by Ilsa Evans
‘Oh, Terry, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry! I had a ball, and then I got out while the going was good. It’s funny, but I think he was getting all sort of nostalgic for the old days, when we were together, you know. And that felt good, like I had the upper hand.’ Terry reaches over and refills her glass from the cask. ‘Yuk, this is getting warm.’
‘I’ll put it back in the fridge.’
‘No, don’t bother, I’ll finish this one and then I’ll have a coffee.’
We finish off our wine slowly and scrape the remains of the dip onto whatever crackers are left. There’s always loads of celery over, it must breed while you’re not looking. I put my glass down on the coffee table, get up and go to put the kettle on. Terry follows me out into the kitchen where she flops onto a stool at the island bench.
‘God, look at the time!’
‘Doesn’t worry me, I’m a lady of leisure now.’ I get out a pair of mugs and then put a tablespoon of coffee into the plunger.
‘It’s Saturday tomorrow anyway, you dork. But I’ve got tennis so I need some sleep. Besides, don’t you have to get up at the crack of dawn to take Ben to St John’s?’
‘Shit.’ I turn off the kettle and fill the plunger with boiling hot water. Then I wait the requisite amount of time, plunge (with considerably less aplomb than Maggie) and fill the mugs. I pass over Terry’s mug and lean lazily against the other side of the island bench.
‘Thanks.’
‘No worries. Hey, see that empty fish-tank?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I’ve managed to kill two lots of Ben’s goldfish this week. I kicked my shoe and it landed in the tank. After I killed the budgie. And the cat’s sick too.’
‘You’re going to have to explain all that to me when I’ve had less wine.’ Terry looks across at the empty tank and then up at the empty cage. ‘It makes very little sense.’
‘It won’t make much sense then either, trust me.’
We drink our coffee in companionable silence, each lost in our own thoughts and lacking the energy to share them. I feel purged. Like a lot of stuff that I have been carrying around for days has been released. It’s all still around, just not bottled up and restricting my breathing. This is better than therapy. That is, I still think that therapy has a time and a place, and it certainly did me a lot of good for a while, but perhaps my time is over. This is what I need – a hefty dose of positive thinking mixed with good friendship, constructive criticism and mutual discussion. That’s the difference – with a therapist it’s one-sided, there’s no sharing and so there’s an inherent imbalance. And I’m past that. Whereas with Terry, well, I’ve got just as much on her as she has on me.
‘Why don’t we do this every week?’
‘Pardon?’ I am amazed that she must have been thinking along the same lines as me.
‘No, I mean it. I know we get together every now and again but why don’t we put Friday evenings aside for a sort of … unloading, if you know what I mean.’
‘I do. I was just thinking how great this was. Yes, we will – if you can make time in between all that clubbing, that is.’
‘I think I can squeeze you in.’
‘Okay, Friday night therapy, no excuses.’ I stick out my hand to shake on it.
‘No excuses.’ Terry shakes my hand. ‘And I’ll bring some champagne next time. But now I’d better go or else I’ll turn into a pumpkin.’
‘That’s one bloody big pumpkin.’
‘Thanks, bitch.’ She laughs and then leans forward and gives me a hug. ‘Thanks for the wine and the company. And I’m really looking forward to Sunday, it’s going to be a hoot.’
As I close the front door behind her, I realise that I feel all sort of warm, and fuzzy, and content. And it’s not just the wine – because I felt very much the same after my afternoon with Maggie. It’s friends, that’s what it is. I go back into the lounge-room, collect the dip platter, the dirty glasses and the almost empty wine cask, and head into the kitchen to put them away. Then I fetch my piece of paper and carefully adhere it to the fridge with an assortment of colourful magnets. I stand back and read it again. THINK POSITIVE – ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE! I smile, despite myself. Terry might be bossy at times but she is a very good friend – the best. God – it works! I’m looking on the bright side already!
