9
Aussie And Other Wimps
“What are they up to?” said Dick Manning, wandering into the kitchen as Karen was chopping something at the bench.
“Who?” she said without interest.
“Your daughters!” he returned irritably.
“No idea. And they’re your daughters as much as mine,” replied Karen unemotionally.
“Shut up! Just listen! –And stop chopping that muck, will ya?”
“It’s not muck,” said Karen mildly, stopping anyway. “Well, go on, I’ve stopped, I’ve shut up, and I’m listening,” she prompted after Dick had just stood there mute for some time.
“Uh—you know Jack Leighton?” he croaked.
“If this is just going to be one of Jack Leighton’s bloody golf stories—”
“No! Um... He was having lunch in town the other day and he reckons he saw Sloane and—and some older joker, with—with their heads together.” He looked at her plaintively.
“Big deal. It’s better than having her head together with that dyke Gail Vickers,” she returned coolly.
“Karen, for God’s sake! She is your daughter!” he cried.
“That’s why I’d quite like to see her getting involved with a man,” replied Karen calmly.
Dick ran his hand through the untidy, thinning, pepper-and-salt mop that had once been the same light brown as Melodie’s. “I’m trying to make the point that he was a Helluva lot older than her—”
“That’s preferable to that horrid little nerd she was mixed up with a couple of years ba—”
“Will ya LISTEN! Jack Leighton knows him, he lives round the corner from that poncy mansion Jack’s bloody wife made him buy: he’s a married man!”
Karen looked thoughtfully at the silverbeet she’d been chopping. “I suppose the odds would favour that. –If he’s older,” she explained calmly.
“JESUS!” he shouted.
“She’s a grown woman, there’s nothing I can do about it, Dick.”
“Or would if there was!” he said bitterly.
“She’s your daughter as much as mine. If you feel like that, you do something.”
After a moment he admitted sourly: “I dunno what to do. Well, she’s always been as stubborn as a mule, me saying anything won’t make any difference.”
“There you are, then.”
Dick sighed.
“Is that it?” she said.
“No, as a matter of fact it isn’t.”
“Oh. Well, can I at least get on with this? Or don’t you want any lunch?”
Dick brightened. “Ooh, is some of that for me?”
“It’s not worth making it for one,” she explained unnecessarily. “Get the fetta out of the fridge, wouldja?”
“Ooh, is that what it is? Yum!” Eagerly Dick got the cheese for her.
He watched as she assembled the pie. “Um—that isn’t all, actually, Karen.” he said uneasily, as she was rolling the filo pastry up.
“Shuddup,” she grunted.
Dick was obediently silent.
“There!” said Karen with a sigh. She smiled at him. “I’ll just shove it in the oven. Fancy a veggie juice?”
“No. Actually, I fancy a large whisky.”
“Dick, it’s half past twelve on a Sunday!”
“All the more reason.” He waited until she’d shoved the spanakopita in the oven, washed her hands and got herself a veggie juice. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her elbow.
In the lounge-room Karen sat on the sofa and eyed him sardonically as he got himself a whisky. “It’s your liver,” she noted.
“It’s my liver that’s begging for this: yeah.” Dick drank. He shuddered. “Aah!” he said. He sat down in his armchair.
“And?” said Karen calmly.
“This would be a lot easier if you ever read the bloody Women’s Weekly,” he muttered. “Or that other one—what’s that rag Kitten buys?”
“Don’t ask me!”
“No, well, it’s a pity, as I say, because apparently this month,” said Dick, getting rather loud: “she’s in it!”
Karen stopped with her glass of vegetable juice halfway to her lips. “Who?”
“I’ll give ya two guesses,” he said grimly.
“This’ll be what those idiots in Reception were babbling about the other day: I never take any notice of them,” said Karen serenely. “What’s she in it for? And which rag is it, or is that immaterial?”
“Y— Well, no: according to Vanessa, it’s highly significant.”
Karen snorted: Dick’s departmental secretary was the sort of woman who read the women’s mags with religious fervour. It was true that she had a long train journey into uni every day but in Karen’s expressed opinion the time could have been better used.
Dick looked through the piles of computer mags he kept beside his chair for light reading. “Here.”
“Whose copy is this? Vanessa’s?” asked Karen on a sardonic note. “Maybelle West’s? Your Aunty Dora’s?” Dick winced, and she continued pleasedly: “Your cousin Kathleen’s? Ma Keating’s from Nearby Bay? –No, hang on: Ma Wainwright’s!”
“They’ve all rung me up and ear-bashed me about it, if that’s what ya mean!” he retorted loudly and bitterly. “Um, well, not Ruth Keating or old Mother Wainwright. I tell ya who has, though, and that’s that nice Chris Bailey from Lallapinda!”
“Who?” said Karen vaguely, opening the Vogue Australia with a distasteful expression on her face.
“I’ve put a yellow sticker—”
“I can see that, thanks, Dick: the whole house is littered with your yellow stickers. Janet Smith went home with one stuck to her everlasting cardy the other day.”
Janet Smith was the lady who came in to do the housework that Karen wasn’t interested in. It was true she did favour cardies, but it was also true that in Sydney in March even she would have risked heatstroke by wearing one.
“That’s apocryphal!” he said angrily.
“All right, stuck to her everlasting floral apron... Shit,” she said numbly. “What is she got up as?”
“That’s not the POINT!” he shouted. “She’s with a bloke who’s older than I am!”
“So what’s new?” she said heavily.
“For God’s SAKE, Karen!” he shouted.
Karen looked at him blankly. “Dick, Kitten’s always got some old bloke in tow—”
“You really don’t know, do ya?” he said in a shaken voice.
“No.”
“That,” said Dick, passing a hand over his forehead, “is Hugo Bloody Kent—”
“I can see that: I can read, you know.”
“NO! Shut UP!” he hollered. “Hugo Kent, the head of KRP, and the fellow she was shacked up in the hut with for two weeks on end while you had your head in your bloody laptop!”
“If you say so. What are you getting so worked up for?”
“Only partly because he’s a heavily married man in his bloody fifties, and my Kitten’s only twenty-five,” said Dick Manning bitterly.
Karen looked at him dubiously.
“K—R—P,” he said slowly and clearly.
“I’m told they’re running a Unix-based— Sorry. It’s a big firm, these days. Um—well, Kitten’s like that, Dick,” she said cautiously. “You know that.”
“Hasn’t it dawned on you yet?” he groaned. “KRP are the lot that foreclosed on Dad!”
After a moment Karen said uncertainly: “Dick, Kitten hasn’t mentioned that silly revenge idea since she was about seventeen. This’ll just be one of her older-men things.”
“Ya wanna bet? –Just wait.” He grabbed the magazine off her and turned over. The following page sported another yellow sticker. He shoved the magazine at his wife. “That is Ingrid’s one.”
“We already know Ingrid’s interested in an older man. Who is he?” she said with a sigh.
“REARDON!” he shouted.
“I can read. ...Blah, blah, well-known Sydney personality, blah, blah. Something about racehorses.” She looked up. “So?”
“He’s the R in KRP,” said Dick flatly.
After moment Karen said: “I suppose that’s logical. He must be the man she met at Lallapinda. Well, for Heaven’s sake, Dick, there’s no need to imagine it’s a deep-laid plot, these KRP types were at Lallapinda over New Year’s and the girls bumped into them there! It’s just a coincidence.”
Dick took a deep breath. “Nothing Kitten ever does is coincidence, Karen: have you been blind all your life or just the last twenty-five years of it?”
Crossly Karen threw the magazine at him. “You’ve been letting yourself get brainwashed by your bloody Aunty Dora and that idiot Vanessa!”
“All right, be like that! I might have known you wouldn’t give a damn!” he shouted.
Karen swallowed. After a moment she said: “I do give a damn, Dick, don’t be silly. But there’s nothing we can do about it. They are grown up. And if Kitten really is up to something, I’ll never be able to talk her out of it. –Well, what about that time she refused to eat Weet-Bix?” she said loudly as Dick opened his mouth.
He gulped. After a perceptible pause he managed to say: “She was only two, love, and the bigger ones were allowed muesli.”
“I know she was only two!” said Karen with feeling. “That’s what I mean! She’s as stubborn as a mule, and always has been! Miles worse than Sloane!”
“Yeah,” agreed Dick glumly.
“Anyway, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” said Karen without conviction.
“Mm. Well, be that as it may, it’s still not good.”
Karen sighed. “What would you rather they were doing, Dick? Ingrid tried marrying a boy of her own age, remember? And that didn’t work out.”
“Go on, rub it in. –That Rick Venning was a nerd, anyway.”
“Yeah. Well, a nerd and a wimp—yeah. I did try to tell Ingrid she’d never put up with anything that spineless on a fulltime basis.”
