by Janette Paul
Dee wished he’d told her six months in bed feeling sorry for herself was the best way to survive, but Patrick would know. His bankruptcy was plastered all over the papers for months a few years back. Maybe she should take his advice.
‘So, Patrick, how’s your knee this morning?’
The eight o’clock intermediate class was in a huddle when she arrived and kept sneaking glances at her as she set up. If they kept doing that during class, they’d all have neck injuries. Better get it out in the open.
‘Thank you for being here today,’ she started. ‘I thought you might decide not to come after reading the newspaper.’ She glanced around at their inquisitive faces. Yes, she was Ethan Roxburgh’s secret lover; yes, he does look as good naked as one might imagine; and no, she did not want to address all their questions.
After class, she left without checking on Arianne. The offer was still a knot of worry in her belly and she didn’t want to upset her with that. She went to the café, answered questions from the staff – yes, it was true; no, she hadn’t said that; actually, it was all very embarrassing – and sat down to trawl through her mounting phone messages. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to explain, just wanted to make sure she hadn’t missed the end of the world.
Ethan had phoned twice – once last night, once this morning, both times asking her just to talk to him. She couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she figured out what she was going to say.
Leon called five times to check she was okay. She spoke to him last night. Sobbed, really. Replayed the day through hiccups and nose blows. He listened and cooed and said supportive things but she still felt like shit when he hung up.
There were texts from friends and students and reporters and some guy trying to sell her health insurance. Some were kind, others were after information. She saved a few, deleted the rest. Then there was a veritable stockpile from her mother and sister. Val was upset that, according to the newspaper, Dee had kept Ethan from her since early February. Amanda, on the other hand, wanted to help with damage control. She knew people, she could get PR advice. Call me, she kept saying.
Dee didn’t. Didn’t want damage control. Just wanted to go into hiding.
The phone rang as she deleted Amanda’s last message. It was Grace from Health Life Member Services.
‘Dee, hi, glad I caught you. I guess you’ve heard about the problem with the media at the weekend.’
Well, duh. ‘Yes.’
‘Of course you have.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you at such short notice but the board met this morning and decided to postpone the yoga DVD for the moment.’
Dee closed her eyes.
‘The directors feel the project is too contentious at the moment, particularly considering your, ah, personal involvement with Mr Roxburgh. The issue of securing member trust regarding the new fee structure is considered a higher priority.’
Tears welled behind her lids. ‘How long has it been postponed for?’
‘It’s indefinite at this stage.’ She lowered her voice to a confidential murmur. ‘I’m sorry, Dee. I’m personally disappointed but it’s the board’s decision.’
The board – that meant Ethan, too. Did he vote to cut her from the project? She blinked hard, willing herself not to cry. It would be just her luck for a photographer to snap her mid-snivel: Ugly Crier Sends Roxburgh Packing. Although, another headline was the least of her worries right now. She’d palmed off all her classes for the next week and a half to shoot the DVD. That was a week and a half of lesson fees she was about to lose, not to mention the outrageous fee she was supposed to be paid for the DVD – money meant to make her bank balance bulge and help finance a new second-hand car. In ten days, she’d be back to square one – broke and alone. Worse, actually. She hadn’t felt rejected and pressured and exhausted then.
Dee dragged herself through two more classes, had lunch – two cups of strong coffee – and turned on the phone again. There were more messages from Ethan, Amanda, Leon. And Lucy’s personal assistant Shona – that made a chill run down her spine. Lucy always called Dee herself.
She listened to Shona’s crisp, efficient voice, feeling worse by the second. Lucy was unexpectedly called away and wanted to cancel her lesson. Lucy would contact her when she wanted another yoga session.
Dee got the subtext: Lucy hadn’t cancelled; she’d scribbled Dee out of her diary. She should’ve been angry but she just felt discarded.
