by Karen Zelas
As early scenes and sensations came to Sue now, in her kitchen, in middle age, after nearly half a lifetime together, she thought perhaps she should revise her view of their romance; perhaps Ben had swept her off her feet; perhaps that was what the expression meant. And Ben had seemed to grow in stature in her company, as if she gave him something he needed, she did not know what, but it somehow had made her feel real.
And now …
Sue thought she should be weeping, rending her hair, but she could not squeeze out a tear if she tried. ‘How dare he?’ she shouted, slamming a fist on the kitchen table. ‘If he’s having an affair, I’ll … I’ll …’ No threat seemed strong enough. She had been struck out of the blue; she could see the comic book illustration: Bam! Pow!
Ben had always been so dependable; Sue had needed him to be dependable. They had shared an image of him as an authority on all that mattered in their lives, and had been united on most things. Lately she had been noticing more and more that her opinion diverged from his, though she did not always say so. Perhaps, Sue wondered, she might, in the past, have given in rather than agreed; a thin dividing line there.
Tao eyeballed her across the table, a lime-green, unblink-ing stare.
‘What do you think, Mister?’ she asked. He squinted.
Sue continued her cleaning spree, but now her mind was busy, developing a strategy. She had shifted from feeling to planning and was regaining a sense of control. This poem may be of no consequence, she reasoned, and confronting Ben might merely risk driving him into another woman’s arms. Better to wait and see. She knew how to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself.
That night, Sue said nothing about her discovery. She clamped her mouth closed on the multitude of questions that demanded answers. But she found herself in an unfamiliar state of high arousal. Ben’s every word, every gesture, had acquired new meaning; every sigh, every pause significance. Their relationship was no longer transparent. In the swirling, murky depths, unfamiliar shapes were coalescing, not yet decipherable, and all the more frightening for that. Sue tried to ignore them, but suddenly they would leap up and threaten to drag her down.
But she carried on as normally as possible. She steeled herself. ‘How’s work?’ Casually.
‘Fine.’
Silence. She would give him rope. ‘Anything new?’
‘Ah … no. Nothing to speak of.’ What might there be that he could not speak of? Ben propped his elbow on the side of the sofa, splayed fingers a muzzle across his lips. Sue turned away and stared at the television, registering nothing. What is love? she asked herself. She felt the graze of Ben’s long fingers burning tracks on her thighs; his index finger in the notch at the top of her sternum, running down over the beauty spot marking the midline and into the cleft below – Happy Valley, he used to call it. Not that they made love with the light on any longer; not for so many years she had lost count. Perhaps it was for the best. Time was not kind; at forty-something, they both looked better with clothes on, no doubt about it.
Doe’s eyes. Coffee coloured skin. Sue shivered. She would bet Ben’s muse was not over forty.
‘The – er – Department’s beginning-of-year party is coming up. Saturday,’ Ben said.
‘And?’ There was an edge in her voice.
‘Ah, I don’t suppose …’ Ben ran his hand over his face. ‘Do you – ah – want to go?’
‘Why wouldn’t I? We always go.’ Was there some reason he did not want her to go?
‘Well, I just thought … I could go on my own, if you like.’ Ben was so transparent.
‘That’s very considerate. But, no, I wouldn’t miss it for worlds.’ Sue could sense Ben’s sidelong glance, but did not allow her gaze to falter from the television. She was doing a mental rollcall of women in the Sociology Department: their friend, Aroha; Delia and Mel in the office; Lee Lee, the Asian postgrad from last year; any new postgrads, of course; and all the Department wives. It could be any or none of them.
It took all Sue’s self-control to stick to her plan not to berate Ben and demand to know what was happening. ‘Who is she?’ she wanted to scream. And: ‘Why? Why? Why?’ She wanted to fall on Ben, to beat him or to ravage him, she was not sure. ‘Don’t you love me any more?’ she wanted to ask, though uncertain that she wanted to hear the answer. She had thought they were in this together, for the long haul. For better or for worse. Forsaking all others. Vows and clichés. But they had meaning. Sue had upheld her side of the contract. She had given and given, even when so exhausted she felt she had nothing more to give. Had she not? She was finding she was no longer certain of anything; she felt she could no longer trust her own judgement.
