Jacaranda Wife

by Smith, Kendra

  ‘Lucy, I have to go,’ sniffed Katie. ‘I’ll call again.’ I can’t chat because I can’t speak.

  ‘Katie, wait, we’ve been looking at flights,’ said Lucy suddenly. ‘We’re thinking of visiting!’

  This time, a very heady mixture of guilt, homesickness and nausea hit Katie. Oh. My. God. I don’t want to see Adam again … it’s one of the reasons I did agree to move 10,000 miles away …

  *

  Tom pulled up on the road next to Yellowbank Public School and Katie stared out the car window at the scene before her. Some of it reminded her of English schools. The red brick, the odd lunchbox abandoned in the playground. Inside, she was comforted by the walls covered in a mass of brightly coloured paintings, paper plate faces peering down with blue tissue-paper hair. The smell of cooked cabbage that seemed to unite all schools globally; teachers clip-clopping past them in the corridor.

  But other bits could have been from Mars. A low fence around the school. She filed this thought in her head to think about later. There were structures in the school ground that looked like port-a-cabins, with air-conditioner units poking out at the side.

  Their feet crunched through parched gum leaves on the dusty path. James and Andy ran on ahead. Tom was whistling. ‘Do they teach in there?’ Katie asked. ‘Or are they still finishing the building work around the school?’ She squinted in the harsh sun. The school secretary, who was showing them grounds, spun around on her heels and gave her a peculiar look. She narrowed her eyes and leant in close. Katie was overwhelmed by musky cheap perfume.

  ‘You just got off the boat, didn’t you, darl?’ she said, arms folded across her chest. ‘Those are classrooms.’ As she spoke her intonation rose at the end.

  ‘Right, I see.’ What boat?

  Back in the headmaster’s office James played with a basket of toys while Andy searched through a box of yoghurt coated raisins looking for a black one, flicking all the yoghurt ones out of the packet. The headmaster just smiled. It was all very relaxed, very unlike anything she’d ever seen, frankly. All I’ve ever wanted was a quiet life in the Home Counties, thought Katie, frowning, watching the little white blobs land on the floor. But OK, let’s give Australia a go, she thought determinedly, pushing her bangles up her arm. This is our challenge, the one Tom and I need. It will either put back the spark, or combust the whole thing. With this thought, she wiped some sweat building on her forehead with the back of her hand. But first, those fences. She turned to the headmaster, pulled her shoulders back.

  ‘Um, headmaster, sir, um, Mr Edmunds?’ she cleared her throat.

  ‘Yes Katie – I’m the ‘principal’ here - but call me Stu.’

  Stu?

  ‘Mr Edmunds, oh, yes, Stu,’ she crossed her legs and leant in, ‘I just wondered if I could ask you about the fences,’ she pointed to the window. Tom looked over at her, was tapping a cinnamon brown brogue on the ground.

  ‘They seem rather low,’ she carried on.

  ‘Katie -’ The principal peered at her, took off his glasses. He was a round man, in his late 50s, wearing cream trousers and an open neck shirt. He looked like he was about to play golf, not lead a school into academic excellence, thought Katie. His hair was greying and he was also wearing a long-suffering expression.

  He spoke to her in a soothing way, talking to her like he was addressing someone holding a hand grenade with the pin out. He said he hadn’t lost any children yet. He explained that this was not London, it was a fairly nice suburb in Sydney. He said that it wasn’t a private school. Katie swallowed hard, and looked at Tom at that point who pulled on his shirt cuffs and coughed. The headmaster then took off his glasses, cleaned them and smiled at them both. As he did this, images of men in balaclavas crouching in bushes around the playground filled her brain, and Katie let out a yelp.

  ‘Katherine?’

  ‘Sorry, yes,’ she looked up, put her hand to her mouth as her silver bracelets crashed into one another. Tom’s eyebrows were raised and he was staring at her.

  ‘I understand.’

  She looked over at James who was sitting next to Andy by the toy basket. ‘Darling, would you like to go to this lovely school? Next week maybe?’

  Her son stared at them all and twisted a ring of hair round his finger. Then he shrugged and went back to a basket of books.

  ‘What’s the uniform like?’ gushed Katie, to fill the silence. The headmaster seemed to prefer this to the last question. He explained they wore ties and bush hats. What on earth is a bush hat, she wondered.

