Carol was required to stand up from the table and do laps of the restaurant, while jogging her keening pouch up and down. Ruby didn’t know what to do; sitting across from her daughter’s empty seat and full plate, she felt completely ineffectual. Simon, unperturbed, was forking up his pasta. He suggested Ruby do the same. Ruby had lost her appetite. ‘Shall I take the baby?’ Simon told her not to bother, Carol wouldn’t hand her over—she’d miss the opportunity of playing the martyr.
When Carol passed their table and picked a carrot off her plate, Ruby begged to be allowed to nurse Izzy, at least until Carol had eaten.
‘You finish first,’ Carol said. ‘Then I’ll have mine.’
Ruby couldn’t bear it. ‘But yours is going cold.’
‘So is yours,’ Simon pointed out.
‘I’m not at all hungry,’ Ruby assured them. ‘Please, Carol, have a nice lunch with Simon, let me hold the baby for a bit—I’d love it.’
The prospect of sharing a meal with her boyfriend appeared just enough inducement. Carol unslung the grizzling infant and handed her awkwardly to her mother. Immediately Izzy became settled. Ruby felt a rush of fatuous pride, as though the baby had intuited something calming in her soul and been soothed by it.
‘There you go, Carol,’ Simon remarked. ‘It’s like I said—she feeds off your anxiety.’
Carol told him, rightfully so, to shut up. But she seemed so relieved to have peace and the use of both her hands that she didn’t take the affront any further. Ruby stood by the table, cooing and patting and gazing into Izzy’s limpid azure eyes (to avoid appraising the scaly eczema rouging her cheeks, and advising on the various remedies—thus raising her daughter’s ire).
Izzy waited five minutes for the grown-ups to become complacent and then opened her black hole and let forth a wail from the bowels of hell.
Carol was out of her seat like a shot. ‘Give her here.’ As though Ruby might have tweaked the baby’s ear on purpose.
Around the restaurant people were watching empathetically as their jaws ground up their costly meals. Having caught something of their table’s strain, they too had relaxed upon hearing the baby settle, and there sounded a communal ohhh to hear the baby start up again.
‘It’s all right, Carol,’ Ruby insisted, sidestepping her daughter’s grasping hands. ‘She’ll settle again.’
‘No, she won’t, Mum. That’s that. My lunch is ruined.’
‘Give me a chance.’
‘There’s no point. I know her. She’s had a nap—she won’t go back.’
Ruby swung the howling baby out of Carol’s reach. ‘Just let me try! Go back to your food.’
‘Give her to me, Mum!’ Carol rasied her voice to compete with her howling daughter. ‘She won’t calm down for anyone but me.’
‘I’m her grandmother.’
‘She doesn’t know that.’ Carol lunged for the baby and pulled her out of Ruby’s grasp. She jogged the wailing infant, peering at the other diners beneath hooded lids. ‘This is embarrassing.’
‘Please, Carol, let me do something.’
‘There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Let me help.’ A flash of inspiration. ‘I’ll take her for a walk in the pram. You and Simon can order dessert. It’s on me.’
‘You don’t have to pay.’
‘I’d like to.’ Seeing Carol waver, Ruby swiped the hot, weeping bundle out from her hands. ‘Where’s the pram? In the foyer? Never mind, I’ll find it.’ She was all feverish action, calling over her shoulder, ‘See you, Simon. Take your time. I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. Enjoy yourselves.’ She imagined the sigh of relief that accompanied their departure.
It was the most taxing twenty-five minutes of her life. Ruby walked the baby seven times around the block, her granddaughter screaming with every step. Ruby dismissed the startled glances and acknowledged the conciliatory grimaces, all the while wishing for nothing so much on earth than for the child to stop bawling. She knew it was trivial, such a universal bother, but in that moment she felt like the only woman to have ever tried calming a frantic baby. Now and then a particularly busybody bystander would offer unwanted advice: sounds hungry, she might need changing, could be gripe, just give her a cuddle. They all received a stretched smile and a stiff nod of agreement as Ruby pushed on.
