Love and Punishment

by Unknown

  ‘Whoops . . . Hi, Francie!’ he said with a warm enthusiasm that immediately told her Dave was a charmer. ‘So you work with Jessie’s friend, the fabulous Gabby Di Martino, at the Sunday Press, is that right?’

  Jessie was dabbing at the floor with a dishcloth. ‘Dave’s an architect,’ she chimed in. ‘Francie cooks,’ she chimed again.

  ‘You cook? Excellent!’ said Dave.

  Francie extended her hand. ‘I’m not a great chef or anything. But, yeah, I love to cook.’

  ‘Well, we love to eat, so this is going to work out fine,’ he replied at once, taking her hand and pulling her toward him for a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Drink, Dave?’ asked Jessie.

  ‘Absolutely! I’ve spent the afternoon sucking up to clients and I’d love one. I’ll just go and get changed.’ And with that Dave ducked back down the hallway.

  Francie turned to Jessie with wide eyes.

  ‘Uh-huh! Cute as all get out. But watch him, he’s a player!’ Jessie turned her attention to fixing Dave’s drink.

  Francie considered the kick in her solar plexus, or somewhere lower, that she’d felt when she took Dave’s hand. She hadn’t experienced that in a long time. She’d thought the part of her brain which noted good looking men was dead and gone. So . . . Dave was in the bedroom next to hers. Jessie had the front room, which would have been the drawing room in the days when this old pile was in its glory, and Robbie, whom she was yet to meet, was across the hall.

  She loved all of it. The soaring ceilings, intricate ceiling roses and moulded plaster swags of acorn leaves in every corner. It was too good to be true. Whenever Francie had imagined herself living in a shared household she had seen a dingy squat at the top of a rat-infested flight of stairs. The thought that there could be a room in an elegant mansion in St Kilda, directly opposite the rose garden in the park, had never occurred to her. And now she was here. Her bed was in the bedroom, her kitchen utensils in the drawer, her jars of chutney and herb vinegars in the pantry (a real, proper walk-in pantry) and her toothbrush was sitting in a glass tumbler on the windowsill in the bathroom. And this time there weren’t just two toothbrushes in the glass, pledging their sacred troth (or whatever the saying was). There were four of them. All bristling with life and expectation.

  Francie smiled. It seemed everywhere she looked there was a sign of hope—from the toothbrushes to the tangle of umbrellas and coats in the cloakroom. A new start. The doubled cell of Francie and Nick had now split into four single entities. She was excited at the possibilities of her new life.

  Dave returned from the hallway, an even more arresting sight this time. He had pulled on a white T-shirt over a pair of black jeans, and Cuban-heeled boots. Francie caught herself trying to figure out whether his eyes were more hazel than green and quickly made a mental note: Hands off. Dave was to be her new housemate. As she had already told Jessie, meaningless one-night stands with strangers was all she was up to. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin her chance of a new start.

  ‘So . . .’ Dave picked up his drink. ‘Saturday night, laid out before us “like a patient etherised upon a table”.’

  ‘TS Eliot?’ Francie looked at Dave with a shy smile.

  ‘Correct, Francie! Question is, is it Saturday night which will be etherised?’ He drained his drink. ‘Or will it be us? What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Dave!’ Jessie protested. ‘She’s just walked in the door.’

  ‘No, no, I’d love to cook,’ burbled Francie. ‘To tell you the truth, I haven’t really cooked anything for ages and I’d love to get back into the kitchen. I’ll just see if there’s anything . . .’

  Francie opened the fridge door. She knew there was nothing in the freezer but vodka. The cheese compartment was no better. It contained six bottles of nail polish and the butter compartment held a plastic bag of something suspiciously herb-ish. The shelves yielded two packets of chocolate biscuits, three take-away cartons of toxic sludge, four six-packs of beer, two four-packs of tonic water and, in the vegetable crisper, one lonely, dead carrot.

  Francie smiled to herself. The last time she’d looked in her fridge there were only ice cubes and Diet Coke on offer. Not like when she lived with Nick and the shelves were crowded with fresh produce bought from the market and carried home in a basket. Two hands, taking a handle each. In the Nick and Francie Fridge of Love there had been dips and things to stick in dips, homemade jams, chutneys, sauces, sambals. And in the chiller tray, two lamb chops nestling together in a meaty heart. When the door was opened the light had positively glowed on love’s bounty.

