Wife for Hire

by Dianne Blacklock

  Ted looked sheepish. ‘He doesn’t know about my condition, Samantha. And I don’t want him to know. He’ll only worry. I’m managing very well, as you know, but he would imagine it was far worse than it is.’

  Pride would be a factor too, but Sam didn’t begrudge him that.

  ‘Well then, we have some emails needing a reply,’ she said briskly. ‘We’d better get on with it, if you feel we’re quite finished with Mr Dickens for today?’

  Ted smiled at her warmly, and Sam wished she was doing so much more to deserve the depth of appreciation she could see in his eyes.

  July

  Sam raced inside from hanging clothes on the line and just made it to the phone before the machine kicked in.

  ‘Samantha? Sheila.’ Her boss was always a little abrupt. Sam wondered how she had ever got into this line of work. She couldn’t imagine Sheila showing the kind of congeniality her clients seemed to appreciate.

  ‘I’ve been checking your time sheets,’ Sheila continued. ‘Do you realise you haven’t claimed anything for Mr Buchanan since April?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Sam confirmed, catching her breath.

  ‘Well, what’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said defensively. ‘Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you recorded time spent?’

  ‘Well,’ Sam hesitated. ‘I just, I haven’t done much for him for a while.’

  ‘This doesn’t make any sense, Sam. I’ve just been reading a feedback questionnaire from Mr Buchanan, full of praise for you.’

  ‘What feedback questionnaire?’

  ‘Oh, we send them out from time to time. Client feedback is vital to us. I mean, this business is all about keeping clients happy. They’re the only ones who can tell us if we’re succeeding.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Sam murmured. ‘I just wasn’t aware you did that.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have anything to worry about, Samantha. I’ve received some excellent feedback from your clients.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she declared. ‘I didn’t expect it from you when you first came into the office, I thought you might be a little precious. But it seems that everyone adores you. Mr Dempsey even wants to increase his subscription, you’ll be getting a pay rise.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Sam was going to have to take this up with him. ‘Ted’s an absolute pleasure to work for. I couldn’t accept more money from him.’

  ‘Customer’s always right, Samantha,’ Sheila dismissed. ‘Now, what about Mr Buchanan?’

  ‘Well, um,’ Sam was taken aback. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘He’s ticked excellent in every box on the questionnaire. And in the space for comment at the end he wrote . . .’ she paused. Sam could hear the shuffling of papers. ‘Oh, yes, here it is. “Ms Holmes is professional, thorough and tireless. She has been an enormous help as I’ve acclimatised to a new country, I couldn’t have got by these past few months without her invaluable assistance.”’

  Sam was blushing. There was no one around to hear what Sheila had just said, but she was blushing nonetheless.

  ‘He’s American,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You know how they exaggerate.’

  ‘Well, whatever, you must have done something to earn such high praise.’

  ‘It hasn’t been that much –’

  ‘Samantha, this is not only for your sake. IGB is a huge client, and they generally review the service every year. If I don’t show that the hours they have already paid for are being used by the client, they may decide their money could be spent in better ways.’

  ‘Sorry. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Look over your records for the last few months, work out the hours you’ve spent on Mr Buchanan. Anything and everything, and don’t forget phone calls. It’s obviously meant a lot to him, whatever you’ve been doing. You should be getting paid for it.’

  Sam sat staring at her index card for Hal. She hadn’t touched it since the emails had arrived in April. She’d simply recorded the date and next to it the words ‘Contact restored!!!’, in what now looked like a rather over-excited hand. She sighed. How could she bill Hal for coming house-hunting? Or for taking Josh to the football? Or for the phone calls he’d made to see how things were going for her? It didn’t seem right. She had to do something for him for a change. She picked up the phone and dialled his direct number at work.

  ‘Hal Buchanan.’

  ‘Hi, Hal, it’s me, Samantha Holmes.’

  ‘Hey Sam.’ His tone softened instantly. ‘How’re you doing?’

