The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  ‘What?’ I felt a bit scared, actually. Every time I started to feel comfortable (‘exceptionally beautiful’, ‘meet my nonna’), something – his phone beeping with a late-night text, another last-minute dinner cancellation – would remind me that I couldn’t afford to take him for granted. I was see-sawing between letting myself go and firm self-talk about being self-reliant and self-fulfilled and this is all just about the sex.

  I’d been springing questions on him, including when he was nearly asleep. Questions like, ‘So how was your meeting?’ and ‘What did Scottie say about your proposal?’ So far he had always answered to my satisfaction. And when he’d met me for lunch a couple of times, he’d had a very convincing miasma of office about him: an almost-smooth shirt, air-conditioner-y facial skin. He never let me treat him to anything, either, to the point where it was almost becoming annoying. But his place was so spartan – there was a whole empty cupboard in his bathroom – and whenever I suggested meeting him at his office, he’d say something like, ‘I’ve been wanting to try Such and Such. How about I see you there?’

  ‘What?’ I said, again. He adjusted his posture, the way you do when you want your body to catch a cool breeze, and sat with his hands on his thighs. I was next to him on the couch.

  ‘There’s some good rock-climbing in Hobart,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. We haven’t talked about it much, but I love climbing. I need it.’ He did ironic air quotes around ‘need’. ‘I used to go all the time. Like, every weekend. It’s kind of a different state of mind.’ No air quotes this time. In fact, the way he spoke – sheepish, sincere – reminded me of Stuart when he got chatting about something sweet the kids had done. ‘So in Hobart, you’ve got the Organ Pipes. You’ve got dolerite bouldering on the mountain. You’ve got the Lost World.’

  ‘Right.’ I would have looked as blank as I felt. Apart from anything else, I was hoping that starting multiple sentences with ‘you’ve got’ was not going to become standard.

  ‘I try to get down there for climbing at least once a year. And I’ve been thinking, if we go to Hobart again, the two of us, maybe I could go climbing for a day. Or part of a day, anyway.’

  ‘OK.’ I nodded rather vigorously. I was waiting for him to say something about personal space, or that he felt it was unwise for him to spend more time with my family this early, or that his ex-girlfriends (he’d alluded to an Annabelle and a Carla) had never understood his love of mountaineering and had therefore driven him away.

  ‘And the thing is, Kate, babe, it’s not that I don’t want you to come with me. But . . . I don’t think you’d probably be able to manage it. I had a look, a think. Even the easier climbs – you really need . . .’

  The penny dropped but I decided, for some reason, that I’d stay quiet. I kept looking at him, expectantly.

  ‘You really need two hands.’

  I wished I hadn’t made him speak, because it felt as if he’d hit me. Honestly. I can’t put it any better than that.

  ‘I understand,’ I said. I jumped up and started clearing the coffee table, self-conscious about looping my fingers through both our empty tea cups, stacking the wine glasses on the plates, managing the whole pile, in the end, with my left (non-effing-dominant, wouldn’t you know it?) hand. Left-over, I call it, when I’m feeling sad.

  ‘Of course!’ – with my back to him – ‘Sure. I don’t need to come. Climbing’s your thing. That’s totally fine!’

  I clattered the stuff into the sink and swallowed and then turned around. He was sitting in the same position, looking up at me. I could tell he was deciding what to say. Quick to think and slow to speak was his way, I’d noticed. Which was just as well, because I have been accused of being on the hot-tempered side.

  ‘Good,’ he settled on. Level, casual. No histrionics to see here. ‘OK. I could go climbing on the Saturday morning, first thing, then we’d hang out the rest of the time. Something like that.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, more steadily. ‘Sounds good.’ I opened the dishwasher and started positioning things inside.

  By the time I’d done the cutlery, I found myself thinking that there were bound to be inspiring people with missing limbs who scaled mountains, but that I really had no desire to be one of them. Even if I had a right arm, I would be much happier at home with my Tudors than out testing the limits of human endurance or appreciating my place in the vast mystery that is nature or whatever.

