Set Me Free

by Jennifer Collin

‘You two never drink tea,’ Ben said.

  Emily let out a weak giggle. ‘Chicken noodle soup and tea will cure most ills, Ben. It’s an old Evans family tradition.’

  ‘I thought you hated tea.’

  ‘We do.' Emily giggled properly this time, the kind of hysterical giggle that comes after hours of weeping. She claimed a cup, took a sip and winced. Charlotte let out her own small chuckle.

  They drank their tea for a few moments, smirking after each sip until Emily set her cup down. ‘What am I going to do?’ she asked them.

  ‘You don’t need to decide now,’ Charlotte answered.

  ‘But I feel I need to do something. Otherwise, I am going to just relive that horrible scene over and over again and keep asking myself why.’

  Charlotte squeezed herself on to the two-seater couch next to Emily, squashing the three of them together. Ben considered giving the girls some space, but if he moved, Emily was likely to dissolve into tears again. She leaned her head on his shoulder and reached for her sister’s hand.

  ‘I love you two,’ she murmured. His chest tightened.

  And then the questions began. How long had he been seeing her? When did it start? How serious was it? How sordid was it? In unspoken consensus, Charlotte and Ben let her talk it out; let her wear herself down, because sleep was the only thing that was going to numb the pain.

  Hours of slow, quiet conversation later, the afternoon had become evening. Charlotte was back in the kitchen making more soup, boiling and blending vegetables this time, when their peace was harshly interrupted. Someone was trying to beat their way through her front door with their fists, again.

  ‘Charlotte! Let me in! I want to see my wife!' Geoff. No surprises there.

  Emily stiffened and her eyes filled with panic. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ she told Ben, gripping his arm. Ben and Charlotte exchanged a look, before Ben left Emily’s side to confer with Charlotte in the kitchen.

  ‘Charlotte, you fucking cow, open the door.' Great. It was Drunk Geoff. Angry, Drunk Geoff.

  Emily wasn’t waiting for them to figure something out. She leapt off the couch and flew to Charlotte’s bedroom.

  ‘Why do you have a lock on your bedroom door?’ Ben asked Charlotte, momentarily distracted.

  ‘I live alone. It makes me feel safer,’ she snapped. ‘Focus, Ben.’

  The hammering on the door intensified, and Charlotte’s downstairs neighbour yelled something indecipherable. The reminder she had downstairs neighbours gave her an idea.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said and led Ben out onto the balcony. ‘Now that he is drunk, Geoff is not going to give up until he sees Emily; which means we have to move her. Even if I did manage to get him to stop banging on the front door, he won’t leave as long as he knows she is in here. If I can show him she’s not here, he’ll go away. Your place is perfect. Geoff has no idea where you live, so if she stayed there he won’t be able to find her tonight. But we need to sneak her out first.' She pointed to the balcony that mirrored hers below. ‘You and Emily can climb down onto the railing and then it’s only a short drop to the garden. Your car is parked just around the corner.’

  Ben protested. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I follow your logic, but that’s a ten metre drop.’

  ‘Charlotte! I’m not leaving!' Geoff bellowed from the front door.

  ‘I told you earlier, Geoff, she’s not talking to you tonight. Go home!’ Charlotte called back. To Ben, she said, ‘It is not ten metres. It’s two, at best. Don’t be such a chicken shit. I can’t tell you how many times Emily has climbed up that way after a few too many beers on a night out.'

  Ben paused a brief moment to lament the circumstances by which he would have Emily in his apartment overnight, but Charlotte’s reasoning had readily convinced him. He looked again at the drop to the balcony below. It was doable.

  ‘Okay, you distract Geoff, and I’ll get us out of here. Put your phone in your pocket on vibrate and I’ll text you when we’re clear.’

  Charlotte crossed the apartment to the front entry while Ben made his way to her closed bedroom door. She called to Geoff. ‘Go home, Geoff, before one of my neighbours calls the police.’

  ‘Let me see my wife, Charlotte,’ he slurred in response.

  Ben tapped on the bedroom door. ‘Emily, I’m going to get you out of here,’ he said, just loud enough for her to hear.