She felt an utter failure to return to the restaurant with the baby still crying. Looking in through the window she saw Carol laughing. Despite knowing she was about to shatter her daughter’s brief respite, Ruby wanted nothing so much than to be free of the inconsolable infant.
Carol looked like a witness to a tragedy as she beheld her mother and daughter coming toward her—Ruby hadn’t even bothered to unharness Izzy from the pram. So pronounced were the etchings on Carol’s face she appeared to have aged sixteen years in the last six months. Ruby wondered if she might have imagined the previous glimpse of good humour.
‘I’m sorry. We’ve been around and around, but she just won’t stop.’
Simon said, ‘Maybe she’s wet.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ Carol said. ‘It’s not like she’s in terry towelling.’ She dragged herself up from her chair and wearily lifted her daughter from the pram. Izzy was simply sobbing now, having lost much of her verve and vigour on the horrific circuit. After a minute she passed out on her mother’s shoulder. Carol stood by the table, rhythmically tapping the fleecy pink back. ‘You may as well sit down, Mum. I can’t go anywhere.’
‘What about your pudding? You haven’t finished—’
‘Fuck pudding! Christ, Mum, are you blind? Dessert is the least of my concerns.’
Carol and Simon returned to Sydney the next morning, leaving directly from the hotel. Carol called Ruby to cancel their prospective visit to her unit. She wanted to get home as soon as possible, get back to her routine. ‘I can’t face another day like yesterday.’
Disappointed, Ruby wondered how much of the previous day’s ordeal Carol thought was attributable to Izzy, and how much to her.
Rather than stop for supplies and disrupt the momentum of their day, Ruby and her passengers opted to be the sole patrons of a suburban Chinese restaurant, sandwiched between a laundromat and a hairdresser. While they waited for their dinner, trying not to allow the drab mustard-colour décor to dampen their spirits, Ruby and Angela attempted to educate Izzy on the sophisticated art of chopstick manipulation.
Angela interrupted Ruby’s demonstration. ‘She’d do better following my example. I’ve had so much more practice—given that I’ve actually been to Asia.’
‘You’ve been to China?’ Izzy chirruped.
‘Well, no. I’ve been to South-East Asia: Bali, Thailand …’
‘I thought Bali was in Australia.’
‘It may as well be,’ Ruby said.
Izzy ended up disregarding them both. She conceived her own chopstick method, which involved skewering pieces of lemon chicken onto her stick and eating them like a toffee apple. The fried rice proved more difficult.
Angela watched her struggle for a minute before huffing, ‘Third world food needn’t be eaten in third world portions,’ and deftly substituted the chopstick in Izzy’s fingers for a spoon.
‘Third world,’ scoffed Ruby. ‘China’s practically floating our economy.’
‘When exactly did you become an expert on foreign affairs?’
Ruby smiled judiciously, showing the woodwind curve of her cheekbones.
Izzy picked a pea from her rice and added it to the mounting pile on her plate’s rim. ‘Where else have you been?’
‘Well, now,’ Angela began, admiring her fingernails as she smoothed the edge of the embossed tablecloth. ‘Where to begin? Before meeting my husband—’
‘You were married?’
‘For thirty years.’
Izzy’s eyes widened and her mouth ceased chewing.
Angela frowned. ‘What’s so shocking about the idea of me being married?’
Izzy bunched her features into t
he centre of her face as she struggled to find the words. ‘You look too fancy to have a husband. You’re all sparkly. Married women are fat and have moles with hairs growing out of them.’
Angela looked bewildered. Ruby suggested perhaps Izzy meant married women take less care of themselves? Izzy nodded emphatically.
‘I’m delighted you consider me fresh enough to still be on the market. It’ll really knock your socks off to know how ancient I am. I went to France and Great Britain before even meeting my husband. As a fat old married couple, we travelled almost the entire globe.’
The revelation was news to Ruby. Izzy wanted to know if Angela had ever been to America?
‘Naturally,’ Angela said serenely. ‘I’ve been to lots of places in the US.’
‘What about Africa?’
