Grace's Table (13 page)

Jane pulled a
Don't ask me
face and took another sip from her glass.

‘At this rate it'll be three o'clock.' Susan tossed the empty jar into the bin.

Grace didn't think this the right time to mention recycling.

‘Sorry, sis. If I'd known I'd have made sure we got here earlier.'

‘Three's good,' Grace said. ‘After seventy years of watching the clock, it'll be good not to have to for a day. Here, let me finish that off, Susan. Take the weight off your feet.'

‘I'm fine. It's your party.'

‘And yours to enjoy as well.' Grace took the bag of corn chips Susan was opening from her and filled her daughter's hand with her untouched glass of wine.

‘What can I do?' Jane asked, looking around, brow furrowed and glass held up as though toasting the mess in Grace's kitchen.

‘You could refill Ada's glass.' Grace knew her friend would need it, should Richard move on to beta-blockers or respiratory inhalers.

‘I better do mine while I'm at it then.'

Susan sat down opposite Ada and sipped at her wine like a bird, looking every bit like she'd rather be elsewhere.

But Susan often looked like she had some place else she needed to be when at Grace's. Visits were regular but brief, though always pre-planned nowadays. And as a young woman, just as Grace had looked towards the day when she could leave Harvest, Susan had looked just as keenly to when she could leave her family home. It took no time at all for her to find a share house once she'd completed her teacher training and had secured her first job.

‘I'm gonna miss you, Susie,' Des had said with genuine sadness. ‘Who's gonna protect me from your mother now!' He'd laughed when he said it but Grace felt she'd gained a small victory from those words, because the laugh was thin and hollow.

Grace looked on with sadness too, the day Susan packed up the last of her clothes and loaded them into the boot of her Datsun. She remembered being shocked by this emotion, and not because she thought she'd be pleased to see her daughter leave home, but because for the first time Grace realised just how her own mother must have felt the day she'd left Harvest. Grace felt ashamed that it had taken her this long to realise it.

She'd tried to coax Susan to sit with her at the kitchen table for a short while before leaving, to have afternoon tea at the place where Grace hoped her daughter had felt her greatest sense of belonging.

Grace even remembered what cake she'd made – a moist carrot cake with plump, juicy raisins and the top frosted with snowy, cream-cheese peaks. One of Susan's favourites.

But Susan couldn't stay.

‘Sorry, Mum. The others are expecting me. They're putting on a welcome dinner for me tonight. I'll take the cake with me, though, for dessert.'

Grace put the cake into an airtight container, one she valued.

‘Bring the container back to me, won't you?' she'd said to Susan.

It surprised Grace that she'd give Susan this particular container – she'd never have considered giving it to anybody else. It was one she used regularly and would miss, even for a week. Later she recognised why: it would guarantee Susan return it and therefore Grace would get to see her.

Each time Susan visited, Grace would have another sweet treat ready to send off with her. But the containers weren't always returned as quickly as Grace would have liked.

Susan's packing had been easy – all done in two hours, having so few boxes.

Grace had tried to appear upbeat as her daughter put the last of her things in the car.

‘All grown up, eh?' she said, but then felt silly for saying it. Of course she was … a young woman now, able to live by independent means.

‘It was always going to happen.' Susan laughed. ‘That's what kids do … they grow up.'

Grace remembered the fear she'd felt upon boarding the train to leave Harvest. So uncertain, so alien was this proposed new life in the city that she briefly questioned the logic of her decision to leave at all.

Apparently there was no such uncertainty for Susan. ‘I can't believe it's finally happened!'

Grace supposed Susan wouldn't recognise the sadness in such departures till she herself was a mother.

She felt her daughter's absence acutely as she waved her off.

With Peter already left home a year earlier, Grace remembered thinking:
With Susan gone now, what's left?

But children must leave home to return to it with more. One came into Grace's kitchen now.

‘When's lunch? I'm starving,' chubby Tom asked.

‘Here's my big, strong boy,' Peter said. ‘Needing some fuel, mate?'

‘Oh, sweetie, can't you wait?' Jane ran perfect nails through Tom's imperfect hair.

‘Nah. But
these
look int-er-rest-ing.' Tom's fingers played together at being a miser's. He scooped up a fistful of Syrian nuts from the less valuable dish they'd ended up in and shoved the lot in his mouth. ‘Yuk,' he mouthed after a moment, and with some difficulty, to his mother.

