‘Your mother?’
‘No, Liv Ullmann. I guess Norwegians don’t feel the need to have longer names.’
‘Maybe because it’s so cold they don’t want to have to open their mouths for more syllables than absolutely necessary.’
‘That could be it.’
‘Your mother must have really loved that actress,’ he mused.
‘Not particularly, she just liked the name.’
The flight attendant began her spiel, and David turned dutifully towards the front. Liv wasn’t named after any actress; her mother wouldn’t have even heard of Liv Ullmann, let alone seen one of her films. The truth was that Liv was short for Olive, but she never told anyone that. Most people assumed her name was Olivia, and she didn’t correct them. Funny how one syllable could make such a difference – Olivia was such a pretty name, you expected an Olivia to be attractive, whereas Olive was the dowdy sister, scowling in the corner. Apparently the name was enjoying some kind of hipster resurgence now, but Liv didn’t care what heights of cooldom it achieved; she had dropped it as a girl, and she didn’t even consider it her name any more. Despite the fact that her mother persisted in using it, in all its drab green glory.
The attendant finished her demonstration, and they were taxiing to the runway.
‘Can’t say I enjoy take-off,’ said David, almost to himself.
Liv glanced across at him. He was sitting quite stiffly in his seat, his hands clasped in his lap. ‘I fly so much I don’t even notice any more,’ she said, she hoped reassuringly. ‘It’s over so quickly.’
‘I know. I just don’t like that bit after the ascent when it feels like the engines cut out.’ He grimaced. ‘After that I’m okay.’
Liv found it a little endearing that he would admit to something like that, it was nothing like the macho crap she was used to. Rick would consider it a weakness. But some people just weren’t good flyers, and needed distracting; Liv had had to do it for enough authors over the years. ‘So, are you coming or going?’ she asked.
He looked at her. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Well, I mean are you coming home to Sydney, or visiting from Melbourne?’
‘Going home to Sydney,’ he said. ‘What about you?’
‘Home to Sydney too.’ She noticed that he unclasped his hands and took hold of the armrests instead. ‘Were you in Melbourne for work?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, my daughter’s graduation, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s special,’ said Liv. She should be able to keep him talking now. ‘What was she graduating from?’
‘Medicine.’
Liv didn’t expect that; he didn’t look old enough to have a doctor for a daughter. ‘You must be very proud.’
‘I am,’ he said. ‘And broke. She’s going on to do a specialty now, so that’ll be another six years, but at least she’ll start getting paid.’
‘You must have had her very young,’ said Liv.
He smiled. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said. ‘But it’s true, we were very young, and it didn’t last. But I’ve got Scarlett, so I’m not complaining.’
‘Her name’s Scarlett?’
‘Like I said, we were very young.’
‘No, I think it’s a lovely name.’
‘She doesn’t, not for a doctor anyway. It’s true what they say – when you’re naming your child you should think about how it will sound if they want to be a doctor or a lawyer, or a politician.’
‘I was told to try yelling the names out the back door, see how they sounded.’
He laughed. ‘So you have kids too?’
Liv nodded. ‘Two boys.’
‘How old are they?’
‘Just turned fourteen.’
‘And?’ David prompted.
She looked at him.
‘You said you had two?’ he said. ‘One’s just turned fourteen . . .’
‘Oh,’ Liv said. ‘Didn’t I say they were twins?’
‘No you didn’t, but now it all makes sense.’ He grinned. ‘Wow, twins, that must be fascinating.’
‘It has its moments,’ said Liv.
‘Are they identical?’
‘They are.’
He was shaking his head with an expression of awe. ‘I’ve always wondered what it must be like to look at another person like you’re looking into a mirror.’
‘Well, they’re not mirror image,’ said Liv. ‘That only happens in about a quarter of identical twins.’
‘Oh. There you go.’
‘I’m a regular fount of fun twin facts.’
David smiled. ‘Do twins run in your family?’