Sue thumbed through the telephone book. “Identity Services”, that is what they called Births, Deaths and Marriages these days. The telephone rang for so long she was about to hang up.
The previous evening, she had rifled Charlie’s art supplies for a large piece of thick, white paper, while Ben was secluded in his study and Charlie she knew not where. Music thumped from Jason’s room – he was obviously studying. Sue had been reasonably confident that she would not be disturbed – discovered – in her activity. What she was doing felt private, personal somehow. Besides, she did not want Ben offering his advice or criticism. She might get angry and where might that lead? She wanted to maintain her resolve not to confront him. At least, not now; not yet.
She had spread the paper on the dining table and placed beside it a 2B pencil, a soft eraser and a ruler. At the bottom of the page, in the middle, she wrote her own name and date of birth, and Jayne’s. Above that, her parents’ names, Sarah Jayne Campbell and Albert Charles Dujardin Austin, with their birth dates. Beside her mother’s name, Sue wrote ‘d. 1980’. She connected the names with a series of short black lines, indicating kinship. Bonds. Attachments.
Her family had always been small; no cousins, uncles or aunts in New Zealand. Her mother had come from England as a young woman, not long before she met Sue’s father, and her Dad was an only child. Sue was startled to realise she was uncertain of her grandparents’ full names or her grandmothers’ maiden names. She knew something of her mother’s family: Nana and Pops had come to New Zealand from England, Tunbridge Wells, after her mother had settled here, leaving her older brothers behind. Most of Nana’s family still lived in Kent. Nana had encouraged Sue to correspond with a cousin, Emily, but the pull of real friends was more compelling. Sue and Ben met Emily and other relations, four years after they married – their honeymoon, they called it. Poor Antipodean students, handed on from one household to another. And, of course, they had spent time with Jayne, who was living, working and studying in London.
But her father’s parents Sue knew little about, aside from the facts that they were born here in New Zealand and that her grandfather died in the Second World War, his wife not long after – of a broken heart, her father used to say. He had spent the rest of his childhood with an aunt, now long dead. Sue knew of no other relatives; perhaps there were some out there. She wished she had talked with her father about the past a few years ago. But the past had not been of interest then; Sue had been too firmly rooted in the present.
‘Glenda speaking. How can I help you?’
‘Ah, ah, I’m not sure,’ Sue stammered into the telephone. She should have planned what she was going to say. ‘I’m wanting to find out about my family, my ancestors, you know. Find out who I’m related to, back as far as I can. I thought this might be the place to start.’ Her request seemed so vague that Sue wanted to apologise and hang up.
‘We have a lot of requests of this nature,’ said Glenda.
Reassured, Sue added in a rush, ‘I think I might be descended from the French who sailed from Rochefort in 1840 and settled in Akaroa.’
‘How interesting,’ said Glenda, sounding as if she meant it. Sue found herself smiling. ‘Our archives are not held here. The Central Library has the registers on microfiche. But you’ll find the early entries are often incomplete.’
> ‘Oh,’ said Sue.
‘The original documents may have additional bits of information, and you can order copies for a price.’
‘Thanks so much, Glenda. Now I know where to start,’ said Sue.
Anticipation bubbled in her chest and her step was light as she went off to meet Annie.
Although they had spoken on the telephone, Sue had not seen Annie since the negative results from the breast biopsy. Annie held her for a long time. Tears welled in Sue’s eyes and threatened to spill; the drought had broken. She brushed them away briskly, terrified that if she started to cry she might never stop. There seemed so much to cry about; even the happy things. She could see that Annie, too, was struggling to hold back tears.
‘I knew you would be all right,’ said Annie, her tone only half-convincing.
‘I didn’t. It almost came as a shock, I was so convinced. But a good shock – really jolted me. I felt I’d been given a new lease on life.’
