by Judy Nunn
'So, tell me what you've been up to,' he said, changing the subject.
The others chatted on dutifully, aware that Muzza was only pretending an interest. Half an hour later, they took their leave.
'When are you back in town, Pembo?' Muzza tried to lift his game as they said their goodbyes. He knew he'd been a real downer.
'I'm coming home for Christmas.'
'Ah.'
They left awkwardly, Mike and Spud promising they'd call around to Muzza's home in a week or so, and Pembo saying, 'See you at Christmas, Muz.'
'Yeah.' Muzza's mouth was set in a hard, bitter line and his voice dripped sarcasm. 'Christmas. Can't wait.'
Johanna spent Christmas with Mike and his family. She'd needed no excuse to avoid Manjimup this year – Darren had gone on a business trip to New Zealand and had taken her mother with him for an extended holiday. They'd asked her along, but she'd sensed her mother's relief when she'd said that she intended to study during the vacation.
Jo had spent the previous Christmas Day with the McAllisters too, following the drama of Mike's accident in the Abrolhos. She'd had some initial misgivings, wondering whether Mike's parents viewed her as just another in a string of girlfriends. She'd liked them very much on the several times she had met them, but she'd felt that surely they must consider her an intruder on such a family occasion. She'd quickly realised that she had nothing to fear. Maggie and Jim had welcomed her wholeheartedly, and they did so even more this year. Particularly Maggie, who was only too delighted that her son had a regular girlfriend – she considered Johanna a stabilising influence.
Jools liked Jo simply because she was Jo. The two had hit it off instantly.
'She's not stuck up like some of your other uni girl-friends,' she'd said to her brother the previous year. 'You're bloody lucky to have her. She's far too good for you, you know.'
Jools hadn't intended to return to Perth that year. She'd decided to spend a lonely first Christmas away from home in Sydney – possibly as a statement to her father that she was doing fine on her own, or possibly to avoid having to admit that she wasn't – but then her mother had rung with the news of Mike's heart attack.
Things were different this year – there was no need for a statement, and Jools couldn't wait to come home for Christmas. She'd recently relocated to Melbourne and was a trainee with Crawford Productions. She was going to be the first female director in Australian television, she'd decided. Acting was a mug's game.
'So how're you handling it, Jo?' she asked, steadying the huge meat dish on the stove with her oven mitts while Jo basted the turkey. Jo was being treated like one of the family this Christmas. Mike had collected her early and she'd been enlisted to help.
'How am I handling what?'
'My brother's preoccupation with crayfish.'
Jo laughed. Then she said in a mock tutor-like manner, 'You mean his PhD on "The Biology of the Puerulus Settling Phase of the Western Rock Lobster, Panulirus cygnus, and its Predictive Implications on the Commercial Catch Rate"?'
'Wow,' Jools was impressed, 'and you understand what that means, do you?' Jo nodded. 'Well, you're one up on me. You can sum it up a lot quicker than he can. He tried to explain it to me the other night and it was just so much double Dutch.'
Jools's attention span wasn't her strongest suit – she was flighty and impatient, and when something didn't garner her immediate interest she switched off.
'My brother's turned into a real academic,' she said a little critically as she lifted the meat dish back into the oven and closed the door.
'Well, what do you expect? He is an academic.'
That was what Jools liked most about Jo. She didn't muck around, she got right to the point.
'Yes, I s'pose he is,' she said with an element of surprise, as if the thought hadn't occurred to her. Then she grinned, sending herself up. 'I don't bump into many academics in television la-la land. But seriously, don't you reckon he's obsessing just a bit?'
'No,' Jo said. Yes, she thought. Then she chastised herself; she of all people should understand Mike's commitment to his work.
'How's it going?' Maggie bustled in from the dining room where she'd been setting the table.
'Time for the veggies,' Jools said.
'It's ridiculous, isn't it?' her mother remarked as she heaved several bags of vegetables out of the cupboard. 'A whopping great roast dinner in the middle of a blistering hot day.'
'She says that every single year.' Jools grabbed the bag of potatoes. 'I can't remember a year when she hasn't said it. I always tell her to switch to seafood and cold ham, but she won't listen.'
'Your father wouldn't hear of it,' Maggie said. Then to Jo, 'I blame his Scottish ancestry. Three generations of Perth family and yet the McAllisters remain sticklers for tradition.'
Jo refused Maggie's suggestion that she join the men, who were having a beer on the balcony – she'd like to help with the vegetables, she said. But while she enjoyed the banter between mother and daughter as the three of them chopped and peeled and sliced, her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking of the brief exchange she'd had with Jools. It had been evident, despite Jools's light-hearted remarks, that she'd noticed a change in her brother. And she was right, Jo thought. Mike was obsessed.
