by Lloyd Jones
The second show passed uneventfully. Easterman knelt down and delivered the kiss, which he said was once again received with the same willingness. But later, when the cast and audience mingled, he couldn’t find the Princess. He hung about until he was reasonably sure that she had left, and went home.
The final night there was to be a party for the cast, and partners, at the house of the director, Simon Bragg. A few days before, Easterman had told Karen he wasn’t interested; three nights on the trot had left him sapped to the bone, and he was ready for an early night. Then, at the last moment, when it was too late to arrange a babysitter, Easterman had come home from work, complaining about the choice being out of his hands. He’d been rung at work. Everyone, and especially Bragg, expected the Prince to be there.
So Easterman read bedtime stories to his kids, turned out the lights, and eased into his green tights, suede calf-high boots and ruffled shirt. Karen handed him his sword at the door, and Easterman drove off to the final performance and, later, the party at Bragg’s.
When he came through the director’s house he could see the Princess’s bonnet above the party crowd on the back lawn. Small flames flickered from kerosene-soaked flints on the end of bamboo poles, and as some dreadful old, bent hag pushed a cup of mulled wine into his hands he looked again and recognised Edith Saunders from the Plant Centre. The others, however, remained strangers. Peasants. Dwarves. Cobblers. Blacksmiths. Witches.
He tried to attach himself to the Princess’s group. They were talking politics. One of the Witches and the Woodsman—a former Treasury man it turned out—spoke familiarly about politicians whose names Easterman recognised from the newspaper. The Princess held a cigarette. She maintained a wry smile, which Easterman hoped was for him, although discouragingly her eye discreetly flitted between the Woodsman and the Witch. Easterman made a couple of trips to the bar. The third or fourth time he returned to find the group disbanded, and the Princess alone.
She smiled at him.
‘Well,’ she said, and tripped forward on the word just enough to surprise Easterman. She had obviously been drinking. ‘Are you still my handsome Prince?’ She was holding her cigarette upwards like a film actress and, ever so slightly, swaying on her feet. Easterman said he was, and gulped down his wine. The Princess looked at her own glass, then, nodding at Easterman’s, said, ‘I could use one of those.’
Some of the cast had moved inside the house to play charades. One of the Courtiers was on his back kicking his white tights in the air.
‘Crab!’ someone yelled.
‘A dying frog!’
Easterman filled the glasses from the cask, and closed the tap. When he returned to the lawn the Princess was gone—and he stood there in that flickering darkness holding the two glasses. He was beginning to feel foolish. He was thinking he would tip the wine into the flax bushes and head home when he saw the lit end of a cigarette. The deck was below the back lawn and jutted out from the hillside. He found the narrow path at the side of the lawn, and as soon as he stepped onto the deck the Princess turned and stubbed out her cigarette and moved inside his arms, and Easterman, with each hand holding a wine glass, was marched backwards until he was pinned against the balcony, and the woman’s mouth clamped on to his.
Harley had just arrived at the shop when the phone rang. It was Easterman saying it was urgent that he see him—‘About last night.’
‘Oh that.’ And he proceeded to tell Easterman he needn’t worry.
There was a brief pause, and then Easterman said, ‘Why should I worry? Listen. This is important. I want you to meet me at the gardens. If that’s convenient.’
‘Sure. The Municipal Gardens.’
‘Good. That’s good. Now listen, can you walk there? I’ll explain later. Oh, and make it twelve-fifteen, no later. That’s okay?’
It meant Harley had to call in Giddy to cover the lunch hour. The wine-trail bus was scheduled to come through at one-fifteen. The bus would stop at the tea rooms. They could usually count on a small number trickling down the road to investigate the antiques sign. Last year he sold a dozen horseshoes to an American. He immediately got in another dozen horseshoes but they had sat there ever since.
He told Giddy he should be back in time for the bus.
‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘I dropped Robbie off at Karen’s. I don’t want to leave him too long. What’s it all about?’
‘Easterman. I don’t know. He rang before, sounding like his house roof was on fire.’