  So this fridge Francie was looking into tonight was a halfway house of hope. There was alcohol and evidence that food was actually being consumed, but it fell far short of anything you could make a meal from. Francie looked in the pantry. She found spaghetti, dried chillies and jars of pasta sauce.

  ‘Um . . . I think if you can get me a packet of bacon, a lettuce, a bread stick and some butter, I should be able to whip up something worth eating.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Dave, flipping open the cover on his dinky mobile phone and dialling.

  ‘Robbie? Bring home some bacon, would you? No,’ he laughed, rolling his eyes. ‘Actual bacon. And butter and a bread stick and some salad stuff. Yep. The new chick’s gonna cook!’

  It was 10 pm by the time supper had been served and eaten. Dave and Jessie were pouring another glass of wine and Robbie was purring with contentment.

  ‘Well . . . that was brilliant, Francie,’ said Robbie, pushing away his plate. ‘What did you call that again?’

  ‘Spaghetti Matriciana. I mean, it’s so simple anyone could—’ Francie began.

  ‘Forget it. There’s this myth that all poofters can cook. Cliché. Like the cliché that all women have hormonal cleaning frenzies. We’ve been waiting three years for Jessie to have one of those. No such luck. She tends to shag complete strangers when she gets depressed.’

  Jessie raised her eyebrows. ‘Celibacy is getting to you, Robbie,’ she drawled. ‘Testosterone is eating away at your brain like mad cow disease.’

  ‘You’re celibate, Robbie?’ asked Francie. ‘I mean, I shouldn’t be so personal . . . sorry . . .’

  Because, looking at him, it seemed utterly improbable. Robbie was sitting back with his toned, muscled arms folded across an equally toned, muscled chest. He looked to be straight out of gay boot camp. Newly crew-cut, newly blonde hair topped a square-jawed, almost architectural face. His eyes were brilliant aquamarine studs, and Francie could see he was labelled from top to toe. Jean Paul Gaultier soccer shirt, Calvin Klein undies, Dolce & Gabbana jeans and Louis Vuitton slides. You could see his footwear because it happened to be propped up on the table. He was sporting ten perfectly square-cut toenails to match his head. If he was indeed celibate, Robbie had put in a lot of effort into making himself look attractive regardless.

  ‘Don’t be sorry! Yup, celibate. On purpose—unlike some!’ Robbie grinned at Jessie, who poked her tongue out at him. He jumped up from the table for another vanilla vodka on the rocks from the fridge. Francie watched with fascination as his muscled forearm expertly wrestled a bottle from the freezer.

  ‘I just can’t handle the whole “gay” scene. I can’t stand the intellectual posing, the drama queens, the whole Barbra Streisand Fan Club crap. It’s just a licence to be intolerable, as far as I can see. About as relevant a stereotype as a bottle-blonde suburban hairdresser with plastic fingernails. Two years ago I got to the point where I just couldn’t see the sense in pretending anymore. I knew what I wanted—a stable, long-term relationship. And I just thought that no amount of rough trade or casual sex with drama queens was going to make my life any better. So until I can find a “non-gay” gay man, I put my energy into my work. I have friends, I have pornography, and when it’s right I’ll know, and then I’ll buy hostess soaps. Up until that time, I have better places to invest my emotional energy.’

  Francie was surprised at this speech. She’d never c
onsidered the difficulties of a ‘non-gay’ gay man living in a gay, gay world. She was surprised because she hadn’t exactly led a sheltered life. She was, after all, a journalist, she read newspapers, magazines, watched television. But then, she had moved out of her mother’s home to set up house with Nick when she was twenty-six. Had five years of domestic bliss in Richmond put her completely out of the loop?

  What were the chances, she wondered, of moving into a household with three single people ‘having a ball’ (according to Gabby Di Martino) and finding out two of them were celibate (whether by design or accident)? If Dave said he wasn’t getting any action either, Francie thought she should probably ring the removal van tomorrow to take her away. She hoped the ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER sign above the front door was actually a joke, not the hideous curse Jessie had pronounced it to be.

  Francie looked at Dave. He looked at the fat black watch on his arm.

