The local leading light of the Litchfield Orchid Society made next month's meeting sound interesting, informative, fun even. He tempted her with promises of warm welcomes and homemade cakes.
Hanging up the phone it felt like a really good idea. Eight months ago Finn moved to this tumbledown property on a tropical fringe of the Australian bush. Her house was a jungle; her social life a menagerie; her only calm the unfamiliar garden orchids, flagrant in their diversity.
By the time the appointed day arrived though, meetings about orchids had withered to the bottom of her list of priorities. Hating these kinds of gatherings with a vengeance Finn almost talked herself out of it. Yet she wanted to go just to say she'd tried.
It was a balmy night so she relaxed into the Patrol's elevated seat and steered along the pitch black laneways with one eye out for careless wallabies. Fresh air buffed her face through the open window; cooling eucalyptus fluttered on the nose. For a moment a cloud of flying foxes filled the silvery black sky: five score fruitarian draculas winging their way to feast on succulent mangos in the orchards all around.
She finally found the Litchfield Scout hut in the middle of nowhere. In the pitch black rural night you'd never know it was there. No sign out for newcomers or passers-by. No indication there was a public meeting. But she recognised the distinctive outline of vandas hanging illuminated in the windows so she pulled in and parked under the lone street light.
Finn was deliberately ten minutes late to avoid the awkward introductions. She'd hoped the meeting would have started by now but figures were still milling around inside the brightly lit room.
And so there would be no escape. She opened the door and watched as strangers' faces turned to stare. Eyes narrowed, firing questions around in telepathic communication. An elderly man approached her, raising an eyebrow at her ripped flared jeans and cute little floral top:
'Are you a member?'¯
'I'm Finn,'¯ she enthused, looking around and feeling a tad over-dressed. 'I've come to check out the Orchid Society meeting.'¯
He looked relieved, as if he thought she'd come to steal the petty cash.
He led the way into the bright lights and handed over responsibility of Finn to the club secretary, Marrilyn. Finn shivered in a cold blast of air con and instantly forgot the secretary's name. Marrilyn's eyes bugged behind her thick milk bottle bottom lenses, as if she had no idea what to do with Finn - this daisy amongst their prize orchids. She might be a hungry grasshopper in disguise.
She tucked lanky dark strands of hair behind each ear and turned to the woman nearest, reeling off Finn's name and hers. The woman was in her fifties or sixties or seventies. She was carrying so much weight her features were ballooned, her years stretched across several decades.
'Hello,'¯ Finn said but this woman was too big to take in in one glance and Finn couldn't help wondering how the plastic stacking chair could support her elephantine ass. An image of her fleshy figure flashed through Finn's mind: she's being stuffed with Big Macs and Mars Bars and is so inflated that her skin is distended beyond anything known to modern science.
Accidentally she sits on the corner of a metal bench and with an almighty bang, explodes, spraying everyone around with globs of half-digested gristle and caramel.
Finn forgot her name too so she told herself to smarten up a bit and concentrate.
Marrilyn handed Finn a membership form and photocopied newsletter. Then she headed off around the room displaying Finn to the twenty or so who made up the evening's thong-wearing enthusiasts. She felt like a foreign species on exhibit: puella nueva.
For Finn it was the usual story: introductions followed by acute memory loss. Her tongue tied at the barrage of false smiles and she grew mute at the need for small talk. Instead she grinned winningly at everyone she met to hide the fact she wasn't saying anything. It dawned on her that no one else seemed able to think of anything to say to her.
'How long have you been involved in the orchid society?" Finn asked her exhibitor.
Marrilyn pulled her stained Bundaberg t-shirt down over saddlebag thighs and poked around in an armpit.
"Since I was a kid. Mum's the Chairman."
Finn tried to explain why she'd come along this evening but Marrilyn really didn't want to know.
By then they'd navigated the whole room and Marrilyn seemed exhausted from delivering such a warm welcome. Finn left her to recover in the company of her kind.
A variety of orchids were displayed around the room. Some were stunningly beautiful; others stunningly ugly. All were fascinating. Finn recognised several from her own collection and seeing that some of these had familiar bite marks and black spots on their leaves made her feel a bit better about the sorry victims on which she thought she was committing orchidicide.
The flowers were weird and wonderful in colour and shape. They reminded Finn of women.
The encyclia or 'wall flower'¯ was tiny, dainty and modest; easy to overlook but exquisite in detail and with a beguiling perfume only detectable at night.
The vanda or 'good time girl'¯ was large, flamboyant and brightly coloured with round, open petals and daring stripes or spots.
The cattleya or 'seductress'¯ had slim waxy petals in deep magenta or midnight and a variety of cunning ways to spread her pollen.
