Replacement Wife Page 5

  ‘He’s got a beard now,’ Hattie said.

  ‘I know. It’s sexy, yeah?’

  ‘I’m not into them. My dad had one. I’ve always thought they were gross, like the Mr Twit character in that Roald Dahl book. I always think about the food getting stuck in them. I never thought I’d see the day when they’d come back in vogue.’

  I was disappointed that Hattie didn’t like the beard. It was one of my fetishes about Jarvis; I liked to imagine that his beard would be the right mix of rough and soft. Although his hair was brown, his beard had this beautiful orangey tinge through it, the same colour as some of his better Corten-steel sculptures, which I’d seen in photographs he’d sent to me. I was always encouraging about these works, as there was a marketplace for them. People would like them in their gardens, if nothing else. They were easy on the eye and didn’t need explaining.

  Jarvis took his time making the rounds, saying hello to everyone he knew. I saw him cast a glance over my way and raise an eyebrow, ironically, indulging in this little secret of ours. It was as if everything else around us was fake and we were the only true reality that existed. I’d been wondering if lately in my mind I’d made him better than he actually was, whether it was the vision of him, the image that I was in love with. But he was divine to watch. His red flannel shirt was buttoned up all the way to his neck, he wore tight black jeans and tan desert boots. He walked with a calm reassurance, at peace with himself. Even though his messages to me were full of angst and yearning and uncertainty, somehow — even though he knew I was watching — he was able to give the appearance of being perfectly at ease with himself. For a moment, it made me question whether he was genuine or not. And I felt a fear that I hadn’t expected. Was he playing me? Was he as into me as all those words he sent me suggested?

  I put down my glass of bubbles and excused myself, escaping to the bathroom, my heart racing. I checked myself out in the mirror, just to check that I was still me and that everything I thought was true was true. I had never questioned Jarvis’s love for me before. He wore his heart on his sleeve; he unrolled his devotion to me with such force that it was as though he was moving boulders around. I wondered whether I had been stupid to have believed in such words; words were just words. Words couldn’t support me or save me. They wouldn’t feed me, feed my kid, put a roof over my head. How had I fallen so stupidly in love with this man, against all my better judgement?

  It still looked like me in the mirror: shoulder-length dark hair and the pale skin of an Irish descendant. The fine lines around my eyes and forehead were expanding, despite the rosehip oil I applied on my face twice a day. I was also getting tiny cysts that had never been there before. The skin above my eyelids was becoming looser, too. Sure, my face was changing, slowly, subtly, but was I changing, too? I wondered who I really was — to have come so far away from the person I used to be. Before Chris’s fortieth I was a completely devoted mother and wife, but now I was someone else. Which image of myself did I prefer? The sexy seductress, or the good wife and mother? Which one would I choose?

  I washed my hands, turned the silver door handle, and stepped out into the hallway. And there he was, the man who invaded my head ninety per cent of the day with dreams and fantasies. He grabbed my hand and we slipped into Chris and Melissa’s bedroom and closed the door.

  ‘I couldn’t wait to see you,’ he said.

  I realised I’d secretly been waiting for this moment, to be alone with him without us having contrived a meeting.

  ‘Me, too,’ I said.

  ‘If I kiss you, will you be mad? Will I have ruined everything?’ It sounded as though he had practised this line, so smoothly did it fall from his lips.

  Too scared to reply, I kissed him instead, and I discovered that his beard did feel soft against my chin. I felt unsure of myself. It was so long since I’d kissed someone passionately. When was the last time I’d kissed Luke like this? I felt like a teenager again, uncertain, discovering my first kiss. I didn’t know if I was too soft or too hard or too saliva-y, whether I should be subservient or go in for the attack. Filled with a mixture of excitement, fear and passion, I held him to me as though my future happiness brewed under his skin.

  But my son was in the house, under the same roof, and he adored me. I felt ashamed. I thought about the Wayne Carey affair and assured myself that I was nothing like those two. I was too sophisticated for tacky love affairs. That wasn’t my thing. That was for plebs. Real love should not be played out in hiding, in secret pashes behind closed doors, or in hotel rooms, or car parks. It was all too cheesy, too suburban, too low-life. I was above all that. I may have fallen in love, but I didn’t want to be completely disgraceful.

  I pulled away from his kiss and looked him deep in the eyes. ‘I love you,’ I whispered.

  ‘I love you, too. Madly, insanely.’

  ‘I know — but you do understand don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin anything. You mean everything to me. I told you I’d go easy, I’d wait. Your life and happiness is more important than mine.’

  He was so sweet it took my breath away. His messages said these things, but here he was saying it in real life. I couldn’t believe that I’d been doubting him five minutes ago. Now I felt the absolute truth in his words.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I said.

  ‘I know. I’ll be patient, I won’t put pressure on you. I’m so sorry.’ He pressed my fingertips to his lips, then stopped himself from kissing them. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again, releasing my hand. ‘It’s just I’m losing my head over you. I’ve never felt like this before — I’m cursed with this love for you.’

