Other People’s Diaries (35 page)

M
egan took the corner too fast, feeling a spurt of adrenalin as she lost control. But she stopped the car's drift, pulling it back into the lane, heart thumping.

She drove the rest of the way home slowly, frightened by her carelessness.

The house was still and empty as she swung the door open. Maybe she should get a flatmate, she thought, knowing that wasn't really the answer.

Impulsively she ignored the light switch, kicking off her shoes and wandering through the house in the dim light which filtered in the windows.

The glow of her computer was like a beacon and she walked toward it.

Megan slumped into the chair, trying desperately to shut out the look in Deborah's eyes. What the hell had she thought she was doing?

Megan moved the mouse, floating the pointer over the icon for the virtual world in which she'd met Greg.

Decisively she jerked the mouse, clicking instead on the blue internet icon and pulling up a job recruitment website.

Megan needed a new job.

She knew that the school couldn't actually fire her. That it was within her rights to force the issue. But she'd had several calls
from her friends at the school. The article had clearly set the place buzzing. If she'd loved her job, maybe it would have been worth fighting for it. But the way things stood, it all seemed too hard.

The website came up.

Under key words Megan typed
computer programmer
. She hesitated for a moment over the drop-down menu which set the desired location, then left it set at ‘All'.

Fifty options came up. She scrolled through them quickly, rejecting the ones insisting on years of on-job experience. One caught her eye.

Junior Software Engineer – Computer Games – Melbourne

Our Client is an online games leader, seeking
junior programmers to start immediately.
Great package in a pioneering environment.
Learn & work at the same time!

No previous programming experience needed, just a
high level of C++ proficiency
.

**** PASSION FOR GAMING IS A MUST ****

No mention of salary. Probably because it was below the poverty line.

Megan looked at the entry again. C++ was a programming language she'd been using for years.

Melbourne. Two thousand kilometres away. From Greg. From her family.

She pictured how shocked her mother would be if she told her she was moving. Imagined her sisters' reaction.

Grinning, she went to work on her CV.

R
ebecca turned the key and pushed the front door open, plastering on a smile for the babysitter.

She stopped short.

Jeremy was standing in the living room, picking up his keys and sliding his phone into his pocket.

‘Hi.'

‘Jeremy – what?'

‘Bianca called me.'

He saw the look of panic flare on her face and spoke quickly. ‘Nothing's wrong. She's fine. She said she just wanted to talk to someone and asked if I could come over. I figured I might as well stay until you got home, so I paid the babysitter and told her she could go. I hope that was okay.'

‘Yes, yes. Of course it is – thank you.'

Rebecca struggled to ask the next question. ‘Did she …?'

‘Talk about cutting herself?'

Rebecca nodded.

‘No. We just talked about … stuff really, nothing that big. But it was nice. Like it used to be.'

‘Good, that's really good.' Rebecca couldn't think of anything else to say.

Jeremy was still in his suit and had obviously come straight from work. His tie was bunched in his hand, his white business
shirt open at the neck and a smear of what looked like dirt on the front.

‘Bianca said it was another meeting of that group tonight.'

Rebecca nodded. ‘The last one. Turns out it was the wife of the guy Megan was sleeping with who wrote the article.'

She shook her head, then looked around. The remains of the sculpture she'd destroyed lay crumbled in the corner; she hadn't bothered to clean it up.

‘Looks like that had a bad accident,' Jeremy said. ‘Sam's football?'

‘Ah no,' Rebecca answered. ‘Me actually.'

Jeremy's eyes widened, then he smiled. ‘Never liked it, did you?'

‘Bloody awful thing,' Rebecca agreed.

Jeremy moved toward the door. ‘Well, I'd best be off.'

Rebecca stepped forward. ‘Jeremy – please don't go yet. I've been doing a lot of thinking and …'

Jeremy looked at her silently and she forced herself to take a deep breath.

‘I've made some bad decisions. I am so sorry I didn't tell you about Bianca. I carried that secret for so long, I felt like I could never let my guard down, could never let anyone get too close. Every time you told me you loved me, I felt this pain in my stomach that I hadn't told you the truth.'

Jeremy didn't move.

