The Heart of the Matter

by Lindsay Armstrong

'I ... no, it doesn't matter.'

  'Clarry.'

  She pushed back her chair and stood up. 'No. Anyway, you know all about them.'

  'All right, if it's going to upset you.'

  'It's not!' she flashed at him. 'I'm ... sick and tired of being treated like an invalid!'

  Rob lay back in his chair and simply watched her clutching the back of her chair, meditatively. And his silence was deafening—prove your point, in other words, Clarry...

  She sat down again and clenched her hands in her lap. 'I'm an awful wife, for one thing,' she said quietly.

  'Perhaps I should be the judge of that.'

  ‘I think,’ she hesitated, 'you'd be the last person I'd consult.'

  He raised his eyebrows. 'Oh?'

  'Yes. You made it quite clear once that for you, I was more of a... a conservation project than anything else.'

  'Clarry!' His voice was suddenly grim and he sat up.

  But she said dispassionately, 'Oh, Rob, there are some things even I understand now. Our honeymoon, for example. It ... I must have seemed terribly ... tame to you.'

  His eyes narrowed. 'Did I give you that impression at the time?'

  'N-no.' Her voice faltered slightly. 'But at the time I didn't know any better,' she said.

  'And now you do.' It was a flat statement' and the way he said it made her cheeks burn.

  And a spark of anger lit her blue-grey eyes. 'I thought that was also made rather clear,' she said. 'I mean the difference between being ... kind and gentle, and something that drives you, that ... is occasionally impossible to resist, that has got into your blood...’

  'I haven't laid eyes on your mother for over two years, Clarry. Do you mean that? I certainly resisted the urge to tear her out of the arms of her new husband, wouldn't you say? And incidentally, would you rather I hadn't been kind and gentle?'

  'Yes—no ... You know what I mean!' she said huskily. 'Even last night you said I was still a child then!'

  'Actually, if you're talking about the way you slept with me, you did it as only you could have, with gallantry and style—since we're discussing these things academically, as I presume we are?'

  She stared at him wordlessly.

  'Didn't you enjoy your pork, Mrs. Randall?' Mrs. Jacobs enquired. Clarissa hadn't heard her come in and she coloured and said confusedly, 'Yes. Yes, I did, it was lovely. I just must not be very hungry. No, I'm feeling fine!' she added to Mrs. Jacobs' anxious look, and jumped up again. 'I'll go and check on Evonne. Don't worry about dessert for me.'

  Evonne was awake and had eaten a little.

  'I'll be up and about tomorrow, I promise,' she said to Clarissa. 'I loathe being waited on, not to mention feeling bad about it from your point of view.'

  Clarissa smiled. 'You're very independent, I think.'

  Evonne stretched. 'I guess so. You—get that way when you've had to fend for yourself for most of your life.'

  Oh?'

  'Well, my father deserted us. There were six of us and Mum found it very difficult to cope.'

  'I'm not surprised,' Clarissa said frankly. 'So you...' She stopped.

  'Mmm, I'm self-made. All the way from the back streets of Woolloomooloo.'

  'I would never have...' Clarissa stopped again.

  'Guessed it? I take that as a compliment, Mrs. ... Clarissa,' Evonne said quietly.

  'I was afraid you'd think it was patronizing.'

  Evonne looked at her oddly, Clarissa thought. And then she said, 'Not coming from you. I think that's what's rather got to me about you.'

  Clarissa looked startled.

  Evonne grimaced. 'Must be the painkillers the doctor gave me,' she murmured, and turned her face away.

  'I don't understand...’

  Evonne sighed and turned back. 'In for a penny. I think I've had a chip on my shoulder about

  you because you've had all the things I lacked. But not only that. You're so ... it's hard to explain, but you're so above being patronizing or snobbish. Too well bred, perhaps ... and you don't make the terrible mistakes of taste I sometimes do, still. Like Sophie's dress.'

  'Sophie's dress?' queried Clarissa.

  'Yes. You know the one I wanted her to wear yesterday ? The white frilly one with the blue sash? As soon as I saw her in her blue dungarees, I knew you were right. Only someone with awful pretensions and no taste would have dressed her up in that dress for a television show.'

