There Should Be More Dancing (27 page)

Anyrate, I heard a man say, ‘You're determined to raze the entire northern suburbs, aren't you?'

Florence said, ‘Shit,' and came scurrying down the hall, trailing smoke, her frame going
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. Hot on her heels was Ray. He had her packet of cigarettes and was crushing them up, one by one, like sawdust. Anita was behind him. You could hardly see her, even though she had on the highest heels I've ever seen. And that so-called skirt she wears is more like a bandage wrapped around her hips. Ruby had her trusty sword in her firm little fist. Ray was all dressed up in a lovely suit. Very well tailored, you could see. Fitted him like a glove. It was black with thin lapels and hugged his muscular legs, and his shirt was very white against his brown complexion. I could almost see my reflection in his polished shoes, and his tattoo whorl gyrated on his shiny scalp as he turned. Diamonds in his ears and on his mirror sunglasses, like Walter's, and he smelt lovely as well. He
pointed at Flossy and said, ‘Do not smoke, understand?'

‘I've apologised,' she said. ‘You got a new house, didn't you?'

Anita patted the arm of Ray's lovely suit, and he touched her hand reassuringly. Little Ruby kissed me and went to sit with Florence; she flipped her eye patch to her forehead and took her grandmother's hand. Anita sat on the arm of my chair, rubbing my shoulders, and explained that they'd had a discussion with the man in the red Ferrari and he wants sixty thousand dollars, then no one said anything for quite some time. Thoughts skipped along in my head like elm seeds on a breezy day.

Finally, Anita said, ‘Mrs Blandon, you might have to sell your little house,' and there was another long silence, and into that silence came the cheery sound of Walter's thongs flipping up the passage. As ever, Walter arrived and filled the room with his big smile. Then he noticed Anita. ‘You're here already!' he said and plonked a commode in the middle of the lounge room. ‘There you go, Floss.'

Then he saw Ray.

I said, ‘One thousand and thirteen days, Walter.'

Ruby raised her sword for a battle but changed her mind because Walter was captivated by the spectacle that was Ray, standing there glinting like Louis Armstrong in a spotlight.

‘Walter,' Anita said, ‘this is Ray.'

Ray put out his hand, but all you could see was confusion rushing about all over Walter's face.

Anita explained that Ray had a meeting with Tony, tried to sort things out. She was tense, I remember, but I know why now – like mother, like daughter.

‘Ray,' Ray said, but Walter still didn't shake his hand, he just kept looking at Anita and back to Ray and then to little Ruby. ‘Ruby tells me you're a good sword-fighter.'

At that moment I understood. Ray was Ruby's father.

Ray didn't blink, didn't show any sign of anything; he was just lovely to Walter, saying, ‘I saw you fight. You're a champion, mate. You go to the Brunswick Club sometimes,' and, ‘Ruby has told me a lot about you. She talks about you all the time.' Finally, Walter thawed and his manners returned. He shook hands with Ray and the tension eased. Ray unbuttoned his nice suit jacket and went on to explain that he knew Tony, ‘as I'm sure you do, Walter,' and said that if I did have to sell, ‘there'd be plenty left over to buy a nice unit somewhere.'

‘Right,' Walter said, folding his arms in a commanding way. ‘A nice little unit, Mumsy.'

All I could do was just sit there. Homeless.

Florence said, ‘I'm happy to sleep on Margery's couch.'

Ray bent down to Florence and said loudly, ‘Despite what your daughter wants, I'll see to it that you're placed in the safe care of a government institution, one with a sprinkler system.'

Florence just looked at Ruby and said, ‘Get me a beer, willya, love?' and Anita passed her one from her handbag.

Ray patted Walter's shoulder. ‘It was a Sunday punch, mate,' he said, but Walter was too emotional to speak. His lips went all stiff and he reached to the back pocket of his shorts and got his hanky just as a tear slid out from under his sunglasses and down his cheek.

Poor Walter. I know how he felt, Cecily, his heart torn apart, because I felt the same.

But what could I do?

It's not as if Tony looks like he needs sixty thousand dollars. I mean, you help people in need, but he doesn't look like he needs anything at all.

It's just a car. He could buy another one.

And of course Walter's wedding plans were over, finished.

I said, ‘Who's going to tell Judith?'

