Authors: Lucy Springer Gets Even (mobi)
T
he rain is so heavy that everything has become damp and mildewy. Black mould is attempting a hostile takeover of the entire house and Bella is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Before school, the kids pester me about Max (where is he?) and raincoats (they don’t have any). Why is it that as soon as it rains you can never find an umbrella or a raincoat?
On the drive to school, Sam says, ‘Seriously, Mum, when’s Dad coming home?’
‘Any day now,’ I lie.
I know I should prepare them, warn them their father might have decided to start a new life without us. But now’s not the time. Not when it’s 8.40 am, we’re at the kiss-and-drop zone and the principal’s eyeballing me to make sure I don’t overstay my allotted two minutes. The children, each wearing a daggy old parka, jump out of the car and run for cover in the school grounds.
Stopping at the local coffee shop, I see Trish and wave to her. She ignores me. She’s one moody piece of work lately - or maybe I’ve just become horribly paranoid. Trish leads the weekly prayer meeting at the local church and she’s always inviting me along to pray for our souls, our school and other worthy community causes. But I can never quite make it. For a start, I blaspheme too much to go to church. And part of me (a big part; huge, actually) doesn’t want to be swept along by some perverse cult. Okay, okay, so she belongs to a mainstream religion, but still, sometimes the words ‘religious freak’ pop into my head when I see her. Anyway, last time I declined her invitation she got quite shirty. But that was a couple of months ago. And Christians aren’t supposed to hold grudges, are they?
Armed with my large takeaway soy cappuccino, I sit in my bedroom and re-read Max’s postcard for the umpteenth time. What am I hoping for? An extra couple of sentences I missed the first time? Something like:
Having a tiny mid-life crisis but I love you so much and promise to be a happier, more attentive and loving husband when I get back, which will be very, very soon. I love you more than life itself, Lucy, so please don’t worry. Max xx
Instead, I get zip.
It’s one thing for him to walk out on me, but to leave Bella and Sam as well? It’s incomprehensible. What would make him do such a thing? It makes me so angry I could cut his clothes up into tiny pieces and scatter them in the pool.
Now, there’s an idea. But what would be the point? I’d just have to fish them out again once my anger subsided because no other bastard would do it for me.
One of the mothers from school threw her husband’s laptop into their pool when he left her. That little incident kept the mothers from 5L gossiping for a good three weeks. But Max seems to have taken his laptop with him.
A tidal wave of sadness engulfs me. Have I really been such a terrible wife and mother? Then I get angry again and want to hit him, hard; maybe throw
him
in the sludgy pool. Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold?
I’m shoving piles of Max’s clothes into garbage bags when the phone rings. It’s Gloria.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to try out for
Celebrity Circus
, Luce? The wheel of death is really connecting with the twenty- to thirty-nine-year-olds out there.’
‘Give up, Gloria.’
‘
Australian Fear Factor
?’
‘There is no way on this earth I’m letting some crazy guy talk me into eating rotten bull’s balls or any other dead animal’s genitalia.’
‘You’re making it hard for yourself, Lucy. You should at least try these things - I, myself, wouldn’t be averse to a bit of ball action of any description right now. Besides, reality TV is not going to disappear, so the sooner you get used to the fact your future involves playing poker, eating witchetty grubs or parading half-nude in a fishbowl, the sooner you’ll get real television work again.’
‘Don’t you think it’s slightly odd that families gather round their television on Sunday nights to watch C-grade celebrities cram as many maggot-infested dead scorpions into their mouths as possible?’
‘Give the audience what they want, that’s my motto,’ says Gloria, then takes a deep breath. ‘Look, you know I’ll keep putting you forward for commercials, Luce, but you have to make an effort.’
‘Speaking of which, have you heard anything about the dog commercial?’
Gloria hesitates. ‘Not yet.’
‘That’s not a good sign, is it?’
‘I’m sure you’ll get it.’
‘You’re such a bad liar.’
‘I’m not. It’s just that a lot of people auditioned. You know how it is. There’s a tinnitus ad coming up. I’ll see what buttons I need to push to get you an audition.’
‘Great! I’ll make sure I keep an ear out for your call. Can’t wait.’
‘Now, now, there are other people in the world -’ she starts, but I hang up on her.
Instead of continuing to pack up Max’s clothes, I check my email messages. There are none from Max, surprise, surprise, but there are two more from Dom. I don’t know how I feel about that, except that I remember I forgot to tell Gloria off for putting him in contact with me.
