‘It was filed incorrectly. Once we realised its existence, we notified the committees affected as soon as was practicable.’ I shuffled some papers around. ‘According to our records, Celia, you’ve been president for fifteen years.’
‘This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Ten years in excess of the maximum of five.’
‘It’s discrimination. I absolutely refuse—’
‘According to the policy, you need to stand down.’
Celia folded her arms across her chest. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘If you fail to step aside, then—and I’m quoting by-law 2.7 here—’
‘Next order of business is the cupboard in the hall.’
My voice got louder. ‘The committee will be null and void—’
Hers also got louder. ‘Tom, I want you to make a sign.’
‘No committee means the Deepdene Senior Citizens Club will cease to exist.’
‘The sign should say, “Groups are not permitted to store items in this cupboard.”’
The two of us were standing now, leaning across the table, yelling. Little globules of spit flew through the air like tiny angry bullets. My blood was so elevated in temperature it was in danger of turning gaseous.
‘THE MAYOR SAYS YOU HAVE TO,’ I said.
‘I DON’T CARE.’
All at once there was a great crack! as Betsy slammed a book down on the table. The sound cut through the air, and echoed all around.
Everything was still.
Then Betsy reached out and put her hand on Celia’s hand. Celia flinched but she didn’t flick it off. ‘Celia,’ was all that Betsy said.
And so a glorious smell, that of victory, began to fill the room.
Celia didn’t move but something in her shifted. She could smell the victory too.
Very slowly, she stepped backward. Without saying anything she moved towards the door, opened it and disappeared down the hall. Her footsteps faded as she went into the car park, leaving the four of us behind.
It was strange. I didn’t expect them to release streamers or start singing and dancing around, but I did think there’d be an undercurrent of happiness or excitement on their part. A sense of relief—not necessarily expressed, but still evident.
There was none of that. In fact, if I had to graph the mood of the room with time on the x axis and joy on the y, at this point the line would have dipped below the horizontal. It was not just a reduction in the level of joy. We were in deficit.
‘That was awful,’ said Gladys. ‘How depressing.’
Tom agreed. ‘I’ve known her for thirty-seven years and I’ve never seen her so upset.’
There was silence in the room. A lot of silence, and no gratitude at all.
23
Eva wasn’t there when Mayor Bainbridge came past the next morning. She appeared at the entrance to our area, her pastel pink shirt bright against the grey walls. ‘Germaine,’ she said. ‘Well done.’
‘What for?’ I feigned confusion. I could feel an accolade coming and such things are best drawn out. Most people say ‘thanks’ when they get a compliment, I always say ‘pardon?’
‘You did it. No more Celia Brown, eh?’
‘Oh, that.’ I was nonchalant, like it was just another thing, no more remarkable than anything else I’d achieved of late.
The mayor came forward. It appeared she was seeking some form of physical contact. A hug? Another glorious shoulder squeeze? I got up in readiness but at the exact moment I reached my full height she stopped short, pulled out Eva’s chair and leaned against the back of it. I lowered myself back down, slowly, so she wouldn’t notice.
‘Tell me everything. How did you tell her? What did she say? Was she angry?’ The mayor was gripping Eva’s chair in anticipation.
I could easily have provided a thorough account, only…
When the mayor had said, ‘Do what you have to do,’ she hadn’t specified the boundaries of acceptable action. Was ‘create a fictitious policy’ permissible or not permissible?
‘It was fine,’ I said. ‘Celia was a bit…annoyed but she saw reason in the end.’
‘Annoyed? Not at you, I hope. I hope she could see she brought it upon herself.’
‘Yes. I mean, I think so.’
‘What’s wrong, Germaine?’ The mayor’s face softened. ‘Oh, dear. It was awful, wasn’t it? It was awful, of course it was. If it’s any consolation we’ve had more complaints about Celia Brown than we’ve had about anyone, ever. I don’t like to speak ill of my constituents but—’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think she might have an undiagnosed mental health problem. Don’t say I said that, I’m just thinking out loud. It’s Chatham House Rules between you and me, you know.’