I turn away from the fridge and lean against the kitchen sink, looking out into the pitch-black darkness of the backyard. I try to imagine it full of people for this winter barbecue on Sunday. But the picture stubbornly refuses to emerge. I just cannot imagine the eclectic group of people that I have managed to invite milling around my backyard, making polite conversation. In fact, I may well have created a recipe for complete disaster. Fancy spending an afternoon with Bloody Elizabeth! Fancy spending an afternoon watching Phillip with Bloody Elizabeth! Wait till Mum asks Maggie what she’s doing nowadays! Wait till she finds out that Diane is about to upstage her – with twins, no less! And how has David taken that news? Their boys will try to start some sort of footy/cricket/baseball match, and Ben will spend the afternoon glaring at me and it’ll probably rain anyway. I must be insane. But, for all that Sunday is beginning to sound like a badly scripted suburban soap opera, my warm, fuzzy feeling refuses to dissipate and I realise that I am actually looking forward to my winter barbecue.
Yep, it’s going to be a hoot all right.
SATURDAY
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Oscar Wilde
(1854–1900)
SATURDAY
3.55 am
Oh my god! What if it really does rain?
I sit bolt upright in bed as this thought hits me with force. I’m quite sure that I was sound asleep when it did hit, which just goes to show the power of the subconscious and the vulnerability of REM sleep. Maybe REM stands for residual eclectic malignancies, like daily dealings with certain relatives who invade even the sanctity of sleep.
If it does rain, however, then I’m sunk. I don’t have room for eighteen people inside the house, especially if they expect to sit down at some point. Besides, then I’ll have to cook inside as well, which invariably means trying to operate in a kitchen crowded with willing but inept helpers and toxic hamburger fumes. Samantha and CJ will just disappear into their respective rooms with their respective friends, Di’s boys will try to play touch footy in the lounge-room, Ben will sit around looking utterly miserable, Mum will be unbearable, Bloody Elizabeth will be insufferable, and I … well, I think I would have no option but to grab Terry, and probably Maggie and Diane as well, and head straight to the nearest pub.
I feel better now that I have a contingency plan. That’s what I call being positive. I lie back down and pull the doona up under my chin because the air around my bed feels frigid. For once I have the bed to myself. CJ hasn’t made her early morning sojourn yet so I stretch out and spreadeagle myself across the mattress. There are definite advantages to being single. However, I must get some sleep soon otherwise today will be a total struggle from beginning to end. Of course, I immediately feel wide awake.
As I lie there, watching the minutes clicking relentlessly over on the luminous clock-face, I muse idly that it sometimes seems that once a woman heads into her thirties, her life is governed by clocks. The body’s clock begins to slow, the biological clock begins to race, and the actual clock takes on a meaning that simply wasn’t relevant before. I can remember going out in my dim, dark youth and never thinking to glance at a clock, just partying until I had had enough. Now, on the rare occasions when I experience some semblance of a social life, I spend the latter half of the evening checking the time and worrying about how tired I will feel the next day. Even at home I’m continually looking at clocks to check whether it’s school-time, teatime, bath-time, someone’s bedtime, or time someone else was home, and where the hell could she be?
I still feel wide awake. I steel myself against looking at the clock because that will put
added pressure on me to go to sleep immediately, and of course then I am virtually guaranteed to lie here rigidly staring at the ceiling for the next four hours. I decide to mentally go through my shopping list for Sunday, surely that would be even more effective than counting sheep. Let me see, sausages and hamburgers, of course, perhaps some marinated stuff, and definitely some kebabs, they always look like you have gone to a lot of trouble …
SATURDAY
4.46 am
Definitely a few dip platters, with some kabana and celery, carrots and crackers. I’m sure it won’t rain. Maybe some cherry tomatoes and gherkins. Oh, and chips and cheezels for the kids. God, I’ve got Weight-Watchers in the morning, maybe I just won’t go. Perhaps some other nibbles like pretzels or nuts …
SATURDAY
5.23 am
Then of course there’s all the salad stuff and bread rolls. Must make sure there’s enough sauce in the cupboard – tomato and barbecue. I’ll have to check the weather forecast as soon as I get up – think positive, think positive. Oh, and desserts. I’ll make a pavlova, and cheesecake, some meringues for finger desserts, maybe some type of slice …
SATURDAY
6.15 am
Some soft-drinks, definitely Coke to go with my scotch, and must remember to get a fresh cask or two, everyone else can BYO. Maybe I’ll make a punch for the kids, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. Damn, I can hear CJ padding softly up the hallway. No doubt she plans on crawling into bed for another hour or so and hogging the electric blanket. I glance at the time and give up on the idea of any further sleep. I decide that I might as well abandon the bed to CJ, get up and turn the heater on before making myself some coffee and breakfast. In fact, a nice cooked breakfast might make me feel better able to face the day – some eggs with hot, sizzling bacon on toast might just do the trick. That and a gallon of strong coffee.