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Hey Lucy, okay, perhaps I was being too subtle with Hey Lucy, okay, perhaps I was being too subtle with my first email. Did you not get the hint that I want you to email me, or, better yet, pick up the phone?Gloria’s filled me in on what’s been going on and it sounds like you could do with the company of an old friend who knew you before
The Young Residents
and hasn’t seen you espousing the virtues of broccoli.
I think that someone could be me. Come on, girl, call me. Dom xx
To:
[email protected]
From:
[email protected]
Lucy, remember the end-of-year Christmas bash Lucy, remember the end-of-year Christmas bash where I knocked my head and you took me to hospital? Thought you might like to know I’ve still got a scar on my chin. Every time I shave, I think of you and smile. Well, not
every
time, but most
. . .
Call me. Dom xx
I don’t delete the emails but I don’t reply either.
Late that night, I toss and turn in bed, wondering, remembering and cursing. Dom probably has a wife and children of his own, and it makes me kind of sad that I missed out on all of that. Not that I wanted to be the mother of his children - I was never given the opportunity. Besides, I have my own. I’m just sad that more than a decade has sailed by and I don’t know him anymore.
P
atch arrives at 7.15 am. He’s wearing scruffy Levi’s, a faded red Chairman Mao T-shirt and brown Blundstones. It’s not his usual workday attire.
‘With all the damage the torrential rain has caused, we’re not going to be able to work here for a couple of days until
after
the rain stops,’ he says, looking at me expectantly. ‘It’s because your ground is made of clay and clay retains water.’
‘But we’ve got no kitchen,’ I say, bursting into tears.
Patch awkwardly puts his arms around me. He smells fresh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and makes a hasty exit. It’s 7.18 am.
So now I’m mopping up the floors (again!) while my teeth whiten. Yes, I’m wearing whitening strips on my choppers - feels like chewing gum, looks much worse. Why? Because I’m insecure and have succumbed to the advice of Petrea, aka Ms September, the bronzed woman at the Actors’ Studio the other night who flashed her gleaming white teeth at me at every opportunity. ‘White teeth give you a competitive edge every time, Lucy.’ She looked like George Hamilton with boobs the way she was carrying on.
I have a feeling these strips aren’t exactly what Petrea uses to achieve that enviable look, but I can’t exactly embark on cosmetic dental surgery when I haven’t even trialled my three-thousand-dollar toilet.
‘Mum,’ Sam says, walking into the room, ‘Fred told everyone at school I have nits because I scratch my head a lot.’
‘Tho thtop sthcratching your head.’
Sam stands in front of me furiously scratching at his scalp. ‘I can’t. What’s on your teeth?’
I cover my mouth with my hand. ‘Thothing.’
I quickly examine his head. Relief. No lice.
‘Whoth Fred anyway?’
‘A new kid. He can drink chocolate milk through a straw up his nose.’
Tonight I’m having dinner with a group of school mums. Though I hesitated before accepting the invitation, not fancying having to tell people Max has left me, I decided to go because I really need to put in some effort with the mums. Morning conversations at the school gate aren’t much chop, Saturday soccer has deteriorated into a sombre occasion, and I really didn’t make a good impression at Sam’s concert.
As I still can’t reach Alana, I reluctantly agree to let Mum have Bella and Sam sleep at her house, which is probably a good thing. When Sam’s not furiously scratching at himself, he’s blaming me because soccer’s been cancelled due to rain.
‘It’s not my fault,’ I tell him. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I’m not God.’
Meanwhile, Bella’s becoming more agitated because her dad’s not here and hasn’t called.
I try distracting them by taking them shopping, but even new Nintendo games don’t keep them quiet for long. So yes, the break at Mum’s will do us all good.
‘Thanks for picking me up,’ I say to Nadia on the way to dinner.
‘Under the circumstances, Luce . . . I mean, with Max away and everything . . .’
We sit down at the reserved table for eight at the local Thai restaurant.
Emma is the next to arrive. She bounces up and gives me a big hug and kisses me on the cheek. ‘How you doing?’ she asks, her South African intonation unmistakable. Emma’s complexion is flawless. She’d have to be in her mid-thirties, but you’d never know it. I can’t find one wrinkle on her unblemished face and, believe me, I’ve searched.
‘Not bad,’ I say, now truly alarmed that the kids have been telling stories at school about me.
