How to Be Second Best

by Jessica Dettmann

  They manage to divide the kids into groups and take turns teaching them to tie some knots, pull paperbark off a tree and draw on it with charcoal they have sourced from an art shop, and how to navigate using the sun, although the dense cloud cover makes this more of a challenge and the kids mostly end up looking at pictures of animal poo on Harvey’s iPhone.

  The afternoon passes peacefully. It’s really quite remarkable. The kids stay more or less entertained by the bushcraft, and when that’s over they all seem to know each other well enough that they break off and play in exactly the way that I dream of. No one is on an iPad, they’ve hardly any toys — they’re like kids in the 1970s, just running around pretending to massacre each other with sticks, and getting extremely muddy.

  Around four-thirty people begin to make dinner preparations, firing up the propane stoves, grilling sausages and heating cans of baked beans. By dusk the children are all fed, and beginning to fade.

  When I suggest bed to Tim, he begs me to let him sleep in the tent with Bon.

  ‘Me too, me too!’ Freya joins in the lobbying.

  I look at Adam. ‘Maybe we could let them all go to sleep in your tent,’ I suggest, ‘and then I’ll move them back once we’re ready for bed. I mean, once we both, separately, are ready for bed.’ I’m blushing.

  Adam looks at me with a distinct twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Good plan,’ he agrees.

  The kids are beyond excited, and Freya and Tim drag their sleeping bags into Adam’s tent. As I climb in to kiss them goodnight, they all babble to me about how they are going to stay awake and have a midnight feast. Apparently the talk all over the camp this afternoon has been midnight-feast related, and they’re definitely going to stay awake and have one.

  ‘I don’t know if you will,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to burst your bubble, but no child ever in the history of children has stayed awake for a midnight feast. It’s a myth.’

  ‘Mum!’ Tim is horrified. ‘It isn’t a myth. James and Lachlan have done it. They told us this afternoon.’

  ‘Maybe they think it was midnight, but it was probably about eight o’clock. How about this? If you all go to sleep now, when you wake up, once it’s light, you can all sneak out and have some chocolate. I’ll put it near the front of our tent, so you can find it first thing in the morning. Deal?’

  That placates them, and about eight minutes later they are all fast asleep.

  It’s a bit of an odd set-up, this camp. Now that the kids are in bed, I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the absence of a communal campfire to sit around. But it’s only seven o’clock.

  Adam and I do the washing-up and put away the food. We’re suddenly a bit quiet around each other. Despite what we agreed in the cafe, it still feels like there’s something more between us. Maybe it’s just me. It probably is. I still fancy him, so I’m feeling awkward. He’ll be feeling strange because I’m acting oddly around him. We’re caught in a vicious circle.

  ‘Do you think the others are going to hang out?’ he asks. ‘It looks like some of them are putting their camping stoves in a circle. I think they might be trying to replicate the campfire experience.’

  ‘Oh, that’s weird,’ I say. ‘That isn’t going to work, is it? It’s just going to be a bunch of people sitting on chairs around ten two-burner stoves. They’re all going to run out of propane. And they don’t give off much light.’

  ‘But look, Ian’s added his torch, so that’s helping.’ He’s right. Others put their torches on the ground too, and although there’s nothing authentic about this, it’s quite a sweet attempt to create a central space for congregating.

  ‘Shall we?’ Adam asks, holding up a bottle of whisky in one hand and a Dolphin torch in the other. Oh God, I’d forgotten how people drink whisky when they go camping. It’s some sort of rule. Even people who wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole under normal circumstances will drink whisky from a tin mug if they are camping. I suppose they realise they’ll be having a terrible night’s sleep anyway, so why not throw a whisky headache into the mix?

  I grab two mugs and we head over.

  * * *

  Over at the fireless campfire, people are gathering. It’s very dark, and the torches don’t quite work like ambient firelight would. There’s a lot of discussion over how to angle the torches so they aren’t shining into people’s eyes, and the final consensus is that they should point up. People give up on the propane stoves pretty quickly, once they realise they won’t have any fuel left to fry their eggs in the morning.