Jane obliged her son with a paper napkin held out flat in the palm of her hand. Tom let the macerated nuts fall into it.

‘Curried nuts – disgusting,' he said, pulling a face.

‘Here, have a bread roll.' Jane took one from the wicker basket on the bench and thrust it towards him.

Tom took it and ran to the back door, leaving his mother with the napkin to dispose of.

‘Have you said Happ—' Peter called after him, but stopped with the slap of the screen door. He looked at Grace and shook his head. ‘Kids, eh?'

Jane busied herself with finding the bin.

Meg piped up from her seat at the kitchen table, ‘He's just being a boy, Daddy,' then went back to her colouring. ‘Just a silly boy.' She shook her head wisely as she filled in the spiralled horn on a unicorn's forehead with an orange pencil.

‘Well, we're lucky we've got you then, aren't we, princess?' Peter said, and he stroked her golden hair.

If she could, Meg would have purred like a kitten.

11

Jane considered herself an epicure. She would sample food believing her palate was capable of recognising greatness. But at the end of the day what she really tasted was brand – Lindt above Cadbury, Bonne Maman jam over Cottee's. Take the packaging away and Grace reckoned her daughter-in-law's taste buds were no better equipped to pick greatness than the next person's.

‘Divine salmon, Grace. Atlantic, I bet.' Jane took a second blini from the plate. Grace had prepared the small pancakes earlier, topped each with cream cheese, smoked salmon and a sprig of dill. ‘Good cream cheese too,' she said, lips rolling with pleasure. ‘Hard to beat the old Kraft Philly, isn't it?'

‘Actually, the salmon's from a bit further south, Jane – Tasmanian,' Grace said. ‘And the cheese is a home brand, but you're right, it is good.'

Jane gave Grace a well-I-never look and failed to take a third.

Susan, on the other hand, considered herself a food hack yet Grace thought her daughter was more the food connoisseur than any of them, and packaging never took priority above taste. ‘Tasmanian's good,' she said. ‘The right balance of salt and smoke. Pick one with an even texture, no zigzag splits in the flesh, not too pale, and you'll get the best flavour.'

They were sitting on Grace's back patio. They'd all agreed it was worth trying the outdoors given the heat inside the house. This had proved a good choice as a gentle easterly breeze came in across Grace's large backyard. Although it was still a warm wind, the air moved and the star jasmine vine latticing one side of the patio added its fragrance.

‘Jimmy reckoned smoked salmon was a food fit only for fish hooks.' Ada laughed. ‘He was a man of his time though – simple tastes, but no less appreciative for it.'

Grace remembered her friend's late husband as appreciative of everything.

‘I've got to agree with him, Ada,' Peter said, ‘not that I'd say my tastes were simple. But when it comes to smoked salmon – horrible stuff. Too slimy and fishy for my liking, Atlantic or otherwise.' Peter took a corn chip instead, and dipped it in the salsa.

‘You should learn to love it, Pete. It's full of omega-threes – nature's medicine.' Richard held up a blini to Peter and put it into his mouth whole, like a pill.

‘I've got nature's medicine right here.' Peter lifted his stubby of beer to Richard. ‘Which tastes a whole lot better than your omega-threes. And if it's chasing down a good piece of wagyu, then you won't see a happier man than me.'

From when Peter was young enough to understand there was a difference between vegetable and meat, Des had taught him that meat had priority above all other foods. It, and beer, had remained at the top of Peter's favoured foods ever since.

‘You are your father all over again,' Grace said, with some regret.

Peter looked torn between pride and anxiety.

‘You're killing me, woman,' Des had said to Grace once. He was eating a T-bone steak at the time, which covered three-quarters of his plate. He'd cut it into chunks, even the thick fatty edge, and dipped each into the salt bowl beside his plate before putting it into his mouth.

‘You could cut the fat off,' Grace suggested.

‘It's not the fat you're killing me with, it's the vegetables.' His laugh was deep, infectious. It was one of the things Grace had loved about him when they first met, this laugh that could trammel a bad mood.

‘You're killing yourself if you choose not to eat them,' Grace said, good-naturedly, though she was disappointed by the bad example he was giving to the three small faces at the table, two of which hung off his every word. Peter, Grace noticed, had already pushed his beans aside, just as his father had, and Susan looked torn between passing up something she liked and wanting to be part of the show. Claire gnawed on a bean she held in her chubby fist and looked from one person to the next, lost to what all the talk was about.

