SIXTEEN
We moved en masse towards the pier. The children’s vocal rapture sounded like fifty bottles of fizzy drink opening at once. One little boy with thick glasses must have thought I was a carer, because he slipped his hand in mine and called me Kayla. Up ahead the children ascended the steps in ones and twos. I stayed within the congested bottleneck of kids seeking pier access until my own turn came to ascend. Then I saw what all the frenetic commotion was about: the Mr Whippy van was stationed in the car park.
Some children were already getting ice-creams through the open window. There was a lot of pushing and a little girl started wailing. It was the predicable sort of accident: a topheavy scoop of ice-cream had fallen out of its cone. The other children were laughing and some were saying yuck and making a wide circle around the spillage.
I glanced behind me to check on Tracy. She had returned to the other end of the cove and was hugging Rich. It was heartening to see her snuggling up to this new bloke. Wow, she really did seem to like him. She wasn’t just pretending.
After purchasing a thirst-quenching drink, I was intending to nip back to the hotel via the main road. I was hemmed in by pushing young bodies and my annoyance must have shown, because one of the carers insisted the children let the poor lady through. I grabbed my chance. The Mr Whippy man was asking, ‘What flavour do you want?’
‘A soft drink, please.’
‘Might have one.’ The man turned side-on and bent over in his search. The soft-serve machine was prominent behind him, and on a bench were jars filled with hundreds and thousands and broken bars of Cadbury Flake. If there were no soft drinks, I would get a soft serve instead.
‘Didn’t know they had a Mr Whippy at Portsea,’ I said.
‘Isn’t one. Come down for the camp kids. Every week there’s a new batch. Cashes me up nicely for Sat’dy evening.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Solo or Coke? That’s all I got.’
In the park I stood with my back pressed against the trunk of a pine tree, gulping down Solo and getting the hiccups. The drink was luke-warm but it was better than nothing. I had to commend Tracy for being so straight with me. At least I knew exactly where I stood now. But my heart-to-heart with her had also crushed me.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek. So Jordan really had been preparing to leave me two months ago. He had only ever been holding out for Tracy. And when she was no longer available for re-runs, I became a means to an end. But I could also see that Jordan would have justified his behaviour by thinking he was giving me what I wanted. He assumed he was doing me a favour. And that sucked too.
Taking these new insights into account – though they were hardly new, when Tracy had been merely stating the bleeding obvious – I had only one option left. Tracy’s soft indictment of Jordan signalled the end of my marital hopes. Well, Jordan, we will both be on our own tomorrow, so take that! I punched the air with my can of Solo and spilt some liquid down the front of my soggy cheesecloth skirt.
At least I would be on my own. Jordan would be able to pull a girl from the swamp as he usually did. He was like the boy in the nursery rhyme who stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum. And I could easily keep myself company if I had to.
A red Ford Laser came cruising along Point Nepean Road. Uh-oh. Cherie must have spotted me, because she turned into the pier access road, coming to rest not far from where I stood. She leant over and wound down her front passengerside window. Some pine needles were caught inside my sandal and I limped over to her car.
‘Did you get some sun, Beth?’
I clapped a hand to my warm cheek. ‘It wasn’t intentional.’
She eyed my wet clothing and messy hair without comment. Then she drove into the pier car park. The majority of the camp kids had returned to the beach, but ten or so remained at the ice-cream van.
I ambled over to Cherie’s car. After a brief discussion we retrieved my wedding dress from the back seat. Together we carried it alongside the park then down the main street into the hotel. Mum was clutching her suitcase under her other wing as I guided her up the guest stairs. In the Bayview Room we laid my wedding gown flat across the wide bed. Cherie sat on a chair, either to rest or to admire her creation.
I regarded my mother’s ebullient dolphin-like smile, and her strong, compact body. Primary school kids loved this woman. Each year many of them wrote ‘I will never forget you’ inside the small cheap Christmas cards that Mum cheerily put on the mantelpiece beside the big glitzy ones from other people.
She gestured to me to sit down too but I didn’t follow her command. A rising panic alerted me to the fact that today was going to be the first day of my life that I was going to seriously disappoint my ma.
Eventually, she noticed my misery. ‘Not happy with the dress, love?’
‘Cherie, you know it’s divine.’ But the wedding is off. Just tell her the wedding is off.
A wilting smile from my mother, who said, ‘I’m dying for a cuppa.’
I went to the living room and switched on the plastic kettle. Two o’clock, by my watch. Oh dear. In the next hour my decision absolutely had to be acted upon. So what are you waiting for, Beth? Now that I had actually made up my mind, I wanted to slow time down. I wanted to hold my future at arm’s length for as long as possible to keep it from hurting me.
I unzipped my suitcase, which was sitting near the bar fridge where Vanessa had left it several hours ago. I retrieved some fresh clothing and squeezed into my new jeans. I threw on a pale lemon T-shirt, also brand-new. These clothes were meant to make me feel special tomorrow. They did nothing for me now. And bummer, the Panadol had worn off and my headache had returned.
‘Are the red roses from Jordan?’ Mum was standing in the living room.
