Spinning Around (14 page)

My lunches with Veronica happen about once a month. Since she's pretty much the only person I ‘do lunch' with, any more, I was experiencing a slight lift of the spirits as I wended my way to the elevator. Upon reaching it, however, I saw that the Commissioner was also off to lunch—and that had a dampening effect. She always manages to deflate me.

‘Hello, Helen.'

‘Hi, Diane.'

A pause. The damned lift seemed to have stalled on the mezzanine level. Diane's companion—a nondescript bureaucrat who was probably very important indeed—glanced at his watch. I racked my brain desperately for something to say that wasn't related either to crotch-grabbing or to the question of whether someone should be buying soy milk for the tearoom. Something a bit insightful, in other words. But it was Diane who finally broke the strained silence.

‘That memo you gave me,' she said. ‘About the gay man?'

‘Oh yes.' It had been in reference to the third sexual harassment complaint from the same government department in six months. ‘I thought it was worth looking into . . .'

‘I agree.' Diane spoke firmly. ‘That's why I think we should speak to the minister, you and I. Set up a meeting.'

‘Oh, okay.'

Bing!
The lift arrived. Naturally, I stepped back to allow my boss on first. Everybody does. She's that kind of person: tall, imposing, and
very
well groomed. Not a hair out of place— literally. In fact she sometimes reminds me of that Lady Penelope puppet in the
Thunderbirds
, because she has the same helmet of heavily lacquered hair (not to mention a slightly peculiar bottom lip). I'm told that when she was first appointed, she hired a style consultant who gave her a complete makeover. If so, that consultant was worth every cent. Diane's clothes are always spot-on, and her lipstick is to die for. I once asked her about the most
ravishing
persimmon-ish kind of shade, only to discover that it had cost her somewhere in the region of eighty bucks. Well, lipstick
is
very important. It's an integral part of femocratic power dressing.

In the lift, I had to stand breathing in Diane's perfume and pretending that I was fascinated by the indicator panel. Fortunately, some other people soon piled in, and they were very chatty. They talked amongst themselves about someone called Robert, who couldn't spell ‘appropriate' and took credit for everyone else's work, until we arrived on the ground floor. Then at last I was able to make my escape, and seek out Veronica.

Veronica works for the Family Court, in an administrative position. She does a lot of filing. I first met her when I was living in Paddington with Miriam and Briony; she was one of Briony's many and varied acquaintances, having briefly worked with Briony as a travel agent. In those days, Veronica was a little more wild than she is now. She wasn't above the odd one-night stand or hit of cocaine. She got pissed quite regularly, and suffered the inevitable consequences. (Huge and dramatic bust-ups with loser boyfriends, splurged rent money, monumental hangovers, a smashed car, crying jags, lost shoes.) But though she exhibited a lack of control in certain areas of her life, she was never fired after just five days on the job. Only Briony, it was generally agreed, could have achieved that kind of record. And she did it by starting work at a travel agency while she was in the middle of a massive romantic crisis.

‘Basically,' Veronica said, when I first met her, ‘she spent a solid five days on the phone to her bloke—what's his name? Justin?—having long, involved discussions about their relationship. She didn't do a
stroke
of work.' Veronica sounded almost admiring. ‘I only wish I had the guts,' she concluded.

‘Yep. Well—that sounds like Briony,' I sighed.

‘Actually, she did get off the phone once or twice, when she wanted to talk to me. She gave me the full run-down. Blow by blow. It's amazing—she's got total recall. She remembers every single thing he ever said to her. Is she always like that?'

‘Always.'

In fact, Briony not only remembered every word ever uttered by every boyfriend she'd ever had—she also enjoyed analysing the tone, pace and syntax of her conversations with the opposite sex. She would carefully weigh each sentence, picking out a concealed insult here, an equivocal choice of adjective there. It was her favourite pastime. We'd all found ourselves roped into long sessions over a glass of wine (in the evening) or a cup of tea (in the morning); it was like doing a lit. crit. tutorial, only lit. crit. tutorials don't usually finish up with a quick reading of the runes, which Briony kept in a little suede bag under her pillow.

