“What?” Katherine was disbelieving.
“It’s true!” insisted Louise, “from her kitchen balcony!”
Maggy laughed. “I did!”
“So, he flies over here in a helicopter?”
“No, well,” Maggy was embarrassed.
“Yes, he does!” Louise wouldn’t let Maggy belittle her romantic accomplishment.
“But only on his way to something legitimate,” insisted Maggy.
“I’m still impressed,” said Lou.
Katherine said nothing.
Maggy had nice manners so she asked Katherine “What does your guy do?”
“He’s in accounting,” answered Katherine truthfully. Well, she didn’t say that he was an accountant.
“Oh!” said Maggy. “Does he work for an accounting firm?”
“No,” said Katherine.
“He’s with Australia Post, isn’t he?” asked Louise, knowing that he was.
“Yes,” said Katherine.
“Oh,” said Maggy.
“But I’m not going to flash my tits at the mailbox, so don’t get any ideas!” They all laughed, and Louise choked a little on her wine.
Chapter 25 – Unassisted
“James?” Louise called her son to wake him up. It was 12 noon on Saturday.
“Eh?” James grunted from under the covers.
“James, could you please wake up? I want to clean the house after I get back from doing the shopping, and I want you and Peter to vacuum.”
“Oh,” James said in a muffled, sleepy voice. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes, James, that is what I want.” Louise was firm. “Kim and her mother, Alison, are coming over to dinner tonight and I am going up to Forest Hill now to buy everything. Then I will come home and we can clean up and I will get started on the meal. They will be here at six.”
“Wake me at 5.30 then,” said James, still in bed.
Louise had been speaking to James from the kitchen, but now she walked into his room. “No, James, you need to get up now,” she said stridently. “I can’t do it all myself and I shouldn’t have to. Kim is your girlfriend and we are having her family to dinner.”
“I didn’t invite them – you did!” James protested loudly.
“That’s just a cop out!” responded Louise. “Alison is off to Canada next week and we are having them to dinner to say good luck. This is what people do, James. This is a social event and you are going to be part of it.”
“You be part of it!” James said angrily. “I don’t want to be part of it.”
“Too bad. Just get out of bed and have a shower. I’ll make you a smoked salmon croissant for breakfast and then you can tidy your room and vacuum downstairs and Peter will vacuum upstairs.”
“Go away,” said James.
“I’ll leave the croissant on the bench.” She was making it as she spoke. It was the breakfast she made James every morning. “There,” she said, placing it on a plate and leaving it on the bench. “Now please get into the shower.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I’ll leave you alone when you get out of bed. I can’t leave until you are up because I know you won’t get up if I don’t make you.”
“I won’t get up because I don’t want to get up. There is no reason to get up.”
Louise raised her voice. “GET OUT OF BED JAMES.”
“OK!” James yelled back at her. He got up and trudged sleepily upstairs to the bathroom.
“Good.” Louise collected her handbag and shopping list. “I’m off, then. See you in a little while.” Then she called up the stairs. “Camille, are you coming shopping with me?”
“Be right there!” answered Camille.
*
It took a couple of hours to visit the butcher and green grocer, then the supermarket and florist. Louise was planning to cook a Thai prawn curry with noodles and a baked cheesecake. They would start with an avocado entrée.
When she got home, Louise peeled the prawns and made the marinade. Then she got onto cleaning the house. Louise was by nature a very tidy person, but the house was dusty and needed a good going-over. James had not gotten out of bed during her absence and had not vacuumed.
“Peter!” Louise called up the stairs.
“What?” came the response.
“Come here please,” Louise tried to not sound annoyed, which was how she felt. Peter finally appeared. “Would you please vacuum half the house?”
“Now?” asked Peter, clearly unwilling.
“Yes, please,” Louise was tired of this back-and-forth. “Look, Peter, I don’t ask you kids to do very much at all. I make all your meals and your beds; I take out the rubbish and do all the shopping and cooking and cleaning and washing and folding and gardening – all I ask of you three is that you take it in turns to vacuum one level of this small house. It takes you 20 minutes every other week, and every single time I have to ask you over and over till you do it. No one has to ask me to do all the things I do for everyone – so please spare me the protracted argument and just VACUUM!”
Peter must have realised that the situation would deteriorate from this point and that he would still have to vacuum, so he trudged back up the stairs and extracted the vacuum cleaner from its cupboard and commenced his duty. And, as Louise had predicted, he was finished in 20 minutes.
“Where should I leave the vacuum?” he asked a trifle sullenly when he had finished.
“Just leave it under the kitchen bench for James,” answered Louise. “And thank you Peter. You’ve done a very nice job.”
“You’re welcome,” answered Peter, in a slightly less affronted tone.
Spurred on by her small success, Louise knocked at James’ door. “James,” she called through the crack she had dared to open, “Can you please get up and vacuum downstairs? Peter has done upstairs, and there are only 4 hours till our guests arrive and I have a lot to do. I don’t want this house to smell like vacuuming when they arrive, so I need you to do it now please?”
