Apart from the first time, it always took place at the Ramada Inn on Royal Parade (I believe the motel has since changed names). I chose it because I liked the surrounding parklands. After I had showered and returned the key to reception, I would often sit on a bench overlooking the zoo to have a good think about what I was up to. I got to thinking about what a motel room actually meant to a man. To me it meant secrecy, haste, pleasure, guilt and many other ill-fated words. But bringing to mind those words was never enough to stop me showing up the next week.
We met in the same room every Sunday morning. I worked full time at David Kesselbach Financial Planning. My wife Robyn worked at Zeneli Flowers on weekends. Jennifer ran a stall at the Rose Street Artists’ Market every Saturday and spent most of the week sewing, picking up fabrics and making jewellery. I wasn’t interested in exploiting half-hour gaps in our respective schedules. That approach is for men in European films.
One Sunday in August, Robyn woke with a fever and called in sick to work, although I tried to convince her otherwise. A few minutes later I closed the ensuite door, switched on the fan and called Jennifer to cancel. She said it was okay. Throughout the following week I was constantly distracted at work by thoughts of her naked form. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. It wasn’t enough for her to haunt my imagination. I needed flesh on flesh. By Saturday night I had come down with the fever, but it didn’t stop me sneaking off to the motel the next morning.
I always experienced a range of emotions on my walk to the Ramada Inn. I enjoyed the vast nature strips, the empty elm trees, the crunch of the brown leaves, and the dew that often blanketed the parklands in the morning. I wasn’t sure how I could commit such unpleasantness in the face of such beauty. I had always assumed that I would lead a life devoid of unpleasantness. It was astounding how simple it had been to shatter my assumption.
I often passed a group of white-haired men playing bocce in the heart of Princes Park. They tended to address each other in an animated fashion. It was difficult to tell whether they were being jovial or not. Over the course of the winter, one of the men took to acknowledging me. We never exchanged words, but he would nod or tilt the brim of his felt hat. Somehow it affirmed that an act was taking place.
The only other person who was complicit in my deceit was the motel attendant, a plump woman called Alicia. She spoke to me in a painfully dignified manner. ‘We hope you have a nice stay.’ I sometimes felt tempted to offer her an explanation as I was handing over the money. But there was no point, since she had probably seen hundreds of people who were up to the same trick as me.
The whole thing started while my son Paul was on a six-month student exchange in France. His host family lived in a small port town called Dinan. I was adamant that when he returned in the summer, I would stop seeing Jennifer. I loved Paul. I loved the fact that he had asked us to call him once a week while he was away, instead of every second night (which was what Robyn had proposed). I rarely considered that I might love Jennifer Pfeiffer, or that she might love me.
■
We had driven Paul to the airport on a drizzly Friday night. There was a thunderstorm forecast, but it looked like it might be holding off. I practised some French phrases with him in the front seat. ‘Je voudrais un croissant, s’il vous plaît.’ Robyn started weeping when we reached the Tullamarine exit on the Ring Road.
She barely slept that night. When I awoke the next morning, she had already left for work. There was a note on the kitchen bench:
Morning,
Paul called from the terminal in Shanghai, no major dramas. Can you pick up a wholemeal loaf from Babka when you get the chance? It’s under your name.
Love,
Robyn
As I studied my wife’s neat handwriting, it occurred to me that my Saturday and Sunday mornings were no longer confined to the errands of junior sport.
I decided to walk to the bakery. The main café strip of Fitzroy was already in full swing. Bicycles were chained to street signs. Students with fluffy beards lingered at the windows of bookshops. I had to wait in a long line at Babka. Rosy-cheeked waitresses weaved between cramped tables, serving coffees, pastries and cakes. A young woman with dreadlocks was writing a note on a serviette by the window. It was strange to think that there was even a loaf on the premises with my name written on it.
On my way home I was stopped by a man who was dressed in leather from head to toe. There was a studded collar around his neck. It made me wonder about his parents. He said something to me in a gruff voice. I reached into my pocket, but he waved the gesture away. He handed me a leaflet for the Rose Street Artists’ Market before turning his attention to a group of young women who were approaching.
I found the market in a side street wedged between old brick warehouses and new apartment blocks. Despite working within a two-kilometre radius for the past sixteen years, I hadn’t been aware of its existence. I walked a circuit of the courtyard, pausing occasionally to feign interest in a hand-bound book or an environmentally sustainable greeting card. At the rear of the site was a garage with small theatre lights suspended along the ceiling. One of the stalls inside displayed a sea of rings that had been made out of recycled cutlery. I stopped at a secluded stall that was bordered by trestle tables, and browsed through a rack of hemp t-shirts.
‘Can I help you?’ asked an attractive middle-aged woman who was sitting in the centre of the stall. She was wearing an emerald bow ring on her left ring finger.
‘I’m just looking,’ I said.
‘That’s no fun.’ She frowned in a way that made me want to tell her not to frown. ‘Why don’t you try one on?’ she said.
