Wife for Hire

by Dianne Blacklock

Her voice trailed away, waiting for Sam to jump in any time and say, ‘I’ll take you, Mum, what day suits you?’

  But something made her resist. ‘I don’t know if I can do it this time, Mum. I’m terribly busy. I’ve started packing and I’ve got a huge job at the moment, that’s where I am right now.’

  ‘So, you have the time to help out total strangers, but not your own mother?’

  ‘Mum, they’re clients. They pay me.’

  ‘I see, it’s like that now, is it, Samantha? If I need your help, I’m going to have to pay for it? You were never so money-grubbing.’

  Sam steeled herself. ‘You know you have three daughters, Mum.’

  ‘Maxine is irresponsible, she can’t be relied upon. Besides, she doesn’t even have a car,’ she pointed out. ‘And Alex is interstate.’

  ‘But you never asked Alex to do anything for you even while she was still living here.’

  ‘She has an extremely important position, I can’t expect her to run around after me.’

  ‘Isn’t my work important?’

  ‘Honestly, Samantha, aren’t you a bit old to be playing tit-for-tat?’

  Sam stopped arguing so that she could get her mother off the phone. She didn’t have the time. She had a lot of calls to make this afternoon to get things moving at the Mitchell house. And she needed to stop at the mall to exchange something for Josh on the way home. Sam had bought the wrong CD for his birthday, and didn’t he rub it in. It seemed she couldn’t do anything right by the children these days, the older two at least.

  She wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news about the house. The agent had rung this morning to tell her that someone had beaten her offer. She told him to go ahead with Ermine Street, her second choice.

  Of course she was getting second best. It was becoming the story of her life. The other house had three bedrooms and a small enclosed sunroom as well. It would have made an ideal bedroom for Ellie, meaning Jess could still have had a room to herself. The house in Ermine Street had no such options. There was a tiny bedroom for Josh, and two larger rooms, the biggest of which Sam was prepared to give to the two girls. But Jessica was going to hit the roof when she found out she would be sharing with Ellie. When she’d got wind there was even a chance of this she’d been ropable.

  ‘Why do I have to share my room?’

  ‘Why can’t she share with Josh?’

  ‘Why do we have to move?’

  ‘Why have you ruined my life?’

  Sam parked in the mall car park and rushed along the seesaw of ramps to the entrance.

  ‘Hurry up, sweetie,’ she said over her shoulder to Ellie, trying not to sound impatient.

  ‘Why are we in a hurry for, Mummy?’

  ‘Because Mummy has a lot to do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . I just do.’

  ‘Cause you have to clean up that man’s filfy house?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why do you have to clean his house, Mummy?’

  ‘Well, you saw it, Ellie, it’s very messy, isn’t it?’

  ‘But why do you have to do it?’

  ‘Because it’s my job.’

  ‘But you’re not that mans’s wife, Mummy.’

  Sam swung around to look at her daughter. ‘It’s not only a wife’s job to clean the house, Ellie. Mr Mitchell is quite capable of cleaning up after himself, but he chooses not to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He has a lot of money and so he’d rather pay someone else to do it.’ Sam took hold of Ellie’s hand and walked on briskly into the entrance to the mall.

  ‘Doesn’t Daddy have a lot of money any more?’ said Ellie after a while.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He has to do the cleaning now, but he didn’t used to.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Sam, raising an eyebrow.

  Ellie nodded emphatically. ‘He has to wash up the dishes, and clean up the kitchen, and sometimes he cooks the dinner.’

  ‘Well, what do you know.’

  ‘Doesn’t Daddy have enough money to pay Jodi to do it?’

  Sam was trying to think about how to answer that. But she gave up. ‘No more questions, Ellie. Mummy’s got a lot of things on her mind.’

  They walked into the CD shop and Sam headed straight for the sales desk. Last time she’d handled it herself. She thought she had done the right thing. Josh had wanted a CD with a particular song on it and she had found it amongst the racks without any assistance. She’d left the shop quite smug with her savvy ability to negotiate the modern music scene.

