Morning in Melbourne

by Nicole Taylor

  Jane had been creative, he’d give her that. His favourite was when Jane pretended that Louise needed to borrow $5,000. Louise – borrow money! David chuckled at the thought. Lou was the last person who would borrow money. If she needed money, she’s go to the bank – or her ex-husband would give it to her. But David went along with Jane’s subterfuge. At least he was making it harder for her to give those “kids” money all the time. But he bloody well wouldn’t have his assets made available to them. No way.

  But – now they were adults. Only Ryan and Felicity were children – their children. David thought about it some more and made up his mind. Marriage would do it. It may not be romantic, but this was a good reason to get married and that was what David needed: a good reason. He already had everything else.

  *

  Louise picked up the phone and said “Hello?” in a polite, inquisitive tone – as one does when answering the phone.

  It was Katherine calling. “He’s marrying her,” she said. Katherine’s voice was loud and strong with her anger. Louise paused for just a second, knowing immediately that Katherine meant her ex-husband, Peter, was marrying his girlfriend – what was her name?

  “Leeanne,” said Katherine. “Peter and Leeanne have just announced their engagement and have set a date. It’s in two months. They want Charlotte to be their flower girl.”

  “Oh,” said Louise. She knew her friend needed to vent, and she also knew it was pointless trying to diffuse Katherine’s anger.

  Peter and Katherine had split 8 years previously, leaving Katherine with their two young children. Charlotte had been 2 and Allan 7. He had left her and taken up with a much younger woman – Leeanne. They had been living together since then, so it wasn’t surprising that they should marry. Louise decided in the spot that if she had to say anything, she would try that avenue.

  She assessed her options and went with “Well, he made her wait long enough! They’ve been together 8 years, haven’t they?”

  “Yeah,” agreed Katherine. “It just pisses me off that he fucks up my life, and just gets to float off and start anew – as though we never even happened!” Katherine fumed. “It should have been me who got remarried first! I’m the ‘good family person’. He’s just a using bastard.”

  Louise had met Peter. He seemed quite nice. She had also met Leeanne, who despite having questionable taste in clothing seemed to be quite stable, too.

  Leeanne was at least 35 but dressed like a 26 year old pseudo-intellectual. She had what Louise thought of as the “Carlton look”. It involved being super thin; flat chested; scraping the brown (always brown) hair into a high ponytail and wearing black plastic framed rectangular spectacles and no make-up. Clothing emphasised the lack of figure and comprised beige or black trousers, longish skirts, long sleeved T-shirts and flat shoes. Jewellery was minimal and expensive: a platinum Swiss watch and Jorge Jenson earrings – that sort of thing.

  It wasn’t a look Louise had ever aspired to and couldn’t have achieved in any case, being both petite and shapely. Katherine, who also possessed a womanly figure, and had naturally fair hair with added highlights, was more Brighton than Carlton; and she openly despaired of her replacement’s fashion sense. “What if Charlotte thinks that’s how she should dress?” was her lament.

  “But Katherine!” Louise couldn’t take it anymore. “Why do you feel that it is a competition? And even if it is a competition – haven’t you won?”

  Katherine barked back at Louise. “How have I won?”

  But Louise was ready. “You’ve succeeded! That’s winning. You’ve survived being left to raise a young family on your own; you maintained your professional career; you have a beautiful home and no mortgage; you have a great boyfriend, and you two have so much in common:- kids the same ages; all the sporting things you do together – cycling and wind surfing; and you go on terrific holidays together. You and Mike have more fun than a tampon commercial! You are financially secure, attractive and healthy – and your kids are growing up into lovely young people! What’s Peter got? A skinny girlfriend who can’t dress her age or ever look forward to doing age-appropriate things, like losing her figure giving birth.” Louise heard the sniff that followed two big tears rolling down Katherine’s face.

  “I didn’t deserve to be left like that,” she sobbed.

  “Didn’t you kick him out?”

