‘Sorry.’
I put the book down and took his hands. ‘Can we go to bed now? Any bed. Or the sofa. The floor. This table. I don’t care.’
‘Can I have some tea first?’
‘Of course.’ My neck and shoulders ached with tension and I wondered if he had orchestrated this whole fight, just to torture me. I gritted my teeth and poured his tea. I pretended to read while he drank it.
‘I called Mum this morning.’
‘Oh?’
‘It was pretty bad. She cried. I’ve only ever heard her cry once before and that was when my sister died.’
‘What? I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘Yeah. April. She only lived three days. Hole in her heart.’
‘God. When was this?’
He looked to the ceiling. ‘I was six. So, twelve, close to thirteen years ago.’
‘So it . . . She was Matthew’s? I mean, your parents were still together then, weren’t they?’
He looked at me sharply. ‘I’m surprised he never told you. I though you were close.’
‘I suppose it’s painful for him to talk about.’
‘I suppose. Anyway, it was bad this morning. I told Mum that I’d . . .’ He glanced at me, then down at the table. ‘I told her I’d met someone.’
‘Oh, Cal.’
‘I didn’t say it was you. I mean, I didn’t say anything about who . . . I said I was going to stay a while longer because I’d met someone and I wanted to see how it turned out.’ He glanced up again. ‘She went crazy. Sobbing and shouting. She calls out to my grandpa, babbling away in Vietnamese so I have no idea what she’s on about. She never speaks Vietnamese. Never. He came on the phone. He said, “Is true? My grandson has love with one of the dich? Your bà dead in the soil of Malaya so you can be free and now you leave your mother for a Northern whore!”
‘And I try to explain, no, Grandpa, she isn’t from here. It’s okay, she’s Australian. But he’s too angry. Not listening. Mum comes back on the line and I try to explain to her, but she won’t listen either. She says this is what she feared, why she didn’t want me to come here. She said I am like my father and her heart is broken. Then she hung up.’
‘Cal, I’m sorry.’
He tapped the table with his fingertips. ‘Can you call her?’
‘What? Why? Won’t that make things worse?’
‘No, no, because she’ll hear your accent. She’ll know that you’re not Vietnamese and she’ll calm down.’
‘I don’t . . . I don’t think I should get involved.’
His face melted and for a second I saw pure pain, then he sucked in his breath and looked at me calmly. ‘Go home then.’
All week I had been looking forward to this long weekend. I’d gone to three different stores to stock up on condoms. I’d bought a pair of satin pyjama shorts and a matching camisole. I’d even gone to the pricey salon in the Metropole for a Brazilian wax. My underpants were soaked from the hallway make-out session.
‘What do you want me to say to her?’
Instantly, his face opened up. ‘Really? Okay, um, just introduce yourself. But not your real name. Something that sounds Aussie, though. And just say you wanted to reassure her that I’m not defecting. That I’m hanging out with you and other expats, not with Vietnamese. Then she’ll want to speak to me, and it’ll be fine.’
He dialled the number and handed me the phone. When a woman’s voice answered I felt a wave of nausea.
‘Hello? Mrs – Ms—’ I turned in panic to Cal, who pointed to himself, mouthed ‘Watkins’. ‘Ms Watkins? My name is Kylie. I’m calling from Vietnam. I’m Cal’s friend.’
‘Yes?’ Her tone was sharp.
‘He’s very distressed about having upset you earlier. It seems he went about things all wrong and didn’t explain properly. This is awkward to say, but I’m, ah, I’m the girlfriend Cal was talking about. Apparently he gave you the impression that I was Vietnamese, but I’m not. I mean, I live here at the moment, but—’
‘You are Australian? ?’
‘No, I mean, yes, I’m Australian, but not .’
‘What are you doing in Vietnam, Kylie?’
‘I’m working here. I—’ Cal waved a frantic hand in front of my face. Lie, he mouthed. ‘I teach English. Sort of a working holiday.’
‘I see. When will you return to Australia?’
‘When my work visa expires, I suppose. A few more months.’
She exhaled. ‘Okay. Thank you for calling. Please can I speak to Cal?’
