For almost two weeks, Elsie had felt throbby-hearted and scatterbrained.
Everything seemed brighter, more alive. The sky was a more vibrant shade of blue, the cool change that came in with a misty rain and seeping damp only made her house feel cosier on the inside. When she soaped herself in the shower her skin felt powerfully sensitive, as though an abundance of extra nerve endings had blossomed beneath the surface. In the back of her mind, a sensible voice uttered uneasily: What are you doing? What is this? Why are you behaving this way? Aida is grieving and you’re a married woman! But Elsie rationalised away her time with Aida with an ease that surprised that sensible voice: She’s my friend. Women need girl friends – we need each other. I’m not neglecting my duties at home – on the contrary, my home has never been cleaner, neater, or smelled more delicious. Thomas’s tea (often prepared now with tutelage from Aida) had been on the table on time, every evening. His trousers were pressed to knife-creases and his shirt collars were as white as summer clouds.
And in the past eight days, Thomas and Elsie had made love seven times. It would have been eight if Thomas hadn’t been afflicted by a bout of stomach cramps owing to the pie floater he had eaten for lunch.
So of course, Thomas noticed the change. ‘You seem in such a happy mood, my love,’ he said on Wednesday evening, as she set a plate of steaming lamb chops and mash in front of him. ‘Are you feeling better about . . . ?’
He was asking about the loss of the baby, and into her lack of denial she felt all the lies pressed together, like paper flowers between the pages of a heavy book. Every moment of un-loneliness spent with Aida, every breathless, warm afternoon spent together: all fuzzy-edged, guilty, gummy and hot lies.
*
On Friday evening, when Elsie served tea and they sat down to eat, Thomas told her he was going away for the weekend.
Elsie dabbed her lip with a napkin. ‘Next weekend?’
‘Tomorrow.’ He looked morose and set down his knife and fork. ‘Bagnoli invited me on his fishing trip. This is the first year I’ve been invited. It’s a pretty big deal.’
‘Oh.’ She looked down at her plate. Thomas was going away for the entire weekend. A shot of pure pleasure roped through her belly.
Stop it!
Thomas dragged a hand over his face and gave a weary sigh.
‘You don’t want to go?’
‘Not really,’ he admitted. ‘I feel like I’ve hardly been at home for weeks. And these days you’re so . . .’ he sighed again, but this time a smile snuck into his features. ‘You’re so happy. Everything has been wonderful. I was looking forward to a weekend with you. I thought we could sleep late, have breakfast in bed with the paper . . .’
‘That would have been lovely,’ she said. ‘But never mind, we’ll have next weekend. Don’t worry,’ she added at his mournful expression, ‘you’ll be home before you know it. And I’ll be right here – I’m not going anywhere.’
*
Thomas left early the next morning. Elsie was still in bed, and he insisted she stay there. They would stop at the bakery for breakfast; she needn’t trouble herself.
Elsie listened to the sound of the front door closing, Thomas’s footsteps descending the steps, the car engine coughing and turning over reluctantly. She waited until the car disappeared up the road, until she could no longer hear the sound of the engine at all, and then she waited a few extra minutes.
Silence descended. A hush that was total and loaded, plump with possibility. Elsie pushed back the covers and got up.
Outside, fragrant morning air touched her face, fell onto her bare shins. Pulling her robe tighter, she hurried across the backyard, dew flicking up onto her ankles.
Earlier that week, Thomas had told her he was still getting excuses from the builder about the missing fence, and Elsie had made a pretence at sympathetic exasperation. He had mentioned getting another builder to do the job, but Elsie convinced him it was best to wait for the original builder. No need to burn any bridges, she told him.
Pulling a key from her pocket, Elsie quietly unlocked Aida’s back door and let herself into the dark hallway.
In Aida’s bedroom, soft snores came from beneath the blankets. Not wanting to frighten her, Elsie tapped on the doorframe. The shape on the bed didn’t move. Elsie knocked again, her knuckles rapping the timber.
In her sleep, Aida’s breath caught and she stirred.
‘Aida? It’s me.’
‘What time is it?’ Aida asked groggily. ‘Wait – it’s Saturday.’ Startled, she woke fully. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Thomas went fishing for the weekend.’
Aida looked at her, and Elsie feared she had gone too far. Coming over unannounced early on a weekend, waking Aida and standing in her bedroom when she would be expecting solitude – Elsie realised she had taken too much liberty.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I only found out last night. I should have given you time to wake up.’ She backed out of the doorway. ‘I’ll go.’
Aida hesitated, then she shook her head. ‘No, no, it’s a lovely surprise. Don’t go. Come here.’
Elsie smiled. Stepping into the room, she untied her robe and let it fall to the floor. Lifting the covers released a cloud of Aida’s sleepy-skin smell. Her nightie rode up as she pushed her legs beneath the sheets, searching for Aida’s warmth. After the cool outside in the yard, Aida’s body gave off the delicious, comforting heat of a radiator. As Elsie rested her head in the crook of Aida’s shoulder. She wanted to run her fingertips along the soft hollow at the top of Aida’s collarbone, but she felt shy about the movements of her hands.
Elsie lifted her head. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I keep thinking – this isn’t a normal ladies’ friendship, is it?’
‘You don’t reckon Mrs Watson and Mrs Adelman share a bed when their husbands are at work?’
Elsie grimaced. ‘Why did you put that picture into my head?’
Aida laughed and tickled the underside of Elsie’s wrist, leaned in and kissed her. Elsie’s head immediately went light and floaty, as though all sensation in her body had fled and converged upon her mouth. Kissing her was like eating peaches: indulgently sweet and soft, all mouthfuls of pleasure.
Aida ran her hands lightly up the backs of Elsie’s arms, over her shoulders and curled gently into her hair. Ripples of pleasure skittered across Elsie’s scalp and down her spine; her back arched with the sensation, cat-like in satisfaction. A deep sense of contentment came over her, a stilling of time. There was no pressure in the hands that held her head, no obligation from the lips that moved to caress the line of her jaw. There was no expectation for the next step, no need to perform.
Although was that how she felt with Thomas? She felt the sink of Aida’s breasts pressing against hers, the cushion of her belly from the months of cradling her baby. Thomas, in her arms, was all long muscles and salty skin and urgent breath; he was marriage and marital duty, a home and financial security and pride. Aida was luxury: she was the cream at the top of fresh milk, she was a silky warm bath at the end of the day.
A sense of balance came over Elsie. A powerful, irrevocable conviction that despite how wrong it all seemed, everything was so very right.
Because suddenly, she realised it: Elsie needed her husband, Thomas.
And she needed her dear friend, Aida. And Aida needed her.
How on earth was she going to have them both?
*
It wasn’t long before her question was answered.
On account of the tide times Bagnoli swore by for the best catch, Thomas had told Elsie he would be home well after tea time on Sunday.
So when Elsie fell asleep with Aida on the couch at noon, beneath a rug that Elsie had crocheted the previous winter as a wedding gift to herself, she didn’t expect to be woken by Thomas arriving home early.
But she was. Because he did.