by Fiona Capp
The plane had reached cruising altitude. In the seat next to me, Kate stared vacantly ahead. She hated going to Canberra even more than I did. Both of us had barely spoken to David since the night she’d been picked up by the police and for all our sakes I wanted to set things right. I also wanted her to understand the pressure David was under and how much we all needed to work through this together.
After we’d gone through security at Parliament House, Kate led the way across the large marble foyer with its forest of eucalypt-green and white columns and then up the stairs to the East Wing. On the mezzanine level, the walls were hung with solemn-looking oil paintings of past prime ministers. Although Kate had seen them plenty of times before, she cast quick, appraising glances at each one.
‘They bug me, these paintings.’
‘Oh?’
‘Look at them …’ She swept her arm out. ‘They’re alone. Every one of them. As if they did it all on their own. It’s such a lie.’
When we arrived at the offices of the leader of the opposition, Kate waltzed in the door with a casual hello to various members of David’s staff and headed straight for her father’s office. David ushered us in with a theatrical flourish and even with the door closed, he stayed smooth and jovial, asking about our flight and talking about the weather. It reminded me of visiting my father at work when I was a girl. How cheery and professional he would be, all smiles and good humour. Nothing like the man who came home.
As we headed down the corridors towards lunch, we could see our reflections in the high gloss of the parquetry floor. As always, the place was immaculate, gleaming, unreal. Kate stopped at one of the windows overlooking the interior courtyard and remarked on the clipped hedges and bright green grass, and how it looked too perfect, almost fake against the white stone walls.
When we arrived at the parliamentary dining room, Jasper and two of David’s other advisers were already tucking into their lunch.
Jasper looked up apologetically. ‘Sorry to be hoeing in. We’ve got a meeting at one. You know Hugh and Cleo?’
I nodded at the two advisers either side of him as we sat down. ‘Of course. Hoe away.’
Hugh, who had acquired a third chin since I last saw him, raised the wine bottle over my glass. When I shook my head, he turned to Kate. ‘Dear girl, would you like a Coke?’
‘Dear Hugh,’ Kate grinned, ‘I would.’
Cleo smiled across at Kate. ‘Cool T-shirt.’
‘Her own creation,’ I said.
Cleo brushed her long black fringe to one side of her forehead for a better view. It was a screen print of a girl in a red, hooded jacket playing fetch with a wolf. ‘Extra cool.’
The conversation drifted from this to that – small talk, a bit of gossip – until David, who had been watching us with a preoccupied air, pointed at the clock behind the bar. ‘Time.’
‘Does he boss you around like this?’ Cleo grinned conspiratorially at Kate as she wiped her mouth on a napkin.
I could see the wheels of Kate’s mind rolling towards a smart answer until she caught my eye.
‘Sometimes,’ she mumbled.
When Jasper, Hugh and Cleo were gone, a sudden awkwardness settled over the table. Kate’s eyes roved from me to David and back again as if trying to gauge our mood. I could see she was anxious and bored. She clearly wasn’t ready to make up with her father and still resented being pressured into coming. David studied the menu while I tried not to stare at the table of cabinet ministers nearby. As soon as lunch arrived, Kate wolfed her lasagne down, polished off her Coke and got up.
‘I’m going for a wander. See you back in your office.’
‘Please, Kate, stay a little longer. Have a chat with Dad.’
‘Give me a break, Mum.’
‘Don’t force her, Esther.’
We watched her smile and thank the waiter near the door. She could be so composed and grown-up when she wanted. Then she disappeared into the corridor, leaving David and me alone together for the first time in weeks.
We’d barely had a chance to exchange a few words when two bulky figures loomed up at our table – almost, I couldn’t help thinking, as if they’d been waiting for their moment. It was Rex and Miles, both shadow ministers, smiling down at us. They were not close friends – not in the way Gerald had been – but close enough to be occasional dinner guests when they were in Melbourne. They were the number crunchers. Odd term. I couldn’t help thinking of the bad guy with the iron jaws in James Bond, who crunches anything that gets in the way.
