Other People’s Diaries (26 page)

What I should say is that I loved being at the soup kitchen because I was helping out people less fortunate than I. The truth, though, is that I loved it because of how I felt – like I was useful. And of course I can now add fruit chopping to my list of things I am good at …

‘P
eter?'

Peter was sitting on the balcony, legs propped on the wooden table, the sports section of the newspaper open in front of him.

He pulled his gaze away from the paper and looked up at Claire standing beside him.

‘What's up?'

She'd been wondering all day how to tell Peter. Should she make a big deal about it, or just leave the cheque lying around perhaps? In the end, she'd decided she had to tell him.

‘I, I just wanted to show you something.'

Claire handed Peter the cheque.

He looked at it.

‘O-kay, a cheque to you for fifty dollars, from,' he read the drawer's name, ‘Mrs Sarah Roberts. Do I know her?'

‘No,' Claire smiled. ‘She's my client.'

Peter smiled slightly, a quizzical expression on his face. ‘Your client?'

‘Yep – the first client of my new business, Fix Your Wardrobe.'

Claire touched the cheque reverently. ‘Fifty whole dollars,' she breathed.

Peter pushed his feet off the table and laid the paper down on the table. ‘What's Fix Your Wardrobe?'

Claire sat down on the edge of a chair. ‘A couple of weeks ago I helped a friend out at a school fete. She needed someone to help sell some clothes provided by a boutique. The clothes were dire, but I talked to a few women about what they could do to improve the way they looked. Apparently the school had some calls from people wanting to get hold of me. So I set up a website to help people contact me.'

Peter's expression was unreadable, but Claire continued anyway.

‘They did, and I've done some things for a few women. And – well, one of them has paid me!' She pointed at the cheque.

Still he said nothing and Claire's confidence began to slip.

‘It's not much I know, and it doesn't help with our money problems, but it's just the beginning. I've got ideas about how to put generalised advice on the website – things that people pay a subscription for.'

She could hear herself babbling nervously and forced herself to stop.

Peter picked the cheque up, turning it over in his hands.

‘That's great Claire. Really great.'

Although his words were enthusiastic, he didn't smile. ‘Why didn't you tell me, though? You've done all these things, set up a website … but you didn't tell me?'

Claire looked at the deck. Slowly she raised her face to Peter. ‘I didn't think you'd be interested,' she answered honestly. ‘Or that you'd just think this was another hobby of mine that would go nowhere.'

Peter ran a hand through his hair, leaning back in the
director's chair. ‘Or you thought that I'd think it would just cost money, right?'

Claire nodded. Suddenly she couldn't keep it inside any more. ‘Peter, it's awful. We don't talk, we don't do anything together. You act like I'm some person you don't even know who just spends your money.'

She paused. ‘I think maybe we should think about separating.'

It was strange. They were the words Claire had always dreaded hearing from Peter. But now it was she who was saying them.

Fix Your Wardrobe was a long way from listing on the stock exchange. She would have to get a job doing something – anything. But for the first time, she felt like there was something for her outside this marriage.

Claire felt a stab of guilt. For a moment, she wished she could take the words back. This was a marriage. You don't just walk away from a marriage.

But the guilt was only momentary. Alice was right, life should be good. And hers wasn't – that was pretty clear.

‘Tell me what you want, Peter,' she said in a voice she hardly recognised. ‘This,' she swept out her arm ‘is not working for either of us.'

‘For God's sake, Claire, I don't know! We've been like this for ages now. It's just worse right now because my work is stressful.'

‘Work has got nothing to do with us, Peter. If you'd let me close to you I could even help you, but you won't.'

‘It's not that simple. It's been hard living with you. This baby thing …' Peter's voice trailed off briefly and then he started again. ‘It's exhausting. Every time we have a conversation I have this dread that you're going to turn the topic to it. Each month I know you're going to be unhappy when you find out you're not pregnant again. It just goes on and on. When I saw you singing in the car the other day, I honestly couldn't remember the last time I'd seen you look so happy.'

Claire sat silently for a minute, head bowed. Finally she looked up. ‘You're right. I know and I'm sorry. It's something I have to come to terms with – I don't know how. But I have to, otherwise
I'm going to go mad. For the last few years, though, it's like I've been on my own with it all. I'm really –'

She broke off, swallowing the tears that rose in her throat.

‘I'm really lonely,' she said finally.

They looked at each other for a few moments.

Peter stood up. ‘Come here,' he said, pulling Claire out of her chair.

Gently he wrapped his arms around her. Claire nestled her head on his chest, in the same place she always had, and then she let the tears come.

You told me to think of a part, however small, of teaching that I like
.

There's a look that children get when they finally understand something. It's pretty nice. Anyway, I saw that look again today. Either I haven't been watching for it, or I've been doing a lousy job of teaching these children
.

I still hate my job though
.

M
egan pulled up outside Greg's two-storey brick house in Toowong. Geographically it was only about five kilometres from her place, but emotionally it was another world altogether. The houses in this area were all very much family homes. Pools, basketball hoops hanging off poles. She would have bet a week's salary that there wasn't one sexy red bathroom like hers in the whole suburb.

She'd been amazed by the invitation. With Deborah and the children two thousand kilometres away in Cairns at a family celebration, Greg had sent her an email asking her to dinner at his place. Not a seedy restaurant. Not her place. His place. Because he wanted to cook for her and wanted her to stay the night.

She knocked softly and within seconds the door was pulled open.

‘Hi.' Greg's smile was that of a naughty schoolboy.

‘Hi yourself.'

