Work in Progress

by Paul Thomas

  Professional rugby players — or at least those who frequent the bars and cafés of Ponsonby — have extraordinarily big heads but they’re to scale. These are enormous young men with necks so thick their bison heads can seem undersized. It’s tempting to see evolution — or maybe counter-evolution — at work here: a head like a boulder might be a drawback in some walks of life but it’s probably a useful attribute for a rugby player.

  I digress. Dinner at Felicity and Murray’s isn’t the ordeal it used to be because Felicity isn’t the person she used to be. Or, to take the big-picture view, she’s reverting to the old, pre-Murray Felicity. I wouldn’t go as far as to say she’s back to her old self but there’s no doubt that Murray’s mysterious hold over her is weakening. Even six months ago I wouldn’t have contemplated sharing my thoughts on Murray’s head. But then six months ago she didn’t have a mind of her own.

  ‘Your pal must be moving in any day now.’

  Felicity says this a propos of nothing, without looking up from her chicken in garlic and white wine, as if she’s not really expecting a response. Murray doesn’t raise his head either; it’s been a long day and perhaps his neck muscles are feeling the pinch. Instead he gives Felicity a drawn-out look from beneath bunched eyebrows. His face sags. His mouth hangs open for a few seconds, then snaps shut.

  I don’t normally play the straight man but this seems promising. ‘What’s this?’ I ask Felicity.

  ‘The new place down the road,’ she says. ‘They were moving stuff in there today.’

  Her smile, which is aimed at Murray, is lopsided and full of private amusement. I remember this smile. Our parents often mistook it for sardonic affection, Felicity being renowned in our house for her roundabout ways. Having been on the wrong end of it many times, I know better. It’s the smile of a wind-up artist who has zeroed in on a raw nerve.

  ‘And?’ I say.

  She shrugs. ‘Well, it’s not your average home, that’s for sure. If you believe the gossip, it’s the most expensive private residence in Auckland. That’s all up, when you add the building costs to what the guy paid for the land. There were two perfectly nice houses on decent-sized sections. This guy bought both and bulldozed them to create one huge section, then proceeded to build a mini-palace. It’s caused quite a ruckus.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, some people think it’s over the top; it makes most other places around here look a bit pokey. Our problem with it is more … quantifiable.’ She sends Murray another goading smile. ‘Isn’t that right, Muz?’

  Murray slaps his napkin down on the table. ‘You’re telling the story,’ he says, making it sound like a warning.

  ‘Muz was hoping for a piece of the action but it didn’t happen,’ says Felicity, clearing away the dinner plates. ‘C’est la vie.’

  As she disappears into the kitchen Murray pretends to notice my empty glass. ‘By Christ, Max, you can put this stuff away. You’d think I’d be onto it by now but you always catch me out.’ He pours me another glass of a middling pinot noir, more expensive but inferior to the Australian shiraz I supplied and largely accounted for.

  ‘Well, Murray,’ I say, ‘not all of us count our drinks.’

  ‘No shit?’

  ‘So what happened?’ I ask. ‘To your piece of the action, I mean.’

  ‘I know what the fuck you mean.’

  This is unusual. Away from home and in male company Murray’s inclined to over-swear, trying to show, I suppose, that making it hasn’t turned him into a softie. Never mind the designer shades and the $200 Italian silk ties: beneath this slick exterior there’s a farting, sweating, hard-arsed Kiwi bloke who can fuck and cunt like any public-bar Neanderthal. But here, with his children within shouting range — they’ve had home-delivered gourmet pizzas and slouched off to their no-go areas — he normally restricts himself to profanity-lite, the stuff that barely registers any more.

  ‘Look, if it’s a painful subject …’

  ‘Of course it’s a fucking painful subject.’ This comes out in a rush of ugly scorn. He’s giving up on everything: me, the evening, any pretence at hospitality. ‘Deals like that don’t grow on fucking trees.’

  ‘Okay, I get the message. Forget I ever raised the subject.’

