Deeper than the Sea

by Nelika McDonald

  Theo hadn’t told Greta about the miscarriages. She wasn’t sure how to tell her, how to explain how much she grieved for something that she had not yet had, in the fullest sense. She worried that Greta, practical no-nonsense Greta, would tell her that it was silly to mourn a possibility. It was just an ethereal promise of a thing; her wisp of a baby, swept up in the breeze. What could Theo say to that, to a woman who fell pregnant as easily as she fell asleep?

  She had told Greta about Oliver and Alice. Greta had asked gently (but it stung, oh how it stung) how it was that Oliver could conduct an affair without Theo noticing, feeling in her bones that something was wrong? Greta was the first person to call it an affair, even though Theo and Oliver weren’t married. Theo was relieved by the legitimacy that lent her feelings. An affair was something that was generally agreed to be awful, and to feel awful for the wronged party. It wasn’t just her and she wasn’t overreacting.

  ‘If Bill had an affair I would have to organise it for him,’ Greta said. ‘Didn’t you notice that things were different with Oliver? That he was coming home at odd times, not seeing much of you, things like that?’

  ‘Those things are normal,’ Theo said. She twisted the phone cord around her finger, pulling it so tight that it cut off the circulation.

  ‘And you let him get away with that?’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re right, Theo. I really don’t. Have you thought about leaving him?’

  ‘Why? I love him.’ I’m in love with him, Theo thought. Nobody wants to leave the things they love. On the contrary, sometimes she had to work very hard to stop herself from reaching out for him when he passed her, grabbing him around his wrist or his ankle and not letting go. If Greta couldn’t understand that, then maybe Greta was the one who had never really been in love.

  When Theo thought about Oliver with another woman in bed, actually made herself think about it, what they did to each other, where his hands went, how his face looked, it hurt, an awful lot. She thought of Alice, her crown of blonde braid, her high breasts and pert bottom and golden, glowing youthfulness and serenity, and wanted never to undress again, never see her own naked body and be faced with exactly how it failed to compare.

  But then, sex was just sex; wasn’t it just another type of hunger? Another appetite to be sated? Did it really matter where that occurred? The part that really wrenched was that Oliver had conducted this affair at the same time as he had conducted his ordinary life with Theo, and lied to her so comfortably, day after day, and Theo had not known.

  Why would he do that to her?

  This should have been a wonderful time for them, she kept thinking. They were still young and healthy. Options unfurled in every direction before them, like red carpets. If only they were interested in the same ones. Alas, Theo only had to think of how she felt about having children to know how Oliver felt about growing his business and expanding the Oliver Watts realm.

  After the Christmas party, Theo felt Oliver carve off a portion of himself and lock it away from her. He wasn’t rude to her, he wasn’t mean to her, but he didn’t beg forgiveness, either. The more Theo thought about it, the more she wondered what part she’d had in his affair with Alice. Had she effectively suggested that Oliver go elsewhere by being so distant, keeping so much to herself? She had been as absent as he had, in a way. Focused in on herself, her empty womb, she had been unavailable to him, in mind and body.

  Oliver required a lot of attention, Theo had always known that. Everybody knew that about him. Like a small boy tugging at his mother’s skirts while she chatted, he didn’t respond well to being anything other than front and centre. He was wounded by it and he sulked, though he would have denied he was doing any such thing. So, what if this affair with Alice was just an extension of his sulking? What if it was Theo who could make things right between them once more, just by paying him the attention he needed? If they were to have any sort of future together she needed his fidelity, but maybe Theo also needed to make reparations.

  So she tried. She took more of an interest in what Oliver was doing. She rang him more often, met him for lunch, even bought herself a fancy dress and accompanied him to an industry awards night. She hated every second of it and felt exposed in the dress, but she went, that was the point. She bought him things: cufflinks, ties, beautiful cookbooks and copper-bottomed pans, Le Creuset dishes, aftershave and an antique Victorian dinner gong to hang in the restaurant. She tried to see if she could take up some of her old back of house responsibilities again, but there were accountants and cleaning teams and floor managers to do all of that, now. They politely but firmly rebuffed her.

  Oliver did the same.

  It was possible, Theo thought to herself, that her efforts were just too little, too late. One afternoon, Oliver returned from an appointment, wearing a suit and carrying a zipped leather briefcase that Theo had never seen before. He removed his shoes and socks and sat down on the couch, leaning back into the cushions and closing his eyes. Theo perched on the edge of the couch opposite him. She sat straighter around him now, sucked in her stomach and lifted her chin.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked. Oliver had not yet spoken a word.

  ‘A scotch, please,’ he said.

  Theo hesitated, wondering if one pm was too early for hard liquor. In her parents’ home it was, but they still insisted on dressing for dinner and her grandfather used to stand up for the Queen’s address on television. She went and poured Oliver a drink. When she set it down in front of him, he opened his eyes and reached for it. Theo couldn’t stop looking at his ankles: the knobbly, avian foreignness of them sticking out from his trousers. Tiny lines were indented where his socks had been pulled up. She would have liked to go and run her thumbs over the skin there, smooth away those lines, but she didn’t feel like she could. He wasn’t hers to touch like that, at the moment. She’d been aware of that in a peripheral way for a while. Even if she could have reached out for him, he was never close enough any more. They had both been closing the bathroom door when they showered, too. A back turned here, a door closed there – that was how intimacy died, she realised suddenly. Not with a bang, but with a series of whimpers.

