‘You can do foreign today.’
Sarah was flattened. It meant sitting in the editing suite cutting stories that came in from the overseas bureaus. All that would go to air of her tonight would be her voice.
‘But, Bob, I’ve been chasing the firebug story all week …’
‘I warned you. Now it’s too late. The Premier’s giving a press conference in five minutes and I’ve already sent someone else.’
‘But, I …’
‘I’m not interested, Sarah,’ said McKenzie in a tone that left no room for argument. ‘There was an earthquake in Korea last night and we have lots of footage. Get down to the editing room. Now,’ he added menacingly.
The yellow phone on his desk rang and he lunged for it, knocking coffee over his desk. His face looked like thunder but his tone was moderate and calm as he spoke to his own boss. He had forgotten Sarah. She was dismissed. Sarah felt deflated. She bit her lip and headed for the ladies toilet. Once inside the cubicle she burst into tears. The mascara coursed down her cheeks, leaving black train tracks in her foundation. ‘I’m too old to have pimples,’ she sobbed.
She looked at her sad face in the mirror. What was wrong with her? Her skin was dry, the fine lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her face was blotchy and red between the pimples. She looked ghastly. And that was nothing compared to how she felt. She felt on the edge of hysteria, like she wanted to cry and throw up and kick a cat, but she didn’t know which one to do first. She felt a tingling in her groin and wondered what dreadful gynaecological ailment she might have.
Maybe she should go home. Tell McKenzie she had the flu. But she couldn’t face him. She’d have to stick it out.
Sarah calmed down by lunchtime. A couple of cups of strong coffee and her head cleared so she could be civil to the tape editor and get the job done. He was a nice man. Gentle and friendly. She liked sitting in the darkness with him, poring over all the film footage, arranging it into a package that would tell a story. By the time she got home she had a headache, her whole body was sore and the tingling in her groin was starting to cause her real concern. She dreaded the thought she might be pregnant. She pushed it aside. She was only just overdue. Too soon for alarm.
She took a coffee and the mail onto the balcony where the sight of the boats soothed her jangled nerves. A postcard from friends holidaying in Bali had arrived. The picture showed a beautiful stretch of snow-white sand and crystal-clear azure water. Sarah stared at it dreamily. Maybe she and Tom could go there, soon. She felt she badly needed a holiday.
*
Ginny sat on the floor of her living room, open boxes and discarded shopping bags strewn across the carpet. She had a book on electronics, a printout from an Internet site and a tray of tools.
The man in the electronics shop had been so helpful, explaining how to connect a car phone to a regular power supply. Then he had helped her out with a tiny microphone, so small she kept dropping it off the shop counter and losing it on the floor.
There was just one thing he had been unable to help her with which had sent her searching the Net when Dr Black supposed she was updating stock on the office computer. Finally she found what she was looking for on a rogue Internet site entitled ‘Bugging Procedures of the FBI – What They Won’t Tell You’. Ginny had read everything on the site then dropped back to the electronics store in the afternoon to buy a telephone answering machine.
She sat comparing the circuit board of the answering machine to the computer printout. Kitty circled her playfully, leaping onto the bubble wrap and tossing it in the air. This was painstaking work and Ginny knew she had to be accurate. Ignoring Kitty’s wails, she locked her in the bedroom. It was nearly 10 pm when she finished, exhausted but satisfied.
*
Tom was late home and Sarah was in bed reading when she heard his key in the lock. She listened to him dump his briefcase on the kitchen table and felt a tremor of irritation. Why couldn’t he put it in the study? She would be making breakfast there in the morning and it was annoying to have to always move his things out of the way.
He came into the bedroom, hanging his suit jacket on the door handle. He looked exhausted. ‘Sorry I’m late. Are you okay?’ he asked, dropping onto the bed.
‘Yes. Why are you so late?’ asked Sarah.
‘I told you I wouldn’t be home for dinner, but I didn’t expect to be this late. I had to finish my piece on the juror. God, I’m exhausted.’
‘Are you happy with it, your story?’ asked Sarah.
