Authors: Fiona McGregor
She wasn’t afraid of dying now. But she was afraid of that fast-approaching threshold beyond which lay intolerable pain or helplessness or self-disgust. And although she had listed the
furniture she wanted taken to Neutral Bay, she still could not countenance the move.
She continued to the bottom of the garden. Asparagus fern was creeping over from the Hendersons’. She wanted to pull it out, but it remained a thought, her body unable to carry out what
her head directed. Then the squall came in.
There was ice in the rain. It sliced against her cheek like flint. She shuffled back up to the house enjoying the violence of the weather, watching the garden whip and lash. A squawking rose
from the reserve. Two cockatoos flipped out beneath the crown of a phoenix palm, their wings flapping as they dangled upside-down, screaming deliriously in the rain.
Leon was in the kitchen when Marie came back inside. He had returned from his appointment with the barrister and was drinking cordial. ‘You’re drenched.’
‘It’s lovely out there. You look smart in those clothes.’ Marie removed her wet cap, and Leon fetched her a towel and jumper. ‘How did you go?’
Leon hadn’t told his mother about the indecent-exposure charge either. The only people who knew were George and Maurice. ‘The barrister was really nice. A wannabe gardener. He said
it mostly depends on the magistrate.’
‘Let’s have a joint. I still have Brian’s pot in my handbag.’
‘Well, who’d’ve thought I’d be getting stoned with my mother right when I’ve got drugs charges.’
‘It helps me eat. It helps with the pain.’
Leon didn’t like smoking much and wasn’t a very good roller, but his mother liked the company. He settled her on the couch with an ashtray and went into the kitchen to finish
preparing pumpkin and sweet potato soup. He noticed no difference in his mother when she was stoned. He supposed she was stoned all the time on painkillers anyway. The sheer effort of carrying the
disease must be enough to make a person vague, he thought. He laid the table and brought out the meal. ‘Remember the hissy fit Dad had when I got busted for smoking pot at school?’
‘He wasn’t above smoking when he was young. We both had the occasional puff.’
‘Why did you give up?’
‘I think we just forgot about it. Maybe we thought we were above it ... It was considered more classy getting drunk on expensive alcohol.’ Marie began to cough, and Leon rubbed her
back. He could feel her bones through the clothes.
‘The barrister asked why I became a gardener and I told him it was because of you.’
Marie fixed him with her fierce blue eyes. ‘You’re good at it, Leon.’
‘I’m good with plants but I’m crap at running a business.’
‘You’ll have to sort that out then, won’t you.’
Leon picked up a cushion she had knocked to the floor during her coughing fit. He stood there twisting it in his hands. ‘Yep.’
‘Where did you get those clothes?’
‘George.’
‘Is he well?’
‘He’s great.’
‘That’s better.’ Marie handed him the joint, then settled into its fog. ‘I could try eating some soup now.’
Leon moved the heater around to face her. Marie had trouble controlling the spoon. Her hands felt like twigs slithering around the handle. She took a breath and tried again, the creamy relief of
lentils finally sliding into her mouth. She concentrated on the food, aware of Leon watching her. ‘When are you moving back to Sydney?’
‘I don’t know.’
He was so quiet, tearing his bread, sloped over his bowl, checking her face every so often. ‘Stop dithering, Leon. Forget about your father, forget about George, and move back to where you
belong.’
‘It’s just the huge cost of this court case —’
‘Forget about money. You’ll be inheriting.
Do
your horticulture’ — she banged a bony fist onto the table — ‘in
your
city.’
The clouds had thinned to messy white skeins and the gutters dripped in the sunlight. ‘I might look for a job with National Parks. Go and do arboriculture at TAFE, get a licence for big
vehicles and away I go,’ Leon replied. ‘I’m not sure I want to go back to doing the books, let alone the gardens of north shore ladies. No offence, Mum.’
‘No offence taken. God knows they wouldn’t hire me. We did a good job with the garden here, Leon.’
‘
You
did.’
‘Yes. I’m proud of it.’ Marie put down her spoon and gave her plate a push. She had finished the entire bowl. She drank some water and felt immediately better. ‘This is
what’s keeping me alive.’ She held up the glass. Leon didn’t understand. ‘I know the garden can’t be saved,’ she went on. She could feel rumbles begin in her
stomach; soon they would be embarrassingly loud, then issue as farts. ‘Now, while it’s damp out there, let’s go and burn the blackboy.’
