Love...Under Different Skies (18 page)

“Yeah, it was nice to hang out with you, too,” I say. Then, my stupid innate sense of British politeness rears its ugly head. “Maybe we could do it again sometime?”

Why did you say that, you idiot?

I’m trying to be nice!

Fuck nice! You’re just leading her on!

Lead her on baby! Lead her on!

Shut up!

Mindy smiles and climbs off me. “I’d like that Jamie…very much.” She sits herself back down on the sun bed next to me and sighs. “I suppose I’d better get back to the office myself. I’m sure I’ve got some work I could be doing.” Mindy then looks up into the glorious blue sky. I try very hard not to look at the gentle curve of her neck as she does so. “It’s just so lovely out here though.” She lies back down and stretches herself out on the sun bed provocatively. “A few more minutes can’t hurt.”

Not for her maybe, but if I spend any more time in her company I’m likely to explode. I have to leave
right now
.

“Well, see you later Mindy,” I say in a strangled voice and start to hurry away.

“Bye, Jamie,” Mindy replies in a husky voice that is no doubt deliberately targeted at my libido.

I slam the front door behind me and lean against it, thinking long and hard about what’s just happened. A bloom of intense guilt has flowered in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I don’t know why I feel so remorseful. Nothing happened after all. I did the right thing and put Mindy off the massage way before it had a chance to turn into a happy ending, so why do I still feel so shitty?

Because you should never have been in that situation in the first place?

I try my best to ignore my conscience, but there’s every chance it’s right. I should have been a bit more alert to Mindy’s intentions, but who’d have thought someone like that would have been interested in somebody like me?

A rather disturbing thought then occurs: what if there was a part of me that knew
damn well
what Mindy was up to and was quite happy to let it happen? If so, what does that say about the state of my relationship with Laura? Before we came to Australia, I’d never so much as looked at another woman, and yet here I am today getting offered a hand job by one after agreeing to take a swim with her and her pneumatic breasts.

Either I’ve become so socially inept that I can’t detect when a woman is overtly coming on to me, or my marriage has reached such a bad stage that I subconsciously welcome that kind of attention.

I spend the next ten minutes leaning against the front door playing all these dreadful thoughts in my mind and am moved from the spot only when the doorbell rings and frightens the living shit out of me. I open the door to once again see Mindy the temptress standing there in her bikini with a speculative smile on her face, holding out my iPhone in one hand.

I forgot to pick the fucking thing up, which she probably thinks was a deliberate ploy on my part to get her up to the apartment. Her sexually charged smile widens.

“You left your phone by the pool. I thought I’d better return it.”

“Thanks.”

“You should really be more careful. This is a great phone. I love the camera on it.”

“Yep. Great camera!”

Christ, this is excruciating.

“Anyone would think you wanted me to—”

“Great camera. Great phone. Thanks for bringing it back. Bye now!” I snatch the phone out of her hand, shut the door in her face, and run into the bedroom to hide myself under the duvet. I’m fairly sure I hear Mindy’s footsteps going back down the stairs almost immediately but decide that discretion is the better part of valour and stay hidden for another twenty minutes.

I spend the rest of the day suffering from an inexplicable pain in the penis. I’m sure this is entirely deliberate on its part.

LAURA’S DIARY

Tuesday, October 6

Dear Mum,

Why is it that men never seem to grow up?

No matter what success they have in life, or how many years of adult experience they’ve had, they can still revert to being little boys at the drop of a hat. This doesn’t happen all the time, of course. If it did, they couldn’t have fought all those wars, built all those cities, and gone to the moon.

To be fair, acting like a little boy can be endearing in the right circumstances. A fully grown male hunched over a half-finished model airplane with tongue stuck out in intense concentration as he tries to attach the wing to the fuselage is something you can take a great deal of pleasure in.

Most of the time, though, the reversion back to childhood can be intensely irritating. Men can turn into emotionally unstable, petulant little idiots at the drop of a hat. In my experience of such matters, I’ve come to the conclusion that this tends to happen only when there is a vagina in close proximity to them. Usually mine, but I’m sure any vagina would have much the same effect on their fragile psyches.

First case in point—my husband. He’s always had his moments in the past (the reaction he had when I told him about Mike when we first started dating springs to mind), but Jamie is one of the more levelheaded men I’ve met in my life.

That was until we arrived in Australia and I became the main breadwinner of the family. Since then we’ve descended to the stage where I feel like I have to look after two three-year-olds instead of one.

I’m
convinced
that things would be very different if I were a man. If Jamie lived with a male friend and he paid most of the bills, my husband probably wouldn’t give two hoots. Oh, he might feel a bit out of sorts, but not to the ridiculous extent I’m faced with each and every day, thanks to the fact that I am the proud owner of a neatly trimmed lady garden.

There’s something buried deep within every man that just cannot accept it when a woman is perceived to be more successful than he is, even when it’s his own bloody wife. Rather than dealing with the sense of inequality in an adult fashion, the little boy inside Jamie has come out to play more and more frequently in the past few months.

