The Long Hot Summer (26 page)

David leaves me at the hotel and flies back to the farm for the night. In the morning, early, he and Miriam will drive back to the city for the big literary lunch and afterwards Miriam will fly back home to her family. In the hotel room I lie on the bed and my imagination races with thoughts of David and the woman. He'll probably talk to her on the phone the minute he gets back home
to the farm. Glad to be away from me so he can speak to her. He must have lied about where he's been staying and I know his mobile phone has been switched off when we are together, in case she calls. It's what happens when deception creeps into relationships. The tangled web. Life is suddenly complicated. It certainly was for me with my lovers in France and now it is for him. What a mess I have created.

The irony of my situation doesn't escape me but I can see no humour in it at all. Somehow I have to convince David that he's making a big mistake and that we should try and salvage our relationship and our marriage. But how can I change his mind? He is resolute. So determined.

I have an early night and take a sleeping pill in the hope that I will crash out and be refreshed for the big day ahead of me. I have to be at Channel 9 first thing for an interview on the Kerri-Anne show, then back at the hotel by noon for the big literary lunch. More than seven hundred bookings have been taken, so it's going to be one of the most important events of the tour.

I do manage a good night's sleep and feel quite sparky by the time Jane picks me up to go to the television station. The interview goes well and we are back at the hotel with more than an hour to spare. David and Miriam arrive and we have a cup of tea in the room before going down to the ballroom for the lunch. The room is packed with well-dressed women of a certain age. My age. And there are several familiar faces, including my niece Louise, my best friend Christine and some of the women who have been on my last couple of walking tours. After the main course I am introduced by the literary editor of the
Sydney Morning Herald
, Malcolm Knox. He says all the usual things – a bit of background about my career – then
welcomes me onto the stage with the words: ‘It is therefore with great pleasure that I introduce to you the well-known author and adulterer Mary Moody.'

There is an audible gasp from the audience and they react to Malcolm's introduction by cheering me onto the stage. In a way, it's a fitting start to the tour. A barometer of how differently my book is being received by men and women. Even though his remark is not meant to be taken seriously – it's just a throwaway line – it has created a ripple of outrage and gives me a perfect footing to launch into my speech. I love giving talks because I get such a warm and spontaneous reaction from the audience. I never quite know what I am going to say but I have the fortunate ability to be able to sense the mood of a room and then pitch my talk accordingly.

The way I speak is very much like the way I write. Straight down the line, forthright, candid and hopefully sometimes funny. Every so often I glance down to David and make eye contact. It seems weird that he is sitting there listening to me tell all these women about my adventures in France, including the affair, and about how supportive he has been of me through the rollercoaster of the last few years. I can't imagine any other man in the world feeling comfortable sitting in a crowded room hearing his wife speak about her infidelity. But he does – in fact he claims to enjoy my talks no matter what the topic. I try not to think about the fact that some of the words I am speaking have a hollow ring to them. Nobody in the room, apart from Miriam, my friend Christine and Jane, knows the truth of our situation. That our marriage is over. It's all too difficult at this stage – at the launch of the book – to flatten the audience with such a negative message.

At the end of my talk I sign books and I am thrilled by the length of the queue and the enthusiasm of everyone who approaches the table with a book to be signed. I also notice that David has been cornered by a large group of women and he is signing their copies of the books too. How bizarre is this? The wronged husband autographing copies of his unfaithful wife's confessional book. I feel as though our lives are no longer our own. That by committing my story to paper and putting it out into a public place I have forfeited any right to or hope of privacy. The implications are appalling.

When you write a story from life candidly, as I have done, it invites people to talk openly about their feelings, which can be a good thing. It can also be a bit confronting and at times even distressing. I realise that by sharing my own experiences, both good and bad, readers are going to identify with certain issues that I raise and then if they come to hear me speak, they will ask questions, make comments or share their own experiences. Giving a talk is almost like mass group therapy, and I never quite know what to expect.

A lot of women share their pain with me. I have written openly about having an affair and about cheating on my husband. But usually the shoe is on the other foot and I am frequently approached by women whose husbands have been unfaithful to them. Often they say that they were expecting to dislike me or to hate my book but have been pleasantly surprised to find that I am not some kind of monster. Some hard-hearted witch. Because it's natural for them to project their anger onto someone who
has behaved in the same way as the partner who has caused them so much pain.

At one speaking event a man approaches me clutching a copy of
Last Tango
. He starts to cry and alarm bells go off inside my head. The words spill out. His wife is having an affair. She has also been reading my book. Thank heavens he quickly tells me that the affair began before she read the book and not afterwards. I do fear that by writing about my journey I am somehow giving permission for others to go down the same path. I'm certainly not – my books are not guide books to navigating the challenges of mid-life or manuals on how to manage extra-marital relationships. They are simply my own story and presented more as a cautionary tale than a solution to life's problems. The weeping man says he has come to hear me speak and wants to know if David will be at the lunch. He wants to talk to him. Fortunately David isn't at this particular event, because I know he would feel great compassion but also a deep sense of inadequacy. We are not counsellors. We are not trained to help people who are unhappy or in crisis. It's a common problem, I expect, for people who have written books that touch raw nerve endings.

Sometimes women come up to me to tell me that their husbands left them for another woman. Sometimes they left them for a man. Most women say they have coped and a lot express the view that their lives have improved dramatically since their marriages have ended. That they have found a new life for themselves, often a new and much more satisfying relationship. I suppose that because I write and speak in a friendly manner people see me as approachable, which I certainly am. But sometimes their stories hit a raw nerve with me. Touch me
deeply and make me realise that I am not the only person struggling through the difficulties of life and love.

