The Near Miss (15 page)

Romy stared at the floor, and folded her arms. She reminded him of a child; when in trouble, she would turn inwards and not speak. Like a spaceship closing all its panels and powering down, as if trying to become an inanimate object. He was familiar with the aim of the exercise; invisibility. Only a tear streaked down Romy's cheek and she squeaked.

‘What?' He stepped closer, smelt her spicy girl smell, resisted the urge to slip his hands under her arms, along the side of her generous olive-skinned breasts, the tops of which were hinted at through a black dress. God, had she even changed clothes since the night of the dinner party, five months ago?

‘I don't know what came over me,' she said, in a high, near-tears voice. ‘I can't believe I just got up and went off with him. That man. It was like I was bewitched.' Eddy was reminded of the yoga teacher; another time Romy had been in the grip of something larger than herself, as if aliens had made a habit of holding and brainwashing her.

‘But what have you been doing all this time? I mean besides robbing shops.'

She stared aghast into space. ‘It was the anniversary. The five-year anniversary of their deaths. It really got to me. Made me crazy.' She gazed at him, waiting for him to understand.

‘Your parents' death.'

She nodded, unable to speak. Her eyes filled with tears. He opened his arms. In a moment
they were back in their old, comforting roles: she the victim of tragedy, he the great comforter. She leaned against him and wept, a little wet patch seeping through to his chest.

‘Your agent's been trying to get onto you.

‘I know!' She pulled away, nodding emphatically. He recognised the spark of excitement in her eyes, and his heart died a little. That was why she was back. ‘And?'

‘I have to be out in Heidelberg by three this afternoon for the filming of an ad. I've got the address here.' She grinned ecstatically through her tears and he stared at her. He was dazed, disbelieving. The touch of her, her smell, his injured pride, his pathetic need, his overwhelming relief, it was all too much. He could see the board of news cuttings over the top of her head. She was indeed a wanted criminal, but he pushed that aside for now. That brazen Catwoman of the press could not be this sparkly, soft kitten. It was all a bad dream that would melt away in the heat of long-awaited acting success. They had not caught her yet, they would surely just give up.

Every part of his body felt bruised, but it would heal. His sullen, angry heart would pick itself up off the ground. Her parents' death, the five-year anniversary. Well, that would knock anyone around.

‘The police are after you. What if you're recognised?'

She smiled cheekily. ‘Hard to recognise Catwoman without her mask, I think.'

‘Can I drive you there?'

She smiled at him lovingly. ‘Sure,' she whispered, and everything was alright. ‘I'll just go and get dressed.'

Hours later, Romy the Rabbit emerged surly and depressed from a retail outlet called Rabbit Photos. The promise of a TV ad had been a little exaggerated; in fact, she had spent two hours in
front of the shop dressed in a rabbit suit and handing out brochures, a free glare with each one. A CCTV inside the shop had indeed broadcast her image to those within, browsing amongst the frames, but in the main the gift of her presence had been bestowed upon adolescent boys trying to touch up her fur.

‘Oh, sweetie.' Eddy grimaced at her furious face and opened the car door for her.

‘I'm going to rip that bloody agent's head off,' snarled Romy, her inked-on whiskers twitching as she scowled.

Driving home, Eddy could hardly concentrate for his fear. Would she leave him again? He didn't think he could bear it. Distracted, he cut across the path of a semi-trailer, forcing it to brake sharply.

Suddenly, the semi was bearing down on them, blasting with its horn. The driver wore a look of fury in the vast windscreen of his vehicle; his mouth an open snarl of rage. Eddy's mirror was full of truck, his ears were full of the high-pitched yet resigned whine of a truck gearing down.

‘Aargh!' Beside him, Romy sat still dressed as a rabbit, in a grey and white onesie with high heels. She clutched a set of bunny ears and bent them in fear as she stared behind. They were going to die.

Eddy controlled his breathing and glanced back at the truck driver in the mirror again. The truck driver waved a fist at him, as if wanting to punch this piece-of-shit small vehicle that was blocking his ability to drive at two hundred kilometres an hour down a suburban street.

‘Shit!' He muttered. ‘Lean over! Get in the brace position!'

‘The what?'

‘Brace yourself!'

The driver sped up behind him, and Eddy couldn't change lanes at this speed, so he was
forced to accelerate further.

‘Slow
down
!'

