Review of Australian Fiction Volume 12 Issue 1 Read online

  Mavis went to the doorway, the dish brush and the saucepan dripping suds from her rubber gloves, and she watched his slow, graceful form vanish into the gloom. Then she counted the cookbooks. There were ten.

  ‘Ottoline would have needed a lot of cookbooks,’ she assured Puss Cat that night, ‘… and I bet the others were bad cooks. And loud.’

  Then Lee Lin Chin announced that a prominent politician had been forced out of government and fear stilled her heart. That was it! So many cooks—was she to be let go, sacked? Perhaps her cooking was bad, and Mrs Pendergast didn’t like her… and she hadn’t liked Joyce or Pauline. Mrs Pendergast was a wicked, wicked woman.

  Fearfully, she waited to see if Mr Pendergast brought his tray to her on Wednesday. He did, and asked her what she had put in the stew.

  She wanted to cry. ‘It’s all on the menu.’

  ‘It… it tasted just like my mother’s.’

  So, the others had not been up to scratch. Not dignified and discreet—quality—like herself. They had gone because Mavis was meant to be there.

  Knowing Mr Pendergast was noticing her, really noticing her, Mavis began to take more care with her choice of underwear during the week. She showered before she went to work rather than after, and found herself touching parts of her body she never paid much attention to. She checked her nipples for stray hairs, and her chin, and considered a top lip and leg wax as she had when she was in her late thirties and the chap with the motorcycle moved in next door. She’d watched him come and go until one night he rode away and a few days later the landlord came asking, but Mavis said she’d only ever spoken to him that once, when she dropped a pie in. ‘He never returned my pie dish,’ she said. ‘It was my mother’s.’

  On Thursday Mr Pendergast brought his tray to the kitchen and left it on the sink. Mavis was watching the news so he stayed to watch the weather with her. ‘Gorgeous,’ he said.

  Mavis blushed. ‘Aw, now Mr—’

  ‘Su-PERB weather forecast. Ottoline loved spring.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said, swallowing her chicken, un-chewed, feeling it stall in her throat.

  On Friday, Mavis didn’t hear Mrs Pendergast’s squeaky casters. The lamb cutlets were cooling, the breadcrumbs turning soggy, so she peeped into the dining room. Mr Pendergast was nowhere to be seen. She went searching, quietly, carrying the laundry basket along the dark corridors, an excuse at the ready, ‘Just seeing if there’s any washing.’

  She found the main bedroom. She gasped. It was huge, the bay window framed by lace curtains, the furnishings floral-covered, and the bed a four-poster—Her Ladyship’s bedroom in the Sunday night soap opera!

  Mr Pendergast was working with Kwezi in a second bedroom, not nearly so big. Mrs Pendergast was in the lifting machine sling hanging above the bed, her club-like foot shooting from the sling, noises coming from her throat, but calm noises, moans. Mavis watched Kwezi sponge her as she hung there in the chair, her groin and bottom exposed. He dropped the face cloth into the soapy water, placed the dish on the over-bed table and dried her with a towel. Then he rubbed cream all over her, his strong, black hands smoothing pale cream on her papery skin; all the while Mr Pendergast rested his forearm on the handle that winched the sling high, and talked, ‘I worked bloody hard all my life for my bloody father-in-law and when he died, his sons sacked me. Just sacked me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kwezi said, as if he’d heard it all before.

  ‘Worked my whole life for them. They never come near Ottoline. Ever. They have not seen her since our daughter was born.’

  Daughter?

  Mavis stepped back. A daughter? The thought that Mr and Mrs Pendergast had… had… made a daughter together prompted emotions Mavis had to gather in. But at least she was out of the picture, not likely to drop in with a casserole or an apple pie.

  ‘We can wind her down now,’ Kwezi said, and Mavis peeped again. Mr Pendergast was winding the winch, the sling lowering Mrs Pendergast, and Kwezi’s gentle eyes reassured Mrs Pendergast as he held her thin calves, manoeuvring her to settle comfortably on the soft bed. They rolled her from side to side, removed the sling, and Mavis saw her twisted body, naked and pale, her limbs like driftwood. Kwezi stretched her nightie over her bent arms, lifted her head onto the pillow at just the right angle, as she had done for her own dear mother, and then he pressed some folds of sheepskin between her limbs, as Mavis had done for her poor, frozen father. Kwezi gently pulled the fluffy eiderdown up and tucked her in and smoothed back her hair and said, ‘Good night, my dear, I will see you in the morning,’ and all the while Mr Pendergast talked of his underappreciated life while Ottoline’s moans faded. Mavis crept away.

