The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  ‘All good.’ He kept his eyes on her face, and exhaled, loud enough so that she could hear.

  ‘I’ve paid you, right?’ She was flustered. He nodded. They were still facing each other in front of the door; his chest was centimetres away from hers. She glanced down the corridor: it was empty. Surfie types like him often seemed to be comfortable with silence.

  ‘What?’ she said. Was there cake around her mouth? Chorizo in her teeth? She put a hand up to her face. Really, she was not at all suited to being a sexy older woman.

  ‘When did you meet your husband?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When did you two meet?’

  ‘Oh. Stuart. I was twenty-four.’

  He nodded. It felt as if he wanted to chat, chat to her, and she got a surge of courage.

  ‘What about you? Are you . . . attached?’

  She’d already imagined his type. She – certainly a she – would have artless hair and wide green eyes. She’d have one of those long, taut abdomens and small, perfect breasts and manage to look gorgeous in an Indian cotton slip dress thrown over bathers. She’d go surfing in a serious, meaningful sort of a way, be vegan and take occasional party drugs. She and Ryan would have pledged their love at sunrise on a cliff top, with rings Ryan had whittled out of a whale bone that they’d found washed up on a remote beach.

  ‘I’m single. Never married. No children.’ She hadn’t even considered that he might have children; he didn’t look old enough somehow. Which was silly. He had to be at least twenty-five.

  ‘And you came to Tassie for the surf?’ He’d told her that the other day. She really was an excellent active listener – which of course, said Stern Voice, is exactly what young men look for in sexual partners.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. He kept staring at her, and she accidentally twirled her hair around her forefinger. His chest was just muscly enough.

  She let go of her hair and wondered about something else to say. Or maybe it was fine to stay silent. Weren’t older women supposed to exude a sort of enigmatic knowingness? Wasn’t that supposed to make up for the fact that they were no longer as nubile as the too-insecure-to-be-truly-sexy 19-to-25-year-old sector?

  ‘Been good to meet you,’ he said, at last, and there was a moment of meaningful eye contact that she definitely did not imagine. ‘Really. Very good.’

  ‘Yes. It has. And now’ – on purpose she sounded extremely reluctant, which was unforgivable – ‘you’d better go.’

  She opened the front door and stayed standing where she was, all the while thinking: I am wearing a dress Stuart earned the money to pay for! All $590 of it! While Stuart is thirty metres away! At his own fortieth! Possibly chatting to my dad about compost, even though he finds compost tedious but has somehow fallen into the trap of letting my parents believe he finds it fascinating!

  Ryan was still standing there. He made an eloquent gesture. Like a shrug. An obviously-we-want-to-kiss-but-oh-well-we’re-too-honourable sort of a gesture.

  And she knew she should have opened the door briskly and nodded curtly and walked back down the corridor purposefully to her lovely husband. But she didn’t do any of those things.

  Instead, she stood still and watched as Ryan shifted the large black box to his other hand. He had to pass really close to get through the front door. As he passed, he looked into her eyes. With his free hand, he grazed the side of her waist. It was the sort of gesture Kate or Allie might have made – intimate, affectionate – but was it also underscored with something else? That something else being – since she was allowed to think it, whatever Stern Voice may say – the desire to peel her beautiful dress right off.

  ‘See you around,’ he said.

  ‘See you around.’ She’d made it sound like an agreement to meet again, and she hadn’t sounded like a flight attendant.

  *

  ‘Your eggs are done,’ said Stuart.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I’m fine!’ Now her voice was like a cheerleader’s. ‘Just a teensy bit hung-over.’

  She drank her coffee, and when Stuart brought the eggs she thanked him, and when it got a bit later she had a shower, and the whole despicable fizzy time she was wondering where, and when, and how, she might manage to see him around again.

  Chapter Five

  Kate

  ‘Penny?’ I said, putting my head around her door. I had to force myself to use her first name. I’m as timid as the students when it comes to PPP, and we usually communicated by email.

