THE MAIN STREET WAS QUIET, only a few people outside the bakery and a couple heading into the newsagent. The town had a supermarket, butcher shop, chemist, a bunch of cafés, banks, real estate agencies and an old limestone hotel. The Melbourne elite, the influential and old money, had their second homes down the road in Sawbrey Heights, where million-dollar mansions perched on cliffs overlooking the bay. Sullivan’s Landing, however, was mostly empty holiday houses, fibro shacks and clapped-out weatherboards that once belonged to rabbit trappers and lime burners, now rented at extortionate prices to city folk over the summer holidays. For one month a year, the street heaved with traffic, arguments over parking spots, harried women trailing a gaggle of bored kids with sunburnt faces. The men trailed behind, hands shoved in pockets, scowling and resentful at the enforced family time. But with the start of the school year, they all left and the town returned to its tranquil self.
It was bright sun when she came to the other end of the street and turned for the main road and home. The car swept past clusters of bobbing boats, the water shimmering with their masts’ silvery reflections, a pelican standing at the end of the jetty like a sentry. It was hard to believe that just under two kilometres separated this inlet, as perfect as a mirage, from the pounding ocean on the other side of the hill.
Elena turned up the driveway, bounced along the gravel, and parked out the front. When she got out she heard a low grunt and looked up. Ringtail possums, reconnoitring out of their hiding place inside the roof, studied her from the ghost gums with glossy black eyes. She knew she should have been annoyed – they deadheaded the flowers, ate through the wiring, even shoes left by the door. Instead, every night as she lay in bed, listening to them scratching overhead, she felt comforted by their presence. After all, she said to herself, they were here first.
“About time,” a man’s voice said. “I’ve been waiting here for bloody ages.”
Elena turned around, smiling. “Well, you could’ve waited inside, you know. It is your house after all.”
“Don’t have a key.”
“Really?”
“Nope.”
She looked up at him and shook her head. “That’s not very lord of the manor, is it?”
“Well, what can I say? My smoking jacket’s at the drycleaners.” He winked.
Peter Jameson was in his forties, greying at the temples, tall with a wiry frame, and sparkling blue eyes. He was wearing suit pants, the jacket slung over one shoulder, a crisp white shirt and what looked like a silk tie. The bankers’ uniform, he called it. Suddenly, she felt scruffy in her leggings and old T-shirt. He smiled at her with the wry smile that always suggested he was in on some private joke. Elena felt her heart jump, then settle. She was, even after the divorce a year earlier, still a little bit in love with him. There was no point denying it. He had been a good husband, distant towards the end, but considering what other women went through, coming out as gay didn’t seem such a big deal. At least, that’s what she told herself.
He was standing by the railing, one hand propped against a limestone pillar. Jameson House was one of the oldest in Sullivans Landing and was a classic example of Federation stone. It had been built by his grandfather Peter, another wealthy financier, back in 1909, and had the honour of being one of the first houses in the area to have electric light. Sitting high on the cliff, its red gabled roof peeked out from the treetops and was used as a navigation point for boats coming in and out of the bay. A wide verandah, supported by sturdy block piers, wrapped around the big old house. Upstairs, there were balconied attic rooms with beautiful timber strap-work, and water views from each window. Everything about the place was genteel, rosebushes by the fence, the north-east-facing gate which opened onto the fire trail, the wooden bench at the bottom of the sloping lawn. It always reminded her of the words from an old English poem:
There is always music amongst the trees in the garden
But our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.
Peter held out a hand and pulled her up the last step. He kissed her on the cheek, and embraced her, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Her nose filled with the scent of his cologne, the smell of him, musky and familiar. They stayed like that for a perfect moment. Suddenly, Rafi appeared at the window, barking and pawing at the glass, as if to register his displeasure at this exclusion.
Elena stepped back. “Good to see you, Peej. You never come and visit anymore.”
“It’s been two weeks,” he protested.
“Really? It seemed like longer.”
“I’m here now. Anyway, you don’t want me hanging around like a bad smell. I did enough of that when we were married.”
