The Mistake

by Katie McMahon

  Glenda tilted her head to the left.

  ‘But then, maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with my marriage. And I’d like to figure that out, so that I know what to do, because it’s crossed my mind’ – it was almost unbearable to say it out loud – ‘that perhaps I should even leave. Leave Stuart.’

  Glenda O’Malley nodded. She glanced at the elegant taupe clock on her desk, as if she’d had a private bet with herself as to how long it would take Bec to tell her about the Other Man. (Seven minutes, it turned out.)

  Then Glenda said, ‘So, what was happening for you, Bec? When you first met Stuart?’

  Ha, thought Bec, as Kate’s smiling, gorgeous, twenty-something face and breasts and legs flashed in front of her eyes. That’s more like it, Glenda O’Malley.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kate

  Adam. Adam. Adam. Adam. Adam. Mada. Mad-A.

  Ad-am. A-dam. A dam man. Adam. ADAM. Adamadamadam. Madam.

  A Madam. Madam Kate.

  Kate and Adam. Adam. Adam Adam Adam.

  I was still thinking about him at least 98 per cent of the time, which was annoying. I had hoped by now to be down to, say, 72 per cent, because it was June, a whole new season, and weeks since I’d purged him from my devices and told Juliet never to mention his name.

  That day I was varying the activity during which I would be thinking about him, because I was seeing Bec. She had come all the way to Melbourne to go and talk to a psychologist about whether or not it would be sensible for her to leave her faithful, normal, trustworthy husband. After the appointment, Bec and I were going to have lunch at a somewhat fancy restaurant. We’d probably text Stuart a photo of our desserts or something, to make it seem as if we’d been having all manner of frivolous, girls’-getaway-type frolics.

  When Bec walked into the restaurant, her face was like a kitten’s, the way it used to go in high school, before she had an exam. She sat down, and I poured her some of the twelve-dollar fizzy water. I was more upset than I let on, partly because I loved being, in a way, part of their family. But also, less selfishly, because it seemed to me that Bec had everything – a love-filled, sweet, precious life – and she was about to flick it away as if she was changing a television channel. It made me want to shake her.

  ‘Was the psychologist helpful?’ I said, in my most open and considerate tone. I had, obviously, decided to do that I-support-your-choices-even-though-you-are-freaking-insane thing.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Then, ‘Kate, do you think I ever really loved him? Because it’s not just this complaint – even though, you know, I can’t be sure, Kate, I’m sorry, I know how you feel, but I can’t – and now I’m thinking that it isn’t even about Ryan. What if I – maybe I married Stuart just because . . . he was a surgeon or good-looking or rich or something?’

  There was so much wrong with that little speech that I had to take a very big sip of water, probably at least two dollars’ worth. Then I said, carefully, ‘Well, Bec, those things – his profession and so on – were part of who Stuart was. And is. But I don’t think you were someone who prioritised those things too much, when you first met him.’ The words were out of my mouth before I realised, but she didn’t even notice. ‘You certainly acted like you really loved him. I remember. That first time you guys visited me in Melbourne and you stayed really late?’

  That was the second time I met Stuart. It was just after I’d moved away, maybe six months or so after my amputation. We all drank lots of red wine; it was before it started giving Bec migraines. At one point – Bec was out of the room and I was a bit teary – he said, ‘God, Kate, I would never presume to tell you how to handle it.’ He realised what he’d said, and instead of apologising or looking awkward he put his arm across my shoulders and said, ‘That must happen all the time. Hands come into everything.’ Another time – a year or so later, when Bec was on a Kate-you-so-need-to-see-someone-and-get-some-help mission and going on about cognitive behavioural therapy and grief counselling – he snorted and said, ‘I’m with you, Madam Kate. All the CBT in the world won’t bring your right arm back.’ He started calling me Madam Kate early on. I hadn’t realised until recently that it even meant anything to me.

  Anyway, I thought Bec would have fond memories of that first wine-soaked evening, because she and Stuart did seem really in love that night – they got a taxi back to their hotel at 3 a.m., even though I had a spare room, and they both laughed like mad whenever anything even slightly funny happened, and it was obvious from how kind he was to me that he completely adored her.

