‘The dialogue works well, and moves at a cracking pace . . . It is a warm, assured comic voice, less strained than Kathy Lette, more laid-back than the gals on Sex and the City.’

—Australian Book Review

‘A wickedly funny examination of coitus’ past . . . a truly entertaining read. Beware, giggling whilst reading when significant others are watching The Footy Show may result in domestic disharmony . . . oh, bugger it, laugh out loud, there are some wickedly funny lines in this book bound to be repeated for years to come!’

—Geelong Times

‘The plot is cleverly crafted, but the really nice surprise is the fluency and verve of Harmer’s prose.’ —The Age

‘A scream. A must read.’ —The Cup Of Life Book Café

‘Harmer has written a sexy romp with an underlying core of morality and an overlay of the ace comedienne’s characteristic wit and humour . . . Harmer’s approach to love, marriage and growing older is both funny and spot-on.’ —Sunday Telegraph

‘Wendy Harmer was talking about chick lit . . . It turns out she knows quite a lot about it — apart from writing a brilliant example of her own.’ —The Age

‘An easy, light-hearted, funny read . . . Harmer makes a grand job of her first novel, pioneering a warm and welcome Australian chicklit genre about beautiful, interesting and intelligent women who aren’t invited to 30th birthday parties any more. And don’t really care.’ —Newcastle Herald

WENDY HARMER is one of Australia’s leading humourists. She is a mother of two, veteran of the Edinburgh, Montreal, Glasgow and Mayfest comedy festivals, hosted 2Day FM’s top-rating Breakfast Show for eleven years, and now hosts the morning show on Vega FM. Wendy is also the author of three books for adults, two plays and a highly successful series of children’s books about Pearlie the park fairy.

Wendy has hosted, written and appeared in a wide variety of TV shows including ABC’s The Big Gig and In Harmer’s Way. She has also hosted the Logies for the Nine Network and has been a regular newspaper and magazine contributor, writing columns for the Australian Women’s Weekly and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine.

Farewell my Ovaries

Wendy Harmer

Lyrics on p. 20 are from ‘Embraceable You’ by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, © 1930 (Renewed) WB Music Corp. For Australia and New Zealand:- Warner/Chappell Music Australia, Pty Ltd. (ABN 63 000 876 068) 39 Albany Street, Crows Nest NSW 2065. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorised Reproduction is Illegal; p. 192 ‘Hair’ by James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot © United Artists Music Co/CBS Catalogue Partnership. For Australia and New Zealand:- Warner/Chappell Music Australia, Pty Ltd. (ABN 63 000 876 068) 39 Albany Street, Crows Nest NSW 2065. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorised Reproduction is Illegal.

This edition published in 2006
First published in 2005

Copyright © Wendy Harmer 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
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Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone:   (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax:        (61 2) 9906 2218
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Harmer, Wendy.
Farewell my ovaries.

ISBN 1 74114 665 8.

I. Title.

A823.3

Set in Sabon by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Brendan
Six foot plus and perfect

Contents

Saturday Night: The Wedding

Sunday Morning: The Post-Mortem

Sunday Afternoon: The Going-Away Party

Monday: Two Weeks and Counting

Tuesday: An Indecent Proposal

Wednesday: The Company She Keeps

Thursday: All About Meg

Friday: The Birthday Party

Saturday: Unfaithful Aphrodite

Sunday: The First Day of the Rest of Claire’s Life

Monday: Travelling North

Tuesday: Going South

Postscript

Acknowledgments

Saturday Night

The Wedding

It was late when Claire finally found her means of escape from the dance floor. It was hardly the discreet exit she’d been planning for the past two hours. She was flung off the end of a giant conga line into a pot plant.

The conga line is like the Chaos Theory in action, Claire thought to herself as she picked a dead frond from her cleavage. The theory goes that somewhere in the world a butterfly flaps its wings and eventually there’s a tsunami on a remote island off Japan. It’s the same thing with a conga line. The person up the front seductively wiggles a hip and down the end, sixty drunken idiots later, someone is whiplashed at terminal velocity into a miniature golden palm. On this occasion, that someone was Claire.

She quickly realised that no one had seen her. Unsurprisingly, all eyes were on the bride and groom, so she hauled herself to her feet, checked spaghetti straps and slingbacks, smoothed her satin skirt, adjusted her sequins and tried to affect an air of insouciance.

Peering through the gloom at the back of the ballroom Claire saw her lilac evening bag glimmering by the light of a cluster of gardenia-scented candles. She strode purposefully towards the bag and swept it from the table with what she hoped looked like a simple, elegant, bangled gesture. And she would have made it out the door too, with the same simple elegance, if she had managed to adequately judge the distance between two chiffon-swathed chairs. After a passable impression of a human pinball, Claire was catapulted outside and found herself hanging over the railing looking into the inky blackness of Sydney Harbour.

A damp shawl of misty, cool darkness draped across her shoulders. She breathed deeply and looked back through the glass into the room where bodies surged in a chaos of light and magic.

Claire loved weddings. There was always some moment when the civilised veneer of the ceremony fell away and the primal pagan ritual was revealed. It didn’t matter whether the bride and groom were waltzing under a crystal chandelier to the strains of a classical quartet or wandering up a dirt road followed by a horde of toothless villagers banging on goatskin drums. At some point in all wonderful weddings there was a moment when everyone believed. Believed in the transcendent magic of love. Two single people, by some ancient alchemy, became one. Forever.

Watching Rose and Dermott gyrating at the head of the conga line like a couple of Britney’s back-up dancers, Claire reckoned they’d be ‘as one’ for about eighteen months, tops.

With the wildly entertaining foreplay being conducted in front of two hundred friends and family, Claire wondered whether the bride and groom would have sex tonight. Or were they, in fact, having it now?

As she fumbled in her bag for a cigarette, Claire thought back to her own wedding nights. There was certainly no sex on offer at either of them. Just two individuals in a mild state of shock looking at each other thinking, what the hell have I done? Who is this person I just agreed to spend every night of my life with? Where the fuck is the mini-bar?

‘Oh God, I’m pissed,’ Claire said out loud as her cigarette lighter clattered to the deck.

‘Looks like a good night,’ said a disembodied voice from the gloom as the lighter came back into focus and burst into flame. She could now see a pair of shining eyes and a gleaming smile hovering above a white bow tie.

‘I’m at the Willows–Papandreou wedding at the other end of the yacht club. We just got through the speeches.’

‘Hope it wasn’t too excruciating,’ said Claire as she bent her head to take the proffered light. She reached out to steady herself with a hand on his forearm. She dimly registered that his arm was very firm, warm and that he smelled of violets (Grey Flannel, her favourite) and something else she couldn’t quite place.

‘Well, they were mostly pretty awful, but the groom’s speech was fascinating. It’s always entertaining watching a mate struggle to give an account of himself as an upstanding member of the community in front of the in-laws when you’ve always known him as an unreconstructed bastard,’ he laughed.

Claire also noted that it was a very nice laugh. Throaty, relaxed and . . . young.

‘That’s a pretty cynical view of proceedings,’ she said, inhaling.

‘Maybe. Maybe it just takes a bastard to know one—and correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought all men were bastards.’ And he laughed again.

‘That’s a healthy persecution complex you’ve got there too,’ Claire added.

‘Just kidding. Of course all men are bastards—except me.’ And here he looked at Claire with a grin.

‘Oh no—that’s the oldest pick-up line in the book!’ Claire jabbed her finger accusingly into his chest.

There was an awkward silence as they both wondered if that’s where this conversation was heading. And if it was, who was picking up who?

‘So how has the whole day gone?’ he asked, turning to take in the churning goldfish bowl in front of them.

‘It’s been lovely,’ Claire said, realising that it had been a very happy day. ‘Really lovely. We had the ceremony at sunset out on the lawn under the trees in the park over there. Which was gorgeous. Well, except that the page boy got hit by a cricket ball. Full tilt.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Tall, Dark and, well, very dark actually . . . She still couldn’t quite make out his face, although she was sure she could discern amusement bubbling just below his concern.

‘He was fine. He owes his life to a little leather bible he had in the top pocket of his jacket.’

‘Stopped the bullet, huh?’ And then they were both laughing out loud.

‘So where are the bride and groom?’ he asked.

Claire pointed. ‘Can you see the bloke on the stage swinging a cummerbund over his head? That’s the groom.’

‘Hmm,’ he answered, lowering his head next to hers to see.

Claire could now smell cigarettes and—what was that other smell? Improbably enough she thought it was coconut.

‘And that pile of vanilla organza and peony roses on the floor over there . . . that would be our bride.’

‘Uh-huh. Well, looks as though they’re going for it. My bride and groom were attempting some strangulated waltz last time I looked. I escaped before one of the dreaded country bridesmaids got hold of me. By the way, I’m Connor. Pleased to meet you.’

‘I’m Claire—pleased to meet you too.’

Claire looked up to see the face now illuminated by the soft candlelight coming through the window. He was indeed young, and utterly beautiful. His tanned, perfectly symmetrical face was framed with tawny blonde curls. His eyes were that sort of vivid sea-green you see in travel brochures of the Seychelles. And they were looking at her. Intently.

‘You seem a bit tired to me, Claire,’ he said, leaning his face close to hers.

I’m not tired, she thought defiantly. I’m just old. Get used to it, Sonny Jim, this is what middle age looks like. In fact I could sleep for a month and I would still look like this.

‘Oh well, I have been up since—’ she started to say, turning her face from his.

‘What I mean is, how’d you like a nice little pick-me-up? Come with me, honey, and let’s get this party started.’

With that Connor took hold of Claire’s shoulders, turned her towards the darkness and steered her up the length of the deck. She could feel two large hands in the small of her back pushing her along insistently. They walked quickly past the windows of the Willows–Papandreou nuptials. Claire saw an altogether different tableau slide by. A snowy white meringue with arms and an emperor penguin sat side by side at the head table. It seemed very quiet in there.

‘See what I mean?’ said Connor. ‘What’s the difference between a Willows wedding and a funeral? One less stitched-up wanker. They’re all spun out cos she’s Greek. See that table over there? They’re the in-laws.’

Out of the corner of her eye, before she and Connor turned in to a doorway, Claire could see a flash of colour in an expanse of beige. It looked like a flock of parrots had landed in the middle of a wheat field.

Before she had time to think about this, or indeed where they were going, she found herself blinking in the fluorescent light and pushed up a flight of stairs. Connor disappeared into the men’s toilets and in a heartbeat he was back. He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. She was startled by the sound of her shoes clacking on the tiled floor and echoing off the row of ceramic urinals. Instinctively she checked her reflection in the mirror.

Despite the lighting, reminiscent of the inside of a frost-free fridge, Claire was pleased with what she saw. Lilac was the colour that suited her best. It set off her green eyes and pale skin. Her mid-length chestnut hair was shiny and full. Her silk camisole showed off her cleavage (still good), arms (just passable) and her stylish Donna Karan sequinned skirt skimmed her curves (not too bad). She had received a lot of compliments when she wore the matching jacket as the wedding guests assembled in the park.

Hang on, she thought in a sudden panic. Jacket, wedding guests? What the fuck am I doing here in the men’s toilets with a stranger when I should . . .?

At that moment Connor’s arm snaked around her waist and dragged her forcefully into a cubicle.

‘Shh, someone’s coming,’ he hissed. He clamped his hand across her mouth and pressed himself against her. It was a small space and Connor took up most of it. He was tall and broad, he had amazing jade-green eyes and he smelled of violets and . . . coconut. Claire could feel her entire body go limp.

All this would have been incredibly erotic if it had not been so utterly sordid. They were both tense now, listening to a trickle of urine which seemed to go on for minutes. At last they heard the sound of a zipper, a nasty phlegmy hoik in the sink and the door slamming.

‘Now,’ said Connor, looking down at his startled charge. ‘Let’s get you sorted.’ He stood back and grinned a luscious grin. Claire suddenly saw a lion taking its paw off an antelope’s neck just to see if it wanted to run away. She stood perfectly still.

‘How long since you’ve done this?’ asked Connor as he fished around in the back pocket of his tux pants.

What could he possibly mean? Claire wondered. How long since I’ve been in the men’s toilets at a wedding with a boy half my age? Erm, now let me think.

‘The devil’s dandruff, the old marching powder, blow, gear, Charlie, okey-doke? How long?’ he asked, jiggling a small plastic packet in front of her eyes.

Well, Claire thought, if he only knew. But let’s just say, for the sake of a young man’s ego: ‘Oh God . . . years.’

Claire watched Connor as he chopped out lines of white powder on top of the cistern. According to Claire, there were a few ways to judge what a man would be like in bed. You could look at the way he ate, dressed, danced or . . . the way he chopped out lines of cocaine. The best indication of a wild and generous spirit was a snakey, fluffy line of a good length and width.

‘You first,’ he said, handing her a small, artfully fashioned metal tube. Claire examined the little device, which felt cool in her hand.

‘Got it in Germany. It’s a stainless steel coke straw. Cute, huh?’ he smiled.

So, he’s done this before then, Claire rather stupidly concluded. She put the rounded end up one nostril, bent over and there it was—a long, sinuous curve, as she predicted. She inhaled deeply and stood back, handed over the straw and watched his broad back expand under the cloth of his tuxedo as he bent to do the same.

They both fell against opposite walls, taking each other in under the harsh toilet lights. Yes, he was every bit as beautiful as she first thought when she saw him by candlelight out there near the water. But she hadn’t realised that his mouth was so full and soft and pretty.

‘How does that feel?’ he asked.

Claire could only manage ‘Mmm’ as the familiar numb sensation started her tongue tracing patterns on the inside of her teeth.

‘So Claire . . . what do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘About everything. You look like a very clever woman behind those lovely green eyes.’

‘So, ask me something then.’

‘OK . . . um . . . do you think your bride and groom will be having sex later tonight?’ Connor asked as he reached out and smoothed her hair.

‘Come on, everyone knows,’ she quietly smiled. ‘There’s no sex on a wedding night.’

‘Are you sure?’ he whispered as he leaned into her neck and placed a hand on her hip. Claire could feel his fragrant warm breath in her ear. She shivered from top to toe as a cool current rippled through her body. It was followed by a warm tide which washed into every corner of her.

‘You smell of coconut,’ she sighed as her little lilac evening bag dropped to the floor.

‘Hot Sex board wax,’ he mumbled, and then he was on top of her.

In one move he had slipped the straps of her camisole off her shoulders, pushed the silky garment down to her waist and was now working on the straps of her bra with his teeth. As he chewed he made small growling noises like a hungry puppy being fed. Then he was tracing the edges of the cups with his tongue and sucking her nipples through the French lace.

At the same time he had ruched up Claire’s skirt and slipped his warm hands inside her matching lace knickers to cup her bottom. His knee was pushed hard in between Claire’s legs, pinning her to the door.

So there she hung like a rag doll, her slingbacks dangling from her toes, as he slowly and deliberately began to consume her—inch by inch. Claire moaned and let him get on with it. That was one thing experience had taught her. Don’t think, just give up. The most she could manage was to undo his bow tie and shirt buttons and run her shaking hands over his damp chest.

She could feel that familiar tingle begin to work its way up from the soles of her feet. Her head fell back and his mouth moved to her neck. Her neck, her most sensitive place. He bit her hard. It was just the right amount of hard. Hard enough to make her want to run away. Soft enough to make her want to stay to see if he did it again. She could feel her defences being overrun.

Slam!

Shit! There was someone in the toilets.

Claire held her breath. Connor’s body tensed and he was quiet. For the next minute they stayed like that, the only movement his hot tongue insinuating itself inside her bra and tracing small wet circles on her breasts. It was the circuit-breaker Claire needed to gather her scattered senses. What the hell am I doing here? I’m about to have sex . . . with a stranger . . . in a toilet cubicle . . . at a wedding!

The door slammed again and Connor resumed his feast, more urgently this time.

‘Connor, I can’t do this. Not here, not now,’ Claire gasped, pushing him away.

Her heels clack-clacked onto the floor.

‘Why not? You’re so sexy. I want you. Let me have you,’ he muttered thickly as he grabbed handfuls of her silky hair.

‘I can’t,’ she said again.

‘Please. Why not?’ he whined.

‘Because. I’ve got to get back,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m the Mother of the Bride.’

‘You know, you don’t look old enough to be the Mother of the Bride.’

Claire turned to focus on the young thing standing next to her at the mirror in the ladies’. Her dark brown hair was alternately striped with garish shades of gold and orange. She looked as if she was struggling out of a Hawthorn football jumper. Claire recognised the young woman as one of Dermott’s mates’ girlfriends.

‘Well, I’m not, strictly speaking. I’m the stepmother of the bride,’ said Claire.

‘So how does it feel to be the Wicked Stepmother?’ asked the girl as she resumed resurfacing her lips with a thick layer of what looked like seafood sauce.

‘Pretty good actually. I’d rather be the Evil Stepmother than the Good Fairy,’ Claire replied, thinking that she couldn’t ever recall hearing a tale about the coke-sniffing slut fairy.

The girl was now stabbing at her eyeball with a black pencil as she continued: ‘Why do you think there’s always an evil queen or a witch or something at a fairytale wedding?’

Phew! The hidden mythological meaning of fairytales. Big topic. Still, now the coke had kicked in, Claire was up for a chat.

‘Well, it’s all about sexual jealousy, I suppose. The evil queen has to let go of the idea of herself as a sexual being. She has to give up her sexuality. Make way so the young virgin can become a wife and mother.

‘There’s nothing a fairytale hates more than some old crone still having sex. Now matter how sexy she feels. That’s just evil—and you’ll end up in a dungeon making poisoned toffee apples for the school fete. You have to take your pick—you can either be a saintly godmother or a haggard old witch. That’s the only choice you’ve got.’

‘Jeez, that’s heavy. So you’re choosing . . .?’

‘Oh,’ exclaimed Claire, leaning closer to the mirror, ‘I think that looks like a wart growing on my nose.’

The girl laughed and turned to leave. ‘See you on the dance floor, oh Evil Queen of Darkness. Although in that gorgeous colour I think you look more like the Good Fairy.’

And she was gone.

Claire smiled and sniffed the coke tickling the back of her nose. She checked herself again in the mirror. She waved her mascara wand, reapplied powder and lipstick, and was ready to get back to the reception. There was just one thing; well, two things actually. Her bra and knickers were still damp, and she smelled of sex.

Over the years she had come to like her smell. It was comforting and reminded her she was still womanly. Would Charlie notice? It wasn’t likely in all the commotion. She reached for her bottle of Calypso Vanille and then decided against it. She would leave her scent as it was. To remind her.

As she caught a last glimpse of herself over her shoulder, she wondered if that was one of the reasons evil queens weren’t welcome at fairytale weddings. They smelled of sex. What if all the young men in the room caught the scent and ran off, leaving the virgins to count the glassware?

‘Darling, you’re back! Where have you been?’ Charlie shouted over the deafening noise of ‘Zorba’ in full swing. He clutched at Claire like a drowning man grabbing at a life ring.

‘We’ve got to get you up on stage. We’ve got to stop this fucking awful music!’ he panted.

Claire laughed at the sight of him. He looked utterly shagged. Big wet patches showed through his white dress shirt, his bow tie was missing and his hair was plastered down over his forehead. This was certainly no Mr Darcy wading out of a baronial duck pond with his chambray shirt clinging seductively to his manly chest. Charlie looked like he’d just crawled over the finish line of a bog-snorkelling competition.

‘Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart . . . everyone looks like they’re having such a fantastic time. If I get up it will just stop everything dead,’ Claire shouted back.

‘No, no, no. If we don’t get a breather everyone will die! Please, get up there and show that blonde tart on the microphone how it’s done. Anyway, everyone wants the bride to say a few words, so I’ll introduce her and then you—OK?’

Charlie took both her hands in his clammy paws and bent down to her. ‘You look so radiant tonight, Mother of the Bride. I love you,’ he yelled. His hot breath blasting her left ear.

‘And I love you too, Father of the Bride,’ she yelled in his right.

She did love him very much. She thought of her earlier encounter with a jolt of—what was it? Shame or a charge of unearthed erotic electricity?

Claire dragged her thoughts back to the present and watched Charlie plough through the tumult on the dance floor. Her more immediate concern was whether she was straight enough to sing. The coke was still giving her a hit. She could tell because all the colours in the room were intensely bright. The dancers swirling by reminded her of a necklace of sparkling precious stones.

She reached for another champagne as a tray floated past and tried to settle herself. All her nerve endings were jangling like a charm bracelet. She reminded herself that tonight she really had to be the Good Queen and Fairy Godmother to a beautiful young bride.

Across the room she could see Rose surrounded by her devoted handmaidens, who were busy reattaching all the accoutrements sucked off her by the centrifugal force of the Zorba dance. Rose looked stricken with nervousness. I wonder what the collective noun is for bridesmaids? mused Claire. A flurry . . . no, a flutter of bridesmaids. That’s what they looked like hovering around sweet Rose, a swarm of amethyst butterflies.

The music stopped and Claire snapped to attention. Christ, what was she going to sing? No, why was she going to sing? This was not a good idea. But then Charlie banged the microphone into life and it was all too late.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, freeloaders one and all . . .’ Charlie paused for the laughter, which dutifully swept the room.

‘Now we heard earlier from the groom and the best man and we thank them for that, but now the time has come to hear from the women. You don’t usually hear much from the women at weddings but, as we all know, the Wallace women are not ones to suffer in silence.’

There were a few whoo-hoos from the fans of the Wallace gals. Charlie drew some notes from his pocket and even from the back of the room Claire could see his hands were trembling.

‘There are four significant females in my life here tonight. And they represent the four ages of women which I, as a father, husband and son, honour and treasure dearly.’

There was no giggling now. Everyone sensed that this was a big moment for Charlie and the room fell to attentive silence.

‘Firstly, there is my dear mother Catherine, who takes the place at the head of our table as the revered matriarch of our family.’

The heads in the room all turned to look at a place that Claire could not quite see, but she guessed that Charlie’s mother was still sitting at the vantage spot she had chosen next to the dance floor.

‘Catherine is the wise woman whom we treasure and adore for the wealth of experience she brings. I admire her for the care, intelligence and kindness she has shown in everything she does, and for the steadying hand she has used to guide me and my sisters throughout our lives.’

There was a thunderous round of applause and a cheer for Grandma Wallace. Claire stood on tiptoes, and could see Catherine’s wrinkled hands frantically waving away the attention as if she was swatting a swarm of bees.

‘Next is my darling child Madeline, sitting by her grandmother’s knee.’

‘Oh Maddy,’ mouthed Claire. ‘My darling girl.’ She had looked so divine tonight in her puff of creamy tulle. When they placed the garland of pink peonies on her snowy curls she had looked almost edible. Just like an iced petit four from a French patisserie.

‘Madeline is six years old and represents all we love about the innocence of girlhood. She is our dearest dancing princess. We are loving watching this perfect bud unfolding into a lovely flower. We adore you, Mads.’

Claire was crying now, scrabbling in her evening bag for a tissue.

‘And then there is my wife Claire. Was there ever a woman so fair and full of life as my Claire? She is my helpmate. My rock. Tonight she takes a fateful step as she moves from being Mother to Mother of the Bride. I know she will fulfil this new role with all the grace and elegance she has shown in every endeavour she has undertaken in her life. She cannot fail. She is a remarkable woman and I owe her my happiness.’

‘And, finally, there is my dearest daughter Rose, who tonight has also completed another part of life’s sacred journey and gone from being a maiden to a wife. I can’t describe the emotions I feel as I prepare to let her go and step onto her separate path with Dermott, her new husband.

‘You have been such a source of joy to me, Rose. Through being a father to you I have become . . . THE KING OF THE WORLD!’ Charlie threw his arms wide in exultation. The crowd went wild—had they been able to storm the stage and carry him aloft around the room they would have. He shooshed the cheers and went on.

‘I love you, Pinky. I will . . . miss you . . . so . . .’ And here Charlie broke down in tears and was instead carted off the stage by the drummer.

Claire excused her way to the front of the room and sought out Charlie. He lurched towards her and fell into her arms sobbing.

‘Oh darling,’ she cooed. ‘That was the most wonderful speech in the world. I’m so proud of you. Thank you.’

Charlie took her face in his hands and kissed her fiercely. They stood and hugged each other, and then turned to watch Rose stumble towards the front of the stage with her dress gathered into a frothy organza bundle.

‘Wow . . . gee, Dad, you make it pretty hard. I really think you should try to connect with your emotions a bit more.’

There was an outpouring of relieved laughter. Folk dabbed their eyes and looked up at Rose, willing her on.

‘Firstly, I want to say you have been the best father a girl could ever have. I’m so lucky to be your daughter. And, Claire, thank you for coming into our family after we lost Mum. You have become really special to me. Thank you, Nanna, for all your advice. And, yes, I do have clean underpants on tonight. And dear little Maddy . . . I will miss you, bubster. But I promise to come back home and play Barbies whenever I can.’

There were more sighs and laughter and shouts of ‘Hear! Hear!’. A tidal wave of happiness.

‘I can feel Mum watching over me tonight,’ Rose said, looking to the heavens. ‘I wish you were here, Mum. What do you think of Dermott?’

Rose held two thumbs up as the tears welled in her eyes.

‘She says I’ve made a good choice. I know we will be a good team. Dermott is my best friend in the world. I know he will make me happy.’

And, Claire thought sadly as the emotion erupted, I know he won’t. Dermott was sweet, kind, loyal and dependable but he was a plodder. Ultimately he would never match Rose. He reminded her of her first husband Ben.

‘Your problem is that you think too much, Claire,’ Ben had said. ‘When are you going to accept that this is our life? It’s good, we’re happy. When are you going to settle down? When are you going to be a proper wife?’

Never, she had said. The next day she left on a plane for London and didn’t come back for two years.

She wondered how long it would take Rose to realise all the things she was capable of and find a man who truly challenged her. It had taken Claire twenty years.

