The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  Sorry boundaries. Normal bloke, have had a beer and from WA, let’s blame that, sure you want a lad like me entertaining at your fancy party? There was a winking emoji.

  All good.

  That felt like a youthfully casual thing to say, but the full stop definitely conveyed something. Polite, mature, unimpressed.

  He didn’t reply for ages, and then wrote:

  We should meet before the party. Make sure we on same page about fire stuff

  Certainly. Let me know when suits!

  She just couldn’t bring herself to send it without the exclamation mark. Too unfriendly.

  Mmmm. Will do.

  Well.

  It wasn’t just the stuff about the photo. It was that you could interpret the mmmm in so many different ways.

  *

  ‘Essie. Get in the car,’ Stuart said, the next morning.

  ‘I AM!’ Essie yelled.

  Bec sighed. Her car was at the mechanic’s, so, unusually, the family were all leaving together that day.

  Essie stayed where she was and poked the garage wall with her ladybird umbrella. Stuart looked at Bec. Bec undid her seatbelt and got out.

  ‘Essie.’ Bec squatted in front of her little girl, and managed to keep the rising agitation out of her voice. ‘It is time to go right now. Daddy has to be at work. You’re the only one keeping us waiting. Now,’ she took a deep breath, ‘you can get yourself in, or I will carry you.’

  ‘I’m COMING I SAID!’ Essie boomed.

  ‘You have until ten.’ Her voice was admirably level. In fact, she sounded like someone who had made a very sincere effort to learn about effective parenting strategies. Which, she supposed, she had.

  ‘One. Two . . .’

  Essie put the umbrella down ever so carefully.

  ‘Three. Four . . .’

  Essie started moving faster. Bec counted a bit more slowly.

  ‘Five . . . Six . . .’

  Essie’s navy-blue school dress hit her seat.

  ‘Well done, kiddo!’

  Essie beamed, and Bec was smiling too. She felt quite ridiculously proud, to be honest. ‘You made it.’

  Bec hurried back to her seat and smiled over at Stuart, but he was apparently too busy to notice her exemplary five-year-old management skills, or to smile back. No doubt he was thinking about his terribly crucial operating list or someone’s splenectomy or something.

  Not that his job wasn’t important. Being a surgeon was very demanding. Obviously.

  ‘Remind me, Bec,’ he said, as he dropped them all off at the girls’ school. ‘Next time your car’s in for service? I’ll just book you guys an Uber.’

  She knew it was ridiculous, because he was just being practical, but she felt so hurt that she got tears in her eyes. She had to pretend to Mathilda that she was allergic to her new eyeliner.

  *

  The next day, she collected Stuart’s favourite suit, bought milk and bananas – which she did so frequently it was practically a hobby – picked up Lachlan’s eczema cream and was almost back to her car when her phone vibrated. When she saw who it was, she got in very quickly, and for some reason, locked the doors.

  ‘Hi. Ryan, is it?’ Outside, the street was going on as usual. Traffic passed the neat lawn of the old army barracks, and a pub with brightly painted signs offered Free Kids Meals on Mondays.

  ‘Hey, Bec,’ he said, not even checking he had the right person. ‘How you going today?’

  It had been a long time since anyone except Kate or her mum had asked her that on the phone. Usually it was all, ‘So, how may I help you this morning?’ or ‘I guess you’re calling about so-and-so’s play-date/sprained ankle/swimming lesson.’ In fact, she hardly ever talked on the phone anymore. Everyone texted.

  ‘Oh. Fine. Just bought some bananas.’ Good grief. ‘I’m sitting in my car now, though. Too much detail!’ She dug her fingernails into her hand to prevent herself from thanking him, from apologising for nothing, from speaking at all.

  ‘No worries. I’ve just waxed my board.’ He paused, and she considered saying something about how she mustn’t take up his time if he was busy, but then he spoke again. ‘Glad I caught you. I’m heading out of phone range in a bit.’

  She imagined him at a beach car park somewhere remote, leaning back against a sexily dented ute.

  ‘Great waves out at Lion Rock today. Going to walk there. Really long way.’ His voice was without any sort of irony, and she thought of the rocky path down to the wild, remote beach. She hadn’t visited there since the kids.

