Gracious Living (31 page)

She bent her head to one side and spoke very slowly. ‘Oh? Not playing fairly, am I?’

His gaze was darting all over the place like a hunted ant. Ginnie watched him and decided she would prefer to be alone.

‘Haven’t you something better to do?’ She gave him time to answer and when he didn’t, she continued, ‘Because I have.’

Scott frowned, the muscles in his jaw flickered, he didn’t know what was happening. Then something occurred to him, his face relaxed, and a little sheepishly he asked whether he might accompany her.

‘No, Scott, you misunderstand. I’m not going anywhere, at least not for the moment.’

‘Are you meeting someone?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘It’s not difficult to understand, I prefer my own company to yours.’

That he looked shocked rather than hurt or angry betrayed him. He tried to speak, gave up, walked away. A moment later he stopped, turned around, and in a voice dank with malice called her a smug bitch and a man-hater. ‘Just like your mother.’

Like her mother indeed, she thought, her eyes again closed and pleasure in her soul.

By four-thirty few people remained outdoors. As the temperature climbed – and it did with an insolence typical of the Australian sun – the outdoor attractions reclaimed a certain peace; the crocodiles floated as calmly as logs, wallabies bounced around unimpeded by chattering tourists, the bowling green, the tennis courts, the lake, the fairways all were deserted. And the sun blazed, capturing the vast spaces, the young grass, the buildings, the gleaming paths in its shimmering gaze.

The people were indoors, thousands of them filling club houses, lobbies, shops, gymnasiums, indoor sports arenas; cool spaces crammed with people passing time with friends and strangers and copious amounts of alcohol – Eden Park Flyers served by the jug, champagne too. Here was the mood of Eden Park that Lydia had first proposed all those years ago, a shower of excess, of recklessness and frivolity. And yet there was a studied air in all the abandon, something utterly contrived in the group of young men, shirts removed, performing on the gymnasium equipment to the delighted clapping of the crowd; or over in one of the club rooms, another group, older this time, seizing a microphone and launching into a medley of Beatles songs; something peculiarly calculated in the hordes of scantily-clad people cavorting in the indoor fountains, shrill voices merging with crashing water: so much noise and yet everyone managed to be heard.

‘But very little to say.’

It was Kate who had spoken. She was standing with Vivienne and Elizabeth on a ninth-floor balcony overlooking the atrium at Eden Park Lodge. They had, quite by accident, found each other in the piazza outside the building; Elizabeth and Vivienne had just strolled over from the coffee lounge and Kate had come from the party at the bird pavilion. They parted the ropes of drooping ivy and leaned over to take in the view below.

‘If you look, not quite at them, more into the middle distance, they look like millions of colourful jiggling lollies.’

Both Elizabeth and Vivienne turned to Kate: something more than a glance in the middle distance was required for such an effect, they said.

Kate shrugged. ‘Don’t blame me for your lack of imagination,’ and then laughed and linked arms with them. They stood and watched the show below.

‘I wonder if it would have been different with a cooler day,’ Elizabeth said.

‘I don’t imagine so.’ Kate clasped a hand to her head in mock exhaustion. ‘I think there are fairly routine ways of having fun, irrespective of the weather.’

‘And have you?’ Vivienne asked, unable to contain herself. ‘Have you had fun?’

Kate nodded, she supposed so – although she rather suspected that fun was more entertaining in the abstract: one always was a trifle disappointed.

Vivienne smiled. ‘But still you persist.’

‘Of course! Can’t give up.’

‘Even when reason suggests otherwise?’

‘Even then, Vivienne, even then.’ Kate nudged her old friend to acknowledge they had reached a well-travelled impasse, to continue would only aggravate them both.

Elizabeth waited for the moment to pass and pointed to the area around the elevators. ‘There,’ she said, ‘look what’s happening down there.’

The huge water obelisks were shrinking, and a minute later, the water had stopped altogether. Workmen were struggling to clear a path through the crowd from the edge of the atrium to the centre. They were not succeeding and after a short time gave up. The crowd thickened, now even the waiters couldn’t get through. People clambered on chairs to shout out their drink orders, others scaled the potted palms or were hoisted on to the shoulders of friends; money and jugs of Eden Park Flyers passed in opposite directions across the top of the crowd. The balconies were filling too; glasses and jugs and elbows crushed the ivy as people jostled for a better view. On a first-floor balcony two of the workmen elbowed their way to the front. They cast a wide streamer in the
ubiquitous purple and silver from the balcony to the elevator area in the centre of the atrium; there it was caught by another workman who attached it to a palm. A voice was heard over a loudspeaker: would all people congregated in the area below the streamer please move either to the left or right to allow preparations for the opening ceremony to proceed. Immediately, the floor of the atrium was transformed into a sheet of upturned faces. Kate burst out laughing.