‘Mum—’ he said. ‘Yeah . . . I know, I should have . . . Red hair . . . Ah . . . Yes, yes.’ He smiled at me. ‘Really pretty . . . No . . . Yeah . . . A little bit. Um, twenty-five. I know, I know, Mum. Listen, I have to go. Tell Grandpa, okay? Okay. Love you too.’
‘Twenty-five?’
He smiled apologetically. ‘She said you sounded older than me.’
‘Ah.’
‘So.’ He took my hand. ‘What now, Kylie?’
I had slept in the room that was now Cal’s several times over the years. It had polished floorboards and bay windows with a view over the back of the Opera House. The furniture was classic French colonial, right down to the four-poster bed draped in an unnecessary mosquito net. When I’d been here before it was immaculate, but now the dresser was almost hidden under t-shirts and jeans and there were shoes, socks, music magazines and paperback books scattered over the floor. The mess itself didn’t bother me, but it did remind me that I was going to bed with a teenager which bothered me quite a lot, although it sounds disingenuous to say so.
I kept thinking, What would your mother say? I tried to imagine but I knew too little about her. On the phone she sounded brittle, but who wouldn’t in her place? How would Margi react to her eldest – was he eighteen now? nineteen? – taking up with a woman in her thirties? I didn’t know the answer to that either. My own mother . . . I knew how she’d react to nail polish on the bedspread and illicit candy bars stashed in pockets, but not this. Not anything like this.
My mother’s mother, my Nana, was furious at me for marrying Glen. I thought it was because of the six-year age difference, which at the time seemed enormous. She told me it wasn’t that, but I didn’t believe her. I wouldn’t hear the things she said about respect and friendship and integrity. I told her she was ruining my happiness and making me feel unsupported and alone. I told her she should keep her mouth shut if she couldn’t say anything nice or else I simply wouldn’t see or speak to her anymore. ‘I can’t be silent on this,’ she said. ‘When you’re a mother, you’ll understand.’
Not when you’re older, but when you’re a mother. Is it motherhood and not age or experience that separates the girls from the women? I can’t know, but I don’t believe it. The greatest, bravest, most grown-up thing I’ve ever done – the only thing about my twelve-year marriage of which I’m proud – was to not get pregnant. Three years in, Glen decided a baby was what we needed. After six months of trying and all-clears from our doctors, he began to suspect I was sabotaging his efforts. I was, but he couldn’t prove it. Every month, when my period came he was reminded of his failure or my deceit – of both. Those rapes and beatings hurt less than the others because I knew I had won and I knew that he knew.
When I looked at Cal, perched awkwardly on a chair heaped with clothes and towels, typing faster than any of the girls in my community-college typing class ever did, on a laptop computer open to the Facebook page of his ex-girlfriend who – apart from Hustler-style cleavage and eye make-up – looked twelve, I felt as old and wise as a grand old matriarch on her death bed.
When he stood from the chair and stalked to the bed and the towel dropped from his waist and he took his hardening cock in one hand and told me – calmly, slowly, confidently – what he was going to do with it, I became ageless and mindless. I had no history, no conscience, no maternal-empathy. I was flesh and bone and so was he and that was all and that was everything.
It was odd. I had been i
n Matthew’s apartment so many times that I knew it better than Cal did. I knew how to jiggle the key in the door to the deck when it stuck, how to spin the knob on the hotplate until the gas ignited. I knew which restaurants delivered and how to pronounce the street name so that the food would actually arrive.
Familiarity leads to comfort and nobody who was doing what I was doing that weekend should be anywhere near comfortable. A person in my situation should be anxious enough that she remains alert even when in a post-coital fog. She should be alert to the point of paranoia. When the door bell rings three minutes after her lover has run down the street to get some fresh bread, she should not drift mindlessly down the stairs to answer, wearing a bathrobe belonging to the father of her lover, her hair and face and legs dripping wet, a welcoming smile on her love-chapped lips.
‘Mischa! Oh!’ Collins, pink-faced, dressed in running shorts and a Nike t-shirt stood holding a basket of fruit. ‘I was . . .’ He craned his neck to see behind me. ‘Is, ah, Matthew here?’