The trunk of the blackboy was barely visible beneath the fountain of wiry stems. Standing close enough to be spiked by them, Leon could see into the heart of the plant where the scale was most
copious. It extended a good foot up the stems in a suffocating black cloud. ‘This is the plant I missed the most in the tropics. It could put a blossom stem out after this, you know? Maybe
next year? Did you know the flowers are bisexual? Did you know blackboys live up to six hundred years?’
‘I always found that so comforting.’
Leon parted the stems to inspect the infestation. He checked the direction of the breeze with a wet finger. Below them the toothpicks of masts bobbed about; a hydrofoil streaked across the
distance. Leon lit the blowtorch and held it at arm’s length as it heated, the flame invisible in the sun. Then standing upwind he aimed it at the plant’s extremities.
Vooomph
,
the stems ignited, releasing pungent oil scent. The air above quivered, ash began to drop in a circle and, as the flames poured into the heart of the plant, Marie and Leon cheered. Marie held her
sleeve over her face as the wind changed and the smoke billowed towards her. The stump emerged, coated in embers.
‘How many creatures did we just kill, do you think, Leon?’
‘I don’t know. Millions?’ He watched the dying fire with satisfaction. ‘I won’t leave it here, Mum. I’m going to take it with me when we move.’
When Blanche got to work, she realised she had forgotten her BlackBerry and brought the wrong mobile phone in. It was a measure of the stress she was under that the night
before she had put her mobile into the phone drawer and this morning had accidentally taken out an old one, uncharged, with no sim card in it. The phone drawer collected a new tenant every six
months or so, when Blanche or Hugh upgraded, or Blanche was given a sample. She rang Hugh from her landline and told him not to contact her on her mobile.
‘We have to get rid of those bloody phones,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to throw them out. It would be a waste.’
‘Have you seen Terry yet?’
‘No. I’m going to do it at the end of the day.’ Blanche felt light-headed with fear and excitement. She felt so powerful: the proverbial bolt from the blue.
‘Fair enough. Then we’re having champagne.’
‘Then I’m going to Mum’s, actually. Sorry, Hugh. We have to finalise the furniture.’
The office was unusually quiet. Nobody had replaced Lim. Kate was on facebook when Blanche walked past, just sitting there with the screen fully visible. Blanche hadn’t completely decided
whether it would be better to hand in her resignation now or wait until the end of the day. Passing the open plan, seeing the way the light came in, hearing the amiable chatter, she felt sad. She
had been here for ten years. She was bloody good at her job. How would she cope without it? On her way back from the bathroom, Kate beckoned to her and Blanche went over. Kate offered her a cashew
and Blanche accepted. Her appetite had doubled; every day she became more aware of how much of her energy was channelling to the baby. She could almost visualise the food she ate pouring down a
tube straight into the foetus. A
baby
, she had thought, in wonder that morning driving into work.
There are two people in this car!
And her entire body seemed to fold protectively
around her belly.
‘Can I see you for a minute?’ Kate asked.
‘Sure.’ Blanche led the way back to her office. She could feel a smile pushing through her lips: she was dying to tell Kate about her pregnancy. She didn’t care about facebook,
or solitaire, or having to organise her mother’s things tonight. She didn’t care about Kate taking her place: let her take everything. For a moment, she didn’t even care about her
mother’s impending death; a supreme acceptance of everything and everyone exactly as they were flowed through her.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Kate said when they were sitting in Blanche’s office.
‘What?’
‘I’m leaving.’
Blanche stared.
‘I’m going to work with Lim. I gave Terry my resignation letter this morning.’
‘Wow,’ Blanche managed.
Kate began to console her. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I really like
you.
It’s just too good an opportunity, you know. I’ll be head of the art department. Oh, Blanche,
it’s a tough time for you, isn’t it, with your mum and all. I’m sorry.’
