And there at last was Warren’s wife. She was moving forward to the front of the stage, and she was, on first impression, cheerful and breezy – but then, Cath realised, she also looked extremely nervous about being on a stage. This gave Cath the strangest stab, and she had to look away.
After the assembly, on her way across the playground to her classroom, Cath felt terrified as Billson approached, beckoning Breanna to follow him. Breanna would surely see the truth in her eyes! Or hear it in her voice? Or sense it in the way she held her shoulders?
‘Oh, you’re Cath Murphy,’ said Breanna, friendly. ‘I’ve heard so much about you!’ She swung her right arm forward, as if to shake hands, but instead clapped her own hands together, as if she were very excited.
Recklessly, Cath said, ‘I’ve heard a lot about you too!’
‘I was really looking forward to meeting you at the Carotid Sticks?’ said Breanna. ‘Remember? It was such a shame I couldn’t make it down in time.’
‘I know!’ exclaimed Cath, but Billson was bored by their chatter and wanted to whisk Breanna away to meet somebody else.
‘Do you want to have coffee after school today?’ Breanna called, over her shoulder, to which Cath replied: ‘That’s a great idea!’
Watching Breanna hurry away, Cath felt another strange stab. ‘I know!’ she had said about the night when they almost met. And ‘that’s a great idea!’ about coffee. It was all so cheap and deceptive.
At coffee, Breanna chose a couch instead of a hard-backed chair, and slumped in it, as if determined to relax. They were in the shopping mall across the road from the school, with a view over the highway.
‘I’m so relieved to get this job,’ said Breanna, stirring her coffee. ‘I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being away from Warren for the weekdays. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know if it’s good for a marriage, for a start.’
Cath breathed in for a moment, her mind looping backwards on itself as she tried to figure out a response. What would I say, in this situation, if this situation were what it’s meant to be?
‘Mmm,’ she said, and then tried to change the subject. ‘So, you’ve worked with kids before, have you?’
‘A few years ago,’ said Breanna. ‘And actually mostly with teenagers, but my thesis was on nine-to twelve-year-olds.’
Cath prolonged this for as long as she could, asking after Breanna’s thesis topic, where she went to university, who her favourite teachers were, whether she took good notes. She enjoyed the conversation. She almost forgot who Breanna was, but the FEAR and SUSPENSE always buzzed just below the surface.
‘Anyway,’ said Breanna, ‘Warren tells me –’
‘Oh, hang on!’ panicked Cath. ‘Have you heard there are some Year 7 girls from a local high school at our school? Because their classrooms got flooded? Do you think you’ll be their counsellor too?’
Breanna knew about the Year 7s but she didn’t know if they were part of her job description. They probably had high school counsellors of their own.
‘The thing is,’ said Cath, ‘I’ve been watching one of these girls, because she’s somehow related to a girl in my class. And every time I see her she’s alone. I think she might not have any friends.’
‘Well,’ said Breanna, ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t try to help. Do you know her name?’
Oh God, thought Cath, there is nothing to dislike. She is kind and obliging, she has pretty eyes and nervous hands, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing to dislike.
But then Breanna took the subject back to Warren. ‘Warren’s as excited as I am about me moving down to Sydney,’ she said. ‘He’s like a little boy. You know what? He even secretly went and bought a new bed to welcome me! And he surprised me with it! A four-poster. He put a sign on it saying “WELCOME HOME”. Isn’t he gorgeous?’
After these three distinct events, the week fell into a haze, and Cath walked around a step or two behind herself.
On two separate occasions, she saw Warren take Breanna’s hand, and together they ran across the road. Once, she saw Warren beckon Breanna across the playground, and then tip up a small bag of chocolate sultanas, filling Breanna’s palm. She also saw Warren demonstrating the staffroom coffee machine. Breanna stood beside him, concentrating so hard that he laughed and told her this was not life or death. Breanna also laughed, embarrassed, and shook her shoulders to loosen herself up.
