by B M Carroll
One particular morning, Annabel sidling up as they walked across the oval. ‘I hardly see you any more. Why do you hang out with that nerd?’
Luke would have said ‘shut up’ or something to that effect but not before the damage was done. Annabel’s intention was for Katy to hear, for Katy to blush, for Katy to feel miserable for the rest of the day.
Which leads him to question why Katy is the one who’s driving this reunion. What does she want from it? The chance to reveal her new self? An opportunity to come face to face with Annabel as an adult, an equal? Katy is far from that blushing schoolgirl; she has learned how to stand up for herself. Although knowing Katy, her motives are more likely to be purely altruistic and nothing to do with Annabel.
Oh God, that reminds him. He hasn’t answered her email about being a bloody sperm donor.
Why is it such a bad idea?
Where does he start?
His headache goes up another notch.
‘Katy wants me to have a baby with her.’
‘Whoa ... Really?’ Aaron is visibly taken aback. Stops his buzzing around the kitchen. Puts down the tea towel, pulls out the stool next to Luke.
‘Yeah, really ... Can you imagine me as a dad?’
Even though he feels like shit, it’s good to be here with Aaron. At home, for once. Talking about stuff. Important stuff.
Aaron takes his hand. Squeezes it. His look is one of pure love and belief.
‘Yes, actually, I can.’
21
ROBBIE
Nick went home this morning. Back to Melbourne, back to his photogenic family and his big job. He stayed longer than anyone expected. In the end, Robbie was counting down the hours to his brother’s departure, wrung out from all the talking, the overload of emotion. Now that Nick is gone, he feels ashamed and guilty. His brother came all the way from Melbourne, tried to bridge twenty years of estrangement by wearing his heart on his sleeve, and this is how he responds? Delighted to see the back of him?
What the fuck is wrong with you, Robbie?
‘Will we see Megan and the kids over Christmas?’ Celia asked as they sat around waiting for Nick’s taxi to arrive.
Her eyes met Robbie’s, and she blinked and looked down at her hands. Robbie left home the week before Christmas. He remembers the overwhelming need to get out, to be far away, to be on his own. It was a snap decision. Don’t some people say that the best decisions in your life are the quick ones? All he took was his rucksack, some clothes, the book he was reading at the time and the money left over from his eighteenth birthday. He left the house in the early hours of the morning, about 4 a.m. He’d been awake all night, thoughts racing, but as soon as he made the decision he felt strangely calm and in control. Nick didn’t stir as he clicked the bedroom door shut behind him. The bus stop was a ten-minute walk from the house. Of course, there were no buses running at that hour of the morning. He waited in the dark, and then in the muted light of dawn and early morning. Plenty of time to change his mind and trudge back home to bed. He waited, and the more he waited the more right it felt. He got on that first bus, empty except for him and the driver, threadbare tinsel twirled around some of the handrails. Merry fucking Christmas.
‘Not sure,’ Nick replied to Celia with a shrug. ‘The kids are at that age now where they have their own plans for the holidays. I’ll let you know.’
Celia went to check on Sienna and Charlie, who had been sent upstairs to get dressed for school. ‘Hurry up! Uncle Nick wants a hug before he goes.’
Nick sat forward in his seat. Robbie braced himself.
‘It doesn’t sound fun, Robbie. Going from shelter to shelter. Scraping by on the dole. You could come back here, to Sydney. Stay with Mum and Dad or Celia. Have the support of your family ... Wouldn’t that be an easier life?’
Robbie looked around the kitchen, cereal boxes still on the counter, smells of coffee and toast, Celia and the kids’ voices babbling from upstairs. ‘I can’t live like this. I’m better on my own. I know myself.’
‘Jeez, do you really mean that?’
‘I know myself,’ Robbie repeats. ‘After all these years, I know what I can take, and what I can’t.’
Nick nodded, and Robbie felt that his brother was at least on the way to understanding. Then the kids and Celia came flying down the stairs and – mercifully – there was no more time for talking.
