Trip of a Lifetime

by Liz Byrski

  ‘It fell a little short of your promise of civility,’ Jill said, ‘but Ellis did ask for it. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Are you turning into the Incredible Hulk?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘One change leads to another, I suppose. Perhaps this is what happens to me when I start doing housework.’

  ‘Well, I like it,’ Jill said. ‘Keep it up. I just wish Heather wasn’t so upset. I wish I could have talked to her properly. I feel a bit as though we’ve abandoned her.’ They were driving to Morpeth as planned, to spend the rest of the holiday with Barbara. Daisy and Toby had gone on ahead in George’s car, and Kirsty and Nick had returned to Sydney to spend Boxing Day with his parents. ‘She was weird all day, and Diane says she’s been like it ever since Ellis turned up on his mercy dash from Byron Bay.’

  ‘I don’t know why she can’t see what he’s really like,’ Adam said. ‘He’s so manipulative and transparent. When I went out to the park to find the others, they all let out a big cheer, which was nice for me but it just made it so clear that no one else can stand the sight of him.’

  Jill sighed. ‘Maybe she’ll see it now,’ she said.

  ‘I doubt it. She’s furious with me and wants me to apologise to him. I’ve apologised to her and to everyone else, but there’s no way I’m apologising to Ellis. No way at all.’

  Jill shook her head. ‘Well, we can only wait and see what happens next, I suppose. I’ll call her in the morning, see how it’s all going. Meanwhile, let’s try to forget it and give the kids a good time at Barb’s. Where do you think Ellis went?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t really care,’ Adam said. ‘Probably found a bar open somewhere to drown his sorrows and, frankly, I hope they choke him.’

  ‘It’s lovely of you to drive me home,’ Diane said. ‘It’s been such a weird day, it would have felt very strange coming home alone. It’s this house here on the left.’

  Stefan turned the car into the drive and switched off the engine. ‘It leaves the bad taste,’ he said.

  Diane hoped he was not just going to drop her and then head straight off back to Sydney. ‘Would you like to come in for a coffee or something? I don’t have any Christmas pudding but I do have some lovely chocolate ice cream.’

  They ate the ice cream on the deck as the light began to fade.

  ‘It’s beautiful out here,’ Stefan said. ‘You will be sorry to go.’

  Diane stretched her arms above her head and looked around her. ‘Only because it’s an ending,’ she said. ‘I have loved this place, and for years I put a lot of myself into it because of what it meant to us as a family. But I’m over it now. Leaving must have been so much harder for you; you left your village and your country.’

  Stefan nodded. ‘Oh yes, it is hard, but not, I think, as hard as to stay. There is one way out of anger and bitterness, so I have to take it.’

  ‘But it must have been terrible to leave, with your wife and daughter buried there?’

  ‘It is only their bodies,’ he said, turning to her. ‘Their spirits are free. I can find them anywhere.’

  She looked away, so moved by the simplicity of his words that she was unable to respond. They sat in a comfortable silence as the sun turned from gold to orange.

  ‘I offered to stay with Heather until Ellis came back,’ Diane said, ‘but she said she needs to be alone.’

  ‘So perhaps she takes this time to change her mind about him,’ Stefan said, helping himself to more ice cream.

  ‘I doubt it. I think she’s going to be outraged on his behalf, and she’ll be defending him and making excuses. I don’t think this relationship has run its course yet. Relationships are such hard work sometimes.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Stefan said, ‘but it is the best way we find out about ourselves, so we must struggle on to the end, until we learn what we must learn. Heather has perhaps not reached that point yet.’ He paused, putting his dish back on the table. ‘So, Diane,’ he said, ‘which day will you come to Sydney?’

  Ellis wasn’t even sure where he was. He had roared out of Heather’s driveway and driven off in such a rage that he couldn’t remember which direction he’d taken. He didn’t know his way around Newcastle and had swooped up and down suburban streets, extricating himself from turning circles, finding the sea where he least expected it, and the railway line in what seemed to be the wrong place. His rage almost blinded him. The urge to stride out to the garden and flatten Adam had been overwhelming, but the lawyer within had reminded him that, while he hadn’t handled the wretched child very well, as long as he didn’t lay a finger on anyone else he still had the moral high ground. He was physically shaken too. The side of his face was swollen and throbbed painfully, his head felt tight and his body was on high alert, prickling, twitching and aching. Worst of all, Heather had been such a disappointment.

