‘They’re doing very well. Is she pregnant?’ Susan swung her eyes towards the kitchen.
Marie shrugged. She didn’t know whether or not Blanche was going to keep the baby, and she didn’t want to discuss it with Susan. ‘And Jonesy?’
‘He’s finally got onto the board of trustees at the Art Gallery, and a good thing too. He’s going to shake them up. He’s had two requests from artists to paint his portrait for the Archi.’
‘Yes. They favour big heads in that prize.’
Susan crinkled her eyes indulgently, like a mother whose child had thrown food on the floor in front of guests. Marie felt a sadistic thrill. Funny how being decrepit, diseased and sentenced to death gave you so much power. She couldn’t go to Morocco nor even drive herself into town. She could hardly move off the couch. But she could say whatever she wanted: she had bitch licence.
‘He wants to come and see you, but we thought I should come on my own first.’
Leon arrived with cold drinks and fruit. ‘Oh, how sweet.’ Marie smiled at him.
He gave Susan an envelope. ‘Boil ’em before you plant. Or get some sandpaper and give ’em a rub or something, to help them open. I’m giving Susan some seeds from your wattle trees, Mum.’
‘Lovely.’
‘What about burning them, Leon? You used to barbecue seeds first, didn’t you, Marie? Shouldn’t they be burnt?’
‘Nah, the pods not the seeds. Anyhow it might also be the flavonoids that help them open. I don’t know. Right. I’ll leave you ladies to it. Blanche and me are outside if you need us.’
‘Oh, the lovely house,’ said Susan when they were alone. ‘What dreadful timing, Marie. How long have you got?’
‘To live in general? Or just here.’
‘I meant in the house.’
‘Two more months. We extended the settlement.’
‘Louise knows the couple who bought. She says they’re very nice. Second-generation Mosmanians.’
‘Blanche says they’re going to build a four-car garage and a swimming pool and take out most of the garden.’
‘Well, it’s a good thing you’re leaving then.’
Marie thought angrily, obviously they wouldn’t be doing any of this if she wasn’t leaving, but Susan’s insensitivity to the sequence of events had her confused as well, so she said nothing. She frowned at the view to communicate boredom and disgruntlement.
‘Where are you going to go?’ Susan asked politely.
‘The children are looking for somewhere for me to rent. Somewhere for me to go and die.’
‘I can’t believe it.’ Susan looked away, blinking. ‘And you look so good.’
‘Yes. It is hard to believe.’
‘And you’re being so brave.’
It was hard to talk as well, the effort provoked the sort of feeling you got when you stood up too quickly, though Marie knew she wasn’t going to faint or even fall. She hoisted herself to an angle that enabled her to drink. The movement sent dizziness pulsing down her limbs.
‘There was a record king tide when you were in hospital. It came right over the sea wall and hit the old Deco apartments at Neutral Bay.’
Marie didn’t know what to say. She wished she had seen it. She was tired of squeezing her buttocks together to restrain farts; she had given up the idea of shitting. She sat stewing in her bitterness.
‘I saw Gina the other day,’ Susan went on. ‘She wants to bring you communion. I don’t understand any of that, but that’s what she said.’
Marie thought, Well, Gina can come and say it to my face. She said, with the weariness of a luminary who’d been too busy to carry out a task the world had been waiting for, ‘I haven’t made my confession in so long, Susan. I don’t think God would approve.’
Susan looked at Marie, bright-eyed, questioning. ‘I always thought it would be a comfort, having such a strong religion.’
‘More like a torture. That’s why I don’t have it anymore.’
Susan watched her respectfully. Marie was getting tired of kicking her: Susan’s indulgence provided no resistance, no satisfaction. It was like picking a scab: Marie couldn’t stop herself going to the root, regardless of the pain. ‘I mean, we need to believe in more than just comfort, don’t we?’
‘I believe in God,’ Susan said.
‘Really? You never told me that.’
‘It never came up in conversation before, it was never relevant.’
‘Why is God only relevant when someone’s dying?’
Susan looked uncomfortable.
