The first time Will saw Sylvia she was standing by the window in Bonnie’s kitchen drinking a cup of tea and wearing a paisley-patterned dressing gown in dark blue silk. Bonnie had mentioned that she had a friend staying, but they had gone straight to lunch from the airport and Sylvia was out when they got back to the house. As Will was out in the evening, their paths didn’t cross until the following morning.
‘You must be Will,’ she said with a smile, and he felt something very strange happen to him: his heart seemed to speed up and he had trouble getting his breath. ‘Would you like some tea, or maybe you’d prefer coffee?’
‘Thanks,’ he said, wondering if he looked as winded as he felt. ‘Coffee would be great.’ And he sat down on one of the stools at the benchtop while Sylvia refilled the kettle and got out the coffee plunger.
Will had not given a thought to what Bonnie’s friend might be like. She was, after all, Bonnie’s vintage, ten, maybe fifteen, years older than him, and he was not a man given to noticing older women. Not that he had anything against them. Will liked women of all ages but while he might flirt with older women who responded to a certain boyishness in him, he had never ever been attracted to one. He loved Bonnie like an older sister, and while he thought she looked good for her age, the idea that a contemporary of hers could interest him had never crossed his mind.
As he sat facing Sylvia across the benchtop Will wished he’d combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and hadn’t come downstairs wearing just the pyjama trousers and t-shirt he’d slept in. He liked to be in a control of a situation, especially when it came to women, and he felt at a distinct disadvantage. He’d accepted Bonnie’s invitation to stay at the house because it was the first time he’d seen her since they had been sorting out Jeff’s estate together in Zurich, and he wanted to make it clear that he was there if she needed anything. Business required that he travel frequently from his home in Perth to Hong Kong, where he kept a flat, and he had just signed a deal with a company in Melbourne which meant that he’d be making frequent trips there over the coming months. He’d been wondering how he could organise it so that when he returned in three weeks’ time he could decently stay in a hotel. Will was a hotel sort of person. There was a freedom and independence to hotels which he enjoyed, and you never knew when you would want five star accommodation on standby if you wanted to ask someone back to the room for a business meeting or something more intimate. But now, sitting across from Sylvia, Will was revising his future accommodation plans.
Cautiously he steered the conversation around to whether she might still be there next time he was in town. Having established that she almost certainly would be, he felt more confident, and then suggested that if she and Bonnie were free that evening he might take them both out for dinner.
‘This must be a bit of a shock to your system, Will,’ Bonnie had said as the three of them sat eating fish and chips in St Kilda. ‘Fish and chips with the over fifties and probably home by ten.’
He grinned sheepishly. ‘Youth and beauty have no age, Bonnie.’
‘Shame on you!’ she said. ‘You’re quoting Picasso, misquoting him, actually, and I don’t think he was often seen eating fish and chips with older women.’
‘It was you two who opted for the fish and chips,’ Will said. ‘I would have taken you anywhere you wanted. The world – or, at least, Melbourne – was your oyster tonight.’
‘Thank you, Will, yes,’ Sylvia said with a smile, ‘it was, but this was what we both fancied, and I’m enjoying it very much.’
‘Me too,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’m only teasing you. When we’ve finished, let’s wander up Acland Street and go to that lovely coffee shop for coffee and Italian ice cream.’
That night Will had lain in bed feeling remarkably content. He’d had the best time he could remember for ages. He stared up into the darkness, thinking of Sylvia, seeing her smile at him across the table, remembering the way she used her hands as she talked, the slim line of her neck when she turned her head, and the way she tucked a soft strand of silver hair behind her ear. Only one thing bothered him; Sylvia, charming, intelligent and beautiful, seemed totally immune to him. Either she wasn’t picking up his signals or she was choosing to ignore them.
Back home in Perth a few days later, he was unsettled, unable to concentrate on anything, and his ability to make sound and rapid trading decisions seemed to have deserted him. Swimming laps in the pool, staring out at the river from the window of his high-rise office or sitting in his apartment in the evenings half watching television, he couldn’t get Sylvia out of his mind.
‘Dinner Saturday evening,’ his oldest friend Ryan said over the phone. ‘Tania just got a promotion, so we’re going to The Loosebox to celebrate. It’s just won another Gold Plate Award.’
Will hesitated; he didn’t feel like going out. ‘Er . . . I’m not sure,’ he began, thinking he’d rather lie on the couch listening to music, wondering if he could call Bonnie’s place on the off chance that Sylvia might answer, and what he’d say if she did. ‘I might have something else on.’
‘What d’you mean “might have”?’ Ryan countered. ‘Either you have or you haven’t. There’ll be seven of us, but bring someone if you want. Tania’ll be wrecked if you’re not there, you guys go back a long way.’
