The house on Banksia Street was a gloomy house, and cold. The sun shone brightly outside, but its small windows let in little light, and there was no heating. And no real coffee. He went down to the beach. The fish restaurant in the pavilion was closed, but there were cafes, their sunny pavements crowded with carefree people eating big breakfasts. He wondered what they did for a living. The coffee was good; he had two cups, and a croissant, which wasn’t very. They still can’t make croissants in this country, he said to himself, as though he had been away for so many years they should have developed the skill by now. He watched a young woman with streaky blonde hair who took off her sweater and sat in a black camisole top, sunning her golden skin, eating eggs benedict. Her boyfriend had the big breakfast: everything the English sent over with their colonists plus hash browns. They were laughing and kissing with their mouths full.
He did ring up Aurora. She said she was driving down to Canberra and why didn’t they all go, in her car. Ferdie thought that not going in his mother’s clapped-out old Volvo was a good idea. But Helen said she couldn’t, she couldn’t take the time off school, but Ferdie could. He felt guilty at leaving his mother, but she said it would suit her to take the bus, and Ferdie could save the money. So they went first thing the next morning, Aurora turning up in a sparkling new BMW, a big one with leather seats.
I got rid of the Mazda sports, she said. Hopeless for a family. No I’m not pregnant yet. I’m thinking positively.
The BMW was a sleek silver colour. The colour of money, Ferdie said. Aurora laughed, a deep hiccupy laugh that made you want to join her.
He hadn’t imagined she’d be such a tiny woman. He was remembering when she’d been a big girl. But she was short, with small bones and little flesh. She seemed frail. She had a soft deep voice and when she talked it gusted through her. She talked a lot, and laughed, catching her breath in a husky way. She seemed to remember her old affection for him and to start off from that. She had to sit on a cushion to drive the car, and held the wheel with small worn hands like paws. Hastily you might have thought she was a child, but not when you looked into her face. It was pretty still, but her mouth clenched when she wasn’t laughing or talking, lines fanned out from around her eyes, and the line of her jaw was sharp as a knife.
Desperation, Ferdie said to himself. No, I am being fanciful. But he looked again and he wasn’t. Aurora drove with swift darting ease through the traffic, accelerating past slow cars, sharply braking when the traffic blocked. She talked all the time but left space for him too. He told her about his thesis, and Pepita and Pegasus, and even mentioned Berenice; she gave her breathy delighted laugh.
Is it good being a merchant banker? he asked when they’d left the suburbs behind and were speeding down the motorway.
It is if you’re good at it. If you’re good at money. I mean big money, the idea of money, the theory of it. It’s like singing, excellent if you can do it. I can. I get it from my mum. Oh yes, I know, everyone thinks she’s a mad hippie Orange person, and, well, she is, an Orange person, although they aren’t really called that any more, but she’s good at money. People are always putting people in boxes. You can’t do that, unless you chop off everything but the central little solid nub of them, nobody fits in a box. You could put me in a box labelled merchant banker, but you’d have to take a chainsaw to me first.
Or me . . .
Or you, into a box marked PhD student in literature, but think of all the bits that would dangle over the edge.
He was going to say that perhaps all the dangly bits are me, PhD student of literature, too, but he didn’t get a chance.
I’m getting us to Lynette’s for lunch. Not madly early lunch, I had to go to the gym before we started, but it’ll be cool. I’ve told her about my diet. No soft cheese, no big fish, no raw fish, no prawns or oysters, no salads I haven’t washed myself. Of course I told Lynette I’d trust her salad washing.
Heavens, began Ferdie.
Pregnancy diet. I know I’m not, but you’ve got to be ready. And of course no alcohol. Foetal alcohol syndrome, that’s the least of it. You can’t imagine. And no junk food, stands to reason, and no tea or coffee.
How did people ever have healthy babies in the past? They didn’t not do all those things.
The world was a much purer place, then. Much fewer additives, dangerous chemicals. Women were fertile, men were potent. Now—we could wipe ourselves out. Become totally infertile. The end of the human race. It’s not unlikely.
