The Right Time

by Dianne Blacklock

‘But –’

  ‘Ellen, are you going to say anything you haven’t said to me before?’ she asked plainly. ‘Several times?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Ellen admitted.

  ‘So let’s drop it. And anyway, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you. And the point I was making is that no matter what else happens from here on in, you have two wonderful children and no one can take that away from you.’

  Ellen nodded slowly. ‘I hate that I’m doing this to them.’

  Liz gave her arm a squeeze. ‘How are they coping?’

  ‘Hard to say . . .’

  ‘Must have been awful telling them.’

  ‘Mm . . . Sam was in shock, he obviously didn’t have the slightest clue.’

  ‘He’s a male,’ Liz said automatically, before smacking herself on the forehead. ‘God, that’s a terrible thing to say. It just comes out, without thinking. You can’t get away with saying something like that about a woman any more, not even as a joke.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘Please continue . . . of course the poor kid was in shock.’

  ‘I went to check on him afterwards, and he asked me if our whole lives had been a lie. Actually, he said “bullshit”.’

  ‘Ouch. What did you say?’

  ‘I told him that just because Tim and I didn’t feel the same way about each other, that didn’t change the way we felt about them, or our family as a unit. That we couldn’t have stayed together so long if we hadn’t enjoyed our family life.’

  ‘Did he buy that?’

  ‘It’s the truth!’ Ellen exclaimed. ‘As a family, we worked. Just not as a couple.’

  ‘What about Kate?’ asked Liz. ‘How’s she taking it?’

  ‘You know what she’s like, she’s gone quiet, observing from arm’s length. Though she did say she’d suspected things weren’t right for a while.’

  ‘Yeah, well, kids are smart, it’s hard to pull the wool over their eyes for long.’

  Ellen blinked. ‘Is that what you think we were doing?’

  ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘I really don’t want people to think we set out to deceive them, the way Emma seems to think.’

  ‘You really have to stop worrying about what Emma thinks.’

  ‘I can’t help it. She was suspicious and she’s my sister. What are other people going to think?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what they think.’

  ‘I wish that were true. I know it’s really no one else’s business, and no one can know what it was like between me and Tim, but people will still judge, have their opinions.’ Ellen paused. ‘I wish there was some way to do this without all the fuss.’

  ‘We should have contracts for marriage, just like anything else.’

  ‘Marriage is a contract,’ Ellen reminded her.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not like any other contract. I mean, really, imagine going into a contract where death was the only way out.’

  ‘I guess that’s true, especially with everyone living so much longer now. You used to get married when you were a teenager, and you were lucky to live another twenty years. Now a marriage can last three times that long.’

  ‘Exactly. So what if you just signed up for ten or twenty years?’

  ‘Then when the term was served, you would have the option to renew, but no obligation.’

  ‘Wow,’ Liz said. ‘What would happen to all the lawyers and therapists if divorce didn’t exist any more?’

  ‘No more guilt or angst, no stigma for kids from broken homes.’

  ‘There would be no “broken” homes, only expired ones.’

  Ellen smiled. ‘You could have a partner to suit every phase of your life.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of that idea,’ said Liz. ‘One for sex, one for children, and then one who’s your soul mate.’

  ‘Is the soul mate the one who’ll nurse you when you’re old?’ Ellen asked. ‘That’s what I worry about . . . who’s going to be there for me then?’

  ‘Your kids, your sisters, your brother,’ Liz pointed out. ‘I’ve actually had this fantasy for years that Eddie will be left to care for all of us in our dotage. I’ve told him more than once – we had to change his nappies and wipe his dribble, it’ll be his turn then.’

  Ellen laughed. ‘What does he say to that?’

  ‘He said the first sign of dementia in any of us and he’s leaving the country with no forwarding address.’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, you’ll find someone else, Ellen.’

  ‘Maybe. Eventually. It’s not exactly high on my agenda though.’

  ‘Really? After all those years without sex, I thought you’d be champing at the bit.’

  ‘The idea of getting naked in front of a man whose babies I didn’t bear . . .’ She shuddered.

  ‘You do realise that’s every other man on the planet, bar Tim?’