Meanwhile, the other teachers stopped talking about ‘Warren’ and started talking about ‘Warren-and-Breanna’. They kept telling Cath what a nice person Breanna seemed to be, and how fun it was to meet Warren’s ‘other half ’.
Cath began to feel that the ground was shifting slightly, and that the sky was not quite fixed to the earth. Now then, she thought, trying to stay calm, who am I? Where do I belong? Who are my friends again?
She thought of her three best friends from high school, who, oddly enough, had all ended up moving to remote, exotic locations: Lucy to Nepal, Kristin to Mongolia, and Sarah to the Sahara. She decided to write a long e-mail to the three of them, telling the story with the subject header: ‘HELP!’ But Lucy, Kristin and Sarah rarely got access to the Internet, so she did not expect an answer for a month.
An image kept recurring in her mind, of a man on a TV cooking show, sharpening a pair of knives. The screen was filled with a flurry of glints and clashes. At night, she did not go to bed. Instead, she sat up on her couch watching TV until she fell asleep.
She tried to study her law notes, but could not concentrate. For example, when she read the chapter on Larceny, she decided to steal Warren from his wife:
‘A asked B to lend him a shilling (she read). B agreed and handed A a coin. Both thought it to be a shilling, but later it emerged to be a sovereign. A kept the sovereign.’
Ah-hah! (She looked up from her book.) She would ask Breanna for a loan of a sovereign, and by mistake, Breanna would hand over Warren. Cath would carry him away on a white horse, wicked laughter echoing; too late Breanna would discover her mistake!
There was one day during that week – possibly Wednesday – which she thought of as the Day of Letters. The first letter was handed to her in the playground before school had begun. Cassie Zing, sprinting past, suddenly skidded to a stop and said, ‘I forgot to give you Mum’s note!’ She took an envelope out of her pocket and handed it over.
Dear Ms Murphy,
Just a note to let you know how very much I am looking forward to meeting you at the Parent-Teacher Night this Friday.
Very best wishes and kind regards,
Fancy Zing
Cath looked up in surprise. This note was so warm and unnecessary! Such a kind, pointless thought from a stranger! She felt suffused with comfort – all would be well. But then she saw Breanna smiling at her and she had to crunch the letter in the palm of her hand. You do not deserve such kindness, she thought.
This was confirmed when she checked her e-mail and received a reply from Kristin in Mongolia: ‘CATH!! YOU POOR BABY. DON’T FEEL GUILTY. THIS IS NOT YOUR FAULT. IT WAS HIS CHOICE. IT’S ALL HIS FAULT. WILL SEND LONGER EMAIL SOON. AM RUNNING OUT OF MONEY!!!!!!’
But it is my fault, she said to the computer screen. She had never tried to stop him. He had asked her to be strong.
Then, in her staffroom pigeonhole, she found a large pink envelope, addressed in swirling purple. At first she felt excited, but then she opened it and read:
Dear Ms Murphy,
I know something about you.
Something secret and unforgivable.
Meet me Friday, 1 pm, at the Valerio Couch Potato Café across the road from your school.
A Stranger
So it was true. She was evil and she could not be forgiven. She felt a crawling of self-loathing down her spine.
Then she read the note again and panicked: what was this letter about? Was it suggesting blackmail? She and Warren had been so convinced that nobody knew! They had even been proud of their subterfuge! How had they been caught out?
/> It must be someone from the school. Who else could possibly know? She hunched over her pigeonhole, examining the letter, and then glanced furtively around the room: Heather Waratah was eating a blueberry muffin. Jo Bel Castro was reading the paper. They both looked innocent.
She thought she should search for Warren, and show him the letter, but decided against it. The only thing that she and Warren had left now was their secret. Also, it would be unbearable to see him panic about Breanna finding out. She, Cath, would deal with the blackmail on her own.