  He stands up abruptly, scraping his chair on the burnished floorboards. ‘I’ve tried to fucking forget about it,’ he snarls, ‘but certain people seem to get a kick out of reminding me. And I’ve had a fucking gutsful of it.’ He sloshes wine into his glass and stomps off and that’s the last I see of him.

  Felicity brings in dessert. ‘Where’s Muz?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ I say. ‘He just took off.’

  She puts down a bowl of pears poached in red wine. ‘In what frame of mind, would you say?’

  ‘Troubled.’

  She exits on Murray’s trail, closing the door behind her. I think about helping myself but decide against. From a far-flung corner of the house comes the muffled boom of a cranked-up male voice. I’m refilling my glass when Felicity reappears, unflustered.

  ‘Drink it all, why don’t you?’ I pour her some as she dishes up dessert. ‘You should’ve helped yourself.’

  ‘Manners.’

  ‘Oh, really? Your impeccable manners don’t seem to have stopped you hogging the wine.’

  ‘I’ve already been rapped over the knuckles for that.’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘I apologise for Muz. Catastrophic sense of humour failure.’

  ‘Will he be rejoining us?’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘Would I be right in thinking this thing didn’t happen yesterday?’

  ‘Try fourteen months ago,’ she says.

  ‘Isn’t it time he, as they say, moved on?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘What happened? I tried to get it from the horse’s mouth but he bolted.’

  ‘Actually he mentioned just now that tonight’s the first time in however many years that you’ve shown the slightest interest in his work. He has a theory about that.’

  ‘I just followed your lead,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that what I was meant to do?’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ she says, straight-faced. ‘I suppose it’s an occupational hazard. Muz had been cultivating one of the vendors, a pair of empty-nesters rattling around a five-bedroom villa. They’d decided in principle to move but hadn’t worked out where to. One week they’re all set to retire to Pauanui, the next they’re looking at apartments in the Viaduct Basin, the week after that they’re on the net checking out Noosa. So Muz is on the case, brown-nosing away as all good real estate agents do, and eventually they promise him that when they’ve sorted themselves out, it’ll be his sale. But …’

  ‘There’s always a but.’

  ‘This was a biggie. A senior partner from one of the big law firms knocks on their door and makes the proverbial offer they can’t refuse — high end of the price range, cash, full and final settlement in fourteen days. With a couple of conditions. One, that their next-door neighbours come to the party, because if his client can’t get both properties, the deal’s off. Two, that it’s a private sale — no publicity, no agents.’

  ‘And no agent’s commission?’

  ‘Apparently the buyer despises real estate agents.’

  ‘How perverse of him. So who is he?’

  ‘Muz did tell me his name but I’ve forgotten — not that it meant anything to me. Apparently he’s an expat money-markets wizard who’s made his fortune and wants to come home.’

  ‘They all come home eventually.’

  I’m sitting at my desk looking out the window when the phone rings. It’s the call I’ve been waiting for — and hotly hypothesising around — since that lunch with Sally and Brigit.

  ‘Hi Max, it’s me,’ says Sally. ‘How are you bearing up?’

  ‘I’m okay. How are you?’

  ‘I’ve just heard about Tania. I’m really sorry, Max.’

  I’m prepared
for this. ‘Don’t be. It’s a bit like bungy-jumping, I suspect. You’re quite proud of yourself for actually going through with it, you buy the T-shirt and for a while you drop it into every conversation but, just quietly, you wouldn’t do it again for all the tea in China.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I’m glad to hear it. I’d have to say, though, that’s not the impression you gave last time we had lunch.’

  ‘Poetic licence,’ I say. ‘All in a good cause.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Giving you and Brigit your money’s worth.’

  ‘So you’re not sitting around feeling sorry for yourself?’

  ‘Hell, no. I’m feeling tip-top; tanned, rested and ready.’

  ‘Ready for what?’ she says.

  ‘The next big adventure. Life’s next ambush.’