There she is. A large tote bag over her shoulder. Head bent forward. Svelte in a short skirt and striped top. Wearing earphones. She could be a student rather than a teacher. Robbie is sitting on a low wall across the street. He’s been waiting here more than an hour. Katy stayed long after the bell. She probably had a staff meeting or some paperwork to get through. Conscientious to a fault.
Katy looks in both directions before crossing the road. Any moment now she’ll pass where he is sitting. Will she glance his way? Recognise him?
She walks straight past. He waits until she is further down the street, then he stands up and begins to follow.
What the fuck is wrong with you, Robbie? What are you doing?
He doesn’t know what he is doing, or why. All he knows is that this is the fourth time he has done this: followed her all the way home to her first-floor apartment in Neutral Bay. She takes two buses, both packed to capacity. There’s barely standing room; it’s easy to go unnoticed.
Robbie hangs on to one of the overhead rails and his thoughts flit between Katy and Nick.
‘I’ll be back in a couple of weeks,’ Nick said as he gave Robbie a final suffocating hug. ‘Don’t go anywhere between now and then. Promise me.’
Robbie promised but now he’s not sure he can keep the promise. He’s been told that his urge to run away is in fact a stress response: his body senses danger and wants to escape. It’s triggered by fear, which is triggered by anxiety, which is triggered by depression. Shame plays a big part in it, too.
The bus hurtles over the Harbour Bridge. Then it hits traffic and comes to an abrupt halt. The rest of the journey is stop-start along Military Road. Katy’s stop is a popular one; Robbie blends in with the crowd. She takes a detour into the 7-Eleven to buy some bread. Through the shop window, Robbie sees the attendant – a bearded twenty-something male – say something that makes her laugh. He feels a negative response within himself. Jealousy? Longing? Loneliness? She is still smiling as she leaves the shop. Shortly afterwards, she turns down the side street that leads to her apartment block. He hangs back further; there are fewer people around now, it would be easy to get caught.
Not once does she turn around and notice the man who’s following her. A man who exists in the margins of society. A man who feels perilously overwrought and on edge, besieged with memories of twenty years ago. Annabel Moore gagging and crying within earshot, ‘He’s disgusting. I’m going to be sick.’ Melissa Andrews standing up and moving seats when he sat down next to her. Zach Latham mimicking his walk of shame, to hysterical laughter. Jarrod Harris calling at his house day after day, jabbing the bell button, a knowing smirk on his face.
Katy was his only reprieve. She still is.
22
MELISSA
Melissa is having lunch with Cassie, something they try to manage at least once a week. They have a lot in common: the only two women on the board; both in their late thirties; ambitious, at the peak of their careers; married. Their only point of difference is children: Cassie has a three-year-old boy and is trying for another.
‘It’s a disaster,’ Melissa says between mouthfuls. ‘Henry and I should have stood our ground at the start. Here we are, three years later, and the kids still detest me.’
Cassie nods, swallows. ‘Hindsight’s a great thing, eh?’
Cassie is sympathetic and gives good advice but sometimes Melissa wonders how her friend can possibly understand. Cassie lived with her husband for several years before they got married. She sees him first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and all weekend long. It’s a genuine partnership, an authentic shari
ng of lives. Melissa’s marriage is more like ‘dating’ than anything else and she has the overwhelming sense that everything is about to come to a skidding halt. She feels the change happening inside her and welcomes it as much as she dreads it. Another concerning matter is the almost daily messages she’s been exchanging with Jarrod Harris.
Melissa Andrews: How are things in the world of volts? xx
Jarrod Harris: Electric. How about the board table?
Melissa Andrews: Dull, dull, dull. Yawn
Jarrod Harris: Nice photo at industry awards, Snow White.
