Behind the Moon (11 page)

Later, they wouldn’t remember exactly how or when the argument started. The cameras swept Westminster Abbey and picked out celebrities like snipers. The waiting was interminable. The choir started singing Verdi’s
Requiem
. Perhaps it was then that Bob said (everyone was sure that it was Bob who started it), ‘I can’t believe we’re watching this crap. I can’t believe the whole world is so bloody stupid that people actually imagine this is important.’

‘It
is
important.’

‘Why?’

‘Because. Because she cared for kids and landmines and people with AIDS. Because she was a special woman and we won’t see the likes of her among royalty again.’

‘Special? Come on. A woolly-minded, starry-eyed teenager who married upwards and didn’t like the deal she made. Who was spoilt enough to demand that her life be a fairytale, and then when it wasn’t, she threw a tantrum, told a lot of nasty stuff to the media and had it off with any number of other stupid dickheads just to prove that whatever else money and fame can buy, it can’t buy good taste. Special my arse.’

‘Lovely. Thanks for that. Obviously good taste is beyond the reach of some here at the table.’ Gillian dabbed her lipstick delicately with her napkin to emphasise her point.

‘No, actually, I agree with Bob.’

‘Even if he’s right, her death is still tragic.’

‘What her death is, is unoriginal.’ That was Stanley the doctor, striving to demonstrate his artistic side as usual, Tien thought. Always on a quest for innovation.

‘Too right,’ Justin agreed. ‘Hundreds of Hollywood dickheads have achieved an inglorious death by drug overdose or car accident.’

‘Yeah, when you come to think of it, even Grace Kelly beat her to it.’

‘Don’t you women see? This silly woman, with all her fantasies and affairs, was just a pathetic, ordinary woman with the heart of a Noelene Donaher from Sylvania Waters. The People’s Princess indeed.’

‘Doesn’t say much about the people, does it?’ Stanley, being sophisticated and amused at the hoi polloi.

‘Nup. A vain, ignorant woman who knew how to preen for the cameras and who had the morals of an alley cat.’

‘Oh, come on. If she did, it was Charles’s fault. She was only nineteen. She was only a child.’

‘She didn’t stay nineteen, did she?’

‘She was a slut, all right. At least Charles was faithful to one woman. How many lovers did she have?’

‘He started it first.’

‘Just because he had an affair doesn’t mean she can go ahead and have one too. Nice women don’t do that.’

‘Nice women, Tek? Talk about a double standard!’

‘You chauvinist Asian men—’

‘Cut the racist feminist crap, Gillian.’

‘What the hell does it all matter anyway? Who gives a stuff?’

The men shook their heads. Their women had gone stark, staring mad. There was no other credible explanation. It was inconceivable that their mothers, wives and lovers should identify so deeply with this woman. It had to be some kind of princess pathology, an insanity that infected ordinary decent women.

So Diana found she didn’t have much in common with her husband. Well boo-hoo! Welcome to the real world of marriage. So she found out her husband had been having an affair from practically the honeymoon or something like that. Well, lots of wives—especially in Asia, Tek opined—coped without sticking their fingers down their throats and having it off with who knew how many men. Didn’t they? Because if women thought this sort of thing was all right, was understandable, was even forgivable—well, what did that say about the women they had married? Would their wives do the same thing under similar circumstances?

To care so deeply—what did that tell you? Could Diana really be the apotheosis of womankind? And if nothing could satisfy this woman who had everything— not fame, fortune, nor fabulous fashion; neither hot cars nor cool holidays—then what hope had the ordinary bloke of ever fixing things right for his woman? Because what the hell more did a woman want on top of all that?

Then Gibbo spoke up unexpectedly, his voice rusty from disuse. ‘I think what she wanted was not to feel alone.’

‘Ah, come on,’ Bob said, embarrassed and annoyed that this son of his should always somehow be so touchyfeely, so unmanly. ‘She wasn’t alone. Or if she was, she didn’t have to be. She had more friends, lovers and hangers-on than you could poke a stick at.’

‘Not being alone,’ Gibbo said. ‘Feeling alone. You know. Lonely.’

