Wife for Hire

by Dianne Blacklock

  She looked at him. ‘What, indefinitely? You can afford that?’

  ‘Not indefinitely. But . . .’

  ‘Jeff, the older two are going to be disrupted whenever I make the move, but Ellie starts school next year. I’d like to be settled before then.’

  He nodded. ‘Well, why can’t you stay in the area, perhaps just move to a smaller house?’

  Sam began to frame a response in her head and then something stopped her. ‘Listen Jeff, would you like me to start dictating to you where you should live?’

  By the look on his face she could tell he hadn’t been expecting her to say that.

  ‘You made a choice, all by yourself, that turned our lives upside down. You can’t expect it won’t have an impact and that things won’t change. And you don’t have a say any more.’

  ‘Did I ever?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, you made all the choices about where we lived, Sam, I just went along, kept the peace.’

  ‘Bully for you! Do you want a medal for being husband of the year?’

  ‘I’m just saying that some of those choices were the problem,’ he tried to explain. ‘Always the next biggest thing, never being satisfied with where we were. Playing into all that materialist crap that once we had the perfect house in the perfect street we’d be happy.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Jeff!’ Sam hissed, conscious of the neighbours. ‘What are you trying to say?’ she continued in a lower voice. ‘People who live in big houses can’t be happy? That’s a pretty simplistic argument, Jeff. Something your hippie girlfriend came up with?’

  He ignored that. ‘I’m just saying it might have been better for us if we’d slowed down, lived more simply maybe.’

  Sam faced him squarely. ‘Then you shouldn’t have a problem with what I’m going to do.’

  The argument had come full circle. She could see by the look on Jeff’s face that he understood.

  ‘I’ll talk to the kids.’ He paused. ‘I’ll tell them it’ll be okay.’

  Two weeks later

  ‘This is a great idea, Rose,’ Max declared, after the waiter had left with their orders.

  ‘I know,’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Rosemary had organised for them to meet for brunch at the Bathers Pavilion at Balmoral Beach, and they were seated at a table with a view directly to the water. Only Fiona was unable to make it. She didn’t like to leave Gavin with the kids on the weekend. She’d been working back a lot lately, she said it didn’t seem fair. It was unusual for Fiona to be quite so sensitive to Gavin’s needs, but the girls could hardly argue with her.

  ‘I don’t know why I never thought of this before,’ Rosemary continued. ‘I hardly get to come out with you guys other times, but Col’s always out on his boat Sundays. He couldn’t care less where I was, as long as dinner’s on the table tonight.’

  She grinned happily, oblivious to the shadow that passed across the faces of the other women.

  ‘I always think going out for breakfast is so 1960s, Audrey Hepburn, don’t you think?’ said Liz, from behind a very large pair of dark glasses.

  ‘Is that the reason for the Jackie O sunglasses?’ asked Max.

  ‘No, Michael and I went out with a couple of friends last night and I had a little too much of some damn fine wine. Do you know if they serve bloody marys here?’

  ‘How was dinner, anyway?’ Sam asked. ‘Is Tetsuya’s as good as they say?’

  ‘Better,’ Liz said plainly. ‘You should have come, I told you.’

  ‘Mm,’ Sam frowned. ‘Because we all know how much fun it is playing the third wheel.’

  ‘In this case you would have been the fifth wheel,’ Liz corrected her.

  ‘The maths is the same. I’d still be the odd one out.’

  ‘But if you’d accepted, we were thinking of asking this guy from Michael’s work –’

  ‘Well, thank God I turned you down,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve told you before, I don’t want to be set up.’

  ‘She’s right Liz. Blind dates suck,’ Max agreed. ‘You could have asked Hal though.’

  ‘Who’s Hal?’ Liz sat up, suddenly alert.

  ‘Max!’ Sam frowned. ‘He’s just a client,’ she dismissed.

  ‘A client who takes Josh to the football every second weekend,’ Max informed them. ‘Who calls in for coffee and stays for dinner –’

  ‘Once,’ Sam insisted. ‘Or . . . twice maybe.’

