Love and Punishment

by Unknown

  The bomb landed and seemed to blow off Francie’s limbs.

  ‘Or you might spend the evening banging a four-inch nail into your head,’ trilled Gabby. ‘Anyway, I’ll watch and report back. I’ll ring you on your mobile. Byeee.’

  Hope you trip on the stairs and break your neck. Byeee!

  Later that night Francie was sitting in her room idly perusing the pictures in Vogue magazine—not like she ever really read the articles.

  She’d abandoned Remembrance of Things Past after reading the same paragraph for the fifteenth time. She didn’t know why she was bothering to read it anyway. She was past measuring herself against Poppy Sommerville-Smith. Past torturing herself. Wasn’t she?

  Watching them on television tonight would be like lying down on the tracks and waiting for the train. And yet . . . She had never seen them together as a couple—except for small grainy black and white pictures in the social pages, and from a tram window. It had been the same with her father and his new wife after their wedding. She had never seen them together since. How would Nick and Poppy look? Would all the world see how mismatched they were? If she didn’t watch, maybe she would always wonder.

  And what would they say about their forthcoming production? She’d heard from Johnno that they were still going ahead with it. Her approval or otherwise hadn’t meant anything in the end, as she’d suspected. How would they negotiate their appearance this evening? Would they refer to the way they had met? Would they own up to the fact that their liaison had started while she and Nick were together?

  And then—Francie shuddered at the memory—there was that night. Surely that wouldn’t get an airing on national television? But then again Francie was intelligent enough to realise that the sheer drama of it all could prove irresistible to an old luvvie like Poppy.

  No, she wouldn’t watch. Couldn’t watch. And it didn’t matter if she didn’t. Everyone she knew would tell her what happened. She could bet that Olga, Amanda and Gabby would be on the phone in minutes with a review of their performance.

  It was about 9 pm when she heard Robbie come home, then, she guessed, Dave. Francie would stay in her room and avoid the public spectacle. After all, she had better things to do than watch two people pick over her private tragedy for fun and profit. She climbed under the bedcovers, determined to stay behind her closed door.

  Except she was starting to think about something to eat. She was having a recurring vision of grilled cheese on toast and a glass of icy white wine. Since she’d recently regained her appetite Francie was making up for lost meals. She would have been a liability at the Siege of Troy—standing on the ramparts begging for a snack within an hour and a half.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door.

  ‘Hey, Francie?’ It was Robbie.

  ‘Dave’s brought some seafood Szechuan noodles home, and a bottle of chardy. There’s plenty here. You want to join us?’

  Damn! Forced from her fortress by a chilli prawn.

  Francie could smell the food from halfway down the hall. She found Robbie and Dave setting up their feast in front of the television. Robbie was doling out steaming piles of noodles and stir-fried vegetables. Dave was pouring big glasses of white wine. It all looked delicious. There was no way she could take her food and drink back to her room. That would have been rude. The rout was complete. Francie would sit here with them and watch the program. Which wasn’t a bad thing, she reflected. It would show the boys she was over the whole episode. Very grown up.

  Francie gratefully took her noodles and wine and sat on the floor.

  ‘Ooh . . . new toes. Very fetching,’ said Robbie.

  ‘End of the week treat.’ Francie wiggled her rosy nails.

  ‘Not going out tonight?’ asked Dave cheerfully. Francie could sense that he was exercising the utmost diplomacy and she was grateful for his efforts.

  ‘No, I’m pretty boring really. I don’t think I’d know where to go. It’s been so long since . . .’ And here she could have kicked herself. It had only been a week since she and Dave had spent the night together. She had managed to avoid any situation in the house in which they might find themselves together again. For his part Dave had seemed relaxed in her presence. Her first instinct must have been correct then: he’s done this before.

  ‘Mmm, this is delicious,’ she murmured, stuffing her mouth with noodles so she couldn’t make an idiot of herself.

  Robbie took up the challenge of manufacturing small talk.

  ‘By the way, I’ve found something new for us, Francie—a Scottish salsa band playing at the Fitzroy Town Hall on Saturday!’

