if I knew how much. Bridget blushed every time she put a plate in front of me, and Molly banned her from serving in the dining room, whereupon Bridget burst into tears and had to be comforted. I bought her an ice-cream from the ABC and she left the empty cone on her dressing-room table for weeks. However, she was not readmitted to the dining room. That was Molly’s territory; she cooed and fluttered, big-breasted and blowzy, over dishes of vegetables, and Phoebe saw how she took such care with the arrangement of vegetables on my plate and also (a telling point this, for a woman raised in a poor family) that she gave me bigger portions, so
discreetly
bigger, so
marginally
bigger that they were, in Phoebe’s words “like brief eye contacts made between secret lovers, like the shadow of a moth passing across a night-time window”.
This was not only lost on me, it was lost on Jack as well. He did not notice that Molly folded my three pairs of socks, how she darned them when they holed, how carefully she placed my two clean shirts in my drawer, how she dabbed and brushed at my single suit coat.
Phoebe noticed. Sometimes her mother’s behaviour embarrassed her but she also shared her mother’s silent hurt when the subtleties of the vegetable servings were lost on me. I devoured them with the same indiscriminate passion I turned on all of life, whether it was the manager of the National Bank or a roast potato.
As for Jack and me, we got on like blazing houses. It would not have mattered a damn if I had had no snake or stories about aeroplane factories, in fact it would have been a damn sight better, but it is too late to alter the past and regret is a fool’s emotion. And while we built a thousand aeroplanes and charmed a lot of snakes, there was plenty else to keep us interested. We had as many theories as peas on our plates and talked with our mouths full and spilled our drinks with sweeping gestures.
“You were like a pair of love-sick jackasses,” Phoebe saidlater, “and you talked a lot of rot, but I loved you and I didn’t mind.”
“Isn’t it true,” Jack said, “that if Leichhardt had an aero, we’d have had none of the tragedy, none of the loss, poor chap.”
I pointed to the problems of landing, of clearing a strip, supplying fuel and so on.
“Ah yes,” said Jack, stamping his stockinged feet and wiping his chin, “but what about the parachute? Now there’s an idea.”
“Bourke was a poor policeman,” I said, “I doubt he could have managed it.”
“We’re not talking of Bourke, man, it’s Leichhardt. And in any case you’ve told me yourself, there’s nothing to it.”
“A bit more than nothing,” I said, “but less than a lot.”
“All right, granted,” said Jack, wiping up his gravy with grey Geelong bread, “a bit more than nothing.”
“And he was a big man too, and possibly slow-witted.”
“Leichhardt?”
“No, Bourke.”
“I never read anything that suggested it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t,” I said, being pleased to hear his ignorance was as great as mine. “But not all of it is published. He had kangaroos in his top paddock.”
“An expression,” Jack said, pushing back his chair and holding Molly’s hand, “I never understood.”
“It is clear enough,” I said. “Anyone with any presence of mind does not permit a kangaroo, or a wallaby for that matter, into his top paddock.”
Jack stroked his wife’s hand. He was always at it. Sometimes at dinner I would look and see father and daughter both stroking the mother’s hands, one on the left, one on the right.
“I have seen it,” Jack said, “on the best properties.”
“In exceptional circumstances.”
“Granted, yes. A tree across a fence in a storm.”
“Well,” I said, “you understand well enough.”
“I don’t like expressions,” Jack said, suddenly becoming serious, “that are like officious coppers, with no sympathy in them. The sort of expression like a beak throwing the book
discreetly
bigger, so
marginally
bigger that they were, in Phoebe’s words “like brief eye contacts made between secret lovers, like the shadow of a moth passing across a night-time window”.
This was not only lost on me, it was lost on Jack as well. He did not notice that Molly folded my three pairs of socks, how she darned them when they holed, how carefully she placed my two clean shirts in my drawer, how she dabbed and brushed at my single suit coat.
Phoebe noticed. Sometimes her mother’s behaviour embarrassed her but she also shared her mother’s silent hurt when the subtleties of the vegetable servings were lost on me. I devoured them with the same indiscriminate passion I turned on all of life, whether it was the manager of the National Bank or a roast potato.
As for Jack and me, we got on like blazing houses. It would not have mattered a damn if I had had no snake or stories about aeroplane factories, in fact it would have been a damn sight better, but it is too late to alter the past and regret is a fool’s emotion. And while we built a thousand aeroplanes and charmed a lot of snakes, there was plenty else to keep us interested. We had as many theories as peas on our plates and talked with our mouths full and spilled our drinks with sweeping gestures.
“You were like a pair of love-sick jackasses,” Phoebe saidlater, “and you talked a lot of rot, but I loved you and I didn’t mind.”
“Isn’t it true,” Jack said, “that if Leichhardt had an aero, we’d have had none of the tragedy, none of the loss, poor chap.”
I pointed to the problems of landing, of clearing a strip, supplying fuel and so on.
“Ah yes,” said Jack, stamping his stockinged feet and wiping his chin, “but what about the parachute? Now there’s an idea.”
“Bourke was a poor policeman,” I said, “I doubt he could have managed it.”
“We’re not talking of Bourke, man, it’s Leichhardt. And in any case you’ve told me yourself, there’s nothing to it.”
“A bit more than nothing,” I said, “but less than a lot.”
“All right, granted,” said Jack, wiping up his gravy with grey Geelong bread, “a bit more than nothing.”
“And he was a big man too, and possibly slow-witted.”
“Leichhardt?”
“No, Bourke.”
“I never read anything that suggested it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t,” I said, being pleased to hear his ignorance was as great as mine. “But not all of it is published. He had kangaroos in his top paddock.”
“An expression,” Jack said, pushing back his chair and holding Molly’s hand, “I never understood.”
“It is clear enough,” I said. “Anyone with any presence of mind does not permit a kangaroo, or a wallaby for that matter, into his top paddock.”
Jack stroked his wife’s hand. He was always at it. Sometimes at dinner I would look and see father and daughter both stroking the mother’s hands, one on the left, one on the right.
“I have seen it,” Jack said, “on the best properties.”
“In exceptional circumstances.”
“Granted, yes. A tree across a fence in a storm.”
“Well,” I said, “you understand well enough.”
“I don’t like expressions,” Jack said, suddenly becoming serious, “that are like officious coppers, with no sympathy in them. The sort of expression like a beak throwing the book
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