Sophie’s nineteenth birthday, which should have been a family celebration, a dinner with the menu chosen by Sophie, presents in bright wrappings and a cake with nineteen candles, had now become a matter for diplomacy.
Martha, the emerging diplomat, rang Ella and suggested that she and David should take Sophie out to dinner and to the theatre.
‘That’s a wonderful idea,’ Ella said gratefully.
Martha asked carefully, ‘What do you think about coming with us?’
‘Make it a young people’s evening.’
They agreed silently that half a family party was much worse than none.
‘Fine. Wait a minute. David’s saying something.’ She reported. ‘He says to tell her no jeans. She has to wear a dress. He says, no dress, no dinner.’
Good, thought Ella. Now I don’t have to tell her myself. Sophie smiled at the invitation and frowned at the condition.
‘Won’t it do if I wear my good shirt?’
‘They’re going to a lot of trouble and expense for you. I think you should consider their feelings.’
‘Oh, all right. Have a look around the op shops for a size twelve, will you, Mum, when you’re looking for your colours?’
Ella said, ‘I got my first good outfit for my eighteenth birthday. Ice blue tailored linen. I thought I was made.’
‘I bet you looked lovely, Mum, but times have changed. I’m not going to spend my good money on dresses.’
‘I could make you a skirt. A black skirt always comes in handy.’
‘Oh, not black. Nobody wears black.’
How odd, that Sophie’s reprehensible outfits should be governed by fashion.
‘It goes with everything.’
‘Yes.’
That was clearly not a point in its favour.
Sophie, however, had begun to interest herself in the project.
‘What about a sort of mucky green, not very full but kind of swirly round the ankles?’
There was hope for Sophie yet.
‘You buy the pattern and I’ll get the material. You had better get the pattern tomorrow. There isn’t much time.’
‘I’ll get it at lunchtime. Do you want the telly tonight? There’s a film on SBS Rob wants me to watch.’
‘No, I don’t want to watch anything in particular,’ said Ella, but with an inward sigh.
Must Sophie always be hitching her wagon to one star or the other?
On the birthday, Ella waited in such anxiety for the sound of the postman’s motorbike that at last she went out to the gate to wait for him and take the mail from his hand.
It was there: a card at least from her father, with three more cards and a parcel from dear, faithful Laura (and I hope she takes that to heart).
There was a letter for herself, too, addressed in his hand.
She carried in the mail and opened her letter. It was a note pinned to the latest electricity account.
Please explain the abnormal increase in this account.
Without involving herself too much in the process, she added the words: Normal domestic use, transferred the note and the account to a fresh envelope and addressed it.
‘So long as you have something better to say to Sophie,’ she said grimly to the name she had written.
She picked up the olive green swirly skirt and went on hemming it with small shallow stitches, turning it now and then to make sure that none of the olive green thread showed on the right side. The work required care and was taking longer than she had expected. She had hardly cut the last thread and was heating the iron when Sophie came in, carrying a sheaf of yellow roses.
‘I asked for an early mark because of the birthday dinner and they gave me the afternoon off and the roses. Wasn’t that nice?’
How lovely she was – and whoever had chosen roses of that colour was well aware of it.
‘What’s the matter, Mum?’
‘Nothing at all. I was just thinking how nice you look. There’s some mail for you in the dining room.’
‘Oh, great.’
With a return of childish exuberance she ran into the dining room and came back with the letters gripped in her armpit while she opened Laura’s parcel and discovered a white mohair scarf.
‘Isn’t that terrific? She’s made it herself. I’ll ring her up tomorrow. I’ve been wanting to and I left it too long and got embarrassed. Now I will. Isn’t she a dear?’
She draped the scarf round her neck while she opened three of the envelopes and read the messages on the birthday cards, still wearing the smile of joy Laura’s present had brought.
The last one lay unopened on the table. The smile faded as she looked at it without favour and slit it open.
A card and a cheque. She let the card drop to the table while she read the cheque.
‘That’s one that goes straight back where it came from.’
Ella set the iron carefully on its rest and spoke.
‘You have accepted so much from your father already that a little more won’t hurt.’
Sophie gaped.
‘If your father hadn’t paid all that money to Dr Scobie, you would be walking about with crooked teeth.’
