by Kim Lock
Back in the kitchen, Elsie beat the eggs with the herbs, a dash of milk and some black pepper. In the frying pan she melted lard and fried slices of bread. She made coffee.
When Thomas came in for breakfast, he looked as astonished by Elsie’s industry as she felt. Certainly, she’d made him breakfast every morning of their married life – but had she ever made it with quite this enthusiasm? Had it ever smelled quite so delicious?
Thomas avoided looking at her. He murmured his thanks to his shoulder as she placed a plateful of food in front of him. Elsie poured coffee for them both and sat down as he poked his fork into the steaming pile of eggs.
‘Busy day planned today?’ she asked around the rim of her cup.
He nodded, chewing, and stared at the salt and pepper shakers.
‘I’ll soak your fishing clothes today. The smell should come out with a few drops of eucalyptus oil. Looks like it’s going to be a nice day. Sunny.’
He glanced at his wristwatch. Elsie knew he had plenty of time, but he made a harried face and slurped his coffee. ‘I should get going –’
‘Please keep me company. A little longer.’
Thomas set his cup down. He still wasn’t looking at her.
‘You can spare more time for your breakfast, surely? It’s barely half seven.’
‘I’ve got back orders to fill. Delivery arriving and . . .’ the rest of his sentence was lost in the scrape of his chair on the floor, his jacket being pulled over his shoulders.
A sinkhole opened in her chest as she watched him walk to the door. With his hand on the doorknob he paused, twisting his head slightly so she could see the side of his smooth-shaven jaw, the corner of one eye.
He said, ‘Don’t go over there today. I don’t want you going over there again.’
‘Thomas, I –’
‘I mean it, Elsie. No. I . . .’ he hesitated. ‘I forbid it.’
He had never forbidden her anything before.
And then Elsie was alone in her kitchen, with a sink full of dishes and ten hours stretching in front of her, alone in a house.
38
Thomas waited at an intersection, giving way to oncoming traffic.
He had heard there was a time, once, when doctors swore that it was unhealthy for ladies to read novels – that the stories unnaturally heated up their suggestible constitutions. Elsie had been bored, Thomas told himself, not as settled into married life as he had believed, and had taken up a flight of fancy. Read one too many of those paperbacks about distressed damsels with heaving bosoms.
Except, Elsie didn’t read romance novels. Or did she? It occurred to him that perhaps he didn’t know his wife quite at all.
Thomas raked his fingers through his hair in agitation. The car swerved and he cursed, waved apologetically to the driver of the car on the other side of the road whom he’d narrowly missed, and drove to work with an odd, radio-static sound in his ears.
*
His customer had two children tugging at her skirt and one on her hip. She wore her glasses low on her nose and looked over them at Thomas with barely concealed disdain. Even when he pointed out the machine’s fantastic self-sealing bag she gave an indifferent sniff and tossed her head.
The lady set the toddler on the ground, firmly instructed him to stay, and bent over the vacuum cleaner. Her rump swelled into her skirt and the curves of her calves gleamed in sheer hose.
Thomas found himself staring at her curvatures and wondering whether this was why Elsie was . . . doing what she was doing, with the young woman next door. Like the stirring Thomas himself felt at the sight of a woman’s curves – any woman, no matter whether or not he actually liked that woman personally – was this unintentional, unconscious physical attraction inherent across both the sexes? Into his mind popped an image of the fullness of Aida’s breast, released into his vision when she’d sat up on the couch. It had swung at Elsie’s nose. Her extraordinary green eyes as she’d buttoned her shirt, looking at him.
If Aida were a man, Thomas would feel betrayed and angry. He would go over there and probably knock the fellow about a bit. (Or, he would ask one of his brother’s brawny mates to do it. Yes, that was more likely.) But because Aida wasn’t a man – was that a betrayal? What had they actually been doing together, he wondered now. Seeing them together in their underwear he’d assumed . . . but hang about, without a man’s bodily equipment, who did what? What went where? And . . . what happened when it got there?
Thomas wasn’t wet behind the ears. He had seen his share of lad’s magazines and playing cards. Hell, only this morning Bert Watson had displayed the latest cards from his shirt pocket, photographs of naked ladies that he flashed to the other men – he’d even shown them to Heidi, the new receptionist, who, upon having the images thrust into her vision, had looked as though she wished a meteorite would crash through the roof. Sometimes there had been two ladies in the pictures Thomas had seen, or in the stories he had read in the magazines his school mates used to stash under their mattresses. Thomas had been around the block enough times to be able to picture what two ladies might do if they got together and felt that way inclined.
Between the woman’s rump swaying before his eyes and the mental image of what his wife and the woman next door might have been doing together, Thomas was appalled by a pressing need to excuse himself. He hastened to the bathroom, where he found his woody far too progressed to do anything but whack the damn thing into submission. He wiped up and washed his hands, rested his hot forehead on the cool wall tiles and clawed at some semblance of stability.
At least, in the end, the lady bought the vacuum cleaner.
39
Elsie waited three days.
