Evie arrived at Parramatta Park before Steve, and parked in the carpark near the stadium, as arranged. He worked in Parramatta, so he’d suggested walking here, and Evie didn’t mind, she didn’t want to meet him too close to home. She got out of the car and went to wait in the prearranged spot. She was feeling antsy, she hadn’t been out walking for five days. Cody had stayed home for the remainder of the week, but fortunately his bug hadn’t spread any further through the family, so the other two had gone off to school, leaving her and Cody home alone. It was nice to spend time with him, but she missed walking. She’d tried to talk him into letting her take him out in his old stroller, but he flatly refused. He wasn’t a baby any more, he’d insisted.
So now that he was back at preschool, Evie couldn’t get out of the house fast enough this morning. She was glad she had told Steve nine-thirty, that had given her just enough time to drop the kids off and drive straight here. Which meant she’d had to wear her walking gear, and that hadn’t gone down at all well with Tayla.
‘Don’t take us into school looking like that,’ she’d insisted. ‘Just drop us off at the gate.’
But Evie didn’t mind the way she looked in her walking gear these days, since she’d lost so much weight. She’d had to buy new clothes, and she didn’t have to wear a big loose T-shirt to cover herself up any more. Now that it was getting chillier, she’d bought a black hoodie, but under that she wore a selection of coloured, fitted T’s, and in her most positive moments she thought she looked quite smart, despite what her daughter thought.
She noticed a car pull into a parking spot not far from where she was standing. She didn’t know it was Steve who stepped out of the car a moment later, until he waved and started coming towards her. She might not have recognised him otherwise – he looked different in the daylight. He was wearing tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, and dark glasses shielded his eyes. Very different to the other night, though to be honest, she hadn’t really taken in much then. As he drew closer she noticed his hair was thinning a little, but he seemed to be in good shape for whatever age he was, maybe a bit older than Craig? He didn’t have a beer gut like Craig, anyway.
‘Hi,’ he said as he walked up to her. ‘Nice day for it.’
Evie nodded, feeling quite self-conscious all of a sudden. ‘Well, shall we head off?’ she said.
They walked for a while making small talk; he asked her if she had walked here before, where she usually went walking, how often, how long she’d been walking for exercise. He told her he didn’t get as much exercise as he should, it was hard to get away from the office, he knew he made excuses. Eventually they exhausted the topic of walking and exercise.
‘So,’ Steve said, ‘how are things at home?’
Evie felt herself reddening. ‘I don’t know. We haven’t talked. I don’t really want to bring it up. Hoping he’ll forget about it, I suppose.’
‘If I can be honest with you, I don’t think that’s likely to happen,’ he said.
They walked on in silence.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ Evie said after a while.
‘Fire away.’
‘How have you coped for so long? You said that you lost interest a while ago, how do you keep going for five years?’
‘It hasn’t been easy. I got pretty down about it for a while there, and at one point I gave Cheryl an ultimatum. I said it had to stop or we were over.’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘Well, she didn’t like it,’ he admitted. ‘She reminded me that I’d started it, that she never would have suggested it herself, and now I wanted to change the rules. I couldn’t really argue with that.’
No, he couldn’t, Evie supposed.
‘I’d made my own bed, so to speak, and she was going to lie in it,’ he said with a weak smile.
‘So, she didn’t . . .’ Evie had to be sensitive how she put this. ‘She didn’t care about how you felt?’
Steve glanced at her. ‘No, she did. I told her I was worried that I wasn’t enough for her any more, that I couldn’t fulfil her needs. But she assured me that she was happy with me, that she felt going to the club enhanced our marriage. She went to a lot of trouble to prove that to me. The sex was good, still is. I can’t complain . . . until the third Saturday comes around every month.’
‘But doesn’t that change everything else?’ said Evie.
‘What do you mean?’
She stared out ahead. ‘I used to be so happy, I thought I had it all – a husband who loved me and who I was certain would stay with me forever, three beautiful kids, a nice house. A future. Craig reckons we can afford to put a pool in next year, and he said we might manage a trip to Bali when Cody’s a bit older. I mean, I always felt like I was living the dream. Now all of that stuff means nothing – I don’t mean the kids, of course. But I can’t look at Craig the same way. Everything’s changed.’
They came to a bridge and walked across, pausing to lean on the railing and look down at the river.
‘It’s like when my mum started wearing glasses,’ Evie said. ‘We’d been hounding her for ages, her arms weren’t long enough to hold the paper out to read it any more. And so she finally got glasses, and then she was amazed at everything she’d been missing. Some of it was good, like being able to read more easily, but mostly she was alarmed – by her own wrinkles, the dirty windows and mirrors around the house, smudges on all the furniture, dust. She was horrified. That’s how I feel now. I can see the smudges and the dirt and the flaws.’
‘So you think it was better when you couldn’t see them?’ Steve asked.
‘No, maybe not. It just makes me realise how short-sighted I’ve been. And now that I have seen them, I can’t ignore them. I have to do something about them.’