by Peter Barry
She looked around the room, perhaps in the hope of finding some suitable words lying around that she would then be able to use. ‘It just seems sensible given –’
He interrupted her. ‘I don’t want a divorce, I’ve never wanted a divorce. You were the one who moved out, remember?’
She could hear the anger in his voice, barely controlled, as if he was about to shout at her. She looked at the ceiling and tried to remain calm. ‘I moved out because we never saw you, Hugh.’
‘Now you see even less of me. It doesn’t make sense, does it, to leave me because you don’t see enough of me and then not see me at all? Or am I missing something here?’
‘You were so caught up in your work you had no time to spare for us Tim only saw you at weekends you’d become a stranger to us.’ It came out as a litany, without any breaths in between, a rat-a-tat-tat of suppressed pain.
But he didn’t react. He remained slumped on the sofa, almost lifeless. He’s depressed, she thought. His voice, suddenly, was barely audible. ‘Well, I’m not exactly caught up in my work now.’
Oh God, she couldn’t bear it if he was going to be self-pitying. She tried striking a positive, upbeat note. ‘Is the job search going well?’
‘As if you care.’
‘I do.’
A slight sigh as he changed tack. ‘There’s nothing around. People are being laid off, not taken on. The advertising business is going through a serious downturn – another serious downturn.’
‘I’m sure something will turn up soon. You have to try and keep positive, and persevere.’ I’m mouthing platitudes like everyone else, she thought. I’m still his wife. I’m not supposed to speak like that.
The truth was, she was beginning to find it difficult to empathise with Hugh’s situation. She’d become disengaged from his problems. It was as if some suffocating, opaque barrier – a nightmarish, flapping, settling curtain against which she had neither the strength nor the will to flail – had descended between them. It may have been the physical distance that now separated them, or was it listening to her mother and father continually reminding her that her first duty was to look after herself and Tim? ‘Hugh will be all right,’ they always reassured her. ‘He’s still able to earn big money, you can’t.’
He turned away, saying, ‘To change the subject, I’m going to have to sell the house.’ There was a distinct ‘so there!’ tone to his voice, a ‘now see what you’ve driven me to.’
‘It’s hardly a good time, is it?’
‘Probably not. But maybe you have a better suggestion. Perhaps you can suggest a way I can keep up the mortgage payments?’
‘But if we keep it for a year or two more we might not make a loss. I certainly don’t need the money right now.’
‘It just so happens that I do. The bank’s already sending me threatening letters because I’ve missed payments.’
She could hear the anger in his voice, building. She appreciated he still supported her financially, but didn’t feel any guilt on account of that. He was her husband and Tim’s father, so it was only right. She went to the ATM with a clear conscience. She also appreciated how he never questioned her use of the credit card. But he was still in the family house, so it was only fair she spent some of their money – her share. Anyway, hadn’t it been his decision, not hers, to buy the house, to move his family right out of the city? So why should he suddenly take it on himself to sell it, without even consulting her?
‘And I’m paying you every month, on top of everything else. It’s too much. I can’t afford it. I don’t have the money. I’m earning next to nothing at the moment. As I said, I’ve already missed some mortgage repayments.’
‘But property’s fallen over the past year from what I understand – especially in this price range.’ She couldn’t stop herself adding, ‘If we’d stayed in Crows Nest, it wouldn’t have fallen so much.’
‘Everywhere’s fallen.’
She decided not to argue. ‘Maybe we should rent it out instead of selling it.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Kate, will you listen to me? I have no option. Whether or not it’s a good time to sell is not part of the equation. The bank’s going to requisition the place soon. It’s that simple, or are you just being bloody stupid on purpose?’
He stood up and moved across to the window. He kept his back to the room and his arms folded as if determined to exclude her. She closed her eyes. She could feel the tears welling up. She opened her eyes, and suddenly she saw him as a stranger who no longer belonged in this house, as no more than a visitor who happened to have dropped by. She wondered if she had done that to him. By moving out of the family home, had she in some weird way also removed him?
