by Liz Byrski
Barbara pulled the wrap further around her shoulders. ‘The ordinariness of it, the pettiness, the grinding monotony.’ She sighed. ‘Poor old Adam, he thought he was moving into a magical world and found it was just a job like anything else.’
‘But a job doing something he loves obsessively,’ Jill said.
‘Mmm. He loves his cello and his music certainly, but do you really think he loves the orchestra?’
‘Of course, of course he does . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Doesn’t he?’
‘I don’t know, really. Sometimes I think he hates being just another cog in that great machine.’ There was silence then and although she couldn’t see Jill’s face in the darkness, Barbara sensed a change in her. ‘That’s why he plays at home, I think,’ she went on. ‘You see, most musicians come home from work and the last thing they want to do is play their instrument. They’d rather mow the lawn or watch cricket or make soup. But Adam goes to his second cello as though it’s something different from what he’s been doing all day. He can play what he wants, he can improvise, he doesn’t have to play every note of Wagner or Rachmaninov, he doesn’t have to play them at all. He can just play at being Adam with a cello.’
‘Really? I suppose I just took it for granted that because of his passion for music and the way he loves his cello that he must love the orchestra too,’ Jill said. ‘I mean, he often has a grumble about work, but no more than anyone grumbles about their job. Why would he have kept doing it all these years? Long before I met him.’
Barbara laughed. ‘What else would he do? It’s a vicious circle for him, I think. He’s ambivalent, dislikes the orchestra but can’t break away. You know Adam, change is not his thing, and it would take some strong external force to make him change. And while he might dream about doing something different, security is very important to him.’
‘I see,’ Jill said thoughtfully. ‘At least, I think I do. But he’s never said anything.’
‘Perhaps he thinks you know.’
‘But how? How would I know?’
Barbara shrugged. ‘I don’t know, dear. That’s between the two of you. And, of course, I may be quite wrong. But one thing I’m sure of, complicated as he is, he’s devoted to you and the children, even more than he is to his cellos.’ She finished the last of her wine, yawning as a wave of tiredness swept over her. She’d often reflected on her good fortune in having acquired a de facto family, even to the point of grandchildren, without having to go through the inconvenience of marriage, pregnancy and childbirth. But recently she had been feeling the emotional costs of loving them all so dearly.
‘Everything’s a bit of a mess at the moment,’ she said. ‘We seem to be at odds, fragmented. The shooting was such a shock, and then the police not catching anyone. It’s the stress. Everything will sort itself out once they find who did it.’
‘So, here’s to us,’ Ellis said, raising his glass. ‘To meeting again after all this time.’
‘To us,’ Heather said, touching her glass against his and sipping her champagne. ‘It seems quite extraordinary to be sitting here with you, like this, after all these years.’
Ellis smiled. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? Just like yesterday?’
Heather hesitated. She felt like a character in a film in which the narrative constantly jumped back and forth in time. ‘A little,’ she replied. ‘I keep trying to visualise us then, who we were compared with who we’ve become.’
‘Well, you’ve become a very wise and beautiful woman, Heather,’ Ellis said, ‘just as I anticipated.’
Heather blushed and looked down at her menu. Compliments were rare these days, and she could barely remember the last time she’d been out for dinner with a man on anything other than a professional basis. Not that it was a date exactly, but it was still a world away from her usual Saturday nights spent at some official function, or at home in her dressing gown with her feet up, dividing her attention between work and The Bill.
Since Ellis’s appearance on Wednesday, Heather’s focus had undergone a remarkable shift. His presence had insinuated itself between her twin obsessions – the shooting and its perpetrator, and her efforts to get her professional life back on track. Now, at the end of the first week back in parliament, when she had anticipated working quietly in the safety of the tiny Potts Point apartment, she was instead in one of the finest restaurants in Sydney, wearing a low-necked black dress that was rather more snug than the last time she had worn it, having dinner with the man she had once believed was the love of her life. Once believed it? She no longer knew, because sitting here like this it was easy to convince herself that this was what he had always been – after all, none of his few successors had ever quite measured up. And she was starting to feel younger, flirtatious, something she hadn’t felt for a very long time, as though the girl she had once been was still around, just out of sight.
