Eric decided to make a splash. Nothing was too elaborate for his first date. He perused the entertainment pages of the Herald and his research told him that The Phantom of the Opera was the most popular and expensive entertainment in town. So that’s what it would be. It actually took a few more months of carefully saved increments before Eric’s bank balance crept into line with the cost of two tickets. Then another month or two to cover the cost of the sorts of incidentals he supposed might arise on a date: taxis, lemon squash or a choc-coated icecream at interval, coffee afterwards. Flowers for Sally? It was all rather complicated. Eric had no idea of the etiquette. He tried to listen more carefully to some of the chatter in the lunch room but from that he gleaned only that on the whole the girls took themselves off in a group to dance parties and clubs that offered free drinks to females. That and the social club shenanigans. Not proper dates at all. His wardrobe was also a matter of concern to him but to save up the increments until he had the money for a jacket would have set his plans back by years. He would have to wear his best cardigan and perhaps take it off and conceal it in a plastic bag before he met Sally.
Then he had to break the news of his plans to Mrs Twells. He had got away with a certain amount of underhandedness but he would never be able to explain away an evening’s absence. Overtime was out. Mrs Twells had laid down the law about that early on. Eric was too susceptible to infections to be burdened with overtime. A tired body is the pathway for germs and before she knew it she’d be nursing him through a heavy cold.
As was to be expected, upon hearing his announcement Mrs Twells was outraged and also grievously injured by Eric’s underhandedness.
‘To think I’ve trusted you all these years. To think of all the dinners I’ve cooked. Never a thought for my own needs and comforts. Squirrelling, nay, stealing money, from right under my nose. What sort of monster have I reared?’
‘Surely, Mother, it’s not as bad as that?’ quivered Eric, determined to take a stand.
‘God knows what he would say.’
‘Who?’ asked Eric.
‘Who do you think? Your father, you fool. Thank God he is not alive to see this.’
The evening meal, grilled chops, was consumed in silence and afterwards Mrs Twells struggled to bed, her angina agonising. She stayed in bed for three weeks, and Eric was run off his feet what with the cooking, washing, cleaning, and his Tax Office duties. When she considered him suitably overawed, Mrs Twells arose. To her astonishment her recovery had been premature. Eric told her, on her first evening up, that he had bought tickets for the Phantom and would not, therefore, be home next Friday evening until late. Mrs Twells went back to bed but Eric ploughed stubbornly on, though he did promise to come home before his date to attend to her dinner. He was surprised, too, to find how lacking in bereavement he was about her withdrawal of loving kindness. This tentative wing-stretching was too thrilling to be stopped now.
His next big step was to invite Sally. He had been watching her nervously for weeks trying to decide when would be a good time to issue the invitation but she never seemed to be alone. Against Tax Office rules she always departed in the company of another to go to the ladies (and was away for ages). She arrived in the mornings with Donna on the 8.11 train from Burwood and went to lunch with a mob of noisy girls. Once or twice Eric had leaped at the chance of catching her alone in the lunch room heating up chicken noodle soup in the microwave but she had always been in company.
By Tuesday afternoon time had become of the essence. Distrait, Eric put out his arm and detained Sally as she went past his desk with her afternoon tea. So surprised was she that she slopped hot tea over the wristband of his cardigan.
‘Oh, Eric, I am sorry. Did I burn you?’ Her voice sounded genuinely concerned. Eric took that as a good sign. He cleared his throat and rose to stand in front of her. She took a step backwards.
‘I would like to take you to The Phantom of the Opera on Friday night,’ said Eric. ‘Would that be all right with you?’ Sally’s face went all funny. She raised her eyebrows so her eyes seemed to bulge and pressed her lips forward as if her cheeks were suddenly filled with air. For a terrible moment Eric thought she was going to vomit. Then she went red and giggled, seeming to search frantically over Eric’s shoulder for someone or other.
‘All right?’ he asked nervously, his neck damp with embarrassment and stress. She giggled again.
‘Oh, I can’t, I …’
‘But I’ve bought the tickets and everything.’
