Switchback Stories (12 page)

It didn’t matter now, anyway. The night was perfect and nothing else mattered.

I didn’t give the matter any further thought and it didn’t return to haunt me again until the next week. But on the following Friday Stuart’s monthly credit card statement arrived in the mail. Normally, I never concerned myself with these things, but, this time, I opened the envelope.

Stuart had charged the roses to the account. Next to the previous Friday’s date was the name of the shop, Mid-Metro Florists, and the amount of $40. Simply to set my own mind at rest, I looked back at the dates for the previous three Fridays in the month. My heart sank as I saw a listing for Mid-Metro Florists, and the amount of $40, against each of the dates.

How long has this been going on? I wondered.

I sat motionless for a long time. Why was this happening? I had felt so happy in my life with Stuart. And I had been certain he felt the same. How could he be seeing another woman? I’d detected no difference in him these past few weeks. Stuart had been his usual, loving self, even though slightly distracted by the pressures at the office. They had taken on several new clients lately and the entire office was bursting at the seams with work.

It seemed incredible to me that he’d been deceiving me like this. There must be another explanation, I told myself, but this time the pessimist inside me came forward gleefully, and refused to believe a word of it.

I went straight to the phone book and looked up the number of the florist.

‘Good morning, Mid-Metro Florists.’

‘Good morning,’ I said, adopting a cool, professional tone. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you. I’m the executive secretary at Callaghan, Mayer and Stott. One of our architects, Mr Callaghan, has been ordering roses for one of our clients. He normally makes all the arrangements himself, but he’s been called away today. He’d asked me to send the flowers for him, but I’ve just realized I’m not sure which client the roses are for.’

‘Well, I’m not sure if I can help you with that.’

‘I was wondering, as this was a regular purchase for the past few weeks, whether there might be a card that Mr Callaghan asked you to supply with the roses. Perhaps, if there’s a name, that would indicate the appropriate client company to me.’

‘Of course,’ said the young female voice on the other end of the line, ‘how silly of me. There is a card and the words are the same every week, and have been ever since I’ve worked here.’

‘How long is that?’ I asked.

‘Six months now. Hold on a moment, let me check that particular order. It’s a fairly regular one, you see.’

Six months? Fairly regular?

‘Here we go,’ the girl came back on the line. ‘Very simple. The card always reads
: For Casey. Love Stuart.’

She giggled. ‘Sounds more personal than professional, doesn’t it? I hope that helps you identify the client, Miss. And the flowers should be delivered into the office in the next hour, as usual, so you would’ve seen the card then anyway.’

‘Thank you for your help,’ I said coldly, and I hung up. There were no tears in my eyes. No sadness. Perhaps that would come later. For the moment there was just a growing anger, unlike any I had felt before. I had believed in him. Right up until a moment ago I had believed in him. And all this time he’d been two-timing me.

All this time
.

Yes, but how much time was that? The florist said she’d worked there six months. What about the time prior to that?

I went through to the study, opened the drawer and pulled out the folder he’d marked “Financial Statements”. I flicked back through the monthly credit card account, six months back, twelve months back, eighteen months back. That was as far as he’d kept paper copies. Although he could access them digitally, Stuart liked to have the printed statements as a ready access for him to highlight business costs for his tax returns.

On several Fridays the charge was there from Mid-Metro Florists. Sometimes just one in a month. Sometimes for two or three Fridays in a row. Only the amount had changed. Eighteen months earlier the charge had been for $29.90. Even red roses for mistresses are prone to inflation, I thought bitterly.

We had only been married three years and Stuart’s affair had been going on for at least half that time, probably longer. This wasn’t just a case of a fling with some floozy. Here was a man who had long been leading a double life.

But as I placed the folder back in the drawer, my attention was drawn to another folder that had been lying beneath the first. The light blue colour of this other folder was faded and its corners were dog-eared.

I opened it up and found a tattered, yellowed newspaper clipping. My eyes wandered to the date at the top of the page. Why on earth did Stuart have a newspaper cutting that was more than ten years old sitting in the drawer of his desk? Beneath the dateline, there was the headline to a half page article. It read:
‘Grieving Parents’ Strange Request.’

