The Happiness Show (4 page)

 

Felicity was beautiful, smart and kind, but above all Tom loved her because she always knew what to do. If there were a war, we would all be standing behind Felicity. He had no problem dealing with the world most of the time, but sometimes he couldn't deal with himself. That was the one thing Tom needed: someone who knew what he needed. And Felicity did.

The party guests – all little girls with names like Coco, Ginger and Paloma – were despatched and Nagem the housekeeper swiftly and silently restored the house to order. They didn't call her the housekeeper; they called her the domestic engineer. Nagem was an Iraqi asylum seeker who had lost her parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents when Saddam Hussein was having a particularly bad day. Felicity had met her at the asylum seeker resource centre in Brixton where she volunteered once a fortnight. Nagem was a qualified industrial chemist who was now cleaning the homes of almost everyone they knew, thanks to Felicity's knack for persuasion. She knew what the Islington champagne socialists wanted; they wanted a little cred. Nagem just wanted the money. Felicity was a one-woman movement for conspicuous compassion.

Tom and Felicity's home was your typical middle-class terrace. Lots of books, halogen downlights and the odd Indonesian wall hanging or confronting nude to reassure themselves that they were left-leaning and bohemian. Which they kind of were, just not as much as they'd have liked. Tom liked to joke that he got a buzz cut in order to look more working class, but it was true. They holidayed in impoverished beachside corners of the world, enjoying the thought that people would think they were slightly hippy. What they didn't tell people was that they always stayed in five-star resorts and sometimes took their nanny. They brought back sarongs and bead necklaces that no one ever wore.

Tom and Felicity were good people, they were kind people and they were rich people. Not stinking rich, just rich. It wasn't their fault. Felicity came from old money; her father was a military man and she'd grown up in India. Her mother was a Sikh, an extraordinary beauty whose passions were politics, craft and her children, in that order. Tom's father, Henry, was a GP in Cornwall, as was his father before him. The grandfather had had the good fortune to marry Phoebe Souter, as in Souter Pharmaceuticals, as in the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

Tonight Flick plied Tom with a big brassy Beaujolais, a delicious prosciutto and black olive pizza and a peppery rocket salad drizzled with garlic-infused olive oil. Celia climbed onto her father's knee and they watched the video of the birthday party, until the newest six-year-old fell asleep, just after the bit where her feather boa almost caught fire from the candles. Tom carried her up to bed and remembered the day she was born. The conception had been effortless – accidental, in fact – but the birth had been a nightmare. Celia had to be dragged out by the head via high-rotation forceps. Felicity wouldn't dilate and Celia was the wrong way round and wouldn't move. When this shimmering, squawking animal was finally extracted, she was battered, blue and bruised. I can't love that, Tom thought as they thrust her into his arms. Then he looked into her eyes and thought, Yes I can.

‘So?' said Felicity, lowering herself onto the new couch she'd bought at Harrods. Tom hadn't even noticed it; he was loose with wine and too tired to do anything but recount what had been a day almost hilarious with misfortune. The car was insured, so that was more an inconvenience than a major problem. The audit ditto. Sure, they'd done some slightly dodgy deals, but they were all technically legal. The El Hussein debacle was nothing short of a diabolical fuck-up. Tom had misjudged how they would react to a joke about suicide bombers involving two proud fathers and the punchline ‘Ah, they blow up so fast, don't they?' What had he been thinking? The best possible scenario was that the El Husseins would go back to Knights and Associates, the firm from which he'd originally poached them, which would cut turnover by about 40 per cent. The worst was that they'd declare jihad on him and he would have to call Salman Rushdie for tips.

And then there was Harry.

‘How long has he been shagging the secretary?' asked Felicity, who was rubbing expensive-smelling body milk into her caffè latte legs. She was wearing a long white cotton nightie, not unlike what Wendy wore in
Peter Pan
. Had Tom felt more energetic, he might have reminded her that there was nothing surer to give a man a soft-on than an overdose of Laura Ashley.

‘I don't know. He hasn't been able to keep his todger to himself since he had the chop. Maybe four or five months.'

