Truly Madly Guilty

  The kettle boiled and she remembered how she had walked down that bouncy, soft-carpeted hallway at Tiffany and Vid's house, encased in that strange bubble where nothing seemed quite real, except that she'd overheard Clementine's voice perfectly: It's almost ... repulsive to me. Oh God, I don't mean that, I just really don't want to do it.

  Why did she remember that part of the night so clearly? It would be better if Clementine's words had vanished from her memory, but her memory of that part of the afternoon was crystalline, more distinct even than a regular memory, as if the tablet and the first glass of champagne had produced a chemical reaction that had at first heightened her memory before turning it murky.

  She heard Clementine say, What if it looked like Holly or Ruby?

  Even after all these weeks, her cheeks burned at the memory. Clementine had spoken Erika's secret, most precious hopes out loud in a tone of disdain.

  She remembered walking into that room and seeing Clementine's horrified face. She was so clearly terrified that Erika had overheard.

  She remembered how she'd carried Ruby downstairs on her hip while rage and pain raced like bacteria through her bloodstream. Rage and pain for Oliver, who had so blissfully, innocently assumed that if they asked Clementine to donate her eggs his little baby would come from 'a place of love'. A place of love. What a joke.

  They'd gone out into that preposterous backyard and Tiffany had offered her wine, that very good wine, and she'd drunk it faster than she'd ever drunk a glass of wine before, and every time Erika had looked at Clementine, laughing, chatting, having the time of her life, she had silently screamed, You can keep your damned eggs.

  And it was at that point that her memories of exactly what happened that afternoon began to loosen, fragment and crumble.

  chapter twenty-eight

  The day of the barbeque

  'This is some backyard,' said Sam.

  'It's ... amazing,' said Clementine.

  Vid and Tiffany's house had been impressive, especially the artwork, but this lavishly landscaped backyard, with its tinkling water features, its fountains and urns, its white marble statues and its scented candle-lit, luxuriously fitted out cabana, was another level of extravagance altogether. The fragrance of roasting meat filled the air, and Clementine wanted to laugh out loud with delight, like a child walking into Disneyland. She was enchanted by the opulence of it all. There was something so hedonistic and generous about it, especially after poor Erika's rigidly minimalist home.

  Of course she understood the reasons for Erika's obsession with minimalism, she wasn't completely insensitive.

  'Yeah, the backyard is all Vid's. He goes for the understated look,' said Tiffany as she indicated a seat for Clementine, refilled her glass with champagne and offered the plate of Vid's freshly baked strudels.

  Clementine wondered if Tiffany had some experience in the hospitality field. She almost had one arm folded behind her back as she bent at the waist and poured drinks.

  From where Clementine sat in the long, low cabana she could see her daughters playing on a large rectangle of grass next to a gazebo with ornate columns and a wrought-iron dome. They were throwing a tennis ball for the little dog. Ruby had the ball at the moment and she was holding it up high above her head, while the dog, taut and trembling with anticipation, sat in front of her, poised to spring.

  'You must tell Dakota to let us know when she gets sick of looking after the girls,' said Clementine to Tiffany, although she hoped it wouldn't be any time soon.

  'She's having a great time with them,' said Tiffany. 'You just relax and enjoy the view of the Trevi Fountain there.' She nodded at the largest, most extravagant fountain, a monolithic creation built like a wedding cake with winged angels holding uplifted hands as if to sing, except instead they spurted great criss-crossing arcs of water from their mouths. 'That's what my sisters call it.'

  'Her sisters have the wrong country,' said Vid. 'The Gardens of Versailles was my inspiration, in France, you know! I got books, pictures, I studied up. This is all my own design, you know, I sketched it out: the gazebo, the fountain, everything! Then I got friends in to build it all for me. I know a lot of tradies. But her sisters!' He pointed his thumb at Tiffany. 'When they saw this backyard, they laughed and laughed, they just about wet their pants.' He shrugged, unbothered. 'I said to them, it's no problem that my art has given you joy!'

  'I think it's incredible,' said Clementine.

  'No pool?' asked Sam, who had grown up splashing about in a backyard above-ground pool with his brothers and sister. 'You've got enough room for one.'

