Authors: Fiona McGregor
‘Big hug, Mum,’ said Leon on the phone to his mother. ‘You must be nervous. What time is the auction?’
‘Eleven. I won’t be here. Clark, Nell and I are going to walk to Clifton Gardens.’
‘That’s a fair way.’
‘Not as far as Obelisk.’
Leon laughed, embarrassed. ‘The heatwave get the garden?’
‘It’s completely scorched.’
‘Bummer.’
‘They wouldn’t notice it anyway.’ Marie was enjoying the cavalier person she had woken as today. She had barely slept and felt sharp and reckless, cut off somehow, unattached
to anyone or anything. Blanche came out of the kitchen.
‘Where’s Mopoke?’ she mouthed.
‘Just a minute, Leon. Upstairs I think. I’ll put you on to Blanche.’
But she did not feel immune to the soft, warm cat in the patch of sun on her bedroom floor. She picked up Mopoke and put her on a jumper on a chair then dragged the chair into a sunny corner,
knelt and buried her face in the cat’s fur, not wanting to go downstairs. Somebody entered the bedroom. She could feel them standing behind her. It was Nell. ‘Come here,
darling.’
Nell walked over and fitted herself into the crook of Marie’s arm. She stroked the cat with both hands. ‘What about Mopoke? Will she stay here?’
‘No, she’ll come with me.’ But Mopoke might not survive the move. Marie was shocked by this possibility, and that she hadn’t even thought of it till now.
‘I miss the house,’ Leon said to Blanche. ‘I’ve been dreaming about it.’
‘Really? What?’
‘Weird stuff. Like I was coming out of my bedroom — here that is — and I kind of fell through the door of my housemate’s bedroom, down into this whole other house which
turned out to be ours. It was supposed to be auction day but it was total chaos. There was a party in the rumpus room. There were cupcakes with like, um, tattoo designs on them. Butterflies
… It was all kind of ’80s, like an advertising party. I was trying to plant a callistemon in the living room, kind of into the Persian carpet and Dad went off at me.’ Leon
laughed quietly. ‘Mum was bonking Jonesy …’
‘Ri-i-i-ght.’
‘That was a bit weird.’
‘What was I doing?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘I got your email petition. About Africa.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Pretty full-on thing to get on a Friday afternoon after a long week and today to look forward to, Leon.’
‘Well, it
is
full-on. They’re raping babies because they think it’ll immunise them from AIDS. It’s a very real problem.’
Blanche didn’t think it was the time to ask him about her loan, nor could she wipe it from her mind. ‘What difference do you think my signature can make?’
‘So we just sit back and do nothing?’
Blanche looked at Hugh on the couch with the Saturday papers. He emanated solid calm. He sat with his elbows on his knees, scanning the main section with a frown. He was wearing the golden
mallet tiepin Blanche had given him when he got his auctioneer’s licence. He flicked his left arm forward to glance at his watch, then continued reading. She could see Clark on the deck
smoking a cigarette. When did Clark start smoking again? She thought he was on a fitness campaign; he had been looking much healthier lately. She felt a bit sorry for him in that tiny flat, back at
uni, living on a pittance. It seemed such a thin life. His thesis made no sense to her: she thought of Beth and her impenetrable writing on Arte Povera. Postgrad scholarships to Blanche seemed like
three years’ subsistence wages to wallow in solipsism. Entire art degrees were done in theory alone now. What was that line about people who talked the most about sex being the ones who had
it the least? She listened to Leon with half an ear. Why had her brothers turned out like this? So untogether in so many ways. They’d been given everything. Hugh, on the other hand, had grown
up in the Shire. Meat and three veg, public school, father sold lawnmowers. Hugh’s family gave her things like pharmacy moisturiser for Christmas, which moved Blanche for the gesture; her
brothers gave her nothing. Yet Blanche could hate going to Hugh’s family gatherings for the same reason she loved them: the easy-going camaraderie that masked a profound indifference about
each other and the world in general. The only thing they didn’t seem indifferent about was the fact that Hugh and she still had no children. She longed for that indifference: anything but
this constant striving, and constant dissatisfaction.
‘I know what you were doing now.’ Leon was jubilant.
‘What?’
‘You were in the garden. You’d given birth to a cat.’
‘Great, Leon.’
‘It was actually quite gorgeous. You were in a white dress. It was really kind of … tender. Y’know?’