‘Well, I still can’t. I’m already going out,’ she blustered. ‘Anyway, I’ve seen it. Thanks for, like, asking.’ She moved around him and hurried up to Françoise’s desk, indicating they urgently needed to go to the ladies.
Eric sat down at his desk, humiliated. The sort of pain he felt in his chest made him wonder if he had not inherited his mother’s illness. There seemed to be a sort of exodus to the ladies about then but Eric did not notice. He felt inclined to scrap the whole idea but, no, was he not a new and assertive Eric Twells? Besides how could he face his mother? How could he bear her pleasure in his failure? He must proceed. Just then Kelly came in, banging her mail trolley as usual against anything in her erratic path.
‘Nothing for you today,’ she said as she crashed past Eric’s desk.
‘Will you come to The Phantom of the Opera with me on Friday night?’ yelped Eric. Kelly and her trolley became motionless, perhaps more dramatically so than strictly necessary.
‘Say what?’ said Kelly.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Eric, unfamiliar with the idiom.
‘Did you just ask me out?’ said Kelly slowly, as if talking to an imbecile.
‘Yes,’ said Eric bravely. ‘Friday night. Phantom of the Opera. Will you?’ Kelly gazed, stupefied, at Eric Twells.
Then, ‘I might,’ she said with a sort of snuffled laugh. ‘Excuse me, I have to go to the ladies.’ She hurried off then and there, leaving the mail trolley blocking up the passage. Eric sat down, uncertain whether or not he had been successful. He withdrew his hanky from his cardigan pocket and blew his nose firmly, correctly, first one nostril then the other. He then mopped his face in a haphazard sort of way and was just stuffing the hanky back in his pocket when Kelly materialised in front of him.
‘Okay,’ she announced as if she was about to explode with something. ‘You’re on.’
‘Good,’ said Eric, floundering. ‘Um …’
‘What time?’
‘Oh … Um … Quarter to eight at the door of the Royal?’
‘Is that a pub?’
‘No, that’s where it’s on.’
‘Oh, well let’s go straight from happy hour.’
‘I can’t,’ stammered Eric. ‘I have to go home and get my mother’s dinner.’
‘Oh, is she sick, poor thing?’
‘No,’ said Eric.
‘Oh.’ They looked at each other silently. ‘All right,’ said Kelly finally, ‘I’ll meet you at the Royal. Friday. S’cuse me. I have to go to the ladies again.’ She disappeared.
All week Eric had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. The office seemed to be full of barely suppressed merriment. The home was full of unrepressed fury. Women were becoming more and more of a mystery to Eric, especially as on Thursday night Mrs Twells suddenly did an about-face.
‘What would you like for supper, son?’ she asked. This startled Eric for, as far as he understood, supper was dinner and they had just finished eating it. Momentarily he thought she might be beginning to wander. ‘Silly boy,’ she said fondly, seeing his confusion, ‘I mean tomorrow. You will be bringing the young lass home for supper after the entertainment?’
‘Well, no,’ said Eric. ‘I hadn’t thought… I mean I didn’t want …’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Twells brightly. ‘You would never take out a lass that you were ashamed to introduce to your mother, would you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Eric, wishing like mad that Sally had been free instead of Kelly.
He was not sure how far he could trust her conversation.
‘No trouble. No trouble, son. I’ll just make a few pinwheel sandwiches and that sponge your father, God rest his soul, was so fond of.’ (Mrs Twells was re-inventing Eric Snr.) ‘Oh, it’s high time I got back to my baking. What fun.’ Eric looked at her, appalled. But what could he say in the face of her kindness? He had hurt her enough in the past few weeks.
‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ called Françoise, as Eric packed up his desk on Friday afternoon. He blushed and fingered the huge pimple that had just erupted this afternoon beside his rather large adam’s apple. The blush made his face all splodgy.
‘See you later then,’ called Kelly raucously before burying her face in Bev’s spine. Eric hurriedly left the office, uneasy that they were all part of some hugely funny joke that he did not get. It made him unhappy and itchy around the crotch. When he arrived home Mrs Twells was gracious in defeat. She allowed him to cook the crumbed cutlets, sprouts and mashed potato that was their regular Friday night repast.
