  Matthew made an attempt to look sly. ‘Wait a minute, Lucetta. Adam Harrow’s got a Gemini sun you said.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Matthew prolonged the artificial squint. ‘Do you have a Gemini moon?’

  Lucetta collapsed into laughter. It wasn’t that funny, Matthew wanted to say. Not funny at all, not even if the overly hammy facial expression had been taken into account.

  ‘No, but my moon is in airy Libra, so we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Onya, Lucetta. That-a-girl.’

  ‘Then again,’ she added, ‘the Venus Sign tells a lot about who a man likes.’

  ‘So, what does that have to match? Does he need to have his lerve planet in Scorpio like you?’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be perfect actually. Or at least have other planets in Scorpio. Trouble is, he hasn’t.’

  Matthew was suddenly intrigued. ‘What’s it in then?’

  Lucetta sighed and then brightened, in an effort, Matthew thought, to hide deeper concerns. ‘Gemini,’ she said. ‘The same sign as your other half’s sun. I’ve known the odd two-timer with that combination.’

  Matthew took a swig of his beer. ‘In that case,’ he said, sliding across to the left. ‘I think I’ll go and retrieve my wife.’ To the strains of Lucetta’s throaty laughter, he sauntered towards the carrot-complexioned chatterboxes.

  He’d wanted instead to stay alongside Lucetta and say ‘Screw Harrow’, then realised with amusement that this might be taken as friendly advice. It was more than likely on Lucetta’s agenda, although in subtler, more elegant language.

  Her to-do list might have read:

  7pm

  Turn up at Adam’s workplace’s pre-dinner drinks looking drop-dead gorgeous.

  7.01pm

  Bewitch every bloke in the bar.

  7.02pm

  Chat charmingly to one of Adam’s colleagues.

  7.45pm

  Attend the colleague’s send-off dinner at Opera Underground.

  10.30pm

  Invite Adam home.

  Matthew held out a hand to Bernadette and helped her from the couch. Her skin no longer looked orange in the changing light. It looked yellow: bright yellow, almost metallically gold, as did Harrow's.

  ‘Solarium,’ Matthew said in a rush of inspiration. ‘You went to the solarium.’ He wasn’t going to add that she looked as though she’d slapped on brass polish.

  ‘Very close,’ she said, smiling indulgently. ‘I had spray-tan. At a tanning salon. Solariums are just errrgh!!’

  ‘Errrgh?’

  ‘Old-school.’ She reached up and stroked the back of his head. The small show of affection made Matthew gulp. It wasn’t long now until he’d be leaving Bernadette, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d let her enjoy herself first, on the trip away with her cousin. Considering her non-stop dissatisfaction with their relationship, he doubted his divorce demand would turn out to be much of a surprise. Perhaps she’d think over their marriage while in Vanuatu and break up with him on her return. Easier for everyone, but hoping for it was a coward’s way out.

  Upsetting the stable lives of a woman and her two daughters was a gut-wrenching prospect. He would assure Bernadette that he was not, in any way, expecting them to leave in haste; would insist they take as long as they liked to secure a home they loved.

  He and Bernadette wandered back to Lucetta, Harrow trailing oafishly behind them. When Matthew introduced his gold-skinned gadabout, she narrowed her eyes and said to Lucetta in a less-than-friendly tone, ‘I’ve met you once before.’

  Lucetta’s response was surprisingly warm in comparison, with exclamations of: Not blonde anymore! And: Didn’t recognise you in this light. Redheads have more fun! My daughter’s a redhead.

  This prompted a half-minute chat. In the fir
st few seconds, Harrow grinned vacantly at the dance floor, and Matthew studied the ceiling. In the remaining seconds, fortunate for Matthew, Charlie arrived with a dozen or so others, booming, ‘Where’s the retirement boy?’

  ‘Retirement’ coupled with ‘boy’. A definite contradiction. Thinking of Lucetta as ‘Harrow’s girl’ was probably just as absurd, since it cancelled out all notions of spirited maturity and replaced them with impressions of a giddy nineteen-year-old on a nervous date with the First Year rugby captain.

  Charlie’s associate director shook Matthew’s hand.

  Harrow whispered something to Lucetta. Her eyes, darker now in the dimmed light, widened and darted to the side. She placed her empty glass on the nearest counter and seized up her handbag. ‘Dette,’ she said. ‘It was great to see you again. And Matthew, so lovely to meet you. There’s been a change of plan. We’re apparently not going to your dinner now. All the best for the future.’

