The Happiness Show (11 page)

He unzipped the bag and he gasped. The blue batik scarf was gone but there was his camera, unscratched and in one piece. Had he known it was lost he would have been beside himself. But he'd been too consumed with Celia to think of anything else. He picked up the camera and focused on Helen, who struck a pose.

‘Wow,' said the nurse, ‘a Leica. My dad had one of those. I'd know that shutter clunk anywhere.'

‘Not too many people know them these days.'

‘Are you a photographer?'

‘No. Well, kind of. An enthusiastic amateur.'

‘I hear they're the most dangerous.'

‘Really, thank you so much. This camera has huge sentimental value. It was my grandfather's. I've taken it all around the world with me.'

‘I've got a leather jacket like that. It'd break my heart if anything happened to it. It's the last remnant of my misspent youth. Anyway, all the best.'

Helen held out her hand and Tom shook it, and with that she was off. Suddenly he wanted to ask her a thousand questions. Whereabouts in Australia was she from? How long had she lived in London? Was she married to an Englishman? Was she happy? Did she miss Australia? Did she know Lizzie?

Tom sank back into his chair and felt oddly refreshed. He hadn't slept long, maybe two hours, but it was the first peaceful sleep he'd had since, well, since he'd seen Lizzie. And then he remembered. About Lizzie, about his stolen car, about the El Husseins, about Harry and then about Lizzie again.

He sat staring blankly at Celia and then picked up his camera and started focusing on things. He took a shot of Celia, a shot of her untouched lunch tray, a shot of the IV and then, just as he was focusing on the ceiling, he heard a familiar voice.

‘Merry Christmas, my son.' It was Keith. ‘Thought I'd come in and check up on you.'

Tom stood up and they hugged. ‘Thanks, mate. Appreciate it.'

It was so good to see a new face.

‘Felicity lasted a glass of bubbly and a roast dinner and then she conked out upstairs.'

‘She hasn't slept in days. It's been like some sort of extreme sport. But the doctors think Celia's going to pull through now.'

Tom wanted to ask about Lizzie but there was no subtle way to bring her up. Then Keith, with uncharacteristic tenderness, picked up Celia's hand, caressed it gently, rubbed it across his cheek and kissed it.

‘We're so glad you're here, beautiful girl,' he said, choking back tears. ‘We thought we'd lost you for a minute there.' It was odd; Keith had never seemed particularly interested in Celia. But it's different after you have your own, Tom mused.

Keith looked up at him. ‘Thank God my hair's already fallen out – I'm not sure I'm ready for this sort of angst, and I've got two to worry about.'

‘Yes, one's quite enough.'

‘You two won't have any more?'

‘No, Celia is plenty. Particularly after this. Don't want any more potential catastrophes out there.'

‘That's not really how you see it, is it? One's just a hobby, mate. A pet. It's alright for you and Flick, you can just walk past each other and get knocked up. Me and Becky have to mortgage the house and book in with some wanker on Harley Street.'

‘True enough. Trying
for
a child is a concept we haven't had to deal with. Trying not
to have one, now that's the challenge.'

‘Becky wants more. I wouldn't mind another, but I'm not having any more twins. I did this show on families once, a doco. When I saw a mother of four breastfeeding one kid while picking up after three others, I vowed I'd never inflict four on any woman.'

‘It's funny,' Tom said. ‘These last few days, I realised how long it's been since I picked her up. We're all so busy, it's easy to … lose perspective.'

‘Yeah, you're right. All that stuff they say about living in the moment might sound like a load of codswallop but it's true. You could lose them in the blink of an eye. We get so caught up with work and everything.'

‘How is work?' ventured Tom, fiddling with the camera.

‘Busy. Good. I've got some good stuff coming up. A bunch of celebrity chefs on a quiz show called
Shaken Not Stirred
. I came up with that name – you like it?'

‘It's naff.'

‘An interview show with Britain's worst Olympians. Plenty to choose from. And
The Happiness Show
,
but that's a bit later in the year.'