She laughed. “Staying for morning tea? I’ve got cake.”
“Chocolate?”
“Yes.”
“You know me too well.”
She led him inside. The kitchen was on the other side of the house, an expanse of stone tiles with a wooden table at its centre, a cupboard-lined wall, an industrial stove and a long marble bench with a porcelain sink. Behind it, a square window framed the view of the garden, and through the trees glimpses of the water beyond. Elena opened the door to the verandah to allow in the breeze. There wasn’t much heat in the sun but the light filled the room.
Peter was already seated at the table, Rafi in his lap. As she bustled around making coffee, she thought of how it seemed just like old times, before everything changed, sitting in that very spot, on their rare weekends here, always the same routine: eating dinner by candlelight, wine glasses drained and refilled, his hand gently rested on her knee. A sudden sadness rose up from her stomach, lodged in her throat. She swallowed it back down, annoyed at herself. At this useless sentimentality.
“Met someone on the weekend,” he said. “From the share ownership seminar.”
Elena turned to look at him scratching the dog’s ears. “Really, Peej?”
She felt annoyed that he felt the need to share every intimate detail of his life, his encounters, the way that he’d moved on so quickly from her. But it hadn’t been quick, Elena knew. By anyone’s measure, a year was not lightning speed.
He frowned. “Don’t give me that look, El. It’s not what you think.”
She straightened, gave him an apologetic shrug. “Tell me about him.”
“Name’s Gerard Bates.”
“A banker?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“From?”
“Birkin, Fellows & Lang. He’s based out of Sydney but comes down for weekly finance meetings. He seems normal enough. Well, according to industry standards, anyway. But, as you know, normal is a relative term.”
“And he’s nice?” she asked, walking over to him, carrying the cake, plates and cutlery. She grimaced slightly, torn between being supportive, and wanting to completely change the subject. “Yeah, that’s probably not the right word. Is he pleasant – by industry standards?”
Peter looked away. “I’ve just met him so I can’t really say. But I’m definitely interested.”
“When are you seeing him again?”
“Friday. We’re having dinner at Bistro du Bois.”
“Nice.” Elena nodded, smiling. “I hope it works out for you, Peej. You deserve to be happy.” She meant it.
Peter reached for the cake, cut a slice for them both. “So do you.”
Elena couldn’t think of how to reply. Conscious of the flush in her cheeks, she got up to get the coffee. He was still watching her when she came back, a cup in each hand.
“Enough about me,” he said, taking the cup. “How’s your love life?”
Elena sat, blushing slightly. He wasn’t going to let it go. She cleared her throat, took a sip of her coffee. “Well…”
“Come on, El. Not even one date?”
She grimaced. In a town like this there were two camps: retirees and tradesmen. Any available men had left straight out of school and never came back. She knew she was a snob, and made no apologies for it. Smart and ambitious had always been her thing. And yet, on reflection, she knew it was probably all an excuse. If she wrote them off as too stupid, too old, too uneducated, too anything, it let her off the hook. Just thinking about it made her exhausted.
“No, there’s no-one,” she said. “Pickings are slim down this way.”
“Yeah,” he replied, suddenly serious. “Especially when you never leave the house.”
An awkward silence.
“I like it like this. Time to think, you know.”
“Too much time. You’re getting trapped inside your own head.”
All she could do was shrug, deflect it.
After a while, she summoned a tricky subject. “I spoke to Julie Miller before, from Children’s Services. She told me Daniel’s dad’s in rehab. Keeping it real. That’s what the director said anyway.”
Peter snorted. “What a fuckwit. Should’ve stayed on the drink. I doubt anybody would miss him much.”
“Yeah. He’s not exactly loveable.”
“What happened to the mum?”
“Dead,” she replied. “Drug overdose. She was off them, apparently. But this was a one-time thing.”
“Didn’t you say she was violent too?”
“Sometimes. She was more of a shouter, though. Julie said she was trying to get herself together.”
“How’s that?”
“Parenting classes. She wanted Daniel back.”
