Foibles

By Chris Dreyfus

Three Sydneysiders muddle through a comedy of errors, discovering their vulnerabilities and foibles. This is a darkly amusing series of novellas. Read them as distinct stories or as a suite.

Sybil's Unrest

Sybil is stuck in her bourgeois, mopey rut with a horrible husband, Frank. Her current reading material, Jane Austen's Emma, is offering some guidance—or is it? Her world turns pear-shaped when she runs to the aid of an injured young man, Nick. She may avoid the bunkers, but can she keep clear of the rough?

The Occidental

David has taken to drinking and brooding in the company of his only friend. Is Frank a friend? Arrangements are made to travel overseas, but he retreats to an odd city hotel instead.

Bewildered

From Plunder's point of view, any kind of social interaction is invariably disappointing. A boozy dinner party quickly goes belly-up. Oh, and what's this about bees?

The protagonists cross each other's paths over one tragic, crazy, ultimately redemptive day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Dreyfus
• Release date: Mar 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224532360

Chris Dreyfus

Chris Dreyfus is an Australian writer of fiction and a visual artist. His characters drive the narratives of his fiction, often with a good dose of dark humour. He has produced many short stories and several novellas. Shortlisted for a short story prize in 2017, he has also published shorts in the literary magazines - Field of Words, The Honest Ulsterman, Blood & Bourbon and Every Day Fiction. Sex & Death / A Farce in 34 Notes  - eBook and Paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms. Foibles, a volume of three interconnected novellas released as an eBook and paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms. The Extremists / 14 Stories - eBook and Paperback. Search for it on all digital platforms.

Book preview

Sybil’s Unrest

Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.

Jane Austen, Emma

1

St Mary’s Cathedral sported a subtitle below its name carved into the portal arch, The Help of Christians. Apparently, non-Christians would have to help themselves. Still, I didn’t feel prevented from taking advantage of the soft pool of northern light offered by the leadlight windows. Motes danced a pretty dance in those warming streams of burnished orange. I typically timed my arrival to coincide with the end of the afternoon mass. As parishioners dawdled out, I’d sneak in. On that afternoon, though, a Thursday, Mass had been delayed.

Having descended from Rome the night before, the bishop was in town and must have thought the parishioners expected him to make up for the absence. I bathed in my thermal pew while the bishop employed his familiar posh Sydney Grammar School elocution to deliver his heavenly enticements.

‘The apostle John described a conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate. Jesus says his purpose was to bear witness to the truth, to which Pilate responds, Truth; what is that?’

His holiness must have believed his place in the hereafter was so assured there would be no need to disguise the impious sarcasm. From where I was sitting, the governor sent to maintain the law of the Romans back then might have been quite the existentialist. The spirits, holy or otherwise, could cast their nets wherever they pleased and catch as many gullible fish for all I cared.

We mere mortals remained fixed to a material universe wondrous enough for me. And besides, since I was married to a lawyer, I gathered that truth was a wildly overindulged construct and justice only as finite as the law wants it to be. Pilate’s question was more interesting than John gave credit. Rules can be changed and judgements altered, not to mention time passes such that truth becomes lost in the sands of the ancients.

It was a short walk home down the hill from the cathedral to my house on Burke Street, a renovated terrace built in the 1920s. It looked similar to the one next door but for one significant feature. The bay window sitting proud of the structure never failed to please me whenever it came into view.

Arriving home from yet another prayerless but sun-blessed visit, I found a familiar scene, my husband writing notes on a legal pad, a swath of papers strewn across the dining table, his mobile phone close at hand, silent for a change.

Having placed dinner in the oven, I poured myself a chardonnay and opened a stubby for Frank.

‘Ta,’ he said.

‘Frank, do you ever sense you’ve been cut adrift?’

His eyes, visible above the lid of his laptop, slid towards mine. ‘What’s cooking, Syb?’

‘I’m roasting a chicken.’

‘I mean, what’s brought this drifting business up?’ He squinted. ‘You’re not menopausal, are you?’

‘Frank!’

‘Just asking, must be nudging around there.’ His attention returned to his laptop, finishing with, ‘Don’t you think?’