Three days had passed since Thomas returned from the fishing trip and found her and Aida asleep together in their underwear – three days during which Elsie turned down invitations to afternoon teas, paced loops of the house, ran rags over shelves without thinking, dropped endless stitches in her knitting, listened to the wireless and didn’t hear the music. Intermittently she bit back tears and then embraced bouts of messy, heartsick sobbing.
And then on the fourth morning, Thursday, Elsie managed to get Thomas to glance up at her over his coffee. She told him she would attempt to make meatloaf for tea.
‘I do like meatloaf,’ he’d said.
Elsie’s heart swelled. Meatloaf. She would make him a meatloaf to show him how much she loved him. The only problem was, her meatloaf tended to be more like a dried and tasteless, loosely packed meat crumble than a loaf.
Elsie spent the morning rifling through her stack of magazines. She found several recipes, but nothing that looked or sounded really superior. If she was going to reassure her husband that she loved him dearly, despite the fact that her friendship with Aida had become something . . . ineffable, she needed the kind of meatloaf that men told their workmates about, wrote to their grandmothers about and reminisced over to their children and grandchildren. Elsie needed a meatloaf that said, You matter more to me than I have the words to say. Was it possible to say that with only a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a handful of stuffing mix and a teaspoon of Keens curry powder?
By mid-afternoon, Elsie was frustrated. She had been to the shops and bought beef mince but no other ingredients – because she didn’t know what else she would need.
The tea she served to Thomas when he arrived home certainly didn’t say, Yes I love our neighbour, but I also love and need you. The message Thomas received from his plate of savoury mince and peas was more along the lines of, I’m sorry and I’m lost.
‘I couldn’t find a good recipe for meatloaf,’ she explained, as she watched him gingerly insert his fork. A fat tear rolled down Elsie’s cheek, hung from her jaw and plopped into her mince. At her sniffling Thomas glanced up, but looked quickly back down at his own plate.
When they went to bed, Elsie pressed her hand onto
the expanse of mattress between them, and it felt cool to her touch.
*
The quandary that presented itself to Elsie on the fifth morning – Friday – was this:
Should she tell Thomas?
If she told him, the surprise might be ruined. But if she didn’t tell him, his sense of mistrust and anguish would only be heightened. If she explained, after the fact, that the reason she had gone to see Aida really was because Aida would know a recipe for exceptional meatloaf, that would only sound like an excuse. But if she told Thomas that morning, before he went to work, that she intended to go to Aida’s . . . would that offer her some semblance of integrity? Trustworthiness?
Was it possible to be trustworthy when only days after one’s husband had forbidden contact with one’s admitted paramour, one was begging for clemency on account of meatloaf?
Elsie set two fried eggs in front of Thomas.
‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ she said.
He looked up and her stomach twisted to see that his expression was faintly terrified.
‘I’m determined to make this meatloaf that I promised you, only I’m having trouble finding a good recipe.’
‘Would you like me to pick you up a new recipe book from town?’
It felt like a step forward; the ice was broken. ‘Thank you, darling, but no. I . . . I was thinking of going next door. To ask Aida.’
A forkful of egg and toast stalled halfway to Thomas’s mouth. He set the fork down. ‘I think it’s best if –’
‘I’m only getting a recipe. That’s all. Look, I know it’s been difficult,’ she went on, carefully, ‘but I think it’s also important that we try not to brush this under the carpet. Together we can face this, my love. We can face anything. For better or worse, remember?’
‘Seems a little ironic for you to be quoting our wedding vows at me.’ He picked up his fork again. ‘What about “love, honour and obey”?’
‘None of that has changed.’
The kitchen went silent. Elsie could tell Thomas was thinking – properly, seriously considering – and with this realisation she could have leapt from her seat with joy.
He said, ‘I don’t want a meatloaf that badly.’
‘But with the right recipe –’
‘No.’ He said it so quietly she strained to hear.
‘Thomas,’ she said. ‘I want you to trust me.’
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that . . . I don’t know what it is. What is this, Elsie?’ He dropped his fork; a piece of egg white rocketed across the table. ‘What do you want from me? To accept your affair? To look the other way while you cavort with the woman next door? Who, by the way, I’m not altogether convinced is married to an absent miner.’
‘It’s not an affair.’ Elsie looked him in the eye. ‘And you’re right, she isn’t married. That was a cover.’
‘A cover for what?’
‘For living alone, pregnant.’
His mouth opened soundlessly a couple of times. ‘But she’s not . . . anymore. Where’s the baby?’
‘Given away,’ she said quietly. ‘It happens.’
‘Jesus Christ, Elsie.’
Time stilled between them. Egg yolk congealed on the edge of Thomas’s plate; steam dwindled from their cups. Outside the wind plucked at a loose piece of tin on the garden shed. They both heard the echo of it: It happens.
Finally Elsie said, ‘She’s a kind and loving person, Thomas. Forget about the made-up story. It’s only for protection – people do it all the time. It’s . . .’ she searched for the words, frustration and anger mounting. ‘I don’t bloody know either. But I love you and we’re married, and she’s my dear friend and I love her too.’ Helplessly, she tossed her hands. ‘Has anything changed that badly?’
He stared at her, mouth agape. ‘Other than you being attracted to women?’