‘No.’
‘Your husband’s?’
She wondered if that was a veiled attempt to find out if she was married. ‘Identical twins aren’t hereditary,’ she answered, sidestepping the husband issue altogether. ‘They’re just an accident of birth. Did you know that the rate of identical twins is the same across all races, wherever you live, no matter what the conditions?’
‘You are a fount of twin facts.’
‘Told you so.’ She paused. ‘And we’re up and away.’
David glanced past her out the window. ‘So we are.’ He gave her a slightly bashful look. ‘Thank you for taking my mind off it. It was nice talking to you. You’re off the hook now, I don’t want to keep you from your reading.’
Liv realised she wouldn’t mind continuing the conversation, but he was reaching for his e-reader, so she reached for hers as well, with a vague feeling of disappointment, and she wasn’t sure why. She had all but ceased to think about men as romantic prospects. It had just been too long. In the beginning, another relationship was the last thing she wanted. Rick had hurt her badly, over and over. The coming and going, the admissions of wrongdoing, the professions of undying love, the abject pleas to take him back. And then he’d go out and do it all over again. When Liv thought of herself back then, it made her cringe. She’d always considered herself a strong woman, fiercely independent. She’d made Rick work very hard to win her over in the first place. They’d met when they were both working for the same PR firm; Liv was ambitious, and marriage wasn’t part of her game plan. As the product of an ultra-conservative marriage, she had vowed never to find herself trapped in a loveless – or at least stagnant – union, unable to move out of it because of inertia, because of the kids, because you simply didn’t know any other way of being. But Rick convinced her they’d be different.
‘Then why get married?’ she had protested at the time. ‘It’s only a piece of paper.’
‘If it’s only a piece of paper, why are you so against it?’
He was persistent. He wore her down, even bought a ring and did the whole romantic proposal thing, which only served to make Liv feel awkward and guilty for saying no. But it didn’t faze Rick one bit; he took it as a challenge, not a rejection. He talked about it all the time, always referring to ‘when we get married’, as if it was a foregone conclusion. He especially loved it when the topic came up around their friends, who were all dropping like flies into the marital pond. ‘When are you two going to tie the knot?’ they would ask, or worse, ‘When are you going to make an honest woman out of her?’ Ugh. And each time Rick would give the same forlorn answer: ‘I would marry her in a heartbeat, but she keeps turning me down.’ Everyone would sympathise with ‘poor Rick’, wanting to know if Liv realised how lucky she was to have a man who wasn’t afraid of commitment, telling her she ought to snap him up while she could, and offering a lot of other opinions that she hadn’t asked for.
Liv often wondered what it would be like the other way around – if it was Rick who didn’t want to marry her and she moped about, complaining loudly to her friends in front of him, would they all be siding with her and giving Rick a hard time? Of course not; she’d probably be hustled out of sight and admonished by her girlfriends to stop embarrassing herself, it was only making her look pathetic.
Liv had finally said yes, to shut him up as much a
s anything. But it wasn’t going to change a thing, she warned him.
Of course it did, subtly, insidiously. The first time Rick called her his wife, Liv felt like a possession. Sure, he was her husband, but for some reason it felt more like a label of subjugation the other way around. Maybe it was all in her head, she didn’t know. They got on with their lives, bought a house, bickered over the equitable division of chores, split Christmas Day between both sets of parents . . . basically did all the things a married couple do. Then Rick started talking about kids. She wasn’t ready, Liv told him firmly. Nobody’s ever really ready, Rick pointed out, you just have to jump in and do it. Liv didn’t think that sounded like a very wise approach to parenting. Then Rick began sharing articles he found online, citing studies about the perils of having a baby over thirty. When their friends started to breed, it came from all quarters. ‘When are you two going to get pregnant?’, and Rick was ready with the same forlorn responses, ‘I can’t wait, but Liv’s not keen.’ This put her in the position of having to assure her affronted friends that she thought their offspring were wonderful, and of course she wanted babies, just not yet. ‘Well, you don’t want to leave it too long,’ they would caution, before launching into the same studies and statistics Rick had already thrown at her, while he nodded sagely in the background. She finally gave in; it wasn’t that she didn’t want kids, so if it meant that much to Rick . . .
