Wife for Hire

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To placate Jessica for having to share with Ellie.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Not really.’

  He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. His expression seemed concerned. ‘You shouldn’t have had to do that,’ he said quietly.

  Sam considered him for a moment. ‘There are at least five kinds of responses I could make to that,’ she returned cryptically, closing the door again and heading towards the stairs. Jeff followed her down to the formal living rooms.

  ‘The leather lounge will never fit in the new house,’ said Sam. ‘Do you want it?’

  He shook his head. ‘It won’t fit in my place either.’

  ‘What about the dining setting?’

  ‘We don’t have a separate dining room and we already have a table and chairs.’

  Sam nodded. ‘I’ll have to sell it then, I guess.’ She looked around the room, at the side tables, lamps, cabinets, the prints on the walls. ‘Is there anything else you wanted? I really couldn’t fit much of this in if I tried.’

  ‘Me either,’ Jeff sighed deeply, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘Jeez Sam, we had so much stuff it won’t even fit into two houses. What were we trying to prove?’

  Sam looked down at the carpet, self-conscious. She could feel him watching her.

  ‘That wasn’t a dig at you, honestly Sam,’ he said. ‘I know this place meant a lot to you.’

  She shrugged. ‘Not any more. It was all I ever dreamed of once, I worked so hard to get it. Now I think I hate it.’

  He didn’t say anything. She cleared her throat and walked down the hall. ‘I was going to ask you if it was okay if I took the furniture out here?’

  He followed her into the family room. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Mainly I need the sofas, and the table and chairs. If there’s anything else you want –’

  ‘No, really Sam. I don’t want to take anything you can use.’

  She frowned. ‘Have a good look, you’re sure there’s nothing?’

  She watched him survey the room indifferently. For some reason it bothered her. Didn’t he feel anything? Maybe she didn’t want things to be awkward, but by the same token she would have liked to see some evidence that he cared. Even a little.

  The doorbell rang into the silence.

  ‘I’ll let you answer that,’ said Jeff. ‘I have to get going anyway.’

  They walked back towards the front of the house.

  ‘There’s so much more,’ Sam told him. ‘Kitchen stuff, linen. You’re hardly taking anything.’

  He stopped at the door. ‘Why don’t you pack up everything you want and I’ll come and take a look at what’s left.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he nodded as the doorbell sounded again. Jeff stood back while Sam opened the door to a pair of legs supporting an enormous arrangement of flowers.

  ‘Ms Samantha Holmes?’ came a voice from amid the blooms.

  ‘That’s me,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Then these are for you.’

  Sam took the flowers in her arms but now her own view was obscured. ‘Thank you,’ she called to the man as she heard his footsteps retreating down the path.

  Jeff cocked an eyebrow. ‘You’ve got an admirer?’

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘Not at all.’ He watched Sam position the flowers on the hall table. ‘Is there a card?’

  ‘There is.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll probably do that.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he nodded, realising. ‘After I leave?’

  ‘Mm.’

  Jeff smiled sheepishly. ‘I’ll get out of your way then.’

  ‘See you.’

  Sam stood at the open door, watching Jeff drive away. Well, that felt good. She turned and looked at the flowers, she had a feeling she knew who’d sent these. She plucked the card from amongst the foliage.

  You earned it alright! I’ve approved your bonus with Sheila.

  Now, will you marry me?

  AM

  Sam smiled. Not if you were the last man on earth, she said out loud, screwing the note up and tossing it in the bin.

  Wednesday

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: No subject

  Hey Sam, how are you going?

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: No subject

  Hello Hal. I’m fine. What can I do for you?

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: No subject

  I just wanted to say hello. Am I bothering you?

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: SORRY!

  I didn’t mean to sound abrupt. My apologies.

  Thursday

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: SORRY!

  You didn’t even notice that I asked ‘how are you GOING?’

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: SORRY!

  That’s very good Hal. Very Australian. We’ll make an ocker out of you yet.

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: SORRY!

  I take it that’s a good thing?

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: SORRY!

  Never mind.

  Friday morning

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: And Another Thing

  You didn’t notice my perfect spelling and punctuation either.

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: And Another Thing

  But you see Hal, spelling and punctuation are only noticeable when they’re not done properly.

  From: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  To: holmes@webnet.com.au

  Subject: And Another Thing

  Just like housework, huh?

  From: holmes@webnet.com.au

  To: h.buchanan@igb.com.au

  Subject: And Another Thing

  And data security, I hear.

  September

  Sam heard the doorbell, lit the last candle and blew out the match. That would be Liz and Rosemary. Max had phoned to say she was running late, and Fiona couldn’t make it. Tonight was the last chance to have the girls over before the house was sold, at least without the kids around. It was their weekend with Jeff. They were moving in a fortnight and from here on in Sam would be too busy anyway.

  ‘Hi Sam, how are you?’ said Rosemary as she opened the door, her voice wavering between sympathy and optimism.

  ‘Fine,’ she said with a genuine smile. She was glad they were here, it gave her an excuse not to pack for a night.

