The Three of Us

by Kim Lock

  13

  A few weeks later, Elsie was – yet again – eating her tea alone.

  These days, Thomas was rarely home before dark. Summer had resigned and by late March a cool autumn was tucked across the earth. Earlier each day the sun towed the violet night over the horizon. With Thomas doing house calls now, his work regularly stretched into the evenings. He took the latest Electrolux into homes, settled himself into families and demonstrated the powerful suction and host of modern features designed to make a housewife’s life easier. He came home with tales of yawning children lined up on the couch as he convinced their parents to purchase the machine designed to suck more impressively than anything they had ever owned.

  After setting the table for two, Elsie sat down and ate her lamb chops slowly, staring at the empty plate she had set for Thomas. His chops were warming in the oven, but they would be dried and chewy by the time he got home. The house ticked and creaked with a bloated quiet and although she wished Thomas were here, she was relieved for the peace of it.

  Her mother and sister, Lila, had visited today.

  Elsie licked grease from her thumb and pushed her plate away. Underdressed. That was the statement her mother used. It made Elsie feel as though she was slopping around in potato sacks. ‘You’ve got to give your husband something to come home to,’ Alice Rushall had said over the rim of her teacup. ‘It’s not hard to make an effort.’

  Both her mother and Lila, pregnant with her fourth baby (the other three were safely ensconced at school), had been in agreement: the modern lady cared for her man. Spoiled him, catered to his every male want and made him feel loved, nurtured and invincible. Do that and he would be putty in your hands. Elsie had bitten her tongue against a retort that it wasn’t her mother’s efforts with her dresses that had softened her father – it was his elbow-grooves on the bar at the pub.

  ‘I don’t want putty, Mum,’ Elsie had said. ‘I only wish he could be home more. But he’s working hard and he loves his job. I’m not going to begrudge him that.’

  Her mother had let out a long sigh. ‘You might not be saying so when you have four children underfoot. Some lipstick, a firm word, and he’ll come running home every night before the tea bell rings. Start now,’ she said sternly, ‘while you’ve only got one in the oven.’

  Elsie would never be the strong, impressive wife her mother was. Things were different now. The wars were over and modern conveniences meant women could keep their hands clean while they cleaned.

  Elsie took her plate to the sink. Across the strip of yard, Aida’s kitchen window was illuminated a bright yellow.

  Elsie’s heart fluttered. The curtains were open. The rest of the house was steeped in darkness, but she could see clearly into Aida’s kitchen. A shadow flashed on the wall and then, there she was.

  Aida’s face was turned down and her arms were busy with something. Was she, too, washing a single plate? Her hair was pulled back loosely and what looked like her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder. Her bare skin was honeyed in the light.

  If Elsie was lonely, she couldn’t imagine how Aida must be feeling. Thomas might work long hours but he still came home every day, he still kept her feet warm at night and kissed her every morning. What would it be like to be so alone in every way? Elsie pulled the plug from the sink and watched the water swirl away. Where did Aida come from, and how had she gotten herself into this mess?

  Water dripped from Elsie’s fingers onto her feet as she ran a hand over her stomach. If you were old enough to go around with boys, you were old enough to understand what that led to, she thought. True, she and Thomas hadn’t exactly abstained until their wedding night – but the point was, there had been a wedding night. From her first kiss with Thomas, Elsie had known there would be a wedding, which was why she was so confident when more kisses had led to . . . well. A wedding.

  A picture came into her mind: Aida’s dark hair draped over a vinyl backseat at the drive-in, light and shadow flickering across bare skin. A faceless boy, toes pressed against fogged windows, one fateful moment of weakness.

  Elsie looked up and a shiver shot down her spine.

  Aida was looking right at her.

  Time seemed to pause as they locked eyes through their windows. All Elsie could see was Aida’s face in the glow of yellow. Then Aida waved.

