
Contents
So she married her handsome prince and they lived happily ever after
1. New place, new life
2. One enchanted evening
3. A fairytale wedding
4. The prince and princess find their dream castle
5. One sunny day in September
6. The joys of motherhood
7. Punch drunk
8. Counting my blessings
9. A lucky scrape
10. The mysterious stranger
11. A weekend by the seaside
12. Motive and opportunity
13. Stepping over
14. The rules of engagement
15. Madness and possession
16. A night at the Opera House
17. A fork in the road
18. Glass slippers and unlikely fairy godmothers
19. Discovering the Bay
20. The Year of the Fire Pig
21. The flight
22. House hunting
So she married her handsome prince and they lived happily ever after.Ever noticed how many fairytales end with that line? Sort of unsatisfactory, really. All the interesting things that happen to our heroines - evil stepmothers, being locked in towers, coaches made from pumpkins - and then nothing? Well, nothing but dull and happy domesticity they'd lead us to believe. Was I the only young girl who wondered what happened after that: when the curtains fell, when the credits rolled? Did the princess have her own palace? How many children did she have? Did the handsome prince ascend to the throne and, if so, did our heroine turn out to be a wise and fair queen? Were there anxious times when the prince had to fight a fire-breathing dragon, go to battle, or perhaps almost succumb to the charms of a comely lady-in-waiting? These were the questions that occupied my impressionable mind.
Lately I've had cause to think back to these fairytales - or at least all the girlie ones - and I've come to the conclusion that it's only really 'Cinderella' that does it for me.
The one I really couldn't get into was 'Snow White'. That thing about her living with the seven dwarfs was a bit weird, I think. I don't doubt the handsome prince was okay with this initially but what happened when they'd been married a few years and the first heady glow of romance had dimmed a bit? Did he ever wonder what Snow White and the dwarfs got up to on those long, cold, winter nights? I imagine that might have provoked some awkward conversations...Oh, and I never liked her hair. It may well have been as black as ebony but in my opinion she could certainly have done with the services of a better stylist.
While we're on the topic of hair, what about poor old Rapunzel? Imagine the trouble she had to go through to keep hers shiny and bouncy and prince-snaringly good. 'No time for sex this week dear, I've got to wash my hair again.' Living under the sea, every day would have been a bad hair day for the Little Mermaid. Sleeping Beauty was better but even she had to wait a hundred years before her man came along. I'm all in favour of toy boys but I think that age difference may have told after a while. And let's not get started on 'The Princess and the Pea' - I can only wonder what Hans Christian Andersen was smoking the day he thought that one up.
No, Cinderella was the only girl who ever appealed to me. For a start, she's usually portrayed as a blonde, like myself. And she definitely gets to wear the best clothes - not unlike 'Pretty Woman' but without the tacky sex worker bit - designer ball gown and coordinated accessories all at the touch of a wand.
So okay, I'm being deliberately silly here. 'Flippant' is the word my mother would use: 'Eleanor, you're being flippant again'. She could present a convincing argument too. What follows is a serious story of love, loss and betrayal and I've chosen to introduce it with a series of tongue-in-cheek observations about the relative merits of our fairytale heroines.
Then again, I'm not sure that is so wrong. Isn't everyone's life like that: equal parts comedy and tragedy?
Anyway, there is a serious point to this. The difference between Cinderella and most of these other girls is that they were already princesses, so by marrying a handsome prince they were just keeping it in the family, as it were. Cinderella, on the other hand, was an ordinary girl who, by dint of her good looks and charm and the odd fairy godmother, gets a free ticket into the palace and out of her life of drudgery. She's the girl we can all aspire to be.
And that was my story. I married my handsome prince too. However, that's also where my story and Cinderella's diverge - the place where fantasy and reality take their different paths and impressionable young girls who believe in fairytales find out they've been sold a dud.
The 'happily ever after' is the hardest part, you see.
New place, new life
I'm trying to create some atmosphere here so imagine, if you will, that you can hear the drone of aircraft engines as you read along. I'm sitting in the business class end of a Cathay Pacific Airbus, cruising several thousand metres above the dry outback of Australia as I write. If you really want to get into the mood you could even imagine a few bumps of turbulence, which would be an appropriate metaphor for my emotions at present, but in truth the flying conditions are really rather smooth today.
I'm a relaxed flier as I'm married to a pilot. I am in fact on my way to meet him, as he's just taken up a new position with Cathay as a Hong Kong-based first officer. It's the final stepping stone before becoming a captain: the guy calling the shots, or as they like to say in the aviation industry 'in command'. I once suggested to Tony that that particular expression had a few sexual overtones about it, but he said it just proved I had a dirty mind.
My husband's career has not been without its diversions to this point, but it appears he's finally got things back on track. As a teenager it was his ambition to become a 747 captain by his fortieth birthday and he might yet make it, give or take a year. However, it does beg the question: assuming you do achieve your life's ambition by age forty, what happens after that? Will he be happy continuing along the same path ad nauseam? Or will a new restlessness set in? I suspect Tony has never really thought about it. He has many admirable qualities but I'm not sure self-reflection is one of them. I just hope it doesn't precipitate a mid-life crisis in a few years' time as we've had enough crises in our marriage to last us a life time.
We're currently in the process of selling our Sydney home and our little family - we also have a four year old daughter called Isabel - is moving to Hong Kong to live. We are to become expats. I know I should be excited about this grand new adventure but at present I'm more inclined to sadness about leaving my loved ones behind back home. It's going to take me quite some time to adjust, I fear.
I booked an early morning flight, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but when the alarm went off this morning and I had to drag my protesting body out of bed and stumble around in the dark, I cursed myself for not thinking things through. Unwisely, I stayed up late last night drinking and reminiscing with my mum, dad and younger sister. 'Let's open another bottle of wine,' I said. Yeah, great idea, Ellie - so now I'm going to arrive in my new home town lugging a hangover as well as jetlag in my carry-on baggage.
As you've probably worked out, my name is Eleanor, or more precisely, Eleanor Cooper (née Parkes). The younger sister I mentioned is called Emma, although pretty quickly after her birth Dad re-christened her the Divine Miss Em. I think Mum must have been channelling Jane Austen when she chose names for her daughters, but she claims otherwise. I'm a great fan of Jane's writing myself but I do feel that Pride and Prejudice, for all its charms, is just a witty and particularly well-written version of the Cinderella myth. It's no secret that Austen never married in real life. Also my admiration didn't extend to me liking my name as a child and I always insisted that people called me Ellie. As a consequence I'm rarely called Eleanor these days, except of course by my mother when I've behaved in a way she's disapproved of. It is probably an interesting reflection on our relationship that she calls me Eleanor almost all of the time.
Having said that, there was a young man recently who called me Eleanor for completely different reasons and I found I quite liked it, so perhaps it is time to embrace my real name and the maturity that goes with it. We'll see.
I am, at the time of writing, thirty-five years old, the middle child of Dianne and Trevor's three. I also have an older brother, David, who's the family's brightest star. At the tender age of thirty-eight, he's a leading heart specialist in Adelaide, married to a GP, and the father of three bright little kids. As children we lived an ordinary middle-class existence, but David was always the one who seemed destined for bigger things. Dad spent most of his working life as an engineer with the Department of Main Roads, a solid, dependable guy. Mum worked as a combined teacher/librarian at the local primary school. They're both retired now. We didn't have a fancy lifestyle but things were okay. Mum and Dad still live in the same family home that we grew up in - a three-bedroom brick bungalow in a suburb so obscure that even most Sydneysiders ask, 'Where?' when I mention it.
I work in marketing: pharmaceutical marketing to be precise. I'm the girl that sells the pills that dear old granny and grandpa line up to pop every morning. Or rather, I was that girl until a few weeks ago. I had to resign from my job to move to Hong Kong so I suppose I am officially, at present, unemployed. Apart from the few months after Isabel was born, it's the first time in my married life I've ever been a stay-at-home mum. Ask me again in six months how I feel about that.
And how would I describe my looks? Well the nitty-gritty is: average height, average weight (although fluctuating), brown eyes and blondey-brown hair (aided by six-weekly visits to the hairdressers). I have a small smattering of freckles across my nose and, by general repute, a nice smile, but that doesn't give a proper picture does it? It's a bit loaded, commenting on your own attractiveness. You don't want to sound too full of yourself, but then again it's also no place for false modesty. As I have a background in science I think I will describe myself graphically - on an attractiveness scale it would be something like this:
So definitely not bad, but remember that there are millions of girls between me and the genetically-blessed Ms Jolie and on a bad day I seem to see them everywhere. There have also been a couple of periods where I have moved down the scale: notably during that awkward stage commonly known as puberty and before and after the birth of Isabel, although there were extenuating circumstances there.
On that topic, why do parents always decide it's a good time to get professional family portraits done when you're at the absolute pinnacle of your hideousness? Emma is several years younger than my brother and me and when she was a baby Mum and Dad thought it would be a good idea to capture the family on film for posterity. They enlisted the services of a professional photographer and thus we were immortalised: Emma, the gorgeous blonde cherub; David, the gawky teen; and me, the unfortunate twelve year old with what looks suspiciously like a home-job fringe cut and a healthy layer of puppy fat laid down in preparation for a growth spurt that hasn't happened yet! Even worse, I have these tragically unsupported little breasts. Didn't think to buy me a bra for the occasion, Mother? And because they spent so much money on those bloody photos my parents insisted on hanging them throughout the house, helping to scare off any potential suitors. They're hanging on the walls even now. When I think of those photos I marvel that Tony ever thought it would be a wise idea to marry me.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that a woman's attractiveness declines slowly from age twenty-five or thereabouts. Maybe for most people it is that way but for me it's been more up and down. I've recently lost a bit of weight and am currently enjoying an 'up' stage, attracting extra attention from the opposite sex, including, interestingly, my own husband. As a matter of fact, I've noticed a few business types on the plane checking me out, that is until they see the sleeping Isabel beside me. However, at thirty-five I can see the writing on the wall and I've got to make the most of the next decade or so before decrepitude truly kicks in.
The story I want to tell is really that of the last year of my life, but as we are all products of our pasts and our personalities it's essential I go back right to the beginning, as the conventions of fairytales dictate, to understand how the events of 2006 unfolded and why I happen to be sitting on a plane that is winging its way to Hong Kong as I write.
During my childhood I resided in the pink bedroom at the rear of the family home, which overlooked Dad's vegetable patch and the dog kennel: home to three successive generations of not-very-bright golden retrievers. If I can think of one word to describe me in those early days it would be 'dreamy'. Mum, by virtue of her position as school librarian, fed this tendency by bringing me home lots of story-books to read. I particularly loved all the unfashionable ones, like Enid Blyton's Famous Five series and National Velvet and, of course, the fairytales I critiqued earlier. I could never decide which of my favourite fantasies I wanted most to come true: to get a pony for my birthday and win a jumping ribbon in a gymkhana or to be plucked from obscurity to play Cindy Brady in a re-make of The Brady Bunch.
I was pretty good at school work, but nothing like my gifted older brother. I attended the local primary school and, when the time came, transferred to the local girls' high school, where I received a patchy, state-sponsored education in science and the arts, of which I retain very little.
Once my hormones kicked in my daydreaming took on a different quality. I spent a large chunk of my teenage years lying on my bed listening to music and dreaming of my Prince Charming. For a long time I was certain it was to be John Taylor, bass player from Duran Duran. My bedroom, plastered with posters, became a shrine to my idol and I'd visualise elaborate scenarios of my life as the rock star's girlfriend. The fact that we lived on opposite sides of the globe was a minor obstacle in my adolescent eyes. What was 17,000 kilometres where love was concerned? If only I could just meet him, I reasoned, he would see through the unfortunate pimples and puppy fat, ditch his supermodel girlfriend, and sweep me off to London for a makeover, where I would emerge, swan-like, only to lord it over all the more popular girls at school (the last part probably being my favourite bit of the fantasy).
There was also an embarrassing, but mercifully brief, period when I forsook John for George Michael from Wham! (boy, was I barking up the wrong tree there), although I quickly saw the folly of my ways and returned to my first love. In my fantasies he was very forgiving. As far as I know, John is still kicking around with Duran Duran, and still looking pretty good if the photos are anything to go by. And you'd have to have been living on another planet to not know what George Michael has been getting up to in recent years. Fortunately I did eventually move on.
I occasionally went out with real boys during this period, but they always seemed so unsatisfactory compared with John and George - so spotty, so skinny, so real. And the boys I really liked were never the ones who liked me. It was always their less attractive, less cool friends who asked me out. Most of these relationships were short-lived - I think two months was the record. Occasionally I was the dumper but sadly more often the dumpee. I can't say I really blame those boys as I am sure I came across as being incredibly dull. Whilst devastatingly witty in my own mind I was so terrified of making a fool of myself that most of my clever remarks remained stuck in my throat, only to wither and die before being given the chance to dazzle. We'd go on these excruciatingly embarrassing dates, these boys and I, where he'd hold my hand and I'd hold his and we'd never actually look at each other. Going to the movies was a favoured activity as then you didn't even have to talk. A series of inexpert kisses and the occasional furtive grope was the sum total of my sexual experience during that time.
While I was having trouble getting it on, Mum and Dad were having more success. They'd only ever planned and budgeted on having two children, but that's not how things panned out. One quiet night when I was about eleven and on a sleepover (I never found out why my mother thought it necessary to reveal this particular detail - did they never have sex when I was in the house?), Mum had one too many Tia Marias and milk, Dad got amorous, and they found a few weeks later, to their equal surprise and dismay, that Mum was expecting. That was Emma of course, Mum and Dad's little 'afterthought'.
If my little sister has ever sensed she was a mistake she's never let on. If a baby could exit the womb twirling a cane and doing high kicks to music, that would have been Emma. She beamed at us all at age four weeks and that smile has rarely left her face since. From the moment she could walk, she danced and sang and entertained and charmed her way through childhood. We all adored and indulged her from day one and I don't think any of us could imagine life without her. She's twenty-three now - a grey-eyed, dark-blonde beauty managing her own thriving beauty therapy business - but she's not planning on relinquishing her baby of the family status anytime soon; on the contrary she continues to milk it for all it's worth.
My career path has been an interesting one. It started in customary fashion with lust, specifically lust for Adam Donaldson, my Year 11 biology teacher. Imagine the frisson of excitement that spread throughout our all girls' school, when Mr Donaldson, the new science teacher, turned out to be not another fifty-something with dandruff and a tendency to wear long socks and polyester shorts but a tall, muscular, twenty-five year old with hazel eyes and honey-brown curls. Up until that time science had - apart from the occasional opportunity to make rotten egg gas and fill Emily Wilson's pencil case with copper sulphate solution - been no more interesting to me than any other subject, but Mr Donaldson's arrival sparked a fascination with all things biological.
Of course, I had competition. A couple of the more adventurous girls tried to get his attention by sitting in the front row and spreading their legs as wide as possible, perhaps offering him some more practical experience with the female human reproductive system. I was not that confident about the attractiveness of my inner thighs, and attempted to gain his notice by studying hard and becoming his best student. If ever you wanted to know anything about photosynthesis or the life cycle of the mosquito, I was your girl. This strategy did work to some extent. I'd flush with pride (or was it oestrogen?) when he'd single me out for praise in front of the other girls.
Unfortunately, just before I was about to sit my final exams and looking forward to the time when no pesky teacher-pupil ethics would stand between me and my chosen one, I received the crushing news that he had become engaged to some horrible, undeserving cow. I sobbed for days. But by this time my study path was set and early next year I headed, broken-hearted, to university to study for a Bachelor of Science.
It's curious, reflecting back, but I never seriously considered whether science was what I really wanted to do. Proper scientific research requires patience and meticulous attention to detail, not qualities I have in abundance. I was probably too busy to think about these questions, what with commuting to and from university, attending lectures, working as a waitress at our local pizza restaurant to make ends meet, studying and occasional partying (or more accurately partying and occasional studying). I was a competent student, however, and did particularly well at pharmacology (the study of drugs), so when the chance came up to do an Honours year I took it, in lieu of thinking of anything more original to do.
I was near finishing up my Honours when, standing over a cage of rats I was planning to poison in the name of science, I had a terrifying vision of my future. I saw myself in twenty years' time, eking out an existence on my meagre salary, married to some fellow cardigan-wearing academic with a beard, and spending my rare holidays going on brisk hikes in the Tasmanian wilderness or at Australian Sceptics Society conferences. Not for me folks - for a start hiking boots make my legs look stumpy. I was seeking a life of glamour and excitement and Prince Charming was clearly not going to find me amongst the lab rats. This all coincided with my school friends graduating from their commerce and arts degrees and finding employment in the corporate world. Still living at home, they proceeded to spend all their salary on new clothes, so whilst I was still wearing old t-shirts and faded Levi's they'd arrive to meet me in their crisp new suits, swinging handbags that cost more than my entire annual Austudy allowance.
Scientific ideals be damned - I was going after the money!
As luck would have it, I found the university careers advisory service was advertising a graduate position in clinical research at the local headquarters of a pharmaceutical company, commencing the next year. Thanks to my sterling results in pharmacology, I ended up being the successful applicant and immediately enrolled in an evening degree course in marketing.
When I arrived at my first lecture, I thought I had arrived on a different planet by mistake, rather than just at a different university campus. These leather briefcase carrying guys and gals were students? They looked a different species to the scruffy, thoughtful and - let's face it - slightly nerdy idealists I'd left behind in the science labs. Few of these new students were there to be educated. They had their hearts set on climbing the corporate ladder and thought a few extra letters after their name might fast track that process. Idealism was a commodity in very short supply. I was disgusted with myself for becoming one of them...briefly...until my first few pay cheques started arriving.
It was also about this time that Tony appeared on the scene.
One enchanted evening
When I think about it, it's more accurate to say Tony re-appeared on the scene because I'd actually known him for years. He was one of my brother's best school friends. At eleven, David won a scholarship to an expensive private school, the sort of school Mum and Dad could never have afforded to send him to ordinarily. Given this opportunity he provided excellent return on investment: becoming vice-captain, playing wing in the First XV and making the Honour roll in several academic subjects. Tony was also a star player, in the lock position, in David's rugby team. Mum and Dad would sometimes drag Emma and me along to watch the team play and memories of my future husband back then are all of sweat and clashing bodies and striped rugby jerseys. I didn't have a crush on him (remarkable in retrospect, as my infatuation net was cast fairly wide in those days) but I knew he was popular with the girls, impossibly cool and as remote from me as any member of a British glam rock band could be.
I can't imagine Tony ever gave David's dull and mildly chubby younger sister a second thought back then. He probably didn't even give me a first thought. But by the time we were reacquainted I'd shed some pudge, discovered blonde highlights and finally got enough money to buy a few decent clothes. If not quite the swan I'd dreamed of, I was at least no longer an ugly duckling.
Anthony John Cooper is the elder of Douglas and Pamela Cooper's two sons. Douglas was for a long period one of Sydney's most successful stockbrokers and the Cooper boys grew up in a Federation-era trophy home with a pool and harbour views. Those who didn't know Tony well assumed he would follow his father's footsteps into a business career. Those who did, knew he'd had only one ambition since childhood, to become a Qantas pilot, and in his last years of school had spent all his spare time out at Bankstown airport clocking up his flying hours.
Finally I had suitor who lived up to my girlish fantasies - he didn't quite arrive on a prancing white steed but a Boeing 737 is not a bad substitute.
He was only my second serious boyfriend. As you've heard, my teenage years were not very successful in that regard. In fact the only satisfactory relationships I had during that time were those where the entire drama - from star-crossed meeting, to impassioned declarations of love, right through to poignant parting - was played out exclusively in my head. Fortunately, I had my books to sustain me and during this time found a whole new form of literature to keep me occupied. I was rummaging around in an old cardboard box of Mum's books one day when I discovered How to Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong, the author of the notorious Fear of Flying. What's this about? I thought, as I glanced idly inside. Well, well, well...I can't remember when I next came up for air. There was one particular scene that sticks in the memory where the heroine gives another woman an orgasm using the neck of an empty bottle of Moët and Chandon. This was an eye-opening experience for the young Eleanor and, I can only imagine, an eye-watering one for the recipient of that orgasm. Then I discovered more books of this type in Mum's collection, including some wonderfully trashy novels by Judith Krantz, which included numerous romps in the hay - oral sex, lesbians, you name it - depicted in glorious anatomical detail. This was a very different sort of sex to the tame procreation I'd been taught about at school.
It was then I discovered that my mum - far from being the quiet suburban teacher/librarian I'd assumed - was in fact a raving sexpot. This probably explained the unplanned conception of Emma.
I resolved to put this new found book knowledge to use, deciding that I was going to need a few notches on my belt if I was ever going to convincingly seduce my Year 11 biology teacher. My unspoken New Year's resolution that year was to lose my virginity. Unfortunately the actual act was not quite the romantic Sunday afternoon deflowering by a tender young lover I'd envisioned. It ended up being a drunken shag in the back seat of a car with a boy from the neighbouring school.
The two of us were sitting out the front of a party at the home of Susie, one of my school friends, when the cops arrived. Susie's parents had gone away for the weekend so as a matter of course she'd organised an impromptu party, but it turned into a much bigger event than anyone anticipated. In addition to the under-age drinking we knew there was a bit of minor league drug taking happening inside, so at Justin's suggestion as the cops filed past us we beat a retreat to his car. Then he drove to a deserted park and put the hard word on me, which was probably his plan all along. The ridiculous thing was he kept apologising to me about not being 'very big'. If only he'd known I had no idea, he could have saved himself an awful lot of embarrassment that evening. It's possible he was just seeking reassurance but if so he picked the wrong girl. I am now much at ease in the world of the phallus (more on that later) but at this early stage of my sexual development I was too bashful to even look! Anyway, the way I saw it, this revelation was actually a positive development. Given the choice between losing her virginity to a guy hung like a horse versus one tending towards the under endowed side of the equation, I think any sensible girl would choose the latter.
To cut a long story short, I did manage to achieve my objective that evening but the whole experience was awkward and clumsy and completely unerotic. I comforted myself that, starting from such a low base, things could only improve.
My love life spluttered along in fits and lots of false starts until I met John in one of the university bars. He was two years my senior: a tall, thin vegetarian, with dark eyes and shoulder-length brown hair, which he often tied back in a pony tail. I thought him terribly exotic and fell completely in love at first sight. He was officially studying for an economics degree but much more interested in student politics and working to overthrow the oppressive capitalist state. In fact in all the time I knew him I hardly saw him attend a lecture, although remarkably he still passed all his exams. He lived with several other students in a horrible grotty terrace house in Newtown. There was never any food in that bloody house but a lot of cheap alcohol was consumed. I used to stay over frequently, sleeping with him on a double bed mattress on the floor. John taught me the ways of love on that old Sealy Posturepedic although he'd be disappointed to know that I've had better since. Anyway, we hung together for most of my science degree, but in the end I got weary of his earnestness and gave him the flick. I don't know what happened to him and must remember to Google him one day. Maybe he'll turn up as a Greens' candidate in a forthcoming election, although if he's followed the typical path of most old socialists it's more likely I'll find that he's now a tobacco company executive or something of that ilk.
It was at a party for David a couple of years later that Tony and I hooked up. I can remember the details clearly even though it was twelve years ago now. By this time Tony had been newly elevated to a first officer position with Qantas. David was heading to the UK for a couple of years of physician's training so his friends had organised a bon voyage party, held in a private function room at a pub. I toddled along with my good friend, Mimi, which would not usually be regarded as an effective strategy if you were out to meet guys. Mimi is small and dainty with glossy dark hair, a delicate pointed chin, huge brown eyes, and a little girl voice and tinkling laugh which drive men to distraction. She also has the most beautiful skin you've ever seen; I expect she's the only girl in recorded history to go through adolescence without a single blemish. Her presence seems to trigger some caveman-protector gene buried deep on the Y chromosome but the guys aren't privy to the joke that she doesn't need protecting at all. She's smart and witty and fun to be around and possesses just the right amount of cynicism to be interesting. That's why I chose to hang around with her. If only it wasn't so dispiriting to turn into the invisible woman in her company.
However, as it turned out, Tony was one of the small percentage of men (I'd estimate around 0.5 percent) who found me the more attractive.
This particular evening Mimi and I were standing together, sipping bad house wine and viewing the passing parade with a detached eye, when I noticed Tony heading in our direction. He'd be hard to miss, a golden boy in every sense of the word. There was none of that apologetic sidling up I associated with less attractive men. He approached us confidently - clearly a young man expecting a positive reception.
I sighed. There was my evening gone.
'Hi, Ellie isn't it? David's sister? I almost didn't recognise you at first.' Well at least he's polite, I thought, taking time to acknowledge my existence before he moves in on Mimi.
'Yes, and this is my friend Mimi,' I explained. May as well get on with it.
'Hi, Mimi. And what are you up to these days, Ellie? I haven't seen you for ages. Have you been overseas?'
'No, just at uni all the time. I'm studying for a marketing degree. But I did go on holiday to Italy recently with two girlfriends. We had the best time. I know everyone is meant to prefer Florence but I especially loved Rome. Have you been?...Oh, my God, I just realised how stupid that must sound, what with you jetting about the world for your job.'
'No, not really - I'm just flying domestically at the moment. A holiday in Italy sounds pretty good to me, too.'
And so the conversation ensued. I asked him more about his job and told him about mine, and we discussed David and his already brilliant career and after about twenty minutes it dawned on me that Tony was directing almost all of his conversation towards me. He wasn't interested in Mimi it seemed - very strange.
I also started noticing how good looking he was. I'd never thought of myself as a girl who was interested in blondes. Surfers have certainly never done it for me. I began to reassess; he was pretty damn cute. He was wearing jeans and an immaculately-ironed white cotton shirt, which he had folded up to his elbows to reveal tanned hands and muscular forearms covered in fine golden hairs. When he folded his arms his biceps pressed tightly against the shirt fabric in a most alluring way. His closeness and in-your-face masculinity started arousing some curious sensations within me, so much so that when he started telling me about his job and what a big rush it was to get those magnificent machines to rise up in the air, I couldn't help speculating on other large objects that may also get a rise. I was glad the lighting was dim so he couldn't witness my blushes.
By the way, you needn't waste your time feeling sorry for Mimi about all this. Predictably by this time she was surrounded by a circle of worshipful admirers, although I could tell by her demeanour that she wasn't interested. Her time would come later.
Eventually Tony asked me to dance and took my hand as he escorted me to the dance floor, past the raised eyebrows of my brother. I was having a fine old time when Mimi came up to me saying she had a headache and wanted to leave. Damn, that was my lift home gone.
'Don't worry, I can drop you home,' said Tony. 'If that's okay of course.'
Oh yes, that was okay.
My first impression of Tony was that he seemed extremely grown up. He owned a nice car - a late-model Mazda 323 - unlike most of the other guys I'd dated who, if they possessed any sort of vehicle, invariably got around in rusty old jalopies that were never guaranteed to start when you turned the ignition key. Of course he knew the way to my place as he'd been there before; it was a comfort that he already knew that my family wasn't wealthy. He asked if he could see me again and I gave him one of my new business cards, feeling very sophisticated. Then he kissed me, just the once, but it was splendid - a tantalising hint of what I hoped was to come. He's always been a great kisser.
For the next few days I was on tenterhooks. I'd had enough of those 'I'll call you' experiences to know the success rate wasn't great. Every time the phone rang at work my heart would skip a beat. I'd eagerly grab the phone, only to say 'Oh' when it turned out to be Joe from the accounts department, or someone else equally as boring. Then, after almost four days, when I'd convinced myself he was just another arrogant prick who didn't deserve me, Tony called.
'Sorry I didn't call earlier. I've been away with work and I forgot to take your number with me.'
'Oh that's fine,' I said. 'I wasn't expecting you to call any sooner.' Liar!
We organised to go to the movies (we saw Speed as I recall), which proceeded to dinner, which proceeded to dinner and parties with his friends and before I knew it I had assumed girlfriend status. Almost all of Tony's friends had, rather unimaginatively, paired up with girls they'd all known since their school days, so I did for a period feel somewhat an outsider. Luckily most of these girls were friendly enough, except for one or two whom I suspect had been planning to line Tony up with a friend or a sister, or maybe even themselves. He was certainly much cuter than their boyfriends, I thought with satisfaction. I was glad that my brother was living overseas by this time, because I think this might have been more awkward if it had been happening under his nose. I think Tony was relieved too, as it's always a bit loaded seeing a friend's sister, especially when there is sex involved - which there was before too long - and David was nothing if not the protective big brother.
After we'd been seeing each other about a month or so Tony suggested we head back to his place after dinner. Things had been getting pretty hot and heavy in the kissing department so I'd suspected this might be on the cards and had even bought new lingerie in anticipation. I had been just about to hand over my credit card to purchase them in vixen black when I had a rethink and opted for virginal white. Even by this early stage I was having furtive fantasies about marriage and thought it prudent to appear more bride than seductress. I was touched to observe he'd tidied his bedroom in my honour but later discovered that that was just Tony and his bedroom always looked neat. He was so strong he could have taken 'command' of me and I would have been powerless to resist (I'll admit I sometimes fantasised that he did) but he was surprisingly gentle and deferential. It was all that I had dreamed of and more, and I knew that I had fallen in deep.
His job meant he was away a lot but that mostly suited me fine; it gave me more time to study for my degree and made his homecomings all the sweeter. I also loved telling people my boyfriend was a pilot. It spoke to me of a spirit of rugged adventurism, my brave and gallant explorer of the skies. Okay, so I was romanticising a wee bit, but that was my tendency in those days. Besides, Tony looked extremely hot in his uniform.
All that first year I expected Tony to wake up and realise he was going out with little ol' me. It is pathetic to say this now but back then I even thought he could have done better. My husband is a strong, silent type (Mr Darcy come on down) - not a great one for unnecessary talk at the best of times and certainly not someone who is comfortable talking about personal issues. Knowing what I know now, I'd say the romance writers have got it wrong and this is an overrated stereotype. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, and it seems I have wasted years of my life filling in the void created by his silences with my fruitless thoughts and pointless speculations. So in those days whenever he was a bit quiet, or a bit cranky, or a bit distracted, I'd think, okay this is it, he's met someone else and he's going to dump me, but of course he never did.
The fact he never did became all the more remarkable to me when I got to know his mother, Pamela, well. And she definitely is a 'Pamela' (pronounced in short, breathy syllables), not a 'Pam' - no-one ever makes that mistake twice. Pamela is tall, blonde and elegant and both boys have inherited her good looks. Unfortunately she also holds copyright on the 'motherin-law from hell' title.
I'm certainly no angel (a fact that will become obvious the further you read) but I do at least give each person I meet the benefit of the doubt and am inclined to like them until given good reason to do otherwise. However, the very first time I met Pamela she was hostile to me and nothing's changed since. It's not as if I ever gave her cause to be in those early days: I was too intimidated to say anything to Tony's parents, let alone anything offensive (although she probably interpreted this as surliness on my part). I'm not sure she would have thought any woman truly worthy of her beloved eldest, but she made no attempt to disguise the fact she would have preferred a girl from their social circle, not some middle-class upstart with ideas above her station. No doubt she tried her damnedest to break us up back then.
I brought this up with David around this time, when he came back to Australia for his wedding to Amrita, but he claimed that Pamela had always been fine with him.
'She probably thinks it's okay to mix with the lower classes, just as long as we don't interbreed,' I grumbled.
'Oh come on she can't be that bad.'
'I tell you she is.'
'Well if it's really that bad you may want to think about whether it's worth it. Don't get me wrong. Tony's a good guy. But I'm not sure he's the right guy for you.'
I was pretty annoyed with David about that. Never seek advice unless you want to hear the answer. Although it turned out he was right about at least one thing - and I'm embarrassed to admit it took me a long time to realise this - it was less about snobbery with Pamela than jealousy and this has made her a much more powerful adversary.
Fortunately at this time Tony was sharing a flat in Neutral Bay with another pilot and didn't spend much time at the family home. Thus I was spared too much exposure to the formidable Pamela Cooper. Tony's flat mate, Mark, was an older guy, who had been an air force pilot before joining Qantas. He was an inveterate womaniser, too. Tony and I started calling his girlfriends 'Miss January', 'Miss February', 'Miss March' and so on as few of them lasted more than a few weeks. Living with Mark meant you'd never know who you were going to bump into leaving the bathroom the next day. Some of these girls were lovely but there was no point getting to know any of them because as soon as you'd developed an attachment for one she'd be shown the revolving door. Of course Mark was often away, too, so we did have many glorious periods where we had the flat all to ourselves.
I'd established by this time that Tony's sculpted body wasn't completely a work of nature: he liked to exercise, a lot. I signed up to his gym and started joining him on the bikes and treadmills. We'd get all hot and sweaty on the gym equipment, have a shower, and then go home to get all hot and sweaty again whilst performing a work out of a completely different kind. He was not the wildly adventurous lover I dreamed of, but I was completely in love with the idea of being in love and with the intimacy that only comes with that. I think there is a place for the good old, no-strings-attached fling; one highlight from my trip to Italy I omitted to tell Tony about was the twenty-four hours I spent holed up in a pensione with Roberto, a lawyer I met at a restaurant near the Spanish Steps. It was with Tony, however, that I finally discovered the difference between having sex and making love.
I never tired of the fact that he was so big and strong and masculine - it made me feel, if not exactly petite, at least very feminine. Once I'd worked up the courage to suggest it, we'd sometimes pretend I was a damsel in distress and he my rakish lover come to take advantage of me.
One afternoon, after about a year of togetherness, we were lying in his bed. I plucked up the courage to ask him a question that had been niggling at me for some time.
'You know the night we got together, at David's farewell party.'
'Yeah.'
'Was it me or Mimi you were interested in?'
His head jerked up from the pillow a little and he gave me a puzzled look. 'You - I thought that would have been obvious.'
'Well, she is very beautiful. Most men flock to her. I thought you might have been going to hit on her but when you got talking to me changed your mind, or something.'
'No, never...Mimi is very attractive, but it was always you.'
'Why?'
'I don't know...it's not something I can really put into words. You just looked nice. Although,' he said, giving me a wicked look, 'I did notice that you had very nice breasts.'
Then he went quiet for a while, his usual state. I thought our conversation had reached a typical dead-end but he surprised me this time by continuing. 'You know, I don't really know Mimi that well, and she seems nice and all, but in my opinion really beautiful girls are generally more trouble than they are worth. You know about Sarah, I suppose?'
'Yes,' I said. I knew of Sarah, Tony's last serious girlfriend, well. Alice and Cathy, the catty girls in Tony's crowd, delighted in telling me about this apparent paragon of beauty and virtue whenever they could. Sarah was travelling in Europe by this stage, so we'd never actually met.
'She was absolutely, stunningly gorgeous [I could have done without hearing that] and when we started going out I thought that all my Christmases had come at once, but in the end she just drove me nuts and I got sick of her.'
Ah, that was much better. 'Why?' I asked, trying - and failing - not to sound too eager.
'She is a daughter of one of my dad's friends and my mum and dad were really keen on us getting together. I think they thought we'd eventually get married, you know. [That explained a lot.] But Sarah is an only child and absolutely spoilt. When she got her driver's licence her dad bought her a brand new MX5 as a present. My dad has always stressed that we should earn things, not have them handed to us on a plate. After a while she started bitching and moaning about my job - you know, when I'd have to be away when a good party was on and all. Anyway, one day she actually suggested I might want to give up flying and go into dealing or something. Can you believe it? I have never wanted to do anything but be a pilot since I was four years old. Flying is my life - you know that. So, I went home that night and thought about it and the next day I called her up and dumped her. That didn't go down well, I can tell you,' he said, wearing the smile of a small boy taking pleasure in being caught doing the wrong thing. 'I decided there and then that I was through with these princess-types and I was going to find myself a nice normal girl who didn't think the world revolved around her.'
'So you decided to seek out a homely girl who would be so grateful to have your affection bestowed upon her that she would never complain about anything?' I said this in a slightly mocking tone but it was closer to the truth than I cared to admit. There had been times when I had wanted to complain about Tony's many absences but had checked this inclination because I had a feeling he would not like it. Seems I was correct.
'Now you're being silly. As if I would have gone after a homely girl. I always thought you were pretty. And now I have got to know the whole package - the fact you are so easy to be around - I truly think you are the loveliest girl I know...and as I said before you do have the most magnificent breasts.'
'Are you in love with me?'
'God I hate this sort of talk. Isn't it obvious?'
'You know sometimes girls need to be told these things.'
He went silent for a while.
'Well?'
'Okay...I love you.'
'And I love you. See that wasn't so hard was it?'
'No...but I'm never going to be good at this sort of stuff. You'll have to get used to that. [I liked this reference to getting used to it. It suggested a healthy permanence.] Talk is cheap and I'd rather you judge me by my actions not my words.'
And then, embarrassed by all this personal talk, he made a move to kiss the aforementioned breasts and with that all sensible conversation ceased.
So that's when I found out that Tony did genuinely love me and why he stuck by me against the wishes of his mother. And more importantly I now knew the secret of keeping him happy. I resolved that very day that nothing I said or did would ever stand in the way of me marrying him.
A fairytale wedding
Now there's a title to get your attention - a fairytale wedding, a standard device called on by makers of a soap opera going through a ratings slump; slot in a wedding between two attractive co-stars and the viewers will flock back for sure. I am old enough to remember the fairytale wedding of Charlene on Neighbours, where the bride, complete with corkscrew perm and baby's breath married her childhood sweetheart, Scott, of the bad suit and blonde mullet. As a matter of fact this was a red-letter day in the Parkes household, Jason Donovan being one of my medium-level crushes at the time. Of course Kylie Minogue went on to much bigger things after that, but she'll never be able to completely live down that awful confectionery of a wedding dress she got to wear back in 1987.
Anyway, just in case you were getting bored with my story, I am going to introduce a fairytale wedding in this chapter to liven things up, just not yet. You'll have to be patient, as I had to be. The signs were always there that Tony wouldn't rush into marriage without careful consideration.
The gossip mags also love a good fairytale wedding, especially when it's followed roughly eleven months later by a 'bitter divorce'. I'll admit that I've dipped my toe into this particular literary genre. Of course, everyone says they read them in the supermarket queue, but someone must actually buy them otherwise they wouldn't exist, would they? Well that someone is occasionally me, usually after I have had a bad day at the office. I'm very well informed of all the bikini cellulite disasters, the latest starlets in rehab and the most ridiculous celebrity baby names. The trouble is I always feel a bit dirty afterwards, like I've indulged in watching some very bad porn, although I am highly sought after at the preschool trivia nights as a consequence. In any case, it has always fascinated me how these celebrities think it's okay to marry one another one day and then jet off to completely different continents for the next six months to pursue their respective careers. Inevitably one of them has an affair with a co-star, or gets caught in a strip club in a compromising position or they both just drift apart (definitely the most annoying one). Who'd have thought it? Don't these people have any idea that successful marriages require real work and commitment?
Considering what I've been through in my own marriage, however, I am probably in no position to lecture anyone these days. Pilots are, of course, often away from home too and this can place a great strain on their partnerships. For a time I naïvely believed that Tony and I would be exceptions to that rule but we've since gone on to have some huge struggles that have almost torn us apart. I wouldn't say we are completely out of the woods yet, either.
When I first started seeing him I was surprised how often people, even those I hardly knew, would say, 'Don't you worry about him fooling around with all those hot young flight attendants?' Such a helpful comment - I've spoken to other pilots' partners and apparently I'm not alone in this. I was always tempted at this point to say, 'And aren't you worried that your husband/wife is banging the nineteen year old office temp/pool cleaner?' but usually I just smiled through gritted teeth and responded with something like, 'What sort of a relationship is it if you don't have trust?'
Tony knew the reputation of pilots and was keen to reassure me I had nothing to worry about; the reality was much less glamorous than the image makers would lead us to believe. And although not antisocial, he always preferred to keep himself a little aloof from the cabin crew. If laying over somewhere overnight he would more likely head to the hotel gym, or watch TV or work on his log books, or just go to bed - alone - than head out partying. He also used to phone and email me regularly to keep in touch, but if he wasn't the best communicator in person he was even worse on the phone, so our conversations were more of the 'I'm okay and I'll be back XXX' type, rather than intimate little chats about feelings. (Do any men really like to talk about feelings?) This was enough for me, however. So no, I didn't worry too much about him fooling around, but what I probably didn't consider was that all the time apart is a barrier and if you are not careful it can create a distance between you all by itself.
I can look back on those early years with genuine nostalgia. Tony was so lovely to me back then, a total gentleman. He treated me...well, like a princess I suppose. I never got him talking much, but he was as good as his word and showed his devotion to me through his actions: a grasped hand, a proprietorial arm around my shoulders when with friends, a gentle stroking of my back when we were alone together watching TV.
After we'd been together for about a year and a half, Mark bought a place of his own and moved out. Tony said, 'How about moving in with me,' and with that Miss Eleanor Parkes, formerly of Russell Lea, now of Neutral Bay, underwent a most dramatic transformation: a transformation which astounded her friends and annoyed the hell out of her shell-shocked parents. The girl whose bedroom had once been so messy it was declared a no-go zone by her beleaguered mother, learnt what it was to be neat and tidy. I had to because my live-in partner was (and still is) completely anal.
Like his perfectly sculpted body, the immaculate appearance I'd observed on our first evening together was not an accident. This was a man who would never even leave the house in an unironed t-shirt. Our flat was so spick and span it would have made a 1950's housewife green with envy and we could never, ever go to bed before doing the washing up. For the most part my domestic efforts measured up to his stringent standards, except where it came to ironing - I could never get the creases right. I was quickly dismissed from that duty (not too many tears were shed) and he's assumed responsibility for the ironing ever since.
However, without doubt my favourite Tonyism was (cue drum roll) - the germ phobia.
'Aark! Think of the germs,' he shrieked one day in a most unmasculine like way when he caught me double-dipping a spoon into a pasta sauce that only the two of us were planning to share.
'Well, if you're so afraid of a few girl's germs we better stop kissing then - and sex while we're at it.'
'Okay, I suppose if you put it like that.'
Even so, I used to sometimes catch him eyeing me suspiciously whilst I was doing the cooking. I wondered where this all came from until I got to spend more time in the company of his mother. I'm not saying his neat-freak tendencies didn't sometimes grate ('Yes, I know if I leave a wet towel on the floor it won't dry properly - I just occasionally forget, okay') but for the most part I found this aspect of his personality reassuring, almost cute even. It made him seem more human and less like the cool football hero of his high school days.
What I didn't understand immediately was that this was all part of a larger issue, one that was not so benign. Tony is a perfectionist: everything he does, he does to the best of his ability. Whatever he lacks in natural aptitude he makes up for with application, studying and practising for the task at hand - whether it be kicking a rugby ball or sitting a flying exam - until he's got it just right. Nothing is left to chance. But as a consequence of arriving in the world with 'designated high achiever' stamped on his birth certificate, and having this belief reinforced by his parents throughout his childhood, and pretty much achieving everything he'd ever set his mind to, he has a tendency to be intolerant of people who do not meet his exacting standards, which I'm afraid is most of the rest of us.
A less charitable person might describe Tony as a control freak but you didn't hear it from me.
An incident from around this time brought this all home to me. My dear friend Tracey was visiting town from Melbourne and I was eager to introduce her to my new boyfriend, so I organised dinner for the three of us at a city restaurant. Tracey is a lawyer and probably the most intelligent person I know, smarter even than my brother. She is also fiercely funny and one of my favourite people. It's not a good idea to drink too much in her company (although I inevitably do) because you have to keep your wits about you just to keep up with the flow of conversation, otherwise you'll be left far behind her in her intellectual wake. She cracked me up laughing throughout the meal as she recounted some of her appalling client stories and we reminisced about the bad old days at school.
Tony was quiet all evening and when he left us to visit the boy's room Tracey interrupted our conversation to say, 'I don't think your boyfriend likes me very much.'
'As if. How could he not like you? It's just a bit boring listening to other people drone on about their school days if you weren't part of it. I should know - I've been bored shitless by Tony's rugby mates often enough. We should probably just change the subject.'
'Yeah maybe.'
I didn't think much of it until we were driving home later.
'Isn't Tracey absolutely hilarious? I just love her.'
'Hmm,' he replied, not exactly bowling me over with his enthusiasm. 'She's clearly very smart. It's just that I don't know how she could let herself get that way.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh come on now. She's huge. You can't say you haven't noticed.'
'She's always been big. That's just Tracey.'
'Big? More like obese. And it's not like she's helping herself - did you see how much food she packed away tonight?'
'Yeah well, she has put on a bit of weight since I last saw her but nothing's as simple as you say. Tracey is overweight for lots of personal reasons that I'm not at liberty to divulge. Some things are not just a case of diet and exercise.'
'But she has a pretty face. If she lost the pork she'd have a chance of meeting some guys.'
'Tracey isn't interested in meeting guys,' I said.
'Oh, that explains it.'
No, that didn't explain anything. I shut up and sulked the rest of the way home.
\*\*\*
Tracey was not the only one of my friends who didn't make the cut with Tony. There was also my wild child, dope-smoking, nose-ring wearing friend Heidi. Fortunately I was not the sort of girl who cut herself off from her friends to please her boyfriend. I just sidelined them. After all Tony was away so much I could still see them, just not when he was around.
Did any of this cause me to reflect on the wisdom of marrying him? Absolutely not - I was in love. And it's not like there weren't upsides: he was completely reliable, he was rarely drunk or hung over and you certainly never had to nag him to replace the toilet roll. I hadn't found he was addicted to alcohol or drugs or gambling, or discovered gay porn magazines under the bed or returned home from work one day to find him prancing around in my lacy knickers and suspenders. Compared with the things other women have to put up with, a few control issues seemed very small beer, and certainly not likely to be marriage-threatening.
Funny thing is I turned out to be wrong about that.
It wasn't as if Tony didn't know that things could go wrong - after all he's spent hours of his life in the flight simulator practising procedures for when they do - but I think he thought you could always fix things, that ultimately we have control over our own destiny. Unfortunately that's not true. Fate sometimes steps in, as we were only too painfully going to find out. If I was to identify a single factor that lay at the heart of all our subsequent marriage problems that would be it.
But that was all in the future, so let's get back to the cheerier topic of weddings.
And weddings there were, several of them. One by one Tony's friends started pairing off and making the big commitment. There was rarely a weekend, if Tony was in town, when we were not dispatched off to some historic stone church or a quaint chapel in the country to witness the nuptials of one of his school friends. I developed a close personal relationship with the lady at the David Jones wedding gift registry as a result. I loved all of this: the dressing up to the nines, the food and wine, the nights spent snuggling together in old double beds in country pubs and the fact that I was invariably on the arm of the best looking man in the room, but after a time I did start to get a bit restless. Was it ever going to be my turn?
Work was going well for me by then. I was still not in marketing but had been promoted, which meant I had to travel around Australia quite a bit myself, supervising a big trial of our new blood pressure lowering drug. I got to know a few cardiologists, which (although I didn't know it at the time) was going to hold me in good stead later on, and even was able to check in regularly on David, who was back in Australia by this time and newly installed as a specialist in Adelaide. His wife Amrita had recently given birth to their first child, a spikey-haired tot called Thomas, whom I loved to bounce on my knee. So all in all, life was going swimmingly, if not for my little marital itch that wanted scratching.
And while I remained ringless, Pamela remained hopeful. She had no compunction about mentioning to Tony that she'd met so and so's 'very attractive' daughter.
'Yes Mum, but I already have a girlfriend in case you hadn't noticed,' he'd always say patiently.
Then one day she breathlessly announced - right in front of me, no less - that Sarah was back in town, and apparently 'still single'.
'So?' said Tony, 'Why should I care?' He rolled his eyes before sneaking me a reassuring smile and I breathed my biggest sigh of relief.
Just be patient Ellie, I'd tell myself. I knew exactly what outcome the whining and demands had produced for the discarded Sarah and I was not going anywhere near there.
In the end I had Mimi to thank for finally giving Tony the push along. After many years of beating off fevered suitors, she surprised us all by falling madly and passionately in love with Matthew, a boy from the bush who happened to be in Sydney showing some prize head of cattle at the Royal Easter Show. After a whirlwind romance, they married and she is now installed happily as a wealthy grazier's wife and mother-of-three in western New South Wales. I miss her dreadfully, but we email regularly and she does get down to the Big Smoke occasionally for dinner and the theatre, where we always make a point of catching up.
Anyway, her wedding was a slap-up, no expense spared affair for two hundred in a hired marquee and I was chief bridesmaid. And whilst Mimi looked as spectacularly gorgeous as universally predicted, I, as my favourite Aussie expression goes, didn't scrub up so bad myself. I was wearing a silk sheath in the deepest burgundy colour, which was very slimming; my hair was up and my make-up professionally applied. I looked in the mirror and thought, woo hoo, not bad - not bad at all. Tony obviously agreed, as he kept trying to ravish me during the reception whenever he got the chance. I also suspect Mimi, who got a teensy bit tipsy on champagne, had a word in his ear too, because something definitely changed that night.
This is not to suggest he got down on bended knee there and then. Anyone who thought that didn't know Tony very well. Rather it was that he started plotting his very carefully planned proposal.
I first smelled a rat when he organised a romantic week's holiday on an island resort in Fiji. Tony was one of those guys who is tied with an umbilical cord to his old school friends and up until this time all our holidays had been as part of a large group: skiing in Thredbo (hated that one; I am not a good skier), a hired house up the coast, sailing in The Whitsundays, etc. etc. This time it was just the two of us...hmm.
We stayed in a luxury Fijian burre that was set apart from the other guests and had its own palm-fringed sandy beach. Our days were spent lazing by the pool or snorkelling amongst the tropical fish in the coral reef located just offshore. By night we drank fruit-laden cocktails and watched the Polynesian dancers strut their stuff. I discovered that Fijian men have a certain earthiness, a barely suppressed sexuality, which is apparent in their dance and their lazy loping walk, and found this all quite arousing, with Tony being the lucky beneficiary.
The setting could not have been more idyllic, but my nerves jangled. Just like in those early days I was on tenterhooks. When was he going to ask me? Or had I actually got it wrong and he was not going to ask me? I tried to tell myself to relax and enjoy the holiday for what it was. What did it really matter? A lot, actually, was the brutally honest reply.
On the third day, over breakfast, Tony announced he had hired a small runabout and someone to navigate and we were to be taken to a deserted island for a champagne picnic lunch. Well if he's not going to propose today, I thought, he's never going to.
Each day consists of exactly 1440 minutes, or 86 400 seconds if you like, but they are not all the same are they? You go to work for years, day in day out. You know you were there, conscious and contributing. You were definitely there - it's on your employment record - but if asked for details on these individual workdays you'd be hard pressed to remember anything. Then there are the red-letter days, or sometimes longer periods, like when you're travelling, where even if the events happened years and years ago it all seems like yesterday. It's as if your body calls your senses to attention and says, 'Okay: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. Are you all present and accounted for? Good, then go to work. I'm relying on you all - it's vital you remember everything.'
This was one of those days.
We arranged to meet our escort on the beach. I was wearing my orange print bikini and a sarong that was carefully draped to cover several bodily sins. The heat and light were dazzling and I could feel my skin burning under the sun's glare. I'd taken off my sandals and I remember I had to hop-tiptoe inelegantly down to the shore across the hot sand before cooling my feet in the soothing waters of the Pacific. I curled my toes and enjoyed the scrape of the sand between them.
Around my feet the water was so clear you almost couldn't see it over the sand, but on the horizon the edge of the lagoon was an intense blue, a colour that almost seemed unnatural. I could hear the squeals and laughter of local children jumping off a grey timber pier that stretched far out into the lagoon.
Then, Kane, our escort, grabbed my hand and hoisted me effortlessly on to the canopied runabout. Kane was a finely-boned and elegant local with milk-coffee-coloured skin and a straight narrow nose. Of all the Fijian men I met that week, he was definitely the sexiest. I marvelled at the way he navigated the boat through the channels, one arm rested in apparent casualness on the steering wheel, while he chatted to my about-to-be-betrothed. As I gazed on these two very different looking but equally attractive young men, I reflected how Mother Nature sometimes manages to get it just right.
Now in case any of you are thinking that this is all going to turn rather raunchy, and we were going to indulge in a little threesome on the deserted beach, I am sorry to disappoint you. You'll have to take your smutty mind off elsewhere and head to the library to get your own copy of Erica Jong or Judith Krantz. This is not that sort of a memoir. Call me terribly middle-class but I think for most of us that sort of stuff safely remains in the realms of fantasy. Tony has a distinctly conservative streak, and whilst I'm not entirely sure he wouldn't have been a willing participant in all of that I know he would have rethought the idea of marrying me afterwards. Besides, in our chitchat Kane revealed he was happily married to a very lucky woman.
No, Kane just deposited us and our picnic basket on our deserted island as scheduled, and beat a discreet exit for a couple of hours. The sand we crossed over was crunchy from the coral, and as we walked up the bank the lime green undergrowth shimmied seductively in the breeze.
After a swim in the cool green ocean we set up our little champagne picnic on a red checked table cloth. My companion was surprisingly relaxed for someone who was about to pop the question, but of course he had little doubt what my answer was going to be.
