‘It would be,’ I agree. This must be what Helen’s been banging on about recently. Is everyone an influencer now? Does anyone have a real job?
‘Anyway, I know I got a whole lot of bikinis the other day from a new brand called Tanline. You’re welcome to any of them.’
‘That’s really nice of you,’ I say, ‘but if they’re all your size they might be a bit small for me.’ That’s putting it mildly. Edie’s waist is the size of one of my thighs.
‘Nah,’ she says, dismissing my worries. ‘They’re all string bikinis so they can be let out to fit anyone. You might not get a massive amount of coverage in the arse, or the boobs, but as long as you don’t try to go jogging you’ll be fine.’
Jesus.
‘Aha!’ She holds up a handful of strings and triangles. ‘I’ve got them! Blush, hot pink or black?’
‘Black,’ I say at once. Then she tosses me the black bikini and I realise this won’t have a hope of being slimming. It will be slimming only in the way that the black boxes over people’s faces or genitals in photographs are slimming, which is to say not at all.
‘Try it on,’ she says.
‘Here?’
She looks at me as if this is a strange thing to ask. Why wouldn’t I get naked in front of a complete stranger fifteen years younger than me?
I think of Laura, and of Mum. What would they do? I think of how little privacy I’ve had for the past six years and it seems absurd to baulk at this. From the first time an obstetrician inserted her gloved hand where no gloved hand had been before, my body ceased being mine alone. I suppose you could argue that the loss of physical autonomy began nine months earlier, when I started sharing my body with another human, but Tim was a reasonable bodymate and didn’t bother me nearly as much as the two fingers of the obstetrician.
So right there in the guesthouse of a famous author, I get nude in front of a girl I’ve only just met. She doesn’t bat an eyelid. The bikini, with some adjustment of straps and ties, goes on.
‘Is there a full-length mirror anywhere?’ I ask Edie with trepidation.
‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s one of Wanda’s weird ideas. She says we aren’t the best judges of how we look, and we should only see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those around us.’
I’ve never heard anything so absurd. All I’m going to see reflected in these girls’ eyes is horror and a terrible fear of the future.
I take a deep breath. I won’t see any of these people again. Who cares if I look less than perfect? I’m heading towards forty and I’ve grown two children, which is more than any of these girls’ bodies have done. I think about Freya and Tim, and Lola, and how I want them to feel about their bodies. Proud would be fine. Completely indifferent would be ideal.
I stride out of the guesthouse and back up the path and dive into the water. Both parts of the bikini immediately migrate north. When I surface the top has become a necklace and the bottom has almost completely disappeared between my buttocks. I’m wearing no sunscreen, no rashie, and now no longer even a swimsuit. It’s the wildest thing I’ve done in years, and the girls on the side give me an only slightly patronising round of applause.
* * *
Wanda doesn’t call for me all afternoon, and by sunset I start wondering if I should force my way in to see what she’s doing. After swimming for a while I’ve showered and dressed, and when Philip knocks on the door I decide to see what he thinks I should do. He seems to understand how things work in this very odd place.
‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘Probably best to leave Wanda to it, at least for the night. If she hasn’t come out of the study by now, it means she’s actually writing, and we don’t want to interfere with that. Come have some dinner with Monty and the girls and me. Monty’s been cooking all afternoon.’
‘All right,’ I say, ‘but maybe I’ll just stick my head in to let Wanda know I’m here if she wants to run anything by me.’
‘If you feel you ought,’ he says, in a tone that strongly suggests I oughtn’t.
And so, even though I’m being paid to be here helping Wanda, and have nothing to report back to the persistent nagging emails and text messages from Carmen, I take Philip’s advice and spend the evening with him, Wanda’s husband, and three teenage girls.
Monty greets me when I enter his kitchen by handing me a glass of champagne and kissing me on both cheeks. We eat sitting on stools around a kitchen island slightly smaller than Tasmania.
