Jack said, ‘Maybe we should go for dinner?’
I said, ‘The Red Emperor’s open until nine.’
We started walking to the tram stop, two abreast on the footpath. When we reached the main road Jack cut around the back of me to be on the outer side, closer to the cars. As he did, he caught my hand and squeezed.
I squeezed back, but harder.
Then he squeezed harder, then I did, then he did, then I did, then we had to stop because otherwise someone* was going to break a finger.
There was a lot of work to be done in a short space of time. So much so, I relocated from Ron Steven’s office in the downstairs basement of the town hall to the one at the seniors centre. It was easier, less commuting. I didn’t mention my transfer to Francine. I just put a sign on the door that said ‘Back in five minutes’. No one seemed to notice.
At the centre, Betsy was working hard on her recipes. She had a lot of sweet ones but had to expand her savoury repertoire. Eva came periodically to help, which was not as bad as you would have thought. Her palate was surprisingly refined. She knew if a dish had a pinch too much salt or insufficient butter. She even came up with the idea of separating a sausage roll into parts and calling it ‘deconstructed’. And she loved Betsy’s ginger chutney. They were working on a jam line.
Eva’s presence didn’t negatively impact the helpline, either, and not just because of how useless she’d been. Back at the town hall, Marie Curie was staffing the phones on her own. I was glad Marie was helping, and glad I didn’t have to be around her. My opinion of her hadn’t improved that much.
I was trying to source some branded serviettes when Betsy came to get me. She’d changed out of her apron and had runners on. ‘You coming?’
‘Sure am.’
Chair aerobics. I’d been going every day and the muscles in my legs were building; you could see them when I walked. I’d verified this in the mirror, when trying on my dress for the mayoral ball, which was ‘black tie’.
The dress was not new; I’d worn it previously, at my high school formal. It still fitted—pretty much, though Jin-Jin said purple velvet was kind of dated, and Sharon said, ‘You don’t have to wear a tie as well, Germaine,’ but what did those two know about dress codes?
Betsy and I got stuck in the hall, behind a woman walking with the aid of a stepper. She was very slow. When I hissed, ‘Can’t we go around?’ Betsy shh-ed me. ‘They won’t start without us, Germaine.’
The class was nearly full: there were only three seats left in the room and that included Betsy’s up the front. Of the two other seats, one was the second-best in the whole room. It was next to James, who was in the first-best. He’d been getting to classes earlier and earlier.
The woman with the stepper approached the good seat but James put his hand on it. ‘This one’s taken,’ he said, and looked around her to me. He was a much nicer person since his pension payment got sorted. Stress does funny things to people.
The woman with the stepper hobbled off to the other chair, which was right down the other end. Took her ages to get there.
When I got back to the office Celia was there, on the computer. If it had been a Tuesday or a Thursday, Charlie would have been with her. Those days she brought him in after school, but this was a Wednesday so it was just the two of us.
‘I’m nearly done,’ she said, jabbing the keyboard with her index fingers. ‘Just getting this newsletter finished. Gladys been too busy with all this fund-raising for her presidential duties.’
I started stretching, an unusual stretch to begin with, involving covering both ears. It made me feel awkward when Celia mentioned positions on the committee, particularly the presidential one.
‘Not long now.’ Celia was staring at the computer screen. ‘Until the ball, I mean. Excited?’
I was not excited. Talking to the mayor used to be the highlight of my day but it was no longer something I was looking forward to.
‘I’d love to be the one confronting her,’ said Celia. ‘But no one seems to think I’m the right person.’
I did a different stretch, this time arm-related.
‘If I was the one talking to her I’d say, I know that policy was a lie. I know you just wanted to get rid of me.’
And back to the ear-covering ‘stretch’. It wasn’t very good at blocking out the noise. I could still hear Celia’s voice.
‘I’d say, Don’t you have anything better to do than kick little old ladies off committees?’
I mumbled something into my arm.
