Truly Madly Guilty, Page 8

  'So he was ... dead?' said Erika as she stood at the sink, scrubbing her hands. People always asked if she'd been in the medical profession because of the way she washed her hands. When she was in public she tried to be less obviously rigorous, but now that she was home with Oliver, she could scrub and scrub without worrying that someone would diagnose her with OCD. Oliver never judged.

  'Yes, Erika,' said Oliver. He sounded aggravated. 'He was very dead. He'd been dead for some time. Weeks and weeks, I'd say.' His voice broke.

  'Oh. I see. Oh dear.' Erika turned from the sink. Oliver looked very pale. His hands lay limply on his knees and he sat upright, his feet flat on the floor, like a kid in the throes of terrible remorse, sitting outside the school principal's office.

  She took a breath. Her husband was upset. Extremely upset by the look of it. So he probably wanted and needed to 'share'. People with dysfunctional childhoods like hers didn't have the best interpersonal skills when it came to relationships. Well, it was just a fact. No one had modelled a healthy relationship for her. No one had modelled a healthy relationship for Oliver either. They had their dysfunctional childhoods in common. That's why Erika had invested close to six thousand dollars to date in high-quality therapy. The cycles of dysfunction and mental illness did not have to carry over from generation to generation. You just had to educate yourself.

  Erika went and sat on the couch next to Oliver and indicated by her body language that she was ready to listen. She made eye contact. She touched his forearm. She would use hand sanitiser once they finished talking. She really didn't want to catch that horrible cold.

  'Was he ...' She didn't want to know the answers to any of the questions she knew she should ask. 'Was he ... what, in bed?' She thought of a maniacally grinning corpse sitting upright in a bed, one rotting hand on the coverlet.

  'He was at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as I opened the door we could smell it.' Oliver shuddered.

  'God,' said Erika.

  Smell was one of her issues. Oliver always laughed at the way she'd drop rubbish in the bin and then jump back so the smell couldn't catch her.

  'I only looked for one second, and then I just, I just ... well, I slammed the door shut, and we called the police.'

  'That's awful,' said Erika mechanically. 'Horrible for you.' She felt herself resist. She didn't want to hear about it, she didn't want him to share this experience with her. She wanted him to stop talking. She wanted to talk about dinner. She wanted to calm down after the day she'd had. She'd skipped lunch, and she'd stayed back at work to make up for the time she'd wasted going to Clementine's talk, so she was starving, but obviously after your husband tells you about finding a corpse you can't then immediately follow it with, 'Fancy some pasta?' No. She'd have to wait at least half an hour before she could mention dinner.

  'The police said they think maybe he fell down the stairs,' said Oliver. 'And I keep thinking, I keep thinking ...'

  He made strange little breathy noises. Erika tried to keep the irritation off her face. He was going to sneeze. Every sneeze was a performance. She waited. No. He wasn't going to sneeze. He was trying not to cry.

  Erika recoiled. She couldn't join him in this. If she allowed herself to feel sad and guilty about Harry, who she hadn't even liked, then who knew what could happen. It would be like uncorking a champagne bottle that had been vigorously shaken. Her emotions would fly all over the place. Messy. She needed order. 'I need order,' she'd told her psychologist. 'Of course you need order,' her psychologist had said. 'You crave order. That's perfectly understandable.' Her psychologist was the nicest person she knew.

  Oliver took his glasses off and wiped his eyes. 'I keep thinking, what if he fell down the stairs and he couldn't move and he was calling and calling for help but nobody heard? We all just went about our daily lives, while Harry starved to death, what if that happened? We're like those neighbours you see on TV, and you think, how could you not have noticed? How could you not have cared? So what if he was a bit grumpy?'

  'Well, you know, Vid and Tiffany are right next door to him,' said Erika. She did not want to think about Harry lying on the floor. The sun rising and setting. Hearing the sounds of the neighbourhood: lawn mowers, garbage trucks, the leaf blower he hated so much.

  'I know. Tiffany is really upset too. But you know what? I was the one on the street he probably liked the most. He tolerated me, anyway. I mean, we had some civil conversations.'

  'I know,' said Erika. 'Like that time you were both so mad about that abandoned car outside the Richardsons'.'