So she had: yes. About that tactfully, too. Dick winced. “Yes. Well, you were right.” He bent and picked up the magazine, groaning a bit.
“Don’t do that!” said Karen irritably.
“Eh?”
“Creak and groan like that when you bend over! And don’t tell me it’s a joke, it may have started off as a joke but it’s turned into a habit, and it isn’t funny! It makes you sound like an old man!”
Dick Manning replied calmly: “I am an old man. And I’d quite like to see a few grandkids at me knee before I pass on. –Well, retire,” he amended hastily, as his wife’s handsome face turned purple. “Before I retire.”
“Well, Derek’s got one, and another one on the way—”
“Karen, we never SEE them!” he shouted.
This was true. Karen shrugged but didn’t point out there was nothing stopping Dick from hopping on a plane to Perth any day of the week.
“Jack Leighton was on about his again the other day,” he said gloomily.
“In the intervals of being on about our girls, you mean?”
Dick scowled. He flapped over the pages of the magazine irritably. He glared at the photo of Ward Reardon.
“Which one are you looking at?” asked his wife.
“Reardon. I reckon he must be sixty!” he said angrily.
“That’s not necessarily past giving you grandkids, Dick,” said Karen incautiously.
“SHUT UP!” he bellowed. “That’s NOT FUNNY!”
“Um—no. It wasn’t meant to be,” she said limply as he got up and poured himself another Scotch. When he’d gulped half of it down and was sitting in his chair, glaring in front of him, she ventured: “Dick, seriously: maybe an older man is really what Ingrid needs.”
Dick grunted.
“At least he won’t be a gutless wonder that’ll let her run rings round him like that wimp Rick Venning.”
Dick grunted.
Karen cleared her throat. “According to Melodie—well, if this is the man she meant, and I suppose it must be—she’s more or less moved in with him. Well, she has, I suppose.”
Dick grunted.
Karen licked her lips. “I’ll speak to her.”
“That’ll do a lot of good!”
“No—um—I’ll try to find out what he’s like and—um—I’ll see if they’d like to come to tea or something.”
Dick goggled at her.
“Well, for Heaven’s sake, Dick! If she is serious about him—and Melodie says he’s not married, by the way—we might as well face facts and make the best of it!”
Facing facts and making the best of it was more or less one of Karen’s theme-songs. She had that in common with her mother, at least. Pity she couldn’t cook like Mrs Andersen. Dick stared sulkily in front of him for some time, but just as Karen had opened her mouth to say “Well?” he conceded: “Yeah, you’re right. Well, better than a wimp, I suppose. Yeah, all right, then.”
He didn’t say anything about maybe she could speak to Kitten as well. For one thing, it was true that Kitten was as stubborn as a mule and had never listened to a word her mother said since the age of two. And for another thing, it was enough of a bloody miracle that she’d agreed to speak to Ingrid.
As for Sloane... Dick chewed it over silently with his spinach and fetta pie. He might have a word with her himself. Not that it’d do any good, but she had a bit more sense than the rest of ’em. ...Well, he might.
Sloane wore a new dress for the lunch with Kendall Burgoyne. Gail had given it one look and sniffed, but hadn’t actually said anything. Kitten, strolling into RightSmart’s offices around eleven-thirty, was more forthright.
“Pretty Woman. What she wore when she went to the polo with him.”
“What’d you know? It’s forty years out of your period!” returned Sloane, reddening.
Ignoring that, Kitten asked: “Have ya got the hat?”
“No!”
“Pity.”
“Just because it’s got spots—”
“And the rest, Sloane. Well, if you wanna look like Julia Roberts, who am I to object? It’s ole Kendall what’s gotta like it, not me.”
Sloane took a deep breath. “This dress is not the same colour as that spotted dress in Pretty Wo—”
“No, it’s more mushroom-y. But her skin tones are darker than yours.”
“Get out,” said Sloane between her teeth.
“It suits you,” said Kitten mildly.
Sloane picked up a file from her desk. “Get out, I have to interview a candidate in about three seconds’ time.”
“There’s no-one waiting in Reception,” said Kitten without animus.
“That’s because she’s in the interview room, having a cup of coffee. Go—a—way.”
“You oughta got the hat, your hair needs a hat when it’s up like that,” replied Kitten, making a token move in the direction of the door.
She was prevented from exiting by Gail. “Very bridal.”
Kitten was in a lightweight white silk suit. Short sleeves; the longer-length jacket fronts ending in elongated points finished off with white silk tassels. The deep pointed collar likewise. The sandals, not very high-heeled, she must have looked all over Sydney for them, were also white. The handbag—which Sloane had immediately registered with green jealousy—might not have been what was currently in, but it was undeniably to die for: a white patent leather, box-like style, fastening with a smartly-styled clip of some whitish substance set in white enamel. Possibly the whitish substance was agate and not plastic but Sloane had no intention of finding out. Or even letting on she’d noticed Kitten was carrying the bag. Gail, however, looked at it with interest and said: “Ooh, a handbag to die for! Can I have it when you’re sick of it, or he pushes off back to England? Whichever comes first. Even if it isn’t really agate.”
“It’s rock crystal, ya drongo, and I’m hanging onto it,” replied Kitten, unphased.
“Rock crystal,” said Gail informatively to Sloane.
“Shut up. I’ve got a candidate. Excuse me,” she said, pushing past them.
Gail eyed Kitten tolerantly. “Love the hat.”
The hat was the one touch of colour about Kitten’s outfit: a tiny pillbox, adorned with a huge fluffy silk rose—or possibly a peony, Gail wasn’t asking. “Would you call it puce?” she did ask.
“Fuchsia. Has she been like that all morning?”
“More or less, mm,” agreed Gail drily.
“She’s got nothing to worry about, she’ll wind him round her little finger.”
“I don’t think that’s what she’s worrying about, Kitten.”
Kitten looked at her dubiously.
“I think she’s afraid she might go and fall for him.”
“Pooh. He’s a drongo.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And a wimp,” said Kitten with a curl of the already deliciously curled, short upper lip.
“Go away before I kill you, the suit, the bag, the— Well, just before,” groaned Gail.
Unmoved, Kitten replied: “Where’s he taking her for lunch?”
“Don’t ask me, Kitten, I merely work here!”
“I’ll ask Mandy.”
“Why in Christ is this a need-to-know?” she groaned.
“Because I don’t want me and Hugo to bump into them, he might smell a rat.”
Gail raised her eyebrows. “I thought your claim was he was a drongo?”
“Not him! Hugo!”
“Oh,” said Gail feebly. “Would he? I’m not doubting his basic intelligence—well, someone must be bright at KRP, and judging by the evidence so far, it’s not Reardon.”
“Hugo’s very bright,” said Kitten composedly.
“Uh-huh. But at the moment, isn’t he blinded by lerve? Or something,” she added, glaring at the suit. “Is that thing lined at all?”
“Yes. And you can’t be too careful: I wouldn’t say he was entirely blinded. More like blurred vision.”
“Then by all means interrogate Mandy on your way out.”
Unphased, Kitten trotted off to do so.
Muttering under her breath: “Someone had better do some work around here,” Gail trudged back to her office.
“How’d it go?” asked Melodie breathlessly that evening. Nikki also looked at Sloane with breathless interest.
“All right. He was a bit pathetic, if ya must know.”
“Isn’t that a danger signal?” ventured Melodie.
“Why don’t you wait until Kitten turns up? I’m sure she’ll be able to clarify the point,” said Sloane acidly, retiring to the bathroom.
“Help,” Melodie concluded.
“Yeah, but if she thinks he’s a bit pathetic—”
“No, ya moron! She’s starting to feel sorry for him!”
Nikki thought it over, and made a face.
“Yeah,” agreed Melodie sourly.
“What are we having for tea?” she asked hopefully.
Grimly Melodie replied: “Salad with Paul Newman’s diet dressing, low-fat yoghurt, and a trip to the gym.”
Nikki subsided, looking glum.
“Il faut souffrir pour être belle,” added Melodie, still grim.
“Eh?”
“Never mind. But there is A Total Pizza Ban in this flat,” she said very clearly, putting her face rather close to her friend’s.
Nikki drew back hastily. “All right! There’s no need to spit! And it’s not me that got fat as a pig over Christmas!”
Melodie eyed Nikki’s tight floral-on-black sleeveless dress. “Not much.”
“This dress was always tight!”
“Not that tight, it wasn’t.”
Nikki pouted but stopped arguing. “All right, I’ll come to the gym.”
“Right. And afterwards...” Melodie’s big hazel eyes narrowed. “We’ll have one Diet Coke each.”
“All right,” she agreed glumly. “Only Tonya and them—”
“They can stuff themselves on hamburgers and junk and undo all the work the gym did, if they like! They’re idiots!”