‘What’s that?’ Celia stopped typing.
‘I said…’ I coughed. ‘It wasn’t the mayor’s idea to remove you from the committee.’
Celia frowned. ‘Whose was it then?’
I put my head down and winced at the floor. ‘Mine?’
Celia said nothing. I wondered if she’d heard. I lifted my head up.
‘It was mine.’
________________
* It wasn’t going to be me.
43
The morning of the ball, Celia called a committee meeting. We came together in the kitchen and lined up along one side of the long silver bench. Celia paced back and forth on the other: a general briefing the troops before battle. ‘Betsy, what’s the status on food? Estimated time of departure is four o’clock.’
‘We’ll be ready.’ Betsy wiped her hands on a tea towel. ‘The mini quiches are almost done and the rest is just prep. We have to cook or assemble it over there. Right, Eva?’
Eva was wearing an apron that said kiss the cook; she made it herself using a tea towel and a texta. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Except for the bacon brioches, but they’re going in the oven shortly.’
Eva really did seem to have found her calling. Not only did she display a level of enthusiasm over and above anything she’d shown previously (including as related to the biscuit petition); she also had a knack. I didn’t use the word ‘genius’ often, and I certainly wouldn’t have used it to describe her. But she was very good with flavours. Her weird and (often) delicious combinations—grapefruit on goats cheese with almond sprinkle or chicken liver parfait cones and marmalade topping—gave the Olde World Catering Company what Jin-Jin described on the website as a ‘modern edge’.
There had been some debate about the phrasing.
‘How can you be “olde world” if you have a “modern edge”?’ I said. ‘You’re old or you’re new, you can’t be both.’
‘It’s called “fusion”,’ said Jin-Jin. ‘And it’s very important to the target market.’
‘It’s called a “contradiction in terms”.’
‘Germaine,’ Jin-Jin said, in an almost Jack-like way.
In the kitchen, Celia did an about-turn and marched in the opposite direction. ‘Jack, Jin-Jin. The wait staff?’
Jack and Jin-Jin were responsible for ‘front of house’. Jin-Jin because she’d waited tables in the past and Jack because he insisted on helping and it was that or get him to play the ukulele. He didn’t have the most versatile skill set, though he had been quite helpful with the web design. He and I had to interact a lot over that. Quite a lot, actually.
Jack and Jin-Jin had recruited an enthusiastic but not overly polished team from homework club. ‘They’ll be here at three,’ said Jack.
‘And they know what they’re doing?’ said Celia, peering over the top of her glasses.
Jack thought for a moment. ‘More or less.’
Celia ticked ‘wait staff’ off her list.
‘Now, Gladys. The meet and greet. Are you ready?’
Gladys was responsible for liaising with Don when they arrived, working out where to park the refrigerated van, where to come in, all that boring stuff. This meant Betsy and Eva could get on with the cooking and it would free me up, when the time came, to speak to Mayor Bainbridge.
Speak to Mayor Bainbridge. As though it was just a conversation. Like the future of this place and everyone in it didn’t depend on that one exchange of words and ideas.
Celia stopped pacing and looked at us one by one.
‘This is it,’ she said. ‘You know what to do. Betsy and Eva, keep cooking. Jack, Jin-Jin, make sure the service is topnotch. Gladys, ignore Don if he gets annoyed. And Germaine—’
All eyes were on me.
‘Good luck?’ said Betsy.
‘Germaine, just remember who your friends are,’ said Celia.
She might have still been a bit annoyed with me. I don’t know. Just a thought.
I had to go home to get ready. I told Jack I was leaving and he walked me to the car. When we got there, I stood against the driver’s side door with my hands behind me. ‘What do you think’s the probability we’ll pull this off?’ I said.
Jack said, ‘Two hundred per cent.’
‘There’s no such thing as a probability of two hundred per cent.’
‘Germaine.’ Jack came closer; he wanted to lean against one of the car doors too. Thing was, he chose the same door, so my body was in between. He pressed into me. ‘You know what I mean,’ he said.