  ‘And,’ Max continued undaunted, ‘they even went house-hunting together.’

  ‘What!’ Liz and Rosemary almost shrieked at once.

  ‘He just came along for moral support,’ Sam explained. ‘Max, stop giving them ideas.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ Liz said eagerly.

  ‘Too late,’ Sam groaned.

  ‘He’s very good-looking,’ Max started. ‘Tall, with blue eyes –’

  ‘They’re green actually,’ Sam interrupted.

  ‘Right, and he’s “just a client”, eh Sam?’ Max pulled a face. ‘Oh and he’s got the square jaw thing going. Very tasty.’

  ‘Ooh, I love a strong jaw,’ said Rosemary. ‘Like John Travolta’s.’

  ‘No, I think his is a bit much,’ Max mused. ‘I’d rather Brad Pitt’s. Or whatsisname, the guy from that new legal show, you know, he was in that movie with George Clooney. Now there’s a jaw.’

  ‘I heard he’s gay,’ said Liz.

  ‘Who? George Clooney?’ asked Rosemary, startled.

  ‘No! The other one.’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me that!’ she protested. ‘Every second guy’s supposed to be gay. Who’s left for a girl to fantasise about?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about jaws. I like bums.’

  They all looked at Liz.

  ‘Nice, hard, high-set bums. What’s this Hal’s bum like?’

  ‘I have no idea!’ Sam declared.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I haven’t looked,’ she lied.

  ‘Sam! It’ll be a year come Spring since you broke up with Jeff!’ Liz exclaimed. ‘When are you going to start looking?’

  ‘When I’m good and ready,’ she returned. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment? Between the kids and looking for a house and coping with a new job, not to mention an ex who suddenly wants to be involved in his children’s lives,’ she took a breath. ‘Who has time for a relationship?’

  ‘Don’t have a relationship,’ Max said plainly. ‘Have a fling. Hal is so flingable,’ she added for the benefit of the others.

  ‘So what happened to “he’s way out of my league” and I should be careful not to get my heart broken?’ Sam asked Max.

  ‘I’ve revised my position,’ she said.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since he started hanging around so much. I think he might have his eye on you after all, Sam. And you could do worse. A lot worse,’ she winked at the girls.

  ‘As I keep telling you, Hal is a client.’ Max mimed the words as Sam spoke them. She ignored her. ‘He also lives on the other side of the world –’

  ‘How’s that?’ Liz frowned.

  ‘He’s from the States,’ Sam explained. ‘He’s only out here on a temporary contract.’

  ‘What’s the problem then?’ said Liz.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said you don’t want a relationship, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right, you did,’ Rosemary chimed in.

  ‘So if he’s not staying in the country . . .’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about it turning into anything serious,’ Max finished.

  ‘Have some fun,’ Liz urged. ‘Have a fling like Max said, and then say, “So long, bud, thanks for the memories”.’

  ‘Well, um . . .’ She had to put a stop to this. ‘The thing is, Hal is not . . . available, as such.’

  ‘I knew there had to be something,’ said Max triumphantly.

  ‘Is he married?’ Liz asked.

&nb
sp; ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t tell me he’s gay!’ Rosemary said, defeated.

  ‘No, he’s not gay.’

  ‘Come on then, out with it,’ Max urged.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, you’ll just have to take my word for it, Hal is not available,’ said Sam. ‘Oh, here comes breakfast.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘No really, here’s our food.’

  Two waiters fluttered around them for the next few minutes, until they all had juice, coffee and platter-sized dishes jostling for space on the table.

  ‘This is delicious,’ said Sam, tucking into her eggs.

  ‘Mind you, anything cooked by someone else always tastes better,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘I reckon,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Max.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘You’re not leaving us hanging with “he’s not available”, thanks very much.’

  ‘I’m not saying another word,’ Sam said, pointing her fork in the air for emphasis. ‘It’s none of your business and, besides, it’s extremely personal.’

  The girls all put their glasses down simultaneously and scraped their chairs, bringing them in closer to the table.

