The Amateur Science of Love (18 page)

The Donna lunch was barbecue-style, the cooktop sizzling like tap water running. A dozen people were arced around it, squinting at rissole smoke and decrying the lack of government research into declining wild bee populations. All the money pouring into genetically modified produce—it was a scandal. Mankind was going to make nature unnatural. These were alternative-lifestyle types who farmed alpacas or goats and lived in mudbrick houses built with their own amateur hands.

Tilda and I were out of place in our nice jeans, our clean Adidas runners. The men wore workman shorts and leather sandals, their dusty toes bulging through. They held beers like microphones kept handy for swigging, for laughing louder into each new bottle. The women wore frocks so expansive it was hard to tell if they were expecting or had let themselves go. I could not picture Donna with this crowd as friends. She was more like us in her black denims, her blue blouse with frill collar. Red leather boots with wineglass-stem heels that pocked the dirt like footy sprigs as she tended the grill. Tilda had more makeup than her, too much in fact—it looked like she was trying too hard. If she was hoping to put Donna to shame she was doing the opposite. For all her red boots Donna was just naturally better—more beautiful, I mean. She had no need of blush and eye shadow. She had no fat arm getting fatter by the minute because the sleeve was left off as an experiment for socialising.

I didn’t contemplate this at the lunch itself. I didn’t think she was competing with Donna—the older woman attempting to outshine the younger, radiant belle. But the Swahili between us rings true. Especially given her Archibald entry was a failure. It didn’t even make the first cut. She was embarrassed but bluffed it over with anger. ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know with these things. You’ve got to be sleeping with someone or brown-nosing the judges to win prizes.’

Such statements make a failure look bitter. Saying them at a barbecue makes people clear their throats and blink in search of a different line of conversation. I provided it by pursuing the topic of genetics. I’d been guzzling wine and it fired me up for a performance of big-noting. ‘This genetically modified foods issue you’ve mentioned. We shouldn’t be too quick to slam it. Not if it’s going to stop starvation in the world. No famine—wouldn’t that benefit humanity?’

I received frowns and muffled guffaws. One fellow swigged his microphone and spoke so close into it he produced an echo. ‘Not if all nature is mutated.’

I rose onto the balls of my feet and returned his frown. ‘Science deserves more credit than that.’

‘Are you a scientist?’

‘No, I’m a reporter.’

‘Reporter?’ His scoff blew another echo from his bottle.

‘I’ve written a thing or two on this subject for the
Wheatman
. I’m their specialist grains person. Trials conducted at Ouyen and Boort predict a trebling of tonnage per hectare if growing oilseeds or wheat using genetic modification. The plants become drought-tolerant which, in the growing process, conserves thirty parts per millimetre of natural moisture in the soil. You can feed the world from the grain belts of Australia.’

There were indeed trials, there really were. I honestly had written two stories about them. But my ‘trebling’ statement was an elaboration. I couldn’t remember the precise percentages. As for thirty parts per millimetre—I made that up to sound learned. Which worked. There were no scoffs anymore, just a general mutter of ‘I’m still concerned’ and ‘We must still be vigilant.’ On the subject of genetics there was deference to me.

‘You’ve got to love an expert,’ Donna said, giving the browning meat a prod. ‘I didn’t realise you were such an expert, Colin.’

‘Oh yes,’ Tilda butted in. I wanted Donna to keep going with the compliment, not have Tilda affectionately slipping her fingers down my back pocket. ‘Who’d have thought that when I met him he wanted to be an actor.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ I pulled her fingers out by the wrist.

‘Yes, you did.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did.’

‘It was just me mucking about in my youth. I’m more practically orientated. Science is my forte. Agricultural journalism.’

There is a custom in seating arrangements that I don’t understand. If a group of couples is spread along a dining table they’re placed boy-girl, boy-girl so as not to sit beside their spouse. I suppose it encourages more diverse interaction, but it also encourages flirting.