Liv was pregnant two months later, much to his delight and her surprise. She thought it would take a lot longer, she’d been on the pill for over a decade. Surprise turned to shock, however, when her first ultrasound revealed twins. Everyone was thrilled, except Liv. She’d watched her friends barely coping with one child, and she was going to have two at once. It was all twice as bad from then on – the morning sickness, fluid retention, stretch marks, fatigue. She had to leave work earlier than planned to have a caesarean before her due date, and then stay in hospital longer because of something called placental asymmetry, which had left Dylan underweight and needing a little closer attention. Put simply, his brother had hogged the placenta, which, knowing Lachie now, was hardly surprising. But he also took to the breast as ravenously, keeping her supply up enough to express milk for Dylan. And that was how it went on. Dylan never developed an adequate sucking reflex, and so Lachie breastfed, Liv pumped, and Dylan was bottle-fed on expressed milk. It was a nightmare, and she would have considered giving up and sticking them both on formula, except she knew that Dylan needed the breastmilk even more than Lachie, and there was something about their little three-way team effort that tugged at her heartstrings. It was almost as though she and Lachie were looking out for Dylan together, and in many ways that was how it had continued to this day.
Needless to say, Liv’s life changed dramatically, but Rick’s not so much. His career carried on unimpeded, with promotions and pay rises, and increased status and responsibility, while Liv ultimately had to give up her job. She had originally only planned to take six months’ maternity leave, but Rick kept harping on that it just wasn’t possible with twins. Liv didn’t appear to have a say in it, but nor did she have the energy to fight about it. So she extended her leave to a year. That took them into winter, and Dylan suffered from such chronic ear infections the doctor was contemplating surgery to insert grommets. Rick declared it was impossible for her to consider returning to work right then, so Liv suggested that he take some leave from his job, while she settled back into hers. He just scoffed at that. ‘And how do you propose we pay the mortgage on your salary?’
In the end, Liv had had no choice but to resign her position; the company couldn’t hold it open any longer, and she couldn’t return to work full-time with twins and an unsupportive husband. She was pissed off, but arguing about it didn’t achieve anything except hostility, and that wasn’t good for the boys. So she bided her time. After the twins turned two, she started putting out feelers for freelance work she could do from home, without telling Rick. The jobs came trickling in, so she placed the boys into day care a couple of days a week, for just a few hours at a time. Lachie flourished, and Dylan eventually settled in okay. Rick wasn’t happy, complaining that life was too stressed, that it just wasn’t workable. But this time Liv was ready. She stood her ground, stating that she had every right to pick up her career again, that he’d had everything his way until now but things were going to change. And they did, though not in the way she’d anticipated. A year later, Liv discovered Rick’s first affair. It was downhill from then on.
Three times he talked her into taking him back before she refused to take him back again. But no sooner had the divorce papers been lodged than her friends starting urging Liv to find someone. She thought they had rocks in their heads. It was hard enough looking after two kids on her own and holding down a job, without thinking about a relationship.
‘But what about sex?’ they would ask furtively. ‘Don’t you miss it?’ She had to work hard to contain her laughter at that. Liv didn’t know of any mother of toddlers, let alone twins, who would miss sex; most would consider it a blessed relief not to get the midnight poke.
Once the boys started school, the pressure was really on. All everyone wanted to know was if she was seeing someone, and if not, why wasn’t she doing something about that. Liv maintained that she was happier single, that she didn’t want to go through all that crap again, thank you very much.
‘But maybe the next one will be a good guy?’ Madeleine had suggested.