He didn't get down on bended knee, thank goodness. In fact he was lying on his side on the picnic rug, leaning on his elbow and looking at me, when he said, 'Elle, I was wondering if you'd like to marry me?' as casually as if he'd asked me to pass the salad. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect delivery and my eyes misted with tears as all my too-dear-to-be-spoken hopes of the previous three and a half years were finally answered.
Tony, being Tony, had a custom-made ring, too. A little part of me couldn't help feeling that it would have been nice to have been consulted over the design, but Tony was always a take-charge type of guy and I quickly dispensed with this churlish thought when I witnessed the magnificence of his gesture: platinum with one large glittering diamond and several smaller cousins congregating around it. It was a rock that would make any aspiring fiancée green with envy and I looked forward to flashing it around the office in a few days' time.
When Kane arrived back he asked in a tone of pretend indifference, 'Did anything exciting happen while I was away?' Obviously he and Tony had been co-conspirators all along and I was glad not to disappoint them with my level of excitement and happiness. He revved up the engine and the runabout bounced over the swell on our return journey, the sea spray whipping our eyes and cooling our faces, leaving a fine layer of salt as a memento. Once back on dry land, Tony tipped Kane generously and we went back to our burre to shower and celebrate our engagement in a more private and intimate fashion.
Unfortunately the rest of our week didn't quite live up to expectations. At dinner that night I must have eaten a bad prawn, or picked up some nasty bug from the swimming pool, but whatever it was, I fell violently ill and spent most of the small hours with my head delicately placed over the toilet bowl, only for this to be replaced later by, a-hem, another part of my anatomy. My fiancé was going to make a commitment to love me for better or for worse and it seems he was being offered an advanced preview of the latter. Instead of joining Tony on a planned snorkelling excursion to the outer reefs the next day, I feebly waved him off and spent the hours swinging in a hammock and sipping tepid lemonade, only raising myself occasionally from my lethargy to admire my new engagement ring.
Then the following day it rained. And the day after that. Anyone who has been to the tropics will understand the significance of this statement - this was no gentle spring shower, there were sheets of rain coming down all day and night, flooding all the potholes until small rivers, and then not so small rivers, started running between the burres. Even with our resort-supplied golf umbrellas, a trip to the restaurant was damp and perilous and all outdoor activities were severely curtailed. My Action Man fiancé did not like this one little bit and paced about our burre - which suddenly seemed very small - like a caged beast.
'When is this bloody rain going to stop?'
'There is nothing we can do about it, so why don't you read a book or something?'
'I don't want to read. I'm pissed off. I wanted this holiday to be perfect.'
'If it's any consolation,' I said, smiling indulgently, 'I've had the perfect holiday.'
'Yes, but it's not meant to rain so heavily at this time of year.'
'Well this is the tropics. You don't get tropical rainforests without a whole lot of rain.'
'I know that. Don't you think I don't know enough about the weather from my job?'
Oh dear - our first pre-wedding spat. No doubt the first of many, but I didn't want our little holiday together ruined by a silly, pointless argument.
'You know what your problem is? You're not getting enough exercise and need an endorphin release. I'm trying to think of another way I can relieve your tension.'
I put on my best seductress look, went over to him, sat him down in a rattan cane armchair, got down on my knees, undid his fly, and proceeded to relieve his tension in the best way I knew how.
After I'd finished - or rather he'd finished - he said, 'I knew there was a reason why I wanted to marry you.'
Then the sun came out for our last day and things got much better after that.
\*\*\*
So to the wedding, held the following February, nearly eight years ago now.
Tony must have informed his mother of his intentions before we set out on our Fijian holiday because Pamela seemed resigned to, if a little ungracious about, the announcement. In all the time I've known him I've never seen Tony's dad, Douglas, get excited about anything except fluctuations in the share market and his beloved Wallabies but he seemed pleased enough with the news.
My parents were, of course, happy for me but a little anxious, being somewhat intimidated by the lofty Cooper family. They were at pains to ensure that their elder daughter's nuptials were conducted in the appropriate style and I think Mum missed out on a new bathroom to help pay for it all. I also contributed some of my own savings and in the end we had a wedding that was so tasteful and elegant that even Pamela couldn't (openly at least) disapprove. The service was conducted at Tony's school chapel and the reception at a harbour front restaurant.
Emma and Mimi were my obvious choice for bridesmaids. For a brief period my evil twin made an appearance and I contemplated having no bridesmaids - lest I be overshadowed by this beauteous pairing - but in the end good nature triumphed. Besides Tony wanted his brother, Andrew, and good friend, Angus, to be groomsmen and they would have looked mighty silly standing on the altar by themselves. And no, in case you're wondering, I didn't make the girls wear lilac taffeta with puff sleeves; it was actually very elegant navy silk.
Before I started planning my own wedding I flattered myself that I'd be too sophisticated to fall victim to the worst excesses of bride behaviour. Before too long, however, I found myself agonising pointlessly over flower arrangements; quarrelling with Tony over the guest list, as if the whole world would turn on its axis if we sat my Uncle John near his Aunt Rosemary; and forgetting to eat for approximately three months, so that my dressmaker kept reprimanding me for having to take my wedding dress in further at each new fitting.
Finally February arrived, and with it the rains. It rained for almost two weeks straight! By this stage I had lost all sense of rational perspective and fretted dreadfully, everything depended on my wedding day being sunny. For a time the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's long-range weather forecast became my Internet homepage and I cursed my stupidity for deciding on a wedding day in the most hot and humid month on the Sydney calendar. In the end it rained until the lunchtime of the day before my wedding, the Saturday morning of the big day dawning bright and sunny. I took this to be a glorious omen.
The service was held late in the afternoon, so I had a day of primping and pampering with my ladies-in-waiting beforehand. My dress was ivory duchess satin, strapless, and I remember stroking my hands down the folds of the skirt, enjoying the sensuous feel of the heavy fabric. I had a matching veil, pearl earrings and carried a simple bouquet of cream roses. The hairdresser and make-up artist performed their magic and, for the first time, on that day of days, when I looked in the mirror I really did think I was beautiful.
Mum, dressed in a blue floral print with matching navy shoes, fluttered around. Dad, in his best grey suit, was as proud as punch. 'Darling you look fit to be a queen,' he declared, his eyes watering a little.
By the end of the reception I was getting quite blasé about the compliments, although definitely the highlight was when my fourteen year old cousin, Toby, who hitherto had never expressed a word of approval about anything, declared that I looked 'hot'.
Tony agreed. When I was walking down the aisle, arm in arm with my dad, he shared with me one of his special looks and mouthed the word 'beautiful'. My recollection of our wedding vows is hazy; I was feeling too besotted with my handsome prince at that time.
We sipped champagne while the wedding photographs were being taken, with the glittering harbour, its bridge and the Opera House as our backdrops. Everyone is smiling and happy in those photos, except for my new motherin-law who looks like she's sucked on a lemon. And the food at the reception was declared to be excellent, and the speeches were proclaimed to be witty and not too long, and everyone had a jolly good time and got a wee bit tipsy and the whole day was just picture perfect.
And if this was a traditional fairytale we would leave our hero and heroine at this point and let them go off to live happily ever after, but, as you know, this is a modern fairytale and my life got more interesting after the wedding, and not necessarily in a good way.
The prince and princess find their dream castle
We honeymooned on Big Island in Hawaii, staying in a luxury bungalow with its own swimming pool and twenty-four hour butler. We explored the rainforest and volcanoes, sipped champagne in our private spa, ate too much, slept too late, and made love whenever we felt like it. For the first time I felt completely content in our togetherness, and indulged my new husband by allowing him to abandon me for two afternoons of golf, a growing passion of his. Everyone deserves a honeymoon at least once in their life, even if they dispense with the formality of the wedding preceding it.
Sadly all good things must come to an end. Work beckoned for both of us and we returned to our respective positions, me now with a new identity: Eleanor Cooper.
We also returned to the Neutral Bay flat for a time but it no longer seemed fitting for our married status and we started looking around to buy. The bridal magazines were unceremoniously tossed out and my new favourite reading material became the property section of the Sydney Morning Herald. I quickly became infected with that particularly Sydney contagion - an unhealthy obsession with real estate.
Every Saturday I would circle potential properties and head off with street directory in hand to visit open-for-inspections. When Tony was around he'd join me of course. Displaying an alarming inclination to recreate his childhood home, my husband was keen to buy a big period house we could renovate. The only trouble was a first officer's salary wouldn't quite stretch to cover a mortgage on a property near his parents' home (an oil magnate's salary would barely cover the cost of real estate in that suburb), so we had to lower our expectations and search less exclusive environs for our first family home. It remained Tony's long-range plan to renovate our first property, make a killing and then move closer to his parents, but considering my relationship with his mother I was certainly in no hurry for the latter to eventuate - the further we lived away from her the better, as far as I was concerned.
After six months of disappointment, including missing out on some favoured properties at auction, we were eventually successful in securing our dream home, although I use the term loosely as it actually was a dump - an old four-bedroom pile in Annandale that had for some years been used as a boarding house and was in an appalling state of disrepair. However it was deemed to be structurally sound, as well as being located in a fashionable suburb close to the city and reasonably near to the airport (and Tony's work). Annandale did have the disadvantage of being under the flight path but disadvantage is in the eye of the beholder: for Tony it meant he could gaze up on his first love at regular and all too frequent intervals.
There were few things I ever put my foot down about in my marriage, but I did refuse to move into that house until it had one decent bathroom (I was barely prepared to set foot in the existing mould-infested cesspit, let alone bathe in it) and a functional kitchen. That's when Douglas came to the party and lent us some money. After rewiring the entire house, ripping up the carpet - impregnated with twenty years of cigarette smoke - and polishing the floorboards (which were in remarkably good nick), we ended up moving into a shambling pile with a bramble-infested garden which incongruously contained a single luxe bathroom and a glorious white and stainless-steel kitchen. I labelled them two glistening pearls in a barnacle-encrusted oyster.
Tony was determined to do all the rest himself. You'll have probably guessed by now that he was not a 'toss a bit of white paint on it and Bob's your uncle' kind of guy, but I found his whole approach to home renovation absolutely mesmerising. He was meticulous with everything: paint stripping, sanding, plastering, puttying, you name it. His mantra was 'painting is ninety percent about preparation'. It took him months just to complete the first room - our bedroom. In fact, I don't think I saw my husband at any time during those months when he was not covered with a thin film of paint and plaster.
When he proudly declared the bedroom finished, and brought me in to admire his handiwork, I said, 'It's magnificent, darling. And just think, when we die a premature and suffocating death from inhaling paint particles for twenty years, it's comforting to know our last hours will be spent in very tasteful surrounds.'
'Hardy ha, ha,' he said, but he took my teasing good-naturedly. This was in the days when he still laughed at my jokes.
I foolishly thought that I might speed up the process by helping him out, but that idea didn't last long. I am way too impatient for such painstaking work. After he'd witnessed my woefully inadequate efforts a few times, I was shooed out of the room, never to be invited back. He suggested I turn my hand to the garden, where he obviously felt I could do less harm.
So I did. I knew zero about gardening before I started, but I educated myself with the help of a couple of evening courses. The first step involved clearing out the ivy and bramble-festooned backyard, which, even with the help of Dad, took me many months. I still have the calluses on my hands. The garden was so overgrown I was worried I would find a serial killer's burial plot underneath - and no, I'm not joking here, my imagination does run to these sort of things - but in the end I just found lots of old paint cans, a rusty wheelbarrow and an abandoned toilet. Ultimately, I discovered I quite liked gardening and spent many a happy Saturday afternoon visiting plant nurseries or studying the science of composting, courtesy of Gardening Australia repeats on TV.
My other favoured domain was the kitchen, where I could blot out the rest of the unfinished house and pretend I already had my dream home. Inspired by my new multi-function oven, I started buying a lot more recipe books and experimenting with different cuisines, a skill my meat-and-three-veg mum had ill prepared me for. I had a very appreciative client in my husband, who had always had a keen appetite just as long as I remembered not to lick the serving spoon in his presence.
Let me qualify that - I had an appreciative client when my husband was around.
After a while his absences began to pall. What made it worse was that Tony was now back flying the Boeing 747-400 on long haul international flights, which meant he went away less often but for much longer periods. In case you hadn't noticed, Australia is a bloody long way from everywhere else. It was always Tony's ambition from when he was a small boy to be a 747 captain and nothing in the ensuing years had made him change his mind. Personally I would have much preferred him to fly domestically but he'd made it clear to me that this point was strictly non-negotiable. I'd knowingly signed up for this life - wife of a long haul pilot - but it somehow seemed different now that I was living alone in a ramshackle house with no-one else for company.
One morning as I was watching him pack his bag in preparation for a trip of several days, I couldn't help expressing a few petulant thoughts along this line.
I'll never forget the look I got. 'You knew what you were getting yourself in for when you married me,' he said, with a slight hint of warning in his voice. 'There is no point complaining about it now.'
'I know. But while you're off seeing the world and staying in luxury hotels I'm stuck here alone in The Munsters' House. I can't help getting the creeps sometimes.'
'The hotels aren't all that great. And it's not as if I'm on holiday. I'm working bloody hard and earning the money to pay for the renovations.'
I slunk away chastened, like a small dog caught pooping in the wrong spot.
It was true he was working, but he was also living out a childhood dream and few of us are lucky enough to do that in our careers. I sometimes silently sulked that he never saw things from my point of view, especially when he missed both Christmas and my birthday during our first year of married life.
'Why don't we get a dog?' he suggested when he returned from that trip. 'We have enough room. It would be a good companion for you and extra security at night.'
Hmm, I wasn't sure. I was working long hours and thought my absences would be a bit unfair on a poor pooch. And on a more selfish note my garden was finally taking some shape and I didn't want it trashed by some unappreciative and bored canine. I decided to sleep on the idea for a while.
Even so, I started checking out pet shops hoping for inspiration. It came in an unlikely form. One day I spied a single ginger kitten in a cage, serene amongst the scatterbrained pups. I stuck my hand next to the cage netting and he rubbed up against it, licking my fingers with his sandpaper tongue. He'd been left all by his lonesome in that cage and I sensed a kindred spirit. That's how I came to get Meggs the cat.
'A kitten?' said Tony when he arrived home to be greeted by a small orange fur ball. 'What sort of protection is that going to provide? And I don't even like cats.'
As he grew bigger and lost some of his kittenish charm, it became apparent that Meggs had also lost his copy of the instruction manual that tells cats that they are required to act cool and aloof. If there was a lap to be had he'd be sitting on it. He was (and still is) the friendliest, smoochiest cat in town.
And the greediest. Like the Catholic priest who develops a taste for expensive red wine, Meggs decided that if he was to be denied the sins of the flesh (having your balls cut off does rather cramp your style in that regard) he should be able to compensate with other sensory pleasures. He became a fat cat.
After a while even Tony had to agree that Meggs was okay for a cat, although he objected to the fact that I let him sleep on our bed.
'No way - how disgusting. He smells and he'll probably give us fleas.'
Meggs and I completely ignored this and when Tony was off working slept together all the time. Just as long as I was very careful to brush away the stray cat hairs Tony never noticed, proving my point that Meggs didn't smell at all. I always felt Tony should have been more grateful that the only male I invited into our marital bed in his absence was an overweight redhead with no testicles.
Thus, bed battles notwithstanding, we settled down to be a fairly happy threesome for a time.
Quite early in our marriage, an opportunity arose at work. An internal advertisement came around on email from the marketing department. They were advertising for an Associate Product Manager for Lo-prez, the blood pressure medicine I had been overseeing the trial for; it was just about to go on the Australian market. I read the advertisement over several times, nowhere did it say that any experience in sales was required. I fished out my CV and called up a couple of the cardiologists I'd developed a rapport with to ask them to act as referees. I'd never hid my marketing ambitions from my colleagues in the clinical research department, and they were happy to support my application. Obviously someone must have been impressed because I got notice that I'd been granted an interview.
I arrived for the interview in my best suit but with very low expectations, as it's customary that only those with sales experience are handed this sort of job. I therefore thought I had nothing to lose and was completely relaxed throughout. I don't know what it was that swung the interview panel - my attitude, my excellent university grades, or my glowing references - but I was blown away later to find out I was the successful applicant. I would have cracked a champagne bottle with Tony that night, but he was away as usual and I had to be content with breaking the news to him by phone. My appointment caused some consternation, and not a little resentment, amongst a few of the more ambitious members of the sales force, but I didn't care as I finally had my foothold into marketing.
I was fortunate that my immediate superior, Edward, was very benevolent and prepared to show me the ropes. He was a friendly looking, curly-haired fellow in his mid-thirties, who was carrying a few excess kilos. I could always imagine him playing the perfect Santa Claus thirty years hence. His wife also seemed to be permanently pregnant - they had produced three gorgeous, pink-faced little girls before Edward burst into my office one day to announce proudly that they were finally expecting a boy.
One of the first things I was required to do was go out on the road with a few of the sales representatives to see pharmaceutical sales in action. What a thankless task they perform. Essentially a pharmaceutical sales rep does the same job as any other salesperson, except his or her main clients are doctors and they are trying to get these doctors to prescribe their products rather than purchase them. Still, it's probably more illustrative to think of reps as the professional equivalents of those well-meaning Christians who knock on your door, only with much better clothes and grooming. They are virtually never welcome, although occasionally tolerated, and lots of people are outright rude to them. Some doctors have actually been known to toy with our reps by saying they are too busy to see them, only to leave them sitting idle in the waiting room whilst they themselves hide in their consulting rooms playing Sudoku or watching videos on YouTube. And the doctors are usually the nice ones; first the reps have to get past the fearsome ogres at the front door, masquerading as doctors' receptionists.
One way to get a foot in the establishment is by offering to do a presentation about your product over lunch, which means providing free food for all the medical practice staff. Even this is not without its pitfalls. Usually the staff is more interested in the type of food on offer rather than in the topic of the presentation and heaven help you if you make the wrong choice. 'The guy last week brought sushi, not greasy pizza,' they will complain. That might just be enough to drop your sales figures for the month. Anyway, Edward thought I needed to know all this so that I wouldn't think up any hare-brained, impractical promotional ideas and also to understand why our reps had such generous sales incentives. I certainly do now.
When it came to the marketing side, I had natural ability. With no false modesty, I feel I can say that I am a good strategic thinker and understand the psychology of persuasion better than most. I was also lucky to have a very generous and patient mentor who was ready to acknowledge my talents.
You know, I love the cut and thrust of my profession, but my idealist days in science labs have left an impression and ultimately I would like to follow a higher calling: working in marketing for a charitable foundation is my long-range plan. That doesn't mean, of course, that I'm not appreciative of my former employers, and at the time I was pleased to be promoting a medicine that could prevent heart attacks and strokes - I don't know if I could be as enthusiastic selling the benefits of 'new wings' on a sanitary pad or a cereal to keep you regular. Don't tell that to my sister Emma, however; in her eyes I've been a long-term operative of an evil faceless corporation, trying its best to poison the unsuspecting masses.
Oh, I almost forgot the best thing about my new job: my secretary Melanie. She'd already established a reputation throughout the company because of her legendary buxomness and possession of a personality as in-your-face as her cleavage usually is. Melanie has a crop of dark curls (the bane of her existence - how she envies my dead-straight locks), permanently mascaraed blue eyes and a turned up nose. Her favourite form of self expression is through her fingernails: always talon-long and painted in an ever changing kaleidoscope of colours, complete with glitter and rhinestones when she's in an adventurous mood. Until I started working with her I'd often wondered why the company put up with her, as she didn't quite fit their sophisticated image. The reason, I discovered, was that she is the most efficient and intelligent secretary in the whole organisation, as well as being fun on a stick. She has a keen eye for the ridiculous and can spot a phoney at twenty paces, so I feel very honoured to be liked by her.
Anyway, I had been working happily in this position for two years, and Lo-prez was gaining good market share, when I detected a new itch developing - the baby itch. Edward kept bringing all his kiddies into the office, now joined by a bonny, fat little fellow called Callum. Melanie had her own little rascals at preschool. Then it appeared that everyone I knew in the world started breeding: my brother and Amrita added a little girl, Eliza, to their brood and Mimi cleverly produced his and her twins. Tony's friends started having babies, too. The circus had moved on from weddings to christenings and at each social gathering there would be a brand new baby to coo and gush about.
Again I knew I'd have to be patient. I started dropping a few hints in Tony's direction but he carefully deflected them away. It wasn't that he didn't want children - we had discussed this before marriage - but he was worried we wouldn't be able to manage the mortgage on a single income. He was on a good but hardly spectacular wage at this time. The really big bucks only come with the captain's stripes and we knew that with Qantas's rigid seniority system promotion was still some years away.
Although, as it turned out, Tony came around to the idea sooner than I expected. Two things happened to change his mind. First, my company announced a new paid maternity leave package and the establishment of more flexible work conditions, both measures designed to encourage females to return to work after having their baby rather than just resign. Secondly, some of Tony's friend's babies started getting bigger. Tony was never interested in newborns - he claimed they were boring and ugly and all looked the same - but when some of these kiddies turned into toddlers with real personalities he started to sit up and take notice.
One Sunday afternoon when we returned from a picnic where Angus' two year old son had been beetling about in a mini Wallabies jersey he said, 'You know, I've been thinking you're probably right. If we sit around waiting for the right time to have children we'll never end up having them.'
I have a strong suspicion that the baby Wallaby was the clincher.
'What are you getting at?' I asked.
'That we should think about starting a family, of course.'
'I agree but what do you mean by think about?'
'I guess we could even start soonish. You could stop taking the pill at least. And I'd better cut my losses on the living room and start working on one of the other bedrooms. We wouldn't want the baby sleeping somewhere half-finished. There might be lead in that old paint, too.'
'Well at that rate you should start working right this minute. Pregnancy only takes nine months, after all.'
Hooray! Finally, I thought. Ah, but easier said than done.
I stopped taking those little pills, started my folic acid and toddled off to my GP for some advice about the best way to fall pregnant. And yes, I did know this meant having sex but when it comes to conception timing is everything. Unfortunately Tony was often away at the crucial time. We didn't think it appropriate to request that his roster be scheduled round my ovulatory cycle either.
Even when Tony was around things didn't seem to be happening as planned and that was more of a worry. He got plenty of action around those crucial few days, I can tell you. Initially I was philosophical but after a few months I started getting twitchy when my period was due, imagining I felt 'different' until - monotonously on schedule - the bleeding arrived like an unwelcome visitor and all my hopes had to be put on hold for another twenty-eight days. Why was it so easy for everyone else? Mimi had confided that she conceived her twins at the very first attempt. I started worrying that there was something wrong with me, not helped by - you guessed it - my motherin-law. Stupidly, Tony had confided in her our plans so as the months ticked away she started making comments.
'You know, Douglas' older sister Margaret could never conceive. It was terribly sad. No-one knows why. Some women are just not meant to be mothers I suppose.'
'I don't know that I have quite got to that stage,' I said, mustering all my dwindling reserves of patience in an attempt to remain civil. 'There is always IVF if worse comes to worst.'
What I really wanted to say was: 'Why assume it's me, honey? It could be your son who has the problem.'
There was something about Pamela that I'd always wondered about. She had Tony when she was only twenty-two but then Andrew was not born until eight years later. Was Tony the cause of a hushed-up 'shotgun marriage' or did she have a few of her own fertility problems? A caring person might have confided all this to her daughter-in-law, but this woman would have rather taken a full-time job in the Drive-Thru at McDonalds than reveal any vulnerabilities to me.
My GP was more reassuring. 'Look, Ellie, you are really quite young to be trying to have a baby in this day and age and you have years ahead of you,' she said. 'You just need to be a bit patient [that bloody word again]. However, I think it's reasonable to start some investigations if nothing has happened after twelve months. So, if you're still not pregnant by then, come back and I'll arrange a referral to a fertility specialist.'
Twelve months came and went, then thirteen. By this time my eyes had developed a maniacal gleam and I could think of little else. Every female at work except me seemed to be pregnant. Tony was also getting tense by this stage and we'd started getting snippy at one another. Our sex life had taken a big battering too: it had all become about conception, not enjoyment. The renovations on the 'baby's room' were well and truly finished but I was beginning to wonder if we would ever produce an occupant. I'd returned to my GP, dumping on her desk a bulging folder containing all the latest IVF research, and we now had an appointment booked with the fertility specialist of our choice. Instead of anticipating a new babe in arms, my husband was looking forward to all the fun of a sperm count.
Melanie's birthday came around and a few of us headed out to the pub for a girls' night out. Having already given up on the idea of conceiving naturally, I got absolutely wasted on champagne and Bacardi Breezers. The girls poured me into a taxi to get home. Tony was away and I don't remember how I got in the front door but I must have, as I woke up the next morning in my bed, fully clothed and very much the worse for wear. I called in sick, thankful I had an understanding boss. And of course, that was the month it happened - after thirteen months of common sense and relative sobriety, it was the month I got completely pickled.
Twenty-eight days, twenty-nine days, thirty days, thirty-one days ticked past. I really did feel different this time, faint and fluttery, but I waited till the next morning when I knew I could be absolutely sure, being much practised at the peeing in the bottle routine by this time. A pink line came up to indicate the test was positive and instead of the absolute elation I had expected, I felt a strange cocktail of emotions: numb, elated, relieved, sad and panicky all at the same time. Tony was away - again - so I placed that white stick in a box, wrapped it in coloured paper, tied it with a bow, and left it on his pillow for him to find when he got home that afternoon.
One sunny day in September
We waited until I'd reached the twelve weeks' mark before telling anyone the news; after all the struggles I'd had to get pregnant I didn't want to tempt fate.
My obstetrician was very reassuring after I confessed about my champagne/Bacardi Breezer bender at the time of conception.
'Oh every second mum-to-be who comes in here has the same story. We do recommend you avoid alcohol during pregnancy but problems usually only occur when there's repeated heavy drinking.'
Phew! I had of course stopped all alcohol and caffeine from the day the pregnancy was confirmed. Being well versed in my substance abuse problems it didn't take Melanie too long to figure out what was up but she swore to keep my secret.
I was thrilled that I could keep everything under wraps at work because I didn't put on much weight in those first few months. My brother David's wife, Amrita, is an Indian girl so beautiful she could have danced straight off a Bollywood set into medical school. She has huge brown eyes and straight black hair, fine-boned limbs and narrow, elegant hands and feet. During her two pregnancies she had remained as lean as ever except for a compact baby bump, but through some magical conjuring act had managed to produce amazingly large and robust babies after obscenely short labours. I decided that if I looked like Amrita did when she was pregnant I would happily go on to have fifty babies.
I had a bad feeling that I would not be so blessed. Pregnancy is not generally kind to the Parkes women. I could remember what Mum looked like when she was pregnant with Emma and I can tell you it wasn't pretty. Let's just say that if there had been a competition to see which was larger at the end - her belly or her butt - they would have had to call for the video referee. I was determined not to suffer the same fate and despite the early fatigue kept up my usual exercise routine with only minor adjustments, with my obstetrician's consent of course. This seemed to be paying off.
Tony attended one of my early obstetrician's appointments with me. At the end of the consultation the doctor asked if we had any further questions.
That's when my husband piped up, 'Err, yes I have one...is it okay to continue having sex whilst Ellie is pregnant?'
'All the husbands ask that one. Yes, it's absolutely fine, just as long as there is no bleeding. In the unlikely event you do notice some spotting call me straight away and we'll arrange a check up.'
Greg, the obstetrician, was an old medical school buddy of David's. I suspected we might have been getting favoured treatment as a consequence, but I wasn't complaining. So being given the green light we resumed love making, but tentatively, as Tony was convinced he would hurt the baby if he thrust too hard. To be honest I could have happily done without it, my libido seeming to disappear down the toilet once the pregnancy was confirmed, but I wanted to appear obliging to the father-to-be.
At eleven weeks Tony and I fronted up for an ultrasound to screen for Down syndrome. It was our first sighting of him or her and Tony shared a wide-eyed smile with me as the realisation he was going to be a daddy hit home. That was enough to set off my tears. All my earlier ambivalence went up in a puff of smoke when I saw that funny looking, big-headed, alien being on screen - so ugly, yet so adorable at the same time.
At the twelve weeks' mark we broke the news to our families and work. Mimi was ecstatic and Mum was delirious but probably no-one was quite so happy as Edward. Christina, a girl I had worked with in my former department, announced she was expecting at the same time so we began to compare notes and baby bumps. Even Pamela seemed genuinely pleased, although she quickly regained her composure and told me off for working and exercising too hard. 'You need to rest more or you might hurt the baby. It should be your first priority now.'
We decided we were not going to find out the sex of our baby - we wanted a surprise - but had already determined names: William for a boy, Isabel for a girl. Not only was I keeping fit, but I was feeling and looking brilliant. I had hardly any morning sickness and my skin and hair glowed. I loved feeling the tautness of my belly and Tony was delighting in that other consequence of pregnancy: bigger breasts.
Baby Cooper was due in early February. I planned to finish work at Christmas time and have a good few weeks' rest over the hottest summer months. I thought it fitting that the arrival of our first child would coincide almost exactly with our wedding anniversary. One lunch hour I even indulged myself by buying some size 000 singlets and tiny white socks, so heartbreakingly small that I thought I might just burst. Finally we were having a baby.
September rolled around. It was the year 2000 - the year of the Sydney Olympics - and the big carnival was just around the corner. We'd splurged on tickets for an evening in the main stadium and Tony's roster had been kind to us; he was going to be free to attend. The sun shone and the sky became bluer, hinting at a warm summer ahead. I started waking early to the squawk of parrots, as the rainbow lorikeets breakfasted on the newly-bloomed grevilleas on the nature strip at the front of our house. I always loved the fact these beautiful and exotic parrots chose to visit our determinedly urban environment. I just wished they'd kept more hospitable hours.
It was no coincidence that the Sydney Organising Committee had chosen September as the month to host the biggest sporting event in town. It has the best weather of the year, warm but without the energy sapping humidity of summer, and is a bumper time for weddings and babies - some of them probably unplanned - falling exactly nine months after the Christmas/New Year holiday period.
The eighteen-week ultrasound for our very planned baby was scheduled for early September, just before the Opening Ceremony. I was looking forward to seeing our little one on the screen again, looking, I hoped, a little more baby-like. I'd begun to feel little movements that I thought were kicks, but they were very faint so it was possibly just my imagination.
The ultrasound was scheduled for a Tuesday so Tony could be there. It was a glorious day, warm and cloudless. I had an early morning work meeting which I couldn't get out of so we arranged to meet outside the clinic at 11am. I'd drunk two large glasses of water, as advised, and my bladder was busting. In my excitement that morning I'd left my sunglasses at home, so I squinted in the sun's glare as it reflected off the concrete pavement. Stupid me, I thought, I should have got Tony to bring them along. I watched him walk up the road to meet me and when he kissed me on the cheek I felt a pride of possession that had never left me - my gorgeous husband, the father of my baby.
We caught the lift up and sat together until it was time to be called. I can't really remember what we talked about. I think our minds were elsewhere. Eventually the technician, a scrubbed-faced, wholesome looking girl in her twenties, called for us and escorted us into a private room. I was advised to lie on the bed and expose my belly.
'This might feel a bit cold,' she explained as she spread a clear gel over my abdomen, although I already knew this after our earlier ultrasound.
'I just have to locate the heartbeat,' she said, as she moved the probe around.
She started chatting. 'Is this your first baby?'
'Yes, our first - we're very excited,' Tony said.
Our baby appeared in screen, much bigger now, and I smiled at Tony.
But the technician wasn't smiling. She stopped chatting and her brow furrowed slightly as she moved the probe around. 'I'm just having a bit of trouble here,' she said quietly. 'Just hold on for a moment...I think I might have to go and get the doctor to have a look.'
This didn't seem right. I knew she was worried. Had she seen something bad on the screen, a problem with the heart or brain or something? Then she left us in limbo, Tony and me. I was trying not to cry.
'What's wrong?' asked Tony, looking at me.
An older female doctor came in and also moved the probe around, but not for a very long time. Then she said, 'I think it might be best to talk in my office.'
I knew then something was very wrong. Just tell us, I thought.
The gel was cleaned off and the doctor ushered us into her office. She sat us both down across the desk from her and offered to get us a drink. 'No thanks,' I said. My bladder was still full.
'There is no easy way to tell you this,' she said, 'but we can't detect a heartbeat for your baby.'
'What?...But I heard it only the other day at my obstetrician's appointment.'
'Yes, but I'm afraid something must have happened between now and then.'
'What do you mean?' asked Tony, his eyes darting between me and the doctor, seeking reassurance where there was none to be had.
'It sometimes happens - not often - but sometimes. Something goes wrong at this late stage.'
'Are you sure you're not wrong?' I asked.
'No...I'm sorry.'
You know how stupid I am? It took me several minutes - or at least it seemed that way - to register that a baby without a heartbeat is a baby that is not alive; it is in fact a dead baby. Sometime in the last few days my baby had died.
'No, this can't be happening,' I whimpered. A tear dripped off my nose and splashed onto the doctor's desk. 'It took us a long time to fall pregnant.'
'I know, I know,' she said, reaching over and gently stroking my hand. She handed me some tissues. Tony was completely silent; I don't think either of us ever contemplated this possibility.
The doctor was very kind. 'You have a decision to make,' she said. 'You can either go home and wait for nature to take its course.'
'What does that mean?' Tony asked.
'She will miscarry.'
'Or?'
'Or we can arrange for you to be admitted to hospital straight away, and they will give you some drugs to induce labour so you can deliver the baby. You may want a while to think about this.'
'No,' I said. 'I want to be admitted as soon as possible.' I didn't want to walk around with a dead baby inside me for any longer than necessary. Tony was only home for a couple more days and I wanted him there with me. I couldn't imagine going through this alone.
'Okay, I'll just go into the other room and phone your obstetrician. You'll be admitted under him.'
The next few hours were a blur. I must have gone home and got a few things and then returned to the hospital to be admitted. I asked Tony to call my mum and Edward, who was expecting me back at work. I was too upset to say the words - that was left to my poor husband.
Greg, our obstetrician, was there to meet us. 'I'm so sorry,' he said, 'I only wish I could change things so this never happened.'
I was not taken to the labour ward. That would have been unbearable, being with the other mothers as they delivered their healthy, living, breathing, crying babies. The drugs I'd been given to induce labour took a while to work. The anaesthetist gave me an epidural for pain relief. I'd read in all the baby books how labour pain was a 'good' pain because it produced a baby at the end, but there was nothing good about my pain. Tony was a darling, staying by my side the whole time, although I was frightened a little by his quietness.
It took several hours. After I'd delivered they asked us if we wanted to see it. I did but Tony refused and left the room. It was tiny and bony but perfectly formed. It...he...was a little boy - our William.
We gathered our belongings together and got ready to leave the hospital. As we were walking towards the door, Greg handed me a prescription.
'What's this for?' I asked, thinking at first it might be a sedative.
'It's something to stop your milk coming in,' he explained, wearing an expression I recognised as professional detachment.
'Oh, thank you,' I said. Poor little Baby William wouldn't be needing my milk.
\*\*\*
Technically, I had what is termed a late miscarriage. I'm throwing out a challenge to the medical fraternity to come up with a more appropriate term. If I had lost a baby before the twelve weeks' mark, yes, I would have been very upset I'm sure, especially after taking so long to conceive. But to get almost half way through the pregnancy, to begin to show, to see my baby alive and apparently healthy on an eleven-week scan, to hear his heartbeat at sixteen weeks and then to lose him after all that, it made it so...so...much harder. It wasn't just a miscarriage. We had lost a dearly beloved baby and a longed for future with our son.
Tony wanted explanations. We sent William off for tests and we had several investigations ourselves, but no cause could be found. Our obstetrician said that this often happened; it was 'just bad luck'. This infuriated Tony. He wanted to know why and it wasn't satisfactory to have no explanation.
I was numb and quiet on that first day, but after that quickly turned into a blubbering mess. My husband, on the other hand, remained calm and angry. Not angry with me fortunately - just angry that life had dealt us such a bitter blow. He wanted someone or something to blame and for a while all his focus turned on Greg the obstetrician, which, since he was one of David's friends, was deeply embarrassing for me. Greg seemed almost as upset by events as we were and I thought it unfair of Tony, but lashing out at the nearest target was clearly his way of coping.
After William's autopsy, the hospital organised a cremation. This was not required by law, technically he was too young to be classified as 'a person'. We scattered his ashes in the rose garden at Tony's parents' house. We were planning to eventually sell our Annandale digs and could not have left our little baby behind there.
Edward told me to take as much time off as I needed and in the end I was away from work for a full month. My body had to recover from pregnancy and my mind - well I don't think I'll ever completely recover, but I knew I needed to be able to function at work without collapsing in tears every five minutes. Tony, however, returned to flying straight away. 'I need to,' he explained. 'It's only when I'm in the air that I feel in control and can forget about things.' I understood this but still felt hurt about his abandonment that very first time he left for overseas.
I stayed at Mum and Dad's on that first occasion. Mum took leave from work, hugged me and stroked me and made me endless cups of tea. Dad hovered apologetically in the background, unable to think of what to say. Emma gave me manicures and pedicures. I was coddled and nurtured and watched bad daytime television (not the Olympics, I refused to see happy smiling people) and cried my eyes out for days.
Even David dropped by, making an impromptu stop-over on his way back from a medical conference.
'My poor lil' sis,' he said, taking me in a tight hold, 'I understand how hard it is for you not to have an explanation for why this has happened, but medicine is often unsatisfactory that way. We don't always have all the answers.' I wished Tony could have been there to hear this from his friend; it might have helped him.
I can't explain to you, unless you've been through something similar yourself, what a failure I felt. Conceiving a baby and giving birth has been the role of women throughout the ages, yet I'd flunked the course. What a loser. I was such a hopeless mother I hadn't even realised that my baby had died in my womb. It was clear to me I was not fit for the role. When I dared venture outside the front door I was confronted by the sight - everywhere it seemed - of pregnant woman contentedly stroking their bellies or mothers fussing over fretting babies in prams. They had managed it, but I hadn't. I hated those mothers for a time.
Then, naturally, I started reflecting back on Pamela's words. Maybe I should have stopped my exercise routine. In retrospect it seemed horribly superficial to have worried about how I looked during the pregnancy. What if I had exercised too hard and had killed my own baby? Or was it that I had been working too long hours? Or that night I got drunk around the time of conception, maybe I was being punished for that? I must have done something wrong. I was not brave enough to see my motherin-law for a time. I was in too fragile a state to cope with her. If she had made any remarks to Tony I didn't want to know. I was certain that blame, if it was to be apportioned, would not be directed towards her son. I was so grateful during that time that he never once voiced a word of recrimination towards me.
I got very low, so much so that Mum got anxious. I was too depressed to even shower or wash my hair and looked a fright. She dragged me off to the GP, who referred me to a wonderful psychologist called Claire. I also discovered a counselling service for women just like me, those who had lost babies through miscarriage or stillbirth. The fact that there was such a service was reassurance in itself, I knew that there must have been lots of other women in a similar situation otherwise it wouldn't have existed. Counselling ended up being my lifeline. I raged and sobbed and cursed my fate to these counsellors and said all the bad things I'd thought but had not been able to express and they reassured me that it was okay and that it was not my fault and I was not bad and that in all likelihood I would have a baby one day. I was referred to online chat groups where I met a lot of other women who'd been through a similar experience: we commiserated with one another and bucked each other up. I was no longer alone.
Thank God for those wonderful people. I urged Tony to get counselling himself but he refused: 'I don't need to sit around fucking navel gazing with some ageing hippy.'
'You don't have to see Claire. We could find someone else.'
'I'm fine. We just need to have another baby and things will be okay.'
'But they won't be. We can never replace our lost baby, even if we have ten others. You need to talk to someone.'
'No, I don't,' he said and I knew nothing I could say would change his mind.
One of the things that Claire taught me was that grief, whatever its cause, will in the short term leave you with a great gaping wound. I've heard others describe it as being as if someone had violently ripped their heart out of their chest and stomped on it. It wasn't quite like that for me. I felt I'd been admitted to hospital for another procedure that September day, the doctors neatly and efficiently opening my chest and surgically removing my heart and surrounding tissue, leaving a bare cavity where once life and hope had pulsed. So for me it happened quietly - almost by stealth - but the outcome was just the same.
By late October I felt I needed to return to work but it was still very hard. I left my office one day glowing and expectant and returned weeks later drained and defeated. Edward was kind and attentive but the wider work environment was another matter. Co-workers avoided me. They would talk about me in hushed and serious voices and if I was walking down a corridor I'd see them quickly duck into their offices and hide. Perhaps I would do the same if I saw a strange zombie woman without a heart coming towards me but still their attitude hurt. I began to believe they thought my grief was contagious.
My counsellors were able to reassure me that this was a common reaction: people do care, they explained, but because they don't know what to say they end up saying nothing.
Only Melanie knew exactly what to do. That very first morning she enclosed me in a tight embrace and let me cry my eyes out in her arms. After that I felt a bit better, although it took me a good few months before I was completely able to concentrate on my job and get back to my best. Edward quietly caught a lot of dropped balls for me back then.
The person in the office who made most strenuous efforts to avoid me during this time was Christina, whose first baby was due at the same time William had been expected, her growing belly a daily reminder of what I'd lost. So one day I just walked into her office and said, 'Please don't feel you need to avoid me Christina. I appreciate your sensitivity but this is not your fault. I am happy for you, truly.' We found it easier from then on. But in February, when an email was circulated announcing that she'd given birth to a bouncing four kilogram boy called Jake, I disappeared to the ladies' toilets and cried the bitterest tears of my life.
It took a long time for that hollow feeling to go away, but eventually it did. A scar has now closed over, although I know from experience that it will always remain tender. For a while there I thought I'd completely lost my sense of humour but it has returned intact and I am for the most part fine these days. Isabel has seen to that. All the same, the strangest things can set me off. Just the other month we attended a birthday party for one of the girls at Isabel's preschool. This little girl had an older brother who was almost exactly the age that William would have been. He was blond and bouncy and gorgeous and I found myself crying quietly all over again.
I still miss my little boy.
More than anything I'd love to re-experience the feeling I had that September morning - on a day which would subsequently turn out to be the worst of my life - when I watched my handsome husband walk up the road towards me. It's silly really, we'd already lost William by then. But I want to relive the feeling I had that life was good and was going to deliver me all that I wanted. I know I'll never completely recapture that, but I guess that's what growing up is all about.
So that Tuesday in September was the day I realised that fairytales never really do come true. What I didn't understand for quite some time was that our baby was not the only thing that we lost that day.
The joys of motherhood
It took me a while to be ready to try again for another baby - four months in fact.
Once again it took a long time to conceive. Not quite as long as my previous pregnancy: it was ten months rather than fourteen. But there was no early period of anticipation to liven proceedings this time. It was down to business straight away and therefore it seemed to take just as long. And somewhere along the line Tony and I stopped making love and started having 'sexual intercourse'. Sex became the dull reproductive variety my class had snickered over in Personal Development lessons at school: one of those 1950's style black and white illustrations of a man inserting his penis in a woman's vagina, the only objective creating a baby. It all seemed joyless and clinical; the fun and passion were gone.
Every month I didn't fall pregnant was a blow. The sight of blood dripping down my thighs or tell-tale cramps in my abdomen taunted me like a bullying schoolgirl - I'd failed again. It was only my cheerers and supporters on the online chat group, those fellow travellers on the infertility bandwagon, who kept me going during this time. They alone seemed to know that conceiving a baby and carrying it to term were not God given rights.
Eventually a test came up positive again. But my troubles were not over. The next nine and a half months were to be amongst the most miserable of my life - I was terrified up until delivery day that something would go wrong.
If it had been possible to hold my breath for the entire pregnancy, that's what I would have done: every tummy ache and pain, every visit to the toilet (would there be blood?), was fraught with anxiety. I relaxed a bit after I passed the eighteen-week ultrasound with a live and healthy foetus, but even then refused to make any plans, buy any clothes or equipment, or imagine any sort of future life with a child. I didn't want to get my hopes up, only to have them dashed on the rocks again.
The use of the word 'I' here is deliberate. Tony consciously detached himself from the whole process this time.
'I can't go through it again,' he said, when he advised me not to take into consideration his schedule when making the ultrasound appointments.
'This is because you didn't get counselling when you should have. You haven't dealt with it properly.'
'Whatever...I still don't want to.'
'It's a shame I don't have that option. What will people think?'
'They don't have to know. Say I'm working or something. I'm sure your mum will go with you. Or my mum, even.'
Pamela! Not likely! So, humiliated and disappointed, I took my mother instead. Tony got to see the images later. I insisted on continuing with the same obstetrician, Greg, but considering the frosty relations that existed between the two after my last pregnancy, I wasn't so disappointed that my husband refused to attend any antenatal appointments with me. By this time I was just hoping he'd consent to turn up for the birth.
Ultimately I had what doctors call an 'uncomplicated pregnancy', but they only make that assessment in crude medical terms.
It was on the occasion of Douglas' birthday that we decided to tell Pamela that I was pregnant again. We'd been summoned to the family home for lunch.
'I thought you must have been expecting as soon as I saw you,' she said when we were alone together preparing lunch. 'You're carrying quite a bit of extra weight. But forgive me if I don't get too excited yet. We'll have to see if you're capable of carrying this one to term first.'
I don't know why she didn't just grab the kitchen knife she was using to slice the tomatoes and plunge it into my chest. Probably it was the thought of bloodstains on her marble benchtops - it certainly would have been no more painful. That was the thing about Pamela: she always saved her worst for when the two of us were alone together. That way there were no witnesses.
Later at lunch, however, the temptation became too great.
'I'm hoping the fact you've gained weight means you aren't exercising too much. We'll never know for sure that wasn't the problem last time.'
Andrew and Douglas protested in perfect harmony:
'Mum!'
'Pamela!'
My husband, on the other hand, was the unenthusiastic backing singer who missed his cue.
'Yes, Mum,' he added, too belatedly for me to feel reassured.
'Now Pamela, no-one feels worse about what happened than Ellie,' said Douglas. 'Comments like that are very unhelpful.'
'Mmm,' said Tony. Again I would have preferred more conviction.
On the way home in the car, I brought this conversation up again. 'Thanks for all your support this afternoon when your mother tried to sheet home to me the blame for William.'
'I did support you...Anyway, you should know by now what Mum's like. She says these things just to get a reaction.'
'Some things are off limits.'
'I suppose so. The thing is I don't believe this bullshit the doctors spout about our baby dying for "no reason". There must have been a reason and I guess we can't exclude anything you did...or I did for that matter.'
A cold fear settled in my stomach. Was Pamela's poison finally hitting its mark? Or was it possible that in those long silences after we'd lost William he'd been thinking these treacherous thoughts all along?
'The doctors aren't saying it happened for no reason. Obviously there was a reason. They're saying that there is no way of determining the reason and that it's nobody's fault. Why can't you get that? Anyway, I'm not exercising this time, so you'll just have to put up with me getting fat.'
'I didn't necessarily say it was the exercise but you could try eating a bit less.'
'I can't help it. I'm trying to eat healthily but I'm hungry all the time.'
'I can see that. I think you ate more than me at lunchtime.'
'I'm carrying your child, Tony. I think you could be a bit kinder about all this.'
\*\*\*
Exercising was not the only thing off the agenda. During the last pregnancy, once we'd been given the green light by our obstetrician, we'd resumed love making. This time Tony declared that, as the doctors knew 'crap all about anything', he was not going to touch me.
At first I was in complete agreement. I was terrified something would happen to the baby and my libido disappeared just as it had when I'd been pregnant with William. However, as the pregnancy continued without complication I began to think this might be a mistake.
'It doesn't have to be intercourse. I could give you pleasure in other ways. You always said I was good at that.'
'No, I don't want to bother you. You're always so tired these days,' he'd say.
But by then I had begun to fear another reason.
Once the sex was out of the picture I was startled to realise how little we now touched in a non-sexual way. Was this an inevitable consequence of marriage and familiarity? I wasn't sure about that. There were times I found him looking at me with an expression I didn't understand and something he'd said to me years earlier kept coming to my mind: Judge me by my actions not my words.
Then it seemed, under his mother's expert tutelage, Tony learnt the art of making comments. He had barely glanced at a pregnant woman before this time, but now began to observe how 'so and so's' wife looked 'great' during pregnancy. (Great compared to whom was never explained.) In fact he felt it necessary to point out every woman he found attractive during this time. My name never made it on to the list.
I was never sure if this was deliberately designed to hurt me or just a consequence of his self-imposed sexual frustration. I never asked. My confidence eroded, I felt like a grub being poked at with a stick by a curious boy. All I could do was curl myself up in a ball and hope this barely comprehended threat went away.
Like Meggs the cat, I took my solace in food. In a gobsmacking act of perversity I chose to console myself the absolutely worst way I could have done under the circumstances. Salvation became my damnation: Caramello Bears and cookies and cream ice-cream my substitutes for the sex and affection which my husband was withholding. In the end I gained twenty kilograms, about seven more than I needed to. Mum's pregnant arse didn't seem so big in retrospect. I used to scuttle past shop windows so I wouldn't catch sight of myself in the reflection. Then in the later months my features became distorted with fluid and my fingers swelled so much that I had to remove my wedding ring.
Tick, tick, tick...I counted down every day of this sad and lonely pregnancy. At least the baby kept reassuring me that it was okay, with regular kicks and nudges.
During one of my last prenatal appointments, Greg told me the baby was in breech position and unlikely to turn at that late stage. He advised me that there would be a higher risk of complications if I tried to deliver the baby naturally and I was having none of that.
'Let's look at this as an opportunity,' he said, 'and deliver this little baby a couple of weeks early. It won't affect baby's health in any way and you'll finally be able to relax.'
We scheduled an elective caesarean and Tony arranged for a weeks' leave at this time.
At last, at 10.43am on August 12th 2002 Isabel Pamela was born. As I was wheeled into the operating theatre Tony and Greg eyed each other off suspiciously. I had an epidural and was conscious throughout the procedure. When they lifted her out and I heard her cry (she was breathing!) I took my first proper breath in months. They bundled her up and laid her beside me, and as those twin burdens of fear and failure lifted off my shoulders I felt whole for the first time since that sad day in September almost two years earlier.
I lay staring at this magical creation all that first day and felt her healing gaze. As the months wore on Isabel's eyes assumed the same grey-blue tone of her father's and grandmother's, but at the time of her birth they were a peculiar inky-blue-brown - almost a non-colour. Something about that colour made this extremely new human instead seem very old indeed: an old soul reborn perhaps? At the time I imagined those wise, old, unblinking eyes were telling me:
Don't worry mummy. I'm here now and you'll never be lonely again.
But it's equally possible they were saying:
Your troubles are not over yet.
\*\*\*
Having Isabel was probably the only thing I've ever done - ever - that Pamela has approved of. After producing two sons herself she was delighted with her new granddaughter. She arrived at the hospital with a veritable trousseau of exquisitely expensive French dresses and knits, all of which required hand-washing or ironing, but most commonly both. I eventually learnt to dress Isabel in these for visits to the in-laws, leaving her in machine washable all-in-ones the rest of the time.
It also gave Pamela a new repertoire of things to criticise me about and she found this very energising. I paid close attention to the midwives' instructions and thought I had mastered the basics pretty well, but no, no, the twenty-five-years-out-of-date experience of my motherin-law apparently trumped any new fangled ideas these professionals could offer me. Within the first few days I found that I bathed the baby incorrectly, burped the baby incorrectly, changed nappies incorrectly, fed the baby too often and let her sleep too much. If I wrapped Isabel in a sheet it was certain she would 'get a chill and catch a cold', but if I added a single blanket there was no doubt she would 'overheat'. I gave lip service to all this but reverted back to my own ways when at home.
No, Pamela wasn't the problem.
I think it was evening visiting hours the night before I was discharged home, that I realised. I had finally managed to get a fretting Isabel to sleep when I heard my husband chatting and laughing as he made his way, slowly, up the corridor towards us. He entered the room smiling.
'Nice to see you finally,' I said, handing him Isabel. 'I want you to look after your daughter while I have a shower.'
'What do I do?' he asked, the smile now gone.
'Just sit and hold her. It's not that hard. Try and take as much interest in her as you have in that young midwife.'
He rolled his eyes. 'What are you being such a bitch about?'
'I have had a bad afternoon with her. She has been crying and unable to sleep, my scar is hurting, my breasts are leaking milk and I've barely seen you.'
'I told you I was going to play golf with Dad. I don't get a chance to catch up with him much these days.'
'Funny, I thought you took the time off work to be with us. And then to cap it off I hear you with that bloody nurse again. I didn't know flirting with the husbands was in her job description.'
With that I burst into tears.
'What's wrong?' he asked.
In addition to my earlier listed grievances, I was carrying ten excess kilos, my belly looked like a half-deflated balloon that had been kicked around a five year old's birthday party, my hair was greasy, I was wearing a nightie my recently departed nana would probably have rejected as too dowdy and my bulging maternity bra housed something that resembled two misshapen mounds of blue cheese. My husband, handsome as ever, had not made any sexual advances to me in nine months and was now openly flirting with a slim-hipped recent graduate nurse who was batting her eyelids at him at every available opportunity. And he wondered why I was upset?
