The Three of Us

by Kim Lock

  About The Three of Us

  A life lived in the shadows. A love that should never have been hidden.

  In the small town of Gawler, South Australia, the tang of cut grass and eucalyptus mingles on the warm air. The neat houses perched under the big gum on Church Street have been home to many over the years. Years of sprinklers stuttering over clipped lawns, children playing behind low brick walls. Family barbecues. Gossipy neighbours. Arguments. Accidents. Births, deaths, marriages. This ordinary street has seen it all.

  Until the arrival of newlyweds Thomas and Elsie Mullet. And when one day Elsie spies a face in the window of the silent house next door, nothing will ever be ordinary again . . .

  In Kim Lock’s third novel of what really goes on behind closed doors, she weaves the tale of three people with one big secret; a story of fifty years of friendship, betrayal, loss and laughter in a heartwarming depiction of love against the odds.

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Three of Us

  Contents

  Dedication

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Part II

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Part III

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Part IV

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Part V

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Acknowledgements

  About Kim Lock

  Also by Kim Lock

  Copyright Page

  For my mum, Julie

  The office of Harvey Greene, BPsych

  Recently

  Thomas Mullet wanted the shrink to turn off the CCTV camera.

  He considered the possibility that the camera was a fake, mounted there only as a precaution, its dark eye sightless beneath its plastic dome in the corner of the ceiling. Still, it made him nervous. Not because Thomas had anything of particular malevolence to hide – no, not at all. The camera made him nervous because he wondered about the malevolence of others who had sat on this same brown corduroy couch in the psychologist’s office, in front of that same coffee table with its floral box of tissues. (The tissues made him uncomfortable, too. Tissues were for pansies.) CCTV cameras were everywhere these days, Thomas knew. Service stations, traffic lights – Christ, they even had them in taxis, lenses mounted by the rear-vision mirror to protect drivers from horrible things like assault and fare evasion. Cameras didn’t always deter people from doing the wrong thing, but the footage did make it easier to catch the bad guy after the wrong thing had already been done.

  Which was precisely why the camera made Thomas nervous. Because it made the past inescapable. And Thomas had a lot of past. Decades upon decades of the stuff.

  The shrink noticed Thomas’s gaze. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t record audio.’

  Thomas was uncertain if that was a relief or not. Resisting the urge to cup his hand around the side of his face, he shifted on the brown couch. Piled at the other end of the couch was a heap of colourful throw pillows, and he wondered if he was he supposed to use them. Lay his head back, put his feet up, affect some kind of dream-analysing Freudian pose?

  He sincerely hoped not.

  The psychologist’s name was Harvey Greene. A short and balding lad, he was chubby in a welcoming, friendly kind of way. (Elsie would probably use the term ‘cuddly’, Thomas thought.) When Harvey had sat down in the armchair opposite Thomas, his shirt tightened across his middle and his trousers rode up, exposing a strip of naked skin at the top of his socks. If Thomas were a betting man, he’d estimate the psych wasn’t a day over forty. He wondered, with a sense of doubt, if that made him qualified enough.

  ‘So,’ the shrink began, lightly, ‘what can I do for you today?’

  Thomas opened his mouth then shut it again. The only window in the room was behind him, a bay window covered in folds of sheer white fabric. Light was let in yet privacy was retained. From outside came the buzz of a whipper snipper in a nearby garden; galahs shrieked. Ordinary suburban sounds, in what felt like an ordinary suburban lounge room, to remind him that he was somewhere safe and ordinary. The plaque by the front door of what Thomas assumed must be Harvey Greene’s actual home read A place of sanctuary.

  The shrink was still looking at him, without expectation.

  ‘I’ve got cancer,’ Thomas finally blurted.

  ‘I see,’ the shrink said.

  ‘You do?’

  Harvey Greene didn’t reply, he merely kept looking at Thomas.

  ‘So the docs say it’s got me,’ Thomas went on. ‘Not much time left. They don’t know how long, exactly, just that there’s bugger-all they can do if I don’t want chemo – which I don’t, blow that for a joke – so my time’s now pretty limited.’

  The psych glanced down at his clipboard. ‘You’re seventy-five?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Harvey maintained his benign gaze and Thomas panicked over what to say next. The silence elongated and
fattened, like a sausage suspended over a smoking grill.

  The psychologist must have decided to give Thomas an opening. Another brief glance at his clipboard and he said, ‘How long have you been married?’

  ‘A long time.’ Thomas answered. He hesitated, calculating. ‘More than fifty years. Missus isn’t here to tell me.’