  ‘Can’t keep a good man down, eh?’ she says. ‘I was going to offer you lunch and a shoulder to cry on but sounds like there’s no need.’

  ‘Can’t I have one without the other?’

  ‘I can’t see why not. I’m driving though, so I can’t drink. That needn’t stop you, of course.’

  ‘Not me. I’ve got work to do.’

  Sally’s obviously got something on her mind because she lets that pass without comment. ‘I’ll pick you up in an hour.’

  Sally’s had her hair cut in that Audrey Hepburn gamine style. It suits her. So do the white-framed sunglasses, the yellow sundress with spaghetti straps, the spike-heeled cherry-red shoes, the bold makeup and the heavy fragrance. Call me smug but I suspect a lot of thought went into this ensemble.

  While pondering Brigit’s theory that Sally’s working herself up to a fling, with yours truly the prime candidate, I’ve visualised her taking various approaches and me making various responses, some of them appropriate. Now as we curb-crawl down Ponsonby Road looking for a park, studious detachment gives way to steamy anticipation.

  We get an outdoor table at a generic Ponsonby eatery, one of those places where the management, staff, cuisine, atmosphere and standards change every eighteen months, as if by edict. If the chefs are any good, they’re poached. If not, they pop up in the suburbs grilling eggplant for ladies of leisure or in tourist traps like Queenstown and Taupo where people are either too unworldly to realise they’re being ripped off or too rich to care.

  Sally animatedly recounts piddling domestic dramas. She knows I’m not interested in this stuff; she’s gabbling to cover her nervousness. I offer a nod here, a raised eyebrow there and the occasional banal interpolation. I’m not the most patient person in the world but compared to her I’m a Zen master. She won’t spin this out.

  Our meals arrive, along with the glass of wine she’s talked me into.

  She leans towards me. ‘I can trust you, can’t I, Max?’ she says as if it really matters. ‘I mean, if I was to confide in you, it wouldn’t go any further?’

  ‘If that was the deal, of course.’

  ‘Brigit won’t be in on it. She’s my best friend and we tell each other most things but this would be our secret.’

  ‘I think I get the picture.’

  ‘And needless to say — but I’m going to say it anyway — under no circumstances to be hinted at in one of your cryptic little asides when you’re on the piss with the boys.’ I can’t help smiling. ‘You’re not taking this seriously, are you?’ she says crossly. ‘Okay, look, just forget I ever mentioned it.’

  ‘I am taking it seriously,’ I say. ‘I was a little amused by the extent of the preamble, that’s all. I know what a secret is, Sally. If you tell me something on the basis that it mustn’t go any further, then it won’t. You can rest assured of that. One thing I’ve never been accused of is betraying a confidence.’

  Given that I’ve been accused of practically everything that doesn’t involve violence or hard-core criminality, it seems unlikely that betraying confidences hasn’t cropped up somewhere along the line. But I certainly can’t remember being accused of it lately.

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  ‘Sally!’

  ‘Okay.’ She downs her mineral water in one gulp and takes a deep breath. She fixes me with a hypnotist’s stare, then goes pink and looks away. ‘God, this so embarrassing. I don’t think I can go through with it.’

  It occurs to me that I never actually resolved how I’m going to handle this. I’ve tried often enough but what starts out as a careful weighing of the pros and cons always dissolves into a fantasy in which the decision is taken for granted. What does that tell me — that I’m kidding myself?

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Now or never. I’m having an affair.’

  We stare at each other like it’s a contest. Sally starts nibbling her lower lip. I’ve always assumed we men were meant to find this lip-nibbling routine erotic but perhaps I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Meanwhile, Sally’s getting anxious because she’s mistaking deflation for disapproval. It’s comical, really; she thinks I’m in shock because she’s confessed to something I saw coming a mile away. As always, the devil is in the detail.

  ‘Who with?’

  She tosses her snazzily coiffed head. ‘I have to know where we stand first. I need someone to talk to, Max, and I chose you because I thought, of all my friends, you’d be the last to get on your high horse.’

