Authors: Lucy Springer Gets Even (mobi)
S
am’s soccer game kicks off at 8.30 am. I manage to get us there at 8.15. Bella sulks in the car till half-time. When she finally skulks over to me asking for a sausage sandwich, I agree. You have to pick your battles.
Soccer used to be a lot more social. Today, the parents are concentrating intently on the game. No time for chitchat. Trish, our babysitter’s mum, barely manages a nod, so I don’t like to hassle her about whether Alana is around tonight to babysit. Instead, I smile at the people I know and follow their lead by focusing on the game. It’s a bloody big field for eight-year-olds. Little legs scramble all over the place. I can’t tell them apart, so I focus on Sam’s jersey, number thirteen.
‘Good on you for coming,’ Nadia says at half-time. ‘How are you bearing up?’
I look to her for more information.
‘With the renovations? Max?’
‘The house is coming together nicely and Max is at a conference,’ I lie.
Trish walks past us, this time looking furious. I go to wave but she’s clearly in no mood for a cheery Saturday morning greeting.
‘Whatever anyone might say, it’s not your fault. You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Nadia says.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, worried. It’s the second comment in as many minutes. Obviously she knows something’s up.
‘Uh, I’m -’ she begins, but one of the mothers grabs Nadia’s arm and whispers urgently into her ear.
‘Nadia,’ I push, but she just says ‘Sorry’ hurriedly and leaves with the other woman, giving me a look that convinces me Sam has said something to Lachlan.
Twenty-five minutes later, Sam’s team has lost three-nil and the parents are suitably subdued. As soon as they come off the field, the boys, including Sam, disappear into the nearby scrub, stuffing themselves with lollies and singing rude made-up songs about their teachers.
I try the babysitter’s mobile again. No answer. Obviously out with her uni mates and clearly not too hard-up for spending money. I relent and call Mum.
‘We’re gonna party,’ chirps Gloria when we arrive at the entrance to the Actors’ Studio. I’m not overly enthusiastic, feeling more than ever like an old, deserted housewife. Still, sometimes you’ve just got to cross the bridge and experience life on the other side.
As soon as we step inside, I know I’ve made a huge mistake. Beautiful young things dance to Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’. A surprising number of them are wearing togas.
‘Hasn’t changed much, has it?’ says Gloria, taking a wine glass from a waitress dressed as an exotic Egyptian princess.
I nod and sip. ‘It’s weird how the faces are older but they have fewer wrinkles.’ I’m also aware of the number of older men with much younger women on their arms.
‘There are some new faces as well, darling,’ says Gloria, making a beeline for a dark-haired man wearing a jazzy leopard-print skivvy, his right arm in a sling.
‘How the fuck have you been?’ says a voice in my ear.
I jump backwards. It’s Gracie Gardener, my nemesis.
I hate to admit it, but she looks great, despite having cocaine mouth and eating her lips. She’s wearing a black Max Mara diamanté cardigan. I know it’s Max Mara because I tried it on a few weeks ago and it looked positively frumpy on me.
‘I thought you were dead, Lucy.’
‘I thought you were in rehab.’
‘Very funny. Did you hear I landed the
Seasons
gig?
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.’
I’m nodding when she adds, ‘The directors said they knocked back loads of wannabes.’
Thank God, I think, as she zigzags off into the crowd, utterly out of it. I drink faster and say ‘Hi’ to people I don’t know and don’t care to.
‘You look great,’ says someone with feathers in their silver hair. Another person, of indeterminable sex, offers me ecstasy and a ride in their silver Porsche. I hesitate before declining. Who am I kidding? I’m too old to be taking ecstasy, as much as it might provide a welcome change from sauvignon blanc.
An utterly gorgeous woman of giraffe-like proportions glides past me, her head bobbing as she greets the assembled throng. She spots Mini, a girl with bouncy brunette hair who I was at NIDA with. Mini looks stunning but then she’s had a facelift - or six. Her eyes have that startled gazelle look and her chiselled Nicole Kidman nose is a neon sign for a fine plastic surgeon. The giraffe is wearing black Marc Jacobs boots with heels at least twelve centimetres high. I’m mesmerised as she pounces on Mini and they expertly execute an enthusiastic hug and double air kiss without quite touching. It’s magnificent to watch.
