Heart of the Outback

by Lynne Wilding

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” Francey told him. “Their indecisiveness slows the process, that’s all.”

  “Well, make the best of it. We don’t want Monroe upset. He’s too important a client. This,” he passed her the fax he’d been holding, “might cheer you up.”

  Francey read the fax and grinned, well, it started as a grin and then it became a wide, radiant smile that lit up her whole face. She re-read the most important part again out loud. “Your design: the one hectare Swayne’s apartment building, shopping complex and marina is confirmed as one of the finalists in the medium density under three point five million freestanding Australian Architectural Design awards.”

  “Aden, this is wonderful.” Her hands went into action and she began to gesticulate wildly. “I can hardly believe it.”

  The Swayne’s complex had been her most ambitious and successful project to date. Completed six months ago, after eighteen months building time, she was inordinately proud of the design which combined the latest building materials and blended them in such a way that they harmonised with the surrounding neighbourhood and the water views of Tambourine Bay. Matthew Drew and Tony Carlyle, Aden’s other partners, had been critical of the innovative design, wanting to opt for something more traditional, but Aden, the senior partner, had the ruling vote and had backed Francey up. He’d given her her head and Alex Swayne had waxed lyrical far and wide about the finished product. The apartments and the small, exclusive stores had sold in record time and the ultra modern marina was filling with permanent berths fast.

  “It is good news. You’re a contender for an award, Francey. Pretty fantastic, considering you’ve not been working that long.” His grey eyes began to twinkle with mischievous anticipation. “Which means you must wear something outrageously sexy when accepting the award.”

  She shook her head from side to side, causing her curly tresses to sway and curve around her face. “Aren’t you being somewhat premature? I have to win it first.”

  “I have the utmost confidence that you will. You see, I’ve seen a couple of the other entries.”

  “Now you’ve done it!” She waggled an accusatory finger at him which made his features take on a bewildered look. “My concentration’s shot for the next half-hour, just thinking about Thursday night.” The venue for this year’s awards dinner was The Regent. She’d been last year and it had been a huge yawn. However, she knew she wouldn’t be bored this year. But she wouldn’t enjoy herself either because all evening she would be a bundle of nerves. Wait until she told mamma and papà. They wouldn’t believe it.

  “Take an early lunch,” he suggested.

  Eat? Who could think about food? But she said as a matter of form, “Good idea.”

  She rose from her stool and stretched. In low heels and standing to her full height she was twelve centimetres shorter than Aden.

  “Would you like me to pick you up Thursday evening?” Aden offered.

  “Thank you, but no. I’ll get a taxi.”

  She went behind her desk and picked up her handbag while at the same time she reached for her navy blazer which lay casually over the back of her desk chair. She could just imagine what her father would think if he knew that Aden Nicholson, her boss, was showing a personal interest in her. He’s very good husband material, her father would proclaim, and then she’d never hear the end of it. The situation was bad enough as it was. Every opportunity he got her father reminded her that she wasn’t getting any younger. That she should be looking to settle down, get married — like her cousins. Since she’d achieved her degree he’d become the perennial nagger, wanting her to find a good man and give him and Lucia, her mother, a tribe of grandchildren. What a thought! She had too much to do career-wise. Her dream was to one day have a full partnership with Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle. And she’d never travelled. Before she turned thirty she wanted to see the ancient architecture of places she’d read about — Italy, Greece, England — as she had studied for her degree.

  They walked together to the outer corridor beyond the large room in which four draughtsmen were employed to draw up the detailed plans of the architects. Aden left her at the foyer and went towards his own office. Like Francey, he knew it would be hard to concentrate for a while. Lately, Francey had that effect on him. Soon, he sensed, almost fatalistically, he’d have to do something about it.

  “But Francey, amore, I don’t understand. This drive, this ambition you have. Why you not want to marry a good man and have lots of bambini? That’s what your mamma always wanted to do but,” Carlo Spinetti shrugged his shoulders sadly, “we were only blessed once. With you.”