She spoke as calmly as she could, trying to keep control of her emotions. ‘Please don’t do anything until I’ve thought about it a bit. I’d be grateful –’
But he turned around and cut across her. ‘We don’t have time to mess around while you think about your options, Kate. I’ve reached the end. This is the end. There are no options unless you move back here and get a job.’ And then, shaking his head, exasperated, as if unable to comprehend her incomprehension, ‘Look, why don’t you leave? I think you should go. Just go. This is getting us nowhere.’
She stumbled from the house, not even waiting to collect the things she wanted. She didn’t trust him, didn’t want to be alone in the house with him. He had become a stranger to her, and strangers were unpredictable and dangerous.
She stopped on a quiet road outside of town and cried. She thumped the steering wheel and cried. She cried for all that had been, and for all that was now gone. She cried for her loneliness, for her and Tim’s loss. Later, just so she could use their washroom to splash her face and re-apply her make-up, she stopped at a café and had a coffee.
* * *
A day or two later, she spoke to her father about seeing the family lawyer. Her mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner.
‘Good idea, Katie. Certainly doesn’t do any harm. Nice man, very sympathetic, and excellent at his job.’ He made the half cough, half clearing the throat sound that’s so popular with older people, and regarded her earnestly. ‘Been talking about this with your mother as a matter of fact, and we do feel – not wishing to interfere, of course – that it’s time you moved on. You can’t just stand still, my darling. Not the right thing to do at all.’
‘You want me to move out, is that what you’re saying?’
‘Last thing on our mind,’ he protested. ‘Not what we want at all. Love having you here –’
‘Tim and I can’t live here forever, I know that.’
She felt lonely and apprehensive. She dreaded the future that loomed before her, a future without anyone by her side. The very thought made her feel sick. She wavered. ‘It’s just that Hugh doesn’t have much work at the moment …’ She wondered out loud if it was a good time to take action, but it was more fishing for support, looking for approval that she was in fact doing the right thing.
Her father resorted to the impenetrable, self-enclosed demeanour of the hard of hearing. ‘Only a preliminary discussion, Katie. You know the sort of thing: reconnoitre the lie of the land, consider your options. Thing is, it won’t be easy getting an appointment; Kerr’s a busy fellow.’
She listened for Tim, but he must have fallen asleep. All she could hear was her mother in the kitchen. The sounds of domesticity were misplaced; they reminded her of her childhood, not her married life. Her father, adopting his most considerate and kindly manner, pointed out that a good lawyer was of the utmost importance, as Hugh would probably marry again and start a new family, whereas she was unlikely to be so lucky.
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Thanks, dad, you’re so encouraging.’
‘Being realistic, darling, that’s all. Most men don’t want to marry a divorced woman with a child. May not be what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. Telling you this for your own good, of course. A man likes to start his own family.’
‘What’s wrong with Kate?’ Wilma asked opening the door a moment later, holding a spatula in the air like a sword with which she was about to storm some imagined barricade.
‘No idea.’ Which was the truth: he had no idea. What had he said to set her off like that? It was a complete mystery. He’d simply been trying to offer some advice, to persuade her of the wisdom of seeing Kerr now. ‘Possibly the time of the month.’
‘I do wish you wouldn’t use that expression, dear. You know how I hate it.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish. No point turning a blind eye to these things. Perfectly natural.’
* * *
The lawyer sat behind his desk as if he hadn’t moved for years. He only managed to half lift his buttocks off the seat to shake her hand. He was breathing heavily. It sounded as if he’d been exercising – but he hadn’t. He stared at the woman before him, but already her youthfulness bored him. However, when he saw how miserable she was, it did make him happy, and when she mumbled that she just wanted ‘what was fair,’ it was like music to his ears – chamber music, light and a little insubstantial. But when she said later in their meeting, ‘It’s my husband’s fault we’re in this mess,’ it was more like a full symphony orchestra; grand and sweeping, both uplifting and other-worldly, almost ethereal. It made the lawyer feel his job was so very worthwhile.