‘You’re sure you’ll be okay if I go back to Newcastle?’ Shaun had asked the previous evening. ‘I can stay if you want.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she’d said, with more confidence than she had felt for some time. ‘Honestly, you go. We need you to be there in the electorate office next week. If you don’t mind driving my car back, I’ll fly home at the end of the sitting.’
And that morning, after Shaun had collected the car and set off for Newcastle, she had, to her own amazement, pulled out the Yellow Pages and phoned around the beauty salons in the hope of getting a facial. Locking in a two o’clock appointment she had paused briefly to ask herself what she was doing, why seeing Ellis had created this strange sense of buoyancy and girlish anticipation. Was it simply that it had diverted, or at least diluted, her attention? Or was it that seductive opportunity to see herself again, herself as she once was? Still contemplating the question she let herself out of the apartment, strolled up the slope of Macleay Street, and spent most of the morning in a café by the Alamein Fountain, trying to read the weekend papers but more often drifting into memories as the spring sunlight scattered rainbow colours through the great puffball of sparkling water.
‘I’ve thought of you so much over the years, Heather,’ Ellis said at dinner after they had caught up on the missing years. ‘I often thought of getting in touch, but I wasn’t sure what sort of reception I’d get.’
She smiled. ‘I’d always have been delighted to see you,’ she said. ‘At least, I would have after the first few . . . well, once I’d got over you ending it like that.’
Ellis pulled a wry face. ‘We can do some truly reprehensible things when we’re young,’ he said. ‘But am I forgiven?’
Heather reminded herself that it was she, not Ellis, who had been young, but she bit her tongue. ‘Of course. So what made you decide to come now?’
‘You really want to know? This time I felt I had something to offer. I felt that at this time it would be more than pure self-indulgence.’ He took her hand across the table. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about what you must be going through.’ He paused briefly. ‘People do sometimes need some help with –’
Heather withdrew her hand. ‘I don’t need a counsellor, Ellis.’
‘No, no, of course not,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that. I simply felt that because we love . . . loved each other all those years ago, that you might appreciate having an old friend to talk to. And, you know, now, as I say it, I realise that the desire to help is probably just another sort of self-indulgence, really. Look, Heather, I came because I care. Despite what happened all those years ago, I did and still do care, I want to be here for you, with you; that is, if you think you have space for me – emotional space.’
Heather relaxed her hand and with it her resistance to words that sounded embarrassingly close to lines from an afternoon soap opera. She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. ‘Emotional space?’ she asked, noticing how wobbly her voice sounded.
He smiled as he topped up her champagne. ‘In times like these it helps to have someone who cares about you and who’s prepared to step into
that emotional space with you.’
Heather was accustomed to managing her emotional life alone, trying not to burden Adam while envying the intimacy he enjoyed with Jill; trying not to rely on anyone for emotional support, even Barbara. This solitariness made her feel that she was living on the margins, as though real emotional life were happening elsewhere and that somehow she had failed to understand what it was all about. There had been times when she had poured all her emotions into relationships, when she had been deeply and desperately in love.
The first time had been with Ellis, and she wondered if he had any idea of the devastating effect his abandonment had had on her. For months he had promised that he would leave his wife, that they would be together because he couldn’t live without her. And yet, in the end it was she who had been abandoned, for not only had he ended it, he had almost immediately moved away. One moment there, the focus of her life, the next moment gone, leaving a great dark void. Perhaps it was easier than seeing him constantly, sitting mute and helpless in his classes, though it hadn’t seemed that way at the time. But decades had passed, they had both moved on, and she had long since recognised how hopeless the situation had been.
