The Secret Lives of Men

by Georgia Blain

  Margaret slammed the door behind her, leaving the rest of them under the glare of the kitchen light.

  ‘What was that?’ Lila asked, opening the door to her bedroom, her eyes round with the possibility of a drama unfolding.

  ‘It was nothing,’ Eloise told her, and Hamish picked her up, turning her upside down as she giggled.

  ‘Should I go after her?’ Eloise asked Justin. He was still sitting in the armchair, the shards of china scattered around his feet.

  ‘If you feel the need to give that kind of behaviour attention, be my guest,’ and he shrugged his shoulders. Then he sighed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Eloise felt guilty. Margaret was her friend, and she should be asking her, but Margaret’s mood had been pissing her off. She and Hamish had whispered about it at night, Eloise tentative: Margaret was always tense, difficult to be around; God knows how Justin had put up with her for all these years; and then, ashamed, Eloise would backtrack. Justin’s passiveness would send anyone into a fury and there was also the whole child issue: Margaret had always wanted a kid; Justin had always refused.

  Justin kicked the pieces of china into a pile. ‘She’s just being Margaret. She hates her new job, she’s sick of our house being unrenovated, she wants to move. Who knows? It could be anything.’ He rolled his eyes and turned to the door. ‘I’ll go and get her.’

  Margaret worked in corporate communications for a large finance firm. Her days were long, and she always had her mobile with her, taking quick calls on the balcony at all hours. Justin was a gardener.

  ‘I wish he’d get a bloody job,’ she said sometimes, ‘instead of relying on me to take care of everything.’

  He did have a job, Eloise would venture. Justin’s work was sporadic, but when it came in, he earned enough to cover his half of the expenses.

  Margaret laughed. ‘Fuck. It’s not like he can keep doing that forever.’

  Each morning Margaret ran. She ran for miles, coming back slick with sweat, her breathing heavy, her shorts and singlet in a crumpled heap outside the bathroom door as she showered. Pinching the roll of flesh above the waistband of Justin’s shorts, she would take a nectarine from the bowl on the table and then eat it slowly. That was her breakfast, sometimes her lunch as well.

  Hamish cooked scrambled eggs for everyone else, including Holly and the boys. Eloise would always think about saying no because she hated how overweight she was becoming, but then she would smell them and tell him that she’d like a half serve, with just one piece of toast.

  Sometimes when she washed the dishes, he would put his arms around her waist, burying his mouth in her hair. ‘Reckon we could sneak off?’ he asked one morning.

  Outside the kitchen window, she could see Holly kicking the soccer ball to Lila, trying to keep it away from her three sons. ‘Not now,’ she told him.

  Lila kicked the ball hard and held up both arms in a victory salute.

  ‘Holly’s on her own,’ Eloise said. ‘And Margaret and Justin are fighting.’

  ‘So?’

  He was already tanned from a few days on the beach and he smelt salty and warm. As he kissed her again, she poked him in the ribs. ‘Go and play soccer with Holly,’ she said. ‘She shouldn’t have to take care of Lila as well.’

  ‘What’s with Margaret?’ Holly asked later that day, when the two of them sat under the umbrella.

  Eloise tried to explain, but she soon found the excuses she was making on her friend’s behalf dwindling, feeble. ‘If she hates her work as much as she says, she should leave. It’s not like she doesn’t have money. And if Justin is making her so miserable, she should leave him, too.’ She wiped the sand off her hands and stood to join the children in the water.

  Holly looked up at her. And then she said something that surprised Eloise. ‘You know, I sometimes wondered whether Margaret had a thing for Andrew.’

  ‘Really?’ The thought had never occurred to Eloise. Andrew and Margaret had seemed to enjoy each other’s company, but then Andrew was always charming and flirtatious with women. Too much so. He’d had, unbeknownst to any of them, several affairs during his ten years with Holly. But surely not Margaret? ‘She would never have done anything.’ Eloise realised her response sounded hesitant.

  Holly just shrugged.

