‘So Bella, I’m forming a luncheon group. Not just a group actually. A forum as well. I’d just love you to join us.’
Bella smiled warmly. ‘It sounds interesting although I’m not really into women’s lunches.’
But she would, of course, accept the invitation. It would bring her closer to Nancy. Bella smiled again.
‘I’m in.’
At the first luncheon Bella leant against a wall, observing the other women enjoying their pre-lunch drinks. The group would soon be formalised as the Trophettes. So named by Nancy as a self-deprecatory whimsical celebration of their status as trophy wives, although being married was not required as this would have disallowed those who were in between engagements. Bella observed them with a cynical eye. Especially those she had observed previously, and Bella was a keen watcher with a striking memory for detail and nuance, born from an early sensitivity to abandonment, as well as a need to schematise. As a real estate agent, at least for now, Bella subscribed to a variant of the Jesuit’s creed – Tell me where the child lived till seven and I will give you the adult. She was struck by the comfortable co-dependence of the women. So many of their friendships had started in primary school, sometimes even in kindergarten. Bella’s distance allowed her to disparage them – for being part of the hello darling crowd, for their narcissistic preening, for their somewhat vapid existence comprising visits to hairdressers, luncheons, parties, holidays at in places, and for their walkers – those effete toy boy confidantes who not only minced beside the women but resembled their owners’ toy dogs, offering pseudo-sympathy and insipid darling, how awful responses to their owner’s histrionic lamentations as they power walked a speedy passeggiata. Bella’s cynicism reflected the hardened defence of an outsider.
Her musings were interrupted by Claudia holding up a glass of Champagne near Bella’s face while her other hand clicked her mobile phone shut. Claudia had managed an eastern suburbs agency for a decade and had recently competed with Bella over a sale.
‘You’ve heard that I’ve got a new walker,’ she informed Bella. ‘Teddy White.’
‘That must be very recent.’ Bella responded warily. ‘I thought he was still walking Doris. You outbid her?’
Claudia gave a little laugh. ‘I encouraged him to trade up. Cream always rises to the surface.’
Bella snapped back, ‘Most things rise to the surface, Claudia. Even turds.’
‘And some to the occasion. Join us some afternoon, now that you’re living here. We meet outside Scots at around six these days and loop down to Redleaf Pool. We have lots of laughs.’ Claudia turned her head, seemingly looking for someone.
Bella air kissed Claudia’s cheeks, noting the slight swelling, evidence that Claudia had had another facelift.
Bella felt a firm tap on her shoulder. It was Belinda. ‘Brassy Belinda’ to Bella. Overdressed, overjewelled, overly direct and now all over Bella.
‘Bella, sweet. I hear that you are doing it so hard.’
Bella let her eyes drop. ‘It’s not so bad.’
‘You poor dear,’ offered Belinda, slightly patronisingly. ‘How long do people think Jack has got?’
‘Up to three months.’
‘That’s so sad. My condolences in having to wait so long. Although you haven’t been with him for long, I hear. Long enough?’
‘I think I can claim two years.’
‘The longer he lasts the better the case. Will you argue de facto status?’
‘We were never in that sort of relationship. My lawyer suggests I either argue grounds of Close Personal Relationship or Emotional Dependency.’
‘But of course. Although I’m not sure how one could be emotionally dependent on a demented geriatric.’
‘That’s cruel.’
Belinda spat, ‘Never said I wasn’t. Even though they named a park after him, he was not a nice person at any stage of his life. He’s still at his own home, I hear? And you?’
‘I stay there most nights. Check in with the evening nurse and also brief the morning nurse before I leave. His family want him in a nursing home but I’ve convinced him…’
Belinda laughed. ‘Convinced him? When he has no memory. You are a hoot, Bella.’
‘He does seem to understand me.’
Belinda smiled. ‘I bet he doesn’t understand you’ll be making a claim on his estate.’
Bella purred. ‘You’re being cruel again, Belinda.’