  Katie walked Tom to the main road. It was his first day in the office and he needed to be there by mid-morning. He gave her arm a squeeze: ‘Listen, sweetie, I’ll get a cab to work, you take care. Go have a rest. You know,’ he said, arm outstretched to hail the next cab, ‘I think we made the right choice about the move – and school,’ he quickly added as a yellow cab swerved into the side of the road. ‘Bye boys!’

  Smile, just smile. I have so much going on in my head from low fences to infidelity it’s easier just to turn my mouth up at the ends and not think too hard, Katie reasoned. Move your lips to the required position and hold it there. A Stepford Wife smile.

  She held James and Andy’s hand and watched him get into the cab. She waved. Then she slowly walked towards her purple rented 4-wheel drive jeep.

  ‘C’mon boys! Last one to the car is a smelly -’

  ‘Sock!’ they chorused.

  When they got to the car she was quite out of breath. She stared at the huge shiny vehicle. It looked like an over-ripe aubergine. Fumbling for her keys in her bag she realised she hadn’t a clue how to get back to the rented house.

  A traffic warden was coming her way. Oh crumbs. Did we pay? Did we pay? She tripped over on the kerb, dropped her bag and steadied herself.

  ‘Morning ma’m? Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, yes, look I have the money, really I do, I just …’ Throw him off the scent. ‘Um, had a Very Important Breast Appointment and I wasn’t sure of the zone, I’m really sorry.’ She clutched her left breast and looked pleadingly at him. ‘Don’t give me a ticket …’ She scrabbled in her bag for change, dropping coins on the grass. She was terrified. She had accumulated a number of parking tickets in London adding up to the cost of a small villa in the Dordogne.

  ‘You right?’

  As he said this, his voice went up at the end. Am I right, thought Katie. I really don’t know. Am I? Perhaps not in the head. But have I parked illegally?

  ‘Sorry I don’t understand. We only arrived last Wednesday …’

  ‘You haven’t parked illegally,’ he smiled at her. Must put ‘laid-back traffic cops’ on my ‘pro’ part of living in Australia list. Katie smiled back, relieved.

  ‘Thanks. Listen, I don’t know how to get home.’ She stared at the busy road, traffic whizzing past, clutched the boys’ hands tightly.

  She glanced at him and then looked down at his shorts.

  ‘Home? Where’s that, darl?’ he said, scratching his chin, squinting at her in the sun.

  ‘London.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘We had fairy bread at school today, Talia’s mum brought it in,’ announced James. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Under the table, dear.’

  Katie always remembered too late not to serve cous to her children. Children who thought it was terribly funny to flick it at each other in a game, thinking she couldn’t see. She could not let it lie there on the floor. On this day she had tried to concoct Moroccan-inspired lamb with cous left-overs which lay sprayed under the table.

  ‘What’s fairy bread, poppet? Ouch. Don’t kick me Andy.’

  ‘Bread, with coloured hundreds and thousands on it,’ replied James, peering under the table. ‘Really yummy. It’s the Australian National Dish. Can I have some sprinkles on my lamb chops?’

  No you cannot. ‘We’ll see,’ she muttered as she crawled out from under the table, commando sty
le, trying not to spill cous from the dustpan holder.

  The phone was ringing.

  ‘Hey, Katie, it’s Ann. Just calling to see if you did need any spare uniform?’

  Katie had met Ann on her first day at Clontarf Public School. She remembered how she ran in, lunchbox under her arm, late, and crashed straight into a woman in a purple halter-neck dress.

  ‘Sorry!’ she’d gasped, picking up the contents of the lunch from the ground.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ann had smiled, ‘I was late on my first day too.’

  That was a few weeks ago – it takes some time to graduate from arching eyebrows in an I-recognise-you-from-the-playground-way, to smiling, then a little wave, then finally on to chatting in the playground about life, the universe and what a bush hat is (hat with a very large brim). Growing roots in new soil takes time.

  ‘You there?’

  ‘Yes, hi, sorry - bit distracted,’ said Katie. ‘What’s Fairy bread, Ann? Is it your national dish?’

  There was a snort down the phone and Katie smiled. I think I’m going to like her. She pushed some wayward curls out of her eye and switching the phone to her other ear.