SATURDAY
9.30 am
‘Hmm, not very good, no, not at all.’ Sandra (at least that’s what it says on her name-tag) adjusts the scales and peers closer. ‘No, I didn’t think so, well, no loss this week, in fact you’ve gained – let me see … wow! Two point seven kilos!’ For this announcement she raises her voice so that the whole room is able to tune in and then, just in case anybody missed it, she repeats herself even more loudly: ‘Two point seven kilos! Wow! Did you have a party or something?’
‘No, no party,’ I mumble as I get off the scales and put my runners back on. Everybody in the queue behind me is looking rather gratified at my weight gain. I suppose they figure that now the pressure is off, because they can’t possibly do worse than I’ve just done. I hope that they also notice that I am wearing a particularly heavy jumper at the moment and I still have that pimple, even if it isn’t quite as large as it was. I don’t even know why I bothered coming to Weight-Watchers today when I already knew that I’d blown my entire week’s point allowance by Tuesday morning. But I am essentially a creature of habit and every Saturday for the past two months, after I have dropped Ben off at St John’s (he has been a dedicated St John’s Ambulance cadet for over two years now – a record for Ben and his stunted attention span), I head down to Boronia for my weigh-in and the subsequent motivational talk. So that’s what I did, and here I am. Even though I feel like death warmed up.
I hand my booklet over to another assistant (and she could do with losing more than a couple of kilos herself) for my delinquency to be recorded in indelible ink for all time and she does a double-take as she reads my score.
‘Whoa! Did you have a party?’
‘No. I. Did. Not.’ I am beginning to grind my teeth. For god’s sake, doesn’t anyone around here ever have a little lapse? I mean, I’ve been exceptionally good, well, goodish anyway, for eight weeks now, so haven’t I earned a small reward? The assistant hands me back my booklet and also a leaflet containing ‘new and exciting recipes’ that apparently taste good and are good for me. I tuck both into my handbag and walk over to the meeting room where I hesitate at the entrance. Do I really want to listen to the pep talk today? I decide that I’d better, at least then I shall be getting something for my money apart from total humiliation. Besides, maybe I’ll catch a few minutes’ sleep. I grab CJ, who is sitting on a nearby chair, swinging her legs and sucking on a Chupa Chup.
‘Come on, we’ll go in now.’
‘Oh, d’we hab to? It’s soooo boring.’
‘Come on, CJ, don’t give me a hard time.’
We are among the first into the meeting room so manage to grab two of the better seats up the back. It’s funny how old school habits never die, even when the classes themselves are a dim memory – one still automatically gravitates to the back of the room. While I flick through my new leaflet with the new and exciting recipes to see if there is anything worth eating, CJ wanders away to examine the props up at the front. After a while, the room begins to fill up with happy little Vegemites from the weigh-in who are all seemingly intent on boasting about their latest loss, and how they achieved it.
‘One point five kilos again! That’s the fourth – no, fifth – week running!’
‘… so I just substituted cottage cheese for the double whipped cream and … mm, mmm!’
‘A grand total of twelve point two five six and a third kilos all up! I can’t believe it!’
