‘I worry about him,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘I feel like I don’t understand him sometimes.’
‘I doubt at his age he even understands himself,’ Hal returned. ‘Cut the kid some slack. He’s living in a house full of females, I know what that’s like when you’re growing up.’
‘Oh, your father wasn’t around either?’
‘He never left us. But he was absent in a lot of ways.’ Hal stared into his coffee cup. ‘So what did you have in mind to acclimatise me?’ he said, patently changing the subject.
Sam took a breath. ‘Well, I thought I could introduce you to the wonderful world of Sydney real estate.’
‘Why do I need to know about that?’
‘Because you can’t have a conversation at any social gathering in Sydney without having some opinion about real estate.’
‘I’ll just say it’s overpriced.’
‘They’ll see right through you.’
‘I’ll take that chance.’
‘Hal!’ Sam exclaimed. ‘You have to come.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ she faltered, ‘um, I’ve made appointments.’
Hal looked at her. ‘What’s going on, Sam?’
She sighed, she’d better just own up. ‘I have to move,’ she said plainly. ‘I can’t afford to stay in the house, or even in the area. I want to try and find something closer to the city, but it’s all new territory to me.’
‘So what good will I do? I don’t know anything about Sydney.’
She looked at him squarely. ‘I need a man.’
Hal smiled, surprised. ‘Well, when you put it that way –’
‘I just don’t want to be written off as a single mother with no money and no prospects.’
‘But you’re not.’
‘They don’t know that.’
‘They don’t have to know any of your business.’
‘I’d just feel better if there was a man with me.’
Hal shook his head. ‘So much for the women’s movement.’
‘I didn’t ask to be liberated,’ said Sam. ‘I quite like having doors opened for me, chairs pulled out . . .’
‘. . . less money for the same work, not having the vote.’ Hal eyed her dubiously. ‘Jeez Sam, what century are you from?’
‘I’m only “sassing”,’ she said, half-truthfully. ‘So, do you want the session on real estate or not?’
Hal was quiet for a moment. ‘Why didn’t you just ask?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why didn’t you just ask me to come house-hunting with you? Aren’t we friends yet?’
‘Sure,’ Sam said, trying to sound offhand. ‘We’re friends.’
‘So?’
She watched him as he stretched his arms across the back of the bench and straightened his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. ‘I’m waiting,’ he said, an expectant look on his face.
Sam breathed out heavily. ‘Would you please come house-hunting with me on Saturday?’
‘Well, I’ll have to check my schedule –’
‘Hal!’
He smiled broadly. ‘I’d be happy to.’
Sam was meeting Vanessa and Dominic at a café along the finger wharf in Woolloomooloo. She arrived a little before one, but they were already seated. They hadn’t seen her yet. Their heads were bent and Dominic was talking intently, pointing his finger a lot. Vanessa was nodding obligingly, a slight frown creasing her forehead. The picture was telling about four thousand words.
Vanessa looked up and smiled when she caught sight of Sam. She started to wave but Dominic held her hand and placed it back on the table. He stood up as Sam weaved her way towards them.
‘Samantha,’ he said, moving to kiss her cheek. Then he surprised her by kissing the other cheek as well. So European. Such a wanker.
Sam took a seat as Vanessa leaned over to squeeze her hand. ‘Hello,’ she said brightly. ‘How’s Ellie?’
‘She’s great, thanks. Though when she heard I was seeing you today she was quite miffed she wasn’t allowed to miss pre-school and come along.’
‘Oh really?’ Vanessa cooed.
Dominic cleared his throat, regaining their attention. ‘Thanks for meeting us, Samantha,’ he began. ‘I thought this was a pleasant way to conduct our business.’
‘It is,’ Sam agreed.
‘Let’s order first and get that out of the way.’
When the waiter appeared, Dominic took over, asking Sam what she wanted and relaying it back to the waiter. She felt like telling him that she was sure the waiter could hear her fine, but she supposed he was just playing the host. Then he ordered for Vanessa without actually asking first what she wanted. It didn’t seem to bother her. Maybe they were so in tune he didn’t need to ask.
