Elsewhere in Success (8 page)

It's part of their DNA, apparently, not confined to Louisa. He is flicking between radio stations and hears that it is every woman's fantasy to shop till they drop with their man at the ready to catch them, push them back out there, and urge them on. Like some kind of shopping coach. Harry takes a deep breath and suggests that they spend a day of shopping together. Louisa puts on her new dress, and does her hair up in a new style. The sun is shining.

At the centre they bump into Carole. Harry is embarrassed. He hasn't seen her since that night at Clancy's. She gives no sign – seems to have forgotten all about it. She is pushing a trolley containing nappies and other age-inappropriate items. She invites them both to lunch.

‘We're babysitting Gordon's niece,' she tells Louisa, ‘for a week! But she's a good kid. Give me about an hour or so to get things sorted – let's say around one? It should be fun. Gordon won't be there because he's not back until tomorrow, but Harry will still be needed to keep you company when I have to attend to her, you know.'

‘We'd love to,' says Louisa, ignoring Harry's raised eyebrows and other facial signalling. Why does she do that?
Why does she have to make decisions for both of them without consulting him? She knows he's not comfortable around kids.

Two hours later, Harry finds himself awkwardly seated on a low sofa with the baby pulling herself up on his trouser legs to achieve a tottering stand. Her small hands are wet and plump and she leaves marks from a biscuit that Carole has given her. From the smell that is wafting upwards she needs changing.

To his annoyance she has the same dark curly hair that Bella had as a baby. Her eyes are almost black and there is a distracting level of openness in her gaze as she watches his face. The whole experience is uncomfortable and inconvenient.

‘Isn't she cute, Harry?' says Carole. ‘She's so cute.'

‘She's all right I suppose,' he says. ‘I'm not really into kids.'

‘You have a daughter, don't you?' Carole persists. ‘What happened?'

‘Carole!' says Louisa.

‘Not everyone is cut out to be a parent,' says Harry. ‘You know that.'

Carole flushes. ‘What is that supposed to mean?'

‘I thought you'd had a falling out with your own.'

‘Harry!' says Louisa.

‘No,' says Carole, looking at Louisa, her eyes widening, ‘we didn't have a falling out.' She laughs. ‘I'm hardly the sort of person to say never darken my doorstep again, am I?'

‘No, I suppose not,' he says.

‘Anyway, part of being a good parent is letting kids make their own choices. There is a big difference between that, and falling out. Independent kids are precisely those who are secure enough to take off by themselves to explore the boundaries of the world. Personally, I think it's a good thing.' Carole barely loses her composure. In reality, his comment
seems to have piqued her interest. She smiles into his eyes. ‘I must admit, I do miss her. And the children of course.' Her gaze wanders to the photo gallery on the wall above his head. ‘Anyway, we've been talking quite a lot lately, on the computer. We've been using the social media to share photos.'

‘Oh, that,' says Harry.

‘The kids are really happy and well adjusted. They're doing amazingly well in school. It's hard to believe. Such a relief! I think it's a credit to them.'

‘Sure,' says Harry.

‘Jenna has been chosen to play lead violin in the school concert. How about that! I don't know where she gets it from. Well, I do. I learned the cello, only I was lazy with my practice. You'd know all about that, Harry. Just kidding!'

Harry smiles, and shrugs.

‘Viscount is a great little gardener, apparently. Tomatoes. They put the time in, of course. They don't buy them too much rubbish. Gordon and I are planning a trip over. We might combine it with Scotland. If Gordon can't get the extra time off, I'll go on without him.'

Carole gazes at Harry. ‘Every decent relationship has to go through its ups and downs. That's what keeps it honest. Don't you think?' Her voice is calm, but she challenges him with her eyes. He finds it vaguely stirring. She's not bad looking even when he's stone cold sober.

‘Oh well,' he says. ‘Sorry.'

‘What for?' she says, still smiling.

‘I'm not much into computers,' says Harry, ‘or this social networking. I'm a bit of a Luddite.'

‘You should,' she says. ‘You need to come into the twenty-first century.'

‘It's not compulsory. I do what I like.'

‘Getting stuck in your ways,' she says. ‘That's the fast track to getting old. Not good.'

