The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  Then she did what she often did, which was summon up every single one of her memories of Ryan. The way he’d looked at her, as if he was restraining himself, but only just. That first, flirty – of course it had been flirty – text message. The ‘come back soon’, the ‘glad we finally got around to that’. And his fingers against her neck: so assured, so insinuating, so much about possibility. And the kisses. Her very own ridiculous-chemistry kisses. She saved them up until last.

  She replayed every Ryan-thought in her mind, over and over, as if she was doing a spiritual practice. Every time a scary, angry, painful thought came, she swept it aside with a Ryan-thought. The Ryan-thoughts started off keeping her awake, but after a while, they acted like Valium. Eventually she fell asleep.

  *

  After work, Lachlan and Bec made it to the pool.

  A lifetime ago, back when they’d been so cheery together in the Briarwood car park, Allie had said that she’d scored big by getting both her kids into swimming lessons at the same time as Lachlan. ‘We can drink that revolting coffee together. That’ll numb the pain of swimming,’ Allie had said. ‘So foul, isn’t it, taking them swimming this time of year?’ Bec had nodded, although privately thought that there was nothing particularly foul about swimming lessons in autumn, and that she’d quite like to just sit alone and watch. She loved the earnest look on Lachlan’s face when he completed a lap. He was a particularly good swimmer, actually.

  But by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, she really felt like chatting to Allie. It would be sort of fun to tell her about the scanning and Michelle. (‘You’re doing something to help the sick. Living your values!’ Allie might say, admiringly.) And if she told Allie about the way Daniel Gilbert’s eyes had dawdled over her in the tea-room that morning, Allie would call him a sleaze and make vomiting noises. She’d look him up on her phone within seconds and say, ‘In his dreams! Ooooh, that is rank, you poor thing!’ And Bec would giggle and things would take on the proper perspective, and seem silly and funny and not soul-destroying and grim. It might become easier, then, to text Ryan and cancel their ‘date’.

  But.

  She hadn’t seen much of Allie around Briarwood, which of course could be coincidence. She’d also sent Allie two texts that hadn’t been answered, but maybe Allie was just really busy. Because after all, Bec was busy too. With one thing and another, poor Lachy had missed almost all of his swimming lessons, and Essie had barely been to ballet. So, maybe. Maybe she still had her friend. Maybe she should stop her paranoid, negative self-talk, and instead choose a positive mental attitude. Wasn’t that what you were meant to do? Or were you supposed to see things as they were, de-clutter, and prune from your life those people who didn’t make you feel good?

  Anyway, there Allie was, marching Henry and Olivia down to the shallow end. Bec moved to the kiosk. She bought two coffees – nearly ten dollars – and went and sat on one of the bleachers beside the pool, and waved. Allie waggled her fingers back. After a few minutes, Bec took the first sip of her coffee. She really needed it, and perhaps Allie was going to be stuck down there for a bit. Maybe Olivia was being clingy: that happened sometimes. Allie had been at her wits’ end last year about Olivia’s lack of independence. ‘She is only nine,’ Bec had said, on the third conversation. ‘Maybe she’s simply not ready for sleep-overs yet? Maybe she just needs a bit more down-time?’ Allie had looked at Bec as if Bec had just suggested a radical plan to deliver cheap, clean electricity. ‘Really?’ she’d said, intrigued and hopeful. ‘Do you think?’ In the end, Allie had cancelled Olivia’s gymnastics and instituted Mum Time once a week.

  She never thanked me for that advice, Bec thought, taking a short, emotional slurp of her latte.

  After a while, Bec held up the second coffee and tried to wave again. But Allie had started chatting to one of the other swimming mums, a woman they had both previously agreed was way too neurotic and competitive. Allie didn’t meet Bec’s eyes.

  Bec looked down at her own knees. She lowered the pathetic second cup – with its fifty-cent glug of hazelnut syrup, the way Allie liked – and tucked it down by her feet.

  Then she concentrated on looking enthralled by Lachlan. Not that she needed to, really. She wasn’t, after all, actually conspicuous. When the lesson had four minutes to go, she threw Allie’s coffee into the bin. She’d stacked it inside her own empty cup, so it wouldn’t be all that obvious that there had been two. So it would not seem – to anyone – as if she’d had the audacity to expect anything.

