More Than Us

by Dawn Barker

  Paul laughed a little too loudly and I turned to him, watching him shift in his seat and shrug.

  My back stiffened. ‘Yes, me too.’

  Damian continued. ‘I don’t know what Paul’s told you about us, and our involvement with Phoenix, but we’ve all been where he was. We…’ he waved his hand around the table ‘were all addicted to alcohol.’

  Shona laughed. ‘Hey, not us! Just the men.’ Sam and Amina laughed too, and I joined in, though it didn’t seem that funny.

  ‘No, but you ladies were a huge part of our recoveries, and still are.’

  I nodded, blinking hard as I realised that my eyes were filling with tears. Paul put his hand on my leg and squeezed gently.

  ‘Emily, I wanted to have this dinner to acknowledge everything you have done for Paul, because even though it’s been an awful journey for him, and you, we’re so glad that he found Phoenix.’

  Did everyone here know about his gambling? I knew Damian did, and therefore assumed Shona was aware, but the others too? My face burned.

  Amina leaned forwards now, tucking her long black hair behind her ears. ‘Emily, if you ever need to talk to anyone about what you’ve gone through, come and talk to me, or Sam, or Shona of course. We understand.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said quickly, ‘that’s very kind. But I’m fine. We’re fine. And thank you again, Shona and Damian, for having us tonight. It’s very kind of you.’ My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to steer the conversation away from my dirty laundry. ‘So, Damian, how is the restaurant going? It looks fantastic!’

  He leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s great. Thanks to the hard work of everyone here, especially your husband.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Not me. I’ve hardly done anything.’

  They continued to congratulate and flatter each other as I felt more and more disconnected from my surroundings and wished I was back in my own house, or in Ceecee’s messy kitchen. My breath had quickened; I felt trapped. Sweat beaded on my upper lip despite the breeze blowing off the dark waters of the harbour below us. My vision began to waver and panic started to take hold. What was wrong with me? I clutched Paul’s arm. Everyone turned to me. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can I use the bathroom?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Sam said. She got up, and I excused myself and followed her.

  After a few minutes running cold water over my wrists and drinking water from the tap, I made myself breathe slowly and deeply. I was making a fool of myself. Everyone was being lovely, but I couldn’t shake my uneasiness. I closed my eyes for a moment, then cleared my throat, pulled my shoulders back then stepped outside.

  Sam was still there.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, jumping. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were waiting too. I just felt a bit faint all of a sudden.’ I held the door open.

  She smiled and shook her head. ‘I was waiting for you. Come and sit down.’

  I frowned, glancing out to the balcony, then back to Sam, who had sat on the couch.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, hesitantly, sitting on an armchair opposite her.

  ‘I just wanted to talk to you in private. They can get pretty intense.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, no, they’re just being supportive.’

  She reached for my hand; I let her take it though wanted to snatch it away. ‘Tim told me, about Paul.’

  ‘Oh.’ So they did know. My cheeks burned.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed. I know how you’re feeling. It was the same for me when Tim used to drink. I tried to hide it from everyone, I was ashamed. But, once I realised that he wasn’t doing it to escape from me, but that he was like that because we had been living the wrong way, it made us stronger. I know that right now, it seems like Paul’s growing away from you.’

  ‘No, no, he’s just…’ my voice trailed off. I wanted to go outside and sit with Paul. I could hear him laughing at something. ‘He’s working hard, and I know he needs to go to the meetings to stay well.’

  She smiled sympathetically, staring at me. ‘Emily. I have been where you are. I understand.’

  ‘That’s good to know. I appreciate you reaching out to me.’ Maybe I could stand up quicker if I just went along with her.

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice, glancing over at the balcony where I could hear the men’s voices. ‘Look, I wanted to talk to you tonight to ask you to come along to a meeting.’

