"‘If families are meant to stick together, you can’t say yours aren’t sticking!’ Len leant across and cut a slice of mouldy cheese, to tamp down the vein of mirth fighting its way up from his belly.
"‘If Claire’s developed a grand passion for Alex…grand often turns squalid. Best marry at leisure than repent in haste,’ said Cyn.
"‘A malapropism, dear,’ said Hal.
"‘The sooner Claire marries Clive, and produces our heir, the better.’
"‘Why the rush?’ asked Len
"‘We don’t pay you to be obtuse, Len.’
"‘But you don’t pay – except in rabbit stew. Not that it wasn’t delicious…’ Len said, hand raised.
“‘Well, excuse me. Your bill will be my priority,’ said Cynthia.”
Chapter 60
Café 1
On the following Friday, Cyn phones Gwen. She’s wondering how best to manage the family discussions that are looming like thunderstorms on the horizon.
Clive’s arrival at The Lodge is imminent, as is Thelma’s. Clive has yet to be told of Claire’s ‘condition’, while Thelma knows only selected parts of the story.
“Unchoreographed meetings would be unproductive,” Cyn tells Gwenda. “Truth needs managing.”
“Yes, truth should emerge sounding as if it’s truly welcome news and not the unvarnished truth,” Gwen says. Cynthia wonders, Is Gwen’s tone snide? Is she less deferential than before?
“Anyway,” she says, “I’ll carve the truth into bite-sized portions and keep family members apart until they know precisely what they’re to make of it all. A family gathering now would be a public flaying. The family couldn’t withstand so much anguish. I’ll recruit Thelma to my side. A Catholic mother of six – who better?”
“None better.”
“She’ll be thrifty and capable, but susceptible to persuasion. For the price of a cappuccino, Thelma will fall in with my plans.”
“What about Hal?” asks Gwen.
“Hal must convince Alex to keep his head down in case his brother kills him in a scene fit for Shakespeare! Bonnie will talk to Claire. Their rapport is evident thanks to social class I daresay. Gosh! Claire’s having our heir, Gwen!”
“It’s almost 12.00 pm! Good-luck!” carols Gwen.
Cynthia arrives at Warrnambool station. She scurries through the crush of bodies on the platform just as a redhead in a cherry red duffel coat alights. That’s her, Cynthia thinks. Fancy wearing a teenagers’ camping coat, and a home-dyed do!
She wears high heels. So she’s no simple countrywoman. Cyn feels unnerved. She’d pictured her in Hush Puppies? Tout le monde knows they’re for traveling. Nothing in Thelma’s attire says, fashion plate. Cyn allows herself a covert smile. She has Thel’s measure. Locals alighting from the train advertise their status – ‘conservative farmer’s wife’ – via gabardine trench coats from Fletcher Jones.
Thelma’s dowdiness heartens Cynthia. But if she lacks fashion sense, she mayn’t notice Cyn’s ‘monied’ look. Can she discriminate between wool and cashmere?
Thelma’s home-dyed hair shows she cheats on mileage albeit ineffectually. Holding herself tall and proud she’s not unprepossessing. Cyn squares her shoulders, prepares for battle.
Challenges buck her up. She removes her Hermes scarf tied peasant-style for anonymity. She hurries towards Thelma, her right arm wavering like a divining rod – a cunning trope. Denoting warmth without intimacy, it precludes the pressing of the flesh.
“Welcome, Wilma.”
“No that’s ‘The Flintstones’. I’m Thel. You’re Cyn, I presume.”
If there’s a way of pronouncing Cyn as Sin, she’s done it.
Thelma thrusts her right hand within shaking range of Cyn, who draws hers back, and slips it into the pocket of her cashmere coat and lets her eyes glaze. Thelma’s smile freezes in place.
Offended? Too bad. Best leave scope for warming up later, Cyn decides. Heartiness is hard to retract. “I’ll call you Thelma,” Cyn says. “Christian names deserve their full due. I was fortunate with Cynthia, although I abhor Cyn.”
“Me too,” Thelma says. Now that makes Cyn’s head snap back. She studies Thelma’s face for signs of irony. Cyn hopes she won’t prove one of those quick-witted sharp-tongued women that that background occasionally throws up. Golly! Thelma has her rattled already, and yet they’ve hardly exchanged a dozen words. “You’re Catholic,” Cynthia says, “and that’s fine with me.”
