We All Fall Down (14 page)

She knew he wasn't. He was still surprised by the way his wife could hone in on the very crux of an issue, go straight to its all-important core. She would have made an excellent marketing director.

He hesitated, a sure sign of weakness. ‘Er, no. No, he's not able to.'

‘Not able to? Well, what a shame. I suppose he's too busy having a holiday to go into the office and work? Too caught up in spending time with his family to bother to sit behind a desk for four days.'

‘Kate –'

She cut him short. She'd already lost interest in any excuses he might be hoping to fall back on. ‘And Russell, is he off having a good time, too? I imagine Russell, being Russell, will be going somewhere exotic. Exotic and expensive. Would that be right?'

‘Kate, there's nothing I can do. I've tried everything. I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry, but that's life.'

Those last three words seemed to have the power to ignite some anger and resentment that had lain dormant deep inside her, possibly for many years. There was no restraint now, no pretence at politeness, no possibility of understanding or compromise. ‘That is not life, Hugh. It is absolutely not life.' She spluttered for a moment, halted for a split second by a log jam of venom. ‘How dare you come back to your family and tell them their camping trip is cancelled. How dare you! Do you have any idea how excited your son is? He talks of nothing else. He's been sitting in the new Esky most of the afternoon. How can you do that to him? How can you let those bastards walk all over you – and me, and your son? You're spineless. You let them use you. They laugh at you behind your back, they must do. “Get Hughsy to work over Easter. He won't object. He'll do what he's told.” And you do. You just take it. It's an insult, a blatant insult, like a slap in the face, and you do nothing. Just sit there and lap it up.'

He lowered his head against the barrage. It was easier not to resist. She was right; he wasn't a fighter. But why should he have to be?

As always, she suddenly recalled similar incidents from the distant past, incidents he had long since forgotten, probably wouldn't even have remembered the day after they'd happened. She had a memory an elephant would have been proud to possess, and it allowed her to link his past failings with this, his present failing, in a seamless segue, without breath, without pause, as if she'd been rehearsing her argument for months. He must surely wonder at his own lack of fluency. After a while, he did make one feeble attempt at justifying his decision.

‘I don't really have an option –'

But she cut him down before he even started. ‘Of course you have. You could tell them to shove their job. You could tell them you're not going to take their crap any longer. You're not a slave, Hugh. You could stand up for yourself for a change.'

He tuned out. He watched her face, transformed and contorted by rage and frustration, and thought much the same as many husbands think at such times. Not that he should ditch his role as her husband because he intended to go off and live in a cave alone and be happy, without any responsibilities whatsoever. Not that, although it was tempting. But that she seemed to expect the best of both worlds: she wanted him to be successful, earn good money and ensure they all lived comfortably, yet at the same time she wanted him to work nine to five, never bring any work home, and take as much responsibility for his job as a labourer on the basic wage. She expected him to earn his good salary, yet work the hours of a junior or some kind of office clerk. How unreasonable – how
irrational
– is that, he mused.

Without thinking, he cut in on her tirade. ‘I do all of this for you, that's what you don't seem to understand. For you and Tim. That's why I sometimes have to work outside office hours – for you and Tim.'

‘Bullshit!' It was as if he'd thrown some kerosene on a fire. ‘You're not doing this for us, Hugh, you're doing it for you. Because you enjoy it. Because you love your work. You love working late. You love working over Easter. So don't try and persuade me you're making all these sacrifices for me and Tim, because it isn't true. And you know it!'

There was something in fact, that he'd wanted to say to her from the very beginning, but had always been restrained by the feeling that she'd never understand his worries, or that she'd laugh at him. It was his awareness of her background, her upbringing, how well off her family was compared to his own. She'd grown up accustomed to having everything she wanted, to living in what amounted to luxury. And he had always felt, ever since they'd first gone out together, that he must continue to keep her in this manner, that he could never let her down, never expect her to lower her standards. She had expectations, whether she admitted it or not, and it was up to him to make sure she was never disappointed. For him, it was a matter of pride; it was also what husbands were supposed to do. She looked to him to take care of her and Tim – or that's the way he saw it – and if he disappointed her he would disappoint himself. He wouldn't be fulfilling his role as the family bread winner. He was old fashioned enough to believe in that role. That was his responsibility.

