by Joy Dettman
‘Chris will call me before he goes to bed. You can’t be here when he calls.’
‘He checks up on you, eh?’
‘He calls to say goodnight.’
‘And to check up on you.’
‘It’s been a good day, Morrie. Let it end on a good note.’
‘Going,’ he said.
She opened the door and he, stepping by her, changed his mind before he was by and drew her to him. Kissed her. She didn’t fight him.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ he said. ‘It was for the one inside you, capable of writing that novel.’
‘I’ll . . . pass it on to her.’
‘You might tell her I love her while you’re about it.’
‘That would have been enough to win her heart back when she believed that parents live forever, that publishers fought over every would-be writer’s scribble.’
‘They’ll fight over Rusty.’ Long arms still holding her, and where anyone coming up the stairs could see them. What if Chris had decided to fly home? What if he walked up those stairs?
He kissed her again.
And why did his kiss reach down to the one deep inside?
Because he’s bad for me. Because I’m like Jenny, and if not for Myrtle and Robert, I probably would have ended up pregnant at fifteen and had four kids by the time I was twenty. Whoever I was supposed to be might want to drag him into my bedroom, but the one I became knows better.
She shook off her genetics, shook him off too, then stepped back, closing the door between them. Stood behind it, listened for his footsteps on the stairs.
He didn’t leave immediately. Perhaps he was waiting for her to leave the door. She walked heavily to the kitchenette window, and a minute later he walked by, just a shadowy figure walking in the rain. She watched him to his car, stood watching until his toy pulled away from the kerb.
Plates, mugs stacked beside the sink, Rusty on the table. She glanced at a page or two where his pencil had been busy – and knew, knew without a doubt that with him at her side, with his belief in her, she’d get it published.
Turned back to her sink, full of plates and coffee mugs. Not once in her life had Myrtle gone to bed before the last dish was washed, the last cup placed away. Chris’s sink was used, but every time she went to his flat, it looked unused. He paid a cleaner.
Myrtle approved unreservedly of him. For the past two months he’d spent half of his life in Sydney defending someone big – and courting Myrtle and Robert, eating with them, taking them out to restaurants. Robert got on well with him.
She hadn’t planned for the relationship to escalate. The first time she’d gone out with him, he’d expected to follow her inside. She’d come straight out with it, told him she didn’t sleep around, that she had a long-term boyfriend in England. Thought she’d got rid of him. Hadn’t. He sent her a beautiful bouquet of flowers, to the school. Who doesn’t appreciate a huge bouquet of flowers?
Then in Sydney, long days, long nights, no television, nowhere to write in peace, her highlight cooking badly in Myrtle’s kitchen. When he’d asked her out to dinner, she’d gone with him, just to break the monotony.
He’d pursued her thereafter and she’d stopped dodging him. Taking him to Cathy’s wedding had been a huge mistake. She’d only taken him up there to show Morrie that other men were prepared to spend time with her. It had backfired. Determined to prove how happy she was, she’d emptied too many wine glasses and ended the night in Chris’s bed.
Research, she’d named it. A final shedding of childhood, she’d named it. Hadn’t planned to repeat it. Hadn’t for over a month. For Chris, that night had meant more than research.
She was in love with his bedroom and his palatial bathroom. He took her to all of the new shows, drove her there in his expensive car. He’d got her fit. She ran with him on Sunday mornings, and could keep up now – if she was in the mood to keep up.
He drank grapefruit juice when he returned from his morning run. She squeezed his grapefruit on Sunday mornings. No bread for toast in his kitchen. He lived on steak, seafood, salad.
She knew why. She’d eaten several times at his mother’s table, beautiful food, beautiful cakes. His father weighed half a ton, his mother not a whole lot less, and two of his sisters were attempting to outdo their parents.
Dark hair, dark eyes, no more height than she, a pleasant face. Short legs, not bandy, but somehow not quite right when exposed in his running shorts.