He was rather pleased Easterman had called. It was nice to be outside. He could feel the sun on his neck. He would have brought his sunglasses had he thought there was a need. There was hardly any breeze and the leaves shone with newness on the line of oaks at the edge of the gardens. There was Easterman in sunglasses leaning against the fender of his Commodore. He looked preoccupied. Scattered over the grass were people who had walked down from town to eat their lunch. The girls who worked in the bank sat near the rose beds, spooning yoghurt. They looked heartbreakingly fragile. They were not so long out of school uniform, but already their skin had lost its healthy all-year-round sheen. They had become constrained and a little lifeless. Behind their tills in the bank they all looked and sounded the same—‘How are we today, Mr Harley?’ Their parents ran the local businesses. Most of them he knew.
Easterman made a thing of consulting his watch.
‘You’re late,’ he said.
‘Customers,’ Harley said, getting into the passenger side. He wound down the window. It was that sort of day. As they drove by the end of the gardens he could hear the sounds of splashing from the swimming pool beside the gardens; the shrieks, and the loose creaking of the diving board. He’d racked his brains these past months for another line of revenue. Those sorts of problems could blind you. He had missed the things he usually liked to think about at this time of the year. It occurred to him he was getting fat.
They were driving away from town towards the ranges. At some point he expected they would turn north or south and run along the flats behind town.
Easterman changed down for the last intersection. He said, ‘I’ll explain as we go.’
A kilometre south of the macrocarpa windbreak on the corner of Hilltops Road that runs back to town, Easterman eased on the brakes. The Commodore slid on the loose metal until it came to a halt on the shoulder. He left the motor running and sprang the boot. Harley couldn’t see Easterman in the back window for the raised lid, but he heard him call out, ‘You drive.’
Harley slid over to the driver’s side. The seat was still moist from Easterman. He heard the boot slam down, and then the back passenger door opened—and Easterman climbed in wearing the Prince costume.
‘Okay, we’re late. Let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Christ. Where the hell do you think?’
Harley pushed on the gas.
‘It’s her idea. Really, I don’t care either way. She gets off on the Prince and Princess thing.’
Near the macrocarpas Easterman said, ‘You probably think it a bit kinky?’ He gave an unconvincing laugh. ‘Come on, Dave,’ he said. ‘Lighten up.’
Hilltops Road is long and straight. It runs between the western ranges and the small, white shopfronts in town. On Saturday nights cars race up and down here. Once, Harley and Rex Kirby out on a Sunday-morning run had stopped to inspect a farm ute, lying on its side in a field of young corn. The driver turned out to be a twelve-year-old; his father, a sharemilker, was in bed asleep by eight o’clock and never knew the vehicle was gone. In other circumstances Harley might have passed this incident on to Easterman. The exact spot drew up and then receded in the rear mirror. It had been the Eastermans who bought the Kirby house, and before leaving the district the Kirbys had hosted a lunch to introduce the Eastermans to the neighbourhood.
Thinking back to last night there were any number of times he could have said ‘enough’ to Easterman. He could have stopped the story in its tracks. But for most of it he cou
ldn’t believe what he was hearing. And quite sincerely he wished it was someone else, not Mary-Anne. She would be appalled to know of his involvement. And despite Easterman’s assurances he was sure she would find out, then inevitably she would move to distance herself. Probably she would not call again to tempt him in the local production. He would miss that.
‘Listen,’ said Easterman, ‘do you like Ray Charles? In the dash there you’ll find the tapes. The other stuff is Karen’s. I don’t know if you like that stuff or not.’
Then, from his prone position on the back seat, Easterman said all over again how much he and Mary-Anne appreciated what Harley was doing here to help out.
‘So Mary-Anne knows about me knowing?’
‘No. Not exactly,’ said Easterman. ‘We had thought about a taxi but didn’t think it sensible. I told her to leave it with me. I would think of something.’
‘That’s me. A “something”,’ Harley said.
Easterman said he was a pal. And that it wouldn’t go unrewarded.
‘No, really,’ he said. ‘The cash register at the store can’t exactly be ringing its merry head off out here in Nowheresville.’