I spy Gracie Gardener again, with a small group of admirers, and overhear snippets of conversation. ‘They were so relieved to see me audition . . . after all the dregs they’d had to suffer,’ she says in a stage whisper, running her gnarly fingers through her over-bleached hair. It takes all of my willpower not to interrupt and tell her admirers about her humble beginnings as Darlene, a fifteen-year-old checkout chick at the Blacktown Coles supermarket.
‘You look unhappy,’ says an attractive young gladiator beside me.
‘Well, I’m not,’ I lie. I’ve seen him before but can’t quite place him.
‘Fuck, I’d hate to see you when you’re unhappy then,’ he laughs, and lights up a cigarette. ‘Want one?’
I shake my head and wonder what the hell I’m doing here surrounded by gorgeous people, some barely past their teens. My new friend was no doubt playing with Tonka trucks while I read
Dolly
magazine to find out if my boyfriend of the time was a cosmic match.
‘Yeah, filthy habit,’ he says. ‘Hey, I know you. Weren’t you the babe in
The Young Residents
?’
I wonder if that’s code for ‘What happened? You’re an old scrubber now.’
‘I’m Rock, by the way,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘Rock Hardy.’
I want to laugh out loud but shake his hand instead.
‘I’ve seen your commercials,’ he says, and smiles. ‘Don’t you want to go back to acting though?’
After a brief pause to confabulate I say, ‘I’m thinking about doing this show MTV are producing, you know, the first hip-hop reality sitcom, but it’s still hush-hush.’
I’m just starting to enjoy lying through my teeth when Gloria and one of her charges, Petrea, walk into the conversation.
‘Hello, Rock. Looking gorgeous, as always,’ says Gloria, kissing him playfully on the lips.
‘Look, everyone,’ says Petrea, brandishing a calendar and a joint, ‘I’m Ms September!’
Petrea is in the midst of a crisis. She’s just turned thirty and is terrified of being usurped by younger, better-looking and thinner models. Hence, she recently posed naked for a Sydney radio station charity calendar. Hopes are high the exposure will reignite her modelling career. I know this from Gloria’s indiscreet gossiping. God knows what she tells people about me.
Gloria introduces Petrea to Rock. They laugh, telling Gloria they’ve known each other for yonks. I find myself wondering if they’ve slept together, and then wonder why I’m wondering.
‘Bald head at two o’clock,’ says Gloria, spying one of the ‘it’ girls of the moment, sans hair. Her name? Summer Ashcroft. ‘Shaving your head is de rigueur, Luce. Think Cate Blanchett in
Heaven
, Sigourney Weaver in
Alien 3
-’
‘Demi Moore in
Striptease
,’ I add.
‘It wasn’t bloody
Striptease
.’
‘Whatever. I wouldn’t do it.’
‘Suit yourself. That’s why little Summer over there gets the gigs.’
‘Really? It’s got nothing to do with the fact she’s sixteen, ten-foot tall and looks sensational in a bikini? I doubt if I shaved my head it would have the same effect. Were my breasts ever that high?’
‘Look,’ Gloria says, ignoring me, ‘there are people at the bar doing cocaine.’
She’s about to make her way over there when a commotion breaks out near us. It involves Gracie and her ex-husband, Edwin.
‘What’s her problem tonight?’ I whisper to Gloria.
‘See that guy with his arm around Edwin?’ she replies.
A theatre critic with
The Australian
newspaper, Edwin has a gaunt, elegant frame and is wearing crocodile-skin trousers, a black poloneck cashmere jumper and black boots with a five-centimetre heel. The guy Gloria is referring to is dressed similarly and holds a cigarette between his middle and ring finger. As I watch, Edwin throws his head back and laughs at something the young (
very
young) and pretty guy has just said.