Blanche could see how pleased Kate was with the crushing effect of her announcement. She had always considered Kate’s confidence a supreme quality. Her mind began to run from corner to
corner. Should she tell Kate she was going to leave too? Should she tell her she was pregnant? She looked at Kate in her cowboy boots and bright red skirt across which ran a hare and tortoise. She
suddenly saw her as a companion, someone to have fun with on a Friday night. A younger-sister sort of thing. How she would have loved to have had a sister! And that skin, that accent. She burst out
laughing. ‘God, I’m just so shocked. I mean
I
’
m
leaving. I’ve got my resignation letter too!’
Kate drummed her heels on the floor and squealed. She jumped up to shut the door. ‘Fookin’ Terry!’ She eyed Blanche’s fridge. ‘Let’s have a drink!
Now!’
‘Hang on, hang on.’ Blanche couldn’t stop grinning. She moved the papers on her desk. ‘I do actually have to do some work today, Kate. Like I’m not leaving for
another month. And I’m still not up for drinking much.’
‘Oh come on. Just one shot.’
Blanche realised that she’d nearly given her pregnancy away.
Fuck.
Which then made her realise that she still wasn’t ready to bond with Kate and mention it. ‘Okay then,
one shot.’ She had a bottle of Polish bison vodka with an unpronounceable name in her freezer, a luminous pale green with a strip of grass in it. She poured two shots and they knocked them
back. ‘Right, my turn now.’
‘You go, girl.’
Blanche walked down to Terry’s office breathing fire.
Terry had his glasses on and was writing on his computer. He looked up at Blanche’s knock and motioned her in. His fingers flew across the keyboard as she sat down. Blanche rarely saw him
like this. Terry preferred to be seen as perennially casual: all the better to sneak up on someone when they least expected it. But diligence became him, maybe because the customary savagery was
channelled into the keyboard instead of the conversation. He finished and pushed his chair away then propped his foot onto his knee. Those bloody winklepickers. Blanche didn’t feel the
slightest bit intimidated today.
‘So,’ said Terry. ‘Kate. What a shame.’
‘Damn straight.’
‘Could you see it coming?’
‘Not at all. I knew she was really ambitious, but I just assumed that would play out here.’
Terry grinned, surprising Blanche. ‘So it’s just you ’n’ me, kid,’ he said, cavalier.
Blanche knew he was quoting someone from a movie; Clark would have remembered who. Terry was looking at her with shrewd challenge. There was a whole office of staff out there, but she knew what
he meant and she agreed: none of them suited her like Lim and Kate had. She saw a kernel of playfulness in Terry’s eyes too. Yes, this was how men operated all the time with each other. They
were in perpetual competition. Hadn’t Ross and Jonesy thrived on that, isn’t that why their friendship survived the break-up of their business? A surge of strength ran up
Blanche’s spine. She could have picked up that stupid Marc Newson couch and thrown it out the window.
She met Terry’s gaze. ‘Yep, back to basics. We’ll have the edge when they pitch for the same stuff.’
‘So will they.’ Terry’s eyes twinkled. ‘I’m not worried.’ He patted a stack of papers on his desk. ‘You should see the applications for Lim’s
position. Crème de la crème, baby. Three from agencies in the US, two from Europe.’
‘Why are people applying from overseas?’
‘They’re losing their jobs. There’s a flood of labour coming home. I’ve got thirty-five applications here altogether. We’re going to have a
feast
. And a
bloody pain in the arse. Meeting at four? I’ll have culled them by then.’
‘Sure.’
Blanche walked back across the open plan. Kate was motioning to her, but Blanche kept walking with her eyes down, pretending to be vagued out, then went into her office and shut the door.
When she arrived at Sirius Cove that evening, she found Rhys in the kitchen. She was looking inside the fridge. She started guiltily at the sound of Blanche, but Blanche was
expecting her: Leon had said she was due.
‘Thank you for bringing Mum home last week.’
‘She said she thought she could manage a bit of dinner.’
‘That’s a good idea. There’s probably some soup in the freezer.’
Blanche went through to her mother, who was dozing on the couch. She crouched before her. Marie looked peaceful, her skin smooth and tanned in the twilight. The news was on, a member of the
Taliban saying,
We don
’
t just want to impose Sharia law on Afghanistan, we want to impose it on the whole world.
Blanche turned it down. She touched her mother’s hand, and
Marie’s eyes flew open.
‘Rhys has come to paint the gauntlets,’ Marie said.
Blanche didn’t know what her mother meant. She seemed a bit delirious lately. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Water.’