A Woman of Courage (28 page)

And time, as the bank kept saying, was running out.

‘We need action and we need it fast,' said Haskins Gould.

Hilary had kept him out of the talks, afraid his abrasive manner might scare not only the bank but potential tenants. She still wanted it that way but welcomed his input too. ‘How did you handle this type of situation in the States?'

‘We put sugar on the table.'

‘Meaning?'

‘We got to offer them something they can't refuse. We tell the big boys we'll discount their rent by fifty per cent for the first twelve months of a five-year lease and twenty-five per cent for the second year but only if they sign up within a couple of weeks. If they ask can they afford it, you say can they afford to be left out of what is going to be the way of shopping for years to come. Those guys will have done their homework. They'll know it worked in the States and will work here. Offer them a discount like that and they'll bite. Tie one of those guys up, the sheep will follow. And if you can get a big name to open the mall when it's ready it'll be us for the stratosphere, baby.'

First things first. Hilary followed Gould's advice and went back to the two big boys, talking discounts, and signed up one of them within a week. The other crowd were miffed at missing out but she told them there'd be plenty of other opportunities since plans for the building of shopping malls were being finalised –
as we speak!
– in every major population centre in the state. A lie but it tended to focus the negotiator's mind.

‘On the same terms?'

The men in suits spoke as though that was a reasonable assumption but Hilary laughed. ‘That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Next time it'll be the going rate.'

They didn't like it? Tough.

‘The mall has to have a name,' Hilary said to Haskins Gould. ‘What are we going to call it?'

‘The first one in the state?' Haskins said. ‘Maybe the Virgin Centre.'

With Haskins it was hard to know when he was being serious and when he wasn't.

‘I doubt that would go down well,' Hilary said.

‘I don't know. I know guys who'd pay a big premium to get their hands on a real virgin.'

‘Don't they have enough troubles in their lives without that?' she said.

‘On the other hand,' he said, ‘belly like yours, I guess you don't look that virginal.'

Sometimes he was just begging for a poke in the puss, as she'd heard a Yank say once. ‘There is a precedent,' she reminded him.

‘I'd say one virgin birth is enough,' Haskins said. ‘In any case I'm Jewish, if you've forgotten.'

‘So was she.'

They settled on calling it the Majestic Plaza.

‘You know anyone who's high profile?' Hilary asked Dave.

‘The state premier's chairman of our footy club.'

‘If we guarantee him lots of favourable publicity, you reckon he'll open Majestic?'

‘Is the Pope a Catholic?'

MOVING ON

1

The Majestic Mall was nearing completion. Now what Haskins Gould called the tarting-up process had begun, the process by which, he said, they would turn a shed into a palace.

‘Flowers, chandeliers and sweet background music turned real low but audible, you know?' he told Hilary. ‘Classy restrooms. And clean, real clean. We got to make the ladies think it's a privilege to step inside the door. Make love to them, right? Put them in the mood to spend big. That way everyone's happy.'

Hilary went along with what he was saying but for the moment had other things on her mind. She was out to there by now and any thought of scrambling around on scaffolding was long gone.

‘It gets much bigger I think I may burst,' she told Sean who, as usual, carried the tale home to Mummy when they next visited the old hag.

‘Such a fuss,' Mrs Madigan told her husband. ‘You'd think no one had had a baby before. I had four and you never heard me complaining.'

Watching Mr Madigan's expression Hilary saw he had different memories of those days but wisely kept them to himself. She asked herself what she had done to deserve a mother-in-law like this, gift wrapped from the Evil One. By whom Mrs Madigan set such store.

2

At first the premier had been coy about doing the honours but Hilary wooed him ardently over a slap-up meal courtesy of Brand Peterfield and won him round; Kevin Donnelly had a name for being susceptible to good-looking women and good-tasting wine, although, as Hilary said, she was hardly looking her best at the moment.

‘More like Colonel Blimp,' she said.

