Love and Punishment

by Unknown

  It was all very public and the thought of that made her put her head under the water. Although, how could her reputation be any worse than it already was? She decided she would just lie low for a while and her eyes broke the surface of the bathwater as she played crocodile.

  She hadn’t been officially sacked yet. That call would come early Sunday morning. Gabby would be screaming blue murder from a steam room in a five-star spa. Francie tried to care and couldn’t. She was inspecting her toenails propped up at the end of the tub when there was a knock at the bathroom door.

  ‘Francie, can I come in?’

  There was no reason why Francie should have been shocked to hear Dave’s voice—after all, he lived in this house, his bedroom was next to hers and she had already spent the night with him. But the sound of his voice was indeed shocking, so she scrambled for a washcloth to cover her breasts and slid under the bubbles.

  ‘Sure, sure, come in,’ she called.

  Dave poked his head around the door and was careful to keep his eyes on Francie’s.

  ‘Look, I know this is an extraordinary request because I haven’t talked to you—in fact, I haven’t seen you—for days. But would you come to dinner with me tonight? My treat. I want to take you somewhere fabulous. You’ve had a hard week and you deserve it. So, please say yes.’

  Francie was so surprised that she did say yes, and she added ‘that would be wonderful’ and then ‘thanks’.

  ‘Great! I’ll pick you up at your room at seven-thirty.’ He gently closed the door.

  Francie’s bath languor evaporated. She sat up and considered her situation. She could feel that things had changed for her. She was no longer an ex girlfriend. She was now single. Not suddenly single. Not sadly single. Just plain by-herself single.

  When she had been lost in the fog of heartache she’d had no control of her emotions. Her driving force had been just to get through the day, one foot in front of the other, trying to climb out of a crevasse of pain and exhaustion. But she felt that she had finally clawed her way up that slippery slope only to find that the landscape in front of her was an endless plain of singledom. Of course it was a relief to regain her footing, but what would propel her forwards now? This was a whole new world to navigate and she didn’t have a map. There was so much to learn—the culture, the etiquette, the language of being single.

  For a start, who would she hang out with? With Amanda and Olga pregnant (Olga pregnant? It didn’t seem possible), and Johnno in a relationship, she would be the odd one out at the dinner table. Not to mention the baby change table. How would she cope when her best friends were knee-deep in nappies and plastic toys? Where would she go?

  She supposed she would find herself standing on the darkened edge of nightclub dance floors again, or in pubs like she did when she was in her twenties. She knew which clubs and pubs to go to, but how could she walk in the door by herself? Would there be any single men there? Were there any left? Judging by the complaints of most women her age, she was facing years of trawling the town for a partner of any kind.

  And what kind of man was she looking for? Did she want another relationship so soon after Nick? She had known instantly that she wanted to be with him. Did she wait until she was struck by lightning again? Maybe she couldn’t trust that feeling anymore. Maybe it had nothing to do with love. She was so out of practice.

  What about sex? What was reasonable here? She knew enough to know that a woman no longer had to wait to be asked for sex, but then again, she wasn’t sure how she, Francie, would go about it. And how many times would she be able to ask just for sex before she had to make a commitment to something more?

  She sighed with the weight of it all. She had endured a long walk through a stormy night after her break-up with Nick, there was a new dawn coming and she could see her problems were just beginning. It was all very well to talk with Faith about ‘breaking old patterns’ but finding a new one wasn’t going to be easy.

  Francie sat in the bath and mused on all this until the water went cold.

  Dinner with Dave that night turned out to be a more fascinating experience than Francie could have imagined. They were sitting at a cosy corner table in the Flower Drum, Melbourne’s most celebrated Chinese restaurant. It was a place she had never been able to afford to go to, but had always been curious about. The dining room was all plush carpet and dark wood with red and gold oriental flourishes. The subdued lighting and waiters in tuxedos quietly going about their business gave it a luxurious feel.