  We’re left with a circle of a dozen or so yellow and red plastic torches, pointed skywards, illuminating only the gum tree branches above our heads.

  People gather with their bottles of whisky and bottles of wine. One or two people declare themselves the designated drivers, in case a child takes ill in the night or someone falls drunkenly over the torch heap and breaks their arm. Everyone else gratefully raises a toast to the drivers. The drivers, both women, respond with pinched smiles, and retire to a tent within half an hour to play Bananagrams.

  Most of the other mums decline the whisky, but when I notice Sarah, who I think is beautiful and cool, is having some I decide to align myself with her, and hold out my mug for a slug of Chivas Regal from Steve who can’t navigate by the sun or the stars, or, I’ll wager, by the GPS.

  ‘Drinking with the boys, eh?’ he says admiringly. ‘Good girl. No lady petrol for you.’

  Good girl. Good girl? What am I, a beagle? How dare he? The fire of righteousness ignites in my belly. Lifting my mug, I clink it against the bottle, and I drink deeply. The fire of righteousness ignites the whisky and almost blows my face off.

  A shiver runs through my whole body, and I feel the alcohol warming every part of me. Its effect is instant. I can almost see my inhibitions flying up into the night like cinders from the fire we aren’t allowed to light. It was quite a big slug of whisky.

  I’ll say this for socialising with parents, they’re highly efficient at getting pissed. Parents realise that there is no time to waste. Anyone’s kid could wake at any moment, so the time for fun is right now.

  The conversation sparks so quickly it’s almost unreal. It seems we go in minutes from being near strangers, politely helping each other with tent pegs and guy ropes, to a band of merrymakers, laughing and carrying on, arms around each other’s shoulders, and very soon I hear someone strumming a guitar. I look over the torch heap and see, to my surprise, that it’s Ian.

  ‘Ian, Ian, play “More Than Words”!’ calls Steve.

  ‘No, Ian, Ian, play “Wonderwall”,’ someone else requests.

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ says Julia.

  But Ian doesn’t need any encouragement. He strums a few chords, twiddles the tuning pegs a bit, then without further ado plays the most glorious version of ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’. His voice, which I’ve only ever really heard shouting at Julia and their children, is rich and strong, and it cracks and wobbles with true feeling.

  No one utters a sound.

  When the song ends everyone sits in silence. The notes seem to float in the air around us.

  Then Steve pipes up. ‘That wasn’t ‘More than Words’, you dickhead. Play “More Than Words”.’

  Ian plays five more songs, including ‘More than Words’ twice.

  Bon wakes up at around nine o’clock, which feels like 3 am to those of us who started drinking neat whisky at seven. Adam takes him back to the tent, whispering to me that he might be a while.

  I fill my mug with water and drink it straight down. I refill it and sit back down in my camping chair. Around me, little groups of two and three have formed, and people are having the intense conversations of the quite drunk.

  ‘. . . and I said to her that unless we were guaranteed a place, that I was going to send them to Doug’s old school . . .’

  ‘We’re supposed to be going to Canada skiing but we can’t now because someone’s mother has decided it’s going to be her last Christma
s and now we all have to go to them in Melbourne. No, she’s absolutely fine. Too mean to die, if you want to know the truth . . .’

  ‘No, well, you see she couldn’t, could she? Because her husband was already having it off with her personal trainer—’

  The woman who says that is hurriedly shushed by her friend, and they both look over at me, worried that I’ve overheard. I pretend I haven’t and they make relieved faces at each other.

  I wish Adam would come back.

  Just as I’m about to go find him — what if all three kids are awake and he’s trying to get mine back to sleep as well as Bon? — Ian plonks himself down in Adam’s chair.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ I tell him. ‘Your playing before. I liked the Hunters and Collectors one a lot.’

  He smiles. ‘One of my favourites. Jules and I had our first dance to it at our wedding.’

  My surprise obviously registers on my face.

