Zigzag Street (16 page)

This is a fantasy I should be having in my room, not hers. And even then I wouldn't be impressed with myself.

We lie with our heads on the same pillow, looking at each other, and we seem to take it very slowly. And I'm sure we're both thinking, if you stop this now that's okay. But at the same time we're each thinking we can't stop it.

Whatever, we don't stop it. And I think I abandon
any reality outside this room and we keep making achingly slow progress with each other's bodies until we're just so close, holding so close and moving with each other and feeling so good that it just happens. She opens her eyes wide and makes a noise as we both realise and we keep going, faster now, faster. And I'm telling myself, not yet, not yet, despite all these hundreds of days with nothing but a box of tissues and a good imagination, not yet. I can feel her hands on my back, the sweat between us, the frantic movement together, everything sludging in my wine-kicked head, but at the same time incredibly clear. She lets go, lets out a long noisy breath, and then I hold nothing back.

I can't remember it being like this before, I could say that to her honestly.

She sleeps.

My head is full of things. The fear that this was the most awful, foolish act in a life of harmless foolishness. That this was a very bad way to avoid two hundred successive days of celibacy by the narrowest of margins. That I've used her somehow.

But I can't stop touching her, even now. I'm lying watching her, with my arm over her, and I feel really good. Right now, she matters to me incredibly. And those are the boldest terms in which I can face anything I'm feeling. You matter to me incredibly. As though this might be a beginning, and not a disastrous betrayal.

I haven't felt this close to anyone in a long time. Right now, I think I'd put up with anything for this not to end.

I am woken by the sound of screaming, distant and strangely distorted.

Hillary has gone.

I find her in the bathroom, screaming with her head down the toilet, the lid and a towel over her to muffle the noise.

I persuade her to come out and we sit on the edge of the bed, both of us naked and staring at the floor, working out how we can begin this.

This isn't good, I say, stating and seriously underplaying the very obvious, but only so some talking starts.

No
.

I took it by the toilet thing that you'd realised that.

She nods.
Rick, look, I don't know what to do. You don't know how great that made me feel, just for a moment there
.

I've got some idea.

You don't know how fucked up I feel right now
.

Really? Really? I don't know fucked up? I'm breaking new ground in fucked up. The last couple of hours included the greatest thing that's happened to me for a long time and the worst thing I've done in my life. And it's the same thing. And I was already fucked up.

Yeah. Sorry. Look, what I meant was, I was talking about me. I'm sorry. I meant you don't know how I'm feeling right now. I mean, I haven't been honest with you.
Things haven't been great, and I've kept that to myself. And now I'm thinking I've used you in some appalling way. And I really like you. There you are, someone I really like, who's not having the best of luck, and this is what I do
.

Are you kidding? You think you did this and I just sat here and had it done to me? I'd really like to say it had never crossed my mind before. I'd really like to say I don't feel like scum. But I can't. I find you incredibly attractive and that kills me. And here we are, you don't travel well, you're away from your baby, you drink far too much, and this is what I do. I can't believe it.

Yeah? Yeah? I play the Nick Cave song. I suggest dinner in my room
.

Dinner in your room means nothing.

I suggest two bottles of wine. And I, correct me if I'm wrong, I made the first move
.

Hey, I wasn't slow in being second. Any closer and it would have needed electronic timing to pick the winner.

She laughs.
Rick, this is so bad. I'm your manager. This is appalling. This is against absolutely everything I stand for. We should be able to work together, just as two people, and this should never even be a possibility. Here I am, a woman in a position of power and this is how I handle it
.

That is such bullshit. Thanks very much. So now you're reducing it to some re-run of ‘Disclosure'.

No. No, that's not it. What I meant was …

I think I know what you meant.

What I meant was, this shouldn't have happened. This shouldn't have become part of our relationship. And I'm really responsible for that
.

Why?

I'm the manager. I should do better than this
.

Look, sure you're the manager, but it's not that straightforward. It's not like I didn't have some say. It's not like I was against the idea. I've had the chance to get to know you, and sure you're the manager of the
unit, but that's only a small part of what I know about you. And tonight that didn't matter at all. And besides, the power theory only works if I think you're holding something over my head. And you just aren't. This didn't happen because of any pressure from you. You didn't abuse any position of power. You don't know …

And I don't know how to finish this bit.

… you don't know my perspective on this at all.

She stays quiet for a while before saying,
And you don't know mine. Things are different with Peter. He looks on me differently. As though I'm now the mother of his child and maybe that's all. It's made me feel really undesirable. I don't know what's happening with us. I began to wonder if there might be someone else, then hated myself for wondering. It's an awful thing to think, and I really want things to be fine. And this is what I do. This is how I deal with it. This is how I make things fine
.

