I wipe the tears away and walk back up the hallway where Ellie took her first, fragile steps. Balls of dust tumble ahead of me as the breeze catches them. Since Ian moved out, I have been less careful with the housework. That has been the best part of our separation, the lack of pressure to perform for someone else. Ian was particular about tidiness in a way that made me feel perpetually tense. Once, I scattered eggshells across the floor to make a point.
How did Nina keep her house so tidy when I was growing up? Did it give her a sense of control in at least that aspect of her life?
Through the timber blinds I watch Ian and Ellie talking in the sandpit, and I want to know what Ian’s saying. They’re building a castle and erecting flags, using dark green mango leaves that will be oozing sticky, white liquid from their stems. Ellie has tied a wreath of ferns around Ian’s head and looks to be making one for herself. I am excluded and realise that from now on this is how it will be. I wonder whether moving to Nina’s cottage might be my way of ensuring that Ian doesn’t take Ellie away from me every other weekend, and I immediately feel callous. But where is the justice in Ian getting our daughter half the time when I have done the lion’s share of parenting until now, trapped in Brisbane where I never agreed to be in the long term? I swing from anger to hurt to exhaustion to feeling nothing at all. How can I take Ellie from her father? Or is being fatherless inevitable for Ellie; is it, in a manner of speaking, in our genes?
I need Nina to tell me how she broke the news of her husband’s death to Helena. I need her to teach me quickly the way it should be done. Not that Ian is dead. I wring my hands, unaware I am even doing it until I scratch myself with my engagement ring.
Ian digs a moat around the sandcastle. He fills the moat carelessly with a bucket of water, and Ellie lunges forwards to rescue the castle walls.
I comb my scalp with my fingers, massaging my head with each pass. I hate him. I hate what he is doing to our family. To Ellie.
In the kitchen, I honour my promise to make Ellie a smoothie. There’s a stash of frozen bananas in the freezer and I give one a short blast in the microwave, just enough to loosen the brown, slimy skin. I peel off the mess over the sink. Quickly my fingers turn numb and blunt as I scrape clumsily at the frigid fruit.
‘Boring’ was a word Ian threw recklessly at me when he came several months ago to collect some of his things: music and books mostly. ‘Our marriage has become boring,’ he said. I missed not having his CDs and novels in the house when he was gone, and soon realised how much I had relied on him to decide what music I listened to and which books I read. Perhaps I was boring.
I wash the banana pulp from my fingers.
My marriage reels in front of me in fast forward. Outside, in another universe, Ian has the hide to laugh again. The line between what is real and what is not blurs.
I whiz up the bananas with milk, honey and vanilla essence, adding extra milk so there will be enough for me too. Not enough for Ian though. I pour the smoothie into two glasses and take a sip. The drink is cool and sweet and offers a small comfort. I lick the velvety liquid off my lips and call out through the window to Ellie.
‘Your drink’s ready, sweetheart.’ I hear my voice wavering from the effort of containing my emotions, and see Ian look up at me. His lips are turned in on themselves and pressed together, his head on the side in a kind of affected sympathy.
‘Did you make one for Daddy?’ Ellie runs to me and takes the drink from between the bars.
‘No.’ I narrow my eyes at Ian. He is still wearing the fern garland and looks like a model from an Italian fashion magazine. ‘He didn’t say he wanted one.’ I stopped noticing what he looked like when we were together.
‘You didn’t ask,’ he says, walking towards us.
‘Well it’s too late.’ Tears well again, and I retreat into the cool of the kitchen, shaking with anger and hurt. My hands turn to fists at my sides.
The phone rings. It’s Jude, from the lab. My sequencing gel hasn’t worked. It seems I forgot to add something.
‘There are enough samples left if you want me to run another one for you. I’ve got some lanes free in mine.’
‘Thanks, Jude. That’d be great.’ I think of how many mistakes I’ve made at work lately and how often Jude has covered for me.
God knows how easy it would be to find work in Tasmania. I move away from the window and lower my voice. ‘I’m having a shocker of a day, to be honest. Ian’s here …’
‘I thought he couldn’t get away from work.’