Nikki subsided definitively. Hitherto Melodie, when she accompanied Nikki and Tonya or any of the girls from the office to the gym, had been one of the strongest proponents of the post-gym McDonald’s trip. Blow, she must be really serious about getting to look like Whatsername, then.
A couple of weeks went by. No-one saw much of Ingrid. Her twin reported that “He” had bought her a wardrobeful of new summer clothes. No-one was much surprised. And she was watching his diet. She’d got him off heavy steaks and beer, not to mention whisky, and onto plain grilled fish and light-beer. With the occasional glass of wine. No-one was all that surprised by that, either.
No-one saw much of Jay, and no-one had expected to. Kitten finally rang her at work, accepting condolences and best wishes for her speedy recovery from the mononucleosis from not only the operator who put her through to what was still known as “the clippers’ room” but the girl who answered the phone in the clippers’ room, the clipper next to her, and the clippers who normally sat next to her, Kitten, before finally getting Jay on the line. Then she had to be very guarded indeed, and Jay managed to wriggle out of agreeing to meet her.
“I said she’d gone soft on Pommy Graeme!” she reported aggrievedly. No-one argued the point.
Sloane had several more lunch dates with Kendall Burgoyne, and two dinner dates. She returned from the first of these rather late, looking very grim, and marched straight into her bedroom and closed the door; so Melodie and Nikki, who had waited up for her, didn’t dare to ask how it had gone. Kitten later reported that she hadn’t “actually” gone to bed with him. And further revealed that reading between the lines he must of given Sloane a come, but she hadn’t admitted it in so many words and if they wanted the clinical details they’d have to ask her themselves. After this they more or less expected the second dinner date to be the clincher, but Sloane returned very early from it.
Melodie was home by herself: Nikki had been dragged off to a family barbecue at her older brother’s place. “How’d it go?”
Sloane collapsed onto the sofa with a sigh. “I told him I wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?” she gasped.
“Sleep with him, you idiot.”
“Oh,” said her sister limply.
“Well, wasn’t that the game plan?” said Sloane bitterly.
“Um—ye-ah... Sloane, have you fallen for him?” asked Melodie fearfully.
“No. But he’s not all bad,” she said grimly.
“Well, um, are you saying you won’t sleep with him because you don’t want to go on with it, or—um, because Kitten told you to keep him dangling?” faltered Melodie.
Sloane opened her mouth. She shut it again. “I’m not absolutely sure,” she admitted at last. “But I will say this: while he was being very humble and pleading, I sort of felt myself starting to give in: y’know?”
Melodie nodded. “Mm. But I thought you didn’t like wimps?”
“He isn’t entirely a wimp,” said Sloane tiredly.
“He sounds like it!”
“If you want to hear this, just shut up and listen,” she sighed. “I was softening, okay?”—Melodie nodded silently.—“ Only then he came out with a full-blown scheme to set me up in a nice little flat not a million miles away from Elizabeth Bay—”
“Sloane, flats costs the earth over there!” she gasped.
“Shut UP! How would you have felt?” she shouted.
Melodie thought about it. “I’d of given in,” she said honestly.
“Haven’t you got any pride?” retorted her older sister grimly.
“No. Well, heck, Sloane: Elizabeth Bay?”
“Elizabeth Bay on Grandfather’s money,” replied Sloane bitterly.
“Aw. Yeah.”
“I said to him, it isn’t my ambition in life to become a kept woman.”
“Ooh, help, wasn’t he wild?” she gasped.
Sloane got up. “No. He just about burst into tears. I’m going to bed.”
Melodie waited until she heard her go into the bathroom and turn the shower on; then, in spite of strict instructions to the contrary, she rushed to the phone.
Hugo Kent turned from the phone, smiling. “Darling, it’s one of your sisters: the little one, I think; she sounds very flustered.”
Kitten rose gracefully from the embrace of a white leather sofa. They were entertaining this evening: Michael Pointer, his son, and a Japanese gentleman who, Hugo had privily warned Kitten, was “old Yamamoto’s right-hand man’s right-hand man, so be nice to him, darling. Er—try not to be too Australian, okay?” Kitten was being very nice, indeed entirely deferential, and had cooked and served a lovely dinner. Not making the mistake of trying to do Japanese, but not making the even worse mistake of trying to do anything traditionally Aussie, either: she knew that a plateful of greasy, fatty roast Aussie lamb wouldn’t appeal to a Japanese. It had gone down very well with all four gentlemen. Possibly the outfit helped: full-length, not too tight, very dark blue, long-sleeved. Cut low over the bosom, but in spite of traditional Japanese conceptions of feminine attractiveness Mr Miyake didn’t seem to mind. –Kitten had asked him, very deferentially, if it was the same family as the famous fashion designer, and he hadn’t seemed to mind that, either.
Jay, incidentally, was not present: none of the guests had brought partners, but Kitten personally didn’t consider that this excused Graeme Pointer for a moment. Well, she had warned Jay: he was the wimpish type, the sort that got round you by being all soft and namby-pamby. When it came to the crunch, that type would not opt for rocking the comfortable boat of his boring marriage, his highly desirable upper-class Pommy life and the glow of Daddy’s approval, in favour of an Asian nobody from Downunder. On the contrary: blokes that were that soft and wimpish never did opt for the difficult choices, however unhappy they might become because of it.
She came over to the phone, smiling. “Kitten speaking.”
“Is he listening?” hissed Melodie.
“Yes, of course,” she said in her posh telephone voice. “How are you, Melodie?”
“Listen, ring me back as soon as ya can, I gotta talk to you about Sloane!” she hissed.
“Of course. I’ll speak to you later, then, Melodie. Bye-bye!” carolled Kitten.
“See ya,” said Melodie.
Kitten rang back in about ten minutes. “I’m in the bedroom. We’ve got guests, so spit it out,” she said without preamble.
Melodie revealed all.
“Good,” said Kitten calmly.
“But Kitten, you don’t get it!” she wailed.
“Yes, I do. It doesn’t matter if she started to go soft or not: the point is, she held out. He may sulk for a few days, but then he’ll come crawling, you mark my words.”
“Ye-ah... Well, if he does he’ll only try to get round her, he won’t suggest leaving that Joyce, you can bet your boots!”
“He might not be at that stage yet, no. I think he might have to see Sloane in an appropriate setting... I’ll think about it. And don’t ring me back!” She hung up.
Melodie glared at the phone, but didn’t dare to ring her back. And she hadn’t even given her a chance to say that Nikki had gone over to Bob and Cindy West’s for a barbie and would undoubtedly return stuffed with greasy food. Not to mention full of champagne: Cindy West always had Angus Brut, she reckoned it was a fun drink as well as up-market. Kitten had informed Melodie quite otherwise, but nevertheless Melodie could just have done with a glass of it, right now. She mooched out to the fridge. Évian, that Perrier muck that Sloane liked—she was barmy, it was only soda water at five times the price—and one Diet Coke. It was actually Nikki’s. Scowling horribly, Melodie drank the Diet Coke.
“What about coming out to lunch with your old dad?” said Dick, trying to sound jaunty. And as if he often wandered into the city in his lunch-hour.
Sloane replied warily: “If you mean trail off to that stupid so-called club at uni—”
“No! Doyle’s.”
She blinked. “Well, okay. Lovely. –It’ll be full of tourists, though.”
“Tourists and ladies from Double Bay, in my experience. And us. So?”
“Nothing. I’ll just let Gail know, and get my handbag.’
They took Dick’s car, even though Sloane was a better driver than he was.
The fish was delicious, as usual, and the chips as plump and tempting as ever.
“Da-ad!”
Dick ate chips unrepentantly. “My colon can take it, with the unadulterated bran and silverbeet your mother feeds me.”
He let her get through her main course and dither over whether she wanted dessert before he broached the dreaded subject. “Sloane, what’s all this about you seeing some older married bloke?”
“You mean, Jack Leighton seeing me seeing him, don’t you?”
Dick sighed. “Yeah, all right. That.”
She shrugged.
“Look,” he said, swallowing, “just because you’ve had one unfortunate experience with a young fellow, Sloane, it doesn’t mean—”
“They’re all like that, Dad. Wimps or macho hoons.”
“Uh—not all, surely, love?”
“All the ones I meet are. And I’m fed up. I’ve given up expecting to find anything better. I might settle for rich and married and willing to subsidize me in a flat in Elizabeth Bay,” said Sloane cruelly to her father, “or I might not. I haven’t decided.”
Poor Dick had turned purple. “You mean he—?” he spluttered.
Sloane shrugged. “He said he’d help me with the rent. Whaddaya think that means?”
“For God’s sake, Sloane!”
“God? In the first place I don’t believe in Him and in the second place, He’s definitely a man and He’s definitely loaded the dice against women. Especially in this country,” she noted sourly, glaring at the well-fed, prosperous-looking lunchers around them.—Wimps one and all, as to the male half, no doubt, thought Dick numbly.—“So I’ve decided to grab what I can,” she finished grimly. “I’m just not sure if it’s him I want to grab, yet.”
