by Lisa Heidke
Be brave, I tell myself, and turn the card over.
Max is succinct. His whole twenty-nine words read as follows: Dear Lucy, Sorry I left without telling you, but life is what it is. I need space and time to think. We’ll talk soon.Take care. Love always, Max.
He needs space? Well, so do I! Max is swanning around in Bali, surfing, drinking Bintang - and I’m here in Sydney, struggling with faulty plumbing and shoddy electrics in the freezing cold. Tears trickle down my cheeks.
I think about him signing off with love always and feel a momentary surge of hope. I remember back to our wedding, to our vows of eternal, everlasting love. We promised each other we’d be together forever. Not to waltz off to Bali when things got tough.
Sorry, the note begins - but Max isn’t sorry at all. If he was sorry, he would never have left me in the first place. He would have stuck it out and suffered alongside me, the way married couples are supposed to. You don’t see me jetting off to some exotic location just because my world has become a kitchen-less, hot-water-less misery!
And to Bali of all places! We were supposed to go there together, as a family, after the renovations were done. It’s one of the things on our To Do list, along with climbing the Eiffel Tower, trekking the ruins of Machu Picchu and filming polar bears at the North Pole.
Why couldn’t he have taken us to Bali with him?
Life is what it is - what the bloody hell does that mean? Reading the postcard again, I can’t help but wonder if Max is in Bali with someone. Then I get angry. Very angry.
*
‘When’s my kitchen going to be ready?’ I say to Patch when I see him trying to avoid me. It’s a reasonable question but my delivery’s a bit off, what with my anger at Max.
‘Lucy, exactly how will your life change once you have this new kitchen?’ he says with that easy smile. ‘You told me you don’t even cook.’
‘I’m going to start cooking once I get my kitchen,’ I retort. ‘And one day I might even have a bathroom to bathe my children in, not to mention somewhere to watch television without a spin cycle in the background.’
‘You’re impossible,’ says Patch, shaking his head and laughing.
I know for a fact I’m not impossible. I’ve seen impossible; I’ve played impossible. I am definitely not impossible.
I stomp off to the bathroom, and scream as I enter to find Joel on the loo, safety glasses firmly strapped to his head. Not a pretty sight. I back out, eyes closed, and make for the safety of my bedroom. I have no idea what Joel is doing upstairs, but I do know I’ll have to thoroughly disinfect the toilet before I can place my bare bottom on its seat again.
I wallow in my bedroom, totally unproductive, until the kids come home. I decide not to show them Max’s card. I want to protect them, keep the truth from them a little bit longer. At least until I speak to Max.
‘Mum, why did God make mothers?’ Sam asks as I haul hot water to the bathroom for the umpteenth time. Obviously, he’s been to scripture class today.
‘Because they know where the clean underwear is,’ I answer.
‘Mostly, they’re supposed to cook and clean and look after us,’ says Bella. ‘Supposed to.’
After a family discussion re dinner, we dial in pizza. The kids drink lemonade and I down half a bottle of champagne - Bollinger, with the same DO NOT TOUCH tag as the Grange. It’s been sitting in the cellar waiting for a special occasion. Tonight is about as special as it gets, I think.
I try Max’s mobile again after dinner. Still switched off. How am I supposed to get on with my life, the children, the renovation, when I have no idea when or, even if, Max is coming home? Clearly, he’s having a massive mid-life crisis, and I can understand, to a point. But why doesn’t he call?
I have to do something to distract myself and my gaze falls on a pile of photo albums that were left in the hall when we were moving everything for the renovations. ‘Come on. Help me move these albums,’ I say to the kids.
Bella and Sam remain squashed on an uncomfortable chair watching Big Brother.
‘Mum,’ asks Sam, ‘why don’t you go on Big Brother?’
Bella laughs out loud but at least gets up. ‘Where do you want me to put these after I’ve cleaned them?’ she asks, turning her nose up at the dusty, neglected volumes.
‘Follow me,’ I say, walking upstairs with an armful of memories.
Sam follows Bella’s lead, and sits on my bed looking at a shoebox of old photos, circa 1992. ‘Who are all these people?’ he says. ‘You were so pretty, Mummy. Look at your hair.’