I don’t know why he so often caught me unawares. After all, his insensitivity was so comprehensive and transparent that it must have been obvious for all to see. All, except for myself, it seemed. I’d wondered at my foolishness for even asking the question. It was too esoteric for him. Although, he knew when to deploy all manner of mysticism if it meant one of his clients could walk free. He would have loved Pontius Pilate’s rebuke regarding the ambivalence of truth.

‘I’m not entering menopause. I believe I will know when it happens and will inform you. There will be hot flashes, apparently and weeping for no reason. Somebody said the smell of stewed pears, which she’d always loved, became disgusting.’

‘Personally speaking, the smell of stewed pears might be an unpleasant experience pre-menopausal or not,’ Frank replied.

I’d never eaten a stewed pear in my life, and after reading about them in connection to menopause, determined I wouldn’t be likely to start. ‘In any case, I have reason to predict the effect of menopause on the body will be significant.’

He looked at me again with a perplexed expression, shrugged and returned to his laptop. Being a lawyer made Frank partial to mistrust. I didn’t have many people to talk to, so I occasionally spoke to my husband out of desperation. On the other hand, when of a mind, he spoke at me, presumably to discourage any form of response. To my and perhaps Frank’s surprise, this conversation was an exception. I sat at the other end of the table, twirling my glass of wine and wondering what effect I might achieve by emptying it over his head.

He described the details of his current case, which involved defending Len, a coked-up thug who robbed and beat up an innocent man. The victim was in the hospital and not expected to survive. ‘With due diligence and advocacy, I’ll get the bloke off,’ he’d said. ‘This grub is guilty as sin, but there’s a point of law involved.’

‘Confirming my opinion that the justice system is horribly flawed.’

‘That’s true. The law is an imperfect tool. Deliberately so, it’s necessary to leave a lot of room in the fertile gardens of justice for doubt to blossom.’

I probably failed to hide my smile. Although I was used to Frank’s snarky sense of humour, it was an oddly poetic remark. Still, I hoped yet another recidivist, the customary beneficiaries of Frank Lemon’s brilliance, would go to jail, as this Len appeared to deserve. I tried not to imagine Len’s upbringing, only that it probably wouldn’t have been conducive to the path of virtue. But then, what did I know? From bitter experience, I knew that the peripheral taint of wrongdoing can land a person in trouble. Two years had elapsed since the entire middle management of the private equity bank I worked for had all been dismissed when it was found the CFO defrauded the company. We should have been aware, we were told. The CEO departed quietly with a handsome payout.

Frank once told me the truth didn’t matter, only what could be proved. He said it with such nonchalance I wondered at the time if it was simply one of his half-joking throwaways. But no, when I’d looked, his customary smirk was absent. He’d been merely alluding to a fundamental fact of jurisprudence. In precisely the same way their clients viewed it, lawyers believed justice was a concept entirely up for grabs.

From my observation, Frank was very good with his points of law. He could be loud and uncouth but had a knack for disporting himself successfully in a courtroom. He obscured his brilliance behind the smokescreen of his working-class roots. I once snuck into the courtroom to watch him in action. Two men and a woman were accused of an organised crime operation that left many gullible investors without their nest eggs. One victim committed suicide rather than face a life of penury. It was a Ponzi scheme, taking up many column inches in the newspapers and images of embarrassing perp walks on television. Frank encouraged titters from the gallery, charmed the jury and even got a less-than-stern ahem from the judge. I didn’t go to the whole trial, but it was clear that Frank’s clients saw the scales of justice tip their way, at least to provide them with a more lenient sentence than they expected.

Frank’s snooty law firm partners failed to issue dinner party invitations to we Lemons but valued Frank’s ability to get blokes off for large quantities of dodgy cash.

He tapped his laptop without looking up. ‘Where were you, Syb?’

‘Church.’

‘I still think that’s pretty odd, you going to church, considering. Was anybody there?’

‘Yes.’ Not many. I didn’t feel compelled to offer confirmation of Frank’s cynicism but then continued anyway. ‘The bishop was in attendance.’