‘I'm going to pull this family together. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to help Bianca. I'll find a way to sort this out. If that means leaving work, then I'll do it. I've started from nothing for Bianca once. I'll do it again if that's what it takes.'

She stopped for a second, looking down at her feet and gathering her courage.

‘But I really want for us to do it together.'

Jeremy moved toward her and for a wild second Rebecca thought he'd take her in his arms.

But he didn't touch her.

‘Bec, I've been thinking too. When Bianca called tonight, I almost didn't come. I figured Bianca was your problem now, not
mine. The only flaw in that argument was that it wasn't true. Bianca started being my problem the first time I stayed the night with you and I don't want it any other way.'

Rebecca didn't move, willing him to say the words she wanted to hear.

‘I love you. Have done since the first day I saw you. I have a terrible suspicion I will until the day I die. But everything has changed now and we've got to take this slowly. Peter is Bianca's father, he has a place in your family too. You've got to figure out how that's going to work. And some things have got to change – really change.'

Rebecca went to speak but he interrupted her.

‘Let's just take it one step at a time, okay? If there's to be anything more between us, it's going to have to be different this time.'

He kissed her on the forehead and Rebecca screwed her eyes shut, bowing her head.

Jeremy stepped past her and out the door, closing it softly behind him.

Rebecca stood still for a few long moments. Then she walked toward the terrace, sliding the heavy glass door open.

Slowly she sank into a chair, kicking her shoes off and stretching her toes.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the sky. Looking back down, Rebecca noticed a dark trail of dirt across the grassed area with bordered the terrace. Under the glow of a street light, it stood out clearly against the manicured grass which was maintained by a gardening contractor Rebecca had never even seen.

Rebecca pursed her lips, remembering that her rosebush had been sitting in that spot for the last few weeks. The pot was gone now.

That was strange. Lorraine certainly wouldn't have moved it. She was lucky to feed the children, let alone water a plant.

Curious, Rebecca followed the trail of dirt to where it ended, in the garden bed outside the kitchen window.

There, planted in the centre of the garden, totally inappropriate amongst all the native grasses, was the rosebush.

Rebecca stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly she remembered the dirt on Jeremy's shirt.

Smiling she walked across the garden, pushing aside the fronds from a large fern. She knelt down beside the rosebush, ignoring the dirt on her suit. The bush still only had one bud, but with a bit of luck there'd be more.

A
lice stood at the bathroom sink.

It was over. The Red Folder Project was finished.

But now that the meeting was behind her, the reality of her own situation pressed down once more.

Since Alice had followed Andrew home from the beach two days earlier, they'd spoken only when absolutely necessary.

The children had been subdued when she arrived home. But then the pizzas Andrew ordered had arrived. The day's drama had been quickly forgotten amongst the cardboard boxes and the choice between pepperoni and hawaiian.

Alice hadn't told Andrew about the meeting in the bar tonight. She had arranged a babysitter knowing he'd be at work until late. The babysitter was gone and Andrew in bed by the time Alice came home.

Alice pushed the door to the bedroom open slightly. Andrew was asleep on his side, his back turned toward her.

The one thing Alice had been certain of on the drive back from the coast was that something had to change. And yet nothing had. She'd just picked up her life and put it back on and no one seemed to have even noticed that anything had happened.

It was as though she'd missed her moment, as though there was a decision she should have made or an action she should have taken which would have changed everything. Maybe there
was an Alice in a parallel universe who had shaken off the ties of domesticity, found a way to care for her children while discovering her own life. But this Alice was still washing up and folding socks. Still sleeping next to the stranger who had once been the closest person to her in the world.

Both Alice and Andrew knew the situation was unsustainable, yet neither of them had done anything to change it.

Alice stretched out her right hand, reaching automatically to the side of the basin. Only when her hand touched the porcelain did she realise her toothbrush wasn't there. Not sitting there with half a centimetre of toothpaste carefully piped along the top, like every other night in her memory when Andrew had gone to bed before her.

She thought of the stretch of nights before this one. The nights when she'd grumpily take her brush, wishing that Andrew had seen fit to pick up the children's clothes from the floor instead. The nights when she'd pick up the toothbrush thoughtlessly. On not one of those nights had she thanked Andrew and yet he'd kept doing it, year after year.