Nor was his name quite right. Cara Marino sounded like a breed of sheep, not an author. He wanted four children. If Cara Marino had four children she wouldn’t have a lot of time left to worry about prize sheep or writing.
And she couldn’t stand grapefruit juice – or his yoghurt and grain breakfasts. She’d tried yoghurt and grain one Sunday morning, after he’d put forward his case for its defence, with scientific proof to back up his claims. Lacing on her running shoes was sufficient self-inflicted punishment.
He ate oysters, ate them raw from their shells. He’d eaten snails one night in Sydney, had taken her and her parents to a French restaurant, and when they’d brought his roasted, buttered snail entree, she’d left the table. Twelve hours later, the smell of roasted snails had remained in her nostrils.
He could afford to pay the bill. He knew which wine to order. She didn’t know one bottle from the next. He dressed well, wore imported shoes – and ultra-short running shorts and oversized, overpriced runners. And an ankle-length bathrobe and slippers after his shower. And nothing more.
Cara had seen an identical pair of those slippers in a city store, and when she’d looked at the price, she’d dropped the slipper. She could have paid a month’s rent with what they cost.
She didn’t own a pair of slippers. Old scuffs sufficed. They’d come off a bargain-basement table three or four years ago. Her favourite high-heeled shoes had come off a bargain-basement table, and were prohibited in his flat – their black fake leather soles had a bad habit of marking floors.
His floors were white, white tiles in the kitchen, white deep pile carpet in lounge and bedroom. Always shoes off at his place. Always cold stockinged feet at his place. And so pleased to return to her beige dog-box squat, to its threadbare carpet where she could put a pair of shoes on in the morning and not take them off until she went to bed, where she could always find bread, butter, eggs, cheese.
Absolutely adored his bedroom. The bedhead wall was black, the others white, his bedcover was fake zebra hide. The entire room had been done in black and white with touches of a rich jade green, and he had a pair of the most beautiful black and jade bedside lamps which he’d found somewhere in Italy. He’d been over there twice before she’d known him. He had a grandmother still living in Italy and cousins. He had cousins everywhere.
She’d fly with him next time, see the world with him.
Not when she had four kids she wouldn’t –
So delay the kids –
She didn’t want four. She’d had her fill of kids. One maybe, but not yet. Her writing was her unborn baby and tonight it was kicking to get out.
John and Beth had a pile of grandkids. Myrtle and Robert would be over the moon if she gave them one, if they lived close by, like John and Beth’s grandkids. Chris had mentioned to them that he might buy in Sydney, after the wedding.
Bet he wouldn’t. His family lived in Doncaster, lived in a cluster there. Years ago his father had bought a two-acre block, and through the years four houses had been built on it. There was space waiting empty for one more. Cara knew she’d end up in that space – with four bandy-legged kids.
Stop. He’s a good man. And you sleep with him. And you’re marrying him on 27 September – and will probably be pregnant by your birthday.
He used condoms, making sure there’d be no little accidents before the wedding. An only son, the baby of the family, they wanted a big white wedding, as did Myrtle. The two families agreed on that, if not on the church. Chris’s family was Catholic. Myrtle wanted Cara to
marry in her own church. They’d work it out, or she’d end up getting two wears out of her wedding gown – if she was prepared to swear to raise her children Catholic. Myrtle hadn’t agreed to that either. It mattered little to Cara, who hadn’t been inside any church, other than for weddings, since . . . she couldn’t remember since when, maybe since Traralgon when she’d asked God to let Dino have a head-on with a loaded transport.
She couldn’t see herself as a married woman, in maternity clothes, spending her days like Cathy, head over the toilet bowl as she blew up like a balloon. Definitely could not see herself splitting her bones apart in attempting to push a giant grapefruit through the eye of a needle.
How did she see herself if she dared to peek into the future?
Easy, that one. She was in a bookshop, holding a copy of Rusty in her hand.
What else?
This flat.
What else, and be honest.
Morrie beside her.
‘Satisfied?’
He hasn’t got a job. He lives in a rented house.
