I Give My Marriage a Year

by Holly Wainwright

  ‘Great to meet you, Louise,’ he said, looking into her eyes intently in a way that suggested he’d taken a course in how to make friends and influence people. ‘We’re really excited about having the extra support on hand. Can’t wait to watch you add value.’

  Add value? Lou had been in enough staffrooms to know that here was a guy whose departure from a room would be followed by the other teachers’ eye-rolls and fingers-down-the-throat gestures.

  ‘It’s Lou,’ Lou said, and he nodded quickly and moved past her to the tea mugs, asking the room at large, ‘Hey, how’s everyone on this fine first day?’

  Lou was almost certain she would have very little to do with Deputy Theo, who seemed, here in the staffroom, like a literally giant fish in a small pond.

  But it hadn’t turned out that way. Lou found out later in her first week that additional learning support fell into Theo’s ‘bucket’, as he called it. ‘And I have fortnightly WIPs with everyone in my bucket.’

  ‘WIPs?’

  ‘Work in Progress sessions.’ Theo smiled. ‘Sorry, I was in the corporate world before I came to teaching. Some habits from that world are hard to break . . . and some are still useful.’

  He didn’t look old enough to have had a pre-teaching life, Lou thought, but whatever.

  In the WIPs they discussed the progress of the program, monitoring individual kids’ results – ‘accountability is everything’ – and keeping an eye on the waiting list for kids who could slot in next.

  In those meetings, Theo was a talker. While Lou twitchily watched the clock, counting down to day care pick-up or the bedtime deadline, he was exceptionally comfortable filling time by explaining why he thought the way he thought.

  As he talked about himself, Lou learned Theo had a fiancée back in Melbourne. That he was a rugby man. That he thought teachers should think more like managers, principals more like CEOs. He had a tattoo on his collarbone that was sometimes visible but impossible to make out. As he talked at her, she pondered what it might be. A wing of some sort.

  Lou could tell that Theo liked that she was ‘new’, too, although he was a term ahead of her. She could tell that Gabbie, the head, was well liked but steady, by-the-book, and that’s not what Theo was.

  ‘Theo freaks me out a little bit,’ she’d said to Beth in her third week. ‘He’s so . . . in your face. It’s weird for a teacher, don’t you think?’

  ‘He’s not a teacher,’ Beth said, tucking strands of her sensible brown bob behind an ear. ‘He’s a deputy head. He’s a politician, and he’s trying to recruit you to his faction. You should stay a little bit freaked out.’

  But if the staffroom was divided, as so many classrooms were, between the idealistic and the resigned, Lou had made a decision early in her career to stay in the idealistic camp for as long as she possibly could. She mightn’t have her own class and classroom right now, but every day she was away from her own kids, she wanted to feel like it was worth it. So there was a part of her that admired Theo’s gung-ho attitude and energy, as much as there was another part of her that thought he was an egomaniac with zero self-awareness.

  ‘I caught him doing chin-ups in the male bathroom the other day,’ whispered PE head Greg in the staffroom.

  ‘I saw him telling Jared Soave to shave – and Jared’s only eleven,’ said Amity, who taught year six.

  Beth laughed. ‘He’s called his project group Growth Mindset – they’re six!’

  But everything about the meetings Lou and Theo shared changed after she had her termination.

  ‘I find it really hard to explain,’ Lou said to the counsellor she’d been sent to by her GP, ‘because I’m completely fine, and I know my family is completely fine, I know in so many ways that Josh was right, but I feel so . . .’

  ‘Sad? Do you feel like you’re grieving?’ the woman asked, tilting her head in a figurative ‘aw’.

  ‘No,’ Lou said. ‘I feel angry. Really, really angry. I finally understand the phrase “eaten up by anger” now, because I wake up every day with this drop of fury in my stomach. Most days it starts out small, but by lunchtime it’s like a football in my tummy, and by the time I get home it’s like beach ball. And it’s like it can’t be contained; it just shoots out of me. Everything Josh does annoys me: the way he looks at me, the way he picks up a cup, the way he eats, the way he coughs, the way he does anything for the girls. He does what he’s supposed to, but everything’s ten per cent off. Like, he makes Stella’s snack, but he doesn’t peel the apple, which means she won’t eat it. And he says, “I cut it up!”, but the point is he didn’t peel it. It makes me furious. Wouldn’t that make you furious?’

