Other People’s Diaries (6 page)

A
lice pushed open the front door and looked at the usual scene of devastation. With the children in the house, the mess looked vaguely purposeful. As if maybe someone was about to claim the library books spread across the hallway. Or pick up the cardboard rocket on the sofa to take to school.

The state of the house was less important than the maelstrom of activity which existed between seven and eight-thirty each morning. But without footsteps clattering up the staircase, or someone dropping a dirty cereal bowl on the counter, it changed. Now the mess was dominating. The washing needed hanging on the line, the kitchen was a disaster and various items of clothing spread from one end of the house to the other needed to be put away.

Alice dropped her keys on the shelf next to the front door. There was a tangled heap of shoes, hats and items discarded from school bags that morning. She bent and sorted the shoes, slotting them into place. Hats went next and she collected a handful of school notices and artwork.

Slowly she walked down the hall and leaned on the side of the refrigerator, surveying the kitchen.

Growing up, if she'd ever thought about tidiness, she'd have been pretty clear that it was a simple concept. It either existed or it didn't. Now she could write a thesis on how wrong that was.

The state of her house veered between under control and total devastation. The place could be untidy but easily fixable – the stray items all having somewhere to go, the beds makeable. Then sometimes everything looked all right but was only a hair's breadth from chaos. There would be items stacked on tables or shoved in drawers, which could erupt as soon as there were more bodies in the house again. It was like a sinking ship – the second she stopped bailing it all went horribly wrong.

The water was lapping at the deck this morning.

Alice hadn't realised how much the expectation and planning for the night in the bar had buoyed her over the last couple of weeks. Now all she had to show for it was an outfit she'd never wear again and a bill for expensive champagne. She'd hoped that if it was a failure she'd be able to move on, happy that she'd given it her best shot. Instead she was left with a sense that something should have been done differently.

Irritably, Alice kicked off her shoes. Last week she'd broken her rule of never buying a pair of shoes that weren't perfectly comfortable in the shop. She couldn't even blame the saleswoman – it was her job to tell stupid women like Alice that rigid leather would stretch.

The floorboards were cool underfoot and Alice walked slowly to the sink, stacked with the remnants of school lunch preparation. She turned on the tap, staring out the window as the sink filled. The water ran over her hands, relaxing her. She left her hands in the water, looking out the window.

The sky was the blue no photo or painting ever seemed able to replicate exactly. It didn't seem to begin or end anywhere and she suddenly pictured herself floating up and disappearing. A cereal-encrusted bowl wedged in a cloud would be the only remaining evidence of her existence.

It had been a difficult year. Alice's youngest child, Alex, had started school in January and for the first time she was home by herself between nine and three each day. After twelve years of only brief moments to herself, it was very strange. At first it had been wonderful. She'd spent hours sitting in cafes reading the paper and drinking too much coffee. She'd sorted all the
children's old clothes, which had been stuffed into high cupboards in her bedroom for the last few years. And she'd even finished Alex's baby book.

But soon the hours had started to stretch. The things she'd ached to have time for were no longer appealing. And she was sick to death of people asking what she was doing now the children were at school. At least they didn't ask if she was writing. Those enquiries had dried up years ago.

Alice had been browsing in
Words
, her favourite bookstore, when she'd seen a notice about a position as a salesperson. She had no experience in retail, having worked in pubs and restaurants when they lived in London, and then with Andrew setting up the business.

Bridget, the bookstore owner, had waved away her concerns with jewelled fingers. ‘You're a writer and you love books. That's good enough for me. The rest you can learn.'

So Alice worked in the shop two days a week between nine-thirty and two-thirty. Strangely, it was the people not the books that interested her most about the job. Most of the customers were women and many stopped for a coffee in the small cafe. The cash register Alice worked from was close by and she eavesdropped shamelessly.

The thing that struck her about most of the women was that they were unhappy. They laughed and joked with friends, but there was always an underlying sense of discontent. Too tired, too busy, ungrateful children, absent husband, having a job, not having a job …

At first it made Alice feel vaguely better. At least other marriages weren't perfect and other women brought up their families by themselves while their husbands worked long hours and travelled. But after a while it just depressed her. These were all people with enough money to buy a book and a coffee whenever they felt like it. They weren't on the poverty line. Somehow, though, they couldn't manage to find happiness.

Alice knew that she was the same as those other women, but she couldn't seem to kick free of the fog dulling the edges of her life. Lately, though, she had felt an urge to write. The only
problem had been having no idea what to write about. Until the concert six weeks ago.

The smoke-filled darts of light had fallen from the ceiling, encircling the slight figure on the stage. He had looked up at the sharply shelving rows of seats, rubbed a hand over his shaved head and smiled slightly. Pick gripped between his thumb and fingers, he plucked two notes from his guitar. The silence was broken by a hum of pleasure as the audience recognised the introduction to one of the singer's best known songs.