  He looked about the backyard as if planning a redesign, and Clementine could tell exactly where his mind was heading. Sometimes he talked wistfully about selling up and moving out to a good old-fashioned quarter-acre block in the suburbs, where there would be room for a pool and a trampoline, a cubby house and a chook shed and a vegetable garden; a house where his children could have the sort of childhood he'd had, even though nobody had childhoods like that anymore, and even though Sam was more urban than her, and loved being able to walk to restaurants and bars and catch the ferry into the city.

  Clementine shuddered at the thought of the third child in that suburban dream of his, now at the front of his mind thanks to Erika's request. God, there might even be a fourth child romping about in his imaginary backyard.

  'No pool! I'm not a fan of chlorine. Unnatural,' said Vid, as if there were anything natural about all this glossy marble and concrete.

  'It's incredible,' said Clementine again, in case Sam's comment could be interpreted as criticism. 'Is that a maze over there in the corner? For lovers' trysts?'

  She didn't know why she'd said 'lovers' trysts'. What a thing to say. Had she ever said the word 'tryst' out loud in her life before? Was that even how you pronounced it?

  'Yes, and for Easter egg hunts with all of Dakota's cousins,' said Tiffany.

  'Taking care of that topiary must take up a bit of your time,' commented Oliver, looking at the sculptured hedges.

  'I have a good friend, you know, he takes care of it.' Vid made giant snip-snip movements with his hands to indicate someone else doing his hedge clipping.

  The late afternoon sun streamed into the cabana and created a rainbow effect in the mist of water billowing from the wonderfully absurd fountain. Clementine felt a sudden burst of optimism. Surely Erika hadn't overheard what she'd said, and even if she had, Clementine would make it right, like she had so many times before, and then she'd find a nice, gentle way to explain why she couldn't donate her eggs. An anonymous egg donor would be more suitable for all concerned. They existed! Didn't they? People were always getting pregnant using donated eggs. Or celebrities were, anyway.

  And Sam didn't really want another baby, any more than he really wanted to be a tradesman like his dad. He sometimes said he should have done something with his hands. After a frustrating day at work he'd go on about how he wasn't really cut out for the corporate world, but then next thing he was all excited about a TV commercial he was shooting. Everyone had another sort of life up their sleeve that might have made them happy. Yes, Sam could have been a plumber married to a stay-at-home domestically minded wife who kept the house in perfect order, with five strapping football-playing sons, but then he probably would have dreamed of having a fun office job and living in a cool, funky suburb by the harbour with a cellist and two gorgeous little girls, thank you very much.

  She took a bite of Vid's strudel. Sam, who was already halfway through eating one, laughed at her. 'I knew your eyes would roll back into your head when you tasted that.'

  'It's spectacular,' said Clementine.

  'Yeah, not bad, hey,' said Vid. 'Tell me, do you taste a little hint of something, like the idea of a flavour, you know, the dream of a flavour, and you just can't quite put your finger on it?'

  'It's sage,' said Clementine.

  'It is sage!' cried Vid.

  'My wife is so sage,' said Sam. Tiffany chuckled and Clementine saw
the pleasure on her husband's face that he'd made the hot chick laugh.

  She said, 'Don't encourage the bad dad humour, Tiffany.'

  'Sorry.' Tiffany grinned at her.

  Clementine smiled back and found her eyes drawn irresistibly to Tiffany's cleavage. It was like something from a Wonderbra ad. Were those breasts real? Tiffany could probably afford the best. Clementine's friend Emmeline would know. Emmeline had perfect pitch and an unerring eye for a fake boob. That glorious cleavage had to be as unnatural as this backyard. Tiffany adjusted her T-shirt. Oh God, she'd been staring for too long now. Clementine looked away fast and back at the children.

  'This strudel is very good,' said Oliver, in his careful, polite way, wiping a fragment of pastry off the side of his mouth.

  'Yes, it's excellent,' said Erika.

  Clementine turned her head. Erika had slurred the word 'excellent', just a little. In fact, if it were anyone else Clementine wouldn't have used the word 'slur', but Erika had a very precise way of speaking. Each vowel was always enunciated just so. Was Erika a little tipsy? If so, it would be a first. She'd always hated the idea of losing control. So did Oliver. Presumably that was part of the reason why they were attracted to each other.

