Wife for Hire
Page 1
Dianne Blacklock lives south of Sydney with her husband and four sons. She occasionally teaches Communications at a college of TAFE when she is not busy working on her next novel.
dianneblacklock@optusnet.com.au
‘Blacklock (author of Call Waiting) has written a humorous, fast-paced, witty read. She tackles a subject matter that would be highly recognisable by women who themselves are wives. Difficult questions are raised and the narrative is sprinkled with amusing overtones and likeable characters.’
AUSTRALIAN BOOKSELLER & PUBLISHER
‘Great characters abound, including Sam’s sisters, her delightful and naturally normal kids and an interesting man from America who wants to learn about Australia. And who better to teach him?’
WOMAN’S DAY
‘Don’t you just love novels that make you laugh out loud? Wife for Hire is full of humour about real relationships, pride, forgiveness and most of all, love.’
SHESAID.COM
‘Wife for Hire is a lively combination of personal growth, romance and light humour. Great reading.’
AUSSIEREVIEWS.COM
‘Funny, warm and reassuring’
THE EXAMINER
Also by Dianne Blacklock
Call Waiting
Almost Perfect
False Advertising
Crossing Paths
Three’s a Crowd
WIFE
for
HIRE
DIANNE
BLACKLOCK
First published 2003 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
This Pan edition published 2004 by
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
St Martins Tower, 31 Market Street, Sydney
Copyright © Dianne Blacklock 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
Blacklock, Dianne.
Wife for hire.
ISBN 0 330 36452 9.
1. Wives – Fiction. I. Title.
A823.4
Set in 11.5/13 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Papers used by Pan Macmillan Pty Ltd are natural recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
These electronic editions published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Wife for Hire
Dianne Blacklock
Adobe eReader format 978-1-74197-058-6
Online format 978-1-74197-661-8
EPUB format 978-1-74262-570-6
Macmillan Digital Australia
www.macmillandigital.com.au
Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.
To the very special men in my life
Paul
Joel
Dane
Patrick
&
Zachary
With all my love
Acknowledgements
If not for the amazing Cate Paterson, this would still be a vague dream. It is impossible to thank her adequately for the care and expertise she brings to all aspects of the publishing process, or for the encouragement and support she gives to me. Thanks also to Julia Stiles for her consummate copy-editing and to Christine Mattey and Roxarne Burns for taking care of business. When I wrote my acknowledgements first time round, I had not seen the fabulous cover design by Deborah Parry, or met my publicist, the lovely Jane Novak, or the wonderful sales team at Pan Macmillan. Thank you all for your sterling efforts now and then, and while I’m at it, thanks to all the booksellers who so generously supported a first-time author.
Heartfelt thanks to Adam, Warwick, Michael, Malcolm and Glen for saving our house, and this manuscript along with it, during the Black Christmas bushfires of 2001. Worth far more than just a case of beer.
Thank you to Mum and Dad and my wonderful extended family: the Blacklocks, Naoums and Murphys, particularly to Bob, Carolyn and Ros for extraordinary support above and beyond sibling duty. Thanks to Joel for reading the first draft and putting up with my incessant yabbering about it and Dane for being a patient sounding board.
Many thanks to my gorgeous friends who give me so much including some great material, even if they don’t mean to: Frances and Danny, Desley, Robyn and Lynda, Deb S., Gary and Anne, and Elizabeth; and at Loftus TAFE: Pam, Jan, Sylvia, luscious Lesley, Sally, Alison, Kay, all the Jennys and Russell the token male. Don’t forget me. And I’m not forgetting Dori Stratton, my adviser on all things American, for her valuable input and encouragement. And a special thank you to Julie W. for sharing.
Welcome home Diane Stubbings. You’ll always have my deepest appreciation.
Contents
When I Grow up
Twenty-five years later
The next day
Six p.m.