‘Now, Samantha,’ Dominic began, passing her a manila folder. ‘Here is all the information for our ski trip. The dates we’re available and brochures of the lodges we prefer. I’ve kept these over the years, but I’ve highlighted the lodge where we stayed last year. And we did love it there, didn’t we, Vanessa?’ He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘That would be our first preference. So, I’ll leave it with you.’
Sam took the folder. ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve booked something.’
‘Fine,’ he said, taking out a notepad. ‘And now, onto my girl’s birthday party,’ he said, kissing Vanessa’s hand. Sam thought it was sweet that he was so excited for her, until she noticed that Vanessa didn’t look excited at all.
‘When’s your birthday, Vanessa?’ Sam asked.
‘End of the month,’ Dominic answered. ‘The big Three O.’
Sam tried to ignore him and focus on Vanessa. ‘Have you got any ideas about what you’d like?’
‘I’d like to go home for my birthday. Mum and Dad –’
‘Vanessa,’ Dominic chided, interrupting. ‘We’ve already been over this, I believe. A number of times,’ he added pointedly. ‘I thought we’d settled on a party?’
No, you’ve settled on a party, Sam wanted to say. But it was not her place. She watched Vanessa smile meekly and shrug.
‘Sure,’ she said quietly.
‘Okay,’ he continued. ‘I want this to be very special. I want people to walk in and say “Wow!”. I want them to be talking about it for months afterwards . . .’
Sam listened to Dominic carry on in this vein for the next forty minutes. She wrote copious notes in her diary while he spat out orders and ideas and more orders. It would be a spectacular party. Dominic had superb taste, and with his advertising background, he clearly knew how to make an impression. But all the while the birthday girl sat disinterested, munching on her salad and nodding whenever Dominic said, ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
At least he was asking, Sam supposed, but it was lip-service at best. She wondered whether he’d bother doing anything special for Vanessa if there was no audience to look on and crow about what a wonderful husband he was.
Sam felt uneasy. She remembered Jeff’s thirtieth. He’d had some foolish idea about having a beach party, but Sam had managed to talk him out of it. It may have been fun for him and some of his old mates, but what about his parents and the older relatives? And it would be a nightmare with the kids, trying to keep an eye on them. Instead Sam organised an elegant cocktail party. She hired a proper bartender, and even a string quartet, and she made all the canapes herself, from scratch. Everyone was very impressed and they all had a wonderful time. But at the end of the night she found Jeff downstairs in the rumpus room with a couple of his old schoolmates, drinking beer and listening to Bruce Springsteen records.
At the time Sam shrugged it off. He was never interested in much of the entertaining they did, even when it was his own colleagues from work. He was a bloke, it wasn’t a bloke’s place to fuss over dinner parties and the like. Was it?
Sam knew that was probably sexist, but in her own defence, it was more usual for a woman to take care of such things. The company was called Wife for Hire aft
er all. If you replaced the word Wife with Husband or Man, it would carry an entirely different set of expectations.
Satisfied with what they had covered for today, Dominic announced he had to get back to work. Vanessa was in no hurry so he left her to fix up the bill, farewelling them both as he weaved his way through the tables and out onto the street. Sam saw him take out his mobile and start talking as he walked off out of sight.
‘Where did you park your car?’ Vanessa asked when they left the café.
‘Oh, I caught the train in today,’ Sam explained.
‘Then I’ll walk you to the station.’
‘That’s okay, it’s not near your office.’
Vanessa smiled at her. ‘So? It’s a beautiful day, a walk would be lovely. Let’s cut across the Domain.’
They strolled along for a while, only making small talk.
‘You don’t really like Dominic, do you?’ Vanessa said out of the blue.
‘What makes you think that?’ Sam said, taken aback.
Vanessa grinned. ‘I can tell you don’t like him. You bristle when he does his control thing.’
Sam looked at her warily.
