Husband Hunters

by Genevieve Gannon

  She opened the sliding door and stepped into the night air. It had taken on the softer quality of spring. The nippy sharpness was fading.

  ‘Cameron was telling me that he spent eight months with his parents after his lease ended,’ Vincenzo said.

  ‘I bought off the plan, and the work kept getting delayed. I couch-surfed with friends for two months, but the building just dragged on and on. I needed stability, so I moved my stuff in. It helped. The mortgage was a shock after years of paying a measly amount of rent. I think they liked having me home for a little while, too.’

  ‘You could have Joey’s old room,’ Vincenzo said. ‘It won’t be like living under our roof as a teenager. We know you’re a grown woman.’

  ‘Pa, I love Ma, but she can just be so overbearing.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  Dani picked up her pa’s empty glass and tipped an ice-block into her mouth. If she moved back to Leichhardt she could save more than a thousand dollars a month on rent alone. She rolled the ice around in her mouth, thinking.

  ‘I think your ma would really love to have you home for a little while. She misses you.’

  In the car, Cameron continued to talk about the period he had lived with his parents. ‘It’s none of my business, but if it was my daughter I’d love to help her out,’ he said.

  Dani dropped Cameron at his apartment, then drove slowly back towards Paddington, weighing up her options. The Newtown house’s damage and decay had turned from being a burden to a selling point. She imagined ripping up the garden and getting Joey and Silv in on the weekend to help her lay fresh floorboards. She fantasised about sweating over a sander and picking paint colours. She could plant vegetables in the back garden and herbs in the front. It was no longer just a home she was buying, but a project. By the time she got to Clementine’s she had made up her mind. She would move back to Leichhardt so that she could save for a home.

  She called her parents first thing the next morning. Gia was delighted. Daniela then phoned her real estate agent to ask about the cost of breaking the lease. Then she called Simon. He still had not responded to any of her efforts to communicate since the night they had slept together. At times she was left incredulous by how willing he was to completely ignore a person he technically still lived with. But mostly she didn’t think about it. Again, his phone rang out. She knew he wouldn’t return the call, so she sent him a message: Simon, call me. Urgent. Re: house.

  Dani decided she wouldn’t do anything until she had let him know she planned to break the lease on the flat. When she had not heard from him the next day, she called again. She called once in the morning, once at lunchtime and again after work. When he still didn’t answer, she sent a firmer message: Simon, v. important housing matter to discuss.

  She would have suspected he had moved out were it not for the evidence of his presence: the food in the fridge was being eaten and replenished, his shoes continued to appear in the lounge room at various intervals and then disappear. Because of their sublet arrangement, Simon paid rent directly into Dani’s account, then she transferred the total to the landlord. His payment was still coming in on time. Dani wondered if perhaps something had happened with his phone. Just in case, she sent him a concise email. She closed it by writing: This has nothing to do with what happened, this is an issue related to the flat.

  By Wednesday evening she was growing impatient. She didn’t have Liz’s number, but she knew where she lived, so she went around there after work and rang the bell. No answer. She left a note saying much the same as she had said before.

  The next morning she opened her inbox to find a letter from Simon’s account. The subject line was ‘hello there’. With a mixture of relief and annoyance, Daniela clicked on it: Earn $1000 a day! the email bleated at her in large red text. Furious, she picked up the phone and called her real estate agent. She informed him that she needed to break the lease and would be vacating as soon as possible.

  ‘You’ll need to pay the rent until we can fill it,’ he said.

  ‘That’s fine. But advertise it straight away. I’m happy to have people come by for inspections at any time.’

  Then she slammed down the phone.

  On Saturday Daniela opened the door to a hoard of people hoping to lease her flat. She made herself scarce for two hours and left the place in the care of the real estate agent. By the end of the day several people had filed applications. When she got home, there was a fresh carton of milk, a block of cheese and a packet of sausages in the fridge. Work shoes sat, one flopped on top of the other, by the door.

  ‘Simon!’ she called. She tore through the house, banging on his door and then banging on the bathroom door calling his name.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  His van wasn’t outside, so he had probably just breezed in and out again. She scrawled a note in capital letters: I’ M MOVING OUT. THE LEASE IS BEING TURNED OVER TO SOMEONE ELSE. VACATING IN A WEEK. Then she left.

  A week later Dani started to doubt Simon’s existence. She had packed all of her belongings into boxes and the removal company was due at 2pm to help with the furniture. Annabel and Clementine had brought over boxes and an assortment of packing snacks to eat while they filled them.

  ‘I think he must have moved in with Liz and washed his hands of me,’ she told them as they took one final look around the empty apartment. They had gathered together anything of Simon’s from the communal space and put it into a little pile in the middle of the room.

  ‘Perhaps we should put it in a box,’ Annabel said.

  ‘No,’ Dani said. ‘That’s a considerate gesture.’

  She had the keys for three more days, and a quick peek had told her Simon still had all of his stuff in his room. He would have to come by and clear it up at some point. Annabel and Clementine said goodbye, and Dani locked the door. There was one last box of miscellaneous bits and pieces. She balanced it on her hip and walked down the stairs for the last time. Out on the footpath, she ran into Simon.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.

