Authors: Fiona McGregor
‘If you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else. And I’ll have that. Honestly.’
‘Thank you!’ Marie tilted her head and angled the perfume at her clavicle. Most of it sprayed over her shoulder, in Hugh’s direction. Hugh’s neck was flushed and dimpled
like the skin of a blood orange. He laughed then refilled their glasses.
Blanche dipped her head and Leon guessed she was grimacing. He got up to help her clear.
Clark walked down to the bottom of the garden, a magical place of mysterious plants whose names he mostly didn’t know. Pale green spiky heads weighing on thick stems. Low, fleshy things,
one of which sprouted a pink flower like a studded club. Magnolia, hibiscus, red grevillea. Tree ferns, palms, their nuts like pebbles strewn across the path, which grew more indistinct the further
down he went. He roared out a sneeze, nearly slipping on the dry leaf cover. Some of the compost slopped out of the bucket he was carrying. Righting himself, he saw Leon arrive and sit beneath the
orange tree. He emptied the compost, wiped his hands on the grass, then trudged back up the path to sit next to his brother.
‘Blanche told me you got the sack,’ Leon said.
‘More or less. Restructuring. That’s what they call it these days.’
‘
Collateral damage.
’ Leon used an American accent
.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ Clark shredded a twig to a point, then began picking his teeth with it. His teeth veered at odd angles, as though trying to avoid whatever he was taking in.
‘Have you applied for any jobs?’
‘There’s no work out there if you haven’t done postgrad. They advertised lots of other positions too. Even for the guides they got about a hundred applications, four of them
PhDs.’
Leon felt sorry for his brother, bowed over his shoe, but he wasn’t sure how to talk to him. He was wary of Clark lashing out. Nearly forty, divorced, now the sack. Not that anyone was
sorry to see the back of uptight Janice. The fact that his own business was failing didn’t strike Leon as a point of solidarity, let alone something to talk about, probably because it was his
own fault. ‘That’s terrible. I thought you were one of their best guides.’
‘I wasn’t a guide.’ Leon had never come to the museum. ‘I worked in publications and archives.’
‘Well, I hope it works out, mate.’
They sat in silence beneath the tree. Tricked by the heat, the jacaranda had begun flowering. The bark on the angophora was growing coarse. Leon recorded the browning of the rhapis and
Blanche’s totem magnolia. The sickness, the thirst. He reflected how different it would be working in Sydney in this weather. He would be drought-proofing one garden after another, or
creating false economies for clients in Mosman and Woollahra. He would be learning about a whole new biosphere. They didn’t anticipate this in college fifteen years ago. The whole
horticulture industry was scrambling. Meanwhile, the so-called dabblers like his mother were getting by on common sense. The xanthorrhea she planted as his totem when Leon was born looked robust as
a bush native. He could have described its circumference with his arms outstretched. It was a lot to give up, a garden like this. The thought of somebody coming in and destroying it was
unbearable.
‘So you think Mum should sell as well,’ Leon said.
‘Yeah. I think the upkeep on a place like this is too much and she needs a fresh start.’
‘Sure. But it’s
such
a big deal. She created this. You reckon Hugh wants to take on the sale?’
‘Of course. A house like this’d pay a massive commission.’
‘Maybe he’s not so bad, as far as real-estate agents go.’
Blanche was calling from the top of the path. ‘We’re about to have the cake, guys.’
‘Didn’t Blanche just get a promotion?’
‘Yep. Creative Director. Way into six figures.’
Leon whistled. ‘Hugh always seems so genial, kinda harmless, you know? We can at least keep the bastard honest. Can’t we?’
‘Don’t count on me to oversee financial anything.’
‘Are you coming?’ Blanche crunched down the path towards them.
Leon stood and brushed himself down. His voice lowered. ‘D’you think Blanche will?’
‘Who knows? She doesn’t have to be
dis
honest to benefit very nicely. Does she?’
‘We should all get a commission of the commission.’
Blanche stopped a few metres away. ‘Mum said there might be ticks down here now.’
Clark jumped up and shook himself.
‘I can see one in your ear.’
‘Where? Where?’
‘There.’
Terrified, Clark began to burrow into his ear canal.
‘Oh. It’s crawled out the other ear now. Must’ve gone through your brain.’