‘I think the baby needs changing,' Louisa observes. ‘Do you want me to do it?'

Carole beams. ‘Oh, would you? I don't think I could face another one today.'

‘You should stop feeding her biscuits,' he says.

‘I'm allowed to spoil her. I'm her auntie.'

At that Carole disappears into the kitchen, using the excuse of making more coffee while Louisa changes the child. Harry takes a stretch and a closer look at the photographs along the wall. As photographs go, they are marginally more interesting than most. They all feature Carole's daughter, her children, and a younger Carole and Gordon in various combinations, each caught seemingly unawares in the act of living or relating to one another. Not all smiles. A few normal, posed ones, here and there. One in which they're all laughing, except for Gordon.

Harry turns back to the room and looks around. The last time they visited, Gordon and Carole lived in a different place. The new house is immaculate, ultra-modern, and apart from the small gallery of photographs, there are no other pictures, or wall hangings, no ornaments or knick-knacks, and no clutter other than the play pen, and few scattered toys.

When Carole comes back, they drink half the coffee and prepare to leave. Louisa looks as anxious to go as he is.

‘She's exhausting,' she says once they pull out of the driveway.

‘Who? Carole?'

‘The baby.'

He suddenly feels dog-tired. On the drive home his mind is flooded with memories of Bella, memories that he didn't even know were still there, things she did, as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

‘Bugger!' he says, and he feels Louisa stiffen in the seat next to him.

‘What?'

It takes him a moment to respond.

‘I forgot to take the DVDs back. I'll need to go out again.'

Neither of them says much on the way home. Louisa is wondering what that was all about, the odd dynamic between Carole and Harry. It's unsettling. She feels more unsettled when she jumps as Harry loses his cool.

Victor is in her thoughts again. She hopes that he is not thinking of her. She hopes that her thoughts are not giving him some power over her. She stiffens.

‘What?' says Harry. ‘Relax, why don't you?'

She shakes her head, opens her eyes, and stares straight ahead. She needs to stay vigilant so she doesn't fall back into that dark place. Self-respect, she tells herself. Wake up, Louisa! Keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. Except that Harry is driving now and drifting too close to the median strip. The road is wet and potentially slippery.

‘You're a bit close,' she says.

It annoys him, she knows, but too bad! She has to keep pushing forward so that she doesn't slip back into silence.

Even so, the journey is long, Harry is off in his own world, and she slips. She is caught and held on the whirling plane that flattens and spins her thinking into a familiar sickening loop. They are the same thoughts she's had over and over again, the ones that she's had ever since Tom's short life disintegrated. The force of that shock cracked the seals on the small, tight casket pressed in her mind, where the worst memories of Victor had been held. Victor the lawmaker who created and recreated the rules so that she never knew what they were; who made sure that the ground was always moving with no shared meaning, no sense of predictability – unless it was the way her body invariably reacted against his; in pain; immobilised; and blocked off on every side as he enclosed her
whole world. She feels the familiar sense of rising panic, the feeling of being sealed inside without a line to the outside, her body a container for her anxiety and fear, her half-formed thoughts bumping around blindly inside her skull, and how Victor just stood there watching her struggle. She'd assumed he was waiting for some improvement in her, but eventually it dawned on her that he was just watching, the way he'd watch an insect, fallen into a cold cup of tea.

Why was it that she kept trying to be the person he wanted her to be, until finally she understood that she already was the person that he wanted, cracked and broken? Imperfect in every way.

She'd figured he couldn't help himself. She took his word for it.

‘I love you,' he'd say, while she cowered on the floor, humiliated, bleeding. The kids always seemed to be somewhere else, in their rooms asleep. She would try to be damaged quietly so she didn't wake them up. He'd be the one making noise, yelling first, crying afterwards. ‘I love you so much. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you.' His voice would tremble and break and that would be enough to keep her hanging there. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. He understood the torture of uncertainty, of waiting. He'd been to war. He'd been through it himself.

Harry pulls into the driveway and sits a moment after turning off the engine.

‘You don't say much these days, do you?' he says. He laughs. ‘Not like Carole, that's for sure.'

‘You want me to be more like Carole?'

