by Cate Kendall
‘So did it help when you got back to town and your real lives?’ Mim asked, trying to get her dear old dad back on track.
‘Absolutely, my dear, best thing we could have done. Oh, we’ve had our ups and downs, every couple does, but a lot of good came out of that week in Lorne. For a start, nine months later your brother arrived. HAH!’ He took in the look of distaste on Mim’s face and barked a laugh. ‘What, did you think the stork brought you?
‘Anyway, we made it a regular thing; time away together to think and plan our lives – rather than just battling through every day without any direction, we planned what we wanted and took it from there.
‘I wanted a wife at home more often; your mother wanted a high-falluting career – so we discussed, made compromises and it all worked out.’
‘How?’ Mim asked, vainly hoping to hear the meaning of life.
‘We got a housekeeper! I got home-cooked meals and ironed shirts, and your mother had freedom.’ He slapped his thigh and chuckled. ‘At least then when she was home she was all mine and not in the kitchen!’
Mim should have known better.
He meandered over to the bar as Julia swished in. ‘Oh, there you are, Donald. Could you open a bottle of that 2003 Stonier chardonnay please, dear?’
‘Certainly, darling, coming right up.’ Donald whipped out a cork and brought over three glasses. He rested his hand on Julia’s shoulder as he reached forward to place her glass on the marble side table, and just as Mim was thinking that her mother treated him a bit like a waiter sometimes, she noticed her bejewelled hand reach up to give Donald’s an affectionate squeeze.
‘Now, where were we?’ Julia sipped her chardonnay and assembled her best listening face.
‘Well, I think I’ve got it all out of my system, Mum. Since I’ve been talking to Dad I’ve decided you’re right. I think I’ll just go for a brisk walk.’
‘Oh, brilliant, darling, I am pleased.’ Julia sat back relieved, then suddenly gasped: ‘You are taking the children with you, aren’t you?’
‘Mum, we’re back.’ Mim and the children spilled into the house through the garage door, warm packets of fragrant fish and chips in their arms.
‘Mim, thank God …’ Julia was grey with shock.
‘Mummy, what is it?’ Mim cried, dumping the food on the table for the children to squabble over like greedy seagulls. She had never seen her mother so agitated.
Julia led her into the office out of the children’s earshot. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this news. It’s James.’
‘James, my God, what is it? What’s wrong? Is he okay?’ Mim was immediately wild-eyed and panicked.
‘He’s at Epworth Hospital; he’s had a heart attack.’
‘What?’ Mim felt as if she had been punched hard in the stomach.
‘Darling, listen,’ her mother held her, ‘he’s stable now. It happened on the sixteenth hole at Royal Melbourne. His golf partner just called your mobile.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ Mim whispered, the colour draining from her face as she slumped against her mother. Her mind whirled with fear. ‘Not James, oh please not James, let him be all right.’
‘Look, you must get straight to the hospital, darling,’ Julia said, taking charge as always. ‘Dad will drive you, you’re in no condition to drive yourself. I’ll take care of everything here, just go.’ Her eyes were filled with tears as she hugged her daughter.
‘Okay, yes, that’s the thing to do. I must see him, must make sure he’s okay. Oh my God, oh my God, how could this happen?’
Mim lay her palms flat against the window of the Intensive Care Unit. The glass was cold and unfriendly and offered little comfort. She gazed at her reflection, at the blur of neutral tones from her Saba striped jersey, and that was all she could manage for a few seconds. Then she forced herself to look beyond this, to look at the beds and the bodies behind the glass.
It was all so alien and sterile. Machines beeped and thrummed with cold, clinical purpose as the grey bodies they were attached to lay motionless – lifeless it seemed – on their crisp, white sheets.
Quickly scanning the faces, Mim saw no one she recognised; these were mainly elderly men, worn and battle-scarred. But then she looked again and slowly realised that the man in the corner with the sunken eyes and bloodless lips was James.
