by Meg Bignell
Anyway, once we arrived at Opossum Bay and got over the initial arguments about who got the top bunk and whose fault it was that we forgot Barky’s leash, it was all really lovely. The weather was perfect. There’s a jetty to fish from and rock pools to explore and a sort of golden, nostalgic feel to the whole place. As if someone held a big seaside happiness festival there long ago and the air is still humming with it.
The Hadleys have a shack there! This is a thing in Tasmania – you and your neighbours leave the suburb and catch up again at the seaside, just with more gin and less rush. Their house was just four along from ours and it’s not actually a shack, more a beach pavilion with an entertainment centre and a boating department. Mary-Lou looked less pleased with her bucket and spade when Thomas Hadley brought out his remote-controlled yacht. I felt much the same about my shorts when Isobel appeared in her bikini.
It turns out that Isobel is a professor of heart failure. A Professor of Medical Science, I mean, specialising in heart failure. She and Josh are both away a lot, giving papers at conferences and things. Sought-after sorts. Experts. I feel a bit lumpen beside them, especially in my bathers, but they are very nice. (Isobel and Josh, not the bathers; they are yellow and awful and have failed at boosting my boobs. It’s tricky to boost boobs when there are no boobs to boost, I suppose.) I asked them about their research but mostly I was interested to know how they manage such high-flying lives.
‘We work our calendars so that the children always have one of us home,’ said Josh. ‘It means we don’t have all that much time together, but it’s top-quality time, isn’t it, honey?’ At this point he put his hand on her neck.
Isobel smiled and said, ‘Yes. We never run out of things to talk about.’ They looked so interested in one another. Respect. Mutual.
They were also, like all the best people, very good at appearing interested in me. ‘So you’re a musician,’ said Josh.
I gave them my standard response to this question: ‘I studied music. Viola. I worked for the TSO for a bit, did some things for the Australian Ballet and musical theatre. Then I had four children and Hugh’s forensic work took off and, you know …’
They nodded sympathetically. ‘Hugh’s work sounds interesting,’ said Josh, and on we talked about that for a bit. It’s an old trick – throw them off the musical scent with a bit of forensic talk and everyone’s distracted. It must be all those CSI programs on the telly.
Then Isobel said, ‘And he told me he did a season in Antarctica; I’d love to go down there.’
‘We could do that,’ said Josh, his hand still on the back of her neck.
Then we joked about how their professions could get them to Antarctica. Seal infertility and heart failure in penguins and so on.
‘Did you go too?’ asked Isobel. ‘Surely they need a violist down there?’
‘Ah, no,’ I said. ‘Hugh went when we still had babies. I was pregnant with Mary-Lou so …’ I tried not to sound piqued. ‘I had a lot of help from the grandparents.’
‘I hear the whole experience is pretty addictive,’ said Josh. ‘Will he go back?’
‘Oh, you know what they say about ice,’ I said. ‘You never can better that first trip.’
Attempted wit is very good at covering up sore points. Apparently I have a few. Perhaps I should ask Isobel if too many sore points can lead to heart failure.
Later I saw Josh and Isobel swimming together. Actually, there was only a little bit of swimming and quite a lot of kissing. Passionate kissing. It went on for so long that I accidentally wondered whether he’d slipped his willy in. Then I had to look away because I give myself the creeps sometimes. But still I wonder … there were a lot of ripples.
Anyway, it was a nice few days. Did us good. And love is so much more than sex on the beach (I was reminded when we arrived home). The children leapt all over Hugh when they saw him. They bubbled with news and excitement as though they hadn’t seen him for months. Even Raff seemed sparky. We were S Parks and all the little Sparks. We ate fish and chips around the island bench, Hugh told us about the case he’s consulting on, Eloise displayed her Opossum Bay photos and Jimmy showed us how to do a sun salute (Isobel is a yoga buff, of course). Marriage is family, children, home. There are other ways to make love than having a shag in the sea.
