by Nicki Reed
‘Is she? Who’s that?’
Carole Smart feels less like somebody I have to worry about if Taylor isn’t worrying about her. Still.
‘She’s Mark’s boss. BJ is Mark’s boss’s daughter.’
It’s funny. You have a secret, you tell someone, they don’t call the police or look up the nearest mental hospital. They listen, add what you’ve said to what they know about you and go with it. Taylor knows and I feel better already.
‘So? She looked like she could handle herself.’ She pushes another chunk of cake into her mouth. Taylor makes eating cake look sinful. She swallows her mouthful. ‘You know, you people without kids shit me.’
Not what I expected. ‘I’m not following you.’
‘Peta, you would never have done whatever you did if you weren’t already having problems. If it’s over—your marriage, I mean—bin it and move on.’
‘But—’
‘I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody else. I’ve been seeing someone. I met Glen at the gym when I was going through my Zumba phase. He’s too young for me, his job is…well, it’s not a job, it’s a criminal activity. He sells ecstasy.’
She’s having an affair with a drug dealer? ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Same reason you couldn’t tell me. And why I haven’t chased you too hard. I know this life. It’s too great and it’s too awful. When I’m with Glen there’s no place else and when I’m away from him I talk about crap—sleep mostly—so nobody asks me how I really am. Peta, the idea of my kids not being under my roof every day, night, of my life…I can’t take it.’
‘God, I had no idea.’
She straightens up in the chair. Shoulders back, head high.
‘Don’t worry. Something will happen. Probably he’ll be arrested. It’ll be easy to stop seeing Glen if he’s in jail. Anyway, what I’m saying is, you don’t have kids to try to make it work for. Tell Mark and be done with it. Do you want any of this?’
The lemon tart.
I shake my head. ‘I feel bad. There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘Nothing except that he’s never home and you’ve found yourself someone else. It’s called growing, Pete. When was the last time you told him you love him?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Hmm.’
Taylor sounds like a mother when she says hmm.
‘Just because I can’t remember, doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s not like you’ve got a little love-barometer on your bedside table and you check it every night when you’re making sure your alarm is set.’
‘Alarm? Who sets an alarm anymore? See how easy it is to talk crap?’
I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t saying I love you. I’ve said it to BJ. I think of loving Mark as a love your work type of thing. I love M*A*S*H, love vanilla ice-cream, love Melbourne, love Mark.
‘You could do more of this,’ she gestures at me, my surroundings. ‘Keep sitting at your desk with your face in your hands, moaning.’
‘I was moaning?’
‘I thought you were having a baby. Or an orgasm.’
An orgasm would be great about now. It’d mean that I wasn’t here having this conversation, that I was in bed with BJ or by myself.
‘Please Taylor, will you come with me when I speak to Mark?’
‘No way. I’m not driving your getaway car. Try to work things out with him, or stop trying to have it all. It’s a bad look. Trust me, I know.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘I hate it when you say you’ll think about it, Pete. It’s passive.’
‘I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.’
I stand up, make it real. Start shoving things into my bag, switch my laptop off, wait for the screen to go dark before I close it.
24.
When you cry on a tram, people notice. I have my head turned into the window, my elbow resting on the sill, tears won’t stop.
The old dear opposite me leans forward. ‘Are you all right?’ Hers will be the last compassionate look I get when this comes out.
I sniff, shake my head. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
Back to the window: shops, houses, parked cars, blurry. When I was with Taylor I could do this. On my own, the worry is back.
Three missed calls. One from Mark, two from BJ. Mark is in Sydney, due back tonight and BJ’s round the corner, eighteen minutes from my house including a stop at the florist. Both she and Mark are too close.
I have a shower and go to bed.
In the morning I find a note on the kitchen bench. Pee-wee, didn’t want to wake you, can we talk tonight? M.
Hmm. Maybe.
It’s Friday, but I go back to bed. The library owes me days, months.