‘That’s Marcus, Edwin’s new
friend
,’ says Gloria.
‘No! Edwin’s pushing forty-five. Marcus must be -’
‘Barely legal.’
I feel a fleeting twinge of sympathy for Gracie as Edwin and Marcus keep laughing, oblivious to her growing agitation.
As the evening wears on, I pass the time watching the young things boogie and flirt with each other between popping pills. It’s a million miles away from my life in the suburbs in a house with neither kitchen nor husband. An overwhelming feeling of inadequacy grips me.
‘Status anxiety,’ says Gloria when I finally unburden myself. ‘For God’s sake, don’t compare yourself to others, especially those who have achieved greatness or had greatness thrust upon them. No good can come of it.’
I snort as Gloria shrugs and drifts off into the crowd.
Rock appears again, barely five centimetres from my face. Just as I’m starting to get the impression he likes me, he sticks his tongue down my throat.
‘Let me take you away from all of this, Lucy,’ he says, coming up for air.
Had I been even drunker, I might have been tempted. After all, I don’t get too many offers of gladiatorial nocturnal delights. But I can’t leave with a man-boy called Rock, because I might end up having really bad sex with him and then feel traumatised and hung-over. Besides, I could never wake up in the morning feeling lusty about a guy named after something igneous.
Then I feel guilty, very guilty, about the kiss. I’m a married woman, for God’s sake. I have two children.
I leave with Gloria not long after Gracie jumps into the pool, nude. The water must be all of three degrees.
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at a fancy cocktail bar in the inner city.
‘It’s been way too long since I’ve done this,’ I say to Gloria.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
I tell her about Max’s postcards.
‘Bloody Max,’ she says, before listing all the reasons why she doesn’t like him. It’s a very long list.
‘Wearing slip-ons is not a good enough reason to dislike someone,’ I tell her.
‘It’s my list, I’m allowed to dislike him for any reason I want.’
By the time she tells me the thirty-second reason - he didn’t get
Kenny
- it’s late in the evening and we’ve downed a bottle of Moët thanks to the American Express card.
‘And,’ she says finally, ‘he’s a liar.’
I nod. Can’t argue with that. Then I feel disloyal and say, ‘Everyone lies. For instance, I’m always running late and blaming it on the traffic.’
‘White lies are fine,’ says Gloria, holding up her hand.
‘If I could count the number of times a day I say, “Fabulous to hear from you, darling,” when I’d rather stick needles in my arms . . . But that’s beside the point. Max is a snake.
A stinking, rotten, lying, slip-on-shoe-wearing snake.’
Tears well in my eyes. It’s time to call it a night.
‘There, there,’ says Gloria, rubbing my back. ‘You were due for an upgrade. It’s over with Max. Just make sure his replacement is richer, better looking, more successful, and preferably younger. Stamina counts.’
‘I’m not going to replace Max,’ I say.
‘True, you need some time to revel in being free again.
Dance on tabletops, shag someone, many someones. Have fun.’
‘Gloria, you’re drunk. Besides, who’s going to look twice at me let alone shag me? Have you seen my stretch marks?’
Am I really talking about shagging? Two weeks ago, I believed I was a reasonably happily married woman, who would be even more so once the renovations were completed. How did I get here? I know Max and I weren’t as happy as we had been, but I still thought we were reasonably happy, that ‘We’re in this together for the rest of our lives so we might as well make the most of it’ kind of happy. It’s true, I hadn’t asked Max how he was lately. I just assumed he was fine. Except, of course, on those nights when we’d argue and come to the mutual conclusion that we hated each other, our life together was a sham and we couldn’t understand why we’d ever got married in the first place.
‘I need to do something about myself, don’t I?’ I say to Gloria. ‘I need to reinvent myself so that when Max comes home -’
‘Have you heard a word I’ve said? Yes, let’s transform you, it’ll be fun. But please don’t do it for Max. He’s not worth it. Never has been. He’s always treated you like his personal slave. What you need, Lucy Springer, is to forget all about Max.’
