Other People’s Diaries (22 page)

T
he nights were hers.

It was the one time when Alice didn't clean benches or pick up errant shoes. And the hallway was mercifully free of whining calls of ‘Muuum …' The downside of hours spent awake while everyone else slept was obvious. She'd regret it in the morning when her eyes felt as if they'd been dragged through the sandpit. But while she was awake she felt as though she were in a dream-like bubble.

There was a ritual to it. Once she'd accepted that sleep had slipped from her grasp, she'd slide out of bed and pull the bedroom door shut behind her.

This was the only time she didn't wear shoes and her bare feet would sink into the carpet pile on the steps as she made her way downstairs. She'd flick on a light, not the fluorescent light but a soft lamp, and pull a milk carton from the fridge.

She'd pour the milk into a saucepan and set it on the back of the stove. It took longer than the microwave, but she loved this time. These few minutes while she looked out the kitchen window into the black silkiness of the night and up to the cool glow of the moon.

Milk warm, she'd tip it into a thick mug and curl up on the sofa. No newspapers or school notices to read now. This was when she read a novel – something enthralling that took her
away to other worlds and lives. This was how reading used to be – hours which disappeared like minutes lost in a story that was more real than her own. Not even close to the five minutes she'd manage each evening before giving up, too tired to even hold up the book.

The last sip of milk was always cold by the time she'd stretch her legs back to the floor and close her book, folding over a corner of the page. No bookmarks – she'd given up on them years ago, tired of having successive toddlers delight at throwing them to the floor. She'd flick off the light and make her way back through the warm darkness, eyes accustomed to the faint light by the time she reached the bottom of the steps.

She'd stop at the boys' room, breathing in their energy that had been set aside for the night, to be taken up again with their first awake breath of the morning. Then at Ellen's room. In sleep the years seem to slip off. Alice would stand there, drinking in the sight of her daughter looking as she had when boys had still been evil beings who brandished sticks in her direction.

Finally she'd walk back to their bedroom, gently turning the handle to avoid its click waking Andrew. She'd slide beside him, touch her fingers to her lips and run them over the back of his hand. Each time it occurred to her to wonder why she'd never think to do that if he was awake.

Then she'd close her eyes and try to reclaim the sleep which lay heavily over her family.

Tonight, though, the ritual didn't work. As she touched Andrew's hand, her stomach twisted, milk sour in the back of her throat. She slid out of bed again and walked downstairs. Tonight the darkness was threatening, not benevolent, and she turned on the overhead lights to banish the shadows. Finally she sat down at the computer and logged on.

Megan had uploaded some software and changed the format of the website. Alice was now the proud owner of a ‘blogger page' to which everyone who had the password could add their diaries. She had to admit it did work much better this way.

Kerry, though, continued to communicate with Alice via email and his latest message was sandwiched between one from
the school P&C and a confirmation of an order for a new dishwasher.

He had been frank about his sex life in the initial questionnaire.

The only women I felt comfortable sleeping with after Sandra and I broke up were cougars – at least there are no possible issues with commitment. But I got tired of that pretty quickly
.

Alice had asked him what a cougar was in an email yesterday.

She opened his email now and re-read his response.

Cougars are the women you meet in dark bars. The women who look as though they've come down from the mountains to take a mate for the night. The kind that don't want you to stay until morning. The exact opposite of you …

Alice knew that letting Kerry continue to think she was single was unfair. She also knew that she was betraying Andrew. Exchanging this type of email was just as wrong as if she were having real conversations with Kerry.

She clicked on the reply button and typed a quick email telling Kerry she was married – apologising for not having told him before. But with her finger poised over the send button, Alice pictured the next day, and the day after that. Long hours in her suburban house, providing for a husband and children who seemed only to care about what she did for them. There had to be more to life than this.

Alice read Kerry's words again, feeling that long-forgotten thrill creep up her spine. Slowly her finger moved to the delete button and she watched her words disappear from the screen. She typed new words:
Perhaps if you did see me in the morning you'd wish you'd left in the night!! Sleep well …

T
he maître d' looked up as Lillian opened the restaurant's front door. His steel-grey hair had been cut in a precise line against his head and his black suit was definitely not off the rack.

‘
Bonjour madame … mademoiselle
,' he greeted each of them with a polished smile.

Lillian had told Kyla she wanted to go somewhere special to commemorate her mother Nessie's birthday. Now that they were here, though, Lillian wished they'd chosen somewhere less intimidating.

The restaurant was in a huge white building, perched like a squat wedding cake on a sweeping gravel drive. Only a ten minute drive from the Eiffel Tower, it was in the middle of a forest and seemed a world away from the tourist bustle they'd come from.

And if it was one world away from the Champs Élysées, it was at least five worlds away from the Spring Moon, the Chinese restaurant which had been Lillian's sole dining experience until she was about forty.

‘
Bonjour monsieur
,' Kyla answered breezily.

Lillian felt relief that Kyla had dealt with the initial greeting, and then shame that she was relying on her daughter. She pulled herself up. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. She
was going to take it as a compliment to herself that she'd brought up a daughter who could take this in her stride.