  After a while, Adam walked over and gave me a big hug. His jumper was soft, and he put his forearms firmly on my back, behind my heart. He kept them there until I moved away. Quite a long time.

  That was the first night he stayed over and we didn’t have sex. We did in the morning though, and I thought we were reasonably quick – in a good way – about it. But apparently not quite quick enough, because he texted me later, and his text said: Late to morning meeting. First time in at least a decade. It was so worth it, lovely Kate. x

  I caught myself wishing very much – more than anything, just about – that I could be sure that it all was real.

  And then I thought: Kate Leicester! Stop it. This is just a physical thing.

  I was always pretty amazing at denial.

  Chapter Eight

  Bec

  Bec was doing tacos for dinner, and the onions were making her cry. Since it was a screen day, she could hear, from the lounge room, the theme music from Mr Maker. She was just reflecting that Essie would very soon burst into the kitchen and ask for an old shoebox and/or different coloured tubes of glitter and/or corrugated cardboard, when her phone rang. It was Kate.

  ‘Are you chopping onions?’ she said, as soon as Bec answered.

  ‘What’s more annoying?’ Bec replied. ‘The fact that I’m chopping onions, or that next I have to shred practically a whole lettuce into Mathilda-friendly pieces?’ Or, she could have added, that then I’ll grate a vast amount of cheese, and after dinner, load the dishwasher, wipe down the table, sweep the inevitable taco splinters up off the floor, hear Essie’s reader, watch all three of them brush their teeth, use a detangling brush on Mathilda’s hair, listen to Lachlan’s piano practice, kiss them all goodnight and then make another dinner. Stuart did not like what he called Mock-Mex, and even though he had never actually asked Bec to make a second meal – in fact, she didn’t think he quite realised that she did that sometimes – she wanted him to come home to something he’d enjoy.

  ‘How’re things?’ said Kate. ‘Tell me everything right now, before the kids come in.’

  ‘Oh, you know. Not too bad.’

  There was a short, irritated pause. Kate had always had a colossal ability to affect silence, but how she did it was a mystery to Bec, frankly. Also hard to understand was the way Kate didn’t seem to care about making conversations go smoothly.

  ‘What do you even mean? What. Is. Happening. Today?’

  ‘I don’t—’ Bec said. She walked around the bench and shut the lounge-room door. ‘I’ve just . . . look, I’ve been thinking, today, and I just don’t know what to think.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I s’pose, just. I always thought I’d be the one to take the woman’s side in a thing like this.’

  ‘Really?’ Kate said.

  ‘Um. Yes. Of course.’

  ‘Because I always thought you’d be the one to take the side of the person telling the truth,’ Kate said, as if Bec was a total idiot.

  ‘It’s not that simple though, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is!’ Kate said. ‘And don’t start on about how 96 per cent of women are telling the truth, because I know all that already, probably better than you do, and it’s not 100 per cent.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Bec knew she sounded non-committal. It was a deliberate choice. Kate was a self-proclaimed authority on all matters to do with feminism and minority-group welfare, and at the best of times she was very hard to argue with.

  ‘Bec. Are you seriously telling me that you don’t believe
him?’

  Sometimes Kate and Stuart sort of ganged up on her. They did it in a we-both-love-you-so-much-Bec-this-is-for-your-own-good way, as if they were the grown-ups.

  Bec shrugged dramatically, like a surly teenager. Then, very calmly, she said, ‘I’m just not sure what to think. As I said.’

  ‘Oh. I see. As you said.’ Kate imitated her voice.

  ‘Look, Kate. Did you ever stop to think that I might know Stuart just a little bit better than you do?’

  Kate stayed silent, but Bec could tell she was cross.

  ‘He’s not perfect,’ Bec went on. ‘Nobody’s perf—’

  ‘He would not have said it.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect, Kate, and you know, in a marriage, you get to see that and realise that. And I can tell you that it’s not absolutely out of the question that even the wonderful Stuart might have slipped up.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘Fine. Whatever you think. How’s Adam? How long you been seeing him now? Must be at least six weeks.’

