“Of course not. I was an unwilling witness to some shenanigans with Clive.”
“How come?” Claire says, puzzled.
“What happened exactly five weeks ago, Claire?”
“I broke my leg.”
“And what else?”
“I met Cyn and Hal.”
“And?”
“There was a Bachelor and Spinsters’ do.”
“And?”
“Lobster sandwiches. Clive and I told everyone we were engaged.”
“Were the olds pleased?”
“Cynthia scurried off to phone Fliss. She wanted Clive to see the English rose beside the wild Irish redhead. She plotted to pair Clive with Fliss at the ball. I was totally manipulated.”
“Yes!” agrees Alex.
“I wanted to prove something to myself. I went with Dada. Hal wasn’t complaining.”
“The old roué.”
“I wore silk tied…”
“…like a Greek goddess. And?”
“Clive and Fliss danced loose-limbed like brother and sister.”
“I saw something unbrotherly that night, Claire. If you knew, it would mean no one would have to marry anyone they didn’t fancy.”
“Don’t tell me Clive is the father of Fliss’ child. He had the perfect alibi – 70 LCP members. He and Fliss were on a different supper sitting from us but…”
“Swear you don’t love Clive, and I’ll tell you what I saw.”
“I don’t even like Clive, actually,” Claire says, and shocks herself. “I doubt I ever did.”
“Okay. That night I drank too much…went outside; flopped on a hay bale. I was joined by a couple intent on…well, coupling. The bloke started ‘calling the race’, the voice, it was Clive; he and Fliss were having a – sorry, Claire – tumble in the hay, but they remained upright.”
“Bastard. Thanks for the details!”
“When Fliss went indoors, I hung Clive out to dry. It was the most honest conversation we’ve had.”
Claire’s gone quiet now, figuring out the implications.
“What’s up?” Alex asks.
“Wow! The bastard had foresight,” she says.
“Yes,” Alex says. “He’ll marry her for the bequest. It’s a way out of all our problems! You could have your child or not. Decide at leisure.”
“Mm,” Claire says. “He’d love having Fliss’ child as the official heir.”
“Fantastic,” says Alex, kissing Claire.
“But I’m still having a baby I don’t actually want.”
“Would you abort?”
“I don’t know.”
“At least Clive will give up all paternity claims on your child. To father children on different mothers at the same time would be tacky. The decision is up to you.”
“Oh, Alex!” Claire screams shrilly and hugs him. “It’s the best news ever. A fortnight ago I’d have been humiliated. It’s about context, isn’t it? Already, I’ve asked Bonnie to get Fliss to come here early tonight for Clive’s sake.”
“You’re an angel, Claire, thinking of others at such a time. An heir and five million will cheer Clive. He might cough up for smoked salmon.”
“Hardly,” Claire says.
“Let Fliss tell Clive. Lock them in the pantry until she’s wised him up,” Claire says.
“I’ll call her now,” Alex says.
Chapter 67
Alex and Fliss Plot
Alex checks that the hallway’s quiet so he can phone. “Hello, Fliss. Alex here. Can we talk?”
“Sure, I’m just making parsnip and dandelion soup.”
“Is that even a soup?”
“It’s edible and lately, I’m so poor…”
Fliss is making heavy work of breathing. “Listen, Fliss, will you be honest with me?”
“Ye-es, I guess…”
“The child you’re expecting; it’s Clive’s.”
“No-o.”
“Fibber! Night of the ball I went for a lie down in the potting shed.”
“Oh God! You weren’t spying?”
“Thankfully, it was too dark. I was a cad. I shut up and let it happen, despite my anger over Clive betraying Claire. Some instinct stopped me…kept me quiet…”
“Instinct? Ha! Sounds weird from Mr Rationality.”
“It was something inexplicable. You know I’m never tactful.”
“And you’re so logical, Alex. The idea of you acting on instinct – well, it’s a bit spooky.”
“I know, I admit it. Maybe Shakespeare was right after all: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio.’”
“You really love Claire, don’t you?”
“Of course! That night I kept schtum! Though I gave Clive a right bollocking after you left.”