And just like that, my uncertainty disappeared. If I’d doubted any aspect of our relationship up until now, this proved it: I was part of the inner sanctum.
‘So? Was it awful?’ She was cringing on my behalf.
‘It wasn’t great. But I have to tell you…My, ah, approach was a bit…inventive.’
‘Oh?’ She listened in silence while I explained. I made it sound simple and straightforward and only ever called my creation a policy once, thereafter referring to it as ‘the document’.
‘You know what I should say, don’t you?’ said the mayor when I was finished. ‘I should say, That’s not the way we do things around here, Germaine and There’s a policy about policies, but let’s be honest. Sometimes you have to be a little…creative to get things done.’
I didn’t know how tense I was until I relaxed. Of course it was fine. Of course she understood. She and I were friends. We were better friends than she and Kimberly, probably. We had more in common.
‘Don is thrilled, as you can imagine.’ The mayor adjusted her hair so it was sitting better. ‘He wanted to come down and thank you himself.’
‘Did he?’ My voice was a squeak.
‘He did. Only they had some disaster at the club. Something to do with the kitchen…He said he might call instead.’
I fiddled with the button on my cuff. ‘Does he have my number?’
‘No, but he can go through the switch. Or maybe he’ll call the helpline, I don’t know.’
‘Okay, I’m here all day. If you speak to him.’ I wasn’t going to go to lunch or the toilet or anything. I was going to stay where I was, in the chair, by the phone, waiting.
There was an annoying sound, loud and shrill, and then Eva came around the corner. She was whistling. You would have thought the mayor loved whistling, how enthusiastic she was in greeting her. ‘Good morning, Eva,’ she said.
‘Good morning.’ Eva was less enthusiastic. Curious, as she was the whistler.
The mayor shifted her weight off Eva’s chair. ‘Right, I’d better go. Thanks again, Germaine.’
When the mayor was out of earshot, Eva said, ‘What was she doing here?’
‘She just came past.’
‘She’s never come past before.’
I shrugged.
Eva folded her arms and leaned back. ‘It was about the biscuits, wasn’t it? Go on, admit it. She was snooping, wasn’t she? Trying to get more information.’
‘Okay, sure. Yes, it was about the biscuits.’
‘I knew it. That’s why I’ve been taking the petition home every single night, for this exact reason.’ Eva unzipped her jacket and pulled a fat wad of paper from the inner pocket. She unfolded it and smoothed it flat. Then she picked up the phone. ‘Wait until Frank hears about this.’
To an outside observer, it would have seemed like my performance that day was the same as always but in fact it was well below par. I scheduled cleaning for Mrs Harris on a Sunday, which meant we had to pay penalty rates (double time and a half, plus a break allowance) and told Bob Jones he qualified for a meals on wheels discount when he didn’t. My mind was on Don. Specifically, his calling—or lack of calling.
Celia called before he did.
I knew it was h
er because I was stuck doing a meals on wheels order and Eva kept getting hang-ups. When I finally finished, I picked up a new call and a voice said, ‘About time.’
She didn’t say who she was but she asked, in a pointed fashion, who I was.
I said I couldn’t say. When pressed, I said the council had a policy of anonymity.
‘A policy.’ She got quite snarky. ‘You’ve got an awful lot of policies over there.’
‘Do we? I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been here that long.’
That’s when Celia snapped, like a rubber band pulled in two directions. ‘For crying out loud, Germaine. That was not a real policy. What the hell’s happening over there? That man next door’s a con artist.’
‘He’s not.’
‘He is, actually. Didn’t you read the paper?’
‘If you don’t stop yelling, I will end the call.’
The phone went silent. It was the sound of nothing again, but this time so loud it seemed to echo.