Brief messages, jokey, nothing untoward. At the same time, a reopened connection and dangerous because of all those old, unresolved feelings. They shared something intense, albeit short-lived. At the time Jarrod said he felt different around her: more focused, more ambitious about the future. Melissa felt different, too: more adventurous, distinctly more sexual. Jarrod seemed like another species to the other boys: a man’s face combined with an athlete’s body, an innate knowledge of what to do with his hands and mouth, eliciting a sexual response Melissa never imagined herself capable of. Their relationship lasted two incredibly vivid, lustful months. It ended via a taut conversation by the basketball courts. ‘Annabel is pregnant. I’m sticking by her. I’m sorry, Melissa.’
Such loyalty. Annabel didn’t deserve it; she’d been the very opposite of loyal with Melissa. Initially maintaining that she didn’t mind about Melissa and Jarrod dating; her subsequent actions proving that she minded very much indeed. It was fear, Melissa keeps telling herself. Annabel was scared.
Now Melissa has the distinct impression that Jarrod is floundering, just like she is. Is he unhappy with Annabel? Is the marriage in trouble? Why else open up dialogue with someone from the far-distant past? When your present life is not working out, it’s all too tempting to look back. She knows this first-hand.
‘What are you wearing tomorrow night?’ she asks Cassie, forcibly directing her thoughts away from Jarrod.
Tomorrow night is a female-only industry event. A gathering of pharmaceutical researchers, scientists and everyone from the production line to executive management. Melissa is sponsoring the event and will be speaking about female empowerment. She’s delivered many similar speeches in the past, but that won’t make her complacent. Tonight, she’ll practise in front of the mirror, delivering the speech over and over again, until it sounds completely unrehearsed and the audience laughs in all the right places, as well as listening when she’s being deadly serious.
Cassie pulls a face. ‘Whatever fits me. What about you?’
‘Maybe the dress I wore to Steve and Anna’s wedding.’
Steve is a fellow board member. The wedding was his third. It was a great day out but the pervading feeling was that this marriage wouldn’t last any longer than the other two.
‘The royal blue? Yeah, that’s lovely on you.’
The conversation moves on to Cassie’s little boy, who’s starting preschool in the new year. Melissa listens intently. She is careful not to become one of those childless women who resent it when mothers talk about their kids.
Just before the hour mark, Cassie calls for the bill – it’s her turn to pay. As they’re walking out of the café, she links her arm through Melissa’s, making them present more like conspiring teenage girls than board executives.
‘You know what I think you should do?’ Cassie says.
‘About tomorrow night?’
‘No ... About Henry, stupid.’
Melissa is bemused. ‘What should I do?’
‘You should get a dog.’
‘A dog? Are you kidding?’
‘Nope. I’m being perfectly serious. Dogs are glue. They bring families together.’
A dog? Melissa is intermittently incredulous for the rest of the afternoon – whenever she has the time to stop and think about it. Henry is ill at ease with dogs. She doesn’t exactly love them herself. A dog means more responsibility, more constraints on her time, and is just about the last thing that would solve her problems. Cassie has taken leave of her senses.
It’s seven thirty before Melissa calls it a night. Her car – metallic blue, easy to pick out – is parked in the staff car park. The air is thick and claustrophobic in the basement. Melissa gets inside the car and turns on the air-conditioning full blast. As soon as she exits the car park, she phones Henry and they have a perfunctory discussion. She tells him she had lunch with Cassie but doesn’t mention the dog. He reminds her that he’s attending a school concert and won’t be able to talk later on. This incites yet another flare of dissatisfaction with their situation.
The air inside her apartment is muggy with trapped heat and she flings open the balcony doors so the breeze can run through. ‘There. That’s better.’
She detests it when she talks aloud, as though there is someone here to listen.
Dinner is a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, which she takes outside. Someone from one of the other apartments is playing loud rap music. She can hear voices from the balcony below, as well as the background sound of a television. Most of what she hears is silence; this is what she hates about coming home to an empty apartment. She finishes her sandwich, brings the plate inside and swaps it for her laptop. A dozen unread messages since she left the office, over an hour ago. Her eyes skim over them. One stands out.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Year Book Macquarie High
Name: Melissa Andrews (aka Snow White)
What you do now: Sales Director for pharmaceuticals company.
