by Unknown
‘I’m not expecting anything,’ said Francie. And this was true.
‘And you better get used to the idea that they’re going to be together, because . . .’ Johnno paused to clear his throat as if the next words had lodged there, ‘Nick’s moving in to her place. He’s bought her a ring and I think they’re engaged or something . . . If people still do that shit anymore.’
This news came like a punch in the stomach. Francie threw her head back, her hands clenching and unclenching. She was breathing hard. ‘Oh, God!’
‘I know, I can’t believe it myself.’
Johnno fell back on the bed alongside Francie. She rolled over into his bony arms. What was that about never crying again? She was blotting her face on Johnno’s raggy shirtfront.
‘Ah, Francie girl! When you do something, you really do it well!’
‘I’m sorry, Johnno,’ she managed to gasp between sobs. ‘It’s all I seem to say lately . . . sorry, sorry.’
‘Well you can stop now, baby girl. No more “sorrys”. Your apology in the paper today is enough to last anyone a lifetime.’
When Francie’s sobs eventually subsided, Johnno spoke softly into her hair. ‘We all love you, France. We love your kindness, your generosity, your sweetness. It’s been hard for us to watch you go through all this after Nick, but in a way you were sort of an accident waiting to happen. I guess we could all see the fragile little girl underneath.’
Francie’s chest heaved again. She had always thought of herself as being so grown up. So in control.
‘Of course, we’re all too scared to leave you in case you hack up our undies . . .’
Francie snorted into Johnno’s chest and punched him in the arm.
‘But the fact that you can love so fiercely? We love that about you too. And don’t you worry, there’ll be someone else for you. You know my mother’s old Dutch saying . . .’
Francie had heard him say it a hundred times and finished the sentence for him: ‘For every pot, there is a lid.’
‘That’s the one! There’s a happy ending waiting there for you. I know it.’
No wonder Francie loved Johnno so much. He wore his heart on his sleeve. The same sleeve Francie was at this moment wiping her nose on.
‘So Poppy Pot and Nick the Lid—when’s the wedding?’
‘Easy, girl, easy. I think there’s a long way to go before we see them walk down the aisle. I wouldn’t be putting my name on the gift list for the fondue set just yet!’
Francie nestled into Johnno’s neck. He held her tight for as long as she needed to be held.
Sunday morning passed quietly enough at Elysium. Dave still hadn’t made an appearance. Robbie was in the study laying down tracks for a music project. Johnno and Jessie headed out for lunch. Francie mooched about in her room, read a book, slept some more.
It was late afternoon when Robbie found her sitting on the back veranda in the sun painting her nails. He held a glass of white wine in each hand and a bag of potato chips between his clenched teeth. Francie was glad of the company. He handed over her drink and eased himself onto the wooden steps. The setting sun turned his hair a startling shade of platinum.
‘Nice colour,’ he commented, looking at her bottle of nail polish. ‘What is it today? Revenge Red? Payback Pink? Mea Culpa Maroon?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Francie winced, ‘take your pick.’
‘What is it they say about nature? Red in tooth and claw. Jeez, Francie, there hasn’t been a dull moment since you moved in.’
He held his glass aloft, waiting for a friendly clink which did not materialise.
‘I’m sorry if . . .’ she began, and then remembered that she had told Johnno no more apologies.
‘No, no, forget it,’ said Robbie cheerily. ‘It’s all been hugely entertaining.’
Francie rummaged in the bag of chips. Robbie could see that his casual banter was wasted this fine December afternoon. He thought he might get to the heart of the matter.
‘I read you’ve quit your job. Can’t say I blame you. Working with Gabby Di Martino every day would be a punish! Having the Italian princess around here commandeering the bathroom on Sunday mornings has been bad enough. She used my whole bottle of Annick Goutal Eau D’Hadrien in her bath once.’
Gabby here on Sunday mornings? That could only mean . . . Francie stopped mid crunch and raised her eyebrows at him.
‘I thought you knew,’ he said.
‘Knew what?’
‘Gabby and Dave, they’ve been on together for years. It’s no big deal. I think in common parlance they’re bonk buddies.’