  ‘Have you had a meeting?’ She was annoyed at how falsely cheery her own voice sounded.

  ‘I have, yes. With the bank,’ Oliver said.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Not well.’

  Theo nodded and waited. Oliver took a long drink from his glass and the Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

  ‘Ethan and I have been discussing the idea of a Sydney restaurant,’ he said, watching her as he weighed out his words. ‘It’s the ideal next step, and we’re ready for it. But the bank has declined to loan the amount that I would need to open it.’

  ‘Why?’ Theo asked.

  ‘They said it was too much.’

  Don’t ask the figure, Theo schooled herself. He doesn’t want to tell you.

  ‘So, couldn’t you borrow less?’ she asked.

  ‘If I borrowed less then I couldn’t open the sort of restaurant I want to. It has to be better than what we have here. I don’t want to replicate Oliver Watts Melbourne, I want to further the idea, develop the concept. It has to progress, otherwise there’s no point. And frankly, if I can’t do it properly, then I’d rather not do it at all.’

  ‘Really?’ It was a genuine question. Why did everything have to be all or nothing? He looked at her like she was being dim. When had he ever settled for anything less than precisely what he wanted? The conversation ended there.

  For days after, Oliver pontificated to anyone who would listen that it was his commitment to quality that should have assured the bank that he would be a safe bet for a loan. It was because Oliver Watts was such a high-quality establishment that profits were guaranteed. In Oliver’s eyes, it was all quite simple: he cooked beautiful food so that beautiful people would pay a lot of money for it. He didn’t worry about how those things connected. If you build
it, they will come. The bankers probably thought the new steakhouse on the river with the ‘no thongs’ rule was fine dining, Oliver said.

  He was not used to being thwarted so summarily and it was shocking how much it depleted him. In those weeks, if Theo woke in the night, more often than not, she would see the shine of his eyes in the darkness, lying awake. When she asked if he was okay, he pretended to be asleep. He walked like his shoes were made of iron. If Theo tried to talk to him about the Sydney restaurant or suggest alternatives, he looked at her as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘Is something else the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, and turned away.

  There was a heaviness to him, like he was bruised. Theo heard him on the phone to his father, asking him for money, she supposed.

  ‘Your support warms my fucking heart,’ Oliver shouted so loudly she thought the windows would shatter. He had a lot of conversations with Ethan on the balcony, the door shut. Once, when Oliver came back in, Theo thought he might have been recently crying. She wasn’t sure what to do, or how to help him. There was only one idea that kept floating to the front of her mind.

  The last bank statements she had seen from their joint account showed that the money Theo’s parents had lent them to begin the restaurant had been repaid in full. Almost a full year ahead of schedule, she noted with surprise. Oliver must have been making extra payments from the restaurant account. In any case, it was done with. So, why not ask her parents for another loan, on Oliver’s behalf?

  It was a lot to ask, but Oliver had demonstrated that he could be trusted to repay what he borrowed. Besides, Theo never asked for anything from her parents. Surely they could do this one thing for her. Her parents liked it when people were ambitious, so she would frame this as them investing in his talent, Theo decided. They would like that, being benefactors; this wasn’t about business, but about brilliance, and they enjoyed brilliance. Theo rang her father while Oliver was in the shower. She needn’t have bothered thinking about it, really. He agreed to lend the money almost before she’d finished asking. It was almost as though he was relieved to be asked for something so straightforward. He made it clear that patronage wasn’t necessary.

  ‘Theodora, I’m lending you the money because you have asked me for it,’ he said. ‘I have no reason to refuse you. I don’t really mind what you do with it.’

  I wish you did mind, Theo thought. Minding means caring. But I will take your money in lieu of that.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Mmm. Shall I put Mum on?’

  ‘I must dash.’ Theo pulled the receiver away from her mouth to speak, so her voice would sound like it was fading.

  ‘Another time, then.’

  ‘What? Bye, Dad.’

  When Oliver got out of the shower, Theo sang out to him from the kitchen, where she’d gone to fetch champagne. ‘Guess what I just did?’

  She returned to the bedroom with a bottle of Moët and two flutes, smiling from ear to ear.

  ‘Hmm?’ Oliver towelled his hair in front the wardrobe.

  ‘I just rang my father and asked him to loan us the money for the Sydney restaurant and he said yes!’

  Oliver’s back and shoulders stiffened. He turned around to face her.

  ‘Theo, no! We can’t.’

  ‘We can. I already did! What’s wrong?’

  He didn’t look happy. Theo had thought he might come to her, kiss her, at least put his arms around her, but he stayed where he was, wringing the towel in his hands. His face kept changing. It seemed to take him an age to speak. When he did, he sounded upset, and terse.

  ‘That was a really nice thought, Theo, and I certainly never expected you to do it. I just . . . I really don’t like being in debt to your parents. I tried to get rid of the last debt as fast as I could.’