‘I will,' Ray said, and Walter handed him the little bracket thing that holds the brake tube in the little bottle of brake fluid in the engine.

Ray started by saying, ‘There's been an accident, everyone's perfectly alright, but are you aware of any car insurance policy?' Everyone in the lounge could hear Judith wailing through the phone.

It didn't take them long to get to my house at all. Remarkably, Judith seemed quite calm,
resigned
, but Barry looked a bit like the first schoolboy in the polio vaccination line. Judith denied unscrewing the brake lead. ‘Why would I do that?' she said to me. ‘Why would I send you out in an uninsured car to have an accident? If I wanted you dead, I may as well get an insurance payout rather than spend my life paying for your damage and other people's hospital bills!'

She said I was demented and paranoid, said I shouldn't be driving. ‘Your potential to ruin lives is all too bloody evident,' she said, but I wasn't sure about Judith, given the business with the mice and little Sylvia.

At the end of the day there was nothing anyone could do. It looked very much like I'd have to sell my house, pay for Tony's repairs and buy a flat somewhere.

Of course, then they realised the house wasn't insured either, so I had to follow Florence wherever she went and search for cigarettes and matches before bed. We were sitting out on the verandah that night; the sounds of the pub band were floating down the street, some sort of country and western song, I think it was, and she was tapping her foot, humming along.

‘People don't sing properly these days,' I said.

‘No,' she agreed. ‘There should be more dancing.'

‘I doubt you've ever taken life seriously, have you?'

She said, ‘The worms don't care what you've done.'

At this stage I can see she had a point. I always tried to do the right thing, but most of my life I've felt like a bit of a nuisance. It could have been the effects of the trauma of the second accident, but when she said that, well, I went to bed knowing something hadn't been quite right.

Given the truth that came out the next day, it seems I had everything completely wrong. But it got worse. I've seen some colourful Saturday nights in my time, but that night was something else, and it turned out to be the end of my troubles with Tony. In fact, everything was all over by Sunday night.

When Tony and Miriana moved into 251 Gold Street, Margery actually enjoyed the increase in traffic around her little house, so she was lying back that Saturday night, keeping an eye on the crowd heading to the pub but watching with great interest the people who came and went from her new neighbours. The place still swarmed with workers, but it was at lock-up stage, and Tony and Miriana were there a lot, not always for the whole night, but they were there. The visitors were mostly men, the type Margery thought swarthy. Some stayed a long time, some only a few minutes. Some used the front door, others used the side door. Miriana always answered the front door, Tony always answered the side door. Then the people from the pub started to visit, stepping furtively past Margery's house to knock on Tony's side door, emerging a few minutes later to return discreetly to the pub. From the car across the street, Tyson and his mates watched with envy, sitting low in their rotting car, music subdued to a dense throb. Margery had not seen Kevin's light go on, but a police car cruised slowly past, twice.

Florence was fast asleep in the dingy little second bedroom flat on her back, anointed with cold cream, her gloved hands folded across her abdomen, her lips, unsupported by her dentures, moving in and out with each breath –
pftt
,
pftt
,
pftt
. In her dreamy sleep she was leaving her bar, following a long, lean, lovesome man with a shock of thick, black hair through the rooms of her pub. He turned and looked down at her and she followed his warm, glad eyes to the stairs, her small hand in his firm grasp, and up they went, step by lovely soft step, towards the rooms upstairs. She felt a yearning, a willing ardour, and the insouciant expression on the tall, prepossessing man who loved her – and he
did
love her – gave way to a longing that sucked the breath from her, a lust in the pit of her being, and as she lay back in luxurious fog she felt the weight of him on her, felt herself give, swoon, then the windows started to jitter and the earth itself shuddered and the room filled with a booming noise, and she woke up.

Margery saw the figures flit past her window, like bats, and then the banging started, metal on wood, and the yelling. Soon sirens blared, screaming down the street, circles red and blue flashing across the fences and hedges, and there was the sound of windows breaking and a loud thudding in the sky above. Margery thought of war, films showing exploding trenches, crushing tanks, aeroplanes and the whistle of falling bombs.

Across the hall, Florence thought of explosions too and sat up in bed. ‘The pub!' She turned the lamp on, decided there was a blackout, then remembered her eye mask. She wasn't upstairs in her pub at all. She tidied her hair with her fingers, pulled out her earplugs, popped her teeth in and then Margery was standing beside her bed, saying, ‘Quick, Flossy, get out – the house is on fire!'

