Page 53 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
‘I sit there,’ Cora says.
Rose looks at Lorraine, and Lorraine can interpret that look:You must be kidding me. No, Mum, she’s not kidding you, she’s declared ownership of the chair and none of us can get near it.
‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Mike says as he re-enters the room. ‘Rose is our guest. She can have the armchair.’
Cora’s face looks pinched and Lorraine wants to do a victory dance, but then she realises: Rose is the guest, Cora is the resident. This power imbalance is never going to change and Lorraine is the one who’ll be trying to negotiate truces for the rest of these women’s lives.
Although the imbalance tilts a little in the other direction as Terry goes and stands next to Rose, one arm on the back of the chair, almost as if he wants to sit on the arm but isn’t sure how that would look.
Something else Lorraine realises: Rose hasn’t remarked on how tall Terry is now. The last time she saw him – as far as Lorraine knows – was a few months ago and Terry’s grownabout ten centimetres since then. They measured him against the wall. Which means they’ve definitely been hanging out. Her own son and her own mother, meeting up without her and not saying a word.
She wants to feel upset. Instead she just feels a little sad – Terry probably goes there to have uncomplicated love and support at a time when his mother is often yelling at him to do his chores. But that’s Lorraine’s job, isn’t it? She has to turn him into a functional adult. There are no rainbows and moonbeams in that. Grandmothers get the rainbows. And the smiles and hugs that go with them. Lorraine can feel herself working up to some kind of tantrum about it all, but she has to hold it together.
‘So what do we reckon about Hawkey getting back in?’ Mike remarks and Lorraine groans. Her mother is decidedly not a Labor voter, which Mike knows but always seems to forget, and any mention of Bob Hawke – or, worse, Paul Keating – tends to send her into a rant about how he’s going to ruin the country.
‘I like his hair,’ Cora says.
‘Can’t argue with that.’ Mike pats his own close crop. ‘It’s a good mane.’
‘Have you been playing bowls, Cora?’ Rose says as Cora makes a show of not liking her seat on the couch.
‘No.’ Cora pulls a face. ‘My hip.’
‘Oh.’ Rose widens her eyes in Lorraine’s direction, something else Lorraine can interpret:I’m trying here.
‘Mum’s been swimming a bit, haven’t you, Mum?’ Lorraine says, trying to gee things along.
‘Ooh yes, at Noosa Main Beach.’ Rose beams. ‘There’s a pack of hooligans who swimquitea way out. I’m not brave enough for that, but I enjoy what I do, up and down the beach.’
‘In the ocean?’ says Cora. ‘You will be eaten by sharks.’ From the look on her face Cora isn’t joking.
‘Jawsisn’t real, Mum,’ Mike says, chuckling. ‘Anyway, who’s for a softie? Rose?’
‘I think we need wine,’ Lorraine says, risking Cora’s opprobrium. Her mother-in-law thinks only alcoholics drink at lunch.
‘Good idea! Riesling okay for you, Rose?’
Her mother nods approval as Cora’s nostrils flare.
‘Gran, I made a book for you!’ Simon says to Rose, then he hops to his feet and runs off in the direction of his bedroom.
More nostril-flaring from Cora, but this time Lorraine doesn’t care. She’s touched that Simon would do something like that and, by the look on Rose’s face when he returns, so is she.
It feels like a small victory, although Lorraine isn’t sure over what. Cora isn’t her enemy, not really, even if it feels that way sometimes. But as she watches Terry keeping up his sentinel stance and Simon almost sitting on Rose’s feet, she wonders what they sense, her boys, and it makes her proud of them all of a sudden. Proud and a bit weepy, and she doesn’t want anyone to see, so she quickly puts down her glass and hurries into the kitchen.
And when Mike comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her, kisses the nape of her neck and tells her that he loves her, she can almost feel some of those weeds shrivelling up and dying. Even if she knows that tomorrow a few more will probably spring up.
AUGUST 1987
WHITE BEARD
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ifthis weren’t Queensland Cynthia would want a fireplace in this house, just for days like this when it feels so cold that she wants to stay curled up on the couch, her feet in socks and a scarf around her neck. Except itisQueensland and winter isn’t a recognised season here, so she opts for the socks only and a blanket over her knees as she gazes out at the fading afternoon light on the garden. She missed these colours when she was in Los Angeles, just as she missed the beaches and the birds and trees.
There’s nothing she misses about LA, which is why she left so much behind – she didn’t need to bring that life with her here. Besides, if she’d tried to pack up everything she owned there it would have taken longer to leave, which would have meant more time in which her ex-husband could behave even more badly.
The sound of the back door opening and closing tells her that her father has returned from the job he said he had to do. She turns her head and sees him walking slowly towards her with something tucked under his arm.