Fliss is quiet at the other end. He imagines her stirring parsnip soup on the Aga in her grim, draughty kitchen, licking the spoon from nervousness and drawing a shawl about her shoulders. Alex goes quiet too. How does he deliver this news to Fliss so that she’ll see it – as it is – a chance to change several lives for the better. “I’m glad I shut up that night, Fliss,” Alex says. “If I hadn’t done…I wouldn’t be making this call.”
“Why are you calling. To humiliate me?”
“I need you to know that some good came out of what happened that night.”
“You mean I’m up the duff and I wish I wasn’t?”
“No, I mean I know who the father is.”
“Yeah, well, under the circumstances it hardly makes you a genius.”
“Listen, if Claire had known what a love rat Clive was, she’d have left the next morning, instead of falling off a horse. If she hadn’t fallen, I’d never have looked after her…”
“‘Look after’. Great euphemism.”
“Touché!” Alex says, “I was keen to help.”
“Keen all right. Does Claire think her broken leg’s a lucky break?” Fliss asks, sarcastically.
“You’re in good form, Fliss. But every event has an immediate effect plus long-term effects and countless mid-range outcomes; some harmless-seeming events reverberate throughout our lives like ripples.”
“Ripples get smaller over time, don’t they?”
“You’re killing me, Fliss. Yes! But what if a small wave pushed our ship of life off course and away from an iceberg? It’d be the Titanic in reverse!”
“So, tell me if I’ve got it. If you’d made a fuss that night, then Claire would still be pregnant but not me! And you’d be desperately sad at her marrying awful Clive; alternatively, if you hadn’t been drunk and hadn’t witnessed anything untoward…then…Da de da de da! I’d still be preggers but you wouldn’t know who the father is!”
“You get the drift, Fliss. This could be the lucky break we all need.”
“Me pregnant to a man I can’t marry. What a happy turn of events!”
“Maybe you are fated to marry Clive after all.”
“Whoo! Is fate your new religion? Does fate name every sparrow that farts or is it God?”
“Give me a hard time, why don’t you?”
“Shit, Alex…Who am I to talk? I’m the dumb blonde. So, because you decided not blab about the shed, Claire went on thinking she loved Clive longer than otherwise, and if you hadn’t known Clive was such a fickle bastard, you’d never have jumped Claire?”
“You’re quick, Fliss.” Alex sighs, and rubs his eyes wearily. “Exactly.”
“Clive’s infidelity let you make a move on Claire, which now gives me a chance with him?”
“Yep. True happiness, with Cliiiiive!”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“How do you know I made a move on Claire?”
“You’re the one on about instinct. I only have to glimpse Clive and my hormones riot…but I’m ashamed…”
“You behaved opportunistically in the shed. It’s not a crime. Opportunism fuels evolution. I love Claire. We took our chance. She loves me. But she’s scared o
f changing her mind again.”
“Did she ever love Clive?”
“She felt responsible for a while.” There’s a silence. “You still there?” Alex says.
“Mm. How extraordinary,” Fliss says, at last. “Not to love Cli-ive.”
“She was infatuated, I guess.”
“So why marry him?”
“She isn’t going to.”
“He’ll be devastated, poor chap.”
“Devastated? No. Disappointed at losing a bequest.”
“Clive’s more ambitious career-wise than greedy. And he’s always been a resilient chap,” Fliss insists.
“Or he never really wanted Claire. He’s not a ‘chap’, he’s a bloke. He saw his life going nowhere…”
“But to marry on a whim…”
“Listen, Fliss, would a pregnancy test show up positive in five weeks?”
“Who the heck would want to know that?”
“I would. Claire and I have known each other for five weeks. It’s conceivable, word play intended, she may be pregnant with my child, not Clive’s.”
“Golly. It is possible. That’d be beaut! We could be best friends. Will Claire stay friends with Suz and Mary? They were nice and there’s no one to be friends with down here.”
“Settle down, Fliss. This isn’t Oklahoma.”
“Even some atheists I know believe in fate and happy endings,” she says pointedly.