  ‘Ellis, darling!’ she’d cried at first, rushing to his side, asking someone to call an ambulance. But the appalling old aunt who’d done a first aid course said it wasn’t necessary. When he was finally back on his feet, Heather had helped him upstairs to clean up and then left him to go back and talk to the rest of her family. She should have stayed with him, but at least he’d been confident that she would be insisting on an apology and sending that halfwit brother and his wife and kids on their way. Ellis washed his face, changed his bloody shirt and lay down on the bed, expecting Heather to arrive any minute with a soothing cup of tea or preferably a double brandy, but there was no sign of her.

  There was a low mumble of conversation from downstairs but, much as he strained, he couldn’t hear what was being said. It was surprisingly quiet, and he closed his eyes and tried to relax. When the child in the spare room laughed out loud, his eyes shot open and he realised he must have dozed off for a few minutes. The muted voices mumbled on. Ellis was appalled: here he was, the injured party, alone and neglected while they behaved as though nothing had happened. For all they knew, he could be concussed, in a coma and not wake again for days, perhaps never. How would they all feel then? How would Heather feel about that? He got up quickly, feeling slightly dizzy, flung open the bedroom door and summoned Heather.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ she said solicitously, peering closely at his bruised face. ‘A bit better now?’

  ‘Apart from the fact that I’m in a lot of pain,’ Ellis said, ‘I am also deeply hurt and offended at the way I’ve been treated.’

  Heather sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It was very hotheaded of Adam, and most unlike him,’ she said, ‘but you were rather rough on poor Daisy. She’s only a little girl and it wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘That’s hardly the point,’ Ellis said. ‘I was insulted and then assaulted in your home by a member of your family. Are you telling me you think that’s acceptable behaviour?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, ‘but I suppose it’s understandable. Adam’s her father and –’

  ‘I want you to tell your brother that he has to apologise to me in front of everyone who witnessed this brutal attack, and then tell him and his wife to leave immediately,’ Ellis said. ‘This has totally ruined Christmas for me and, of course, for you too.’

  Heather shook her head. ‘Adam won’t apologise, Ellis – at least, not to you. He wants you to apologise for the way you treated Daisy.’

  Ellis snorted in disgust. ‘Then just tell them to leave now,’ he said. ‘Right now. And you can tell him I’ll have him charged for this.’

  Heather put her hand on his arm. ‘Ellis, please calm down. We’re all upset, but it’s Christmas. Let’s just try to enjoy the rest of the day. The children haven’t even had their presents yet.’

  Ellis tugged his arm away from her. ‘Either he leaves right now, Heather, or I do. I will not stay under the same roof as that man. So they go – now.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Ellis,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose they want to hang about for long either after this, but I am not going to turn my own family out of my house.’

  Ellis picked up his jack
et. Taking his wallet and car keys from the dresser, he stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Well then, you are effectively turning me out,’ he said, opening the bedroom door. ‘And I warn you, Heather, I won’t be back until they’ve gone.’

  Once out of town, he’d stopped driving and tried to work out where he was. He saw a sign for a hotel and restaurant two kilometres ahead. It was just what he needed: a place to sit, have a drink and contemplate how to handle the situation from here on.

  He drove into the car park of a beautiful estate which had been converted into a rather elegant hotel. Through the windows of the restaurant he could see people celebrating, eating and drinking, and a small band with a vocalist in a white dinner jacket singing ‘White Christmas’. Ellis’s spirits lifted and he locked the car, went inside, headed for the bar and ordered the double brandy Heather had failed to deliver. The liquor made its way into his bloodstream with extraordinary speed, flooding his body with warmth and, to his own surprise, a sense of success. He took his glass to a side table from where he could watch the activity in the restaurant, and sat gently rubbing his aching face. Every cloud has a silver lining, Ellis, he told himself now, testing to see how painful it was to smile: if you play your cards right, Heather will be eating out of your hand by tomorrow morning.

