Page 21 of The Orphans

Drawing room. It made it sound as though they lived in a vast manor. Fleur’s mother had called it the sitting room, which sounded far cosier and was more accurate, given its small size.

Fleur returned her focus to the news item, eager to hear more and keep her father engaged. The riot her father mentioned had broken out somewhere near the city when the unemployed discovered that mutton would be substituted for beef on the ration list.

‘Henry, shall we go through, dear?’ Irma put down her napkin and made to stand, leaving a ghastly imprint of her lips on the starched fabric from the plum lipstick she favoured. ‘Henry?’

There were times when Fleur believed this careless attitude was deliberate, to show disdain for the woman who had come before her. Irma knew how much Mae’s belongings still meant to the people she had left behind and now, watching that oily stain landing in full view, Fleur was convinced that Irma meant Fleur to see it. She looked away as her father growled.

‘What?’ he said rudely, frowning as he again folded back the newspaper, disgruntled to be disturbed.

‘I said, Henry, we’re taking coffee in the drawing room.’

‘You go through.’ He flapped the paper again.

Irma glanced at Fleur, who maintained a neutral expression. She hoped it conveyed a sense of ‘don’t blame me’, but what she really felt was helpless delight. When had she become so petty that she would inwardly smile if her father favoured her over his wife? It seemed that she and Irma had taken positions on opposite sides of her father. Anytime he moved against Irma – even in a tiny way, like choosing to stay seated a little longer where Fleur happened to be – was apparently a choice in his daughter’s favour.

‘Tell me more about what the article says,’ she said, turning back to him, far more interested in her father’s doings than Irma’s.

‘Henry?’ Fleur could sense her father’s blood pressure rising as Irma nagged again in her sniffy nasal voice. ‘Don’t let it go cold, please.’

Henry gave another grumbling sound and Irma left, her wide hips grazing the tablecloth and rumpling the corner. Fleur straightened it – it was her mother’s lace and she hated that Irma made use of her possessions. This was one of her mother’s favourites and yet Irma used it for midweek suppers; she could see where Nan had dripped stew from the pot to her father’s plate, but she couldn’t blame Nan, who was a former flower seller, not a waitress. It seemed Henry was oblivious too; either he chose not to see the stains on his first wife’s precious lace, or he no longer cared.

‘Here, listen to this,’ Henry said. ‘Apparently the unemployed in our neighbourhood are demonstrating in the streets tomorrow against the abolition of beef in their meat ration. They’re mustering at the Waterside Worker’s Hall.’ He folded up his newspaper and sighed. ‘There’s two thousand going from Port Adelaide, but they’re meeting up with plenty of others once they hit town. They’re threatening to carry signs with the hammer and sickle!’

Fleur gave a soft shrug. ‘They have legitimate grievances. I was talking to Mrs Brown the other day – you know her husband hasn’t had work for a couple of years, and they have five mouths to feed?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘She told me their rations had gone down from four loaves to three in the last year, and even the value of their groceries were reduced by threepence. She said they had more at the height of the Great Depression a few years back than they do now.’

Henry clicked his tongue with disgust, reassuring his daughter in doing so that he still did feel something for others. She watched him reach for his glass again to drain the ale and winced internally. He was drinking heavily. It had been escalating since her mother died – year after year it became more noticeable but now she was convinced that her father was an alcoholic. It didn’t matter that he was sober for the day’s work; come the evening – and Irma – he let go into his cups. She reckoned he’d suffer coffee in Irma’s drawing room briefly but would be out to the pub as fast as he could.

‘Dad?’ She might as well strike while he was lucid, and especially because life in this household was worsening by the week.

‘Hmm,’ he said, absently, folding his glasses into their case.

‘I’ve got some ideas I’d like to discuss.’

He closed his newspaper, obviously aware that he was being impatiently awaited in the other room. ‘What ideas?’

Fleur smiled. ‘Mainly for our business, but one personal one I would like to talk over with you. Can we arrange to sit down together tomorrow, perhaps?’

‘Your mother’s insisting—’

‘She’s not my mother,’ Fleur said, helplessly fast, like a whiplash. She wished she hadn’t, because his eyes narrowed.

‘She’s the only mother you have and—’

‘I didn’t ask for one. I was happy with just us.’

Henry sighed. And she understood – it was an old bleat and she should have resisted making it once more. ‘Don’t start again, Fleur, I’m tired of it.’ His expression looked suddenly wearied, as if he alone carried all the weight of the world’s troubles.

But Fleur knew exactly what his private troubles were, and they all focused around one topic. ‘Why did you marry her, Dad?’ she murmured. ‘You look unhappier now than you did years ago when Mum became sick.’

‘Too late for regrets. We have to make the best of it.’

‘I don’t have to. I want to leave.’

He looked stricken. ‘The business?’

Fleur shook her head. ‘Just the house, Dad. I don’t think I can live here much longer.’ It was all tumbling out the wrong way. ‘She’s so grasping, I can’t bear it. You give her everything and it’s not enough. She’ll ruin you, Dad.’

‘She’s just uncertain of her place,’ he said, falling back on his usual generous way. ‘You’re so assured and reminders of your mother are all around us. It’s probably hard for her.’