  'I should have noticed he hadn't been out and about,' said Oliver. He took a tissue from the box and blew his nose noisily. 'I did think I hadn't seen him for a while, maybe a week or so ago, but then I just forgot about it.'

  'He wouldn't have starved to death,' reflected Erika. 'It would have been the lack of water that killed him. Dehydration.'

  'Erika!' Oliver winced. He dropped his scrunched-up tissue on the couch next to him and pulled another one from the box.

  'What? I'm just saying he didn't lie there for weeks on end.' She paused. 'He should have had one of those emergency alarm things around his neck.'

  'Well, he didn't,' said Oliver shortly. He blew his nose again.

  'And I guess he had no family,' said Erika. 'No friends.' Because he was such a nasty, vindictive old bastard. She wasn't going to let Oliver drag her into the morass of guilt into which he was sinking. Let Tiffany sink with him. Erika already lived with the permanent thrum of guilt.

  'I guess he didn't,' said Oliver. 'Or if he did, we never saw them visit. That's why it was up to us to keep an eye out for him. These are the people who slip through the cracks of society. I mean, as a community, we have a moral obligation to -'

  The landline rang and Erika leaped to her feet as though she'd won a prize. 'I'll get it.'

  She picked up the phone. 'Hello?'

  'Erika, darling. It's Pam.'

  That well-bred, well-projected voice. The voice of good sense and good manners.

  'Pam,' said Erika. 'Hi.' She felt an instant softening and a ticklish feeling of imminent tears. She felt it whenever she spoke to Clementine's mother. That old childhood adoration, the dizzy, glorious feeling of relief, as if she'd been rescued at sea.

  'I'm babysitting for Clementine and Sam,' said Pam. 'They've just left. They're going out for dinner at that new restaurant in the Overseas Passenger Terminal people have been raving about. I booked it for them. It's got three hats. Maybe even five hats? I don't know. An impressive number of hats. Hopefully they're having as nice a time as can be expected, although I wish it wasn't raining, but fingers crossed. They need it, the poor kids. To be frank, I'm worried about their marriage. That's talking out of school, I know, but, well, you're her best friend, so you probably know more than me about it.'

  'Oh, well, I don't know about that,' said Erika. In actual fact, Erika knew nothing about Clementine's marriage problems. Surely Pam knew that the 'best friends' label had been created by her, and for all those years Erika had clung to it while Clementine merely endured it.

  'Anyway, Erika, darling, I know we're seeing you soon for our special dinner at my place, which I'm really looking forward to, but listen, the reason I thought I'd give you a call tonight ...' Erika heard the tentativeness in Pam's voice and her jaw clenched.

  'Well, I had to go to Flower Power today, which meant I drove by your mum's house,' said Pam. 'I didn't stop.' She paused. 'Perhaps I should have, but your mum has really taken against me in recent years, hasn't she?' She didn't wait for an answer. 'Erika, I know you stick to a schedule now with your visits and I think that's a really sensible idea for your own mental health, but I'm thinking perhaps you need to bring this month's visit forward.'

  Erika breathed out a long thin stream of air like she was blowing up a balloon. She looked at Oliver. He'd closed his eyes and let his head tip back against the couch, one hand pressed to his forehead.

  'How bad?' she said to Pam.
/>   'Pretty bad, darling, I'm afraid. Pretty bad.'

  chapter fourteen

  'How did your, ah, thing at the library go today? Your, um, what-do-ya-call-it, speech?' asked Sam in a strangled voice, as though the question were being forcibly squeezed from him.

  'It went well,' began Clementine.

  'Many people there?' interrupted Sam. He piano-played his fingertips on the white linen tablecloth and scanned the restaurant feverishly, as if there were someone or something he needed. 'How many would you say? Twenty? Thirty?'

  'Less than twenty,' said Clementine. 'One of them was Erika.'

  She waited for a reaction and when none seemed forthcoming she said, 'I didn't really understand why she wanted to come.'

  'Well, Erika is your biggest fan,' said Sam with a faint smile.

  That was kind of a joke. It gave her hope for the night that he was making a joke. Sam had been the first man she ever dated who immediately and instinctively grasped the complexities of her friendship with Erika. He'd never reacted with impatience or incomprehension; he'd never said, 'I don't get it, if you don't like her, don't hang out with her!' He'd just accepted Erika as part of the Clementine package, as if she were a difficult sister.