In addition to writing his wife’s name in gravel every day, Monty is an enthusiastic amateur chef and horticulturalist. He plies us with plate after plate of delicious morsels: oysters, local crab, tiny lamb cutlets, and many curious and small vegetables. He seems particularly fond of miniature things, so we eat baby zucchini, carrots and artichokes. None of these are in season, but he grows them in his greenhouse, apparently, where he controls the climate year round.
Every time he puts a small plate of food in front of us, I’m the first to finish. The first few times it’s not such a big deal, since each dish is only a bite or two. Then I start to get self-conscious. Maybe no one else will notice. I inhale a dish of homemade angel hair pasta with yabbies.
‘Wow,’ Clara says, ‘you eat really, really fast.’ She’s staring at me, wide-eyed. She’s twiddling a fork around in her own, still full pasta bowl.
I blush. ‘Sorry, I know I do. I never ate particularly quickly until I had kids. It started when they were babies. Did you know babies have this uncanny ability to sense when their mother lifts a fork to her lips? It causes them to either become roaringly hungry, even if you’ve just fed them, or unleash their bowels. I think it’s just a habit I have now — eat fast before someone needs a glass of water or a different fork, or their bottom wiped.’
The girls laugh, but they also look faintly disgusted. I realise I’m the only parent here. Monty and Wanda never had kids, nor did Philip, and these girls are too young. For the first time in about six years, I’m conversing with a bunch of other adults, and none of them are parents. I feel like an alien.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in company where people don’t discuss bodily fluids and recipes in the same breath. The girls and Monty seem to be regarding me in the way I would if I met someone at a dinner party who was a lion tamer, or a taxidermist: they’re curious and appear to regard what I do as quite exotic. Me, with my boring, repetitive, stay-at-home, freelance life. With the children and the grocery shopping and the park and, until recently, the tragic lack of romance.
‘Is being a parent the joyous, life-changing experience they say it is?’ asks Monty jovially.
‘Yes and no,’ I tell him. ‘I mean, if you get off on constant, low-level terror and guilt, it’s a delight. I can honestly say my children are the greatest things that have ever happened to me, and they are the bane of my existence. I lost my identity, my body and my ability to sleep past 5 am, but I can’t imagine my life without them. It would be about ninety-six per cent less snotty. I had no idea that children are born with unblemished and unchallenged immune systems, which means they spend their first five or so winters failing to fend off pretty much any virus they encounter, and coating themselves and everyone around them with a thin film of mucus.’
Edie grimaces and puts down her fork.
God, Emma. Stop talking about snot and poo.
‘I remember my sister saying something similar when her children were small,’ Philip says. ‘They seemed incapable of blowing their noses. She used to say they were knights of the order of the shining sleeve.’
That makes me laugh, and I drink some wine and start to relax.
The conversation moves on, and this too is like a new world — a whole discussion that not only doesn’t centre on babies or toddlers, it doesn’t even skirt the periphery of parentland. No one mentions schools, after-school activities, screen time, or whether Kmart or Target has the better range of kids’ clothes at the moment.
It’s not like when parents try to have a conversation about
something other than our children, when inevitably, no matter how hard everyone tries, the talk always returns to kids in some way. Because children are like the moon — even when you can’t see them, their pull is constant and affects the way everything else works.
But sitting here, around this granite island covered in delicious things to eat and drink, surrounded by interesting people, I realise that what I thought was a permanent state of affairs might be changing. I mean, I wouldn’t say my repartee is sparkling, but I’m holding my own, more or less, in a conversation that’s not about milestones and reading levels.
We sit for hours, eating and talking. Wanda never joins us. A few times I ask Monty if I should go into her study to see how she’s getting on, but he tells me she’s fine.
‘She says she’ll see you in the morning,’ he reassures me. ‘She says to say she’s blazing along and you’ll be very pleased.’
Mellowed by the champagne, I agree we should leave her to it.
