The Question Of Ellie

16

The Question Of Ellie

    “Go on, give me the update,” said Gail heavily.

    Daph looked at her uncertainly. “Only if you wanna hear it, Gail.”

    “Of course I want to hear it, the whole office is breathlessly following the great romance between two of our temps! But the look on your face doesn’t suggest it's good news.”

    “No,” she admitted, grimacing.

    Gail waited but nothing eventuated, so she prompted: “He’d almost signed up for the building job up at Blue Gums Ecolodge and then the bloody mother had a dummy-spit, is about the last we heard. Well, he came in and took a barcoding job only two hours’ drive out of town instead. But he wasn't too upset about it, because it’d mean he’d be closer to Veronica.”

    “A dummy-spit and then some!” said Daph bitterly. “Ya know what she does? –No, hang on, I’ll tell you the next bit.” She drew a deep breath. “He’d started on the barcoding job and of course he has to get up at half-past five for it and what with the traffic he wasn't getting back until gone six, not that that made much difference, because Veronica can’t usually manage to get home much before seven anyway. So he bit on the bullet and gave up trying to see the girl casually round at our place and actually asked her out.”

    “And?” croaked Gail.

    “She accepted, all right. Well, it was just for a casual meal after work, nothing fancy. So guess what bloody Ellie turns on, the day of the date? I’d done Mrs Martin in the morning and I’d gone out to do the Mrs Tates in the arvo: I’d done Number 46 and I was starting on Number 48 when my phone rang and it was Dad practically in hysterics ’cos the bloody woman had wandered off somewhere! He took her down the mall, and apparently he was looking at a display of Astroturf or some such nonsense—you know: artificial grass, personally I’d rather plant Australian natives, they may be scraggy but at least they’re natural. And flamin’ Astroturf isn’t gonna generate any oxygen, is it? Anyway, one minute she’s at his elbow and next thing he knows she isn’t. He thought she might’ve only gone to the bog, so he got a lady to look in there, but there was no sign of her. So he had a hunt round, but he couldn't find her, and then he waited at the entrance for a bit, but there still wasn’t a sign of her. So he went home, but she hadn’t turned up there, so he rang me. Dunno what he expected me to do, but anyway, I told him to give the silly cow another half hour and then ring Iain, so he did. He wasn’t surprised, but he was ropeable: evidently she does it on purpose, but there’s never anything to prove it. Um, dunno that I can describe it,” said Daph slowly, rubbing her nose. “She is genuinely pretty vague, but she’s not actually lacking.”

    “Say no more,” said Gail grimly. “Aunty Sue. The fluffy blonde sort, is she?”

    “Um, yeah,” said Daph on a weak note, staring at her. “Did Iain tell you?”

    “No, that’s ruddy Aunty Sue to a T. She’s not a wanderer, though: her specialty is coming over all faint. There’s nothing organically wrong, the martyred Uncle Herb spent untold hours dragging her to specialists, not to mention the dough it set him back, before it dawned that the fits usually came on the day he was headed for the cricket, or just before the weekend he’d planned to be away on a fishing trip with some mates. It took the poor bugger until he was fifty-five to see sense and divorce the cow. Since than she’s victimised her sister Eva, her oldest daughter Maureen, and her second daughter Deirdre, and failed to victimise the youngest one, Janyce, who’s always seen right through her. Currently living in a granny flat behind her son’s place and driving him and his wife rapidly to the divorce courts. Still nothing organically wrong but the latest is flutters. Janyce reckons she’s caught her absent-mindedly drinking two short blacks just before the flutters came on.”

    “Cripes, that’s Ellie, all right,” said Daph weakly.

    “Yeah. I presume she eventually turned up, once any danger of poor Iain being able to keep his date had worn off?”

    “That’s right,” said Daph grimly. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t tell them where she’d been, just said she thought she’d stretch her legs and must have taken the wrong turn to come back because she couldn’t find the mall, and then caught the wrong bus because it took her into town.”

    “This’d be the wrong bus that said ‘C,I,T,Y’, would it?”

    “Um, well, it might’ve said ‘Circular Quay,’ but you’re not far out.”

    Gail’s eyes narrowed. “If she’s claiming to be that hopeless, how did she actually get back?”

    “You may well ask! Drove up in a flamin’ Beamer with a Clive Murchison, profession stockbroker, who’d kindly given her a lift. I’d put him at sixtyish, and never mind the gold band on his finger, he seemed pretty struck by poor lost little Ellie.”

    “That was bloody quick work!” croaked Gail. “How old is she?”

    “She was nineteen when she had Iain so, um, fifty-four or -five by now, I s’pose.”

    “Well, let’s hope she manages to hook this Murchison permanently!”

    “Um, he looked keen, but not the type to take the risk,” admitted Daph glumly.

    “Pity. So how did Veronica react at being stood up?’

    “He didn’t technically stand her up, I s’pose you could say he only broke the date: he did manage to get hold of her at Emco’s. She was very disappointed, but, um, I think she was a bit relieved, too, actually.”

    “Mm. Don’t suppose you could tell him tactfully not to come on too strong?”

    “I could, but I don’t think it’d work!” admitted Daph with a laugh.

    Gail smiled a little. “No. So how did he react when his bloody mother turned up?”

    “I wasn’t there, but Dad said he tore a strip off her and she burst into tears and rushed into her room and bawled for ages. Then she came out looking all sad and martyred and said she was a burden to him and she’d better go back to Europe. So he lost it again—well, he has got a temper, that red hair’s a fair indication—and told her she wasn’t gonna go and victimise his poor Aunty Meggie again, so she had another bawling fit. Dad took her in a cup of tea and the woman had the brass-faced cheek to say she was afraid she was being a terrible nuisance. So he said: ‘Yeah, you are. Try growing up and letting your son get on with ’is life,’ and walked out.”

    Gail gulped. “Help. Well good on ’im!”