  Professor Penelope Purcell had summoned me to a meeting in her office. It was very tidy, as always. There were archived academic journals in colourful cardboard magazine holders, and folders with handwritten labels – very attractive writing, all done in the same black felt-tip pen – arranged on shelves. She had one of those noticeboards that is half cork, half whiteboard. The cork half displayed tasteful postcards – line drawings and such, not aerial photographs of hotels and sea – and photos. There was one of her in a big group with Julia Gillard. The white board said things like: ASHM Hong Kong presentation – make a start and Delegate lit review for SV. Today, sixth item from the top, it said: KL re future plans. Items one to five had been crossed off and it was only 11.45 a.m.

  ‘Hello, Kate,’ she said. As she spoke, she took her fingertips off her keyboard, swivelled in her chair and gestured for me to sit on a tiny, hard-looking couch. She has an excellent haircut (short) and a very slight English accent, as if her parents grew up around the corner from the Beatles.

  ‘Thanks for coming in. I thought it was time we touched base about next semester.’ It was March. ‘Would you be available to give a course of lectures to the second years? Some stuff about data extraction methods, qualitative versus quantitative research, what constitutes valid references . . .’ She waved a hand to indicate we both knew what she was talking about. ‘The kids are very black-and-white still at that stage; you’ll do them good.’

  She spoke as if she knew my situation exactly. That I didn’t need the money. That I had enough time. That I’d be reticent. As if she knew all that, but it was still a forgone conclusion that I’d say yes.

  ‘Sure, Penny,’ I heard myself say. ‘Certainly, I can.’ Mum, and a million podcasts, always talk about how women tend to doubt their own capacity.

  ‘Good. Prudence-Rose will be on maternity leave again, and this is a good opportunity for PhD candidates. I’m assuming you’ll be continuing with a doctorate next year?’

  ‘Um. Well. To be honest, I—’ I paused. I thought PPP would jump in the way people usually do, and say something like, ‘Well, no pressure obviously, but you might like to consider it when you’re ready,’ or, ‘Of course, there’s no need to tell me your career plans.’ But she stayed perfectly still and silent. Looking at me.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, even though I’d always believed PhDs were not for people like me. ‘I’ll need to think that over.’ It was pretty exciting.

  ‘Good.’ She sounded satisfied. She gave me some concise instructions about what to do next, should I decide to go ahead. ‘Of course,’ she finished, sounding a bit weary, ‘everyone in the department will have an agenda.’

  I looked at her. I had no idea what she meant. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I stood up to go.

  ‘One more thing,’ she said. I sat back down. ‘I understand you spoke to Claire Simpson last Wednesday?’

  ‘Yes.’ Claire was one of my first years. The poor girl had nearly been in tears during the presentation she was doing. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s fine. Just be mindful. If a student has mental health issues, you need to give them the helpline number rather than get involved yourself.’

  Unexpected steel clenched inside me, even though she was Professor Penelope Purcell.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ I said. Once I read that that is a good reply when someone says something outrageous. It’s to buy you time to come up with a good ‘riposte’.

  ‘None of us are trained in cr
isis management. Anxiety. Suicidality.’

  ‘She’s not suicidal,’ I riposted. (Go, me.) ‘She hasn’t got “mental health issues”. She was upset because she broke up with her boyfriend and her family is in Shepparton or somewhere, and now she’s sharing a house with a lunatic girl who wakes her up at 3 a.m. with terrible music and she’s worried her ex won’t be feeding their dog.’

  ‘Well, it may not be appropriate for us to involve ourselves in pastoral care. It’s really for the helpline to sort out those sorts of issues.’

  ‘No it is not.’ My words surprised me, and I think PPP was surprised too, even though she didn’t move. ‘Not everyone needs counselling,’ I went on, as if I knew what I was talking about. ‘Sometimes people just need a friendly chat with a . . . a grown-up.’

