Truly Madly Guilty (17 page)

chapter twenty-six

The day of the barbeque

Sam said ‘Erika!’ Clementine clapped her hand over her mouth as if to grab back her words and then quickly dropped it as evidence of her guilt. Her stupidity and thoughtlessness were beyond belief.

‘Oh! Hi! Thanks!’ she said as Erika came into the room and handed her the nappy bag. ‘How did you guess we needed that? Is Holly okay?’

As she babbled, she frantically rewound the conversation. What could Erika have overheard? Anything? All of it? Oh God, not the part about being ‘repulsed’. It was her
tone
that was the worst. The tone of contempt.

She kept talking, talking as if she could somehow conceal what she’d said with layers of new conversation. ‘Dakota took her to see the dog kennel or something. She wants a puppy for her birthday. Don’t you dare give her one, will you, only joking, I know you wouldn’t. Isn’t this house amazing? I bet even the dog kennel is five-star!’

From behind Erika, Sam widened his eyes and ran his finger across his throat.

‘Tiffany wants us all to go outside to the cabana,’ said Erika. She sounded dry and cool as usual. Maybe she hadn’t heard anything.

‘I’ll go back down, check on Holly,’ said Sam. ‘You right with Ruby?’

‘Of course I’m right with Ruby,’ said Clementine. He always did that when he left her with one or both of the girls, as if he needed to confirm that she would indeed remember to take care of her own children.

‘Where are you going to change her?’ Erika looked around.

This was what rich people called a media room. There were leather couches facing the laughably gigantic screen on the wall. Sam had just about lost his mind with envy when he saw it.

‘Oh God,’ said Clementine. ‘I don’t know. The floor, I guess.’ She started laying out the change mat and wipes. ‘Everything looks so expensive, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m stinky,’ said Ruby. She tilted her head seductively as if being stinky were something to be prized.

‘Yes, you are,’ said Clementine.

‘Wasn’t Holly toilet-trained by this age?’ asked Erika as Clementine changed Ruby.

‘We’ve been putting it off,’ admitted Clementine. Normally she would have been annoyed by the implied criticism in Erika’s question, but now she was anxious to humbly admit her failure, as if that would somehow acquit her of the nasty things she’d said. (My God, she’d complained about the size of the
cheese.
)

‘Once you start you’ve got to commit, and you’re sort of stuck at home, you can’t go anywhere – well, you can, but it’s tricky … and, um, but we’re all set, we’ve got her big-girl undies ready, haven’t we, Ruby? And we thought, after we get my audition and Holly’s birthday party and Sam’s parents’ ruby wedding anniversary out of the way, we’d commit.’

Shut up, shut up, shut up. She couldn’t stop talking.

‘Right,’ said Erika blankly. Normally she would have had an aggravating counter-opinion. Ever since Ruby and Holly were babies Erika had been reading parenting articles relevant to their ages and passing on tips about ‘milestones’. Clementine had always believed this was evidence of Erika’s obsessive, bordering on strange, interest in Clementine’s life, not her interest in having children of her own. How self-obsessed she’d been.

‘Up!’ demanded Ruby as soon as Clementine had finished changing her. She held out her arms to Erika, and Erika lifted her onto her hip. ‘Over there!’ Ruby thrust her body to one side to indicate which direction Erika should head, as if she were astride a recalcitrant horse.

‘You’re a bossy little thing,’ said Erika as she took Ruby closer to the bookshelf, where Clementine could see a porcelain doll that Ruby was hoping she could get her hands on.

‘Oh, that’s what you want! I don’t think we can let you touch that,’ said Erika, and she twisted her body away so that Ruby’s outstretched hands couldn’t grab the doll.

Erika’s eyes met Clementine’s over the top of Ruby’s head. There was something a little unfocused and strange about the way she looked at Clementine, but she didn’t seem hurt or angry. She mustn’t have heard. She wouldn’t have just lurked outside the door listening. That wasn’t Erika’s style. She would have barged right in to hand over the nappy bag, to show up their incompetence, to prove how much better she’d be at this than them.