  ‘God, the place looks so empty,’ Liz remarked as Sam ushered them inside.

  Sam had sold off almost everything from the formal living room in one hit, the same day the ad appeared in the paper. It was quality furniture and Sam had kept it at an attractive price. She figured expediency was worth something. When she told Jeff she’d write him a cheque for his share, he flatly refused. He said to use it on the removalist, he should share that cost anyway, it was his children that were moving house as well. She insisted a removalist wouldn’t cost anywhere near that much, but he still wouldn’t hear of taking any money from her. ‘You must have had a lot of expenses moving. The money will help.’

  Sam wondered with all the nicey nicey when the kick in the guts was coming. But she didn’t have the time to dwell on that at the moment.

  ‘Come on through, the family room is still furnished,’ said Sam. ‘It’s the only room we live in now.’ In reality, it was the only room they’d ever really l
ived in.

  As they followed her through the double doorway, both Rosemary and Liz gasped at the same time.

  ‘What have you done!’

  Every available surface was covered with candles, mostly white, in all shapes and sizes.

  ‘It looks like a movie set or something!’

  ‘There must be dozens!’ sighed Rosemary.

  ‘Sixty-seven,’ Sam confirmed.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done this just for us, Sam,’ Liz chided. ‘Must have cost you a fortune.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ she started to explain. ‘I found all these while I was packing. They were everywhere. Some were out for decoration, but I had heaps in cupboards, drawers, every place I looked. All these candles that I had never used. I don’t know what I was waiting for.’

  ‘A month-long blackout?’ Liz suggested.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ mused Rose, ‘I’ve got a lot of candles around the house and I never light them either. And vases. I have so many vases, and yet on the rare times I actually get given flowers, I never seem to have the right size vase.’

  ‘Well, I decided I wasn’t going to pack sixty-seven candles away and get them out at another house, only to put them away in a cupboard and never light them there either.’

  ‘Yoohoo,’ called Max from the entrance.

  ‘We’re out here,’ said Sam.

  Max appeared in the doorway. ‘Wow, look at this place. It’s like a coven meeting. Very atmospheric.’ She glanced at each of them. ‘Haven’t you girls started drinking yet?’

  ‘We were just getting to that, Max,’ said Liz, tearing the foil off the bottle she had bought with her. She popped the cork and started filling the glasses Sam had laid out on the coffee table.

  ‘Guess what I heard on the radio today,’ said Max. ‘Did you know there’s a Tupperware party taking place on average every 4.4 minutes?’

  ‘What, around the world?’ asked Sam.

  ‘No!’ Max shook her head. ‘In Australia alone!’

  ‘That’s incredible.’

  ‘All that plastic,’ Liz pondered.

  ‘That can’t be true,’ said Rosemary, frowning. ‘Every 4.4 minutes? That would mean they were going all through the night.’

  ‘Please tell me she’s not that dumb,’ muttered Max under her breath, reaching for a glass.

  ‘Let’s drink to Sam,’ said Liz, holding up her glass.

  ‘No, let’s drink to all of us,’ Sam insisted.

  ‘But this is a big deal, Sam,’ Liz persisted. ‘Good luck, all the best . . . um, break a leg. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to say at a time like this.’

  ‘May your home resound with laughter, and the sun shine on it from above, so that on each day hereafter, it will always be filled with love,’ Rosemary finished, holding her glass towards Sam.

  Everyone looked at her, surprised.

  ‘It’s on a plaque above our back door,’ she explained. ‘Mum and Dad gave it to us when we moved in. I’ve read it every day for the last twenty-two years, so I know it off by heart.’

  ‘Thank you, Rose,’ said Sam.

  Max plonked herself on the floor. ‘Going a bit lowbrow, aren’t we, Sherl?’ she said, referring to the plastic disposable bowls filled with nuts, chips and olives, set out on the coffee table.

  ‘All my platters are packed away,’ said Sam. ‘But to tell you the truth, I really couldn’t give a toss. Maybe my standards are dropping.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘Are you going to miss the house?’ Rosemary asked tentatively.

  Sam looked at her. ‘I don’t think so. It feels so big these days, especially when the kids aren’t here.’ She paused. ‘You know, they marketed this as the ultimate family home, but it’s designed to keep everyone apart – all the separate bedrooms and bathrooms, parents’ retreat, family room, formal rooms. You could be in the house all day and not bump into anyone if you didn’t want to.’

  Max sighed heavily. ‘It’s like a monument to a broken marriage.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ Liz remarked drily. ‘Who’s writing your lines?’

  ‘What was it like when you had to split everything up? All the furniture?’ Rosemary asked. ‘I’ve heard that can get nasty.’

  ‘No, Jeff was really decent. He didn’t demand anything.’

  ‘There’s that guilty conscience again,’ said Liz.

  Sam shrugged. ‘I kind of wished he had, though.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well,’ she tried to explain, ‘he didn’t care, he didn’t seem to have an attachment to anything.’

  ‘Blokes are from Mars or Venus,’ Liz shrugged. ‘Some other planet anyway.’