  ‘She’s your friend,’ Eloise said.

  ‘Friends don’t always behave like friends.’

  The sand was burning the soles of Eloise’s feet, and she shifted from left to right, waiting as Holly also stood to go for a swim. At the water’s edge, Lila jumped in and out of the waves, while Holly’s two younger boys dug a hole in the wet sand.

  ‘Last one in is a rotten egg,’ Holly called out to them as she raced down to the ocean, leaping over the castle they had built, her body showing no sign of having given birth to three children.

  ‘Just luck,’ Holly had said when Margaret had once asked her how she stayed so thin without ever exercising.

  That night they had played cards.

  Holly had brought the boys over and put them to bed on the floor of Lila’s room using cushions from the couch. A southerly had blown in, and the windows rattled, straining on their catches. Eloise washed the dishes this time: while she finished the last of the pots, Margaret dealt.

  ‘Gin rummy,’ she said, with only Hamish daring to protest that he found the game boring.

  Justin held up the joint he had rolled, checking its perfect shape with some pride, before passing it to Holly to light. She passed it on to Margaret, who also declined, glaring at Justin as she did so. ‘As if you need to get any slower.’

  ‘It’s a holiday,’ Eloise said, regretting it as soon as she did so.

  Eloise played two rounds of cards and then said she’d had enough.

  ‘Canasta?’ Hamish suggested, now that there were only four of them at the table.

  They paired up, and Eloise sat on the couch, flicking through the magazines that had been left by previous tenants. Bored, she picked up Hamish’s camera and scanned through all the pictures he had taken. It was a shock to see herself. She looked older than she imagined, with the body of a middle-aged woman, a sunburnt nose and a toothy smile. There was one that particularly appalled her: she was struggling to put up the beach umbrella, her sarong flapping in the wind, making her even larger, her hat an old piece of cloth — while standing to her right were Margaret and Holly, tall, slim and strong. She glanced up at Hamish, who was focused on his cards, and then pushed the delete button. Scrolling through the rest, she began to delete every image that had her in it, even those where she was in the background.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Eloise lied.

  ‘Come and sit with us.’ His eyes were glazed from the joint.

  Later, in bed, he wanted to have sex, and she pushed him away.

  ‘They’ll hear us,’ she said, pointing in the direction of the room where Margaret and Justin were sleeping.

  He turned to her in the darkness. ‘What’s brought this on?’

  She couldn’t even attempt to explain. ‘I’m just not in the mood,’ she told him, her voice crosser than she had intended.

  He took his arm away from her, leaving her cold, as he moved away and went to sleep.

  Margaret was at the back door, putting on her running shoes, when Eloise came out the next morning. The southerly had passed, and the day was washed clean, new and fragile.

  ‘Want to go for a walk instead?’

  Margaret seemed surprised, her expression almost gentle, as she stopped tying her laces. ‘You look like Lila.’ She smiled, and then stood and stretched, one leg lunging forward, the other behind her. ‘Why don’t I meet you at Bull Pup, and we can walk back together around the rocks?’

  Opening the flyscreen at the back of Holly’s house, Eloise
called out. ‘Come for a walk? The boys are still asleep at our place.’

  Holly was already in her swimmers. She put on a shirt and took her oldest son’s cap from where it lay on the floor.

  The tide was out, with only a slight swell rolling into the broad sweep of hard wet sand. They walked briskly, the sky above still pale. Eloise laughed a little about Lila being in love with Josh, Holly’s oldest boy. She had found them top-and-tailing on the mattress on the floor, legs entwined, their faces calm in the deep sleep of childhood. It was good for him to be friends with a girl, Holly said. He had always been so dismissive of them in the past.

