The Amateur Science of Love (19 page)

Next morning I fed coins into the Hastings Road public phone. I had to speak to her immediately. I could not wait until lunch and the empty office. I certainly could not take the risk from home—my excitement was not that stupid.

I did not feel dirty making the call. The handset was dirty from public fingers, stinky from cigarette breath, ice cream was smeared on the glass, but I did not feel dirty in myself. I was embarked on the higher purpose of Donna, or so the deranging had it. Whatever wrong I was about to do felt wondrous.

The ringing kept on so long that Donna’s whereabouts concerned me. If she was at university, was she talking to that boy? Was she wetting her lips and imagining kissing his? If the phone rang out I had a powerful impulse to drive to her, find her class and interrupt the lecture. This was no time for manners or niceties. The phone clicked.

‘Hello, Donna speaking.’

‘Hello. It’s Colin. I felt I better call.’

‘I’m glad you did. I wanted to try you at your work but held off and off.’

I had no speech composed. ‘I thought I…I just wanted to say if I said anything yesterday that offended you…’ I left the sentence incomplete, for her finishing.

‘I wasn’t offended. More surprised. Very surprised. But listen, we can just forget it. Put it down to the champers.’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘Is that what
you
want?’

The course of life, such a long, large thing as life, can have a simple yes or no change it. One tiny syllable and it’s changed, or gone.

‘No,’ I said. The certainty of the sound was itself emboldening. I repeated it. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I do not retract what I admitted to feeling.’

Donna let out a whistly exhaling. ‘I see. Wow. Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean
really
sure. Take a moment to think before answering.’

‘I have.’

‘Truly?’

‘Yes. I’ve thought of nothing else.’

‘Nor have I.’

‘Really?’

‘Someone says what you said and you don’t sleep. You just think.’

‘Good.’

‘Listen. Let me say this: I have no wish to be a roll in the hay. I have no wish to be a…mistress or something. Some grubby
affair
.’

‘Of course not.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Obviously the big question for me is, what’s the state of your marriage?’

‘I am dying from it.’ The words came out like a plea. What relief to say them! A light breeze of truthfulness blew through my chest. I said, ‘I don’t know if any of us has the right to say we deserve a shot at joy. But I want to say a shot at joy is what I crave. I don’t have it now. I have the opposite. But I want that shot.’

‘But Tilda is a…very pleasant woman. I like her. She isn’t a good friend, but a friend nonetheless.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying I feel very uncomfortable. Naturally I feel very uncomfortable.’

‘If I wasn’t with her then you’d be interested in me?’

‘Yes. I would. I have thought to myself: What an attractive man. But I have not let myself think it in a serious way because you are with Tilda.’

‘Would you prefer I hung up and we dropped this, cast it from our minds?’

She hesitated. I heard her sucking her lips, troubled. ‘No. No I don’t want it cast from my mind.’

‘Good.’

She hesitated again. ‘What are we going to do, though?’

‘I want to see you.’

‘We need to talk this through.’

‘This afternoon I could swing it.’

‘This afternoon? Where?’

‘I could come to you?’

‘Okay. Just to talk, though.’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s be clear about that.’

‘We are.’

‘Come on, are you sure?’

‘I promise.’

‘Talk and nothing more.’

I arranged a job in Watercook. It’s more a sheep town than grains but I figured I could concoct an article with a herbicide-resistance angle—I’d heard resistance in rye grass had become a problem in Watercook. It was common in Scintilla. My story would say it was now spreading eastward.

I arrived at Donna’s a little after 3pm. Good timing for Ruth to be posited at the living room television. We had the kitchen table to ourselves. We sat opposite each other like negotiators. She began proceedings with an offering of coffee and a formal introduction to her house, as if it were people. ‘Over there is my own handiwork—I designed the stovetop area and glued the benches together myself.’ She stood up, nervous. ‘This is the porch. Gets the west sun from midday. Great in winter; hot as hell in summer. The cupboards were Cameron’s doing. He liked to bang in a nail when he was up to it. See how the hall kinks to the right in the middle? That’s deliberate—the previous owners had some eccentric notion about it being eye-catching.’