  Francey’s throat muscles tightened. She regularly ate with her parents on Wednesday nights and this particular turn in the conversation always had the same effect on her, no matter how hard she tried for it not to. She’d tried over the years to make her point but her father still didn’t understand.

  “Papà, we’ve had this talk before. Many times. I don’t know why I have this need inside me, this desire to be the best I can be at something. I can’t explain it, but I can’t ignore it either.” She tried not to let the hurt show in her voice. “I thought you’d be happy for me. Being in contention for a national architectural award is quite an honour. Think of all the architects around Australia trying to win this award — hundreds! And even if I don’t get a place just being short-listed will increase my value with Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle. Maybe they’ll offer me a junior partnership next year.”

  Carlo shook his silver head, a mixture of consternation and frustration etched into his lined features, the expression in his dark eyes undecipherable. “Aahh, Francey, you’ll end up an old maid. Alone and unloved,” he opined as he slurped his minestrone soup.

  “You’d rather I be like Rosa or Daniella?” They were her cousins, her Aunt Josie’s children. “They’ve each pushed out a baby a year for the last three years. Well, no thank you. I don’t want to be a baby factory, or be tied to a husband and live off the crumbs he graciously throws me.” This was something of an exaggeration but her father’s words stung, even though she knew that Rosa and Daniella were happy with their respective husbands, and they were wonderful mothers too.

  “You’re not getting any younger,” Carlo pointed out. “One day you’ll wake up in bed alone and you’ll want those things. Marriage. Children. You might be wealthy and successful by then, but you’ll be too old. And you’ll be by yourself.”

  “I date,” she said with a bored sigh. “Didn’t I go to a wedding last week with Rocco Biviano?”

  Carlo’s head shook slightly. “Rocco is your second cousin. Big deal, as you young ones say.”

  “Papà, I’ve got plenty of time to settle down. I’m nowhere near thirty yet.” Francey forced herself to breathe deeply, slowly, and not take offence because he didn’t mean to hurt her. It was just that he had this thing about her getting married, and unlike some Italian-born fathers who tried to hold onto their single daughters, Carlo Spinetti was quite the opposite.

  God, if she had a dollar for every time he’d made a comment about finding a man over the last four years, she’d own her much-loved VW beetle outright. For a moment her blue-green eyes snapped with the light of battle — she enjoyed a confrontation — and then her gaze darted about the kitchen her mother was so proud of. Finally, after years of agitating and not-so-gentle arguments Lucia had convinced her tight-fisted husband to have it modernised. And now, her mother, who loved to cook, while Francey did not, happily spent a good part of her days conjuring up wonderful food for her husband and daughter. No, she decided, no arguments tonight, she was too happy about being on the awards short-list.

  Still, she had some understanding of her father’s reasoning. Carlo and Lucia Spinetti were from Murge, a village near Minerveno, not far from Bari, on the south-eastern side of Italy. A few years after World War II they’d come to Australia to start a new life, and had brought many reminders of the old country with them. Family photos, hand-stitched linen, mem
entoes and the old ways with which they were familiar. And in her father’s case, the traditional belief that women should marry early and devote their lives to their husbands, home, cooking and raising many bambini. Poor Papà. A well of compassion flowed through her as she remembered some of the stories he’d told her of his relatives, and where he’d grown up. The poverty had been unbelievable. Now, Carlo Spinetti was caught in a time warp, unable to catch up with twentieth-century technology, let alone the coming third millennium.

  “Carlo, leave Francey alone,” Lucia entered the debate as she dished up three plates of spaghetti marinara and placed a bowl of salad on the table. “We only see our daughter once a week. You stop the scolding. Va bene?”