Hostility diffused into general awkwardness and mental feet shuffling, because surely Gibbo was revealing something that nobody should be meant to witness. Bob huffed out an irritated sigh. His son was still the poor, bullied kid who had been shoved roughly onto the asphalt playground, who then came limping home to peel back the bandaid and expose tattered shreds of skin and flesh scraped hideously raw. ‘Look,’ he demanded with quivering lip and tear-filled eyes that pleaded for something no-one could give. He was not like other kids. You didn’t know how to comfort him, and those eyes left you feeling inadequate and guilty. ‘All right, all right. There’s nothing to get worked up about. We’ll just put some Mercurochrome on it and fix it right up. No worries.’ He was an emotional suction hole that you had to scramble away from before he vacuumed everything out of you. He didn’t have the decency to make a valiant pretence at being normal. Surely he should realise, at the age of twenty-one . . . and that was when it hit Bob. ‘Fuck. It’s your birthday today.’

‘Oh my god,’ Gillian uttered, horrified. Her eyes swung to Gibbo’s and she reached out a hand towards him. ‘Nigel. I am
so
sorry, darling. I completely forgot. Your birthday! Oh my god.’

‘Happy birthday, son,’ Bob said gruffly. The tips of his ears were red with embarrassment and perhaps even shame. How was it that he could never do right by this son of his, whom he loved so much but with whom he could never connect? They blundered about like blindfolded sumo wrestlers, occasionally thudding into each other with stunning force, but more often than not stumbling past one another and crashing into the walls of their relationship instead. The fault was wholly his this time. There was no denying it. But there was no apology forthcoming from Bob Gibson either. Instead, he punched Gibbo lightly on the shoulder. ‘Getting on, aren’tcha, mate?’

‘Happy twenty-first, Gibbo,’ Tien said, and the others mumbled their congratulations self-consciously. It was an uncomfortable situation and although nobody voiced it, they could not help feeling that Gibbo was largely to blame for creating this faux pas on their part. Any normal guy would have been making a fuss about his twenty-first for weeks, so that you couldn’t help but remember it. Gibbo, however, kept silent and this was the result. This feeling of guilt that, in the busyness of everyone’s lives, he had been forgotten and he didn’t deserve that because he was actually a pretty good bloke.

‘I’ve got some candles somewhere,’ Annabelle said brightly. ‘I’ll go stick them on Gillian’s pavlova. Better late than never, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll come help,’ Tien muttered, wanting to escape the awfulness of this dinner party for just a moment. She put her hand lightly on Gibbo’s shoulder as she passed. ‘Sorry, Gibbo. I’ll send you your present during the week.’

‘Ditto that, Gibbo,’ Justin said, leaning back. He inhaled deeply and massaged his temples. ‘What shithouse friends you’ve got, hey? I’m really sorry.’

‘No worries, guys,’ he said miserably, aware that the awkwardness was somehow his doing.

The women returned with five pink and blue striped candles flickering uncertainly atop the white crust of the pavlova.

‘Happy birthday, Gibbo,’ Annabelle cried triumphantly. They sang a discordant ‘Happy birthday’ to him, gave three half-hearted cheers and urged him to blow out the candles.

‘Let’s drink
yum sing
to Gibbo,’ Tek declared, and they toasted the birthday boy. ‘
Yu-u-u-u-u-m sing
!’

‘Well, we all wish you the very best, Gibbo,’ Annabelle said, the whiplash of her glance flicking around the table to coerce her family and friends into happy harmony once more. ‘Diana might have been lonely, but at least you never have to be alone. All of us love you, you know.’

Into the muttering of assent obtruded Elton John, warbling his revamped version of ‘Candle in the Wind’. They sat in silence and watched his shut-eyed, crackvoiced performance. Like everything else about this televised production, there was a sense of deflation at the end, a feeling that things were proceeding so smoothly, so mechanically, that time seemed to speed up like a metronome progressively picking up its pace, so that the end came galloping towards you, leaving you with no time to take it all in.

That was it, then. The coffin now in the hearse, wending its way out of London through the stems of scattered flowers and the shotgun bursts of applause. On the largely deserted verge of the motorway, the hearse stopped. The driver got out and flicked flowers off the windscreen, climbed back in, and the hearse rolled onto the motorway. The television cameras zoomed into the hearse and caught the reflection of grey clouds smoking over the rear window. It was over. Back to the studio for desultory comments and more American-accented solemnity.

Tek turned down the volume of the television. Bob drained his glass of wine and reached for the bottle. If they had been religious, if they had shared any one religion, they might have prayed and ended the evening with ritual and at least that would have been something to do. As it was, they were left with the inedible remains of the dinner and nothing to say to each other. It was his responsibility as the host, Tek felt, to break the sullen silence.

