Sue Me, Sweetheart

Vincent had been patronising Pip’s restaurant for nearly twenty years. Just as he did every Thursday, he crossed to table twelve and sat facing the room, catching the wine waiter’s eye. Henry, who had been bringing him a half bottle of Jacob’s Creek shiraz for longer than he could remember, poured a little into a gleaming glass and paused, eyebrows raised as though uncertain of Vincent’s approval, before filling the glass.

“Thank you, sir. Enjoy your meal,” he said as always and withdrew, allowing the winsome waitress Carlotta to take his place.

She smiled. “Hello, Mr McKendrick. Will you have the usual?” Vincent nodded and folded the Financial Review to better focus on the falling dollar.

Pip, the chef and owner, made the best meat pie Vincent had ever eaten. When Carlotta returned with his order he noticed with intense pleasure the double serving of peas prepared as only Pip knew how—mashed with a little virgin olive oil, a dash of balsamic, finely chopped mint and ground black pepper.

As Carlotta reached across with the plate, a woman of such ample proportions that she had trouble squeezing between the tables nudged her roughly, sending the contents of the plate flying into Vincent’s lap. The pie collapsed on contact and the pea puree made a spectacular landing. Carlotta was mortified.

“Oh, Mr McKendrick! Oh sir! Oh, I’m so sorry! Oh, you poor, poor thing!” She rescued most of the shattered pie. The puree of peas was another story. After scooping up as much as possible, she snatched a red paper napkin from the table and attempted to remove the verdant stains from Vincent’s pale grey pants. Arms helplessly raised, he watched the proceedings grim-faced as the dewy-eyed waitress scrubbed on. Suddenly she paused in her ministrations and her slim white hands sprang to her mouth.

“Oh crikey!” she gasped.

Vincent glanced down at the once pearly perfection of his tailored slacks to find the green splatter had become streaked with vermilion from the napkin. The art-loving Pip later described the result as “a poor man’s Jackson Pollock”.

“Oh sir,” Carlotta implored, clasping her hands, “how will you ever forgive me!”

Her lustrous brown eyes filled with tears. Her lips, the colour of the most recent embellishment on Vincent’s trousers, trembled as she grasped his hand and pulled it to her bosom. “Oh sir, what can I do to make amends?”

Nothing like this had ever happened to Vincent.

“I’ll have them dry-cleaned,” she pleaded, tears spilling over and weaving their way down her cheeks as she glanced nervously to see if the incident had attracted Pip’s stern gaze. Vincent felt his hands grow damp and his normally sluggish heart began to hammer insistently behind a small splash of puree on his shirt front.

Even Jessica, an attractive young lawyer in his firm, had never affected him so intensely. When she terminated their liaison, she explained that no matter where they were she never felt she had left the office. “Lighten up, Vince,” she would plead. “There’s more to life than litigation.” But her requests went unheeded, and she finally had to resign and move to Melbourne because of his unwelcome persistence in wooing her.

Vincent had avoided any further romantic forays until he found himself gazing into Carlotta’s tear-filled eyes. He gulped. “I assure you there is no necessity to exhibit such an overt manifestation of remorse,” he said. “Adequate compensation can be made, my dear, without any further restitution, notwithstanding any damage which may or may not have been sustained because of the aforementioned incident, if the perpetrator would agree to accompany the injured party to dinner on her next night off.”

Carlotta blinked and wiped her sodden cheeks. “Are you asking me …?”

“Would you …?” Vincent’s eyes were anxious.

“A date …?”

“Yes, yes,” breathed Vincent, “on the first possible occasion that this establishment agrees to dispense with your services.”

So it was settled, and on the following Monday night Vincent Cedric McKendrick, senior partner in the legal firm of McKendrick, McCracken, McCawley and Hobart, sat opposite Carlotta Brown and fell hopelessly in love.

As for Carlotta, she was both bemused and confused. She was flattered by his attentions but not quite ready for the barrage of flowers and gifts which arrived almost daily. She had recently parted company with Darren, who had never sent her a single daisy, and whose idea of a romantic evening was to give her a ticket to go and watch him play football. The end came when Darren went berserk after a goal was overturned and he had to serve a one-match ban.

“It’s not the end of he world,” sighed Carlotta.

“Yes it is,” snarled Darren. There followed a period when his anger-management was an issue and Carlotta was forced to take out an apprehended violence order against him and change addresses.

So Vincent opened up a whole new world to her. When, before long, he asked her to be his bride—at least she decided that was the gist of what he said—Carlotta, flattered by the proposal, the growing pile of lavish gifts and proud of his achievements in the legal field, stammered her acceptance. A cluster of diamonds appeared on her left hand and a few days later she withdrew a coat of perfectly matched Arctic foxes from their nest of pink tissue and wrapped herself in its sumptuous softness while her flatmate Phoebe gasped and made breathless pronouncements like “Wow!” and “Holy cow!”