  ‘I can see you feel very strongly about this, Kate,’ she said. She was obviously buying herself time by reverting to some sort of gold-standard conflict-management evidence-based reflective-listening technique. I hate that. In fact, I can see that I feel hugely bloody irritated when people pull out that sort of tiresome crap. Rage rose in me. Familiar, even though it had been a while. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Listen. Penny. Claire was fine. Really. I asked her if she was thinking of topping herself and she said she wasn’t. She apologised for crying and I gave her some tissues and we had a cup of tea. I told her about my horrible ex-boyfriend’ – still known to Bec and me as Horrible Hayden – ‘from when I was at uni. We had a laugh. She said she knew she was better off single.’ (I’d made the tea at the staff tea station; it was the first time I’d ever drunk it; it was execrable, as bad as hospital stuff.) ‘It’s not abnormal to cry when you’re sad and exhausted. You don’t need a helpline for that. You need a cup of tea with sugar and a hug.’ I’d given her that too.

  PPP kept sitting still and looking at her interlocked hands.

  ‘Please remember we’ve had this conversation.’ Then she smiled and sat back in her chair. ‘Claire told me you’d been very helpful. And they’re all adults after all,’ she added, half to herself. ‘Look, Kate. Just – be careful.’

  ‘I will,’ I said. Then I added – maybe rather dramatically; I was wearing magenta silk high-waisted knickers and no bra, plus the whole new-lover-sex-orgasm thing was still wrapped around me like an invisible cloak – ‘But I also am going to be human.’ Perhaps I am becoming a sort of oddball academic. This is a worry: my hair is too naturally messy for any personal eccentricity to creep in. I would appear unhinged.

  PPP gave a single nod. We said goodbye. I stood up to go as she turned back to her computer.

  ‘Oh, thank God! I’ve finally placed you,’ she said, as I reached the door. She whirled around on her chair to face me, her hands in fists with the forefingers pointing up. ‘It’s been bugging me for months. You were in Sports Illustrated!’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ It was one of my last shoots. I’d been disappointed not to make the cover.

  ‘My little brother had your picture on his wall. He was in love with you in high school.’

  It is very odd to pretty much be told that your boss’s brother spent a goodly portion of the early noughties masturbating while looking at a picture of you in bathers.

  ‘Another life,’ I said. My standard response. It’s the best I’ve been able to come up with. This sort of thing had happened a few times. (The being-recognised thing; the boss-brother-masturbation angle was a first.)

  ‘So that’s how you manage shoes like that on a tutor’s wage. Good for you.’ It’s possible she’d taken my rant about being human too far, but I found I liked it. Is there anything more annoying than people whose main life goal is to be appropriate?

  ‘My dad was in ethical investment, before it was a thing,’ I found myself saying. ‘He kept me on the straight and narrow.’

  ‘And what does your mother do?’ she asked, as interested as if she were doing field work.

  ‘She’s a social worker. Migrants and refugees.’

  ‘Ah. I bet they were mortified about the modelling,’ said Penny.

  ‘Yes!’ I said. ‘They were!’ (They were. No one else had ever acknowledged that.)

  ‘Well,’ said PPP. ‘That’s a relief.’ She meant that she’d finally placed me. Then she waved a hand. ‘I’ll let you get on.’

  I walked down the corridor, aware that I’d just fallen into deep and platonic love with Professor Penelope Purcell.

  *

  It was the following week, and I was lying on my favourite rug, talking on the phone to Bec.

  When I’d finished telling her about the PhD (she thought I should definitely go for it, which was nice), I said, ‘So, about bringing Adam down to meet you?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Bec. ‘How are things with Adam?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but launched into her standard spiel, which is along the lines of: my life here in suburban Hobart is so boring and married and middle-class that the only way for me to have any excitement at all is by hearing about your crazy single-girl Melbourne hijinks, kiddo!

  It’s all the more annoying because I am the older sister.

  ‘So, we’re coming to Tassie?’ I said. ‘We’re thinking the sixteenth?’ We’re, I thought. Listen to me.

  ‘That soon?’ said Bec.

  Adam had seemed pretty keen, actually. I’d given him a warehouse-sized amount of room to say no – regrettably, I used the phrase ‘no pressure’ at least twice – but he’d cut me off and said, ‘I love Hobart. Let’s do it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I told Bec, now. ‘But before you offer, we won’t stay at your place this time. Thanks and all, but we’re very much in the wanting-privacy phase.’