‘Do you mind, Esther?’ Rex said, his tufted eyebrows pinched together.
Miles placed a large hand on the linen tablecloth. ‘Good to see you, Esther,’ he said.
We talked for a while about the weather and the food in the dining room but it was obvious they hadn’t just joined us for a casual chat. Miles turned to David and started discussing the latest internal polling, the ratings for preferred leader. David was ahead but only just. He was still, Miles said, a relatively unknown quantity outside his electorate. They had to work on getting his story out there and this was where I came in.
I stared at the steak that had appeared in front of me – a large glistening slab with charcoal grill lines, still oozing blood – and wondered why I had ordered it. At least cutting it into pieces would give me something to do, something to concentrate on while the men talked. Sometimes it was Rex, sometimes Miles, like a practised duo. Jowls wobbling and necks bulging over the collars of their shirts.
They were there, of course, to enlist me – television appearances and magazine interviews, all glossy and well-rehearsed to present a sanitised story of how we met and fell in love and what a happy family we were and blah, blah, blah. I had known it had to happen; that there was no escaping this kind of exposure, the whole charade. It was the way of the political world. What hurt was that David hadn’t come to me himself and raised it. If we’d talked privately, we could have come up with ways to work around my fears. I’d made this visit, dragging a reluctant Kate behind me, so that we could all grab an hour together – amid David’s million other commitments – to patch things up. But he didn’t want to acknowledge there was a problem. He was too busy steamrolling ahead.
He sat erect, trying to remain aloof. I could feel him willing the whole thing to be over. When I attempted to meet his eye, he avoided my gaze. I’d always known he was driven, it had been obvious from the start. I had loved his energy, his refusal to take the easy path. I had never, not once until this moment, thought of it as ambition – not in the ugly, ruthless sense of the word. But perhaps I’d been kidding myself, had refused to see it for what it was. When pressed these days, he would say he was an idealist who’d become more realistic about how to get things done. The system was in desperate need of reform, desperate for somebody with the courage to take it on. But to change the system you had to be in power and this was the catch. It meant you had to do things that you might once have disdained.
I forked a piece of steak into my mouth and chewed and chewed, concentrating on getting it down.
‘In an ideal world,’ Miles was saying, ‘none of this would be necessary. Unfortunately, people – all of us – are more irrational than we like to think. And curious. Deeply curious. Who is this woman who might be the next prime minister’s wife and what does she tell us about him? What are her views and how will she conduct herself? I’m sure I don’t need to go into it, Esther.’ He paused and looked at me steadily. ‘Of course, you can say no. It’s not your job. We understand perfectly.’
David cleared his throat and turned to Rex and Miles. ‘We’ll sort it out from here.’
When we arrived back at David’s office, Kate’s red shoulder bag was on the floor but she was nowhere in sight. Suddenly, the large leather chair swivelled around and she put her boots up on her father’s desk. It would normally have been a playful gesture, a reversal of roles. A bit of fun. But she was glaring at David.
Kate cocked her head to one side and looked a
t her father with a taunting smile. ‘I like this office, but there’s something missing.’
David stiffened.
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’
‘Enough games.’
‘My painting. It was on that wall.’ She pointed to the blank wall opposite.
We all stared at the empty white space and the nail from which the painting had hung.
Kate swung her feet off the desk and stood up. Her eyes were glittering. ‘It was like a dirty piece of evidence, wasn’t it? One of your daughter’s spray-painted jobs hanging on your office wall!’
David quickly closed the door. ‘Kate, calm down.’
She eyed him, defiant. ‘Then put it back up.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
He shifted uneasily. ‘It’s lost.’
Kate was too stunned to speak.
‘It was in the room next door … The cleaners, the staff … I don’t know. It’s not here any more. I’ve looked all over … It’s gone. I can’t put it back.’