That night, Cath arrived home and found a fourth letter in her mailbox. This one was from her landlord, and said that the landlord had purchased the two apartments adjoining Cath’s. He intended to knock down the walls between all three, creating one grand apartment. Naturally, Cath would be welcome to continue living in the grand apartment, which would, incidentally, include a sewing room and a sauna. The letter continued:
Of course, renovation can be noisy and inconvenient! We therefore offer you free accommodation in a penthouse suite at the Winston Hills Tudor Arms for the duration.
Rest assured that, despite the additional comfort which we endeavour to provide with these alterations, your rent will remain as it is for the remainder of your lease.
Cath read the letter over. A sewing room! A sauna! What would she do with such things?
But it was exciting, and she reached for the phone to call Warren. Of course, she remembered, she could not.
It occurred to her that this was a common feature of break-ups – the not being allowed. When boyfriends had broken her heart in the past, she recalled, the worst of it, when she saw them again, was not being allowed to touch. Not being allowed to smooth their eyebrows, or take their hand at the traffic lights, or touch the end of their nose. Not being allowed to phone up and say, straight off: ‘Well! You’re not going to believe what’s happened!’ Instead, you had to explain yourself. You had to say, ‘Hello, this is Cath, how are you?’ And that was assuming you were allowed to phone at all.
Of course, all along she had been denied the right to hold Warren’s hand in public – but now she was not allowed to see him on weeknights and she was forbidden to phone.
She re-read the letter, to comfort herself – at least her landlord seemed fond of her – and noticed, as she did, a pale little footer in the bottom right corner of the page. ‘Project 78’, said the footer.
Project 78. Now what did that remind her of?
She ran into the kitchen, opened a few drawers, leafed through recipe books, and found it: a letter she had received a few months before, offering a free course in Healthy & Delicious Cooking for the Young and Young At Heart. (She had not taken the offer, but had abandoned it in her recipe drawer.)
And there it was – a pale little footer in the bottom right corner of the page. ‘Project 75’, it said.
She had a strange, scary feeling for a moment – how was her landlord connected with a local cooking school? – but then she smiled: what a coincidence!
The coincidence comforted her. It suggested a world in which everything was connected by faint dotted lines. There was a grand scheme to things, a gentle, controlling destiny. Life was a series of projects – project 75, cooking; project 78, renovations.
She returned to the dining room table and re-read the letter about the proposed renovations. She traced the letters of Project 78: things that were meant to be would happen. Some day, somehow, it would all work out.
She almost reached for the phone again, to call Warren and let him know.
After the Day of Letters, Cath found that her week was clenching into RAGE.
‘What’s going on?’ she said to Warren in his empty classroom, at the beginning of recess. He was tacking paintings on the wall, ready for parent-teacher night the next day.
‘I think,’ said Warren, ‘I think it won’t be too much longer. Things are just falling apart. Bree and I are both sensing something’s wrong.’
‘Mmm,’ said Cath. Then, as he continued tacking paintings to the wall, she said: ‘If it’s falling apart, why did you buy a new bed? And put a sign on it saying: Welcome Home Breanna.’
‘She told you that?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Warren was silent now, gazing at the thumbtack which was lying on its side in his palm.
At lunchtime that day, Breanna found Cath in the staffroom, sat down beside her and said briskly, ‘I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to that Year 7 girl, the one named Listen Taylor? The one you were worried about? I spoke to her yesterday.’
‘Wow,’ said Cath. ‘That was quick.’
Breanna looked pleased, so Cath continued to praise her: ‘Seriously, thanks so much for doing that. That was really nice of you. And you are so efficient!’
‘Anyway,’ said Breanna, opening up a packed lunch, ‘I think you were right. She seems unhappy to me – not that she would admit she didn’t have any friends. Her big brother brought her up, you know – apparently her parents died when she was a baby. Poor kid.’
Then Breanna gasped slightly and said, in a low voice, ‘Oh, Cath, I’m so sorry. Exactly the same thing happened to you, didn’t it? Your parents died when you were a baby, too, didn’t they? In a house fire?’
‘Yes,’ said Cath, frowning slightly, and trying to turn the frown into a smile. ‘But I wasn’t raised by a brother – I was adopted.’