‘So, the bugger is back from his doings at the Holy See. From all accounts, he suffered a slap on the wrist for looking the other way while his minions molested those kiddies?’ He stifled a yawn, pulled back from his work, and took a swig of beer. ‘Anyway, did the jolly fellow impart any wisdom?’

‘Among other things, he said, ‘as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.’

‘The papal dressing down hasn’t blunted his charm then. The bloke’s a barrel of laughs. Does a celestial drum roll occur every time he drops one of his clangers on the congregation?’

I had to agree. The bishop was, along with his wicked denial of historical child abuse, a pompous knob, as Frank once called him. The cleric had been at the centre of the scandal for many months. His large and cheerless face graced every media outlet in the land to such an extent that I wondered what else was happening. The Middle-East was being overrun by head-chopping, virgin-raping religious zealots, but the conservative media preferred to make celebrities out of priests. Nevertheless, the saying about repeated folly caused me to circle back to the ghastly Len.

‘Does it ever bother you, getting these criminals off Frank? From what you have told me, they are a bad lot who go out and do it all again.’

‘Keeps us in cake, doesn’t it? Besides, it’s the law. I’d be a bad lawyer if I didn’t do everything I could to prove their innocence. Here’s a quote from my pulpit—Make yourself sheep, and the wolves will eat you. Ben Franklin; not exactly God, but close.’

I could barely see how the quote was apposite but chose to ignore it. ‘It strikes me that if the law rewards the guilty, then it’s failed its primary purpose.’

‘The devil is in the detail, Syb. We can all be comforted that God is ever-reliable in providing all the generalisations we need.’ Frank was still laughing when he left for a meet-up at the pub with David Fielden. And without answering my question. Perhaps it was too esoteric for him. Though evident to me, the notion of being cut adrift was like requesting a translation of the Rosetta Stone for him. He told me the week before he sometimes found my surfeit of feelings exhausting. I don’t know why I bothered because I mostly wanted him to shut up.

I knew I wasn’t a run-of-the-mill sort of girl growing up. Things never quite fit right for me. I did dabble with God for a while. At age thirteen, I’d stumbled into a church to escape the rain and surprised myself and everyone else in my ambit by finding Jesus there, albeit briefly. My parents rarely gave religion a second thought, although my father did grumble God’s Teeth at some things on the TV news. They were mystified, if not alarmed, by the sudden devotions of their already odd daughter.

In the Christian texts, talk of the ‘soul’ is couched as if it’s something just out of mankind’s mortal reach, only available upon death: do what God tells you and reserve your place in heaven. Frank was right—the devil is in the detail. When it came to my own excessive introspection, the devil was all over it. After a few years of devotion, I realised it would have been more sensible if I’d waited for the rain to stop and continue on my way.

Often confused by my attraction to Frank, I wondered what a nice man like David saw in him. If I ever got a chance, I’d ask him. Perhaps, Frank filled a void. On reflection, I thought he might be doing the same for me. I had considered leaving him once.

We had been married a decade when I saw him on Macquarie Street with a young woman. I was on a bus, having made an appointment with a gynaecologist. I wanted to know why I wasn’t pregnant and if it was possible to be so. Frank was holding the woman’s arm, looking directly at her. I knew the half-smiling expression, a jokey slyness to it, memorable, as it was the same one he used when asking me to marry him. Frank was at his most handsome with that expression. And he knew it.

With an ambiguous smile of her own, the woman stepped away from him. An evil thought sneaked into my mind—if she were to take one more backward step, she’d topple off the curb and into the oncoming traffic. I watched this tableau for a few seconds before the bus lurched away towards the Quay. That night during dinner, I asked him about it.

‘Who was the woman you were with today?’

‘What?’

‘The woman. I was on a bus and saw you with her.’

‘Ahh...I don’t know.’ He had his head down, the usual suspicious picking at the food. ‘What exactly is this?’

I’d served dinner late that night. Our meals were often delayed because I am both ungifted and an optimist when it comes to cooking. According to the Sydney Morning Herald supplement, Lamb and Chickpea Curry is a fabulously easy meal to slap together, thirty minutes tops. Still at it ninety minutes after the celebrity chef’s promised timeframe had elapsed, and the torn-out recipe page rendering it unreadable, I had to wing it.

