by Liz Byrski
‘But what will you do?’
‘Not sure yet. Might set up on my own,’ Brian said. ‘Management and marketing consultancy, something like that. Could be a godsend, really, my own business – decide what I want and when I want it. I won’t have to put up with all the wankers trying to cover their own backs.’
Telling Collette was an experiment, an attempt to find out how it felt to talk about it, and now he knew it felt terrible; so bad that, to his horror, he began to cry. Tears ran down his cheeks and a lump in his throat broke into a series of shattering sobs. ‘Shit,’ he groaned, sinking his face into his hands. ‘Shit and fuck. Fuck ’em all.’
Collette moved closer and put her arm around his shoulders, and he reached out, wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her lap until he was able to stop crying.
‘Sorry,’ he said eventually, attempting to dry his eyes. ‘Sorry . . . don’t know where that came from. Haven’t cried since I was a kid.’
‘Oh, stop it, Brian,’ she said, ‘you’re upset and so you should be. Nothing wrong with that.’
She stood up again, straightened her skirt and glanced at her watch. The hour that had been paid for by credit card when Brian booked her was almost up. She was no stranger to men’s dramas, their pain, the confidences and the times when all they needed was to talk out their anger and sense of impotence, but she had never anticipated it with Brian.
‘Look, love,’ she said, ‘time’s nearly up and I’ve got another booking on the other side of town.’
Brian got up. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘sorry. Next time it’ll be all right. Sorry.’ He reached for his wallet. He always gave her an extra fifty dollars in cash but this time she shook her head.
‘No, darl. I never even got my knickers off,’ she said with a smile.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Go on, take it.’
But, pushing his hand away gently, she picked up her bag. ‘Won’t be seeing you so often from now on?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll be back and forth, I reckon,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be here for the next few days.’
‘Okay then,’ Collette said. ‘Well, take care of yourself. And take my advice – tell your wife and your daughter as soon as possible. The longer it goes on the harder it’ll be.’ And she kissed him lightly on the cheek and closed the door behind her.
‘You all right?’ said a woman sitting a little further along the wooden seat on the ferry. She was holding a packet of tissues out to him.
Brian put his hand up to his face and realised there were tears running down his cheeks. ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the tissues. ‘I’m fine . . . just the wind making my eyes water.’
‘Sunglasses,’ the woman said with a smile, nodding towards the pair that were tucked between the second and third buttons of his shirt. ‘That’ll stop it.’
Brian put on the glasses but the tears kept coming, and even after he had disembarked at Manly they didn’t stop. They seemed to have a life of their own.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Gayle said. ‘It’s almost nine hundred kilometres to Carnarvon. Why don’t we aim for one of the roadhouses tonight and go on to Carnarvon tomorrow, then Geraldton the next day? We’re already leaving a day ahead of schedule. Why is it so important that we do all this distance in one day?’
Marissa, tight-lipped at the wheel, shook her head. ‘Look, I swapped the car for the camper so we can go further today, doing the driving in shifts and taking turns to sleep in the back. We can go through the night if we want.’
‘And suppose we don’t want?’ Sonya asked, exchanging a look with Gayle in the mirror. ‘Suppose we just want to check in somewhere, have a shower and something to eat, and sleep in a proper bed?’
Marissa shrugged. She knew they were angry with her and concerned about what was happening. Since her visit to the house the previous day she had disappeared into her shell, changed the car booking, cancelled what should have been a rest day at the motel, and hassled them into the journey south. Their final performance the previous night had gone well, but no thanks to her. She had gone through the motions, and it was Gayle and Sonya who had carried it, challenged by her mood to infuse their own dancing with greater levels of energy. She’d been impressed by the flair of their performances, but she was incapable of telling them so.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to say now. ‘I know you think I’m unreasonable but I just want to get as far away from Hedland as I can.’
Sonya shrugged and lay down on one of the bunks, strapping the seatbelt around her. ‘Obviously,’ she said, ‘so, since you had us up before daylight, I’m going to catch up on lost sleep.’