It was pointless trying to tell him this, so I just said, 'Probably the baby blues. They're meant to happen a few days after birth. Something to do with my hormone levels changing.'
'Oh,' he said, relief evident on his face. My husband was the type who liked to put all unfathomable female reactions down to hormones.
I took myself off to the bathroom, taking my time in the shower, washing my hair and letting the tears flow down the drain with the shower spray.
When I re-entered the room I found him sitting in an upright chair, an incongruous island of testosterone amongst the bouquets of flowers and pink teddy bears and 'It's a girl!' balloons. He was holding Isabel, still asleep, like I imagine someone would hold an unexploded mine.
'You can relax a bit,' I said.
'I didn't want to wake her up. I hope you've got over your hysterics now.'
'I'm not hysterical, just tired and hormonal and you're not helping...You know, even if we'd had a boy there is no guarantee he'd have turned out to be the son that you'd have wanted. He might have turned out to be a sissy or a computer nerd who was no good at sport.'
'What is that supposed to mean? Do you think I'm unhappy about having a girl or something?'
'Well I'm struggling to find a reason why you seem so uninterested. I understand why you distanced yourself from the pregnancy but now we do have a healthy baby nothing much seems to have changed.'
'I don't believe you. I just don't know anything about babies and don't know what to do. Do you want me to go or something?'
'No - I want you to bond with your daughter.'
'Oh boy,' he said, 'well there is something I wanted to talk to you about, but I'm not sure it would be a good idea to bring it up now.'
'No, tell me,' I said as I settled myself on the bed to comb my hair. 'I have nowhere else to go.'
'Are you sure? Okay...' He took a deep breath, which gave me forewarning this 'something' might be unpalatable. 'I've heard that Cathay Pacific is recruiting first officers at the moment and I'm thinking of applying. I've been speaking to lots of people about this and the news is all positive. It's a profitable airline with good job security and by all reports a great company to work for.'
'What?...Don't all those things apply to Qantas? Why do you think you'd be any happier there than where you are now? And they're based in Hong Kong, aren't they? I don't want to move anywhere now that I've just had a baby...Of all the times...'
'Calm down, I'd still be based in Sydney. We wouldn't have to move - well not for a few years anyway - though to be in line for a passenger command it looks like you have to relocate to Hong Kong at some stage. If I get the job I'll be flying freighters to start with.'
'Freighters? That doesn't sound very glamorous.'
'Only for a few years - I'll be glad to get a break from whinging passengers.'
'Is the money better or something?'
'No, not initially...as a matter of fact a bit worse. But once you're based in Hong Kong it's a different matter altogether.'
'Less money! How are we meant to manage that right now? My maternity leave pay is not going to cover everything, you know.'
'We can just sell a few of my shares.'
'I thought those shares were meant to be our retirement income.'
'The new job is an investment. I don't want to sit around at Qantas waiting for who knows how long for all those dinosaurs in the left hand seat to retire. I'm better than most of them anyway and the word is that Cathay is expanding so rapidly that my command will come through much faster - in less than half the time than at Qantas.'
'Oh so that's what all this is about - your self-imposed deadline of being a captain by forty. It's a self-imposed deadline, Anthony - no-one else knows or cares. Anyway Cathay may say all these things, but is there any guarantee it will come off? And what about all the years you've already clocked up at Qantas? You'll be burning your bridges...'
'I'm not so optimistic about my future at Qantas these days. It seems I have ruffled a few feathers over the years.'
'What do you mean?'
'I didn't want to mention it, but I got hauled in by the senior guys the other day for a little chat. There have been some complaints about me. Apparently I have an attitude problem or something or other. "A problem with authority" I think were their exact words.'
'Oh great...But even so it's a one-off. Things like that can be overcome if you're prepared to change.'
'Actually it's not the first time.'
'What? Why didn't you tell me any of this before?'
'I didn't think you'd be interested.'
'Of course I'd be interested. You know, marriage is meant to be a partnership. How am I meant to help you when you won't tell me what's going on in your life?'
'You've never been that supportive of my career anyway.'
'That's completely unfair.'
'Is it?'
'Though it's hardly surprising you've got people offside at Qantas when you go around saying you are a better pilot than most of the captains you fly with.'
'See - you're taking their side now.'
'And I have no say in this?'
'We've talked about it before. It's not like we'd have to move for years either. I hoped you'd be more reasonable.'
'I'm not rejecting the idea outright. It's the timing I have a problem with. If you get the job, which you will I bet, you will have to go off to Hong Kong for training for several weeks, won't you?'
'Yeah. A few months actually.'
'A few months - just when we have a new baby!'
'I'm hardly around that much anyway.'
'And the fact you seem to have made the decision without me. Can't we stay put for another six months and then look at it?'
'They're recruiting now.'
'So you're just going to do it?' (I subsequently found out he had already done it.)
'It can't hurt to go for the interview.'
'Oh well, I'll shut up then, because my needs aren't important obviously.'
He stared at me quietly for several seconds before rising carefully from the chair, walking over to me and handing me our sleeping child.
'I'm going now,' he said. 'I'll be back to pick you up tomorrow.'
And then he walked out without a backward glance.
\*\*\*
Although he denied this, Tony had been hoping for a son. He had grown up in an all-boy household and the only version of parenthood he understood was the testosterone-charged, rough-and-tumble football game variety, the cricket games in the backyard-type. I'd seen enough of his interactions with our nephew Thomas to guess he'd been imagining instructing his son in the finer arts of the ruck and maul and the forward defensive stroke.
But this was small fry compared to the bigger problem. I believe that if we had had a son, in my husband's ordered way of thinking, we would have 'replaced' William. The problem would have been 'fixed' and we could have filed away the sad story of our lost child in a tattered old manila folder stored at the back of the filing cabinet and labelled: Inconvenient facts that don't fit with Tony Cooper's world view. It would never have been like that for me, a second son would have always been just that, but for Tony, who never saw our little lifeless baby, who knows?
He would say I'm talking shit, of course.
None of this was helped by the fact that Isabel turned out to be a difficult baby: difficult to settle, difficult to breast feed, difficult in general. She would sleep fitfully for at most three hours at a stretch and every evening, starting at about 5pm, would cry for several hours straight, a high pitched whine that seemed to penetrate to my very bone marrow. The older generation declared her 'colicky' and our medicine cabinet overflowed with every colic remedy known to man, but nothing seemed to relieve her distress. Then she added vomiting to her repertoire: I had to change her clothes at least half a dozen times a day and became accustomed to wearing a new perfume, that distinctive fragrance known to new mothers as Curdled Milk. My GP referred us to a paediatrician in case it was reflux, but a prescription he wrote didn't seem to have much effect. I was even admitted to the Tresillian residential facility for a few days and whilst I did at least get to catch up on my sleep all the advice the nurses offered, which seemed simple enough to implement when I was there, somehow became much harder to apply at home. The quaintly naïve thoughts I'd had in hospital about settling her into a routine, so she would sleep peacefully while I went out for coffee, to the hairdressers and the gym were all turned on their head. Mum helped out when she could but the only excursions I took in those early months were to the doctors, the chemist and the grocery store. In the brief hours when Isabel was asleep I would simply try to catch up on my own. In this nightmarish netherworld night and day merged into one. It was purely survival mode.
Throughout all this, Tony kept flying and preparing meticulously for his interview at Cathay. Interviewing for a position with an airline is not just a case of dusting off the CV and rocking up for a chat. It's a very rigorous process. If I remember correctly he had two demanding interviews (one in Sydney, and then when he passed that, another in Hong Kong), a technical assessment, psychological profiling, a full medical and a flight simulator assessment. Only the very best candidates make it through. No doubt this is reassuring for all the Frequent Flyers out there, but all it meant to me was more time away from the neglected wife. I was actually meant to accompany him to Hong Kong so they could check me over as well, but in view of the fact I'd recently delivered a baby I got an exemption from that part. I had a few mutinous thoughts about going along anyway and sabotaging the whole process, but I still wanted to stay married at that stage.
For a while I attempted to keep up appearances. The first few occasions that Tony went away I would clean and wash like a madwoman before his return, but I think after the third or fourth time I realised I might kill myself and perhaps my child in a psychotic sleep-deprived rage if I continued along this path, so I stopped.
I can still remember the look on his face when he walked in that evening.
'Jesus Christ...what's happened here? The house looks like a pigsty.'
'Sorry, but if it's a choice between sleeping and cleaning the house I've decided I'm going to choose sleep.'
'You know I've been working all day. You're not the only one who's tired. Is there anything to eat in the house?'
'No...I haven't had a chance to get to the shops either.'
'So what am I meant to do?'
'Get takeaway or go to your mother's place, I don't care.'
I think he took one look at my Medusa hair and sunken eyes and comprehending that he might be the next victim of a psychotic rage incident if he pursued this further simply said, 'I might just do that.' Although first he couldn't help clearing the benchtops and loading the washing machine - it's a compulsion with him.
For a time there Tony took over almost all the domestic duties of the house. Maybe I should have been more grateful, but the self-righteous manner in which he performed these tasks ('harrumph' as he hung out the washing, 'sniff' as he packed the dishwasher) suggested this was less an act of consideration than one of self-preservation; he simply could not live in such a state of chaos.
With Isabel he was next to useless. His fallback position was 'until they find a way for men to grow breasts I fail to see what use I can be', but he kept up his regular fitness routine without offering me any reprieve and, unlike other new fathers I'd heard about, never once - unprompted at least - offered to bathe her or rock her or take her for a walk in the pram. But the single most insensitive thing he did during this time was complain if Isabel's crying kept him awake at night, he who got uninterrupted sleep in hotels with room service whilst he was away.
He must have got some sleep because he managed to interview brilliantly for Cathay, as I knew he would, and was offered a job. The only thing I thought might go against him in the recruitment process was this perception of arrogance, but he had kept favour with enough senior guys (those he really did respect) to have good quality referees and if they weeded out all the pilots who could be accused of arrogance, well let's just say the flying ranks would be rather thin.
This meant he had to disappear to Hong Kong for almost three months for ground school and line training. Just like that. My family was aghast at his lack of sensitivity but I was almost glad to see him go.
And when he left he had still not tried to touch me.
\*\*\*
When Isabel was about five months old Mum called me one day to say she was coming over for a visit.
She made some tea and sat down across the kitchen table from me. Then, jiggling Isabel on her knee, she announced, 'I have some news for you. I've just handed in my resignation at work - I'm taking early retirement.'
'Oh...but I thought you were planning to stay on for a couple of years so you could redo the bathroom.'
'I can do without a new bathroom I've decided. What I can't do without is a happy daughter. I've been watching you slowly sink these past few months, especially with Tony away - I'm still angry with him about that, I don't care if it was a good opportunity. Anyway, I think it would be best if you went back to work and I will look after Isabel for you.'
'Mum, I can't ask you to do that.'
'You didn't ask, I volunteered.'
'But then I might not bond with her.'
'Oh rubbish. It's not like she'd be sitting in a child care centre for hours on end, Eleanor. Just think - her grandmother will be looking after her. I'm pretty experienced at this caper. So what do you think?'
I took a gulp of milky tea as tears of relief dripped down my face. I had kept this guilty secret to myself for months, too scared to acknowledge the truth. My little daughter had been so longed for that it had seemed disloyal to admit that I hated my life. And how could I separate the profound love I had for this baby from my feelings of utter incompetence as a mother? 'The authorities' had unwittingly given me responsibility for this tiny, deeply precious, life but I barely felt capable of looking after myself. Now finally the truth had been acknowledged: I was sinking. I didn't have to pretend anymore. Who else but my mother could have sensed this?
'No-one told me it would be like this Mum.'
'No, no-one ever does, sweetheart. It's a conspiracy to ensure the survival of the species. Having said that, Isabel is more demanding than most - but gorgeous aren't you darling?' she said, giving Issy a quick cuddle and smile to let her know there were no hard feelings. 'Anyway, would you?'
I nodded. Now the tears flowed in earnest and Isabel was required to squish over so I could get a cuddle as well. I thought of all the times over the years when I'd complained about my mum being too bossy or too loud or too opinionated or even on occasion downright embarrassing, but I was reminded that day that she is also the nicest, kindest mum in the whole world.
\*\*\*
Did I have postnatal depression? I never sought a diagnosis but I think probably not. It might have been difficult to separate a genuine case of depression from the stress brought on by my marriage problems and sleep deprivation caused by having such a difficult baby. Whatever the case, going back to work turned out to be the best thing for me.
The funny thing was as soon as I made that decision things started improving with Isabel. It may have been because I weaned her and she was more content as a bottle fed baby, or because I started her on solid foods and she was less hungry, or maybe if we want to get a bit New Age here, her tension was feeding off my tension and once I relaxed she also calmed down too.
Anyway, whilst part of me found this all rather exasperating, I was ultimately glad as it meant I was leaving a much more content and easy to manage baby who would be less of a burden for Mum. In fact I got the impression Mum genuinely enjoyed looking after her granddaughter. Also, I'd managed to negotiate to return to a four-day week - which essentially meant I did five days' work in four for less money - but I did get to spend Mondays with Isabel, a task I approached with much more enthusiasm knowing that I could retreat to the safer and charted waters of the office the next day. And as Isabel grew, and with her my feelings of competence as a mother, I came to love our Mondays together beyond measure. We maintained this happy arrangement until my resignation only a few weeks ago.
Once I went back to work - wearing my favourite suit with the skirt zip str-a-i-ning to contain my upsized version - it was almost as if I'd never been away. Except now I was a mum. I was part of the club I'd longed to join for so long.
Tony completed his training and returned from Hong Kong. He seemed in a better mood; maybe the change of airline did agree with him.
After a few weeks back at work I felt the clouds lifting and my sense of equilibrium returning.
Not long after this, one Sunday night as I lay reading in bed and Isabel slept peacefully in the next room, my husband reached over, removed the book from my hands and started kissing me. How my parched and neglected lips drank in those kisses. Then he lifted my pyjama top over my head and caressing those breasts he'd long adored, loomed over me, all muscles and golden hairs on golden skin, and made love to me for the first time in almost a year and a half. I ached to find how much I had missed the feeling of him inside me, a connection that arguments and crying babies and long absences could not completely extinguish.
These were the thoughts I was having when, still holding me, he said, 'I have something I need to tell you.'
'Hmmm,' I said lazily, still exulting in the afterglow.
'While I was in Hong Kong I had a relationship with another woman.'
Punch drunk
Quite a few years ago, when Tony and I had been together a year or thereabouts, a group of us went to the races. I think it was Sydney Cup Day at Randwick, part of the Autumn Racing Carnival, but don't quote me on that. It was unseasonably warm for April so people were drinking a lot and unfortunately it was not just water - way too much alcohol was consumed. Late in the day, as we were standing just in front of the stands, a fight broke out between two young guys down by the barrier, several metres away.
One of these guys was significantly smaller than the other and ended up taking a hammering. The very first punch he received was a doozy and knocked him to the ground. I thought he was out for the count but he staggered to his feet and, spurred on by too much booze and testosterone, laid into his opponent with all his strength. Still, the other guy kept landing the better punches - several of them - until he got a clear knockout shot. This time our little pugilist really was out for the count.
When I think back on this time of my life, I am always reminded of this fight. I was the little guy who took the beating of course. My opponent was not Tony - he was brought up a gentleman and gentlemen don't hit ladies - just life. Life kept handing me out a series of heavy blows until all the resistance was knocked out of me. Although, having exonerated my husband, he did have his hand firmly behind that last killer punch.
I abhor physical violence of any type and begged Tony to intervene that autumn day but he wisely said no. The security guys came running over just as the fight concluded. And here's the interesting thing. The little guy was lying there on the ground: completely defeated, completely vulnerable, completely pathetic. And what did the other guy do? Did he take pity and help him to his feet? No - he laid the boot in. He kicked him several times in the stomach, really hard. I still shudder to think of the damage he could have done.
And that, I think, is also a metaphor. I think we'd all like to believe that being presented with someone vulnerable and defeated, we would be roused to compassion. That we would help them up and dust them off and make them a cup of tea and tell them everything was going to be alright. And sometimes we would do that. But other times pathetic people can come across as a bit repellent. We don't want to be associated with them, in case whatever they have is catching. And sometimes we even have the urge to kick them again while they're down.
For a time that became the story of my marriage.
\*\*\*
Not that any of this was apparent at first - on the contrary I was a spitting viper to begin with.
There was a short delay as the offending words sunk in, my comprehension dulled by the shock of it.
I stiffened in his arms. Why was I even in his arms? Why did he think that would be a good idea? Did he think it would soften the blow or something? There may be no right way to confess to an affair but this was clearly the wrong way. Sometimes I was startled at how little he understood women.
If I'd had my wits about me I would have kneed him in his unprotected testicles. Instead I shoved him away violently, my palms hitting his chest with force: 'What do you mean by that?'
'Just as I said...I was involved briefly with another woman.'
'What does "involved" mean? You mean you were screwing her.'
'It was a bit more complicated than that.'
Nice one Tony. He had to let me know that it was more than just sex.
'Are you telling me this because you want to leave me? Was this the farewell fuck or something? Thought you'd graciously bestow it on me because I wouldn't be getting one anywhere else for a long time...'
'No, I've ended the other relationship. I'm still committed to our marriage.'
He sure had a funny way of showing it.
'Then why are you telling me this?'
This didn't compute with anything I understood. Weren't men usually cornered into confessions of infidelity? Didn't they usually admit to their crime only when the evidence was so damning it was futile to deny it?
'I thought it was best if I was honest with you.'
'Did you? Am I expected to be grateful for that? That you've deigned to tell me. If the relationship is over - as you claim - I would rather have not known. You could have spared me this. It's because you want to hurt me...You want to completely destroy me.'
'Why would I want to destroy you?' he asked in a maddeningly calm tone.
'Because you blame me for William's death.'
'Now you're talking like a mad woman.'
'You've made me that way.'
'And you're going to wake up Isabel if you keep yelling like that.'
Somewhere along the line I'd scrambled out of the bed; a breeze from an open window reminded me I was naked. It's hard to muster much dignity when you're so exposed, especially when you're overweight and exposed. The extra kilos that hadn't seemed so important a few minutes ago were now everything. It was clear I was so fat and repulsive that my husband had sought out other women for sex.
I wrenched my pyjamas back on. He threw on some shorts, not even allowing me the moral advantage of clothing.
'Have there been others?'
'No,' he said, 'only the one,' in a tone that suggested I should congratulate him for his restraint.
'Who was it?'
'Does that really matter?'
'Yes it does.'
'Just a flight attendant I met.'
'How original...and someone you could be working with again someday too. How are you supposed to manage that?'
'No - she works for another airline.'
'I bet everyone at your work knows about this. I bet they are all laughing at me.'
'No.'
'You're just saying that...I bet they are...How long did it go on?...How many times?'
'You don't need to know those things.'
'What was her name? I want to know.'
'No, I've told you enough already. What good will it do to know?'
'You're just trying to protect her. You care more about her than you do about me.'
'No! For fuck's sake calm down, Ellie.'
He made a move towards me.
'Keep away from me you bastard. You're an arrogant prick who cares about no-one but yourself. I hate your guts.'
I fled into the spare bedroom where I sat on the bed and cried for I don't know how long: great shuddering sobs that shook my whole body, giving way to short hiccuppy shrugs and, finally, still silent tears, until all my energy was spent. He didn't come to see if I was alright, not once. Presumably he thought he'd wait until my anger died down and we could have a rational discussion about the fact that while I was struggling with sleepless nights and a screaming baby he was off fucking another woman.
I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. On the way I walked past the open door of our bedroom. He was asleep. He'd casually destroyed the last shreds of my confidence and my trust in him and our marriage and then he'd just gone to sleep. He didn't even care enough to stay awake.
I wanted to rush over and scrape my nails down his bare back, leaving great gouges of red open flesh that would fester and scab. But when I tried to rouse myself to the fight all my energy was gone. Instead I just got down on the floor outside our bedroom door and sat there the rest of the night listening to him sleep, my arms wrapped around my knees and my head resting upon them. I stayed there for hours, like a small creature in a cocoon, until I was roused by Isabel's early morning cry. I don't know long she'd been crying before I heard her.
And when the creature emerged from its chrysalis it was no longer a spitting viper, nor sadly a sparkling butterfly. It was a defenceless grub again and utterly diminished.
\*\*\*
I functioned on autopilot that first Monday. Having a small baby helped, the necessary rituals of caring for her filling up most of the day. Every time my husband approached me I put my hands up in a defensive pose and backed away. I refused to speak to him except to tell him to move his belongings into the spare room.
For two weeks it was much the same. I ate virtually nothing and drank a bottle of wine by myself each evening. Nights were filled with images of him touching her, being intimate with her; they disturbed both sleep and wake. Still, I could never get a proper picture of her in my head. What sort of woman would my husband choose? What was his type? It always irritated me that I didn't know.
When he was home I kept my silent distance, my head bowed so I didn't have to meet his gaze. When he was away I took my wine with me to the bedroom, where I systematically combed through his belongings in a masochistic hunt for evidence of her - the faceless flight attendant. I found nothing: no trace of perfume or lipstick, no stray hairs of a colour that didn't match mine, no personal notes. Once when he was home but in the shower I feverishly scrolled through his mobile phone messages, but found nothing incriminating. He'd covered his bases well. It probably helps to be anally retentive when you're having an affair.
I went to work as planned, although I'm not sure exactly what I achieved during this time. Melanie kept asking if I was okay but I said nothing. Some things are just too raw to talk about.
Isabel's christening had been scheduled for the Sunday two weeks after Tony's knock-down punch. I would have cancelled if I'd had a choice but the caterers had been booked and paid for. Pamela had insisted on hosting the lunch afterwards - I think she was resentful about how much time Isabel was spending with my mum and wanted to flex her Nana-muscles - but on that point I wasn't complaining. I was hardly capable of mashing some boiled pumpkin for Issy's dinner let alone hosting a lunch for fifty. The question was: would anyone notice if I didn't turn up?
On the Saturday night prior Tony confronted me. 'How long is the silent treatment going to go on?'
'I have no desire to speak to you again ever.'
'The affair is over. I ended it. What else am I meant to do?'
'You could act sorry. Do you realise you never even said you were sorry?'
'Sorry.'
'You're actually meant to mean it.'
'I know you'll never be satisfied no matter what I say. That's the reason...'
'What are you saying? Are you going to try and blame me for this?'
'No...forget it...Anyway we have this christening tomorrow so we'll have to at least pretend we are speaking.'
'I'll try and pretend.'
'Have you said anything to anyone?'
'Not yet.'
'It would be best if it stayed that way, especially tomorrow.'
'To protect your precious reputation.'
'I just don't want a scene. My mother has gone to a lot of trouble with this lunch.'
'Yeah it's all about appearances with the Coopers isn't it?'
He sighed and walked away.
I made it through the christening, wearing a frozen smile and the glazed eyes of a Valium-addicted housewife. Luckily it was Isabel who was the centre of attention, looking suitably angelic and invoking lots of 'oohs' and 'aahs' and 'just gorgeous' in her white lace robes. I allowed Pamela to parade her granddaughter around most of the day, while I loitered in the kitchen, helping the caterers and myself to too much wine.
I noticed my mother was scrutinising me carefully during the service; every time I happened to glance in her direction she was looking at me. At lunch she sought me out and said, 'Your friend Melanie called me yesterday. She is so worried about you that she actually looked up our number in the phone book. She said you've been really down the last couple of weeks. I thought going back to work was all you needed but seeing you today I'm worried you might have serious depression. You need to see someone about it and soon. You might need to take something.'
I think Mum was anticipating some resistance but there was none.
'I will, I will...I know I need help. I think I will call my old counsellor up. I'll see what she says about medication.'
'Well if you don't call I will.'
When everyone had left, Tony and I stayed to help clean up while Isabel, exhausted by the day's activities, slept upstairs.
I was outside collecting glasses with Andrew, whom I always gravitate towards at these functions when given the chance. Sometimes I think he is the only member of the Cooper family who properly knows how to have fun. He's a leaner build than Tony but otherwise the two could almost pass for twins and there have been long periods in recent years when I can honestly say I preferred him to his older brother. Not that there has ever been any of that sort of chemistry between us - he is almost certainly gay. He is now sharing a place in San Antonio, Texas, with a lovely Hispanic boy called Juan and I'm sure they are more than just roommates, but for whatever reason he has not revealed his sexuality to the family and it's not my place to question why.
Like Mum he was observing me closely. 'I see you're not wearing your rings today.'
'Oh yeah...I took them off to clean them and forgot to put them back on - silly me,' I said, fabricating a limp smile.
'You don't have to pretend with me. I know.'
'How do you know? I thought he wanted it all hushed up.'
'Never mind - I just do. What are you planning to do? Does this taking off of rings signify anything?'
'I honestly don't know Andy. I'm still too numb.'
'I would have thought you'd be more angry than this.'
'I would have thought so too, but I mainly just feel hurt.'
'Well I'm fucking angry with him. What was he thinking, the idiot?'
'If it wasn't for Isabel I would probably just walk but it's not just us - we have a child to think of now. He says he wants to stay married and I suppose I've got to believe that. It's not like he had to confess...What?'
'What do you mean "What"?'
'You looked like you were going to say something.'
'No, no, go on...'
'I've forgotten what I was going to say now...Anyway another part of me just wants to cut his balls off.'
'If I hear about him doing it again I will personally cut his balls off for you. I don't care if he is my brother.'
He put his arms around me and I sunk gratefully in. He even smelt like Tony and for a few stolen seconds I was able to pretend he was my husband, the one from the past who still cared about me.
\*\*\*
Mum phoned me first thing the next morning and said, 'Give me Claire's number. I will make the appointment and I'm going to personally escort you there, too.'
Claire was wonderful in the beginning, so quiet and soothing and non-judgemental. She directed me to books and chat groups for victims of adultery and once again I found comfort amongst strangers. Many of their stories were remarkably similar to my own.
One reason why I was so floored by all of this was because, even allowing for his high risk profession, I'd never thought my husband would be the type to have an affair. I thought he was too much of a control freak for a start and he'd had an almost...well, not exactly prudish...but certainly conservative attitude to sex, to people who slept around a lot and all that. For Tony, sex was an important part of his life but not the most important, I think. I'm pretty certain that if he ever found himself in the unenviable position of having to choose between giving up sex and giving up flying he would choose to give up sex every single time. I'm not saying he would have liked that choice but I still think he would have made it.
Of course, when I read the experiences of other women guess what most of them said: 'I didn't think my husband would be the type to have an affair.' Shows what I know.
Claire asked me one day, 'What do you want, Ellie?'
'I want my old life back. The one before this happened.'
'You know that's not possible.'
'Then I want my old husband back.'
She looked at me patiently. 'We can only work to improve the present and hopefully the future. How are you two getting on?'
'We're not even sleeping in the same room.'
'What are you going to do about that?
'I don't know...but I know I'm not ready for any sort of intimacy with him. I can't get the other woman out of my mind.'
'The thing is,' she said, 'it's clear to me that even though you're hurting badly right now you do want to stay married. If you were planning to leave you would have done so by now.'
'Mmm.' I knew she was right. My prince's armour might have been looking a little shop-worn but I didn't want to give up on him just yet.
'But there is only so much we can do unless Tony agrees to go to marriage counselling with you. You've asked him?'
'Yes,' I lied.
I did so that night.
His response was predictable. 'No. I don't need counselling.'
'It would be we - couples' counselling.'
'Even worse - airing our dirty laundry in public.'
I refrained from saying that he was the only one with dirty laundry as far as I could determine.
'Anyway I know what would happen,' he went on, 'You two would gang up and blame me for everything. Anyone can tell that that Claire is a man hater from way back.'
'We could find someone else.'
'No. The problem is over. We just need to move on. No actually - you need to move on. You need to let me move back into our bedroom and start being a proper wife again.'
'You don't understand...I'm not ready for that.'
'Well you could start by cooking dinner occasionally.'
I reported this back to Claire.
'It's not a good sign. We can work on your own self-esteem issues but unless he's prepared to come to the party there's only so much we can do.'
'But he hates talking about these things.'
'You're making excuses for him, Ellie. He has damaged your trust and your marriage and unless he's prepared to acknowledge the wrong he's done I don't see how we can go forward.'
I didn't want to hear any of this.
Claire thought it would be a good idea for me to have a trial of antidepressants, so I went to my GP for a prescription. The tablets did succeed in numbing the pain and helped to put me on a more even keel, enough at least to allow me to function at work and as a mother. But whilst altering the levels of the 'happy hormones' in the brain is one thing, it did nothing to alleviate the central problem.
Tony needn't have worried. I never did get around to telling my family his shameful secret. I couldn't bear the thought of Mum and Dad knowing and judging him. And David - how bad would he have felt if he'd known what his friend had done to me? I wanted them all to still think well of my husband. But who was I protecting from their disapproving looks - Tony or myself?
For weeks Melanie had been lobbying me to go for drinks with her after work. I eventually relented just to shut her up and one Friday while Tony was away I arranged with my mum to pick up Issy a bit later than usual.
We went to a pub near work. Melanie appeared at the table with two glasses of wine, 'So what's going on between you and Tony?'
'What do you mean?'
'It's just that you used to talk about him all the time and now you never do - well not in a nice way, anyway.'
Melanie's husband, Bruce, is a train driver. She is definitely the brains of the operation, but he's a devoted husband and loving dad to their two little boys and she could certainly have done a lot worse. In the early days we used to think it was a coincidence that both our husbands were in transportation, but whilst she had continued to talk with affection about her husband, I must have unconsciously clammed up about mine.
'Was it that obvious?' I asked.
'Well to me, 'cause I know you pretty well.'
'He had an affair, Mel.'
'The bastard!'
That one glass of wine turned into several and I rang Mum to ask if my daughter and I could sleep over that night.
Why did I tell Melanie and no-one else? I'm not sure, but I can tell you it was a blessed relief. A blessed relief to have a confidante who was prepared to listen to my mealy-mouthed justifications and say the things I wanted to hear: 'I'm sure he still loves you. If you hang in there he will come around.' She provided hope; Claire provided grim reality.
Over the following months I reassumed the role of wife. I let Tony back into our bedroom and started cooking meals again and appeared in public as his devoted other half and the mother of his child. There was one area, however, where things proved more resistant: sex.
Claire kept telling me to be kind to myself, to 'love and nurture' myself and to only agree to it when I was ready. In her view Tony was the cause of my problems so his needs were secondary. On the few occasions he had made a move I'd frozen up and been unable to proceed. My chest had felt all tight and constricted and my heart had raced and I'd ended up saying, 'No sorry, I just can't' or something along that line. I was reminded of my high school days, when any girl who didn't put out was labelled 'frigid' by the local boys. I was gaining a reputation for being frigid and was fearful my husband was beginning to lose patience with me.
This had been going on several months when I confessed to Melanie over a late night drink. She advised sagely, 'Guys can go only so long without it, you know, and you're going to have to push through - pardon the pun - otherwise he's definitely going to go off and shag someone else.'
I don't know that Claire would have approved of my secretary's counselling methods but they did the trick. The next time Tony was home I let him know it would be worth trying again and loosened myself up with several glasses of wine. It was horrible. I couldn't get that bitch out of my mind. She was there in the bed with us, a faceless creature in her immaculate uniform, complete with dark stockings and shiny court shoes. I was terrified he was imagining doing it with her, comparing me (unfavourably - there was no other way as far as I could see it) with her.
But I managed to 'push through' and it became easier with each successive time - easier but not a whole lot more enjoyable. The other woman remained in the bed with us for a long while after that.
By this time Claire had started to give me the shits with her insistence that Tony was sabotaging my recovery so I started lying to her about the efforts he was making, thus rendering the whole exercise pointless. I canned our sessions, claiming I was now 'okay' (I'll leave you to guess Claire's opinion on that), and started having regular drinks with Melanie after work. I used the money I saved on Claire to pay for a cleaner, as Tony had by this time started criticising my housekeeping efforts again. The post-baby amnesty was well and truly over - apparently no allowances were to be made for the fact I had a small child and a demanding, almost full-time professional job. I thought we were living amongst the normal clutter of baby gear but in his eyes it was absolute squalor.
In the end he never showed genuine remorse for his actions. He never tried to beg for my forgiveness and say he was sorry for the hurt he caused. And I let him get away with it, in the fear that if I pushed him he would up and leave. I thought if I appeared to forgive him things might return to the way they were.
But they didn't. I had lost respect for myself in the process and I think as a consequence he lost respect for me and started to treat me almost as badly as his mother did. I had been naïve to think that his judgementalism, his worship of perfection, would not turn on me one day. I had lost my looks, and I had lost his son and if he thought like that he could continue to justify what he had done.
During this time we were invited to dinner by Mark, Tony's old flatmate. He'd given up his womanising ways, settled down and married Janelle, who turned out to be lean, tanned and elegant, with long brown hair. I wasn't surprised to find that Mark had married a beauty but thought it might have been a bonus if she'd also had a personality. She cooked up the most amazing Indian spread, preparing everything - including the mango chutney and samosas - from scratch (I mean, who has time to do that?), but she spent the entire time dashing in and out of the kitchen and hardly contributed anything to the conversation at all. Janelle and Mark had also recently become parents of a baby daughter so when she kept still long enough I engaged her in chitchat about baby stuff.
It was the best night I'd had in a long time. Mark and I got on like a house on fire, as we always had, and it was the banter between the two of us that made the evening so lively. I was consciously hoping that Tony, seeing how much Mark enjoyed my company, might begin to look at me with more appreciative eyes again.
'What a great night. We should invite them over for dinner at our place soon,' I said on the way home.
'No - it would be better to just go to a restaurant. There's no way we can compete.'
'What do you mean compete? The renovations mightn't be finished but our house is still nice.'
'But theirs is better and the meal that Janelle cooked up - amazing. You know I used to think his serial dating looked like far too much effort but maybe that's the only way to be sure you've found the right woman. I sometimes regret not doing that myself. It's not like I didn't have lots of offers.'
The little grub clammed up and returned to its hole. Unfortunately he hadn't finished yet.
'And their baby is younger than Isabel yet you'd never know she'd just given birth. It just goes to show that if women care enough about their husbands they will make the effort.'
The evening had started so promisingly too.
Guess what Janelle did before she gave up work to have the baby? She was a flight attendant.
Counting my blessings
A marriage that had begun with a glittering reception by the harbour had descended to this: my husband telling me he wished he'd never handed me that ring. Why didn't he leave me then? I can only assume he was staying for Isabel's sake. Why didn't I leave him? Good question. The only satisfactory explanation I can offer is that the act of leaving requires energy and courage and determination, and when your confidence has deserted you, you have none. It wasn't easy to stay, but it was easier than actually doing anything. Oh, and I was still in love with him, or at least I think I was.
Anyway, although I didn't know it at the time, the night of Mark and Janelle's dinner party did turn out to be the low point. My husband was never again cruel enough to say to my face he regretted marrying me, although what he was thinking to himself over those years is another matter altogether.
One of the gifts my parents bestowed upon me, one I never properly appreciated until recently, was a happy childhood. I think it has given me an essentially optimistic outlook on life, one that has helped me to bounce back from adversity that might have felled a less resilient soul. With time I found I adjusted to my new reality: living in an unhappy marriage where the parties were only staying together 'for the sake of the kid'. The statistics suggested we were hardly alone.
A few events helped to hasten the adjustment process.
First, a welcome side effect of my hectic, working lifestyle was that I finally started shifting the kilos that so offended my husband. My baby weight had way overstayed its welcome and when it finally decided to wave 'bye, bye' I couldn't shove it out the door fast enough.
Yes, yes, I know a woman's sense of worth shouldn't be linked to her attractiveness and maybe I will reach that conclusion myself someday when I've evolved further, but at present there remains a clear correlation between my weight and sense of wellbeing.
And by way of partial explanation, here is an interesting graph I've collated over the years:
This is not to imply I'm some crazed sex-addict (although there have been times). For a while I thought I would never recover my enjoyment after Tony's affair; it's hard to abandon yourself to the moment when you keep getting a crick in your neck looking over your shoulder for the other woman. It's just that it was the only sort of positive attention I was getting from my husband at this time, and like a flea-bitten stray which has been handed a stringy old ham bone at Christmas time, I was taking what I could get. And while there were no guarantees, if he was coming to me I thought it less likely he was shopping around elsewhere for his kicks.
Poor old barren Auntie Margaret then provided a helpful circuit breaker by following her husband to the grave and leaving her not insubstantial inheritance to her nieces and nephews, including Tony. It was enough money to complete the second bathroom and open up the back of the house with bi-fold doors to a landscaped barbeque and entertainment area. More valuable to me was that it provided a shared interest: something my husband and I could talk about. It's amazing how much time people can spend talking about the unimportant if they truly put their minds to it. We visited tile showrooms together and compared hundreds of paint swatches and agonised for days over the design of our custom-made vanity, all the while avoiding the big questions like whether we should even be together anymore.
One night around this time David was in town for a conference and Mum and Dad organised a family dinner at their place. He and Amrita had bought a big house with a pool in Adelaide and looked to be putting down roots. In fact, I had begun to detect a touch of parochialism creeping in. He went on a little bit too long at dinner about the superiority of South Australian reds (he'd brought a couple of bottles as evidence) and got decidedly huffy when Dad made one of his 'boring Adelaide' jibes. However, the wine was excellent - so excellent in fact that I had three largish glasses of it.
Big Brother had been watching me and took me aside later in the evening to lecture, 'I don't want to sound like a wowser, but you might want to cut back on your drinking a bit. It doesn't mix too well with the antidepressants you're on.'
'Oh God,' I groaned, 'can't Mum ever keep her mouth shut. I told her not to tell anyone.' There are no secrets in my family where my mum is concerned.
'Don't get angry with her. She's been very worried about you. And there's no shame in having postnatal depression, you know. Amrita sees women with it all the time.'
According to the official family records of the time I was suffering from postnatal depression, but you all know what I really had was post-finding-out-your-husband-has-been-banging-another-woman depression. That was a secret Mum wasn't in on and I decided then and there that she would never be told.
'Anyway,' I reassured him, 'you don't have to worry. I don't drink much at all these days. It's your fault for bringing the divine shiraz.'
The truth is I'd knocked back more than my usual share because I'd been sweating about Tony and David being in the same room together, in case the tension in my marriage became obvious, but Tony had turned on the charm all evening, reminiscing with his friend about their rugby days and such. 'Life of the party Tony' lasted right up until we got Isabel settled into the car and were preparing to drive off. Then he promptly clicked the 'off' switch. Silence.
It's hard to explain why but his silences are actually intimidating. In the car I found myself temporarily mute. The spell was only broken when we arrived home and I ambushed him in the bathroom as he was brushing his teeth.
'Would you prefer to be with her than me?'
'What are you talking about?' he asked, creasing his brow as he turned off his electric toothbrush.
'Don't act dumb - you heard me - your other woman of course.'
He stood there with his mouth shut. He was holding his toothbrush in a funny way, almost like it was a defensive weapon. It reminded me of something...a light sabre in fact. He was a brave Jedi knight, fighting off that most fearsome of enemies: the woman wanting to talk about 'issues'.
I went on, 'I mean I'm wondering if you are so keen to get the renovations done so we can sell the house and part company.'
'No...I'm just sick of living in the house half-finished.'
'It's just that I've adjusted to the fact you no longer love me, but I'm beginning to feel you don't even like me.'
'I knew when you got stuck into the wine this was going to happen. When are you going to get over this? I've told you before that I am not planning to leave. We can talk about this again when you're sober but I'm too tired to argue now.'
He must have been tired because he was already asleep when I climbed into bed a few minutes after him. Pretending to be someone you're not for a whole evening is clearly exhausting. I tossed and turned most of that night, regretting that last glass of wine and trying not to think about the statements I'd left hanging in the air and whether his failure to respond to them had been deliberate or accidental.
\*\*\*
We never did get around to having that conversation of course. I found myself as keen to avoid it as he was. With time I discovered that if I placed demands on him and wanted to talk about real issues he would become nasty and hypercritical but if I kept a low profile and restricted our conversations to domestic chitchat he was much easier to live with. The little grub in me much preferred the latter and thus I was complicit in us beginning to lead separate lives. Tony wasn't around a lot, even when he was, and I found that if I was careful not to interfere with his plans and said yes to sex occasionally he stopped noticing me much at all.
The thing that hurt most was that his lack of interest extended to Isabel. A lot of men can be uninterested in babies as an abstract concept but once theirs comes along they're in hook, line and sinker. That never happened with Tony. I think he loved her in a way but he never became the doting dad; you never saw him looking at her with eyes of the besotted, perplexed that others hadn't acknowledged that his was the smartest, best-looking baby in the world. Superficially he appeared involved but I felt he was just doing what was expected of him. When he was home he'd often take Isabel to his parent's place, where Pamela would take over the child minding but 'daddy and daughter' - just the two of them together - didn't happen in my recollection.
And even though she was such a little girl I think Isabel sensed this in a way. She was so eager for daddy's attention and approval that it seemed almost unhealthy. I used to lie awake worrying that she would grow up to be one of those miserable women who sits by her phone sweating on a call that never comes from Mr Hard-to-get.
Be careful what you wish for. I had married a man who'd offered me a life of travel and excitement, but had become as much a spectator of that life as if I'd stayed working amongst the lab rats. In an effort to make conversation I sometimes asked about his layovers in Asia and the Middle East, but he might as well have just faxed me the itinerary for all the personal insights he was prepared to offer. And if I dared ask too much, I would likely get this reply:
'I'm not screwing around if that's what you're getting at.'
So he jetted off each month to exotic foreign lands and little Isabel and I stayed home, waiting and hoping that Anthony Cooper, loving husband and doting dad, would one day turn up again.
No, I never completely gave up hoping.
Unfortunately hoping is not enough. You have to act. You have to take your life into your own hands and do something. I discovered that eventually.
And when eventually I acted, he did turn up. I certainly wouldn't be on this flight to Hong Kong if he hadn't.
The trouble is I was way too slow about it. If only I'd acted a year, or even six months earlier, my life might be much less complicated than it is right now.
\*\*\*
It was almost three more years before I reached that point. A lot was to happen in that time.
Isabel continued to blossom and Mum continued to adore looking after her. The only trouble was Pamela. When my daughter committed her first social gaffe by including 'Ganma' (Mum's nickname) but not 'Nana' (Pamela's) amongst her first words we almost had to call in United Nations peace negotiators. From then on my motherin-law demanded that Issy spend one day a week at her house too. This was highly inconvenient for me, as unlike the situation with Mum and Dad's place, driving to and from work via Pamela's home involved a lengthy detour in peak hour traffic. It didn't occur to anyone in the Cooper family to take this into consideration, which gives you a fair idea of my place in their pecking order.
Then Pamela decided that looking after Isabel during the day was too socially restricting: it interfered with her tennis, committee meetings and occasional lunches with the girls. Instead she suggested that Isabel could sleep over at her house once a week, on Wednesday nights. Officially this was so Tony and I could have some couple time, but considering he generally preferred not to be in the same room as me this didn't ever happen unless we went out with friends. If he was around he'd more likely be off playing squash with a mate and I would occasionally take the opportunity to meet a friend or my sister Emma at a noodle bar or the movies.
It's probably worth talking a bit more about Emma. While I'd been meeting and marrying Tony and losing and having babies, she'd been growing up.
Emma took the prerogative of the youngest child and was completely without ambition. I figure she thought Mum and Dad already had their high achiever and as a consequence it was okay for her to coast through life on her cuteness. Up until she was about twelve she showed some promise as a dancer and we assumed she was destined for a career on the stage, but not long after she started high school she announced dance was 'boring' and gave it all away to play netball and hang out with her friends at the mall. I don't know who was more devastated, Mum or Emma's dance instructor, but when she set her mind to something my little sister always got her way.
Schoolwork was another matter altogether - she never showed any interest in that. Teachers were consulted, tutors hired and fired, and Emma was in turn bribed, begged, cajoled and threatened to apply herself to school. Nothing ever worked. Mum and Dad insisted she stay on until the bitter end but the whole exercise was a waste of time for all parties concerned: my parents, Emma, her school, and the Australian taxpayers who funded the pointless exercise.
Of course, she's subsequently turned around and surprised us by becoming very successful at her chosen profession, a beauty therapist. At twenty-three she's opened her own salon in the local shopping strip and employed her first staff member. She roped all the family into helping with a letter box drop around the neighbourhood and it seems to have paid off, as things are going gangbusters. After all that she turned out to have a head for business, our Em. In twenty years she'll probably be richer than the rest of us put together and in the meantime Mum and I get all the free facials and manicures we need. I call that a win, win, win.
Unlike her sad-case older sister Emma never wanted for admirers as a teenager, on the contrary she was the most lusted after girl in her school year. She had a series of boyfriends throughout high school whom she treated with complete disdain. Each lasted about a year before she'd get bored and dump him. Mum and Dad would be left with the job of consoling the grief-stricken youth/potential stalker while she moved on to the next victim (there was never a shortage) to repeat the pattern all over again.
Then when she started in her first job word quickly spread around our suburb about the hot new beauty therapist. Slick young real estate agents in their aviator sunglasses, buffed mechanics in their greasy overalls, spotty-faced bank tellers in their badly-ironed shirts: they all beat a path to her door. I'm not sure what excuse they made up to visit a women's beauty salon - I can only assume that a lot of mothers were pleased with, if a little surprised by, their birthday presents that year.
Not one of these guys was successful in securing her interest, so much so that I began to wonder if, in fact, my little sister didn't bat for the other side.
That was until a day around this time. Tony and I had attended the Saturday night wedding of one of his particularly late-straggling-to-matrimony friends and Mum had babysat Issy overnight for us. Thus I was privileged to be actually present at my parent's house that Sunday morning when my sister made her announcement. Mum and I were having a cup of tea together in the kitchen when Emma emerged from her bedroom just before midday, mascara ringed around her eyes and looking a bit worse for wear.
'Attention everybody! I have an announcement. I am officially in love!' Obviously an inclination to theatrics hadn't completely deserted her.
'Really! No way! Who's the lucky guy - or girl?' I asked.
'Guy,' she said, screwing up her nose at me in an offended manner.
'It's a reasonable question seeing you've never seemed very interested in any of the men you meet.'
'Until now that is...I was just waiting for the right one to come along. Besides, I've seen enough pussies in my line of work to know that's not my cup of tea.'
Mum shook her head. 'Oh Emma Jane Parkes, must you always be so crude!' My mother likes to present herself as quite the matron these days, but of course we all know about her dirty book collection.
'So tell us about him,' I said.
'His name is Daniel. He's twenty-five and he's a truck driver.'
A truckie?
Mum echoed my thoughts, 'A truck driver?'
'Yep - he has a huge rig too.' I think Emma was being deliberately suggestive here but we pretended we didn't get the joke. 'Anyway,' she said, turning to Mum, 'you can meet him yourself later. He's taking me to see a new metal band at some pub out west.'
A metal band? The story got more and more intriguing.
Mum was fairly bursting when I dropped Issy off at her place the following Tuesday. Her description of my sister's new love: tall and thin, with long black hair down to his waist and a moustache, plus multiple 'horrible' tattoos and piercings. He was dressed head to foot in black leather and was wearing a t-shirt with 'some violent imagery' on it. He arrived at the house on his recreational vehicle - a Honda 750. This was Emma's dream man.
Can you imagine how delighted my parents were? Over the years I'd heard sporadic and muted grumblings about the condescending attitudes of the Cooper family, but on this occasion the Parkes found they weren't above a bit of snobbery themselves.
For a time they consoled themselves that this was just a rebellious phase Emma was going through and that she would eventually come to her senses, but it's been three years now and Emma and Daniel are still together and still, to all appearances, blissfully in love. Mum, I think, is becoming resigned - although she'd like to get them off the motorbike - and to be fair Daniel is totally devoted to Emma and not in a creepy, controlling way either. Emma has taken to wearing matching leather gear on the weekends but my parents were very relieved to hear that Daniel doesn't like obvious tats on women. He apparently thinks it looks 'skanky'.
Mum's description was spot on. Daniel certainly did have a lot of piercings. That got me to thinking.
One evening, when we were alone together, I slyly asked my sister, 'Daniel seems to have quite a few piercings. Does he have any anyplace interesting?'
'Wouldn't you like to know?'
'Yes, I would. That's why I'm asking.'
'I'm not telling you!'
'Which means yes,' I said triumphantly.
'I didn't say that. Anyway, haven't you got anything better to do than think about my sex life. I never ask about yours.'
I wasn't going to admit I didn't really have much of a one to speak of. And when I thought about it, did I really want to imagine my baby sister - who it seemed only yesterday was a seven year old performing in ballet recitals dressed in a pink tutu and pointe shoes - having sex with a hairy, tattooed man who most likely had a ring in his penis? No, I probably did not.
\*\*\*
Of all the events that occurred around this time, one, in particular, stands out as important for my recovery. Sadly it was no laughing matter at all.
Even after Isabel was born I remained a member of my miscarriage and stillbirth chat group. Although I'd never met these women some of them were, for a time, amongst the most significant people in my life. Thanks to the Internet, I'd got to know their personal situations and the ups and downs (mostly the latter) of their lives all too well.
One person I'd grown particularly close to was Suzanne, a forty year old software engineer from Portland, Oregon. She might have lived halfway across the world from me but fertility problems don't recognise geographical barriers and our experiences were remarkably similar: trouble conceiving in the first place and then a late miscarriage. We got on so well that we started emailing each other privately, outside the auspices of the group. When Issy arrived hale and hearty the first thing I did when I got home from hospital was log on to share my happy news - not to gloat, just to give hope, I thought, to others. Suzanne was the very first to congratulate me and was so heartfelt in her sentiments, although I knew underneath that there was probably sadness accompanying her good wishes.
Eventually Suzanne got pregnant again with IVF twins and every week I looked forward to progress updates on her pregnancy. She made it to twenty weeks before miscarrying and losing them both - a boy and a girl. When I first read those words on my computer screen it felt like all the air had been sucked from my lungs. Then, just when I thought things couldn't have gotten any worse for her, her husband walked out, unable to live with her and her blighted womb anymore. He found himself a new - young - girlfriend suspiciously quickly. Suzanne admitted there had been cracks in the marriage beforehand and the loss of the twins was the final straw.
What can you say to comfort someone in that situation? Nothing, is the answer. I tried to compose some sort of message that didn't sound clichéd and rehearsed but the result was so inadequate that I scrunched my eyes up in shame as I pressed the send button.
Issy was about sixteen-months old by this stage, toddling around on her chubby little legs with a comical stiff-legged gait. She'd transformed from a fretful baby to a bold and happy toddler and was the joy of my life. I hugged her extra tight that night, inhaling her freshly-minted baby smell as if it was anaesthetic ether, and cried for Suzanne and a life that lay in ruins because of that ruthless bastard known as infertility.
Earlier, when I'd sought out the writings of other women and men who'd found out their partner had been unfaithful, I had become used to reading along and nodding in agreement: 'yeah, yeah, that's me...yeah, yeah...that's how I feel too...yeah, yeah...couldn't have put it better myself...yeah, yeah'. That is until one day when I came across a woman who wrote, 'Adultery is not only a bad thing that can happen to you, it's the worst thing.'
I pulled up short. No. That woman needed a wake-up call. Finding myself the victim of adultery had been completely demoralising - stripping me of my confidence and destroying all my trust - but when I compared it to losing William it didn't even come close. Adultery involves the all too predictable scenario of another human being letting you down and in many ways our lives have always been preparing us for that.
Try holding your longed for and dead baby in your arms sweetie, I thought at the time, if you need to know something that's worse than adultery. For me it had been bad enough, Suzanne got the whole deck of cards.
Not long after this, when Tony was away, I organised to have a couple of Thursday evening drinks with Melanie after work. I sat on two small glasses of wine and left at 7.30pm to pick up Isabel but Melanie was in such sparkling form, lampooning all the old farts in senior management as only she can, that I got a stitch on my right side from laughing so much.
On the way back to the car park, Melanie said, 'Welcome back stranger. Did you notice you didn't mention that bloody husband of yours once tonight?'
After I'd settled Isabel in her cot I sat down at the kitchen table with a hot chocolate, got out a lined notepad and wrote myself a list, which I called: Counting my blessings.
• I have a beautiful, healthy, happy little girl, who has made my life complete. Even if I have no other children I will have her.
• I have a mother and father who love me and care about me.
• I have a sister and brother who love me and care about me.
• All my family still like one another!
• I have wonderful friends who look out for me and make me laugh.
• I am competent at my job and well-respected at work. My workplace is harmonious.
• I have enough skills that if my marriage ends I will be able to support myself and my daughter.
After much deliberation - I scratched it out twice, as though Claire was looking over my shoulder, before adding it back in again - I included one last item:
• My husband did not leave me for the other woman.
\*\*\*
Family, friends and work: these were the things that sustained me through this time. Although inevitably some cracks appeared.
