Husband Replacement Therapy

by Lette, Kathy

  ‘Anyway, obviously now I knew your mum’s initials and, like a lot of people her age, it turns out her address is in the phone book. So, I headed for the Insular Peninsular. You know I like to experience exotic, distant places with unfamiliar customs,’ he joked. ‘I thought I could find out the lay of the land, and also see if your mother could use my help.’ Brody paused in his explanation for a moment to look at me more closely. ‘Do you need to sit down? You’re white as a ghost.’

  ‘Yeah, well, a mother dying will do that to a girl.’

  Brody didn’t look remotely surprised. ‘Ah. I’m too late, then. Pancreatic cancer is a bugger. One in four people die within a month of diagnosis, making it the deadliest of the common cancers. It’s what killed Alan Rickman, Aretha Franklin, Luciano Pavarotti, Patrick Swayze, Steve Jobs . . . If a scan shows cancerous cells in the pancreas, it’s not unusual to be sent straight to palliative care without further investigation.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Brody – I haven’t had much sleep. What are you saying, exactly?’

  ‘Well, the cancer diagnosis, as I’m sure you know by now, was actually meant for your mother. Ruth Ryan and Ruby Ryan. Same initials. Easy mix-up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your family doctor is Zahra Hanbury, right?’

  My breath seemed too loud, as though I were scuba diving and running out of oxygen. ‘My mother had terminal pancreatic cancer?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, shit. You still didn’t know? I did a little light sleuthing over a bottle of red one night. Your mother made Zahra promise not to tell the rest of her family. Patient confidentiality and all that. Zahra only confirmed it to me when we were six cab savs to the wind. I’m so sorry for your loss, Ruby,’ he said, kindly. ‘When did she die?’

  ‘Last night. I found her body this morning.’

  Sympathy pooled in his beautiful eyes. ‘Oh, god. Clearly you’ve had a pretty quiet Christmas, then.’

  ‘Ah, yes . . . you could say that.’ Little black dots danced in front of my face, and I felt sweat prickling on my upper lip. I was on the verge of flying apart like an exploding supernova.

  Brody put his arm out to steady me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘No, not really. Our mother didn’t do big, warm-hearted, positive, life-enhancing emotional displays. She did sarcasm, sulking and revenge. Which is why she chose Christmas Day to reveal that my husband, Harry, who loves to eat, had a fling with my chef sister, Amber, because I’m a terrible cook. Which is undeniably true. Everything I make ends up tasting like linoleum, with the texture of paving stones. Only now Amber’s come out as lesbian, which means I’m supposed to forgive her, as apparently the affair was just a stepping stone on her sensual journey of self-discovery. Meanwhile, my other sister, Emerald, who is sexually malnourished because her husband Alessandro’s as limp as William Shatner’s toupee, made out with Amber’s cuckolded husband, Scott. So, in short, all our marriages and friendships fell apart simultaneously, and then our mother died. Apart from that, everything’s just fine. Fab! Tickety-boo. Except, oh yes, now Detective Tyson suspects foul play.’

  ‘Foul play? Jesus, Ruby. I’m pretty sure you have the killer instinct of a Chihuahua.’

  An overwrought sob was working its way up through my body. I tried to suppress it, but it escaped through my nose, uninvited. After a raucous bout of my crying in his arms, Brody said, ‘I’ve always thought distant relatives are the best kind. And the further away the better. Come on. Let’s sort this out.’

  His warm hand was on my shoulder as he steered me gently back down the hallway. His competence overwhelmed me. I began to envy his patients. Hell, I began to wish for a serious ailment. When he lowered his hand to the small of my back, I felt a rush of blood to a part of my anatomy that was totally inappropriate on the day that my mother had drawn her last breath.

  When I walked back into the kitchen with Brody in tow, Amber’s face registered a level of surprise last seen on the faces of the congregation at Oscar Wilde’s wedding.

  ‘Detective Tyson?’ Brody said.

  ‘All day, every day,’ the world-weary detective drawled.

  Brody shook hands with the detective then produced his own ID that identified him as a doctor. In a steady, calm voice, he explained about Mrs Ryan’s terminal pancreatic cancer, an affliction she’d kept secret from her family. He gave a name and number for Doctor Zahra Hanbury, who’d be able to confirm the diagnosis.