‘And maybe pigs will start flying 747s,’ Liv had said right back. ‘Look, I’m perfectly happy, except for one thing: the way everyone feels so sorry for me. I’m just like Jennifer Aniston – well, except for the looks, the fame and the money. But the point is, she’s a successful, gorgeous, independent woman, but everyone pities her because she hasn’t found a husband. What’s that about? No one pities George Clooney.’
‘Your book isn’t grabbing you?’
Liv stirred, turning her head and blinking at David, slightly dazed.
‘I just couldn’t help noticing you were still on the screensaver,’ he said.
She glanced down at the Kindle in her lap. ‘I guess I must have been daydreaming.’
‘I didn’t mean to disturb.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ Liv shifted in her seat and stretched as best she could to rouse herself. She looked over at David, who was returning his reader to the seat pocket. ‘What about your book? Not grabbing you either?’
‘Oh, it’s grabbing me all right,’ he said. ‘It’s so full-on I need to take a breather every now and then.’
‘Wow, what is it?’
‘Cameron West’s latest.’
Liv blinked. ‘Oh.’
He looked at her. ‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘Sure. Actually, I’ve read all his books.’
‘No kidding?’
‘That surprises you?’
‘I just wouldn’t have thought they’d be of any interest to a woman.’
‘Whoa, sexist much?’
‘Sorry,’ he said sheepishly. ‘Scarlett wouldn’t have let me get away with that either. It’s only that – in my experience – women don’t seem so interested in the action-adventure genre, that’s all I’m saying. Not that they can’t be, or that they shouldn’t be.’
Liv shrugged. ‘Depends on the book, and the woman. It’s not sexist to say that women are more likely to be drawn to character, and you have to admit, Cameron West writes some pretty hunky characters.’
‘I don’t have to admit that,’ said David. ‘In fact it might be a bit gay for me to admit such a thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’
Liv grinned then. ‘Look, the truth is, women are the greatest readers by far, across all genres – action, adventure, thrillers, crime, biographies . . . All the books you might assume are written for men are probably read by more women.’
David was nodding thoughtfully. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about this. Do you work in publishing or something?’
> Damn. She really should keep her opinions to herself. She glanced at him sideways. She didn’t figure him for the pestering wannabe-writer type. Wouldn’t hurt to check though. She turned to him. ‘I’ll answer that question only if you tell me something first.’
‘Sure.’
‘Are you writing a book or planning to write a book, or have you always wanted to write a book?’
He laughed. ‘No, no fear of that. I promise.’
‘Okay, so guilty as charged,’ Liv said. ‘I do work for a publishing company, as a publicist.’
‘Is that as cool as it sounds? Because that sounds pretty cool to me.’
‘It can be fun, but it’s also a job,’ she said. ‘And a pretty demanding one at times.’
‘I’d believe it,’ said David. ‘But still, working with books and writers must be . . . Sorry, I can’t think of another word but “cool”. I’ve been hanging around my daughter too much this past week.’
‘It is cool working with writers.’
‘Anyone I might have heard of?’ he asked.
Liv shot him a sly look. ‘Actually, I’ve just finished a tour with Cameron West.’
His face lit up. ‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘So that makes me, like, two degrees of separation from the guy who wrote this book,’ he said, tapping his reader.
Liv was always amused by the general population’s fascination with writers, who were pretty much on the bottom rung of the celebrity ladder. And most of the writers Liv knew were just as amused.
‘What’s he like?’ David asked.
‘Cameron? He’s lovely. And hardworking, super-smart, polite to a fault. He’s one of my favourites.’
He smiled. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear success doesn’t make people wankers.’
‘Oh, I assure you, it does. Just not Cameron.’
‘So you must have to do a lot of travelling, I suppose?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, book tours, festivals, that kind of thing.’
‘Is that hard with kids?’
‘It is a juggle, but I love it so much, I think it’s worth it.’
The Best Man Page 5