'Sure, I went lots!' said Vid easily. 'When my marriage broke up my friends wanted to take me out, and, you know, my friends didn't go to symphonies or whatever, you know, they went to clubs. And when I saw this woman dance, well, she blew my mind. She just blew my mind.' He put a pretend gun to his head, pulled a pretend trigger and made his fingertips explode. 'That's why I recognised her straight away at that auction. Even though she had her clothes on.'
Vid slapped his knee and roared with laughter. Clementine and Sam chuckled in a kind of horrified way, while Erika frowned and poor Oliver blushed.
'Anyway,' said Tiffany. 'That's probably enough of that.'
There was a sudden discordant shriek: 'Mummy!'
chapter thirty-six
It was raining so hard Clementine didn't hear the front door open. She jumped when she saw Sam materialise in the doorway to Holly's room, his blue and white pinstriped shirt so wet it was transparent.
'You scared the life out of me!' she said, her hand to her chest. 'Why are you home so early?' She knew it sounded like an accusation. She should have said, maybe, 'This is a nice surprise!' and then said, conversationally, gently, 'Why so early, honey?'
She'd never called him 'honey' in her life.
Sam plucked at the saturated fabric of his shirt.
'What are you doing?' he said.
'Looking for something,' she said. 'As usual.' She was sitting on Holly's bed with a pile of clothes in front of her, searching for Holly's 'strawberry top', a white long-sleeved top with a giant strawberry on the front that Holly needed right now if she was to ever feel happiness again, and which, of course, was nowhere to be found.
She felt strangely self-conscious. Would she normally have jumped to her feet at the sight of Sam, and kissed him hello? She couldn't remember. It was so strange that she would even consider this: the correct etiquette for greeting her husband.
She didn't particularly want to hug him when he was once again soaked. Nobody in Sydney could be surprised by rain anymore. You were an idiot if you found yourself caught in the rain. It was all anyone could talk about. Umbrella sales had gone up by forty per cent. But ever since the rain had started, Sam left every day for the ferry without an umbrella or raincoat. She watched him each morning from the kitchen window, bolting along the footpath through the rain, his briefcase held over his head, and the sight of his bobbing body disappearing into the distance made her want to laugh and cry. Maybe it was a form of masochism. He thought he didn't deserve an umbrella. He probably thought she didn't deserve one either.
'Why are you home so early?' she said again.
'Well, I got your message.' Sam's face was a mask of anxiety with a hint of aggressive defensiveness. 'So I left work early.'
'My message that said Holly was perfectly fine?' said Clementine. 'My message that said there was nothing to worry about?'
'This is the second time she's had this stomach thing,' said Sam.
'I assume you saw her in the living room,' said Clementine. 'Happily playing on the iPad without a care in the world.'
'I think we need to get her checked out. It could be her appendix or something. It could come and go.'
'Yeah, it comes when she's at school and it goes when she's playing on the iPad. She's playing us,' said Clementine. 'As soon as I got her in the car she was fine. She talked the whole way home about her party. She wants to invite Dakota, by the way.' She said the last part quickly, without looking at him.
'Dakota,' said Sam. He straightened as if sensing danger. 'That Dakota?'
'Yes, that Dakota.'
'She can't invite her,' said Sam. 'Obviously. Jesus.'
'I told her that Dakota was probably too big for a sixth birthday party. And she had a meltdown. She said that we told her she could invite whoever she wanted, and we did say that. We made kind of a big deal of it.'
'Yeah, well, we meant anyone except Dakota,' said Sam.
'She was inconsolable.'
'She doesn't even know Dakota,' said Sam. He pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers, went to wring it with his hands and then reconsidered. 'She met her one time. Like you said, she's too old. She wouldn't want to come to Holly's party!'
'Well, anyway, I gave in,' said Clementine. 'She was becoming hysterical. It was kind of frightening.'
'You just said yourself that she was putting it on about the stomach thing,' said Sam. 'So she's putting it on about Dakota too. She played you, Clementine.'
He said this mockingly. Before, he'd always teased, but he'd never mocked.