  Amber and Emerald looked at me, startled. I delivered ocular confirmation that, yes, our mother had been terminally ill. At least it explained her lack of sympathy at my own ‘diagnosis’.

  ‘Like all docs, you’re clearly hell-bent on flapping your gums until you’ve worked up to a Force Ten Gale,’ the deadpan detective droned, putting away his notebook. ‘But the mother’s diagnosis does shed new light on the investigation. We’re still going to have to get a toxicology report and possibly a full post-mortem, so nobody is to leave the general area, is that understood?’

  Brody rang the nearest forensic medicine department, identified himself and made a joke about operating a ‘skeleton staff’ over Christmas, which helped him to sweet-talk the pathologists into hurrying along the report in order to eliminate any uncertainty and get the death certificate signed so that we Ryan sisters could bury our poor mother.

  When Ruth’s body had been loaded in the back of the coroner’s van, Emerald and Amber started the grim ritual of calling relatives and friends, planning funeral readings and flowers, and writing death notices. It was the worst time of year to try to organise a funeral, as the whole country was on holiday.

  ‘Are you two okay to work on this together?’ I asked my warring sisters. ‘Because I, um, have a private consultation booked with a heart specialist.’

  Amber raised her eyebrows. ‘After the despicable thing I did to you, Ruby, and after all we’ve been through in the past twenty-four hours, I don’t judge anyone anymore, as long as they’re not carrying a bomb or a blood-splattered relative.’

  ‘Religion is a sham and god cannot logically exist. But, despite that, we will organise a lovely Catholic service,’ Emerald stated, and ratified the temporary truce by hooking them both up to a bottle of gin in order to fortify themselves for the grim tasks ahead. I gestured for Brody to follow me down past the deep end of the pool, where we could sit on a frangipani-canopied swing seat facing the cobalt cove.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, squeezing his arm gratefully.

  ‘I bet you say that to all the men who get you off a murder rap.’ Brody gave his devilish smile. ‘I owed you a favour, anyway.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘For curing my chronic sceptic-aemia. There’s no prescription for that. And, if you still feel the same way . . . well, I think I need a daily dose. Doctor’s orders.’ A mischievous grin split his face.

  I was reeling. No wonder it’s called Boxing Day: I was doing ten rounds with fate and I was on the ropes, fate clearly winning.

  When I didn’t respond, he added, ‘Okay, I drink too much, I lie on my tax returns, I get the sack too often for speaking my mind, and I have a few minor felonies on the books, but name one really important shortcoming?’ he said, cheekily.

  Dumbstruck by his reappearance, I could only gaze at his tanned forearm, then up at the square set of his broad shoulders, then at his face and the smile lines that parenthesised his full mouth, which made me think of those kisses that so electrified my palate . . .

  When I still didn’t speak, Brody persevered.

  ‘You said you hate your job. You said that your kids don’t need you. You said that your marriage is over. You said you wanted adventure before dementia. Well, so do I. I’m planning to ply my trade for a while in New Guinea. Local non-profits and NGOs are begging for doctors to come work there. Then I thought maybe I’d move on to Fiji, the Solomons, Samoa . . . Doctors are needed everywhere. It’s always been my dream to follow in the footsteps of James Cook and Robert Louis Stevenson, and explore that big, beautiful Pacific. It�
��s one of the things that convinced me to sign up with the cruise company. For the first time in my life, there’s nothing holding me back. No debts. No contracts. No commitments. I’ve changed my phone number so nobody can find me. I’m free as a bird – an exotic tropical bird, exactly the kind I’d like to study in the wild. With you by my side. You know, now that I’m a recovering cynic.’

  Brody was wreathed in hope, his face alight with expectation. No commitments. No contracts. No debt. Nothing holding him back. His words rang in my ears. How could I rain on his happiness parade?

  I couldn’t believe the mess I was in. At my age I should be quilting, golfing, scrapbooking and possibly mastering calligraphy while contemplating my vegie patch, not angsting over the paternity of an unplanned pregnancy. Usually when my life fell apart, I took to cooking with wine – only forgetting to add any food. But what the hell was I going to do this time? Mind you, foetal alcohol syndrome was about the only drama missing from this whole surreal scenario. I didn’t want to tell him about my positive pregnancy test, the one test you can’t cheat on, until I’d made up my own mind. Last night I had been determined to terminate it, but today I found myself vacillating.