  ‘Me? Oh, no, I—’

  She squeezed my hand; it felt like a handcuff tightening. ‘I know you don’t have an addiction, not like Paul, or our husbands did, but when I joined Phoenix, it helped me to understand more about what had happened to Tim, and we were able to move forwards in our relationship. And even if you don’t think that you have a problem, I guarantee that your life will change for the better when you join us.’

  The faintness had returned. ‘Look, I’ll think about it. Thanks.’ I made to stand up, then noticed Shona and Amina were coming towards the living room too, leaving the men outside. I swallowed hard as they approached, then sat next to Sam on the couch.

  ‘I’ve just been telling Emily that we have all been where she is now, and suggesting that she comes to one of our meetings and thinks about joining Phoenix.’

  ‘We’d love that, Emily. You must,’ said Amina. ‘For me, it not only gave me support, but it opened my eyes. Not to mention the opportunities it has given us…’ she giggled.

  My cheeks hurt from the smile fixed on my face as the women all laughed. I felt like I was locked in a resort trying to sell me a timeshare, or with friends pushing their latest Tupperware or pyramid scheme onto me. What opportunities were they talking about? Money? My heart raced as I thought of the money that was debited every month from our account to Phoenix. That was just paying back the rehab, wasn’t it?

  I stood up quickly, pulling my hand back from Sam. The women all stood too. Shona put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Come back outside. We can talk more about it later.’

  I nodded and let her steer me back to the balcony. My legs were weak. I found my way back to the seat beside Paul and moved my chair closer to him. I don’t know how I managed to get through the rest of dinner but finally, the evening ended.

  * * *

  In the car, as soon as I closed the door and sat down, the tears began to fall.

  ‘Emily,’ Paul said, his eyes wide. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Just drive, Paul, let’s go home.’

  ‘What’s—’

  ‘Just drive!’ I shouted.

  He started the car and began driving.

  ‘What was that, Paul?’ I accused once we were a few minutes away and I felt sure that no one from dinner could see or hear me.

  ‘What was what?’

  ‘You know,’ I shook my head. ‘That was some sort of attempt to, what, recruit me?’

  ‘Recruit you? No, Emily, it was just my friends having us over for dinner. You’re overreacting.’

  I glanced at him; he was frowning and looking straight ahead at the road as we wound along towards Bondi. The sight of normal people milling around the streets made me want to jump out of the car and join them.

  ‘Did you know that they were going to corner me and tell me I had to come to meetings and join them, and promising the world?’

  ‘No, and I don’t think you’re reading the situation correctly, Emily. They’re nice people, and if they cornered you, I’m sure that they were just trying to be friendly and welcoming, as I’d have hoped you’d do with them.’

  ‘You didn’t hear what they were saying. They surrounded me and kept going on and on about it and I just want things to get back to normal, Paul.’ My voice broke. I stopped, taking a few deep breaths and looked out of the passenger window.

  ‘This is our normal now, Emily.’

  ‘It’s not normal, Paul. You’re out all the time, and all these restrictions on everything, it’s just getting too much.’ I wiped at my eyes.

  Paul spoke quietly. ‘Would you rather I was gambling?’

  I sig
hed. ‘You know that’s not a fair question.’

  ‘I need to do this, Emily. Otherwise I am finished.’

  ‘That’s not true, Paul. You are the one who has stopped gambling, it wasn’t Damian, or Phoenix or whatever.’

  ‘I owe him everything, I owe Phoenix everything.’

  ‘We’ll pay them back, as you said you would.’

  ‘It’s not just the money. They saved my life.’

  I shook my head. ‘It feels like you believe you owe them more than you owe your family.’

  He slowed the car and indicated to turn right at the traffic lights. ‘Emily, don’t put me on the spot. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I owe you and the kids so much too.’ I glanced at him as his voice broke. Fresh tears brimmed in my own eyes. He cleared his throat and composed himself. ‘But I have to pay them back, yes, the money, but Damian also kept my job open, arranged everything for me. Who else would employ me? How else would we pay them back and support our family?’

