“Precisely. I sing, to annoy Him.”
Claire’s barracking for the dipso dodo. Logic’s not his strongest point but he’s the best ally she’ll find down here. “Stand up to the old b…” is Claire’s silent message to Hal.
“Cynthia’s piety used to cost us a fortune in petrol,” Hal says.
I’ll bet, Claire thinks. All that driving across blasted heaths at midnight with one’s coven searching for the eye of toad and the requisite essence of newt’s bum would impoverish anyone.
Claire knows it’s childish to let mild dislike of Mama triumph, but she’s indulging herself.
“Be boring if we were all Pressies,” says Hal, rising gingerly from his armchair and shuffling to the sideboard for another splash of Scotch to decorate his tie.
He has a tremor. Claire worries along with him to the sideboard and all the way back to his chair until he settles into it; she’s concerned for this dear old man’s dignity, although it’s too late for his tartan tie and the Viyella shirt with the elbow-patched cardigan.
Safe again, he takes up the pipe he’s been filling and refilling while they chatted. It’s still unlit. Perhaps the ritual tamping and filling is pleasure enough.
“Well,” says Clive. “What next?”
“Alex is coming with Susan.”
“Suz!” Claire feels put out. She’ll be outshone by her petite and elegant former friend.
“Been seeing her for a month, the old dog!” says Hal.
Seeing her! Suz is a size 4. He’ll have seen her all right, thinks Claire. And felt and smelt.
The idea of her friend’s happiness leaves her feeling depleted. It’s proof she’s a bad person.
At least Suz will quash all conversations hinging on animal husbandry, she thinks. She won’t care whose bull is in, on, over, or covering some bloated cow that’s been put up to it, under it.
“Susan is a Forsyth from Berwick abhorrently. Old family,” says Cyn, pleased.
Claire feels incandescent with rage. No. She doesn’t – it’s a cliché, and Claire has sworn to eschew all clichés on pain of death. But, if forced to listen to any more drivel, she’ll shrivel.
“Death’s as old as it gets in my family before it starts to stink,” she says, shocking everyone including herself.
Silence lands like a silken parachute over them.
Emboldened by her success in shocking them, she continues. “Mum and Dad had a pa and ma who had one of each ad infinitum; they’ve traced their line back to whatever swamp they crawled out of!” Shit, she thinks, why mention the swamp just when I was going so well?
Cynthia gives Claire the silent treatment though tendon activity in the region of her neck reveals some amusement at Claire’s swampy provenance. Eventually, there’s a loud guffaw from Hal. “Well said, Claire. Too much loose unscientific talk goes through to the keeper around here. None of us arrived without a progenitor or two. Cynthia’s saviour excepted.”
Claire intercepts a placatory glance Clive makes towards Cyn. It says, yes, Claire is rough around the edges but give her a chance, Ma. Together we’ll smoothe her out.
“So, what set everything going?” Cynthia asks.
“It’s all about space/time continua,” says Hal vaguely. All nod sagely.
“No one ever explained this to me adequately, or am I stupid?” Ma’s face is empurpled now.
For once Claire feels sorry for Cynthia. “I know what you mean,” she says. Naturally, Cyn assumes she’s agreeing with the proposition she’s stupid! And for Claire to deny she meant what Cyn thinks she meant would be to admit she’d have been justified in doing so or why be thinking along such subversive lines in the first place? Claire feels a headache coming on.
Hal, oblivious of any silent communication says, “Good on Alex. A bit of fluff! Just as we were wondering…”
“No, Hal, we don’t wonder about things like that…”
“Like what?” asks Clive mock-innocently.
“You know, dear. And don’t call visiting girls ‘fluff’, Hal,” she says.
“Alex won’t be down for an hour or so. What shall we do this afternoon?” asks Clive.
“Claire might enjoy a run along the coast,” says Hal. “Not that you’d be doing the running, my dear, the car would,” he smiles at Claire, goofily. “We’ll show you the beauty spots. Have scones and clotted cream at the Dunes Tea-House.” Hal seems nicer by the minute.
“Okay,” says Clive, “Get your coat, Mama. A bit of what you like won’t hurt. Do the books later,” Clive pleads. Clearly, he loves his mother despite their public wrangling.