I try to discourage the use of incorrect hyperbole, but on this occasion I lowered my standards.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I know what you mean.’
When I got back to my apartment I had two hours to get ready. I would have had a bath but Sharon was coming over, for reasons unexplained. She’d called earlier in the week to enquire about the wellbeing of Archimedes and Gauss, who were not only alive but thriving. ‘Maybe I’ll come and see them on Saturday night,’ she said.
‘You can but I won’t be there. That’s the night of the ball.’
‘Oh,’ said Sharon. ‘How exciting.’ She was being sarcastic. I hadn’t told her about the reordering of my priorities vis-à-vis the senior citizens centre.
When I explained how the situation had evolved, she went quiet. I had to check the call hadn’t dropped out. ‘Are you there?’ I said.
‘I’m here. It’s just…’ Sharon was never lost for words, but this was one occasion on which she was.
She found them eventually. ‘I can’t believe you’re singlehandedly stopping the sale of an old people’s home.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘It’s not an old people’s home, it’s a community centre. It’s not singlehanded, there are others involved. And we probably won’t succeed.’
‘But you’re trying,’ said Sharon. Then she got a frog in her throat and had to hang up.
Now, she buzzed and when I let her in she was carrying a black suit bag on a wire hanger. ‘This is for you,’ she said, handing it to me.
The bag was old and crumpled. From an op shop, I could tell, which made me want to put on gloves and a disposable mask.
However, I held the hanger while Sharon unzipped the bag. I was braced for the worst, which was also the most likely because Sharon had terrible taste, as characterised by her love of cheesecloth.
‘I have a dress already,’ I warned her as the bag came off.
But it was pretty nice at first glance.
It wasn’t cheesecloth, and it wasn’t paisley. It was long and red and when I held it up, the fabric seemed to shimmer.
‘Turn it over. There was a tiny problem at the back but Marion helped me fix it.’
What a shame. I knew then it would be terrible, with some major issue made worse by Sharon and Marion trying to reduce the magnitude of the original problem. Those two had a very lax approach: not just zero attention to detail, but also a willingness to look foolish in public. They were very embracing of that.
I turned the dress over. On the upper-upper back, the fabric was red. Around the middle-back was where they’d performed their alterations. A large square of fabric had been sewn on. Most people would have done this in red. Typically, Sharon and Marion would have chosen a shade of red close to but not exactly the same as the rest of the dress. On this occasion, however, they’d picked a white satin. Then, using black sequins, they’d sewn nine small boxes on it, three across and three down. Two thirds of the boxes had numbers in them, the rest were blank.
‘It’s a level six,’ said Sharon. ‘I got it off the World Puzzle Federation website.’
‘A level six? But I’ve never—’
‘I think you can do it,’ she said.
It would be hard to do while wearing; I might have to look in double mirrors. But I didn’t mind that. Seeing myself from a different angle.
‘Do you like it?’ said Sharon. ‘You don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it.’
‘No.’ I looked at it again, then at Sharon. ‘I like it.’
Sharon dropped me at the golf club on her way home. ‘You’re very quiet,’ she said on the way there. ‘Something up?’
‘No. I’m just thinking.’ It was an important night. There were a lot of logistical elements involved and I had to keep track of them.
Jack had messaged when he and the senior citizens and homework clubbers got in the buses to go to the golf club. I was glad I wasn’t there when they arrived. I didn’t want to see Don’s face when he realised who he’d hired. I hadn’t lied, as such, but I had excluded 51 per cent of the relevant information.
Predictably, the car park at the golf club was full and there was a long line of cars waiting to drop guests at the entrance. In the distance, we could see the red carpet running down the steps and the large banner that hung from the portico. It had a picture of the mayor.
Sharon wound her window down. ‘That her, is it?’ she said.
‘That’s what it says, Sharon. In quite big letters.’