You have to be quick arriving at the table if you intend to flirt. Arrive last and you’ll be plonked beside the person others avoided. Arrive first and you can be selective. You can act as if you’re waiting to be directed to a position by the host when in fact you are really shuffling yourself between people until paired with your preference. That’s what I did with Donna. Tilda got shuffled sideways between two microphone swiggers and a wide-frocked alpaca breeder. I had Donna to the right of me, and I can’t remember who on the left—I looked left only once to pass the potatoes. Right was my priority. I didn’t look right often; I kept my gaze forward. Tilda was seated only four placings away, so keeping my gaze forward was safer. I had Donna visible in my eye corner to read the signs: a heavy breath of boredom if she wasn’t liking me; an allowance for our elbows to touch once in a while if she was. If I lifted my head to turn her way she would avoid our eyes meeting at such close range if she liked me.

I remember the four main topics we covered in conversation.

One. She admired my stance on genetic modification. Didn’t agree with me so much as appreciated my knowledge. She valued my social conscience in wanting solutions to famine. ‘It’s tough to take an unfashionable stance. But there’s sense in what you’re saying.’ Cameron was robust in his opinions, she said. She’d been starved of that since his passing. She leant closer to me and spoke at a whisper, her hand over her mouth as if for coughing. ‘My neighbours are very pleasant but, you know, they’re simple people.’

Two. She had enrolled in a psychology course at the university in Bendigo to keep her mind sharp and critical.

Three. She intended to get fit, lose the hips motherhood gives you. I couldn’t resist saying, ‘Hips? They’re perfect.’ Ruth crawled from under the table onto Donna’s knee at that moment. If she hadn’t I might have continued the flattery. I’d judged by now that she liked me well enough.

Four. She intended changing her married name back to her maiden one. Not now but soon. ‘I don’t want to be one of those women looked at as eternally
widowed
. I’m too young.’ She often wondered how long a period of grief should be. ‘They say it takes twelve months. That means I’m halfway through it,’ she figured.

Her saying this got me thinking: in six months she’ll be out for fresh mating. I felt jealous in advance about whoever the bloke would be. A silly chill of jealousy. I shivered for it to be gone from my shoulders.

In the car home Tilda asked me, ‘So, what did you two chin-wag about?’

‘Boring stuff. Genetically modified crops, that sort of thing. Boring.’

‘I had a windbag telling me alpaca wool was a wonderful fabric. Banged on and on and on. But the rissoles were nice.’

‘The rissoles were. Did you have to mention the acting stuff?’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t refer to it in future, please.’

‘Why not? It’s funny.’

‘It’s not.’

‘It is.’

‘It makes me sound flaky. Don’t do it again, please.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘I’m asking you not to do it again, please. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you.’

The Scintilla Picnic Race Meeting, Melbourne Cup day. I had a free family ticket, a gift from the racing club to the
Wheatman.
I said to Tilda, ‘This family ticket. I see no point in using it, just the two of us. It’s a waste. Let’s give it away.’

She considered that a shame given the gorgeous green tinge to the spring weather. A shame given the chance to mix and mingle. ‘You have your work to get you out of the house. You get to have normal conversations. I slip back into hermit mode much too easily. I’m housebound again, Colin.’ The Escort van had clapped out permanently, towed for scrap. I had the
Wheatman
Commodore. Tilda had nothing till we could afford a replacement vehicle. She said, ‘I sit in my studio and go
bugger it
.’ She flopped her arms down in a defeated motion. ‘Take me to the races, sweetheart. We’ll have fun. Let’s invite someone to be our guest. We’ll be like hobnobbers. We’ll take bubbly and roast chicken like we’re hobnobbing at the races.’

Truth is, I had every intention of going. My ‘I see no point’ was just for Tilda’s sake. I wasn’t about to come straight out with ‘Let’s call Donna Wilkins. I want to see her again.’