  How was she to know there was a live version and a studio version? She wasn’t Molly Meldrum, for godsakes. Josh had been glum and ungrateful, chalking it up as just another example of how his parents were failing him.

  Sam was going to get it right this time. She approached the desk. A young man with lots of studs and rings punctuating his face, smiled brightly at her.

  ‘Hiya, how can I help you today?’

  Sam placed the CD in its original bag, with the docket, on the desk in front of the pierced man. She always kept the docket and the original bag.

  ‘I bought this Nevada album for my son, but apparently I got the wrong one.’

  He slid the CD out of the bag while she spoke. ‘Oh, you mean Nirvana?’

  ‘Isn’t that what I said?’

  He smiled. ‘He wants the studio album, I s’pose? Never mind.’

  That was kind. Despite his piercings, he seemed like a decent young fellow. She’d bet he wouldn’t grumble at his mother the way Josh did.

  ‘Thank you for understanding. I mean, it’s not that big a deal to change it, is it? I told him that. I was only trying to get him what he wanted. It’d be nice to get a little appreciation for all the things I do right that no one seems to notice. But they certainly notice when I get it wrong.’

  Sam took a breath. The pierced man’s expression had turned from kindness to bemusement.

  ‘Nevermind is the name of the album you’re after. I’ll just get it.’

  Friday evening

  ‘What’s wrong with me, Max?’ Sam moaned. ‘Now I’m pouring out my problems to complete strangers.’

  ‘It’s called overload,’ said Max plainly. ‘You’re bound to have a bit of spill-over now and then.’

  ‘Too right. And now in the middle of the busiest month of my life, I have to go to Mum’s and measure up her windows for curtains and then take her off to Lincraft, where of course she won’t like anything they have on sale, and then it’ll turn into this huge project while we traipse the city looking for fabric for curtains, that she only decided to change because of the sale, and I’ll be still making them for her come Christmas time.’ Sam took a breath.

  ‘Well, that was your choice.’

  ‘No it wasn’t!’

  ‘All you had to do was say no.’

  ‘To Mum? I tried to, but she makes me feel so guilty.’

  ‘No she doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh yes she does!’

  ‘She can’t make you feel anything, Sam. You have to take responsibility for your own emotions.’

  ‘Don’t start with the psychobabble, Max.’

  Max ignored her. ‘You know I’m right. Why do you give her so much power over you?’

  Sam paused. ‘It’s okay for you, she doesn’t even ask you.’

  ‘That’s right, because I’ve carefully cultivated a solid reputation for unreliability over the years. You’re about the only person who has any expectations of me at all. And look where that’s got me! Packing coffee cups on a Friday night! Where did I go wrong with you?’ she grinned.

  Each night Sam had aimed to sort through one cupboard in the house in an attempt to whittle away at the overwhelming task that lay ahead of her. But everything she unearthed seemed to have some memory attached to it, happy, sad or unexpected. There were long-forgotten wedding presents still in their boxes, souvenir tea-towels bought on holiday, tiny baby clothes, favourite toys and puzzles she’d k
ept just to remember.

  But now remembering hurt. Sam decided that happy memories were yet another casualty of a broken marriage. She wondered if she would ever be able to think about her old life without feeling sad or bitter.

  ‘Then, to add insult to injury,’ Sam continued, waving a piece of paper around, ‘this arrived in the mail today.’

  Liz walked in from outside where she had been having a smoke. She’d shown up to help because pretty much anything was preferable to Friday-night football. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘An invitation to my school reunion.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? Sounds like fun.’

  Sam pulled a face. ‘That’s what I thought, till I noticed that partners are also invited.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Of course, I know why that was decided. Bloody Robyn Johnson is one of the organisers and we all know who she married.’

  ‘We do?’ Liz frowned at Max, who shrugged.

  ‘Yes. One of the cricketers, played for Australia, I think he has a brother who plays too.’

  ‘Don’t they all have a brother who plays?’ Max asked Liz.