  ‘I might not know anything about Sandy Bay marriages, Bec,’ Kate said, ‘but I can—’

  ‘No. You don’t. And maybe they’re nothing like they seem to – to outsiders.’

  ‘But I can tell you that if poor old Stuart wanted a half-decent blow job – and I concede that’s certainly not impossible – he’d be smart enough not to get caught organising it.’

  ‘Well,’ Bec said, aware that her lips were actually trembling, ‘one thing I can tell you is that Stuart and I think that Adam is not a smart choice. We call him Adamdick. Did you know that?’

  There was a longer pause, difficult to interpret. For once.

  Then, ‘Perhaps if we’d both been just a little bit smarter, Bec, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’ Kate’s voice had gone stringy.

  There was nothing Bec could say to that. In fact, it was a struggle to get enough air down her throat.

  ‘I’m pretty sure we both regret certain choices, Kate,’ she eventually managed.

  ‘Some of us more than others, presumably,’ Kate replied, and hung up.

  Both of them were crying, at the end.

  *

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Bec said.

  She was still in the middle of making the kids’ afternoon tea when Stuart arrived home. It had been three weeks since the complaint.

  ‘Bit quiet today. Left early.’

  Before she could react, he reached into the internal pocket of his jacket, and then held out an envelope, already slit along its top. It was an easy gesture, so competent and assured and manly. Which was somehow heartbreaking.

  ‘My . . . letter came today.’

  It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been expecting it, but still.

  ‘What’s it say?’ But she was already unfolding it from its official-looking thirds. ‘Actually, could you possibly finish that?’ She indicated the chopping board and a few kiwi fruit. It really wouldn’t kill him, she told herself, and if the kids didn’t eat soon then both Essie and Lachlan would get tearful and grumpy, and no one would benefit from that.

  She needed to hold the letter in both her hands, but to her surprise, the sentences did not swim before her eyes. Even though her breath was coming a bit fast, her brain felt as clear and receptive as a glass of water. She read silently with, she knew, her lips moving – they’d always done that when she was concentrating – and let the facts arrange themselves in her mind. Stuart, meanwhile, was chopping up kiwi fruit and sitting the kids down at the table on the deck, and then opening the fridge. When she next looked over at him, he was standing at the bench, with a beer in his hand.

  ‘Like a drink?’ he asked, through a mouthful. It was possibly the first time in their lives that Stuart had failed to offer her a drink before getting his own.

  She shook her head, and turned her eyes back to the letter.

  A notification had been made. It was pursuant to Section 144 of the National Law. The notification related to an incident that had occurred at a private residence. There was their address. There was the date of the party – the successful, confusing, frivolous, fabulous birthday party – she had organised. The notification related to Stuart’s professional conduct. The notifier alleged that Stuart had offered his professional services in exchange for a sexual favour, namely oral sex. The notifier had not consented for his/her identity to be disclosed to Stuart. The notification was being assessed by the Board. When the assessment phase was complete, there may be either no further action, immediate action or an investigation.

  Of course, Bec had already phoned the caterer. Brody had said, embarrassed, that he wasn’t able to give her any contact details of individual staff.

  ‘But we all thank you for your custom, Rebecca,’ he’d said.

  ‘I quite understand,’ she’d replied, sympathetically. ‘Thank you anyway.’

  ‘The whole thing could take months,’ Stuart said. ‘I looked it up. Only half of even the initial assessments are done in under ninety days. Sounds like a total shit-show. If they decide to investigate further then . . .’

  He was toying with the dirty fruit knife, and he suddenly smacked its tip down hard into the marble bench. His fist slid down the handle and onto the blade.

  ‘Your hand!’ she said, reflexively. ‘Sweetheart. Your hand.’

  The knife clattered onto the floor, and she checked the deck. The children hadn’t noticed. (Miraculously, all three of them were eating their fruit as if they thought it was delicious and had forgotten biscuits even existed. No doubt Stuart would assume things were always this easy.)

  ‘Sorry, Bec,’ he said. He sounded mystified, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. ‘I’m really sorry about that.’ He looked down at his upturned hands. There was a thin arc of bright blood seeping from his right palm. ‘If it’s all right with you,’ he said, ‘I might go for a walk on the beach.’