  Francie was feeling deluxe too, in a classic little black velvet dress with a lace wrap over her shoulders. Dave? Well, he was always beautifully put together. Francie had never seen him look scruffy, even around the house. She was nervous at being out with him. Was this an actual date? She reasoned that she was going to have to do more of this, and being with Dave was as good a place as any to start.

  The meal had been a procession of delicious dishes—divine steamed prawns delicately flavoured with ginger, sweet spring onion cakes and Peking duck—accompanied by a very good Margaret River sauvignon blanc. Dave’s discourse on the new architecture in Shanghai, the latest in genetic research and the rise of the fundamental right in American politics was likewise substantial and satisfying. He was so bright, brilliantly opinionated, witty!

  Once more Francie felt like an uneducated ingenue, but it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation. She exercised her brain to keep up and was rewarded for her efforts. Dave laughed at her jokes and seemed impressed with some of the nuggets of information she managed to unearth and add to the conversation. However, Francie knew that no matter how much she was enjoying the exchange, sooner or later they would have to get down to her exploits as a depraved night stalker. She fidgeted as the last of the dishes was cleared away.

  ‘I can’t believe you want to be seen with me after everything that’s happened.’

  Dave threw his head back and laughed. ‘Yeah. My reputation will be in tatters!’

  ‘Don’t laugh at me, Dave, it’s not funny.’ Anyone could see that it wasn’t funny. Not at all.

  ‘You’re not still worried about that?’

  Francie looked at Dave, astonished. Still worried? It was only a week ago that she’d been exposed on television as a total barking nutter! She could very well be the subject of discussion on Talkfest right this minute. Francie was still staring at him, unable to believe he was smiling. His dark green eyes were wide, trying to engage hers.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said.

  Not again! No, she didn’t get it. Apparently she didn’t get a lot of things.

  Dave folded his hands neatly on the table. ‘From the first moment I met you, Francie, I thought you were lovely. Of course I could see you were wounded. A bit wobbly on your feet. But then we spent the night together. You were unbelievably sexy. It felt like you started to open up to the possibility of . . . something. I could sense there was all this stuff there underneath. Then this incident came up. I read all of your rage and passion in the newspaper and I started to see what drove you to it. I will admit, it was an extraordinary thing to do! Wild!’

  Dave seemed to find it amusing on some level, as if it was extreme performance art. For Francie it was embarrassing on every level. She ducked her head again, Princess Di style.

  ‘I thought, she must have really loved this guy, and it was then I realised that I wanted someone to feel that way about me. I wanted a passionate person in my life.’

  Dave reached across the table and put his hands on top of Francie’s. She remembered how expert they had been in bringing her sublime pleasure. She raised her eyes to see him leaning as far forward as the table would allow.

  ‘You’re beautiful and alive and passionate. You’re smart and sexy and . . .’ Here Dave paused and took a deep breath. ‘I want you to be in my life.’

  This was weird. Three hours ago Francie was sitting in the bath contemplating the lonely marathon she would have to run before she found a new man. Now, after a
100-metre sprint, she’d fallen over the finish line without working up a sweat. It didn’t seem right. It wasn’t right. She knew that instinctively. There was no doubt Dave was desirable. The sex had been good, the conversation better. He was handsome. He had excellent professional prospects. But there was something so bloodless about his offer. As if he had made an intellectual decision to add Francie to his life like a new extension—a sunroom or an extra bedroom.

  Francie was silent for so long she became aware of the sound of someone three tables away cracking the shell of a King Island crab.

  ‘I can see you weren’t expecting this.’

  Francie reached for a drink to lubricate her throat, which seemed to have her voice stuck about halfway down it.

  ‘I wasn’t really . . . I’m sorry, Dave, I don’t know what you mean, because I am in your life. I’m in the bedroom next door.’

  Dave reached for his wine too, gulped and found the courage to go on.

  ‘It’s time I made a commitment to someone. I know it’s the right time in my life. And it feels right with you.’

