only indirectly through the conversation of Eadie and the Judge. I could not have heard about him from Joan because I was either away at boarding school or, after the night of the corked-on moustache,hiding under the hydrangeas whenever she came. Eadie would call, âJoanâs here. Where are you, darling? Arenât you a silly old shy thing! Our friend wants to see you.â It made you burrow deeper into the hydrangeas, into the smell of mould and slaters. After that historic night I couldnât bear her. (âYouâll have to understand, Joanie, we have a brumby for a child. It must be my fault, Edward would not have got a brumby on any other woman.â Giggle giggle, and the brumby is soon the least of their preoccupations.)
When here was E. Boyd Golson in the flesh, or I should say, his Harris tweeds, his Jermyn Street boots, his bay rum, with a lingering of Havana cigar and Armagnacâevery inch a well-appointed gentleman of means. That he was incidentally an Australian would not have mattered to those who, unlike his wife, care for men. Curly Golson is both pretty awful and rather excitingâto those who care. That I might have cared, wrecked poor Joanieâs evening. While Curly cracked, and bulged, and shoneâstimulated by his encounter with a female.
Again, I must not be a bitch. Iâm sure he loves and serves his wife. Does she deserve it? That is another question.
All the way back along the road to Les Sailles in the Austin car he was as full of gallantry as I can imagine a bull moose in the mating season. I almost reached up and touched the horns, velvety but strong, sprouting out of Curlyâs tweed cap.
Our conversation:
C.: You know, the first time I saw you I thought, damn shame, but Iâd never be able to talk to that lady. Sheâs French, or something.
E.: [regrettably as arch as C.] Was there another time?
C.: The time I nearly ran you downâor Teakle, thatâs our man. When you were out walking with your husband â¦
E.: That time ⦠Well, I do perhaps remember. But vaguely. Other cars have almost run us down. Angelos becomes excited talking. We have so much to discuss. And walk too far out.
C.: [glum] Mrs Golson and I sometimes hardly talk for daysâunless about what there is for dinnerâor whether we ought to get our boots mended.
E.: Really? [Pause] Thatâs sad, isnât it?
C.: Never thought of it as anything but normal.
E.: Still sad.
Oh, the Australian emptiness! At this point I couldnât help laughing, and that made it sadder still. My brutalityâwanting to get my own back as we were thrown against each other all the way along the atrocious road through the pinède , the ruts reminiscent of those approaching Mittagong. Once, cracking, he edged an arm around me and a rut allowed me to edge him off. Hypocritically. When I could have enjoyed his Harris shoulder.
The difference between the sexes is no worse than their appalling similarity â¦
Just after that, after mounting the rise, the bull moose straining at the wheel, we burst out upon âCrimson Cottageâ. And there was Angelos standing on the doorstep. I could see he must have run out fifty times, wondering whether his âwifeâ had been crushed by some vehicle, raped by a peasant, or abducted by a rich man like the one now fetching her back in a motor.
Yet when we descended from this monstrous machine, and he had staggered down the path, almost tripping over rosemary and wormwood, which do disregard the bounds of garden aesthetics, as A., loaded with brandy, oversteps social decency, these two incongruous males, the gallant Curly and my lovingly licentious Greek, fell upon each other, Iâm sure only from relief at finding male company.
While I was left to hobble, and enjoy the scents of the evening garden, so much subtler if less exciting than the male stench.
(I would like to think myself morally justified in being true to what I