'Just a few starters. Those ones are tuna spring rolls, that's bruschetta, of course, and those there are egg rolls with smoked salmon. The rest is self-explanatory, I think.'
'Gosh,' says Sophie feebly. The baby continues to cry and she experiments gamely with a few ineffectual rocking motions.
'Let me take him, so you can eat,' says Callum. He casually swoops the baby up and out of Sophie's arms and plonks him over one broad shoulder, rapidly patting his large nappied bottom. The baby whimpers a bit and then stops crying. Callum caresses the back of Jake's downy head and says, 'You'll have to smile for your mum later, or she'll think we made it up.'
Grace is not even looking at her baby. Sophie has seen all types of new mothers: the ones with besotted, glazed-over eyes; the cool, casual 'this is a piece of cake' types; the teary, terrified ones, and the exhausted, overwhelmed ones who speak obsessively of how many hours' sleep they managed the night before. Grace doesn't seem to fit in any of those categories. She's like a woman playing a mother in a moisturiser commercial. Actually, thinks Sophie, she's quite weird.
Sophie hears herself start to gush. 'This food looks wonderful, Grace. That's so impressive when you have a new baby. I have some friends who say they don't even have time to get dressed in the morning, or go to the toilet, or comb their hair!'
'Oh, well, none of this was very difficult.'
'Grace's family take food very seriously,' says Callum. He takes an enormous bite of an egg roll. 'It's like my family and music. What's your family's obsession, Sophie?'
'I don't know if we've got one. Oh, yes, I know. We're hedonists. We take pleasure very seriously. My parents have always meticulously planned their weekends for maximum pleasure.'
'They sound great,' says Callum. 'My parents get nervy if things are going too well for too long.'
'What's the opposite of hedonism?' says Grace. 'Masochism, I guess. That's my mother. She plans her life for maximum misery.'
She is smiling at Sophie, folding a piece of prosciutto in half and wrapping it around a sun-dried tomato. She is not weird at all. She is perfectly normal. Sophie is obviously prejudiced because of her beauty. Beautiful people probably suffer from terrible discrimination just like other minority groups. Sophie should think of Grace's beauty as a handicap, like blushing. Ha, ha.
'Isn't your mum travelling around the world at the moment?' asks Sophie. 'That doesn't sound too masochistic.'
'Everywhere is too dirty, too expensive, too hot or just too different. She's revelling in a sort of exotic, international misery now.'
'I think he's dropped off.' Callum turns his shoulder slightly to show them Jake's flushed, sleeping face. 'I'll put him down.'
'No, no,' says Grace. 'I'll do it.'
She disappears from the room with Jake and is gone for ages. Callum refills Sophie's glass again and starts interrogating her about her taste in music. She receives a thumbs-up for Cowboy Junkies, a quizzical eyebrow for Pearl Jam and a pained wince for Shania Twain. When she reveals that she has the soundtrack to Titanic he writhes, waving his arms at her to stop while he chokes on a mouthful of wine.
They are laughing when Grace comes back into the room and immediately stop and turn expansively towards her, smiling too eagerly to make sure she knows they've been having a good time, but not too good a time.
'Titanic,' explains Sophie inadequately.
'I'm afraid our guest has shocking taste in music,' says Callum.
'Oh, well, I can't even converse about music,' says Grace, sitting down.
'That's not true,' says Callum.
'Yes it is.' Grace immediately stands up again. 'I'll get the main course now,' she says.
'Sit down!' says Callum. 'Let me get it. You've been rushing around all day.'
'What can I do to help?' Sophie is half out of her chair.
'No, no.' Grace quells them both like over-eager puppies.
'You stay. Chat!'
So they stay. And they get on to the music of their youth, Eighties music, Wham, Duran Duran, Boy George, Madonna. They sing lines of songs to each other. They keep exploding with laughter. They discover they were at the same Pseudo Echo concert back in 1986. (It was probably my destiny to meet him at that concert, thinks Sophie. Just my luck, I was in the toilet, readjusting my shoulder pads.)
It's turning into one of those conversations at a party where you've both got just the right amount of alcohol in your bloodstreams and you're making each other laugh and you both know you fancy each other and you're ignoring the party happening around you, and you're so pleased because you didn't want to come in the first place and any minute now you're heading for first-kiss time, and you know that after he kisses you he's most definitely going to ask for your phone number and he's most definitely going to call.