  The counsellor, who clearly wasn’t living with preschoolers, nodded her head very slowly, looking blank.

  At the same time, Lou’s meetings with Theo went from friendly to combative. She found a reason to have a problem with the results he was asking her to report. She disagreed almost as a matter of course with his views on the progress of any particular child. She wanted changes made to the plans for next term, even though they were already locked down.

  ‘It’s like I know he can take it,’ she’d said to Gretchen, after she ditched the counsellor. ‘He’s someone I know I can push back on.’

  ‘But he’s your boss?’

  ‘Well, he’s not directly my boss, but . . .’

  ‘It seems weird to me that this one work relationship is such a focus,’ Gretchen said. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing more here?’

  To which Lou had punched her in the arm. ‘Euuw.’

  And to Beth, at school, Lou said, ‘Theo really is a dick.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Beth. ‘He really is. Get yourself out of those meetings.’

  But Lou didn’t. Instead, she requested an extra one, about three months after the termination. And that day, she’d looked at herself in the mirror in the morning, at her thirty-something face staring back at her, tired-looking, a little drawn. She’d put on one of the ‘good’ sets of underwear she hadn’t worn for months, possibly years, and she wore a pair of shoes that had something like a heel.

  All day that day, Lou felt sick. The meeting was at 4 p.m. in Theo’s tiny office next to Gabbie’s. Often they held their meetings in the staffroom, sometimes alone, sometimes with other additional-needs staff. But not that day.

  She knew that what she was doing was high-risk. She knew it was against all school rules, against her own personal ethics, a betrayal of her husband, but she felt, then, like she was living in an orderless world. The fury pounding at her all the time was exhausting and exhilarating at once. She was barely eating, running on adrenaline fuelled by toxic energy. She knew all this. She knew she wasn’t in a place to make sound decisions.

  Lou sat down opposite Theo at his desk and she said, ‘I’d like to ask you a question, and I’d appreciate your discretion.’

  Theo looked worried, as any man would. ‘Lou, if you are going to declare anything about another staff member, it might be smart of us to get Beth in here, and possibly Gabbie. Although, I think she’s left for the day . . .’

  ‘No, no.’ Lou shook her head. ‘It is inappropriate, what I want to say, but it’s about me.’ Her hands, she realised, were shaking, and she suddenly felt slightly ridiculous and embarrassed. Still.

  ‘I wondered – and you can certainly say no . . .’ Shut up, shut up. ‘Would you like to have sex? You and me?’

  ‘You did NOT say that!’ Gretchen had shrieked after the fact, when Lou finally told her friend the details.

  ‘I did. I have no idea how I did, but I did.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ Gretchen’s face had been a mixture of excitement and concern. ‘What the fuck did he say?’

  ‘Well, he looked really, really shocked, but only for a moment . . .’

  Theo had seemed momentarily terrified, actually, looking around the room as if there was a hidden camera or a recorder somewhere, and this was a sting or an elaborate joke.

  But then he said, �
�What makes you ask me that?’

  And something about the look on his face – a little bit fearful but also interested – told Lou she was right. ‘I just really need to have sex,’ she said, twisting her wedding ring. ‘With someone who isn’t my husband.’

  ‘I didn’t think you . . . liked me, Lou,’ he said, with the suggestion of a sly smile. The fear fading, he looked like a man who was getting what he wanted. Smug, even.

  He was sitting down on the other side of the desk, but Lou knew that as long as she could convince Theo she wasn’t trying to ruin him, it would happen. Bottom line was, she knew Theo was getting hard, sitting there at his tidy desk; she could just tell.