Charlie was back at the microphone and boomed in his familiar professional bass: ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, mums and dads, boys and girls. Here she is to put more power in your tower, more wattage in your cottage—’

There was a collective groan, followed by a hearty laugh at this.

‘The star of stage and screen. Our own singing sensation. The nation’s sweetheart—’

‘Aaargh, stop, Charlie, stop . . .’ Claire was already bolting for the stage with her hands over her ears.

‘Give it up one and all for—Claire Sellwyn-Wallace!’

Claire tottered up the stairs as Charlie stood back and applauded. She hadn’t fallen over the top step, which was a good sign. She felt relief as her body was taken over by her welcome alter ego. All the emotional confusion of the evening, the alcohol and drugs, were swept away and she was inhabited by the persona which had found her when she was just twenty-five years old. She stepped into the spotlight and was utterly sure of herself. Sultry, sexy, playful, in-command Claire. The Claire who sang like a fallen angel.

She walked to the piano and whispered in Ellery’s ear. He nodded and the familiar chords chimed through the ballroom. She was steady and calm as she moved towards the microphone.

‘Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you . . .’

From her place above the dance floor Claire watched as the wedding guests melted back into the shadows. They were glad of a chance to recover from the emotion of the speeches. Couples reconnected and headed to the bar or took their seats under cover of darkness. Claire felt as if she was floating somewhere up there near the sparkling chandelier. Soon the parquet floor below was empty. Empty . . . except for one lone figure.

It couldn’t be. Shading her eyes from the glare of the spotlight with what she hoped looked like an elegant, bangled gesture, Claire saw that it was indeed—Connor.

He stood completely still. He was looking straight at her.

‘Embrace me . . . my sweet . . .’

Shit! She’d sung that line already. Where was she? She looked wildly around at Ellery, who had faltered. Should he start over, fake it and keep going—what?

‘Oh’, said Claire as the tinkling died away. ‘I think I . . . I think I’m . . . I don’t think I feel very well . . .’

And the last sound the two hundred guests at the O’Hanrahan–Wallace wedding heard from Claire that night was the rapid clickety-clack of a pair of lilac slingbacks sprinting across a parquet floor.

There was a brief silence as the guests looked at each other. Well, they all thought as one, at least the champagne hasn’t run out.

The digital clock by the bed read 2:00 am when Charlie returned from the bathroom with another icy face washer for Claire’s forehead. She was still whimpering.

‘You’ve got to stop this. Look at the time.’ Charlie was crabby and already hungover.

‘It’s just something you said in your speech,’ Claire sobbed.

‘What? You said you loved my speech.’

‘You said I’m not the mother anymore, you said I’m the Mother of the Bride. You know what that spells? MOTH. I’m not a butterfly anymore. I’m just a plain old brown moth,’ and with this she howled again.

‘It doesn’t spell “MOTH”. It spells “MOTB”, you fucking nutcase,’ Charlie shouted. ‘You are a motb. And a pathetic pissed motb at that. You think too much, Claire. For once, this is not about you, OK? For fuck’s sake go to sleep.’

And with that, Charlie switched the room to black.

Sunday Morning

The Post-Mortem

‘You did what?’ Meg spluttered. ‘You did not. Did you? You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t. Oh my God. You did, didn’t you?’ Meg’s coffee cup clattered in its saucer.

Of course Claire hadn’t meant to tell Meg, but all it took was one quizzical arched eyebrow and there was no place left to hide.

‘So when did all this happen? No, why did all this happen? No, no . . . how did it happen? Look, just go back to the beginning—and don’t leave anything out!’ Meg’s topknot of curly black hair was bobbing around like some sort of crazy exclamation mark.

‘Well, it just sort of—’ Claire began.

‘No, stop. I need another coffee.’ The metal legs of Meg’s chair scraped on the terrazzo floor making a horrible noise which went right through Claire’s head. People turned and Claire figured she wasn’t the only one in the café who felt like crap.

Her small hand mirror confirmed that she looked like it too. Her face was puffed up. A hot doughy scone with two small raisins for eyes. She had a headache and her sinuses throbbed. Thinking back, she realised that from 7 am until midnight yesterday her entire food intake had consisted of one prawn. It had been marinated, grilled and perched on a bed of shredded lettuce atop a fried crouton, so she supposed that sort of counted as a three-course meal.

She smiled and then couldn’t believe that she could find anything to smile about after last night’s humiliation on stage. But she smiled again and then she sighed a very satisfied sigh. And then she squirmed in her seat with guilty pleasure.

Clunk! Meg was back with another coffee.

‘So . . .’ Meg scraped her chair again and Claire winced. ‘There you were in the toilets at your stepdaughter’s wedding with some young spunky surfer whose name was . . .?’ asked Meg, renewing her inquisition with indecent excitement. And before Claire could answer, she continued: ‘You got a name, didn’t you? Tell me you at least got his name.’

‘Connor,’ answered Claire, trying to sound cool as she shakily took another sip of water.

‘Connor? Not that friend of Dermott’s from St Joseph’s?’

‘What?’ Claire’s coolness instantly evaporated. He hadn’t mentioned that he knew Dermott. Why not? This was a very nasty development indeed.

‘I met him at the end of the night. Right after you’d made that fabulously theatrical exit,’ Meg added, raising the other eyebrow. Claire winced again at the memory.

‘It couldn’t be the same one. This Connor was from the wedding next door. I think he said it was the Willows–Papadopoulos bash . . . or something.’

‘Yep, that’s him.’ Meg was triumphant. ‘Gorgeous. Tall, sort of blondie-brownish hair . . .’

Tawny, Claire silently corrected her. Tawny like a young lion.

‘Oh. My. God! You were with him? What were you thinking?’

‘Well, Meg, to tell you the truth, not much.’ Claire decided to brazen her way out of the situation. ‘You know my theory on this. Thinking gets in the way of sex. It wasn’t until I realised that I had to climb down out of my head and stop thinking that sex really started to work for me. And believe me, in that toilet I was thinking about sweet fuck-all.’

‘You know something, Claire, you’ve got too many theories.’ Meg shook her head and bit into a Florentine biscuit the size of a bread and butter plate.

‘Christ, not you too. That’s what Charlie said last night!’

‘You didn’t tell him!’ Meg was horrified.

‘No, no, are you kidding? I can’t believe I’m even telling you. But, Meg . . .’ And here Claire regarded her best friend with a look that stopped Meg mid-chew. ‘I do need to tell you, because something happened to me last night which was . . . I can’t quite describe it. I know it seems like some grubby little encounter in a toilet, but it somehow meant a lot more than that, and I’ve been thinking . . .’

Meg put her Florentine down, leaned forward and gave Claire her best Mother Confessor impersonation.

‘Meg, I am forty-five years old. You’ve known me for almost half of those years. And you know I love my husband dearly and that I would never do anything to upset our marriage. I would never do anything which would rob Madeline of her mummy and daddy, but . . .’

‘But. We love the “but”,’ giggled Meg.

‘I’m being serious. I don’t know why it happened. I don’t really know how it happened. But I honestly felt something last night that I haven’t felt in years. I know that sounds like some soap opera cliché, but I just felt so alive. I felt really sexy. Like I used to. You know, sort of wild and abandoned, and I never thought I could feel like that ever again. And it made me think . . .’ Claire paused.

‘Think, yeah . . .’ Meg parroted.

‘Oh shut up. I’m being really serious here, Meg!’ Claire felt she was at the rag end of her nerves. Meg now saw this and duly shut up.

‘The thing is, this might never happen to me ever again, Meg. I mean, I’m middle-aged, and I have had this huge realisation that I will never shag a stranger in a toilet ever again!

‘I will never be on a bus to Queensland and end up giving a blow job to the guy in the seat behind me. I will never be at a Nirvana concert and feel some huge hard dick in the middle of my back, or in a band room with some guitarist going down on me over a crate of Heineken.

‘It’s all over, Meg! My sexual career is fucked and burned and finished! And you know what? I’m just not ready, Meg. I’m just not ready to say goodbye to all that. I can’t go quietly. I’m not finished. I don’t want to be a moth! So . . .’ and Claire paused here so Meg could really understand the gravity of the situation, ‘. . . what do I do now?’

Meg looked confused. ‘A moth? What the hell does a moth have to do with anything?’ She reached again for her Florentine.

Claire waved her arms in exasperation. ‘Look, just forget the whole moth thing. Forget your frigging chocolate biscuit and listen to me!

‘Fact one: in seven years of marriage I have not looked at another man.

‘Fact two: last night I almost had sex with a stranger half my age in a toilet.

‘Fact three: I am kicking myself that I didn’t fuck him senseless . . . for hours.

‘Fact four: right now, I feel that if I can find him again, I will do anything he wants me to. I will shag him in the middle of Oxford Street in broad daylight if he asks me.

‘SO WHAT, MEG, EXACTLY WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?’

‘Well,’ said Meg, defiantly picking up her biscuit between two crimson acrylic fingernails, ‘you should have the chance to find out in a couple of hours. Because he’s coming to Rose and Dermott’s recovery lunch at our place at two.’

Sunday Afternoon

The Going-Away Party

Claire sat on a chair on Meg’s sundeck with Madeline clutched tightly to her chest. Madeline sensed she was being used as some sort of security blanket and was keen to get away.

‘Mummy, I want to go and play in the cubby with Nicky.’ Maddy pulled at her mother’s necklace more insistently this time.

Claire kissed her ear and reluctantly let her go. Maddy skipped off without a backward glance and Claire suddenly felt unprotected, almost naked.

She quickly walked over to Charlie and ducked under his arm.

‘Hi there, honey, how’s that hangover progressing?’ he asked. ‘You’ve found yourself a hair of the dog, I see.’

Claire nodded and took another swig of vodka and tomato juice. A Bloody Mary was always Claire’s hangover cure of choice. She had once heard that white spirits entered the bloodstream faster than any other kind of alcohol and that the tomato juice replenished the potassium and other minerals that had been decimated the night before. A handful of painkillers had also gone some way to easing the dull ache in her head.

She watched as Meg’s husband Tony carefully arranged his barbecue implements and bottles of gourmet oils. He turned to Claire, a vision of Italian maleness in his burgundy shirt, black cargo pants and slip-on loafers. He had a bottle of red in one hand and a string of fennel sausages in the other.

‘I was just telling Charlie, that was one amazing speech last night,’ he said.

‘I suppose you can’t be in radio as long as I have and not be able to string a few words together.’ Charlie was pleased with the compliment and awkwardly turned his attention to scratching the label from his beer bottle.

Tony wasn’t finished. ‘No really, Charlie, there was something about it that was deep. You are a very thoughtful man, Charlie. Very thoughtful. I liked that stuff about your mother. You don’t often hear Australians talk about how much their mothers mean to them.’

OK, here we go, thought Claire. This was one of Tony’s favourite themes—‘The lack of solid moral values in Australian family life’. While Tony once again laid out his case for the prosecution of heartless Aussies who pushed their confused mothers and fathers off to old folks homes in wheelie bins, Claire was all too aware of the friction Tony’s mother, Teresa, caused in the Angelucchi household.

She thought of the hysterical phone calls she regularly fielded from Meg on the topic. ‘I’ve told him,’ Meg would cry, ‘that he has to choose between her and me.’ The most recent blow- up had ignited when Meg and Tony returned from the Gold Coast to find that Mother Teresa had repainted their kitchen in a noxious shade of bright apple green and then, as a final ‘up yours’, rearranged the spice rack. ‘I feel like I’m cooking in a frigging fruit packing shed. And I can’t find the bloody cayenne pepper,’ Meg wailed. ‘This is my kitchen, Claire. You know how women feel about their kitchens! Like men feel about their cars. Imagine if we’d come home and Teresa had sold his beloved four-wheel drive and bought him a Tarago van. Imagine if she’d swapped the indicators and the windscreen wipers? He’d be really pissed off. Then he’d know how I feel!

‘I’ve told him that the interfering old bat is not moving in with us. If she comes here, I’m taking the four kids and leaving.’

‘Spinach and ricotta pastizzi?’ asked the interfering old bat at that precise moment.

‘Whoops,’ said Claire with a start, clumsily slopping tomato juice down the front of her white linen top.

‘Oh dear.’ Teresa loomed over her, a mountain of motherly concern. ‘I clean that for you straight away.’ She instantly produced a wet rag from a secret compartment in her filing cabinet of an apron and began dabbing insistently at Claire’s chest.

‘No . . . no really, Teresa. Thanks. I’ll go into the laundry and do it myself.’

Claire set down her glass and scurried into the house. As she walked past the kitchen she could hear Meg ferociously banging plates in the fruit packing shed.

She pushed the laundry door to and stripped off her top. Grubbing away at the bright red stains with a nailbrush, Claire caught an image of herself in the mirror over the tub. She was wearing the same bra she had worn last night. Flesh-coloured lace threaded with black ribbon. A small black bow nestled in her cleavage.

Claire tousled her hair with her wet hands and then brought them to her breasts and squeezed. The memory of last night’s encounter was all too vivid. She could look down now and see a tangle of sun-bleached curls as somewhere below a hot, wet tongue worked on her nipples. She shivered with the memory.

‘Oh God,’ Claire mumbled on a deep inward breath.

She pressed her crotch against the side of the tub and considered bringing her fingers there to give her the release she had been craving ever since last night. It would only take a minute, she was sure. But could she really masturbate in her best friend’s laundry? There was something so distressingly banal about the scene. ‘Ultralift Plus’. She was looking directly at a pump pack of Preen stain remover. She would have to save the delicious moment for when she was at home alone in bed plumped up against a pile of her own scarlet silk embroidered pillows.

Or maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Connor would be here soon and she could somehow find a way to get his hands on her again. This time she wouldn’t push him away. This time she would get down on her knees right on top of that pile of folded towels over there and—

‘Claire?’ She heard a soft tap.

‘Claire, are you in there?’ Meg’s brown eyes peeped around the corner of the laundry door.

‘Yes, yes, I’m here,’ Claire stuttered.

‘That bloody woman! I’ve made smoked salmon blinis and dips, but she insisted on bringing a monster plate of antipasto, pastizzis and lasagna. You’d think we were setting off on some fucking Long March across China. Jesus, she annoys me!’ Meg was huffing furiously. ‘I’ve just given up, truly. I’ve made myself a huge vodka and lime and I’m going to obliterate myself. Just watch me.’

‘Good idea,’ Claire agreed, taking to her linen top with renewed vigour.

Meg took a mighty swig of her drink. ‘You’re still thinking about him, aren’t you?’ She could always be relied upon to get directly to the point. ‘Look, Claire, forget it. I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning and all I can see is a massive flashing sign saying WRONG WAY GO BACK.’

Meg took Claire’s silence as a cue to keep talking.

‘There comes a time in your life, Claire, when—what’s the phrase?—you have to put away childish things. And having sex with strange young men in toilets is one of them.’

‘I know, I know,’ Claire said. If there was one person who could make her feel like a silly little girl, it was Meg. She avoided Meg’s eyes and held her top to the light, deciding it was presentable enough.

‘You might feel all those feelings. Yes, you’re still sexy. Yes, you’re still young . . . well, young-ish,’ said Meg. Those perfect black eyebrows arching again. ‘But you have to forget it. You have to look at what’s at stake. You’re married to one of the best men in the world. The best man you’ve ever had, that’s for sure. You forget, Claire, I was there. I saw that procession of flakes and drop kicks you called boyfriends. And that endless string of one-night stands—most of which were horrible. Remember the bloke who let his Rottweiler sleep on the bed? And the one who wanted to have sex in his mum’s bed? There was Mr Gay. Mr Married. I remember all that. You might remember the sex, but I remember the tears . . . and the dog hair. Not to mention picking you up from the therapist once a week.’

Claire finally found her voice. ‘But tell me you don’t think about it, though, Meg. The idea that Tony is the only man you’ll ever have sex with again—doesn’t that scare you a bit?’

Meg laughed loudly. ‘Hey, I’d give anything not to have sex with anyone ever again! When you’ve got kids’ hands all over you from sun-up till sunset and then the Italian Stallion going at it night after night, believe me, my idea of erotic is being alone. All by myself, just me and my Maeve Binchy . . . in a bunker in Afghanistan.’

Claire laughed too. ‘Actually, that sounds alright. Can Colonel Gaddafi be in the bunker in this fantasy as well? I quite fancy him.’

‘Besides,’ and here Meg grabbed a hearty handful of flesh through her singlet, ‘have you seen these stretchmarks? My stomach looks like a bloody piano accordion. You’re lucky you can even think about stripping off with a young bloke. If I’d been in that toilet with Mr Surfie Boy, you could have heard the screams of horror clear across the harbour.’

‘Oh, Meg, come on—I’d have you!’ Claire grabbed Meg and kissed her.

‘Didn’t we already try that?’

‘We did not!’

‘Well, that was about the only thing we didn’t do. But my point is—that was then and this is now. So I guess what I’m telling you is . . .’ And here Meg took Claire’s face in her hands and their noses met. ‘It’s time for you, my darling girl, to grow up.’

‘Aw, Mum, please don’t make me,’ said Claire, collapsing on Meg’s chest. ‘I want to stay a trollop for ever and ever!’

‘You are mad!’

Claire looked at her friend and saw past the unruly mop of hair caught up in a leopard-print scrunchie, the remaining chewed outline of red lipstick and the chin which was beginning to soften and sag slightly, and saw one of the sexiest women anywhere. In Claire’s eyes she was still gorgeous.

Meg and Claire had always been a pair to contend with. During their golden decade, Meg and Claire had trawled their driftnet from the Bahamas to Bali; from New York to Notting Hill. They could work any room. No social situation was too daunting and there was no man who could escape when they teamed up. Meg was the outgoing one. Bubbly, voluptuous— an irresistible force of nature. Claire was the cool reserved one who evoked an air of mystery and promise.

They’d had a system they called ‘good fuck, bad fuck’, although they always argued about who was who. Together they would case the scene for any prospective talent and, once he was identified, Meg would go in for the initial hit-up. A spilled drink, twisted heel, an innocent, ‘Ooh, I think you are in my seat,’ and then, once the hapless individual had taken the bait, she would play him, and bring him alongside for Claire to apply the gaff hook.

A sardonic teasing was Claire’s speciality. A ‘come here, little boy—think you’re up to the mark?’ routine which would usually scare off the tiddlers. Although, if she was honest, Claire would have to admit that this ploy also caught a certain percentage of wanky pseudo-intellectuals—poets, musicians and artists—who had caused her a good deal of grief over the years. Blokes she often wished she had thrown back.

Their after-dark partnership had ended ten years ago when Meg, at thirty-four, had met Tony right here in Sydney. She had been impressed equally by his dark Italian good looks and his black Alpha Romeo Spyder. Tony was just back from Europe, ready to trade in his playboy existence and begin making his way in the world. Within months he had married Meg and they planned to open a restaurant together in the Blue Mountains. Within another couple of months the Spyder had been driven away one afternoon and replaced by the Angelucchi family plumbing truck with a baby seat in the back.

The first of four kids had arrived only eight months after their wedding and Meg had given up a fledgling career as a magazine journalist and tackled the role of wife and mother with an enthusiasm and ability which had surprised everyone, not least herself. She had become a brilliant cook and a truly gifted hostess; she ran a household which was a marvel of organisation. The only fat, black blowfly in the ointment was ‘Teresa the Italian Mother-in-Law’. Claire sometimes wondered if the reason Meg fought with Teresa so much was that she was becoming the archetypal Italian mama herself. This modest weatherboard house in Randwick was never big enough when both of them were in it.

Thump! Thump!

And that would be Mamma Mia herself pounding on the laundry door now.

‘Meg . . . Meg! Come out now! Visitors!’

‘Yes, yes, yes. Remarkably, I still have my sense of hearing,’ muttered Meg.

‘Coming,’ she called.

‘Oh, holy hell, what if he’s here?’ wailed Claire.

‘Well, for starters I’d put my top on,’ said Meg, draining her vodka and lime in one go. ‘Will he recognise you with your top on, by the way? Or do you want to go out and say hi in your knickers? That would certainly start the afternoon with a bang, if you’ll pardon the pun.’

‘This isn’t funny, Meg. It really isn’t,’ said Claire with her top over her face.

‘Yes it is, Claire. It’s extremely amusing. I haven’t watched you make an idiot of yourself over a boy in years. Should be just like old times. See you out there.’ And Meg disappeared.

Claire nervously examined herself in the mirror again. She would be seeing Connor for the first time in daylight. And that would probably be the end of that. She’d had barely five hours sleep last night and wasn’t wearing it well. She grimaced and wouldn’t have been surprised if the skin under her eyes had made a crinkling noise like Christmas paper. She pulled the skin of her face back until she looked like a cheerleader with a too-tight ponytail.

Claire had finally realised she was middle-aged while watching 60 Minutes on television, when she saw she was the same age as the Federal Treasurer. She had also started calculating the age of the actors she saw in those old classic black and white movies on the Ted Turner Network. She had never considered what age Doris Day, Sophia Loren and Merle Oberon had been when they starred in those classic love stories. Sadly, she now saw they were at least a decade younger than her.

These days she could never say her age was forty-five without thinking, it’s five years until I’m fifty, fifteen years until I turn sixty, twenty-five years until I’m seventy . . . and maybe just thirty years until I’m dead. That’s all, thirty years. Thirty more Christmas days . . . less than the forty-five Christmas days she’d already had. And she hadn’t even started yet.

Claire slicked lip gloss on her mouth and took one last look in the mirror. She also saw the WRONG WAY GO BACK sign. She knew she was already hurtling towards it. She hitched up her bra straps, stuck out her chin and braced herself for the impact.

‘Hi there, Mum!’ Dermott bounded across the deck to plant a sloppy kiss on the side of Claire’s face. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. She may have lost a stepdaughter, but she’d gained a golden retriever puppy.

‘Hello there, Dermott darling. Congratulations again!’ She smiled and pecked him back. Claire saw that Dermott loved Rose with his whole heart. She hoped that would be enough.

‘Rose, you look tired, and very happy.’ There was a lingering hug for her.

Rose was now a wife. Two months shy of her thirtieth birthday. When Claire had come into her life she had been twenty-three and was still aching for her dead mother. Claire had stepped into the role of big sister and they had come to love each other dearly. They had made a pact years ago to tell each other everything.

‘Ah, it’s the O’Hanrahans, to be sure, to be sure,’ said Charlie in his crap Irish accent. He stepped forward and caught Rose and Dermott up in an enthusiastic embrace.

Then it was Meg, Tony and Teresa’s turn to shower them with double Italian kisses.

There was a thundering noise as five children hurtled from the garden and threw themselves on top of the newlyweds.

‘MaxSophiaStephanieNicholas—get off, get off!’ Meg shouted the names of her four children as if they were one eight-legged, eight-armed beast.

‘Enough now,’ laughed Meg. ‘Look, here’s some ice-blocks and bags of chips. Off you go.’

The children fell on the tray like the flock of seagulls in Finding Nemo. ‘Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine,’ they chanted and then thundered back across the deck into the garden with their booty held aloft.

The smallest child was Madeline, but she was also the swiftest. Claire watched with pride as her daughter bounded away on skinny little legs, her blonde ponytail bobbing behind her.

Claire took the opportunity to make a quick reconnaissance of the entire deck and garden. There was no Connor. She registered a sickening thud of disappointment, instantly followed by a wave of relief. There would be time after all to calm her nerves and arrange herself seductively in a deckchair.

Stop, wrong way, go back, Claire thought. She was losing her nerve rapidly. She reached for a tray of champagne glasses and offered them around. ‘I think it’s time for another toast,’ she said brightly. ‘Here’s to the first day of the rest of your lives!’ She held her glass to the sun and watched the light refract through the lacework of bubbles.

The rest of your lives. In effect, it was, if you didn’t believe in the afterlife, eternity. Was it a blessing or a curse on a newlywed couple? There was no way you could comprehend what ‘the rest of your life’ meant. The older you got, the more you realised that your life was such a mean little allocation in the great span of time. It wasn’t fair that you had to share your life with anyone. And spend so much of it searching for The One to do it with. She looked at Charlie happily holding up his glass and in that moment saw him as a total stranger. ‘Who are you, grey-haired man in blue shirt?’ she wondered.

There was an enthusiastic clinking of glasses.

‘Oh jeez, the rest of their lives! Don’t say that, Claire, you’ll frighten the hell out of them,’ Meg teased, as usual reading Claire’s mind.

‘Now, Meg—’ Charlie put on his earnest voice—‘there’s something we always say at men’s group: “Nobody’s ready for marriage. Marriage makes you ready for marriage.”’ He looked meaningfully at Rose and Dermott.

Meg and Claire exchanged a look.

‘Yep, there he goes again, thinking all the time,’ nodded Tony.

‘You’re pissed already, Tony,’ said Meg. She had put down her glass and was noisily moving a pile of cutlery from one end of the table to the other.

‘I am not! What Charlie’s saying is true. You’ve just got to jump in and hope for the best. There’s no way out, you have to sink or swim. Right, Charlie?’

‘Well, not exactly . . .’ Charlie looked skyward and took on the air of a parish priest about to deliver the Sunday homily. Claire considered grabbing the barbecue fork and stabbing him through the neck. He went on in lofty tone: ‘Marriage is about hard work, not luck. It’s about listening to your partner and achieving good communication. It’s about hearing their needs and wants and trying to accommodate and validate them.’

Really? thought Claire. Well right now I want four masked men to arrive, throw me in the back of a truck, blindfold me, strip me naked and take me to a secret location where they make me suck their dicks under the table while they play cards. How about that, Mr Hard Work and Communication? Think you can validate that?

‘When I was young married girl in Naples,’ said Teresa, now producing a metre-high pepper grinder from her apron, ‘No talking. You don’t want to talk to men. They go off all day to work and talk about girls. You stay with the women, talk about children. This works. Men and women always different. No understand.’ Teresa banged the pepper grinder on the table and marched off to the kitchen.

