The two men laughed at the word, repeating it and trying to make it sound correct.
‘More pissed,’ said James finally.
Felix grinned. ‘Okay, Mr English master. I want to get more pissed.’
The barman presented them with two fresh jugs of beer.
‘And two tequila shots,’ added James.
Felix nodded. ‘Good man.’
The barman placed two short glasses in front of them, filling them exactly to the brim.
James and Felix clasped their hands behind their backs and bent down to the counter, looking sideways at each other.
‘Up your kilt,’ they muttered in unison.
In one fluid motion they took a whole shot glass each in their mouths, threw their heads back, downing the contents, and then spat their empty glasses to land upright on the bar. The barman swept them into the dishwasher tray, wiping away the small rings they left behind and moving on to the next customer. It would get a lot messier than this by the end of the night.
James and Felix each carried a jug back to where their group were playing pool. It was their once-a-month friendly tournament, the girls versus the boys. Felix’s girlfriend Miranda had teamed with Nina to play against James and Felix. The stakes were high. Whoever lost made dinner for the other two the following weekend. Already the score was two games to nil, in the boys’ favour.
‘Your turn, loverboy,’ said Nina, handing James a pool cue.
James put down his beer and sauntered up to the table, rolling the cue down his back. He stroked it and caressed it, all the time looking at Nina. He looked more like a B-grade porn star than the pool shark he was trying to be. Nina laughed and sneered.
All around them the pool tables were busy, games being played on each one, and more people waiting for their turn. Cigarette smoke and perfume hung heavily in the air. INXS belted out their current hit – You want to make her, Suicide blonde, Love devastation, Suicide blonde – from the jukebox while a couple of girls in cropped tops and tight jeans gyrated nearby.
‘It’s yours, James. Do your stuff,’ Felix called over the din.
James surveyed the table. It could be the winning shot. He and Felix had just the black ball left to sink.
‘Baby, hope you have those cookbooks ready,’ yelled James to Nina, relishing the moment. ‘I’m feeling like duckling à l’orange. What do you say, Felix? Feel like some duckling à l’orange next week?’ It was the most exotic sounding dish he could think of.
Felix chuckled. ‘I sure do, mate.’
It was the perfect antidote to the pressure James and Felix had been living with for the past 24 hours. They both needed to let off some steam. The alcohol they had been steadily consuming all evening was just beginning to numb some of their anxiety. It also helped to direct their adrenalin towards the game of pool.
But Nina wasn’t about to accept defeat lightly. It wasn’t in her nature. That, plus her sassy mood and James’s cockiness made a volatile combination. She would always rise to a challenge. She winked at Miranda then slid off the bar stool and sauntered to the other end of the pool table, keeping her eyes focussed firmly on James. She was wearing a leather mini that showed off her long, shapely legs and a fitted open-necked shirt.
She slowly and suggestively undid another button on her shirt, revealing more than a hint of cleavage and a lacey red bra. James chalked the end of his pool cue, without taking his eyes of her. Pouting and purring Nina leaned slowly over the table, making sure James had an unobstructed view straight down her shirt. When she was quite sure she had every ounce of his attention, she licked her lips. Michael Hutchence finished his song and while the jukebox lined up the next record, there was a brief lull.
It was during that lull that Nina announced loudly, ‘If you get that ball in, I won’t do that thing you like.’ She said it with all the swagger and bravado of Mae West in a saloon bar, which, in fact, was pretty much how she was feeling. Her words carried across the table to James, past him to the next table and across all the tables in all directions. It brought every game and conversation to a sudden and complete standstill.
Other players stopped what they were doing to see what would happen. People laughed and sniggered. James looked at Nina, his head on one side, his lips curling with amusement. Nina, emboldened by the alcohol and her already high spirits, licked her lips again and smiled suggestively. The crowd egged her on, yelling ribald comments.
‘Go, girl. You’ve got him by the balls,’ called out one woman.
‘You poor bastard,’ added her date with sympathy.