  ‘Wha . . . ?’ Francie sprayed Dave with half-chewed prawn. ‘Oh . . . sorry.’ She reached out and then quickly withdrew her hand as if his broad chest was a hotplate.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m getting used to you spitting on me.’ He brushed the front of his white T-shirt, his eyes dancing with amusement. Francie was reminded again how lovely he was.

  ‘It’s Latin dancing with a whole bunch of blokes in kilts,’ Robbie explained. ‘And, as part of your re-education, I’ve signed us up for a demonstration class. Although you’ll have to help me fake-tan my legs first.’

  Dave laughed. ‘What are you going to wear underneath your wee kilt?’

  ‘Nothing, of course. It’s traditional and I might get lucky!’

  Dave and Francie were both laughing now.

  ‘You ever been to Scotland, Francie?’ asked Dave.

  ‘With a name like McKenzie? We . . . I . . . spent Hogmanay with my relatives in Aberdeen once.’

  Francie was instantly back there that New Year’s Eve with Nick, standing in the snow watching fireworks cascade through the black and freezing sky. She slipped on the ice, looked up and was surprised to see that this time it was Dave holding out his hand to help her to her feet.

  They talked about their working week over the rest of dinner, but the longer Francie sat there and looked at Dave, then looked at the television, the more she felt her courage desert her.

  ‘Excuse me, I have to make a call.’ She fled to her bedroom and her mobile phone. Johnno was with Jessie tonight, at the television studio. She could imagine the mounting excitement as the show counted down for the opening credits.

  ‘Hey, France,’ Johnno answered, ‘you wouldn’t believe who’s sitting here in the Green Room—John Butler. You know, from the trio? So brilliant! I’ve been talking to him and—’

  ‘Did you talk to Nick?’ Francie hissed.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Jesus, Johnno! You know . . . about what he’s going to say tonight!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I told him. Don’t worry, Jessie’s there, she’ll look after you. Gotta go . . . it’s starting. Talk later.’

  He hung up. The thought that Jessie was there as her champion and protector made Francie’s heart sink. Being indiscreet was part of her job description.

  As Francie walked slowly back down the hall she could hear the opening music to Talkfest. It might as well have been a funeral march. Francie plodded into the room and curled up on the end of the squashy cream sofa. She cradled a faded fringed cushion in front of her for protection.

  Before long Jessie was holding forth on this week’s topic, which was (surprise, surprise) one-night stands. Francie wouldn’t look at Dave, who she suspected was looking at her. And neither of them was looking at Robbie, who they suspected was checking out both of them.

  ‘I mean, what’s the etiquette of one-night stands?’ Jessie was asking the rest of the male panel. They were momentarily lost for words.

  ‘I dunno,’ one of them spoke up. ‘The last etiquette book I looked up was the rules for strip poker. How come a pair of jocks only counts as one item, but a pair of women’s earrings counts as two. What’s the deal there?’

  There was laughter and when it died down Jessie was away.

  ‘I found a book about the etiquette of a one-night stand by this American guy and he reckons rule one is—’ and here Jessie read from a paperback�
��‘You should wait at least a day after you meet someone to do the deed because the sex will be better if you’ve taken time to talk over your sexual habits.’

  There was a groan of disbelief from the studio audience.

  ‘Exactly! As if that’s ever gunna work.’ Jessie looked at the camera with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah,’ one of the blokes interjected. ‘Hey, babe, I like to thrash around for five minutes and then fall into a coma!’

  Jessie fired back: ‘Yeah, I like to lie there like a log and let someone else do all the work. Sounds good, let’s do it tomorrow night.’

  There was more laughter from the studio audience and a chuckle from Robbie in the lounge room. Francie and Dave were still not looking at each other.

  ‘Actually,’ Jessie continued, ‘I’ll bet you never knew that the topic was also covered in Debrett’s Etiquette by Elsie Burch Donald. Of course, most of what Elsie says is stuff like how to take leave of royalty, or how to eat an artichoke with a knife and fork—’

  ‘Or how to address a corgi and balance a beer at the same time!’ Another interjection from one of the boys on the panel.