    “Yeah, Dad’s never been one to mince words,” Daph admitted, grinning. “Only it kind of had the opposite effect: she didn’t put on another performance that night but next day she got up early and started burning the toast and told Iain she was determined not to be a burden to him and to let him lead his own life and all he had to do was say, if she was in the way.”

    “Bloody Aunty Sue to the life!” gasped Gail. “That’s practically word for word what she said to Caitlin! –Sorry, her daughter-in-law. I hope to God Iain had the sense to say she was in the way?”

    Daph looked wry. “She’s not the sort it’d cut any ice with, because of course the selfish bitch didn't mean a syllable of it. According to Dad he said: ‘Drop the act, Mummy. That one hasn’t worked since I was thirteen.’”

    “And?” croaked Gail.

    “She looked very sad and told him he was terribly hard and sometimes he reminded her of his father.”

    “Jesus!”

    “No, I think she must’ve tried that one on before, because he said: ‘So you tell me. Stop burning that bread, it’s not impressing anyone. And just bear in mind, Ellie, I’m not your husband or your lover. If you wander off again and have to be brought home by the police, it won’t—’ How did he put it? Aw, yeah: ‘it won’t be grounds for an almighty row followed by presents and making up, it’ll be grounds for committal, so just think it over.’ Then he said he was off, he had three hours’ work to make up. And reminded Dad not to take her anywhere, she’s not his responsibility. And that was it, he walked out.”

    “God. She’ll do something drastic,” predicted Gail in hollow tones.

    “Well, she might, yeah, but actually Dad said she seemed pretty rocked. Well, there was no more bawling, she just went off to her room.”

    A pretty woman in her fifties who’d had her own way most of her life and was clearly used to being spoilt rotten by the doting male belongings, who now was faced with the fact that she wasn’t anybody’s spoilt little darling any more, she was just someone’s middle-aged nuisance of a mum? Yikes. Gail’s money would have been on the drastic.

    “Yeah, well, let’s hope it knocks a bit of sense into her,” she said feebly.

    “Mm. Well, you can’t help feeling sorry for her for, losing her husband like that, but heck! She’s not the only person to have lost a partner! Most people don’t turn round and—and start victimising their kids!”

    Gail made a face. “Not the decent ones, Daph. Well, she’s clearly the sort of weak personality who’s found a way to capitalise on her weakness—quite possibly not even consciously. I’ve often thought that if you tortured Aunty Sue with hot irons all you’d get her to admit is that she feels she’s entitled to be the centre of attention, and she’d still swear the faints and the flutters are genuine.”

     “I see...” said Daph slowly, frowning over it. “So in a way Ellie really can’t help it?”

    “Mm. I’m sure Iain’s bright enough to see that, but seeing it never makes it easier to cope with, unfortunately. My cousin Josh—the martyr that’s got Aunty Sue in his granny flat—is quite bright, but that doesn’t mean he's coping with the cow.”

    “But heck, Gail! There must be something that can be done!”

    “Nope. –Oh: about Ellie? I’d say marrying her off ’ud be the only solution. Find a bloke that doesn’t mind the shenanigans or can control them.” Gail shrugged.

    “He’d have to be a rich bloke, and we don’t know anybody that could afford to keep her,” said Daph drily.

    “Um, well, other distractions? Like-minded ladies? Um, stuff that ladies like her like doing?”

    The energetic Daph Harris, who’d worked all her life, just looked at her blankly.

    Gail ruffled her hair madly. “Uh—sort of stuff that used to go on at Blue Gums Ecolodge ’ud be the go. Helluva pity it burnt down, eh? Massages, foot massages, relaxation techniques, uh—something with water and petals, was it? Ever see Whoopi Goldberg in Jumping Jack Flash?”

    “Um, yes, Cotty’s got a video of it she taped off the TV,” said Daph blankly. “Why?”

    “Not the Whoopi character—a scream, wasn’t she?” said Gail with a smile. “No, there was a gruesome sequence at Elizabeth Arden, with all the pink ladies having face masks and—”

    “Cucumber slices!” cried Daph. “Yeah, of course! –You’re right, that’s her, all right,” she said, looking at Gail in some awe.

    “It just came to me,” she said modestly.

    Daph laughed weakly. “Yeah! Um—cripes, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

    “Me neither, but I think we might have someone on our books who can point her in the right direction. Hang on.” Gail picked up her phone. “Christie, did Jack send you a lady masseuse, French unless I’m extrapolating, here, who used to work for Blue Gums Ecol— Right, that’ll be her! You’d better spell it. –Thanks. –No, not a job, exactly. Though come to think of it, we might turn it into one. I’ll let you know.” She hung up and said to Daph: “If you ask Ellie if she’s interested in lovely massages with therapeutic oils from a qualified French masseuse, and I ask this Jacqueline woman if she’s interested in us sending her the odd private client, that might be a start. Well, keep the ruddy woman occupied for an afternoon, anyway, and if she likes it she might make it a weekly thing: why not?”

    “Yeah, great! Thanks, Gail!”

    “Wait.” Gail picked up the phone again and this time got an outside line. She put her hand over the receiver and said to Daph: “Most of the ones under forty are into real gym work, but I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch— Hi, Fee, it’s me. Not a bad time, is it? –Oh, good. I’ve got Daph Harris with me and we’re trying desperately to think of something that’ll keep Iain Ross’s bloody mother busy and out of mischief. Have you got a few people at work who go in for Pilates, or I have I got that wr— Uh-huh. Oh, her sister! –Mrs how much?” She wrote carefully. “Thanks, Fee. –Um, hadn’t thought. Bung a couple of lean cuisines in the microwave? –True. Well, real pasta, real cheese, real olive oil? –A nice salad’d be a goer if one of us had time to shop, yep. Or we could break down and buy a couple of tomatoes from Gupta’s Deli. –Pasta it is, then. See ya!”

    “Is that your local deli?” asked Daph with interest.