All eyes turned to the pepper grinder and saw it for what it was—a giant phallus. Claire realised that Teresa’s dead husband Luciano had made an appearance at the gathering.

‘Well, that’s the most insightful thing she’s ever said,’ Meg announced.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ protested Tony.

‘What your mother says is true. You’ve got no idea what I go through with these kids every day and you don’t want to know.’ Meg had seen an opportunity to plonk her longstanding agenda on the table next to the monstrous plate of antipasto and was determined not to miss it.

‘Oh Christ, not this again!’ Tony flung the meat on the grill. Meg turned on her heel and also marched off to the kitchen.

The sound of sizzling sausages was all anyone heard for a good ten seconds.

‘So, Rose . . . Dermott.’ Charlie the radio announcer rushed to fill the embarrassing void. ‘You still haven’t told us. Where are you going on your honeymoon?’

Rose and Dermott clutched at each other as if their honeymoon tickets read ‘Titanic Cruise. One Way’.

After this rocky start the sunny afternoon wandered on in relative domestic peace and harmony.

No Connor.

Children were fed and watered. Relatives and friends arrived to drop off gifts for Rose and Dermott. The table was emptied and replenished by Meg and Teresa. Tony and Charlie stoked then restoked the barbecue. Dermott’s mate chucked his rubber thong on the hotplate as a hilarious gag or by mistake—no one was quite sure.

No Connor.

The well-wishers had said their goodbyes and left. Car doors slammed. There was the obligatory hunt for an elderly aunt’s set of keys. The growing pile of empty wine bottles chimed at regular intervals like a grandfather clock. The world record for the number of cigarette butts jammed in one beer bottle top was broken. The embers of the barbecue gave a last heroic splutter and died away.

Still no Connor.

The girls were in one bedroom watching Sleeping Beauty. The boys were in the other playing Spiderman on the Xbox. Mother Teresa had cleaned what she could and if she had had a roll of yellow ‘Do Not Cross Crime Scene’ tape she would have strung it around the kitchen. It would have to be left until morning. She grumbled and stomped off to bed. Tony had carried out the bottles, scraped down the hotplate and polished his tongs.

And still, no bloody Connor.

There was no rational reason for it, but Claire felt like weeping uncontrollably. Like prostrating herself on the back lawn and crying like a baby. It couldn’t have felt worse if it had been the end of a four-year relationship and he’d run off with another woman. Or said he wouldn’t leave his wife. Or that he couldn’t make a commitment because being happy stifled his creativity. Or all the other reasons in the past why Claire hadn’t been The One at This Particular Moment. Not that she wasn’t intelligent, beautiful and, who knows, one day in the future blah, blah, fucking blah! She couldn’t help but feel she had been dumped. And, this time, by a boy half her age.

She wandered into this familiar emotional territory and let herself feel the pain. It was all quite comforting in a strange way. The only trouble was, Claire hadn’t been dumped. She was, at This Particular Moment, very, very married. She looked over into the darkened garden to see Tony and Dermott standing in front of the four-wheel drive. The man with them, deep in conversation, was Charlie, her husband. She had been married to him for seven years and, as he told her every day, they would be together for eternity.

Claire leaned back in her deckchair and looked up at the stars. There it was. Eternity. People said the universe stretched on forever but from where she was sitting she could quite plainly see all of it. It went from the palm tree to the carport. Not very impressive, really. She could see the end of eternity right there near that lamppost. She figured her star had traversed more than halfway across the heavens and its brightness was already dimming. She watched as it slipped behind a bank of clouds and disappeared. Claire could feel the tears pooling just behind her mascara. There was only one solution. More alcohol.

‘He’s not coming.’ Meg caught Claire rooting about in the back of the fridge for another bottle of white.

‘I can see that, Meg.’ Claire was now in no mood for her straight talk.

‘Who’s not coming?’ Rose appeared, holding out her empty wineglass.

‘Um . . . oh . . .’ Meg was caught, a rabbit in the headlights of the Westinghouse. She casually took the bottle from Claire and found the corkscrew. ‘Just a friend of Dermott’s I met last night at the wedding. Connor . . . can’t remember his last name. Some friend from school apparently.’

‘Connor Carmody?We didn’t invite him to the wedding. What was he doing there?’ Rose’s voice had a surprisingly sharp edge.

Meg looked at Claire with a pained ‘explanation please’. Claire began talking, hoping her mind would catch up. ‘I think he was at the wedding next door. He just popped in to give you and Dermott his congratulations,’ she offered calmly. She could feel her cheeks burning.

‘You met him too, Claire?’ asked Rose.

‘Uh-huh.’ Claire’s voice came from inside the fridge, where she had ducked to avoid the interrogation and cool down her head. ‘Seems like a nice bloke.’

‘So he’s supposed to be coming here?’ Rose sounded tense.

Meg also caught Rose’s tone of voice and ran interference. ‘I invited him. Is there a problem, Rose?’

Rose poured herself a glass of wine and heaved herself up on the kitchen bench and Meg did likewise. Claire forced an air of nonchalance, although her mind had begun racing again at the mention of Connor’s name.

‘No, no problem. It’s just . . . well, I feel stupid complaining when we’ve only been married twenty-four hours . . .’ Rose looked at her companions for encouragement.

Meg hooted, ‘It’s never to early to start bitching about your husband.’

‘Yeah,’ added Claire. ‘Might as well get in training for the habit of a lifetime!’

Rose had come to the right place. The Whingers Club was now in session.

‘It’s just that Dermott has so many friends. Everywhere we go there’s another one! And you know what he’s like . . . come over, let’s go fishing, let’s go to the footy, let’s go to the pub. I hope he realises that from now on I’m his best friend. I hope he realises that marriage comes first . . . that’s all.’ Rose was biting her lip.

Claire sighed with relief that she was off the hook. Here at least was well-trodden ground. ‘You have to realise, Rose, that men gather mates like barnacles on a barge.’ Claire had invented this line and was quite pleased with it.

‘Yeah. Every now and then you have to go around and scrape ’em off,’ Meg added.

The women all laughed.

Claire offered another of her theories. ‘You know, I’ve always thought that men and women approach marriage quite differently. It’s the same way they buy a house.’

Meg and Rose were all ears.

Claire continued, ‘Well, men see an average little house covered with climbing roses, smoke coming out of the chimney and an apple tree out the back, and they fall in love with it on the spot. They think it’s perfect, just perfect. And later on, when they discover that the floorboards are sagging or there aren’t enough bedrooms, they can’t believe what they’ve actually bought and they get rid of it and buy an ultra-modern duplex with a spa and pool.

‘Women see the same little house with the roses and apple tree and think it’s perfect. All it needs is a new roof, restumping, a couple of extra bedrooms, a new kitchen and a paint job. It’s absolutely perfect. They lovingly renovate it over the years and keep it forever.’

‘So you mean . . .?’ said Rose, who was clearly lost with this one.

‘What I’m saying is that women fall in love with a man’s potential. Don’t be worried if you feel there’re a few problems with Dermott. That’s half the fun. Fixing him up. I reckon all women see their husbands as a renovator’s opportunity.’

Meg was warming to the theme and added, ‘You know something, Rose, from what I’ve seen being married to an Italian, here’s how it goes. From the time boys are born their fathers tell them: “Son, your mother’s a saint, an absolute saint. All you have to do is find someone like her and you will be the luckiest man alive.” At the same time, the mothers are telling their daughters: “You’ll find a man, he won’t be perfect, but just make do. Do the best you can with what you get.” ’

‘So, does that work?’ Rose was clearly not doing a lot better with Meg’s theory.

‘Of course it does!’ Meg cried. ‘Women are here to organise men. Our whole life’s work is convincing them we are already perfect and one day, if they work at it hard enough, they can be perfect too!’ And here Meg laughed so much she slid off the kitchen bench into a heap on the floor.

Claire looked at Meg rolling on the slate tiles with her legs and arms in the air and was reminded of a Christmas beetle which had landed upside down and couldn’t get up again. She doubled up laughing herself.

‘Need a hand there?’ came a voice from the doorway. The three women turned to see a tall, broad figure silhouetted in the light from the deck. Connor.

They all jumped to as if they’d been caught smoking behind the sheltersheds by the headmaster. Meg climbed up from the floor and rearranged her skirt, Rose slid from the bench and smoothed her hair and Claire stood and set her wineglass on the table, sloshing the contents everywhere. She noticed her hand was shaking and hoped no one else had.

Meg found her voice first. ‘Well, hello there. Connor, isn’t it? We weren’t expecting anyone quite this late.’

Connor stepped into the light of the kitchen. He looked so . . . Claire thought the word was probably ‘vivid’. His green eyes were set off by a sarong of almost exactly the same shade and his bare tanned arms, contrasted gorgeously against his white singlet. His skin was the colour of a newly baked biscuit. This was all topped with a mop of wild brown curls which had been bleached by the sun to translucent platinum at the ends.

Claire reminded herself to keep breathing.

‘Yeah, I’m really sorry I’m so late. I got caught up today. You should have seen the waves at Northie! I couldn’t get out of the water.’ Connor flashed a huge dazzling smile and the picture of perfection was complete.

‘I just dropped in, really. I’m going away tomorrow for a couple of weeks . . .’

A couple of weeks! Claire’s heart stopped.

‘. . . and I promised to call in and congratulate the happy couple. I missed talking to you last night, Rose—I was on duty at the wedding next door—but I did see you. You made a very beautiful bride. Congratulations.’

Connor leaned forward to kiss Rose and there was a momentary fumble as she offered her hand at the same time. He took her hand and pulled her towards him and got his kiss anyway.

‘Um . . . thanks, Connor,’ said Rose shyly. ‘You know my stepmother, Claire?’

‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ he said, turning to Claire. She looked at him with alarm. A small script adjustment was needed here!

‘I think we did meet,’ stammered Claire. ‘It was outside on the deck, you probably don’t remember.’

‘Oh, sorry, of course. Claire! Hello again.’ She noticed he changed gear very smoothly. He leaned forward and kissed Claire lightly on the cheek. She saw he had a dusting of salt on his eyelashes and thought she’d like to start there and then lick the salt from his entire body.

‘Drink, Connor?’ asked Meg, keen to put an end to this tender moment.

‘No thanks, Peg—’

‘Meg,’ she corrected him.

‘Meg, sorry! No thanks, Meg. I’m literally just passing by. I have to get home and pack.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Claire enthusiastically, hoping to keep the desperate whine out of her voice.

‘Oh, up Queensland here and there. I’m a landscape gardener and I’m going to look at a few tropical gardens. Get some ideas for some inner city patio designs I’m working on. I try to get up there a couple of times a year. Catch some waves at the same time.’

Oh, take me with you! Claire screamed to herself. We could sleep on the beach together in the warm sand. Make love by moonlight with the surf lapping our toes. I’ll watch you digging in the garden with your shirt off! I’ll . . . fill your whipper-snipper. Aaargh! Take me with you!

‘Sounds wonderful,’ she managed in a strangled sort of whisper.

‘Rosie sweetheart, time for us to get moving, I think,’ said Dermott, stepping into the kitchen.

Meg piped up. ‘Now come on, you two, you still haven’t told us where you’re going on this honeymoon of yours!’ She had been trying to get the information out of them all afternoon.

‘No way, Meg!’ Dermott was determined to keep his elaborate secret. ‘We’re staying at the hotel at the airport tonight so none of you can come and see us off. You’ll get the postcards.’

‘Connor, great to see you again, mate, and we’ll definitely catch up when we get back.’ Dermott and Connor shook hands heartily. ‘Come and see the new small-business software I’ve been working on. I think it could be perfect for your landscaping outfit.’

‘Oh, which reminds me,’ said Connor. ‘I wanted to give you these,’ and he handed around his business cards: ‘The Green Wave’ printed alongside an illustration of a bloke with a wheelbarrow walking through a curling barrel of leaves. Cute.

Then the group, led by Meg, was making leaving noises and heading out the door. Claire was alarmed to see everyone going. It was as if a spotlight of intense heat had been turned on in the kitchen and was now about to be turned off, leaving her in the dark once more.

When the others were just out of sight Connor turned and blocked her way. He looked straight into Claire’s eyes and whispered urgently, ‘If you want to get in touch with me, my numbers are on the card. Sorry I have to go. But it is only fourteen days. When I get back, who knows? You might have a few neglected corners which could do with a strong back, a good eye and an able pair of hands.’ And then he leaned down and bit her hard on the neck.

Claire was rocked by a jolt of energy which ran the length of her body.

‘Yeah. I remembered you like that.’ He grinned that luscious grin she recognised from the night before. He turned and was across the yard behind the others in an instant.

Claire fell back against the fridge and fought for breath. She was still in shock when Rose doubled back to the kitchen to kiss her again. She nodded dumbly as Rose hugged her and said goodbye once more.

When Meg returned to find her, Claire finally managed to utter just three vowel sounds: ‘Oh’, ‘Oh’ and ‘Oh’.

Monday

Two Weeks and Counting

‘Well, from everything you’ve told me, Claire, it sounds like you’re perimenopausal.’

This was said in a warm and comforting voice as the doctor leaned forward over her desk. She had clasped her clean, manicured hands in a pleasing arrangement. It was as if, Claire thought, she said this sort of thing casually to women every day. Which, of course, she did. But it hadn’t been said to Claire before. Periowhat? was her first thought, which the doctor must have anticipated, because she went on in the same pleasing tone.

‘You’re about the right age. For the majority of women the menopause happens over the ten-year period from about forty-five to fifty-five. Now, during that time your ovarian function and hormone production decline and the body gradually adjusts itself to these changes.’

There was still no word from Claire. The doctor took this as her cue to step out from behind her desk and refer to a wall chart populated with a rainbow of nude women. She pointed to the red woman at the bottom, which, apparently, was Claire. Her transition would take her through orange, yellow and blue until, at the age of seventy or so, she’d end up as a rather vivid lavender.

Claire noted that Dr Martin was wearing a very stylish wool bouclé suit, high heels and lots of pearls, which seemed an odd sort of outfit for looking up women’s vaginas eight hours a day. But then again, what sort of attire was suitable? A floral apron and matching oven mitts?

‘We also call it the “climacteric”, which means “critical phase” and comes from the Greek word also meaning “rungs of a ladder”. So when you’re perimenopausal, you’ve pretty much just got your foot on the first step.’

A ladder? That was ironic since Claire felt, at this exact moment, as if she was sliding down a snake.

‘Now, Claire. I know you must have lots of questions. But the main thing I want you to know is that this time of life can be fantastically liberating. It’s vital that you develop a positive attitude and that . . .’

Claire didn’t hear much more. She was distracted by the sound of two small muffled explosions, which she took to be her ovaries spontaneously combusting.

Invisible. Isn’t that what they say you become? Claire wished she could be invisible right now as she slid two slim volumes on menopause over the counter at the bookshop. It was amazing to think that just over an hour ago she was a vital young mother dropping her six year old off at the local primary school, chatting with other young mums about the canteen roster, and now, here she was, a foot soldier in the great grey army of menopausal women.

It was true, these women had been invisible to Claire, but she now saw they were everywhere. In fact, if menopausal women were an army then the Edgecliff shopping centre was command central. They were massing in the Medicare office, the optometrists, the hairdressers. They were marching in columns through the supermarket, the fruit shop and the newsagent. And the doctor could point at her rainbow chart of coloured women, but the army had chosen its own uniform of blue, brown and beige, accessorised with comfy shoes and an armful of white plastic bags.

Were they a liberation army? Now free of the daily routines and indulging in passions for the literature they had never had time to read and the gourmet cooking they had always wanted to master but which children would never eat? Or were they a spent force? Reduced to buying roughage from the fruit shop to get their sluggish bowels working and crossword books to fill in the endless tracts of time stretching before them?

Thankfully, the girl behind the counter—who looked about twenty-two—bagged the books without looking at the titles. (Would Claire calculate the age of every woman she saw now? Had she acquired some weird obsessive-compulsive menopause disorder? She’s twenty-five; she’s thirty-two; she’s forty-seven; she’s sixty-one.)

Claire thought that, oddly enough, there was probably some 45-year-old man over at the other counter desperately trying to hide his Big, Blonde and Bouncy magazines. If there was such a thing as male menopause that’s probably the way men would cope with it. Embark on some Jack Nicholson inspired road trip of young chicks, porno magazines and Viagra. While she would probably do what almost every woman before her had done. Go into herself. Read the books, contemplate and be reborn. But as what? A glove-wearing, turtle-necked Diane Keaton? A moth, she thought ruefully. You could dress it in Donna Karan full-length cream satin, but everyone saw it for what it was. A moth on a big night out.

She recalled the doctor’s words: It’s vital that you develop a positive attitude. Which was a revealing statement. If you had to force yourself to feel good about menopause, it meant the reality would be truly fucking awful.

She headed for the last vacant table in a drab little coffee shop. Not that there weren’t plenty of empty chairs, it was just that every single woman there had commandeered a table for herself and her pile of nasty plastic bags. As she negotiated herself to the empty table Claire felt all eyes upon her. It was the ruthless assessment of the older woman she hated most. Their mean little eyes raked you up and down, recording every detail and then dismissing you with contempt. She would rather have braved a dozen blokes on a building site any day.

Claire vividly recalled an autumn afternoon, a long time ago, when she had sashayed past a truck-loading bay in a tiny red and white skirt, her long shapely legs finishing in a pair of black satin Charles Jourdan high heels. She could still hear the slack-jawed silence, the sound of a hundred cardboard cartons hitting the deck as fifty men turned to take in the vision of her flimsy skirt being blown above her waist. Even now, twenty years later, she recalled their mighty cheers of approval with a smile. While she knew that she was supposed to have endured their male oppression with stoic indifference, instead she felt more powerful that day than she had in her entire life. She had merely fluttered her wings and every male in her radius could feel the disturbance in the air.

‘Here’s your raisin toast, love.’ The sad little quilts of toast flipped off the side of the plate as it was dumped on the table. ‘And your tea.’ More clunks followed.

Claire watched the woman in the black apron retreat to her sentry post behind the counter and estimated her to be about forty-nine. She was doing it again. Obsessively. Compulsively.

She opened the first book and scanned the contents page. The doors swung open on a nightmarish world. ‘Hot flushes, night sweats, weight gain, osteoporosis, cancers, lowering of the voice, bloating, uro-genital complaints, skin, hair, eye mouth and nail symptoms, emotional symptoms, intellectual symptoms . . .’ and on it went. When she got down the page to ‘loss of libido’ she flicked the cover shut.

She scanned the faces of the women sitting in the café. They were giving nothing away—just staring blankly into the middle distance as they stirred their tea or twirled their cake forks. She wanted to smash her ugly thick white china cup into the nearest permed head. Fuck all of you! With your bloody padded coathangers, lavender sachets, rhyming greeting cards and stinking chocolate rumballs!

You’ve all managed to keep this thing pretty quiet, haven’t you? Apart from an odd little nudge or a whisper: ‘Oooh, er, it must be The Change.’ How many of you sat there at the family Christmas dinner like smiling, contented boiled puddings while you were secretly nursing your cramps, headaches, swollen ankles and sore breasts? How many of you passed on a game of charades because you were secretly worried you might wee your pants? How many of you spent time in the bathroom quietly patching up your make-up after a hot flush left you dripping with sweat and shame?

And none of you ever told anyone. You thought you may as well just keep it all quiet and sell my generation down the river too! Claire tried to recall if her mother had ever told her anything about it . . . or her grandmother . . . or her aunts. She came up with nothing. She felt like the victim of some vast conspiracy of silence.

‘Bugger this!’ she said loudly as she stood abruptly. Cake forks stopped twirling and cups of tea hovered in midair as all eyes turned to her.

Overcome with an impulse she couldn’t fully understand, Claire took her plate and dumped it on the counter. ‘I can’t eat raisin toast. I have to watch my weight. I’ve just found out I’m perimenopausal,’ she announced to the startled waitress. ‘It’s only five years until I turn from bright red to a nasty drab shade of orange. I haven’t got much time so I have to go and have a lot of sex.’

The women were clearly unimpressed with this piece of unsavoury information. They bent their heads to investigate their fruit tarts and poppyseed cakes in minute detail. When, out of the corners of their eyes, they saw Claire gather her bags, they knew it was safe to look up again. They watched her march purposefully towards the door, pausing only to dump two brand new books into the rubbish bin.

Once she reached the darkened floor of the car park Claire could feel her mask of cheerful defiance starting to slip. Her eyes were beginning to fill up like a leaky pair of swimming goggles. All she had to do was make it to the car.

Where was the car?

She clattered down the concrete stairs and peered through the gloom of the filthy bunker. She was looking for the shiny silver roof of her new Peugeot 307 five-door, which may as well have been invisible. There was no way she could see it through the gleaming fortress of four-wheel drives in front of her. Where was the bloody car?

Now Claire was running along row after row of massive chrome bulldozers. She cursed as she twisted the right heel of her Patrick Cox pink leather kitten heels and cursed again as she fell against the filthy bonnet of a Landcruiser. As she wrenched the shoes off her feet and stuffed them into her handbag, she thought of those sensible old women patrolling the shopping centre in their comfy sandals. Their feet always reminded her of Christmas stockings full of mixed nuts. That’s what you get if you wear high heels and you’re over forty! Bunions and Bad Legs. Just another grim signpost on the road to old age.

She ran in bare feet through the patches of oil and grease. Please, please, please, oh please, where is the car?

She started crying hard. Tears ran from her eyes, snot ran from her nose. Funny, she thought, they reckon you dry up as you get older. Well, you don’t really. Your vagina might dry up, but your eyes are never far from tears. You don’t lubricate, you lachrymate. Ha! Like old blokes who lose hair from their heads and start growing it on their backs!

And that, she thought bitterly, was exactly the kind of fucked-up smart-arsed observation she always produced in a crisis. Here she was, standing barefoot in a patch of black sump oil in a filthy car park, and that was the best she could come up with. Claire stopped running. Her chin dropped to her chest and tears splashed down her cheeks. She felt herself cracking, breaking and falling away into utter despair. Her Prada handbag loosened from her grip and Claire crumpled to her knees.

And there was the car. Its headlights were level with her eyes down there on the concrete floor. She grovelled for her bag and staggered over to the door. A fumble and beep and wrench and tumble and she was inside. She slammed the door, almost severing her own right ankle, and she was safe.

Claire wiped the oil from her knees with a tissue. She was snug in her little extruded plastic cocoon and sat for some time marshalling her thoughts. She had always been proud of her ability to think through a situation with calm and logic, and this episode of blind panic had caught her by surprise.

She knew the fate of her body was inevitable. She tried to think of a snippet of wisdom which might be comforting. I continue neither crushed by the present, nor fearing the future. For such a thing as this might have happened to any man. Marcus Aurelius Antonius, 160-something AD. It was her favourite saying but a bit useless in this situation since this was never going to happen to any man on the face of the earth. And any woman who lived to be forty-five in Ancient Rome was probably left on a hillside to have her uterus pecked at by buzzards. She couldn’t think of anything else except: ‘Shit Happens.’

Of course she had known for years that her menopause would soon be proclaimed. Her menstrual cycle, always as regular as a clock, had begun to skip time. She had found herself skimming newspaper articles about hormone replacement therapy in an idle sort of way, as if in some far-off abstract future they might apply to her. Also, logically, she knew that nothing had changed. Looking in the rear-view mirror she saw the same face she’d seen the day before. Not that different from the face she had looked at in her twenties.

In truth, Claire knew she had sailed into her forties remarkably intact. She didn’t like the sun and had never been seen outdoors for the past twenty-five years without the Australian equivalent of a burqa—sunhat, sunscreen, sunglasses and sleeves. Her swaddling had been something of a joke back then when all the girls were lying on the beach ladled with olive oil, a row of suckling pigs sizzling on a grill. While all the women she knew had fetched up on the shores of their forties looking as if they’d been adrift for a month in a life raft, Claire had wafted down the gangplank of a luxury liner. A tall, milky-skinned, green-eyed beauty, her chestnut hair shaded by an expansive picture hat.

So, logically, Claire knew she was ahead of the game. She was physically attractive, healthy, happily married, the mother of a divine little girl. She had a lovely home in a wealthy suburb, a successful career as a singer. She had friends, money, sixty pairs of expensive shoes (at last count) and a Platinum Amex Card. Altogether she was a rather tidy and impressive paragraph under the headline ‘Local Girl Makes Good’. So why, illogically, did she want to fuck everything up by ringing Connor?

Claire upended her little black leather handbag onto the passenger seat. First she found her cigarettes and jammed one into her mouth. By the glow of the lighter she could see her face in the windscreen.

‘What the hell are you looking at?’ she said to the accusing self she saw there. She took a defiant deep drag of tobacco.

She retrieved the business card she’d carefully stashed in the zipped pocket of the bag, read the name Connor Carmody and punched his number into her mobile phone before she had time to think.

It rang.

Claire puffed her cigarette again and realised her hands were shaking.

It rang some more.

Her ears were thumping as if her heartbeat was coming through the stereo speakers in the car doors.

It diverted.

‘Hello. This is The Green Wave and I’m Connor Carmody. I’d love to talk to you, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a good one. Bye.’

Oddly, Claire did two things at the same time—opened her mouth to speak and pressed the button to hang up. She stubbed her cigarette out and leaned back into the velour seat with a deep sigh of . . . She tried to accurately locate the feeling. It was an irritating blank. A No-Man’s Land existing somewhere between the trenches of relief and disappointment.

Then Claire felt her body flood with a warm, liquid sensation. She was thinking of him. Again. Thinking of how his hard white teeth had bitten into the palest part of her neck, just hard enough to send a message of panic to her nipples. Thinking of how his knee had pushed between her thighs and lifted her from the ground, pinning her helplessly to the door like a butterfly in a picture frame. And she was thinking of how he had roughly hauled up her skirt so that the warm cheeks of her bottom had been covered in goosebumps when they met the cold steel door of the cubicle.

