Each Way Bet (26 page)

‘Hmm.’

‘Now, mind my bag for a second.’ Emily grinned at her
sister and then dashed back through the front door, through the house and into the family room. There, Jack was leading a rather haphazard clean-up team. Megan was doing dishes with Kate wielding the tea-towel, Matt was packing up the various games and Cricket was intermittently playing with her newly recovered slinky and taking down the assorted signs and schedules that had been Blu-tacked around the house.

‘Jack –’ Emily beckoned him over to the doorway – ‘a quick word before I go.’

‘You’re off?’

‘Sure am. I’m going out with Sybil for a night on the town.’

‘You are?’ Jack looked surprised, and then a bit worried. ‘You watch her, she’s a bit of a . . . I’m not sure. But just watch her.’

‘At least she can tell gay from straight instantaneously. And besides, she’s interesting. But don’t worry, I’ve got her number.’

‘Don’t give it to me.’ Jack glanced around to make sure the kids weren’t listening. ‘My marriage is on the rocks already.’

‘And that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Emily –’

‘Jack, talk to her.’ Emily put her hand up as his mouth opened again. ‘Just shut up for a minute. I know you’re hurting because she’s thinking of leaving. But, Jack, you
know
her. More than anybody else
you
know her. And would she even be thinking of leaving if she wasn’t really unhappy? All that stuff you said before, when we all thought that Megan was pregnant, about support, and being there for each other, and working through things together – remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘You meant them, didn’t you? So put them into practice and talk to her. Support her. She’s really confused, and really unhappy. And she’s even
more
unhappy because she knows that she’s hurt you. So for god’s sake, don’t get all proud and stubborn.
You’ll end up blowing any chances that the two of you have.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘Who said it was supposed to be easy?’ Emily shook her head at him. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, but there’s one thing I’m sure of. A hell of a lot hinges on how you act when she walks back through that door. She’s teetering on the edge and she needs you.’

‘Look, Em, I know what you’re saying, but it takes two to tango.’

‘Yes, and you have –’

‘Enough.’ Jack leant down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘I know you mean well, but enough. You go enjoy your night on the town.’

‘Okay.’ Emily looked at him doubtfully. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks. And I mean that – thanks.’

The car horn honked just as Emily reached the front porch again, so she gave Sybil a quick wave to let her know she was coming. Then she bent, picked up her bag and gave her sister a grin.

‘Good luck with it all. Give me a ring and let me know how you went.’

‘Where have you been?’ Jill asked suspiciously. ‘You haven’t been talking to Jack, have you?’

‘Only in the language of love,’ said Emily, putting a hand behind her head and then throwing it back melodramatically.

‘Hmm.’

‘And now I’d better get going before my lift abandons me.’

‘Okay.’ Jill gave her a brief hug and then stood back. ‘Go start your new life!’

‘No problem, and you go start yours!’

Emily jogged down to the BMW and tossed her overnight bag in the open boot before slamming that shut and opening
the passenger side door. She slid in and looked at Sybil apologetically.

‘Sorry, something I had to do.’

‘Almost gave up on you,’ Sybil turned the engine over. ‘I was starting to worry that Charlotte would get bored and embalm me just to keep occupied.’

‘Sorry,’ said Emily again, looking over her shoulder at Charlotte, who smiled evenly back. Sybil put the car into gear, pulled smoothly out from the kerb and raised one hand from the steering-wheel to farewell Jill, who still stood on the front porch.

Emily waved as well, and then looked from her sister to the brick veneer house that framed her, with its green and white striped awnings half shuttering the windows, and its slightly crooked television aerial, and its overgrown but basically neat garden. Then the house was left behind as they continued down the street, past other houses that were all the same but each very, very different. And Emily leant back in her seat and smiled to herself. One day, she thought, one day I’ll have one of these houses and one of these lives and I’ll thoroughly enjoy it – but not just yet.