The premier, charming as only an Irishman could be, denied it. ‘You are absolutely beautiful,' he said. ‘The epitome of Australian motherhood. Whereabouts in Ireland did you say your ancestors came from?'

‘Galway,' Hilary said. A bright smile, fingers and toes crossed tight. ‘Or so I am led to believe.'

Liar, liar, pants on fire
… But all in a good cause, was it not?

‘I only hope I don't pop on the day of the opening,' she said to Haskins.

‘Hey, wouldn't that be a great idea?' Haskins said. ‘Happen during the premier's speech it'll make the front pages, for sure. Television too, if we're lucky. Maybe you should see if you can arrange it. Jump up and down a few times, why don't you?'

Haskins Gould at his best gave added depth to the word
gross
.

3

In the event Hilary made it but only just. The next day she woke Sean early.

‘Here we go,' she said.

A long hard day ran into a long and even harder night. She had been both apprehensive and excited, heading to the hospital with Sean sweating like a pig at her side, but after a few hours apprehension – say rather terror that it would never end – was definitely in the ascendancy.

No wonder they call it labour, she thought, as another contraction threatened to tear her voice from her throat. The hardest bloody labour I've ever done. And to think for every one of the billions of human beings on earth some woman has been through this. God help the female race.

The hours had leaden feet but in time they ceased to have meaning. All that was left was pain: on and on and on.

Jennifer was born at three o'clock in the morning while the world outside the hospital windows was dark.

Sean had been at the hospital for a while but had left after an hour, seeing no point hanging about when nothing seemed to be happening. Happy to have an excuse to take a day off work he'd had a few beers with some mates and later kipped out on the settee. He was asleep when Jennifer was born, too far under to hear the phone, so he knew nothing until he rang, bleary eyed, in the morning.

‘A girl?' he told the nurse. ‘Well, better than nothing, I suppose.'

And could not understand why the stupid cow was so sniffy about what had only been a joke. However, it was a joke he did not repeat to anyone else.

Mrs Madigan paid a call on her daughter-in-law later in the day; no one was going to accuse her of failing to do her duty.

‘Looks a bit peaky to me,' she told the new mother. ‘You sure there's nothing wrong with her?'

Hilary closed her eyes to shut the old bat out, thinking how you could always rely on Mrs Madigan to come up trumps, whatever the situation. She'll be the best most beautiful most intelligent child in the whole world, Mrs Madigan. So there.

And cuddled the baby close, her overflowing heart warming her like a fire.

Did my mother ever do this to me? Hilary wondered.

4

She certainly had a pair of lungs on her. The way she bellowed, Hilary decided she could hire her out for foghorn duties at a lighthouse. It was also true that having a baby in tow was a complication. A baby's yelling could be a big turn off when it came to buying or selling a block of land but there was no help for it.

‘Now if I were an old-time British aristocrat,' she told Sandy Peterfield, ‘I'd have a wet nurse on tap.'

On tap was right; the way Jennifer went at them Hilary began to wonder if she'd have any nipples left by the time she was through. She told Sean so.

‘Don't say that,' he said.

Sean had always had a tender spot for Hilary's nipples but the marriage was on the skids and both of them knew it. They didn't talk about it but Mrs Madigan, eyes like a vulture, said it for them. Only to her son – after her remarks about the baby she and Hilary were barely on speaking terms – but she said it.

‘A judgment, that's what I call it. It's not as though you was ever properly married anyway.'

She introduced him to Jane Doyle, a nineteen-year-old with an interesting bosom and teeth, mostly nice if you didn't look at them too closely, who sang in the St Ignatius church choir. An Irish Catholic and a fresh young chick: what was there not to like about that?

Sean and Hilary hung on for almost another two years but Jennifer's second birthday was the last straw. Sean failed to appear at the tiny tots party Hilary and Sandy had organised and Hilary later learnt he'd been attending choir practice with Jane Doyle. With Sean's voice if anything worse than hers, it wasn't hard to figure out what that meant.