  ‘You missed out on your coffee!’ she said, very cheerfully. Both Allie and Bec were down at the poolside now, wrapping the kids in bright-coloured towels.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Allie. ‘You know how it is.’ Allie turned away, and started chivvying her children about warm clothes, changing quickly and listening to their swimming coach. Bec smiled and looked at Lachlan.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Mum?’ he said.

  ‘Chlorine stings my eyes. Now will you please just pick your shoes up.’

  ‘OK,’ said Lachlan, looking stung himself.

  ‘Sorry. Darling. Sorry. How about you go and quickly get changed? I’ll meet you by the doors.’

  ‘All right, Mum,’ he said. ‘I won’t talk to any strangers.’

  Bec turned to say goodbye to Allie, but she had already gone.

  *

  It was Friday.

  The road up to the summit seemed to go on for ages, a narrow, winding pathway that was far riskier than she remembered. In Ryan’s old ute, she supposed she was much less safe than in her own four-wheel drive. She leaned back in her seat, watching the feather that hung from the rear-view mirror swing back and forth as they rounded yet another blind corner. Ryan’s tanned hand cradled the gear stick; every now and then he looked over at her with a smile.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. Then, ‘I’m a bit tired.’ Essie had been awake in the night, apart from everything else.

  He gave her another smile, as if he wouldn’t mind at all if she fell asleep. Stuart would never have let her snooze, she thought, disloyally. He’d start talking about the view or the fresh air so that she’d stay awake and ‘enjoy the experience’ with him. She watched the feather again. At first it just looked brown, but when the light caught it a certain way it gleamed iridescent blue.

  ‘This though?’ he said. He made a back-and-forth, you-and-me gesture with his hand. He had a very gentle voice. ‘This all right?’

  ‘’Course,’ she said, as if she was twenty-three, and a bushwalk during the week with a new-to-Hobart person she’d kissed once or twice was just something she did between Physiology tutorials.

  ‘You tell Stuart you were coming?’ he said, knowingly.

  She shrugged. She hadn’t, but she wasn’t quite faithless enough to admit it.

  The weather still wasn’t that great, and hardly any cars were parked at the summit. There was a light, misting rain, and the view over Hobart was obscured by cloud.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. An easy grin, as if this was an innocent, youthful adventure. As if they really were just two casual acquaintances who both liked walking in the wilderness. Or maybe, she thought, maybe as far as he was concerned, that was the reality. There still hadn’t been any more kissing.

  He slid out of the car and grabbed a small pack off the back seat. She adjusted her beanie in the feather-adorned rear-view mirror (there was no mirror on the visor) and looked at herself for a second over the top of her sunglasses. They were sort of a disguise, which she knew was ridiculous.

  ‘This way,’ he said, as if he was the local. He didn’t lock the ute, but led her quickly across the car park and onto the plateau. The greens and browns of the foliage were deep and smooth under their veil of mist, and there was little wind. ‘You go first,’ he said, at the start of the path. The track snaked towards the horizon; the sky was low and white; the grey mountains of the south-west were just visible in the distance.

  S
o she went in front. It had been years since she’d done this walk. Simply zipping up her goose-down jacket felt exhilarating, and even under the layers of gear, her body felt loose and powerful, as if she could run to the edge of the world. They walked in silence.

  After a while, she realised she was thinking about her twenties. University and Laura and free cups of instant coffee in the student cafeteria and Nepal and shaving her head for charity and James the Canadian – when she was getting over him, she used to go tramping alone on this very mountain, feeling tragic and spirited and fairly beautiful – and blackcurrant vodka and Thai beef salad and day trips to the Hartz mountains and exams and echinacea and graduation. That long line of students, all of them so unquestioning. So obedient. Then her internship.

  And Kate.