‘I know … He’s asked for a divorce,’ I whisper and hear my voice crack.
‘Oh, hon. Don’t you worry about a thing in here. I’ll sort it out. See you tomorrow … or when you’re up to it. No problem. I’m here for a chat, too. Any time.’
‘Thanks.’ I hang up and write ‘Wine for Jude’ on a notepad by the phone.
When I look up, Ellie is back in the sandpit but Ian is still standing at the kitchen window, holding Ellie’s almost empty glass. He steals the last few drops before handing it to me. He licks his lips.
I’ll never kiss or make love with him again.
‘So, who is she?’ I whisper in a choked voice. He might as well be strangling me with his bare hands. ‘Who are you leaving us for? Tell me the truth.’
‘You don’t know her.’ Ian evades my eyes, instead checking his mobile phone for messages.
I feel like I’ve been struck in the chest. An intense hurt rises inside me. And more anger than I recall ever feeling.
‘How long?’ I reach across and tear off his garland; throw it on the ground. No halo for this man. ‘I can’t talk to you with that thing on.’ Ellie is looking up at me, confused. I wave back at her and force a smile, pretending I am joking; playing with her father, although that was not something she often saw us do.
‘A while.’ Ian pauses, and takes a breath. He meets my eyes. ‘She’s another lawyer from work.’
He can cheat a fish of its skin, Nina would have said.
‘What’s her name?’ My life is being taken from under me.
‘Sylvia.’
I hiss the name back at him, making it sound poisonous. He hasn’t mentioned her before. I imagine a young woman in a tight business skirt and stilettos, bending over Ian’s office desk to discuss a case. I see his hand running up the inside of her stockinged leg. I smell her expensive perfume.
‘She’s new. They’ve just moved to Brisbane from Cairns,’ Ian says, flicking his eyes warily away, back to Ellie.
‘They?’
‘She has a boy, about Ellie’s age.’
‘So, you get another child after all.’ My head spins as I recall the countless arguments we had when I suggested we try again for another child. The arguments we had about even having Ellie. I had waited until I was nearly forty, almost too late. Those conversations had been the beginning of the end for us. I feel doubly betrayed.
‘It’s just how things turned out.’ Ian shrugs. ‘You always said it would be nice for Ellie to have another sibling around. I can take her on weekends or alternate weeks. You can have some time for yourself …’
‘Time for myself ! When have you ever cared about …’
Before I can finish, Ellie is back at the kitchen window. I feel like throwing up, but right on cue she does it for me.
‘Ellie, sweetheart!’ I go to the front door and run towards her.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ she cries. I no longer care about Ian, or ‘us’, just Ellie. Just her.
‘Maybe it was the smoothie?’ Ian offers, stepping away as Ellie vomits again on the lawn.
‘The drink was fine!’ I snap back. ‘It’s probably the heat, or something she’s picked up at school.’ I feel her forehead. ‘But all this …’ I point back and forth between the two of us. ‘It can’t help.’ I gather up Ellie’s fine, dark hair and hold it away from her face. ‘Let’s go inside, sweetie. You can have a lie down on the couch.’
I put my arm around Ellie’s suddenly
shivering body. Over my shoulder I see Ian inspecting his work clothes and sniffing his sleeve for traces of vomit.
‘If you have time, you might want to collect the neighbours’ mail for me,’ I say, flicking my head in the direction of the house next door. ‘I promised to do it while they’re away. I’m trying to get back in their good book after you kept waking them up in the middle of the night.’ I think back to the number of times Ian arrived home late, shining his car lights into the neighbours’ bedroom, before falling asleep on our couch. I grasp just how blind I’ve been. ‘I don’t suppose Sylvia was working back late with you? Shit … Did you go to Italy together?’
Ellie turns her pale face towards him.
‘Sylvia’s nice,’ she says. She means no harm by it, but it hurts even more coming from her. ‘When can I see her again?’
My stomach drops.
‘Ellie’s met her?’ I ask.
Ellie is unwell, I tell myself. I have to stay calm. She doesn’t deserve to be in the crossfire. I lead her inside, towards the couch, and glower back at Ian in the doorway.