Francie had suspected, of course, but hadn’t known for sure. Her face must have registered surprise, disappointment, distaste or something similar, because Robbie was compelled to keep talking before any one of these emotions took root.
‘It’s nothing to worry about. Nothing that hasn’t been going on for centuries! Do you remember Dangerous Liaisons?’
‘Remind me,’ said Francie, eyeing Robbie over the rim of her glass.
Robbie was pleased to have a chance to air his erudition on all things cultural. He leaned back on the wooden boards of the veranda and shielded his eyes from the last, intense afternoon rays.
‘The book, Les Liaisons dangereuses, was written in the 1700s by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. It was scandalous, absolutely scandalous, in its day. Apparently Queen Marie Antoinette kept a copy for herself bound in a blank cover.’
Francie sipped at her wine as he continued. More damned French classics! She really had to—
‘Anyway, the best-known movie—there have been three—was in 1988. As I recall, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil (John Malkovich and Glenn Close to you and me), arrange a seduction of a virtuous married woman—’
‘That was supposed to be me? They had a bet on me?’ Francie was appalled.
‘No, no! Michelle Pfeiffer!’
‘Oh, don’t joke about it, Robbie! I mean in real life!’
‘Dave and Gabby had a bet on you? Forget it! They’re not that clever, and you’re not that virtuous.’ He laughed. ‘Or that married—’
‘Shut up! What happened in the movie?’
‘So, in the movie, Valmont falls in love with Madame . . . can’t remember . . . Michelle Pfeiffer. And, come to think of it,’ he said, sitting up again, ‘you do look a bit Pfeiffer-ish.’
‘Does she fall in love with him?’ asked Francie, wide-eyed.
‘Yup. And she is devastated when he leaves her. There’s a line in there where Michelle says she can’t help herself and someone says: in such matters all advice is useless. And Valmont says over and over again: it’s beyond my control.’
‘How do you know all this stuff?’
‘Loved the soundtrack! Handel, Vivaldi, Gluck, Bach—bought it when I was a teenager. So . . .’ Robbie sat up again and regarded Francie with a gimlet eye, ‘is all advice useless? Is it beyond your control?’
In her particular version of this story Francie felt anything but an innocent. She was not Dave and Gabby’s hapless victim.
‘I haven’t fallen in love with Dave, if that’s what you want to know,’ answered Francie, looking out to the garden and remembering it was her turn to dead-head the roses. ‘And I’ve told Gabby what I think of her.’
‘So, you win! Good for you! What else?’
‘Of course I’ve taken advice. I look back on that night now and it was like an out-of-body experience. I don’t know who that person was. I do know that will never happen to me again.’
Robbie laid one muscled arm across Francie’s shoulders. ‘You know, doll, there’s one thing that people like you and me forget, and it’s that we have something to look forward to that people in relationships reminisce about and wish for all the time.’
‘What’s that?’
‘To experience falling in love. That’s ahead of us. This amazing, exhilarating adventure! Love built the Taj Mahal, razed Troy. Why would we settle for any B-grade emotion not worthy of t
he name?’
‘Is that why you’re still celibate?’
Robbie reached his other arm around Francie. He looked out to the sun setting beyond the lilac tree, hemming each leaf with gold.
‘Fuck, I hate that word! It’s so pathetic because it implies there is an absence of something. I reckon that instead of living like something’s missing, we should live like these are our final days of freedom. Blessed days. Days which will never come again. This is our last chance to be in love with ourselves without reservation. Before love obscures our true nature with lust—and then, inevitably, with duty and compromise.’
Robbie squeezed Francie until she surrendered her doubts to the descending darkness.
‘Almost no-one’s sure they’re worthy of their own love, yet they’re desperate for a stranger to love them. Isn’t that odd? When you think about it?’
Francie had to agree that it was.
Twenty-Six
‘Would you like to spend Christmas with us this year?’ Amanda asked her two friends as she offered them a glass of wine. Francie and Olga shot a look at each other and both knew what the invitation meant—it would be a charity event.