Only it's not one of those conversations, because this type of euphoric tableau does not normally incorporate a beautiful wife in the kitchen fixing lunch, or a sleeping baby son down the hallway.
This is getting just the tiniest bit dangerous. They are flirting with the idea of flirting. What is Grace doing?
'Wine at lunchtime goes straight to my head,' says Sophie suddenly, as if she's explaining something.
'Me too. I'll get us some water,' says Callum as if he's explaining something back, and as he stands up his eyes meet hers with a fleeting uncomfortable glance and Sophie knows, the way you just know some things without question, that in another parallel world he would have asked for her phone number if she'd met him at the Pseudo Echo concert or the imaginary party. She didn't imagine the chemistry in the cab. It's just bad luck.
There is a sudden rapping on the glass windows of the dining room. 'Yoo hoo!'
Callum and Sophie both jump. Two figures are outside on the balcony, tapping on the windows with their umbrella handles as they walk past them towards the front door.
'Enigma and Aunt Rose.' Callum is smiling with something that looks suspiciously like relief.
Enigma and Rose come into the dining room, awkwardly peeling off sopping wet bright yellow raincoats, squeezing out water from their straggled hair, puffing, pink and wrinkled. They are obviously rather exhilarated by their daring as they say things like, 'Torrential!' 'I couldn't see a thing!' 'We're absolutely drenched!'
They collapse on the sofa, full of themselves and their adventure, like prematurely aged teenagers.
'We hooned over on our bikes, dear,' explains Enigma to Sophie. 'We're real hoons! Oh my word, is that a nice white wine there I see? Rose and I will have a glass, won't we, Rose?'
'I think there's going to be the most tremendous storm,' says Rose. 'I love storms. Especially thunder. That big powerful boom, kaboom as if something is breaking. Connie loved storms too. When we were young we used to run around the island when there was a storm. Sometimes we took our clothes off. You'll see wonderful storms from Connie's balcony, Sophie.'
Callum hands them both glasses of wine and Sophie sees that Rose's hands are trembling slightly.
Grace appears in the doorway. 'You two will catch pneumonia,' she says.
'You sound just like your mother, dear,' says Enigma.
'Are you staying for lunch?' asks Grace.
'Oh, no, dear, we wouldn't dream of it, we just stopped in to say hello to Sophie,' says Enigma. 'What have you made?'
'Mum's salmon risotto.'
'Ah, Laura's risotto-with the goat cheese!-well we'd only need small portions, wouldn't we, Rose? We eat like little birds these days.'
'It's OK, there's plenty. Will you get them towels, Callum? They've got to get dry. Maybe you should both use my hairdryer.'
Sophie watches Grace and Callum share a husbandly-wifely look. They will laugh and complain about this unexpected visit in bed tonight.
'I'll give both their heads a good rub,' promises Callum.
'Oh, you!' says Enigma coquettishly.
When Callum and Grace are out of the room, Rose and Enigma lean forward confidentially towards Sophie.
'We've broug
ht you the keys to Connie's house,' says Enigma.
Sophie is a bit thrown. She has an appointment to see Connie's solicitor on Tuesday. She had assumed the whole process would take weeks. There's also the Veronika issue.
'But, ah, Veronika mentioned-that you-that maybe the family wasn't too happy about Aunt Connie leaving the house to me.'
'Oh, she's a rascal, that Veronika,' says Rose fondly.
'You mustn't take any notice of her,' says Enigma. 'I often sing a little song in my head until she's finished talking. The thing is, Rose and I think it would be fun if you moved into the house quite soon.'
'But won't there be paperwork?' asks Sophie.
'Oh, but we don't like paperwork!' says Enigma. 'No need to dilly-dally. Sooner the better.'
'You won't be lonely,' says Rose. 'And the garden needs you.'
'We'll drop in on you,' says Enigma. 'As often as you like!'
Rose smiles radiantly at her. 'And when you turn forty we'll tell you the truth about Alice and Jack.'
Enigma starts and looks terrified. 'Good Lord Rose, have you gone stark raving mad!'
'Oh. I haven't mixed up the ages, have I? Forty. Yes, no, that's right Enigma. Connie said, we tell them when they're forty.'
'Yes, but we don't tell them we're going to tell them, do we!' Enigma is agitated. She gulps at her wine and turns to Sophie.
'You must excuse Rose, pet,' she says. 'She's so upset about Connie. She's not herself. She's talking gibberish, of course.'