Darkness was slowly encroaching on the placidly cerulean day, not in the form of night, but by gravid clouds that moved heavily across the sky like women grasping themselves to halt their labour. Jill watched them limp steadily towards the horizon and thought back to the days when, as children, she and Adam used to lie spread-eagled on crisp backyard grass, watching the clouds hustle overhead. Then they had seemed
more like peak-hour traffic, single-minded in their impatience to get home after a long day’s work. How strange that now, when she was older and time itself had sped up like an over-wound clock, it seemed the clouds had reversed the trend and slowed themselves down, their steady progression across the sky totally out of sync with all the life boiling and bubbling below.

Jill sat down on the front step of her porch and kept watching the clouds. She wondered idly whether parachutists ever got distracted by the timelessness of clouds on their way down and forgot to pull their ripcords, or whether meditators used clouds to help them achieve tranquillity. But clouds weren’t going to help her with her problem. Jill sighed, and then stretched, and then thought. And the events of the day had somehow simplified matters, by calming the murky currents that had been bewildering her so, and crystallising what she wanted and what she didn’t want. The main issue, it seemed now, was her lifestyle, not her life itself. And the main problem with her lifestyle was pretty simple – she didn’t want to be a stay-at-home mother anymore.

Once, when she was a teenager, she and a friend went to a fortune-teller at the Melbourne Show and Jill was delighted to discover that she would be doing a lot of travelling over the years. At the time she envisaged a kaleidoscope of far-flung destinations – with her romantically astride a camel, or drinking café au lait at a Parisian roadside café, or stretched out on some exotic island beach thronged by palm trees and huskily handsome native men. But that had obviously not been what the fates had in mind. Instead the ‘lot of travelling’ had turned out to be trips back and forwards to kindergartens and schools, transporting lively junior teams to obscure tennis or netball courts, or trampolining venues, and weaving her way through after-school traffic to scouts and guides, and extra maths tutoring.
Then there were those rainy afternoons spent waiting outside the library, or the shopping centre, or a child’s friend’s house, while the other offspring in the back seat, on the way to some music lesson or other, did last-minute practising with a saxophone, or a clarinet, or a French horn, right in Jill’s ear.

But she also knew that one day she would look back fondly on all those hours of her life spent weaving through traffic and dodging cars driven by other mothers all hellbent on the same missions, with the same bickering children and the same strangely focused yet blank expressions on their faces. And, in an oddly satisfying sort of way, they had been tremendous fun. Because it wasn’t just the travelling, and the tedious waiting, but all those totally uninhibited hugs, and the messages of love stuck on the fridge amongst the stick-figure drawings, and the burnt piece of toast littered with rose petals, and the first nearly perfect piece of simple music played on the saxophone as part of an impromptu concert.

But enough was enough – and she’d had enough. That brief period when she had returned to part-time work had been a logical phase of her life’s journey, and she had felt valued and rewarded in a new and fresh and
needed
way. But then came Cricket. And, compared to the fluidity that had preceded her, the backtracking that had followed felt awkward and contrived, and never as
snug
as it had been with the others. And with each passing month it had seemed to shrink a bit more until, now, it wouldn’t fit at all.

The commonsense answer would simply have been to put the child into a crèche and return to work. As with most things that seem perfectly valid, though, there were several problems with this plan. One was that Jill knew instinctively this would not mean she progressed from one job to another, but instead took on a new job in addition to the one she already had. She would still be doing the cooking, and the
cleaning, and the carting – and working full-time as well. Another problem was that Cricket had been attending playgroup since she was a toddler; the close friendships she had formed had always seemed a good thing as they were all headed for the same kindergarten next year. But if Cricket were to be enrolled in a crèche, she would have to attend kindergarten as part of the program and start all over again. Then, the following year when she started school, it would be back to the children from playgroup, who would have formed new alliances in the meantime. But the last problem was perhaps the one that was potentially the most damaging – guilt. Guilt that she had been there for each of the other children, delivering them to kinder and/or school, and arranging play-dates in the afternoon, or making biscuits, or visiting the park, or just spending time with them walking slowly home and examining autumn leaves, and stray dogs, and strange multi-limbed insects.

