by Anna George
An ugly look crossed David’s features, so swiftly she wondered if she had imagined it. By the time the train pulled away, his eyes were wide and he was chuckling. She gleaned that this was new for him – wrong-footing, dizzying and almost appealing.
When she arrived in Tennyson Street, her house was empty; his clothes and car were gone. She felt only relief.
–
That afternoon, the storm broke. Shuddering thunder, snaps of lightning, pounding rain. The rain was driving into the ground, her garden beds and yellowing grass. She set herself up at her desk and watched the drenching. Wind lashed her row of magnolias and denuded them of their plump white flowers. Puddles formed across her courtyard, pooling beneath the timber table. Watching, she felt her skin enlivening. When it was over and the water had drained away, she felt cleansed. The world glistened, jubilant and clear. Returning to her script, she read each version with fresh eyes.
11
At Mira’s to babysit that evening, Elle was midway through a fractured chat about David. The boys were in the bath. Cheerful anarchy reigned. She paced the lounge room as Mira darted from laundry to kitchen to bathroom. The seven o’clock news was on. A dead man had been found in Thomastown, another victim of the bikie war. She felt the usual relief: it’d been one of them, not one of us. A missing woman was found unconscious in a lover’s car. And she felt the same thing. A Victorian father, convicted of murder for driving his three young sons into a dam, was back in court. She couldn’t bear to look at him. That story still pierced her heart. She thought of the family’s ongoing grief, the mother’s impotence, the casualties of divorce . . . She poured herself a huge dry white and fetched her nephews’ pyjamas in readiness for the post-bath frenzy. Afterwards, she hoped to finish her tale with Mira. And move on.
She closed the windows and settled back to wait. An item on IVF was underway now, something about its uptake by lesbian couples. Sipping her chilled wine, her mind wandered. She’d always feared infertility. She’d taken risks at university, uncharacteristic of her, and gotten away with it. More than a decade later, a question mark was looming over her uterus and turning neon as she aged. Perhaps now, without David, the question would unfortunately remain moot. When the news item concluded with a clipped reference to the ‘socially infertile’, she spluttered. Apparently, mid-thirties, childless and single, by default she was already there. Appalled, she thought about the connotations of that tag – the implied incompetence and its omission of all those boy-men her age or older, ‘not ready’ for children, or not equipped. Like David. The more she thought it over, the angrier she felt.
By the time Mira re-emerged, Elle was thinking about Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters lining up for donor sperm . . . Would they want it? Did she? And when? The truth was she wasn’t sure she had the stamina for single motherhood. She was still mulling the question over when Mira dropped to her knees.
‘We’re seeing the latest Coen brothers’ at the Sun; home around eleven. Have you seen my keys?’ Mira was scouring the carpet, flinging shoes and picture books. A cockroach scurried.
The brief eclipse in Elle’s mind passed. ‘Mira, before you go, let me —’
‘In the fridge, blue cup is Jesse’s now; yellow is Max’s. But Jesse mightn’t want so much milk as he’s coming down with a cold.’
‘Yes, okay —’
‘And three books, tops. Otherwise you set the bar too high.’
‘Got it.’ Finding Mira’s keys wedged in the couch, she tossed them in the air. As Mira caught them, Elle said, ‘Mira, listen, two things —’
Full of bluster, Jesse scrambled in, his face ruddy and gleaming, the tips of his bronze hair wet. Wrapping himself around Elle’s legs, he grinned up at her with enormous blue eyes.
‘Walk, walk,’ he said.
Elle ruffled his hair, tickled his lily-white stomach. He crumpled like a piece of paper, giggling, but the giggles swiftly turned into a coughing spell and the crumpled body became tight. She rubbed his back and it abated.
Max appeared then, dripping, chanting, ‘Auntie Elle, Auntie Elle.’
Before Elle knew it, Mira was in the hall and singing out thanks, goodbyes.
‘Mira,’ she called out, ‘about the script . . .’ Mira’s footsteps halted, trotted closer to the lounge room again. ‘I’ve read both drafts, properly, and you’re right. Of course.’ Elle gave a bashful smile. ‘How about you do the final pass? And I’ll shoot it.’