Aurora was overtaking every semi-trailer on the road. They can only do a hundred, she said, so we’re okay.
Even though the speedometer said 130, Ferdie noticed. Being good at money didn’t seem to mean being good at numbers. The car was happy at this speed, it glided effortlessly along.
I’m not staying with Lynette, said Aurora. I’m staying with a friend of mine. She works in Treasury. Great job, considering it’s the public service, but they pay peanuts. She’s no monkey, though. I have to tell you this story. Two years ago. February. I’d been in Tokyo for work and when I came back I had to go to Canberra. I had a bit of time so I thought I’d drop in and see her. I had the Mazda then. I should say, she was pregnant, I knew the baby was due in March, so I thought I’d just pop in and see how she was doing, not ring or anything, not make a fuss. I didn’t want to disturb her. So, I go to her house, Saturday morning it is, and Flavia’s there, sitting in the family room, with the cutest little carved wood cradle beside her, that she’s rocking with one foot, and it’s piled high with blankets, layers of them, layers.
She’s cold, says Flavia.
I sit down in a chair and look at the cradle. I put out my hand and pull the coverings away from her face. The baby’s a little wizened-up creature. I touch her.
She . . . she doesn’t seem to be breathing, I say to Flavia.
No, says Flavia.
And cold she is. Cold, like frozen wax. I tell you, it’s giving me a fright. Flavia is so calm, I suppose she’s frozen too, in her way. Anyway, turns out the baby came early and was stillborn. She brought her home and keeps her in the freezer, takes her out and gets to know her . . .
Gets to know her?
That’s the thing. Everybody does it. I mean, when the baby is stillborn. Apparently. Keeps it in the fridge, and cuddles it. Makes it part of the family. Of course you have to let it go, in the end. The baby, she called it Lola, had a funeral eventually and got buried in the family plot. Flavia’s all right now, I think, but she was a bit dodgy for a while. The baby got a bit, well . . .
Ferdie couldn’t think of anything to say.
I don’t know, went on Aurora. Do you believe in God? Or the gods? I don’t. But sometimes, well, you might wonder if there are sacrifices. A certain number required. I suppose you could see a baby’s death as a sort of appeasement. Of course I don’t really believe that. But there’s a kind of safety in it, the odds, that’s rather appealing.
For other people, not Flavia, said Ferdie.
No, not Flavia. Other people. That’s the point, said Aurora. Others might be safe. It used to work, so why shouldn’t it again?
I don’t know about working, said Ferdie. People believed in it.
And if I believed?
Yeah. If you believed.
Flavia hasn’t got pregnant again. It was frightfully difficult the first time. I don’t know how many turns at IVF.
Perhaps she doesn’t want to.
People can’t adopt these days. My mother was going to put me up for adoption, and then she decided to marry William. Of course it was pretty not on to be a single mum in those days. And men would marry you.
Lucky for you.
What? Oh yes, I suppose. Yes, well, Flavia. Maybe she’s decided not to keep on. Should get out of Treasury. Go for a real job in the private sector. Mind, I’ve got one of those and I’m still planning to have a baby. And Cezary’s planning to stop home with it and write his book. Did I tell you he’s a perfusionist? Like a kind of plumber, only of peop
le’s bodies. The book’s about dreams. You should hear the dreams people have when they’re on the heart-lung machine. And when they come off it. He goes round afterwards and asks them about it.
Maybe they make them up.
Have you ever tried to make up a dream? No, they’re too truly weird. Cezary will fly down for the funeral and then we’ll drive back together. He’s already got three children but he’s really keen to have one with me. If we’d had time I was going to stop off at this fabulous baby shop in Moss Vale. All these designer clothes for babies, so cute. Maybe on the way back. You can drive back with us too, you know, if you want to.
Thank you, said Ferdie. That’s very kind. I shall have to see what Helen’s doing.
He was pleased with himself for saying ‘Helen’ so naturally.
Cezary, he said, that’s an unusual name.