She was a real ditzy one, was Briony. She seemed to have no sense of risk. I've already mentioned the big, shaggy guys she'd bring home, but that wasn't the half of it. At one stage she'd moved in with a gay guy under the (mistaken) impression that he was in love with her, and that she'd changed his orientation forever. She'd been caught trying to smuggle a Rolex, a necklace and a camera into South Korea, after meeting a dubious Taiwanese guy in a Hong Kong youth hostel. (She was simply expelled from the country, her possessions confiscated, but it was still a dicey venture.) She had a tendency to spend her money on French cotton underwear when the rent was looming, and to run up huge credit card bills buying smoked salmon for seaside picnics or tarot consultations when her love life was problematic.

I used to shake my head over Briony. I used to get together with Veronica and Miriam, and we would shriek about her latest excesses. Slowly, however, things have changed. Shortly after Matt and I began to live together, Briony took to hanging around the yacht club at Rushcutters Bay. There she met an extremely rich American, who took her off to the US with him on his million-dollar yacht. From then on news of her was scant but enticing. She was living with the American in Carmel, California. The American had dropped her, but she'd landed a job minding houses for some other rich people in Beverly Hills. She was going out with a Paramount script editor. The script editor had dropped her but an entertainment lawyer had taken up with her, and had installed her in his mansion. She was working in a high-class fashion store, where she'd met Demi Moore and Cameron Diaz.

Veronica has been the source of all these tidbits, because Briony keeps in contact with a friend of Ronnie's, called Samantha. That's one of the main reasons why Veronica and I get together once a month or so—to chew over the latest instalment in the Briony saga. Today was no different. We met in one of those subterranean coffee shops around Martin Place, where they serve things like microwaved chicken crepes and vegetarian focaccia. After ordering a ham and cheese croissant, Ronnie opened the conversation with a Briony update, informing me that Briony was now in Europe.

‘Europe!' I exclaimed. ‘Where in Europe?'

‘Florence,' said Veronica. ‘She met an Argentinian artist on a trip to New York, and now she's living with him in Florence. In a tiny little flat near some famous church—I can't remember the name of it.'

‘Oh, my God.'

‘And she's working as an artist's model.'

‘Oh, my God.'

‘Apparently she spends all her time in cafés with his artist friends, or staying at dealers' villas in the Tuscan hills. Can you imagine?'

‘I can, actually.'

‘Yeah. Me, too.'

‘She always had a thing about pre-Raphaelite clothes. You know—gauzy.'

‘Yeah. And that French cotton underwear. And all the cherubs on her photo frames.'

‘Yeah.'

There was a pause. I had suddenly been plunged into the most profound gloom; the thought of Briony flitting past the Duomo on her way to work, or draped over a hunky Argentinian artist in some smoky little café smelling of espresso and scampi, was almost too much to bear. For years I had regarded Briony as a disaster waiting to happen—as messy, impractical, dense, flaky and cursed with a terrible taste in men. For years I had derived some comfort from the belief that, because she had her priorities all wrong, she would end up stranded, like some sort of middle-aged castaway, without a career, without any savings, without a house, without children. Yet her terrible taste in men had led her straight to wealth and glamour; her lack of priorities had landed her in the most romantic of lives—a somewhat rootless existence, it was true, but inexpressibly cultured and dazzling.

I don't need this, was my first reaction. I can do without this, right now.

‘She always liked that Florentine writing paper you get in David Jones, remember?' Ronnie went on. ‘She went out to buy something at the Food Hall once—something for a party—and came back with that bloody paper. You told me about it.'

‘She's got the right hair,' I observed. ‘That Botticelli hair. I couldn't pull it off, myself, I don't have the right sort of hair.'

‘You reckon?' Ronnie was twitching for a cigarette, I could tell. ‘But look at my hair. Caroline Tuckett always said I had Titian hair, and what good's it done me? I mean, did Titian ever paint any pictures of Family Court administrative assistants? I don't think so.'

‘Yeah, but that colour isn't exactly yours, is it? I mean, come on.'

‘Anyway, it's a bit of a shock. I had to have a Bex and a good lie down, when I heard. What I'd give to earn my keep sitting around all day with my clothes off. It's not fair.'