  ‘Well, anyway, Ryan. How can I help you?’ Being nice to clients was his job, she reminded herself, and he was ringing about his official fire-eating duties.

  ‘Yeahhh,’ he said. ‘I was just calling to say, how about we meet Friday morning? If I cruise by your place about ten, we can have a cuppa or whatever, and I can get a sense of what you’re after.’

  ‘Oh. OK. Maybe.’ She practically yelped the words, then tried to pull herself together by sitting up straight and frowning analytically at her steering wheel. Because the simple fact was that he was a service provider, and now he needed to come to his fire-eating venue and be briefed by her, his employer. It was exactly the same as when Greg the plumber came to look at the downstairs bathroom tap. She always made Greg tea – often more than one cup, and he took four sugars, which possibly accounted for him being fairly porky even though he was a manual labourer – and then, when he brought his cup back, she asked him down-to-earth questions about his boat, which was called Reel Livin’.

  And what about the volunteering she’d done in Nepal? Once upon a time, she’d shared meals and walks and even youth-hostel rooms with various beautiful medical-student boys without there ever being any question of anything sexual happening. Well. Maybe there had sometimes been a question. But still. The point about Nepal was that even if there was a slightly flirty undercurrent, you simply put that to one side and got on with the practicalities.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, more levelly. ‘We could just have some tea while I show you the deck and the running sheet and things.’

  You were single in Nepal, a stern voice reminded her. And twenty-something. And definitely not a mother. And by the way, Rebecca Henderson – Stern Voice really knew how to go for the jugular – I hope you’re aware that your pubic hair had no greys in it back then!

  ‘Nice,’ he said.

  And that’s when she realised she could justify it however she wanted, but Stern Voice was entirely correct. She should have said she was busy on Friday – which, by the way, was true – and that it’d be better if he came over and talked to both her and Stuart on the Saturday morning. ‘My husband would love to meet you, too,’ she could have said. ‘We’re both so delighted you’ll be performing at our gathering.’ No. Even she didn’t sound quite that middle-aged. But ‘Come Saturday morning and meet the fam’ would have worked just fine.

  Anyway, it was too late.

  ‘See you Friday then,’ he said. He checked the address. ‘Be good to meet you, Bec.’

  Stern Voice made a tutting sound.

  *

  Three hours later, Kate rang. Bec was in her kitchen, doing the online grocery shopping.

  ‘How did Essie’s assembly go?’ Kate asked, after they had discussed their mother’s recent tendency to suggest Lebanese food for every family get-together. ‘Did you get a picture?’

  Bec’s free hand flew to the phone, so that she was clutching it to her ear with both hands.

  ‘Oh my God!’ There was no need for her to say the actual words.

  ‘Tell her the car broke down,’ said Kate. ‘Tell her . . . tell her the neighbours’ cat went missing and you had to help look for it.’

  ‘I can’t believe I forgot! I’ve never missed a Wednesday assembly. Never!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kate soothed. ‘Essie was probably too busy remembering the words to even notice.’

  Neither of them believed that.

  ‘Maybe I can t
ell her I was there in the crowd.’

  Kate made an uncertain sort of eaaa noise. Tears filled Bec’s eyes.

  ‘How could I have done this?’ she said.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ said Kate. ‘Lots of mums don’t go every week. Stuart hardly ever goes.’

  Stuart had possibly been literally saving a life while the five-year-olds were singing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’.

  ‘Stuart would have been busy doing something worthwhile. I was just . . .’ she paused. What had she actually been doing at four minutes to midday, when she was supposed to be taking her seat for the Prep Assembly?

  She’d been in the laundry. She’d been bleaching Mathilda’s socks. She’d been scraping dirt off Lachlan’s runners.

  She’d been thinking about the fire-eater.

  *

  Of course, Essie noticed, and of course, Essie cried. And of course, Bec felt so guilty that she almost texted Ryan and cancelled. But she did actually need a fire-eater, and they did, after all, need to meet. In the end she decided to compromise by wearing a very unflattering purple jumper. (‘You painting the cubby or something today?’ Allie asked, at drop-off.)