From here, the mayor looked perfect: her hair was straight, her face was symmetrical and her teeth were as good as ever. But sometimes looks could be deceiving. Like you wouldn’t know my dress had a level six sudoku on the back if you were looking from the front. Like you wouldn’t know some crappy old building had some pretty nice things inside (not including furniture but including people).
Sharon patted me on the knee. ‘I’m proud of you.’
‘Why? I haven’t done anything yet.’
‘Doesn’t matter what happens. Even if this is a spectacular failure, which it probably will be, I’ll still be proud.’
It was the stupid dress. There must have been dust on it, or some other allergen, to get my eyes watering like that.
I should have worn the mask.
44
The nice moment didn’t last. When we got to the front of the queue Sharon wouldn’t let me out of the car until I promised to call her at the end of the night and tell her what happened. She locked the doors and everything, even after I agreed—she was being ‘funny’. I didn’t wave at her as I went up the steps and into the building.
Inside, the foyer was full of people, men in black tuxedos and women in long shiny dresses. Mine was the only one that served a dual purpose, which was not unexpected. It didn’t seem like any of them noticed, though. Me or my attire.
The catering staff stood at intervals along the wall, holding trays of food and drink. I recognised their faces from homework club. It was heartening how professional they looked, especially given how challenged most of them were in other ways, e.g. numerically.
‘Champagne?’ One held his tray out. It took me a second to realise it was Jack. He was wearing pants again. I pointed at them.
‘Yeah.’ He moved his tray to the side to look down. ‘They’re part of the uniform. You’d be happy about that.’
I did like pants; they were what most people wore in most situations, certainly in the workplace. However, I wasn’t sure if I liked them on Jack. His knees were one of his best features: why cover them? When I said this to Jack, he seemed very pleased. His chest puffed up like a peacock.
I took a glass off Jack’s tray and drank some wine, hoping the alcohol might have a relaxing effect. It didn’t seem to. My stomach was still folded along a series of invisible dotted lines.
‘Good luck,’ said Jack.
I gave him back the glass and continued down the hall.
Don had shown me the dining room on our tour of the clubhouse, but that was when it wasn’t decorated. Now it had been transformed. All the tables had white tablecloths and white napkins and little vases with white flowers and glasses that seemed to twinkle in the light. The chairs were covered in fabric and had bows around their middles.
The mayor’s table was up the front. I had to sidestep around people to get there. It was empty save for one person. His face did not light up when he saw me.
‘Germaine,’ said Don. ‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘Told you what?’
Don gave a disbelieving look, but it was lost on me. I was immune. I felt nothing for him.
‘If I’d known who it was I wouldn’t have hired them,’ he said, which was obvious. Don was not as clever as I’d thought. I was glad I didn’t love him; his stupidity would have been wearing, in time.
‘I thought we were friends,’ he said. Once, I would have cherished these words, dissected his every inflection. Now I found I didn’t care to.
Don went to say something further but then his eyes shifted and his expression changed.
The mayor had arrived.
The sea of people seemed to part as she moved through it, from the foyer, past tables and more tables to our table.
‘Hello, Don.’ She did not acknowledge me, but kissed him on both cheeks. He held her arm lightly and they stood close together. The spatial orientation of their bodies with respect to mine seemed to confirm how distant we’d become.
I cleared my throat and called across the abyss: ‘Hi, Verity.’ It felt weird saying that. Like calling a teacher by their first name.
She didn’t answer so I said it again. ‘Hi, Verity.’
‘Germaine. What a lovely outfit.’
‘Thank you.’
She made a shrill sound, a bit like a laugh, but not a laugh. ‘I’m surprised you came.’
‘You invited me,’ I pointed out.
‘That was before. The situation has changed, don’t you think, Germaine?’ Her mouth twisted in a cruel way. ‘But maybe you’re not capable of independent thought?’
She was trying to wound me with her little barbs. But I had my force field up. ‘I have something to tell you,’ I said.
The Helpline Page 26