  Jessie ploughed on: ‘But to show how modern she is Elsie has also had a go at courtship and she says that before sex it is considerate of each party to make sure that the other knows how much commitment is intended.’

  ‘What?’ General amazement from the panel.

  ‘I know, I know!’ exclaimed Jessie. ‘With respect, Elsie, to be told by a bloke that he’s intending to commit about five and a half hours to a relationship is a little more consideration than I can handle!’

  Erk! This was the moment when Francie and Dave did catch each other’s eye. How much time had they put in on their ‘relationship’? From the initial chat-up in the Green Room, the dancing and flirting at the club to the sex and awkward brush-off next afternoon, it had been a very indecent amount of time indeed.

  Francie squirmed with embarrassment and glued her eyes to the screen where Jessie was outlining her personal rules for a one-night stand: ‘I reckon it’s bad form to ring your girlfriends from his house to tell them that the Great Drought of 2004 has finally broken.

  ‘And always try to keep a bit of an eye on where you are. Cos there’s nothing worse than creeping out of bed in the dark, fumbling for your clothes, stumbling down the hall and closing the door quietly behind you to find you’ve locked yourself out of your own bloody house!’

  Jessie sat back in her chair and beamed as the audience applauded.

  Then the host announced that the charming and talented Poppy Sommerville-Smith and her hot actor boyfriend Nick Jamieson were up next after the ad break. Every instinct told Francie that she should run away. The boys were quiet, waiting for her to do just that. When, after a minute’s silence, she was, for some unaccountable reason, still in the room, Robbie turned to her.

  ‘How’s your drink, Francie?’

  She held out her glass and he filled it to the brim. She took a mighty gulp and set it down on the coffee table.

  ‘Are you sure you want to watch this?’ Dave asked. The look on his face was too close to pity for Francie’s liking. She sat up straight and squared her shoulders.

  ‘Yeah . . . should be a laugh.’

  No-one in the room thought anything about the next few minutes would be funny at all. They watched an advertisement for New Coca-Cola with a Hint of Cherry with unnatural fascination. And then the ad break was over. Nick and Poppy filled the television screen. Francie could feel the blood drain from her head and her hands start to sweat. She bit into the cushion she was holding.

  It must have been the television lighting, but Nick and Poppy looked as if they were emanating a dewy aura. There were rays of light coming out of their heads. Nick’s hair was shining blue-black and his brown eyes were sparkling. He was smiling hard, showing off a luminous set of teeth. Poppy was wearing a white jacket which made her look terrifyingly young—almost virginal. Her shoulder-length curls shone a lustrous amber. Her eyes were like a doll’s—wide and bright—and her apricot lips were full and glossy.

  It was weird, they were actually glowing! Radiant was the only word for it. Did they look mismatched? Horribly enough . . . no. They looked perfect together. They looked just like they had in her dreams. A golden couple. Francie wanted to hurl her glass at the screen. She bit down harder on her cushion. After a few minutes of banter the panel got down to business.

  ‘So tell us about your new show, Poppy. A bit of a departure for you after Chekhov?’ was the question.

  Poppy answered in a breathy, marvellously theatrical voice which Francie found nauseating. Actually sickening. Prawns and noodles were writhing in her gut.

  ‘Absolutely!’ Poppy purred. ‘It’s entitled Stupid Cupid and it’s a modest little cabaret outing which Nick and I have written ourselves—all the musical numbers and the dialogue. I’ve always adored cabaret—Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht and the French tradition Jacques Brel, Piaf . . . all that.’

  Francie couldn’t stop herself: ‘No-one watching this show has ever head of them, you fucking wanker!’ she spat at the screen. Somewhere outside her tunnel vision she heard Robbie splutter into his wine.

  Poppy was now waving her delicate little paws as she spoke: ‘Of course it’s wonderful to be doing something very late night and intimate again—’

  ‘I’ll bet!’ Francie muttered.

  She looked over to see Dave’s back heaving with a silent laugh.