Talking on the phone was easy. There we were in the flesh and avoiding everything but house and land chatter.

‘It’s a very nice place you have,’ I said. I really thought it spartan. I had been spoilt by our big Scintilla building—two storeys and a forest for a town fringe. Here the brownlands were dealt out in buckle-fenced rectangles: two or three acres with a mudbrick dwelling in the middle. ‘It’s pleasant here,’ I said. ‘Bit of country life, bit of suburban feel all in one.’

The important thing was that we were taking every opportunity to look at each other. Doing it while the other wasn’t noticing, though of course we
were
noticing. You don’t need eyes for noticing. You watch each other with your skin. I scanned for her every blemish, any petty reason to criticise her. A final excuse to curb my deranging. I could not find a single problem. Nor could she in me, going by our hour together. We did not touch. We did not kiss. There was no embracing. We were standoffish in a courting way, quaint old-fashioned courting. There was no chaperone but might as well have been.

Two issues were most on Donna’s mind: if we wanted to take our attraction further there was Ruth to consider. ‘As I’ve said, I won’t do a cheap casual fling. If I was twenty and childless…But I am not twenty and childless. I don’t want a daughter who grows up thinking her mother
entertained
men.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘If, say, we went further with this, are you okay with taking on a child? Ruth comes with me, to state the obvious. Are you sure about that?’

Ruth had not crossed my conscience. Donna’s ‘taking on a child’ had a forbidding ring. But the deranging doesn’t consider anything except its own immediate needs. ‘I’m sure. Absolutely,’ I said, turning up my palms as if never so certain in my life.

The second issue was Tilda. Donna did not like the prospect of another woman being hurt. A woman who has never harmed her, never done her wrong. ‘Has she ever harmed you?’ She asked me this as if hoping for
yes
.

‘No.’ I was tempted to make up something, some lie about Tilda being unfaithful to me. There was no time to construct a credible tale complete with lover’s name and sordid details. Nor did I fancy the image of me as victim: a heartbroken man did not appeal to me as manly. What’s more, I did not want to fill her pretty ears with ugly lies. I mumbled off a list of marital complaints, trying not to sound too whiney. I was locked into a life of lovelessness, I said. I was far too young when I settled down. I told of the abortion and said it was all my doing. I hoped my honesty would impress her as brave, a full airing of dirty laundry. In a modern world only the welfare classes and the dumbest boys father children when they’re not much more than children themselves.

She nodded agreement at my reasoning. She said she’d never had an abortion but would if necessary.

I did mention Tilda’s rifle and weedkiller moments. Donna shook her head and said, ‘That must be difficult.’

I avoided mentioning Tilda’s cancer directly. It could only make my courting Donna sound disgraceful. But she wasn’t about to let it pass. ‘It does add another dimension,’ she said.

‘It’s in remission.’

‘Even so.’

‘Yeh. You’re right.’

‘Who knows what would have happened if Cameron had lived. Would we have lasted? I presume so. I was content with him. He bore his disease lightly. He was not a complainer and I loved him. I never felt the desire to stray. Therefore I was never tested. But you have been tested. And I’m in the position of being the accomplice, if that’s the word.’

‘Does it put you off?’

‘It makes me take a breath. Then I think: It would be preferable, of course, if there was never mess or pain when two people are drawn together. But it’s not always realistic.’

‘So you are definitely drawn to me?’

‘I am.’

I wanted to reach across the table and feel her hand, get contact with her skin. She must have sensed this and considered skin contact wrong just yet. She leant back and checked her watch and said, ‘It’s close to five. I have to organise dinner for Ruth. What time will Tilda start wondering where you are?’

‘Good point. I better go.’

What a deliciously awkward few seconds came next. I stood and wanted to step forward and kiss and smell and caress her. Restraint is such a delicacy. I was teetering on the edge of her body and could not move.

We agreed I would ring her tomorrow. I was to let her know immediately if I changed my mind. I said I had no intention of changing my mind but she reserved the right to be cautious: she feared letting go of her heart and having me change my mind and stay with Tilda.