“What about his wife?”
“I don’t think she likes him,” replied Sloane calmly.
“What does that mean? Is he gonna get a divorce, or not?”
“He’d need a pretty strong push to get out of his comfortable rut and actually divorce her. Not that they’ve got kids. There’s nothing stopping him except inertia, and the fact that he’s as much of a wimp as the rest of them. –I’ve decided against pudding, after all. You can have mine, if you think your cholesterol level can take it.”
Glumly Dick ate two puddings. It did not occur to him that his elegant daughter, leaning back in her chair and idly watching the prosperous lunchers in Doyle’s as he did so, was reflecting that Dad was pretty much of a wimp in his way, too: there was nothing forcing him to eat those puddings except greed, and his will wasn’t strong enough to resist it.
On the rather rare occasions on which Dick took his oldest daughter to Doyle’s for lunch they usually headed on up to Vaucluse House: it wasn’t far, and he knew Sloane loved it. He cleared his throat cautiously as he pushed his coffee cup away. “So—Vaucluse House?”
“No, I’ve got to get back to the office.”
Dick sighed, but didn’t argue.
“Don’t you ever think about Lallapinda, Dad?” said Sloane hoarsely as they pulled up at some traffic lights in a snarl of city traffic.
“Eh? –Shouldn’t’ve come this way,” he muttered. “Um—no. Why?”
“Nothing. –I always think of it when I’m at Vaucluse House,” said Sloane, frowning.
“Do ya? But it’s nothing like it!”
“No. But it’s so beautifully done up inside. It makes me think of the way Lallapinda might be,” she said grimly.
“That right?” said Dick blankly. “Well, Nev and Chris Bailey have got it looking okay, eh? Far too big for one family, though, these days. Just as well we got rid of it.”
Sloane was silent, as they inched their way back in the heat and the grime of the city to the office.
Jay had begun to believe, somewhat glumly, that—though she wasn’t admitting it to her—Kitten was right and she’d gone all soft over drippy Graeme Pointer. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it, though. Like, when he gave her that sad look and said all right, if she didn’t feel like it he wouldn’t, she always gave in and let him do it. Or if she’d said why didn’t they go out to a nice little restaurant tonight and he came up behind her and put his arms round her when she was getting dressed and said in a soppy voice couldn’t they just stay in and have a cuddly evening in the room instead, she always gave in on that one, too. Even though Tim never wanting to go out to dinner after they’d started living together was one of the things that had most enraged her about him. It must be hormones, or something. Well, it wasn’t a person’s fault if they couldn’t help themselves, was it?
But when, in a nice little restaurant, he gave her a very moony, soppy look indeed, in fact with tears in his eyes, and said: “Darling little Jay: this has been the most wonderful time of my whole existence,” and she realised that he was already thinking of it as over, she was filled with a seething hatred for him and all the Pointers. So much so that it was all she could do to mutter: “Yes.” Let alone smile nicely.
Graeme, wimp that he was, she didn’t fail to note, didn’t notice that she was furious rather than upset, and, voice shaking, tears in his eyes, revealed that he and Father were leaving tomorrow. And he hadn’t told her before because he hadn’t wanted to spoil their last few days together.
… “I’ll KILL him!” she shouted, hurling her handbag across the stretches of pale pink shag-pile.
Kitten was curled up barefoot on a white leather sofa, wearing a ragged black tee-shirt inscribed in orange with the words “Rip Curl”, that Hugo wasn’t aware was in her wardrobe, and an even more ragged pair of recycled stone-washed jeans that ditto. –Hugo was at work.
“Nope, that’s too quick,” she said mildly. She put a piece of grape-flavour bubble-gum into her mouth and chewed slowly. –Hugo had no idea that Kitten was addicted either to the habit or to this particular, immensely strong flavour.
Jay recoiled. “That stuff stinks, ya know.”
“Yeah,” replied Kitten round the gum, breathing artificial grape flavour fumes all over the wee nest. “Hoo bad.” She chewed. “Don’ ge’ ma’, gedd even,” she said thickly. She swallowed artificial grape juice. “Don’t get mad, get—”
“YES! I heard you! How am I gonna do that when he’s in ENGLAND, with his WIFE?”
“’Ting’cy p’ansh,” said Kitten through the gum.
“Don’t keep SAYING that!” screamed Jay, bursting into tears.
Kitten chewed stolidly, watching her. When Jay was at the angrily-sniffing and blowing-the-nose stage she said: “Well, have ya gone all soft over him, or not?”
Jay finished blowing her nose. “Not. I hate him.”
“Enough to do something really drastic?” asked Kitten, the blue eyes narrowing.
“All right, yeah. Um—not murder his wife, or anythink!” she said hurriedly.
“You wanna stop going back to Ramsay Street,” advised Kitten laconically. “It’s warping your brain.”
Jay collapsed in giggles, gasping: “Don’t be stupid!”
When she was over them, Kitten said baldly: “Are you on the Pill?”
“No, I always make them use condoms,” said Jay feebly.
Kitten nodded. “Couldja get pregnant today?”
Jay’s mouth opened. No sound came out of it.
“Well, couldja?” she said unemotionally.
“N— Um—” Gulping, Jay counted on her fingers. “I don’t think so,” she said feebly.
Scowling, Kitten demanded details. Jay’s period was due in four or five days. Kitten decided there was a chance. She’d better let wimpy Graeme do it without a condom for a farewell treat.
“Look, Kitten, you’re mad! Even if I did get pregnant—well, what good would it do?” she ended plaintively.
“It’d do a lot of good if it was a boy.”
“But it might be a girl!”
“That’s the risk you take.”
Jay glared at her. “And in any case I’d end up with it on my hands: I told you all that, that he told me about how his father got rid of his little May, didn’t I? I don’t think it’s ever dawned on him, the drongo, but of course he sent him to France and then out here for his school holidays to get him out of her reach until he could get rid of her!”
Unphased by the proliferation of personal pronouns, Kitten agreed stolidly, chewing: “Yeah.”
Jay swallowed. “So it’s not Graeme we’re up against, really—well, not just him: I mean, he’s so soft that it might just work if it was only him: but it’s his father as well.”
“Yeah. Mainly. Well, and his wife.”
“Yeah. Actually, she sounds just about as tough as Michael Pointer.”
“Got that,” replied Kitten calmly, blowing a purple bubble.
Jay swallowed again.
“What we have to do, I think,” said Kitten, narrowing her eyes, “is to make her so mad she’ll get rid of him without thinking about it. Now, listen...”
Jay listened, her cherry-red mouth slightly open. At the end of it she said feebly: “Kitten, aren’t I an alien?”
“What? NO!” she cried, going very red. “You’re as Aussie as I am!”
For a moment, Jay looked startled. Then she gave her an affectionate look. “No, you nana. In England. You have to have an English parent or something to get in, don’t you?”
“Not on a visitor’s visa or a working holiday,” replied Kitten calmly.
“Aw, right... Listen, if I do that, then it won’t matter if I fall preggy today or not, because I can always do it over there!”
Kitten nodded, chewing.
“But—um—can I stay there legally? I mean, how long does a visitor’s visa last for?”
“Uh—dunno. Never mind, you can pop over to Denmark and stay with Aunty Ingrid, and then pop back any ole time. And it won’t take that long, once his wife finds out he’s got a second home!” Her big blue eyes sparkled.
Jay nodded, her dark almond eyes also sparkling.
That, of course, was Kitten’s contingency plan for Jay. She didn’t think that Sybilla Pointer would divorce Graeme on the strength of one fling on the other side of the world. No doubt she’d make him suffer for it, she sounded that sort, all right. But then she’d forgive him—though probably not forget about it, she didn’t sound that sort. But finding out he had a second home with another woman—and another family with the other woman—! Kitten thought that would work. Jay, of course, she warned, would have to be very careful to be exactly the opposite of Sybilla. She’d have to pretend to let drippy Graeme make all the decisions, whilst not giving him the stress of actually having to do so, and butter him up like anything over anything you cared to name, and always greet him in the evenings with hot dinners, and blah-blah.
“Shor’ huv Dorish Day inna cheongsam,” Kitten elaborated thickly through the bubble-gum. Jay wasn’t too sure who Doris Day was, but she got the general idea.
“Michael Pointer’ll come round if you have a son, I think,” Kitten added, blowing a purple bubble.
“Ye-ah...”
“Anyway, it won’t matter too much, by that stage: not once you’re a fixture in drippy Graeme’s life.”
Jay thought that was so. She nodded slowly. “Yes. He does resent the way his father tries to push him around, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“Shall I tell Graeme I’m planning a trip to England?”