Kate wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop her body from shaking. Her curls had gone limp around her face and there were white flecks at the corners of her mouth. I could see she was about to explode into tears. David shot a glance at the door then stepped towards Kate, his hands raised to placate her.
Instinctively I moved between them. ‘David.’
He turned away in disgust. Kate stared at us with horrified eyes, as though afraid of what might happen next. ‘Can we go, Mum?’ she pleaded. ‘I just want to go home.’
Later that afternoon, we waited in the first-class lounge until the final call. We would all fly to Melbourne, then David would connect with a flight to Adelaide where he had to address a conference that evening.
Even in the seclusion of the lounge, I was conscious of the discreet, curious glances and of the need to keep tensions hidden. David acted as if nothing was wrong and kept himself busy on his laptop while Kate stalked around the platters of food and, without consulting us, went to the bar and ordered a Bacardi and Coke.
I stared at the photo of Kate on the screen of my mobile phone, my eyes drawn to her left cheek and the fine scar I knew was there, a mark so faint that no one else would have noticed it. It had happened when she was about two. Another toddler at crèche had been waving a plastic dinosaur and the pointy tail of it scratched Kate’s face. It drew blood and tears but was soon forgotten, except for this trace. I put the phone away and looked over at Kate. She was talking to the barman. I picked up the paper, blindly turning the pages while we waited for the call.
We were the last passengers through and I had expected impatient frowns from the cabin crew but when we reached the door of the plane, the flight attendants were beaming, addressing us by name and welcoming us on board. I did my best to look cheerful and nod at the right moments, gripping the tops of the seats as I moved down the aisle.
Kate went straight to the window seat and sat scowling at the tarmac slipping away behind us as we taxied down the runway. Once the plane had climbed and levelled out, a bright-eyed flight attendant asked if we would like a complimentary glass of champagne.
David smiled and said, ‘Thank you very kindly but no,’ and then touched my hand and said in a cheery voice, ‘What about you, darling?’
I looked past him to the flight attendant, forcing a smile. ‘Not for me, either. Thank you.’
‘And your daughter?’
Kate didn’t look around.
‘She’s fine,’ I said. ‘We’re all fine, thank you.’ It was like being in a Pinter play, all this pretending. How did people in the public eye bear it? Constantly having to paper over the cracks. But when you were out of sight, the cracks would still be there. I knew all about that.
When the attendant was gone, David leaned towards me. ‘It’s been a hard day, Esther. But we’ll get through it.’
You’d think we were just flying through a pocket of turbulence. I couldn’t seem to reach him any more. He had this shiny, hard force-field about him, as if it were the only way he could get through what was to come. He didn’t seem to trust his instincts, and his instincts had been so good. All because of what was ‘at stake’. Why should he have to guard against his past, his family, his own nature? Why couldn’t he be himself? He told me only a month or so ago – it seemed like an age – how much he needed me, and that I should never forget it. But this need, it was becoming obvious, had little to do with me. He needed me to be what he wanted, not who I was.
From this height the landscape below looked barren, desolate. If things were this hard now, how hard would they get?
I didn’t know a lot of things then. But you surprise yourself, especially when grief unmoors you. You realise with new urgency that you’ve got to grab what you need when you find it. Whatever will keep you afloat. For me it was a chunk of limestone in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Ros’s parting gift. I can’t imagine what state of mind I would have been in – probably doped to the eyeballs – if I hadn’t had it, and if I hadn’t met Sven. I’d be sitting here at this desk, staring over the gardens of the Lodge, but there’d be no one home.
18
GOTLAND
September 2010
To mark my last night on the island we went to a restaurant just off the main square. It was in one of the older, medieval-looking buildings with heavy wooden beams and whitewashed walls. Inside, candles flickered overhead in an old-style chandelier and in wrought-iron sconces on the walls. A ruddy-cheeked man directed us to our table, telling Sven it was good to see him again. He poured our water, gave us our menus and, with a little bow, left us to decide.
‘A favourite haunt?’ I said.