  ‘Steve, or Mark,’ Sam said vaguely. ‘No, it’s definitely Steve, Steve something. Or maybe Mark.’

  ‘I thought they were all called Steve or Mark,’ Liz muttered aside to Max.

  ‘Steve Bremer! That’s it. Oh, she’s probably just dying to come and show off her celebrity husband.’ Sam paused. ‘And I don’t even have a regular one to take any more.’

  ‘So Sherl, you’re not going to go out ever again because you haven’t got a husband?’

  ‘No, I’m just not going to this,’ she said, screwing up the paper.

  ‘Here, give it to me,’ said Max. ‘Don’t waste a good bit of packing paper.’ Sam tossed it to her, and she wrapped it around a coffee mug and placed it in the cardboard box at her feet. ‘There, that one’s about full. What’s next?’

  Liz smiled. ‘A drink, I reckon.’

  Two weeks later

  Sam stood staring at the bottom of Alan Mitchell’s pool. She could actually see it now. The same water that had been pond-scum green was now glistening turquoise. When the pool man had first come to take a look he had scratched his head in disbelief when Sam asked if he could get it cleaned up inside a fortnight.

  ‘I mean, maybe, but it’ll take so many chemicals, you wouldn’t be able to swim in it for at least that long again.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Sam told him. ‘The owner obviously hasn’t swum in it for a long time anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, I think only his wife ever used the pool.’

  Sam blinked at him. ‘You were the pool man . . . here . . . before?’

  ‘Sure. I’d been coming since they built the place.’

  ‘So . . .’ She was not sure how to ask someone if he’d had an affair with the wife of the man you were both working for. ‘What made you leave?’

  He shrugged. ‘They stopped paying. I rang a few times but there was never an answer. The last time, the phone had been disconnected. I thought they must’ve moved.’

  So, no cliché with the pool man after all.

  ‘Are you sure you want me to nuke this?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  She had become obsessed with getting the house in order before Alan Mitchell returned. Sam had always liked a challenge, to do something that people didn’t expect could be done. Like the buffet luncheon she prepared for Ellie’s christening, two weeks after she was out of hospital. She glowed as guest after guest commented how wonderful she looked, how amazing she was, how they couldn’t put on a party like this, even without having a newborn baby to look after. She also remembered that later in the day Jeff fell asleep in an armchair in the corner of the family room. Anyone would think he was the one getting up to a baby three times a night.

  But this time it was not about earning accolades. It was more the sense of control it gave her as the rest of her life was being dismantled, sorted, wrapped in newspaper and packed away in cardboard boxes.

  Sam walked back into the house. It had been totally transformed in the past two weeks. The carpet was fresh and clean, every polishable surface was gleaming, everything was in its place. The phone was reconnected, as was Foxtel, and Sam had diverted the mail to a post office box, where she would pick it up directly. Cleaner, gardener and pool man were all booked for weekly appearances.

  But for some reason she was curiously dissatisfied. It occurred to Sam that all she had done was patch up the life of a spoilt, overgrown boy who had managed to drive away four wives and who did not even have the most basic of life skills.

  She tried not to judge her clients but some of them invited it. Dominic Blair was all style and no substance. Vanessa was genuinely sweet, but the way she just went along with everything grated on Sam’s nerves. Then there was Guy Hennessey. He had contacted her a few weeks ago, asking her to book the best room in the best hotel in the city and have flowers waiting, with a card to ‘Suzanne’. Finally, something romantic. Sam had tried to call Fiona to tell her, but she hadn’t been able to catch her for a week. She didn’t bother to try the following week, however, when Guy asked Sam to do the same thing, but address the card to ‘Pamela’ this time. And a fortnight later, Tania, and after that, Carly. Or was it the other way around?

  Only Ted Dempsey out of the lot of them had a genuine need, yet he was by far her easiest client. Except for Hal, but she could hardly even call him a client. He had done more for Sam than she ever had for him. He’d been away for a few weeks, running training sessions at other offices around Australia, so she hadn’t seen him since their day out. Sam had tried to insist on at least collecting his mail while he was away.