I remained in the same job for years. I didn't seek a change to a more demanding position. We released a new range of products over this period, which I convinced myself kept my interest fresh but I knew that I would never be considered for a promotion unless I agreed to work full-time. Full-time positions also come with travel and other demands and I thought with Tony away so much I couldn't manage that. And I would have had to give up my Mondays with Isabel. You didn't need to be a psychic to know how the self-righteous 'stay-at-homers' at our mothers and toddlers' playgroup would have responded to this:
'Why did she ever bother to have a child if she was going to put it in child care all the time?'
Hmm, there was a wee bit of justification going on here. I mean, what did it really matter what the other mothers said if I wasn't there to hear it? And Issy was actually with her grandmother most of the time, not in child care, although when my daughter turned two I did install her in a child care centre near work on Thursdays and Fridays so that Mum could actually have some spare time to enjoy her retirement.
The truth is I hadn't been completely successful in quarantining my unhappy marriage from work and family. Ultimately a few self-esteem issues had leached over and I felt I lacked the ability to cut it, to be the person in charge.
This all came to a head after I'd been back at work about eighteen months or so, when Edward got promoted to marketing manager. He begged me to apply for his old position, claiming I'd be a shoe-in if I did, but I squibbed it. He understood but was disappointed, I feel.
Stupid, stupid me - because when all the interviews had taken place the successful applicant for the position, my immediate superior no less, was announced to be one Amanda Smith.
Like Melanie, Amanda Smith's reputation preceded her. Unlike Melanie, Amanda's reputation preceded her for all the wrong reasons.
A lucky scrape
Amanda Smith turned out to be just as bad as everyone had predicted, if not worse.
Amanda had come through the sales force ranks, like most people in marketing. I was a rare exception to the rule. The cream always rises to the top, as the expression goes, and so the best and most ambitious sales representatives do end up in marketing before too long. Sometimes, however, the interview panel gets it wrong and elevates someone who is a good salesperson, but lousy at marketing. Amanda fitted this bill completely. She was lazy and unimaginative, paid scant attention to detail, and seemed to have a very hazy knowledge of how the drugs actually worked, which is a bit of a disadvantage when you've chosen a career in pharmaceutical marketing.
But by the time she took over the reins I knew a lot about working in the corporate world. Stuff you are never taught at university. One particular lesson I'd learnt was that:
Incompetence is no barrier to a successful business career, if combined with:
• a complete lack of ethics
• a shameless ability to suck up your superiors, and
• a penis.
Now as far as I'm aware, Amanda lacked the last of these qualities but she certainly had the other two in spades. She also had another attribute - or rather attributes - that she used to excellent strategic effect. Yes folks, Amanda had big boobs.
Dear Amanda was a freak of nature. She was a natural blonde, and goodlooking in an over made up sort of way. But she was tiny. Tiny little head, tiny little waist and hips, little twig arms and legs, and teensy-weensy feet that were permanently encased in sky-high stilettos, no doubt to compensate for her lack of height. Everything was in miniature except her ego and those enormous boobs of hers.
I have to hand it to her, though. She really knew how to work those breasts to best advantage. Unlike Melanie she never wore really low cut tops, I think feeling that, if her most important assets were over exposed, they would lose their value. So, whenever she had an important meeting she would wear a white half-size-too-small t-shirt under her suit jacket or, if it was a really crucial gathering with her male superiors, a silk blouse with an extra button undone. The latter was definitely her trump card. All the middle-aged guys in suits spent so much time trying to catch a glimpse of that Aladdin's cave of mammary tissue that they failed to notice that not a word of wit or originality ever ushered forth from her mouth.
If you're wondering why a lack of ethics is so essential, it's because you have to be able to simultaneously:
i) take credit for other people's good work, and
ii) blame others for your mistakes.
This was another area where Amanda was the master; she was absolutely shameless. I often wondered how she could possibly sleep at night, but I guess if your brain is an ethics-free zone these things don't trouble you. I think she functioned purely on rat cunning; I certainly wouldn't have called it intelligence.
In the end, Amanda was my immediate supervisor for just over one year. I was glad that I was in a better state psychologically by then - and had Melanie as my ally - as Amanda surely would have done my head in otherwise. I call this time my Julius Caesar period, as I constantly had to watch my back. I became a meticulous record keeper: any emails, correspondence, promotional material I'd signed off on, and even records of phone conversations, just so I had a back up if things went wrong, as they inevitably did with an incompetent at the helm.
Fortunately Edward remained Amanda's superior, so on a few desperate occasions I went directly over her head to appeal to him. A classic technique of Amanda's (who was childless, although she had a long-term partner) was the exasperated sigh whenever I had to leave on time to pick up Isabel. As a matter of fact, I began to suspect she might have deliberately organised important meetings for early or late in the day just to spite me, although maybe that was just paranoia on my part. As the afternoon meetings invariably ran over time, I'd be checking my watch every few seconds, fidgeting in my seat, before getting desperate and saying, 'Look I really have to go'.
'Well, I suppose if you have to,' was the predictable reply.
I once overheard her saying to Edward, 'I don't see why we have to carry the can for all the mothers around here. Maybe they need to decide what they really want to do with their lives. It's not like I can leave work early to look after my cat.'
She doesn't even own a cat! If she did I suspect it would mistake her for a large rodent and try to eat her. The thing is she was quite stupid here, as Edward loves kids and this sort of complaint didn't go over well with him at all. I think by this time he had his own opinions about Amanda, but ultimately was powerless to do anything about her just as long as she kept pleasing senior management by wearing those silk blouses with an extra button undone.
\*\*\*
On the domestic front, it was all about appearances. We contracted some Croatian painters to complete the exteriors, and whilst they were very keen to take on what must have initially seemed a rather lucrative job, I'm sure by the end of the process they regretted ever submitting a quote. I suspect they had never had a more exacting client than Tony. Whenever he'd arrive home from work he'd do an inspection of the house and if anything wasn't to his satisfaction, which happened about ninety percent of the time, he'd bail up Dusan, the guy in charge, and demand it all be re-done at no extra charge. I could never see the flaws that Tony apparently could see and couldn't help wondering if the real problem my husband had with the house was the little woman standing next to him as he tore strips off those unfortunate tradesmen. There were many mutterings of discontent during those weeks and to avoid an outright rebellion I would try to make amends by offering the guys proper brewed coffee and chocolate biscuits for morning tea whenever I was around. It was a real shame as I thought them nice fellows and kind to Issy, too.
Yes, the irony was also not lost on me that as my dream castle neared completion - finally presenting a brightly painted façade to the world - the loving foundations upon which it was based were crumbling. Even my daily joustings with Amanda were preferable to the ominous silences that usually greeted me at home.
With that in mind I started working to improve my own façade, frequenting the company gym every lunchtime, and visiting Emma's salon for facials, pedicures and waxing whenever I could.
One day when she was giving me a bikini wax Emma said, 'Why don't you let me give you a Brazilian?'
'I'm not letting you look at my bits, thank you!'
'What, you'd rather a complete stranger did?'
'No, I don't think I need one in the first place. It's okay for you young ones but I'm a boring old mum. I've been with the same man for ten years.'
'Well it might spice up your sex life.'
So I took up the idea.
'Would you like me to get a Brazilian wax?' I asked Tony one evening over dinner.
'Why?' he asked suspiciously.
'I don't know. Emma said it might spice up our sex life.'
'So you've been discussing our sex life with your sister, have you?'
'No, she was just talking in generalities.'
'I didn't realise it was so bad anyway. As far as I can see there is nothing wrong with our sex life that a little more enthusiasm from you wouldn't fix.'
'I didn't actually mean it that way, although I think the fact you didn't touch me for eighteen months wasn't a good sign...but then you still felt the need to touch others.'
'So you had to bring that up again didn't you? That's what all this was about.'
'Look, just forget I mentioned anything.'
Gee, that went well.
\*\*\*
All about appearances - I'd accused Tony of being just that, but I was just as guilty of it as anyone in the Cooper family. After Melanie had wised me up I'd actually made a conscious effort to mention Tony in conversations with my family, so that they wouldn't pick up the bad marriage vibes. I'm not sure this was one hundred percent convincing. Mum did seem to ask, 'So how are you?' more than I would have thought normal and it hadn't escaped my family's notice that Tony wasn't exactly a hands-on dad.
'Why can't Tony ever pick Issy up from preschool for you?' she grumbled one day, when she witnessed me tearing from work to her place to home yet again. (When she'd turned three I'd started Issy at a preschool near Mum's home on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.) 'What exactly does he do all day when he's at home? Does he think it's still the 1950s or something? I thought modern fathers were meant to be more involved these days.'
'Apparently not all, Mum.'
'Well you should put your foot down,' she said, 'otherwise I'll say something to him one day. Doesn't he ever consider your wellbeing?'
I think we all know the answer to that.
Also, I hadn't considered everyone in my subterfuge.
Just before Christmas in 2005, Mimi made one of her lightning raids to Sydney to bag a bunch of presents for her brood of three and catch up with her friends. Tony was away at the time, so I invited her around for dinner at my place.
After touring my almost finished home and putting my pink-pyjamaed daughter to bed, we sat down to swordfish and salad and a glass of wine.
As we settled down for a coffee afterwards Mimi asked, 'So what's going on in your marriage?'
'What do you mean?'
'I couldn't help noticing that all the photos you send me and stuff you write about is of you and Isabel. I mean, I know Tony is away a lot but it's almost like he's not in your life at all.'
She'd got it in one.
That's how another of my friends got to hear about my husband's affair, although I told her quite calmly, the time for tears being past.
'You know, I was always worried that this would happen to me rather than you. I mean Matt and I hardly knew each other when we got married. You two were together such a long time. I thought you would have known each other so well.'
'Huh...I don't think anyone really knows Tony. Maybe not even himself.'
'It's probably just opportunity with lots of guys anyway. We heard only the other day that one of Matt's friends has left his absolutely gorgeous wife for his PA. Lucky for me my husband doesn't have any temptation - not unless he starts taking a fancy to some of our better looking cattle. Although, some of the heifers have very nice eyes so maybe I should be worried.'
'I wish I'd married a farmer then. I reckon I could turn a blind eye to the occasional bit of bestiality.'
'And how are things now? I'd guess still not great.'
'It's not so much me - it's him,' I said. 'He seems to me to be very unhappy. I'm just hanging in there for Issy's sake - hoping it will all come good.'
\*\*\*
Then, only a couple of days later on a Friday morning, I thought for a dreadful few hours that I was going to lose that last flimsy barricade against total misery and failure - my job.
I received a phone call from Edward as soon as I walked in the door, saying he needed to see me in his office immediately. When I got there I also found Amanda in attendance. Edward looked uncharacteristically stern. The signs were ominous.
'It has come to our attention that a letter, signed off by the Lo-prez team and clearly on company letterhead, has recently been circulated to several hundred doctors. This letter makes false and misleading claims about one of our competitors. We have been advised that because this is a serious offence, we are likely to receive the maximum fine that can be imposed by the industry body, $200,000, and will be required to write to all doctors involved, outlining the misleading nature of these claims. The managing director is, understandably, extremely unhappy about this.'
He handed each of us a copy of the offending letter.
'What I can't understand is how this happened. This letter surely hasn't been through the proper review process, otherwise it would never have seen the light of day. It reflects badly on our department, not to mention the whole company, and we urgently need an explanation of how it happened. I'm not yet sure what the ramifications will be.'
What happened next was entirely predictable. It was, as they say, like watching a car crash happening in slow motion.
Amanda quickly glanced in my direction before returning her attention to Edward and saying, in affected casualness, 'Yes this is a very serious mistake but I don't remember seeing this letter at all. I must have given it to Ellie to follow up on.'
'You did not. I have never seen this letter, Amanda,' I said calmly enough, but glaring at her.
'Well who else could it be if it wasn't me?' she snarled, bearing her canines at me.
'I don't know but it wasn't me,' I hissed back, my eyes like slits.
'Err...now, now ladies, calm down,' said Edward. Beads of sweat had appeared on his nose. I was wondering if he had just had a scary vision of his future, when all those little girls of his became teenagers. 'This is not about attributing blame.'
Oh yes it was, if Amanda was going to have any say in the matter.
'How about you both go off and investigate how this happened and report back to me later today on what you can find. Then we'll set to work to see if we can remedy the problem somehow.'
I hurried off to my office thinking, she is not going to do this to me. I am not going to take the blame. There'd been a series of cock-ups in the Lo-prez campaign in recent months, all of which could have been traced back to Amanda if anyone cared to investigate, but management had to this point been willing to accept her explanations. It wasn't out of the question they might feel the need to act this time and scapegoat someone. It also wasn't out of the question that the scapegoat could be me.
If I lost my job, I would have nothing.
For a long while I just sat at my desk, staring at that bloody letter. It was so embarrassingly bad, so amateurish, that it looked to have Amanda's stamp all over it. There were even spelling mistakes in it for God's sake. But what if the unthinkable had happened and I had missed it, one day after Issy had slept badly the previous night, or when I'd been depressed about my marriage? What if it really had been me? It seemed unbelievable but maybe not impossible; everyone makes mistakes.
I was still staring at the letter half an hour later when Melanie dropped me in a coffee. I sipped it slowly, then stopped...then checked my Outlook calendar.
I walked over to my office door, closed it quietly, danced a silly jig around the room, and returned to my desk to compose an email that I was certain would restore my battered reputation and save my treasured job.
You see, I'd just noticed the date on the letter. It was exactly ten days into the two week holiday I'd taken to the USA with Tony and Isabel earlier in the year. We'd gone to visit Andrew, who was by this time living and studying in Texas. We'd also stopped off in Hawaii on the way home. It couldn't have been me!
I outlined all the relevant details in a carefully phrased email. I addressed this to Edward, Amanda, the head of marketing and our local MD. Then I cc'ed it to our international managing director, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Pope, Bono and the Secretary General of the United Nations; in fact anyone I could think of on Planet Earth who could potentially be interested. I would have cc'ed it to the man on the moon too, but I didn't have his email address. I pressed send, breathed a sigh of relief and skipped out to lunch, looking forward to hearing all about Amanda's response upon my return.
\*\*\*
The following Tuesday, the last one before Christmas, I arrived at work to find another summons from Edward. What now? I thought.
This time, when I arrived in Edward's office I found Melanie and Karen, a business analyst who had been working on one of our other marketing teams; but no Amanda.
'Well girls, I have some news for you all,' announced Edward in an important tone. 'Due to the...difficulties of last week, senior management has decided on a restructure. Ellie and Melanie you will no longer be working with Amanda.'
Hip, hip hooray! Could it really be possible? Did they truly, actually sack her?
'Amanda has been promoted to Senior Product Manager and now will have more staff to support her, as upon reflection management has decided that Lo-prez is too important a product to be managed by such a small team.'
Of course, how naïve of me to think even for a moment that they would actually get rid of her. I was beginning to think she was putting out for the MD.
'However, we feel that your relationship - meaning Ellie and Melanie - with Amanda has deteriorated to the point where you can no longer work together and thus management has decided that you three will form the basis of a new team, promoting a brand new product which is a recent acquisition of ours. We are bringing in a new Senior Product Manager. Well actually he is already on staff but has been working in the UK for several years and has just requested a transfer back home. His name is Alex Andersen.'
So what was this new mystery product? A new cancer treatment, perhaps - that would be good, although unlikely. Maybe it was that cholesterol drug I'd heard mutterings about.
'It is a new drug for erectile dysfunction, which goes under the trade name Erecta.'
Erectile dysfunction?
'What is erectile dysfunction?' asked Melanie.
'It's good news for Bruce you don't know,' I said.
'It's the technical term for impotence, Melanie.' explained Edward.
'Oh,' said Melanie, pulling a strange puffer-fish expression, which I knew was her way of suppressing a laugh.
'If you don't mind me asking, Edward,' I piped up, 'aren't there already a few of these products on the market?'
'Well yes, but Erecta is distinguished by its more potent action, producing longer and a-hem, a-hem...harder erections.' As he completed this sentence and surveyed the three expectant female faces surrounding his desk he coloured to a shade I would describe as fire engine red.
Hmmm, longer and harder erections - I briefly contemplated adapting the Olympic motto as branding: 'Faster, Higher, Stronger, Longer and Harder', but quickly dismissed the idea. Apart from the fact the IOC would charge a fortune for the rights some old guy would likely take it all too literally and give himself a heart attack, resulting in a nasty lawsuit.
'Anyway,' went on Edward, 'head office have provided a dossier on this new product and I want you all to go away and learn everything about it from A to Z - that is, after you've transitioned your replacements so they can take over your old responsibilities. You will start properly in late January when Alex arrives. We have had to give him some time to organise the move back to Australia so he won't be here for another four weeks. Oh and Ellie, you'll of course have to complete our defence in response to the complaint against Lo-prez first.'
Yes, that's right. I'd been handed the task of defending the indefensible: the dodgy letter to doctors. Typical of my dealings with Amanda - she swept through town like Lady Godiva on horseback, whilst I was the designated street sweeper, cleaning up all the horse poo left in her wake.
That finished, I 'boned up' on erectile dysfunction over the Christmas/New Year break, awaiting the arrival of my new superior. He had a rather intriguing name. Alliterative names are very evocative, I think. I wondered what he looked like. Andersen was spelt with an 'e' not an 'o', as in Hans Christian. This suggested some Scandinavian (probably Danish) blood. I briefly contemplated the possibility of a tall, Nordic-looking fellow, not unlike Tony. More likely he would resemble a garden gnome, but it didn't really matter. He couldn't possibly be worse than Amanda and that's all I cared about.
January 30th was D-day. By this time Melanie and I had become firm friends with Karen, a gorgeous Chinese-Australian girl in her late twenties. She is impossibly elegant in her clothes and manner, but after scratching that immaculate surface Melanie and I discovered that she is also great fun, with a wicked sense of humour. Whilst we were all a bit dubious about our new product responsibility, it did provide us with endless fodder for ribald jokes and smutty innuendo and that's always a good thing. We mightily enjoyed that first month together and were not keen for another spoilsport boss to come along and wreck the party.
Edward called Melanie and Karen into my office first thing to meet Alex. Well he certainly didn't look Nordic. As a matter of fact he was dark-skinned, not black but really quite dark, suggesting some exotic parentage - South American? He was not especially tall, an inch or so under six feet, and lean and fit looking - a runner's build. I would have estimated him to be about my age but more likely a year or two younger. He had pleasant, even features and straight black hair that flopped over one eye when he leaned forward to shake our hands. Overall you would have described him as a nice looking young man, if not for those eyes of his - they were green like a cat's and a shade or two lighter than his skin tone. The whole effect was...well Melanie summed it up best.
After our introductions, Edward ushered Alex out of my office to take him down to Human Resources.
We were silent for a few seconds before she said, 'Okay well I suppose it would be polite to put my tongue back in now.'
And with that we fell about laughing like a bunch of silly school girls. I suspect he might have heard us, but I also suspect that Alex Andersen had heard it all before.
The mysterious stranger
Being of a naturally scientific bent, I like to look at the world in a scientific way and sometimes this involves devising formulae to explain natural phenomena. One formula that my brother David (who has his own wicked streak) and I devised - and be prepared as it's horribly politically incorrect - is as follows:
The average size of a woman's arse in centimetres = m x n
Where m = unknown coefficient and n = distance of woman's residence in kilometres from the central business district (CBD) of the nearest large city.
Now this is not a perfect formula. For a start if you happen to live a long way from the CBD and have a very petite backside you are probably feeling quite offended right now, but remember we are talking averages here. There will always be some people who don't fit the norm - in statistical terms these are called outliers. I was an outlier myself when I was pregnant with Issy, as I was actually living quite close to the CBD at the time and my arse was HUGE. Also it doesn't work well for immediately north and south of my home city, as these are Sydney beach suburbs and having to spend six months of the year in a bikini does provide residents with strong incentive to keep their backsides reasonably trim. However, if you go west of Sydney, the formula is almost foolproof. I'm sure you can see the internal logic. All the hip and trendy young things live close to the city where all the action is, whereas out in the 'burbs, and even worse in the country, there is little else to do but eat. The place I expect this formula works best in is New York City, as, as far as I'm aware, no-one has a bottom in Manhattan but move away from the city centre and well, different story.
David and I never got around to figuring out the exact numerical value of m so if there are any budding mathematicians out there looking for a PhD topic, be our guest.
Anyway, in case you flunked maths at school, I have a much simpler formula - devised by me and Melanie - that even you dunces will be able to understand:
Marketing position + good looking man = wanker
Now once again, this formula is not foolproof. In fact it's only correct about eighty-five percent of the time. However, statistically the odds were heavily stacked against Alex Andersen.
He surprised us both by proving to be an outlier.
Yes, it's a curiously inadequate word, but Alex turned out to be nice. Actually he was quite like Edward really, although infinitely hotter to look at. He was courteous and friendly and acknowledged another's good work publicly, and didn't try and claim other people's ideas as his own, and took responsibility for any mistakes that were made, sometimes even when they weren't his fault. He was the anti-Amanda. After guarding our flanks for so long it took us a while to get used to our new situation.
Since we're on a science theme, some interesting behaviour followed the appointment of Alex to lead our Erecta team, apart from a huge sigh of relief that we were finally rid of Amanda, that is. If an anthropologist had been observing us they might have recorded this as an intriguing example of human primate mating rituals. With the arrival of a handsome new buck male in our previously all-female colony, we began taking more care with our grooming. This didn't quite extend to us sitting around the tearoom combing through each other's hair for fleas; it was a bit more subtle than that. In my case I started getting up ten minutes earlier so I could actually blow dry my hair properly, rather than crossing my fingers and leaving it to air dry during the journey between home, preschool and work. This gave me time to put mascara on at home too, rather than squinting to apply it in the rear-view mirror while stopped at red lights. Melanie toned down the worst excesses of her clothing and began wearing more appropriate nail polish colours and Karen - well she always looked perfect, but I'm sure she did start using more lip gloss and blusher. It was not as if any of us had ambitions. Melanie and Karen were happily partnered, I less so, but there was something about having Alex around that made you want to try harder.
Nice - it's such a loaded term. I share a common female distaste for the sensitive new age guy type. As a matter of fact, if they are too sensitive I get a bit suspicious that beneath that SNAG-like exterior there may actually lay a raving misogynist - a wolf in sheep's clothing as it were - terribly prejudiced, I know, but there you go. No, I could never detect anything cultivated about Alex's manner and in spite of (or more likely because of) his pretty boy looks he was quite blokey in his way: a beer-drinking, sports-loving guy. So whilst all the girls wanted to sleep with him, all the men wanted to have a drink with him down at the pub. The entire sales and marketing team appeared affected by a collective crush.
Still, there was a certain distance about his friendliness, as though he was keeping everyone at arm's length. He would joke and chat with you well enough, but he was not a person to divulge much about his personal life and I often wondered if he was not secretly summing us all up and finding a few of us wanting. In my more fanciful moments I used to like to imagine he was perhaps an alien who'd been beamed down to spy on us silly humans (and if he was looking to observe the whole gamut of human frailties he couldn't have picked more fertile ground); certainly his eyes had an other-worldly quality. Although, to be fair I had come across his type before. In my assessment there are two types of people in the typical office setting: those who like to tell anyone and everyone about their private lives and those who like to keep it all to themselves. There was actually a woman in my former department who went off one weekend and got married to her long-term partner without telling a soul - imagine! I used to think I belonged squarely in the former category - a real blabbermouth - but recently had become uncharacteristically reticent to talk about the state of my marriage.
So, with the possible exception of Edward, with whom he seemed to have struck up a bit of a friendship, we knew little about the real Alex. The guys sometimes used to head out for a drink after work on Fridays. Melanie and I were also invited, but, being mums, didn't have the luxury of swinging by the pub after work; we had to make the mad dash to childcare before it closed.
All Melanie and I could surmise from our snooping was that there was a girl on the scene. There was a gorgeous photo of them, obviously taken on a skiing holiday, on his desk. She was a slender, fair-skinned brunette, beautiful as you'd expect, and they looked lovely together, like they really belonged. I was so envious of the love that was apparent in that photo. Apart from that, all we knew was that they lived in Balmain and presumed his girlfriend was called Sophie, as I'd once overheard Alex mention her name to Edward.
Melanie was dying to ask Alex for more details, but I warned her it was a no-go area and it would be inappropriate to start prying into the personal life of her boss. With the vibe he gave off I had a strong feeling that it wouldn't be viewed favourably at all.
After a couple of months, however, there was a question I felt confident enough to ask him.
'Alex, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?' I said one day.
'That depends what it is, I suppose.'
'It's only about your name. With a surname like Andersen I was expecting you to look quite different.'
'You mean, why am I so dark?'
'Well, yes, but more than that. You have quite unusual colouring.'
'Well my father - he's passed away now - was Danish, but my mum is Anglo-Indian. They met overseas but moved here before I was born.'
'Oh, Indian - I should have picked it. My brother is married to an Indian girl. I was thinking maybe Mexican or South American or something. Sorry to hear about your dad.'
'Oh, it was quite a while ago now. But while we're on the topic of names I see your real name is Eleanor. Why don't you ever use it?'
'I just never liked it.'
'Why? It's a lovely name. I knew a French girl called Eleanor once and I remember thinking what a beautiful name she had.'
'Well it sounds nice enough when you say it with a French accent or even your accent [Alex had spent so long away that, at least to the unpractised ear, he sounded more British than Australian], but with the Australian strine - Ell-en-oor - it sounds dreadful.'
'Well you'd better watch out. If you start misbehaving I might have to start calling you Ell-en-oor,' he said, giving me a sly smile.
I left his room feeling all hot and prickly; that is, until common sense took over. For goodness sake Ellie get a grip, I thought, can't a good looking guy have a normal conversation with you these days without you getting your cheap thrills?
That didn't stop me wondering who the French Eleanor was. Was she a former lover? If so, she was probably a very lucky girl. He was certainly a mysterious one, our Alex.
\*\*\*
And what of my new professional responsibility: Erecta? I'll let Emma have the last word on that.
I arrived at Mum's place one day after work to pick up Isabel and found that Emma was at home, sick. In fact she was lying on the leather lounge in her candy-striped pyjamas with her head resting on a pillow on Daniel's lap. She had a red nose and bleary eyes and was definitely not looking her best, but if her devoted had noticed he didn't seem to care. I observed she was drinking some noxious green potion I'd seen brewing in the kitchen. It resembled the contents of my green waste recycling bin mixed with old bath water.
Knowing her propensity for alternative medicine I asked, 'What is that you're drinking?'
'It's tea for cold and fevers - got echinacea and some other stuff. My naturopath gave it to me.'
'I bet it cost you a fortune too. Why don't you just head down to the chemist and get some Codral like the rest of us mortals.'
'Yuck, I'm not taking any drugs.'
'They'd probably be a lot more effective. You look terrible.'
'I don't, do I?' she said, turning to Daniel for reassurance.
'No you just look sick. You always look beautiful to me,' he said before kissing her hard and long on the mouth - a most inappropriate gesture for a Tuesday afternoon.
I stuck my finger down my throat to gag. 'Can't you two refrain from the public snogging for a few seconds?'
'Yes, I agree,' said Mum. 'Besides you'll give Daniel your cold.'
'Anyway,' went on Emma, 'the naturopath said this will work just as well. It's a natural fever remedy.'
'Yeah, they probably crushed up some Panadol tablets and added them to the lawn clippings.'
'Ha ha, very funny, but what else can I expect from a pill pusher like you.'
'You know, my company has developed some very important treatments for diabetes and heart disease. Ask your brother how well he could do his job without these pills.'
'Spoken by the girl who sells a drug to give old men stiffies.'
Touché.
It was hardly my dream product but I had undergone a bit of a re-education in the preceding months. When I'd first taken up the role, I'd had the sneaking suspicion that impotence was just nature's way of tapping old fellas on the shoulder and telling them it was time to pack away the tackle, pull up stumps, put the cue back in the rack - choose your sporting metaphor - and leave their dear old wives alone to get their sexual thrills in remaining years from the daytime soaps and bingo. I have since been reliably informed, however, through focus groups and other forms of research, that erectile dysfunction affects much younger men than I'd originally believed and can actually be a major source of marital distress. So it seems the old dears may be more up for it than I'd thought and I am doing a great public service selling a drug that gives old men (or not so old men) stiffies.
Mind you, not all the wives are pleased with us. Apparently these drugs - there are a few different brands on the market - have allowed womanising husbands to extend the use-by date on their philandering by several years. What I couldn't understand was where they found the partners for their out-of-wedlock flings. In the unlikely event I was to have an affair, I decided, I would damned make sure it was with a young stud who could produce erections on demand, not some ageing Lothario who required a chemical stimulant to get a hard on. So while I'd come around to the idea that these drugs could have an important place in loving and committed partnerships, the thought of them being used by these sleazebags left me feeling a bit ill.
Anyway, I informed Emma of the research (leaving out the bit about the philanderers), but all she said was, 'Eww, old people shouldn't even be allowed to have sex. What a disgusting thought.'
'And how do you define old?' enquired Mum with interest.
'I've never really thought about it. I guess anything over forty-odd.'
\*\*\*
Fortunately, I had been getting a bit more of it myself by this time, which is just as well as, according to Emma, I didn't have that many years left. Perhaps my regular gym visits were paying off after all. Unfortunately, the resumption of sexual intimacy hadn't translated into any renewed closeness outside of the bedroom. Even without the spectre of his past infidelity hanging over me, I had long since begun to prefer the times when Tony was away with work, because he never seemed more absent than when he was physically present. He was less critical of me these days, which could have been interpreted positively, but somehow I didn't see it that way; it was almost as if he no longer cared enough to complain.
I didn't know how much of it was me and how much was unhappiness with his professional situation. For the first time ever I began to hear him complain about going to work. The grind of the job: long periods away, frequent calls for overtime, the unrelenting jetlag and the routine of flying same routes - China, India, Middle East and Alaska - over and over, seemed to have taken its toll. I began to contemplate the unthinkable - he had lost his love of flying.
He wasn't getting any younger, either. Mark and Janelle came over for a barbeque one day and the gossip soon turned to work matters. When my husband heard that guys only a couple of years ahead of him in the Qantas cadets had now made junior captain I looked closely at him for signs of regret. His long held image as golden boy had taken a severe denting in recent years and now he had to contemplate the reality that even in our professional lives we don't always get what we want when we want it. At least these are the things I think were going through his head; I'd long since given up trying to engage him in discussions of this sort.
His solution, as always, was activity. By this stage he was on to restoring the very last room in the house, the formal dining room. We'd left this until last, reasoning that few people ever have formal dinner parties these days anyway. When he wasn't at work or in that bloody dining room, he was sailing, at the gym, occasionally taking Issy to visit his parents or playing squash or golf with one of his mates: all activities that excluded me. Sex was the one way he would connect with me and that's why I never knocked him back, no matter how tired and not-in-the-mood I was. It was more than just because I believed he'd be less likely to stray that way. It was my one conduit to closeness and I thought if I just hung in there, maybe...
The contrast between the two main men in my life at this stage couldn't have been starker. Whilst I hardly registered as a blip on Tony's radar, Alex always looked pleased to see me. He even remembered what type of coffee I liked to drink and would order a cup for me before meetings. I bet you that after seven years of marriage my husband would have struggled to answer that question. Alex also had a great sense of humour (translation: he laughed at my jokes) whereas I'd long since stopped my stand-up routine at home, knowing it would be greeted with indifferent silence.
Other people could grumble about having to front up to the office every day, but now that I was rid of Amanda I'd have to be on death's door to miss the intellectual challenge of my work, gossip with Melanie and Karen, and remind myself that perhaps I wasn't the biggest failure in the world. It was thanks to this environment I finally felt confident enough to wean myself off my antidepressants, and although I was half-prepared for a relapse, none came.
Yes, I couldn't really fault Alex as a boss; it really was like having Edward back. He was a great mentor and delegated lots to me. Amanda never delegated anything - no that's not strictly true, she would delegate all the crap menial jobs and was truly excellent at delegating her mistakes to me after they had occurred - but Alex deemed me intelligent enough to take on more responsibility. And so he should have; it was only my decision to work part-time that had prevented me from moving further up the ladder by this stage.
Still, he continued to intrigue. As the months wore on our little Erecta team became more comfortable together - friendlier and jokier - but I always felt Alex was keeping something in reserve.
It's often the case, however, we reveal more about ourselves when we are out of our comfort zone. That's exactly what happened with Alex when we stepped out of the office for a few days in late April, although whether I revealed more is probably a point for debate.
It was after an urologists' conference in Melbourne. The conference was the ideal venue to launch Erecta, and Alex, Karen and I attended along with the Melbourne-based Erecta sales representatives. As much as I relish being a mum I don't mind these occasional opportunities to escape to a fancy hotel and pretend I am single again. After the conference welcome drinks I dashed off for a quick but raucously boozy dinner with Tracey and later sat up in to the early hours drinking hot chocolate and gossiping with Karen.
The next day was hard work, giving me cause to regret the red wine and my late night. I tried my best to stay awake during the scientific presentations and helped out on the Erecta trade stand during the breaks, trying to walk the delicate tightrope of being friendly and assertive but not too pushy.
The main event came later that evening. Our company had sponsored the conference dinner and at Alex's suggestion we split up and sat at separate tables so we could network more effectively. In my sleep-deprived state this was the last thing I felt like doing, but I managed to grab a seat next to an urologist who worked with my brother in Adelaide, so that helped break the ice. On the other side of me was Dr Howard, a Brisbane-based specialist with a widespread reputation for entrepreneurship and personal charm. I certainly got to witness the latter.
The conference wound up at lunchtime the next day. Our flight back to Sydney was inevitably delayed so Karen and I lolled around in some armchairs in the Qantas lounge, waiting to be called. Alex joined us in another armchair but his posture - leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees - hinted he still thought there was work to be done, damn it.
'We might as well use this time productively and debrief a bit. You know my mates gave me the hardest time about taking on this product, but after seeing how enthusiastic the urologists are I'm almost getting attached...'
The tiredness meant I was in a provocative mood. 'So you're ready to embrace dicks are you, Alex?'
That earned me a stern look. 'Only in a professional capacity Ellie...Can I go on now?'
I nodded my assent.
'The dinner was great. It looks like we have some potential opinion leaders amongst the crowd. We need to chase a few up. I'd like you to follow up on Dr Howard, Ellie. You seemed to be getting on well with him at dinner.'
I smiled. Karen giggled.
'What's the joke?' asked Alex.
'A bit too well,' said Karen. 'He made a pass at her.'
'Did he?'
I nodded again.
'What - isn't he married? Anyway you're married...'
'I don't think he was worried by those minor details, but it's no big deal,' I said.
'Yes it is. Why didn't you tell me this? We certainly won't be pursuing any sort of relationship with him then. I'm very sorry - what a creep...'
'Chill out, Alex. It's really no big deal. God the way you're carrying on you'll be challenging him to a duel next. I appreciate your concern but I'm capable of looking after my own honour thanks.'
With this last sentence I reached out and patted him gently on the wrist. He pulled his hand away.
'Sorry,' I said. My teasing had clearly overstepped the mark. 'All I mean is that if you want to still use him as an opinion leader it's fine with me. He was quite good-natured about the knock back. There is no way I was going to say yes but I don't mind the occasional bit of attention from a good looking man.'
When both Alex and Karen looked at me strangely it occurred to me I'd revealed a little bit too much by this comment.
'You can excuse him if you like but I hate guys who sleaze on to other women behind their wives' backs,' said Alex. 'They give us all a bad name.'
'He's hardly Robinson Crusoe,' I said, 'I reckon a lot more married men would do it if they thought they could get away with it.'
Alex was keen to defend his gender. 'I don't know about that.'
'You should hear some of the stories I've heard about international pilots.'
'But not all, I bet.'
'No, not all.'
'Not your husband,' added Karen.
'I don't think anyone can be one hundred percent certain...'
Again Alex and Karen looked at me. This time I decided I really needed to shut up.
An awkward silence fell over our little group.
'I'm going to get a coffee,' said Alex, I think motivated more by a desire to escape our conversation than any particular need for caffeine. 'Anyone want one?'
'No thanks, I'm still high from all the stuff I drank yesterday,' answered Karen, 'but I desperately need water.'
'Me too,' I said, gesturing to get up from my chair.
'No stay here. I'll get them.'
He'd left his mobile phone on the table between us and it rang in his absence. I thought I'd better answer it in case it was the office but it turned out to be a personal call.
'Who's that?' asked a suspicious sounding female voice.
'It's Ellie. I work with Alex. He's just gone for coffee but shouldn't be long. Do you want to wait or shall I get him to call you back?'
'No, I'll hold on.'
Seizing this God-given opportunity for busy bodying I asked, 'And who should I say is calling?'
'Bec,' was the reply.
Bec? I'd always thought his girlfriend's name was Sophie. I must have got my wires crossed somewhere along the line as this girl definitely sounded territorial. Although who could blame her? I'd observed whilst we were out and about how her man's looks seemed to smooth a path for him wherever he went. Not all women noticed but enough. Even the sour old battleaxe at the Melbourne security gate had a smile for Alex.
On the other hand he'd made it clear he disapproved of two-timing men, so she probably had nothing to worry about.
'Okay. I'll let him know.'
I put the phone down gently on the table and, pointing at it, raised my eyebrows meaningfully while mouthing the words 'the girlfriend' to Karen. She smiled a conspiratorial smile back.
But when I told our gallant knight, our protector of girls' virtue, that Bec was on the phone he didn't respond in any way that I'd expected him to. Rather than looking googoo-eyed and affectionate he looked well...irritated. The tone of his conversation with her was similar, even abrupt. He didn't even bother to move away so Karen and I got to hear it all.
'Hi,' he said, 'I'm a bit busy at present. [This wasn't strictly true.] Can I call you back later?'
Bec: ...........
Alex: No, I've got to go into the office for a few hours.
Bec: ...........
Alex: No seriously I do...It would be better if I met you all at the restaurant anyway.
Bec: ...........
Alex: Okay, so I'll see you then...bye.
He frowned briefly after he hung up. We waited for some explanation but he changed the topic back to work matters (although not, I noticed, to pass-making doctors) straight away.
Trouble in paradise? Was that the reason for his sudden moodiness? Maybe even beautiful boys were not immune from relationship woes.
\*\*\*
Ah, the delicate science of the child's daytime nap. Allow them to sleep the optimal amount of time and they'll awaken a little angel, full of sweetness and light. Let them sleep too little or too long and they're more likely to wake up resembling that cloven-hoofed fellow who resides somewhere warm below. Unfortunately, in my keenness to complete as much of my manuscript as possible I let Isabel sleep way past the desired time and have suffered dearly as a consequence. She woke up in a mighty querulous mood: didn't want to eat, didn't want to drink, didn't want to read a 'dumb book', didn't want to colour in, and didn't want to sit still in her seat in the 'stupid plane' any longer. All these grievances were communicated in her whiny Little Miss voice that never fails to set my teeth on edge. Not what I needed in my delicate state.
Fortunately, I eventually managed to locate a bad Disney movie on the in-flight entertainment system. She is suitably pacified now and thus I can continue writing for a little while longer.
Now where were we?
A weekend by the seaside
Few phrases in the English language can strike as much fear into me as these three little words: 'team building exercise'. I expect you know what I'm talking about - a company ships their employees to some off-site location where they are required to engage in a series of 'fun' activities designed to engender them all with a team spirit, so that when they next return to the office they will work together with renewed enthusiasm for the company good. Or so the theory goes. In my view these exercises, sometimes referred to as 'team bonding', serve no such purpose and do nothing but allow the individuals delivering this hocus pocus to feel they have some useful vocation in life. However, big business seems to love this sort of stuff.
It's not so much the company cricket days or beach Olympics I have a problem with. Those, in theory, could be fun. It's those completely manufactured activities, those - allegedly - based on some psychological theory I object to. I've always suspected that there is some secret sinister think tank residing somewhere in the cosmos that plots this sort of thing. I can hear them now: 'Hey guys, let's think up some random and pointless exercises, add in some meaningless psychobabble, and sell them to the corporate world dressed up as team building exercises. It'll be a hoot!' I'd been on enough of these exercises in futility with Amanda to know that they never produce any lasting change. We could team-build until the cows came home on the weekend but sure enough the following Monday she'd be back to her usual backstabbing, self-serving ways.
So it was with a heavy heart that I read my emails one Tuesday morning and was reminded that I was required to attend a team building weekend with the whole Erecta sales and marketing team in four weeks' time. The only sweetener was that it was being held at a swanky and popular resort a couple of hours up the coast. I'd always wanted to stay there and now I'd have the opportunity to do so at the company's expense. I briefly wondered whether anyone would notice if I sneaked off to the day spa instead of attending the team bonding crap, but figured they probably would. Anyway, following this email was one from Alex, advising me that I would be required to present a half-hour overview of our marketing strategy for Erecta on the Sunday morning of this retreat. Apparently we were all going to be required to do some real work while we were away together - a good thing in my view.
As luck would have it, Tony was going to be in Hong Kong that particular Saturday, so I had to arrange for Isabel to stay with Pamela and Douglas. Mum was unavailable as she was planning to be away in Adelaide, awaiting the birth of David and Amrita's third child. Pamela was none too pleased about this as she had a 'lunch with the girls' organised for Sunday. However, as Tony was due to arrive back early Sunday morning I'd arranged for him to pick up Isabel immediately so Pamela's social life would not be compromised.
I dropped Isabel off early that Saturday morning and headed up the coast, with the music turned up loud and a spring in my accelerator pedal. It was one of those glorious balmy days in early June that are laughably called winter. I'd discovered by this time the odious team building exercises were only going to constitute a small and early part of the proceedings. Once these were over and done with, the rest of the weekend looked like it was going to be okay, with a bit of free time, dinner in the award winning restaurant and, for me at least, the rare privilege of a single room. In an optimistic moment I'd even thrown my bikini in my bag, but was not yet sure I'd prove uninhibited enough to strip down in front of my work colleagues; I had by this time lost most of my baby weight, but was left with some determined bulges around my tummy, hips and thighs that I feared nothing short of a plastic surgeon's skill would dislodge. Isabel had been home sick most of the week, so we'd had a bit too much time together and I was keen for some mature (well, mature-ish) adult company. I'd optimistically provided Pamela with some instructions on Isabel's weekend routine, but with a clear expectation that most of my advice would be ignored.
It was a quick run up the coast and I arrived in good time for lunch. It was too early to get into my room so, after checking-in, I had to be content with a brief exploration of the resort. I surveyed the day spa wistfully - another time perhaps. The marketing team and sales reps started filtering in slowly and after the standard conference lunch of gourmet sandwiches, juice and coffee we headed to an outdoor terrace to bond.
First we were broken up into four small groups. Three team building exercises had been scheduled, each one successively more ludicrous than the last. The first involved us all being blind-folded and given a length of rope, which we had to form into various shapes as advised by Brad, the over-enthusiastic facilitator. I could see this being very useful when we got back to the office. My group was seriously hopeless at this too, which didn't augur at all well for our team building prospects. (Did they suspect a cynic amongst their ranks?) In the second activity, which was obviously devised by some sexual pervert, we had to move closer and closer together in an increasingly shrinking roped-off space. This was apparently meant to encourage group communication and problem solving, but I suspect the guy from our training department just chose this one so he could get a chance to squash up next to the breasts of Rosanna, the voluptuous senior sales representative. Nonetheless, this was also the highpoint of proceedings for me as I got a chance to be up-close-and-personal with the gorgeous Alex, and was planning to brag about that to Melanie when I got back to work the next week. He had on the most divine aftershave. I briefly thought about asking him what brand it was, but decided it was too much of a personal question and might be misconstrued.
The third activity was the real clincher. We had to break up into our groups, take some butcher's paper and black markers and devise our most inspirational team building quote. Then there was a competition to see which group's quote was considered the best. This had a distinct air of unreality about it and I wanted to cry out, 'Hey guys, we're trying to sell a drug to help old guys get a hard on, not solving the world poverty crisis!' Unfortunately, apart from Alex, my group was made up of a bunch of junior sales reps, still brimful with company enthusiasm (and probably not the most critical of thinkers at the best of times), so I kept my own counsel on the stupidity of this all.
Thus, I was mightily relieved when Alex whispered to me as we filed back inside, 'I want it on the public record that I played no part in the selection of that last activity.'
Many of our sales representatives were new to this area, so the rest of the afternoon was taken up with an hour long presentation by a urology specialist (not Dr Howard), who explained all about erectile dysfunction and the pharmacology of Erecta and its competitors. After that it was time for drinks in the fireside function room, before we all retired to our suites to change for dinner. I was given the job of schmoozing the urologist, so after his presentation I chatted with him briefly outside before waving him off on the trip back to Sydney. Then I headed back to the function room for a much deserved glass of champagne. That's when I detected an interesting change in atmosphere.
Perhaps it was because we'd just spent the last hour looking at PowerPoint slides of erect penises, labelled with evocative terms such as 'rigidity' and 'tumescence' (which to the uninitiated means engorgement); perhaps it was because we were all cocooned together in a luxury resort a long way from home and family; probably it was just the free alcohol; but, whatever the case, the mood in the room was definitely frisky that evening. It was then I began to suspect that there would indeed be some team bonding going on that weekend, just not of the type anticipated by our company's executives. Not that I was planning to be party to any of that. I was looking forward to an enjoyable meal and a couple of sociable drinks before retiring to my room for a blissful night's sleep on the smooth cotton sheets of my queen-sized bed, with no prospect of interruption from any pesky husbands or children.
However, as it happened, things panned out rather differently.
The first mistake I made was to call and check up on Isabel. I'd showered and changed and was just about to head downstairs for dinner when mummy guilt got the better of me. When Douglas first answered the phone, I thought for a second that there was perhaps an escaped convict loose in the house, but it quickly became apparent that Pamela and Isabel were having a fight. Pamela grabbed the phone and said, 'Good, hopefully you can speak some sense to your daughter.'
She handed the phone to Isabel and between sobs and sniffles a story began to emerge.
Now Isabel is a girl of simple needs and one of them is her Saturday night ritual. If she is good and eats her vegetables during the week (well, peas, potatoes, corn and occasionally carrots if we're very lucky) she is allowed to have, every Saturday night, the same meal of two-minute noodles and ice cream, followed by an hour of her favourite grown-up TV program, Australia's Funniest Home Videos (yes, I know, but at the time she was not yet four and some of the 'man hit in groin' or 'bride falling down' videos are quite funny). I'd told all this to Pamela, but of course she'd ignored my advice and had instead served up a plate of meat and vegetables, including - horror of horrors! - broccoli (or 'green trees' in Issy's vernacular). In a fit of temper Isabel had thrown the broccoli across the kitchen, somehow managing to land a piece with startling accuracy in Nana's restorative evening glass of white wine. Now my daughter had to go to bed without watching her favourite TV show. Things couldn't have been worse.
'Mummy...huh, huh...I think Nana is bad and mean...huh...and I hate her,' sobbed Isabel, in one of her more florid outbursts. I understood this sentiment completely but this was no time to pick a fight with my motherin-law, so I started trying to smooth things over.
'Now darling, hate is a very bad word and we should never, ever say it. If you tell Nana you're sorry and go to bed now I promise you can have ice cream and two-minute noodles for dinner tomorrow night.' The sniffling stopped as Issy started making her calculations.
'And Funniest Home Videos?'
'Well, no, that is only on TV on Saturday night, darling.' The 'huh-huhing' started again in earnest.
'But, I have a surprise for you in my bag, a new Wiggles video. You can watch that instead.'
'Which one?'
'Err, Racing the Rainbow, I think.'
'Can I watch it two times?'
'Okay, but only if you go to bed right now and promise to be a good girl for Nana tomorrow.'
'Okay, I promise...yay The Wiggles...night Mummy.'
'Nighty night.'
Pamela took the phone back and said, 'You're spoiling that child you know. My boys always ate their vegetables and certainly never had tantrums like that.'
This, in Pamela-speak, roughly translated to: 'You are a slack and lazy mother. Your child is no doubt going to end up a heroin addict and prostitute by the age of fifteen and it will be all your fault.' Who cares, I'd averted a crisis and that's all I was really worried about at this stage.
Unfortunately, when I got downstairs I began to realise how long that particular diplomatic exercise had taken. The entrées had all been served and the plates had already been taken away. I was starving, too. What's more, all the good seats next to the vaguely amusing people had been taken and the only vacant seat I could see in the whole room was next to Brad, the over-enthusiastic facilitator. That was the first time I swore that evening.
Just as I was contemplating this fate, Alex called me over: 'Hey Ellie, what happened to you? I saved you a seat.'
Alex had indeed saved me a seat, but unfortunately no entrée.
'Sorry about not keeping your entrée - they'd cleared everything away before I noticed,' he explained.
'Never mind,' I said, 'I just had a few domestic issues to settle with my daughter and motherin-law, which took longer than expected.'
On the other side of Alex was Rosanna, the senior sales representative. She shot me a hostile look. It was obvious she was trying to get her hooks into Alex. Rosanna had been one of our most successful sales reps for Lo-prez, no doubt by virtue of her long black hair and vavavoom figure - think poor man's Catherine Zeta Jones. I suspect all the male doctors felt that if they were going to have to be bored by the sales pitch they might as well enjoy the scenery on offer. I'd actually wondered why she'd requested a transfer to the Erecta team but the answer was now clear. It was not so much the product she was interested in, as the product manager. Apparently the fact he had a girlfriend didn't really figure in her calculations.
I have mentioned before the immense respect I have for the never-say-die attitude of our reps. One of the reasons why the company takes them away to conferences in luxury resorts is to bolster their egos, which take a daily beating when they're out on the road. However, that doesn't mean I have to like all of them and in particular that doesn't mean I have to like Rosanna. She's a surly cow, who, when not in sales mode, whinges about everything to do with our marketing campaigns.
I sat down, scoffed the dinner roll and knocked back a glass of Semillon too quickly. I told them about the flying broccoli, as the story of my delinquent child was really rather amusing and seeing I'd missed out on my entrée thought I should at least be able to dine out on that. Alex thought it very funny, Rosanna less so. Why is she so antagonistic to me? I thought. I was the staid old married woman and not in competition for Alex's charms, considerable though they might be.
I drank another glass of wine and finally my meal arrived. I'd only taken a bite or so when my mobile rang. It was Tony.
'Where are you?' I asked.
'At the hotel - I've called in sick with the flu and I'm staying over.'
'You're what? You can't be. Haven't you remembered you are meant to be picking Isabel up tomorrow morning? I'm at my sales weekend up the coast.'
'Oh, I forgot. Can't you get out of it?'
'No, I am presenting tomorrow morning.'
'Oh yeah, you mentioned that. Well I can't help being sick,' he said.
'You don't sound very sick.'
'Well I am.'
I realised that the other people at my table were looking at me with too much interest. I took myself outside to the balcony to continue our 'discussion' in private.
'Your mother is expecting you to pick up Issy early tomorrow, so that she can go to her ladies' lunch. She's going to be livid. I can't believe you didn't remember any of this. I told you a million times.'
'It was not a million times - don't be stupid.'
'You could at least be a bit humble about all of this.' And then a little warning light flashed on in my mind. 'Tell me - are you alone in that hotel room or do you have company?'
There was the slightest hesitation before he said, 'Don't be ridiculous.'
'You didn't answer my question.'
'Of course I'm alone.'
'Well let's face it - you have form.'
'Huh...I'm just sick, okay.' I wasn't completely reassured. 'Anyway, well, sorry [finally some sort of an apology]. You'll need to ring my mum and arrange something else I guess.'
'I'm not ringing your fucking mother! This is your fault.'
'There is no need to swear.'
'Oh yes there is.'
'Look, this is pointless. I really have to go,' he said coldly. 'We can continue this argument when I get back on Monday, if that's what you want. But you'll just have to ring Mum. I'm sure she'll be okay about it. I really need to go to bed if I'm going to get better.' And then he hung up on me, the bastard.
Go to bed to do what? I thought and pressed the recall button on my phone. It went straight through to his voicemail; he'd switched his phone off on me. I rang the number of his Hong Kong hotel, but when I asked reception to put a call through to his room no-one picked up.
Was he deliberately not answering or was he not in his room?
Trouble was, I didn't have time to think about that right now. I had to arrange something for Isabel the next day. Mum was still away so she was not an option. Dad was bloody hopeless. I tried Nicole, the mother of Isabel's best friend, Molly. She was apologetic but unfortunately had to attend a christening the next day. Then I had a brain wave and rang Emma.
'Hi Emma, I have a crisis,' I quickly explained, omitting the details of the argument. In the official version Tony was legitimately sick. Emma said that was fine, she and Daniel would take Issy to the zoo; it would be fun. I told her not to let go of Issy's hand and to not let her eat too much junk food, thanked her profusely and rang my motherin-law for the second time that night.
'Poor baby,' she said. 'He's always getting sick these days. You need to look after him better. Just make sure your sister is on time as I don't want to be late for my lunch.'
I briefly contemplated Pamela's reaction to Daniel, Emma's boyfriend. It would probably confirm all her opinions about my family, being just one level up from trailer trash in her eyes. At other times I would have thought this funny, but not this particular night.
By the time I got back inside everyone else had finished their main course and my plate was gone again. I had steam coming out of my nose until Alex explained that he'd had my meal taken away to the kitchen so they could keep it warm for me. He had it brought back and I tried to eat, but by this time I was too upset to feel hungry. I drank another glass of wine. Rosanna had gone off in a huff and was now on the dance floor, dirty dancing with the sleazy guy from the training department. At least someone was having a good night, I thought.
