by Meg Bignell
Hugh raised his stubbie at me and nodded from across the room. I gasped, did a small wave back, then, because that felt a bit dismissive, made the wave bigger, but then it was too big so I put my hand to my head and used it to twiddle my hair.
Ria snorted and said, ‘Please tell me that’s some sort of elaborate love signal the two of you have come up with. That or a serious nerve disorder.’
Hugh was still watching so I laughed very loudly as if Ria had said something properly funny and clever, then picked up my cider for a casual, grown-up sip. The top of the glass bottle connected painfully and loudly with my teeth.
Ria gasped. ‘Jesus Christ. Are you okay?’
‘Yes,’ I said through gritted teeth. My eyes watered. ‘Please just pretend that didn’t happen.’
‘But —’
‘Please?’
And so she said, ‘Have you sorted out your electives yet?’ She stared at my mouth and added distractedly, ‘I’m thinking about audio production.’
‘Oh, production, of course. I’m thinking choir.’ I tasted metal.
‘Oh, choir, right.’ Her eyes widened.
‘I don’t want to take on anything too hard.’ My gum was throbbing.
‘Umm …’
‘There’s blood, isn’t there?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
‘Bad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall we go?’
‘Yes. Immediately.’
We hurried out. I didn’t dare look back at Hugh. When we got out to the street and I found a car mirror to check myself in, I saw that my smile was filled with scary red teeth.
‘It’s a shame it’s not Halloween,’ said Ria, but she didn’t laugh because my face was almost as red as my teeth and my eyes were full of despair – proper poetry despair, lovelorn and hopeless. I decided that I did indeed have a nervous disorder, a terminal one, and would need to confine myself to the windowless studios of the conservatorium for the rest of my undergraduate life.
Digging up this memory makes me wonder whether I might be able to reawaken those delicious first feelings, and hopefully improve on my general delivery, without the stage and the bloody teeth. I’ll have time to have an actual try – out in the field, so to speak – now that the back-to-school flurry is over. Goodness me, what a flurry. Last week was swallowed up in a cloud of book-buying chaos and feeling anxious about too many activities or not enough and perhaps someone should be doing drama because Thingamie’s mum said it worked wonders on his confidence and oh look I still haven’t sorted through last year’s art folders and soon it’ll be September and we still haven’t named the drink bottles let alone started anything new.
Anyway, they did indeed make it back to school. Eloise at her new school!!! She had an orientation day yesterday and we had a bit of a send-off breakfast with croissants, which I couldn’t eat due to that swoony sort of feeling that comes with time rushing past your ears and turning your dear little kinder girl into a SECONDARY SCHOOL GIRL who doesn’t care what colour her lunch box is.
Hugh did a breakfast fly-through before his court appearance this morning and called to Eloise, ‘Go get ’em, darling.’ To my watery eyes he said firmly, ‘She’ll be fine. Look at her, taking it in her stride.’ Then he rubbed my shoulder, which was nice.
Ria attended our breakfast too – via FaceTime from London. It was evening over there so she had champagne and was all celebratory because she knew how misery bags I’d be.
‘So, goddaughter of mine,’ she said to Eloise, ‘here’s my advice: seek out the girls you’d most like to be friends with – the pretty, confident ones, the ones people are trying to impress – then go and make friends with someone else. Also, don’t let Mum put hardboiled eggs in your lunch box.’
I did not feel celebratory. I tried to be upbeat and brave, but Eloise looked so big and on the brink of things in her smart new uniform that of course I did a few sobs. She just patted me and said nothing. Then she let me do her hair. I resisted putting it in pigtails. St Catherine’s has vastly improved its uniforms since I was there. A simple navy dress with white piping. Very tasteful. Goes well with Eloise’s and my red hair.
‘I had to wear brown gloves, a brown dress, beige knickers and a maroon beret,’ I told the children. ‘Imagine maroon with our hair!’ They didn’t believe me, so I showed them a photo. They screeched with laughter.
‘Was that a hundred years ago?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, because it nearly was, even though it was yesterday.
‘You look like Eloise,’ said Raffy. ‘Same wafty hair.’
Poor Eloise. She will waste much time and money on hair-thickening gimmicks before she realises it’s best to keep her wafty hair above her shoulders.