‘Well, I’m sure I speak for Annabelle and my Jay here when I say that it’s so good to see all the families and friends here tonight, sharing a meal. You know, in Chinese culture, eating together is a very important thing. Westerners go to the pub for a drink, but we Chinese always invite people to our homes to eat with us. In the old days, whenever we meet someone we don’t say, “Good day, mate. How you going?” We say, “
Sek pau may
?”, which means “Have you eaten yet?” But actually, it just occurs to me that when we call someone to the table, like this evening when Annabelle invited you all to sit down, we say, “
sek
farn
”, which means “eat rice”, because of course we Chinese eat rice with every meal. In fact, if I don’t have rice with a meal I don’t feel properly full, as though I’ve really eaten a proper meal. But of course now that I have lived in Australia for so long, I am used to the Aussie meal, like barbecue. And Annabelle is so multicultural she always likes to experiment with other cuisines. Like tonight she cooked an English dinner for Diana’s funeral.’

He looked forlornly at the remains of the meal.

‘
Hi-yah
, Tek!
Lao sai!
’ Annabelle exclaimed. ‘Hurry up. Nobody wants to hear you talk and talk and talk. How come you always got so much to say?’

‘No, it’s all right, Annabelle,’ Gillian said hastily. ‘Let him finish.’

‘So anyway,’ Tek continued, ‘we Chinese always ask,
Sek pau may
? Because we are concerned about each other’s health and well-being. So here we are: all the families brought together because our children have been friends since their childhood. Hey, Gibbo? Hey, Tien? And Jay, of course. Always thinking about his good friends and wondering whether they already
sek pau may
! So what I think is that we would all agree that although we don’t always see eye to eye where Princess Diana is concerned, the one thing we can learn from her death is how important it is to eat together. To all
sek farn
.’

‘Because she was bulimic, you mean,’ Bob said, burping loudly.

‘Huh?’

It was so typical of Bob to try to spoil everything, Annabelle thought. She aimed a sympathetic smile at Gillian for having to put up with such a difficult husband.

Gillian interrupted testily. ‘Oh, grow up, Bob. Why do you always have to act so superior and try to put people down? You know perfectly well what Tek meant. Tek expressed some beautiful sentiments which happen to be very true, but as usual you have to sneer.’ Slowly, to Tek: ‘He understands you, Tek. There is no need to explain.’ She looked around the table. ‘Well, I agree with Tek. We should make a greater effort to maintain the friendship between our families. Quite right, Tek. Sake fan indeed.’

‘Crap. It’s a load of crap. What friendship is there to maintain?’ Bob erupted. He slashed a furious glance at his son, then at Tien and Justin. How could Nigel just sit there politely while his friends ignored him all night? Friends indeed! When was the last time either one of them had called him or gone out with him? Those two Asian kids had run tame in his house. Why, he’d coached Justin at cricket and footy, even took him out for a spin in the old Holden Commodore when Justin first got his Ls. There was a boy who’d never been afraid of him, unlike his own son. And then the betrayal. Even worse than that, they acted as though it was all Nigel’s fault. And the pity of it was that, in his heart, Bob could not help believing that Nigel was somehow to blame, because just look at him with his girly pansy ways despite the solid strength of his bulk. The irony of it all!

‘Hey, Justo. Friends, your father says. Well, go on. Tell him the truth. Is my son your friend?’

Gillian squawked and flapped in her seat. ‘Bob, what are you going on about? Please. Please don’t make a scene.’

He ignored her. ‘Answer me, dammit.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ Justin muttered. He couldn’t meet that crazy bastard’s eyes. He felt deeply ashamed, but more than that, he felt scared. What did Mr Gibson know? What had Gibbo told him?

‘Tina? Is Nigel your friend?’

‘Yeah, ’course,’ she echoed. She looked at Justin for the first time that night and rolled her eyes. He grimaced back at her, and it was just that easy. The intervening years dropped away and they were back to being friends once again, united against the blustering fulminations, the sheer embarrassment, of Bob Gibson.

This was the last time she would ever come to dinner at the Gibsons’, she swore to herself. She should have known better. In fact, she
did
know better, but Linh had insisted because she felt sorry for Gibbo. ‘You and Justin must go,’ Linh said. ‘Don’t let Gibbo be the only one of you to turn up. And besides, it will be such a great opportunity to announce your engagement to Stanley.’