He’d dealt with the reluctant ones, like Mrs. Drysdale, countless times during his career. At the beginning, they always assured him, as she had done, that they did not want to take their husbands to the cleaners, that they simply wanted their fair share, what was rightfully theirs. But in his experience these women invariably ended up amongst the ‘I want every cent’ crowd. The truth is, out of the hundreds of female clients he’d represented in court over the years, Kerr had only ever met two women, possibly three, who had stuck resolutely to the fair share philosophy and refused point blank to even contemplate trying to get more than that. It was his good fortune that ninety-nine per cent of his clients were belligerently, staunchly and determinedly adversarial. They wanted money, property, chattels and, ideally, blood.
Over the years, not only had he represented hundreds of women like Kate, but he’d represented them against hundreds of husbands like Hugh. In his opinion, such men were ideal when it came to securing a favourable settlement for the wife. As likely as not, they’d done everything for a quiet life when they were married, and would continue to do everything for a quiet life now that they were about to be divorced. They were often also shell-shocked. If they weren’t shell-shocked then it was more than likely they had a woman twenty years younger than themselves hanging onto both their arm and every word they uttered. Whichever it was, they always agreed to whatever was put down in front of them, and only ever objected if their own lawyer managed to persuade them of the folly of the course they were pursuing.
Soon after this visit, her lawyer (with the newly adopted pronoun) sent a formal letter to Hugh stating that Kate wished to divorce him and that these were the financial terms she would be willing to settle for. Kerr had persuaded her with little difficulty that it was wiser to sell the family home, split the proceeds and make a clean break rather than rent the place out and continue to share the financial commitment. ‘Unless, of course, your husband wishes to buy you out.’
‘He doesn’t have the money for that, Mr. Kerr.’
‘Please call me Desmond.’
Hugh put the house on the market immediately, with a request for early settlement. They made a big loss. Kate read the auction results in the newspaper over Sunday breakfast. ‘It’s just not possible.’ She wanted to cry. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have sold now. I said that to Hugh – and to Kerr. We should have rented the house out. I told them that.’
Her mother looked up from buttering some toast for Tim. She frowned, concerned. Her father said, ‘Don’t worry, darling. Kerr knows what he’s doing. He’ll sort it out. If Hugh has lost forty or fifty thousand dollars, that’s his problem. He deserves to take this loss, not you.’
Kate told herself it was only money, that it wasn’t important, but she said it without conviction. Money was important, and she had no desire to live without it. It represented security, and helped people leap the gap that existed between misery and happiness. So she took her father’s advice and left it up to her lawyer to save her from her ruinous husband. She didn’t care if Kerr recommended they press Hugh for a greater share of the assets. He’d been the stupid one after all, he’d been the one who lost all their money. She’d tried to warn him, and he hadn’t listened; he’d ignored her. So now she had to look after herself and Tim, not concern herself with him. She couldn’t work – she was a single parent now. She was going to be the one to suffer hard times. Anyway, he would be all right, he’d be fine, he was a man. He’d get work, and soon be earning a lot of money again. Yet still, niggling away in the back of her head, was the worry that everything would not be all right with Hugh, and every now and again she felt quite persistent pangs of guilt. She did her best to suppress such feelings as soon as they arose.
Before settlement, Kate made a final visit to Stanwell Park to choose what she wanted from the house. She and Hugh spoke over the phone, their conversation very cool and civil, and they agreed that she should go round on a day when he was in the city. They both felt, with neither actually spelling it out, that it might be easier that way, that it might be less upsetting. She arranged for two men with a removal truck to meet her at the house, and she drove south through the Royal National Park. She hoped the peace of the park would still the turmoil within her, but it had no affect whatsoever.