Alice let the music wash over her, savouring the long-forgotten feeling of being immersed in music. Her life in London had been a tour of band venues. From Hammersmith Odeon to little joints in dingy suburbs, the live-music scene had been an important part of her life. And after their move to Brisbane, she and Andrew had been regulars at small dark clubs in the Valley. Then the children had been born and practicalities had prevailed. Too late, too smoky, too loud … She'd never consciously decided to stop going, it had just happened. And her music collection had stayed fixed firmly somewhere in the late 1990s. She'd heard everything she owned too many times to be bothered to even turn the CD player on these days.

This however, was something she couldn't let pass. A four-night concert with a hundred different songs from Paul Kelly. She'd loved the singer ever since the first day she'd arrived in Australia. The taxi driver at the airport, a lanky young man who looked barely old enough to drive, had taken one look at Alice's enormous pile of luggage and figured she wasn't your everyday backpacker.

‘If you're planning on staying here,' he'd said, ‘you'll need to know about this guy.' With a flourish, he had pushed a tape into the old cassette deck and the strains of ‘From St Kilda to Kings Cross' came floating out.

Alice had booked tickets as soon as she'd heard about the four-night concert and had scored front-row seats for every night. The last two hours were a glorious melange of songs she loved and some she'd never heard but delighted in.

Alice watched the singer strum the chords which he must have strummed a thousand times and watched his face form the expressions it must have formed a thousand times. And then she saw the sheer joy on his face as his fingers danced around the guitar and the sweet sound wrapped itself around the auditorium.

Alice realised suddenly that there was nothing in her life which gave her that intense personal joy. The children were different. She loved them fiercely, but taking pleasure in them was different from what the man on the stage was experiencing. Something for him alone – a skipping of fingers across guitar strings which clearly made his heart dance.

Surely that's what made everything else worthwhile. The hours wheeling a recalcitrant trolley around a supermarket, the mind-numbing routine of school drop-offs and pick-ups. They all made sense if there were moments of joy dotted through the hours.

So what were her moments? What made her happy? And what about those women she overheard in the bookshop cafe, what was it that kept them going between the tedious episodes of everyday life?

Alice had always believed that immersing oneself in children was a cop-out. Surely that defeated the purpose if every life cancelled out the next by folding in on itself. So apart from the children, what did she have? A job in a bookshop which, if she was brutally honest, was no better than something to fill empty days. The faded love of her husband who either no longer knew her well enough to realise how much these concerts meant to her or, even worse, knew and didn't care.

She looked at the empty seat beside her and back up at the stage.

The surge of modern life didn't have room for those little pockets of joy. Alice's last twelve years had been spent swamped in the minutiae of family life. All of the things she'd loved, like music, had fallen away.

Something her grandmother had said not long before she died came into Alice's mind. ‘You know what I don't understand about your world? It's why things are always so complicated.
People focus on doing everything quicker and more efficiently and then run around just finding more to do.'

At the time Alice had been young and full of energy and had figured there wasn't much to be done about it anyway – it was just the way things were. And surely being able to do more could only be a good thing.

Now she was pretty sure it wasn't.

She pictured the lean-to outside her grandmother's tiny house that had been known by everyone in the family as ‘the patio'. Although it hadn't been much bigger than an average bathroom, it had been the place where her grandmother had ‘taken' tea twice a day.

For as long as Alice could remember, no matter what she was doing, her grandmother would stop at ten o'clock and half past three to sit amongst the flowers and drink tea out of her fine bone china. There had been no view to speak of, unless you counted the neighbour's dog's kennel. Yet Alice couldn't remember ever having been in a more wonderful place.

Maybe that was the answer to everyone's problems – they should pass a law requiring everyone to stop for tea twice a day. And make tiny pink cupcakes with sprinkles compulsory.

Except it didn't work like that. Tea was her grandmother's thing. Just because it had given her pleasure didn't mean it would help anyone else. Even with cupcakes and sprinkles.

There was something in it though, she was sure. Little things. Every day. Maybe in their desperate rush to get to all the big things, everyone had lost track of the little things that made it worth the effort.

She suddenly wondered what it would be like to watch a group of people try to find their ‘little things'. The things that made them happy every day. Maybe she should write to Channel Ten and pitch the idea. They were clearly struggling for material. Just last night she'd seen an ad for a new reality show with a host claiming to be a supernanny for dogs.

She warmed to her idea. They could call the show
Cupcakes or Candlesticks
. Or better still,
Your Favourite Things
. She could see it now. Someone like Julie Andrews could host it. They'd follow
a group of people who each day had to make one small change and then live with it until it became a habit.

