Hindsight Page 7

  “You don’t see it, do you? She wants you, how can you not see that?”

  He shakes his head, “I don’t care what Anya wants. I care what you want. What do you want, Juliette?”

  “I want you, Chris. I want our family. I want my dreams and goals. I want everything. I need everything. Work makes me important,” I blurt.

  “You’re even more important here, to our sons. To me, Jules.” He shakes his head slightly. “This what I was saying before about you having to prove yourself all the time. You need to sort that out — we need to sort that out, together.”

  Silence, except for my heart, which is now beating just for him. My head nods by itself as he wipes the tears away from my eyes.

  “Here’s what I want,” as he counts them off on his fingers. “You to be home for dinner five nights a week, home for at least one day per weekend, to turn your phone off after six, to only work on the computer two nights a week. Can you do that? Do you want to do that?” he says, moving closer to me.

  I nod and whisper, “Yes. I do.”

  “Is this a promise you will keep?”

  “Yes. Yes I will.” Although, how is another question, but right now, I would peel my own skin off for him. “Chris, why do you still love me? If I’m such a mess, why do you still want me?”

  He takes me in his arms and my body melts into his. It’s as though he has a special energy that envelops me and makes everything alright. The feel of his hands on the small of my back, the scent of his skin takes me into a world where it’s just the two of us. Where everything is alright.

  “Because I know the real you. I understand why you feel the need to work so hard, even if you don’t. But understanding it and liking it are two different things.” He cups my face in his broad hands and I gaze into his eyes, “I love you, Jules, and we can have the happiest life together if you’ll let it happen.”

  I feel so loved, so lucky.

  “If you could go back in time and marry someone else, would you?” I ask.

  He smiles, and at this moment he looks as handsome as I’ve ever seen him.

  “I wouldn’t change a thing, except for your work hours. Would you?”

  “Marrying you was the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m sorry if it doesn’t always come across that way. I’m a work in progress.”

  “We all are, Jules. Life is too short not to enjoy. Soon our boys will be grown-up and this precious time will have passed. You would never forgive yourself if you missed it because you were too busy working.”

  He’s right, again.

  “Lucy and Cal won’t be home until after school,” his suggestion is an aphrodisiac in itself. “That gives us two hours. How about we make it count,” he says, as his sexy smile and crinkles make a reappearance.

  He picks me up like a bride and takes me into our bedroom before placing me down again in front of him. I fumble with the buttons on his shirt, and on his pants, although he has no trouble removing my dress and underwear. The last time we did this was…too long ago to remember.

  Like newlyweds, we make slow, tender, passionate love, which reawakens every feeling of pure love I have for this man and reopens all the guilt associated with being a neglectful wife and mother. My promise to him is real; keeping it will be the hard part.

  Chapter 7

  Later that night, we have a lovely dinner together. Cal eats some of his spaghetti, wears most of it, and throws the rest either on the floor or the walls. It looks like artwork currently hanging in the National Gallery. Throw a frame around it and he could have his own exhibition.

  “Mum, we’re learning sexuality education at school,” says Ethan.

  “Already? But you’re only in grade two.”

  “What do you mean, mate?” asks Chris.

  “I can name all of our toilet parts,” he says confidently, “penis, scrot-chum, vagina…”

  “Great, well done,” I say. Not exactly dinner conversation, is it? “Can you pass the Parmesan please, Ethan?” Even though my spaghetti is loaded with Parmesan, toilet parts are not really conversation for the dinner table. “So, what else happened today?”

  “Well, I know that you have a viola, Mum.”

  I choke on my own saliva, “whaaaat did you say?”

  Chris is sniggering in the background while my jaw bounces off the table.

  “I said, I know that you have a viola, you know, down there.” Ethan points to his crotch, a gentle shade of pink creeping across his face. At least he has the good grace to blush.

  “No Eth, I don’t have a viola down there,” I reply. “Good lord, Chris, what the hell are they teaching these kids?”

