by Kim Lock
Elsie kissed her lips. Softly, at first, and Aida kissed her back. Elsie’s kisses grew deeper and her fingers stroked the soft flesh on her belly. Thomas, his lips roaming over the back of her neck, grew firm against her rump.
Aida pulled away. ‘Sorry, I’m too tired.’
Elsie touched her temples, ‘Head still hurting?’
‘A little. But I’m desperately tired.’ Millie was getting another tooth; they were all tired.
‘Okay, honey,’ Thomas whispered. His penis was hard against her and she could feel his movements as he ran his hand over Elsie’s body. ‘Do you mind if we . . . ?’
Aida sighed again. Maybe, tonight, she did mind. She wanted them to lie down and sleep beside her. Or, she wanted to be awake and happy and to share their pleasure. She thought of the house next door, where there was a quiet, unoccupied bed with plenty of leg space, no one to pull the blankets from her shoulders and no explanations needed – nothing to do in it but sleep.
‘Just keep it down, okay?’ she tried to joke, but her head throbbed.
They kissed her; two sets of lips left cool damp spots on her cheeks. They slipped from bed; the door opened and closed. She didn’t hear their footsteps down the hall, nor the sound of them checking that Millie was asleep and pulling her bedroom door shut. Then they would make love in the lounge room, a husband and wife without her, and she wouldn’t hear that either.
*
It wasn’t long after Aida had returned to the house on Church Street – now mortgaged to Mullet – that the strange nervous attacks began.
The first time happened one morning, after breakfast. Elsie was trying to put a cardigan on Millie in preparation for their walk to the shop. Millie was fussing, unhappy about the cardigan’s snug cuffs around her wrists, and kept wriggling and wrestling herself out of the garment. At twelve months old, Millie had recently started walking and along with her newfound mobility, she also discovered the sentiment No, and applied it liberally.
Witnessing Elsie’s mounting exasperation, Aida had felt something invisible, hot and dreadful, slide over her. Her mouth went dry and she felt the blood drain from her face. Inside her chest her heart began to pump as though she had run a marathon and her entire body was washed with an indescribable terror. Her fingers flew to her throat as though she was choking, and every muscle in her body screamed at her to run. Flee. But run to where? And flee from what?
Elsie rushed to her side, anxiously urging her to breathe. Panicked tears were rolling down Aida’s face and Millie, startled, began to wail. When it subsided, Aida told them to go to the shop without her.
A few days later, it happened again. And this time, they weren’t alone. This time, the visceral, overwhelming bodily fear struck her as she was perched on the edge of Mrs Pellarin’s couch, eating a slice of tea cake and discussing a fundraiser for an air-conditioner for the CWA room, in the company of five other ladies – people around whom Aida had to maintain the galling fiction of being Mrs Shepherd, miner’s widow. Gasping out an excuse, Aida had fled to the bathroom and hid there until Elsie came looking for her twenty minutes later. Citing a headache, Aida had left.
It happened again, and again. It happened at unpredictable, random times – if Aida was out walking, if she was alone or if she was in company. But it was the latter occasions that compounded her increasing terror, made it all the more unbearable. Because the faces of those around her mirrored her horror, looked at her with distaste. Always looking, peering. Always wanting to know.
For Aida, it became easier to turn down invitations, to stay home. And eventually, the only place Aida could feel a semblance of safety was at her house. Hers, or Thomas and Elsie’s.
Elsie taught her to knit – scarves that Aida finished and then unpicked again, blocks of colour that she sewed into blankets and dropped nervously over the road to Mrs Scott for all her kids. Aida taught Elsie to flavour her cooking with fresh herbs that they grew in the garden: oregano, basil, thyme. Aida dug rows of vegetables into her own backyard and grew so many potatoes, turnips and beetroots that Elsie took basketfuls to Swaffers Store, pressing the coins into Aida’s hands. Together they cared for Millie, whose second word, after Mama, was Ay, and when she started school, Aida cut her Vegemite sandwiches into love heart shapes.
In that way, four more years passed.
Until one afternoon, Aida’s father’s heart seized while he was sitting at his desk.