Polish. He’s actually a count. There’s a family castle somewhere near Cracow. Not theirs any more, of course. His other children are all girls, so if mine’s a boy he’ll be the count, too. Have to make sure we get married, of course. And I can be countess. What larks. Like a story.
You read Jane Austen? she went on. I’ve never read any of those old books. Tell you the truth, I don’t read books at all really. Just the market, and all that. It’s a full-time job. And magazines. Flavia’s in a book group. Once a month. They meet at one another’s houses and talk about the book and drink red wine. Flavia loves it. I asked her how she managed to read a book a month. She said it was fun.
But that’s it, isn’t it, Aurora said; other people’s ideas of fun are hardly ever yours. Oh yes, Jane Austen: a friend of mine belongs to a book club that reads only Jane Austen. Think of that. She loves it.
Do they start again as soon as they’ve finished? It wouldn’t take them long to get through the whole oeuvre, would it.
Wouldn’t it?
Only six books.
Your mum likes to read too, doesn’t she? said Aurora. You know who she makes me think of? That statue in the cemetery, not marble, the black one, what would it be, granite? Do they make statues of granite? She’s tall and slender, like a pillar, and she has flowing draperies and a sad look. I don’t know how our dad came to marry your mum. He usually likes small plump women. You should see my mother, she’s a round little ball these days, all the Byron Bay good life. I mean, she exercises, but not more than she eats. And Lynette, she’s small and plump too. Whereas Helen, she could be a fashion model.
They were passing the heavy vehicle weighing station at Marulan. Aurora heaved a sigh and stopped talking. She offered him some gum and they chewed in silence. The old familiar grey-green scenery flashed past. At Lake George, Aurora said, You know the story about the lake in China that’s full when this one’s empty, and vice versa?
I’ve heard . . .
It’s not true, you know. She waved her hand across the lumpy grasslands of the lake, the fences, the occasional sheep grazing. The one in China would be awfully full right now. There’s a lot of weird stories about that lake, none of them true. Except about the people getting drowned in it. It’s truly dangerous. When there’s water.
He knew the stories, designed to account for the fact that sometimes the lake was grazing paddocks, sometimes a treacherous stretch of water, and he also knew that it was just a phenomenon, a quite natural happening. That was the kind of thing William used to talk to him about, when Ferdie was a boy and they’d driven to Sydney in one of William’s Citroëns. He’d liked best the one where you had to wait for it to rise up before you could drive it. It was very special. He thought it looked like a shark, a friendly shark, a pet. William quite often drove him to Sydney, to his mother’s place. Ferdie realised later that it gave them a quiet spacious time on their own, when they could talk, or just be silent together. When they arrived, William would stop the car and help Ferdie with his bags; he’d knock on the front door and say, Hello, Helen, nice to see you. She would say hello and never invite him in. At first he mentioned it, and then she said no, she didn’t think it was a good idea. Ferdie knew that William was disappointed by this, that he’d have liked to have a friendly relationship with Helen, but his mother would never allow it. It was betrayal she nursed.
The first time he drove past the lake it was quite full, and he imagined the lake in China being empty, a grassy plain, with people in pointed straw hats planting crops. He wondered where the passage began that let the water drain from one side to the other; did it run out like a plughole, gurgling out quite fast, or did it trickle slowly so that suddenly you saw that it had gone? There was something magical in the process, there had to be for the water to go in opposite directions. Maybe it filtered slowly through predestined paths. Or maybe there was a spirit lived in the lake, a genie or even a bunyip, that liked to spend some of its time in Australia, some in China. He’d mentioned this China business to his father, and William had explained that it was all fantasy, based on ignorance. He told him the scientific explanation. Are you disappointed? William asked. Ferdie considered; I thought I might be, he said, but it’s more important to know what really happens, don’t you think?
William smiled, and Ferdie knew this was a good answer. Later William gave him a card with a beautiful coloured painting of how the new capital Canberra might have looked if it had been built there, at Lake George, as certain people had planned. His father pointed out the strange mixture of buildings, the castles, the gothic towers, the Greek temples. And look at this, he said, when you go to Florence you will see buildings just like that. Imagine this, with its water steps and little boats, in one of the terrible freezing gales that sweep through here. The whole thing is a fairytale.