“Too busy.”
“Ma, I brought Claire here so you could get to know her.”
“‘Start’, you said. Well, I’ve started. Overall, she’s rather …nice.” Cynthia sounds unhappy at this verdict. “She’s natural…” Her words are drowned out by hailstones pinging off the roof.
Chapter 24
Alex Arrives
They’re about to play Monopoly. It’s fitting as the Sins monopolise a swath of land in the Western District. There’s a battering at the front door.
It’s Alex and Suz, arrived before Claire can make amends for her snippy start with Cyn.
Maybe the new arrivals will help disperse the static in the air.
Clive introduces Suz. Alex stands proprietorial and proud. Suz charms everyone by doing nothing in particular well. Soon they’re all smiling and laughing. Claire has tried analysing Suz’s social charisma; it’s not effortful. It consists of no showy gestures nor flamboyant catch phrases. There’s nothing to emulate. Suz becomes the still quiet centre of any room; she’s like an insect emitting calming frequencies to neutralise all in its vicinity, Claire thinks, making a rough stab at an analogy.
****
“Be yourself,” Clive had said as they’d approached The Lodge.
“I don’t have a fully settled me to be,” Claire had replied.
“Well, just act like you do with me,” he’d said.
“Should I cuddle them?”
“No! Be natural, you dill.”
Claire held her head in her hands. “It’s easy to say, ‘be natural’.”
“What’s the big deal?” Clive had taken his hand off the steering wheel and rubbed her back.
“What if they don’t like me?”
*“They* don’t even like each other much.”
Claire turned to stare at Clive, the scrunch lines above her forehead are deep. “Really?”
“Really,” said Clive.
“But families are meant…”
Clive raised his eyebrows. “Families aren’t all boringly bourgeois like yours.”
"Mine aren’t even bourgeois. Just peasant hippies. Declassee!"
They drove in silence for a bit. “I won’t…change,” said Claire. There’s a ‘challenge me if you dare’ tone to her words. Her ears seemed to have undergone a pressure change; she’d felt her voice echoing in her head.
“If you won’t change there is a real you,” said Clive. “Just be it.”
“Yes,” said Claire, remembering a high school text. “‘It’s better to be authentic than liked’.”
“‘It is better to be feared than loved’,” Clive had quoted back at her.
Gosh! Claire had thought, Is this a sign of erudition in my man! “But Machiavelli was telling princes how to cling to power; he wasn’t telling Cinderella how to wow her in-laws,” she’d said.
“I’ll wipe off your smuts before we arrive, Cinders.”
“Thanks, Clive. You’re quite kind.”
“Quite?”
“Alex is the k…”
“Bloody Alex,” Clive had removed his arm from her back and accelerated around a bend.
****
Thanks to Suz, the mood in the room warms up. It’s all about the Importance of Being the Real Suz, Claire guesses. Bertie is gonged in from his outdoor work to make a cup of tea.
“Bonnie the maid is away. No one else is qualified to boil w
ater,” Clive whispers in Claire’s ear.
“Guess what, Mater, Clive says. Suz is Claire’s best friend. How great is that?”
Mama’s eyebrows, arching, indicate that she could list several things, but she holds her tongue.
“It’s no coincidence, I suppose,” she says purse-lipped.
“No,” Claire says. “Alex met Suz when we were out together in the ute.”
“You and Alex used to go out together, did you?” Cynthia asks, screwing her eyes up and squinting at Claire.
“Not out in the dating sense. We were out driving; though if you include my chest, we went out twice that day.” Oops! Claire could slap herself.
“You’ve a bad chest?”
“No, I didn’t have one…” Oops, wrong way, go back, Claire thinks. Seeing pitfalls looming, she looks to Clive for help. But he won’t meet her gaze. With a front row seat at Claire’s abyss, he’s relishing the mirth this misunderstanding will generate.
“No,” says Alex, hopping in to help. “It’s not that Claire’s chest was bad aesthetically. Not that I was looking at her chest. I’m no judge of female attributes. But it wasn’t big enough.”
“Why are we discussing the dimensions of Clive’s fiancée’s bosom?”