‘Is it too late to call Jill?' Jill was Harry's wife.

‘It's 9.30.'

‘What a stupid, stupid man,' said Felicity with uncharacteristic venom. ‘They had the perfect life. All he had to do was keep it in his pants and they would have lived happily ever after. Why would you risk it?'

‘Because he's cock-struck, I imagine,' said Tom as he struggled off the couch. ‘I'm going to bed.' Loosening his tie, he felt as though he were two hundred years old. From the table in the hallway he picked up the latest copy of
American Photographer
, which had arrived in the post that day.

As he began to drag himself up the stairs, Felicity called to him, ‘And by the way, we're off to Becky and Keith's for Christmas drinks on Sunday. So you'll have to come back early from the camera fair.'

‘Fine. Goodnight.' He was too tired to talk. When had life become so complicated? He remembered having no money and being happy. Really happy. And now he had everything, the entire package, he was exhausted. The last thing he thought about as he fell asleep was those two boys in Godwin Close with the cat food, the burnt curry and the pipe-water couches. Those two lucky boys.

 

*

 

Qantas Flight 9 to London via Singapore left Tullamarine airport at 3.35 p.m. Lizzie woke that morning very early. She went from being fast asleep to wide awake, not gradually, but as though someone had flicked a switch. She was thirty-eight but still had not gotten over the excitement of getting on a plane, of having an adventure. It was so rare for her to wake before the children, to come to life at her own pace. She lay in the stillness, the sun already melting the cool of the night and releasing the smell of the earth.

She thought she should get up and wrap the last few Christmas presents or ride down to the pool and do her laps, seeing as she'd soon be spending almost twenty-four hours crushed into the shape of a question mark. The pool would be magical at this time of day, the sun glinting off the surface and the mouthful of blue sky as she turned her head to take a breath. Plunging into the cool, leaving the stickiness and sweat of a restless night's sleep behind her.

There was a sense of dread the morning of a scorcher. Like you were going into battle with the heat. Water the garden early. Work out what to have for dinner because it will be too hot to cook inside. Snags in the backyard, fish and chips in the park or, if all else fails, take the kids to Maccas and hope nobody recognises you.

She was crap at summer. She always felt it was too full of expectation. ‘Let's catch up! Come over for a barbie! How about the beach? What about a gelato down on Lygon Street? NOW! FAST! BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS.' Sometimes it felt like an indictable offence to stay inside, unless of course it was over 40 degrees and then all bets were off.

She didn't hate summer, but she almost hated summer. She'd done a stand-up routine about it once; she went through it in her head now to see if she could remember.

‘I am a nasty, pink, wobbly Irish princess genetically designed to live in a swamp in Ballykissmyarse or County Bogan. The more clothes I wear, the better I look. Put me in black clothes and maroon lipstick and I'm gorgeous. Put me in a two-piece and we're talking crimes against humanity. I don't bare my backside in the name of fashion, I bare it in the name of comedy.'

While she was trying to remember what came next, she was gripped by the feeling she always got when she was going away on her own. The rising panic. I may never see these people again. What if I die? What if they die? What if the house burns down? She knew she was worrying for no reason. But she figured that if you thought about these things, they wouldn't happen.

She sat up and looked out the window. It was so dry and dusty outside, it felt as if tumbleweeds should be rolling down the middle of the street. But she was wet. She rolled over and put her arms around Jim. He was built like a swaggie: tall, lean and muscular, with a slight pot belly that Lizzie loved to stroke. He smelt of man, hair, salt and Log Cabin tobacco. He was a man who truly loved smoking; he loved the ritual of it and rolled his own, like his father and his father before him. He loved tradition. He voted Labor, listened to the ABC, drank beer and was the union rep at school. His father worked down at the docks and although he was thrilled when Jim was the first of the family to go to university, he was also secretly disappointed that his son wasn't going to be a wharfie. ‘Young Jim, just get a tattoo so people don't think you're too up yourself,' old Frank would say as he nursed a VB and sat rolling fags next to his son.

Lizzie slid her hand down and found that Jim was in fact partly awake. She kissed his neck and rolled him over and let him slide inside her.

