Relatively Famous

by Roger Averill

  The familiarity between Morales and Madigan and their acceptance of traditional domestic gender roles made the shift in their relationship’s status seamless. Over time Morales did not merely serve at the dinner parties but partook of them, and, more often than not, provided them with their conversational spark, their joie de vivre. Members of Madigan’s famed inner circle quickly adopted her as one of their own, and, as the years progressed, those in more distant orbits, who may have suspected her a chancer, came to realise the depth and sincerity of her affection.

  As for Madigan himself, he confessed to feeling utterly shocked by his own contentment. ‘It’s taken a lifetime, but finally my ship has found its harbour. I had no idea I could live without that sense of churning, the need for flight that has described my past.’

  * Lee Wagner, for one, disagrees with this interpretation of Morales and Madigan’s relational dynamic. In her scathing appraisal of Madigan’s relationships with and fictional representations of women in ‘Do you want lies with that?: Gilbert Madigan’s McDonaldized Misogyny’, she suggests it is unsurprising that this last romantic attachment should also have been his longest, for it is ‘a cookie-cutter case of the no-longer-potent man rediscovering his boyish desire for Mother. All the better if, with pharmacological aid, he could also occasionally sleep with her – Oedipus on Viagra.’ Contemporary Literature 39.4 (2004) 637–658.

  º In fact it was later revealed that Morales was herself capable of serious silliness, and when it came to drinking, especially rum and tequila, could more than meet Madigan’s mark.

  Sinclair Hughes, Inside the Lion’s Den: The Literary Life of Gilbert Madigan, p. 401-402.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I became a better teacher after the breakup. Not immediately, when I was staying up late and drinking too much. But after that, once I found my bearings and settled in to the week-about rhythm with Noah and Sunday.

  I discovered I quite enjoyed the extra time to myself and would spend hours at night preparing for the following day’s classes, a task I’d always minimised when living with Nat, doing the bulk of the parenting. And because I missed my own kids and wasn’t constantly mediating their petty disputes and ongoing disgruntlements, I found I had more time and patience for the ones I taught.

  My fortnightly lack of night-time conversation meant I was also more inclined to talk with my colleagues, who in the past I had generally ignored, assiduously steering clear of their internal politics and social cliques.

  Over the past year I had become a semi-regular member of Friday-night drinks, held at the Tarmac, the closest beer barn to the school. So when Marty, one of the PE teachers, organised the inaugural staff ping-pong championships, I signed up for all three events: singles, doubles and mixed. Sanjeev, a legal studies teacher, and I were unlucky to be knocked out in the first round of the doubles, and then I met Marty – and thus my doom – in the second round of the singles. In the mixed doubles I was partnered up with the new student welfare officer, Caroline Lehrer. Athletic-looking, with short black hair and large hazel eyes, I would have thought Caroline was in her early forties had she not happily announced her age as fifty when, confronted by our twenty-something opponents, she joined me in appealing for a veterans’ handicap.

  As it was, we didn’t need it. After we lost the first game 21–18, Caroline removed her heeled shoes and dominated the next two games, rarely failing to return the ball, providing a perfect foil for my more ambitious and erratic stroke play. We laughed off our errors, most of which were mine, and at the end of the contest thanked our younger opponents and modestly shook hands. Caroline’s grip was surprisingly firm, her skin cool and smooth and, in contrast to mine, free of perspiration.

  After the game we had a coffee together in the staffroom and I discovered she had been a junior tennis star and had once played on the centre court at Kooyong. ‘I took it up again when the kids were little, but couldn’t handle the whole midweek mums’ scene. Four of us actually were doctors’ wives and another was married to a dentist. It was like being trapped in an Updike novel. I haven’t played since – not since the divorce.’ She tipped her head back and polished off the last of her coffee, then caught a drip with her tongue as it escaped her lips. ‘Perhaps I should. It felt good getting the competitive juices going again.’