  ‘OK.’ She swallowed her shock. A walk on the beach? And his hand. His precious surgeon’s hand. His hands were the reason they had a stack of surgical gloves in the shed, because even top-quality gardening gloves let dirt in under your nails. The reason she always bought expensive, allergen-free soap. The reason he’d given up cycling; the reason he’d jog up flights of stairs without thinking twice, but would never, ever put his hand in an elevator to keep the doors open.

  ‘But is your hand OK?’ she said. ‘Don’t you want at least . . . a Band-Aid or something?’

  ‘It’s just superficial.’ He was still looking down at his palms. He walked towards the front door – apparently avoiding the deck and the kids – as if he wasn’t going to say anything else. But as he left the kitchen, he turned and looked at her.

  ‘I am an excellent surgeon, Bec,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’

  ‘Of course.’ She picked the knife up off the floor. She rinsed it and popped it in the dishwasher. Then she started on dinner. At that point, it seemed that getting the kids to bed early was the most helpful thing she could do.

  *

  ‘Time for dinner soon!’ she was calling, when Stuart appeared in the kitchen a few days later.

  It wasn’t just that he was home early, this time. She could tell by the way he was walking that something was wrong.

  ‘You OK?’ She washed raw chicken off her hands and flicked on the kettle.

  ‘Can we please have a quick talk?’ He glanced in the direction of the playroom and the children.

  She sat, facing him across the kitchen bench. He stayed standing up.

  ‘What?’ she said. She took a breath. ‘Sorry, darling. What?’

  ‘At the clinic? My waiting list is down to a week.’ He scrunched his eyebrows and looked out of the window, over her shoulder. Then back to her. ‘Sorry. I should have told you earlier that things have been slow.’

  ‘Seriously?’ she said, as shocked as if he’d told her his parents were divorcing. ‘Really?’

  ‘I guess it’s the referrers,’ he
said. He looked like a hurt little boy who was trying to be brave and grown up. ‘The GPs. They don’t . . . no one probably . . .’ He could see she wasn’t understanding what he meant, and he said, like a confession, ‘They’d be concerned about being tarred with the sexual-harasser-supporter brush.’ He shrugged. ‘So. They’re not referring patients to me anymore.’

  ‘Oh, Stuart.’

  And the worst part about it was that all this time, when Stuart must have known how bad things were, her life had been going on almost as normal. Allie was being a bit weird, hurrying back to her car at drop-off with a curt raise of the hand, hurting Bec very much more than Bec would have thought. But otherwise, people were still polite to her. Stuart still went off to work in the mornings. And hadn’t she always told the kids to ignore it when people said mean things about you? She’d thought she should just keep on smiling and making nutritious meals and doing the school run and that eventually it would all die down. That bureaucratic wheels would turn, Stuart would be vindicated and the gossip would go away. But now she saw she’d been an idiot, a stupid, pampered woman who tutted and turned up her air-conditioner while a bushfire raged outside.

  ‘What does this mean, exactly?’

  Never in her life, had she had even the flickeriest flicker of a worry about Stuart being out of a job. The difficulty, always, was him having too much work. It was almost impossible to imagine a world in which Mr (surgeons were never mere ‘Drs’) Stuart Henderson FRACS wasn’t striding from one demand to the next, incising and deciding and ligating and advising, dealing with a ceaseless flow of elective cholecystectomies and key-note presentations and acute bowel obstructions. In fact, the two of them had had endless conversations about what they called ‘the quest for work-life balance’, but what she privately thought of as Stuart’s unwillingness to prioritise their family. He loved his job; that was the real issue.

  ‘It costs thousands of dollars a week to keep that clinic open. If I’m not generating enough income . . .’ His voice trailed off. She waited for him to say, ‘So what I’m going to do is . . .’ or ‘The way round it will be . . .’ but he didn’t. He closed his eyes and rubbed both his palms over his face. Then he sat down at a stool by the recently wiped bench. It was empty apart from the chopping board where she was working.