Kind of like
Big Brother
but without the sex and nudity. Actually, nothing like
Big Brother
.

Actually, it would make a terrible TV show.

But maybe a wonderful book.

Alice became aware that the singer was halfway through a song she hadn't even heard him start. She brought her eyes back from the middle distance, a faint feeling of excitement coursing through her blood.

Standing at the sink, her hands still soaking in the water, Alice grabbed on to that thread of excitement she'd felt at the concert and started to wash the dishes.

E
ven as Rebecca threw herself off the edge of the ferry and felt the downward pull of water, she knew the dream wouldn't last.

The water disappeared and her world solidified on white sheets. She tried desperately to picture herself back in the water. There was no doubt in her mind that drowning was preferable to being awake. But the dream slipped from her grasp.

It was early.

There was no sign of daylight, but something in the stillness told Rebecca that dawn wasn't too far off.

Superstitiously she always avoided looking at the clock radio when she first woke. As if somehow not seeing the digital evidence would send the hours spinning backwards and give her more precious sleep.

She rolled onto her stomach, forcing herself to think of something calming. But thoughts of her confrontation with Jeremy last night squirrelled their way past the image of an open white beach. Her shoulders tensed and she felt a queasiness in her stomach.

Rebecca opened her eyes in a squint:
05:10
. As always, she tallied the number of hours she'd been asleep. It was never enough. She reached for the earplug on the bedside table and screwed it into her ear. There was no way she could face this day yet.

She turned onto her back, searching for a way to slip back into the thoughtless abyss of sleep. Beside her Jeremy stirred.

‘Are you all right?' he muttered.

Rebecca never knew how he expected her to answer that question. She was awake after only five hours of interrupted sleep and knew she wouldn't be able to sleep again. Did that count as all right?

Sarcasm wasn't going to help anything though, and she bit back her immediate response. Soft snores from the other side of the bed solved her dilemma. She flipped onto her other side in annoyance, grinding the earplug deeper. Why couldn't she sleep like that? Jeremy had just as much going on as she did, but he could shelve his problems for as many peaceful hours of sleep as were available and take them up again when he woke.

This was always the hardest time, wondering how she could possibly survive the endless stretch of hours until she was next able to put her head on the pillow. She knew it would be better once she was in the shower. Better even once her feet were on the floor. But for now, gritty eyes screwed tight, the day looked insurmountable.

Rebecca knew from past experience that she wasn't going to go back to sleep. Her mind jumped from one worry to another, staying with each one just long enough to set her heart beating, but not long enough to come up with a solution. Inevitably, though, it returned to today and who was going to look after Sam.

Jeremy and Rebecca had reached an icy stalemate last night, both claiming that the next day's work was critical. Jeremy's last comment, delivered as she lay fuming beside him in the darkness, was that as she had chased his parents off after only one day, she should stay home to look after Sam.

Jeremy's parents had arrived on Tuesday morning, an hour later than arranged, making Bianca late for school and Rebecca late for work. They'd fussed over Sam, taken him out for a sugar-laden lunch (grandparents' privilege, they'd said) and only put him down for his sleep at 3 pm. Sam hadn't been awake long when Rebecca arrived home at five-thirty to find everyone
waiting expectantly for her to cook dinner. But as they'd forgotten to buy the things Rebecca had asked for, she'd had to go back out to the shops first. Sam had been starving, then had refused to go to bed and dinner had been a tense and stilted affair.

Rebecca had kept telling herself just to get through it. That Jeremy's parents were helping and she should be grateful. But then Jeremy's mother had asked whether Rebecca perhaps thought that Sam's speech development was suffering from Rebecca being at work so much.

Rebecca had looked at Jeremy. She'd registered his pleading look and had known she should turn the other cheek. But she simply couldn't.

‘If you think he has speech problems, Marilyn, perhaps his father should be spending more time with him. Have you thought of that possibility?' Rebecca had tried to soften the words with a smile, but it hadn't worked.

‘That's not how things work, Rebecca,' Marilyn had retorted.

‘Maybe not in your generation, Marilyn, but in mine we run our lives differently.'

‘Do you really, Rebecca?' Derek had asked. ‘Then you won't need us any longer. We've got things to do at home which frankly we'd rather do than be here. I think it's better for everyone if Sam comes and stays with us sometimes.'

They'd had their bags packed when Rebecca came downstairs the next morning and left before breakfast.

So Rebecca had called in sick yesterday. And it seemed to be the only option for today. No nanny, no friends she could bring herself to impose upon again. But just the thought of telling work she wasn't coming in today – again – made her head ache.