  “So? We were married! He should have worked at coming back. We had two little kids and a home. I didn’t deserve to be left while he goes off and gets married in Tahiti.” She sniffed loudly and hung up the phone. Then she sat up straight, pushing her hair away from her face. She pulled out her mobile phone again and punched in a number. “Mike? It’s Katherine…. Hi. Let’s get engaged…. Yes…. Don’t worry, I’ll buy the ring….”

  *

  It was around this time that Louise realised that her friend Katherine was very competitive; and that she, Louise, was the perfect antidote to all Katherine’s self-perceived failings. First of all, Louise was a few years older than Katherine, and therefore technically less desirable as a marriage partner. Secondly, Louise’s house was smaller than Katherine’s, and a townhouse – not a stand-alone building in its own yard.

  Thirdly and most importantly, Louise had not had a boyfriend since her husband. And in Katherine’s world, couple-status alone signified success. To be a single adult was to be unsuccessful, and Louise was Katherine’s Sharon Strezlecki – the friend to whom she could compare herself and always look better by comparison. Louise shrugged at the thought.

  *

  They’d met in Canberra. Jeff was there to fill a position that was moving to Melbourne within 3 months. He was heading up the operation as it packed up its Canberra office, farewelling employees who refused to move and welcoming people more suited to the relocation.

  “I’ll be coming to Canberra frequently, so this won’t be good-bye,” he explained.

  “I don’t do long-distance relationships.” Louise smiled but shook her head.

  Jeff frowned. “Not even for me?”

  “Sorry,” said Louise. She cast her mind back to Stuart, her first love, who had moved to Brisbane to wait for Louise to finish her degree but had accidently gotten engaged instead. “Women can do long-distance relationships but men can’t; and that wouldn’t make either of us happy, so let’s not.”

  Jeff paused. He hadn’t expected that. For one thing, he knew Louise wasn’t hedging her bets, and there were no other men lurking nearby awaiting his departure. Was she so self-sufficient that she preferred being on her own to being in a long distance relationship? Jeff actually enjoyed the long distance romance. It allowed him to remain single at work, and at home, actually. I also allowed for romantic weekends away with a loving and familiar woman. From Jeff’s perspective, the long-distance romance offered the best of both worlds. When he was at home, he could tell the local girl he had to go away for a conference, and when he was away, he was returning to an already established relationship, and was the world-weary Wall St warrior, who needed to be soothed and pandered to.

  Jeff felt oddly depleted. How did Louise know that men who lived interstate were not… would still… how did she know?

  “So, you don’t trust me,” he said.

  “I trust you to behave like most men when they are on their own, away from home” Louise answered. But she could see that Jeff was hurt. “Look,” she said, “I don’t want to make a general sweeping statement about “all men”, because you can’t do that; but I worked at Defence and spent a lot of time with the uniformed personnel, doing costings for military exercises. Many of these were in Asia. Before the guys left we would make sure they had their shots and their condoms. And when they came back we made sure they had their penicillin – until HIV hit. Then we ran tests for anyone who wanted them, including the wives. And they were upstanding, married, family men.” She paused, not smiling, and spoke gently but firmly. “I don’t do long distance relationships because men don’t remain faithful to a woman who
lives in another city. To a lot of men, sex is like eating. Even if they prefer home cooking, they will eat the local food rather than go hungry.”

  “So,” said Jeff, “Now I’m ‘most men’?”

  Louise sighed. “I’m not getting involved with a long-distance relationship Jeff and you won’t be able to talk me into it.”

  Jeff believed her. He liked her because she wasn’t being catty about it; or even being critical. She was being candid and she had clearly given this some thought. An experience with a past love, no doubt. And he found himself liking her mostly because she was smart.

  “Come with me,” he said to Louise.

  “I can’t!” Louise protested. “I have a career; I have family; I have this house to pay off!”

  “Marry me.”