Years earlier Will and Tania had had a fleeting relationship: friendly, light-hearted, great sex and lots of laughs. They had parted friends and when Ryan arrived in Perth to work as a consultant to the state government, Will had introduced them. The chemistry had been instant and Tania and Ryan had married six months later.
‘Okay,’ Will said, ‘sure, of course, I’ll, er . . . I’ll cancel the other thing.’ So he’d gone to dinner feeling strangely out of sorts among this group of close friends, three married (or almost married) couples and him. He studied the comfortable, tender, affectionate, teasing play between the partners and envied it; envied it for the familiarity, the permanence, the ease, and wanted it for himself. He felt a strange aching loneliness, a longing that went far beyond the sexual to something much deeper, something he hadn’t felt for years.
‘You’re very quiet tonight, Will,’ Tania had said, patting his thigh affectionately as the waiter poured the coffee. ‘Positively broody. What’s happened to you?’
‘Feeling a bit odd,’ he said, staring down into his cup. ‘You know, all you guys fixed up, happy couples . . .’
‘Never!’ Tania said in amazement. ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting settling-down twinges.’
‘Maybe,’ Will said. ‘P’raps I’m having a midlife crisis, but don’t let on to anyone else, it’ll totally ruin my image!’ He tried to laugh but it didn’t quite work and Tania looked at him hard.
‘Just a general idea or anyone in particular?’ she asked.
‘Oh . . .’ He shrugged, looking away. ‘Dunno, really; probably it’s nothing,’ and he mustered a smile. ‘That’s the thing with midlife crises, isn’t it? You’re never sure what it’s about.’ But in his heart, of course, he knew exactly what it was about.
Back in the seventies when he was doing his economics degree in Melbourne, Will had fallen instantly in love with a chunky, athletic physiotherapist called Glenda whom he’d met at a party. The minute he’d walked into the room he’d spotted her, dancing energetically. She had swinging red hair held back in an Alice band and was wearing a short glittery shift and flared pants. Everything about her seemed gleaming and mobile: her skin glowed, her hair shone, and the smile she flashed devoured him in an instant. They had gone home together that night and were joined at the hip for almost a year, until Glenda met a muscular vet and took off with him to Adelaide. For the first time in his life, Will was dumped by a woman and he was devastated. A month earlier they had discussed getting married, and Will had had their future mapped out. A character home in a leafy Melbourne suburb, Glenda with her own practice and him, degree completed, taking over the Australian end of his brother’s business.
At home, at school and at university, Will had always been a winner: good looking, intelligent and genuinely nice, he was a golden boy, captain of the rowing team, the hero in drama productions, and winner of medals for academic excellence. Losing at all was a new experience: losing Glenda was devastating. He was smart enough to know that a broken heart might be good for his soul in the long run but it wasn’t an experience he planned to repeat.
‘You must understand that I’m not a long-term investment,’ he told the women he went out with. ‘I’m not in the business of settling down.’
Some had believed him and enjoyed the fling. Others had ignored his warnings and, confident of their ability to change him, had secretly striven to be the perfect partner, believing they could lead him into a long-term commitment, and were shattered when Will declared it was time for him to move on. Right now Will was at a loss to understand how it had happened that he had this overwhelming yearning for a woman in her fifties who seemed immune to him.
By the time he got back to Melbourne three weeks later, Will was as nervous as a teenager on his first date. He’d told Bonnie not to bother meeting him at the airport, and as he paid the taxi driver and ran up the steps to the front door his heart was pounding against his ribs and a prickle of sweat was breaking out on the back of his neck. Sylvia opened the door wearing faded jeans and a white polo neck sweater, and eating a piece of carrot cake.
‘Oh, Will!’ she said, brushing a crumb from her lips, ‘You’re early, come on in. Bonnie’s gone to the bank, but she’ll be home soon.’ She stepped back to let him in and Will abandoned the measured approach he had planned and decided on the spur of the moment to try some of his usual bravado.
‘Sylvia! Great to see you. Do I get a welcome kiss?’ he asked, with what women usually described as his winning smile.
Sylvia grinned. ‘Of course! Welcome back.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Will inhaled a delicate perfume, and tensed at the touch of her lips. ‘Come on through to the kitchen,’ she said. ‘I’ve just made some coffee and this beautiful carrot cake, or do you need lunch? How was your flight?’
Will thought he had died and gone to heaven. Only a scenario in which Sylvia opened the door and flung her arms about him, kissed him passionately on the lips and then raced him off upstairs would have been better. That had been his fantasy on the plane, but it was a bit much to hope for in view of the nature and brevity of their acquaintance.