I laid the wholemeal loaf on a trestle table and pulled one of the t-shirts over my woollen jumper. It was black with an image of a red buffalo. ‘Does this suit me?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
I laughed, even though I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not. There were dozens more of the emerald bow rings on display in a small wicker basket.
‘Alright then,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it.’
I handed her a fifty-dollar note and she rummaged in a fluorescent orange pouch that was clipped around her waist.
‘How long have you had a stall here?’ I asked.
‘Almost a year now,’ she said, sounding enthusiastic. ‘I moved down from Sydney last winter. I’m here every Saturday.’
She handed me the change. I decided not to ask if she had a plastic bag.
‘And what does Big Buffalo do for a living?’ she asked.
‘I’m a financial planner.’
She nodded and made a funny nasal noise. ‘Is that like being an accountant?’
‘There’s a bit of an overlap. I always say to clients, we plan for the future whereas accountants make the past add up.’
‘So you make people rich.’
‘That’s not the main idea. It’s more about providing sound financial advice and finding the best way to transfer assets to our clients’ beneficiaries.’
She was nodding and making the noise again.
‘It probably sounds a bit dry to you,’ I said.
‘Nope, sounds interesting. Maybe you can wear your new shirt to work on Monday.’
‘Yes, maybe.’
(To this day I haven’t worn the t-shirt again, but I haven’t thrown it out.)
‘My finances are in a bit of a mess at the moment,’ she said. ‘I hope I don’t end up in jail.’
‘I’m sure it’s not that serious,’ I said, laughing.
The next Saturday I volunteered to buy a wholemeal loaf from Babka.
■
When I emerged from the reception block, I noticed that Jennifer’s red Daihatsu wasn’t in the car park. She was always the first to arrive. For several minutes I leant against the handrail outside our room, waiting for her. It was a brisk spring morning. There had been heavy rain overnight. I eventually realised that the puddle I was staring at was in the space where Jennifer usually parked. I im
agined her visiting a used-car dealership in the western suburbs and shaking hands with a fleshy, thin-haired man inside the showroom. I imagined them taking the hatchback for a test drive and his thoughts slithering from the prospective sale to what was beneath her summer dress.
I opened the door and left it unlocked, unsure how I was going to pass the time until she got there. There was a small concrete balcony off the room that had a chair, a table and an ashtray. I sat down on the chair and admired the quiet avenue that ran between the motel and the tennis courts. Even though the clay was still damp, two boys were playing. Over the course of their match, the sun came out, creating long shadows from the cypresses behind the courts. As the boys were sweeping the clay and brushing the lines, I realised that I’d been watching them for almost an hour and that Jennifer mightn’t be coming.
I returned to the room and lay in the centre of the bed. It was too firm for my liking. I had never actually slept at the Ramada Inn, so I closed my eyes. The main indicator of time elapsing was the regular blaring of train horns along the Upfield line. I counted six blasts. It began to feel as though an injustice was taking place. From the outset I had been certain that I would be the one to end it. I had even practised in my head what I was going to say. Every time I heard the sound of tyres choking in the car park, I felt a pinch of excitement. I would stare at the door handle and will it to revolve. When it didn’t oblige within thirty seconds, the frustration would return.
I wondered what Paul was up to. He never gave much away over the phone. I calculated that it was around three o’clock in the morning in France. Hopefully he was in bed. I remembered a joke that he had told Robyn and me one evening, many years earlier, after he had returned home from school camp. Did you hear about the dyslexic atheist who was suffering from insomnia? He lay awake all night wondering if there was a Dog. I was still smiling when Jennifer finally walked in.
‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Sorry I’m late, Henry.’
I felt a strong sensation inside my chest. It was difficult to gauge whether it was affection or relief. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’
‘I already said I’m sorry.’
‘I know, but you’ve wasted my whole morning.’
I was disappointed when she didn’t react to the firmness in my tone.
‘How did it make you feel when you thought I wasn’t coming?’
She was wearing her hair in a high ponytail. Her eyebrows looked thinner than they had the previous Sunday. Her eyes—which sometimes took on a hazel shade when the curtains were open—looked dark and heavy.
‘I felt unwanted.’
She sighed. ‘We all feel unwanted, Henry.’
‘No, it was more than that. I felt terrible for wanting something so harmful to the people I love.’
Jennifer removed her suede jacket, but lingered beside the bed. I hoped that she was going to come to me. After about a minute I reached for her hand and started stroking the loose skin between her thumb and her forefinger. She collapsed to the bed and I raised my arm, allowing her head to nestle in the hollow between my collarbone and the ball of my shoulder. Her hair smelt like incense (she once told me that her favourite scent was called Nag Champa). I extended my hand to her stomach and felt it rise and fall.
I felt compelled to issue a statement of affection for her. The problem with such statements is that they can’t be retracted once they escape your lips. And then they might exist as ransom. Once or twice—through acts of pleasure—Jennifer had almost induced false admissions of love from me.
‘I don’t want you to feel terrible,’ she said. ‘That’s the last thing I want you to feel.’
