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In Port, Toni wasn't as happy as her neighbour with the way things have turned out. Johnny was very difficult when she phoned home. As she'd anticipated, the stifled drama at the airport was just a trailer for the main feature. She tried tough love on him, but they both suspected she no longer loved him, and, besides, the distance had taken the urgency from her toughness.
"It says in the good book a woman's place is in the home. It's the warrior's place to provide," he told her.
"That's great, Johnny, yeah I could go with that. But you don't provide – do you? You never have and you never will."
Johnny's reading of his good book so far obviously hadn't prepared him for this response. He ignored it and resorted to his usual fallback of unreasonableness. "Now that I think about it," he said, "it would have been a heck of a lot easier if you'd taken the boys with you."
Toni wondered why she found Johnny's new way of cursing so much more offensive than the casual blasphemies of his previous life. She was seized by an urge to lash out and smash his irrationality, but she patiently explained some of the reasons why that had been impossible.
"Maybe I should take them up to their Nana's," he said.
"For Christ's sake. She's in frigging Hamilton!" Toni calmed herself. "Never mind everything else, there's not enough petrol in the car for you to do that."
"I guess we could try hitching," Johnny said. His tone told her that even he knew how lame his suggestion was. Then he shouted at the boys, setting off a stereophonic wail that even she would admit was a well-executed bonus twist of the blade.
Now Toni wanted to let go, to be the one blowing the emotional budget just for once, to break down, and wallow in self-pity. She had two minutes left on her phone card that she'd reserved for phoning the boys in the morning. For a moment, she contemplated the special luxury it would be to squander this meanly rationed time, sobbing. She would do this, not to win over Johnny, who would in any case probably see it as surrender, but simply because she can't afford to, because her normal discipline and sense of duty wouldn't allow it. She fancied her unbound wails amplifying logarithmically as they bounced off every hilltop transmitter and circling satellite, until the whole universe was filled with her misery. But this moment of self-indulgence passed within a few cents of airtime.
"Listen to me, Johnny. I'll tell you what, if you've got a problem, I'll phone Pastor Kelvin and ask him to come round to talk it through with you." No response. It had worked this time. Pastor Kelvin, Johnny's spiritual leader, was not only one of the holiest men in the Hutt Valley, but, before his rebirth, had also been one of its most fearsome. Toni wondered whether Pastor Kelvin's current bling-bling godliness or his reputation as a gang leader was the bigger influence on Johnny's behaviour. "OK, I'll phone you in the morning," she said.
Toni unpacked her bag and hung her clothes in the wardrobe that smelt of damp. She changed out of her work outfit and showered quickly so as not to keep Rob waiting. Now she felt in control again, but hungry. She closed the windows she’d opened to let out the must that overwhelmed her when Adam wrestled the door wide to show off the chalet. The rain had stopped, and she watched the light leach from the sky, pink to purple, blue to black. She rearranged her clothes in the wardrobe; checked herself once more in the pitted mirror; sank into the bed, in the depression she’d made when flitting through the airline magazine the first time; cleaned her teeth again, pleased the water tasted less brackish this time, all the while willing her neighbour's knock summoning her to dinner as they'd arranged. All light had gone from the world. Dressed for an evening out, but now with a fleece on, Toni sat on the bed in darkness, save for the nuclear glow of the clock flashing its incomplete message.
27
Samantha was asleep when Andy arrived home but the familiar click of his shoes on the marble tiles woke her. So when he came into the lounge, her arms were already raised, inviting him to lie with her on the settee. She realised immediately he wouldn't. He stopped a good three metres from her. "Did you go to lunch with Owen Huntly today?"
"Who's he?" Samantha was still befuddled from her nap.
"You know very well who he is."
What happened to hello, darling, how’s your day been? "Of course. Yes, I know the man's name, since you keep dragging it up, but I don't know him. Look, I don't want to talk about anybody else – I want to talk about us."
Andy ignored her plaintive look. "You were talking to him at the cocktail party. Do I really need to remind you?"
"Yes. 30 seconds of phatic conversation with one of your employees. Isn't that what you expect of me?" Barely awake, she couldn't handle this nonsense.
"Not with employees like him, though. You're supposed to behave like the CEO's wife."
"All right." She sat up and met his accusing gaze. "You might as well know, I pashed Sir Gerald in the lift. We were probably caught on CCTV if you missed it."
"That's not funny. This Huntly is dangerous."
"No, he's not, he's only a salesman. That's the way they are. Not dangerous – amusing. They're like clowns. All that bravado, but nothing behind the mask."
Andy looked at her as though she's just confessed to sexually servicing the entire Dependable sales team. The maternity magazine had fallen shut. The back cover revealed nothing of its contents – no more than a photo of a beautiful woman in designer clothes, a woman rather like Samantha Wu. She thought, If I turn the magazine over, to show him the front cover, its title and photograph of a woman big with child, as I will be, this nonsense will stop here and now. She left the magazine as it was.
"How do you know salesmen are like that?" Andy said.
"I should tape this. You're being such an idiot – again."
"OK." He paced the room, as if an attorney playing to a jury. "So, with who did you lunch today?"
With whom, Samantha thought. But it didn't matter because Andy spoiled the effect of his cross-examination by straightening ornaments as he went.
Samantha pulled a pillow to her chest. She was not nearly as strong as either of them might have thought. "A friend," she said, "I told you."
"Oh really? I didn't think you had any friends here. That's what you're always telling me."
"She was on a flying visit from Melbourne," Samantha said. Deep breathing allowed her to stay calm.
