The Happiness Show (9 page)

They all laughed and then his aunt and uncle regaled the two of them with stories of travelling around Europe with small children. Tom rested his hand on the small of Lizzie's back.

Tom and Lizzie were on the family table. Kate's parents had divorced years ago and had both since happily remarried. The four of them got on like old friends, dined together, holidayed together and played tennis together. It was disgustingly civilised. Back in Sunshine, somebody would have been in jail or dead or both.

The food was stunt English food: foie gras, quail, grouse and truffles served on Wedgwood. They drank French champagne, Italian Brunello and a Spanish sherry served in the family crystal. Dessert was lemon sorbet or strawberries and cream. The food was glorious, but Lizzie didn't taste a thing. She was in love and all she could smell was Tom.

As they sat back to let the speeches wash over them, Lizzie and Tom were buzzing, mellow and horny as all get out.

‘Fine girl, Kate. Well done, Harvey. It's my job as best man to toast the bridesmaids. So here's to the bridesmaids. Don't they look smashing?'

Tom ran his hand up and down Lizzie's thigh, slowly pulling her skirt up. Lizzie turned towards him and moved her mouth a little closer to his ear so that he could hear her breathing getting heavier.

‘I stand before you tonight as the happiest man in the world …'

Tom slipped his hand between Lizzie's legs.

‘… not just because I am marrying Kate Sexton …'

Tom slid two fingers over her clit and inside her.

‘… but because I hear we've just beaten the Australians in the cricket.'

Up went a huge roar from the crowd and out came an audible moan from Lizzie. Tom thought quickly and kissed her gently on the lips as everyone turned to look at the only Australian in the room. Who was coming.

A daggy band played all the old favourites and Tom and Lizzie danced together for the first time. She was thrilled to see he was as crap as she was – but how cute he was at crap dancing. Tom, meanwhile, couldn't take his eyes off Lizzie and would have followed her anywhere. High on champagne and candlelight and the perfume of roses, he wished the music would never end. This was the first wedding he'd ever enjoyed. He wondered if that meant he was officially an adult.

Neither of them knew it, but the oldies couldn't stop watching Lizzie and Tom. It made the grandparents reminiscent, the middle-aged despondent and the couples with young children think, ‘Just you wait, it doesn't last.'

‘So, Tom, what are you going to do now you're back?' was the question at every turn. It felt like an ambush. Travel stories gave way to talk of real estate, children and careers. Tom knew this was normal life and what normal people talked about. And this was his habitat. If he wanted it, his destiny was mapped out for him. He could see exactly what would come next. Deep in his heart he feared that however fast he ran, he'd never escape the future they had in mind for him. But he was determined to run until he got caught.

Everyone loved Lizzie. But he knew that if he told them he was serious about her, it would be another matter entirely. ‘Get the wild girls out of your system now, lad,' he could hear his father saying. ‘Then find a nice girl from Kent who knows how to make relish and settle down.'

The night shimmered and Lizzie knew she looked a million bucks, but she could feel she didn't belong. She faced a different line of questioning. ‘So, what does your father do?' everybody wanted to know. ‘He's in healthcare,' she'd reply, before offering to go to the bar or asking where the ladies was. Considering her father had spent a fair whack of his life in hospitals and had been on the invalid pension since he was forty-three, she thought this was an honest, if not particularly detailed, response.

‘And what did you study at university, Lizzie?'

‘Education.' Lizzie had spent two years at Melbourne teachers college, most of it at the university bar cracking on to third-year law students, before she deferred. Or, as some people called it, dropped out. At twenty she'd started waitressing and doing stand-up.

 

‘Tom, I don't get this. What church is the queen head of?'

‘The Church of England.'

‘I thought so. But she's an Anglican, right?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I don't get it.'

‘Get what?' asked Tom.

‘What don't you get, oh girl from Down Under?' slurred Ned, lurching drunkenly up behind them.

