“I know!” Louise shook her head.
“All they had to do was choose a course they were interested in. You just have to be signed up for one – any one! They only got sent to that one because they were too lazy to nominate a course for themselves.” Vera had worked in Human Resource Management previously and knew how it all worked.
“Yeah, I know, but they probably didn’t offer a course on naked teenage girl jelly wrestling, so what were they to do?”
*
Jim walked into the house with a heavy tread. He didn’t notice the flowers on the table or the sun shining through the windows, bouncing reflections off every shiny surface. He walked straight through the house and out the back door, down the stairs and into his basement studio.
He closed the door behind him, shutting out the warm light, and sank into his favourite armchair. “What now?” He thought to himself. “How can I find a solution to this problem?” Solution! That was how he had gotten into this mess – trying to solve someone else’s problem. Perhaps the real solution had been not to find any more solutions.
But what good was being philosophical at this point? It was too late now to do anything, and there were no more solutions – there was nothing left. He would have to tell Mary. She would be angry. She would blame him. And why shouldn’t she – he blamed himself. It was his fault – his and no one elses. But plenty of people would suffer – everyone would suffer. Jim put his head back into the chair, closed his eyes and sighed.
*
Not more than a mile away, Michael was sitting in his garage, packing a bong with Sam. “Where’s Roxanne?” Sam asked nervously. He knew Roxanne didn’t like them using “her” garage as a smoking room.
“She’s at work, then picking up the boys and taking them to Lee’s for dinner. Relax!” Michael was reassuring. He took the bong from Sam and drew deeply on it, the water gurgling as he did so. He finally exhaled thick, dark smoke and said “Aaaaagh – I needed that.” And he passed the bong to Sam.
Sam was a concreter. He worked outside for 12 hours a day, at least 6 days a week, in every sort of weather. He was very thin but muscular, and very tanned. His work was physically exhausting and, at the age of 33, his back ached after hours of bending over and smoothing yards of wet concrete every day, day in and day out, for years. He earned great money but he knew that his days were numbered. His back would probably last another year – maybe two. After that, he would have to either run a team or go into something else.
The trouble with running a team was that certain types of people became labourers. Many of them were unreliable. They all smoked dope – that didn’t worry him. What worried him was relying on people who thought showing up for a day’s work was optional. Employing someone was just another stressful thought. Sam was a perfectionist and couldn’t bear to see a job badly done. He had to redo any shoddy work because once the concrete set on a job, his reputation was set, too.
So Sam smoked a few pipes to ease the very real pain in his back; to wipe away his concerns about the future and to achieve a level of complacence that he associated with a carefree period of his life – a period that was moving farther and farther away from him now.
When Sam had finished, he turned to Michael. “So, what’s going on?”
“Oh, you know,” Michael tried to look thoughtful but couldn’t hide the fear behind his eyes. “The usual shit. Everyone is jumping on me because I’m not making them any money. I’m the ideas man. Everyone know that, and they all want a piece of the action but no one is prepared to shoulder the load. I’m an entrepreneur and I have to take risks. No risks, no return.”
Sam knew he was pretty stoned but he also knew where this was going and he’d already heard enough. Michael wasn’t a bad guy – Sam like him. He was good company; he was always enthusiastic. He should have been a salesman. He was a salesman if you thought about it, Sam realised. Michael could get more people to part with their money for no good reason than you would think possible. Very few were immune to Michael’s charms.
He was definitely intelligent, too, which was probably why people generally believed whatever he said. Although, Sam had to admit, there was a point at which you began to wonder whether Michael was actually trying to convince himself or you of the truth of his current notion. But whatever was going on now, it definitely concerned money – Michael’s lack thereof, no doubt, and if Sam was smart he would leave now before he became another of Michael’s creditors.
“I’m off,” he announced abruptly. Michael looked up from his bong and nodded, used to Sam’s decisive moves.
