The Three of Us

by Kim Lock

  She brushed the crumbs from her hands. ‘You’d better fix that hole in the plaster, then.’

  Relieved, he smiled widely. ‘Right away, my love,’ he said. ‘How about this Friday?’

  32

  Friday arrived far too swiftly for Elsie to be ready.

  The weekdays passed, yet Elsie’s head was still firmly rooted in the previous Tuesday, beneath the pepper tree, sheltering from the swooping magpie with Aida’s lips upon her own.

  A kiss.

  Aida’s kiss.

  Aida had kissed her and it was all Elsie could think about.

  Yesterday, Elsie had picked up the meat from the butcher – sausages, lamb chops and mince for patties – and in the evening she had prepared a potato salad according to her recipe book. A properly organised domestic scientist prepared early, so Elsie followed the recipe to the letter, but found she was not able to muster even any false dismay when the finished result looked nothing like the photograph. Nevertheless, on Friday morning she stirred the chunks of potato to try and de-congeal the dressing, and garnished the greasy-looking mayonnaise lumps with sprigs of parsley.

  Mr and Mrs Watson were the first to arrive, followed closely by Mr and Mrs Adelman and then another man with whom Thomas worked and his wife, neither of whose names Elsie could remember for more time than was comfortable. (Mackenzie, she almost cried aloud in the toilet forty minutes after they’d arrived.) The ladies brought platters of mushroom vol au vents, onion dip, scotch eggs, celery stuffed with tomatoes. Elsie was relieved; she could slide her own failed salad to one side and hope no one would notice.

  Thomas set up the barbecue in the backyard. He had borrowed a trestle table from work for the food and they arranged chairs in a circle. While Thomas and the other men quickly set themselves the task of managing the cooking of the meat, grouped in a semi-circle around the smoking grill, tongs aloft like swords in one hand and tins of beer in the other, the ladies saw to the kitchen and passed around food. Elsie was glad for Mrs Watson’s efficiency in that area. She copied her brisk and effortless manner, tried not to let the way her laugh sprang up like a song irritate her even though it did. Surely no one’s laugh could be that easily aroused, and perfectly controlled? It was like a tap she could turn on and off. Unlike Elsie, who couldn’t laugh when she was supposed to (like when Mr Adelman made a joke about how his wife’s hair in rollers reminded him of the corrugated wall of a rainwater tank), yet snorted out indiscriminate bursts of mirth when a half-cooked sausage torpedoed from Thomas’s tongs into the dirt and everyone looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  Later in the evening, after the food had been eaten (Elsie’s potato salad barely touched, pushed inconspicuously to one side), and the men were gathered around the wireless listening to the cricket and the ladies were tidying the kitchen, Clare Adelman shook out her tea-towel and said, ‘So I hear you’re a star at Gloria’s Wednesday group, Elsie?’

  Gloria Watson paused in her task of stacking clean platters. ‘Although we haven’t seen you for quite a few weeks, Mrs Mullet.’

  ‘I – I’ve been busy,’ Elsie stammered. Busy with what? she asked herself. Busy mooning over the woman next door. She remembered first meeting the ladies at Mrs Watson’s house – the confusion she had felt inside while listening to the women gossip: the moral fabric of society and the ruined institution of marriage. Unconscious ideals about sex and marriage and babies – conditioned morals by which she’d always lived unquestioningly – all of them now feeling like the naïve fancies of a sheltered, cosseted postwar country girl. Principles as see-through as wax paper.

  Because what about those morals now? She soaped away the last smears of dressing from the inside of Mrs Mackenzie’s salad bowl. She hadn’t simply accepted and befriended the unwed pregnant girl next door whose baby had gone. No, no – she’d kissed her too.

  And she had liked it.

  Elsie’s lips tingled and suds frothed inside Mrs Mackenzie’s bowl.

  ‘The detail of your Fair Isle!’ Clare’s voice mercifully interrupted Elsie’s thoughts. She had lifted Elsie’s work in progress – a vest for Thomas – from the basket and was studying it closely. ‘It’s so very intricate. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Elsie, still blushing but fortunately now with an acceptable reason, suppressed a smile. At least she was good at something.