“Jamie? Are you actually throwing a tantrum in the frozen food aisle?” I ask my husband in a calm voice. It’s tinged with a degree of disbelief, as I can’t believe I’m witnessing this display—standing as we are in the middle of the local Woolworths supermarket on a warm Sunday afternoon in October. I only told him I didn’t want to eat burgers again before asking him to put the packet back in the freezer.

“But I want burgers,” he scowls at me.

“We have them every week. I’m bored to tears with burgers.” I’m also developing a tension headache. We’ve been in here for a good hour and a half and the strip lights overhead are brighter than the ones they have on the runway at Heathrow. “Just put them back and get something else.”

“But I want burgers!” he repeats emphatically.

“Put them back!” the headache snaps.

“Fine!” Jamie snatches the frozen bag of meat from the shopping cart, throws open the freezer door with such vehemence that the handle nearly smashes into the next door along, chucks the burger bag so hard it bursts, and then slams the door shut again, making the whole cabinet rattle. This is when the disbelief kicks in.

“Don’t you think you’re being just a bit childish?” I say to him as he stands there seething. “Even Poppy here doesn’t act that way when I tell her she can’t have more sweets.”

“Well, you do sound like my fu—
fudging
mother, Laura,” he replies with a sneer. “Perhaps if you didn’t control the purse strings quite as much I wouldn’t feel like I was your second child.”

“And perhaps if you—”

I stop myself. What I’m about to say won’t help the situation one bit. Besides, I know Pops is starting to get a bit upset from her seat in the shopping cart. She’s heard her mummy and daddy snapping at each other too much recently, which pierces my heart. I know Jamie hates it too.

“Perhaps if I what?” he says, leaning forward.

“Nothing, Jamie.” My eyes flick down to our daughter. Jamie gets my point.

“Alright, we’ll have something else instead.” He leans down to Poppy’s height. “Why don’t we let Pops decide? What do you want, sweetheart?” His tone of voice is light, but I can tell that the anger is very much still there and bubbling just beneath the surface.

“Can we have turkey dinosaurs?”

She says it in such a sweet, little lost voice that I hate myself and my husband for the way we’re acting around her these days. Jamie and I both despise turkey dinosaurs, but our combined unspoken guilt means we come home with three bags of the bloody things today.

The argument we end up having once Poppy is in bed is the same one we’ve been having for weeks. We’re both so bored by it now that we can only muster about ten minutes of vitriol before giving up on the whole thing.

The sex we have on the couch an hour later is perfunctory and unromantic. I’m not sure whether this is better or worse than if we had continued the argument.

I’m well used to Jamie’s occasional regressions into his teenage years, but I was taken completely by surprise yesterday when my boss, Alan Brookes, developed the same worrying behaviour.

Yesterday started with sleeping in until eight. This is a particularly pleasant way to start a workweek and came about because I wasn’t due to be in the office until late that evening. Alan had emailed me over the weekend to say he wanted a meeting with me at seven in the evening, which made me nervous. When that kind of request comes out of the blue from your boss, it usually means you’ve done something wrong and they mean to chastise you for it. Anyway, the prospect of a meeting with the boss didn’t exactly fill me with much joy, even if it did mean I could get up at a reasonable hour for once.

By the time five rolled around, I’d worked myself into a deeply foul mood, partly thanks to the inclement rain that had turned the usually beautiful Gold Coast grey and unpleasant, and partly due to the selection of annoying distributors I’d been on the phone with today trying to sort out new transport links to the north of the state. You’d think one person would be enough when attempting to arrange stock delivery dates, but it transpires that you have to speak to at least five before you actually get somewhere.

By seven, the store was empty and closed, so I had the slightly disconcerting sensation of being completely on my own in a place where I’m usually surrounded by people. People are in and out of my first-floor office all the time during the day, and the permanent low murmur of passing foot traffic is a constant during operating hours. Once that all disappears, it’s quiet enough to hear the surf crashing from across the street.

I’m in the middle of an email to my counterpart down in Sydney when I’m frightened out of my skin by Alan appearing at my office door with his usual bombast.

“Evening, Laura!”

“Aaiiee!”

“Strewth Laura, you’re a bit jumpy this evening, aren’t you?” Alan comes and sits in the chair across the desk from me and flashes a grin full of expensive white veneers.

“It’s just a little strange being here all on my own.”

“Yep, it’s like that round here. When it gets dark the place empties out faster than a tin of beer with a bullet hole in the bottom.” He leans round to look at my computer screen. “What are you working on?”

“Just emailing Julia down in Sydney.”

“Pfft. That woman’s got a stick up her arse. Gets on well with the wife though, I’ll give her that. I just wish I could hold a conversation with her when she doesn’t look like she’s sucking a lemon.” Alan leans even further over the desk. “Not like you, Laura. You’re an absolute diamond. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you running the show around here.”

“Thank you, Alan.”

“My pleasure!”

I send the email off to Julia—who I’ve never met but now have an impression of someone who permanently suffers from pursed lips and a pained expression—and close down my email. “So what exactly did you want to talk to me about this evening?”