In the front seat, Gayle fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘Me too,’ she said, reclining the seat slightly and closing her eyes. ‘Wake me when it’s my turn to drive.’
It was just before six and the open road stretched ahead of them, promising Marissa relief with every kilometre. She fixed her eyes on the middle distance and put her foot down; two hundred kilometres to Roebourne. With that behind her, the images that tortured her, the horrifically revived memory of the house, would soften . . .
‘This lady,’ Dick had said, holding open the screen door, waiting for her to follow him, ‘she used to live here a while ago.’
Marissa hesitated on the step. ‘I don’t think . . .’
‘Yeah,’ Dick said. ‘Come on, you came here to see the place, I’ll bet. Funny business going back to places. I’ve done it meself a few times.’
The inside of the house was initially shocking in its familiarity, despite the changed décor. The central passage, once a grubby shade of ochre, had been painted a delicate duck-egg blue; the four doors that led off it were a darker shade of the same tone. She followed Dick Penfold through to the completely remodelled kitchen off which was a cosy breakfast room where there had once been a scruffy sleepout.
‘You’ve transformed it,’ she said with a sense of relief, looking around the sparkling kitchen and through the window to the well-tended vegetable garden beyond. ‘It was a mess when I was here.’
Her tension eased a little. It was familiar but different; different people, different energy. The past had been exorcised. She sat at the table cautiously taking in her surroundings and drinking her tea while Molly and Dick described the state the house had been in when they bought it, and how he had done most of the repair work himself.
‘So when were you here, dear?’ Molly asked.
‘The late sixties,’ Marissa said. ‘I was backpacking with a group of people.’
Molly nodded. ‘All the young people were doing it then, backpacking. Could never see the attraction myself, but I was too old for it even then.’ She smiled at Marissa and pushed a biscuit tin towards her. ‘Help yourself. Stay here long, did you?’
Marissa felt the fear rising again and shook her head. ‘Just a few weeks. People were going off in all directions. I managed to get a lift to Perth on a truck.’
‘Dangerous,’ Molly said. ‘Hitchhiking, I mean. You never know whose car you’re getting into. Dangerous.’
Marissa smiled. ‘The driver was very nice,’ she said, and restrained herself from adding that it didn’t feel half as dangerous as spending another moment in the house. She set down her cup. ‘I’ll get out of your way,’ she said, getting up from the table. ‘It was lovely of you to invite me in, and thanks so much for the tea.’
Dick struggled to his feet. ‘Before you go I want to show you what I did with one of the other rooms,’ he said, guiding her gently in the one direction she really didn’t want to go. ‘You probably remember this used to be a bedroom.’ He flung open the door and Marissa leapt back in shock.
She didn’t see the vast model railway that filled the room, its tracks weaving through valleys and pastures of green plastic, the tiny houses and industrial buildings, the minute details of the trains and the stations, the rigid figures of passengers waiting on the platforms, and the miniature packing cases and sacks of coal. What sh
e saw was what she remembered: dirty ochre walls, the ceiling stained by years of tobacco smoke, herself, the others and beyond them Blue’s face in the doorway. She felt the bile rise in her throat and she turned away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she called as she reached the open front door. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’ And she ran out and up the street without looking back.
Gayle’s eyelids were heavy and she was relieved to be able to lie back in silence and let the humming of the tyres on the bitumen lull her into relaxation. She had left Broome feeling at peace for the first time in years. Facing Josh, telling him her story, had made her stronger and although he hadn’t put it into words, she felt his forgiveness. They had talked for hours that day, and in the days that followed. Watching the tenderness and affection that characterised Josh and Dan’s relationship, Gayle wondered briefly whether, given time, Angie and Tony would mature in this way. Although Angie seemed happy, she and Tony appeared to lack the affectionate ease and companionship she could see in her son’s home.
‘How’s Ange?’ Josh had asked almost as though he could read her thoughts. ‘Is he okay – Tony? I only met him once last year when they came up for a long weekend.’
