by Unknown
‘We’d been going out for about six months when I found out she was screwing this bloke behind my back. Some fat hairy drummer out of a heavy metal band. And I just . . . lost it.’
Here Johnno coughed, ran his fingers through his hair, drained his beer and saw that four people had now leaned forward to hear more.
‘So, one afternoon I went over to her place and I filled her bed with food.’
‘You did what? What do you mean?’ came the chorus.
‘I pulled back the covers and piled in baked beans, jam, chutney, eggs, sugar, flour—everything I could find in the kitchen. Then I remade the bed and left.’
There was a wave of disbelief which broke into squeals of laughter.
‘I wanted her to come home and jump into bed with him and make some sort of disgusting infidelity omelette,’ Johnno raised his voice over the hubbub. ‘But—’ and here he paused like the experienced scriptwriter he was—‘she was at his place and didn’t come home for four days. In the end she smelt it as soon as she walked in the door and she came straight around to my flat and punched me in the face.’
Amid the laughter Francie smiled gratefully at Johnno. She knew the story was told for her benefit—to make her feel more normal—and she mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to him.
Johnno smiled back and said: ‘Although I really did care about her. It’s funny how you sometimes miss your chance and have to wait ages for the next one.’
He looked at Jessie and Dave looked at Francie, who looked at her drink. Jessie took up the thought.
‘Yeah, like playing “skippy” in the schoolyard when you had to find a moment to run in between the ropes. Sometimes you could run in and be in the moment straight away and jump for ages. Some days you’d stand there and never find the rhythm. Other days you’d run in and get whacked in the face by the rope. Being good at the game was about blind faith and courage in the end.’
‘And,’ said Johnno, looking at her with blind faith and courage, ‘about never giving up, no matter how many times you’re whacked in the face.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She reached for his hand.
‘So,’ said Jessie, ‘I don’t think I can beat that, but when Henry and I broke up there was a minor incident with a chainsaw.’
Nicely done. Jessie also had a talent for picking her moment and immediately had everyone’s rapt attention.
‘When we started living together Henry found this love seat in an antique shop in the country. It was the classic red velvet number. Something you’d imagine Elizabeth and Mr Darcy sitting in. Pretty shabby, but he loved it. He used to insist that we sit in it all the time to drink champagne, and read poetry to each other.’
‘Sounds very romantic,’ said Johnno, who was fascinated to hear anything of Jessie’s past.
‘But the thing about sitting in this stinking chair night after night was that it came to be, as far as I could see, a substitute for real sex. I mean, we’d sit there until midnight and then in bed . . . the big fat zero. Anyway, when I moved out I rented a chainsaw and cut that piece of red velvet junk in half.’ Jessie sat back with a satisfied smile at the quartet of astonished faces.
‘Well,’ said Robbie, ‘nothing says “it’s over” like a chainsawed love seat. Sure beats a text message.’
‘And,’ continued Jessie, ‘you’d think Henry would have got the message, but he’s still a problem.’ Her cheerful smile slipped.
‘But he’s not your problem anymore, beautiful, he’s mine,’ said Johnno emphatically. He leaned over the table and kissed Jessie hard on the mouth.
Francie knew that for Johnno and Jessie the searching was over. She was pleased that she had been the reason they’d met. And as she thought that, she knew the flame of romantic hope flickered within her still.
‘The word was “shameful” right?’ Dave took a deep breath. His voice was low. His words were measured and precise.
‘So, you’re in your twenties and you are betrayed in business by a middle-aged man preoccupied with his success and career. He’s a record producer—a smarmy smart-arse, a complete prick. He rips you off.’
It was odd that Dave was telling this story as if it had happened to someone else. But the way he was looking at a spot on the wall above everyone’s heads made it clear he was telling this story at some personal cost.
‘You remember this, Robbie?’
Robbie provided corroborating evidence for the audience: ‘Your band was brilliant, could have gone anywhere. I know the bastard you’re talking about.’