She wandered aimlessly around a shopping centre, trying not to think about Lucy – and subsequently Ethan, the newspaper, Arianne and Howard – then taught back-to-back classes at the school with only half a brain on the students. The other half had a fierce battle over partnership and unnecessary futures. Neither side won – just beat each other up and vowed to renew hostilities when they weren’t so tired. By the time she got home, Dee was shattered.
Pam stood in the bedroom doorway and watched her flop face down on the bed. ‘I talked to a reporter from some radio station this afternoon. I said you’d phone her back tonight.’
‘She’ll be waiting for a long, long time.’
‘Everyone at work was talking about you today.’ Pam invited herself in and hovered over the bed. ‘Leon was acting all hush-hush but I reckon the best way to handle a media outing is to be totally up front about everything. That’s what Breck did when he broke up with Saskia. He got the Who Weekly cover after that and he was made. A total star.’
Dee lifted her head. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Just how you’d spent almost every night at his place since you got together and how he came over really late that night and how he’s fixed your business. You know, all the good stuff.’
What the hell would the media make of that?
Dee’s eyes flew open. She sat up, gasped. Her fucked-up life.
Five a.m. Great. Terrific. Tuesday morning, day of the cancelled DVD shoot. She hadn’t set the alarm but she was wide awake with nothing but endless, classless hours to wrestle endless, circular, anxious thoughts of Ethan and Lucy and so on and so forth.
At 5.30, she attempted a couple of big circles. Then again at 5.56. At 6.20, she managed a couple of cat stretches and another one at 7.02. She pulled her knees into her chest at 7.45 but at 8 a.m. she gave up her pathetic efforts and hobbled to the kitchen to make coffee. Her back was tight and her belly felt like she’d swallowed a shot-put ball.
She switched on Leon’s TV. Switched it off again. On, off, on, off. How long would it take to run the remote battery down? Would it be before or after she was reduced to tears again? She jumped when the phone rang, answered without thinking.
‘Trudy, there’s something wrong with your mobile phone. I’ve been ringing it since Sunday morning.’ Val’s voice was relieved and irritated at the same time. ‘Did Pam tell you I called? You should tell her to pass on your messages.’
Dee slumped into a beanbag. ‘She told me, I just didn’t get back to you.’
‘You must be terribly busy, what with everything going on. But I saw in the newspaper this morning the DVD you were helping with has been scrapped, so that should makes things a bit easier.’
‘That was in the paper?’ Why couldn’t she just fail miserably in private?
‘It was way back on page six. I almost missed it but Lesley Larkim – you remember her from cards, don’t you? – well, she rang and pointed it out. She thought it was such a pity but I told her it was good news because it would free you up to look at those new apartments with me today. And then we could have lunch at the crossroads. They have some very stylish boutiques down there.’
Trust Val to find her silver lining in Dee’s disaster. At least her mother’s attitude came from concern, which was preferable to the cynicism and disrespect she’d copped from the newspaper. But did she have the strength for dealing with Val today?
She weighed up her options. She could sit at home running the remote battery down while she cried on her pyjamas. Or she could spend a couple of hou
rs not thinking about Ethan & Co while she bristled at Val’s version of maternal concern.
Dee found Val waiting by a bank of letterboxes with a real-estate agent.
‘Where would you like to start?’ Donna the Agent asked.
Dee looked at Val. ‘Start? I thought it was just one apartment.’
‘One apartment block.’
Maybe she didn’t have the strength for this today.
‘The front units are a different layout to the ones at the back,’ Donna said. ‘And, of course, the ground floor apartments have gardens.’
Dee peered through a fence. ‘This one doesn’t have a garden.’
‘It’s more like a smart city courtyard,’ Donna said.
‘Lovely,’ said Val.
‘If you tripped out the door, you’d get a bloody nose on the gate,’ said Dee.
They wandered through a succession of tiny single- and two-bedroom apartments, each beige interior indistinguishable from the last.
‘The warm cream paint and carpet gives it a lovely, light feel, don’t you think?’ Val paused on the landing where the staircase continued up to the third storey.