I drank yet another glass of wine.
Alex had been sitting there beside me the whole time, silently observing me. 'Okay, what's happened?' he asked eventually.
That was all I needed. I told him all about what had happened - about Tony and how I was suspicious that he was sleeping around and, if so, it wouldn't be the first time and how he'd turned into such a prick and his bitch of a mother - everything. He was so quiet and sympathetic and understanding about it too. A little voice inside me was saying: he's your boss, Ellie. This is Alex we are talking about - Mr Discretion himself. He's probably freaking out right now and thinking you're mentally unstable and going to get you fired on Monday, but this voice wasn't loud enough to stop me spilling it out.
Then I realised that I wasn't feeling too well. The room was spinning a bit. Oh my God, Alex was now going to think me a drunk as well as mentally unstable. I said quietly, 'I think I'd better go to my room. I'm not feeling too hot.'
'I'd better make sure you get there okay,' he said and helped me to my room on the second floor. I was so overcome by his kindness and my own stupid drunken sentimentality that I gave him a little hug and said, 'Thank you so much. You're really very sweet, you know.'
That's when something most unexpected happened. He kissed me. Not a chaste peck on the cheek either, it was a proper kiss on the mouth. And his lips were so warm and inviting that I kissed him back. Then he put his arms around me and pulled me really tight. It felt so good. It was only when his hands started exploring too far, roaming up and down my back, that another warning light flashed on in my head and I thought: What are you doing?
I pulled away from him savagely and said, 'What are you doing? I'm a married woman!'
'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I thought...'
'Well you thought wrong. You better go, right now.'
So he left. Oh, what a night this was turning out to be.
Instead of the blissful night's slumber I'd had planned, I hardly slept a wink. My head was all woozy and the bed felt like I was on an ocean liner in a heavy swell. I couldn't stop thinking about Tony and whether he was having another affair and about Alex and how I'd thought he was so nice and how all men were bastards, till finally I fell asleep at about 5am. I woke up to crusty, bloodshot eyes and a throbbing head.
Not wanting to run into Alex before it was absolutely necessary, I ordered breakfast in, swallowed some pain killers I'd had the good sense to pack and drank vast amounts of coffee in preparation for my talk at 9am. I looked truly awful but had rehearsed my presentation often enough that I could wing that okay. From the looks of a few of the people in the audience I was not the only one nursing a hangover that morning. Alex and I avoided eye contact and I begged off the rest of the day, claiming I had to pick up Isabel earlier than expected. Then I left as soon as I possibly could.
At least Isabel had a good time with Emma at the zoo.
Motive and opportunity
I had Monday off and took Isabel to her swimming lesson and playgroup as usual. Usually I loved our girls' day out but this particular day I wasn't very good company for poor old Is. Tony arrived home from Hong Kong, finally, and grunted at us both before heading to bed. I still didn't think he looked very sick, but didn't want to pick a fight in front of our daughter so I said nothing, allowing the innocent chatter of a three year old to fill the simmering void.
When the evening came and Isabel was asleep in bed I marched up to him as he was packing the dishwasher and said, 'Tell me to my face'.
'Tell you what?'
'You know.'
He stood up to his full and formidable height, looked me directly in the eye and, enunciating each word clearly and deliberately, said, 'I am not having an affair.' He raised his eyebrows defiantly, clearly pleased to be able to put me on the back foot.
'By the way,' he went on, 'I knew it was you phoning the hotel, that's why I didn't answer.'
'You could have called me back later.'
'I didn't feel like being sworn at again.'
And that was that. I found I had no stomach for further argument. Tony disappeared to the formal dining room, where he was now restoring the fireplace, and I sat in front of the TV, not taking anything in. Was he telling the truth or not? I honestly didn't know. I felt so worn out, so drained, that it seemed almost easier to ignore the problem rather than confront it, and really I had no evidence, just a suspicion. My marriage was clearly in trouble with or without the prospect of infidelity thrown into the mix and not for the first time I began to wonder if the inexplicable creature mixing grouting in the dining room was the real Anthony Cooper and the man who'd inhabited those early days of my marriage had all the time been an imposter.
Each night that week I tried to summon the courage to confront him again but each night, in the end, I squibbed it. He was often out that week anyway, at the gym, or playing squash, but what really made me hesitate was the bravado behind that denial. Whatever his faults, Tony had never struck me as a particularly convincing liar. I'd never completely let my guard down after his earlier Hong Kong fling, but I'd found no evidence of foul play - no suspicious transactions on his credit card or unfamiliar numbers on his phone account - and he'd always let me pay these, which suggested he had little to hide. What was the alternative, that I hire a private detective to pursue him? If things had descended to that point I might as well just cut to the chase and issue the divorce papers. That's how I justified my behaviour to myself, anyway.
Work was another matter altogether. It had lately been my refuge from a disintegrating home life and now that had all gone sour. How in the hell was I going to manage the Alex issue? His behaviour had been so out-of-the-blue, so apparently out-of-character, that I struggled to even comprehend how it had happened.
I fronted up to the office on Tuesday and tried to bury myself in work, in an effort to block out the swirling mass of contradictory thoughts that was messing with my head. Usually I would have seen Alex several times a day, but he had clearly decided to make a point of avoiding me and remained conspicuously absent all week. All his communications with me, businesslike and to the point, were via email or those yellow internal mail envelopes. Coward, I thought. Melanie clearly detected something was wrong, as my efforts to poke fun at the stupid team building weekend were half-hearted at best. I think she suspected things had deteriorated on the home front and, bless her, tried to make me feel better by bringing me coffee and mini muffins for morning tea. She would have been completely blown away if I'd told her about Alex.
About 4pm that Friday afternoon, Alex finally fronted up to my office. If he had stood any further away from me he would have been outside the door.
'I need to apologise for my behaviour the other night. It was inexcusable,' he said.
'Yes it was,' I replied, 'But don't worry, I'm not going to report you for sexual harassment if that's what you're worried about.'
This was true. Even if I had been the vindictive type, which I am not, I was conscious that I had, ever so briefly, kissed him back and thought this embarrassing detail would likely come out if things ever got nasty.
'Great, so that's what you think of me is it?'
'Well, what am I supposed to think? What I really can't work out is why me? You could just about have your pick of the single females around here and probably a few of the male ones too, if you were that way inclined. Do you get off on cracking on to married women or something? And what about your girlfriend, doesn't she figure in all of this?'
'What girlfriend? I don't have a girlfriend. I mean I did have, in England, but not here. We broke up.'
'So why do you still have a photo of her on your desk?'
'Huh, I don't...Oh, I think you must mean the picture my sister Sophie sent me. We met up for a skiing holiday in France before I came home.'
I felt a bit foolish now. Why was I always the last to know anything around here?
'Oh my God, I had no idea. What an idiot I am. But she doesn't look like you,' I said.
He smiled apologetically. 'No, I took after mum. She's looks more like dad. It happens that way sometimes.'
'Well sorry to accuse you of that - please accept my apologies - but that still doesn't answer why you picked on me. I mean Rosanna was all over you like a rash - you just had to say the word and you were in.'
'Do you seriously think I'd be interested in Rosanna? I hope you think I've got better taste than that.'
'Well?'
He hesitated a moment. 'And to think I thought I was making it too obvious. The fact is...umm...I am attracted to you Ellie. I have a thing for you. I thought you knew. Saying that, I would have never have acted, honestly, if you had not told me your marriage was in trouble and gotten all cuddly at the end. I guess I just misread the signals, although I expect all the alcohol I'd drunk was a factor. So now I feel really embarrassed and need to leave, but promise you I will always act like a gentleman in future and hope we can work together again and put this behind us. Anyway, now that I've made a complete fool of myself I'd better go. Have a good weekend.'
And with that he turned on his heels and left.
God, I really was the last one to know anything around here.
How I drove home safely that day I'll never know. That evening Tony and I were heading out to dinner for Angus' birthday so I didn't have time to reflect properly on this new development. I thought some of his friends might detect the tension between us but they didn't seem to. Most of the other husbands ignored their wives anyway and spent the whole night drinking and discussing sport and business and real estate, whilst all the wives sat around ignoring their husbands and talking about child care and clothes and gossip. God it was deadly. I would have got drunk except I was the designated driver that evening.
The next day Isabel had a whirl of fairy-themed birthday parties to attend, so it wasn't until that evening that I really had a chance to sit down and think. Tony had headed off to Telstra Stadium to watch a rugby test with his father and after Issy fell asleep I had the house to myself.
Alex! I couldn't believe it. What was it about me that attracted these goodlooking men? I could only assume that I'd started releasing some super-potent, male-attracting pheromone. If only I could find the formula and patent it I would be able to make myself a fortune.
So Rosanna had sensed it, obviously. I wondered why and started to think back on Alex's behaviour towards me. It was true that he visited my office more often than he probably needed to. That had become obvious in the last week when he had avoided me and we had still managed to get all our work done. He was also always very attentive, making sure I had been saved a seat at meetings and didn't miss out on morning coffee. So in a way I had been conscious of being a favourite, but in a 'buddy' sort of way. I'd never dreamed that there was any other motivation. Now I saw this behaviour in a different light.
For a moment I got cross and thought, so he was only nice to me because he wanted to get into my pants and really he is just a self-serving bastard like most of the other cowboys in marketing. But then I reconsidered; he was usually pleasant with everyone, not just with me. He was even nice to Carmen, our Bolivian cleaner who was near retirement age and had varicose veins and a large hairy mole on her face. If he was trying to get into her pants he had some serious issues to deal with. I had to assume that wasn't his agenda.
But what did it really matter? I was married to Tony and for Isabel's sake it was my responsibility to get my marriage back on track, not to start thinking about handsome alternatives to my husband. Although, 'handsome' was a barely adequate word to describe this man...
I was tossing and turning under the blankets with all these thoughts bumping around when Tony arrived home. The Wallabies had got up for a last-gasp win and he was in a good mood. I couldn't believe it when he got into bed and started to make a move on me. We had barely spoken all week but that didn't seem to be an issue for him. Maybe it was his way of making amends but it was a pretty inadequate way in my view. Still, to avoid another argument I went along with it all, even pretending I was interested. I got my revenge by fantasising that my husband was someone else altogether.
First thing on my agenda when I arrived at work the following Tuesday was a meeting with our entire department, including Alex. I gave him a small smile to indicate there were no hard feelings and saw him visibly relax. Then I felt my face warm when I remembered what I'd been imagining us up to on Saturday night, but if he saw this I'm sure he just interpreted it as some understandable awkwardness on my part.
Now that the air was cleared we were able to revert back to our professional relationship and things, to all appearances, returned to normal.
But, as you know, appearances can be deceptive. Now I knew.
And of course, he knew I knew, too.
And now that he knew I knew, every action of his took on extra meaning. He continued to visit my office less frequently than he had before and from that day stopped saving me a seat at meetings. When he did have cause to speak to me he kept things businesslike and courteous, there was less personal chitchat or jokes to liven proceedings anymore.
Once these small courtesies were withdrawn I felt their loss keenly. Up to this point I had failed to realise how important his attentions had been to my brittle self-esteem. In my more fragile moments I interpreted this change in behaviour as a cooling of his interest in me and felt as bereft as any forsaken lover. But at other times I was convinced that Alex was just trying to put some distance between us. The one thing he couldn't seem to stop himself doing was looking at me and the reason I knew this was because now I couldn't stop myself from looking at him.
One day when we'd just finished at a meeting and he was gathering up his papers, I lingered behind the others and mustering all my courage said, 'Please don't feel you need to avoid me, Alex. I am a big girl and don't need protection. I am fine with this all.'
He kept on gathering his papers and walked to the door without saying a word. But just as he was about to leave the room he turned to me and said, 'I thought it was what you wanted.'
'Oh I don't know what I want these days.'
'Even so, I think it's better for both of us this way,' he said, fixing his eyes firmly on mine. 'But promise me this. If you decide to ever leave that undeserving husband of yours, can I be first in the queue?'
With that I knew that nothing had changed. He was mine if I wanted and thenceforth I could think of nothing else.
How did this happen so quickly? I could barely understand that myself. His desirability had never been in question, but I had believed him unattainable - partnered - and certainly never dreamt he'd be interested in me. That had all been thrown on its head by his Friday afternoon declaration. Now he stood before me: completely attainable, completely desirable. I knew what it felt like to be kissed by him and held by him. At home, when he was at home, was an indifferent husband in a cold and unfulfilling marriage. All this combined to produce a highly combustible mix. It just needed a spark to set it off and that came soon enough.
It was a cold, rainy Thursday in late July. I was blow-drying my hair, getting ready for work, when Tony called from the airport. He was just about to board a domestic flight to Queensland when he remembered to call. He and Mark had organised a few days sailing together in The Whitsundays. It was a men only affair - wives and children not invited.
'Hi,' I answered, panting a bit after running for the phone, wondering who'd be calling so early in the morning.
'It's me. I forgot to ring to tell you my car wouldn't start this morning. I was in a hurry so I took yours. I think it's just the battery. You'll have to call road service.'
'What?'
'I have your car. You'll have to call road service.'
'I heard what you said - I'm just in disbelief that you didn't think to ask me. For a start it's a company car and you shouldn't be even taking it.'
'They'll never find out.'
'You don't know that. Surely you could have called a taxi instead. There would have been plenty around at that time of the morning. I have a really important meeting this morning, you know. Now if I have to call road service I'm going to be late. And why the hell didn't you think to ring me before now?'
'I didn't want to wake you at first and then I just got talking to Mark and forgot.' I could hear the antagonism in his voice now.
'Yeah, you forget about me all the time these days, don't you? I told you I have to drop Isabel's stuff at Mum's this morning before I go to work. And we have a visitor from head office who I'm meant to be showing around. Well I only hope that I don't get the sack about this, but of course my job isn't important like yours.'
'Yeah, I do think my job is more important and I think most people would agree. I really don't know why I bother these days.'
'I didn't notice that you did.'
'Urgh. What can I say? Sorry.'
'No, not good enough.'
'Did you realise that your default position is bitch these days?'
'Well that's probably because yours has been selfish shit for the last five years.'
'Look my flight's boarding. I said sorry - I don't know what else I'm expected to do. I'll call you when I get there.'
'Don't bother,' I said and hung up.
Great - I had made a vow early in our relationship not to ever let Tony get on board a flight whilst I was still fighting with him, and now I'd broken that for the second time in as many months. Qantas has an enviable safety record but knowing my luck...
I got the phone book out and called road service. Thanks to the bad weather they were flat out and it would be at least a ninety minute wait before they could get anyone out to me. I couldn't wait that long - double great.
I quickly woke Issy and called a taxi. Once again the rain was a problem. They promised me a taxi within the hour. Oh God...
The taxi arrived after forty-five minutes. I was having kittens by this time but couldn't avoid the trip via Mum's. She was looking after Issy that night so I could attend a farewell dinner for John, one of the sales managers. The worst thing was when I tried to ring the office to explain why I was late I discovered my mobile battery was flat. This was such bad timing and I felt my eyes prick with tears.
I was almost an hour late for my meeting when I finally arrived at work, face like a thundercloud. Alex looked up at me when I slunk in the back door and whispered my apologies.
At morning tea he managed to pull me aside and ask me what happened.
'I'm so sorry. I feel so embarrassed. Tony took my car 'cause his had a flat battery and I couldn't get a taxi and my phone was flat.'
'Don't worry about it.'
'No seriously, I...'
'I said don't worry about it. It's fine - truly.'
'Oh thank you...' and then I couldn't help a few more tears. I hated looking unprofessional in front of him. 'Tony and I had another fight.'
'I thought as much. Why don't you just disappear to the loo for a few minutes until you feel better? I'm sure no-one will notice.'
\*\*\*
The meeting concluded after lunch and I got back to my office in the early afternoon. Before starting to check my emails, I logged on to the Sydney Morning Herald website to make sure no Qantas planes had crashed into the ocean that morning. All seemed okay at present so I was relieved of that particular guilt. That's when the realisation came over me. All day I'd had this tight feeling in my abdomen, a strange abnormal 'growth' that I'd assumed was nerves. Now it dawned on me what it was. It was hate. I had a small ball of festering hate in my abdomen, hatred for the husband I had married one gloriously sunny summer day when I'd thought I would surely love him forever. So it had come to this...
You know when I look back on all this now with a few months' hindsight, I can see that my husband's behaviour that morning for what it was: insensitive but little more than that. He'd certainly done a lot worse in the past.
But if I'd become a bitch as he claimed, I was a bitch of his own creation. I was his marital Frankenstein's monster, and now the beast was going to turn on him.
Yeah, I had wanted to pick a fight with him that morning. I had wanted an excuse and I'd gone searching for it.
I wanted my revenge.
The restaurant booking was for 6.30pm that night. Mum picked up Issy from child care for me and I worked back to make up for the hour I'd lost that morning. There was not really enough time to go home and besides that I didn't have my car, of course. I'd worn my favourite work clothes in anticipation, a navy blue woollen suit with a nipped-in waist and high-heeled black patent pumps, and touched up my hair and make-up in the staff bathroom, taking more time than was customary. Melanie had chosen not to go home either so I conned a lift with her to the restaurant.
Just before we left I checked in with Issy and Mum but all was quiet on that front. Mum doesn't insist Isabel eats broccoli either, no doubt aiding and abetting my daughter's slide into delinquency.
John was a popular guy so there was a big turnout for his farewell, eighteen in total, all seated at one long table. It was a Thai restaurant and the service, provided by two tiny, doll-like girls who looked about twelve years old - obviously Thai themselves - was remarkably efficient. We were a rowdy bunch, but because it was a Thursday night and most of us had to front up to work the next day it was only about 10pm when most people decided to call it a night. I had been seated up one end of the table next to Karen and Samantha, one of the sales reps that I actually did like. The FIFA World Cup finals had just concluded and we'd had a rip-roaring time debating the do-ability of the different players: David Beckham versus Harry Kewell, Lucas Neill versus the darkly handsome Italian defender, Alessandro Nesta, my personal nomination. The entire time I was having this conversation, however, I was conscious that the person in the world I most wanted to do it with was seated at the opposite end of the table, next to Melanie. I didn't speak to him at all during the evening, although I was conscious of his presence at all times and our gazes met on more than one occasion.
In addition to having no car, I of course had no phone that evening, so as people started tallying up the bill I went up to Melanie and asked, 'Hey, Melanie, would you mind if I used your phone to check with Mum if Issy is okay and ring a taxi?'
That's when Alex said, 'I live near you, Ellie, I don't mind giving you a lift home.'
All I had to say was, 'No, that's too much trouble. I'll just call a taxi.' But of course I didn't. That's all it took in the end.
Alex lives in Balmain which, it is true, was quite close to my house. I'd known that he'd lived there all along but what I hadn't known for a long time was when he had mentioned that 'we have an amazing view from our apartment', he was actually talking about 'we' as in he and his male flatmate, Paul, not 'we' as in he and his live-in girlfriend.
My legs were trembling when I hopped in his car but I was hoping I could pass that off as the cold. I suddenly couldn't think of a single thing to say and we drove some way in silence.
Keen to break the uncomfortable quiet, I started making small talk. 'I love Balmain - it's one of my favourite suburbs with all the history, and so close to the harbour and all the brilliant restaurants and pubs.'
'Yeah I love it too. It's great if you're single, with all the pubs - like England. There are not many places like it in Sydney. You know, it's still quite early - you wouldn't like to go to one of my favourite haunts now to have a drink, would you?'
'Ah no thanks, no offence, but someone I know might see us together. I don't want to be the subject of scurrilous gossip at Issy's playgroup.'
'Oh okay.'
'But I don't know if I want to go home just yet either. It's not often I have a free night.'
'You could come back and have a drink at my place. Paul has a great wine collection. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we borrowed a drop.'
We drove to Alex's place. Paul was interstate with work. We had to ascend a huge flight of stairs to get there. It was a modern apartment, streamlined and well-equipped, but a little 'beige' and lacking in character. There were the standard black leather lounges and a flat screen TV and it could have passed for an anonymous hotel suite except for the incongruous sight of an exercise bike and weights in the corner of the living room. It was a typical bachelors' apartment, I suppose, except that it was eerily neat for the home of two young guys. I was surprised about that, as the state of Alex's office certainly never suggested he was particularly hung up on tidiness.
However, as promised, it had a huge balcony with glorious views over the harbour, so I could forgive it its other sins.
Alex poured us both a glass of wine, before we headed out to the balcony. The rain had stopped by this time but it was still mid-winter so I shivered a little in the breeze.
I sipped my wine and scanned the horizon, the familiar sight of the Harbour Bridge and the city lights beyond. Being a winter night there were few pleasure craft out on the harbour, but a Sydney Ferry was transporting a few late finishing passengers home, its headlights cutting a swathe through the night. It was a magical sight; one that I never tired of. Sometimes I feel a strange, almost maternal, affection for the city I call home, cantankerous beauty that she is.
'It's such a gorgeous view, Alex.'
'Yes it is.'
Something about the way he said this made me turn around. He was staring directly at me.
'That's a bit corny, isn't it?'
'Yes, but it's the best I can think of right now.' He walked up next to me and said, 'I'm a bit confused you see. I think you might want me to kiss you but I don't want to get it wrong again.'
'You won't,' I said.
He took aside my wine glass, put his mouth to mine and kissed me in a slow languorous way. A fire lit up between my thighs and I no longer felt the winter cold.
Then shyness crept over me and I found I couldn't meet his eyes. He'd loosened his tie during dinner so I busied myself by undoing it. I unbuttoned another shirt button and kissed his neck with several soft kisses. It was hours since he'd shaved and his skin felt warm and rough on my lips. He smelt, as always, delicious.
I felt him exhale deeply. Then he put his hand under my chin, lifted my face to meet his and said, 'I want you more than you could ever know, but I would never force you to do something you're not comfortable with. You know that. So if at any time you feel you want to stop just say "stop" or "no" and I promise I will stop. You just have to say the word, you know.'
'I know,' I said.
So he kissed me again, but I didn't say 'stop' or 'no'.
Then he pulled me close towards him, his fingers pressing tightly into my spine. I felt him growing hard against me but I didn't say 'stop' or 'no'.
And when he took my hand and led me to his bedroom I didn't say 'stop' or 'no'.
And when he unbuttoned my jacket and took off my bra and buried his head in my naked breasts still I didn't say those words.
And, finally, when he hesitated above me, I didn't say 'stop' or 'no'. Instead I reached up to softly kiss his mouth and beckoned him in, sighing as I felt the glorious release of tension and desire that seemed to have been building for so long.
The thing is I was never going to say 'stop' or 'no'. I knew exactly what I was doing when I walked up the stairs to his apartment that night.
Stepping over
So, on the night of 27 July 2006, when most Sydneysiders were settling into their beds in the 'burbs after a normal workaday Thursday and an evening in front of the box, I broke my wedding vows and began an adulterous relationship with my co-worker and boss, Alex Andersen.
Sex - it should really be the most intimate exchange that occurs between two people but so often there is no emotional connection of any kind: the prostitute and her client; the gay man cruising toilet blocks for some quick satisfaction; even the loss of my virginity in the back seat of an old Nissan Skyline all those years ago. But for Alex and me, our first act of physical intimacy opened up a treasure trove of personal intimacies and I learnt more about him in that one night than I had in the previous six months of our acquaintance.
All night I tried to prise myself out of his bed. All night I failed. I was conscious that I did not have a functioning mobile phone and if Issy got sick and Mum wanted to contact me she wouldn't be able to. I imagined lurid tabloid headlines - 'Bad mother off bonking boss while daughter dies in fiery blaze' - but still I couldn't drag myself away. Alex's bedroom had become my oasis from the troubled and confusing world outside, a world where I would have to face the consequences of my actions and acknowledge my new status as a faithless wife.
A very messy oasis as it transpired. When he'd led me to his bedroom Alex had tactfully turned on his bedside lamps, which spared me any worries of unflattering overhead lighting. Now that my eyes were no longer blinded by passion I noticed the untidiness. Not a horrid, fetid, stinky mess; just a normal guy mess - clothes on the floor, newspapers and empty coffee cups on his desk. This fitted better with the image I had from his work office.
'Alex, your bedroom is a mess.'
'I know. I would have tidied up if I'd known I'd be having company, but I didn't. I certainly wasn't expecting this. The good news is I washed my sheets on the weekend so you're not likely to catch anything.'
'I'm not really worried by it. It just doesn't fit with the rest of your apartment, which is unbelievably neat. I can only presume your flat mate is the tidy one.'
'Is he ever - he insists that I keep my bedroom door shut all the time. I tell him it's unnatural.'
Well, he was certainly different to Tony in that regard. However, they did turn out to have a few things in common.
\*\*\*
To know: of all the verbs used to describe the sexual act it's that Old Testament one I most associate with this night. It was as though Alex wanted to know me entirely: exploring my body with his eyes, his hands and his mouth. I, in turn, began to know him: this dark-skinned, dark-haired, man-youth, so different from my husband, the only man I'd known intimately for over ten long years.
But there was an additional quality - a feverishness, a greediness - to Alex's desire for me that night. He literally couldn't keep his hands off me. It was as though he believed that this might be his only chance to experience these gifts and they would be snatched away again without warning. I'd had no thoughts on whether this was to be a one-off occasion or the start of something longer lasting. I couldn't bring myself to think past the four walls of his room that night.
'Tell me if I'm bugging you,' he said as he ran his hands over my breasts for the umpteenth time that evening. 'Part of me still can't believe you're here. And you're just as lovely as I ever imagined. Especially your breasts - I knew that you would have amazing breasts.'
What was it about my breasts? I had never thought them particularly remarkable; they are certainly no more than average-sized. I began to feel they must have had some special quality that I was unaware of. Whatever it was I was very grateful for it, and made a mental note to take them aside and thank them personally when I got home.
'So, all this time, when I thought you were admiring my sparkling wit and business acumen, you were really just thinking, "Phwoar, nice tits",' I said, doing my best bricklayer's impersonation.
'Not all the time. I noticed those other things too.'
'If you're such a breast man I'm wondering why you didn't go after Amanda. I hear she's single these days'.
'Well perhaps because she's an evil cow.'
'You noticed?'
'Oh yeah, I had her sussed within a couple of days.'
Alex was amazing. I had no idea that he had seen through Amanda. He was always polite and friendly towards her and I had actually heard that, since she'd broken up with her long term partner, she'd had him in her sights. If only she knew!
'Besides,' he said, 'I'm more into quality rather than quantity. Her boobs are so out of proportion with the rest of her body. I'm sure they must be fake. What a stick insect - if you bent her over your knee I bet you could snap her in two.'
'Yes, and I've often wanted to.'
He laughed. 'Ah, a bit of history there is there? Anyway, you can rest easy. I don't find her attractive at all.'
Actually I don't think Amanda's are fake but I wasn't going to tell him that. It's possible my husband was on to something when he said I was becoming a bitch because I certainly took malicious pleasure from this little snippet of conversation.
\*\*\*
'I am still trying to work out how you thought I had a girlfriend all that time,' he said later, as he ran his fingers through my hair. I had recently been thinking about getting it all cut off but now was having serious second thoughts.
'Don't remind me. I feel a right royal goose about that. I just assumed your sister was your girlfriend and thought it rude to pry, since you weren't very forthcoming. As a matter of fact, I was envious of how loving you looked in that photo.'
'I do love her but not in that way. There are laws against that sort of thing.'
'Besides, in my defence, you did give off a vibe that you liked to keep things to yourself.'
'Did I?...I guess I was a bit quiet early on because I didn't want to talk about Julie. And apart from that I didn't really have a private life - well, not one fit to talk about with my work colleagues anyway.'
'Aha, you had a wild phase, did you?' I enquired, eyebrow arched. I had a brief vision of a queue of gorgeous twenty-somethings outside the door, all lining up to be sired by him. Suddenly I felt rather staid and middle-aged and cursed my decision not to have that Brazilian done when I could. It was too late now; Tony would get suspicious.
'For a while, but it's not really me. I was completely faithful to my girlfriend for three years - I was planning to marry her - but when that all went sour I felt the need to cut loose. You're not shocked are you?'
'Not in the least, but maybe I do have to worry about catching something after all.'
'No I was careful and used protection. For a start I don't want any girls coming up to me claiming I'm the father of their unborn child. It's not that I don't want kids, but I want to choose who I have them with - and when.'
'You haven't used protection with me.'
'Well this wasn't planned...'
'I take my pills religiously,' I assured him. 'I'm certainly not planning another baby anytime soon.'
Turning on my side, leaning on an elbow, and fixing him with my most forensic stare I said, 'So if your girlfriend's name was Julie, who was Bec?'
'How'd you know about her?'
'I took a call from her at the airport after the urologist's conference in April, remember?'
'For someone who claimed she wasn't interested in me back then you seem to have taken a keen interest in my love life.'
'Alex, I am female. They've identified a gene sequence on the X chromosome specifically dedicated to prying into the love life of others.'
He winced and sighed deeply. 'Bec, Bec, Bec...I wish you hadn't reminded me. Rebecca is one of my sister's friends. We got drunk a few months ago and slept together - actually we slept together a couple of times in the end. I thought we were just having fun but she had "boyfriend" ideas and got all clingy on me. I had to be a bit of a bastard in the end but it was never going to go anywhere. Sophie is very unimpressed with me...'
'Men and their dicks.'
'That about sums it up.'
'I promise not to get clingy on you.'
'No, this is completely different.'
I continued my interrogation. After all he knew all about the sorry state of my own affairs, even if he hadn't strictly asked to hear.
'Do you mind me asking you about Julie?'
'I was wondering how long it was going to take you to get around to that.'
'You don't have to tell me.'
'No, I don't mind.'
'Was she Australian?'
'No, English. I met her over there.'
'And what was she like?'
'She actually looked a bit like you - well similar hair and eyes and about the same height. I got a bit of a surprise...'
'Ah, so that's the reason. You haven't completely gotten over her, have you?'
'No, that's not it at all. You look a bit like her but you're quite different in other ways. For a start you're a much nicer person.'
I didn't know if people who slept with other men behind their husband's back quite qualified to be called nice, but I let the comment stand.
'And you were planning to get married?'
'I hadn't asked her but was working up to it.'
'So she didn't know.'
'No...but we'd talked about the possibility at other times.'
'I don't get you guys. If you knew you wanted to marry her why didn't you just ask?'
'I don't know...I was thinking about maybe asking her at Christmas. In the end she saved me the trouble.'
'So what happened? Do you mind me asking?'
'I thought it was a mutual breakup but I've since found out she had someone else waiting in the wings. So you may not be the only victim of adultery in this bedroom.'
'And who got custody of the seeing eye dog?'
'What?...Oh, you're very sweet but I'm not that good looking. Besides some women find other things more important, like money and power.'
'Including your ex?'
'Yeah. She got involved with her boss, who I'm pretty sure was still married at the time. She's a lawyer. He was a partner at her firm - a total prick as far as I can tell too, but loaded. I hear along the grapevine they are getting hitched.'
'Still, it seems unbelievable. You don't think it was more complicated?'
'What do you mean?'
'I don't know...She didn't just get sick of waiting for you? It's just that in my experience relationship breakdowns are rarely as simple as they first appear.'
'Hey, you're not allowed to be objective. You're meant to be on my side.' He placed his hands on his hips and gave me a fake indignant look.
'Sorry.' I pretended to look remorseful.
'The only criticism she ever levelled at me was that I was "too nice". I never realised that was a negative quality. She said that I wasn't ruthless and ambitious enough to ever be a success. The thing is I am ambitious - I just don't think it's necessary to step on other people to get ahead.'
'Women can be incredibly stupid sometimes. I bet she'll regret the decision in a few years.'
'Who cares? That's her problem.'
'Anyway just think, when her new husband becomes unable to perform you can have the satisfaction of selling him some Erecta.'
'Ha...that's an image I like very much.'
'So this is your revenge is it? You're the boss sleeping with the married woman.'
'God no, I'm not that sophisticated. It was more like, "me see woman - me want woman".'
I smiled at my most unlikely looking caveman.
'Anyway I don't think of myself as your boss and I wish you wouldn't.'
'I think if you look at the management tree you'll find I do answer to you.'
'Hmm...I can think of a few ways I'd like you to answer to me but none of them involve the office. ' He smiled suggestively before reaching over to kiss me again.
The interrogation had officially concluded.
\*\*\*
I also got to reveal a few secrets of my own that night.
Alex was on one of his reconnaissance missions when he discovered the long silvery-pink scar which ran along a groove where my bikini pants would have sat, if I'd been wearing any. He carefully traced this with his finger.
'What's this?'
'Oh, that's from my caesarean. Isabel was a breech baby so I had to have a caesar in the end.'
'Yow, it's a big scar. It must have hurt.'
'Yeah, but maybe no more than the real thing. Labour's no picnic you know. All I cared about was having a healthy baby so it didn't matter to me.'
'Sometimes I forget you are a mum. What's it like to give life to another human being? I can't imagine...Hey what's wrong?'
He'd seen my expression change. In his curiosity he'd inadvertently opened that other scar of mine, the one that had not healed so well.
'I'm not so good at that part, Alex. I had a baby that died before Isabel. He was a little boy. That was basically the start of the rot for Tony and me.'
'Oh my God, I had no idea. I am so sorry.' He enclosed me in his arms in an act of contrition, pressing my face into his shoulder.
'It's okay. You weren't to know.'
\*\*\*
Eventually I looked at the clock and it said 4.34am. I knew I had to get home soon, in case Mum called me early.
I said to Alex, 'I'd better go soon. Can I use your phone to call a taxi?'
'What sort of a guy do you think I am? I'll drive you home. And I want you to get some sleep. Come into the office after lunch for our meeting. I'll say you called me and said you had a headache.'
'But you've had no sleep either.'
'It's okay - I'll survive. I'll just drink heaps of coffee. I can come home and crash this evening. You have to look after your daughter.'
Before I left I knew I must have him one more time. I was planning a seduction but when I reached for him under the bed sheets I found he was already of the same mind; this was a young man who clearly had no need for the product he was promoting. So I climbed on top and straddled him with my legs and used my hands to pin his arms above his head. Management tree or not, on this occasion I decided I would be the one calling the shots.
As I was moving slowly up and down above him he stared at me with such a look in those remarkable eyes and whispered, 'You're so beautiful Eleanor.'
And then the stupidest thing happened. I started crying. And I couldn't stop a couple of fat tears dripping on to his chest.
'Are you crying, baby? What's the matter?'
I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer because I didn't properly know myself. The reasons were too tangled: guilt at my faithlessness, my broken wedding vows, my lost feelings for my husband and the love I had for Isabel and the beautiful baby boy who'd died. But mainly I think I was crying because this lovely young man had told me I was beautiful and no-one had said that to me for a very, very long time.
The rules of engagement
As soon as Alex dropped me home I rushed to check my answering machine with heart in mouth, but no light was flashing to indicate any missed calls. Meggs the cat was clearly unhappy about being left unfed overnight and had expressed his displeasure by deliberately doing his business outside the kitty litter tray. I cleaned this up, plugged my mobile into my charger, had a shower, dried my hair and sat down to have a cup of milky tea - normal domestic rituals on an otherwise extraordinary day.
At 7am I rang Mum and spoke to Isabel. She'd had an undisturbed night and was bright and sparky.
'Can you give the phone back to Grandma now, darling?'
'Okay, Mummy.'
'Mum, I have a bad migraine and need to go back to bed for a few hours. Can you take Issy to child care for me?'
'No trouble, but are you sure you didn't just drink too much last night? What will that nice young boss of yours say if you call in sick?'
'Oh I'm sure he'll be okay about it. I'll go in for my meeting after lunch so I can pick Issy up okay.'
After that I hopped into bed and, remarkably, slept soundly for three hours until my alarm went off. Then I got dressed for work and rang road service. As the day was fine they came fairly quickly; it was the battery as Tony had suspected. I still hadn't heard a word from him but after our fight that was probably not surprising.
On the drive to work I was apprehensive. What was the etiquette involved in sleeping with a co-worker? How did you greet each other the next day? I slunk into the office, deflecting questions about my 'headache', grabbed my papers and headed for the meeting. We were planning our upcoming marketing campaign so there were quite a few people in attendance.
My heart thumped as I entered the room. What if Alex completely ignored me? I kept thinking about what he'd told me the previous night. His words had suggested otherwise but it wasn't completely out of the question that I was just another girl in the queue. Now that he'd got what he'd wanted he might quickly lose interest. That would be horrible and awkward but probably the best thing in the long run.
He was already in the room when I arrived. Rather than look right through me he sought out my gaze and gave me a shy smile.
'Hey Alex, you look a wreck. What did you get up to after we left you last night?' enquired one joker.
God, I thought I was going to die at this point and buried my burning face in my papers, but Alex deflected the question masterfully, without displaying a hint of embarrassment. He would make an excellent poker player, this boy. He did look very tired though.
We were professional co-workers during the meeting but when it drew to a close he waited till everyone else had headed outside before approaching me.
'How are you? Did you sleep okay?'
'I did actually, thank you, although I'm planning an early night. What about you? How are you travelling?'
'Oh I'll just have one drink to be sociable and then I'm planning to head home and crash out.'
'Just as long as you don't crash on the way home. Drive carefully.'
'I will. What are your plans for the weekend?'
'Just the usual stuff. Tony gets back tomorrow.'
'So there's no chance of seeing you?' he asked, gently brushing his fingertips against mine as he did so. This simple act was enough to set off a shiver of remembered arousal.
'No, I'm afraid not.'
'Well you can't blame a guy for trying.'
Okay, maybe I was not going to be just another girl in the queue.
\*\*\*
It wasn't strictly accurate to say it was business as usual that weekend. A significant event on the Cooper family calendar was scheduled to take place - Pamela's sixtieth birthday. The extended family had been invited to Sunday lunch at the family home, with Andrew even making a flying visit from the States to attend.
Tony arrived back on the Saturday. We hadn't spoken since our fight on the Thursday morning but by this time my anger had dissipated and for Isabel's sake I felt the need to clear the air. Wisely I didn't say (with apologies to Shakespeare), 'Sorry, but while you were away I made the beast with two backs with a work colleague.' I think it was actually, 'Sorry, I might have overreacted a bit on Thursday morning. I was under stress about work.'
'Yes, you did but let's forget about it. I did try to call you back but couldn't get any mobile coverage on the yacht.'
The winter weather was kind to us that Sunday. Isabel had on her best Nana-purchased frock in honour of the occasion. It was navy blue velvet with a satin ribbon trim, accessorised with white flower-embroidered socks and black patent shoes. Issy rather admired herself in it. 'I'm a fairy princess Mummy,' she said. I would have worn my navy suit and black patent shoes too, to match, but that was what I'd worn on Thursday night and under the circumstances thought it would be inappropriate. Instead I chose a cream and black jersey wrap dress and black knee-high boots.
Pamela looked fabulous and was completely in her element as the centre of attention. She was wearing a cream Armani pantsuit, which with her height she could carry off, and could have passed for a decade younger, although I suspect some strategically timed Botox injections might have helped there.
I liked the fact she was thus occupied because she was too busy to shoot any poisoned barbs in my direction all day. I played the part of the dutiful daughter-in-law, helping out the caterers with drinks and nibblies and got lots of compliments for being so attentive.
'Gee, Tony, you're a lucky man to have two such beautiful and talented girls,' said Uncle Tom, one of the nice relatives. Tony turned his eyes in my direction before saying, 'Yeah I am,' although not completely convincingly.
The best thing about the whole day was Andrew being in town. He helped me with the catering and we giggled together over a glass or two of champagne.
At about 5pm the function was winding down. Isabel was over-tired and her behaviour no longer befitted her regal dress. As a matter of fact she had pushed one of her second cousins over in a fit of pique when they had disagreed about the choice of DVD to watch. Time to go, I thought.
The trouble was I couldn't find Tony anywhere. I was hunting around the upstairs bathrooms when I heard voices coming from Andy's bedroom. The two brothers were arguing.
'...It's about time you decided. Ellie deserves better.' It was Andrew.
'I have, I told you. At the moment I've got enough worries getting my stuffed career back on track. Anyway maybe you should concentrate more on your own life. When are you planning to come clean?'
'I'll tell Mum and Dad at the time of my choosing, thanks, and it's certainly not today.'
'Hello, is everything alright?' I called out in my best falsetto. All talk abruptly ceased.
'Yeah, fine,' said Tony, but I didn't miss his subtle zip-your-lips gesture to Andrew as I entered the room.
'I think we'd better go. Issy is starting to play up.'
'Okay, I'll just go and say goodbye to everyone,' he said as he exited the door, flashing his brother another warning look.
'Are you sure everything's okay?' I asked Andrew.
'Yes, fine.'
I gave him a hug. 'Have a safe trip back. It was lovely to see you.'
'Yeah, you take care of yourself. You're a good girl.'
No, not so good Andrew.
Issy was protesting about leaving the party when I returned downstairs, so Tony hoisted her on to his shoulders. After a brief struggle she relented - ultimately nothing was better than a piggyback ride from her daddy. We said our goodbyes and headed to the car. I'm sure some of the assembled throng thought we looked the perfect family, an advertiser's dream.
I glanced at Tony, Isabel's small legs (now looking rather grubby) tucked under his arms, and was hit by that sudden shock of recognition I'd often get about how handsome he was. The difference this time was that it was no longer accompanied by any sense of ownership, the pride that he was my guy. He was not 'my guy' and never really had been. You can never claim ownership of another human being. Tony had chosen to spend some of his life with me, but he had always remained a little bit remote, and I now felt I knew him less well than I had when we'd first got together. This day I could view my husband with the calm detachment of museum curator:
'Ladies and gentlemen, if you care to cast your eyes in this direction you will see an excellent example of the male homo sapiens goodlookingus.'
Driving home, he breathed deeply and seemed about to say something significant - about his argument with Andrew maybe? But all that came out was, 'If it's alright with you I might go to the gym after we get home. I need to clear my head.'
'Okay,' I answered, when I should have said: 'What do you need to decide, Anthony?'
Could he be having another affair, after all? Or was he planning to leave me? Or both? Or was it something else altogether; something that wasn't yet on my radar? Andrew's comment was just vague enough to keep me guessing.
That night, in bed, he started to kiss me and his hands roamed inside my pyjama top, seeking out my breasts. I had been expecting this but had been hoping against hope he wouldn't try it on this night. I lay there, accepting his advances but not actively participating.
'Could you at least pretend to be interested,' he said after a while.
'What do you mean?'
'You're so damn passive these days.'
'Okay...I didn't realise it was such a big deal.'
I pushed him away, commanded him to 'lie down', stripped back the sheets, straddled him and took his penis in my mouth. As he moaned quietly I felt him grow hard within me. Then, when I'd got him to just the right state of excitement, I jumped off, stripped off my pyjamas, got down on my haunches and said, 'Take me from behind'. He didn't require a second invitation. I didn't do this because I wanted to pretend he was Alex. It was because I didn't want him to see the tears. Crying during sex was starting to become an irritating habit.
Although it hadn't been his intention, Tony had summed me up perfectly. A braver woman would have tackled things much earlier but the years I'd spent tiptoeing around, trying - and for the most part failing - not to displease him, had turned me into a sad passive creature that I barely recognised. He'd been the first to put up the barriers but I had given up the fight far too easily. The confident and purposeful Ellie that fronted up to the office four days a week was a fraud.
He came in a series of violent shudders. 'Wow, after a slow start that was some of the best sex we've had for ages,' he said once he'd recovered his breath.
I was tempted to say: 'Maybe from where you were sitting buddy,' but that was an argument I didn't need to have right now. I responded with, 'What's that term they are always talking about in the Iraq War? An exit strategy - that's what's needed.'
'What are you going on about?'
'An exit strategy out of this marriage. I know you were discussing me earlier with your brother.'
'What did you hear?'
'Not much - just the tail end of what Andrew said, but I got the gist. Do you want to tell me more?'
'No, but I don't want to end our marriage either.'
'Well marriage is more than just sex and I need more from you. The trouble is I am no longer sure you are capable of giving that to me. You are clearly unhappy and in my opinion checked out of this marriage a long time ago.'
'You're wrong.'
'Am I? Anyway, I can't go on like this. I want you to make a decision by the end of the year where you want to be - one way or another - and if things don't change for the better I think we should talk about splitting up.'
'Where did this all suddenly come from?'
'Oh Tony, it's been coming a long time.'
\*\*\*
To which young man did I owe this sudden burst of decisiveness: Alex or Andrew? I think it was my brother-in-law, although you may disagree. When third parties are better informed about your husband's state of mind than you are, you know your marriage is in big trouble. I had sat back and let our communication deteriorate to an almost terminal point.
In any case my ultimatum was not inspired by some romantic notion that Alex and I were going to sail off into the sunset together. I was no longer a girl who believed in fairytale endings. I was not expecting my connection with Alex to lead anywhere in the long term. What we were both seeking, I felt, was a transitional relationship: he to get over Julie and me to ease out of my marriage to Tony, if he decided to walk, which I suspected he would.
Even so, I'd decided by Monday that this thing was going nowhere in the short term, either. It had too much potential to end badly. There might be some husbands who could cope with their wife's infidelity but Tony was not one of them. I knew he would hit the roof if he found out and go after custody of Issy to exact his revenge. If I had to change jobs to extricate myself from the Alex thing, so be it. I was now suitably well credentialed to seek positions elsewhere and Issy was old enough to cope with me working full-time.
This resolution lasted at least five minutes into the Tuesday morning. Oh God, if you could meet this boy, I think you'd understand.
He was in my office at the first available opportunity and shut the door behind him.
'How are you?' he said in a loud whisper, 'I was thinking about you all weekend.'
'Alex, be a little bit discreet would you. I have my reputation to consider.'
'Don't worry - people will just assume we're talking about work stuff. So when can I see you again?'
'Do you really think this is wise?'
'Oh definitely not, but can you tell me truthfully that you don't want to?' he said, looking at me with those bedroom eyes. Where did that steely resolve of mine go? I looked down to find a small puddle of molten metal under my chair. 'So when is your husband away again?'
'See, you do get off on the idea being with a married woman.'
'I don't. I honestly don't know why you are still together and hope you have the good sense to leave him soon. I'm just thinking practically until you do.'
'Well...I am free tomorrow night. Tony will be away and Isabel will be at her grandmother's. She sleeps over every Wednesday.'
'That's fantastic. I think I'm going to grow to love Wednesdays. You can come over to my place again then.'
'I haven't actually said yes yet...'
'C'mon, it's all settled. I'll cook you dinner.'
\*\*\*
This time I was better prepared. I fed the cat and diverted my home phone to my mobile before I left. Can you believe my audacity at dropping Isabel off at my motherin-law's before rendezvousing with my lover? I would do the same on more than a few occasions over the ensuing months. If Pamela had ever shown the slightest gesture of goodwill towards me over the years I might have felt guilty, but she hadn't, so I no longer cared.
Alex turned out to know his way around a kitchen and whipped up a magnificent crab curry, although Paul was heard to loudly complain that he wasn't so great at washing up afterwards. We didn't eat till about 10pm; other appetites needed to be satisfied first. Alex also knew his way around a woman's body in ways I'd barely begun to contemplate.
Yes, Paul was there. Alex's flat mate, who had been a good friend since school, owned the apartment so we couldn't complain. He had a glittering career in banking but this success hadn't yet translated to women. He was as fair as Alex was dark and, although not unpleasant looking, had a slightly receding hairline and an overly fleshy face that somehow created the illusion he was overweight when he actually wasn't. I got a sense he was disapproving of me, which was understandable under the circumstances; he made a few comments during dinner which I think were deliberately designed to wound.
'Alex is such a chick magnet. Would you believe this stunning girl came up to him on Saturday night and said, just like that, no preliminaries, "I think you're gorgeous and I'd like you to come home with me tonight." Can you believe it? I thought that sort of thing only happened in bad Hollywood movies.'
Alex's eyes darkened and he said quietly through a set jaw, 'I didn't take her up on the offer, though.' He stroked my hair to reassure me, but also, I think, as a warning to Paul.
'Yeah, I offered myself as a substitute but she wasn't interested, sadly.'
Poor Paul, I imagined that hitting the town with Alex would be like it used to be with Mimi and I, but magnified ten-fold. I hoped he found a girl soon, if only so he might be distracted from passing judgement on his friend's choice of lover.
Later when we were back in bed, Alex said, 'Sorry about Paul before. I don't know what that was about.'
'Oh don't worry. Now I've heard all your war stories it explains how you could have misinterpreted my motives on the team building weekend, although my methods must have seemed very subtle compared with the approach of some girls.'
'Even so...'
'The thing is Alex, I can hardly expect you to be faithful to me. If you want to see other people that's your own business, though I'd appreciate it if you used condoms, just in case.'
'Thanks, but I really don't want to see anyone else.'
I wondered then if Alex might have assumed a bad marriage was also a sexless marriage. In many cases he might have been right but not with my own. However, since he didn't ask I decided it wasn't necessary to set him straight.
\*\*\*
That Friday I had some errands to run in my lunch hour. As I had a few minutes to spare, I stopped by the newsagents to have a quick squiz at the latest 'stars without makeup' issue of a gossip magazine too trashy for even me to buy. That's when an article in one of the glossies caught my eye: How to have an affair and not get caught.
Only a few months earlier I would have pursed my lips that such an irresponsible feature would ever be published: fancy encouraging people to commit adultery. Now my perspective had changed somewhat.
I dashed to the counter and presented the cash to the shop assistant. 'May I have it in a paper bag?' I asked politely and she scowled. At first I thought she'd somehow guessed my evil intent but was relieved to realise it was my request for the paper bag that was the problem. Everyone's an environmentalist these days.
Once back in my office I pored over the article eagerly. I don't know what startling insights I was expecting from an article published in a magazine whose raison d'être was the Holy Trinity of beauty, fashion and romance, but I wasn't behaving particularly rationally by this time.
The first and number one rule, opined the author, was:
Don't have an office affair. It will inevitably end in disaster.
Oops - blown that one. Gee the author didn't beat around the bush did she? 'Inevitably end in disaster' - but surely nothing in life is one hundred percent certain? I was comforted by a quote from Mark Twain: 'All generalisations are false, including this one'. I decided that Alex and I would somehow prove to be one of the rare exceptions to this rule, although how it was all going to end peaceably seemed a bit hard to think about at this stage.
The other rules were:
• Don't discuss your home life with your lover.
• Never 'foul your own nest' (bring your lover home to bed).
• Don't tell anyone about the affair.
• Don't communicate by home computer or mobile phone.
• Never have unprotected sex.
It was a shame about the last one - shutting the gate after the horse has bolted as it were - but the others were still implementable.
Later that afternoon, I marched into Alex's office, closed the door and laid down the ground rules for our affair.
'You are not allowed to phone or text me on my mobile or send me any personal emails. I am never inviting you to my home. You are not to tell any of your friends. We are not going to have sex in the toilets at work or anything stupid like that and if you're having fantasies about me giving you a blow job at your desk one evening after office hours think again - it's not going to happen. I value my job too much to risk getting caught.'
'Okay,' he said, 'although I'm a bit sad about the last one. And of course Paul knows already but I think he can be trusted.'
So I had set the ground rules in place, but by this stage had fallen so completely under Alex's spell that I no longer paused to reflect whether I should be doing any of this in the first place.
Madness and possession
I'm guessing this chapter is the whole point of the exercise: my confessional. Although, even as I write the title I am conscious that I may be being less than honest. 'Disingenuous' is the word my mother would use. Was I mad during this period, or simply bad?
Sexual desire - lust is another word. My immediate thought was to describe it as a genie that's been let out of its bottle, a very recalcitrant genie with its own agenda, mind you. Upon reflection, I think the metaphor is not potent enough. I've started thinking more along the lines of a serpent that entwines you in its vice-like grip, controlling your every action and stifling your carefully cultivated sense of right and wrong as easily as a python stifles the breath out of an unsuspecting small mammal that has stumbled across its path. Poor old snakes get a bad rap that is not always deserved, but if the imagery was good enough for the Bible and Harry Potter (although it's probably blasphemous to mention the two in same sentence), then on this occasion it's good enough for me.
Yes, unless you're fully in the grip of sexual desire you're bound to underestimate its force. There was a brief period last year when it dominated everything in my life.
I've made earlier reference to my evil twin and in an indirect way to Tony's who, for a time, appeared to take up permanent residence in our house. I don't think this phenomenon is unique to our little household. It's a question that's challenged more sophisticated philosophers than Eleanor Parkes throughout the ages: the capacity of humans for both good and evil.
I would say that the good me has been in charge for most of my life. I have been a dutiful daughter, an honest employee and a loving mother. I am kind to old people, pay my bills on time and my name is on a secret list that is circulated to all registered charities in Australia and entitled 'Guaranteed Soft Touches'. Out of deference to my husband and daughter I have even kept my thoughts about my motherin-law largely to myself.