  Mr Pendergast dined alone, but joined Mavis in the kitchen for dessert—lemon tart, his favourite.

  ‘You’ve worked here for some weeks now, Mavis, and I feel it’s time we found out a little bit more about each other.’ He then spoke of his promising football career, ‘I gave it all up when I married. My duty to Ottoline and our daughter was paramount, of course.’

  ‘Of course, but still…’

  ‘We only ever had the one child. Ottoline had a very bad time of it and so we… well, in those days…’

  He shook his head, dislodging a bothersome thought, then sighed and smiled at her, and she thought his eyes the softest she’d ever seen.

  ‘Abstinence, character building stuff, Mavis,’ he said, and Mavis was heartbroken for him, knowing herself the ache of loss, and of abstinence.

  Mavis’ weekend was busy with dreams. She saw herself with Mr Pendergast in the conservatory, orchids blooming all around, drinking champagne, sitting at the dining room table, Mrs Pendergast tucked up quietly in bed, a maid in a white apron serving them, a butler standing close by. Mavis was wearing a beautiful gown and they were eating a meal of pheasant and she was talking about herself, her life. Then she was in the main bedroom, suspended between the four posts, cradled in the lifting machine sling, floating, helpless, Mr Pendergast washing her all over with a warm, damp cloth, her face, her hands and arms, her breasts… her groin.

  On Monday, Mr Pendergast was pulling the Jasmine from around the guttering when Mavis arrived. He watched her walk up the path, a substantial woman with ample breasts carrying a basket filled with groceries and her nice, white aprons. He smiled.

  That evening, he asked Mavis to join him in a glass of sherry in the drawing room before dinner. Mrs Pendergast began to snort and twitch, working downwards in her chair. A cushion slipped out from under her frozen elbow, another protruded over the armrest. She needed to be soothed, Mavis felt, propped up, but her husband didn’t notice.

  He poured a generous glass of sherry and told her that his daughter no longer spoke to him. ‘She thinks I betrayed Ottoline,’ he said, his bottom lip protruding for a moment, ‘but a man has needs. We’re not like you girls, independent and capable and able to carry on for decades without a partner. Is your husband dead, Mavis?’

  Ottoline started jerking.

  ‘He may as well be,’ Mavis said, settling into the armchair, her second glass of sherry resting on the antimacassar. ‘You see, I thought that marriage meant happily ever after but—’

  ‘Ottoline Pendergast and I were very happy,’ he said, and Mrs Pendergast’s stiff, thin leg bounced like a timber plank in the wind, her bum sliding towards the foot rests, her gown gathering, her knee pushing up to her shoulder and her giant blue disposable nappy exposed. Mr Pendergast sighed and went to his wife. He held her by the shoulders, ‘Otty, darling, there’s no need to get upset, you know I’ll care for you in the manner you deserve, no matter what.’ But she jerked and jerked, honking like someone was stepping on her lungs, horrible gurgling and saliva oozing from the corner of her mouth. She was now so low in the Cozie chair that her relatively straight knee was on the footrest, all the cushions on the carpet. The chair shunted, the wheels squeaked, and her gown scrunched around her neck, exposing her ribs and her smooth flat belly, her feeding tube sticking out like a twig from a creek.

  ‘Kwezi!’ Mr Pendergast yelled, but Kwezi was already there, soothing in his ways, calm in his demeanour, his deep, sonorous tones calming her. The gurgling ceased, replaced by moaning, fading as the chair squeaked away into the dark house.

  ‘I tire of the spasms she bungs on,’ Mr Pendergast cried. ‘It’s not fair after the cold and lonely childhood I endured in Preston. The best thing that ever happened to me was Ottoline. I worked hard, but they would only ever let me be a clerk.’

  ‘They stifled you!’

  ‘Stifled,’ he said, and Mavis put her hand sympathetically on his wrist. ‘Such a life you’ve had, and now so sad, what with Mrs Pendergast…’

  He drained his glass of wine and stood up to leave.