  Heather waited until Stefan’s car had disappeared around the corner, then she closed the front door and wandered back through the house. She had been longing for everyone to leave, but Adam had gone out to apologise to those who had fled to the park, brought them back and, in an awkward silence broken by occasional bursts of stilted conversation, they had insisted on clearing up and washing the dishes. Daisy and Toby’s excitement in distributing the presents restored some Christmas spirit, but Heather felt as though a circle had been drawn around her, a moat which no one wanted to cross. It was easiest to pretend that nothing had happened, but she could sense the glances cast to assess how she was coping, the care with which they chose their words. The day had deteriorated into anxious pretence and they were all waiting for the moment they could escape from the masquerade. And where was Ellis now?

  She was relieved when first Kirsty and Nick, then Barbara and George, got up to leave. Barbara kissed her and said she would call tomorrow, Jill and Diane both offered to stay with her until Ellis came home, Shaun told her to call him if there was anything she needed, and Adam hugged her awkwardly and apologised again for upsetting her. And, in the end, it was all because of something that happened decades ago and which was no one else’s business.

  Should she have confronted Ellis about the way he’d treated her back then? Adam and Jill both thought so but that didn’t mean they were right. It had been a terrible time and his callous rejection had devastated her, as much or even more than the abortion itself, but it was her life and that part of it was in the past. Adam’s obsessive guilt and his hatred of Ellis complicated the situation and kept pulling her back. Why did everything have to be discussed, dissected? Just because Adam had brooded on it for decades didn’t mean she was obliged to.

  Silence and relief had descended on the empty house, and Heather walked through the rooms and out into the garden where the fading light and the sweet scent of honeysuckle revived a nostalgia for childhood, when life had been simpler. She hated being trapped in this emotional quicksand between Adam and Ellis, but most of all she felt utterly exhausted. Trying to shield Ellis from the demands of her job was stressful in itself, and too often she found herself cutting corners in her efforts to please him.

  Turning from the garden she went slowly back into the house, up the stairs and flopped down wearily on the bed, wishing that Ellis were there to hold her, to provide the reassurance of their first weeks together, longing to harvest the support of being a couple. How reckless she’d been to toy with it, to try to have everything. How often had she felt she was living on the margins, as though relationships were where real life happened? All she had to do was to grasp this second chance, knowing that it involved compromise. Heather rolled over onto her side and picked up the phone. The call went to Ellis’s voicemail and she left a message asking him to call her and to come home. Then she lay back against the pillows, her arm over her eyes, and drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep full of people shouting and crying and the repeating sound of Adam’s fist crunching into Ellis’s jaw.

  Ellis listened to Heather’s message but stayed put. He even considered taking a room for the night to make his return more dramatic, but the hotel was fully booked. Perhaps it was for the best – after all, they hadn’t exchanged Christmas presents yet and there was the promise of the lingerie. Signalling to a waiter he ordered a turkey sandwich and a pot of strong coffee, and checked his inside pocket for the blister pack of purple pills. Making up would be absolutely spectacular.

  As the bar staff called for last orders he enquired about the best route back to Newcastle, only to learn that he must have been driving around in circles earlier because he was just fifteen minutes from home. As he pulled in to the drive it was almost midnight and Ellis was gratified to see that the lights were still on, so Heather was obviously waiting up for him. But when he let himself in through the front door there was no sign of her.

  ‘Heather?’ he called, walking through the hall and the sitting room to the kitchen and out onto the patio, puzzled by her absence. ‘Heather, where are you?’ The remains of Christmas lunch had been cleared away, and the place was spotless. He found her in the bedroom fast asleep, fully dressed on top of the bed and with the light on. Looking down at her he felt a pang of tenderness at the exhaustion and sadness in her face, and he sat down gently on the edge of the bed and stroked her cheek. The whole day must have been difficult for her too, and he understood that it was divided loyalties that caused her to get it wrong. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead and she stirred, opening her eyes, blinking at the light. Ellis jumped up, switched it off and sat down on the bed again.