  ‘Of course!’ Then Bec launched into her routine about soccer, crazy, swimming lessons, busy, Stuart on call, nits, joint calendar, parent-teacher interviews, how can it be March already!, orthodontics, expensive, busy. Finally she said, ‘Maybe afternoon tea at our house on the Saturday afternoon? And then lunch at Mum and Dad’s on the Sunday? So you’d have the mornings to yourselves? And the evenings? Or would two events be too much for him? Too boring? Because we cou—’

  ‘Who cares if he’s bored?’ I said. Nonchalance about men is my standard schtick, obviously. ‘That all sounds lovely.’

  *

  We couldn’t leave Melbourne until Adam finished work, which wasn’t until after seven, so we didn’t arrive until late at our hotel in Hobart. It was all recycled wood and tastefully dull brass and organic moisturiser in bigger-than-usual matte plastic bottles.

  On Saturday, at just after three, we knocked on the door of Bec’s house. Mathilda answered. There were hugs, Lego, hair-clips, slime kits – I am a present-giving aunty; I’ll do whatever it takes to maintain their adoration of me – and exclamations over the length of Essie’s legs and Lachlan’s new braces and my braid. (I’d had it done the day before in Melbourne.)

  Then the children dispersed to do the healthful, wholesome sorts of things they tend to do on Saturday afternoons. (Lachlan: practise handball in the garage or ride his bike in the driveway. Mathilda: engineer slime in the laundry. Essie: help Mathilda with slime.)

  I had assumed Bec would be so happy that I was introducing anyone to her that she’d serve some sort of gin with the word ‘artisan’ on the label and six different cheeses (also ‘artisan’). I’d presumed she’d say over-intimate things like, ‘Has Kate told you about Horrible Hayden yet?’ or ‘When is Kate going to drag you to London and make you look at the torture instruments?’ I’d thought we’d end up staying for dinner.

  ‘Tea?’ she said. ‘And want to put those out, Kate?’ She indicated a brown paper bag of vanilla slices (Mathilda’s favourite). ‘Sorry Stuart – my husband – couldn’t be here. He’s at work,’ she told Adam. When she said ‘at work’ she made it sound as if the words had Capital Letters. Or maybe – I concede it’s possible – it only sounded like that to me.

  Adam said something about Stuart’s job being very demanding and Bec laughed her
best Sandy Bay tinkly laugh and said, ‘Well, he loves it. Surgeons all seem to be like that. And you’re a photographer, I understand?’

  She was pouring boiling water into the teapot that used to be our grandmother’s, otherwise it’s possible I would have smacked her in the head – maybe with one of the vanilla slices – while saying, ‘Shut up, Bec, because you sound exactly like the person you never wanted to be.’

  I didn’t. I transferred the six luscious-looking custard-y treats onto one of Bec’s big white platters and enjoyed the silence while Adam considered his response. He seemed more like a relaxed tiger than a meerkat right then, I was delighted to note.

  ‘Three kids, eh?’ he said, in the end. ‘Kate tells me you’re very busy.’

  It was just the right thing to say. Bec managed to start acting normal and told a funny story about Mathilda’s school’s Flourish Program – that’s what sex education is called now, apparently – while she put the teapot and milk and sugar and cups onto the bench.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said, at one point. ‘Bloody Mathilda wet the bloody bed last night – bloody 3 a.m. – and bloody Stuart’s been on bloody call all week.’ That probably explained the vanilla slices. She was wearing more make-up than usual and I felt a stab of love for her.

  Forty minutes passed. We discussed Adam’s nephew who is Mathilda’s age and still wets the bed, the extreme sexism yet entertaining-ness of the Enid Blyton book that Mathilda had somehow got her hands on (Bec hadn’t given it to her; she hates Enid Blyton), rock-climbing, my current essay, and Bec’s cleaning lady who Bec thinks might be in a domestic violence relationship and Bec is wondering if she should talk to her about it (which I told her I can’t believe she even has to think about). Adam said domestic violence was a huge problem and I chimed in with something about mental-health funding and Adam said his parents lived in the country and things about farmers and firearms. Bec said a patient of Stuart’s had killed herself the year before. ‘I mean,’ she added, looking horrified, ‘the suicide was made public. We’re not breaching confidentiality or anything.’