  She wanted to tell him about those years dedicated to her parents, the hours of her life she had spent caring, her gift for it.

  ‘I’ve really enjoyed our chat,’ he said, and Mavis knew to go back to her kitchen, her heart full of compassion and admiration for her employer who, despite being completely saddled with her, cared for his wife.

  On Tuesday he sat right down next to her at the kitchen table with his meat patties and creamy mashed potato and salad and cutlery and offered her a glass of wine. He joined her the next evening, and the next, for dinner, Mrs Pendergast thrashing about in the dining room, sliding and rattling the chair until her leg jutted out over the footrest and all the cushions were on the floor around her and Kwezi came to take her away.

  On Friday, over salmon patties, Mr Pendergast suggested they take their plates and wine to the dining room to go through the grocery receipts. Mrs Pendergast’s eyes were on them as they came in. She shuddered and gurgled. Her husband added up the cost of his food. Then he counted out Mavis’s wages, and said, ‘Ottoline’s Ensure Plus, and Kwezi, cost three times as much every week as my meals and you combined, Mavis.’ Then he spoke of Ottoline’s brothers, how they had not bothered with her, ‘… never visited in thirty years. Not even when she was first diagnosed.’ He smiled and patted her knee, ‘But I’ve always been here, haven’t I, Otty?’ Ottoline Pendergast started honking and pounding her leg and Mr Pendergast went into the recesses of the big house to find Kwezi. Mavis was left with Ottoline Pendergast, working her away down to lie in the seat of her chair, her head thrust forward by the backrest, her chin pressed onto her chest, and her clear green eyes fixed to Mavis. She made a sound like ‘O’, honking, over and over, and Mavis thought for a second that she was saying No no no…

  Kwezi, invisible angel of the dark, wheeled Mrs Pendergast gently away, her ‘O… O… O’ replaced by his mellifluous voice.

  At home, in bed, Puss Cat curled into the small of her back, Mavis thought about Mrs Pendergast’s knowing eyes. ‘It must be terrible for her. I remember my parents, locked away behind their pain and illness. No wonder she bungs on a fit. But when all is said and done, they’re a burden.’

  On Monday, as Mavis stood at the table kneading pastry, Mr Pendergast came at her from behind. He put his arms around her, ‘You see my life… what I have to bear?’

  She should have pushed him away, but his body was warm, firm but soft, pressing into her. A man’s body, against hers. She swooned back into his arms and his hands cupped her breasts. She turned to him and he held her, pressing his crotch against her, though she could feel no discernible hardness in his genitals, just the usual bulky sponginess she’d so often felt through her husband’s pyjama pants all those years ago, not unlike the presence of Puss Cat against her flannelette nightie, really.

  He fell away from her, like a broken bottle from a ship’s bow, put his face in his hands, ‘I’m so ashamed­—’

  ‘Mr Pendergast, I know your needs, I know…’

  But he left her there, her fingers clogged with pastry, a tug of longing in her guts, her heart swelled with hurt.

  ‘He cares for me,’ she said, tenderly, to Puss Cat.

  But he avoided her all the next week and they stepped lightly around each other, spoke over each other and apologised over each other, Mrs Pendergast in her chair, glaring, snorting, her leg jerking.

  But the separation was too much to bear, and on Friday, as she unpacked the groceries, Mr Pendergast came into the kitchen, closed the door behind him and said, ‘Mavis…’

  She stepped towards him and they embraced, he kissed her, his thin hard mouth on hers, holding her lips closed. She grabbed his face, thrust it to her breast as she’d imagined she would in her lonely bed. He drew her up towards the bedroom—as she’d imagined—but led her to a spare room at the back of the house she didn’t even know was there.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘off with your clothes and lie down on the bed, I haven’t much time.’ He dropped his trousers and organised his genitals into a sort of ramrod state and fell upon Mavis. It was like being trampled by a litter of puppies, but she melted under the caress of skin on skin, human hands gripping her shoulders, the tickle of his thin, grey hair on her rib cage as he searched for her nipples. She scooped her breasts and offered them to him, he took them and held them against each ear and she heard him moaning and felt his hot breath as he humped away on her, ‘Oh… oh… oh…’ and she felt a vague prodding in her crotch and then suddenly he was limp, red-faced, and breathless and her inner thigh was wet but her skin felt as if it had been sprinkled with chilli.