Finn couldn't help stroking the velvety petals or inhaling the rich floral essence mixing with the odour of stale scout sweat.
At last the meeting was called open and the rows of seats began to fill up.
Finn snuck a glance at her watch: quarter past eight. Still 105 minutes to go.
For the next half hour Marrilyn's mum, the Chairman, plodded lethargically through the last meeting's minutes, reciting what was agreed, what was not, what was yet to be agreed.
Exciting stuff.
Outwardly Finn was still smiling stupidly as though having a fine old time. Inwardly she was wondering why the hell she'd come. On and on it went until at last the Chairman announced a break for tea.
Suddenly there was a rush of activity and the tea committee headed for a little room at the back where Finn supposed all the homemade cakes and welcomes were being kept warm.
Finn squirmed at the thought of fifteen long, painful minutes of tea break. She would rather swallow barbed wire than suffer this.
By now she was queen of the false smile. If nothing else she'd leave with a sore face.
So she headed for the tea-room where she proceeded to get in the way, made herself an insipid cup of tea, and busied herself with drinking it.
'Yum!'¯ Finn smiled to no one in particular.
There was a crowd buzzing around the cake table. Spam and chutney sandwiches flopped beside Home Brand carrot cake. Unless Finn pushed in there was no way to get close. She loitered nearby instead, blocking passage into the tea-room.
A small hippopotamus stopped within talking distance so Finn said hello and asked her:
'Did you bring along some orchids tonight?'¯
'Yeaah. That one and that one'¯ she drawled indicating the plants hanging conveniently next to them. Finn appraised the flowers with an interested eye but could think of absolutely nothing useful to say about them.
The diminutive orchidist's cheek bulged with a mouthful of corned beef sandwich.
Finn cringed at the sound of moist munching. Her despair at the situation reminded her of all the times before when her mother had pushed her forward, made her join in with the other kids. So with her mother's persistent voice loud in her head she explained she'd recently moved to the area and had inherited a few hundred orchids on the property she'd bought. Knowing nothing about them she was trying to learn as quickly as she could, before she killed them all.
But the woman was concentrating on a particularly tricky manoeuvre to dislodge a glob of mashed sandwich from behind a molar. Her tongue not being strong enough, she wiped a finger on her jeans then jammed it straight into the back of her mouth. She poked about for a few seconds before finally sucking her finger and wiping it once more on her leg.
The troll licked her greasy lips with disinterest. Finn's cue for orchid learning was ignored; her conversational bait swallowed and forgotten.
'Where d'you live?'¯ finally came her response.
It turned out they were neighbours, so Finn battled on with the conversation, trying to find out a bit more about the neighbourhood.
'I hate bitch-umen roads'¯ the harpie spat out of nowhere. 'Call me a snob but they make it easier for new people to move in'¦I've been here for over twenty years, when the roads was just dirt tracks and we didn't pay rates'¦it was much better then'¦now there's new people movin' in all over'¦when Alex sold you that place he took all the best orchids'¦I saw the trailer when they drove off'¦packed full of 'em, it was.'¯
Gobsmacked, Finn scrutinised the overweight dwarf's face to see if she was deliberately trying to wind her up. It was hard to tell since she looked like she was chewing a wasp as it was.
Before she can decide, the chairman called the meeting back to order and everyone took their seats once again. Finn sat alone beside Marrilyn and wondered what fun the next hour would hold.
For the next sixty minutes Neville, the Society's gargantuan prize judge, lumbered his pregnant beer belly around the room wheezing and joking about how fit he'd be after all the exercise. Everyone laughed on cue.
This is why they all came Finn realised! It wasn't for the review of last week's minutes or the 'reduced for quick sale'¯ cake. It certainly wasn't for the conversation. No!
Now was the part of the meeting where Neville awarded prizes for members' orchids. Starting with the Chairman's of course. So everyone oohed and aahed at the surprise winners: mostly members of the various sub-committees or their sons and daughters.
Finn wondered if every meeting was so enthralling. Losing the will to live her thoughts turned to planning an escape.
Finally the self-congratulation was over and it was time to leave. Trying not to make her desperation to disappear too obvious Finn hung back and let the rush for the door calm down.
As she gathered up her sheaves of orchid lore an octogenarian orchidist trundled over and introduced himself as Derek. He took Finn's copy of the newsletter and in a shaky hand wrote his home telephone number by his name on the list of committee members. "Just in case".
Finn looked around the scout hut. The chairs had been piled in wonky towers against the walls. The room was empty, the orchids had vanished, no one had said goodbye. Finn alone still sat, an isolated daisy clinging on for dear life.
'So,'¯ he continued, membership form in one hand and petty cash tin in the other:
'Do you want to become one of us?'¯