At Vincent’s behest, Carlotta resigned from Pip’s establishment but her joy was not unconfined. As she confided to Phoebe: “At least I knew what Darren was talking about.” She thumbed through a book titled Everything to Know about Australian Wine, determined to demonstrate to her fiancé that she knew the difference between a chardonnay and a shiraz.

One evening, as the betrothed couple sat sipping Moet from crystal flutes, Carlotta gently suggested that Vincent might modify his language so that she might have a chance of gauging his meaning.

“I never know whether to answer yes or no,” she explained.

Vincent smiled, patted her hand and said, “I have noted your objection, dearest, but the way our partnership is structured there is no absolute requirement for any communication between us to be bipartite so a negative or affirmative response becomes irrelevant, my love.” Carlotta murmured something in a dove-like way which made Vincent’s heart burn so fervently that he asked the maitre d’ to turn up the air-conditioning.

Discouraged, Carlotta slumped in her chair and began to feel thoroughly miserable. “I want to go home,” she whimpered.

Vincent patted her hand again and smiled. “Make a motion or put a resolution and I’ll consider it—that is, of course, if you show just cause,” he said, winking.

Carlotta fled and Vincent, mystified, called for the bill and thumped the table absently with the pepper grinder.

Carlotta was not to be mollified. Vincent pleaded with her, showering her with red roses, but Carlotta had had enough. “Enough’s enough, Vincent,” she said. “I’m so sorry but we’re not suited. I can’t see you any more.”

Vincent’s grief turned to despair. His despair turned to rage. His rage burgeoned into revenge. Vincent Cedric McKendrick sued Carlotta Brown for breach of promise and demanded that she repay the $47,405.60 he had spent while wooing her. She offered to return the shiny red Mazda, his late mother’s Arctic foxes and the fistful of diamonds, but the offer was declined, as a full refund on what were now used goods was not deemed possible.

“Besides,” Vincent opined, “the champagne has been consumed and is therefore irretrievable and all the floral tributes are by now, at best, moribund.”

His fiancee, normally so calm and patient, had a complete change of temperament and tossed five dozen withered rosebuds onto her former lover’s veranda. She then drove the nifty little red Mazda into his fence, knocking down thirty-five pickets and annihilating his best azalea bush.

Vincent’s rage increased to white-hot fury. His list of punitive damages grew daily.

Phoebe offered Carlotta advice. “Why don’t you write to Vincent and ask if there’s some way of settling the dispute other than by repaying the money, which you can’t afford?”

Carlotta wrote to Vincent, and received a prompt reply stating that he was still willing to marry her and waive the amount owing “on the conditions hereinbelow set forth”—one of which was that she marry him before the last day of the month. Sniffing victory, he finished his letter on a cordial note. “Please feel free to call at my office during business hours if you have any queries regarding the matters raised and the conditions contained therein. My door will always be ajar should you wish to avail yourself of the opportunity to discuss any of the aforementioned.” He signed it, “Yours truly, Vincent.”

Phoebe read the letter and offered more valuable counsel: “I think you should talk to my boss, Charlie Hope. I guarantee he’d give Vincent a run for his money.”

Carlotta knew of Charlie Hope’s reputation as a canny lawyer, well-versed in matters matrimonial, and recalled Phoebe’s many stories of how he had extricated clients from sticky situations. That’s what I’m in, she mused, a sticky situation. Phoebe made an appointment for the next day and when Carlotta arrived, wan from lack of sleep, ushered her into her employer’s presence.

Charlie Hope leant back in his swivel chair and rocked slightly as Carlotta related her story. He noted her demure mode of dress, her lowered lashes, her trembling lip and her sweet little sighs. “I can see what that bastard sees in this chick,” he thought.

When Carlotta finished her tale of torment, he pursed his lips and sat thinking before he made his pronouncement.

“Marry the shit, then divorce him and take him to the cleaners.”

Carlotta looked more miserable than ever. She was losing weight, her once rosy complexion was pale, her eyes dull and fearful. “Marry him?” She was aghast.

Charlie Hope nodded in sympathy. He sat watching her through narrowed eyes, the tips of his fingers pressed together as his wily legal mind ticked over, searching for a solution. Carlotta caught a few phrases he muttered and then discarded as his mind took another tack—“diminished responsibility”, “unsoundness of mind”—but each time he slowly shook his head.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I’ve got it.”

