The next day

‘You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, Samantha.’

‘Mum . . .’ Sam considered hanging up right now, before she had to listen to another word.

‘It’s true. You’ve put on weight, you don’t look after yourself the way you used to.’

‘I haven’t put on that much weight –’

‘When you and Jeff were going out you always made yourself look nice. You went to that little bit of extra effort.’

‘I was a teenager, Mum! I had nothing else to do but paint my nails and pluck my eyebrows. Now I’ve got three kids, a house, a job . . .’

‘I managed to keep my figure and my house.’

‘But not your husband.’

There was a brief, stony silence.

‘Well, Samantha, maybe you’ll curb some of your sarcasm now that you’ve found yourself in the same boat.’

Bernice Driscoll had single-handedly raised her daughters after their father deserted them. Bernice liked the term ‘deserted’. She wasn’t happy when the government changed the ‘deserted wives’ pension’ to the ‘sole parents’ benefit’.

‘How can you tell the difference between someone who is in this predicament through no fault of their own,’ she’d lamented, ‘and someone who, well, brought it upon themselves?’

According to Bernice, her husband left her because he’d always wanted a son and she hadn’t been able to produce one. Pure and simple. It seemed credible, if somewhat archaic. The girls were named Alex, Sam and Max, and he left his next wife after she presented him with twin daughters, Jackie and Jaime. Well, that was the rumour Bernice had heard anyway. They’d never actually met any second wife or half-sisters. They didn’t hear from their father again, but sometimes conjectured they could probably trace him by following a trail of girls with boys’ names.

Bernice had carried on, like the tragic Anne Boleyn figure she was, she often sighed to her daughters. Of course, they tried to remind her that Anne Boleyn had actually been beheaded for failing to produce a male heir to the throne and was thus perhaps at least marginally more tragic. But Bernice Driscoll didn’t care to muddy the issue with facts.

‘I hope this doesn’t mean you won’t be able to take me out to the shoe warehouse next week?’ Bernice had suddenly realised that Sam’s predicament could have some unfavourable repercussions on her own life. ‘You know I’m desperate for new shoes, and Footrest is the only brand I can wear, but I just will not pay the prices they ask in the shops.’

Oh, no, Mum, why should my life falling apart stop me from running around at your beck and call?

‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’ll see you next week.’

‘I’m not going to talk to her about this any more,’ Sam insisted later on the phone to Maxine. She knew she could count on her younger sister for support.

‘I don’t know what possessed you to talk about it with her in the first place,’ said Max drily. ‘Why did you, anyway?’

‘Force of habit.’

‘Would you like me to give you the “what a bastard” response?’ she offered.

‘Well, I wish someone would,’ Sam moaned.

‘What a bastard!’ Max exclaimed with gusto. ‘Typical bloody male with his brain in his dick. You’re better off without him, Sam. And he’s going to crumple into a pathetic heap without you to run around after him!’ She paused. ‘Do you want more?’

‘No, that’ll do for now. Thanks.’

‘How are you really?’

‘I don’t know. Different to what I thought.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well,’ Sam tried to explain, ‘when I thought about Jeff having an affair, I didn’t think it would feel like this.’

‘You’ve actually thought about what you would feel like if he ever had an affair?’

‘Yes,’ she defended.

‘Is that normal?’

‘I don’t think it’s abnormal.’

‘Mm,’ Max mused. ‘So, is he serious about this woman – what’s her name?’

‘Jodi.’

‘Jodi? Ugh! She isn’t under-age, is she?’

‘I don’t think he’d be that stupid.’

‘When men let their penises make decisions for them, there’s not a whole lot of rational thought going on.’ Max sighed. ‘Jodi, huh? I bet she draws those little circles over the “i”. How did he meet her?’

‘Through work.’

‘Mm, typical, statistically speaking.’

Maxine had a statistic, an anecdote or a theory for just about everything. Often she had all three. She had been studying for a degree in psychology for the last three years, and she was almost finished first year. Not that she’d ever failed. Whenever she actually completed a subject, she usually earned a High Distinction. Max was the smartest of the three girls by far, but stuff kept getting in the way. Bad relationships, lack of money, the travel bug biting now and then. Maxine had a short attention span. She found it hard to stick at anything for long. At thirty-three years of age, she had not had one relationship that anyone could take seriously, least of all her. She avoided normal men like the plague, preferring to take her chances with an assortment of misfits and losers. Sam didn’t know where Max found them, but she did, with alarming regularity.

‘Do you want me to come round tonight?’

‘I would, but Jeff wants to “talk”.’

‘Oh? Didn’t you do enough talking last night?’

Sam sighed. ‘We did. And I asked him to leave. But he wants to take it more slowly. He’s concerned about the kids.’

‘Convenient of him to think of them now.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Does Alex know yet?’

‘Oh I’d imagine Bernice would be broadcasting the news to her as we speak.’

Alexandra was the eldest, and she played that role to perfection. Max and Sam were both frightened of her. She lived in Melbourne now, married to Gordon who was eighteen years her senior. Max theorised it was because she needed a father figure. But Sam reckoned Alex was born old. At ten she acted like she was twenty, and at twenty she had the composure of a forty year old. She couldn’t have married anyone younger than Gordon. They had one perfect specimen child, Isabella, who fitted beautifully into their precisioned life. Alex had crashed through the glass ceiling years ago, she had probably not even noticed it was there. She currently worked as a management consultant for a multinational corporation. Sam and Max had no idea what it was that she actually did.

‘Well, call me and let me know what happens. Promise?’ Max insisted.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I will. You’re going to be sick of the sound of my voice before long.’