Infidelity (32 page)

46

Sydney. 20 December.

From the very beginning, Blair's Australian operation had been on a steeper growth curve than any of us – except Jelly – had imagined possible. The staff in the Sydney office had quickly grown to twelve, and the opening in Melbourne had been brought forward by six months. I was planning to move there, at least for the establishment phase. My oldest friend lived in Melbourne, and that relationship was long overdue for some nurturing.

Maddy was in her element with a busy, expanding office to run. I was wondering how I might be able to clone her for Melbourne.

Selena's move to Sydney had been a big success for her and for the firm. She was the darling of our clients, and thrived on her expanded role. She had fallen in love with a young Australian film-maker and was already talking about settling permanently in Sydney. My advice on this had not been sought.

The price Angus had been paid for his house had encouraged me to put my own place on the market, and there had been immediate interest from several potential buyers. Like Angus, I was planning to rent an apartment in the city, with an eye to doing the same thing in Melbourne when the time came to open the Blair office there. I had arrived at the conclusion that leaving Winter Close would bring several unhappy chapters of my life to a symbolic end. Winter Close was no longer a place I wanted to be – a situation that would have seemed inconceivable to me at the time when I had reluctantly left for London and still felt myself anchored to the street.

Not a day passed without thoughts of Sarah. I had accepted that we would probably never be restored to each other, though I couldn't yet incorporate that into my view of the future. Before I lost Sarah, I would not have believed it possible for my entire being to throb so relentlessly with the pain of absence. To miss someone so viscerally, so comprehensively, was like the sharpest grief.

At the beginning of Christmas week, my phone rang as I emerged from the shower, bracing myself for a day of festivities – a lunch for our clients and a dinner for the staff in the evening.

‘Tom Harper.'

‘Tom. It's Sarah.'

I could not speak. I could not breathe.

‘Tom?'

‘Sarah? Is that really you?'

‘Really me. I have some news.'

My heart was racing, though I was sure I knew what this news would be.

‘Perry,' I said. ‘Is this about Perry?'

‘It is. How did you know that?'

I wanted to say: because the saddest conviction of my life is that you'd be unlikely to ring me about anything else. (I had thought of calling Sarah ten days earlier – Friday the tenth of December – to see if that date had meant as much to her as I had discovered it meant to me.)

All I said was: ‘Just a hunch.'

‘He died last week. The funeral was on Saturday.'

‘In the cathedral?'

‘The cathedral, yes. The Lady Chapel. The First Wednesdays sang as a trio – not including me. It went as well as could be expected. Only a handful of people attended, but that was inevitable. Appropriate, even. Just one representative of the Whitman Corporation – a young lawyer.'

‘It's wonderful to hear your voice.'

Silence, of course. Precisely the wrong thing to have said, though true.

I tried again: ‘Too early to know how you're feeling about it all, I imagine.'

‘Oh, I don't know. Pretty flat, actually. This was not a man I cared for. I'd got Perry out of my system years ago. You know that.'

Her voice was stronger, far stronger, than when I had last heard it on that black Wednesday, five months earlier. Not bright, exactly, but the old edge was there and the pace had picked up again.

‘Not a man you cared for, but still a man you cared about.'

‘He was a human being, Tom. A passing is a passing.'

‘Well, you'll have the house to yourself again.'

‘I've already had the medical equipment removed and the painters will be in next week. The young man from Whitman has arranged to have all the corporate trappings taken away, including that ridiculous desk. He assures me there will be a continuing pension. There appears to be no trouble about the house.' (So the lie about possession of the house was to be perpetuated: Sarah had succeeded in proving cohabitation.)

‘Elizabeth will feel more comfortable about visiting you there.'

‘She's here now. Sends you her love. We're cowering upstairs in the study while the cleaners restore order downstairs. Fox is here, too, with young Jasper.' (I knew about Jasper – Fox and I had kept lightly in touch.)

We went on like this, getting nowhere.

‘Very soon, you'll know if the thing that came between us was Perry or –'

‘Tom, it wasn't Perry. It was never Perry. Do I have to say I'm sorry all over again?'

In response, I managed to say the only thing that seemed worth saying: ‘I wish we still loved each other, Sarah.'