“Is it?” Thelma replies, listlessly.
That went well, thinks Cyn. “Later on,” she says, “we’ll broach the issue of mixed marriages but not yet.” Cyn shepherds Thelma down the railway ramp her arm as close as possible to Thel’s elbow crook without actually touching it.
“I’m worried at Claire’s refusal to name the father!”
“Of course I’d planned to approach the topic obliquely,” Cyn says. “We’ll need a coffee for that.”
“Yes,” says Thelma. “But first, I must see Claire.”
“She’s at a specialist’s appointment so we can get acquainted.”
“Claire promised to be here!" says Thelma becoming het-up.”I won’t enjoy a cuppa until I see her. How’s she coping?"
“The situation’s hardly ideal but young and in love…”
“Imagining oneself in love at 19 is bad enough but with whom is she in love?”
“Don’t worry, dear, do relax on that score. The paternity issue has been settled satisfactorily. We drink cappuccinos, not cuppas these days.”
“We have short blacks if we’re feeling daring,” says Thelma, meting out parry for thrust.
“I’ve never had a short black.”
The ghost of a smile plays on Thelma’s face. “Wangaratta has a cosmopolitan population these days. Perhaps here?” Thelma indicates a smart Victorian façade.
“No, dear.” Cyn steers Thel towards a hippie café where she won’t be recognised by Ganesh or any Indian god festooned on its muraled walls. “Such colours perk me up,” Cyn says.
Thelma puts her hand to her brow and peers in through the window. “Oh, gosh,” she says, drawing back as if stung. “Hectic!”
“Yes. Acid yellow’s stimulating!” Cynthia agrees.
“To our bile ducts,” says Thelma, quietly.
Cynthia yanks the door open, pretending she hasn’t heard her. She holds it wide for Thel, who waits, unsure of etiquette. Sensing her hesitation, Cyn barges in first.
Satisfied that proper protocols have been established, Cynthia smiles tentatively. Eschew enthusiasm. That’s the problem with GwenLen, they assume themselves to be on a level pegging because they’ve got on by working hard. They don’t get it. Class isn’t about economic achievements or usefulness, it’s about accidents of birth. But Hal needed someone to shoot his blessed clay pigeons with. Professional men come in handy but their wives believe their superior buying power elevates them stratospherically. Still, Gwenda’s a dear.
Thelma is from a ‘mixed’ farm in Wangaratta. Mixed! The term brings on an involuntary shudder in Cyn. That farming should be a bit of this, and a bit of that! Amateurs degrade life on the land; they’re like kids in a lolly shop buying one of everything, she thinks. She’s wrenched from her reverie by Thelma tapping her on the shoulder and mouthing at her like a fish underwater.
“I said, will this table do, Cynthia?”
“Yes, it’s perfect, Thelma.” Cyn puts her handbag down and takes a view of the doorway. “You can order at the counter, dear.”
Thelma hesitates. She shoots Cyn a shrewd look then draws her mouth into the rictus of a smile. “You want me to order for you?”
“Since you’re up and I’m down. I’ll have a pot of Earl Grey. And a chooks pastry please.”
Thelma’s look says, ‘so it’s the guest who’s doing the buying then!’ She smiles wryly. “Choux, I think you mean.”
“Chew? I suppose so.” Cyn runs her tongue around the teeth she can’t afford to have seen to if provisional tax
is to be found and last year’s fine.
“No, I said, ‘choux’,” Thelma persists.
“Oh, ‘shoe’! Of course,” Cyn says. Smart of her to guess these Danish pastries resemble shoe leather.
Thelma approaches the counter with its glass display cases and its mounds of pastries, looking like they’d made the trip from Denmark by outrigger canoe, so mucky is their glazing, so gluey and marooned their glacé peaches! Their mille feuilles are clumped in sodden blocks, as ruined as are her hopes of seeing dear Claire married into a welcoming family and not this snobbish lot.
The acid yellow walls press on her brain. She’s heard that colours have a ‘frequency’, that each colour affects us differently. Shouldn’t yellow create a sense of warmth, of joy, and not hysteria?
She sighs. Is Cynthia capable of subverting everything that’s fine and good? You’d think she chose this café on purpose, decreed that it be painted acid yellow, on hearing of Thel’s imminent arrival.