He’s got a house in England.
His aunt’s house.
She thought of his solicitor joke, thought of telling it to Chris. He’d smile, then tell her a long and detailed tale of an amusing incident in his day. She’d feign interest – as he’d feigned interest when she’d told him the publishers had sent back her novel – then he’d told her a long tale of a would-be Sydney writer his colleague had represented, who had become convinced that a Hollywood producer had stolen his plot.
He may have been in love with the teacher, the exterior, the created Cara. Whatever Myrtle and Robert had raised her to be fitted very nicely into his image of the wife of an up-and-coming solicitor. She spoke well, had socially acceptable parents, who may have been more acceptable had they not turned Amberley into units. He’d been ultra-impressed by Amberley’s externals, by its position, if unimpressed by its modern renovations – the one thing he and Cara agreed on.
He knew nothing about the inner Cara, the one Morrie had kissed. Didn’t want to know her.
Wondered if he’d still consider her an acceptable wife when she told him how Myrtle and Jenny had pulled their swiftie. He’d explain the illegalities, the possible repercussions of that switch.
If I told Morrie, he’d laugh, she thought. If I introduced Georgie to him as my half-sister, he’d want all of the juicy details.
And I love him.
Love on the poverty line erodes fast. I’m flying to Italy via New York on my honeymoon. Chris had two uncles and multiple cousins in New York.
None of his relatives had migrated to England. She wanted to see England, Ireland.
Morrie should be home by now. If he’d gone home. She had his phone number somewhere. Cathy had given it to her months ago.
She went to her bedroom, opened the top drawer of her bedside unit, and was confronted by Georgie’s plethora of bankbooks but no phone number. Chris spent little time in her flat, but she wouldn’t have left that number lying around where he’d see it.
And she wasn’t going to call it even if she found it.
She sat on her bed, sorting through the bankbooks, each one wearing a version of Georgie’s name. Morrison, Morrison King, Morgan, Morgan-Morrison, Georgina, Gina, Georgie. For weeks she’d deposited mouse money into each account. She’d got rid of it, and would need to get rid of those books before September. Georgie kept promising to come down for a weekend but she had a shop to run. If she came up to Sydney in September . . .
Bet she wouldn’t.
This flat would need to be emptied by September. Little in it was fit to take with her. Her typewriter, television and clothing, and that was about all. Her linen and blankets were ex-boarding-house, old before she’d inherited them. The Salvos might find a use for them, and for her fridge, easy chair, battered coffee table.
She loved her old desk but Chris wouldn’t give it floor space. She loved her bed too, bought secondhand and dirt cheap, but the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in. Loved her reliable alarm clock, bought at Coles the week she’d started work. Its numbers glowed green in the night, and at any given time she could rise up on her elbow and instantly know the hour. What more do you need from a clock? Chris owned a squarish lump of glass wall-clock, more decorative than functional. It lacked readable numbers. He’d bought it in Japan, or someplace.
She picked up her alarm clock and wound its butterfly key, as she did every night, adjusted her watch to match its hands, as she did every night. The watch, bought for her twenty-first birthday by Myrtle and Robert, may have been expensive but was no longer a reliable timekeeper. Overdue for a clean, maybe.
Morrie would definitely be home by now – if he hadn’t been picked up for speeding and thrown into jail.
I’d be able to visit him.
She smiled, knowing what she’d say to him if they tossed him into jail, if she visited him.
Greater love hath no man, that he would sully his reputation in the name of research. That’s what she’d say and, in prison uniform or not, he’d laugh.
Back when she’d lived at the Windsor boarding house, when he’d driven home late to Ballarat, she’d sat by the phone until he’d called her to let her know he’d got there. He knew this number. He might call her.
It had been a good day, uplifting, relaxing and productive, and it hadn’t cost a penny. She’d live a frenetic life with Chris, always out somewhere, running, eating, visiting, seeing the most recent shows, or in bed.
‘Go to bed,’ she said.