In this neighbourhood, Megan was painfully aware of how they must look, the two of them framed by the light spilling out of the house. She could almost feel the curtains twitching as neighbours checked out the new arrival.

As if reading her mind, Greg kissed her demurely on the cheek as though he were greeting a younger sister.

‘Come on in,' his voice was slightly too loud, slightly too like a scout leader.

The instant the door had closed, though, he covered her mouth with his and tangled his hands in her hair.

They hadn't even made it out of the entryway before they were both flinging their clothes off.

‘We can't do this again,' Greg gasped in her ear. ‘It's just having you here like this …' Megan bit his earlobe then and he lost his train of thought.

Some time later, when they'd finally made it past the entryway, she was shocked by how warm and domestic it all was.

Although she didn't look too closely, she could see dozens of photos carelessly pinned to the fridge with homemade magnets. Family happy snaps. Greg and his two daughters. Greg and a pretty blonde woman who could only have been his wife, Deborah.

There was a whiteboard over the kitchen counter with a picture of a glamorous-looking housewife from the fifties looking stern. Underneath it read,
Hand over the chocolate and no one gets hurt
.

In the message section was scrawled in a child's hand,
Don't forget to feed Jones!!! Love you Dad!
The dots in the exclamation marks were tiny hearts.

Coming here suddenly seemed like a really bad idea. And the sex that had only moments ago seemed impossibly exciting now just seemed dirty.

As Greg had so glibly pointed out, moral high ground wasn't exactly Megan's natural habitat, but surely this was a bit ordinary, even for her.

‘I bought you a present,' he said.

Megan forced a smile, trying not to look as panicky as she felt.

As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Greg was pushing a beautifully wrapped present across the kitchen counter.

From the shape and weight, she figured it was a book.

The thick, purple ribbon felt almost like velvet as she gripped it between thumb and finger and pulled the knot loose.
The Art and Architecture of 3D Animation
.

Megan looked at Greg, who smiled sheepishly. ‘Thought it might give you some inspiration,' he shrugged.

‘Thank you,' she managed.

Grateful for something to do, she flicked through the pages.

‘You should do it, you know,' he said.

‘What's that?'

‘Programming – something you enjoy. Even if it means taking a step backwards.'

He tied an apron around his waist and moved around the kitchen pulling out ingredients. He stopped to pour them each some white wine, kissing Megan on the forehead as he handed the glass to her.

Megan couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. She tried to think what it was that made Greg want to have her in his house. Didn't using his wife's saucepans to make a red wine sauce give him the jitters? Or cooking the steak in a frying pan she'd stacked neatly under the bench? She felt on edge, as though someone could walk in the door at any moment and catch them.

Not that it was her problem, she reminded herself. It was Greg's. He was married, not her.

It wasn't that her feelings about being with a married man had changed. It was more that this was all just too much in her face. An old pair of pink Havianas sat next to the front door; the pair of sunglasses pushed to the back of the bench were unmistakably female.

Greg placed the meal on the table with a flourish and lit the candle between them. Megan tried to relax and enjoy herself.

After a few minutes, Greg put his cutlery down. ‘What's wrong?' he asked quietly.

‘Everything. All of this.' She gestured around the house. ‘This was a mistake. I shouldn't be here.'

Pushing back the chair, Megan stood up. She grabbed her car keys from the kitchen bench, then turned to look at Greg, still sitting at the table, two untouched meals in front of him.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I'll – I'll call you.'

A
lice always baked when she felt guilty.

As if by filling the house with the smell of homemade cake she could find redemption for yelling when she should have comforted. Or for rejecting Andrew's advances when she should have been accommodating. Or for still being in the queue at the supermarket when the hurdles final was running at the school sports day.

A casual visitor, glancing at her collection of cookbooks, would have thought she loved cooking. Two full rows of gorgeously bound books. Nigella, Jamie, Bill, Delia – she had them all.

The reality was a rotation of eight healthy and easy meals, two dinner-party menus and about four slices and cakes that she could make without even thinking.

Guilt, though, had the power to break through her food system and it was then that the cookbooks came out.

Today the guilt was substantial.

As she cracked eggs into a bowl, Alice wondered how on earth she had let the situation get to this point.

The nature of the group was that she had known intimate things about Kerry before she'd even really spoken to him. But she knew intimate things about the others too.

Alice beat the eggs furiously, then tipped them into the cake
mixture. She should have called a halt when she received the email about cougars. She should have emailed him back. Told him he'd got it wrong. That she was happily married. That emails like that had to stop.

But she hadn't.

She didn't need a degree in psychology to know why. Kerry made her feel good.

Alice spooned the mixture into a tin.

The email that had arrived in her inbox this morning was the end of the line. It had shattered the exciting little world she'd constructed out of nothing. She was a bored, attention-deprived housewife who should have found something better to do with her time.

She'd set Kerry a new task the day before. It was to go camping, the idea being that it would force him to slow down and think about what he really wanted. Kerry clearly had another take on it.

Come away with me. I know a great place. They even have cabins … log fires … That's kind of camping, right?

The strange thing was that the idea horrified her. Her exciting email flirtation had transformed into something dirty and illicit. Her marriage was far from good, but she had no desire to have an affair with Kerry or anyone else.

Alice slid the tin into the oven and closed the door gently.

She lifted the apron over her head and placed it on the counter. As she did, she noticed the drooping skin on the back of her arm. What had she been thinking? She was an overweight middle-aged woman who needed to find herself some kind of life.

Slowly Alice walked into the study and sat down at the computer.