‘We don't need beans, do we, champ?'

‘Nope,' Peter said.

‘Nope!' Claire mimicked with a toothy grin. She held her bean up in the air like a charging horseman's sword.

‘And we certainly don't need cauliflower.' Des budged the white floret with his fork so that it rested alongside the beans.

Peter giggled behind his hand.

‘A man needs meat, though, doesn't he, mate? And spuds, of course. Those two'll keep a fella going forever.'

‘Spuds!' Claire shouted with joy.

‘That's my girl. Spuds!' Des reached over and ruffled Claire's hair.

‘Don't listen to your father, he's being silly. You eat everything on your plate. It's all good for you.'

‘Nup. Won't. Dad says I don't have to.' Peter crossed his arms over his chest.

Grace looked at Des, trying to implore reason with a stare. She mouthed please and he relented.

‘Come on, kids, you heard your mother, eat up your dinner.'

‘But you said—'

‘That's not fair if—'

Claire threw her bean at Des, hitting him on the nose. ‘Won't!'

‘I said eat up. Now!' Des brought the flat of his hand down with a crash on the table, which set the tomato sauce bottle rocking. Claire burst into tears.

‘I reckon I got his good looks.' Peter preened his hair now and beamed at his mother. ‘But I'm in much better shape than Dad ever was.' He moved his hands from his head to the front of his shirt, which he smoothed to reveal a far from flat stomach.

‘Yeah. Right,' Susan said. ‘And I'm Twiggy and Jane's Kate Moss.'

Jane giggled behind her wine glass.

‘How can you be in better shape?' Nick said. ‘From what you've told me, Grandad could carry a side of beef and not even strain with the weight of it. You're flat out carrying a briefcase and laptop without getting breathless.'

Those at the table laughed.

‘Very funny. Who are you to talk, anyway? What was the last thing you carried besides an esky holding a few poncy boutique beers or some arty-farty textbook round uni?'

‘I'm not the one telling everybody how fit I am.'

Peter came in with a quick mock punch to his son's arm. Nick saw it coming, but was too late to move aside and miss it. He flinched.

With a wink and a pointed gun-finger aimed at Nick, Peter said, ‘Still fit enough to beat you when it comes to reflexes, kiddo.'

Grace could remember a time when Peter wasn't so unkind. He had been given a tent for his eleventh birthday, as she remembered it. Des had promised to take him camping. Peter, still waiting, decided he'd camp in the backyard. He invited two mates round – Max, his best mate, plus another boy from school, whom Grace hadn't met.

The boys spent the afternoon erecting the canvas structure, muddling through the instructions, positioning tent poles at one corner then taking them down and repositioning them at another. She could hear a great deal of discussion, and not necessarily all of it in agreement, about what went where. Grace left them to it – and Des was at the races – figuring they'd sort their way through.

Eventually the tent stood proud, if not off-square, at the bottom of the garden. The boys came in then,
for rations
, they said, and made themselves sandwiches and jugs of lime and raspberry cordial. Grace remembered coming into the kitchen after them to find a trail of honey and jam across the bench tops and the little that remained of the high-tin loaf was off-square, just like the tent's corners. All that was left in the biscuit tin was crumbs, and a box of Roses chocolates she'd been keeping for a treat, and which Grace thought she'd concealed well behind a wall of Tupperware storage containers in the pantry, had gone. Camping was obviously hungry work.

It was getting dark and the boys announced they were going to sleep in the tent for the night. The other parents were notified, pyjamas and pillows were gathered together, and soon the tent glowed with the light of a kerosene lamp.

Des wasn't yet home – most likely at the hotel after the races – and Grace and the girls were happy enough to be inside for the evening, despite Claire's earlier attempts to be included that day, which were thwarted, repeatedly, by the boys with shouts of
Get lost!
or
No stupid girls allowed!