  Theo got defensive. ‘Well, I’m sorry they’ve been so generous. It must be awful for you.’

  ‘It isn’t awful, it’s just . . .’

  Theo crossed her arms over her chest. ‘What, then? What?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’

  Theo stared at him for a few more beats, then walked out. She went to her studio, and stood there, holding a lump of clay. Nothing came to her. The clay stayed inert under her fingers, waiting. Theo abandoned it and went for a swim. In the water, she bashed through the waves ungracefully.

  Oh, Oliver, she thought. Why don’t you want anything I can give you, any more?

  Theo knew that borrowing the money from her parents was a good idea. Oliver just needed time to let his pride get out of the way, then he would feel the same, she was certain of it. Theo knew him and loved him better than anyone, he’d forgotten that. She would go and see him after her swim, she decided, and remind him. She would help set up for service and then she would have dinner in the kitchen, get Oliver to serve her his test dishes, so she could tell him what she thought. The sommelier could go swill some wine or something. Theo would praise Oliver when it was good and say so when it was not, because he deserved her honesty, and valued it, that’s what he always said. That’s how they operated, the two of them; their team.

  When Theo got to the restaurant, Oliver wasn’t there. He was at a meeting, the new sous chef said. He didn’t seem to know who Theo was.

  ‘I’ll go and start setting up while I wait for him,’ Theo said, and he just shrugged.

  Theo would ask to be involved in recruitment for the Sydney restaurant, she thought. She wouldn’t let it all get so far out of her reach, next time.

  Theo was hunting for more napkins behind the bar when she heard movement from around the corner, on the restaurant floor. She came out from behind the bar and saw Alice putting cutlery onto the tables, already in her apron, her hair in its usual coronet.

  Alice moved around the table and Theo actually took a step backwards. She drew in her breath so quickly she thought she might choke. She thought of ripe fruit, seedpods and nuts curled in their shells. She couldn’t move, or look away, or do anything other than stare. Alice was beautifully, roundly, unmistakeably pregnant.

  chapter thirty

  Beth slept through the day. She was becoming nocturnal, she thought when she woke, her circadian rhythms resetting. It seemed right that what she was going through would alter her very chemistry. Beth almost felt proud of it, like her body was jumping on board with this strange life she had taken up lately, all for it. She couldn’t shake the guilty feeling she always got when she slept in the daytime, though. Other people were out in the world being productive; and here lay Beth, under the blankets at four pm.

  After she showered, Beth stared at herself in the mirror. She bared her teeth at her reflection. She pulled on the white lace of the bathroom curtain and draped it over her head, imagining she had Alice’s blonde tresses.

  ‘It’s all dragging on so long,’ she said to her reflection, and pouted.

  The girl in the mirror frowned. That made her look younger still, and sulky. How could that be possible, when Beth felt so old? She thought of Sabre and Mia and Caitlin, their eyes smudged with black, their careless laughter and messy hair, brown legs and white dresses. Beth discarded the jeans and singlet she had grabbed. On a hook on the back of the bathroom door, she found a nightgown of Mary’s and pulled it on over her head. It was thin and pale blue, with straps made of ribbons that tied on the shoulders. There were probably shorts that were supposed to go underneath, but Beth wouldn’t be needing them. For now, she buttoned a cardigan over the top.

  She was going to the bonfire night. Let them try to stop her. The only place Beth felt comfortable was at the caravan park. The people at the caravan park didn’t ask questions. They were just like her, Beth could tell. They were people who knew things they didn’t want to know, had seen things they never wanted to see. People who had been let down by those they loved. People who were just doing what they could to live with the mess of it all on good days, and doing whatever it took to forget on the bad ones.


  On her way back from the toilet block the night before, Beth had seen through the open door of a caravan, into the yellow rectangle of light. A woman was sitting on a chair inside, a needle in her arm, the end of a belt between her teeth.

  She’d heard a children’s television show coming from the caravan. A few other people passed by Beth and she’d watched to see what they would do when they saw the woman. They had done just as she had, glancing in and then continuing, not even breaking their conversation. Beth wondered about the child, or children, in there. She wondered if they were looking at the television, or at the woman as her shoulders softened and the end of the belt fell from her drooping mouth.

  Beth thought of the warmth of alcohol in her, the soft fog that covered everything when she had drunk enough. She wanted that feeling back. When that feeling was present, none of the bad ones were, it was as simple as that. All the hurt and anger and sadness and tiredness and confusion that she swam through right now – all of it dissipated.

  That afternoon, she waited until Tom and Mary were down the other end of the house with the kids, and slipped out the back door. Easy as pie. They probably thought she would wait until after dinner. Too bad. Besides, she had told them that she was going. By the time Beth got to the caravan park the sun was beginning to inch down over the headland, like an old woman lowering herself into a chair. Beth headed straight to the caravans with the tidy garden beds.

  ‘Sabre?’ she called, knocking on the wall of the caravan.

  Nobody answered.

  Beth caught a flash of movement at a window across the road. She turned, it was only a magpie pecking at the ground around a wheelie bin, watched over by two other birds perched on the powerlines slung between the caravans.