Alan waves a hand. “Oh good grief, not here! Let’s go somewhere a bit more comfortable. You hungry?”

“Um…yes, I guess so.”

Alan stands up. “Great! Let’s get out of here, then. There’s a nice Italian place about a five-minute walk away.”

“Do you mean Ambrogio?”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

Ambrogio is the type of restaurant us mere mortals walk past as quickly as possible so we don’t inadvertently see any prices on the menu and instantly suffer a shock-induced heart attack. Even a glass of water would likely bankrupt me. I can’t think of anywhere worse to hold a meeting.

“You like Italian, Laura? My treat!”

Oh well, if he’s paying…

“Yes. Love it! Shall we go?”

Now, at this point, the Klaxons should have started going off in my head. It is not typical for your boss to invite you to dinner at a costly restaurant if he just wants to talk shop. In my defence, I haven’t eaten anything since the chocolate bun I had at about three, so I’m ravenous. The prospect of a bowl of delicately seasoned pasta is enough to make me ignore any warning signs that might be parading in front of my mind’s eye. Besides, we are both married to
other people
, which precludes any funny business, doesn’t it? I know, I know. I have no idea how I’ve lived into my thirties displaying that kind of naivety, either.

I’m the first to enter the restaurant so am treated to the full force of the maitre d’s stare of disapproval.

I’m in my work suit, which by now is rumpled and creased thanks to the fact that I’ve been dressed in it for ten hours. I look like someone who’s just done a full working day, which is to say, pretty damn rough around the edges. The officious little sod can’t completely hide a sneer that curls one lip up like it’s tied to a piece of string being pulled by a small child from above.

It seems that the good-natured Australian way of not worrying about class and social standing based on appearance doesn’t extend as far as the threshold of Ambrogio. The maitre d’ is no doubt about to call security until Alan steps through the door behind me, which turns his look of derision into abject smarm. My extremely rich boss is obviously a regular here.

“Mr. Brookes, so nice to see you,” the maitre d’ says in an accent thick with Sicilian charm.

“G’day Baldo,” Alan replies. The guy has a full head of hair, so I can only assume that Baldo is actually his name, or that Alan is shortening it Australian-style from something more poetic like Baldallini.

I’m guessing the latter from the rather pained expression that fleetingly crosses the maitre d’s face.

“A table for two?” he suggests.

“Yep, thanks Baldo,” Alan agrees and pats him on the back.

Thinking about the way in which I was greeted with a sneer, I smile at the little Italian man. “Yes, thank you so much
Baldo
. This really is a lovely restaurant
Baldo
.” I take no small degree of pleasure from the way he flinches imperceptibly each time I say the name.

Baldo leads us over to a table near the back of the restaurant. There are only three other patrons this evening, so it’s lovely and quiet. There’s nothing worse than trying to enjoy your food than when there’s a constant clamour of voices all around putting you off your linguini and conversation in equal measure.

Baldo has the good grace to hold out the chair for me. “Thank you Baldo,” I tell him, savouring the pained expression on his face one more time.

He gives us both a leather-bound menu, tells us our waiter will be over shortly, and retreats to the safety of the front entrance.

I watch him go and then take my first proper look around the restaurant. It’s quite exquisite. There are no red-and-white-checked tablecloths and bad paintings of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in sight. This is a classy establishment, decked out in a tasteful mixture of dark blue and cream. The only hints that the theme here is Italian come from the national flags embossed on the front of the menu and the bistro music being quietly piped into the room. It takes me a minute to recognise that I can hear Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore.”

As soon as I do, I am instantly transported back five years to my old flat and the birthday surprise Jamie laid on for me that day. The memory is so instantly powerful that I have to blink back unexpected tears. I’m not sure whether they’re ones of happiness at the memory or sadness that it seems so long ago.

“You okay, Laura?” Alan asks.

“What? Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just a little tired.” I pick up the water jug and pour myself a glass. “So Alan, what business would you like to discuss with me?”

“Let’s order first, shall we? I’m starved.”

I nod my head, pick up the menu and open it. I groan inwardly as I do. It’s all in Italian. I should have expected as much. Any restaurant with a pretentious maitre d’ like Baldo is bound to have an incomprehensible menu. The assumption must be that poor people are less likely to speak a foreign language, and by having the menu in Italian it will likely frighten them away and send them scuttling to the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken. Hmmm. I could murder a bargain bucket right about now.

Alan obviously catches my look of panicked incomprehension. “Why don’t you let me order? I come here a lot so I know what’s good.”

“Okay,” I say with relief and put the menu down. I’d rather have a bit more control over what I eat, but leaving Alan to decide is still infinitely preferable to stumbling my way through an order of
moscardini lessati alla Genovese
while the waiter rolls his eyes and resists the urge to correct my horrendous pronunciation.

Over comes said waiter and Alan looks up at him with a smile. He then starts to speak in fluent Italian.

Well of course he does, why wouldn’t he? It often seems to me that you need to have either enough time to give over to learning a foreign language or enough money to throw at it. I wait patiently in a complete lack of linguistic understanding as the two men babble back and forth about the order.