  She threw open the door almost immediately. ‘Over the balcony?' Desperation made her eager and unsettlingly sexy.

  Ben smiled. ‘Lead the way.’

  She scaled the outside of the building with ease, clearly familiar with every toe hold, making him wonder just how often she climbed up onto Charlotte’s balcony. His own descent was rougher, but his height made it easy. They dropped into the garden as planned and crept around the side of the building. They'd be exposed momentarily as they manoeuvred around the corner of the block to reach the street where his car was parked. Pausing behind a conveniently bushy shrub, they looked up at the front of the apartment building to the second floor. Miraculously, Geoff was concealed behind the rising stairs, meaning he wouldn’t be able to see them from where he was.

  They bolted. Emily ran like the wind and Ben struggled to keep up with her, as they raced around the corner and down the short stretch to the car.

  He unlocked the vehicle and gallantly opened the door for her. She slid her panting frame in and pulled it closed behind her. When he climbed into the driver’s seat, he found her giggling hysterically.

  Although he knew time was of the essence, he started laughing too, until his eyes watered.

  ‘You’re pretty fast,’ he teased, making Emily laugh even harder.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing her his phone. ‘Text your sister while I get us out of here.'

  Geoff wouldn’t find her tonight.

  Brewing hot chocolate in his kitsch 1960s kitchen, while Emily settled herself on his couch, Ben studied his apartment through her eyes for the first time. Did she feel safe? Would she be comfortable here?

  His furniture: the couch; dining table; bookshelves and sideboard, were all old and solid, built to last. No flat-packs for him. Even the books lining the shelves were old, a collection of dusty second-hand paperbacks, each with its own tale as to how it ended up wedged between the others. Inside the sideboard was a collection of old classic movies on VHS. Was his apartment a reflection of him? Was he old and stuffy? Or solid and enduring? He knew how he would prefer Emily to see him.

  As she sank into his leather Queen Anne sofa, he poured a nip of spiced rum into her hot chocolate. Her phone rang, and he listened to her reassure Charlotte she'd be alright for the night. She hung up as he passed her drink.

  ‘This is good,’ she observed after she sipped it, clearly savouring the smoothness of the liquor. ‘Much better than tea. Perhaps it’s time to review that Evans family tradition.’

  Ben smiled and hesitated, unsure where to sit. ‘It’ll help you sleep,’ he said.

  ‘I hope so. I do feel insanely tired. I guess that would be from all of the crying.’ She yawned and stretched.

  He’d always tolerated Geoff, but never really liked him. Right now, he hated him. He hated him for being married to the most amazing woman he’d ever known, and for treating her like she was second rate. It astounded him that the man could be so foolish.

  But deep inside him, a tiny seed of hope had been planted and he was praying to whichever God was listening, that this was well and truly the end for Emily and Geoff.

  Chapter eight

  Diane Wallace swept through the airport terminal in a gust of intellectual, bohemian eccentricity. Really Mum, thought Emily. You're such a stereotype. But as she was pulled into her mother’s arms, her fragile shell of cynical bravado fractured, and she found herself blubbering on her shoulder.

  ‘There, there, darling,’ said Diane, nervously. Diane had raised her children to be made of sterner stuff. Not this emotional nonsense that clouded your rational thought.

  Emil
y could feel her mother’s discomfort, but right now, she needed a normal mum, and holding her sadness in was too much hard work. She hated feeling like this in the airport. Airports were sacred places of joy, tinged with the excitement of pending adventures or the joy of long-awaited reunions.

  Diane pulled back gently and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Which way is the car, sweetie?’

  Blindly, Emily guided her there, desperately trying to pull herself together so she could drive. She didn’t succeed. Settling in behind the Monster’s steering wheel she unleashed the longest and hardest wail she’d had since Monday.

  Diane patted her arm ineffectually.

  ‘I..I c..c..can’t b..believe he d..d..did it,’ Emily managed eventually, gasping for air.

  ‘I know, darling,’ said Diane. ‘He’s a silly little prick.’

  ‘I don’t know what hurts most, that he did it at all, or that he did it with her.’

