by Dawn Barker
‘I was going to—’
‘What? What were you going to do? Do you have thirty grand sitting in another bank account somewhere? Is it in a trust for the kids’ education? What’s going on?’
‘I can’t talk about it now, Emily. Let me just finish this meeting and I’ll come straight home, I promise.’
‘Are you having an affair?’ As soon as I said it, my voice broke and the tears started.
‘No, no, of course not…oh, Emily, I would never…’ He sounded frightened. ‘It’s not that—’
‘Then what the hell is going on? Where is all our money? I can’t pay the bills, Paul! Where has it all gone?’ I was shrieking now, but I couldn’t stop. I heard a car door close through the phone.
‘I can’t talk about it now, Emily. I’m so sorry. I love you. I have to go.’
And then he hung up on me.
I stared at the phone. My tears dried into brittle rage. How dare he hang up on me? I called him again; the phone rang twice then went to voicemail. I rang him again; same. And then when I rang a third time, it went straight to voicemail and I knew he’d turned it off. I threw my phone down on the floor. If there was nothing going on, he’d have told me. I heard myself scream in fury then buried my face in my hands.
I didn’t try calling Paul again. He didn’t call me back. Eventually, I dried my tears and I piled the bills up neatly on my desk, then I walked out of my office and closed the door. I put on my sneakers and left the house, put on my headphones and listened to Pink very loudly and tried to walk then run then sprint quicker than my thoughts could catch me. And every time a panicked thought scrambled up to the surface and tried to get a foothold, I turned up the music and I ran faster until I had no energy left. I longed for it to be school pick-up time, to have the distraction of the children to keep me busy until Paul came home, and I could get some answers.
By the time I heard the front door open that evening, I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I was on my own from now on. I was going to have to work harder, full-time, and I was going to have to be the one who protected the children. I heard Paul’s footsteps in the hallway.
‘Kids,’ I shouted, over the noise of the music coming from Tilly’s bedroom. ‘Dinner.’
I got the egg flip from the drawer and scraped the sausage rolls off the oven tray. I picked off the burned pastry from the bottom of them before Cameron could see it. I slid them onto two plates, and took it to the dining table, already set for the kids. ‘Dinner, now!’
They came through as I put down a plate of cut carrot sticks, cucumber and capsicum slices in the middle of the table and went to get their glasses of water.
‘What are we having?’ said Cameron as he skulked through and picked up the TV remote control.
‘Sausage rolls.’
‘And what?’
‘Just what you can see on the table,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Tilly!’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she called through from her room.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I muttered. Where was Paul – hiding in the bedroom? ‘Tilly. Get out here now.’
She came through, glaring at me. I felt my eyes fill with tears; Tilly sat down quickly and squeezed tomato sauce onto her plate.
Cameron had switched on the television.
‘Cam,’ Tilly whined. ‘I don’t like—’
I slapped my hand down on the bench top. ‘You two. Be quiet and eat your dinner or the TV is off and you’re in bed.’
They both stared at me; I saw them glance at each other for a moment and then they began eating. I dabbed my finger in the corner of my eye. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘Please. Just eat. I need to go speak to Dad.’
I walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway into our bedroom. He was in there, already in his suit trousers, buttoning up his shirt. His work clothes – jeans and a polo shirt – were on the floor. He looked up briefly as I closed the door behind me then he looked down at his hands, trying to fasten his buttons, then began putting his foot into his shoes.
‘What are you doing?’ I said, incredulous, shaking my head. ‘We need to talk.’
‘I’ve got a gig, in an hour, I need to get going.’
‘A gig?’
He nodded.
‘Don’t you think that telling me what is going on is more important right now?’
‘I have to go.’
My pulse sped up. I hissed the words out through gritted teeth so that the children wouldn’t hear me. ‘You are not going anywhere! Why did you hang up on me, and then not call me back when you’ve had all day to explain what’s going on? Now you’re off out again?’
I saw his lip quiver, and the sight of that made my own tears fall. My anger drained and I sat next to him on the bed. I could barely get the words out. ‘Paul. You need to be honest with me. Are you having an affair?’
His head whipped round to me. ‘No! No, of course not. Never! You’re the most important thing in the world to me, you and the kids. Oh, babe, it’s not…’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘Paul. This is serious. What is it then?’
‘I will tell you, I promise. I just really have to go. It’s important, I can’t miss this. It’s work.’ His voice was pleading.
‘Are you in trouble?’ I said quietly.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’ll be okay, everything will be okay. Emily, I promise you. It’s just cash flow, it’s all there but there’ve been delays with the business, you know. I’ve had things to pay. I didn’t want to tell you as I didn’t want to worry you, but you need to believe me when I say that I love you and I’ll sort this out, I promise you. You don’t need to worry. I’ll have the money back in there tomorrow, I promise.’
He took a deep breath, sniffed, then wiped his eyes and stood up. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. His back was hunched and he hung his head. I stared at him, this man who was the other part of me. I trusted him when he said it wasn’t an affair. In my heart, I knew he wouldn’t do that to me.