“Mama. Claire’s chest is perfect – not her bosom. But at least she has one now…”
“Has she had enhancement surgery?” asks Mama.
"No, Claire’s bosom was always fine…I mean I guess it was…I didn’t always know her.
“And even if I had I wouldn’t have…judged. She needed a chest for items women…need…”
The too cool Alex is in meltdown but he’s hanging on, his gaze fixed on a distant point, as if he were committed to following a rainbow to its end, however rough the intervening terrain.
“I needed a chest of drawers, for undies,” Claire says. “There was no room for me in Clive’s chest – he wears boxers. They require more space than jocks.” Claire moves her hands in and out to denote the size differential between boxers and jocks; it looks like she’s playing accordion at an ethnic festival.
“Why doesn’t everyone wear jocks?”
“Jockettes have deleterious effects on male fertility,” says Clive.
“Clive! If you must have a fiancée, do organise space for her. So, when did you meet Suz?” Cynthia asks Alex.
“The day I drove Claire to Suz’s place to get her things.”
“Why take Claire if you were getting Suz’s things?”
“I was getting Claire’s things.”
“What was Suzy doing with Claire’s things?”
“They’d been sharing a flat.” Alex’s voice emerges as if through a knife sharpener.
“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” says Cynthia.
Alex opens his arms as if crucifixion was imminent and desirable, then he lets them fall.
“So, that’s how you met Suz? Nothing to do with chests?”
“Nothing, Ma. I took Claire to Prahran because Clive was on call.”
“Hope you’re not sneaking off with Claire when Clive’s out?”
“No, Cynthia,” Claire says. “Alex and I weren’t sneaking around. We went out that day quite publicly because…” Claire gives a freakish cackle. But doubled over, it looks like she’s crying.
Alex shakes his head. “Clive couldn’t move her…”
“Emotionally?” Cynthia asks. “Well, now, she’s deeply moved. Buck up, dear,” she says.
“Claire needed me to get her things from Suz’s place, of course,” Alex protests.
“There’s no ‘of course’ in any of this,” says Cynthia, quirking up the corner of her mouth.
“You see,” says Alex, now in public-speaking mode. “Imagine it’s the morning after Claire and Clive’s great love has been declared. He cave man. He wants her now. But Clive is working, besides he’d never use his Porsche as a removal van. Anyhow, that day Claire needed my help to walk since she was wearing thongs and socks…”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s winter if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Wearing thongs in winter!”
“Had to. She couldn’t get her boots on over Clive’s jeans.”
“Why wear Clive’s jeans in the first place?”
“She’d been wearing a skimpy frock the previous night with wild animal skins on it.”
Thanks, Alex, for that unnecessary detail! Claire thinks.
“Was it a dress-up party?”
“No! All I’m saying is she’d have died of cold without jeans. I went along to hold her arm, keep her upright…”
“Was the gel inebriated, then?”
“No! But she might have fallen out of my thongs on that windy track because I’ve got big feet,” Alex says, his voice becoming more emphatic with each word. At last he leans back in his beanbag looking like a marathoner who’s finished badly.
“I know, dear.”
“If I hadn’t driven Claire, I wouldn’t have met Suz,” he says tiredly.
Suz beams hugely.
Mama struggles out of her chair, goes up to Suz. Takes both hands in hers. Smiles winningly. “Alex seems happy,” Cynthia says, “despite all this nonsense about chests.”
“Hear, hear,” says Hal, red-faced and wiping his eyes.
Chapter 25
Snakes and Ladders
The Monopoly board can’t be found. Hal suggests they play Twister, despite his hip. Is he a randy old goat, notwithstanding his gentlemanly demeanour? Claire wonders. He seems keen to compete with his sons in some oedipal by-play. An image of all six writhing like pythons flashes into Claire’s mind. It’s not pretty.
Clive will play. Does he have a thing for Suz? Claire wonders. Once this thought enters her brain, she cannot let it go, although there’s no evidence for it to fatten upon. Is she marrying an untrustworthy man? A viper of jealousy bores into her gut.
“I’m with Cynthia,” she says, “Twister’s for kids.” Her words earn Claire a nod of approval from Cyn, who announces she has an errand to run. In no time she’s heard speaking with animation on the telephone.
