The Seamstress Page 9

  But on Friday night, if they didn’t have any friends over, they’d open a bottle of wine. Jo prepared a spaghetti dish and threw a fancy salad together. They talked and clinked glasses like a pair of very dear friends, which is what they were. On these nights Joanna affected the smoking of a small cigar, to go with the taste of the red wine, and she liked to philosophise, as characters do in Chekhov.

  ‘Well, Chekhov, or Tolstoy, or whoever, here’s to good marks. I’m so proud of you.’

  Jo raised her glass with Willa, happy and pleased. They had separate thoughts for a while, then her mother said, ‘I’m so proud of you.’

  ‘You just said that!’ the daughter laughed.

  In the early days with A. we couldn’t believe we had found each other. Soul mates, we said. The calamity of losing her eventually could only be faced, I suppose, by replacing her. But there’s no replacing abiding love and deeply inscribed memories. How we laughed together—fit to kill. I had a large pullover, a sloppy joe knitted for me by my mother. Despite the tag it always looked neat. I didn’t like my clothes being pulled about by the sleeve, or having my jumper rearranged once it was on me. Knowing this, she used to put her head right up the front of it until her face came up to the V-shape; would then say, ‘We’re in this together.’ I couldn’t stay cranky.

  We danced around the living room in the old-fashioned way, except that her bare feet were on top of my insteps as we waltzed, until I broke into laughter.

  Just as I was nodding off to sleep she liked to kneel by the bed and perform what she called a pancreatotomy on me, like those doctors in Manila, lifting my T-shirt and assuring me there would be no pain or blood. The hand, held stiffly with fingers close together, came into contact with my abdomen. And in a foreign voice—‘Just vun slice and we’re in, be still now, there’s no blood’—parting imaginary skin, then both hands delving into my stomach, ‘Out wiz zese sausages!’ Throwing out my intestines. ‘You will feel much better soon.’ And once again I was not only wide-awake but helplessly laughing.

  If ever we had a tiff, her dog was sent with a note. I’d be in my study with Juno, the poodle, me licking my wounds. A wet piece of paper would be stuck in Rover’s ever-salivating black smiling mouth, which I had to lean over and fastidiously remove: Would you like a cup of tea? the courteous missive asked. I loved her civility.

  How profligate we are with love.

  Every morning as I went to work she’d tell me they were lucky to have me, that I looked beautiful.

  Wasn’t all that enough for me? Why couldn’t we have tried harder?

  What invades my heart lately is the dissipation of the familiar. All ends in loss. How foolish we are in not keeping faith with those we love. Being careless and inattentive with the very people we’re supposed to cherish. But why such a generalisation? Maybe this is a family failing. Fiona, unlike my family, didn’t consider it sloppy or indulgent to talk about such things.

  I wasn’t to know, but the day she came into our lives in that department store, everything changed for me. There—melodramatic but true. Eve had given me books and told me the piece of music I liked on the wireless was by Chopin (she called him Sho-fang and I had started to learn French at school and therefore knew how to pronounce it. But also understood it was neither wise nor kind to correct her). Eve set me on a certain path of enquiry.

  She let me read her complete works of Somerset Maugham, Rampa’s The Third Eye. And Sinclair Lewis. She comforted me when I despaired at sorrowful endings.

  But Fiona was the first woman who talked to me about books with clarity and discernment. She wasn’t nervous about the taboo subjects; in fact, she veered towards them.

  Fiona it was who pointed out that formal study was there for the taking, if I cared to tap in to it. I have her to thank for broadening my nodding acquaintance with the classics, for my taking a stand, gathering stray thoughts on things political and historical.

  But driving across town with her I was bristling. If only she didn’t pull rank. It might be on how to grow vegetables, or the best way to match clothes—the right textures and colours—and of course on cuisine, her great love. Trifling things, but little episodes that left me smarting at her smug certitude. Curious how our most loved friends make us angry almost to the point of no return. No doubt that’s the nature of friendship: swinging between exasperation and affection.