  Against all expectations, Caroline and I made it to the grand final, where we encountered Marty, the tournament organiser, and Ruby, the young receptionist who worked three days a week in the office and played state league netball. The finals were held after school on a Friday, with drinks and nibbles provided. Marty had already won a five-set marathon against the other PE teacher, Kane Harrison, so I was hoping he was tired. Ruby’s women’s final was yet to come. We were the light entertainment, an aperitif between courses.

  In our semi-final win Caroline had opened her shoulders, and rather than merely bunt the ball back, she began to play her shots, which became more expansive as the match progressed. For the final she announced she had a pair of runners. Removing her ankle boots and replacing them with a brand-new pair of bright purple joggers, she stood up from the chair and fiddled with the drape of her trousers. ‘All glamour!’ Turning one knee towards the other, Shirley Temple–style, she pivoted her toes to showcase the footwear. ‘If my daughter was here she’d kill me. Or herself – from shame.’

  We both missed a lot of shots in the first game, though strangely Martin and Ruby missed more. We’d brought them down to our level, and in the end we won it 21–18. In the second they found another gear. I lost confidence and Caroline returned to her original defensive, prodding technique. The third game was humiliating – 21–6 – and it looked like we would be bundled out in four. Too nervous to chance my arm, my game had gone to pieces. Mentally, I had conceded defeat. We weren’t expected to win. After all, I had only ever beaten Marty a handful of times, and Ruby took her sport seriously; there was no shame in allowing life to take its predicted course. Why get in the way of a river finding its sea?

  But early in the fourth, Caroline, who was hitting to Marty, tore off a cross-court top-spin backhand that sent him sprawling into the bleachers. A couple of points later she repeated the dose with an off-forehand, which Marty reached but couldn’t return. Where most people become harder-edged and more intense as their competitiveness increases, Caroline somehow became lighter, freer. Her more relaxed approach rubbed off on me, and I too began going for my shots. We ended up winning the fourth game and then took an early lead in the decider. At 19–12 our way, I served a double fault and felt the panic rise in me, my confidence sink.

  I wanted to win it now. I thought we deserved it.

  We switched sides for Caroline to receive Marty’s serve and, passing behind me, she touched a hand to my back. Crouching low, bouncing on the toes of her runner-clad feet, she did the impossible and hit a clear, nerveless winner off Marty’s serve. Two points later, after a long, defensive rally, I put away a backhand. It won us the match.

  Caroline turned to me and shrugged. Leaning in, she kissed me on the cheek. ‘We did it!’

  ‘He didn’t do much,’ Martin said, offering her his hand.

  Later, after Ruby had won the women’s match, the principal, Cathy Mariner, presented the prizes. Describing Caroline and me as a ‘dark horse pairing’, she waved an envelope and, playing to the crowd, said, ‘This prize comes with a condition: you have to use it together.’

  Imagining Marty had sourced the prizes, I wondered if the tournament had been an elaborate ploy for him to take Ruby on a date. Fearing we were about to be presented with vouchers for a spa or dinner for two at a tacky theatre restaurant, I was relieved when Caroline tore open the envelope to reveal Gold Class movie tickets.

  After the ceremony, when no one was listening, I insisted she take them for herself, to use them with a friend, take one of her kids. ‘You carried me,’ I said.

  The first time we bumped into each other after the tournament we called each other Champ and jokingly remini
sced about our glory days. After that, things became awkward. Late one afternoon, when most people had gone home, I saw her sitting in the staffroom, reading. Abandoning my plan to make a coffee, I kept walking rather than confront my unease.

  It felt adolescent avoiding her, not because I didn’t like her but because I did.

  It had been a year since Nat had left me, and friends had started asking if I was seeing anyone. Even Marj had suggested it might be time for me to get out and meet new people. I resisted the impulse to remind her how long she had taken to re-enter the relationship fray after her divorce. I’d had similar thoughts myself, of course, usually every other weekend when the kids were with Nat. Yet something in me baulked. The breakup had stripped me back to a leaner, less negotiated version of myself and restored to me an autonomy I was reluctant to give up. Then again, there was the minor, ever-present matter of sex, or its lack. Not to mention the longer-lasting intimacies of cuddles and latenight conversations. The sorts of closeness Nat and I had long ago let slip and failed to work hard enough to rekindle.