“NO! Whaddareya?” she shouted.
Jay looked at her blankly.
“That’d be just begging Michael Pointer to put the kybosh on it!” she cried.
“Aw. Yeah,” said Jay, looking foolish.
“What ya can do, is get your grandmother to give him a good Chinese meal for his goodbye dinner. That’ll give him something to remember. Take him round after you’ve let him do it without a condom, then he’ll be able to concentrate.”
“Shall I tell Grandfather first?” she gulped.
“Yes. Otherwise he might be rude to him.”
“Ye-ah...”
Kitten got up. “I’ll come with you. Come on, we’ll tell him now.”
“Kitten, he might go into his Chinese thing! I mean, refusing to speak English!” she gulped.
Kitten shrugged. “Do ya want me to come, or not?”
“Um—yes,” she said, looking at her plaintively.
“Okay. I’ll get changed, I godda meet Hugo for lunch.” Kitten hurried into the bedroom.
Jay just sat there on a huge white leather sofa, looking and feeling quite limp.
... “The thing is, Mr Wong,” said Kitten respectfully, “it may be the only chance in this generation for revenge.”
Mr Wong nodded slowly. He then gave a pithy summation—in English—of the shortcomings and general feebleness of his sons and grandsons.
“Yes. They’ve got pretty Westernized, really,” agreed Kitten. “Family honour isn’t really a concept that most Westerners understand.”
Jay looked at her weakly: how she could possibly come out with something like that and not sound hopelessly hypocritical? Or hopelessly sycophantic. Or both.
“How do you do it?” she said, when Grandfather Wong in person had walked them to the bus stop and put them onto the bus for downtown.
Kitten looked out composedly at a view of Sydney inner suburbs. “I put my head into the shape where it believes what I’m saying.”
Jay gulped.
“Anyway, I do believe in most of what I said.”
“Family honour?” she croaked.
“Yes,” said Kitten, her bowed lips thinning.
“I see,” said Jay limply.
“It’ll be a slap-up dinner tonight!” predicted Kitten with a sudden giggle.
Given that Grandfather Wong had already got Grandmother going in the kitchen, chopping, not to say telling her not to bother about his lunch, Jay could only nod limply.
… “I wish I could stay,” said Graeme, tears trickling down his cheeks, when they were back at his hotel after the meal.
“Yes. But we can’t have everything in this life,” said Jay bravely.
“No. You’re so—so good, Jay! And—and so brave. And I’m such a coward,” he ended limply.
“You’ve got family responsibilities,” said Jay, hoping she wasn’t sounding hopelessly hypocritical. Or hopelessly sycophantic, or both. “Now, come on, get your bags, or you’ll miss the plane.”
“Yes,” said Graeme, sniffing. “You’re so wonderfully practical, darling!”
Something like that, yeah, thought Jay, grabbing the smaller bag. Practical. Yeah. Practical like a piranha, so watch yourself, ya Pommy wimp!
“Your sister’s waiting for you in your office,” warned Mandy as Sloane returned from a client visit. The client hadn’t really known what she wanted: her permanent staff had let her down badly, but she wasn’t sure if she would need to replace both of them—they were a husband-and-wife team. Sloane had gathered that they were taking the annual leave that was very much overdue. Going to Bali. Well, good on them. She had let the client believe, while deciding it all for her, that she’d need both a cook-housekeeper and a driver-gardener while the couple were away. It would be a nice job for Mary Windsor and Harry Gibson: six weeks. True, the client only had married quarters available, but for the duration, Mary and Harry could share. They were both sensible and mature, and both in need of work.
“Which one, Mandy?” she said resignedly.
Mandy giggled. “Off-the-shoulder pale pink silk cocktail dress?”
“Goddit,” she groaned, going off to face Kitten.
The dress was very off-the-shoulder, and artfully draped round the rest of the bod—for once, actually coming to below the knee. She was wearing the pearls with it: Sloane wasn’t surprised. And a fascinator on the chrysanthemum head. A twist of pale pink silk, with a few tendrils, and a wisp of pink smoke that didn’t pretend to veil anything.
“He likes hats, does he?”
Kitten was reading a magazine. She looked up composedly. “He likes feminine little bits of fluff on the head.”
“On the head or just generally, isn’t it?” replied Sloane evilly.
“Yep,” she agreed smugly.
Sloane sat down at her desk, sighing.
Mandy popped her head in. “Wanna coffee, Sloane?”
“Lifesaver,” she groaned.
“How about you, Kitten?”
“Yeah; thanks, Mandy. Do you need a hand?”
“No, I’m right, thanks.” Mandy disappeared.
“You can have this Vogue after me, it’s a real one,” said Kitten into it.
“Thanks, but I can’t afford to shop at Ralph Lauren.”
“French, not Yank,” said Kitten into it. “Though there are a couple of Ralph Lauren ads at the front.”
“Quite.”
“Armani,” said Kitten into it.
“I’m sure.”
“No,” she said, putting it down and looking up. “That’s where you should shop, Sloane: Armani. Understated, terrifically elegant. Did you see that Italian cooking programme?”
“N—”
“With the lady that was a de’ Medici.”
Sloane’s jaw went saggy but she managed to say: “Even if she was the Pope, no.”
“Aw. No, well, it was ages ago, I think I musta seen it when I was home from school with the flu. Her clothes were by Armani. Silk, mainly, I’d say.”
“She was cooking in silk Armani outfits, was she?” said Sloane nastily.
Kitten replied simply: “Yeah.”
Giving up, Sloane said grimly: “What on earth do you want, Kitten? I’m busy.”
“You.”
“Look, I haven’t got time for your bloody riddles!”
The visitor’s chair that Kitten was adorning was surrounded by shopping carriers. True, none of them said “Giorgio Armani”, but they were getting on that way. Sloane hadn’t bothered to remark on them: for, she rather thought, very much the same sort of reason that Mandy hadn’t reported their presence. Kitten now gestured at them and said: “These are for you. We’re going to a cocktail do.”
“Just you, me, and Hugo Kent?” replied Sloane nastily.
“No, Martin Jarrod’s coming for you.”
“Kitten, go away, I’ve got work to do,” she groaned.
Kitten leaned forward earnestly. “Look, Sloane, if you’re serious about the Lallapinda revenge, you’ve got some hard choices to make. It’s RightSmart or the revenge. Kendall Burgoyne’s gonna be at this do.”
“Him and Joyce, you mean?” said Sloane nastily.
“Yes! And that’s the point, you’re gonna show her up! Don’t worry, she won’t be wearing anything like the dress I’ve got for you, she’ll look like a tart in comparison!”
Mandy reappeared. “Coffee. What’s all this about a dress for Sloane?”
“She’s coming out with me this evening: I’m dragging her out of her rut,” explained Kitten immediately.
“Good. –Go,” she ordered Sloane sternly.
“I’ve got to ring Mary Windsor and Ha—”
“I’ll do it. Gimme the job file.”
“Mandy, it’s not your responsibility,” said Sloane feebly.
“That’s okay. Who else did you say?”
“Harry Gibson. Um—you’ll have to let them know tactfully that it’s a husband-and-wife live-in situation.”
“No worries!”
Limply Sloane handed over the job file. Mandy winked at Kitten, and exited with it.
Kitten got up and calmly shut the office door. “Drink that, then you can get changed.”
Sloane bit her lip, but sipped the coffee. “My hair needs a wash,” she said feebly.
“I can see that. Just as well I got you a hat.”
“Kitten, I’m not gonna make myself ridiculous with a bit of feminine fluff on my head!”
“I’m not that stupid, thanks. You’re not the same type as me.” Kitten sipped coffee. “This is repulsive. I can understand why Hugo refuses to drink instant. –Your hat’s really smart.”
“I’m sorry we can’t offer Your Highness up-market real coffee,” said Sloane nastily. “We’re not KRP, or hadn’t you noticed?”
Ignoring this, Kitten said earnestly: “Listen. I’ve decided. First you come to this thing with us, and wow that wimp Kendall but don’t let him near you. Then we set you up in a really nice flat—”
“Kit-ten!”
“Shuddup. We set you up in a really nice flat and when we’ve decorated it and stuff, you let Kendall know that you’re fed up with the flat-sharing, bunch-of-girls-together stuff and you ask him round—”
“Ask him round and at the same time prevent him getting into my pants?” said Sloane arctically. “Or do I give in, at that point?”
“If you’d let me finish, ask him round to a nice little dinner, and when he gets there it turns out it’s a select group of friends!”
“You, me and Hugo Kent, I presume?” said Sloane limply.
“No. You, Ingrid, Ward Reardon and another couple that are nice and up-market.”
“Well, that rules out everyone we know!” she said with feeling.
The door opened abruptly. “One of these days Mandy’s gonna start demanding actual cash money for doing our jobs.”