‘No,' he says. ‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘I'm not.'

She flushes as she says this. He's made her a little bit jealous. There could be some romance later if he's lucky.

‘I better take the dog for a walk before the weather closes in again,' he says, as he gets out of the car. ‘I don't suppose you'd like to come with us?'

‘Not today. I've got stuff to prepare for work.'

This doesn't auger well for later.

‘Fine,' he says, and the car door closes after him with a little too much force. She opens hers and calls out after him, ‘What was that for?'

‘At least Carole looks like she hasn't given up on exercising,' he says.

‘Is that supposed to be some sort of encouragement?'

‘What sort of encouragement do I get? At least Carole gives–'

‘Oh, blow it out your arse, Harry,' she says.

‘What?'

‘You heard.'

‘Right!' he says.

‘Right!' she says. She glares at him.

He suppresses the urge to smile. He picks up the dog's leash from its usual place just inside the hallway. ‘Come on Buster,' he says. ‘Walk.' He begins to chuckle as he walks off down the street, with Buster racing ahead of him.

When Harry rings he has it in his mind to apologise to Carole over how he pushed her buttons at lunch, but he finds himself flirting instead. Or he's kidding himself and that's what he had in mind all along. He'll take her cues and whatever opportunity presents. He doesn't mind being labelled an opportunist. He's a team player, and that's exactly what's needed – opportunism – which to his mind is great timing, the ability to pick up on someone else's cues and improvise around them.

‘Do you want to talk to Gordon? He's not in,' says Carole.

Harry lowers his voice an octave. ‘I don't mind. I'd rather talk to you. How are you anyway?'

‘Oh well,' says Carole, picking up on the vibe and capitalising immediately, ‘I'm okay except for this slightly, oh I don't know, restless feeling that I've been getting lately.'

It's encouragement. He moves in for the clinch.

‘That's strange. Me too.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's interesting,' she says. ‘What are you going to do about it?'

‘I'm not sure. What are you going to do about it?'

‘I don't know. Let's see, we could help each other out.'

‘We could.'

‘Well then...' says Carole, and as easily as that, it is arranged.

It's a bit of fun. Nothing serious. She reminds him of Yasamine for some reason – nothing like her at all really, but she looks all right. She's lively and doesn't hold back, although he could only take her in small doses and on a temporary basis. It might have been different when he was younger but he's used to a bit of peace and quiet these days, and he's never liked having too many expectations placed on him. Carole is what they call high maintenance. She'd expect him to keep his feet off the coffee table, and she'd want endless nights out, trips away and so on, not to mention what that sort of thing would cost. Plus she'd need attention, which is okay for a while, even sexy, and brings out his protective side. But it takes energy he doesn't have.

Gordon has more of what it takes for her, but he's away a lot, and probably getting his own bit on the side. They'd have some kind of an arrangement, which is fair enough, and their business. He likes Gordon. Gordon likes to stir things up. He reminds Harry of himself before he began to learn the value of stability. Before he started getting old. He chuckles to himself. He's not dead yet. It's time for him to shake things up a bit.

Louisa has driven to her favourite vantage point in Kings Park. She gets out and leans against the side of the car, gazing along the line of trees, taking in the feel of the wind against her skin, the litter of leaves and sticks at her feet, the sound of the crows and magpies as they call out to one another across the trees, and the damp scent of eucalyptus mixed with melaleuca and acacia.

When they were kids living on the station, she and Zoe would put old bits of lino on the ground to make cubby houses
under a cluster of twisted grey trees that grew just past the outer edge of the homestead garden. The trees had grown stunted and bent horizontal, as if they'd been permanently caught in a strong gust of wind. She wonders how they would have looked if they'd grown somewhere more conducive with plentiful water, and less wind. The same trees might be planted somewhere in Kings Park. She'd check it out, if she knew what they were.

She is parked by an avenue of lemon-scented gums with broad white trunks, and towering foliage that springs back each time the wind drops. At the base of each, for as far as she can see, is a small brass plaque stuck in the ground, bearing the name of a young man killed in an old war. She is standing under the tree for Private John Jones killed in 1917, aged twenty-three.