  ‘Very funny! No, fairy bread is kids’ paradise, honey,’ explained Ann laughing. ‘It’s white bread, buttered thickly and covered in hundreds and thousands. It is not a national dish, darl. It has no nutritional value whatsoever! See you tomorrow around morning tea, I’ll drop off the stuff.’

  ‘Oh great, thanks for the tip. See you then. Bye.’ What time?

  Morning tea? Surely she means morning coffee, thought Katie, going towards the computer to Google ‘Australian Idioms’. She was distracted by a Skype alert from Lucy; her heart did a little lurch as she realised how much she missed her. Lovely Lucy. My mother would have skipped on the spot if Lucy had been her daughter instead of me, smiled Katie to herself. Knows how to propagate any plant you show her in the garden; she is nearly always the first to clear the table and lend a hand.

  Lucy followed in her mother’s footsteps – even looked quite like her mother, pearls and all. Lucy wanted the rural life, the two point one kids, the tradition, the Family Home. Mark, on the other hand, used to unhappily go on a few country retreats with Katie and Tom for the weekend but he was always edgy - glad to get back to grimy London, to breathe in the pollution particles again. The country air just used to aggravate his hay fever. He wasn’t the country type. Turns out, he wasn’t the monogamous type either. Lucy woke one day to find him gone. He’d had an affair with his dental nurse, remembered Katie. Seduced by her pearly whites, obviously. He then decided he wanted to find himself – and the meaning of life - by going on a six month spiritual study tour to Bali.

  I’m part of a new breed, thought Katie, sighing. A breed who ‘cut corners, my darling’ as her mum would have said. But there was one soft spot Lucy and Katie did share: Adam. Katie stared at the icon which told her Lucy was waiting for her to reply. What was I thinking? Adam’s her second chance, her new beginning after her cheating, lying first husband … It was only a kiss … She clicked on the mouse.

  And suddenly there she was, smiling and waving at Katie from the computer. Skype was an amazing thing. Lucy was going in and out of focus as she moved the little camera on her computer.

  ‘Hi, darling, how are you?’ Lucy was grinning at her, wearing baggy red and white checked pyjamas. Her cheeks were rosy like she’d just come in from a run, her wispy blonde hair scraped back in her trademark Alice band. She had about a hundred hair bands. This one was red gingham too.

  ‘Fine, yes! Great. Hot!’

  ‘Really? What time of day is it over there? How’s Tom?’

  ‘Fine, fine, in Jakarta, went yesterday …’

  ‘You must miss him.’

  Katie scratched her head, leant forward towards the camera and nodded automatically.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Fabby, thanks. Adam’s been house hunting! Leaving grotty London!’

  ‘I used to say that Luce, and looked what happened to me!’

  ‘Well, that’s why I wanted to Skype you – we’ve booked our flights!’

  Katie held onto the desk where the computer sat, leaned back in her chair, hoped she had a ‘Gosh how great’ face on. ‘Wonderful!’ came out of her mouth as her smile froze. She was glad she was on Skype, that Lucy wouldn’t have noticed the twitch in her eye. The rest of the conversation went in a blur about things like the time difference, what to bring; how hot it would be. Katie walked away from the conversation in a trance.

  James was badgering her to let him play on the computer, which she gave in to without a fuss. Anything to allow her to gather her thoughts. Adam. Here? He was the last person she wanted to see. Yet, on the other hand …

  Suddenly James broke her concentration. ‘Look Mummy! These spiders! They can kill you!’ She walked back to the computer and stared, open mouthed. She started to read about one of Australia’s deadliest spiders …

  The Redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti) is a potentially dangerous spider native to Australia. Children and the elderly … are at much higher risk of severe side-effects and death resulting from a bite.

  She re-read the last bit. Death?

  Bites from Redback spiders produce a syndrome known as latrodectism. The syndrome is generally characterised by extreme pain and severe sweating. Within an hour victims generally develop pain, swelling and redness spread proximally from the site. Systemic envenoming is heralded by swollen or tender regional lymph nodes; associated features include malaise, nausea, vomiting, abdominal or chest pain, generalised sweating, headache, fever, hypertension and tremor ...