A green plastic Christmas tree threaded with flashing lights stood in the front window of the flat. Francie noted the glass ornaments in the shape of baby booties and imagined the heartwarming scene as Amanda and Lachlan had hung them on the branches.
‘Thanks, Amanda, that’s really kind of you, but I’ll probably be doing Hanukkah with my mum this year,’ replied Olga.
‘Same here. I promised Mum I would spend Christmas with her, thanks,’ Francie lied.
Both Francie and Olga wanted to be spared the spectacle of Amanda and Lachlan playing happy families. The man of the house was out at a work function tonight, which was a blessing. There was so much to say that no-one knew quite where to start.
Francie took her glass of chardonnay and realised she would be drinking most of the bottle as Olga and Amanda poured themselves a mineral water each.
‘How’s it going without drinking?’ she asked the two pregnant women.
‘Actually, the thought of alcohol makes me feel really ill,’ said Amanda.
Olga agreed. ‘All you have to do is imagine this little foetus swimming in a bath of vodka and you just don’t do it. It’s a lot easier to give up than I thought.’
There were so many items on the agenda—faithless men, devoted husbands, morning sickness, maternity wear, baby names—that it was a good hour before they got around to the matter of Nick and Poppy’s cohabitation.
‘It’s rebound bullshit, it can’t be real,’ said Amanda, and Francie was grateful for the sentiment.
‘Although they’re pretty well suited. I’ve seen worse relationships last,’ added Olga.
Francie thought of the ring Nick had bought Poppy and how in the five years of living with him, she had never been presented with any jewellery. Maybe it was true. There was no such thing as a commitment phobic man. There were only men who hadn’t met the right woman yet. She thought of Poppy on stage in Stupid Cupid, prancing around with a diamond on her left hand.
‘Are they still going to do their show?’ she asked.
‘As far as I know it’s supposed to be opening on Friday night. Are you coming?’ Olga had asked this before and Francie still hadn’t been invited, didn’t expect to be.
Amanda was thoughtful. ‘I wonder if what you wrote today will make any difference to their script? I thought it was a beautiful letter, Francie. I thought it took a lot of courage. Have you really quit the paper?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine. It was time for me to move on anyway. I just hope it was worth it. Johnno reckons she’ll never forgive me.’
Olga was in no mood to forgive either. ‘That can’t be the reason you wrote it, surely. You can’t expect to write a couple of hundred words in a newspaper and everything’s put right.’ Olga was in a dark place tonight.
‘Well, you tell me, Olga, what should I do?’ asked Francie. Olga’s lack of support was irritating, but she supposed she’d have to put it down to hormones.
‘Just get on with your life. It’s out of your hands and no amount of wishing or conniving or diplomacy is going to make any difference.’
‘But don’t you think that showing I’m sorry, apologising, counts for something?’
‘For you, maybe. But in the end it’s only for you, and you can’t expect anything in return. If you do, you’re still being dishonest.’
They had driven up a conversational cul-de-sac. Francie was too tired to argue with Olga, too wrung out to explain or defend herself. She let it go.
‘I see you got the wine off the wall,’ said Olga. ‘Sorry about that. I guess it was hormones . . . you know.’
‘I wasn’t in a much better state myself,’ Francie replied.
‘So how’s it going with . . . ?’ Amanda was caught out for a name and appealed to Francie with raised eyebrows.
‘Dominic. Does he know about the baby? What did he say?’ Francie caught the ball in safe hands.
Olga’s fingers fluttered to her necklace.
‘It’s sort of why I wanted to talk to you both tonight. I want you to be my baby’s aunts, like a family, because . . . I’m certainly not going to have one.’
Olga looked down at her lap and her long black hair fell like a curtain. Francie and Amanda could hear her gulping down tears from behind it. ‘He just doesn’t want to know. He said, “I can’t offer you or the baby anything right now.” It was so . . .’ Olga couldn’t find the words to continue.
‘Oh my God!’ said Amanda.
‘Bastard,’ spat Francie.
‘I can’t believe I fell for it. Can’t believe I was so stupid.’ Olga was rummaging in her little sequinned handbag for a tissue.
