Three Wishes, Page 22

  "You called her on Christmas Day."

  He didn't look away, didn't look at the bill she was waving at him. "Yeah, I did. Cat, babe--"

  "Please get that gentle expression off your face."

  "O.K."

  "Why did you pretend to be happy about the baby?"

  "I didn't. I was."

  "Don't patronize me. I don't want my feelings spared! I want the truth."

  And like an idiot man he took her literally. He didn't spare her feelings; he beat them to a bloodied pulp.

  The thing was, he'd been having doubts, little doubts, sort of niggling feelings for a long time. A year at least.

  A year at least? Cat felt her whole world tilt.

  He thought maybe it was normal after being married for so long. He just felt, you know, flat. Didn't she feel that way sometimes?

  "I don't know," said Cat, because she didn't know anything anymore.

  That night with Angela, even though he hated himself, he also liked himself. For the first time in ages. Angela made him feel good. Sometimes Cat treated him like such a moron.

  "We've always been so competitive. Sean's mentioned it. How we were always making little digs at each other."

  As if their marriage was something that happened a long time ago.

  "Go on," said Cat. "It's all so fascinating."

  She felt as if she'd committed a social gaffe of gigantic proportions. Had their relationship appeared bitchy and cruel to the world instead of sexy and fun? Had Dan been lying beside her each night, separated by an entirely different reality?

  "Just go on," she repeated. He seemed too brightly defined under the kitchen lights.

  That week after he told her about Angela was pretty rough. Cat wasn't talking to him, or else she was screaming at him, and he didn't get much sleep on the sofa bed. He was exhausted.

  So, one day, without really thinking about it, he accidentally rang Angela.

  Cat laughed--a contemptuous bark. "Are you telling me that this all happened because you were tired? Because I was giving you a hard time about your little fling, you decided to turn it into a bigger fling?"

  "You're twisting my words again."

  "I am not twisting your fucking words. I am trying to understand you!"

  "It's complicated."

  "So, while we were trotting off each week to fat Annie, you were having an affair?"

  "It wasn't like an affair! Every time it happened I said, O.K. this is it, never again. It was like when we were giving up smoking. I just kept falling off the wagon."

  Cat snorted and stored that one up for Lyn and Gemma. It was like giving up smoking. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, You are a moron.

  He said, "And then you got pregnant."

  "Yep. Then I got pregnant." She remembered the joy like a crisp, clean scent.

  "So then, it was easy. I broke it up. When we saw her at Lyn's place, I hadn't spoken to her in, well, days. I only rang her that night because I knew she'd be upset."

  "And now I'm not pregnant anymore."

  He looked at the floor.

  "How very convenient for you." Fat, salty tears blocked her sinuses. "You must have been pleased."

  "No." He moved as if to hug her, and she backed away.

  "You're only here because you don't want to look like a bastard by leaving too soon after the miscarriage!"

  "That's not true."

  "Well, what do you want? Do you want me or her?"

  He said, "I don't know what I want."

  He was a child in the six-foot-body of a thirty-seven-year-old man.

  "You wimp! You fucking coward!"

  "Cat."

  "If you don't love me anymore, then have the guts to say it."

  "I do love you. I just think, maybe, I'm not in love you with anymore."

  "And you think maybe you're in love with her."

  "Yes."

  It felt as if he'd just thrown a bucket of icy cold water at her. She blinked and tried to catch her breath.

  "Leave."

  "What?"

  "I'm making it easy for you." She tugged her engagement ring and wedding ring over her knuckle and threw them across the room. "We're not married anymore. Go to your girlfriend's place."

  "I don't--"

  Suddenly she was filled with manic hatred for him. She couldn't bear the sight of him, his worried face, his reaching hands, and his slack, stupid mouth.

  "Go! Just go! Go now!"

  She screamed harder than she knew it was possible to scream and shoved him violently in the chest. "Get out!"

  She was frightened and fascinated by the unrecognizable sound of her own voice. Cool, cynical Cat appeared on the sidelines of her consciousness to observe the whole performance with interest. Wow, I must really be upset. I must be mad with grief. Look at me!