‘Go to hell.’
Easterman laughed. ‘Okay. Out of order. Fair enough. But all the same,’ he said, and a hand dropped over Dave’s shoulder with a fifty-dollar bill. Harley put on the brakes and pulled over to the kerb. They were only half a mile from Mary-Anne’s place, and they had stopped. That was it. There was still time to bail out. He would walk back along South Road, past the sun-drenched houses reflected in the rear mirror. He was half out the door when Easterman reached out and pleaded.
‘Now, come on. I’m sorry. Okay? No listen, I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to insult you. I didn’t realise.’
‘Does Mary-Anne know about this?’
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. Look at my bloody armpits. She’s expecting me. Believe me, Dave, this is it. I promise. After today, no more. Kaput. Anyway her husband gets back Friday.’
‘Terry.’
‘Yeah. Her husband. What is wrong with you?’
‘Her husband’s name is Terry.’
‘Okay. So Terry gets back on Friday. So Mary-Anne, she made it clear. Absolutely clear, man. This is it. Now will you close the car door? Please?’
Harley swung his legs inside the door, and Easterman slapped his shoulder.
In the Richmonds’ street Easterman asked if anyone was out and about.
‘Yeah, there’s a brass band outside Mary-Anne’s.’
‘I just want to be careful.’ Then he added, ‘For Mary-Anne’s sake as much as mine.’
‘Everyone is at work or dead.’
‘Hey, that’s funny. That’s how this place struck me the first time.’
Harley ran up the Richmonds’ drive. It curled around the end of the house to an area of privacy: bricks, a patch of lawn and a small number of apple and plum trees. Easterman slid out the back door. He knelt by the window.
‘One-thirty, okay?’ he said. ‘You’re a pal.’
In town the inside traffic got the green arrow, so Harley switched lanes and ran down to the gardens. He parked where Easterman had, realising as he did that a grubby pattern had been completed. He got out of the car and stood for a moment surveying the scene. The lunch crowd had dispersed. Near the freshly sown cricket block a young man cautiously doubled up and played a defensive stroke with a boundary stick to a delivery made with a balled-up brown paper bag. At the end of the stroke the batsman looked up. He put his hand up to ward off another delivery, waved. It was the Richmonds’ oldest boy. Harley waved back. The university term must be over, and Pete had drifted back home for the summer. He watched the Richmonds’ boy make his slow and self-aware way towards the car.
‘Pete,’ he said, shaking him by the hand. Pete had done some work for him one vacation and they had got on well together. He had Mary-Anne’s wit and his father’s clockmaker’s face. It could make for a curious mix—his eyes narrowing up as the mouth yapped on.
Pete said he had dropped by the shop. He and Andrea.
This was Andrea joining them now with the rolled-up paper bag.
‘This is Mr Harley,’ he said to the girl. ‘The antiques store?’
‘Oh right,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’
They had arrived last night. The nine-o’clock train. And spent the morning walking around town looking for shop work. That sort of thing.
‘Actually, it’s got to the point where I will do anything at all,’ said Andrea. ‘I’m here until Christmas.’
‘She doesn’t want to work in the factory. The blue rinse won’t wash out of the genes.’
Pete laughed—his mother’s laugh.
‘I will and I can,’ said Andrea. When she smiled she seemed so much older. ‘I would rather not. That’s all.’
She rubbed her flat stomach. ‘Hunger pangs,’ she said.
Pete said, ‘We’ll head home and eat something and hit the traps after lunch.’
‘Home?’ Harley said. Pete and Andrea looked at him expectantly. In the next moment, to his surprise, he was offering Andrea work.
The girl couldn’t believe her luck, and Pete was saying to her, ‘See, what did I tell you?’
‘Only part-time, mind you, and it won’t pay much,’ Harley hastened, but Andrea wasn’t the slightest bit discouraged.
‘What did I say?’ said Pete. He placed his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her tight.
‘That’s great. Just great, Mr Harley,’ he said.
‘I’ll give you a call, shall I?’ said the girl.