  ‘You’re back!’ she said, smiling, rubbing her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I fell asleep.’

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ Ellis said. ‘You need to sleep. Get undressed and get into bed. Shall I bring you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ she said, ‘that would be wonderful.’ She hauled herself up onto one elbow. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, Ellis, and I’m so sorry about today –’

  Ellis put a finger on her lips. ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Don’t apologise, it’s over. I’m back, we’re together, and that’s what matters.’

  Heather nodded. ‘I know. That’s what I was thinking. I haven’t been fair to you, and you’ve been so patient. I’ve decided to resign. I’ll call the Premier the day after tomorrow. To be honest, I think I’ve just been scared of making the commitment, but I’m ready to make it now.’

  Downstairs in the kitchen, making a pot of tea and putting it on a tray with mugs and a jug of milk, Ellis couldn’t stop smiling. The lingerie could wait. Right now he would deliver a tray of tea and whatever else was needed to ensure she made that phone call.

  ‘I have a really special gift for you, Heather,’ he said next morning when she had made tea and brought it back to bed. He leaned over and pulled the beautiful silver box from its hiding place under the bed. ‘It’s probably a good thing we didn’t exchange our presents while everyone else was here.’

  ‘How exciting,’ Heather said, and Ellis saw the anticipation on her face as she untied the satin ribbon. ‘What a glamorous looking present.’ She put the box lid aside and folded back the silver tissue paper.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, and Ellis thought she looked rather more stunned than delighted, but then, she wouldn’t have been expecting something so exotic.

  ‘Try them on,’ he’d urged as she carefully took out each item and laid it on the bed.

  ‘Later, I’d rather have a shower first,’ she said.

  It wasn’t the ecstatic reaction Ellis had hoped for but as he drank his tea he reminded himself that Heather didn’t have the knack of responding to romantic gestures. He would ha
ve to work on that. Surreptitiously he swallowed a pill in readiness for the erotic fashion parade that was still to come.

  ‘My enormous size seems to have made a huge impression on you,’ Heather said later, emerging from the bathroom with the scarlet bra in one hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ellis asked. ‘Aren’t you going to try them on?’

  ‘Ellis, these are all size twenty-four.’

  ‘And that’s too big?’

  ‘I’m a sixteen, occasionally an eighteen, depending on the label,’ she said, laying the red bra back in the box amid the folds of tissue.

  ‘But they might still be okay,’ he said, trying to hide his disappointment. ‘Just try the bra.’

  ‘I did,’ Heather said, taking some of her usual underwear from the drawer. ‘My tits fell straight through.’

  ‘How silly of me, I should have checked,’ Ellis said, ‘but I wanted it to be a surprise.’

  ‘Well, it certainly was,’ Heather said, doing up her own bra.

  ‘I can change it all,’ Ellis said. ‘I bought it on the Internet. It’s easy, you can pack it up today and we’ll look at the website together so you can choose what you want.’

  Heather pulled a linen dress over her head, and Ellis was grateful for the way she hid her disappointment. He, meanwhile, was finding that his own disappointment, plus a mild hangover and an aching jaw, had won out over the usually reliable pills. But his day improved when he went downstairs to the smell of coffee and bacon, and heard her talking to her sister-in-law on the phone, telling her everything was fine, and that she’d decided to resign. The ratbag brother had done him a favour: the debacle of Christmas Day had presented Heather with a challenge and she had responded to it by jumping in his direction.

  ‘I’m resigning the seat but I’m not retiring,’ she had told him over breakfast. ‘There are lots of things I’d like to do, but nothing that will take over my life.’

  Ellis half listened as she talked about the campaign and finding a new candidate, the timescale, the way it would have to be managed, and then about all the things she would have time to do, things she’d wanted to do for so long. The satisfaction was enormous, his former irritation floating out of the open windows. He decided he would give her something wonderful, and he knew exactly what it would be – something that would demonstrate his own commitment. A better gift even than the lingerie, and he’d soon have the latter sorted out too.