“Be a sport, Claire,” says Clive. “It’s the only ‘fun’ we’re having this weekend.” He’s referring to Mama’s bedroom arrangements – they’re in Cyn’s ‘isolation wards’. Anyone ascending the creaky stairs from the gallery level in the dark would crack a borer infested stair tread and fall to the bottom of the social ladder.
Alex and Suzy, in keeping with their Most-Highly-Approved-Couple status, have been allocated a king-sized bed in old stables recently converted to self-catering flats; flats that are Charming and Exclusive, so the sign at the gate says. So far passing trade hasn’t braked even momentarily. Cynthia seems pleased that all nouveaux automatically know they’d be outclassed.
Eventually, it’s the ice-cold flagstones that swing the deal for Snakes and Ladders. A grin bisects Cynthia’s face. “I love this game. Primeval,” she says, licking her lips. “An all-out contest between good and evil.”
“It’s an Indian game originally,” Hal informs Claire. “‘Good’ deeds are rewarded, the ‘evil’ punished. Be good in this life, get an easier ride next time around if you care to believe so.”
“What qualities are considered ‘evil’?” Claire asks.
“Anger, lust, drunkenness, debt, pride, greed, killing and lying are vices,” says Hal, ticking them off on his fingers.
“No hope for me. I’ve practised them all,” says Clive.
“Not killing?” Claire’s aghast.
“Only by accident, in theatre,” Clive says, shrugging. “Someone must die for progress.”
He’s just teasing, Claire decides. “And the virtues?”
“The three As. Asceticism. Asceticism. Asceticism.”
“No Presbyterian forgiveness?” she ventures.
“Never was. Pressies are assigned pass/ fail marks at birth,” Hal shrugs disconsolately. “The Elect of God,” he says his mouth turning down at the corners. “No points for behavin
g well, so they don’t; nor should we the non-elect – wouldn’t help us anyway. Be as good or as wicked as you wish,” he says. “Won’t make a scrap of difference.” Hal gives them all a sardonic stare.
“A gross generalisation!” says Cynthia, coming in on the end of this. She has an uncanny ability to come up with the right cliché.
“So, there’s no incentive to do good?” Claire asks.
“No,” says Cyn. “Good people feel virtuous. But it doesn’t get them through the Pearly Gates.”
She grins triumphantly.
“Let’s get this kiddies’ game show on the road,” says Hal.
“If it’s all about chance,” says Cyn, “why do I win oftener than not?”
Hal acknowledges this truth regretfully. “Cynthia possesses all virtues going by the wins book we keep.”
“What’s a wins book?” Claire asks.
“Don’t ask, Claire,” says Clive, rolling his eyes. “You’ll only encourage them.” He finds a12x12 board in the armoire, sets it on a spindly games-table whose top hinges out. They gather around. Clive and Claire sit on an old couch, Hal and Cynthia take wicker armchairs, Alex and Suz share the beanbag.
Claire notices, while trying not to, the easy way Alex and Suzy settle on the bag. She rests an elbow on his knee – they seem too comfortable for a new couple.
Claire’s token falls on more long ladders than short snakes. Clive’s don’t. He’s a bad sport, getting red in the face and banging the cup on the table.
“That’s an empire flip top table you’re laying into,” says Cynthia. “Goes back to Napoleon.”
“Bloody despot’s wonky table’s skewing my throws,” Clive grumbles.
Alex snorts. “That table is worth five Porsche repayments,” he says.
Clive sits up and regards the table with respect. “Monthly repayments?” he asks. He gives the dice a wild shake but throws a ‘one’. “Bloody Napoleon!”
Claire observes Cynthia closely. Whenever her token lands on a snake, she slides it across the line. When caught cheating, it’s due to the warped board that’s been made in Upper Chad. She seizes the cup in both hands and shakes it, a look of ferocity on her moon face.
Claire plays to lose, nervous of the actual cost of snatching a win from such poor losers as this lot. Ultimately, it seems Hal’s dead ancestors are barracking for him. A shaft of eerie afternoon light floods the conservatory as clouds part to admit the sun’s last rays; they proclaim Hal’s triumph; it’s written into the ‘wins book’ in Hal’s scratchy hand.
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