Drip Dry

Ilsa Evans lives in a partially renovated house in the Dandenongs, east of Melbourne. She shares her home with her three children, two dogs, several fish, a multitude of sea-monkeys and a psychotic cat.

She is currently in the mid stages of a PhD at Monash University on the long-term effects of domestic violence and writes fiction on the weekends.
Spin Cycle
was published in 2002,
Drip Dry
is her second novel.

www.ilsaevans.com

Also by Ilsa Evans

Spin Cycle

I L S A   E V A N S

Pan Macmillan Australia

To my son,
Michael James Evans
who walked through the valley and emerged triumphant

Like
Spin Cycle
, this book could not have been written without a lot of support and assistance. For these I send extra-special thanks to my terrific daughters, Jaime and Caitlin, who provide such inspiration and actually
are
CJ, just split into two (scary but true); to my mother, Lottie Evans, who also happens to be my personal librarian and is
not
, I repeat – NOT – the mother in this book; to my aunts, Ilse Planinsek and Mimi Krzizek, for their pride and support; to Debbie McBride for lessons in the Irish; to Tom De Lisle for a very funny story; to my sister Tricia Woodroffe, who makes an incredible 24-hour sounding board; to David Woodroffe, for being tall and Nordic-looking; and to Christopher Woodroffe, who would make a great PR executive.

And thanks also must go to about a million people whose support is shown in small but really important ways. People like Evan Woodroffe, Julia Palmer, Robyn Baum-garth, Jan Maroney, Mary Ann Ballard, Denise Hadden, Mandy De Steiger, Nadine Ruddock, Caron Halliday, Lyn McLindin, Robyn Evans, Trea and John Lance, Barb and Mick Tapper, Sara Woodroffe, and many, many more. Thank you.

And I can't forget Dr Maryanne Dever, Dr Jane Maree Maher and Dr Jo Lindsay, whose support and guidance elsewhere is the only reason I have a bit of time for fiction.

Lastly, an enormous,
enormous
thanks again to my agent, Fran Bryson, for making this happen, and to both my editors, Cate Paterson and Chrissa Favaloro, for making it happen so well.

James Branch Cabell 1879–1958

6.55 am

If men had periods, then I'm quite sure our whole calendar structure would be very different. It stands to reason because there is absolutely
no way
that guys would put up with the debacle that we have to face every twenty-eight days or so. Like when you wake up with a gigantic pimple and a certain feeling in your nether regions, and your first words are ‘Bitch, bugger, bum . . . I didn't know it was
that
time again already!' And then you hobble off to the bathroom cabinet only to discover that you used your last tampon in the last hours of the last day of your last period, and made a mental note to buy some more before they were needed again – and then forgot. So you flit frantically through the house up-ending every handbag that you find and rummaging through the resulting residue of your life
to no avail before resorting to tissues and a pained expression.

Now, if
men
had periods, life would have been arranged far more logically long ago. When Julius Caesar needed something to take his mind off good old Cleo and decided on calendar reform, he would have started with the proviso that all months must have exactly twenty-eight days, and then simply chucked in an extra month at the end to even things out. Life would now be so much simpler. Just imagine it: ‘Oh, mate, I
can't
start the job on the fifteenth – that's the first day of my periods and I
always
feel like total crap,' or ‘Christ almighty, Doreen! There's no damn tampons in the cupboard and you
know
what today is!' And of course Doreen would drop whatever she was doing (which is probably everything), and race straight down to the shops. So perhaps that much wouldn't change, after all.

I pause in my mental meandering to stretch out luxuriously in the bath and raise one bubble-covered foot up so that I can check out my toenails. They don't need cutting but I notice that my legs
definitely
need shaving (actually, they also need remodelling, reconditioning and probably even restumping as well), so I reach over to the vanity unit to grab a disposable razor. I fondly imagine that I am moving in a fluidly elegant manner, perhaps like Aphrodite emerging gracefully from foam-flecked waves. Mounds of perfumed bubbles adroitly make way as I settle with supple ease back into the welcoming water, thus creating a mini tsunami that sends half the bathwater cascading down the sides, drenching
the bathmat (which is a
bitch
to dry), and snaking its way in relentless little rivulets under the door and out into the passageway.

