The Landing Read online

  Next, Sylv noted Rosanna coming out of the Raymonds’, next door to the Collinses, which she still thought of as the Raymonds even though the cheating husband had moved out. Because the mother was slow on her walking frame, Rosanna soon caught up with them, and Sylv watched as the three women turned slowly into Goodchap Road, which headed down towards the lake. Then she saw Pete Collins and Cheryl from The Landing’s letting agency coming along Blackboy Road from the other direction, from the rented house Pete shared with Cheryl, who he may or may not have been sleeping with.

  Look at them, joining up, kissing each other hello, as if life were a cheery, straightforward affair, effortless as a song, as if girls did not run off with men old enough to be their fathers, as if wives and husbands were never discarded like old clothes. Sylv would like to be a fly on the wall at wherever they were going. Where were they going? She watched them walk slowly all the way down Goodchap Street, to where it met Bunya Street. Some of the houses in Bunya Street had dual frontages to both Bunya and Waratah Street, so it was impossible to guess their final destination. Sylv knew they weren’t going to the Orpheus, because the pub was in the opposite direction. She might have followed them if she could, if her walking days were not over, if it did not take all her concentration and effort to rise from the chair. How unfair it was that she could not eat and drink whatever she liked, that her own body had betrayed her. She was like that old bloke she had seen once on a TV show about an English hospital. A diabetic, days from death, banned from eating anything sweet. And every morning the nurses and doctors found him in a coma beside an enormous bag of violated chocolates, devoid of their wrappers, ravished, just like his body, assaulted by its owner, by choice. It was Sylv’s body; she was its occupier and conqueror and she was hardly conscious of a wish to bury herself alive. She smoked, lustfully, her eyes fixed on some hidden, purposeful business, dimly known.

  FOURTEEN

  Invisible flowers

  If Sarah were setting the dinner table, Jonathan thought, she would make sure there were flowers, even if it was only a barbecue. Sarah loved flowers, great rafts of them, floating on tables and hallstands, on any surface willing to support them: lilies and roses and gerberas and daisies and soft flakes of peonies, settling like snowdrift. But Sarah had never seen this house, never set foot in it, and her invisible flowers would never bloom in its airy rooms. Instead, Jonathan searched the cupboards for candles, not poofy girl candles, but thick, fat yellow citronella candles, excellent for repelling mosquitoes. That they were also beautiful was an afterthought; their value lay in their utilitarianism. Not that Jonathan was immune to beauty; indeed, he was susceptible to it, and considered beauty a dweller of that mysterious, numinous God-shaped space. He stood on the veranda, looking back into the lit, waiting house, as polished and perfumed as an expectant debutante, admiring its high ceilings and wide-open windows, the clean, handsome line of its walls, the now-flickering scented candles scattered low on the coffee table in the living room and on the long table of the veranda behind him. Turning around to face the lake he saw the light had faded but the day was not yet extinguished, day was meeting night above the line of land in the distance, a thin crest of brilliance against the expanse of deepening sky. Just emerging, the trellis of stars in the Southern Hemisphere night, that radiant conflagration of the Southern Cross that tells antipodeans they are home; the smell of a storm settled upon the bristling air; the sad wail of curlews. The night’s descent, the wash of gentle waves in the wind, the illuminated house behind him, a drink in his hand and, soon enough, the thrilling murmur of voices.

  ‘Mate!’ said Glen Quinn. ‘How the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘Hello, sweetie,’ said Celia. ‘Long time no see.’

  Jonathan occasionally came across Glen in business dealings (he was a big fish property developer) and he was exactly the same professionally and privately, in that the language he spoke, inside and out, was the language of cliché. ‘Deals’ were ‘done and dusted’ and ‘young people’ either ‘went off the rails’ or ‘sowed their wild oats’ or ‘were a credit to their parents and/or their school’. Glen and Celia knew where everyone went to school.

  ‘Lovely to see you, Jonathan,’ said Celia. ‘I was just saying to Glen I don’t think we’ve seen you since Easter.’

  ‘We’ve hardly been up,’ said Glen. ‘We’ve just come back from a month in Italy. Lake Como.’

  ‘Stop it, darling, you’re making Jonathan green with envy. The poor boy’s probably been tied to the office,’ said Celia.

  Jonathan had no desire to visit Lake Como, but it seemed impolite to admit it. Celia would think he was protesting too much if he said so.

  ‘Where can I put these, mate?’ Glen held up two bottles of Moët, one in each hand.

  ‘Whack ’em in the fridge,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’ve got a good Clare Valley Riesling here. James Halliday reckons it’s a cracker. Celia?’ He held out the bottle.

  ‘I’m afraid my New Year’s resolution was to drink nothing but champers,’ Celia said. ‘And here we are, September, and I’m still going! Would you mind, sweetie?’

  ‘Of course not. But I’ve only got Australian sparkling. You’ll have to drink yours if you want the real thing.’