My doona has hard edges. My whole house does. Everything reminds me of Mark. Photos on the fridge, the sideboard, the mantelpiece. Birthdays. Weddings. Babies. A photo of my nephews and niece in their paddling pool, the water glinting silver, the blue plastic of the pool the same as the sky. Jasmine is wearing exactly the same look as me in my paddling-pool photo. Thirty years apart but the same expression: look at me, don’t look at me. Across the generations, is that what little girls do?
I want to be back in BJ’s bedroom waiting for her to get out of the shower. The wait hurting, the first beautiful touch of her fingers hurting too.
Or I want to be before the couch. Not knowing. Never knowing.
I stay in bed. Push myself into the corner, back cold against the wall, doona over my head. Curtains drawn, I lie in the dark, my phone switched off, the landline unplugged. Twice I hear knocking at my front door. I ignore it.
There’s a scrabbling down the side of the house. Ruby is outside my window, leaving another message. ‘Call me back!’
She doesn’t do patience.
Glass breaks and the back door unlocks. Footsteps down the hallway. The door opens.
‘Peta!’
‘You’ll be paying for that.’
‘I don’t care.’ She’s outlined by the mid-morning light in the hallway. ‘I thought something happened to you.’
‘Like what?’
Ruby sits next to me on the bed, a hand on my hip. I cry.
‘Since when do you miss work? I talked to Mark. He told me you’re sleeping in separate beds.’
‘I’m not moving, Rube, you wasted a day off.’
‘I spoke to BJ.’
I try not to show I’m listening harder.
‘Yes,’ she smiles. ‘She wants to know what’s happening, says she has stuff going on in her life, too. Told me to tell you this, word for word. I wrote it down.’ She hooks a piece of paper out of her pocket.
‘Hey remember that time we stole the movie and you were too afraid to watch it? And,’ Ruby continues, ‘Hey remember that time I gave up smoking and you gave up swearing and it didn’t happen because you don’t swear and I’d never quit.’
I smile a too-little-too-late smile.
Ruby lies down next me. I cry into her hair. Shorter than mine, a dark auburn bob, the neat ends prickle my eyes and nose. She turns onto her side. ‘It won’t always be like this. You’ll decide.’ She stands up. I’m going to get some instruction. ‘You look and smell disgusting, have a shower. I promise I’ll go home after I’ve seen you shower and eat something.’ She heaves the doona off me. ‘For fuck’s sake, eat something. If you’re hoping to become invisible you’re well on the way.’
In the bathroom I stand in front of the mirror. My ribs and hip bones are prominent. I don’t mind it. I’m going through something and it shows. My cheeks are hollow and the skin around my eyes is purple. My lips are pale, almost the same colour as my face.
I shower until there’s no hot water. When I get out it’s like stepping into a hot velvet fog. The walls are beaded with moisture and bubbles slide down the mirror. I brush my teeth hard.
Tracksuit pants, sports bra, T-shirt, cap. My shoes and iPod next to the pile. Ruby’s never subtle. I join her in the kitchen. She’s made poached eggs,
spinach, muffins, hollandaise, the whole big breakfast. She brought everything with her, knowing we’d have nothing in the fridge.
‘Ruby, thanks. Thanks for this.’ Upfront, in case I forget later.
‘Mmm, the smell has gone. What are you going to do when I go home? Any ideas? Obviously, you’re going for a walk.’
When did Ruby become the bossy one?
I pour the tea.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she says. ‘It’s okay, Pete. The wheels are bound to fall off the Ruby-wagon the minute yours are screwed back on. I’ll be as bad as ever and you can spend your life fixing me.’
She sips her tea.
‘What would you do?’ I say.
‘I have no idea,’ she shrugs. ‘Probably freak out, hide, let everything go. Find a bridge to live under. What about a separation? Finding out without pulling your life apart.’
‘My life is apart. Having an affair is ugly. It’s all orgasms and duplicity. It’s exhausting. I want to sleep with BJ in a bed I’m allowed to sleep in.’
‘What does BJ think?’
‘BJ thinks I should move in with her. BJ’s twenty-two. I love her, but she doesn’t know what this is like.’
