by Lisa Heidke
I feel a fleeting twinge of sympathy for Gracie as Edwin and Marcus keep laughing, oblivious to her growing agitation.
As the evening wears on, I pass the time watching the young things boogie and flirt with each other between popping pills. It’s a million miles away from my life in the suburbs in a house with neither kitchen nor husband. An overwhelming feeling of inadequacy grips me.
‘Status anxiety,’ says Gloria when I finally unburden myself. ‘For God’s sake, don’t compare yourself to others, especially those who have achieved greatness or had greatness thrust upon them. No good can come of it.’
I snort as Gloria shrugs and drifts off into the crowd.
Rock appears again, barely five centimetres from my face. Just as I’m starting to get the impression he likes me, he sticks his tongue down my throat.
‘Let me take you away from all of this, Lucy,’ he says, coming up for air.
Had I been even drunker, I might have been tempted. After all, I don’t get too many offers of gladiatorial nocturnal delights. But I can’t leave with a man-boy called Rock, because I might end up having really bad sex with him and then feel traumatised and hung-over. Besides, I could never wake up in the morning feeling lusty about a guy named after something igneous.
Then I feel guilty, very guilty, about the kiss. I’m a married woman, for God’s sake. I have two children.
I leave with Gloria not long after Gracie jumps into the pool, nude. The water must be all of three degrees.
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at a fancy cocktail bar in the inner city.
‘It’s been way too long since I’ve done this,’ I say to Gloria.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
I tell her about Max’s postcards.
‘Bloody Max,’ she says, before listing all the reasons why she doesn’t like him. It’s a very long list.
‘Wearing slip-ons is not a good enough reason to dislike someone,’ I tell her.
‘It’s my list, I’m allowed to dislike him for any reason I want.’
By the time she tells me the thirty-second reason - he didn’t get Kenny - it’s late in the evening and we’ve downed a bottle of Moët thanks to the American Express card.
‘And,’ she says finally, ‘he’s a liar.’
I nod. Can’t argue with that. Then I feel disloyal and say, ‘Everyone lies. For instance, I’m always running late and blaming it on the traffic.’
‘White lies are fine,’ says Gloria, holding up her hand.
‘If I could count the number of times a day I say, “Fabulous to hear from you, darling,” when I’d rather stick needles in my arms … But that’s beside the point. Max is a snake.
A stinking, rotten, lying, slip-on-shoe-wearing snake.’
Tears well in my eyes. It’s time to call it a night.
‘There, there,’ says Gloria, rubbing my back. ‘You were due for an upgrade. It’s over with Max. Just make sure his replacement is richer, better looking, more successful, and preferably younger. Stamina counts.’
‘I’m not going to replace Max,’ I say.
‘True, you need some time to revel in being free again.
Dance on tabletops, shag someone, many someones. Have fun.’
‘Gloria, you’re drunk. Besides, who’s going to look twice at me let alone shag me? Have you seen my stretch marks?’
Am I really talking about shagging? Two weeks ago, I believed I was a reasonably happily married woman, who would be even more so once the renovations were completed. How did I get here? I know Max and I weren’t as happy as we had been, but I still thought we were reasonably happy, that ‘We’re in this together for the rest of our lives so we might as well make the most of it’ kind of happy. It’s true, I hadn’t asked Max how he was lately. I just assumed he was fine. Except, of course, on those nights when we’d argue and come to the mutual conclusion that we hated each other, our life together was a sham and we couldn’t understand why we’d ever got married in the first place.
‘I need to do something about myself, don’t I?’ I say to Gloria. ‘I need to reinvent myself so that when Max comes home -’
‘Have you heard a word I’ve said? Yes, let’s transform you, it’ll be fun. But please don’t do it for Max. He’s not worth it. Never has been. He’s always treated you like his personal slave. What you need, Lucy Springer, is to forget all about Max.’
‘Don’t be ridickuloose,’ I slur.
‘You’re pissed and you need a fuck to knock some sense into you.’