I thought things were good. I guess I just assumed. You seem so in control.

Yeah, and what a great day this has been for control
.

So what do we do now?

What do you mean
?

Well, it's three am. We have a meeting at nine. Then we go back to Brisbane. You go back to Peter and Daniel and I go back to, well, I go back to nothing I guess, but I'm still going back. So we've got to work out how to deal with all this.

Yeah
. She thinks for a while.
Right now, I don't want to deal with anything outside this room. Right now I want to be a coward just here and curl up and sleep and face none of this
.

Okay. And in the morning, there's no blaming, okay? There's none of us each thinking we took advantage of the other. Guilt about other aspects of it we can sort out later, but tonight, what happened tonight, was mutual.

Okay. Mutual. No power play, no manipulation, no victim
.

That's right.

Just, desire, or something
.

Desire, some wine and a quite incredible lack of judgement.

We should sleep now
.

Yeah.

And we lie there, hardly sleeping at all and careful not to touch.

The alarm goes off way too early.

We happen to be facing each other and we make eye contact.

Hi
, she says.

Hi.

In case you're wondering, a nine o'clock meeting is out of the question
.

Yeah. It'd be funny though. The two of us looking as though we'd both had three hours sleep after telling them at five-thirty that we wouldn't go out to dinner because of your headache.

Yeah. Very funny. I've got an idea. How about you call Shelton's—someone's bound to be there even though it's really early—you call them and tell them my headache was a migraine, and it got worse and I have to sleep now. And can we have the meeting this afternoon. Then call and re-organise our flight home. Later I'll make whatever calls I have to to handle the child-care issue. Dan has to be picked up by five-thirty
.

So I sit by the bed, still naked, talking to someone who went in to work early to call New York. I think I can tell from the tone in his voice that he's wearing a dark suit, though he may have taken off the jacket. I hope he can't tell that I am sitting wearing only guilt and bodily fluids (particularly when the bodily fluids are a mixture of mine and my manager's).

Changing the airline booking is easy. They can think what they like.

Then I lie down, and Hillary curls subconsciously back against me and I sleep.

She wakes me late morning.

We should eat
.

She orders breakfast.

This is when we realise that we are naked and in the same room. That this is more than simply horribly incongruous, and that it really doesn't matter whether or not it's fine by the person who brings the breakfast.

We should get dressed
, she says.
We should have a shower
. There is a pause.
Showers. I should have a shower, and then you should have a shower. That's what I meant
.

She goes into the bathroom and leaves me sitting on the messy bed, facing a chair that has my today clothes thrown over it, looking like yesterday's.

When she comes out she's wearing a towel and the fact that she's covered at all makes my nakedness feel very inappropriate.

I take my clothes into the bathroom and I shower using the one-use-only bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner, and I shave with the hotel disposable razor. Today, I do cut myself shaving. I'm never good with new razors.

When I go back into the room Hillary is fully dressed and breakfast is on the table. She's looking unsettled.

I just called Peter's parents
, she says.
I told them I'd had a migraine. They said they'd love to pick up Dan from child care, so that's all sorted out
.

Good.

So come on, eat
.

I sit down and face the unfamiliar choice of fruit, toast and cereal.

Wow, real breakfast.

What do you mean
?

I tell her a bit about my diet.

Doesn't that make you incredibly constipated
?

Sure. I kind of hoped the popcorn maker would turn it around, but, you know, you've practically got to be in the mood to cook when you make popcorn, if you want it to have any kind of flavour. You've got to have a bowl and a utensil and butter and seasoning. It's not as easy as you think. I tend to like the basics.

Like biscuits and chips and soft drink
.

Flavoured mineral water. And you think this is why I've been a bit on the difficult side, down there?

Yeah. You should think about fibre
.

So I eat the fruit, and the cereal, and begin my new plan to threaten my sluggish bowel with fibre.

We try to tidy the room, but there are signs of last night that won't go away. The bed will tell no lies for us when we are gone.

You know, I say to her, they'll probably think you had a wild night, and next door I slept so soundly I didn't even crease the sheets.

I doubt it. I can already hear the sound of two and two being put together
.

Only in this room, okay? Only hotel staff and only in this room. Whatever else happens is up to us. So stop staring at the wet patch as though your life's about to end.

And the last thing we do before leaving the room is stop so I can take over from her unsteady fumbling hands and fasten her pearls.

She waits in the corridor while I put my shoes and socks on next door, in a room that smells as sterile as when we arrived.

And when we're in the meeting it's as though it never happened. A few polite queries about her migraine, and everything else seems totally normal. I'm watching her perform, effectively, confidently, and my mind's only on last night. People are sitting round the table making notes, thinking up questions, and I have to be ready for them.