Clementine watched Erika bend her forehead tenderly towards Ruby’s and she felt choked with guilt for her lack of generosity.

But she still couldn’t – she wouldn’t – do what they’d asked.

I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do it
. She bent down to put the change mat back in the nappy bag, and she realised it wasn’t Erika she was mentally addressing but her mother:
I’ve been kind, I’ve been good, but that’s enough now, don’t make me do this too.

chapter twenty-seven

‘Oliver?’ said Erika quietly, just in case he was still asleep. She stood at the end of their bed, looking at him. One arm was outside the covers, bent at an attractive angle to show his very excellent triceps. He was lean, verging on skinny, but well built. (Early in their relationship they’d gone to the beach with Clementine and Sam and Holly, who was a baby at the time, and Clementine had whispered in Erika’s ear, ‘Your new boyfriend is unexpectedly buff, isn’t he?’ It had pleased Erika more than she liked to admit.)

‘Mmmm?’ Oliver rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes.

‘I’m ready to go over to Mum’s place,’ she said.

Oliver yawned, rubbed his eyes and retrieved his glasses from the bedside table. He glanced out the window at the pouring rain. ‘Maybe you should wait till the deluge eases.’

‘I’d be waiting all day,’ said Erika. She looked at her bed, made up with snowy-white, crisp bed linen. Oliver made the bed each day with taut hospital corners. She was surprised by how badly she wanted to take off her clothes and get back into bed with him and just forget everything. She wasn’t normally a napper.

‘How are you feeling?’ she said.

‘I think I might be feeling better,’ said Oliver worriedly. He sat upright in bed and tapped under his eyes, checking his sinuses. ‘Oh, no. I feel good! I should have gone into work.’ Whenever he took a sick day the poor man obsessively monitored his health the whole time in case he was misusing his sick leave entitlements. ‘Or I could help you at your mother’s place.’ He sat up and swung his feet onto the floor. ‘I could change it to a day of personal time.’

‘You need one more day of rest,’ said Erika. ‘And you’re not going near my mother’s place when you’re sick.’

‘Actually I do feel a bit dizzy,’ said Oliver with relief. ‘Yes, I am now experiencing indisputable dizziness. I could not run the audit clearance meeting. No way.’

‘You could not run the audit clearance meeting. Lie back down. I’ll make you some tea and toast before I go.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ he said. He was always so pathetically grateful for any nurturing he got when he was sick. He had been making his own doctor’s appointments by the time he was ten. No wonder he was a hypochondriac. Not that Erika had got much nurturing from having a nurse for a mother, certainly not for sniffles (no warm chicken soup on a tray like Clementine got from Pam) although the few times in her life that Erika had got properly sick her mother had nursed her, and nursed her extremely well, as if she’d finally got interesting.

‘Did I hear you talking to someone on the phone before?’ said Oliver as she was about to leave the room.

‘Clementine,’ said Erika. She hesitated. She didn’t want to tell him she’d said yes. She didn’t want to see him sit bolt upright in bed, the colour back in his cheeks.

Oliver didn’t open his eyes. ‘Any news?’

‘No,’ said Erika. ‘Not yet.’

She just needed to think about it. Today she had that ‘emergency’ session with her psychologist. Maybe that would get things clearer in her mind. So much to cover at today’s session! She might need to bring along an agenda. That wouldn’t make her look like a type-A personality at all. Not that Erika had a problem with being type-A. Why would you want to be any other personality type?

As she made Oliver’s tea and toast, she thought about the first time their doctor had said it was time to give up on Erika’s eggs.

‘We can pay someone to donate to us, right?’ Erika had said. She didn’t care. She was almost relieved, because she could forget now about her secret fear of passing on her various genetic stains. There had never been any particular pleasure for her in imagining a child with her own eyes or hair or personality traits. Who would want her thin lifeless hair? Her skinny knock-kneed legs? And what if the child hoarded? It was fine that the child would not be biologically hers. She was ready to move on almost instantly.