‘Language! I’m not pissed and I don’t need a fuck as you so eloquently put it. Although, Glors, I was putting some things away last night and came across some old photos -’ Gloria yawns, her interest in the conversation clearly waning.
‘- of Dom. I haven’t thought about him in years.’
Gloria perks up. ‘Hey, I heard recently that he’s back in Australia. It should be easy enough to find him …’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say, twirling my empty champagne glass distractedly in my fingers. ‘Both the great loves of my life have walked out on me. Clearly, the universe is trying to tell me something.’
‘Yes it is. One: Max is not, nor has he ever been, the love of your life. And two: it’s time you re-established contact with Dom because he’s the bomb! I’m going to make it my mission to find him.’
Day 14
There’s an axe in my skull. Someone has scalped me. I reach for my head: no axe, scalp in place, but there’s a hell of a throbbing pain. The price of another excessive night’s drinking.
When I’m finally able to get up, I wander aimlessly around my half-house. There are mountains of grey dust everywhere. It’s centimetres thick in some parts. Builders’ tools block the narrow walkway to the makeshift kitchen/ family room but I can’t muster the strength to swear and kick them to the side. In an effort to distract myself from thinking about Max’s letter, I venture outside and try my hand at weeding. I last four and a half minutes.
I rake dead brown leaves on the driveway. Two minutes.
The pool! The pool is green. It’s a big job, it’ll take at least an hour, maybe more. I start skimming leaves from the top and vaguely make out the slimy sediment and rotting leaves on the pool floor. Wish I had a barracuda, the pool cleaner, not the fish. Dom hated barracudas, Kreepy Kraulys. In fact, all pool vacuums … Thoughts of Dom assail me. Not surprising, really. Gloria’s suggestion last night has triggered lots of memories.
Dom and I hit it off straightaway when we first met. He was easy to be around, handsome, uncomplicated. We just clicked, even sharing the same sense of humour. For the three years we flatted together, I saw Dom almost every day. We knew everything about each other: likes, dislikes, pet hates, fantasies (well, some of them) and phobias - that’s how I know about his dislike of pool vacuums: the slurping noise drove him to distraction. I also heard about his family dramas going back to childhood, like the bust-up of Christmas 1986 when his mum stormed out after losing the annual Monopoly game.
And then … nothing. After Dom left for Europe, it was like he’d died. Any latent belief that we’d end up together gradually faded into the background, especially after Max came along.
Oh, why am I thinking about Dom?
Because my husband needs space! And I’m left feeling abandoned, washed-up.
It’d be hard to find two men more completely opposite to each other than Max and Dom. Whereas Dom took easygoing to ridiculous extremes, Max is brooding, sensitive and complicated. It’s almost like I went out of my way to choose a lover who could in no way remind me of Dom and what might have been.
But that’s ancient history.
Still, I can’t help but wonder where Dom’s settled now that he’s back in Australia. What’s he doing? Who’s he doing it with? His life has to be in better shape than mine.
*
When Sam and Bella get home from spending the night at Mum’s, Bella stomps around the building site that used to be our home. ‘I hate w
alking around with dust in my mouth all the time!’ she yells, then spends the best part of the afternoon cleaning and twitching - reviving memories of the clean-freak stage she went through when she was six.
‘Every time you pick up the phone,’ she tells Sam, ‘your mouth acts as a vacuum, inhaling germs, bacteria and other airborne diseases like tuberculosis. Do you know what tuberculosis is? It gets into your lungs so you can’t breathe.
Then you die.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘Just like that. These germs can live for days, breeding, multiplying. They’re out there, Sammy, waiting to pounce.’
Sam starts to cry and I realise I should intervene.
‘Bella, enough! Stop terrorising your brother.’
Where does she learn this stuff? When I was her age, I was staging song-and-dance extravaganzas for my bemused grandparents.
Sam wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘The germs are attacking. The germs are attacking!’
Day 15
First thing in the morning, I’m trying to separate frozen bread slices when the sharp, serrated knife slips. I wrap a tea towel around my bloody hand.