And all she said was: ‘Can I give you some Christina Rossetti?
Better by far you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad.
'

There was a moment of silence. By a tiny miracle of unspoken mutual consent, we hung up without saying goodbye.

47

T
he hardest thing, finally, is to accept our insignificance in the scheme of things – or perhaps to accept that there is no ‘scheme of things'.

There are no inevitabilities.

No embedded meanings, either – only those we choose to attach to what happens.

And often, when we most ardently desire them, no answers.

Life surges on, mostly out of control, rarely giving us respite, offering us experiences to be demystified – or not – in whatever ways might satisfy us.

Sarah will come to Sydney, or she won't. Perhaps she will bring her mother over here for a visit and the three of us will have lunch in the Botanic Gardens. Elizabeth might ask to be parked in her wheelchair in a shady spot with a view while Sarah and I stroll along the harbour's edge.

Or perhaps I will visit London for a Blair meeting and Sarah, having heard from Jelly that I'm in town, will invite me to lunch with her and Elizabeth at . . . the Royal Academy? Or me, alone, for afternoon tea, but not at the Ritz.

Or none of that might happen.

Perhaps Sarah will call again in six months, just to keep in touch, and I will attempt to chat nonchalantly with her in the presence of a new woman in my life. Sarah will guess, and be . . . what? Relieved?

Perhaps Jelly will take me aside on one of his flying visits, to tell me that Sarah has just had a traumatic break-up with a struggling artist the First Wednesdays never liked – they might have thought he was a gold-digger – and she has gone into hiding, yet again.

Perhaps Elizabeth Delacour will visit Sydney alone and will try to convince me that Sarah was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. (I already know it.)

Or none of that might happen.

Sarah might finally respond to one of my postcards. Or not.

Perhaps she will discover Skype and we will chat for hours like old friends who once knew a thrilling intimacy and can still honour the memory of it. Or not.

Prediction is a mug's game, but we are all drawn to it. The most likely thing, I'm tempted to believe, is that life back here will suit me. I am comfortable with the smell of the place, with the coastal breeze in my face, with the idiom.

On Thursday evening, I will be going to Christmas drinks at the council library where my father worked for most of his life. I am pleased they continue to invite me, as a mark of respect for him.

I have a good relationship with the present manager – a woman of roughly my own age with a lovely daughter of about twelve I occasionally see parked in her mother's office doing homework when I call into the library on my way home.

The manager herself is an interesting woman. Her face says she's been through a lot, yet I have the clear impression this is a woman who doesn't need help. Doesn't need rescuing from any dark places. I'd say she's a woman who's long since worked out her coping strat­egies. Whatever blows she's absorbed, they haven't turned her into a victim.

I find that appealing.

Acknowledgements

I
first encountered the central moral dilemma faced by Sarah and Tom in an article published in
The Psychologist
, the monthly magazine of The British Psychological Society. It was presented as part of a series of complex moral questions that might be raised by clients receiving psychotherapy. When I read it, I could imagine how that dilemma, somewhat nuanced, could form the ‘hinge' of a plot for a novel.

In the process of getting from that idea to a draft manuscript, I was greatly assisted by the editorial advice of Deonie Fiford.

As the manuscript evolved into publishable form, I was supported and encouraged at every turn by Ingrid Ohlsson, my publisher at Pan Macmillan, and by the senior editor, Vanessa Pellatt. Further valuable editorial advice came from Ali Lavau and Ron Buck.

My wife, Sheila, expressed confidence in the book from the outset, and supplied crucial insights into the medical issues raised in the story, based on her professional experience.

About Hugh Mackay

Hugh Mackay, social researcher, columnist and novelist, is the author of fifteen books, including seven bestsellers.
Infidelity
is his sixth novel. His most recent non-fiction book,
The Good Life,
was published in 2013.

He lives with hi
s wife in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

www.hughmackay.net.au

Also by Hugh Mackay

FICTION

Little Lies

House Guest

The Spin

Winter Close

Ways of Escape

NON-FICTION

Reinventing Australia

Why Don't People Listen?

Generations

Turning Point

Media Mania

Right & Wrong

Advance Australia . . . Where?

What Makes Us Tick?

The Good Life

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