  After weeks of not seeing him, it was a little surreal to have him materialise. Dani put the box down to open her car.

  ‘We don’t live here any more.’

  Simon laughed. ‘What?’ She stopped his laughter with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Simon, I called you a trillion times.’

  ‘I thought that was just— You can’t do this.’

  Daniela slammed the boot on the last box and opened the driver-side door.

  ‘The new tenants are moving in on Tuesday. You have three days.’

  ‘Daniela!’ he shouted. But she was already driving away.

  That night, Cameron took her out for dinner.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, raising a glass. ‘You have just taken the first and most difficult step in home ownership. Moving back in with your parents.’

  Daniela laughed. ‘How am I going to survive? I love them, really I do, but I also love David Bowie. It doesn’t mean I want to live with him.’

  ‘Think big picture,’ he said. ‘Soon you will have your own home.’

  Dani’s phone interrupted them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot to put it on silent.’

  She was about to turn it off when she saw that it was her pa calling from his work mobile. A feeling of unease came over her. Vincenzo never called. If he ever had anything to say, he hollered from across the room when Gia called her.

  ‘Do you mind? I have to see what has happened.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Cameron smiled.

  When Dani answered her Pa’s voice sounded tiny.

  ‘You have to come to the hospital. It’s your mother.’

  Chapter 22 Clementine

  It had started at the races. Annabel was distracted by a pop star who had passed out in the catering van, and Daniela was talking to Cameron Aughton. Clementine went to the dessert table and surveyed the op
tions. She was just about to bite into a chocolate éclair when someone called her name.

  ‘Clementine!’

  It was Damon Dresner.

  ‘Hello there,’ she said.

  He walked over slowly, with his hands in the pockets of his cream suit.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  His smile dropped. ‘Not great, I’m afraid. I’m down more than $200 for the day.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  Clem opened the handbag Annabel had thrust at her as she had run off, cursing that one of the profiterole towers was collapsing. ‘I might be able to help you,’ she said.

  Among the items Annabel had given Clem was the list of tips. She held it up triumphantly.

  ‘The picks for races three through to five have been spot on,’ she said.

  Damon rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know. I was thinking I should retire while I still have the shirt on my back.’

  ‘Come on. I’m on a winning streak.’

  The next race was race six. They put money each way on Annabel’s pick. His name was Thunderstruck and he had bolted home. His odds were seven to one, and they pocketed more than $100 each off bets of $20.

  ‘I shouldn’t brag, but I’m up almost $500,’ Clementine said.

  ‘No wonder you’re in such a good mood,’ Damon had said. ‘I’ve never seen you so happy.’ He touched her arm. ‘What have you got for the next one?’

  In race seven they had backed a loser, so when race eight came around Clem had wanted to pocket what was left of her winnings.

  ‘We’ve got to rally,’ Damon urged. ‘Race eight. Go big. A hundred bucks each for a win.’

  The horse’s name was Zipper-dawn and the odds were eleven to one.

  Clementine took two fifties from her clutch-bag. Their fingers brushed as Damon took the money from her. She jerked her hand away.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just — should we be doing this?’ she asked him. ‘The stakes are very high.’

  ‘And the odds aren’t great,’ he finished. They looked at each other.

  ‘Imagine the payoff,’ he said.

  A smile flickered on Clem’s face; she nodded, and he headed for the bookmakers’ circle. She paced back and forth and tried to arrange her thoughts. Nervous starbursts were exploding in her stomach and it wasn’t just the gambling. The starter’s shot fired just as Damon re-entered the marquee. He jogged to her side.

  ‘Almost didn’t make it,’ he said, and handed her her betting stub.

  Zipper-dawn finished first. Damon whooped and cheered, threw his arms around Clem and scooped her off the ground. She became aware of skin on skin; the insides of his hands on her waist, her arm brushing his neck. The hairs on its nape tickled her wrist. She could smell his cologne. It was sweet and musky. Beneath that smell she detected another: the organic aroma of skin, the tincture of sweat and the scent left by soap.

  Damon cleared his throat, put Clementine down and said he would collect the winnings.

  Already the crowd was starting to drift out of the marquee. Clem spotted Annabel relieving a waiter of three cocktails. She joined her and took one herself.

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ Annabel asked.

  ‘It has been one of the best days I have had in a long time,’ Clem said truthfully. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Exhausted,’ Annabel said, drinking deeply from her cocktail. ‘I’m dying to take off my high heels, but that’s a cardinal sin at the races.’ A scrap of hair had come loose and lay across her shoulder.

  ‘You did an incredible job.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Annabel beamed wearily. ‘The night’s not over yet. There’s a bus waiting to take us to dinner at the Tilbury.’

  The bus was idling near the exit. Clementine put her wrap on the seat next to her, to save it for Damon. But one of Annabel’s staff members, Kathy, plonked herself down on it, then turned to Clem and said: ‘I thought that day would never end. I’m starving.’

  Clem smiled politely and watched as Damon took a seat next to Annabel’s assistant, Sybilla. She glowered at the back of the young girl’s pretty head for the entirety of the lurchy, stop-start journey.