Mira’s wide mouth curved. ‘Brilliant.’
‘On one condition: we keep the title.’
Mira gnashed her teeth.
‘That’s one small, one-word condition.’ Elle rose to her full height. ‘And no one knew what Catch-22 meant, or Generation X . . .’
They were on either end of a silent tug of war.
‘Our contract says something about the title, doesn’t it?’ said Elle, lightly.
‘Our contract isn’t exactly front of mind right now,’ said Mira.
‘No.’
Elle could see Mira wondering whether to pull harder or yield.
‘Titles are important,’ said Mira, giving a quick tug.
‘Yeah, they are.’
‘Okay,’ said Mira.
Elle grinned. ‘Before you go, one more thing: I left David, on the train. It’s over.’
‘Why didn’t you say before? Hallelujah!’ Laughing, Mira clapped three times before enfolding her. ‘You’re free! Fill me in tomorrow, okay?’
‘Okay.’
Watching Mira scamper out, Elle felt a whiff of dissatisfaction. For some reason, she’d expected less fanfare and perhaps more commiserations. Her first and only love was gone.
Four books and a cushion fight later, the boys were in bed and the narrow cottage was peaceful again. Elle’s certainty was replaced now by disappointment, vague and dangling. Switching off lights, picking up bath towels, she returned to her nephews’ bedroom. In the warm, shadowy space, the boys were both asleep on their backs, arms thrown above their heads. She couldn’t resist pausing over each child until she heard quiet breathing. Four-year-old Max’s mouth was open and his front teeth protruded, large and gapped. They were her teeth, Jude’s teeth: her father’s teeth. The Nolan overbite. Uncanny how the genes echoed through the generations. Three-year-old Jesse, on the other hand, had even blocks of teeth, like tiles laid by an expert. Both boys, she decided, with absolutely no bias, were beauties. She lingered in their breathing stillness. Though she regretted the pain her brother had caused, without him these beautiful boys wouldn’t exist. And her world would be utterly childless. She had come to realise that her brother’s loss had become her gain.
By the time she pulled the door to, she felt restored, if delicate. Soon, David’s presence in her life would be as a footnote. Calm was descending. And she was back, unfettered.
Having brought an old friend with her, she slipped it into Mira’s player. A Heart in Winter could wait for another time. Lately, David had tired of romantic comedies, especially black and whites, and she’d missed them. As The Philadelphia Story purred to life, she thought of a quote attributed to its female star: ‘You don’t choose who you love.’ Tracy’s bouts of drinking and darkness were renowned, and Hepburn had loved him anyway. But, thought Elle, you could choose who you left.
It was after eleven when Elle heard loud, harsh coughing from the boys’ room. By the time she reached the hallway it had escalated, become insistent: distressed. By the time she was on her knees in the draughty bedroom, Jesse’s face was pale and puckered, and dark rings had formed beneath his eyes, making him look like a pyjama-clad raccoon. His chest was heaving as he struggled, not to draw a breath but to exhale, crying between gasps.
Max was awake and watching with sleepy, worried eyes.
‘Does he have an asthma inhaler now?’
Max shook his head. ‘Nope. But Billy at kinder has asthma —’
Elle took another look at her distraught nephew. His mouth was moving but words were stuck in his throa
t. ‘It’s going to be all right, Jess,’ she said. She sat him up. ‘Try to breathe through your nose and out through your mouth. I’ll call Mummy.’
Her sprint down that hallway was the fastest she’d run in twenty years.
Later, as Mira accompanied Jesse in the ambulance to the Western Hospital, Elle watched Max sleep and shed silent tears. She wasn’t sure what had been worse, the look on Mira’s face or Jesse’s purpling lips before they’d fitted the nebuliser mask. As she watched the steady rise and fall of Max’s chest, she consoled herself with the thought: Yarraville was close to virtually everywhere.
Returning home at 3 a.m., she felt as empty as her lifeless house. She thought to call Jude, knowing Mira wouldn’t. Surely, despite his absence and silence, her brother cared about his sons? Dialling by memory, she found his number disconnected. The Nolan line, indisputably broken. She was fatherless and so were her nephews. At least they had Troy. She roamed from room to room, yearning to share her ordeal. She tried her mother, the equally absent grandmother. Left a message.
