His Other House

by Sarah Armstrong

  ‘That’s right.’ He heard Marianna and Evan laughing in the kitchen then his father called out the back door. ‘I’m told to tell you two that dinner is in twenty minutes.’

  ‘You love me best, don’t you?’ Adie smiled at him.

  ‘What do you mean? More than I love Grandpa?’

  ‘No. More than Mummy.’

  He did love Adie more. No question. ‘I love you and Mummy differently. I love Mummy like my wife. I love you like my daughter.’

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Quinn said, ‘It’s just like you love me and Mummy. The same amount of love but different love.’

  ‘Oh no.’ She shook her head. ‘I love you more.’

  ‘Do you?’ He felt a treasonous swell of happiness then wondered if she said it because she sensed the seismic shifts coming. Was she trying to hold on to him?

  She nodded matter-of-factly then sat up and frowned at the ground behind her. ‘I’m lying on a rock or something.’

  ‘Can I have a hug?’ Quinn said.

  She climbed into his lap. Lucy the dog dropped into the shade beside them, panting. Quinn stroked Adie’s wet hair and wondered what memories she would have of them as a family. Would she remember this afternoon under the sprinkler? And what of all that time before her memory, when he’d held her in his arms, bathed her and lain beside her while she fell asleep? That time must be stored in her body if not in her memories. He thought of how his mother had reached out to stroke his arm down at the harbour and he wished he could conjure the feel of her fingers on his skin.

  Adie wriggled out of his arms onto the wet grass.

  ‘Would you write me some letters like you write to Grandpa?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘So, if I go away to a conference or something, I’ll take your letters with me.’

  ‘Yeah. Good idea. But they’ll be in code and you’ll have to figure it out. It takes me ages to write them.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Sitting there on the grass under the sprinkler, he knew this was his last day in this house. Perhaps his last day with his daughter.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Quinn backed down the driveway. In the passenger seat, his dad fingered the envelope that Adie had pressed into his hand. As they turned down the hill, his dad cleared his throat. ‘I’m whittling down my photo albums. Do you think you might want any photos? There are some of you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Why are you getting rid of them?’

  ‘Oh, I’m just getting rid of stuff. Wait until you’re seventy-five. You’ll do the same.’

  Quinn wondered where he’d be at seventy-five. Adie would be in her mid-thirties. What would their relationship be like?

  His dad adjusted the flow of air from the vent. ‘I’m just getting all my affairs in order. You know, a new will after buying the apartment and . . . because you’re executor, I wanted to let you know that part of my will involves sending money to Tebano’s family.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ A car overtook them, bass music thumping.

  ‘Actually I’ve sent them money every year since she died. It’s your mother’s family money. It’s what she would have wanted.’

  That voice of his father’s was so familiar from Quinn’s childhood, that ultra-mild, ultra-reasonable voice masking intense emotion.

  ‘They’ve used the money to send his kids to university in Fiji. One of them became a doctor.’

  ‘That’s a very honourable thing to do, Dad.’ Quinn turned the windscreen wipers on instead of the indicators.

  ‘Honourable? No. I just tried to think what your mother would have wanted.’

  ‘Well, that’s honourable, isn’t it?’ Quinn pulled up at a set of traffic lights. Beside them a car of twenty-something kids waved their arms out the windows.

  His dad said, ‘Anyway, I just wanted you to know so that when the time comes you’re not surprised.’

  ‘Thanks. I can keep that up, no problem. How long do you want money to go to him?’ The lights turned green and the car next to them roared off.

  ‘Until he dies. And I have someone who’ll let me, or you, know.’

  ‘What? Someone reading the death notices over in Tarawa?’

  ‘Just someone who’ll tell us.’

  Quinn remembered a Sunday lunch, not long before he left for boarding school, when Tebano had come to the dining room door. He appeared in the doorway wearing his church clothes, hair wet and combed back, and he quietly spoke her name. Bess. He usually called her Mrs Davidson in front of other people. She got to her feet, dropping her napkin to the floor, and shut the door behind her. Quinn and his brother and father sat at the big table, silently eating their baked fish and sweet potato, while through the door came the urgent tone of the conversation in the hallway.

  Quinn was ashamed to remember what he had said to his father, ‘You should just sack him, Dad.’ His father had glanced at him and continued eating in his slow methodical way.

  Finally Quinn’s mother came back in, red-eyed, a bright smile plastered on her face. ‘All’s well,’ she said and sat down before standing up again. ‘How about some crumble?’ She went through the door to the kitchen and didn’t reappear. He never knew what their hallway conversation was about, but he went to bed that night hoping that Tebano had called things off at last and that the family could return to how it used to be. Then, the next day he saw them standing close in the garden, Tebano stepping forward to tenderly brush something from her hair.

  Quinn pulled up on the street outside his father’s block of brand new apartments, the lobby filled with a cold white light.

  He turned off the ignition. ‘I never saw you angry about it, Dad.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh, I was angry. But . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Short of resigning and leaving the island, there was nothing I could do. And if I did that, if I resigned, I ran the risk of her going with him. She had some money. She didn’t need me.’

  ‘So why did she stay?’