‘
J'ai une réservation pour Grant
.'

The maître d' smiled welcomingly. ‘
Oui, mademoiselle
. This way please.'

He hadn't even looked at the reservation book and, despite herself, Lillian felt important. From the sidelong smile Kyla threw at her, she felt the same.

They followed him through the cavernous reception area, moulded plaster cherubs encircling the ceiling. The dining room and the small one beyond it were totally empty. Twelve o'clock was clearly the time for lunch. No one other than a naive suburban Australian mother and daughter would arrive fifteen minutes before that. They'd had trouble getting taxis over the last few days and Lillian had insisted they leave with plenty of time. That of course had meant that they'd picked up a taxi immediately and arrived here too early.

The maître d' offered them a choice of tables – none near the window though, Lillian noticed. Clearly they were reserved for those with enough class to know what time lunch started.

Lillian sat in the chair pulled out for her and, with clammy fingers, flattened the glowing white linen serviette which had been laid solicitously on her lap.

The ceilings soared above them. Heavy butter-yellow drapes framed the huge glass doors which led onto a terrace but today were closed against the unseasonably cool autumn weather. Thick cream carpet extended across the room and she had a sudden vision of what it would look like with a glass of red wine spilt on it.

Kyla leaned across toward her. ‘Mum – relax. You look like you're expecting the guillotine.'

Lillian managed a smile before a waiter returned with their menus. Kyla opened hers briefly and reached across to her mother's.

‘Excuse me. Yep, I thought so. You and I need to swap menus.'

She exchanged the heavy books.

‘Yours had the prices, mine didn't,' she answered her mother's inquisitive look. ‘I figured it was better the other way around.

‘Phew …' she exhaled. ‘I was right.'

‘Really, is it horrendous?' Lillian asked worriedly.

‘Not at all, it's very reasonable,' Kyla lied blithely. ‘Order what you want. Actually,' she corrected herself, ‘let me order. I have an idea.'

The waiter returned so silently Lillian wondered if he'd been hiding behind the metres of curtains. ‘Would you prefer that we speak in English?' he asked.

‘
Non, merci
,' Kyla answered. ‘
Je ne parle pas bien français, mais j'essaye
.'

She smiled at Lillian. ‘That means that my French is lousy but I try. It also means I can order anything I like for my unsuspecting mother and she won't be able to complain.'

The waiter's practised smile softened into something more genuine. ‘
Très bien mademoiselle. Est-ce que vous avez choisi?
'

‘
Oui … le menu dégustation, s'il vous plaît
.'

He nodded, without writing anything down. ‘
Merci mademoiselle
.'

‘You know, I'd pay anything in a place where everyone calls me mademoiselle,' Kyla whispered as the waiter disappeared as quietly as he'd arrived. ‘In Australia I'm thirty and not married, which equals sad and desperate. Here I'm a mademoiselle. Is it any wonder the French consider themselves more civilised than everyone else?'

Many times over the past week, Lillian had been awed at how well Kyla fitted into this alien world. When she'd first come through immigration at Charles de Gaulle Airport she'd scanned the crowd unsuccessfully for her daughter. It wasn't until Kyla had waved wildly and hurried toward her that she saw her. In her long cream trench coat, and with a hair cut that could not have been done anywhere but Paris, she blended in perfectly with the locals.

Lillian looked at her now. Her blonde curls were cropped to jaw level and her hazel eyes were large and clear. Kyla had grown into her looks in the last ten years. She was still not beautiful,
Lillian's nose guaranteed that. But with the French chic she'd acquired, she was definitely very attractive. Kyla maintained that her French was awful, but to Lillian's ears it was extraordinary. She had taken several days of holidays since Lillian had arrived and had shown Lillian around the city like a local.

Looking at her daughter, Lillian felt a surge of pride. Kyla's job was based at the Sorbonne, Paris's largest university, recruiting foreign students for Australian universities. She'd come for a year and had been so successful that she was still there three years later. Being with her again, slipping almost instantly back into their loving relationship, Lillian realised how much she had missed having Kyla near her.

‘Now,' Kyla continued, ‘I ordered the full degustation menu – about seven courses, I think. It'll take most of the afternoon, but there's nowhere we need to be and I have a feeling Nana would approve.'

Lillian felt sick at how much this would cost, but another waiter appeared at their table before she could say anything.

‘
Voulez vous un apéritif?
'

The only word that Lillian recognised was ‘aperitif ' and immediately her mind flashed to the McWilliams dry sherry she'd drunk for years as a before-dinner tipple. She couldn't remember exactly when people had stopped drinking that – long enough ago to make it very uncool now. A smile curved at the corners of her mouth at the thought of it.

‘I thought this occasion called for champagne,' Kyla said as Lillian returned from her 1970s reverie.

The waiter returned, pushing a silver trolley bearing four ice buckets.

‘You're kidding,' Kyla muttered under her breath. ‘It's a bloody champagne trolley – we get to choose which champagne we want!'

Sure enough the sommelier lifted each bottle of champagne, the accompanying descriptions lost on both of them.

