Page 22 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘Who’s Shirley?’
‘One of the ringleaders. You’ll like her.’
Lorraine grunts. ‘Saturday, you say?’
‘They’ve always met on weekends because the original members liked the idea of their husbands being forced to watch their children. If it was a school day they couldn’t do that.’
‘Cute,’ Lorraine says, even though it’s not cute, is it? It’s a bit sad. At least she can rely on Mike to look after the kids, even if he once looked away long enough for Terry to light a match and set fire to some newspaper.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she repeats.
She can’t just say yes, even if she quite likes the idea of helping other people. It’s good to do volunteering, isn’t it? Her mother’s always done some. Reading to the elderly or whatnot. Of course, now her mother’s heading for elderly herself. Lorraine bites her lip as she thinks about how long it’s been since she visited her mother. Too long. Almost a fortnight. Normally she’s in Rose’s pocket at least once a week. So she needs to get over there. Her mother could’ve fallen on her head for all Lorraine knows. Eumundi’s not far enough away for distance to be the excuse. Running around like a headless chook is the excuse.
But Cynthia gives her the address anyway, and Lorraine writes it down because she knows – of course she knows – that she’s going to be there, and Cynthia knows her well enough to know that she hates missing out on things – that’s what her mother has said about her for as long as she can remember. Now that Cynthia’s told her about the Sunshine Gardening Society Lorraine will start thinking about it and wondering what they’re like and what they do, and before she knows it Saturday will come around and she’ll find herself kneeling on someone’s grass and getting stuck into some pruning. No good at saying no, that’s her.
‘You think about,’ Cynthia says cheerfully, ‘and I’ll buy you some gardening gloves.’
‘Your choice,’ Lorraine says.
‘I know.’
Lorraine can hear Terry coming in the door – she knows the footfall of every member of her family, including Cora. Cometo think of it, she hasn’t heard Cora’s for a while. Is she out? Lorraine didn’t check when she came back from the shops.
‘I have to run,’ she says into the phone.
‘I understand. See you next weekend.’
‘I’ll think about it!’
She hears Cynthia laughing as she hangs up the phone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It’sdeep enough into autumn that Kathy is prepared to try walking to work, although the risk of ending up sweaty is ever present because the restaurant is at least half an hour away on foot. She could drive – she usually does – but she’s told herself that fitness is important, not least because she’s getting older and she wants to be able to move through the world without too many aches and pains if she can avoid them. One of the waitresses, Leesa, is fond of preaching the benefits of exercise. ‘It’s so fun!’ she says, and she seems to not just believe it but embody it, always asking for the dinner shift so she can spend her days jogging and canoeing or something.
Kathy can’t remember the last time she had fun. Maybe before she had Grant? When she had Michelle she was twenty-four and she felt young and zippy; she and Owen would hire a baby-sitter or leave Michelle with Owen’s mother so they could go out to dinner or to the theatre. After Grant was born Kathy felt deflated almost constantly, never quite recovering from giving birth because she already had another child to look after. Owen was fine – he still went for drinks with the boys after work and played footy on weekends. He couldn’t understand why Kathy was so tired, and she couldn’t be bothered pointing out that his job finished at 5 p.m. on a Friday each week whereas hers took up most of her waking hours seven days a week.
That’s when they started to fracture a little; them and pretty much every other couple she knew with young children and a mother trying to manage on her own. One of her friends had extended family living in the house and Kathy was so jealous of the extra people available to watch children while housework was done. Owen’s mother was always keen to help with the kids, but Kathy never felt she could ask her to do it too often lest her mother-in-law judge her for trying to skive off. Judgement is one of a mother’s constants, keeping company with the other: self-judgement. She and Owen held it together for a long time, though. They weren’t close but they were comfortable with each other. No doubt he’s wondering what happened given things had hummed along the same way for years. When she left him Kathy didn’t tell him about Jemima specifically, only that she’d fallen for someone else.
So she’s at a stage now when she’s prepared to reintroduce fun, or a version of it, into her life, and if Leesa thinks exercise is the way Kathy will give it a go. And if it doesn’t quite take she’ll look for something else.
Walking is the simplest way of exercising, so that’s why she’s chosen it. Everyone’s made to walk; not everyone is made to run, or to do aerobics or Jazzercise. She went to a Jazzercise class once and that was enough – the teacher kept saying, ‘Find that beat!’ and Kathy simply could not. Ergo, walking is perfect: it’s hard to stuff it up.
It’s a good idea for her to start slowly after several years – decades – of not doing anything other than housework. Not that hauling a vacuum cleaner around isn’t work. As she sets out she discovers her first mistake however: the sun is ahead of her, which means it’s beating down right on her, and she’s reluctant to put on the cap she’s tucked into her bag because then her hair will look terrible when she takes it off. It’s not that she’s vain – no more than most – but she likes to look professional at work. Maybe she should turn back. Get the car.
No.She can’t give up. It’s just sun. She’ll be warm, that’s it. There’s enough time to walk slowly.
So that’s what she does, along Weyba Road, with Noosa Sound to her right, past some ritzy houses and some older buildings that will probably be torn down and replaced by ritzy houses. Everyone wants a water view.
As she walks she thinks about going out with the other staff earlier in the week. It was everyone’s night off because the restaurant was closed and Hans thought it would be nice for them all to head to a bar. He meant well but Kathy had said it was a busman’s holiday, which wasn’t a phrase Hans had picked up when learning English so then she had to explain it, which was awkward.
Just as she’d finished she felt a nudge at her elbow. ‘Hey Kathy, wanna go to the movies tomorrow night?’ It was Mitchell, one of the bar staff from the restaurant. He was younger than her son but kept acting like he was interested in her romantically – or something akin to it. Sometimes she let him run with it, mainly because he could be an unstoppable force, and also because it was good to use her flirting muscle every now and again.
‘What are you seeing?’ she’d asked.
‘Top Gun.’ He winked at her.
‘Is that still running? I thought it came out months ago.’