God help me, Thel berates herself. I’m going barmy! Not even Cynthia!!! She pays the cashier, tells herself to get a grip.
Chapter 61
Café 2
“Where would we be without a cuppa?” Cynthia rhapsodises, as a waitress sets the cups down.
Thelma studies Cynthia, who evades her gaze, considers her pastry. With great effort, Cyn stills her hands. She has a tendency to fiddle nervously with cake; she’s apt to reduce it to confetti when stressed. It’s a ‘tell’, according to Hal.
“So who is the child’s father, Cynthia?”
“Goodness, you’re direct, my dear. Let’s be mindful of the ‘now’, like Buddhists.”
“The pastries are more Zen than now,” retorts Thelma.
“You’ve a zany sense of humour, Thelma. We’ll get on like hotcakes.”
“How will Claire and Clive get on?”
“Those two!” Cyn flaps her hand, camping it up. “Meant for each other,” she gushes, hoping Thel will let the cliché pass. Resting her elbow on the table, she anoints Thelma with her 100-kilowatt smile, including bridgework. “The quintessential thing is,” she says, seconds before realising she has no idea what argument her theatrics were meant to promote. “Um…”
Crumbs! Cyn thinks. Where was that sentence headed? As a decoy she drops her spoon onto the Laminex, grabs a napkin, fans her face. “The climacteric!” she says, buying time to convert vague clamorous feelings into a sentence with a destination.
“They fell in love in Collins Street – he was walking, she was falling. He picked her up and ticked her off for wearing silly shoes. She was slim, pretty. He rescued her.”
“So, her prettiness qualified her to be knocked up by a stranger in Collins Street?” says Thelma. “Why do men fall for a dress size?”
Cynthia shrugs. “Anyway, Clive phoned me that night. ‘Ma,’ he said, ‘I’ve met a healthy country nurse. Unspoiled.’”
“Now she’s bruised produce.”
“They became inseparable. Clive will stand by Claire.”
“Does she want him to?”
“He’s her fiancé.” Cyn drops her fork with a clang. “A wedding date will shut the gossips up.”
“Gossips?”
“Claire and Alex have been seen out driving together. They’re great mates! Some may question Clive’s paternity. Claire formed an attachment to Alex after Clive left but a child needs its biological father.”
“Would a child know or care?”
Cynthia waves her sugar snake towards Thelma, in an appeasing way, but doesn’t see she’s weakening its sachet until it spills over the tabletop. Thelma reaches across and they corral sugar grains, salvaging whatever they can. Clearly, both abhor waste. They smile wryly at each other.
“So Alex is the alternative father?” Thelma asks.
“Shh!” Cyn checks the adjoining booths. “Only theoretically,” she hisses.
“No!” Thelma recoils. “Did they have a theoretical fuck?”
Cynthia wrings her hands, mortified.
“You said they went driving!”
“Yes. Claire must marry Clive.” Cyn abandons her pastry mess, pushes the plate away. She orders more coffee. “Clive is the father. I heard her telling young Mary: it’s Clive’s child fifty to one.”
“How lucky we sent Claire to a good school, so she can calculate the relative paternity claims of her rivals!” says Thelma with a crooked grin.
“It’s almost undoubtedly Clive’s.”
“‘Almost undoubtedly’ is an oxymoron! Doesn’t Clive know what causes pregnancy?”
“He’ll have been careless, I suppose, just a normal red-blooded male. No one’s pinned him down until now.”
“Well, I hope he’s feeling duly pinned,” says Thelma, exasperated. “He spills his seed carelessly.”
“Is it my fault young men are as they are? When we met Claire, we were charmed. Then she fell from Beau Fils. Clive had to leave. Claire saw a lot of Alex…”
“In terms of surface area?”
Cynthia ploughs on. “Alex wheeled her to the bathroom…”
“You forced her into intimacy with Alex?”
“Don’t be touchy, Thelma. Nothing happened in the lavatory – it was the drawing room.”
“That’s so much better…”
“Recently there was a Biblical storm. Claire needed comforting.”
“Alex cosied up to Claire when she was vulnerable?”
“The attraction was mutual.”