All the same the bad me occasionally pops in for a visit, like the time I sat back complicitly and watched the mean girls at my school bully a fat girl so badly she had a nervous breakdown and never returned to class. I knew I should have spoken up for her, but was too much the coward. Instead I hung around at the back of the pack as those snarling hyenas went in for the kill. Then there was that day at uni when a shy boy with bad skin had asked me out within earshot of my friends and I'd callously brushed him off, laughing. I'd felt witty and sophisticated at the time, but had later reflected on how much courage it must have taken him to ask me and how I'd so thoughtlessly crushed his self-esteem.
Yes, the bad me has made a few cameos during my life, but for a time last year she was running the show, with sexual desire the evil mastermind pulling the strings above. I became scheming and duplicitous. To my unending shame I became a snappy and disinterested mother. And I lied. I lied to my mother, I lied to Melanie and I lied to Tony. I even lied to Alex.
But the thing about my evil twin is that she looks exactly like me, so no-one noticed.
For three frenzied months the primary driving force in my life became the need to spend time alone with Alex in that queen-size bed of his. I needed his mouth and his touch and the feel of him within me, the way he'd gently stroke my hair and let me fall asleep in his arms. More than anything I needed to experience his want for me; during the long years of my unhappy marriage I'd forgotten what a heady drug that was. I no longer felt the need to eat or sleep. I barely felt the need to breathe. Like Sleeping Beauty I'd awoken from a long, dull slumber to find my nervous system on full alert. I was in an almost permanent state of arousal; my synapses fairly crackled whenever he was around.
When I'd taken that first step and gone home with him in July I hadn't had particular expectations. I'd detected a sensuality in him which hinted at good things but hadn't thought much past the sexual attraction we obviously had for each other. He was so beautiful I thought he would just have to consent to turn up for the occasion and a girl would have an orgasm. But no, this was a man who was not content to rest on his laurels. He was a lover like none I've ever had before, or am ever likely to have again in the future and I'm not sure if I should bless him or curse him for allowing me to discover that.
During our second time together, as I lay on my tummy and he kissed - one by one - those little indentations between the bones in my spine, he said, 'You have the most beautiful back, Eleanor. I love it almost as much as I love your breasts...well, almost.'
'Really? It's usually behind me so I can't say I've noticed. I have, however, noticed you've started calling me Eleanor. You once said you would start calling me that if I misbehaved and I guess if I'm not misbehaving now I don't know when I would be.'
'No that wasn't my intention. I think I feel the need to separate the two of you - Ellie my work mate and Eleanor my lover - a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.'
'Well it does sound beautiful when you say it so I'm happy for you to keep it up. But tell me, was the French Eleanor also a lover of yours?'
'Maybe, but it was never serious. My French was never good enough for a start. She was just a precursor to better things. But you know, I think there is another reason why I call you Eleanor. It sounds more respectful somehow. And I do respect what you're doing for me, you know. I know you're taking risks.'
That's how it came to pass that my formal name, the name on my passport and driver's licence, the name that strangers call me by until they're advised otherwise, also became my intimate name. The name my lover called me. I liked the secret contradiction in that.
If you are planning on having an affair it's a very good idea to be married to a man who's away a lot. There are few women who would have had the opportunities that I had to be alone with Alex, especially considering Issy's regular Wednesday night sleepover at Pamela's house. If Tony's work roster meant he was home on Wednesday but away another evening Alex and I would make other arrangements to be together. I'd dream up some reason why Isabel had to sleep over at Mum's house, or else employ the teenage girl up the street to babysit for a few hours.
One day Mum questioned me about my sudden desire for evening socialising.
'I don't know Mum. I just feel the need to get out a bit more and enjoy myself,' I said, or something along those lines.
I fancied she looked at me a bit sceptically, but she'd known enough about my earlier troubles and I think was just grateful to see me so energised. Mum would have never thought me the type to have an affair. The daughter she knew didn't do that sort of thing, although her evil twin just might.
Still, it was always those Wednesday nights when Tony was away that I loved the most. We'd make love and we would sleep a little and we would talk. And boy did we talk. I found out all about his early life: how his father was a merchant seaman who had travelled the world as a lone wolf until he met a beautiful young girl, ten years his junior, in Bombay. It had been a happy marriage that had produced two children before their own fairytale went sour and Alex's dad developed lung cancer, dying when Alex was only twelve. He told me how he'd left his mum to go exploring himself, arriving in the UK in his early twenties with a plan to stay for a couple of years but it had somehow turned into nearly ten; how his sister loved her publishing job in New York but had been, like him, unlucky in love; and how their mother was now making impatient noises about wanting to be a grandmother. I in turn told him all about my family: Mum and Dad, David and Emma, and Isabel, my feisty little daughter, but not Tony, of course.
'Emma sounds hilarious,' he said one night after I'd told him about her latest antics. 'I'd love to meet her.'
'Ah, but she's very beautiful. You might fall for her and then where would I be?'
'No, my heart is already spoken for. Besides I don't think I'd like to get on the wrong side of that truckie boyfriend of hers.'
Those Wednesdays I would stay with Alex all night, only returning to my house in the pre-dawn to feed the cat, pack Issy's school gear for the day, and get dressed for another day at work. After retrieving my daughter and dropping her at child care I would arrive at the office still with the remembrance of my lover's touch upon me. One Thursday we were summoned to an early morning meeting with the entire marketing department. We always maintained a healthy distance from one another at these gatherings so I had the opportunity to sit back and observe as Amanda simpered and fluttered her eyelashes at him, all the while feeling an ache between my thighs that spoke of our long night of lovemaking. He couldn't resist giving me a sly smile that morning and I think - judging from her puzzled expression - that Amanda might have witnessed it.
\*\*\*
Mad or bad? If a jury was forced to make a decision I think I might be in trouble. Madness implies a complete loss of reason and judgement whereas throughout this period I continued to enforce those rules of engagement that we'd established right at the beginning. I knew the price I would pay for exposure and didn't want to be caught out. Having said that, I almost weakened once...
It was one of our Wednesdays and I was pacing around like a cat on a hot tin roof, counting down the hours until we could be alone, when, at about 2pm, Pamela phoned.
'I've got a bad head cold and I don't think it would be a good idea for Isabel to come over this evening.'
I could tell she wasn't making this up; her nose sounded distinctly stuffy. 'Oh,' I said. Obviously I didn't disguise my disappointment well enough.
'Why the big fuss? Can't you manage to look after your own child for once?'
'No, no. I just have a bit of work on but I can take that home and do it after she's gone to bed.' Another lie to add to the ledger but I could hardly tell her the real reason for my disappointment. I went into Alex's office to tell him the bad news.
'Oh no...What can we do?'
'Not much I'm afraid.'
'Could I come over to your place - late - after Issy's asleep?'
'No, I don't think that would be a good idea.'
'But I don't think I can survive without seeing you tonight. Just think about it.'
'Okay.'
So I went away and thought about it and almost said yes. Then I started thinking again. What if Isabel woke up in the middle of the night and came into my room, as she did not infrequently:
'Hello darling, meet Mummy's new friend.'
No, I didn't think so. And would I really be able to relax and enjoy myself anyway, with my ear constantly half-cocked for the pad of chubby feet on polished floorboards?
I rang my mother and made up some cock-and-bull story about someone having some tickets to the movies that they were giving away and how Melanie and I wanted to go. It was probably about this time that Mum got to wondering, but she agreed to look after Issy and we got to snatch a few hours together, which was better than nothing at all.
And I'm glad I didn't break that rule because if this ever comes out, perish the thought, I won't have to lie about that. I never directly exposed my daughter to my loose morals.
Alex and I maintained our rules in the workplace too, although occasionally our discipline slipped.
One day he was leaning over me at my desk looking at some ad proofs, when he said, 'You know there is absolutely no reason why I'm doing this except as an excuse to get close to you.'
'I know. You have that divine aftershave on again. What's it called?'
'Dolce and Gabbana. You like it?'
'Mmm...it does strange things to me.'
'Really, I'll have to wear it more often then. What do you mean again?'
'You were wearing it on the team building weekend. Remember when we had to do that stupid activity where we had to squash up next to one another.'
'Remember it - it was the highlight of my weekend. Well it would have been when I kissed you but I seem to remember that went a bit pear-shaped in the end.'
'Yes...anyway, I noticed your aftershave then and was going to ask you what it was called but thought you might think I was being overly familiar. Seems a quaint notion now.'
'It does rather...' he said, leaning in extra close and raising his eyebrows at me in a very suggestive way.
Just then we heard a sharp knock on the door and quickly moved apart. It was Melanie.
'Hi, Alex. Here are those minutes you wanted typed up Ellie. Can you check them over for typos?'
'Yeah sure.'
'Jesus that was close,' I said after she'd left. 'We'll have to be more careful in future.'
\*\*\*
Of course, there was my husband. What of Tony during this time?
He didn't say much at all after my post-coital ultimatum. He saved that for the next time he returned from a trip away. I often felt he needed that time in the air to think. It was almost as if it was his natural environment and he felt ill at ease dealing with life down on earth.
I was at home in the kitchen when he arrived back. He put his bags down beside him and said, with no preliminaries, 'What do you want me to do?'
'What do you mean?'
'What do you want me to do to save our marriage?'
'Is that really what you want?'
'Yes...I told you that before, but you don't seem to want to believe me.'
'Well, I'm sorry but your behaviour in recent times has suggested you want to be anywhere else but with me.'
'So you said - and I'm offering to change.'
'I don't know...You've taken me by surprise here...You could start by spending more time with us - Issy and me - and being a bit more involved.'
'Tell me how then.'
'How about dropping off or picking up Issy from preschool when you're around or even taking her to swimming lessons. You always leave that all to me, even when you're home and I'm the one at work. Issy is so proud of her daddy and would love to show you off, you know.'
'Okay, that's a start, but what about you?'
'Me?'
'Yes, you - that's the big issue here, isn't it?' he said, looking at me as if I was talking in some rare regional dialect from an obscure Baltic state, but then we'd long ago stopped speaking the same language.
'No, not completely, actually...Anyway, where to begin? We could start by talking occasionally. And we never go out as a couple these days, only with your friends.'
'Maybe we could start going out for a date night when I'm home.'
'Yeah.'
'I could ask Mum if we can move around the night Isabel goes over to her place to fit in better with my schedule, rather than just Wednesdays.'
'Oh no I think that would upset Issy's routine. Children like routine,' I said, scrambling to find excuses, 'and then your mother does have a fairly active social life.'
'Yeah that's true.'
'The young girl down the road is very keen to babysit. We could ask her.'
'Okay. So should we try for this Saturday?'
\*\*\*
It was magical. Over the next few months we witnessed the blossoming of a great love affair. Not between Tony and me - I would prove a much harder nut to crack - between Tony and Isabel, of course. I knew, I just knew, if he spent more time with her he would fall head over heels, and he did, so easily in the end. First he started picking her up from preschool and taking her to swimming lessons on Mondays if he was around. Issy was on cloud nine and the preschool workers were all in a fluster. 'My, your husband is nice looking Ellie. We had no idea,' gushed Mrs Walker, the preschool director one day. 'Now we know where Isabel gets her good looks from.' Gee thanks, I thought and she must have seen the look on my face because she quickly added, 'Oh I mean both of you, of course.' Yeah.
Then, in a moment of divine inspiration, I included a coloured foam cricket set amongst the dolls and mini-kitchen appliances I bought for Issy's fourth birthday and dad and daughter spent an hour that first afternoon practising in the backyard. Tony came back inside saying, 'You know I think she has a bit of natural talent there,' and wandered off, I'm sure imagining his daughter opening the batting for the Australian women's cricket team in 2026. And it's just as well daddy did become more attentive because mummy was definitely off her game for those few months. I let Issy watch far too many DVDs on weekends, and while previously at swimming lessons I would watch her in rapt attention, now the poor child had to constantly sing out to attract my interest as I'd inevitably be off in some quiet reverie about Alex.
As for playgroup, well while the other mothers were sitting around, chatting about the best toilet training methods or bitching about the mum who let her kids drink soft drinks all the time, I'd be quietly dying of boredom and wanting to shout out:
'I'm having the best sex of my life and it isn't with my husband!'
\*\*\*
Whilst remedying the Issy situation turned out to be remarkably easy the newly instituted date nights proved a lot more awkward proposition. How could it possibly be that you could be married to someone for seven years but have almost nothing to say to them? I suggested we start off by going to the movies for this very reason, just like we were teenagers again. He even held my hand in the old fashioned way.
However, our sex life actually went up a notch, although more in enthusiasm than in frequency. (I think he'd taken on board my 'marriage is more than sex' statement.) Since I'd forgone food for sex I'd lost the last few baby kilos I'd suspected were going to be with me till the grave. As my husband had always preferred me on the leaner side, he noticed the change with approval and responded with extra attentiveness. (Alex, on the other hand, started telling me off for getting too skinny, and commenced buying me fudge brownies for morning tea in a futile effort to fatten me up.) I continued to be obliging, mainly because I didn't want Tony to get suspicious, but my husband was hardly an unattractive bed partner even if he was only functioning as Alex's understudy at this time. I just had to be vigilant and remember never ever to say the wrong name.
And that's of course where I was being less than honest with Alex. For the most part we didn't talk about Tony when we were together, preferring to pretend he didn't exist, but if Alex happened to mention him it was in the context of what he thought was a loveless and rapidly disintegrating marriage. I didn't dare tell him that my husband was trying to come back to me. It was a hard enough thought for me to deal with - the very thing I'd dreamed of for years was finally happening and now I wasn't sure I wanted it at all. I knew that if I was going to make a proper commitment to saving my marriage I would have to end my love affair, and that was not something I wanted to contemplate at this time.
\*\*\*
There's probably not much more to say about this period - well nothing that wouldn't require a parental warning at least - except to explain how this memoir came to be. It was actually Alex's idea.
'I was thinking,' I said one night, as we lay together in his bed, 'about when we were at Melbourne airport after the launch and you got all shitty about Dr Howard making a pass at me. That was because of your ex going off with the married man wasn't it?'
'No - not at all. I was just jealous.'
'Jealous of what?'
'That you and the good doctor had so obviously hit it off.'
'What, even then? That was way back in April.'
'Oh yeah, completely smitten.'
'I honestly had no idea. You are a mysterious one.'
'Oh, you're not going to start banging on about this man of mystery stuff again. It's getting annoying. I'm not in the least mysterious. What you see is what you get.'
'That's not strictly true. What about Amanda?'
'I'm just being professional there.'
'Anyway, take it from me, you seemed mysterious and I'm not the only one who thought so.'
'You and Melanie,' he said, shaking his head like an exasperated parent.
'At one stage I used to like to pretend you were an alien. You appeared from nowhere and seemed so perfect and nice and no-one really knew anything about you and...'
'No, no...wind the conversation back a bit. Did you just say you imagined I was an alien?'
'Not seriously...'
'Oh my God, I've fallen in love with a madwoman!'
'Don't say that. I'm not mad, just a bit odd. I don't know...I think I have a slightly skewed view of the world and maybe a more vivid imagination than most.'
'I'd say that'd be a fair assessment,' he said, laughing. 'Lucky for you I find oddness very sexy in a woman.' To prove his point he snuggled into me extra close to kiss me.
I assumed he'd forgotten all about our conversation until later that night, when he woke me up trying to extricate his arm from under my sleeping form. I stretched, still half-asleep, and blinked my eyes open to catch him sitting on the side of the bed.
'Where are you going?' I asked in that annoying female fashion, when the answer was fairly obvious.
He glanced over his shoulder and looking at me in an X-Files sort of way said, 'Ah well since you are on to me I thought I'd better move my spaceship out of the garage.'
'Oh shut up,' I said, reaching out to give him a punch on the arm for his troubles.
'Oww, you've got a hard punch for a girl.'
'Yep, years of weight training, baby, so you better watch yourself.'
On his return I said, 'You were planning that spaceship gag.'
'We can't all be natural wits like you Eleanor. You know I was thinking - I have all my best thoughts while taking a leak - you have this imagination and a gift with words. Have you ever thought about becoming a writer?'
'I have but it's a bit of a cliché isn't it?'
'That doesn't mean it's not worth doing.'
'I suppose so...If only I had the time. I don't know - maybe I could write a novel about us one day.'
'And would I be a human or alien character?'
'You're not going to let me live that down are you?'
'Nuh - anyway I don't mind either way, just as long as you make me devilishly handsome and an accomplished lover.'
'Well that would hardly be much of a stretch.'
A night at the Opera House
Quite late in this period of madness, Tony and I had a curious encounter on one of our date nights. One of Tony's school friends, Michael, offered us two tickets to a play. Mike and his wife Melissa had bought the tickets several months earlier but were unable to use them because Melissa had delivered their third child a few weeks earlier than expected. We were meeting another couple, mutual friends called Robbie and Anna, and I was looking forward to having the extra company to enliven the conversation a bit.
It was a Thursday. The play was being staged in the drama theatre at the Opera House and we parked in the car park. We were walking together to the theatre, Tony grumbling about the price of the parking, when in one of the packed bars on the concourse we ran smack bang into Alex. For a few seconds I was disorientated - now who did I come with again? - but it wasn't long before I regained my composure. At least I hope it appeared that way. My heart was pounding so violently I was worried it might have been visible under my dress.
I was glad that I'd asked Tony to check he'd brought the tickets as he was rummaging around in his pockets at the time, rather than holding my hand as he'd been doing a few seconds earlier. In Alex's carefully edited version of events my husband and I were barely speaking.
The thing is Alex was with a girl - an extremely attractive girl. She was very tall, with long red hair and equally long slim legs encased in a short skirt and knee-high black boots. She had legs that didn't seem to get any bigger at the thighs, unlike the rest of us mortals. I know that I had no right to be jealous, but who was she?
'Hi,' I said.
'Hi,' he said back.
'Are you going to introduce me?' asked Tony.
'Sorry...this is Alex - my boss - Tony.'
'Oh, don't call me your boss, Ellie.'
'So, you're the guy who keeps monopolising all my wife's time,' said Tony. I glanced his direction, but he was smiling.
'And this is my husband, Tony. We're just off to see a play at the Opera House.'
So my husband and lover shook hands. But who was the girl?
Then Alex remembered. 'Oh, sorry, I'm being neglectful too. This is Stacey. We're having a few drinks with friends. The rest of them are at the bar getting drinks. Stacey, I work with Ellie.'
'Hi,' I said.
Tony looked at his watch. 'I don't want to be rude - it would be nice to chat, but the play is starting soon. We're meeting some other friends and they'll be wondering where we are.'
'Yeah we better go. See you tomorrow then,' I said to Alex.
'Hope the play is good.'
I can't tell you if the play was any good because I was incapable of thinking about anything but the leggy Stacey all night.
As we were walking away Tony said, 'So that's the famous Alex you're always going on about is it? I expected him to be older for some reason. But I must say his girlfriend is extremely hot.'
'Oh, I don't know that she is his girlfriend,' I replied in an unnaturally high voice. 'As far as I'm aware he doesn't have one.'
'What is he gay or something?'
'No. He had a serious girlfriend in England but they split up.'
'You seem to know a lot about his love life.'
'I do work with him every day after all.'
'Well he should make a move on that girl if he's single. I would.'
'Gee, thanks.'
'I meant if I was single,' he said, smiling and grabbing my hand in reassurance. I was annoyed with him about that. He had to stop this being nice to me caper, otherwise I'd have no reason to justify my present behaviour.
When he popped into my office the next day Alex said, 'That was weird, wasn't it?'
'Yes. I didn't know you were going out last night.'
'It was a bit of a last minute decision.'
And then I couldn't help myself. 'So who is Stacey?'
'Ah yes, I realised later that you might have wondered about that. Don't worry, she's the girlfriend of my friend James. He was at the bar with Paul getting drinks when you came by.'
'Oh.'
'Were you jealous? I hope so.'
'A bit...even though I know I have no right. She's rather gorgeous.'
'Yeah she's a good sort. James is very keen.'
'Tony thought she was your girlfriend. He said she was hot.'
'Well he should have had a closer look at the woman standing next to him. She's hot too...no scrap that, on second thoughts I don't want him to notice. You know, Stacey guessed.'
'Guessed what?'
'That you were the girl I was seeing. She said she could tell by the way I looked at you.'
'But no-one's meant to know!'
'Oh yeah. Paul must have said something to James.'
'Well tell Paul to stop blabbing will you. You never know who will know who.'
'Okay, settle down, I will,' he soothed, although he seemed a bit irritated with me. Perhaps he thought I was overreacting, but then he had nothing to lose by exposure and I had everything.
Thinking it would be a good idea to change the subject, I said, 'You know, when I told Tony that Stacey wasn't your girlfriend, he actually asked me if you were gay. If I'd have been cleverer I would have said yes.'
'Why, is he a homophobe or something?'
'No, you couldn't accuse him of that. As a matter of fact his younger brother is gay, although he's yet to officially come out.'
'You don't think I'm gay do you?' he said slyly. With that he quickly scanned the horizon, then leant down (I was sitting at my desk) and kissed me slowly on the neck.
I felt my insides contract with that now familiar feeling but I had to reprimand him. 'What are you doing?'
'Relax, I checked, there's no-one around.'
\*\*\*
It took me a few days to realise that I was not the only one struck by the green-eyed monster after our chance encounter in the shadows of the Opera House.
It was a Wednesday night, and I was once again alone with Alex in his bed. We had just made love, me on top. Alex lay on his back, looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
'You like that position best, I think?' I said.
'Why?'
'Because I can tell when you come - the intensity seems greater.'
'Hmm, I like watching you.'
But then his expression changed - to what? I wasn't sure until he spoke. 'So tell me...what position does Tony like best?'
'What?'
'What position does your husband enjoy best?'
'Why are you asking me that? You know I can't talk about that sort of thing.'
'Okay tell me this. Are you still having sex with him?'
'Yes, but hardly ever. ['Hardly ever' if you used the criteria of a honeymooner maybe, but remember I was an accomplished liar by this stage.] He might get suspicious if I said no altogether.'
'Lots of wives do say no, I hear. The thing is I had this impression that you were barely speaking to one another, but when I saw you together the other night I didn't get that vibe at all. You seemed almost cosy.'
'You know that people always present their best face in public.'
'Even so - he didn't look like a guy who was just about to walk out on you.'
'Where did this all come from? You seemed fine about things on Friday.'
'I don't know...I tried not to let it worry me. But while you've been playing happy families all weekend I've had time to think - too much time probably.'
'Okay, there has been a complication, which I suppose I should have told you about before now. The other day [actually it was more than two months earlier but I didn't think telling the truth would be to my advantage here] I gave him an ultimatum. I said we should talk about separating soon if things didn't improve. Anyway, he's now saying he doesn't want to split up and has been being making more of an effort. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this.'
'Oh great - so where does that leave us then?'
'Look I'm sure his behaviour won't last. He's made similar promises before and not kept them.'
'What if he does this time? After seeing him I have a whole different understanding of why you might want to stay.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well I wasn't expecting you to be married to an ugly guy, but then again I wasn't expecting you to be married to...I don't know...Thor the God of Thunder.'
'Oh get lost. You're just as good looking as Tony - better, if you ask me.'
'No, I'm not. I look like a bloody girl. All guys want to be the big macho guy and ultimately that's what girls like best, too.'
'Not this girl. I love your body,' I said, although the Ellie of ten years earlier might have agreed with him. Back then, I'd felt that nothing could go wrong when I was enclosed in my husband's big, strong arms. Of course that all proved to be an illusion - he'd been unable to protect me from the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Instead he had hurt me, never physically, but viscerally just the same. Now my tastes were more refined I found Alex's sleekly-muscled body just as desirable. That statement, at least, wasn't a lie.
'This is not about dick size is it?' I asked. I knew this was a loaded topic with men.
'No! I am more than happy with myself in that department. Why, shouldn't I be?'
'Yes...I mean no...I mean you should be happy! Besides...'
'Besides what?'
'No nothing.'
'No tell me.'
'I shouldn't really say this...but...you're a better lover than him.'
'Now you're just saying that to make me feel better.'
'No I'm not.'
'Well give me an example.'
'That would be inappropriate. Let's just say you're more inventive.'
'Oh come on now you'll have to give me more than that otherwise I'll think you're just making it up.'
'Hmm...well okay...I'll go for the most obvious. You know the expression it's better to give than to receive.'
'Yes.'
'Well, when it comes to oral sex, I don't think Tony really believes that.'
'What, he never...'
'No - not never - but only when he's had a bit to drink and even then not particularly enthusiastically. I think it might have something to do with his germ phobia. And believe me when someone is doing it just to be polite, you'd really rather they not bother.'
'Really, I can't believe that...I love it.'
'Yes, I'd noticed. It's one of my favourite things about you.'
'So you're not staying because you'd prefer to be with him.'
'No, that's not it at all. It's all about my daughter.'
Now girls, if you ever want to make your man really happy tell him he is a better lover than his rivals (past and present), although it would probably be better for all concerned if it was actually true, otherwise there would be no incentive for him to lift his game. Fortunately in my case it did happen to be true. Alex swaggered around like a Wild West gunslinger for several days after that.
I, on the other hand, felt dreadful. In my eagerness to appease Alex I had revealed personal confidences about Tony that I should never have. I had broken those rules of engagement in the worst possible way and been disloyal to a husband who, whatever his past sins, was currently trying his best to woo me back. It's peculiar but I felt this was even worse a betrayal than having sex with Alex. I think it was about this time that my conscience started to reassert itself and the good twin got a few grasping outstretched fingers back on the controls. She hadn't disappeared completely, it seemed.
A fork in the road
Not long after this Tony announced he was taking some time off work. He said he was impatient to finish off the formal dining room so we could finally look at selling the house. Part of me was reluctant to give up my home - it now looked fabulous - but it was also the repository of lots of unhappy memories so I agreed in principle. If Tony had suggested this a few months earlier I would have thought he was finalising things so we could cut our losses and part company. Now that seemed a lot less likely. However, the net result was he would be home for nearly three weeks straight, which was not good news for Alex and me.
By the end of this period Alex was getting twitchy, so at my suggestion we hired a room for a few hours one Friday afternoon after lunch, telling Melanie that we were going to an off-site meeting to 'discuss strategy'. This was veering scarily into clichéd territory: the illicit affair. Up until now we'd always been at Alex's place and I'd been able to pretend that there wasn't anything particularly grubby or underhanded about what I'd been doing, but our afternoon rendezvous in an anonymous hotel room quickly put pay to that illusion.
Alex didn't like it either. He approached the physical side with customary enthusiasm, but afterwards was quiet and obviously not happy. 'This is tacky,' he said after a while.
'No,' I joked half-heartedly, 'it's only tacky if you go to cheap motels. I paid the bill and this place is really quite expensive.'
'Don't joke. I'm serious. I don't want to do this anymore.'
'Oh,' I said. This all seemed very sudden. 'What do you mean by that? That you want to call it quits? If so, that's going to make things difficult at work...'
'I don't mean I want to end our relationship. Oh honestly, how could you think that? I want to end the sneaking around. I want to have a proper relationship with you. I want to go out to dinner with you, and to hold your hand in public and for us to hang out with my friends together. I want us to move in together actually.'
'Well if you wanted those things you shouldn't have pursued a married woman.'
'I didn't choose to pursue a married woman, as I've told you many times. I just fell in love.'
Jesus Christ, I thought, did he mention the L word?
'Don't look at me as if I have two heads. You must know that I am in love with you. It's not like I haven't told you before. [He had, of course, but I'd always thought it was just an expression, not an emotion.] What do you think I put up with all this shit for - the sex? I could get that every night of the week if I wanted, with girls that don't have husbands at home.'
'Well why don't you?' I snapped.
'Because I am in love with you,' said the remedial romance teacher, rapidly losing patience with a particularly dull student. 'And I want you to leave your husband. You said it was going to happen early on and now it seems it's not.'
'I can't just leave, Alex. It's not that simple. If Tony found out about us he would crucify me. And his family would too - his mother hates me, remember. They would go after custody of Isabel just to spite me and they are loaded, so there is a good chance they'd win. I can't risk losing another child, I just can't.'
'So what's meant to happen? We go on like this until when? Do you love me or not?'
'Yes,' I said because it seemed the socially appropriate thing to say under the circumstances, but until that moment I'd never paused to consider whether I was actually in love with Alex - it had always seemed more convenient to describe what I was feeling as lust. But if I was honest with myself I knew it was more than that. He was constantly in my thoughts all those hours we spent apart and I would save up funny anecdotes from my weekends, thinking, I must tell Alex this. I genuinely liked him too. In all the time I'd spent with him I never saw cause to change my original opinion that he was a nice guy, remarkably lacking in those insecurities and vanities that beset lesser men. He was also easy to talk to, in a way that Tony was never going to be.
Was that love? I was much less confident I knew what love was at thirty-four than I did at twenty-four, at that time when I'd not long become involved with Tony. The only people I knew without doubt I loved were Isabel - with the burning fire of mother love - and my flesh and blood relatives: Mum and Dad, David and Emma. The so-called 'romantic' love between a man and a woman seemed a much more temperamental beast, contingent on circumstance and on each party behaving in a way that was acceptable to the other.
How could Alex be so sure of his feelings? I was completely taken aback by the confidence of his declaration after only three months of secretly-snatched togetherness. It had taken me a full year to extract anything similar from Tony and only then with a lot of prodding. Were they even experiencing the same emotion? Was 'love' different for every one of us?
Alex brought me back from my thoughts into the real world: 'Well, can't you just leave him? He's given you enough reason over the years. Just say you want to live apart and I'll stay in the background for six months or so and then we can pretend to start something after that. Then we could move in together - you, me and Isabel - I know you come as a package deal.'
'Yes, I suppose that might work, although...'
'Stop thinking of excuses or I'll think you don't mean it. Please think about it. I can't do this for much longer.'
We'd had limited time together because I had to pick up Isabel by 5.30pm but in the end we showered, separately, and checked out early. Our hearts were no longer in it. Isabel wanted to chat on the drive home, but I managed to pacify her with a Play School CD to sing along with. My temples throbbed from the sheer weight of thoughts crowding my brain.
Could it be possible? Could I leave Tony for Alex and get away with it? Did I have the courage? More to the point, did I have the selfishness? I had told Alex that the only thing keeping Tony and me together was Isabel. That had been true a few months ago, but was it now? Tony seemed to be genuinely committed this time and perhaps it was time to forgive him and do the same. My child deserved that. My marriage deserved that. As curious as it seemed for a woman in my current position I had taken my wedding vows seriously.
But the thought of giving up Alex seemed unbearably painful. Perhaps I was in love with him after all...
And what if he took it badly? No, there was no 'if' - I knew he would. He might tell Tony anyway to spite me and then I would lose both of them...and Isabel...
Oh God - you are a fucking idiot Eleanor. What a fine mess you've got yourself into.
I was expecting to find Tony covered in his usual film of paint dust when we got home but he was freshly showered and dressed and had a bottle of champagne, Bollinger in fact, on ice. Something big was up.
'I have the best news. I got an email from management today approving my transfer back to the passenger fleet.'
'What?' I said. 'How long have you known about this? Why didn't you tell me this was on the cards?'
'I didn't think it was on the cards. Some vacancies came up in the 747 fleet and I applied on the off chance, but not expecting it to happen. We've lost quite a few guys already from the Sydney base so I didn't think they'd let me go. Anyway for whatever reason they've turned around and given the okay. I've given up trying to predict how management are going to act.'
'But that means you will need to be based in Hong Kong, doesn't it? So you want us to live apart?'
Could this be my out?
'No, of course not, I want us to live there. That's why I've been keen to finish the house. I mean we could rent it out but then tenants might not look after it. The market is hot at the moment and it would be better to sell and invest the money. Cathay will subsidise our accommodation in Hong Kong. There's a great expat community there. I'm sure you'll like it.'
'And what about me? What about my job?'
'Well there'd be lots of positions in Hong Kong but I thought you might want to use it as an opportunity to have another baby. Mum says that Isabel is getting a bit spoilt now and needs a new brother or sister to settle her down.'
'Oh does she now! Well when we have babies things don't seem to go so well for us so you can see why I might be reluctant.'
'But we would have a maid in Hong Kong. Things will be much easier for you.'
'I can't believe you didn't even think to tell me that this was a possibility. This is a huge life change. When are you ever going to learn that marriage is about communication?'
I ran into the bedroom and lay on our bed and started sobbing my eyes out.
While I was there I started thinking: How dare he decide this without me. I'm his wife, not his goods and chattels. I'll make him go without us. I'll say I want to stay. And then eventually we'll drift apart, and I will be able to ask for a separation, and then I will be able to be with Alex.
As I lay there crying, Isabel came in. 'Mummy, Mummy, what's the matter? Don't be sad, Mummy,' she said and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. 'Are you better now?'
'Mummy will be fine soon darling, I just need a little rest,' I said, smiling at this little show of affection in spite of myself. Issy's kisses had miraculous qualities but even they did not have the power to solve my current problems.
Tony entered the room. 'Now Issy, Mummy is feeling a little tired at the moment so why don't I get you dinner and you can watch a DVD as a special treat.'
'I want Dora the Explorer.'
After he'd settled Isabel, Tony returned to the bedroom. I was still lying in the same position, face down on the bed, but my tears had dried by now and I was collecting my thoughts.
Then he behaved in a way that turned all my plotting on its head.
First of all he said, 'I'm sorry. It was stupid of me not to tell you but I really didn't think it would come off this time. Do you want me to knock it back - I could say "family reasons" or something - and reapply a bit later, when you feel you're more ready?'
'You know I could never ask you to do that. It's obvious you're not happy where you are now. And I don't think it would be a good idea to get management offside by suddenly changing your mind. But why don't you go ahead to Hong Kong and Isabel and I can follow in six months or a year or so, once you're settled.'
'Because I don't want to go without you two, of course. I don't think the separation would be good for our marriage...just when we seem to be getting on better.' As he spoke he started massaging my neck and shoulders. 'God, your shoulders are tense.'
There was nothing sexual in this gesture; it was just tenderness. I think it was the feel of his touch and something in his manner...a lack of defensiveness perhaps...that made me feel he was genuinely seeking redemption this time.
'I need a drink,' I said after a while. 'Get that champagne will you.'
'Okay.' He wasn't sure of the significance of my decision to open the champagne. I wasn't even sure myself.
He uncorked the bottle and poured each of us a glass as I sat cross-legged on the bed. I took a sip or two and said, 'My problem is that I've never felt that you were genuinely sorry for all the hurt you have caused me and I'm worried that if we head off to Hong Kong it will happen again, and this time I will have no family there to support me.'
'I won't, I promise. Things are different now.'
'Unfortunately - to quote one of your favourite expressions - talk is cheap so I think you're going to have to offer me more than that.'
'Okay, I will go to counselling with you - and I will take it seriously.'
Isabel came bounding in. 'Dora's finished.'
'Then it's a bath and off to bed with you, young lady.'
'I'm hungry,' he said. 'How about I sort out Issy and you order some takeaway.'
After Isabel was asleep we went back to our bed and had a champagne picnic, just like the day he had proposed to me. And just as it was on that day, my jangling nerves meant I had little appetite.
'So where were we?' I said eventually. 'Ah counselling.'
'Yes there's the proof you need that I'm committed. I'm prepared to go to counselling.'
'I know you're cynical but it has helped me a lot and if we are to have another baby you need to work through a few issues, rather than just run off with another flight attendant when I put on a few kilos.'
'Please don't trivialise things, Elle. It wasn't just because you put on weight. I am not that superficial. I was angry with you. I felt you changed when we got married. I felt you abandoned me.'
'I abandoned you!'
'Look, do you want to listen to what I have to say or do you want to argue with me. It is difficult enough to say these things and I'm not going to go on unless you're prepared to hear me out.'
'Okay, okay...tell me and I promise I will be quiet.'
'First you changed when we got married. You started getting resentful about my job.'
'I didn't say much.'
'You didn't need to. It was obvious from your attitude. You'd sulk when I had to go away at Christmas or on our anniversary when really you knew I had little control over these things. And then you became obsessed about having a baby and I just felt like a piece of meat or...I don't know...a sperm donor. You only seemed to want to have sex to make a baby after that. Do you know how it feels for a guy to be rejected all the time when he wants to make love to his wife? Like it's some sort of burden.'
He paused for a moment.
'Then...after William...you spent so much time with those counsellors and on your chat groups that you seemed to have no time for me. You were always online with those bloody chat groups. I didn't want to talk to counsellors. I wanted to talk to you.'
'But I couldn't help you Tony. I was hurting too much myself.'
'Okay...I think I can understand that now but can I please finish? Then it was back to being the sperm donor and after Isabel was born it got worse.'
'Now that's not fair. I had a terrible time with Issy and you didn't help. You were awful to me just when I needed you most.'
'I'm not making excuses. I'm just trying to explain why I got involved with Wendy...though, I don't know, I'm not even sure I really know myself. It sounds stupid but it just sort of happened. It's not like I went looking. You find yourself in these situations...and then she seemed to have the time for me that you never had. Anyway the main thing is it's never going to happen again. I know what I've got here.'
Wendy? I hadn't heard that before. It seemed a name more suited to a tuckshop mum than a mistress. But what was I expecting - Krystle or Bambi?
And of course she had more time for him - she didn't have a screaming baby to attend to.
But that could wait. This was clearly not the time for point scoring.
I was astounded that this had all come out of Tony's mouth. I began to think we must have been drinking truth serum rather than champagne. If that was the case it was best I kept my mouth firmly shut.
'We could have saved ourselves a lot of tears if you'd told me some of this earlier,' I said after it was clear he'd finished, 'but we can't change that. And it doesn't mean we don't need to go to counselling. We - and I mean both of us - still have some huge issues to deal with around communication.'
'I know. But thanks for not biting my head off this time when I mentioned the affair.'
Oh Tony, if you only knew the reason you wouldn't be thanking me.
My eyelids were feeling heavy. I lay my head on the pillow. All that champagne on an almost empty stomach was taking its toll.
'I think I need to sleep. Can we talk more tomorrow?'
'Okay, I'll wash up.'
I dragged myself to the bathroom to wash and brush my teeth and then crawled into bed. At first I must have fallen into a deep sleep as I don't remember Tony coming into the room, but from 2am to 4am I dozed fitfully and after that was wide awake. He slept on beside me, his breathing heavy and regular. It was time to think.
I knew he thought I was coming around to the idea of going to Hong Kong with him - and he was correct - although a few issues needed to be ironed out beforehand.
I'd got myself in a terrible pickle and removing to Hong Kong was the best way to extricate myself without too many tears. It would be a clean break from Alex, which was exactly what was needed. We would not even be in the same city; there would be no temptation to lapse.
The lure of Alex was strong but I had known him for such a short time: less than a year and intimately for much less than that. And how well did I really know him? I only had his version of events about his breakup from Julie. I'd also never thought to check with Paul if Stacey really was James' girlfriend. I had given Alex the licence to see other people and whilst I thought he was being faithful to me I'd always thought that about Tony, too.
Alex was a good guy but he was hardly perfect - after all, he was fooling around with the wife of another man. Our recent times together had been made tense by his jealousy and impatience. I wouldn't have expected or even wanted Alex to be perfect, but if I split with Tony and it got ugly would he have the patience to stick by me during difficult times? A man who fell in love so easily might fall out of it again equally quickly. What if I ended things with Tony and remained in Sydney as a single mum and then when push came to shove Alex decided he no longer wanted me? Isabel would be the innocent casualty of my selfishness, just at the time she'd finally been granted the daddy I'd always dreamed of.
On the other hand my husband's character flaws were known to me. He was a known quantity. The years we'd lived together but apart had eroded away the love I'd had for him and all that was left now was a small kernel of affection: more a remembrance of that love than the real thing. But it was still there and with time we might be able to build on it, especially with some distance at last between us and the influence of his mother.
What rankled most was the thought I might have played more than a bit part in my marriage woes. I'd worn my innocent victim's robes for many years now, and found the cut suited me well. Now my contribution to the sorry mess had been revealed: it was true that I had been resentful; it was true I had often knocked him back for sex back then, sacrificing intimacy in a misguided pursuit of sperm quality; and when I thought about the months after William's death my husband was little more than a hazy background figure. It seems that while working through my own grief I had left him to suffer alone. Was it any wonder that he hadn't dealt with it properly?
Ultimately I knew that none of this justified adultery, but did anything really justify adultery?
Hmmm.
There was only one sensible decision I could make. It was the best decision for Isabel and her needs took priority. Telling Alex would be unbearably painful but it had to be done. If only I'd known our last time together - so snappy and unsatisfactory - would be our last.
The next day was sunny so Tony, Isabel and I took a bus into the city. Issy, dressed in her favourite white-patterned sundress, was goggled-eyed at the spectacle. Who'd have thought the daughter of an airline pilot would get so excited by an everyday trip on a government bus? We walked to the Botanic Gardens and set up our picnic lunch in a sunny spot overlooking the harbour. This was my first step in saying goodbye to my home town, although Tony assured me it would not be forever. He was keen to return by the time our children were of high school age. I took this to mean he wanted his son to attend his old school, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.
'You know even if we do have another baby there is no guarantee it will be a boy,' I said. 'In fact it's probably more likely to be another girl. You realise that don't you? I don't want it to be the cause of further problems.'
'Yes I know, but we did conceive a boy once. And I was told by someone that Chinese herbalists can give you herbs that increase the odds of you having a boy...or a girl if that's what you're after.'
'Hmm, if only things were that easy, but I suppose it's worth a try. But you're not allowed to tell Emma. She'll never let me live it down if she finds out. And remember there can be no guarantees.'
'I know, I know. And seriously how could I complain if we had another like Isabel.' We both looked towards our daughter. She had found a companion, a smaller boy, and they were making a game of jumping off a low stone fence together. 'Mum's going to miss her dreadfully.'
'Even if she's a bit spoilt.'
'Yeah.' He smiled and swung an arm over my shoulder in a lazy, sunny afternoon way.
'You're pretty pleased with yourself right now,' I said.
'Relieved to get things back on track, more likely...You know, I'm starting to think we'd be better off now if I'd stayed at Qantas instead of changing horses midstream, but I don't know that I was thinking very clearly at that time.'
Was that two admissions of fallibility in twenty-four hours? I resisted the temptation to comment.
'No, it wasn't a good time in our lives. Anyway, it might yet turn out for the best. I mean it will be a bit of an adventure living overseas.'
'No we wouldn't have had that opportunity, would we? And I'm not going to knock back the money.'
'Mmm.' I rubbed my hands at the prospect.
There was one more question I needed to ask him. 'You know it seems like you've been away for a really long time and have just come back. Was it my ultimatum?'
'No it was before that but I don't think you even noticed. The ultimatum gave me a big kick along though. Nothing like the thought of losing you to galvanise me into action.'
And although he couldn't look at me - staring at the passing yachts on the harbour instead - he said, 'I don't know what came over me. I knew I was being a bastard but I couldn't seem to stop myself. I'm so sorry for the hurt...and, well, for everything.'
That was the deal clincher.
We walked back to the bus stop in the warmth of the late afternoon sun, Isabel between us holding one hand each. 'Hold on tight,' we said as we swung her high in the sky. She giggled in intoxicated delight, urging us to do it again and again until I had to beg off, my arms too tired to lift her anymore.
I often wonder if she'll remember that day when she gets older, maybe the first time in her short life that her parents seemed genuinely together and content just to be there in her company.
\*\*\*
I was tapping away on my notebook, manuscript unfinished, when the dulcet tones of the purser came over the PA, advising us that, as we were approaching Hong Kong, we needed to 'turn off all electronic devices'. So near and yet so far.
Anyway, we're here in Hong Kong now, or more precisely in our little house in Discovery Bay. This is where we plan to live for I don't know how long.
Discovery Bay is on Lantau Island, a twenty-odd minute ferry ride from the main island. There is a huge expat community here. In fact it's almost all expat - not just Cathay pilots and their families (Chek Lap Kok airport also being on Lantau) but lots of others, Hong Kong being the Asian hub of lots of big international corporations, including, incidentally, many pharmaceutical companies.
Discovery Bay: the first time Tony mentioned the name I thought we were going to end up living at a holiday resort, complete with Kids' Club and Happy Hour by the pool. My prejudices weren't allayed when I found out that, in a measure designed to reduce pollution, no private cars are allowed here. To get around you have to catch a bus or taxi, unless you're fabulously wealthy and can afford your own golf buggy. It's almost as if we've taken up permanent residence on Hamilton Island, although with all the high rises it more closely resembles Surfers Paradise. To complete the picture there is even a beach where people hang out and play volleyball but the water looks a bit dodgy and don't think any self-respecting beach-loving Aussie would ever consider swimming in it.
I suspect initial impressions will fade, however. I can't wait till some more of our belongings arrive so we can make our town house seem more like home.
\*\*\*
I had a nasty scare yesterday. I haven't quite got used to Issy being four and so astute and talkative.
Tony met us both at the airport. When he asked us how we enjoyed the flight, Issy told him about the Disney movie she had seen. We heard the entire plot in intricate detail. Tony listened with admirable patience before turning to me. 'So what'd you do? Catch up on any movies?'
'No,' piped up Issy, 'Mummy worked on her computer the whole way.'
'Really - what were you working on?' asked Tony.
'Er...just a report for Edward that I promised to complete.' (Idiot, idiot - why didn't I consider the possibility this could come up?)
'Why were you doing that? You don't work for them anymore. Tell them to piss off.'
'No, no...it was something I started and wanted complete for my own sake. Edward didn't ask me to.'
'Oh well, if you want to waste your time I suppose that's your business.'
Anyway, I've had a reprieve. My new improved, super-duper husband has decided I look tired and thus volunteered to take Isabel to Hong Kong Disneyland, which is just up the road from here, without me today. I have to finish this memoir today, email it off to Melanie's safe keeping, and expunge all records from my computer.
So to continue.
Glass slippers and unlikely fairy godmothers
The following Monday Tony confirmed his transfer with Cathay. Then he headed off overseas for several days.
My stomach was performing a triple somersault with pike as I walked into the office on Tuesday, but I found Alex was out on the road all morning. I left a message on his voicemail, asking him to meet me for lunch at a coffee lounge in the local shopping mall.
I received a text in reply: Ok what's up?
Tell u later, was mine.
The décor of Rosa's Coffee Lounge has seen better days and the coffee is almost undrinkable, but I wanted to go somewhere where we'd be unlikely to run into anyone we knew and in that regard it fitted the bill perfectly. There were a few other diners, mostly aged over sixty. Well they looked about that old, as far as I could make out through the gloom. The place could certainly have done with a few extra light bulbs. It seemed an appropriate venue for what I was about to do.
Alex walked in a couple of minutes late, looking tense.
'What's going on?' he asked, as he took the chair opposite.
'Do you want to order coffee first?'
'No, I want to know what's on your mind.'
The waitress approached us but I politely waved her away. It looked like I couldn't stall any longer. 'Tony is transferring to Hong Kong with work. I've decided I'm going with him.'
'No you're not.'
'I'm sorry, but I am. I've thought about it long and hard and ultimately it's the best decision for all of us.'
'And are you including me in your all of us? Because it's not the best decision for me.'
'I think it is. You'll be better off without me.'
'Have you been leading me on all this time? Did you never have any intention of leaving your husband?'
'No, no...please believe me. It was just as I said it was. But Tony really has changed. I can't explain why but for Isabel's sake I have to try and make a go of it.'
He crossed his arms and shook his head. 'No. I'm not giving up that easily.'
'I've already handed in my resignation to Edward this morning. It's happening, Alex. I'm so sorry. If there was any other way...'
In his anger his pupils had dilated. 'Don't say that. There is another way - you just haven't chosen it. The fact that I'm in love with you doesn't come into this at all, does it?'
'I'm sorry but I've lived more than you and no longer buy this love conquers all stuff.'
'Really? I happen to think I've lived quite a lot actually...'
'Anyway, I seriously doubt you can be as much in love with me as you say. We've known each other such a short time.'
'Oh and you can get inside my head now can you?'
'I just can't see how you could have gotten over Julie so soon. It's barely been a year. She was your great love, not me.'
'No, you are the one who keeps saying Julie was my great love. I never have. You don't want to deal with the possibility that it might actually be you.'
'Now you're just rewriting history to make me feel guilty.'
'No I'm not - and that's a terrible thing to say.'
'Okay, okay, I'm sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I care for you so deeply.'
'But not deeply enough it seems...I could tell Tony about us, you know. What would happen then?'
'You would be ruining my life, Alex, and if you love me as much as you say you do, you could never choose to do that. I would never forgive you.'
'So that's it, is it? You are going to waltz off to your new life in Hong Kong with that husband you claimed you no longer loved so you can have boring sex with him for the rest of your life.'
I think the old lady in the lawn bowls uniform at the next table must have heard this. Certainly she dropped the spoon she was stirring her cappuccino with most precipitously. I imagined my sordid love life might be a topic of conversation at her next morning tea at the club.
'Keep your voice down Alex. I think people can hear us.'
'I don't care who hears us.'
'Please believe me when I say that this is not a choice between Tony and you. If only it was that simple. It is a choice I am making for my daughter. She comes first in my life and one day when you have children of your own you will understand that.'
'Well frankly I'm beginning to wonder if I will ever have children because I seem to have such lousy taste in women.' And when he finished saying that he stood up and walked out on me.
Ouch - that last comment hurt - but what else could I expect under the circumstances.
\*\*\*
Only words were exchanged that day but they felt like body blows. I'd rehearsed my lines carefully beforehand, but instead of sounding calm and rational as I'd planned, I feared I'd only succeeded in seeming callous and cold. That evening I barely had the energy to feed and bathe Isabel. After she was asleep I slumped in the arm chair and sat there all evening, completely still. My body ached all over and I found I could only breathe shallow breaths; it was almost as if my ribs were broken. This tight feeling stayed with me for weeks afterwards. I wanted to cry but when I willed the tears they never came, that night or on any night thereafter.
Alex refused to speak to me for the next three weeks. He managed to transact all work business via terse emails or by sending me documents in the internal mail with equally terse memos attached. It was just as it had been that week in early June, except that there was no thaw in relations this time.
I was sure Melanie and Karen must have noticed but they never mentioned anything.
Alex asked for - and was granted - a week off in the middle of this period. I heard he went to Byron Bay. He told Edward he needed a break before I left so he could be on deck to train my replacement, but I knew the real reason. When he returned I made one forlorn attempt to enter his office and talk to him but he refused to look up from his work and simply said, 'I don't want to talk to you. Please leave my office.'
So I sent him an email. It only contained one word - sorry - printed over and over, all the way down the page.
He probably deleted it as soon as it appeared in his Inbox. However, as far as I was aware he never tried to contact Tony. I thought my appeal to his better nature might work.
As it was, Tony was away almost all of this time, working and looking for suitable accommodation for us in Hong Kong. Instead of two competing males seeking my attention, I now had none. To fill my empty hours I packed and cleaned and spoke to real estate agents and organised our visas and researched our new life in Hong Kong. There was plenty to do. After Issy went to sleep I would work until late every night, falling into bed exhausted.
The girls at work were keen to organise a farewell dinner for me but I demurred. The company's annual dinner dance was scheduled for the Saturday evening before I finished work so I suggested that could instead serve as my farewell; we girls could head out afterwards for some more drinks and dancing. The real reason I wasn't keen was because I knew that Alex would not attend my farewell and his absence would be noted. At least at the dinner dance there was safety in numbers and he could ignore me without it being obvious to all.
On the Saturday prior to the dinner dance I dropped Issy off at Mum's and headed to the Eastern suburbs. I'd had a tip off about a Chinese herbalist who specialised in fertility treatments and allegedly could help with sex selection. My rational science brain remained sceptical but I went along for a consultation just the same, figuring it could hardly hurt, and left with several herbal concoctions and pills, lots of advice and a much emptier wallet. It's not as if I wouldn't have been able to find a Chinese herbalist in Hong Kong, of course, but I thought I may as well get cracking sooner rather than later.
Afterwards I found myself near the Double Bay shops and decided to look for something to wear to the dinner dance. It probably wasn't the smartest idea to go shopping in the suburb ironically nicknamed 'Double Pay', but if anyone was in need of some retail therapy at this time it was me.
In one of the shops I spied a white and blue patterned backless dress in a floaty fabric. It was beautifully draped and when I tried it on I found it fell flatteringly over my curves - or at least what was left of them - to just below the knee. And once I'd tried it on I felt compelled to buy it. It cost way more than what I would usually have spent, but I reminded myself that Tony would soon be getting a big pay rise. The boutique owner informed me I had very good taste, as the dress was by a bright young designer who'd been singled out for particular attention at Australian Fashion Week. I nodded sagely, even though I'd never heard of said designer before.
Then, in a neighbouring shoe boutique, I had what will probably be the only Sex and the City moment of my entire life. I spied some outrageously priced Jimmy Choo silver-jewelled sandals which glittered and sparkled in the sun. They had only one pair left, as it happened in my size. I tried them on, half-hoping that they would pinch or flop around way too loose, but they fitted perfectly. Still I hummed and hahed for a while - to drop close to four figures on a work suit seemed reasonable, but on a pair of party shoes? It's not like I could have worn them to Woolies to do the grocery shopping. Well I could have, I suppose, but I might have got a few funny looks.