Angela hadn’t been to Africa. Nor had she been to India, as Izzy hoped, nor Egypt, Antarctica, Timbuktu, North Korea, Iraq (the latter two demonstrating what Izzy picked up from the nightly news), nor Disneyland, which Angela took some retaliatory pleasure in pointing out wasn’t a country but merely a theme park.
Ruby stepped in to suggest, ‘Perhaps you haven’t travelled the entire globe after all?’
‘No,’ Izzy agreed, ‘she hasn’t even been to Disneyland.’
Angela took out her lipstick case and began sweeping coral pink across the surface of her lips. ‘Why don’t you ask Ruby where she’s been?’
Izzy swivelled her slender neck, looking up at Ruby eagerly. ‘Where?’
Ruby removed a grain of rice from her granddaughter’s chin. ‘Nowhere, dear. I’ve never even left the country. Adelaide is the furthest I’ve been from Victoria.’
The hostess, dressed in an embroidered cheongsam with anklet socks and Birkenstocks, arrived bearing three fortune cookies on a saucer. ‘Anything else I can get for you?’ she asked, stroking Izzy’s hair distractedly.
At a headshake from Angela, Ruby assured her they were all done.
The woman glanced down at the child beneath her hand and smiled warmly. ‘Aren’t you a pretty thing? I’ve a son about your age. He’s in grade two, yeah?’
Izzy stared uncomfortably at her dinner plate.
‘A son!’ Angela exclaimed. ‘You can’t be more than twelve yourself.’
The hostess gave a thin smile. ‘I’ll bring the bill, yeah?’ She sashayed away, her sandals brushing the nylon carpet. Ruby guessed she’d be shooting sparks of static electricity with everything she touched.
Izzy had never seen a fortune cookie before. At first she was disappointed with the meagre, dusty-tasting biscuit. She watched Angela read from the little slip of paper inside. ‘“You will have good days and bad.” What a let down. Here was me thinking life would be nothing but a bed of roses from here on in.’
Ruby read hers: ‘“When you come to the fork in the road, take the path least expected.” I think they might be mixing metaphors there. What about you, Izzy? What does your future hold?’
Izzy unfurled the tiny banner to reveal a jumble of nasty words. She recognised a couple, but not enough to put a sentence together. She clenched her jaw and tried sounding them out in her head. A wash of red crept up her neck, knowing her companions were waiting for her to speak. ‘Yours were so much shorter than mine,’ she whined. She began testing out the sounds. ‘W-wh-wh-when in t-t-tr-tr-tr—’
Ruby leant in. ‘Mmm, you know, when you do something wrong, what do you get in?’
Izzy looked up at her pathetically. ‘Trouble?’ she offered.
Ruby dipped her chin to infer she was correct. ‘Go on.’
‘W-when in trouble do-don-don—’ She held the paper out to Ruby. ‘You read it for me.’
Ruby thought Izzy should try to read it by herself. ‘There’s a very useful message waiting at the end. Just take your time and try to get there.’
Angela rubbed her hands together. ‘I can’t wait to hear the punchline.’
Izzy sighed. She put her elbows on the table and buried her cheeks in her palms. The note sat on the cloth in front of her. ‘Do-don-don—’
‘Don’t?’ Angela submitted, already losing patience.
‘Don’t be a-a-af-af-ra-ra …’
Ruby knit her brows, silently mouthing the syllables along with her. ‘How do you feel when you see a ghost?’
‘Scared?’
‘How else might you feel?’
Izzy gave the question some thought before murmuring dubiously, ‘Afraid?’
‘You got it,’ said Ruby.
In the background, the hostess began stacking chairs onto tables.
‘Go back and start at the beginning,’ Ruby instructed. Angela forced a smile of encouragement. Izzy struggled to remember the words she’d already read. A vacuum roared to life, giving them all a start. Izzy looked like she wanted to cry.
Angela leant over and swiftly read off the note. ‘“When in trouble, don’t be afraid to ask for help.” Isn’t that apt? Now, let’s get a wriggle on and see if there’s any place nearby that will sell us an ice cream.’