  'So now you've passed that test,' said Vid. 'I've got another one.'

  'I'll win this one,' said Sam. 'Bring it on. Sporting trivia? Limbo? I'm great at limbo.'

  'He is surprisingly good at limbo,' said Clementine.

  'Oh, me too,' said Tiffany. 'Or I used to be. I'm not as flexible as I once was.'

  She put down her drink, bent her body back at an extraordinary angle so that her T-shirt rode up, and thrust out her pelvis. Was that a tattoo just below the waistband of her jeans? Clementine strained to see. Tiffany took a couple of steps forward and hummed limbo music as she ducked under an invisible pole.

  She straightened and pressed her hand to her lower back. 'Ow. Getting old.'

  'Jeez,' said Sam a little hoarsely. 'You might give me a run for my money.'

  Clementine stifled a giggle. Yes, my darling, I think she would give you a run for your money.

  'Where are the kids?' he asked suddenly, as if coming back to reality.

  'They're right there,' said Clementine. She pointed at the gazebo where Dakota and the girls were still playing with the dog. 'I'm watching them.'

  'Do you do yoga?' Oliver asked Tiffany. 'You've got great flexibility.'

  'Great flexibility,' agreed Sam. Clementine reached over and discreetly pinched the flesh above his knee as hard as she could.

  'Ah-ya.' Sam grabbed her hand to stop her.

  'What's that, mate?' asked Oliver.

  'Bah! It's not a limbo competition!' said Vid. 'It's a music competition. It's my favourite piece of classical music. Now, look, I will be honest with you. I don't know anything about classical music. I know nothing. I'm an electrician! A simple electrician! What would I know about classical music? I come from peasant stock. My family - we were peasants! Simple peasants!'

  'Here we go with the simple peasants.' Tiffany rolled her eyes.

  'But I like classical music,' continued Vid, ignoring her. 'I like it. I buy CDs all the time! Don't know what I'm buying! Just pick them at random off the shelf! Nobody else buys CDs anymore, I know, but I do, and I got this one day, at the shopping centre, you know, and on the way home I played it in the car, and when this came on, I had to pull over, I had to stop on the side of the road because it was like ... it was like I was drowning. I was drowning in feeling. I cried, you know, I cried like a baby.'

  He pointed at Clementine. 'I bet the cellist knows what I mean.'

  'Sure,' said Clementine.

  'So let's see if you can name it, hey? Maybe it's not even good music! What do I know?'

  He fiddled with his phone. Naturally the cabana had a built-in sound system that was linked to his mobile phone.

  'Who says only the cellist can enter this competition?' said Sam. Clementine could hear him imitating Vid's speech cadences without realising he was doing it. It was so embarrassing the way he did that, picking up waiters' accents in restaurants and coming over all Indian or Chinese. 'What about the marketing manager, eh?'

  'What about the accountant?' Oliver followed the joke with heavy-handed jolliness.

  Erika said nothing. She sat with her forearms perfectly still on the armrests of her chair, staring off into the distance. It was unusual too for Erika to disengage from a conversation like this. Normally she listened to social chitchat as if she'd be sitting for a quiz later.

  'You can all enter!' cried Vid. 'Silence.'

  He lifted his phone as though it were a conductor's baton and then dropped it in a dramatic swooping motion. Nothing happened.

  He swore, jabbing at the screen.

  'Give it here.' Tiffany took the phone and pressed some keys. Immediately, the lush opening notes of Faure's 'After a Dream' cascaded through the cabana with perfect clarity.

  Clementine straightened. It almost felt like a trick that out of all the pieces of music he could have picked, he'd chosen this one. She knew exactly what he meant when he'd described 'drowning in feeling'. She'd felt it too, when she was fifteen, sitting with her bored parents (her father's head kept snapping forward as he dropped off to sleep) at the Opera House: that extraordinary feeling of submersion, as if she'd been drenched in something exquisite.

  'Louder!' cried Vid. 'It needs to be loud.'