    “Yeah. Fee’s convinced the man’s out to rook her, personally: the tomatoes are always huge beefsteak ones, God knows where he gets them from—his own garden, more than likely. But we’ve never managed to pay less than three dollars each for the things. Initially we made the mistake of buying them with something else—you know, pop in for bread and milk and end up with a bottle of Coke and some muffins and a couple of tomatoes as well, kind of thing. Fee kept saying it couldn’t have come to that and eventually narrowed it down to the tomatoes—he never gives dockets, of course. –Doristhorpe. Mrs Doristhorpe,” she said, passing the note over.

    “Eh?”

    “Mm. She’s the Pilates one: it’s the sister who works with Fee. Fee’ll ask her if she can get the details of the Pilates course off the Doristhorpe female.”

    “Thanks, Gail. She won’t mind, will she?” she said weakly.

    “Who, Fee? Of course not, she’s breathlessly following the progress of the Iain Ross-Veronica Johnson-Frightful Mother affair, too!” said Gail with a laugh.

    Daph smiled weakly. “I see. Well, so far poor Veronica hasn’t had a look-in—so you gotta admit, even though Iain’s not taken in by flamin’ Ellie, it’s working, isn’t it?”

    “Yeah.” Gail made a rueful face. “I keep thinking that if only Blue Gums hadn't burned down, Iain could be working there and his mother could have bought a section up there and be spending her time choosing crap to put into the little palace she’d be having built up there, in between the fancy dinners at Springer House Restaurant and the massages from the Jacqueline woman, and the odd night in luxury up at the ecolodge when there was a room spare!”

    “That would of been good, and Scott could of got that job waiting on,” agreed Daph sadly. “Oh, well...”

    “Scott’s done okay out of it, anyway,” said Gail kindly, smiling at her.

    She brightened. “Too right! And it’s doing him so much good, you wouldn’t hardly know him since he started working with Jack!”

    “Mm, Jack’s one in a million,” agreed Gail.

    “I’ll say! –Well, s’pose you haven’t got anything for me, have you? Mrs Martin’s selling the house, she says she’s rattling in it now that he’s gone,” she reminded her.

    Gail had thought Daph had merely popped in for a combined moan and progress report, the excuse being dropping off her timesheet. “Nothing springs to mind, but I’ll check.” She checked the current jobs carefully. “No, sorry, Daph, nothing at the moment. Only a Mrs Harrow wanting a reliable couple—cook-housekeeper plus chauffeur-gardener.”

    “I could do that, if you could find someone for the chauffeur-gardener part.”

    “No, it’s live-in. One room over the garage.”

    “Blow.”

    “We’ll get onto you the minute a possible comes in. –Hang on. Mrs Martin...” Gail got the client file up. “Oh, yes. How big is the house?”

    “Two storeyed. A big lounge-room and a fair-sized dining-room downstairs, and a so-called family-room they never used, it’s got a table tennis table and stuff in it. Four bedrooms with ensuites, but one of them’s really small, and his study. Aw, yeah, and her sewing-room downstairs, not that I’ve ever seen her sew anything in it. I think it might’ve been a sunporch, originally. It was built in back in the 1930s but it’s very modern-looking. The outside was in some magazine, I forget which, now, but they didn’t want to snap the inside once they saw what she’s put into it. It’s comfy, mind you, but everything’s smothered in pink roses. Linen, mostly. It’s overdone. And there’s loads of those thick Chinese rugs.”

    “With the medallions? –Mm. They come in pink, do they?”

    “Yeah,” replied Daph, giving her a dry look. “Pale pink and dusky pink and pinky-grey and even dark pink.”

    “God. That’d swear at an art deco house, all right! Look, if it’s on the market, why not take Ellie round there, she might fancy buying it and doing it up.”

    “Gail, I think it’ll go for around four mill’!” she gulped.

    “She’s got it, hasn’t she?” replied Gail indifferently.

    “But what if she puts it all into the house and Iain and Veronica need something to get started?”

    Gail replied with cold logic: “If she’s hanging round his neck like a millstone, they won’t be able to get started, will they? If he was my mate I’d be grabbing at every possible opportunity to get rid of the woman, Daph.”

    Daph got up, looking determined. “You’re right, it can’t hurt to show her the place. And Mrs Martin’d jump at a private sale, she doesn’t want hordes of people tramping through the place. Thanks, Gail. See ya later.”

    “See ya,” Gail agreed. She lapsed into a brood over her computer. Who the Hell did they know that was old enough, rich enough and—probably not thick enough, that was going too far—make it macho enough, to take on Ellie Borovansky? Um... Well, there was the martyred Uncle Herb, he was divorced and the right age, but he’d had one dose. Added to which he wasn’t that well off: Aunty Sue had more than had her pound of flesh. She could well afford not to live in Josh’s and Caitlin’s granny flat, of course— Never mind that. Think! ...Not a sausage. Bugger.

    Ellie looked up at the big white art deco house with a vague smile on her face. “It is lovely, Daph. What a pity the old lady has to sell.”

    “Yes, well, she’s well into her seventies and she’s rattling in the place. Come on, she’d love to meet you.” On due consideration, Daph had not informed Ellie that she might buy Mrs Martin’s house, she’d merely offered to take her round there, let her see a bit of Sydney, and said that Mrs Martin always welcomed visitors. This last, very fortunately, was true.

    They went inside, where Mrs Martin was thrilled to meet Ellie and showed her the lot. Even to the laundry room. Well, it was quite nice: at ground level—the place had quite a spacious basement, though its ceilings weren’t high, but plenty of parking for the two cars and the boat or you could, as Mrs Martin pointed out to the nicely smiling but bewildered Ellie, turn it into a lovely games room. The laundry room at some time in the past had been fully lined in pale blue vinyl: fake tiles, and thank God it wasn't real tiling, or the grout’d be sprouting mould that she, Daph, would have to scrub off.