‘Frank? I asked you a question.’

‘Nobody. A client. I think.’

‘You think! This was today! She didn’t look like one of your clients.’

‘You might be surprised how well they scrub up sometimes.’

‘Well, I suppose I wouldn’t know one way or the other.’

‘Yes, perhaps that’s it.’ Frank found something to his liking amidst the debris on his plate and popped it in his mouth, promptly followed by a grimace.

‘More like a colleague from my observation. I’ve noticed you lawyers have this way about you.’

‘Really, do we?’ He’d shrugged, put down his fork and fiddled with his ever-present phone.

‘Yes, and you have it in spades. What was going on? The woman looked—’

‘A bus, why were you on a bus? That’s a long way from your office, isn’t it?’

Frank all over, the soul of obfuscation – a lawyer’s magic trick. It had never occurred to me before that he’d had only the slightest notion of where I worked. I’d thought such knowledge to be something one might expect from a husband. Doubtless, somebody had crunched the numbers on that one. I’d let it be, knowing my line of direct questioning wouldn’t get me anywhere and continued eating the curry, having to resentfully conclude that Frank’s confusion about it had been justified.

Later, I’d brooded with several more glasses of wine in front of the television, watching a show about house renovations. Back then, our flat was a little cramped, a one-bedroom with a sunroom walk-up in Elizabeth Bay, but nice enough, with half a view of Rushcutters Bay Park from the tiny balcony. Frank wouldn’t be made a partner for another three years, my bay window another ten years away.

This unusual architectural feature for the inner-city neighbourhood had become my sanctum sanctorum. I’d cajoled Frank into buying the row house with the bay window. God, what’s that sticking out over the footpath? The heritage listing limited what one could do with the exterior beyond minor repairs and paint. Frank showed no interest in features of any kind, nor did my oversight of extensive renovations stimulate his passion except when presented with the bills. Heated discussions usually ended with me justifying the expenses as increased property value, a detail that appeared to placate him.

With the dust settled and renovations well behind me, the bay window seat represented my personal territory, a place of peace through which I could survey the world but where the world wouldn’t feel it necessary to look back. A bittersweet moment occurred recently when I discovered Frank seated at the window looking unusually pensive. I didn’t want him there, but the light fell on him handsomely in that glow the late afternoon sun occasionally does.

A memory from my school days surfaced occasionally. I was a shy kid, having started my first year at high school. Frank stood limbering up to bowl on our high school cricket pitch when I first laid eyes on him. He was a senior in his final year, and I noted how handsome and otherworldly he looked as the sunlight shone on him when he strode and released the ball with elegant grace.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape the sense that my special place, the bay window, had been invaded. I’d become aware at that moment that my world had become small and repressed before I’d had time to assimilate its portent. It dawned on me that I must have ended up the person I was meant to be: shy, lonely and dependent.

One recent evening I’d watched my husband in action at an office drinks party and realised my cynical view of him had reached a higher order of magnitude. It was also the first time I’d met Sir Cranston Smythe, QC, the firm’s leading partner of Smythe, Todd, Ramble and Associates at Law.

Apparently, it wouldn’t do for Frank and spouse not to attend. He’d whined about it getting ready and again during the taxi ride to the office. The moment we stepped into the room, my husband’s demeanour alchemically transformed from a leaden ire to golden bonhomie. I’d seen this iteration of him before, but it had been a long enough time to have expediently put it out of my mind.

‘You’re far from my expectations, Sybil. A surprise, in fact, and I do admit to liking surprises. Sadly, there are so few in the practice of law,’ Sir Cranston said.

‘Oh, well, always happy to oblige—I guess. I did steal a bag of golf tees when at age eleven. Will that make me more or less surprising?’ I sipped my chardonnay as demurely as I’d thought appropriate.

‘Ha! I think we might be friends. I’ve heard you play golf.’

‘Yes.’

‘Handicap?’

‘Three at Moore Park. I did shoot a three-under last week.’ Is bragging a sin?