  Tiffany turned up the volume.

  Next to her, Sam automatically adjusted his posture and assumed his stoic, polite, I'm-listening-to-classical-music-and-hoping-it-will-be-over-soon face. Tiffany refilled glasses with no discernible reaction to the music, while Erika continued to stare into the distance and Oliver wrinkled his brow, concentrating. Oliver could possibly name the composer. He was one of those well-educated private school boys who knew a lot about a lot of things, but he couldn't feel the music. Clementine and Vid were the only ones feeling it.

  Vid met her eyes, lifted his glass in a secret salute and winked as if to say, Yeah, I know.

  chapter twenty-nine

  Vid sat at the wrought-iron table on his front veranda with sheets of newspaper laid out, polishing Dakota's school shoes so she would look smart for the Information Morning at Saint Anastasias. He remembered how he used to polish his older daughters' shoes when they were all at school. Three little pairs of black shoes going down in size. Now his daughters all wobbled about on stilettos with pointy heels.

  Something was making him feel especially mournful today; he wasn't exactly sure what it was and it made him feel angry. Perhaps it was related to the weather. He had heard an interview on the radio about how the lack of sunshine was having a detrimental psychological effect on the people of Sydney. Serotonin levels were dipping, causing depression rates to rise. An Englishman had rung up and said, 'What a load of rubbish! This is nothing, you Aussies are so soft! Come to England and we'll show you rain.'

  Vid didn't think he was so soft that he'd let a little bad weather worry him.

  There was the sound of a car in the cul-de-sac and Vid looked up to see Erika from next door driving off down the street in her blue Statesman.

  He wondered if Erika had seen Clementine lately.

  He dipped the brush in the black polish and swirled it around.

  He had told not one single person that he'd seen Clementine perform the other night, as if it were a secret when there was no reason for it to be a secret. Yes, possibly it was a little strange that he'd gone to see her perform, but come on now, why was it so strange? It was a free country. Anyone could go see her perform.

  'Isn't that right, Barney?' he said to the dog, which sat at his feet, very upright and alert, as if guarding him from something. 'It's a free country?'

  Barney shot him a concerned look and then suddenly trotted off, as if a decision had been reached that nothing could be done with Vid and he might as well go and check in with some other members of the family.

  Vid carefully polishe
d the side of the shoe. Women could not polish shoes. They were too impatient and quick. They never did a good job of it.

  Could Clementine polish a shoe? He wished he could ask her. He would like to hear her answer. Clementine was still their friend, surely? Why would she not return his calls? He only wanted to say hello, to check in with her. He had even left messages and he didn't like leaving messages. He preferred people to see there was a missed call from him and call straight back. She must have his number programmed into her phone by now, surely? It was hurtful to him. He'd never had anyone not return his calls before. Even his ex-wife returned his calls.

  He held the shoe up and examined it, remembering the music. It had been extraordinary. Breathtaking.

  It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. He was at the Quay. He'd been going to meet a good friend at the Opera Bar, but his friend's elderly mother had got sick and he'd had to cancel at the last minute, so Vid had wandered up into the Opera House where he'd had a very nice, long discussion with a girl at the ticket counter. He'd said he wanted to go to the symphony and it turned out that was no problem, there were plenty of seats available to Thus Spake Zarathustra. Vid had no idea what that meant, but the girl said he would recognise some of the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and she was right, of course he did.

  He had not had his hopes up that Clementine would be playing. He knew she wasn't a full-time employee of the orchestra. She filled in for them when they needed her. She was a subbie. He also knew she had an audition coming up for a full-time position that she very much wanted, and he'd confirmed with Erika that the audition hadn't happened yet.

  So he knew there was only a very small chance she would be playing, but then again, he'd always been lucky. He was a very lucky person. Some people had the luck, some people did not, but he had the luck, he'd always had the luck (except of course for what happened at the barbeque, but that was just a deviation in the path of his lucky life). But the other night he'd been lucky, because there she was, right there on the stage, wearing a long black dress, chatting with the musician sitting next to her, as calm as if they were waiting for a bus, with that beautiful, gleaming instrument leaning back against her shoulder the same way a small tired child does.