Trust (33 page)

Gerry took a big gulp. ‘One on one? Not what she’s interested in, mate. We haven’t had a shag since this happened. It’s been weeks.’

Marcus looked appalled. ‘There are
other
reasons to spend time alone together, you know. How old are you again? Nineteen?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Gerry growled, embarrassed.

‘Suggestion: why don’t you do something just with Susanna this long weekend? Get her away somewhere; drive down the Great Ocean Road, for instance. Romantic. You could stay at Lorne, or Apollo Bay.’

‘This weekend? I was going to come in here and get some work done. No phones ringing, no interruptions. Get a push on the Sydney stuff.’

‘This is the
Labour Day
long weekend, Gerald, commemorating the eight-hour day and fair conditions for the working man – if you can remember such an archaic notion.
I’m
not coming in, I can tell you right now. John and I are going up to the Trickey’s vineyard, there’s a big working bee on. Place looked like a write-off straight after the fires but they’re soldiering on.’

‘And John’s wife’s really ended it? For good?’

‘Yep. Moved the boyfriend in and all,’ said Marcus cheerfully.

‘All this time, she had somebody else on the side too.’ Gerry slowly shook his head. ‘Fucking amazing.’

‘Isn’t it? I always thought it was pretty suss, the way she was so slow on the uptake. Turns out it was
his
wife she was waiting to see off!’

‘So how’s John taking it?’

‘Rather well, actually,’ said Marcus smugly. ‘Settled right in, already plaguing me with his
hideous
notions of redecorating.’ He didn’t sound unhappy about this.

‘Queer eye for the bi guy, huh? Good for you, buddy. Bottoms up,’ said Gerry, raising his beer in congratulation.

‘So to speak,’ Marcus leered.

Gerry rolled his eyes. ‘No, seriously. You must feel great. God knows it’s been a long time coming.’

‘Oh,
stop
!’ said Marcus with a queeny flap of his hand, and they both laughed helplessly.

‘But enough about me,’ said Marcus eventually. ‘What are you going to do about
your
marriage?’

Gerry’s face sagged. ‘It’s not just my marriage, mate, it’s my kids too. My
family
. Stella-Jean should’ve woken up by now!’ Anger had crept into his voice; Marcus grunted sympathetically, knowing it was there to mask the fear.

‘Look, you’re doing all you can for Stella-Jean, and so are the doctors and what have you. And Seb: same there. It’s Susanna you’ve got to concentrate on now.’

‘You know what she said to me the other day?’ said Gerry, moodily rolling a bottle cap round and round between his fingertips. ‘I asked her when she was going back to work, and she said, “All I want is my old life back. Can you give me that, Gerry?” ’ He flicked the bottle cap away; it pinged against the wall and bounced back into the courtyard. They both watched it roll along the uneven brick paving and come to a stop. ‘How can I give her her old life back, Marco?’

‘I don’t know, Gez,’ said Marcus softly.

‘I
can’t
. It makes me feel completely fucking …
useless
when she says that.’

‘Yeah, I can imagine it does.’

They were silent together for a while, drinking their beers, all the companionable ghosts of their decades of friendship sitting quietly there with them.

‘Just give her time. You two’ve been married for twenty years.’

‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Tell her you love her. That can’t hurt.’

‘I guess not.’

Everything should have been going swimmingly. Gerry had phoned Susanna’s mobile, told her he’d pick up some Thai food (her favourite), even bought a bottle of the grassy sauvignon blanc she liked. But halfway through dinner, he made a regretful discovery.
It’s not possible to flirt with your wife: she knows you too well
. Uncomfortably, he realised he’d assumed Susanna would
always
look at him the way she used to: that eager-to-please, adoring expression.
Devoted, like a dog
. Except that now she seemed more like a cat, aloof and unamused.

Give her time
, Marcus had said. All right, he would. He even went to the cupboard and got out a second bottle of wine. Finally, she started talking. Nothing world-shattering, just about a letter she’d got from the management at the retirement village, saying they had a waiting list of retirees wanting to move into the village, and asking her to make her mother’s unit available for sale as soon as possible. ‘It was in Mum’s contract, apparently. Three months,’ Susanna said. Her words had the fuzzy edge of too much drink.

