‘Let’s not invite Madeleine and Freddy here,’ Isobel said impulsively. ‘Let this just be for ourselves.’
Later they lay in one another’s arms in the overstuffed bed. The twin bed lamps glowed; the wombat brooch was propped against a water glass from which Isobel sipped during the night. The eyes then were truly hunting eyes, though she couldn’t recall what wombats ate. Perhaps they spent most of the night digging. Kit was sleeping, breathing softly, though that would change as the night wore on. Sometimes he talked in his sleep. Isobel turned on her side and slid towards him so her back was pressed against his. A friend who was widowed had told her that this was what she missed most, more even than sex. But we have both, Isobel thought. Before she slept she stretched out her hand towards the brooch which she could not quite reach.
Madeleine had thought her parents might join her for lunch at the railway station at Middle Park. They might be pleased with her initiative, that she was becoming familiar with the city. They could cross the tracks as she had seen Xavier doing, carrying a takeaway coffee to a woman waiting on the opposite platform. The tram was just coming and Xavier skipped across the overbridge and waved as she stepped aboard.
Isobel, Kit and Madeleine had spent the morning in the city, where Isobel realised once again how she hated large stores and shopping. Kit had disappeared into a bookshop with a small art gallery attached. But the mood lifted once they were on the tram, Kit with a parcel of books under his arm, Isobel with a new scarf in her handbag and Madeleine, indecisive as usual, with nothing at all. The tram rushed through cuttings of brambles and graffiti-covered walls, and then they were at the station and climbing up a slight ramp. Isobel could tell Madeleine wanted to sit on the platform and look down on the passing trams, though a slight breeze was rising. They ordered and sat at a rickety table. A tram came into view and Isobel noticed with amusement how Madeleine raised her chin and looked straight ahead as if she were in a play. Kit pulled his jacket collar up and some of his salad sandwich fell on the platform. Isobel couldn’t tell what she was feeling. Was it a farewell, or all the farewells they had shared, brought together on this shadowy artificial stage? As if he had read her thought or seen her shudder slightly, the waiter was beside her chair with an armful of blankets. Old assorted worn blankets, some with striped borders, the sort of blanket her mother had sometimes wrapped her loosely in, inside the bedclothes, and which she had clung to like the skin of an animal. Even Kit was pressed to take one, folded, on his knee. Finally the wobbling table was noticed and the menu was folded in half and pushed under it. Warmth and stability reigned. Isobel moved her hand across the table, clearing a path between the teapot, the milk jug and the jug with hot water, and took Madeleine’s hand in hers. As if on signal, two trams appeared, facing one another. One was old, the other very new.
It marked something, Isobel thought later. As a treat it had little going for it: they endured the light shower against the scalloped roof until the drops thickened and fell with heavy plops on the plates. What a sight they must have made, stumbling in their blankets, shepherded by the waiter who had come running to rescue them. A genuine smile spread across Isobel’s face and she looked at Madeleine as if she was seeing her afresh. She caught the glimpse of failure, the remnants never to be vanquished, of passivity offered as an excuse, and felt them brushed away. Inside they divested themselves of the blankets and handed them back. Then they were at a low table, ordering more tea, and Kit suggested a brandy each. Afterwards, when they were back at The Windsor, Isobel thought it was their damp hair that had washed away something old and stale, something fixed in their expectations of one another. She stood in the shower until she was warmed through. She thought she could smell the damp wool of the blanket, so scratchy and worn. It answered to a comfort she thought had gone forever.
The passivity of her mother was not entirely lacking in Sylvie’s character, and now she had the weekend to herself she gave in to it. There were essays on gender roles to mark but she put them aside. She thought she might go to a hotel on her own and have dinner with a book propped in front of her. Isobel and Kit would be full of tales about The Windsor: she would demand a full accounting, from the moment their suitcases were put down to the late-morning checkout. But when Sylvie thought of a hotel, she thought of a woman alone, as her mother had been in Paris. A woman who would be shown a small discreet table, perhaps near the kitchen so she had something to watch, though the swing doors would cause the edge of the tablecloth to lift as the air gusted forth and the waiters emerged, plates balanced on their palms and lower arms. A supercilious expression would be necessary, the hint of being a woman snatching an hour or less of repose from some mysterious activity. And the book would be as carefully chosen as an Isobel selection, researched and read about, the reviews compared for a consensus.
And afterwards? Now she had two whole days at her disposal, this ‘afterwards’ presented itself to her as something mysterious. The moment when the curtain came down in the theatre or the last note faded away and the orchestra laid down their bows, wiped the spittle from the mouths of horns and trumpets. That night as she commandeered the centre of their queen-sized bed Sylvie watched the last act of an opera from the Met. She found herself admiring the lungs of the soprano who lay dying on a bed that resembled a bier; when the end came Sylvie scrutinised her chest to see if it still rose and fell. The best came at the end, after the last bow and cheer, the last clap and foot-stamp had died away. Then the stage was raised, revealing underneath, in their black stage clothes, the great cast of stagehands and technicians who made the sets, arranged the lighting and the special effects, made the scenes segue into one another. Sylvie lay for a long time imagining them, the heroes, far worthier than the cast who had risen over their heads as if they were gods.