  ‘We’d manage. Don’t feel that you have to do what they say. That’s not like you, Paul, you’re losing yourself in all this… stuff. I’d rather lose the house and see you and the kids happy in a crappy rental in the outer suburbs than have their fancy waterfront mansion—’

  He raised his voice. ‘Then what has everything been for, Emily? Why have I worked so hard to build up my career, why did we move to Australia if not to have a good life? Is it so wrong for me to want to give you and the kids a house, a good education, and nice holidays?’

  I shook my head and spoke quietly. ‘That’s not important, Paul.’

  ‘I don’t want to have to sell our house and struggle for money. That’s not the life I want for my kids. That’s not a nice way to grow up.’

  Well, you shouldn’t have given it all to the casino, I want to say, but I didn’t need to.

  Twenty-Three

  Paul

  ‘How was training today, Cam?’ I said as we both sprawled on the couch watching the rugby.

  I’d had to relax the ‘no television’ rule: Cam’s big game was tomorrow and watching others was the best way for him to learn. The people at my Phoenix meetings didn’t need to know. After Emily had come with me to Damian’s for dinner, she had refused to engage any more with me around Phoenix’s philosophy and we’d reached a stalemate over the past few months where we each did our own thing and tried not to bring up our beliefs. I knew she had some points, even if I didn’t admit it to her, and I was trying to give the kids some leeway. Besides, it was so important for Cameron to see how the professionals played. When I was playing soccer as a teenager, I’d taped the games on our VHS and watched them over and over, studying the plays, memorising the tactics. I hadn’t watched a soccer game since I’d left Treetops though – it took my mind to places I couldn’t let it go.

  But I could handle watching Union. It was Cameron’s thing. Back in Scotland, when I was a kid, Union was the domain of the private schools, so I never had the opportunity. I would never have been big enough to play anyway. Cameron was just big enough to be a fly half. They didn’t play soccer at his school, and despite me doing everything to get him to play it outside of school, he had resisted, feigned illness, stomped around the pitch. Emily said it was his way of rebelling against me, and so, I had let him as long as he chose another sport. He didn’t love rugby either, but it kept him connected to the other kids and gave him a group, even if he was on the periphery of it. His school’s rugby team was good, and tomorrow, they were playing in the finals of the private boys’ interschool competition.

  He shrugged. ‘It was fine. Saunders worked us pretty hard.’

  ‘Not too hard, I hope – got to keep fresh legs for tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, all good. It was more like tactics and things. We didn’t run too much.’

  I nodded then leaned down and picked up my water. I had a sudden craving to be picking up a beer; I pushed it away even though I could almost taste the hops on the back of my tongue. They had warned me that this would happen; so many connections had been welded into my brain that it was hard wired to temptation. Sport to Beer to Betting. I had to be vigilant.

  ‘Arrgh!’ Cameron hit his forehead with his palm as the Force scored a drop-goal. Before I could look away, the TV suddenly cut to the adverts and my mouth went dry. My breathing started to speed up as I forced myself to look away from the Sportsbet ad, to block out the familiar voice.

  ‘Did you see that, Dad? They gave it away! Where’s our defence?’

  ‘I know, Cam. What a disgrace.’ My voice was flat, but my mind was oscillating. ‘What’s the score now?’ I tried to level my eyes on Cameron but the game was back on now and across the bottom of the screen was a banner and it was telling me to pick up my phone and put on a bet, and all the combinations I could do and how much I would win and just like that craving to pick up a bottle of beer, I wanted to reach for my phone and reinstall the app and gamble.

  I had been wrong to let myself relax, to think that I could resist. This is why we couldn’t watch the television. My heart raced. Cameron was being bombarded with these little flashes of adverts shooting into his brain and settling there, until one day he’d be a little bit curious and maybe he would open an account and put his first bet on based on their phoney promises.

  ‘Dad?’ Cameron was looking at me, his brow furrowed.