James, her vital, fit husband of just forty-two, looked as though he were made up for Halloween. His face glowed with a ghoulish pallor under the savage fluorescence and his skin hung slack in creases around his jaw.
Mim stifled a sob, biting hard on her lip to swallow the emotion that threatened to spill from her.
As Mim prepared herself with a hospital gown and covered shoes in the sterile anteroom, she also prepared herself emotionally. This couldn’t be her life; this was like a bad movie. Husband and wife argue; husband dies; wife lives with guilt and grief for life.
She shook herself. No, her husband was alive; she had been given another chance to erase the awful things they had said to each other and start again.
She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as she realised how close they’d come to losing everything. She couldn’t even remember any more what they had fought about; all remnants of blame or petty differences were banished. It was time to see the big picture.
She crept slowly to his bedside.
James opened his eyes and looked into hers. There was life there, thank God. He made a half-hearted attempt to smile but was thwarted by the oxygen tube in his nose.
‘Oh honey,’ Mim couldn’t hold back the tears that spilled down her cheeks.
‘Mim, the other night. I didn’t mean it,’ James rasped urgently, his words punctuated by the machine monitoring his damaged heart.
‘Shhh, James, don’t.’ Mim leant forward to kiss his forehead. ‘It’s all okay, it’s fine, it’s over. But what about you, how do you feel?’
‘Rooted. It happened on the sixteenth hole. Just like being shot. Someone started CPR, apparently, thank God. Thankfully a golf-course is the second-best place to find a doctor,’ he smiled wanly, attempting a quip.
‘And what did the doctor say?’
‘Pretty straightforward heart attack.’ He gave her a rueful look. ‘Sorry, love.’
‘Oh James,’ she took his hand in hers and kissed it tenderly.
‘Mrs Woolcott?’ A tall, good-looking doctor walked briskly into the ward. ‘Good evening, Kenneth Williams, cardiologist. If you’ll excuse us, your husband needs some more tests, including an ECG and an angiogram. He’s going to be fine; and bar any concerning results you can take him home in a few days. But if you would just wait outside that would be greatly appreciated.’
Mim left them to it and went to sit on a hard bench in an unwelcoming waiting room, drinking something that only remotely resembled coffee.
James could so easily have died today – today, just a regular day on the calendar, could have been his last day. She shuddered and attempted another mouthful of the disgusting beverage.
He could have died and the last things we said to each other were screamed in anger, she thought to herself.
She wiped her hand across her face, her make-up long gone.
How would I have told the kids, what would we have done without him? I had no idea he was under so much strain.
She gazed down at the cracked linoleum and noticed a mark on one of her Chanel loafers. ‘Ohmigod,’ she cried, sitting up in shock, anxiously scrubbing the offending spot with her thumb. Luckily it came off easily and she sat back in relief. These were her favourite shoes, she couldn’t cope if they were damaged.
Then it hit her.
She looked again at the $1200 designer shoes, which she had lovingly coveted for six months before treating herself to a pair. Wearing them had sent a thrill through her. Even seeing them neatly lined up in her wardrobe gave her joy.
Shoes.
Not love or life or moments shared.
Just shoes.
Not her children,
her husband, or a close friend.
Fucking shoes!
She stood and looked again through the window of Intensive Care. She saw the relatives, their faces crumpled as they sat beside their loved ones. She saw the nurses bustling efficiently as they monitored their patients, concentrating on their well-being.
She wiggled her toes in her loafers. Her feet felt sweaty and cramped. She was disgusted with her greed.
They’re just damn shoes.
She saw James being wheeled back into the room and for an instant caught his eye and smiled at him. Then she strode down the empty corridor to throw the stagnant remains of her pseudo-coffee in an overflowing bin, crushing the Styrofoam cup triumphantly as she hurried back to see her husband.
Sometime later a harried nurse at the end of her shift was stunned to find a practically brand-new pair of Chanel shoes discarded under a chair in the waiting room.