Gerry nodded encouragingly. ‘Well, that’s good news, Suze. That means we can get stuck into the renovations without having to borrow money.’

‘The renovations?’ Susanna said. There was a long pause. ‘I thought — weren’t you going to fund that?’

Gerry smiled. ‘It’s
our
house, babe. Why should I be the one to pay for it all?’ Abruptly, her expression closed down. ‘Jean would’ve been more than happy,’ he added, feeling a flicker of impatience.
Don’t clam up again, damn it.

Susanna reached for the bottle of wine. ‘That’s empty, Suze,’ he told her, but she upended it over her glass anyway and was cartoonishly amazed by the three feeble drops that trickled out.

‘Shit,’ she said, holding the bottle up to the light to peer at its patent emptiness. ‘How did that happen?’ She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Shit,’ she said again, ‘is that the time?’ As she stood up, she pushed the table away from her a bit too hard. Their empty glasses wobbled.

Yep, she’s pissed
, thought Gerry.
I am too, a bit.

‘I’ve got to get to bed.’

‘I’ll join you,’ Gerry said, wondering if a boozy screw might still not be out of the question. Worth a try. He came up behind her as she stood at the sink filling a tall Duralex glass – the one she liked to have on her bedside table – with water, and put his arms around her, curving his frame around hers, snuggling his crotch against her bottom. ‘Mmm, you feel good,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Check this neat little waist. You’re getting your girlish figure back, baby.’

Susanna snorted as she turned the tap off so hard the plumbing gave a small shudder. ‘Yeah. Fabulous what tragedy can do. I should recommend it to Weight Watchers, eh?’

He chuckled – humour, always a good sign – and crossed his forearms across her torso, holding one of her breasts with each hand. ‘I think a closer inspection is highly recommended,’ he purred.

Brusquely, she knocked his hands away. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m going to bed. To sleep.’

A flush of anger prickled Gerry’s skin. ‘Exhausted? How can you be? All you’ve done is sit in a chair all day.’

‘Is that so?’ Susanna said. ‘Actually, that’s
not
all I’ve been doing.’

The way she was slurring her words was almost comical, but Gerry wasn’t about to laugh, no way. Laughing at her would totally cruel his chances.
Give her time
, he remembered, and leaned against the counter, inclining his head at a disarming angle
.
‘Well … so, tell me, Suze, what else have you been up to?’

‘Drawing,’ she said. She was gripping the benchtop so hard her knuckles gleamed whitely.

‘Oh? What have you been drawing?’
Relax
, he urged her silently, and reached across to stroke the back of her hand.

She gave him a guarded look. ‘Work for the exhibition I’m supposed to be having. Remember?’

‘Exhibition? Hasn’t that been cancelled?’ He saw immediately that he’d made a tactical blunder. ‘No. Right. The – ah, the exhibition, at the … council gallery. Great! So, show me what you’ve been drawing.’

‘You want to see?’ It sounded like a challenge rather than an invitation. ‘Really?’

‘Sure. Of course.’

Susanna bumped against the couch as she walked a little unsteadily through the living room. Gerry leaned against the kitchen bench, waiting. She went outside. He heard the car door slam, then she was back, carrying a large black folder, which she thumped down on the kitchen table.

‘Here!’ she said. ‘You might as well have a look.’

As Gerry approached, he had a presentiment of what he would find in there: portraits of their daughter in her coma. He paused. Her stillness, so terribly like death.
Am I okay with this?
He squared his shoulders and used both hands to withdraw the contents of the folder, all the sheets of paper, all at once.

The drawings that confronted him, a mix of pencil and pen and ink, were not what he’d expected. Not at all. He lifted one after another, each sheet stiff with other bits of paper that had been glued on, dense with detail, hand-lettered text here and there. ‘What the hell is this?’ he asked, baffled. He looked up at Susanna, who was watching him with a defiant expression. ‘These are like comics!’ He looked at another sheet. ‘War comics …’

‘You could call them comics,’ said Susanna stiffly. ‘Or chapters in a graphic novel, maybe?’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Gerry wonderingly. ‘These are horrible.’ He didn’t see her face, her whole body, tighten. He pulled one sheet to the top of the pile. ‘The SIEV X,’ he said, pointing to a line of large text. ‘I remember that.’