Hillary's talking about how we might follow this up, the mechanisms we might set in place, who should be involved. She arranges for a group of business people from Singapore due in Sydney next week to visit us in Brisbane on the way. I'm beginning to realise I have more work to do.

She's tense in the cab on the way to the airport. I tell her she looks tense.

It's just the flying
.

By the time we get to the airport she's worse.

You're quite small and about to become very crazy, I tell her. I think I'm going to have to kill you and take you as baggage.

Then I remember some tablets for jet lag left in my toilet bag since I last went overseas with Anna. I think they have some relaxant quality. And I figure my toilet bag might as well be of some use this trip, since I don't think I've opened it yet.

I give Hillary the bottle and she looks at the label.

These things hardly touch me
.

She takes three, washed down with a few mouthfuls of bourbon.

Don't do the bourbon thing again, I say to her, detecting an unattractive nagging tone in my voice.

She just glares at me and sits sipping bourbon until we're called to the plane. I have to help her out of the seat, and by the time we're down the walkway, down the aisle and I'm buckling her in, she's forgotten there's a plane involved at all. By take off she seems to have passed out. So this time I have no need to speak of Bolivia and small vegetables.

It still surprises me how much I care for her as she lies unconscious next to me, her head rocking against my shoulder with the slightest of turbulence, saliva dribbling from the corner of her mouth and onto my sleeve.

I take a
Who Weekly
from the flight attendant. Helena's back with Michael. Shoshanna's back with Jerry. Clearly in this business windows of opportunity don't
stay open long. And somehow, despite the heroic pointlessness of the notion of Celebrity Partnering, this makes me feel even more crappy. Back when Jeff and I came up with the idea, there was a certain purity to my crappiness. Now I feel an overwhelming sense of seediness. Really crappy, really empty. I can't believe what I've done.

Hillary is still almost unrousable in the cab, so when we get to my place I can see nothing else to do but to lift her out, load her into my car and drive her home. I can't send her off with the cabbie with her address pinned to her jacket like some smashed Paddington Bear.

We drive through the post-peak hour traffic and she sits slumped and with her head to one side, her mouth open and snoring. All the time I'm hoping no-one will be home, and then I'm wondering what to do. Put her to bed and leave a note beside her? Dear Peter, don't be concerned. Nothing of any consequence happened in Sydney. Your wife is only this way due to drug ingestion.

Whether he's home or not, I don't expect this to be easy.

No-one's home.

I drag Hillary and her baggage up the driveway. She manages to tell me,
Purse, purse
, when I shout Key. So I lift her up over my shoulder and I begin going through her purse. Thinking of the contents of women's purses (and wondering why the fuck the keys have to be the last things you find) it occurs to me that last night's sex could hardly be called safe. Not that I think she's a risk, and I'm sure I'm not (unless you really can get it from toilet seats or drinking out of the same glass), but I realise it needs to be addressed. Or rather, should have been at the time. I think we both thought it wasn't really happening.

Just as I'm shaking her up and down on my shoulder and rifling through her bag and shouting various things about safe sex, a car pulls up in the driveway.

A man, a man I have met once before and know to be Peter, gets out and lifts a baby from the back.

Shit, bad migraine
, he says.

Yeah. I think it's the medication too. And the flying problem.

She told me she was over that
.

Not really.

Is she all right
?

Yeah, she's fine.

He notices then that he's standing with his baby over his left shoulder and I'm standing with his wife over mine.

Looks like mine's lighter than yours
, he says, and smiles.
Do you mind bringing her in, since I've got Dan already
?

He leads me down a hallway and into their bedroom. This is far too weird.

I put her down on the bed and he kneels beside her, stroking her cheek and saying,
Hill, Hill
.

Safe? Safe
? she says.
Of course it was fucking safe
.

She begins to open her eyes, sits up suddenly opening them wide and looking around. She looks like she's about to scream. Her face makes all the right movements but is then overcome by sluggishness. She gives in to the unmanageable weight of her eyelids and her head flops back onto the pillow.

The plane, I say. I think she was very concerned about the safety of the plane.

Oh, always. I've no idea where that comes from
.

She's been saying very strange things since she took the flight sickness medication. I don't know who gave it to her. But she's been speaking an amazing amount of rubbish, really.

Well, I'll have to ignore everything she says till she sleeps it off
.

While this has all the potential content of a veiled threat, I don't think the notion of threat has occurred to him. He's just giving me a cue to go.

To go and leave them here, this happy, mysterious family. To get back in my car, for the first time in two days responsible for only one person's seat belt. I turn the radio up and I sing along as I drive back across town. To eat, play tennis. Just like normal, but all the way hoping they don't play Nick Cave, ‘The Ship Song'.