She took everything they’d bought for Tim – his bed, chest of drawers and toys – a few large items of furniture, some of which had been hers from the days when she’d been single, a lot of bedding, china and kitchenware, and a few things which meant something personally to her, like the Buddha garden statue they’d bought on holiday in Bali. On the phone, Hugh had told her he didn’t want much. There had been despair in his voice, as if hanging onto possessions was no longer one of his priorities, so she felt no compunction as she watched the van being filled up. Everything was stored – temporarily she told herself – in her parents’ garage. She knew, now that returning to live in Stanwell Park was no longer an option, that she had to think seriously about moving somewhere with Tim, into a place of their own. They’d have to rent to start with, and it would have to be somewhere on the North Shore, maybe back in Crow’s Nest, or perhaps Chatswood or Lane Cove.
She felt physically sick as she contemplated the future: living alone with Tim in a small apartment, with all the responsibilities she’d have to face without anyone to help her. She was frightened, she was lonely, and she had no idea how life worked – the practicalities of existence without a man. Putting the garbage out for collection once a week loomed large in her imagination, as did hanging a painting and changing a fuse. The thought that she’d done the wrong thing never left her.
15
2008 was not a good year for Hugh Drysdale. From a financial viewpoint, he kept very much in step with the rest of the Western world. It was a year of economic meltdown for everyone. As a result of the subprime mortgage fiasco, the Bear Stearns Bank in the United States got into such difficulties that it was acquired for a pittance by JP Morgan. Some strangely named mortgage lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, went belly up too. Because they lent more than half of the mortgages in America, the Government was obliged to help them with a handout of fifteen billion dollars. (Hugh was never able to adjust to everyone suddenly talking in billions, rather than millions, and wasn’t even sure what they meant by a billion. Was it a thousand or a million millions?) In that same year, the IndyMac Bank failed, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Merrill Lynch was snapped up by the Bank of America, it took eighty-five billion dollars of taxpayer funds to rescue AIG, for the first time ever oil reached one hundred dollars a barrel, and stock markets arou
nd the world plunged. To round off the year in style, a former Chairman of NASDAQ and one of the top market maker businesses on Wall Street, Bernard Madoff, was accused of a fifty billion US dollar investment fraud. (Madoff made off with all that money went through Hugh’s head, yet he never heard any broadcaster refer to the man in those terms, which struck him as odd. It rhymed perfectly.)
Hugh’s own financial graph was on a considerably smaller scale, his dealings much more modest, and yet the correlation between his peaks and troughs and those of the global economy was striking. He kept only some essentials from their Stanwell Park home. After selling a few things on e-Bay, he held a garage sale. People haggled over items he only wanted one or two dollars for. ‘Two bucks is too much. I’ll give you one.’ He was too surprised to argue. He sold almost nothing. He stacked what he didn’t sell in a pile on the pavement for the garbage people to collect the following day. Overnight, before the garbos arrived in the morning, almost everything was taken. He stood in his driveway, looking up and down the deserted street, wondering at this modern phenomenon – people who were happy enough to forage through the neighbours’ rubbish in the dead of night in order to save themselves a few cents.
After selling the house, paying off the bank and his lawyer (both of whom simply took what they considered to be their due from the settlements without even bothering to submit an invoice – How cold-bloodedly efficient is that! Hugh thought), and after Kate had taken her share, he was left with no more than a few thousand dollars. What distressed him wasn’t the amount of money he’d lost, but the fact that his seven year relationship with Kate, the only woman he’d ever loved, had been dragged down to the basest of levels, to an unseemly bickering over dollars and cents. Money’s not that important, he thought; it’s preserving the integrity of what we once shared that counts.
He moved back into the city, to Bronte. He wanted to avoid the North Shore, anywhere near Crows Nest, their old haunts. He settled on Bronte for no other reason than that he wanted to bury himself in anonymous apartment-land, and also be near the sea. He imagined solitary walks on the beach when he didn’t have work. It struck him as a reassuringly sane thing to do. He no longer thought of running. He felt he couldn’t summon up the energy to do anything that strenuous.