A waitress in a long cheesecloth frock brings coffee. They order grilled cheese sandwiches. “With extra butter,” calls Cynthia, as she departs. “We need our nutrients, Thel. Claire must be persuaded to marry. Gels want good providers like Clive. My brother Ced’s estate goes to the first nephew to bear him a grandnephew. Ced is dying. With the bequest Claire could be a stay-home mum.”
“That’s patently a bribe,” says Thelma.
“An inducement. I rented a flat in town for them,” Cynthia lies, wishing she had. The weight of a home address would be harder to argue with than the vague designation father. “Hal and I intend signing over Arcadia to Clive and Claire, as our sole heirs, provided they undertake its upkeep and we can remain there in perpetuity. If Clive reneges, then Alex will step up.”
“So, Claire will become the property of the most responsible son. You don’t care who the child’s father is or which son Claire truly loves.”
“As long as Claire is the mother of the heir.”
“What’s Alex like, as a person?”
“Good; perhaps better than Clive. He’s a plumber, envious of Clive. If something untoward happened, he’ll have seduced Claire.”
“Claire would never be seduced against her will.”
“Good then. No St John could ever seduce Claire on the way to the lav.” Cyn settles back on the bench seat and runs her tongue across her teeth. What a terrier is Thel! They might become friends.
Cyn leans towards Thel. “Claire was probably testing her feelings for Clive.”
“Claire mustn’t marry the wrong man. I’ll see to that.” Thel squares her shoulders. “She might be a few days pregnant to Alex,” she muses.
Cynthia drums her fingers on the table. “Then it wouldn’t show in a test!” she says, as sandwiches oozing butter arrive.
Thelma eyes them with relish. Cyn pushes the plate her way. “Go on,” she says. Thel takes a sandwich and chews it meditatively. “You let this go on under your own roof?”
“I can’t be everywhere, dear.” Cynthia takes a bite of her sandwich, then sets it on the plate. To Thelma it looks like she’s sculpted the Great Australian Bite from the middle of her sandwich.
“Will Claire keep the child?”
“Keep?” Cynthia’s voice quivers!
“She could have an abortion. She’s six months into her diploma. To be left with no career, no marriage and a child to support…”
“Which marriage are you referring to?”
“Precisely!”
“Mar
riages in this family endure however bad they get. Wouldn’t you love to be a grandmother?”
“No, Cynthia, it’s a decade since my youngest was in nappies. I’d never wish my children away, but I remember all that scraping by with hand-me-downs, bottled preserves, and wringing the neck of my best layer because butchers’ meat’s too dear. And all that plucking! Pluck! Pluck! Pluck!”
With Thelma repeating ‘pluck’ in a near-hysterical voice, Cyn fears someone may mis-hear her!
“How I’d adore a hobby like bottling!” she announces.
“It’s not a bloody hobby! I’m worn out. Look at my hands!” Thelma holds them out.
Cyn knows the look of chicken skin. If pinched, they’d take an age to revert to normal.
“I’m old before my time,” Thelma says, tearing up.
Cynthia pats Thelma’s hand.
Chapter 62
Hal and Claire
“Hal, tell me something true about yourself,” Claire calls from the backseat of the car.
“True?”
“Yes, Hal. I’m always with Cynthia. She’s improving me. You’re always disappearing. I want a proper pow-wow. How did you meet Cyn?”
Hal speaks in his soft low voice, “I wanted things light and bland between us, Claire. Feared you’d tire of us.”
“No, Hal. Never.”
“Thank you, dear. As for Cynthia, she says, ‘your problem is that you’re too dependent on science. You need empirical evidence to decide whether it’s raining or not.’”
Hal’s using Cyn-speak – adopting the portentous tone she affects. Claire relaxes. Listens keenly.
"‘It’s the bane of my life, Hal,’ she’ll say, ‘that your career went nowhere.’
"But I’d retired at her insistence. She was jealous of my job in research, I was no slouch, yet Cyn told me, ‘Hal, up polo sticks, leave that lot. Embrace your birthright, become a gentleman farmer.’
“I love being on the land but I’m not of it. Graziers count livestock by the score. I notice the state of Pearlie’s hooves. One lives the life one lives. To argue with destiny is…He lifts his hand from the wheel and lets it fall back listlessly. Fate’s not what you deserve, Claire; it’s what happens. Cynthia happened to me.”
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