Peter shrugged. “Such a waste.”
“Yeah.”
It was a waste, she thought. And yet, Elena felt a vague guilt – perhaps, unreasonably – towards this woman whose name she didn’t even know. She was someone abstract to her, like a story on the news. The boy was their only common ground. It was true he was better off with her, but she still lived with a heaviness in her chest whenever the subject was broached. The idea that she had found happiness at someone else’s expense. As if none of this would have been possible without the other woman’s death. As if she’d been the one to put the needle in her arm. Elena frowned at the thought, pushed it back down.
“I’m worried about you, Elena,” Peter said. “You’re hiding down here in this big old house, no social life, no boyfriend. No job. You hardly ever come to town to see me, or any of your other friends for that matter. It’s like you’ve just dropped off the face of the earth.”
“You make it sound so dramatic,” she joked.
He shook his head. “All I know is that you have to get back out in the world. You’re too young to just give up on life.”
“I’m not giving up. I’ve got Daniel to look after.”
“His placement is only temporary.”
“I know. But I have to do what I can. He needs me.”
“For now.”
“For as long as it takes.”
“And then what? They take the kid and you’re back to where you started.”
Elena felt the sting of tears, quickly blinked them away.
He saw he had gone too far, held a hand up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. It’s just…” He leaned forward, frowning slightly, his gaze unflinching. “I know you’ve been through some heavy stuff, but it’s been more than a year, El. Don’t you think it’s time to dust yourself off? Get back out there.”
Elena drained her cup, drew a finger around the rim, focused on its faded floral pattern. She wanted to look at him but couldn’t.
“And I know I’ve got no right to say it, because you’re not my wife anymore…” He paused, considering his words. “But I still want you to be happy.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“Will you at least think about what I’m saying?”
“Yes. Of course.”
It was true, all of it. She was hiding from the world. But it hadn’t always been this way.
She had been working in Western Australia for a mining company ten years earlier when she first met Peter. When she was accepted into the graduate recruitment program, she was twenty-five, and desperate to see the world. He was five years older, already a mid-level manager in the finance department. He made an impression – the ease of his manner, the impeccable appearance, a sharp intellect – but she had places to go. A life to begin. First in Orissa, then Bougainville, even a nine-month posting in Siberia. It wasn’t until she came back, as a mine administrator, five years later, that their life together began.
The year they married, she began another posting at an iron ore site in Sulawesi. Four days after their honeymoon. She would be working in six-week stints, like most of her colleagues, ten days off in between. Peter had been offered a senior role with one of the big banks – as the head of finance in the Asia Pacific – and would be based out of Melbourne. In her mind they would work it out, what with the way they were in love and all.
“We’ll get through it, babe,” he said, uttering the hopeless words which would become a mantra throughout their marriage.
They’d found it hard to get pregnant, though most of the time they were too tired to even try. After three years, Elena made an appointment at CentralFertility, the city’s best IVF clinic. The doctor was an older gentleman with a ruddy complexion and kind eyes. Pinned on the corkboard behind his desk were countless photographs of chubby-faced babies with their beaming parents – a veritable wall of fame. It was those smiling faces with their unintended mockery which stuck in her mind.
“Well,” he said, poring over the notes in front of him, “we’ll do some more tests to be sure, but nothing stands out to me here … for either of you. Sometimes there’s just no clear explanation why.”
“But she’s only thirty-three,” Peter protested.
On the tram on the way home he tried to cheer her. “We’ll go somewhere else – get a second opinion. You’re too young to have any real issues. I’m sure it’s something minor.”
Elena could feel herself bristling. She clenched her jaw, but the words escaped anyway. “And what makes you think the problem is me?”
“I assumed,” he said.
“You ‘assumed’?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean–. No, you’re right. It could just as well be me.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She knew it was her, even before it was confirmed by further tests. It was a feeling, like the sense you got of another person silently entering a room; somehow she just knew.