‘Yeah, you look pretty, Mum, and happy,’ says Bella.
They’re looking at party photos from my time at NIDA. I do look happy. And young. But my hair! A spiral perm à la Mariah Carey. I pick up a photo of Gloria and me at a toga party. God, we were fools.
‘These were taken before you were born, when I was at acting school,’ I say. Ah, for those grunge years, when we smoked endless dope, partied hard, wore black clothes, Doc Martens and heavy make-up. I hardly recognise myself - I look so thin. Not gaunt, ugly thin, just clothes-hanger thin with a perfect smile and straight white teeth. I remember religiously cleaning them with bicarbonate of soda every morning and evening. Back then, I was hungry for fame, determined to make it as an actress.
‘Who’s this?’ Bella asks, passing me a photo.
It’s Dom, Gloria and me, all three of us laughing mischievously, arm in arm at the Sandringham Hotel. I’m the redhead between the two dark heads of hair. Dom was so handsome, athletic, and those sparkling blue eyes …
This particular photo was taken the first night we moved into a fabulously dilapidated terrace at the seedy south end of Newtown. It wasn’t until after the pub closed, and we were standing outside our new home utterly pissed, that we realised no one had brought a front-door key. Heavy iron bars protected the downstairs windows and doors, so Gloria and I talked Dom into scaling the front verandah and breaking in through the balcony door to my upstairs bedroom. From day one, I lived there with the knowledge that if it’d been that easy for a pissed student to break in, it’d be a snap for a real-life thug. But I loved that place. It always had a faint smell of marijuana, and the fridge was usually empty except for ice, vodka, beer and cheap chardonnay.
‘My friend Dominic,’ I say. ‘Won an art scholarship and left Australia to become a wildly successful sculptor in Europe.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I met your dad and lost contact with a lot of these people -’
‘Except Gloria?’
‘Yes, except Gloria.’
‘So you don’t know what happened to him?’ Bella continues, picking up another photo of Dominic, this time shirtless (those abs!) in cut-off jeans (what legs!), reclining in a banana lounge in the sun, as was the fashion at the time. ‘He’s kinda cute looking,’ she says.
I don’t particularly want to discuss Dom, especially with my daughter. But yes, he was cute. He was also my best friend, even though I did fall in love with him. I only found the courage to jump him the night before he headed off to Europe on a one-way ticket.
‘Why now?’ he’d asked as I followed him into his bedroom and began disrobing.
‘Because I’ve wanted to since forever.’
‘But …’ Dom said, as we lay on his bed.
‘But what?’
‘Luce, I’m leaving the country tomorrow.’
In the end, we did make love. But the fact that it took me three and a half years and a healthy dose of liquor to have one of the most special nights of my life, only for him to leave the next day, was beyond heartbreaking.
‘I don’t have to go,’ Dom had said the next morning.
‘Good idea. Reject the scholarship and stay with me,’ I joked, knowing it was too big an opportunity for him to miss.
‘I’ll write …’
After Dom left, I’d cried, showered and then cried some more. I didn’t make it to the airport to say goodbye.
For years, I’d thought b
ack to that night and the following day and wondered: what if? What if Dom had stayed? What if I’d kept in contact with him? What if I’d flown to Europe to meet him?
But after a while I moved on. Although my life was crap on a personal level, I hit the big time professionally. A year after landing a supporting part in Against Time, I scored the lead role of Sophia. It was a dream come true. I knew I’d made it because every second person wanted me to be their girlfriend - including Max.
I resisted Max for a long time. But he was persistent and the intensity of his attention was flattering. Gradually, day by day, month by month, I fell in love with him. We got on well and the sex was great. Before long it seemed natural that we’d marry and have children.
When the kids are asleep, I pick up the photo of Dom and examine it again. Daggy nineties clothes aside, he was bloody good-looking and had a truly amazing smile. He was also a great person to hang out with. We used to spend hours talking, drinking, being stupid and having fun. He’d come up with ridiculous questions like ‘Would you rather be intelligent and extremely ugly or beautiful and stupid?’ and ‘If you were the eighth dwarf, what would your name be?’