  ‘What’s that look for? Oh, you think we don’t get along.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘I can see how you’d think that, but that’s just how we are. I’ve been arguing with Jules since the day I met her. I hope we never stop.’

  ‘Really?

  ‘Really. We always make up afterwards.’ He winks at me and I burst out laughing.

  ‘So what’s your story, Emma?’

  ‘Don’t you know my story? I thought everyone here knew.’

  ‘I know the nuts and bolts of it. Husband, Pilates teacher, two babies on the go at once, that about it?’

  ‘More or less. There’s also the bit where I looked after their baby for about three years, until they recently gave me the flick.’

  ‘That’s pretty rough. Why did they do that?’

  ‘I didn’t do what I was told, Ian.’

  ‘Got a new bloke? That Adam seems pretty keen on you.’

  ‘He does, doesn’t he?’ I say. ‘But he’s married, Ian. And the sad thing is, I knew him long before I married Troy, so I guess I missed my chance.’

  ‘Look, Emma, I don’t know you well, but can I give you some advice?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m going to use a watersport metaphor here. Now, I don’t know if you know, but recently, I bought a jet ski.’

  ‘I am aware of your jet ski.’

  ‘And, Emma, if you’ve never been on a jet ski, let me tell you, it is the most magnificent thing in the world. It’s as close as you can get to flying. You cannot be more free, more wild, more independent, than when you are on a jet ski, on open water, going full throttle.’

  I can’t see where he’s going with this analogy.

  ‘If you’ve never driven your own jet ski, you can’t understand how wonderful it is. And even better is when someone you love is on a jet ski too, and they are right beside you — a safe distance away, obviously, you don’t want to collide and kill each other. There’s no greater feeling.’

  I’m not sure if I’m meant to respond. ‘That’s sounds ace,’ I venture.

  ‘Before I had a jet ski, do you know what I used to do?’

  ‘Dressage?’

  ‘Water-skiing. I thought water-skiing was the greatest. But now that I’ve known jet-skiing, I realise that on water skis, you’re not free. You’re at the mercy of the boat driver. And they might be good and steady and they’ll help you get up on the skis and zoom along a bit, but eventually they’ll make a funny turn or slow down too quickly and you’ll be arse-over-tit in the water. And then you’re just a bloke being dragged along on the end of a rope. It strikes me, Emma, that you haven’t quite managed to let go of the rope.’

  I sit and think about it, sipping my faintly whisky-flavoured water. I’m about to reply, to ask Ian to clarify a few things for me about how his water-skiing parable works, when Adam returns.

  He rests his hands on my shoulders and squeezes, then crouches down between Ian and me.

  ‘Everyone’s back to sleep,’ he says. ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘We were just talking about jet-skiing and water-skiing,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yes, and more,’ adds Ian, in what I’m sure he thinks is an enigmatic way.

  ‘I think it’s time for me to turn in,’ I tell them. ‘If we’re doing this bushwalk in the morning, I need—’ I check my watch, imagining it will be past midnight. It’s nine fifty. ‘At least eight hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Goodnight, Emma. It was lovely to talk with you.’

  ‘The pleasure was all mine, Ian,’ I tell him, and I mean it.

  Adam doesn’t say goodnight to anyone, but he walks back to the tents with me.

  ‘I’ve got to get the chocolate out for the kids to find in the morning,’ I tell him. ‘I’m so impressed that I remembered that.’ I take the bar of chocolate out of the Esky and put it in Tim’s right gumboot, which is just inside the door of my tent. There’s no way he’ll miss it.

  ‘I’ll get my two out of your tent,’ I tell Adam.

  There’s a pause.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he says.

  ‘It’ll be very squeezy in there with four of— Oh.’ The penny drops.

  Adam pulls me to him. He cradles my head in his hand and kisses me. This time no phones are going to ring to interrupt. The only thing that might stop this is me. And I’m not going to stop this.

