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unwilling to become sentimentally dependent upon any of the female
friends, mainly divorcees, with whom he occasionally spent a night or
a short vacation, boating at the Entrance, walking mountain tracks,
or looking for little known species of wild orchids in the forest. He had
been hurt in something deeper than his affection for Susan. No, not his
pride; rather a feeling of aesthetic decency.
Tomorrow Sunday, Sarah, his nineteen year old daughter who
had lately begun to revise her mother’s verdict of dullness about Fred,
would come to give a hand. This way, beside chatting with her, Fred
could spare a few hours for himself. He would call on Carol Matthews:
it had been some time since he had last got news of her; the adoption
business was so slow, little Ella was not even yet in her permanent care.
He feared that Carol would suffer a new bout of depression; it would
have been so much easier too if she had accepted to marry him, even for
the sake of adoption. True, she had not said a final “no”, she wanted
time. Whatever she said in this respect, Fred thought he could help: she
was quieter with him than with most people, he could sense the soothing
effect of his presence, and she was deeply grateful for the baby he had
managed to have transferred from Kalgoorlie to Sydney through friends
at the Anglican mission, although he no longer professed the Christian
faith himself and his Irish family was, quite naturally, catholic.
He did not like to mix with noisy crowds, but he was not in a
mood to cook a meal for himself tonight. He would drive down to a hotel
on the beach for a couple of beers and a good strip of sirloin. He set the
shop alarm, left the dogs free to wander about the gardens and drove
off, listening to a cassette of Mozart’s Magic Flute. The traffic was not
too heavy, it did not take long to get to the “Steyne” in Manly. When
he had brought his tray to a free table, looking up, he was surprised to
see the same French professor he had met this afternoon, having dinner
there with a young blonde woman. They were some ten yards away in a
brightly lit area. The man appeared to be engrossed in amorous conversation
with the girl, who could be half his age. He did not look around,
and Fred was not one to wave to people he barely knew, particularly in
this situation. Nevertheless there was something vaguely familiar in the
aspect of the girl, who was turning his back to him. She had very short
hair and was rather thin, but it was perhaps her gestures, her way of
holding her body. He was much too far to hear her voice, with the din
of a large family and a group of young sporty males much closer to his
table. Then she turned toward the bar on her left and showed her profile:
no doubt she was Kathy Powell, Carol’s niece. Like his daughter Sarah,
she was a student of the guy who taught at the University of Sydney.
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