  For weeks Elsie had been knocking on Aida’s door, only to be met with an embarrassing, snubbed silence. It seemed as though Aida avoided her until there was something less escapable – a dying chicken, for instance, or falling furniture. Their contact seemed moody, according to a whim Elsie couldn’t discern. Why was Aida waving to her now, like they were happy neighbours?

  Silly girl. It popped into Elsie’s head and she jumped, as though someone else had leaned over her shoulder and hissed it into her ear.

  Elsie wasn’t sure who the thought was directed at – Aida, or herself. So Elsie, whose irritating loneliness was always right there, reacted to a friendly wave like a reflex. She lifted her hand and waved back.

  14

  That same evening, Aida was awake when it happened.

  Maybe, if she had fallen straight to sleep after waving at Elsie through the window, she might have slept through it. But she had gone to bed unsettled by the picture of her neighbour’s face through the window, made uneasy by that small connection after weeks of hiding. When Elsie had waved back, she had looked astonished at her own hand, as though it had caught her unawares. Poor woman, Aida had thought, unsure if she meant her neighbour or herself.

  When she heard the loud metallic crunch, Aida sat straight upright in bed.

  Flinging back the covers, she rolled out of bed and hurried down the hall. In the living room she peered out the window but saw nothing; the street was dark and quiet. She grabbed her thick dressing gown from the couch, stepped outside and silently descended the front steps. Gravel was cool and sharp beneath her bare feet. She listened, but heard nothing more. A waning moon peeked over the treetops, throwing shadows and pale light amongst the gardens and houses. Aida took another step up the drive, craning her head towards the street.

  A soft breeze came up and she smelled it: the faint, acrid scent of petrol.

  Aida went back up the steps, pushed her feet into her rubber boots, and hurried back down the drive, pressing her hand up against her belly.

  And then Elsie was beside her, footsteps matching hers. Aida faltered and considered turning back, but Elsie gasped.

  ‘Oh, my stars,’ she said. ‘That’s Thomas’s car.’

  At the end of the street, the car’s nose was crumpled against an ancient red gum. The tree’s trunk, thick as a wheat silo, stood like a dark giant cradling Thomas’s car, the rear of which rose up at an angle on the road’s weedy shoulder. As they hurried towards the car, the driver’s door popped open with a groan.

  ‘Thomas!’ Elsie cried, but the driver didn’t emerge from the car.

  Aida halted, backed up two steps.

  Elsie grabbed her arm. ‘Help me,’ she said.

  They both looked at the car again as the driver’s arms appeared, then legs. The figure unfolded from the vehicle and took a few unsteady steps.

  ‘Thomas!’ Elsie was dragging Aida now and Aida ran to keep up. ‘Are you okay, my love?’

  He swayed in the weeds, looking at them with a confused expression. Turning to the car, he scratched his head.

  Elsie made towards the car, but this time Aida stopped her. They were on the other side of the road, a dozen yards from the car and the tree. ‘There’s leaking fuel, we shouldn’t get too close,’ she said. ‘Tell him to get away from the car . . . tell him to come to us.’

  ‘What? No.’ Elsie tugged at her again. ‘We have to see if he’s okay.’

  ‘Thomas,’ Aida called out, holding firm to Elsie’s arm. ‘Get away from the car. Come over here.’

  Thomas shook his head and
shuffled to the front of the car, as if to inspect the damage. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he called back, holding up his hand. ‘A small ding. It will buff out, I’m sure.’ He tentatively tugged at the car’s bonnet, where it was folded under itself.

  A man appeared, panting, with a suit jacket thrown over striped pyjamas. Aida noticed lights had come on, front doors were opening down the street. A few more men were striding towards the scene.

  ‘Careful, ladies,’ the man in pyjamas said. ‘Perhaps you should stand back.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Mr Pellarin,’ Elsie said, her voice high and quavering. ‘Perhaps you could help us. My husband seems disinclined to move away from the leaking petrol.’

  The man hurried towards the car and he and Elsie’s husband bent to inspect where it was concertinaed against the tree. Another man promptly joined them.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Elsie said, ‘now they’re all in danger. Thomas, come here and let me check if you’re hurt.’

