A long white car collected me the following Saturday, a uniformed driver pulled open the door, Miss Tennessee was waiting inside. No concessions had yet been made to maternity in her own choice of clothes: pencil skirt, tight blouse. If pregnancy showed anywhere it was in the face: there was a hint of roundness, a new suppleness, as if the hormones of early pregnancy had deposited a little softening fat.
We drove due east to the coast, then north along the esplanade. The sea spangled in the morning sun. Dark heads bobbed in the tumbling foam closer inshore; surf and sail-board riders twisted and skittered across the waves further out. Blueness and brightness drenched the glassy car; I felt almost optimistic about the ordeal of shopping as the chauffeur angle parked in a taxi rank on the mall.
I stepped out after Mary-Beth; we walked some distance among the milling shoppers, leaving the driver in his car. Buskers were making music here and there, or spruiking outside shops for business. An earnest young woman thrust a leaflet into Mary-Beth’s hands; she glanced at the inscription and passed it to me: ‘Isn’t that a nice thought? I wonder if she’s from the Church.’
Jesus Loves You, I read, beneath a picture of a cross. I flipped the leaflet over: But Everyone Else Thinks You’re a Cunt.
I balled the leaflet, and dropped it into a passing bin before she could inspect it further: ‘I don’t think so.’
She slipped her arm into mine again; we walked on, together. A teenager was shouting into a payphone receiver further along the mall: ‘And don’t ever ring me here again.’
Inexplicable events, both of these: signs of unpredictability, as if natural law were breaking down. Or so I might have thought, if I had been in any way superstitious.
As we walked, heads turned about us, the men’s especially: their eyes seeking out Mary-Beth’s eyes, or sliding up and down her elegant body; absurd tom cats, still no doubt watching from behind after she had passed, sniffing the air as their wives tugged at their sleeves, tugged them back to the real world.
I couldn’t have stood it: all that attention, that invasion.
I followed her in and out of various small fashion houses. She insisted I try things; I insisted nothing suited. And so she would try enough garments for both of us, still making no concessions to maternity.
It occurred to me as I trekked through the boutiques in her wake that she was lonely, that she had no women friends. Her visits to me, professionally, and the two occasions I had dined at the White House had apparently qualified me for the role of Best Friend.
‘Mara, we should stop somewhere for a coffee. There’s a little bistro on the mall I’ve always wanted to try.’
We turned in beneath a striped canopy. The cafe was packed, blue-rinsed heads mostly: Gold Coast widows, with clutches of boutique bags sitting on the floor beside their blue-veined feet. We found a corner table; ordered cakes, and cappuccinos, the most expensive coffee and cakes I have ever eaten.
‘This is nice,’ my new Best Friend said. ‘We should have done this before.’
She was forced to raise her voice to be heard. We might have been sitting in an aviary: dozens of high, gossiping, bird voices. How happy these women were, I thought: these widows, freed at last from the ballast of their dead husbands, like balloons, rising and growing.
‘My friends here are mostly Hollis’s friends,’ MaryBeth was saying. ‘Business friends. What I miss most are days like this. Out with the girls. Shopping, gossiping. Lunch.’
I was right — she was lonely. She sipped at her cappuccino fluff, delicately.
‘I hope you won’t be angry,’ she said, ‘but I bought you something. Secretly. A gift.’
I snorted: ‘Why would I be angry?’
‘You can seem rather … disapproving, Mara. I am just a little afraid of you sometimes.’
She was smiling, afraid of nothing: ‘Sometimes you make me feel … as if I’m too frivolous.’
‘I’m sorry. If …’
She covered my hand with her own, completely in charge. I had always thought her one of that race of women who can never be too rich, or too thin — a cartoon woman. There seemed something new in her: a dimension of depth, or thickness.
‘I’m not expressing this well. In many ways we are opposites. I know that. But that makes for richer friendships. We can learn from each other, don’t you think?’
Without waiting for an answer she reached down among the parcels at her feet, extracting a garment which she unfolded and held against her chest.
‘The satin jacket from that little Italian place. It does suit you, Mara.’
I was trapped: ‘Thank you.’
‘There’s one other thing,’ she said, and paused, still smiling disarmingly.
‘Yes?’
‘I want you to meet my hairdresser. I have some ideas for your hair. Something a little different. Would you trust me on that?’
I almost laughed out loud. How had I come to this: sitting over cakes and cappuccino with a Miss Tennessee Semi-Finalist, trading beauty tips?
‘You should meet my mother,’ I said.
‘I would like to, Mara. Now I want to talk about shoes. You need something to set off the jacket. I know a place …’
Her party the following week was a great success. I can’t speak for my new clothes. Apart from Tad’s cocked, amused eye as I dressed and Mary-Beth’s gush of praise when I arrived, no one commented. Tad had forgone his weekend Brisbane trip to escort me; he deserted me as soon as we arrived for more congenial company. For a time I bounced aimlessly among the chatting groups of guests. Scanlon was nowhere in sight, and by ten I’d had enough. I left early, unable to manufacture small talk in sufficient quantities to sustain my side of the various conversations that entangled me.
Tad remained, drinking heavily, talking loudly, thrilled to have been invited, his spirits high. I didn’t hear him come in.