Brushed her teeth, washed her face, smoothed on cream, looked for wrinkles. Looked at her lobes and wondered if earlobe engagements counted. She had no proof that his diamonds were still there unless she checked with her fingers or looked in a mirror.
What else was there but marriage and a house and kids? Marion was going after what she wanted. Everyone was married – Cathy, Michelle, Helen. Marion wasn’t. She’d had three bit parts in television shows recently, and would be in a play in July, not at a big theatre, but she had a big role in it. She’d get to where she wanted to be one day and bless her fiancé for dumping her. Fiancés stole time, stole . . . self.
Pyjama-clad, she returned to her tiny sitting room to turn off the heater. Melbourne’s weighty phone books were beside it, on her coffee table.
She’d been on the phone when Cathy had given her Morrie’s number. Knew where she’d written it too. It was in the margin of the emergency numbers page, a big M beside it.
It wouldn’t hurt to give him a quick call. It was a miserable night. The roads would be greasy. She was making sure he’d got home safely, that’s all.
It would disturb his mother. Probably wouldn’t. It would disturb the nurse – who no doubt was accustomed to being disturbed.
She reached for the phone, dialled the first three digits, then placed it down again.
What will you say if he isn’t there?
What will you say if he is?
‘Something.’ And she dialled the number, and maybe he’d been about to pick up the phone. It barely rang.
‘Just checking that you got home,’ she said.
‘I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.’
‘It’s not midnight yet. I thought I might be able to visit you in jail tomorrow.’
‘I did my best for you but there wasn’t a cop on the road.’
‘Such is life,’ she said. And heard liquid being poured. ‘What are you drinking now?’
‘It’s red, and bottled in South Australia. Not a bad drop either.’
‘Drinking makes us less capable of dealing with our problems, Morrie, and creates its own. Go to bed and get some sleep.’
‘The major general is in it, and if you saw her, you wouldn’t suggest that. Who is in your bed, Norris?’
‘Just a couple of tramps I found camped on the stairs. I couldn’t leave them out there on a night like this. Sleep tight.’
He didn’t hang up. She heard more of something red, bottled
in South Australia, glugging into a glass.
‘You’re still there,’ he said.
‘You know my number if you need to talk.’
‘I need, so talk,’ he said.
‘My phone bill was through the roof last quarter.’
‘Hang up and I’ll call back.’
‘I have to go to work in the morning. Bye now.’
‘It’s Saturday.’
‘It’s Sunday, and getting ready to flick over to Monday. Goodnight.’
*
She was dreaming, her arms loaded with books, dream-walking into a relic of a house she’d won in a lottery, and it had no windows. And why would anyone buy a ticket in a lottery to win a blind house? Someone was knocking. In her dream she knew it was the removalists with the Traralgon furniture. She dream-walked a narrow passage, the house longer than it had seemed. And how had she walked so far from the front door? And it wasn’t the front door. It opening into another room, a huge room, claret-red velvet curtains, tall bookshelves.
More insistent knocking washed that room away. And she wanted that room. Wanted to see Rusty on those bookshelves.
Clock ticking on her bedside table, its ghostly green hands telling her it was a quarter past one. Dino Collins had found her.
He wouldn’t knock on her door. He’d knock it down.
The flat freezing cold, she slid from her bed and, without light, crept to the door.
‘I’m calling the police,’ she said.
‘Desperation calls for desperate remedies,’ Morrie said.
‘You bloody fool of a man!’ She removed her safety chain and flung the door wide. ‘You half-witted idiot of an imbecile.’
He needed someone to hold him up. She was handy, and in the doorway she held him up while he kissed her. And he had something sharp between his teeth.
She could have swallowed it. She spat it instead, thinking it was glass, that he’d bitten the top off his bottle of something red bottled in South Australia. Had to turn on the light to see what she’d spat.
A ring. Three diamonds in an old-fashioned setting. A beautiful ring.
‘Mum’s,’ he said. ‘And Grandma’s.’
‘I could have swallowed it, you maniac.’