  She smiled. He still hadn’t picked up ‘How are you going’, but Sam decided she liked the way he said it. ‘I’m fine, thanks. But listen, I’ve just been talking to my boss, and she told me all the lies you’ve been spreading about me.’

  ‘What lies?’

  ‘About everything I’ve supposedly been doing for you. You didn’t have to say all that, Hal.’

  ‘But it’s true. I asked to be acclimatised and you’ve been doing a fine job.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ Sam said dubiously. ‘Letting you take my son to the football, dragging you around house-hunting . . .’

  ‘Ah now, but that had a purpose, didn’t it? You should hear me these days when the conversation turns to real estate.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What do you say?’

  ‘That it’s overpriced.’

  Sam grinned. ‘I believe you had that figured out before.’

  ‘Mm, but now I can say it with authority.’

  ‘Well, my boss is expecting me to put in revised time sheets claiming the time spent with you.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘Sam, it’s not coming out of my pocket. Who keeps the money if you don’t claim it?’

  ‘The business, I guess.’

  ‘So knock yourself out.’

  ‘I just wanted you to know.’ She hesitated. ‘And to say thanks.’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  ‘And now you have to let me do something for you.’

  ‘Oh? What do you have in mind?’

  ‘I don’t know, Hal. You have to help me out here. There must be something you want?’

  ‘But you told me sex wasn’t part of the deal?’

  ‘Hal!’ Sam exclaimed. She knew she was blushing now.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he laughed. ‘Okay, okay, let me think. What’s a quintessential Australian day out?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Quintessential means . . .’

  ‘I know what quintessential means. But what do you mean by a quintessential Australian day out?’

  ‘That’s what I was asking you. What did you do on a day out when you were a kid, for example?’

  Sam thought about it. They didn’t have those kinds of days out when she was a child. Her mother usually worked on weekends and she palmed the three girls off to their grandparents in the school holidays. Picnics and outings were for kids with fathers.

  ‘I’ll have a think about it,’ said Sam eventually, flipping through her diary. ‘The kids are with their father this weekend, are you free Saturday?’

  ‘Let me just check,’ he said slowly. ‘You wouldn’t believe the women I have begging to take me out. You know, being handsome and single and straight in this city is such a burden.’

  Sam smiled. ‘I’ve created a monster.’

  ‘Turns out you’re in luck. Saturday’s fine.’

  ‘Then I’ll pick you up, say around ten?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  Saturday

  Sam pulled up in front of Hal’s apartment block a few minutes after ten, but at least he was waiting for her now. She’d already driven around the block twice after arriving early and having no chance of finding a park. She didn’t know how people lived in the middle of the city. She hoped it wasn’t going to be an issue when she moved. ‘Garage’ was on her list of desirables but she had better add ‘Parking’ at least to her essentials. />
  ‘Hey Sam,’ he smiled, climbing into the car. ‘So, where are we headed?’

  Sam pulled off up the street. ‘Well, you were after a typical Australian day out, am I correct?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Okay, the first thing you have to understand is that it’s not a proper day out unless you drive a long way.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Australians are happy to drive the distance on a weekend that most Europeans would only travel on their holidays. The maxim seems to be the further you go, the better time you’ll have.’

  ‘So, where are you taking me?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Mom will worry if I’m not home before nightfall.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Just up the coast a little way. There’s a place I used to visit when I was little.’

  ‘You’re still little.’

  She looked sideways at him. ‘Younger then.’

  ‘So what did you do at this place up the coast when you were younger?’

  ‘We spent a lot of time at the beach, naturally. Any authentic Australian experience has to include the beach.’

  ‘The beach?’

  Sam nodded. ‘The myth is that we all live outback in the bush, but hardly any of us do. Twenty million people, fewer than in New York I think, and we’re all loitering around the shore, dipping our toes in the water. You want a classic Australian day out, then you need to get sunburnt, dumped in the surf till your cossies are full of sand, dragged out by a rip and dragged back in by a lifesaver. Oh, and stung by a bluebottle.’