'It's OK,' says Sophie. So, they actually know what happened to Alice and Jack?! Wait till she tells her parents! Does Veronika know? Veronika isn't forty, so presumably not.
Enigma says, 'I need to ask a favour, dear.'
'Of course.'
'I need to ask you not to mention what Rose just said to anybody. It's all nonsense, of course, but it could upset the family. This is quite serious. Although not at all serious, of course! But still, you need to keep it a secret, dear.'
'Keep what a secret?' asks Callum, his arms full of towels.
'Secret women's business,' says Sophie, and she gives Enigma a wink.
Outside, the rain sounds harder, pelleting against the roof, as if someone has increased the volume.
'That's hail,' says Rose. 'It's exciting but it flattens the flowers. Connie won't like that.'
26
Margie is at her Weight Watchers meeting listening to a woman tell the story of her 'Amazing Weight Loss Journey'. The woman has lost sixty kilos-a whole person! There has been a four-page article about her in the Australian Women's Weekly. She is in the running for the Weight Watcher of the year. She is an inspiration. A movie star! She was a size twenty-two in a caftan. Now she is a size eight in leather pants. The whole room is mesmerised by those shiny black leather pants.
'I despised myself when I was fat,' says the woman, holding toned, skinny arms wide. 'You should have heard my self-talk. I used to wake up each morning and say to my reflection,
"Good morning, Slovenly Sow!"'
Everyone laughs slightly quivery laughs.
'Does anyone else do that? Negative self-talk?'
'I don't need self-talk,' contributes a pretty woman who is about the same age as Margie's daughter Veronika. She has round apple cheeks and hurt eyes. 'I have husband-talk. He calls me Chubby Chops. He's not exactly Brad Pitt either.'
'I'll bet he isn't!' a man cries out angrily at the other end of the aisle, and when everyone turns to look at him he suddenly looks horrified. 'Oh! I don't mean that you-I meant that in a good way!'
Oh just leave your husband, darling, thinks Margie. You could marry that nice man and have lots of dear little plump children together.
'So what I did was change my self-talk!' says the woman, whirling around to give them a glimpse of her neat leather buttocks. 'Instead of saying, "Good morning, Slovenly Sow" when I looked in the mirror, I changed it to "Good morning, Sexy Goddess!" You know why? I'll tell you why! Because the body believes the mind.'
The man sitting next to Margie shifts uncomfortably in his chair and lowers his chin. 'Ms Leather Pants is getting a bit tiresome now, don't you think?'
The man has a bright red face and layers of chins. Ron would call him a Heart Attack Waiting to Happen.
Margie looks around nervously. She never talked in class at school but she doesn't want to be rude to this poor man. His heart attack might happen. And it's nice of him to try and be funny like that.
Daringly, she whispers back, 'Yes, she is a bit!'
He lowers his chin again and Margie is frantic. That's enough! We'll get into trouble! She looks straight ahead with bright attention at the speaker.
The man wheezes into her ear, 'Would you like to have a skim cappuccino with me after the meeting?'
Good Lord! Surely he isn't trying to 'pick her up', as they say? He's probably just lonely. Perhaps he wants to sell her some 'business opportunity'. Or he's a Christian. Or he might be a dangerous kook!
'All right,' she whispers back.
Sophie and her mother are at the Korean Bathhouse in the city. They've been coming here for years, since Sophie was a teenager. First they have a full body scrub, followed by a long, languid soak in the baths, then yum cha in Chinatown, shopping, and a cocktail or two at the Opera Bar.
They sit in one of the hot baths, their heads resting against the wall. Naked female forms stroll through the steam, lowering themselves into the water. Everyone covertly checks out everyone else's bodies through half-lowered eyelashes.
Sophie is telling her mother about how she got Jake to smile for the first time.
'He's adorable,' she says.
'You sound very clucky.' Gretel's hair has gone into corkscrew curls in the heat, and she has hectic pink circles on her cheeks.
'I guess I am a bit,' says Sophie, and she's shocked by a sudden swell of grief. 'But I'm just going to have to accept it, aren't I? I'm not going to be a mother. When I think about my fortieth birthday it's like a big iron door slamming in my face. There just isn't time to meet somebody and I know that's just life, but sometimes, Mum, I just ache for a child.'
'Oh, Sophie.' Gretel sits upright and agitatedly pats her shoulder. 'Sweetheart! Of course there's time! We just have to fix this! I didn't realise it meant so much to you, darling. I'm so stupid! I thought you were happy being a career girl. Oh, dear, how can we fix this?' She looks around her frantically, as if a spare baby is likely to go floating by any second and she can quickly scoop it up and hand it over to Sophie.