  Harvey chuckled. Went silent again.

  Thomas sighed. ‘Look, doctor, to be honest I’m not exactly sure . . .’ he waved his hands, hoping the shrink would rightly infer that he was uncomfortable as hell.

  Harvey set the clipboard aside and smiled suddenly. ‘Would it help if I reassured you that I’m not a doctor?’

  Thomas considered it. ‘Probably would. Less pressure.’

  ‘Right. We’re just having a yarn. No pressure, no tests. You’ve had a lot of those already, I imagine. There’s no right or wrong here. So, what do you want to talk about?’

  Thomas felt himself relax somewhat and for that he had to give credit to the shrink. Although his corporeal loosening could have been caused by the two codeine he’d swallowed before coming here, too.

  ‘The doctors say it started up the rear end,’ he said. ‘You know. The back-area business.’

  The psychologist offered, ‘Cancer of the bowel?’

  Thomas gave a brusque nod. ‘But then it spread.’ He gestured the length of his body, indicating the cancer’s domain.

  Harvey made a sympathetic noise. ‘How is your wife coping with your illness?’

  This was where Thomas felt himself clamming up again. With great reluctance he managed to get out, ‘She doesn’t know.’

  The shrink waited. No judgement in his expression.

  ‘That’s kind of why I’m here. I looked it up on the internet bizzo. The Goggle, or whatever you people call it. The grandkids are always going on about it. I looked up what to do about . . . well, when you don’t really know what to do about things.’ Inwardly Thomas cursed himself. He sounded like a fool.

  ‘I completely understand,’ Harvey said, sounding to Thomas like he did, in fact, understand completely. ‘So you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, and you haven’t yet told your wife.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And the illness is . . . ?’

  ‘Terminal. Yep. I’m on borrowed time.’

  ‘Okay. So, I assume you’d like to tell your wife, but you don’t know how?’

  Thomas hesitated. He’d gotten this far, but there was a truckload more the shrink didn’t know. If Elsie were here, she’d recommend the Band Aid approach. Rip it off quickly, get it over and done with. But how does one tear such an opening, with a camera in the corner of the room, to a baby-faced lad whose usual clientele was probably weepy, sleep-deprived new mothers and teenagers who just needed to get a job and a decent haircut?

  ‘It’s not only my wife I haven’t told. It’s my other . . .’ Christ, he was sweating. He wondered if he might be sick. ‘I sort of have . . .’

  Rip it.

  ‘Well, you see, there’s my wife and also there’s . . .’

  Rip it, you silly bastard.

  ‘I have two wives.’

  The shrink said, ‘Okay, Mr Mullet. How about we start at the beginning?’

  Part I

  Husband and wife

  1

  Thomas Mullet considered 1960 as the year he devoted to suction.

  Electrolux’s ‘Luxomatic’ was the first of a new generation of vacuum cleaners, boasting a dust-indicator light that demonstrated when the bag was full, a cord winder and self-sealing bags. There was much to be excited about with this extraordinary range of modern household appliance, and his enthusiasm for sucking was contagious amongst colleagues and customers alike. He knew that – and that’s why he was so damn good at his job.

  Escorted to his boss’s office by his boss’s secretary, Thomas sat now and considered the Luxomatic poster on the wall as he waited for Bagnoli. He also appreciated that his boss’s office was the best location in the building to avoid the stink from the fertiliser factory half a mile away: a heady, noxious smell that permeated the rest of the building whenever the breeze came in from the south-east. As it was today.

  The door smacked open against the wall. ‘Thomas,’ Bagnoli said. ‘You’ve topped the sales charts this month. Again.’ Mr Bagnoli’s chin remained almost indiscernible within the clutches of his jowls. Biceps like watermelons strained against rolled-up shirt sleeves. He bestowed upon Thomas a handshake and clap on the shoulder that left Thomas’s entire arm aching.

  ‘I see big things in your future.’ Mr Bagnoli migrated into his chair like a whale to warmer seas, and the chair let out a shriek. ‘Much to Watson’s consternation,’ he added.

  The mention of Thomas’s colleague brought a prickle of irritation, but his polite smile stayed painted on as Bagnoli’s secretary, Sophie, rushed in and dropped a sheaf of papers on the desk. The chair whined again as Bagnoli leaned sideways to linger over the hourglass of Sophie’s retreating figure. ‘As a result,’ he went on, straightening up, ‘and with your obvious qualities as a decent family man, I’m happy to say that head of sales is yours if you want it.’