  Is that a compliment? ‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ I say. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, you certainly don’t look too impressed.’

  I take a steadying sip of wine. ‘Rick’s a good mate of mine.’ A pointless statement if ever there was one. ‘I’m not sure I should be patting you on the back.’

  Her hands fly to her face. ‘I knew it,’ she says, her voice wobbling. ‘I shouldn’t have said a word to anyone.’

  The pricked-balloon sensation is already fading, replaced by relief that I don’t have to choose between dutiful self-denial and a potentially ruinous intrigue. I gently prise her hands off her face.

  ‘Come on, Sally, I’m not going to tell on you or turn my back on you. You should know that.’

  She tries not to smile, like a child who’s succeeded in getting off lightly by turning on the pathos. ‘Thank you so much, Max,’ she gushes. ‘I really need someone to lean on right now. If you weren’t there for me, I wouldn’t know where to turn.’

  ‘Lean away, my dear.’ I hope to Christ her conduct hasn’t been completely beyond the pale because I haven’t left myself much room for manoeuvre. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it?’

  She giggles. ‘All?’

  ‘Well, as much as you think my delicate ears can cope with.’

  It’s a very Remuera affair. Their daughters go to the same private school, their eyes meet across a netball court, they exchange tentative smiles at a parent-teacher evening and then that first, electric, skin-on-skin moment at a fundraising sausage sizzle when they both reach for the tomato sauce. She casually asks around: he’s divorced but has been seen with the mandatory bimbo. Part of her thinks he couldn’t possibly be interested in her; the other part goes with her instincts.

  As far as she and Rick go, it’s not like the wheels have fallen off but the signs are beginning to point that way. If she had to put her finger on it, it started when Rick sold the business (and, by the way, she’d be the first to admit that she was all for it at the time and it was a brilliant move for them financially). But it had got to the stage where the business was more or less running itself so he had lots of time for her and the kids. Next thing, he’s locked into a management contract, the new owners want to take over the world and he’s working harder than when they were first married and he was trying to get the business off the ground. Plus, head office and the board he reports to are in Sydney so he’s either over there or working all hours to get things done before his next trip or putting together his next report and presentation to the board or just back from a trip and completely exhausted. And you start to wonder; you wouldn’t be human otherwise. All those nights away from home; all those times she got no answer
when she rang his hotel room. She doesn’t want to make too much of it because it’ll sound like she’s trying to say he pushed her into it but, honestly, it would explain an awful lot. So many little things that might mean something or might not. You can put them down to coincidence or you can see a pattern.

  With that simmering away in the background she bumps into the other guy in Mission Bay. They have a coffee and get on really well. In the course of the conversation it comes up that Rick’s in Sydney for a week and both the kids have sleepovers on Friday night. She asks if he’s seen any good movies lately because she’ll have an evening to herself. He suggests dinner. She ums and ahs, wanting to say yes but a bit freaked out by the suddenness of it. Half an hour ago she was a good little wife with a harmless little fantasy. Now it’s like take your marks, get set … Because we all know that when a man of the world asks a woman out for dinner, it doesn’t end with the after-dinner mints. On the other hand, if she knocks him back, he probably won’t ask again. But she’s got forty-eight hours to change her mind and even then, what’s to stop her saying thank you for a lovely meal, see you in the netball season, as he’s paying the bill?

  So she has dinner with him and gets home as the paper’s being delivered.

  ‘When was this?’ I ask.

  ‘Three months ago.’

  Brigit was almost right. She just underestimated Sally’s ability to keep a secret.

  ‘Still going strong, I take it.’

  ‘We see each other once a week.’ Another giggle. ‘Well, at least once a week.’

  ‘Where do you see it going?’

  That doesn’t make her giggle. ‘Jesus, Max! Don’t go there, okay?’

  ‘Fair enough. So how much longer are you going to keep me in suspense?’

  ‘Would you like to meet him?’

  ‘What, right now?’