‘Like a beige cave,’ said Dee as she passed her.
‘Beige is so functional. It even goes with those unusual orange cushions of yours.’
Dee glanced down at her mother, about to make a retort, when she noticed Val had come to a halt, puffing hard, a sheen of perspiration on her brow. ‘You all right, Mum?’
‘Fine, dear. I’ll certainly get fitter if we get one on the top floor.’
Maybe she’d think twice about dropping in if she had to climb three storeys, Dee thought.
Donna was waiting inside the last apartment. ‘I think you’ll find this is the best.’ The master bedroom was tiny, barely enough room for a bed and a yoga mat, while the second bedroom, which Dee would need to rent to help pay the mortgage, wouldn’t house a small child. The single room that accommodated lounge, kitchen and laundry opened onto a deck just large enough for one person to survey the impressive view of a supermarket car park.
‘This one is an excellent buy,’ Donna said after they’d taken turns standing on the deck. ‘There’s been a lot of interest and, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m waiting on a call at the moment with an offer.’
Val turned to her daughter with a triumphant grin. ‘It’s perfect, darling, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think –’
‘Now, Trudy, I know you’re worried about the money but we can work that out.’
‘No, Mum, it’s the –’
‘I had a bit of a chat with our accountant, Bill Kennedy.’ She pulled a sheet of paper from her handbag. ‘And he thinks that with Auntie May’s money, you should be able to afford the repayments if you budget properly.’ She held the page out to Dee as she listed the figures he’d written down. ‘Obviously, he had to estimate your earnings since you won’t tell me anything. See here, he based it on the lowest pay rate for a radiographer. You have to be getting at least that much. Of course, you’d have to forgo your holidays to India for a couple of years but, look, you’d have this lovely flat instead.’ She swept her arms wide, almost touching opposite walls.
Dee gritted her teeth. Did Val really think that now it was so cleverly worked out, she’d simply drop everything and do as she was told? She stalked to the deck, anger brewing in her belly.
‘She’s just having another look at the aspect. I think she really loves it,’ she heard Val tell Donna.
Dee shook her head incredulously, watching cars pull in and out of the supermarket parking. It would be crazy to spend Auntie May’s money on this tiny apartment. Dee’s chin snapped up.
Auntie May’s money.
The inheritance was almost what Arianne and Howard were asking for the partnership. If she had that, she wouldn’t need a fifteen-year business loan. Wouldn’t be locked into a future she’d vowed not to create for herself. She wasn’t really sure she wanted to be a partner in the school, hadn’t really been able to think about it. But without a huge loan, it was definitely more attractive. Best of all, it was an investment. Something her mother could relate to, an alternative to buying an apartment, a way out of the mortgage Val wanted to hang around her neck. She could decide whether she actually wanted to be a partner once she got the money.
Dee stepped back into the room. ‘Actually, Mum, I might have something else to spend Auntie May’s money on. I’ve been given an opportunity to buy into a business.’
Val’s laugh was fast and loud. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Trudy. You couldn’t run a business. You can’t even keep your phone charged.’
Her words were a slap in the face. ‘And you think this apartment is a better idea?’
‘It’s perfect for you. Don’t you just love it?’
‘No, Mum, I don’t love it. I think it’s awful. It’s claustrophobic and soulless.’
‘Trudy, I don’t –’
‘And it’s unbelievably arrogant of you to assume you could find the perfect apartment for me. Especially when you have absolutely no appreciation of my life.’
Val was momentarily stunned. ‘Trudy! Donna doesn’t need to hear about your –’
‘Donna, my mother and I need to have a few moments alone.’
Donna exited in a hurry and, as they waited for the door to close, Val attempted to stare her daughter down, but Dee was in warrior mode. Val had gone too far. Everyone had gone too far. Ethan and Lucy and Ian the Bastard Reporter. But Val was here and she was about to have a piece of Dee’s mind.
