by Nick Earls
Yeah. Good point. Hey, your cheek, you’re bleeding.
I think it must have happened when I was shaving this morning.
But you were okay in the cab.
Yeah, it must have opened up again with the drop in pressure.
She glances out the window and says, Fuck it’s a long way down. And she starts to look edgy.
Pretend it’s just a picture. It’s a lot easier that way.
Is that what you do?
Sure. And I find it’s better to distract myself with other things. Could I perhaps interest you in the in-flight mag? It has a fine story on La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, and another on miniature vegetables.
Read me one.
Read you one. Okay. La Paz is at quite a high altitude, so I might read you the one about the little vegetables.
So I read, slowly and quietly and clearly. Slowly and quietly and clearly because I think I have decided to treat her like a mad person and I am striving, above all else, for a sense of calm. She reclines the seat and shuts her eyes.
At the end she says, You read well. And then, Hey, are we descending?
I think so.
I’m much worse with descents, I have to tell you that. This does not make me feel good. Then she smiles. Just kidding. Descents are fine.
So we get through this with nothing more than seatgripping and teeth-gnashing, and only a small amount of toying with the latest sick bag, rather than loading it with vomit. The combination of bourbon and hyperventilation does make her a little dizzy when we land though.
We stop across the road from the offices of Shelton’s for Hillary to eat a breakfast she can hold down, and to have a couple of cups of coffee. She goes to wash her face and comes back wearing new lipstick.
There, she says, fine.
And she almost is. She is perhaps a slightly pale ghost of fine, but that’s a big improvement.
So we meet and lunch and meet again, and she is competent throughout. Maybe not as enthusiastic as usual, but, as she said, fine. After her pregnancy it’s likely that she will never again be fazed by any amount of vomiting, a very useful attribute.
At the end of the day the senior legal counsel asks if we have dinner plans and Hillary says that, to tell the truth, she has a bit of a headache, so she might have to make it an early night. She leaves it open for me, but I’m keen to avoid it too and we take a cab back to the hotel.
I couldn’t face any more time with them, she says. All day today and more of them tomorrow morning. As if we’d want to have dinner with them too.
Yeah.
I was actually going to suggest that we eat somewhere near the hotel, but I guess there’s a remote chance they’d turn up, and it wouldn’t look good.
No, it probably wouldn’t.
What about just getting room service? Do you want to come round to my room and we could have something there?
Sure.
I might have a shower first. I’m still not feeling the best. So how about seven-thirty?
Fine.
I have a shower, but this creates the dilemma of what to wear. Do I put on tomorrow’s shirt? Do I put on today’s shirt, when it clearly smells like it’s done a good day’s work already? Even though I usually sleep naked, I have brought a pair of shorts with me, so in a way that increases my options. Clearly I’d have to wear something with them though.
Why did I bring shorts? I’m only starting to think about that now. I packed them automatically. I think it’s a parental thing. Shorts, and sleeping away from home in combustible places. Like clean underwear and being struck by public transport. A habit you get into, despite wanting to resist it because its basis is a pointlessly secondary concern. The man ran naked from the burning hotel, so they sent him back in? The victim was left to die by the roadside when ambulance officers noticed his underpants appeared to have been worn the day before?
So, old shirt, new shirt, shorts, suit?
Why am I standing here in my underpants staring at my clothes on the bed and working out that there are sixteen wearable combinations when Hillary won’t be giving it a moment’s thought? I think she must be much more normal than I am.
Or possibly at this very moment she could be deciding between ball gown and spurs, or fez, negligee and pumps. But I don’t think so. I expect that in her room something very straightforward is happening.
So I go new shirt, today’s pants, no shoes or socks.
She opens the door wearing a Gatorade T-shirt and running shorts, and she says, Hey, semi-formal, nice.
Unlike you I didn’t think to bring a casual wardrobe.
I brought it in case I go for a run in the morning. You mean you aren’t going for a run in the morning?
Not unless there’s a fire. However, I did bring shorts with just that possibility in mind.
You don’t want to have to bail out in your PJs?
No PJs. I might habitually go to bed early and sleep alone, but I am naked. I take it as a sign that I haven’t given up hope entirely.
She offers me her mini-bar and I take a beer. She takes the tiny bottle of bourbon, tips it into her hip flask, and drinks the vodka.
She smells fresh from the shower and her hair is still damp and messy.
We sit down to peruse the menus and we have a minor dispute about the merits of two different wines.
We’ll get both then, she says. We’ll compare. You’re being far too casual in your dismissal of the Margaret River.
I wish I didn’t find this appealing. I wish I wasn’t sitting here with someone who was married and my manager as well as being very desirable. You’re being far too casual in your dismissal of the Margaret River. I bet she doesn’t know how much I like this sort of game. How, in different circumstances, it could be such a good sign. I wish I wasn’t having to sit here trying to persuade my pelvic region that an erection is really very inappropriate at the moment.
