Claustrophobia (11 page)

‘My mother painted that,' Kathleen said, carrying in the tray and nudging the pile of papers to place it on the table. ‘Pardon the mess. I'm too busy to do much housework, and it seems kind of decadent to pay anyone else to do it. This place is functional, I'm afraid, not fancy. My mother would turn in her grave!'

‘She's passed away,' Pen said, stupidly.

‘Cancer, a few years ago. I'm the only one left now.'

‘She was a talented artist,' Pen said. ‘At least, so far as
I
can judge.'

Kathleen smiled. ‘Well, others have vindicated your judgement – she had a little following, you know, and sold quite a few pictures. But it was harder then. For women, I mean. No career if you were married, and a bloody hard row to hoe if you weren't. Mum did it hard – my father moved out when I was still young.'

‘So did mine,' Pen said involuntarily. Then burned and flushed again – she had not meant to reveal anything about herself, let alone such a private detail.

‘Ah. Well, you know how it is, then.' Kathleen plunged and poured the coffee, and offered Pen a small white jug of cream. ‘What about you, are you in a relationship?'

Pen hesitated. ‘No.' There was no way she could let the talk steer to Derrick – she could lie outright but she could
not dissemble, make up some other identity for him, string along. ‘No, I'm not.'

‘Sorry, that was a personal question, I shouldn't be so abrupt. I just … I've had a bad couple of days. But I won't bore you with the details.'

Pen thought, ‘It's the emails, of course, they have unnerved her.'

It was a hollow thought, unsatisfying, and she wished now she could undo them.

‘I'm not bored,' she said, to compensate. ‘It's wonderful being here.'

Kathleen looked surprised at her vehemence, but then smiled again. ‘Can you stay for a while? We could talk about Simenon … Or there's a movie on SBS.'

‘A French movie,' Pen nodded, inspecting herself for traces of guilt towards Derrick and finding none. She felt oddly light, as if the inside of her had been emptied out. Maybe it was the strong coffee, this late at night.

The movie was called
Swimming Pool
, and turned out to be mostly in English. It was a shocker: slow, corny, and with the kind of dumb twist that makes you feel cheated. An incoherent plot that was just an excuse to pit an older woman against a younger woman, who never seemed to be wearing a shirt. At the end, they looked at each other and laughed.

‘I don't know why I watched that one all the way through,' Kathleen said. ‘Must have been the company! If I had been by myself at the cinema, I'd have walked out.'

‘Me too. But sometimes you just keep on with things, don't you, thinking they've got to get better? Even though you know they won't.'

Kathleen laughed. ‘Sounds just like life with my ex. Sorry, seems to be the theme of the evening. I'm over it, really.'

‘Were you married?' Pen said.

Kathleen cocked her head sideways. ‘No,' she said, with a curious expression. ‘No, I've never been married. You?'

‘Uh-uh.' Pen stood up and yawned. She looked around her again: amazing to think Kathleen had achieved all this by herself, a single woman. And no silver-spoon beginnings, either – though her mother must have been cultured, which would help … ‘I should probably get going. I've got to work tomorrow.'

The disturbing thing was, Pen didn't really want to leave at all, but every minute she waited would make it that much harder to conceal things from Derrick. Already he'd be out of his mind with worry, but she wouldn't be able to ring him until she was well away from Kathleen's house.

‘We should do it again. Give me a ring – or do you have a mobile?'

‘Actually, no,' Pen lied. ‘Hideous things.'

Kathleen grimaced. ‘A necessary evil, I guess. What's the best number to get you on, then?'

‘
Get
me,' Pen thought, feeling dizzy, but Kathleen's smile melted her fear somehow, and she said, ‘Just at work. I'm not often home.'

Derrick picked up after only one ring.

‘I'm just past the city now. I'm sorry, one of the girls had car trouble and I had to run her home.'

Simple was best, Pen had decided. It wasn't so much that she liked lying, as that one lie entailed another, in a kind of
chain of necessity. She hadn't realised how you had to think ahead – once you'd given a false plan, your choices were restricted to the shape of what you'd said. Next time she must leave it more open-ended.