It was Oliver who had seemed to genuinely
grieve
. It was odd. Touching but baffling. She knew he loved her. It was one of the most wonderful surprises of her life. But to actually want a child who looked like Erika, who behaved like Erika, who shared her physical and mental attributes? Come on now. That was going a step too far.

Anyway, they had money. They could pay for someone’s eggs. They would get this job done, finally, once and for all.

But apparently not.

‘Well, no,’ said their doctor. ‘That’s illegal here.’ Their doctor was American. ‘You’re allowed to pay your donor for her time and medical costs but that’s it. It’s not like back home where young college students donate their eggs for money. So Australia does have a real shortage of egg donors.’ She looked at them sadly, resignedly. She’d obviously given this spiel so many times before. ‘What you’re looking for is an altruistic donor. There
are
women who are prepared to donate to strangers, but they’re difficult to find. The easiest, least complicated option, which I would suggest you consider first, is finding a good friend or a relative to help you.’

‘Oh, that’s fine. We wouldn’t want a stranger’s eggs anyway,’ said Oliver immediately, and Erika thought, Wouldn’t we? Why not? ‘We don’t want to just build a baby from spare parts,’ he said. Their doctor’s face went blank and professional as she listened to Oliver. After all, that was her trade: building babies. ‘We want this child to come from a place of love,’ Oliver said with a tremble of emotion, and Erika blushed, she literally blushed, because what in the world was he going on about? She had no problem talking about ovulation and menstrual cycles and follicles in front of her IVF doctor, but not
love
. That was so personal.

Oliver was the one who had suggested Clementine, in the car on the way home, and Erika had instantly, instinctively baulked. No. No way. Clementine didn’t like needles. Clementine was so busy trying to balance her family and career. Erika didn’t like to ask Clementine for favours, she preferred doing favours for Clementine.

But then she thought of Holly and Ruby, and suddenly she’d been overwhelmed by the most extraordinary desire. Her own Holly or Ruby. Suddenly this abstract idea she’d been working towards for so long became real. Ruby’s beautiful blue cat’s eyes with Oliver’s dark hair. Holly’s rosebud lips with Oliver’s nose. For the first time since she’d begun the IVF process she felt true desperation for a baby. For
that
baby. She wanted it as much as Oliver did. It almost seemed like she wanted Clementine’s baby far more than she’d ever wanted her own baby.

The kettle boiled and she remembered how she had walked down that bouncy, soft-carpeted hallway at Tiffany and Vid’s house, encased in that strange bubble where nothing seemed quite real, except that she’d overheard Clementine’s voice perfectly:
It’s almost
…
repulsive to me. Oh God, I don’t mean that, I just really don’t want to do it.

Why did she remember that part of the night so clearly? It would be better if Clementine’s words had vanished from her memory, but her memory of that part of the afternoon was crystalline, more distinct even than a regular memory, as if the tablet and the first glass of champagne had produced a chemical reaction that had at first heightened her memory before turning it murky.

She heard Clementine say,
What if it looked like Holly or Ruby?

Even after all these weeks, her cheeks burned at the memory. Clementine had spoken Erika’s secret, most precious hopes out loud in a tone of disdain.

She remembered walking into that room and seeing Clementine’s horrified face. She was so clearly terrified that Erika had overheard.

She remembered how she’d carried Ruby downstairs on her hip while rage and pain raced like bacteria through her bloodstream. Rage and pain for Oliver, who had so blissfully, innocently assumed that if they asked Clementine to donate her eggs his little baby would come from ‘a place of love’. A place of love. What a joke.

They’d gone out into that preposterous backyard and Tiffany had offered her wine, that very good wine, and she’d drunk it faster than she’d ever drunk a glass of wine before, and every time Erika had looked at Clementine, laughing, chatting, having the time of her life, she had silently screamed,
You can keep your damned eggs
.