‘What precision!’ she said. And then with the parting of the ways beneath the streamer added, ‘And what obedience.’

The three of them watched as workmen carried in scaffolding and trestles. Within ten minutes, a circular platform appeared in the area around the elevators where the water obelisks had been. Strips of purple carpet were rolled out, a rostrum decorated with deep purple bougainvillaea was placed at the centre and about a hundred chairs were arranged in neat semi-circular rows.

‘For us, do you think?’ Elizabeth asked pointing to the chairs.

Vivienne grimaced. ‘I fear so.’ She turned to Elizabeth. ‘I couldn’t sit down there, simply couldn’t manage it. Do you mind?’

Elizabeth shook her head, of course she didn’t, she and Kate would be fine alone, and Ginnie too if they could only find her.

‘There she is!’ Kate was pointing towards the main entrance.

Within a few minutes Ginnie had made her way to the platform, where she stood gazing up at the balconies.

Kate and Elizabeth waved, Ginnie saw them, indicated her watch and pointed to the chairs that were rapidly being claimed; it was time to descend. They arranged to meet Vivienne back at the car when it was all over.

A short time later Vivienne saw Elizabeth and Kate emerge from the elevator and join Ginnie on the platform; a guide directed them to their seats. As for Vivienne, she found a chair, dragged it to the balcony and settled back. The floor of the atrium was a shambles of foliage and waving arms, of bodies slapped one against the other. Kate was right about the jiggling, there seemed to be a vibration that seeped through the entire crowd, covering the floor and rising up the walls as people filled the lower balconies. Beyond the fifth floor the crowds began to loosen, too far from the alcohol,
Vivienne decided, the seventh floor was occupied almost entirely by film crews and equipment; up on the ninth floor Vivienne was alone.

A gong sounded, a huge coppery blast that lingered high in the atrium, and then another and another. Five gongs to sound the hour, and then a man appeared at the rostrum and asked for silence. He welcomed everyone to Eden Park, not only those standing before him but all the others, some twenty thousand of them, who, from the various club houses and gymnasiums and restaurants of Eden Park, were watching the events via closed- circuit television. And there was a special welcome to the people of Australia who, through the courtesy of Channel 5 were part of this unique occasion.

‘And now we’re about to begin.’ He paused for a drum roll and then spread his arms towards the crowd, ‘Eden Park is your place and we at Eden Park love you, each and every one of you.’

Cheers and applause went up from the crowd and the orchestra that had assembled in front of the stage launched into a march which somehow oozed into ‘The Impossible Dream’; soon the crowd was singing along. Vivienne stared down horrified, but fascinated too. Then Ginnie was beside her, she’d slipped away, found a back lift, couldn’t stay down there.

‘I felt like I’d been shut in with thousands of revivalists. My mother and Kate have a happy knack of being able to sit in the middle of it all and not be part of it, I can’t. Just take a look at them.’

Kate was standing in front of her seat conducting the singers with huge theatrical sweeps of an imaginary baton; Elizabeth was doubled over with laughter. The rest of the people on the platform displayed a decorum suitable for special guests on show for a special occasion.

‘I see what you mean.’ Vivienne made room on her chair for Ginnie and they watched together.

The show was about to begin. The orchestra had finished with ‘The Impossible Dream’ and was maintaining an innocuous tune, almost a single note, poised to launch into whatever majestic melody Adrian had chosen for his entrance. Lydia was seated
alongside David in the front row, the Warbys were seated more to the rear, and next to Elizabeth were Adrian’s parents. The remainder of the special guests comprised politicians, industrialists, performers – nearly everyone had a familiar face – all displaying the nonchalance of the famous on show.

‘Can you see Fiona Whelan anywhere?’ Ginnie asked.

‘I expect she’ll arrive with Adrian and the Eden Park contingent. She is the project manager after all.’

But she didn’t, Adrian arrived alone.

