The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories (10 page)

Valerie, however, was in a fouler temper than before. ‘Bitch,' she spat towards the dining-room. It was obvious she was referring to the younger of the two couples.

‘Who are they?' asked Leonard.

‘The Errol Wallaces,' she said. ‘Would you believe that Yvonne tart out there was in the same class as my sister. Pretends she doesn't know me now.'

‘Can't say I blame her,' said Leonard. ‘What about them?'

‘Find out for yourself smart aleck.' She basked in local knowledge.

‘Be easier if you told me.'

‘Ah shit, the local supermarket tycoon, if you really want to know. His Dad died at the right time, just as there was a deal with a big chain coming up. Copped the lot, and about the same time he got Yvonne up the way. Look at the stuck-up, prissy-mouthed bag, you'd think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.'

‘Would it in yours?'

‘At least I'm careful. She's not even educated.'

Leonard raised his eyebrows. Strange what one found in the provinces. He sauntered out to the Wallaces and proffered a wine list.

Errol Wallace scrutinised it for a long time. ‘Is this your entire selection?'

‘Yes sir.'

‘Well I suppose we'll just have to make the most of it then.'

‘What's the matter darling? Don't they have anything we like?' said his wife, in a loud voice. The Billingtons didn't stir from their conversation.

‘It's a very narrow range,' said Errol, even more loudly. ‘Still, I suppose beggars can't be choosers.' He brayed with laughter at this throwaway
absurdity
. He ordered the most expensive on the list.

‘Yes sir,' said Leonard, still obsequious. And away he flitted again. He and Valerie were like the man and woman on the Swiss weather gadgets, he reflected. One in, one out, never both together.

But then Valerie did come out to the back while he was getting the wine, after she had delivered the stroganoff.

‘Got troubles, that lot,' she remarked.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Marital. They've come to settle the divorce.'

‘You mean the Wallaces?'

‘Nup. The Billingtons.'

‘You must have heard wrong.'

‘Nup. Don't like to argue in front of the kids, sorry children,' she said. ‘Quiet here, that's what they said. Nice not to have the whole town staring at us.'

‘Never. Did you hear that Vlado? What a thing to say.'

Vlado turned his strained face towards them. His eyes suddenly gleamed with tears. He turned away again.

‘Queer these foreigners,' murmured Valerie. ‘Still I'd be upset too if my best clients only came because nobody else does.'

‘Did they like the stroganoff?' asked Leonard pointedly.

‘Don't reckon they noticed it,' said Valerie.

‘I'll put a record on.' Leonard went out to the narrow box of knobs and lights, coaxing it to the palpitating hot gospel of blues. Blue turning purple, purple to black, black on black. Black upon night, creeping under the doors, round the curtains, night engulfing them all; catching them up in another world in which they were all together, yet aloof. Night pushing them this way and that in clusters, forming, falling apart, reshaping.

Vlado, and the presence felt, of Eileen. Eileen fading. He could hardly remember her face. The state of foreign relations.

Leonard and Valerie. Leonard wanted Valerie, he didn't; Valerie didn't want Leonard, she did. Chopping and changing. Desire replaced by
qualifications
. Her mouth is too ugly; his grin is too smarmy; she is missing teeth, my tongue slides in imagination into the slimy hollows; he is too pernickety, he would criticise my talents; I am too skinny, she is too buxom, she would laugh at my rib-cage; I would never please him, he is too experienced; I would never please her, she is too experienced …

Janet and Reg Billington. ‘Better that we come here.' ‘I loved you,' she said. ‘I loved you,' he said. ‘When did you stop?' ‘I don't remember. Was it the holiday we had up north?' ‘The one where you wanted to fish by yourself and I wanted to drink myself silly and lie in the sun?' ‘It can't have been, we both went fishing, don't you remember?' ‘The children were very small. I was so tired, that was why I wanted to lie around; for the rest you know.' ‘It must have been in the south.' ‘No, we both drank and lay in the sun then.' Were we both tired?' ‘I think so, I'm not sure. Maybe I was feeling better then, I might have played golf.' ‘Do you remember when it was then?' ‘No.' ‘Nor me.'

