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Another email from Mark. His first in eight days.

Hi Pee-Wee, sorry I haven’t touched base sooner, it’s been frantic here, although I did get to squeeze in a round of golf with Charlie. A putting green is better than a boardroom any day. I hope you’re not burning yourself out in the library. I’ve rung home a couple of times, late when I thought I’d catch you in bed. No answer. Asleep? Go easy, Pee-Wee. We don’t want you too tired to have babies!! See you next week, M

I wanted: Why are you never home? Why have you not emailed me? You’ve never done that before. I could have argued. Could have said, what do you care? Said I was with the girl I’ve been fucking. I don’t want a bloody baby! All I get from Mark is trust and babies and Chicago is good this time of year.

‘When does Mark get back?’

‘On the seventeenth.’

‘That’s next week!’

‘I know.’

‘When are you going to tell him about us?’

‘As soon as he gets back.’

I mean it.

‘What will you say?’

That’s a how-much-do-you-mean-it question.

‘I don’t know exactly. Come here.’

I pull her into her bed. We’ve spent so much time here I have a side of the bed with my books and my phone. ‘Let me show you what I read about on the internet. Lie on your back.’

She does as I say.

‘You are distracting me with sex. I’m not an idiot…’

Her voice trails off. She’s lifting herself off the bed.

She’s not an idiot but she is distracted.

The bike shop is small. There are bits and pieces hanging from the walls and the ceiling. Bikes shine in rows and rows. Price tags. Six thousand dollars for a bike, the world has gone mad. I show BJ.

‘Wouldn’t ride anything less.’ She looks about, inhales. ‘Smell that?’

I sniff. ‘What?’

‘The shop. The rubber. The grease. If I could bottle that smell.’

‘Eau de Bike Shop. Now I know what to get you for Christmas. It’s only six months away.’

‘If we’re still hanging out.’

I’m sure my stomach is on the carpet.

‘If?’

‘Babe, you tell me nothing. You tell me you’re fine, you and Mark will be sorted. I’m not fine.’

‘Why can’t “I love you” be enough for now?’

We’re talking over the top of a rack of clothes. She’s looking for a new bike top. It has to be black. She’s turned down everything I’ve found for her. Irritating. I offer her another one.

‘Nope.’

‘It looks fine to me.’

‘It would. Everything’s fine with you.’

She throws the bike top onto the rack; it slides off and lands on the floor. I pick it up and hang it where I found it.

‘Whatever.’

I learned
whatever
from Ruby. The all-occasion come- back.

‘Not whatever. Babe, you’re chewing on my heart. I’ve got nowhere to go with this. I love you, but you’re killing me.’

If I was home, if this was Mark, I’d already be out of the driveway.

I wait for her outside.

When did this turn into chewing on her heart?

Last night I slipped out of her bed and cried in the toilet. I have missed calls from Mark. Pressure to have babies. Indecision. I can’t tell her any of this. I’ll go from toothbrush, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant at her house to
let’s meet somewhere neutral.

Gloss-black lycra bike top with heavy blue denim jeans is probably not the done thing. Not many people can make that look work. BJ can. She bounces out of the
shop. A change in mood: a new bike top is chicken soup for the cyclist.

‘Feel this,’ she slides a flat hand across her stomach, ‘go on.’

The top is smooth and soft.

‘Beautiful.’

In the middle of the day, outside a bike shop on Upper Heidelberg Road, I slide my hands across her torso and chew on her heart.

Mark is due home tomorrow. I’m meant to be packing my bags and letting BJ down easy.

‘I’ll call you when I can. Text.’

‘When will that be?’

‘I don’t know.’

I’m not looking at her. Filling my bag with the stuff I had on her bedside table, the clothes I’d slipped into her drawers, a jacket I’d hung in her wardrobe. I drop to the floor to find my shoes.

‘Why are you taking everything?’

Still on all fours. Under the bed would be a great place to hide. ‘I’m taking the stuff that Mark is used to seeing round the house.’

‘Would you look at me at least?’

I pop my head up like one of the rabbits in
Watership Down.
‘I’m looking. Can I have that?’

She’s clutching the book I just started.

‘You think he’s going to notice Stephanie Plum is missing?’

