‘I made you some of that special chocolate fudge,’ Fran said, putting the package down on Caro’s bedside table. ‘Hope you can eat it.’
‘Brilliant, thanks, Mum,’ Caro said. She pulled off the plastic wrap and stuffed a piece of fudge into her mouth. ‘I love this so much. One good thing about the accident is that the shock seems to have stopped all the nausea and vomiting.’
Fran took off her coat and sank down into the chair beside the bed, thinking carefully how to handle this. ‘Sickness? I thought you’d escaped that,’ she said. ‘You said you were feeling fine.’
Caro flushed slightly and glanced away, helping herself to another piece of fudge. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t want to worry you. Anyway, it’s okay now. I can go home tomorrow.’
‘So they’re satisfied everything’s all right with you and the baby?’
Caro, her mouth full of fudge, nodded and swallowed. ‘I was really lucky.’
‘And you’re not worried about anything?’
‘Uh-uh! Can’t wait to get home.’
‘And work?’
‘I’m giving up. Des came to see me and I told him. I’ll probably go raving mad with nothing to do but I s’pose it’s for the best.’
Fran nodded, unsure how to pitch the conversation now. Both David and Mike had asked her to talk to Caro but what was she supposed to say? If Caro wanted to confide her fears about the pregnancy she had just had the ideal opportunity but clearly she’d chosen not to take it. Fran knew her daughter well enough to predict that even subtle probing would simply bring down the shutters. All she could do was try to keep an eye on her once she was home; the window of vulnerability that had opened up when Caro had burst into tears a few days earlier was now firmly closed.
‘So what do you think of the Boatshed thing?’ Fran asked, nodding towards the portfolio that she’d left with Caro the previous day.
‘This? It’s cool, I reckon. Are you going to do it?’
Fran picked at a loose thread on the cuff of her jumper. ‘I don’t know. It all seems a bit much. I think I’ve got enough to cope with, juggling work, trying to sell the house and move . . .’ In fact, she was feeling totally frazzled and Bonnie’s proposal had come at the worst possible time. Sitting in the Boatshed a couple of days earlier she had resisted the urge to put her head down on the table and howl with exhaustion. She could see that her lack of enthusiasm had disappointed Bonnie but she wanted to shake her friend and ask her if she couldn’t have waited a while before presenting her with the need to make yet another big decision.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Caro said, picking up the file and flicking through it. ‘But the way this is set up you’d have an administrative safety net. Other people will do the shit stuff that you don’t like. It’ll leave you free to do the things you’re good at. You used to say you were trapped because there was too much work but not enough income to take someone on to help you. This is a perfect solution. You get an agent and business manager and a share in the restaurant profits – she’s even buying the use of your name. Terrific publicity, good returns. You’ll be Melbourne’s answer to Martha Stewart.’
‘I hope not,’ Fran said. ‘She’s just about to go to jail.’
Caro rolled her eyes in irritation. ‘You know what I mean. Anyway, why ask me? You must know whether you want to do it or not.’
‘I’m asking you because you’re my daughter, and because you’re the business manager of a small company and they think very highly of you, so you must have a feel for this sort of thing.’
‘Maybe,’ Caro shrugged. ‘But in the end it’s your decision whether you want to do it or not.’
‘Do you think it’s that simple?’
Caro sighed and ate another piece of fudge. ‘You always have to make everything so complicated, Mum. Everything has to be analysed, dissected and discussed ad nauseum. No wonder you get tired. You wear yourself out thinking before you even get out of bed in the morning. Just do it or don’t do it, for heaven’s sake.’
The feeling of being crushed by Caro’s disapproval settled on Fran with an awful familiarity, and she felt her defensiveness rise. Caro always managed to make her feel so incompetent. Breathing deeply she determined to stay calm and to try to get something good happening between them before she left the hospital.