But were they serious?
Oh yes, they were serious. Foolish, but they really thought they could make such a dream of palaces in that bleak spot.
Have you got anywhere to stay in Canberra? asked Aurora. I’m staying with Flavia, I can’t really . . . but you could stay with Lynette, I’m sure she’ll have room and she’d love to have you, she’ll want family around at this time.
Oh no, he said, I can stay at the youth hostel. I thought I might be able to use William’s bike.
Oh no, said Aurora, much better to stay with Lynette . . . I’m sure that’s what she’ll want.
They’d come to the first houses of the suburbs, and now there was city traffic. Aurora said, If I thought there were gods to see us I would make sacrifices to them.
What about your name? You’re a goddess. Rosy-fingered, dressed in saffron robes, wearing yellow shoes.
Yuck, said Aurora. I can’t stand all that new age stuff. Chants and bad poems and thanks for morning erections.
It’s not new age, said Ferdie. It’s Homer. Dawn rising before the sun; first your white wings, then your yellow robes, then your rosy fingers. And your nature is to awaken desire.
O-oh. That’s nice.
He was working out how to say, if you made sacrifices to them, perhaps there would be gods. But they were pulling up outside the house. His father’s house.
Lynette looked distracted, tired, older, sad. But she hugged him as she always did, holding him in her arms for some moments, her head tipped sideways against his shoulder, reaching up and kissing his cheeks. Then she held him at arm’s length. How like William you grow, she said.
Aurora had brought flowers, a massive exotic bunch of powerfully scented lilies. Lynette looked around helplessly. Every vase, every container, every possible receptacle was full of large bunches of flowers. She put them in the sink while she thought. Janice can bring something from the shop, she said. We are living in a bower of flowers, isn’t it lovely.
They ate lunch in the kitchen. Lynette carved slices off a huge ham. There was a bowl of tomatoes with oil and vinegar to make your own dressing and a plate-sized brie, with a loaf of brown sourdough bread.
I’m afraid I don’t eat pork, said Aurora. Pigs are far too intelligent to be eaten by us.
This is a free-range pig from the eco butcher, sai
d Lynette. It lived a happy life. Probably even had a name.
Anyway, it’s processed meat. It’s okay. Tomatoes will be fine.
The food’s gone basic, said Lynette. It’s good, but it’s basic. Oh . . . I forgot, brie. Soft cheeses. I think there’s some cheddar in the fridge.
No probs, said Aurora. She ate bread, and spread the pale delicious butter thickly. Lynette ate very little but drank white wine. She poured copious amounts into glasses like tall transparent tulips. Oh, she said suddenly, and jumped up and got starched linen napkins out of a drawer. Things have gone downhill, she said, screwing up her face.
There was a ring at the doorbell. She hurried out to answer it. A man carried in a wooden box and put it on the bench. Wine, said Lynette, wine from beyond the grave. She giggled. I expect it’s meant for cellaring, who knows, she said, squinting at the label, which to Ferdie had a grand look. Coats of arms and Latin mottoes. I suppose it will have to be paid attention to, Lynette said, sitting back down to her barely touched food. Ferdie was hungry, but tried to eat as though it were a rather difficult chore, though not to a rude degree.
Lynette jumped up to make coffee. Sit down, said Ferdie, I’ll do it. I remember. Lynette had taught him to use her various machines. Today it was plunger, grinding the right amount of coffee, left so long before plunging, left again to rest. Your coffee, he said, it smells better than anyone’s.
Aurora said there was no point in going to Flavia’s till she got home from work, so what could they do to help in the meantime? Lynette pointed to the sheets of paper on the end of the table. I’ve always loved lists, she said, and crossing things off, but they’ve got out of hand, they’re a reproach. And every time I try to do something the phone rings.
She looked at Ferdie. You’ll stay here, of course. No, no buts. I need you. She hugged him. He felt her plump body tense in his arms, strung out like wires; if one broke they’d all spring apart with a terrible jangle.
Goodbye Sweetheart Page 12