From Under the Overcoat (12 page)

IRENEFALTON’S MADE IT
to the door. She leans against it, her arms crossed against her little pointy bosom, her bony hips jutting forward as she scuff s at a mark on the step with her pale pink slipper. Henry’s hands are deep in his pockets and he rocks backwards and forwards on the heels of his shoes. They are both staring at the sky, squinting. Looking for rain clouds, maybe.

‘Look this way, if it’s a dark cloud you’re expecting,’ mutters Edna. She can do it without moving her lips.

Irene Falton and Henry Carson. If they both took one step forward — just one each — their thin bodies would lock together. They are made for each other. Edna almost wants them to do it — she wants to see how perfect it would be. Just the one step. Then back again, smartly.

BY THE TIME EDNA
got home from the bookshop, her hands were sweaty and her left arm ached, shoulder to thumb, from holding her handbag so tightly to her body.

Henry was watering the garden as she walked along the little path from the front gate to the unit. He smiled and flicked the spray in her direction. Edna didn’t bother with a side-step; he would never dare to wet her. She pulled herself tall and sucked in her stomach.

‘How was town?’ he asked.

‘Quiet,’ she said, pulling open the screen door and going inside.

In the cool, dim kitchen she put the kettle on and set her bag on the table. Her hand shook as she took the ticket from the bag. She handled it delicately, around the edges, like an old, precious photo.

The writing on the back was tiny; even with her reading glasses on it was difficult to make out all the conditions. Another bodily failure, she thought: the second in a single day. At this rate, she’d be completely disintegrated by dusk.

It appeared she had definitely won $100,000. In the case of the big prizes, the conditions said, you had to phone a number in Wellington. Phone, or email them. You made arrangements for payment that way. Edna smiled, imagining Miss Blanky Blank at the bookshop trying to count $100,000 out of the till. Trying to count full stop.

She read on. There was an expiry date but it was months away, nothing to worry about there. Nothing either about having to jump through hoops to collect the money. Though you would never know what might happen once you actually contacted them.

Outside the kitchen window, there was the sound of Henry’s voice. He talked exclusively to tomatoes.
Why on earth would you have a conversation with a lettuce?
he said, smiling, when Edna once asked about it.

Oh yes, aren’t you the gorgeous one
… Ridiculous really.
Come on now
…
let’s turn you around, sunshine’s the thing
… But it seemed to work, Henry’s tomatoes were stunners.
Beautiful
…
just the loveliest things, you are
… Edna liked
the sweet talk. Often she’d hang by the window to listen. Once, a while ago, she’d shouted out to him to stop
two-timing
her.

She got up from the table, the red Scratchy cradled in her hand, and opened the screen door. On the walk home, she’d practised how this moment might go.
What are you doing on Saturday, Henry Carson? Fancy a cruise?

Henry was crouched down at the tomatoes, gently picking green aphids off the leaves. He looked up at her, squinting into the sun.

His eyes travelled the length of her. Nothing as obvious as the morning’s expression, but plain enough to see. Already, Edna thought. Already, he’s learning to mask it.

‘What have you got there, sweet?’

Edna’s arm draped itself across her belly. Her fingers found her hip and hugged it close.

‘Nothing. Did you want a cup of tea?’ Her other hand closed carefully over the Scratchy.

EDNA’S PLEASED SHE PUT
the car window down earlier. It would be impossible now to unbuckle the seatbelt, lean over, turn the key in the ignition, flick the window switch, all the while pretending to be asleep.

‘It’s been a lovely weekend. It really has,’ Henry’s saying to Irene Falton. ‘We’d been talking about getting away for ages … you know, how you talk about these things, never quite get round to booking anything …’

‘I know
exactly
what you mean, Henry.’ Irene runs her hand through that great mane of hair, pushing it back off her pixie
face. No bed hair for Irene. ‘All the time, I get offers from friends.
We’ll look after the B and B, you have a break
… and do I take them up on it?’

‘Of course you don’t, Irene Falton,’ murmurs Edna. ‘Why give someone else first pickings of other people’s husbands?’ Edna’s hot and uncomfortable and now, because of Henry’s dilly-dallying, she needs to go to the toilet.

‘It was Edna who thought of it. She’s the one with the plans. If it were over to me, we’d never go anywhere.’

How long did he plead with her, to pack a weekend bag?
It’ll be good for you, Edna, a change of scene
. Eventually she gave in, knowing very well it wouldn’t be good for anyone. Except, as it turned out, a sliver of a tart named Irene Falton.

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed yourselves. Both of you. And you know, you’re always welcome back here. I always invite the nice ones back.’

