Читать книгу: «Lessons in Love»

Chapter 1

If Queen Elizabeth were to narrate my last year, there’s every chance she’d call it my annus horribilis.

While my castle hadn’t exactly burned to the ground, I had lost my job. There was also the tiny detail of my marriage falling apart. And by that, I mean my husband tripped and fell into my best friend, which meant she was also out of the picture. So was the mutual friend who was acting as sentry for their rendezvous. If only all love affairs came with a lookout, I may not have ended up here in the first place.

My dad had taken off on a European backpacking sabbatical, which had evolved into a spiritual hike of the Camino de Santiago. All of this without his girlfriend, who was less spiritual and more surgical. When her first reaction to his holiday plans had been, ‘Over my dead body’, his response was, ‘Tupperware forever’. She called time on their romance very shortly after that. As for Mum, well she hadn’t changed. She was still living it up in Sydney with her yachting weekends and Pantone apricot orange-coloured husband, Barry.

There was light at the end of the tunnel though and, by some miracle, it wasn’t an oncoming G-class diesel locomotive. It was a job. At home.

I was moving home.

Well, not technically home, per se, but within a few hundred feet of said residence. Despite his continual offers, I wasn’t prepared to move in with Dad, his pumpernickel bread, health supplements, or yoga retreats. I hoped that, one day soon, the Great Penis Drought would end, and that I’d get to bring a man home for a little health retreat of my own. There was little to no chance that I wanted to try and sneak a boy down a darkened hallway like a teenager, lest I get stuck for a lecture on contraception. No, Dad, it’s not just like putting a condom on a torch, no matter how illuminating the penis may be.

Instead, I was moving in with my cousin Penny and, for that, I was ecstatic. I honestly was. She was more a sister than a cousin and had been the first to call when she’d found out about the shit hitting the wildly spinning marriage fan. Live with me, she’d said. Pack it all in and get back to the beach.

While her offer had been tempting, I’d managed to resist for nine months. I was hellbent on the notion of proving to all and sundry, and then some, that I was perfectly capable of surviving without my husband, his bank account, or morbidly obese property portfolio.

During that time, I lived in a sixth-floor apartment in the centre of Melbourne with two other couples and a vertigo-riddled cat. Fast-forward to August, when I was made redundant from my job in the city library, and the decision to move home suddenly became a lot easier, and somewhat necessary, especially if I didn’t want to end up paying the landlord in that special nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way he initially suggested when I was twenty dollars short for rent one week.

When I was first married, I was the library teacher in a school of more than one thousand students. I eventually swapped that for the glamour of a public library, author speaking events, and working in the repairs room. Now, I was trading it all in again, leaving the bustling high-rise library for Apollo Bay Primary School, tucked neatly into Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Not only was it my childhood school, it also had a much smaller library with one floor, and only a nth of the books I was otherwise used to. The fact Penny worked there as the receptionist was a welcome bonus.

The job application process began within minutes of receiving my redundancy slip and had been relatively painless. Several interviews and background checks later, I got the phone call I’d been waiting for – I wasn’t a criminal! Also, I’d been offered the job. There’d be less books, less people, less drama; all the things I’d been hoping for. I was also looking forward to being closer to family again, catching up like old times over a pot of tea, a back fence, or a passive-aggressive social media post.

It didn’t matter that I was leaving my so-called life behind. Most of my friendship circle had disappeared in the great marital purge, so I didn’t feel bad leaving any of that. Those who had clung to my friends list had either told me that moving was a bad idea or supplied a constant stream of unhelpful gossip. They said I was running away with my tail between my legs and admitting defeat. It was throwing the toys out of the pram.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I respectfully disagree.

Everything was going to be just fine. Mired in paperwork, I’d had addresses changed, mail rerouted, and I’d done the big social media call-out announcing my new address to the select few who might one day need it. Not that I was holding my breath – anything outside the City Circle tram route seemed a little too over the hills and far away for most of them. When everything was done, and all my bills were squared off, I began the drive home.

Now, as I sat in my car outside Penny’s house, all that was left to do was get on inside, unpack, and make it through my first day at my new job. By six o’clock tomorrow night, I’d either be celebrating with a glass of fizz, or re-evaluating my life choices.

Currently, that life was crammed into a few boxes in the boot of my car. There wasn’t a lot to show for ten years of marriage. All I had left were some clothes and shoes, and not even my best ones, a few precious books, and some bric-a-brac. The divorce hadn’t yet been finalised. In fact, it hadn’t even been filed, but leaving a marriage was no different to fleeing a burning building – I took the important stuff and made a run for it before the roof caved in.

I curled my fingers around the black leather steering wheel of my Audi convertible and looked up at the split-level unit. For a moment, everything was peaceful. With the top closed and window cracked, I could hear the crash of the ocean at the end of the street, the low thud of bass from a party a few houses over, and the static of my car’s radio station – no longer in range after three hours winding around the Victorian coastline. It was perfectly calm. I wound the window down a smidge further and let the sea breeze wash over me.