  ‘No,’ Sam insisted. ‘I’m not telling.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because my clients have to be able to trust that I’ll protect their confidentiality.’

  ‘Come on, Sam,’ Liz retorted. ‘It’s us. You’re not giving the story to the papers. We’ll never tell, we don’t even know him.’

  ‘Max does.’

  ‘What?’ she blinked. ‘I won’t say anything. Do you think I’m going to blurt “Oh, I heard your wife cut off your penis” next time I see him?’

  ‘Is that what happened?’ Rosemary exclaimed, wide-eyed.

  ‘Of course not!’ Sam groaned. Their imaginations were even worse than the truth. She put down her fork and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. ‘You promise me you won’t breathe a word to another living soul?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Promise.’

  They all craned in closer to hear.

  Sam took a deep breath, and paused, looking around the table at their eager faces. ‘Oh, I don’t think this is right –’

  ‘SAM!’

  ‘Okay! Hal broke up with his wife because she had an abortion without telling him.’ Sam said it quickly so it almost didn’t count.

  ‘No shit,’ Liz murmured.

  Max sat back in her chair. ‘Well, hold on, we don’t know the whole story. It’s her body, her right.’

  Liz tilted her head, thinking. ‘I don’t know about that. I mean, I fully support a woman’s right to choose and all. But it was his baby too. Doesn’t he have some rights?’

  ‘At least to be told,’ Rosemary nodded.

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want a baby and he did, and she had no other way out,’ Max suggested.

  ‘That’s not what happened at all.’

  They all looked back at Sam.

  ‘What else do you know?’ Max narrowed her eyes.

  At this point it was hardly worth keeping the rest of the story from them. ‘The thing is, she didn’t know whose baby it was.’

  No one said anything for a while, they just stared at the food on their plates.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ Liz said, breaking the silence.

  ‘Why does shit always happen to nice people?’ Max pondered. ‘It doesn’t seem fair.’

  Rosemary looked a little bewildered. ‘I’m not sure if I’ve missed something. Why isn’t he available?’

  ‘D’oh,’ Max groaned. ‘He’s nursing a broken heart, of course.’

  ‘Oh, poor man,’ Rosemary said wistfully.

  ‘Let’s not take up a collection just yet,’ said Liz. ‘I bet he’s still getting his end in.’

  Sam shot a look at her. ‘That is such a disgusting expression. Why would you say that?’

  ‘He’s a guy. You know how it is, they can’t survive without sex.’

  ‘That’s a myth perpetrated by men,’ Max drawled. ‘“Oh, you don’t understand, if I don’t have sex at least every three days, I’ll explode from the build up of sperm in my system.” What a crock.’

  ‘Well,’ said Liz, ‘if he’s spreading his sorry tale around, he’d have women falling over themselves –’

  ‘Seduction by sympathy,’ Max nodded. ‘Works like a charm.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d do that,’ Sam bristled. ‘It was very painful for him to even speak about it.’

  ‘So how come he told you?’ asked Liz.

  Sam shrugged. ‘To shut me up, I suspect. I was being nosy, asking too many questions.’

  ‘There’s a reason I nicknamed you Sherlock,’ Max nodded.

  ‘God, Sam,’ said Liz. ‘I just realised, you mustn’t have had sex for like, a year.’

  ‘Thereabouts.’

  Max sat up straight. ‘Why don’t you and Hal –’

  ‘Max!’

  ‘What?’ She looked squarely at Sam. ‘You’re both consenting adults. And it sounds like you have a very honest, open thing going. Why not be upfront about this?’

  ‘What are you suggesting? That I say, Hal, I haven’t had sex for a while. Would you mind?’

  ‘I bet you fifty bucks you wouldn’t get a knockback,’ Liz grinned.

  ‘Would you actually say that to a guy?’ Sam demanded.

  ‘I would say, and I have said,’ Max returned calmly,‘ “I think there’s something going on between us, would you be interested in taking it further?”’

  ‘My sister the tart.’

  ‘I’d rather be a tart than a nun.’