I stood too and touched his arm. ‘Are you okay?’
He nodded, and spoke quietly, looking at the floor. ‘I’m just sick of playing this part.’
‘What part, Paul?’ I squeezed his arm. My heart was hammering, fear pulsing through me.
He breathed in, trying to puff his frame up with false bravado. ‘Nothing, never mind.’
‘Just get through the gig tonight. Then come straight home and we’ll sort it out. You don’t have to fix everything yourself, Paul. You just need to talk to me and tell me what’s going on. We’re a team.’
He nodded, not catching my eye. ‘I love you, Em. And the kids.’
I reached up and straightened his collar then stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. ‘We love you too.’
He hesitated for a moment then walked towards the bedroom door. I followed him out.
‘You driving?’
‘Oh. No, I’ve ordered an Uber, it’ll be here any minute.’
I nodded. He picked up his keys and wallet from the hallway table, put them in his pocket, then walked down the hallway to the front door. His suit jacket hung off him more than it used to and with it, his pride. I watched him as he opened the door, walked out, then closed it without turning around. I waited for a minute or two, holding my breath, confused about what all this meant, then was flooded with a sense of dread.
I ran to the door and opened it, but he was gone.
Seven
Paul
In any city in the world, you can guarantee that there’s one place that’ll be open all night – the casino. And guess where we usually stayed with the team when we travelled for work? The casino hotels. They were often the most glamorous places to stay, subsidised by the millions they were raking in downstairs from the punters. Also, most of the big functions – the charity balls, the awards nights – were held in the ballrooms of the casino complexes. They rolled out the red carpet for us in front of the busloads of people on the $10 return coach trip – including lunch – that collected
and deposited them from the outer suburbs to lose their money.
I had been hired to speak at a fundraising dinner for children’s cancer. I had agreed, of course. There hadn’t been so many opportunities lately; Jock said it was a problem after you hadn’t played for a while, because no one remembered who you were. I’d seen the guests whispering to each other when I was introduced, puzzled looks on their faces while their companions shrugged. I couldn’t turn this down. The money was critical now.
I don’t know how I got through it, standing in front of a couple of hundred merry middle-class people who were drinking champagne and bidding for signed, framed sports shirts. I was one of them once. I must have said the right things, because no one seemed disappointed in me but as my mouth was opening and closing and words were coming out and everyone was listening to me and laughing at the right places, all I could think about was Emily. Sweet Emily. Even when she had every right to be furious at me, to scream and hit me, she didn’t. She offered a hand out to help me. When she said she loved me and kissed me goodbye, I think she knew. I think she knew that this was the last gig, either way.
She said she doesn’t know where the money’s gone but she must. She must have known that when I came here to the casino, night after night, in my suit, I wasn’t earning money. I may as well have burned all our money and with it, our house and everything we own. How could I ever face her again?
There’s nothing left. The mortgage and car repayments are due next week, and I don’t even know if we can cover them, even after the payment for tonight hits the bank. That would be $3300; $3000 plus GST. That’s what three hours of my time is worth. Pretty good, huh? But it’s not enough. That and a few glasses of French champagne and a fancy dinner that I couldn’t even taste when all I could think about is how I should have plugged my ears with wax against the siren song of the slot machines on the casino floor, just beyond the walls of the function room.
Somehow, after the event had finished, I managed to steer my body away from the casino floor, to one of the bars that surrounded it. I knew I should go home. Emily would be worried. I owed her an explanation. My body burned with shame; I couldn’t tell her that the money, our money, was here. It was paying this barman’s salary, feeding his kids and paying his mortgage. It was paying the electricity to keep all these lights glaring and the noises blaring around me. It was paying for the plush Egyptian cotton sheets on the hotel beds upstairs. I sat on a stool at the bar, facing away from the casino floor. But I knew it was only a matter of time.
* * *
I don’t recall ordering a beer but soon, I had drained the dregs of one, put the glass down, then raised a finger towards the barman who nodded and started pulling another. That second beer took me down to $3270 for that night’s earnings. There was a knot in my chest. I could feel it tightening, just below my throat, until I was sure that I couldn’t breathe. My hands started to shake and luckily the barman brought my drink and I cupped my hands around the cold pint glass and managed to bring it to my lips and sipped the beer, then gulped it down to prove to myself that the knot wasn’t real, and air and food and drink could still go into me.
I did it again and the shakes started to settle and I felt like calling him over again and ordering a bottle of whisky and downing the whole thing right here, right now and maybe just for a few minutes I could pretend that this might somehow be okay, when I knew that it never would be.
It was too late.
And before I knew it I had taken my phone out of my pocket and reinstalled the app that I deleted only this morning, after Emily had called me, and I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing when I transferred $1000 from our joint bank account to the app and I found the next race and I put it all on the nose on the favourite, at four to one. When I tapped the screen to confirm the bet, I was still again. The knot had loosened, for a moment, and there was a tiny buzz in my chest instead. Because maybe, just maybe, it would come in and then I’d have more than $7000 from tonight which would mean that we wouldn’t default on the mortgage and Cameron and Tilly wouldn’t be out on the street because of me, and I’d have a bit more time to fix everything. All I needed was a little win, just to buy time, which in turn would buy me back Emily’s trust, and my family, my life.