Remembering her strange disquiet over the yellow roses, she added mentally, And that might have been just as well. But no. Wealth and beauty – whatever dangers they brought, one never wished them away.
‘He didn’t have to do that, you know. Plenty of parents wouldn’t have wanted to spend the money. You have had eighteen years and more of first-class care and you owe your father some gratitude, so you’ll accept the cheque and write him a nice letter of thanks, please.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
Sophie was too stunned to argue.
A moment later she said, ‘Will it do if I send a card? That’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, he sent me one.’
‘Yes, a card will do. With a nice message.’
Sophie nodded.
‘Here’s your skirt.’ Ella shook out the swirl of olive green crepe. ‘I pressed your shirt this morning. It’s on your bed.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
Still too astonished to utter unnecessary words, she took the skirt and went to shower and dress for the evening.
She came downstairs in high spirits to greet David and Martha, resplendent in the new outfit, with Laura’s scarf round her shoulders and swinging the shoulderbag Ella had given her that morning.
David uttered a low whistle.
‘Satisfied?’ She spun about so that the skirt flared. ‘Prepared to be seen with me? Mum made the skirt and look at the bag she gave me. Isn’t it terrific?’
It was of Italian leather and had cost too much – an expensive substitute for the cake with nineteen candles.
‘I’m the one who shouldn’t want to be seen with you,’ said Martha. ‘I think I’m rendered invisible, and just as well.’
David seized the lobe of her ear and pulled it gently to reprimand such stupidity.
Martha had little cause to lament her lack of beauty.
She was carrying a gift-wrapped book which she offered, saying, ‘You don’t have to open it. It’s the new biography of Orson Welles. I can take it back if you’ve read it.’
‘Oh, terrific. No, I haven’t and I want to. I am having a good birthday.’
Ella’s reprimand hadn’t depressed her. Ella hoped it might even have lightened that load of hate.
‘You’re a bit early, aren’t you?’
‘I want a word with Mum before we go.’
Ella felt dread. David was wearing his money face.
It was Martha who had first drawn attention to this.
‘You look like a different person when you’re talking about money. You look like a hunter stalking his prey.’
‘I just want to do my best for Mum.’
‘You don’t have to relish it.’
David had uttered a grunt which expressed surprise and willingness to give the matter further thought, but he continued to wear that keen, alert expression whenever he reported the progress of the settlement.
What expression Ella wore she did not know – certainly it did not convey her determination to remain in the house, whatever happened.
Her mistake, she reflected, had been to let that valuer into the house – but what could she have done, lain down in front of him barring the way like a greenie in front of a bulldozer? Ever since the house had been valued it seemed to be converted in other minds into a quite terrifying sum of money, and she was in danger of losing her hold on it.
It shouldn’t have been translated into money at all. She didn’t mean to give in, she would give up everything else, if it came to that, but they must understand that this wasn’t a matter of money.
Any statement she made on the subject instead of conveying meaning roused pity. After one prolonged discussion she had said irritably, irrationally, ‘I wish you’d get those mice out of the house, Sophie,’ and Sophie had looked at her with the same pitying look.
‘All right, Mum. I’ll get Rob to take them on Friday.’
And what a stupid thing to say that had been – as if the mice were the invaders.
Now David had sat at the table and was unfolding figure-laden papers.
‘I think we have to give way on the units of super, Mum. They’ve offered surrender value of three and I think that’s the best we can do. Perhaps it’s better, anyhow, to take a lump sum and make a clean break. That brings us up to seventy per cent of the valuation and Mary thinks that’s the best we can do. What do you say?’
Ella could not speak.
‘If we pressure any more, they’ll fight it in court. That’s what Mary thinks. That’s when the money starts to run away in lawyers’ fees and everyone is worse off.’
‘Whatever you say. Settle and be done with it.’
What she had said meant more than she had intended. She could tell that by the degree of relief with which David had greeted it.
‘Great. Mary will let them know it’s acceptable and they can take it from there.’
Too tired, she thought, everyone is too tired. I’ll think it all out later.
Ella had invited Pam to dinner.
She arrived soon after the departure of the young people, bringing a present for Sophie.
‘And I only hope it’s a success. It’s so hard to know what they like at her age. They’re like Martians to me. I thought I couldn’t go wrong with a shirt.’