‘I won’t change my mind.’ I did step forward at this point. The teetering was too much—I had to act on it.

Donna held up a halting hand. ‘Don’t,’ she motioned with her head that Ruth might come in.

I apologised for being impetuous. I opened the sliding door and smiled goodbye. I drove home.

If you could call it home. It was no home to me now. It was a place I was forced to part from Donna to go to. It was a place I did not want to arrive at. Then, having arrived, loathed. It was nothing but a place to be hostile in. Me, the betrayer, blamed Tilda for it all. To become the betrayer makes you
turn
on the betrayed. Why? Because they are the obstacle to your desire. They are the reason for your guilt. Hostility is the only option. The mere sight of Tilda brought it out of me. From the moment I got home to my un-home I ground my teeth and mocked Tilda in my thoughts. Can’t you see I do not love or need you or care for you anymore? Can’t you tell where I’ve been? Don’t you see Donna in my eyes? Are you blind? Are you stupid? Surely you can hear her in my silence.

She tried to kiss me hello: ‘How was your day? Would you like a beer?’

I was not going kiss her, no way, not even a peck. ‘No, I do not want a beer,’ I said with raised voice. ‘No, I am not hungry. No, I have not had a bad day. No, I am not in a bad mood.’

Couldn’t you decipher my secret, Tilda? I’d had the most glorious day. A day of craving the body of another woman. A day of being in lust and plummeting in love. Couldn’t you make that out in me? ‘No, I am not going to massage you tonight. Can I not have one night off? One night of freedom from stroking that fucking log of an arm?’

I told her I had no intention of naming her new picture tonight. Call it a pile of shit for all I care. I complained about the smell of turps through the house. ‘Fuck, I hate the stink. Air it out. Fuck! I’m sleeping in the futon room tonight. The turps is soaked into your flesh. It’s like sleeping with petrol. Am I supposed to be attracted to petrol? I don’t care if I am being hurtful. I am speaking my mind. See my lips move? That’s me speaking my fucking mind. Goodnight. I’m off to bed. You just stay there crying, there’s a good girl. Here, borrow my handkerchief—you can’t say I don’t comfort you.’

I felt entirely justified in my cruelty. I felt powerful and right. I quipped, ‘You might want to consider skolling some weedkiller like you used to promise. Whatever happened to that promise? Why don’t you buy some tomorrow? Or get a rifle? Do yourself a favour and top yourself. Goodnight, sweetheart. Sleep well. Don’t disturb me.’

I got halfway up the stairs before Tilda’s sobbing got to me. I turned around, hung my head, trudged towards her intending to be kindly and say I was tired, overtired from being busy at work. She was seated on the edge of dinner table, weeping into her hands. I turned back to the stairs, mounted them quickly before the weeping did its job and had me weakened and apologising and acting tenderly. I congratulated myself for not having given in. I muttered, ‘Do yourself a favour and top yourself, Tilda. You’d be doing me a favour as well. That would solve my problem.’

In bed I wished it upon Tilda, death. I wished it like saying my prayers: now I lay me down to sleep, I pray she dies before the end of the week. I wanted to kill her. How could I do it and not be found out? Was there a way of stopping her breathing without evidence?

Sleep brainwashes us clean like a natural remorse system. If it wasn’t for sleep we might act on all our impulses, never have doubts to keep us rational. If it wasn’t for sleep I might have smothered Tilda with a pillow that night. Sleep did the decent thing and dreamt it out of me, sweated it out of me with horror-dreaming of being utterly alone, desolate. I was in a paddock and mourning, not for any particular person, not at first. Just mourning my own desolation. Then I realised I was also mourning for Tilda. She was dead in my dream and I was begging the dream to bring her back to life. The colour of the dream was like photo negatives.

I brought her breakfast in bed next morning—Vegemite on toast and a mug of milky Nescafé. She gave a faint nod of thanks but did not squeeze my hand when I cupped hers, or respond with a nuzzle into her pillow when I kissed her temple. Her temple was dank with hot hair. I could see where a crow’s-foot of tears had rolled over it through the night and dried crusty.