‘Bugger off, Ned. Don't you have a girl with a hyphenated surname to sleaze on to?' snapped Tom.

‘Actually, no, to tell you the truth. Saving herself, apparently. No, I want to know what it is our Antipodean friend doesn't get. Happy to assist.'

‘I don't get how the queen is an Anglican but she's head of the Church of England,' said Lizzie.

Ned stared at her with a look of condescending astonishment and then burst into laughter. He turned to Tom and patted him on the back. ‘I'll leave that one for you to explain, old man. Too complicated for me.' And he staggered away.

‘What the fuck, Tom?'

‘He's a complete wanker and totally pissed, Lizzie.'

‘So answer my question.'

‘They're the same thing, Lizzie. Anglican is the adjective.'

‘Oh. Okay, I get it. Like Muslim and Islam.' Lizzie fell silent. She was totally humiliated.

‘I know, it's very confusing. I had the same problem with Belgium and Flemish for years. I kept wondering where this place was that they spoke Flemish. Was it called Flem?' Tom steered her gently towards the bar. ‘Let's get you a nice glass of champagne and then we'll run a sharp implement along the side of Ned's car. Will that cheer you up?'

‘Immensely. Got a hammer? And can we put some sugar in his petrol tank?'

‘I like the way you think …'

 

Late in the evening, Lizzie went for a walk through the grounds while Tom and his dad played with Dr Shorebrook's new phone. Wandering the gravel paths, she felt like an extra in
A Room with a View
. When she paused to read a tiny sign displaying the Latin name of one of the trees, she bumped into Ned, who was pissing in the bushes.

‘So, Lizzie, did you enjoy hanging out with the posh people?'

‘It was an experience, Ned. How did you find it, slumming with your family and pissing on a 300-year-old hedge?'

‘Ha, ha,' said Ned as he bit off the end of a cigar and lit up. ‘So, when are you back off to the Antipodes, or do you still have to commit a crime to get free passage?'

‘I've always been a fan of deportation. It certainly helps your travel dollar go further. I don't know, to tell you the truth. I'm just going to see what happens.'

‘Well, I can tell you one thing. Don't count on Tom sticking around because you're not his type. He's more a Sloane Ranger man.'

Lizzie felt her face flush. ‘Is that right?'

‘Yes, actually, it is.'

And with that the night had curdled.

 

A cousin drove Lizzie and Tom back to their bed and breakfast. As they pulled out of the grounds, they saw Ned snogging one of the bridesmaids next to his car.

‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,' Tom whispered in Lizzie's ear. Lizzie chuckled but she was miles away.

They arrived at the Bishop's Inn and were led to a quaint little room: floral bedspread, floral wallpaper and floral curtains. There was a fire burning in the hearth. Tom threw Lizzie onto the bed and ravished her. He came quickly; so much for brewer's droop. She responded, but she couldn't be aroused. This was the first time she hadn't come with him, and the first time she'd considered faking it. She didn't.

‘Sorry, Lizzie. Was it something I said? Beautiful girl, talk to me.'

‘No, darling, I'm just so tired. The speeches satisfied me.'

They took off their party clothes and were back to their default setting: naked. Tom fell asleep straightaway but Lizzie stayed awake for hours, tossing and thinking and tossing. Something had taken a little air out of their balloon.

When she finally slept, she dreamt about something she hadn't thought of in years: Para on the Yarra. Para on the Yarra was a yearly ritual on the last day of year 12 before final exams. It drew year-12 students from schools across Melbourne to the banks of the Yarra River. The idea was to drink until you were paralytic.

There were only twenty year-12s in Lizzie's class and most of them were such goody-two-shoes that they went home to study instead. But Lizzie and her mate Maria Toohey decided to go into town and check out this famous Para on the Yarra. They were well equipped thanks to Lizzie's brother Tony, who set them up with half a dozen West Coast Coolers and a packet of Winfield Blues.

Wearing their green-checked school dresses, which had been signed in black texta by the Sunshine High class of 1990, they alighted at Flinders Street Station and wandered down to the riverbank feeling excited and grown-up.