‘And the only thing you’ve got left of your real parents is a faded photograph? Is that right?’
‘Mmm,’ said Cath. Then she remembered that she should be back in her classroom preparing for the parent-teacher night.
When Warren saw Cath at the doorway to his classroom, he said, ‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Cath, with a snap like a ring-binder. ‘You told her I was adopted. You told her about the photo of my parents.’
‘I’m sorry, Cath. I didn’t know it was a secret.’
‘You didn’t know it was a secret? I told you at three o’clock in the morning. I got out the photo of my parents from a locked jewellery box. We both cried. And that didn’t seem like, I don’t know, a confidence?’
‘Cath, all I can do is say I’m sorry.’
‘Stop saying my name,’ snapped Cath. ‘You both keep saying my name. You and your wife, she does it too.’
Warren looked surprised, and Cath said, ‘You can’t do this’ – her voice became trembly – ‘you can’t have an affair with me, and then go back to your wife, you can’t say that it’s coming apart at the seams and then buy a four-poster bed. It’s not allowed.’ She reached towards him, and he took one step back.
‘I’m sorry, okay? I can’t do anything about it now – it would kill Breanna. I know this sounds arrogant but the fact is she’s really in love with me.’
‘Oh cut it out,’ said Cath. ‘She’s not in love with you. She doesn’t even know you.’
‘Well,’ he said gently, ‘we’ve been married for three years.’
‘She doesn’t know you,’ Cath repeated. ‘You’re a man who cheated on his wife. She doesn’t know that, so she doesn’t know you.’
He bowed his head while Cath’s shaky breathing filled the room.
‘I can’t leave her,’ he whispered, after a moment.
‘I’m not asking you to leave her,’ she almost shouted. ‘I like her, she’s nice. I don’t want you to leave her. You said it was falling apart.’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘I swear, we just have to wait.’
‘Well, while we’re waiting, do you have to keep touching her? Do you have to keep holding her hand? I saw you massaging her feet. Have you thought about how that makes me feel?’
‘Please don’t cry,’ he said.
‘This doesn’t make me cry!’ Haughtily, she stalked out of the room.
That afternoon, she tried to study Criminal Law but decided, instead, to murder Warren Woodford. She would smother him with cross-stitched bookmarks, or watch, with a smirk, as he drowned in the syrup of his words. She chose her defenc
e in advance: Provocation (Chapter 5). The accused, transported by passion, was simply not mistress of herself.
Later that night, sleeping on the couch, she dreamt that Warren told her he was in love with Breanna again. ‘It’s over between you and me!’ he confided, warmly, happily. ‘I’m in love with my wife again!’
She shouted at him and punched his chest: ‘You are not in love with your wife! You’re in love with me! Warren, don’t you understand? It’s not real! You think you’re in love with your wife, because she’s so happy and so bright and so nervous and so sweet, whereas me? Look at me! I’m so cold and so angry and so bitter and so sad, but I’m not, Warren, if you’d just come back to me, I would be the happy person that you want, if you’d just, if you’d just, I’m not this brittle, this – Warren, this does not count.’
On and on she argued in the dream: passionate, ferocious, eloquent, ingenious. Her arguments sliced the air like glinting knives. But still he smiled his contented smile and shook his head.
By Friday, she had settled into DESPAIR.
Watching through her classroom window in the morning, she saw Warren and Breanna walking from the car park. I hate you, she thought. He was facing away from her. Look at me, she thought, turn around.
But he reached his hand back like a beckon, and Breanna hurried forward like a reply.
I love you, Cath thought, plaintively. He was swinging Breanna’s hand.
At lunchtime that day, Cath sat calmly in the Valerio Couch Potato Café and waited for her blackmailer. She took one sip of coffee and slammed it down on the table, thinking: I hate these Chain Store Coffee Shops! Why couldn’t the blackmailer have met me in a REAL café? But really she was thinking: how dare Warren tell his wife my secrets!
I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes Page 26