And it was at that point that her memories of exactly what happened that afternoon began to loosen, fragment and crumble.

chapter twenty-eight

The day of the barbeque

‘This is some backyard,’ said Sam.

‘It’s … amazing,’ said Clementine.

Vid and Tiffany’s house had been impressive, especially the artwork, but this lavishly landscaped backyard, with its tinkling water features, its fountains and urns, its white marble statues and its scented candle-lit, luxuriously fitted out cabana, was another level of extravagance altogether. The fragrance of roasting meat filled the air, and Clementine wanted to laugh out loud with delight, like a child walking into Disneyland. She was enchanted by the opulence of it all. There was something so hedonistic and generous about it, especially after poor Erika’s rigidly minimalist home.

Of course she
understood
the reasons for Erika’s obsession with minimalism, she wasn’t completely insensitive.

‘Yeah, the backyard is all Vid’s. He goes for the understated look,’ said Tiffany as she indicated a seat for Clementine, refilled her glass with champagne and offered the plate of Vid’s freshly baked strudels.

Clementine wondered if Tiffany had some experience in the hospitality field. She almost had one arm folded behind her back as she bent at the waist and poured drinks.

From where Clementine sat in the long, low cabana she could see her daughters playing on a large rectangle of grass next to a gazebo with ornate columns and a wrought-iron dome. They were throwing a tennis ball for the little dog. Ruby had the ball at the moment and she was holding it up high above her head, while the dog, taut and trembling with anticipation, sat in front of her, poised to spring.

‘You must tell Dakota to let us know when she gets sick of looking after the girls,’ said Clementine to Tiffany, although she hoped it wouldn’t be any time soon.

‘She’s having a great time with them,’ said Tiffany. ‘You just relax and enjoy the view of the Trevi Fountain there.’ She nodded at the largest, most extravagant fountain, a monolithic creation built like a wedding cake with winged angels holding uplifted hands as if to sing, except instead they spurted great criss-crossing arcs of water from their mouths. ‘That’s what my sisters call it.’

‘Her sisters have the wrong country,’ said Vid. ‘The Gardens of Versailles was my inspiration, in France, you know! I got books, pictures, I studied up. This is all my own design, you know, I sketched it out: the gazebo, the fountain, everything! Then I got friends in to build it all for me. I know a lot of tradies. But her sisters!’ He pointed his thumb at Tiffany. ‘When they saw this backyard, they laughed and laughed, they just about wet their pants.’ He shrugged, unbothered. ‘I said to them, it’s no problem that my art has given you joy!’

‘I think it’s incredible,’ said Clementine.

‘No pool?’ asked Sam, who had grown up splashing about in a backyard above-ground pool with his brothers and sister. ‘You’ve got enough room for one.’

He looked about the backyard as if planning a redesign, and Clementine could tell exactly where his mind was heading. Sometimes he talked wistfully about selling up and moving out to a good old-fashioned quarter-acre block in the suburbs, where there would be room for a pool and a trampoline, a cubby house and a chook shed and a vegetable garden; a house where his children could have the sort of childhood he’d had, even though nobody had childhoods like that anymore, and even though Sam was more urban than her, and loved being able to walk to restaurants and bars and catch the ferry into the city.

Clementine shuddered at the thought of the third child in that suburban dream of his, now at the front of his mind thanks to Erika’s request. God, there might even be a
fourth
child romping about in his imaginary backyard.

‘No pool! I’m not a fan of chlorine. Unnatural,’ said Vid, as if there were anything natural about all this glossy marble and concrete.

‘It’s incredible,’ said Clementine again, in case Sam’s comment could be interpreted as criticism. ‘Is that a maze over there in the corner? For lovers’ trysts?’

She didn’t know why she’d said ‘lovers’ trysts’. What a thing to say. Had she ever said the word ‘tryst’ out loud in her life before? Was that even how you pronounced it?

‘Yes, and for Easter egg hunts with all of Dakota’s cousins,’ said Tiffany.