Ruby is at the sink, emptying the teapot onto news- paper she’s spread on the drainer. The almost clear sky, its white drift of cloud, is framed in the top left of the kitchen window.
‘Haven’t you talked to her about it?’ She’s refilling the teapot, one for you one for me one for the pot.
‘No.’ New tears come. The tea brews while I cry.
‘Why not? Yes, she’s young but she’s smart. And she’s queer. So she’s coming from a less mainstream perspective. Well, I’m assuming.’
Ruby sits down and pours us another cup of tea, dumping two sugars into hers. A tiny clink-ker-clink of the spoon hitting the teacup. Our mother’s teacups.
‘I didn’t want to scare her off.’
‘You might not even be the first married woman she’s been with.’ Ruby says, dumping another sugar into her teacup. ‘I don’t know how you ladies do it, but I guess some lesbians know early, and others must be like you, finding themselves in some girl’s tight back seat.’
‘It was a couch, not a car. I’m not you.’
‘Don’t interrupt. They get there, lesbian, almost by accident. What do you think? Do you think it was there and you hadn’t noticed? Or maybe you’d never have gone there because the right woman hadn’t happened along?’
‘I have no idea. I can’t imagine another BJ happening along. God, she’s so gorgeous.’
‘She’s okay. I like them more feminine.’
‘You’ve been looking?’
‘No, Pete. I’m never going to meet a woman with a big enough cock.’
‘God, you’re gross.’ I push Ruby off her chair, onto the floor, and sit on her.
She heaves me off and we lie under the kitchen table. ‘What are you going to do now? What next?’
‘It’s going to be hard. I did love him. And Keith and the kids. There’s a bed in the spare room just for when Jas stays. There’s a lot to lose, isn’t there?’
‘Nobody’s going to die, Pete. They’ll come round even- tually. I’ll be here.’
‘God, I wish Mark was a bastard. Don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean. If he was doing something wrong, I’d feel a whole lot better about this.’
‘You’re talking about guilt, Pete. You should feel guilty. You have betrayed Mark and all he did was love you.’
‘From a distance.’
‘Okay, from a distance. You were the same. You let each other go. It’s a mistake to think just because no one’s complaining that everything is fine.’
Within a forest of table legs and chair legs and the normally unseen underneath of chair upholstery, I know she is right.
That’s it.
I roll out from under the table, stand up too early, bang my back on its top. Cups wobble and tea splashes onto the table. I don’t care.
Keys, phone, money. I grab a sponge from the sink, throw it to Ruby.
‘Sorry, can you fix that? Do you mind letting yourself out? I’m going around to BJ’s. Get your passport and bridesmaid’s dress ready, Rube. I wanna marry her.’
25.
I buy irises. Outside the florist, I send her a text.
Hey, remember that time we drove CityLink all night, the Bolte, the Westgate, the Sound Tube, lap after lap?
Eighteen minutes up, I park in the spot I parked in all those weeks ago. BJ’s Honda is in the driveway. I check my appearance in the passenger window: in the curved glass my head looks wide, my curls wider. I inspect my teeth and lipstick, smooth my blouse and straighten my skirt.
‘So, you’re not dead then?’
BJ is in her dressing-gown, her eyes and nose are red. She has blue tissues tucked into her towelling sleeve. I have reduced my cowboy girl to this. We kiss. She tastes like tears and relief.
‘Come on.’ My arm around her shoulder, I’m being the assertive one. ‘Let’s get you in the shower.’
‘You could have texted.’ Petulance and she’s no less attractive.
I undress first. Drape my skirt, blouse and underwear over the red chair in the corner, stand my boots at attention underneath. I hook BJ’s dressing-gown on the back of the bathroom door. She’s skinny. Her head tucked into my neck, I try not to look too long at us in the mirror. Pale, unhealthy, lovesick and stupid.
‘I didn’t know what to say, BJ. I haven’t done this before. I’m not talking about girls, I’m talking infidelity. I wasn’t ready to fall in love, for you to love me.’
‘Neither was I. Love hurts and I didn’t want it.’