Eloise let me walk her into the classroom, which is the old science labs redone into a swish common room, a kitchenette and a variety of ‘learning zones’. Her locker is right about where Ria and I had to dissect a frog and I decided once and for all that I would stick with the arts.
‘Mum,’ Eloise said after a moment or two of letting me have my faraway moment, ‘you can go now.’ And she gave me a kiss and a barely discernible push. A push! I left. On the way out I passed a globe of the world and I couldn’t help pausing to spin it westwards, in case it turned back our years to a time when I could start all over again with Eloise. Do it all better.
Anyway, so I wallowed all day, which was unfair on the others, being their last day of holidays. It was the afternoon when I realised I should have taken them to the pictures or something. Instead I bribed them with jelly snakes to join me on a ‘lovely walk’ that happened to take us all the way back to St Catherine’s by quarter past three. Eloise came bounding out ten minutes later, laughing with two other girls and looking very like my daughter but not quite.
‘Mum, this is Mimi and Rebecca,’ she said. ‘We’re in the same house group.’
‘Hi, Mrs Parks,’ said Rebecca, which made me laugh a bit. A small bit.
‘How was your day, girls?’ I asked in a bright’n’shiny voice.
‘Yeah, great,’ said Eloise, which had an element of ‘durrr’ about it. ‘Hey, Mum, we’re going to walk into town. I’ll go to Dad’s work at five and he’ll bring me home. I already organised it with him.’
‘Oh,’ I said. My cosy idea of us walking home hand in hand (pausing for a hot choc, some insightful motherly advice and a little bondy hug) sloped off in dismay as the three girls trotted off towards the shops. The tug in my chest could have pulled an ocean liner.
‘Told you she’d be fine,’ said Raffy. ‘She always is.’
I wonder if Eloise will ever need anyone.
So today I’m at home in an empty house. I can’t help being very a bit pleased with the silence. Mary-Lou and Jimmy’s arguments always escalate in January. The problem is they’re so alike: far too good-looking, quite well mannered and charming but really stubborn and furiously competitive. The future with those two is concerning. Almost as concerning is Raffy’s inertia, which has surely reached its peak. He takes relaxing to a whole new level, that boy. I’ll have to entice him in the direction of something physical this term, an exhausting prospect. He’s not overweight, just more solid than the rest of us. Anyway, I’m glad to hand them all over to the teachers; I did a tiny burnout outside their school gates this morning.
And so, empty house, wardrobe, diary, Sparkle Project. I will focus. Hugh must assume by now that I’ve lost interest – as I did with permaculture. And bread making. But he’d be wrong. I haven’t felt this motivated since I learnt how to help Jimmy with his reading. I think I’ve even identified a Starting Point; I just need to be brave enough to implement it.
During some late-night research (note my dedication to the cause, although I did somehow rabbit-hole off into sheet thread counts too – it’s amazing how quickly fitted sheets get threadbare, even without much friction), I stumbled on a definition of flirtation: ‘behaviour that demonstrates a playful inte
rest in someone’, which is definitely what I was doing on that stage in the beer garden. The initial flirtation, or courtship, has the important function of accelerating the bond between two potential mates. It’s seduction’s first step.
There’s no reason why I can’t embark on a renewed courtship, is there? Every spark needs some sort of accelerator. I haven’t really displayed my playful interest in Hugh for ages. I might have to look up ‘How to flirt’. Or perhaps Ria is right and I should actually get my viola out …
Oh. So on that whim, I just picked up my viola to see if the brave, stage-version Susannah might stir. I haven’t even opened the case since last year, when Mary-Lou started full-time school and my excuses not to play ran out. Now, with the memory of the beer garden spurring me on, I opened the case. The familiar smell of rosin floated out, and something else: cold, stale air? I touched the viola before picking it up, then brought it to my shoulder, but as I took up the bow I knew that nothing felt the same. Nothing felt. It was as if my hands weren’t there at all. I didn’t even try to play. With no hands, a nothing feeling would soon turn into a nothing note and a nothing piece of music and then a terrible, terrible pain.
I gave my hands to those who need them long ago. I gave my hands away …
WEDNESDAY 25th JANUARY
A quick note to say I’m in the wardrobe reading up on the machinations of flirting and doing some private practice of flirty manoeuvres in front of the mirror. There’s a lot of talk about open stances and winks, but it’s important to be subtle, methinks. As Ria said, don’t be dumb about it.