  And Stuart. He was working in Sydney at first, but he would come down at the weekends whenever he wasn’t on call. At the time, those dates felt like chocolate chips in a dreary muffin. In hindsight, they’d been an orderly, predictable progression from dinner to dinner plus kissing to dinner plus kissing plus (a whole three-and-a-bit visits in) sex. It had been very nice sex, if you were going to be blunt about it. Lovely, in all fairness.

  Bec recalled the time she and Stuart went to the resort in the Whitsundays; the personalised, luxury dolphin cruise, the expression on the guide’s make-up-free face when she’d looked at Bec’s engagement ring, as if it was a mildly interesting artefact from another, not particularly desirable, civilisation. ‘Oh, I’m not really that sort of woman,’ Bec had wanted to say to her. ‘I’m honestly so much more like you.’

  She stopped for a moment and tilted up her face to the sky. Rain was still gentle on the air.

  ‘It’s so wild up here, isn’t it?’ she said. Ryan had stopped just behind her.

  ‘Yeah.’ She imagined she felt the trace of his breath on her cheek. Probably it was the wind.

  She started walking again, a bit faster this time, enjoying the way she had to pull the clean, cool air deep into her chest. There was not another soul in sight. The car park was no longer visible. Pristine wilderness unfurled in every direction. She took off her beanie. The breeze was cool against her scalp, and she felt her shoulders and face relax – blessedly, needfully – under its touch. Her cheeks were damp with mizzle. The Botox she’d had seemed suddenly ridiculous. And had she really been contemplating filler?

  In the far distance, the sun broke through. Its rays slanted down onto the grey landscape; there was a gleam of silver like faraway water. ‘Be lovely to swim,’ she said. ‘Imagine just . . . immersing yourself in a mountain lake.’

  ‘Yeah?’ She sensed he was grinning. ‘Pretty cold.’

  ‘I just like the thought of it.’

  He put his hand on her waist. She stopped, and turned towards him.

  ‘You’re very surprising,’ he said. ‘And I’d love us to go swimming in a mountain lake one day.’ She didn’t bother to hide her smile. Love. What a word to use. He was still looking at her.

  ‘Hey, Bec, out of interest,’ a little ironic eyebrow-raise, ‘my first real love was an older woman.’ He still had one hand on her waist. More her hip, actually.

  ‘Is that so?’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah. Long time ago now.’ He dropped his hand. After a second where nothing much happened, she thought she’d better turn away.

  But . . . love. The word lingered. Standing off to the side, but undeniably there. Love was a presence suddenly. Like an exquisite birthday cake, with its candles ready to be lit.

  They walked quietly for a while. Thank goodness she had agreed to this. She felt as if the mountain air was recharging every cell in her body; she felt radiant. This was life. In all its imperfection and naturalness, with all its wonder and unpredictability. She had forgotten how good it was just to walk, with no one pointing out features or asking to have their shoelaces tied. She wanted to lie down on one of the ancient boulders, let its strength and solidity permeate her unsettled mind, her fragile, indecisive bones. She wanted the vast quiet to soothe her tangled emotions.

  ‘Bec,’ he said, after a while. ‘Let’s stop.’ He jerked his head, indicated a smooth, flat rock at the side of the path. ‘I’ll make tea.’

  As he busied himself with a little gas cylinder and a jar of milk, she rested back on her palms and closed her eyes. (Stuart – the old Stuart, at least – would have insisted on going all the way to the lookout, would have talked about how they’d have to return when the weather was clear, would have cajoled her into photos that would all come out perfectly focused and flattering.) The rock was grainy, the basalt not as cold as she’d expected. Her body was warm. Only the air was very cold.

  ‘You should lie down,’ he said. She opened her eyes. His look was tender and unwavering. ‘Go on. Just give yourself over to nature for a bit.’

  She lay down on her back and stretched her arms above her head and breathed in. As she exhaled, it felt as if the very earth was accepting her, as if it understood her apologetic, conflicted self. And, too, as if the earth was reminding her that all the mess in her life was just ephemera, just stuff that would pass. How long had it been since she’d really thought about her place in the universe?

  ‘Thank you for suggesting this,’ she said, with her eyes closed.

  ‘I knew we’d love it.’ The only sound was the lilt of the wind and the clinking of the tea things.