‘I’m not attracted to women.’
‘Just the woman next door.’
‘Precisely!’ she shouted, surprising herself. ‘Only her.’ Elsie breathed in and out. ‘I know you’re hurt. Believe me, I am, too. But will you please let me talk to her? I promise, nothing else. Only talk. About meatloaf.’
Thomas said, ‘Meatloaf.’
‘Okay?’
‘I . . .’ He blinked furiously. ‘I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t own you.’
They stared at each other, neither knowing what else to say, neither any closer to understanding.
40
A month later, on a hot day in early November, the breeze was bringing the fertiliser pong straight into Thomas’s office. As though a giant vat of offal was stewing away right under his desk.
For a month, Thomas had continued to foam and froth on the inside, equal parts confused and angry and scared out of his wits. Four weeks since that fateful fishing weekend, and he was still no closer to straightening out his thoughts. Elsie. Aida. His marriage. His house. Her house.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
Frustrated with the way his insides were tumbling around, Thomas picked up his lunch box and strode through the warehouse. ‘Going out for a lunch break,’ he called to Watson on his way past. Thomas rarely left the store during the day; he didn’t linger to hear Watson’s surprised reply.
Thomas walked over to the river. The narrow strip of caramel-brown water shifted along its steep-sided bed, the Moreton Bay figs throwing shadows onto the grassy banks. The sunshine had drawn others – mothers and young children, working folk on lunch breaks, elderly couples clasping each other and shuffling along – in the same way it had drawn Thomas, and he wandered through the park before finding an unoccupied bench. He sat down and watched the pigeons strutting for scraps. The way their heads bobbed back and forth, plumage iridescent in the light, one wouldn’t think their shit was capable of stripping the paint from his car. Rats of the sky, he’d heard them called. It seemed unfair.
So was the discovery that one’s wife was in love with another woman.
‘Excuse me, sir – is this seat taken?’
Thomas was startled by the clerical collar. From above the white strip at his throat, a middle-aged man’s face peered at Thomas through thick bifocals.
‘Please.’ Figuring it prudent at this point to keep on the good side of any and all deities, Thomas gestured to the bench.
‘Thank you.’ The priest sighed as he sat down. Thomas wondered if he was hot in his head-to-toe black suit. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and, leaning slightly, offered the pack to Thomas.
‘No, thank you,’ Thomas said. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think you were allowed to . . .’ he gestured vaguely at the packet.
The priest raised bushy silver brows. ‘It isn’t a sin,’ he said. ‘In moderation.’ He laughed and added, regretfully, ‘Although now they’re saying it could be bad for us.’
Is that what defined a sin? Thomas wondered. Excess? He took a bite of his sandwich. Corned beef and mustard pickles – his favourite. He thought of Elsie at home this morning, lovingly and desperately making his favourite sandwich and his guts twisted.
‘Father Brian,’ the priest introduced himself in a cloud of exhaled smoke. ‘Isn’t this day delightful?’
‘Delightful,’ Thomas echoed, trying not to sound glum. ‘Thomas Mullet.’
‘Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Look,’ he laughed again, ‘everyone’s enjoying the outdoors. Ha ha, look at those little ones.’ He gestured to a swing set nearby, where two ladies crouched and pushed two toddlers back and forth. The children squealed with happiness.
‘So merry. Ha ha. Do you have any children, Mr Mullet?’
Thomas swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. ‘Not yet,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘My wife was pregnant, but she lost the baby.’ Saying the words aloud shocked him. He’d not told anyone ab
out the miscarriage.
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ Father Brian said. ‘Are you newly married?’
‘A year ago.’ And now my wife is diddling the lady neighbour.
‘Give it time. Children are a blessing.’
Thomas dug into his lunch box and found two Nice biscuits wrapped in paper. Grains of sugar rained onto his trousers as he unwrapped the parcel. He looked at the sweet crystals dotting his lap, a gift from his wife, and couldn’t help but feel touched. Despite all this awful chaos, she had never stopped doting on him, caring for him. He offered a biscuit to the priest, who courteously declined in favour of puffing joyfully on his cigarette.
Other than his wedding last year, the last time Thomas remembered being in a church was at his uncle Terry’s funeral ten years ago. Before that, it would have been his mother’s second wedding, her marriage to his step-father, Bob, when Thomas was only a boy. That day he recalled as a blur of faces, sickly-strong scents of face powder, perfume and beer. His mother, Eliza-Jane, had told him how factions of her family never forgave her for remarrying after her first husband, Thomas’s father, died. But what was she supposed to do, Eliza-Jane would ask, lie down and give up on life?
Was he expecting too much of Elsie? To not fall in love with the woman next door? To love him only?
‘Can I ask you something, Father?’
The priest lifted his eyebrows again. ‘Of course you can.’
‘How do you know if someone is a good person? I mean, what makes someone good?’
‘That’s quite a question. What do you think?’
Thomas sighed. He wished he could take the last twenty seconds back; now he’d involved religious clergy, for heaven’s sake. How was he supposed to talk about this with a priest? He massaged the back of his neck, amending, ‘Maybe it’s easier to ask what makes someone bad.’
