Husband Hunters

by Genevieve Gannon

  Did she really want to take a gamble on Jason?

  Around 8.50am the morning after he had told her about the divorce, her office intercom had buzzed a long, impatient buzz.

  ‘It’s me,’ he’d said. ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘Jason, what are you doing here?’ she hissed into the speaker. ‘I have a client due in ten minutes.’ As Clementine spoke, she shrank a little, wary that people might see them; people might guess. She didn’t want her office contaminated by their betrayal. ‘You have to leave.’

  There was silence.

  She pushed the red button to the box downstairs. ‘Jason? JASON?’ Nothing. Clem went to her window. He wasn’t at the door below. Warily, she reached for the first file she would need for the morning. As she started reading, there was a loud bang on her door.

  ‘Clementine. Clementine! Open up.’

  She rushed over. ‘Shh! Jason, you have to go!’

  He kept banging.

  She opened the door a crack. He was unshaven and his shirt hadn’t been ironed. His eyes were bleary and his face seemed somehow creased, too, as though it was also in need of an iron.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he had said. ‘I’m leaving. I just need time.’

  Clementine let the door open a little more and he pushed his way in. He was carrying a bunch of roses.

  ‘Pink,’ he held them out to her. ‘I wanted to get red, but the florist said pink meant devotion.’ Clementine had taken the bouquet and buried her nose in its folds.

  Now, a week later, they were still in a vase on her desk; their tips dried and curled. She touched them and a few petals broke away and fell onto the desktop.

  She looked at the message she’d written to Ray. I’m seeing someone. It wasn’t strictly true. She was still a free agent, and could still say yes to someone else. Yes to dinner, yes to a guilt-free romance, yes to a man who didn’t already have a wife.

  Images raced through her head likes scenes from a slasher flick: all the broken women who had sat opposite her, twisting sodden tissues as they recounted how they had discovered their husband’s affairs. Clementine balled her fists and dug them into her eye sockets to blot out the sight of them.

  She sent the text. While the phone was still in her hand, a birthday message arrived from Melanie: Happy birthday, Madame Crosley! May all your dreams come true. Yes, all of them. You deserve it.

  Clem’s face burned with shame. She put her phone into a drawer and slammed it shut.

  ‘I’ve never seen you be so stern before,’ Jason had said, catching her hand and pulling her to him. ‘The way you walked out of that bar without looking back, you were so proud. So confident. It was sexy.’

  Clem had squirmed but he held her tight. She had not been able to forget what he had said, that he hadn’t meant to fall in love.

  ‘One kiss,’ he’d pleaded. ‘To show me you believe me.’

  She turned her face away and focused on the scene outside the window. A woman in a red coat was lugging a pram up the steep Foveaux Street climb. She was fighting against the wind.

  ‘I can’t break up your marriage,’ Clementine said.

  He took her chin in his hands and turned it towards him. ‘It was over long before I met you. I told you that. I just never had a reason to leave.’ His voice was strained. He took her by the shoulders and squared her body with his.

  ‘Believe me?’ His sounded meek. Clem looked at the ground. He lifted her face gently.

  When he kissed her, his large mouth was soft and comforting. She didn’t fight it. She kissed him back, all the while her head repeated: It’s over. It’s over. It’s over. He moved his hands from her arms to her waist, then slid them around her back. She felt him lift her off the ground.

  The intercom buzzer buzzed.

  ‘Oh no,’ Clem whispered, breaking away from Jason’s lips.

  ‘They can wait,’ he said.

  She didn’t have a secretary to tell impatient clients she was running behind. She untangled herself from Jason’s arms and landed with a thud on the carpet.

  ‘You have to go,’ she said, shoving her shirt — which had become untucked — back into her skirt.

  ‘Ten more seconds. I’ve missed you’— his breath was short — ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  He eased her against her desk and leaned his weight into her body, tipping her over so she was on her back. Then he ran his hand up her stockinged leg to where a garter belt caught the top of her stay-ups. ‘Oh, my God,’ he breathed.