‘Are you there?’ I said. I wasn’t nice about it, which I regretted because then I thought I heard a sob.
Celia said in a wobbly voice, ‘Germaine, I don’t have anything to do tomorrow.’
I wished she hadn’t told me that. I hated trying to find the calendar of upcoming events on the council website. It was hidden under a succession of tabs that were not at all intuitive.
I also knew how time could slow. After what happened at Wallace Insurance, it went at a glacial pace. Instead of seconds making up minutes and minutes making up hours, seconds seemed to go for minutes and minutes went for hours: i.e. there was quite a lot of day to fill and not a lot to fill it with.
‘I miss Bernard,’ said Celia.
I closed my eyes. On the phone she was harder to dislike; I don’t know why. Maybe her face made her more irritating.
I turned to see if Eva was listening. She was oblivious, on the phone herself. How unusual.
I cupped my hand around the microphone to make double sure Eva wouldn’t hear. Then I whispered, ‘You could always call me back…I’ll answer.’
Don didn’t call all day. He must have been busy. Or maybe he’d tried to call but had trouble getting through. Maybe there was an issue with the phones? Some glitch in our system that was blocking his number. Or maybe the problem was at his end and he wasn’t able to diagnose it.
I should conduct a test to see.
When Eva went to meet Frank, I dialled the golf club. It was four rings before someone answered: a Charlene.
‘Charlene, are your phones working?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Are the phones working at the golf club?’
‘I believe so…Who is this?’
‘No one.’ I hung up.
They did seem to be working. So it was a mystery why Don hadn’t called, given how much he wanted to.
When he didn’t call the next day—or the one after—I decided to solve the mystery and went down to the golf club during lunch.
Don was in his office. He didn’t notice me at first, staring from the doorway. I knocked but he didn’t hear.
‘Must be pretty important,’ I said. That got his attention.
‘Germaine. What a nice surprise.’ After a bit, he added, ‘Come in.’
I went in and sat down. Neither one of us spoke straight away. I had the sense he was waiting for me at the same time as I was waiting for him. I guessed he was nervous. I tried to help him relax.
‘I watched a clip of you and Rebecca Li on YouTube last night,’ I said.
‘Did you?’
‘It was the one where you put the seven and three in the wrong order. It gets me every time. I yelled at the screen, Don’t do it!’
‘I remember that. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ He made a funny face. A face I found funny. Not everyone would have found it so humorous.
‘We all make mistakes,’ I said, not thinking.
The face dissolved. ‘We do.’
It wasn’t going very well. I was only making conversation until he remembered what he was supposed to tell me.
But it wasn’t coming to him. He must have had a lot on his mind.
I gave him a hint. ‘So…Celia’s gone.’
His face sprang into action now he understood. ‘Right, yes. Sorry, I forgot. Thank you. Thank you, Germaine. Great job.’
‘The mayor said you were pleased. I think she thought you were going to call me.’
‘I was going to…I forgot. We had some issues. I did mean to.’
‘I thought your phones might be down.’
‘No, they’re working.’
‘Unlike your kitchen.’
‘Ha—yes.’
I wasn’t disappointed at how he was being. I wasn’t.
‘The seniors centre’s got a kitchen,’ I said, conversationally. ‘It’s very big. I’m sure they’d let you use it if you wanted to.’ Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t. I enjoyed offering, though.
‘That’s good to know.’
‘Yes. It’s huge. But old. They keep talking about fixing it up. Like everything else over there…That whole building is in a state of disrepair. It’s practically falling down.’
Don was very interested. He really seemed very engaged in this topic of conversation. ‘Pretty bad, is it?’ he said.
‘Oh, it’s terrible. They keep talking about doing a fundraiser…Hey, Mayor Bainbridge said you’re good at raising money. Any ideas I can pass along?’
He was thoughtful. ‘I guess it depends how much you need.’
‘Oh, a lot. A lot.’