I stand up, dust my knees, straighten my skirt, look about the room. It’s as if I’d never been there. The clock radio says eleven-fifteen.

‘What about my life?’

‘Beej, I’ll call you when I can.’

She walks me to the front door. I try to kiss her but she turns her face.

The milk is out of date, the bread is mouldy and the bananas are decomposing. I should give them to Ruby so she can make me a cake. BJ hasn’t been in my bed but I wash the sheets. Mark loves clean sheets, the washing- powder fresh-for-one-night-only feel.

I hear the shower running then sense his not-quite-dry presence in bed.

‘How are you, wife?’

He sounds sleep-deprived and requiring a week off. He won’t get it.

‘Good. You? I missed you.’

True. I’ve been living someone else’s life, somebody in need of a parachute, or at least strong health insurance. It’s the middle of May, just over six weeks since the couch and being home by myself for most of the day, cleaning house, catching my reflection in our bedroom mirror (tired and happy, fit and unfocused) has shown me how
lacking in control my life has become.

He’s lying on his stomach, his arms under the pillow. ‘I tried calling you a few times.’

‘I was probably at work.’

‘Nights in a row?’

‘Sure, why not? There’s only so much TV Mrs Dalloway and I can watch. And there’s always something to do in the library.’

Telling lies in the dark.

‘Come here.’ He kisses me. His face is scratchy and his lips are big.

Mark is at work and I’ve come home to worry in private. I call Ruby.

‘Mark’s home.’

‘Good,’ she says. ‘How is he?’

‘What about how am I?’

‘I know how you are. You’re beside yourself. I’ve done this, remember? I was beside myself, too. And Joel and I weren’t married, we were just hanging out. So, how is Mark?’

She and Joel were more than hanging out. A year and a half of exclusivity. Two overseas holidays, a noisy bust- up, tears and bad behaviour.

‘He’s tired, busy. I had to go down on him last night.’

‘Had to?’

‘You know, show everything’s normal. I pretended he was BJ.’

‘I wouldn’t have believed that kind of mind over matter was possible. But then, I never thought you would go behind Mark’s back. You owe him and yourself more than that. And BJ.’

‘I’m hanging up now.’

I don’t wait for her to say goodbye.

On the tram I dial Keith’s number. When he answers, sounding breathless, explaining he was at the clothesline, any resolve I have to ask him what I should do evaporates. He sounds like he loves me and I can’t disappoint him. I make it general. The footy. The weather. The American President.

‘How’s Catherine?’

‘She’s well. She has a niece we can stay with in Darwin. And Margie is coming around. Is there anything particular you wanted to discuss, Peta?’

‘No, Dad. Just saying hi.’

‘Sure, love?’

‘Yes. I better go. I’m at my stop.’

I’m not at my stop. I’m blocks and blocks away. I get off and walk the rest. My bag is heavy. I deserve it.

I’d love to speak to Taylor. The ball is still in my court from when she played it weeks ago. But it’s been too long.

A text from BJ:
Lunch @ our place?

I consider replying I have too much work to do. It’s not a lie. We had removalists. Specialists, I was told. They packed the books into the shelves and put a quarter of them away in opposite order. Like a train running backward.

At McDonald’s we sit opposite each other. I don’t know how we get through it. I haven’t touched her for days. Her hair is slicked down and oily—she’s been wearing her helmet all morning—and her hands are dirty grey. I want them on me.

I’m not doing it.

Being able to not go to the toilets and do what we want is the most in control I’ve felt since Mark touched down.

‘I need you,’ BJ says.

‘He’s going to Sydney on Monday.’

‘Yeah, but he’ll be back, won’t he? I need you in my life.’

‘Same. I’m working on it.’

Chewing gum doesn’t get as stretched as I feel.

Mark has been home seven days and we’ve only had one meal together. A quick lunch at Anna’s. Forty-five minutes we spent with each other. I didn’t eat. I can’t. I had coffee. He consumed a big bowl of salad and I sat opposite him calculating the minutes he spent chewing as opposed to talking to me. The rest of the time I looked out for BJ.

