Like Being a Wife

by Catherine Harris

  Last week at their house, I watched as my best friend prepared dinner – walnut chicken with pomegranate sauce – while Rory at first lounged in front of the six o’clock news sipping his chocolate Big M and Kahlúa cocktail on ice, and then, without pausing to ask if she needed any help, changed into his lime green and yellow caftan and did a set from South Pacific on their karaoke machine, including ‘Bali Hai’ and ‘Happy Talk’, looking for all intents and purposes like a giant singing and dancing pineapple.

  When he was done he came into the kitchen, poured himself another drink (rum and banana Big M this time over crushed ice with a sprig of mint), hopped up on the bar stool beside mine and asked if I was still in therapy.

  ‘Rory,’ said my best friend, as she stirred the sauce, her pink slingbacks and matching pink ‘The Potential Big M Model’ apron coordinating beautifully with the crimson juice of the pomegranates.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘I should think so,’ said Rory. ‘I heard about this morning. You’re so very quick with the tongue, Ice Lady, but oh, so very angry.’

  ‘Are you talking about the tram incident?’

  ‘If that’s what you want to call it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Superstar,’ sang Rory, using his swizzle stick as a microphone. ‘Do you think you’re what they say you are?’

  ‘Is that a real question?’

  ‘To sing is to speak,’ crooned Rory.

  ‘He’s right,’ said my best friend. ‘Music. It’s a straight road to the soul.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that instead of telling the woman to go home and look up her dictionary, I should have put the suggestion in song?’ I sang.

  Rory waved his finger at me. ‘I’m suggesting that instead of telling the woman to go home and look up her dictionary, you should have showed some support for your good friend here by stepping aside and letting the product speak for itself, so to speak.’

  ‘But we were talking. We were right in the middle of a conversation. Is it honestly your position that if ever anyone ever wants to speak with your client, no matter what we’re doing, I should just shut up and move out of the way?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it like that exactly,’ said Rory. ‘But essentially, yes. This is the way public opinion works. You’ve got to build a groundswell. If we’re going to grab the attention of the advertising honchos, we need as many unsolicited testimonials as we can get. Each day that passes only makes our job more difficult. We’re facing greater competition, diminishing resources, product depreciation.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. You’re studying marketing.’

  ‘Information management.’

  ‘I thought it was marketing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, either way. This has got to be a team effort. Otherwise, what have we been doing all these years?’

  At the shopping centre, ELO’s ‘Telephone Line’ is playing, bouncing around the building like we’re trapped in an enormous elevator. My best friend goes back and forth from the Big M promotional stand, helping herself to countless samples of the new choc-honeycomb flavour, which she transports to me beneath the yellowing palm, where I sit on the white circular wooden bench, waiting.

  ‘What do you think?’ she says.

  ‘It’s fine, I suppose, though you know, milk’s not really my thing.’

  ‘Not the beverage,’ she says. ‘The models.’

  ‘Oh, the models. They’re okay.’

  ‘What do you mean they’re okay? They’re not okay. The redhead’s chubby and the brunette’s got her hair all wrong.’

  ‘It’s hard for me to tell from this distance.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ My best friend edges down beside me and yawns. Today she is wearing a ‘The Potential Big M Model’ singlet over a denim mini-skirt and stiff thigh-high boots. She sits with her legs extended straight out in front of her. ‘The boots,’ she says by way of explanation.

  A young man approaches us. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, ‘but shouldn’t you be over there with the other Big M models?’

  My best friend points to her singlet and smiles. ‘Potential,’ she says.

  ‘That doesn’t seem right,’ says the man and asks for her autograph anyway.

  She signs his new Powderfinger CD.

  I notice the music has changed – Britney Spears chiming about some departed boyfriend. Outside House two small children are dancing.

  ‘It’s a crazy life, isn’t it,’ says my friend as the young man walks away.

  ‘You’d better believe it.’

  ‘Yet still the children dance.’