Her boss had recently moved into the position from Sydney and had made no secret of the fact that he thought working mothers were taking jobs from people who would really earn them. He seemed to make a point of scheduling meetings at the end of the day, clearly not caring if they ran over time. At least two afternoons a week Rebecca was forced to sit, stewing, as he pontificated on whatever topic took his fancy. Finally at six o'clock she'd blurt out that she had to leave, facing a barrage of
stony faces as she walked out the door. There'd be a stressful drive out of the city through the snarls of traffic and then she'd be met at the door by an irate nanny reminding Rebecca that her ‘contract of employment' had her clocked off by 6 pm. Invariably on those nights the house would be in chaos. Sam would be in tears and Bianca on the warpath as Rebecca hadn't been home in time to drive her to her band's jam session.

Now, Rebecca stared blindly into the darkness. Bianca was definitely getting worse. Their relationship had been wonderful until almost two years ago. Then, soon after Bianca turned fifteen everything had changed. She'd been transformed from a happy, loving girl who teachers adored, to one filled with anger at the world in general and Rebecca in particular.

Nothing Rebecca tried helped. A month ago she had signed them up for a series of Thursday-night lectures about why vegetarianism was going to save the world. She'd thought that maybe it was something they could learn together. But Bianca had refused to go along even once.

Her thoughts spun around again. She just couldn't miss work today. The recruitment agency she worked for had one client bigger than the next ten put together. The client wanted to fill a very senior position and she had finally pinned down the top candidate. He had a high-profile job elsewhere and his interest in this position was highly confidential. Rebecca had arranged several hours of meetings between the candidate and the client's senior management and rescheduling because of a personal problem was inconceivable. This was her biggest placement in a year. She simply couldn't mess it up.

Jeremy hadn't seen it that way. ‘What if you were sick? Or the candidate was? You can do the same thing tomorrow or the day after. My clients are expecting me to do their trades as soon as the stock market opens tomorrow. Leaving it a day is simply not an option.'

She turned her head slowly to look at Jeremy again. His arm was flung back, his lightly tanned and still slender chest bare. Regular cycling had helped him avoid the middle-aged spread which had caught so many of their friends and he looked ten years younger than forty-five.

An idea entered Rebecca's mind. She rejected it immediately. She simply couldn't do it.

She lay there for a moment, picturing the phone calls she'd have to make to reschedule the meetings, the transparent lies she'd have to tell.

The idea itched at the back of her mind, offering a way out. Maybe it wasn't impossible.

Slowly, she inched her body across the bed. The cotton sheets rasped under her pyjamas, the sound magnified in the quiet room. Several times she stopped, heart pounding, certain she'd woken Jeremy. Finally Rebecca dropped her legs onto the floor and stood up, slowly removing her weight from the bed. She held her breath, but Jeremy's only response was to roll slightly away.

Walking gingerly on the balls of her feet, she eased the wardrobe open and pulled out the first outfit she saw. Then, on hands and knees, she rummaged amongst her shoes until she found two that matched. Finally, she pulled out her underwear drawer gingerly, throwing lingerie and stockings over her shoulder.

Slowly she walked toward the door, acutely conscious of the sucking sound of her feet lifting off the polished floorboards. One step at a time, she inched down the steps, keeping to the outside of the treads to stop them squeaking.

She stood indecisively at the kitchen door, taking in the mess in the kitchen. As usual, she'd been too exhausted the night before to do anything more than scrape the plates and run the dishwasher. The saucepan sat inside the greasy frypan, congealed sauce dripping down its side. The stainless-steel bench was covered with crumbs and a few wilted pieces of rocket.

Somehow she hadn't expected to get this far, had thought that Jeremy would wake and the decision would be taken out of her hands. The consequences of this would be horrendous, she knew that. But she could face them tonight, once she'd nailed this placement.

Her eyes found her keys she'd tossed on the counter the previous night. Slowly she walked across and weighed them in her hand.

Could she really do this?

It wasn't as though she was abandoning anyone. She was
leaving Bianca and Sam with Jeremy. Sam was his responsibility as much as hers. And Bianca hadn't let anyone look after her for years.

Decision made, she stepped into her skirt and pulled the suit jacket over her pyjamas. She'd shower at work. She always kept make-up and toiletries there for when she went to the gym. The gym that had averaged two hundred dollars a visit this year, given her level of attendance.

Rebecca pulled the magnetised shopping list off the fridge. She drew out the pencil.
I'm sorry, but I just had to go to work
, she scrawled.

She hesitated. Her usual sign-off,
I love you
, seemed wildly inappropriate, but its omission seemed even worse.
Love, Rebecca
, she finished finally.

Her handbag was next to the front door and she slung it over her shoulder. Without looking around, she opened the door. With a soft click, she closed it carefully behind her.