Marie persisted: ‘You never go to mass.’
‘I just don’t believe it’s all for nothing. There has to be something there. Don’t you think?’
‘That’s there.’ Marie jerked her head at the view. ‘That’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘But I mean more than that.’
‘Isn’t that enough? I mean look at it. It’s a universe.’
‘Well, yes, it’s beautiful. But it has to mean something.’
‘It means a million things.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know! The tides, photosynthesis. Developers ... Murder.’ She twisted her mouth.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Why should we? Life isn’t a formula, is it?’
Susan looked frightened, and Marie felt again a combination of disdain and guilt. She shut her eyes to gain her balance. The clocks were changing back in a few weeks, the paperbarks were in flower. Marie sensed the garden stirring outside. Just weeks ago she was working through those corridors and rooms of vegetation, in her head the ever-changing list of things to be done, but now she had no idea what was going on down there. Chaos, growing over her.
Susan was blinking away tears. ‘I always admired you for your independence, Marie. I never went to university, I never did anything. I couldn’t even garden.’
‘I was a housewife with three children, Susan.’
‘No, you weren’t. You were always a bit different, not like the other Mosman mums. That’s why I liked you; I was never bored with you.’
‘How so?’ Marie sniffed the air for a compliment.
‘I never knew what your opinion would be; I never knew what you were going to wear; you were very forgiving of me and Gina. I don’t know!’
What she had meant was, How was I different? But Susan hadn’t understood and Marie was too exhausted to clarify. She was sick of these ritualistic meetings where her illness was bowed to, and the talk was of herself in the past tense. How compact and romantic the Last Supper seemed. Everybody gathered at the one meal, all elegy, accusation and grieving over and done with in one go. Not this endless reminiscing and whinging. Seeing Susan hurt made Marie’s mettle retract. What was to forgive, at the end of the day? Nothing much. Gina had always been impermeable. Susan’s infidelity had been repaid. Amazing how you nearly die of passion, shame, loss, betrayal, only to find the source of anguish desiccate, if not vanish altogether.
But vanity persisted. She did look good, she saw in the hall mirror after she had said goodbye to Susan. Chemotherapy was like a crash course in exfoliation. She looked luminous. Not that her hair would last much longer. Funny how the most unnecessary body parts — hair and nails — continued growing after death. Maybe it was the important things that one let go of first, because they were so difficult.
And why did everyone call it brave. Did they think she knew what was happening and was mounting a coherent defence? She wasn’t brave, she was terrified. She was heading straight for death and she knew nothing about it.
On Sunday Blanche went to visit her father to discuss a matter that he hadn’t wanted to go into on the phone. She was also going to tell him she was having a baby. Pulling up in his steep Seaforth driveway, she wondered if the two things weren’t in fact the same. He could have found out about the pregnancy through any number of channels, and he could be going to offer her something for it. Maybe the house in Berri: he never used that house. How exciting.
Entering his property, you assumed a mansion: the small funicular railway through an almost vertical garden arranged among rocks as big as cows, the long terracotta roof, Middle Harbour below, busy with boats. The house clung like an oyster to the cliff facing Beauty Point, the rooms strung in a row with a cavern beneath that Ross used as a study. It was less cluttered now Traci had moved in. The antiques had been whittled down. Just inside the door was a large pair of cloisonné vases on a rosewood table with intricately carved dragons coiled around the legs. Above them, an ancestor scroll depicted a nobleman seated in a crimson robe, his wife in black standing behind him. Pale Chinese rugs with red and blue borders covered the floor, and other statues posed around the fireplace in the middle of the room, below a flue. The place was neat as a pin. Classical piano tinkled from the speakers.
Blanche hadn’t seen her father for almost a year and was surprised by the man at the door in chinos, boating shoes and a fawn silk shirt not distended by stomach. He looked so much smaller and younger without the girth he had carried throughout her childhood. He had been clean shaven for two years now, but Blanche was still not used to it.
He gave her a hug. ‘Princess! You’ve lost weight.’
Blanche knew she hadn’t. She had put it on.