  ‘You should enter your work in the Spring Show,’ Clare finished, setting the vest down.

  ‘Competition is fierce,’ Mrs Watson sighed, almost resignedly, as though she was breaking terrible news. ‘No one’s topped mine or Betsy Jones’ handknits for a long time.’

  ‘Competition is good,’ Clare said. ‘It pushes everyone to do their best work. Challenges should always be welcomed.’

  Elsie rinsed the last of the coffee mugs and removed her rubber gloves. ‘I’m really only a pleasure knitter,’ she said, although she was uncertain if Mrs Adelman was still talking about her knitting.

  ‘Honestly, ladies.’ Mrs Adelman, on something of a sermon now, lit a cigarette and inhaled before continuing. ‘Life is fuller when we push ourselves to be better than we were yesterday. To see a test and rise to the occasion. To confront what unsettles us and conquer it.’ She aimed her cigarette at each woman in turn. ‘How hard do we work? To make lovely homes, to be valuable members of the community, to raise decent, upstanding children?’

  Nervously Elsie pulled at the hem of her cardigan. She could feel her head nodding furiously, all of its own accord, at Mrs Adelman’s oration. It took great effort to stop and then she felt dizzy.

  Decent, upstanding. The moral fabric of society.

  A cheer went up from the men around the wireless and Mrs Mackenzie took the opportunity to change the subject. She said, ‘Shall we have a round of sherry, ladies?’

  Elsie, burning on the inside, fetched the sherry and cursed Thomas’s name until, two long hours later, everyone finally left.

  *

  Quiet blanketed the house with the night. Beside her, Thomas’s breath in sleep was even and throaty.

  Elsie lay awake and listened to Thomas’s breathing. She searched for other sounds. Something. Anything. Sounds to cover up the electric spark and rush inside her. Tangible things to reassure her that here, in bed with her husband, everything was sensible and normal and right in her married life in the suburbs.

  She thought back over the evening: the disaster of her attempts at food, her boredom with the ladies’ conversation and the way Mrs Adelman’s words about challenge had felt directed at her. Maybe she could enter a piece in the Spring Show, Elsie thought. All the other ladies entered something – a skill they had, a talent to share with the community. Elsie had never considered it before. Since she was a girl, holding the needles as her grandmother patiently wound yarn around her fingers, knitting had come easily to her, as easily as breathing. She had never thought it something for which she needed praise. So why now?

  Well, she told herself, it’s not the knitting you’re worried about, is it?

  Elsie sat up. Glancing at Thomas, she eased out of bed, careful not to make too much movement on the mattress. The blankets stayed snug around her husband. She picked up her slippers and crept out of the room.

  The lock on the back door clicked loudly and she flinched. As she crossed the night-filled yard, she saw the dark windows of Aida’s house. Stepping onto Aida’s back porch, she went to the door and knocked, quietly. Nothing. She knocked louder, rattled the handle.

  Putting her mouth to the doorframe, she said, ‘Aida?’ Glancing over her shoulder at the unlit windows of her own house, she tugged on the door handle again. The noise echoed into the quiet night.

  Aida’s voice came, muffled through door. ‘Elsie?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’

  The lock clicked and the door cracked open. ‘What are you doing?’

  Elsie couldn’t feel her hand
s or feet. ‘I don’t know.’

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  *

  Did she sleep? No. Was Aida asleep?

  Elsie lifted herself onto her elbow and looked down. Aida’s hair was a dark lake across the pillow but her eyes were open. Elsie didn’t know what expression to make so when Aida smiled at her, she felt tears prick in her eyes.

  ‘What does this mean?’

  Aida shifted her head. ‘Why does it have to mean anything?’

  Elsie sat up. ‘It has to mean something.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Because. It wasn’t a mistake – was it?’

  Aida lifted herself from the pillow. ‘Of course not. You think it was?’

  ‘No,’ Elsie said breathlessly, incredulous. As though she didn’t believe it herself until she said it. ‘It feels . . .’

  ‘Right,’ Aida said.