That night, after Izzy had been consigned to Ruby’s bed and coaxed into falling asleep, the women performed their evening rituals in silence, bathed in the Baroque glow from the bedside lamp like a pair of cloistered nuns. They slithered beneath the covers of Angela’s duvet and huddled to confer. The room’s chemistry felt uncannily altered by the presence of the sleeping child.
Ruby reached to switch off the light. ‘You know, the last person I shared a bed with was my mother.’ She neglected to describe the skeletal, nightgowned old woman who Alzheimer’s had rendered a stranger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bernard examined the unfamiliar living room seeking items upon which he might offer polite admiration. The largest things to catch his eye were four posters of Holden Commodores mounted in plastic frames. Each glossy print depicted a different model, the spotlit car emerging from a darkened background. Bernard racked his brain searching for something complimentary to say. ‘You like Holdens?’ He heard a laugh like a hiccup come from the kitchen.
Terri arrived holding two bottles of beer. ‘My son does.’ She stood back to appraise the vehicles. ‘He hung them himself, punishment for so many years of extracurricular hip hop.’
Bernard accepted his beer. ‘A son and a daughter?’
‘And a granddaughter.’
‘Instant family.’
Terri looked bewildered, humorously so. ‘Instant for who? You planning on proposing?’
‘Depends how good the cooking is.’
‘I’m an excellent cook.’
Bernard rushed to ward off the looming uncomfortable silence. ‘I had a call this afternoon, Jessica Madden from the paper. She was ranting about some comment I made concerning the Prime Minister. She wanted to know if I thought it was funny to incite people to violence.’
‘Gosh, what did you say?’
‘Nothing. I’ve been completely nonpartisan since the nineties—I’m a political eunuch.’
‘I meant to Jessica.’
‘I didn’t answer. But while I was listening to her leave her message, I thought I heard an echo. I followed the sound and discovered her through the front window. She was out on the lawn, abusing me down her mobile.’
‘Young people are so strange. She didn’t even bother knocking?’
‘No. But, granted, I wouldn’t have answered.’
During dinner, Terri asked the requisite getting-to-know-you questions that Bernard had decades ago dispensed with. ‘So,’ she began, ‘I know you came here from Melbourne, I googled you.’
‘Did you? What else did you discover?’
‘That you’re a reckless driver with a drinking problem.’
‘Serves me right for asking.’
‘You were once considered something of an eligible bachelor.’
‘There’s a lot hinging on the word “once” …’
‘Ha.’ Terri had a refreshingly straightforward laugh. ‘But I don’t know the details. What really b
rought you here? Was it just the job or do you have parents in town?’
‘My parents have both passed.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s no fault of yours. What about you?’
‘My mother’s still going. We lost my father last year.’
‘Mine passed, yours got lost—just once I’d like to have someone respond by saying “they dropped off the face of the earth”. Does it make you feel culpable—the fact that a parent has died? Whenever someone asks, I always feel responsible. As though I was negligent in some way.’ Bernard laid his knife and fork companionably together upon his empty plate.
Terri turned side-on to consider his sentiment, conferring that distinct dorsal fin profile. ‘I don’t feel that at all. I just feel terrible for the person asking. I don’t want them to think they’ve put their foot in it—to imagine they’ve opened a raw wound … How was the casserole? Marriage worthy?’
‘Definitely. I would wed that casserole in a heartbeat.’
‘Ha,’ Terri barked again, knocking her knife to the floor. As she bent to retrieve it, Bernard noticed the muscle definition in her upper arm. Her solid form seemed suddenly very interesting. He was able to view slightly more of it later in the evening over a game of cards. The lady of the house sat with her feet outstretched on the facing chair. Terri had been the one to suggest a round of Texas Hold’em and Bernard noticed she stored the playing cards conveniently close, amid the clutter swiped to one end of the kitchen table. She obviously played regularly and was out to hustle him.
‘There’s no such thing as a free dinner,’ he said.
Terri confessed that she and her children had taken up poker when all efforts at civil conversation ended in bloodshed.
‘You got any kids?’ she asked. When he told her no, she asked, ‘How come?’
‘Mia and I were fairly long in the tooth when we hooked up. Back when IVF wasn’t considered foreplay.’
The Grand Tour Page 19