“Gail, if necessary,” said Kitten calmly.
“Hullo to you, too,” agreed Gail.
“She’s looking for a nice up-market couple for me to invite to a nice little up-market dinner party in an imaginary flat that I can’t afford and that she hasn’t even found, yet,” explained Sloane.
“I have found it. And we can afford it between us.”
“A year’s lease?” retorted Sloane, somewhat feebly.
“If ya break it they’ll keep the bond, so what?”
“Are we talking about Hugo Kent’s money, here?” asked Gail genially, leaning in the doorway.
“More or less, yeah,” agreed Kitten with a shrug. “If necessary I’ll sell the jewellery.”
“Or sublet the pink nest?” suggested Sloane acidly.
“Good one,” noted Gail. “Dare I ask why you need another flat, Kitten, if you’ve already got the pink nest?”
“It’s not for me, it’s for Sloane.”
“Uh—unless her landlord’s chucked her out, she’s already—”
“It’s a dump!” said Kitten crossly, turning very pink. “And go away, we’re busy!”
“I thought it was ‘Gail, if necessary’?” said Gail, leaning in the doorway.
“Yeah. If necessary, you can come to dinner at Sloane’s new flat. Are you still with Fee?”
“Yes,” said Gail unemotionally.
“Good. Her, too.”
“Will this establish the right ambiance, though, Kitten?” she asked solicitously.
Calmly Kitten replied: “I always did say there were no flies on you. You and Fee can look pretty presentable, and you’re into classical music and stuff, that’ll help the ambiance. And if it doesn’t, then Kendall may well feel Sloane needs rescuing from your dire Lesbian influence.”
“Kitten, drop it!” said Sloane hotly.
“Hetero men are still peculiar about Lesbians, ya know,” replied Kitten, unmoved.
“Look, Fee and I, though of course not objecting to spreading the good word, are not prepared to be ruddy pawns in your sort of little games, Kitten Manning,” said Gail grimly. “Nor, in case you hadn’t noticed, do we go in for that sort of tokenism.”
“No,” agreed Sloane, very red. “I’m sorry, Gail.”
“It’s not your fault that your parents gave you this for a sister.” Gail prepared to depart but added: “Ever seen those Damian movies, Kitten? Or are they out of your period?” She departed, closing the door after her.
“Kitten, you can damn well apologise!” said Sloane angrily.
“All right, I’m sorry,” she said in mild surprise.
“Not to me, to Gail! And if you think she doesn’t mind about Mandy doing my work, you can think again!”
“That’s what I’m saying. You’ve got some hard choices to make. You can’t go on putting all your time and energy into RightSmart. You’d better start looking round for another working partner to take over from you, if you’re serious about the Lallapinda revenge. And if you’re not serious, we’ll drop it right now and I’ll take all these things back and swap them for stuff I can wear.” Kitten got up.
“Sit down,” said Sloane feebly.
“No. It’s crunch time, Sloane.”
Sloane got up and went over to her miserable slit of a window. The modern building that RightSmart was in was constructed along the lines, possibly, of a medieval castle. Well, the dunnies were about that cold. At least, Sloane could speak for the Ladies’. Mind you, at this time of year it wasn’t, it was more like a furnace. The building’s exterior was slabs of concrete cladding, and all of the windows were immensely tall, immensely narrow slits, half-hidden by extra strips of concrete. Many of the offices didn’t even have windows, so Sloane was lucky to have her slit. She squinted down at the street past a strange view of metal pinnings, artificially rusted and verdigrised, and the edge of the slab of concrete that was half-veiling the window.
“Well?” said Kitten at last.
Sloane replied without turning round: “When I’m here—I mean, when I’m absorbed in my work, it’s enough.”
“Yeah. What about when you momentarily wake up?”
Sloane took a deep breath. “All right,” she said, turning round. “I’m sick of being a have-not. And I’m sick of the idea of Kendall and Joyce lording it in Double Bay in that tasteless monstrosity of a house because of what his father did to Grandfather! And every time I think of Lallapinda filled with dumb tourists, I—” She broke off.
“Yeah. I don’t think Kendall’s got enough to buy it back, Sloane,” she warned.
Sloane looked at her drily. “No. But then no doubt you’ve got a contingency plan for that?”
“Hugo can certainly afford to take it off the company’s hands, yeah.”
“Well, I’d rather see you in it than a load of fat-faced tourists!” she said viciously. “And the bloody Baileys!”
Kitten eyed her noncommittally. “The Baileys are okay.”
“Yes,” she admitted, very flushed. “They are. And it’s not their fault that they’re at Lallapinda while we’re slogging our guts out for peanuts and no thanks in bloody Sydney.”
“Yeah. –Mandy said you visited a new client this arvo.”
“All right, you’re right,” said Sloane with a sigh. “She was a typical rich bitch, dumb as they come and with a private school accent you could cut with a knife. Her staff haven’t had a holiday in over eighteen months but that doesn’t mean she thinks they’re entitled to any annual leave now!”
Kitten nodded. “Well, there you are. Do you want to go on kowtowing to that sort of bitch for the rest of your life, just in order to end up owning—”
“No.”
“—a Honda sports model and a mangy flat in an outer suburb? ’Cos if you’re thinking it’ll ever run to a Porsche and a dinky terrace house, forget it.”
“All right, I’m convinced,” said Sloane with a sigh. “I know a couple of good people who’re really keen to come into the firm with us, I’ll talk to them.”
“Good. And don’t let Gail talk you out of it.”
“No. It’s all right for her: she’s got Fee, and they’ve managed to swing a really nice flat between them. Well, I dunno what Fee makes at that ruddy merchant bank, but it can’t be peanuts, she is an exec. And as a matter of fact she has got a Porsche.”
“Exactly. A couple can swing it, if they’re both working, and one of them’s making a decent sum, but just one person—”
“Yes,” said Sloane with tears in her eyes. “I’ve got the point, Kitten, don’t beat it to death. And I know if it came to the crunch Gail would put her own interests first: she’s like that.”
Kitten nodded.
“I heard a rumour that Reilly’s are thinking seriously about an offer to buy us out,” added Sloane dully.
“Well, there you are! Gail’s the major shareholder, and Fee’s got shares, too, hasn’t she?”
“Yes. Come on, let’s see this cocktail outfit.”
Silently Kitten unpacked the bags.
Kendall’s eyes stood out on stalks at the sight of Sloane in the tight greeny-bronze, sleeveless satin cocktail creation. The front view was very plain: a boat-neck effect, very covered-up, but leaving the spectator in no doubt that under it Sloane’s excellent boobs were not supported by anything. The which was more or less explained when she turned round and you saw that the back was cut away to the waist. The hat was a little head-hugging cap of leaves made of the satin, embroidered with just a few touches of crystal beading. Sloane’s elegant facial bones were thrown into strong relief by it. Kitten had refused to let her wear earrings, but had provided a necklace: a plain, heavy gold circlet with one large, oblong tourmaline set in it. Sloane hadn’t asked how her sister was going to explain to Hugo Kent where that amount of dough had gone with nothing visible to show for it: without any doubt whatsoever, if he ever asked, which she doubted, Kitten would have a convincing explanation. The shoes were plain, very high-heeled courts, in what Sloane was trying to tell herself wasn’t real lizard skin. Kitten had stopped short, thank God, at a handbag of some protected species, and it was merely a little evening thing of gold sequins.
With Joyce hanging on his arm, there wasn’t much Kendall could say, of course. What he did say was: “It’s Sloane, isn’t it? Nice to see you again.”
Sloane greeted him and Joyce with great composure, and admired Joyce’s dress. Reflecting that really, Kitten couldn’t have chosen better if she’d known.
Joyce’s outfit was also satin and also in the green and gold range, but where Sloane’s greeny-bronze was an entirely subtle shade, Joyce had chosen a screaming emerald for the top, and a bright gold slipper satin for the skirt. A tall woman might have got away with that combination in that style, but Joyce Burgoyne certainly didn’t manage to bring it off. The emerald top was plain in cut as to the body, but featured hugely puffed long sleeves, the whole effect being nigh on three times Joyce’s natural width. Being cut in a deep Vee, the thing gave an unfortunate view of her bony chest. It was tightly belted with a wide sash of the emerald material, which then fell in a long draped effect to the hem. The tight, cross-over gold skirt came to her ankles but most of the right leg showed, right down the front, when she walked. The emerald satin shoes with the high gold heels didn’t help very much: she looked grotesquely top-heavy. The finishing touches were a necklace of large gold baubles mixed with the odd silk tassel or two, and giant matching drop earrings. She hadn’t done anything to the ginger hair except have it styled into a stiff quiff, but then, had she needed to?
Kitten greeted the Burgoynes with apparent pleasure and admired Joyce’s outfit, adding: “I think I’ve seen a similar dress in a French Vogue, Joyce.”