It was as if warm honey was being poured through her navel, was coursing through her pelvis and then seeping into the cotton of her knickers.

Claire knew what had to be done and she also knew this was highly inappropriate behaviour for the underground car park of the Edgecliff shopping centre. She smiled at the word ‘inappropriate’—the grammatical equivalent of Wite-Out. The word you used when you wanted to say: ‘Only some kind of oversexed slut would bring herself off in her car in a public place.’

But it was dark and private enough, and she eased her fingers though the elastic at the top of her thigh and found her clitoris. It was already buzzing like a bee drowning in the warm, wet folds of some carnivorous plant. Her fingers slowly worked the velvety petals as she gave herself up to her imagination.

This time she didn’t push Connor away. This time he was on his knees in front of her, tugging at her lace undies and parting her thighs with his strong hands sticky with coconut board wax. She looked down and wove her fingers through the tangle of golden curls which were stiff and coarse with sea spray. She pulled Connor’s head into her and his hot mouth was on those wet, puffy lips. Claire could feel his tongue slip through the slit and lazily trace circles on the sensitive folds beneath.

Her fingers moved faster. He was now sucking her clitoris and she could feel the energy of her body concentrating into the long, fine peak of a wave. Then he stopped sucking and was still. Claire took her fingers away for a moment and breathed deeply.

The wave receded. Then Connor’s tongue was at her again and so were her slippery fingers. This time the wave was bigger. It had redoubled its energy and Claire knew she couldn’t stand against it. Claire arched her back as the wave rolled relentlessly though her, sweeping her away. She spread her limbs like a starfish washed up on the sand. Then she drew her legs up to her stomach and wrapped her arms across her breasts until the tide subsided and eventually became a small tingling eddy lapping at the ends of her fingers and toes. Claire sighed and dropped her forehead forward onto the steering wheel.

PAAAAARP! The car horn ricocheted through the concrete bunker like a small cannon.

Claire jerked her head up to see a terrified old woman standing in the middle of a cascade of falling oranges. They were rolling under cars in every direction. A burly bloke in overalls was soon at the scene of the crime gathering the fruit back into a white plastic bag.

He strode to the car window and rapped loudly. His voice was muffled, but his words were clear enough. ‘Hey, you . . . girlie! Whaddya think you’re doing? Why would you scare an old lady like that? Why don’t you grow up?’

As Claire lurched from her parking space she was struck by the face of the woman who was clutching her handbag to the front of her grey woolly coat. It’s right what they say on the television, she was no doubt thinking. The world’s not safe anymore. Claire wondered what she would think if she knew she hadn’t been a victim of road rage but the collateral damage of a lone masturbator.

As she handed over her money to the man in the booth at the car park exit, she wondered if he could smell sex on her fingers. She hoped so.

Her little silver car smoothly entered the artery of traffic on New South Head Road.

‘Girlie—he called me girlie!’ Claire whooped. She caught her laughing eyes in the rear-vision mirror, changed up into fourth and was soon gone from sight.

That night, with Madeline tucked up in bed in the room next door, Claire leaned back against the scarlet silk embroidered pillows of the king-sized bed and watched her husband Charlie go about his pre-bed routine.

He set the alarm for 7 am, laid out his jeans and sneakers and reverently approached the shrine in the corner of the bedroom. In this instance the place of worship was a large wooden cupboard which, by conservative estimates, contained five hundred rock’n’roll tour T-shirts.

In the first year of their marriage, Claire had almost committed the unpardonable sin of trying to chuck out the oldest ripped ones from down the very bottom of the pile. Charlie had rescued them from a cardboard box near the wheelie bin. Almost hyperventilating with emotion, he had explained to his new wife that his T-shirts were a record of his life. If he had no memory of the eighties—and no one else in the music industry did either— then it was all there on the back of the T-shirts.

She had rolled her eyes, but got the message. So now she chucked a lavender sachet in the cupboard every six months, slammed the door and vacuumed around it. She had, however, recently come to a new appreciation of his collection after reading in Harper’s Bazaar that the shirts were not ‘old’ anymore, they were ‘vintage’ and worth as much as $1000 each.

The one he had chosen to wear to work tomorrow was a classic from Jethro Tull. The ‘Too Old to Rock and Roll, Too Young to Die’ tour of 1978.

Claire was flicking through a Vanity Fair and idly thinking about giving Charlie a blow job. It had been three weeks since the preparations for Rose and Dermott’s wedding had swamped their lives. Three weeks since they’d had sex. She could see Charlie had that antsy, distracted demeanour of a deprived man. Not that she had missed it. That was the funny thing about her sex drive (and most women’s, she suspected)—if you didn’t have it, you didn’t miss it. But once that switch was flicked! It was like the central heating being turned on for the first time in autumn. You wondered how you had got along without it and the warm, humming, low burn of desire was with you all day. The fire had to be constantly stoked to keep it blazing, otherwise it just quietly burned down to ashes until the next time.

Claire’s encounter with Connor had ignited a conflagration that was threatening to raze the entire house. She could almost hear the news story: ‘By the time the fire brigade arrived Claire Elise Sellwyn-Wallace was well alight. Bystanders could only watch as she was completely gutted. Firefighters reported the suspicious smell of coconut oil at the scene. The arson squad is investigating.’

Now Charlie was kneeling on the floor kissing her toes. Claire could see his quizzical eyebrows above the top of her Chanel ‘Rouge Noir’ toenails and knew he was thinking about sex too. ‘And how’s my gorgeous Claire Bear?’

Claire Bear?! Fuck! If that wasn’t a passion killer.

‘Don’t call me Claire Bear,’ she heard herself whine. Charlie stopped kissing and patted her feet with a sigh. He threw the overstuffed pillows down on the floor and climbed into bed.

That small sigh said it all. These days Claire and Charlie just seemed out of sync somehow. It was as if they were two old room-mates trying to negotiate sex for the first time.

They both retreated to their corners and thought about the next move. It came from Charlie, who was clearly a man on a mission. ‘What are you reading?’ It was a nice neutral change of gears, which gave Claire the chance to re-engage.

‘Oh, nothing much. I’m just looking at these pictures of Michelle Pfeiffer.’

‘Lemme see. Hmm, she looks good for an older woman,’ said Charlie, unaware that he was about to stumble into a hidden menopausal swamp.

‘Why does everyone have to say “good for an older woman”? Why can’t people just say “good”,’ said Claire irritably. ‘So how old do you reckon she is?’

‘I dunno. I suppose about thirty-nine.’ Charlie was wading farther out into the swamp until his gumboots were taking on water.

‘And that’s “older”? I’m forty-five. So I suppose that makes me “old”, does it?’ Crocodile Claire rose from the murky depths and took off Charlie’s balls with one neat snap. He at least knew enough to stay very quiet and hopefully avoid another savaging.

Claire slammed her magazine shut and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I went to the gynaecologist today. She says I’m perimenopausal.’

‘And what does that mean?’ asked Charlie as he diplomatically moved his now flaccid penis off Claire’s leg.

‘Oh, heavy periods, mood swings, night sweats, weight gain, dry fanny, cancer . . . just the usual.’

Charlie considered this information and knew his next move was crucial.

‘Well, honey. You’ve stuck with me—man-boobs, love handles, bald patch and all—so I guess I’ll stick with you. Besides, I’m fifty-five, so to me you’ll always be a young chick.’ He reached over and drew her into his arms.

Phew! Love-all. Claire moulded herself to the familiar contours of Charlie’s chest and breathed in the smell of him. If she was a perfumer she would have described his fragrance as having velvety undertones of butterscotch and hay with a top note of . . . soy sauce? Or something like that. She couldn’t describe his smell. It was indelibly Charlie and she reckoned that blindfolded she could pick him from a thousand men. She had been with men she could have loved but gave them up because they didn’t smell right. There was something about Charlie’s aroma which made her feel safe and warm. Something which reminded her of her father. One corner of her mind was back in her childhood sitting on Dad’s knee, watching Disneyland on the telly. She felt the tension of the day slipping away. She sighed contentedly.

‘So, would you like to have sex?’

‘FUCK YOU, CHARLIE!’ Claire flailed around for her magazine, grabbed it and whacked Charlie fair across the head.

‘Owww . . . fuck off, Claire!’ Charlie’s hand flew to his eye. ‘That really hurt!’

The corner of the magazine had caused more of an injury than she had intended, but she was too furious to admit it. ‘I’ve just told you probably one of the most important things to ever happen to me in my life and you want sex?’

‘Well, isn’t that what you’re worried about with this whole menopause thing? Ow! My eye!’

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

‘That you think I won’t want to have sex with you anymore.’

‘Why wouldn’t you want to have sex with me anymore?’

‘Because you’re too old.’

There it was. Charlie’s eyes were wide with horror. Up until this point Crocodile Claire only had his balls, now she was dragging him under for the final death roll. Charlie used his last breath as a living man to mount a desperate plea. ‘I mean . . . that’s what YOU think . . . not what I think!’

‘I don’t think I’m too old, Charlie. But maybe you do. Maybe you’re thinking about some young chicky-babe half my age right now!’ Claire shouted.

‘How the fuck would you know what I’m thinking?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t, would I? Because what you think usually doesn’t make any frigging sense to me.’

Both Charlie and Claire knew that this was one of the most pathetic arguments they had ever had. Uninspired, unoriginal, nonsensical. One and a half stars. Claire thought she’d better crank up the drama level. She leapt out of bed, ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. Charlie was out of bed after her.

‘Is this what I have to look forward to?’ he shouted at the door. ‘Years of this bullshit? Is this what a menopausal mood swing is like? Because if it is, I’m out of here. This is crap, Claire. FUCKING CRAP!’

Well, he was right there, Claire had to admit. She looked in the mirror and was crying for the second time that day. Maybe this was a menopausal mood swing? Or maybe it was just Charlie.

Why did he have to ask for sex? Why couldn’t he just take her by surprise? Where was the spontaneous passion? Charlie would come home from the radio station, disappear into his study to read and then reappear hours later mooching around the kitchen looking for dinner. After dinner there would be more reading, television and then bed.

And, yes, there were jokes and conversation for her and cuddles and games for Maddie, but there was an odd absence of sexual intimacy. The stolen kisses at the kitchen sink, the sly squeeze of a breast or a hand slipped up under her skirt to caress her thigh as they bent to make the bed together. That sexual conversation had stopped. And she missed it.

Claire remembered that when she had come home with Maddie from school this afternoon she had crept into Charlie’s study and pressed her breasts against his back as he bent over his computer keyboard. She had leaned to nuzzle his neck just under the collar of his leather jacket and was rewarded by Charlie swatting at her as if she was a bothersome mosquito. Nothing all day, then a quick nibble of a toe and a request for sex. And that, Claire realised, was what she was mad about.

Claire waited in the bathroom until she heard the bedside lamp turned off. She slipped back into bed and as she lay there in the darkness listening to Charlie breathe, she put her fingers between her legs.

‘Now, where were we?’ she whispered to Connor in the silence.

Tuesday

An Indecent Proposal

‘Meg, I have a plan,’ Claire announced.

‘Oh no,’ Meg groaned, ‘why do I have a bad feeling about this?’

‘Hey, come on, I have had some brilliant plans over the years!’

‘Name one.’

‘Um . . . OK. What about when we met those two guys in Paris? Remember? Marek and . . .’

‘Midi?’

Meg and Claire both threw their heads back and laughed at the memory. It was almost twenty years ago at a dingy nightclub in the Marais. Claire could still clearly recall two white double-breasted suit jackets glowing eerily under the fluoro lights on the dance floor. And, bizarrely enough, she could still remember the song that was playing. It was Boney M’s ‘Rivers of Babylon’.

‘Yes—what a pair of Euro dags! Remember what yours said to you?’

‘I can, I can! He leaned over to me and said in his best sexy voice: “Cherie, you have a beautiful eye.” And I couldn’t work out if he meant “arse” or whether I just had one beautiful eye and the other one was quite unattractive.’

Claire was doubled over with laughter. She managed to gasp a question. ‘Do you remember which one you had? Marek or Midi?’

‘Oh jeez . . . I dunno,’ Meg sighed. ‘Did it really matter? They were both bloody awful. But come on, where did your great master plan come into it?’

‘Well,’ said Claire, regaining her composure, ‘I’m the one who found us the escape route through the kitchen near the loo and I’m the one who found the taxi and had enough French verbs to get us home.’

‘That wasn’t a plan!’ exclaimed Meg. ‘That was necessity born out of sheer blind panic. That escape was about as organised as the fall of Saigon!’

‘Well, hello? If we were relying on your grasp of French we would have ended up in bloody Luxembourg.’

‘That is just a lie! My French was absolument better than yours, Claire Sellwyn!’ After seven years Meg had still not got used to the sound of Claire’s married name.

‘Oh really? You’re forgetting I was there the night we went to that five-star restaurant and you had poodle shit on your shoe. And I remember the waiter: “Oui, Madame . . . it’s a fried telephone book and you ordered it.” ’

Meg shrieked again. ‘Oh, I give up. You are evil!’

It was like this whenever Claire and Meg were together. They had shared a bottle of chardonnay sitting on the sunny deck in Meg’s backyard and the stories tumbled and tangled like the family washing in the dryer. Meg offered Claire more fettuccine carbonara and poured another wine.

‘So I’ll ask you again,’ Meg began. ‘What, precisely, is this new great plan of yours and why am I suspicious?’

Claire settled back into her chair and focused. She was clear about what she was going to say but she also expected a fight.

‘Right. Well, Meg, I told you about Connor and everything that stirred up inside me. And I have come up with an idea.’

‘Hmm,’ Meg interrupted. ‘I figured his name would be mentioned today. Go on.’

‘I want to throw a going-away party for my ovaries.’

‘You what? What are you talking about? Where are your ovaries going?’ Meg was used to Claire’s odd pronouncements, but this one bordered on the bizarre.

‘Listen, listen. I told you about all the perimenopausal stuff at the doctor. What it actually means is the end of my sex life.’

‘That’s utter crap, Claire! It doesn’t mean any such thing! You have years, decades ahead of you as a sexually active woman.’ Meg wanted to take her friend and shake her hard.

Now it was Claire’s turn to raise her voice and interrupt. ‘Alright, alright, alright! Maybe that’s not quite true. Maybe what I should say is that it’s not the end of my sexuality, but it is, undeniably, the end of my fertility.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Shoosh! It is the end of my fertility and I can do one of two things about it. I can feel sad or I can celebrate. I can ignore the whole thing, pretend it isn’t happening, or I can embrace it.’

Meg was about to say that it seemed to be five things, but she had to admit that this was starting to make a bit more sense, although she was still sceptical.

‘So . . .’ Meg began tentatively, ‘we’re having a “goodbye ovaries party”. Fuck me! Bags not making the cake!’

Claire ignored Meg and continued. ‘I have decided that, as a way of waving my fertility a fond farewell, I am going to plan the best night of sex I ever had in my whole life.’

‘Well, Charlie will love that!’

‘I’m not going to do it with Charlie. I am going to do it with Connor.’

She sat and looked defiantly at Meg with two steady green eyes. Unfortunately, this all seemed like such a giant leap of logic to Meg that she couldn’t think of a thing to say, except: ‘Tiramisu?’

Meg stood and walked to the kitchen. Claire hadn’t finished and followed hot on her heels.

‘You know, Meg, it occurs to me that in this life we celebrate stupid stuff like birthdays and the Melbourne Cup. But we never celebrate the things that really matter. I reckon that getting your period should be a great celebration. You know? I mean, you’re a real woman at last! When my Maddie, or your Sophia and Steffie, get their first periods, we should all dress up in red, hold strings and dance around a giant tampon.’

Meg’s catering instinct kicked in. ‘I’m thinking red cordial, strawberries and pink donuts here, Claire!’

‘And then, when menopause comes, we throw all our sanitary napkins, with their stupid wings and sphagnum moss, and our packets of pills and diaphragms and spermicides into a great big bonfire and we leap around in our whopping bras and old ladies undies because we’re free of all that stuff and back to being innocents again. The way we were born.’

‘Ooh, this is a challenge,’ said Meg. ‘I’m thinking buckets of gin and dog biscuits.’

‘Anyway, you know what I mean.’

‘Look,’ said Meg, turning to her best friend in the world and loving the face she saw there, alive with passion. ‘I agree with everything you say. Hey! I’ll be the first one to set fire to my maternity bra, if we can find that much petrol, but where does having sex with Connor come into this evening of female bonding and frivolity? He’s the after-dinner shag, is he? What the hell are you talking about?’

To be truthful, Claire didn’t exactly know what she was talking about. Considered thoughtfulness and reckless defiance had always coexisted within her in an uneasy alliance. The Libran in her strove to balance these warring forces. But now, as her doctor had so helpfully explained to her, she had come to a time in her life when her emotions were swinging wildly. And guess what? Right now, reckless defiance had the upper hand. All she knew was that she was going to have Connor. Like a new pair of Manolo Blahniks or a South Sea pearl necklace. Like a tycoon banging down a brand new Maserati on his Black Amex.

She saw herself driving through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair, and Connor was in the passenger seat. That was all. She was forty-five, she wanted him, she’d earned him, she deserved him. Done deal. The more she thought about this, the more determined she became.

‘I’ve been thinking back, Meg. God, I’ve had an amazing sex life, I really have, and I’m proud of it. Don’t you think it’s funny, though, how most people never get to know what your sexual history is? I mean, they know all your family history and you tell them about your professional career—your curriculum vitae—but they never get to really know all the sexual stuff which is, let’s face it, as influential on you as a person as anything else.’

‘You mean like your coitus vitae?’ Meg offered.

Claire laughed and nodded in agreement. ‘Exactly.’

‘Well if I read your coitus vitae, Claire Sellwyn, I would come to the conclusion that you were unable to hold down a steady job.’

‘Well ain’t that the truth,’ Claire said ruefully. ‘Over the years I’ve been sacked, made redundant, passed over for promotion.’

‘And, let’s not forget, stuffed up so many job interviews it’s not funny!’

‘And that’s true too!’ Claire hooted.

‘But you’re missing a vital point, dearest,’ said Meg, taking Claire’s shoulders in her hands. ‘And that is that at the present you are in full-time employment. You are married.’

‘It’ll be one night. He’ll never find out.’ Claire downed her wine in a defiant gulp and marched out to the deck to find more.

Meg huffed and turned back to the kitchen bench. She busied herself setting a tray with a coffee plunger and plates of tiramisu and almond biscotti. Jesus! Meg knew she was going to have to be an unwilling accomplice to this harebrained scheme. She knew Claire well enough to know that, once she had an idea in her head, it was impossible to shift.

‘I need more information.’ Meg dumped the tray on the table.

‘Mmm . . .’ Claire was firing up a cigarette, which meant she was nervous, pissed or both.

‘OK,’ said Meg, trying to reason this through, ‘just say we can keep this secret, and I say “we” cos, thank you, you’ve roped me into this now. Just say Charlie doesn’t ever find out. How are you going to make sure that it’s only one night? What if you want more? What if Mr Surfie Boy wants more?’

Claire inhaled deeply and replied on a smoky outward breath. ‘I’m going to tell him from the beginning that it’s one night and that’s it.’

‘And if he doesn’t agree to being used as some sort of warm prop in your satanic ovarian ritual? What then?’

‘He’ll agree. What bloke in his twenties wouldn’t? It will be the best night of sex in his life . . . and mine. And if he doesn’t agree, I’m gonna find someone else. This is going to happen. My mind’s made up.’

Meg could see that it was. And while she had a million reservations and even more questions, she could also see they were all rendered null and void by Claire’s determination.

There was a long silence before Meg finally acquiesced. ‘OK,’ she sighed deeply, ‘the best night of sex in your life? Well, I think this requires some careful consideration. In fact, given your CV, I’d better go and get some pens and paper.’ Meg was halfway to the kitchen door before she stopped and turned.

‘But first I’m going to ask you the big one. If you plan this, doesn’t that automatically mean that it won’t be the best night you’ve ever had? Don’t you run the risk that it will be a giant fizzer?’

‘Well, my dear Meg,’ said Claire with a wicked smile, ‘that’s a risk that I am more than willing to take.’

That afternoon Claire was busy in her kitchen making osso bucco, Charlie’s favourite meal.

‘Can I have some cheese and those yellow biscuits with the red bits on, Mummy?’ Madeline darted in to place her order for room service and then rabbit-hopped back to the television set.

‘Coming right up, Min Min,’ answered Claire.

It was an odd nickname for a child with the rather lyrical name of Madeline. It had come from a cherished memory back when she and Charlie were courting. Waiting in the business class lounge at Sydney airport before their first trip to New York together, Charlie had presented her with a tiny, caramel-coloured felt teddy bear. They had laughed, named it Min Min, and pretended it was a Thumbelina child. Afterwards they had strapped the little bear into a child’s seatbelt on their laps, propped it up in diner booths and taken it in their pockets to shows on Broadway. This was their way, subconsciously, of saying to each other ‘I want to have a child with you.’ And it was a lot easier to look after than a puppy.

Min Min had been everywhere with them since then. To Ireland, all over England, all through the United States from Chicago to Miami, the Bahamas, Bali. And then Madeline herself had arrived and Min Min was tucked into the baby’s bunny-rug on the way home from the hospital. Min Min had then become Madeline’s plaything and was now lost somewhere in the land of Barbie. Perhaps she was sitting in the front seat of Barbie’s campervan or locked in some turret of a pink plastic castle.

Claire delivered the plate of snacks to Madeline, who was pirouetting across the room in a pas de deux with Barbie from the Swan Lake video. This slender-limbed, graceful little girl had danced straight out of Claire’s imagination and into her life. She adored everything about having a daughter. The hairclips and bangles, plastic mules trimmed with pink fluff, the fairy frocks and endless drawings of princesses with glitter sprinkled on their tiaras. And the ferocious hugs when Madeline’s two bony arms circled her neck.

Claire regretted that she hadn’t been able to give Madeline a brother or sister. After Madeline had settled into their lives Charlie and Claire had thought about baby number two. But by this time Claire was forty and the fertility expert told them to be grateful for the wonderful blessing of Madeline and to go home. They did. With Claire sobbing all the way.

Madeline had indeed been a blessing. When she was thirty-six Claire had doubted whether she would ever have a baby at all. She had resigned herself to being a maiden aunt of her brother and sister’s three kids and gone out and bought a cat.

It wasn’t until she was driving back from the northern beaches to her flat in Rose Bay with the little apricot Scottish Fold in a box on the back seat that she remembered she had a slight allergy to cats. Caspian sported the most peculiar orange eyes she’d ever seen. The beast had crapped on Claire’s bedside table as a protest at being left in the flat one weekend, and had been summarily evicted. Caspian was now living it large in Surfers Paradise with Claire’s mother and father.

Claire thought of them with a stab of guilt. She was overdue to give her parents a call, but catching them at home between the endless rounds of parties, card nights, dinners out and evenings at the casino was a challenge. If she waited, Claire’s mother would ring her. All she had to do was get into the shower, be running out the door or sitting down to dinner with guests and her mother would be on the line. June would have put away the best part of a bottle of Cinzano and be ready for a nice long catch-up.

Thinking of them in Surfers Paradise took her mind to Connor and then inexorably back to the matter at hand. The afternoon’s conversation with Meg had raised a lot more questions than it had answered. Claire saw that figuring out what the best sex of her life had been, and why it was the best, wouldn’t be easy. There were so many variables. Where you were, who you were with. When, how and why it happened. There were the emotions you felt, things you discovered about yourself—about sex itself. Then there were the details which stayed with you. Smells, sights and sounds. She realised she now had a problem of definition and classification on her hands worthy of a professor of etymology at the British Museum.

And then there was the not insignificant problem of informing Connor of her intentions and inviting him to participate. She decided that she would ring him later in the evening when Charlie was out of the house. He was off to another record launch, providing Claire with the whole night to find the courage to pick up the phone. Thinking of the train of events she was about to put in motion propelled Claire into Charlie’s study. He was sitting in his leather armchair by the window reading.

‘Hi, honey. You’ve found a lovely spot to curl up there in the sun.’ Claire was at her pleasing best. She knew that in her floral apron she presented a Nigella Lawson image of domestic irresistibility.

Charlie looked up and smiled, slipping his reading glasses to the top of his head. ‘Yeah, it is nice, isn’t it? The flowers are coming out on the jacaranda. It’s my favourite time of year in this room.’ It was a warm and peaceful place. The sun on the purple blooms of the tree had washed the room in soft violet light.

‘So, what are you reading?’

Charlie held up his book. The bright pink letters on the cover said Menopause. Claire saw in an instant that it was the same book she had dumped in the bin the previous morning. She could feel her entire body tense and her fists clench with annoyance.

‘I don’t want you to go through this alone, Claire. I want you to know you can share your feelings with me. I know that together we can make this a positive experience.’

Claire opened her mouth to speak, but there were so many things to say that she didn’t know where to begin. Instead she turned on her heel and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her. An echo of the slam the night before.

Fuck Charlie and his feelings! She wasn’t ready to be ‘positive’. She wasn’t ready to ‘share’. Why did she have the luck to end up with a male who was ‘in touch with his emotions’? While her girlfriends complained that they shared their lives with unreconstructed lumps who could fart the national anthem, Claire could only look on with envy.

‘Be careful what you wish for, girls,’ she had said more than once.

Claire had put forward her theory that men had evolved into taciturn creatures who didn’t share their feelings for a bloody good reason. The first-ever male encounter group on the face of the planet was probably brought to an abrupt end when it was stepped on by a woolly mammoth. When a herd of wild buffalo was charging at a million miles an hour, about the last thing your mates needed to hear was: ‘Whoa, guys, I just don’t know whether this whole male bloodlust thing is making me feel worthwhile as a person.’

Would the pyramids ever have been built if the head of the road gang had announced: ‘Hey, this is just a total male ego trip. Let’s go weave some baskets.’ Would Captain Cook ever have made his epic voyage of discovery if one of his mates had said: ‘Jim, this relentless drive to achieve . . . Don’t you think you’d be better off spending some time developing your interpersonal relationship skills?’