‘Good lord. Perhaps we can do a round together, though I believe orangutans putt better than me, which is to say I could do with some tutoring. Either that or the intervention of a zoologist.’

‘Most men don’t like me beating them, Sir Cranston.’

‘Cranston or Cran is fine, and I’m not most men.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

Shorter than I’d pictured and rounder. He wore a pair of big black-framed glasses over watery eyes, a small, slightly hooked nose and a sort of turned-down smile. He looked like a grandfather, probably several times over. Despite all this, he commanded a presence that some people do without trying. I expected, from all the bagging he got from Frank, an aloof Grinch of a man.

‘But why am I surprising?’ I continued, interested but also hopeful of the tiniest bit of flattery. I managed to squeeze into my black dress and not look too lumpy. I performed the arduous makeup routine with scant attention to my imperfections, as there was a chance I would err on the wrong side and look like an amateur clown.

Cranston nodded in Frank’s direction.  ‘Your husband is quite the asset to our practice, Sybil.’

So, instead of answering, he opted for an indirect and vague response, an approach a judge might admonish as leading as it contained a stealthy tone of enquiry.

‘This is good to hear. Otherwise, we’d be living in penury.’ Had my chardonnay been spiked?

Cranston had peered at me briefly with renewed interest. ‘That’s Phoebe he’s talking to, our brand-new QC. This party is for her.’

Frank held a tumbler of whiskey. Wine is for pussies, I could hear him say; in fact, could be saying precisely that as I followed Cranston’s gaze. He was talking to, or more accurately at, Phoebe QC, an attractive, intense-looking woman gripping a glass of red too tightly. She’d looked to be debating whether to throw its contents in Frank’s face or crush it in her hand. It struck me that such a pretty, patrician-class woman might not have had much experience with the gutter, where Frank acquired his clientele. I couldn’t imagine he cared. He probably made no distinction, discharging only one brand of poison, titrated with such willful carelessness he no longer knew he was doing it.

‘She doesn’t look very pleased with his attentions, Cranston,’ I took another large sip of wine.

‘Don’t worry, she can handle herself, a slayer in court—bred from a long and illustrious line of legal eagles.

‘Hmmm, there’s the courtroom, and then there’s Frank,’ I’d said.

‘He’s an unusual man, your husband; I’ll say that in his defence, your honour.’ He beamed at me. ‘Now though, I see this greatly enhanced in his choice of a wife.’

Cranston emitted another wry smile, the remark not malicious at all but as close to a compliment as I’d be getting from him. I had thought he must do this a lot: a subtle play without condescension. A jury would be putty in his hands. Lawyers—a world unto themselves.

‘Unusual is one word, but I’m guessing it’s not the first that would come to Phoebe’s mind,’ I’d said.

‘I try to avoid office politics. That is until I can no longer. Tell me—I might be out of order here, but my curiosity precedes me—do you think of him as a good man, Sybil?’

‘Who? Frank? Um, I’m not sure. A wife should answer in the affirmative, shouldn’t she?’ I needed another glass of the excellent chardonnay, and right on cue, a liveried waiter appeared to provide it.

‘Ah, actually, that’s an interesting question, as is the justice system, entirely a matter of individual perception. That’s why justice insists on twelve jurors. I’m sorry to say, my dear, and I may indeed be out of order, but we’d be hard-pressed to find six, let alone twelve, to provide the concurring opinion for the defence in the case of Frank.’

‘Not out of order so much. The evidence is disappointing, though,’ I wasn’t inclined to defend my husband.

‘Ha! If you ever consider taking up the law, come see me.’ Sir Cranston’s mood had become sombre as he pointed at Frank with his glass. ‘That man is a damn good barrister, and he has done very well for this firm, though he does fly close to the sun. I fear for his handsomely tailored feathers.’

‘You’re not alone there, Sir—Cranston,’ I replied.

‘Why have you never come to our soirees before, Sybil? We lawyers are a dreary lot, really. We could do with such as you to shake us up a bit.’

‘Frank told me invitations were not normally extended to us.’