‘Don’t be ridickuloose,’ I slur.
‘You’re pissed and you need a fuck to knock some sense into you.’
‘Language! I’m not pissed and I don’t need a fuck as you so eloquently put it. Although, Glors, I was putting some things away last night and came across some old photos -’ Gloria yawns, her interest in the conversation clearly waning.
‘- of Dom. I haven’t thought about him in years.’
Gloria perks up. ‘Hey, I heard recently that he’s back in Australia. It should be easy enough to find him . . .’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say, twirling my empty champagne glass distractedly in my fingers. ‘Both the great loves of my life have walked out on me. Clearly, the universe is trying to tell me something.’
‘Yes it is. One: Max is not, nor has he ever been, the love of your life. And two: it’s time you re-established contact with Dom because he’s the bomb! I’m going to make it my mission to find him.’
T
here’s an axe in my skull. Someone has scalped me. I reach for my head: no axe, scalp in place, but there’s a hell of a throbbing pain. The price of another excessive night’s drinking.
When I’m finally able to get up, I wander aimlessly around my half-house. There are mountains of grey dust everywhere. It’s centimetres thick in some parts. Builders’ tools block the narrow walkway to the makeshift kitchen/ family room but I can’t muster the strength to swear and kick them to the side. In an effort to distract myself from thinking about Max’s letter, I venture outside and try my hand at weeding. I last four and a half minutes.
I rake dead brown leaves on the driveway. Two minutes.
The pool! The pool is green. It’s a big job, it’ll take at least an hour, maybe more. I start skimming leaves from the top and vaguely make out the slimy sediment and rotting leaves on the pool floor. Wish I had a barracuda, the pool cleaner, not the fish. Dom hated barracudas, Kreepy Kraulys. In fact, all pool vacuums . . . Thoughts of Dom assail me. Not surprising, really. Gloria’s suggestion last night has triggered lots of memories.
Dom and I hit it off straightaway when we first met. He was easy to be around, handsome, uncomplicated. We just clicked, even sharing the same sense of humour. For the three years we flatted together, I saw Dom almost every day. We knew everything about each other: likes, dislikes, pet hates, fantasies (well, some of them) and phobias - that’s how I know about his dislike of pool vacuums: the slurping noise drove him to distraction. I also heard about his family dramas going back to childhood, like the bust-up of Christmas 1986 when his mum stormed out after losing the annual Monopoly game.
And then . . . nothing. After Dom left for Europe, it was like he’d died. Any latent belief that we’d end up together gradually faded into the background, especially after Max came along.
Oh, why am I thinking about Dom?
Because my husband needs space! And I’m left feeling abandoned, washed-up.
It’d be hard to find two men more completely opposite to each other than Max and Dom. Whereas Dom took easygoing to ridiculous extremes, Max is brooding, sensitive and complicated. It’s almost like I went out of my way to choose a lover who could in no way remind me of Dom and what might have been.
But that’s ancient history.
Still, I can’t help but wonder where Dom’s settled now that he’s back in Australia. What’s he doing? Who’s he doing it with? His life has to be in better shape than mine.
* * *
When Sam and Bella get home from spending the night at Mum’s, Bella stomps around the building site that used to be our home. ‘I hate walking around with dust in my mouth all the time!’ she yells, then spends the best part of the afternoon cleaning and twitching - reviving memories of the clean-freak stage she went through when she was six.
‘Every time you pick up the phone,’ she tells Sam, ‘your mouth acts as a vacuum, inhaling germs, bacteria and other airborne diseases like tuberculosis. Do you know what tuberculosis is? It gets into your lungs so you can’t breathe.
Then you die.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘Just like that. These germs can live for days, breeding, multiplying. They’re out there, Sammy, waiting to pounce.’
Sam starts to cry and I realise I should intervene.
‘Bella, enough! Stop terrorising your brother.’
Where does she learn this stuff? When I was her age, I was staging song-and-dance extravaganzas for my bemused grandparents.
Sam wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘The germs are attacking. The germs are attacking!’