It was a sea of private-school boys in ties. There were a few girls; not many. The smell of testosterone and privilege was overpowering. Maria and Lizzie planted themselves under a tree with their six-pack of lukewarm cans and perved at the guys while playing Spot-the-Spunk. They divided the boys into ‘Shit yeah,' ‘Fuck no' and ‘Just for practice.' It was all purely hypothetical – they were both virgins.

After two West Coast Coolers each, both girls were quite pissed and having a blast. Suddenly a shadow fell over them.

‘Hello, ladies,' said a voice. They looked up. It was James. They didn't know James, but he was the tall, incredibly good-looking guy they'd spent much of the afternoon watching. He'd spent the day skolling while people stood around clapping ‘James, James, James, James.' He was definitely a Shit Yeah.

‘Hi.'

‘Mind if I join you?'

‘Sure,' said Lizzie, hardly able to believe her eyes as he lowered himself onto the rubbish-strewn grass. ‘Pull up a chip packet. Want a cigarette?'

‘No, thanks. I've got my own,' he said, plucking a packet of Dunhill from his shirt pocket.

This enormous spunk was sitting next to her and if Lizzie didn't know better, she'd swear he was trying to chat her up. He went to Melbourne Grammar and he was a rower. His dad was a QC and he lived in Hawthorn. She couldn't believe her luck. He was incredibly interested in her school subjects and her family. Maria got the hint and made herself scarce and before Lizzie knew it, James was kissing her. His arms were around her and his tongue was down her throat and she lay back on the grass and felt the weight of his golden body on top of her. He smelt strange, intriguing. She was in heaven.

Suddenly he stopped and stood up. His dozen or so mates, a good twenty metres away, let up a huge cheer and James raised his arms in triumph. Dusting himself off as he walked back to the group, he turned and spoke once more to Lizzie. ‘Nice to meet you, slag.'

Lizzie was dumbstruck. The boys were fishing money out of their wallets and giving it to James. It was a bet. A dare. She felt dirty and stupid. As if a guy like that would be interested in her. She straightened her skirt and stood up, biting back tears and trying not to vomit. She couldn't see Maria; Lizzie was all alone in a mob of ties, blazers and girls in long white socks. Everyone was staring at her.

She was walking back towards the station, trying to keep her balance, when a girl in a blue and white uniform approached her. ‘Don't worry. They are such losers. Watch this.' And the girl walked up behind James, who was still surrounded by a crowd of laughing mates. ‘Hi, James.'

‘Hi, Julia.'

‘I saw what you did just now and I thought you deserved this.'

With one swift movement of her right hand she grabbed the waistband of his jocks, yanked and gave James a wedgie. Then she calmly walked back to Lizzie, brushing her hands together as she did. All the girls stood up and cheered.

‘Let's ditch this place and get something to eat.'

‘Bitch!' yelled James, trying to extricate his jocks from his crack.

Jules turned and gave him the finger. ‘Sit and twist, you loser.' Then she turned back to Lizzie. ‘Call me Jules. What's your name?'

‘Lizzie.'

And that was how Lizzie met Jules.

 

Before they could head home to London on the day after the wedding, Tom and Lizzie made an appearance at the opening of the presents, held over luncheon at the estate. In the daylight the grounds didn't look magical at all. Cold and imposing were the words that came to Lizzie's mind. Everyone was feeling rather seedy so there was a lot of quiet small talk and strong cups of tea.

Ned was worse for wear and drove them slowly back to the city wearing sunglasses and a tinge of green. When they arrived home, Ned handed Lizzie her bag and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Lizzie. You never know, maybe we'll see you again sometime,' before speeding off. Lizzie felt like someone had punched her in the guts but Tom didn't seem to notice. He just wanted to chill out, roll a spliff and read the papers. Lizzie was tense and aggro all afternoon and finally went for a long walk to put her head straight. She walked until it was dark and ended up at the edge of the Thames, looking up at the stars. There was no one around.