‘Bugger me,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve hit the jackpot!’ Swooping them up, she rushed home to sell them on eBay.
Cliff’s meaty paw clutched the roof of his new Maserati GranSport Spyder as he hauled himself out of the low seat with an old-man grunt. He’d traded his conservative BMW 760 Li for this new phallic-compensator and was rapt with how it now caught the fillies’ attention as he sped down Chapel Street. He saw those hot bits of stuff eyeing off his powerful machine and imagined their panties getting damp from the roar of his Spyder. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry he’d have stopped and done a couple of them a big favour in the back seat.
He hitched his new Jagmen jeans over his flabby gut, and decisively zipped up his black leather jacket.
I am so the man, he decided arrogantly.
As he headed toward the gym, beads of sweat sprang to life on his hairy back and his butt muscles tightened with anticipation. He’d arranged to meet Clary tonight and his dick had already sprung into action like a divining rod, pulling him in the direction of his mistress.
‘Fuck that Viagra’s good stuff,’ Cliff thought to himself smugly. He’d taken a double dose tonight, so Clary had better be up for some serious action. She was getting the goods today – not just the sizzling package in his pants – but also the news that from tonight he was free; free to be hers, unburdened from the suffocating shackles of family life and that dumb bitch Tiffany.
Mind you, he corrected himself, she’d gone all silicone now. But her desperate attempt to win him back was too little too late – anyway, underneath all that work she was still almost forty.
He’d told her earlier tonight. The moll, she’d just laughed at him. How dare she laugh? Didn’t she realise she’d be fucking nothing without him?
He should have gone with his first plan and just texted her. Oh well, it was done now.
He snuck in a side door of the gym and spied Clary packing up the equipment from her after-school gymnastics class. Christ, her hard titties and hot little arse look fucking fantastic in the lycra leotard, Cliff thought, licking his lips. With so much blood rushing to his crotch it was all he could do to think clearly. He came up behind her as she bent to retrieve hoops from the floor, grabbing her hips and grinding savagely into her pelvis.
Clary looked up from under her straw-like bleached mane as her head dangled upside-down, and grinned at her man; the one she had so cleverly lured from his fat wife and ugly kids and would soon be married to, with complete bank-account access and a full set of credit cards. Now that made her wet.
It was more than enough to make up for his tragically small and often soft cock, Clary thought with satisfaction, happy with the compromise she had struck for herself.
‘G’day, stud-muffin,’ she purred. ‘You’ve taken your time to show.’ She stuck a finger in her mouth provocatively and sucked it noisily.
‘Well I’m here now, gorgeous,’ he said by way of foreplay, and, pulling her upright, pushed her hard against the pommel horse, smashing his teeth against hers in a battle of tongues and saliva.
Her tits were unreal, he thought as he groped them roughly. So firm and high.
Clary peeled off her leotard and stood naked before him. ‘So, big man, what have you got for your little Clary?’ It was always best to get things over with as quickly as possible so they could go shopping, she’d discovered.
Cliff’s mottled red hands were shaking as he fumbled with his YSL belt buckle and pushed his jeans and Y-fronts down around his hairy ankles. ‘How do you like my weapon of mass erection?’ he asked proudly, flipping his mistress towards him as she threw one leg over the pommel horse.
He grabbed her shoulders as he went to work, giddy with lust and excitement.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, how good am I? How fucking good am I? his thoughts thumped in rhythm with his inept thrusting. Look at the hot little unit I’ve scored.
The moonlight reflected off his fleshy white arse as his performance heightened then quickly died. He gave one last dramatic thrust, just to prove some kind of point, and heard the dreadful crack beneath him as the pommel horse gave way.