Claire thought that there was only room for one person walking around the house wondering ‘Where is this relationship going?’ And that person was her. And right now this relationship was going down a path she didn’t like one bit. Claire made a mental note that one of the elements of a great night of sex was no questions. No caring ‘How does that feel?’ Or polite ‘Would you like some more of that?’

She recalled that before her marriage her Aunt Elise had passed on a fascinating piece of advice. ‘Now, Claire,’ she had confided, ‘common courtesy is very important in the marriage bed. In the forty years Keith and I have been together he has always said “May I?” and “Thank you”.’ Claire had always thought this was hilarious. Now she could see it wasn’t that different from the way things were with Charlie.

They ate their dinner in front of the television in silence. Claire could feel Charlie was hurt but to explain her anger would have taken the whole night, maybe the week, and then she would be up to her neck in the quicksand of his feelings again. She had enough trouble with her own emotions. She just wanted him out of the house and, with a curt goodbye, he was.

After Madeline was bathed and in bed the house fell as quiet as a cathedral. Charlie and she shared a love of music and there was usually some tune wafting through speakers placed all over the house. But tonight she wanted the blessing of silence.

Claire poured herself a glass of wine, stepped onto the balcony and looked out at the ocean. The house was delicately balanced on the edge of the cliff as if it had been set there by the hand of a giant. To her right was the small swimming pool, a luminescent opal of dark green. On the other side of her the frangipani trees were coming into bud and in a few weeks they would form a garland of intoxicating beauty.

In the five years they had lived here this wide wooden balcony had been a mecca for friends and family. Every year they gathered for the Dover Heights Christmas lunch, then came back the next day to watch the yachts race by from Sydney Harbour to Hobart. Claire loved to spend time here just looking to the horizon, buffeted by the ocean spray, breathing the frangipani. But tonight she may as well have been looking at a postcard on a pinboard. All she could feel was the insistent gravitational pull of the telephone.

She took the business card from her bag once more and sat with her mobile phone in her lap. She decided to ring on the mobile instead of the home telephone so Charlie wouldn’t see the destination of the call. She had taken on the role of scheming adulteress already, and the ease with which she did this was both shocking and thrilling.

What would she say? She wasn’t quite sure. But she did know one thing for certain. Until now she had always been mysterious and playful with her men. Never saying quite what she wanted. Never asking. Waiting for them to make the moves and then artfully playing the cards she was given. However, this encounter was going to be different. This time she was operating with a full deck and would play the game her way, or she would move on to another table.

She picked up the phone and then oddly enough heard it ring. It took her a few seconds to realise that it was the landline, not the mobile.

‘Hello, Claire speaking.’

‘Hello, darling! What are you up to? Got time for a chat?’

Christ, not now! It was her mother, who had a suspiciously cheery note to her voice. She immediately suspected the culprit was a couple of those famous turbo-charged cocktails.

‘Hello, Mum. What’s happening?’ Claire sighed and settled in for the duration.

‘It’s your father. He’s complaining again about not having a shed.’

‘Well, Mum, you know I’ve always said that men are probably genetically programmed to live in a shed. It must be hard on him in the flat.’

Claire had heard this particular tune before and all the words to it. She sympathised with her father and knew how it had broken his heart to pack up his beloved shed. Forty years worth of accumulated odds and ends, screws and springs, memories and dreams. All taken away from the family home at Roseville on the back of a truck.

Mother, of course, was keen to see this man-made mountain chucked down the tip. But the children had come to Dad’s rescue, so now it took up half the space in the Noosa garage of her younger brother Douglas. She knew her mother and father would make a trip to visit Doug and, while Mum was visiting the grandchildren, Dad would root through his boxes for the afternoon. She could only imagine what he was thinking as he sat there surrounded by his treasures.

‘He’s already taken over the spare room with his power tools. There’s an angle grinder sitting right on top of my ironing board at the moment. He’s lucky I don’t do his underpants with it!’

This last bit was announced loudly and rudely so Claire knew it was for her father’s benefit. They had been married almost fifty years and she was still squabbling with him. Amazing. Would there ever be a time when her mother and father truly understood each other? Or was this refusal to understand the very thing that kept them together?

Claire had a theory about why modern marriage was such a chancy thing. Since no one believed in God much anymore, people now expected their husband or wife to give them absolution. And which human being, with all their flaws, was up to that responsibility?

She always shuddered to hear the marriage vows people came up with. She had stood on beaches at sunset, in band rotundas at dawn, while two young hopefuls had parroted lines they must have found in Hallmark greeting cards: ‘You are my everything. You are my universe. You are the sun that rises and also sets. I will be honest with you in everything I do.’

Honesty. Now there was a highly overrated marriage vow. Did you really want to share a life with someone who was honest? Yes, you do look fat in that dress. Yes, I do wish you would shut up and go to sleep. Yes, I have heard that story before. No, that is not a funny joke!

And then there was the vow Claire hated most of all: ‘You are my best friend’. She recalled that Rose had said that very thing about Dermott on Saturday night: ‘You are my best friend in the world.’ Well, as Claire had controversially explained to Charlie more than once, she already had a best friend. Her name was Meg. And if she was going to be honest with anyone it would be her. Charlie could take the role of husband and all that entailed, but the vacancy of best friend had already been filled for the past twenty years. As for the role of lover . . .

Of course Claire knew that while she could mount a case for lying about the little things in a relationship—lies which shielded your partner from hurt—there was no way she could do the same for taking a lover. There had also been a vow of fidelity at her wedding, which she had made in good faith. And while she could imagine taking Charlie back after a drunken fumble with some scrubber, what she was planning was premeditated adultery. There was a world of difference between the two. Shut up Claire, she said to herself. You think too much.

‘. . . so I’ve said he can have a third of the balcony for a tool bench and that’s it . . .’ Her mother was warming to her theme and showed no signs of slowing up.

Claire reached for the handbrake. ‘Can you put Dad on?’

‘Hello there, darling.’ Her father’s voice instantly calmed her. ‘How’s that car of yours going?’ he asked.

Claire smiled to hear this. It was his standard conversational gambit. Something she and her brother and sister always laughed about when they got together. ‘Dad, I’ve run off with an al-Qaeda operative to Iraq!’ ‘Oh yes, well he sounds a nice chap. What sort of car does he drive?’

It was a good hour later when Claire finally managed to hang up the phone on her parents. It was now 11 pm. Too late to ring Connor? Too early? She decided it was probably about the right time. He would understand that if she was calling at this time of night it wasn’t to order an ornamental plant for the patio.

Claire poured another drink, lit a cigarette and dialled his number on the mobile.

It rang.

The world turned. The blood rushed out from her head in a sickening tide and then rushed back in again.

It rang some more.

Her stomach fell to her knees and bounced back up into her throat.

‘Yeah, Connor here.’ It was him. There was that unmistakable throaty purr.

‘Hi. It’s Claire Wallace . . . you probably don’t remember . . .’

‘Oh yes, I remember. Hello, Claire. I’ve been thinking about you.’

‘Have you? I’ve been thinking about you too.’

‘I believe we have some unfinished business,’ he said with a sexy growl.

‘I believe we have.’

Claire stubbed out her cigarette and walked quickly with the phone out to the deck. She could already feel the heaviness in her pelvis, the stormy build-up before the wet. She reminded herself that she would take this slowly, purposefully.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘So let’s just take this slowly.’ He was echoing her thoughts.

There was no reason for Claire to think she was in safe hands, but that’s exactly what she did think. She remembered his hands very vividly. For some reason she felt she could say whatever was on her mind.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘Let me describe the scene for you. I am right this minute standing on a balcony looking at the waves rolling in at Kirra. You know Kirra? Just up from Surfers?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘There’s a nice swell and a full moon. I’ve had a smoke. I’m nursing a Jack Daniels and Coke and I had the feeling that someone was going to call me tonight and change my life. And here you are.’

‘Really?’ was all Claire could muster. She felt as if she was in some sort of trance.

‘In fact, it gets even weirder. I was just reading this article about this biologist named Rupert Sheldrake. He’s got this new book out called The Sense of Being Stared At. You heard of it?’

‘No.’

‘Well, did you ever have that feeling where you were thinking about someone and they just called, out of the blue?

‘I guess we’ve all had that experience at some time.’

‘Yeah, we have. And what he says is that it’s not just coincidence. He says human beings can ‘feel’ when someone’s staring at them. He reckons that the act of looking at someone is a two-way process. That it’s about projection and absorption at the same time, and maybe humans have a psychic connection or telepathy we’re unaware of.’

This is all very intriguing, thought Claire. And not at all what she was expecting to hear from him.

‘Maybe we are all linked by a collective unconscious,’ he went on. ‘Maybe at some level we’re all thinking the same thoughts.’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Claire asked cheekily.

‘I sincerely hope so.’ And then they laughed in two-part harmony. Connor sounded like he laughed a lot.

‘Mummy, I need a drink of water.’

Madeline had wandered out to her mother. Maybe she had woken because some ‘psychic connection’ had told her that her mother was on the phone. Maybe it had also told her there was a disturbance in the family force field.

‘Oh, um . . . hold on a minute.’ Claire threw down the phone, got the water and steered her daughter back to bed. Picking up the phone again she said breathlessly: ‘Sorry, that was my daughter Madeline.’

‘You’ve got two daughters?’

‘Well, Rose is my stepdaughter and Madeline, who’s six, is mine.’

‘Ah, now I get it. I knew you weren’t old enough to be Rose’s mother.’

‘I would hope not. Rose is twenty-nine!’ Claire had already made a pact with herself to hide nothing. She decided to ask the question she knew she shouldn’t and braced herself for the reply. ‘So, how old do you think I am?’

‘Fucking hell! Do I get a lifeline?’

‘Nope.’

‘Can I phone a friend?’

‘You cannot.’

‘OK then, for one million dollars, I would say that you are . . . um . . . thirty-eight.’

‘Bad luck. You’ll have to take the half-mill. I’m forty-five.’

‘Well, well, well. Forty-five.’ Claire strained to hear anything in his voice which sounded like disappointment. There was nothing.

‘Right then, Claire, now it’s your turn. For the family pass to Dreamworld, how old am I? Go easy now.’

Claire was sure of herself here and gave an instant response. ‘You are twenty-six.’

‘Who’s a bit out of practice then? I’m thirty-three.’

Thirty-three! Claire realised she had fallen into the trap of the middle aged. She looked at policemen in the street now and thought they should be at high school. She looked at women presenting the weather on TV and thought their mothers would be waiting outside to pick them up in the family station wagon. Thirty-three! This changed things considerably, she thought. Although, when she thought about it some more, she couldn’t see why.

‘Hello . . . hello? You’re shocked, aren’t you? I’m too old for you, huh? I can dress up in my old school uniform if you like. I’ve still got my blazer and tie.’

‘No, no . . . it’s just that you look younger.’

‘For a bloke who spends so much time in the surf, you mean? It’s my skincare regime. Every time I come out of the water I lie down with seaweed on my face for half an hour.’

Claire giggled. Connor was smart, funny and, she recalled, unbelievably handsome. Her nervousness gave way to something a whole lot more interesting.

In the next twenty minutes Claire and Connor learned a few more things about each other. They had both grown up in Sydney and both knew Dermott. They both loved Steve Martin, they both loved Thai food and they were both in love with someone else.

‘Her name is Anna. She’s a marine biologist. She’s over in Brazil at the moment working with the Surfrider Foundation. We’re getting married next March.’

Claire actually found this a comfort. She at least knew that whatever had happened, and would happen between them, would remain a secret. The final box of her questionnaire had just been ticked.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘there’s twelve years between us and about a thousand miles. Well, at least I think there is. Please tell me you’re ringing me from the Kirra Beach pub.’

‘Sydney. Dover Heights to be exact. Downtown Vaucluse.’

‘Hmm, very impressive, but disappointing too. Can you see the moon from where you are?’

‘I’m looking straight at it.’

‘Describe it to me.’

‘Well, it’s big and round and—’

‘Come on! A woman named Claire should be able to describe the moon.’

Clair de Lune was of course one of Claire’s favourite pieces of piano music. Claude Debussy, if she remembered correctly. Her grandmother was named after it.

‘Alright, alright. I’m standing here looking at the ocean. Well, that’s not quite true—it’s the Tasman Sea. I’m barefoot and the frangipanis are promising to burst. And . . . and I’m remembering you. I’m remembering that you smell of violets and coconut.’

‘And I’m thinking of your smell too. Do you know what you smell of?’

‘Tell me.’

‘You smell of sex. You smell like some luscious exotic piece of fruit which should be sucked dry. You smell fucking gorgeous. And if you were here now I’d suck and fuck you all night long. Until you couldn’t stand up.’

Claire couldn’t stand up now. She went inside the house and lay back in an armchair. Parting her legs she slipped a finger inside herself. Yes, she was now wet.

‘So what now?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ said Claire, drawing in her breath, ‘I have a plan.’

‘Does it include me?’

‘Yes it does. But only for twenty-four hours.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, it’s like this. I am forty-five years old, I am a mother, I am married. But I think I deserve you and I want you for one night and one day. As a sort of present to myself. And in that one night and day you and I are going to have the best sex of our lives. Then we are never going to see each other again.’

‘Phew! Well, it’s definitely a plan. And I am a sucker for a woman with a plan. But what if we both want more?’

‘That’s the rule. There is no more.’

‘And I love a woman with rules as well. So, when’s this all going to happen?’

‘When we decide. We’ve got a lot of planning to do first because we have to make this the best night ever. Any questions?’

‘Just one. How can it be the best night ever if we plan it? We didn’t plan to meet. We didn’t plan to end up in that cubicle together.’

‘There’re no promises or guarantees apart from the fact that I promise to be there and I guarantee I will amaze you and you will never forget it as long as you live. So what do you think?’

‘I’m in. I mean, for fuck’s sake, of course I’m in.’

‘Right. Well, tomorrow night I am going to ring you again at eleven o’clock and I want you to start thinking about the best sex you ever had and why it was the best. And our first category will be music.’

‘Music?’

‘Music to have sex by.’

‘Do I win anything if I get it right?’

‘You win me. Me licking the salt from your chest. Me taking your hard cock into my mouth. You get all of me—anyway you want me.’

Claire couldn’t quite believe she’d had the courage to say this, with the lights on, over the phone. She waited for his reaction and could only hear him breathing heavily. As he started to speak, she cut him off with a quick goodbye.

She heard him call, ‘No, wait,’ before she turned off the phone and threw it on the couch.

She guessed Connor would pour another drink and go to bed. She guessed he would be thinking of her as he rubbed his hard dick against the sheets. And she guessed that as he came, the salty wind would carry his groans out across the league long rollers of Kirra Beach. And she was right.

Claire heard Charlie stumble though the darkness of their bedroom a couple of hours later. He slipped into bed beside her.

‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.

Claire mumbled through her sleep that she was. Charlie heard this as his permission for sex and took Claire very slowly and quietly.

As she orgasmed, Claire was thinking of a conch shell. Connor had his lips to her and was blowing very softly. Her whole body was hollow and reverberated with one long, low note.

Wednesday

The Company She Keeps

‘Can we have a bit more foldback in the left speaker?’

Ellery was at the piano checking the sound for the gig. Claire and her musicians were performing that night at the Intercontinental Hotel. It was a film premiere party for the latest Hollywood blockbuster to hit Sydney and the band was playing for the first half of the night. The party-goers were supposed be A-list types, which guaranteed a couple of things. One, they would be mostly B- and C-list types. Two, they would be pissed in five minutes on cheap free champagne and wouldn’t even know there was a band playing. Top gig!

The boys had been with Claire for seventeen years on and off. ‘On’ when Claire had a successful album going around. ‘Off’ when she didn’t. Over the years they’d had the good fortune to be more on than off. They were Ellery on piano, Mike on double bass, Zack on drums and percussion and Louie on saxophone.

They were known as Claire Sellwyn’s band, The Company. Or Claire and Co for short. It was something of a miracle that the band had held together, considering Claire had had hot affairs with two of them and a one-night stand with a third. But in the end it was the music which was the glue. If you looked in the racks at the record stores you would find them under jazz. But Claire could sing anything. Blues, funk, swing, latin, folk, pop—even rock if she was pushed.

Her albums had sold modestly well over the years and she was respected as a solid, professional act. Her first album in 1988, The Company She Keeps had been reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘The Company She Keeps is a knockout set of jazz vocals, bringing freshness and vitality to the standard repertoire. Sellwyn is a sure singer with a superb, richly seductive voice, her phrasing absolutely assured. Her future seems bright.’

As for stardom? Over the years she had become more and more content to leave that to the likes of Kylie. She had tangled with big-shot record company wankers a couple of times and didn’t like what she saw. They had plans for songwriters, stylists, a stint in the US, promotional tours. Short skirts, big hair. All too predictable. In the end Claire was happiest working the circuit—residencies at clubs and pubs and festivals, a wide variety of gigs all over the country. She saw herself as more art-house than multiplex. The one thing she had achieved was a living. Almost twenty years of supporting herself without having to get a nine-to-five job. And, as most musicians will tell you, it don’t get any better than that.

Claire worked only occasionally these days. She didn’t have to sing for her supper anymore and would rather be home crooning a lullaby to Madeline, but she liked to keep her hand in and hoped she would be singing forever.

All of her working life had been spent with musicians. In band rooms, buses, rehearsal rooms, sound studios and bars. And after all this time she liked to think she understood a bit about men. Some of their habits, which would nauseate the uninitiated, had even come to be quite endearing.

She now understood that bodily functions were a mother lode of comic possibility; that insulting another’s physical appearance was an expression of genuine personal regard; that watching sport was not a mindless diversion, it was a deeply meditative experience; and that the penis was the unseen special guest at any male gathering and could be called upon as an independent witness to corroborate its owner’s version of events.

‘Alright, which one of you tone-deaf dickheads has got the room key?’ It was Zack on drums. One-night stand.

‘Come back, you dirtbag, we haven’t finished!’ That was Louie, who played saxophone. Affair number one.

‘Shut the fuck up, both of you. I’m trying to hear!’ Ellery, the piano player. Affair number two.

Claire didn’t even hear the profanities anymore. It was just the way they communicated with each other. She had caught the habit of swearing herself and sometimes had to remind herself there were ladies present.

She sat with Mike (the bass player) in the darkened ballroom and swigged her bottle of water. She tried once more to call Meg to rehash last night’s extraordinary events, but Meg still wasn’t answering.

Claire had been thinking about Connor from the moment she opened her eyes this morning. In fact, she was having difficulty focusing on anything else. It was that fire of desire which had been well and truly stoked after last night’s conversation.

‘Mike.’

‘Hmm . . .’ He was busy burning holes in his polystyrene coffee cup with his cigarette butt.

‘I’ve got a question.’

‘I’ve told you a hundred times, Claire, I’m married.’

‘Oh shut up . . . you,’ and she pushed him playfully.

‘No, I’m sorry. Even if you threaten me physically. It’s not going to happen. Get used to it.’

Claire groaned. Mike had made this joke a hundred times, maybe a thousand, over the years. It was The Company’s running gag that Claire had slept with three members of the quartet. Mike always said that he was determined she was not going to get the boxed set.

Claire reflected on the reason she had not slept with Mike. He was not unattractive; it was probably because he was too solid and sensible. He’d earned himself a degree in economics before he became a full-time musician.

She and Louie had started the band when they were in a relationship. And, during those dark years after she had broken up with him and fallen into bed with the other two, she had found herself attracted to any man with a troubled past. If he looked like he was a depressive, commitment phobic, non-communicative arsehole . . . she was interested.

Then, when she was in her mid-thirties, she had met a friend of her mother’s at a dinner party. Claire was complaining to all and sundry about being single and that there were no good men left, blah, blah, blah. It was a topic she had devoted a good amount of time to in her fourth decade. At the end of the evening, Claire just knew she had bored all the old married couples witless. A handsome elderly gent, a retired company director with snow-white hair and wearing a navy blue double-breasted blazer, had taken her aside. He had clasped Claire’s shoulders in both hands and spoken to her earnestly.

‘This is my advice and listen well, young woman. Whenever you meet a man and he tells you he had an unhappy childhood, you run. No matter what happened to him. No matter if he says he’s over it. If he says he was an unhappy child, make no exceptions—just get out as fast as you can.’

Claire had thought this advice was bizarre, if not plain cruel. Who would love all these damaged boys? Who would restore their faith in human nature? Who would give them the love they needed to overcome their unhappiness?

Of course the more Claire thought about this, the more she could see that she had always cast herself in the role of nurse. As some sort of romantic, heroic Nightingale patching up all the wounded boys just back from the front line of life. Why had she fallen into this role? After trawling through her childhood memories, Claire had decided it was because she had watched her mother bully her father all those years. She would see Ron standing by the door waiting for June’s final inspection like a cadet on parade: ‘Oh, Ron! You cannot wear brown shoes with black trousers!’ ‘Oh, Ron! Look at your hair!’ ‘Oh, Ron! The invitation says “lounge suit”, not “sports jacket”!’ And while Ron was happy enough to troop upstairs and make the necessary adjustments to pass muster, Claire had always wanted to rescue him. Stand up for yourself, Dad! she had wanted to shout.

In Claire’s teens her mother’s relentless scrutiny had turned on her: ‘Oh, Claire! You cannot wear red lipstick at your age!’ ‘Oh, Claire! Look at your hair!’ ‘Oh, Claire! It’s an invitation to a sixtieth wedding anniversary. No jeans!’ Claire would barricade herself in her bedroom. She was happy there in her private world. Perhaps she was more like her father than she wanted to acknowledge. Since that time she had been determined that there would be a part of her to which no one would ever gain entry.

‘One day,’ the elderly gent had said, ‘you’ll meet a man who says his childhood was blissfully happy. You’ll probably instantly feel that he doesn’t need you and you’ll want to walk away. But the thing is—you need him. Keep him.’ And with that, this amazing man was gone and Claire never met him again.

Three years later, she met Charlie. She had managed to manoeuvre the happy childhood question into one of their very first conversations. Charlie had replied that, yes, his childhood had indeed been one long happy ticker-tape parade. ‘It probably sounds a bit boring really. I just remember that it always seemed sunny. We played cricket in the garden, went on holidays with Mum and Dad to the beach. I loved school. Sorry, there’s not a lot there to report.’

The wise man had been right. Claire had felt disappointed. She did feel like walking away. But, for once in her life, she decided to work against all her natural inclinations. One of those self-help books she used to read would probably have called it ‘breaking the pattern of co-dependence’. So she had kept Charlie.

Claire wondered what those self-help books would say about this latest escapade. She’d never know. Her self-help books were now just landfill along with her tarot cards and rune rocks. At least there were some things she’d grown out of.

‘I want to know, Mike, what’s your favourite music to have sex to?’

‘Planning a little soiree, are we?’ Mike turned to look at Claire. She at least had the decency to blush.

‘Come on . . . tell me,’ she nudged him.

‘I don’t like to have sex to music. I can’t concentrate. It’s like being at work. If there’s music playing I start thinking about the bass line, the beat, the melody and then it’s all over.’

‘What’s all over?’ Zack was still looking for the room key and was rummaging around in his backpack.

‘My hard-on,’ said Mike.

‘What?’ Mike had Zack’s full attention.

‘Claire wants to know what’s the best music to have sex by. I told her I need absolute silence to concentrate.’

‘You would, you fucking weak unit. You don’t know what you’re missing. I tell you, one of the best roots I ever had in my entire life was in the crowd at the Narara festival in 1983 during a fifteen-minute Def Leppard drum solo. This chick went absolutely off. It was fucking incredible.’

Claire shook her head in amazement. Zack was full of these stories and in all the years of knowing him she’d never heard this one.

‘Jesus, Zack, it was a bit public, wasn’t it?’ said Mike.

‘Yep. That’s what made it so good. Every now and then I put on Pyromania and have a wank, just to recapture the magic.’

Claire bent over and laughed into her skirt. They were always doing this to her.

‘You are a full-on deviant,’ said Mike.

‘So come on, Claire. What’s this about then?’ asked Zack, hoisting himself up on the table in front of them. There was nothing he liked better than an X-rated chat.

‘Oh, nothing really. I was just thinking, you know. Something they were talking about on the radio this morning . . .’ Claire waved his inquiry away.

‘I’ll bet you go off to Enya,’ Zack teased. ‘No, no, no— Celine Dion.’ And here Zack fell back on the table with his legs in the air and thrashed from side to side.

‘Hey! Can we get this sound check finished, please? Claire, get up here!’ Ellery shouted from the stage. They were used to Ellery’s dark moods. The three of them dutifully trooped up to the stage like naughty children at a school assembly.

‘I’m meeting Martine at six, so let’s get this finished and we can all fuck off.’ And with that Ellery launched into the familiar opening chords of ‘I’m a Fool to Want You’.

Claire could never hear this song (and the name Martine) without being reminded of the way she and Ellery had finished. And right then she recalled the most bittersweet musical memory of her life. A night when music had been part of one of the most erotic experiences she had ever had. That’s what she’d tell Connor about tonight when she called him. She wondered whether he had been doing his homework too.

After the sound check the band retired to the hotel room they had been given to dress in—a fabulous luxury. Claire used the phone in the bathroom to call Meg again. Still no answer. Aaargh! Answer, answer, answer! She desperately needed to debrief with Meg. To tell her every exquisite detail of the night before. This media blackout was torture.

Claire had a few free hours before the gig. Maybe she would commandeer the bathroom for a long relaxing bath. Maybe she would head for the steam room in the hotel gym. Today she was scatty and restless. She left Zack and Louie to strip-mine the mini-bar and watch the sports channel on cable and headed into the city.

Claire decided to buy a new lipstick. She had a drawer full of lipsticks at home—probably a hundred of them—but she never had the colour she wanted in her make-up bag. Still, what wasn’t there to love about exploring the cosmetic counters of a department store? She always felt like a kid in a lolly shop. This afternoon she was looking for a sparkling ruby gloss to match her beaded gown.