The mood around the tables was buoyant and charged with expectation as everyone waited to see what James would do. It was clear from their comments that the women had universally sided with Nina and the men were unmistakably with James. No-one, it seemed, remained neutral.
James looked from Felix to his sexy wife pouting at him from the other end of the table and gave an exaggerated shrug to the crowd. Leaning over the table he took careful aim, then slowly and deliberately missed the ball.
The women cheered.
James threw his hands in the air. ‘I had no choice,’ he wailed.
‘No choice, mate,’ agreed a man standing nearby.
‘Dirty tricks. That’s why you don’t mix pool with women,’ said another.
The crowd peeled off and returned to their own games. Someone fed more money into the jukebox and a whiny country and western singer crooned, I lost my heart, then I lost yoooou …
Nina sashayed around the table and wrapped her arms around James’s neck. She gave him a long, lingering kiss.
‘You’re wicked,’ said James.
‘I could be even more wicked,’ she replied.
The rest of the group decided they had played enough pool and started to disperse. Nina, hands still around James’s neck, made it clear she was keen to go home. But James didn’t feel he was drunk enough. As long as he could think, he was aware of a nagging nastiness, somewhere in the back of his mind. He had to keep moving to keep it at bay. Felix understood. He felt the same.
The two men decided they were bored with the pool game and that they must all try another bar up the road. There, Nina and Miranda watched as James and Felix downed successive tequila shots, mumbling incomprehensibly to each other. They were like men possessed.
It was over an hour before Nina got James into a taxi to go home. By then she was beginning to sober up while he was very, very drunk. He tried to engage the driver in a discussion about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The driver wasn’t at all interested but James was far too drunk to notice. He wanted to make a point, but his thinking was confused and he kept changing direction. The company should be made to pay. The company had paid. But had it been the company that finally paid?
Nina could make no sense of it. She hated it when James got like this. She tuned out, turning her head away and watching through her window as the suburbs rolled past. Woollahra. Edgecliff. Rushcutters Bay. The marina. The boats. The park. Beautiful old fig trees. She could see their silhouettes in the dark. Tall, majestic, solid. Their leaves rippling and swaying a little in the evening breeze. She looked at them with longing. And then finally the car entered their cul-de-sac in Elizabeth Bay.
Nina half carried James down the driveway as he sang loudly and tunelessly, I lost my hearty then I lost yoooou … She didn’t bother trying to silence him. She didn’t care if he woke all their neighbours.
*
The next morning dawned bright. The sun burst rudely through the bedroom window at 5.50 am, slamming straight into them both. James buried his head further under the pillow and was again lost to oblivion. Nina lay very still, trying to ignore the painful throbbing inside her head. She was closest to the window so she forced herself to get up and close the curtains. Why hadn’t she done it the night before? Urrgh. She eased herself back into bed and was asleep again in seconds.
It was just after 10 o’clock when next she woke. She lay looking at the digital figures on her bed
side clock wondering whether today was Monday and they were very, very late or it was the weekend and she could go back to sleep. Flashes of the night before came back to her. The vodka, the pool game, James blabbering in the taxi. That meant it was Sunday. Shit, shit, shit. They were expecting James’s brother Mark, his wife Amanda, and their two young boys for lunch.
She rolled over and looked at James. His face was red and creased from the pillow. His mouth was open and the stale, bitter smell of alcohol and the previous night’s dinner made her flinch.
She stroked his face. ‘James, wake up.’
James opened one eye, groaned and buried his face further in the pillow.
He was still lying face down when she returned from the shower ten minutes later. Nina was feeling less sympathetic than usual. She was still annoyed with James and spending the day with his family wasn’t her first choice for a Sunday. Invariably they would talk about the family business and invariably James would get uptight. Nina would feel compelled to try to keep the peace.
Mark and James weren’t close. They were too competitive for that. And Nina found Amanda to be hard work. Lunch would be an effort for everybody. But Mark’s family were staying in Sydney for the weekend to attend a wedding, so it was natural that they would catch up with Nina and James for lunch. The fact that nobody would enjoy it was beside the point. That was what the Wilde family did.