On the stroke of midnight, Monty announces it’s bedtime, and I feel a pang of sadness that the evening’s come to a close. I haven’t felt that in years. Normally, if I do manage to leave the house, I’m dying for it to be a socially acceptable time to scurry home to my bed and my Nordic murder shows. What have I become, under the influence of these people and this new freedom?
Philip walks with me to my guesthouse. At the door, he reaches out and pats me on the shoulder. It’s an awkward gesture.
‘Well, goodnight, Emma,’ he says. ‘Sleep well. What a fun evening that was.’
‘It was a brilliant night,’ I say. ‘Really, I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in ages. I can’t believe I’m being paid for this.’
He grins. ‘I must say, having you here is an absolute tonic, after three days with Carmen.’
He turns to leave, then suddenly spins around, as if he’s decided something, and kisses me on the cheek.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘That was probably inappropriate. You’re here for work. I just, well, better head to bed. Night.’
He heads off down the path, stopping after a few steps to turn back to me. ‘Night!’ he says again.
‘Night!’ I reply.
I stand at my door. I hear his footsteps resume, and then stop again. ‘Night!’ he calls again.
‘Goodnight!’ I say.
I wonder if he’ll keep this up until he’s inside, but I hear the door to his guesthouse open and close.
After a few minutes, I realise I’m still standing in the garden, with my hand on my cheek. I look up at the sky, but I can’t see any stars. The moonlight glowing through the clouds is just as beautiful as the stars would have been.
* * *
Lying in bed, I realise I didn’t call the kids at bedtime. There are no missed calls on my phone though, so I feel better knowing that they haven’t missed me enough to ask Troy or Helen to help them call me. I’m glad they’re all right.
I feel so far away from them, but strangely I don’t feel lonely. I feel like I exist again, as a separate entity from my children, and my ex, and all the things that tether me to my normal life. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, but it is slightly overwhelming, so I get my laptop out and lull myself to sleep to the familiar sounds of Swedish police officers unsuccessfully trying to liaise with their Finnish counterparts.
Chapter Nineteen
I jolt awake the next morning, disoriented. There is sunlight streaming in through the huge windows, and all I can hear is birdsong and rustling foliage. I’m ill at ease at once. This is not how I wake up. My body does not awaken naturally after a full night’s sleep. My body is now accustomed to a small warm form snuggling up to me, or a patter of feet dashing over the floorboards to kiss my nose, or Julia and Ian having a loud set-to outside the house.
This just feels weird, and I don’t like it. How can that be? This is paradise, for all intents and purposes, but it feels six kinds of wrong to me. I make myself a cup of tea and some toast.
It’s eight o’clock. Last night Monty said I shouldn’t bother Wanda before nine, but I don’t think I can wait that long. What on earth am I supposed to do here, alone, for an hour? I’ve read what I have of the manuscript. I did my relaxing by the pool yesterday. That was very pleasant, but it’s time to get on with things now, otherwise what’s the point of me being here?
I consider calling the kids, but Helen will be trying to get everyone up, dressed, fed, and Tim off to school, while Troy, if their household is anything like ours was, gets in her way, distracts the kids, and slows everyone down. I know it won’t be helpful if I interrupt that. Laura will be in the same boat with her lot.
Staring out the window, I catch sight of the top of Philip’s head above the bay hedge outside. He’s heading down the path.
I dash out. ‘Morning!’ I shout.
He turns around, with such a pleased look on his face that I can’t help but smile too. His feelings show so openly.
‘Hello!’ he says. ‘Did you sleep well? I’ve just had a swim and I was going to go for a little walk through the rainforest. Would you like to come? It’s about an hour, round trip.’
‘I’ll get dressed,’ I say, without even thinking about it. ‘Give me three minutes.’
