Down in the City (15 page)

In front lay the pool, dark blue, thrashed to foam by hundreds of arms and legs. Strong swimmers churned across its width and divers struck its surface and disappeared. Boys stood on their hands on the sea bed and waved their legs in the air.

Only the faintest echo penetrated the tight white rubber cap so that the unheard cry from the smiling mouth, the soundless shouts, the vivacity and brightness under the shining sky, gave her a curious sense of being an invisible spectator at some eternal pageant. A sheet of glass or a world of time separated her from the players.

Stan's eyes were closed. She rubbed her legs with her hands; they were warm and dry again; fine salt moved under her fingers. Turning, she looked at the harbour behind her. Small white-sailed boats stood motionless in the hot air while a fast green ferry moved down on them, its outside upper deck crammed with faces and waving arms.

Esther looked away; she leaned her head on the railing and closed her eyes, but the light streamed through her lids. She sighed with satisfaction.

In dreams, at times, emotions have a deeper pulse, come from a purer stream, and consequently differ in degree from conscious feeling. To a similar degree Esther's love for Stan had been extended by unhappiness and comprehension of its cause.

Summoned by Laura's curiosity of a few minutes before, the scene played out again in front of her. She could hear Stan's hopeless voice, see the pattern made by his story.

‘I don't like the way I am, but it's too late—I can't help it,' he had said, struggling, for once in his life, to reach some truth, some understanding of himself.

Esther had listened in silence, shocked by the inarticulate complexity of his defence. That there was no single reason to account for his behaviour of the past weeks at first terrified her. That there were half reasons by the score taught her that her previous knowledge of him had been superficial.

She opened her eyes and splashed her legs vigorously, dismissing her thoughts.

Her sudden movement disturbed Stan, and he stretched and yawned noisily. ‘How are you, honey?' he asked.

‘All right. How are you?' she smiled.

‘Fine…Do you know you splashed me just then? Look!' He pointed to some drops of water on his chest. ‘Maybe I should push you in for that.'

‘I hate to go in feet first.'

‘Well, I'll let you off this time because there just happens to be something about you I like. So you're lucky!'

They smiled at each other and stayed there talking for a few minutes longer, trying to decide on their afternoon's entertainment.

‘Are you
sure
you'd like to go to the races?' Stan said. ‘I'd be just as pleased to do something else…Palm Beach.'

‘No, no, the races. You'd like it best and I've got a new hat. Besides, I like the races.'

They stood for a moment before diving in again.

‘Isn't that young Rachel over there? Look! Just coming out of the water,' Stan said. ‘Green costume.'

‘Oh yes. She seems to be going up to Laura. That's Signor Roberto with her, I think.'

‘Signor!'

Luigi and Rachel walked along the beach.

‘Do you mind?' she asked, as she waved back to Laura.

‘I look forward to it,' said Luigi.

Rachel glanced at him and felt still with happiness.

‘What is it I must remember about Mrs Maitland?' he asked.

Rachel smiled vaguely. ‘Oh, just that she's as nice as she pretends to be. In a way,' she added, ‘she underestimates herself.'

Listening to Laura, Luigi thought it was probably a fair statement. Sitting on the shingle beside her, they were her guests—the beach belonged to her. She was the hostess whose duty it was to radiate, and she did, giving a stimulus and pleasure that were out of all proportion to anything that was said or done. They all enjoyed themselves.

Rachel looked from one to the other, thankful that Laura had not decided to tackle Luigi about Abyssinia, hoping that he would not be over-charmed, chiding herself for this when she caught his eye.

‘Well, Miss Demster.' Laura turned to her suddenly. ‘What's this I hear about you? Your aunt tells me that when you're not out at night with this young man, you're busy studying. Are you responsible for this?' she asked Luigi.

‘Indirectly,' he said, turning to look at Rachel. ‘I may have acted as catalyst.'

‘Catalyst?' Rachel blinked, baffled.