  “Sure.” Louise shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “We haven’t even lived together yet!”

  “We can live together then.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I have a career and a-“

  “So it has to be marriage.” Jeff felt stronger again. Now he was showing her that he could figure her out as easily as she had him. “Women go where their husbands go. It happens every day. Don’t you trust me to look after you?” Louise was momentarily speechless. No one had ever offered to look after her before. Jeff kept going. “You can let this house and it will pay itself off. Can you arrange a wedding within six weeks?”

  “Yes,” Louise answered meekly.

  “Good. Then I’ll organise the honeymoon. Beach or city?”

  “Beach please.”

  “OK then,” and he smiled and kissed her.

  That had been the beginning. They’d married, and then it had begun. The constant uprooting and moving and house-hunting and school enrolments and finding new doctors and dentists and mechanics and friends.

  Having lived in Canberra so long, for Louise this was, at first, a welcome change. It had been exciting when they’d moved from Canberra to Melbourne, and less than two years later, to Washington D.C. for four years. From D.C. they’d moved to Sydney for three years; then back to Melbourne for two years. Moving had definitely lost its allure by the time they’d left Melbourne for the second time in ten years to spend two more years in the United States – in Des Moines, Iowa, this time; so no chance to re-connect with friends previously made while they were in D.C. When at last they returned to Melbourne from Iowa, it was the third time they’d done so. So, they’d moved to Melbourne more than to anywhere else. It was a sign. It was something.

  Of course, when Louise married Jeff, she didn’t know that this was her future. She should have figured it out – she could have figured it out. Jeff had not had any job for more than 2 years. He had lived all over the world – his father was a governor for the U.S. State Department, and they’d been moving every few years since he was born. Jeff had grown up in Rhodesia, Iran, Viet Nam, Japan, both sides of the United States – and now, as an adult, he was unable to remain in one place for longer than two years.

  Louise hadn’t understood that the blood of a nomad is stirred by new prospects and becomes sluggish and clotted when denied the freedom to roam. She enjoyed the adventure of new people and places but knew that a stable geographic environment offered security and better access to the network required for raising a family. Nor had she understood the force, the irresistible pull on the nomad, which was the next location.

  Chapter 29 – The big event

  And the day finally dawned. It was a sparkling day. Louise let all the kids sleep in. She checked the transport arrangements. She called the reception venue and made sure that the vegetarian option would be available for Peter.

  The phone rang and Louise answered it with trepidation. Last minute phone calls were not welcome. They introduced an element of risk to the orderly planning which was unwanted. “Hello?” Her tone was warily inquisitive. Her smile relaxed her face. “Yes, fine – see you there!” They entered the gothic building and watched the afternoon sun filter into the room through the old windows. The organist played an aria which perfectly complimented the importance and excitement being felt by the guests. It was slow yet light. The doors remained open, welcoming and waiting for the main vent.

  And then they were there. First came the masters, in their various academic gowns and berets and hoods, some plumed, some furred, others velvet and tassled. Then the students filed in and took their seats. The dean described the work of the doctoral students. One had discovered a reliable indicator for breast cancer. Another had worked on the impact of area design in hospitals and how this impacted on recovery rates. The descriptions were succinct and fascinating.

  Then the students began accepting their parchments. There were only 300 in this batch – the graduations were staggered over weeks so that each ceremony was rich in relevance and devoid of boredom – so different to Louise’s graduations. Her parents were numb after she received her B.A., and flatly refused to come to her graduate degree ceremony 10 years later. She silently thanked the genius who had shredded the single graduation day into these charming cameo events.

  It was early December, and the grounds at Melbourne University were as beautiful as they could be. Everything that bloomed did; and the sunlight sparkled on the shining windows of the old sandstone buildings. The grass had recovered its pre-drought green and a huge marquee was set out beside the graduation hall.