Harmless flirting, that’s all I intended. I was not setting out for love or congressing. Just flirting, a bit more than I’d had at Donna’s lunch. Her grieving period would be up by now, her twelve months had just been reached. We could spread a picnic rug near the racecourse rail and I would find a way around Tilda’s presence to enjoy the charge of simmered yearning. No harm in that—everybody does it, I bet.

‘Sweetheart,’ I said—using
sweetheart
was always good politics, particularly in this instance: I wasn’t sure about the state of Tilda’s jealousy-guard regarding Donna. ‘Sweetheart, it just occurred to me, we should probably return the hospitality of your friend Donna. It’s been months since her soiree. She might be an option.’ I paused—a clever pause. ‘Or maybe not. We can cross her off the list.’

‘What list? Our list consists of blank.’

‘Perhaps ring her and ask her then. Up to you, sweetheart. Makes no difference to me.’

Simple as that. Donna was invited. She told Tilda that Ruth would adore it—the hoof-thunder of horses, it would delight and scare the wits out of the child.

I was curious to know after the call if I was mentioned. A ‘How’s Colin?’ or something. Tilda didn’t say so and I wasn’t about to ask. I doubt I was, which disappointed me. But it was pleasant disappointment. I smiled to myself and winked to myself and muttered, ‘Oh well,
c’est la vie
.’

The family ticket allowed us two car spaces. Donna was able to reverse her green station wagon in such a way that the tail door could be lowered as a smorgasbord table facing the home straight. The Commodore was parked beside it, which kept the next group of people along at bay. Perfect for not being too sociable with them. We even had willow shade, which added intimacy to the outing, like blinds drawn down while others sweated.

This was not like Donna’s lunch, however. I did have her on the right of me again, but I did not have her to myself. I had Tilda directly on my left and Ruth straight in front. Tilda was in a talkative mood. Christ, she can talk sometimes. All her housebound inactivity must have stored talk up in her. Not ordinary talk.
Health
talk. That’s the thing about people with health problems. You give them the chance to explain their afflictions and it’s as exciting to them as party time. We’d only just sat down and chinked glasses to say ‘Happy race day!’ when Donna asked, ‘I hope it’s not rude of me, but I’m curious about your sleeve. What’s it for, exactly?’

Tilda put the arm behind her back and said, ‘This bloody thing,’ as if she despised it. She’d fretted about wearing the sleeve that day. Such a glamorous day. What was worse, having it stared at or having swelling to explain? Midday heat and sleevelessness would be heaven to the elephants in her.

Donna apologised and said, ‘I just wondered if it’s uncomfortable.’ She reached over and touched Tilda’s thigh to try and erase her faux pas.

I thought Tilda might take all this as snideness: a putdown by a flawless woman to the unfortunately maimed. To her credit, or rather the goodwill in champers, she brought the arm forward for display. ‘It’s my uniform. And this little glove is my gauntlet.’ She said it like a boast.

If she had left it at that I would have admired her as gutsy. But on and on she went about swelling and massages. She referred to me as Mr Fingers, her indispensable personal massage mate. I picked up a stick from the dirt and touched wood she wouldn’t get me to demonstrate massaging.
Don’t do it
, I touched—I could tell it was in her mind. I didn’t want Donna seeing me intimate with my wife.

Tilda did it. ‘Colin, show Donna your stroking method.’

‘Can’t. Races are starting.’ I stood up and took $10 from my wallet. ‘I’m off to place a bet.’ I hurried away wishing Tilda would just melt into the ground. Melt and not be seen or heard from just for an hour. Half an hour would do, instead of being an interference to flirting.

I placed no bet—I’m no gambler. Gambling always seemed too sleazy an activity. I walked around the betting ring disdainful of bookies, the way they thumped their white money bags and spruiked 5 to 2 on Baron’s Boy as if offering me a favour. Yet, between bookies and me that day, bookies were the more wholesome. I should have demonstrated the massaging as Tilda wanted. I told myself as much—‘Do the right thing by Tilda.’ But by the time I returned to the rug, topped up my glass, nibbled at a chicken thigh, I was thinking of ways to have Tilda leave Donna and me alone.