‘I can't!' But finally he dared to brake, praying the mad truckie might glimpse his brake lights, although he was so close to their car he would probably miss them. Eddy braked slowly, terrified with each moment that the truck would run right over them, but there was nothing else he could do. He couldn't maintain this speed on these streets; he had to pull off the road. He got the car down to about ninety kilometres, then indicated left and pulled off the road. There was a clip as the truck grazed the back of his car, and then it was over.

‘Are you alright?'

‘Did he hit the car?'

‘It's minor, I think. Insurance will cover it. Are you okay?'

‘What a maniac. Did he stop?'

‘No.' Eddy looked up to verify this fact, and was faced with the truck, reversing up to them. ‘Shit. He did.' This guy was obviously off his face on whatever uppers truckies took to survive their long-haul lives. ‘Oh,
shit
. He's getting out. Lock your door.' He hastily pressed down his own lock.

‘
Lock your door?'
Romy sat up and gave him a look of such withering scorn he was momentarily diverted from the threat approaching down the road's verge, wearing King Gees and a high-vis vest. ‘
Lock your door
?'

‘What?'

‘Can you hear yourself? What sort of a man are you?'

‘Quick, Romy, he's coming.'

‘Fuck you, and fuck locking my door. Fuck everything.'

‘Jesus, Romy, what the hell are you doing—' But she was climbing out of the car. Even as the meathead driver was leaning over and pounding on Eddy's window, looking like he might be preparing to eat man flesh for dinner, Romy had swung out and slammed her own door with a force that made the driver look up, his expression momentarily wary as he reassessed the situation. Which was that a voluptuous woman dressed as a rabbit, in a furry onesie with high heels, was striding around the car towards him, her pom-pom jiggling with every furious step. Eddy's jaw fell open as the two met in front of his car, framed by his windscreen. Romy jabbed her forefinger into the man's chest. He had gone from deranged fury to being bewildered and defensive, inching backwards even as he gestured towards his truck.

‘. . . taken out my front sidelight . . .'

‘. . . driving like a GODFORSAKEN maniac!' screamed Romy the Rabbit. The driver's glance slid down the length of her and back towards Eddy.

‘. . . didn't realise I was tailgating . . .'

‘. . . like HELL you didn't . . .' Romy actually slapped him around his left shoulder and then again around his right. He backed off like a whipped dog. Eddy was part frozen, part reasoning that Romy had the moral supremacy of a woman, as well as the ambush advantage of a giant rabbit. If he stepped out to defend her, which there seemed no apparent need to do at this point, he would only upset the march on power she had taken, and it would become a thing between men, which he would inevitably lose. As it was, there were pens out, and notepads, and pieces of paper being exchanged, and apologetic retreating by the driver, before the truck moved off, and then the return of glowering Romy the Rabbit. Who seemed to have absorbed all the threat previously manifested by the truckie.

Eddy watched her do up her seatbelt, and he started the car. It was a full five minutes before
he dared speak to her. He began to ask ‘Are you alright?', but it seemed a little obsolete. The truck driver was more likely at this moment to be patting at tears and touching up his makeup on the side of the road somewhere behind them.

‘What's on the piece of paper?' He changed gear and coasted through traffic. His body was still flooded with adrenalin, he wanted only to get out of the car and stop driving.

‘His insurance details.' She flung them at him.

‘You . . . He's going to pay?'

‘Of course he will.' Dripping with scorn.

‘You were amazing, Romy. I think you scared him to death.'

‘Well,
someone
had to face up to him.'

‘What are you saying?
I
didn't . . .'

‘That's exactly what I'm saying, Eddy.
You
didn't. You never do. You're scared of living. Scared of everything.' Romy hurled her rabbit ears at him. They bounced down to the floor at his feet, where they tangled hazardously with the pedals.

‘What the— Romy, I know you're upset about the work today. It was disappointing, not what you expected, but it's a start. Better work will come . . .' He tried to lower himself down to disentangle the rabbit ears from his brake pedal, all while continuing to negotiate the car.

‘Oh shut up, will you! Stop being so bloody . . . caring! Stop being such a marshmallow, just reacting to life with the least possible intrusion on the world you can! Why don't you own your life, why don't you get out there and take a risk? Don't you want to really live, instead of just cowering around the edges?'

He stared at her, amazed, hurt. Too caring? But that was his role with Romy; that was what she had always wanted him to be. That was the contract they had signed at the start, in fact they had
renewed it just that morning. She, the fragile tearaway made vulnerable by the loss of her parents; he, the patch on her wounds. They were a couple based on caring, and being cared for, and surely that was what love was all about.

