Читать книгу The Country of Our Dreams - Mary O'Connell - Страница 21

Claudia came to the door, anxious and sharp. ‘Where’s Vianney?’

‘He’s coming.’

Claudia tutted, and swung back into the flat – her fabulous sharp shoulder blades on full display in the thin strapped dark blue dress. Hilary stood on the threshold, feeling tearful. No welcome, no ‘Come in, you look nice.’ Just the attack, as if it was Hilary’s fault that Vianney was a social avoidant. Especially when he was sober.

Breathe in – she told herself. Don’t be a victim.

In the living room, all cream and ocean blue and starry lit, people sat or stood around talking and drinking. Again, that sense of an ad, or a film. Circling the clear spaces, young fresh-looking waiters offered trays of excellent food. Their T-shirts boasted ‘O organics’.

In one corner she saw Lolly and Claudia’s elder daughter Ashe – for many years their only daughter - surrounded by the equally gaunt members of her band. She’d been baptised Aisling but Claudia hadn’t been at ease with the name. She worried about spelling and pronunciation confusions, about her daughter fitting in. So it was Ashe now. Perfect, Siena said, a perfectly self fulfilling prophecy for their ashen faced post-goth.

Hilary couldn’t remember the name of Ashe’s band, but Vianney reckoned they were quite good. Once, when Hilary had asked, Ashe said the band played industrial-romance intensindie music. Hilary had laughed, but surprisingly, Vianney hadn’t. He liked Ashe, which was unusual for a man who mainly felt the young were shallow wasters of internet space. He said that Ashe was due all the respect that every Australian musician and singer deserved in a hostile materialist culture.

Hilary, and Siena, suspected the respect was more due to the fact that Ashe was quite gorgeous in the new frail and wispy girl mode. New? What was new about it!

Hilary found Lolly in the kitchen, as usual. He had a glass of red in one hand and was waving it about as he spoke with two men and one woman. He let her hug him while patting her own, fully covered back, with his one free hand. Even that one hand was warm, comforting. He was kind and courteous, as Lolly always was, and introduced her to the people he had been speaking to, colleagues from his office. Names instantly forgotten. They smiled, the men shook her hand, and then looked back at Lolly expectantly – hoping to resume their conversation.

‘Talking shop, Lolly?’ she asked. He reddened a little, whether at the criticism or the sharing of the family nickname she couldn’t tell. The one woman in the law group came to his rescue. ‘Gossip shop’ said the woman. She had bold red lips. Was her name Amanda? ‘It’s different, much more exciting!’ And she winked at Hilary.

Some of the red had smeared onto the top of Amanda’s glass. Her heels were Jimmy Choo heels. Ridiculously tall on her tiny towers she stood upright amongst the lawyermen, towering over Hilary, and equalling Lolly. Her beads shone out, rainbow colours against the black of her dress, dark red hair swept up above a sleek neck. Queen Bee or Office Lush, Hilary couldn’t quite work out the archetype.

Outside the living room, on the other side of the French doors, the balcony was getting crammed – smoking was making a comeback. Mortgage stress. Rental stress. Sydney was one of the most expensive cities in the world now. Siena, cigarette in hand, had spotted Hilary through the glass and was waving at her to come over. The doors were closed against the cold, and to prevent their smoke coming back into the precious house, no doubt. But it split the party, Hilary thought, as if displaying the smokers for viewing condemnation.

She was making her way to Siena when she ran straight into Kate Ryan. ‘Kate!’ Hilary cried, a tremendous false cry of joyful encounter. Her mother-in-law gave a cool smile. She was holding her younger grandchild’s hand. Sophie was in Princess pyjamas and a fluorescent pink tiara gripped her thin fair hair. She had, it appeared, been crying. ‘Too much for her, I’m afraid,’ said Kate. ‘I’m taking her to bed.’

‘Hello Sophie darling’ Hilary leaned in ‘how are you?’

Sophie stood closer to her grandmother, as if she had never seen Aunty Hilary before. As if Hilary represented stranger danger. As if they had never chortled happily over babyccinos at The Planet. Well, fuck you, Sophie.