  "Cat. Calm down. Stop it. People are going to start calling the police."

  He grabbed for her wrists, and she writhed away from him, bucking her body like a true mental patient.

  "Go! Please, please just go!"

  "Fine," he said, releasing her hands and lifting his own in surrender. "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going."

  But she could see little pinpoints of relief in his eyes. He left, slamming the door behind him.

  Cat slid to the kitchen floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She rocked back and forth, her eyes dry.

  What are you doing Cat? Why are you rocking like that? Nobody's watching. Who are you trying to impress with the terrible depths of your pain?

  "Oh shut up!" she said out loud to the empty kitchen.

  She stood up, dressed, and drove herself to the pub. Her mind was a burning white-hot rectangle of nothing.

  She sat at the bar and drank tequilas, one after the other, and didn't allow her mind to think one single thought.

  It wasn't surprising that she got drunk.

  She hadn't eaten all day.

  She hadn't had a drink since the day with Gemma when she found out she was pregnant.

  And five tequilas will do that to you.

  At some point the world became blurry and confused, like a strangely edited MTV clip.

  She was talking with the bartender about cricket scores.

  She was tearing up her beer coaster into tiny little pieces.

  She was telling a girl in the toilets about her miscarriage.

  "OmiGod," the girl said to her mirrored reflection while she pursed her lips to apply her lipstick. "That is just so awesomely sad. A little fucking baby."

  And then she was out in the parking lot and she was going somewhere, somewhere important, to fix things.

  He doesn't love me anymore.

  The crunch of metal. Her head snapping back.

  "I think she's drunk. I think we should call the police."

  Lights flashing red and turquoise.

  Lyn suddenly, confusingly, right there in the middle of it all, in the same way that new people popped into your dreams, without actually arriving.

  Sitting in the back of the policeman's car, watching the back of his neck. It was a boy's neck, slightly flushed, his hair cut in a very straight, scissored line. Another young boy pressed her black, inky fingertips one by one against official white stationery. He held her hand so respectfully, even though she was an evil, drink-driving, baby-killing criminal, that Cat started to cry.

  And then arriving at Lyn's place and Michael meeting them at the door and being nice to her, his arm around her waist, helping her up the stairs to the spare bedroom.

  "I love you, Michael," she told him.

  "I love you too, Cat," he pushed her gently onto the bed.

  "But I'm not at all physically attracted to you." She shook her head sadly.

  "Well, that's quite O.K."

  Kara materialized, carefully placing a glass of water and aspirin next to her bed.

  She didn't know if she imagined the bit where Lyn kissed her forehead just before sleep finally, thankfully, closed her mind down.
r />   The next afternoon, she didn't love anyone.

  Lyn and Michael dropped her back home. They were like solicitous parents, twisting their heads to offer advice to Cat sitting slumped in the backseat. Cat felt hungover and immensely irritable. She also uncharitably suspected that Lyn and Michael were enjoying the drama.

  "With your first offense, I'm sure you only lose your license for a year at the most. That won't be that bad," said Lyn.

  Why was she using words like "first offense"? Did she think this was an episode of Law and Order?

  "Don't forget you girls have appalling driving records," said Michael cheerily.

  Oh, he was a dork.

  The flat was empty, and Dan hadn't called.

  She took a taxi to the smash repairs where her car had been towed and winced in empathy when she saw her beloved car parked sadly against a grotty paling fence, a violently scooped-out dent in one side. She felt exactly the same way.

  "You need a courtesy car, love?" asked the manager, his head down as he filled in forms.

  "Yeah," she said. What did it matter if she got caught for driving without a license? Dan didn't love her anymore. All the rules that mattered had already been broken.

  There was a framed photo of a baby on his desk.

  "Your baby?" asked Cat.

  "Sure is!" The man stood up and grabbed a set of keys from a hook.

  "I've got a little boy about the same age," said Cat.

  "Oh yeah?"

  "He's just started walking," she said, as they walked out of the office. "My little boy."

  "Yeah?"

  He took her to an aggressive-looking ute with a gigantic sign on the back: SAM'S SMASH REPAIRS, YOU SMASH 'EM, WE FIX 'EM.