  Francey grinned at her mother, her mouth twitching to hold down a brief smile. Lucia Spinetti was one hundred and fifty two centimetres of Italian volatility. Packaged in a comfortable, still curvaceous figure and with greying hair arranged in a neat bun and dark, almost black eyes, she wasn’t afraid to stand up to her larger, bombastic, sometimes overbearing husband. People said she got her temperament — if not her looks — from her mother.

  “Thanks, Mamma.” She dropped a grateful kiss on the top of her mother’s head as she sat at the dinner table and put a serving of salad on her plate.

  “Francey,” Lucia said, “Meredith rang here earlier on. She and Brett are sailing on Sunday. She said if you want to come, you give her a call. Va bene?”

  “Right, I’ll ring her later. After dinner I’ll show you the gown I’m going to wear to the awards dinner.” And then she made a mental note to steer the conversation away from herself. She could always get her father to talk about the shop, how expensive fruit and vegetables were getting, how much more selective and critical the customers were. Yes, that was the safe way to go.

  Francey smoothed down the black crepe tight skirt and posed this way and that in her parent’s bedroom mirror. Yes. She was sure Aden would approve of her choice. What a good buy she’d made — off the rack too.

  Carlo Spinetti looked up from the television where the ABC news was in progress. He sat in his favourite armchair, his hands wrapped around his coffee cup, waiting for the liquid to cool.

  “Porco cane. Francey, where is the rest of your frock?”

  Francey winked at her mother. “What do you mean, Papà?”

  “It is indecent. You show too … too much.” His right hand gestured wildly across his chest. “You know.”

  Francey smiled. “Oh. Cleavage.” The sophisticated black dress was a little more low-cut than she usually wore but not as scandalous as he tried to make out. “It’s the fashion,” she said airily, thinking, if he had his way she’d be buttoned up to the neck, with long sleeves and in high stepping lace-up boots. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the thigh length side-split. That would set him off again. Then, sheer mischief made her add, “You say you want the men to notice me. Well, in this they will.”

  He shook his head and waggled a finger at her. “Disrespectful girl. I didn’t raise you to speak that way to me.”

  “Oh, Papà, I’m only joking.”

  “Of course she is,” Lucia came to her defence. “Pah, you are too old-fashioned, Carlo. You need to,” she frowned as she looked at Francey, “how do you say it, cara?”

  “Update yourself. Get in tune with the nineties. Get with it. Any of those phrases will do, Mamma.”

  “Two women in the house. What can a man do? You gang up on me,” he complained half-heartedly.

  “You look beautiful, Francesca,” Lucia said as she reached up on her toes to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “On Thursday night you will knock them dead, no?” she added with a smile. Her little girl had become a beautiful young woman with the fire, the spirit in her like she had once had. She glowed with good health and she had a body, oh, yes, and what a body. Not as voluptuous as Lucia had been in her youth, but more like a modern model only with more curves, thank God. She had watched the way male customers looked at her when she walked through the fruit shop to their flat. As if they could eat her right up. But a sudden sadness ran through her. Francesca wasn’t interested in romance.

  A strange need had taken possession of her as soon as she had graduated. She had to have a career. She had to be successful. The goal consumed her. Maybe because she had come from humble origins, she thought, and had something to prove. It was true, she and Carlo had never had much money. They made a living, worked long hours to do so and the truth was they came from a peasant background. Of that she was not ashamed, and she knew that her Francey was no snob. She just wanted different things. Back in the old country, she remembered, being a fruiterer was a time-honoured form of work for a man, although there was nothing high-class about it, in Italy or Australia.

  “I’d better get changed then ring Meredith. I don’t want a late night tonight.”

  Sitting at the kitchen counter she dialled the number she knew off by heart. “Meredith?”

  “Francey. You’re getting harder to catch than a taxi in George Street at peak hour. How are you?” came Meredith O’Connor’s breezy voice through the receiver.

  Francey smiled at her friend’s sense of humour. “Too busy to be bored,” she quipped back. “I’m in a rush, love, but how are you feeling? Is that baby you’re carrying still kicking you half to death?”