A woman, a sleek brunette, sitting close to them, leans over confidentially and says, 'I hope you don't mind me listening in, but I've got a friend who is single and wants a baby and she's doing it on her own. She just said, bugger it, this is what I want, and off she went to the sperm bank. Picked out a donor. He's tall with red hair and his interests are scuba diving, Thai cooking and playing the violin. My friend said she always dreamed of having a red-headed baby.'
'Goodness,' blinks Gretel.
'What a pity she couldn't meet the red-headed sperm donor at a Thai cooking course and fall in love with him,' says Sophie.
'Ah, you're a romantic,' says the brunette. 'I bet you believe in fate and all that crap.' She elbows the woman sitting next to her. 'Give her a reading, Caitlin.'
'Caitlin is a psychic,' she explains. 'She's very accurate.'
Caitlin doesn't open her eyes. 'Would you like it if I went around suggesting you give people a free haircut? If people want a reading they can make an appointment and see me at my offices.'
The sleek brunette is unfazed. 'Oh don't be a bitch. Give her a sample of your wares.'
'It's OK,' says Sophie. 'Thanks anyway.'
Caitlin groans and heaves herself up to squint at Sophie.
'You've got a strong aura,' she says irritably.
'Oh well done, darling,' says Gretel.
'What colour is it?' asks the sleek brunette.
The psychic squints. 'Ah. It's caramel.'
'Oooh, a caram
el-coloured aura!' Gretel is enchanted. 'That sounds delicious. What does it mean?'
'Umm, well it generally means a positive career change.'
'Oh.' Gretel looks disappointed. 'We're not so interested in her career. What about her love life?'
The psychic sighs heavily and says, 'Give me your palm.'
'I'm really fine,' says Sophie. 'Perhaps I'll get your number and make a proper appointment to see you.'
But Caitlin takes her hand in a firm, professional grasp. 'OK,' she says tiredly. 'You've got an excellent life line. Very strong.'
'Oh yes, she's always been very healthy!' says Gretel.
'Now your fate line is strong too, but with lots of breaks-so in other words you're overcoming barriers.'
'That's right, she's overcome lots of barriers,' says Gretel sagely, as though Sophie was paralysed and had to learn to walk again at one point in her life.
'OK-your heart line, now that's not so good. It's all over the place. I'd say your love live is a real fiasco.'
'Thanks,' says Sophie.
'What about kids?' asks the brunette. 'Is she going to have kids?'
The psychic pulls Sophie's palm closer to her face and shakes her head regretfully. 'Gosh, you know, I've never seen anything like it. See, under your pinkie, this is where you're meant to have lines indicating your potential number of children. Well, you've just got completely smooth skin-'
'OK, that's enough!' Gretel grabs Sophie's hand. 'You couldn't possibly read her palm properly when it's all pruney from the water. Come on, Sophie, it's time for us to go.'
'Typical. People only want to hear good news,' shrugs the psychic, subsiding back against the side of the pool.
'Charlatan!' Gretel hops out of the pool, quivering with maternal indignation. 'Come on, darling, it's time for yum cha.'
Sophie meekly follows her mother to the changing rooms where her knees finally give way and she dissolves into helpless giggles, only made worse by her mother furiously muttering things like, 'I'll give her a caramel aura!'
Veronika is doing Boxercise for the Broken Hearted.
It's an aerobics class at her local gym especially for people recovering from bad relationship break-ups. The room reeks of fresh, sweaty misery. Veronika loves it. Grim-faced men and women work out to angry, punch-the-air sorts of songs like 'You Oughta Know', 'I Will Survive' and 'These Boots were Made for Walking'. The teacher yells ordinary instructions like 'Lift those knees!' interspersed with motivational comments like 'It's time to move on!' They do boxing exercises where they are encouraged to imagine assaulting their ex-partners. 'Left hook! Right hook! They hurt you! Hurt them back! Smash their skulls in! Jab, jab, kick!' Afterwards, during the 'cool down', the teacher's voice switches to tender. 'Stretch your right hamstring and release your anger. Stretch your left hamstring and know that you are strong. Breathe in. Breathe out. It's time for a new beginning.' Often there is a piteous sob from the back of the classroom. Veronika normally leaves before this part. She doesn't think it's necessary to cool down.