  Clarissa stared at her and then started to laugh softly. This is an amazing coincidence,' she said at last. 'Because I was just telling Rob that you gave me an inferiority complex because you were so efficient.'

  That Evonne was jolted was obvious. She blinked and her mouth fell open. Then she started to laugh. 'My God,' she marveled, 'that's crazy!'

  'I think we're a crazy pair!' Clarissa agreed, then sobered. 'But I'm glad we've sorted it out. By the way, we found some clothes for you. They ... belonged to my mother and they'll be a better fit than mine. She was about your height.'

  'Your ... mothers?'

  'Yes. Oh, she never wore them. We found them still in their packages. She ... er ... had a thing about clothes. Now, would you like a nightcap? Or a book to read?'

  'Amazingly, I think I'd like to go back to sleep!' said Evonne.

  'Good,' said Clarissa. 'And Mrs. Jacobs' room is just

  two doors down if you need anything. Oh, incidentally,' she stopped at the doorway, 'I don't know about bad taste, but the real reason why I didn't want Sophie to wear that dress is because I have a thing about white dresses and blue sashes!'

  Clarissa found Rob in her bedroom after she left Evonne.

  'I just came to get an extra jumper,' she said. 'I thought of going for a walk.'

  'Then I'll come too.'

  Clarissa hesitated, but something about the set of his mouth stopped her from saying she'd rather go alone.

  It was a clear, cold night, and they walked in silence for a while, Clarissa feeling nervous and ill at ease in case he wanted to continue their conversation from the dining table. She had regarded Mrs. Jacobs' appearance as rather timely. Or perhaps it was just a cowardly way out, she mused, as she walked beside Rob in the moonlight.

  'I've been thinking,' Rob said at last. 'Perhaps you're bored?'

  Clarissa's lips parted. 'Bored?'

  'Well, you haven't been off Mirrabilla for a long time, Clarry. Nor have you had any company, apart from us.'

  'I don't mind that.'

  ‘I know. But perhaps, for example, Evonne stimulates you. Had you thought of that?'

  'You must be a mind-reader,' Clarissa said ruefully, and told him what Evonne had just told her. 'Isn't that odd—but perhaps you're right,' she said slowly.

  'Then I think it's time you started to meet more people.'

  Clarissa winced inwardly. Have I become a neurotic recluse? she wondered.

  'How?' she asked.

  'You could' he paused, 'come to some of the

  social functions that I have to attend in Canberra and Sydney.'

  'Oh, Rob, you know how I hate those things!'

  'Clarry, I think there comes a time in your life when you have to regard socializing objectively. Doing it simply for the sake of doing it doesn't appeal to me either. But there are some times when you can't escape it—I can't, anyway—and if you can believe that there are in fact many, many interesting people out there, it helps. It's also true. And I'm certainly not asking you to indulge in a mindless round of social activity, but occasionally to accompany me when I think you might enjoy it.'

  ‘Sophie..." Clarissa began, then stopped.

  'Sophie is old enough now to cope with being left for the odd night or two. She has Mrs. Jacobs, Clover and everyone else at Mirrabilla twisted round her little finger. Any more objections?'

  Clarissa was silent. They'd stopped walking and were leaning on a fence. She pursed her lips and whistled, and presently hoofbeats sounded and a now matronly Holly Kingston with a gangly foal at her side cantered over a fold in the g
round up to the fence to nuzzle Clarissa affectionately.

  Clarissa stroked her nose, enquired after her baby and delved into her pocket for a carrot, but all the time she was thinking a little chaotically. What to say to this new development? The last thing she wanted to be doing—it was all very well to acknowledge that Evonne might have stimulated her ... Yet Rob sounded...? She cast an uncertain glance at him from beneath her lashes and thought he looked tall and forbidding and remote. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. What if she did do this, and did it well? Would she finally be able to persuade Rob that she was no longer a child?

  'All right,' she said suddenly. 'Why not?'

  Rob regarded her pensively in the moonlight, then he turned round and leant back against the fence rather wearily, with his arms folded.

  'You work too hard, Rob,' Clarissa heard herself saying with a catch in her voice.