“She certainly didn’t buy the thing in Paris,” said Kendall drily.
“Paris! He won’t even take me to Bali!” she revealed to the company
“I’m tied up at work,” said Kendall grimly.
“Perhaps you could go in July,” said Sloane politely. “Escape the winter.”
Joyce looked sulky. “There’ll be crowds of tourists there in July.”
Involuntarily Sloane swallowed. Really, Joyce was pretty bad, there was some excuse for Kendall!
Joyce smoothed her skirt with a discontented pout. “I picked it up in Melbourne. I don’t think I much like it, after all. The South Yarra shops have gone off.”
“Mother would hate to hear you say so, Joyce,” said Hugo with a nice smile.
Joyce shrugged. “Well, they have! My favourite little boutique has vanished entirely, and there’s some arty-tarty decorator there, now. Full of Tuscan vases and that horrible distressed stuff. I wouldn’t give it house-room!”
“No, it’s horrid, isn’t it?” agreed Kitten with a sunny smile. “Were they fake Tuscan vases?”
“How should I know?” replied Joyce crossly.
Kitten allowed a very disconcerted expression to appear on her face and allowed herself to look up helplessly at Hugo. Given the helplessness and the pale pink silk thing, not to mention the feminine fluff on the head, it wasn’t perhaps surprising that the head of KRP gave her a dopey smile and said: “I’m sure they must have been fake; it sounds a shocking place, Joyce. This distressed stuff is recycled old wooden kitchen chairs, that sort of thing, is it, Kitten? –Mm. Mother loathes it, too, Joyce!” he said, smiling nicely again.
“So I should think!” agreed Joyce, looking vindicated.
“I think I can actually see some drinks over there, Sloane,” said Martin Jarrod. “Shall we?”
“Yes, let’s,” agreed Sloane, letting her relief show.
Martin led her off. She refrained with an effort that actually made her neck ache, from looking to see how Kendall was taking it.
She was aware throughout the rest of the party of Kendall’s eyes on her. She allowed herself to glance his way once.
... “Well?” said Kitten, next morning.
It being a Saturday, Sloane was barely up. Well, not up, really: she’d tottered to the door in her dressing-gown. “What are you doing here at this hour?” she groaned.
“Hugo’s got a breakfast meet.”
“God help us,” groaned Sloane. “So you had to come over here on the strength of it.”
“Yes. Let me in.”
Sloane let her in, and tottered off to the kitchen. “Go on,” she sighed, switching the jug on.
“I thought you might like to look at the flat this morning.”
“Rubbish, Kitten, you thought no such thing. You decided that you’d force me to look at this flat and then force me to rent the damn thing.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Don’t bother to pretend, I have known you all your life!”
“I mean,” said Kitten, inspecting their fridge. “that you don’t necessarily have to rent it. It’d be a nice little investment property. The owners are willing to sell.”
“My money’s tied up in RightSmart,” said Sloane with a sigh.
“Not every penny.”
“No, I’ve got about five hundred dollars in the bank. Not even enough to pay a bond on the sort of fancy flat you seem to be envisaging. And as a matter of fact I owe more than that on my Visa card. So where does that leave us?”
“Ingrid’s interested in an investment property,” said Kitten with her head in their fridge. “Haven’t you got any milk?”
“Not unless the milk fairy brought some during the night, no.”
Kitten withdrew her head. “Have you got anything to eat?”
“There’s a half-eaten pot of Eve diet yoghurt in there. It’s got Nikki’s germs in it, mind you, but if you aren’t particular—”
Kitten closed the fridge door. “Is Jay here?”
“Yes, she’s got Ingrid’s old room. But she’s asleep, because it’s the middle of the night!” said Sloane irritably.
Kitten looked at her watch. “Quarter past nine. Nearly.”
Sloane grabbed the wrist. The watch was a pale pink creation that she had certainly never seen before. Possibly the face was rose quartz. Actually, possibly the links on the strap were faced with rose quartz.
“Well?” said Kitten.
“Disgusting. Now tell me he chose it, unaided.”
“He chose it, unaided.” Kitten went on a tour of inspection of their cupboards. She found a packet of Ryvita. “These’ll do.”
“They’ll have to,” agreed Sloane, yawning. “Is Ingrid meeting us here or there?”
“There.” Kitten looked sideways at her. “And be warned.”
“Go on,” she groaned.
“He’s bought her a new car.”
Sloane gulped. “You mean she let him?”
Kitten replied with a horrible smirk: “He chose it, unaided.”
“So what’s she done with her old car?” she asked limply.
“Sold it. I’m telling you, she’s looking for an investment.”
“She always is.” conceded Sloane. “But shouldn’t she be investing in something of his?”
“Nah. Ward doesn’t need her money.”
Sloane sighed. “If she invests in this flat, I suppose that lets me in for an extortionate rent.”
“No. You can pay her what you’re paying here, for the first six months.”
“You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you, in that tiny pointed yellow head?” she said nastily.
“Yeah.” Kitten bit into a Ryvita. “Ole Ken’all look’ pruh’ shick lash ni’,” she said indistinctly.
Sloane sat down with a sigh, and sipped instant coffee. “With the mood Joyce was in, that’s not surprising.”
Kitten swallowed. “No! Well, not just that. Seeing you, looking like you did—I told you you looked fabulous in that dress—and not with him!” She paused. “And with—”
“Another bloke; yes, it did finally dawn on me that that was part of the plot, thanks. And while we’re on the subject of Martin Jarrod, I’d watch out for him, if I was you, Kitten. He struck me as very intelligent, and not one of your greatest fans, to put it mildly.”
“He hates my guts. Also, he’s got the hots for me,” said Kitten, sipping unsugared black instant coffee insouciantly.
Sloane gulped.
“But I’m not worrying about him at this stage: he won’t do anything drastic, he’s calmed down now it’s clear that Hugo thinks it’s just a fling.”
“It’s clear, is it?”
“Yeah, he’s leaving next Tuesday,”
Sloane choked on a Ryvita.
Considerately Kitten jumped up and bashed her on the back. “Better?”
“Yes,” she said, coughing slightly. “Thanks. Leaving on Tuesday?”
Kitten sat down again, looking as insouciant as ever. “Yeah.”
Sloane looked at her uncertainly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I told you, I’ve got a contingency plan.”
“What is it?” asked Sloane in a doomed voice.
“I’m not telling you, the fewer people that know, the better.”
“If it entails getting preggy like you ordered poor Jay—”
“It might.” Kitten took another Ryvita. “Isn’t there even any Vegemite?”
“No. There was some cottage cheese, but Melodie ate it.”
“Is she sticking to her diet?”
“Yes,” said Sloane with a sigh. “She’s propped up your album on her dressing-table, open at that pic of Corbin Kent,”—“Hah, hah,” noted Kitten; Sloane ignored her—“and she stares at him for five minutes solid, every night and morning. And whenever she weakens in the direction of food, she goes in there and has another good stare.”
“Good. Mind you, a good run ’ud do her a lot more good.”
“She’s doing that, too, Mrs Hitler, all your orders are being obeyed,” sighed Sloane.
“Good.”
Sloane got up. “I’ll get dressed. Is your Ladyship driving?”
“No, I came in a taxi.”
“Goodness, hasn’t he bought you a pale pink Porsche yet, Kitten?” She went over to the door. “What’s Ingrid’s car?” she said in a weak voice.
“Wait and see,” replied Kitten smugly.
Sloane went out, frowning.
Calmly Kitten took another Ryvita biscuit.
It was a townhouse, not just a flat. Not a Paddington-style genuine terrace house, draped in Sydney lace, no: one of a new block of townhouses, part of a development not a million miles from the harbour, where the guts had been torn out of one old warehouse, leaving the brick and stone façade, and several more, less architecturally interesting warehouses had been knocked down.
“Yuppieville,” said Sloane limply.
“Some yuppies,” replied Kitten calmly. “Not all of the units are as small as these ones. There’s a few retired couples, and the rest are professional people.”
“Professional yuppies,” muttered Sloane, as a yuppie in round-lensed khaki sunglasses got into a black Porsche standing at the curb outside the next townhouse and roared away.
“Come on,” said Kitten, leading the way.
“I’ve never even seen sunglasses like those outside those stupid French Vogues you’re always reading,” she muttered.
“Then it’s about time you moved,” replied Kitten. She opened the minute wrought-iron gate and went up the minute terracotta-tiled path. The minute front garden consisted entirely of clay. “You’ve got quite a lot of scope, here,” she said briskly. “The other gardens’ll give you some ideas.”