He could have told her this, as well as many other things, in his own defence, but she wouldn't have listened. He could see her point of view, so why could she not see his? He could understand her frustration that he'd been forced to cancel the family's camping trip in order to stay in the office and work, yet she was unable to see that he didn't have an option. She simply had no idea of the pressure and the responsibilities he faced at work, no idea. The fact that Murray and Russell expected him to deliver on a whole variety of business parameters every day, the most important of which was profit, was completely alien to her. But that's how it was in the modern world: everyone has to be profitable, and earn more than their company paid them. It didn't matter if you were tightening widgets on an assembly line or were the CEO of a conglomerate in the city, you had to work harder, tighten more widgets, close more deals,
produce
more, otherwise you were out of the door. And every year you had to become more productive. You wouldn't be paid any more, but you certainly had to earn more. The system was merciless. There was nothing charitable about employment nowadays, there was none of this,
we'll give the guy a job because he deserves a break,
no,
we can't get rid of him because he's got a wife and four kids to support
. No one did anyone any favours now. There was nothing ennobling about work today, except for a lucky few. The lucky few, almost without exception in the private sector, usually earned excessive salaries and, if they proved to be totally incompetent, weren't just shown the door, they were given golden handshakes that dwarfed what most people earned in a lifetime. It was like saying, Thank you so much for dragging our company down, for halving our share price, for losing us market share and for ruining our reputation, and here's a little something to show our appreciation and to make your brief spell in the wilderness (because there's always another fool around the corner who'll employ no-hopers like this) that bit more comfortable. They called it a golden parachute, but it was more like a golden private jet.

Kate, however, understood none of this. She lived in the make believe world of Art.

‘You lead a great life, and you know it.' For a moment he tuned in to what she was saying. ‘You may refuse to admit it, but you love your life. You love going out into the world and meeting people. You love playing business games. You love eating in swish restaurants, wining and dining your clients, and having beers with the boys after work. You love leaving your wife and child at home and going off and enjoying yourself. It's all just one big game to you, so don't try and pretend otherwise.'

Of course, she didn't understand anything about the business world, and why should she? It didn't interest her. Her reality was circumscribed by their home, playschool, her friends (most of whom were in similar situations to herself) and her art. Even when she was young, the closest she'd have come to reality would have been to hear about her father's court cases, and they would have been presented to her with a very definite right wing, even fascist, bias. She was naïve, possibly ingenuous in a very un-innocent kind of way.

‘I'm going to bed.' She had talked herself out. He hadn't heard all that she'd said, but he knew the gist of it. There wouldn't have been anything new. He didn't reply. There was no point. They didn't have anything to say to each other now. He'd be better off alone. At least it was done; at least he no longer had to worry about telling her. Maybe he'd have a drink and see if there was anything worth watching on television. She stood up, and without another word, left the room. Doubtless she hoped he'd spend some time dwelling on his failures as both a husband and a father. He heard her go into the bathroom, and a short while later into their bedroom. A minute or two later he heard her leave their bedroom, and it sounded as if she then went into the spare room. The door closed. So that was to be his punishment.

He poured a large whisky and mused on how greatly she'd changed in the five years they'd been together. From being a woman who hung onto his every word, she'd become a woman who now seemed happy to hang him for every word he spoke. The change was reflected in her hair: once bobbed and neatly groomed, it had been transformed into an almost shaven, spiky – even tumultuous – declaration of independence. He was struck by the fact they were becoming like every other suburban couple in the world with a first child. Their conversations were no longer those of carefree singles. All they ever seemed to speak about now was Tim, about what he'd said or what he'd done at playgroup, or how he could now do so many things on a computer. They never discussed anything meaningful or vital, like John Kerry clinching the Democratic Party presidential nomination, or the Senate report saying that almost twenty per cent of the Australian population now lived in poverty. They didn't discuss the CIA's admission that there had been no imminent danger from Iraq prior to the invasion of that country. They didn't really talk about art either.