Yvonne and Errol. And Errol has sent the wine back three times now. ‘Look at the sediment …' Then, ‘like vinegar.' And the third time, ‘This is not what I ordered, I am perfectly aware that this is not the year that I asked for. I know you fellows change the labels.' On this third comment, the Billingtons finally noticed they were there. It was impossible not to. Not that they really indicated their awareness of the Wallace's presence in any discernible way, unless one was watching carefully. It was more Leonard that Yvonne noticed first, leading her eyes over to the Billingtons. His manner becoming insolent. He stared across the room above their heads, with a bored smile beginning to hover at the corners of his mouth. Any moment she was sure Errol would say something to him. She followed his look to see how long he would hold it before her husband reproved him, and then she saw Janet Billington look over at them, attracted by Errol's voice. She raised one eyebrow at Reg, rather than at Leonard, and let it fall. Yvonne could almost hear it. However delicate the contraction might have been, it reverberated round the restaurant, that fallen eyebrow.

‘Let's try it anyway,' Yvonne said. ‘It might be quite nice.'

‘I have tried it,' he retorted.

‘Is it quite impossible?'

‘It's not that, it's not what I ordered.'

‘I'd like to try some all the same,' Yvonne murmured, glancing at Leonard.

‘I want to see the manager,' said Errol.

It was Leonard's turn to look uncomfortable. ‘It's difficult,' he said. ‘Tonight Vlado is cooking — perhaps, if you'd like to come back to the kitchen and see him.'

‘No of course he wouldn't,' said Yvonne. ‘Please — pour me some wine.'

Errol had turned the colour of ox-blood. ‘Then pay for it yourself.'

‘I will,' she said. ‘Pour some wine please, waiter,' as Leonard hesitated.

‘For you then, sir?' he asked as the wine filled the glass.

‘No thank you.'

And again Leonard went back to the kitchen.

‘It looks as if that will be all for tonight,' he remarked.

Valerie sat with her shoes off. It was hard to imagine what she would be like if it was a really busy night.

Vlado stood rigid beside the bench. The transistor was still playing.

‘Fun and games with that lot,' said Leonard. ‘Even if there are only four of them.' He peered through the slit. Yvonne Wallace was methodically filling her glass, emptying it, and refilling it with the wine which her husband would not drink. ‘Did you hear me Vlado? I said fun and games.'

All through that spring on the other side of the world when the ice would be retreating, when the forests relaxed from their grim vigils, when spring meant so much more than it did here, he had heard reports filtering through. The ‘Prague Spring' they would call it. And he had dreamt of a time when he and Eileen and the dark boy might go back, and just when things seemed truly hopeful and good, Eileen had conceived, and maybe he would have taken another flaxen-haired child home with them too. Some day when the restaurant was flourishing, as he knew it would. The Prague Spring. It was like a rebirth. Significantly so.

Then had come the invasion. Tanks rumbled into Czechoslovakia one night while the people slept, and in the morning they woke to find themselves surrounded by soldiers, as bewildered as they were, who asked each other, ‘What country are we in?' That's how dark the night had been, and the secret. Dubcek was being deceived and betrayed. The people were crawling back underground. Mail became scarce again, just when Vlado was beginning to believe that he had a family after all. Rumours came. Some people had died, many had been arrested. He heard, though it was not confirmed, that one was a brother of his, a baby when he left. Hard to imagine him grown to be a man like him, very young though he would be, but still a man who had grown up and made decisions. Not run away from them either, like he had run, through the forest. But times were different. Different? How different?

And now tonight.

‘Fun and games all right,' said Leonard. ‘None of them know what they want.'

Valerie pushed her feet into her shoes and yawned without putting her hand up. Leonard shuddered. No really, it was impossible, the whole idea.

‘I'd better clear the Billingtons' table,' she said.

‘What's the matter with you, Vlado?' Leonard asked the restaurateur while the girl was out. ‘You seem very depressed.'

Vlado raised lacklustre eyes. ‘Tonight there is very bad news of trouble in my country. Can you see it? A young man at the prime of his life sets fire to himself. A burning flame in the city streets, a living torch. That is what he has called himself. Torch Number One.'

