for her daughter Sigrid’s wedding present? She reflected that this, at least, was one benefit of travelling by road. She could bubble-wrap the most delicate, elaborate lamp-base, vase or glassware and feel confident it would arrive in one piece. But would Sigrid appreciate such a gift?
The last time Meredith had been in Sigrid’s living space, two years ago, it had been on the top floor of a 1950s block of red-brick flats in Balaclava. Among the jumble of tatty second-hand items—which Sigrid proudly declared she had retrieved from a council skip—there had been some reasons for hope. A lovely vintage embroidered gypsy shawl draped on a corner table; a genuine bamboo bar—from the sixties, by the look of it—set with attractive ruby glass tumblers (although Meredith had counted five glasses and thought one should be disposed of so the set made an even four); and, in the bathroom, a stack of white waffle-weave hand towels. Meredith had paused to arrange them in a pleasing fanned display just next to the duck-egg-blue handbasin. Putting the best complexion on it, Meredith hoped that in the time since she had last seen Sigrid, her daughter had discovered her nascent sense of style and become a Woman of Good Taste. After all, it was in the genes.
Eighteen months? Could it be that long since she had seen her daughter? When Sigrid had announced she was leaving Melbourne to travel north, there had been a fight. Meredith’s offer of a junior managerial position in her store, with the possibility of a full partnership in Flair after a couple of years, hadn’t appealed to Sigrid. That had been a blow. The time since Meredith had last seen Sigrid had flown by. Mother and recalcitrant daughter exchanged the odd phone call, and Sigrid emailed excuses at Christmas. But even though she was pleased to hear from her only daughter, Meredith just could not stop herself from asking: had Sigrid found a decent job yet? Did she want to come home? Maybe go to university and study? For God’s sake, what was she planning to do? And now here they were with this ‘Charlie’ person wedged between them.
Meredith didn’t know if he was a banker or a butcher, a surfie or a used car salesman. The first time she’d heard of him was when the wedding invitation had arrived for a sunset beach ceremony on a Tuesday. She’s pregnant, was Meredith’s first thought. She had immediately rung and felt guilty relief when Sigrid had told her that, no, she wasn’t to be a grandmother just yet. But Sigrid had fobbed off her attempts at further interrogation with an airy: ‘Just come. You’ll see.’ Meredith had slammed the phone down and for the last three weeks had been plagued with curiosity and dread in equal measure. Should she go? Should she boycott the whole affair until Sigrid came to her senses? The thought that she had no-one she trusted to discuss this with, now that Donald had moved out, was also vaguely troubling.
Meredith found her reading glasses and peered at the invitation again. Printed on cheap paper and decorated with the ubiquitous yellow frangipani motifs, it didn’t hold much promise. Meredith had always imagined her only daughter would walk down the aisle at St Johns, Toorak, at 6 pm on a Friday, in an elegant slip of satin and lace. The invitation would be printed on a thick, gold-embossed card tucked in an envelope sealed with red wax and silk ribbons.
But that was all fantasy. The reality was that once Sigrid had married this ‘Charlie’ in Byron Bay, there would be no way back. And now she would be the one to shift the mountainous motorhome to visit Mohammed. How could it be almost a quarter of a century ago that she had first held her baby girl in her arms? And Jarvis, away in London this past year—how long since she’d sat him on her knee? Meredith bent her head and sniffed the cover of a continental pillow as if she could somehow conjure the milky custard aroma of a baby’s head. Ironing aid—that’s all she could smell.
As Meredith activated the alarms and locked Flair’s front doors, she also thought of her husband, Donald. Every time she imagined him, his image came to her in a flat brown frame. Not bole or fallow, just a sort of plain brown. It was frustrating that she could not name the exact shade. Russet? Bistre? Sepia? Umber?