    “She’s lonely, is she, poor old dear?” concluded Ellie as they retreated to the car having scored a lovely cup of Earl Grey (ugh) and a plate of very ordinary Arnott’s Scotch Finger biscuits.

    “Um, yeah: well, one more reason why she’s keen to go into this up-market retirement complex, they have plenty of activities for the inmates as well as a built-in butler service, for a price, and complete security. You can’t even get in unless a resident’s warned the guard you’re coming.”

    “It sounds very safe,” she approved.

    Something like that—yeah. Prison for wrinklies, Daph would’ve called it. “Yeah. What do you think of the house?”

    “Well, charming, of course, Daph. That art deco style’s so attractive, isn’t it? One hadn’t expected to find it in Australia!” fluted Ellie in her high-pitched English voice.

    “It was built in the Thirties, I think the old dame said. We did actually have houses, we weren’t living in grass huts in the intervals of sending Don Bradman over to Lords to thrash England,” replied Daph with a certain satisfaction.

    “No, of course, but nevertheless!” she said with the trilling laugh that was really beginning to set Daph’s teeth on edge. “What a pity she’s put all that frightful Sanderson linen and so forth into it. It could look so attractive, with furnishings of the right period.”

    “Well, why not buy it and do it up?” she said on a rallying note, starting the car.

    “Little me?” returned Ellie with that tinkling laugh. “One couldn’t possibly! It’s huge!”

    “I wouldn’t say that: that fourth bedroom’s really mingy. You’d be able to lead a decent life, Ellie,” said Daph with immense cunning.

    “I’ve never seen myself as a hostess, really,” replied Ellie in a terrifically vague voice, peering out of the window. “That’s a pretty house!”

    She meant the pink-rendered place. Secretly Daph rather liked it, too. “The Florentine look, they call it. Iain says it’s fake from go to woe. And it’s a thousand to one those concrete walls have started to crack under the render. Anyway, it went for eight mill’, last year.”

    “That’s far too much!” she fluted.

    “Well, yeah, but that’s the asking price around this area. You said you loved the glimpses of the sea down all these little side roads.”

    “Well yes, charming, of course...” she said, terrifically vague again.

    Daph took a deep breath. “I think you ought to seriously consider Mrs Martin’s house. It’s in very good repair, you wouldn’t have to do anything to the fabric, and it’d give you your independence. You can’t go on living with your son at your age, you know.”

    She could see out of the corner of her eye that Ellie’s lip was wobbling but as Dad had warned her that the woman could turn that one and off like a tap she wasn't too perturbed. After a few moments Ellie said in a trembling voice: “It’s too soon...”

    Daph hadn’t been going to say this, but at least getting the women to buy a house would be a step in the right direction. “The house is roomy enough: you could have Iain to live with you for a while, just until you felt more sure of yourself.”

    “It’s such a big decision...”

    Daph left it at that: for one thing, she was afraid she might start shouting at her if she said anything more. And well, it wasn’t quite four months since her husband’s death: it was a bit soon to be shoving her into making that sort of decision.

    “I’m not terribly into this sort of thing, Veronica, dear,” said Ellie on an apologetic note.

    Veronica took a deep breath. Nor was she, and she didn’t know that she was terribly into going to anything with Iain Ross’s awful mother—you couldn’t help feeling sorry for her but at the same time it was obvious she was awful. Poor old Mr Sugden had given them several earfuls on the topic—though as Daph said, having her staying with him had actually brightened him up! But the Sugdens didn’t know anybody else who was the right age and, though they hadn’t put it like this, in the right sort of socio-economic group to accompany Ellie to Pilates with a lot of up-market ladies who didn’t have to work but whose relations worked in posh merchant banks. Veronica didn’t feel she was in that socio-economic group, either, but Daph had pointed out that she’d be more convincing than her or Roz or Cotty, that was for sure, and if she thought Lou might do it, take another look at her! Lou had come over for dinner that evening dressed in a tiny black leather miniskirt, Veronica hadn’t realised they were In, at all, but they must be, above skin-tight jeans tucked into very high-heeled, very, very pointed-toed russet ankle-boots, and topped by a fake-sheepskin-lined denim jacket which when removed revealed a frilled and floaty black gauze blouse over a bright turquoise shoe-string-strapped singlet that revealed glimpses of a mauve bra. The lipstick was probably some of the new stuff that lasted for hours: a horribly shiny, horribly bright scarlet. Above all this the new, very slightly bouffant, but very smooth, very neat ear-length bob, not a streak to be seen in its soft, light brown sheen, struck an incongruous note, but it was evidently what all the girls were getting at Snips these days. She still had three hoops in the upper part of each ear and two stainless steel studs in each lobe, but maybe that was just to cover up the holes. Some of them. Certainly she was quite keen on the local gym, provided Carli was free to go with her, but Pilates with a load of organically tracksuited ladies? No. So Veronica had given in, not asking why they’d roped her into the thing as a matter of course, because it was all too horribly obvious. This regardless of the fact that she’d barely spoken two words to Iain since he came back to Australia and hadn’t managed to spend any time alone with him at all. Unless you counted Bryce Swettenham swinging on his Nanna’s gate less than three feet from them as he asked her if she’d fancy a casual meal in town.

    “Never mind, let’s see how we like it,” she said as firmly as she could. “What was the lady’s name, again?”

    “Lucille Doristhorpe. She said she’d meet us here...” said Ellie, peering round in a lost sort of way.