  ‘I didn’t understand half of what you just said. What’s a bluebottle?’

  ‘I think it’s some kind of jellyfish, I’m not really sure exactly. But it’s only small, and it looks like a transparent blue plastic bag with tentacles hanging off it. And it stings like buggery.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They entangle themselves around your limbs, and when you try to pull them off, they grip tighter, and get tangled up in your fingers, and they keep on stinging.’

  ‘Is it bad?’

  Sam looked at Hal’s pained expression. ‘They can’t kill you or anything. They just hurt like hell. It feels like an electric shock. When I was a girl they used to sponge you down with vinegar, or paint you all over with this blue stuff if you were stung. Now the treatment may be a little more sophisticated.’ She sighed. ‘But summer’s not really summer without one decent bluebottle infestation.’

  Hal was shaking his head. ‘Honestly, you Australians are crazy. You’ve got poisonous snakes and spiders and deadly things in the water, and yet you blithely carry on as though they’re not there.’

  ‘No we don’t. We take the proper precautions.’

  He glanced at her dubiously. ‘I was at the beach one day when I first arrived in the country. Not swimming, just looking. Anyway, a siren sounded and everyone got out of the water. I asked someone nearby what was going on –’

  ‘It would have been a shark alarm.’

  ‘That’s what they told me,’ Hal nodded. ‘Then after a little bit, the alarm sounded again and everyone went straight back into the water. I’m saying you’re all crazy.’

  Sam laughed. ‘There are hardly ever any sharks.’

  ‘Sorry, “hardly ever” is too often for me.’

  ‘So I take it you don’t go to the beach much?’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t swim in the ocean in the States. Not where I come from.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too cold.’

  ‘So do you swim at all?’

  ‘Sure. I spent all my summers as a boy at the lake.’

  ‘But you grew up here?’

  ‘Just till I was seven. For the rest of my childhood we went to the lake.’

  ‘I don’t like swimming in lakes and rivers,’ said Sam, turning up her nose.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you don’t know what’s under there. There could be all kinds of creepy-crawlies.’

  Hal shook his head. ‘At least there are no man-eating sharks or blue-tentacled creatures that give you an electric shock.’

  ‘Or box jellyfish,’ Sam added. ‘Step on one of them and you’re dead in a few minutes. Then there’s the blue-ringed octopus, the crown-of-thorns starfish . . . oh, and I was reading about this new one they’ve discovered. I can’t remember its name, but it’s only the size of a peanut, and if its tentacles so much as brush against your skin, you end up in hospital.’

  Hal was looking at her in horror.

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ she grinned. ‘They’re only found up the top end, and only at certain times of the year.’

  ‘Are we going to the beach today?’ he asked dubiously.

  ‘Just for a walk,’ she assured him. ‘I wouldn’t take you swimming in the middle of winter.’

  He shook his head. ‘Winter in Sydney. It’s a bit of a joke, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why? It gets cold.’

  ‘You people don’t know the meaning of the word cold.’ He looked out the window into the bright blue sky. They were just crossing the Harbour Bridge. The water was flecked fluorescent from the sunshine. ‘Just look at this beautiful day. It has no business calling itself winter.’

  Sam glanced out across the harbour. The sky was clear to the horizon, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. She should have hung out a few loads of washing before she left.

  What was that? When had a clear, cloudless day only come to mean a good drying day? Or a good day for airing the doonas, or washing the floor? When had she become such a boring, joyless person?

  ‘What is it?’ asked Hal.

  She looked at him.

  ‘You’re frowning.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to,’ she said, breaking into a smile. ‘I was just thinking, it really is a beautiful day.’