  ‘Oh darling, don’t make this about her. If you make it about her she wins whatever little game she has been playing with you. She’s been following you around like some bizarre kind of groupie since you moved up here. If you ask me, she probably went after him. But it’s not about her darling. She’s irrelevant. He is the dickhead who betrayed you, not her.’

  ‘You never liked him.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. He’s a sanctimonious twat.’

  ‘Why did you let me marry him?’

  Diane put her hand under Emily’s chin. ‘I raised you to make your own decisions, darling. To think independently and take care of yourself. There's no way I would tell you whom you should or shouldn’t love. Or whom you shouldn’t marry.'

  Emily looked at her mother. As difficult as she was, there was no question that everything Diane did for her children, she did because she believed it was best for them. Her parenting was driven by intellectual idealism, which left said children confused and sometimes feeling neglected. Yet as they grew older, they came to understand her beliefs and values, and subsequently her behaviour. Frustration was never far from the surface, but their love ran deep.

  ‘What am I going to do, Mum?' The question was never far from her mind.

  ‘You’re going to take it one day at a time, darling.’

  ‘I don’t have anywhere to live. I don’t have any money. I don’t have a proper job.’

  ‘Geoffrey has all of those things, darling. Most scorned women would be looking for their share.’

  ‘I don’t want it, Mum. I don’t want anything to do with him or my married life. It hurts too much. I don’t ever want to speak to him again.’

  ‘Unfortunately, you will have to, but only when you're ready. In the meantime,’ Diane added, looking Emily up and down, ‘the least you can claim is some of your own clothes.’

  Smiling weakly, Emily looked down at Ben’s faded black T-shirt. ‘Will you come with me when I collect them?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Diane mischievously, as Emily started the car.

  Bean Drinkin’ was doing its usual Saturday morning trade when they arrived after dropping off Diane’s luggage and collecting Charlotte. A queue of waiting diners was growing outside, but when he saw them appear, Ben summoned them and showed them to a reserved table by the espresso machine.

  Ben gave Diane a welcoming kiss on the cheek and asked her how her flight was. She swooned. Ben was the only man in their lives of whom she approved. And his approval rating had soared over the last week for providing Emily with a sanctuary within which to hide from both the world and her soon-to-be ex-husband. Tonight she was moving back to Charlotte’s. With Diane in town, Geoff was unlikely to go near them.

  ‘The usual, ladies?’ Ben asked, setting up behind the espresso machine. ‘I believe that’s a long black for you, Diane.’

  ‘It is indeed, Ben. I’m impressed,’ said Diane.

  ‘Stop schmoozing my mum, Ben,’ said Charlotte.

  He grinned at her above the sound of grinding beans and bumped them to the top of the long list of coffees on order. Emily watched him, listening to Charlotte and her mother catch up. It really was quite masterful; the way he worked the machine. She lost track of the conversation at the table. Ben had been a dream friend over the last few days. Not only had he given her a place to stay, he’d been feeding her, keeping her company, letting her weep all over him and feebly, though with good intentions, trying to distract her from her misery.

  He placed a coffee in front of her and patted her on the head. She gave him a grateful smile. He’d taken to treating her like a puppy, and for some reason it was comforting.

  Emily tuned back in to the conversation between her mother and sister.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Diane was saying, ‘I loved your father passionately. But we were never weighed down by the burden of other people’s expectations of what love should be. We were free spirits, free to come together and drift apart as we chose. Young women these days have regressed. My generation worked bloody hard to give you the freedoms you have today, and all I see you doing is looking for a knight in shining armour to ride up on his steed and announce he is going to keep you, so you don’t have to make your own way in the world.’

  Was that a dig? Diane was going in to lecturer mode. Emily started to bristle.

  ‘Of course you’re speaking generally, aren’t you, Mum?’ Charlotte’s voice was strained with irritation.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course darling. But honestly, why can’t you girls just have some good old fashioned no-strings attached sex? We did it all the time in my day…' Emily caught Charlotte and Ben exchange a look as the roar of the grinding coffee beans drowned out the rest of Diane’s diatribe. Back behind the espresso machine, Ben was suppressing a smirk. Charlotte was rolling her eyes, her face slightly flushed with embarrassment.

