Читать книгу Surviving Hal - Penny Flanagan - Страница 13

7.

If Hal was the initial hazing, Andy’s mum, Maude, was the skills-driven obstacle course that followed. To sweeten the deal, Maude and her second husband, Stan, lived in a resort town just north of Brisbane. In later years she would describe its distance from Sydney as ‘too far to make in one trip’. Like everything Maude did in the years following The Great Marital Walk-out, it was a calculated move that had Hal’s tendency toward the unpredictable in mind.

After a meandering three-day road trip north, we arrived at an ocean-side suburb called Sunshine. It was late on a Friday and the sun was in flattering uplight mode. The rows of brash, modern, moneyed beachside houses, that would normally offend me in hard daylight, seemed almost quaint in their inappropriate-for-the-climate design. When we rounded an escarpment reinforced with a honeycombed wall of grey concrete block, I couldn’t help but ‘tsk’.

“Not enjoying the scenery, my love?” Andy asked knowingly.

“Just . . . why?” Sometimes it was all I could say.

Andy’s mum’s house was stand alone at the end of a cul de sac and not visible from the street; just a double garage and gate at the entry.

No sooner had we pulled up than a jolly face appeared on high, from over the terrace railing.

“Hey ho!” yelled a booming voice. “It’s Andy!”

The figure waved his arms like a traffic controller; two arms criss-crossing back and forth, heralding our homecoming. Stan Logan was in his late fifties, white hair, stocky footballer’s build, Maude’s second husband and Andy’s stepfather of four years. He reappeared at the lower gate and ushered us inside. To my relief, the house was not brick veneer with a salmon-coloured render and a grand timber-veneer feature door at the entry, but constructed entirely from rustic, recycled chunks of timber. Set high on the steep hill, its large terrace and living areas looked straight out to the ocean.

“You must be Nell.” He leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. “Great to see you! Great to see you!” His enthusiasm surprised me.

Maude, while polite and welcoming, was less effusive at first. Not that she wasn’t pleasant, I just sensed her reticence. I could feel her sitting behind her eyes, keeping her options open before judging me to be suitable. With Andy’s eclectic romantic history of crazy women, it wasn’t surprising.

Conversely, her country-bred upbringing made her the perfect hostess, no matter how she felt inside. And after our initial eyeing of each other from opposite sides of the open-plan living space, she broke ranks and swept towards me, a Judy Dench vision in white and taupe linen.

“How lovely to finally meet you,” she said, pulling me into a pillowy hug. Then she stepped back from me and did that thing Andy does, where he looks you right in the eye.

She held me at arm’s length and appraised me, gauging my reaction to her. My score for the first challenge—‘how long will you let me look you in the eye before you glance away’—was low. The second test came soon after we had thrown our bags into the guest room. I call this test, ‘Can you guess what I really want you to do even if I tell you to do the opposite?’

Andy suggested we head out the door for a quick ale at the surf club where we could watch the sunset from the deck. Stan looked delighted. Maude not so.

“Now don’t be upset . . . ” she said to Andy, “but I’ve got Beverley coming for a quick drink,” she tapped her watch, “in about fifteen minutes.”

“Mu-um!” Andy whined like a kid who’s just been told to wash his face.

Maude looked suitably chastened for devising this ambush. She placed an elegant hand upon her bronzed décolletage, “She’s desperate to see you, Andy.” Then to me, “She’s my oldest, dearest friend and she just loves the boys. She heard you were coming and I just couldn’t say no. She’s like family.”

Stan looked torn. Andy had him at ‘quick ale at the club’. He was halfway out the door when Maude threw the Beverley-in-fifteen curveball at us. He stood now, frozen, astride the threshold of the sliding glass door, one foot in, one foot out, waiting for the outcome of this Maude v. Andy stand off.

“Well, I’ve been driving all day, I’m going to the club,” Andy said testily. “Just a quick drink, I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Alright, then. Just be back in time to say a quick hello,” Maude said easily, clearly happy enough with that compromise. Then she clocked Stan, half in half out, too afraid to move lest he incur her wrath.

