The Seven Steps to Closure (31 page)

‘Tara and Matt,’ Jessie said, when he opened the door for me.

‘Hi,’ I said, bouncing into the room. ‘Miss me?’

‘Hell yeah. It’s been a right pain in the ass having to work while I know you’ve been gallivanting around Rajasthan with this big freak.’

‘You don’t mind if the big freak stays tonight?’ Matt asked.

‘Sure. You can sleep on the couch.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ I said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. ‘He can bunk with me.’

Jessie looked from me to Matt and then back again and then he slapped him on the back. ‘You dirty dog,’ he said. ‘I leave her in your care for a few weeks and you go and seduce her.’

‘Can you blame me?’ Matt asked, causing me to blush.

‘No. But now I owe Tahlia 1000 rupee. You could have held off till you got back to Sydney.’

‘What so you could win a bet?’ I asked indignantly.

‘A bet’s a bet,’ said Jessie.

‘Well I definitely wanted Tahlia to win that one,’ I replied.

‘Me too,’ Matt said, smiling at me.

‘So you guys on the same flight home?’ Jessie asked.

‘I changed my flight,’ Matt said.

‘I thought you would be staying to write about Mumbai,’ Jessie said.

‘I have this thing I have to get back for,’ Matt said.

It was the first I had heard of it and I was as curious as Jessie. ‘Thing?’ Jessie asked.

‘Stupid radio comp,’ Matt replied, looking sheepish.

‘To do with the traffic report?’ I asked, referring to his job for Sunshine Radio.

‘Something like that,’ Matt said, looking uncomfortable. ‘As I said, it’s stupid. I’ll tell you about it later. More importantly, tell us about what’s been happening in Mumbai.’

We relaxed on the couch while Jessie filled us in and then we told him about our adventures. We had been chatting for about an hour when Tahlia got home.

Hey,’ she said as she burst through the front door. She stopped and looked at me and then Matt, who was sitting on the far end of the couch from me.

‘Ah ha,’ she said triumphantly to Jessie, ‘you owe me 1000 rupee.’ She held out her hand.

‘Damn, I was hoping to convince her otherwise,’ said Jessie.

‘Well I think I would have realised something was going on tonight when there were monkey noises coming from the other bedroom.’

I burst out laughing. ‘I promise no monkey noises,’ I said.

I was sad this was my last night in India, but excited about going home with Matt and seeing where this thing between us was heading. Somewhere really good, I hoped.

‘You weren’t lying about that bed,’ Matt said to me the next day on the way to the airport.

‘I know. A rock,’ I said.

‘Nervous?’

‘About the flight?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nope,’ I said. And it was true. I felt that while I was with Matt nothing bad could happen to me. He was my personal good luck charm.

The flight passed pretty uneventfully. We watched a couple of movies, had some dinner and then I pushed up the arm rest, snuggled into Matt, and with his arm wrapped around me drifted off to sleep.

After we landed, we picked up our bags and queued for customs. It wasn’t long before we were through the sliding doors and into the arrival terminal. We were on the way to the taxi rank when I saw a large contingent of media milling around.

‘Look,’ I nudged Matt excitedly, ‘there must be someone famous coming through.’ I pointed to the group.

Matt examined them for a second. ‘Oh no,’ he said in alarm.

‘What?’ I asked, turning around to see if the famous person was right behind us. I certainly didn’t want to be swamped. I didn’t recognise anyone, but by the way the crowd surged towards us I was guessing I was right.

‘If we stand to the side they’ll go right past us,’ I said, giggling as I thought of the red horned bull from Udaipur.

‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. Turning to me he said urgently, ‘Tara, I’ll explain later.’

I only had time to ask, ‘Is this to do with the radio comp?’ before they reached us. It was immediately obvious by the way they were slapping him on the back that they knew Matt. They surrounded him, squeezing me out the back of the group.

One of the journalists cleared his throat and speaking into a microphone said, ‘We are here with ‘The King’ at the Sydney International Terminal where he has just returned from India. Did you have a good flight?’

‘Yes thanks,’ said Matt, twisting around to look for me. I waved, smiling reassuringly.

The interview continued. ‘And Matt, may I call you Matt?’

‘Of course,’ growled Matt, sounding like he had held back a, you idiot, on the end of the sentence.

‘So Matt, how does it feel to know you are getting married in just a few short weeks?’

Whoa. Not the question I had been expecting. What the hell was going on?

‘Not too good at the moment,’ said Matt through clenched teeth, trying to catch my eye.

I backed away slowly as the words bounced around my head. Married? In a few weeks?

‘Are you excited about meeting your bride to be?’

He hadn’t met her? What was she? A mail order bride?

‘Where do you think you’ll go for your honeymoon?’

‘Will you be having a buck’s party?’