I was about to read on when I became aware of the time. The clock on the study wall showed it to be quarter to eleven. In another hour Stuart would leave his office, roses in hand, for his secret rendezvous.

Perhaps the only way to handle this is the dramatic way, I thought. I’ll follow him and confront him when he’s with this other woman. Of course it will be the end of everything between us. But obviously that was clearly the case before today and I just hadn’t known it. Until now.

I was still curious about the old press clipping. What did it mean? And why had Stuart kept it? On an inexplicable impulse, I picked up the folder and went outside to my car.

• • •

Unlike the Friday before, this was a windy day. The sun still shone but the air had a cool bite. Stuart emerged from the building. The breeze ruffled his curly brown hair. As he drove away, I pulled my car out from the kerb, and followed from a safe distance.

I can’t believe I’m actually going through with this, I thought. It’s like a movie. Do people really have these kinds of confrontations? Yes, they do, answered a side of me I’d never known was there. And yes, I’m going to go and meet this situation head on.

Stuart turned the car into the Princes Highway, and drove past the turn-off for our home, and over the bridge that spanned the Georges River in Southern Sydney. I stayed up to half-a-dozen cars behind. My mind kept drifting to the newspaper clipping in the folder beside me. Just how many secrets did this man – my husband, my best friend – really have?

I was driving though an unfamiliar area when I saw Stuart’s car turn off the highway. Less than a minute later I had reached the same spot and, like him, I turned into the street. It was a long, tree-lined avenue – and there was absolutely no sign of Stuart’s car up ahead. I felt a flutter of panic. I thought perhaps he must have turned into one of the streets running off this one.

But which one?

I turned into the first side street and drove several blocks to the point where it doubled back on itself and re-joined the highway. I made a U-turn and followed the road back the way I had come. I reached the intersection and kept going straight ahead. There was still no sign of Stuart’s car.

I’ve lost him, I thought. He’s probably kilometres away by now. The frustration welled up inside me. I drove on to the next cross street and turned left again.

I saw Stuart’s car immediately, parked on the left hand side of the road in the second block along. His car was parked outside a modest house, part-fibro and part-brick veneer. I pulled my car in directly behind. I wasn’t concerned that I might’ve been seen from the house.

I marched up to the front door. The anger grew inside me with each step. I rapped loudly on the door. I could hear a shuffling sound from the passageway inside and a frail voice called out, ‘Hold on a minute, please.’

An elderly woman, small and reed-thin, opened the door to me, ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m Tina Callaghan,’ I announced, glaring at her. ‘Stuart’s wife!’

The woman said nothing. She simply stared at me.

‘I want … to see him,’ I stammered.

‘Stuart? Stuart? There’s no-one here by that name.’

There was an awkward silence. Then the anger died inside me and I was lost for words.

‘Listen, dear, step inside a minute and sit down,’ the woman said. ‘You look rather flustered.’

‘No, it’s all right, really,’ I replied, ‘I must have the wrong house. I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you.’

What the hell is wrong with me? I’m acting like a madwoman.

I turned and walked back onto the footpath, feeling incredibly stupid. Just because Stuart’s car is parked outside, that doesn’t mean he’s in that particular house, I told myself. Whatever was I thinking of – following him like this. Rushing up to strange houses.

I opened the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. I needed a moment to think, to collect my thoughts. The light blue folder sat mysteriously on the seat beside me. I picked it up and turned to the old newspaper clipping.

I read:

‘The mother of a twenty-year-old medical student broke down today as she told how her daughter died in a tragic car accident. Karen Radcliffe was a passenger in her boyfriend’s car when they were hit by another car driven by a drunken youth. Margaret Radcliffe and her husband, Bill, have vowed that they will not allow their daughter to have died in vain. They will fight for tougher measures to stop drink-driving on New South Wales roads. They are urging other victims of drink-drive tragedies to contact them with the aim of forming an action group to lobby both State and Federal Governments.’