However, first love keeps a seductive hold on memory; it teases the wisest imagination with promises of what might have been, establishes the gold standard beside which all others are measured, and leaves a clutch of unanswered questions like scars on the self-esteem. Why did he go? Was I not good enough, clever, mature or pretty enough? What could I have done better? What’s wrong with me? Heather had recovered from Ellis’s desertion, but when she fell in love again she struggled to be everything she might have failed to be with him. It was a disastrous formula that left her always resenting the enormity of her effort and the failure of her partner to respond in equal measure.
‘I always seem to overdo it,’ she had confessed to Barbara once as she foundered on the rocks of another relationship failure. ‘I keep trying so hard to be what they want me to be and in the effort I actually abandon myself.’
‘What you are is perfectly good enough for any man,’ Barbara had told her. ‘If you have to be something else to hold on to him, then he’s not worth holding on to.’
But Heather recognised that she didn’t know how to do it differently. It was, in the end, simply easier to focus on her work, and to channel her passion into issues where she could make a difference. She knew that people sometimes found her cool and distant, but that distance kept her safe. Losing was as much a part of public life as winning, it was something which she knew and accepted, but private life was different, particularly private emotional life. In that respect, self-protection was her first priority. She felt Ellis watching her but could not look up, for the old fear was rising in her gut and she needed to quell it.
‘I don’t think I know anything about emotional space, Ellis,’ she said.
‘A lot of looking outwards, I suspect,’ Ellis cut in. ‘Looking out towards others through your job, which provides the satisfaction of interaction but protects you from the challenges of real connectedness.’
She looked up quickly now. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Heather, and forgive me if I’m wrong – after all, we’ve only just met again, and I’m guessing – but I suspect that you find it easier not to be emotionally involved.’
‘Well, it’s certainly true that it’s years since I was in a relationship.’ She had gained control of her voice now by summoning a useful coolness that she had perfected to keep people at bay.
‘And your friends?’
‘I’m very fortunate, lots of people care about me,’ she said, looking down at the food that the waiter had just placed in front of her. ‘I was so moved by all those flowers and cards, the people outside my office –’
‘Oh yes, I saw all that on the news,’ Ellis cut in, ‘but your friends, Heather, where are your friends?’
‘I don’t have a lot of time,’ she said. ‘I’m very busy. Work is my . . .’ she hesitated, ‘my . . .’
‘Your way of keeping friendship and intimacy at bay?’
She blushed, feeling caught out. ‘Maybe. But I’m a very independent person. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.’
Ellis leaned forward across the table. ‘Real friendship is a gift, Heather. Intimate friendship is a precious gift, not a burden.’
She looked away again, stripped suddenly of her protective cover. ‘Probably,’ she admitted, ‘but it’s also intrusive, risky, all sorts of risks . . . emotional risks.’
Ellis nodded. ‘Of course, that’s part of life. And I wonder, Heather, what sort of life have you really been living?’
FIVE
Shaun found the tablets by chance the evening that he got back from Sydney. Charlene was going to a birthday party with friends and, knowing it would be a night of loud music and that most people would have too much to drink and then want to go on to a club, he had resisted her efforts to get him to go along.
‘I just want a quiet evening at home,’ he’d said, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t decide to stay home with him. ‘You go, have a good time. I’d just be a boring old fart anyway.’
‘I would like to go,’ she’d said, ‘if you really don’t mind.’
‘I really don’t mind. I’ll drop you off, if you like, and you can get a cab home. Just take care and don’t drink too much.’
‘’Course not,’ said Charlene, who had already had three glasses of wine. ‘I’ll just go for a little while. It’s Gemma’s twenty-fifth and I really don’t want to miss it.’
Shaun dropped her at the party, ordered a family-size special with double anchovies from the pizza place, and settled down in peace to watch a movie. It was his favourite sort of evening, probably a bit sad at thirty, but he’d never been much of a one for parties and he relished time at home alone.