‘
Blood-suckin’ freaks
,’ Leon said in another accent, half American, half something else.
He walked up to the house laughing. Clark and Blanche dawdled behind.
‘I can’t believe he gave her a
tree
,’ Blanche said. ‘Of all things. At this time.’
‘I thought it was a shrub.’
‘It’s a swamp gum, Clark. They’re quite beautiful actually. But, like, couldn’t he give her an orchid or something in a pot?’
‘He’s sentimental about the place too. Why are you guys insisting she renovate?’
‘You make out like we’ve got some kind of great power.
Insisting.
God,’ Blanche groaned as the path steepened, ‘I’m ex
hausted.
’
‘Working too hard?’
‘We didn’t sleep. Our neighbour’s fighting with his wife.’
‘That loud?’
‘Their bedroom window’s adjacent to ours. It goes on all night. And if we shut the window, we get completely roasted. Hot-blooded Venezuelans.’
Blanche had arrived that day with red eyes and Clark had wanted to interpret them as a sign of marital conflict, a career crisis, something, anything, to make her seem vulnerable. He
couldn’t help but be disappointed to hear it was someone else’s problems. He sharpened at the word
Venezuelan
, waiting for a racial clanger.
‘Have you looked in the kitchen?’ Blanche went on. ‘The grout coming off near the sink and that burn mark next to the stove? Those little things. It can make a real
difference.’
‘I hadn’t even noticed.’
‘I wonder what her friends think. Susan, for example.’
Beneath the deck now, they could hear Hugh and Marie singing along to the Ronettes. Blanche glanced sheepishly at her brother. She couldn’t imagine being with Hugh at her mother’s
age, nor could she imagine being alone. She had always assumed these two outcomes but the future cataclysm they implied had never been so clear. She considered her mother’s solitary
rudderless state, and her elder brother’s, and a feeling of dread washed over her.
‘God,’ Clark said. ‘That woman. Mum’s so sub
missive
with her or something. You know, Susan buys a yellow straw hat, Mum buys a yellow straw hat.’
‘Mum didn’t get a mobile though. And Susan
lives
on hers.’
‘Yes, she did. She just never uses it.’
‘
Did
she? She never told me. And I’ve been hassling her to and everything. Did she give you her number?’
‘Yep.’ Clark stepped ahead of her as the path narrowed. Blanche fell silent.
Clark said in a low voice, ‘Mum just wants to please everyone. Including us. You know that.’
The next Saturday after lunch at Mario’s, Susan suggested they go to the new homewares shop on Macleay Street. They went in Susan’s car as Marie had had most of the
two bottles they’d ordered at lunch. Marie rode with her hand in her bag, palming her wallet. She hummed with excitement. Who knew what she might find out there? All those things waiting for
her to give them a home and bring them to life. She remembered her pile of unpaid bills, but she owned a house in Sirius Cove and it was her birthday and spending while in debt had an extra
frisson. The casual signature below a sum that could have fed her for months. To be that free and reckless.
She followed Susan into the shop. An assistant at the back noticed them immediately. Marie always liked walking into places with Susan, a tall good-looking blonde with long tanned legs and
ankles so tautly defined as to have been carved from wood. Marie was the cute curvaceous side of the partnership, the entry point, and Susan the lure. They browsed with their heads together.
‘Why don’t you get a lounge suite?’ said Susan.
‘I thought I’d just get a new chair and a lamp or something.’
‘You should start with a lounge suite, then work your way down. If you start with the small things, it just ends up higgledy piggledy and nothing matches.’
Marie barked her shin on a chair and stumbled against Susan, who tipped forward then righted herself on the back of a couch. They giggled tipsily. ‘Not this ugly thing,’ Marie hissed
at the couch.
‘Out of my way!’ Susan gave the next couch a little whack.
They forged on.
‘What about these?’ Marie stopped before a pair of Chinese vases.
‘Oh no, you don’t want those.’
‘Why not?’
‘Ross has a pair just like them.’
They continued towards the centre of the shop. Something sour released in Marie at the mention of Ross’s name.
‘Furniture traps memories like odours, Marie. It’s bad feng shui for you to hang on to that couch of yours. Isn’t this a lovely shop? You have to get something here.
Gina’s managing Mosmania now, you know, and I can tell you there’s absolutely nothing in there.
No-thing.