‘Yeah, are we invited?’

Like a frightened horse I shied away from them. I had waiting as long as I could; waiting for him to say something that would tell me this was just some weird joke. But he hadn’t denied it. Not one little bit.

He met my stare, a tortured look on his face as tears burned my eyes. Cursing myself for a fool, I ran as fast as I could for the taxi rank. I could hear Matt call my name but I ignored it, too devastated to go back and hear the explanation.

I jumped into a taxi and barked out my address; angry foolish tears coursing down my cheeks. As we roared away from the curb, I saw Matt burst from the terminal. He didn’t see me, and I didn’t tell the driver to stop.

By the time I got home, I was absolutely, utterly and emptily exhausted. I had sobbed quietly in the back of the cab until the driver had asked me if I wanted to borrow his hanky; politely declining the piece of cloth being waved in my direction.

Leaving my bags by the front door, I dragged myself into the shower where I sat on the floor letting the water course over me. Sighing, I finally hopped up and trudged to my room, where I took the phone off the hook and climbed into bed. I didn’t want to talk to anybody – didn’t want to answer any silly questions about my wonderful holiday. I mentally kicked myself for all the postcards I had sent raving about Matt and me. Now I was going to look like a big fat fool. Again.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I thought I would lie there for hours staring at the ceiling. But I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow and didn’t wake until the banging on my front door breached my subconscious barrier, bringing me back to consciousness.

I lay still getting my bearings. There it was. That confounded noise. Why couldn’t the world just let me sleep? It took a few more seconds to realise that it was my front door being pounded on. I shot out of bed. What if it was Matt? A surge of hope burnt through my chest, quickly followed by dismay. I didn’t know whether or not to open the door. Then I heard my voice being called by a female voice. It was Nat. I charged to the door and opened it. We fell into each other’s arms, both of us crying.

‘Welcome home.’ She sniffled as she finally pulled away.

‘Thanks,’ I smiled grimly.

She followed me into the kitchen where I switched on the coffee machine.

‘You first,’ I said, pointing to the box of tissues on the table.

She smiled and helped herself.

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘It’s Ricardo?’ She nodded. ‘You’ve had a fight?’

She blew her nose noisily and nodded again. ‘We broke up,’ she croaked, starting to cry again.

‘What happened? I asked, shocked.

She sighed. ‘It started about a month ago.’

‘The fighting?’

‘No, that only happened last night. The secrets.’ I waited for her to continue. She sighed again. ‘I understand now how you felt after Jake. One minute you had everything and the next nothing.’

That just made me think about Matt. ‘You didn’t understand that before?’ I asked, stifling a sob.

‘No. I’ve never been in love before.’

‘I guess you have to have gone through it to appreciate it.’ Sighing, I led her to the lounge where I slumped into the cushions. ‘So tell me about the secrets,’ I said when I was comfortable.

‘His phone would ring and he would leave the room to answer it. A few times he came home all dressed up but didn’t tell me where he’d been. Finally, last night, I demanded to know what was going on.’

‘And?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. All he would say was that he was working on something good, and he wanted to surprise me with it. But I had to press it of course; I think I’m a little hormonal at the moment. So I said that if he trusted me he would tell me now.’

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

‘That if I trusted him I would wait.’

‘Stalemate.’

‘Yep. But of course I couldn’t wait. So I pushed and pushed, finally accusing him of cheating.’

‘Ouch. Do you think he is?’ I asked.

‘What else could it be?’ she said, pulling another tissue out of the box and blowing her nose.

‘I don’t know – a surprise for your birthday?’ Nat’s birthday was in between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

‘All the meetings in the suit?’ she said.

‘Yeah, maybe not,’ I agreed. ‘How did he take it?’

‘It was awful. He said in a really quiet voice, “Well I can see that the trust in this relationship only goes one way. Without trust there can be nothing.” And then he went and packed a bag and left, and I just watched him walk away.’ She started sobbing, only just managing to say, ‘I didn’t want him to go.’

I pulled her into my embrace as she cried, rocking her gently while resisting the urge to join her. Finally – when she had stopped – I asked her, ‘Why did you let him?’

‘I didn’t want to continue only to find out in a year that he had been cheating the whole time.’

‘I just can’t see him cheating on you,’ I said.

‘Really?’ She looked up at me, hope shining in her beautiful blue eyes.

‘Yeah. I mean I might be wrong of course, but he just doesn’t seem like the cheating kind.’

‘Well what could it be?’

‘Maybe he’s setting up a big business deal?’

‘He’s a cleaner,’ she reminded me.

‘Yeah, in Australia, what was he in South America?’

‘I don’t know. See that’s another thing. Every time I tried to talk about his past he would change the subject.’ She paused for a second looking thoughtful and then exclaimed, ‘Oh God, you don’t think he was setting up a drug deal or something?’