I gave Hugh a proper hug and two kisses. He seemed genuinely pleased to have us back. Perhaps I should go away more often. Perhaps I should go to Antarctica.
NB: Hugh’s case involves the collapse of an awning in Elizabeth Street. A pedestrian, a young man, lost his arm and had his spinal cord damaged. Puts things into perspective, really. Perhaps I should just thank my lucky stars and stop harping on about dwindling passion. Surely lucky stars have extra sparkle.
SATURDAY 14th JANUARY
How long is too long not to have sex? There was a period late last year when we didn’t have sex for six seven nine weeks! It was that Novembery time of year when school has a fair and there are swimming carnivals and Grandparents Days. Eloise was huffy about me not letting her have some blonde put in her hair for the Year Six Leavers’ dinner. She’s thirteen! And she never believes me that hair as fine as ours will not react well to chemical influences. Also red + blonde = pink. Mary-Lou had a ballet exam and there were an extortionate number of birthday parties. Then we had a school sex-education evening in which they said, ‘Mum and Dad love each other enough to touch in loving ways’ and I realised that it’s been a very long time since ‘intercourse’ (terrible word), nor could I remember the last time I was touched in a loving way. Unless I counted the dog rubbing his eye-goop on my trousers.
So I went home and initiated sex that very evening and then in the middle of it, I accidentally thought about mouse poos, which can’t be a good thing. It’s just that I’d forgotten to sweep the mouse droppings from the bench by the toaster (I just can’t bear to kill tiny animals with shiny little eyes so I’d been pretending they weren’t there). I remembered them (the poos) just as my bottom was being caressed, and I had to concentrate very hard on getting my mind back to the job at hand. It’s also probably not a good thing to call it a job, like it’s chores, even though sometimes post-coital relaxation is more like job-done relief. Ticking a box, so to speak. Coital/coitus is another terrible word. Box isn’t much better, when referring to the vagina (although getting it ticked can be very satisfying). Vagina is a pretty awful word too, actually. Sex needs a new vocabulary …
No, sex should only be ‘work’ if you happen to be a sex worker. For me it should be a pleasure. And it usually is, once we get into it. It’s just that the getting-into-it part can all seem a bit effortful. Firstly, you have to just about book it in, much like a sex worker. Secondly, sinking into pillows and letting blessed sleep take me does often seem more sensible than tangling up the bedclothes and getting sweaty. Also, I’m much more inhibited about my body these days. My boobs are all saggy, having been so full of milk for approximately six years. It is the ultimate injustice – along with pimples on wrinkles – to have a flat chest that sags. Sagging chest skin. And they only get worse. I saw Valda’s boobs once when she forgot to button up her nightdress and they looked like wind socks with no wind. I could have rolled them up and tucked them neatly into each other like an actual pair of socks.
(Valda’s boobs remind me that I promised to take her a musical theatre CD; she said she’d like to get to know the musicals. Must fit that in.)
I wonder if it’d all be easier if I were paid for sex. I know someone who gave her husband a blow job every day for three months and got a new kitchen. I could ask for a Room of My Own. (Although even if I had one, I’d never use it; I’d always be coming out to see what everyone was up to. One of the conundrums of motherhood is that you want everyone to bugger off and leave you alone but then you worry about where they all are.)
So anyway, to go back to the original question – is nine weeks a proper drought or just a dry spell? There’s a mother at school who quite openly says that she and her
husband have sex every other day. Imagine being bold enough to say that at a trivia night. And having so much sex! She’s one of those earthy women who appear quite smelly comfortable in their own skin. She’s had her vulva moulded for that wall of plaster vulvas at Mona.
TUESDAY 17th JANUARY
It’s the 17th already? Sparkle progress is slow, to say the least. Hugh and I are still just going about the business of being a family. Businesslike … I think I’m still reeling from the research phase, from which it’s becoming all too clear just how much trouble Hugh and I might actually be in. Would I have been better off not probing the situation at all?