  She and Meredith Brooks, now O’Connor, had been best friends since year seven at St Scholastica’s. And the friendship hadn’t lessened when Meredith joined the police service and Francey had gone on to university. Somehow they always found time for each other in their busy schedules; meeting for lunch, seeing movies together and even getting each other blind dates. One such blind date, with Brett O’Connor, had led to Meredith marrying him, which gave Francey a proprietorial air towards them. She had been the unofficial matchmaker.

  “Too right. Brett reckons it’s gonna come out in a Tigers’ uniform. The kicks are fullback material at least.” Meredith giggled briefly. “Are you free Sunday? We’re sailing, maybe up to Middle Harbour.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Yes. What time? What about food, drinks?” A day on the harbour. Just what she needed to alleviate the stress of this week’s heavy workload. Brett and Meredith were trying to teach her how to sail their eight-metre yacht. Then, without prompting, an idea popped into her head. “Be okay to bring a friend?”

  “Sure,” Meredith said without hesitation. “And if he or she knows how to sail, even better. We’ll bring the food and refreshments. Could you be at Waverton marina by 8 a.m., please? You know how Brett hates to be deprived of his time on the boat. Oh, and good luck for tomorrow night. Your mum told me about the award.”

  “Thanks. Bye.”

  As Francey closed the bedroom door of her Potts Point apartment, she sighed with contentment. The bedroom in particular was her haven, it always had been even when she’d lived at home. Here she could be herself, indulge her dreams, her fantasies and her hopes without fear of criticism or derision. She was about eleven when she’d begun to daydream about what she wanted to do with her life. When she’d been doing chores in the fruit shop, mopping the floor, stacking or picking out bruised fruit for her mother to stew, she’d think about the future.

  Seeing her parents struggle to earn a good living — competition along Glebe Point Road was strong, and there were the supermarket chains — had been a salutary lesson for her. She knew she wanted more. Not necessarily to be rich and famous but the best she could be, but at what?

  Her daydreams would start with: once upon a dream I dreamt I wanted to be a …

  Would she become a renowned scientist inventing cures to save mankind? Or a rock star? though her singing voice was a trifle suspect in that regard. Perhaps she’d be the first female racing car driver to win a grand prix, or the managing director of a multinational company.

  By the time Francey turned fifteen, with her passion for drawing plans and imagining new structures she had chosen architecture as her vehicle for success. She wanted to be the finest architec
t she could be and after four years she was steadily working towards her next goal: to become a full partner at Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle.

  After finishing university, with her first pay cheque she had immediately begun to save obsessively. Independence was what she needed — a place of her own. She loved her parents dearly but she needed the privacy and peace of her own space, away from the demands of a large Italian family with hordes of noisy relatives calling in for impromptu visits. Within three years she had a deposit and the contacts she had made in the real estate business had allowed her to do a good deal.

  The apartment block in one of Potts Point’s narrow back streets was old but the rooms were large, with high ornate ceilings. Initially, she and her cousin Tony had painted the four room apartment. The ceilings were white, the walls a soft dove grey and the skirting boards, door and door frames a brilliant turquoise.

  She had renovated the galley style kitchen and next year she planned to strip and fix up the antiquated bathroom. Gradually, as her pay packet allowed, she decorated the living room the way she wanted. Two modern patterned sofas, a coffee table and against one wall she had indulged her love of music. A shelving system housed a TV, a hi-fi stereo and, on the wall facing the kitchen, hung an arrangement of her favourite black and white photos.

  Francey threw her briefcase and jacket onto the double bed whose cover had a bright geometric pattern and then closed the vertical drapes for privacy against the possibility of prying eyes from neighbours in the apartment building across the street. In one corner of the bedroom stood a draughtsman’s board, a computer on a laminated desk and a swivel chair which could be used for drawing or working on the computer. Above the computer hung a very large black and white print — a study of children at play in a city park.