  ‘I don’t want an affair, or to split up with Jo– . . . my husband, and I certainly don’t want you to split up with . . . your fiancée. I just thought, you might be lonely up here in Sydney and it’s something I need to do, and I think we have quite good chemistry, and . . .’

  ‘Did he just pull you over the desk and take you?’ asked Gretchen, disbelieving. ‘I still can’t believe you did that, Lou.’

  And Lou nodded. ‘Yes, pretty much.’

  It had been a little clumsier than that, she had to admit. There had to be a fake exit, to make sure that the office next door and outside had been vacated. There was a fumble in her bag for a condom, from a packet she’d bought specifically. There had been a wrestle to try to get Theo’s belt off; it had this weird clip thing . . .

  ‘And was it incredible?’ Gretchen asked, almost shuddering with excitement.

  ‘It was’ – Lou remembered how quick it was, that first time in the office, how desperate – ‘exactly what I needed.’

  They never did it in the office again. Theo was a cautious man when it came to his career. He wasn’t going down for this.

  At their next meeting, he had asked Lou, very matter-of-factly, if she wanted to continue this arrangement. She had nodded, and they drew up a list of rules. ‘Do we have to have WIPs to make sure we’re sticking to the rules?’ asked Lou, only half joking.

  ‘We’ll check in,’ Theo said, straight-faced, ‘to keep ourselves honest.’

  Rules

  1. All school communication to be strictly professional.

  2. No fraternising on school grounds.

  3. Protected sex only.

  4. No discussion of partners or relationships.

  5. Either party can call the project off without notice and there will be no negative repercussions, professional or otherwise.

  6. NO DISCUSSION WITH ANY THIRD PARTY at any stage.

  Logistics weren’t easy. Theo lived in Bondi then, which was too far from the school for it to be practical. And he had housemates, old rugby buddies.

  But Theo also knew the guy who ran a gym nearby. This guy owed him a favour from old times. He could get Theo the keys to the upstairs storeroom. It was hardly ever used. They could go in the back door, go up the stairs, lock the door, go out the same way.

  And so it was that at least once a week for three months, Lou and Theo would have sex between dumbbells and yoga mats, broken spin bikes and foam rollers. It was an almost brutal, aggressive, masculine, uncomfortable space. It was absolutely perfect for what Lou was after.

  ‘I’m invoking rule five,’ Lou said down the phone that Tuesday night, just after she’d spoken to Josh on the highway.

  And Theo had made a ‘huh’ noise. ‘Well, then, I will respect the integrity of that decision,’ he said. ‘Until you change your mind.’

  Theo’s tattoo was a wedge-tailed eagle. Of course it was.

  *

  ‘The thing about it is,’ she told Gretchen as she packed up the kids’ things at the playground, ‘I didn’t ever really like him. I still don’t.’

  ‘But are you still attracted to him?’

  Lou thought about it. His thick, long fingers and his broad shoulders and his firm hands. And his self-satisfied smirk and the triumphant grunt he gave when he came, and his complete absence of natural curiosity.

  ‘I’ve got it out of my system,’ she said. ‘I want to focus on Josh. On rebuilding.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gretchen, ‘good luck with that, when the bad man’s down the hall.’

  ‘All our meetings are in the staffroom now,’ said Lou. ‘It will be fine.’

  And she strapped Rita into the stroller and began to push towards home.

  Josh

  Later that year

  I haven’t thought about it for a whole day.

  Josh had got to 7 p.m. on 25 November when he realised he had gone a whole thirteen conscious hours without thinking about the imaginary man who’d been screwing his wife.

  It’s only taken me eleven months, he thought, to get this far through a day without picturing it. Without wondering if Lou was thinking about him. Without seeing them together.

  Happy birthday to me, he thought, bumping along in Mick’s giant, shiny new ute. Josh was heading home after having a celebratory beer. It was early, but they’d knocked off a few hours ago, and he knew Lou was making him dinner and they were going to sit out the back and drink a bottle of wine on the deck. It was spring, the evening was warm and the jasmine was out.