  But now she got tears in her eyes.

  ‘I felt so guilty about you,’ she said. She actually shrugged. ‘Maybe he just seemed like someone who could keep life safe.’

  Well.

  Here I am, about four decades in, and I find life – safe or otherwise – can still astound me. I couldn’t believe that Bec would, after all these years, bring the whole thing up so . . . casually. At a restaurant. In the context of her own dilemma about whether or not to disband her perfect family.

  ‘You were feeling guilty about me?’ I said, quite calmly. The waiter approached and I waved him away without making eye contact, which was something I hadn’t done in years.

  ‘And he was so solid. You know. Safe pair of hands.’

  Oh, for God’s sake.

  ‘And where did I come into it?’ Self-focused, I know, but surely no one could blame me.

  ‘Well.’

  There was no drum roll, oddly. She just spoke in a normal way. Not even a deep breath before she said it. ‘I felt that I gave you bad advice, and that if I had given you better advice then maybe you would have had a better outcome. With your arm.’

  ‘You were feeling guilty?’ That time I didn’t sound calm. I sounded how I felt, which was devastated all over again, incredulous and above all very, very angry. (You were feeling guilty?)

  ‘Yes. Because. Kate. Remember, you asked me what I thought and I said—’

  ‘I remember,’ I said. Of course I remembered. I remembered it as if it had happened that very morning. She’d been wearing a hideous mauve cowl-neck jumper and I was in low-slung tan pants, a tight dark brown sweater and a turquoise-and-coral-beaded belt thing.

  ‘That time at the pub?’ she said, just to make sure I had it right. ‘In England. In that little village.’

  ‘It was The Miners Arms, in Cobham, and of course I fucking remember.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her eyes went like two dessert spoons. She’d finally realised that the conversation was not about her, her guilt, her affair or her marriage.

  I had nothing to say. I’d always expected that when we finally talked about it – and I had imagined the conversation taking place on one of our deathbeds – there would be drama and tears and catharsis and abject apology (her) followed by magnanimous comforting (me). We don’t know for sure it made any difference, the deathbed me would say, all serene and Buddhist-y. My face would be lined in an adorable way, like a very old rural woman from a developing country and the room would be high-ceilinged and sunshiny and would smell of apples like an old-fashioned convalescent home. It was a series of errors, not just yours. But, of course, we would both know it was mainly her fault and that I was the big-hearted one.

  ‘I need to order,’ I said. Then I did something else I hadn’t done for years, which was lean forward and use my stump to drag the menu over the table towards me. It made a loud clattering noise – it was one of those parchment-clipped-to-a-wooden-rectangle jobs – and she had to hurry to move the bottle of water out of my way.

  ‘Kate?’ said Bec. ‘Are you mad at me?’

  I looked up. My face, while not exactly Botox-free, still has quite a degree of movement in it – of course, in exchange for my right arm I got so much money I can afford the best dermatologists in the known universe – so I decided I’d leave it to her to work out how I was feeling. Her being the smart one, after all.

  I used my stump to run down the list of menu items, like it w
as a forefinger.

  ‘I’ve never forgiven myself, Kate. Never.’ As if this was The Young and the Restless.

  ‘Right,’ I said, with my eyes on the menu. ‘We could share a side salad? Actually, no. Just order your own meal.’ I put my menu down. Shoved it away (with my stump).

  She reached way across the table and took hold of Left-over. I didn’t move Left-over. I let it be limp as a daffodil.

  ‘Kate? I’m so sorry, Kate. I’m so, so sorry.’ Hint: using people’s names a lot does not make your apology more effective. I thought of saying this but couldn’t be bothered.

  The waiter came over again, and that time I looked at him and ordered.

  Bec said, ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ without taking her eyes off me. She was still holding my hand in both of hers; the waiter probably thought we were a gay and ‘diversely abled’ couple, which would have been quite unusual in that not-particularly-minority-friendly postcode.