‘Romy, don't take your bad mood out on me. That's really hurtful.'

She looked at him, her eyes bare with something he flinched before. ‘When we got together, Eddy, I was hurt from the loss of my parents. I was broken.'

‘I know that.'

‘You were the right person for me, then, but I'm not broken anymore, Eddy. I'm strong. And I want to stay strong, I don't want to always be your project, like some pampered baby. I want to live. I want adventure.'

‘With Van.' Pampered baby! Project!

‘Yes.'

‘You're in a relationship with Van, now.'

She smiled, not at him, but at some thought out beyond the neighbour's Sulo bin. ‘Van doesn't do relationships, Eddy. Van is his own man. But he'll let me hang around him, and that's what I want for a while, Eddy, that's what I need. To not be . . . cosseted.'

‘And me? Us? After all these years, you're just . . . ending it?'

Confusion crossed her face. ‘I don't know. But I know I just need to follow my heart for a while. Who knows, my heart might lead back to you.' She took his hand comfortingly between the bucket seats. He felt her touch, and his body went into meltdown at the sensation. He was one big ball of pain, and the person who would have once comforted him and made the pain a little better was the person causing it. His tears fell down on his arm.

‘I hope it does, Romy. I'll be waiting here, just in case.'

An expression crossed her face, something between revulsion and exasperation. ‘Maybe you shouldn't wait for me, Eddy. Maybe you should go and find a nice girl, and have a real relationship.'

‘After all we've been through together, you want to end it?'

She sighed wearily. ‘I told you, I'm not certain of anything.'

‘Then I'll be here.'

‘Oh, God. Of course you will be. Well, then, that's it. I'm ending it. It's over. You're dumped.'

She shook her head, sighed and climbed out of the car. The pink pom-pom that had been her bunny's tail was flattened now. Eddy fished the rabbit ears off the floor between his feet and watched Romy go inside their house. He stroked the ears and wiped his forearm across his eyes.

           
Options

           
Keep paying mortgage on house

           
Rent out house, keep paying mortgage

           
Sell house

Grace pushed the list across to Tom. They were sitting in possibly Melbourne's worst café, barely a step up from a truck stop. The front window shook with the force of six lanes of passing traffic outside. Dead flies trembled in the corners. The table was wobbly, and she suspected that a rip in the vinyl of her chair had already sunk its ragged teeth into the delicate knit of her sexiest skirt. Tom had been oblivious to the skirt, anyway. He drew two quick lines on the list and she leaned over to see, hastily withdrawing her hand from a sticky patch on the table. Her mouth fell open.

‘Sell. You really want to sell the house.'

‘Yes,' he said, shrugging as if to say ‘of course'.

‘Tom. This is a separation, isn't it? Not a divorce. We want to keep our options open. We might . . .'

‘Get back together?'

Her heart warmed a little. He had said it. It was at the top of his mind, too. Her entire body relaxed.

‘Yes.' She smiled, kindly. Not too kindly, she knew he needed his space, and to feel alone for a while. When he came back, it would have to come from him, it wouldn't work if he felt pressured to come back. She couldn't gloat, or be vengeful. She would just be quietly waiting for
him, not demanding anything, a purer and simpler version of her former self, until he finally realised . . .

‘No,' he said coldly. ‘I want to sell. As soon as possible.'

She gaped at him. For a moment she couldn't speak. Then she could. ‘Tom, this is crazy.' At the back of the café, a torn shower curtain hung open, revealing a galley kitchen where the waiter leaned towards a mirror and trimmed his nose hairs with kitchen shears. ‘You really want to burn all your bridges like this?'

‘Like what?'

‘It's one thing for us to have a little time apart. But selling the house, that's irr-e-vers-i-ble. That's—' She stopped and panted for a few seconds. Some creature had reached up a hand from her heart and was choking her. She stroked her throat frantically, trying to relax it, and speech returned. ‘That's burning all your bridges.'

He gave her a funny look. ‘Is it?'

‘Well, isn't it?'

‘Only if, like you, you feel married to a person and a house. Instead of a person.'

He wasn't making sense. She ran through the words again; nope, still no sense. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘Nothing. Here's the agent's card. She can get the auction happening next month.'