  He was almost tempted to tell Lou about this milestone, but he knew that would be weird. He also knew that after three beers his tone would be unreliable – he couldn’t be counted on to not say something that would turn this positive into a negative at speed.

  That was the thing about a marriage ‘in recovery’, he thought. It was fragile, and the winds that rattled it were fierce and unpredictable.

  ‘Mate, here you go.’ Mick was dropping him off, since Josh had had a few drinks. ‘Home for dinner.’

  ‘Good man, Mick.’ He climbed out of the truck. But Mick didn’t pull away. And he could have sworn that was Simon’s truck over there – Simon who’d just been at the pub with them. And was that Rob’s hybrid Toyota?

  Oh, right.

  Josh had a moment to prepare before he pushed open the front door.

  He ran his hands back through his hair, wiped them down the front of his short-sleeved shirt. The one that, come to think of it, Lou had shoved into his bag this morning, in a way that she rarely did. ‘You’re going out tonight, you don’t want to wear your shitty T-shirt,’ she’d said. And he hadn’t thought anything of it, even though it was a bit strange that Mick had asked him if he was getting changed before they left the workshop to go to the local. ‘Since when do you care?’ he’d asked.

  When he did open the door, it was a straight three–two–one countdown to the scream of ‘SURPRISE!’ and the light flicking on to reveal a crowd around Lou and the girls in the hallway, fairy lights dangling from the bannister, the sound of a champagne cork popping, music pumping.

  ‘Oh, whoa,’ he said, louder than he might usually. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

  And Rita started to cry so he went to her and scooped her up in one arm, pulling Lou to him with the other, and motioned for Stella to join the group hug. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said to the top of Lou’s head. ‘I had no idea.’

  His mum was there. So were Anika and Ed, Henry and Wilson, even Maya. Mick was behind him, Gretchen and Barton, Annabelle, Brian, Rob and his boyfriend Toby, and a scattering of workmates and parents from day care.

  ‘Well,’ said Lou into his ear, ‘you’re almost forty. We thought we should celebrate before you get too old. Also’ – and he could have sworn she swallowed just a little before she said it – ‘because we love you.’

  ‘I’m going to kill you later,’ he muttered to her. ‘But I love you too.’

  There was, at the end of 2016, much to celebrate.

  His wife, after all, was no longer sleeping with the man of his imagination.

  *

  He had told precisely one person about what had happened between him and Lou: his mum.

  Adult children, Josh knew, needed to believe that their parents didn’t know them at all. That they were completely independent entities, complica
ted mysteries whom the people that raised them would never truly understand.

  But becoming a dad to his daughters had changed Josh’s view on that. How could it possibly be that someone who had obsessed about every little part of your personality and your wellbeing for so long – who considered the impact of how and when you learned to walk, talk, eat, sleep, love, laugh – didn’t know you? Emma knew him to his bones. She was the one who was there, after all, when as an adolescent Josh found his way in a new fatherless world in a strange city. She was the one who nudged him upright when he fell over, literally and figuratively, and she was the one who knew, better than anyone, what kept him down and what lifted him up.

  He fully expected her to tell him to leave Lou, which he had already decided he was not going to do. He expected Emma, who was finding her feet in her new home in her newly created estate by the beach, fringed by leafy gums and dotted with things old people liked – coffee shops that didn’t serve chewy sourdough, greengrocers where you could buy a single tomato if you wanted, a golf club that also offered tai chi classes, affordable drinks in small glasses and a cheap Tuesday fish-and-chip special – to tell him not to be a mug.

  But she didn’t. ‘You should write a song about this, son,’ she said first. ‘It might make you a million dollars.’

  ‘Not quite how it works, Mum,’ he replied. He was putting together an outdoor table and chairs set that had come flat-packed from the nearby SupaCenta. It was flimsy and cheap, and he was feeling guilty for not making her something sturdier himself.

  ‘The hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life,’ Emma said, ‘is forgive someone for hurting you.’

  Josh grimaced, because he hadn’t told Emma about what had gone on before the affair. She wasn’t holding all the facts, if he was honest. Still. This was surprising.