“Once Clive knows your baby news, he’ll snaffle you up. Would have then but you left.”
“Do you really think so?”
“If she knew Clive was happy, Claire might move in with me – she so hates making anyone unhappy. She’d be especially keen if she thought there was a chance I might be the father of her child,” he says.
“Oh, how super! We could have dinner parties and be the bestest of friends,” says Fliss, doubtless picturing endless happy days stretching out ahead of her. “Our boys could run under the hose in summer…”
“I guess,” Alex says, doubtfully. “Fliss, hardly anyone is perfectly happy. Still we live in hope. You know that Clive drinks too much.”
“He didn’t drink when we lived together…”
“Listen, Clive needs to know your news within the hour. Did you keep the test kits?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then go to Bonnie, she’s organised a private place for you to meet before Thelma’s drinks. Tell Clive the bare facts. Don’t pressure him.”
“I’m not a complete dill!”
“Would you live in Melbourne, Fliss? That’s where he’s made his life.”
“Yep. I’d go to the back of Bourke for Clive.”
“Then go to it, girl. Good luck!”
Chapter 68
Claire and Cyn
Cynthia’s in the study totting up the accounts. Hal won’t do his share. He always says, ‘Have to see a man about a dog, and you’ve an eye for detail, love,’ avoiding his duties without an atom of shame. And yet he is no better with the broad-brush aspect of their lives than Cynthia.
It’s down to me, like it or not, she thinks. Darned Bible! One should always hide one’s light under a bushel or one’ll find oneself thoroughly used up.
Should debts be allowed to accrue while hypothetical propositions are discussed socially? Cynthia wonders.
Len often waxes fulsome, discussing matters legal. Leaning forward in his chair, flush faced, he leads his audience down obscure legal paths, expounding on abstruse points of law. Surely, his hosts deserve some recompense for making Len feel good about himself? Len’s dozen or so bills land on the bottom of the pile.
GwenLen rarely mention the matter of payment, provided Hal comes up with vintages both rare and excellent and rescued from the back of some truck connected to the polo club. Then there are unavoidable bills like electricity and the butcher. Cyn’s ill disposed to freeze to death while living on watercress sandwiches. She robs Peter but is reluctant to pay Paul.
Her few sacrifices, include retiring to bed of a night wearing a flea-bitten mink, her feet warmed by a hottie from the electric jug in her dressing room, the one Hal tells her not to use, its cord being frayed. Meanwhile, she raises her body temperature with a mediocre sherry.
Bonnie has so much on the Sins, they’re stuck with her as part of the family. Still, they may have to send her away on sabbatical until one of the twins fornicates fruitfully; otherwise, Cedric’s bounty will be frittered away in legal bills.
Bonnie is their bulwark against accusations of snobbery. She’s cost-effective, not needing overtime, now she’s counted as one of them. Sacked, God help them, she might claim indexed back pay! Or holiday loading for keeping the laird happy Friday nights.
Bertie has billed them for pruning! Officially, he’s farm manager but with so few stock to manage, he is mostly paid in kind. He has the tack room to bunk down in. Cynthia thinks Bertie handsome, despite him being a small, nuggety man. Such men must be her type, she muses. He uses the jacuzzi prolifically. Cynthia believes she has caught him gazing at her speculatively.
Claire could not be happier to learn Fliss is pregnant to her (‘her’ is applicable to either subject of this sentence) former fiancé. She feels blissed out about Fliss. Assonance intended.
She’s been deputed to share the happy news with Cynthia. What she’d dreaded earlier is a now a gentle walk through horse pastures. Who’d shoot a messenger – even one with horse dung on her boots – who is bearing such happy news? Especially a messenger on the way to the story’s happy ending?
Does ‘dungaree’ have anything to do with dung? Claire wonders.
At the study door, she observes Cynthia at work. Her estimation of Cyn has altered. She’s been promoted from social dinosaur to flawed family-centred soul. Claire knows Cyn cannot envisage what real hardship is. Can her lack of compassion be Cynthia’s fault if she wasn’t blessed with such a quality at birth? Empathy is unlikely to burgeon later in life along with chronic health deficits. Nevertheless, Claire wonders at the mildness of her judgement; has she been drawn so far into the Sins’ lives that she’s letting them off the hook?