‘My throat’s a bit tight tonight,’ she said as Eric placed her meal before her. ‘I’ll just take it slowly. Don’t let me hold you up though.’ Eric forced his meal down his own tight throat, sick with nerves. His mother waved him from the table when his plate was empty. ‘Off you go now and get ready. I’ll clear up here and get on with the sandwiches. What time does it start?’
‘Eight.’
‘You’ll need to take the 7.25 then. Hurry up. It’s nearly seven now.’
Eric hurried upstairs to the bathroom. He stared indecisively at the pimple. If he squeezed it now … no, after his shower when the pores were enlarged … no, might make it worse … oh dear … he dived under the shower, turning it on full blast. He washed vigorously paying particular attention to his armpits. When he got back to his bedroom he discovered that his mother had laid out his clothes. Dark pants, thin dark tie and a white shirt, heavily starched at the cuffs and collar. He dressed and examined himself in the mirror. He looked no better or worse than a Mormon, he thought. He tried to keep his eyes from straying to the new cardigan that hung neatly on the wardrobe door. It was a grey-green herringbone with buttons that looked like walnuts and had a roll collar. A cardigan with a roll collar! In all his years he had never had such a thing as this! His spirits drooped. He’d have to be seen to be wearing it on departure.
His mother was smiling serenely when he ventured down at twenty past seven. She actually clapped her hands in delight.
‘Hurry up now. Don’t forget to stand under the street light at the bus stop. I worry about you on these dark footpaths at night. Got your hanky? Been to the lavvy? Off you go.’ Eric kissed her briefly. ‘No word of thanks to your poor old mother for your new cardigan?’
‘Thank you, Mother,’ said Eric. As soon as she had finished waving him off and closed the front door, he ducked down behind the hedge and waddled, knees bent, head hung low, to the annexe. ‘Here, Dad,’ he murmured to the dust of Eric past and threw the cardigan through the window. He then waddled furtively back to the footpath and only remembered to stand upright when he was about twenty yards down the main road and had seen the bus lights looming. He had to run to catch it and so was anxious then about his armpits as he journeyed to the city.
Eric waited that night. He waited outside the Royal until the end of the second interval, ducking in and out the automatic doors so often that an usher asked him to make up his mind if he was in or out. In fear that Kelly would miss him he opted for out so he didn’t even get to hear the music or watch the television screen in the foyer. The unused tickets stayed untorn in their neat little envelope in his shirt pocket. A slight drizzle turned his collar and cuffs limp and exacerbated the natural wave of his hair. At half past ten he walked miserably down to the Wynyard interchange and caught the bus home. Totally demoralised, unable to understand what could have happened, he once again crouched down and waddled to the annexe. He retrieved his cardigan then made his way slowly inside.
Mrs Twells was waiting. As soon as she heard the key in the lock she leaped from her chair and into the hall.
‘Welcome,’ she uttered magisterially, advancing with her hand out. ‘Goodness me, whatever has happened?’ Eric looked at her blankly.
‘She didn’t come,’ he said dully. Mrs Twells pulled herself tall, a look of imperious dignity on her face.
‘Didn’t come? What do you mean, didn’t come? Where did you leave her?’
‘She didn’t come at all, Mother,’ he said. ‘I missed the show waiting for her.’ Mrs Twells pulled on a coat of righteous indignation.
‘They’re not good enough for you, son,’ she flourished. ‘Not fit to polish your shoes. Never you mind. Come on now, let’s have a nice little supper together.’ Eric followed her into the sitting room. Cups, plates, cake forks, napkins were set out on the coffee table. ‘You sit there, son, and I’ll just make the tea. Never you mind now. They’re not worth it. I know.’
Try as she might, Mrs Twells was unable to rouse Eric from his apathy and the supper party was not a success.
‘I’m off to bed, Mother,’ he said finally. Mrs Twells looked at the uneaten supper.
‘No need to go taking it out on me now,’ she snapped huffily. ‘What have I done wrong?’