Just thinking about Dom and his laugh is enough to make me break out into a sweat. Even after all these years.
Day 13
Sam’s soccer game kicks off at 8.30 am. I manage to get us there at 8.15. Bella sulks in the car till half-time. When she finally skulks over to me asking for a sausage sandwich, I agree. You have to pick your battles.
Soccer used to be a lot more social. Today, the parents are concentrating intently on the game. No time for chitchat. Trish, our babysitter’s mum, barely manages a nod, so I don’t like to hassle her about whether Alana is around tonight to babysit. Instead, I smile at the people I know and follow their lead by focusing on the game. It’s a bloody big field for eight-year-olds. Little legs scramble all over the place. I can’t tell them apart, so I focus on Sam’s jersey, number thirteen.
‘Good on you for coming,’ Nadia says at half-time. ‘How are you bearing up?’
I look to her for more information.
‘With the renovations? Max?’
‘The house is coming together nicely and Max is at a conference,’ I lie.
Trish walks past us, this time looking furious. I go to wave but she’s clearly in no mood for a cheery Saturday morning greeting.
‘Whatever anyone might say, it’s not your fault. You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Nadia says.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, worried. It’s the second comment in as many minutes. Obviously she knows something’s up.
‘Uh, I’m -’ she begins, but one of the mothers grabs Nadia’s arm and whispers urgently into her ear.
‘Nadia,’ I push, but she just says ‘Sorry’ hurriedly and leaves with the other woman, giving me a look that convinces me Sam has said something to Lachlan.
Twenty-five minutes later, Sam’s team has lost three-nil and the parents are suitably subdued. As soon as they come off the field, the boys, including Sam, disappear into the nearby scrub, stuffing themselves with lollies and singing rude made-up songs about their teachers.
I try the babysitter’s mobile again. No answer. Obviously out with her uni mates and clearly not too hard-up for spending money. I relent and call Mum.
‘We’re gonna party,’ chirps Gloria when we arrive at the entrance to the Actors’ Studio. I’m not overly enthusiastic, feeling more than ever like an old, deserted housewife. Still, sometimes you’ve just got to cross the bridge and experience life on the other side.
As soon as we step inside, I know I’ve made a huge mistake. Beautiful young things dance to Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’. A surprising number of them are wearing togas.
‘Hasn’t changed much, has it?’ says Gloria, taking a wine glass from a waitress dressed as an exotic Egyptian princess.
I nod and sip. ‘It’s weird how the faces are older but they have fewer wrinkles.’ I’m also aware of the number of older men with much younger women on their arms.
‘There are some new faces as well, darling,’ says Gloria, making a beeline for a dark-haired man wearing a jazzy leopard-print skivvy, his right arm in a sling.
‘How the fuck have you been?’ says a voice in my ear.
I jump backwards. It’s Gracie Gardener, my nemesis.
I hate to admit it, but she looks great, despite having cocaine mouth and eating her lips. She’s wearing a black Max Mara diamanté cardigan. I know it’s Max Mara because I tried it on a few weeks ago and it looked positively frumpy on me.
‘I thought you were dead, Lucy.’
‘I thought you were in rehab.’
‘Very funny. Did you hear I landed the Seasons gig?
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.’
I’m nodding when she adds, ‘The directors said they knocked back loads of wannabes.’
Thank God, I think, as she zigzags off into the crowd, utterly out of it. I drink faster and say ‘Hi’ to people I don’t know and don’t care to.
‘You look great,’ says someone with feathers in their silver hair. Another person, of indeterminable sex, offers me ecstasy and a ride in their silver Porsche. I hesitate before declining. Who am I kidding? I’m too old to be taking ecstasy, as much as it might provide a welcome change from sauvignon blanc.
An utterly gorgeous woman of giraffe-like proportions glides past me, her head bobbing as she greets the assembled throng. She spots Mini, a girl with bouncy brunette hair who I was at NIDA with. Mini looks stunning but then she’s had a facelift - or six. Her eyes have that startled gazelle look and her chiselled Nicole Kidman nose is a neon sign for a fine plastic surgeon. The giraffe is wearing black Marc Jacobs boots with heels at least twelve centimetres high. I’m mesmerised as she pounces on Mini and they expertly execute an enthusiastic hug and double air kiss without quite touching. It’s magnificent to watch.