As I agonised about the purchase the shop assistant eyed me with barely discernible impatience - obviously I wasn't up to her normal class of customer, the type who think it's reasonable to pay as much for a pair of shoes as most families would pay for a medium-sized white good. 'They look great,' she said, 'and are really quite a bargain.' Her interpretation of a bargain was an interesting one, but she secured the sale in the end. I guiltily handed over my credit card.
When I got back to Mum's, I decided to parade my new purchases in front of her, Isabel, and Emma, who'd just got home from work.
'You look very pretty Mummy,' said Isabel.
Mum's brow furrowed. 'But don't you lose any more weight Eleanor. You're far too thin these days.'
My sister, ever tactful, said, 'Jeez you are skinny at the moment. You look great except your skin looks a bit pasty in the white dress.'
'Thanks.'
'No, what I'm saying is I'll book you in for a spray tan at the salon next Friday night. It's best to get it done the day before so you don't stink.'
'I don't want to look all orange,' I said in alarm.
'Relax...I'm the mistress of the fake tan. You can pay me back by letting me wear your shoes. And if you say no I'll tell Tony how much they cost.'
'Well you won't be wearing them to a bikie pub.'
It was a bit annoying having a sister with the same shoe size. At least when I was living in Hong Kong she wouldn't be able to borrow my things.
\*\*\*
Tony arrived back early the following Friday and agreed to pick Isabel up for me.
I dropped by Emma's salon on the way home from work for my fake tan. As she launched at me with the spray gun she said, 'Mum's right, Elle. You'd better not lose any more weight otherwise you'll have no tits left. Tony will have nothing to latch on to.'
I snorted. 'Well she's right about one thing. The younger generation is so crude.'
'Would you like me to come over and blow dry your hair tomorrow night, granny? Daniel and I aren't going out until late. Hey, keep still will you otherwise it'll be all patchy...'
'No, it's okay, I am having highlights done tomorrow afternoon.'
'You seem to be going to a lot of trouble for this work do,' she said, screwing up her nose a little. 'If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to pull.'
'Of course not. My hair needed doing anyway so I just scheduled my appointment to coincide. Anyway, it's my last big night before we head overseas so I want to look good. I'm hitting the town with Melanie and the girls afterwards.'
When I arrived home Tony came up and gave me a kiss. I was still getting re-used to that. 'You should have seen Issy when I picked her up,' he said. 'She was so excited I thought she was going to wet her pants.'
'She's such a daddy's girl these days. And she's been stuck with cranky old mummy for weeks. In fact I think it would be an excellent idea if you spent the whole day with her tomorrow. I'm going to the hairdressers in the afternoon and then to my work dinner dance, remember.'
'Fair enough,' he said, 'although I might go and visit Mum and Dad for a couple of hours. But aren't partners usually invited to the dinner dance? I wouldn't have minded going.'
'Oh...I thought you usually found my work things boring so I didn't ask you this time. And I'm going out with Melanie and the girls afterwards for a few drinks. It's my last hurrah.'
'So I get to have a big night in with Isabel.'
'That's okay isn't it?'
'Yeah I guess so...I'm pretty exhausted anyway. I've got lots of reading to get on with too. But maybe you can pay me back tonight in some way.'
'I'm sure I can, just as long as you don't mind the smell of fake tan.'
\*\*\*
I spent most of the next day perched on the loo. Then my hairdresser was running an hour late, which did nothing to help my anxiety. I didn't get home till well after 5pm and had to make an immediate beeline for the bedroom to do my makeup and get dressed before the taxi arrived. The dinner dance was being held at a venue in Darling Harbour and Melanie and I organised to share a cab in together.
At 6.45pm I checked myself in the bathroom mirror and ticked all the boxes: the tan looked subtle and natural, my hair glossy and sleek, the dress was subtly sexy, and my shoes sparkled and glittered in concert with my eyes. I knew I hadn't looked so good in a very long time, maybe even since my wedding day.
When I emerged from the bedroom Tony and Isabel were sitting on the lounge together watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos. Tony did a double-take when he saw me. 'God you look amazing! I don't remember that dress. I'm sure I'd remember that dress. Is it new?'
'Ah yeah...I bought it the other day. Hope that's okay.'
'I'm not complaining. You can buy all the dresses you want if they look like that one. I wish I was going now to show you off.'
Tony didn't seem to notice my new shoes. I don't think he could take his eyes off the dress. Just then I heard the taxi's horn. 'That's Melanie. I'd better go. You be a good girl for Daddy,' I said, kissing Isabel.
'Make sure you don't stay out too late,' Tony called out as I was opening the front door. 'I'm looking forward to taking that dress off you.'
Melanie's reaction when she saw me was almost as gobsmacked as Tony's, although she didn't express any desire to have her way with me.
Unfortunately for a while there I thought that was going to be the highpoint of the evening. The menu was unoriginal and my chicken overcooked, the managing director gave the longest and most mind-numbingly boring speech of a career noteworthy for its boring speeches, and the repertoire of the five-piece ensemble seemed to consist entirely of the kitsch songs from the 1980s.
We girls danced together. A lot of people had brought their partners and it was diverting for a period to observe their other halves: some couples seemed the perfect match whereas others didn't at all. A few co-workers looked to be getting cosy, too and I hoped for their sakes it wasn't just the alcohol talking. I kept my own drinking in check this time; I was planning a long night and didn't want to make a fool of myself.
Edward danced with me for a couple of dances, although he seemed a bit embarrassed, as if he didn't quite know where to look.
Alex was there but avoided me all evening. He remained at one of the other tables across the dance floor, hanging with most of the marketing crowd. To all appearances he was having a great time. He danced with Rosanna and then he danced two dances with Amanda. I had a feeling he wasn't as indifferent to my presence as it appeared: his choice of dance partners seemed too deliberate. But what could I do?
Towards the end of the evening, as coffee and petits fours were being served, the band started playing slow songs and couples began dancing up close. It was no place for us singles so we stood at the periphery and observed. It was moving to see how genuinely some couples still cared for one another. Edward and his wife looked at each other in that loving way. With four young kids that was some achievement.
As I watched my eyes filled with the tears I'd been seeking but now was not the time and I blinked them away. And Melanie said, 'Hello stranger, you've been ignoring us all evening.'
It was Alex.
'No, I haven't,' he said.
'Yeah we believe you. But don't worry - we haven't missed you at all. We've had a great time, haven't we Ellie? Anyway you've arrived just as I decided I need desperately to pee so I'm off to the loo. I'm sure you two can think of something to talk about.'
Alex joined me in staring at the dancing couples. 'Okay you win.'
'What do you mean?'
'You've made yourself look so incredibly beautiful that I'm powerless to stop myself. I've been trying all night and I can't do it any longer. I'm like a moth to the flame.'
This, of course, had been my plan all along.
'I just wanted to talk to you. I don't want us to part on bad terms. I want to say sorry. If I could say sorry a thousand times I would.'
'I think you already did, didn't you? I'd rather dance.'
'Okay.'
He walked towards the dance floor and I followed him. He moved right through the crowd to the middle of the dance floor, squeezing past the loved-up couples and apologising for our intrusion as he went. When we got there he took me in his arms, and we danced together slowly to the bad 80's love songs. He leant his face on my shoulder, his lips pressed gently against my bare skin.
'Come home with me,' he whispered.
'I can't. Tony is at home.'
'Just for a couple of hours. I'm not expecting you to change your mind. I just want to hold you one more time...to say goodbye.'
'It's too risky...'
'Please, it's all I ask.' And how could I refuse?
'I want to...I do...I'm meant to be going out drinking with Melanie and the girls. Maybe if I told her I was going home instead. That would give us a few hours.'
'Yes please.'
'Okay, I'll talk to her.'
The music finished soon after and the lights came on. People blinked self-consciously when they found themselves exposed in the fluorescent brightness. Women smoothed their hair and searched for their handbags, men downed their last drinks and moved slowly towards the exits. The night was officially over.
I sought out Melanie and she said, 'The girls want to head up to Oxford Street first. Samantha says there's is a new nightclub there. Then we might end up in the Cross later...'
At this point I sighed heavily and rubbed a point above my left eyebrow dramatically. 'You know I have quite a bad headache. I think I might just head home to get some sleep instead. You all go out and have a great time without me.'
Melanie rolled her eyes. 'Don't lie, Ellie. I know you are really going back to Alex's place to have sex with him.'
'What? You knew?'
'Duh - of course I knew. You two haven't exactly been discreet about things. If you wanted to have a secret affair you should have chosen to work in an office with much less glass panelling. And as for that "off-site planning meeting" the other week - I mean how stupid do you think I am?'
'Does anyone else know?'
'Well I'm your all-seeing-all-knowing secretary so for a while I thought it was only me, but Karen has since said something and lately I've heard a bit of gossip doing the traps in marketing. The rumours will not be helped by the clinch you two were just in on the dance floor, either.'
'Oh no...well it's just as well I'm leaving then.'
'But he's been upset with you about that obviously.'
'Yeah.'
'Anyway I'm not judging you. I know what you've been through in the last few years. What I was going to say is that I will head out with the girls and text you on the way home where we've been so that you can have an alibi for Tony. Then I'll call you after I've had some sleep to add in some colourful details, just in case.'
'Oh, thank you.'
'Although I have to say one more thing before I go.'
'What's that?'
'Lucky bitch.'
'No I'm not. I've been doing an absolutely dreadful thing and I now have to leave him anyway.'
'I know all that, but even so you're still a lucky bitch. I'm hoping he's going to move on to me when you're gone.'
Even though Melanie was being so kind and generous with me - even offering to perjure herself for me - for a brief moment my fourteen year old self almost made a reappearance and I wanted to snap at her, 'Hand's off. He's mine'. But if I no longer thought of Tony as 'mine' how could I possibly claim that Alex was? In fact I was willingly going to give him up. After tonight he could go home with whomever he pleased. All I could hope was that it would be some anonymous girl he hadn't even met yet, not a person from the office, someone I already knew.
Alex had parked in a nearby car park so I arranged to meet him a few blocks away and made a big show of leaving with Melanie. There was no need to add any more substance to the rumours. I leant my head on his shoulder as he drove the short drive back to his place. He stroked my leg: up and down, up and down.
In his bedroom he lifted my dress over my head and I stood in front of him, naked except for my tiny little underpants and my sparkly high-heeled shoes. I had promised that privilege to my husband, who was sleeping only a few kilometres away. Only tonight, I told myself, I'll be good after tonight.
And it was just like our first night, except it was our last. That first time we had sought to know one another, on this occasion we wanted to remember. I tried to imprint his essence into my memory: the smell of him, the feel of his skin, the way his hair flopped down in a dark curtain when he was on top of me, the gentle undulations of the muscles in his chest and stomach. These memories had to last me a lifetime and I was determined to make them stick.
It would have been perfect if not for that other in the bed. Not a flight attendant this time, it was another faceless enemy; the future. Although we tried to ignore it and not refer to it by name it kept intruding, that unwelcome third in our threesome.
I asked him about his holiday in Byron Bay.
'Paul came with me to keep me company. We just lay on the beach and watched the cricket and drank beer.'
'And how many women did you sleep with?' I couldn't help asking.
'Now let me see - that would be exactly none, although once you get on that plane I'm planning to turn into a total slut. But Paul met a girl - a nice girl called Carla - from Sydney too. She's a teacher and not at all like the gold-diggers he usually attracts. He went out with her tonight and since he hasn't come home it looks like he might have got lucky.'
'That's great. I hope it works out for him.'
'Hmm,' he said and I knew what he was thinking. 'Actually it's just as well he didn't come home because he wouldn't have approved of this.'
'Yeah he hates me, doesn't he?'
'He doesn't dislike you as a person. He just thought you'd turn out to be a heartbreaker. And he was right.'
Eleanor the heartbreaker - I would have dreamed of being described that way as a teenager, but now I found the reality wasn't fun at all.
We talked more about Melanie.
'I better give up my 007 aspirations then,' he said. 'The thing is it's not only Melanie. I think Amanda suspects.'
'How come?'
'She made a pass at me tonight. I thought about taking her up on the offer just to spite you but I dislike her so much I reckon I'd struggle to get it up.'
'I'm sure you've got a few Erecta samples kicking around you could have used.'
'Doubt they'd even be powerful enough. Anyway, I gave her the excuse that I didn't like to get involved with co-workers and she said, "unless they are married that is".'
'Oh no...it does sound like she might have an idea. Thank God I didn't bring Tony tonight. I wouldn't have put it past her to tell him.'
'Well in my eyes that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. I promise that I am not going to say anything but do you really think you have a solid foundation for a marriage? You have both cheated.'
'Are you judging me? I think you would have been the last person to complain. I don't care how attractive you are - there is no way I would ever have gone home with you if Tony had remained the man I married. And you should be hoping he doesn't find out as he might just kill you.'
'I'm not judging you. I understand all that completely. But you're now going to have to go through life living a lie and because you are an ethical person that's going to be very hard.'
'You told me you wouldn't bring this up.' I turned my back to him. Why did we ever think it would be okay to talk?
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry baby...I'm such a jerk. Please don't be angry. The last thing I want to do now is fight with you. I promise I won't say another word,' he soothed. He burrowed his face into my neck, kissing me again and again until my anger had to cede its place to desire and we made love again, this time for the very last time.
An hour or so before dawn I lay with my head on his chest while he twirled my hair into little corkscrews around his finger, over and over. I must have dozed off briefly, only to be woken by the chime of my mobile phone.
'That must be Melanie,' I said. 'Is it that time already?' But when I checked my messages it wasn't from Melanie. It was Tony saying: r u ok?
'Shit!'
'What's the matter?'
'It's Tony wondering where I am. What's he doing awake? I better go.'
'No - not yet.'
'I've got to. Can you call me a taxi while I get dressed? I can't risk you driving me home.'
I texted Tony back: Fine home soon.
A few minutes later Melanie's message came through.
The taxi came too quickly and sounded its horn.
Alex had thrown on some clothes and followed me downstairs. As the taxi idled I gestured to the driver: one more minute please.
I turned to Alex, my hands pressing his arms in a firm hold. 'Thank you, thank you for everything. Please know that letting you go is almost the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life...second only to saying goodbye to my baby son.'
'But you're not in love with me are you? Not the way I am about you.'
'No, you're wrong. I am in love with you. If nothing else I've realised that these last few weeks. If it was a simple choice between you and my husband there wouldn't be one. But I haven't got that choice and I've got to do what's best. I know you will meet someone else soon and she will be the luckiest girl in the world.'
'But if it doesn't work out, remember I'm still first in the queue.'
'There'll be no-one else in the queue.'
Then I kissed him for the last time, and because he wouldn't, I had to be the one to pull away in the end. As the taxi drove off I turned around to see him still standing there, just watching.
The drive was quick - too quick for me to get my bearings. I was home in five minutes. I removed my sandals and tried to enter the house as silently as possible - 'click, clack', the sound of the front door lock seemed to reverberate through the night - and then fidgeted and twitched fruitlessly in the living room, hoping that if I waited long enough Tony might fall asleep again...
He emerged from the bedroom a minute or two later, wearing nothing but boxers. 'I thought I heard the door. I didn't know you were planning to be out so late.'
'Oh, sorry about that.'
'Did you have a good time?'
'Yeah, great.'
'I woke up after a couple of hours and haven't been able to sleep since. I'm so turned on by you in that dress. Come to bed will you.'
Oh my God, what am I going to do?
'Oh sweetheart,' I said, 'I know I promised but I'm really tired.'
'That's fine,' he said, in a manner that suggested it was anything but.
'If you let me sleep in a bit, I promise I will make it up to you tonight with interest. We can get a babysitter and go out to dinner first if you like.'
'Alright - I might as well go back to sleep myself then.'
'Thanks darling.' I knew a kiss and hug would have been appropriate at this point but I wasn't game to risk it. 'I'm just going to have a shower first. I feel sweaty from all the dancing.'
I went to the main bathroom so I wouldn't disturb him and turned the shower volume up as high as it would go. The spray hit me in a powerful burst. Then I turned the heat up so the water was almost scalding and scrubbed all traces of Alex from my skin and hair. The heavy jet of water was designed to serve two purposes: to wash away the sins of my past and to drown out the noise from the heaving sobs that rocked my stricken body that sad November morning.
\*\*\*
The events of which I have just written are very recent. Only a few weeks have elapsed since they took place.
My future, of course, depends on Tony never knowing any of this, so I am going to leave the whole thing with Melanie for safe keeping. I'm not sure what I'm ever going to do with it. I might rewrite my story in a few years, disguised as fiction as Alex suggested, but more likely I will do precisely nothing. The process has been therapeutic just the same.
I knew I had some ground to make up with Tony that Sunday so I set about seducing him not once, but twice: the first occasion that afternoon whilst Isabel was in the other room watching, of all things, the digitally-remastered 'Snow White' on DVD, and the second after the babysitter had left, when I sidled up to him wearing my new dress and heels, but nothing else. The next day he left, satisfied, to commence his training in Hong Kong.
I still had four more days of work to go. Alex was there. His anger had been replaced by resignation but we restricted our conversations to work-related ones. We'd said our goodbyes in the best possible way and there was nothing really left to say. On Friday afternoon we all had a glass of celebratory wine: just Edward, Alex, Melanie, Karen and me. Edward gave a little speech about what a pleasure it had been to work with me and then Alex was obliged to do the same.
I think Edward was the only one who had no idea.
On our last night together I had told Alex one last lie, but this lie was for good reason. I told him that I was leaving Sydney the following week, whereas I actually remained in Sydney for another month or so. With Christmas looming we thought it silly to uproot ourselves and Issy was keen to perform her starring role (literally, she played the star the Three Wise Men followed) in the preschool Christmas pageant. After the removalists had been, Issy, Meggs and I moved in with Mum and Dad and then over Christmas and New Year, when Tony had leave, we (minus the cat - he's boarding with my parents for the time being) stayed with Pamela and Douglas.
On New Year's Eve we went on a harbour cruise with a group of Tony's friends to watch the fireworks and I wore my new dress again so that he could show me off. As the clock struck in 2007 he kissed me extravagantly in front of all his mates, which took me by surprise as he's never been one for the grand gestures. All the holiday period he was attentive to me - his mother confused and disconcerted by this. I now realise how much this new start on life means to him, how much his previous unhappiness had been tied up in his professional frustrations and associated sense of self-worth. I hope it delivers the satisfaction he seeks.
I also hope I can fall in love with him again, because at the moment I'm just playing a part.
It took me a while to work out why my ribs felt broken. It was because those bloody people had come along and removed my heart again. For weeks now I have laughed and joked and gone to work and packed boxes and shopped for clothes and cheered my daughter on at Christmas pageants and all the time I have had no heart. I think to most people I appear the same, but the empty, aching feeling between my ribs tells a different story.
Still, it's amazing how efficient you can be without one. I organised the sale of our house and the entire move to Hong Kong with a gaping empty hole in my chest - I'm a bona fide medical marvel. I think David should write me up as a case study for one of the cardiology journals.
The thing that has kept me going is that I have prior experience with this. I know if I just wait long enough it will get better. I just have to be patient...again.
And even now - it's been almost six weeks - I do feel a little more settled.
Thus I find myself starting a new life in Hong Kong, with my husband and daughter and hopefully another baby before too long. Alex must become a secret but beloved part of my past.
I was so disciplined those last few weeks in Sydney. I wanted to call him every hour of every day. Sometimes I even got as far as picking up the phone, but I talked myself out of it every time. I am so proud of myself about that.
It was only when I made it through the airport departure gates that I felt safe to indulge myself. In the Duty Free store I bought some Dolce and Gabbana aftershave. Not for Tony, just for me. I knew I was being foolish and sentimental but I couldn't help myself.
Discovering the Bay
I thought my short but brilliant writing career had run its course but I'm finding I still have the creative urge. I'm now thinking of starting up my own blog about the expat lifestyle - the pilot's wife blog market seemingly already cornered - horrible egotist that I am. Let's face it, I don't have that much else to do at present. I had a tentative look at the local pharmaceutical job market but Tony is not at all keen on me working because he wants Issy and me to accompany him on a few overseas trips this year.
That was the plan when Tony and I first got married but because I was working full-time those romantic getaways at company expense hardly ever eventuated - part of the problem, possibly. This year, before Issy starts school, must be the year then. Planning a few trips to Europe should also help with the homesickness I'm currently battling. Art galleries and restaurants in Paris sound like the perfect medicine for me.
Of course the other, implicit, reason I'm not looking for work is that we are hoping for another baby. At least I think I am hoping for it - for some reason after my last pregnancy I'm not exactly storming the barricades to embrace motherhood again. In any case we have both agreed that we are not going to get hung up on it. If it happens it happens. We're following the herbalist's instructions, and I'm taking her foul potions and my prenatal vitamins, but my conception obsession is over. That was definitely part of the problem. Our new philosophy with respect to sex is 'recreation, not reproduction'. Yes, Tony and I are actually discussing things in advance - alert the media - and so far so good.
It's now late January and we've been here almost four weeks. There is an impressive mountain behind Discovery Bay and the three of us went for a hike up there last Sunday. Isabel started whining that her legs were hurting before we'd even ascended halfway so poor Tony had to piggyback her most of the way, but we all agreed it was worth it in the end. It was an unusually clear day for around here so when we reached the summit we were treated to a panoramic view of our new home town, Kowloon and the New Territories and, glinting through the haze, the skyscrapers of downtown Hong Kong. Get away from the main settlements and Lantau Island is remarkably untouched and unexpectedly beautiful. Initial impressions that we'd moved permanently to a holiday resort have faded but it still feels less like China than I expected.
There are twenty-odd thousand people living in Discovery Bay. Apparently after you've been here a while it becomes, like any town of similar size, an 'everybody knows everybody' situation. About three quarters of the residents are expats: Aussies, Brits, Americans and quite a few Europeans. The expats like DB because it's more family-orientated than Hong Kong Island and it is possible to live in a house here without bankrupting yourself. DB real estate would hardly be considered cheap but the rents for some places on the island are astronomical.
On top of all the professionals and their families are legions of Filipino domestic workers, often called amahs.\* There are Chinese people too, of course, but I've seen suburbs of Sydney where they are more conspicuous.
The DB supermarket stocks Western food, a lot of it familiar Australian brands, the restaurants in the plaza serve pizza and pasta, the local bookstore is a Dymocks and Isabel can still nag me every day for lunch at McDonalds, causing me to occasionally ask myself: did I ever leave home?
However, a twenty-five minute ferry trip to Central Hong Kong is all it takes to remind you that you are in Asia: the noise; the traffic; the neon; the crowds; the bustle; the smells; the constant building works; the glistening glass office towers and luxury brand shops happy to share space with flimsily-constructed street stalls selling cheap clothes and souvenirs, live fish, flowers and hanging meats.
The pace of life is frantic. People slam doors in your face, even when you are holding your child's hand and don't think twice about pushing in front of you in line if you hesitate for a second. The quaint British custom of queuing obviously never took off in this former colonial outpost.
Tony would hate to live in the chaos of the city but Discovery Bay almost looks like it was designed with him in mind. At heart he is a man of simple needs: work, family, golf, a gym to work out in, food, sex and sailing - probably in that order too. All are accessible here, although some (I'm talking golf and sailing, not sex) seem to come with a hefty price tag.
The only things about Sydney he will really miss are his school friends, parents and brother and the Wallabies, and none of these deprivations is unsurmountable. There is a rugby sevens tournament here every March and he can catch the other games on satellite. As for family and friends, well, the family is entitled to cheap flights and lots of his mates are finance types who come to Hong Kong regularly themselves.
Andy is talking about visiting soon too, which will be brilliant. I can't wait to go shopping with him. (Honestly, when is the guy going to come out? There isn't a heterosexual man on the planet who genuinely likes shopping.)
Yes, I think Discovery Bay will suit my husband well. He has already made an effort to cultivate a few friendships amongst the locals, by joining the Marina Club and hitting the golf course for a couple of outrageously priced rounds. After putting on a couple of kilos over Christmas, I've signed up for the gym in a panic but need to follow his lead and seek out a few social outlets myself.
In the meantime I've been shopping (mostly for furniture, but with the prices here I may not have bought my last pair of Jimmy Choos!). Our period stuff from back home wouldn't have fitted in here, so we've farmed some of it out to friends and stuck the best pieces in storage. This time I'm going for a streamlined look with Asian influence: dark wood and bright cushions and locally sourced artworks. Our photos and books are still in transit but when they arrive we will have our little home. Oh and Meggs - I miss my kitty cat dreadfully and have just got a couple of quotes from companies which can organise his relocation. I was reluctant to commit to this until I'd reassured myself that our outdoor terrace was big enough to accommodate him, but he's such a lazy indoor cat he probably wouldn't have noticed anyway.
Isabel is settling in well. I haven't yet found her a place in a kindergarten and may not at this late stage, but have filled in an application for next year at the Discovery Bay International School. In the meantime I've enrolled her in ballet classes and found a playgroup where we can mix with the other mums and kids. I'm constantly agog at her ability to adapt and make new friends. I'm pretty sure, even at age four, that I never had the confidence of my daughter.
Like most of the expats I have hired an amah to help out a few days a week, and, yes, she's a Filipino, called Myrna. She's a few years older than I am, a divorcee, and has two children who live with her mother back home in The Philippines. She sees them about once a year. I can't imagine being separated from my child like that but that's the sacrifice these women have to make to support their families, incomprehensible as it is to most spoilt Westerners. Myrna is good looking, like most of her race. I hired her before I'd heard the rumours of the bonking businessmen but if Tony is having any carnal thoughts about her he's keeping them well hidden; I don't think he'd ever be that stupid. I left Issy in her care the other day so I could go shopping in Causeway Bay. (Isabel has clearly taken after her father, recently declaring she doesn't like the noise and 'yucky smells' of the city.) I cut short my expedition, thinking my young daughter may have been becoming anxious without me, but when I walked through the door she looked up from the story-book she was reading with Myrna and said crossly, 'Why are you back so soon?' I think might be on to a winner here.
Issy met this little girl called Chelsea at her ballet class and as a consequence I have now become best friends with Chelsea's mother, an imposingly efficient English woman called Lily. Actually I didn't have much say in the matter. Lily decided I was going to be her friend and that was that. She lives nearby in a bigger place in Headland Village, visits me at least once a day, calls me twice more and has pretty much taken over the running of my life. It's like having a same-sex stalker.
I don't want to sound unkind, however, because she really has been very sweet. Lily and her family have been here two and a half years so she knows all about the best places for kids in Hong Kong. It was through Lily's recommendation that I found Myrna. Lily has four children aged under eight herself - two boys and two girls - and motherhood is clearly her vocation. She's a pretty woman but the classic jeans, jumper and sensible shoe type. No adornments, no make-up, and she is clearly letting her hair grey naturally. I might consider that at age sixty but not any time before. Whenever we go on outings her children all arrive, immaculately kitted out, with neat little packed lunches in colour-coded plastic lunchboxes. She recently started bringing a lunchbox for Isabel as well! Perhaps I should feel insulted but I don't feel she ever intended this to be a slight on my parenting skills. I think she just wants to add Isabel and me to her brood.
Mind you once I met her husband Roger it became clear to me why Lily had thrown herself into mothering. Roger is a banker. Think rhyming slang. Still, it's too obvious for a nickname - no challenge there. You may not know it but apparently two and a half years' residency in Hong Kong can make you a world authority on the place and on all Chinese history and culture since the Zhou Dynasty to boot. When I mentioned I'd been looking around for work, he tactfully advised that Hong Kong was a 'global city' and thus no-one would look at me with my Australian (read Hicksville) university qualifications and experience. He is particularly patronising to women: his wife, me and especially Lorinda, their live-in Filipino housekeeper. I think he is exacting revenge on all the girls who knocked him back for dances and dates before he acquired his only discernible asset - a high six figures income.
Women never cease to perplex me with their choice of partner. What possibly could she see in him? Lily doesn't strike me at all as the gold-digger type and it certainly couldn't be his looks that attracted her. You'd go far to find a man as unpleasant looking as Roger: oily dark hair that he is constantly trying to stick behind one ear even though it's clearly too short for that, pasty skin and those little round wire glasses that I suppose are meant to make him appear intellectual but only succeed in making him look affected. And he's fat; 'corpulent' is the word that immediately comes to mind. If you can't disguise your girth under a dark business suit you know you've reached serious fatty boombah territory. He's clearly indulged in too many long lunches with his Hong Kong banking set, has Roger.
Listen to me. I'm starting to sound like my husband: judging people on their looks. The thing is Roger's less than sterling appearance would be forgivable if he was a nice person; but he's not - end of story.
One big plus about living in Hong Kong is that you get a bonus New Year at no extra cost: the Chinese or, more correctly, Lunar New Year. The lunar calendar is based on the moon's orbit around the earth, so the date of the Lunar New Year isn't fixed. It's a lot more of an elaborate celebration than our New Year back home, which is really nothing more than an excuse for a piss-up, a few fireworks over the Harbour Bridge and some resolutions that rarely make it past mid-January. The Lunar New Year also features fireworks, but there is also a Lantern Festival and big street parade with the traditional drums, lion and dragon dances. People decorate their homes with flowers and red paper lanterns and ribbons, exchange gifts, get together for family banquets, and cook special festive foods such as turnip cakes and dumplings. The Lunar New Year actually falls quite late - February 18 to be precise - in 2007. The upcoming year is to be the Year of the Pig, or more specifically, the Year of the Fire Pig.
Anyway, at Lily's insistence a group of us parents from dance class are going for a Chinese banquet to ring in the Year of the Pig a few days in advance. Tony and I, as resident newbies, are the guests of honour. Roger has made a booking at 'the best Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong', one that apparently 'no-one else knows about'. That's all happening next week.
So, all in all, things are going okay. Tony has almost finished his training and will be joining the regular roster soon, back doing what he likes best: ferrying passengers around the world on his favourite aircraft, employed by a global airline, living the childhood dream.
He is really happy. Such an elusive concept for most of us - happiness - but if it turns up you are duty bound to grab it and wallow in it like there's no tomorrow. My husband is right in there right now.
I think it will be some time before happiness finds me again, but life is calm at the moment and I'm finding that calmness has its consolations. I wonder how the Year of the Fire Pig is going to unfold for us all.
The Year of the Fire Pig
In preparation for the New Year's celebrations I decided to read up on predictions for the upcoming Year of the Fire Pig.
Some things sounded pretty promising: for example, with respect to Tony's career, 'the tourism and transportation sectors will flourish'. Predictions for our personal life proved less helpful: 'The Year of the Pig is seen as a good year for marriage and having children, but some couples may separate before the year is out.'
So according to the zodiac Tony and I could either have another child or a separation in the upcoming year. Either was possible. Another alternative is that the whole Chinese astrology thing is 'bollocks', as I heard a young English guy on the ferry say the other day.
Two nights ago, Wednesday, was the much anticipated occasion of our Chinese banquet with Lily and Roger and the whole ballet class crowd. After hearing my character description of Roger, Tony wasn't at all keen to spend the evening with him. 'Can't we get out of it?' he said when he emerged from the bedroom that afternoon. 'I haven't been able to sleep all day and I'm feeling like crap.'
Bloody men - it wasn't like he hadn't had enough warning. 'No, it would be totally rude to cancel at this stage. You can catch up with your sleep tomorrow. Roger's a dick but I don't want to offend his wife, who is actually very nice. Remember this is Chelsea's mum we're talking about.'
'Oh all right, but don't expect me to be much company.'
'Just try and block out most of what he says and nod your head every now and again. He loves the sound of his own voice so he probably won't even notice.'
Roger insisted on doing the ordering for the entire table. I'm sure he deliberately ordered every dish which contained an endangered species. I kept waiting to be set upon by a group of frenzied animal liberationists. We had shark's fin soup, and abalone and sea cucumber and whole fish and suckling pig and one dish that contained something that looked alarmingly like thin slices of a large animal's penis (not out of the question that this would be on the menu) that I was later informed was pig's trotter. I bravely tried everything on offer except the roast baby pigeon. I kept thinking about them pooping around Hyde Park fountain and got creeped out by their little carcasses, which earned me a sneer of condescension from our host. He kept trying to get the waiter to fill up everyone's wine glass at every occasion too, in an attempt to get us all drunk. I explained to him with what I hoped was witheringly obvious sarcasm, 'it might be alright for you to turn up to work half-pissed tomorrow but I have a responsible job to attend to, looking after my child.'
As luck would have it, Roger closed right in on Tony and droned on to him all evening, only interrupting his monologue occasionally to pass judgement on the menu, ply us with alcohol and helpfully comment to my husband, 'I wouldn't like to be in your shoes - first 9/11 and then SARS, and now the way oil prices are heading, well...It's clearly an industry with its best days behind it.' Tony's face looked pinched with annoyance but he kept his mouth shut and I admired his forbearance in avoiding a punch up. I kept trying to catch his eye all night to commiserate, but he didn't look in my direction very much at all.
As we were boarding the return ferry I spied a couple of seats away from all the others so I grabbed his hand and careered towards them, apologising to Lily as I went past, 'I get a bit motion sick so we're going to take those seats down the front.' Relieved to have twenty-five minutes' breathing space from Roger, I plonked down in the seat and whispered to Tony, 'Sorry about that.'
'About what?'
'The whole evening - having to be ear-bashed by Roger the pompous prick. I'll try and spare you in future.'
'It's okay. I did what you said and didn't listen.'
'What about all that crap he was going on with about the airline industry? Here's me thinking you were about to kill him. What's with you tonight? Have I done something to annoy you or something?'
'No, no...just tired,' he said, but he was definitely not there with me. He draped an arm around my shoulders, but even that seemed a distracted gesture. I gave myself a figurative smack in the head for not making that appointment with the couples' counsellor I'd been recommended.
Tony didn't speak again until we straggled off the ferry at the other end. We couldn't avoid the walk back home with our hosts, but by this time Roger was feeling 'off' from all the wine he'd drunk and no-one seemed inclined to talk.
We'd organised for Myrna to stay overnight and she and Isabel were both asleep when we arrived home. Tony walked straight to our bedroom while I checked on Issy. As I retrieved her favourite teddy from the floor and tucked it in next to her I was struck by the first real twinges of anxiety I'd had since we'd arrived. Was I imagining it or was a barrier being erected again?
I entered our bedroom trying to will myself to talk to him: communication, communication - it was all about communication and it was clearly my responsibility to push it. I was just about to open my mouth when he walked over to me, took me in his arms in a tight clutch, and said, 'I'm sorry about being a bore tonight. But I do love you, you know. I am so happy to have my girls here.'
He had told me he loved me. Unprompted. Something he'd never done before. I think he was trying to reassure me but it had the opposite effect.
He held me way too tight, you see. So tight it almost hurt.
He was afraid he was losing his grip on me.
And why would he be worried about that?
I left our ensuite door open as I removed my makeup and in the reflection of the mirror I saw him do something else he had never done before. He put his mobile phone inside the drawer of his bedside table, rather than on top beside his reading lamp.
I know it took us both a long time to fall asleep - we each lay there quiet and still, pretending to the other that we were.
I must have dropped off at some stage but woke up just after 3am with a gagging feeling in my throat. Something in the combination of the banquet and the wine and ferry trip had clearly not agreed with me. I made it to the bathroom on time and heaved my guts up into the toilet bowl several times. I leant my hot head on the cool porcelain, amazed that the noise hadn't disturbed Tony. He was snoring softly, clearly out like a light. Deeply asleep. I had my chance.
I opened the drawer to his bedside table, congratulating myself as I did so for choosing a top-of-the-range design; it moved seamlessly on its thread, quiet as a mouse. I padded downstairs to our kitchen, bare feet on bare boards. I drank several glasses of water to clear the taste from my mouth. Then I looked at the phone. It was off. He never turned his phone off. I pressed the on switch. Have you ever noticed how long it takes to switch on a mobile phone? When you're engaged in espionage it seems an eternity. Finally...the battery was fully charged and the phone set to silent mode. A few seconds later a light flashed, indicating he had a new message. No...twenty-two new messages in fact - ten voicemails and a dozen texts, all from the same number. I checked the latest text, sent only a few minutes earlier. It said: U cant keep avoiding me. please can we talk.
I pressed the return call number. A female voice answered. The accent was Chinese, the manner eager: 'Hello.'
'This is Eleanor Cooper speaking. I am wondering who you are and why you are sending text messages to my husband at three in the morning.'
Her tone changed with this. It was now clipped and efficient, with a hint of defiance. 'I'm glad you called. My name is Wendy Wong and I think you should know that I have been your husband's girlfriend for four years.'
Wendy. So the mystery was solved.
But four years - was this part true? Isabel had not long turned four. If this woman was telling the truth my husband had not just had a brief affair. He had been involved with her for over half of our married life.
'Why should I believe you?' I said.
'Because it's true.'
'Not good enough, I'm afraid.'
'It is true. He had a mobile phone that only I could call him on and our own email account so you would not find out. He was going to leave you and marry me when his daughter got big enough.'
'You could be making this all up,' I said, although my denial was just a façade. I think I knew it was true from the moment she spoke.
'I still have my emails. You could read them.'
No thanks, I didn't want to read them!
'I know...' she said, 'how I can prove it to you. Last year, in June, when he called you to say he was sick and wasn't coming home that night. You were angry because you were at a conference or something. I was there with him that night.'
My husband slept on, unaware that his marriage had just ended.
'Okay,' I said. 'I think I've heard enough. What I need to do now is talk to my husband.'
'He will deny it but it's true. Remember I have the emails.'
The Eleanor of a few years earlier would have rushed upstairs to confront him in a tearful rage, but she'd long since departed the scene. Besides, Myrna was asleep in our house and neither she nor Isabel needed to be witness to that. I took down Wendy's number, deleted all her messages, turned the phone off again, snuck it back in his drawer (still he slept) and went downstairs again to make myself a cup of tea. Then I sat and thought.
Tony came downstairs about 6am to look for me. His hair was tousled from sleep and he was clad only in boxers and a t-shirt but I observed he was still clutching that phone. 'There you are,' he said. 'Why are you up so early?'
'I've been vomiting my guts up. Something on the menu last night didn't agree with me.'
'Really? I thought I would have heard you then.'
'I came downstairs so as not to disturb you. I feel okay now, anyway.'
'I bet it was the seafood. I felt like I was going to have a heave at one stage, too. I've never understood why they make such a fuss about abalone. It's all a big wank as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, I'm wide awake now so I'm going to head out for some exercise and try and catch up on my sleep later. Can you make me some toast while I get ready.'
'Okay.'
No, I didn't poison it. I let him think that things were normal, even if I was more subdued than usual. The only thing that might have given me away was when he came up behind me at the table to give me a quick hug and a kiss goodbye. I couldn't help the flinch.
'Is everything alright?' he asked, looking at me closely.
'Yeah, fine.'
He'd offered to look after Issy that afternoon so I let him get through the day unscathed, but at 5pm I called from the hairdressers to say, 'You know Hemingway's, where we went the other night. Can you meet me there in an hour? Myrna will be coming to babysit again.'
'Why?'
'We need to talk about something.'
'Why can't we just do that at home?'
'It's something I don't want to discuss in front of Isabel.'
'Oh...'
I arrived first and ordered myself a glass of wine. It was coolish but I chose an outdoor table. I'd taken care with my appearance: wearing my favourite dark denim jeans, high heels and a black jumper that set off the colour of my hair and clung to me in the right places. I'd even had a professional blow-dry for the occasion. The last time I'd confronted my husband about his infidelity it definitely hadn't helped to be fat and naked. In times of crisis I think it always pays to look your best.
Tony approached me slowly, wearing an expression like he was about to face his executioner.
'What's going on?' he asked.
'You tell me.'
'What?'
'I think you have something you need to tell me.'
'No.'
'You do.'
He sighed. 'I thought something was up this morning.'
'Yes. Her name is Wendy, I believe.'
'Okay...since you obviously know. Somehow she's got hold of my phone number but I've refused to see her. I'm going to kill the fucking person who gave it to her when I find out. The whole thing is over and has been for ages - I just wish she'd get the message. Do you want me to see about getting some sort of court order? I'm not sure what the procedure is here.'
'No. I don't think that will be necessary.'
'How did she get to you?'
'You can ask her yourself because I think that's her coming right now.'
One glance from Tony told me that it was her. He put his hands over his eyes and shoulders slumped down in defeat.
'Why is she here?' he groaned.
'I invited her.'
'Why did you do that? She's mad I tell you. I bet she's been telling you lies.'
'No, I think you're the one who's been lying. For four years I hear.'
All this time she'd been walking closer to us - finally I was face to face with Wendy Wong. I could fill in the blanks on the woman who had haunted my life. I don't think I would ever have imagined her in a million years. She was younger than me I felt, although it was unclear by how much, and beautiful in that immaculate way of Asian women. Her hair was black and dead straight and cut in a blunt cut which ended in a perfect line at her shoulders, not one strand out of place. She was not as tall as me and much more delicate, the bones in her hands and arms exquisitely fragile and fine. Inexplicably, an image of baby pigeon bones from our Chinese banquet the night before flashed into my mind.
Tiny little pigeon bones: a few years ago I would have liked to have smashed those bones until they were powdered dust, but now all I felt towards Wendy Wong was curiosity.
Don't be fooled, however. Fragility of frame doesn't always mean fragility of temperament. When she reached our table she looked first to me with interest. Then she turned to Tony. 'This can't be your wife?'
'I assure you I am,' I said.
'But he said you were fat.'
'Did he now?' I said, also turning an enquiring glance towards my husband.
'No I didn't.'
'You did. You told me that she was fat and had let herself go.'
'That was ages ago.'
There was an expression on Tony's face I'd never before witnessed in all the years we'd been together. It was fear. The cool, controlled 747 pilot was scared. He might be unflappable in the face of a violent thunderstorm over the Pacific but defending himself against the accusations of two tempestuous women was more than this man could bear. Anthony Cooper couldn't have been more out of his comfort zone if he tried.
'Look, it's true it went on a bit longer than I told you but I did end it, last June. Truly. She can't deny that. She's just angry and bitter. It's you I want to be with.'
'What - you finally decided that after four years. It took you a while to make that decision. And you were lying to me all that time. You said you'd ended it.'
'I did end it...for a while anyway...but then she pursued me, saying we were meant to be together. She wouldn't take no for an answer.'
'It wasn't like that,' protested Wendy.
'I don't know how it happened. It just did. Things weren't going so well in our marriage at the time.'
'Oh and keeping a mistress in another country is a good way to deal with those problems. And what about all the deception that went into it?'
'I was trying to protect you. You were so hurt when you found out the first time.'
'That's not what he said to me,' interrupted Wendy, who'd almost become a bystander in the whole event. She was crying by this time. 'He said he no longer cared for you but first you were having the baby and then after the baby was born he said he had to wait until she got bigger.'
Till that moment I thought I was unshockable. 'Are you saying that this all started when I was pregnant?'
'I told you I made mistakes. I'm not proud of what I did but I want us to be together. It will never happen again. She means nothing to me. Please believe me Elle - it's you I want. You have got to forgive me.'
'Too late, too late - I can't. I'm going to book the first flight I can out of here. And I'm taking Isabel with me. You'll have plenty of time to reflect on where you went wrong.'
'We can get still through this - counselling like we said.'
'No, not after four years of lies - and when I was pregnant too - I don't believe that. It's goodbye, Anthony. Don't forget to pay the bill before you go.' Then I got up and walked away.
I'd got about halfway home when I heard footsteps following me. They were not my husband's. They were the 'clip, clip' steps of a tiny bird-like woman. She ran up to me and grabbed my arm so that I had to stop. Sobbing, she tried to thrust something into my hands.
'He is not telling the truth. He said he would marry me. He did. Look I have my diary and my emails. I don't understand why he is being like this to me.'
She was appealing to me like I was the independent umpire!
I looked at her again. My first impressions had been wrong. The efficient flight attendant veneer had been chipped away and what stood before me now was a vulnerable and sad little thing. The destroyer of my marriage was not a conniving sexual predator, she was just a naïve young woman who had believed in her own version of the fairytales. The diary she had recorded her sexual trysts with my husband in was a Hello Kitty one, for goodness sake. The tall blonde pilot had been her Prince Charming, as he had long ago been mine. The trouble was he had publicly betrayed her, just as he had betrayed me. Wendy and I had more than one thing in common.
On the most important point, however, we were completely different. It was clear she still adored him and would have taken him back in a heartbeat; any hopes I'd had of renewing my love were extinguished when I heard about the four long years of deception.
'Wendy,' I said. 'I believe you. I don't need to read your diary. You should reflect on the fact that what you did was very wrong, but as far as I'm concerned if you're stupid enough to ever take him back you are welcome to him. Now, can you go away please?'
The Year of the Pig is still a few days away, but I think we already know how it's going to turn out for Tony and me. There was another clue I should have taken heed of. The Year of the Pig is the last year in the Chinese Zodiac and hence considered a time of endings.
But remember this is not just the Year of the Pig. It is the Year of the Fire Pig. Tony would have been wise to read up some astrology before moving his family to Hong Kong because the Chinese Fire Pig symbol - fire sitting over water - is an especially volatile one.
The Year of the Fire Pig, astrologers claim, has potential for situations to burn out of control.
The flight
Guess where I am? On a plane, of course, on my way back to Sydney. My little expat experience has proved to be embarrassingly short and spectacularly unsuccessful. I'm feeling lots of emotions at present but embarrassment is a prominent one. It's such a public failure of a marriage - we might as well have taken out a full page advertisement in the South China Morning Post - but I can't continue living in Hong Kong at this time. I need to be with my family and friends.
It is three days since I ambushed Tony. Since that time we've had several similar exchanges but the outcome was always going to be the same. I'm unbudgeable. He is repentant; he is remorseful; he is clearly, genuinely in love with me at the moment; but I can't forgive him the past. Sadly, he thinks the fact I'm calm is a good sign when really it is a very bad sign. I am calm because I am no longer in love with him. He sowed the seeds of his destruction a long time ago.
Honestly, how did he think he was going to get away with it? He lured his little family straight into the spider's web, the lion's den, the domicile, no less, of his ex-mistress. A determined little ex-mistress who was never going to retire gracefully into the background the way Alex had consented to. The answer of course is the job. It really was always about the job with Tony. A 747 captain: he was now back within reaching distance of his childhood dream and with that enticing prospect before him he found it possible to ignore any inconvenient worries and pretend to himself that everything was going to turn out alright.
Tony has tried every strategy in the book these last couple of days. He has told me he loves me more often in the last forty-eight hours than in all of the previous twelve years combined. I believe he does, too. It just doesn't take away the past hurt. Then he tried the old 'comparison with people much worse than yourself' strategy: 'There was only the one. I used to know a Qantas captain who bragged about having over fifty lovers and another that gave his wife the clap after sleeping with prostitutes.' Hmm - I had accepted that argument when I'd thought he'd just had a brief fling with Wendy, but not after I found out about the four-year, plan-a-new-life-together affair they really did have.
In desperation he resorted to the confession, although I have nicknamed it 'confession-lite' because there seemed to be quite a bit of justification going on and a huge amount of sheeting the blame home to Wendy. That might have worked if I hadn't met her but I now know she is not the predatory, sex-vixen type. I keep trying to think of the right word to describe her. It is not exactly 'innocent'; after all this is a young woman who spent a good part of the last few years sitting on my husband's cock. Then I thought 'unworldly' but that has its own ironies considering she worked as an international flight attendant for years (although apparently she gave it up to work in IT not long after the affair started, presumably so she could always be around for Tony). I keep coming back to 'naïve' but being naïve doesn't preclude someone from also being steelily determined and she definitely is that.
I called up Andy after I'd walked out on Tony at that waterfront bar and said, 'You might want to bring forward your trip to Hong Kong. I am leaving him and taking Isabel with me and he probably could do with a bit of support.'
'So you found out did you? I always thought it would come out but he wouldn't listen to me. I'm so sorry, especially for you, but also for Isabel and for him in a way. Is it okay to say that? He has monumentally stuffed his life up, hasn't he?'
'Yep, he has.'
'And you're not going to forgive him?'
'No.'
'You know he has ended it. He is quite devoted to you in his own inadequate way.'
'Yes, I've heard it all. But did you know he was fooling around with her when I was pregnant? And they talked about marriage. You weren't there Andy. He was awful to me for a very long time.'
'Still, you sound remarkably calm about it all.'
'I am calm. It's because I'm no longer in love with him. But that doesn't stop me feeling sad. How can you end a marriage and not feel sad.'
'That sounds pretty final then. I better get online and book a flight ASAP. Poor little Is.'
'Yeah, poor little Is.'
\*\*\*
Andrew got on the next available flight and arrived yesterday. Tony insisted on accompanying us to the airport this morning and was absolutely devastated when I had to extract Isabel from his clutches, so it was some relief to leave him in his brother's care.
I had a long chat with Andrew last night and found out he had known that Tony was fooling around when I was pregnant. A (boy?)friend of his, a Qantas flight attendant, informed him of the rumours. Andy confronted Tony and demanded he end it and confess to me, or he would do the job himself. Tony did so, reluctantly. I now know why Tony hadn't seemed repentant when he confessed. It's because he wasn't. It's hardly surprising that it started up again not too much longer after that.
Andy didn't know that, of course, for several years, until he organised to rendezvous with his brother in Hong Kong and Wendy made her presence felt. This time, however, Tony refused to fess up and Andy, seeing how broken-hearted I'd been by the last confession, went along with this. Tony still claims he never had any intention of marrying her, that he was just trying to keep her happy, but I'm more inclined to believe her version of events because she was a driver behind the first move to Cathay all those years ago, even if Tony somehow managed to justify the decision on career grounds.
I don't know how long this would have gone on if Wendy hadn't started getting impatient. In his confession Tony described her as 'suddenly turning neurotic on me', but I have a feeling she was just insecure; it's an emotion I know only too well. Trouble is, this insecurity made her become needy and demanding (and we all know how much Tony loves needy women) while I, having emotionally detached myself from the marriage, became the undemanding and (it has to be said) no longer fat one. The tables were effectively turned.
Interesting to find out about your life in retrospect. The final irony is that the June night of the team building disaster, Wendy's trump card in proving their relationship to me, was their last together. She apparently lost it when he denied to me that he was seeing anyone else and that was that for Tony, although clearly he hadn't counted on her not giving up so easily. He ended it before I had started anything with Alex. Our timing was impeccably bad.
Alex. Maybe that's not the sound of the engines I can hear right now. Maybe it's a repetitive chant of 'hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite' coming from somewhere down the back of the plane. I still don't think I ever behaved as badly as Tony did, however. What he doesn't seem to get is that it's not so much the sexual affair that's the problem, it's the elaborate deception that went on behind the scenes to maintain it. It turns out he had a separate credit card account and pre-paid mobile phone for Wendy's exclusive use all that time. Those two made Alex and I look like amateur hour. I told you it pays to be anally retentive when you're having an affair.
The other thing I can never really forgive him for is the way he treated me at the time. I've read quite a bit about adulterous males and should have seen the signs. If these men can continue finding 'fault' with their wives they can continue justifying what they are doing - it's as simple as that. Intellectually I can now understand that this was his motivation, but my battle-scarred psyche is reluctant to come along for the ride.
Anyway, if you're wondering if I was tempted to tell Tony about Alex to get back at him the answer is an emphatic no, not for a second. It is not out of the question that we will have a custody dispute about Isabel sometime in the future, once Tony reaches that angry and bitter stage when he realises I'm really not coming back. It will be important for me to appear the innocent party then, the one with the clean sheet. Utterly dishonourable I know, but then I've never claimed to be a saint. That's the sort of thing you do when the custody of your child is at stake.
Not that I'm expecting gratitude from that corner anytime soon. Isabel is severely pissed off with me. Four year olds can be much more sophisticated than adults give them credit for and I'm getting the silent treatment when she remembers. Right now she has the headphones on and her eyes fixed to the latest in-flight children's entertainment. How can I possibly explain what's happened to such an innocent? All she understands is that I have taken her away from her darling daddy. The whole thing is heartbreaking.
She loved her neatly ordered and unrushed life in Discovery Bay, too. All those years I never knew that she found the hectic to-and froing of her Sydney lifestyle so stressful. Realising I needed to make some adjustments, I rang up Issy's old preschool and begged the director, Mrs Walker, for our place back, ideally full-time.
'Well I do have one vacancy left but I had promised it to another family,' she said.
'Please, Isabel is very distressed at present. I've split from her father and I think she really needs to be amongst her old friends.'
'Oh, your marriage has broken up has it? I was wondering. I suppose that's the risk you take marrying a man like that. He must have had so many women chasing him.'
That woman - how dare she make assumptions like that, even if they did happen to be true? I briefly contemplated telling her to eff-off but in the end swallowed my pride and got the place, five days a week as I'd wanted. Those are the sacrifices we make.
We are going to stay with Mum and Dad for a while, Is and I. We both need some stability. My parents were totally floored when I told them and for the first time I regretted keeping the past a secret. Right now they are beyond angry with Tony, angrier than I am because it's all news to them. They called up David in a rage and then he called me: 'God I'm so sorry. You know, I always thought you were wrong for each other. I almost said so at the time but Amrita told me it wasn't my place to interfere and you'd only get the shits with me.'