As Elle tumbled into bed, her mattress felt enormous. Her dreams flitted from sirens to wheezes. Troy’s urgent question to Mira upon their arrival kept playing in her mind: ‘What do you need me to do?’ The care and concern in his face was indescribably moving.
The instant she awoke, she called Mira. Her youngest nephew was stable, his breathing normal. But his fragility stayed with her. As did her own, particularly now she intended to, again, live alone.
Unable to rest, she perched at her desk in her pyjamas and relived the night. If only they hadn’t had that cushion fight. Or perhaps the tickling. She tried to distract herself online, researching asthma attacks. Skimming an article on the rise in single home-occupiers. Then she heard a knock. It was 8 a.m. Mira would, she knew, be cuddling her boys in bed and was unlikely to let them go for days. Doris would be dozing over crumpets. Stirring, she sighed. There was only one person it was likely to be. At least she’d had the foresight to double-lock the door. Steeling herself, she wished she’d eaten or showered or cleaned her teeth.
Through her peephole, she saw him on her porch in half-drenched running gear. She watched as he rapped again. Seeing his square shoulders and ginger-hued good looks, her conviction wavered; there on her mat was an alluring man, full-bodied, alive, for her. She unlocked the door but didn’t open it. Her security chain gave them fifteen centimetres. She saw him noting her strip of blue flannel pyjama top and a portion of her pink stretchy-panted legs.
‘What’s this?’ he said, tapping the chain. His long fingers lingered in the space between them. When she didn’t respond, he added, ‘Sweetheart, I’ve left my phone in the kitchen.’
She fetched the telephone and, through the gap, dropped it into his hand. They both stared at the blank screen.
‘I’d love a glass of water,’ he said, leaning into the frame.
She wiped sleep from her eyes. He was too close, his voice too tender; she was unprepared, her head full of Jesse.
David glanced down at himself. ‘Jogging doesn’t seem to become me either. Though I prefer it to misery.’
She managed to ignore his wry tone but not his physicality. What he said about jogging was only half true. He was dripping into his socks and his face was slick with sweat. But he looked better for the exertion. Against his pink skin, the whites of his eyes were bright and his irises were striking constellations of amber, red and brown. She unclasped the chain.
In the kitchen, he downed two glasses of rusty water from her tap. She didn’t bother to remind him of the purifier in the fridge. But when he propped himself on her bench and looked at her, his attention poured into her like air, water, food. She wasn’t prepared for the hit it gave her. Her blood seemed to fizz.
He brushed hair from his forehead with a shaking hand. ‘I know I was bad yesterday, but was I that bad?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve always been a shocker at shopping,’ he said. ‘I’ve been going on my own since I was ten. Mum wouldn’t come with me. But I do buy first-class presents – even my wife, ex-wife, told me so.’ He gathered himself. ‘I won’t ask you to shop with me again.’
Elle hoped the silence was speaking for her. After a pause, she said, ‘It’s not only the shopping.’
David stood and pushed past her, as if too ashamed to look at her. Hesitating in her foyer, he saw the question on her face. ‘I’m no good at this.’ He tried for a smile but she checkmated it with a frown.
‘Is that it?’ she said.
‘I’m done in,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back later.’
Before she could refute him, he lifted his hand to the door. His fingers floated over the central lock. ‘You know I’ve only had one long-term relationship before. And you, my young bolter, have only had flings . . .’ He made a sad, snort-chuckle. ‘We will get better at it.’
When he glanced at her, his red-brown eyes were glowing.
‘No.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I meant it; we’re done here, David.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ He stared again. Frank and open. Like sunlight. ‘Sweetheart, it’s early days.’
Despite herself, she tried on his words and married them with his stare. He seemed so earnest.
‘Ginger, I’ve had a hellish week,’ he said. ‘One of my team didn’t prepare for a hearing. The prick was punting on it settling. I should’ve told you. Not taken it out on you.’