This morning I went to Valda’s to drop off her musical theatre CD and found her telling Neville off about the plumbing. Even they’re engaging with one another and he’s been dead for two years. (I haven’t received thanks for the CD but she’s clearly enjoying it; we’ve had ‘On My Own’ from Les Mis blasting out of her windows this morning. She must be getting very deaf.)
WEDNESDAY 18th JANUARY
I decided to tell Hugh about the Sparkle Project. Communication is, after all, supposed to be the bedrock and cornerstone of a good relationship. It will seem all a bit random and suspicious if I just start executing passion measures without his informed involvement. He might think I’m having an affair, losing my mind or having a midlife crisis. Am I having a midlife crisis? Also I was hopeful he might be wildly enthusiastic about it and we could begin immediately. As a team.
So, in that sliver of time between all the children finally settling into bed and Hugh and I getting engrossed in the telly or falling asleep and not having sex, I said, ‘Am I boring?’
Hugh moved his head towards me but his eyes stayed on the telly (Indiana Jones). ‘Mm?’
‘I worry that I’m boring.’
‘You’re not boring.’ (Indy’s winsome lady friend suddenly wields a shotgun and dispenses with an enemy.)
‘I am,’ I sigh. ‘Part of my New Year’s resolution is to not be boring.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. We’re going to try a whole lot of new things.’
‘Are we?’ His fingernails tensely scratched the arm of the couch.
‘Yes. I don’t think there’s enough, you know, spark between us.’
He looked at me then (quizzically or knowingly? Or irritably? Probably the last) so I added, ‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I don’t think we can expect sunsets and roses at this stage of our lives, can we?’ he said.
‘I don’t mean silly romance stuff,’ I said. ‘I mean passion. We used to be so … you know … passionate.’
He ran his fingers through his hair in that way he does when the children ask him to put the badminton net up. ‘Zannah, I am passionate about you. I’m passionate about my family. Everything I do is for the family. We’re busy. I don’t think you’d find all that many couples head over heels all the time, let’s be real.’
‘Josh and Isobel seem quite head over.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, why didn’t you just say you’d like me to relentlessly ravage you in public?’ He moved in next to me on the couch, slid a hand up my thigh and said, ‘I’ve got a very snazzy car, a pool and a Rolf Lauren jacket. Please love me.’ Then he sloppy-kissed my cheek and made a growly noise.
‘It’s Ralph Lauren, you idiot,’ I said. Then one of us must have leaned on the remote control because the telly flicked over to a shot of ducks mating.
‘Duck sparks!’ Hugh shouted.
Raffy appeared, with his hair all pillow-rumpled. He rubbed his eyes and said, ‘Is that duck murdering the other duck?’
‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘It’ll end badly. Go to bed.’ Then he patted my leg and said, ‘I’ll take you to the Revolving Restaurant on Valentine’s Day, how’s that?’ and then he left, ostensibly to put Raffy back to bed but really to avoid the issue. It was lucky he did, though, because after the ducks were some penguins, on ice. I quickly flicked it back to Indiana Jones. The last thing we need is for Hugh to be reminded how much more beautiful and interesting Antarctica is than me.
I got a bit cross when he returned. ‘One – the Revolving Restaurant was exciting when I was seven,’ I said, ‘and that was because it was the first time I realised cauliflower could be delicious. Two – just now, right then, was the perfect opportunity for you to initiate, you know, lovemaking, and you’re watching telly —’
‘Well, it was lucky I didn’t because Raffy would have witnessed something more disturbing than duck sex.’
‘But before that you didn’t. You just went all silly. There’s no intensity any more, just silliness. Like friends or siblings.’
‘Well, I thought about it,’ he said, ‘but you were on about romance and stuff, and I thought it wasn’t appropriate because apparently men are always putting sex before romance.’
‘I didn’t say anything about romance. I said passion. You could have at least kissed me. On the lips.’
‘Well, I’ll kiss you now, then.’
‘I don’t want you to kiss me now. We’ve lost the window.’
‘Well, sorry. The window was a little fogged up. I misread the signs.’