‘She’ll be collecting quite a wardrobe. Does it go with olive green?’
She related the story of Sophie’s outfit, then found herself telling Pam about the disagreement over the cheque from her father.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘there has to be a bottom line. When we look back to where the money went – well, a lot of it went on the children. They weren’t spoiled, but they always got anything they really needed, like that year at boarding school for Caroline, and the orthodontist for Sophie, and David had to have the best possible equipment, always. David’s beginning to see that now that he’s looking into the finances and he’s a bit shocked by it. Whatever Sophie thinks about his … well, I suppose she hates it, but she ought to remember that he worked hard for the money that fed and clothed and educated them. There doesn’t seem to be much reward for that.’
Pam dropped a bombshell.
‘Doesn’t that go for the house, too, Ella? His daily work went into buying that, too. I know it isn’t his house entirely, but it isn’t yours, either, not entirely.’
Like Sophie, Ella gaped. Like Sophie, she was too subdued to answer.
Pam said, ‘Don’t forget that Sophie probably realised what was going on, so she’s been a long time building up this resentment. And her age, too. Just when she wanted a reason to rebel against authority.’
She was speaking quickly, avoiding Ella’s eyes.
‘But the house. That isn’t a matter of money. It’s different.’
Though she could not explain what this difference was, she felt that it needed no explanation. Everybody should see it at once.
‘Sorry, love. Somebody had to say it sometime. If that’s where most of the money is, then it’s as much his as yours.’
Ella shook her head.
‘He was the one … he was the one who broke it up. I have to keep things together. I have to.’
‘Don’t be so upset, love. You’re putting me off my lovely dinner. Drink up. Have another glass of wine.’
As she poured the wine, she promised, ‘We won’t talk about it any more.’
Since no other topic of conversation presented itself, they ate and drank in silence, until Pam, after all, burst into speech again.
‘A house is only bricks and mortar. And think of the future. Sophie is bound to leave and you’ll be rattling around in this great house like a pea in a bottle.
‘Even if you manage to hold on to it, what about the expense? How could you keep it up? What about rates? And maintenance? What about repairs? It wouldn’t be you owning a house, it would be a house owning you.’
In a minute, it would be that nice little unit again.
‘I could work. Get a job.’
‘Well, yes. And if you’d been really bent on keeping the house, that’s what you should have done, straightaway. Pronto. Shown you could be independent. But you didn’t, you see.’
What had she been doing?
Fighting madness. That was a fulltime job.
‘Ella. It wouldn’t be right. And in the long run, you would never be happy doing what wasn’t right. End of sermon. And now perhaps, I’d better be going.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There’s dessert and coffee to come. And you’d better wait till that wine goes down a bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were over the limit.’
‘Dutch courage.’ Pam breathed deeply and smiled in relief. ‘Though that’s supposed to be schnapps or something, isn’t it? Ella, trust my friendship, will you? Please?’
Ella nodded.
‘Yes. I do that. But no more just now, please. Don’t say any more just now. Give me time.’
Pam had served her a mouthful difficult to chew and impossible perhaps to swallow.
She was still up and working on Becky’s rug when Sophie came home.
‘How was the evening?’
‘Oh, great.’
At the restaurant, the waiter had brought in a cake with candles and had led the singing of ‘Happy Birthday to You’. A bit embarrassing and yet nice, and they had wrapped a piece of cake for Ella. The play had been, well, cheerful, but not challenging, real birthday stuff, but she had enjoyed it.
The evening’s enjoyment was shining still in her face.
How could Ella talk to her about it? Sophie was at the age when things went on for ever. No doubt that belief had been harshly tested lately, but it was of her age, too, to recover quickly from the blows of fate.
‘That’s taking shape, Mum. What is it, some sort of aerial view, like a map?’
‘Yes, a kind of picture map. I hope it comes off. It’s supposed to be cultivated land either side of the little stream. I haven’t found anything right for the stream, yet.’
‘Back to the op shops,’ said Sophie. ‘Half the fun. I’m dead beat. They said I could be late tomorrow. Isn’t everybody nice?’
‘I have to make a home for her.’ Mentally Ella argued with Pam. ‘At least until she is ready to go.’