Places Good For Argument:

1. The car—no escape.
   
2. Lifts—no traffic, but the fight would have to be short.
   
3. Christmas dinner—why not? Everybody does.
   
4. In the bathroom. If I’m cleaning my teeth, I can’t hear much and I don’t have to be intelligible.
   
5. In bed—again captive, but no background noise.
   Things can be said and heard until somebody decides to sleep in the spare room. At our house it is usually Mark. I used to go and get him but I haven’t done that for years.
   
6. The kitchen bench—popular in sitcoms—is our best place for argument too.
   

I’m making a late dinner—steak and salad and roast potatoes—when Mark comes home. I can tell by how he dumps his bag on the dining table and heads straight to the fridge that it’s on. Here it comes.

‘I’ve been home three weeks and hardly seen you. Are you avoiding me?’

He leaves his bottle cap on the windowsill. Annoying.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, my head down. Peel, slice, chop.

‘What gives?’

The frypan sizzles. I think. He waits.

‘It’s work. I’m wondering if the compactus has room for the
All England Law Reports
or will they have to be housed on another floor?’

I should have turned the steaks over. I flip them. One’s too dark, it’ll have to be mine. Why can’t meat make a sound when it’s ten seconds away from burning?

‘I’m not an idiot. You are never troubled by work. The harder it gets, the better you like it.’

‘Mark, I’ve nothing to say.’ I turn the steak.

‘Well, let me say it then. There is something going on. You don’t talk to me. You don’t smile. You’re always sighing.’

He drops his empty bottle into the rubbish bin, not
the recycling container like I’ve asked him to. And they say women are passive-aggressive.

‘When would you have had time to notice anything like excess sighing, Mark? You were gone for weeks. You didn’t even ask if it was okay. Since you’ve been back the most I’ve seen of you is your back to me in bed.’

Ruby would tell me to stop flipping the steak.

‘Peta, you look like hell. You’ve lost weight. You’re not doing any of the stuff you normally do. When was the last time you spoke to Taylor?’

At breakfast seven weeks ago. Might have been the last time I ate.

‘How would you know what’s normal, Mark?’

There are two plates of steak and roast potatoes and salad on the bench.

‘If you don’t want to have a baby, tell me.’

‘Why do I have to articulate every little thing for you? If you know me so well, why can’t you tell I’m scared?’

‘Peta, I can see you’re scared. But I don’t know what about. I’m sick of this. I’m sleeping in the spare room tonight.’

‘No, Mark. I will.’

‘Whatever.’

He walks down the hallway, tipping all the framed pictures and photos on his way past. He knows I hate things tilted.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday. Two weeks gone just like that. Mark and I don’t talk, he works, I work. I catch up with BJ, but we’re not talking much either.
Maybe she doesn’t want to cry—tears are what’s stopping me talking. We have sex at her house, or in my car. I’d love to keep my hands off her, show some control, but I can’t. Plus, fucking is not talking. I don’t eat. I feel sick all the time.

My new library twists around the internal stairs of our three floors. We have couches and low tables, for unscripted sessions on wi-fi. There are no freestanding bookshelves—it’s on the walls or tucked out of the way. My work area doesn’t look like much of an office: it’s open, I have only one wall and that’s behind me. No privacy. You have to cry in the toilets. Or make worry look industrious. Or wait until lunchtime to think about everything unravelling. I’m sitting with my head in my hands, elbows hard on the desk, eyes closed. I’m listening to my breathing, in through my nose, out through my mouth. Fingertips at my temples, rubbing.

Shit. And I used to love Thursdays.

‘Well. Are you going to tell me what you’ve done?’ Taylor. She’s carrying a box tied with a burgundy ribbon.

‘Who let you out?’ I stand up and reach across the desk to hold her.

‘Dave’s on leave. I had to remind him it’s not babysitting, it’s parenting. Look at this, my first afternoon off for months and I spend it with a person who can’t call me back. It must be love.’

Taylor drags a chair across the carpet, tracks like skis. She sits opposite me, pushes aside a stack of subscription invoices—we’re not paperless when it comes to money— and places the box between us.

‘That had better be cake,’ I say.

There’s a small pair of scissors in my top desk drawer. They used to be Mum’s. Her best scissors, for fabric—if she caught me cutting paper with them she’d tut and take them from me. I pass them over, gold handles first.

She opens the box. Two éclairs and a lemon tart.