  Emily was not sure why that bothered her. She and Ben weren’t really on eye-rolling terms. With all the head patting and tear catching, why did she feel this faint twinge of jealousy? It wasn’t fair of her. Ben was Charlotte’s best friend. Emily had no right to be resentful of their relationship.

  Perhaps it was because she didn’t have a friend like Ben with whom she could roll her eyes about her embarrassing mother. Geoff had been her best friend since she was sixteen. Over time, all her other friends had drifted away. Some had moved away, other friendships had been severed by broken relationships, where friends became part of the separation settlement. In so many ways, Geoff had been her anchor, and since moving to Queensland, she'd found herself letting him make the decisions about whom they spent their time with. Emily knew plenty of people, but apart from Charlotte, she didn’t have any of her own friends. The thought made her incredibly sad. Not in the tragic way she'd been for the last few days, but in a bone deep kind of way. She glanced up at Ben and found him watching her, his smirk replaced by a slight frown. Their eyes met for a millisecond, before he went back to working the machine.

  ‘Thank goodness you have the good sense to leave him,’ Diane said, her voice carrying slightly across the café. ‘There’s no forgiving in these circumstances. He made a vow to you, and he’s broken it.’

  Emily’s sadness gave way to peevishness. Diane’s righteousness was getting on her nerves.

  ‘Perhaps I should forgive him?’ she suggested. ‘You forgave Dad plenty of times and for plenty of things.’

  ‘Yes, of course I did. But no matter what happened between your father and I, we never broke a promise to each other. He never lied to me or broke his word.’

  ‘That sounds something like honour, Mum. How very bourgeois of you.’

  Diane glared at her daughter. ‘And so is respect for your parents. Please, Emily. You're sounding like a child.’

  ‘Stop it, you two,’ Charlotte intervened.

  Irritated, Emily clamped her lips shut and gazed out towards Boundary Street. Within seconds, Geoff himself came into focus as he casually leaned on a shopfront window across the street. Momentarily lost in time and space, she stared at him, failing to registe
r he was actually there in person. The man across the street was her husband, yet he was a stranger. He should be here at the table with her family, yet he shouldn’t be anywhere near her. Her world spun; the sights and sounds around her becoming unfocused.

  Judging by his relaxed posture, Geoff had been watching her for some time. Diane’s back was to the street and Emily wondered if he realised she was there. His view might be obscured by the other diners crowding the café.

  Before she could look away, Geoff caught her eye and pushed himself upright. He was looking to cross the street and approach her. Emily’s stomach churned. She’d successfully avoided him completely since catching him with Cassette. Was he really going to confront her in public?

  ‘What is it, Em?' Charlotte had been keeping an eye on her. Behind the counter, Ben stopped what he was doing.

  ‘Geoff,’ Emily squeaked, looking towards the street.

  He made it to the front door before Diane stood up and slowly spun around like an avenging Goddess. Ben appeared at her side. Together, and silently, they created a human wall that blocked Emily’s view of her soon-to-be ex-husband. She gathered he'd fled when Diane turned to Ben and said, ‘I don’t mean to emasculate you, darling, but I don’t think it was you who frightened him off.’

  ‘No, it certainly wasn’t,’ Ben chuckled. ‘Can I get you ladies another coffee?’

  ‘We’re women, darling,’ Diane corrected him. And I’ll certainly have one for the road.’

  ‘Coming right up, darling.’

  ‘Touché,’ Diane beamed. Sitting back down, she stage-whispered to Charlotte, ‘I don’t know why you bother with this ‘best friends’ thing. The man is divine. Why don’t you just shag the daylights out of him already?'

  Charlotte moaned, horrified. Emily looked at Ben.

  ‘Who is she, Craig?’

  ‘Pardon, Nana?

  ‘The woman you can’t take your eyes off. Who is she?’

  Craig shifted his gaze from the bustling market crowd cluttering the Northside Wharves, to his nana across the table. He ran his hand through his hair.