Aida had no choice but to force herself to the bus station. Except this time, she only packed an overnight bag.
At her father’s funeral, Aida’s mother said, ‘I’m moving to Brisbane, to live near your Aunt Fay.’ There was a pleading look on Dorthea’s face: she wanted Aida to come with her.
But Aida shook her head and said, ‘I can’t, Mum. I can’t leave her’, and Dorthea believed that Aida was talking about the memory of the baby they had taken from her. And it wasn’t a lie – it was simply only one part of the truth.
John Glasson left his daughter half of his liquidated estate.
Even after Aida bought the house from Thomas, she stared at the figure in her bankbook and knew she could never spend it in her lifetime.
Though the loss of her parents weighed on Aida’s heart, the fear began to lift. Inside her, a sense of safety had taken root, and started to uncurl. Perhaps it was the passage of time, or perhaps it was the changing patterns of Aida’s grief, but she found herself able to breathe again.
Which was why, one warm spring Friday, after years of seclusion, Aida was able to be convinced by Elsie to visit the Spring Show.
53
When Thomas reflected on it later – as he would reflect upon it, many times – he knew they had been lucky.
Lucky in so many ways: lucky that he and Elsie had met; lucky that they had moved to that particular house on that particular street in Gawler; lucky that Aida loved them. But one stroke of luck that never failed to escape Thomas’s attention was that no one had ascertained the truth about Mr and Mrs Mullet and the young woman who lived next door sooner. Or more publicly. Or with more certainty. But for the first six years of their three-way relationship, Thomas consoled himself by asking: who could they have known who was worldly or open-minded enough to suspect a conservative married couple might in actual fact be sixty-six per cent of a committed threesome?
No one.
Except perhaps someone with an extraordinary predilection for gossip.
Thomas wasn’t having the best of days on a Wednesday in the summer of 1968 when Mrs Bert Watson came into the store. It wasn’t Mrs Watson’s arrival that caused Thomas’s unfavourable mood – that had arisen much earlier in the day thanks to three customers in a row taking up a combined almost three hours of his time and walking out of the store without purchasing a single thing. And it wasn’t the only day sales had been slow – it was merely the first day he’d allowed himself to fully acknowledge the slump. Australia’s military involvement in Vietnam had the country divided, people were agitated. The draft was a combination of simultaneous pride and fear. Thomas watched the young, single men conscripted around him and couldn’t work out if he was disappointed or greatly relieved. To top off the agitation, a new department store had opened up on the southern edge of town, on the highway to Adelaide, and Bagnoli’s wasn’t immune to the competition. (Mr Bagnoli, who hadn’t come down in the last shower and wasn’t a sucker, would reclaim the sales within a few months by employing some adroit marketing tactics and endless kerb-side sausage sizzles, but Thomas wasn’t to know that yet on the day Mrs Watson entered his showroom.)
‘Mrs Watson,’ Thomas said, ‘how lovely to see you. Bert’s on his lunch break, I’m afraid. Said he had some errands to run. Would you like to wait for him out back?’
Gloria Watson allowed Thomas to take her hand and give it a polite squeeze. ‘Now see, he mentioned his errands to me this morning,’ she said, with a small, self-effaci
ng laugh. ‘I’d forgotten about it entirely.’
‘Listen, Mr Mullet,’ she went on, ‘I’m in the market for a new washing machine. I’ve been nagging Bert for weeks, but as they say, an appliance salesman’s house is the last house to house appliances.’
Who says that? Thomas wondered. But he nodded and laughed as though he knew it well. ‘I’ll be sure to nag Bert for you, as soon as he gets back from lunch. You have my word.’
‘No, no, Mr Mullet. I’d like you to show me the latest washing machines.’
He hesitated. Watson’s usual opinion of him varied somewhere between grudging collegial tolerance and openly hostile competition. What would the man think if Thomas sold his wife a washing machine?
Although he would tell Elsie and Aida he’d hesitated for much longer, after a brief rumination, Thomas led Watson’s wife to the selection of washers, placed his hand on the lid of the most expensive and proceeded to sell it to her.