‘Just once.’ Ian looks down at his watch again, but I catch the lie forming on his face. It’s the tiny movement of small muscles around his mouth that gives him away. ‘We were in the Botanic Gardens, and bumped into her there.’
‘What do you take me for?’
‘I wanted to introduce them. Is that so bad?’ He struggles to maintain the civility in his voice, and doesn’t have the courage, or audacity, to step inside. ‘Sylvia was great with her.’
Each time he says her name I feel a centimetre smaller, as if I’m being hammered into the ground, compressed and springloaded all at once. He likes saying it. I can see that. It’s what we all do when we’re newly in love: repeat their name over and over again, rolling it around in our mouths, on our tongues, tasting every letter. Syl … vi … a, Syl … vi … a, Syl … via … a.
I can’t help myself and walk swiftly back to the front door, half closing it. ‘Just go to your frigging meeting.’
Ian glares at me for raising my voice in front of Ellie, and adopts a gentler tone: ‘I hope you’re feeling better soon, Elliekins,’ he calls. ‘Maybe you can come and stay with me next weekend?’
She nods, a smile breaking on her washed-out face. She is lifting her head back to see him go. ‘Bye, Daddy.’
I shut the door and turn away. Easy for him to be saintly. Devoid of anger.
‘Ben’s nice, too,’ Ellie says.
‘Ben?’ I ask.
‘Sylvia’s son.’
I think back to Ellie saying something about playing with a boy called Ben at the Botanic Gardens. I hadn’t thought anything of it.
Moments later, I hear the old-model BMW start. I notice the mail is still protruding from the neighbours’ letterbox. I take a cotton sheet from the linen cupboard and spread it over Ellie like Nina used to do for me when I was ill. I construct a pillow out of two cushions I bought in South Africa during Ian’s and my only overseas trip together: it was pre-Ellie, a conference in Cape Town that Ian attended for five of the seven days we were there, leaving me free to shop the markets.
I stroke Ellie’s forehead as I lie beside her on the couch, my arm encircling her small body. She falls quickly asleep. This hot, fragile little creature is now my entire world. How sick would she have to be for me to phone my mother for advice?
As if I had willed it, the phone rings, but I let it go. It won’t be Helena, and nothing could be more important than lying here with my daughter. I hear Ian’s now-repellent voice, and cover my head with the sheet, listening as he records his message.
‘Sara, it’s me. Let me know how Ellie is in the morning.’ He pauses. ‘No hang on, I won’t be at home, and I’ve got an early meeting. Forget it. I’ll phone you later.’ He hangs up.
My silent tears saturate Ellie’s already damp hair. I prop myself up on one arm and lose myself in her face, still baby-like in profile. I study her delicate rounded nose, her lips parted for air, the gentle mound of her forehead that carries the memory of a million of my kisses. It’s difficult to believe that Ian and I made such a perfect child out of our imperfect love.
I look around the room of our Brisbane home, at the facade it has become. Ian’s and my wedding photograph and several gifts are still on display, along with several photos from the years when Ian and I were dating. There are Champagne glasses in the cabinet and king sheets folded up in the cupboard. Ellie’s handprints are on the glass panels of the doors and windows, waving goodbye.
On the afternoon of Ellie’s last day of prep, I take along an extra-large bag of chocolate Santas for her to distribute. It’s against school policy but I’m unconcerned as I suspect we won’t be returning in the new year, not that I’ve told this to Ellie or Ian. One of the other mums gives me the thumbs up for my rule breaking and I feel like a cheat.
‘Have a great holiday in Tassie if I don’t see you before,’ she says.
‘Thanks. Come and visit if you like. Or next time. We might head down again in the new year for longer.’ I hold her gaze.
She raises her eyebrows and gives me a hug, making me well up.
‘We’ll just have to see how we go,’ I say, still in her embrace, my throat flattened against her shoulder. ‘Are you going anywhere for the break?’ I let go.
‘Christmas at Mum and Dad’s. Then just hanging about with the family. Nothing much.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ I say, and I mean it.