  ‘Yes.’ Elsie bit her lip.

  They lay back down. Beneath the blankets Aida’s hands found hers and squeezed. ‘You have the most beautiful hands,’ she said. ‘So small and perfect.’

  ‘You feel so different,’ Elsie said. ‘To touch, I mean. You’re so soft.’

  Aida giggled and Elsie stifled a snort in the pillow.

  ‘Oh my stars,’ she said. ‘This is so bizarre.’ She gasped. ‘I have to get back. What if Thomas wakes up?’ Clambering out from under the covers, she found her nightie at the end of the bed, pulled it over her head and fumbled for her slippers.

  Aida sat up. ‘What will you tell him?’

  Elsie went still and looked at her. ‘I . . . Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t tell him anything.’

  Aida nodded and looked down at the blankets. She didn’t raise her eyes when she asked, ‘How – I mean, how long . . . when will I see you again?’

  ‘I’ll come over on Monday,’ Elsie replied. ‘As soon as Thomas has left for work.’

  ‘That’s a whole weekend away.’

  Elsie tried to pinpoint the note of emotion in Aida’s voice. Was it regret? Relief? Uncertainty? What if Aida changed her mind in those two whole days, and when Monday arrived she wouldn’t want to see or speak to Elsie ever again?

  She hesitated, torn with how to leave and what to say, but in the end she cast Aida a long look, then hurried from the house and returned to her own bed where Thomas lay on his back, deeply asleep and snoring. Oblivious.

  33

  For Aida, the weekend passed in an odd haze. Her skin tingled as if sunburned; she feared touching the metal of the refrigerator door, the kettle, or the taps in the shower in case sparks flew from her skin.

  Acutely aware of her own flesh when she undressed, she touched the places where Elsie’s hands had been – the nape of her neck, the tender skin inside her upper arms, the backs of her knees – as though the imprint of Elsie would still be there and she could confirm if it was real. If Elsie had really touched her. She pressed her fingers into the empty, ribbed flesh of her belly, and ground her teeth against that pain.

  When Aida lay down in bed, the memory of Elsie beside her was so tangible Aida could taste it. She buried her face in her pillow and inhaled the delicate scent of Elsie’s skin still lingering in the weave of fabric. Unable to sleep she tossed beneath the sheets and tears spilled down her cheeks to wet the pillow. Aida was confused, aching and sensitive. She was robbed and wanting. She was angry. The ethereal presence of Elsie in her arms masked their desperate emptiness, their clutching, but she was terrified that Elsie wouldn’t come back; that Elsie would leave her, too – like Jimmy and her baby and her parents had all left her – and surely she would be in this whirl of agony forever.

  *

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

  Aida opened the door and Elsie stepped quickly inside. Behind her she towed a fresh spring morning scent – green earth and pollen – and for some reason the scent caused Aida’s heart to thud with nervousness.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d let me in,’ Elsie replied.

  Together they prepared tea. Although Elsie made herself at home in the kitchen, they were clumsy and bashful around each other. Aida felt overly cautious of Elsie’s bodily space in a way that she had never been, even on that first day, when she had snapped that poor poisoned hen’s neck. She noticed the attention Elsie paid to the space around Aida’s body, too; they navigated each other like little boats in a harbour.

  They sat at the table to drink their tea. Aida sliced a sweet German cake she had baked over the weekend as a distraction. Aida’s grandmother – her father’s mother – had taught Aida how to achieve the perfect sugary crust. Aida recalled countless hours of her childhood, standing on a stool in the wood-stove heat of Grandma’s kitchen and listening to her instructions on making the richest gravy, the lightest butter pastry, the most tender mutton. Grandma died when Aida was thirteen, and Aida had poured her grief into the food she cooked for her family ever since. Her father must miss her cooking, Aida thought now. Her mother’s meat-and-three-veg was no match for the legacy Grandma had left with Aida: food that was nurtured, cooked from the heart. But she pushed away the thought of her parents, flinching as though stung.