Mrs Watson listened to his spiel for about fifteen seconds before she cut in.
‘Mr Mullet, I’m afraid I’m here on a matter more delicate than washing machines,’ she said.
Thomas was slightly confused. ‘This particular machine will accommodate delicate fabrics,’ he clarified. ‘It has a gentle cycle –’
‘I’m not talking about the machine.’ Her eyes darted from left to right. ‘And I’m fully aware that Mr Watson is not in right now. It’s only that I wasn’t sure how else to speak with you without . . . well, to have a word in private.’ That last word she whispered.
Had Bert put her up to this? Despite his puzzlement, he didn’t want to lose a potential sale, so he decided the best course of action would be to include this ‘private word’ as part of his sales patter. Seamless, professional. Anything a customer wanted, he could oblige. No problem.
He straightened. ‘Of course. How can I assist?’
She pushed her glasses – white framed, winged things – up the bridge of her nose. Again she glanced from side to side. ‘It’s been quite some weeks I’ve been mulling this . . . unfortunate thing over in my mind. I want you to know –’ she lowered her voice and leaned in even closer. Ever accommodating, he mirrored her movements. ‘I haven’t told anyone about this. Not even Bert.’
Confusion mounting, Thomas simply nodded his head.
‘I saw something. Several weeks ago, at the Spring Show.’
Thomas cast his mind back. Bagnoli had insisted Thomas take the Friday afternoon off. It had been a glorious day: hot and dusty, with happy crowds of people, the air redolent of fried doughnuts, oaten hay and diesel. Aida was out, enjoying herself, and they were all delighted. Elsie had won an enormous stuffed panda from a shooting range stall and popped it into Millie’s stroller – it was bigger than Millie; Aida had eaten four hot dogs and suffered a belly ache all afternoon.
‘Did I see you there? I apologise if I missed you.’
Mrs Watson shook her head. ‘No, Mr Mullet. I didn’t see you. Well, not you, specifically. I saw . . .’ She pursed her lips, then went on in a rush. ‘Look, I thought you should know what I saw, because it seemed the decent thing to do – to tell you. I saw Mrs Mullet and your neighbour . . . the miner’s widow – what’s her name? Shepherd? I saw them . . .’
Thomas’s gut sank.
‘I saw them kissing.’
She saw them.
She saw them kissing.
Thomas laughed nervously. ‘Well now, they’re close friends. You ladies do that all the time, kiss each other greetings, and so forth. Much like men shake hands, I suppose.’
‘On the cheek,’ she said, glaring at him as though he had insulted her. ‘This wasn’t a kiss on the cheek between two lady friends. This was on the mouth.’ A rosy flush had crept up from beneath her neckline. ‘I know what I saw. And I don’t like it. Neither should you.’
Thomas’s hand was still laid flat on the lid of his most expensive washing machine. He looked down and considered the machine with a sense of yearning. The situation appeared to him to have two possible avenues of escape. One: he could deny Mrs Watson’s suggestion, feigning great offence and indignation, honouring his wife’s name while shooing Mrs Watson (politely, of course, with promises to immediately alert her husband to her dire need of a new washing machine) from the store. He did not believe that Mrs Watson had not mentioned what she saw to her husband – but fortunately, for Thomas, Bert regularly boasted about spending the majority of his time at home with the football broadcasting loudly on the wireless so he didn’t have to listen to his nagging wife. With this knowledge, and a few strategically placed words in Watson’s ear about that Luxomatic display model Watson had ‘borrowed’ a few months back and neglected to return, he could potentially squish any threat of Mrs Watson’s ‘scandal’ growing larger than the annoyance it presented. Mrs Watson would leave without buying anything.
Or two: he could play along. Play the astonished, concerned husband. Press her for more detail. Appear contemplative, irked and troubled. He could then appear anxious to recover his pride, throwing extra enthusiasm into his pitch for this incredible washing machine – and Mrs Watson, eager to help, might pull out her cheque book.
The washing machine’s lid was smooth, warm where his hand had been resting on it. There were four of this particular model out the back, collecting dust in the warehouse for weeks. Hundreds of pounds worth of stock, unsold.