When my car door closed with a pop, the front door of Penny’s apartment flew open. She bounced down the stairs, past the lone palm tree decorated with twinkle lights, and a ‘Santa Stop Here’ sign that still hadn’t been removed from Christmas and had faded almost beyond recognition.

Twelve months younger than my thirty-six years and stylishly soft around the edges, she had deep-set brown eyes that were Disney large, a button nose, and a Milky Way of freckles across a lightly made up face. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a messy but subtly styled ponytail. Today, she accessorised with a smile brighter than the Las Vegas strip.

‘Ellie!’ she squeaked.

‘Hello.’ I lumbered towards her, shaking out the hours spent in the driver’s seat.

‘Finally! I’m so excited!’ She threw her arms around my neck and I sank into her hug. There was no competition: she gave the best hugs in the world – and she never let go first. I could definitely get used to this kind of reception. ‘Not about the whole divorce thing, that’s very uncool and incredibly sad but, yay, housemates!’

‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’ I pouted. ‘Brunch ran on a little long.’

Penny dismissed my concerns like someone clears the air of an offending fart, with a quick waft of her hand and a curled top lip. ‘It’s fine, seriously, gave me time to clean your room, make it look like I wasn’t inviting Walter White for tea and powdered sugar. Oh, and I’ve grabbed some things for dinner.’

And here I was prepared to murder what was left of my credit card balance in favour of the local Thai takeaway. ‘Fantastic!’ I pipped, feeling the knot between my shoulders begin to unravel, glad to finally be here. ‘Gosh, it’s good to see you.’

‘You, too.’ She rubbed my upper arm. ‘Come on, let’s get you settled in.’

The boot of my car looked like the outtake from a Macklemore video, a jumble of clothes tossed on top of my belongings and wrapped around delicates. T-shirts threatened to twist themselves into knots befitting skeins of wool if not moved soon. I hooked an arm underneath what I could carry and trounced up the creaking stairs behind Penny.

As I crossed the threshold of my new life, it became apparent that my cousin lived inside a disused set of an Elvis film. In the corner of the living room, right behind a beanbag, was a fake palm tree doused in more drip lights. A ukulele rainbow lined the wall, and hula girls were dotted about the room, along with tikis and all things pineapple. One sniff, and you could almost smell the piña coladas and that coconut scented suntan oil everyone used in the early Nineties. Even the white dress she was wearing had multicoloured cocktail umbrella motifs dotted about the hemline. Then again, I was surprised it wasn’t a grass skirt.

Penny gestured to the first door on the right. ‘Okay, so you get the room at the front of the house. I don’t know why, but I just picked the other one when I first moved in.’ She tapped at her chin. ‘That’s right. If I squint, stand on my tiptoes, and stick my head out of the window and catch the breeze on my tongue, I can totally see the beach. The good news is, you get a bonus ceiling fan.’

Despite her assertions, my room didn’t seem to be the pick of the bunch. It was different shades of cream, beige, white, off-white and ivory, and I was sure a sauna crammed with sumo wrestlers had more airflow. I tossed my pile of clothes in the direction of the bed, and the breeze it created was officially the only one in the room. The window, trimmed with gloss white plantation shutters, opened with a tired yawn.

A salty sea breeze rushed into the room. After a morning spent driving the winding roads from Melbourne, the crash of waves and brackish sea air mixed to create a soothing balsam. It was quickly turning me from Ursula the Sea Witch to Ariel the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastic hair, banging bod, dingle-hopper, or seashell bra.

‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here?’ I turned to face Penny, whose brows were raised, and lips pursed. ‘The landlord said it was fine?’

‘The slumlord was no problem at all.’ She bounced on her feet. ‘In fact, he only raised the total rent by one hundred dollars a week. He’s good like that.’

‘Slumlord?’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Really?’

‘He hates it when I call him that.’ A facetious smile took hold. ‘It’s fine, I promise. I sorted the lease with him last week over a pot of tea and fruitcake.’

If you spent ten minutes listening to Penny talk about Patrick, you’d think she was describing a recently beatified saint of the rental world. He wasn’t greedy and kept rent to the lower end of the scale, he let her hang pictures, kept out of her hair, mowed the lawns, helped the local junior football team, and donated his business time and energy to charitable projects, all while running his own construction company. As if that wasn’t enough, this place was modern and clean, and had a soft homely charm about it. I felt at ease already – I loved it!

‘Now, what do you want to do first?’ she said. ‘Unpack? Drink? Do you need something to eat?’

‘No, hell no.’ I patted a full stomach. ‘Brunch was epic: bacon, eggs, black pudding—’

Penny gestured with her fingers down her throat. ‘You’re so gross.’