FRIDAY 27th JANUARY
We had a very nice Australia Day holiday yesterday. It seems ridiculous to have a day off so soon after school went back but actually I quite liked having Eloise in my sights again, even though she spent the day with her book and a bevy of wraiths and phantoms. She’s loving school so much, which is terrific, of course, but I’m getting flashes of what it might feel like to have an empty nest. Ridiculously premature, I know. Sort of like getting the Sunday night feeling on Saturday morning, which I’m prone to at times.
We didn’t have a raging Australia Day party or anything ( invasion day after all) but Hugh stayed home and we did productive home things – sweeping the paths, washing the car, that sort of thing. Hugh even managed to re-pot the hydrangeas at long last. I love these sorts of home improvement days, when the sky is blue and I’m in my overalls and we’re all where we’re supposed to be. It feels like how things are meant to be after the romantic film ends. Content productivity. Hugh whistled while he was cleaning windows as though he’d quite forgotten he wasn’t immersed in a groundbreaking case or having his breath taken away by the sun on an untouched ice field.
Valda was on her verandah with ‘Tell Me on a Sunday’. Raffy sat with her and seemed pleased not to be asked to do anything energetic. The other children made her morning tea and she grumbled about it (‘Everyone knows margarine is better’) but had a sample of everything. (‘That’s a very dry chocolate ball.’) She wouldn’t let Raffy have seconds. ‘You have spectacular eyelashes, Rafferty,’ she said. ‘But no one will notice them if you run to fat.’ Only Valda can get away with saying that. I gave her a look but she ignored it. Raffy seemed unaffected and ate his chocolate ball anyway.
Hugh and I even cleaned the car. And while I was sitting in the front passenger seat trying to free a Lego man from the air vent, I found the perfect opportunity to put my flirting research into practice. Hugh turned up with a cloth and some spray and sat next to me in the passenger seat to clean the dash. We worked in silence for a moment and then I stopped what I was doing, turned to him and said, ‘Hello, Hugh,’ in a bright voice.
He glanced at me, bemused. I looked him straight in the eye. He said, ‘Hello, Susannah,’ then sprayed the windscreen.
I lowered my voice. ‘I didn’t realise how strong you are.’ It sounded a bit stalky but, oh well, it got his attention. He looked at me again. I looked up at him through my eyelashes and moved my knees apart (open stance). He raised his eyebrows.
I coughed a bit, brought my voice closer to normal. ‘The way you handled those hydrangeas. I never thought they’d come out. So root-bound, poor things.’
‘They seem to be okay as long as you keep the water up to them,’ he said.
We can’t be talking about pot plants, I thought desperately. I rattled the arm of the Lego man and wondered what to say next.
‘You need tweezers,’ he said, looking sideways at me.
‘Oh, do I?’ My hand jumped to my face. I lifted my chin to the mirror and peered at it. ‘Where?’
‘No, you need tweezers to get that Lego out. Otherwise you might damage the vent.’
‘Oh.’ Shit. I blushed. ‘There’s this one hair that comes out just here sometimes … anyway …’ Bugger.
He laughed (a proper laugh) and said, ‘Are you blushing, Susannah?’
‘No,’ I said too quickly. Then, ‘Yes.’ I lowered my voice again. ‘It’s your dashing good looks.’
He laughed. ‘Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself, even in those daggy old overalls.’
I put my hand on his leg for a moment, sort of a long pat. The warmth of him always surprises me. He said, ‘Are you creating sparks?’
‘Trying to,’ I said. ‘How am I going?’
‘I think I feel something.’ He leaned in towards me and I prepared for a kiss but Eloise opened the boot and said, ‘Mum, have you seen my sandshoes?’ So Hugh scrubbed some foot scuffs on the glovebox and said he would need to get some Jif.
So there might be a little bit of groundwork laid at least. I’m about to go and join him on the couch to watch a film. Perhaps I’ll snuggle in a bit. (I thought my overalls were kind of bohemian and sexy in a careless sort of way so there’s some extra disappointment, albeit mild.)
LATER:
Reporting from the wardrobe! Flirty groundwork has paid off; we have movement on the sex front! A hand job! Should I recount in detail? Yes, bugger it. This is my private diary after all.