  On this occasion, this little brush, I was confident enough to say that if one were short of cash one could buy a cheap cut and add curry powder. Fiona corrected me: actually no, there’s no substitute for good meat, no amount of cooking with fresh herbs and stock will disguise poor meat. And that was the end of the discussion.

  She was a great cook, I had to admit it; better than me. But she always had to be right. The implication was: she was older, had raised several children and knew these things.

  We were driving to Jill’s to a party, determined to bury our woes in the bacchanalia. Our woes didn’t arise from the disagreement but from respective defunct romances.

  ‘What are the rules?’ I had sobbed to Fiona, only days before, when I turned up on her threshold.

  ‘There are none, Jo,’ she said.

  ‘Then how will I know in future?’

  ‘You won’t. There are no guarantees.’

  And she sat me down, knelt at my feet and took one foot, then another in her capable hands, unexpectedly smooth for working hands, and quietly rubbed them for me. I wasn’t so far gone as not to know that I was feverish in my distress and my feet were clammy. She didn’t seem to notice. Her solicitous gesture, biblical in its serving, bound me to her ever after.

  Recalling this, I tucked away my moodiness as I nursed her large bowl of avocado dip and, glancing leftwards, willed her to slacken pace. She did then slow down, changing gear, and briskly swerved to avoid the car that a moment before had gently pulled out in front of us, like an afterthought. Despite the shrieking of brakes and the smell of burnt rubber there was no collision. But we were ducking and swaying inside Fiona’s car, anticipating smashed glass. The bowl of dip flew out of my hands and knocked against the gearstick, smacking her hand before it up-ended itself on my lap and the floor. We came to a standstill, panting and shaking.

  ‘Well done, Fee,’ I said, putting a quaking green hand on her arm.

  We were both uttering oaths and shuddering noises of relief as we watched the party responsible put-put-putting away into the distance, hat firmly on his old head. We made wry faces to each other and pressed on.

  When we arrived, Jill was out the front, ushering in other guests. She came towards us with a welcoming look, then took in the state of the car’s interior. Her face puckered into concern.

  ‘Mum, are you all right? Have you been sick?’

  The snorting laughter I’d felt welling in me exploded as Fiona said with a tart shake of the head:

  ‘Do you think I wouldn’t have the style to stick my head out the window?’

  Leaving her husband—their mutual parting from each other— didn’t mean she’d stopped loving him. They had both had their indiscretions. Fiona knew that you can love two people at the one time. It was something she couldn’t stifle, this irresistible appeal of another man, and those close to her said that that was her undoing: too outgoing, too ready for a risk.

  Except that nothing is this uncomplicated: woman meets another man full stop. What about the complexities? They have an affair, it ends after a time and she goes away, taking her children because her husband is now otherwise engaged.

  The entanglement is many-faceted. There are the man’s misgivings, the husband’s hurt pride and relief (since he was busy falling in love with another woman). And the children’s resentments. When you fall for someone (this involuntary act, like an accident) you’re off balance, unsteady, uncertain. Naturally it’s short term; it can’t go on. And it didn’t with Fiona. She was quite a serious woman underneath the joie de vivre and was not prepared to go on in this state of uncertainty when there was
work to be done, kids to be seen to and a life to be lived that encompassed everything and everyone.

  No one could have been more conscious of the world’s possibilities than Fiona. New people, men or women, were there to be known, invited home to lunch, to Christmas, to plant a tree.

  ‘Would you like to go for a swim, Fiona?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Will you run around the footy oval with me at midnight? I can’t take this strong daylight any more.’

  ‘Yes,’ laughing, with barely a second’s hesitation.

  With such a capacity for response, is it likely that she could have been held on to by any one man? Some of us can’t be contained, hermetically sealed. Fiona was like the girl in the song: always true to her friends, men and women, in her fashion.

  The fashion had to be accepted. She would not be kept at home, or anywhere; she was a free spirit and, what’s more, didn’t want to be called a feminist, thank you.

  Our liking for each other underpinned the shaky moments, ultimately held the friendship firm. Speaking for myself alone—for you can never assume anything for the other—my affection for her was profound, eternal.