After that appointment Peter left for a six-week secondment in Singapore while she went back to the Pilbara. She stayed there for three months, finding solace in the vast nothingness and the 12-hour shifts which left little time for introspection. She spent her days coordinating the hot-seaters’ roster: a group of mothers who worked during school hours, driving the colossal earthmovers filled with iron ore, and named for their ability to quickly change drivers at the end of a shift without any loss of productivity. In the evenings she watched mindless TV in her donga while listening to the carousing of the corellas in the coolabahs that rimmed the women’s accommodation block. There, she felt protected from the world – from the maelstrom of her own life. Most of all it just gave her a break from the seemingly endless doctors’ visits, the blood tests, and the sadness in her husband’s eyes. He wanted to be a parent, simple as that. And she felt guilt which crushed her.
When her posting ended she went back home to Peter. They’d been back to the specialist for the results of yet more tests. It wasn’t good. He explained with a grim expression that she was in premature menopause. He’d gone on to explain that it was nothing she had, or hadn’t, done. Nothing hereditary. Nothing medical. It’s just one of those things. When was the last time she’d had a period, he’d asked, almost as an afterthought? She’d shrugged, couldn’t even remember. Peter looked at her, one hand rested on her knee. The compassion he wore made her feel even worse.
They left the office and walked a few blocks in no particular direction. It was August. The early afternoon air was thin, and the plane trees along St Kilda Rd had dropped their foliage for the season. They ended up outside the National Gallery, and went in just to escape the cold. They ended up in the café on the first floor overlooking the expanse of grey slate tiles in the foyer. Up from them came the murmur of people’s voices, the clatter of footsteps. Elena looked at Peter. He had his hands wrapped around hers, fingertips still chilled from the street.
“I’ve been thinking.” His voice was low, hesitant. “What about adoption?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the suggestion. She caught the earnestness in his words, the quiet desperation, and a weariness which he couldn’t hide. She looked away, made a show of shifting her weight, to buy herself some time – to hide her own despair. “Can’t do any harm to make a few calls.”
He nodded. “Just to explore our options.”
“Of course,” she replied as casually as possible. She wasn’t keen. It wasn’t just the idea of facing a mountain of paperwork, it was the emotional toll her infertility had already taken. But she loved him, and would do this, if only for him. After all, love was love, wasn’t it? Maybe it was just a matter of getting used to the idea.
Elena got on the phone later that afternoon. She was told adoption was a bureaucratic nightmare, a five-year wait, probably more. Almost as an afterthought, the woman mentioned foster care, explained the process. Its relative ease, by comparison. Elena thanked her for her time, then hung up and started to cry. She didn’t really know why. Perhaps it was the emotion of the day. Perhaps it was their work schedules, the scattered time they actually spent together, the getting to know each other again after each prolonged absence. Or perhaps it was something deeper, that when they made love now, Peter went elsewhere. She could feel it in in his touch, like a man with a task to perform, his faraway expression. He climaxed without pleasure; the long sigh of relief. On the street it was another matter. He did, for the most part, contain it. But she could see it in the stolen glances at other men – when he thought she wasn’t looking – the longing, the lingering eye.
Not long afterwards, she left for an oil-rig posting; Peter went back to Singapore for another secondment. Elena had begun to worry about what this would mean for them. She reassured herself that they would be alright, there was hope for their future. She wanted to believe it. But the heart knows what the mind won’t accept.
At the airport he’d held her by the shoulders, a tired expression drawing down his face.“We’re going to be OK, aren’t we?” she said, reaching up a hand to caress his cheek. Her voice was small. “I mean, we’ll get through this, right?”
“Of course,” he replied. But he didn’t meet her eye, whether by design or accident she couldn’t tell. Instead, he looked into the distance, over at the departures board, tinny announcements filling the spaces overhead. “Well, you’d better get going. Don’t want to miss your flight.”
“I love you,” she ventured.
“I know.”