‘Now listen, Trudy –’
‘No, you listen, Mum. I did not come here for financial advice or life coaching or business insight. I came to get you off my back. I am thirty-one years old. I do not need my mother to find me a home or tell me what to spend my money on. And I definitely don’t need you to tell me how bloody hopeless you think I am.’ She pointed a finger at her. ‘If you don’t like the way I live, that’s your problem. Don’t make it mine.’ A piece of hair fell over her face and she pushed angrily at it. ‘And about Auntie May’s money – frankly, I don’t give a toss. Give it to me or don’t give it to me, I don’t care either way. But don’t use it to blackmail me into a life I don’t want. I’m sorry I’m a disappointment to you and, believe me, I wish it wasn’t like that, but it’s my life, not yours. Get over it.’
As Dee stormed past her, Val’s mouth was an ‘o’ in a face white with shock.
Amanda rang at six-fifteen. ‘Thank God you’ve got your phone on.’ Her voice was high and tight. ‘It’s Mum.’
‘What now?’
‘She’s had a heart attack.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dee ran into Emergency breathless from fear and phobia. Val looked grey and fragile in the narrow hospital bed, as though the tubes attached to her were sucking out her vitality instead of trying to keep it in.
As heart attacks go, it was closer to mild than massive, the doctor said. But a heart attack was a heart attack. She had to be stabilised, monitored and assessed for surgery.
Val was exhausted and drifted in and out of sleep through the long hours of the night. Dee sat in a chair beside her, unable to move from the bedside, a witness to Ken and Amanda dealing with their own brands of fear.
Ken was like a wind-up toy, wandering back and forth, to and from the curtained-off space. He was beefy and unfit, and Dee wondered why her tennis-playing, power-walking mother was the one in the bed.
Amanda spent most of the time talking to medical staff, making phone calls, fetching coffee, hunting down food and cups of ice. Later, in the early hours of the morning, she just sat. Opposite Dee. The two of them like sentinels guarding the unfamiliar figure in the bed.
Somewhere around 2 a.m., Val opened her eyes. ‘Trudy,’ she whispered.
Dee lifted her head from the bed clothes and saw the fear in her mother’s eyes. She closed her fingers around Val’s hand and held on like she was one of those tubes keeping her vitality in. She didn’t
let go all night. Didn’t want her to wake scared and alone.
By the time breakfast trays were being passed around the Emergency ward, Dee’s hand ached. She was so stiff, she could barely move, which wasn’t all that different from the state she’d been in since arriving. Paralysed with guilt and anxiety and her own private dread.
From the moment Amanda had called, Dee’s mind kept replaying the shock on Val’s face at the apartment. And how she’d stopped on the landing, puffing and sweating. She couldn’t help thinking if she hadn’t lost her cool, her mother might be at home, sleeping peacefully and popping off to the GP to discuss the breathless episode.
Dee looked up as Amanda pushed through the curtains, dropping her phone back in her bag.
‘How are Amelia and Ruby?’ Dee asked quietly.
‘Upset. Ruby was refusing to get dressed until I told Reece how to do her hair. He’s bringing them in after school.’ She took her place opposite Dee. ‘Why don’t you have a break? You haven’t stood up for hours.’
Dee flexed her hand under Val’s. ‘I’m okay.’
Amanda slid fingers under Val’s other palm. ‘I can do this for a while.’
‘But …’
‘It’s okay. I won’t leave her.’
They exchanged grim smiles.
Dee stood slowly, cautiously, wincing as her back complained at the movement. She kissed Val on the forehead and hobbled out. She walked the corridors for a while to loosen up, then stood in the sun in a small hospital courtyard and called Leon.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked after she’d told him about Val.
‘No. I can’t breathe in there.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Could you bring me a change of clothes when you’ve finished work? I don’t want to leave.’
‘Anything else you want? Chocolate? Magazines?’
There was something but he couldn’t get it for her. ‘A big hug when you get here.’