Elle found a curl of dry skin on her lip and tugged. She considered his clients, his staff, their litigation. The pull of the law.
‘I’m sick of your job,’ she said. ‘It leaches into everything, like poison.’
He blinked, as if her assault were too direct. Or perhaps he lacked the words to combat it.
‘We’ve had a bad patch,’ he said. ‘I can do better; we can both do better. And you’re making a rookie mistake, here, being way too hard.’
Elle frowned. Perhaps he was right. As troubling, she was hearing echoes of her mother. Hard was the last thing she wanted to be, and the last thing she felt.
When he opened the front door, the abrupt move startled her. She noticed the waterfall of dried sweat on his grey T-shirt, saw where his curling half-wet hair met his neck. Vaguely she could detect another odour; if she didn’t know better she would have said it was recycled alcohol. Despite her misgivings, she longed to touch him. Be held by him.
‘David?’ The words escaped: ‘Do you still love me?’
‘Ginger, hey, more than you know.’
David smiled faintly. His eyes glistened, perhaps with tears. Feeling a pain in her stomach, she imagined it was his pain. Seeing his rugged beauty worn with worry, she wondered at the haste and fairness of her decision. Watching him, feeling him, she was struck by the overwhelming truth of their love.
He whispered, ‘I will get there.’
Although she hadn’t cried in decades, she wanted to. She wasn’t sure why. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We can feel our way together. But it has to be easier.’
‘It will be.’ David glanced at her sideways. ‘I’m usually pretty quick on the uptake, but I didn’t see this coming. It must be age.’
‘Okay, come on.’ She sighed, mustering herself. ‘Stay, I had an awful night. I could do with a chat.’
David considered her, his eyes gleaming.
‘Are you hungry?’ she added. ‘I feel like eggs.’
‘Who’s cooking?’
‘You are.’
David ran his hand along the edge of the open door. ‘It’d be my pleasure.’
He pulled her close and their bodies shut the door. The relief she felt was a shock. It was so exquisite and absolute. She’d missed him as if he had been gone months.
Looking back, she wonders at his mastery. He’d said so little yet she had heard so much. That night, he returned with suits and novels, Latin jazz and wine, and didn’t leave.
12
On the steps at Flinders Street Station, she was wearing a new frock: asymmetrical, elect
ric blue. It was seventies couture, second-hand. After his call, she had dressed quickly: her pixie hair unbridled, her face devoid of makeup. Twenty minutes later, she’d skipped onto a city-bound train. Feeling remarkably right. Behind her was the station’s row of ancient clocks showing the different times for the different lines. A reminder that time, like so much in life, was a choice. Forgiveness. Happiness. Seeing his brisk approach, his Italian suit, she couldn’t rein in her smile. They were both perfectly on time. They kissed for a good three minutes.
In the four days since their fractious weekend, she had managed to convince herself: he wouldn’t squander this, his second chance. Somehow, already, they were closer.
‘Shall we?’ he said.
Taking his hand, she said, ‘Yes, lead on.’
This time, as he led her through jostling commuters and city-dwellers towards Flinders Lane, they chatted. They chatted past restaurants and ignored the boutiques. They chatted about her day spent driving around Melbourne, taking photos, with Julia, her director of photography.
‘So you just drove around all day?’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
For now she was freed up, at least until the script came back. Not that she’d mentioned that altered status quo.
At the last bar on the strip, she hesitated. But with a gentle wink he led her on. His jitters were growing. Hers, too. She didn’t want to squander this, their fresh start, either.
For months she’d been wanting to meet Alex Carras. His best friend. His oldest friend. ‘He’s rather indulged,’ he’d warned her on the phone. ‘And he likes to joust.’ As if the financier was an ogre. Or an orca, prone to tossing seals. Sometimes David forgot she’d been a top-tier lawyer herself. Or that, in production, she was responsible for hordes of people and thousands of questions. Daily. But now she did feel a ping of apprehension about her night with the suits . . . And it was a risk, venturing out of their cocoon.
On Flinders Lane, they strolled to the foot of black marble stairs. Her eyes flared as she read the sign: Gallery 22.