I watch this development with all the practised placidity of a woman who has three children and has therefore grown accustomed to flooded bathrooms many moons ago. I reach over, grab a towel and fling it with awesome accuracy at the gap under the door where it settles down in a perfect blockade. Then I gracefully move my sylph-like body out of the way and turn on the hot tap to refill the bath. I'll worry about any water in the passage later because there is
no way
I am getting out of this bath for at least another thirty minutes or so. Not that I had actually planned on having a bath this morning, and it has nothing to do with what I was musing about earlier (
that
little scene was played out about a week ago). But it just so happened that I woke earlier than usual this morning
and
the bathroom was free. Now, these two events rarely occur even individually in this household, let alone simultaneously, so I decided to take the plunge and, now that I'm in here, I'm damn well going to continue plunging for a while.

I turn off the tap, wrap my arms around my knees and sit in contemplation for a minute. Outside, some birds have begun to welcome in the morning with a rather melodious warbling contest. I love that sound. At the same time one of our resident possums scampers noisily across the roof directly over me and then flings itself into a tree outside the bathroom window. I can hear the branches rustle fiercely as it clambers up towards its nest and a day full of shady
rest and relaxation. And it'll need all the shade it can get – if the weather forecast is anything to go by (and frequently it's not), we're in for another revoltingly sticky, hot, mid-thirties day. I smile for no particular reason (certainly not the impending weather because I
hate
the heat), and sink slowly into the rapidly depleting bubbles, leaning my head back against the edge of the bath. I'll worry about my legs later, for now I'll simply relax. I have to close my eyes to help achieve this because, unfortunately, this bathroom is not particularly conducive for relaxation purposes. Whoever originally decorated it should have been certified severely artistically-disabled and promptly institutionalised. It is covered from floor to ceiling in a mosaic of tiny brown-flecked tiles and boasts an
almost
-matching chestnut brown vanity complete with chestnut brown basin. This would be bad enough without the bath being, for some unknown reason, a nauseous shade of fleshy pastel pink. One of these days I am going to tear the place apart and start over. I have managed to repaint and refurbish a great deal of the house, but the bathroom still remains both out of my expertise and my budget.

I have been living in this leafy little patch of Ferntree Gully for almost four years now, and I have absolutely no intention of
ever
moving. I have a theory that each person has only a certain amount of moves in them, and this last one of mine was quite definitely the last one I was capable of. I still shudder at the merest glimpse of a tea-chest.

Mind you, this last move was also the most stressful and traumatic one I have ever undertaken as,
apart from the usual associated disarray and debacle, it signalled the culmination of my second marriage. And not a very amicable culmination at that. Keith did everything but lie in front of the removal truck (more's the pity) to prevent me from getting away, and I am still missing a substantial number of my belongings because I simply wasn't able to face another scene. At the time I decided it just wasn't worth the trouble, but now I have some rather bitter moments of regret for not standing up for myself. Especially when I spend a couple of days looking for something that I'm sure I had, only to remember where I last saw it – and then have to replace it.

However, I did manage to retrieve the most important stuff. Amongst which I fondly count my youngest daughter Christine Jain (named after Keith's mother, with whom I have had absolutely no direct contact since our split). CJ, as she is more commonly known, was fortunately only a toddler at the time of my break-up with her father, because if she had been old enough to understand the screaming that went on over her custody, she would still be in therapy today. Instead of that, she is a bright, bubbly, supremely overconfident little girl (in other words, spoilt rotten), who is firmly convinced that her mother and father, although they live apart, are as fond of each other as they are of her. This odd delusion is certainly going to be tested to its full extent tomorrow, when she has regally requested the attendance of
both
her parents at her sixth birthday party. Can't wait.

CJ is not my only child, although she quite often
acts that way. I have an eighteen-year-old daughter and a fourteen-year-old son, who are both the by-products of my
first
marriage. That marriage ended a hell of a lot more amicably than the second did (but then very few don't). I suppose that basically we were both too young in the first place and the relationship merely ran its course and petered out with a half-hearted whimper, rather than anything even resembling a roar. Samantha and Benjamin are totally dissimilar in character, with Sam extroverted, self-assured and very independent, while her brother has always been dreamy and introspective. But in looks they are almost identical, both strongly favouring their father, tall with dark hair, hazel eyes and olive complexion (in Ben's case a rather
spotty
olive complexion). At least, that's what their father looked like when I last saw him quite a few years ago. As a mining engineer, he spent the first years following our break-up working around Australia (during which the kids saw him regularly) and then absconded for an open-ended stint over in Saudi Arabia (during which they only saw him twice), but all that is about to change very shortly. Thursday, in fact. Apparently Alex has thrown in his contract and is about to return to sunny Australia to spend more time with his children, a decision that takes the proverbial cake for pathetic timing.

