Susi smiled glassily at Willa. “Thank you. It’s chocolate and Cointreau, with egg and cream, basically. You have to beat the egg whites separately”
“It’s wonderfully fluffy.”
“Did you notice it was fluffy, Nic?” Louie asked her brother sweetly.
Nic was already scraping the bottom of his glass with a long spoon. “Hrmphh,” he grunted and gave her a withering look. “Is there any more, Mum?” he asked, and when she nodded, he scrambled up first. “No, it’s all right, I’ll get it, I’ll get it.” He brought back a bowl to the table and offered it first to Willa, with a warm smile.
Nic was taller than his father but similar in looks, as was Louie. Willa found it strange looking at Nic’s dark, curly hair, especially his long-lashed brown eyes and seeing parts of Louie. He was slower than she was though—slower in speech and thought, less frenetic, less interesting.
“No thank you,” she said, and Nic helped himself.
“Nic!” cried the others.
“What? What? I offered it to the guest first!”
Louie rolled her eyes. “You’re such a charmer.”
“
Grazie,
Luisa.”
This time she groaned. “Oh god, not the Italian.” She turned to Willa. “Nic flunked six months of Italian in the fourth form and has been trading on
grazie
and
prego
ever since.”
“It’s more than you know, ignoramus.”
“I know more than anyone,” announced Marietta. “
Buona sera. Io sow Marietta. Ne ho dodici. Quanti anni ha?
” Marietta recited, posing to an invisible audience.
The others clapped sarcastically, Tony crying “
Bravo! Bravissimo!
” Louie looked apologetically at Willa.
“So, Willa,” began Tony, and Willa half-choked on a mouthful of Sauvignon. “Gosh, the wine’s not that bad is it? Susi—you bought this sav blanc—Willa doesn’t like it.”
“No, no, I—” Willa exploded into another bout of coughing. “Please…” Then Nic was beside her with a glass of iced water. “Oh, thank you.” Her throat cleared, Willa took a deep breath.
“All I was going to ask you,” continued Tony, “was whether you spoke any languages, but no, let’s not start on that again. What do you think of, let me think, what shall we test her with…”
“Dad,” moaned Louie, “don’t be horrible.”
“I’m not being horrible, I’m just…”
“Testing her. On one question, of your choosing. What a Fascist.”
“Fascist?”
“Louie,” frowned Susi, “don’t be so dramatic.”
“No, no, even Nic agrees, I’m a Fascist. My customers think I’m nice, you know,” Tony told Willa. “But my children, they think I am a cross between Mussolini and Saddam Hussein. No wonder I spend so much time at work, huh? More wine, Willa? Now,” he turned to his children, “is that the question of a Fascist?”
Marietta, surreptitiously trying to steal Susi’s glass of wine, smiled sweetly at her father. Louie said “Yes,” and Nic said “Not if you fill mine at the same time.”
“Now Willa,” Tony began again, “I know, I’ll ask you about yourself. That’s hardly a Fascist approach, is it?”
“Don’t even answer him,” said Louie.
“What do you want to know?” Willa asked, feeling five sets of Angelo eyes zero in on her.
“Hmm. Well, I think one question each is fair and democratic, isn’t it? One question from each member of the Angelo family isn’t too much to ask in return for dinner and then we’ll … mark you out of ten and let you know if you can stay friends with Louie.”
“Oh, for god’s sake.”
“Louie,” warned Susi from the kitchen. “Language.”
“My question is … dogs. Easy. Who would you save from in front of a speeding car—Judas, or me?”
There were groans and replies from all round the table. Willa laughed and said, “Judas.” Tony, shocked and delighted, stood up and pretended to order her out of the house. Willa noticed he had very white teeth and smelt of wine, but not unpleasantly so.
“What about me?” asked Marietta, ready to ask her question.
“No,” teased Tony, sitting back down, “anyone would save Judas before you. Now, hang on, I’m not finished.” Tony held up his hand to the protestations. “What about Judas or Nic? Eh?”
Willa caught Lome rolling her eyes. “Judas,” announced Willa again, and Nic tossed his napkin in the air and shrugged.
“Always the same. Nobody cares about poor old Nic.”
“You’d save a hedgehog before Nic.”
“Okay,” Tony’s voice carried over the noise, and Willa knew what was coming. “What about Louie, eh? I mean she did invite you here after all, she is meant to be your friend.”
“But she doesn’t sit when she’s told to, and she’s expensive to feed,” said Nic.