  Aida hesitated. A small crowd was gathering and the petrol smell grew stronger. Beside her, Elsie stepped from foot to foot. They could hear the men discussing the option of putting the car into reverse and seeing if they couldn’t back it onto the road.

  Aida took a deep breath and told herself that straight after this she could slip away. Back into the quiet blanket of night. She put her thumb and forefinger between her lips and whistled. A short, sharp shriek that pierced the night. The men jumped and hurried away from the car, scrambling up the shoulder of the road.

  A siren wailed in the distance. Aida wanted to move but found herself rooted to the spot. Elsie’s husband, Thomas, was now only a few feet away and he was staring straight at Aida. Blood oozed from one of his eyebrows. Despite the darkness Aida fought the overwhelming urge to look down, to make sure she was covered.

  Elsie flew to him. ‘Are you hurt? What on earth happened?’

  Thomas put an arm around his wife, but his gaze remained on Aida.

  He said, ‘You must be the neighbour.’

  15

  Only twenty minutes ago, Thomas had turned onto his street and been thinking of the sale he’d missed. He was flummoxed. Had he been put off by the tremendous stench of cat piss leaking from the customer’s laundry? Had he delivered his pitch imperfectly? On his arrival at the customer’s home earlier that evening, he had counted a minimum of five cats darting from the backs of chairs and the tops of bookshelves. If an abundance of cat hair couldn’t be turned into a terrific incentive to purchase a new vacuum cleaner, what could? Maybe he had been too friendly with his customer, too accepting of the beers the man had brought out in a near-continuous stream.

  Bewildered by the missed sale, four stubbies warming his blood, Thomas had momentarily overlooked the fact that before reaching his house, his street contained a ninety-degree turn. By the time he had remembered, and attempted the necessary manoeuvre of the steering wheel, the old Holden was inconveniently unresponsive. It was then that he realised his forehead was on the steering wheel and a gigantic red gum was filling the windscreen.

  ‘Thomas!’ his wife shrieked, from somewhere in the distance.

  ‘Thomas!’ another woman called.

  Mr Pellarin appeared and recommended a good local panel beater and a whistle split the night and he was in his wife’s arms, staring at an unfamiliar woman, who was looking at him as though he’d stolen something that belonged to her and she was planning an almighty smiting.

  The lady was looking at Thomas, and Thomas was thinking to himself, My word, how can her eyes be so brightly green in the dark?

  *

  ‘Are you sure, my love?’

  After a thorough once-over by the paramedics, pushing away their probing hands and penlights shined in his eyes, Thomas, finally seated in his lounge room, was feeling remarkably sober. He eyed the whisky bottle with mild concern. He wanted to add in your condition but, as he watched the woman pass Elsie a steaming cup of tea and unscrew the lid from the whisky bottle, he remembered Elsie’s plea for discretion.

  The lady who had been standing by the roadside with Elsie had indeed turned out to be the mysterious young lady from the matching house next door. Her name was Aida, and she was now standing in his lounge room, clad in a fluffy dressing gown, pouring a generous shot of his Scottish single malt into his wife’s cup of tea.

  Elsie was huddled on the couch, a blanket about her shoulders. She was trembling, and Thomas sat beside her and rubbed her back.

  ‘You’ve had a bit of a shock,’ he told her. ‘There now, you’re okay. Everyone’s okay.’

  ‘You should have let them take you to hospital for checking,’ his wife said, yet again. ‘You could have a concussion.’

  ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ he told her. ‘Healthy as a horse. A bit of a bump here –’ he touched his eyebrow and tried not to belie his fineness by wincing ‘– but who hasn’t had a bumped head once or twice? Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Drink up,’ the neighbour said to his wife.

  Thomas considered his neighbour. Medium height, straight black hair, she looked to be of a hearty, robust build, but with slender, delicate hands. Before coming into their lounge room, she had left her rubber boots outside the door and her bare toes peeked out from beneath her thick dressing gown. Her toenails were painted. Dark red. Thomas tried not to stare.