  “Yes, you do.” His little chin sticks out with great indignance.

  “Ethan, if there was a large violin in my girlie bits, don’t you think I’d know about it?”

  “Oh, wait. No! It’s a Volvo. That’s it, you have a Volvo.”

  Chris is now openly laughing.

  “Ahhh, no. It’s not called a Volvo either.”

  “A vulture?” Now he’s just guessing.

  Chris has graduated to hysterics, tears running down his cheeks as his face is paralysed from laughter. The crinkles in the corner of his eyes are deep, giving him a worldly, sexy appeal that’s only possible on men. On women, unfortunately, crinkles are only indicative of being past your prime, unless, like for me, Botox is a food group.

  Ethan catches on that he has an audience and follows his father’s lead, even though he has no idea what he’s laughing at.

  “No! It is certainly not called a vulture. A vulture is a bird that eats dead meat. Only an idiot would put his penis near that.”

  “Stop, stop! …Can’t breathe.” Chris gasps. What’s the next step from hysterics? Heart attack?

  “Why would any man want to put his penis near a vulture?” Ethan asks, laughing. The expression on his face tells me that the sexuality education hasn’t gone into details yet — thank God.

  “He wouldn’t. It’s not called a vulture Ethan. It’s called a…”

  “A vulva! That’s it Mum! You’ve got a vulva.”

  Great. My seven-year-old son knows the name and location of my vulva. Excellent.

  Chris has no hope of composing himself any time soon. Every time he looks at me he’s off again, thumbing the tears away from his eyes, his face the colour of a vine-ripened tomato.

  “Are you right there, not going to pee yourself are you?” I ask. “Jesus, why on Earth are they learning sex ed now? We didn’t learn anything until high school.”

  Chris takes a drink of his water to wash away the hysterical convulsions.

  “Maybe if they teach them now it won’t be so much of a fuss later. It’s just part of the body. No big deal. Besides, the technical names for ‘girlie bits’ don’t matter to men, hell, we can’t even find half of them,” as he continues with a great belly laugh.

  I dodge the spaghetti floor-art and retrieve Cal from his high chair. His pudgy face is plastered in bolognaise sauce and is topped off with a very satisfied grin. It’s not until he’s in my arms that it occurs to me that he stinks. Really stinks, like rotten eggs to the power of infinity.

  “Ewww. Have you crapped yourself?”

  “Well, he doesn’t smell like that normally, so your assumption’s probably correct.” Chris says, his face slowly returning to his normal sunkissed complexion after his coronary-inducing hysteria.

  Cal’s shorts have a light brown liquid, complete with chunks, gathering around the underside of his legs and oozing out the waistband.

  “Oh my god, Chris, it’s coming out!” Right now would be a great time to have my arms to extend a further twelve inches like Inspector Gadget so as to keep this nightmare nappy away from my pastel pink top, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Cal swings his legs and smiles happily, either oblivious to my panic or enjoying it.

  “You’d better change him quickly then, Juliette. I’m hardly a fashionista but pink and brown probably aren’t a winning combo.”
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br />   “Me? But…where’s Lucy?”

  “She’s gone home. It’s just us now.” He turns to Ethan and asks “How do you rate that one, Eth?”

  I’m not sure about their rating system, but from here it looks as though his arse has exploded.

  “It’s waaaaaay past a number two, Mum. You’re going to have to take him for a shower. Baby wipes won’t do the job.”

  “Since when did you become such an expert on nappies, Eth?”

  “You’d become an expert too if you were home more often, Mum.”

  Ethan is giggling and holding his nose, while Chris’ smile is overly smug. Cal is kicking his legs and starting to squirm. Then it hits me; this is a test. Chris wants to see me perform the jobs carried out by other Mums, just like I promised. Stupid promises. Challenges motivate me, although usually not those involving bodily waste, so we move off into Cal’s room to the change table.

  “OK, no worries; back in a minute.” My teeth are gritted so tightly bits of enamel are chipping off.