‘Hi, Dad. So have you.’ But she meant it.
‘I’m still on my special diet. Have to watch the blood pressure and diabetes.’
‘It’s always so much more intimate, once you’re inside this house,’ Blanche said warmly, following him to the kitchen.
‘Oh yes, it’s not a big house. It’s perfectly manageable.’ Ross took from the fridge two white plates covered in clingwrap. ‘And only one room without a view — the bathroom.’
‘You’ve made lunch?’
‘I’m a sushi chef now, don’t you know.’ On each plate, neatly arranged, were four prawns, four pieces of shop-made sushi and a handful of green salad. He carried them out to the terrace and opened the sun umbrella over the table. A bottle of Verdelho was cooling in an ice bucket. ‘Are you drinking, Blanchie?’
‘No, thanks. I’m driving.’ Blanche lowered her glasses against the glare.
‘So what are you working on?’ her father asked. He didn’t know or he was being coy, stringing her along. God, he was good.
‘Don’t ask. Sanitary napkins.’
‘A good product. I’m not taking the piss. It’s one of the most fundamental products there is. Look at an old magazine, half the stuff we used to sell is obsolete now. Not sanitary napkins.’
‘I s’pose so. Listen, I’m not handling eating very well either, so don’t be offended if I can’t finish this. I’m pregnant, Dad. I’m going to have a baby.’
Ross whooped and Blanche found herself grinning from ear to ear in a way she hadn’t for a long time, let alone in the vexed period since falling pregnant. ‘We have to drink to that!’ He got up excitedly. Blanche shook her head. ‘Just a little glass of Moët, go on, princess. Just a half-bottle.’
‘I honestly couldn’t manage more than a sip, Dad. Be a shame to waste it.’
‘I’ll cork it. Traci’s coming home later. She’ll help me.’ He fetched another ice bucket and the champagne and glasses. ‘I’m superstitious when it comes to celebration, Blanche. If it’s gonna be great, it’s gotta be Moët — and it’s gonna be great.’
The champagne danced on her tongue, fresh and tangy. It tasted like the first swim of summer. She ate some sushi and didn’t feel nauseous. ‘It’s lovely being here, Dad. Thank you for all this.’
‘It’s lovely having you here.’
‘That’s amazing.’ Blanche indicated a giant Buddha’s head in the corner of the terrace, looking out to the Spit.
‘It’s Traci’s. She’s a Buddhist. You knew that, didn’t you?’
‘Where is it from?’ She reached out to pat the cool stone.
‘Laos, eighteenth century. No’ — Ross struck his forehead — ‘Cambodia. Yes, Cambodia. Have you been there?’
‘No, just Hong Kong and Bali.’
‘It’s past its prime, sadly. I don’t mean the piece, it’s a magnificent piece. But I don’t think Cambodia ever recovered from the communists. Bit of a dump, really. The people aren’t as friendly as they are in Thailand.’
‘That’s what I always hear. Hugh and I are the only Australians who’ve never been to Thailand,’ Blanche said with a mixture of pride and wistfulness.
‘I got the Buddha for Traci on our anniversary.’
Anniversary. Why did that hurt her, after all this time? They all knew that Traci had been around before Ross had left Marie. Blanche comforted herself with the champagne. It tasted like a magical elixir from a fairy tale. She unpeeled a prawn and dipped it into the tartare sauce. She hadn’t eaten so much without feeling uncomfortable, either. The tides are turning, Blanche, she told herself. She had been glad, when coming today, knowing that Traci wouldn’t be here. Traci, a groomed, astute, independently wealthy woman who had studied feng shui in New York and incorporated it into her interior design. She looked you in the eye when you spoke, attending to every word. Traci also had a habit of winking at Blanche whenever Ross was looking elsewhere. Blanche interpreted these winks as fatuous messages of feminine solidarity, but sitting here with her father in such good form, she wouldn’t have minded Traci’s presence. It was time she got over her childish resentment. Traci, even from the other side of the room, commanded Ross’s attention. He softened around her. There was something in that. Ross offered her more champagne, but Blanche refused so he poured the rest into his glass.