  'So you told me last night.'

  She said, 'Can't you try to break the habit?'

  'It might just be the way I'm made.'

  With a rather startling clarity, Clarissa found herself remembering a conversation she had had with Rob's father years ago, and she realized she had mistakenly assumed that inheriting his grandfather's empire would bring Rob the satisfaction he sought. Now, out of the blue, she asked herself suddenly what it really might have brought him. Power—yes, responsibility—definitely, masses of it, which he had not shirked as some, might have said his father had. But what else? Well, very great wealth, obviously— but then she'd always had the feeling he would achieve sufficient wealth himself, but also the feeling that it wasn't terribly important to him...

  And looking at his profile in the moonlight, she suddenly wondered if it hadn't brought him disillusionment too. If people fawned on him and disgusted him as her ...

  She caught her thoughts up abruptly, not ready to try and untangle what she thought of as the last mystery, subconsciously.

  As for me... the thought tripped through her mind

  and she was about to banish it as well, but something forced her to stop and examine it. For example, she'd been about as lukewarm as it was possible to be about this suggestion—have I got incredibly selfish? she marveled. As well as reclusive, neurotic, recalcitrant ... she shivered. Rob straightened. 'Time to go in, I think. I’m not too cold. I—actually it might be fun, Rob. I think I'll be looking forward to it.' Her voice trembled slightly, but she was smiling.

  He searched her face intently for a moment. Then he put a casual arm about her shoulders, but all he said was, 'I'm glad.'

  In bed that night, Clarissa discovered her thoughts taking another turn.

  Or rather, following on her earlier train but with a sudden leap forward that made her wince and bite her lip. Because she'd never before really stopped to wonder how much this marriage was costing Rob in a physical sense. Had all the care and attention he'd surrounded her with, for example, included his staying faithful to her?

  'For over two years.’ she whispered.

  She sat up, and then lay back agitatedly. In fact she had wondered about this before, but not from Rob's point of view. She occasionally and cynically assumed it probably would have happened anyway, and deliberately cut her thoughts off at that point.

  Now she found herself wondering all sorts of things. Who? Or was it a succession of women? Or... no, she didn't believe that any more, but really, who could blame him if he had. .. strayed, for want of a better word?

  She sat up again and thought with a peculiarly

  haunting chill—could one blame me? Surely not! After all, I was the . . . what was I? The innocent party?

  But as that familiar feeling of tension began to mount within, she deliberately took hold. I just can't let this keep happening to me, she told herself. I just can't.

  And perhaps the rigors of two rather different days helped, because she lay back with an exhausted sigh, and presently fell asleep.

  Rob had another surprise for her over breakfast. He said idly, 'I've been thinking. Now that you and Evonne have come to like and understand each other. ..' He stopped and waited as if for Clarissa to contradict him.

  She thought for a moment, then said, 'Well—yes?'

  'Then she might be some help to you as your secretary,' he shrugged, 'companion for a time.'

  Clarissa's mouth dropped open. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

  'Wouldn't it,' he said as if choosing his words with care, 'be a help to have another woman to . .. discuss clothes with, parties, events, the people you might meet and their backgrounds—to be able to not only talk about it but accompany you on any shopping trips etc., and also someone who is conversant with the business world, as Evonne undoubtedly is, but not only mine—the world of big business, you might say?'

  Clarissa blinked several times. 'I ... I suppose so,' she said at last. 'But she's your press secretary, for one thing. For another, she might . . . well, object to being sort of seconded to me. And she might find the whole idea insanely boring.'

  'I'm sure I could replace her temporarily,' he assured her. 'She also has a rather bright future with us which I don't suppose she's unaware of.'

  'If you think I'd enjoy having her .. company, because she's afraid to say no on account of jeopardising her bright future with you, I wouldn't!' Clarissa told him indignantly.

  Rob lay back in his chair and regarded her amusedly. 'I wasn't trying to say that. I meant she would probably quite sensibly regard -it as another facet of her job-even a perk.

  Clarissa stared at him nonplussed.

  'I also happen to know,' he added, sitting up, 'that there are some things about Mirrabilla that fascinate her.'