  I took Left-over away and looked around.

  I thought about how everyone except me had been surprised at Bec’s family-only beach wedding. Bec had always been so social. At uni, she was surrounded by girlfriends: she used to email me in London about their fundraising-for-wells trivia nights and their scarf-knitting nights and their Sex and the City-and-cheesecake TV nights. I’d never asked what became of all those bouncy, fizzy, pretty girls.

  I refused to be a bridesmaid. All the dress fittings. All the eyes.

  I guess she felt she couldn’t have anyone.

  I never asked Bec to quit medicine. Never. Not exactly.

  My arm actually was a series of errors. Not just hers. But hers was the first. It was the necessary if not sufficient one. And she was my sister, which made it both more and less forgivable.

  This is what happened.

  She’d recently graduated. She was twenty-four and doing her internship at the hospital in Hobart, and I was twenty-five and flitting about Europe letting my mild and meaningless fame go to my head. Bec had come to England to see me for a fortnight, and on her very first day we went out to a little village pub for lunch. It was a Thursday, so all the men who lived in the village had gone. Bit like the war, except they were in banks in London instead of off at Dunkirk or somewhere, and the women left behind were at the hairdresser or Tae-Bo rather than slaving away in munitions factories. (I’m not being sexist. It’s how it was. Maybe even still is, except these days the women would be getting their filler refreshed or having a crack at mindfulness meditation while the men are off developing software.)

  That Thursday.

  I’d reached across the wooden table at which we were sitting and said, ‘Check this out,’ and I showed her the lump on my right arm, just a bit below the elbow. It was little then. ‘I call it Grape,’ I said.

  She pressed it. Even though she’d only just become a doctor, there was a sort of professional authority in her fingers that was nothing like the squeamish, amused little pokes my friends had given it, and her face was thoughtful and serious.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘That’ll just be a lipoma,’ she said. She sounded so sure. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m going to the doctor tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Her voice went up a notch with every syllable. ‘Kate! We’ve only got ten full days.’ You see, it was back when she could say what she wanted. ‘Look, you’ll need an ultrasound. Then they’ll either leave it there or take it out, it’ll be up to you. It’s nothing. And I have literally come halfway around the world to spend time with you and to have a break from thinking about ultrasounds.’ She tried to make the last bit sound like a joke, but she was very obviously hurt that I’d scheduled an appointment during her visit. She would’ve been thinking about priorities and caring and making the effort. It was just a big-sister/little-sister thing.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘If you think it can wait.’

  And she nodded. She waved a confident, dismissive hand and said, ‘It could wait a year.’ She sipped her lager.

  And so I’d thought it didn’t matter if I waited a few weeks, and they turned into two months, and the lump got bigger but I didn’t realise that mattered, and I didn’t ask Mr Cartwright any of the right questions or demand an oncologist early or do any of the things that could have – so very easily, in hindsight, if she’d said something even a little bit different, if I’d known just a little bit more – saved my arm.

  But Bec had wanted to be a paediatrician from the time she was four. In every single primary school Book Week parade, she dressed up as Dr Craven (from The Secret Garden; he was the only doctor-in-literature character anyone could think of).

  I remembered how, when Lachlan was born, she said, ‘Kate, just wait till you hold him!’ and – when I got to the hospital – she put her firstborn into my arm in such a trusting, delighted way, even though neither of us could remember me holding a baby even when I’d had two arms. He was so little. His head was so floppy, in its yellow towelling hat.

  I started thinking about Adam, and how I’d screamed at him that my family loved me. I thought, randomly, about the sort of mother I would want to be, if ever I magically had a baby.

  Bec’s hand was still on the table. I reached out and tapped the back of her knuckles with the pads of my fingers.

  She looked up, right into my eyes, and for the first time I properly faced where my indomitable little sister – with her zippy bike-riding and her messy hair and her bubbly chatter about fair trade and poverty and Doctors Without Borders – had gone. It wasn’t Sandy Bay or Briarwood or the kids or even Stuart. She’d evaporated because of me, not on purpose, and not all at once, but gradually, because when a part of you is destroyed you prop yourself up with whatever is going.