The loudest of the boys had been the one Grace didn't know. He was a hardy lad for his age, stocky, with crooked, home-cut hair. Peter and Max seemed to be in awe of this boy, acquiescing to his authority in a way she'd not seen either of them do before. She could hear him tell the other two what war game they would play next, of which he seemed always to be General, and he'd scoff at any suggestions of an alternative as
boring
or
for sissies
. Later, he told them where they were to position their bed rolls in the tent. He, declaring himself
the bravest
, would have the place at the tent's opening,
to keep guard
. Peter and Max didn't argue, though Grace thought them gullible to the other boy's clever engineering in securing the best place to capture a breeze in the hot tent.

Grace didn't like to admit it at the time, but she felt no fondness for this boy at all. She considered him to show all the traits of a bully.

Not even Grace got the full story from Peter when he came into the house about ten o'clock that night in tears, and this from a boy who rarely cried. It was something to do with the bully boy and urine and Peter not understanding how Max could have played a part in whatever it was that was done, laughed even, which suggested it was more than just a childish prank gone too far. Humiliation and betrayal seemed the more hurtful act, with no foreseeable way back from either.

Grace had tried to console Peter, held him close against her chest on the sofa, stroked his hair and told him that friends sometimes acted in poor judgement. Eventually he'd stopped crying but refused to go back out to the tent. Looking back, she wondered if she'd done enough.

Thankfully, Des was still not home as he would have told Peter to
toughen up
, or to
go thump the culprit
, trivialising it or ignoring the emotional hurt of a friendship betrayed altogether.

The next morning Max and the other boy had gone by the time anyone in the house had got up, leaving Peter no opportunity to redeem the events of the night before.

The incident marked a time of shift in what had always been a close bond between Peter and Max – they grew further and further apart from then on. And thankfully, the other boy never came to their home again.

Grace supposed such experiences from childhood contributed to the moulding of character, not being called the formative years for nothing. As to how much of Peter's putdown comments today were attributable to this and similar incidents as a child or from having learnt a lack of kindness from Des was anyone's guess. But what Grace did know was that sometimes it was difficult for her to recall this tearful and vulnerable boy when faced with the man.

‘Whatever makes you feel like a tough guy, Dad,' Nick said.

Grace offered the plate of blinis between the two men. ‘You like smoked salmon, don't you, Nick?'

Nick took one. ‘Thanks, Gran. And for the record, Dad, the esky's got poncy
soft
drinks in it. Zero blood alcohol for P-platers. Get with the times.'

‘Found ya!' rang out from somewhere down the backyard.

The younger grandchildren had been running from one hiding spot to another since they'd all moved outdoors. Grace reckoned their excited squeals were as much about being released from their own small garden plots as being with cousins. She'd never seen them enjoying the same games at their own homes. In Grace's backyard there were enough sheds and secret spaces to keep up a steady supply of new places to hide. Jorja moved between joining in on the game and sitting with the adults, keen to relinquish her role as child but not yet getting enough from adult company to keep her away from her younger cousins altogether. Nick shifted more comfortably between the two groups, as he was called in to help unearth a particularly clever hider from time to time, and then returned to the patio.

‘Don't know how they find anybody out there.' Peter looked down the long backyard.

His gaze travelled past Des's shed – used for gardening equipment now – the hen house, a trellis covered in a lush passionfruit vine. There were pawpaw trees, fruit hanging like old women's breasts, and three bamboo tripods still in place from last season's sweet pea. There was old corrugated iron – some sheets leant against fences, others formed a retaining wall to a mound of compost topped with recent lawn clippings. Empty plastic and ceramic pots were stacked along one fence; rolls of chicken wire and piles of timber stakes continued on from them. At the very end of the block was a large, blackened brick incinerator that hadn't seen a lick of flame in years.

It had all served a purpose at some time or another – and a lot of it still did – though Grace suspected to others it looked little better than years' worth of accumulated junk. It was a landscape she was familiar with; Pa's backyard had looked no different.

‘We should dump a heap of it out the front while the garbage strike's on. You'd get a better feel for how much land you've actually got then – realise its potential. Might tempt you to do something else with it then.' Peter indicated somewhere off in the backyard. What was behind him, her home, was excluded from the sweeping gesture.

Ada snorted. ‘Fortunately for Grace, and us, we're here to celebrate her birthday, not her relocation.'

‘Thanks, Ada,' Grace said and looked sharply at Peter.

Out in the garden it was Tom's turn. He did a rapid count to seventy for the next game – the designated number chosen by Meg in recognition of her grandmother's age. Each loud number blurred rapidly into a long rush of breath out and breath in.