  "Hope you don't mind the free advertising," he said.

  "No. Good slogan." Because mothers were nice like that, generous with their praise.

  His face became animated. "You like it? I thought of it. Says it straight."

  "It sure does."

  She gave him a smiling little waggle of her fingers as she drove slowly out of the driveway, the mother of a little boy, the sort of woman who feels a little nervous driving a big wide truck. But when she pulled out onto the highway, and put her foot hard on the accelerator, she felt the evil tentacles of her true self spreading and multiplying.

  The sort of woman with an impending court case.

  The sort of woman with a dry hungover mouth going home to no one.

  The sort of woman who automatically looks for the next side street when she sees a police car in the distance.

  She and Dan decided to separate.

  Separate.

  She practiced conversations in her head:

  "How's Dan?"

  "Oh, we've separated."

  "My husband and I are separated."

  Sep-a-rat-ed.

  Four sad little syllables.

  She went back to work seven days after her miscarriage, two days after Dan moved his things out of the flat.

  It was the first time in her life that she had lived on her own. No sisters. No roommates. No boyfriend. No husband. Just her.

  Cat the silent observer appeared to have moved in permanently. She felt herself watching everything she did, as if every move were significant.

  Here I am waking up. This is the new quilt cover with big yellow sunflowers that Gemma gave me. Dan hasn't even seen it. And I'm tracing each petal with my fingertip.

  Here I am eating Vegemite on multigrain toast, a single, professional woman, living on her own, preparing for another long day at the office.

  "Good morning!" Her secretary, Barb, popped her head around the cubicle door. "How are you? Oh God, you look terrible."

  This last sentence sounded to Cat like the most genuine thing Barb had ever said to her. She had long ago accepted that in spite of her excessively bubbly demeanor, Barb actually held Cat in the greatest contempt. It didn't matter because she was an excellent secretary.

  "Are you sure you're well enough to be back?"

  Nobody at work had known about the pregnancy.

  "It was just a very bad flu."

  Cat looked up from her computer and caught Barb's eyes rest momentarily on her ringless left hand.

  "Well. Take it easy. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

  Barb had been Cat's secretary for two years, and this was the first time she'd ever offered to make her coffee. She was way, way above that.

  Cat took a shaky breath. If Barb started being nice to her, she would fall apart.

  "No thanks," she said shortly.

  One night, Frank and Maxine turned up at the flat, their arms laden with a strange collection of offerings.

  Multivitamins. Frozen casseroles in neatly labeled Tupperware containers. An indoor plant. An electric wok.

  "Why are you bringing me a wok?" asked Cat.

  "It's mine," said Frank. "Thought I'd try my hand at that oriental stuff. But I never used it."

  "I told him you had a gas stove," Maxine said irritably, but Cat saw her pat him gently on the lower back as she bustled by, filling up Cat's freezer.

  "What, no bun?" asked Cat in mock surprise.

  Maxine pulled out a white paper bag. "Yes, of course. Make yourself useful, Frank. Put the jug on."

  Cat watched them acting as if they'd been these types of parents all her life.

  "So, how's the relationship going then?"

  "Oh, your mother's always been the woman for me!" said Frank.

  "Bloody hell, Dad," Cat said. "You barely spoke to each other for ten years."

  He winked at her. "I still adored her from afar."

  "Oh for heaven's sake!" said Maxine.

  "You two," Cat reached for a piece of bun, "are very weird."

  "Weird, eh?" said Frank.

  They both smiled at her, as if they couldn't be more pleased to be weird.

  There were moments when she thought she might survive. And there were other moments when she would catch herself thinking about her life as if it was a party she couldn't wait to leave. If she lived to say eighty, then she was nearly halfway there. Death was the hot bath you promised yourself while you endured small talk and uncomfortable shoes. You could stop pretending to have a good time when you were dead.

  One day at work, there was a mini-commotion outside Cat's office door. She looked up to see a knot of cooing, rapturous women and sheepishly grinning men.

  Somebody called out, "Come see, Cat! It's Liam's baby!"