She feels okay really, right now, today. There is beauty in the shifting light of the late winter gloom, something very nice about the sound of the wind, the sight of swaying trees and the chill in the air. She feels calm. Right now she is happy to be alive. Something must have shifted.

When she first booked in with Lucy she'd been having ideas about suicide. It would have been so easy to slip away, not that she wanted to die, but she was exhausted. Tom was gone and it was getting harder, if anything, as time went on, to live with that. She was overwhelmed by the stress of trying to get to something she couldn't have. She imagined a world where it would be possible to see him again and make everything all right, but only if she were to die. The idea expanded until it used up all the available space in her head, routing alternative scenarios.

‘What about your daughter?' Lucy had asked her.

‘Of course that's what's stopping me from going through with it,' she'd lied. In truth she hadn't allowed herself to think too much about Meredith and she'd told herself that Meri wouldn't particularly care anyway. She'd moved away
a long time ago. Meredith had built a life for herself on the other side of the country with her husband, career and upmarket friends. No room for Louisa or the past there.

Still she must have been telling Lucy an element of truth about not wanting to hurt her daughter. It was in her mind when she fronted up to therapy, that this would be proof she'd tried. She wanted to leave something behind for Meredith, to distance her from any feeling of responsibility, by making it a failure of therapy. She hadn't expected to feel bad about leaving Lucy in the lurch.

Louisa had gone to talk about Tom, but after they'd been meeting for a few sessions Lucy must have felt obliged to point out the monster in the room, Victor, and the story around all that.

‘I'd rather just talk about Tom,' Louisa had said.

‘It's part of the same picture.'

No they are two quite separate pictures, Louisa thought, but it was too hard to explain. She allowed herself to be convinced.

‘Sometimes you have to lance a boil,' said Lucy.

Over the week that followed, Louisa worried about what Lucy's line of questioning would open up. She thought she might ring and cancel. In the end, she fronted up.

‘Where do I start?' she said.

‘Anywhere.'

‘It might not make sense.'

‘It makes sense to you. That's the main thing.'

Louisa considered for a moment. She said, ‘Do you ever watch those wildlife shows where a predator is stalking a herd? It watches, picks one out, and then separates it from the rest, because the herd provides some sort of protection. Some animals are sufficiently connected and bonded not to let that happen. They close ranks, don't they? Elephants. They turn and face the threat together. The predator attacks at its peril. Others don't do that. They scatter. They sacrifice one of their own.'

‘Herds can be a powerful force all right. What happened with your herd Louisa?'

‘It wasn't big enough or strong enough to protect me, I guess. Or I was too young and stupid to see the danger signs. I got drawn away.'

‘I see. What did he do to draw you away?'

Louisa heard an accusation in the question. ‘Yes I know it's my own fault, Lucy, but he was very manipulative you know.'

Lucy looked slightly surprised, but remained unfazed. ‘I didn't say it was your fault Louisa. I'm just interested in breaking down his ... tactics, if you like.'

Louisa took a deep breath. ‘Oh, well that's easy. It's all about what you're connected to, isn't it? Victor made me lose my connections with what was outside our marriage. I lost my connections with everything, my friends. Family. He shrank my world down to just him. And the kids. He even resented the kids a bit. I think I lost touch with other people's day-to-day reality – the ordinary stuff of being able to catch up with friends and have a bit of a laugh – that sort of thing. Sometimes it's just easier to give in. Something wouldn't let me though. I kept fighting to survive.'

‘Tell me how you did that. How did you fight to survive?'

‘Before I figured out what was what and got out of there, you mean? I guess I tried to survive in the world according to Victor.'

‘Okay, that's interesting. Tell me about that.'

‘I suppose I tried to get inside his head, so I'd know what to do. It's not that I wanted to feel what he was feeling, but I thought I ought to try, so I could understand where he was coming from. So I knew how to keep safe, me and the kids. Only I didn't really love him, and he was bound to find out, so that was scary, like I was keeping a secret from him. He had a way of seeing every little bit of doubt. You have to be a good ... actor, I suppose. I was scared for the kids too. I had to prove
it to him, somehow, that I loved him, so I tried to convince myself that I did. You see? That way I wouldn't be keeping a secret, because I might be able to actually feel what I said I was feeling. It sounds crazy doesn't it?'

