Green blades had sliced miraculously through the charred earth. Kiwi was becoming bolder. The parrot waited outside the back door most mornings, and with Mojo’s encouragement, she was soon hopping over the doorstep and waddling about the kitchen. It was a friendship of equals. Meanwhile, Mojo’s tummy was getting rounder by the day.
Lisa loved watching the unlikely allies preen and take turns chasing each other. There was only one source of tension. The moment Mojo was out of sight, or diverted by a fly in the window, Kiwi made a beeline for his food bowl. Kiwi devoured anything from Kitty Treats to fresh chicken slices. The self-appointed artful dodger soon widened her territory to pinching bananas from the fruit bowl. One morning Lisa caught the parrot on the pantry floor, rustling through a toppled packet of muesli. The bird looked up at her and squawked defiantly. Bags of sunflower seeds became part of the weekly shop.
Lisa began to feel guilty sending the cockatoo outside at night. Kiwi had proved herself a survivor, but her damaged wings made her vulnerable. The first night Kiwi was allowed to stay inside, she seemed grateful. Perched on the back of her favourite kitchen chair, she tucked her head in her wing and closed her eyes. Lisa slid sheets of newspapers on the floor underneath the chair legs, closed the door and followed Mojo upstairs.
The Grey Army abandoned painting the upstairs study and focused their energies on tidying up what was left of the stables and servants’ wing. Lisa spent her days at the kitchen table with Mojo on her lap and Kiwi perched on the back of a chair, wading through Three Sisters: Emily, tweaking and reworking. She finally sent it off to Vanessa just hours before the deadline. Now she was free to concentrate on the upcoming celebration and researching gay weddings became her new hobby.
Lisa was puzzled when the boys sent most of their wedding invitations by Facebook, but James assured her it was logical, considering the timeframe. Still, the boys hadn’t forgotten the computer illiterate. James bought a small stack of invitation cards that he filled in using a calligraphy pen before posting them to the elderly and ‘just plain weird’ who refused to own phones or computers. To everyone’s amazement, Aunt Caroline sent a note of acceptance by return.
Ted insisted on inviting the Grey Army, along with all the locals who’d helped with the fire cleanup—and ‘that gardening dude’.
Lisa was overjoyed that Portia was among the first to accept. Lisa booked a flight for her to arrive a few days before the wedding and stay on for two weeks. Not that she was holding out much hope—Portia would probably invent an audition or a vegan festival to rush back early for.
Then Jake and Cow Belle had the gall to announce they were arriving a week early and would be staying at the manor. Lisa was ready to book them into a motel but Ted begged her to let them stay. He seemed to have romantic notions of his parents sleeping under the same roof on the eve of his wedding.
In the end, acceptances numbered close to 150, including James’s New Zealand relatives.
Scott showed up to work on the landscaping most days. His snakebite bandage had long ago been replaced with a modest bandaid. No doubt Juliet had seen to that. Lisa limited their discussions to garden planning. Truckloads of boulders, some the size of small caravans, arrived and were unloaded by crane. Scott oversaw the placement of each one, and they formed an imposing backdrop in harmony with the valley and hills. Towards the end of each day, the stones took on a reddish glow, and Lisa couldn’t resist going outside to stroke them. Smooth and sandy, they seemed to hum with ancient energy.
Outlines of paths meandered in studied nonchalance towards the stream and back. The shapes and curves Scott had carved with the bulldozer were the work of an artist. The only eyesore was the ridiculous hole he’d made for the spa pool, which was at least three metres deep and the size of a mass grave. Scott showed Lisa a plan he’d drawn up for the garden and assured her it would look just fine once it was lined with concrete, filled with water and nestled under the pergola.
She hated to think how much it was all costing. With luck, her royalties from Three Sisters: Emily would cover it and she’d get the money back when the house was sold.
With the wedding only a couple of weeks away, Lisa encouraged Scott to charge ahead with planting. Most of the seedlings were small, but they already provided softness and colour. The front paddock was rapidly being transformed into a breathtaking landscape.
The boys visited more frequently as the wedding drew closer. A chef friend of James was organising catering with an impressive Australian theme. First course would be sustainable seafood such as whiting and blue mussels, followed by an amuse-bouche of walnut puree topped with shavings of pine mushrooms and a cabbage flower. Main course was to be steak fillet sprinkled with native pepper berries (there would also be a vegetarian option). For dessert, wattle seed and honey custard would be surrounded by desert limes and emu apples. The menu sounded so outlandish, Lisa would’ve tried to veto it, if the creator hadn’t been voted best chef in Australia.
Whenever she stressed out about flowers or seating arrangements, the boys told her to relax. Everything was under control. The day after she fretted over what to wear to her son’s wedding, James arrived with Terence, a stylist friend from the city. Terence threw open Lisa’s wardrobe doors and emitted cries of dismay. Lisa recoiled. She hated clothes shopping, especially since the mastectomy, let alone the thought of schlepping down Collins Street with an impeccably groomed young man in an Italian suit.