When Vincent heard his beloved’s voice on his office telephone that afternoon, he rudely banished his secretary mid-sentence and stammered with delight. Of course he would meet her at Pip’s for dinner. Of course, of course at his favourite table. And yes, yes, at eight the following night. His hands were shaking, and he took the rest of the day off.

The next night he arrived early, requesting Henry to open a bottle of French burgundy to allow it “to breathe for a satisfactory period prior to imbibing”. He then sat back, his eyes on the door, his upper lip damp in anticipation.

At ten minutes past eight Carlotta made her entrance—thick lustrous hair upswept, swathed in the late Mrs McKendrick’s furs, shod from toe to knee in fine Italian calf—another of Vincent’s earlier gifts. As she wafted between the tables she greeted old customers effusively, as they gazed after her in wonderment. Where had they met such a stunning creature—Randwick perhaps?

As Vincent rose to meet her, she flung her arms round him and kissed him fulsomely, leaving a scarlet brand across his startled mouth. He stammered a nervous greeting, his eyes alarmed. Perhaps she’s just ecstatic to be back with me again, he thought, and forced a tiny smile.

“Wow!” squealed Carlotta, checking the wine label. “French! Hey, everybody!” She held the bottle aloft and turned to address her fellow diners. “Get a load of this. It’s imported!”

Vincent Cedric McKendrick sank as low as he could into his chair and shielded his tortured expression with Pip’s dinner menu, which was expansive enough to have been designed for just such a purpose. How could anyone have changed so grotesquely in such a short time? Where was his adorable, reticent rose who blushed so readily and so prettily? Where was his softly cooing dinner companion who hung on his every word, her gentle brows arched in wonderment as she pondered each phrase he uttered?

“Guess what?” Her query was aimed at a lone diner at an adjoining table. “We’re getting hitched. How about that!”

Charlie Hope had booked the table the day before. He wouldn’t have missed the performance for a month in the criminal court.

“May I offer you my felicitations,” he intoned, half rising and holding his wine glass aloft. “And my heartiest congratulations to the lucky man. You certainly have a prize.”

“Gee thanks,” smiled Carlotta. “That’s really cute. Wasn’t that cute, honey?” Carlotta turned to receive the approbation of her fiancé, who had shrunk further behind his menu.

“Cease this display of crass exhibitionism this instant,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“You say the cutest things,” sighed Carlotta. At an almost imperceptible nod from the next table, Pip himself arrived to ask if the lady would like to be divested of her furs.

“Allow me, madame.” Pip was at his most courtly, bowing deferentially as he slipped the coat from her bare shoulders, revealing a dress so brief in every direction that conversation stopped dead and Charlie Hope was quite unable to prevent the escape of a low appreciative whistle. Carlotta turned once more to face her public, extended her arms and made a little bob. She was rewarded by appreciative applause.

“Sit! Sit this instant!” Vincent was apoplectic. Carlotta threw herself into the lap of her hapless betrothed and twittered, “Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!” Carlotta rained a flurry of little kisses on his brow, his eyes, cheeks and burning ears, saving one until last. This she delivered with a little flourish right on the tip of his nose.

Soup grew cold on tables throughout the hushed room as diners’ appetites turned from food to romance.

“When are we getting married, honey? Remember, you promised!”

Vincent Cedric McKendrick, senior partner in the reputable firm of McKendrick, McCracken, McCawley and Hobart, could take no more. Thrusting Carlotta aside, he struggled to his feet, fuming.

“The person to whom I made that commitment no longer exists. Therefore I am no longer ethically constrained to abide by any aforestated contract and shall not be deemed to be in breach of said contract and should not be precluded from availing myself of the right to decline to do so.”

Carlotta hesitated a moment and then enthused, “Why that’s terrific, honey. I’ve always said you have a way with words.”

“Can’t you absorb anything through that dense cranium of yours? There will be no nuptials. None! Keep your ostentatious animal pelts and your vulgar sparklers and your thigh-high bootees. I never want to see you again. Do you understand?”

He clutched his chest, and Pip, concerned that his diner might expire there and then and frighten his customers, ushered him out, beckoning to Henry to call a cab.

“That was bloody magnificent,” enthused Charlie Hope, rising from his chair. “Would you care to join me?”

Carlotta whisked the burgundy across to Charlie’s table as he drew out a chair for her.

“I’m sure,” she opined as she poured the ruby liquid into two gleaming goblets, “that you will find this a particularly elegant red, complex in character, distinctive and quite individual with perfectly integrated oak. It has a soft but firm finish and I think you’ll find it well-balanced with a lengthy palate …”

“I’m sure I will,” grinned Charlie, raising his glass. “Here’s to us!”

Elizabeth Power is a retired journalist and playwright who lives in Splityard Creek, Queensland.