The text comes pinging in on your phone and you pick it up in a reflex action. He’s never sent anything you couldn’t read out loud to Finn, there’s no suggestion of anything going on whatsoever, but you feel guilty anyway. He shouldn’t be texting now, out of hours, on a Friday night at the start of a family weekend. He should know better.
No, that’s stupid. Why shouldn’t a colleague send a text after hours? ‘Hours’ is such a last-century concept anyway. Work bleeds over into life now. The midnight emails, the Sunday afternoon ‘catching up’: it’s all normal, even for the North Coast sea-change class, supposedly beyond such things.
<Hope she remembered you today ☺>
You pour another glass of wine, aware you’ve necked the first one in five minutes. Finn won’t notice you’re on the second by the time he gets back with the pizza. Not that he would say anything.
You usually visit your mother in the nursing home after work on Thursday, but you missed yesterday and squeezed it in today instead. Finn is distracted, and Jarrah’s in his own teenage world, so neither of them asked how she was. Part of choosing the North Coast was bringing your mother closer to where she spent her childhood, in the hope it would help her faltering memory. Or at least feel familiar. But today was bad. She didn’t recognise you at all.
Only Chen has asked how you feel about it. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Chen has, after all, stepped into the best-friend hole left in your life by Sandra’s expulsion. You’re both scientists: he the big-picture ecologist to your fine detail biologist. You share a similar sense of humour and a taste for optimism, rare in your profession.
But you know what’s wrong with it. He’s nine years your junior and you’ve caught yourself looking at the taut, smooth curve of his arms when he wears a short-sleeved shirt. You swap witty repartee. More recently, your eyes meet and you grin without needing to articulate the joke.
It’s a new step, this text. Friday night, and personal, and far too insightful. It’s dangerous. You moved here for a fresh start in your eighteen-year marriage. You agreed to put what happened behind you and so far it’s on track. Mostly. But you don’t stop Chen, and you answer his texts and you glance at his arms and both of you laugh just a bit too long. No one has said anything – not him, not you – and of course it’s possible you’re imagining it.
But you don’t think so.
You’ll send back a breezy text. <Nope. She thought I was the nurse.> Except when you go to type it, you realise how unfunny it is.
The second glass of wine has gone the way of the first. You switch to mineral water. They’ll be back any second now, and you get yourself together and start clearing the table and throwing down napkins and glasses.
When the landline bleats, you jump and knock your glass over. You snatch up a cloth and multi-task, mopping as you answer.
‘Bridge, it’s Eddie. Finn’s not picking up.’
‘Pizza run.’ You’re not sure you like the way Edmund, with the prospect of making some actual money from your husband at last, seems to have become his new best friend.
‘Fuck and bother. He’ll really want to hear this.’
You roll your eyes. Edmund loves a drama. ‘What?’
‘Sculpture by the Quay had a late dropout. I’ve pulled some strings. If Finn can get that piece finished by Thursday, he’s in.’
You’ve sopped up most of the wine now and you head to the sink, wedging the phone between shoulder and ear to squeeze the cloth. ‘Sounds great.’
‘Not great, Bridget. We’re talking major breakthrough. Do you know how many people see this show over New Year? He’s picked the steampunk zeitgeist. He’ll be keeping you in the accustomed manner.’
You laugh, though not unkindly. Finn’s sculpture hasn’t ever brought in much more than it costs, but it’s made him happy, and meant you could pursue your career while he looked after the boys. It’s worked out well all round, as Edmund knows. Sudden artistic breakthrough isn’t something you’ve factored into your plans.
‘I’m serious. This is huge. You’ll need to step up.’
Edmund can still rile you, after all these years. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Put him first. At least for a week, so he meets the deadline. See what happens.’
He doesn’t know about Finn’s betrayal last year – at least you don’t think he knows – and injustice rises in your throat like gorge. ‘Listen, I’ve—’
‘Settle. You know what I’m saying. Get him over the line, OK? And now you get to tell him, half your luck.’
You hang up, and moments later you hear slamming doors and feet thudding up the verandah steps. Finn comes in last, behind Toby, who’s about to tip into fractiousness from hunger, and Jarrah, whose face is set in studied teenage blankness.
Finn glances at you as he sets the pizzas down. ‘What?’
You grin at him, teasing. ‘I should make you wait …’
‘What, woman?’ he demands.
‘Eddie called. You’re in some minor show in Sydney. Now, what was it again? … Something by the Quay?’
He stares at you, then relaxes. ‘Yeah, very funny. They selected months ago.’
‘Someone dropped out. Edmund knows the right people. Finish that piece by Thursday and you’re in.’
The way his face changes shows you how much this means. He lumbers across the kitchen, banging past the table, and grabs you in a Finn bear-hug that squeezes the breath from your lungs as he lifts you up. You beat him on the back and he loosens his grip and lowers you, grinning like a kid.
And something loosens inside, something hard you didn’t know was still knotted so tight. You said you’d forgive him and maybe, finally, you really have. Your kiss lingers with the promise of later.
‘Oh, get a room,’ Jarrah says, making a face.
You make one right back at him. ‘Your dad’s only in Sydney’s newest outdoor sculpture show, boyo. Worth celebrating. Now get Toby sorted.’
Jarrah wrestles an overwrought Toby into a highchair, where he pounds his fists on the tray of the highchair with an energy that’ll turn quickly to tantrum. You quickly slide the pizzas on to platters and Finn cracks a beer, refills your wine, opens a Coke for Jarrah.
You lift your glass high. ‘Here’s to the steampunk zeitgeist. Cheers!’
Finn clinks his bottle against your glass, and against Jarrah’s soft drink. ‘Punk-what-what?’
You shrug. ‘That’s you. So Eddie says.’
Finn fangs down his first slice of pizza in two bites and grins at you with his mouth full. He’s a bear of a man, a blacksmith from some medieval village, with his broad shoulders and big belly, everything about him substantial. Smiling back, you make the decision. You’ll put this thing with Chen away. You won’t reply to his text tonight. You won’t think about his arms. You’ll throw yourself behind this opportunity for Finn. After all these years of pottering away in the studio, selling a piece here and there, he deserves his chance, and God knows he’s talented. He’s been carving wood all these years when he should have been metalworking, that’s all. He’s found his medium now.
It occurs to you things might be about to change drastically. Who’ll look after Toby? If this really is Finn’s big moment, you need to adjust. You might need a nanny, or a cleaner, or, please God, someone to take over the cooking.
Time enough to talk about that over the weekend, but not tonight. Tonight is about celebrating, about sex, about coming home. You’ll switch off the mobile. You’ll stop holding back. You’ll give yourself to him.
You have no idea, yet, how long it will be before you’ll do that again.