  And then Mr Pendergast sighed, ‘Oh… oh…’

  Mavis was disappointed, but had a few ideas on how to make things better. ‘It just takes a bit of tender care,’ she said.

  The weekend was long, but dreamy—not seeing Mr Pendergast made Mavis apprehensive—and on Monday, her emotions were in turmoil. What if he ignored her? What if she had imagined it?

  Kwezi came into the kitchen as she lingered at the window, watching the clouds fold and dissipate, contemplating how tenderly twigs attached themselves to branches, and he said, ‘You look very pretty today, Mavis, very nice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I will not come for a few days, I have been told.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Ottoline Pendergast has gone to the home. It has happened before. She goes for respite.’

  ‘Respite? Oh well, she’ll get good care there.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  At the nursing home the respites stayed a week, at least. ‘I’ll see you next week then, Kwezi.’

  ‘Perhaps, but this has happened before.’ He shook her hand and left her, standing at the table.

  Mr Pendergast had sent his wife for respite. What could that mean?

  And then there he was, opposite her, smiling as if he’d just licked all the cream from a tub of double-thick crème fraîche. He leaned against the doorjamb, raised his eyebrows and said, ‘A week. We have a week… just for you and me, Elsie, I mean, um, Mavis! Mavis…’

  ‘Elsie?’

  He was biting his bottom lip, his eyes wide.

  She pointed at the cookery books on the mantelpiece.

  ‘It’s not necessary to leave, Mavis, really, it’s not.’

  Mavis clutched the sink.

  He came towards her, slowly, ‘Mrs Pendergast doesn’t like, um, well, she doesn’t generally like the cooks…’

  Mavis untied her apron.

  ‘Mavis, please, you’re such a good cook and you’re nice.’ He started to sound shrill, panicked.

  Mavis walked towards the door.

  He stepped in front of her, ‘You can’t leave! You have to give me a week’s notice!’

  ‘Two weeks,’ she said, unbuttoning her blouse. ‘I want two weeks.’

  He frowned.

  ‘Leave her in respite for two weeks.’ She removed her brassiere, and Mr Pendergast’s face lit up.

  ‘Respite’s expensive.’ He reached for her but she headed off into the gloomy passage.

  ‘Come on,’ she called.

  He was pulling his sweater over his head, following her. She grabbed the lifting machine as she passed, pushing it towards the main bedroom and the four-poster. ‘I haven’t got much time.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve got scaloppine to prepare for us tonight.’

  The Gift Of Roses

  Ellie Nielsen

  She was shocked to see the roses. Their long stems rigid with thorns, leaves the colours of the earth, burnished blooms the colour of dreams. They were centred on a small oval table. Gracing a milky white vase. Basking in the parting rays that flickered through the tall bay window. They were fragile and strong in equal measure and she imagined some grateful host taking her hand and saying, ‘Thank you Madeleine. Thank you for your gift of roses.’ But her name wasn’t really Madeleine and she’d never given anyone roses in her life.

  She tried to ignore them. To pretend their beauty, their natural splendour was of little consequence. But they unsettled her. Made her feel dishonest, underhanded, and she worried that this, her first meeting as Hugh’s new girlfriend, would be undone by their insistent perfection.

  Of course she’d read about houses like this. She’d been waiting, yearning, for a room just like this one. Had already eased herself into its square leather chairs. Flung open the bookcases and run her fingers down the worn papery spines. Laughed up into the soaring ceiling and waltzed across the Persian rug. She’d often imagined herself, exactly as she was now, leaning against the mantelpiece, twirling her champagne glass and the skirt of her dress alike; aware of the effect, aware also that a talent to linger carelessly, at cold Victorian fireplaces, might, if she was lucky, forgive her what she lacked.

  The first few minutes had been the worst. Standing in a no-man’s area of the library. Crushed between the curved wooden handle of the drinks trolley and the billowing vase. Listening to Hugh and his brother Adam arguing about whether to light the fire or not. Their bright banter bouncing off the decanters, heavy in their silver collars, and the glasses; delicate champagne coupes, etched in tiny stars.