‘You're wet,' he murmured. He pulled her down and spooned her, taking her from behind. They came together effortlessly, like they'd done so many times before, his calloused fingers on her clit. He bit her neck as she came and he let out a tiny groan and she remembered how the French called it
la petite mort
, the little death.

She rolled off him and felt the wetness trickle down her thigh. Since his vasectomy she had come to realise that although condoms might be passion killers, they were pretty convenient for getting rid of the mess. Not that they'd used them much even before the Big V; Jim was a fan of the pull-out-and-hope-for-the-best method. They lay for a long time, not speaking. Sometimes, when Jim got home late from a union meeting, she would wake to feel him hard against her while he rolled her nipples with his fingertips and kissed her neck and they would fuck and fall asleep, not saying a word. She loved that.

‘Did I ever tell you that during my happiness research I found a scientific paper about the healing power of semen?'

‘I could have told you that, Lizzie. It's good for your skin, good for your hair, no calories. Let me guess: written by a bloke?'

‘No, by a woman, actually, but she was a New Zealander. She found that women whose partners ejaculated inside them were 85 per cent less likely to suffer depression.'

‘Liquid Prozac.'

‘Something like that. And remember when I was overdue with Reuben, your cousin the witch suggested I go down on you because prostaglandin from the semen helps the cervix ripen, and it's best absorbed via the digestive tract?'

‘Yeah, I do. And I remember you did.'

 

They had Turkish pizzas for lunch with cheese, salami and capsicum, washed down with some grapefruit-flavoured mineral water Jim had picked up at the Mediterranean grocer. ‘Hey, let's live a little,' he'd said.

Jim hauled her battered red backpack into the Peugeot. How she loved that backpack and everything it represented. She had vowed never to travel with a suitcase: too suburban. It almost felt as though Jim was her father rather than her husband, dropping her off at the airport with her trusty pack. As they drove, she and Reuben played a game of ‘I spy' while Jim fretted about the traffic, the time and a pinging noise he could hear from the back of the car.

It was the third day in a row over 40 and everything was hot: the road, the car, even the fabric seats radiated heat.

‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with u,' said Reuben.

‘Mmmm … umbrella?'

‘Nope.'

‘Underarm?'

‘No.'

‘I give up.'

‘You. I spy you, Mum.'

‘Very good.'

She must have done this drive dozens of times before, yet it seemed impossible to believe that in a little less than a day she was going to be in dreary, grey, cold London. As she gazed out the window she heard a gelati van in the distance. The roadside temperature gauge said 41 degrees.

Only in the cool, controlled environment of the terminal did it sink in that she was going to another country. By herself. To talk to the BBC. Like a grown-up. She had worn her navy-blue linen suit, hoping for an upgrade, but the backpack gave her away.

‘I'm sorry, madam, but we are fully booked. Just the one bag?'

‘Yes,' said Lizzie, and the woman at the check-in counter looked at her as if she had just scraped her off her shoe.

Reuben begged for money for the fire-engine ride while Lizzie and Jim hovered outside customs, going over arrangements. ‘Oh, and Helen across the road is coming over to babysit the night of your work Christmas party.'

‘Great. I s'pose we better go. Reub, come and say goodbye to your mum.'

Lizzie enveloped Reuben, who whispered in her ear, ‘Bring me something back.'

‘Be a good boy for Dad,' she told him. ‘I'll be back the morning of Christmas Eve.'

Jim grabbed her roughly and kissed her on the lips. ‘See ya.'

And then she walked through the doors to customs. As they closed behind her, she felt free for the first time in a long while. She felt light.

The plane trip was uneventful. Boring, in fact. She was so used to having two little ones in tow and having to navigate, negotiate, pacify and adjudicate that she didn't know what to do with herself. She had a Tiger beer to help her chill out. There was a family with children sitting behind her and under normal circumstances her compulsive friendliness would have emerged, but not this time. She slumped in her seat, read every magazine available and then pulled out a biography of the comedian Bill Hicks. She had almost finished it when they arrived in Singapore for the stopover.