  What the be-jesus is ‘systemic envenoming’? Katie froze. Then, suddenly, there was a noise. Turning around from the computer, she looked at Andy. He had tipped his bowl of cous on his head. White specks of cous and a smattering of pine nuts covered the floor – next to a lamb chop bone. James was trying not to snigger.

  ‘Mummy what’s sexual cana-I-balism?’ James was tugging on her apron.

  ‘What?’ clutching the tub of sprinkles, she spun back around to the computer screen. ‘The Redback spider is one of few animals which display sexual cannibalism while mating ...’ She felt completely sick. Sick from speaking to Lucy, sick about Adam coming over, sick with homesickness, and sick because of these blasted spiders.

  *

  Tom had now been gone a week. Katie was sitting cross-legged, on the floor, picking up pieces of Lego. She bottom shuffled towards each stray Lego piece. Around her lay sprinkles, wooden pieces of train track, several Ug-I-Oh cards, sand, and a small puddle in the corner (dear God, no) as she watched James and Andy run around the house with light sabres. They were from the stop-over at Singapore airport. It had been too hard to say no - especially as James had threatened to show the Chinese shop assistant his ‘two willies’ (‘see Mum, he’d said, in the airport toilet pulling back his foreskin, one willy is hiding under the other one!’) if they did not buy them.

  ‘Mummy, look!’ James shoved a book at her. They were finally sitting quietly at the table. ‘We have to do a My Country’s History book covering for my history book,’ said James, proudly opening the first page as cut-out pictures fell out: there was the Australian Flag, kangaroos and a funny looking yellow flower – like someone had stuck golden pom-poms to the leaves.

  Thinking for a moment, Katie got up and then came back with some UK magazines that were still in the side pocket of her suitcase in the hall cupboard. ‘Right, pass it here.’ James obliged and watched as his mother cut out pictures of William and Kate’s wedding, a corgi, Big Ben, Maypole dancers and the St George’s Cross.

  ‘Voila!’ she said, as she stuck them all down with a flourish on the front of the book.

  ‘But mum, Miss Perkins said we should have stuff like koalas, Aznac day or something, Captain Cook, Lam-ing-tins – Mum? What’s a Lam-in-ton? - and RSLs pictures.’ What’s an RSL?

  ‘Never mind all that, James. This should do nicely! This is YOUR co
untry,’ she tapped her fingernail on a smiling Kate in a wedding dress and looked up. James had vanished. Suddenly she felt a bit sweaty and teary. ‘Boys!’ she screamed.

  ‘Mum! I was just about to kill Demon Darth Andy!’ howled James, light sabre aloft.

  There was more galloping, screeching along the corridor. They were being about as quiet as a girls’ dorm on the last night of term, thought Katie. She headed to the kitchen to swallow two Nurofen Extra. She hadn’t slept well the night before after speaking to Lucy. She’d been awake several times, had a terrifying dream about a spider with a face like Adam trying to have sex with her. She had woken up with a start, breathing heavily, reached for Tom and remembered that he wasn’t there.

  She’d thought a lot about Tom last night, remembered how, all those years ago, he’d been her dashing prince in a red convertible MG. And where was he now? His new job was taking him overseas quite a lot. So let’s all go to Australia, but when I get there I shall leave you and the kids to fend off deadly Redback spiders using half price light sabres.

  No, stop it Katie. He had warned her, after all, that there would be a lot of travel, being on her own. But she was doubly on her own, wasn’t she? No nanny, no Tom. She closed her eyes and a picture of him when they first met came flashing up to her frontal lobe. She remembered when they’d first lived in London, how he’d wooed her, taken her to all the attractions in London she’d only read about with Debs, yabbering excitedly on the bed, looking at magazines. Tom had actually taken her to places like Fortnum & Masons where she had been transported to the streets of Morocco, tasted lamb tagine in the food hall.

  It had all been so exotic. It had felt like Tom owned London. All the amazing, crazy places she had seen on telly in a slightly damp living room in the middle of Hertfordshire, had suddenly been right in front of her to try: the Tower of London, Regent Street, Selfridges, Millennium Wheel. The Harvey Nichols bar on the top floor, all so utterly glamorous. But it was easy for Tom. He’d grown up in London – private prep school in Kingston and parents who took him to the shows in the West End on a regular basis. All Katie could remember about the theatre was the panto every year in the village hall.