The central panel showed the heart of the tragedy: the stormy sea, at night, and a small ship, foundering. Amid the waves a mass of women and children struggling to stay afloat, clinging to each other, to anything floating, including the bodies of those already drowned. Gerry winced and turned his face aside from the heart-stopping terror on their faces, then looked back at the drawings through unwilling, narrowed eyes. Before the storm, there had been the perilous journey out of war and hardship; before that, the lives, the marriages, the births.

‘Yes,’ said Susanna. ‘Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X, as our wonderful government of the day called it. They knew about it, they knew it was leaving Indonesia. Three hundred and fifty three people we allowed to drown that night. Mostly women and children.’

‘
We?
Don’t ever say that,’ said Gerry angrily. ‘I didn’t vote for that little prick Howard, and nor did you.’

‘No, but did we do
anything
?’ asked Susanna, standing back from the table, her arms crossed high over her chest. ‘To protest? Some people did, but not me, or you. The government of this country –
our
country – treated refugees worse than criminals, for
years
, and you and I were too busy with our comfy little lives to even write a letter saying, “Excuse me, that’s not nice. Please don’t do that.” ’

Usually when Susanna had too much to drink she either got maudlin or turned into a giggler. Never this sort of challenging aggro. Gerry did not appreciate her attitude one little bit.

‘What exactly is your point here, Susanna? Going for middle-class guilt trip of the year award, are you?’

She gave an insolent shrug. ‘Maybe. Maybe I am.’

Gerry shook his head. ‘Well, isn’t that marvellous.’ He pulled out another sheet at random. ‘What is
that
?’ he cried, rearing back.

Susanna peered at the drawing. ‘In Rwanda. Tutsi women and girls were gang raped and then sliced to ribbons with machetes and broken bottles. From the inside, as you see.’

‘That is
disgusting
, Susanna,’ he cried, truly appalled. ‘That is worse than the worst pornography.’

‘Yes, I agree,’ she said. ‘It is disgusting. What people do to each other is often disgusting. Well, what
men
do, for the most part. No getting away from it, Gerry. It’s mostly men who do this disgusting stuff.’

Gerry slapped the offensive drawing face down on top of the others. He turned his back on them to confront her. ‘Tell me you are not thinking of exhibiting these.’ His voice was loud, and getting louder. ‘Tell me you’re not even remotely considering putting this horrific
shit
on the walls of the council bloody gallery, and inviting people to come and look at it.’

‘Yes. I am.’

Gerry ran his hands tensely through his hair, then held his palms to his temples for a moment, seeing how disastrously the evening had gone off the rails, realising that he needed to calm things down.
Reason with her
, he told himself
.

‘Susanna, I know you’ve been through a lot. We both have. But it’s
your
mother who died, I understand that, on top of what’s happened to the kids. You’re traumatised. Depressed.’ She was staring at the floor.
Does she get it?
‘You just can’t show this stuff, Suze,’ he said persuasively. ‘Comics, about war and torture and genocide? It’s sick! You’d be … you’d just be making a fool of yourself.’

‘They’re not finished,’ she said calmly. ‘These are just rough drafts. The final versions will look … quite different. Sharp. I’m going to work on them in my studio.’

‘What – studio?’

‘The space I’ve just rented at the art centre near here. Studio Lulu.’

For a few moments, Gerry couldn’t actually say anything. ‘And when,’ he managed finally, ‘
when
were you planning to tell me about this studio? Let alone show me these hideous drawings you’ve been doing, while sitting, let me just add, at our poor daughter’s bedside.’

Susanna seemed to be considering this. ‘I don’t know, Gerry. When were you planning to tell me who you were with on the night our poor daughter, and our poor son, and my poor mother, were in a car crash?’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking —’ and suddenly her deadly calm was gone. ‘I’m talking,’ she yelled, ‘about your fucking
girlfriend
.’

‘Girlfriend?’ Gerry repeated, genuinely mystified. ‘What the hell? I don’t have a girlfriend!’

She rushed at him, fury making her face ugly, hardly recognisable. For a moment Gerry thought she was going to take a swing at him, and he was ready to grab her arm if she did.

‘Someone saw you, Gerry,’ she hissed. ‘Someone saw you with her at the hotel in Sydney.’