Ten years ago. Stuart would have been twenty at the time. The same age as the girl mentioned in the article.

I stepped from the car and looked at the houses on either side of the house I’d just been to. Perhaps he was in one of those. I looked to the opposite side of the street. There were no houses there. Just a thick, six-metre-high hedge that ran the full length of the block, a scattering of tall trees beyond.

Just over the top of the hedge I saw Stuart’s head. He was in the distance, moving away, further into this green, wooded area. I ran across the road and looked up and down the street for the entrance to this park. My mind was awash with thoughts but I pushed them all back. There was no time for thinking and theorizing now. I needed to confront Stuart. I had questions that had to be asked. So many questions.

Further along the street I spotted the entrance to the wooded area, a parting in the hedge that was framed by an iron archway and gate. I ran toward it. The sign across the archway read “Willow Haven Cemetery.”

I raced along one of the pathways leading between the long rows of graves, heading in the direction I’d last seen Stuart. He was up ahead of me, kneeling before a simple brick headstone, resting his bunch of roses against the metal nameplate. He didn’t hear me approach. He had risen to his feet again and was standing silently with his head bowed.

I edged closer and saw the words etched into the metal plate:

‘Karen Cheryl Radcliffe. Loved and missed by her family and by all who knew her.’

I felt a touch of jealousy. The thought that Stuart had once loved this girl so much that he’d kept up this ritual since her death, brought forth a mixture of emotions, envy among them. I knew I had to sweep that feeling aside. Rise above it. This was a time for supportive gestures, not defiant ones.

‘I’ve been so wrong about you, Stuart,’ I said out loud.

He turned, startled, ‘Tina? How …?’

‘I followed you,’ I admitted, ‘and I feel so damned ashamed of myself. I found out you often left the office on a Friday lunchtime with a bunch of roses. I thought … well, I suppose you can imagine what I thought…’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Stuart said. ‘I should’ve told you. It’s not that I meant to keep secrets. I’ve always meant to talk about it. It’s just that it’s been a part of my life, a private part, for so long that I’ve never quite known … where to begin.’

‘It’s all right. I found the old newspaper cutting in the study. I just don’t understand … the note with the roses says Casey.’

‘Her nickname,’ he explained. ‘It came from her first and middle initials. Karen Cheryl, K.C. became Casey.’

‘You needn’t have worried about telling me, you know. I think it’s very special. You must have loved her very much to have kept visiting her resting place all these years.’

‘But I never even knew her, Tina.’ Tears formed at the corner of his eyes.

I was puzzled. ‘Never knew her …?’

Stuart came forward and placed his arms around me. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said, ‘because there’s something else in the desk drawer. Something I want you to read.’

• • •

At home there was another newspaper clipping that had slipped out of the folder and was further down in the drawer, wedged between his other papers. Stuart left me alone in the study to read it. It was September 10, six months after the other clipping. The headline read:
“Serving Time – But With A Difference.”

Beneath it the story went on
:

‘When Karen Radcliffe died earlier this year in a car accident caused by a drunken youth, her shattered parents decided on a punishment like no other for the young man involved.

‘Stuart Callaghan, a student aged twenty, was found guilty today of involuntary manslaughter. He lost his licence for five years and was placed on a three-year good behaviour bond.

‘In a separate suit brought before the court, the parents of the victim sued the youth, claiming damages for grief. The Chief Magistrate agreed to waive the payment, at the request of the parents, on condition that the youth agreed to an alternative punishment.

‘In lieu of the payment, Callaghan is to join the Radcliffes at their daughter’s graveside every Friday for the next ten years, bringing with him each time a bunch of roses.

‘Mr Bill Radcliffe, the dead girl’s father explained the bizarre request at his home today. ‘No amount of money can bring our daughter back,’ he said. ‘My wife and I don’t want any financial compensation. We want the boy to think of Karen every Friday for a long time to come. We want him to stand before her resting place with us and know the loss he’s caused us. Karen loved roses. She brought them home often, and we would like to see them at the grave constantly. They don’t need to be the expensive variety, just as long as they’re fresh.