  ‘Sometimes one can get a little caught up, become remote, in the elaborate productions in the big theatres and I’m looking forward to breaking down that fourth wall—’

  ‘Do us a favour, you old cow, and stay in your barn.’

  ‘Shoosh, Francie, I want to hear,’ Robbie said crossly.

  Then it was Nick’s turn to make a dickhead of himself.

  ‘It’s really fabulous to be doing something original with someone as gifted as Poppy—’

  ‘Aaargh! Oh, pu-leese!’ Francie threw her cushion on the floor. Then she was on her knees with her head buried in the sofa.

  ‘She really does have the most amazing voice. I think people are going to be blown away when they see her—’

  ‘SUCK MY DICK!’

  ‘Francie, STOP IT!’ Robbie was trying to be stern, but he was laughing too hard.

  They were all having a wonderful time taking the piss out of Nick and Poppy when Jessie’s voice halted them mid guffaw like a game of Simon Says.

  ‘So, Nick, how does your ex girlfriend feel about the show?’

  OH NO! JESSIE, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! Francie screamed silently as she threw herself back on the couch. Even from the lounge room they could see the high pink colour on Nick’s olive cheeks.

  ‘I . . . I think she’s fine about it,’ he stuttered.

  ‘Cos if my boyfriend dumped me and then did a show about me with his new girlfriend, I would be devastated!’

  Jessie sat back and folded her arms across her chest with satisfaction. She obviously thought she was grilling the Prime Minister over the War on Terror.

  The walls of the lounge room seemed to become concave as Francie, Dave and Robbie sucked in all the available air and did not dare breathe out.

  ‘It’s not really about her . . . as such—’ Nick started to say when Poppy’s authoritative contralto voice sliced through the end of his sentence.

  ‘The show is also about what it feels like to be stalked!’ Poppy paused for theatrical effect and her deep blue eyes misted over with the tremendous pain of it all.

  Francie’s face was a still frame from a horror movie. The lounge room became as quiet as a crypt. The television studio had become dead silent as well.

  ‘Stalked? What, you mean threatened?’ Jessie asked.

  ‘Well, imagine if you came home to find someone had cut all of your underwear to pieces. Ripped everything to shreds. Smashed up your bedroom. Torn up your precious possessions. It was terrifying! I mean, we all joke about revenge—seafood in the
curtain rails and leaving the telephone off the hook to New York, and so forth. It’s all terribly amusing. But think about what it’s like to be on the receiving end. It’s not pleasant at all. In fact, it was the most appalling thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life!’

  The cameras came in closer. Was the poor woman to be spared nothing? Poppy turned down her mouth, her bottom lip wobbled attractively, her false eyelashes fluttered and there was not a person watching—from coast to coast—who didn’t feel her intense personal suffering. There was a tidal wave of outrage from the viewing audience—and a desperate need for more information.

  ‘Francie slashed your knickers?’ Jessie’s mouth hung open in astonishment.

  Dave and Robbie turned to look at Francie, but she was already out the door. Just a warm imprint remained on the squashy sofa where her bottom had been.

  The television ratings would later show that, in the whole of the country, not one set tuned into Talkfest switched to another channel for the next fifteen minutes.

  Francie had just slammed her bedroom door behind her when her mobile phone rang for the first time. She switched it off and threw it on the floor. She could hear the telephone in the kitchen start to ring as well.

  Minutes later the first knock came on Francie’s door. By midnight Dave, Robbie, Johnno, Jessie, Olga and Amanda had all knocked on the locked bedroom door and been told loudly and rudely to go away.

  Her brother, her therapist, her Pilates instructor and her Auntie Kath in Benalla (who just happened to be watching television and recognised Nick and put two and two together and couldn’t believe her ears and got Francie’s new phone number from her mother without letting on she knew anything) had all rung and been given the number of her mobile, which was now hurled in the bottom of her washing basket.

  News of Francie’s social demise travelled fast. She lay on the bed in the dark and wished that she was actually, in real life, dead.

  Sixteen

  It was Saturday night. Francie sat by the window in her childhood bedroom and looked out at the cloudy sky. The moon had disappeared.