The Last Days of Chez Nous & Two Friends

by Helen Garner

  TIM: I study in bed.

  BETH: One last question. Have you got a sense of humour?

  TIM (with a slightly mystified shrug): I think so.

  Sunday morning in the living room. Opera is blasting away on the stereo. JP and Annie are playing a game, trying to throw a beret like a frisbee so that it lands on the other person’s head. JP is throwing. Annie keeps jumping up on an angle with her arms straight along her sides, trying to get her head under the flying beret. They are weak with laughter.

  JP: Tu fais des petits bonds ridicules. (You do these silly little jumps.) Stay still! Let me do the work!

  Tim enters shyly; he sees them and looks amazed. They take no notice. Beth rushes in, wearing a striped French cotton jumper the same as the one JP is wearing. He notices this, points it out and laughs.

  BETH (firmly, to JP): You’ll have to get changed.

  JP (indignant): Mais c’est moi le Français! (But I’m the Frenchman!)

  The phone rings.

  BETH (rushing to answer it): Come on—we’re late. Mum’ll have a fit.

  JP throws the beret straight up in the air and tries to crown himself with it. Tim shoulders him out of the way and gets his head under the flying beret.

  Later that morning, in the kitchen at the house of Beth’s and Vicki’s parents. Their mother and JP are standing at the bench. JP (not wearing stripes) is mixing up a vinaigrette with flair. Mother watches admiringly, though she knows perfectly well how to do it herself.

  JP: At Christmas, Susie had buffet. I don’t like so much buffet. People should sit all at one table. Someone tells a story—everybody laughs.

  MOTHER: Doug’s not mad keen on formality. He says it slows everything down. When we went on our cruise—

  JP (cutting across her gently, as across someone who habitually raves on pointlessly): An’ I like spitches. When someone stands up and makes a spitch.

  MOTHER: Oh, I don’t think Doug would agree with you there. He’s been known to fall asleep at the bowling club dinner.

  JP: But why? Why are Australians so casual?

  MOTHER: It’s just our way, dear. We like to feel at ease.

  JP: But even when you raise the glass to say ‘Cheers’, you don’t look the other people in the eyes.

  MOTHER: Ooh! I’ve never noticed that.

  JP: Where I work, everyone is a wog. Most days we eat our lunch together. At a table. But out the window I see people from the other buildings—it’s sad—they go outside and sit each one alone with his sandwich.

  Meanwhile, in the lounge room, Annie is sitting in a corner bent over a folder of notes. Beth (wearing stripes) is setting the table, and to amuse Vicki, who has paused beside her on her way across the room carrying a comb standing up in a glass of water, she lays in their father’s place at the table a huge salad bowl and huge salad servers, instead of the usual implements that she has laid in all the other places. They giggle silently.

  BETH (whispering): Have you rung the clinic yet?

  Without answering, Vicki walks across towards their father who is sitting on the couch reading the paper with his back to the room. She begins to comb his hair with the wet comb.

  FATHER (eyes closed): Very nice, missy. Why haven’t the others come down?

  BETH (calling out officiously): Susie and Penny’ll be here in a minute. Clare’s mad at you for the way you yelled at her on the phone. Bill’s working, and Sandy can’t go anywhere for a week because she put henna in her hair and it went orange.

  Father and Vicki exchange an expressionless glance. Father’s eyes close again, and Vicki goes on rhythmically combing.

  Now the meal is almost over. At the table are Beth, JP, Annie, Vicki, Mother, Father, Susie and Penny. Mother starts to serve out the dessert, a large bowl of raspberries.

  FATHER: Vicki used to call ’em rise-berries, remember?

  BETH: You always remember her cute sayings.

  VICKI (cheekily): Yours were so long ago, everybody’s forgotten them.

  FATHER: No we haven’t. Remember when I pointed out two Chinamen to you, Beth? And you said—

  BETH and FATHER (in chorus): ‘When do they chine?’

  Beth and Father laugh, looking at each other, but suddenly his attention switches to Mother’s distribution of fruit, though only with the size of his own serve in mind.

  FATHER: Ay, ay. Come on, Mum. Be fair.

  BETH (cross again already, standing up): There’s plenty, Dad.

  Mother does not even bother to reply; she has the flattened and stoical manner of Australian mothers of her generation.

  VICKI (sitting beside her father in favourite-girl mode): Hey, Annie! Look! A great big spider.

  Annie falls for it and looks up at the ceiling. Vicki grabs and eats a raspberry from her bowl. Annie gives a cry of protest.

  VICKI (chewing luxuriously; looks up at Father): I learnt that trick from you.

  Father stands up in his place and reaches across people to get the jug of cream. A great feminine chorus of objection.

  MOTHER: No, Doug!

  BETH: Put that down!

  SUSIE: You’re not allowed!

  VICKI: You’re supposed to lose weight!

  BETH: Don’t be such a pig!

  MOTHER: Look at that stomach!

  But JP jumps up, dashes to Father’s side and holds up his serviette like a little curtain behind which Father, with a smug smile, lavishes cream upon his bowl of fruit.