‘Don’t worry, Dominic’s good at a lot of things, but reading people is not one of them. He probably thinks you adore him. Or at the very least admire him.’
‘Of course I admire him.’ Sam hoped Vanessa would just drop the subject.
‘You’re divorced, aren’t you?’ she asked abruptly.
Sam hadn’t expected Vanessa to drop one uncomfortable subject only to replace it with another. ‘No, actually, I’m not,’ she replied.
‘Sorry, you mentioned Ellie spending weekends with her father,’ said Vanessa uncertainly. ‘I just presumed –’
‘Well, we are separated, but we haven’t formalised it with a divorce so far.’
‘Oh, are you hoping to get back together?’
Sam shook her head. That had never really been on the cards. Except for Jeff’s momentary lapse months ago, there had never been the slightest suggestion they would get back together again. And ironically, that episode had been the final bell tolling.
‘Was it very bad, your break-up?’ said Vanessa after a while.
She sighed. ‘Well, it was certainly no picnic.’
‘How long ago did it happen?’
‘Last September.’
‘What went wrong?’
Sam looked at her. Vanessa was a sweetheart, but they probably would never have been friends in the normal course of things. They led such different lives. The trendy, child-free career woman subspecies did not usually mix with the suburban mum subspecies. But there was a neediness in Vanessa that Sam found quite poignant.
‘My husband left me for another woman,’ Sam said plainly.
‘Oh no,’ Vanessa cried. ‘How could he do that? Leave you? What was wrong with him? You would have been a wonderful wife.’
As much as Sam didn’t mind hearing that, she did think Vanessa’s viewpoint might be a little one-eyed. ‘They say people in happy marriages don’t have affairs.’
‘Oh, sure!’ Vanessa scoffed. ‘That sounds like an excuse made up by a man having a midlife crisis.’
‘That’s what I told my husband when he tried it on me.’
They smiled at each other.
‘How are your children coping?’ Vanessa continued.
Sam shrugged. ‘They have their ups and downs, and that’s bound to continue. I mean, we’re going to have to move house, there are still a lot of adjustments ahead of them.’
‘Do you think it’s harder with kids?’
Sam thought about it. ‘Oh probably. But I’m glad I have them. They give me a reason to keep going.’
Vanessa smiled wistfully. ‘That’s what I think. No matter how much trouble children would be, you must get so much back that it makes it all worthwhile. I mean, I bet it doesn’t even feel like work, looking after them. They’re your flesh and blood, you’d want to do all you could for them, wouldn’t you? And they must bring you so much joy.’
Sam was going to argue with her point about raising children not feeling like work, but she let it go. It was not really the issue at heart.
‘Have you said all that to Dominic?’ Sam asked.
‘Not in so many words,’ Vanessa smiled faintly. ‘But it doesn’t matter. He’s the kind of person who sets goals and achieves them because he stays committed and never loses focus.’ She was obviously parroting off something that had been said to her many times.
‘You know, Vanessa . . .’ Sam needed to tread carefully. This wasn’t any of her business, nor was it her place to give Vanessa marital advice. ‘You’re really supposed to compromise in a marriage.’
Vanessa looked at her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘If you want a baby so badly, you should tell Dominic that five years is too long, and renegotiate the “goals”.’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, his goals are very important to him.’
Sam sighed inwardly. There was something about Vanessa’s total acquiescence that she found irksome. Maybe Dominic was a little pushy, a little driven, but Vanessa certainly didn’t stand in his way. In fact she barely cast a shadow.
‘I’m sure Dominic wants you to be happy,’ Sam said carefully. ‘How is he to know if you don’t tell him what’s important to you?’
Vanessa was thoughtful. ‘Did your husband want children?’ she asked.
Sam nodded. ‘I guess so. He never objected anyway. But he was happy with the two. So was I, and then Ellie came along unexpectedly.’
‘What a wonderful surprise!’ Vanessa gushed.
‘At first I wasn’t so sure, but as soon as she was born I knew she was meant to be here.’