‘As I said, he betrays you—the “how” and “why” are unimportant now—but he has this assistant. Very beautiful . . . a princess. Big hair, short skirts, very sexy-girlie, and she bounces around his office. You can see he’s utterly infatuated with her. Protective, obsessed in that way middle-aged men can be. When the fantasy of something they can’t have becomes more real than what they already have—a wife and kids.
‘It’s clear he’s got no hope with her. And it’s killing him. So . . . you take her to bed. And the next time you see them, you completely ignore her. This is your way of saying: “I can take anything I want from you and it means nothing to me”.’
The men were silent, savouring the revelation. The women were shocked and needed more details.
‘What was it like with her?’ Jessie asked.
‘OK, good enough. Doesn’t matter really.’ The men nodded.
‘Did he ever know what happened?’ Francie asked.
‘I never bothered to find out. I’m sure he did.’ The men understood.
‘Impressive,’ said Johnno. ‘Very impressive.’ He raised his drink in salutation.
Francie and Jessie sat back in amazement and Dave, seeing them, was quick to mount a defence.
‘I know, I know, it was evil! But it was in a former life. I would never do that again.’
Francie wasn’t so sure. Of course, as a revenge it was perfect. It was certainly shameful, but done in the name of love? In the name of business, perhaps. Francie thought of the anonymous sexy-girlie. She would have fallen for Dave. Francie imagined them in bed, Dave lying across her naked back. He was taking a handful of her long hair. He was crooning in her ear.
You hair is so . . .
Now let me see if we can just get rid of this . . .
And these . . .
Can I turn on the light?
Oh God . . . perfect . . . just perfect . . .
He would have been impossible to resist.
‘Now, Robbie, it’s your turn, I think,’ Jessie broke into Francie’s thoughts.
Robbie was silent for a long moment. He put his beer down on the table and turned over both wrists. He held them under the light so everyone could see the raised white ridges of two scars. He traced the lines with his fingers as he spoke.
‘What was the topic? The most shameful thing you’ve ever done in the name of love?’
Everyone nodded.
‘How about when you’re sixteen and the first boy you love tells you he hates poofs so you slash your wrists with your dad’s fishing knife?’
It was almost 3 am when Francie finally crawled into bed.
The alcohol, friendship and shared stories had all done their part and she was physically and emotionally anaesthetised.
She dreamed that she was sitting in the very back seat of an aeroplane. She was squashed right up against the window amongst dozens of people she half recognised but couldn’t put a name to. They were all weeping. Some were howling into handkerchiefs, others were silent as tears dripped from their chins.
The airliner and its grief-stricken cargo were flying over lands Francie didn’t recognise. She flattened her face against the glass and looked out at endless swamps roiling with noxious yellow slime. Acrid fumes were seeping through the floor of the plane, adding to the burden of misery on board. They flew on over plains jagged with rocks as sharp as glass, then over mountains of obsidian. Bare black ridges pierced through dense grey smoke. Charred bones in the ash of a c
ampfire.
The plane banked steeply and the passengers cried out. Francie was thrown harder against the window and could now see they were heading for the mouth of a volcano. Looking into its stony maw she could see a livid porridge of lava and she knew that if the plane didn’t change its course everyone on board would die.
Francie clambered over the poor tortured souls next to her and lurched down the aisle to the front. Hands clawed at her clothes, clutched at her legs and arms. Now she was at the door of the cockpit and struggling to open it against the terrifying forces of gravity as the aircraft dived earthwards. With all her strength she wrenched it open.
There they were. Captain Poppy and her copilot Nick at the controls. They turned, smiling and waving a cheery hello, and offered her a plastic container of orange juice.
On the control panel Francie could see a glowing red button labelled ‘eject’. She pushed past Poppy and Nick and pressed down hard.
Beep, beep, beep.
The floor of the cockpit opened and Francie was falling, falling through storm clouds. Was it true, as they say, that if she hit the ground she would be dead?
Beep, beep, beep.