The yuppie next-door had tiled his entire front garden in blue slate, eliminating any terracotta path it might once have had, and put in two large pots, probably fake Tuscan, containing one well-grown kumquat tree each. With sparkling originality, he had placed these one on either side of the front door, which with sparkling originality was painted shiny black. The front door of the place Kitten had destined Sloane for was a dull green, very unattractive. Though the row itself, and, indeed, the whole development, was quite pleasant, being constructed from a creamy stone. Kitten explained helpfully, pushing the front door, which was ajar, that it wasn’t the local sandstone, it was a new building material: see, what they did was—
Sloane didn’t listen. She looked round dubiously. The townhouse had a tiny front passage with a staircase leading up out of it. Turned wooden banisters, quite traditional-looking. Well, she rather liked that look. Kitten led her into the room to the right of the front door: clearly the living-room. To its rear was the dining area.
“I don’t like open-plan,” said Sloane with a sigh: Kitten knew that.
“I know. But if you buy it, you can put a partition wall up, or folding doors: that’d give you more flexibility when you were entertaining.”
“Mm.” The townhouse was painted a very light cream, presumably throughout, all the walls they’d seen so far were cream, and the carpet, very new, was on the creamy side of oatmeal. “Cream, isn’t it?”
“Do it up how you like, when it’s yours.”
“Will my landlady permit it, though?” she asked acidly.
“She will if it’s Ingrid, yeah. Come on, the kitchen’s through here.” She led the way through the large archway at the back of the dining area. The kitchen had been clearly visible all along: Sloane hated that look. Hated it. Never mind that that was how everything seemed to be built these days: she hated it.
“The stove’s not too bad. Not the latest model, though,” said Kitten noncommittally.
Sloane gave it a bitter look.
“She doesn’t cook!” said Ingrid’s voice from behind them with a laugh in it.
Sloane swung round, about to wither both sisters at once. “Oh—hullo, Ward,” she said limply.
Ingrid was accompanied by Ward and another man, whom Ward introduced as the land agent. Apparently he had another unit to show: once Ward had assured him they could look after themselves for a bit, he bustled off.
“They aren’t flocking to buy it, are they?” noted Sloane drily.
“We’ll put in a proper wall between the kitchen and the dining-room,” said Ingrid to the sub-text. “And you might like a ceramic stove-top, Sloane: we can get rid of this thing.”
“Ingrid, they cost thousands,” she said feebly.
“We’re looking on it as an investment,” explained Ward with a grin. He put his arm round Ingrid’s waist.
Sloane went very red. “Ward, have they told you I can’t possibly afford to pay the sort of rent these places go for?”
“Yeah, sure. What we thought was,” he said easily: “you come into it as an investor.”
“Thank you. But as Kitten may not have told you,” she said, still very red. “I’ve got five hundred dollars in the bank and a seven-hundred-dollar debt to Visa.”
“That shows you’re credit-worthy!” he said with a laugh.
“Yes. You can get a bank loan for your part of the capital investment, Sloane,” said Ingrid.
“Yep. Be a better bet for ya, Sloane,” said Ward kindly. “Instead of rent, you can pay off the loan.”
“But in that case you don’t make anything,” Sloane objected numbly.
“Don’t be silly, Sloane,” said Ingrid immediately: “we get tax benefits out of it.”
“Yeah!” Ward agreed with a laugh. “Most popular financial fiddle of the decade!”
“Negative gearing,” supplied Kitten immediately.
“Well... I am very tempted,” Sloane admitted. “It’s a bit cream, though.”
“Do it up how you like,” said Ingrid firmly. “It’ll be your home, it should represent your taste.”
“Yes... Well, I love the little passage and the staircase.”
“See?” said Kitten immediately. “Come upstairs!” She towed her away.
Ingrid looked at Ward dubiously. “I know it’s a tax loss, but—”
“Yeah!” he said with a laugh, hugging her into his side. “’Course! –Come on, we’ll let her have a good look round, then we’ll break the good news, eh?”
“Mm,” said Ingrid, smiling weakly and glancing at her left hand, where Ward’s emeralds and diamonds sparkled brightly. There was absolutely no doubt that Kitten would have spotted the ring. Though it was on the cards Sloane hadn’t: she seemed pretty het up. She allowed Ward to urge her upstairs, silently hoping that Sloane hadn’t gone and fallen for that feebleized Kendall Burgoyne. Because you couldn’t take much notice of anything Kitten said: she always saw things the way she wanted them to be, regardless.
Dick hung up the phone. He penetrated to Karen’s sanctum with a cautious look on his face. “I’ve invited them all round for Sunday lunch,” he admitted guiltily. “Sort of an engagement celebration for Ingrid.”
“And what are you going to cook, Dick?”
“All right, be like that! I’ll do my spag bog.”
Karen winced. It wasn’t that it didn’t taste good: on the contrary, it was extremely more-ish. If not exactly classic. In addition to the mountains of spaghetti, it entailed mountains of fatty mince, gallons of olive oil, and mountains, nay Himalayas, of grated tasty Cheddar, ornamented with a token sprinkle of Parmesan. Not to mention the smell of burnt onions that would pervade the entire house for a week afterwards.
“No, we don’t want Ward Reardon dropping dead of a heart attack before she’s entitled to inherit his worldly goods. I’ll do a spinach and fetta pie.”
“Silverbeet and fetta,” he corrected automatically. “Okay, great. Um—well, are you pleased?”
Karen sighed. “I don’t know. I suppose I’m sort of pleased that they want to legalise it. And I suppose I’m pleased if he’s what she wants.”
“Yeah; me, too,” he said comfortingly. “And what about Sloane’s move?”
“I’m pleased that she’s getting out of that bloody girly-girly flat, yes. And if Ingrid and Ward want to invest in the place, that’s their affair.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m flaming pleased it isn’t that middle-aged dreep that’s investing in it!” he said with feeling.
“Mm.”
Dick cleared his throat. “Uh—bumped into Maybelle West down the deli when I went to get the milk this morning.”
“And?”
“Um—only that she reckons Nikki told her that the one Kitten’s mixed up with is pushing off back to Pongo next week.”
“Good,” said Karen grimly.
“Ye-ah...”
“What?” she said grimly.
Dick fidgeted. “I’m not sure. Well, Maybelle didn’t know for sure. Don’t think Nikki knows much, either. Only have you heard anything about Kitten going over to Lallapinda for a bit?”
“No.”
Dick rubbed his chin. “No, well, nor had I.”
“She’s got pots stowed away, you know. She hardly spends a thing: the boyfriends don’t seem to mind clothing her as well as feeding her. Well, one advantage of older men, I suppose,” she said with a shrug, ignoring the fact that her husband had turned purple during this speech. “If she wants to tell the clipping place she’s come down with the bot and go over to South Australia for another holiday, let her.”
“But right on top of this Kent creep pushing off to England?”
Karen shrugged. “You mean she’s really fallen for him? And she’s going to go off and sulk at Lallapinda until she’s over him?”
“If you want to put it like that, yes!” he said angrily. “The poor little soul!”
Karen eyed him tolerantly. “You know what, Dick? It’s mostly your fault. You always have spoiled her rotten. Miles more than the other girls.”
“I have not!”
“Added to which,” she continued, unmoved, “you’ve never even attempted to take her seriously. She’s always been just a cute little doll to you, hasn’t she?” Ignoring his indignant cry of “No!” she continued: “It’s no wonder that she’s turned into a silly little bimbo with a fixation on older men.”
“You weren’t in there at all, of course!” he shouted.
She shrugged. “I did my best, for what that’s worth. But some girls never do take discipline from a woman, and Kitten’s one of them. I’m not saying she may not be naturally inclined towards older men anyway: I’m just saying you’ve given her a lovely picture of a doting daddy-figure all these years, Dick.”
“That’s right: it’s all my fault!” he shouted, stomping out.
Karen merely turned back to her computer.
It was some time before Dick calmed down enough to realise they hadn’t really talked over Kitten’s situation at all.
“Look,” he said cautiously after tea: “what if Kitten’s pregnant?”
“She can say so, can’t she?”
Dick took a deep breath. “And even if she isn’t, what if she’s really upset over this man dumping her?”
“She’ll have to get over it. But she didn’t sound too upset when she rang me up this afternoon.”
Dick gaped at her. “Eh?”
“She offered to bring a cake for lunch tomorrow, so I said okay, good.”
“Yeah?” he snarled. “And did she offer to bring bloody Hugo Kent as well?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s just as well!” he cried. “Because you’d have said ‘Okay, good’ to that as well, I suppose!”
Karen opened her mouth, but Dick had got up and stomped out.
“I couldn’t have stopped her,” she murmured. “And you’ve never tried, mate.” She picked up the remote and switched the TV on. Garbage, garbage, garbage; pseudo-intellectual garbage; The Bill, yet again. Oh, well. Sighing, Karen relaxed in front of The Bill.
Next chapter:
https://thelallapindarevenge.blogspot.com/2022/11/choices.html
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