Tom started peeling off his tie as he explained what he had written and why. Sarah took in little of what he was saying. She watched him drop his clothes piece by piece on the floor. He pulled back his side of the bed and started to climb in.
‘Do you think you could put those in the laundry basket?’ asked Sarah.
‘Sarah, I’m too tired. I’ll do it in the morning,’ replied Tom snuggling up to her. His feet were cold and insistent.
‘If you had any respect for me you would pick up your dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket,’ said Sarah coldly.
Tom looked at her. ‘Are you angry with me?’ he asked.
‘No, I’m not angry with you. I just think it would be nice if you would put your dirty clothes away instead of leaving them for me to pick up. I’m not your mother.’
Sarah’s shoulders were rigid and her tone brittle.
Tom considered this for a moment then got out of bed, picked up his clothes and dumped them, one by one with exaggerated slowness, in the cane laundry basket behind the bedroom door.
‘There,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Happy?’
‘I would be happy if you would also pick up that blue rugby jumper on the floor. You may not have noticed it, but it has been there since last weekend.’
‘Sarah, I plan to wear it tomorrow. Don’t be difficult. I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep.’
Sarah leaped out of bed. She was shaking uncontrollably. It was as though Tom had pressed some unseen button. ‘I’m sick of living like this. You have no respect for me. You treat me like some geisha girl, here to pick up after you.’ The frustration poured from Sarah as she stood in the centre of the room, her fists clenched with impotent fury. ‘You leave your hairs in the basin after you shave. You never take out the garbage. What kind of man doesn’t take out the garbage? And when, when, may I ask, have you ever bought toilet paper?’
Tom was perplexed. He opened his mouth to speak, not sure what he was going to say, but Sarah continued her torrent, a catalogue of imagined slights, misdemeanours and outright insults that Tom had heaped on her over their years together.
‘You are so goddamned lazy. You lie around on that couch all weekend watching the football. We never go anywhere. When did you last take me out to dinner? And I don’t mean for my birthday or Sawar’s restaurant, I mean a really nice restaurant where you have to book a table and it’s not BYO.’ Sarah glared at Tom, challenging him with every fibre of her being.
‘Sarah,’ he said softly. ‘What has gotten into you?’
He wondered if she was premenstrual. If so, this was a doozy. He bit his tongue and looked at her in complete bewilderment.
‘Why … are … you … so … angry?’ he asked, articulating each word.
Sarah faltered. The question hung between them. Why was she so angry? And she was, violently angry. She had never felt so angry in all her life. She didn’t know what to say, how to respond. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, swallowing hard.
As Tom watched, she crumpled. Her face, her shoulders. She shrank before him. Tom felt his own anger and frustration melt away. He moved slowly over to Sarah and took her in his arms. She collapsed against him, her anger spent. He could feel her heart beating frantically against his chest. He cradled her gently.
‘It’s okay, Sarah,’ he crooned. ‘It’s okay.’
*
A week later Ginny let herself into Tom and Sarah’s apartment. They had never bothered to get the key back from he
r. But then, why would they? In Ginny they had the perfect lackey. They could go away on a whim and leave her to tend to their fish and plants. It wasn’t like she ever went away for a romantic weekend. It was 7 pm and she figured she had only four hours. They were having dinner with friends an hour’s drive away. If they had too much to drink they would stay the night but Ginny knew she couldn’t count on that. She would have to be gone by 11 pm at the latest.
She walked quickly into the living room, dropping a plastic shopping bag that contained everything she would need. She drew the curtains before she took out her torch. She found the mains switch in the cupboard by the front door and turned off the power. Then she fetched the stepladder from behind the kitchen door and placed it in a corner of the living room, directly under the manhole. It was painted the same cream as the ceiling. It blended so beautifully no-one would know it was there. But Ginny knew. She had climbed up there when Tom and Sarah had moved in. Tom had helped push her through the hole then stood below passing her boxes. While Ginny crawled among the cobwebs doing the dirty work, Sarah unwrapped ornaments and laid them out, calling out to Tom to admire her flair for decorating. But Tom, bless him, had refused to move from below the manhole. As long as Ginny was up there he had stayed below where she could see him.