It was an exciting time for him, she knew it. Dr Bruce Phillips of the CSIRO was allowing Mike junior coauthorship in his papers, and already their research was providing breakthrough material that would have a profound impact, both in commercial and academic circles. Mike's career path was clearly defined, and she was happy for him. It was ungenerous of her to feel so excluded, she told herself. But whenever he spoke of his future, she didn't appear to be a part of it.
Strange, she thought, how she used to torment herself – she'd been so convinced that she'd be dumped by the wayside when a fresh conquest beckoned. But they'd been together for over a year, and it was no longer other women she worried about. The fresh conquest she now feared was his work.
With the vegetables cooking, the women took a newly opened bottle of beer out to the balcony where they joined the men. Jim was leaning against the railing and Mike was lounging in the hammock. He pulled Jo down beside him, spilling his beer as they rocked about alarmingly, and she laughed. She put her fears aside; she had to, she told herself. Whatever happened, there was nothing she could do about it, so what was the point in worrying? It was just a bloody shame that she loved him so completely. It made the prospect of their parting unbearably painful.
They didn't eat until two in the afternoon, by which time quite a bit of beer had gone down, and lunch turned into a pleasantly raucous affair. They pulled their bon-bon crackers and read out the silly jokes and wore the silly hats that were inside, and Mike opened the chilled bottle of sparkling burgundy while Jim carved the turkey.
'There's white wine if you'd prefer it, Jo,' Maggie said, but Jo declined. 'Sparkling burgundy's another Christmas tradition, I'm afraid.'
'She knows that, Mum, she was here last year, remember?'
Maggie ignored her daughter. 'Jools christened it "the purple stuff that jumps" when she was about ten –'
'She knows that too – you told her last Christmas.'
'Oh. Did I really?' Maggie looked vague.
After the turkey there was fruit salad and ice-cream.
'I used to do a boiled plum pudding and hide threepences in it when the kids were little,' she said to Jo. 'But then I probably told you that last time,' she added before Jools could interrupt.
'I rather miss the plum pudding,' Jim said. He'd said exactly the same thing last year.
After they'd eaten, they took their coffees out onto the balcony where it was cooler, and Jools called old Baxter up from the back garden where, these days, he spent most of his time sleeping. Baxter was fifteen now, and he climbed the stairs wearily, one step at a time, hating the effort but loving the company when he got there. Tail wagging, he collapsed at Jools's feet.
'Poor old Bax,' she said, squatting beside
him and giving him a cuddle. 'He's not allowed inside any more, he's a bit incontinent. Hey, what if I made him a nappy, Mum?' She looked hopefully at her mother.
'Leave the poor animal some dignity,' Maggie said.
A short while later, Jim retired to the boatshed to sand back the hull of the dinghy and Maggie decided on an afternoon nap, which left Mike and Jools to 'zob' for who'd do the washing up and who'd dry.
'Another tradition,' Mike said to Jo as they held up their fisted right hands. 'Best of three.'
They went through the paper, scissors and stone routine – both vying for the washing up, neither liked to dry – and Jools won.
'She always wins,' Mike said. 'She cheats.'
'I'll do the cutlery,' Jo offered.
When the washing up was out of the way, it was Jools's idea that they go for a swim. Despite the fact that it was late afternoon and a healthy sea breeze was in, the day was still hot and clammy.
Mike would have liked to roar down to North Cott on the bike with Jo, but that would have excluded Jools, so he gave up on the idea. He could have borrowed his father's car, but it didn't hold the same appeal.
'I'm buggered, Jools,' he said, 'and if I try to surf with a gut full of turkey I'll drown.'
'Let's throw ourselves off the end of the jetty then. You brought your bathers, didn't you, Jo?'
'Of course.' Jo always brought her bathers when she came to the McAllisters'. 'I'll be in it.'
It was well after five in the afternoon and, hot as it was, the breeze was squally as they stood on the end of Claremont jetty clutching their flapping towels, hair whipping their faces.
Jo looked down uncertainly at the huge brown jellyfish palpitating like murky hearts in the water below, and thought that she'd rather be getting dumped in the surf at Cottesloe.
'They're harmless,' Mike assured her.
'The idea is to bomb them,' Jools said, climbing up onto one of the jetty's corner pylons. Picking a particularly large cluster, she took off, landing right in the middle.