'I don't think so,' said Clementine. 'Look. Holly wants to invite her, and it's her party, and she's obviously going through a bad stage at the moment, which is maybe not unexpected, so if she wants to have Dakota at her party, she's having Dakota at her party. It's not that big a deal!'
Sam clenched his jaw. 'She's not coming.'
Clementine threw her hands up. 'She is coming.'
They stared at each other.
How did they get out of this? How did a couple resolve something like this, where there was no possibility of compromise, where one person had to give in? What happened if no one gave in?
'I called Erika today,' she said, to change the subject. 'I told her that I'd donate my eggs.'
'Right,' said Sam.
He began to take his shirt off. Clementine found herself not quite but almost averting her eyes in the polite way you did when someone else's husband took off their shirt.
'She was funny about it,' said Clementine. 'I think she definitely overheard what I said that day, when we were upstairs. Those horrible things I said.'
'I need to get changed,' said Sam distractedly, as if she were boring him.
'So you're fine with me donating my eggs?' asked Clementine, without making eye contact, as if it were an inconsequential question.
'It's your decision,' said Sam. 'She's your friend. Nothing to do with me.'
His disinterest felt almost exquisitely painful, as if it was a pain she needed, a boil she needed lanced.
'So you definitely don't want another baby?' she said. There it was again. Like at dinner the other night at the restaurant. That desire to push him, to shove him off this ledge where they were stranded.
'Another baby?' said Sam. He hung his wet shirt on the handle of Holly's door. 'Us? Have another baby? You're not serious.'
'Oh. Right,' said Clementine. She piled clothes on top of each other. 'You haven't seen Holly's strawberry top, have you? It's vanished.' She looked around her in frustration and tried not to cry. 'Oh, I can't stand it, why do things keep vanishing?'
chapter thirty-seven The day of the barbeque
'Mummy!' It was only Holly calling for her mother's attention.
'Holly!' sighed Clementine. 'You gave me a fright! You don't need to call out as if it's a matter of life or death each time.'
She stood up and left the table, carefully avoiding Sam's eyes. She couldn't wait to be alone with him in the car to go over the night's events. They'd be dining out on the story of this night forever. It was getting curiouser and curiouser. They'd gone down the rabbit hole. Erika who had never wanted children now wanted babies. Oliver wanted Clementine's eggs. Their hostess used to be a stripper.
'Have you ever heard of the boy who called wolf?' she said to Holly.
'I don't know anyone called Wolf. I've been calling you a million, trillion times.' Holly looked up at her accusingly from her spot in the swinging chair next to Dakota.
'Sorry,' said Clementine. 'What is it?'
'Why is your face all red?' asked Holly.
'I don't know,' said Clementine. She pressed cold fingertips to her hot face. The air was getting cooler. 'Are you girls warm enough?'
'Yes,' said Holly. 'Look at this game Dakota showed us! It's so awesome.'
She pointed at some colourful, animated game on the screen of the iPad in Dakota's hand.
'Wow!' said Clementine, staring at the game without seeing it. 'Awesome.'
'Tha
nk you for taking care of them like this,' said Clementine to Dakota. 'You let me know when you've had enough, okay? When you get bored?'
'Ruby and I are not boring!' protested Holly.
Dakota smiled conspiratorially up at Clementine. She seemed like such a serious, good little girl. It was hard to believe she was the daughter of such colourful people as Vid and Tiffany.
'All okay here? You girls being good?' Sam stood next to her.
Clementine glanced up and met his eyes. There was a spark there. A spark she hadn't seen for a while. Maybe they'd have good sex tonight, proper good sex, the kind that used to be a given, not that weirdly uncomfortable let's-get-this-over-with sex they'd been having for the last couple of years. Something had gone wrong with their sex life after Ruby was born, or it had for Clementine; sometimes she felt a sense of loss, of actual grief over the loss of their sex life, and other times she wondered if it was all in her head, if she was being typically melodramatic about something natural and inevitable. It happened to everyone, it was called getting 'stale', it was called marriage.