Ginny tossed the plastic bag through the opening and then hoisted herself through. She wasn’t the least bit scared of spiders, never had been. She had kept some very large, hairy tarantulas as pets when she was a child. But she still would have liked to see the top of Tom’s curly head below her. She flashed the torch about her. There were boxes of books, shoe-boxes of cutlery and oddments, a couple of directors chairs and Tom’s scuba gear in an open yellow plastic crate. Ginny remembered how she and Tom had heaved that through. God it was heavy. The space, created by the false ceiling, was exactly how Ginny remembered it. About a metre high with crossbeams covered in sheet plaster. Ginny wondered if anyone had been here since the day they moved in. Tom’s broad shoulders wouldn’t fit through the opening and Sarah’s fear of spiders and discomfort would prevent her from even sliding open the cover.
Ginny’s torchlight searched along the wall until it fell on the electricity junction box. She crawled along on her stomach, dragging her shopping bag with her, being careful to stay on the crossbeams, just like Tom had told her. She unwrapped her purchases from the electronics store – rubber gloves, a transformer that would convert 240 volts to twelve volts, a hands-free car phone that ran on twelve volts, a roll of gaffer tape and two metres of cable attached to a tiny microphone the size of a thumbnail.
It was slow, painstaking work but Ginny was diligent. She slit the wires in the junction box and attached the transformer cable. Then she plugged it into the cradle for the car phone. She stretched the phone away, concealing the cable in the insulation batts to a point behind some boxes. She buried the phone in its cradle beside a pink insulation batt. It was hot in the small cavity and Ginny could feel the beads of sweat forming on her top lip and in her cleavage. She wiped her face on her arm. She plugged the microphone into the phone and stretched the cord along the batts to a downlight, positioned directly above the sofa. She taped the microphone to the downlight. Ginny crawled back to the telephone and flicked a switch, selecting the silent option. She didn’t want it ringing loudly, waking everyone up.
Then came the most crucial part of the operation, the part that excited Ginny the most – connecting the auto-answer device she had removed from the telephone answering machine, to the car phone cradle. Ginny felt the tension build inside her. She held her breath and connected the wires. With a little click, it was done. It had worked when she tested it in her lounge room so there was no reason why it wouldn’t work now. But still she felt anxious. She patted the batts back into place.
Ginny collected all her gear and shone the torch around. The junction box was the only thing that looked different. It had an extra wire, a new clean black one, coming out from it, but it would take a practised eye to recognise that. Nothing else seemed amiss. Ginny let herself down the manhole. She slid the cover across, carefully matching up the lines of dust that had collected.
Ginny turned on the mains switch, half expecting the circuit to short, but when she flicked the wall switch, the ceiling light burst into life. She laughed with relief. She returned the stepladder to its spot behind the kitchen door and noticed the microwave clock, flashing 12.00 at her.
‘Damn,’ she thought. ‘All the digital clocks will be out.’
This was something she hadn’t anticipated. She could go about the apartment resetting them all – the bedside clock, the video, but what if she missed one and she didn’t know what time the alarms were set for? Better to leave them. Tom and Sarah would just think they had had a power surge. It happened all the time.
Ginny picked up her shopping bag and turned out the light.
She moved across to open the curtains and stood for a moment looking back at her own dark apartment. It stood out from the others. The windows were like mirrors, reflecting the lights of the building. She could see Arthur next door watching TV with his dinner on his lap.
Ginny looked at her watch. It was only 9.45. She was reluctant to leave. She walked into the bedroom and opened the closet door. It smelled of Sarah. She opened another door. More Sarah. She noticed a rugby jumper on the floor. She lifted it to her face and breathed in Tom’s sweat. It smelled so good. Ginny lay back on the bed, burying her nose in Tom’s pillow. It was intoxicating. She opened her eyes and saw Sarah’s smiling face. Her face darkened and she slammed down the photo. The glass jolted but didn’t break. Ginny snuggled back into the bed, Tom’s jumper scrunched against her cheek. She lay like that for what seemed like eternity, drinking in his scent, imagining him lying there with her, wanting her, kissing her, loving her.