  ‘But I don’t get much snail mail these days. You can go and empty out the junk mail if you really want, but I think the super will take care of that.’

  ‘Well, I have to do something!’ she insisted. ‘Do you want me to arrange to have your carpets cleaned?’

  He shook his head. ‘They don’t need it.’

  ‘What about spring-cleaning your apartment?’

  ‘At this time of the year?’

  ‘It’ll be spring by the time you’re back. You’re in the southern hemisphere,’ Sam reminded him.

  ‘Still, my place doesn’t need spring-cleaning, there’s only me. I don’t make that much mess.’

  She sighed. ‘You know, you’re a lousy client, Hal.’

  ‘Thanks Sam. And I always speak so highly of you.’

  Sam checked her watch now. She was meeting Jeff at the house soon to divide up the furniture. She had only come to Alan Mitchell’s to stock the fridge with a few things – milk, butter, beer of course, and a chilli con carne she’d made herself. He was due back any time and she wanted the place to be perfect. She wanted him to be gobsmacked.

  She wanted a bonus.

  When Sam arrived home, Jeff’s car was parked outside on the kerb and he was sitting inside it. He got out as she pulled into the driveway.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Sam said as he approached her.

  He shrugged. ‘No worries.’

  She looked at him. ‘Have you come from work?’

  He nodded. It was interesting to note the deconstruction of Jeff Holmes, Corporate Executive. It had happened so gradually over the months that it caught Sam by surprise when she really looked at him now and then. He was wearing casual clothes to work these days, a concession that had been introduced into the office years ago but one which Jeff had never taken up. And he was wearing his hair much longer. As it grew out from the neat, close cut he’d worn for years, it swirled and kinked into sandy brown waves. Sam had forgotten how wavy his hair was, she’d forgotten about the curls that clustered at the nape of his neck. He looked . . . younger, more like the boy she had married.

  Sam opened the front door and Jeff followed her in. He was moving house too. He had put a deposit on a semi in Randwick. The living areas were tight apparently, but it did have a small b
ackyard and three bedrooms. Josh wouldn’t have to sleep in the living room any more. Sam wondered how they could afford it. Jodi’s business was obviously doing alright, though she supposed having two wages made all the difference.

  They walked into the kitchen and Sam put her bag on the bench. ‘So, how are we going to do this?’ she asked him.

  Jeff shrugged. ‘However you want.’

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘of course you’ll take the spare bed from the study, for Josh.’

  ‘Thanks, that’d be great.’

  Sam considered him for a moment. ‘You don’t have to thank me. I’m not giving it to you, Jeff. You’re entitled to your share.’

  She didn’t want this to be awkward. And definitely not emotional. She’d heard enough stories and seen enough movies about couples fighting over food processors and CD collections. She did not want to go through that.

  Besides, Sam had noticed in herself a strange detachment from all the stuff around her. The things that suddenly mattered were a revelation. A tiny worn-out baby’s jumpsuit meant a lot more to her than the four-thousand-dollar leather lounge suite, for example.

  ‘Why don’t we start upstairs?’ she suggested.

  Jeff insisted he didn’t want anything from the kids’ rooms, despite the fact that with Ellie and Jess sharing, some of their furniture was going to have to be culled.

  ‘Well, the girls can work that out. If they want to bring anything to my place, that’ll be fine.’

  Sam said it was only fair that Jeff take the rest of the furniture from the study. Though she hoped he didn’t mind if they kept the computer.

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘The kids need it for school.’

  She pushed open the door to their room, but she stayed back, leaning against the doorjamb. Jeff didn’t venture in either.

  ‘Can you use a king-size bed?’ she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  He shook his head. ‘You have it.’

  ‘It would never fit – I’d have to climb directly onto it from the doorway.’

  ‘Oh?’ he frowned. ‘Your room’s that small?’

  ‘I’m taking the second bedroom.’