“Look who’s talking.”
Willa looked at Louie across the table, so uncomfortable, so bristling with mixed messages. “I’d save Louie,” she answered.
There was a moment’s pause in which the air tingled but Willa didn’t care.
Then Marietta piped up. “My turn. Okay, how come you’re wearing different earrings?”
Willa smiled. “I couldn’t decide which to wear.”
“You should have worn the paua ones,” Marietta advised.
“My turn.” Nic put one hand over Marietta’s mouth.
“Yes?” Willa noticed Susi listening carefully as she came in with a tray of coffee.
“Why’d you leave Miller Park School. Were you expelled?”
Tony snorted. “Nic.”
But Nic’s eyes twinkled. “No love lost now. She didn’t save me from the speeding car, remember.” He let go the squirming Marietta who leaned forward eagerly to hear the answer.
“This is daft,” said Louie, folding her arms. “Mum, tell them to stop.”
Susi smiled benignly. “No thank you, Lou. I’m rather enjoying it.”
“This is where democracy gets you,” Tony taunted his daughter.
“Well?” Nic was enjoying Willa’s discomfort. She tried not to look at Louie this time.
“The principal and I agreed to differ, as they say, eh. I fancied a school in the twentieth century.”
“Well fielded, well done,” clapped Tony. “Spoken like someone heading for a career in the diplomatic service!”
“Louie, your turn,” said Susi.
“No thank you.”
“Go on, Lou, you’re never stuck for something to say.”
Louie swung round to her brother. “I prefer to let people tell me what they want when they’re ready. That’s what people out there in the real world call friendship.”
“Ooo, uppity, uppity.”
“Willa doesn’t have to answer anything she doesn’t want to,” Susi assured her daughter. “Well, if you don’t have a question it’s only me left.”
Willa waited, and the dessert did a slow, sickly hip in her stomach.
“I know,” said Susi brightly. “Tell us about your boyfriend.”
Louie’s eyes closed and she leaned back in her chair. Willa tried to keep her face utterly expressionless.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she answered as lightly as she could.
“None at the moment,” Susi corrected her. Nic leaned his head to one side slowly and regarded Willa. “Well,” Susi continued, “tell us about your Ideal Man.” She lifted a glass to her lips and grinned at her husband as if she were being innocently provocative.
We understand each other very well,
thought Willa, keeping her eyes on Susi.
“I don’t think I have an Ideal Man, either,” she answered very carefully. “I think—I think people just happen, don’t they. Love just happens. And then everything is changed, forever.” Willa moved her glance to Louie, who sat stock still, her eyes locked onto Willa’s.
“Indeed,” murmured Susi.
p.
Willa stayed the night. Susi made a big deal of fixing up Louie’s spare bed, turning on the electric blanket and putting Judas firmly outside the ranchsliders. Louie fidgeted at her side until she was finished and then closed the bedroom door.
“I wish it had a lock,” she said, leaning against it.
They stood in silence for a bit, listening to Susi’s movements. Finally they heard her in the bathroom upstairs.
“About time,” muttered Louie, coming to her. Kissing Louie still blew Willa’s mind. She’d expected it to be like kissing Cathy, but that had always been a physical attraction, almost against their will, a desperate giving in. Louie volunteered it, looked for it, delighted in it. Kissing her was a celebration, not a capitulation.
But tonight there was a tension. Louie put on some music and Willa watched her fiddle with the stereo and play a sixties revival group called The Burglars. She pulled the curtains across her ranchslider doors, then opened them again on the peaked ears and yellow eyes of Judas against the night. She was nervous, her hands moving jerkily, not with her usual ease.
The bed thing.
Willa sat down on the floor beside the stereo. “They’re good,” she said. “Where’d you discover them?”
“Mo,” Louie answered, joining her on the carpet. “She’s always first to discover new bands.”
They listened to the whole CD, and didn’t talk much. Louie came over eventually and leaned against Willa’s shoulder. Soon Willa noticed her breathing had taken on the regular rhythm of sleep. She shifted and Louie sat up.
“Louie, you’re tired.”
“No, no I’m not,” and Willa saw her eyes flick across the room towards the beds. “Let’s listen to something else. I’m not ready to go to bed yet.”
Willa sighed. “I know.”
Louie looked up at her tone.
“Relax, huh? I’m not expecting to sleep with you.”