  Thomas beamed. ‘I’m honoured, sir.’ Take that, Watson, he thought. It didn’t take a fancy motorcar and two figurative fingers inserted rectally into one’s boss in order to progress one’s career. Hard work, integrity and a fine reputation could produce admirable numbers, too.

  ‘So, the big day tomorrow, huh?’

  Nerves kicked his stomach as he nodded.

  ‘Make your honeymoon count, won’t you?’ Bagnoli gave him a wink. ‘I want you back here raring to go in a week – so get it all out of your system, eh?’

  Much laughter, shoulder clapping and more flesh jiggling ensued, before Thomas was set free for his first week of holidays in almost three years.

  2

  Elsie Rushall stood by the closed door of her manager’s office, mentally composing herself. After taking a couple of bracing breaths, she squared her shoulders and rapped on the door.

  ‘What?’ a voice snarled from inside.

  Cigarette smoke seeped out when she cracked the door open. ‘It’s me, sir.’ She tried not to cough. ‘Elsie.’

  ‘Sweetheart! Come in, come in.’

  Elsie stepped into the office and closed the door. Clouds of smoke clung to the ceiling and she parted her lips to breathe discreetly through her mouth.

  ‘Elsie,’ Mr Johnston said. ‘Have a seat, love.’

  Her skirt rode up when she sat. Automatically she tugged at it, to keep the hem below her knees.

  On his desk, a photo of Mrs Gregory Johnston and two cherubic toddlers angled towards her. Their straw-blond hair was combed to a shine, and Mrs Johnston’s brown waves were tucked neatly around her ears, her blouse collar pressed against her clavicle. Elsie had seen this photo every day and yet, had it ever mocked her before? From the first time she had walked into Mr Johnston’s office, on the day of her interview eighteen months ago, this picture had reminded her of a photograph her mother kept on the mantle in the living room: Elsie’s eldest sister, Rose, eleven months after her wedding with a perfect, bonneted baby in her arms. Model children, dimpled with milk fat and healthful as freshly scrubbed new potatoes. Both Mrs Johnston and Elsie’s sister had been immortalised wearing the same expression: eyes squinting slightly, lips pursed in a knowing smile, smug serenity oozing from the frame.

  ‘Sweetheart.’ Mr Johnston sparked up another Lucky Strike. ‘What have you got for me?’

  She hesitated before handing over the letter. Neatly typed, perfectly punctuated and with impeccable grammar unmatched by her fellow secretaries. After a cursory glance at her letter of resignation, he set it aside.

  ‘I was expecting this earlier.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Johnston. I was unsure whether –’

  ‘Doesn’t
matter,’ he waved his hand, ‘the wedding’s tomorrow, in any case.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Elsie couldn’t help a smile.

  ‘Congratulations to you both.’ Smoke puffed from his lips and dissolved into the haze hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘Best wishes, sir.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘You say “best wishes” to the bride. It’s feared congratulations imply that a bride tricked or won over her groom, as though he might otherwise not have married her.’ She smoothed her skirt. ‘Congratulations are for the groom.’

  Mr Johnston laughed. ‘I won’t say I won’t miss you, sweetheart. Now get out of here – your resignation was effective this morning.’

  With one final glance at the photograph, Elsie left Mr Johnston’s office for the last time.

  In the lunch room, she nibbled at a slice of Sadie’s prize-winning lemon sponge. (Sadie’s sponge had taken out first prize at the local show for the first time that year. In doing so, she’d thumped Mrs Sidebottom from her fifteen-year lemon sponge reign, much to the consternation of Mrs Sidebottom’s staunch troop of supporters.) A handful of the Gawler Town Council’s other secretaries milled about the tea room, having snatched a few minutes from their duties to wish their now-former colleague well in her new life as a married woman.

  Dora, widowed when her husband met German machine gun fire at El Alamein, made tea and ranted beneath her breath about archaic laws. ‘Menzies really should do something about that marriage bar,’ she said. ‘Who says a lady can’t have a job and a family? Besides, when all the men went off to fight, who was left to do the hard work here? Me. Us. We women took on the men’s jobs and we did them well. I worked with the Women’s Land Army. Drove a hay-carting truck, fixed the tractor when it broke a fan belt – used Fred the old draught horse’s reins – and we –’

  May scoffed. ‘Didn’t you see that poll in Woman’s Day? Six to one are still in favour of it. A woman’s place is with her family. The war’s long over. It’s not proper to take away a man’s ability to support his family. Leave the jobs to the men and we can get on with running our homes.’ Smiling at Elsie, May finished up, ‘I’ll be married in December. Best wishes to you, dear.’