‘No. He’s away this weekend.’
‘Oh. So you’re babysitting are you?’ He chuckled.
‘Pardon?’
‘Are you the babysitter? You know, for Cal.’
‘My hot-water system is broken.’
‘Ah.’ His gaze flickered over my shoulder. ‘So, ah, did Matthew take the young fella down to Saigon with him?’
‘You knew Matthew was in Saigon then?’
Collins shifted the basket from one hand to the other. ‘I won this fruit at the gym. Some anniversary promotion. My girl just did a big shop yesterday, so thought I’d drop this off here since it’s around the corner. Didn’t want it to spoil.’
‘Oh.’ I reached for the basket. ‘Lovely. I can take it.’
Collins handed it to me, putting a foot inside the house as he did so. ‘Right. Thanks.’ He looked up the stairs behind me. ‘Sorry to have interrupted your shower.’
‘You didn’t. I’d just stepped out.’
‘Ah, good.’
Behind him, I saw Cal round the corner, freeze, then dart into the crack-in-the-wall barber shop.
‘Listen, I’m dripping everywhere. Is there anything else?’
‘No, sorry. Enjoy the fruit.’
‘Oh, well, I’ll be leaving soon as I’m dressed. But I’ll leave a note so Cal knows who to thank.’
‘Will he be back soon, because I could wait? Been meaning to chat to him about—’
‘You do know he’s not gay, don’t you?’
He blinked. ‘Gays are only allowed to associate with other gays, is that what you’re saying?’
‘You know it’s not. But your dropping in like this when you know Matthew’s away. Bringing gifts. It’s obvious you’re interested in him and so I’m just letting you know, in case you didn’t, that he isn’t gay.’ I cringed inwardly at how high my voice had been, how fast my words had tumbled out.
Collins hesitated, looked up, then back at me. ‘The broken hot-water heater. Nice idea. Boy comes home, finds you naked and—’
‘I’ll let him know you dropped by.’ I slammed the door.
When Cal came in ten minutes later, his hair was army-short. He looked younger, more like a local, but I told him it made his beautiful eyes stand out.
‘Do you think Collins will say anything to Dad?’ he asked.
‘No. Why would he?’
‘So what are you so stressed out for?’
‘I’m not.’ I peeled the cellophane off the basket, folded it in half and smoothed it with my palms. I forced my hands to move slowly, matched my breath to each stroke.
Cal chose an apple from the basket and lifted it to his mouth. I stopped his hand, took the fruit to the sink and began to remove the potentially choleric skin with the expensive German peeler Matthew had bought in Singapore last year.
‘How do you think Dad would react?’
‘Ugh. Can we not talk about that, please?’
‘Never?’
‘Here.’ I handed him the peeled apple. ‘Maybe you should find a girlfriend. Someone you can introduce to your dad. Just in case your mum says something about me calling.’
Cal bit into the apple, glaring at me while he chewed and swallowed.
‘Don’t make that face. You look like a little kid.’
His expression didn’t change. ‘You seriously want me to get a fake girlfriend?’
‘Not fake. There must be a hundred girls in Hanoi who’d be thrilled to go out with you.’
‘It’d be fake for me. I’d just be using her to throw Dad off. I don’t use people and I don’t fake feelings.’
‘Don’t be upset.’ I sat beside him and tried to take his hand, but he brushed me off. ‘I mean, we never talked about not seeing other people. I sort of assumed you were—’
‘Are you?’
‘Ha, who would I be seeing?’ I laughed, stopping short when he hurled his half-eaten apple across the room. ‘Calm down, Cal. Geez. I’m being realistic. I know how it works in this place. You must get fifty offers every time you leave the house. When we’re together, God, you know I can’t get enough of you! But I don’t expect you to sit alone and watch Vietnamese Idol the rest of the time.’
He stared at the tabletop. ‘You really thought I was fucking other girls?’
‘I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry. I find it hard to understand why you wouldn’t.’
Cal looked at me as though I was another Henry. ‘You’re not the tiniest bit worried about losing me.’