  ‘But, Dave, don’t you hear what you’re saying? You said a commitment to someone. Not me especially. You’re probably right, it is time for you to settle down. What are you, thirty-three?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘It makes sense that you want to be with one person, but you can’t just make a decision and ask the girl standing next to you. Or the one sleeping in the room next to you!’

  Dave inspected a carving of an oriental dragon on the wall.

  ‘So I’ll take that as a “no”.’

  ‘I haven’t said that,’ said Francie. ‘I will say that I am unbelievably flattered. But you know that I’m still climbing out of the wreckage of my last relationship and I’m not sure I have anything to offer anyone right now. I’ve already told you that. I’ve told everyone that. I don’t think it’s the right time in my life.’

  Dave elected not to hear Francie decline his offer and continued with his sales pitch.

  ‘Francie, there’s a notion here that the worlds have to collide, the heavens have to fall, and that the planets have to be in alignment for love to happen, but, equally well, there’s another way to go about things. There’s logic to what I’m offering. We are a great match. I’ve thought about this. We could spend years trying to find a match that made as much sense.

  ‘Now, I know that you will instantly reject what I’m saying. You’ll think it’s all too calculated. But think some more. It’s well documented that—what’s the saying? Our need for love precedes our love for anyone in particular. ‘So I’ve made a decision that I need love. But, so what? What’s wrong with that? By the laws of probability, we won’t find anything better.

  ‘Let me tell you—now that you’re single, you’ll find the world is made up of two kinds of people. People who like you more than you like them. People who you like more than they like you. And all the rest are relatives.

  ‘I’m out here, I’m single, I’m living it and it’s not easy. Mindless distraction is what most people are doing while they wait for their next hit of the love drug. They’re addicts. I don’t want to do it anymore and, believe me, neither do you. We can both save ourselves years of disappointment and pain.’

  Dave’s presentation was falling on fallow ground. He could see that.

  ‘And besides, I think we could be great together. I really think we’re a great match. I promise to give it all the energy and commitment I’ve got.’

  His closing argument wasn’t working either. It sounded as if Dave was pouring a concrete slab, not entering a relationship.

  ‘At least tell me you’ll think about it.’

  Francie nodded and, mercifully, at that moment a waiter approached the table with a silver tray. Francie and Dave took such an interest in his offerings you’d have thought they’d never seen coffee and biscuits in their entire lives.

  They somehow got through the ride home in his old black Porsche from the city and to the front gate of Elysium. The quartz gravel of the driveway was picked out ghostly white in the moonlight. It was a calm evening and the scent of the last of the spring roses was in the air. Dave stood back as Francie put her key in the lock of the towering wooden front door.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ She turned and saw the silhouette of his head against the streetlights.

  ‘I’m not tired. I think I might kick on.’

  ‘Dave, I don’t want this to be difficult between us. You know I love living here with all of you. I feel as if I’ve found a new family . . .’

  ‘So, you love me like a brother?’

  Francie kissed him on the cheek and felt a surge of desire as she smelt his warm neck. ‘There was nothing “brotherly” about the night we spent together.’

  ‘Should we do it again?’

  Francie touched his arm and said softly: ‘I don’t think so. Maybe in a while . . .’

  ‘So I guess I’ll see you round . . . probably in the kitchen.’

  ‘Don’t . . . Wait . . .’ Francie didn’t know what she could possibly say, but there was no point anyway. Dave was already halfway down the driveway and she could hear the crunch-crunch of his boots on the gravel. She listened as the car growled into life and roared up the street.

  It had started. This whole ‘single’ thing had started in earnest and Francie had already found that it was going to be every bit as tricky as she had predicted.

  She stood on the front terrace in the dark and breathed in the remains of the roses. She thought of Nick. He’d be with Poppy. Perhaps they’d be curled up against each other, asleep. She wondered if he ever woke in the night and thought of her, or if he’d managed to obliterate the memories of the years they’d spent together.

  At least the pain of being alone was making her over into a new person. She was different already. When she and Nick met again, would they even recognise each other?