When we first separated I fondly envisaged still being able to play happy families, just not strictly together. And for a while this is exactly what happened. And I even had the vague idea way back in the dim, dark recesses of my mind (crammed
between the formula for long division and how to say ‘Can I milk your cow?' in French) that we just might get back together one day. I
really
missed him when he decided to play footloose Mr Nomad, but that was nothing compared to how the kids felt, and how they acted up, and how they nearly drove me straight into a nervous breakdown. Why is it that the leaver gets off virtually scot-free, while the leavee is left having to repeat over and over again like a broken record that, no, you don't
really
hate Daddy and, yes, Daddy does
really
love you and, actually, it's not
really
his fault that he's not here and, no, it's not my fault either . . . while you grind your teeth and try to think up a new combination of abusive terms which best describe the happy wanderer.

It was while I was extending my vocabulary in this way and trying to pick up the pieces after he left for Saudi Arabia that I met Keith. So I suppose I can really blame Alex for the fact that my usually reliable decent-man antenna was not fully erect and I fell for a male chauvinist bully who is
still
trying to make my life miserable whenever he is given the least opportunity. And then, during that second marriage, Benjamin could
really
have done with his father around because he certainly was the one that suffered the most. Out of the children, that is. Samantha was mainly saved by her strong personality and a student exchange posting to Austria during the worst of the crisis, while CJ is simply the apple of her father's eye. And even after the marriage collapsed, when I had a hell of a job getting both kids back on an even keel (or at least a keel that only wobbles
slightly), I could have done with some help. But Alex chooses to come home
now
. Now, when I have finally established a good, secure life. Now, when I am finally starting to penetrate the shell Ben erected around himself and we can hold a meaningful conversation without one of us having to leave the room. Now, when I have managed to come to terms with a grown-up Samantha and we have forged a new, more equitable relationship. Now, when everything is going smoothly at last, and
I don't need him any more
.

I sigh heavily as I sit up in the bath and reach out for my watch to check the time. One glance tells me that I only have about ten or fifteen minutes before the tribe starts stirring and, as we only have one bathroom, my peace will soon be shattered. I suppose that at least, from Thursday on, they will be able to use their father's bathroom as well when necessary. And this is possible only because he is moving very close. Very,
very
close. In fact, he couldn't get much closer unless he moved in with us. Because he has bought the house next door. In all fairness I can't really blame him totally for this – especially as he doesn't even know about it yet. Apparently he asked his sister, Maggie, to find him something suitable
in the neighbourhood
, and the well-meaning twit promptly put a deposit on the house next door to mine. I sigh heavily again. I am very good at sighing heavily. It is an acquired art form, and one that I practise frequently in
and
out of the bath.

As I am flexing my toes in an effort to locate the bath-plug, I register some fierce whispering going
on just outside the bathroom door. The whispering is promptly followed by the crystal clear tones of an almost six-year-old who, I know from aural experience, is physically incapable of whispering under any circumstances. I lean closer to the door in an attempt to make out what is going on. After all, forewarned is forearmed.

Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper . . .

‘Why d'ya want me to?'

Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper . . .

‘How much?'

Whisper, whisper, whisper, whisper . . .

‘Okay, but only if you gib it to me today.'

That conversation sounded decidedly suspicious, even
with
only one side of it audible. I decide that it might be advisable to dry myself off and find out what is going on. Accordingly I pull the plug, stand up in the bath and start to dry myself off with the towel. But before I can finish the job, the door bursts open, the blockading towel goes shooting across the floor, and CJ makes a speedy dramatic entrance with a video camera unsteadily obscuring her face. And that was her second mistake. Her first was making a speedy dramatic entrance when the floor was covered in water. That, and the fact that she couldn't see where she was going anyway, results in a headlong skid that only ends when her kneecaps hit the side of the bath with a dull thud and she topples forwards in slow motion and splashes into the bath right at my feet. Fortunately, after watching her rapid propulsion across the room with open-mouthed stupefaction, I recover quickly enough to get my priorities in order,
drop the towel in the bath and grab the video camera from one flapping arm a split second before she hits the water. So now I stand here, completely naked and semi-dry, holding the still running video camera while I watch her attempt to surface and regain her footing at the same time.

She sits up, takes a deep breath and starts to wail.

I carefully step out of the bath, switch off and put the video camera down on the vanity unit, kick the bathroom door closed with one foot, push the towel back under the door with the other, grab a dry towel from the rack, and gather up my youngest daughter in my arms.