Away With The Fairies (9 page)

‘Almond blossom,’ said the bottlebrush fairy. ‘And now
we must go to the ball,’ she said. She clapped her hands.
Several fairies rushed to harness the bunny. Hilda climbed
into the carriage made from a walnut shell and the bunny
hopped away to the ball.

‘Beautifullest,’ murmured Phryne.

‘Bunnies,’ said Miss Prout.

‘Oh, well.’ Phryne summed up the dead woman’s effort: ‘I’m sure that she meant well.’

The subsequent hour was spent arguing with a printer who could not see why he should have to use photogravure when plate would do just as well and in helping Miss Phillips transport her broken china to the carrier, with an apologetic note to the manufacturer and a draft of a rather fulsome review.

CHAPTER SIX

When one’s resting is like that of the back and he
loses all consciousness of self.

Hexagram 52: Khan
The I Ching Book of Changes

As Phryne was restoring herself after her encounters with whimsy and printers with a cup of strong tea and a ginger biscuit, Miss Grigg looked up from her rewiring of what seemed to be transformer, tucked her screwdriver behind her ear and growled, ‘Mrs Charlesworth wants to see you, when you’ve finished, Miss Fisher.’ Phryne nodded and knocked on Mrs Charlesworth’s door. It swung open. The editress was almost buried under drawings of furniture. She fought her way to the surface with a vigorous arm movement reminiscent of breaststroke, sending a pile of them to the floor with a swooshing thud.

‘Miss Fisher?’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Miss Grigg said that you wanted me,’ said Phryne, gathering up an armload of paper, stacking it and placing it on the chair. Mrs Charlesworth picked up a pencil, looked at it as though she had never seen one before, then put it down.

‘Now what did I want to see you about? Ah, yes. We’ve had a little emergency, and one of our features has rather fallen through. I have approved Miss Herbert’s slant on the fashion notes—quite satisfactory.’ Her tone implied that for a dirty, useless, unpleasant job, Phryne had done it really much better than Mrs Charlesworth had expected of such an intelligent woman. ‘And it was nice of you to distract Miss Prout. She yearns for glamour, you know. Just as addictive as cocaine, and far more pervasive. Poor Miss Prout! Destined to disappointment.’

‘Why?’ asked Phryne, automatically scooping up another load of papers and ordering them.

‘Because her aims are impossible. No real woman can ever be as beautiful as those film women. No real woman can afford to spend all her time on personal adornment, diet, massage, make-up, hairdressing, and of course, complaisant photographers. She is a purveyor of grinding, ingrown envy.’

Phryne hadn’t thought of Miss Prout’s philosophy in that manner.

‘That is a point of view,’ she said, cautiously.

‘Hmm? Oh yes, Miss Fisher, can you ask that policeman at Miss Lavender’s cottage to release a box of letters to us? Some of them concern this magazine.’

‘A box of letters?’ Phryne repeated.

‘Yes. Or possibly a portfolio of them. We have a feature called “Is This Problem Yours?” and Miss Lavender was kind enough to …’

‘Answer them for you?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Mrs Charlesworth, looking Phryne straight in the eye without blushing.

‘I can ask,’ said Phryne.

‘Thank you. I believe Miss Gallagher was looking for you,’ said Mrs Charlesworth, returning to her papers.

Phryne went out. Barefaced fibbing of such a high order, she reflected, was only to be expected in such a complex profession as Mrs Charlesworth’s.

‘Do try one of these,’ said Gally, thrusting a tray of savouries at Phryne. ‘You’re my taster. The others are all full.’

Phryne surveyed the treats on display. Miss Gallagher expounded on them.

‘Aigrettes of cheese—bit mustardy, I fear—angels on horseback, cheese straws, anchovy croutes and prune surprises.’

‘What’s surprising about the prunes?’ asked Phryne warily.

‘Half a devilled walnut instead of the stone,’ said Gally. ‘Well, perhaps it’s not a
big
surprise.’

Phryne took a cheese straw. It was sharp and crisp. She said so. Miss Gallagher wriggled with pleasure and clutched the bosom of her frilly starched apron.

‘So many of our readers give little tea parties or small dinner parties,’ she said. ‘These don’t take too long to make and they stimulate …’ she looked up at Phryne through her lashes ‘… the appetite. Have another?’

‘No, really, I’ve had a big lunch. Try Miss Grigg, she’s working hard.’

Miss Gallagher pouted. Fortunately, at that moment a wailing voice was heard on the stairs.

‘Want an ice. Want an ice! Want an ice cream!’