  As they neared the end of the beach, they dropped their towels on the sand and went into the sea. The tides had been cold that summer, the water like ice, an aching grip on each limb. This morning, however, it was warmer. Eloise swam out, floating on her back as the roll of the ocean lifted her and then let her fall. She was going to be designing a block of apartments when she returned to the city, and she found herself thinking about it each time she was alone (which wasn’t often), her thoughts trying to wrap around her approach. She played with the possibility of something more organic, less linear than she had originally considered, visualising the site to see whether it would work. The idea was exciting, and as she swam in, she considered going straight back to the house to take some notes. But then she remembered her promise to herself that she would exercise more often; besides, all the kids would be up now and there would be no solitude.

  Drying herself with her towel, she told Holly she was almost looking forward to getting back to work. ‘I guess it hasn’t been that pleasant here this year,’ she added.

  ‘With Margaret?’

  Eloise nodded.

  The path over the headland was sandy at first. As they climbed higher, it became matted with straw grass, the sharp twigs buried beneath the surface forcing them to put their shoes back on. As they emerged from a dense clump of casuarinas, the kangaroos that were grazing glanced up, on watch as they passed.

  ‘What made you think she and Andrew liked each other?’

  Holly considered this. ‘It was when we separated. Margaret was so keen to know all the details. And when I told her about his affairs, she was incensed.’

  Eloise still found it hard to believe.

  ‘There was something in her manner,’ Holly said. ‘She’s so unhappy with Justin. She’s so unhappy with everything. I guess that’s when you’re likely to sleep with your friend’s partner.’

  ‘Maybe she did sleep with Andrew.’ Eloise knew her words were a betrayal, but she was angry with Margaret, and so she uttered them, not liking herself for voicing something she knew was probably untrue. ‘I listen to her going on about how much she hates work and how unhappy she is with Justin, and most of the time I’m too scared to do anything other than let her speak. And then I feel like I’m colluding.’ It was the most disloyal she had been. ‘There is so much that is likeable about her,’ she rushed to add. ‘Or there was. You know, she can be so biting and funny and lively …’

  Holly seized her arm, just above the wrist, and she stopped, panicked for a second that she was about to tread on a snake.

  ‘What?’ she asked, and she turned just slightly to the left and saw Margaret, sitting on the rocks at the bottom of the track, only a few metres away, but surely too far off to have heard what they were saying? Eloise raised her arm in greeting, feeling a flush of colour on her cheeks.

  Margaret didn’t move. With her eyes on Eloise, she stayed perfectly still, and then she stood and began to walk down the beach.

  ‘Wait,’ Eloise called out, knowing she had no chance of catching up unless Margaret chose to slow down. ‘Please.’

  At the edge of the rocky outcrop that separated Bull Pup from the next bay, Margaret turned.

  ‘Why are you just walking off?’ Eloise knew it was a cowardly question.

  Margaret’s face was pale.

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ Eloise said, feeling ill as she recalled her conversation with Holly, unsure as to what Margaret would have overheard.

  ‘It’s easy for you,’ Margaret eventually said. ‘You have work you love and you have Lila.’ Bending down to pick up a stick, Margaret’s voice trailed off. ‘I won’t have a kid.’

  They had been friends since high school. In all those years, Margaret had been the one everyone liked: she was funny and attractive, she was bright, and Eloise had always felt privileged to have Margaret as a friend. Now, Eloise found herself wishing that their world hadn’t spun as it had, that it was still Margaret who was blessed, and her standing in the shadow. That would be easier, she thought in a sudden rush of guilt. That was what she wanted to apologise for, but how could you do that? Instead they had both promised they would each try harder to make the friendship work, and there on the rocks, she had wanted to believe it was possible. Then, looking behind her, Eloise saw that Holly had gone. She must have walked back over the headland, leaving the two of them alone. It was only much later that Eloise wondered at how neatly she had extricated herself.

  Back at the house, Margaret showered and went into the bedroom where Justin was still asleep. The kids were over at Holly’s and Hamish had gone for a swim. Eloise sat on the verandah and closed her eyes.

  Once, years earlier, when Hamish had told Eloise he was not sure if he loved her enough to have children, she had gone to Margaret’s house in the middle of the night and knocked on the door until she opened it. Eloise had cried with complete abandonment, unable to stop the tears and explain why she was there.