Lithe gymnast that she was, Clary had the dexterity to leap away. But Big Man Cliff, with his jocks around his ankles and more blood in his member than his brain, didn’t register the danger in time. The fifty-kilo pommel horse fell forwards, and Cliff, bare-arsed and panting, fell with it. Tangled by his own trousers, he fell awkwardly, twisting his back and landing square on one steel leg of the equipment, noisily snapping three lower vertebrae.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Clary was respectable and had, at his insistence, dressed Cliff, causing immense pain and further spinal damage.
Delirious with pain as he was strapped to a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance, Cliff was in too much agony to notice his now-former girlfriend making eyes at the strapping young paramedic.
Ellie shut the car door with a solid European ‘whumph’. She tugged her multi-coloured striped Eugenie sweater and took a deep breath. A heavy rain had fallen last night and the landscaped gardens and playing fields of Langholme Grammar seemed relieved at this momentary break from the drought.
Damn, what a morning to be on reading duty, Ellie thought as she helped Rupert and his school bag, library bag, sports bag and violin case out of the car. But I refuse to ditch, I will not sink to their level.
She walked past the CPM standing in their usual spot at the playground edge like a group of vultures waiting to attack. As Ellie passed, they angled their bodies away and she was sure she overheard one say, ‘There she is.’
Her resolve strengthened. She was determined to see this day through. With a sigh Ellie made her way into the school and into the den of the Mothers Superior.
LJ’s exhibition had opened last night. Just when Ellie thought she was going to be sitting at home, wallowing in the humiliation, Bryce had whisked her to Aria at 1 Macquarie Street in Sydney, a world-renowned restaurant overlooking Circular Quay. They’d got back to Melbourne by 1 a.m. and though she was a little tired this morning, she was grateful for Bryce’s thoughtfulness.
She walked towards the Reading Mums, who were in a tight group, gossiping excitedly, and Ellie didn’t need to guess too hard what the topic was as they suddenly fell silent at her approach.
‘Hang up your bag, sweetie, reader in the reading box and into class.’ She guided Rupert off to his morning chores, then, steeling herself, she approached the reading box to select the first victim for the morning. Naturally, the Reading Mums guarded the box as their own personal domain and she had to break through the group to get on with her duties.
‘Morning, Ellie,’ said Mary, turning her head over her shoulder. ‘Good night last night?’
‘Yes, it was fabulous actually.’ She briefly filled the ladies in on her evening.
‘Really, that was kind of him,’ said one of the other mothers in a disbelieving fashion. ‘Special occasion, was it?’
‘No, not really, he just wanted to surprise me,’ Ellie said, taking the next reader.
‘We actually attended LJ’s opening last night.
Very glamorous affair,’ boasted Trixie.
The mums had all been rather chuffed when they received an invitation to LJ’s exhibit. She normally excluded most of the school mums, except for those on society’s A-list. When the parents had arrived at the glamorous event, they were shocked, and a little insulted, to discover most of Langholme Grammar was in attendance. Even the principal and his little wife were there.
‘Really, how was it?’ Ellie asked with little enthusiasm.
‘Oh, weren’t you invited, darling? Sorry, put my foot in it. I presumed you would have been … everyone was there,’ said Trixie.
‘I was invited, but declined,’ said Ellie, wishing Trixie would dry up and go away.
‘Well, it was unbelievable. The photographers; the canapés; the exquisite champagne. She does it so well. But the art, Ellie, the art! Truly spectacular, she’s really outdone herself this time.’
‘Yes, she has,’ agreed Ellie, thinking, Just kill me now.
‘There was the most amazing piece at the entrance of the gallery, Ellie, you really should pop along and see it,’ Trixie spoke with insincere wide-eyed innocence. ‘This girl was a dead ringer for you. Really, could be your twin. Of course, I haven’t seen quite as much of you as this girl was displaying.’ Trixie was truly enjoying this ridiculous charade.
‘It was me,’ said Ellie in a flat voice.
‘Sorry?’ said Trixie and all the women stopped smirking and looked at her, open-mouthed. They were flabbergasted. They hadn’t expected a confession. It took all the fun out of the game.