  Cat carefully plastered a delighted smile across her face and walked out to join them. She liked Liam, and this was his first baby, a little girl born back in November. Liam was worth a little fake delight.

  "Oh, she's beautiful, Liam," she said automatically, but then she actually looked at the baby, clinging like a little koala against Liam's chest, and she found herself saying, "Can I?" Without waiting for an answer she eased the baby out of his arms, responding to an overwhelming, physical desire.

  "Someone's feeling clucky!" cried the women.

  The warmth of the baby's body nestled against her own was an exquisite ache. The baby looked up at Cat pensively and suddenly smiled--a huge, gummy grin that sent the crowd wild.

  "Oh! The little cutie!"

  The noise frightened the baby, and she began to whimper.

  Liam's wife, a short, flowery, feminine woman, the sort who made Cat feel like a giant, said, "Oh, dear, I think she wants her mummy."

  She held up her arms with sweet authority, and Cat handed her back.

  After they'd gone to visit another department, Cat sat back at her sterile computer screen and felt bereft.

  Barb walked in with a pile of documents for her in-tray.

  "Sweet baby," she commented. "Such a pity she inherited Mummy's ears," and she made flapping moves on either side of her head.

  Cat smiled. She was becoming rather fond of Barb.

  "It's nearly time for our 'health and beauty weekend,'" Lyn said one day, pulling out the certificate Cat had given her and Gemma f
or Christmas.

  There was something incongruous to Cat about that piece of paper. It was a cheerful relic of her former existence, like those miraculously unharmed possessions people retrieved from the ashes of their fire-ravaged homes. Even her handwriting looked different: unguarded and confident. "You should organize a trip with the boys for that weekend," she remembered telling Dan, while she wrote the date on their wall calendar, never thinking that by January, everything would be different.

  "You and Gemma go," said Cat. "I don't think I will."

  "I think you will, young lady. We're not going without you."

  It was easier not to argue, and when Lyn pulled into her driveway to pick her up, with Gemma sitting in the front seat wearing Maddie's Little Princess tiara in her hair, she felt a tiny gleam of happiness.

  "Remember when we went away together up the coast after our last HSC exam?" said Gemma, twisting around in her seat to look at her. "How we all stuck our heads out the windows and screamed, even you, and you were driving! You want to do that again?"

  "Not especially." Although she did remember how good it felt, with the air rushing wildly into her lungs.

  "Do you want to wear Maddie's tiara?"

  "Not especially."

  "Do you want to play a game where I play the beginning of a song and you guess what it is for a prize?"

  "O.K."

  So, as they wound their way around the twisting mountain roads toward Katoomba and the air outside became cooler, Gemma played songs from an ancient mixed tape collection. After the first opening bars, Lyn and Cat shouted out the names of the songs, and Gemma awarded snake lollies as prizes.

  "I'm predicting a draw with this one," she said, and before she'd even pressed play, Cat and Lyn yelled, "Venus!" Bananarama's "Venus" was their "oh-my-God-I-love-this-song!" from the year they turned eighteen. They used to dance to it on top of their beds, feeling almost unbearably erotic, until their mother came in and spoiled it, just by the expression on her face.

  As soon as they walked into the resort and breathed in the heavily scented air, Cat's sinuses began to twitch, Lyn dropped her bag and said, "Oh dear," Gemma said, "What is it?" and then all three of them began to sneeze. And sneeze, sneeze, and sneeze.

  Wet-haired women in white fluffy robes making their way through reception stopped to stare at the interesting sight of three tall women, sneezing uncontrollably. Tears of mirth streamed down Gemma's face, Lyn distributed tissues, and Cat walked up to reception and between sneezes said, "We need our money back."

  The weekend was now an adventure, a story to tell. They were ecstatic with themselves when they found a house, perched on the side of a mountain, with four-poster beds in each room, and a truly amazing bathroom! It had a huge spa bath right next to a giant window that revealed the valley tumbling dramatically away beneath them, so that when you sat in the bath, it was like flying on a magic carpet. "That's what one of our visitors wrote in the guest book," explained their hostess proudly.