‘He’s nice,’ Gayle said. ‘Not the person I’d have picked for Angie. He’s pretty focused on work and very ambitious, but they seem happy. Maybe . . .’ she hesitated . . . ‘maybe when I’ve sorted things out at home you’ll come down to Perth? Both of you, so we can all get together?’
Josh turned away from the sandwiches he was preparing for lunch. ‘Without Dad,’ he said, ‘after you’ve . . . when he’s . . .’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘When I’ve told him it’s over. When I’ve found a place of my own.’
Josh looked surprised. ‘Why should you move out? Make him go and you stay in the house.’
Gayle shook her head. ‘I can’t live there, Josh. I never liked the place, anyway, it’s too big and pretentious. It never felt like home. Angie reckons that’s my fault for not putting my own stamp on it but I couldn’t, I didn’t have the heart.’
‘Where would you go, Gayle?’ Dan asked. ‘Will you stay in Perth or shift somewhere else? Come to Broome, perhaps?’
She was moved by his suggestion that made living near them suddenly seem the most natural thing in the world.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘First I need to sort things out with Brian, and then find a place to rent for a while.’
There was a silence as Dan brought the sandwiches and plates to the table, and began to draw the cork on a bottle of white wine.
‘I could help you if you want,’ Josh said suddenly. ‘With that move, I mean. If you feel you want some moral support.’ He looked up at Dan. ‘You could manage without me for a week or so if I went down to Perth, couldn’t you?’
Dan smiled, resting his hand on Josh’s shoulder. ‘Of course – or I could come too. We could get Lawrence and Mike to take over, like they did when we went on holiday. Then we could both help.’
It was extraordinary to Gayle that just a few days had taken them from estrangement to this point. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do –’ she began.
‘You didn’t ask,’ Josh said. ‘I offered, and so did Dan. Think about it. If we don’t come for the move, then we could come a bit later.’
Gayle had thought the hardest part still lay ahead but now, heading south, aware that only one stop remained on the journey home, she realised that the hardest part, the fear of rejection, the challenge of risking it, was gone.
Sonya lay on the narrow bunk, her portable CD player resting on her chest, earphones pumping Placido Domingo into her ears.
‘Placido is my favourite of the Three Tenors,’ she had said earlier, in an effort to start a conversation. ‘His interpretation is more sensitive. Don’t you think?’
Gayle raised a hand sleepily, conveying nothing in particular, and Marissa favoured her with a grunt. ‘Well, thanks for that, girls,’ Sonya said in a voice audible only to herself, and replaced the earphones. ‘I get the message.’
They wanted silence but it was such an awkward silence, with Marissa hunching over the wheel, driving like a maniac. Sonya stared at her back, torn between sympathy and frustration. The previous afternoon, Marissa had returned from her walk drawn and silent and, brushing off their concern, had disappeared into her room until it was time to go to the community centre. Sonya was both hurt and irritated; the warmth and companionship they had shared now seemed to her to have been built by Gayle and herself. Marissa had always held back, disclosing very little of herself. Didn’t she trust them? Perhaps she’d been wrong about the friendship, projected onto it what she wanted rather than what it really was.
Sonya tossed restlessly on the bunk. Everything seemed to be in a disturbing state of flux: Gayle was changing by the day, Marissa transformed from confidence to chaos, even Angie had stopped sending her cheery and encouraging text messages, and no one at the office had found it necessary to consult her about anything for at least the last couple of weeks. Even Oliver was changing. He had left it rather too long to call back with an apology and, despite being amused rather than offended by his call, she had started to feel that she might become offended if he didn’t call back soon to apologise. Oliver sober would surely have assumed that his call was offensive, but was he just going to ignore it? Finally, after what had apparently been a grim period of soul searching, he had called a couple of nights after they arrived in Port Hedland.
‘I hardly know what to say,’ he’d begun and Sonya, deciding not to be too much of a pushover, let him struggle. ‘What I did, what I said, it was appalling, insulting . . .’ he said eventually. ‘I’m so very sorry, Sonya.’
‘Thank you, Oliver,’ she’d said, attempting not to burst out laughing. ‘It was rather over the top and most unlike you.’