‘Want to come with us?’ Kate offered Hilary.

‘No, that’s all right.’ And Hilary moved away before tears could rise, not in Sophie’s eyes but in Aunty Hils.

Ridiculous. It was to do with parties, her insecurities around lawyers, professional people – and Vianney not coming with her. How come Kate had been almost friendly? Maybe even she knew that Vianney and Hilary were on shaky ground. That Vianney was actually seeing a counsellor after all these years. Hopefully to talk about her, the bitch goddess mother.

‘Fuck, its getting cold out here!’ she exclaimed as she slid through the French doors and the night air hit her. People were gathering close to stand underneath the gas heating pillar. At least they had the view of the night bay – the view that added a million dollars to a home.

‘Yes that’s why we are cuddling up!’ An unknown but very agreeable man offered her the shelter of his arms. ‘No thanks,’ she said, but laughing so as not to hurt his feelings. Later, she would be sitting on his lap, protected by his coat, and sharing cigarettes and profundities.

‘No sign of Xavier?’ she asked Siena.

‘He’s too clever a fish to be caught by Lolly and Claudia.’ Siena said, grinning.

‘Well, I’m staying out of Claudia’s way too. She was rude at the door.’ Hilary pouted a little.

‘It’s just her anxiety,’ Siena leaned in and clinked her glass against Hilary’s. ‘Poor old Claudia’s made this party bigger than Ben Hur. But, my darling, you look wonderful tonight.’ She tipped her glass in the direction of Hilary’s cleavage. Siena always thought Hilary looked very sexy, voluptuous, slightly transgressive against the current anorexic code, although she knew, or at least suspected, that Vianney disapproved of Hilary's increasing padding. But if he had wanted elegance and cool, like Claudia, it was not Hilary he should have chosen.

Siena had her own isshoos to share with Hilary. Her PhD supervisor, Quentin Moran, had announced that funding for the Davitt in Australasia Symposium was now tighter than expected. Ireland’s financial woes were having an impact. There would probably be no co-sponsorship from an Irish university after all. And, as Quentin said, the Australian universities were not and never had been radical organisations. They either saw the Irish Land War as irrelevant history (as all history was) or as disturbing evidence of the power of the dispossessed. What if there was a rent or mortgage strike in Sydney? Civilisation as we know it – red in tooth and claw – would be over.

Hilary commiserated as best she could as she downed her vodka. She found university politics confusing, couldn’t always keep up with the cast of characters inhabiting Siena’s world/head. Sometimes she was even grateful for Vianney’s taciturn nature around his work. She knew the names of only a few of his colleagues – Chongmin, Adrian, Sawekchai – that was all.

Either way, Siena was saying, or was it Quentin Moran had said, no one was lining up to fund this radical symposium. Either way, the pressure was on Siena to do more with less, and find more unpaid PhD ‘volunteers’. Siena was of course in stress city. She puffed on her ciggie, she’d busted again on them. Hilary went and found another bottle of vodka.

Still later on, through the foggy glass, Hilary saw snatches of Vianney inside. He had come after all. White shirted, black hair damp from the shower, he moved in his dancer’s way, embracing and retreating, turning to be hugged, shaking hands, looking for all the world as if he were alive and fully present. He might very well be. His new counsellor David Somebody had suggested reducing alcohol and drug intake for a while. Vianney being his excessive self had of course gone completely on the wagon.

He had on his new pair of glasses, trendy. He was one of the few men, Hilary believed, who looked sexy in glasses. Clever and sexy. Though she preferred always to see his eyes. Those astonishing eyes. ‘God, he’s so attractive,’ she groaned.

‘From a distance.’ his sister said, and laughed. Everyone knew Hilary had been completely unreasonable about Vianney from the very beginning, smitten by his singing ‘in the enchanted garden by the sea’, as Xavier and Siena had liked to teasingly chant. And god bless her, he was still her sun, moon and stars. Poor deluded thing.

Siena put her arm around Hilary as if in consolation.

Hilary shrugged Siena’s arm off in irritation. The kindnesses of the Ryan family were growing intolerable.