Hattie was texting and ringing and leaving me messages. She obviously felt bad about the other night. But I didn’t want to talk to her about Jarvis anymore. What I had with him was clearly so sacred that nobody else would be able to understand it. We shared something that transcended reality. We weren’t yet proper lovers, but we were beyond friends. It wasn’t a physical love; it was a cerebral love, where we caressed each other with words, and ideas and feelings. It was just like that John Donne quote Jarvis had sent me: more than kisses, letters mingle souls.
We lived in the same city, only twenty minutes away from each other, yet circumstances kept us from actually seeing each other. I knew that I would not be able to trust myself if I found myself alone in the same room with him. And although my relationship with Luke had gone to the dogs, I still didn’t feel as though I could physically cheat on him. Yet I thought I was quite happy for Luke to do that to me.
Rita started seeking out a friendship with me. She asked Max over for a play date and asked me to stay and have a cup of tea. She lived in a very modern warehouse conversion near Gertrude Street. She must have done well out of the divorce.
‘He looks after us quite well. His financial contributions equal the guilt that he feels,’ she explained after I admired her home. ‘But I miss my backyard. We used to have this beautiful four-bedroom home near Edinburgh Gardens. It was my dream house. I still cry every time I drive past it.’
We sat at her kitchen bench, a minimalist kitchen with Miele appliances, a marble bench-top, a hidden double sink and handleless black cupboard doors. The effect was sleek and modern, but I found it unsettling. She made me a chai latte with soy milk, because she didn’t drink coffee, and we snacked on unsalted mixed nuts and dried figs from a pistachio-green dish.
‘I’ve just gone through a green phase,’ she said. ‘I painted the kitchen last week.’ She pointed to the vintage Volkswagen-pastel-green above the black cupboards. It was highlighted by three large green apothecary jars next to the sink and a large green fruit bowl on one side of the kitchen bench. ‘That wall used to be blue, before that black. I like to change things around every now and again. Out with the old, in with the new. I repainted the entire apartment last year, all by myself. I love painting, it’s meditative.’
I hated house painting. We’d repainted all of the rooms in our previous house. When we’d first talked about it, I’d imagined myself painting with a red paisley scarf around my hair, in a white t-shirt and jeans, and pictured Luke and I talking and laughing and singing along to music. But it wasn’t anything like that. Instead, it was washing down walls with sugar soap in grumpy, exhausted silence, applying masking tape to window frames, cutting in edges with a small paintbrush and getting a sore neck from using the roller on the ceiling. It was not nearly as thrilling as a Dulux ad would lead you to believe.
I found Rita’s home pretentious. The L-seater couch was white, with red scatter cushions. It was impractical for two young boys; she must have made them leave their shoes at the door and wiped their hands with wet-wipes after every meal. The floorboards were polished in a dark tint. It didn’t feel homely. Everything had a place and there was no clutter. She even had a black container for the three remotes by the television. There was a silver cookbook stand on the kitchen bench. God forbid someone actually laid a cookbook open on that marble bench-top of hers; imagine how much space it would take up and how messy it would look! The fridge door was bare, except for a thin notepad filled with a running list of jobs that had to be done: make hummus, book chiropractor, wash car, make granola, pay term activity fees, hairdresser, make and freeze pesto, book in car service, buy new football boots for Josh . . . I felt stressed just looking at that list of hers.
I thought about my own disorganised life and my cluttered home. We had so many books we now had to stack them on top of bookshelves. Our hallway was plastered with Max’s artworks, dating right back to his kinder days (I could never part with them). I’d covered the back of the toilet door with my favourite Leunig cartoons from The Age. Our fridge was so covered with old photographs, birthday invitations and school notices that we could no longer see a white background. We could never find the DVD remote control.
I shifted uncomfortably on the stool, feeling like I was messing up her space just by sitting there with my handbag on the floor under me. The boys were in Evan’s room playing, and I felt vulnerable. I didn’t belong there. My friends have always been earthy, not pristine. Give me some dust and crooked artworks on the wall and I’m much more comfortable.
‘How are things with Luke?’
‘Oh, okay, fine . . . I shouldn’t have said anything the other day. I was premenstrual. I probably want to divorce him for one week in every cycle.’ It was meant to be a joke, but it kind of fell flat.
‘Peter didn’t even end up with the woman that he cheated on me with. Can you believe it? The two of them destroyed our family and then weren’t even able to make it work together. What a waste.’
‘Who was she?’
‘Someone he worked with.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘She wrote a sexy message on a business card. And he kept it in his wallet. It was almost like he wanted to be caught. My therapist says that some people do this, because it takes the decision out of their hands. He’s a weak piece of shit all round.’
‘Are you still friends?’
‘We’re painfully polite to each other. We have to be, because of the boys. He’ll come to their birthday parties, that kind of thing. My mother can’t even say hello to him. And he comes from a big Greek family: they’re so protective of each other, no one would even acknowledge what he did to us.’ She spoke rapidly, like she was firing out rounds of bullets.
‘How often does he have the boys?’
‘He’s supposed to have them every second weekend, but he often cancels. Last weekend he had a work function on the Friday night, so he didn’t pick them up until the Saturday morning. Then he took them to Luna Park, spoiled them with show bags, rides, you name it, took them out for dinner and then dropped them back early Sunday morning because he had a cousin’s engagement party to go to. So I never get a real break. He takes them out and has fun and then brings them home with their bags full of washing. I’m always the bad guy, the one whingeing at them to eat their breakfast, get ready for school or pack the dishwasher. It’s constant. Lucky my mum is so good — I’d go mental without her.’
‘How was your marriage anyway?’ Perhaps, truthfully, this was a loaded question: surely people wouldn’t cheat in a happy marriage, but would only go looking for things outside of the marriage when something is missing.
‘It was okay. I don’t know, it wasn’t perfect, but whose marriage is?’ I looked around at her overly ordered home and wondered whether that had something to do with it. ‘My chiropractor says that seventy per cent of people regret their divorce. Have I told you about him? He’s brilliant. My boys have both been seeing him since they were one month old. He’s helped with everything from attachment issues to colic, reflux and ear infections. Josh used to be totally hyperactive, but my chiropractor’s helped to settle him down. I could give you his number, I highly recommend him.’
I didn’t believe for a second that a chiropractor could do all that. I had more belief in the existence of ghosts than in a chiropractor treating reflux and hyperactivity. It sounded like bullshit to me. Rita had a level of intensity that only a certain kind of man would be able to cope with, I suspected. And the more I spoke with her, the more I was drawing a black line through her name for Luke. She was off the list for sure. Only Suzi remained.
The conversation took a turn for the worst when she got onto the school canteen and her disbelief at what they sold there.
‘And they put a healthy tick on the menu next to cheese-top rolls. Do you know what are in those? But if parents are stupid enough to believe that, then let them go ahead. What they need is a Thermomix in the canteen to make fresh soups.’
My toes curled up. I couldn’t stand the idea of a Thermomix. If any woman mentioned the $2000 or whatever it was they’d spent on one, I knew she wasn’t the sort of friend for me. I looked over at the opposite bench by the wall, and there it was: the Thermomix, shining in all its silver glory. I had to get out of there. My brain was saying ‘run, run’. I could hear emergency sirens in my ears, see red and blue flashing lights. I gathered my bag up from the floor, made some excuses, grabbed Max by the hand and got the hell out of there.