Buying the house had been a big step for Shaun. He was cautious with money, and had weighed up the relative benefits of cash flow versus home ownership and opted for the latter. It was just a little weatherboard house in Hamilton, near the Beaumont Street shopping area and conveniently close to his favourite café. Not being adept at DIY he had found a local contractor to do the structural renovations. His father, an electrician by trade, was also handy with a paintbrush, and together he and Shaun were finishing off the rest of the work. Other than a few flashes of concern about whether he was getting middle-aged before his time, Shaun found that the pattern of life that came with the house was comfortable and satisfying.
When Charlene moved in, things changed. Her drinking made him uneasy and he wasn’t entirely convinced that she didn’t pop the odd pill. Together with the constant background music about settling down, her presence in the house was no longer a pleasure but a burden. Almost daily he contemplated how he might extricate himself from the relationship. There may well be fifty ways to leave your lover, but was it possible to find just one way to get her to leave him? Was there one way for him to end it without seeming a complete bastard?
Halfway through Fight Club, Shaun felt the pizza sitting heavily in the middle of his chest and he wrapped the remains in cling film, stashed it in the fridge and went to look for some Mylanta. He’d bought a roll of the tablets a couple of weeks earlier but there was no sign of them in the bathroom cupboard or the drawer of his bedside table. It occurred to him that Charlene might have needed them and gone searching, and it was as he was looking through the drawer on her side of the bed that he saw, tucked away behind two old pairs of sunglasses, a manicure set and several months’ supply of contraceptive pills, the small plastic bag. Alarm bells went off in his head. There were half a dozen tablets – ecstasy or amphetamines? He wasn’t familiar enough with drugs to know. Half a dozen: not a huge quantity, but even fewer would have been too much for Shaun’s peace of mind.
Sinking down on the bed, he put the plastic bag back in its hiding place and stared at the dressing table, anxiety turning to suspicion. The dressing table was a white Queen Anne
style monstrosity that Charlene had brought from home. Shaun sighed, staring at the drawers. There was a difference between finding something by chance and actually going hunting for it. On the other hand . . . He opened the right-hand drawer. It was full of cosmetics, lipsticks, eyeliners, mascara wands, bottles of nail polish and small sample-size pots and tubes of skin care products. He closed it and tried the left-hand one. It was locked. Shaun’s heart beat faster as he searched for the key. Charlene’s jewellery box stood on the dressing table and he hesitated once more before opening it. The lid lifted out into three pink velvet-lined tiers; there were lots of earrings, beads and other sparkly stuff, but no key. He was about to close it when he noticed a slim pocket of the same fabric along one side of the bottom tier. Seconds later he was holding the key.
There was a pile of scrunchies at the front of the drawer, and some other hair ornaments, two curling brushes and a bulky, unsealed manila envelope. Blood thumping in his temples, Shaun opened it and counted out six hundred dollars in fifties. He put the envelope back, pulled the drawer open further and reached for a sequin-embroidered jewellery roll. As soon as he touched it he could feel the slippery shifting of plastic bags. He unrolled it to reveal several small plastic bags with two, three or five tablets in each, so obviously ready to sell.
Shaun was dizzy with shock. Charlene may have stopped using but she was clearly dealing, and that meant one thing, or rather one person – Danny. Danny, who had blacked his eye over Charlene; Danny, through whose hands flowed all manner of strange substances and small electronic goods that had fallen off the backs of trucks. Had she always been dealing? Could Diane have had any idea what was going on? Shaun had had a horror of drugs since his best friend had fallen by the wayside. He and Ben had known each other since primary school but Shaun’s fear of what his father would do to him if he found him using meant that while he’d certainly experimented, that was where it stopped. But nothing held Ben back, and two years after they left school he was found dead in a side alley in Winfield after a self-administered overdose of heroin cut with some poisonous substance.