  My Year Eight class had been doing a scaled-down version of Jackson Pollock’s action painting, dripping and dribbling pigment onto pieces of card laid out on a massive sheet of blue plastic that covered half of the school quadrangle. Kids always love this activity, especially boys, who, once they control their urge to fling paint at each other, enjoy the physicality of it, the extravagant sense of freedom. Some of the girls find it hard to be abstract, to resist the pull of illustration, until I tell them to let the paint express how they feel.

  The class was over and I was mopping up the mess so I could fold away the giant drop sheet. Now that the students weren’t standing on it, the wind worked its way beneath the plastic, between the weights holding down its edges, sending swells of air riffling towards the centre. Approaching from behind, Caroline made me jump.

  ‘I see a lot of pent-up anger,’ she said, pointing to the smear of purply-black paint trailing my mop’s ragged tresses.

  I clutched a hand to my chest, feigning a heart attack. ‘You almost made it a performance piece – a life’s work painted by the twitches of my death throes.’

  ‘I’ll film it on my phone.’

  As she stepped onto the plastic, I raised my hand like a traffic cop.

  ‘What,’ she said, the plastic billowing about her feet, ‘you’re the only one who can walk on water?’

  It took a moment for me to understand, but then I saw the scene from her perspective: me looking like I was stranded in a blue, swelling ocean, washed up on a slurried island of paint.

  ‘You’ll get paint on you,’ I warned as she advanced.

  Brandishing a folded newspaper, she kept coming, more Moses than Jesus, the rising sea of plastic bubbling before her, clearing a path. ‘I wanted to give you this. I’ve circled the ones I’m interested in. I was thinking this weekend.’

  Taking the paper from her, I saw the cinema listings.

  ‘Is Saturday night all right? I can’t do Fridays anymore – I’m in bed by nine.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, not really thinking. Pretending to scan the list of films, I was blinded by the blood crashing through me. ‘Actually, no – I’ve got my kids this weekend.’

  Even as I said it I wondered why this excuse made me relieved. Didn’t I want to go out with her?

  ‘They’re teenagers, aren’t they? Can’t they look after themselves? Anything like mine, they’ll be glad to see the back of you.’ Juggling a folder in her arms, she tore out a sheet of paper and wrote down her number. ‘If this weekend’s no good, maybe next? Text me. Not that my diary’s completely blank or anything …’ She gave a hapless smile that crinkled the skin between her eyebrows. What was I waiting for?

  ‘Great. You’re right. I forget how old they are.’ I folded the newspaper and shoved it in the back pocket of my jeans. ‘Saturday should be fine. I’ll read some reviews and get back to you. I never go to the movies anymore.’

  ‘Me neither.’ She turned to leave, using the folder as a visor against the sun. ‘Should be fun. And if it’s not, at least it’ll get Cathy off my back.’ She stepped on a pocket of air trapped under the tarp. ‘You want a hand folding this up?’

  I told her no, and lied when I said that some students were returning to help me.

  The tickets were for the multiplex, so outside of the latest X-Men instalment or Tolkien marathon our choices were limited. Negotiated via text, in the end we agreed on 12 Years a Slave.

  Not exactly a feel-good flick, I suggested.

  Didn’t know they’d made a movie of my marriage! Caroline replied.

  I liked it that she made me laugh.

  We arranged to meet in town. Ordinarily I would have caught a tram, but on hearing of our arrangement Sunday became excited for me and insisted I take the car. ‘She might need a ride a home. You can’t go on a date and abandon her in town. Like, what if that was me?’ When I declared it wasn’t a date, she stared at me and nodded. ‘Course it’s not. No, not all.’ She filled her drink bottle at the sink and took a sip. ‘Get over it, Dad. Everyone else has. You know Mum’s seeing someone, yeah?’ I pretended I did, and then went vague as that news travelled through me in search of somewhere to settle.