  'That's true,' said Clementine, and she laughed too loudly. 'Although she left halfway through.'

  Sam said nothing. He looked just to the right of her head, as if there were something interesting going on behind her.

  'How was work today?' she said.

  'Fine,' said Sam coldly. 'Same as usual.'

  ('Your marriage is being tested, darling, but the best comes after the worst! Forgiveness and communication is the only way through!' Clementine's mother had said all this in a dramatic, passionate whisper to Clementine, as if she were imparting urgent words of wisdom before Clementine set off on some epic journey. They were standing together at the front door waiting for Sam, who had chosen that moment to sit down at the computer and answer an email that was apparently a matter of life and death, while the jarring sound of some terrible pop princess movie blared out from the television. Pam had made a tiny, unnecessary adjustment to the strap of Clementine's dress. 'The two of you need to talk! Talk it out! Say what you feel!')

  'So how's that "forward-thinking corporate culture" working out for you?' said Clementine.

  Once she could have said exactly those words and made him laugh, but now she could hear the thread of spite in her voice. Two musicians could play the same notes and sound entirely different. Intonation was everything.

  'It's working out great for me.' Sam looked at her with something like hatred. Clementine dropped her eyes. Sometimes when she looked at him, she felt like there was a sleeping snake tightly coiled within her chest; a snake that would one day hiss to life and strike with unimaginable, unforgivable consequences.

  She changed the subject.

  'I have to admit I don't really enjoy doing these talks,' she said. Each time she felt so nervous, but it was an entirely different sort of anxiety from the kind she felt before a performance or even an audition. Her audiences always clapped, but it was subdued applause, and often she sensed an undertone of disapproval.

  She looked out the rain-dotted giant glass window revealing a blurry postcard view of Sydney Harbour complete with the white sails of the Opera House, where she'd performed just two nights previously. 'I sort of hate it.'

  She glanced back at Sam. An expression of intense aggravation crossed his face. He virtually shuddered with it. 'Then stop,' he said. 'Just stop it. Why do you keep doing them? You're obsessed! You've got enough on your plate. You should be preparing for your audition. Are you even going to audition?'

  'Of course I'm still going to audition!' said Clementine. Why did people keep asking her that? 'I've been getting up at five am to practise every day!' How could he not know that? She knew he'd been having trouble sleeping. She'd wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and hear his footsteps in the hallway or the muted sound of the television from downstairs. 'Haven't you heard me?'

  'I guess maybe I have heard you,' said Sam uncomfortably. 'I guess I didn't put two and two - I didn't realise you were practising.'

  What did he think she was doing? Was the sound of the cello just irrelevant background noise to him? Or did he not care enough even to wonder?

  She managed to keep the fractiousness she was feeling out of her voice. 'And I went to Ainsley's place today to practise in front of her and Hu.'

  'Oh,' said Sam. He seemed genuinely taken aback. 'Well, great, I guess. How did it go?'

  'Fine. It went fine.'

  It hadn't gone fine. It had been strange and awful. Hu and Ainsley had argued quite vehemently over her performance of the first movement of her concerto.

  'Wonderful!' Hu had said as soon as she finished. 'Bravo. Give the girl a job.' He looked expectantly at his wife, but Ainsley wasn't smiling.

  'Well,' she said uncomfortably. 'You've obviously been working really hard. It was technically perfect. It's just ... I don't know, it didn't sound like you. If I was behind the screen I would never have picked it was you.'

  'So what?' said Hu.

  'It was so accurate. Every single note precisely where it should be. I would have guessed it was an arrogant twenty-year-old whiz-kid straight out of the Con.'

  'And I say again, so what? If she played like that, she'd absolutely get through to the next round,' said Hu. 'I'd put her through for sure. You would too. I know you would.'

  'Maybe, but I don't think it would get her through the second round. There was something almost - don't take this the wrong way, Clementine - but there was something almost robotic about it.'

  Hu said, 'How can she not take that the wrong way?'

  'We're here to be honest,' said Ainsley. 'Not kind.' Then she'd looked at Clementine and said suddenly, 'Are you sure you still want it? After ... everything?'