Leaving via the driveway gate, Sam almost walked into James. “Sam,” James greeted his brother-in-law. “You leaving?” James was clearly glad to see Sam, but sensed immediately that he was in a hurry to get away. James quickly tried to think of any reason that Sam might want to avoid him but, unable to think of anything he might have done, and knowing he didn’t owe Sam any money or dope, he stopped feeling paranoid and waited for an answer.
“Yeah,” Sam smiled and James relaxed. “Got to get going.” He indicated Michael with a backward jerk of his head. “What are you doing here? Did you find some money you haven’t lent Michael yet and thought you would drop it over?”
James knew he should be pissed off with Sam for being so smug and so derisive, but he was smiling at the accuracy of Sam’s observation before he could help himself. It wasn’t as though Sam’s own brothers didn’t have their hands in his pockets, after all.
“Give me a break,” he retorted. “He’s already cleaned me out.”
“You’re not the only one.” Sam was shaking his head and his expression was serious now.
James felt caught off-guard. “You didn’t lend him any money, did you?”
Sam coughed his scorn. “No way. Your dad did, though.”
“That’d be right. Dad’s always bailing Michael out.”
“Not this time.” Sam’s tone held a note of anger. “This time he’s even cleaned out your father.”
“What?” James was unbelieving. “No way.”
“Ask your father.” Sam thumped James on the arm. He liked his wife’s younger brother but was frustrated by the way he allowed Michael to take advantage of him. “I’ll be home tonight. Drop in if you want.” Both men knew that this was an invitation to smoke dope in Sam’s garage.
James watched Sam hurry to his truck and drive away before he could collect his thoughts and ask any more questions about his father. He looked towards Michael’s garage, wondering if he would get any answers there. But what would even be the point of asking? James had come to Michael’s seeking company but now he longed to be alone. He turned around and headed back to his car.
*
“Eve’s coming!” It was 5.30pm on the Wednesday before Christmas and Jim and just arrived home after work. It was a beautiful, early summer evening in daylight savings time and the twilight was a few hours off yet.
Jim strode into the house and delivered his news triumphantly. His younger and only sister, Eve, had called him a few hours earlier from Brisbane and Jim had been elated ever since. He found Mary in the kitchen, where she was preparing their habitual 5.30 drink-and-nibblies: a bottle of Clare Valley cabernet sauvignon, and an assortment of cheeses and crisp breads. Mary looked forward to this part of the day – they both did – where they sat together and discussed the events of their individual lives. Sometimes the listener, usually Mary, would comment; mostly not, though.
Mary felt a pang of annoyance at Jim’s announcement. Just the sight of him, all buoyed up and eagerly anticipating the arrival of his sister “flipped her switch”. Awaiting his return, she had been happy and content – even carefree. Now she felt overshadowed, like an unsuccessful contestant at a beauty pageant.
“Eve,” she forced herself to say, since Jim was waiting for her response. “What’s she coming here for?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Mary could hear the accusation in her tone. She hoped her husband would credit her q
uestion with a curiosity she did not feel, but a glance at him, engrossed with opening the bottle of wine, told her that he wasn’t paying any real attention to her. Mary was partly relieved, and partly further annoyed by this observation.
“Apparently Martin is in Brisbane with his new young wife and Eve wants to get away from it all.” The neck of the bottle relinquished its hold on the cork which Jim now inspected. He took a cracker loaded with camembert cheese from the plate Mary was holding as she passed him by, on her way to the front patio.
“Bring the wine, would you?” she instructed him. Jim picked up the bottle again and the two lead crystal glasses already set out, and followed Mary outside.
On her way out to the front patio, Mary took a Evep breath. “Don’t say anything, don’t say anything” she advised herself, knowing she couldn’t win this one. She never had and she never would. “Don’t set yourself up for a fall.”