‘So what are you going to do with it?’ Annie folded her arms and waited.
‘I thought you would ask that.’ Sue grinned. ‘I’ve started already,’ she said, teasing. She felt excited, though she could not say exactly why. It was like being on a treasure hunt, only she had no idea what the treasure would turn out to be.
‘Come on. Started what?’
‘Researching my genealogy – Dad’s side of the family.’ Sue was like a schoolchild with a new project, one that she hoped would please her teacher.
‘Good for you,’ said Annie. ‘What have you learnt so far?’
What had Sue learnt? She had learnt that her husband might be having an affair; how could she get beyond that fact? Nothing else had importance by comparison. Her veneer of excitement drained away, replaced by a feeling of dread. She wanted to tell Annie, but it felt disloyal; also it felt as if telling would make it true.
‘What’s wrong? Your face,’ said Annie, reaching out and gripping her shoulder. ‘What has happened?’
Sue could not hold it in. So much for loyalty. This big amorphous thing was pushing to come out. ‘He’s having an affair,’ she blurted.
‘Who? Your Dad?’ Annie’s look was disbelieving.
Sue shook her head vigorously, too devastated to find it funny. Her throat constricted, as if to prevent any more of the thing squeezing out.
‘You’re not making sense, Suzie. Now, from the top …’ Annie waved her arms like a conductor. Sue allowed herself to be led through her discovery: Ben’s poem on the computer, her reluctance to confront him, his reluctance for her to go to the Department party.
‘It might turn out to be nothing, like the cancer scare,’ Annie said.
‘You always think the worst.’
‘I have to,’ said Sue. ‘If I don’t, it might sneak up on me when I’m not looking.’
‘That’s sheer superstition,’ said Annie.
‘It’s happened before.’ Sue was not to be persuaded. Experience spoke loudly. She had not let herself believe her mother would die; but she did. And this tragedy was only a little less monumental. She was being tested again; she would not be responsible this time.
6.
Scrutinising herself in the full-length mirror, Sue smoothed the fitting black dress over her backside and strained to see how she would look from behind. She pursed her lips and sucked in her stomach, pleased to see how her breasts thrust forward. ‘You must remember to hold it in,’ she told her reflection. Bare, smooth legs. Black sling-backs with high heels and pointy toes; she had never thought these would be back in fashion in her lifetime. Fingernails ruby-red – square-cut French nails were not to her taste. Lipstick to match the nails and a dab of Joop! behind the ears. Rather sheepishly, she had asked Charlie for some hair wax. Just a little. Now she coaxed a few stray hairs into place and plucked out a grey one. She smoothed her eyebrows and lifted them enquiringly, giving her face a lively, interested expression and, she noticed, smoothing out the crow’s feet. Worth a few years.
She surveyed the result: she could still turn heads; that’s what she wanted tonight. She wanted her appearance to say: ‘Look at me. I’m a knockout. Better than some little scrubber.’ But would that be enough? She wanted Ben to realise what a good thing he had; and his colleagues to be murmuring that he was “a lucky bugger”.
‘Wow, Mum! Cool.’ Charlie came in and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed. ‘Hope I look that good when I’m old.’
‘Thanks – I think,’ Sue laughed. ‘Well, I’m ready. Where’s your father?’
There was silence in the car.
It was a twenty-minute drive to the Professor’s house, high on Clifton Hill, commanding a spectacular view of the estuary, city, mountains and, beyond New Brighton Pier, the broad sweep of Pegasus Bay. On a clear day, in clean southerly air, it seemed possible to reach out and touch the Seaward Kaikouras, a hundred kilometres away. The scale, the space. Long fingers of silver light washed the landscape now the sun had slipped behind the black, cut-out mountains. There was a slight jerk as the automatic gears adjusted to the incline, drawing Sue’s attention from the crisp, clear atmosphere of the bay to the compromised, stifling atmosphere between them.