‘It was lovely,’ I pressed. ‘Seriously, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Crusty sourdough toast, farm fresh butter, tomatoes, spinach, you name it, we had it. Oh, and bottomless cups of coffee.’

‘The coffee I can do.’ She finger-gunned me. ‘Want one?’

I pulled up a wicker stool by a Munchkin Land-sized breakfast bar in the kitchen. Railway tiles and modern appliances made the space look slightly less tropical than the rest of the house. That is, until I reached across the counter and flicked at a dancing hula girl toy. We watched her gyrate against a jar of Blend 43.

‘That’s Lula the Hula.’ Penny jiggled the plastic toy. Her head flopped about wildly and her painted-on smile stayed resolute. ‘I like her. She doesn’t talk back.’

I looked away and laughed into the palm of my hand. ‘It’s a bonus, I guess.’

‘It is.’ Two mugs landed on the bench with a thud. I was about to drink coffee from the top of Elvis’s head. Did that make it a coffee-flavoured lobotomy? A lobo-coffee? ‘So, tell me about your last night in Melbourne.’

As part of the Farewell Ellie Tour, as if I were moving to the next country and never returning, my flatmates insisted on a Saturday night party. What began with crackers and beetroot hummus soon devolved into too much wine and Cards Against Humanity. We rounded things out with a late-night coffee and cake blitz through St Kilda, a stroll along the beach, and an early morning taxi fare home. After just enough sleep to take the edge off, we yawned our way into the closest café for breakfast at our regular table in the corner.

‘Can we go up to Melbourne one night? It’s been forever since I went. It might have been that day we did lunch and looked at the Myer Christmas windows.’

Also known as: The Week Before Everything Went to Shit. Ah, the ignorant bliss.

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Of course, absolutely. We may as well do an overnight trip, make the most of the drive.’

‘See a concert?’ she suggested.

I nodded, enthused. ‘Definitely.’

After a few moments of silence, she clicked the kettle on. ‘So, Ellie returns home, huh?’

There it was – that wisp of disappointment people tried so hard to hide, with a smile, a cup of coffee, or a gentle enquiry gift wrapped in a statement that sounded more like a question. Friends had hinted as much when I decided to leave Melbourne. Are you okay? Are you having trouble coping? Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?

‘It’s not all bad news, you know.’ I folded my arms over on the counter. ‘It was months ago—’

‘Long enough for …’ She cradled an invisible infant.

Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that a thousand times over. Tick-tock-biological-clock. ‘Thank the gods we didn’t make it that far. Honestly, I’m fine. I’ve dealt with what I needed to, and I’m happy. Sure, it still stings a little, and it might look like I’m running home with my tail between my legs, but at least I have a job—’

‘Bonus!’

‘—and, really, it just felt like the right time to make a fresh start.’

It also didn’t hurt that I’d had several weeks without the responsibility of a job to simply enjoy life again. It had been a welcome break, a chance to re-evaluate life, and work through my plan of attack. Money was tight, but the rent was paid, and I had enough to see me through to at least the first payday or two. It really wasn’t the worst thing ever. After all, I’d been through worse.

‘Everyone at school is peachy keen to meet you. I caught up with some of the girls last weekend. We should all go out for dinner. Why don’t we do that tonight? Should we?’

I waved a hand. ‘Not tonight. I just want to rest.’

‘Good, good.’ Water sloshed up the sides of the coffee cups as she poured, one after the other. Milk, sugar, and sewing tin biscuits.

‘Maybe next weekend?’ I tried. ‘Let me get settled in first.’

‘Speaking of settling in.’ Penny slinked away towards the front door. ‘Let’s get you unpacked, that way it’s done, and we can relax.’

Squeezing past each other like rabbits in a warren, we ferried my belongings inside one box at a time. Initially, we stacked them neatly by the door, careful not to make too much of a mess. By the final drop, full of bric-a-brac, I didn’t care. I tossed my armful on the bed and hoped for the best.

The last battered cardboard box, held together by rounds of red electrical tape and a bit of luck, bounced a little as it landed on the bed. A picture frame spilled out onto the duvet, anxious to escape. Not today, Satan. He of wandering penis was not welcome in this bed or near this house, lest he curse this new life, too. I snatched the rose gold artefact up and, before I could stuff it back into the box or set fire to it like it rightfully deserved, I looked at the carefully posted photo.

It was nothing too dissimilar to your average, spent-way-too-much wedding photos. The suit and tie were worthy of Casino Royale, crisp and cut in all the right places, and the white dress that had been painstakingly made over weeks, months even. It was sleek and modern, no garish beading or bones poised to turn my body into a cocktail frank on the receiving end of a toothpick at a moment’s notice. It was all just perfect, blissful, happiness.

Until it wasn’t.

Penny appeared by my side, snatching the frame from my hand.