  They talked easily as they drove out of the city, eventually joining the expressway north. Hal had never really told Sam much about his home, and she was intrigued. There was a perception that Americans were ignorant about Australia, which was probably true, but Sam was embarrassed to admit that her own perceptions of America were shaped largely by what she saw in the movies or on TV. New York was full of wisecracking thirtysomethings who spent a lot of time in each other’s apartments or in coffee shops. And the mob lived over, was it the Brooklyn Bridge? Chicago had Oprah, and apparently a lot of hospitals, given that so many medical dramas seemed to be set there. Boston was full of lawyers and LA was Movieworld. She didn’t know where Vermont was, which was where Hal’s family had settled on their return from Australia. He explained it was between New York state and New Hampshire in the New England region. At least Sam knew that meant the east coast. It snowed in the wintertime and it was nowhere near the ocean, Hal added, which was why he was not accustomed to swimming in one.

  The conversation flowed without effort. It was actually a pleasant experience to be driving along, chatting amiably with another adult. Usually when they had travelled anywhere as a family it had been an ordeal, shouting above the kids to stop them fighting, or bickering over directions or bad driving habits. Sam didn’t like the way Jeff drove right up the back of other cars, or his obsession with overtaking, or that he was a bit elastic with the speed limit. And he didn’t like her pointing out any of those things.

  Sam turned off the freeway at the Gosford exit and followed the winding road that would take them to the coast. She had done this trip at the start of almost every school holiday when she was growing up. Her mother didn’t like the road and refused to drive on it, so Pop would come down to pick them up. Nan never came, and Pop never stayed over at their house. He’d stop for lunch, stretch his legs, but he wouldn’t linger more than an hour or so. It became clear to the girls as they grew older that their mother and her parents didn’t really get along, but they didn’t delve into it. Sam and Max thought they were the luckiest children alive to be able to spend their holidays in the little green cottage in Taloumbi, so they asked no questions.

  They only sp
ent Easter and part of the Christmas holidays together at home. And that was more than enough. Bernice Driscoll thought holidays were best spent on projects around the house. They cleaned windows, washed curtains and blinds, stripped and polished floors, cleared out cupboards. Maxine hated it with a passion and put more energy into avoiding than doing. Alex usually had school assignments and, later on, part-time work at the local supermarket. Sam was her mother’s mainstay, and she had to admit she found the whole exercise strangely satisfying, which was probably a bit odd for such a young girl.

  Alex stopped coming to Taloumbi after a few years when she decided she was old enough to look after herself during the school break, thank you very much. Bernice didn’t argue with her eldest daughter. Even then no one argued with Alex. Certainly not Sam and Max. Alex bossed them around even more at Nan’s, overseeing how many scones they ate and what time they went to bed. It was much more fun without her.

  They lost Pop the year Sam turned fifteen, and Nan the year she turned sixteen. The first holiday she spent at home she started going out with Jeff.

  As they approached the town centre of Taloumbi, Sam started to feel the same sense of anticipation she had as a girl. She hadn’t been here since before she was married, so she shouldn’t have been surprised that the quiet little village had turned into a busy shopping centre. But it made her a little sad. She had always meant to bring the children to show them the place but she had never got around to it. It probably wouldn’t mean that much to them anyway, it was just a little green-painted fibro house on a big, wide, flat block of land, a stone’s throw from the beach.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ she told Hal. ‘I used to spend all my holidays up here when I was a girl.’

  ‘Oh? Did your family have a place here?’

  Sam shook her head. ‘My grandparents lived here. My mother had to work full-time after my father left, so they looked after my sisters and me in the school holidays.’ She glanced across at Hal who looked as though he wasn’t sure what he should say. ‘Don’t worry, they were the happiest times of my childhood.’

  Sam had checked a map at home to make sure she would remember where to go, which was just as well because the area had changed considerably. There were many more blocks of flats and flashy houses, but Dolphin Parade was still where it had always been. It was a long street stretching from the main thoroughfare all the way to the beach. Sam drove slowly – she hardly had a choice considering the obstacle course of speed humps and roundabouts she had to negotiate. After a while she began to feel uneasy. There was one block of flats after another; she couldn’t imagine the dear little green house sitting there all alone, overshadowed by its neighbours.