Jim was the eldest of five children. The four boys were all good looking, artistically talented like their mother, and very intelligent. Jim was the eldest and had parchment to prove his intellectual ability. He was also arguably his mother’s favourite. Favourite son, that is. Eve, the only girl of the five, and the middle child, was everyone’s favourite. Eve had thick, wavy dark hair and creamy skin. Her almond shaped brown eyes were liquid and her dark lashes long. She had dimples and full, red lips. Her well-proportioned figure had not been lost – not even after having six children. Mary, behind Eve’s back, had unkindly questioned whether this was not due to some surgical intervention after the birth of the last baby, in the form of a tummy tuck, perhaps – but in fact it was not. Eve, and all her siblings, had naturally strong, lithe bodies and they didn’t overeat. The Keats kids were raised on steak and it tended to fill them up. With a belly full of protein, none of them was ever hungry, and never developed a taste for cake or biscuits. Eve’s adult diet had emulated her youthful habits and although she had matured and changed shaped since she was sixteen, those changes had been voluptuous rather than thickening.
Mary had also had six children. One had died just days after her difficult birth. Nevertheless, Mary had had the same number of pregnancies as Eve and was, in fact, more classically beautiful than Eve had ever been. But Eve had a sparkle – a wild streak that Mary had not. And it attracted people to her. Men, women, children – everyone was drawn to Eve. Some people have to learn a role and act in a film to be a star. Eve was a star every single day of her life.
Mary sighed. Why did Eve make her so uncomfortable? Eve had always valued her as a sister-in-law; Eve’s ex-husband, Martin, the father of her six children and her husband for more than 20 years, had always shown a great preference for Mary over all the other relations. And yet, even as she posed the question to herself, she knew the answer. “It’s because of Jim,” she admitted to herself. “I hate Eve because Jim idolises her.”
And that was it. Jim admired and idolized his little sister so much that Mary felt her own place in his heart had been usurped by an undeserving rival. And the fact that she was beautiful, talented, funny, interesting, glamorous – that all just made it worse, and made Mary more determined to undermine her hold on Jim – on everyone. But it was like trying to hold back the surf. Why couldn’t Mary just enjoy Eve, like everyone else?
“I suppose this is how Roxanne feels about Louise,” Mary considered the possibility with a jolt. “That would explain a lot, actually.” And she determined to be gracious, and to beat down the green-eyed demon in her heart.
So, Mary sat in the cool of the patio, surrounded by the ferns and shrubs she had planted, drinking wine and listening to Jim’s description of the dinner party they would give when Eve arrived. She took Evep, silent breathes of the fragrant summer evening air, and had almost lulled herself into a state of semi-acceptance.
“You can’t blame her for not wanting to be part of the whole ‘meet my new wife’ Christmas with her ex-husband.”
“Martin.” Mary thought calling the brother-in-law they’d known for a quarter of a century the ‘ex-husband’ sounded ridiculous.
“I’ve always like Martin, you know that.” Jim said.
“Well, Eve must have known that this was on the cards when she divorced him.” Mary tried to mitigate any sympathy Jim was inclined to feel towards Eve.
“I think Eve divorced Martin out of revenge,” Jim smiled.
“Can you blame her? So would have I!” Mary couldn’t stop herself from defending Eve’s position on this occasion. “Fancy finding out your husband has a young girlfriend!”
“Well, he is a very wealthy man, and he probably had a lot of temptation.” Jim was more inclined to see Martin’s side of things on this issue, and offered his explanation almost wistfully.
“Well, I hope he is rich enough to support two families, because that is what he has signed up for now.” Mary shook her head.
Jim didn’t understand. “What do you mean? Candy doesn’t have any kids.”
“Not yet. But what young woman gets married thinking that she won’t be having a family of her own? If Martin wanted to get married but not have another family, he should have married someone his own age.”
Jim laughed. “Even Eve isn’t his own age. She’s ten years younger than Martin.”
“Yes, I know, but that was different because it was a first marriage for both of them and neither of them had any children.”
“So you think Candy will want to have a family with Martin?” Jim mused on this point.
“Of course she will!” Mary couldn’t believe Jim’s naivety. “Why else would she marry a 60 year old man?”
“You mean a 60 year old millionaire, don’t you? There could be other reasons.”