‘Next month!' She gazed out the streaked window of Melbourne's worst café, towards where some of the city's worst weather, infamous throughout the nation, was on display. Rain lashed the road in drops so big they could bruise, while trees bent sideways in gale-force winds. ‘Where will Lotte and I live?'

‘You can find somewhere to rent. Like I'm doing.'

She tried another tack. ‘Isn't there no auctions at this time of year?'

‘It will be spring before our house gets to auction.'

Our
house. ‘That leak in the lounge room will put off buyers.'

‘I'll fix it.'

Like you could have done last winter? Grace didn't say. ‘It's too soon to sell.'

‘I asked you to sell it a few months ago, even before we broke up.'

She tried again. ‘The market's low. We'll lose money.'

‘We'll lose the house if we
don't
sell. The bank will foreclose.'

‘Can't we ask our families for help?' She scanned his face for something, anything. He looked slightly puzzled.

‘No. Because we've
split up.
Don't you get this? So why would we borrow more money from our families to pay for a house we're not going to live in together?'

She sighed. The waiter, with freshly trimmed nose hair, brought Tom's coffee and her pot of tea. ‘You like a biscuit?' he said. ‘We open new packet.'

‘No, thanks,' said Tom, smiling kindly. Okay, so he did have some warmth left in him, just not for her. He was apparently saving it all for hairy strangers in shabby clothes.

‘Tom, why don't we—'

‘Biscuit?' The waiter barked at her.

Grace jumped, startled. ‘No, thank you.' The waiter looked her over suspiciously and went back through the shower curtain.

Tom stirred his coffee. ‘Or you can buy me out of the house if you want.' His face was expressionless, he was zombie man. He had left his feelings at the front door of this rancid place,
and they were pawing at the glass, saying Tom! You forgot us! Let us in! We like Grace! ‘We get the house valued, you give me half, and it's done.'

‘You know I can't do that. I have nothing, and I have no job.'

He put his hands on his gorgeous, denim-clad thighs and shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Precisely. Neither do I. We've used up your redundancy. I can't meet the next repayment. We have to sell.'

Something he had said earlier started working its way through her brain then, like a hot ember that takes a while to finally start burning carpet. She had asked him if he really wanted to burn all his bridges, and he had said
Is it?
And
Only if you feel married to a person and a house.
And maybe that was it. He just wanted to force this sale. He was pushing them to the brink of their marriage to get his way on selling the house. It was a test, to see if she loved him more than the house, or separately from the house. If she passed the test, he'd take her back. For a moment she was furious; the lengths he would go to in order to win an argument! Putting her through all this misery! And then she remembered that she had no income, and nor did he, and, for whatever reason he had done it, they simply could not pay the mortgage.

It was awful, yet it gave her a ray of hope.

‘Okay.'

‘Okay what?'

‘Okay, let's sell the house then.' She waited for a flicker of warmth, some moment of gratitude. He had won, he had got his way. But zombie man just blinked and nodded his stony, handsome face and rose to his feet, abandoning his coffee. Apparently, he couldn't bear to be in her company for a second more than he had to. He was already focused on the rain outside, and on leaving.

‘Good. I'll call the agent, and let you know you the date.'

Grace forced herself to nod, from her still-seated position. ‘Okey-doke. Well, see you.'

‘You sure?' He hesitated. ‘You changed your mind very suddenly.'

‘No, no. I just see your point now.'

He looked at her a little suspiciously. ‘Well. Bye.'

Grace watched him leave. She hadn't touched her tea. Gingerly, she tipped the stainless-steel pot, and hot water poured down its side, pooling over the tabletop. She halfheartedly dropped a serviette into the steaming slick of water, and watched the paper darken around the edges, and in growing spots in the middle. She paid the waiter and told him to keep the change, preferring to carry nothing else away from that terrible place, nothing more than the rock placed upon her heart.

She remembered their eighth wedding anniversary, how they had both forgotten until they woke up on the Sunday morning.

‘Our anniversary! Well, that's shag-worthy,' said Tom, rolling over and slipping his thigh in between hers.

‘It could be. You never know. Do you think there's something wrong with Lotte?' It was her way, in the early minutes pre-sex, to start listing the worries close to her heart. Sort of as if with opening her legs, she needed to open her soul. A lesser man might have given up immediately, but Tom knew the drill.

‘Probably. She'll be on the streets by fourteen, I reckon.'

‘Tom. Seriously.'

‘Well, okay, if you insist: thirteen, then.'