Ruth was an option. Or I could get Tilda so drunk she needed a lie down. Drunkenness would take hours, however: she held her drink like a shearer. Ruth was the better way. If only I could get Ruth to take Tilda’s hand and ask her to play. There are a dozen opportunities on racecourses for children’s amusement. There are jockey-midgets in their harlequin costumes. The swaying ambulance that follows the race to the finishing post. When the barrier shoots open the metal bang is bone-jarring; it’s a wonder the horses don’t drop dead of fright. I said this to Ruth. I said, ‘I would drop dead from the terror of it. But horses have wings inside them.’ I let out a great exhaling of wonder at horse wings. ‘No matter how terrified they are they run and run and refuse to drop dead.’

It worked. She was O-mouthed with fascination that horses don’t die from noise but sprint instead and sometimes fart very loudly from the sudden lunge.

‘I reckon farting makes them run faster,’ I said. I had her in stitches from saying a rude word like farting and making a fart sound with my mouth. Donna was giggling too, and burping up champers fizz. ‘Ruth, I’d take you and show you, but I’m going for another bet.’ She begged me to take her and show her the farting but I said no.

Tilda said, ‘Don’t be so mean.’

‘I’m not mean, it’s just—a person in my position, wearing my
Wheatman
hat, so to speak, I have to be seen
participating
.
You
take Ruth. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Ruth?’ I tapped Tilda on the forearm to suggest she hold out her hand for the child. I said, ‘Don’t
you
be mean.’

Ruth had the most innocent, pleading smile. It brought on the melting I needed. Tilda wiggled her fingers to have the girl come near. The moment they touched Tilda held her close and kissed her hair. She said, ‘But who’s going to look after Donna?’

‘As if I require looking after.’ Donna reclined on her elbows, her drink almost tipping too far.

As Tilda led Ruth away it occurred to me she might pretend she was the actual mother of the girl. I hoped it would be a pleasant fantasy. I hoped it would mean she stayed away a while. I guessed their walk would take ten minutes to reach the barrier at the 1600- metre chute. Watching the horses circle around and get loaded into their gates would be five minutes. Then ten minutes’ walk back after the barrier crashed open: twenty-five minutes in total.

I did not even bother with the pretence of betting. Once Tilda was out of sight I sat down and said, ‘Second thoughts, I might hold off on a punt until later.’

Donna wagged her glass to ask me to fill it. ‘This is bliss,’ she said. ‘I haven’t let my hair down for I don’t know how long.’

‘Feel free to do it today.’

‘I have to drive. I’d better watch my intake.’

‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’

‘I’m out of practice with drinking.’

‘No wild parties?’

‘Hardly.’

‘No romantic dinners?’

‘Hardly.’

‘No fellow on the scene? I’d have thought there’d be men queuing up at your door.’

‘I wish,’ she blurted. The tiny sentence surprised her as much as me: the hearty frankness; the hinted crudity. She quickly revised it. ‘I wish it was that simple, I mean. Oh, never mind.’

‘Go on. Don’t stop.’

She stood, one hand visored over her eyes for a view of how lovely the horses looked in the mounting yard. From our distance they appeared to be all one colour—shiny bay with a silver feather of perspiration in their flank.

‘You were saying?’

‘Forget it.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s awkward to explain.’

‘Why?’

‘Just think on it for a second.’

‘Think on what?’ I was still excited by that initial frankness-crudity moment. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be explicit with me.’ Using
explicit
in this context sounded frank and crude as well.

Donna got re-seated, snuggled between two ridges of willow feet. She spoke to her glass, not to me directly. ‘I am a mother. I am a mother and a widowed mother at that. A man, well, it is expected that a man will keep company—let’s call it that:
company
. A man will keep company. He will seek it out, even. I’ve heard of men whose wives die and they’re off seeing people, off in the sack with people, a few weeks later. It’s not considered improper in their case. It’s considered
nature
. But a woman, a mother,
we
have to be proper. Or feel we have to be proper. I do, anyway.’