  I wasn’t used to being worshipped like this. His words were so tender, and this tenderness made my heart bleed for him, made me want to possess him for myself, wholly and completely. I knew then for certain that I was on a runaway train with Jarvis and that the tracks were leading me out of my relationship with Luke. The only thing I could control was how little damage I would do along the way. Could we stop the train from taking down passengers or even whole stations?

  Jarvis squeezed my hand one last time, and said, ‘I’ll go first.’

  He walked out of the room, while I stayed for a moment to calm myself. Glancing over towards the mirror, I noticed there were red splotches all up my neck. I sat on the bed and caught my breath, trying to savour for as long as I could the feeling of Jarvis’s lips against mine.

  After a few minutes, I slipped out the door, too, and there was Max in the hallway, a football under his arm. He looked at me wide-eyed.

  ‘What are you doing, Mum?’

  I looked at him, and my voice stuck, my assurance from a moment ago withered. Because what the hell was I doing? What was I doing?

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Do you need to go to the toilet?’

  ‘Nup.’ And he walked off. My lovely eight-year-old son, content in the safe world he’d always known, that we had worked so hard to construct for him. The biggest worry he’d ever had was whether he remembered to bring his library bag along to school on a Thursday. And there I was, his mother, about to destroy everything in his world. I’d tried to protect him from outside dangers all his life — but the biggest threat to his emotional wellbeing was me.

  13

  I used the school directory to find Rita’s number and I texted a message to her: Max can’t stop talking about Evan. Would he like to come over for a play date on Friday night after school?

  She texted back quickly. Sure. I’ll pick him up after five thirty. What’s your address? She was quick, efficient, no-nonsense. I liked her. And I liked those handbags she made. I’d checked them out in a boutique on Brunswick Street. They had whimsical silhouettes on them of birds on a wire or dandelions blowing in the wind. I opened up the zips and checked the pockets and was impressed with the craftsmanship.

  ‘They’re designed by a local lady,’ the sales assistant said.

  ‘Are they?’ I asked, pretendin
g to be surprised. ‘Where are they made?’

  ‘I think she gets them manufactured in Indonesia.’

  ‘They’re gorgeous, aren’t they?’ I put one over my shoulder and pretended to check myself out in the mirror. ‘What’s she like? The designer?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve only met her twice. She set up a window display a couple of weeks ago. She must have changed it three or four times. She was very particular. But she’s lovely. There’s a separate compartment to keep your phone in. And you can adjust the straps to wear it long or short.’

  I took Rita’s bag off my shoulder and gave it back to the sales attendant, saying thanks very much and I’d think about it.

  ***

  Luke picked Max and Evan up from school on the Friday night. I’d made the boys white chocolate and raspberry muffins, as I wanted to make a nice first impression on Evan.

  ‘Mum doesn’t let me eat sweet stuff,’ Evan said, sitting at the kitchen bench, swinging his legs on the stool. ‘She says that sugar makes us hyperactive.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, taken by surprise. ‘So you don’t want to eat one?’

  ‘Do you have fruit instead? I usually have fruit after school. Or carrot sticks with avocado dip.’

  So, she was a sugar Nazi then. No wonder she was so thin. From my experience, sugar Nazis also had other issues. These women seemed to spend a lot of their time in the kitchen, preparing all their food from scratch, ignoring other areas of their life. It was as though if they could control what went into their children’s mouths, they felt they would be able to control everything. I knew the type. They were multiplying in schools at the time, speaking self-righteously and converting others like it was some sort of religion. They spent a fortune at organic supermarkets and had seven different types of flours in the pantry. I suspected that being so extreme in the food department meant they probably couldn’t relax about a lot of other things either.

  Still, Evan handled the situation well, and I couldn’t help but respect him. I was pleased that he went along with his mother’s wishes, when he could just as easily have eaten the muffin. She must have been doing something right after all to raise such a compliant son.

  I made the boys a platter of fruit and carrot sticks, and put a bowl of mashed avocado on the side. Max still wanted his muffin, which I now felt a little ashamed about, but he ate the other stuff as well. Perhaps Evan and his mum could be a good influence on Max. We’d lapsed into giving Max ice-cream every night after dinner, as a treat to coax him through eating his main meal. Maybe we could all learn something from Rita.

  After their snack, I sent them both outside to play in the backyard. They kicked a ball around and then practised shooting goals in the basketball hoop. I watched them both from the window, wondering whether they’d make good brothers. They didn’t seem to talk much to each other, but a ball is a great equaliser for boys. I’d been amazed by this ever since Max was a small boy, since the first time we’d taken him out the back to have a kick around. He was maybe two, and he could hardly connect his foot with the ball. But he ran around laughing, giggling, his arms everywhere, his feet turned inwards. He’d fallen right over a couple of times in his attempts to kick the ball. Luke and I had both been there, adoring him, enjoying that special family time. We’d given each other knowing looks, sharing a love for Max that no one else on this Earth could have felt.

  I grabbed a bottle of wine from the pantry. I never drank before dinner, but I had this great need for a glass of red, to take the edge off this sense of heightened emotion. I stood at the window, knowing that time was getting on, that I should have been preparing dinner. But I kept sipping on my glass of red, watching the two boys out the window. I couldn’t remember the last time the three of us had done something together and I had felt completely present in the moment. Nowadays I was always distracted, wondering when I’d receive the next message from Jarvis, planning my escape, feeling tired after a poor night’s sleep.