  At the Tilbury she made sure she was next to Damon, almost knocking over a waiter as she rugby-tackled the chair.

  ‘That was some win,’ he said as she composed herself.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  She was unsure what to say next. The memory of the victory embrace was fresh in her mind. She realised that she wanted Damon to like her. There was no marriage agenda. No plot to ensnare him. She just wanted to talk to him. She wanted to hear what he thought about things and learn about him.

  Her mind was swirling with the husband-hunting rules. Ask open questions. Be interested, but don’t initiate things. No sex. She frowned. They were stupid rules.

  ‘How’s work?’ she finally asked.

  Damon said he had to fire one of his junior associates for downloading porn with the company iPad.

  ‘It was really strange stuff, too. Fetishes. Not even kinky things: it was mostly women and office stationery. I haven’t been near the supplies cupboard since.’

  Clem laughed.

  ‘What about you?’ he said.

  She was surprised. ‘Fetishes?’

  ‘No, work?’

  She felt that creep of blush return to her cheek. ‘Oh. It’s good.’

  The husband-hunting mantra of appearing agreeable and pleasant was playing in her mind. She shook her head. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of re-training. I haven’t been happy for a while and I’d like to work with kids.’

  ‘As a child psychologist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It seems like it would be a good fit for you.’

  She nodded. She had been thinking more and more about it recently.

  ‘I think children would respond well to you. You have a very open temperament.’

  She pictured her office re-purposed for child clients: Dr Seuss books stacked in a corner and a patchwork rug spread over the chaise longue.

  ‘Yes. You of all people know what a horrible example I set as a marriage counsellor.’

  ‘You weren’t horrible,’ he said. He reached out and took the skirt of her dress between his thumb and forefinger, and slid them down the silk. ‘I saw what happened. You didn’t find out about her until it was too late.’

  ‘I could have dealt with it better. I think I just went a little mad.’

  Damon went quiet. Clementine regretted bringing it up.

  ‘I should go,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes, I have a very early conference call with Brussels in the morning.’

  Clementine wished he wouldn’t leave, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that would stop him.

  The fine weather lasted until the weekend, so Clementine called the girls to suggest a bracing walk around Moore Park. Daniela wasn’t answering her phone. But Annabel was keen to work off some nervous energy. She had a presentation with Eve’s Garden coming up and she was working around the clock.

  ‘You’ll be wonderful. The company is doing so well,’ Clem said, trying to calm her.

  ‘Every time we get a decent job we half kill-ourselves. Eve’s Garden would be a big, regular, steady client. I would be able to hire more staff, redistribute people’s responsibilities so that my account managers are spending less time on admin, more time doing their actual jobs. I just want it so badly.’

  ‘I’m thinking about a change, too,’ Clem told her. ‘I’m going to start searching for a child psychology uni course.’

  Annabel beamed. ‘Clem, you’d be perfect for that job.’

  After dinner Clementine did a casual internet search. She plugged ‘child’ into the Sydney Uni science faculty search engine, and found courses in paediatrics, child psychology and postpartum care. A fertility research project had banner ads for its commercial sponsors.

  Clementine clicked on a national IVF service. She had an idea fr
om television and magazines that it was an expensive and not particularly reliable path to parenthood, but she was curious.

  The page featured gentle pastel-colour palettes and assured readers that reproductive challenges were common and easily overcome. Lavender-shaded bar graphs promised that sixty per cent of women Clem’s age had a baby within their first three attempts of undergoing a procedure.

  A drop-down menu on one page showed they had more than ten locations in Sydney, including Bondi Junction, the CBD and Westmead. Something Clem had envisaged taking place in stadium-sized, sterilised laboratories was happening on street corners all over the city. Clinics were almost as common as burger-chain outlets, and suddenly the idea didn’t seem so out of reach. She bookmarked a few pages.

  Then, to compare, she Googled ‘adoption in Sydney’. She screwed up her nose. The NSW department of family and community affairs informed her that local adoption was virtually non-existent. Only thirteen children had been adopted in New South Wales the year before. It also said the waiting lists for international adoption were growing longer every day.

  Down at the bottom was an ad for animal adoption in Sydney. Clem clicked the link. She looked at profiles of dozens of furry faces. They were bewildered, scowling or idiotically happy. She thought about the small cages they would be confined to, and the unfriendly concrete floors they would be sleeping on.

  That next Saturday she drove to Liverpool and pulled up in front of a grey building with a large ‘pet shelter’ sign on its front. She told the burly woman who greeted her, Carmel, that she was interested in adopting a kitten.

  ‘The kittens go fast,’ Carmel said, leading Clem towards cages and cages of mutts. ‘Everyone wants to adopt a kitten.’

  The dogs barked and yipped. As they passed each cage its occupant trotted forward to sniff Carmel. She stuck her finger tips in between the bars and tickled their snouts.

  They walked through a doorway into the administrative part of the building, which was echoing with a chorus of meows. There were dozens of kittens in cages; playing, pouncing or standing blithely in their food bowls.

  ‘The dear things,’ Carmel purred.