James growled and rolled over in his bed; but within 5 minutes he was up and pushing the vacuum around the living room.
“Good,” thought Louise. And she returned to her cooking.
*
Louise had two sets of crockery: one was a white set from Target; the other was a three piece set of Villeroy & Boch’s “French Garden”. She had only three pieces for each setting because that was all she had been able to afford. It was her 50th birthday present to herself.
Louise was never the type to desire house things. She was practical though, and had assembled a neat, attractive home environment without needing to acquire expensive items. Nevertheless, the day she had spotted this dinner set, she had to have it. It was so very beautiful – yet useful, too. Louise had just walked past the shop and looked in the window at the display, and that was all it took. She went home and dreamt about these plates – plates! Who has a plate dream? Shocked at her own weakness, she returned the next day and bought as many of the dinner set as her credit card allowed and went home without feeling any remorse whatsoever.
And that same night she had cooked the family meal and served it on the new dishes and said quite seriously to her kids “This dinner service is jewellery for our table.” The kids blinked at her and looked again at the plates, wondering what they had missed. Was this like the Emperor’s Clothing? Was it a test? Then they realised that their mother was having another one of her “moments”, so they were as polite as they knew how to be.
“Oh, yes,” said James. “Very nice.”
“Yes,” agreed Peter. “Nice plates.”
“We will have to get matching cups and saucers, Mum.” That was Camille. Louise smiled at her.
“Yes, we will,” she agreed.
The rule was that the white set was used whenever they had visitors, on the basis that if a friend damaged one of their beautiful dishes, it would be both unforgivable and expensive to rectify. Better to avoid the stress of risking it and use the easily replaceabl
e Target crockery.
But tonight, for the Masons, the family dinner set was to be used. Louise cut the flowers to fit the vase and placed them beside the lamp on the side table by the couch. She went through the napkins and selected her nicest ones and folded them so that the pattern showed when they were placed beside each setting. All the portions of the meal which could be cooked in advance were prepared, so that only a minimum of cooking was required once the guests arrived.
“Oh, Louise, this is lovely!” Alison was always an appreciative guest and Louise enjoyed her company. Kim smiled her agreement on her mother’s pronouncement. Louise poured each of them a glass of the champagne they had brought, and the evening had begun.
“Aren’t you having one?” Alison sounded disappointed when she commented on Louise not pouring herself a glass.
Louise shook her head. “Not tonight,” she said.
“Why not?” Alison had clearly been looking forward to the usual drink and chat. It’s never as much fun to drink alone.
Louise shrugged. “A few reasons really,” she said. “I want to lose some weight, for one thing. And for another, I want to be a better role-model for the kids. Not that I drink every day, but I do tend to drink whenever I am relaxing and socialising. I want the kids to see me enjoying myself without drinking, just to show them that it can be done.” She smiled at Alison. “I don’t want to spoil your fun, though! I’ll be abstaining until I lose about two kilos.”
“Fair enough,” said Alison. Weight loss is a topic the over-fifties are all too familiar with, and as Louise had always managed to keep her own weight within a reasonable range, none of her friends tried to talk her out of it when she decided that it was time to rope in her caloric intake.
“Okay everyone – dinner!” Louise announced, loud enough so that the kids could hear her in their rooms upstairs.
The dining table was a rectangular shape, with long benches on each side instead of individual chairs. Normally, the family sat two on each side. With the guests, the usual seating arrangements were disrupted and three people had to sit on each bench, and someone at the head of the table, on James’ desk chair, which Louise had already wheeled in.
“James, let Alison have the chair at the head of the table,” said Louise. She gave this instruction because she was afraid that Alison would find the bench too hard, although Louise herself found them surprisingly comfortable; and so that Alison would not be jostled by kids while she ate.
So James sat beside Camille.
“Mum, can you ask James to move over? He is hogging the space!”
“Mum, can you ask Camille to put her elbows down? There is no need for her to dig them into me.”
Louise sighed. “Stop it, both of you. James, please move up and Camille, please keep your elbows tucked in.”
James moved a millimetre on the bench. “Mum, he hasn’t moved!” Camille’s voice was strident.
“Mum, you are doing it again!” James spoke too loudly.
“What?” asked Louise.
“Letting her get away with bad behaviour! You are so bad at this – no wonder Camille has no friends!”
“Just stop it James; and don’t try to upset Camille by saying nasty, untrue things about her! That’s being passive aggressive.”
“At least I’m making an effort to treat her the way she deserves to be treated. You let her get away with anything.”
“I’m going to my room,” Camille got up from the table.
“Sit down Camille. We are eating dinner now.” Louise was delivering the plates to each person, and making sure that they each had the right cutlery and a glass of water.
“Why should I?” demanded Camille. “James is just going to push me off the bench and I won’t be able to eat anyway.”
“If you knew how to behave, you might not be treated that way.” James’ tone was superior.
“Just eat.” Louise was losing her patience.
“This is lovely Louise,” Kim decided to change the subject.
Alison had said very little, Louise noticed. “Probably wondering what sort of a mad house they are in,” she thought.