  ‘Well, what are we doing tonight? I suggest we frock up and get down to Honky Tonks in the city. Fluff Bat Central. I’m on a promise.’

  Francie had been to Honky Tonks before, but Fluff Bat? What the hell was a Fluff Bat?

  Seeing the look of incomprehension on Francie’s face, Jessie explained: ‘It’s Dave’s endearing term for the gorgeous little fluffy bits of nothing he’s entertaining until Miss Right comes along. They tend to distinguish themselves by being young, blonde and . . . well . . . fluffy. I think he calls them “bats” cos you never seem them in daylight.’

  ‘And,’ added Robbie, ‘because they have the intellect of slabs of pink ceiling insulation.’

  ‘Whoa!’ called Dave. ‘Whoa, people! You’re talking here about the women I love.’

  ‘Women, plural?’ teased Jessie.

  ‘Look,’ Dave said good-naturedly, ‘the situation is this. We are all single, all in our early thirties, right? And we are all sitting here tonight, with each other, wondering where the fuck our twenties went. Obviously we’re not millionaire wunderkinds, otherwise we wouldn’t be sharing a house. And although we probably didn’t think we’d be married with a couple of kids at our age, didn’t we think that, at the very least, we’d have a relationship?

  ‘Well the reality is that we don’t, and there could be a good decade in it before we do. So, until The One gallops over the horizon—or, in fact, doesn’t—we can tackle this in a number of ways.

  ‘Celibacy is Robbie’s option. Lurching between one crippling love affair and the next is Jessie’s. Mine is to keep myself busy with mindless entertainment . . . and Francie?’

  Three faces now turned to look at her.

  ‘Um, oh . . .’ Francie had been so engrossed in what Dave was saying she was caught out. ‘Er . . . it all sounds good . . . celibacy, one-night stands, entertainment . . . all of it. But if I’m honest, I suppose I hope Nick and I will get back together.’

  There was silence. Dave coughed and got up to fetch another bottle of wine. Jessie decided to clear the plates from the table. Robbie drained his glass.

  ‘For your sake, sweetie,’ Robbie drawled, ‘I’d start thinking about Plan B.’

  Five

  It was about midnight, after Jessie, Dave and Robbie had left for destinations unknown, when Francie finally sat on the bed and surveyed her new room. It certainly looked like a Nick-free zone.

  She had given her room a French bordello (think Moulin Rouge) theme, inspired by the long red velvet curtains already in place. They were why everyone in the house called it the Red Room. Francie had bought herself a red embroidered satin eiderdown and pillow covers to match from a Chinese emporium.

  From the jumble of second-hand treasures she had assembled in the house in Richmond she had rescued an antique vanity set with a golden scrolled mirror, tiny glass-topped table and spindly chair. The vanity was so utterly feminine—it looked as if it belonged in a fairytale boudoir—that Nick had immediately banished it to the spare room. But here, it was perfect.

  The old brown sofa from their living room had been disguised with a loose white cotton cover tied with extravagant bows. And on the floor in front of that Francie had placed the prized cream and pink rug. She had also taken possession of the bed, a chest of drawers, a pair of bedside tables, the stereo and the television. The rest of the furniture was Nick’s to do with as he liked.

  On the wall directly in front of the bed, where Francie could gaze at it, was her newest triumphant find from an antique shop just up the road. A huge old print in an elaborate gold plaster frame. A beautiful curly haired rococo beauty swathed in a flimsy nightdress was asleep in a carved wooden bed swagged with billows of silk. In through the window tumbled a dozen winged cupids with garlands of rosebuds on their heads. One cupid hovered in the air at the foot of the bed, about to fire a tiny arrow into the dreaming girl’s plump bottom. It was titled Reverie and as soon as Francie had seen it she knew she had to have it. At five hundred dollars it was way more than she could afford, but she’d beaten the dealer down to four hundred and carted it away. And here it was on the wall. Hopelessly romantic. A symbol of girlish longing.

  The trio of housemates had earlier traipsed into Francie’s room for a viewing of the new boudoir. Their verdict was that a princess out of a fractured fairytale was now living amongst them.

  ‘You know this room is terrifying for a man,’ said Dave. ‘It absolutely screams LOVE ME!’

  ‘Or’, said Robbie, ‘leave fifty dollars on the bedside table before you take a towel and adjourn to the jacuzzi in the Elvis Room.’