  We sit quietly for a moment watching them cavort across the slick tiled floor, until the little boy (I think he’s a little boy) slips and starts to cry.

  My friend yawns again. ‘It’s so exhausting, this business,’ she says. ‘I’m completely worn out. Last night Rory was talking about a catalogue spot, some new discount complex on the Central Coast, and as he was laying out the details I realised I just can’t do it. I’m too tired. I said, “Hang on, Rory, this is going to have to wait. I’m cleaned out. I need a break.”’

  ‘Wow. How did he take it?’

  ‘You can imagine, he wasn’t exactly pleased. But he also understands. The two of us, it’s go, go, go really, all the time. And the eternal not knowing. It plays havoc with your stamina.’

  ‘I bet. So are you going to take some time off?’

  ‘Yeah, well, kind of. Actually, I didn’t know how to bring this up, but now that it’s on the table...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve signed on for a cruise.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Uh huh. Ten nights. The Caribbean. It turns out the key players in the national dairy foods sector are taking a little joint R & R. Rory got a hot tip.’

  ‘So you’ll be working.’

  ‘Call it business and pleasure.’

  ‘I don’t see how you’re going to be able to relax and unwind if you’re constantly trying to impress a bunch of Australian dairy industry representatives.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. We’ll only be gone two weeks. It’s not like we’re moving interstate.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m concerned about you. You just said you need a holiday.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you so sweet. My dear, dear friend. You know, Rory said you might get a little clingy. He did. But not to worry, it’s called separation anxiety. Apparently it’s perfectly normal. And you know what, when we’re away I’m going to leave you our “Potential Big M Model & Co” embroidered pillowcases so you won’t miss us so much. Good deal?’

  ‘Gosh.’

  ‘It was Rory’s idea.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘True. Look, you’ve been there for me through thick and thin, and he knows it. He’s got his quirks, but in his own way he really loves you.’

  My therapist is wearing a new T-shirt. ‘The THERAPIST’s Therapist’. He’s been away in the country at some wellness seminar and has returned with a stack of up-to-the-minute techniques for aligning ‘the heart’ (‘the real you, what’s going on inside’) with ‘the body’.

  ‘It sounds a little unorthodox,’ I say. ‘The body thing – is Elle Macpherson involved?’

  ‘See, there you go again, the same cynical response. That’s what’s been tripping you up in your life. You know that, don’t you? You’re too shut-down. Instead of erecting a wall, why don’t you think of it as an opportunity to try and break down some of the old barriers.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I reply. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘Superficially, we’re talking a reformulation of some fairly standard stuff, role-play mixed with a touch of breath control and behaviour modification. But what’s important about it, what’s
new, is the attention the therapist brings to the work. It’s a whole other energy.’

  ‘So it’s more about you?’

  ‘Let’s not get sidetracked.’

  We spend fifteen minutes or so pinning down some key details from the past – the characters, the context, the dynamic – then the two of us get down on the floor and begin the re-enactment. What we’ve selected is the Rory drive-by day, but my therapist will perform the part of fractured-leg giraffe, leaving the role of mother/veterinarian to me.

  As is consistent with his new training, he takes a moment to centre himself before we begin. I sit cross-legged on his lamb’s wool rug listening to his rapid breathing (‘a self-induced form of dizziness that enables one to more easily relinquish the ego,’ he explains), taking in the office from this lower vantage point. It looks much the same.

  ‘Okay, I’m ready,’ he says after a couple of minutes of noisy hyperventilation. His face is still red, but his eyes have refocused.

  ‘What do I do?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ he says.

  ‘Well, Mr Giraffy. I want to inspect that leg,’ I say. ‘I have reason to believe it may be fractured.’

  And so the game begins.