  In the end, out of respect for Sunday’s opinion, which I thought was sweet, if misguided, I took the car and immediately wished I hadn’t. Apart from driving her and Noah to parties, I didn’t go out on Saturday nights, and never into the city. The traffic was at a crawl and all my old parking spots from the eighties were taken or now had parking meters. Upholding my lifelong pledge never to pay for parking, I didn’t find a free one until I was nearly in East Melbourne. Running late, I strode it out to the cinema.

  Caroline was waiting in the foyer, leaning against a wall, reading on her phone. It gave me the chance to compose myself and take her in: the sleeves of her jacket rolled up as if ready for action, her long legs crossed at their booted ankles, one foot tilted to the side, tapping a silent beat in the air.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling sweaty from the walk.

  ‘I thought I’d been jilted,’ she said, smiling, peeling off her reading glasses. She placed them and the phone in a black shoulder bag that looked like it might carry binoculars. Her face was soft-edged, less angular than it would have been when she was young. Where prettiness is brittle and cracks with age, Caroline’s beauty was more robust and wore the years well, not as a counterfeit of youth, but with the grace of a life honestly lived.

  We played up the faux opulence of our Gold Class experience, enjoying champagne and dips as we stretched out on the reclining chairs. This was fun during the ads and previews, but seemed perverse and misplaced as we witnessed Solomon Northup’s descent into antebellum hell.

  We were silent as we emerged from the cinema. There was no need for the usual post-movie small talk. I had felt Caroline recoil and flinch in the violent scenes, and her cheeks were still stained with mascaraed tears. After she visited the bathroom to clean herself up, we met up in the foyer. Everyone was on their phones – me included – clocking back on, reassuring the world and ourselves of our continued existence.

  The footpath out front was a two-way torrent: young couples holding hands, some purposeful, others meandering; slack-faced men laughing loudly, their heads tilted towards the sky; groups of kids Sunday’s age, striking poses, smoking cigarettes like it was still the seventies. The night was warm and the city felt alive: a giant, seething organism of which we were some small pulsing part.

  ‘Do you need to go?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You?’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘Mine are with their father. I’m my own woman.’ She lifted her arms in a gesture of release. I was reminded of the film and thought how petty most of our enslavements were, how others, in other times and places, might have mistaken them for freedom.

  ‘You interested in eating?’

  She was.

  When I confessed to only knowing places I had haunted in the
eighties – Pellegrini’s, the Italian Waiters’ Club – she laughed and suggested the long-defunct Mietta’s.

  ‘That was too up-market for me,’ I said. ‘My partner wasn’t a doctor.’

  ‘No, only a lawyer!’

  ‘Yeah … but for the left.’

  Walking up the hill towards Pellegrini’s, Caroline suddenly stopped. ‘I know,’ she said, animated. ‘Nicola took me to a place. All her Asian friends from school go there. Malaysian. You’ll love it – it’s cheap!’

  We cut through a lane onto Little Bourke and worked our way through the crowds to Lonsdale. When we got to the restaurant, people were spilling out onto the street. We struggled to make it even to the doors. ‘It’s high turnover,’ Caroline yelled, weaving her way towards a table at the back whose occupants were shaping to leave.

  We had barely sat down when a waitress came and carried away the dirty dishes. Returning, she hurriedly wiped the table, leaving a streaky arc across its surface. When we didn’t immediately know our order, she seemed disappointed, almost offended. She tucked her notepad in the pocket of her apron and said she would return in a few minutes. We felt like naughty children.

  ‘We’d better focus,’ I said, taking out my reading glasses, scanning the laminated menu, which like the tabletop was damp from being wiped.

  Confronted by a menu I always feel overwhelmed by choice. I prefer it when the person I’m with approaches the task of meal selection with Talmudic intensity and, concluding their scholarly efforts, passes the fruits of their study on to me. Nat was a master of menus and, whatever the language, would pronounce the full name of the dish with such confidence that no waiter ever dared correct or query her. I, of course, resorted to the coward’s asylum of numerical identification and, whenever she permitted it, had her choose for me – further evidence of my avoidance of adulthood.