Hard to imagine going back to the Tax Office Monday. Harder still to stay home and put up with Mrs Twells. It had to be faced sooner or later. Eric slunk to his desk, dreading the frisky girls. Too soon he heard them arriving and he buried his face in the pay sheets. Almost at once he heard Kelly’s voice.
‘Sorry about Friday, Eric. Couldn’t be helped. Was it good?’ Eric’s head shot up in disbelief. Was he going mad? Did she have no shame?
‘What couldn’t be helped?’
‘Happy hour. Some nerd, like, spiked the drinks for sure. We were pissed as farts. Bev was the only one upright. That’s why she rang for me, to tell you sorry and that.’
‘Tell me? Bev? When?’
‘When she phoned.’ Kelly’s voice lost the tiniest modicum of brutal confidence. You’d have to be pretty quick to have glimpsed a flash of shame. ’Bout seven I s’pose. Left a message with your mother, didn’t you, Bev?’ she yelled across the room. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Eh?’ yelled Bev.
‘You know … Left a message with his mother.’ Urgently. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ said Bev, and giggled.
‘No,’ said Eric and put his head in his hands. The girls pulled faces at each other and tried not to snigger. Who’d want to go out with him? He was such a loser.
Eric stayed at his desk all morning, holding back tears. The minute the room cleared for the lunch break he grabbed the telephone and dialled his mother.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he shouted.
‘Don’t speak to me like that! Tell you what?’
‘That she couldn’t come.’
‘How was I to know?’
‘Because you took the phone call. About seven, she said. When I was in the shower.’
‘Don’t be silly. If your father was alive today …’ Eric smashed the phone back onto its cradle and took out his hanky.
‘But why would I prepare supper if I knew she wasn’t coming? I have no truck with devious or underhand behaviour, you know that,’ said Mrs Twells angrily, sticking to her guns when Eric confronted her that night. ‘If your father could hear you now. What have I done to deserve a son like this. I have to lie down. Help me upstairs.’ She held out her arm and Eric automatically took it. Slowly he plodded up the stairs with her and delivered her to her room.
‘Just remember, son, they’re not worth it,’ said Mrs Twells as he slunk from the room. ‘It’s family that counts, family that’ll stick by you. Now you get off to bed and don’t be losing any sleep over it. It’s not worth it.’
Eric lost plenty of sleep over it. Someone was telling an untruth, but who? He never resolved it and he never trusted women from that day forth. They were simp
ly not worth it.
fortune
Charles Fortune had begun to dwell obsessively on the irony of his name. He was sixty-one years old and lived with his wife, Mary, aged fifty-eight and his son, Paul, thirty-six. One Saturday afternoon, after his weekly golf round, as he sipped the first of his customary two beers, he suddenly remarked to the fellows at the bar that his first name should have been Hostage. Such a comment was so unlike him, so oblique, that there was a short, puzzled, embarrassed moment until someone slapped away the awkwardness by calling for another round.
As a young student, Charles Fortune had dreamed of being the greatest engineer that Australia had ever known. He wanted to build bridges over every great river and harbour in Australia and Asia. He wanted to span the earth with his bridges, giant walkways over the great watery passes of the world. He had not done so.
He had become a government engineer, one of a team of reliable, humdrum men (who maybe had had secret visions of their own once upon a time, but who would ever know? ever reveal?). He worked for the Water Board, planning sewage complexes and storm water outlets. The nearest he ever came to bridges was a few fords in low-lying, flood prone outer suburbs of Sydney. Not one of the projects of his working life could possibly bear the title original, let alone visionary. Very occasionally he would refer to his youthful fantasies, ‘but I gave up all that nonsense when my son was born,’ he would say in an offhand sort of voice, with a rueful laugh, implying that he had been a silly romantic young fool and real life had set him straight. Charles Fortune was splendid at creating the impression of pluck, of making the best of a bad lot. He did it in such a manly, ‘don’t pity me, old chap’ voice that it cleverly produced exactly the opposite effect and people admired him deeply for what he had to put up with and thought him rather wonderful that he coped so bravely. Mary Fortune did not receive this admiration. She had none of her husband’s easy charm, nor good looks. She was really rather invisible.
Disreputable People Page 6