Pause. Big Pause. Please say something about Lizzie, Tom thought. Anything. Just her name. But Keith didn't.

Tom knew Keith was quietly thrilled to get away from the house and the whole Christmas palaver. His father had been a violent bastard of a man. A womaniser and an alcoholic and Christmas brought back too many black memories. Tom didn't like it that much either, if he was honest. People put so much energy and worry into a day that was supposed to be about celebrating and relaxing. But of course he turned up, put on the paper hat, read out the crap jokes and bought something for Felicity from a posh jeweller.

Keith switched on the telly and they watched
Miracle on 34th Street
in silence.

 

Tom went back to work the next week and Celia was released from hospital three weeks later. She was left with a limp and a very mild case of epilepsy. Considering what had happened, they felt very lucky.

Harry had surfaced in Malta, of all places. He sent his wife and kids two hundred quid and a card for Christmas, promising he'd be in touch when he'd sorted himself out. He'd realised he could have been happier than he was, his note explained. No doubt his four-year-old, seven-year-old and eleven-year-old were comforted by that.

Tom only knew all this through Felicity, who'd been keeping tabs on Jill, Harry's wife. Jill was gutted but in the enviable position of being totally in the right. Harry had been crazy about her once. She was a cracking bird: fun, good looking, tolerant. They'd met at a Desperate and Dateless ball and it was love at first pint. The moment Harry saw her, he felt something move in his pants and knew he'd found the woman of his dreams. And they'd been dreaming together ever since – for fourteen years. That was until his 22-year-old secretary with the pert breasts, the short skirts and the fuck-me shoes became more than just a bit on the side. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last that a balding middle-aged man with tits and a hairy back confused lust with love. Nor was it the first time an emotionally malnourished girl had mistaken a mid-life crisis for a long-term relationship.

Tom missed Harry, his dodgy jokes and his novelty ties. But there was something rewarding about being thrown into a less than perfect situation, a mess not of your own making, and managing it. There wasn't too much to be done in the office after Christmas. A will here, a title there, some conveyancing bits and bobs and the odd trust to set up – nothing Tom couldn't handle alone. He left home at eight and was back by six, sticking to the deal he'd struck with Felicity after Celia's accident. He was exercising every night on his exercise bike and feeling the benefits of moderation. He hadn't lost his gut but he was getting there.

He was even getting time in the darkroom at least once a week, which was heaven. It was meditation, anger management and creative stimulation all in one. It was a miracle tonic for his constant mental static. He was working his way through old negatives he'd been meaning to develop for years, and it felt wonderful.

The photos he'd taken of Celia on Christmas Day were very strong – profound, even. He gasped when he saw them lying in the fixer. They smacked you right in the chest. The weird thing was, he'd been so knackered when he took them. That was always when he shot his best stuff: unselfconscious and instinctive. Watching the prints appear, he felt as if he were a struggling photographer and forgot, just for a few moments, that he was actually a rich lawyer.

As he held the rest of the roll up to the light, his heart skipped a beat when he realised he was looking at Lizzie. One perfect frame of glorious, untamed, blast-from-the-past Lizzie. As her face was conjured by the developer, Tom dissolved.

As Celia's tests became less frequent and her hair grew back and life returned to normal, Lizzie seemed to take up more and more space in Tom's head. He thought stupid things like, I'd love to show Lizzie this article; I wonder what Lizzie thought of that book; I wish I could take Lizzie to this café, she'd love it.

And of course, because Tom was only human, Lizzie also starred in the occasional vague-out on the train. He imagined rolling out of a smoky bar at midnight and dragging her into an alleyway, pulling up her skirt and fucking her senseless against a wall. When she came she would throw back her head like the girls in the pornos. It was an unlikely fantasy for Tom to have. He had never had much luck with the knee trembler, doggy style, the starfish or anything really, other than missionary or girl-on-top. He wished he was a little more adventurous. He had a couple of pornos stashed in his filing cabinet under ‘INSTRUCTION MANUALS 1984–2000,' but he hadn't looked at them in ages. Lizzie made him want to again. It was the energy and the enthusiasm he craved, not the novelty. No, definitely not novelty. Lizzie Quealy was not novel. She was a long true story, familiar but brilliantly told.