The trip, Isobel decided, was a success. Apart from the stilted meal with Freddy present, during which she realised she disliked him and that Madeleine had probably made a mistake. Still everything in the St Kilda Road house seemed solid, as if that offered a guarantee. Drapes, carpets, furnishings were all carefully chosen and the paintwork was fresh. The bay window had drawn Isobel to gaze out at Port Phillip Bay, stretched out so wide it didn’t seem a bay at all. Far out, so their shapes looked like toys, were two ships at anchor. Madeleine’s behaviour was different in her own home, more subdued and deferential, as if everyone must be considered, not merely in a superficial way, like filling a water glass or passing a dish, but in their desires, their interior comfort. Isobel saw at once that this was impossible and not worth the effort. No one could know the secret desires of another.
She, for instance, had no idea what Kit was thinking. His head was turned slightly sideways as he talked to Freddy. His expression was veiled, neutral, the words innocuous, but she guessed he was judging, trying to penetrate the defences which almost all men possessed. Not for the first time Isobel thought how different men and women were. In Madeleine she could read a great deal of surface unease, as if she struggled for the composure from which Freddy began. It had been a stiffish kind of evening, saved by the changing light—at one stage it was an almost violent blue—that came through the bay window. A palm tree outside it turned black. Madeleine got up and brought a pair of antique candlesticks to the table. A delicate vanilla scent drifted over the tablecloth, and Isobel moved her plate with a rind of cheese and a spidery stem of grape over a reddish stain in front of her. Kit and Freddy began to discuss cigars, and Isobel stifled a yawn. Any word would do, she thought, like a stone thrown into a pool. Cigar—great cigars I have known, evenings when they were smoked. Or it could go in another direction: the fall in tobacco prices, the ruthless advertising of big companies, did the directors of these companies smoke? And underneath, nothing, so the eye rested on something and gave it significance.
Eventually Isobel got up and began to help Madeleine clear the table. She could see this offended Freddy but she was suddenly too tired to play games. The disorder of the table was one thing but l
ater Madeleine would have to move back and forth to the kitchen. Freddy, she decided, was a man who liked to create an impression; his wife was included, and now she was carrying glasses, two in each hand, Isobel intercepted a look that was slightly unfriendly. Would there be a reckoning later, when she and Kit were travelling in a taxi back to their last night at The Windsor? She hoped not, but she couldn’t be sure.
At the door she grasped Freddy’s rather soft plump hand in both of hers and pressed it firmly. ‘I think Madeleine is looking a little tired.’ She kept her eyes on his face as she spoke, so he knew he was being delivered a warning. She hugged Madeleine, pressing the flat of her hand into her back, drawing her as close as she dared. Such damage existed between them, but this action seemed to be narrowing something.
Then she and Kit were being bowed back into The Windsor. Isobel elevated her chin slightly and behind her Kit grinned at the bellboy. ‘Another week and I feel I could have mastered the look.’ On their way to their room, by the stairs, they stopped to peer into one of the prime ministerial suites. What bliss to live there, Isobel thought, as their two noses pressed against the glass. Especially blissful for a wife. A quarrel and she could storm off, not into the streets as a lesser woman might, but into the bowels of the hotel. There were so many places where a woman could hide. And so many staff to protect her.
The following morning they moved to a serviced apartment in Flinders Street. At first Isobel thought she could not bear it. The ceilings were low and the furniture, perfectly clean and neat, seemed to have shrunk. She complained to Kit that they should have arranged for luxury last. Then they could have flown home, admittedly only in economy class, still feeling superior. The effect of The Windsor, she decided, could last a week. But Kit was happier. They were on the third floor, and outside their windows was growing a London plane tree. Below in the street ordinary people, in ordinary clothes, were passing. Ordinary worries, Kit told himself. Worries could be dear and familiar. He and Isobel had those to look forward to. He had to admit he was worried about Madeleine.
Sylvie was walking along the street towards her mother-in-law’s house. She had not directed her footsteps, she thought later, when she replayed the scene: she had simply felt compelled to walk in the rain. Instead of a raincoat she wore an old cardigan with missing buttons that came to the top of her boots. When she found herself outside the gate, her hand on the latch, it seemed natural to go in, because by then her feet were in a rhythm. A glass of water, she thought, as she pressed the illuminated bell beside the ornate knocker. I can at least ask for that. But her mind was streets ahead, in a reconciliation scene. She could not imagine them in an embrace but she knew it would give Ben pleasure if, on his return, she could report that she and his mother had reconciled. ‘Things will be fine now between us,’ she might say and quickly change the subject. Then she would hold out her hand and say, ‘Come.’
Cora’s obvious surprise and the way she exclaimed ‘Sylvie’ soon convinced her that the scene would need careful management. Cora was not a woman who liked to be surprised: surprises were what she gave other people and usually in a setting she could control.
‘A glass of water?’ Sylvie said, hopefully. ‘I’ve been walking.’
‘Ben is not here, if you are looking for him.’