Across the ward a heavily pregnant young woman tore the wrapping from a package and lifted out a tiny white hand-knitted matinee jacket. ‘Oh! Mum, it’s so cute. I didn’t even know you could knit,’ she said, leaning over to hug her mother. Fran shifted uncomfortably; somehow, unaccountably, she seemed to have missed the mark on motherhood. Now it looked as though she was heading to get it wrong as a grandmother too.
‘Shall I come and pick you up tomorrow and take you home?’ she offered.
Caro shook her head. ‘Mike’s not on duty till four o’clock so he’ll come.’
‘If you’re not working we could go shopping later in the week. I saw some gorgeous baby things in Pumpkin Patch the other day.’
‘S’pose,’ Caro said, ‘but I’ve probably got enough stuff already. We went out a couple of weeks ago and got clothes and nappies and stuff for the baby’s room.’
Fran watched the pair across the ward examining the matinee jacket. She had no idea how to break through Caro’s brittle exterior and no energy to attempt it. She was sick of trying to get it right and failing, sick of turning the other cheek, of trying to compensate for splitting up the family. She got up, reaching for her coat. It was time to go before she said something she’d regret. Caro picked up a copy of Marie Claire and began flicking through the pages.
‘By the way, Mum,’ she said, not looking up, ‘I told Des I’d go back full time two months after the baby’s born, but child care’s so expensive I thought I’d find a place for three days a week and you’d have it the other two.’
Fran froze, her arm halfway into her coat sleeve. ‘Just what do you want from me, Caro?’ she asked, in a voice so unlike her own that Caro looked up from the magazine in surprise.
‘Well, just two days a week, not every day.’
Fran stared at her daughter for a moment and then, swinging her bag over her shoulder, she walked to the end of the bed. ‘You don’t even know what I mean, do you? You don’t want to share the least little thing about your pregnancy or the birth with me, why would I give up my precious time to help you?’ she snapped. ‘Frankly, Caro, you’re a self-centred bitch, a complete pain in the arse and I don’t know why I’ve put up with it for so long.’ And she turned on her heel and marched out of the ward.
Irene thought the house felt different. On her return from previous holidays, Marjorie had always gone in the day before to air the bed, switch on the heating in winter and put basics in the fridge, but this time she returned to a house that breathed with life. She toured every room, stopping to sample the atmosphere, to ground herself in it again. Bonnie’s presence was everywhere and although Sylvia had left for her holiday in England a few days earlier, her influence was obvious too, not simply in the room she had occupied, but in the vases of flowers and beautiful quilted silk and velvet cushions she had made for the lounge. And Will’s laptop blinked away on the desk in what had once been Dennis’s study. The house had a feel of the old days when they had been a family, Simon and Bonnie’s friends coming and going, she and Dennis pursuing their shared and separate interests.
Sitting in her favourite chair, listening to a Schubert sonata and reading Bonnie’s Boatshed proposal again, Irene realised the weariness of the jetlag was easing and she was beginning to feel more like her old self. The phone rang and she decided to let the machine answer, but hearing Hamish’s voice she got up to intercept it.
‘I’ve got the tickets,’ he said. ‘Is tomorrow still all right for you?’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a lot better today. Emerging from the jetlag.’
‘Good, me too. I could pick you up at two and we can do the exhibition and then have afternoon tea at the Windsor.’
‘How elegant! It sounds positively pre-war.’
‘That’s me! My vintage,’ Hamish said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Have you told Bonnie yet?’
‘Not yet, I haven’t quite summoned up the courage. It seems odd just to sit her down and tell her outright. I’m sure she’ll be fine but I have to find the best moment.’
‘Hmm, I hope so,’ he said. ‘Not fair to keep her in the dark for too long. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow at two.’