  Twenty-Four

  It was mid morning the next day and Francie was driving to her mother’s house for lunch. She had been summoned home by an early phone call from Joel. He was agitated, excited.

  ‘She’s coming, Frank! Vanessa’s coming. I’m picking her up from the airport now and taking her to Blackburn. You have to come. You can’t leave me with Mum. I need tech support.’

  Francie had rolled out of bed, showered, pulled on jeans and T-shirt and jumped into her dented Mazda. Despite her earlier misgivings, she was determined to keep an open mind on Joel’s internet romance. After all, she didn’t have any answers. There were so many paths to finding love and so many ways to stumble out of it again. Joel’s cyberspace quest for love seemed to be as valid as any other. What had he said about Vanessa? She knew him better than anyone he’d ever met. Well, she’d just watch and see. Like a good big sister should.

  It was a warm, sunny morning and the drive out east into the suburbs allowed Francie time to think. Dave hadn’t come home last night. This had proved to her the difficulty of trying to negotiate a relationship with someone who lived in the same house. They would move from ‘one-night stand’ to ‘live-in lover’ within one conversation. All the delicious uncertainty, the thrill of the chase and capture, the yearning and hesitancy, the drama of commitment, would never happen. Dave’s relationship of convenience was doomed to failure. Then again, maybe he was right. In India marriages were arranged and everyone had the good sense to avoid the entire soap opera.

  Francie was stopped at traffic lights watching couples load their Saturday morning shopping into the back of cars. Strapping toddlers in seats. Talking about nothing in particular. They were taking their love, their little families, for granted, as they should. There was all the time in the world for grieving when there was no happy ending. Falling in love remained the only game in town—no matter what the psychological ruin or financial fallout.

  Dave Matthews was on the radio singing about ants marching or some such. For the first time in ages Francie was listening to the music without thinking that she wa
s missing some vital part of the experience because Nick wasn’t there. In the middle of all this, Francie had a revolutionary and unexpected thought. She was happy. That’s if happy could be merely an absence of pain.

  She was sitting in the calm, sunny eye of a storm. There had been only a couple of letters to the editor this morning in the Daily Press. One from a man who’d had his car vandalised by an ex (she had taken to the duco with a cheese grater), and another asking the very good question—don’t you people have some actual news to report on instead of the ins and outs of people’s private lives?— and that had been it. She assumed she hadn’t been mentioned on Talkfest last night because there were no messages on her phone.

  No doubt the rough weather would begin again tomorrow when her piece in the paper became public. What would everyone think of it? There was no point worrying. For now she wasn’t hurting and that was enough to be going on with. She reached down and turned up the music.

  It was the second week in December and Francie was keeping an eye out for Christmas decorations. She was back in her childhood when she would spend hours walking all the dark streets in Blackburn. She loved the fake snow, the wire reindeer wound with flashing bulbs, the plastic icicles, spray-on frost on the windows and stuffed Santas hoisted onto roofs. She remembered that when she finally made her way back to her own house she was always disappointed to see the front yard just as bare as it had been all year round.

  ‘We don’t want to make a spectacle of ourselves,’ was her mother’s reply when Francie had begged for a string of lights to thread through the front fence. ‘Besides, think of the electricity bill.’

  With just two weeks until Christmas now, Francie knew she would have to get organised. Where would she spend Christmas Day? For the past five Christmas days she and Nick, faced with the equally gruesome prospects of a long trip to see his family at Bairnsdale or overcooked turkey and boiled brussels sprouts at her mother’s place, had dodged festive celebrations. Last year they had picnicked in the Botanic Gardens and the year before that it was lunch in the grand dining room of a city hotel. All at Nick’s insistence. Looking back, Francie wondered whether this had been another way he had pretended they weren’t a couple. They’d never had to field the questions from her Auntie Kath from Benalla, or his mother: ‘So when’s the Big Day?’ ‘When can we expect the grandkiddies?’