I did not believe any of this was for my sake. It was innocent drink-talk. Or perhaps there’s no such thing as innocent. A lump of breathlessness rose in my throat. I gulped on wine to treat it. That’s what lust is—breathlessness. Then the old sweet poison. Then, worst of all, love deranges you in the whole confusion of the process. It does in my case. I was still a way off being at the deranged state. About twenty-four hours. That’s how fast the deranging gets a hold. There was the following clumsiness to get through first. ‘So let me get this straight. You want—
company
?’

‘God yes. Of course. Who doesn’t?’

The champers refluxed into my sinuses. I fought back a sneeze. ‘I’m astonished nobody has made a move on you.’ I sneezed.

‘Bless you, for the sneeze and for saying that. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with me, is there?’

‘No. Jesus. No. You are very—desirable.’

‘Thank you. Very kind of you.’

‘It’s true.’

‘I wonder, is it me having Ruth?’

‘Ruth seems a nice kid.’

‘Is it that men feel a bit put-off because, you know, my husband died and that makes me sort of jinxed or something? Is it that they’re overly respectful of my widowhood? Such an ugly word, widow.’

I managed to get out, ‘Who can say?’ through the breathlessness.

‘I have one friend, Ian, a neighbour. He wasn’t at my barbecue—he was sick. He gets colds and flu and any bug going round. Which is one of the problems. He’s single, he’s available, but he’s a wreck. And he’s not handsome. He’s actually quite unattractive. I look at his mouth and I think: Do I want to kiss that mouth? No, I don’t want to kiss his mouth. If you don’t want to kiss their mouth, then it’s very—clinical.’

Whoever this Ian was, I loathed him for being in consideration for kissing from her.

Donna sat up straight. She said eagerly, girlishly, ‘At university, in my psychology class, there’s this boy. He’d be eighteen, nineteen. To me that’s a
boy
. Him I could kiss. He’s so incredibly beautiful. He’s dazzling. Him I could really kiss and keep very nice company with. But what am I supposed to do? Ask him out? I just can’t pluck up the courage.’

‘Don’t do it.’ I spoke so forcefully it made Donna flinch. ‘We’re all beautiful in our youth. It’s nothing unusual.’

‘No, he is very beautiful.’

‘He’ll soon go to seed. And besides, where does a relationship with a nineteen-year-old take you?’

‘That’s true. I’ve wondered the very same thing. It takes you nowhere. But it does give you physical gratification.’

I scratched at the dirt around me. What I wanted to do was scratch this boy’s image from her mind. Scratch him out and put me there and ask,
Would you care to kiss me? Is my mouth worthy?

What I did do was say, ‘I’m attracted to you, Donna. I know I shouldn’t confess it, but there, it’s said. I’m very attracted to you.’

No reply. Not a rejecting motion of the hand; not a willing welcome of her eye. She was too busy taking in my indiscretion. Finally she uttered, ‘Oh. Oh.’

The whole scene was spread out over twenty minutes. One minute at least just for Donna’s two
Ohs
. She too found dirt to scratch in. I considered letting my finger scratch closer her way but was glad I didn’t, not in the open like that, with Tilda surely only a minute off. Less than a minute. There she was skipping between car rows; Ruth at the end of her arm, jumping and stumbling in horse mimicry, smacking herself like a whip.

I stood up and patted my trousers clean of grass dust. Guilt and worry were so cold on my face my blood must have fled heartward to hide. Tilda would tell I’d done something just by my colour. I thumbed my wallet for cash to look busy. I timed walking off like a purposeful betting man just as Tilda called delightedly, ‘Your daughter has worn me out, Donna.’

I used horse rails and tree trunks to touch wood that Donna would not tell on me. The count went into the hundreds. She didn’t tell. She went quiet instead.

As we packed up the picnic I wanted to whisper, ‘Donna, thank you for keeping mum.’ But there was no chance. Tilda was too near. She said later, ‘Wonder why Donna went so moody?’