‘Ah!' Laura exclaimed, and laughed while she tried to guess his meaning. Failing, she said flatly, ‘Well, it wouldn't do for me! I think you're both very foolish. You should dance and go to parties and leave all the studying to the clever ones.'

Luigi smiled and said, ‘You are right, in a way, of course, but we…'

‘Well, I think I can say that I'm a few years older than either you,' Laura said cheerfully in explanation.

Just then Bill came back with Anabel, who had been in the water again. She cried out with excitement when she saw Rachel with her mother and, hugging and tugging, did her best to commandeer Rachel's notice. Quite soon the two were engaged on a castle, and the others watched and smiled, agreeing wordlessly that it was, indeed, a very pretty picture.

Glancing at Luigi, Laura conceded that, for an Italian, and in the quiet way she rather liked, he was charming. And he had a nice face, and spoke English well.

‘Pauline and Bob aren't coming down today, Rae?' Bill asked.

‘No, poor things, they're visiting. They're going away for a holiday soon, though. Tasmania—for a month. There you are, sweetie,' she said to Anabel. ‘Isn't that a lovely castle?'

‘You'll be alone in the flat?' Laura asked.

Looking up from her tunnelling, Rachel said, ‘Yes, but I don't mind that.'

‘Of course you don't. Still, you must come and have some meals with us, mustn't she, Ani-Anabel?'

The Petersons passed on their way home and stopped briefly to talk. When they had gone, Laura said, ‘We must move in a moment, too, or our child will be sunburnt—not to mention her mother!'

Extremely reluctant, Anabel had her sandals buckled on and her red-and-white checked sunbonnet tied. She had to say goodbye to her castle with its cool, damp tunnel where Rae's hand had come through to catch hers. Just when they had been starting to dig something called a moat she was taken away, and Rae was left sitting there with the castle on one side and that man on the other.

‘Goodbye, darling.' Laura patted Rachel on the head, her voice rich. Youth—Rachel in love. Life was endlessly interesting.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Summer ran through its repertoire. It brought fresh sunny days, disastrous rains and thunderstorms, heat that lasted for weeks, heat that lasted for a day and bowed at sunset to the onslaught of a ‘southerly buster'.

The country drought contrived to ruin a few small farmers, but, curiously, left those who counted thousands by hundreds no poorer. While world affairs trod the same serious circle, small boys fought over precedence at drinking bubblers in burnt-up parks. Freckled, shaggy and gap-toothed, they whooped and racketed at every beach and pool for miles around the city, escaping from school whenever they could.

The daily journey to shop and office and factory went on although brains lazed and ambition died. The air-conditioned oases of restaurant and cinema made life bearable for those who had leisure, and there were few who lacked a moderate share.

In florists' windows exotic flowers hung in waxy beauty, scented and cooled a space of air outside the shops in a subtle form of advertising that compelled attention from the passerby. And in the streets, women in big straw hats that cast warm patterns of light and shade on skin, walked in thin high shoes, their dresses circling in the breeze.

Moist sea-winds dimmed brasses from the East. Housewives polished the bloom from their furniture, and shop windows were rubbed with soft cloths, but still the sea-mist settled and clouded the shine. It salted the lips and straightened the hair while it gladdened the spirits.

Earnest and snubbed, the old-young New Australians went unsmiling through the streets, despising and fearing the lotus-eaters among whom they now lived, despised and feared by them.

‘They do not know life. They do not know what life is,' they told each other, and envy took its place beside contempt. They bent over their work with determination and ignored the heat and the happy laughter outside. But everyone else knew that summer had no end.

At this time Stan had worked out a new routine that involved leaving home early in the morning so that he could return correspondingly earlier and spend more time with Esther. Even so, his programmes of orders, collections and deliveries, and the visits to the factory occupied him until the afternoon. He counted on being in by three o'clock. Then came the ritualistic greetings that had begun after the reconciliation and not yet petered out, and the first drink of the day, together, drunk with the same air of consciousness.