‘… which I hadn’t worn since I had the triplets … and now the pants are too damn big!’
‘Did you see that woman out there? Gained two point seven kilos! I kid you not!’
‘Ladies! Gentlemen! Could I please have your attention? Thank you. Now, today we’re going to talk about junk food, and believe me, I can’t think of a better name to describe it.’ Our motivational speaker is Sandra of the not-so-subtle voice. I’m glad she didn’t try to become a doctor. I can just imagine what her bedside manner would have been like: ‘Hmm, not very good, no, not at all. Cancer, I’d say. Hang on! No, didn’t think so. Yep, definitely cancer, in fact it’s terminal, you’ve probably got until, oh, let me see … wow! You’ve just got enough time to pay the receptionist! Yep, then it’ll be curtains. Okay, off you go then. NEXT!’
With difficulty I harness my attention and try to concentrate. Sandra is now pointing to a large poster she has pinned up on the wall that shows an array of tantalising taste-bud tempters. My mouth begins to water. CJ slips silently into the seat next to me, folds her arms across her chest and stares intently at her shoelaces.
‘What have you done?’ I hiss at her.
‘Nothing?’
‘… and they may taste delicious but you might as well drink the fat they were cooked in and be done with it! So, if you want those crafty kilos to stay off, then stay away! As for those chips and little nibbles that you put out with drinks when you have friends around …’
Who needs friends? I put out those chips and little nibbles just for me and my crafty kilos. I drag my attention away from Subtle Sandra and look suspiciously at CJ again. She is assiduously avoiding my gaze.
‘… so I thought I’d give you a little demonstration. These bowls contain a variety of alternative snacks and are each worth only one point. For instance these ten seaweed rice crackers are absolutely delicious – here, try one.’ Sandra passes the bowl around the first row (damn that back-of-the-room gravitational pull), and then wheels forward a trolley covered with a black cloth. ‘Now, under this cloth is an assortment of junk food which I have carefully weighed out to show you, in contrast, how it measures up in points.’ She yanks the cloth off with the air of someone who has practised magic (probably black) at some time: ‘See how little you get?’
It seems you get none. Even from the back of the room I can see that each of the bowls is empty. I look at CJ. She looks at her shoes.
The smile slowly slides off Sandra’s face as she registers the confusion in her audience. She glances down at the empty bowls and immediately recoils dramatically.
‘I don’t believe this! They’re gone!’ After stating the obvious she turns to glare at the room in general. �
�Don’t tell me someone’s eaten them!’
Well, I’m happy to oblige with that instruction at least. After the initial surprise, everyone else has started to look rather suspiciously at the people sitting on either side of them, so I cast a general penetrating look around the room while CJ curls over to study her shoes more diligently. After a few minutes everybody’s attention returns to centre stage where Sandra is picking up the bowls and peering underneath as if she believes that, apart from all its other evil attributes, junk food is also capable of mobility. She gives that up after a few moments and stares out at the room again, letting her gaze travel slowly across our faces, looking for guilt writ large.
‘Come on, it was here a minute ago! Who ate it?’
I grab CJ’s hand and slip surreptitiously out the door.
Now I remember why I like sitting at the back.
SATURDAY
10.57 am
‘… and they were even under a cloth!’
‘But I did thought they’re for eating!’
‘Hell’s bells, CJ, don’t tell fibs! You knew you’d done something naughty, that’s why you wouldn’t look at me when you came back! Now hold up your arms.’
‘But I was starbing hungry!’ CJ starts to cry and tries to wrap herself around my right leg. This makes getting her bathers on very difficult. Next to impossible, in fact. By now extremely irritated, I try to pull her off firmly.
‘Get off and hold up your arms, CJ!’
‘And I didn’t hab hardly any breakfast!’ Not only does CJ not let go of my right leg, she now proceeds to wipe her nose fitfully against my upper thigh. I take hold of her under her arms and attempt to disengage her. She just tightens her grip.
‘Mummy, why is that other mummy so mean?’