I began saying, ‘I said some awful things last evening. I’m…I get wound up in my work…I feel dreadful and I want you to forget I opened my cakehole and said those awful things…’

She made no attempt to assure me I was forgiven. Not so much as an eyelid twitch of recognition that she had heard me.

‘Eat your toast before it gets cold,’ I said, touching her chin. I was resolved to driving to the Hastings Road phone that instant. I was going to lay down the law to Donna Wilkins. ‘I am not going to pursue a relationship with you,’ I was going to say. ‘Finished. Over. I am not going to break my wife’s heart. I can’t do it. I don’t have it in me. I can’t do it.’

I whispered ‘I love you’ to Tilda, kissed the lobe of her ear. A desperate
I love you
to reel back the life I was only yesterday prepared to let slip. There was still no eyelid movement or parting of the lips from her. ‘Oh well, then,’ I sighed. I was impatient for a reward for my gentle effort. I was prepared to relent to mutual servicing if she showed gratitude for my tenderness and kiss. I expected a return
I love you too
even if it sounded automatic.

I deserved the silent treatment. But as I drove to Hastings Road I could not help but feel an injustice. Why couldn’t she have blinked or relented with one little lip-corner smile? Why couldn’t she have given me something to go on with instead of blank rebuffing? Just one little lip-corner smile. By the time I pulled onto the gravel beside the phone box I was brooding on being taken for granted by Tilda. Was I supposed to beg and crawl to her? I’m worth more than silent treatments.

I was in no good humour to queue to make a call. Three girls—aged fifteen, if a day—had wheeled their baby prams into an arc of waiting and smoking. A fourth girl was in the box on the phone. Housing Commission types with oily unbrushed scalps, tracksuit pants, black moccasins.

‘Excuse me,’ I said gruffly, as if interviewing them. ‘Is there a problem with this telephone? I’m Colin Butcher from the
Wimmera Wheatman
. There have been reports of vandalised public phones. I have to check this one for a story I’m doing on how viable our phone network is to cope with bushfire season.’

That got me to the head of the queue, huffing loudly enough to rush the current user into hanging up. Once in the box I said, ‘Do you mind all standing back, please. Back further, please. Thank you.’ It got me privacy.

I was still determined to finish it, the Donna thrill. The brainwashing horror-dream was still fresh in me. Daytime does reduce the power of nightmares, however; the sun shines down a calming light. But I was determined to finish it. I just hoped it would not be too brief or blunt a call. I intended to explain that I was not a weak man but I was resigned to the dutifulness of my marriage, even at the expense of my happiness or the affections of my heart.

Passion too has a brainwashing ability. Once in your system it makes bad dreams fade from the memory fast. I did not finish things with Donna during the call. It felt too good to be on the end of her voice. Too good to hear her excited at hearing my voice. She asked if I had changed my mind, and when I said I hadn’t she said ‘Excellent’ and ‘I was worried you might.’

‘No need to be worried. I’m very sure about what I’m doing.’ Just saying this made me feel surer and stand more fixedly in my shoes. I told her there was tension between Tilda and me. I did not mention my cruel tongue, of course. I used ‘frosty’ to describe us. I used ‘a difficult evening with unpleasant exchanges of words.’ I said, ‘There is a…what’s the word…a realignment happening inside me. Like I’ve changed my focus. My focus is you—you’re who I think about. Not Tilda.’ Which sounded so clear-cut. I even told her Tilda and I slept in separate beds last night. ‘I can’t sleep with her any longer. It’s like I’d be unfaithful to you.’

Donna gasped that she wished she could hold me and give me strength for what must be so harrowing.

Yes, I would love to be held, I replied. I reckoned I could swing another Watercook trip in the afternoon if she wanted, on the pretext of more work being needed on the rye-grass-resistance story. I said I could swing anything if it meant seeing her.

‘There’s a playgroup in town. I could leave Ruth there for an hour.’