* * *
The walk takes exactly an hour. We move through some fields into the cool shadows of the rainforest and along a path through the undergrowth. We pass two waterfalls, balance on stepping stones across the same creek in four different places, and emerge, somehow, back at the bottom of Wanda’s garden again.
The whole time we chat companionably, in the way you can when you aren’t looking at someone. Philip is very easy to talk to. I tell him about Tim and Freya, about her tiger obsession, and he tells me more about his real tiger.
‘What was his name?’ I ask.
‘His real name was Hyrcan,’ he says, holding aside a lantana branch and allowing me to pass along the track ahead of him. ‘It’s a reference to a line from Macbeth, but I always called him Stripe. Drove my mother mad, especially when the cub started to respond to Stripe and not to Hyrcan. But I was the one who spent the most time with Stripe, in the few months we owned him. I was heartbroken when they sent him to live at an animal sanctuary.’
‘It was probably the right thing to do,’ I say.
‘Oh, undoubtedly. But it didn’t make it easier. It did make sense though. My parents liked to travel a lot and there weren’t a lot of housesitters who would mind a tiger.’
‘What did your parents do, for work?’ I ask.
‘They were . . . they did . . .’ He seems to struggle to answer. Finally, in an embarrassed tone, he says, ‘They did nothing. They were very wealthy because my father’s father had made a fortune in ice.’
‘Ice?’ I say.
‘Frozen water,’ he clarifies. ‘I’m not even sure the other variety was invented back then.’
‘How do you make an ice fortune?’ I ask, intrigued. All I know about the ice business I learned from Frozen, and it didn’t seem like the sort of endeavour that could make you rich.
‘Like many fortunes, it was made quite unethically. My father was always a bit vague about it but there was quite likely some patent theft involved, or at least some funny business about how much a patent was acquired for, and my grandfather ended up building the biggest commercial ice-manufacturing plant in Great Britain.’
He goes on to tell me that his mother died when he was in his twenties and, upon his father’s death, five years later, he took his third of the ice fortune and started a small non-profit aid organisation. He worked away at that, while also making investments in the burgeoning tech start-up scene.
When Google eventually bought one of them, he found himself richer than God and with significantly more concern about the state of the world. He massively increased the scale of his non-profit work and now spends his time flying around the world, visiting countries where he is funding aid projects.
‘Doesn’t it overwhelm you?’ I ask. ‘All the poverty you m
ust see, and knowing you can’t fix it all?’
Philip turns back to look at me. ‘I didn’t come by my wealth through my own hard work. I don’t really feel like it’s mine. I’ve found that difficult, actually, but over the years I’ve discovered I’m good at organising ways to use that money so that it makes as much of a difference as it can. And yes, it can be very overwhelming, but I try to focus on the positive effects my work can have, and the positive effects the positive effects can have, you know, as it ripples out through the world.’
I don’t know if the things I’ve been doing to help other people have had any positive effects. I haven’t created ripples of goodness.
‘It sounds like you’re achieving a lot,’ I say. ‘I’d like to achieve something big like that, one day. I just seem to create small amounts of strife. At least they’re not large amounts of strife.’
‘You’re being too hard on yourself,’ Philip says kindly. ‘Maybe you just need to reframe what you’re achieving. I’ll bet you’re doing better than you think.’
We finish our walk in companionable silence, and his words stay with me.
When we get back, I head up to the main house in search of Wanda.
Monty’s leaving her study as I approach the door.
‘Oh, Emma, good,’ he says. ‘I was just coming to fetch you. She’s ready.’
* * *
Wanda’s lying on the sofa. She has one hand across her forehead, like she’s trying to take her own temperature.
‘It’s very hard, you know,’ she says without any preamble. ‘Writing what I’m writing. I’m dredging up a lot of memories. Not all of them are pleasant.’
‘It’s brave of you,’ I tell her.
‘I don’t like who I am in some of these memories. I don’t suppose it’s all right if I just change them so I’m a better person in them than I really was?’
How to Be Second Best Page 27