Next time
. What made her even think there would be a next time? Pen's heart was beating so loudly she feared Derrick could hear it down the phone. A truck whizzed by, too fast and too close to her car.

‘You could have rung sooner.'

‘I'm really sorry, darling – there just wasn't a good time. I couldn't pull over …'

‘But you've pulled over now, you're not talking while you drive, I hope?'

‘No.' She almost snapped at him. She'd never realised before how nannyish Derrick could sound. ‘Look, I'll be home soon. The sooner I get off the phone, in fact.'

And then only the hours of night to get through, and then work in the morning for them both.

As she drove up to the house in the general darkness, Pen saw that Derrick had left the kitchen light on – maybe because the outside light would suggest no one home. But approaching the steps, gravel crunching too loudly, she was caught in the sudden glare of the porch light as it flicked on. Derrick was at the screen door already.

‘Quickly – we don't want to let in mosquitoes,' he said, avoiding her eyes.

Pen dumped her bag on the kitchen table. ‘I didn't think you would still be awake,' she said. ‘You know you don't have to wait up, what with work tomorrow.'

‘Yes, well, I've got a late start. Curriculum stuff in the city. I thought we might drive down together.' He was looking at her carefully now. Pen folded her arms. ‘Even have lunch together or something. I could meet you on campus.'

She tilted her head warily. ‘Sure … but it might be tricky. It takes longer than you think, to get across the city in the lunch hour.'

Derrick swallowed, tense. ‘If you don't want to, that's fine.'

‘Oh, it's just that I'd probably have a later finish. How would you get back?'

‘I could get a lift home with one of the others. But you wouldn't be this late again.'

‘Of course not.' Pen eyed him sidelong. ‘I'm sorry about the lateness. These things happen.' She yawned. ‘We should get to bed.'

‘You weren't … you weren't drinking, were you?'

Pen was indignant. ‘Do I look like I've been drinking?'

‘No. It's just – that time way back, at the farewell do. I was surprised at you, with the wine, you know.'

‘One glass!' Pen rolled her eyes. ‘I just got tired of the wowserish image. The way people judge you, as if you're a freak. It was my last day, for heaven's sake. More a joke than anything else.'

‘And you haven't touched it since.'

Pen gasped. ‘What
is
this, Derrick? Some kind of interrogation? I feel like I'm fifteen years old. You're not my father, you know.'

‘I'm aware of that.'

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Nothing.' He was rubbing his beard now, an anxious
habit. Normally Pen didn't mind; now the crisp chafing sound got on her nerves, already overstimulated. ‘You're just very tetchy.'

This was the point where she would usually reach over and kiss his cheek, or squeeze his shoulder – a wordless apology. Instead, she said, ‘So are you,' and began peeling off her clothes, getting ready for sleep.

Derrick followed her into the bedroom. Pen kicked off her shoes, letting each one fall with a thud.

‘All right,' he said. ‘It's just that I spoke to your colleague Maureen …'

‘What?'

‘Earlier, this afternoon. I phoned looking for you, to tell you about the in-service thing, but you were off somewhere in the library. Maureen never mentioned anything about a function tonight.'

Pen let out a big sigh. ‘Why would she? It was a last-minute thing, and in any case, she probably wasn't asked.'

‘You said everyone was going.'

‘Well, they
were
,' Pen laughed. ‘Maybe just not Maureen. Darling, you're getting paranoid. And I've said it before, it's not great to ring me on the work phone.'

‘But your mobile just rang out.'

‘Okay, fair enough.' She smiled. Now was the time for the little kiss on the cheek, the sisterly hug.

Derrick sat down on the bed at last and began to undo his shirt. He looked wistful, a small boy. ‘I don't know. I'm sorry, Pen. I guess I'm just not used to evenings without you, and I'm thinking, there must be other men there too, and they're all drinking, and things can run away …'

‘Nothing's running away,' Pen interrupted. ‘And I'm not interested in any other men. You should know that by now, sweetheart.' Appalled, she saw that his eyes were faintly teary.