‘Don’t be silly. Maybe he’s immigrating his family?’ I suggested.

‘What, his wife and ten children?’ she said grimacing.

I smiled weakly at her. ‘Do you think he’ll come back and explain?’

‘He’s very stubborn. And I hurt him. I could see it in his eyes.’ She sighed. ‘That’s the worst part. Knowing that I hurt him, and not knowing why.’

We were interrupted by more knocking which turned out to be Elaine, Dinah and Gloria, with shopping bags and Bad Bunny.

I squealed in delight as Gloria reluctantly handed him over. He looked, I think, pleased to see me. It’s a little hard to tell with a hare, but he turned around a few times, thumped me in the stomach with his hind leg, and settled down for a nap.

‘You owe me a new cushion,’ said Dinah.

‘Did he pee on it?’ I asked.

‘No, he humped it to death.’

‘We thought you might need these,’ said Elaine as she dumped the groceries in the kitchen.

‘Wow. Thanks. That’s great you guys,’ I said, feeling blessed to have such good friends.

‘Bacon and eggs?’ asked Dinah giving me a hug. She held me at arm’s length, eyeing me critically. ‘You look terrible,’ she said. ‘You’re meant to be all happy and glowy.’

‘Yeah,’ said Nat, ‘what were you crying about when you opened the door?’

‘Why don’t you fill them in on yours first while I jump in the shower,’ I said to her.

Nat nodded and, as I closed the bathroom door, I could hear her telling them about the break up.

I took my time in the shower, not really wanting to breach the wound yet, but knowing I had to talk about it sometime. Breakfast was ready when I re-emerged and I felt a little better after filling my belly with bacon, eggs and thick slabs of toast with melted butter. I noticed my pants were a little tight.

‘Damn.’ I undid my top button. ‘I’m going to have to go on a diet. Elaine, do you want to go kickboxing tomorrow night?’ I asked, mentally planning a week of intense exercise to take my mind off Matt and the flab off my belly.

‘I would love to, but Alistair and I are going to a work function,’ she said, smiling smugly.

‘So that’s all good?’ I asked her.

She smiled happily. ‘Oh yes, very good thank you. Now tell us about what happened to you.’

‘Well you know some of it right?’ I said, perplexed when they looked at me blankly. ‘From the postcards,’ I clarified.

‘What postcards?’ asked Dinah.

‘You haven’t got the postcards?’ I asked, unable to believe my good luck. They looked at each other for confirmation and then shook their heads. ‘So you know nothing about my holiday?’ I said.

‘Apart from you being alive after the terrorist attacks, nothing,’ confirmed Elaine.

‘I might just leave it at that,’ I said.

Elaine threw a cushion at me. ‘As if we’re going to let you get away with that. I demand details.’

There was silence while they all stared at me. After a few moments the pressure became too much. ‘All right, all right, but I’m giving you the speed version,’ I said. I waited till they all nodded before proceeding. ‘After the attack Jessie – unable to leave work – organised for me to travel through Rajasthan with Matt. You all remember who Matt is right?’

Gloria shot her arm up into the air. I pointed at her and she said, ‘Dreamy one-night-stand guy, whom you spent that day in Mumbai with.’

‘Correct. So it turns out he was going to Rajasthan to write an article for
Travel Abroad
and he agreed to let me tag along.’ I stopped.

‘Please tell me there’s more to it than that,’ said Elaine.

Nodding I recommenced. ‘Things were going well until we got to Udaipur, where they got really good. Then when we got home last night there were a heap of journalists waiting at the airport to interview him about his up and coming wedding.’

‘Whoa,’ Elaine said, shaking her head. ‘You just summed up your holiday in two sentences. I think you owe us a bit more detail, especially about the ‘it got really good’ part.’

‘Nu uhh, you agreed to the speedy version,’ I said stubbornly.

‘I didn’t realised it would be the
Reader’s Digest
abridged version.’ She collapsed back onto the couch with a thoughtful look on her face.

Gloria put her hand in the air again.

‘Yes Gloria,’ I said. I really liked her.

Smiling she asked me, ‘So he’s really getting married?’

‘He didn’t deny it?’

She put her hand up as high as she could. ‘Did he ring you to explain?’ she asked when I nodded at her.

‘No, because she has the phone off the hook,’ said Elaine as she stood up and rehung it.

‘What about your mobile?’ Gloria asked.

‘That’s turned off as well,’ Nat said, passing it to me so I could switch it on.

We all waited while my phone turned on. There was a beep indicating a text had arrived, and then a few more beeps in rapid succession.

‘Some of them are from me,’ said Elaine.

‘I sent one,’ said Nat.

‘So did we,’ added Dinah.