‘Should I be?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. Well. Now I am. Now I’m very worried about losing you. Happy?’
‘Mish! No. I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean you had reason to worry. I meant . . .’ He looked away from me, the muscles in his cheeks popped as he ground his teeth.
‘You meant that I should be more possessive. More jealous. More insecure.’
Cal smiled unhappily. ‘Yeah. More like me.’
I watched him for a moment. Potential words of comfort ran through my mind. None of them were any good. I hadn’t worried about losing him, it was true. It may have been because I didn’t love him enough or it may have been that I was out of the habit of fearing the future. I still don’t know the answer. But as I watched him suffering, I knew that I couldn’t bear to be the cause of it.
‘When I was your age—’ I began and he groaned. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know how else to say it. When I was your age I was already married. I believed it would last forever. I couldn’t see any possible way my life could happen without him in it. Now I can barely remember what he looks like. The thing you can’t know when you’re at the beginning of your life is how long it is and how much you’ll change. You can’t know—’
‘Fuck you.’ Cal’s fists slammed into the table. He sat there, snarling, breathing heavily, the transparent cloak of his anger revealing flashes of the raw flesh beneath.
‘Cal . . .’
‘I can’t know how I’ll feel when I’m your age? So what? I’m supposed to act like nothing I feel now is real? That’s . . . How old do I have to be before I’m allowed to make decisions based on my feelings? Twenty-five? Thirty? Older? I mean, shit, Mischa, you’re older than that and you’re still not doing it, so I don’t know what age has to do with it at all.’
I’d made the same arguments to my sisters when they objected to my engagement. Eventually Mel said maybe I was right. Margi said I wasn’t, but she guessed she’d just have to let me learn that lesson the hard way. Just you wait, I remember thinking at the time. And then, years down the track, on the verge of telling them how bad things had become, remembering their warnings and biting back my words, I’d resolved to work harder at my marriage, to turn things around, to honour my youthful certainty. I wasted years on fulfilling a promise that no one who cared about me wanted to see fulfilled.
‘You’re right,’ I said.
Cal didn’t look up or move. ‘Right about what?’
‘It’s stupid not to act o
n how you feel, just because there’s a possibility how you feel will change.’
‘Are you just trying to make peace?’
‘No. After you explained it, it made sense. I’m kind of retarded when it comes to intimacy, you know?’
‘Yeah. I noticed.’
I put my palms to his cheek, turned his face to me. We kissed for a long time without changing positions. When we finally stopped my jaw ached and a nerve in my lower back twanged. Cal blinked his wet eyes, licked his lips and came in for more. I felt as happy as I’ve ever been.
While he was sleeping, I called Margi. She acted surprised to hear from me and cheerfully brushed off my apologies for not calling again sooner. She told me about the surgery and the follow-up treatment in such a bored, distracted tone that I had to remind myself that the flesh and organs cut and punctured, the bloodstream soon to be flooded with poison, were hers. This woman who had known me my entire life, who had sworn to keep me safe and had wept with rage and threatened murder when she found out she had failed. This woman who was once a girl who had barred me from her bedroom, which was blue and grown-up unlike my babyish pink one, and who would go weeks without speaking to me and then all of a wonderful sudden gather me up in her jasmine-smelling arms and kiss my face all over. This woman who packed her grief away in a box on a very high shelf and told herself she would deal with it later, because right now she had a devastated teenager and a heart-broken, bewildered child to take care of.
It was all true and yet unreal. I hadn’t seen her in over six years and that visit was a blur during which I did little but sob. Before that visit it had been, I don’t know how long, nine years? Maybe ten? The woman on the other end of the crackling, probably-listened-into line was a stranger and if she died – the thought stabbed at me even as I began to ask about my nephews in order to banish it – my life would not change at all.
atthew called my mobile while I was checking his home for evidence of my presence. As he told me about his accident and asked for what he described as ‘an enormous, totally unreasonably large favour’, I picked eight strands of my hair from his shower drain and dropped them, one by one, into his toilet. After assuring him I would take care of everything, I hung up and flushed the toilet.