    The view was largely of tinted plate glass, the word “Pilates” prominently displayed on it, and in much, much, much smaller print some guff about times and to enquire about enrolling contact the secretary and a phone number—deliberately off-putting, exactly. The area also featured several lovely dress boutiques where Veronica couldn’t have afforded to buy a scarf, let alone a blouse, but which Ellie had dismissed with a limp: “Quite pretty—not very original, though, are they?” and a couple of cafés on whose pavement areas you could at the moment—it was almost half-past ten in the morning of a fine, mild April day—see three skinny ladies in black aerobics gear under huge fake-fur jackets, two very well dressed youngish men with shaven heads and horrible five o’clock shadows, Veronica had forgotten what you were supposed to call that these days but she knew she didn’t like it, and one skinny middle-aged lady in a black spencer above black slacks, sipping mineral water in a discontented sort of way, sitting with one plump middle-aged lady in a very ordinary blue jumper above very ordinary black polyester slacks, eating a muffin and drinking cappuccino. She actually looked happy. If Veronica could have had her choice she’d’ve chosen to be her. Never mind that that huge black cape the skinny lady with her had casually thrown back over the back of her chair had undoubtedly cost more than she, Veronica, had ever made in a month.

    Yikes, this must be Mrs Lucille Doristhorpe. Very slim, very blonde, in a pink cross-over cotton-knit top and black tights, with a huge denim trench-coat, tailored denim, not scruffy denim, casually slung across the shoulders. A lot older than Veronica, maybe fiftyish? So sorry, she’d had trouble parking! The area was very parked up, yes, there were lots of offices up above the pavement cafés and the dress boutiques, but the smallest print on the Pilates place’s window directed you to “Parking at the Rear”, why hadn’t she parked there? Oh, don't ask, probably the other posh ladies had just slung their Mercs and their Beamers and their Volvos in there without regard for anyone else. Oh, beg your pardon: a four-wheel-drive, was it, Lucille? Yep, a few posh ladies could fill a parking area with them without any difficult whatsoever, each one parked over three slots, with luck.

    They went in, Lucille Doristhorpe chatting vivaciously, Ellie actually seeming quite bright and interested,  and Veronica saying: “Mm” at intervals.

    … “The rest was similar,” she reported to the sympathetic Roz and Daph round at Roz’s place. And incidentally to Freda from next-door, as well.

    “But she liked them?” asked Daph.

    “Mm, seemed to accept them as the norm,” Veronica admitted. “She wasn’t much good at the exercises—though not as bad as me, the woman kept demonstrating facing us, my brain does a flip in my head when they do that. But half of them were hopeless anyway, it’s a sort of leisured ladies’ club. Afterwards Lucille dragged her off for lunch to meet her best friend, Paula. Paula’s husband’s very interested in Russian antiques, so she was looking forward to talking to Ellie, unquote.”

    “Nicked Russian antiques, these’d be, would they?” asked Freda, her massive form shaking slightly.

    Veronica sniggered. “Mm!”

    “How much did she get for that icon, in the end?”

    Veronica swallowed. “It hasn’t been sold yet, Freda, but she said it was going into Sotheby’s catalogue, and they’d valued it at nearly three million pounds.”

    “Let’s hope the Russkies don’t discover it was nicked from that Hermitage place,” noted Roz. “Saw it on TV,” she said to their surprised faces. “Quite a good programme.”

    “Um, yes, I think I’ve seen something similar,” admitted Veronica. “I’m sure Sotheby’s would have checked that it wasn’t on any list of stolen artefacts.”

    “Fingers crossed. Doesn’t sound as if she was interested in buying Mrs Martin’s place, the prospect of five or six million dollars or not,” noted Roz.

    “No. I suppose it is a bit soon,” Daph admitted glumly. “Never mind, if we can get her to this Pilates stuff once a week, and then lunch with the other ladies, that’ll take up the best part of a day. Why didn’t they ask you to lunch as well, Veronica, love?”

    Veronica pinkened. “They did, Daph, but I’m afraid I lied and said I had an appointment. I’m sorry, perhaps I should’ve stayed and kept an eye on—“

    “Nah, she’ll be much better off with her own age group,” said Freda kindly.

    Veronica sagged. “Well, I did think so. And I really can’t talk to that sort of lady.”

    “No,” Freda and the Sugden sisters agreed kindly, smiling at her.

    “Beut yes, of course I remember you, Iain!” said Jacqueline Corbière briskly as Iain conducted his mother into the choice precincts of Waratah Park Relaxation & Inner Wellness Centre. Waratah Park wasn’t a suburb, as one might have assumed, it was a suburban shopping mall. All undercover, the modern Australian malls all were: only the older, unrefurbished suburbs still featured rows of little shops actually opening onto the pavement. “’Ow vairy nice to see you again!”

    Yeah, something like that. Well, she was rabid but she was a bloody good masseuse, at least Mummy ought to appreciate her services, even if it turned out she couldn’t take the personality.

    “You, too, Jacqueline,” he said nicely. “Terrible about the fire at Blue Gums Ecolodge.”

    “Yes, it was a loss, just when one had established oneself in a secure position,” she agreed on a cross note.

    Er—yeah. The place had burned down to spite Jacqueline Corbière, of course.

    “And there was no compensation: unbelievabule!” she hissed.

    “Uh—I suppose they couldn’t be blamed for the fire,” he said weakly. “What about severance pay, though, Jacqueline?”

    She snorted. “A nothing! One ’ad not been there long enough for it to accrue.”

    “This is very nice, though,” ventured Ellie kindly.

   “Thank you, Ellie; cairtainly it is vairy nice, beut it is awkward, you ondairstand, to work in the establishment of a friend!”

    “I see, so it’s your friend who owns its, is it?”

    “Yes, Rosalind Euthcheensonne, a vairy competent businesswoman,” she said on a note of approval.

    Iain’s ear was reaccustoming itself to the accent, so he said mildly: “Oh, yes, I think Gail did say the woman’s name was Hutchinson.” At which a certain enlightenment was seen to spread over his mother’s face.

    “Beut it is not vairy comfortabule, you see, for one is be’olden all the taime.”

    “Um, shouldn't I have come?” faltered Ellie.

    “Beut no, that is the arrangement, I may ’ave my clients at specified taimes!” she cried vividly.