After Cynthia has moved documents from the top of the pile to the bottom twice, Claire coughs. Clearly, Cynthia had heard her clumping approach, given the flagstones and Claire’s inflexible prophylactic boot. She knocks loudly. Cynthia turns. “What the dickens? Oh, Claire. I was expecting you.”
Claire waits on the threshold, her smile pasted on. She thanks Alex’s pantheon of rationalists her own mother doesn’t play games.
“Make yourself at home. It might have been yours.” Cyn cannot let a jibe pass by unsaid.
Claire perches on an oak swivel desk chair. “So, Clive told you…”
“Yes,” says Cynthia. “Sorry, I was so mean to you at lunch with GwenLen the other day.”
“Oh.”
“I was feeling vindictive and someone had to suffer. It was you. Were you hurt?”
“A bit. But I’m over it.”
“And I was aiming for harsh and punitive!” Cynthia jokes. “We got off on the wrong foot. You, arriving in the flower of youth, you seemed to be the enemy, the usurper of Clive’s affections.”
“Cynthia, you love him in a way that’s unhealthy in a mother and son. Blinds you to faults.”
“That’s quite insightful, Claire.”
Claire waves away the compliment. "I was naughty caricaturing you in my diary. But you spied!"
“I wouldn’t go that far,” says Cynthia.
“I would,” says Claire. “And I have to tell you I’m in love with Alex.”
“Is there a chance that he’s the father of your child?” A shrewd gleam flashes in Cyn’s eyes.
“Oh, the inheritance? Yes, there’s a minuscule chance.”
“So theoretically he could have fathered a child on you?”
“Yes. Theoretically.”
“Well, that’s something to think about. Those who say money doesn’t matter either have none or too much. To walk away from a
fortune takes character, Claire.”
“Cynthia…”
“Yairs. I know. You’re leaving all this decadence behind. Bad news travels fast.”
“But I have some very good news for you.”
“Mm?” Cynthia looks sceptical. “Go on,” she says.
“Felicity is also pregnant, pregnant with Clive’s child.”
“Impossible!”
“No.”
“But how is she pregnant…?”
“In the usual way.”
“How far gone?”
“A month.”
“Oh. Good Lord! One minute one has no heirs, then at the mention of an inheritance there are pairs of heirs to spare.”
“That’s pure poetry, Cynthia.”
Cyn smiles a sweet coy smile. “Get on with your story! I no longer fish for compliments. My Toastmasters maiden speech went well enough. It’s not as if I’m aching for praise.”
Although you fished for praise just now, Claire thinks. “I’d love to hear your speech. Perhaps at the party tonight.”
“We’ll see.”
“It must seem odd – two of us pregnant to Clive, but it’s a fact verifiable by numerous pregnancy tests.”
“Spare me the details. One heir will satisfy the terms of Ced’s will. Are you certain Clive will marry Fliss?”
“I hope so. Fliss is hoping to tell him before the party. He’s not about just now.”
“…he’s on an errand.”
“Errand?”
“I sent him to Warrnambool for the biggest diamond he could find.”
“To buy me off?”
“You. Or now, Felicity, perhaps.”
“Cynthia, your kind words meant nothing. You’d buy me off with a cold hard piece of coal. I loathe diamonds. And Fliss will have Clive without a bribe.”
“I thought it worth a try.”
“Alex had better go after him. I’ll call him.” Claire hurries to the door. “Alex! Oh God, you’re spying. Stop grinning, smug bugger! Go on. Go after Clive! But leave the talk to Fliss.”
“When did this conception occur?” asks Cyn.
“At the ball, Ma,” says Alex.
“So, I did right in asking Clive to partner Fliss?”
“You did the wrong thing that fortuitously turned out well. It might have been disastrous. Claire might have bolted. Fliss’ reputation could have been destroyed.”
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