That night she told Sean she was leaving him and taking Jennifer with her. She knew it was mainly her fault; she worked all the hours God gave and even when she was home it was the same story. A partner should be more than just a sexual object and in the companionship stakes she'd fallen down badly. No wonder Sean had come to feel neglected, but she did not know what she could have done about it. Chalk and cheese, she thought. That's the problem. She'd had such hopes but it seemed even love could fail.

‘I'm sorry about it,' she said. ‘It doesn't seem possible for a woman to have a career and a marriage.'

‘And with you the career has always come first,' said Sean.

She looked at him helplessly, her bags packed and in the car. Sean's nose was out of joint but that was nothing compared with his mother. The day after Hilary and Jennifer had moved into their new flat Mrs Madigan was on the doorstep and Mrs Madigan was in a right old rage.

‘Even now you got to do things back to front,' she said.

In Mrs Madigan's book the man made the moves and the woman followed, but it was a book Hilary had never read.

‘I am sorry about it,' Hilary said, repeating what she had told Sean. It was true but didn't help.

There were nights when she asked herself where she was going in her life. She knew she was different from most people. Normally it didn't trouble her but now it did. The darkness pressed upon her and there were tears. Her sense of failure was so strong that she feared it would never ease. It was no use saying it was for the best, she thought, even though it was.

A property deal went sour and Hilary knew it was her fault; distracted by her marriage problems she had misjudged the situation. It cost them: not a lot, thankfully, but it was still a blow to the heart. She had an intense hatred of failure in any form and now she'd had two in a row.

‘We all put up a blue occasionally,' Dave told her.

It was no consolation.
I will not fail; I must not fail
. It had been her mantra ever since she broke up with Jack Almond. Life was an egg; she had a superstition she would not admit even to herself that the smallest failure could open a crack in the shell leading to ruin. A crack in the teacup… Auden had written a poem about that, hadn't he?

5

She knew she must get on with her life but it wasn't as easy as she'd expected. It was strange; she was the one who had decided to move out yet now she felt she'd been blown off course. Maybe it was the baby, she thought, but immediately felt guilty for thinking it. Of course it was not Jennifer; she hugged her until she squeaked. Jennifer was perfect. No, it was something in her. Whatever it was, the new house was not just unfamiliar; it felt alien. Yet two months later an unexpected phone call poured refreshment on what had been a parched land.

It was eight o'clock at night. The day had not gone well and Hilary was tired and out of sorts. She had been contemplating a long bath in hot scented water and the last thing she needed was to be badgered by intrusive phone calls at this time of the evening.

She snatched up the receiver. ‘Yes?'

A man's voice. ‘I heard on the grapevine that you and your husband have separated. Is that right?'

She couldn't believe she was hearing this. ‘And you are?'

‘Lance Bettinger.'

She could not place the name. ‘Do I know you?'

‘We met in the Lands Office. You were checking on a parcel of land with drainage problems?'

Now she remembered: dark hair and grey eyes, a pleasant man a few years older than she was. He had been very helpful and she had thanked him by letting him have one of the blocks at a dirt cheap price. An attractive man. Her spine, which had been rigid with indignation, relaxed.

‘Of course I remember you. What can I do for you?'

‘I was wondering if you'd be free to have a drink with me?'

‘Tonight?'

‘That was my idea.'

Why couldn't he have phoned earlier? She remembered him very well now and going out for a drink with him might have given her just the fillip she needed. ‘I can't manage it tonight. I have a young baby and no babysitter and it's too late to arrange someone now.'

She let the words hang out there, hoping he would suggest another time, but he didn't.

‘No worries,' he said cheerfully. And rang off.

‘Damn and blast,' she told the empty room as she replaced the receiver. ‘Very damn and very blast.'

Now she felt worse than ever. Maybe the bath she'd promised herself would revive her spirits. She went into the bathroom, slopped in half a pint of bath lotion – divinely scented but ultra pricey – and turned the taps on full. Steam gushed. She checked on Jennifer – sleeping – went into the bedroom and started taking off her clothes.