Nina put her hand on James’s shoulder and shook him awake. ‘You have to get up. They will be here soon,’ she said loudly and firmly.
James wondered vaguely what Nina was talking about. The world came to him through a thick, dense fog. If he opened his eyes everything appeared overbright and sounded overloud. He really didn’t want to join in. He wanted to stay in that deadened space, numb to it all.
Nina shook him again, harder. ‘Get up.’
The curt tone penetrated the fog and James opened his eyes to glare at its source. ‘All right, all right,’ he grumbled. It was a bad start to the day. Already they were out of step.
*
Mark Wilde was a younger, leaner version of his father. Where James took after Patty’s side of the family with his black hair, solid build and more refined features, Mark was unmistakably Frederick Wilde’s son. He had inherited the Wilde nose, aquiline and strong, and the lanky body and prematurely grey hair. The many seasons spent outdoors amongst the vines showed on his face, which had weathered like his father’s, with deep lines etched into his forehead giving him a slightly worried expression. At 32, he looked almost ten years older. Craggy but distinguished.
He had loved Amanda from the moment he met her. Just 26 at the time, handsome, shy and polite, he was also heir to one of the most promising vineyards in the area. Amanda worked during the week for the local federal MP and on weekends she helped Patty and James with tastings at the vineyard. She was just 21, dainty, blonde and self-assured. She could outpick the best of the professional pickers, knew the bottom of a beer schooner as well as a wine glass and, at the age of seventeen, had been Miss Singleton 1981. Mark had a lot of competition. Every man in the Hunter Valley, and a few valleys beyond, knew Amanda Craig.
Mark was never quite sure how he did it, but the day he heard her saying she ‘probably wouldn’t say no’ if he ‘popped the question’, was one of the happiest days of his life. Although, he had to admit, the arrivals of Lachlan and Harrison, came close. He had a job that absorbed him and a family he adored. All in all Mark was a pretty contented man.
Of all the Wildes, Mark was the one Nina warmed to the most. Although he was only a few years older than her, he reminded Nina of her own father – straight and honest. When family dinners threatened to turn into something more akin to a business board meeting, which happened whenever the Wildes got together, it was often Mark who would stop the conversation to patiently explain something to Nina. Frederick and Patty had few other interests and would happily talk wine every minute of the day. James was so busy trying to prove himself to his father that he didn’t seem to notice if they had lost Nina along the way. But Mark did and Nina appreciated his kindness.
Someone who didn’t appear to appreciate Mark’s thoughtfulness to Nina was Amanda. It seemed to Nina that whenever Mark, or even her own husband, paid attention to her during a family discussion, Amanda would bristle. If Nina dared voice an opinion about wine, Amanda would cut in and talk over her. Nina thought she got the message. What would a Canadian know about Australian wine?
At first Nina had been hurt. She didn’t understand the other woman’s coolness and wondered what she had done, if she had offended Amanda in some way. At other times, Amanda would sidle up to Nina, link arms and give her the impression she wanted to be her very closest friend. She would ask about Nina’s life in Canada, how she liked Australia. She would place her face just inches from Nina’s, looking her over, which always made Nina squirm inside. Nina didn’t believe Amanda was really interested and would answer her questions warily, waiting for Amanda’s attention to wander, which it inevitably did. As a result Nina never trusted Amanda and was unable to relax in her presence.
Most of all, Nina didn’t like the way Amanda behaved with James. She was overfamiliar, placing a hand on his arm when she spoke to him or laughing too loudly at something he said. She always seemed false. Sometimes Nina caught Amanda staring at James, turning away when she became aware of Nina’s gaze. And just as Amanda seemed to resent Nina’s participation in family business discussions, Nina sometimes was left with the impression that Amanda resented her very presence. But then, in an instant, like the flick of a light switch, she would be all smiles and enthusiasm. It was confusing.