The girls behind the counter hovered like so many brilliantly coloured hummingbirds. They were flawless. And, Claire thought, I would be too, if I had spent the day examining my face in a mirror with every possible tool of feminine artifice at my fingertips.

‘Hello. Can I offer you a free skincare analysis?’ The Clarins bird swooped down from her perch and grabbed Claire with ten long cyclamen-coloured claws.

Why not? she thought. I have some self-esteem I don’t seem to be using at the moment.

Claire winced as Miss Clarins shone an industrial strength light in her face and came in for a closer look. Claire could now see that the reason Miss C was perfect under the store lights was that her face was actually sculpted out of a solid lump of foundation and powder. Two purple pits indicated where her eyes went. Claire reckoned her to be about thirty-four. There was that Menopausal Obsessive Compulsive Disorder again. One day it would be called MOCD syndrome and there would be a pill for it.

‘So, let’s just see what we have here . . .’ said Miss Clarins, somehow imagining that, because she had a white jacket on, she was a qualified neurosurgeon. ‘Oh yes . . . hmm.’

Drawn by the bright light, a moth-woman in a T-shirt and track pants stopped by to watch the free show. ‘Take your scabby bag of cat’s meat and rack off!’ Claire murmured to herself. She was wriggling uncomfortably on her stool and regretting the whole stupid idea.

‘Well, you have an oily T-bar. Your forehead and cheeks are a bit dehydrated. You have lots of fine lines around your eyes and a few broken capillaries here and there . . .’

Jesus! thought Claire. What do you say to that? Forget the skincare products, just give me that plastic bag and I’ll wear it on my head! She knew what she wanted to say: ‘Hey, girlie, why don’t you take your stupid torch and your pathetic white jacket and fuck right off!’ Instead she quickly slithered off the stool, muttered a ‘thanks’ and bolted behind a counter at the far end of the store. She found herself standing next to an older woman (maybe late sixties?) who was in conversation with a young chick (early twenties?) at the Guerlain stand.

The young woman was holding a precious glass vial up to the light, ‘And this concentrated anti-ageing serum is for mature skins. With continued use you should find the depth of your character lines significantly reduced.’ The older woman was nodding her head enthusiastically.

Forget it, lady, thought Claire. The only way you’re ever going to look younger is by using the dimmer switch in your lounge room. By the way, your skin’s not ‘mature’; it’s old. They’re not ‘character lines’; they’re wrinkles. And as for ‘reduced depth’—how exactly do you plan to measure that? Using the dipstick from your car?

Claire was torn between admiring this older woman for her tenacious grip on her faded youth, and pitying her for her lack of grip on reality. She was fully made up. White powder, pale blue eyeshadow, pink rouge, coral lipstick. Her hair was coloured and neatly styled. She wore a tidy navy wool crepe suit, black patent leather pumps, matching handbag. And the clincher? A little navy brimmed hat, complete with spray of violets and net veil. She looked like a royal at the opening of a flower show.

Lately Claire had also acquired the habit of studying older women and taking inventory of how they presented themselves. She was building a mental image of how she wanted to look when she was a grandmother. So far she had decided she would let her hair fade to white and cut it into a chic short straight bob. She would wear flat shoes and comfortable layers. Good cut, gorgeous fabrics. Maybe Issey Miyake? She’d look sort of arty and individual. But not ageing hippie. It was a fine line. Off the list were: permed hair, T-shirts with words spelled out in sequins, homemade Kwik Knit polyester slacks, comfy plastic shoes, flashing Christmas earrings, kaftans, sleeveless tops, flesh-coloured stockings and anything in a Liberty print.

And one thing was for certain. She would not look like her mother. In her later years her mother had adopted the look of the classic Gold Coast matron. Citrus suits, gold jewellery, fake nails and streaked ash blonde layers. When June and her friends gathered they looked like fruit salad past its use-by date. And when her father Ron walked beside his wife in his beloved old brown suit he looked like an ageing fruit bat.

Poor Dad. He suffered the fate of old men everywhere. Watching in silence as their wives negotiated their way down a bumpy road into old age. Listening as the women they loved endlessly complained in front of the bathroom mirror. Accepting that sex only happened now with the lights out. If it happened at all. The question was, when did you decide to give in to old age and how? When did you get to let yourself go and start wearing elasticised waistbands? It was like when you were pregnant and decided to give in and wear your maternity underwear.

Claire remembered being pregnant with Maddie. One day she abandoned the sporty hipster briefs and reluctantly climbed into a pair of vast maternity undies which covered her belly and came up almost to her armpits. Looking in the mirror she realised that, yes, she was pregnant. And that for the first time in months, yes, she was really comfortable. She hoped that’s what it would be like to grow old. One day you would decide not to colour your hair anymore, or wear your high heels, and it would feel right. Really comfortable. Or maybe that day never came and there you’d be, standing at a skincare counter perusing youth potions while everyone around you saw you as a vain, deluded old crone.

Claire remembered what she had talked about at Rose’s wedding. Something about giving up gracefully. Well, I’m not about to do that, she pushed the thought from her mind. I’m going out disgracefully. Just watch me. She bought the ruby lip gloss, two sparkly eye pencils (one green, one purple) and a pot of silver glitter. Then she marched back to the hotel.

She smiled to herself and thought it was exactly how Maddy must feel leaving a birthday party with a bag of lollies. The same way the elderly woman felt as she tottered down the street with her little vials of anti-ageing serum clinking in their glossy Guerlain bag. There were, after all, some things about being a girl which never changed.

Back in the hotel room it was 7:30 pm. Just half an hour before Claire and Co were due on stage. Claire made her entrance from the bedroom to where the boys were sitting in the main room of the suite. She was wearing the full-length beaded red gown. Through a thigh-high split you could see pencil-heeled sandals tied with scarlet ribbons which crisscrossed up her calves. She had put her hair up in a sleek chignon, which she knew suited her. Garnet chandelier earrings accentuated the length of her slender white neck. She affected a catwalk turn for the boys, who whistled and applauded.

‘Oooh yes, Claire, you look very fuckable tonight,’ said Zack.

‘Although that’s not much of a compliment, given some of the scrubbers he’s dragged home,’ Mike added.

‘At least,’ Zack countered, ‘I managed to drag ’em home, Mikey boy. At least I didn’t spend my nights trying to fuck a hole in a double bass.’

‘Whoa . . . boys!’ Louie gathered Claire up in an affectionate cuddle and kissed her neck. ‘I think, Claire, what they’re trying to say is that you look gorgeous, girl. I dunno—where did I go wrong?’

Claire disentangled herself from Louie’s arms. ‘Let’s ring your long-suffering wife and ask her, shall we?’

Zack and Mike laughed. The circumstances of Claire and Louie’s break-up were well documented. They had met when they were both twenty-six years old, fallen in love and started the band two years later. The following year Claire had caught him in bed with another woman. She had been devastated. Not so much for the fact that he was having sex with someone else, but because she was the last to know. They’d been at it for six months behind her back and she imagined them talking together about her as if she had been reduced to a ‘problem’ which had to be solved. That’s what had really hurt.

The only saving grace was that he had ended up marrying Zoe and they had two teenage children. In the end you had to be forgiving if you were an obstacle to true love. Claire had a card up her sleeve, which gave her something to smile about when she remembered the pain. Louie often joked about having a small dick. It was no joke. He did.

‘So, who’s for a heart-starter?’ Louie was at the mini-bar mixing drinks.

‘I’ll have a white wine, thanks, Lou-Lou. Where’s Ellery?’ asked Claire.

‘I think he’s down with Martine in the cocktail bar. He’ll meet us backstage.’

In the years after Claire and Louie had broken up they had developed an easy rapport. She did not have the same with Ellery. There was always the sense of unfinished business. A grand symphony of tragedy and destiny played just below the surface. And now, since any promise of finishing their business was gone, they used the sexual tension to create music on stage. OK, it wasn’t the same as the real thing. But some nights when Ellery played piano it was as if he was whispering in Claire’s ear. As if his fingers were drumming up and down her naked back. And as she watched him bend over the keyboard she remembered what it was like to have him bend over her. She had loved to watch him come, his face a perfect portrait of ecstasy and abandon.

‘So, Louie, Claire has a question for you,’ said Zack.

‘Yeah?’ Louie was throwing peanuts into the air and catching them in his open mouth.

‘I’ve heard this. I’ll meet you down there,’ said Mike. He adjusted his tie in the mirror and left.

‘She wants to know, what’s your favourite fuck music?’

‘Oh thanks, Zack! Beautifully put, I must say,’ said Claire.

‘OK . . . always a good question,’ said Louie as he downed a miniature bottle of Johnny Walker. ‘Um . . . it’s a toss-up between Miles Davis and Meatloaf—’

‘What?’ Zack and Claire protested.

‘I haven’t finished! Or it could be Britney Spears and Eminem.’

‘Oh come on . . .’ they complained again.

‘The point is, kids,’ Louie was emphatic, ‘that when you’ve been married for fifteen years there is no favourite music to fuck by. I’ll take anything. Anything that’s coming out of the kids’ rooms—Silverchair, Pink, the theme to The Simpsons, The Hulk Xbox. Actually, the 1812 Overture could be playing and old Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky himself could be firing the cannon in my fucking ear and all I’d be thinking is, I’m having sex, I’m having sex, ya-fucking-hoo! So I hope that answers your question. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going downstairs to perve on the waitresses before we go on stage.’

Louie left the room with laughter echoing in his ears. It was easy to forget they were all middle-aged when they were together, Claire reflected. The band was like a time capsule. They were still in their twenties, on the road, making music. And it was only after a speech like this that they remembered they were old and time was getting away from them.

Zack was still chuckling as he grabbed another beer from the fridge and settled back in his chair with his scruffy boots up on the faux walnut desk.

‘You know, Claire, I’ve been thinking. You reminded me of the best night of sex I ever had in my life. You want me to tell you?’

‘Was it with me?’ Claire teased.

Zack smiled at the memory. ‘That was a great night, wasn’t it? Funny as hell. Remember when the candles around the bath set the towel on fire?’

‘And my diaphragm flipped out the bathroom window?’ They both laughed.

‘Do women still use those things?’ asked Zack.

‘I don’t know. But I always used to say that I could tell it was a long time since I’d had sex if I went to get my diaphragm and mice were using it as a rowboat!’ They laughed some more.

Zack then looked at Claire and said earnestly, ‘You know something, Claire? You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen naked.’

Claire looked hard into her wineglass.

‘No—no, really. Your skin was like creamy satin. I’ve never forgotten it. I felt so, I dunno, Neanderthal lying next to you. All hairy and rough. In the end I think that’s why I’m glad it was funny and silly, and we never did it again. I don’t think I would have handled being with you. I always felt you were out of my league.’

‘Oh, Zack. That’s such a . . . I don’t know what to say. It’s a beautiful compliment, but it’s sad too. I thought you were so sexy. I remember hoping that you’d shag me with your red cowboy boots on.’

‘Cos of the smell, right?’

‘No, no! I remember you smelled fabulous. Jack Daniels, patchouli oil and cigars. As I said, so sexy. And you had the biggest dick I’d ever seen!’

‘Hey! That’s no compliment. You’d been living with Louie!’

As their laughter turned to sighs they paused and let the scene from all those years ago form in front of them like an apparition. Ghosts of fucks past. They stayed with you. Some of them you could recall as clearly as your first day at school. But you rarely had the chance to share them like this.

‘Anyway, this other night . . .’ Zack began again, vaporising the moment. Claire had a feeling that Zack had never told anyone this story before and that he had stayed behind in the room for the express purpose of sharing it.

‘It was in Bangkok a few years ago. I was there with my mate Cam. Anyway, we were having a beer in this bar and we met this chick. She wasn’t a stunner, but she was sexy as hell. A Thai girl, probably in her mid-thirties. She was a lot of fun. Anyway, one thing led to another and she took us to this hotel. So we get in the room and . . . you’ve never seen anything like it. One entire wall was mirrors, there was a dance podium, a pole—Christ, even a fucking mirror ball.’

Claire nodded and listened. This was entirely beyond her experience, thankfully.

‘Instead of the usual mini-bar—you know, chips and chocolate and shit—there was all this stuff. Handcuffs, dildos, vibrators, all kinds of edible gel. Every kind of sex toy you could imagine. Anyway, me and Cam just went for it and this chick went off. When she came she was almost catatonic. We got into it for about eight hours. It was fantastic. As I say, the best night of sex in my whole life.’

Putting aside any thoughts she had about this anonymous Thai woman—and she would obviously never know what was going on there—Claire realised she actually knew bugger-all about men. How could two best mates, who had been sitting at a bar with Tiger beers in their hands, suddenly be standing there with their dicks in their hands at either end of a strange woman? You’d be tempted to say their friendship had some sort of homoerotic element to it, but that didn’t explain Zack and Cam at all. Men, eh? Who the hell could understand ’em? If they didn’t have dicks you’d be across the road throwing half-bricks at ’em.

The best Claire could come up with was, ‘Did it make any difference to the friendship between you and Cam?’

Zack raised his eyebrows with surprise and looked at her. ‘No. Why would it? We’ve never talked about it, really. Anyway, look at the time, we’d better get down there.’

Claire crossed to the mirror to check her lip gloss. Zack’s story had thrown her. Could a man and a woman really agree on what constituted the best night of sex they would ever have? Zack’s night was something straight out of the Penthouse letters section. What Claire had in mind was . . . God, what did she have in mind? Something out of Mills and Boon? Was it replicating something she’d already done? Or was it doing something she might never have the chance to do again? She knew for certain the night she had in mind didn’t include a dance podium and a mirror ball. But then again, if she was open to a night of sexual adventure, maybe it did.

It was almost eleven o’clock when they all fell back into the room.

‘Holy shit! What a bunch of tossers!’ Zack attacked the mini-bar again and retrieved the last tiny bottle of Bacardi.

‘Did you see that fat chick off that reality show?’ Louie threw himself into a chair.

‘Which reality show? Do you mean the fat chick that sings or the fat chick that runs the restaurant?’ answered Zack.

‘I mean the fat chick off the island. Man, was she working the room.’

‘I was too busy checking out that newsreader. That brunette piece. I always wondered what she looked like from the waist down. Nice arse, fat ankles.’ Zack found himself a Coke and was mixing a drink.

Claire was used to them dissecting the women after a gig. She knew that most women would be shocked by the way they talked, but she also knew enough not to take it personally. Normally she would have sat back and enjoyed their locker-room talk like one of the boys. But tonight she looked at the bedside clock and saw she had about ten minutes before she was due to ring Connor.

‘Well, I’m off,’ said Mike. ‘I’ve got work in the morning.’

‘Yeah, I’ll get a lift with you. Zoe’s got the stopwatch on me tonight. I’ve got to get the kids to school,’ said Louie with a sigh. He reluctantly hauled himself out of his chair. They left after brief goodbyes.

Two down, two to go. Now Claire needed to think fast to get rid of Zack, who was showing every sign of settling in.

‘Hey, Zack. I noticed that actress tonight. What’s her name? Daisy something?’ said Claire innocently.

‘Daisy Cameron? Is she here? You’re kidding! Did I tell you I saw her tits in a movie on cable this afternoon? They were just like I imagined. Perfection. Jeez, I’d even let her eat biscuits in bed!’

‘That’s her. I saw her head to the cocktail bar with her girlfriends as we were coming upstairs.’

‘Fucking oath, Claire! I owe you a spotter’s fee.’ Zack was out the door so fast he almost burned a hole in the carpet.

Then there were the two of them. Claire and Ellery. In a hotel room together. Claire poured a glass of wine and sat in an armchair. She made sure there was a coffee table between them. Five minutes to go.

Her stomach started to churn and her feet and hands began to tingle. The digital clock flipped over to 10:56. She looked at the telephone and realised with alarm that Ellery was not going anywhere. He was sitting staring at the floor.

‘I’ve got something to tell you, Claire.’ He looked up at her.

It had been fifteen years ago, but Claire remembered with absolute clarity the six long months she had spent searching those brown eyes for meaning. Over dinner tables, in beds, on planes. She thought that if she looked hard enough, some understanding of what was in his soul would swim up to the surface and be able to be read there. Unfortunately Ellery had spent the same six months making sure his eyes gave away nothing.

Their affair was the grand passion of Claire’s life. She had found in him a dark brooding mystery. Her very own Mr Rochester. Their assignations were always intensely theatrical. For his birthday they had rented an old wooden house by the sea. A wild storm had hit that night and he had run into the rolling surf and disappeared from sight. Claire remembered running up and down the sand terrified he had drowned. Her calls to him were whipped from her mouth by the howling wind. And just when she was convinced he had been swept away, he staggered up the beach exhausted and icy cold. She had taken him back to bed and brought the warmth into him with her tongue.

He did this to her over and over again. Took her to wild places—mountain ledges, flooded rivers, deserted wharves— and left her. He pushed her to physical and mental extremes and then rescued her. The sex afterwards was always intense and abandoned, as if they were at the brink of death and had been granted one last moment together. Claire found his passion exhilarating, like nothing she had ever experienced before. At the time she thought they were cast in the likeness of great lovers in history like Tristan and Isolde, or Heloise and Abelard. Looking back, Claire thought they were more like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.

And, if she was truthful, the degradation of their affair was like nothing she had ever experienced either. She knew he still loved Martine, who was living in Paris. She saw Martine’s letters to him on the bedside table and she heard him call to her in his sleep. She kept going back to him convinced that he would one day come to love her instead. But, as much as she tried to gain his heart, Martine remained an occupying force she couldn’t evict.

‘Have you ever heard of solipsism?’ He had dropped this on her one night at dinner at the end of a long silence.

‘No . . .’

‘Well, Claire, that’s what I am. A solipsist. In simple terms I believe that the only thing I can really know is my own mind. Not yours, not anyone else’s. And I only believe in the here and now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Every day I practise just being in the moment. It’s the hardest thing anyone can ever do. All that’s here in front of me . . .’ and here he had gestured around the dimly lit restaurant and brought his hand up under Claire’s chin, ‘. . . is all I know.’

‘I see,’ Claire had replied quietly as if she knew what he was talking about, when in reality she didn’t have a frigging clue.

‘Right now, Claire, I am here with you and that’s all that matters. Right now, I love you.’

Claire had been overwhelmed by his declaration. She took this to mean that he had forgotten Martine and was finally hers. The sex that night had been transcendent. She had a feeling that she had trekked the arid wastes of his psyche and bathed at the oasis of his soul. Or some poetic shit like that anyway. It wasn’t until some months later that she looked up the dictionary and read: ‘solipsism 1. Philos. the view that the self is all that exists, or is all that can be known. 2. self-centredness, selfishness.’

Of course, in hindsight Claire realised that it was her shattered self-esteem after the break-up with Louie which had propelled her into the disastrous affair with Ellery. All that ‘oasis’ crap had turned out to be a mirage. His eyes had been not so much deep pools as stagnant ponds.

The way he had dumped her had been so utterly devastating that Claire had not told anyone, even Meg, for years. Although she had confided to Meg that, until her affair with Ellery, she never understood the sheer heartbreaking emotion of Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor, dead roses and drizzle. She still remembered how Meg had just shaken her head in disbelief.

Claire now saw the clock was reading 10:57. Ellery was still looking at her in a way which made her heart lurch. He’s going to tell me he loves me, she thought. And in the same instant she sincerely hoped he wasn’t.

‘Martine and I are finished.’ His dark shiny hair fell down into his eyes and, as he brought his hands to his face, Claire realised he was crying. He crumpled to his knees, crawled over to her and put his head in her lap.

Claire smoothed the hair from his face. Well, wasn’t this ironic! For years she had imagined again running her fingers through this black curtain of hair which flopped over Ellery’s forehead. There was something about the way his head was set perfectly on his neck which always reminded her of a Greek statue. She still could not look at the back of his neck without wanting to kiss it. And now she had his head in her lap—on a plate—and she wanted nothing more than to push it off. The clock flipped again. 10:58.

Her hand rested on his sculpted head and she bent down to his ear. ‘Oh, come on, El, honey. It’s probably not that bad. You know you and Martine are made for each other,’ she cooed. Yeah, she thought, like a shepherd boy and an old French jersey cow.

‘I know,’ he sniffed, ‘she’s the only woman I’ve ever really wanted.’

There was a pause. Claire’s body tensed as she thought of everything she could say to him. He had once told Claire he loved her. Had he forgotten that? Because she hadn’t. And she hadn’t forgotten sitting in the transit lounge at Heathrow airport, crying in despair and humiliation. And she hadn’t forgotten that he had never apologised.

And all these years she had been ‘good Claire’ and ‘reasonable Claire’. She had put up with his ‘artistic temperament’, which was just another way of saying that Ellery Jones was a bad-tempered, ungracious prick. And she also wanted to say that he and that stuck-up French bitch deserved each other. Deserved to be totally fucking miserable together.

But Claire wouldn’t say any of this. Because of course she was now married, with a child. And apparently, when you are married, with a child, your nerve endings are cauterised. Your memories are dulled. You’re a wife and mother first and a somehow sexless shadow of your former self. To the point where ex-lovers can look at you and recall a grand passion as merely a flirtatious folly. And so Claire sighed and said instead, ‘It’s late. Go and see Martine. I know it hasn’t ended, and in your heart you know it hasn’t either. You’ve come too far together. Go and tell her how much you love her.’

He stood up and got his coat. He looked at Claire and held out his arms. Claire walked into them. He said softly into her hair, ‘Thank you. You know, Claire, I think you’ve always understood me more than anyone else. And that’s why I never want to play for anyone else but you.’ He kissed her cheek and left.

She stood looking at the closed door. Maybe all these years she had been wrong. Maybe it was the music which had always been at the heart of their passionate connection. What was it Meg had said? Time to put away childish things. And her stupid, embarrassing Ellery fantasy was one of them. Only to be replaced by a stupid, embarrassing Connor fantasy? She wondered whether she would be able to exist without some fantasy or other in her life. Well, at least she held the reins of this latest one firmly in her two hands.

She looked at the clock. It said 11:00. She poured another drink and rang Connor’s number. This time it answered straight away.

‘Oh,’ said Connor with mock surprise. ‘I was just thinking about you and here you are, out of the blue. Remember how last night we talked about the collective unconscious? How most of us are all thinking only the same few things?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking all day about getting you into my bed . . .’

Claire shivered. His voice, the way he talked to her—she found it deeply arousing. Her hand slipped inside her bra to cup her breast as she talked.

‘Me too—but we’re not allowed to go that far yet. Tonight we’re only talking about music. Remember?’

‘Oh, that’s right. Typical woman. Foreplay, foreplay, foreplay. So where do you want to start? You’re in charge of this fantasy, after all.’

There he went again. Reading Claire’s mind.

‘Where are you tonight?’

‘Same place, same moon, same lovely swell. How about you?’

‘I’ve just finished a gig and I’m in a hotel room looking straight out to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This would be a wonderful spot to watch the fireworks.’

‘Now there’s a great one! Fucking by fireworks! I’m gonna put that on my list. There we go, just under fan dance.’

Claire laughed. ‘Fan dance?’

‘Hey, this is my fantasy too!’

‘Music. We’re supposed to be talking about music.’

‘Yeah, I’ll learn the piano accordion to accompany you.’

Claire giggled and then sighed as she remembered what she was going to tell Connor about tonight.

‘Well, maybe you should learn the piano, cos that was the accompaniment to one of my greatest erotic moments. Are you ready?’

‘Hang on. Let me get another drink. Yep. I’m gonna lie back here with my drink in one hand and my . . . um . . . telephone in the other and you are going to tell me all about it.’

‘Well . . .’ began Claire. She switched off the bedside lamp and lay down on the bed; the lights from the Bridge shone on the beads of her dress and projected a kaleidoscope on the ceiling. ‘Once there was this piano player. It was 1991 and we were at the Edinburgh Music Festival together. We’d been in a band for a couple of years and only just started an affair. It was pretty torrid.’

‘Good word, torrid. Gimme some details,’ Connor interjected.

‘There’d been this heavy sexual tension between us for years. It was the way we made music together, I guess. He would read my mind. I would read his. Then we’d come together to make this incredibly beautiful sound. It was pretty close to having sex for a long time. We both knew it. Then one night it tipped over into the real thing and that was it. We just couldn’t stop.’

‘Describe him to me.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I wanna hear . . . come on.’

‘OK. He had dark hair that fell over one eye. Very sort of Byronic I guess. He wasn’t tall, but he was broad, like you. Solid. I could never look at him without thinking he’d been carved or poured out of bronze or something.’

‘On a pedestal, huh?’

‘Actually, now you mention it, I guess I did worship him. I suppose because he was in charge of the instrument which made me come to life. I sometimes felt I needed him to truly express myself.’

‘What was his cock like?’ Connor asked.

‘Pardon?’

‘You heard. Tell me.’

Claire hesitated for a moment. Dug her nails into her breast and went on. ‘Like the rest of him, I guess. Solid, big, straight, hard. And he had a rhythm which just fitted with mine. I knew it would be like that. And he had a smell which was . . . I don’t know, but it was like I knew it from a long time ago. Familiar somehow.’

‘So, you were in Edinburgh. Beautiful city.’

‘You’ve been there? It was autumn. I had sent the albums over to the festival. We got booked and sort of eloped from the rest of the band. We were staying in this very old neighbourhood in a flat on the top floor. He named it Wuthering Heights. Which was pretty ironic since, as I recall, Cathy and Heathcliff never got to have sex.

‘So we had our living room, all velvet curtains and velvet sofas, but then you could climb right up these stairs to a space under the roof. I have no idea how they got a grand piano up there, but there it was in this bare room. You opened the dormer window and you could see the spires of the old kirks against the dusk. You could hear the bells of the clock towers and autumn leaves would blow in on the breeze. It could have been a hundred, two hundred years ago.