    “Yes, but it’s not the same as having your own place,” said Iain kindly.

    “No, quite. Please, come this way, Ellie, and we shall consult over your needs. Thank you so much, Iain, beut we shall not need you, I think!” she said merrily.

    Grateful for the custom, he concluded, duly slinging his hook. Poor little soul. He’d forgotten how tiny she was: Mummy wasn’t a big woman but she towered over the little masseuse.

   …  “Darling,” she reported as he drove her home in old Bert’s rusting tin-can of a Holden: “it’s so terribly sad! All that bad luck! Did you know the frightful husband locked her out of the house when she went back to France to see her grandchildren?”

    “Uh—oh, yes, someone at Blue Gums told me.”

    “And no sooner has she settled into a nice job with a lovely little suite of her own, than the place burns down!”

    “Mm, bloody bad luck. Sounds if she’s more or less living on the smell of an oily rag, only allowed to have clients when it suits this friend of hers.”

    “Exactly! And the rest of the time she has to work for the woman, otherwise she won’t let her have any private clients at all!”

    Ouch. Still, you could hardly expect anything else, if the Hutchinson woman was trying to run a business. “Mm. Bloody bad luck, poor little soul,” he murmured.

    “She can fit me in twice a week, fortunately, but she can’t come to us, she lost all her equipment in the fire and she got the insurance money, but of course she had to find a flat in Sydney, and the rents are terribly high, she hasn’t been able to afford to replace it.”

    “Right. So she’s using the other woman’s massage tables and so forth?”

    “Yes: on sufferance!” said Ellie with huge partisanship.

    Iain sagged. “So you liked her, Mummy?”

    “Of course, darling! Well, a very French type, isn't she? Actually she reminds me of old Mme Mercier, in a way!”

    They were both rabid and self-opinionated enough, yeah, so Iain agreed: “I think you’re right.”

    “But a really wonderful masseuse! And she’s an intelligent woman, too, it’s such a relief. Rudi found a very nice place in the town, with very competent girls, but they were all very young and stupid.”

    Er—how could she tell, would any of them have spoken English? He didn’t say it, just let the encomium of Jacqueline flow over him...

    Roz Brooks’s mobile phone rang at half past bloody eight in the morning, just when she’d been enjoying a nice sleep-in, for once.

   “Is that Roz? Oh, thank God!” wailed a horribly familiar, high-pitched voice. “This is Ellie Borovansky,”—it would be, yeah—“and it’s terrible, Roz! I think there’s been a—a tragedy, or something!”

    “Is it Dad?” she said sharply.

    “No, it’s both of them, Roz! They’ve vanished!” she wailed.

    “Uh—” Roz peered blearily at her alarm clock. Bloody Hell!

    Ellie was wailing: “I got up at seven, I wasn’t sleeping very well, and made myself a cup of tea, and then I thought I’d just see if they were awake, so I tiptoed along to their rooms—and they were both gone, Roz! And I waited, but there was no sign of them, so I tried ringing Daph, but she’s vanished, too! And then I tried Cotty, but there was no answer there, either! And Iain’s mobile phone is switched off, I’ve told him a million times not to do that, what if it was an emergency? And it is!”

    “No—NO! Just shut up and listen, Ellie! It’s ANZAC Day!” she cried.

    “What?” said Ellie blankly.

    Jesus, the woman had been living in Dad’s house for a month—well, over three weeks—and it hadn’t sunk in? “It’s ANZAC Day, they’ll be marching. They’ve gone to the dawn parade, Ellie! And Lou’s kids wanted to see their Pop and Iain marching, so Daph said she’d take them.”

    “But— Oh. So is that today? But Iain said it was like Remembrance Day, that’s not until November,” she said in a fuddled voice.

    Yeah, right. What did she think all Dad’s rushing around had been in aid of— Oh, forget it. It hadn’t involved her, so the woman hadn’t taken any notice.

    “Yeah, well, this is Australia, today is ANZAC Day, and Iain’s phone’ll be off because you don’t take bloody stupid phone calls in the middle of a march to remember the fallen!” said Roz rather more vehemently than she’d intended.

    “No, of course not. At home the Queen lays a wreath on the Cenotaph.”

    “Yeah, there’ll be some of that, and the marching, and you needn’t expect to see either of them until teatime at the earliest, because they’ll head straight for the RSL. Aw—and don’t go down the deli, nothing’ll be open this morning. Well, some of them might, but Dad’s won’t, Geoff Dingley’s a Vietnam vet, an old mate of Terry’s, he’ll be marching.”

    “Yes, I see, Roz. –Terry?” she quavered.

    Roz took a deep breath. “Our eldest brother. You haven’t met him, he lives in Queensland with a couple of other Vietnam vets, they bought a piece of land up Port Douglas way well before it took off as a holiday place for rich tourists, and three years back some millionaire offered them a fortune for it, so they sold it and bought a big ketch: they do charter cruises round the Whitsundays. In between knocking back the frosties and doing nothing.”

    “I—I see,” lied Ellie valiantly. “But surely Veronica isn’t—isn’t marching?”

    “She’ll of gone to watch Iain,” said Roz without stopping to think.

    There was a long silence in her receiver.

    “Yes,” said Ellie Borovansky in a very small voice. “Of course she will. –I thought she hardly knew him.”

    Roz sighed. “No, she doesn’t. Does that make any difference? Just cast your mind back to when you’d just met a bloke you were keen on, Ellie.”

    “Mm. It was Iain’s father, really,” she admitted. “The others—well, it was partly sex, and partly convenience, even with Rudi, though I was very fond of him. But I’d have got up at crack of dawn and gone to anything Hamish was involved in, I couldn’t see past him... I’ve been afraid for years that Iain would turn out just like him.”

    “He isn’t,” said Roz flatly—not that she knew much at all about Iain’s father, except that he’d played around with other women and she’d left him when Iain was about two. “He’s very dependable.”