We sat huffily watching sparks fly out of Indiana’s stupid lost ark. Then Hugh sighed and said, ‘Don’t overthink it, Susannah. Don’t dream up problems. We’re fine.’
When he went to bed he didn’t kiss me, on the lips or anywhere.
‘Well, you won’t mind if I keep on with my resolution?’ I called after him.
‘Go for it,’ he said, but he had the same tone of voice as when I told him I was thinking about a permaculture course. I’ll show him. I’ll make our relationship so sustainable it will have its own ecosystem …
He’s probably in bed awaiting the first sparkle experiment, but I’d prefer to be a bit more spontaneous. Also I haven’t actually planned any experiments. And I’m tired … I’ll just have a little rock in the chair … darkle, darkle …
He’s always telling me not to overthink things. It so irritates him. But I can’t very well help where my brain goes. I tried some mindfulness tapes once but the clock in the hallway seemed to tick louder and louder until it was virtually yelling at me that I was wasting precious time. So I went and cleaned the cutlery drawer.
Tomorrow, I will put thoughts into action and sort out my marrage marriage.
(Because the truth is, if I don’t try something, anything, I don’t know if Hugh and I can survive the rankles and the darkling. And I’m not sure I’ll survive the not surviving.)
TUESDAY 24th JANUARY
I am finally able to properly attend to the Sparkle Project because at last the children are back at school! So I’m all set up in the wardrobe with my diary (obviously), a very nice new pen (quite expensive, to aid quality of writings) and a cup of tea. I’m very keen to have a thorough rummage about in our back catalogues, when our (or at least my) sparkles were shimmering about all over the place …
The Ship Inn, Hobart, 1992
It was only a day or two after the ‘bee’ incident that I saw Hugh again, in the beer garden of a local pub where Ria and I were making a guest appearance with a band. They had a thing for Corrs covers and we were the Celtic bit. We’d dressed in kilts and frilled white shirts and I’d teased up my hair so the light would shine through it and make the most of its red. We were waiting off to the side of the stage when I noticed Hugh and his cool, swaggery engineering friends arrive.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ria asked when she noticed I’d tried to shrink to fit into her shadow. (Impossible given my ungainly lank and her diminutive frame.)
‘Nothing,’ I squeaked. She looked around and spotted the group of blokes.
‘A six-foot, dark-haired Hugh Parks sort of nothing?’ She looked triumphant.
I wished desperately I hadn’t made my love-strike so obvious, but then I could never hide anything from Ria anyway. By now we’d found out his name, who his friends were, what school he came from and what he was studying. She eyed him openly, t
aking rapid little sips from her Mercury cider. ‘I still think we should be aiming for someone older, third year at least. Maybe even a lecturer. I see why you’re smitten, though. He’s vindaloo.’
Thankfully she had to stop scrutinising because we were motioned onto the stage, me with my viola, Ria with a piccolo. I managed to get through one and a half songs without looking in Hugh’s direction, but then I noticed Ria raising eyebrows at me and I sneaked a look, to find that he was looking up at me. That smile, those eyes.
There were more butterflies, but they were swatted away by the person I’d become onstage, the one with a bit of cheek about her and a lot of front. She was never afraid to take a risk; she had her music to hide behind and could be, while not talented enough to be bumptious or insolent like Ria, quite confident. Stage-brave. Or was I just brave? (Is it still bravery if it’s never occurred to you that something might go wrong? What is the opposite of brave? Terrified?)
Anyway, up there onstage I looked at Hugh along the length of my viola, found his gaze and held it with a lively and extended improvised instrumental bridge designed to claim attention. It left Ria and her piccolo far behind. When I’d finished, the bewildered band ended the song while Ria and I performed a small Irish jig that whipped people onto the dance floor. As I whirled I saw that Hugh had put his drink down to clap along. And that he was still watching.
Once the set was over and we left the stage, Ria said, ‘That was some allegro, Susannah Mackay. You stole the show.’ But the stage-brave me was rapidly disappearing, leaving Susannah to administer my tumult of feelings.