  ‘You don’t get that we still loved each other.’ His dad opened the door and the warm briny breeze from the river entered the car.

  I do get it, Quinn thought.

  His father looked over towards the lobby. ‘You only really saw her as a mother, not through the eyes of an adult. If you had, you would have seen what a remarkable woman she was. So much fun to be with, so full of life.’ He looked away. ‘And she was honest with me. Always honest. From the first moment she was attracted to him, she told me. I always knew what was going on.’

  Quinn opened his door. ‘I’ll come up with you.’

  ‘That’s kind, but I’ll be okay.’ He smiled. ‘I’m a grown-up.’ He squeezed his son’s arm and climbed out, shutting the car door firmly behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Quinn dropped his keys on the kitchen bench and sat at the table. He wanted another beer but knew he needed to be sober for this. His heart pounded through him.

  Marianna stood by the sink, drying her hands on a towel. ‘Are you okay? You look a bit . . .’

  He said the first thing that came to mind. ‘Jim said it was a single car accident.’

  She frowned. ‘The implication being that it was intentional?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She leaned back against the bench and folded the towel into a square. ‘Was she depressed?’

  ‘I asked her GP to consider depression . . .’

  ‘Oh, darling. It might be just what it seemed, an accident.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Have you ever thought about suicide?’ she asked.

  He looked past her, out to the dark garden that was briefly lit up by headlights from a car driving down the street. ‘No. Only in abstract terms. Like whether I’d have the guts to do it.’

  She nodded as if that was what she’d expected to hear. ‘I thought about it once, in Singapore. Just before I left for uni.’

  Why was she telling him this now? Tonight of all nights.

  ‘Had something in particular ha
ppened?’ he asked.

  She sat in a chair beside him. ‘I think I realised that my parents would never really be there for me. It was when Trudy died . . . you know, I’ve told you about that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her teenage cousin had died from the flu while visiting Marianna and her family.

  He had the sense of being carried along in a river. He was already being swept along by his decision to tell her, so there was nothing to do but surrender to whatever else happened, whatever else she wanted to talk about on this night. He imagined it would be their last uncomplicated conversation. Except that it was complicated, she just didn’t know it.

  She smoothed her hand across the table top, her delicate fingers running along a joint in the timber. It was as if he were watching a woman he didn’t yet know, the beautiful out-of-reach stranger at a dinner party.

  ‘Do you ever talk to Bill about your patients?’ she asked. ‘Do you talk shop over dinner?’ She picked up a yellow hairclip of Adie’s and clicked it open.

  ‘Not really.’ He’d seen Bill just a couple of nights ago for a beer and Bill had told him he was selling the house so Quinn would have to find himself another alibi. Quinn knew he had asked too much of Bill, that it had fractured their friendship.

  Marianna snapped the hair clip into her hair and stood up. ‘I just thought you might, you know, debrief with Bill. You probably need it.’

  ‘He’s never liked talking about medicine. And he’s not there that much.’

  ‘I worry about you, Quinn.’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  She picked up two glasses from the dresser and opened the freezer door. ‘Nightcap?’ She pulled the ice tray from the freezer.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She poured two glasses of Cointreau and passed him one. She swirled her glass. ‘Do you ever wonder about all the babies we never made?’ she said. ‘Not the miscarriages but all those potential beings? Every month when I ovulate I think if the egg were fertilised, if my eggs weren’t so ancient, it might be a person in our life. Instead that potential life is lost forever.’

  ‘Eggs are not people any more than individual sperm are.’

  ‘I think about how Adie will be on her own once we go.’

  But she won’t be. ‘Is that how you feel as an only child? Alone?’

  ‘I used to. But now I have Adie and you.’ She smiled.

  He swallowed. ‘Science again . . . but studies suggest that only children are happier.’

  ‘I don’t trust studies about something as hard to measure as happiness,’ she said.

  ‘You think happiness is hard to measure? How about a person’s own measure? Why wouldn’t that be accurate?’ He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation just minutes before he brought their marriage crashing down around their ears.

  She smiled. ‘Speaking of happy, are you coming to bed now?’

  ‘Right behind you.’

  In Adie’s room, he stood just inside her door until his eyes adjusted then he kneeled on the rug beside her bed. She lay on her side, one hand palm up on the pillow beside her face.

  Quinn had watched her draw her first breath. Her small body had rested in Andrew’s hands, her skin white with vernix, her head smeared with Marianna’s blood, then she had opened her eyes and cried. When Quinn had held Adie in a corner of the operating theatre, and she had gazed up at him, it was as if something in Quinn had locked onto Adie, like the beam of a searchlight, and had been fixed on her ever since. He would feel his connection to her, no matter where Marianna took her, no matter how far away, but would Adie have that same sense of connection to him? Or would she just feel abandoned? He stroked her hair off her smooth forehead as she took soft, even breaths.

  •

  Marianna was reading in bed, propped against a stack of white pillows. She glanced up as he came to the door then went back to reading.

  Quinn leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. Already the bedroom was receding from him, as if he was looking down the wrong end of a telescope.

  ‘I have something to tell you.’

  ‘Mmm?’ She looked up, smiling, her finger on the page.