‘Just coffee, please,’ he said, ‘and yes, some cake,’ and he followed her into the kitchen and did a very daring thing. He stood beside her looking down at the warm, deliciously scented cake cooling on its rack, and as he did so he rested his hand gently on her shoulder and kept it there for as long as he dared. ‘It looks delicious,’ he said, lightly stroking her shoulder before dropping his hand and moving back to the other side of the bench, where he hitched himself onto a stool and sat, as he had sat that first morning, facing Sylvia as she passed him the plunger of coffee and cut some cake. ‘You look terrific,’ he said, feeling suddenly awkward and vulnerable again. ‘Are things going well for you? Sorting things out with your ex?’ He thought he sounded like a character in a daytime soap.
She nodded, putting the cake onto a plate, handing it to him and licking the crumbs from her fingers. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Really well. I’m so excited, Will. Colin sent me a ticket to London, so I’m leaving in a few days to visit my daughter and grandchildren.’
Will choked unattractively on his cake, spluttering crumbs across the benchtop. Sylvia fetched him a glass of water and he drank it quickly. ‘England? That’s a surprise,’ he managed. ‘When do you leave, exactly?’
‘Friday, for almost four weeks. I can hardly believe it. I haven’t seen them for nearly four years.’
Will drank more water and tried to compose himself. ‘That’s terrific,’ he said, trying to hide his disappointment. His plan had been to take things very gently, especially as he was going to be in Melbourne for a few days. Bonnie, he knew, would not take kindly to his pursuit of her friend, so winning Sylvia over completely was essential before his sister-in-law became aware of what was happening. In his favour was the fact that Bonnie always teased him about his attraction to younger women, so he just hoped she wouldn’t think for a moment that he could be interested in Sylvia. Will smiled and tucked into the cake, determined to make the most of this time alone with her, only to hear the sound of Bonnie’s key in the front door.
Fran sat in an uncomfortably low vinyl armchair in the waiting area designated for people whose relatives were already being treated in casualty. Across from her an elderly couple sat silently, hand in hand, occasionally casting an anxious glance towards the doorway when a nurse or doctor flitted past. From time to time, as though in an attempt to reassure each other, they would smile and lift their joined hands slightly, squeezing them together in a gesture of solidarity. Were they there for an adult child, perhaps, or a grandchild? An ageing sibling? In the corner a pale teenage girl lay across two seats, her head in the lap of a boy who might have been a couple of years older. He rested his head against the wall, the peak of his baseball cap pushed forward to mask his eyes. Beyond them the open door showed the major emergency waiting room, packed with restless people waiting for action for themselves or others.
Fran yawned from weariness and lack of oxygen, staring at the television playing in a corner with the sound turned down. Her watch had stopped but clearly it was seven o’clock because the titles for Frasier appeared on the screen, and Niles and Daphne were stuffing a turkey in the kitchen while Frasier and Martin argued in front of the television. It was reassuring to see the familiar characters in situations that had played out time and again. Fran liked the acerbic wit and the Crane brothers’ combination of pretentious snobbery and vulnerability. She could almost recreate the dialogue in her head. It was a relief from the mindless unfocused worry of the last few hours. She could barely believe it was after seven. She had arrived about two-thirty, and the intervening hours had been a mix of short bursts of activity and the tedium of waiting, all overhung with fear of the outcomes.
‘It’s okay,’ Mike had said, greeting her at the entrance to emergency when she arrived. ‘We don’t think it’s serious, but of course at this stage we can’t be sure.’ Taking her hand he had led her through to the curtained cubicle where Caro lay hitched to a machine that was monitoring her own and the baby’s heartbeats. ‘She was brought in by ambulance,’ Mike explained. ‘Apparently she drove across red traffic lights. The guy coming through on green swerved to avoid her but caught the wing and she spun round and ended up on the island of the intersection. Could have been a lot worse. She’s not been making much sense since she got here. It’s probably just concussion but they have to do some tests.’
‘And the baby?’ Fran asked, stroking Caro’s hand.
Mike indicated the machines. ‘Heartbeat’s okay, which is good, but we have to check for abdominal damage, from the seatbelt and the steering wheel. Can’t do anything at the moment until her blood pressure stabilises.’
Caro’s eyelids, which had been half closed, flickered slightly and opened. ‘Mum,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to. I thought if I cut the steak up very small it would swallow it.’
Fran felt a chill of fear – Caro being unreasonable was familiar, but irrational was something entirely new.
‘It’s okay, Fran,’ Mike said gently, putting his arm around Fran’s shoulder and giving her a squeeze. ‘It’ll pass.’ But looking at him for further signs of reassurance, Fran could see the anxiety written on his face, and the almost imperceptible tremble of his chin.