’
The svelte, bearded assistant approached. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes,’ said Susan. ‘We’re interested in lounge suites. For my friend here. Let’s have a look at those.’ She set sail across the floor towards some lumps the
colour of ice. ‘I like that one, Marie. It’s timeless. Versatile.’
‘Excellent choice.’ The assistant nodded. ‘It also comes in navy, slate, jade and coral. The covers are washable.’
Susan sat on one of the couches and looked over at Marie, eyes bright. ‘It’s comfortable, you know. And
I’ll
get you a lamp, to go with this, for your
birthday.’
Marie could feel acid rising up the back of her throat. She sat obediently next to Susan. Interesting to see the revisitation of styles in the light-filled, glass-fronted shop. Off to one side
stepped the functional elegance of Scandinavian couches, with their narrow wooden arms and slim cushions. Ross had had some couches like that taken to the tip less than a decade after buying them.
And now they sold for thousands of dollars.
Marie bounced up and down, testing it out. The couch
was
comfortable. She could have lain down and fallen asleep.
‘How do you like it?’ said the assistant.
‘It’s very comfortable but I’m not sure about the colour.’
A man in beige chinos sat on the other icy lump, hands flat either side. He moved around, smiling at the woman standing over him, urging her to join him. She had a fringe that dipped in a
melancholy curve below her brow. ‘I still prefer the one on eBay,’ she said, pouting.
‘But you can’t
sit
on your eBay couch, sweetheart.’ He patted the cushion beside him. ‘It could be Sag City and you won’t know till you get it. Come on. Try
this out.’
She sat next to him, expressionless, staring straight ahead.
‘You might change your mind, but the best things will go,’ Susan said into Marie’s ear. ‘Everybody thinks there’s an endless supply just because it’s
furniture. But you wait, they will go!’
Marie looked at the colour chart. Navy and slate would be too dark. Coral reminded her of the 1970s. ‘Is there any jade in stock?’ she asked the assistant.
‘I’ll go and check.’
‘Don’t you think jade looks drab?’ said Susan. ‘It always ends up looking grey.’
Jade. Chinese. Marie’s mind wandered as Susan answered her mobile. She couldn’t remember Ross’s Chinese vases. What shocked her after he had left with his things wasn’t
so much the loss as how quickly her mind papered it over. Where is this? What happened to that? her children would say. Marie would have no idea what they were talking about. Oh,
Dad
, they
would answer themselves
.
She worried about the holes beneath this paper, the day it would give way and she would fall through into the dark abyss of reality. No such thing as a free lunch,
Marie thought, in her fug, on the glacial lounge suite. Around her wheeled the endless cycle of acquisition and rejection, the costly stink of yesterday’s garbage. She slid through it like a
stain.
Susan was braying into her phone, ‘Hal-lo! No, I’m out. Yes, you must!’
Marie straightened her spine, thought of her wallet and felt a power enter her. It seemed to come from her posture and her credit. These things emanated into the room, alchemised, then returned
as this strange and thrilling power. Susan was snapping her phone shut with a clatter of bracelets, filing it into her jacket pocket. Marie turned to her, shoulders thrust back. ‘What’s
his new house like?’
‘You can imagine.’ Susan rolled her eyes. ‘Full of clutter. He’s gone completely Chinese, which is why I warned you off those vases. He doesn’t have very good
taste, you know.’ She drew in her chin and looked Marie in the eye.
‘Do you and Jonesy go there very often?’
‘No.’
The man in beige chinos and his partner moved over to the dining section.
Marie looked straight ahead, confused. So the vases were new. So much for her amnesia. Or were they there already? She pulled the tag around to look at the price of the lounge suite. Nine
thousand dollars. She could have got a rainwater tank for that.
‘Why do you have to torture yourself, Marie? You should be
treating
yourself.’
‘What’s she like? She’s young, isn’t she?’ Marie could hear the belligerence in her tone. She didn’t like the sound of herself after a few glasses of wine.
Her voice emerged louder than she intended, with the exaggerated enunciation of a person for whom clear speech was difficult: a stroke victim, a deaf mute. A drunk.
Susan’s irritation was evident. She stood and straightened her skirt. ‘Okay, she’s plump and plain. An interior designer. Not that you’d know it, looking at all that
clutter
. She fusses over him.’