  I lay Cal down on his change table and remove his clothes with surgical care. The shorts look beyond resurrection; Lucy can buy another pair. By the time I get the wipes ready, Cal has flipped over onto his knees and is turning the light on and off.

  “Come on Cal, work with me, sweetie.”

  “I did pooooo.”

  “You sure did. Now come on Cal, please. Just lay down and let me clean you up.”

  “Nnnno!” He’s a very strong willed little man. Not sure where he got that from.

  “See, Cal, this is the part where you lay down obediently and let me wipe your bum, just like all the kids on nappy ads.”

  “Nnnnnnnnno!”

  Clearly this strategy is not working.

  “Cal, come on!”

  “Nnnnnno Mum-my.”

  “Please Cal, please. Help Mum.” My motherly limit is being reached.

  Ethan giggles uncontrollably in the kitchen, listening to my commentary.

  “You both think this is very funny, don’t you?” I yell out the door. “Chris, will you put the shower on please? Ethan’s right, there aren’t enough wipes in the world.”

  More hysterical laughter.

  Our poo-clad struggle continues into the shower, after which I emerge victorious, moving into the kitchen holding a clean, freshly showered child. Unfortunately, there were casualties in this battle: namely the pink top, skirt and my pride.

  “Do you want me to reheat your dinner for you?” Chris asks.

  It’s brown and liquidy, with strands of pasta poking out, just like that nappy.

  “No thanks. How can that much poo fit inside a small child? Does he do that often?”

  “Yep, most nights lately. But usually not that bad, he must have been saving that up just for you.”

  “How considerate of him.” Ethan is still giggling, his mop of dark blonde hair sticking out at all angles. He clearly hasn’t inherited my love of good grooming.

  “How about some ice-cream, Eth?” Chris asks.

  “Oh yeah baby! Go ice-cream…go ice-cream!” he sings and moves his arms and hips as though he is stirring a huge pot.

  “Do you want some ice-cream, Juliette?”

  “What flavour is it?”

  ‘Chocolate.”

  “Urgh, no thanks.”

  More hysterical laughter.

  The next three weeks pass well and I’m home every night for dinner. I’ve been watching Chris for signs of an affair with Anya, but nothing’s standing out at the moment. His behavior is normal and not suggestive of anything untoward.

  The good news is that Chris and I seem to be heading in the right direction again, although we still have a long way to go until we are back to the joyously married couple we once were. On the surface it looks as though my promises are being kept. However, they have no idea of the amount of trickery being laid on in order to keep up appearances; it’s thicker than the run-up to an election.

  “We need more bread, Chris, I’m just going to the corner shop,” I say.

  “But we’ve got bread, look,” he says, pointing to a loaf in the bread keeper.

  “Oh, yes but it…” Think quickly, Juliette. What excuse will it be this time? Yesterday was spoiled milk and the day before was something left in the car, which was conveniently parked fifty metres down the street. “It’s a bit mouldy. We’ll need some for breakfast tomorrow. I won’t be long.”

  Chris inspects the bread closely.

  “It looks alright to me,” he says, his face buried in the bag.

  “I can smell it. Sometimes it’s mouldy before the mould actually shows. It’s probably still in the invisible stage,” I say, trying to sound like a mouldologist.

  He looks at me as though I’ve just told him that Jack Frost is responsible for the crunchy layer of ice on the garden in winter. Clearly, he thinks I’m telling porkies. And he would be absolutely correct. I am lying through my teeth. But there’s a missed call from Al on my phone and I need to return it as soon as possible. Now. Ten minutes ago.

  His face scrunches up in confusion as he looks from me to the bread and back again. My PR smile is plastered all over my face, hiding my real face underneath, the one that’s praying for him to believe me and drop the subject.

  “Oh. OK,” he shrugs and returns to making Ethan’s warm bedtime milk. “Don’t be long, it’s story time for the boys soon,” he smiles.