  ‘I only drink the real thing,’ she said. ‘Darling, would you do the honours?’ She picked up one of the champagne flutes Jonathan had set out on the table, just in case, and lifted it in the air, pointing it in the vague direction of her husband. She appeared to be already a little drunk.

  ‘How’s tricks, Jon? Not doing anything I wouldn’t do?’ Glen sat down heavily in a chair. He did not look well.

  ‘I am the soul of discretion, mate. I wouldn’t tell you if I was doing something you wouldn’t do.’ Why did one cliché lead naturally to another? Any minute now he would pronounce those deathless words, ‘It makes you think.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk boring boy business,’ said Celia. ‘Tell Jonathan who we ran into at Lake Como.’

  ‘Was it George Clooney?’ How did Jonathan know this stuff? How did he know that an American movie star had a house on Lake Como? He was aghast that celebrity culture had unwittingly invaded his being, entering his system like an incurable virus or an invidious organism. He never read gossip magazines, except in dentist waiting rooms; he never watched celebrity television, and yet he mysteriously knew that George Clooney had a house on Lake Como.

  ‘I wish,’ said Celia. ‘George can leave his shoes under my bed anytime.’

  ‘How come you’re allowed to say that, but if I said Scarlett Johansson could leave her shoes under my bed I’d be a sexist pig?’ her husband demanded.

  ‘Because you’re a sexist pig,’ said Celia.

  ‘Mate, there’s no justice in the world,’ Glen said. ‘The bloody sheilas have won.’

  ‘Have we? When I last looked you chaps still had your hands firmly on the tiller,’ Celia retorted.

  Jonathan was saved by the arrival of Gordie and Anna. He saw Celia giving Anna the once-over, running the ruler over her as his friend Will would put it, trying to place her. He quickly made the introductions, noting that Anna wore a dress that revealed the curve of her breasts. When he handed her a glass of wine, their fingers touched.

  Gordie was making an announcement. ‘My darling daughter has just suffered a personal misfortune, over which we shall draw a veil,’ he said. ‘No-one died, that’s the main thing. She may have to leave early tonight because of jet lag. She’s just flown in from London.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve just come back!’ said Celia. ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘I live there,’ said Anna.

  ‘I see,’ said Celia, her mouth a moue of displeasure. What was it that Celia did exactly? Jonathan thought it was something to do with fashion, or perhaps public relations, something that required her presence at the opening of Brisbane’s endlessly multiplying new boutiques and restaurants, bars and shops selling branded luxury items and three-thousand-dollar handbags. Celia knew everyone th
ere was to know in Brisbane, anyone who was anyone: the leading architects and fashion designers, art gallery owners and directors, the peacocking politicians not yet feather dusters, the director-generals of government departments, the celebrated chefs. There wasn’t a name you could mention without Celia exclaiming, ‘Of course I know her! We went to school together,’ or, ‘Oh, Liz—or Michael or Jennifer or Thierry—and I go way back.’ Whatever work she did, Celia gave the impression that it was terribly important, and that she was a person of great consequence. If Jonathan did not precisely know what Celia’s job was, he knew that she once made number 101 on Brisbane’s 100 Most Stylish list, because Sylv made sure everyone in The Landing understood the ignominy of it.

  Jonathan heard a commotion from the front of the house and looked up: Penny and her mother—on a walking frame—were wedged in the open front door. Rosanna, PP and Cheryl, behind them, were laughing. ‘Christ, Marie, can’t you wait till I get the door open?’

  ‘Stop laughing, Pete,’ Penny was saying, not looking at him. ‘The only time you ever laugh is at someone else’s misfortune. You’re a dickhead.’

  ‘Penny!’ said Marie. ‘You sound like you were brought up in the gutter!’

  ‘And good evening to you, Jonathan,’ said Pete loudly, from the back. ‘Your enchanting guests have arrived, led by my charming ex-wife.’ Cheryl was still laughing hysterically. Jonathan winked at her and she blushed; too late, he appreciated his mistake.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Penny. ‘Hi, Jonathan. This is my mother, Marie.’

  Marie and her frame were finally through the door; she straightened herself. ‘How do you do,’ she said, holding out her hand to be shaken. She patted her hair.

  ‘Marie,’ Jonathan said, leaning over and kissing her cheek as he took her hand. ‘Lovely to meet you. If I hadn’t known I would have taken you for sisters.’

  Marie visibly preened, as if puffing out her feathers. ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said, smiling coquettishly. ‘I am far too old.’

  Penny rolled her eyes, being long used to the particular joy her mother got from receiving compliments about her looks. She did look different from other old women, in that her face had not dissolved into old age’s sexless anonymity, there was a clarity to it; its feminine architecture of bones had held up, the elegant upswept silver hair bestowing grace, a certain artfulness.