She sometimes felt a terrible sense of inappropriateness during sex, almost an incestuous feeling. It was like she and Sam were old, beloved friends who for some reason - a religious or legal or medical reason - were obligated to have sex every few weeks in front of a small panel of impartial observers, and it wasn't exactly unpleasant to have sex with an attractive old friend, but it was awkward, and a relief for all concerned when it was done.
She'd never spoken about it to Sam. How could she put that into words? 'Sometimes our sex life feels incestuous and religious and ever so slightly yucky, Sam, don't you think? Any suggestions?'
There were no words available to her, and besides, she loathed talking about sex. It made her think of her mother, and strangely enough, of Erika. All that 'open' talk in the car about contraception and self-respect.
She knew part of the problem was that the girls were such unsettled sleepers. It meant that both she and Sam were on edge the whole time listening for that inevitable cry that could break the spell at any moment. With limited time you couldn't linger. They had to get down to business, to the old tried-and-tested moves and positions, because otherwise it would be yet another case of 'mission abort'. It meant there was always a certain 'move it along' tension to the proceedings. (Sometimes she even caught herself thinking, Hurry, hurry!) It also meant they never stopped being 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' and there was something so frumpy and ordinary and unglamorous about Mummy and Daddy having quick, furtive sex while their children slept. These days, Sam wasn't suggesting sex that often, which made Clementine feel kind of hurt: She assumed he still found her attractive; it would be all too easy to let herself fall into the body-loathing abyss - the world was so eager to give her a shove - but she was standing firm for now. At the same time she'd often feel relieved when they both rolled over to face different directions, because honestly, who could be bothered? She suspected that he felt exactly the same mixture of hurt and relief, and the thought of him feeling relief about not having to have sex with her hurt her further, even though she felt the same way. And so it went on.
But now there was a spark, and she felt a great sense of exhilaration and relief. So this was all they needed! A barbeque with a friendly ex-stripper and a music-appreciating electrician who looked like Tony Soprano. She'd always fancied Tony Soprano.
'Why are you laughing, Mummy?' said Holly.
'I'm not laughing,' said Clementine. 'I'm smiling. I'm just happy.'
She caught Dakota giving her a dubious look and she tried to pull herself together.
'Daddy is all red too,' said Holly.
'Pink.' Ruby removed her thumb from her mouth to comment. 'Daddy is pink.'
'Pink,' agreed Holly.
'I expect he's a bit hot and bothered,' said Clementine.
'Why?' said Holly.
'Maybe I need a cold shower,' said Sam, discreetly pinching the flesh of Clementine's upper arm. 'I should stand in the fountain, eh?'
'Silly Daddy,' said Ruby.
chapter thirty-eight
The day of the barbeque
'You okay?' said Oliver quietly, his hand on Erika's arm.
Erika felt a surge of irritability. 'Yes. Why? Do I not look okay?'
Was she squinting? It wasn't her fault. The hazy afternoon light was making everything blur. The lack of visibility was affecting her balance too. She kept finding herself tipping forward or backward and having to anchor herself by grabbing the side of the table.
The music in the cabana was up quite loud now, making her head thump. Tiffany was playing 'November Rain', which was significant in some way, something to do with her sordid past; Erika didn't want to know.
'You just seem like you're drinking more than usual,' said Oliver, and for a moment Erika felt outraged, because she was always, always, the most sober person at any party. Often she didn't bother to drink at all - she didn't like the taste of it that much - although the wine tonight seemed very good, very smooth and delicious, probably prohibitively expensive.
'Well, I'm not!' she said.
'Sorry,' said Oliver.
Her outrage melted away, because it wasn't Oliver's fault that his parents were alcoholics.