Ellie hands out the chocolates, which are received with glee. Even the class bully gets one, but not until Ellie has made sure everyone else has theirs. She counts how many she has left, hands my friend and me a chocolate, then stows the last few Santas in her pocket.
I laugh. ‘Thanks, sweetie.’ I undress the small, fat man in my hand and bite off his head.
4
Curled up with my laptop in front of the television, I write my mother an email: ‘Just letting you know Ian and I are getting divorced, so I’m taking up Nina’s offer of the cottage. Ellie and I are going to have a holiday there and, if it works out, we might move down. I assume you’re okay with this and have seen a copy of the will.’
A reply comes almost immediately. ‘Of course. I’m very sorry to hear of the divorce. Let me know if you need anything.’
Now she asks.
‘Need anything?’ I type, pounding the keyboard. ‘Need anything! Love? A mother to listen? Your time?’
My finger hovers over the ‘send’ button.
On the news, there is footage of another boat of refugees being stopped in northern Australian waters by the border patrol. There are women and children, but most are men. Several people are hurling themselves into the sea and making a scramble for the customs boat. At least Nina and her husband had it better than that.
The camera focuses on a young man and I wonder if he knows that he is destined for a detention centre, perhaps even Pontville on the outskirts of Hobart. Or does he think he has finally made it to safety and a new life?
I delete what I have typed.
Time compresses in the week leading up to our departure, yet each day is an eternity of tasks. In the laboratory, I run experiments in record time, other people’s genetic sequences, their likelihood of disease. Meetings are scheduled with lawyers and financial advisors, postponed and, at Ian’s insistence, rescheduled. I’ve booked the flight for Christmas Eve, to Ian’s dismay. I told him it was the only available flight to Hobart.
We rarely meet in person, Ian and I, and only discuss our ‘situation’ out of Ellie’s hearing, which mostly translates to over email. Short, suffocated messages. He, I suspect, feels like writing, ‘It was over years ago, Sara. Who are you fooling? Get over it. I have. I have found someone who wants me. Someone who is greedy for my body in a way I had forgotten. As greedy for me as I am for her.’ I feel sick. And what do I want to write? Perhaps, ‘If you had noticed me on occasion. If you had come home and looked at me properly. Maybe if we had spent more time fo
rgetting our brains and letting our bodies commune. If you had also touched the parts of me not considered sexual and made them so, the places behind my ear, my neck, the insides of my upper arm, the sides of my waist. My fingers. My wrists. My feet. Maybe if I had done the same for you? Maybe if we had made love like we used to, wholly and with abandon, for we were once like that, weren’t we? Hungry with wanting? Maybe then we would still have said I love you. For we didn’t in the end, did we? We didn’t say that because we didn’t really feel it. Not more than we loved other friends. Not that I can call you a friend anymore.’
At the point of signing the divorce papers, the lawyer, a friend of Ian’s who is giving us his services for free, leaves me alone in his office perched high over the city. With a bird’s eye view of Brisbane, I scratch down my married name and stare at it. Sara Rose. My scientific publications have been published under this name, so for my work, at least, I’m stuck with it. I escape via the elevator before Ian’s friend returns.
On the plane, Ellie assumes the window seat. She looks up at me and smiles, flashing her new mobile phone, an early Christmas gift from Ian so they can call each other any time. I’d been trying to keep her childhood free of such intrusive technology, but Ian shouted me down when I protested. ‘And you’ll pay the bills?’ I asked, nervous already about finding work in Tasmania and my financial security. Having the cottage and money from the divorce settlement will not be enough to cover our living expenses in the long term.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And, Sara, I know you’re angry and hurt, but don’t take it out on Ellie. I’m her father. We need to see each other. To talk on the phone.’
The comments pierced my heart for their frankness and truth. The truth is a gift, I’ve heard it said, but it doesn’t feel that way.
‘When are you booked to come back?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t yet.’
‘Sara …’
‘Just give me some time. Nina has died. You’ve –’
‘Fine, but you can’t just move interstate without my permission. You know that, don’t you? How long are you staying? A week? Two?’
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