“Oh, look at you, you silly man!” she hooted. “Off you go!” A wave of her well-manicured hand and Stan was given a leave pass. I got the sense that if nothing else, Maude was pleased that Andy and Stan were keen to spend time together. That left me.

“Quick Nell!” Stan stage whispered to me, “Save yourself! It’s not too late.”

I looked to Maude for guidance on this men v. women stand off. “You suit yourself, Nell, I don’t mind,” she said, busying herself at the kitchen bench, “I’m easy.” But she wasn’t looking at me when she said this. Andy was no help, he was already opening the gate and on his way down the stairs to the street.

I weighed it up; a relatively easy intro to Stan with Andy playing interference, or a complete baptism of fire with my new boyfriend’s mother flanked by her oldest friend?

In a split second of travel-weary tiredness I chose the former. I wanted to see the sunset from the deck, and the easy company of men and a cold beer seemed the sensible option.

“I think I’ll . . . ” I indicated Stan and Andy outside, waiting.

“Of course!” Maude said. “I’m easy, Nell, you suit yourself while you’re here.” Then she gave me a big smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

As we walked down the hill toward the club, Andy took my hand and said, “You know, Mum wanted you to stay with her, so she could show you off to Beverley.”

“What?” I stopped walking. Stan walked on ahead of us, keeping a cracking pace in his eagerness to get to a nice cold one overlooking the surf.

“She said, I should suit myself.”

“Yes,” Andy said. “But what she wanted you to do was to stay and meet Beverley.”

“Well . . . ” I threw my hands in the air. “People should say what they mean!”

“Get used to it.”

“Should I go back?”

“It’s up to you, my sweet.”

“Andy, should I go back?”

“Yes, you probably should. Massive points score for comparatively little effort.” I looked at him then and realised I loved him. In that moment, I just wanted to do what would make him happy.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m going in.” He held onto my hand and pulled me back to him. Kissed me.

“Thank you.”

“Whatever.” I stomped back up the hill in my boots, I felt him watching me.

“Nice arse,” I heard him call out. I gave him the finger and kept walking.

When I arrived back at the house, dusk had fallen and the living room was a yellow-lit interior scene. Two women sat at either end of the couch, each furnished with a flute of champagne. They were talking their heads off. I watched them for a while, feeling mild trepidation at finding a place within this intimate twosome, then I slid the glass door open and stepped inside.

“Oh!” Maude’s face broke into a real smile. “You came back!”

She stood up immediately, as did Beverley.

“Andy said you had champagne.”

“Always,” Maude confirmed as she moved across to the kitchen purposefully.

“Oh, she’s always got champagne,” Beverley seconded.

A flute of frosted bubbly had appeared in my hand. Maude was a magician that way, she could furnish you with a glass of bubbly without you even realising it had happened. She introduced me to Beverley. There was a hint of propriety in her voice and I sensed I was already ‘hers’. I also realised that Andy had been right, massive points had been scored just for making the effort. I was now being welcomed inside rather than being viewed from a distance, with the onus on me to impress.

From there it was easy. They showered me with their attention and every answer I gave to their questions seemed to please them; what I did for a living, where I lived, my family background, where I’d gone to school.

Maude seemed to know a lot about me already. Clearly she and Andy had spoken at length on the phone in the early months of our courtship. She filled in the gaps for Beverley, making it seem as though her loyalty was just as much with me as it was with Beverley. She shifted easily between her alliance with Beverley as her oldest friend and an alliance with me as someone who would soon be part of the family.

By the time darkness had fully fallen outside, I was pretty tipsy. Which was when talk turned to Hal. It was Beverley who started it.

“So, Nell, have you met Hal yet?”

“Oh! Andy said he was appalling!” Maude jumped in, referring to our infamous restaurant luncheon meeting. “Just. Appalling.”

“He’s quite . . . ” I eyed them both, they were waiting, wondering what I would say, “evil.” It was as much the champagne talking as anything and as soon as I said it I thought, too far. They hesitated a minute before reacting. Beverley’s hand flew to cover her mouth.