The voice was familiar. This must be Mrs Opie’s little angel, Wendy.

‘Want an ice cream
now
,’ the voice elaborated as well as any trade unionist, making her demands perfectly clear and, by the sound of it, about to stage a sit-down strike if the management did not produce the required ice cream, and that right speedily.

Excellent, thought Phryne. I wonder what Mrs Opie will say when she sees me again?

Mrs Opie was too occupied with attempting to arbitrate her daughter’s demands. By the sound of her weary, irritated tones the management was getting exasperated by this continual reiteration and was about to suggest no ice cream and a spanking if the delegate did not resume cooperation with the stated aims of the company. ‘You can’t hold me to ransom like this, Wendy,’ said Mrs Opie, confirming Phryne’s fantasy and forcing her to stifle a chuckle.

‘Oh Lord, it’s that rotten child again,’ snarled Miss Prout.

‘You don’t like children?’ asked Phryne, always an inflammatory comment to make to anyone of the female persuasion, and always to be answered in the negative. Phryne had friends who would dare dangerous mountains and perilous love affairs, but not one of them would dare to say, as Phryne did, that she didn’t like children. It was one of the few things that Could Not Be Said by a Woman.

‘Of course I like children, but not that child,’ said Miss Prout.

Miss Grigg grunted. ‘She’s all right, if you remember that all children are solipsists. Little Wendy is as self-centred as a pendulum which, as you will remember, always passes under its point of origin. Stuff the little wretch with enough ice cream and she becomes positively civil. Deny her her ice cream and she carries on like a two-bob watch. She’s all right away from her mother. At least she knows what she wants,’ she added, with a sidelong glance at Miss Gallagher. ‘Eh, Gally?’

‘Nonsense, she’s a perfectly adorable …’

At that moment Wendy erupted into the office, red-faced and screaming, hitting Miss Gallagher at about knee height and causing her to drop the tray, broadcasting savouries all over the surrounding area.

‘… little monster!’ shrieked Miss Gallagher.

‘Wendy, please,’ begged her distraught mother.

Wendy paid no attention but continued to ullulate like the cannibals in a pirate adventure book. Phryne had the beginnings of the headache she always got from drinking gin at lunch and was in no mood for trifling. She moved until she was looking Wendy full in the reddened, tearless eyes.

‘Wendy,’ said Phryne flatly. ‘Come here, sit down, be silent and I will buy you an ice cream. Continue to scream and you’ll get no ice cream from me.’

The uncontrollable scream was instantly controlled. The child eyed Phryne with equal coolness, still panting. Her blonde hair, so like her mother’s, flopped over her forehead, which was wet with sweat. The child had worked herself into a passion and her control over herself was remarkable.

‘When?’

‘Fifteen minutes from now. You can watch the clock if you like. When the big hand is at the top and the small hand is on the four. Not before. Not after.’

‘All right,’ said Wendy. She sat down on a chair and composed herself into the very picture of a good girl, hands folded in lap, golden hair flowing from her Alice band, feet in her patent ankle strap shoes, not kicking. If she had not seen the dervish who had entered the office, Phryne would have believed that she was sitting for ‘My First Sermon’.

Phryne picked up her cup and realised that the rest of the office was staring at her. Jaws had dropped. Pencils had fallen from nerveless hands.

‘How did you do that?’ asked Miss Prout, distracted even from the scandal sheet she was reading under the desk.

‘Yes, how did you?’ asked Miss Herbert, swallowing to regain her hearing. ‘Usually she goes on like that for hours.’

‘Beginner’s luck?’ hazarded Phryne.

‘Of course, you didn’t get to see the bit where she throws herself on the floor and turns blue,’ said Miss Grigg, commiserating with Phryne that she had missed this special treat.

‘Thank heaven,’ said Mrs Opie. ‘I don’t know how you did this, Miss Fisher, but I’m very grateful, and what … I mean, I didn’t know you … Are you visiting?’

‘Just helping out with the fashion,’ said Phryne. Mrs Opie looked in need of a cup of tea and a sit-down. Actually she looked in need of a stiff drink, a good tonic and two weeks at some serviceable spa. Miss Prout provided the tea and the chair and Mrs Opie sat down, took off her hat, and shoved her hair back from her face.

‘Printer’s waiting for your piece, Mrs Opie,’ said Miss Herbert. ‘Mrs Charles was asking after it this morning.’

‘Well, it’s finished at last. “Your Child”. That’s funny, isn’t it? Here I am giving advice to mothers who are probably twice as good as I am.’