'I'm fine,' she said, and she inclined her body towards him with the vague idea that she might hug him, even though they were both sitting in separate chairs. She wanted to hug him for his childhood, for the time when he was seven and he couldn't wake up his drunk parents to get out of bed to drive him to school, and he had a maths test that morning, and he sat on the end of their bed and cried with frustration, and now his parents told it as a hilarious story: The time Oliver cried because he missed a maths test. Our little accountant in the making! And each time they told it Oliver obligingly chuckled, except with the saddest eyes you'd ever seen. But as she leaned towards him, Oliver held out his hands as if to catch her from falling, an appalled expression on his face, as if she were about to make a spectacle of herself, and Erika sat back with a little 'tch' sound. She couldn't give her husband a hug but it was fine for Tiffany, at a family barbeque, to casually mention that she used to be a pole dancer, a stripper, no less.
Clementine and Sam were giddy over it. Clementine's face was luminous right now. She'd always been susceptible to excitement. As a teenager Clementine used to get herself worked up when they went to parties together. Certain types of music sent her mad with happiness, as did certain types of cocktails - you could never tell whether the music or the alcohol was making her drunker. More than once Erika, always the designated driver, had had to peel her off some guy, and sometimes those guys had got aggressive, and the next morning Clementine would thank her, and say thank God I didn't sleep with him, and Erika would feel a warm glow of satisfaction, like a best friend in a movie, but of course they weren't like best friends in a movie, were they? What were the precise words she'd overheard? It's like she always wants another piece of me.
The shame rose like bile, and Erika put down her empty wineglass too hard on the table. Tiffany, predictably, picked up the wine bottle to refill it. She must have done waitressing as well as stripping. Maybe she'd been one of those topless waitresses. Why not? Marvellous. How interesting. What fun!
'That's your phone ringing, Vid,' said Tiffany as she poured the wine.
Vid picked up his phone and his face turned sour when he saw the name. 'It is our friend Harry,' he said. 'From next door. It will be the music, you know, offending him. It offends him when anyone is happy.'
'You'd better answer,' said Tiffany.
'He kicked my dog today!' said Vid. 'I don't have to answer him. He's always been on the nasty side, but harming an innocent animal! That was my final straw, you know.'
'Harry didn't really kick the dog, did he?' said Oliver.
'We only suspect it,' said Tiffany. 'No proof.' She picked up the phone. 'Hello, Harry,' she said. 'Are we too loud?'
'Not loud at all,' grumbled Vid. 'It's day time.'
&
nbsp; 'Yes,' said Tiffany into the phone. 'No, that's fine. We'll turn it down. Sorry to disturb you.'
She gave Vid his phone back and turned down the volume on the music.
'Hmmph,' said Vid. 'You should have turned it up.'
'We probably had it a bit too loud,' said Tiffany. 'He's an old man. We have to be respectful.'
'He's not respectful to us,' grumbled Vid. He turned to Clementine. It was obvious he was developing quite the crush on her. 'So, listen, tell me, do you play your cello at weddings? Because my eldest daughter is getting married this spring, you know.'
'I play in a string quartet,' said Clementine. 'We're called Passing Notes. You could book us if you like. Will the food be good?'
'Will the food be good,' repeated Vid with extravagant emphasis. 'Of course the food will be good, the food will be magnificent!'
'That's how Clementine and I met,' said Sam. 'She was playing at my friend's wedding.'
'Ah! Of course!' said Vid, as if he'd been there. 'And you thought: Who is that beautiful cellist!'
Clementine pretended to smooth her hair. 'Yes, that's right.'
'What was your pick-up line?' Tiffany asked Sam.
Bet you wish you chose the flute, thought Erika gloomily as she drained her glass. She and Oliver might as well go back home and leave these four to it. They were all so busy flirting and finding each other fascinating.
'I waited until they'd finished playing and they were packing away their instruments and, you know, Clementine's not tall, the cello is nearly as big as her, so I said, which I thought was pretty brilliant, "Bet you wish you chose the flute." '
'Genius!' Vid slapped his leg.
'Not really,' said Sam. 'People say it to cellists all the time. It's like the worst possible cliche I could have chosen.'
'Of course it was!' said Vid. 'I would never have said that!'
'But she took pity on me anyway,' said Sam.
'Mummy, I'm cold.' Ruby appeared at Clementine's side, Whisk under her arm like a teddy bear.
'Do you want to wear your special new coat Grandma got you?' said Clementine.