She felt so foolish then, in her lilac dress with her little handbag under the table and her feet hurting from the heels she was wearing for the first time. Those weekends he was at Scone visiting his parents – he wasn’t really, was he? He was at home with ‘the missus’ and the kids.
How could she have wanted to be wanted so badly that she ignored what was clearly the truth? How could she have let her deep, constant desire to be loved bring her to the point where she was being humiliated in public?
After the man left, she picked up her bag then picked up her now former paramour’s glass of red wine and threw it over his face, not caring that some of it splashed on the lilac dress that she already knew she would never wear again.
The next day she wrapped the stained dress, the heels and the bag in plastic and shoved them into the nearest charity bin.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The big house on Beaconsfield Road has a top storey that used to be the children’s floor. Now it’s divided into a bedroom and a sitting room with windows that look across to North Head and Manly. Sydney Heads guard the harbour and act as a landmark that can be used to orient oneself, both in geography and, Daphne finds, in life. Occasionally she’ll catch herself gazing at North Head and the sight of it reminds her that she is here, in this house she grew up in, in this street she knows so well, in this life that has had its ups and downs – mostly ups, she thinks – and which she’s still pushing along.
In the sitting room, with its old settee – the newest one is downstairs in the sitting room they use for guests, not that many visit any more – there is also a large desk. Daphne’s draughting desk. Arrayed on it today are drawings she has pulled out of a folder she has kept for many years. Hector has never seen the folder; nor has Janet or Noel – although Daphne’s had to become better at hiding it since Janet moved back in, as her daughter likes to poke around. The drawings look like a fashion archive as they cover so many decades of dresses and skirts and blouses and coats, all designed by Daphne.
There are some she wished she could make for herself, although it’s been so long since she’s sewn anything and hereyesight now, even with reading glasses, wouldn’t be up to it, nor does her mother’s old Singer sewing machine still work. And there are some she had once longed to make for others.
Well before Adelaide decided to have a creative life, Daphne had one of her own, except she didn’t tell anyone about it. She just drew and dreamt and wondered how she might ever be able to make these clothes. It turned out she couldn’t. She had to work; there was no time to learn to sew to the level of proficiency she needed, nor the money for lessons. Her mother showed her how to do some things, but they were functional: buttonholes and hems.
So Daphne put away the dream of designing for others and kept drawing just for herself. She still enjoys it, up here in the sitting room with the light coming in from the north-east and the desk big enough for her to spread out on.
‘Mu-um!’ Janet calls and Daphne’s heart quickens.
She makes to gather up the drawings, listening for footsteps on the stairs, but there’s only a few seconds of silence.
‘Mum?’ Janet calls again.
‘Yes, dear?’
‘Dad’s asking for you.’
No doubt Hector asks for her when she’s not here as much as when she is, but when she’s home Janet tends to want her to deal with it, instead of distracting her father, which is what Daphne has asked her to do.
‘He’s like a small child,’ she told Janet the first time she left them at home in order to go to the frock shop. ‘You can draw his attention away.’
It shocks her sometimes – only the times she will allow it – to think of her husband as if he is a child. Hector was always the strong, capable one. If a member of one of their families, or a friend, or even a friend of a friend, needed assistance, Hector would be in his car and on his way almost before Daphne had finished telling him about it.
He would never let people return the favour, and it wasn’t because he wanted to have a roster of individuals who owed him things – that simply wasn’t in his nature. Brought up by a generous man and a cautious woman, Hector leaned into his paternal line and gave of himself and his time freely, including to Daphne and their children. When the children wanted a swing in the back garden, he stayed up half the night making it. If Daphne complained of sore shoulders after a day of doing housework, he would massage them and finish with a tender kiss on the back of her neck.
On Saturday nights they’d leave the children with Daphne’s parents and Hector would drive them into the city or to Kings Cross for dinner. Daphne always looked forward to those nights, just the two of them, laughing at nothing much at all. There was always dancing to be had in those days; most restaurants had a dance floor. So he’d spin her around the floor after dinner and they’d keep going almost till closing, then go home and climb into bed knowing their children would get them up early but not caring.
He kept the fun in their marriage – that’s what it was. But getting old and losing one’s mind is the furthest thing from fun Daphne can imagine.
Now she can hear Hector downstairs, sounding slightly agitated, so she tucks the drawings back into their folder and secretes them between two art books. She knows Janet won’t touch the books because she likes to say that she doesn’t understand art.
Daphne descends the stairs, past the floor that contains their bedrooms to the bottom floor, which houses the kitchen and main sitting room, where she finds Janet dabbing at Hector’s collar.
‘A little spill,’ Janet says without looking up.
Hector beams at Daphne and holds out his hand. ‘Shall we dance?’ he says, his eyes twinkling.
When he says things like this Daphne wonders if he isn’t all right, after all, because he still seems to have a sense of humour. Then there are times when he withdraws so deeply within himself that she believes him lost forever.
‘Maybe later,’ she says, but she takes his hand anyway, and he kisses the top of hers. She looks down at his hair, which is still relatively thick and not entirely grey.
‘I need to go to the shops,’ Janet says, heading for the kitchen and coming back with her string bags and a little notepad, which is where they write their lists.
‘I can go,’ Daphne says and Janet gives her a look.
‘On foot?’ she says.