Thursday morning
Friday
That evening
The following week
Saturday morning
Sunday afternoon
Monday
4.15 p.m. Thursday
Friday
Monday
Wednesday
November
Thursday
Two weeks later
December
January
Monday morning
Tuesday morning
Tuesday afternoon
Wednesday morning
Wednesday afternoon
Thursday
Friday
Wednesday
Thursday
The next day
February
Tuesday
Eight p.m.
Thursday
Saturday the twenty-eighth
March
One week later
The following week
April
Saturday
Wednesday
May
Saturday
June
Sunday
Two weeks later
Thursday
July
Saturday
Friday
August
Wednesday
Friday evening
Two weeks later
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday morning
September
A fortnight later
Eight a.m.
Sunday
October 5
A week later
Monday
Wednesday
The following week
November
The next day
Saturday
Thursday
Baking Day
December
Thursday
Friday
The morning after
Monday morning
Sydney Exhibition Centre, Darling Ha
rbour
Christmas Day
Boxing Day
Palm Beach
Two weeks later
Wednesday
The next morning
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
A week later
Ferncourt Primary School
Two months later
Museum of Contemporary Art
Saturday
One Year Later
Samantha Driscoll Year 4
When I Grow up
When I grow up I want to be a wife. My husbin will be called Tod or Brad, and he will have blond hair. He will be a doctor or a maniger.
We will have 2 kids, 1 boy and 1 girl. The boy will be called Tod or Brad (witchever I don’t marry). The girl will be called Tiffiny, Sky, Kylie, Amba or Maxine. They will have blond hair to.
We will live in a 2 story house with stairs and 2 toilets and a pool. There will be daffadils and chulips in the garden all year round.
I will cook gormay for dinner and you can eat off the floor. I will go shoping on Thursdays and do the washing on Monday and do the ioning when days of our lives is on.
When I am a Nan, we will move to Taloombi and live in a green house with a frangipanny in the backyard.
The End
Twenty-five years later
‘What did you say?’
‘Didn’t you hear me, or don’t you understand?’
Sam’s knees started to give way. She sank down into the bedroom chair. It was the one she had bought at a garage sale for eighteen dollars, but for only three hundred dollars an upholsterer had made it look like one she had seen in Belle for more than twice that much.
She didn’t know why that came into her head right now.
‘You’ve been accusing me for years,’ Jeff was saying. ‘I thought I may as well go ahead and do it.’
He was right. In every argument they had, at a certain point Sam would invariably accuse her husband of having an affair. Sometimes the accusation accompanied a sob, which always brought the fight to an end. Jeff couldn’t cope with tears, so he would reassure her that he had never looked at another woman, apologise for whatever he had or hadn’t done, and they would make up, more or less.
But other times the argument was vicious, and Sam would make the accusation with acrimony, not tears. Jeff would come back with ‘I wish’, or ‘When would I find the time to have an affair?’
Sam had never, ever expected him to respond by saying ‘Yes’.
‘How long has it been . . . going on?’ she faltered. That sounded like a line from a bad 80s pop song.
‘Oh . . . six months I guess.’
Sam looked up at him. ‘Six months ago? You mean March?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, maybe a little earlier.’
‘You’re unbelievable, honestly Jeff!’
He just frowned at her. Typical, he didn’t even get it.
‘March was the month we signed the contract with the builder for the pool and the pergola!’ She watched his face for some sign of comprehension. ‘Right after we extended the mortgage to pay for it all?’
He sighed. ‘What’s your point?’
‘Well, didn’t you even consider any of that?’
‘Oh sure Sam, I took out my calendar and jotted down Start affair. And I made sure I picked the worst possible time, just to spite you!’ Jeff exclaimed, raising his arms. ‘You’re acting like this is something I should have planned better. You don’t plan to have an affair! At least I didn’t. It just happened.’
Sam sat staring at the carpet. The word affair was echoing around in her head until it sounded odd, not like a real word at all. None of this felt real.
‘Is it serious?’
He breathed out heavily. ‘Well, I’m telling you.’