“Oh!” Her eyes widened with the relish of my brutal honesty.

Maude’s reaction was more measured. She looked a bit sad.

“Oh, he’s gone mad,” she said. “He’s gotten worse over the years. He wasn’t like that when I married him.”

“He used to be so exciting,” Bev assured her. “And quite handsome.”

“He was an actor,” said Maude. “I mean, I was this girl from the country and he was so . . . so dashing, wasn’t he?” She threw it back to Beverley, who caught it deftly and passed it on.

“He was on that show everyone was watching, he played the . . . the . . . ” Beverley grasped for it.

“. . . the older brother character.”

“Yes, until he got shipped off to war.” Beverley mimed shipped off with a cursory thumb gesture that suggested there was more to that than just plot development.

“And came back as another actor five episodes later. That was unfortunate,” Maude said.

Beverley whispered to me, “He was just too unreliable.”

“Hopeless!” The frankness went up a notch. “Never learned his lines, didn’t turn up on time. Just . . . blew it.”

“Then after you got married . . . what was that show called?” Beverley put her hand on her forehead as though trying to pinch the memory directly out of her brain.

“Magpie Creek,” said Maude. Her memory of these events was obviously as fresh as yesterday. They were crucial to the way her life had turned out.

“Magpie Creek!” Beverley grasped for the year, to clarify . . . “196– ?”

“Seventy-two, Andy was two.” They both looked at me, expectantly. I’d been through this with Andy already. I had never heard of a TV series called Magpie Creek. It was before my time. This glorious glow from Hal’s past was entirely non-existent to me. He had no shimmer.

“It was a little fifteen minute thing they used to put on before the news on the ABC.”

“Oh but it was so popular.”

“And when they killed him off . . . ”

“He played the young constable character, you know, meant to be the heart throb.”

“The howls of outrage from the audience.”

“He’s never gotten over it,” Maude said quietly. “He was just so taken aback that they’d . . . ” She did the slitting throat mime.

“Oh, but what could they do?”

“It was so violent though, I mean . . . ”

“Decapitated,” Beverley clarified for me. “In a car crash.”

“He was so shocked when he got the script,” Maude laughed. “He was just . . . so crestfallen. It was a terrible time.”

“You reap what you sow,” Beverley said and took a pointed sip of her champagne.

“He had no idea. I mean, his mother used to dote on him.” Maude then did a little impression of Hal’s elderly mother. “‘Oh, isn’t he a larrikin’ she used to say when he was running round the neighbourhood putting bungers in people’s letterboxes.”

Beverley clocked my blank look. “Bungers, you know, they were little firecrackers. It’s a wonder no one was hurt.”

“And then the police would ring up Mrs Straw and she’d just . . . ” Maude affected a wide-eyed dotty old lady smile, “‘Oh, they’re just boys having some fun.’ I don’t think she was quite right in the head, to be honest. And she’d trot him around to all the radio talent quests. I mean, he couldn’t sing or anything. He was just . . . bold.”

“Anyway, after the Magpie Creek thing, he landed on his feet in the real estate business.”

“Yes, the Bingham and Straw thing.”

“Greg was good to go in with him,” Maude said vaguely. “And they did well for a while.”

“What was the slogan?” Beverley said.

“Oh yes: Call Hal he’s your real estate pal!” Maude could barely hide her smirk. I guffawed.

“Well he was still quite well known, so there he was in his suit. He was very handsome.”

“How did you meet?” I asked Maude, who pointed an accusatory finger at Beverley.

“He was a friend of my brother,” Beverley said with a tinge of guilt.

“Bev’s brother was in radio.”

“He was always having these big parties.”

“And Hal would strut in, you know, the big TV star . . . ” Maude rolled her eyes. “I was just . . . ” she looked at Beverley. “We were just so young.” There was a pause, a brief regret. Then it passed. “He was a wonderful father,” Maude said, reassuring herself again. “You know, just always so good with the boys.” She looked to Beverley again, who did not dispute this. “It was just when they started to talk back that he . . . ”

“You couldn’t have stayed,” said Beverley.