  ‘Tim was there to see how the damage was done, and there’d be a lot of things he wouldn’t have even noticed. You know how it is, you’re not aware of changes when you’re around them every day. Whereas a stranger has nothing to prepare him for the shock.’

  ‘Oh for godsakes, Ellen, you’re not exactly Frankenstein.’

  ‘Look, I know I’ll probably have to face it one day, but I’ll worry about it then. It’s hard enough to adjust to the idea of being single. I mean I know this has been coming for a long time, but now that it’s here, it feels . . . surreal, I guess. All my adult life I’ve been a married person. I’m not sure I know how to be anything else.’

  ‘You’re still the same person, Len,’ said Liz. ‘And you’ve done something very brave that most people don’t have the courage to do.’

  Saying that out loud caused an involuntary twinge in her chest. Liz knew Andrew’s situation was more complicated than most, but occasionally she couldn’t help but wonder if he was simply not brave enough to end his marriage and deal with the consequences. Was it easier, safer, to maintain the status quo? Liz shuddered, she really didn’t want to explore that train of thought.

  ‘The thing is, Len, whatever is ahead of you, at least you’re not going to waste away in a dead marriage. How many people do you know who are really happy in their marriages long-term?’

  ‘Mum and Dad,’ said Ellen plainly.

  ‘Yeah, they’ve got a lot to answer for, those two,’ Liz sighed. ‘Making us believe a happy marriage was the norm.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why Evie puts up with Craig?’

  Liz looked at her.

  ‘They’ve got such a strange little 1950s marriage, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t get the attraction, but Evie seems happy.’

  ‘Do you really think she is, though?’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I don’t really know Evie. She’s buried in there somewhere, but it’s like she’s too afraid to be herself, stand up for herself.’

  ‘Well, that’s not surprising with the three of us as big sisters, she was outnumbered into submission. Maybe that’s why she ended up with someone like Craig – Evie was born to serve and to please.’

  ‘God, I could think of nothing worse.’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t. You’re the eldest, you were born to rule.’

  ‘Ha,’ said Ellen. ‘So where’s my empire?’

  ‘You lorded it over all of us,’ said Liz, ‘which is why Emma’s got that massive chip on her shoulder, and why she’ll grab any opportunity to stick the knife in, like today. You shouldn’t take it personally, Len, it’s her own stuff.’

  Ellen seemed to be thinking that over. ‘And what about you?’ she said finally.

  ‘Oh, don’t you know? I’m the poor misunderstood middle child,’ said Liz. ‘Quietly going her own way, not bothering anyone, but always kind, and wise, and incredibly insightful . . .’

  Ellen laughed. ‘And just a little blind to her own shortcomings.’

  ‘What shortcomings?’

  Evie

  ‘Honey, can I ask you a question
?’

  Craig grunted in response but his gaze didn’t shift from the TV. Evie snuggled in closer to his side. All the way home she had kept thinking about how lucky she was. She was the most ordinary of all the sisters, yet clearly she was the happiest. Poor Emma would be such a beautiful bride, but Evie couldn’t ever see Blake going through with it. And Liz, the smartest of the lot, stuck in this pointless affair with a married man. And now Ellen and Tim, the model couple, over, just like that. Evie started to think it was fine to be ordinary, to have ordinary hopes and dreams; it was a lot easier to be happy that way.

  Then she had been overtaken by a sense of dread. What if Craig wasn’t happy? Evie hadn’t been able to tell there was anything wrong between Ellen and Tim, they had seemed like the perfect couple. What had started the decline? This? Sitting at home on a Saturday night watching TV, not talking to each other? Not really knowing what the other was thinking?

  Ellen said they had fallen out of love. The idea that you could just fall out of love was bewildering to Evie. She loved Craig the same way, well maybe not the same way, but she loved Craig like she loved her children, her parents, her sisters. You couldn’t just fall out of love with any of them. That was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  So she had resolved that she would make a special effort tonight. She had stopped off on the way home and bought all of Craig’s favourites – the pricey beer with the gold label that they only had on special occasions, a couple of handfuls of king prawns – just for Craig. Evie wouldn’t have any, they were too expensive and she couldn’t stretch the budget that far. She had bought steak and mushrooms and potatoes for baking – Craig loved his baked potatoes. And she’d smother it all in gravy; she wouldn’t even bother with vegetables so he didn’t have to push them around on his plate and take a half-hearted couple of bites.

