One of the women is groaning loudly.
The other woman is pressing her call button for the nurse.
A couple of days later…
The two are sitting up in bed like cadavers, both smoking. There is just a mouth slit, through which to suck smoke and blow smoke.
“I’m surprised someone hasn’t come around…” mumbles Amy, holding her cigarette in the air.
“Oh, they did, darling,” says Lillian, through gritted teeth. “I had to give her many hundred dollar notes to get her to go away again.” Everything she says sounds as though it is through gritted teeth
“It’s just you and I sharing,” says Amy. “Who is it harming if we smoke?”
“It is only a double room, I kept repeating and repeating to matron,” says Lillian. “She didn’t get half agitated. But, I said pet, I said luv, I said pet, its just me and ‘er, let it go!”
“What does she expect us to do, wheel ourselves down four floors to the sanctuary garden,” says Amy. “I ask you?”
“What was this, again?” asks Lillian. She touches her face.
“A super hydrating, oxygen mask, to aide the swelling,” says Amy with pursed lips. Not that Lillian could see Amy’s lips at all, but she could imagine.
“How do I let you talk me into these things.”
“You can only spend your money, once, sweetie,” says Amy. “You can’t take it with you.”
“I’m having that looked into,” says Lillian. “The ungrateful bunch I have around me.”
“We could liquidate all of our assets upon our deaths,” says Amy. “We could have country burials, after which there could be a huge bonfire…”
“And all the money could be burned in front of those blood suckers,” says Lillian. She moans, and grimaces. “Oh don’t make me smile, it hurts under all of this.”
“I’m leaving mine to my children…”
“Oh how passé,” says Lillian.
“Oh Lillian, don’t be a bitch.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m leaving what is left to my kids,” says Lillian. “I just don’t plan for any of it to be left, by the time that day comes.”
“Lillian Burlington-Smythe, do you think that is fair.”
“I do.”
“Could you live with yourself if you did that?”
“With no regret,” says Lillian. “But I’d be dead and home free.”
5 days later…
The room is spotlessly clean and white, the bed linen is white and clean, the floors and the walls were white.
Two women sit up in the beds. Both their face bandages have jut been removed.
The curtain between them is drawn back.
They slowly look at each other.
“You look five years younger already,” says Amy. “A fifty year old… with black eyes.”
“I was hoping for forty,” says Lillian.
“You’ll have to wait for the swelling to go down.”
“Ten years worth of swelling, darling?”
“It is possible, sweetie.”
6 days later…
They lie on cream chaises on the wide cream veranda of the facility. Big green leaf trees shaded them from the glare of the sun. They have minimal bandaging on now, just some light pressure bandages, due to be removed.
“My face hurts,” says Amy.
“Get the nurse,” says Lillian. “I need more drugs.”
A bell rang some where in the distance.
Cooper, the blonde fan boy, fans them.
“You took their money.”
“It was my money.”
“You’re living this high life of frivolous indulgence on the great wealth you inherited, and only you inherited, from your mother’s estate,” says Amy. “Then you blow the lot, their entire expected inheritance.”
“Yes, darling,” says Lillian. “Speaking of which, I have been meaning to mention…”
“What have you been meaning to mention?” The subject of their wills makes Amy cross.
“Your car.”
“My car?”
“Its time to get rid of it, update, buy something new,” says Lillian. “Spend some money, honey.”
“Oh Lillian…”
“You can still leave it to your damn children,” says Lillian. “Pretend you are buying one of them a new car, it’ll aid your recovery…”
“Oh Lillian, I don’t think that…”
“Oh rubbish, you love to drive, spoil yourself,” says Lillian. “You can afford it now.”
“It is true, the Humber takes a lot of work to keep in show room condition.”
“Oh Amy, OCD Carl is not making the decisions any more,” says Lillian, “You are.”
“Oh my lovely Carl…” Amy looked as though she was about to cry, Lillian decides it is just post anaesthetic come down, and proceeded. The truth was that Lillian didn’t feel safe in the old Humber any more. It has old heating and no air conditioning and lap-sash seatbelts that Lillian hated.
“It is old, get rid of it,” says Lillian. “It is dragging you down, you’ll feel like a new girl.... inside matching the outside.”
“It is at the mechanic as we speak,” says Amy.
“There you go,” says Lillian. “I have my eye on this mid range Mercedes.”
“A Mer…ce..des,” says Amy.” Lillian could tell Amy likes the idea, even if she wasn’t about to admit it just yet.
“Well.” Amy sighs, as though she is bored. “As soon as I have these bandages off.”
“As soon as I’ve weaned myself off morphine, yet again…” Lillian washes down some pills with water from a white plastic cup.
“Do you fancy a month at the Green Fern?”
“I do darling, what a simply splendid idea.”
“My treat,” says Lillian.
7 days later…
They catch a limousine to the airport, attended by a nurse each. They catch a plane to the Gold Coast. They catch a helicopter from the airport directly to the retreat. They are wheeled into the building in wheelchairs. They are heavily shaded by sunshade cloth, like crippled bee keepers, or incapacitated astronauts.
“Landing capacity for 2 helicopters,” says Lillian. “Good to know.”
“Why, darling?”
“We may need to take separate choppers one day,” says Lillian. “You never know.”
“Oh Lillian,” says Amy. “You wouldn’t dare.”
The rural Queensland retreat is 5 star, Amy and Lillian don’t have to do a thing, every single thing is done for them.
Kanga was their chef, Melissa their concierge, Bradley was their cabana boy.
Amy and Lillian did nothing but indulge themselves for six weeks. No more was heard of them during this time.
“We’re off grid,” says Lillian. “And isn’t it divine.”
“I miss my kids.”
There is lush green lawns spreading out in front of them. They are bot sitting in chaises gazing down a lush valley. “Oh nonsense! Life is just splendid, darling, come on,” says Lillian. “Precisely because none of them care.”
“My children care.”
“Don’t you find it remotely rewarding that your children are fully self supporting functioning adults and they we’ve all come out the other side, job done.”
The day before they come home…
The laptop was set up on the cream wicker table on the cream veranda over looking the verdant forest. “Look here, darling.” Lillian was showing Amy a car on the internet. “A Mercedes CLA250.”
“That looks nice.”
“Oh here,” says Lillian. “A 45 AMG, get this one.”
“How much?”
“100K.”
“I just spend fifteen thousand on my face.”
“All must haves, darling. All must haves.”
Time to go home…
The black helicopter is sitting on the verdant green fake lawn…
“Darling, is this real?” asks Amy as she steps an unsteady plantformed shoe onto the grass.
“As fake as you face now is, darling,” Lillian says through gritted teeth. “Constantly being renewed.”
“Forward, like a galleon,” says Amy.
“Bradley had strong hands,” says Lillian. “He gave great massages.”
“But twice a day, darling,” says Amy. “Really, you wore that young boy out.”
“They never tire at that age,” says Lillian. She hands her bags to IceMan, the helicopter pilot. “Grrrrr.”
The girls step up into the back seats of the sleek, black machine. Their strapping helicopter pilot checks the doors, smiles at them through the glass, Lillian pulls her silent lion roar face as their eyes meet. IceMan gets into the front of the helicopter. The blades star to spin.
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