‘Well…We usually go to businesses, or we have a dinner and charge people a premium to attend. But that’s for campaign finances. There are different, er, incentives involved.’
Incentives…What incentives were there for improving the state of a seniors centre? It was a shame they weren’t all younger and perter.
Don and I had a bout of quiet thinking time. Then he said he should ‘let me go’, when I hadn’t even realised he was holding me up. How thoughtful of him to notice.
24
Less than a week later the mayor asked to meet with me and Francine again. She didn’t disclose what it was about but I surmised it related to the seniors centre.
I was correct. Once Stacey had shut the door, the mayor mentioned it almost immediately. ‘I’ve got news for you, ladies. Good news, I think. But first, the seniors. How are they faring without their illustrious president?’
‘Good.’ I’d been at homework club on Saturday and though everyone said, ‘Where’s Celia?’ and ‘I miss Celia,’ it was essentially the same as always. Better, in relation to some criteria, e.g. the car park: it had been unusually full, and multiple vehicles had the Fitzsimmons Golf Club sticker in their front window, but no one got upset about it. No complaints, no incidents, no strongly worded signs. And if there were other criteria that weren’t performing as well now Celia was gone, they hadn’t yet revealed themselves.
‘Good,’ said the mayor. ‘I knew if we got rid of that woman everything would calm down.’
I’d known as well, but I hadn’t had a chance to mention it.
‘Now, the reason I’ve got you both here is I’m afraid the work down there is not entirely finished. I’ve got another special project that needs doing.’
Francine pushed her glasses up on her nose. She looked worried.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said the mayor. ‘I’m concerned that the senior citizens centre might not be compliant with the building regulations. I drove past last night and the fence was falling over and there was a broken picnic table and junk everywhere.’
‘The disabled toilet is also broken,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t flush properly. And when it rains the floor in the kitchen gets wet.’
‘Exactly. If something went wrong we’d be in all sorts of trouble. Some old duck slips on a faulty floorboard and breaks her hip? My God, I hate to think.’
Francine removed her glasses. ‘We’ve known this for ages. Celi
a wrote every year and asked for money to undertake repairs and…we…said no every time.’
The mayor did not find this helpful. No one did. Sometimes I couldn’t believe Francine was a team leader, as she didn’t seem to understand basic human interactions. The mayor didn’t want to hear what she should or could have done.
The mayor had been sitting forward but now she leaned back in the chair. The additional distance seemed to give her a better view of Francine and me. Her eyes flicked from one of us to the other and back again.
Then she made an announcement, selecting her words carefully. It was a shame there wasn’t a larger audience; her diction was excellent. ‘We can’t have anybody getting hurt. Germaine, I want you to go down there. And take Ralph from Risk Management and Health and Safety. Do you know Ralph? He’s very good, isn’t he? Take Ralph down there and do a safety audit, the two of you. Have a look around and see what needs fixing. Everything. No matter how small, I don’t care if it’s a light bulb that needs changing, I want it on record.’
This was unexpected. It was more work for me, and Ralph wouldn’t be much fun to hang around with, but it was good news. My first thought was Celia will be pleased. My second was Celia might never know. There was something disappointing about the latter.
I would have thought Francine’s response would be more straightforward, but her reactions seemed to be on a time delay. ‘A safety audit?’ she said.
‘You’re worried about resourcing,’ said the mayor. ‘You’ll be pleased to know I’ve already thought about that. It’ll be a big job, coordinating a redevelopment, and I want Germaine to do it. I know your team’s at capacity…I’ll allocate money to backfill her position. You can hire a temp.’
Privately, I thought they might need more than one and made a note to mention this to Francine later. Francine, meanwhile, had stopped taking notes and was just sitting there with her mouth open.
The mayor kept talking. She wanted me to take on the seniors club exclusively. Even better, rather than report to Francine, I’d be reporting to her direct. I was also—Tada!—getting my own office.
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