  I took out my phone and, with the glass in one hand and my phone in the other, I checked my messages. There was nothing new there from Jarvis, but I started reading over old messages, as I liked to do all the time. I became lost in the moment, lost in his kind, passionate, lustful words. I must have had a lovesick expression on my face, because all of a sudden there was Luke in the kitchen, looking over my shoulder. I reacted poorly and snatched my phone out of sight and held it against my chest.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Why are you hiding your phone like that?’

  ‘Nothing, just looking at Twitter.’

  ‘Why are you drinking already?’

  ‘I don’t know, I felt like it. Can’t I just do what I feel like?’

  ‘Why aren’t you making dinner?’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ I placed the glass of wine down and secretly used my thumb to turn my phone back onto the home screen, then placed it down on the bench. My heart was pounding, I was logged into my inbox, so all Luke had to do was click on my email app and he would have seen Jarvis’s colourful words. I hadn’t thought about being caught out before. Everything was there on my phone, every message Jarvis had sent me, every picture. All the evidence was right there. It was all so precious to me, I hadn’t been able to delete a thing.

  We had a stand-off in the kitchen. Luke was looking at me suspiciously. The phone was right between us on the bench, like a secret diary left open and placed upside-down. Backing away, I tried to act normal, reaching into the fridge and pulling out some mince, and putting it on the bench. I opened up the pantry and grabbed an onion and picked some parsley off the plant by the window. And still Luke stood there, looking determined about something.

  ‘Evan’s a nice kid,’ I said, trying to sound like my usual self, putting the mince into a glass bowl. ‘His mum, Rita, is so nice. She designs handbags.’

  ‘You’ve told me that already.’

  ‘Have I?’ I truly couldn’t remember telling him. My conversations with Luke were always played out in such a detached manner. I really wanted him out of the kitchen. I didn’t want him standing there. And I wanted to delete everything off my phone, to destroy all the evidence. If it didn’t exist, then it didn’t exist. I had a horrible feeling of dread in my chest, like something awful was about to happen. I hadn’t been prepared for this to be the moment when everything would come crashing down.

  But then Luke said, ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ And he slipped out of the kitchen. I waited. I took a sip of wine and calmed my galloping heart. I waited until I could hear the water running in the shower and I grabbed my phone and sat down on the floorboards in the kitchen, where the boys couldn’t see me, and started destroying every message that Jarvis had ever sent me or I had sent to him. Then I deleted everything from the trash box and checked in the ‘All’ mailbox, to make doubly sure that nothing remained of our secret life together. Then I went into my settings and applied a password to my home screen. I had been far too relaxed about all of this — and now had been one second away from being caught out. If Luke’s eyesight was any better, or if he hadn’t spoken when he did, he might have read some of the message. And it would have been over.

  This horrible feeling in my chest made me question — again, like a broken record stuck on the same tune — what I was doing. I never, ever, wanted to face a moment of truth like that one. It was far too awful to even think about.

  By the time Rita came to pick Evan up, the burgers were moulded into balls and were sitting on a plate on the kitchen bench. Luke was out on the deck, next to the lit barbecue, watching the boys play. As Rita had left Josh in the car, I could tell she wasn’t going to be expecting a cup of tea, so I tried to keep it quick. I walked her through the house, which I’d tidied up for her benefit that day. ‘Evan’s out the back, they’ve had a lovely time,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks so much, it’s so nice of you to have had him. We’ll have to have Max over sometime soon.’

  I opened
the back door and we stepped out onto the deck. ‘This is Rita,’ I said to Luke.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his arms crossed, leaning back on the greyed deck railing he’d built himself.

  Rita smiled at him, but she was in a rush. She called out: ‘Come on, Evan, let’s get going. It’s almost time for dinner.’

  Then she turned to me. ‘Did he eat okay? I forgot to tell you that we don’t eat sugar.’

  ‘He was very good; he declined a muffin.’ I could see relief spread over her face, as though she had been stressing about it. ‘And don’t worry, we’re not a family that gives our kid Coke for breakfast.’ I leaned in to her, so that Luke couldn’t hear. ‘Actually, Luke is pretty health-conscious. He would prefer that Max didn’t eat any sugar. If he had it his way, sugar would be cut out completely. But I’m happy with everything in moderation.’ This wasn’t true. It was actually Luke who usually offered Max ice-cream after dinner, and he always had those four squares of chocolate with his coffee in the evenings, as though his life depended on it. But I was trying to make a sale here.

  She looked over at Luke as though she had just discovered a kindred spirit or, more than that, a new species: a man who gave a shit about sugar.

  ‘And he just did the raw food detox,’ I said, taking it one step further.

  ‘Has he?’ By now she was almost breathless with awe.

  ‘He’s only started eating meat again this week,’ I said.

  ‘Evan!’ Rita yelled out again, in a rather forthright manner, breaking from under my spell. ‘We have to go! Josh is in the car.’

  Evan passed the ball back to Max and walked over to where we were standing.