  Could I really keep it? Was I too old? Fifty-year-old men have babies all the time, so why not women, too? And, as the potential father, wouldn’t Brody also want to have a say? But how could I tell the man I’d known intimately for only three weeks that I wasn’t peri-menopausal after all, but possibly carrying his child? The man who was just rejoicing at having no commitments. And what if it came out of the womb carrying a spanner instead of a stethoscope? How could I say all this succinctly? There just didn’t seem to be a Hallmark card to cover it.

  ‘You are allowed to be happy,’ Brody said, in his gentlest, most hypnotically soothing voice.

  Finally I found my voice. ‘A few months ago I was leading a soft, gentle, safe little life. Now look at me! I’ve been misdiagnosed with cancer, alienated all my friends and family, fallen in love, found out my husband is sleeping with my sister, and discovered my mother’s dead body,’ I said, in a voice just one decibel shy of histrionics.

  ‘A woman of your magnificence is never broken, Ruby, only bent. Run away with me and I’ll straighten you out,’ he said lasciviously, eyes twinkling.

  I squeezed his hand. ‘The world needs more good men like you.’

  ‘No.’ He squeezed my hand back. ‘It needs more bad women like you.’

  Realising that I wasn’t showing the right level of enthusiasm at his sexy suggestions, I made my mouth twitch into what I hoped was a smile, but felt more like a grimace. What on earth was I going to say to him? I took a few mental runs at this conundrum, but felt like a pole-vaulter who kept smacking her forehead on the crossbar. And so, in desperation, I settled on something ambiguous. I focused my eyes on the midriff buttons of Brody’s linen shirt, kept them there and said, lamely, ‘There are complications.’

  ‘Like what? Not money worries. We have my severance pay, if that’s what’s troubling you.’

  I was creeping across the conversational terrain like a ninja. Light as air. ‘But New Guinea? Jeez. There’s a lot of jungle up there, right?’ I said, stalling for time.

  ‘I believe so,’ he laughed. ‘The whole unwaxed pudenda.’

  ‘The trouble is, life in New Guinea is not like The Jungle Book, Brody,’ I busked. ‘Real animals don’t want to befriend you, they want to eat you, instantly. Especially mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are probably already texting each other saying, She’s coming! The Aussie with succulent flesh.’

  ‘Well, they can bugger off, because that’s all mine,’ Brody said, placing his warm hand on my inner thigh. He smiled his familiar, crooked smile and my fanny did a fast fandango. Memories of our liaison could unravel either one of us in a heartbeat.

  ‘With these pissant, Pentecostal, coal-fondling conservatives in power, it’s a good time to get out of the country, just like our indifferent prime minister jetting off on a Hawaiian holiday. Crossing the bridge into the peninsula today,’ Brody went on, ‘I noticed that the welcome sign’s been vandalised. Instead of reading Welcome, please drive slowly, it says, Welcome, please die slowly. It reminded me of how you said you wanted to live a little.’

  ‘But not in New Guinea. There are so many insects. I’d need to drive around in a big Aerogard can.’ With immense concentration and willpower I managed to arrange my features into a semblance of cavalier composure. ‘I holidayed in the North Queensland rainforest once and a huntsman got into my room. You may think that a thwack with a towel is the best defence. I, on the other hand, screamed for a SWAT response team.’

  He laughed. ‘Huntsman spiders can’t hurt you.’

  ‘Really? It’s called a “hunts” “man”. There must be a reason for that. The clue is in the name! Nothing like roaming your own bedroom with a net and tranquilliser dart to relax you before sleep. And what about the cockroaches in the tropics? Jesus. Tropical cockroaches could use me as a chew toy. They’re the kinds of creatures that can drag you into the Underworld.’

  Brody withdrew his hand from my thigh. ‘Is it the leg?’ he asked, stonily.

  ‘No! Of course not.’ I studied my feet with forensic detail.

  ‘Maybe you just felt sorry for me? Well, you shouldn’t. Disabled people are just as capable of being complete dickheads as anyone else.’

  ‘Yeah, I think I’ve worked that out already,’ I teased, half-heartedly.

  ‘Then what? What’s changed?’

  I felt his gaze like a breath on the nape of my neck. The rational side of my brain wanted to tell him but the emotional side would rather perform a self-administered appendectomy. With a cocktail fork. Blindfolded. While hanging upside down from a trapeze wire.