She woke suddenly with her arms flailing and saw that Nick and Poppy were in the driver’s seat of this story. If she didn’t get out fast they were all headed for a crash-landing. There had to be a way to escape before they took her with them to oblivion.
Beep, beep, beep.
It was Francie’s mobile phone. She must have turned it on before she went to sleep. The digital clock showed 7.30 am, which was hideously early for a phone call on a Sunday. And then, as the fog of her dream cleared, Francie remembered with horrifying clarity that the whole of Melbourne, if not the whole nation, would be now consuming the Poppy Sommerville-Smith and Agony Aunt saga with their bacon and eggs this morning. She felt another wave of nausea. So she had already crash-landed and now had to clamber out of the wreckage.
By 10 am Francie had turned down requests for interviews with two television current affairs programs, three radio shows and one women’s magazine which was offering the fair sum of five thousand dollars for the story and photograph. (They had kindly offered to supply the underwear and scissors for the shot.)
She had also received calls from Olga and Amanda in varying states of indignation and alarm, and she’d screened calls from Auntie Kath from Benalla and her mother—both of whom were going to take more emotional energy than she could muster this morning. But there was one call which finally forced Francie out of bed.
‘It’s Gabby Di Martino. I’ve had a visit from the managing editor and I want you here in the office within the hour.’
Eighteen
The Daily Press newsroom was already busy with staff putting together the next day’s edition of the paper.
Copies of the Sunday Star, many of them open to the page-three story, were on most desks. The journos nursing their third cups of coffee for the morning were most surprised to see Francie hurrying through the open-plan office. The noisy hum of the room stopped and Francie thought it was as if there was news that someone had died. And then she remembered: she had. She could feel all eyes on her back and hear the excited whispers when it was estimated she was out of earshot. Only she wasn’t quite, and she could hear the whispers turn into stifled giggles.
Francie had decided to muster what dignity she could and held her head high. She had scraped her hair back into a ponytail and pulled on jeans, T-shirt and sneakers, knowing that she wasn’t going to be here long.
Gabby wasn’t in her office, so Francie went to her shabby desk in the deserted P.S. corner—no-one would be working here until Monday afternoon—and began packing up her pens, notebooks and postcards, and emptying her drawers of lipstick and perfume samples into a calico bag.
She would miss working at P.S. and certainly miss her column, although it was probably time she moved on anyway. Four years working at the Press and the last two at P.S. were probably enough for anyone. She would land another job at a women’s magazine. Writing blurb for knitting patterns . . . Maybe.
How did she feel about it all? Francie was in shock and couldn’t feel anything much. She decided it was probably like being savaged by a white pointer. You look down to see a limb missing and your own blood turning the water bright pink and you can’t feel anything at all.
She looked up to see Gabby Di Martino stride up the corridor resplendent in a powder blue jogging suit and white high-heeled sandals. Here comes Nurse Ratched. Hide the electrodes. She’d never been sacked before, but there was no way this could hurt. What’s a paper cut when you’re already an amputee?
‘Brilliant, you’re here!’ announced Gabby. Her face was flushed pink, she was breathy, excited. This was exactly the sort of drama Gabby loved. Francie reflected that she couldn’t have been more excited if the staff photographer had presented her with photos of Elton and Jacko in a clandestine clinch.
Gabby threw a pile of papers on the desk. ‘Look at these. I think there’re about eighty emails here and it’s not even lunchtime—on a Sunday! You’re a genius, Francis McKenzie! A full-on, fabulous genius!’
Francie stared at her. Her mind could not form one coherent thought.
‘Poppy Sommerville-Smith, of all people! How long has she had this coming? She’s a serial offender. We’ve got two ex wives as well as you. She is absolutely stuffed.’
Gabby was hopping on the spot and clapping her hands, her bracelets jangling in celebration.
‘You’re a dark horse, Francie. I would never have thought this was your style, but I love it! How many times do I wish I’d had the balls? What did it feel like? Did you do the crotch and the nipples, or—? Well anyway, sit down and start writing. The Daily’s holding open the middle pages and they want your side of the story, the whole thing, by three.’