But in the passage it was clear the house wasn't on fire. Margery stood clutching a box containing photos and Walter's boxing
scrapbook. Florence held tightly to Margery, cuddling her, her eyes wide. Around them, spotlights strobed.

‘Is it the pub?'

‘An earthquake,' Margery declared, just as two police cars screamed to a halt outside. They shuffled together to Margery's window, leaned into the strobing lights and were illuminated – two old ladies in nighties blasted by red and blue flashes. Then the helicopter rose and flew away and the thudding receded, but the wailing started. Someone was injured. It was Miriana, she was being bundled into an ambulance. ‘The baby!' they said.

Florence moved towards the kitchen, steadying herself against the wall. ‘Sherry?'

‘I think I will,' Margery said.

While they sipped their second glass, Florence added sherry to the shared essentials shopping list.

Sunday morning, Florence sat languidly on the busted cane divan on the front verandah, smoking, while Margery lingered at the letterbox. Eventually, the girl with the striped hair swung her tall black box of a car into the kerb, a phone to her ear and a cigarette between her fingers on the steering wheel.

As she passed, Margery said, ‘A happy event in the night, I gather?' and Florence added, ‘Everything went according to plan, I hope?'

The girl glanced at the two old ladies in their dressing gowns, one battered with smashed glasses, the other wearing red stilettos and a bandage on her head. ‘Youse are fucked,' she said and went inside.

‘Something's gone wrong with the baby,' Margery said, and Florence agreed, ‘Born spastic,' though Margery suspected it was worse, given the visitor's grave expression. As the morning wore on the two wise old women decided their conclusion was very likely – more and more people arrived, sombre-looking people, ‘ethnics in dark cars with flash wheels' Margery called them.

She went inside to stuff the chook and put it in the oven, then did the vegetables and made Walter's caramel sinker. She picked up
her cross-stitch but soon abandoned it to join Florence on the front verandah again. Strangers passed, pausing to stare at Tony's place. Florence persuaded cigarettes from them, Tyson gave her a can of beer. Margery saw people she hadn't seen in years: Mrs Blunderstone leaning from her front gate, old Victor balancing on walking sticks, Mrs Devlin in her wheelchair, and Mrs Razic, also with a bandage on her head, clinging to her gatepost, all of them craning down towards Tony's place.

‘Everyone's aged so much,' Margery said.

Eventually, Walter appeared at the end of the street.

‘Here he comes,' Margery called, and Florence joined her at the gate to wait.

‘Walter's got a food hygiene examination coming up. He's under a lot of pressure, and on top of everything your daughter's broken his heart,' she said tersely. Florence shrugged and said, ‘That's life for you.'

But Walter wasn't gloomy at all. He was grinning, a frozen chook under one arm and a supermarket bag in the other. ‘One thousand and fifteen days,' he said.

‘You're a strong boy,' Margery said, presenting her cheek for a kiss. ‘How are you, son?'

‘Never better.' Then he gave Florence a kiss.

They prepared the meal, as usual. Florence had a light beer, and Walter poured Margery a sherry, got a glacè cherry from the Christmas pudding fruit mix and dropped it in.

‘You're very cheerful, Walter dear.'

‘Mumsy,' he said and pinched her cheek, ‘I've got some good news for youse two.'

He retrieved a newspaper from the supermarket bag and unfolded it. The headlines read, in bolder-than-necessary black ink: DRUG FACTORY RAID.

‘That,' said Walter very importantly, ‘is Tony.'

‘From the red car?'

‘From next door?'

‘Yep-see-dep-see.'

‘Well, that'll teach him,' Florence said

Walter said, ‘And now, girls, you can tear up that panelbeater's quote and throw it away.'

So they did. They tore it up and threw it in the bin. Florence had a second beer and Margery had another sherry. ‘I could play a few tunes,' she said, and Walter found his Elvis Presley songbook.