At an evening event where I am to be the after-dinner speaker, an attractive woman in her late fifties is seated opposite me. We chat merrily through the meal and have a lot in common. Children, grandchildren, a love of travel and of reading. After I have given my talk, I sit back at the table and she tells me her story.

‘My husband left me almost ten years ago, for a younger woman. Much younger,' she says.

I must have looked concerned. She reassures me. ‘It's fine now,' she continues. ‘I have a new man and he's just lovely. We are very, very happy. My ex-husband has a couple of young children and he finds them exhausting. I think he's lonely. He phones me often just for a chat on some sort of pretext and then wants to talk about old times and about our old friends and family.

‘Recently one of our mutual friends – the best man at our wedding – died. We were both upset, obviously. But he couldn't share his feelings with his new wife. It didn't mean very much to her, that connection. He needed to call me to talk about his sadness, because he knew I would understand.

‘I hated him when he left, because he left me for sex with a younger woman. But now I just feel sorry for him. I think he often feels lost.'

Her story haunts me. I understand exactly the sense of what she is trying to convey. That even though she and her ex-husband are both in new relationships, something wonderful had been lost when they separated.

The fact that David sometimes comes along to my talks is unsettling for some people. The ABC radio ‘Books and Writing'
presenter Ramona Koval did a breakfast chat session with me in Brisbane where we sat on stools in front of an audience and discussed the book, then I answered questions from the floor. Afterwards Ramona said she found it strange having David sitting in the front row, and felt that it had probably inhibited some of the questions that might otherwise have been asked by the audience. But my experience has been quite different. Women seem to be intrigued by David's presence when I speak openly about our experiences. They often mob him after a talk and want to discuss various issues with him. He usually finds the attention quite amusing, although sometimes also quite unsettling. He gets into quite lengthy debates with some of these women about their perceptions. They often praise him for being so tolerant and he explains that he has, indeed, been very hurt and angry at times. But it seems they would all like a supportive husband who will not only stick by his wife no matter what, but also be prepared to face up to a public audience when most men would cringe or run away.

The whole issue of this public scrutiny is summed up beautifully at the Norfolk Island Writers' Festival by one of the other authors. We are having lunch not long after one of my sessions, where David had been surrounded by a group of enthusiastic women readers after the talk.

‘You're the hero of this festival,' the writer says to David with a wry smile. ‘Much more admired than any of us authors. Every woman in the room wants a man like you. Who will love his wife even if she runs off to France and has an affair.'

We giggle but know it's a long way from the truth. David has not enjoyed any aspect of this public saga. At times he feels that we are like a couple of circus freaks, displaying ourselves for the
scrutiny of strangers. I have a more sanguine view: that we are no different from our audience in our hopes and dreams and aspirations. That if we can, by being totally open and honest, demonstrate that we are walking the same rocky path so many others are also treading, then it can't be such a bad thing.

The reaction of journalists and interviewers to my last book has been mixed. Most reviews have been positive, although some have been quite brutal in their damnation. The reaction of women writers is quite different from men. Two female reviewers: ‘She speaks for a generation of women and her writing is full of the joys of birth and death and everything in between.' ‘I have never read a more honest account of the ups and downs of this sort of enterprise. Don't let me spoil it for you. My heart went out to her when she confessed to being just a tiny bit bored with gardening.'

And one male reviewer: ‘. . . her action-packed French social life is chronicled, but Moody's reflections on it are so shallow and her self absorption so total that it all blurs to a series of lifestyle choices (if I want to, why not?).'

Ouch! It's what I should have expected given that I was picking apart my long-term marriage in public and perhaps posing a threat to some men who feel uncomfortable with women's honesty. I have similar reactions when I do media interviews. The women journalists are usually enthusiastic about the book and identify strongly with the themes and my conclusions. The men are usually more reserved and sometimes a little aggressive. Shock jocks in particular.

One of the biggest surprises is George Negus. I am flown to Melbourne to do his now defunct early evening show to record an interview on the theme of ‘escape'. About my reasons for
running away to France. The midlife desire for freedom and change. All the usual questions, I assume.

But no. Halfway through the interview, George changes tack. He opens the book at a marked page and starts to read: ‘My filmmaking husband David is a passionate man who can be exasperating to live with because of his entrenched attitudes towards all aspects of life. He's not a flexible or easygoing person in any sense and we have clashed almost constantly for the past thirty-one years over all sorts of trivial and day-to-day incidents and concerns. He is inclined to get upset about things that most people would regard as unimportant and he is a man with a strong sense of routine and order, baulking at spontaneity or unexpected change. He just likes things the way they are because it makes him feel secure.'

George then launches into a bit of an attack. ‘What gives you the right to say these things about your husband?' he asks with furrowed brows. ‘Why do you need to write about your marriage this way?'

Somewhat stunned at the change of direction in the interview, I simply ask George if he has actually read the whole book.

‘Well, no,' he admits. ‘I've dipped into it. But I do have a strong impression of what you are writing about.'

‘Well that's not good enough George,' I respond, somewhat thin-lipped. ‘If you had gone on to finish reading that same chapter, I said some absolutely wonderful things about my husband David. You can't just pluck a few sentences and use them out of context. It's a whole book about a whole story. And if you were to ask my husband, who has read the whole book several times, he would tell you he can't deny anything I have said. He mightn't necessarily like me saying it, but it's the truth.'

Abashed, George switches back to the original line of questioning. When the interview is finally edited and put to air, that small segment does not appear. It was embarrassing for both of us, but it does illustrate the sort of attitude that some men have towards women who are brave or mad enough to write and talk about the way they really feel.