  ‘He doesn’t love me,’ she managed.

  Margaret said nothing, just took Eloise’s arm and led her inside, and laid her down on the other side of her bed, holding her around the waist, trying to soothe her with the warmth of her body.

  ‘It’s just what men say,’ Margaret told her. ‘It’s his last fight from the corner, but he loves you. He’ll have a kid with you.’

  Eloise eventually slept, with Margaret curled close, one arm flung across her stomach, her breath warm and even on her neck. This is what it would be like to be lovers with Margaret, Eloise thought, as sleep began to cloak her consciousness. And she wondered at all the men who had been with Margaret and left her, choosing to turn their back on the sweetness of this place.

  Eloise never wrote to Margaret. She composed numerous letters in her head, and she occasionally picked up her phone and brought up her contact details — once, she even drove down her street only to turn around. And then, six months after that last holiday, the one in which there had been just her, Hamish and Holly in the one house, Hamish had told her he was leaving, and she had thought she would die. He was in love with Holly, he said, and although she could see that he, too, was pained, she didn’t care. When, she wanted to know. Why?

  She wanted only to hurt him as much as he hurt her, because she would wake in the middle of the night and remember coming back from the beach to find them both sitting on the verandah, or perhaps it was just Holly she saw, running down into the ocean, kicking the soccer ball with the boys, eating the food that Hamish cooked, telling them all that splitting up with Andrew had been the best thing that could have happened to her; and Eloise would call Hamish then, abusing him in the middle of the night, crying and begging him to tell her it had all been a terrible mistake.

  But the intensity ultimately passed, leaving her with regret for all she had failed to see, and it was not just Hamish and Holly she didn’t notice. She found a photograph from the holidays they all used to have together, one of the few she had not deleted. She stood in between them both, Margaret and Holly on either side of her. She remembered how inadequate she always felt, yet as she saw herself there in that image, she liked the wide smile, the light in her eyes, the freckles on her nose, and she could tell how happy she once was. She just wished she’d known it at the time.

  Her
Boredom Trick

  When Clara finally arrives, not only is she late, but she also has her dog with her. Sinead watches as it leaps from the car, Clara letting go of the lead because she needs the little strength she has in her arms to get herself out of the driver’s seat, her scarves catching in the door as she shuts it behind her.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Sinead mutters, her mother infuriating her already. ‘I told her not to bring that animal.’

  The dog bounds up the stairs, and Sinead steps in front of her daughter, Zoe, before it tries to mount her, something Zoe hates — even more so now she has some notion of what sex is, thanks to the older boys in her composite grade 3/4 class.

  ‘Down,’ Sinead orders, but it’s useless. ‘We can’t take her.’ She glares at Clara, who is gathering Zoe in the folds of her loose-fitting kimono jacket, and kissing her on the top of her head. ‘You know she has nits,’ Sinead adds, but Clara continues to kiss her granddaughter.

  ‘I don’t have nits,’ Zoe says. ‘You combed them out last night.’

  ‘Lice?’ Clara, oblivious to Zoe’s attempts to squirm out of her hold, kisses her again. ‘I’m sure they’ll give me just the protein I need.’ She turns to Sinead. ‘Shall we go?’

  First, there is the matter of the dog. It pants, next to them. They cannot take her. Sinead’s voice is terse. ‘We’re looking at houses. The real estate agents won’t want her inside.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tie her up outside,’ Clara replies.

  ‘I don’t want her in the car.’

  She’ll be fine, Clara promises. Besides, if she has to take her all the way back, they’ll be so late it won’t be worth going. ‘And I know you don’t want me leaving her at your house.’

  ‘Come on,’ Zoe urges, fed up with waiting.

  ‘On one condition.’ Sinead has her arms folded across her chest. ‘You pay for my car to be cleaned, if she’s sick.’

  ‘Of course I would, darling.’ Clara has already opened the back door and let the dog jump in on top of Zoe. ‘You know you don’t even need to ask.’