  I revisit some of my prepubescent ‘not good enough’ trauma (such as, why, after my best friend was signed, didn’t my parents get me the ‘Potential Sunnyboy Model’ T-shirt I wanted instead of the stupid ‘Sidekick’ one? And why wasn’t I encouraged to practise walking around the house in stilettos balancing a book on my head like my best friend was after her mother saw a picture of air hostesses doing precisely that in a ladies’ magazine? And of course, the obvious, namely, why didn’t Rory pick me? etc., etc.), but mostly it’s just plain, old-fashioned fun.

  When we’re done my therapist asks how I feel.

  ‘Pretty good,’ I say. ‘The knees are a little stiff – I don’t know the last time I spent that long crawling around on the floor – but otherwise no complaints.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to hear, Dr Animal Doc. Nice work under stressful imaginary-jungle-like conditions. And you know what they say, improvisation is the mother of necessity. Well, time’s up. See you next week.’

  ‘Of course. Though next time can we do Airport Technician Meets Mechanical Engineer? I love all those jet-sized motors.’

  ‘You know,’ he says in his new being the valley, let it all flow to you voice, ‘that’s really up to you.’

  In addition to minding her ‘Potential Big M Model & Co’ pillowcases while they’re away, my best friend entrusts me with the care of her new miniature schnauzer puppy, ‘God’. She and Rory think this name is hilarious and take great pleasure dressing him for walks in his little ‘God Dog’ bib. I am not really a dog person, but I agree to do it because if I don’t then she’ll have to ask Rory’s crazy half-sister Melanie, and it’s just not right to leave an animal in that kind of situation. Also, any resistance on my part will only be interpreted by my friend as proof that I really am intractably stubborn. I am probably more recalcitrant than stubborn, which is why I prefer to agree to mind the dog than to confirm her assumptions (however justified) about my brittle personality. I refuse to call him God, though. As soon as they’re out the door I rename him ‘The Canine Love Object Substitute,’ immediately shortening it to ‘Clos’ for general usage (pronounced ‘close’, as in ‘when one door closes another opens’) both because it sounds less weird, and is much easier to say. ‘Close’ then gets shortened to ‘Clo’, which to most people sounds like the abbreviation of a socially acceptable pet moniker, and is therefore simple to lie about when the odd punter queries its derivation.

  Like most dogs, he drinks water, in spite of Rory’s tireless attempts to interest him in milk.

  Clo likes to be walked at four pm. I check the letterbox on our way out. There is a postcard waiting from Martinique. I take it with us to the park.

  ‘Bonjour,’ writes my friend in her best high school French. ‘Happy news. We have been signed for “a look” as soon as le bateau returns to port. Rory secured the deal at the breakfast buffet. Over cantaloupe! He says not to get ahead of ourselves, there are no guarantees, but I can’t help it. I am TRES excited. Will celebrate ce soir with unveiling of new “The Potential Big M Model on the Verge” frock. Hope all is well with you and Le Divine Pooch. Moi XOX.’

  ‘Mummy’s good,’ I tell Clo before taking off his lead. He barks (if you could call it that), and paws desperately at my leg.

  Several weeks ago now, my best friend and I were sitting in a restaurant having lunch when a girl approached our table and asked my friend for her autograph. At the time neither of us thought twice about it: we were talking, the girl came up, my friend signed her name (in texta on the back of the girl’s hand: The Potential Big M Model, one word per finger, her signature in the centre, a big heart above the i) then she turned back to me and we continued our conversation. A little later, however, I came across the girl again in the bathroom. She was showing the autograph to her friends, who were all very excited, gathered around her, gawking at her hand, which I could see via the mirror was now swathed in a protective transparent plastic glove.

  That’s when it really hit me: the enormous responsibility that comes with actually BEING a Big M model. After all, so far my friend had only been playacting; what would her life be like if she was given a real part? There would be so many more auto graphs to sign, and all those scheduled appearances. Not to mention the health and wellbeing of the fans, that bevy of fragile souls whose dreams she would be charged to inspire and protect.