Irene went back to her chair and sat, the proposal on her knee, her head resting on the back of the chair, and closed her eyes. How significantly her life had changed in the last few months, with Bonnie coming home and now this. Since their first night together, Irene’s feelings for Hamish had acquired more substantial form. Decades earlier her relationship with Dennis had begun with a hearty, energetic friendship forged in their mutual enjoyment of tennis, sailing and music. Their marriage had been lively and companionable. As Dennis neared retirement, Simon’s tragic death at forty-two had bonded them in terrible grief; but a couple of years later his own death from a heart attack had changed both the present and her vision of the future. Now she found herself in a new phase, loved once again in an intimate, even romantic way. In Greece their friends had happily adjusted to the new situation as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Even the formidable Marjorie had pronounced her blessings.
Out in the drive a car door slammed and Irene jerked her head up, opening her eyes as she heard Bonnie’s key in the front door. She glanced down at the proposal again. It was, she thought, a splendid plan. Both Dennis and Jeff would have been impressed by the scope and precision of Bonnie’s planning.
‘What do you think of it?’ Bonnie asked from the hallway, where she stood clutching plastic bags of shopping with both hands, her coat thrown over her shoulders. ‘I know you were too jetlagged to take it in yesterday.’
Irene got up, relieved her daughter of her coat and followed her through to the kitchen. ‘I think you’ve done a wonderful job. I can see you making a huge success of this.’
Bonnie smiled and started to unpack the shopping. ‘Thanks, Mum – you said I should get a life. I just wish Fran and Sylvia felt the same.’
‘They’ll be the losers if they don’t,’ Irene said, putting onions and lemons into a rack in the pantry. ‘This would be excellent for Fran. It builds on everything she’s done so far, gives her a context to work from.’
Bonnie crumpled the plastic bags. ‘At the moment she doesn’t see it that way. She – both of them are very uneasy about the whole idea. I think they’re torn between being interested and feeling that I’m offering them charity.’
Irene shrugged. ‘That’s not how the proposal reads but their own sensitivities would affect their reading of it. Of course, you can make it work without them but it would have distinct advantages for all three of you if they were involved. What does Will think?’
‘He thinks the plan is spot on, and he believes they’ll come around, given time. You know, Mum, it never occurred to me that having money could actually cause problems with friends. I must be a bit thick.’
Irene filled the kettle and got out the teapot. ‘Sylvia and Fran have both had to struggle financially. Money’s a nightmare when you haven’t got it and when you manage your way through crises there’s some pride that you’ve coped. You need to remember that.’
‘So I’m discovering, perhaps a little too late,’ Bonnie said. ‘Anyway, they’ve both promised to think about it. Fran’s got a lot on her plate at present, and Sylvia promised to think about it while she’s away. Meanwhile, there’s plenty I can be getting on with. By the way, did you know the French Impressionists exhibition is on at the gallery? Sylvia and I went a couple of weeks ago but I’d happily go again if you want to see it.’
Irene poured the tea and handed Bonnie a cup. ‘Thank you, dear, but I’ve arranged to go tomorrow with Hamish, and afterwards we’re having afternoon tea at the Windsor. I haven’t done that for years.’
Bonnie smiled, sipping her tea. ‘That sounds lovely. I hope it’s okay with you, I told Will he could bring a business acquaintance back here tomorrow evening.’
‘It’s fine,’ Irene said, her throat suddenly feeling a little dry. ‘I won’t be here, anyway; I’ll have supper and stay the night with Hamish.’
‘Oh, no need for that,’ Bonnie said. ‘If Hamish doesn’t like driving in the dark, just ring me when you’re ready to come home and I’ll come and pick you up. I know you’re not one for staying with other people.’
Irene took a deep breath. ‘Actually, dear, I do want to stay with Hamish and I’ll be doing so quite often from now on. And Hamish will stay here sometimes. We had a lovely time together in Greece. In fact, according to Marjorie, who is always very up to date with the vernacular, Hamish and I are now what is known as an item.’
Although she didn’t actually see Bonnie drop her mug, she heard the smash as it hit the tiled floor.