  It is hours later, in the middle of a summer afternoon. In the foreground, the father has fallen asleep on the sofa: he lies curled up on his side; the newspaper drops from his hand. In the background, all the others are still at the table. The meal is over but they have been talking.

  Beth and Vicki, spontaneously and unconsciously in unison, stand up from the table and turn away from it in opposite directions, while raising both hands to lift their hair off their necks: in this gesture we see that despite the difference in their ages they strongly resemble each other.

  It is the evening of the same day. JP and Beth are walking home from the shop, carrying plastic bags full of shopping. They are companionable, if not intimate.

  JP: This girl has been to Chicago, New York, Rome by herself and still you say ‘She needs me’!

  BETH (slightly abashed): She thinks my jokes are funny.

  JP: She copies you. Can’t you see this? She follows your opinions.

  BETH: Oh! I thought we just agreed on everything naturally.

  JP: At least she will not copy this trip with your father.

  BETH: You think it’s silly, don’t you.

  JP: Not silly, but—(blows out air)—three weeks! Driving driving—only you and him—you will murder each other. Take someone else. Take your mother.

  BETH: But the whole point of it is not to take my mother. It’s got to be just him and me. One to one.

  JP laughs at her heroic tone.

  JP: Will you take a tent? Or sleep under the sky?

  BETH (embarrassed to confess): He likes motels.

  JP (with distaste): Motels. Oh là là.

  BETH (urgently, wanting him not to criticise): He’s old, see. I’m scared he’ll die before I can—

  JP: Before what?

  BETH: Before I can get things sorted out.

  JP: You have this mania for resolution. With you everything must be—

  He makes a squaring-off gesture, a chopping gesture, with two hands.

  BETH: Well. I dared him to go. I can’t back out now.

  JP (putting his arm around her shoulders): You are a crazy woman.

  BETH (so absorbed in her own plans, she hardly notices his affection): I can wear my new boots!

  JP removes his arm and mimics her gait, mincing in heavy walking boots, primly pursing his lips.

  JP: ‘My new boots.’

  They laugh. Beth picks up a lump of wood off the pavement and brandishes it.

  BETH: At least I don’t wear ugg boots, like whatsername. Your teenage friend. I bet she sucked you
r cock, didn’t she.

  JP (examining his fingernails with provocative smugness): Et alors? (So?)

  BETH: You bastard.

  She runs at him with the lump of wood. They are silly with laughter; he dodges her, feinting with the shopping bag.

  JP: And your boyfriend? With ’is Drizabone and ’is stupid ’at?

  She gets serious with the log now, she really wants to hurt him and he bolts away from her, but she catches up with him, waving the wood, and in a spasm of real fear he turns and kicks her in the shin with his big shoe. Game over.

  A week or so later, Vicki is standing sideways in front of the bathroom mirror, parting her shirt and trousers to see whether her stomach has started to bulge yet. It hasn’t, but she is looking anxiously.

  On the same morning, in the alcove off the bedroom, Beth is working at her typewriter. JP enters with a manuscript he has just finished reading.

  BETH (anxiously): Did you like it?

  JP puts the manuscript on the very edge of the table, lining it up square with the corner, stalling for time.

  JP: I know you always want to hear the good things before the criticism, so, yes, it is very well written. It makes you want to read on. You keep turning the pages with interest…but finalement…I prefer more destructive books.

  BETH: Destructive.

  JP: You have written life the way you wish it would be. People’s motivations are honourable. Love exists. There is hope.

  BETH: Well, isn’t there?

  JP (touching the manuscript): You don’t write about reality. People are more cruel and égoïstes. Life is much blacker than this.

  Beth sits in silence, digesting this and trying to ‘accept criticism in a spirit of intellectual objectivity’ as she knows one should.

  BETH: Vicki said it ‘smashed her illusions’. She said it made her angry.

  They look at each other for a moment. Then they both laugh, in a brief, helpless way. JP comes forward and kisses her formally on the cheek.

  JP (lightly): Quand même, c’est très bien. Tu as fait du bon travail. (Still, it’s very good. You’ve worked well.)

  BETH (with difficulty; looking up at him): Will you be proud of me when I’ve finished it?

  JP (very lightly, on his way out of the room): Non. Je serai envieux. (No. I’ll be envious.)

  Same morning. As JP enters the living room where Vicki is sitting among the breakfast dishes, smoking and reading the paper, we hear Beth’s typewriter start up again at the top of the house.

  VICKI: Here’s a lady who had a hysterectomy. She took her uterus home with her in a jar so her son and his friends could see it. Then she was going to bury it and plant a tree over it.

  JP is standing at the table putting a box of floppy disks into his attaché case, preparing to leave for work.

  JP: IS this all you see in the papers? Don’t you read the real news?

  VICKI: That’s pretty real, isn’t it?

  JP: You know what I mean. I mean politics. Economics. You would think the real world did not exist.

  Vicki is sitting on the arm of the chair right beside the open door. At that moment, a stranger, rather decrepit and eccentric, stops outside, puts his forearms on the railing, and addresses Vicki.