She tried to think of the things she'd loved about Andrew when they first met. The fun drunken nights, Sundays exploring a part of London neither of them knew, afternoons reading together in front of a fire. With all those things gone, how could their love have been expected to survive?

Alice flicked off the light and walked across to the bed. She slid carefully under the sheet and pulled it up to her chin.

Lying there, she put her fingers to her lips and touched them to the back of Andrew's hand.

‘Thank you for the toothpaste,' she whispered into the dark.

Andrew's hand lifted slowly and slipped gently over the top of hers. He rolled onto his back and pulled Alice toward him, so that her head rested on his shoulder.

‘Where've you been?' he asked softly.

‘I met everyone from the group – I had to say sorry. And to try and figure out what happened.'

‘Did you?'

‘Yep.'

For a moment Alice thought of Deborah and Greg and their children. Then she pictured Megan sitting alone in her house.

‘I still can't believe that I did all of this – changed all of those people's lives,' Alice said, pain in her voice. ‘Goddamn little things – I must have been mad!'

Andrew said nothing, just bent his elbow a little, pulling Alice closer. ‘So what's our destiny then, Alice?'

The words were light, but Andrew's tone was serious.

Alice had a sudden memory of her grandmother's words on the tape.

‘The only person who knew what to do was your grandfather.'

Love wasn't just something that happened sixty years ago. Surely, it could exist amongst school runs, business trips and a mortgage. She and Andrew had been in love. Alice didn't believe it had disappeared. It had just been buried by unimportant things.

Alice rolled toward Andrew and kissed him softly on the lips.

‘Do you think we could we try for happily ever after?' she asked.

Andrew was fast asleep, one arm thrown over his head.

Alice rested her arm across his chest, relishing the closeness which had been missing for so long.

Sleep seemed a long way away.

Like so many times before, Alice slid out of the bed, making her way into the kitchen. Slowly she warmed a pan of milk, pouring it into a mug. But this time she sat down at the computer and pulled up a blank page.

The words came quickly and it was all she could do to keep up with them.

This story had nothing to do with her grandmother. Except for the thread running through it. Love. The love she'd heard in her grandmother's voice whenever she spoke of her husband. The unwavering emotion which had been the one constant through their lives. The thing Alice and Andrew had once had in abundance and which Alice had to believe was still alive.

At first Alice thought she was writing a predictable
paperback romance. One she could write in a week and then sell to a company like Mills & Boon. But somehow, as she wrote, it became more complicated than that. Her chiselled-jaw hero had been damaged by an abusive childhood. The heroine with the heart-shaped face had never achieved her dreams because of crippling self-doubt. Real life intervened and made things different from what they had hoped.

The hours passed. Alice looked at the clock a few times, vowing to finish and get to bed. Then it was so late, she figured she may as well stay up.

When Andrew walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes, Alice was standing on the deck nursing a cup of coffee.

‘Hi,' she smiled at him.

‘Hello,' Andrew smiled back. ‘You're up early.'

He paused, registering her pyjamas. Alice always dressed as soon as she woke in the mornings. ‘Hang on – have you been up all night?'

Alice nodded, feeling slightly daring.

She wasn't tired. Besides, she could sleep later.

Andrew poured a cup of coffee and joined Alice on the deck.

He pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head, and then leaned against the railing.

The unfamiliar contact thrilled Alice and she reached up and kissed him full on the mouth, something she hadn't done in years.

‘Are you okay?' Andrew asked, a look of concern on his face.

Alice smiled. ‘I'm fine.'

‘Not working on another group, I hope.'

Alice shuddered, shaking her head.

‘I've started a book,' she said.

Andrew looked at her. ‘A novel?'

Alice nodded slowly.

‘It might be awful, but you know what, I don't think it is.' She thought about telling Andrew the plot, but decided against it, wanting to keep her characters and their story to herself for now.

‘You don't want to write about the Red Folder Project?' Andrew asked. ‘It's quite a story.'

Alice shook her head. ‘No, this is what I've been waiting to write. The entries on the website weren't material for a novel.'

She paused.

‘They were other people's diaries. You don't write about those.'

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