  At just after nine-thirty, she paused in front of the lounge-room mirror. At ten o’clock on the dot the doorbell rang. She was now dressed in a clingy white knit she loved but hadn’t worn for a while. She really had far too many clothes.

  When she opened the front door, the fire-eater was bending down to examine the pot of rhododendrons on the porch.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, looking up. In fact, he seemed to uncoil himself from the plant, and give all his attention to her.

  ‘Come in!’ Too chirpy. ‘Come in, Ryan.’

  He followed her along the corridor to her kitchen. At the bench, he leaned forward on the heels of his hands.

  ‘Can I offer you a tea?’ she asked.

  ‘Any chance of a coffee?’ Mischievous grin.

  ‘Of course! Sit down.’

  ‘I can spot a good machine.’ He tucked one of his ankles around the leg of the nearest stool, dragged it a bit closer, and sat. She was about to start up her usual speech, about how much coffee they drank and how it had seemed sensible to invest – as if the actual point of a coffee machine like that was to economise on household expenditure – but he said, ‘Your kids do those?’

  He was looking up at the wall, where she Blu Tack’d the kids’ work. There were drawings and paintings and feathers-stuck-to-paper. There were bits of embroidered hessian and pipe-cleaner butterflies and misspelt notes about love and mummy and fambly. Everything was higgledy-piggledy and overlapping. She loved that wall.

  ‘Yeah.’ She looked up at it with him. ‘Bit chaotic. The kids are craft-crazy.’

  Ryan met her eyes. He smiled in an approving way.

  ‘Lot of happiness in this house,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She turned to the coffee.

  ‘Just a shame about the visual clutter.’ He was joking.

  ‘I really must pare back the pipe cleaners,’ she replied, and they smiled at each other again.

  He was so good-looking, in his shabby black jeans and his faded down-jacket, with his shoulders and that jaw and those lips, that it felt like an achievement to participate in any sort of banter. She was fairly proud of herself, in fact. She passed him his coffee.

  ‘Looks great,’ he said, and gave her a little nod. Of course, she couldn’t think how to respond, so there was quiet for a few terrifying seconds. Kate would have known what to say. The fact fell into her head like a thud. She got on with making her tea.

  He sipped his coffee, then said, ‘So, what did you have in mind?’

  She dinged the teaspoon on the side of her cup a couple of times, and then used her most matter-of-fact voice to say perhaps he could start his ‘act’ at ten, just before the speeches. ‘I was thinking the deck?’ she suggested.

  He turned his head, looked through the sliding glass door, and said he thought the deck’d be a bit small. ‘But stunning garden. We’ll find a good place,’ he added, as he turned back to her.

  So Bec talked about maybe the lawn or perhaps the terrace or possibly even the tennis court, and the whole time she was thinking: does he think I grew up in a house like this? Is his life full of rich ladies like me? Does he joke about visual clutter with all of them? Am I different from the others? Can he tell?

  ‘Let’s go check it out,’ he said. He finished his coffee in a long swallow, and flipped himself off the stool. She left her half-drunk tea on the counter. Near the sliding door, he made a tiny after-you gesture, and stood well aside for her. He even turned his eyes down as she passed him. Maybe he’d forgotten all about the bikini comment.

  Outside, the air was damp and the sun seemed precious and thin. They walked side by side across the deck, and down the steps. At the rose garden, he said, ‘This place must smell amazing in summer,’ and, when they crossed the main lawn, ‘Do you ever just lie on the grass and watch the water?’ (‘Once I did,’ she said, trying not to sound apologetic. He would think she was a poor little rich girl. Or, more accurately, and more pathetically, a poor older rich lady.)

  In the end, they decided his act would be best on the terrace.

  ‘And anything in particular you want me to do?’ he said. He was lounging against an old sandstone wall.

  ‘Oh, you know. Just whatever’s most spectacular without actually setting anyone alight.’

  He laughed. He had a very tiny chip out of one of his front teeth. It was tempting to think she’d always found those attractive.

  They went back inside, talked about payment, and then she saw him to the front door.

  ‘Thanks for coming round,’ she said.