Jeff was sleeping in the guestroom. Sam had wanted him to leave there and then. He had somewhere else to go, after all. But he’d calmly resisted. Jeff was always calm. Dispassionate, really. That’s where they were different. Sam was far more headstrong and impulsive. She often said more than she intended to, especially when she was upset or nervous. Jeff had maintained that it was important to be very careful about the way this was handled with the children. They should give it a lot of thought. He wanted to talk again tomorrow night, after it had had time to sink in.
Fuck him. Since when was he so concerned about what went on around here? He was treating this like a problem at work. Management would hold a crisis meeting, work out a strategy, then bring it to the team.
Sam turned on her side and stared at the vacant expanse of bed beside her. She had often daydreamed about this happening. Just go and have an affair, she’d thought a hundred times. It was the perfect solution. She wouldn’t be in the wrong. Their friends would support her over Jeff, she was quite sure about that. There’d be no question who’d get the kids, and the house. Sam would call all the shots.
And best of all it would put an end to this catatonic marriage.
It hadn’t always been like this. They were kids at school when they started going out together. Jeff Holmes was blond and broad-shouldered, with crystal blue eyes and a killer tan. He was a spunk. And he was funny then, a bit of a clown really. He didn’t like school much, he preferred surfing or skateboarding. He was just one of the boys, lacking maturity, ambition, and a girlfriend to pull him into line. He was the first guy Sam ever slept with, so she had to marry him. Not that she was a prude or anything, but back then you were a slut if you slept around.
When they left school they both went to work for the same bank, which was the standard career choice when you left school in Year 10 with no academic ambitions. That or the public service. At least working for the bank meant they were eligible for a heftily discounted interest rate on their first mortgage. Sam found a bargain-priced fixer-upper in a good street in Ryde. At first Jeff was reluctant to move so far away from the beach, but they didn’t have a hope of affording anything closer. Sam assured him that if they renovated they would increase the value of the house, and they might be able to move back in a few years time. So they stripped floors, painted walls, remodelled the kitchen and bathroom, replanted the garden. When everything was just right, Sam started looking at real estate again. Jeff complained mildly at first. Couldn’t they just enjoy it for a while? Take a breather? But Sam had studied the market, there was no standing still if they wanted to take advantage of the gains they had made. They had to sell up and move on.
The next house was in Epping. Brick, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a family room. It was spacious and comfortable, situated in a leafy street with good schools around. Though no closer to the beach. Jeff didn’t surf any more so it hardly mattered.
He’d climbed his way up at the bank, while Sam had quit when the children came along. When he started to work longer and longer hours, she never complained. Jeff had an executive position and she kept house. That was the way Sam liked it. Not that she was anybody’s lackey, a throwback 1950s housewife. She had a job, one day a week. She hated it, but at least it gave her a cover, allowing her to join the socially acceptable ranks of women who juggled work and family, home and career.
But Sam’s career was in the home. She was good at being a wife. The house ran like a finely tuned machine. There was a healthy meal on the table each night. Everyone had clean, ironed clothes before they needed them. The place was always spotless, bills paid, the chequebook balanced.
Their home was tasteful, but welcoming. They entertained regularly and Sam had developed a reputation as an accomplished hostess. She was certainly the only office wife who made a point of inviting Jeff’s significant colleagues over for dinner at least once a year. She was sure this had been a factor boosting him along in his career. Sam knew she was a model wife, a prize wife, the kind of wife men secretly wished they had.
But now Jeff wanted to leave her for someone else.
Her name was Jodi, and they’d met at various corporate functions over the past year or so. The events organise
r at Jeff’s bank was on a fitness kick and employed Jodi because she ran a catering business that specialised in upmarket health food, whatever the hell that was. Sam really didn’t want to know this much detail. Apparently Jodi was just a friend at first, someone Jeff could talk to. But there was a finality about his words, not so much in what he’d said but in the way he’d said it. He hadn’t said sorry, he hadn’t asked for forgiveness, he hadn’t told her he would end it. He’d just told her.
Sam felt sick. Her stomach was churning, and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. Her blood felt as though it had turned to lumpy jelly, rippling uncomfortably through her veins.
At least it wasn’t her fault. Even her mother couldn’t blame this on her.