The two of them were about to move off.
‘Wait. You’ll need to see the shop.’
‘We have,’ said Andrea. ‘The umbrella stand made from the horseshoes. Wow.’
Harley gave the girl a bullying look. He placed his hands on his hips.
‘Now tell me this,’ he said. ‘Has this buffoon shown you the sights yet, or just pushed you into shop doorways? Eh?’ Then he said, ‘Come on, you two. A quick tour is called for. We’ll pick something up on the road. What do you say?’
Andrea gave a nervous laugh. She shrugged and looked at Pete.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Pete.
Harley kept a stern eye on Andrea, and very deliberately she began to nod her head. She looked at her feet, then at Pete, and smiled.
Pete sat in the front—Andrea in the back. She leant forward to share the view. They followed the road out beyond town, and headed north along the foothills, where there was no traffic. A farmer on a tractor noiselessly motored through a field of young maize. In the rear mirror Harley watched Andrea lift a strand of blonde hair to her face and let it fall over her finger.
‘It’s so quiet out here,’ she said, almost whispering.
‘Quiet as quiet can be,’ he said.
‘I imagine you could hear a pin drop.’
‘On occasion,’ he said.
‘It must be lovely living out here.’
‘Lovely and boring,’ said Pete. ‘If there was a market for boredom with the monetary value of uranium, we would be the new sheiks. Isn’t that right, Mr Harley?’
Andrea brightened at the thought.
‘We could can it. One-hundred, two-hundred, and five-hundred gram cans of boredom.’
‘Environmentally friendly cans of boredom,’ said Pete.
‘We could have special bilateral agreements with Poland and Nauru—and where else? Pete?’
‘Pitcairn Island. Norway. Iceland. The Falklands.’
He had closed his eyes.
They came to a crossroads up ahead, and turned back for the highway.
‘Hotdog Heaven … looks like,’ Pete told Andrea.
Fries. Hotdogs and mustard. Fresh bread rolls that were not light but soggy. They sat at an outside table. Behind a planted toi-toi the traffic rushed past.
Harley said to Andrea, ‘Pete’s dad’s factory is just five minutes
up the road.’
Slightly longer, as it turned out. Pete and Andrea had switched places, and he could sense Andrea’s unease at there being nothing on the horizon, no sign of the factory. She would be full of all the questions such a view insists on, about what they were doing here, and where they might be headed. Harley told her he had kids of his own. He thought that might relax her. Robbie, eighteen months. Juliette.
‘She will be eight next month. She’s crazy about tennis.’
‘That’s nice. Tennis,’ she said, with a serious nod.
At last the SANZ Plastics sign was drawing them off the road and onto the drive—towards a corrugated-iron building.
‘Here we are,’ he said, and made a small loop in the car park. ‘Pete’s dad is a big fish around here. The factory employs eighteen people. Eighteen people is it, Pete?’
‘Eighteen,’ he said.
Harley tried to think of what else to say, about the factory and Pete’s father. Some of the parents had stuck together after their kids moved on from the play centre, but quite early on Terry had retired from the group and left the socialising to Mary-Anne. As far as he could recall, no one had ever spoken ill of Terry. Mary-Anne’s husband was the gentle retiring presence in the party background, or holding down the quiet and reasoned end of a dinner party. A helluva nice guy, is what people said.
Harley was aware that the three of them were staring at the side of the factory, so he said to Pete, ‘So how’s tricks with Terry and Mare?’
‘Dad’s in Japan. Mum? I don’t know,’ the boy said wearily. He mentioned his mother’s involvement in the local production. ‘You know how she gets excited by these things,’ he said. Sleeping Beauty. It had done well. Full houses. Pete talked on, and Harley wondered how his mother and Easterman were getting on, and whether the Prince and Princess stuff would feature. He wondered if Easterman would bother with a shower afterwards.
‘This time around,’ Pete was saying, ‘the house seems that much smaller, more quiet. And actually, you know, more spooky because of it. I remember home being a sprawling place, and with more rooms. Mum was in more of a hurry.’