Her voice was rising in pitch and Phryne began to suspect whence Wendy got her temperament. The other women were also reacting to the warning signals. Miss Prout supplied a handkerchief and Miss Grigg reached into her office drawer and produced a bottle of white tablets.

‘Aspirin,’ she told Phryne. ‘Calms the nerves.’

‘What about Nutrax Nerve Food?’ asked Phryne. A poster on the wall informed her that it was sovereign for all afflictions, mood changes, insomnia and other nerve troubles.

‘Tried it,’ said Miss Grigg. ‘Don’t tell Salus, but aspirin works better. Here we are, Mrs Opie. Chug a lug,’ encouraged Miss Grigg.

Mrs Opie swallowed the tablets and sat still for a moment. Then she rummaged in a large, shabby straw bag and produced three pages of tightly written script.

‘Damnation, Helen, haven’t you typed it?’ exclaimed Miss Herbert. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to do it for you.’

‘Why not? Miss Fisher’s just written your fashion notes,’ put in Miss Phillips.

‘And you’ve just finished your article on china decoration,’ Miss Herbert shot back.

Miss Phillips bit her lip. ‘Yes, but I haven’t typed mine yet, while you’ve got yours all down pat,’ she answered.

‘You have so typed it. I packed the box with the draft in it,’ chipped in Miss Prout. ‘You really are so lazy, Phillips! I don’t know why you bother to turn up.’

‘And why you want to drag this magazine down into that slime you’re always reading, I can’t imagine …’

The action, Phryne thought, was about to become general. Everyone was tired and the nearness of the printer’s deadline had exacerbated the ordinary tensions of the office. Miss Phillips was now shouting at Miss Prout. In about three minutes, it would be any woman’s fight. She cast a quelling eye on young Wendy, in case she felt that this might be a good time to demonstrate the tantrum deluxe. The child was paying no attention at all to the argument. Her eyes were fixed on the clock. Grown-up disputes, Wendy clearly felt, were common, but ice cream was ice cream.

Phryne’s headache had not improved.

‘Ladies,’ she began. Her tone was so authoritative that the combatants were distracted from their dissection of each other’s character, aspirations, morals and family background.

‘I know that you have a lot to do, with the deadline so close. I’m sure you don’t want to disturb Mrs Charlesworth. She did say that she had an editorial to write.’

‘Oh Lord, is she still writing that?’ asked Miss Prout. ‘She said she’d sack anyone who interrupted her.’

‘And she looks like a lady of her word. Now can everyone just shut up and bung over that aspirin?’ said Phryne.

‘Right away,’ said Miss Grigg, grinning.

‘Toss for it?’ said Miss Phillips to Miss Herbert.

Miss Herbert lost, but had the consolation that the person in a remodelled Worth in next month’s fashion notes would not be Miss Phillips.

‘I’ll be back,’ said Phryne, putting on her hat.

‘Why, where are you going?’ asked Mrs Opie.

‘I am taking Wendy for her ice cream,’ said Phryne, a little surprised. The clock ticked over onto four and Wendy got up, adjusted her socks, pushed back her hair and came to take Phryne’s hand, the picture of childish innocence.

‘Oh, but you needn’t …’ began Mrs Opie. The insight which that statement gave Phryne into Mrs Opie’s child-rearing methods explained a lot about Wendy.

‘I promised,’ she replied. Wendy preceded her and Phryne closed the door on Mrs Opie deciphering her handwriting for a puzzled Miss Herbert.

‘It’s an m,’ she was saying. ‘M for maternal.’

Out in the crowded, sunny street, Wendy so far forgot her preoccupation as to skip a few paces.

‘What sort of ice cream do you require?’ asked Phryne.

‘Chocolate,’ replied the child. ‘And chocolate over.’

‘A child of decided tastes,’ said Phryne. She led the way to a milk bar and purchased a double chocolate with chocolate on top. Wendy accepted it with royal condescension and applied herself to eating. She nibbled the chocolate coating off first, Phryne observed, then licked the cone from the sides so that it would not drip. To this the child gave all the attention due to a religious ritual, and Phryne did not interrupt her. Finally she had nibbled the cone right down to the bottom. She gave a satisfied sigh.

‘Mummy said I’d have ice cream then she forgot,’ said Wendy.

‘I see,’ said Phryne.

‘Because Daddy got cross,’ said Wendy.

‘Did he?’

‘Then Mummy cried.’

‘Did she? Like you?’

‘No. Not like me. Sad,’ said Wendy, turning down the corners of her mouth. ‘And talked about her Giovanni. She says she should have married him, not Daddy.’