‘I’m starting a new diet next week. On the first of July, this,’ she grabs two handfuls of stomach, ‘will be on its way out. I’m doing Equi-slim. The shakes will be so convenient. And I’ll never be hungry. Did you know, under this layer of body fat, I’ve got a six pack?’

I love how she makes body fat sound disembodied. Like she can take it off and hang it on a hook for the next guy.

‘What’s happened to the plus-size modelling?’

It’s good not to talk about me.

‘Not my thing. Anyway, I haven’t come here to talk about that. It’s that girl from the cafe that day, isn’t it?’ she says.

‘It is.’ I can’t help smiling.

‘What’s the problem?’

I was about to take a bite of my éclair. ‘I’m married. I’ve been sleeping in the spare room for a fortnight. I’ve probably put her off with how I left it.’ The icing is melting. My fingerprint is sliding thick into chocolate. My appetite is gone. I unstick myself and set the éclair back into the box. ‘Sorry, maybe give it to the dog? Gee, it’s good to see you.’

‘The girl?’

‘She’s Carole Smart’s daughter.’

‘Is she? Who’s that?’

Carole Smart feels less like somebody I have to worry about if Taylor isn’t worrying about her. Still.

‘She’s Mark’s boss. BJ is Mark’s boss’s daughter.’

It’s funny. You have a secret, you tell someone, they don’t call the police or look up the nearest mental hospital. They listen, add what you’ve said to what they know about you and go with it. Taylor knows and I feel better already.

‘So? She looked like she could handle herself.’ She pushes another chunk of cake into her mouth. Taylor makes eating cake look sinful. She swallows her mouthful. ‘You know, you people without kids shit me.’

Not what I expected. ‘I’m not following you.’

‘Peta, you would never have done whatever you did if you weren’t already having problems. If it’s over—your marriage, I mean—bin it and move on.’

‘But—’

‘I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody else. I’ve been seeing someone. I met Glen at the gym when I was going through my Zumba phase. He’s too young for me, his job is…well, it’s not a job, it’s a criminal activity. He sells ecstasy.’

She’s having an affair with a drug dealer? ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Same reason you couldn’t tell me. And why I haven’t chased you too hard. I know this life. It’s too great and it’s too awful. When I’m with Glen there’s no place else and when I’m away from him I talk about crap—sleep mostly—so nobody asks me how I really am. Peta, the idea of my kids not being under my roof every day, night, of my life…I can’t take it.’

‘God, I had no idea.’

She straightens up in the chair. Shoulders back, head high.

‘Don’t worry. Something will happen. Probably he’ll be arrested. It’ll be easy to stop seeing Glen if he’s in jail.
Anyway, what I’m saying is, you don’t have kids to try to make it work for. Tell Mark and be done with it. Do you want any of this?’

The lemon tart.

I shake my head. ‘I feel bad. There’s nothing wrong with him.’

‘Nothing except that he’s never home and you’ve found yourself someone else. It’s called growing, Pete. When was the last time you told him you love him?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Hmm.’

Taylor sounds like a mother when she says hmm.

‘Just because I can’t remember, doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s not like you’ve got a little love-barometer on your bedside table and you check it every night when you’re making sure your alarm is set.’

‘Alarm? Who sets an alarm anymore? See how easy it is to talk crap?’

I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t saying I love you. I’ve said it to BJ. I think of loving Mark as a
love your work
type of thing. I love M*A*S*H, love vanilla ice-cream, love Melbourne, love Mark.

‘You could do more of this,’ she gestures at me, my surroundings. ‘Keep sitting at your desk with your face in your hands, moaning.’

‘I was moaning?’

‘I thought you were having a baby. Or an orgasm.’

An orgasm would be great about now. It’d mean that I wasn’t here having this conversation, that I was in bed with BJ or by myself.

‘Please Taylor, will you come with me when I speak to Mark?’

‘No way. I’m not driving your getaway car. Try to work things out with him, or stop trying to have it all. It’s a bad look. Trust me, I know.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘I hate it when you say you’ll think about it, Pete. It’s passive.’

‘I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.’

I stand up, make it real. Start shoving things into my bag, switch my laptop off, wait for the screen to go dark before I close it.