‘Like money?”
“Money,” Jim agreed, “and she might be in love with him.”
“Young women who are looking for a life partner fall in love with men who represent an attractive future. Few women look into their future and see no children of their own. For most women, a childless life is something to be avoided – not desired.”
“Sure,” said Jim thoughtfully. “Yes, you are probably right you know.” He took another cheese cracker.
Mary took a Evep breath and waited for Jim to settle himself comfortably. “I know about Michael’s business problem,” she said.
Jim looked at her expectantly. He knew that by saying this, Mary knew that he had gone guarantor for Michael.
Mary continued. “So I took the precaution of having this house transferred into the name of a family trust.” She paused to let Jim think about that. “The Keats Family Trust. It’s a discretionary trust.”
“Oh. Did Louise -?”
“Yes.”
“But wouldn’t I have to sign something?”
“I’ve been signing your name for years.” Mary scoffed at his question.
“There is still the land,” Jim said.
“Well, not really. I mortgaged it to 90% of its value and transferred that amount into the family trust, too.”
Jim looked at Mary as though he had never seen her before. He was having trouble taking in this information. His wife had forged his signature; taken complete control of their finances and virtually declared their eldest son bankrupt by truncating his ability to draw on his father’s financial resources to prop up his own. He felt ill – with relief.
“Oh,” Jim sighed. “Thank God.”
*
Louise was quite touched when her father called her to invite her to dinner. “Does Mum know?” she asked, only half seriously.
“Well, she’s invited too, of course, but it is going to be a surprise.”
Louise was rendered momentarily speechless by this almost-admission of surreptitious planning. “Surprise?” She couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Won’t she become suspicious when she is doing the cooking and setting the table?” Now she was openly laughing.
“I’ll be doing the cooking – don’t you worry about that!” Her father sounded almost huffy over the pho
ne. “All you and Mary and everyone else have to do is show up.”
“OK.” Louise was chagrined.
“And wear something nice.” Jim hung up.
“Cheeky bugger!” Louise thought. “How dare he order me to wear something nice?” But she wasn’t really surprised. Jim, like most men and all artists, was very visually oriented and he had often reprimanded Louise for her lack of attention to personal grooming. She had never seen her father without a shirt and never unshaven. Not that he was a fashion plate. If not a suit, then a tweed jacket and salt-and-pepper trousers pretty much defined his “look”.
Louise kicked herself for not asking her father who else had been invited. Had he drawn Marie out of hiding? “I guess I’ll just have to wait and see,” she thought. It was only then that she remembered that her parents had not yet seen the “New Lou”.
So, at 7 pm that evening, the Thursday before Christmas, Louise presented herself at 75 Pridham St. Michael’s car was already there, as was Sam’s work vehicle. Louise flicked back her new fringed hair and entered the house.
Everyone was standing in the lounge room chatting to each other over the Dave Brubeck disc Jim had playing. Roxanne was with Mary and Jane; and Marie was talking to Michael. Sam and James were speaking in low tones, punctuating their conversation with meaningful looks and manly nods. Jim saw Louise first and was by her side in an instant.
“Louise!” He announced, then hugged her exuberantly. “You look like a million dollars!”
“Thanks, Dad.” Louise was both pleased and irritated by her father’s response to her new “do” and fashionable clothes. Then Jim looked at her, seeming troubled. “You’re not going out somewhere, are you?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled her into the room as the others took in the change in Louise’s appearance.
“No, Dad,” Lousie assured him. “You told me to get dressed up, so I did.”
“God!” Jim laughed. “If I’d known that was all it took, I’d have said the magic words years ago!”
Louise had to fight the urge to say something unfavourable about Jim’s appearance – and then leave. But to do either of these things would give Roxanne, and even possibly Jane, far too much pleasure. So instead she stood up straight, took a Evep breath, and shook back her fringe with a flick of her head. She turned to see both Roxanne and Jane taking her in from head to toe.
Christmas in Canberra Page 18