‘Taking care of that topiary must take up a bit of your time,’ commented Oliver, looking at the sculptured hedges.

‘I have a good friend, you know, he takes care of it.’ Vid made giant snip-snip movements with his hands to indicate someone else doing his hedge clipping.

The late afternoon sun streamed into the cabana and created a rainbow effect in the mist of water billowing from the wonderfully absurd fountain. Clementine felt a sudden burst of optimism. Surely Erika hadn’t overheard what she’d said, and even if she had, Clementine would make it right, like she had so many times before, and then she’d find a nice, gentle way to explain why she couldn’t donate her eggs. An anonymous egg donor would be more suitable for all concerned. They existed! Didn’t they? People were always getting pregnant using donated eggs. Or celebrities were, anyway.

And Sam didn’t
really
want another baby, any more than he really wanted to be a tradesman like his dad. He sometimes said he should have done something with his hands. After a frustrating day at work he’d go on about how he wasn’t really cut out for the corporate world, but then next thing he was all excited about a TV commercial he was shooting. Everyone had another sort of life up their sleeve that might have made them happy. Yes, Sam could have been a plumber married to a stay-at-home domestically minded wife who kept the house in perfect order, with five strapping football-playing sons, but then he probably would have dreamed of having a fun office job and living in a cool, funky suburb by the harbour with a cellist and two gorgeous little girls, thank you very much.

She took a bite of Vid’s strudel. Sam, who was already halfway through eating one, laughed at her. ‘I
knew
your eyes would roll back into your head when you tasted that.’

‘It’s spectacular,’ said Clementine.

‘Yeah, not bad, hey,’ said Vid. ‘Tell me, do you taste a little hint of something, like the
idea
of a flavour, you know, the dream of a flavour, and you just can’t quite put your finger on it?’

‘It’s sage,’ said Clementine.

‘It
is
sage!’ cried Vid.

‘My wife is so sage,’ said Sam. Tiffany chuckled and Clementine saw the pleasure on her husband’s face that he’d made the hot chick laugh.

She said, ‘Don’t encourage the bad dad humour, Tiffany.’

‘Sorry.’ Tiffany grinned at her.

Clementine smiled back and found her eyes drawn irresistibly to Tiffany’s cleavage. It was like something from a Wonderbra ad. Were those breasts real? Tiffany could probably afford the best. Clementine’s friend Emmeline would know. Emmeline had perfect pitch and an unerring eye for a fake boob. That glorious cleavage had to be as unnatural as this backyard. Tiffany adjusted her T-shirt. Oh God, she’d been staring for too long now. Clementine looked away fast and back at the children.

‘This strudel is very good,’ said Oliver, in his careful, polite way, wiping a fragment of pastry off the side of his mouth.

‘Yes, it’s excellent,’ said Erika.

Clementine turned her head. Erika had slurred the word ‘excellent’, just a little. In fact, if it were anyone else Clementine wouldn’t have used the word ‘slur’, but Erika had a very precise way of speaking. Each vowel was always enunciated just so. Was Erika a little tipsy? If so, it would be a first. She’d always hated the idea of losing control. So did Oliver. Presumably that was part of the reason why they were attracted to each other.

‘So now you’ve passed that test,’ said Vid. ‘I’ve got another one.’

‘I’ll win this one,’ said Sam. ‘Bring it on. Sporting trivia? Limbo? I’m great at limbo.’

‘He is surprisingly good at limbo,’ said Clementine.

‘Oh, me too,’ said Tiffany. ‘Or I used to be. I’m not as flexible as I once was.’

She put down her drink, bent her body back at an extraordinary angle so that her T-shirt rode up, and thrust out her pelvis. Was that a tattoo just below the waistband of her jeans? Clementine strained to see. Tiffany took a couple of steps forward and hummed limbo music as she ducked under an invisible pole.

She straightened and pressed her hand to her lower back. ‘Ow. Getting old.’