  ‘He didn’t even mention this,’ Sam continued, tapping the coffee table. ‘This was the first piece of furniture we bought together.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Rosemary. ‘Did you want him to have it?’

  ‘No! I wouldn’t have let him actually take it!’ She sighed. ‘I just wish he’d wanted to.’

  Max frowned. ‘You realise you’ve stopped making sense.’

  Sam smiled weakly.

  ‘What’s the new house like, Sam?’ asked Liz. ‘I’m dying to see it.’

  ‘Don’t get too excited,’ she said. ‘You’ll only be disappointed.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’ Rose winced.

  ‘It’s not bad at all,’ Max insisted. ‘It’s . . . cute.’

  ‘Mm,’ Sam added dubiously. ‘It’ll certainly encourage togetherness. The living room’s barely big enough to swing a cat in.’

  ‘Why would you need enough room to swing a cat anyway?’ Liz mused. ‘I never did get that expression. Who goes around swinging cats?’

  ‘There’s only one bathroom and one toilet,’ Sam continued. ‘The kids freaked when they realised that.’

  ‘It’ll be good for their bladder control,’ said Rosemary.

  ‘That’s what I told them,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘That is such a mum thing to say,’ Max smirked. ‘Hey, where’s Fiona anyway?’

  ‘She’s working back, apparently,’ Rosemary explained.

  ‘On a Friday night?’

  ‘She seems to spend a lot of time late at the office these days,’ said Liz. ‘How’s your job going, Sam?’

  ‘It has its moments. I got a marriage proposal the other day.’

  ‘Not from Hal!’ exclaimed Max.

  ‘No,’ Sam frowned, ‘not from Hal. From Alan Mitchell.’

  ‘That name sounds familiar.’

  ‘Think concrete. Anyway, the proposal was only a joke. Though I think he probably would have taken me up on it if I’d said yes. But being his wife on a “for hire” basis is more than enough for me.’

  ‘So, you’re still seeing the American?’ said Liz.

  ‘I’m not “seeing him”,’ Sam insisted. ‘He’s a client.’

  They all looked unconvinced.

  ‘So what is it that you actually do for Hal?’ asked Max.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’re always harping on that he’s a client, but I’ve never actually worked out what it is that you do for him.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Liz agreed.

  ‘Um, well,’ Sam faltered. ‘This and that. You know.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ They were all looking at her expectantly.

  ‘What I do for my clients is confidential, I’m not really supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘Come off it! You’re always blabbing about your clients,’ Max protested.

  Sam felt flustered for some reason. ‘The thing is, Hal’s away at the moment, so actually I’m not doing anything for him right now.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’ asked Max.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Emailed?’ Liz pressed.

  ‘Oh, occasionally. Just to touch base.’

  ‘You’re blushing.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘She’s blushing,’ Liz said to the others.
‘There’s obviously something going on.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Max agreed.

  ‘I’m not listening to this,’ said Sam, standing up.

  ‘Sam’s got herself a boyfriend,’ Rosemary cooed.

  ‘Look, this is me not listening and leaving the room,’ said Sam, covering her ears as she walked into the kitchen to get another bottle of wine.

  ‘You know what they say,’ Max called after her. ‘The more you protest . . .’

  A fortnight later

  The actual day of moving was probably the least stressful Sam had had in weeks. Because of her disciplined packing regime there was no last minute panic. But she was exhausted and she hadn’t been sleeping well. She would go off to sleep alright, usually around one in the morning, when she couldn’t stay awake any longer. But then she’d wake after an hour or so and lie there, eyes wide open, telling herself to go to sleep. She would watch the digital clock as the numbers reconfigured with each passing minute and worry about the night slipping away. She’d try harder to fall asleep, which of course was self-defeating as she’d only become more anxious when she remained stubbornly awake. She moved through her days with fog for a brain, her eyelids feeling as though they had to be peeled open every time she blinked.

  ‘Samantha, are you well, dear?’ Ted had asked on her last visit.

  ‘I’m fine, just a little tired.’

  ‘When do you move house?’

  ‘Next Friday.’

  ‘That’s come around quickly,’ he remarked. ‘So I won’t expect you next week?’

  ‘No, Ted, I can still make it.’

  ‘I won’t hear of it, Samantha. You have enough to do, I’m sure.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, I forgot to tell you,’ he said, tapping his forehead. ‘I have an engagement next Thursday. I won’t be needing you to come after all.’

  Sam raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t believe a word of it, Ted.’

  ‘Well, that’s your prerogative, Samantha,’ he returned. ‘Now, are you getting enough help?’

  She assured him she was. Rosemary was coming to help her clean the house; Liz and Michael had volunteered for unpacking duty on the weekend, and Max was almost a permanent fixture lately. Sam was going to have to remember to do something special for her after this was all over. Even Bernice had offered to help. Though the day she’d come, all she did was expect endless cups of tea and answers to probing questions about the state of Sam’s finances. It had been a relief to drop her home again in the afternoon.