  Aida watched the delight on Elsie’s face as the hardened sugar melted on her tongue, and wondered if it was sacrilegious, somehow – the way the sliver of joy she felt watching Elsie’s face punctured the blanket of her despair, cutting air holes into it so she could breathe.

  Their conversation touched on easy, benign things – the weekend, the unseasonably warm spring weather, Elsie’s chooks (that hen was broody again), and Aida feared that Elsie was trying to forget that thing that had happened between them: the coming together of their bodies in Aida’s bed late Friday evening. But Elsie seemed to relax, and the topic moved to her lamenting her sense of failure at the dinner party on Friday night.

  If Elsie could mention Friday night, did that mean she was not regretting what had happened after the party? After all her guests had left, and Thomas was sleeping unawares.

  Thomas. Was Elsie feeling guilty? Or did what had happened between them not count as an affair because Aida wasn’t another man, but a woman?

  ‘Tell me why you think your party was such a disaster,’ Aida said, to clear her own thoughts. ‘Did someone get food poisoning?’

  ‘No. Thank goodness.’ Elsie’s eyes widened. ‘At least I hope they didn’t. No one’s phoned to say otherwise. But what if they’re all too sick to telephone?’

  Aida laughed and the tension left her body. Without thinking about it, her hand reached out and Elsie’s fingers curled into hers. All the awkwardness of only moments ago was forgotten. All it had taken was Elsie’s innocent smile and Aida’s easy laugh for them to understand that the wall they had anticipated may have sprouted between them wasn’t there after all.

  ‘About Friday,’ she said. ‘What are you thinking?’

  Elsie’s cheeks flushed red. At once Aida felt both nauseated and something like lust swivelled in her belly. What on earth was happening? The unmistakable throb of her heart reminded her of her feelings for Jimmy but at the same time this sort of desire and an almost homesickness for Elsie’s skin felt completely different. New, intoxicating, deeply unsettling.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve . . .’ Aida hastened to add. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

  Elsie withdrew her hand. ‘No, I’m glad you asked. It means you’re still thinking about it.’

  ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about it.’

  Elsie looked into her eyes. ‘Me, either.’

  Aida felt a grin spread across her face and she looked through the glass in the back door, into the sunshine, to stop herself from bursting into tears.

  ‘I love Thomas,’ Elsie said.

  From the gum tree in the yard, a magpie sent up sweet loops of song as Aida watched a thousand tiny expres
sions play across Elsie’s face: excitement, shock, relief, fear.

  34

  For almost two weeks, Elsie had felt throbby-hearted and scatterbrained.

  Everything seemed brighter, more alive. The sky was a more vibrant shade of blue, the cool change that came in with a misty rain and seeping damp only made her house feel cosier on the inside. When she soaped herself in the shower her skin felt powerfully sensitive, as though an abundance of extra nerve endings had blossomed beneath the surface. In the back of her mind, a sensible voice uttered uneasily: What are you doing? What is this? Why are you behaving this way? Aida is grieving and you’re a married woman! But Elsie rationalised away her time with Aida with an ease that surprised that sensible voice: She’s my friend. Women need girl friends – we need each other. I’m not neglecting my duties at home – on the contrary, my home has never been cleaner, neater, or smelled more delicious. Thomas’s tea (often prepared now with tutelage from Aida) had been on the table on time, every evening. His trousers were pressed to knife-creases and his shirt collars were as white as summer clouds.

  And in the past eight days, Thomas and Elsie had made love seven times. It would have been eight if Thomas hadn’t been afflicted by a bout of stomach cramps owing to the pie floater he had eaten for lunch.

  So of course, Thomas noticed the change. ‘You seem in such a happy mood, my love,’ he said on Wednesday evening, as she set a plate of steaming lamb chops and mash in front of him. ‘Are you feeling better about . . . ?’

  He was asking about the loss of the baby, and into her lack of denial she felt all the lies pressed together, like paper flowers between the pages of a heavy book. Every moment of un-loneliness spent with Aida, every breathless, warm afternoon spent together: all fuzzy-edged, guilty, gummy and hot lies.

  *

  On Friday evening, when Elsie served tea and they sat down to eat, Thomas told her he was going away for the weekend.