‘Yes,’ he said, clearly relieved that she was even speaking to him. ‘Yes, I’m afraid that’s how I am at present, most unlike myself, and it’s pretty confusing. The therapy, you know . . . not that it’s any excuse for what I did. That was really unforgivable.’
‘You are forgiven,’ Sonya said, enjoying the pleasure of magnanimity. ‘It was an aberration. Therapy can do that to people. Besides, it was rather flattering to know that my breasts have made such a lasting impression on you.’ She could imagine him blushing at the other end of the line, searching for an appropriate response, and she hoped he could handle it. If there was one thing Oliver needed to learn it was how to flirt harmlessly. But clearly he had a long way to go.
‘Oh, yes, absolutely,’ he said, ‘it was entirely complimentary. Well, it was meant to be, I hope . . .’
‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘Yes, Oliver, it’s okay. Don’t take everything so seriously. What’s a little phone sex between friends?’
‘Phone sex! But I wasn’t –’
‘Stop right there,’ she said. ‘Relax, I’m joking, and I’m trying to get you to join in.’ There was a long silence at the other end of the line; she could almost hear the cogs turning in his head. ‘Are you still there, Oliver?’
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘Yes, I’m just thinking about what you said. Andrew, my therapist, said something similar about lightening up, learning how to play . . . I think that’s how he put it.’
‘Sounds like good advice,’ Sonya said. ‘Keep taking it. You don’t need to be so intense, so serious and correct. Spontaneity, that’s what you need.’
‘That’s what Andrew said: relax, play, be spontaneous, discover my sensuous inner self . . .’
‘Exactly, and are you doing that?’
There was another longish pause. ‘I’m trying but I really need a road map. It’s hard to change, isn’t it, Sonya? Hard to break the habits of a lifetime?’
‘Of course, but you’ll do it. I can sense it happening already.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep, really. And when I get back we can talk about it, how you might develop a sexy personality.’
‘Sexy personality? You mean . . .
flirting . . .’
‘Yes, if you’d like to, that is.’
‘I would, I’d really appreciate that, Sonya, because somehow Andrew expects me to manage that part on my own.’
‘You’re on,’ Sonya said. ‘Coaching in the game of life begins when I get back.’
‘Good, good,’ Oliver said. ‘And how’s Gayle, is she all right? I was thinking of giving her a call.’
‘She’s fine,’ Sonya said, and updated him briefly on Gayle’s reunion with Josh. ‘She’s a changed woman, you’ll be amazed. There’s no way she’s going back to the way things were. There are big changes afoot chez Peterson.’
‘Really?’ Oliver’s tone was thoughtful. ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? So I’ll phone her, I think, don’t you, Sonya? Is that a good idea?’
It pulled Sonya up short. ‘Yes, do that, I’m sure she’d like to hear from you.’
‘Okay then, I will. Great, thanks. And apologies again. You’re a good friend, Sonya, I’m so relieved that you’re not . . . that you’re still speaking to me.’
‘I’m speaking to you, Oliver,’ she said, ‘and we’ll speak more soon.’
‘Yes, indeed. Flirting – that’s very good.’
Thinking back on it now, with Placido serenading her through the headphones, Sonya puzzled once more over what had happened. One minute she was enjoying the conversation and the next they were talking about Gayle and she was feeling strange. Was it Oliver’s sudden enthusiasm at the prospect of speaking to Gayle? She was, after all, a very old friend and their estrangement was brief and recent. It was perfectly reasonable that on hearing Gayle’s good news, he would want to call her. Perfectly reasonable. So why, Sonya wondered, did she end up feeling disappointed – or was what she felt really more like a twinge of jealousy?
TWENTY
Frank sat in the bar of the Norfolk Hotel staring into his fourth Johnnie Walker. He’d had an appalling week. Every move they’d made on the drugs case had drawn a blank. The night he’d arrested Marissa’s neighbour he’d been confident he would crack the case wide open within a few weeks but here he was, months later, the big operators still eluding him and the Deputy Commissioner increasingly impatient for a result.