‘A likely story,’ says Mum who calls - checking up on me, no doubt. ‘Why didn’t you use the microwave?’
‘It’s difficult to reach, not to mention temperamental. Besides, no time.’
‘Takes ten seconds.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say, and abandon the conversation. My hand’s throbbing. I hope I haven’t cut a tendon.
As I’m driving to school, blood drips down my hand onto my lap and Sam shrieks that I’m going to die. Bella tells him that if I was trying to kill myself, I stuffed up big time. She’s obviously been talking to Mum.
‘Bella, that’s it. No more Foxtel for you,’ I say, swerving slightly too close to the edge of the road.
‘I’m only joking,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘We’re learning all about diseases at school. You know, like how we cut up sheep brains the other day?’
‘What’s that got to do my hand?’
‘Well, unless you take a truckload of antibiotics, the germs will get in, your cut will get maggots and your hand will fall off.’
It’s a relief to drop them off and head for the doctor’s.
An hour later, I’m stitched up and ready to leave when my doctor, a no-nonsense Polish woman by the name of Lina, clears her throat and says, ‘About your hand, Lucy …’ She then fires off a series of questions about my state of mind. Seems Bella and Mum aren’t alone in their suspicions about my mental health.
Driving home, I can’t help but think that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t hired Spud. If the renovation hadn’t turned into a disaster, Max wouldn’t have got fed up and gone to Bali on a surfing holiday - without me.
If only he’d turn on his phone we could sort out this mess. He has to come back eventually. I just wish he’d hurry up about it. We have two children, for God’s sake. No matter what he’s going through right now, he can’t leave them hanging indefinitely. Things might be awkward for a while but I’m sure we’ll get back on track again. We always have before.
Patch shows me the new toilet for the ensuite bathroom. For something so extortionately expensive it looks very much like your run-of-the-mill, everyday toilet. I feel dizzy when he hands me a list of questions that need answers in the next couple of days, re flooring, kitchen benchtops, taps and sink.
‘What about the oven and dishwasher?’ I ask.
‘Later. What happened to your hand?’ he asks, nodding towards my bandage.
‘A very sharp knife.’
‘Accident?’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Hurt?’
‘Yep, but a little pain never killed anyone,’ I say with a grin, glancing significantly at the Global knife block sitting on top of the washing machine. Turning my attention back to him, I continue, ‘You were saying about the new oven?’
‘Yeah, I’m on to it,’ he says, twitching a little.
I walk away, confident I’ve left the impression I could turn on him at any moment because I’m so unhinged.
‘Let’s play Monopoly tonight, Mum,’ Bella says after dinner.
And we do. We eat popcorn, we smile and we are happy.
Sam, channelling Donald Trump, buys a gazillion hotels on the green squares (Regent, Oxford and Bond streets) and the yellow ones (Piccadilly, Leicester Square and Coventry Street), while I’m facing bankruptcy. Bella, in jail, cheers Sam on and doesn’t express any desire for freedom, despite holding a Get Out of Jail Free card. We’re in the middle of what is traditionally (in our house) a very competitive board game. Yet the kids are sticking to the rules and being nice to each other. The last time we played Monopoly, I had to bend the rules significantly to get Bella released from jail. It was either that or deal with the catastrophic consequences - tantrums, name-calling, tears. But this time, Bella’s cheering Sam as he strives for world domination. I never thought I’d see the day. I’m not convinced these are my children.
Day 16
I’m admiring Patch’s spectacularly chiselled arms from a distance when he notices me and walks over. Launching into what sounds like a rehearsed speech, he tells me they’re encountering problems with the renovation: apart from rising damp and a leaking roof, they need to do additional excavation before the cement slab can be laid. I tune out. The bloody slab was supposed to be poured months ago. Why couldn’t Patch have foreseen all this and mentioned it while Max was still here?
‘Can you fix it?’ I ask him.
‘Of course, but it’ll cost.’
I flinch. I’m a little nervous that the money’s going to run out - quite possibly sooner rather than later.