‘How did your husband handle it?’
‘Oh, Jeff has a weakness for his girls. He fell in love with her at first sight.’
Vanessa smiled dreamily. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.
Saturday
Hal was waiting on the street outside his apartment block, sipping coffee from a paper cup, when Sam pulled into the kerb. He approached the car with an incredulous smile.
‘What’s this?’ he remarked, opening the door of the Landcruiser. ‘Are we going off-road?’
Sam frowned. ‘I don’t take this off-road!’
‘You don’t say?’ he said, climbing in. ‘So what the hell are you doing with a four-wheel drive?’
‘They’re safer,’ Sam insisted, pulling out into the stream of traffic.
‘Not for anyone else on the road, especially the poor pedestrians. The wheel base is too high, and it doesn’t absorb any of the impact if it hits anything, so you’re three times more likely to kill somebody if you have an accident in one of these. And they’re heavier on the road, they’re not aerodynamic or fuel efficient, which means they use way more gas than regular cars. They’re designed for off-road conditions, so when they adapt them for urban driving they’re just a hulking, big, dangerous, inefficient car.’ He took a breath. ‘So, tell me, why did you say you have a four-wheel drive?’
Sam paused. ‘Everyone else has one,’ she said lamely.
He laughed out loud. ‘Well, there’s a good reason.’
‘You know it’s all your fault they got so popular.’
‘My fault? How do you figure that?’
‘Well, Americans started the craze.’
‘How come I’m suddenly the apologist for everything bad that comes out of the US?’
‘You’re the only American I know.’
‘There’s two hundred and fifty million of us. You think there might be a little diversity? That maybe we’re not all like the people you see on Ricki Lake?’
‘Fair point. And maybe when you go back to the States you could make sure they understand that the vast majority of Australians have never seen a live crocodile, let alone wrestled one, that some of us don’t play sport, and that kangaroos don’t hop up the middle of Pit
t Street.’
‘Okay,’ he nodded. ‘Not that anyone’ll know where Pitt Street is.’
She looked at him sideways.
‘Go figure,’ he shrugged.
Sam had done her research. Once she had accepted the inevitability of her situation, she had actually become quite focused. She’d started as she always had before, with two lists: ‘Essentials’ and ‘Desirables’. So, three bedrooms were essential, but a fourth would be desirable. She went to the library and checked back copies of the Herald on CD-Rom. There was always a feature a couple of times a year on relative house prices across Sydney. They needed to move closer to the city as her clients mainly lived in the eastern suburbs, in the CBD or on the lower north shore, which were all out of her price range. The inner west was expensive too, but there were pockets that were affordable, where she had some chance of fulfilling the old adage and finding the worst house in the best street. Or at least that was the plan.
Sam had made appointments with three different realtors covering the areas she felt were worth investigating: Leichhardt, Erskineville and Summer Hill. But the morning quickly became an exercise in disappointment. The upper price limit she’d set herself turned out to be the lowest possible starting point. That’s if she wanted something with hot water connected and an inside bathroom. Sam was quite amazed at the number of houses that had clearly never been touched by a renovator’s hand. What had happened to the golden era of renovation? Had it died with the last millennium? These houses should have been snapped up by young, childfree, upwardly mobile couples armed with paint charts and big ideas but totally clueless as to what they were getting themselves into.
Sam didn’t have the luxury of staying where she was while she renovated, and she couldn’t afford it anyway. Many of the fixer-uppers she inspected were on larger blocks of land and were worth a bomb, despite the fact that bombing was about all they were good for.
The last house at the last agency was a nightmare. The carpet smelled rotten and there was rising damp in the walls, evidenced by the brown tidemark around the grotty wallpaper. Hal nearly put his hand through one wall when he leaned against it. And call her fussy, but Sam refused to live with a bathroom that had been tacked on to the back of the house as an afterthought, and had a gap between the wall and the roof where a nest of starlings had taken up residence.
Wife for Hire Page 18