Sven shrugged. ‘Not really. But I did come a few weeks ago.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘With a friend of mine who lives here. We have what you might call a casual relationship.’
My cheeks burned. ‘You have a girlfriend?’
‘It’s not like that, Esther. We see each other when we feel like it. And we are free to see anyone else.’
‘How very … Swedish.’
His face remained grave. ‘No, I think it is universal. At least the desire under the skin. But not everyone permits themselves.’
He put a large tanned hand over mine. ‘There are things I would like to tell you.’ He let the words linger then withdrew his hand. ‘But it would not be helpful. It would only complicate matters.’
The waiter came, we ordered the food and wine and talked about other things. I asked about Ireland. He said he went back every year.
‘To see your friends, the sculptors?’ I knew I was pushing things, but couldn’t help myself.
A shadow crossed his face. He sighed deeply and forced himself to speak. ‘The woman, Maeve, is dead. Her husband, Shane, and I are no longer friends. I go to visit her grave.’
I hadn’t expected this. ‘Oh God, Sven. I’m sorry.’
He roused himself. ‘Don’t be. This is your night, Esther; let’s make it a good one. Do you have any ideas for tomorrow? There are some more Viking longship graves I could show you, unless you’ve had enough of graves. I have some friends in the countryside who have one in their backyard. Or we could go fossil hunting.’
Before I could reply, he went on, ‘I won’t forget this past week, Esther. When I think about everything that has happened, about the pleasure it has given me to have you here, about how much I enjoy your company. How I will miss you when you go …’ His voice faltered. He gave a helpless smile and picked up his glass of water and took a sip. ‘I shouldn’t be saying these things.’
‘Shouldn’t you? But what if I’m glad to hear them? What if I feel the same way?’
We stared at each other in silence. The truth had been broached but neither of us knew what to do with it.
Sven was the first to speak. ‘It’s an impossible situation.’
‘Is it?’
‘For so many reasons.’
‘But you have casual relationships.’
<
br /> ‘And what about you?’
‘David and I have an understanding.’
‘Have you acted upon it?’
‘No.’
Sven sat back in his chair, shaking his head. ‘I’ve been foolish. It was rash and wrong of me to tell you.’
‘No it wasn’t.’
‘Listen. I told myself many years ago that I would never, ever become involved with a married woman again. Not because it’s morally wrong but because of the harm that comes of it, whether the marriage is open or not.’
I waited. If he wanted to tell me more, he could. This time, I wasn’t going to push him.
I could see him struggling with himself. It looked like he wouldn’t go on, then the part of him that needed to speak won out.
‘Maeve died because of me.’ Each word enunciated as if he was engraving it in stone.
And so the story finally came out. For a year or so, he said, everything had been fine. The three of them worked happily together, creating their sculptures and carefully planning where they would put them and when. They were young and caught up in the excitement of doing something clandestine, something revolutionary that could change the way people understood art.
He stared at me, suddenly bewildered. ‘We got along so well, the three of us.’
I nodded.
‘And then things started going wrong: the impostors began claiming our work. Shane wanted to confront and expose them. Maeve and I were against it. He walked out. Maeve and I stayed on. We kept working in the studio next to the Big House overlooking the lake, which had been in Maeve’s family for as long as anyone could remember. And Shane stalked around the garden, pretending he didn’t care. But it wasn’t the same any more. When Shane was for something, he gave it everything. And when he turned, you felt it. But we persisted. Because we had fallen in love.’
Sven smiled bleakly. ‘I look back and I wonder who I was then. Not even the guilt could stop us.’ One day, Maeve came to him and it was obvious something was wrong. She said she was pregnant and that it couldn’t be Shane’s. Sven was shocked but strangely relieved and excited. They would have to come out in the open. He told her he would go to Shane and tell him everything. He would tell him how truly sorry he was, how they had never meant this to happen but somehow it had, and now he and Maeve wanted to be together. In his mind it was simple. They loved each other, they would have the child.