    “Yes. Um—too attractive to women, though?” said Ellie in a trembling voice.

    He was gorgeous, all right. “Look, wasn’t your ex a spoilt little upper-class shit? Iain’s had it pretty hard all his life, I’d say he’s got the sense to know what he wants now he’s found it, and stick with it.”

    “You’re right. Thank you very much, Roz. And—and I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you.”

    “That’s okay.” Determinedly not inviting her round—a person could only take so much, after all—Roz said: “See ya!” And hung up quickly.

    “That driveway’s got worse,” Iain noted as he, Mummy, Bert and Veronica piled out of Bert’s rusting heap to be met by a grinning Scott at the site of what had been Blue Gums Ecolodge.

    “Yeah,” Scott agreed. “They’re gonna grade and gravel the lot, only not until the building’s up, and there’s no more flamin’ trucks on it.”

    “Gravel? Very ecological!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yeah, somethink like that, not to mention concrete’d be too bloody dear. They wanna sell off half the land, too, if they possibly can. That bit,” he said, waving towards the lower side of Potters Road.

    “They’ll be lucky, it’s got a view of swamp and nothing!” replied Iain with some feeling.

    “Well, yeah, they’re not gonna flog off the bits with the good view. But you can see a fair stretch of countryside, it’s not too bad.”

    “No, only in comparison with the view of the inlet from the end of the promontory and the view of the hills over on the other side!”

    “Yeah. Anyway, feel like buying twenny hectares?”

    One could certainly build a very pleasant holiday home on twenty hectares. “They’re not subdividing it into smaller lots?”

    “Nah, too much pressure on the council. Well, Bob and Gil, mainly! The restaurant’s really been bringing custom to the area, see, they don’t wanna get on Bob’s wrong side.”

    “Glad to hear it. But you’re speaking to the wrong person, Scott: see if Mummy’d like to buy twenty hectares of Australian scrub.”

    “She’d have to get a car,” he noted clinically. “It’d make a lovely weekend retreat, though.”

    Iain shrugged. “Ask her.”

    Pop had taken Ellie over to the site, where she was now meeting Jack and the blokes. Scott directed a scowl in that direction. “Not now.”

    “Mm? Oh!” Iain swallowed a laugh. “No, well, get her away from him, Scott.”

    “I suppose you couldn’t afford it, eh?” he said wistfully to Veronica.

    “No,” she replied simply.

    “Does the cabana go with it?” asked Iain idly.

    “Nope, they wanna hang on to that, since ole Sir Maurice made ’em cough up mega—”

    “Yeah, yeah. –Come on, Veronica, you must meet Jack.”

    “Thank you,” said Veronica faintly, blushing madly as he took her elbow.

    Iain led her over to the site, smiling a little.

    “We’re building facing the view, of course,” explained Jack as the ladies stared admiringly past a broad stretch of blackened earth to the view of the expanse of azure inlet between its towering steel-blue bush-clad banks.

    “Isn’t it wonderful?” breathed Veronica.

    “Pretty good, yeah,” he agreed.

    “Er, unless I’m misremembering, weren’t there two large eucalypts right there, in the middle of the view, as it were?” ventured Iain. “Terrifically environmental ones?”

    Jack sniffed slightly. “Mighta been, yeah. Well, heck, one of them overhung the ruddy gutters and they said on the fire warning on TV that trees that close to the house are a real no-no!”

    “Uh-huh. And the other one?”

    “Got too burnt, decided we better bring ’er down: could pose a hazard.”

    “Not,” put in Scott, grinning broadly. “Gum trees are supposed to burn, it's how the bush regenerates.”

    Jack looked huffy. “The bloody thing was an eyesore: who was gonna buy a place with that plonked right it the middle of it?”

    Alas, at this point Iain broke down in snorting hysterics.

    “Anyway, it worked,” Scott pointed out mildly.

    “Yes! Don’t set me off again!” he gasped. “Steel-framed, eh?” he said to Jack, eying the framing that was already up.

    “Too right. We’re using the original sandstone—hadda be steam-cleaned, mind you, but she come up a treat—and the rest’ll mostly be brick. Colour-steel roofing. It won’t be environmentally-friendly, but it’ll be safe.”

    “Good show.”

    Jack had a roll of drawings in his fist: he unrolled them, grinning. “Stick a few of them planters’ shutters around, the place’ll look as environmental as ya please!”

    Iain looked, and sniggered. “I’ll say! –I like these broad verandahs, Jack.”

    “Yeah: old-style, see? The early settlers knew how to build. Shade the place good, and you can sit out there in comfort when it’s not too hot. The whole thing’ll be one-storeyed: gonna blend into the landscape’s the idea.”

    “Mm. I see: sort of an arrangement of separate units, really, isn't it?”

    “Yeah, meant to give the punters some privacy; and this here passageway at the back, it links them all together. The sitting-room and the dining-room are in the middle, along with the reception area.”

    “I see. What about massage rooms and stuff?”

    “Here,” said Jack, putting his finger on what Iain had thought was another suite.

    “Oh, right, I get it... So it’s half a dozen suites, then? Only the same capacity as the old place.”

    “Yeah. They wanna offer massages and relaxation stuff, too.”

    “Iain, that’d be a wonderful job for Jacqueline!” said Ellie eagerly.

    “Mummy’s going to her for massages, Jack. Well, yes, it would be, if she’d fancy coming back to the place that was burnt out from under her.”

    “Not literally: they’d let them all go before it went up in smoke,” Jack reminded him.

    “Oh—yes,” said Iain limply. Jacqueline of course had conveyed the strong impression that it had burnt down beneath her very feet. Well, no wonder she hadn't got any compensation! Uh—hang on. “Did she leave her massage tables and stuff up here, Jack?”

    Jack made a face. “Yeah. Didn’t wanna pay to have the stuff trucked down: she was waiting until someone was free to shove it in the back of a ute. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

    “Mm, poor Jacqueline. I must say I think she’d be ideal for the new Blue Gums: she is an excellent masseuse.”