‘You’ve got to be cruel to be cruel. But you will claim? We’d all be so disappointed if you didn’t. And now I think we’re called in for the lunch. Isn’t it exciting?’
Bella allowed Belinda to walk ahead of her and sat at a table with five women quite unknown to her but with a clear view of the head table, where Nancy was scanning some speech notes.
Not only had Nancy conceived of the Trophettes, but she had also been smart enough to recognise they needed a raison d’être and a set of objectives, otherwise their luncheons would be just another luncheon. At this, the inaugural meeting, she welcomed the women warmly and established her chairmanship by setting out objectives with whimsical authority.
‘OK, girls. Cards on the table, although I’m not proposing a bridge club.’
The shrieks of laughter by two of the girls – a descriptor that would accompany them to their nursing homes – brought a brief smile from Nancy.
‘Most of our husbands are twenty to thirty years older than us. We married them for lots of reasons, sometimes even because we were in love. But we all – and I emphasise all as I know you all – married for one reason.’ She allowed the tension to rise before proceeding.
‘Because they had lots of moolah!’
The women leaned forward.
‘Because…?’ said Nancy.
The women chorused ‘…they had lots of moolah!’
Nancy beamed, and then became serious. ‘I’ve worked the demographics. Of the girls invited, and I’m delighted that most are here today, twelve of you married barristers, ten married senior executives and then there is a sprinkling of doctors and other odds and sods. Sods who are out of the house by five and not back till ten. And…’ here her eyes twinkled, ‘while the cat’s away the mice will play.’
Most of the women laughed.
‘I know you are unhappy in your marriages. A mandatory reason for inviting you. And many of us have been on the receiving end of a lot of crap. Judy – hi there, Judy! – was recently described in the paper as a gold digger. Cheap shot! So you – we – can continue to be maligned and feel like crap. Or we can unite. Some cynics believe our only task in life is to be physically attractive. But our beauty is more than skin deep. We have lots of capabilities. We don’t just posture around so that our husbands can impress other people. We’re not just trophies to be mounted.’
Susan smiled at Gloria. ‘Mounted?’
Nancy continued. ‘I want to unlock the inner power in all of us. To EMPOWER us. All of us. Even…’ and she looked around the room briefly before pointing, ‘…poor Bella.’
Bella felt shattered at being singled out for no clear reason. She jumped to her feet and yelled at Nancy, ‘Are you for real with this psychobabble, Nancy? Going to invite us as workers to unite? Tell us that we have nothing to lose but our gold chains? I hope you’re not going to get us to sing “The Internationale”.’
Nancy gave Bella her most gracious look. ‘Bella, darling. Don’t be a bitch. Lighten up. I know you’ve been doing it hard. We’re just here to have fun.’
Bella walked to the aisle, and with her arms folded, glared at Nancy.
Nancy simply smiled briefly at her before turning to face the room of female clones with perfect hair and manicured nails and svelte designer-dressed bodies.
‘So, girls. Our husbands have peaked and it’s all downhill. They’re no longer good in bed unless you count snoring, gagging and farting. They’re tired all the time. They’re all bog boring in talking about their golf. They’re no longer fun, apart from making fun at us. I’m not sugg
esting we strike back, simply that we have a bit of collective fun at their expense. Nothing personal. Just a tat for tit strategy. So the proposal is that we meet here once a month and each of you take turns in giving a tutorial. I’ve already invited the first two speakers, ’cos we know they’re so good. Next month Jill will give a tutorial on what strategies to use so you squirrel away the maximum amount from your husband’s accounts without him noticing. I’m going to call her our financial advisor.’ Nancy gave Jill a tender look and then waved at Jenny. ‘And Jenny is our dietician. Her July tutorial will cover the top ten recipes for increasing your husband’s cholesterol and ensuring he carks it in less than five years. And if those tutes cut it for you I’ll organise more topics.’ She grinned at the attendees. ‘Deal or no deal?’