  The buzzer sounded again. It was longer, more insistent this time.

  His hand was fiddling with the clip of her garter. She smiled a joyless smile. She only wore garters on two occasions: date night and laundry day, when all of her sensible stockings were in the wash. And here she was, accidentally dressed like a call-girl, in her marriage counsellor’s office with someone else’s husband.

  ‘You have to go.’ She pushed him off and stood up, pulling down her skirt and straightening her hair. ‘Pretend you’re a client,’ she said.

  He gave her a wicked smile. ‘No.’ She pointed to the door. ‘When you leave.’ She sat behind her desk and tried to tidy things up while Jason let himself out.

  ‘Ms Crosley said to go on in,’ he told her waiting client. Clementine heard him apologise for going over time. ‘It’s just I think we’re about to make a breakthrough.’

  Clementine’s phone had been ringing and pinging with birthday messages all day. Each one was like a little poison dart sent to punish her. May every happiness be yours … I hope you get what you want! … Birthday salutations to the classiest gal I know!

  Will and Rebecca called and put the boys on the phone. They sang a tuneless ‘Happy Birthday’ and made Clementine’s throat tighten with longing. She turned the phone off and pulled out the files for her afternoon clients.

  She had three more sessions scheduled for the day, including another new patient —Gordon Carson — who was coming to terms with his wife’s terminal prognosis. He was a father and an accountant who squeezed the session in between work and cooking dinner.

  ‘We’re seeing someone together, but I want to be able to talk about my fears,’ he said, picking little balls of lint off the knees of his pants.

  ‘I think that’s very wise.’ Clementine touched his arm. ‘Tell me about her.’

  His eyes glimmered. ‘She’s been beating it for six years,’ he said. ‘It started in her breast. We fought it. It came back, so we fought it again. She had double mastectomy and a lifetime of chemo. In November the doctors told us she was in remission. It was the third time. Last month she started having back pain, so we went to our oncologist. You should have seen the results of the scan. Nefarious white blobs all over her body. Her spine, her stomach, her’ — he gasped —’her lungs.’

  Clementine shivered. She had seen those white marks before; sinister shadows seared onto the X-ray of a loved one.

  ‘With treatment the doctors say she has six months. Maybe a year.’

  The hour slipped away as they discussed his grief. He continued to de-fleece his pants while unburdening himself. His sadness was underlined by more practical worries, including how he would manage to support his family without his wife’s income. They had hobbled by on sick-leave and insurance payments so far. Clem’s counselling sessions were covered by an employee mental health scheme offered by his workplace.

  ‘The kids haven’t had new shoes in two years, and at their age they really need them,’ he said.

  When he left, Clementine started compiling a list of books she thought would help him and his wife as the disease took hold. Her next client was running late, so she started reading up on the treatment for his wife’s particular cancer and how the coming few months would likely progress for the Carson family. She marvelled at the progress that had been made since she had first waded into this murky area of life.

  Then she searched for some literature she could recommend for the children.

  Her next cl
ient had come and gone before she remembered to conduct her ritualistic phone-scan. She had a missed call and a voice message from Jason. As she dialled to retrieve it, she wondered if he had somehow found out it was her birthday.

  They had planned to meet at Quay to ‘talk about the future’ that night. It was exactly one week since he’d come to her office with roses, and she had told him he wasn’t to contact her until they met at the restaurant.

  ‘I don’t want to be sneaking around,’ she had said, as she had pushed him out the door.

  She twisted her mother’s ring as the service retrieved the voice message.

  ‘Clem’— Jason’s voice didn’t sound like someone delivering a birthday message — ‘I’m afraid I can’t make dinner tonight. Call you over the weekend.’

  No.

  She played it again. ‘Call you over the weekend.’

  No!

  With shaking hands she replayed the message one more time. By the end of the third hearing, her breathing had become shallow; she was overcome with the sense that her chest was going to cave into the cavity where her heart had once sat.