I spy Gracie Gardener again, with a small group of admirers, and overhear snippets of conversation. ‘They were so relieved to see me audition … after all the dregs they’d had to suffer,’ she says in a stage whisper, running her gnarly fingers through her over-bleached hair. It takes all of my willpower not to interrupt and tell her admirers about her humble beginnings as Darlene, a fifteen-year-old checkout chick at the Blacktown Coles supermarket.
‘You look unhappy,’ says an attractive young gladiator beside me.
‘Well, I’m not,’ I lie. I’ve seen him before but can’t quite place him.
‘Fuck, I’d hate to see you when you’re unhappy then,’ he laughs, and lights up a cigarette. ‘Want one?’
I shake my head and wonder what the hell I’m doing here surrounded by gorgeous people, some barely past their teens. My new friend was no doubt playing with Tonka trucks while I read Dolly magazine to find out if my boyfriend of the time was a cosmic match.
‘Yeah, filthy habit,’ he says. ‘Hey, I know you. Weren’t you the babe in The Young Residents?’
I wonder if that’s code for ‘What happened? You’re an old scrubber now.’
‘I’m Rock, by the way,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘Rock Hardy.’
I want to laugh out loud but shake his hand instead.
‘I’ve seen your commercials,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Don’t you want to go back to acting though?’
After a brief pause to confabulate I say, ‘I’m thinking about doing this show MTV are producing, you know, the first hip-hop reality sitcom, but it’s still hush-hush.’
I’m just starting to enjoy lying through my teeth when Gloria and one of her charges, Petrea, walk into the conversation.
‘Hello, Rock. Looking gorgeous, as always,’ says Gloria, kissing him playfully on the lips.
‘Look, everyone,’ says Petrea, brandishing a calendar and a joint, ‘I’m Ms September!’
Petrea is in the midst of a crisis. She’s just turned thirty and is terrified of being usurped by younger, better-looking and thinner models. Hence, she recentl
y posed naked for a Sydney radio station charity calendar. Hopes are high the exposure will reignite her modelling career. I know this from Gloria’s indiscreet gossiping. God knows what she tells people about me.
Gloria introduces Petrea to Rock. They laugh, telling Gloria they’ve known each other for yonks. I find myself wondering if they’ve slept together, and then wonder why I’m wondering.
‘Bald head at two o’clock,’ says Gloria, spying one of the ‘it’ girls of the moment, sans hair. Her name? Summer Ashcroft. ‘Shaving your head is de rigueur, Luce. Think Cate Blanchett in Heaven, Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3 -’
‘Demi Moore in Striptease,’ I add.
‘It wasn’t bloody Striptease.’
‘Whatever. I wouldn’t do it.’
‘Suit yourself. That’s why little Summer over there gets the gigs.’
‘Really? It’s got nothing to do with the fact she’s sixteen, ten-foot tall and looks sensational in a bikini? I doubt if I shaved my head it would have the same effect. Were my breasts ever that high?’
‘Look,’ Gloria says, ignoring me, ‘there are people at the bar doing cocaine.’
She’s about to make her way over there when a commotion breaks out near us. It involves Gracie and her ex-husband, Edwin.
‘What’s her problem tonight?’ I whisper to Gloria.
‘See that guy with his arm around Edwin?’ she replies.
A theatre critic with The Australian newspaper, Edwin has a gaunt, elegant frame and is wearing crocodile-skin trousers, a black poloneck cashmere jumper and black boots with a five-centimetre heel. The guy Gloria is referring to is dressed similarly and holds a cigarette between his middle and ring finger. As I watch, Edwin throws his head back and laughs at something the young (very young) and pretty guy has just said.
‘That’s Marcus, Edwin’s new friend,’ says Gloria.
‘No! Edwin’s pushing forty-five. Marcus must be -’
‘Barely legal.’