She arched her back and rolled languidly over, her thighs pressed closely together, letting the tension build. She moved her hands slowly over her body, imagining they were Tom’s strong hands, lovingly caressing her curves. She moaned with pleasure.
With a heavy sigh she picked herself up, folded the jumper with infinite care and placed it lovingly on the chair. She gathered her bag to her and walked towards the front door. She was almost at the front door with one foot poised in midair when she heard a scratching. It took her a moment to realise what it was. With a lurching feeling of dread she heard Sarah giggling.
‘Give it to me.’
That was Tom. They were home. They were on the other side of that door and about to walk in.
Ginny looked about her in panic. The kitchen clock flashed 12.00 at her. What could she do? How could she explain being here? She couldn’t. She looked for somewhere to hide. Tom had the key in the lock. Ginny fled to the bathroom. She stood behind the door, her knees pressed against the toilet bowl. She heard the front door open. Muffled sounds. They were kissing. Hungry, passionate kisses. Ginny was trapped. What if they came in here? She heard a zip being undone. She looked across at the shower cubicle. She silently slipped off her shoes and held them carefully in her hand. Then with aching slowness, she placed one foot gently in front of the other and moved soundlessly across the floor. She stepped into the cubicle, willing herself not to slip, and leaned back behind the curtain.
Ginny heard a thud as the phone crashed to the floor. Tom swore and Sarah giggled. They were drunk. Ginny eased the heavy plastic shower curtain up off the rail and inched it closed. She stood, barely breathing, her eyes staring wildly through the closed curtain into the darkness when the ceiling light burst into life. It was as though the sun had exploded in front of her, momentarily blinding her. She gasped involuntarily as Sarah called out: ‘Don’t start without me.’
Sarah shut the door and sat down heavily on the toilet. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, just like when she was a child and had believed that if she couldn’t see anyone no-one could see her. Ginny heard a sound like running water, then the flushing of the toilet. Sarah slid open the cabinet and started brushing he
r teeth. The bathroom door opened and Ginny heard Tom’s voice.
‘What is my Sare Bear up to?’
Sarah’s reply was thick and indistinct, her voice muffled by toothpaste.
Ginny clutched her shopping bag to her and pressed herself against the shower taps, trying to blend into the wall. Her heart was pounding like a trapped bird in her chest.
Sarah rinsed her mouth. Ginny could hear more kisses. Panting. She dared not move a muscle. Every nerve fibre was stretched painfully. She opened her eyes. Tom and Sarah were blurred into one image through the heavy plastic shower curtain. They were so close. She could reach out and touch them. Or, she realised with horror, they could reach out and touch her. Ginny stayed perfectly still in the shadowed cubicle, watching with fascinated revulsion as Tom peeled off Sarah’s dress and flung it against the curtain. It hung suspended for one agonising moment, in front of Ginny’s face, then slid to the floor.
Ginny could feel their heat, the rising passion. Tom moved down Sarah’s body as she moaned and writhed with pleasure. Sarah gave little gasps of ecstasy. Ginny clutched her bag against her, the torch digging painfully into the soft flesh of her breasts and bringing tears to her eyes.
Sarah started to whimper, faster and louder, until she was almost sobbing. She arched her back and gave one final, heaving sigh of infinite, exquisite delight.
‘Oh, Tom,’ breathed Sarah, as the tears coursed silently down Ginny’s face.
Tom lifted Sarah over his shoulders and carried her out of the bathroom. Ginny could hear the bedsprings creaking as they continued their lovemaking. She slipped to her knees on the cold, damp tiles, her shoulders heaving with silent, wracking sobs. She stayed that way till long after the noises had stopped and a heavy silence fell over the apartment.
Ginny waited still longer, then, finally, made her way carefully out of the bathroom. In the foyer she nearly tripped over Sarah’s handbag. She carefully and quietly opened the front door. It created a draft that tugged at the bedroom curtains and they billowed inward. Sarah stirred in her sleep and snuggled closer to Tom, backing her bottom into his lap, into what he called her little chair. Instinctively he tightened his arms about her as Ginny gently pulled the door closed.
Apartment 255 Page 7