To her relief, Terence was a mind reader. He told her he’d pop into the city and bring out a few garments for her to try on later in the week. It was only fair to tell him about her prosthesis. He waved it aside and said there was nothing he liked more than a challenge. She could’ve kissed his handmade shoes.
According to the boys, another friend, Damien, was dying to do her hair and makeup on the wedding day. When she started to fret about the devastated-looking driveway, they booked her a massage.
There were no bridezillas, no tears over tiaras. The boys networked with the best. Their taste was impeccable as always. She was beginning to think nothing could be easier than being mother of one of the grooms at a gay wedding.
An avalanche of luggage clattered into the hallway. The bags were all matching brown with pale trim. Lisa bent to examine them. The marks she’d mistaken for bird droppings were carefully formed LVs. She could never tell the difference between the real deal and stuff from the back streets of Bangkok. She wondered if there was a collective noun for designer luggage—an ostentation?
To say she was dreading having her ex-husband and his lover to stay was an understatement. The thought of sharing her upstairs bathroom with them, perhaps even having to dredge Cow Belle’s flaxen hair out of the plug hole, made her skin crawl.
‘Great to see you!’ Jake chirped, heaving a wheelie bag up the steps. No doubt Belle had talked him into the tightly fitted shirt. It made him look six months pregnant. Grey never was a good colour for him. Belle was a wardrobe satirist.
Bright desperation shining in his eyes, Jake put his hands on Lisa’s shoulders. She resisted as he drew her down into his neck. His smell, a stale concoction of offices and planes, was so familiar she felt a stab of loss.
It was quickly replaced with resentment. Belle, hiding behind huge sunglasses, glided towards them. ‘It’s quite small for a manor, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I guess you do things differently in Australia. I mean, I’ve been to beach houses in the Hamptons bigger than this. How do you put up with the heat?’
Lisa and Jake lugged the bags upstairs while Belle fanned herself on the balcony.
‘It’s not easy for her coming here,’ Jake whispered. ‘She feels an outsider already.’
‘Your towels are on your bed,’ Lisa said, escorting him to the guest room.
It’d been quite a performance getting their room ready. She’d stripped the bed and made it up with fresh linen, filled a water jug and placed glasses on the bedside tables. Not to mention a vase of bottlebrush, a book entitled Picturesque Drives of Victoria and copies of Vogue Living. She’d even dragged the vacuum cleaner up the stairs and scraped it around the floor. The towels were just an afterthought. Resisting the urge to dip them in poison, she’d crowned them with a little square of guest soap each (an inexplicable birthday present from Maxine).
Not only that, she’d shovelled all her makeup and old towels out of the bathroom, and scrubbed the toilet with lemony stuff that made her hands sting.
‘That’s one helluva fire you had,’ Jake said, pulling back the curtain. ‘Are you okay?’
Why did he always ask that? Did he think she couldn’t breathe without him?
‘I’m fine.’
‘Who’s that?’
Lisa joined him at the window. Scott, wearing nothing but boots, shorts and a sunhat was strolling down the driveway looking like a Cosmo centrefold.
‘Oh, he helps with the garden.’
‘Guess he costs more than a Mexican.’
Scott shaded his eyes, looked up at them and waved. His tan heightened the spectacular curve of his chest muscles. She focused on a tantalising valley running through the centre of his torso down to his belly button. Her eyes lingered over a strip of dark hair rising from the top of his shorts. Liquid heat rose between her thighs, but she quickly extinguished it. Scott was taken.
‘That guy should watch out for skin cancer,’ Jake said, pulling the curtain closed.
‘Where’s the ensuite?’
Lisa and Jake turned from the window. Belle stood in the doorway clutching a handbag adorned with gold Cs, her sunglasses now perched on her head. Panting slightly, she wore the expression of a new arrival at the Brontë sisters’ school for daughters of impoverished clergymen.
‘It’s a shared bathroom,’ Lisa said.
Belle blanched.
‘They weren’t fussy about that sort of thing in the old days,’ Lisa shrugged. ‘Chamber pots and what have you.’
Belle flicked the latch of her handbag in a series of compulsive clicks. ‘Never mind, honey,’ Jake said. ‘We can rough it for a few days.’
Lisa was about to remind them there was a perfectly good motel in town. Then she thought of Ted.
‘There’s some kind of wild animal downstairs,’ Belle said, tapping across the floor towards Jake.
‘You mean Mojo?’ Lisa said.
‘It looks like a dingo. They eat babies, don’t they?’
‘How many eyes did it have?’
‘I have no idea. I was too busy running.’
‘Aw, honey,’ Jake crooned, embracing Belle, which was awkward, considering she was at least six inches taller.
Lisa felt vaguely nauseous. ‘Maybe she’s right,’ she said. ‘We did have some wildlife come inside to shelter from the fire. Killer kangaroos and things.’
Belle whimpered. Jake shot Lisa a warning look.
‘And Scott was bitten by a snake. He really was. A big brown one.’
‘Give it a rest, Lisa,’ Jake said.
‘Oh well, I’ll leave you two to settle in. Come down for dinner when you’re ready.’