He remembered Lizzie once saying, when they were living in the bordello room, ‘We're very meat and two veg sexually, aren't we?' He didn't understand and she'd had to explain that it meant a basic – delicious, she stressed, and satisfying, but very regular – meal. But things were different now. If he had a moment with Lizzie Quealy there would be no stone left unturned. He'd inhale her and envelop her. And he'd never let her go. Not this time.

They'd loved each other's colloquialisms. ‘What do you want for dinner, sweetheart?' ‘Just meat and two veg, hold the zucchini, thanks,' he'd reply. ‘How was the film? A little bit country, a little bit meat and two veg.' He also loved ‘chuck a spew,' ‘rack off,' ‘fair suck of the sav,' ‘get your hand off it' and ‘I've had a gutful.' And the way she called sweets lollies and the corner shop a milk bar.

Lizzie adored ‘Fancy a shag.' Fancy an anything, really. ‘Fancy a spliff?' ‘Fancy a pint?' ‘Fancy a movie?' She embraced ‘knackered' and ‘gutted,' ‘wicked' and ‘can't be arsed.' ‘Barking mad' and ‘barmy' were up there, too. She loved the way he pronounced the words ‘vitamins,' ‘privacy' and ‘yoghurt.'

‘Leave me be!' she'd cry in a crappy British accent. ‘I need some privacy so I can eat my yoghurt and get my vitamins.'

‘I'm yet to hear anyone say “blimey.” This isn't really England, this is bullshit England,' she once yelled from the shower.

‘Steady on, Lizzie, I've never once heard you say “g'day” and I've seen your passport and it says you're from Australia. Hey, what's the Australian idea of foreplay?'

Lizzie was puzzled, then realised it was a joke. ‘I don't know. What?'

‘“Brace yourself, sheila.”'

And they laughed and laughed and laughed. Tom got back in the shower, even though he'd just got out.

‘Brace yourself, sheila,' he said between kisses.

Then he dragged her out of the shower.

Then they wrestled.

Then they fucked.

They devoured each other. Pulling away occasionally to gaze into each other's eyes with wonder, astonished by the intensity of it. Tom had one hand around her waist, one on her neck. Her hands ran along his chest, his arms, his shoulders. Not a word was spoken, yet there was no deeper connection possible. This was making love. This was what they were on about in the books, the movies, the love stories, the clichés.

Then they came. Deep, rhythmic waves that felt as if they would never end, until eventually they subsided and Tom and Lizzie lay weightlessly together.

When they woke a few hours later it was dark and the lamb-shank soup Lizzie had put on and forgotten about was perfect.

 

Tom felt like Lizzie was sitting on his shoulder. She'd been floating in and out of his dreams and occasionally he'd catch an imagined glimpse of her walking around a corner, sitting in the back of a cab or disappearing into a lift. He knew she wasn't in England, but she was with him like a loose wire, throwing out unresolved energy in a riot of sparks.

Things at home had been smooth and restful; they were all so thankful to have survived their near miss. Felicity was happy, Celia was alive and Tom was coping, which was all anyone seemed to expect from him. Felicity was looking into the possibility of the three of them doing voluntary work in the Sudan or Haiti or any war-torn country, really. A bit of noblesse oblige, if you will. Tom knew it wouldn't happen so he was happy to take part in her hypotheticals. It gave them something to talk about over dinner.

When Celia was lying in intensive care, if someone had asked Tom and Felicity how they would feel if she pulled through, they would have sworn to be thankful for the rest of their lives. And they were. But as time passed and life snuck back into a routine, the usual distractions returned.

There was still no sign of Harry. And no sooner had Tom started to think that maybe he could run the business alone than things started to get busier and busier. By January, like a frog in a saucepan of water, he was starting to cook.