‘Anyway, we’d spent a lot of time going to various gigs and I’d absolutely fallen in love with this piece of folk music, a beautiful tune called “Gentle Fair Elly”. It was so soft and delicate, but heartbreaking. Like fairy music. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

‘Then, one night after I’d taken a bath and I was wrapped in white towels, I came out and I heard it. He was up in the room above. He had arranged the music for the piano and was playing it for me. I climbed up in the dark and sat on the only chair, watching him play this song by moonlight. He was naked and the light shone on the muscles moving in his back. It was one of the most erotic things I’ve ever seen.

‘And then, as the last note died away on the piano, he came over to me, pulled my towel away, pushed back the piano stool and laid me down naked on the bare floor in this perfect white rectangle.’ Claire hesitated, wondering if she should go on.

‘Is there more?’ Connor asked.

‘I suppose you can guess the rest. But with the moonlight on my face I just remember looking at the black silhouette of his head against my white legs and I remember how warm his tongue was inside me while the rest of me was so cold on the hard floor. When I came I had this image that I was a black and white piano keyboard and his fingers were playing up and down the notes . . .’

‘It sounds perfect.’

Claire laughed to break the spell. ‘Well it was . . . at the time. So, I guess I’m saying, if you could learn the piano . . .’

‘How did all this end then? Where is this piano-playing fool now?’

Claire sat up, turned the light back on and retrieved her glass of wine. ‘Oh, it all ended very badly. On the way back from Edinburgh he dumped me at Heathrow and flew on to Paris to his girlfriend. He kindly let the woman behind the counter pass on the news.’

‘Man, what a low act! I hope you caught up with him and let him have it.’

‘Yeah, don’t worry, I did . . . eventually.’ Claire lit a cigarette and switched off the light again.

‘So, that’s me. What’s your contribution to this evening, Connor?’

‘Well, Claire. As I say, I’ve been thinking and thinking hard. I’ve thought of all the music that’s wafted in and out over the years. And what I love now—Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Jack Johnson. But I’m not going to chance any of that stuff cos I know your whole life has been music. So I think I’ve narrowed it down to what I want to hear when we’re together.’

Claire held her breath.

‘You.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah. It’s this fantasy I’ve had since I saw you on Saturday night on that stage at the wedding. I want you to sing me the song you started and didn’t finish.’

Claire thought back to that moment and felt her face grow hot.

‘You mean “Embraceable You”?’

‘Yeah, that’s it. I want to hear you sing it right through while I kiss my way up your legs, up your belly and on up to those perfect white breasts of yours. And I want you to keep on singing as I sink my cock into you and bite hard on your neck. I want to know whether I’ll be able to feel the notes vibrating through me when I’m buried deep in your cunt. What do you think?’

Claire still hadn’t taken a breath.

‘I . . . we . . . can only try . . .’ she whispered.

‘Yeah. Let’s try,’ he said.

‘Call me tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I want you to wear.’

And he hung up.

In her hotel room Claire opened her eyes wide and sat upright.

‘Oh . . . my . . . God!’ she said aloud.

And then she threw a pillow at the wall and laughed. She kicked her red sandals in the air and watched the satin ribbons dance around her calves. She sat in the dark room looking at the lights of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and she laughed again. She didn’t stop laughing for a long time.

Thursday

All About Meg

Claire knocked on the back door of Meg’s house and peered through the glass panel.

‘Meg? Meg!’

This was all very puzzling. Claire had called Meg on her mobile as she was dropping Madeline off at school. Meg had answered that, yes, she was home and, yes, she was as desperate to see Claire as Claire was to see her. Now she wasn’t answering the door.

Claire pushed her way inside and walked through the kitchen. The bright apple-green walls took on a particularly noxious hue in the morning light. But there was no Meg.

‘Meg? Yoo-hoo,’ Claire called softly.

Still no answer. She picked her way through the living room strewn with brightly coloured plastic toys. She noted a headless Barbie doll hanging by its neck from a tower made out of wooden blocks. Erk! Little boys! They were an entirely different ball game. Claire wished she’d had a brother for Maddie.

From the bedroom came the sound of Meg sobbing. Claire walked through the door and saw one of those scenes from a movie. A crying, dishevelled woman flinging clothes into an open suitcase.

‘Meg, what on earth are you doing?’

‘What does it look like?’ Meg stood with a handful of greying bras and undies.

‘Well, I hope you’re chucking those grungies down the tip. But somehow I have a feeling you’re not.’

‘I’m leaving Tony.’ Meg threw the underwear into the case and rummaged through a drawer for more.

‘You’re what?’

‘I’ve had enough. I’m over this whole thing. I’m leaving.’

‘What “whole thing”? You mean your ten-year marriage and four kids? Your life?’ Claire sat down on the bed and slammed the suitcase shut.

‘I’m taking the kids with me!’ Standing there barefoot in her short polka dot nightie with her black curls tumbling out of a baby blue scrunchie, Meg looked all of six years old. And she cried like a six year old too.

She dropped her armful of clothes on the floor, threw her head back and bellowed. ‘It’s not working. All we do is fight all the time. And I’m so tired, Claire. I’m so bloody tired. I can’t do this anymore.’

‘Whoa! Stop! Leave all this. Come into the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’ Claire took her best friend by the hand and led her through the living room.

‘Ow, ow, ow! Fuck!’ Meg bent down and retrieved a tiny pair of Bratz doll sunglasses from the ball of her foot. She threw them and they bounced off the television.

Claire made a cup of tea as Meg sat and recited her litany of complaints. They were, in no particular order: Tony was working too many hours; there was not enough money; she felt fat; all the kids did was fight with each other; they still hadn’t built the extension on the house; she felt sick; Tony was still talking about his mother moving in; she hadn’t had time to get her roots done; she felt tired; and she couldn’t find her car keys.

‘I’ll help you pack,’ said Claire, heading for the bedroom.

Meg managed a smile at least.

Clare had to admit that Meg’s list was impressive, but it was very unlike her to drop her bundle in such a spectacular fashion. She was usually organised, happy and positive.

Today the house looked like its occupants had fled an invasion of foreign troops. There was crap on every available surface. Meg had dark circles under her eyes.

‘You know what I think, Meg?’ Claire reached out and put a comforting hand on her knee.

‘What?’

‘I think you’re pregnant.’

Meg’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes flashed around the room as she considered this. After a long pause she shook her head.

‘No, no, no! I couldn’t be! I’m forty-four! Nicky’s six years old!’

‘Yeah, and . . .?’

‘Jesus, Claire!’ Meg flung herself off the chair and hurtled into the bathroom, Claire raced after her. Claire dodged a shower of tampons, panty liners and pill packets as she watched Meg frantically scrabble through the bottom drawer of the vanity unit.

‘No, no, no! Oh God, I think I’ve still got some here somewhere. Do those predictor thingos have a use-by date?’

Meg and Claire stood over the kitchen sink and watched the line turn bright blue. Then they watched as another stick registered the same result. Then Claire flew down to the chemist and brought back a new packet of predictor thingos. They sat around the kitchen table and watched as this one turned bright blue too.

‘I couldn’t be! I can’t be!’ Meg fell back into her chair with her mouth open and her limbs hanging helplessly like a rag doll.

‘Oh, Meg . . . another baby! Congratulations! It’s brilliant!’ Claire knew full well all the implications of number five in Meg’s life but chose ‘I’m thrilled for you’ as her first reaction. The rest would unravel later.

And that’s not to say Claire wasn’t thrilled. Another baby! She felt a kick of envy in her stomach. Not unlike the kick of a tiny foot.

‘But I’m forty-four! How did this happen?’

‘Well, after four kids—if you don’t know by now! Haven’t you heard of a “change of life baby”?’

‘That’s a stupid expression. Every baby changes your fucking life!’

‘I think you’re amazing, Meg. Hey, my ovaries are shutting up shop, but you’re still open for business and trading.’

‘Yeah, a great bloody pair we make. Perimenopausal and pregnant.’

Meg stood and paced the kitchen. Claire sat and listened as she hacked her way through a jungle of anger, disbelief and despair until she finally found herself in a sunny clearing of acceptance. Joy was too much to hope for just yet.

‘Oh my God, Claire . . . what if it’s twins again?

‘This is bloody Tony’s fault. I told him we needed to be careful.

‘Now he’ll move his mother in. He’ll use it as an excuse.

‘We’ve only just got Nicky out of our bed!

‘We can’t have another baby. I’ve given away the capsule . . . and the cot.

‘Breastfeeding. My nipples hurt just thinking about it.

‘Seven, eight of us! We won’t even fit in the car.

‘What will Max say? He’s ten. He’s almost a teenager. He’ll think we’re gross.

‘More uni fees. We’ll never have any money. Ever.

‘When the baby’s sixteen. I’ll be sixty. I’m supposed to be a grandmother by then!

‘Well, my life’s stuffed anyway. I don’t s’pose one more will make any difference.

‘Tony will be proud of himself.

‘And Sophia and Stephanie . . . they’ll have a real live baby to cart around.

‘It’ll be an August baby. What star sign’s August? Leo and Virgo. My mum’s a Virgo. I’d like a Virgo. They’re supposed to be quiet thinkers. Christ knows we could do with one of those in this family.’

And finally, ‘If it’s a girl I’ll call her Claire . . .’

It was at this point that Claire thought she could safely interject.

‘You can’t call a baby Claire Angelucchi!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it sounds like some sort of Italian soup!’

‘You’re thinking of minestrone.’

‘Alright, some kind of jelly then. A gelatine mould with bits of goat in it. “I’ll have an entrée serve of Claire Angelucchi with a side salad of radicchio and fennel.”’

Finally the two women could laugh together.

‘OK, Meg. There’s a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in the glass cabinet in the living room. I’m going to get it out and put it on ice. We’re going to clean this house and then when it’s cold we are going to sit here and drink it,’ said Claire. She clapped her hands with excitement.

‘French champagne is good,’ said Meg. ‘Because if I have to go through this again, I want to be treated like a bloody queen.’

‘You’re more than a queen, Meg. You’re a goddess. Truly. A real, live goddess.’

‘Yeah, a goddess with her own fertility cult. Someone should erect a shrine to me. People could come and leave offerings of nipple ointment and stretchmark oil. Stretchmark oil! Like that ever worked! I think Tony used the last lot I was given to oil the wooden shutters in the bedroom.’

Claire hooted with laughter.

‘Come to think of it, my stomach already looks like one of those canvas holland blinds.’

No wonder Claire loved Meg so much. She was irrepressible. No matter how extreme her circumstances, her humour always surfaced. Like a bubbling spring finds a crack in a cliff face.

‘Are you going to ring Tony?’ Claire asked.

‘And have him fall off a roof? I think I’ll wait till he gets home. Actually . . . it’s his birthday next Monday. Maybe I’ll wait until then. “Happy birthday, Mr Italian Stallion. It’s your turn to get out of bed and feed the baby.”’

The morning wandered along as the two friends cleaned the house and exchanged views.

On men . . .

Claire: ‘The problem is that no matter how hard you try, no matter how many years you spend scouring the face of the earth for the Perfect One, you end up married to . . . a man!’

Meg: ‘You’re right, Claire. You’re absolutely right! I never thought of it like that. It’s always a man. And you don’t get a lot of choice. No matter how careful you are you end up with either Mister Workaholic, Mister Womaniser, Mister Gambler, Mister Lazy—’

Claire: ‘Mister Lazy? Hey, isn’t that one of those Mister Man books they have for kids? Imagine if they had a series for women. Mister Emotionally Unavailable, Mister Commitment Phobic, Mister Underminer . . .’

Meg: ‘So which one did you end up with?’

Claire: ‘Um . . . how about Mister I Hear Your Criticism and I Thank You For It?’

Meg: ‘I’ve got Mister Mum’s Boy. Can there be such a thing? I dunno, I think that’s probably a contradiction in terms.’

Claire: ‘Do you think they ever talk about us like this?’

Meg: ‘No, I reckon they just think they’d like more sex . . . or less. I reckon they’re simple souls in the end.’

Claire ‘They’re lucky.’

On childbirth . . .

Meg: ‘Of course I’ve done this so many times I should probably have a home birth, but forget it. I would like to be as far away from home as possible . . . Tahiti looks nice.’

Claire: ‘I remember when I had Maddie I read all these books about birthing plans—you know, women who planned their births right down to the music selection, lighting and stuff. And then I read this book about postnatal depression and guess what one of the main causes was?’

Meg: ‘Women whose birthing plans stuffed up?’

Claire: ‘Yup. So when I was having Maddie I decided to not make any plans at all. My only plan being to expect the unexpected. Right? But then I had a caesarean and I totally went into shock because . . .’

Meg: ‘Because . . .?’

Claire: ‘I had forgotten to unexpect a caesarean. Thereby completely proving my initial theory to be correct!’

Meg: ‘And your initial theory again?’

Claire: ‘That you can’t plan anything in childbirth. Even my plan to not make any plans was deeply flawed.’

Meg: ‘So your advice would be . . .?’

Claire: ‘Book the tickets to Tahiti.’

On home renovations . . .

Claire: ‘Whatever you do, Meg, promise me you will not be renovating the house when the baby comes.’

Meg: ‘But we have to. Look at this kitchen!’

Claire: ‘Like the baby is going to come home from the hospital and refuse to stay cos the splashback clashes with the walls! Besides, babies love cack green. It’s one of their favourite colours, along with poo brown and vomit yellow. If you want to renovate for the baby, buy a new bra.’

Meg: ‘I agree with you about pulling the back off the house. Not that we’ve got any money anyway. But I am definitely getting this kitchen painted.’

Claire: ‘I was having the house painted when I was pregnant and I dunno, I’m normally good with colours, but do you think I could get it right? I had the kitchen redone five times! When my waters broke and I woke Charlie at 6 am, he thought I was shaking him to tell him I finally had a colour for the sunroom.’

Meg: ‘What colour did you end up with in there again?’

Claire: ‘I had such bad indigestion that in the end I settled for Qwik Eze walls, a Mylanta ceiling and a Gaviscon trim.’

Meg: ‘Actually I was looking at a colour chart the other day and there was this shade called Fragrance. Try to think what colour that could possibly be.’

Claire: ‘I think we’re back to poo brown again.’

On regaining your figure . . .

Meg: ‘You know in the old days there used to be a saying “nine months up and nine months down”, which meant nine months to put on the weight and nine to get it off again. Now it’s “nine months up and you can’t come home from the hospital looking like that”!’

Claire: ‘I know, I know. It’s like some Olympic event. It’s bullshit.’

Meg: ‘This time I’m planning on “nine months up and I’ll be a size ten for the baby’s twenty-first”.’

Claire: ‘Good idea. I remember reading this Woman’s Day— all about Heather Locklear, who was trying to get her figure back. They reckoned she was spending two hours a day on the treadmill and only eating poached salmon and steamed broccoli. So what do you reckon the next story about Heather Locklear was?’

Meg: ‘What?’

Claire: ‘She had postnatal depression. Duh.’

Meg: ‘Remember all those photos of Elle McPherson jogging with her son Flynn in the pram? The poor kid spent so much time clinging on for dear life against the headwind that his face was like a windscreen after a trip down the Pacific Highway. She probably had to get the nanny to clean the dead grasshoppers off his face every morning.’

On domesticity . . .

Meg: ‘The women who give me the total shits are those bitches like Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart. I mean, you think you’re doing OK—the kids haven’t been taken into foster care; you still have the semblance of a sex life and you can get out the door looking presentable—and they come along and tell you it’s not enough. You’ve got to do more!’

Claire: ‘As if everyone isn’t going as hard as they can already.’

Meg: ‘Like, I was watching Nigella Lawson the other night and there she is whipping up food for the kids saying: “They just can’t get enough of my gorgonzola and broccoli soufflé”. You know, just once I’d like to see her standing there picking the red, yellow and green bits out of fried rice so Mister Six Year Old will eat it.’

Claire: ‘I’d love to see that!’

Meg: ‘Someone should volunteer to strangle the cow with one of those muslin bags she uses to tie up her homemade Christmas puddings. And while they’re there they could throw brandy over Martha Stewart and set her on fire as well.’

Claire: ‘I have my hand up here.’

Meg: ‘Cos the thing is, after you read their books you start to have completely idiotic fantasies about making your own food from scratch. Like, I was watching Jackie French on Burke’s Backyard the other night and she gave out a recipe for handmade dog biscuits. Yeah, as if! Must get around to attempting those as soon as I’ve mastered manufacturing my own Glad Wrap.’

Claire: ‘One of the women I know, she’s this successful film producer, was telling me her husband gave her that Nigella book, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, for Christmas. She was so furious she hit him over the head with it.’

Meg: ‘Serves him right.’

On kids . . .

Meg: ‘Do you realise that, if I have twins, I will have six under ten?’

Claire: ‘Sounds like a cricket score! And here’s Meg Angelucchi bowling from the scoreboard end, she’s currently on six under ten . . .’

Meg: ‘Yeah. I wonder who the winner is—the Australian champion? She probably has fifteen under twenty or something horrendous!’

Claire: ‘Look at my pathetic effort. One under six.’

Meg: ‘Well, Claire, at least you’re on the paddock. Think of all those women who never make the team.’

Claire: ‘Can you imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t have kids?’

Meg: ‘I often think I would be one of those women whose handbag matches her shoes. I reckon that if I tried to swap all the shit that’s in my handbag, I’d need a week off.’

Claire: ‘And a forklift!’

Meg: ‘But think about this, Claire! If I was ever marooned on an island I could start a new civilisation with the crap that’s in my bag. A brave new world built from Tic Tacs with fluff stuck to them, empty lip gloss containers, old tissues, orange peel and five cent pieces!’

The next time Claire and Meg looked at the clock it was lunchtime. The house had been cleaned and, more importantly, the champagne was now cold. It was when Meg was reaching for the glasses that she suddenly turned to Claire.

‘Oh my God. I’ve completely forgotten the most important thing of all! You haven’t told me if you rang Mr Surfie Boy.’

Claire waved her inquiry away. ‘I don’t think it’s very important in the scheme of things. I mean, in terms of what’s happening to you . . .’

Meg shook her head emphatically. ‘Oh yes it is, Claire. You have to tell me everything. I want to know what it’s like to still have a life.’

The two women repaired to their seats around the wooden table on Meg’s back deck. They had an icy bottle of Veuve Cliquot, still in its birthday present cellophane, and a box of cheese Tiny Teddies to share. The stage was set for a high-level conference.

Claire told her the basics. Yes, she had rung Connor—twice. Yes, he had agreed to meet her. Yes, she was still determined to go through with her mad plan. Yes, she knew she was an idiot.

‘So what’s he like then?’

Claire was soon on her feet and pacing as the words tumbled out. ‘Oh, Meg, he’s amazing. He’s thirty-three, seven years older than I thought, but that’s even better. And he’s so sexy. I mean, he really pushes all my buttons. Sometimes he’s thoughtful, or funny. I suppose I thought I’d be dealing with some boofhead surfer, but he’s really taken me by surprise. When I talk to him, I feel like he understands me. In fact, if he didn’t actually exist I would say that I’d invented him.’

‘Oh no! You’re not going to fall in love with him are you?’

Claire sat down again and poured a glass of champagne.

‘No, I’m not. I love Charlie. Even if sometimes it’s hard to keep it all happening over the years. You know, the passion kind of waxes and wanes.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it. I reckon that after you’ve been married a long time what makes a man “good in bed” is the amount of time he’s prepared to stay out of it and leave you in there by yourself.’

Claire laughed and continued. ‘Besides, he’s engaged to some marine biologist who’s working in Brazil at the moment. We both know what we’re in this for.’

‘Which is?’ mumbled Meg through a mouthful of Tiny Teddies.

‘I told you. Just one last amazing adventure, that’s all. I mean, it’s not complicated.’

Meg leaned back in her chair and was thoughtful. She was trying to put this all some place in her mind where it made any sort of emotional sense. ‘Well, I suppose it’s like one of those internet sex chat rooms or something . . .’

‘Only this is live. God, Meg, you should hear his voice.’

Meg refused to acknowledge Claire’s girlish breathlessness and continued, ‘The thing I’ve never understood about internet sex is how can it be any good if you’ve still got to keep on typing? I mean, the first thing that goes when I’m bonking is my typing skills. I reckon I’d get down to about four words a minute, and then they’d be mostly vowels.’

Claire spluttered into her champagne.

‘A . . . E . . . I . . . O . . . U . . .’ Meg panted with her head thrown back and one finger tapping on an imaginary keyboard.

When the laughing died down Claire dragged Meg back to the subject at hand.

‘You know, one thing Connor said and I’ve been thinking about—have you ever heard of the concept of “morphic resonance”?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, he said maybe we are all connected at an unconscious level. That maybe we’re all thinking the same thoughts.’

Meg sat up and looked at Claire, her eyebrows working overtime with scepticism. ‘This better not be a repeat of that infatuation you had with that Ellery wanker.’

‘Pu-leese—I got over that years ago,’ Claire lied.

‘Uh-huh. Well for your sake, Claire Sellwyn, you better hope that Charlie isn’t reading your mind right now!’

Claire looked back at Meg. She knew Meg wasn’t buying into the Connor scenario but, as usual, she did have a very good point.

Later that afternoon Claire and Madeline heaved themselves through the front door and dumped a tangle of shopping, schoolbags, hats, keys and mail on the dining room table. In a flash Madeline was halfway across the slate floor to Charlie’s study.

‘Baby, baby, we’re having another baby!’ she chanted.

Charlie appeared at the doorway. Surprise, disbelief and shock all collided in his face to give him the expression of a dead fish.

Claire was quick to reassure him. ‘No, no, it’s not me,’ she called. ‘Maddie! It’s not Mummy who’s having another baby. It’s Meg!’

‘Meg’s pregnant?’ said Charlie. He bent down, picked Madeline up and absentmindedly kissed her ‘hello’.

‘Yes, she’s pregnant! Can you believe it? We did the test today. Don’t say anything, I don’t think Tony knows yet. I shouldn’t have told Maddie now I think about it. It’s very early days.’

Charlie’s face reanimated into fatherly concern. It was a look Claire loathed. Her gears changed from ‘forward’ to ‘reverse’ in an instant.

‘So, how does that make you feel?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Me? I’m thrilled for her. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, you know . . . with all your challenges at the moment.’

Claire was defensive. ‘Challenges? What “challenges”? What’s that supposed to mean?’

This was probably a personal best for Claire and Charlie. They had managed to move from détente to nuclear stand-off in under ten seconds. Madeline caught the mood, struggled out of her father’s arms and was away.

Charlie threw his arms in the air. ‘Jesus, Claire, I’m just trying to be empathetic here. I know how you’ve been struggling with this whole menopause thing. Give me a bit of credit!’

When he had his arms in the air it was Claire’s cue to put her hands on her hips and turn up the volume.

‘Will you stop calling it a “menopause thing”? It’s called perimenopause. I thought you’d know that from those bloody books you’ve been reading. I’m sorry I ever told you about it!’

‘Well, I’m glad you did tell me about it, because at least now I have some explanation for your continually bitchy mood.’

‘I AM NOT BITCHY! I’ve had a completely brilliant day with Meg. It’s when I get home and YOU look at me as if I’m some sort of mental patient!’

Charlie turned his back on her. ‘Claire, I’m not talking to you when you’re irrational.’

She followed him into the study.

‘WELL, YOU’D BETTER FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO TALK TO BECAUSE, ACCORDING TO THOSE STUPID BOOKS YOU’RE READING, I AM GOING TO BE IRRATIONAL FOR TEN LONG YEARS!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Charlie muttered. He picked up his mobile phone from the desk and threw it down again for no particular reason. ‘And they wonder why men start looking at younger women!’

How long would you get for killing your husband, Claire asked herself. Had a decline in ovarian function ever been used as a defence in homicide?

She could hear the judge: ‘Claire Sellwyn, the jury finds you guilty of murder. However, the court takes into account your approaching menopause as a mitigating circumstance. You will henceforth be taken from this place and administered conjugated equine oestrogen until your hair is silky, your vagina is supple and moist and you regain your calm and amenable demeanour. In short, until you become a fertile woman once more. That is all.’

Claire went at Charlie for one last venomous bite. ‘Well, Mr Charlie Wallace. I’ve got a lot more chance of getting someone younger to screw me than you have. Ten years worth of chance, don’t forget!’

And with this she turned, thought about slamming the door, realised that routine was getting a bit tired, so hastily clickety-clacked across the echoing hard floor to the fridge. She wrenched a bottle of chardonnay from the door, poured a drink and stepped outside to calm her nerves. It was only after she had drained half the glass that her heels stopped tap-tapping with annoyance.

How had she and Charlie ever navigated their way to this foreign land? Men are from Mars and women are from Venus? Crap! Men would have been from Venus too but they got lost because they were too fucking pig-headed to read the map.

How could men get it so wrong? What women wanted was not such a mystery. They just wanted their men to be . . . men. She couldn’t speak for all women but, anyway, that’s what Claire wanted. Somewhere along the way, Charlie had changed from being a man to a mediator. She noticed that whenever their male and female friends were together having a discussion, Charlie became a bridge of understanding between the sexes. It was like he was a translator at the United Gender Nations. She could see him sitting in the auditorium with his headphones on.

‘I think what Louise is trying to say here, John . . .’ ‘John, I don’t really think you’re seeing it from Louise’s point of view which is equally valid . . .’ For fuck’s sake!

If they went to a party, he was torn. Should he be standing around the barbecue with the blokes or in the kitchen with the girls? What usually happened was that he ruined the night for everyone. The men couldn’t start a conversation about ‘tits’ without Charlie’s ‘Ah, come on now, fellas . . .’ And the women couldn’t get down and dirty about ‘dicks’ without hearing ‘Hey now, girls . . .’

It was infuriating. And it wasn’t like he was sexually repressed. When Charlie met Claire eight years ago he was so sure of himself. She had been singing at an album launch. After the performance she was standing at the bar surrounded by younger men. There was a time in Claire’s late thirties when she couldn’t shake them off. It was as if every 25-year-old bloke had been on a high school excursion to see The Graduate and had decided Claire was to be his personal Mrs Robinson.