  ‘Sorry, Cam, what is it?’ How much did he know? My face reddened as I tried to smile at him, then looked back at the TV, keeping my eyes focused on the game, even though behind the players I could still see the banners around the edge of the pitch advertising all the different ways that I could place a bet. I grabbed the remote and pressed the power button, jumping up from the couch as I did so.

  ‘Hey! I was watching that.’

  ‘It’s all over, Cam. Come on, let’s go practice some kicks for your game tomorrow.’

  He screwed up his face. ‘You said I needed fresh legs. It’s getting dark.’

  I looked out the window, saw the twilight shading the garden, dulling the green of the grass and the blue of the pool, heard the distant barking of a dog. My head was swirling with thoughts, and my eyes prickled with tears with the knowledge that I couldn’t even watch a sports game with my son. Phoenix was right: temptation was everywhere, and I had been stupid enough to think that I was strong, that I could relax a little bit back into my life, but as I saw my reflection in the glass patio door, with Cameron sitting on the couch beside me, looking up with confusion on his face, I knew that I couldn’t. I had to be even stronger. I had to remove all of this from our lives.

  ‘Dad!’

  I rubbed my face and sat down again next to him. ‘Sorry, Cam. It’s just… do you want to…?’ What else could we do though? Our life was based around activities that involved technology: television, internet, games consoles. I felt myself slump as I realised that Cam and I had little else in common. We didn’t talk, not really. We chatted in front of the TV while both of our focus was on the screen. I swallowed down the guilt. ‘A board game?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I want to watch the end of the match.’

  ‘I know, but it’s over.’

  ‘No, it’s not, there’s still ten minutes to go. There’s only a try and a conversion in it. Dad, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I just don’t want to watch it now. I don’t want you to watch it.’

  He tried to take the remote from me; I pulled my hand back and glared. ‘Don’t, Cameron, I’m warning you.’

  ‘You’re warning me? What are you going to do? Take away television? It’s just a rugby game!’

  I kept my voice steady though my muscles were tensing. ‘Don’t raise your voice at me, Cameron.’

  ‘Why not? You’re never even here! You’re always working and then you come in here and make all these rules and it doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘It is! We got used to life without you here and then you come in and make it all crazy a
gain and won’t even sit down and watch the game with me!’ His voice was wavering.

  ‘It’s not good for you, for us, Cameron, watching that. It’s not just the game, the game is fine, but look at the adverts, their strips, it’s all designed to get into your mind…’

  ‘You were a sportsman! You make me play sport even though I hate it and—’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t hate it!’

  ‘I do. You’ve never asked, Dad. It’s the only thing you ever talk to me about and now we can’t even watch the game.’ He stood up, shaking his head.

  ‘Cameron, sit down mate,’ I pleaded. ‘Let’s talk—’

  ‘I’m going to my room to play a boardgame,’ he sneered.

  Now I shouted. ‘Cameron, that’s enough! Don’t talk to me like that. I’m just offering to spend some time with you—’

  He pushed past me, out of the room then I heard his bedroom door slam. I sat on the couch, hands shaking. I was glad Emily was out, picking up Tilly from a friend’s house.

  Where had all that come from? As my anger settled, I realised that he sounded exactly like Emily. All those ideas, they weren’t his; it was exactly what his mother had said to me over and over. He’d heard her ideas about me so many times that he believed them too.

  That night, I didn’t tell Emily what had happened, and I guessed Cameron wouldn’t either.

  * * *

  I’d set my alarm for 6am. It was as if I was playing today; I was excited, nervous. I went for a quick walk. No one was up when I got home; I emptied the dishwasher and began making breakfast.

  Emily came through in her pyjamas. ‘You’ll wake the house with all that clattering,’ she yawned.

  ‘It’s time to get up. Cameron’s big game,’ I retorted. How about, thanks for making breakfast, Paul?

  Emily pressed her lips together and I knew she was trying to stop herself from saying something. I didn’t ask. She squeezed behind me and began filling the kettle. ‘Do you want some tea?’

  I said nothing. She knew I couldn’t drink tea.