She was met with cries of ‘Deal!’, giggles, a burst of applause and one woman shrieking out, ‘And you, Nancy, will be our Goldmother.’ The Trophettes were launched.
Bella muttered, ‘All amateurs,’ under her breath. She glowered at Nancy before striding out of the room. Belinda had been predictable. But Nancy had shattered her expectations. She would bring Nancy down for certain.
FRUITFUL TO BARREN YEARS
Martin loved being married to Sarah. The long hours he spent as a resident doctor enriched the hours they spent together. In the evenings, they would prepare a meal together, eat it slowly to assess their accruing skills, sip cask wine, discuss their day’s events, watch TV for an hour or two, or work on the refurbishment of their Paddington apartment before going to bed. There they would lie, an arm under the head of the other or with hands touching, chatting and enjoying the other’s world and their combined aspirations.
Sarah had graduated and was debating whether to remain as an occupational therapist in the hospital system, trial a community centre or work at a charity providing services for paraplegic and quadriplegic men.
Martin found all his rotations as a junior doctor satisfying and rewarding. He embraced most challenges, even minor surgery. He was surprised at the high level of satisfaction he felt when he performed an appendectomy, particularly if he had correctly predicted from his clinical examination that it would be found lying at three o’clock, nine o’clock or some other direction. He found even greater satisfaction from performing a tonsillectomy, gently carving the tonsil out of its bed – an act he suspected as close to sculpting – and in ensuring that there were no bleeders so as to avoid the embarrassment of having to take the child back to theatre. But what he most enjoyed was chatting to patients, so he comfortably rejected being a proceduralist. After long discussions with Sarah and two medical mentors, he chose to be a general practitioner.
As did his longstanding mate, Dave Bradbury.
Such a choice harnessed Martin’s strengths, especially his empathy. As a junior hospital doctor, Martin, when assessing a patient, would smile warmly at them, his eyes twinkling with genial friendliness. He introduced himself and his objectives, invited any questions about his role, and asked open-ended questions that allowed the patient to offer their story in their own words. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully. In response to every point made by a patient he offered a reassuring, sometimes whimsical observation, encouraging the patient to trust him. General practice was a good fit for his medical skills and he knew he would enjoy looking after patients over time, helping them deal with their medical problems and also getting to know them at a more meaningful level beyond medicine.
After completing general practitioner training, Martin and Dave joined a six-man practice at Killara.
Martin and Sarah bought a small house at West Turramurra with an affordable mortgage and reasonable commuting times, as Sarah had taken a position at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. And it was a ten-minute drive to Edina’s. They made sure Edina had an evening meal with them each week and, often, after the meal, Edina would give Martin a tutorial on the rhetorical culture of words such as anáphora, enargia, trope and pathos, explaining how Cicero’s rhetorical strategies had been taken up by orators such as Lincoln and Churchill.
These sessions gave Martin a greater sense of the power of speech and he recognised that, in pursuing a medical career, he was using workaday prose and suppressing his more expressive voice, and they evoked warm memories of his early years when Edina had sought to enhance his knowledge and love of words – from abecedarius to zeugma.
Martin worked sixty-hour weeks in the practice. Patients in the practice slowly began to choose him. He was caring, kind, considerate and interested in them. He smiled a lot and laughed readily, sometimes laughter infusing every sentence of his consultation, an extension of his warmth and agreeableness. While unaware of Maimonides’ injunction – In the sufferer let me see only the human being – he put the patient above the technical aspects of medical practice. He also unconsciously operated to the Karl Menninger injunction – When in doubt, be human – whether in relation to an elderly patient potentially moving with a repel all boarders attitude from their home to a nursing home or in treating those with painful and enervating medical conditions.
Martin had moved through the phase of infatuation to viewing Sarah as his best friend. He loved her deeply and felt further defined as a person by her love.
Sarah similarly loved Martin but judged she needed to further define herself. As a mother. She came off the pill.