When Barry pulled up outside, the Boyles could hear the piano amplified down the short passage and out into the street. Tyson's house was quiet, and as they walked towards Margery's lounge room the air swelled with full-bodied notes. In the small room, the soft acoustics provided by the thread wisdoms on every surface made the room thick with piano sounds. While Margery played, her fingers firm on the notes and her broken glasses fixed on the sheet music, Walter sang, eyes closed, one knee forward and his hand high, like a frozen discus thrower, the other hand holding an invisible microphone to his lips. He was a man immersed in song, brilliantly lit by a battery of spotlights, the back-up singers throwing his solid notes to the top of the stadium, the trumpets and drums thunderously loud, the audience roaring.

Judith stopped in the doorway, made her husband and daughter stay still. ‘Watch,' she said, and they watched Walter sing, ‘
This time, Lord, you gave me a mountain, a mountain you know I'llllll neverrrrr climb. It isn't just a hill any longer, you gave me a mountain this time
.'

They stayed still when the words came to an end and the notes still floated from the piano, even while Margery's hands were in her lap. Florence wiped her eyes and Walter started to come out of his
dream. Judith and Pud clapped like true, mad fans, Barry smiling and applauding as well.

‘Wally,' Judith said, shaking her head, ‘that was absolutely fantastic.'

Pud threw her arms around her uncle. ‘God, Wally, you're
so
cool.'

‘Did you see the papers?'

‘Yes!' cried Judith, smiling from ear to ear. She looked better than she had in weeks. ‘Sing us another one, Wally, and we'll set the table.'

Margery shuffled through her sheet music and Judith set the table to the sound of ‘In the Ghetto'. Then they crowded around the little table for Sunday lunch, reliving the events of the night before, piecing the story together. Judith tucked into a plate of roast chicken breast and peas, Barry and Pudding made do with roast potatoes and pumpkin, and Walter was pouring sherries all round when the daylight streaming in from the open front door faded and the floorboards started groaning, as if an elephant was making its way up the passage.

They turned, and there were Faye and Joye, hovering in the doorway, two morbidly obese women with small-sized heads and marquee-sized frocks, wheezing like hot-air balloons.

Florence tried to escape but was wedged in by hungry Blandons and her wheelie frame.

Judith glanced up. ‘Hi, Aunty Faye, Aunty Joye, sorry about Uncle Ron,' then went back to her meal.

Faye said, ‘I'm not sorry,' and tried to get through the door, but there wasn't really enough room in the kitchen. Pud stared pityingly at her huge great-aunts, their faces receded, their chins like small shells on large, pink sand dunes.

‘We come for the will,' Faye said.

Walter was shepherding the last of his peas onto his spoon with his knife by now. The others were staring at them, speechless, and Florence was holding the newspaper high, pretending to read.

Faye started, ‘We're moving back here,' and Joye finished, ‘Ron's sister, Eunice, wants our house.'

Judith continued eating but Barry suddenly became alert. Margery dropped her knife and fork and Walter laughed.

‘This'll be good,' Pudding said.

Lance's sisters were laying claim to the house, said Lance actually owned only one third of it. And now they wanted their share, their two thirds. They wanted to move back home, because Eunice – Faye's sister-in-law – was moving back to Ron's house . . . where the sisters had lived for sixty years.

‘You can't move back here,' Judith said, stealing Margery's last roast potato. ‘There's not enough room for you.'

‘There certainly isn't,' Pudding muttered.

Margery said, ‘Judith gets the pearls, Morris gets the car and Walter gets the piano; the house is to go to the blood children of Lance Morris Blandon's loins.'

Joye said, ‘This house was never Lance's to give away.'

‘Anyway,' Faye said, ‘Judith told us Marge was going into a home.'

‘Well, she's not going into a home,' Judith said. ‘She's got a flatmate now. And home help from the council, so they can both stay here until they die.'

Walter and Margery looked at her, thinking they'd misheard. Joye started to look around for somewhere to sit, but if she sat on the couch then she wouldn't be able to see into the kitchen, and there was nothing else she could fit into.

Faye held the doorjamb for support, ‘Marge doesn't deserve this place anyway,' and raised her arm to wipe her sweaty forehead, like a walrus lifting a flipper.

‘She does,' Judith said. ‘She came here as a bride and worked to contribute.'

‘And,' Walter said, ‘she was a good wife and mother.'

Joye said, ‘A good wife, my arse,' and Faye nodded. Under her, a floorboard cracked. ‘Starved of love, Lance was.'

At this point, Florence dropped her newspaper. ‘He bloody was not!'