  Thinking of that young girl now and her carefully gloved hand, I have to admit I find myself wondering (woe, the disloyal moment) if my best friend can really handle it, if indeed she does have what it takes, and what she will do, and what will happen to our relationship, if the Big M modelling contract does finally come off.

  Clo dances around my feet, oblivious to everything but the promise of my arm.

  ‘All right then. Go,’ I say, hurling the ball as far as I possibly can.

  He almost backflips as he takes off across the grass, a great mess of freshly mown lawn clippings flying in his wake.

  How Do I Begin to Explain This to You?

  Kyle is making huevos rancheros again. He’s chopping onions. He’s warming his special frying pan. There are dried chillies strung like daisy chains draped from hooks around the kitchen. He’s playing Beethoven, wearing the Kiss the Cook apron I got for him last Christmas. One batch of his eggs can feed a family of six for a month. But there’s just us, and I hate fucking breakfast.

  ‘You’ve got to eat something,’ he says when I refuse.

  But why, I think. ‘Since when do I have to eat?’

  He holds my eye just long enough to make me feel stupid, then says, ‘Fine, do what you like, I don’t have time for this.’

  He sets the table for one: placemat, knife and fork, serviette, coaster. I pour myself a coffee and watch as he hoes in, John Wayne style, replete with buttered toast and juice.

  Yolk and sour cream swirl like baby shit across his plate.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I say as he palette-knifes it onto his toast.

  Without speaking he picks up the Tabasco sauce and splatters the mess with thin globs of chilli, turning the food a beautiful shade of sunset pink.

  I’m still hung up on his latest infraction – the declaration that he can’t go out and make new friends for me, I’ll have to do it myself – arsehole – waiting for an explanation, the feeble apology, but he finishes up and he’s on the move.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ I want to know as he rinses his plate and balances it on the drainer. ‘Who gets to work before seven-thirty am?’

  ‘I’ll dry them tonight,’ he says, indicating the sink, then he’s out the door and I’m on my own.

  I shut off the Beethoven and head outside. I’m no
t allowed to smoke in the apartment. Kyle doesn’t like the smell. Dirty habit, he says. Dirty habit, as though I’m a teenager grossing him out. He’s like a sitcom dad the way he carries on (my clothes, my hair, my eating habits, my taste in music), but as I’ve pointed out to him countless times before, sitcom dads only exist on television, and even if this were television, we’re not father and son, we’re ... PARTNERS.

  I like to pause before saying it to heighten the effect. He smiles because he knows it’s coming, but still puts his fingers in his ears and shrieks like Janet Leigh in the shower scene from Psycho. Truth is, neither of us is fond of the term. It’s so laundered, so devoid of sex. One doesn’t think of partners giving each other a good blow job then coming all over each other’s face. Lovers, yes. Boyfriends, yes. Fuckbuddies, absolutely. But not partners. Partners are good for other non-sex-like functions, like collecting your dry-cleaning and sorting out your income taxes. And cooking huevos rancheros for breakfast, now that I think of it.

  We’ve got a picnic table set up on the balcony with two bench seats and an umbrella. When it’s clear some afternoons you can see right across Port Phillip Bay, the You Yangs disrupting the horizon like a low-rise speed bump. Not this morning though. The fog is so thick it might as well be winter. I pull out a chair and peel the plastic from my Marlboros. It comes off smoothly, easier than a condom.

  The telephone rings. I know it’s him but I let the machine pick up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I hope you’re okay.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ I mutter and strike the match.

  That’ll teach him to stick me out here with all the soccer mums.

  What I don’t understand is how a person can love a person and not love a person all at the same time. This is what I said to him just last night, at the Irish pub after Harry Potter. ‘But what do you mean?’ I kept repeating, because I could hear him talking but his words didn’t make any sense. ‘You say you love me, you beg me to come with you, to move with you to Melbourne, to give up my job, to start over, and then here we are, barely a year down the track and suddenly you don’t know.’