  We kiss, more urgently now, and still kissing, somehow I manage to unzip both layers of my gargantuan tent. We both trip over the small door sill left at the bottom. I’ve never wondered before why a tent has a door sill but it must be to trip adulterous campers. As I stumble, my thoughts momentarily straighten out and I wonder if this is a good idea. We tripped over the first time we kissed too. What if the universe is trying to tell me something? What if Adam doesn’t want anything more than a night? Am I all right with that? Second best is okay, isn’t that what Dad’s been trying to tell me? I might not be Adam’s first choice overall, but right now I’m the winner. Fuck it, I think. It’s good enough tonight.

  We crawl through the first room of the tent and into the back, where my blow-up mattress is waiting. It’s completely dark and we both sit for a moment, fumbling with our bootlaces.

  ‘We’re going to need a light,’ says Adam. I find my phone and illuminate the tent. I hold the light down over his shoes while he unties his laces, and then he does the same for me.

  Adam heaves himself backwards onto the mattress, pulling me with him, and the bed begins to hiss, slowly but surely, from a leak that has sprung in protest at such rough treatment.

  I sit up and pull off my parka and my jumper.

  ‘Shit it’s cold,’ I say, my teeth chattering. My teeth are chattering from nerves, not cold.

  ‘Come here,’ he says. ‘I’m warm.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Afterwards we lie on the now uncomfortably soft air mattress, wedged into my single sleeping bag. I’m in a post-coital daze, delighted in equal parts by the sex itself and the fact that I remember how to do it. Because I didn’t tell Adam this, obviously, but that was my first time since Troy left.

  It seems weird, but the months just kept creeping by and I never went out and sought anyone to have sex with. And no one asked me. Three years can go quite quickly when you spend the first in a complete daze of abandonment and survival mode, and the next two throwing yourself body and soul into motherhood.

  In hindsight, it probably would have been healthy to get on Tinder and have a few one-night stands, but I’ve never been any good at sleeping around. Turns out I’m not bad at seducing married men though.

  A wave of shame washes over me. I’ve done to Ilse what Helen did to me.

  I roll away from Adam, which is a challenge in a single sleeping bag.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he whispers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘What have we done?’

  He’s silent.

  ‘I think you should tell me the truth about your wife.’ I’m not sure why I’m doing this. I know what he’s going to tell me isn’t what I want to he
ar.

  There’s a long pause. Outside a night bird hoots, in judgement, probably.

  ‘I’m not sure what to tell you,’ he says. ‘Things have been bad with Ilse for a while. I don’t know if she wants to continue our marriage. She is still in Amsterdam for work, but she could have left early, come over when Bon and I did.’

  ‘And you don’t know if she’s coming here at all?’ I want him to tell me the truth. Please Adam, just say it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I just don’t know. Whenever I ask her she won’t commit. It’s very hard on Bon.’

  That is a lie. It’s in his voice. He knows when Ilse is coming. How on earth is this what I’m having to wrestle with after I’ve just had excellent sex with a man I’ve fancied for years? It doesn’t seem fair.

  In the past after I’ve had sex with someone, we’ve either gone to sleep or had sex again. Either of those would be preferable to this.

  Adam raises himself on his elbow and I can feel his face close to mine in the dark. My heart races in spite of itself.

  ‘I’m not sure she still loves me.’ His voice cracks a little.

  ‘Do you still love her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘I love her.’

  I want to ask why he’s just spent several weeks getting close to me and has now just fucked me in a tent if he loves his wife so much, but I don’t know if I can manage that in a quiet voice.

  I take a deep breath. ‘So you and me? That’s just . . . sex?’

  ‘I don’t think there was anything “just” about that sex,’ he says, attempting levity.

  This is not the time.

  ‘I mean it, Emma,’ he says. ‘You’re amazing. I’ve always thought that. And now, being thrown together like this, well, it’s hard to believe something wasn’t meant to happen.’

  ‘But you love your wife.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you’re not sure if she still loves you, so you thought you’d have a bet each way. I’m your back-up plan.’

  ‘No! It’s not like that. I genuinely have feelings for you.’