Derrick smiled wanly. ‘Okay. I know. Trust is the thing. I'm sorry, Pen.'

‘You don't need to be.'

‘But I am.'

She tousled his springy hair, and held one hand to the bedside lamp switch, until at last he eased in beside her.

‘Anyway,' he said, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist, ‘we'll do lunch tomorrow, and I'll make it up to you. We haven't had lunch together in ages. It'll be good for us.'

And before Pen could think of an objection, he was breathing roughly, and asleep.

The main thing was to keep him off the campus. Not that she expected Kathleen to cross their path exactly – just that it was better not to be seen with Derrick. You never knew who was watching, or who spoke to whom. Pen grinned wryly to herself: hiding her husband, as some people hid their lovers. Now that she had two worlds, she didn't want to mix them.

So on the long drive down she said, ‘Let's meet in West Perth, get some sandwiches, and walk across to Kings Park.'

Their old stomping ground, after a fashion. They kept to the side away from the hospital, the mental ward. But that was all long ago.

Derrick spread the plaid car rug on the grass and they sat half in shade, half in sun. People were dotted all over the lawns and under trees; you couldn't ever get real privacy. Every so often machinery revved and whined – a mower, a
chainsaw – and then died, so that the smaller sounds of birds and insects seemed to balloon against the silence.

Beside them a crow with a broken-off beak tilted its head back so another crow could feed it.

‘Would you look at that,' said Derrick. ‘Not the way we think of crows, is it? Not exactly
nature red in tooth and claw
…'

‘No, only humans are like that,' Pen said. She felt a shudder – arsonists had been through here on more than one occasion, and diggers of shallow graves …

Suddenly the able crow lunged at their lunch bags, and missed. Pen and Derrick both laughed.

‘It's good to see you happy, Pen,' Derrick began. ‘I've been worried about you.'

‘Why?' Pen was genuinely surprised.

‘Is something stressing you? Something bothering you, at least.'

Pen shook her head, curling her lower lip.

Derrick paused a while. ‘I've been wondering, you know, how you want to handle the holidays. Not the term ones – I guess I'm doing German camp on my own this year, if you don't have leave. But there's the long summer break.'

‘That's a little while off yet.'

‘Yes, but I mean – we won't be able to do the Albany thing, clearly.'

They'd always had the long school holidays together, but this year would be different. Pen hadn't worked a full year at the new job yet, and even when she had, her holidays would only be four weeks long.

‘I'll still get a week off from Christmas to New Year. The
library will be shut then.' She felt a chill as she said it. At home a whole week. Why did that trouble her now?

Derrick sighed. ‘It's not quite the same, though, is it?'

‘Things can't always stay the same,' Pen said. ‘You wanted us – we agreed to try to be more open to change. More spontaneous.'

‘In any case,' she thought, ‘I shouldn't have to apologise for the conditions of my job. Not all spouses work in the same place and take their holidays at the same time!' But she couldn't say that aloud.

‘Okay, I can see that. But it's an awfully long time for me to be by myself.'

Pen smiled gently, but as she leaned back and gazed at him, the sun making a soft halo of his curls, she thought, for the first time, ‘He's a grown man afraid to be alone.' Once that would have made her glad to be needed. Now for some reason it felt
heavy
.

‘Well, there's always the house,' she said lightly, because the renovations were still only half completed. ‘Or if you get bored with that, you could write your book.'

Derrick had been saying for years he wanted to write his own language textbooks, frustrated with the shortcomings of those on the market, which were always American or British, and hugely expensive.

‘I guess I could do that,' he said, brightening. ‘And I could come down and meet you for lunch like this more often.'

Pen swallowed. Her ‘yes' was merely mechanical. Her legs were numb beneath her, and her palms, where she had leaned, stippled with small twigs, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking, suddenly, that Kathleen's summer holidays
would be at least that long, worse than Derrick's. Didn't academics take
months
off-campus? Perhaps she would even go overseas, some kind of study thing. That's what they did.

Pen hadn't factored that in. She must move – she must make her move – and soon.