‘You hate cats! And I’ve never worn a white dress in my life.’
‘It’s a
dream
, Blanche.’
‘Do you want to speak to Clark? I’ll hand you to Clark.’
‘Didn’t you wear a white wedding dress?’
Blanche walked out to the deck and handed the phone to Clark. ‘It’s Leon.’
Back inside, Hugh ruffled the paper and read out loud to Blanche: ‘
Mosman in a recent poll topped the list of Australia’s best-paid areas with an average wage of $93,656 for both
full- and part-time workers, more than double the New South Wales average of $41,407. When non-wage income was added it was $99,609.
’
‘Very exact figures,’ Blanche remarked. ‘But they can’t have calculated properly if the non-wage earnings are only around the six-thousand-dollar mark. Even we earn loads
more than that. Although they’d be expert tax evaders around here, wouldn’t they.’
‘That’s cynical.’
‘How else d’you think the woman from James Hardie avoided paying the asbestos victims?’
Blanche was hurting. Discussing the opening bid on the way here with Hugh, the reality had hit. Nobody could afford these prices anymore except the unbelievably rich. She was locked out. She
would be forty in a few years, she was successful and hardworking, yet she still couldn’t afford to live in the area she had grown up in. Her parents had bought this house when they were so
young: it was so much easier for their generation. She seethed with resentment.
‘It was the company, not her. You sound like your brothers, pooky. We’ll be fine today is all I’m saying. Totally fine.’
At nine-thirty Stavros arrived, and Hugh cleared up the newspapers then went into the kitchen to confer with his colleague. Marie had locked her wardrobe and placed scarves over the contents of
her drawers. Fatima was crossing the open plan as Marie reached the bottom of the stairs. Fatima smiled and went into the kitchen to get her cheque from Hugh. Stavros was spreading the registration
papers across the table.
‘You put out the sandwich board?’ Hugh asked him.
‘Yep. And a couple of signs up the street.’
‘We have to watch the guy next door. He’s touchy. We can’t put anything outside his property.’
‘The tall bloke?’
‘Got a couple of little dogs.’
Stav, short and neat with slicked-back hair, was glancing in every direction, his eyes alive with excitement. ‘He’s loving it! He’s at his gate asking me a million questions.
He’ll probably come.’
Marie came into the kitchen. ‘In that case it’s about time we left.’ She shook Stav’s hand and went into the laundry for an old water bottle and filled it with water from
the filter.
Blanche followed her. ‘The house looks great, Mum. You’ve done a great job.’
‘How do you think we’ll go?’
‘Good. Hugh has seven registered. He’s optimistic.’
Marie became aware of the smell of her own perfume in the enclosed space. She had also put on lipstick and dangly earrings, all for a mere bushwalk. It was her on sale here today as well, no
matter how far away she was, but she wanted to leave the house before anyone arrived. Blanche was the perfect overseer in her crystal necklace. ‘You look nice. That’s a nice
necklace.’
‘Thanks. How long do you think you’ll be out for?’
‘As long as it takes. We want to walk all the way to the Navy café.’
‘And Mo? Where is she?’
‘Upstairs on the chair in my bedroom. Will you look after her?’
‘I’ll make sure she’s not disturbed, don’t worry.’
‘Pat Hammet told me a story about this house when we moved in. Burrawong, I mean, the house that was here before. It was built in 1927, a few months after the Crash. It took two years. The
owner was an architect and his wife was an interior designer and he’d built entire suburbs of Melbourne.’
‘They were developers?’
‘Burrawong was built as a luxury house for them and their daughter. And all through the ’30s when the Great Depression was on, Pat said the family was off on cruises, touring around
Europe, giving parties when they were home.’
‘Were they here long? Why did they sell?’ Blanche asked.
‘I don’t think they sold till after the war. Because, I think, they wanted to go back to Melbourne.’
Blanche looked at her mother, unsure why she was telling this story. She seemed weary, aloof, calm and guarded. Her hair had arranged itself in a lucky sweep around to one side. It was a sort of
beauty, Blanche realised. A soiled, private beauty as though she had woken from a long night of illicit love-making. She suddenly saw her mother’s future as an open space and fervently wished
for a beneficent population to fill it. ‘It’s ex
citing
, Mum. It’s your new life!’