“Oh, for my own health, I know,” said Maude. They seemed now to be on a tangent of their own. I had become a mere spectator.

“The real estate thing went under. It was just so stressful.”

“Then you had Tom.”

“Yes, but Tom was so wanted, so loved,” Maude protested. “I always tell him that, he wasn’t a mistake, I was just thrilled when I found out I was pregnant.”

This was intriguing. I kept out of it hoping for more information.

“Eight years was a big age gap.”

“Yes but they’re so close, Andy and Tom,” said Beverley.

Then they remembered me sitting there. Maude turned to me. “And what about Helen?” she asked with affected nonchalance. “Have you met her yet?”

I got the sense this was another skills-based test. Beverley sat to attention, at the ready for any titbit of goss they could garner from me on this topic. It seemed of particular interest to both of them. And I chose my words carefully.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve met her.”

After our initial meeting, Hal had been relentless in pursuit of more contact. Perhaps to get the jump on Maude. Everything was a competitition to Hal, even knowing more about Andy’s new girlfriend was a way to score points. We’d had dinner at the Glebe terrace, the former family home. There was no trace of Maude there, just the ill-fitting clutter of the woman brought in to replace her. In the presence of his second wife, Hal had been more subdued. It was a stilted evening where everyone had struggled to hold their real selves inside.

Knowing this meeting had taken place, I could see Maude struggling to stay neutral, but desperate for more information.

“Oh? Is she a nice woman?” she asked, popping a biscuit with brie into her mouth.

In truth, it was hard to say whether or not Hal’s second wife, Helen, was a nice woman. All I could think whenever I saw her was, Why on earth did you marry this man? I couldn’t say that to Maude though, because the same question could be put to her.

“I haven’t warmed to her,” I said carefully. Beverley snorted. Maude decided to dig a little more.

“Tom says she’s very odd.” She picked at the snacks’ plate as if that was of more interest to her than my opinion on Helen.

“She is,” I confirmed.

“In what way?” Maude ventured.

“It’s like . . . she’s not really there. She’s kind of like a Stepford wife.”

Maude kept her poker face on and dug a bit more. “Is she a good looking woman? I mean, I’ve seen photos but . . . ”

“Um . . . she’s not unpleasant . . . ” I confirmed diplomatically.

The last time we’d seen Helen, Andy had remarked later at the inappropriateness of her sheer white linen pants, through which her large white underpants could be seen.

“I mean, I don’t need to see THAT,” he had remarked as though she had turned up sans pants. Personally, I thought it was the lesser of two evils.

Maude was still waiting.

“She’s sort of got a waxy visage,” I said thoughtfully, warming to my topic.

Beverley snorted into her champagne gleefully, which encouraged me.

“And a face like this . . . ” I affected the big fake smile we got from Helen when we had arrived, as though behind her smile she was plotting how she would quietly murder us both and chop our bodies into tiny pieces before storing them in the freezer.

“Oh dear,” Maude said, barely able to disguise her delight. “And they’re still in Glebe?”

“Yes.”

“And how does the house look?” Maude said, fishing for evidence of either slovenly housekeeping or a poor sense of interior decorating.

“Cluttered,” I answered immediately. “There’s shit everywhere.”

I regretted the ‘shit’ as soon as I said it, but the frankness of it seemed to please Maude.

“Do you think he’s happy?” she asked. “I just want him to be settled. Do you think they’re a good match?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

“Good,” Maude said sincerely. “It’s just easier if he’s settled . . . Oh, here they are!”

She seemed caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Stan, her present husband, while she’d been so absorbed in her past. He was behind the glass, almost lost in the reflection until he slid the door aside and stepped back into existence. He clapped his hands together and said, “Beverley!”

Beverley rushed to greet him, the hero’s welcome. And in that instant, Hal Straw was back where he belonged—in the past.