'Amrita was right. I wouldn't have listened to you. Anyway,' I said, feeling a touch defensive, 'we were together twelve years in all and have a beautiful daughter. It wasn't that big a flop.' Older siblings never lose their capacity to make you feel permanently eight years old.
As I'm sitting here, it has just occurred to me that I have quite novel bookends to my marriage. The first evening of my engagement I spent several hours vomiting over a toilet bowl and the evening I found out the full extent of my husband's deception I was doing much the same. It would almost be funny but I'm discovering there is nothing funny about a marriage breakup. I'd imagined it so many times when things were at their lowest ebb, but I never imagined it would feel like this. Why couldn't we have broken up when he was being cruel or indifferent to me, when Isabel was too young to comprehend? Instead it happened at a time when I'd been granted a glimpse of what my life might have been like if we hadn't lost our dear little William that sad Olympic September over six years ago now.
Yeah, I'm feeling embarrassed and a little angry but mostly I'm just feeling sad.
'Surely not so sad?' I feel some of you are saying. What about Alex? Isn't this my escape route, my get out of jail free card? I can go back to Sydney with my reputation intact and reclaim the man I have secretly been in love with all these months, the man behind the abduction of my heart. That's what he asked me to do isn't it? Yes? No?
Maybe not.
A few days ago, before everything blew up, I received this email from Melanie. Don't let her jokey, chaotic writing style fool you. I know her very well and I know she chose her words deliberately and very, very carefully. Read it yourself:
Hi babe,
Thanks for the newsy email and the cute pictures of Isabel at HK Disneyland. Sorry I haven't gotten back to you before now. We are all missing you so much. Make sure you come back to visit us soon. And I'm still waiting for that present you promised me, you stingy bitch.
It was okay over Christmas without you but now it's all back to work and I think it's finally sunk in that you're not coming back. Anyway, we finally have a replacement for you. It's a guy and get this his name is Wally Patterson. Can you believe it? Some cruel parents named their son Wally! I couldn't say his name without giggling for ages but I'm getting used to it now. But when I told Bruce about it he didn't think it was funny at all. I hate men sometimes. He said there was once a famous footballer player called Wally but of course I'd never heard of him because I can't stand football. Anyway our Wally seems nice enough but it's not like having you here.
We've just come back from a weeks' holiday down the coast at Mollymook and it rained almost the whole time. We are having a shit summer this year. December was okay but January it's rained almost all the time. You must have taken the weather with you. I almost killed the boys by the time the week was over. We got stuck in this tiny flat with crap regional TV and I had to let them play their Playstation the whole time and they went completely feral. Fortunately Bruce took them out fishing on one of the only two sunny days so I took myself off for a brand new set of acrylics to cheer me up. So I came back from a week's holiday without a hint of a tan. Not fair.
By the way I have hidden your 'secret document' as requested.
Which brings me to something I have been wondering whether I should tell you about but I've decided I will because I thought it might help you a bit with getting on with your life and stuff.
It was Edward's fortieth birthday party last Saturday night and we were all invited (doesn't the guy have enough friends or something?). Karen and I went together because Karen's husband was OS and Bruce would have been bored and I didn't want to pay for a babysitter. Anyway Alex was there too and he brought a new girl.
At first I thought it was his sister because she looked almost exactly like her, but then I noticed they were holding hands. I get on well with my brother but I don't hold hands with him! So when I got introduced to her I did some spying. Her name is Natalie and she works with Alex's flatmate, whatever his name is. They met at some party on New Year's Eve and have been seeing each other ever since. She seemed nice enough and quite pretty but not a patch on you of course. Alex seemed a bit nervous around me but I didn't say anything because we've always pretended that I didn't know about you two.
I hope I've done the right thing in telling you and you're not too upset. I figured you'd find out eventually anyway. I'd better get back to work now so I don't get the sack. Hope all is going well with Issy and Tony and being a full-time mum. Write soon.
Love
Mel xxx
I've read this email so many times and lingered carefully over every single word. No matter how many times I read it the final interpretation I come to is never a good one.
'Eleanor Parkes speaking.'
'It's Alex, Ellie.'
'Oh...hello...It didn't work out, but I guess you've heard that.'
'Yes, I heard. The question is why didn't you let me know?'
'I did. I told Melanie to tell you.'
'I mean why didn't you call yourself? And Melanie said you've been back for several weeks!'
'I don't know. My life is such a complicated mess at present
House hunting
I thought you'd be better off not getting involved. Besides, I wasn't sure you'd want to hear from me after I found out you were seeing someone else.'
'Yeah everyone kept telling me I needed to move on - including you, remember, but it's not serious.'
'That's not what I heard.'
'Bloody Melanie - didn't you think it would have been better to ask me? Anyway, it's only been two months. How serious could it be?'
'I seem to remember that we were pretty serious after two months.'
'Hmm, I suppose that's true. But take my word for it - it's not serious. So what happened? Melanie says he was fooling around all that time.'
'With the same woman too. I met her, would you believe? But the irony is that he had ended it...just at the time we...so I wasn't imagining that. It's just that it went on so long. I can't forgive him that.'
'So you're not going back?'
'The thing is he's so desperate, it's pathetic. At first Mum wanted to kill him but now even she is saying maybe I should give him another chance...for Isabel and all...as I said it's complicated. But no, I've decided I can't do it any more. And now I've found there is something I need to talk to you about - soonish if possible. No obligations - just a chat - but it's not something I can talk about on the phone. Are you free this Saturday?'
'No sorry, we're going to the races. It has to be soon, does it?'
'Yes.'
'I'm out tomorrow night too, but I could see you this evening - just for a drink after work, if you'd like.'
'Umm, I think I should be able to manage that but not before six-thirty or so. I'd like to get Issy settled down before I head out. We're still staying with my parents at the moment. Where do you want to meet?'
'Is the Exchange in Balmain okay?'
'Okay, six-thirty then. I'll only call you if there's a problem.'
It's now mid-March and we've been back about seven weeks. The conversation with Alex happened only two days ago, on a Thursday morning. That evening I met him at the pub as planned. It's been an unseasonably cool March and light rain had been falling all day. I was pleased as it gave me the chance to wear my new dove-grey trench coat over a black jersey shift dress. I'd picked up the coat for a song in Hong Kong and it was my favourite new purchase. I've always fancied the secret agent look so I pulled the collar up and pretended I was on an assignation. I suppose I was in a way.
I was on time, Alex a little late. I ordered a drink and perched on a bar stool near a window, feeling self-conscious the way I always do when I'm alone in a pub. It was quite unlike Alex to be late and until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that he might stand me up, but before I could work myself into a proper panic he called to say he'd been caught in traffic and was five minutes away.
He walked through the door a few minutes later, wearing my favourite suit of his, a charcoal pinstripe, his hair damp and heavy from the rain. He looked unspeakably gorgeous and my stomach contracted in a sad little mix of want and regret at the sight of him.
I'd vowed to myself that I would remember everything, but even in our short time apart I'd forgotten how beautiful he was.
'Hi,' he said. 'Mind if I get a beer first? Bad day. You okay for a drink?'
'I'm fine.'
I was not the only one who noticed him. Three young blondes, so similar looking they might have been cloned, started tittering amongst themselves when they saw him approach the bar. At the urging of the others, one of them spoke to him.
He walked back to me, beer in hand.
'I see you have a fan club,' I said.
'What do you mean?'
'Those girls.'
'No, she only wanted to know what the time was.'
'Well seeing both her friends are wearing watches, I think she might have had other ideas.'
He glanced around and said, 'Oh...you'd think I'd have learnt by now. This is all a bit strange, isn't it? You're looking good by the way.'
'Thanks.'
'And you've got another job. I hear they are a good company to work for.'
'It's just a maternity leave position but it's perfect for now. I still need to decide what I want to do long term. I'm looking after an antidepressant, which makes a change from limp willies I suppose and a lot more relevant to my personal situation.'
'You're not depressed, are you?'
'Considering my current situation I think it would be more strange if I wasn't depressed. But don't worry - I'm not planning to top myself or anything. How's everything going with you? Melanie says Erecta is doing well.'
'Yeah, good. Your replacement is not as talented as you...I mean at marketing, [He couldn't help a smile here.] but he's learning. So what's the great mystery you couldn't tell me about on the phone?'
'I wouldn't mind finding a more private place to sit first. Mind if we move upstairs?'
'God, is it that bad? How about the restaurant? I didn't get lunch today and I'm starving. Have you eaten?'
'No, not yet.'
We moved upstairs to the restaurant. The waiter smiled in acknowledgment at Alex, who was clearly a regular. Then he gave me a curious look, suggesting that my companion had probably been coming here with his new girlfriend too.
I unbuttoned my coat and sat down.
He stared at me for a few seconds before saying, 'You're pregnant.'
'Yes.'
'For a while there I was thinking you must have got too keen on the dim sum in Hong Kong.'
'How rude!'
'I didn't say you looked the worse for it. You know I always preferred you with a few extra curves.'
The waiter came over to offer us a menu. Alex said, 'Sorry mate, I'm really hungry. Could you hold on so we can order straight away?' He ordered a steak and I chose a salad.
After the waiter had moved beyond earshot Alex said, 'So this is the complication is it?'
'Yes.'
'And your husband thinks this baby is this reason you should get back together.'
'No...I know it sounds stupid but he doesn't even know about the baby yet. I think I've been a bit in denial about the whole thing. I realised almost straight away when I got back - which is the main reason I didn't call you by the way - I've needed this time to decide what I really want to do...not that I was thinking about a termination or anything...Anyway, it's just as well I did wait...and now comes the difficult bit...because I went to have an ultrasound to screen for Downs yesterday and found out that I am more pregnant than I thought. I am closer to sixteen weeks than eleven. At first I was pleased - I am so huge already I was worried that I was going to have a baby elephant - but then I did the sums and...'
'Mmm.'
'This baby was conceived in late November.'
'Are you saying it's mine?'
'No, I'm saying I don't know...but it could be yours.'
'I thought you were taking the pill.'
'I stopped it only a few days beforehand because Tony and I were going to start trying again. I wasn't actually planning to sleep with you that night, you know. I have never been very fertile and assumed it would take months. I never dreamed...I am so sorry.'
'Oh.'
'I thought about winging it - going back to Tony and pretending it was his - but what if it isn't? I can't imagine I would be able to pass off a little dark baby as his. I decided that I have to come clean. Not that it means I expect anything - anything - from you. I am well aware you said you wanted a say in when you have kids.'
'I still can't work out why you are telling me and not him?'
'I will tell him straight away after I leave here. I just have a feeling that he's going to guess who the other guy is. I wanted you to hear it from me rather than from the irate husband. You are probably fortunate that he happens to be in London at the present as I expect he is going to be very, very angry.'
'That would be a bit rich considering he's had his bit on the side for years.'
'I know, but I don't think logic necessarily comes into these things.'
He sat silent for a while before saying, 'I think I need time to process this, if that's okay.'
'I'm sure you do. You must be so angry with me. I'm surprised you haven't walked out.'
He smiled at me wryly. 'I'm too hungry. We may as well eat.'
So, bizarrely, we sat and ate dinner and pretended as if I hadn't just turned his life upside down. Well, he ate; I didn't have much of an appetite. I filled him in on the whole sorry Wendy Wong saga and my husband's double life.
'And all that time you were feeling guilty,' he said eventually.
'Yeah, well my marriage is definitely over now. I'm going to go flat hunting this Saturday. I have to buy a car, too. I've been borrowing Mum's for too long. I should eventually get quite a bit of money from the sale of the house - we got a really good price - but I feel Tony may get nasty about that in the divorce settlement. The worst thing is poor little Isabel, she keeps asking for her daddy. I feel terrible about that...I hope we can work things out so that she doesn't get more hurt than necessary by all this.'
'Children are more resilient than you think. I lost my father very young. At least her dad is still alive.'
'Yeah, I guess so...'
After we'd finished dinner he walked me back to my car. And I said sorry again.
'No, I have to accept some responsibility for this. You suggested we use protection.'
When we got to the car he made a move to kiss me goodbye but hesitated halfway. We both retreated awkwardly, looking more like two virginal teenagers than the mature grown-ups we supposedly were. I escaped to my car, opened my hand in a quick wave, and drove off.
Things had gone much better than I'd expected: there had been no denial, no anger, no accusations. So why did I feel so much worse than before? I drove on a little way before the answer came to me, an answer so blindingly obvious it should have whacked me across the face. It was because there had been no denial and no anger and no accusations. There was no mystery man. He was who he'd always said he was.
And now I had to tell my husband.
After I was sure Issy was fast asleep, I rang him on his mobile. I knew he was in London on a layover, and the time difference meant it would be mid-morning. On this occasion I was glad to have an excuse not to impart the information face-to-face. His phone rang out before going to voicemail. Phew, I thought, leaving a non-committal message.
Ah, but my reprieve was all too temporary. He called back almost immediately.
'Hi,' he said eagerly, 'you wanted to speak to me? Are you finally reconsidering? I miss you both so much.'
'No I'm not reconsidering. I'm sorry about keeping you apart from Isabel but our marriage is over. Anyway, by the time we finish this conversation I promise you won't want me back.'
There was a slight delay on the line.
'What do you mean?'
I took a deep breath for the second time that night and said, 'I'm pregnant.'
'What? I don't understand...isn't that more of a reason for us to get back together?'
'You may not be the father.'
There was another delay.
'Do you mean that you are already seeing someone else?' His tone had changed.
'No, I mean I had a...brief relationship...with someone else while we were still together...but when I thought we were going to split up.'
'So all that time you let me crawl and grovel in front of you, and you...you were just as bad.'
'Others can be the judge of whether I was just as bad. I had a brief relationship when I thought my marriage was over - not one that lasted years, one where I'd constructed a complete other life for myself...'
'You can split hairs if you like...I can't believe this...Well you are right about one thing. I don't want you back. And I don't want anything to do with this kid even if it does turn out to be mine.'
Then he hung up.
That was too easy. An hour or so later he rang back. I was tempted not to answer, but knowing that would only inflame things I clenched my teeth in preparation for the onslaught.
Thousands of kilometres might have separated us but his anger was there with me in the room.
'You know I'm good at maths. You weren't obviously showing when you left here, which means the latest you could have got pregnant was November - or October at a pinch - so despite what you say, you could not have had this "relationship" whilst we were on the verge of splitting up.'
I was silent for a while. 'Okay I had one slip up.'
'On the night of your dinner dance, wasn't it? Some slip up - you went out fully intending to...'
'No, I don't expect you to believe me but I wasn't intending for anything to happen that night. I only wanted to talk to him.'
'Yeah, you were really dressed for talking. You slept with him that night, didn't you?...No that's not the right word for it, 'cause I can't imagine a lot of sleeping went on. It would be more accurate to say you fucked him that night, a few times I'd guess too, because you had no energy to service your loving husband when you eventually got home...I can't hear any denials. At least I never flaunted my lover under your nose. Poor Isabel, she doesn't realise that her mother is a-'
'Don't you dare call me that. If I am one, you are one too. I have not said a word against you to Isabel and if you care about her at all you will do the same. You will achieve nothing by it except hurt.'
'I would never hurt Isabel but couldn't care less about you. And as for lover boy, I wish I could get on the next plane and tear him scrawny limb from limb.'
'What good would that achieve?'
'None, but I would enjoy doing it.'
All this time no names had been mentioned. I was almost one hundred percent certain he'd guessed it was Alex but...
'No wonder you knew so much about his love life. You were his love life.'
Okay, he'd guessed.
'Wait till I tell my mother about this. She always said it would end badly.'
'Yeah, the ultimate in self-fulfilling prophecies.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'Meaning that she did everything she could to break us up. She had a hand firmly in this marriage breakdown and if you can't see that...Anyway, the one positive to come out of this is that I won't have to spend any time with her from now on.'
'Whatever...I want paternity testing done as soon as possible. And I am going to start divorce proceedings tomorrow and I'm going for custody of Isabel.'
'That's just stupid. You're away half the time. Who are you going to leave her with - the maid? In a foreign country where she knows no-one?'
'I'll sort something out. I don't want her staying there to be corrupted by you.'
'You were the one that started this, Tony,' I said wearily. 'He offered me love when I was getting none from you.'
'Love, is that what you call it?'
'I'm too tired to argue with you any more tonight. No doubt I'll hear from your lawyers soon enough.'
The venom in his tone had said it all. He'd found out what it was like to be on the other side in an adulterous marriage and he didn't like it one little bit. I knew he loved his daughter, but more than that he wanted to wound me and knew the best way he could do that was by going for custody of her. I could only hope the courts would see reason and, because there were no innocent parties in this breakup, decide the best place for Isabel was with me. Whatever the case I knew there would be a nasty fight ahead.
What a miserable night I had. My rational self went AWOL and I lay awake for hours imagining increasingly fanciful scenarios: Tony's lawyer would get up in court and tell the packed courtroom that I'd had sex with half a dozen different guys and was unfit to be a mother, or, even worse, that Tony would organise an abduction of Isabel and I would arrive at preschool one afternoon to find her gone. Even when I did fall asleep I had a terrible nightmare that I found the bed full of blood and a little dead baby between my legs.
Mum took one look at me the next morning and said, 'What happened to you? There is no way you can go to work like that. You look absolutely dreadful.'
'Tony and I had a huge fight and now he's threatening to go after custody of Isabel.'
'I thought I heard you arguing. So it sounds like you are definitely going through with the divorce then?'
'Yes.'
'Even with the new baby? Did you finally tell him?'
'Yes.'
'How did he react to that?'
I couldn't explain it to Mum then. I didn't have the energy. 'Can we talk about it later?' is all I said, 'I really need to sleep right now. Would you mind taking Issy to preschool for me?'
I rang in sick to work. It wasn't a good look for a new employee but they seemed understanding enough - being noticeably pregnant helped, I think. But before I went back to bed I thought I'd better warn Alex. He was driving to work and spoke to me on hands-free.
'He worked out who it was,' I said. 'You might get an abusive phone call. As I predicted he wants to kill you.'
'So I should look at getting a bodyguard?'
'I'm glad you can joke about it.'
'Well, there's not much else I can do.'
'He's in London right now so you're safe for the moment, but after that no guarantees, sorry. I only hope he calms down soon. Oh and he's demanding paternity testing. Would you consent? Sorry again. I promise I won't hold you to anything - I mean financially, morally, babysitting - anything.'
'If it helps. I don't have to wank into a test tube, do I?'
'No, I think they can achieve the same result with a simple mouth swab.'
'Oh yeah,' he laughed, 'Didn't think that through, did I? Are you really sure you have no idea?'
'Tony was only home for one weekend in November and it happened to be that weekend - so no, I have no idea. It could have been either of you.'
'Did anyone...how can I put this...have a numerical advantage that might tip the balance of probabilities?'
'Ah...no.'
'Gee, you had a busy weekend.'
'Don't make me more embarrassed than I already feel,' I said, but laughed in spite of myself. 'He was only home for one weekend that month, remember. The thing is, it's about the timing. I mean when intercourse happened in respect to the egg being released, so to speak.'
'So we have to have paternity testing.'
'Or wait until I have a little brown baby or a little blonde baby, I suppose...You know, if I hadn't lost little William I'd probably be hoping for a miscarriage right now, but having been through it once I could never wish that. I'm still terrified it's going to happen again, anyway, to pay me back for my evil deeds.'
'Oh don't go getting a Catholic guilt complex on me. Worse sins have gone unpunished.'
'I suppose so. And I'm not Catholic, fortunately. Thank you again for not yelling at me - you're being an absolute prince. I've had enough abuse from Tony to last me a lifetime.'
'I bet you have, although I still think he's a hypocritical jerk. Anyway, I'm driving into the car park now so I'd better go. Speak later.'
I went back to bed, slept for an hour and woke with a strong compulsion to walk along a beach. A built-up city beach simply would not do either; it had to be wild and windswept. I drove all the way up along the Northern Beaches as far as Palm Beach. I got out of my car and walked up and down the entire length. The weather had worsened from the previous day; it was cold and wet, and a fierce wind whipped stinging sand across my face and hands, leaving them red with irritation. I walked for a long time. To the rare passersby I must have looked like a mad woman, but I returned home feeling stronger and much calmer.
When I walked through the door, hair and clothes soaking and looking to all the world like I'd just been exhumed from Neptune's cave, I think Mum had a few thoughts that I was becoming seriously unhinged, but after I showered and dried my hair and spoke to her in a rational manner she left to pick up Isabel reassured I still retained at least some of my faculties.
While she was out I made another phone call.
'You have some nerve calling here,' said Pamela when she answered the phone.
I sighed. 'I really don't want to get into an argument with you, Pamela. Anyway, I thought you'd be pleased to finally see the back of me. What I was calling about is next Wednesday. I want you to know that the events of last night haven't changed anything in that regard and I was still planning to send Isabel to your place as usual. Would you like her to come?'
'Oh...yes I would. I thought...'
'Good, but remember she is quite vocal these days, and if I hear you have been saying things to her about me the whole arrangement will be terminated immediately.'
'Alright,' she said snippily, which suggested my warning may well have been necessary.
'Okay, Mum will drop her off at 4pm, as before. Bye.'
With Isabel plonked in front of Play School my mother bailed me up, 'So tell me more about your argument with Tony.'
'Can we leave it till a family conference tomorrow night? I have dinner with Tracey tonight and then I'll be flat hunting during the day.'
'Oh alright,' she said, 'but this is getting ridiculous. Definitely tomorrow night then?'
'Yeah, definitely.'
Tracey is up in Sydney visiting her parents and, even though I had to regrettably stay sober, our dinner together last night was the perfect antidote for my troubled mind.
Her first reaction was predictable. 'All I can say is hoo-ray and good riddance to that prick. You know I never liked him.'
'You don't say,' I said. 'I know you never got on but he's not all bad. He has good qualities that you didn't get to see.' What was it about me? Here I was defending the man who twenty-four hours earlier had pretty much called me a whore.
'Yeah, like the fact he was banging the flight attendant while you were pregnant with Issy.'
'Okay, I'll concede that was not one of his better qualities.'
I told her the secret of my unplanned pregnancy. Poor Mum and Dad were still in the dark but Tracey got to hear the lot.
'How funny! I can't believe you don't know who the father is. How very Jerry Springer of you, Ellie!'
'It's not funny.'
'Yeah, it is, a bit. Admit it.' She made me laugh then, the bitch.
'Maybe you should try women from now on,' she counselled as we were leaving the restaurant. 'Just think you'd never have to worry about getting pregnant.'
'I think I'll sleep on that one,' I said, as I kissed her goodbye.
'Yeah, you're still holding a candle for the other guy, aren't you?'
I went to bed and slept like a log.
This morning, that is Saturday, I grabbed the real estate section of the Sydney Morning Herald and started to look for suitable flats for lease. The weather had cleared to reveal a perfect March day: sunny and clear skies, no humidity. At least I wouldn't need to be dashing between properties with umbrella in hand. I circled a few properties and was mapping out a rough itinerary when my mobile rang. Please don't be Tony, I thought.
I was in luck. It wasn't him. It was Alex.
'Hi,' I said hesitantly. 'Is everything okay? Did my husband threaten you with violence or something?'
'No - not yet, anyway. More importantly, how are you going?'
'Not too bad. I'm just about to go flat hunting with Isabel.'
'I know. That's why I called. The races fell through and since I haven't any other plans I thought you might like me to drive you around, so you don't have to borrow your mum's car again. You can navigate.'
'What happened to the races? It looks like a brilliant day for them.'
'Oh long story.'
'That's very sweet of you but I'm sure there are lots of other things you'd rather be doing with your time. I know I would.'
'No seriously - I wouldn't have called otherwise. I'd like to.'
'Well I think you're quite mad, but if you insist.' I gave him Mum's address.
'I'll be there in about twenty minutes,' he added as he called off.
'Who was that?' asked Mum.
'That was Alex. You know, from my old job. He's offered to take Issy and me flat hunting.'
'That's very nice of him, if a little strange. Do you think he might be keen on you or something?'
'No, no...he's just a nice guy who feels a bit sorry for me, I think.' Further explanation could wait until later.
When Alex arrived, Issy, in her inimitable way, said 'Hello' as if she'd known him all her life and hopped in the back seat of his car.
'She's so cute,' he whispered. 'She looks just like you.'
'No, she looks like her father, Alex,' I said drolly.
'The eyes maybe, but the nose and smile are definitely yours.'
'Okay you can think that.'
The three of us drove around the suburbs of Sydney all morning, looking for a new, if temporary, home for my abbreviated family. I was looking for something small - sufficient only to accommodate Issy, the baby, Meggs and myself - and easy to maintain.
By lunchtime I was beginning to regret bringing Alex along. Every place we looked at, which I usually found to be fine, Alex would find some fault with.
'No it's too close to a busy road. You'll get traffic noise.'
'No it's really pokey and the walls are paper thin.'
'Did you see those next-door-neighbours? They look a bit dodgy to me.'
'We can't all afford to live in waterfront apartments in Balmain, Alex. I need to make a few compromises in this price range,' I said through gritted teeth.
Also the real estate agents kept referring to Alex as my 'husband', which was a bit embarrassing. I corrected this misperception a couple of times, but after the third one I stopped bothering. After all, how exactly was I meant to describe our relationship?
'No, this is not my husband. This is my ex-workmate and former lover and possibly the father of my unborn child.'
Even more bizarrely, one agent referred to Alex as Isabel's 'father'. I mean, if any two people looked less likely to be blood relations.
After a morning where Alex found none of the properties we inspected satisfactory we decided to stop for lunch at a nondescript coffee shop on a suburban strip. All my will to live had dissipated by this time so I gave in to Issy's request for hot chips rather than a sandwich.
She scoffed them all in a most unladylike manner and said, 'Can I buy a Dora magazine? Please?'
'There are no shops around here to buy one, dear.'
'Yes there is - over there,' she said, pointing at a newsagency. Trust her to spot it.
'But Mummy is very tired darling. I just want to sit and rest.'
'I can take her,' said Alex. He turned to Isabel. 'Is that okay?'
'Yes,' she said and took his hand.
I offered him some money but he waved it away. 'I think I can afford it. But before I go, what's a Dora magazine?'
'Don't worry, she'll find it.'
Five minutes later they returned. 'Look Mummy, Alex bought me a colouring book and pencils, too.'
'Alex.'
'What?' he said, all innocence. 'It cost me ten bucks total.'
'Exactly.'
In the end I had to concede that the colouring in book was a good investment. It kept Issy occupied whilst we managed to locate a few more properties that were open that afternoon and talk in oblique terms about my upcoming custody battle.
'You know,' said Alex, 'I don't know a whole lot about these things, fortunately, but I'm sure most are negotiated out and rarely get to court. Hopefully he'll calm down and come to see sense.'
'I hope so,' is all I could offer in reply.
At 3pm we all headed home, Issy and I still without the prospect of a new home. Alex parked out the front of my parent's house. Mum was weeding in the front garden and Issy, spying her, undid her seatbelt and ran over to show Grandma the new booty before I could reprimand her for running off without me and for not shutting the car door. When would she ever learn?
'Grandma, look what I got!' she yelled.
'That's lovely darling, but Grandma's hands are all dirty at the moment. Why don't you take them inside to show Granddad and I'll be there in a couple of minutes.'
'Okay,' said Issy and ran inside.
I reached behind me and shut the car door. 'Do you want to come in for a cup of tea or something?'
'No I can't...I've arranged to meet Natalie at four.'
'Oh.'
'I'm going to end it with her, Eleanor. She was only ever a substitute. I've been angry with you, I know, but if you thought I was going to get over you that quickly...'
'Alex, I'm not expecting...'
'I know you're not but it's what I want. Listen to me - a few months ago I offered to take on you and Isabel. Nothing has changed since then except that you are having another child. And what's another child between friends?'
'A lot actually.'
'I was joking. Did you completely lose your sense of humour in Hong Kong?'
'But it may not even be your baby.'
'Don't you think I don't know that? In fact I think it's better to assume it's not mine. I care less about that than you think.'
'I get horribly fat when I'm pregnant.'
'That's all right, between you and me I quite fancy chubby girls.'
'And then when the baby is born it will be terrible. It will cry all the time and you will get hardly any sleep and probably no sex.'
'I know, I know, I know...'
'No, you don't know.'
'Okay, I don't know but give me a chance to find out will you...Are you finished now? Can I talk?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'Good, because I want to tell you a little story about myself. I had a great time in my twenties, travelling, meeting lots of girls, but always in the back of my mind was that I wanted to be like my dad, find the right one and settle down. When I hit my thirties I started getting worried that I might not meet her and would have to settle for something less, until last year when she walked into my life - a girl perfect in every way except for the slightly inconvenient fact she was married to someone else.
'I've thought a lot about the fact that this baby may not be mine - actually I've thought about pretty much nothing else since I heard - and I keep coming back to the same conclusion. I don't really care. In fact, I think you could have half a dozen babies by several different fathers and I would still feel the same. I want us to be together.
'And even though you are a hopeless old unromantic I have a feeling that's what you want too...Yes?...Are you nodding?...Yes...So why don't you stop that crying and give me a kiss and I'll go and get this unpleasantness over, then I'll call you again later, okay?'
'Okay.'
Then he kissed me. And it wasn't a chaste peck on the cheek. It was a full on kiss on the mouth. And even though I had all these libido-sapping pregnancy hormones circulating around my body it produced the same familiar feeling his kisses had always provoked.
'I really have to go now,' he said eventually. 'After my last night's effort I think she knows what's coming but it would still be bad form to keep her waiting.'
'I'm sorry. I made the wrong choice in November,' I said, blubbering anew like a complete snivelling idiot.
'I know you did, but it doesn't matter now.'
As I closed the car door I realised I'd forgotten to say something, so I tapped on the window and mouthed the words: 'I love you.' He smiled, as if to say, 'I know', and drove off.
Mum must have seen us kissing because as I walked - nay floated - to the front door she called out to me, 'Eleanor, exactly who is that young man?'
'Ahh Mum, I think I owe you an explanation.'
So she married her handsome prince and they lived happily
ever after.
I hope you'll forgive me that little joke. I think you'd prefer some more detail.
Anyway we're not married, although we're planning to. Personally I could take or leave this whole marriage caper, but Alex's mum wants him to make an honest woman out of me and seeing she has been so nice about the whole thing I'm keen to stay on her good side. Besides, I've been thinking it would be a good idea to get a wedding ring on this man - it might keep a few of the marauding females away.
So what do I need to tell you?
After Mum caught me kissing Alex, I obviously had to come clean with my parents. To say they were surprised is an understatement.
The next day Alex came over for afternoon tea to meet them. It is probably one of the only times I've ever seen him ill at ease. In the end it all went harmoniously enough, although the conversation was a little stilted and not in the least helped by my younger sister, who sat on the leather lounge in full view of me (but not my parents or Alex, whose view of her was obscured) and performed a ridiculous charade along the lines of: Hubba hubba - I can't believe you were shagging him all along and now you could be pregnant with his baby! (I'll leave you to imagine her mime actions). Here was I trying to appear serious and contrite and having to stifle a giggle at the time was not a good look.
After Alex had left she pulled me aside and whispered in a superior air, 'I knew you were trying to pull that night of the dinner dance.'
My mother humphed around the house for several days after that, pursing her lips and muttering, 'In my day people took their vows of fidelity seriously,' so I advised Alex it would be wise for us to keep a low profile for a while. Almost as soon as I said this Mum turned around to me and announced, 'If you want to stay at Alex's place on Saturday night, I'm sure Issy will be fine here with us.'
What? One moment she's reprimanding me for my deplorable morals and the next she's pimping for me?
When I asked her to explain she said, 'I'm not saying I approve in any way of what you did, but it's clear he is in love with you and intends to do the right thing by you.'
'How come you know that?'
'Oh Eleanor, you just have to see the way he looks at you.'
That sounded familiar. Then I remembered that Stacey (who did turn out to be James' girlfriend, now fiancée actually) had said something similar after our encounter at the Opera House, although it had never occurred to me at the time to think it was love she'd witnessed. I'd thought it was lust, or guilt or anxiety about being caught by Tony or something. I grew up believing I was a smart little cookie but I'm beginning to think I am almost as clueless about the opposite sex as my now ex-husband. Our marriage probably didn't stand a chance.
No-one needs to convince me that Alex loves me these days. I was such a bitch throughout my pregnancy and yet he kept coming back for more.
I had another one of those 'uncomplicated' pregnancies: uncomplicated apart from the acrimonious divorce proceedings, with disputes about property settlement (Tony demanded a 60:40 split because of his family's contribution to the renovations) and a bitter custody battle; uncomplicated except for me trying to negotiate a brand new relationship in the midst of all this; uncomplicated except for constant questions from my daughter about why her mummy and daddy no longer spoke to one another and why Daddy chose to live so far away from her in a foreign land; uncomplicated except for the constant nagging fear that my tiny baby would die as retribution for my sins.
I didn't get fat this time, however. I was too stressed to eat - some small consolation.
Oh, I almost forgot the paternity testing. How embarrassing was that. I can tell you that fronting up to an obstetrician to request a test to find out the father of my unborn child was not a scenario that ever featured in my wildest teenage fantasies! I needn't have worried as Greg was non-judgmental (although I might have detected a subtle and unprofessional smirk - Tony and he never got on, remember). He tried to discourage me from testing, explaining that it would require an amniocentesis, which might increase my risk of miscarriage. Great.
I endured several sleepless nights before that amnio, not to mention several sleepless weeks afterwards, but went against my doctor's advice just the same. I was acquiescing to all Tony's demands by this stage, hoping that if I was obliging about everything else he would eventually see reason on the only thing I really cared about: custody of Isabel.
There were many nasty phone calls during my pregnancy, so it was fortunate that I also got to make the best one of my life. It went something like this:
Alex: Alex Anderson speaking.
Me: Helloo, daddy.
Alex: [Pause] Really?
Me: Yes, really.
Alex: No chance of a mistake?
Me: Absolutely no mistake.
Alex: Fuck...
Me: No I think we did that part.
Alex: [Laughter] Sorry, I just wasn't expecting this.
Me: I know you weren't. I was.
Alex: How come?
Me: Just a feeling - women's intuition I guess.
Alex: You never told me.
Me: No, just in case my intuition was wrong.
Alex: Yeah, probably wise. Well this makes everything a lot...
Me: Better.
Alex: I was going to say easier.
Me: Better.
Alex: Okay, better.
Me: Do you want to know what we're having?
Alex: Yes...no...I don't know. You know?
Me: Yeah.
Alex: Well you're not going to be able to keep it secret so you may as well tell me.
Me: Are you sure? And I can keep a secret.
Alex: No, I want to know.
Me: Okay...it's a boy.
Alex: A boy...wow...That's what you were hoping for, isn't it?
Me: Yeah...a bit. But it didn't matter so much. He's just got to be healthy.
Alex: Everything's going to be fine.
Me: I know he's okay at the moment anyway - he's practising his left-cross kick as we speak.
Alex: That's my boy.
Me: You didn't take long to adjust to the role.
Alex: No, I think this will take me a while to get used to...You know I've got a bloody meeting I'm meant to be at right now so I'm going to have to go. I want to call my mum too...shit...but I guess she can wait an hour. I'll call you later okay. Love you.
Me: You, too.
Later I regretted my eagerness in making that call because I missed out on the chance of seeing his face when he heard the news. Fortunately I have my spies. Melanie tells me that as he was leaving his office on the way to that meeting he went via her desk and gave her a huge bear hug and kiss on the cheek. She claims it was the high point of her sex life for the year.
Is this evidence that God has a sense of humour? On a night in late November 2006, when we thought we were saying goodbye forever, Alex and I instead created a bond between us that will link us together for all our lives: Henrik Alexander Andersen is his name. We christened him in honour of Alex's late dad, and he's snuffling adorably in his sleep as I write this.
I have to say that on no level, subconsciously or otherwise, did I plan for this to happen. If I'd have known it was possible for me, with my chequered fertility history, to stop the pill and fall pregnant within days...well, you know the saying: 'if it's not on, it's not on'. I should have read the package insert on those contraceptive pills more closely, I suppose. It would have been much simpler if Alex and I had been able to ease into our commitment rather than being thrust into joint parenthood within a year, but I can't regret for a moment our beautiful little boy. Anyway, Alex seems to have taken to fatherhood like a duck to water, so maybe he was, as he said, ready.
The path has been smoothed by Henry (as he's now usually called) being the easiest baby ever - almost the polar opposite of Isabel. He rarely cries and was sleeping through the night from an unheard of eight weeks. I'm sure Alex thinks I was making all those horror baby stories up!
Henry has also turned out to be almost as dark-skinned as his father is, so it's fortunate I didn't decide to go back to Tony, cross my fingers and hope for the best. Doesn't bear thinking about really...Much better to have the whole issue of paternity cleared up before delivery day.
Of course, I had the less pleasant task of calling Tony to tell him he was not the father.
'So now my humiliation is complete,' he said. 'My wife conceived a baby with another man while she was still married to me.'
'I didn't actually plan for this to happen, you know, but if it makes things easier I'm happy to lie to people and say the baby was premature or something. Or else you can make up some story that I slept with a taxi driver in a fit of jealous rage after hearing about your love affair. Whatever paints me in the worst light.'
'Oh don't worry, I'll be doing that.'
'Anyway, at least it makes the break less complicated,' I added, in lieu of anything useful to say.
'Yes - and when you have your new baby maybe you'll see sense and stop this pointless fight for Isabel.'
Grrrrr.
Still, in deference to our shared history I didn't tell him I was carrying the boy he had wanted. I knew he would find that out soon enough.
It wasn't too long after that that he called me to say that he would be visiting Sydney for a few days in two weeks' time and would like access to Isabel the entire time. As we were finishing the conversation he said curtly, 'By the way, I should let you know that Wendy has moved in with me.'
'Good,' I said. I had been half-expecting this.
'She at least was faithful to me the whole time.'
Whatever, I thought but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.
And then, only a few months later, I received another 'by the way'.
'By the way, it's early days yet but I thought I'd let you know that Wendy is pregnant.'
'Oh...er...congratulations.'
'Thank you. It happened a bit quicker than we expected.'
'We seem to be much more fertile with other people,' I said. 'Just another way we were incompatible, I suppose.'
Then he said something I wasn't expecting. 'It wasn't all bad was it? We had some good times too.'
What did this all mean?
'Yeah we did,' I said, and even though it was risky bringing her up I added, 'and we could never regret having Isabel.'
Thankfully there were no hiccups in Wendy's pregnancy and she delivered safely a couple of months ago. It wasn't a boy, however. It was twin boys - enormously huge twin boys. I don't know how that tiny little woman carried them both to term. But she did. And she delivered them naturally, too - no drugs or artificial assistance required. She's made of stern stuff, that Wendy Wong.
As I said, our marriage probably never stood a chance.
I am genuinely pleased for Tony. I really am. We've both felt the pain of losing a son so the birth of a healthy boy, or two in my ex's case, is cause for genuine blessing.
There is one aspect of this I feel less charitable about, though. Andy informed me that Wendy had been on a special diet and taking Chinese herbs to increase her chance of conceiving a boy. That's where Tony had heard about the herbs. He'd been discussing making babies with her while he was still married to me! I seethed about that for a couple of days until Alex suggested that it might be time for me to move on, otherwise he'd get suspicious that I was still holding a flame for my ex. So I've moved on, apart from the occasional mischievous hope that Wendy's pelvic floor is somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles at present.
In further evidence that God has a sense of humour, the two women whom I have most cause to hate in the world turned out to be unintentional allies in my fight over custody of Isabel.
Wendy decided that she would have her hands full with the twins and it might be better if Isabel remained with me and visited them in Hong Kong during school holidays. What a relief that was - I may no longer believe in fairytales but the character of wicked stepmother appears too often in these stories for her not to have some basis in fact!
And then there was Pamela. Andy came out not long after the marriage split (I think in a gallant effort to direct some flak away from me), and although stranger things have happened it's unlikely she'll be welcoming grandchildren from his quarter anytime soon. With her two grandsons likely to be in Hong Kong for the foreseeable future, Isabel remains her only grandchild in Sydney and Pamela found she had grown attached to those Wednesday evening visits from her granddaughter.
So the mistress and the motherin-law ganged up on Tony and bossed him into granting primary custody to me, on the proviso that when he is visiting Sydney Isabel stays with him and his parents the entire time.
When Tony called me to inform me of his decision, I almost kissed the ground in disbelief.
'Thank you, thank you,' I said through the tears. 'I promise you I won't restrict your access to her in any way. You will always be her father and she will never, ever, hear a bad word from me.'
'Yeah well it was the only sensible decision in the end, wasn't it?'
'Yes, sensible, but I'm still surprised. I thought you wanted me to burn in vat of boiling oil.'
'The thought had crossed my mind but I'm moving on from that now.'
'Where has this all come from?'
'Oh no, I'm not going to tell you. You'll laugh at me.'
'No I won't.'
'You will, I tell you.'
'I promise.'
'I've been going to counselling.'
'What, couples' counselling?'
'No just me by myself.'
I laughed then, of course, although it came out more as an unladylike snort.
'See, I told you you would laugh.'
'I'm sorry - it's just so bizarre. What prompted all this?'
'I think it was my fortieth birthday. You know, pause for reflection and all.'
So my ex did have the capacity for self-reflection. Who would have known?
'I thought about you on the day,' I said, 'but didn't think you'd welcome a card somehow.'
'Anyway, thanks to the navel gazing I am coming to terms with the fact that it was pretty much all my own doing.'
'No definitely not all. My behaviour was fairly appalling, too. But I would never have pursued anything with Alex if I'd thought you still cared about me. I want you to understand that.'
'My point exactly - but I don't think I ever did stop caring.'
'Well in that case you did a very convincing impression of someone who had. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now, isn't it? Can't change the past.'
'You sound like the counsellor.'
'Yeah I've been to that many counselling sessions I probably could start my own practice. So how are you coping with big four-o? Do I dare ask about that other milestone?'
'My command? No probably a couple of years away yet, but, hey, I've adjusted.'
'And in the meantime you have your twins to keep you busy.'
'Yep, they're great. And even though there's two of them they are still not as hard work as Isabel was as a baby.'
'No she was a real piece of work.'
Now I can finally feel that things have happened for the best, if not for that little piece of work. We've set up the computer so Isabel can videoconference her father on Skype (ironically using the technology that has probably saved quite a few pilot's marriages), but I know it's not the same as having him around for a cuddle. I hope she will learn to forgive her stupid parents in time.
One of the many mistakes I made in my failed marriage, although this actually took place before the wedding day, was pretending to be someone I was not. I appeared to be the perfect girlfriend, the uncomplaining little woman who never minded my boyfriend's many absences, only to reveal another altogether more insecure and demanding identity once I had that wedding band on. Tony was quite justified in accusing me of that.
This could never be said of my relationship with Alex. I was hideously awful to him for a long time. He knows my true colours alright.
Remember that day when he sabotaged all my flat hunting efforts? His plot was to stop me signing a rental agreement so that we could instead find a larger place that would also accommodate him. He didn't count on my old Mother Bear instincts. I refused to move in with him until just before Henry was born. I felt that Isabel needed time to adjust to losing her father before I imposed a new man on her. So we had this strange little period of dating whilst I was carrying his child. It is customary for these matters to be conducted in a different order: the going out, then the conception, but the abnormal now seems normal in my topsy-turvy world.
I honestly don't know why he put up with me during this time. One moment I'd be pushing him away, saying that I needed space and he would back off as requested. Then I'd get panicky when he hadn't called and phone him up to accuse him of sleeping with other women and abandoning me - let's just say I have a few residual trust issues to work through yet. The poor guy couldn't win. He didn't even get much sex as compensation: the Ghost of Miscarriages Past put a big dampener on that.
I asked him one day, 'Why are you putting up with all this? It's obvious I'm completely mad.'
'Not mad. Just a bit odd. I know you're going through a stressful time and I'm making allowances, okay.'
I think I was mad, but things settled down once Henry was born healthy and even more so when Tony withdrew his custody claim. I can feel my sanity returning and I'm now trying to make it up to Alex in a big way.
So, all in all, life is pretty good at present and I am nauseatingly in love with this man.
Not that he's perfect. His untidiness, which seemed so refreshing when I was married to the housework Nazi, no longer appeals as much. The guy is a grot. Now the tables have completely turned and I'm the one 'tsk, tsking' about wet towels on the bathroom floor. I'm gradually getting him trained but it's never going to come naturally. Thank God for our cleaner is all I can say. Oh, and he's completely absent-minded. You send him to the shops to buy some milk and he comes back with some fantastic goat's cheese and a new type of olive he's picked up at the deli, and some fresh figs that were a great price at the greengrocers but no milk. Then again he is a better cook than I am, and takes Henry and Isabel out to breakfast and the park for two hours every Saturday morning to give me a chance to sleep in, so I think I will keep him.
Another thing I've discovered, now that we're cohabiting, is that I really do need my space. Remember, I lived for years with a husband who was away half the time and somewhere along the line I must have developed some independence. A couple of evenings a week, once the kids are in bed, I like to be on my own to do my own thing.
Alex recently got a promotion at work (good = more money). In fact he now has Edward's old job, beating, amongst others, Amanda for the position. She now hates him just as much as she hates me. With the job came an opportunity to study for an MBA at company expense. He approached me with this news apologetically. 'I think I should knock it back. It's too much of an imposition on you.'
'No, no...' I said, 'I want you to do it.'
'Are you sure? Most of my classes would be in the evening and I don't want to leave you in the lurch with the kids.'
'Yes, I'm completely sure. It would be a great career move and silly to say no to.'
I don't think he's guessed my real motives! I'm looking around for part-time work at present and when Alex finishes his studies I'm planning to sign up for my own postgraduate degree.
Oh, though I should say I only like my independence during waking hours. I adore having him in my bed every night and miss him dreadfully when he goes away on the occasional business trip. I love all the cuddling up under the covers, and when he brings Henry and Issy into bed with us in the morning, and sometimes I just love lying awake beside him, simply watching him sleep. During those moments I quietly wonder at the mysteries of human attraction, and thank my lucky stars that of all the girls in the world he could have fallen in love with, this wonderful young man somehow chose me.
What more is there to say?
With the conception and birth of Henry I thought it wise to discreetly unsubscribe from my infertility chat group, but have kept in contact with my American friend Suzanne and am delighted to report that she has just become the adoptive mother of a gorgeous little Chinese baby girl. I'm currently saving up my pennies so we can go and visit them soon. Being no longer married to a pilot, cheap air fares are sadly a thing of the past for me.
I was understandably anxious about meeting Alex's mother, Chandra, after so rudely gatecrashing her family, but she has welcomed me with open arms and seems to adore Isabel almost as much as her own grandson. Sophie also came home for a visit to meet her new nephew and is every bit as sweet and beautiful as she appears in that photo. I now see why Alex is the man he is and only feel sorry that I never got to meet his dad.
Paul has forgiven me and we are now firm friends. When Alex moved out of Balmain, his new girl Carla moved in.
Oh, and Andy has brought his partner, Juan, out to live in Australia. Pamela and Douglas seem to be adjusting to this better than anyone expected; probably they knew all along. Andy and Juan visit us often. It is lovely for Isabel to see so much of her uncle, although I'm not sure Andrew and Juan's motives are completely innocent. I've discovered that Alex provokes the same reaction amongst gay men as he does amongst women and suspect they have both fallen in love with him. I hate to break it to the boys but I feel a man so clearly turned on by a pregnant and lactating woman probably has his feet firmly planted in the heterosexual camp.
I feel that last conversation with my ex - the one where he told me about the counselling - was our probably last really intimate one. Now we tend to stick to chat about Isabel but it's a relief to once again speak cordially to one another. Andy keeps me filled in on what he's up to. I never would have said this until recently but I think Tony will end up being happier with Wendy than he ever was with me. Ultimately the woman in Tony's life has to be prepared to fit in around his job (to be fair he did tell me this before we were married) and I think Wendy, with her own background in the industry, will cope with this better than me. Also, Andy tells me that she runs the house like a military operation, with all her boys (including Tony) on strictly organised routines. Tony would love that. I always wondered about the nature of the connection between them - despite his denials I knew it must have been powerful, if only because it kept them together all that time - and I've come to the conclusion that what he might have been seeking all along was someone to look after him, another mother figure in a way. Maybe that's not unreasonable considering he has so much responsibility in his day job, but seeing I went into our marriage seeking pretty much the same thing, it's hardly surprising we came a cropper. And you know, when I think about it there is a touch of the Pamela about Wendy, in manner if not appearance.
If my story was assessed as a moral tale it would fail on all counts. If it was one of those nineteenth-century novels I, the fallen woman, the faithless wife, would be dead by now. I would have wasted away from consumption, or drank arsenic like Madame Bovary or thrown myself under a train like Anna Karenina. Instead I seem to be in robust good health and quite high spirits. Real life doesn't always contain a moral, I suppose.
Ultimately my story also fails as a fairytale. There were no villains here, just a bunch of flawed individuals making a mess of their lives. Some may argue that I have just replaced one handsome prince with another, but nothing's that simple. That doesn't account for the fact that I've changed. I'm no longer seeking a man to look after me - I've found out that I am quite capable of looking after myself, thank you very much. What I want now is a partnership of equals and I think I may have found it, although it's early days yet.
Just the other day Alex gave me the loveliest present I could ever have wished for. It was the gift of understanding.
He was playing peek-a-boo with little Henry at the time, enthralled with the activity way longer than I would have ever been. He turned to me and said, 'You know when you left me and told me that you were not making the choice between me and Tony but between me and Isabel, and that one day when I had children I would understand...'
'Mmm...'
'I understand now.'
'Ah, so this little fellow has usurped me in your affections has he?'
'I wouldn't put it exactly like that. It's a different sort of love, isn't it? But all consuming - I wasn't expecting that. But of course you knew already.'
'Yeah,' I said.
So some time later this year we will have a wedding: one of those informal garden weddings with a few close friends and family and a little blonde girl with flowers in her hair and a little dark-haired boy toddling somewhere close by as we make our vows.
And will we live happily ever after? Who knows? I hope the gods are kind to us, but it's unrealistic to expect it's all going to be smooth sailing. That's life. But I have learnt my lessons the hard way and now have a man I can talk to and with those things on our side we might just make a better shot of it than most.
'An irreverent and painfully honest take on the fairytale of wedded bliss. O'Reilly is a wickedlyfunny, naughty, new Australian voice.'
Grazia
'This book...will prompt you to re-evaluate your own ideas of forgiveness, unfaithfulnessand when to walk away.'
Madison
Benison Anne O'Reilly has university degrees in pharmacy and commerce and works as a medical writer. She is co-author of the best-selling Australian Autism Handbook. Benison lives in Sydney with her husband, three sons and a menagerie of small animals. This is her first novel.
About the author
Benison Anne O'Reilly has university degrees in pharmacy and commerce and works as a medical writer. She is co-author of the best-selling Australian Autism Handbook. Benison lives in Sydney with her husband, three sons and a menagerie of small animals. This is her first novel.
A common piece of advice handed out to aspiring novelists is to write about something you know. I don't know why I thought I could ignore this advice and get away with it. Thus, I am extremely grateful to the gentlemen aviators - whom shall be known only as Michael, Andrew and Bill - who offered their wisdom on the flying profession generously, even after I explained to them that my pilot character was, well...a little bit flawed. I would also like to thank my anonymous source in pharmaceutical marketing, who is most definitely an 'outlier'. (If you've read the book you'll understand what I mean by this.)
My other contributors are less bashful. A hearty thanks to Virginia Henry for all the good oil on living in Discovery Bay, to Kate O'Reilly for her insights into being both a female marketer and the mother of a four year-old girl, to Dr Vijay Roach for his obstetric advice and to Mary-Anne O'Connor for being my sounding board and just a genuinely nice person.
Thank you in particular to my publisher, Jane Curry, who has unfailingly supported my new career in writing, especially considering this little venture into fiction is a leap for both of us. Gratitude also to my editor, Caroline Webber, who has nursed this novice novelist through the editing process with patience and good humour. And I can't forget to thank Seana Smith, my co-author on the Australian Autism Handbook and hopefully many future collaborations, who rang me up one day and said, 'Hey, do you want to write a book with me?', thereby providing the easiest launching pad to a writing career a person could have!
I'd also like to acknowledge my wonderful family.
I am blessed to have the best in-laws in the world: Kevin & Dorn and the extended Best clan.
To my aunt Helen, thank you for your support and all the wonderful conversations we have had about literature.
To mum and dad, Roslyn, and Cameron, you are my inspiration for the loving, supportive Parkes family depicted in these pages.
To my sons, Matthew, Nicholas and the inimitable 'Joe', thank you for putting up with me during the long gestation period of my latest baby, this novel.
And finally thanks to James, my most enthusiastic supporter and even after twenty years still my handsome prince.
First published by Jane Curry Publishing 2010
(Wentworth Concepts Pty Ltd)
PO Box 780 Edgecliff NSW 2021
Web: www.janecurrypublishing.com.au
Copyright © Benison Anne O'Reilly
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:
Benison Anne O'Reilly
Happily Ever After?
ISBN 978-0-9808129-6-1
Fiction
Design: Cheryl Collins Design
Cover Illustration: Megan Hess
Table of Contents

