The Secret Lives of Men

by Georgia Blain

  They were out on the verandah, thick palm leaves pressing close, the lurid pink of the bougainvillea harsh in the midday heat, the lawn lush and green as it sloped down towards the other houses in the community, each also circled by dense vegetation.

  She could walk to the dam, but she’d done that yesterday and the day before, picking off the leeches after each swim, their swollen bodies drunk with her blood.

  She slumped on the cane sofa and sighed.

  He shook his head in resignation. He would take her. But not for an hour or so.

  She knew how loose his notion of time could be, but it was better than nothing. She would wait, drinking lukewarm tea and smoking his tobacco, her agitation temporarily lulled by the possibility of actually leaving this place. And she listened to the moan of a female singer he liked and the irritatingly slow clatter of his fingers across the keyboard as he typed an email to one of the three women who sold his shirts at the local markets.

  Eventually, he stopped, smiling at her as you would a child.

  ‘We’ll go,’ he told her, and he ruffled her hair until she ducked out of his reach.

  Kat had met Jai ten years ago, when she was only fifteen and just out of school. She’d been expelled for telling the science teacher to get fucked. (The truth was a little more complex: he had been sticking his hand up her skirt whenever he crept up behind her at the bench, and she’d tried to slap him off, swearing at him when he failed to get the message. But there’d been no point in trying to explain that to the principal.)

  After a few months she’d taken a job at the supermarket, the checkout even more mind-numbing than school had been. One afternoon, when she left work, there was an accident out the front: a car slammed into a dog, the tyres screeching as the driver fled, leaving the animal whimpering in the middle of the hot bitumen. Jai came to help her as she tried to lift the limp and bloody body.

  He was dead before they got to the nature strip, the last of his life gone in moments. Crouching in the weeds, stroking the blood-matted ears, Kat cried, aware of how rare this was, her tears strange against the heat of her skin.

  They couldn’t just leave it there. She turned to Jai, hoping he would be the kind of person who knew what to do in a situation like this.

  Lifting the dog once more, he carried it to his ute and laid it carefully on the back tray. Kat went with him without thinking. There was a vet three blocks away, and he drove slowly, trying to distract her with talk, because they could both hear the sound of the dog sliding on the metal, its lifeless body becoming stiff in the sun.

  And that was how they became friends. Each time he came to the supermarket, he went to Kat’s queue, no matter how long it was. Sometimes he’d wait for her to finish and take her out for a beer. They’d smoke joints in the garden of the pub, while he talked about moving up north, trying communal living, growing his own food, and she would tap her feet, impatient, waiting for him to get the next drink.

  In the early days, he tried to have sex with her a couple of times, but she always slithered out of his grasp. Occasionally, she let him kiss her a little longer than she would have liked, but only when she feared there was a danger she had pushed him too far away. Gradually, even that stopped. He was just her friend, a relationship she could never quite understand.

  And then he left, moving north, as he’d always wanted, telling her she was welcome to come and visit. Anytime.

  It wasn’t until some years later that she took him up on his offer. He’d rung her when he came back to Sydney: sometimes she would see him, other times not. It usually depended on how empty her life was. The last time, she’d stood him up. Embroiled in bitter arguments with Vince, she’d had no time for him, and when he called her wondering where she was, she’d lied, pretending her car had broken down, she’d lost his number, jeez she was sorry. Next time, she promised.

  A month later, after she and Vince finally split, she got in touch with him. She’d been out late and come home with a man she didn’t know. He’d seemed different in the pub. Fun. Someone who drank too much and sang in a sexy, rasping voice, before knocking back another beer and putting his arms around her, the caramel of tobacco on his skin sweet enough to draw her in. He’d started kissing her then and there, pushing her up against the wall and running a hand down between her legs. She’d been in two minds about taking him home, but she’d given in, stumbling through the front door with him and beginning to wish she hadn’t as he’d shoved her a little too hard against the stairs, giving her no possibility of asking him to slow down, to let her breathe, and as he’d fucked her, she’d only wanted him to hurry up and finish and leave her alone.

  She was good, she’d told Jai, her voice bright when she called him the next morning, the high register on the sharp edge of brittle laughter. Nothing much going down in her life. Just hanging around.

  As he listened to her in silence, she could hear the honk of an ibis and the sweet-throated sound of other birds from somewhere out in his garden. He’d told her about the place where he lived, even tried to show her pictures once, and she’d flicked through them, the ash from her cigarette crumbling onto his jeans.

  Truth was, the city was getting to her, she said — and she’d had to breathe in to stop the crack in her words. She’d been thinking about taking a trip. Somewhere up north. Maybe coming to see him for a few days?

  The pause that followed seemed interminable. But that was Jai. He never spoke fast.

  ‘That’d be good,’ he said at last. He’d like to see her.

  ‘Really?’ She’d asked the question without thinking, the rush of relief coming out in a torrent of words as she said she wouldn’t outstay her welcome, she had a few people she wanted to catch up with, she might even keep going north, try her luck in Queensland, get some work up there and see how she liked it.

  ‘Fine by me,’ he said.