  'Of course she still wants it,' said Hu. 'What's wrong with you?'

  Then their house phone had rung and Clementine had never got to answer what should have been a straightforward question.

  'How are Ainsley and Hu?' asked Sam. She could see the strain it cost him just to ask an ordinary civil question. It was like watching him do a chin-up. 'I haven't seen them for a while.'

  But he was trying, so she'd try too.

  'Good. They're good. Hey, I was telling Hu how you got me to run on the spot before practising my excerpts and he said he had a teacher who made him do that!' Sam looked at her dully. You would think it had been somebody else who'd pinned the bedsheet to the ceiling all those weeks ago, who'd yelled, 'Run, soldier, run!' She ploughed on. 'His teacher also used to tell him to wake up and practise in the middle of the night, when he was still half-asleep, and to play after he'd had a few drinks, speaking of which - oh, good, here comes somebody.'

  A young waiter approached their table and stood just a little too far back. 'Would you like me to go through today's specials?' He squared his shoulders in the heroic manner of someone volunteering to do something perilous.

  'Yes, but we're actually wondering about our drinks. We ordered two glasses of wine ... um, a while ago.' A million years ago.

  Clementine tried to soften her words with a smile. The waiter was painfully young and sort of famished-looking. He'd be perfectly cast as a street urchin in Les Miserables.

  'You haven't got your drinks yet?' The waiter looked alarmed, as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

  Clementine gestured at their table to indicate: No drinks. Just their two mobile phones placed at precise angles in front of them, ready to be snatched up in case of crisis, because that's how they lived now, in readiness for crisis.

  'Maybe they've been forgotten,' suggested Clementine.

  'Maybe,' said the waiter. He glanced fearfully over his shoulder at the restaurant bar where a pretty waitress dreamily polished wineglasses.

  'You could check on them?' said Clementine. For the love of God. Why was this swanky restaurant employing children? Starving
children? Feed him and send him home.

  'Of course, right, it was two glasses of the ...'

  'The Pepper Tree shiraz,' said Clementine.

  She could hear a fish-wifey, high-pitched note in her voice.

  'Right. Um. Shall I just go through the specials first?'

  'No,' said Clementine at the same time as Sam said, 'Sure, mate.' He smiled up at the waiter. 'Let's hear the specials.'

  He always snatched the Good Cop role for himself.

  The waiter took a deep breath, clasped his hands choir-boy style and recited, 'For an entree we have a confit of salmon cooked in coriander, orange and mint.'

  He stopped. His lips moved silently. Clementine pressed her fingertip against her phone. It lit up. No calls. Everything was fine.

  Sam shifted in his chair, and gave the waiter a tiny 'you can do it' nod of encouragement, as though he were an affectionate parent in the audience at a poetry recital.

  Watching her husband - the exasperating humanity of the man - Clementine felt an unexpected jolt of love, like one perfect, pure note. A velvety E-flat. But as soon as she registered the feeling, it was gone, and she felt nothing but itchy irritability as the waiter haltingly made his way through the longest list of specials in the history of fine dining.

  'A prosciutto and pepperoni, no wait, not pepperoni, a prosciutto and, um, a prosciutto and ...' He rocked forward and studied his shoes, lips compressed. Clementine met Sam's gaze. Once Clementine would only have needed to fractionally widen her eyes to make Sam lose his composure, and in his desperation not to hurt the waiter's feelings his face would have turned red while his eyes filled with tears of mirth.

  But now they just looked steadily at each other and then away again, as if levity were against the new rules for life where they trod so very carefully, where they checked and double-checked, where they knew better than to relax, even for a moment.

  The waiter continued on his torturous way, and Clementine distracted herself by playing the Brahms excerpt in her head while using her forearm as a pretend fingerboard under the tablecloth. The Brahms had lots of mini-phrases linked in one extended line. It needed to have that beautiful lyrical feel. Was Ainsley right? Was she focusing too much on technical perfection? 'If you concentrate on the music the technical problems often solve themselves,' Marianne used to tell her, but Clementine had come to believe she'd taken that advice too much to heart in every aspect of her life. She needed to be focused, to be disciplined, to clean up as she went, to pay her bills on time and follow the rules and grow the fuck up.