  ‘We’re out on the veranda, insect repellent at the ready,’ Jonathan said. He stood aside, ushering them forward.

  As they moved off, Penny realised that in her impatience to get her mother out the door she had left her handbag behind, containing her wallet and mobile. She remembered putting the bag down by the door and only hoped she had put it inside the door rather than outside but, even if she had left it outside, at least the front door was upstairs and not directly visible from the street. She was not walking all the way home to get it.

  Jonathan couldn’t remember seeing Penny with full make-up on or, if he had, he had not previously noticed. He realised Scarlett had inherited her beauty from her mother, who had inherited it from hers. She had made an effort with her hair, which was swept up atop her head like her mother’s, but with a few careful tendrils trailing down. Her face had a compelling intelligence in it, held together by the same good bones as her mother. She smiled at him, blazing, charged; he was momentarily disconcerted.

  Rosanna was the last of the group to move off, dressed in a fetching little black dress. Jonathan noted the defined musculature of her tanned back and arms, but remembered that she was also a bit of a flake. She was a masseuse, Shiatsu or something, and once, during a long walk with Bites along the lake, she told him about Japanese bodywork and acupuncture meridians and the flow of energy that helped the body regain its lost balance. The wind blew the words from her mouth and into the air so that she was forced to shout, and he recalled that she also told him the water of the lake was holy. ‘You have to listen to the water. It tells you what you need to hear,’ she said. But what he remembered most was that she was wearing no underwear; the wind set her tiny skirt dancing, twirling around her thighs and her skinny, panty-less bottom.

  FIFTEEN

  Pop the question

  Celia was grilling Anna, ignoring with aplomb Gordie’s request not to pry. She had already extracted from Anna the fact that she was in flight from a failed marriage, causing Celia to talk at length about how gloriously happy she was in hers. ‘I’ve been so lucky,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing like lying in bed at night, holding hands with the same man you made your babies with, long after your babies have grown.’

  Anna smiled politely. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘Gaspard’s only fifteen. And Charles isn’t his father.’

  Jonathan could practically see Celia’s ears prick up: in fact, she was like a greyhound, he saw that now, all long and lean and pointy, her nose inquisitive and sharp. She had been telling Anna that she was dressed from head to toe in couture. ‘The shoes are Christian Louboutin, my favourite pair. Are you here for a while? Do you know James Street? The Emporium? You must go.’ Anna did not know where James Street was, or the Emporium, so Celia proceeded to tell her. Jonathan guessed that Anna had not flown all the way from London to shop in James Street, but he could be mistaken. He realised he disliked Celia and her condescending air of self-importance; it was a visceral reaction, a bodily recoil. Had she always had this effect on him? Why hadn’t he noticed before? Why was she wearing that ridiculous daisy thing in her hair, her long skinny neck wound around with what looked like ribbons? He was going to save Anna.

  He moved nearer to the barbecue, a monster fuelled by a gas bottle set up at the far end of veranda; close enough to the end of the long table where Anna and Celia sat on opposite sides. ‘You should organise a trip on the lake while you’re here,’ he said, addressing Anna. ‘Do you sail?’

  ‘The last time I went sailing I almost lost my head,’ Anna said. ‘I didn’t duck in time.’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t sail either, but I’m told it’s exhilarating when everything goes well.’

  ‘Glen’s just bought two rather expensive new sailing toys,’ said Celia. ‘One for him, and one for our boys. They did rowing at Terrace, of course, but they’ve only just taken up sailing. Did I tell you Damien got a promotion, Jonathan? He’s off to Singapore to head up Hewlett-Packard’s Asia-Pacific division. We’re hoping he’s going to pop the question before he goes.’

  ‘What question?’ said Jonathan.

  ‘The question—the only one that matters,’ said Celia.

  ‘Oh, that question,’ he said. ‘Who’s he going to pop it to?’ ‘Jonathan! You’ve met Katie! She’s been going out with him since God was a boy,’ she said. ‘Katie went to Stuartholme,’ she added in an aside to Anna, as if this fact might prove significant. ‘Stuartholme’ and ‘Terrace’ and ‘Churchie’ still signalled something to some Brisbane people—aspiration, religious faith, possibly class, a certain self-regarding hope that one’s own child might be distinguished over another—a hangover from the city’s early days, when political and public service appointments and individual jobs were secured according to whether one was Catholic or Protestant. Anna made no comment.

  Possibly Celia was waiting for her to say that she, Celia, did not look anywhere near old enough to have a son of marriageable age, but actually she did. Jonathan thought all women were self-deluding when it came to how they looked, either thinking they were fat when they were not, or skinny when they were fat, or else flattering themselves that they looked at least ten years younger than they were. Too many women pranced around in clothes that were two sizes too small for them, or too young. He admired Anna’s discernment in knowing on which side of age she hovered. He looked at her again; possibly she was one of those women who held her age well but would collapse all at once.