  On the first evening, they’d drunk beer, smoked a few joints, and she’d soon found herself drowsy. There was a mattress on the floor in a room at the back of the house, and he went to find her some sheets.

  She touched his arm. ‘Why don’t I just … you know?’ She leant in closer, unable to say the words, and began to rub her hand along his leg.

  He shifted away, surprised.

  ‘You don’t want to?’

  It wasn’t that, he’d explained. She’d never been interested in the past. He’d stopped seeing her in that way.

  She hovered between pulling back, offended, and persisting.

  Besides, he said, there was someone. She lived on the community. They’d had a thing for a while. She’d ended it. He was still getting over it.

  If that was all, Kat said and grinned. What better way to get over someone than a ride on the horse that had thrown you? She’d kissed him, working her hands up his thigh, sensing somewhere inside that she was perhaps too frenzied, her loneliness spinning her furiously across an earth that refused to move, and disliking this but ultimately choosing to ignore it because eventually, she thought, eventually he would have to ruffle.

  Which he did. He kissed her deeply as they fucked, moaning so that she, too, felt compelled to moan, and afterwards, as they lay on damp sheets, the fan ticking overhead, he told her he was sorry, he shouldn’t have done that. She punched him lightly on the arm.

  ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘It’s just sex.’

  After a couple of minutes of waiting in the car, Kat slid over to the driver’s side and out onto the road. It was darker than she’d thought. From the beam of the headlights, she could just make out Jai and, next to him, a woman standing against her van, her shape barely discernible — curved, full-breasted — her hair thick and curly. Jai was about to put his arm around her, but she lifted her head and wiped her eyes, suddenly aware of Kat.

  There was something in her stance that seemed familiar, and when she said her name — Jackie — Kat s
tepped a little closer.

  ‘Not Jackie Penfold?’ she asked. ‘From next door?’

  The woman peered out of the darkness, a smile at the corner of her mouth. ‘Katrina?’ she said. ‘Katrina Blake?’

  They looked at each other, both stunned. They had grown up on the same street and played with each other until they were about eight. And then Kat and her mother had moved, their few possessions packed and loaded in the car with the usual abrupt speed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Jackie asked, but she had the van door open now and was rattling the keys in her fingers, as if she wanted to get going.

  ‘Visiting.’ Kat put her hand on Jai’s arm. ‘Catching up.’

  He moved away, leaving her holding nothing but the humid air.

  Jackie said she had to get home.

  Jai was silent when he got in the car. Pissed off, Kat thought, and she was about to make a snipe about how rude Jackie had been, you’d think she’d pretend to be interested in what Kat had been up to, or at least explain why she had to rush off. The words were there, but as she turned to Jai, she didn’t utter them.

  ‘You okay?’

  He didn’t answer, and for once she had the sense to remain silent, touching his hand briefly in an attempt at comfort.

  When they got home, he told her he was going for a walk.

  The lightning was shattering the glassy evening sky, and the rumble of thunder was close enough to suggest the evening storm wasn’t far off. But Jai didn’t seem to mind. He liked the rain.

  Each night he had cooked for her — vegetable curries, brown rice, lentils — the kind of food Kat hated. But tonight she missed it. She’d never been good at preparing a meal. She thought about heating up the previous evening’s leftovers and decided to eat it cold, sitting on the verandah, watching the storm roll in.

  Running her finger around the edge of the bowl, she wondered whether she could live here. Be Jai’s girl. She considered the idea, the positives and the negatives stacked up like two piles of coloured beads. He’d always been just Jai, willing to buy her a drink, listen to her, there when all other options failed. It was only now, as her life had become even more aimless than usual, that she’d begun to see the value in all he offered — and to sense that she might have missed the boat.

  His place was an entire world, and he’d built it himself. When she first arrived, he showed her the outdoor bathhouse, the kitchen curved around a massive tree trunk, the rows of cupboards to store his work, each one a slightly different size, the hand-painted canvas blinds that you could roll out to shelter from the fierce sun. She’d been surprised at how special it was, and she’d told him he should be proud. ‘You made all this,’ she’d said in wonder.

  She put on some music and sat at his desk. Above it was a calendar marked with each of the markets held across the region, who was going to staff the stall, and the likely amount of stock that would be needed.

  Kat noticed Jackie’s name. She was down for the Channon.

  She opened another beer, gulping it greedily as she turned on Jai’s computer. She had her feet up, and the scab on her knee had cracked again to reveal a weeping sore. The previous evening Jai had washed it down for her with warm tea-tree oil, and told her to keep it clean. She’d called him a nana, laughing and splashing him with water from the bowl. Don’t, he’d scolded as it had almost hit his eyes. She’d flicked another arc in his direction, knocking the bowl over when he put it on the ground.

  The computer whirred into life, and she called up his emails, not sure what she was searching for, just bored.

  There were messages from people she’d never heard of, most of them relating to his business. All dull. She flicked over to the sent box.

  The first one she opened was to Jackie.

  Dear Jacks,

  I know you have a lot in your life and Rosie isn’t easy. I want to be there for you. If you still feel it’s all too much and you need some time, I’m not going to go strange. You can do the markets whenever you need to. I’m here.

