‘Doreen’s bringing a big ham,’ said Mrs Parker to Myra, ‘and the pudding, and John and Betty are bringing the chooks, so they can go in as soon as they get here. I’ll just turn on the oven and have it ready. So if we can finish doing these vegies before they all arrive there won’t be anything more to worry about. Until the gravy.’
Myra was peeling five pounds of potatoes. There would be thirteen of them to dinner counting the toddler. Unlucky number, she thought. Better not count the toddler.
‘Did you and Fay finish setting the table?’ asked her mother.
They were going to squash around the ping-pong table on the back verandah to eat this feast; it was now covered with Mrs Parker’s best tablecloth, which she still had from when she was first married, but as it wasn’t quite large enough there was a double-bed sheet underneath it.
‘Sure,’ said Myra. ‘Fay’s just folding the serviettes now, in shapes.’
Fay had acquired this art in one of her cocktail waitressing years; she was making mitres. Mrs Parker put down her peeling knife and went to make sure for herself that everything was as it should be.
‘Now that’s just lovely,’ she said to Fay. ‘It looks real posh.’
Later on that day, many hours later, Fay was playing skipping games on the lawn with Myra’s nieces while her nephews did rough things in trees and the toddler slept exhausted on a rug. The men were drinking beer and Myra and her mother and sister and sister-in-law gossiped together in deckchairs.
‘You want to find a husband for that Fay,’ said Mrs Parker to Myra. ‘None of your nightclub riff-raff. Someone nice and steady. Look how she’s playing with the girls. You can see she gets on with children. She wants to be married and have some of her own.’
‘Well, I’ve done my best,’ said Myra. ‘But she’s a bit particular.’
‘So she should be,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘The sorts of men you see these days.’
‘Now, Mum, what do you know about that?’ asked Doreen.
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Mrs Parker.
‘She means the sorts I go out with,’ said Myra.
‘Oh Lord,’ said Doreen.
She and Myra both laughed.
‘Do you still see Jacko Price?’
‘Oh, once in a while,’ said Myra.
‘I never want to hear that man mentioned again here,’ said Mrs Parker looking stern. ‘After what he did.’
‘Oh, he’s all right, Mum,’ said Myra. ‘There’s lots worse.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘But I wish you could find someone nice, for Fay. She’s a lovely girl. It’s a shame she hasn’t met anyone nice that she could marry. Poor thing, no family to speak of, she needs a husband.’
‘Yes,’ said Myra. ‘I guess you’re right.’
‘Of course I am,’ said her mother.