Irene Falton is leaning forward, towards Henry. Oh my lord. Edna holds her breath, watches. Irene reaches out, rests her hand on Henry’s arm. On his bicep.

It looks like Irene Falton is going to kiss Henry on the cheek. But Edna can’t see what’s happening. Irene has positioned her face — her mouth — on the other side of Henry’s head. Between Edna’s eyes and Irene’s lips there is the obstruction of Henry.

Did she kiss Henry? Or did she whisper something in his ear? And which would be worse, Edna wonders. It’s quite the thing these days, a little kiss on the cheek by way of farewell. A kiss does not necessarily mean anything. A whisper would be another matter entirely.

‘Do you take guests all year round? Or just over summer?’ Henry asks, once Irene Falton pulls back. A little too loudly to be innocent.

‘For God’s sake,’ Edna says, though not loud enough to be heard. She flicks the seatbelt buckle open, relieving the pressure on her bladder. ‘Get your wallet out, Henry Carson. Pay the woman.’

HENRY WAS STILL CARRYING
on with the tomatoes. Edna went back inside, switched the kettle on again. She took pen and paper from the top drawer of the sideboard and sat down in the living room, away from her husband and his vegetables and the handbag with the Scratchy in it.

The thing on her mind was weirdness; degrees of it. Her lists often had the titles
For
and
Against
, but those categories didn’t gel in relation to the issues of this strange day. She settled for a single column, ranging from most weird to least. She’d go with gut feeling.

Pulling someone’s pants down in Main Street
.

She wrote that down first. What could be weirder? There’d be fallout, once Toby told his mother. Even if he didn’t, others in the street had seen the debacle. Edna felt obliged to acknowledge that regardless of circumstances; she was
fifty-seven
years old and should have known better.

Having your husband look you over like a piece of meat
, she wrote next. Mutton not eye fillet. Twice in one day. And it wasn’t lunchtime yet.

Winning $100,000
. Edna looked at it written down. Any other day, she thought. Any other day winning $100,000
would have seen her dancing for joy, reaching for the telephone to share the good news. But there it was. Number three on the list. Not a joyous thing at all.

Edna had a headache. She tore her list up into tiny pieces and threw them in the rubbish bin.

‘
ALL YEAR ROUND,
I
operate,’ Irene Falton says to Henry. ‘I can’t afford to turn anyone away. I need the income, being on my own.’

Edna thinks that quite possibly, her bladder will burst if Henry doesn’t move it. She shifts in her seat. The day is getting hotter despite the hour. Her dress is damp with sweat beneath her heavy legs.

‘It’s not easy, being alone,’ bleats Irene Falton.

Gordon Bennett. Get the violins out. Edna’s eyes are open, as wide as eyes can be. She’s looking at Henry and Irene Falton, and they are looking back at her. Smiling, both of them. Did she miss something, unbuckling her seatbelt?

Edna smiles back. What else can she do? Henry’s beckoning her. ‘You’re awake. Come and say goodbye to Irene,’ he calls out.

Easing her body sideways out of the car, she pulls the damp dress away from the backs of her legs. She hitches it down at the front, out of the crevasse between her bust and her stomach. Her legs are stiff after the sleep charade. ‘Mind if I use your bathroom, Irene?’

‘Go right on up, Edna.’

Irene steps back from the doorway, onto the step next to Henry. As though Edna is a Wide Load on the back of a
slow-moving lorry. ‘Top of the stairs, right down the end of the hallway.’

There’s plenty of evidence that Mr Falton provided nicely for Irene before slipping off the mortal coil. Lladro figurines everywhere. Edna counts seven in the upstairs hallway alone. They’re expensive, some of them upwards of $1000 a piece — Edna’s seen them in magazines.

One catches her eye — a slender, graceful couple
ballroom-dancing
. This particular piece has been gathering dust for years in the jeweller’s window back home on Main Street.

The woman’s dress flies out behind her, both her tiny feet are off the ground. Edna tries to imagine how it would feel, being so light that both your feet flew out behind you when you danced a waltz.

The bathroom’s right down the end, all the other doors leading off the hallway are closed. Edna doesn’t risk opening them, in case they squeak. She can still hear the conversation downstairs, through the open window in the stairwell.

‘Of course, business tapers off, over winter. But you’d be surprised, how many people like to take a break at the beach. Even if it’s cold.’

As Edna shuts the bathroom door, she imagines Irene Falton doing a little shiver, a little shimmy, in front of Henry, to illustrate how cold she gets in the middle of winter, all alone.