We didn’t plan it; it happened mostly because the film we were watching turned out to be quite horny arousing. There was some very naturalistic sex happening in an alleyway.
Hugh said, ‘I reckon they’re actually …’ and as we watched, I felt a stirring in my lower regions. He must have too because he ran his hand over my thigh a bit, then up to my stomach and back to my thigh, very lightly brushing the bits in between, still watching the television. On-screen, the very handsome man unbuttoned the front of the woman’s dress and reached in to her boobs bosoms breasts. I wished I was wearing a dress too, or at least not those stupid overalls with their fumbly buttons. Hugh was pretty deft with the buttons, though, when he got to them. (Ugh, deft sounds sort of creepy, as though he goes around popping fly buttons all the time. There is probably such a thing as too much experience when it comes to sex.) Anyway, he managed to somehow slip his hand into my knickers, just far enough to reach my little pink clitoris gasp button clitoris, which made me catch my breath. I reached for him then, and the hardness of him made me gasp again. I did the hand thing – up and down, up and down his penis shaft manhood penis, in time with the circular motion of his fingers on me – and within a few moments we were breathing heavily into one another’s necks. When it arrived, his orgasm was so intense that it tipped me into my own. It was only when my muscles finally relaxed that I realised my arm was aching, as though I’d been blending butter and sugar until it was pale and smooth.
I shouldn’t be likening sex to baking, though. Even if simultaneous orgasms are as satisfying as perfect cake batter. Although my satisfaction sank in the middle a bit when he said, ‘Sorry, that was quick. It’s been a while,’ in a pointed tone, as if it’s my fault. I don’t see him making much sex efforts these days.
Maybe the tone wasn’t pointed. My sensitivities may have sharpened it. I don’t know.
Regardless, we have progress.
SUNDAY 29th JANUARY
Jimmy broke h
is arm today. Playing backyard cricket. So we’ve spent the whole afternoon and evening in the emergency department, waiting. Six hours and forty minutes of waiting for nurses and doctors and X-rays and more doctors until finally a consultant consulted and gave his instructions.
As it turns out, the instructions can’t be carried out until tomorrow because Jimmy has a proper break, all the way through both bones in his forearm, and he’s shifted the broken bit nastily to the right so that the whole thing needs pins and things to align it again. He’s been very brave, dear little soldier. He screamed when it first happened, then hid his tears under his curls (must get his hair cut too) and remained stoic after that. Mary-Lou was in hysterics, which proves she does love him after all. So we’re now waiting in the children’s ward. I’m writing this by torchlight in a rollaway bed as he sleeps his codeine sleep. This writing is becoming a habit, isn’t it? It’s as if I need it to make sense of things … He looks so small in the bright-white bed. My handsome Jimmy. Oh, how we love them when they’re poorly.
Hugh is home with the others and not here with me being flirty in my rollaway. This is how things should be, of course. Flirting seems silly from the bedside of my injured son, but will the Sparkle Project ever progress?
It’s my fault for having four children. There is bound to be a constant stream of interruptions. ‘How ridiculous. Don’t you know how babies are made?’ said Dad when I fell pregnant with Mary-Lou. ‘And for goodness sake, give it a sensible name. Joan or Jill will do, or Dennis. No one uses good old Dennis nowadays.’ I called her Mary-Lou in part to annoy Dad. But mostly because I looked at her when she was born and said, ‘Hello, Mary-Lou,’ without even thinking, and then Hugh sang that song by Ricky Nelson and that was that. Oh, that just-given-birth feeling. There’s nothing at all like it in the world. Hugh and I so entirely together, creating miracles of life.
Poor Jim …
Perhaps this sparkle business is misguided and selfish. Perhaps a marriage should just be about the children. That’s what created that incredible together feeling. Babies. Hugh and I could surely make it work if we just based our relationship on being a pair of people with the same children. That might be enough. I know we couldn’t have prevented Jimmy breaking his arm, but I can be here and he can be there and it all works. We don’t have to call in outside help and inconvenience others. We’re a self-sufficient machine, even if we lack a little lubrication. Squeaks don’t mean something will break or grind to a halt. They can be oiled later, when the kids don’t need us so much. Or perhaps by then, if the squeaks are very bad, it won’t be so terrible if it all falls apart.