  And I had watched, and I had known, and I had not intervened.

  When Mum said, once, ‘What do you think’s going on with Bec and medicine?’ I said, ‘She seems to like the shoe shop. I think maybe she didn’t love her internship that much.’ It was one of those lies that at the time you tell yourself is not really a lie. But it was. A terrible lie, an enormous lie, a deliberate, life-changing, irrevocable lie.

  ‘It was just a mistake,’ I said. I thought she’d reach into her handbag for a pristine packet of tissues, but she didn’t. She put her elbows on the table and her face into her hands.

  ‘Oh Bec. Becky.’ I got out of my chair and came around next to her and put my arm across her shoulders and my face near to hers. Quietly, I said, ‘Please. Becky. Could we please, please just not worry about it anymore?’

  My face was red and wet, and so was hers, and the waiter sort of spoiled things by putting down the main courses while we were in the middle of our very long hug, but, on the whole, it was as Buddhist-y and heart-warming a moment as you could wish for.

  There wasn’t really anything to say afterwards, though. I went back to my seat. We ate our identical lamb tagines and I figured we’d have to talk about her marriage issues another time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bec

  Four days later, Bec arrived home from work to find Stuart sitting next to Essie at the kitchen bench. Essie’s ankle was coiled around the leg of Stuart’s stool. Their heads were almost touching over a plate of hummus and rice crackers.

  ‘Bec!’ he said, looking up. ‘My work. It’s going to be fine.’

  ‘Hear that, Mummy?’ Essie said, so knowledgeably that Bec felt terrible.

  ‘Bec? It’s going to be all right.’ Stuart was standing, with his arms open, waiting for a hug. He was smiling like a kid who’d just bought his first car. It occurred to her to say, ‘Would you just let me get in the door before you start?’

  But she smiled back, as excitedly as possible. It was awful, but the way he patted her back as they hugged reminded her of a frantic, flapping fish. Bec left her arms around Stuart, and reminded Essie about their look-after-your-pets-if-you-ever-want-a-puppy deal and Essie hustled off to feed the guinea pigs.

  ‘’At
ta girl,’ said Stuart, looking after Essie as if she was on the way to collect her third Nobel prize. Bec withdrew a bit from the hug and looked up at his face.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she said.

  ‘MPRA emailed Rodney an hour ago. No further action required.’ He left his hands on her waist, and started talking fast, about assessment phase and Rodney raising hackles and senate references committee and time-frame recommendations. She let his words wash over her.

  Her first thought – her main thought – was that now she really was going to have to decide what to do. Affairs might be acceptable during a crisis – it was a bit like having sex with a soldier during the war – but if things were going to settle down, then it was a different matter. So did she, actually, want things to get back to normal?

  Her second thought was that it would be lovely, for all the horrible stuff to go away.

  And her third thought was that it probably wouldn’t go away. Didn’t he realise that people still talked? People still knew? Last week Laura had told Bec that the Tas Medico Mums’ Club Facebook page had a thread where female GPs were musing about whether it was fair to refer their patients to him, or whether it was unfair not to. ‘I think his private clinic’s closed,’ one of them had written. ‘He always seemed like one of the more approachable surgeons,’ wrote someone else. ‘Shows you never can tell.’

  When Stuart eventually stopped talking – he always liked to make sure everyone was across the salient points – she got a word in.

  ‘That’s really exciting, and obviously a huge relief,’ she said carefully. ‘But still . . . as far as your public image goes . . .’

  ‘We reckon that’ll all blow over now,’ he said. ‘Rodney said to get PR involved. I spoke to someone called Suzette just a minute ago.’ And he was off again. A letter to his referral base enclosing a short factual statement that emphasised the MPRA finding, testimonials on his website that would ‘play well’ with the general community, a meeting – the very next day – with the hospital, at which Rodney would be present. ‘There’s no point counter-suing,’ he said. ‘Time. Money. Gives the whole thing oxygen.’