‘Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.' And then she picked a star and said, ‘My wish is that Tom and I stay together.'

As she turned to make her way home she found a 20p coin on the ground. She picked it up and said to the universe, ‘Heads we'll stay together.' Then she tossed it.

It was tails.

Tom and Lizzie's bed had white sheets and a crocheted blanket at the end. They never used the blanket. They kept each other warm. They spent as much time there as they could, trading stories about their childhoods, travel exploits and all the usual drivel that falls out of your head when you are post-coital and in your twenties. They spoke as though they had finished life and these were the things that had happened to them and the conclusions they had drawn. And they were at an ending of sorts – the end of their second adolescence.

One night, with a velvet blue sky peeking through the open window and the light of the full moon flooding the room, they lay next to each other, running their fingertips up and down one another's body and kissing gently. For hours, it seemed. Finally Tom's voice broke the stillness.

‘You're amazing, Lizzie. The way you are so light but so deep at the same time.' He held her face in his hands and kissed her. Then he pinned her knees back with his legs and slid inside her. They moved together like a tide, their mouths joined. There was a current running through them, a pulse, and it felt as if they might explode. And eventually they did. Lizzie let out such a moan that Tom put his hand over her mouth. She bit his finger so hard she almost drew blood.

Tom fell asleep almost immediately as Lizzie played with his hair. When she heard his breathing change, and after he had made those little jerky movements he always made before he fell asleep, she buried her face in his neck and said, ‘I love you, Tom.' It hung in the air and Lizzie never knew if he'd heard it or not.

He hadn't. He was asleep. But he loved her too. And had told her so the night before as she slept.

 

So why did it end? Well, Jules called Lizzie two days later and told Lizzie to call home immediately. Her mother had had a stroke, was in hospital and now had a nasty case of pneumonia. Things didn't look great. So Lizzie got the first available flight home and thought she would stay until her mother got back on her feet.

Meanwhile, a law firm offered Tom a job and he was transferred to their Boston office a month later. The crazy time difference made for late-night phone calls and regular misunderstandings. Lizzie would call Tom at 11 p.m. after a few wines, either worked up and edgy or down and melancholy, while Tom was having his morning tea. Tom would call her after a night out drinking with his new colleagues, hard and horny and ready to talk dirty, while she was having lunch and her mum was in the next room yelling, ‘Get off that bloody phone, I've got a blood test at 2.30.'

Neither of them was much for writing and after a few months it all started to seem too hard. They weren't connecting. Lizzie fell into a bit of a heap until one day she was at the milk bar and bumped into her old mate Jim. They'd shared a house in Fitzroy years before. Jim was doing some labouring work at a house around the corner and started coming around after work on Fridays for fish and chips with Lizzie's parents. Before long it was lunch, too.

Lizzie was lost and with Jim she felt found. He was laconic and relaxed and it was all so easy and uncomplicated. He understood where she came from and there were so many things she didn't have to explain. She still didn't have a car, so Jim drove her to her stand-up gigs and stood up the back, drinking VBs and rolling Log Cabins. Afterwards she'd find him in the front bar and he would introduce her to some visiting Polish film-maker, broken-hearted Irish poet or geologist from Bahrain with whom he'd struck up a conversation. Jim had this knack of befriending people. Occasionally he'd be chatting with a woman, who would look startled and guilty when Lizzie appeared. ‘Don't worry, darl,' Lizzie would say, slugging on a stubbie. ‘He's all yours. We're just mates. Go for gold. But you'll have to drop me home on the way.'

And then things changed. There was a shift.