  They were wild and generous, the seventies. We all donated things to each other. It was Fiona who had given me a large prod to do further study in languages. I frequently gave her my sloping shoulder to weep on when things went wrong with her lover—and when weren’t they wrong? I gave Willa my confidences and she gave me leave to be myself.

  We threw parties, went on marches. I went to Italy again and returned. With fellow students I sat up late reading Malinowski, had wild, frizzy hair and played frantic games of squash before collapsing on the floral-carpeted floor of my mother’s large apartment with friends, wine and fondue, under Willa’s benevolent gaze. It wouldn’t have been student life if we hadn’t argued, experimented with pot, and I thought I’d finally got myself a serious boyfriend in Richard. He made love to me in a predictable way if you had read Ernest Hemingway, and I found this a little disheartening. It didn’t last.

  At the end of it I was in a daze, understanding less about anything. It was as though the prime purpose of study was an exercise in knowing how little you knew. Willa just kept on working and had never seemed so happy. Not for her this looking for signs, milestones, landmarks or points of reference. ‘We are all on loan to each other for a short time, don’t you think?’ I’d ask her.

  ‘You read too much,’ she’d retort.

  There had always been a number of certainties with us: if you shaped up well enough there was no doubt work to be had; family would see you through in straitened times; relatives would be conspicuous by their presence to witness your simple triumphs; Uncle Jock would see me down the aisle, he said. Whoa there, now; this is where prospects became blurred. Heads I’d tie the knot with Richard, or someone. Tails I’d go back to Italy. If the coin came up wrong, I’d cheat. But Willa never suggested that I get married.

  From the first step inside the front door you knew this was going to be rollicking. Fiona was flushed and plump, in top form. There were eight of us but it felt like twenty-eight, we were so high. High on free university courses and rediscovered truths, on peace marches and gay solidarity and invincible women. Ages ranged from a twenty-year-old—Fiona’s daughter—through subsequent decades, all lefty, born-again students, reinventing civilisation. She was holding court at the dinner table.

  ‘There I was, sweating over a hot essay on Perception at 11.00 pm, eating nuts and drinking red wine, and I felt a tooth break at the front of my denture. I was alone, so I took it out and decided to fix it with Araldite. It looked OK and I put it in a slow oven to set while I got on with the paper, due in early the next morning. Overdue. Time got away, but I was writing like a dream by one in the morning. Then I remembered the teeth. Aaargh! I went to the oven and was confronted by a twisted evil smile.’

  She demonstrated.

  ‘They had melted?’

  ‘Yep. The whole upper plate.’

  ‘So you fronted up to your tutor next day, paper in hand, big gummy smile on closed lips?’

  ‘Or pushed the paper under the door?’

  ‘Did Jo hand it in for you?’

  ‘You’re all wrong. I approached the secretary, hand over my mouth, told her my plight. She was very sympathetic. Unlike you bums.’

  The stories went on: we bellowed at every anecdote, disclosures becoming outrageous. Richard was looking bemused but didn’t make any sign of wanting to go. We left much later, all full of wine, quite drunk, some of us showing it more than others. I’d gone quiet but Fiona, in her cups, was unaware.

  Psychologists aren’t all mad, neurotic, unstable. I wouldn’t go that far. But they are not together as we used to say, by any means. Fiona was expert at sorting other people’s worries.

  We sat by the local pool on our towels, placing them on the grass, side by side. The late-afternoon sun would still give us a bit of colour. She knew I was out for blood, but was making a bid for seemliness—all restraint and quite wary.

  ‘The good thing about this pool,’ I said, ‘is that it’s continuously being filtered. I know some of these kids pee in it.’

  ‘Mm. We’re making small talk,’ said Fiona.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it does oil things along.’

  She looked around, gathering her forces, then drew a deep breath, squaring up to it.

  ‘It seems I have to confess. Mea culpa, mea culpa.’ Ruefully beating her breast.

  I fidgeted but had to go through with my charge. She was dumbfounded.