Sue was attempting to hold on to the confidence that had filled her as she dressed, and to push aside her anxiety about what – or whom – she might encounter at the party. Ben’s silence was difficult to interpret. She was used to his tension in social situations, but tonight there was another layer. She wondered if some of his distance was anticipation of meeting his lover. She wondered how she would rate beside a lover; whether seeing the two side by side would show Ben his lapse of judgement. The longer she thought about it, the less she felt confident she would win the contest. Ben probably thought she looked like a tart – short tight black dress, red nails, high heels, bulges in the wrong places.
‘Don’t you approve?’ she asked.
‘Pardon?’
‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Quiet?’
‘You know – quiet. Not saying anything.’ She had not intended to be sarcastic or irritable. She had wanted to be bright, light, but it had not come out that way.
‘I know what “quiet” means.’ Ben deflected his eyes from the road long enough to fling a brief scowl in her direction.
‘Well? Is it my dress?’ Sue smoothed the skirt, pulling it down over her knees. She fingered the neckline, ensuring that her bra straps were not showing; Ben had not adapted to bra straps as fashion accessories.
‘Your dress? Your dress is fine. You look fine.’ He continued to watch the road.
‘I’m overwhelmed by your enthusiasm,’ she said in a jokey voice.
‘What is this?’ Ben’s voice was tense and humourless.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just … You seem to have hardly noticed me tonight. I feel … invisible. And I wanted to look nice for you,’ she added after a brief pause. But her words fell into a vacuum. ‘See what I mean?’ Sue felt utterly deflated. Then gradually a niggling irritation arose. She had no reason to apologise; she was the injured party here; there could be no doubt about that. There could be nothing to justify Ben’s behaviour; that poem; an affair.
They drove on in silence, Ben navigating the tight curves of the hill. City lights appeared in the distance between the houses, momentarily distracting her, as they gained altitude. Through her open window, she smelt the salty air rising off the estuary, a smell that always made her think of holidays. Tonight it reminded her of good times, intimate evenings with Ben: walking the wet sand at Piha Beach; scrabbling over rocks at low tide in the Abel Tasman, collecting mussels, the light fading behind them. Strong images which caused a warm glow within her. She loved this man. Below them, moonlight glinted silver on ribbons of water. It was hard to stay cross for long. Sue reached over and placed her right hand possessively on Ben’s knee. He glanced at her.
‘Forgiven?’ she asked.
Ben covered her hand with his and squeezed it gently.
‘Doesn’t look li
ke we’re the first to arrive.’ Ben sounded relieved. He overshot the house looking for a parking space and neatly backed between two SUVs.
As she tottered on her stiletto heels down the steep path to the front entrance, Sue hugged Ben’s arm. The muscles felt rigid. ‘You’re worth two of Des Grey any day.’ Her voice was as light as she could make it. She sensed some of Ben’s tension leak away.
The door opened anticipating Ben’s knock. Light and sound poured out. A grinning Des stepped aside to allow his guests entry. He was a stocky man, with the beginnings of a paunch. He stood, feet apart, wild steel-grey hair framing his face, and looked up at Ben. His natural high colour was augmented by alcohol and bonhomie.
‘Ha! Saw you coming. Good t’see ya, mate.’ Ben took Des’s extended hand with the same enthusiasm he would grasp a dead eel. ‘Sue. My, you’re looking ravishing – as always, of course. Ha, ha!’ Ha, ha. Sue deflected his kiss onto her cheek and slipped past him into the lounge, already throbbing with people. She could see Olivia, a glass of white wine in one hand and a plate of finger food in the other, wending her way through the crowd, smiling shyly and introducing herself as she went. Sue headed towards her. Olivia appealed to Sue as strongly as Des strained her tolerance. They had met a few times formally, and Sue had invited Olivia over for coffee.
‘Sue.’ The two women embraced. ‘Mmm. Love your perfume.’ Olivia smiled with her eyes as well as her lips. ‘Let me get you a drink. Chardonnay, or cab sav? Here. Hold these.’