They didn’t see each other for another eight weeks after that. It would become the pattern which marked the following two years of their marriage – this death by a thousand cuts. Elena wondered if things might have been different if she’d been able to give him a child, yet fully aware that this would not have fixed what was broken between them. They no longer tried to coordinate their schedules, whether they might have two days or two weeks together. They no longer had sex. Of course they blamed tiredness, just as they’d always done, but the truth was far more prosaic. Peter’s desire – for her at least – was gone; he was simply too much of a gentleman to say so. But the love was still there – it had just morphed into something else, something fraternal, abstracted.
It was the perfect storm of traumatic events, which had started with her early menopause, then suddenly, surprisingly, retrenchment when, out of the blue, one hundred mid-level managers in the oil and gas departments were “let go”. The payout was substantial enough not to worry about the future. For the time being at least. When Peter finally announced he was gay she almost wept with relief. Bad news always comes in threes. It’s all over, she thought.
“What now?” she’d asked the day after Peter had delivered his news. She was reclined on the sofa in the living room of their tenth-floor apartment, listening to the sounds of the city. Rafi lay sprawled on the rug. They’d gotten him from a shelter two weeks’ earlier, a little dog with grey curls and watchful black eyes.
“What do you want to do?” he’d said gently.
She closed her eyes, head spinning. “I don’t know, Peej. I’m just so tired.”
“What about a change of scenery?”
“Such as?”
“Jameson’s. The place is empty. Nobody to bother you. A couple of months down there would do you a world of good.”
She rubbed her palms against her eyelids, looked over at him. He was standing by the balcony, cigarette in hand, flicking ash out the door. It caught on the wind, swirled upwards and away.
“That’s not a bad idea, actually.” She’d sat up then, suddenly animated. “I could go swimming, do some reading.” The last thought, as it formed in her mind, was the most appealing, and the one which sealed her decision. “I could breathe again.”
“One condition, though.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You’ll let me check on you from time to time. Just to make sure you’re not lying dead in the hallway, your face eaten off by feral cats.”
Elena had snorted a laugh. “Deal.”
When Children’s Services rang her a few weeks after she’d arrived at the house, she struggled to remember ever filling out the paperwork. She’d collected Daniel on a Friday, a pale child with sad eyes, and retreated back to the house.
Elena shook her head, as if to disperse the memories. She looked at Peter. He was chasing a glacé cherry around his plate with his fork. “More cake?”
“Yes,” he said. “This is some good shit.”
They sat in companionable silence, forks clacking against their plates. Her muscles were aching. She stretched out her legs. The dog was at her feet, bored by all this conversation, giving her a look she knew well.
“Want to go for a walk?” she said.
“You talking to me or the dog?”
Elena smiled. “Both.”
It was a perfect autumn day and the sky was blue. The breeze had picked up slightly, though not enough to say it was cold. Rafi had already run ahead, looking back regularly to check they were following. They walked down the fire trail, past the heavy undergrowth, the interwoven tree trunks, and turned down the track which led to the beach. When they were almost there, the dog made a run for it, barking excitedly, maniacally, a flash of movement approaching the water’s edge.
“Look at him go. You’d think he’s never been to the beach before,” Peter said.
“That’s his Baywatch run,” Elena replied, laughing. “Notice the flapping ears, the airborne grace.”
“I think he’s happy here. He never was a city dweller.”
“Yeah, well, him and me both.”
They went down to the shoreline, water lapping at their feet. The sand was harder there, compacted by the waves, easier on her back. Rafi led the way. An osprey dive-bombed from a great height, reappeared moments later with a skinny silver fish in its beak, arced away. The day really was idyllic.
Elena thought about what Peter had said, about her hiding out down here. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. Or probably the last. Then again, when he offered the house he probably hadn’t figured on her staying this long. Neither had she. But the longer she stayed the harder it was to leave. She felt inert, like she was trapped in a dream from which she couldn’t wake. And she wondered if she even wanted to – because she felt safe here, in her coastal carapace. In this place of breathtaking views, with all the pretty houses and the main street with its sandy limestone buildings, like drawings from a fairy tale. In this place where nothing much happened.
She sighed, saddened by the blunt assessment he’d delivered her, that she really had erased herself from the world. She wasn’t dead yet, but she was getting close.