Nevertheless, despite the unfairness of it, Veronica seemed strangely upbeat. There was an odd little gleam in her eye. She seemed jumpier than usual. Normally, she cultivates a kind of disillusioned drawl, which combines successfully with her tough-girl haircut, nicotine-stained fingers and long, sprawling legs to create the impression that she couldn't give a shit. Today, however, there was something different about her.

‘Are you all right?' I asked, after she had uncharacteristically knocked over the vase of wooden tulips in the centre of the table. ‘You seem a bit . . . I dunno . . .'

As I trailed off, a sheepish smile spread across her face. She lowered her eyes, rubbed her nose, and said: ‘Phil and I got engaged.'

‘No!'

‘Yeah.' The smile turned into a grin. ‘Yeah, we did it.'

‘But where's the ring?' I demanded. ‘You've got to have a ring, Ronnie, my God!'

‘Phil's mum's given me his grandmother's ring. But it didn't fit me, so we're getting it altered.'

‘Well I'll be damned.' It was big news.
Big
news. Ronnie and Phil had been living together for six years. Phil was a rangy redhead who worked for the National Parks and Wildlife Service; he was the silent rock against which Ronnie sometimes sharpened her wit. I'd always been well disposed towards him, but could never quite understand the dynamics of their relationship. Ronnie seemed so trenchant, on occasion, and Phil seemed so dull. I'd often wondered if theirs was a partnership based more on convenience than anything else.

Yet here they were, taking action. Moving forward. Getting hitched.

‘That's great, Ronnie.' I don't know how convincing I sounded; I was still reeling inside. ‘Have you set the date?'

‘Well . . . we were thinking the middle of next year.'

‘Really?'

‘He's got cousins coming down from England then, so . . . you know.'

‘Right.'

‘It won't be too big, but we'll have to make a bit of an effort or his mother'll never forgive us.'

‘Sure.' Phil was his mother's only child. A daughter had died in a car accident. ‘Well—I hope you've at least got room for me, or shouldn't I ask?'

‘Oh, I think we can squeeze you in. If you don't tease up your hair too much.'

‘You should invite Briony.'

‘Yeah.' Veronica laughed. ‘See if she turns up with the Argentinian.'

‘Oh, she won't do that. Not a chance. But you wouldn't want her to. Just send her a really posh invitation, with, like, the Right Honourable Lord Cedric and Lady Malmsey invite you to the wedding of their son, Philip Edward George William, and Miss Veronica Eklund, to be held at St Mary's Cathedral—'

‘—with dinner and dancing afterwards at the Sydney Opera House, right.'

‘And a note scribbled in one corner.
I know you probably
won't be able to make it, but maybe we'll see you in April, on our
six-month European honeymoon. Phil has some family vineyards
he wants to visit in Bordeaux
.'

We laughed together. Inside, though, I wasn't laughing. All I could think about was my own wedding, and how fantastic it had been: a perfect wedding. So how had I ended up where I was, in such a mess? Why had Ronnie decided to get married just as my own marriage seemed to be faltering? What kind of insidious timing was this, for God's sake?

I remember how, when Jonah was at his very worst and I was floundering about in an hysterical mist of fatigue, everyone around me seemed to be falling pregnant. I used to plaster a fake smile on my face as I congratulated my pregnant cousin, my pregnant neighbour, my pregnant sister-in-law, my pregnant former boss, biting my tongue and hoping that my dismay didn't show. I mean, who was I to cast a pall over their happiness? Who was I to start ranting about sleepless nights and postnatal depression?

So I pumped Ronnie for information about Phil's proposal (‘If we want to buy a house together, we might as well get married' was what he had said), and her wedding dress (‘a plain silk sheath and a wreath of flowers'), and her stance on garters (‘Not in a million years') and I said absolutely nothing about my troubles with Matt. I managed to rein myself in until I reached my office, after lunch.

Then I closed the door and rang Miriam at work. This time, she was there.

‘Hi,' I said, when she answered the phone. ‘It's me.'

‘Helen?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Oh God, Helen, I'm sorry.' She sounded contrite—almost flustered. ‘I only just got back to my desk. I was going to return your call—'