He now left for work at six, got home at eight, had half an hour with Celia, scoffed down a beautiful meal lovingly prepared and reheated by Felicity and then worked until midnight. Sometimes he'd wake up at 3 a.m. and squeeze in a bit more work. All the exercising, darkrooming, quality-timing and nutritious eating were forgotten. He would wake in the middle of the night, his heart pumping and his mouth dry.

 

‘Yes, Bronwyn?' Tom said wearily, picking up the phone. It was half past three in the afternoon and he had just crammed down a roast-beef roll, a Coke and four paracetamol.

‘Mrs Kently has cancelled. Her cat died and she's beside herself. I've rescheduled her for Wednesday at midday.'

Tom stared blankly at a coffee mug Felicity had given him.
Every man needs thirty minutes' meditation a day,
it declared.
Except on those busy days when he needs an hour.
‘Thanks, Bronwyn.'

‘Mr Shorebrook?'

‘Yes, Bronwyn?'

‘I wouldn't normally say anything, but it might be a good idea for you to relax for an hour. If you don't mind me saying, you look like shite.'

‘Thanks for your concern, Bronwyn. You're right. I'll take that on board.'

Tom put down the receiver. He had an hour free. Sure, there was work to do, but it was a bank holiday on Monday so there was a little slack. He started poking around on eBay, looking at cars and cameras. There was a 1968 Rolls Royce at $1200 in New Zealand. The auction closed in less than a minute and it finally went for 2300 New Zealand dollars – about 800 quid. He cruised around looking at Pentax Spotmatics and Canon 70mm lenses and finally put a bid on the Nikon 800 he'd been looking at for ages. The bidding finished in a couple of days and the way his life was going, he couldn't be sure he'd even remember to log in and gazump the competition at 4.43 p.m. Australian time. He looked at the location. Sunshine, Victoria. And then something suddenly dawned on him and he kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier.

 

*

 

When Lizzie and Reuben arrived at Jules's place, hot, crabby and sweaty, they were met at the door by Cam in what was obviously a new Christmas shirt. It was Mambo, it was loud and it was so not Cam. Someone would surely tell him eventually so there was no need for Lizzie to open her big fat mouth.

‘Well, you'll be pleased to know that Jules is now down with a tummy bug,' he greeted them.

‘You are shitting me,' said Lizzie as she walked down the hallway to their back room. ‘It's okay, Jules, you can just say if you don't want to see us. There's no need to pull some crazy gastro stunt. Hey, it's not like I don't have other mates. I'm in demand, baby, don't worry about that.'

Jules lay lifeless and colourless on her beige couch in her sick clothes: a white T-shirt and grey marl tracksuit pants. ‘Don't come near me,' she groaned. ‘You've done enough already.'

‘If this is to make me feel guilty about everything you did for me while I was away, you're doing a pretty good job.'

‘Oh Lizzie, it's awful. I haven't felt this bad since we went to that tequila and hash breakfast in Bali.' Jules had a jug of water and a box of tissues in front of her and she was watching the cricket. ‘But I s'pose it's not that bad. We are two for 160 and we've got eighteen overs to go. Get yourself a drink. I'm flat out dying here.'

‘Good on you, Jules. Always looking on the bright side. Even if you have got stomach cancer.' Lizzie helped herself to drinks from the fridge, a lemonade for Reuben and an Asahi beer for her. She flicked off the lid and necked it just as Cam walked in – and he shot her, she could have sworn, a filthy look.

‘Jules said it was okay.'

‘It's just that those are my special beers,' said Cam.

Weirdness all round. Lizzie swallowed her beer.

‘Okay. Sorry, Cam. What do we do now?'

Jules piped up from her sick bed. ‘You're supposed to drink the visitors' beers. They're the VB cans down the bottom.'

‘No, Jules, it's okay. I just would have preferred if she'd asked first.'

‘She did, Cam. She asked me. I said, “Help yourself.”'