‘Mrs Watson,’ he began.
‘Please, call me Gloria.’ She smirked.
‘Gloria. Listen.’ He took his hand from the washing machine and set it on her forearm. ‘I’m sorry to hear this has troubled you for so long.’
‘It has.’ She nodded, almost sadly.
‘And I’m honoured that you thought the right thing to do was come to me.’
‘Oh, Mr Mullet. Don’t mention it.’
‘But what you saw – or, more accurately, what you think you saw, on a hot day in the sun, with all that sugar, all the distractions around you – is an offensive idea and, frankly, I’m outraged that you’re turning an innocent moment between my wife and her friend into some kind of scandal.’
Gloria blinked behind her glasses. ‘It’s not –’
‘Your husband and I have a respectful working relationship. I’m sure he’d find it unconscionable that you might jeopardise that by these insinuations.’ Mimicking her, he lowered his voice and leaned in. ‘Especially as Bagnoli values my opinion on the running of this store – and its employees – so very highly.’
Her mouth opened and shut, once, twice.
Thomas ushered Mrs Watson from the row of washing machines, propelling her along with a hand at her elbow.
‘Mr Mullet,’ she tried. ‘I implore you to listen.’
‘I’ll not have you sullying Mrs Mullet’s dear name with your school-girl gossip, Mrs Watson. I’ll be having a word to your husband. This is a nice town. We don’t need the likes of this silly chatter.’ He pulled open the front door; the bell jangled overhead. Warm air from the street rushed in. ‘Now, I’ll be sure Bert brings one of the floor stock washers home this week.’
‘Mr Mullet –’
But he closed the door, and she was out on the street, gaping through the window. He turned his back on her, and strode to straighten the kettles on their shelves to hide the tremor of his hands.
*
Later that evening, Thomas arrived home and found Aida pulling a meatloaf out of the oven. She offered him her cheek and he kissed her, swiftly, distractedly, thinking of the kiss between her and his wife that Mrs Watson had witnessed.
‘Where’s Elsie?’
‘She took Millie for a walk.’ Aida set the tin on the bench.
He grunted, loosening his tie. He flung off his jacket and tossed it over a chair.
Aida inserted a skewer into the meatloaf. ‘You all right?’
He was about to rep
ly when the front door opened. Millie bolted into the kitchen, pigtails bouncing on the sides of her head, arms flying. ‘Dada!’ she cried.
‘Hey, kiddo!’ He picked her up and hugged her tightly. Almost immediately she squirmed to be put down; he set her on the floor and she ran off.
Elsie was backing awkwardly through the door, dragging the stroller. ‘Heavens above,’ she said, ‘it’s still warm out there. Millie, go wait in the bathroom for me to wash your hands. You’re home early,’ she added upon seeing Thomas. ‘I thought you had a demo tonight?’
‘I cancelled it. I need to talk to you.’ He watched Elsie, flushed and puffing, bent over the cumbersome stroller, trying in vain to fold it and he didn’t offer to help. He looked over at Aida setting plates on the bench. Three large plates, one small bowl for Millie. Aida saw Elsie occupied with the stroller and disappeared into the bathroom to help Millie wash her hands. Thomas, standing in the kitchen and feeling rather extraneous, grew impatient. Finally he grabbed the stroller from Elsie and wrestled it flat. Aida was back in the kitchen; she picked up a knife and cut into the meatloaf.
‘Mrs Watson came into the shop today,’ he announced.
Elsie lifted his jacket off the chair. ‘What a treat,’ she said.
‘She said she saw you two at the Show, a few weeks back.’
‘Did she? I don’t remember.’
‘No, of course you don’t, you were too busy kissing.’
Elsie dropped his jacket. ‘What?’
‘She saw the two of you. Kissing. Apparently not in the manner that lady friends should kiss each other. And then she had a crisis of faith about it for a while and simply had to come clean to me. In the store. At work. In the middle of the day. How could you be so careless?’
Elsie gaped, looking back and forth between him and Aida. ‘How could she have seen us?’