  Elsie complied with Aida’s order, slurping her tea. ‘Strong,’ she said with a nervous giggle.

  At the sound of her laugh, Thomas felt himself relax. He’d been so dismayed at the thought of such a shock to his wife’s system. What might it do in her delicate state? He was kicking himself for his carelessness, for having allowed himself to be so distracted by his missed sale that he’d also missed the corner. He tried not to think about the inconvenience of his car’s front end sandwiched into itself. How the hell was he going to get to work tomorrow? Witnessing the state into which he had – albeit not intentionally – put his wife, he felt grateful now for the presence of his lady neighbour as she took over the womanly task of comfort and reassurance, freeing Thomas not to inadvertently do anything unhelpful.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Thomas reiterated, reaching for the whisky, but the bottle was plucked perfunctorily from the coffee table before his fingers could touch it. Aida gave him a brief smile and the bottle disappeared into the pocket of her robe.

  Thomas felt Elsie’s shivers subside as she sipped her tea. Aida seated herself on what was Elsie’s knitting chair, adjacent to the couch, and she sat leaning forward, elbows on knees, teacup clasped in two hands. Now that they were all seated and everyone’s breathing had returned to normal, Thomas thought he may as well break the ice.

  ‘So, Mrs . . . uh, Aida, how long have you lived next door?’

  ‘A few months,’ she answered and sipped her tea. She seemed to linger over the mouthful.

  ‘Are you from Gawler originally?’

  ‘Adelaide,’ she said.

  ‘As am I!’ Thomas said, brightening. Immediately he grimaced as pain throbbed through his forehead. ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ Aida asked simultaneously.

  ‘Magill way,’ Thomas said. ‘My father was in shipping, born and bred at the Port but moved into town when he met my mother. You?’

  ‘Do your parents still live there?’ she asked.

  ‘Mum does. Dad died in ‘41. Mediterranean.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. But they all did.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Aida murmured. Now she was looking directly at him, and his headache seemed to dissolve. He was struck by her eyes. Stirring. Guilt whispered through him at the thought, as though in making the mental observation he was being far too familiar. ‘What does your husband do?’ he asked.

  ‘Thomas,’ Elsie said sharply.

  Aida paused. Her eyes went back to her cup and Thomas felt som
ething like yearning.

  ‘He works at the mines,’ she said.

  Elsie’s head snapped in her direction so fast Thomas felt the jolt.

  ‘So he’s never home.’ She smiled. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’d better be going.’ She stood and made her way to the door, then seemed to change her mind and came back to Elsie. Bending forward she put a hand on Elsie’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let it get to you, okay?’ she said.

  Elsie, not looking at Aida, nodded rather manically and drained the rest of her tea in one gulp. Thomas went to the telephone to find someone who could give him a lift to work in the morning.

  16

  The day after the car accident, Elsie marched across the yard with a mighty sense of purpose. The morning was cool and overcast, and with daylight the street seemed so unremarkable, unmoved by the previous night’s drama. Beyond the back fence, a herd of Herefords loped across the paddock, grumbling at each other.

  Elsie had a mission now. Emboldened by the conviction that surely, surely Aida wouldn’t ignore her after last night, she strode across the grass, up the porch steps and straight to the back door.

  ‘Aida.’ She banged on the screen. ‘I need your help. I have a poultry problem.’ She paused to listen for any sound from inside, knocked again. Pressing her ear to the screen, she strained for the sounds of movement or footsteps, but heard nothing.

  ‘Aida.’ She knocked again and rattled the door handle. ‘Come on, you know how much help I require in matters of bird!’ First the snail-baited hen, then the wardrobe accident, and now Thomas’s accident. What is it they say about the power of threes? A shuffle came from the other side of the door. Quietly, the latch unlocked. The door opened – it didn’t swing wide – and Aida squinted out at her. Wariness crossed her face and Elsie thought she might close the door on her. But then a flicker of a smile appeared.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve killed another one,’ she said.