  She’d bought some wine for herself – a bottle of sweet sparkling. Craig loved it when she drank. He said it made her more uninhibited, which meant he could probably talk her into giving him oral sex. And Evie had to be at least a bit tipsy for that.

  Once she was home she had rounded up the children and organised their baths. Then she’d rinsed the prawns and put them in a nice bowl, and spooned some cocktail sauce into a dish, and laid it all out on the coffee table in the good lounge room, where the kids wouldn’t bother Craig. Then she’d called him in from the backyard where he’d fled with a beer as soon as she’d arrived home.

  He walked up to the back door and held it open. ‘What?’

  Evie held up one of the special beers. ‘Why don’t you go and watch the sports roundup in the good lounge room?’

  ‘S’not on yet,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘It’s just news now.’

  ‘Then go and play your Wii for a while,’ she said, coming towards him and handing him the beer. ‘I left a treat in there for you.’

  He looked at the bottle. ‘Sweet. What’s all this in aid of?’ he said before taking a long swig.

  Evie hadn’t told him about Ellen and Tim yet. She would, later, once the kids were in bed. She realised she was a little apprehensive about telling him, she didn’t want to put ideas into his head. That was silly probably. But she couldn’t help it.

  ‘Well, I got to have a special day out,’ she said, ‘while you’ve been stuck minding the kids. So I wanted to do something special for you.’

  He shrugged. ‘Mum was here.’

  ‘Still . . .’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. ‘Sometimes she’s more of a hindrance. Yackedy yacking in my ear all day long.’

  Evie smiled up at him. ‘Then you go in and relax now,’ she said, propelling him into the hall. ‘And I’ll get on with dinner.’

  She heard him whoop a few moments later. ‘Prawns! Bloody unreal, hun.’

  She prepared their meal while the kids ate their fish fingers and chips, and after they were finished she sent them in – ‘Quietly!’ – to say goodnight to their father. And then she marched them off to bed.

  ‘Why did Daddy got pornth and we didn’t?’ Cody asked. He was her baby, though at four, not so much a baby any more. But he was so adorable, Evie could just eat him up.

  ‘You don’t like prawns, remember, sweetheart?’ Evie said.

  ‘But I do!’ cried Jayden as he made a running dive for his bed.

  ‘Jayden, please settle down.’ Evie seemed to spend her life telling Jayden to settle down. She tried to recall if he’d ever been sweet like Cody, but when he was four she only remembered chasing him around shopping centres, out of trees, down off fences.

  ‘You have to be quiet now,’ she said, trying to be stern. ‘Daddy needs a break, he’s been looking after you all day.’

  ‘No he hasn’t,’ Tayla refuted, appearing in the doorway. ‘Nanna looked after us. Dad said he had to go see a man about a dog.’

  ‘Are we getting a dog?’ Jayden whooped.

  ‘I don’t think so, honey,’ Evie said vaguely.

  ‘He was gone for hours and hours,’ Tayla added, gazing accusingly at her mother, her arms crossed. Evie was a little intimidated by her daughter, and she was only ten years old. Heaven forbid when she hit her teens.

  ‘We’re getting a dog! We’re getting a dog!’ Jayden chanted, bouncing on his knees on the mattress.

  Cody clapped his hands. ‘Are we really getting a dog, Mummy?’

  ‘It’s just an expression,’ she said.

  ‘What kind of dog isth that?’

  ‘Can we please forget about the dog right now? I don’t know anything about it, you’ll have to ask your father tomorrow,’ she said, passing the buck to where it belonged. ‘Now, listen up, we’re going to have a competition.’

  ‘Can I win the compition, Mummy?’ Cody asked wide-eyed.

  ‘No way, you stupid dumbhead!’ Jayden taunted.

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Are too. You’re only four. You can’t win a competition ’gainst us!’