I turn the shower on, hold my hand under the warming water. BJ is sitting on the side of the bath. Ready, we step in. Kissing in the shower is not impossible, it’s like a pleasant drowning. Water up my nose, I pull away.
‘Falling in love is like getting a brand new car.’
‘What?’
I massage apple shampoo into her hair.
‘Well…you get a new car, you love it. It has that new-car smell and you drive it everywhere. No trip is too small, no drive too long. You put on weight and you’re content. But you owe it. You’re responsible for it, and then it owns you.’
‘I don’t own you,’ she says.
Soft hands, soap, she turns me around, cups my breasts, releases them, runs her hands in a soapy serpentine to my hips, lower.
‘We said I love you.’ She kisses my collarbone. I kiss her head, her ear, the shampoo-slick, black spikes of her hair.
‘We said lots of things. I said I could manage. I lied. And I said nothing. I didn’t do right by you or by Mark.’
BJ scowls. I turn her around, rinse the shampoo out of her hair. Foam slides crazy-paving down her back.
‘It’s been Mark and me for seventeen years. Part of what you like about me is a product of Mark and me.’
My chin on her head, I think about how I’m getting used to talking about Mark in the past tense. Was. Was. Was.
She scowls again, pokes her tongue out.
‘BJ, you’re such a kid.’ I smile, gliding my hands down her back to the curve of her bottom. ‘Where is your maturity, young lady?’
‘I ain’t no lady,’ she says and drops to her knees in the shower recess to prove it.
I hear her moan into my cunt.
My hands in her hair, my knees buckling, an orgasm around a ragged corner. I lean against the glass door.
It unlatches.
We tumble out onto the bathroom floor. I crack my head on the toilet. Blood. A bright spray, outlandish and unreal. My vision is smudgy. There’s a horrid swarming seasickness. BJ shouts my name. I hit the tiles.
BJ says the paramedics tracked bloody footprints up the hallway.
She never dreamed heads could bleed so much.
I’m glad I wasn’t conscious for what happened next.
BJ says her mother turned up to see if she was okay becaus
e she’d been leaving messages and had had no response.
Carole Smart called Mark.
26.
‘Carole said you banged your head. I came as soon as I could.’ Mark dumps his satchel on the end of the bed and the hospital clipboard clatters to the floor. He picks it up, tries to replace it, gives up and sets it on the drawers beside me.
As soon as he could.
It’s the end of the financial year, time is money, but four hours later is a joke.
A trio of questions: ‘You hit your head on the toilet? How did Carole Smart find out about it? She said you’d tell me. Did you faint?’
‘No, I fell.’
A nurse enters the ward. She stops at the foot of the bed opposite. I signal to Mark to pull the olive-green curtain round. The nurse’s feet are visible under the curtain. A pair of dark pants and black shoes join her. A murmured conference.
‘Why does Carole Smart know you fell in the toilet?’ He’s trying to picture how you could fall onto our toilet; he’s squinting, his head at an angle. It’s excruciating to watch.
‘No, Mark. I fell out of the shower and hit my head on the toilet.’
‘The shower?’
‘It wasn’t our shower, Mark.’
‘What does Carole Smart have to do with this?’ Mark’s voice rises. The murmuring stops. Two pairs of feet turn towards us. The feet withdraw. Visitors’ voices drop. Somebody says, gotta go. Curtains swish.
I breathe the tricky air.
‘I’ve been having an affair with BJ.’ I try to sit up, but the room tilts. I drop my head back on the pillow. ‘We were doing it when it happened.’
‘BJ? Belinda?’
His face is white. It’s like throwing a switch: ruddy, tanned, three weeks of a Chicago summer, to dirty snow. ‘You’re fucking my boss’s daughter?’
‘I love her.’
Mark flings his coffee at the wall. The cup explodes. Coffee bursts brown up the wall, backwards into the air, onto my sheets and blanket, onto his white shirt.
‘Do you know how this is going to look? This is a joke, right? A pay-attention-to-me thing? Do you have any idea how fast this is going to get around? Who at the firm is going to take me seriously now?’