  After a while, he touched her leg. Her thigh. ‘Tea,’ he said.

  She sat up. He handed her a metal cup of scalding English Breakfast. They didn’t talk. When the tea was gone, he said, ‘Let’s watch the sky.’

  She lay down again, and he lay beside her under the restless grey. They weren’t touching though. Well after she’d started to feel cold, she said, ‘Probably we should be getting back, shouldn’t we?’

  He turned his head towards her. ‘Guess so.’ He watched her face for a moment. ‘It’d feel so right to go home to bed for a bit, wouldn’t it, Bec?’ It was clear he meant bed together.

  She didn’t reply straight away. What could she possibly say? Yes? Do you mean to actually have sex, Ryan, or just to kiss some more, but lying down? Is that even an option, at our age? In this internet-driven-sex-everywhere society? Ryan, maybe if you could just kiss me now? At least as a start?

  ‘I didn’t have to go see a garden, the other day,’ he said. He turned away, so he was looking at the sky again. ‘I just needed you to leave.’ But he put his hand on hers, and after a moment, he turned back to look at her. Their faces were close together.

  ‘I’m not offering you anything, Bec. I don’t know if I’ll be here long-term, or even if I am, how I see my future. But this is how I feel, right now.’ He was moving his thumb. ‘Sometimes these things are just mysterious, right?’

  ‘I thought maybe I was imagining things,’ said Bec.

  He did a tiny snort which meant, That’s sort of cute, but no, you most definitely were not.

  ‘I know what I’m asking you,’ he said, after a moment. ‘And I know you can’t.’

  Bec didn’t squawk and cover her mouth like a teenager. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t chirp, ‘My goodness, yes! Such a shame that it’s all so difficult, isn’t it?’ She didn’t say anything that made her sound like a flight attendant or a cheerleader.

  She let her whole body exhale into the rock.

  She said, ‘Maybe I could.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Kate

  My happy mood lasted until we were back in Melbourne. I was happily at my desk, happily contemplating fleece transport in fifteen-hundred-and-something, when Stuart rang me and I happily answered. He was sounding a little bit more like his usual natural-leadership-skills self.

  ‘Kate,’ he said. ‘I need to talk to you about this Adam fellow.’ (Were we in a costume drama? I asked myself.)

  ‘Pray, speak on, dear chap,’ I replied.

  He didn’t laugh. Seemed I’d misjudged the mood.

  ‘I overheard him take a phone call,
last Saturday night,’ he said. ‘When you were here. Bec said to tell you. I’ve been slow to get around to it.’

  ‘Yes?’ A sick, cold feeling washed over me. Stuart was doing his surgeon-y tone, the way he does when he’s presenting facts, all black-and-white and certain.

  ‘The second time I went to get more wine, he was in the corridor when I was on my way back. Just opposite the playroom. He said, “We absolutely cannot talk now,” and then the person said something else, and then Adam said, “Do not call me on this number. I’ll text you later.’’’

  ‘Right,’ I said. I could feel sweat come under my arms.

  ‘He sounded agitated, Kate. Angry, even. I came back to the dining room. I don’t think he heard me.’

  ‘OK.’ I said. ‘Are you sure, Stuart?’

  ‘Yes.’ Of course, he was sure. Stuart was always sure. There was nothing much else to talk about, so I said to tell Bec I’d call her soon, and to hug those beautiful kids, and thank you very much for your concern, and goodbye.

  Then I got up from my desk and looked down from my window for I don’t know how long. It was the afternoon. There was a mild smoggy haze at the horizon. The buildings jostled the coastline.

  I thought of all the pain – all the unemployment and infertility and custody battles and bereavement and cancer and homelessness – even in the relatively nice bit of world that I could see. Then I thought of Syria and Afghanistan and the poor Great Barrier Reef.

  I remembered Adam taking that phone call.

  He’d told Bec and me it was the nursing home.

  When he’d come back, I’d said, ‘Is everything all right with your nonna?’ and he’d smiled a sweet, affectionate smile and said, ‘All’s well. Need a top-up?’

  He hadn’t seemed at all angry or agitated. He’d looked so believable. I’d believed him.