Lillian had noticed that one of the champagnes was pink and caught the word ‘rosé'. It seemed like a good enough differentiating factor.

‘Ah, the rosé,
s'il vous plaît
,' she managed haltingly.

Kyla chose the same and they lifted their glasses in a toast.

‘To Nana,' Kyla said.

‘To Mum,' Lillian replied.

She thought of Nessie and various scenes flashed through her mind. Easter-egg hunts where her mother had led balls of wool from each child's nest back to their bedroom. The birthday cards she used to sketch for each of them. Her mother straightening from digging in the garden and leaning on the pitchfork to survey the flowerbed.

Kyla was looking closely at her. ‘This is supposed to be a celebration, Mum. Don't be unhappy.'

‘I'm not, darling,' Lillian said truthfully. ‘I am so glad that Mum died before she got too sick and before she couldn't live with me any more. It was the right time. If she can see us, I know she'd be delighted.'

‘I hate to think how many bottles of instant coffee this bill would cover,' Kyla mused.

Lillian laughed. Nessie had never shaken the habit of economising, which she'd learned painfully during the Depression. She'd pore over the supermarket catalogues when washing powder and coffee were on special and wheel her trolley to Coles and stock up. It didn't matter that she was the only one who drank instant coffee, or that Lillian and Nessie's washing was minimal. A bargain was still a bargain as far as Nessie was concerned.

Any time Lillian objected to the pile of jars at the bottom of the pantry, Nessie would shake her head. ‘They won't go off, Lillian. You'll use them, trust me. At that price, it's a crime not to buy them.' It had been eighteen months since she had died and Lillian still had a cupboard full.

Kyla interrupted Lillian's thoughts. ‘Well, I've done a bit of wining and dining since I've been here, but this is definitely the fanciest place I've been to.

‘I was chatting to the head of my department at a function last week …' She stopped suddenly. ‘Actually, that was a lie,' she corrected herself. ‘I was haltingly speaking to him in French the other day and told him I wanted a nice restaurant to take you to
lunch. He immediately said this was where we had to come and wouldn't even suggest anywhere else.'

She looked around. ‘He's done well.'

Lillian took another large sip of her champagne. She sat the crystal glass back on the table, watching the delicate baby pink bubbles shimmer in fine lines to the surface. She could feel the alcohol whispering through her limbs, simultaneously relaxing and enlivening her. It occurred to her that the last time she had drunk champagne was at Alice's evening. An urge to tell Kyla about that and about her illness struck her, but she pushed it away. This was a time to celebrate that she was here today – drinking pink champagne in a ridiculously fancy restaurant with her daughter.

She smiled at Kyla. ‘I am very glad to be here,' she said simply.

‘Me too, Mum,' Kyla replied.

They looked at each other for a moment and Lillian thanked the divine hand that had given her this daughter.

‘Now admit it,' she smiled. ‘You're very glad that you didn't get that tattoo.'

Kyla laughed suddenly. A man at the closest table turned his head and Lillian realised that almost a third of the restaurant was now occupied. Lillian met the man's eyes, feeling guilty that they'd broken the decorous murmur which was the only noise she could hear. But instead of a disapproving frown, the man was smiling slightly. He was seated at one of the tables next to the windows and had paused in the act of handing his menu to a waiter. Lillian smiled in reply and turned back to Kyla.

Their champagne disappeared quickly and was replaced by a bottle of white wine Kyla ordered.

The sommelier filled two glasses, draped the neck of the bottle with a linen serviette and placed it reverently in a silver ice bucket.

‘That's the thing about places like this,' Kyla whispered as he left. ‘They treat our wine, which happens to be the cheapest on the menu, the same way they would something that cost ten times the price.'

A pair of waiters arrived simultaneously, distracting Lillian from any reply.

They placed a silver chalice in front of each of them and disappeared as quickly and quietly as they had arrived.

The food in front of Lillian looked like some type of sculpture, rather than something to be eaten. A bright green puree had a wafer balanced in it at an amazing angle and was surrounded by a tangerine froth.

‘Don't ask me what it is, because I have absolutely no idea,' Kyla pre-empted. ‘One of my reasons for choosing the degustation menu was that I didn't have to try and make sense of all the choices.'

Lillian dipped her spoon into the dish and put a small amount of the food into her mouth. The flavours spread across her palate.

‘I don't think it really matters what it is,' she said. ‘It's absolutely amazing.'

‘It's so good to have you here, Mum,' Kyla said. ‘I've been worried about you since Dad died.'

‘It's been a big change,' Lillian acknowledged. ‘He was such a good man and a wonderful husband and father.'

‘Mum …' Kyla started tentatively.

Lillian looked at her.

‘Dad was a great man – we all loved him. But you know, he wasn't perfect. He was great when he was around, but when he was in la-la medical land it was like we didn't count. None of us.

‘Do you remember that time when I ran in the Queensland Athletics carnival?'

Lillian nodded. ‘Your dad didn't make it.'

‘No,' Kyla said. ‘I pretended it was okay, but really it wasn't. That was a huge thing for me and he was stuck giving some damn paper somewhere.'