‘But why?'

‘You've heard of the trouble in my country?'

‘Oh yes, a little, but they've settled down now, haven't they?' asked Leonard uneasily.

‘Settled down! They're just beginning. Me, I ran away. There would never be free spirits in my country again I told myself, I must be free. And then — almost — it looked as if they lived again, a whole nation, can you believe it,
unfolding, waking in the spring. Saying, things will be different. But they are crushed. Troops come. The free spirits are crushed. Agreements, promises, they are only watching, say the troops. Watching! Pah! Watchdogs, waiting, subverting, waiting to strike again when anyone steps out of line. The young ones know it. As I would have known it. Tonight comes this news, this brave young man, Jan Palach, he has made the ultimate protest. And one after another in the cities, they will die, human torches, protesting the loss of freedom, telling the people, the world, that it is better this way — to be dead.'

‘Burning themselves to death. They must be crazy.'

‘Crazy! You call that crazy? Oh you know so little.'

‘Yes, well maybe I don't know much about it, but I'll bet you're glad you're out of it.'

But Vlado didn't hear him. He'd retreated back to where he couldn't be reached.

Valerie came through, balancing plates.

‘Well, what do you know?' she said to Leonard. ‘The Billingtons have made up.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘I'm not. I heard them. They'd settled that she'd have the children, and the house, and one of the cars, and he'd have all the rest, whatever that might be.'

‘Yes. And then what?'

‘They've got two spaniels. They decided they couldn't be parted. She wouldn't part with hers and he wouldn't part with his, and they decided the two dogs would die if they were parted from each other. What d'you reckon about that, Vlado?'

Vlado had heard this time. He said, ‘They make me sick in the stomach. They are worse than animals themselves.'

Leonard said, ‘Can't tell about some people. All appearances. Of course you can't expect real breeding here in the provinces.'

‘Provinces is it?' said Valerie. ‘And what's wrong with us? Oh and by the way Vlado, Mrs Wallace, Madame Yvonne that is, would like Flaming Bombe Alaska for dessert. If you ask me they're the ones that are heading for the rocks before the night's out. He said, just go ahead, waste my money any way you like, when she ordered. Bombe Alaska Vlado, did you hear me?'

‘I heard you.' Deftly he split eggs, separating yolks from whites, started the beater whirring.

Valerie had stacked the dishes by the time the sweet was ready. The meringue peaks stood up crisp and curling, gently browned on the tips, sparkling white on the undersides. Vlado handed it to Valerie with a look of
love towards it, sensing its inner delights, full of surprises even to the initiated, the first time he had appeared to notice what he was doing that evening.

‘See that they're ready for it, it must be served at exactly the right moment,' he said, ladling out brandy to be warmed and lit at the table.

The waitress peered through the slit in the wall. ‘I think they're going,' she cried.

Leonard joined her. It certainly did look as if the Wallaces were leaving. Yvonne had lurched forward, face down on the table. Errol pulled her up roughly by the arm and she lolled against him, the lavishly coloured face had fallen in the sugar, her nose rimed with crystals, like frosting on a cake.

As he drew her lurching towards the door, the Billingtons looked away.

‘Hope he left the money,' said Valerie.

Vlado looked down at the dish in his hands. In a few moments it would be completely ruined. The ice-cold filling would start to melt and the peaks of meringue crumble as the innards turned liquid.

‘Go home,' he said to Valerie and Leonard. ‘Unless you want to eat this.' They shook their heads.

‘What about the tables?' Valerie said. ‘You look tired. We can't leave you to do them.'

Leonard looked at her with a touch of approval. She was good-hearted, you had to say that for her.

Vlado shrugged. ‘Dishes, bottles of wine, spaniels. These are the things that change the world I suppose. No, do not worry. Go home.'

‘Let's go,' said Leonard. He and Valerie scuttled towards the door, his arm already on hers. ‘Good night, Vlado. Cheer up,' Leonard called, and they were gone.

Slowly Vlado walked out into his small kingdom, carrying the Bombe Alaska on its dish. Behind him there was another news broadcast on his transistor, and he knew that over there in his country, the streets of the cities would be running tears. Tears and ashes.