Patch has a smile on his face and looks annoyingly happy.
Handsome, almost.
‘Why are you so happy?’ I ask him.
‘I just am. Generally speaking, men are happier than women. We can’t get pregnant, and for us chocolate is just food.’
I nod, but he isn’t finished.
‘We can wear white T-shirts in the rain, no shirts in the sun. Car mechanics don’t lie to us, the world is our urinal and people never stare at our chest when talking to us.’
‘Thanks, I get it now. Men are so much happier than women.’
‘You betcha,’ Patch says. He’s still going as I walk away.
‘We have freedom of choice when it comes to growing a moustache, we don’t need to wax our bikini line, or our legs, we can live with the same hairstyle all our lives …’
‘I’m leaving if I’m partnered with Bec again this week,’ I say to Gloria when we arrive at the tennis courts. ‘I can’t bear her bossiness. “Keep your racquet up, Lucy”, “Use your forearm grip, Lucy”, “Lucy, the aim is to hit the ball over the net”. Then there’s my hand. I can’t really throw the ball in the air.’
‘All excuses,’ Gloria says and pulls me across the car park.
I’m not partnered with Bec - hurrah! Instead, I’m partnered with the second-most competitive woman in the group: Tracee, with an ‘e’ not a ‘y’.
‘Thought any more about Dom?’ Gloria says as we stagger back to the car afterwards.
I shake my head. ‘Don’t you remember, my therapist said not to.’
‘Thirteen years ago!’ says Gloria, making an ugly snorting noise.
‘Maybe, but we don’t want me becoming “delicate” again, do we?’
‘It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think, lovely?’
‘Whatever. The past should be left in the past.’
‘This time it might be different. Maybe this time around you two could -’
‘Would you just stop? I’m a married woman! And I don’t want to talk about him.’
‘Okay, but I found his website and got his email address -’
‘Enough already!’
But she’s let the genie out of the bottle and I think even more about Dom that night. I’d promised him I’d be there at the airport to say goodbye, but Gloria
did the honours in the end.
Would life have turned out differently for Dom and me if I had gone to the airport that day? I doubt it. The only difference is that instead of crying about him in private, like I did, I’d have sobbed in public. And that’s never a good look.
Day 17
It’s the day of the audition for the porta-puppy-potty. One of the women auditioning looks like Jessica Simpson straight out of the remake of The Dukes of Hazzard. I’m talking bikini top and short shorts with preposterously high stiletto heels. What the hell is she thinking? Do dogs need to see your backside and toned, tanned calves to do their business?
I glance down at my sheer pink blouse. Perhaps if I undo a couple of buttons …
During the course of the audition, several breeds of dog, including an overly excited Great Dane, slobber on me and I have to scoop up real dog shit nine times. (I count.)
Afterwards, an attractive young girl bounces up to me. It seems she recognises me from my days on The Young Residents, in particular my death scene.
‘That was so cool,’ she trills. ‘I really thought you were dying. ’Cause I saw my nan die - she was in hospital too - and you died exactly like she did, with a final gasp, snort and then … nothing. So cool. The way the family gathered around you crying … and then your funeral. God! I cried so much.
‘Did you actually have to lie in that box?’ she burbles on. ‘I mean, of course you did - it was an open casket. We saw everything. Nice death dress, by the way. And your husband! What a bastard.’
You don’t know the half of it, I think as I watch a miniature apricot schnoodle take on a German shepherd.
‘Shagging his girlfriend in the funeral home bathroom, while you’re all made up in your best clothes … I felt so sorry for you. And then the grave scene where your adulterous husband flung himself across the coffin while the band played “I Will Always Love You”. I was like, you prick!’
‘Yeah, well,’ I manage, when she pauses for breath.
‘So have you done any other television shows since then?’
I want to say, ‘I’ve done diddly-squat. My husband has left me and would probably dance on my grave if I died tomorrow. I’m miserable. I need a life. A brand-new life,’ but instead I just smile awkwardly.