Within half an hour, seven women are drinking riesling and chatting about rostered sex lives. It’s a bit of a change from the actors’ party the other night, with people doing lines of coke at the bar and popping ecstasy tabs like they were peppermints. I notice there are more fat people here than at that party (or maybe there’s just a higher proportion of weighty people at this particular restaurant). There’s also a lot of conservative navy-blue skirts and sensible flat shoes. Black, of course.
‘I’ve told him it’s two nights off, one night on,’ says Lizzie, a buxom brunette whose clothing choices do little to minimise her enormous cantaloupes.
‘You actually schedule sex?’ Nadia asks.
‘Yep, that way he leaves me alone to read my book in bed two nights out of three. It’s great.’
Nadia’s intrigued. ‘What about when you want to have sex? Can you ask for it?’
‘Please! Enough is enough,’ says Lizzie, her bosom heaving. ‘He’s satisfied, to a point, and I’m willing to go along with it because I get peace and quiet.’
‘I read somewhere you should make yourself available for sex with your husband whether you’re in the mood or not,’ says Emma.
Lizzie snorts. Several women gasp. I wonder whether that was my mistake with Max.
‘You don’t actually believe that, do you, Emma?’ asks Lizzie.
‘I know it sounds -’
‘Archaic?’ Lizzie says helpfully.
‘Maybe, but apparently we should adjust to the way our husbands perform and simply trust them -’ Emma continues.
‘Like our mothers did?’ Nadia says.
‘Men these days feel powerless, emasculated -’
‘Please,’ says Lizzie.
‘She has a point,’ says Dee. ‘It’s a gender-confused world.
Men are wimps; women have become she-men. You know, there’s a huge movement of women who want a return to family values.’
‘I know,’ agrees Lizzie, twirling her wineglass. ‘It’s all about keeping the family together.’
‘Protecting the children,’ adds Emma.
‘Save me,’ Nadia whispers to me, as she reaches across my chest for the nearly empty wine bottle.
‘Is she serious?’ I ask.
‘Absolutely. It’s all part of the Subservient Wives Clubs that are springing up.’
Clearly, I’m not in the club. I glance at my watch. It’s only 8.40 pm. Everyone takes a sip from their wineglass, contemplating their own suburban lives. No one asks me about Max, and I daren’t ask after anyone else’s husband because it might mean they’ll mention mine. Gazing around the table, I notice there isn’t enough wine, especially if we’re to continue discussing our sex lives, or lack thereof.
‘Who’s for more wine?’ asks Emma.
Relieved I’m not the only one who wants more, I volunteer to walk to the bottle shop with Emma. Once there, we agree to buy four bottles, then settle on six.
‘Everything okay?’ Emma asks during our walk back to the restaurant. ‘If there’s anything you need . . .’
Armed with a full glass of pinot gris, I relax and try to forget about she-men, Max, the house and my flailing career.
But, of course, I think about Max.
The last time we had dinner with school parents was at a trivia fundraiser four months ago. Max thought he was so clever, jumping up and shouting out the answers before our team could discuss the question and agree on an answer. To pay him his due, he did get them all right, up until the last one concerning an eighties band. An aficionado of seventies’ and eighties’ music, I knew the answer immediately and put it to the table. Max disagreed, shouting out, ‘Wham!’ Victory was snatched from our grasp when another table won with the right answer: A Flock of Seagulls.
‘So tell me,’ says Wendy, who’s sitting at the far end of the table and has barely said a word all night. (Mind you, I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself either if I lived in leggings that emphasised my eleventh toe.) ‘Is Mr Cutts really an alcoholic?’ Bryan Cutts teaches Year Four maths.
‘Absolutely,’ says Lizzie. ‘My kids say he smells of beer in the morning and drinks from a silver flask during the day. He hides it in his middle right-hand desk drawer.’
‘No,’ says Emma.
‘True,’ says Lizzie, making a cross over her heart with her right index finger. ‘Children don’t make up stories like that.’
‘Seems like a nice guy,’ I chip in.
‘Yeah, nice but a drinker,’ Dee says.
I drain my glass and zone out, wondering if, in a couple of years when the kids go to new schools, this group of women will remain in contact. Unlikely, when there’s nothing much to talk about besides Mr Cutts’ drinking habits and whether Miss Wise (Year One) really is a member of the Children of God sect. (I don’t believe she is.)
‘His wife left him, didn’t she?’ says Camel-toe Wendy, still banging on about Bryan Cutts, poor bastard.
‘Years ago,’ says Dee, refilling her glass.
I feel sorry for Mr Cutts, thinking how I’d probably be taking a flask of vodka to school if I had to teach thirty-one screaming nine-year-olds day in, day out.