  'What things?'

  'Everything that the family have for years regarded as memorabilia,' he said with a grin. 'Like your great great-grandfather's diary.'

  'How do you know this?'

  'The night before last, after the television crew had left and you'd gone to tuck Sophie in, she mentioned to me that the place was packed with history, most of it just lying about, which she thought was a crying shame, and that it should at least be catalogued and better preserved.'

  Several succeeding expressions chased across Clarissa's face, but finally she laughed. 'That sounds like Evonne,' she said wryly. 'Do you-do you think she'd be interested in doing that?'

  'She wouldn't have mentioned it if she didn't have an interest in that kind of thing.'

  'You're right, I guess,' Clarissa said slowly. 'And,' Rob pointed out, 'as we have established, she has no ties in Sydney.'

  ‘I.. ' She bit her lip and looked confused.

  'But you don't have to make a decision right away,' Rob said mildly. 'You're going to have her company for a few days by the look of things, so why don't you just ... bear it in mind? I'll be in Canberra for the next few days, by the way.'

  'Oh. Well, all right, I might just do that,' Clarissa said lamely, and with the feeling that her life had suddenly and inexplicably started to speed up like a film on a runaway movie projector.

  'Don't look so worried,' Rob said quietly. 'Whatever else has happened, do you really think I don't have your best interests at heart, Clarry?'

  'I ... no,' she said huskily.

  But she thought later, after he had left, that although his suggestions had been made so-almost casually, she sensed a purpose within him that could not be denied any more. The iron fist in the velvet glove? she mused, then found herself wondering what more he would expect of her now that he was ... sort of setting her back on the road again. Is that the right way to describe it? she asked herself. Or is he saying to me, if you're so sure you can stand on your on two feet

  now, prove it? .

  Perhaps I do need to prove it, if not to him, to

  myself? .

  Two days later, Clarissa said to Evonne, 'I've had this thought.’.

  They were sitting on the verandah having afternoon tea. Mem lay at Clarissa's feet and Sophie was playing happily with her building blocks. It was a cold but bright
afternoon and they were protected by the house from the wind that struck through one as if it was blowing straight off Mount Kosciusko to the southeast. Clarissa had spent most of the morning on

  horseback as she and Cory and Mem had helped move sheep to new paddocks with winter feed, and she was liberally anointed with lanolin, especially on her cheeks, lips and hands to ward off the chapping effect of the wind. Which made her tea taste odd.

  But she had used the morning spent beneath a vast, clear blue sky to do other than herd sheep, which she could do in her sleep anyway. She had found herself thinking clearly and objectively as her saddle had creaked and the dust had boiled. And Mem had barked and cajoled and heckled and leapt lightly across those woolly backs—Mem was going to be a champion sheepdog.

  'You had this thought?'

  'Yes. Evonne...' Clarissa paused and glanced at Evonne. She was smartly but casually dressed in a pair of tweed pants and thick cyclamen-pink sweater that suited her complexion. Yesterday, Clarissa had told Evonne she would like her to have her mother's clothes, which suited and fitted her so well. Evonne had begun to protest rather stiffly, but she had told her mother had no use for them now and anyway never wore clothes more than two seasons old. Then a thought and laughingly asked Evonne had struck her if she was being patronizing instead of just practical as she'd thought. Evonne had hesitated and then had said, wryly, 'Practical—that was just my chip showing.'

  'Evonne, would you care to be my secretary-stroke-companion for a little while?'

  Evonne's dark eyes widened and she spluttered on a mouthful of tea. 'Say that again?'

  Clarissa did, and went on to explain. She finished by saying, 'I've been out of things since before Sophie was born, you see. And even so, I never knew much about the Randall empire. And I think Rob would like

  me to help out on the social side now that Sophie is no longer a baby really. I'm not a natural socializer, though, firstly, and secondly I suspect I've become rather rusticated. Is there such a word?'

  'I don't know.' Evonne smiled, then sobered. 'You were perfect for Moira Stapleton.'

  'But I was very much on my home ground.'

  'Have you discussed this with Mr. Randall? Naturally I couldn’t...