  STRANGER: ’Scuse me, love. Got a light?

  Vicki obliges, looking slightly startled.

  STRANGER: Many thanks. God bless.

  The stranger wanders away.

  JP standing still with his hands in his attaché case, watches this encounter with open mouth.

  JP: Who was that?

  VICKI: I dunno! You’re supposed to protect me from things like that! (She is challenging him half as a joke.)

  JP (flabbergasted): Who—me?

  VICKI: Yes! You’re the man of the house, aren’t you?

  JP (with light irony; even a slight bitterness and continuing his preparations for work): I thought modern woman are become independent. I thought they don’t need protection any more. They are free. This is what I have bin told.

  VICKI: That’s Beth’s opinion. I’m not Beth, you know.

  JP does not answer, but clicks his case shut and leaves the house, picking up something off the sideboard as he passes.

  Vicki turns to the Situations Vacant column and takes a pencil which she runs up and down the ads.

  Something brown and flat comes whizzing in through the door and lands on the paper Vicki is holding. She leaps up with a screech. It is the piece of plastic dog shit. She looks up and sees JP grinning at her from beside the car. Sound of Beth’s typewriter banging away upstairs.

  Vicki rolls her eyes at JP and makes a gesture in front of her face, as of tiny fingers madly typing.

  JP still grinning, gets into his car, and drives away. The Italian lady next door, standing on the footpath with her broom, waves to him as he passes.

  Several days later, Beth and Vicki are having a cup of coffee in the morning, standing up at the kitchen bench.

  BETH: DO you want me to ring up for you?

  VICKI: No. It’s all right. I’ll do it myself. Thanks.

  BETH (turning to rinse her cup): You’re a great one for dragging the chain—that’s why I asked.

  VICKI: I’ll get round to it.

  BETH: It’s best not to delay these things, though.

  VICKI (irritated): I’ll do it. Don’t worry.

  That evening, just as it’s getting dark, JP, Annie and Vicki, all with wet hair from the pool, are bouncing down the street towards the house.

  JP is fooling to make them laugh. We see how at ease he is with people younger than himself. He throws his body into exaggerated rock ’n’ roll poses like the ones on 1950s record covers. They are all hilarious, rolling home. Vicki runs at JP from behind and springs on to his back; he piggybacks her. Annie pulls at Vicki, half dragging her off, and tries to clamber aboard herself.

  Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Beth is cooking an archetypal Australian meal; sausages under the griller, boiling spuds, brussel sprouts. Music comes from the living room: someone is playing the piano.

  BETH (calling out in a bossy, motherly, self-consciously encouraging voice): That’s very nice, sweetheart.

  Tim appears at the dining-room door, looking sheepish.

  TIM: It’s not sweetheart. It’s me.

  BETH: Oh! Where is everyone?

  TIM: They went down to the pool.

  The back door bursts open. JP, Vicki and Annie rock in.

  ANNIE (instant demand): Mum—did you pick up my blazer from the cleaner?

  BETH (without even looking up, answers with smooth efficiency): It’s in your room.

  Meanwhile, JP has gone straight to the high shelf and reached up on tiptoe to get a dish off the top of it. He handles the dish as if it bore something precious and rare. He gets it to eye level. On it is a French cheese. Its wrapping has been torn open and some of it has been eaten. He makes a rattling sound of shock and outrage.

  JP (holding dish out to Beth with a movement both challenging and asking for authoritative intervention): My brie. Someone has opened it.

  BETH (casually): I did. I had a little bit when I got home.

  JP (seriously upset): You are so greedy! Your family is all the same! Greedy and selfish!

  BETH (surprised by his vehement reaction): I was hungry.

  JP (wanting her to understand his distress): Why do you think I have put it up on top of the cupboard?

  BETH (ready to defend herself): I don’t know. Why did you?

  JP (passionately): Because it has not yet reached its point of maturation!

  BETH (huffy, defensive, unsympathetic): Sorry!

  JP dumps the dish on the bench and goes out the back door towards the stairs. Beth shifts things about on the stove. Annie examines the ravaged cheese in a gingerly manner, as if it might bite her. Tim and Vicki stand around looking embarrassed.

  Shortly afterwards, Beth approaches the bedroom. JP is standing with his forehead against the window.

  BETH (from the doo
r): Dinner’s ready.

  JP (without turning around): I am not hungry.

  BETH (in a conciliatory tone): Won’t you eat with us?

  JP: I have already said. I am not hungry.

  BETH: You’re always hungry.

  No response. She goes up behind him and touches his arm.

  BETH (more gently, but still with an undertone of suggestion that he is being unreasonable and should get off his high horse): Come on, JP. It was only cheese.

  JP whirls around. He is almost in tears.

  JP: ‘Only cheese’! Do you know how long it is since I ate this kind of cheese? Since two years I am looking for it in every shop.

  BETH: Oh. I didn’t realise.

  JP (full of sadness and hurt): No. You don’t realise.

  Beth is silent. They stand looking at each other. She has not quite succumbed, but for once he has her full attention—and this is so rare that he does not know what to do with it. He hesitates. The phone rings.