‘That is not true at all. This party is indeed a big deal. Having a new QC in the practice, that is. But on previous occasions when I enquired about it, he told me you weren’t interested in socialising.’

‘He can be fanciful when it comes to the truth,’ I’d said, although, in truth, Frank was merely deceitful. She should have known. ‘Is that a prerequisite skill for a lawyer?’

‘It certainly helps to have a nuanced approach. Imprecision can sometimes be helpful is all I’ll say, your worship.’

‘Do they really say your worship, Cranston?’

‘In the old country, but not here. When I first stood before a judge in Sydney, I said it. I got a laugh from my colleagues on the other side, but the judge told me cuttingly to familiarise myself with the local protocols.’

I noted Phoebe QC, looking flustered, making her way to the other end of the reception area and slipping out of sight. She may have been a slayer in court, but she’d be intimidated by street-fighting Frank in chambers. An older, sharp-featured woman replaced Phoebe QC and didn’t seem intimidated by my husband. In fact, she appeared to be giving him a piece of her mind. Frank looked bemused but not cowed.

‘Ah, our office manager, she’ll sort him out. I haven’t gotten away with anything since Eva joined us.’

‘Half her luck.’

‘Sybil, next time, will you make sure you come?’ Cranston asked.

I came away from that party realising I’d made a friend of Cranston. At the same time, something unpleasant had curdled in my mind, although on reflection, it shouldn’t have. I realised I’d never once considered Frank a friend. In fact, it was impossible to imagine him thinking any female a friend. He’d always been bullet-proof, with me to the rear, trying to avoid becoming collateral damage.

I understood several other things that evening. One being that people might be under an illusion I would have some influence over my husband, and the second that I could have had more friends and been less lonely if I’d tried a little harder. I knew Frank to be an immutable substance, but I had options, which I’d squandered in my narrow, internalising room of self-regard. Well, three things, the third being that if the rotund, balding Cranston wasn’t on the surface my type, he was precisely the sort of man I should have married.

Frank’s invasion of my window seat on that sun-filled Sydney morning stung more than I’d cared to admit.

2

Housework was of the most rudimentary kind. A cleaner came once a week to vacuum and mop. My contribution: to unpack the dishwasher, make the bed, and tidy the servery of Frank’s breakfast debris. I could only manage a glass of warm water (an apparent preventive for premature ageing) before seeing him off to his place of work.

On this Friday morning, I readied myself, as usual, for my visit to the gym around the corner on William Street. The gym aspired to the Las Vegas casino design tradition. On my route through its glittering vastness to the pump class, I couldn’t avoid the sweat-doused gym junkies angrily working their clanging devices as if at war with the things. Rows and rows of unhappy-looking people attempted cardiac mitigation on treadmills and bicycles while in front of them, boy or girl bands strutted their stuff on banks of enormous television screens.

Once inside the studio set aside for the class, I experienced an ambiguous admiration for my companions. They were women, mostly quite beautiful in their own way and of an economic status mirroring my own. I had a notion that their marvelous breasts could result from recent weaning, but perhaps that might be wrong; how would I know? I had no experience with rearing infants. Frank thought my breasts were fine when asked, a stupid question I felt compelled to ask while squirming from the compulsion to ask. It was an exhausting failure that I appeared to have become a person who continually measured myself against others.

The gym ladies wore Fitbits to measure their steps. I considered purchasing one but concluded the device would only disappoint me. The yummy-mummies, a term I recently heard, sailed through the pump class with pushy determination without appearing to sweat, or at least not as much as I did. In the changing room, my reflection in the mirror presented me with a damp, red-faced contrast.

Coffee and a croissant, seated at the back of Ruby’s Café on Williams Street, was close to traumatic as two of my scrubbed and shiny classmates bounced in before rushing off home to their little ones. I overheard a conversation about their nannies while they waited for soy lattes to go.

‘She’s new. I probably shouldn’t leave her unobserved for too long. Who knows, my Valentino Garavani handbag could be replaced with a knock-off.’

‘I had to let my last one go.’ Her companion replied. ‘I arrived home to find her vaping while pushing Estelle on her swing. I mean, really!’