‘Hey, babes,’ he said, moving over to sit down on the edge of the bed. ‘Look who’s here. It’s your mum. Can you open your eyes again and give us a smile?’
Caro opened her eyes and smiled a vague, empty-eyed smile in the direction of the curtain rail. ‘Oh,’ she said suddenly. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I did that, the traffic lights, I wasn’t sure what the colour was.’
Mike leaned down and kissed her gently. ‘Don’t worry, babe, it’s okay. Nothing to worry about. You just have a little rest,’ he said, smoothing the sheet. As he stood up, Fran saw the glint of tears in his eyes, and went over to take his hand.
The hours had ticked by, each moment tense with anxiety, and over and over again Fran had wondered at how slowly everything seemed to happen when you were sure it all ought to be happening very quickly. Outside the window the afternoon light faded to dusk, and by the time David arrived in a gap between teaching classes, Caro’s blood pressure had normalised and she was starting to make more sense. Fran had stayed with Caro while David took Mike, by now noticeably shaken and trembling, away for a cup of tea. When they returned, Mike took up the vigil and David steered Fran towards the café.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked him, stirring sugar into her tea.
David shrugged. ‘How can you tell? The other doctor said he thought both she and the baby were okay but now they’ve stabilised her they can do the CT scan to check for head injuries.’
Fran sighed, slumping back in her chair. ‘Poor Caro, she was doing so well, so strong and confident, and now this.’
‘No, she wasn’t,’ David said. ‘She’s had all-day sickness, depression and she’s scared shitless.’
Fran felt as though someone had kicked her in the ribs. ‘But she told me – ’
‘Mum, I know what she told you, but she was lying, well – pretending.’
‘But why? I could have helped her, I could have . . .’
‘Search me! She just didn’t want you to know. Both Mike and I told her to talk to you but she wouldn’t. Mike says that the accident happened on her way to tell Des that she wanted to stop work because she felt so bad. Must have had all that on her mind, hence the red light. She’s a pretty good driver, so it’s really out of character.’
Fran shifted her position in the waiting-room chair and thought back over the conversation again. Caro had seemed invincible in her pregnancy, invincible and remote. Fran’s attempts to indulge in the potential delights of prospective grandmothering – shopping trips for baby things, chats about pregnancy, labour, and the relative merits of flannel and disposable nappies – had been cut off at the pass. And because she’d grown accustomed to Caro’s various taboos, Fran, while disappointed, had not been worried by it. But Caro had been crying out for help and she hadn’t seen it. It never failed to amaze her that however hard she tried to get things right with her children, she so often ended up making the worst kind of misjudgments.
There was the hard line she’d taken with David while he still lived at home and she was sure he was smoking dope when he wasn’t; and the soft line she’d taken when he left home and Tony was sure he was shooting heroin and he was. The time she’d argued vociferously with a mother and a teacher that there was no way her daughter would be shoplifting with the other woman’s daughter, and then gone home to find lipsticks, bottles of nail polish and some hideous glittery beads in Caro’s school-bag. And in between these milestones of poor parenting, there had been all the smaller misdemeanours so common to mothers but perhaps especially to sole parents trying so hard to be good and bad cop at the same time.
‘Fran?’ Mike popped his head around the door and she jumped, struggling awkwardly to her feet from the low chair.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘It’s okay. Come and see her. The CT scan’s okay – it’s just concussion, but she’s improving,’ he said, and she saw the relief on his face.
‘So are they keeping her or can she go home?’
‘No, no, she can’t go home. There’s no head injury but they’re still concerned about the possibility of abdominal injuries. She’s being sent to Royal Women’s, where they can keep an eye on her and the baby. They’ll probably keep her there for a couple of days.’ He slipped his hand under her arm, guiding her along the passage, then stopping suddenly, he turned and put his arms around her. ‘Oh, Fran, I was so scared. I know I ought to be used to this sort of thing but it’s different when it’s someone you love.’
She stood on tiptoe to hold him and could feel him fighting the sobs. ‘It’s okay, Mike,’ she whispered against his hair. ‘She’s going to be okay, and it’s fine for you to cry.’
He straightened up, rubbing his face and swallowing hard. ‘Not here, it’s not,’ he said ruefully, running his hands through his hair. ‘It’s not that I’m being macho, but a bloke in a white coat and a stethoscope crying his eyes out is not a reassuring sight.’
He took a deep breath and gave her a weak smile. ‘I’ll save the tears for later. Talk to her, Fran, please, when she’s better. I know she’s a total pain in the butt sometimes but she does love you and she needs you right now.’ And gently he pushed aside the curtains, and Caro looked up from her pillows.
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said. ‘I really stuffed up this time, didn’t I?’ And she burst into tears.