  ‘Fuck,’ she whispered into her empty office. She sent a quick apology to her nanna, explaining that this man was shredding her sanity and ruining her life.

  She opened an internet browser and aggressively typed ‘Damon’ ‘Standard and Poor’s’ and ‘Sydney’ into the search engine. She had meant to do this a week ago, but had been blindsided by the sudden rush of affection for Jason after he had charged into her office. That was probably his plan all along, she thought angrily as she pounded the computer keys.

  Google came up with several options for Damons in Sydney. Without knowing his last name she had to file through a string of entries that had nothing to do with Standard and Poor’s. Finally she found a LinkedIn profile. Damon Dresner. A familiar face stared back at her. The image was black and white, but her memory of his vivid blue eyes was clear. She instantly felt better. He would tell her the truth. There was a heroism to his good looks. His features were strong. He had a cleft chin, high cheek bones and Roman nose. His blond hair was thick and worn in a slightly dated style. It swept across his brow like Robert Redford’s patriotic fringe in All The President’s Men. Next to the photo was a contact number. She reached for her phone and dialled.

  ‘Hi, Damon. It’s Clementine Crosley.’

  ‘Hello there!’ He sounded surprised but friendly.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, I’m good. How are you?’

  ‘I’m good also.’ There was a pause while Clementine calculated how to raise the topic of his best friend’s infidelity — something she should have done before dialling.

  Damon spoke.

  ‘This isn’t a social call, is it?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry to bother you at work, it’s just … I just wanted to ask, well … I’m not the first, am I?’

  ‘Not the first …?’

  ‘You know.’ There was another long pause. Clementine felt she already knew the answer.

  ‘Umm. Well …’

  Clementine twisted her ring, thinking, sorry, Nanna, but fuck-fuck-fuck.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you,’ she said hastily.

  ‘Clementine, I don’t know what to say. I’ve known Jason a long time. He’s a mate. My best mate. But he has always had a wandering eye.’

  She wanted to ask Damon if she could trust Jason, but she knew she had already gone too far in calling. She felt stupid and weak.

  ‘It’s my birthday,’ she blurted, as if this offered some explanation. In a way perhaps it did. She wasn’t twenty-five any more. She could no longer end a relationship because the guy’s nose whistled when he ate, and think, there’s plenty of time to find a man with a quiet nose. All of the men with quiet noses were married now.

  ‘Happy birthday.’ His voice was warm.

  ‘Thanks. I should go. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘I’d better go.’ Clementine hung up, stinging with embarrassment.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Clem.’ Tess, another psychologist who rented an office down the hall, stuck her head around the door. ‘Can you help me? It happened again.’ Tess had somehow set her internet browser to Urdu, and everything was coming up in a squiggly, illegible text.

  After they found the command to change it back to English, Clementine returned to her office. Daniela and Annabel were there, standing around a cake with brilliant smiles on their faces. Three balloons were tied to Clementine’s chair.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ they yodelled.

  ‘How did you know?’ She hugged each of them and then Tess, who was standing behind her looking pleased.

  ‘Dani remembered your high-school parties,’ said Annabel.

  ‘It’s the same day as my pa’s,’ Daniela said. ‘I’ll never forget how great your eighteenth and twenty-first parties sounded when everybody else was talking about them. Both times I had to go to family dinners — I was devastated.’

  ‘I wish I had organised a dinner or something,’ said Annabel. ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

  Clementine thought about telling them everything, about Jason and what Damon had just revealed, but she bit her tongue.

  ‘I did have dinner plans with someone, but something came up at the last minute.’

  ‘Oh.’ Annabel pulled a sorrowful face. ‘Shall we go out?’

  ‘No, no,’ Clem said. ‘I think I’m just going to write it off and officially start my thirty-fifth year tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Annabel asked. Clementine nodded.

  ‘In that case I have one more little gift that might make you feel a little better,’ said Daniela. ‘James asked me if he could have your phone number to pass onto a friend.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  Dani and Annabel shared a proud look.