“So, Alison, are you looking forward to going to Canada to study?”
“Yes, it’s happening at last” Alison answered. “I’ve been planning for it for months!”
“Don’t forget to rug up! And I would make sure that any jacket you get yourself is long enough to cover your derriere, so that you can sit in a car comfortably. Some of the cars have heated seats, but lots don’t.” Louise was remembering her own trip to Canada a few years ago and trying to come up with helpful hints for Alison.
Camille had finished eating and got up to leave the table.
Louise spoke to her. “Where are you off too?”
“I’m going to my room,” said Camille firmly. “I’m not staying here to be pushed by James every minute.”
“Camille! We have guests – and I want you to be part of the conversation.” Louise looked around. They so rarely had Kim’s mother over, and she wanted everyone to be involved. “Don’t you think it is lovely to hear about Alison going overseas to study in the middle of her architecture degree? I want you to hear what she has to say about it!”
“What’s the point?” asked Camille. “If I say anything, James will just contradict me.”
“So? James is just one person! What about the rest of us?”
Camille scoffed. “Well, Kim and Peter will agree with everything James says.”
“Only because I am right,” said James.
“See?” Camille turned to go upstairs.
“NO!” Louise shouted. “SIT DOWN!”
Suddenly she had had enough and Louise could not keep her frustrations in any longer. She turned on James, still shouting. “You just never stop, do you?”
“Why should I?” James shouted back at her. “You never stop her – you just let her get away with anything. Someone has to stand up to her and as usual, it is me.”
“No, James – you don’t have to stand up to her. You are a not a parent in this house.”
“I’m an adult in this house.”
“Yes, you are! You are 21 years old! She is 15! You are a grown man and she is a 15 year old school girl – and you are picking on her all the time! She is at school for a full day every day – not 3 and a half days a week, like you. She comes home to relax and you are here – picking on her and criticising her! You never stop! And you have Peter and Kim – ‘Team James’ – always backing you up. Of course I have to take her side! You’ve made it so that I HAVE to take her side, just to even up the pressure!”
“You should never have become a parent,” James shook his head. “You are so bad at it.”
“Yeah – and you are such a man! What a man – bullying a 15 year old girl. And let’s face it James, you wouldn’t be so full of the tough talk if Jeff was here!”
“What?” James smiled and shook his head as though Louise was totally losing the plot now.
“You! You wouldn’t DARE say any of this if I wasn’t on my own! It’s only because there is just me in charge here, so you think have free reign.”
“You can’t win this argument so you are falling back on that? Wow!” James was ridiculing his mother.
But Louise was getting more worked up. “I can’t stand it anymore, James. If you can’t obey my rules, you can’t live here anymore. You are an adult – you have finished your bachelor’s degree. I’ve done my job. You need to move out.”
“No, I don’t. I’m still a full-time student and I don’t need to move out – you need to treat Camille the same way you treat the rest of us.”
“The rest of you? You and Peter – Team James? And where do you get off telling me what to do?”
“Clearly someone needs to because you are not doing a very good job on your own.”
“How dare you?” Louise was angry. She got up from the table and was shouting at James. “You are such a shit! I’ve worked all day for this dinner party. I got up
early and went to the market and the butcher; then I came home and cleaned the house and started cooking the three course meal; then I set the table and served everyone; and all you have done is upset me and mouth off. I’ve been working all day and I’m bloody tired. I wanted to sit down with Alison and Alison and hear about her plans and have an adult conversation, but you had to make the whole bloody evening about you!” Louise turned to her guests. “I’m sorry about this. I’m too upset now – I’m going to have to ask you to leave and I am really sorry. I can’t live like this anymore. I know you think I am insane, but I live with this every day and I can’t take it anymore.”
Alison did not respond. Her shock was overwhelming and she sat still while Louise shouted her apology.
James and Kim and Peter had congregated in James’ room. Louise went to the kitchen doorway and continued her shouting. “It’s not a family event unless my family is present, and you have made it so Camille can’t be part of any family event. Why don’t you leave? This is MY home, and you only get to live here while you are a child, or while I say you can. You are an adult and if you cannot accept my rules – leave! We could use the extra space.”
Louise hugged Alison and apologised again. “I’m so sorry,” she said, crying now.
Alison tried to comfort her. “It’s OK Louise, you lost your temper. It happens.”
“This is not what I wanted tonight, Alison.” Louise responded. “I was really looking forward to seeing you.”
“Things happen for a reason,” said Alison.
*
The kids had escaped to their rooms and Louise began cleaning up after the meal. She was a very tidy cook and always cleaned as she went, so there was really only the dishwasher to pack. It was all done within 20 minutes and then there was a knock at the door.
Louise went to answer it, wondering if it was Alison.
But it wasn’t Alison. It was the police. Two officers – a man and a woman.
“Hello?” said Louise.
“Good evening, ma’am,” said the male police officer. “I’m Constable Johnson and this is Constable Patrick. We have been called to respond to a disturbance here tonight,” he explained.
Morning in Melbourne Page 19