  ‘My pleasure.’ And then he gave her a not-particularly-subtle up-and-down look. If he’d been fat and fortyish, it might even have seemed sleazy. But coming from Ryan, it was just a look full of . . . not quite lust, but appreciation.

  His eyes were back on her face. But he was quirking his mouth, as if they’d just shared a private joke. And they both had their hands in the back pockets of their jeans.

  ‘I’ll look forward to Saturday, then,’ he said, very innocently. ‘Bec.’

  Chapter Three

  Kate

  ‘Well, let’s get started.’

  It was about thirty-six hours after Adam and I had slept together, and I was about to give a tutorial to the first years. Thank God: it gave me something to focus on. I generally over-prepare, even though the first-year co-ordinator – Professor Penelope Purcell – once said I could do it blindfolded.

  I hadn’t told Adam this, but I only got into Tudor history to try to make myself feel better. I knew, straight after the operation, that I didn’t want therapy. Not saying therapy’s bad, as, for one thing, that would be just about illegal. But I always felt it would not have helped me. Apart from Bec’s husband Stuart, practically everyone I know has at some stage suggested I ‘might want to talk to someone’. It’s a bit of a sore point. Also one reason I like Stuart so very, very much.

  (When I first met him, I assumed Stuart would be horrible, because he’s handsome, wears ironed Ralph Lauren polo shirts on weekends, went to Glenferrie College and is a surgeon, but I was being too judgemental. He is actually properly smart and thoughtful, not just privately educated and venal. He really loves Bec, is the other thing. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because she’s the only woman who ever turned him down. When they first met – she was an intern at the hospital where they both worked – she was very feisty and earnest, always dashing off to Nepal in her holidays and then coming home and fund-raising for tube wells and giving presentations with graphs about horrifying tuberculosis rates and lots of photos of rashes. At first, she thought Stuart was an entitled tosser, then a bit too charming to be true, and then she started saying things like, ‘It’s not his fault he was born into privilege,’ and ‘His mum is a judge. I think she shaped his values.’)

  Since I didn’t want counselling, quite a few ye
ars ago I decided to have a crack at ‘putting things into perspective’ by thinking of people worse off than myself. It took a while to find the right worse-off people. (War crimes: too terrible, literally made me vomit halfway through the first chapter of the book I’d bought. Witches burned at stakes: too infuriating; women still aren’t supposed to be opinionated, middle-aged and ordinary-looking, in case anyone hasn’t noticed. Starving/homeless/no-money-for-school-uniforms women and children: I just kept donating money and crying. The donating thing continues, I might add.)

  Tudor England was far enough away to bear, and quite interesting, but bad enough to make me feel a bit better about my own situation. Being chopped up while you’re still awake and in public would have to be marginally worse than months of occupational therapy. Marginally. So, once I’d read a few novels and watched a couple of films, I enrolled in a part-time Arts degree where I could pretty much just do the History subjects, and now I was doing my Masters. Last year I started tutoring the first years in research methods, and once, I contributed to an article that got published in a historical journal where it was no doubt read by anywhere up to twelve people. But Mum pinned that article to the kitchen noticeboard, something she never did with any of my magazine covers.

  A good tutor has to know the material, and a bit more to cover unexpected questions. She should also find a way to inspire the students with a love of the subject, even though most of them mainly care about whether the person they like has texted them, finishing up in time to grab their car before their parking meter expires or, at best, how to pass the next exam.

  Exams these days are called Competencies, and anyone who fails is deemed ‘Not Yet Competent’. (The ‘Yet’ is optimistic in some cases, believe me. I think there should be a category called ‘You Clearly Don’t Want To Be Here You Are Wasting Everyone’s Time Leave Now’ or else just ‘Terrible. You’re Expelled.’)

  It was odd, the first time I had to stand up in front of ten 18-year-olds and act knowledgeable and grown up, and it’s not as if I could have a wine beforehand. I wore seamless white underwear, black Capri trousers, black brogues and a brand-new ice-blue knit. It was what Vogue might have called pragmatic chic: everything was Chanel, to intimidate any empowered millennials who – I feared – might otherwise ask me stern, pernickety questions about the importance of peer review versus the validity of lived experience. (I was inexperienced and very nervous. Obviously none of them asked any such thing.)