There is, of course, an argument that says that even the possibility of an erection should be a thing of joy, since that area has been unresponsive for quite a while. But this is a joy that cannot be shared. Hillary, great news, I think I can have erections again. Not a good idea.
Dinner arrives and a thorough comparison of wines begins. Hillary drinks a glass of each quickly and then pours us both more.
Don’t you think mine’s livelier? she says, being quite lively to make her point.
Well, maybe, if you’re into lively. I’m still a fan of the oak. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but give me some oak. American or French. I can take it either way.
You’re a very sophisticated man.
That’s what I thought.
I watch her in her detailed study of the wines, a glass in each hand now that dinner is over. She’s frowning and sniffing with some gravity and communicating her dilemma with her eyebrows. And even the way the light from the table lamp passes through the wine in the glass and makes a yellow shape on her Gatorade T-shirt really appeals to me. Now that’s crap.
I’m not against oak you know, she says. I’m not against all sorts of things. They just need to be considered appropriately.
You’d have to be against sparkling burgundy though, wouldn’t you?
I think there are some things it’s never appropriate to consider, and maybe sparkling burgundy is one of them.
Fashion at its worst. The wine industry equivalent of the safari suit. I expect that in just a few years it’ll be regarded as the fruity lexia of the mid-nineties.
So our positions are in fact closer than we realised.
We leave the tray outside the door and we sit on the sofa with our four glasses and two bottles.
I might put some music on, she says. If that’s okay.
Sure.
I’ve got a tape that I play in my Walkman when I run. I might just put that on.
Fine. Well, depending on your taste in music I suppose.
She puts her tape on and before she’s back at the sofa, the room is full of Nick Cave, ‘The Ship Song’. I
immediately notice a poorly-focussed feeling of concern.
She’s sitting closer to me now. She drinks a mouthful of wine and sits back and leans her head against my shoulder.
You sang this at the Christmas party, she says, as though I might not remember. And, until then, well … It was the first time since Daniel was born that anyone did anything that suggested I might be … not just a mother. That I might still be desirable. In some way. It was really nice.
She kisses me, right on the mouth.
This is only half the problem. The other half is I kiss her back.
I put my arms around her and she’s breathing quite heavily and this feels very good.
Oh God, she says, but in what way I’m not sure.
I’m feeling very strange myself, as much with the intimacy of it as anything. I can feel her cheek against mine, her body turned against mine, her undried hair under my right hand.
We kiss again, this time till the end of the song and beyond, and she moves so that she is kneeling over the top of me and my head is tilted backwards.
And wine moves through me, slips lightly into my head so I’m drifting, but I’m intensely aware of what every single part of me is feeling, though in a surreal detached way.
My hands are on her skin under her Gatorade T-shirt now and when she moves back the T-shirt lifts up. She pulls it off over her head.
And she looks at me, as though she’s still wondering.
She says, Come on, and we move to the bed and turn out the main light.
This is a fantasy I should be having in my room, not hers. And even then I wouldn’t be impressed with myself.
We lie with our heads on the same pillow, looking at each other, and we seem to take it very slowly. And I’m sure we’re both thinking, if you stop this now that’s okay. But at the same time we’re each thinking we can’t stop it.
Whatever, we don’t stop it. And I think I abandon any reality outside this room and we keep making achingly slow progress with each other’s bodies until we’re just so close, holding so close and moving with each other and feeling so good that it just happens. She opens her eyes wide and makes a noise as we both realise and we keep going, faster now, faster. And I’m telling myself, not yet, not yet, despite all these hundreds of days with nothing but a box of tissues and a good imagination, not yet. I can feel her hands on my back, the sweat between us, the frantic movement together, everything sludging in my wine-kicked head, but at the same time incredibly clear. She lets go, lets out a long noisy breath, and then I hold nothing back.
I can’t remember it being like this before, I could say that to her honestly.
She sleeps.
My head is full of things. The fear that this was the most awful, foolish act in a life of harmless foolishness. That this was a very bad way to avoid two hundred successive days of celibacy by the narrowest of margins. That I’ve used her somehow.
But I can’t stop touching her, even now. I’m lying watching her, with my arm over her, and I feel really good. Right now, she matters to me incredibly. And those are the boldest terms in which I can face anything I’m feeling. You matter to me incredibly. As though this might be a beginning, and not a disastrous betrayal.
I haven’t felt this close to anyone in a long time. Right now, I think I’d put up with anything for this not to end.
33
I am woken by the sound of screaming, distant and strangely distorted.
Hillary has gone.
I find her in the bathroom, screaming with her head down the toilet, the lid and a towel over her to muffle the noise.
I persuade her to come out and we sit on the edge of the bed, both of us naked and staring at the floor, working out how we can begin this.
This isn’t good, I say, stating and seriously underplaying the very obvious, but only so some talking starts.
No.
I took it by the toilet thing that you’d realised that.
She nods. Rick, look, I don’t know what to do. You don’t know how great that made me feel, just for a moment there.