  Sam decided not to respond to that, in fact to leave the whole conversation behind. ‘These eggs Florentine are to die for.’

  ‘You’re changing the subject again.’

  ‘I’ll have to start calling you Einstein.’

  Thursday

  Sam was currently reading Great Expectations to Ted after he discovered she had never read the Dickens classic before. She could only vaguely recall the old black and white film with the graveyard scene at the very beginning, which quite frankly had given her the creeps. She didn’t remember the Miss Haversham character, she probably hadn’t made it that far. But now Sam was fascinated by the pathetic old woman still dressed in the wedding finery she had been wearing when she was jilted at the altar, sitting forlornly at the wedding breakfast, the table covered in cobwebs and run over by mice.

  ‘It’s a little incredible, don’t you think, Ted?’ Sam commented.

  ‘What do you mean, Samantha?’

  ‘I’m just wondering what’s going on in her mind. I mean, she’s independently wealthy. So what if the jerk left her at the altar, life goes on.’

  ‘Ah, but Samantha, you must remember that in her time women had no status unless they were married. She could have been the richest woman in England, but until she became somebody’s wife she was a nobody. It’s not like it is today.’

  Sam wondered if it was all that different.

  ‘Look at yourself,’ he continued. ‘You’re bringing up those children all on your own and no one thinks any the less of you.’

  ‘Oh, there are still a few outdated attitudes hanging around, let me assure you, Ted.’

  ‘Are there, Samantha?’ Ted seemed concerned. ‘Have you experienced anything like that?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, recently I had to bring a male friend along when I was looking for houses so I would be taken seriously.’ Sam smiled lamely. ‘I’m not so sure it worked though. It seems I can only afford the worst house in the worst street in the worst suburb.’

  Ted looked crestfallen. ‘Oh dear, Samantha. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  Sam realised he was taking her possibly a little too literally. He was such a kind man, she didn’t want to alarm him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ted, I’m exag
gerating. I just have to do my homework. I’m sure I’ll find something.’

  ‘I know some people in real estate around here,’ Ted offered.

  ‘Oh, thanks Ted. But this area is way beyond me.’

  ‘But they would have colleagues all over Sydney,’ he insisted. ‘Will you allow me to make some calls on your behalf?’

  Sam hesitated. ‘It’s very kind of you, Ted, but you shouldn’t be doing favours for me.’

  He looked genuinely surprised. ‘But why not? You do nothing but favours for me.’

  ‘But that’s my job. You pay me.’

  Ted considered her. ‘Well Samantha, what if we make a deal? I’ll make a few calls for you, and you could do a favour for me in return.’

  ‘Once again, Ted, “favours” are what I’m paid to do.’

  ‘This is extra.’

  Sam was curious. ‘Go ahead.’

  Ted sat back in his armchair. ‘You know I have a son who lives in the UK?’

  Sam nodded. Although she dealt with all of his private correspondence, she had never seen so much as a postcard from his son, and she worried that there had been some kind of rift. She couldn’t imagine Ted in conflict with anyone, but who knew the things that went on inside families? It was certainly not unheard of for children to bite the hand that had once fed them.

  ‘My son and I talk on the telephone every few weeks, which is an absolute delight,’ Ted explained.

  Sam was relieved.

  ‘But he is obsessed with email, he’s constantly sending me snippets of conversation. It’s quite extraordinary.’

  ‘He’s not alone, Ted,’ Sam smiled. ‘It seems to be the preferred mode of communication these days, along with SMS messaging.’

  ‘Well, I’m not even going to ask what that is,’ said Ted. ‘The thing is, Samantha, until recently I was able to enlarge the font so that I could still read it, but it’s becoming tiresome. I’m scrolling one or two words across the screen at a time and, well, it spoils the flow, you can imagine. And replying has become a nightmare.’ He paused. ‘I’ve tried to manage myself because, I’m sure you understand, he’s my son, I wanted to keep it between the two of us.’

  Sam knew what he was getting at. ‘Ted, nothing would make me happier than scribing for you to your son. But why don’t you just tell him you can’t read it and talk more often on the phone instead?’