Both anticipated she would quickly become pregnant. They enjoyed their sexual life, essentially an extension of their pleasure in holding each other and, at least for Martin, a time when he might ever so briefly surrender control. However, for those key times of Sarah’s cycle the act lost its spontaneity. Sarah would tell him he was on duty that night, and he had to ensure they docked in the optimal position.
Martin, ever conscientious, knew he was more operating on automatic pilot, engaged in a labour of love. He would lighten things by bantering, often claiming that he was getting labour pains.
After two years, Martin suggested that they each undertake some investigations.
Each carried their worries and pre-diagnostic guilt – as well as Martin’s injunction about no blame, team game to their evaluation. It took only a brief period to clear Martin’s sperm count and to establish that Sarah had compromised fertility, most likely due to a previously undiagnosed polycystic ovary syndrome. Sarah’s guilt converted from free floating to rational.
She was prescribed several medications but all were unsuccessful.
They both moved to the next, demanding stage of in vitro fertilisation. Martin gave Sarah the hormone injections to increase her egg supply but Sarah still needed to attend the centre frequently for testing of hormone levels, to estimate when her ova might best be collected, to receive the HCG injection that would trigger egg release (and make her uncharacteristically irritable), to have some of those eggs collected the next day – with Sarah preferring general rather than local anaesthesia. Martin (despite being a doctor and highly rational) was embarrassed providing the sperm sample for fertilising some of those eggs. Then they would wait up to four days for the call – or worse and more commonly, no call, no fertilisation – to tell them that fertilisation had occurred and, on those rare occasions, Sarah would return three days later to the day surgery suite to have those eggs, now embryos, inserted through her cervix. And then, the worst period of waiting in terms of time (a whole two weeks after the embryo transfer) and psychological impact (uncertainty). During these intervals she might have a period but Martin would reassure her that she could still be pregnant. On most occasions her pregnancy tests were negative.
‘But Sarah. You’ve returned a positive pregnancy test five times.’
‘Yes, but each time I’ve lost the embryo.’
‘You got to three months with one.’
‘I know you are being encouraging, Martin, but I feel such a failure.’
Fear, anxiety and anger oscillated as Sarah’s baseline emotions. In bed, they tended to hug and stroke each other before and after waking, each aware that their sexual in
terest in the other was minimal, that the IVF procedures dampened its relevance and the act of sex increasingly began to feel foreign to Sarah.
After two years – a year longer than was logical, as they knew from the literature and their consultant – they withdrew from the IVF program. Martin raised options during a particularly fraught discussion with Sarah, aware that she needed to move from her longstanding failure is not an option position to focus on options rather than on failure. While adoption was the one that they were most drawn to, they had reservations.
The discussion ended with Martin stating they needed to keep their options open but both knew they would never have children, that this would be their private pain, while Sarah inflicted further pain on herself by including the descriptor barren in her self-image.
Both increased their work hours, Sarah drank more at dinner, they generally made excuses to not attend friends’ children’s birthday parties, and Martin observed a gravity in Sarah unusual for a woman in her early thirties.
A DAY AT THE RACES AND SOME HORSING AROUND
Bella’s longest period of employment was as an assistant to the development and fundraising manager at a private school, a position she got entirely on her merits but lost when some demerits accrued.
She had met the school bursar, Todd Green, at the Saturday races at Randwick when Todd, struck by the allure of her walk, whistled out to her from a sponsor’s tent.
Bella was trying to walk with a high step and a light land, both effected daintily in her mind, but somewhat compromised by her excessively high heels and having drunk too many ‘black snakes’ and by her rage at her escort, who had refused to continue to give her betting money. Her long-sleeved dress had edged slightly up her rump, her cleavage exposed by a missing button, the feather on her perky little hat somewhat downcast, and her face reddened by the heat and the recent argument. Todd’s whistle caused her to turn around with her eyes widening in mild anger.
In Two Minds Page 3