I’ve got some idea.
You don’t know how fucked up I feel right now.
Really? Really? I don’t know fucked up? I’m breaking new ground in fucked up. The last couple of hours included the greatest thing that’s happened to me for a long time and the worst thing I’ve done in my life. And it’s the same thing. And I was already fucked up.
Yeah. Sorry. Look, what I meant was, I was talking about me. I’m sorry. I meant you don’t know how I’m feeling right now. I mean, I haven’t been honest with you. Things haven’t been great, and I’ve kept that to myself. And now I’m thinking I’ve used you in some appalling way. And I really like you. There you are, someone I really like, who’s not having the best of luck, and this is what I do.
Are you kidding? You think you did this and I just sat here and had it done to me? I’d really like to say it had never crossed my mind before. I’d really like to say I don’t feel like scum. But I can’t. I find you incredibly attractive and that kills me. And here we are, you don’t travel well, you’re away from your baby, you drink far too much, and this is what I do. I can’t believe it.
Yeah? Yeah? I play the Nick Cave song. I suggest dinner in my room.
Dinner in your room means nothing.
I suggest two bottles of wine. And I, correct me if I’m wrong, I made the first move.
Hey, I wasn’t slow in being second. Any closer and it would have needed electronic timing to pick the winner.
She laughs. Rick, this is so bad. I’m your manager. This is appalling. This is against absolutely everything I stand for. We should be able to work together, just as two people, and this should never even be a possibility. Here I am, a woman in a position of power and this is how I handle it.
That is such bullshit. Thanks very much. So now you’re reducing it to some re-run of ‘Disclosure’.
No. No, that’s not it. What I meant was …
I think I know what you meant.
What I meant was, this shouldn’t have happened. This shouldn’t have become part of our relationship. And I’m really responsible for that.
Why?
I’m the manager. I should do better than this.
Look, sure you’re the manager, but it’s not that straightforward. It’s not like I didn’t have some say. It’s not like I was against the idea. I’ve had the chance to get to know you, and sure you’re the manager of the unit, but that’s only a small part of what I know about you. And tonight that didn’t matter at all. And besides, the power theory only works if I think you’re holding something over my head. And you just aren’t. This didn’t happen because of any pressure from you. You didn’t abuse any position of power. You don’t know …
And I don’t know how to finish this bit.
… you don’t know my perspective on this at all.
She stays quiet for a while before saying, And you don’t know mine. Things are different with Peter. He looks on me differently. As though I’m now the mother of his child and maybe that’s all. It’s made me feel really undesirable. I don’t know what’s happening with us. I began to wonder if there might be someone else, then hated myself for wondering. It’s an awful thing to think, and I really want things to be fine. And this is what I do. This is how I deal with it. This is how I make things fine.
I thought things were good. I guess I just assumed. You seem so in control.
Yeah, and what a great day this has been for control.
So what do we do now?
What do you mean?
Well, it’s three am. We have a meeting at nine. Then we go back to Brisbane. You go back to Peter and Daniel and I go back to, well, I go back to nothing I guess, but I’m still going back. So we’ve got to work out how to deal with all this.
Yeah. She thinks for a while. Right now, I don’t want to deal with anything outside this room. Right now I want to be a coward just here and curl up and sleep and face none of this.
Okay. And in the morning, there’s no blaming, okay? There’s none of us each thinking we took advantage of the other. Guilt about other aspects of it we can sort out later, but tonight, what happened tonight, was mutual.
Okay. Mutual. No power play, no manipulation, no victim.
That’s right.
Just, desire, or something.
Desire, some wine and a quite incredible lack of judgement.
We should sleep now.
Yeah.
And we lie there, hardly sleeping at all and careful not to touch.
34
The alarm goes off way too early.
We happen to be facing each other and we make eye contact.
Hi, she says.
Hi.
In case you’re wondering, a nine o’clock meeting is out of the question.
Yeah. It’d be funny though. The two of us looking as though we’d both had three hours sleep after telling them at five-thirty that we wouldn’t go out to dinner because of your headache.
Yeah. Very funny. I’ve got an idea. How about you call Shelton’s—someone’s bound to be there even though it’s really early—you call them and tell them my headache was a migraine, and it got worse and I have to sleep now. And can we have the meeting this afternoon. Then call and re-organise our flight home. Later I’ll make whatever calls I have to to handle the child-care issue. Dan has to be picked up by five-thirty.
So I sit by the bed, still naked, talking to someone who went in to work early to call New York. I think I can tell from the tone in his voice that he’s wearing a dark suit, though he may have taken off the jacket. I hope he can’t tell that I am sitting wearing only guilt and bodily fluids (particularly when the bodily fluids are a mixture of mine and my manager’s).
Changing the airline booking is easy. They can think what they like.
Then I lie down, and Hillary curls subconsciously back against me and I sleep.
She wakes me late morning.
We should eat.
