I assumed Mr Lambert’s backyard was still a small wasteland of pebblecrete punctuated by a set of plastic furniture, which he kept tilted forward and covered in plastic sheeting. I wasn’t certain, as it was no longer possible to see over the fence since he’d attached sheets of Colorbond steel to frustrate voyeurs. He even uprooted the rotary washing line, replacing it with a fence line that could be neatly folded down. Recently he sliced the necks of all our monstera deliciosa leaves that perched audaciously above the fence. Archie found them thrown onto our side and I pleaded with him not to throw them back. He couldn’t contain his anger at this outrage inflicted upon an innocent plant, and not so long ago I would have flung them over myself, with fury directing my swing. He settled for sticking the stalks back up against the fence so that their withering leaves would at least reproach our neighbour.
It was a beautiful day to be outside idling in the garden instead of trying to remember how to make a fruit cake I once could have made in my sleep. To write it down I needed to remember the ingredients and the method, which was hard when I had always made it from instinct. Never before had I written the recipe down, let alone thought about exact weights and measurements. I had made this cake so many times, but how many kilos of dried fruit did I use? What proportion of raisins, currants, peel and nuts? Did I include cherries? Two bottles of brandy, or one of brandy and one of rum? The thinking would be exhausting even for a well person. Putting off work I tidied my office instead, then walked over to the window, and opened it as wide as it would go. I breathed in the glorious scent. My lungs swelled with the delicate warmth of new jasmine frothing along the side fence and the peppery odour of the council’s wattle, already well into bloom. The wisteria pouring copiously from the vine.
Wisteria. Of course. I found the writing pad on which I’d been jotting down ideas for the wedding, and under Venue added Botanical Gardens. The wisteria would be glorious there. Daisy would look like an angel. Her Botticelli hair against a pale frock – pink or lemon or lavender. The lawn alive with colour, the sky a sharp blue, the whole a brilliant contrast for her Renaissance beauty.
I was fantasising on a grand scale. Daisy at twenty-five or so would probably have her hair cropped short and dyed indigo and wear nothing but black cargo pants and strategically ripped shirts. My sweet darling youngest daughter who was forever preoccupied with dolls and pets and everything fluffy, who would sleep with Kitty if I still let her, who played happy families with her three mice and kept one of them all day in her pocket, who begged for real ducklings but settled for the collection of floating ones she still kept for the bath. Doubtless by then she would have found her true sexuality and be in love with an Irish woman, sharing her passion for body piercing, dog shows and one-day cricket. The more the list burgeoned with details of table decorations and seating arrangements, the more I felt convinced this event was never going to happen. It was more likely to be a commitment ceremony, probably in an ironic location like the old Mortuary Station, or Hungry Jack’s at Darling Harbour, with the dogs (they’d be staffies) wearing purple bows. But if a wedding did take place, there’d be the rudiments of a list to follow. On the off-chance that Daisy would want one, I would have done my bit.
I considered making the cake (and then I remembered, it was half a bottle each of brandy and rum), which would last the years. But apart from the effort involved in shopping for the ingredients, then mixing and icing the thing, I thought doing so would actually confirm Archie’s view of me as a control freak. I would instead leave them the wedding fruit cake recipe, draw it somehow out of my head and write it up properly. I might even give it to Mother of the Bride.
I put the list aside and got on with the real work. Apart from Mother of the Bride’s request, there were ten more emails waiting for replies.
Dear Delia
Remember I wrote some time back inquiring about shopping lists? My golfing friend and I consulted that Mrs Beeton book you mentioned, and now we are wondering if it would be a good idea to write inventories of our households. Linen and crockery, plus our jewellery and stuff. For the children, and grandchildren. And insurance too, of course. Unsure.
Dear Unsure
If I remember rightly, you also told me you were both sixty-five. At this age do you really want to clutter up your lives with more paperwork?
On the second day in Amethyst I stayed in the motel room. Outside, the day was sweet and inviting, the far north autumn being so kind. But I spent a long time having a bath, using up the inadequate mini-bottles of shampoo and body wash. I dried off with two of the bathtowels, draping the third around me instead of a robe. I lay down on the bed to read through the local brochures and leaflets for drycleaners, Chinese takeaways and day trips to gemstone mines. I raided the mini-bar for its mini-chocolates and made a cup of teabag tea, then a cup of instant coffee with long-life milk, pouring each down the bathroom sink when they tasted as bad as I expected. Finally I got dressed and took a mineral water out to the balcony, which overlooked a lily pond and the fenced-in pool. Close by was the run and kennel of the sleepy labrador.
I had to think about returning to my old caravan in Mitchell’s camping park, but I could only do it step by step. Sitting there, I mentally traced through the route to the home I’d lived in for eight years but not seen for fourteen. I would drive out of this motel, turn left, then right, then left again. Straight up, it would take less than five minutes to get there. There would be a sign, Amethyst Caravan Park, probably faded now. Then past the front fence, along the gravel path, past the shed that Mitchell once used as an office, I’d skirt the stand of palms to pass the laundry.
I kept getting to the laundry. No further.
I fetched another drink and the two-pack of chocolate chip biscuits. I ate one and tossed the other down to the dog.
When I lived there I loved that laundry, ancient though it was. The other residents included an elderly couple who had installed a Hoover twin tub behind their van, a retired council worker who took his washing into the town laundromat every fortnight, and an ever-circulating collection of young men who spilled over from the circus, and who slept at the caravan park but tended to use the circus’s facilities. So apart from the visitors and tourists, I was the only person to use the laundry regularly and I made it my domain. I would soak my clothes and linen in one of the tubs, poke it all about with the old wooden spoon, then rinse and squeeze it out by hand. For really dirty things, I would light the copper, feeding it with scraps of timber and wads of old newspaper until the place took on the feel and smell of some sort of laboratory, bubbling with potent liquids and thick with a chemical mist. I was the sorcerer’s apprentice. Left to my own devices, who knew what I would produce?
Nothing more than clean clothes, of course. After Sonny came along I would settle him in his basket by the doorway so he could have his face kissed by the sun while I stirred and rubbed and squeezed. Back then I could spend hours washing if I wanted, pegging sheets and baby blankets out on the old rope line propped behind the laundry, gathering in the loads of sweet-smelling clothes before the sun started to go down, setting out the ironing board in the annexe and performing the unnecessary task of ironing sheets and tea towels. I knew it was pointless – as if a baby cared how well-ironed his things were – but I always did it. I pressed Sonny’s cotton bibs and lawn wraps with more care than I’d ever ironed a silk shirt or a pair of trousers. Somehow it seemed important to do this. Just as later it became vital not to let him go out barefoot. I was never