I waded through the texts until finally I could see one with Matt’s name attached to it. ‘There’s a text from him,’ I said tentatively.

‘Well read it,’ Elaine demanded.

‘Tara call me. It’s not what you think,’ I said in a wooden voice.

‘How could it be not what you think?’ asked Nat.

Elaine had the look she gets when she’s ferreting through information in her brain. Her eyes were slightly squinty and she had an intense look of concentration on her face.

‘What’s Matt’s last name?’ she finally asked.

‘King?’

‘The King?’

‘Apparently yes,’ I said.

‘Ah huh,’ she said triumphantly.

‘What?’

‘It’s a radio competition.’

‘What’s a radio competition?’ I asked.

‘The marriage thing.’ Elaine said it slowly, sounding out the syllables.

‘Oh my God,’ said Gloria. ‘As in ‘The King’ on Sunshine Radio?’

‘Yes. Why?’ I asked, still none the wiser.

‘Sunshine Radio
is running a radio competition looking for a bride for ‘The King’. Kind of a crossy spin on those stupid reality shows where the winning girl gets to have a date with a prince or marry the bachelor. Every weekday they’ll have a new competitor whom he asks three questions, and at the end they announce the winning girl and they get married.’

‘But Matt is ‘The King’,’ I said stupidly, remembering him talking about a radio competition he had to be back for. I wondered when he had been planning to tell me. After his new bride was pregnant?

‘Yep,’ said Gloria excitedly.

‘So he’s getting married to someone he hasn’t ever met?’

‘Yep,’ she said again, a bit more uncertainly.

I sat stunned, trying to take it all in. ‘But what does he mean by it’s not what it seems?’

‘Well,’ said Nat, ‘it’s just a radio comp.’

‘But he’s getting married,’ I said. ‘So he’s still unavailable, right?’

I looked around at them and one by one they nodded their heads.

‘Maybe he’ll get it annulled,’ suggested Dinah helpfully.

‘Yeah, well if he does he can come and find me.’

* * *

After the girls left I decided it was time to ring Mum. If she hadn’t been receiving any postcards from me she would be frantic by now.

‘You sound calm,’ I said, after she’d picked up.

‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘let me put you on speaker. Now what did you say?’

‘I said you sound quite calm.’

‘Well, after the first couple of weeks I didn’t hear from you I figured the Australian Embassy would ring me if you were dead. You know what they say, no news is good news.’

‘Sorry. I sent you some postcards. I didn’t realise how long they’d take to get here. How was the wedding?’ I finally broached the subject I had been dreading.

‘Trashy and boring.’

‘Really?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Do you really think your Aunt Jackie would organise a trashy wedding? It was a little boring though. They disappeared for hours getting photos done. Sold the rights to
Woman’s Weekly
, for $200000 and donated all the money to charity.’

I resisted the urge to stick my fingers down my throat.

‘She was a vision in white,’ I could hear Dad yell out in the background.

‘Really Bert,’ said Mum annoyed, ‘why don’t you go and play in the garden?’

‘Play in the garden? I’m 60 not 6,’ I heard him say.

‘And the rest. I thought I saw some weeds near the petunias this morning.’

‘Really?’ he asked in dismay.

‘That got rid of him,’ my Mum chuckled. ‘You know how he feels about his petunias. Anyway, the speeches were long and windy. All these important people got up – they do love the sound of their own voices don’t they? I got quite tipsy waiting for them to finish so we could eat something.’

‘How was the food?’

‘Your Dad was complaining about the portions.’

‘Big white plates with dainty little amounts?’

‘Yes, you know the ones. We had to go through the McDonald’s drive through on the way home to top up.’

‘How did she look?’ I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

‘Beautiful of course. What did you expect – that the only day in her life she’d look less than stunning would be her own wedding day?’

I sighed. ‘I guess it was too much to hope for.’

I could hear Dad in the background mumbling about something.

‘What’s that dear?’ Mum called out.

‘I’ve put up with your steroid filled cat playing hide and seek with me and your dog trying to smother me, but I think when your horse starts to use my vegie patch as its own private buffet enough is enough.’

‘But darling,’ I heard Mum say, ‘I don’t have a horse.’

There was a pause, during which I could imagine Mum and Dad sharing an astonished look, and then Mum said quickly into the phone, ‘Gotta go Tara. We’re expecting you tomorrow for lunch.’ And with that she was gone.

* * *

Mum rang me just as I was about to walk out the door. ‘There’s been a terrible accident on the freeway. A truck has overturned and is blocking both directions. You’ll have to catch the train,’ she informed me.

It wasn’t so much that I minded catching the train, it’s just that I didn’t like leaving my car at the train car parks. It’s not much of a car – a dinged up old Datsun was all I could afford to buy when Jake and I split – but it was mine.