‘Yeah, but hang on, you don't just go to someone's fridge and help yourself to their best beers. I've got to go. I'm late for squash.' He hastily kissed Jules and turned to Lizzie.

‘Don't worry, Cam. I'll replace it.'

‘Sorry, Lizzie. I'm just a bit over everything with Jules being sick and the whole Christmas bullshit. It's not your fault. We've just been overrun with visitors and neighbours and to tell you the truth I'd love to tell the world to get fucked.'

‘Well, you've just told me, so you can tick me off your list.'

Cam turned and left. As the door slammed behind him, Lizzie looked at Jules. ‘What's up his nose?'

‘We're starting a new round of treatment next week and he always gets tense and unbearable because he thinks it's his fault.'

‘Well, he is the one with the defective sperm.'

‘But I'm the one with the hostile environment.'

‘Yeah, but maybe your environment wouldn't be so hostile if his sperm weren't such retards.'

‘You may have a point, Lizzie.'

‘Or it could be his tiny cock.'

‘Or my massive vagina … Anyway, it was nice of him to apologise, don't you think?'

‘Yes, I do. Very evolved of him. All those oils you burn must be working. So when do they start fiddling with your bits?'

‘January 4th. And I've decided this is the year of the baby. We're going to do three cycles, have a rest for three and then do three more. I've got long-service leave due in November and if I'm not potted by then I'm going to ditch the pregnant thing and adopt a Chinese or Korean kid.'

‘Jesus,' said Lizzie. ‘You've got it all sorted except for the baby's blood type.'

‘Don't be fooled by my positive tone. I'm terribly sad and disappointed and I'm not confident about any of this. But I have to try.'

‘I think it's good to have a plan. And a time limit.'

‘Mum!' yelled Reuben, ‘I need to do a wee.'

‘You know where the toilet is.'

‘The door's closed, Mum.'

‘Okay, I'm coming.' Lizzie downed her beer and headed for the loo. ‘After Reuben's finished we'll bugger off and let you fester in your own bodily fluids.'

‘Good,' said Jules. ‘I thought you'd never go. I'm just going to peg out here.'

By the time Reuben and Lizzie were done, Jules was dead to the world on the couch, or doing a very good job of faking it.

 

Summer in Melbourne progressed the same way it always did. On New Year's Eve the family packed up and headed down to Rosebud to the family caravan compound. The Quealys had three caravans between them: a 1991 Dodge Dakota that Ron, Lizzie's father, had bought with his compo payout; Tony's brand new Roadmaster; and a Nissan Safari pop top, the domain of the two Debbies. Lizzie, Jim and the kids stayed in the Dakota and looked after Ron and Maureen. As Jim constantly reminded Lizzie, there was no such thing as a free caravan. She'd have been happy to pay for one that didn't stink of emphysema.

The weather was generally crap at this time of year. None of them could remember how many times the caravan park had been washed out by the second week of January. But without fail the weather would be perfect by the time the kids went back to school.

When they were in Rosebud, nutrition and personal hygiene went out the window. Gone were the semi-dried tomatoes, couscous, felafel and koftas of the city. In Rosebud it was a steady diet of camp pie, fish and chips, tinned stew, pizza and, once a week, takeaway Thai. There was also the odd bag of three-year-old fairy floss from the local carnival, a melancholic collection of rides, sideshows and fast-food vans. It looked magical as you drove past at twilight, but wind down your window and the smell of bogan hit you smack in the face.

Lizzie refused to shower in the communal toilet block. She found the line of people shuffling along with their beach towels and floral toiletry bags indescribably depressing. She preferred to take a dip first thing in the morning before breakfast and another in the evening before bed. Her curls became salt-encrusted, her skin glowed and her eyes took on an otherworldly colour. Needless to say, Donna and the Debbies though it was completely disgusting, but that was Lizzie for you – a little bit different. Donna and the Debbies were not the only women in the caravan park who wore foundation and mascara, but they were the only ones who reapplied it three times a day.