One of the newspapers compared his entrance to a god descending from the heavens, an analogy that struck Adrian as eminently suitable. He arrived in one of the glass elevators to the accompaniment of ‘I Did It My Way’. When the elevator reached the platform, he stepped out, his huge frame clad entirely in white, and immediately moved to the front of the stage to take the applause. The orchestra played, the applause persisted and Adrian went from person to person on the platform, kisses for the women and double-fisted hand shakes for the men; then he leaned towards the vast crowd and threw kisses to them and knelt at the edge of the platform to shake the outstretched hands. On and on he went, kissing and shaking and soaking up his audience and only when the music was winding down and the dignitaries were reclaiming their seats did Adrian go to Lydia: the last kiss, the last welcome was for her.

He returned to centre stage where he stood perfectly still facing the cameras, a serious expression on his face. This was Adrian Dadswell clearly moved. Finally he spoke.

This day, he said, was the culmination of his dreams. ‘People said it couldn’t be done, but I refused to listen. I knew that Aussie determination and knowhow and the Aussie sense of teamwork would bring Eden Park to life. And it has!’

Applause, drum roll, Adrian beaming, playing for the applause, drawing it out.

‘So many people to thank – ’ he continued.

‘There’s not a sign of Fiona anywhere,’ Ginnie said. ‘I can’t imagine she’s fallen from grace.’

Adrian was rolling through a list of names, of people who had
‘contributed of themselves to make Eden Park the paradise it was today’.

‘And these people,’ Adrian was saying, ‘these people put their blood, they put their sweat, they put their tears into Eden Park; they rejoiced with me when the foundations were sunk and the buildings started to take shape, they grieved when there were delays. Some of these people were with me all the way.’

‘Look at Lydia,’ Ginnie nudged Vivienne.

Lydia looked as happy as a bride. She knew to whom Adrian was referring.

‘I feel so sorry for her,’ Ginnie said. ‘It takes so little to make her happy.’

‘She made her choices.’

Ginnie sighed, she knew.

Adrian was now calling Sir Kenneth McKerlie to the microphone. ‘And here,’ he was saying, ‘we have another pioneer, another true believer in this great country of ours.’

Sir Kenneth took the microphone and addressing all the dignitaries and all the wonderful people of Australia he documented the history of Eden Park.

‘And none of this would have been possible,’ he said, ‘without the great man beside me.’

Applause.

‘Determination and faith are the marks of Adrian Dadswell, faith in his dream, faith in his abilities and faith in his country. All this from a boy of working-class background – ’

Ginnie looked at Vivienne; working-class? the Dads wells?

‘ – who dreamed and struggled and built an empire from nothing – ’

What about the Bainbridge money? the Bainbridge connections?

‘ – but not alone, because Adrian Dadswell knows about teamwork. His team combined talent and ingenuity with commitment and love. We all know there are people here – I don’t need to name them – who have been with Adrian all the way, who shared his dream, believed in him, and travelled with him down the road to success.’

Lydia bowed her head. She had never looked for public recognition, Adrian’s love had always been enough, but now as she listened to Sir Kenneth’s praise and felt the gaze of the crowd she was very proud.

‘Without men like Adrian Dadswell, this country would be nothing.’ Sir Kenneth turned to Adrian and took his hands in his own. ‘We thank you, Adrian, with all our hearts we thank you.’

Applause and more applause and the two men stood holding hands and gleaming with joy.

‘And now,’ Sir Kenneth said as the applause died down and the drums began to roll, ‘it is my very great pleasure to declare Eden Park officially open.’

The orchestra burst into ‘Advance Australia Fair’, hundreds of balloons were released from the high balconies, and streamers too, and beyond the dome a flock of white doves rose into the sky. There was cheering and shouting and champagne spraying everywhere, but no one cared. And after the balloons came deep purple carnations, frilly flowers tossed from the heavens, and then mixed with the purple blooms some white ones, then all white and a shower of white flowers drifting to the crowd below. And from the dome, emerging from the hail of white and drifting towards the platform was a glass casket filled with tulle, a radiant young bride in its midst. The audience stood hushed and watching as the casket drew closer and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March started to play. Closer and closer it came, and when the elevator touched ground, Adrian reached in and drew Fiona Whelan to his side. Adrian was triumphant and Fiona so happy on this the happiest day of her life. They walked to the front of the platform and turned to face the minister who was waiting on the rostrum.