She slowly guided my hand along her ribcage. She had smaller, more pliant breasts than Robyn. I liked them a great deal. I had often put them in my mouth, which was something that I hadn’t done with any other woman.
■
I experienced a surge of remorse while Jennifer was in the bathroom. She never flushed after doing a number one. I figured it was a habit she had probably picked up while studying costume design at NIDA. The sight of the yellow liquid and the toilet paper plastered to the side of the bowl repulsed me. It meant I had to flush both before I went and afterwards, which defeated the purpose of her having left it there. Robyn always flushed, no matter what. Jennifer returned to the bed and settled underneath the covers. I kept my hands to myself.
‘Just out of interest,’ she said, ‘what happens when your son comes back?’
Tennis balls were being slugged from end to end outside.
‘Did you hear me, Henry?’
I nodded.
‘You haven’t even told me his name.’ She started sobbing. It was the first time she had cried in my presence.
‘His name’s Paul,’ I said. ‘Paul Belanger.’
Jennifer’s sobbing eventually softened into a series of faint coughs. I reached for the bedside table, but realised there wasn’t a tissue box. I had the wrong bedroom.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Who, Paul?’ I asked, knowing full well whom she meant.
She nodded and sniffled.
‘He’s a nice, normal kid, very polite, much more polite than his father.’
‘I want to know more than that, please.’
My right hand had come to rest on Jennifer’s stomach. I couldn’t remember the thought that had preceded the action.
‘He’s very studious. His favourite subjects at school are legal studies and maths methods. I’m sure his French is great now, too. The teachers always have nice things to say about him at parent–teacher nights. He doesn’t like me interfering with his studies, or his personal life, for that matter.’ I stopped, aware that I was waffling. ‘I’m not sure if this is what you want. Am I doing alright here?’
‘You’re doing fine, keep going.’
‘He’s very particular about his hair. It might be because there are girls in his life. If there are, he certainly doesn’t talk to me about them. I think he’d be a great catch, but I’m not the most objective person on the subject. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s still young; young enough to make mistakes, and young enough for those mistakes to be forgiven.’
I lowered my hand.
‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘Just keep telling me about him.’
‘I’m not sure what else there is. He has good friends. He’s known most of them since he was in primary school. They’re at ease with each other. It’s really nice to watch, actually. Since Paul’s been overseas, I’ve missed seeing his friends. I’m only talking about five minutes here and there around the house, or in the car on the way to tennis, but it all adds up. Sometimes I see kids on drugs near the flats and I remember how lucky I am. I always try to be thankful.’
I had that strange feeling I sometimes got at the reception desk when I was paying Alicia for the room.
‘You might make certain assumptions about me,’ I said, ‘but this is all new to me.’
‘I know,’ she said. Her stomach was rumbling. ‘What does he want to do when he’s older?’
‘The last time I checked, he wanted to study law. I’ve suggested insolvency law, but I think he’s got bigger fish to fry, which is fine. He’ll need to maintain his grades if he wants to get in to Melbourne Uni. It’s very competitive. I took him to the open day last year so he could get a feel for the campus.’
‘You must really love him.’
‘Of course I do.’ I ran my fingers along Jennifer’s ribcage.
‘That tickles,’ she said flatly.
It was strange, because in my experience people either smiled or grimaced when something tickled.
‘So what happens when Paul comes home?’ she asked.
‘Everything goes back to normal.’
By this time on a Sunday we would normally have done it three times.
‘This could be normal,’ said Jennifer.
‘No it couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘You know why.’
‘I want to hear you say it.’
I half expected her to start sobbing again, but she remained disconcertingly quiet. I already knew that I would miss her instructions.
‘Because there’d be too many complications,’ I said.
In light of the recent exchange of words, I wondered whether I should remove my hand from her ribcage. I didn’t. We lay in silence and I started counting the train horns again.
■
The last time I saw Jennifer Pfeiffer was in the menswear section of Myer. It was a year and a half after we had stopped seeing each other. I was with Paul. He’d had a growth spurt and was now almost an inch taller than me. We were doing a last-minute shop for warm clothes before he moved to the Deakin campus on the outskirts of Warrnambool.
‘Henry!’ she called out, approaching us. ‘I thought that was you.’
She was holding a three-pack of business socks. I introduced her to Paul and she shook his hand.
‘Little Buffalo,’ said Jennifer, placing her hand on Paul’s forearm.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘You’ve got your father’s eyes.’ She continued to examine his features. I had no idea whether he suspected anything.
‘Do you still have a stall at the market?’ I asked.
‘You bet,’ she said. ‘I’m working Sundays now, too. Everything’s great.’ She smiled in a way I had never seen her smile. ‘And how’s the financial-planning business going?’ she asked.
‘We’re still very busy.’
‘I’m an old client of your father’s,’ she said, glancing at Paul.
It occurred to me that I never did find out whether her finances were in a mess.
‘Well, we’d better get back to it,’ I said. ‘Best of luck with the stall.’
When there’s nowhere else to Run Page 2