In the fifteen years or so they'd been holidaying together, Lizzie had never seen any of the 3Ds swim. She had never seen them get anything more than the soles of their feet wet. She loved running past them and diving in, just to show them how she was so not them. And they loved watching her, smug in the knowledge that they were so not her.

Scarlet and Reuben played with the Elfs, who taught them how to swear, throw stones, fight with sticks and kick sand at people. The kids had the time of their lives and Lizzie couldn't wait for it to be over. They only kept going to Rosebud because they couldn't afford anywhere else and because anything was better than being a freelancer in Melbourne in January. You never knew if you'd have work for the year or even if you'd be able to pay off the kids' Christmas presents on the credit card. And if that wasn't bad enough, the place was a ghost town because every man and his dog had buggered off to places like Rosebud, only better. It was easier now that Jim had a full-time teaching job. But after so many depressing Januarys she was programmed to dread it, and so Rosebud it was.

Jim didn't mind it at all; in fact he quite looked forward to it. He'd grown up spending family holidays in suburban Rosanna (where one set of grandparents lived) or even more suburban West Preston (where the others lived), so Rosebud was a step up. He was the kind of guy who could have fun wherever he was; a chat and a beer with the other campers were enough for him. Occasionally he'd help the kids collect flotsam and jetsam and turn it into sculptures with titles like ‘Unicorn Fairy Yuck-Head Palace,' ‘The Baddies' Cubby' or ‘Blue-Eyed Ultimate Dragon Lair.'

Lizzie found it fascinating to watch her brothers and their wives together. They put the aggression back into passive aggression. The phrases ‘That'd be right,' ‘Good on ya,' and ‘Whatever you reckon' were never used so frequently or with so much latent contempt. The Quealy boys may not have been the knights in shining armour their wives had hoped for but, to give them some credit, they were great fathers. Now the kids were older and there were no nappies to change, night feeds to deal with or tantrums to defuse they were ready, willing and able, at least for these two weeks of the year. The three of them had even bought a boat and had a signwriter mate paint its name along the side: ‘Shit Hot.'

Her brothers taught the kids boogie-boarding, extreme sandcastling, crab-catching, bike-riding, kite-flying and all those other things stunt fathers do. They demonstrated wedgies, Chinese burns and nipple cripples on each other, to the kids' amusement. As far as her brothers were concerned, this was all fathers were expected to do – turn up for two weeks' holiday once a year and be the king of the kids. It was far more than their father had ever done. He'd always been too busy listening to the horses, the dish lickers or the trots to see if he'd got the trifecta. And doing their bit over the holidays made Lizzie's brothers feel that they could spend the rest of the year slacking off, going to the pub and having it off with their secretaries or their mates' wives. Which they did.

Meanwhile Donna and the Debbies sat around doing crosswords, smoking Horizons and slagging off whoever had nicked down to the shop for supplies. They also seemed to spend a fair amount of time rubbing Vaseline Intensive Care into their legs. Lizzie spent her days taking long walks on her own and playing with the kids in the park. Occasionally she'd luck into a couple of hours by herself. When everyone was buggering off to the chairlift at Arthurs Seat or fish and chips in Sorrento, she'd feign a migraine and lie in the caravan, reading magazines, listening to other people's kids screaming and smelling other families' snags cooking.

The musty smell of the caravan brought back fond memories of being a teenager – which was strange, because she'd hated being a teenager. In high school she'd been isolated and depressed most the time, hiding behind Cool Charm, bad fashion and hairdos designed to hide her acne. It wasn't much fun at Sunshine High until she met some Goths when she was fifteen and became a New Romantic. Then it was all Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure and New Order. She bought some cherry Doc Martens and vowed to be a Goth for life. She was cut out for it; she had pale, pasty skin and, with the help of L'Oréal 505 Raven, she was a natural black-head. The vintage clothes, black dinner jackets and petticoats the junior Goths spent their weekends sourcing were knee-deep in the North Altona Brotherhood of St Laurence shop. She could have become a dealer.