Helga's Web by Jon Cleary Page B

into State politics and that she would have to pull her weight as his wife, she had begun the reconstruction task that today was recognized as Mrs. Walter Heli-don, society hostess and woman about town. It had not been easy at first, but time, practice and hard study had finally brought success and enjoyment. She had taken voice lessons, a slimming course and instruction in some of the more obvious aspects of politics. When Walter had been made Minister for Cultural Development she had bought a twelve-foot shelf of Great Books and now she was only four feet six inches from graduation. Her confidence had increased to the point of arrogance as she had looked around her and realized that practically all her competitors had had to go through the same process of manufacture and not all the results had been as good as her own. An egalitarian society did not breed natural hostesses; and once the hostesses developed themselves, they did their best to eliminate the egalitarian society. Norma just wished that some of the egalitarians were not so necessary to her charity causes.
    She floated up to one of the worst of them. “Mr. Gibson, your lovely wife just told me you’ll give us a thrilling check!” She had not been to an expensive school, but her quick ear had soon told her that the product of an expensive school could always be told by its extravagant adjectives. “You don’t know how awfully humbled I am by your generosity—”
    “Don’t bust your girdle,” said Grafter Gibson, rich and rude enough never to need extravagant adjectives; he had the sour face of a man who would have paid to have had the whole cocktail crowd dumped in the harbour. “Your Wally
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    could match my check any day. You oughta get him to humble you some time/’
    He does that more than you know, Norma thought. But the smile had not slipped: she wore it permanently in public, like the double strand of pearls that were her trademark. She put her hand up to the pearls now, the only nervous gesture she had. “Charity should begin at home, but not with Walter. He thinks the voters would suspect a politician who contributed to a good cause.”
    “He’s probably right,” said Gibson grudgingly. “I see he’s just arrived. Who donged him—some suspicious voter?”
    Norma moved towards the door to greet her husband. She kissed his cheek with her teeth, her lips still open in the smile. “What happened to your eyebrow? Did Miss Brand give you that?”
    Before Helidon could reply she had drifted away into the crowd, the smile turned back at him like a dagger being withdrawn. Feeling slightly sick he headed for the table at the end of the room where the drinks were being served. Carrying the crutch of a gin-and-tonic he then sidled through the crush towards where Grafter Gibson stood in the big bay window that looked out on to the harbour.
    “Not a bad place, this,” said Gibson. “You a member here, Wally? That how Norma got it for her shindig?”
    Helidon had joined the Yacht Club a year ago, after three years’ waiting and three applications: he had found it much easier to get into parliament. It had cost him only a hundred and five dollars to join and the annual subscription was eighty dollars; it was not an expensive club, but it was as exclusive as if its dues were twenty times what they were. He was a member of twenty-seven other clubs, ranging from football clubs through national clubs to returned servicemen’s clubs: but they had been political joinings and he frequented none of them unless he had to. This yacht club and his golf club
    were the only two that ever saw Walter Helidon as a participating member.
    “Norma and I do quite a bit of entertaining here, Les. You and Glenda should come for dinner with us one night.”
    “You think they’d have me as a member? Or don’t trawler blokes qualify for a yacht club?” He grinned fiendishly and Helidon managed a smile in return. He knew that Gibson could have owned the