One night Jim took Lizzie to the Coburg drive-in to see
The Life of Brian
and halfway through they ditched the movie and had it off in the back of the car and that was it. They moved in together and twelve months later Reuben was born. Lizzie had no regrets. She still thought of Tom from time to time, but those times became fewer and further between. What she and Jim had was special. She felt a peace she'd never known before and people kept commenting on how well she looked. Jim made her feel cared for. He cooked for her, he gave her foot massages and occasionally he even wrote her funny little love poems. And she loved his hands. They were always rough and battered from labouring or working on his sculptures. There was paint splattered on the backs of them, his fingernails were dirty and one of his fingers always had a grubby bandaid wrapped around it.

She loved his manliness, his dignity and his loyalty. Jim felt like home. Perhaps she'd just reached an age when she was ready to settle down. She slipped into life with him so easily that sometimes she wondered if she'd actually chosen it – or had she ended up with Mr That'll-do? But she knew that she could walk the length and breadth of the world and never find anyone much better than Jim.

Jim loved Lizzie because she was Lizzie. Smart but not stuck up, caring but no wimp. He loved her strength and her unpretentiousness. Jim wasn't after perfection; he had fallen into that trap before. He was just after someone he could do stuff with and someone he could love. Jim wasn't settling for less with Lizzie; he just had very realistic expectations and she fulfilled them. He wasn't looking for a trophy wife or a sex nymph, just someone he could make happy. He was fairly confident that he could make Lizzie happy, just by loving her. And that was enough.

Lizzie never told Jim about Tom. It seemed pointless and hurtful to bang on about some bloke in England she'd had a fling with. She didn't think of it as a fling and it hadn't felt like a fling at the time; it had felt like they were in love. But in the harsh November light of Sunshine, a five-week travel relationship seemed most accurately described as a fling. Besides, a part of her wanted to keep Tom to herself. She would bring the memories out and wallow on a Saturday night, when Jim was out drinking with his mates after the footy. There was something perversely soothing about sinking into melancholy with the stereo on full blast, a family-size block of Dairy Milk at her side.

She did try to reach Tom one more time. They'd had no contact for about six weeks when she called his Boston office late one night after watching
Truly Madly Deeply
and necking half a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream. They told her he was back in London and no, they didn't have a number for him; he'd been head-hunted by another firm. She was gutted but resigned herself to waiting for him to call. He never did.

 

*

 

Tom was back in Britain, but his luggage wasn't. It never turned up. He was glad he'd taken the Leica in his carry-on bag but devastated to have lost his address book with Lizzie's phone number in it. He even went down to the Hog's Breath, hoping to track down Jules, but she was long gone. You might wonder why he didn't just call international directory assistance. How many Quealys could there be in Victoria, let alone in Sunshine? But you know what? Tom didn't even think of it. He just kept banking on his luggage turning up.

Deep in his heart, he worried that what he'd had with Lizzie could only exist on the road. It was too wild, too amazing, too good for the real world. He decided to leave Lizzie preserved in his mind, like a doll in a glass box. That way he could never lose her and no one could ever take her away.

Then Tom met Felicity. She was a gun lawyer at the firm that had head-hunted him, Crowley Tolhurst and Associates. Tom, Felicity and Harry, his future partner, formed a little gang. They called themselves TSL, The Single Losers, and the three of them went to the pub, caught movies together and sat around moaning about people in relationships. Felicity loved a drink and, as all the blokes kept reminding him, was quite a catch. Sure, she was funny and pretty and he could see theoretically that she was sexy, particularly in the stockings and high heels she wore to work. But she just didn't get his blood boiling the way Lizzie Quealy did. Felicity had grown up only ten minutes away from Tom and had studied at his school's sister college. They didn't remember each other but Felicity had a vague recollection of Ned playing one of the leads in the joint school production of
South Pacific
.

Then one drunken work Christmas party Harry photocopied his arse and left it on the boss's desk and Felicity and Tom had a festive snog in the stationery cabinet and that was it. He still thought about Lizzie – but as he got into the swing of things with Felicity, his time with Lizzie began to seem like a bit of a dream. And the next thing he knew the real estate agent was saying, ‘Going once, going twice … Sold to the man in the brown suede jacket with the pregnant wife.'