  “I’ll be back quicker than you can say…” I say as I launch out the door with my phone stashed in my pocket.

  The milk bar is one hundred metres up the road, a walk that can be stretched out to a nice ten minutes with a slow pace.

  “Al, hi. Sorry I missed your call. I was…on the phone. How can I help?” I say.

  “Maybe you need a special phone that I can reach you on. Hmmm, yes. Let’s look into that. That way my calls will take precedence over all your others,” he says.

  Yes, that would be great. That way I’ll have no excuses. No chance of carrying off my little housewife charade.

  “Catherine!” he yells to his assistant, “Organise a new phone for Juliette at Wilde.” His attention then reverts back to me. “We’ll courier it over to you tomorrow. That way you’ll be contactable 24/7.”

  Yay! Just what I need. My stomach sinks into my thighs at the prospect of not being able to hide Al’s calls from Chris. This is going to make it near-impossible to live up to Chris’s expectations, or Al’s. I pursued his business for three years and now I have it and all the glory and work that goes along with it.

  “Great work on the Saxon Jones case, Juliette. Thanks to you the Government is signing him as the poster boy for the latest anti drink-driving campaign. It’s being launched at the end of the month. Brilliant work, just what I’d expect of you.”

  “That’s great news. If he owns the mistake, then he can redeem himself in the eyes of the public,” I say.

  “Have the press release to me by 5am tomorrow.” He hangs up, clearly not huge on saying goodbyes but that doesn’t matter because praise from Al is better than winning the lotto — and just as rare. With every client, every emergency, every action, I am sealing my future as the PR diva of Melbourne. This is what I’ve been working for my entire life — prestige, professional admiration, worthiness. This is the big time.

  This deadline, however, means that I will, again, have to set my alarm for 1am in order to get up and work without Chris knowing about it. After the work is done, I sneak back into bed and wake with the regular alarm at seven, but the broken sleep is like having a newborn again. My God, I am so tired that turning into a bear, to take advantage of the winter-long hibernation and sleep, is looking more and more attractive each day.

  By the time Chris and Al’s expectations have been met, as well as Ethan and Cal’s, there’s not much left of me and in all honesty, unless something changes for the better, I’m going to need a doppelgänger just to survive. But I will be famous, rich and respected throughout my profession. I will have made it to th
e top and kept my family together. Hopefully.

  My mid-morning meeting with an emerging celeb client at Diego’s Café is finished, and we say our goodbyes as she puts on her sunglasses and strolls out to the waiting paparazzi. Anita, the new waitress, brings me a glass of water while I update my database from the meeting. Focusing on my laptop, my concentration is broken by a familiar female voice ordering two sangrias from a table on the other side of the partition. The conversation continues between the two women for a number of minutes while I try to think of who it belongs to. It’s smooth, hushed and a bit girlie — feminine. So far it’s not jogging specific memories.

  I return my attention to my work but the spell is broken by the other woman asking, “So, what’s happening with Chris? Has he left Juliette yet?”

  “Not yet, but it won’t be too much longer.”

  Oh. My. Fucking. God. It’s Anya!

  I peer through the slats of the partition as discreetly as possible to confirm it is actually her. My heart pounds so loudly it’s amazing she can’t hear it; she’s less than four feet away from me. I could almost stab her from this distance. Tempting thought.

  “So, what happened after your night together? Tell me again what his kiss was like,” the friend says.

  His kiss! Fuck me! He kissed her? How could he? She must be lying, Chris would never cheat on me.

  “Libby! I’ve already told you all about that,” Anya replies.

  “I know, but I live vicariously through you, so tell me again. He sounds too good to be true. He’s not gay, is he?”

  Anya lets out a long, seductive groan that sounds orgasmic. “Definitely not, not from the reaction to our kissing anyway. Something that size, no man can fake. He’s soooooo hot.” She releases another groan, like a cheap porn star. “There’s something between us, something magic. He feels it too.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just that he wishes we met years ago, prior to him marrying Juliette.”