‘How are the renovations coming along, Lucy?’ Dee asks.
‘Could be better. Tradesmen defecating in paint pots, that sort of thing.’
Dee stares at me in horror. I mentally slap myself. This is exactly how rumours get started. If I choose not to correct what I’ve just said, it’ll be all over the school by Monday morning. ‘Did you hear? Lucy’s builders poo in the paint pots.’ Bella would never talk to me again.
‘Kidding,’ I say. ‘But seriously, the wee is killing my hydrangeas. According to the builder, we’ve got rising damp, drainage problems, a non-flushing toilet . . . but it’ll all work out eventually, I guess.’
‘I thought Trish was coming tonight?’ says Wendy.
Nadia glares at her. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Is Trish okay?’ I ask Nadia. ‘I’ve seen her a couple of times lately and she’s stared straight through me.’
The other women look sheepishly into their wineglasses. ‘What with Alana -’ Wendy begins.
‘The concert was great the other day, wasn’t it?’ Nadia interrupts.
‘Very good,’ agrees Emma.
Am I missing something here?
The conversation drifts towards predictable talk about private schools versus public, selective versus non-selective, streaming as opposed to not . . . Thank God Max insisted on paying Isabella’s and Sam’s school fees up-front. At least I won’t have
that
financial burden to worry about. At the time, I didn’t think it made sense but Max insisted. Said that school fees would keep increasing every year so it made financial sense to pay them outright at today’s rates. For a brief moment, that little memory makes me wonder if Max has been planning his getaway for a long time.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ bellows a voice, causing everyone to turn around in surprise. It’s Trish and she’s glaring at me.
At first I think she’s joking. ‘Occasionally, they let me out for good behaviour,’ I reply.
But she starts screaming and now the whole restaurant’s turning our way. ‘You think it’s funny, your mongrel husband running off with Alana?’ she shrieks.
‘Alana?’ I say, shocked. ‘Max doesn’t even -’ I stop, horrified at the knowledge that’s dawning on me. Max and Alana? Max said he needed space . . . with Alana? The same Alana who started babysitting for us two years ago when she was studying for her HSC? Bookish, freckles on the nose, Justin-Timberlake-lovingAlana? The women around the table shift uncomfortably in their seats. It’s blindingly clear they know exactly what Trish is talking about.
‘My God, why didn’t anyone tell me?’ I say, feeling utterly humiliated. Tears start rolling down my cheeks. ‘I didn’t know he was with Alana,’ I sob.
‘It’s okay,’ says Nadia.
‘How could you have known,’ says Emma, putting an arm around me.
‘Thanks to your husband,’ Trish continues, undaunted, ‘Alana’s given up university. She says she’s in love with him and isn’t coming back.’
I feel faint and short of breath, in the grip of what seems like a panic attack. I want to die. I push my chair back violently and rush to the bathroom. I desperately need to be alone. Except there are a couple of people in the cubicle next to me, doing . . . well, I’m not quite sure what they’re doing now. The noise seemed to stop when they realised another person was present.
Finally, the cubicle door opens and I’m drawn to the keyhole, watching as the couple leave. It’s Lizzie and Dee. Well, there you go. That explains the rostered-sex thing Lizzie’s got going with her husband.
I wash my face and then wait a few more minutes before walking back out to the restaurant. I need to go home. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get there, but I just know I need to go.
‘You all right?’ Nadia asks.
‘No,’ I say, wiping away new tears. ‘My husband’s fucking the babysitter. Everyone knew he was and nobody told me. And now he and Alana have disappeared to Bali.’
‘Come on, it’s not that bad.’
I snort.
‘All right,’ says Nadia, ‘it
is
that bad, but it’s not your fault. I wanted to tell you, really I did. But then I thought you might think I was butting in. Sorry.’
‘Trish hates me.’
‘Fuck Trish. She’s a pain in the arse,’ Nadia says. ‘But seriously, she’s crazy with grief. It’s really going to fuck with the Prozac she’s taking.’
‘Prozac?’
‘Yeah, Trish is depressed.’
‘Shit.’
‘See. We’re all fucked up in our own way,’ Nadia says and drives me home.
The house is dark and cold. I open the drinks cabinet and pour myself two nips of vodka, down them in one gulp. How long ago did it start? When was the moment when he/she/they decided they’d take the next step? Did Max try and stop himself? At any point did he think, ‘I can’t do this. I have a wife and two children. I have a family and they come first?’ What a cliché - taking off with the babysitter. Couldn’t Max think of anything more original?