As she started swimming back towards the iron ladder a little further down the jetty, Mike landed a bombie right beside her, so when he resurfaced she ducked him.
What the hell, Jo thought, as she watched them cavorting like ten year olds, and, aiming for a space between the jellyfish, she threw herself off the jetty. Then they swam to the ladder, climbed up one by one, and did it all over again, Jo's instruction on how to chuck bombies commencing in earnest.
Baxter joined them. He'd followed them when they left the house, but hadn't been able to keep up. Now, finally, he'd plodded his way to the end of the jetty where he lay enjoying the breeze.
Twenty minutes later, they called it a day, breathless and exhausted.
'You two go home and grab the shower first,' Jools said generously. 'Bax and I'll plod back together.' She sprawled beside the dog – Baxter was fast asleep by now. 'And don't use up all the hot water!' she called after them.
She'd give them plenty of time, she decided; with the house clear they might want to sneak into Mike's bedroom. Leaning on one elbow, she watched them walk hand in hand down the jetty. God, Jo was perfect for him, she thought, but Mike was so obsessed with his bloody cray-fish he didn't seem to realise it.
Jools considered herself quite an authority on men. She'd recently embarked upon an affair with a television director at Crawfords, whom she found inspirational. She'd had only one previous affair – with an actor shortly after her arrival in Sydney – and it had turned her off actors forever. They were too self-centred. It appeared that academics were somewhat the same, she thought as she lay back on the warm wooden planks to sunbake, although there was very little sun left to bake in. Poor Jo. Mike was so selfish. It was typically male.
*
In the boatshed, Jim had finished sanding back the dinghy and was now applying an undercoat of paint. Mike and Jo walked through the garden and up the back stairs. There was no sign of Maggie, she was still having her nap.
The bathroom was at the end of the balcony, right next to the door that led to Mike's side verandah bedroom. As he took her in his arms, Jo returned his kiss.
'There's no-one around,' he murmured in her ear.
'Let's do a shower first,' she whispered.
He was about to step into the bathroom with her, but she smiled. 'You get second go,' she said.
It was normal for them to share the shower when they were at her flat, but Jo thought how embarrassing it would be if Maggie needed to use the bathroom and they were in there together.
She showered quickly, wondering why the prospect of making love in the side verandah bedroom no longer seemed tawdry. Perhaps it was because she'd sensed Jools's approval. She knew that Jools had deliberately allowed them time to be alone.
During the minute or so while Mike had his hasty shower, Jo sat on the bed gazing at the walls and the memorabilia of his past. She'd seen the room before, he'd shown it to her – it was a real boy's room. Strewn about haphazardly were sporting pennants and trophies, but predominant were the Aboriginal artefacts he'd collected during his outback travels. Propped in corners and hanging from hooks were spears and woomeras, axes and boomerangs, wooden bowls and drinking utensils. He'd spoken to her often and avidly about the Aboriginal attitude towards conservation. He was a great admirer of the Indigenous people and their care for the land that supported them. It was a wonderful room, Jo thought – so indicative of Mike and all he believed in.
They made love with stealth, wary of every sound. But to Jo, it didn't seem furtive. There was a tenderness in their secrecy, as if in so stifling themselves they were expressing something special.
Afterwards, Mike kissed her very gently.
'You're beautiful, Jo,' he said.
He'd said the same thing on occasions in the past. It was the closest he ever came to telling her he loved her.
'You too,' she whispered.
Her remark wasn't flippant, just as she knew his hadn't been, but she always took the lead from him, never telling him she loved him, sure that it wasn't what he wanted to hear.
They dressed and slipped out the other door of Mike's bedroom – the one that led onto the side verandah rather than the balcony. Then they made their entrance to the house via the front door. Jo smiled wryly to herself – Mike had the ideal set-up for illicit dalliances, she thought.
Maggie was making tea in the kitchen, and they joined her. A little while later Jim arrived, and Jools emerged fresh from the shower, and they all adjourned to the balcony to watch the sunset.
With the pinks and oranges fading in the sky, Jo made her farewells. Maggie tried to persuade her into staying for a light dinner.
'I thought I'd do omelettes,' she said. 'No more turkey, I promise.'
But Jo didn't want to overstay her welcome.
'Thank you,' she said, 'it's been the perfect Christmas.'
It had been, she thought. Throughout the entire day, memories of childhood Christmases in Manjimup had come to mind. Darren stroking her in her new party frock. 'Who's a pretty girl?' And then, when she was a teenager, her mother's brittle manner, the vain attempts to drum up a festive atmosphere. Oh, how she envied Mike his family.