Taking refuge in the kitchen, Lisa poured herself a large glass of merlot. The only way she was going to get through the next few days was with regular doses of alcohol.
Where was Mojo? There was no sign of Kiwi either. She set the table and threw together a baby spinach salad with sliced orange and walnut pieces. If she’d been feeling benevolent towards Jake she’d have made his favourite roast lamb with potatoes and garlic for old time’s sake. Instead, she pulled a supermarket chicken out of the fridge and broke it in pieces.
As the wine filtered through her veins, her heart softened towards Belle. At least the woman had gone to the trouble of showing up. Perhaps some music would help Belle relax. Lisa put on the radio and let Beethoven flood the room. The god of music was in one of his raucous moods, galloping across hills, laughing into the rain. Lisa drained her glass, filled another and toasted her reflection in the window. She turned the music up, swung her glass in time with Beethoven and laughed along with him.
‘Excuse me?’
Belle stepped timidly towards the table. She was wearing a tiny black evening dress, the back of which appeared to have fallen out. Her hair swung glamorously over one shoulder.
Lisa froze with her glass in the air.
‘I thought it was formal.’
‘What?’
‘Dinner in a manor house.’
‘Oh. There’s a dining room somewhere, but I haven’t got round to setting it up. It’s full of boxes.’
Belle looked crestfallen.
‘I could get changed if you like, but it’s only chicken salad. I could make an apple crumble . . .’
‘I’m on a diet,’ Belle said.
‘So am I.’
At last some common ground—aside from shared knowledge of the wart on the underside of Jake’s — Lisa quickly erased the mental image.
Lisa dug out a pair of candles from a drawer and stuffed them into Mexican pottery holders. She thought about lighting them, but naked flames had lost their allure lately.
‘What are you two girls talking about?’ Jake said, rubbing his hands together as he strode into the room. ‘I could feel my ears burning up there.’
‘It’s not all about you,’ Lisa mumbled, taking a surreptitious gulp.
‘God, you look beautiful!’ he exclaimed.
Belle flicked her hair and tittered.
‘Wine, anyone?’ Lisa said, spilling what was left into glasses.
Jake radiated disapproval—he hated it when she got tipsy, which was almost never. ‘Would you mind turning the music down?’ he shouted.
As Beethoven faded into the background there was a tap on the back door. Assuming master of the house status, Jake padded over the bluestone and reached for the handle. The door burst open to an outrageous squawk. A flurry of white feathers swooped over their heads and circled the kitchen with clumsy flaps. Kiwi was flying!
‘It’s a vulture!’ Belle yelled.
A small yowling lion exploded into the room, hot on the bird’s tail feathers. Mojo pranced onto a chair and leapt up at Kiwi.
‘There it is!’ Belle wailed at Mojo. ‘That’s the . . . the thing!’
Screeching, Belle knocked the chair over. Mojo sailed through the air, narrowly avoiding collision with the cockatoo. As Kiwi attempted a second circuit, Belle ran from the room. Jake was about to follow, until he saw an imposing silhouette filling the door frame.
Scott had mercifully managed to put on a shirt, though he’d forgotten to do up the buttons. ‘Great, isn’t it?’ Scott beamed up at Kiwi. ‘I taught her to fly.’
‘You did?’ Jake asked.
‘Yeah, we’ve been practising around the orchard. But she can’t land yet.’
‘She can’t land?!’ Lisa was incredulous. ‘Why did you let her in here?’
‘I didn’t,’ Scott shrugged. ‘I thought you’d want to see . . . She let herself in.’
Kiwi flapped over the table and, rapidly losing altitude, toppled the candles.
‘She’ll wear herself out soon,’ Scott added.
Kiwi circled her favourite chair, lowered her claws and attempted landing. The chair clattered backwards on to the floor. The parrot flapped frantically to regain height.
Mojo sat on his haunches and watched with a combination of admiration and concern as Kiwi rallied—only to collide with the pantry door.
Lisa cried out as the parrot slid to the floor. The bird lay lifeless at her feet. Kiwi’s eyes were closed, her beak slightly open, her yellow crest frozen in a smile. She was lifeless.
Mojo trotted forward and examined the prone parrot. With a shielded paw, he patted the bird’s head and licked her chest with slow, loving strokes.
To Lisa’s astonishment, Kiwi’s wrinkled eyelids slid open to reveal shining crimson eyes. The cockatoo rubbed her beak against Mojo’s forehead, as if to say thanks.
‘You should put those guys on YouTube,’ Jake said.
Lisa felt weak with joy when Kiwi rolled over and regained her footing. The bird shook her head and preened her feathers as if she was as surprised as anyone else she was still alive. After taking a moment to regain her senses, the cockatoo lumbered out the door to the garden with Mojo trotting after her.
Silence settled over the kitchen, apart from the radio, which had morphed into Mozart. Lisa picked up the two chairs and straightened the candleholders.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Jake said, extending a hand and dousing Scott with alpha-male charm.
‘Welcome to Tumbledown,’ Scott replied.
Jake’s eyebrows twitched with confusion.