Of course, that wasn't the only way for them to cling to their youth and demonstrate their continuing involvement with the world outside. The other option was to talk about his day. After all, he was at least out there, he at least had some
reality
rub off on him every day. But that didn't interest her, not at all. He knew she found it difficult to get excited about his current preoccupation, the launch of Bauer's first ever, revolutionary four-wheel drive, or the significance of a state-of-the-art six-cylinder engine that has a top speed of 250 kilometres an hour and is capable of delivering three hundred and ninety kilowatts at six thousand five hundred revs per minute, but she didn't even pretend to try. Work was important to him. He didn't have any option, so wasn't it reasonable of him to expect his wife to at least try to understand that?

He stayed up later than usual. He got through almost half a bottle of whisky while he flicked from channel to channel. Nothing held his interest.

* * *

When he was small – he can't remember his exact age, only that he was still in shorts – his mother allowed him to walk the two blocks, almost to the main road, by himself. There he would wait for his dad. He sat on a low wall at the front of a grey brick, lace curtained bungalow, which was nondescript in every way except for the dazzling display of garden gnomes and windmills scattered over its small, neat patch of grass and immaculate flowerbeds. He can't recall ever seeing the people who lived in the house, and he never spent much time studying the colourful array of ornaments in their garden, because his gaze was fixed on the junction with the main road, a short distance away. He stared at the stream of cars speeding past, nose to tail, waiting for one of them to turn off. The car that did was almost certain to be his dad's Escort. When he came round the corner, he flashed his headlights. This was the signal for Hugh to jump off the wall and stand, fidgeting and grinning, at the edge of the pavement. When he opened the passenger door, his dad always sat, both hands on the steering wheel, and turned his head to say the same four words: ‘Fancy seeing you here.' When Hugh climbed into the car, his dad would lean across the seat, put an arm round his shoulders and give him a big hug. It never varied.

Although it only took a minute or two to drive home from there, he had memories of his dad saying so many things in that time. He was a fast talker, excitable and full of enthusiasm for everything. Looking back, it struck Hugh that it was the kid who was driving the car, and it was the adult who was sitting in the passenger seat, silent, wide-eyed and serious, his bare legs stuck out in front of him like antennae. Sometimes his dad would manage to coax something out of him, more than a shy grin or tiny nod of the head, but most of the time he was happy, as he drove, to hold forth all by himself, seemingly as entertained by his own voice as was his audience of one.

He skipped from one thing to another, not unlike a wagtail leaping erratically this way and that in a park on a summer's evening. Often he would talk about something he was listening to on the radio. ‘They're saying there's been a bad crash on the M1. People dead and all.' Turning the dial down, ‘Crazy speeds some of them drive at. That's the reason, Hughie, bet you.' And then, without taking a breath, as if he was short of time and had to get in as much as possible, it could be straight on to, ‘Know what this bloke told me at work? He said go and see
Superman
. Jack says it's brilliant. It's like Superman's really flying. Animatronics, that's how they do it. Want to go and see it, son? What do you reckon?' And Hugh would nod his head, without any real idea what
Superman
was about, not that it mattered, because his dad was already off onto something else. Once, it was about three miners dying in an explosion at the Golborne colliery on the outskirts of Manchester. ‘Terrible tragedy,' said his dad, ‘and just down the road, too. Deserve every penny they earn, those blokes.' Another time it was, ‘And what do you think about a woman becoming Prime Minister of our country, eh, Hughie? First one ever. Not sure about it myself, not sure a woman's up to the task.' Most times though, he'd say something like, ‘Have to drop by the corner shop. Your mum forgot to buy bread. Typical! She's such a scatterbrain.' Or, ‘Let's go and pick up a video.' Hugh was happy to do any of these things, anything at all, because it meant spending longer with his dad, longer sitting in the still-exciting-to-be-in passenger seat, his feet not yet reaching the floor and his eyes only just able to see the road ahead if he sat up very straight and craned his neck.