I was envious of Hattie. She’d joined a bi/lesbian meet-up group and was going out most nights of the week, exploring this new sexuality of hers, pashing new women in dark bars. It sounded as though she was a fish swimming in a sea of passionate sharks.
One night she convinced me to come along to a No Lights No Lycra dance get-together, in the basement of a forgotten church. Not only were there no lights and no lycra, there were also no shoes and no teacher, so we could all dance like no one was watching. It reminded me of how I had met Luke dancing in a club in Prahran; how he’d swung me around the dance floor, thrown me back passionately in his arms and kissed me for the first time.
But he’d fooled me: he actually hated dancing. That must have been the one night in his life that he’d actually been on a dance floor. Dancing freaked him out. He hated people watching him move. He couldn’t so much as nod his head at a gig or raise a shoulder to a beat of music. Way back in the early days when he’d played his guitar, he’d even done that frozen still, carefully avoiding making any movement that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Any wedding we’d been to, he’d sat at the table the whole time, hiding, not so much a stick-in-the-mud as a whole-damn-immovable-tree-trunk-in-the-mud. I’d always had to find a substitute dance partner (an elated father of the bride or a drunk uncle) or join the group of desperate single girls.
That night with Hattie, feeling that beat at No Lights No Lycra, something reawakened in me: memories of how I’d liked to dance once upon a time, had gone to clubs, danced for hours, didn’t even care who I was with, it was just me and the music and ten years of dance training that hadn’t gone anywhere except for those sticky dance floors. It had been important to me, had been a part of who I was, but somewhere along the way I had lost all that — that freedom to move, to be sexy and carefree.
Afterwards, Hattie and I went and had a glass of wine in a bar nearby.
‘All the clichés are true: lesbians like cats and have long, slow, beautiful love-making sessions.’ Hattie said, taking her first sip of wine.
‘You’re killing me,’ I said. ‘Maybe I need a woman.’
‘What about Jarvis?’
‘I can’t stand to see him; I’m too scared of what may happen.’
‘Really? I thought you might have at least moved on to first base.’
‘Nup. I’m going so carefully here, I don’t want to stuff things up, you know. But you should read his messages. When it happens, it’s going to be amazing.’
‘What if he’s lousy in bed? Are you going to give up everything with Luke on the off-chance that things are going to be better with Jarvis? Wouldn’t you want to know first?’
‘Lousy in bed?’ I laughed. ‘He couldn’t be worse than Luke and I. We’re never intimate. I can’t tell you the last time we—’ It felt so embarrassing telling someone how estranged we’d become.
‘Why not? Has he . . . you know, problems down there?’
‘No, nothing like that.’ I sighed. ‘I don’t know. We have different schedules. We never go to bed at the same time. He says he’s tired all the time.’ It sounded so absurd when I said it aloud. ‘It was all right in the beginning, I guess. I mean, it wasn’t mind-blowing or anything, but it was okay. But these days, I’m probably keener than he is. It’s like he’s almost completely lost interest in it.’
‘Maybe he’s asexual?’
‘Maybe he’s just not into me. I don’t know. It’s been this slow, steady decline into nothingness . . . like, it would almost be weird to have sex with each other now. And for a long time I was okay with that, I thought it was kind of normal. I’m only just realising that I want affection in my life again. I’m starting to think that, with or without Jarvis, Luke and I are over. Jarvis is just making me realise it.’
‘Wow, that’s full on.’
And it was full on. I’d only just articulated that to myself, but having sounded out those words it left me feeling incredibly sad.
‘What are you going to do?’ Hattie asked.
‘Well, I’ve got Annie, the tutor, coming over every Wednesday night. She’s got two girls . . . long brown hair, quite attractive, very smart, although more in a science-y way than a creative way. But science is creative, yeah? Like, people have to have wild imaginations to ask big questions like “what if?”, don’t they?’
‘I guess so.’
‘And then I’ve also introduced him to Suzi. She’s one of my true-crime authors.’
‘I thought you hated all of them.’
‘Well, yeah . . . but not this one. She’s okay. She has a boy who’s nine, and she’s got blazing red curly hair. At least she’s a writer — that’s creative, yeah?’
‘Sure.’
‘I want Max to have a creative upbringing. Jeez, if I can’t be around all of the time, I at least want him to be with good people.’ It seemed as though my endorphins were falling by the wayside. I’d felt so uplifted half an hour ago, but I was feeling really miserable now. ‘I’m a real fucking mess. I’m not sleeping properly, I’m not eating, I’m lovesick. I’m a bitch to Luke. I’m impatient with Max. I’m scared of everything that’s going to happen in the future. I’m scared of wrecking everyone’s lives. It’s all really, really fucked.’ I took another sip of wine. ‘And maybe I just lied a minute ago. Maybe I would have been happy to be with Luke for the rest of my life if I hadn’t fallen for Jarvis. Perhaps I would have been content for us to grow old together, to have been at Max’s wedding together, like an old-school happily married couple. My thoughts and feelings change from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. I’m completely screwed and trapped.’
Hattie was my oldest friend. We’d met at kindergarten and gone to primary school together. We grew up five streets apart, and her parents were still friends with my parents. She had seen me through all the stages of my life. She’d seen me freak out, she’d seen me fall in love, and she’d seen me be dumped, dust myself off and start again. But I’d never had this much at stake before.
‘Be careful, sweetie,’ she said to me, ‘Don’t rush anything. You’re not being forced to make any decisions. So take your time, see how you feel. I tell you what: I’ll make you a new hat. You can always love a beautiful new hat. That kind of love is uncomplicated.’
I smiled.
‘Tell me what you’d like. But we’ll have to wait until the Spring Racing Carnival is over. I’ve got a million orders coming in. I had three hats ordered the other day from Gai Waterhouse. She likes my hats. Can you believe it?’
‘Of course. You’re very talented.’
‘I’m seeing something sensible for you: vintage green, 1920s. Something that goes with your dark hair. I’m thinking Natalie Wood in that red hat on a boat.’