It was at this point that Francie could have walked away. She could have taken her calico bag full of sample cosmetics, her free books and notepads and left the office. She could have driven off into exile and maintained a dignified silence. That would have been the grown-up thing to do. But that would also have signalled defeat. The world would see that she was vanquished. She could envisage Poppy riding onto the battlefield like Boadicea in a winged chariot claiming dominion over all.
So Francie didn’t leave. Instead she sat at her desk and spilled her guts. She wrote everything. How much she had loved Nick. How she believed he had been stolen from her. How the lovers had conspired behind her back. The devastation when he left. The uncontrollable passion which drove her to a filthy act of vandalism. What it felt like to be in the grip of a rage beyond rationality. Francie felt she wasn’t just doing it for herself. She was doing it for every woman who had had her man stolen from her—every husband, every father who had been lured from his home. She wrote to avenge her mother, who had endured twenty years of loneliness. She wrote to avenge herself for the act of female capriciousness and vanity which had stolen her childhood. She wrote because she had nothing left to lose.
Two hours later Francie was sitting on a white swivel chair in Gabby’s fragrant office. Gabby was bent over, reading her computer screen, her pert blue velour bottom on the edge of her seat.
‘Oh—my—God! This is wild! Just . . . amazing! It’s so honest. I mean, I’d almost cry if I wasn’t going out for drinks later.’
She turned to Francie and flapped her hands in front of her face by way of explanation. ‘Cos, you know what I mean, my eyes totally puff up and look hideous.’
She swivelled back to the screen and read more.
‘I adore this part about griefe being a notifiable disease back in London in the 1600s and that people actually died of broken hearts. How did you know that? I mean, it makes the whole undie-slashing thing so understandable, even rational. Like self-defence. Someone should have written this stuff years ago. I love it, love it, love it! Of course it’s a bit long and a bit melodramatic in places, but we can fix that.’
Francie was about to say th
at she’d rather it wasn’t ‘fixed’—that it was her life, after all—when Gabby hit ‘send’ and the screen went blank.
‘There. Gone to the subeditors at the Daily. I’ve seen the pages they’re laying out. They look amazing. They’ve got your bit and dozens of emails from readers, which, by the way, are all totally supportive, and two of the ex wives of men she’s run off with have given us interviews which are cringe-making.
‘And . . . you should see the pics they’ve chosen of Poppy! Cruella De Vil? She should look that good! And they’ve got a hilarious one of Nick the Dick.’
‘They’re putting a photo of Nick in there?’ Francie squirmed in her seat.
‘Yeah, they found some hammy shot of him from that TV soapie he was in. What a loser!’
‘He’s not a loser, he’s . . .’ Francie faltered. ‘I did love him, you know. We were together five years. I dunno, maybe I . . .’
Gabby got up from her seat and walked around her desk and took Francie’s shoulders in both hands.
‘Listen, honey, don’t lose your nerve now. What you’re doing here is great! It’s a war, Francie. All women know it. We all know how hard it is to find a man and keep him. Men are essentially weak. They’re vulnerable and there are any number of vixens out there ready to pounce. At the moment they’ve got the upper hand.
‘But you, you’re fighting back! You’re saying Take my man at your peril, you bitch! And judging by the number of emails we’re getting, a lot of women feel the same. You’re a moral hero, Francie. You don’t know it yet, but you’ll see.’
This rousing speech was delivered with great conviction and passion, but there was one puzzling detail which didn’t add up. Francie had to ask.
‘But didn’t you have an affair with a married man?’
Gabby let go of Francie and turned to get her handbag.
‘Oh, that was different. We really loved each other.’
That Monday, 6 December 2004, was what those in the media call a ‘slow news day’. In fact even a story about a family who paid $5000 to give their Jack Russell dog a pacemaker made the newspapers. So the further details of the Francie–Poppy fracas in the Daily Press came as a godsend.