  ‘Don’t you remember at all the things you said? Or did?’ I asked.

  ‘Hardly any of it.’ And she made that grimace, pressing her lips together, widening her eyes almost comically, prepared to do penance, asking absolution. She’s got guts, I thought. Her behaviour had been abominable late last night but here she was, my old friend, the stalwart.

  ‘I suppose,’ she continued, ‘during the day I’d been sampling the plonk that went into the bourguignon.’

  ‘And a magnificent bourguignon it was, too,’ I said in a rush of generosity, ‘but why did you have to blab all that stuff I told you only last week about Willa? That was private! Gab, gab, our intimate family life laid bare for strangers and friends to hear. And Richard, by the way, was a little taken aback to be felt up by the hostess while viewing your paintings! Not that I care a damn about him,’ I ended with a shrug. The heat had gone out of me.

  ‘I felt him up?’

  ‘Look, yes, you did. He might have been important to me. And I don’t enjoy my voice being imitated, by the way. This is the way I talk, please accept it. Mocking talk, lewd gestures. In front of everyone. What if everyone carried on like that?’

  ‘Jo, I’m sorry. I beg your pardon. What more can I say?’

  ‘Nothing. All right. Let’s have done with it. Just as well I like you, you old bugger.’ And I knelt behind her, spreading suntan oil over her back.

  After a while we changed positions.

  ‘How’s Willa?’ she asked.

  ‘Pretty good, considering. They’ve had to lay her open from navel to centre back, this time on the left side.’

  ‘God Almighty, is all this cutting necessary?’

  I twist around to look at the sparkling pool, not wanting to think of Willa’s body going under the knife again.

  ‘They seemed to think so. There was supposed to be a malignancy there but it’s dormant. Can something malign be dormant?’

  Fiona spread her hands—an old gesture of impotence—and shook her head. ‘It’ll be a long recovery. The main thing is for her to keep up her spirits. And Ben; any sign of him?’

  ‘Oh no. He’d be redundant.’

  We paused to think about my father, about whom there was nothing useful to say.

  ‘I’ll go and see her tomorrow, after lectures.’

  ‘Mm. Thanks, Fee. Hey, after we left last night, did Nigel stay?’

  ‘He only left the house a
half hour before I arrived here. He’s like a great slug, the time he takes to gather his wits and his things.’

  But you could hear the affection.

  ‘Men,’ I said. ‘He’s quite away from the ordinary, though. Eccentric. Why would you’ve wanted him to leave early?’

  ‘Well,’ she squinted up at the sun, ‘only that he’s on my doorstep every single day. Yet he doesn’t want to move in. Nor do I want it, really. He’s not the man for me, I know it. Too young.’

  ‘Too cynical.’

  ‘Too painstaking.’

  ‘Eats too much!’

  ‘Talks too little.’

  ‘We’re both waiting for the real thing to come along,’ I said. The old Fats Waller song came to mind. I started it and she joined in.

  Or it might have been the Ink Spots.

  We were on high, close to the ceiling, putting on a third coat. The house I had just bought was, on close inspection, unspeakable. It was a young woman’s folly. Friends took one look and left in haste. All except Willa and Fiona, who turned up soon after, brandishing rollers and brushes. There were no men around to help; Fee and I had just sent ours packing and Ben was well out of it, down on his luck somewhere, like that famous painting. There was, Willa said, nothing lonelier than being in an uncertain marriage.

  Fiona was wedged between covered shapes of furniture, with one foot on the dining table and one on a ladder, plastering parts of the side room. Heavy boxes and jutting objects covered any floor space. Willa and I had erected a plank between two ladders and were each balanced on either end. In between snatches of song we were carrying on a three-way patter.

  ‘You look like a geriatric goblin, Willa, fallen on hard times,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes? Take a good look at yourself, darl.’

  Willa worked with meticulous attention to detail.

  ‘You have to admit, it’s not your usual style,’ Fiona called over. Willa was wearing an ancient pair of cotton trousers with the crotch hanging down to the knees, and a torn shirt.