‘Jeez,’ said Sam a little hoarsely. ‘You might give me a run for my money.’

Clementine stifled a giggle.
Yes, my darling, I think she would give you a run for your money.

‘Where are the kids?’ he asked suddenly, as if coming back to reality.

‘They’re right there,’ said Clementine. She pointed at the gazebo where Dakota and the girls were still playing with the dog. ‘I’m watching them.’

‘Do you do yoga?’ Oliver asked Tiffany. ‘You’ve got great flexibility.’

‘
Great
flexibility,’ agreed Sam. Clementine reached over and discreetly pinched the flesh above his knee as hard as she could.

‘Ah-ya.’ Sam grabbed her hand to stop her.

‘What’s that, mate?’ asked Oliver.

‘Bah! It’s not a limbo competition!’ said Vid. ‘It’s a
music
competition. It’s my favourite piece of classical music. Now, look, I will be honest with you. I don’t know anything about classical music. I know nothing. I’m an electrician! A simple electrician! What would I know about classical music? I come from peasant stock. My family – we were peasants! Simple peasants!’

‘Here we go with the simple peasants.’ Tiffany rolled her eyes.

‘But I like classical music,’ continued Vid, ignoring her. ‘I like it. I buy CDs all the time! Don’t know what I’m buying! Just pick them at random off the shelf! Nobody else buys CDs anymore, I know, but I do, and I got this one day, at the shopping centre, you know, and on the way home I played it in the car, and when this came on, I had to pull over, I had to stop on the side of the road because it was like … it was like I was drowning. I was drowning in feeling. I cried, you know, I cried like a baby.’

He pointed at Clementine. ‘I bet the cellist knows what I mean.’

‘Sure,’ said Clementine.

‘So let’s see if you can name it, hey? Maybe it’s not even good music! What do I know?’

He fiddled with his phone. Naturally the cabana had a built-in sound system that was linked to his mobile phone.

‘Who says only the cellist can enter this competition?’ said Sam. Clementine could hear him imitating Vid’s speech cadences without realising he was doing it. It was so embarrassing the way he did that, picking up waiters’ accents in restaurants and coming over all Indian or Chinese. ‘What about the marketing manager, eh?’

‘What about the accountant?’ Oliver followed the joke with heavy-handed jolliness.

Erika said nothing. She sat with her forearms perfectly still on the armrests of her chair, staring off into the distance. It was unusual too for Erika to disengage from a conversation like this. Normally she listened to social chitchat as if she’d be sitting for a quiz later.

‘You can
all
enter!’ cried Vid. ‘Silence.’

He lifted his phone as though it were a conductor’s baton and then dropped it in a dramatic swooping motion. Nothing happened.

He swore, jabbing at the screen.

‘Give it here.’ Tiffany took the phone and pressed some keys. Immediately, the lush opening notes of Fauré’s ‘After a Dream’ cascaded through the cabana with perfect clarity.

Clementine straightened. It almost felt like a trick that out of all the pieces of music he could have picked, he’d chosen this one. She knew exactly what he meant when he’d described ‘drowning in feeling’. She’d felt it too, when she was fifteen, sitting with her bored parents (her father’s head kept snapping forward as he dropped off to sleep) at the Opera House: that extraordinary feeling of submersion, as if she’d been drenched in something exquisite.

‘Louder!’ cried Vid. ‘It needs to be loud.’

Tiffany turned up the volume.

Next to her, Sam automatically adjusted his posture and assumed his stoic, polite, I’m-listening-to-classical-music-and-hoping-it-will-be-over-soon face. Tiffany refilled glasses with no discernible reaction to the music, while Erika continued to stare into the distance and Oliver wrinkled his brow, concentrating. Oliver could possibly name the composer. He was one of those well-educated private school boys who knew a lot about a lot of things, but he couldn’t
feel
the music. Clementine and Vid were the only ones feeling it.

Vid met her eyes, lifted his glass in a secret salute and winked as if to say,
Yeah,
I know
.