‘Make a wish,’ Blanche said as the final drips emerged.
‘I wish for a happy and healthy son for my beautiful daughter.’
‘We’d be just as happy with a girl, Dad.’
‘I’ve got a granddaughter already. I was being selfish. I was being democratic. And your mother,’ Ross looked at her, ‘how is she?’
‘Pretty sick. Keeping her spirits up.’ Blanche spared him the details, that if Marie’s chronic constipation didn’t ease, she would be hospitalised.
‘Clark told me she had a rough trot with the chemotherapy.’
‘She’s picked up a bit since coming home. She walked down to the cove the other day.’
What was noticeable about this house, particularly the terrace, was the lack of birds, apart from the occasional pelican gliding over Clontarf in the distance. It felt so exposed here on the cliff. Just the elements of air and water, no animals, no trees. Spit Bridge was open, like two TimTams at forty-five-degree angles. Weird how something so ugly could look so beautiful. One after another, boats passed through the channel. Blanche felt muffled by her sunglasses: she pushed them back up onto her head.
‘Are you all coping?’
‘I guess so.’
‘The medical bills covered?’
‘She’d stopped her insurance, Dad. Everything’s being paid for with the estate, via Hugh’s chequebook.’
‘I knew you and Hugh could be trusted to look after things. You doing okay?’
He didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed at the debts Marie had incurred. Blanche wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. ‘Yeah. Except Hugh bought a property in Ultimo that I don’t, um, agree with.’
‘But you’re secure in your own place, and you’ve still got that flat in Neutral Bay?’
‘We own Lavender outright, and Neutral pays its way.’
‘Good. Excellent. You’ve done well. I’m proud of you. You’ve been good to your mother, you know. Very good with all of this.’
‘You just do what you’ve got to do, don’t you?’
He listened and spoke with his head inclined towards her, his tone insistently gentle, brow furrowed. ‘Well, I’m really very sorry. It’s very tough. It’s tough on all of you.’
‘Are you going to visit her? Have you rung her?’
Ross moved his tongue around his teeth and gazed at the view. What had happened to her gruff, macho father? Was it just a memory-versu
s-actuality disjunction, like the dining room table that had loomed over her as a child and remained fixed in those proportions in her mind through all the years of looming over it in turn as an adult? All his brutalities now seemed petty, the blunderings of a man uneducated, like most, in the ways of parenthood. Even the philandering could be seen in context: a 1970s advertising executive flush with success who’d married too young. And her mother had had her bit, and her mother had drunk hard too.
Ross made a gesture of helplessness. ‘I’ve been thinking about your mother a lot, you know. But I don’t want to upset her while she’s going through this.’
‘Dad, when she finishes going through this, she’ll be dead. You’re going to have to see her at some stage.’
‘Yes.’ He moved his plate away, lining his knife and fork neatly across it. ‘I know I am. I want to choose the right time. It’s the drinking, isn’t it. Geez, what a comeuppance.’
Blanche wanted to change the subject. ‘Do you get out much in your boat?’
The boat was at the bottom of the cliff, down a twisting staircase of wooden slats and steps carved into rock. Moored to an oyster-encrusted jetty, it was equipped to fit eight but rarely went out with more than one or two.
‘I’m fixing it at the moment. Climbing up and down those stairs every day, believe it or not. That’s where this has disappeared.’ He patted his stomach proudly then uncorked the Verdelho.
‘I used to love coming here in Jonesy’s yacht,’ Blanche reminisced.
‘Oh yes, those were the days. Of course Jonesy’s riddled with arthritis now from all that sailing. And he can’t give that old hulk away.’
‘Do you see much of them? Or the Tottis?’
‘We went to Adelaide together to see The Ring Cycle in February.’
‘How was that?’
‘A bit bloody boring to tell you the truth. But Traci likes that sort of thing. She’s educating me in classical music. She got me this one playing.’ He indicated a box set of David Helfgott open on the couch just inside the door. ‘Do you like it?’
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