  ‘It’s important.’

  She bent the corner over and put the book down on the bed.

  ‘When I first went to live at Bill’s . . .’ He swallowed and noticed that her hair, still wet from a shower, had left a dark wet mark on her t-shirt. ‘I had an affair.’

  She exhaled, like someone had squeezed the breath from her.

  ‘Her name is Rachel.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment, her face blank.

  ‘Rachel got pregnant.’ It was coming out crudely but he just had to get it out. ‘She and I have a son called Ned. He’s five.’

  She moved her head in an awkward twist away from him, as if she didn’t want him to see her face. Her voice was breathy. ‘You have a son?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered back and then raised his voice. ‘Yes.’

  She looked straight at him, her face reddening and lips pressed together. She dropped her face into her hands and said something over and over that Quinn couldn’t understand.

  He found himself kneeling beside the bed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Marianna.’

  She shoved past him, her leg briefly warm against him. He followed her to the verandah where the sensor light clicked on. She hurried down the steps and across the lawn to the old frangipani tree and stood with her back to him, one hand on the gnarled trunk, dozens of creamy, star-shaped flowers scattered at her feet. The dog trotted around the corner, collar tinkling, then stopped and looked from Marianna to Quinn.

  She spoke without turning around. A loud, clear voice. ‘So are you still with her? I mean, have you been having an affair all this time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned back and stared at him, her mouth open. ‘You need to get out of this house, Quinn. Now. Leave.’

  •

  He swept whole drawers of clothes into the big black duffel bag. His brain was scrambled, spinning. He was leaving his home, leaving Adie, leaving this life. He shoved clothes in and zipped up the bag and looked out the bedroom window for Marianna but couldn’t see her. He passed Adie’s room but didn’t go in, afraid he might scoop her up and squeeze her tight and wake her to the terrible scene. In the kitchen he unplugged his phone from the charger and slipped it into his pocket. He stood in the dim room, his heart thudding, and drank the last of his Cointreau. Finally it’s happened. It’s here. The ice was not completely melted, that’s how long it had taken, just a few minutes.

  Marianna’s footsteps came down the hallway. She entered the kitchen and pulled the Cointreau and ice from the freezer, poured herself a drink and sat down. She didn’t look at him. ‘When was your son born?’ Her voice was tight.

  ‘The twelfth of August. Two weeks after Adie.’ He wanted to sit but didn’t feel entitled to.

  ‘Were you at the birth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then you came home to us . . .’ She made a choking noise.

  ‘Yes.’

  She stood, scraping her chair on the floor, and rummaged in the drawer of their oak dresser. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes someone had left behind at a dinner party a month or two ago. She struck a match with shaking hands. The flame illuminated her eyes, which were wide open, as if she was frightened. She shook the match out and blew a stream of smoke. She hadn’t smoked in years.

  ‘And obviously you stay with her . . . with them . . . when you are there?’

  ‘Yes.’ The verandah light snapped off and the room became darker.

  ‘So Bill’s in on it.’ She slumped back in her chair. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Reluctantly. He hates me for it.’

  ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone other than Bill.’

  ‘And Adie?’ She dropped her head into one hand, as if it was very heavy. She mumbled something.

  ‘What?’

  She didn’t respond.

&n
bsp; ‘Marianna?’ Her name came out awkwardly. He sat down.

  She looked up at him. ‘How could you walk in that door . . .’ She jabbed towards the front door with her cigarette. ‘. . . and pretend that everything was fine? That we were fine? That we were happy? How did you do it?’ She sat up straighter and her voice broke. ‘Over and over and over you walked in that door . . .’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He rubbed his hands over his face.

  ‘So do you have a house there?’

  ‘She has a house.’

  ‘You don’t even stay at Bill’s?’

  ‘No.’

  She shook her head.

  There was nothing to hide anymore. There was nothing to shield her from. ‘Rachel has started telling people, now. She’s . . . telling people.’

  She looked away and took a drag on the cigarette. ‘You should go.’ She sounded exhausted. ‘But don’t even think about going to her place, Quinn.’

  He reached across the table and laid his hand near hers. He spoke softly. ‘I’m sorry, Marianna.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to hear your sorry.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘You’re saying that for yourself, not me.’

  ‘I know it’s . . .’

  She interrupted him. ‘Please go.’

  He swallowed. ‘I’d like us to tell Adie together.’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Marianna.’ He leaned forward over the table. ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’ She stood up and walked to the sink and ashed her cigarette. ‘Just go.’

  ‘Punish me but don’t take it out on Adie.’

  She spun around. ‘You’re telling me how to do the best by my daughter?’

  ‘She’s our daughter.’

  •

  At the motel he had to ring the bell at reception and he half-recognised the woman who came out in her dressing gown. Perhaps she had been a patient. In Room 12 he didn’t bother turning on the light, he just dumped his bag and lay on the bed in his clothes. Outside, car doors slammed and someone laughed. He thought of Adie in her bed at home. Adie, whose world had spun off its axis while she slept.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Marianna sat on the floor in the dark hallway. The boards were solid under her but her body shook, as if her organs were shuddering, refusing to take in what Quinn had told her.