Highlights of last twenty years: Being promoted more than you deserve.
Lowlights: Henry refusing to live together because his kids hate you.
Deepest fears: Dying alone. And you will.
Ouch! Melissa reads it again, scrupulously, finding its accuracy even more alarming than its venom. A simple Google search would throw up information about her career, but not her living arrangements with Henry, or the ongoing friction with his children. Who sent this? How do they have access to this information? Has someone been spying on her? Watching Henry’s car come and go and reaching the obvious conclusion? That seems too dramatic. Maybe it’s a double connection, someone who knows her from the old days and also knows Henry, or perhaps his kids, through some other avenue? Sydney can be a small place. Whatever the connection, she’s rattled and freshly angry with Henry. He should be here. Helping her make sense of this, even to laugh it off. Instead she feels strangely insecure and vulnerable. She goes back inside, locks the balcony doors and pulls the blinds. She’s not the only one who’s had these messages. They’re an annoyance, yes, but no one has suggested danger of any kind. She reads the email yet again. Nothing overtly threatening. Except for the gross invasion of her privacy. Except for the unnerving accuracy. Except for the venom, which feels oddly familiar. Could it be Annabel? Dredging up old grudges after finding out that Melissa and Jarrod have resumed contact? But Annabel herself was one of the first to get an email, so how can that possibly make sense?
She forwards the email to Katy Buckley.
This came today. I’m a little unsettled by it ... Who is sending these? Where is it all leading?
Melissa works through the other messages in her inbox, sending quick responses where she can. She is about to finish up when a response comes from Katy.
Have no idea. It’s creeping me out. Starting to think I should call the whole thing off.
Is that the end game here? A simple desire to have the reunion called off? Or is the motive more elaborate? Elaborate enough for Annabel to send herself an email and thereby throw everyone off the scent? Maybe she can’t bear the thought of everyone being reinvented, her old position as queen bee under threat. Or maybe she is insecure about the idea of Melissa and Jarrod coming face to face after all these years. Or maybe she has found out about their recent contact and is livid. Or scared. Annabel can be frightening when she’s scared.
However, it does seem a rather long bow to dra
w for a mother of three who must have many other things to obsess about. Would she really go to such lengths?
Melissa stands up. Stretches. Yawns. Then sighs as she remembers that she still needs to rehearse her speech for tomorrow night. A copy in hand, she stations herself in front of the bedroom mirror. Her voice is quivery. She doesn’t know if it’s due to nervous tension or exhaustion. She clears her throat, injects more power, but now she sounds too harsh. Her voice rings through the apartment, hard and unanswered.
Here I am, talking to myself again.
Annabel’s face materialises alongside her own in the mirror. Tanned skin, blonde hair, in stark contrast to her own looks. Her mouth contorts, words forming. Melissa hears them, resurrecting Annabel’s acidic tones of long ago.
Dying alone. And you will.
23
GRACE
Tom doesn’t like Annabel. Grace has always known this fact at an intuitive level, although her husband has never outwardly criticised her closest friend. It’s obvious from the set of his mouth, how it tightens at the mention of Annabel’s name. It’s obvious from his reservedness around her, and around Jarrod too: he seems to hold himself back in their presence, not chatting or being engaged to his usual extent. But Tom would never allow his personal opinions to get in the way of helping Annabel. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than seeing Daniel come out of this phase unscathed. Her husband always wants the best for everyone.
‘It’s so upsetting to think of Daniel in hospital,’ Grace sighs. The children have gone to bed and she and Tom have just sat down together. The television is turned down low. ‘Annabel’s confused about what to do next. I promised I’d ask you about what services she can access through the council.’
Tom’s blue eyes are solemn as he turns to look at her. ‘She should start with the drug and alcohol centre. There’s also youth mental health and a support group that meets in one of the local high schools some week nights ... I’ll find out which nights.’