  Louise was glad that they were all dressed in their best day-time outfits. “Let’s find some good photo backdrops,” she said. They’d gone from the set of arched halls to the clock tower forecourt, and taken photos of James in his robes and his brother and sister standing proudly at each side. Other families were similarly engaged, and Louise took photos for a family group who did the same for her.

  Louise looked at her three children through the lens as they posed for a photograph. James stood proudly in his academic gown; Camille and Peter stood on either side of him, shining and smiling, knowing that one day they, too, would wear the robes and graduate from university while their family watched proudly. Louise was full of joy and contentment as she took the photo. “This is what it’s all about,” she thought to herself.

  *

  It was a meeting of such importance that the Program Manager, Paul, had cancelled classes for two hours so that all the teachers could attend. That was the only way to ensure that everyone showed up, he realised. If he held it after hours, too many teachers had family commitments that couldn’t be changed. But a meeting held in work time was a sure thing. They were being paid and had to attend.

  There were 32 teachers in Business Programs. Eight of these had been there for 25 or more years and they alone were employed on a full-time, on-going basis. Only these people had job security. Of the remaining 24 teachers, 10 were on contracts which ran from semester to semester; while the rest were “sessional teachers”. These poor folk were paid only for the hours they taught. It was true that they were paid at a higher hourly rate than the others; but they were not paid holiday, nor sick leave; and the superannuation contribution they received was also less.

  Louise was employed on a contract. Once you had been on four consecutive contracts, your employer was obliged to either employ you as “on-going” or let you go. Louise was almost at the end of her forth contract.

  “Right,” Paul smiled around the room. His facial muscles twitched at the effort this took and he appeared to be baring his teeth rather than smiling. The whole effect was disconcerting. No one smiled back, but they were silenced.

  Paul began his address. “As you know, we are constantly under attack from the students, the Department of Education and the community for becoming out-of-touch with our student base. We need more young teachers; more diversity among our staff; and more flexibility within our ranks. We can’t rely on a set base of staff that will be with us for their whole careers.” The eight ongoing staff members, all of whom were aged between 55 and 65, looked at each other uncomfortably. “We need people who are still
practicing their profession and teach here part-time; or people who are taking a break from their profession for one reason or another and coupling that with a few years of part-time teaching.”

  Joe, the most senior on-going staff member, raised his hand. “If we only have part-time staff, what will that do to the continuity of our courses?”

  The manager smiled. “We are now under the strict jurisdiction of the national regulator and we are only delivering training – whether at certificate, diploma or degree level. We are no longer in the business of designing courses, so the continuity will be assured through applying national standards in line with the professions and adhering to national training packages. In fact, going forward, a good portion of each course will comprise self-directed online learning which won’t take place on campus at all.”

  Paul waited for this to sink in, and continued. “Consequently, those of you who might have been considering retirement are encouraged to make your arrangements sooner rather than later and we have designed some financial lures to retirement, should that be your preference.”

  “Surely that only applies to the ongoing staff?” Barry asked.

  Paul nodded. “Yes. But any ongoing staff that are not going to be needed next semester, and choose not to retire, will be given positions elsewhere in the college.”

  There were loud rumblings at this statement. Many of the eight on-going incumbents had worked in Business Programs on the 3rd floor of Building 8 since it moved there. They looked down on the other, lesser programs and shuddered to think that they may be employed teaching a short-course to bored housewives in a program where they had no seniority. “No decisions have been made yet,” Paul insisted “but I wanted to give you all the information I got from my meeting with the CEO yesterday.”

  Megan, who was on a contract like Louise, raised her hand. “What about those of us who have been on contracts for a while?” she asked.

  “Aagh,” answered Paul. “Yes. Contracts will be phased out, and a greater proportion of our staff will be employed on a sessional basis. There will be an advertisement for two full-time teaching positions. We will employ two teachers as on-going, once two teachers from the current batch of on-going retire due to age. Our plan is to reduce on-going teaching staff to four, and have everyone else employed as sessionals.”