  ‘Can’t I win, Mummy?’

  ‘You can all win,’ Evie reassured him.

  ‘Then it’s not a competition, Mother,’ said Tayla, leaning against the doorjamb with a dramatic sigh.

  ‘It is, but you have to work together, like a team,’ she said, thinking on her feet. ‘It’s not like Australian Idol or MasterChef, this is more like . . . soccer. Like your team has to work together at soccer, Jayden.’

  ‘I hate soccer,’ Tayla curled her lip in disgust.

  ‘I’m not asking you to actually play soccer,’ said Evie. ‘Only that everyone has to work together or no one gets a prize.’ Tayla’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s the prize?’

  ‘Well, the prize is . . .’ She hadn’t thought that far. ‘That tomorrow I’ll take you to McDonald’s for lunch.’

  ‘Yay!’ Jayden and Cody chorused.

  ‘I hate McDonald’s,’ said Tayla.

  ‘You didn’t hate it when we had it last week,’ Evie reminded her.

  ‘Yes, but now I’m a vegetarian.’

  Evie sighed. ‘No you’re not. You’re too young to be a vegetarian.’

  ‘Am not,’ she insisted. ‘Madison’s a vegetarian.’

  ‘Fine, if you want to be a vegetarian, you don’t have to come to McDonald’s with us tomorrow.’

  ‘Hehe, suck eggs!’ said Jayden.

  ‘Well, obviously I can’t suck eggs, Jayden,’ Tayla sniffed. ‘They come from chickens. But I can have a salad, and I can have fries.’

  ‘Can we get on with the rules of the competition?’ said Evie.

  ‘What do we have to do?’

  ‘Okay, listen carefully,’ she said solemnly. ‘You all have to be especially quiet, and I mean not a peep. No one’s allowed to come out of their room, not even once, not to ask for a drink or to go to the toilet or anything else, or you all lose. Remember, you’re a team.’

  Cody looked worried. ‘But what if I’m bery firthty, Mummy?’

  ‘Sweetheart, you know you’re not allowed to have a drink after bedtime.’

 
‘But what if I get bery frytinned?’

  ‘It’s okay, matey,’ Jayden reassured him, ‘I’ll be here, and I’ll protect you with my laser sword.’

  Funny how Jayden became the protective big brother when there was something in it for him.

  But it had worked: they hadn’t heard a sound from the kids all night. Evie served dinner on the coffee table so they could watch TV while they ate, which she didn’t like to do normally, but Craig loved it. She even encouraged him to watch Die Hard 2 or maybe it was 3, or 5, or 11, for all Evie knew, they all looked the same to her.

  ‘Craig,’ she repeated tentatively. ‘I want to ask you something.’

  ‘Can’t it wait till the ad?’ he asked, not looking at her. ‘The good bit’s coming up.’

  He must have seen it a dozen times, but Evie bit her tongue until the ad break, and then she picked up the remote and muted the sound.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he protested.

  ‘I said I wanted to ask you a question. And it’s only the ads.’

  He groaned. ‘Okay, but make it quick before it starts up again.’

  Now Evie groaned. ‘You have seen this before, Craig.’

  ‘So?’ he said. ‘What are we watching it for if we’re not going to watch it?’

  ‘All right,’ she said, shifting around to face him. ‘I just want to know . . .’ She paused, biting her lip.

  ‘Spit it out, love. Clock’s ticking.’

  ‘Well, I want to know . . . are you happy, honey?’

  He frowned. ‘I will be if I can get to see the rest of this movie.’

  ‘Craig,’ she chided.

  ‘Okay, I’m happy, now can we turn the sound back on?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Something happened today.’

  Now she’d got his attention. He turned to face her. ‘Did you do something to the car? Did you have a prang?’

  ‘No!’ she insisted. ‘The car’s fine.’

  ‘You had me worried there for a minute,’ he breathed out, reaching for the remote, but Evie grabbed his arm.

  ‘Wait, I have to tell you something, and it’s important.’

  He frowned. ‘You’re not pregnant again, are you?’

  ‘Of course I’m not pregnant, Craig, I had my tubes tied, remember?’