    “Exactly! She’d be an asset!” cried Ellie.

    Jack blinked. “Well, yeah, okay, I’ll suggest it. –Thing is, it’s like a kind of consortium, there’s no-one that seems to wanna run it. They were all keen on putting their money into it, but that’s as far as it goes, none of the Aussie lot wanna give up their fancy jobs in Sydney. And that mate of Gil’s, he’s still in the Army, of course.”

    “Which mate is this?”

    “Um, Guy Something,” said Jack vaguely. “Um, Vane? Guy Vane?”

    “Guy Vane? He’s Army to his bootstraps,” said Iain dazedly.

    “That right? Well, like I say, he’s only put dough into it, Iain. Don’t think he’s planning to give up the Army career and come and run the place.”

    “I wouldn’t think so, no.” If none of them wanted to run it... Had the blighters only bought the place as an investment: were they intending to—well, split the property, for a start, that was pretty clear—and then sell the new ecolodge for a hefty profit?

    “Think they might be planning to sell?” said Jack shrewdly.

    Iain jumped. “Well yes, I was wondering.’

    “Mm. You and the whole of Potters Road. Well, wait and see, eh? Meantime they are paying us to put it up, eh, Scott?”

    “Yeah, that’s the main thing!” he beamed. “You oughta come up and give us a hand, Iain, there’s only me and Jack and Andy and Robbo.”

    “Yeah—well, Andy’s been a brickie all his life, he’s real good value,” said Jack. “Does the work of three men with half the fuss in quarter of the time. But we could do with another pair of hands, yeah.”

    “Darling, I think you should,” said his mother before he could open his mouth.

    Iain's jaw sagged. “What?”

    She nodded brightly. “Definitely! I’ve talked it over with Jacqueline, and although it is lovely having you on hand, I couldn’t possibly be safer than with Bert, could I?”

    Bert had been letting the hulking Robbo show him something—the latter was a youngish man, not Scottish or English as the nickname might imply, but a very recent immigrant from Croatia or thereabouts, the surname having been mispronounced in the first place and then transmuted into “Robbo” through the inscrutable byways of the Australian vernacular. “Yeah, ta, Robbo,” said the old man, coming over to them. “Doing a good job over there,” he reported. “Safe as houses round our way, Ellie.”

    “Exactly! So don’t you think Iain ought to come and help Jack and Scott and the boys?”

    “I would,” he said, avoiding Iain's eye.

    “Yes: Jacqueline thinks so, too. And I’ve been thinking, Iain, darling,” she said, taking his arm: “I’ve got all that silly money that’s doing nothing: why shouldn't I put it into a business with Jacqueline? Just a nice little place, she’s found a lovely little empty shop in a very good area. I could even help out on reception—just part-time!”

    “That’s a very responsible job, Mummy,” he croaked. “It entails keeping track of bookings and so forth, it’s not just being charming on the phone.”

    “I know that, silly one! But what do you think?”

    “Uh—Mummy, I dare say Jacqueline’s as honest as the day is long, but you barely know the woman, after all,” he croaked,

    “Not tomorrow, silly! It all needs talking through properly. And we’d have a proper agreement, it'd be quite legal! She just needs a little capital to get started, you see.”

    “She is a bloody hard worker,” noted Jack. “And I’d say she’s honest, all right.” His eyes twinkled. “Too honest: tended to tell the clients when they needed to lose a bit of flab.”

    “She’d never put it like that, Jack,” said Ellie quickly. “But yes, of course she is that sort of person, one can tell at once she’s incapable of telling a lie!”

    Gee, that augured well: nice little half-truths had always been one of Ellie’s specialties. Iain found he couldn’t utter.

    “It does sound nice,” offered Veronica in a strangled voice.

    “There you are, see?” beamed Ellie,

    Iain swallowed hard. “Yes. Good show. Well, um, definitely talk it all over, but in principle why not, if you’d really like to?”

    She really would, and that meant he could come here and not do any more silly barcoding!

    “Yeah, see, you could share the cabana with me and Robbo during the week, and go home for the weekends!” urged Scott.

    “You are manifestly working in the weekends,” replied Iain feebly.

    “We wouldn’t need to so much if we had more help,” noted Jack. “Don’tcha fancy it?”

    “Well, uh—” He didn’t fancy not seeing Veronica all week, and he didn’t fancy leaving Bert to Mummy’s tender mercies all week, even if she did have the distractions of Pilates and massages... “Hard yacker, eh? Well, yeah: thanks, Jack,” he said, grinning feebly.

    “Goodoh,” the man said stolidly. “And I tell you what: Veronica could maybe come up here and give the new lady at the old MacMurray place a hand.”

    There was a stunned silence. Poor Veronica had turned purple.

    “What?” Iain managed at last.

    “Yeah. Think you met her: called herself Brenda, did a long weekend looking after Daffy Owens. Well, bit of a long story, her name isn’t Brenda, but anyway, she's bought the old MacMurray place, gonna do bed and breakfast for no more than two couples, take the overflow from Springer House, see? But she really needs help. Thought Gail might of suggested it, actually, Veronica,” he added on an airy note.

    “No!” she gasped.

    ‘Well, why not pop over and say hullo? See if you might like it. She’s a really nice lady.”

    Iain took a deep breath. “We are talking about Laurie, are we, Jack?”

    “Yeah, that’s it. Got a hefty lump sum from her granddad’s estate and her sister-in-law persuaded her to put it into the house.”

    “Veronica, that sounds ideal!” beamed Ellie.

    “Yuh—yes,” said Veronica in a shaking voice. “I—I might speak to her, then.”

     “I think you should, dear,” said Ellie with huge satisfaction.

Next chapter:

https://temps-anovel.blogspot.com/2022/11/pear-shaped-at-potters-inlet.html