  ‘Come on. Say something. I’ve been describing you to my friends as a woman with a Dorothy Parker mind in a Mills and Boon suburban world. It’s time to break free. Time to write that book. A funny, quirky, mad, original book, just like you. Come on. Speak to me. Words are what you do, Ruby Ryan.’

  And yet, no words formed on my tongue. If I’d been in the mood to joke I would have called it a pregnant pause.

  ‘What happened to that free-spirited, fun and fabulous girl who rode me as if I was a bull at a rodeo? You told me that there was so much life to enjoy in your second act.’ He ran a hand through his unruly hair. ‘You said it was like adolescence in reverse; a lovely rebirth.’

  Rebirth. Did he have to choose that particular word? It wasn’t fair to dump this dilemma onto him. I was a big girl. It was up to me to handle it. And there was something else – I didn’t want him influencing my decision one way or the other. He’d never had children, so maybe he would want to keep the baby. And then, what if I didn’t? Did he have legal rights? Cataloguing all of the obstacles we faced, I fell into a trance of indecision. When my lips remained in neutral, Brody got to his feet.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruby.’ I loved the way he said my name, in that warm, velvety tone. ‘I just presumed . . . or hoped . . . I mean, nothing like this has ever happened to me before. But the timing – your mother’s just died. Our timing’s always wrong. We have the timing of a bad talk show host. Or, rather, the . . . timing . . . of . . . a . . . bad . . . talk . . . show . . . . . . . . . host,’ he joshed, trying for last stab at levity to lighten my mood.

  I had to tell him. I would tell him. It was now or never. We would work it out together. But just as I made up my mind to confess all, he took me by the shoulders.

  ‘Unless,’ he said, tentatively, ‘you’re happy again, you know, with your husband. Or maybe you just feel too guilty about your kids? Try as I might, I can’t really imagine what that feels like. I never wanted kids, which is why I had a vasectomy.’

  It was now me, not Brody, treading lightly around landmines.

  ‘You had a vasectomy?’

  ‘Yeah, in my twenties. I just knew that I never wanted to be tied down, with my non-existent bandwidth for routine and predictability. So, you
can be straight with me. What the hell’s holding you back? Is it guilt about your family? Or . . . maybe’—a shadow passed across his handsome face—‘you just don’t love me as much as I love you?’

  My mouth flopped open like I was a beached fish. There was definitely no Hallmark card for this. Yes, I love you madly, but, oh, by the way, I’ve still been screwing my husband and now I’m preggers with his sprog. A tremor of helplessness went through me. My lips stiffened in an effort to say just so much and no more. Finally I replied, robotically, ‘Well, family is important at a time like this.’

  I peered behind me to catch a glimpse of the ventriloquist who was uttering these words in my voice. This is not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was ‘Take me, I’m yours, you crazy, half-legged, horndog!’

  But I just kept on staring at the pool, listening to the mechanical octopus making its methodical rounds, sweeping the tiles back and forth, back and forth . . .

  When I finally looked up, Brody had gone. I exhaled. I hadn’t even realised I’d been holding my breath.

  A moment later I was racing out the front door. My eyes raked the street in both directions. Wiping away tears, I could feel my heart gazing up at me quizzically, asking in between beats, ‘Are you sure you want me to keep doing this?’ I glimpsed him then, moving off at speed through the spotted gums. If there’d been a mist, it would have enveloped him, accompanied by violin strings and a fade to black. But instead he was swallowed up by a gang of kids with new Christmas surfboards, mooching down to the beach in search of a wave.

  ‘Come back!’ I called out. ‘I’ve gotta tell you something. I’m up the duff!’ But a wind had come up and it blew the words back in my face. I fumbled for my phone and stabbed at his number, forgetting that he’d changed it. I looked up again and he’d disappeared.

  Defeated, I dragged myself back to my mother’s home, catching my reflection in the hallway mirror as I passed. I appeared even more dishevelled, wide-eyed and wild-haired than before. My earlier look, of a hair-care-magazine reject, seemed positively poised and groomed by comparison to what I now resembled: a deranged kind of outback woman who hatches abandoned emu eggs in her bra. It was enough to send a shiver up one’s spine. But, of course, I had no spine, because it had turned to jelly.