‘Why?’ She waved it about like a bag of freshly laid dog turd. ‘Just … why?’

‘I have zero idea.’ My shoulders hugged the bottoms of my ears. ‘There was probably a nanosecond in which my not-so-romantic-anymore heart thought things could be fixed. A brief second of weakness where, maybe, if he’d told me he’d simply tripped and fallen into her, I might have believed him, and things would be okay again.’

‘Tripped and fell into her?’ she squawked. ‘Ellie, you deserve better than a stupid excuse like that.’

Firm, but fair.

‘I don’t know,’ I tried.

I snatched the frame back from her and tossed it into the waste paper basket beside the bed without a second thought. The brittle glass finally gave way and cracked, feathery webs spread almost faultlessly down the centre of the photo, across smiles and up-dos, vows and promises. Perfection be gone.

‘Nice shot.’ She gave me an upside-down smile and left the room. ‘Well done, you.’

* * *

While I busied myself sorting belongings onto shelves, clothes on hangers and shoes into racks, Penny kept herself occupied with dinner. I thought of suggesting takeaway after all, but a quick check of my banking app suggested it may be best if I skipped the credit abuse and waited until payday.

As the afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky, we set ourselves up on our small deck. It was just off the side of the small dining area and sat smartly above the carport. In one corner, a single-serve barbecue, and a faded wooden table in the middle. All the rattling and cursing that came from the kitchen had given way to steak, garlic butter, and a pineapple infused coleslaw.

‘I do at least have a bottle of champagne.’ Penny gave the bottle a violent shake. I cowered as it popped with little more than the excitement of a dead toaster. Warm cola had more fizz.

‘Oh well.’ I took the glass from her. ‘It’ll do.’

‘Sláinte.’ Penny chinked the edge of her glass with mine.

‘Huh?’

‘It’s Scottish for health,’ she explained proudly. ‘Learned it from my Mr December, Richard.’

‘Your who now?’ I laughed.

She gave a wistful Hallmark sigh and gazed up at the heavens as if they’d suddenly part and drop this magical Richard back into her lap. ‘Richard, aptly named for what I was using him for, was visiting the area, surfing, travelling …’

‘Shagging,’ I laughed, glass pressed against my bottom lip. ‘You’re … I have no words for you.’

‘A multicultural woman of the world,’ she declared, finger poking at the air. ‘Speaking of which, let me catch you up on the people of our world.’

Had I really been gone that long? It certainly hadn’t felt like it. I still came back for Christmases, birthdays, Easters, long weekends when I could wrangle Dean away from his job. Then again, when you’re busy inside your own bubble, it can make the outside world a little hazy. Because, as Penny began rattling off happening and incidents, it became apparent just how much I had missed.

Our cousin Sam was married to Mary. I was sure I’d been at that wedding. It involved a rustic barn in Dean’s Marsh, hurricane lamps and an oversized Polaroid frame fit for the hashtag #SNMWedding on Instagram. Not surprisingly, it hadn’t caught on. But now he had kids? I really was out of touch. The realisation was sobering, and I quickly downed the contents of my glass.

‘One, with another on the way.’ Penny pushed her steak around the pool of garlic butter on her plate. ‘And Sophie, his sister, has had three boyfriends in the last twelve months. Each of them were “The One”, mind. We were rolled out every time for dinner to meet Huey, Dewey, and Louie.’

‘That old chestnut,’ I grumbled. ‘How about your parents?’

‘My parents are as they are.’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing really changes with them. Dad wants to retire, but I don’t think he wants to spend all day with Mum. Not that I blame him, of course. Mum has a new hobby every second week.’

‘What is it this week?’

‘Sewing. I’m not so secretly loving it, because she’s making me a heap of dresses.’

‘I would be, too,’ I agreed. ‘Do you think she would make me some?’

‘I think she would be thrilled.’ Penny refilled her glass and waggled the empty bottle about. ‘Want me to grab another one?’

‘No more tonight.’ I placed a protective hand over my glass. ‘I’m not sure bloodshot eyes and reeking like the back end of a wine barrel is a great look in front of the principal.’

‘Come on, he’s a lush from way back. You remember all those Friday mornings, watching teachers smuggling bottles of wine and slabs of beer into the staffroom. It was like a reverse walk of shame. No, kids, we’re totally not getting wasted after the 3.30 bell. No, siree.’

‘I do remember that.’ I nodded. ‘Very well.’

‘Are you prepared?’ she asked. ‘How are you feeling? Excited? Anxious?’

‘Positively shitting myself,’ I laughed nervously. ‘Please tell me it won’t be too painful?’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Penny soothed. ‘You’ve survived worse.’

She was right. If I had managed to get through the last nine months without having myself committed, this next week was going to be a walk in the park. I mean, I’d taught before. How hard could it be?