  ‘Apparently you made quite an impression on a man named Tim Oldfield at the Jensen party. He said he kept on going back to the kitchen to get pies from the pie-warmer just to talk to you. He had thought you were with Damon, but he saw Damon on the weekend with another woman and so called James immediately, begging for your number.’

  Clementine remembered the man with the pies. He had been cute. But this was all too much information. This morning she had been preparing to begin life with Jason, now she was seriously considering never seeing him again. And Damon with another woman — why did that bother her?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘He’s lovely,’ insisted Daniela. ‘Oh God, I sound just like Ma. But he is.’

  ‘Perfect husband material,’ Annabel chimed in. ‘He’s a photographer. Very successful. He used to shoot all the celebs.’

  Clementine frowned. She and Jason were never going to happen. She was convinced of that. Sadly, she thought: why not? With the enthusiasm of a death-row inmate choosing their method of execution, she gave permission for Daniela to pass on her number. By the end of the day she had a text from Tim asking if she would like to have dinner on Wednesday night.

  Yes, I’ll meet you at Spice I Am at 7.30, she wrote. After the little envelope disappeared into the ether, she was left with a feeling of futility. She considered cancelling, but that was not in the spirit of the husband-hunting enterprise.

  When she got home she kicked off her shoes. Her plunging green dress was hanging on the door, freshly washed and protected by a thin covering of dry cleaner’s plastic ready for the date that would never happen. Jason had made an 8pm booking for Quay — a harbour side restaurant that had been awarded a galaxy of stars by food critics. Clementine had taken the choice as a good sign things were going to change. Now, she was about to call and cancel when she realised there was no food in the house. A copy of Love in a Cold Climate was sitting on her hall table. She had started it in April, but hadn’t had a chance to devote the necessary hours to it. She slipped it into her handbag, changed into a
simple black cocktail dress, put on her nanna’s pearl earrings, and walked towards the harbour.

  When she got home three hours later, her mood had lifted. It had been luxurious to sit and read and have beautiful dishes bought to her.

  This isn’t so bad, she had thought, climbing the stairs. On her doorstep was a small box of flowers and a card. It simply said: You deserve better. X.

  Clem smiled. Jason. She thought about calling him, but steadied herself. He was about to go through a divorce. They were messy and unpredictable and heart-breaking, and he was doing it for her. She could be patient. She picked up the box of tulips and went inside smiling.

  By Wednesday she felt much better. Buoyant, even. Yes, she was thirty-five, but she had a thriving practice and a man who loved her. Other men wanted to take her out to dinner. Women reached their sexual peak in their thirties, about fifteen years later than men. She was in the prime of life.

  She was meeting Tim for Thai at 7pm. After receiving the flowers from Jason, she realised she absolutely could not let Tim come on the date thinking she was interested. But she never got around to calling, and soon it was Wednesday afternoon and it really was too late. Clementine decided she would politely explain her change in situation, they would have a friendly meal, and split the bill. She bought an expensive bottle of wine as a gesture of good faith.

  When she walked into the restaurant, she recognised the friendly-looking man with droopy curls.

  ‘How are you?’ he greeted her with a warm handshake and a kiss on the cheek.

  It turned out they had quite a few friends in common, and it wasn’t long before they were comparing notes. Tim was a photographer at House and Garden magazine, which was how he knew James’s sister-in-law Sarah Jensen. They had been celebrity photographers at the Telegraph together.

  ‘That was a long time ago. I still do a little freelance celeb work. Mostly red carpets. Sydney doesn’t have the star power to sustain many full-time paparazzi.’

  ‘Were you one of those people who chased celebrities down the street?’

  Tim winced. ‘Kind of. When I was younger there was a lot of appeal to it. A veneer of glamour. Big money. But, as I say, there isn’t really any work unless you want to shoot Home and Away stars buying coffee. Speaking of C-grade celebrities, I saw you speaking to Amanda Ceravic at the party. Is she a friend of yours?’