"Who is she? Do I know her?"
"It doesn't matter. It was someone I flatted with before I met you," she said, although she knew this information was hardly likely to chill his jealousy.
"And this she really was a she?" he said.
Samantha didn't appreciate his sarcastic tone but thought a touch of humour might restore his sanity. "A bit jolly hockey sticks, a bit too much down on the upper lip but, yes, a she." Apparently not. "Andy, I'm actually getting very tired of this." Samantha only wanted her darling husband to laugh with her about the one-time friend and her arriviste pretensions, and then they could move on the real thing.
"Where did you go?"
"I don't know." Her mind was spinning, flinging away details. "Um, it was the restaurant of her hotel, downtown. I don't know if it even had a name. Please. You're not being very nice."
"Fodder?"
"That could be it," she said. "Yes, I think it was."
"Do you know who else was lunching there?"
Samantha sighed. "That's not a very good question."
"Ok, I'll help you." Andy added without embarrassment. "Owen Huntly."
"So what?"
"Because – look, I'm seriously thinking about having criminal charges pressed against him, and the insolent bastard came unannounced into my office to infer he'd met you for lunch."
Samantha didn't bother with 'infer'. "That's not true. He's lying." Damn it. She felt tears coming.
"All right. Do you promise me you didn't meet Owen Huntly for lunch?"
"Yes, I do." And don't you dare straighten the fucking CDs when you're accusing me of adultery. Samantha took a deep breath. "Look, I did bump into him
at the restaurant. Annie, that's my friend, and I were having lunch. He was with his wife at another table. And, at one stage, he came over to say hello, that's all. So, in a way, yes he could claim to have met me at lunch, but not for lunch."
Andy moved towards the French windows but stopped halfway and turned on Samantha once more. "Do you know what? It was like being visited by royalty when he made his state visit to head office."
He sounded so pathetic Samantha wished she could comfort him.
"It seemed like everyone came out to meet him. I'm surprised they weren't waving flags or putting on a tickertape parade. But what really interested me was that he took a phone call in my office – no doubt, so I could hear – obviously from one of his conquests."
"I don't understand." Samantha dabbed at her eyes but was determined not to show weakness over this. "What are you insinuating?"
"Let me explain. I think you met Huntly for an assignation. This mystery friend from Melbourne story is bullshit. I think it was you he was phoning outside my office with all that 'Was it good for you?' crap."
"Yes, it is true, I did phone him. I didn't tell you because you've been so funny recently." She laughed. "Believe or not, I didn't want you to get jealous." Andy didn't respond, and she added, "He wanted to buy a present for his wife and he asked me where we bought my paua necklace. When I got home, I phoned him and gave him the address. We talked about the food. He told me the chef is a close personal friend. That's what you must have heard."
"Great story. The only problem is this, Huntly is famously unmarried." The poor man had a look of stupid triumph.
"Well, maybe it wasn't for his wife," Samantha said. "They seemed very intimate. I assumed it was for the woman he was with."
"Maybe – but do you know what? This whole thing makes me feel sick to my stomach."
But it was Samantha who rushed to the bathroom.
"Are you all right?" Andy called to the bathroom door.
"Leave me alone."
"OK. I'll get to the point." Andy crouched to talk through the keyhole. "I think you've had a fling with Owen Huntly. I've got a plan to sort things out with us. But first of all, I'm going to make sure he gets screwed too."
Samantha opened the door. "What are you doing down there? Never mind. Andy, listen to me – you are so completely wrong about me and him."
"Why do you care what happens to him?" Andy said.
"I don't particularly. But I do care what this job is doing to you, it's corrupting you."
"Me corrupted?" Andy said. "That really is a bit rich coming from you. Don't make me laugh, please."
Samantha slammed the door and this time bolted it.
28
Toni tapped, knocked, banged, hammered on her neighbour's door. Rob eventually opened it ajar.
"Hi, Terri. Um, isn't it the middle of the night?" Rob rubbed his eyes.
"No. It's only half past eight. We were going to find somewhere for dinner."
"Oh, you go ahead without me. I can't be bothered with dinner tonight." Clearly, he intended to return to the musty gloom.
I'm very hungry, Toni imagines herself saying. Remember I turned down your kind offer of a genuine West Coast meat pie when you insisted on stopping to buy a six-pack. I've left my children in the hands of their unreliable father. Because I can't pay for myself, I've been waiting two hours for you take me out. I've got less than $50 in my bank account until payday. OK, until Working for Families makes a payment, but that's my business. The bank took away my credit card after Johnny got hold of it and went online to buy all the family presents (especially himself). Accounts said you've got a company credit card and would pay for everything when I asked for a cash advance. I do have a little bit of pride left, but I'm hungry, and I'm sick of having unfairness heaped onto me all the time. And it's Toni by the way. So, don't be such an arsehole and get in the frigging car!
"I don't know this town," Toni said. "I really don't like eating out at places on my own, yeah." And I'll damn well stay here until you take me out.
Rob asked Toni to hold on a second and retreated into the darkness. She heard him scuffling back across the room, forcing on a shoe. Then he stepped outside and closed the door.
"Don't you want to change?" she said, taken aback by how scruffy he'd become so quickly.
"No, I always dress for dinner," he said and gave a weak smile. He probably used this line all the time and couldn't remember whether he'd tried it on her before. He took off his half-mast tie and pocketed it.
When Rob stepped into the porch light, Toni noticed a dusting of orange pollen on his jacket, but she felt she didn't know him well enough to mention it, and resisted the urge to brush him down.