As the first droplets of rain splattered over the concrete around her, Jill sighed and stood up slowly. There
was
no easy answer and perhaps it was time she faced up to the fact. She glanced at her watch and registered that she had been sitting outside for over half an hour. Which meant, given the fact he had left a good fifteen minutes or so before Emily, Adam must have struck it lucky. She smiled at this thought because if there was anyone who deserved a good, steady relationship, it was her brother Adam. She sent him a mental arrow of best wishes and walked back into the house, closing the front door securely behind her.

And the first thing that struck her on entering was the silence, an oddly still silence that had seemed welcoming last night at Emily’s, but here just felt eerie and unnatural. Jill grabbed her purple windcheater from a hook by the door and, slipping it on, walked through the lounge-room, which looked
like it had been tidied up somewhat, into the family room. And there were her offspring, all kneeling on the tapestry couch by the broken window, staring out into the backyard with their backs to her. Even the cat was having a look, sitting on the armrest with its tail draped over the side of the couch. Jill watched them all for a minute and then, before asking them what they were up to, looked around the family room and realised, to her surprise, that this too had been cleaned. The dishes had all been done and put away, the leftovers removed, and the floor swept. The dining-room table was now empty, but for a bowl of fruit in the centre, and all the assorted Melbourne Cup props had been stacked neatly in one of Corinne’s boxes by the island bench.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Mummy! Look! Look at Daddy!’

‘Mum!’ Megan turned around and stared at her mother. ‘You
totally
won’t believe what Dad’s doing!’

‘Try me.’ Jill walked over to the couch and attempted to ascertain what it was that her children were staring at, but all she could see was the usual leafy backyard, minus the dog and the top half of her rose bush, with the chalk playing-board now beginning to wash away under the steadily increasing drizzle.

‘He wants you to join him.’ Kate gave her mother a strange look.

‘Where?’

‘There.’ Matt pointed outside, so Jill bent to peer again through the window. With the rain now smearing the outside of the glass with threaded droplets, it wasn’t easy to make out what Matt, and now Kate and Megan as well, were gesturing at. Then, as she began to focus, she was drawn to a splash of burgundy colour up on the shed roof. It was an umbrella. The large burgundy and cream fringed outside umbrella, to be
precise.

‘He’s up on the shed,’ explained Megan, staring in that direction. ‘On the roof.’

‘Just sitting there,’ added Matt.

‘And we’re supposed to tell you to join him.’ Kate turned to her mother again. ‘Why’s that?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Jill slowly.

‘Can I come?’ asked Cricket eagerly.

‘No,’ said Megan, before her mother could answer. ‘You
know
Dad said no. He just wants Mum. Alone. Just the two of them.’

They all turned to stare at Jill, each wearing an apprehensive sort of grimace that spoke of a fear that their parents were about to throw caution, and their clothes, to the wind and make wild, passionate love up on the corrugated iron roof. Jill smiled at the thought, not because it was enticing but because it was ludicrous.

But as her eyes were drawn back to the burgundy splash on the shed roof, she remembered when they first bought this house, nearly twenty years ago now, and they had done that very thing. It was all part of marking their territory, Jack had explained, and as such they needed to christen every room. He put up an extremely convincing argument, not that Jill needed all that much convincing in those days. So every night after work, for the first few weeks of their residence, it had become a ritual to buy take-away of some description and set up a picnic in a different room. Then, after the meal had been consumed, dessert was partaken in a peculiarly fleshy fashion. And, after every room in the house had hosted this ritual, including the walk-in wardrobe, back verandah and even the linen closet, they moved their ceremonial antics outside. The shed roof had been the very last port of call. Of course, in those days it was surrounded by trees to the left and right, and
there were no neighbours to the rear to be surprised by the sight of that lovely young Carstairs couple fornicating on top of their shed. And they had both been younger, and slimmer, and a good deal fitter.

‘Why are you smiling?’ asked Matt with a frown at his mother. ‘What’s going on?’