Amanda was in complete social mode when they arrived, hugging Nina warmly to her like a long-lost friend. Nina and James, who had barely been speaking before the family arrived, presented a united front, smiling a cheery welcome that they did not feel.
Laden with hampers, rugs and toys, they all wandered down to Rushcutters Bay Park. James and Mark strode ahead, choosing a huge plane tree to settle under. Nina looked about anxiously. She would have preferred to be further away from the Cruising Yacht Club but she couldn’t think of a single logical reason that she could present to James as to why this spot wasn’t absolutely perfect. They were already touchy enough with each other. The air between them was frigid. Nina hoped Amanda wouldn’t notice. Looking all around the park, she laid out the rug. Amanda was watching her with eyes like slits.
‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you so jumpy?’
Nina immediately felt guilty, caught out. But that was so stupid, she told herself. She had done nothing to feel guilty about. ‘Sorry, Amanda, I’m just a bit hungover this morning. What were you saying?’
Amanda was not so easily deterred. Her eyes ranged over Nina’s face in a way that Nina was coming to know well. Amanda stared intently at the fidgeting woman in front of her, then looked across at James.
Nina hunted around desperately for something to say that would divert her attention. She really wasn’t in the mood for her sister-in-law today. ‘Oh, look at Lachlan. He won’t fall in, will he?’
It did the trick. Amanda’s head spun around to locate her eldest son. He was leaning over the sandstone seawall, his stubby little legs kicking in the air, watching a dog swimming in the shallow water. He looked perfectly balanced and relaxed but Nina knew Amanda wouldn’t see it that way. Amanda sprinted across the grass calling out sharply to her son, scattering the flock of birds in her path and disturbing every other picnicking group. But she didn’t care. In fact, thought Nina, it was unlikely she even noticed.
At least it gave Nina some peaceful moments to herself. She laid out the salads and meat plates she had prepared. Snatches of conversation drifted to her from Mark and James. James sounded defensive.
He was always like that with Mark. Nina couldn’t understand why. She didn’t think it was rational. Mark, it seemed to her, was a gentle soul, used to the slow country life. He deferred to James on anything to do with the city
and business. Mark knew just about everything there was to know about wines but you had to spend a lot of time at Wilde Wines to know that. Mark was self-deprecating and humble. ‘You’ve seen the world, little brother. I’m just a country hick. You know more about business than I’ll ever know,’ he would say admiringly.
James should have taken such comments as his due but he didn’t. In any discussion with Mark about the family business or wine, James would become tense and defensive. Nina couldn’t make sense of it.
The children provided a welcome distraction through lunch, talking constantly, spilling their food and making it possible for the adults not to address each other directly. Nevertheless, Nina felt strained and on edge.
A young woman carrying a cage in one hand and a large basket in the other took up a position near them. Nina watched in fascination as she settled herself. She spread out a rug, unravelled a long electrical cord she had fashioned into a lead, poked it into the cage, and attached it to whatever was inside, then carefully lifted the lid. Nina expected to see a cat jump out. But instead there was just a mound of motionless brown fur. The woman, oblivious to the curious gaze of Nina and other onlookers who also had started to watch her unusual antics, continued with what appeared to be her weekend ritual, unpacking the newspapers, stripping down to her bikini and lying down to soak up the sun. The mound of fur stayed still and the young woman paid it no attention while she turned the pages of her newspaper.
The boys started to bicker and Amanda rebuked them sharply. Her voice was shrill. Nina didn’t think she could bear it one minute longer and before she realised what she was doing, she had leapt to her feet.
‘Come on, boys, let’s go and see the nice furry animal,’ she said with a smile.
Amanda looked surprised, then grateful.
Nina took a boy’s hand in each of hers and walked them across the grass. The mound turned out to be a very shy rabbit.
‘I live in a high-rise apartment so I bring him down here to run around on the grass, but he is so timid he just stays curled up in there,’ explained the young woman with a sigh. ‘I have to run around with him to get him to do any exercise.’ She was English and happy to talk.
The Affair Page 9