‘No, from Dad,’ I lied. To my mind, English Gran was just an extension of Dad anyway. I’d developed some theories to cope with my father’s disappearance. Not that I really cared anymore; it had been ages since my last contact with him. English Gran had made the call back then, putting Dad on the phone so he could also wish me a happy twenty-first. We’d chatted for a while and Dad had made an effort. But then I didn’t hear from him again. His third wife didn’t like him talking to me, so she put a stop to his phone calls. That’s what I told myself anyhow. The same was true of these roses. Beth’ll know the flowers are really from me, Dad would be thinking over in England, as he paid the Interflora bill for Gran.
Mum smiled, genuinely surprised. ‘That’s nice.’ She opened her mouth to say something else but then she changed her mind.
I felt ashamed but I wasn’t going to admit to the lie.
Yikes, how on earth was I going to tell her about Jordan?
‘Beth, we still need to bring up your veil. It’s on the front seat, under a sheet.’ Mum handed over her car keys.
Resigned to more shirking of the truth, I went downstairs, leaving Cherie squeezing long-life milk into her tea. The pier access car park was empty. Mr Whippy must have returned to Sorrento. Along the beach a patchwork quilt of children was drifting back to the camp. Had they really forced those underprivileged kids into multicoloured T-shirts? Was it to brighten up the kids, or to help the carers keep tabs on them? Tracy and Rich were nowhere in sight. They must have hiked up to the hotel via the dunes. Either that or they’d drowned.
Trails of spilt ice cream were attracting swarms of ants. Lots of accidents had occurred. I had to be careful where I stood. A gull perched on the rim of a rubbish bin, guarding its contents. As I approached it flew high, releasing bloodthirsty squawks.
Another gutsy bird dropped straight down into the bin, intent on scavenging a discarded cone. Wings beating loudly, it rose from the refuse like a helicopter. Other seagulls were poised in the air overhead, goading themselves to imitate the dangerous stunt. The air was bristling with gulls.
I slipped my hand underneath the layers of tulle to secure the pillbox cap before lifting the veil out of Cherie’s car. The pillbox cap! What a dear sweet thing. It was like those smart little hats that airline hostesses wear, or those lop-sided caps hotel porters don in American movies. The cap was covered in raw silk, the same as the bodice of my dress. Last night Cherie had sewn a profusion of orange blossom around the edges of the cap. The sprigs had grey-green leaves and were coated with a grainy lacquer that made the buds shine like pearls. The headdress had a strong floral scent to it now, like the smell of orange drops or homemade toffee boiling on the stove. My mouth began to water, and my nostrils to expand. Moving away from the Laser, I teased the layers of crushed tulle back into their intended shape. Then I lifted the prima donna garment high above my head.
My veil was a goer – and nothing, not even the spectre of a cancellation, could dampen my enthusiasm for it. The tulle reminded me of going to the ballet to see The Nutcracker as a child. ‘No point going to the ballet unless we are sitting close to the stage,’ Cherie had bragged. We only went to the ballet once, and the seats Mum purchased were at the very side of the front row so we couldn’t see the whole stage. But what we could see was brilliant.
My mistake was thinking that this might be my last chance to wear the veil before my fall from grace. My thoughts ran along these lines: If the wedding is cancelled, then this zestful plaything would be tainted forevermore. It’s quite possible that I would be putting all my wedding things in a sealed box tomorrow, and I would never look at them or want to be reminded of them ever again.
In a snap decision I sat the pillbox cap on my head. My face and upper body were engulfed in feathery tulle. Oh, cream pavlova and coconut ice! Oh, powdered snow on the slopes of Falls Creek! I surely deserved this brief respite from the pain of the day. Bravo, Beth, bravo!
My caper was short-lived however. A ghoulish cry tore the air and whisking wings clipped my ears. Terrified, I flinched and hunched over. Why I didn’t grab hold of my veil I will never know, but my instinct was to protect my person first. Crazed by the stench of sweet blossoms, the shrewd seagull clawed my pillbox cap possessively, and in one upward motion winched the entire adornment from my head.
I looked up to see my veil shimmering above me like a jellyfish kite. I hollered in protest but the gull couldn’t care less. It flew out over the water with its loot. Other screeching birds decided to investigate. A chase ensued between several manic gulls. Eventually the marauder was attacked sideways by another bird and forced to land on the pier. I scurried out along the boards, confident of retrieving the precious object.
As more gulls swooped down, the raider flapped his powerful wings and knocked the others away. Mr Snatch-it Gull then partnered up with another big gull. These two bullies displayed some teamwork. They were scaring away the other birds, and eventually they bore the booty aloft and beyond my reach.
Overhead a fierce skirmish resulted in the two birds effectively pulling the cap and veil apart. Mr Snatch-it Gull took custody of the edible part and swooped inland to a tall fir tree. The other offender flew over the sea, clawing his bunch of shredded tulle. This seagull eventually dropped the tulle into deep water. It was too far away for me to think of swimming out to salvage it, although the tide might bring it in later on. It bobbed on the surface like a torn fishing net.
In the park I located Mr Snatch-it Gull. My cap part was wedged between two branches of the fir tree. The gull was feasting on the orange blossoms. I stood at the foot of the tree for a few minutes not knowing what to do. When I finally decided all was lost, I returned to the hotel to break the news to Cherie.