Louie dipped her head and fingered the carpet. “It’s not that,” she mumbled. “It’s—it’s the opposite. I don’t want you to get into the other bed.”
Neither of them went to bed. Louie found some matches and they lit candles. All night they lay on the floor, listening to music, talking quietly, touching each other. Louie was shy, Willa scared they would get caught, and both hesitant at first. The moon snailed across the window and shone on their bodies as they wrapped around each other, discarded clothes, fingered, kissed and discovered the other and themselves. Willa pulled the duvets and pillows from the beds and for a while they slept in each other’s arms.
As the room grew light, Willa woke and looked at Louie asleep beside her. Her tousled hair lay still for once, black half-circles strewn across the pillow. The light sculpted her face so that her cheekbones and nose, the moulding of her lips and her jaw stood out, and Willa wished she had some poetry, some of Louie’s own words to describe her loveliness. She’d thrown her leg out from under the cover and it lay next to Willa’s, olive against her own pale calf. She thought of Cathy and their fearful touching, the denial afterwards and she shook her head in wonder. Willa smiled gratefully at Louie’s sleeping face. This then, was what it was like to be in love, and to have it returned.
Louie stirred and woke slowly, then suddenly she jumped up and grabbed her watch.
“Take it easy, it’s only seven,” said Willa.
Louie sighed and flopped back down.
“Come with me,” said Willa, helping her back up.
When Susi came in at eight o’clock, ostensibly to offer tea or coffee, she found both girls sound asleep in their own beds. Something similar to but not quite the same as disappointment passed across her face.
It was Saturday night and all hands on deck at the bar. Two of their staff were away including Midge who did meals. So Willa was doing a turn behind the Golden Grill with Jolene who dashed back and forth to help Sid when the bar traffic was heavy. Usually Willa avoided the pub—years of drunks and fights, vomiting and bad singing had put her off for life, but there were occasional times, and this was one of them, when the crowd were good-spirited, and the atmosphere full of bonhomie, when Willa laughed with them and liked them all.
“That should give you some legs, Bruce,” she commented to a student as she handed him a T-bone steak and chips.
“What’s wrong with m’legs?” he said, acting offended, and another guy gave him a playful shove.
“Too much sitting on your butt in that rust-bucket of yours rooting the clutch.” It was Darryl, the mechanic from across the road.
“Don’t you call my car a rust-bucket or I’ll take my money elsewhere.”
“Money? No money in clutch repairs, mate, they’re fiddly as buggery.”
“Oh, pull the other one,” laughed Willa, “you garage people have got more money than you know what to do with. Our best customers, mechanics.” Willa left them to the ensuing debate and threw more chips in the deep fryer.
“You’re in fine form tonight,” commented Jolene. “Had a good day?”
“Yeah, not bad at all.”
“You’re happy at the new school, love?” Jolene put her arm around her daughter’s waist.
Willa smiled back. “Yeah, Mum, I like it.” They went back to their work for a bit, then Willa said, “I’m going to be in the school production—Shakespeare.”
“You’re joking.” Jolene put down her knife and looked delighted.
“Well, not acting. I’m doing the lights. Thought it might be a laugh.”
“It’s a start. We’ll get you on the boards yet.” Willa knew it was a disappointment to Jolene that neither of her daughters showed any inclination to sing or perform like their parents.
Later, she said, out of the blue, “Your friend Louie, is she in the production too?”
Willa stiffened. “Yeah, she is. She’s one of the leads.”
Is it that obvious?
Jolene nodded. “She’s a nice kid, Louie.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Nice,
she thought.
Yeah, like the Sahara’s cosy at this time of year. She’s nice to the power of a hundred! She’s nice with turbo-charge and electric fuel injection! Nice, hell.
Willa smiled as she thought about Louie today, rushing into Willa’s home room at lunchtime and pulling her aside.
“Look, look,” she’d said, shoving a book under Willa’s nose. “Read this.”
“What?” Willa had frowned at the tiny print. It was a very old, musty-smelling book.
“Here!” Louie pointed at the print and read out loud. “
It loved to happen.
” She turned over the book, to show Willa the spine. “Marcus Aurelius. He was a Roman Emperor and philosopher.
It loved to happen,
” she repeated. “Isn’t that it? What you were saying to Mum the other night? You know,” she insisted when Willa must have looked blank. Louie lowered her voice. “About love and everything. You said it just happens, it isn’t something you plan for or know about. It comes from outside and changes everything.
It loved to happen.
Like you and me.”