  Bernadette raised her hand in a feeble wave.

  Matthew stepped forward. ‘Thanks, Lucetta. Great to have met you.’

  ‘And good luck, Matthew, with your new venture. I’m sure you’ll enjoy being an eagle again.’

  ‘Are you right to get going now, Rosie?’ Harrow said. He jerked a thumb at the exit beyond the dancefloor.

  Why Rosie? Nodding calmly, Lucetta waved goodbye again to Bernadette, then hastened after Harrow, weaving around lamp-stands and bar-stools with energetic finesse. Matthew became aware of Bernadette watching him.

  ‘The flamenco look went out two seasons ago,’ she said in a scathing drawl. ‘Maybe even three.’

  Lucetta’s skirt, which swept almost to her ankles, swung from side to side as she followed Harrow to the door. With its layers of black lace, it did have the look of the Spanish dancer about it. The dark-brown bodice fitted snugly over something with white diaphanous sleeves that puffed about her shoulders like clouds, and its front, Matthew recalled, was lace-up.

  Matthew glowered at the blond-headed bozo darting towards the door ahead of the girl he called ‘Rosie’. Probably had trouble remembering all his women’s names. Probably mixed them up occasionally. Harrow certainly hadn’t gone out of his way for Lucetta, to make sure she had a drink in her hand.

  She was too good for him. Matthew hoped she’d arrive at that conclusion in the not-so-distant future, preferably before the night was over.

  * * * *

  On Monday afternoon, when the mall expedition with Lena was no more than a few minutes away, Rosetta hurried into the hallway to collect her handbag and cashmere wrap from the coat-stand.

  Seeing again the roses on the foyer table caused a flutter of exasperation that unsettled her stomach. Deep dark red, the colour of desire, coiling into shadows of black, delivered by a Floral Fiesta courier a little over a week ago, courtesy of The Gorgeous GEG.

  ‘Seventeen again and all butterflies,’ she recalled herself saying to Eadie and Darren the Friday before. Adam had been due in another couple of hours. Rosetta was off to a retirement dinner for one of Adam’s colleagues.

  ‘Is it any wonder?’ That had been Eadie. ‘He’s utterly devastating! And I think he blended in really well at Royston’s lunch party.’

  Eadie and Darren had been there with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate her getting into the singing semis at Bondi Diggers. Former hairdresser Darren had brought his trimming scissors, and Eadie was only too pleased to practice her new TAFE gained make-up artistry skills with Rosetta’s face for a canvas.

  Together they’d conspired to give Rosetta the latest ‘sixties’ look. Darren had worked a darker colour through her hair, gave her fringe a blunter edge, and sprayed it with gloss until it shone like wet liquorice. He’d then wielded it into a teased-at-the-crown French roll that resembled a beehive, a la Diana Ross of her Supremes days, and Eadie had drawn thick lines of kohl across the base of Rosetta’s upper lashes that she extended into subtle tilts at the sides before lathering on several coats of mascara.

  ‘We’ve made you superbly sextees,’ New Zealand Eadie had said.

  Darren had looked at Eadie uncertainly, and said, ‘Did she say “sexy” or “sixties”? For the record, Rosetta, you look both of those things.’

  ‘Ah, thank you, Darren. Sweet of you to say that. I think she actually said “sixties” but with these dear little inarticulate Kiwis, you never can tell.’

  Eadie had shaken a fist at Rosetta and Darren, and, as though lining up a dartboard throw, threatened to assail them with a lip pencil. Rosetta had then pacified the mock-angry Maori with a slice of Easter cake, a cup of cocoa and the tarot reading Eadie had hinted at earlier.

  ...Today, while she listened out for Lena’s car, Rosetta unwound the wrap from her coat stand and settled it around her shoulders. Turning again to the roses in their vase, she ran a thumb over the petals of one, wondering vaguely whether the inventor of velvet was inspired by this sort of softness.

  To begin with, thinking of Adam had needed no prompting. The man who’d panthered his way across to the glass counter at Crystal Consciousness had surprised and delighted her by asking that question when he’d purchased a Conan Dalesford book: whether she was single. A week later he’d gone in at the end of the workday, fixed her with those piercing eyes, and declared in a presumptuously sexy growl that he’d like to have dinner with her once she’d shut shop.