She pinched his bicep and he sighed. ‘Take her to see someone. A child psych, whatever they are.'

‘Can we afford it?' She rubbed his bare tummy, and slid her hand over his hip to cup his buttock. They both knew the question was ludicrous; Tom had no interest in their finances and could not have guessed within fifty thousand the size of their home loan.

‘Of course we can,' he said soothingly, slipping his hand between her thighs.

‘Should we ask Mum for dinner this week?'

‘Lovely. I'd love that.' He ran his hand up her flank and cupped her bosom. ‘Mmm, you. Gorgeous woman.'

‘I think she's hurt we don't see her enough.'

‘Then let's see her more. Let's ask her to live with us.'

‘What about Lotte's kindy? I just can't decide.'

‘I think she should go,' he said thoughtfully, dropping little kisses up and down her cheeks.

‘Oh God, Tom, I don't mean
that
! Of course she should
go
. I mean
which
kindy; St Arnolds or Lady Benedict.'

‘I'm thinking Lady Benedict sounds sexy. That would be my choice. Like mmm . . .' He rolled on top of her. ‘Lady . . . Benedict . . . full of . . . grace . . .'

She laughed breathlessly. ‘Well, thanks for that considered opinion.' Now she had offloaded the top layer of clutter on her soul, she could reward his patience by rolling him back over and paying some attention. ‘I'm sure Lady Benedict would be
into
you too . . .'

‘She'd raise her cassock . . .'

‘Maybe yours, you'd be a priest . . .'

‘And she'd order me into the . . . you know . . . the little room behind the church . . . the bentricle . . . ventricle . . . whatever . . .'

‘And you'd lift your cassock . . .'

‘And she'd kneel down . . .'

‘As if in prayerful worship at the sight of a holy miracle . . .'

‘And she'd take your sacred object . . .'

‘And I would
thrust
myself . . .'

‘And then the Pope would walk in . . .'

‘And he would want a piece, too . . .'

‘Although I think Lady Benedict might be Anglican . . .'

‘But the Pope was just passing, out to get some milk, thought he'd pop in . . .'

‘To
her
. . .'

‘And then a few members of the congregation came in . . .'

‘And at first they'd be shocked . . . but then . . .'

And on it had gone. Grace sometimes wondered whether other married couples had grown-up serious sex, and indeed she and Tom had done it like that for a while, until they got bored and started telling stories to help each other get off quicker, useful when a baby was crying for a feed and time was short. And then the stories got sillier and veered between erotica and farce until it ended in a blast of sensation and they would promptly fall asleep, abandoning whatever priest or taxi driver or prostitute or French maid had been accompanying them in bed, these phantoms drifting away as they slept the small death and woke tangled in white sheets and peace.

She missed Tom so much.

A week later, the
For Auction
sign was hammered up out the front. Grace had hoped to conceal this calamitous and gossip-fuelling turn of events from the kindy mothers, but the three-metre high sign meant the jig was up.
Shape this Snug First Home to Your Dreams
,
or Demolish and Develop as Investment Opportunity (STCA)
it read.
Three Cosy Bedrooms . . . Baltic pine floor boards . . . Original kitchen
. . . She wanted to mock the real estate speak (how was the originality of the kitchen an asset?! God, they should have left the outdoor toilet in place, or maybe there was a cave on the block that Neanderthals had once used), but her heart wasn't in it. It truly had been a Snug First Home, and it had fulfilled many of her dreams, she thought sadly.

A knock on the door sounded through the house like a gunshot. Grace let in her mother, there to help her clean up for house inspections. Dawn had thought to bring a packet of extra-strength garbage bags and a bootful of cardboard boxes, which was more than Grace had done. She had also brought a plastic container with a freshly baked sponge cake. The kindness of it reduced Grace to immediate tears.

‘Mum!' Lotte had gone to spend the day with her father and Grace was free to fall apart.

‘Shush, shush, there, there.'

‘I don't want to sell this house.'

‘No. Well. Life serves up some pretty poor meals sometimes.'

‘It's all so awful!'

‘There, there. Your marriage has failed, you've lost your job.'

Grace snuffled into Dawn's shoulder, and waited for more. Where was the encouragement?'

‘I didn't . . . I haven't . . .'

‘No, no, you're right. You're a penniless single mother, abandoned by your husband, without a means of support, your career in tatters. That's what I told the golf ladies. It's terrible. Terrible.'