‘No.'

‘It was awful living like that, walking on eggshells all the time. I didn't have time to think things through back then. I'd lost the ability. I gave up everything – my power, myself. My children. And a part of me must have thought I would break through to him and find his heart in there somewhere, and then we'd all be all right. Only I never found it. It was as if he didn't have one.'

‘You did survive. That's the important thing, Louisa. You survived long enough to change your lives.'

‘I'm not sure how. In a strange sort of way I felt sorry for him, because he couldn't have been happy, being what he was, and doing what he did. So that's a kind of love, isn't it? It's hard talking about this. Putting words to this makes it real. It's hard to think of that person as me, someone who allowed that, with my children there, trying not to hear or see. I did that, didn't I?'

‘Or he did.'

‘Yes, I know he can't get off scot-free. It's mixed up in my mind, what happened, whose fault it was: my pain and his arousal, pain and sex, pain and passion. I think he liked feeling whatever it was that he was feeling while I suffered. Plus I thought he needed me, but eventually I realised it didn't really matter to him that it was me. If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. Carole for that matter. No, she would never have put up with that crap. She might have dated him though, in his younger days, if she'd seen him first. He was good-looking, but I hated his looks. He made me sick. And charming – a real charmer. They thought I was the lucky one. Outsiders.'

She stopped talking then, all of a sudden, felt herself drifting off, almost to sleep.

Louisa is making more of an effort to walk with Harry. Today they have taken to the beach. He and Buster go ahead, at Buster's pace, leaving her to walk alone with her thoughts. There is a strong sea breeze, but the sand where she is walking is wet, saving her from the stinging sand higher up the beach. She walks barefoot, just inside the water line, and keeps her head down, watching how Harry and Buster's footprints are alternately covered and exposed by the rhythmic movement of the sea water. The water washes away the edges, smoothing their prints into impressions, or erasing them completely.

She looks up to see a single gull hanging above the water, buffeted by the wind. Harry and Buster are far ahead, and increasing the gap. Her eyes fall again to the sand, to her bare feet, to the uneven track she is creating with each step, to thoughts of the session with Lucy when she talked of Victor, and to the early days.

She sees him dressed up in a tie and suit that he wore with the indifference of someone for whom a suit has always been standard dress. He was from a wealthy family. She must have had something he wanted though: something from her very ordinary background. He stood awkwardly on the threshold of her parents' modest house, with a bunch of flowers for her mother, a redundant sweetener. He might have been older but her mother was already bowled over by the fact that a handsome law graduate was interested in her younger daughter. Her father was pleased too, she suspects, but didn't give as much away.

She was only sixteen, and living at home, commuting to the hospital by train, or being driven by her father. She was amazed that this man, twenty-five and on the way up in life, was apparently interested in her. Later he would tell her he had a fantasy thing for nurses. He seemed nervous too, so she felt more at ease and warmer towards him. He seemed that way. He seemed many things. It was difficult to pick apart what was and what something seemed to be.

Was she in love? It is hard to remember, but she tries to be honest. She was excited and flattered, but recalls a feeling of reserve. That night she was careful choosing what to wear. Lurking at the back of her mind was fear of encouraging him. She was in too deep already.

On paper, he looked good – handsome, successful, passionate. He didn't yet drink excessively, or he hid it well. He'd been to Vietnam, his number came up, but he reckoned he did it easier than some. Later he told her something closer to the truth. He was pissed off by the reception they got when they came home. It didn't seem fair after what they'd been through.

He said that in the army, he got into a few habits. They all drank and smoked some weed. When he got back, the government paid for his degree. His folks were happy they didn't have to fork out yet again, even though they had plenty, and he was glad he didn't have to go crawling to them. He didn't talk about the people he killed. He didn't really talk about the war at all, just his mates. He was twenty-five but he seemed so old to her, and he joked that she looked like a kid to him. She didn't even look sixteen until she got all dressed up in her lipstick and high heels. Everyone stopped talking and studied them when they walked in together.

There he was on the doorstep with flowers for her mother. It was the night they went out to dinner with his friends. Not friends exactly. Louisa never saw any of them again after that night, until the day of the wedding.