‘He’s at a conference. In Adelaide.’
For a wild moment Sylvie wondered if the conference was like this. Open to suggestions on the surface but underneath raw power play.
‘Surely you could afford bottled water,’ Cora was saying. ‘Aren’t walkers supposed to carry it?’
‘Serious walkers,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’m not serious.’
‘You’re not serious and you should never have married my son.’
‘I’m serious about your son. As serious as it gets,’ Sylvie said. She pitched her voice low.
‘You know nothing about seriousness. A dropout, a stray, something the cat brought in … Something beyond salvage that he had to pick up.’
A lovely rush of energy filled the kitchen. Both women felt it. The woodwork was a pale green. It was like being undersea.
The next thing Sylvie knew was a stream of water running down her face. It had come from the drinking faucet. It felt like a cold swathe of hair. Instinctively she reached for the nearly-empty glass. For a second she held it like a chalice, then she allowed her fingers to open and it to crash on the parquet. Cora sprang back, shrieking. Then she rebounded and grasped Sylvie by the hair. Pulled closer, Sylvie spoke the word she had been longing to say since their first meeting, ‘Bitch,’ and Cora repeated it. ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch.’
At least we are singing in unison, Sylvie thought, when a quarter of an hour had passed and she was in the bathroom, drying her face and brushing her hair. Her neck glowed red but the face above was pale.
In the kitchen Cora was making tea with a good deal of noise. The glass tumbler had been swept up, the pieces wrapped in newspaper and taped with parcel tape to preserve the hands of the rubbish collector. Care had replaced rage and flowed just as freely.
‘Don’t expect me to like you,’ Cora said when they were sitting in easy chairs with their tea. The idea of sitting across from one another at a table was far too intimate.
But now that she had an acknowledged enemy—the acknowledgement was the important thing—Sylvie offered a small olive branch in intermittently lowered eyes.
‘I’d much rather you didn’t,’ she said. It was Isobel who had impressed on her the desirability of enemies. At least here would be no flattery forthcoming.
‘I disliked you the second I set eyes on you,’ Cora said. ‘Everything about you.’
‘Right down to my shoes,’ Sylvie said. She was trying to remember what she wore that day. Something new, she thought. She imagined she had made an effort.
‘Shoes,’ Cora said. ‘There was no need to travel that far.’
‘So I wasn’t wrong,’ Sylvie said. ‘It’s a relief.’
She felt a sneaking admiration that her rival had not wasted her time. Appeasement was simply more time to manoeuvre. She imagined them on opposing hills with a plain between. Tents in the setting sun and generals and scouts coming and going. Tents with flaps that swung like culottes. Some film …
‘You can’t concentrate,’ Cora said, setting down her cup. ‘That’s just one of your troubles.’
Suddenly Sylvie was filled with glee. There must have been a last glimpse from the tent of the opposing army bringing up supplies while the light lasted. A last fix before the great rivals slept. Would Cora allow her to sleep?
Cora was getting to her feet, gathering up Sylvie’s cup. Sylvie got up as well. She didn’t ask which it was to be: war or truce. No strategist would do that. She could imagine the scorn that would follow. She simply said, as the door, the tent flap, was held open for her, ‘Thanks for the tea.’ The reply was indecipherable because Sylvie was walking. Nothing on earth would have made her turn her head. It might have been ‘It changes nothing,’ but she could never be sure.
Two hours before Ben returned, Sylvie was at the art gallery with Kit. Art, she knew, was his solution to everything. Opera for the direst, most dreadful predicaments, an orchestra for major but lesser ills, a string quartet for malaises. But his favourite was the art gallery. Select a painting that suited your mood and become absorbed in it until all else faded. On his first visit to London Kit had reeled out of the Tate blinded by an hour in the Turner Rooms. He had stared at Steam Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth until he could feel the snow on his eyelashes. The ship disappeared and appeared again. On subsequent visits the same thing happened with the Thames and the Houses of Parliament.
He was early and watched Sylvie as she climbed the steps. Indescribably tired, he thought, casting about in his mind for a work that might serve. In the end he decided on Spencer Frederick Gore. There was a long leather settle they could sit on and gaze at Tennis in Mornington Crescent Gardens where several gardeners would have been required to find the ball. He
was gambling on Sylvie finding greenery restful.
‘I don’t think I can understand marriage,’ Sylvie said, lifting her eyes from the sickening greens and pinks, knowing her grandfather would expect her to gaze at it for at least two minutes. She thought he had chosen wrongly today. His choices were usually so apt: a portrait that could make her laugh with its presumption or, best of all, a tiny, almost forgotten miniature affixed near the juncture of a wall as if undeserving of attention. The tennis match said nothing to her; the figures were too small to engage.
‘Neither can I,’ her grandfather answered. ‘I don’t think anyone can.’
‘Are there any paintings of people pulling hair?’ Sylvie asked. Her head still felt sore, though no hair had come out. In the bathroom she had dipped her hands in water and smoothed her hair down. That was when Cora must have been making tea. Small wonder the tea clippers raced to England with fresh supplies when tea was so useful.
Loving Sylvie Page 18