But if not, it was all over.
Over and out.
The horse came second.
I closed my eyes to stop the tears from falling, there at that bar, and without a second thought, I went straight to the ATM just outside the gaming floor with my head held high and withdrew the maximum limit – $2500 – and then I logged into my online banking and transferred another $2500 to my second account, and then I withdrew that too. Then, I followed the familiar path through the casino and without allowing myself to think any more about what I was doing, hurried straight to the door to the VIP rooms, and they welcomed me by name and I greeted Nicole and she took my jacket and handed me a drink. They give me free drinks here, and a special room to gamble in.
Here, I’m a VIP.
I sat down at my own private roulette table and I handed over my money to the croupier and he gave me a pile of chips and I put them all on red.
I nodded at the croupier.
‘No more bets,’ he said, not looking at me even though I was the only one there.
I watched the little ball hurtling around and slowing and slowing and I could hear the scratching of the ball on the wheel and the click click click as it started to skim the serrations of the wheel and at that moment, I imagined that I was magic and I could control it, that I could force it to slow down and then when it had almost stopped I closed my eyes and lay my hands flat on the table and waited for the croupier to call the number.
‘RED FIVE.’
Red. He said Red.
You’d think I would have screamed, grinned, cheered, but I wanted to weep. Because now I had to do it all again. Because I knew that as certain as I loved my family, I could not pick up the chips that the croupier had just clinked down on the table in front of me, I could not pick them all up and stand up from this chair and walk across the floor past all the gaming tables and slot machines and lights and noise calling me to them, I could not walk to the cashier and cash my chips in and take the money and be relieved that I could pay the mortgage this month. I blinked back tears as I pushed the chips that he’d just given me straight back onto the red section and downed my drink.
I knew how it would end.
* * *
How long had I sat there? I remembered looking at my watch at 4am and thinking of Emily and the kids fast asleep at home and how in a couple of hours they’d wake up thinking it was a normal morning, thinking maybe we’d go out for breakfast. We’d be lucky to have enough now to even buy a box of cereal from the supermarket. I also didn’t have enough money left to play the minimum bet in the high roller room, so I took my place on the casino floor with all the other sad souls.
Gradually, people started wandering past me, glancing at me and looking away quickly, fresh faced after a full night’s sleep on a king size bed with a pillow menu. There was a time when I looked down with superiority at the bodies slumped over the tables watching the roulette wheel whir round with frantic eyes when I was going down for breakfast. Now, it was me hunched over the table, my back aching, my eyes gritty, my mouth sour. My suit wasn’t fooling anyone; I was one of the weak people I used to sneer at. ‘Can I get you a tea or a coffee?’
I looked up at the waitress. I could see the pity in her eyes, and I could see how I must look to her. Bloodshot eyes, dark shadows under them, stubble, a suit stained with drops of Scotch, sallow skin oozing the smell of alcohol and desperation. I looked at the glass tumbler in my hand, the ice almost melted away, the water diluting the dregs of caramel-coloured whisky that I’d been drinking all night. I looked up at her, then shook my head.
All I had left was the money for the cab, $50 tucked into my sock so I couldn’t reach it without really thinking about it. There was nothing left.
>
‘One more,’ I said, pointing at my empty glass. The last one. The last drink for the Very Important Person.
Eight
Emily
I jolted awake as the alarm on my phone went off at 6.30am and my first thought was that Paul was going to tease me, because clearly, I could sleep when he stayed out late. Even at the best of times, when I’m not consumed with worry about him, I can never sleep fully until I know that everyone in my family is home and locked up tight with me. So, last night, more than ever, I lay in the dark with my eyes closed like an animal, ears pricked to the sound of every car that drove past, every voice I heard, every creak the timbers of the house made during the night.
Paul had been late home before, many times, especially in the last few months. After everything that happened yesterday, I had expected him to come straight home. I had started calling him at midnight; the events are always done by then. It rang at first, but he didn’t answer. I sent a text message, then another, and when I tried ringing again, and again, the call went straight to his voicemail. He’d either run out of batteries, or he’d switched it off.
In the middle of the night, my worries grew and filled the room, and every so often, a wave of rage would build up then crash into tears. I longed for him to stumble in, drunk, so that I could yell at him for worrying me, and then let the relief settle over me.
So, when the alarm woke me, I assumed that Paul had crept in while I had dozed off and simply the sensation of him breathing next to me had been enough to lull me back to a proper, deep sleep. I grabbed my phone to turn off the alarm, then turned over, but even before I had turned, I knew he wasn’t there. The duvet was still pulled tight on his side, his pillow undented. My mouth dried; my heart raced. He must have slept in the spare room, that’s it. He got in late and hadn’t wanted to wake me. The fact that he never slept in the spare room didn’t matter. This hadn’t been a normal night. I remembered the way he hung his head as he walked out the door as he left; I could barely breathe.