  She scrolled down, opening another one with an attachment, sent about three months earlier.

  Missing you. Let’s go away like we said we would. Have some time on our own.

  In the attached image, Jackie was facing the camera, her dark brown eyes sparkling, her curls escaping out of a scarf, her tanned skin smooth and plump. She was a bit chubby around the arms, but then Jackie always had been large.

  Kat examined her reflection in the window. She lifted her top and saw her flat stomach and small breasts. She turned to look at her back, giggling as she did so because it was hard to check out her backside when she’d had three beers and not much to eat. She slapped her rump before turning the music up another notch. She moved closer to the glass, noticing the fine lines across her face. Too much sun. There were circles under her eyes. She’d never been a good sleeper. She was on the brink, she thought. Still a bit of life left, but not a lot.

  She had no idea how long Jai had been standing there. He was by the door, half in, half out, his hair wet and his T-shirt sticking to his skin.

  ‘Whatcha doin’?’ Kat sidled up to him, swinging her hips as she did so and taking another swig of the beer. ‘Wet enough?’ She ran her fingers down the slick of his forearm. It was only then that she realised he was staring at the computer, the image of Jackie across the screen.

  Putting his head in his hands, he told her he’d had enough.

  She thought it was her prying, the fact that the photo was up, and she began to apologise, a flurry of silly excuses that were clearly lies, when she realised he wasn’t even listening. He was crying, a deep, dark heaving that so dismayed her she jiggled up and down, up and down, telling him not to do that, please don’t do that, until eventually she, too, slid down to the ground and put her arms around him, her whole being as useless as a feather against the weight of his grief, while outside the rain eased and the insects took up their familiar drone.

  It was Jackie who told her about Jai’s death, five years later. She phoned out of the blue, and it took Kat a few seconds before she put the name and the person together.

  Kat was living in Port Macquarie then, working in a pub. She’d been pregnant when she arrived, although she hadn’t known that for a couple of months. Her period had never been reliable. And then it seemed as soon as she found out, she lost the baby.

  It could have been Jai’s. Probably was, in fact. If she’d gone ahead and had it, she didn’t know what she would have done about telling him.

  She’d left him the morning after he’d gone out walking across the rain-soaked lawns, returning to find her looking through his emails. Later that night, lying next to her in bed, he’d told her that he’d been to Jackie’s. He’d wanted to know what was wrong, but Jackie hadn’t wanted to see him. When he’d refused to leave, she’d come out into the deluge to tell him what Rosie, her daughter, had accused him of, but she couldn’t utter the words. Eventually she said it. Had he tried it on with Rosie? She’d pummelled him over and over on his arms and chest as he remained silent in the rain that pelted down every evening in summer, relentless and wearing.

  On her side of the bed, Kat had said nothing.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ he told her.

  She nodded, without turning to face him.

  The next morning she was up early, her bags packed. Time for her to get going, she’d said. You know me, never that good at staying still. Got people to see along the coast.

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He told her that was fine, not even offering her a lift into town, so that she had to ask him if he could take her.

  He’d carried her bags out to the car.

  ‘It’ll work out,’ she’d said when they parted, unable to say any more than that.

  She’d booked the bus to Port Macquarie, certain that she was heading n
orth, until some weeks after she’d begun work in the front bar of the Beach Hotel, only a few metres up from the caravan park on the river. A tourist had left a map behind one night, and as she’d thrown it into the bin, she’d realised her mistake.

  ‘Jeez.’ She fished it out of the rubbish.

  Mike, the manager, came over and asked if she was okay.

  She nodded, and then she admitted to her foolishness, trying to laugh at herself as she confessed.

  He’d poured her a drink, grinning as he did so. ‘To mistakes,’ he’d said, raising a glass to her.

  When Jackie told her about Jai’s accident, Kat didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I couldn’t find you in time for the funeral,’ Jackie said.

  Kat told her it was okay, they’d kind of lost touch.

  She was sitting on the balcony, the shops and cafés below her and, beyond them, the sparkling turquoise line of river. The phone was sweaty in her hand. From behind her, she could hear the groan of the plumbing as Mike turned on the shower. His wife was away with the kids this week and he’d been at her place every night.

  ‘You know he left you some money?’

  Kat picked at the flaky nail polish on her toenails, not wanting to ask why. She knew she didn’t deserve it.

  She asked Jackie another question instead. ‘So, you two made up?’

  There was silence. Mike was singing in the shower now, his voice deep, content, the song of a man who had more than enough. She wanted to tell him to shut up.

  ‘We did.’ Jackie chose her words carefully. ‘Rosie was difficult. She told stories. I didn’t know what to believe; I had to believe her even though I didn’t.’

  ‘Did she tell you it was a lie?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She said enough for me to know. She wanted to hurt me. He wasn’t the type to do something like that.’

  ‘Sure.’ She knew she sounded like she didn’t believe Jackie, but she did. Even at the time of leaving, she’d known, but there had been something in her that had only wanted to run. ‘How much did he leave me?’ she asked.