‘They survived the Crash,’ Marie said, oblivious. ‘Unlike my grandfather. Do you think it’s because they were property developers? I don’t think I’ll
survive.’
‘You’ll be fine.’ Blanche glanced down the passage at the men in the kitchen. ‘You’ll have enough to pay your debts, buy a decent place and even make investments.
It’s not the ’20s, Mum. We’re not going to have another crash. Australia’s got one of the strongest economies in the world.’
There was a knock at the front door.
‘Mum,’ said Blanche, ‘I need a definite decision. Do we go below the reserve?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you
sure
? No limit?’
‘No. Sell. Sell no matter what. I’m taking my mobile. Ring me when it’s over. Where’s Clark?’
‘In the garden with Nell. I think they’re waiting for you.’ Blanche held up her hands with fingers crossed. ‘Fingers crossed, Mum.’
They hugged, then Marie walked down the side path and through the garden, onto the bushtrack with Clark and Nell.
The first people through the door were a couple in their forties. A tall athletic man, probably Lebanese, and his suntanned wife with a leathery neck and chunky gold earrings. The woman
registered and the man picked up the floor plans. They spoke to Hugh and Stav on the deck then went down to the garden.
Twenty minutes later, Blanche was at Hugh’s elbow. ‘Nobody’s coming.’
‘Be patient, pooky.’
She went down to the garden but the couple had disappeared. She went into the rumpus room, heard the flush of a toilet, the woman’s voice in the laundry. She went back upstairs. It was
ten-fifteen and the house was still empty. She went onto the patio, buzzed the garage door up, and saw her mother’s car was deeply gouged all down one side. Jesus. Drunk driving? Hadn’t
she cut back? But the gouge was rusty … God, another expense. Hugh would be writing out cheques for months with this long settlement. Blanche stayed in the garage inhaling the rough, rich,
comforting smells of oil and petrol till she was calm. When she went back into the house another couple had arrived. They looked like the Mosman lawyers, the woman ghostly pale in a crisp shirt and
ironed jeans. ‘They’re the ones,’ Hugh said out of the corner of his mouth. Then Rupert and Celia Henderson were in the kitchen, consulting the floor plans, wandering across to
poke their heads into the study. There was a Chinese man in black trousers who nobody seemed to know. A loud woman in a floppy white hat with a tall young man who looked like her son: she was
registered. Stav flitted around chatting to everybody. Blanche watched the Hendersons. She followed them up the stairs, at a discreet distance, into the master bedroom. ‘Can I show you
around?’
‘Thank you!’ Rupert turned. ‘Blanche, isn’t it?’ ‘
Yes.’
‘Isn’t this a lovely room!’ Celia said. She was standing right next to Mopoke, asleep on her chair. Blanche moved over to stand beside her. Mopoke lifted her head.
‘Not much of a bird-catcher these days, are we now.’ Rupert pursed his bottle-opener mouth then indicated the door to the balcony. ‘May we?’
‘Of course!’
She had never seen her mother’s bedroom like this. Packed away, fakely domestic, like a serviced apartment or luxury hotel room. Not so much as a drop of water on the bathroom sink, the
washers folded in diagonals, crisp new hand towel. Her own bedroom was a white void. Blanche waited for the Hendersons with her hand lightly touching the back of Mopoke’s neck. Just as they
came back into the bedroom, the cat began to purr. She saw the Hendersons to the head of the stairs then went into the hall toilet. She slid a finger into her cunt then inspected it. Not so much as
a hint of discolouration, and yet she felt just about ready to burst with PMT. As she rose, a cool slick broke out on her forehead and she turned quickly to heave into the bowl.
‘Auction Toilet,’ Hugh had said cheerily in the car that morning. ‘Watch out for that.’
‘What’s Auction Toilet?’
‘People get nervous and take a dump. Or even throw up sometimes. On-site auctions
smell
.’
Hugh looked pleased. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she drove and he went through the papers in his lap, marking things with his Lamy, alert as a hunter, the energy sparkling
from him infectious, intimidating.
All morning he had been unusually unaware of her and that was attractive too, having to strive to get his attention. Hugh was in control, he was the dominant figure today, and it was she who was
weak-kneed with the stress of it all, stinking out the toilet. She could hear Hugh’s voice raised in greeting and instruction to the people in the house. ‘Folks, have you all
registered? Registration papers in the kitchen, don’t leave it too late, folks.’