‘Darling one, don’t be hard on yourself.’ Francie was instantly kneeling in front of Olga, sweeping hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear. Her own troubles were washed away by Olga’s tears. ‘After all,’ she said, looking up at her friend, ‘a husband, a baby, a family, it’s got to be the least we can ask for, surely! It wasn’t so many years ago it was every woman’s birthright. Now it seems like it’s something we have to fight for and only the deserving ones get. We go down so many blind alleys. Look at me, five years wasted and nothing to show for it.’
‘We’ll be your baby’s family!’ Amanda declared. ‘Our babies will grow up like cousins. Between me and Lachlan, Francie, your mum, Johnno and Jessie, Nick and . . .’ Amanda faltered. ‘Well anyway, we will be a family and we can’t wait for your baby and to see you as a mother. A mother! Doesn’t that sound amazing, Olga? However it happens, in whatever circumstances, you have to see it as a blessing.’
‘Amanda’s right,’ Francie added. ‘It’s one thing to imagine a baby swimming in vodka, but another to imagine it being pickled in a vat of regret.’
Olga and Amanda were startled at this image and both shot a look at Francie.
‘What I mean is, they say the mental state of the mother has a lot to do with the temperament of the child. Is it true? I dunno. But you’ve got to keep your head up, for your baby’s sake.’
Olga lifted her head. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I guess I always saw myself as a single mother, if I’m honest.’
Francie and Amanda opened their mouths to protest. Olga held up her hands.
‘No. No, don’t! I’m too difficult, I’m too odd. I just don’t fit in. You know what I’m most afraid of?’ Olga regarded her companions, her long eyelashes shiny wet. ‘That my baby will feel the same. That one day my child will look at me and know why it hasn’t got a father. It will see me as I really am.’
Both Francie and Amanda were appalled.
‘Olga, that is so crazy. What you really are is an amazing woman,’ said Amanda, taking her by the shoulders.
‘She’s right,’ Francie added. ‘You’re an original, Olga. You’re a one-off. Talented, beautiful. You’re going to be an international success. Honestly, what
would you change about yourself in the hope of attracting a man? Do you really think you can be anything less than you are? And why would you want to be? The one thing I do know is that losing this married man is the best thing that’s happened to you. Unless you do that there’ll never be a place for you to find a man who really wants to be with you.’
There was a knock at the front door. Amanda disappeared and then reappeared at the lounge room’s double doors, her eyebrows arched with surprise.
‘You won’t believe this, speak of the devil and all that—it’s Nick.’
Francie gripped the armrests of her chair as if she could see a giant pothole ahead and was about to motor into it. She recalled that her last words to Nick had been ‘Goodbye, I hope you have a happy life,’ and that was barely three weeks ago.
He walked into the room and she was jolted by the sight of him. Shocked because she noticed something she’d never seen before. Nick Jamieson wasn’t tall, lanky and elegant, as she’d always thought. He was just plain old skinny. His shoulders were hunched over and the worried look on his face made you want to ask, ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’
Francie shook her head in surprise, trying to somehow match the man she saw before her with the image she had filed in her head. And then he spoke and everything fell into place. It was Nick, after all.
‘Hi. Hope I’m not disturbing you gals.’
The sound of his voice was sweet and familiar to Francie and she could feel herself surrendering to it. Would she always?
Nick stood in the middle of the room, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his jeans. ‘Ah . . . look, I’ll be honest. Olga told me you’d all be here tonight and I’ve ambushed you. Would it be OK if I had a moment with Francie?’
Francie was still rigid in her chair. Amanda and Olga fled from the room. Nick sat on the couch opposite Francie and she regarded his long legs which finished in a pair of scuffed black boots. He rearranged his leather jacket, crossed and uncrossed his feet. He spoke to the floor.
‘Uh . . . thanks for today. It meant a great deal to me, and to Poppy, that you had the guts, the grace, to write that. I’ll be honest. This last week is nothing we ever wanted or imagined but I, at least, want to believe that this whole episode has been a comedy of errors, a farce, more than anything else. I’m trying to convince Poppy of that. It’s true, isn’t it?’