  The boys had both laughed. Francie ducked her head with embarrassment.

  ‘Tell ’em to fuck off, Francie.’ Jessie had come to her rescue. ‘I think it’s gorgeous! Very feminine. And now that you don’t have to accommodate the tastes of a male, you can have it any way you want . . . Although this print is a bit of a worry. You know what’s hilarious? I’ve got a print with cupids on it too. Come and have a look at mine.’

  Francie and Jessie repaired to the front room for a look. It was a small print propped on the table next to Jessie’s bed. The bed was covered in brown fake fur, as though a grizzly bear had expired there. The etching was in a silver frame. A host of cupids was massed in an avenging horde like orcs in The Lord of the Rings. They were firing arrows into a blood-red battlefield strewn with skeletons. In one corner a glossy black crow sat on a human skull.

  ‘This is a bit bleak, isn’t it?’ Francie commented.

  ‘Bleak—or realistic?’ Jessie mused. ‘I mean, how much human wreckage has been created in the name of love? It’s a battlefield out there, baby.’

  If it was a battlefield out there, Francie was now sitting here in the dark in Allied HQ a long way behind the front line. The Nick and Poppy Axis of Evil was stalled at the natural barrier of the Yarra River.

  Francie hoped the defences at the Punt Road Bridge would hold. At the moment she felt she could walk freely anywhere south of the bridge while Nick and Poppy had colonised the north. She couldn’t venture anywhere over the other side of the river without the horrifying possibility of running into them: at the Victoria Market buying strawberry jam; at a streetside café in Fitzroy sharing sweet pastries; at a bar in the city, gazing at each other over chilled martini glasses.

  But now that she had moved into this house, Francie felt she had the support of coalition forces. She had an idea—she knew it was bizarre—that Nick had been taken hostage by some crack terrorist unit. That somehow he’d been spirited away from right under her nose and brainwashed into thinking he didn’t love her anymore. How had that happened?

  She sat and thought about this until her head hurt. But she couldn’t stop herself from going through it again. It was as if she was sitting in a darkened theatre watching the same film over and over. The real world only appeared as a blinding, brief image through a crack in a doorway as someone occasionally got up and walked outside—or came inside and sat next to her.

  When she looked at the screen she could see now that Nick had begun acting strangely pretty
much from the first day he had come home from rehearsals and, presumably, met her. She could see how it had been between them. There must have been nights when Poppy had volunteered to drive Nick home and he had accepted, believing that the evening would end with a cheery ‘goodnight’ and a kiss on the cheek. Maybe it had once or twice. The car had pulled up outside their house and Nick had jumped purposefully out the door as if he was sitting on hot bricks.

  But then, there would have been a night when he lingered. Poppy would have turned in the half-shadows and fixed her big dark blue eyes on him. His fingers would have reached out and searched for her pale neck through curling ribbons of hair. And as she leaned closer he would have looked into the black valley between her breasts.

  A heartbeat away, in the bed under the front window, Francie would have been dreaming. Instead of half waking to check the clock—1.30 am—what if she had pulled on her dressing gown and walked into the street to look for him? What if she had noted the little silver car just beyond the streetlight?

  Walking closer she would have realised it was a tangle of limbs she could see through the windows. A fog of lust making the glass run with rivulets of moisture. She would have crept nearer and spied them clawing at each other’s clothes, breathing hard, groaning with frustration as they stopped themselves at a button or a zip.

  If she had crouched down low and pressed her ear to the door, would she have heard as they willed each other’s hearts to calm? Heard them whisper urgently about how they might get rid of her? Terrorists hatching a plan to plant a bomb that would rip Francie apart?

  And then maybe she would have seen Poppy steal one last kiss from Nick. A kiss which belonged to Francie and had been cunningly thieved. Looking back at him standing under the streetlight, did Poppy smile with secret triumph as she drove away?

  But Francie never did wake and walk into the street. Instead she slumbered on their bed under the window in a deep and trustful sleep. It was only when Nick crawled in beside her that she woke and noted the time: 2 am. He was guilty then, but still hard with desire for Poppy. Was Francie’s body just an abstract of the female form to him that night? Skin, nipples, hair, holes? Like a blow-up sex doll?