  She’d told him with regret that she was busy. Friday Fortnight preparations awaited her at home. Adam had then suggested lunch on Saturday, but she’d had to decline that too because of the pot-luck luncheon at Royston’s. ‘But you’re welcome to join us,’ she’d said. ‘Royston won’t mind a bit, although I have to warn you we’re all vegetarians,’ and Adam had happily agreed; had promised to bring along one of his specialties. ‘I make a mean Florentine quiche,’ he’d said.

  They’d gone out to dinner the night after Royston’s lunch. Four days after, Adam phoned to invite her to an event two weeks away: the retirement send-off. ‘I can’t meet up any sooner, I’m afraid,’ he’d said. ‘I’m taken up for the next ten days. Business trip to Melbourne.’

  Saying goodbye and putting down the phone was akin to emptying a packet of Jersey caramels into the rubbish. Rosetta craved him. His kisses had driven her crazy.

  Everything from then on had been a reminder of Adam. A surfie on Izzie’s favourite soap looked like Adam from behind. In a Target catalogue there’d been a tanned, ever-so-slightly sneering blond man self-consciously attending to a barbecue, one arm draped around an equally self-conscious wife.

  ‘That bloke’s never cooked a grill in his life,’ Craig had commented when he saw the open catalogue on the coffee table. That was the day Craig had brought round his Spanish guitar to rehearse their Bondi Diggers act. Nailing melodic excellence had been put on hold while they settled down to an afternoon tea of Greek Easter cake with lime-rind frosting, a product of the morning’s bake-up.

  She’d snatched up the catalogue, folded it protectively and jabbed Craig in the ribs. ‘Leave him alone,’ she’d said. Laughter overtook them. When she’d laughed herself out, Rosetta said, ‘He reminds me of Adam. Not as rugged as Adam of course.’

  Craig snatched it back and peered at the picture once more. ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he’d said, nodding a slow nod. ‘But rugged isn’t exactly a word I’d use to describe that new bloke of yours.’

  ...Three toots blared. Shaken from the recollections, Rosetta flung on her handbag and hurried out to Lena’s little old Ford.

  * * * *

  ‘Such a pretty, pretty island,’ Dette said with a sigh. ‘I’m so glad you decided to come with me.’

  No answer.

  Dette turned to find him lost in sleep beside a coconut-palm shadow. His incredibly perfect body was taut with stillness, reminding her of a tastefully crafted boy-doll.

  ‘They’re action figures,’ Matthew, years ago, had corrected. ‘Boys don’t have dolls.’

  His green eyes were masked with the upward tilting sunnies
that she’d begged him to reconsider. Dette turned away from the sight of them and groaned. They made him look like a cross between Dame Edna Everage and Jaws, nothing like a conservative finance whiz. Ordinarily, he was a superb selector of clothing and accessories, a real winner in the fashion stakes, a man-about-town who was more than familiar with the term ‘dress to impress’.

  Matthew’s random actions had become unreadable. His detached politeness was driving her to distraction. Dette would never have believed when they’d first got married that she could feel so anxious. He’d always got stressed of course. That was a given for a busy man who hauled in a comfortable salary. Nowadays, though, a seeping feeling, which started as dread and ended as fury, would creep into her stomach each time he phoned from work about needing to stay back.

  And on the night of his send-off, just when Dette thought she’d won back his interest, with her face having been scrubbed to peaches-and-cream perfection at the day spa, and her body, now at its slenderest, glowing with a quasi suntan—and swathed dramatically in Giovanni’s off-the-shoulder creation, which sparkled with teensy-weensy asterisks—he’d eyed the nanny candidate with approval. Who would have thought that someone in a white peasant blouse and lace-up waist cincher could be taken so seriously!

  Interviewing candidates had been difficult and stressful, not to mention irritating, and had caused Dette to wonder whether a trip away would be worth all the trouble.

  The first had been a veritable Miss Priss whose hair looked as though a Victorian-era nun had styled it. Stern and surly. Demanding to know why Dette was vacationing solo without her daughters during the school holidays.

  Then there’d been the New Age hippie flake. Long reddish-tinged hair parted in the middle, loose clothing, Gypsy jewellery, flat sandals. Flat sandals! Dette did not want her daughters influenced by this sort of slovenliness.

  She’d rung the agency and asked for another candidate. The ex-nurse presented as pleasant enough, but by the time Dette offered her the position she’d got another offer. That was the trouble with good staff. You had to snap them up before anyone else did.