The end of 1961 approached, passed, and 1962 began. Over three months had gone by since Thomas had come home to discover his wife on the couch with the enigmatic woman from next door.
Thomas reflected on this as he shook his customer’s hand and waved the man and his family goodbye. It was late afternoon, the summer sun skimming the tops of the eucalypts. Thomas was pleased with another sale, pleased to be heading home while there was still daylight in the sky. As he walked to his car, a pair of noisy miners nesting in a thicket of golden broom dive-bombed his head, peeping indignantly, their wingtips feathering his hair.
Elsie had begun to hum again. She hummed tunes while she cooked, while she showered or darned his socks. She kissed his cheeks and caressed the back of his neck when he sat at the table.
Thomas packed his equipment into the car and slammed the boot. The keys rattled in the ignition.
Of course he had feared that Elsie’s messing about with the lady next door would encroach on his relationship with his wife. Who wouldn’t? Emasculation was a petrifying concept for any upstanding red-blooded bloke.
Thomas set the car in gear and pulled onto the street.
But Thomas could not deny, however incredulously, that that fear had started to wane. That his disembowelled sensation had changed into something less painful, but equally as startling.
Thomas braked belatedly for a stop sign and received a reprimanding horn blast from a motorist crossing the intersection. He smiled and waved. ‘Lovely evening!’ he called out the window.
It felt like madness.
When he arrived home, he opened the front door and was greeted with a pleasantly rich, unusual aroma. Peals of laughter erupted from the kitchen.
Elsie was pouring pasta into a colander in the sink; a cloud of steam rose around her and fogged up the window. Aida was at the stovetop, doubled over with laughter, a wooden spoon in one hand dripping red sauce onto the floor.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.
‘Hello, darling.’ Elsie came around the bench to kiss him. She tsked and used the corner of her apron to wipe a smear of sauce from the corner of his mouth. ‘Evidently I’m not quite fluent in Italian.’
Aida was wiping the floor. ‘I asked Elsie if the pasta was cooked, and she told me it was “al fresco”.’ Laughing again, Aida had to stop wiping and place both hands on the floor to steady herself.
‘I didn’t know the correct phrase, obviously.’ Elsie snatched the cloth from her and rinsed it in the sink.
‘Who’s Al?’ Thomas asked.
The women launched into shrieks of laughter again. Eventually Aida wiped tears from her face and said, ‘She meant al dente.’
‘I see,’ Thomas said. He didn’t. And he still didn’t know who Al was.
When he sat at his place at the table, he noticed the table had been set for three. Elsie placed a foil-wrapped loaf of hot bread on a board in the centre; in front of him she set a steaming bowl of pasta, topped with dollops of meaty red sauce.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘Spaghetti Bolognese,’ Aida said. ‘There’s Italian on my dad’s mother’s side.’ The statement caused her levity to falter, and Thomas saw her and his wife exchange a weighted glance.
Elsie sat at her usual spot on his left, and Aida sat across from Elsie, on Thomas’s right. They both picked up their forks and ate; their topic of conversation now was how many tomatoes they could fit in the vegetable plot to make chutney at the end of summer. All three swigged from their own bottle of beer.
Thomas copied the way Aida twirled her fork into the slippery whorls of pasta. Pieces of it whipped hotly onto his chin, and red sauce spattered his shirt, but Elsie was having the same trouble and she didn’t seem to mind at all. The sauce was delicious: flavoured like ripe tomatoes and red wine. Thomas reached for a piece of bread and found it equally delightful, dripping butter flavoured with garlic. He savoured his meal, his head turning back and forth from the women each side of him. At one point, Elsie squeezed his hand and gave him a bright smile. The smile that lit up his life.
Beers were emptied and three more were opened. Under the table his feet were tapped from both sides.
After tea, Thomas sat in the lounge room with another beer and listened to the wireless and the sounds of the women cleaning up in the kitchen. Later, when they joined him in the lounge room, each with a glass of sherry, Thomas switched off the radio and all three bent their heads together over a crossword puzzle. Elsie brought him another bottle of beer and things became blurry.
When the crossword puzzle was finished, and Elsie put her hand on Thomas’s knee and said, ‘Let’s go to bed,’ and took up Aida’s hand, the idea of saying ‘no’ didn’t enter Thomas’s head at all.