A sense of grace, a surprised sense of the pleasure of living, had appeared in Stan since he and Esther had come together again. He valued small things, and content, and relaxation: he seemed to have stumbled on a dimension of life that had previously been outside his range. Whether this was brought on by relief, or by some other cause, he did not try to discover. He saw it as a reward for good behaviour, a compensation for growing old. There was about this settled state a feeling of permanence and reliability which was something entirely new.

‘This is living!' He said it often as he stretched out beside Esther on the balcony. ‘It takes a man a long time to wake up to himself, but when he does…' And they would smile at each other.

Every morning after Stan had gone, Esther tidied and dusted and planned dinner. Sometimes then she put on a bathing costume and lay in the sun, but just as often she met Laura and they shopped together, smartly dressed and prosperous—Laura sensitively aware of the life in the crowded streets; Esther apparently interested, actually dreamy and inattentive, living for the afternoon.

Guessing this, Laura taxed her with it one day, saying, ‘No one could adore her husband more than I do Bill, but when he isn't with me (though God knows I wish he always were) I make the best of it and enjoy myself. That way I have things to tell when he comes home at night and I'm not leaving all the entertaining to him.'

‘You're very sensible, Laura,' Esther said, and Laura, incredulous and indignant, thought: Really, I believe the woman's shy about discussing her blessed Stan.

It was by no means the first time she had been forced to this conclusion, but its ultimate recognition never ceased to frustrate her.

Whichever way you looked at it, Esther was a disappointment. She would say goodbye and go upstairs when the shopping was done, so charming, so polite, but not caring that she went. Cold-natured. Rather hard.

Yet even as she made this judgement Laura denied it, for she was finding, as she knew her better, much that was warm and endearing in Esther's nature. They laughed together a lot.

Esther had a youthful self-mocking quality which showed itself when, eyebrows an inverted V of incredulity, she would tell some story against herself—of absent-mindedness, of misplaced or misinterpreted sensibility—not trying to make an impression but being amusing, being herself. So that, even while Laura asked herself with cold scientific interest what made Esther tick, some side of her personality found Esther's light and undemanding manner infinitely refreshing.

But here you were; again today she had gone off as soon as they reached home, saying, no, thank you, but she wouldn't stay to share Laura's lunch, for she had to organise herself for the dinner engagement that she and Stan had tonight with Clem and his girl friend, Erica.

The organisation, sounding so weighty, consisted of nothing more difficult than confirming an already-taken decision to wear the short white evening dress. And this was done almost before she had gone five steps from Laura's door.

After that, a telephone call to Marion, one from Clem, watering the trail of ivy that fell down the white wall opposite the windows, three cigarettes, and a solitary lunch filled in the time until Stan came home.

And then, after having so much time, they stayed out on the balcony talking until they had to rush to shower and dress. At least, Esther dressed swiftly, but Stan, who had been in high spirits all afternoon, moved in a slow preoccupied haze between bathroom and bedroom, his hands apparently working without co-operation or assistance from his mind.

Noticing, Esther said nothing. He would be ready soon, and if they were a little late it would be no calamity. She stepped into her dress and lifted it carefully.

Stan stood watching her. He said suddenly, ‘Est…'

‘What?…Oh, would you help with this zip, please, pet?…That's it.' She sat down at the dressing table and Stan stood behind her, watching her hands as if hypnotised while they found the mascara and started to apply it. ‘What were you going to say, darling?'

He put his hands in his pockets and walked away, coughing slightly. ‘I was wondering today—well, I've been thinking about it for a while now—I've been thinking that you might like it if we set up house in a big way. You know—here somewhere or on the north shore. Nice garden and so on. What do you think?'

She looked at him, surprised. ‘Buy a house, Stan?'

‘Well, you know, this place is all right for a while, but look at this room—the size of it—and so damn stuffy in this weather. You should have a place where you could ask people over for dinner. Nice garden and so on. Good furniture. You'd know what to get.' He appealed to her and she murmured, ‘Yes, yes. We might like that,' while she tried to see behind his restless eyes to the point he obviously had not reached. They stared at one another in silence for a moment, trying to communicate without words, but at last Stan jerked away and laughed, shame-faced.