She had had affairs with a few of them. Even gone back to their flats, which had distinguished themselves by their total absence of books, their fireplaces full of flavoured milk cartons and, in one shocking instance, a Superman doona cover. She had finally sworn off them after taking one youngster away with a group of friends to the Hunter Valley for the weekend. His name was Josh. He was twenty-three and looked all of seventeen. Her two gay friends, Peter and Nigel, had given her hell.

‘Oh darls, has he got any ID with him if we go to the pub?’

‘When’s his mum coming to pick him up?’

‘Oooh, have you sewed name tags in the back of his jumpers?’

Josh had distinguished himself by ordering a Crown Lager in the restaurant of one of the best wineries in the district, and then throwing up after the two glasses of muscat Peter and Nigel had bullied him into drinking. And it was not even like the sex made it worthwhile. Of course, with young men there was plenty of it. She remembered the record being seven ejaculations in one night. Which had been alarming (and messy). But Claire always had to direct traffic, like a cop on points duty. ‘No, not there . . . there. Slower. Faster. Stop. No, not now . . . now!’ The novelty of real-live sex toys wore off fast.

As she drove Josh back to the city in silence she made a pact with herself to make an extra effort to find a grown-up. This had not proven to be an easy task. It was a popular theme in newspaper and magazine articles—career women had only themselves to blame for their failure to find men. They were too selfish, too choosy, blah, blah, blah. Claire knew the truth of it. It was as much about timing and luck as anything else. She did marry Ben, but she was too young. She would have married Louie, but Zoe intervened. Ellery? Well, thank God she didn’t marry him. And her last failed attempt was Simon. He was certainly marriage material—if only he had divorced his wife!

And then, just when she thought she and Caspian the Cat would have to make a life together, along came Charlie. Standing at the bar that night she could feel someone looking at the back of her neck. What was it that Connor had said? That sense of being stared at. Something about absorption and projection. She had turned to see this tall man with short dark hair standing next to her. And then he spoke. As soon as she heard the voice she knew who it was. Charlie Wallace! She’d been listening to him on radio since she was at high school.

‘Good morning, Sydney. Charlie Wallace here with you for the next three hours playing classic hits from the eighties, nineties and the best of the new stuff. And how’s your day been so far? It’s about to get a whole lot better! Let’s get things under way with some Talking Heads . . . We’re On the Road to Nowhereaaaah!’

She would never, ever forget the first words he spoke to her alone. ‘Claire Sellwyn. I have adored you from afar for years. I remember seeing you at the Blue Mountains Festival and thinking “that woman has the best pair of legs I have ever seen”.’ The sound of his voice was like dark melting chocolate. She recalled thinking, a man—an actual grown-up man!

And Charlie was handsome in a grown-up man way. He had lines at the corners of his blue eyes. And, looking into those eyes, she saw kindness and intelligence. His hair, greying at the temples, was cut close to his head. His torso was still lean and strong. He was wearing an open-necked burgundy-coloured shirt and a black leather biker jacket. His lower half was poured into black jeans and finished at lizard skin cowboy boots. It all said: I’m comfortable with who I am. Put that look together with that voice, and the whole effect was unbelievably stimulating. Claire dropped the little boys standing around her like hot rocks.

Claire and Charlie had talked for some time that evening and then he asked her to dinner. This in itself was a revelation. Despite all the men she had been out with, actual dinner dates had been relatively few. What usually happened was a late night assignation after a gig. Drinks, nightclub, souvlaki, sex. Her social life had been mostly conducted under the cover of darkness like some clandestine operation. More than once Claire had found herself at lunch at Bondi, blinking in the daylight at some blotchy, unshaven creature she couldn’t believe she had already bedded.

Her dinner date with Charlie had turned out to be at Southbank in Melbourne. He picked her up from her flat in Rose Bay and drove her to Sydney airport in his old dark-blue Mercedes. She remembered the music he played in the car. An eccentric mad collection of Thin Lizzy, The Ramones, Laurie Anderson, ACDC, Aerosmith, Sinead O’Connor, Sting, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, Annie Lennox, Nirvana. And each track with a running commentary from Charlie on the time he had seen them live at Budokan, Madison Square Garden, the Hammersmith Odeon or the Universal Amphitheatre. And there was the brilliant gossip from his interviews with the stars at the Chateau Marmont, the Rihga Royal, the Sunset Marquis and the Dorchester.

He and Claire had so much in common. Even after seven years they were still discovering concerts they had both been to, or people they both knew. It was as if they had been employed by the same company but been working on different floors. Claire had been in the creative office of the jazz department, while Charlie was working in the media office of the rock and roll department. And while they’d heard of each other, somehow they’d never caught up at the staff Christmas party.

She had forgotten the name of the Italian restaurant Charlie took her to but, like all the best places in Melbourne, it was dark wood panels and walls studded with bottles of vintage wine. The bottles glowed garnet red in the light of the amber glass table lamps. They talked nonstop and looked out over the Yarra River. The river had been dark and full of romantic promise, and they wouldn’t have been surprised if they had walked out the door into a cobblestone lane in Rome.

They slept together that night. There seemed little point in waiting. The sex had been just what Claire was longing for. Charlie was sure about himself in everything, and bed was no exception. He handled her like a precious object. She recalled him murmuring in appreciation as he slowly unwrapped her. He had been patient, intuitive, inventive. And the smell of him, the feel of him inside her . . . she knew she had come home at last. When she orgasmed she had an image of her cervix as a jewelled Fabergé egg.

When they woke the next morning in the hotel room and looked at each other, they both knew the searching was over. No more contestants, please—we have a winner! They read the Sunday papers and drank coffee together with the ease of a long-married couple. Three months later he had presented her with a perfect marquise diamond ring. Something she would have chosen for herself. They were married by the end of that year.

It was Charlie’s second marriage and he had a very clear idea of how he wanted it to go this time. He wanted it simple. Something that suited a thirty-eight year old divorcee and a forty-eight year old widower. Claire in a floor-length column of oyster satin and Charlie in a charcoal Armani suit. They wed in the park at dusk. The reception had been at The Pier restaurant in Rose Bay and the guests were a fusion of jazz and rock musicians.

The evening had been perfect. Family and friends had come together to launch Claire and Charlie’s marriage on a sea of love. But even after all this. There was still that moment in their hotel room afterwards when Claire had looked at him and saw a stranger. But then again, didn’t everyone sometimes have that ‘Who are you? How did I get here?’ feeling?

It was like the feeling she once had walking through Tokyo’s Shibuya station at peak hour and being a foot taller than the thousands of people around her. One moment you were towering over everyone else, looking down and pondering on the very nature of human existence—what grand plan in the design of the universe has brought us all here, together, at this moment in time? And then, a minute later, you were sitting down on the train with your shopping bags, the same height as everybody else, moving in the same direction as them and just impatient to get to the next station.

There was something Claire had read once about the best way to choose a partner. It was about choosing someone you trusted to witness your life. And if that was true Claire felt she had chosen well. Claire and Charlie had understood each other. They both knew that they had already lived a life and so they gave each other a freedom and independence a lot of other couples would have found hard to comprehend.

But then, somewhere along the way, Charlie had decided he didn’t want to be the person Claire married. He’d started on his personal search for meaning. ‘The unexamined life is not worth living,’ he was now fond of saying. Texts on comparative religion, the bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, collections of ancient myths and legends and Conscious Living magazines had started to pile up on Charlie’s bedside table.

Claire had begun to feel that the ghost of Charlie’s dead wife Chloe had come into their home. Especially with Rose planning her wedding and thinking of her absent mother. Chloe had died of breast cancer ten years earlier. Claire guessed that Charlie’s approaching sixtieth birthday was spooking him. That he had a sense of time running out. That there were Big Emotional Issues which needed to be addressed. And while Claire understood (intellectually) that Charlie was now doing essential renovation work on his psyche, work that she would benefit from later as he settled into a contented old age, it was hard going (emotionally).

The conclusion that Charlie had reached from all his searching so far was that he and Claire should work harder at their relationship. That they should be soulmates. Where Claire had felt comfortable with the notions of freedom and independence, this idea of them as intertwined souls was scaring the hell out of her. So she was thinking about all this when Charlie found her standing staring out to sea.

‘That was a stupid thing to say and I’m sorry. I’m not looking at younger women.’

Claire knew it was true. ‘I know, it’s just that . . .’ Claire decided to take this moment when Charlie was feeling vulnerable and contrite to tell him how she saw things. ‘Charlie, the more you keep on searching for something, the more it seems to get away from us.’

Charlie walked to the front of the balcony and looked to the horizon. He jammed his hands into his pockets and sighed. ‘I can’t help feeling that life is just a journey of loss,’ he began. ‘I mean, you start with everything and then, year by year, it all falls away. Dad died, Mum will die soon. I’m losing my hair, I need glasses. Rose is gone. Her mother is gone. And I’m just not sure what you gain as you go along. I know it’s supposed to be wisdom. But who values that these days? Not when everyone around me at work is twenty-five. And what’s the use of being wise when no one asks you for advice?’

Claire didn’t have an answer for Charlie.

‘I’ve just got to keep looking. We’ve got to keep looking.’ He turned to her, searching her eyes.

Claire knew what Charlie wanted. But she just wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. So she said nothing at all.

‘I’ve found a new men’s group and I’m going along tonight,’ he said.

‘OK, Charlie . . . whatever.’

Claire walked to the kitchen to start making dinner. Oh God! Another fucking encounter group! This had all started three years ago. Claire had even gone with Charlie to the first ‘weekend retreat’. The aim had been to deepen the spiritual connection and this two-day gathering was called ‘Journey to the Self’. Claire had told Meg about it. ‘Jeez, what if you go on this “journey to the self” and you find out there’s no one home?’ she joked.

It ended up being no joke. Ten individuals arrived at an old farmhouse in the rainforest at Bellingen on a humid Friday night. They had all selected a ‘Gifts of the Goddess’ affirmation card from a pottery bowl by the front door. Claire’s had read: ‘My Willpower Is Stronger Than My Bad Habits’. She had immediately felt like a cigarette. Charlie’s had read: ‘I Am Free of Pain and Suffering’. He stayed awake all night fighting off mosquitoes.

They had been the only married couple in the group. Everyone else was single or divorced and seemed to be in a state of extreme emotional disrepair. The weekend had been punctuated by outbursts of sobbing followed by interminable group hugs.

In the final therapy session on the Sunday morning everyone had been invited to assemble by the side of the river. They were all asked by the team leader, Debbie, to pick up a rock from the ground. Debbie was a small, curly-haired blonde who was so needy it made you clench your teeth. She had been following Claire all weekend, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. ‘And how are you feeling, Claire?’ she kept asking. ‘No, I mean . . . really. Feeling. How are you feeling?’ Claire, apart from craving a bacon and egg roll with barbecue sauce, was feeling fine.

Now, by the side of the river, Debbie was making one last attempt to break those people who had been holding out in the sobbing department. As she stood and spoke with her mighty rock held aloft, she was looking sideways at Claire. ‘Hold the rock in your hand, feel the weight of it. Feel its longing to go back to the earth. Now I want you to imagine all the regrets you have in your life are within this rock. Name them all. Put them inside this rock. This is the rock of regret. Now fling it into the river. And as this river washes away your rock, imagine your regrets also being washed away. This rock, your regrets, will be returned to the earth from whence they came. And you will be free.’

Claire had watched Charlie solemnly address his large rock. He kissed it and whispered . . . what? Claire could only wonder. He inspected the rock’s marbled surface, turned it in his hand, feeling the weight of it, then flung it as far as he could into the rushing water below. There was a satisfying splash.

Claire too flung her rock. And heard a pathetic plonk! Her only regret was that she didn’t choose a more impressive rock.

Over the past three years Charlie’s search for meaning had taken him to a mountain retreat in Bali, to a Native American sweat lodge in New Mexico and a dawn vigil watching the sun rise on Uluru. She knew Charlie wanted her to come with him on his crusade instead of walking behind like a camp follower. But she couldn’t. Even though she had lived with him for seven years, had had a child by him and imagined she would always be with him, she felt Charlie now wanted to colonise her very soul. She was determined he wouldn’t. He would never get that corner of her which would be forever Claire.

So she continued to patiently pack his bags whenever he left on one of his spiritual search parties and then to unpack them when he returned. About the only thing she felt she could do was make sure he was properly dressed. And fed. It was with this in mind that Claire made her husband dinner this very evening. And, while she was making him dinner, her thoughts drifted inevitably to Connor.

They would be talking tonight about what they were going to wear for their weekend retreat. There would be nothing spiritual about their time together, thought Claire. In fact, this would be a retreat from spiritual purity into the purely physical. She shivered as she thought about the earthly delights his rock-hard body promised.

Maddie was sleeping soundly and Claire again had the house to herself when she rang Connor’s number at the appointed time.

‘Hi,’ he answered, his voice low in his throat.

Claire instantly felt a warm tingle of excitement telegraph from her solar plexus down to her groin. ‘Hello,’ she purred back. ‘How was the surf today?’

‘I didn’t get out. There wasn’t much about so I took a trip into Surfers Paradise. I had a bit of shopping to do . . . for us.’

Claire could hear the smile in his voice and knew she was supposed to play along. ‘Hmm . . . that sounds intriguing. And exactly what did you buy . . . us?’

‘Now let me see . . .’ There was a rustling of paper. ‘How would I describe these? They’re white sort of net. See-through. With a black velvet ribbon threaded around the top. They’re not little panties and they’re not those boy leg short things. But they’re cut so I imagine I will see some of your gorgeous bottom when you bend over.’

Claire was sitting on the couch and started to squirm with pleasure. She reached for a cushion and put it between her legs.

‘Uh-huh. Size?’

‘I’m thinking a perfect size twelve. And the bra is a 36B.’

‘Who’s a clever boy then?’ She giggled and squeezed the cushion with her thighs.

‘The bra is red satin. I’m told it’s a balconette. Which I think is a great name for a bra! It undoes at the front so let’s just see . . . hmm, that shouldn’t present any problems.’

‘And that’s it? No suspenders, stockings . . . nurse’s uniform?’

‘No, no, no,’ he laughed. ‘All that’s a bit too Penthouse centrefold for me. But I do like buttons. So I’m thinking some sort of long dress with buttons all the way up the front. I think you should choose that. High-heeled sandals with bare toes . . . and red polish. And your hair up, your neck bare. As you can see, I’ve been giving this a bit of thought.’

‘You have. And that’s it?’

‘Just one more thing. Waxing. The lot.’

‘You mean a Brazilian?’ Claire was startled.

‘Yep.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ said Claire smiling. ‘That’s where your fiancée’s from. You want some of the comforts of home.’

‘No, no. She’s gone to Brazil. She’s not from Brazil. In fact she’s—how can I say this?—very relaxed and comfortable with her personal grooming. She’s a hippie chick. So you will be fulfilling a bit of a fantasy of mine. And we’re both having one last fantasy, aren’t we?’

Claire agreed that they were and immediately wondered how she would explain her new look to Charlie.

‘So,’ Connor continued, ‘how about you? Should I be renting a fireman’s uniform? Whaddya want? Big boots? Cowboy hat? Leather?’

With all the emotional tumult of the day, Claire realised she hadn’t given the topic her full attention. But she knew that, every time she thought of Connor, he was naked.

‘Hmm. Maybe a sarong. I thought you looked very handsome on Sunday night when I saw you at Meg’s. Or just an old pair of board shorts. Those ones that lace up at the front.’

‘Yeah. I’m wearing ’em now. Too easy.’

And then Claire remembered. ‘Oh, there is one thing. Have you got any tattoos?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s what I want. I want one of those black tattoos that circles around your bicep. You know, those really ornate ones the Maoris have.’

‘I assume you want a real tattoo.’

‘Of course.’

‘You want me to experience pain!’

‘And you think a Brazilian won’t be painful?’

‘I’m actually thinking about the pain I’ll experience if my girlfriend ever finds out why I got it.’

‘I’m sure we’ll both come up with a good explanation.’

‘So where did this tattoo fantasy come from then?’ He was obviously angling for a story. Claire could hear Connor exhale and, from the thick sound of his voice, she decided he was smoking a joint.

‘Well . . .’ She picked up her glass of wine and settled back to tell him all about it. ‘It was, I dunno, eight, nine years ago. We had just finished a gig up the road and we all went back to the bar at the Sebel Townhouse. It was a quiet night and the boys left and I ended up there pretty much by myself. I was just about to go when this guy walks into the bar. He was alone and we got talking.

‘I remember he was younger than me. Tall, good-looking, blonde, blue eyes. He was wearing a suit. He seemed pretty conservative. And he said he was getting married in the morning—’

Connor interrupted. ‘Getting married, huh? Bit of a theme developing here, Claire?’

‘Well, not exactly. But it works a lot better for me than a guy telling me he’s gay. Anyway, are you listening?’

‘Listening.’

‘So, we get talking. Pretty soon I’m feeling a knee against my knee. Then a hand on my knee. Then a hand on my thigh—’

‘I can’t believe you’re making me jealous . . . but go on.’

‘So we end up in his room. His wedding tux is laid out on the bed—’

‘Please don’t tell me you fucked him on top of his wedding tuxedo?’

‘What sort of woman do you think I am? I fucked him on the floor.’

Connor laughed loudly. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re a woman who has a respect for tradition.’

‘Er . . . not quite! I did blindfold him with his own satin cummerbund while I sucked his dick.’

Connor groaned. ‘Holy fuck. Where did you come from?’

Claire continued. ‘The amazing thing was that, when he took his shirt off, there was this black panther tattooed down the length of his back. Its front paws were right up on each shoulder and its back paws were right down on his hips. I mean, you couldn’t imagine how many hours were put into this thing and how much pain he’d been through . . . I still get shivers thinking about it. I don’t know why, but I just found it unbelievably sexy. He just . . . I don’t know, he just didn’t seem the type.

‘The sex was amazing. It was wild. He chewed me up. Just ate me alive. God knows what shape he was in for the wedding the next morning. But I couldn’t believe this utterly gorgeous thing was . . . It seemed unfair that one woman was going to have him for the rest of his life. Or something like that.’

‘Did you feel guilty?’

‘Guilty? What for?’

‘Well, you cast a spell on the groom, didn’t you? Like some evil witch at a fairytale wedding.’

Claire was jolted back to Rose and Dermott’s wedding just five days ago. She sat up and the cushion dropped to the floor.

‘It was his decision too, so—’

‘Or is it the whole commitment thing you have a problem with?’

This was the first time in all her encounters with Connor that Claire could hear a note of reality chiming. She ignored it.

‘I could ask the same thing of you,’ she said quickly.

Connor took a deep drag before replying. ‘You could. Indeed you could. I figure sexual fidelity is like one of those twelve-step programs they put alcoholics and drug addicts on. I’m going to take it one day at a time, for the rest of my life. So, for me, what we’re going to do is like one last binge. But for you . . .’

‘For me? I could explain why, but . . .’

‘But?’

Claire wanted the bubble of fantasy to keep floating. She batted the conversation back up into the air with her fingertips.

‘But I’m really not going to . . . Oh, I just remembered. No watches. I hate it when a man wears a watch to bed. I always feel like he’s got things to do and he’s just made an appointment for sex. That’s unless it’s a diver’s watch.’ Claire couldn’t resist the joke.

Connor caught her mood. ‘So, no watch . . . but black socks are OK?’

She laughed. Oh God! When was she actually going to get her hands on him? The tension propelled Claire up off the couch and had her pacing the floor.

Connor felt the frustration too. She could hear it in his voice.

‘When are we going to do this? It’s nine more days until I get back to Sydney. Can we wait that long?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I’m lying here and wishing I had that bare split peach of yours in front of me now.’ Claire found this image deeply erotic and imagined her naked flesh slick with juice.

He continued, ‘That’s a geisha hairstyle, by the way, the split peach. Did you know that? The hair is split in half with a piece of red silk in the middle. So a man walking behind her will think of sex. Did you read that book?’

‘Memoirs of a Geisha? Yes, I did. The way they prepared themselves was amazing. So I suppose in the scheme of things having hot wax poured on me isn’t too much to ask.’

‘And there’s my tattoo . . .’

‘Do you really mind?’

Connor exhaled, ‘I hope you’ll make it worth my while.’

‘Oh, I will. I definitely will.’

After she had hung up the phone Claire lay back on the couch.

She conjured up the image of a darkened room lined with polished wooden panels. A white-faced geisha lay on her back on a tatami mat. Her ornate gold and black silk kimono embroidered with purple irises was open to her waist. In the half-light the young woman’s skin glowed ghostly pale. Claire undid the tie on her own robe and felt the cool air from the open doorway blow over her thighs.

The rice paper door silently slid open and three faceless men entered. The girl did not move. One man set down a bowl of water, a towel and a razor. Its sharp edge glinted in the light of a lantern. Two of the men sat either side of the young woman and took hold of her legs. They ran their hands over the smooth cool skin of her calves and up her thighs. Soon their fingers were probing the dark triangle of hair.

Claire’s own fingers guided theirs as they found the fleshy lips and parted them. They murmured with approval as the slash of moist redness was exposed to the cool air.

The third man kneeled between the girl’s open legs and he put the sharp razor to her skin. She said nothing. All that could be heard was the splash of water as the razor dipped into the bowl again and again.

With a nod the man signalled that the girl should be turned over. They lay her on her belly and threw the heavy layers of fabric over her head so she could not see, she could not hear. She could only feel their hands as they positioned her. They drew her knees up under her and pushed her head down, her white face and red mouth were pressed hard into the floor. Again they took hold of her inner thighs and drew them apart so she was open to their gaze. The man finished his work with the razor and wiped her with a towel.

The men brought the lantern close to her skin and looked to see if their work was done. They ran their hands over her to feel that all was perfectly bare and perfectly smooth.

Claire was the first to dip her fingers into the wetness and the three men followed her lead. Many fingers found their way into the well of moisture. Then a tongue licked the length of the glistening slit. Another tongue. Then a third.

The girl’s legs began to tremble. The men took this as a sign to stop and sit back on their haunches. She could feel their hot breath on her naked cold white buttocks. They watched as the trembling subsided and the girl was still once more.

Then, with a nod to his companions, one man crawled between her legs. He leaned over her and fumbled beneath the heavy silk to find the girl’s small breasts. His hands squeezed the soft flesh and pulled hard on her nipples. Then his hips drew back and with one thrust he was inside her. He grunted with the force of this movement. He was still for a moment and then, just as quickly, he withdrew. This is how they proceeded. They took turns. One man. One thrust at a time.

And each time the girl shuddered, they stopped. Claire’s fingers stopped too. Time ceased as the men slid in and out of her until she could bear it no more. There was a muffled moan as a wave of unbearable sensation rippled up her legs and collapsed them from under her.

The image of a red lacquer bowl of peaches was in Claire’s mind as she smothered her face in the cushions and sighed with pleasure.

Friday

The Birthday Party

‘A Brazilian? What? You’re not going to, are you?’ Meg’s mouth fell open with amazement and crumbs spilled from her lips.

They were in Meg’s dining room, which had thankfully escaped the mother-in-law makeover. Afternoon sun streamed in through the windows, turning the walls the colour of vintage cheddar cheese. Claire was thinking of cheese because that’s what Meg was devouring. Two rounds of toasted cheese sandwiches. Meg had taken the news that she was pregnant as the flagfall for an eating marathon.

‘Well, I asked him to get a tattoo,’ said Claire, who was on her second coffee.

‘You didn’t! So you two are really into this then?’ Meg mumbled through two full fat cheeks which made her look like a groundhog.

‘Yeah, I suppose we are.’

‘He’s got the best of it,’ said Meg. ‘I’ve only ever had half a leg waxed. That was enough for me. I ran screaming from the place. Although I did once do the old shaving routine. The itching when it all grew back was—’

‘It can’t be that much worse than having your bikini line done. And I do that.’ Claire was trying to sound positive.

‘Oh yes it can! Jesus, imagine doing that for a living. Imagine training to be a beautician and thinking you’re going to be giving gorgeous aromatherapy facials and you end up ripping the hair off—’

‘Stop! Stop it!’ Claire squealed.

‘Hey, by the way. You know Maria, Tony’s sister-in-law?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She told me that she and Angelo both went and had Brazilians—’

‘No! Angelo got one? Jesus, that would look gross. I reckon a man’s pubic hair is a necessity. Like a false beard on a wanted criminal. I mean, the whole male genital area—it’s not a good look. The hair’s got to be doing them a favour.’

‘That’s what I reckon. Anyway she says it was weird. They felt like Barbie and Ken trying to have sex.’

Meg and Claire fell about laughing.

‘Anyway, all the gay blokes do it,’ Meg went on. ‘They call it a back, crack and sack wax. Sounds hideously painful.’

‘Forget it. I like a man with hair. Everywhere. I like the way you get that concentrated smell of him. I don’t even mind a man with back hair. Ben had back hair. It was like snuggling up to a flokati rug in the winter.’

‘You’re nuts. Truly. I’m always hunting Tony into the shower.’

‘Really? I love smelling Charlie’s armpits. It’s all those pheromones . . . so sexy. Which reminds me. I’ve got to tell Connor not to wash off all his smell.’

Meg narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Claire,’ she said, as if she was ever anything but, ‘I hate the way that bloke’s name is coming into your conversations. In the same sentence with Charlie. If you fuck it up with Charlie, truly . . .’

‘I won’t, I won’t.’ Claire sipped her coffee and refolded her table napkin.

‘So when’s all this going to happen?’ said Meg.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I only ask because you’ll have to time your foray into the House of Wax. You don’t want a nasty red rash and you don’t want stubble. Ever had a beard rash after a night of passion? Pubic stubble could actually remove Mr Surfie Boy’s entire facial features, and if I remember how gorgeous he is . . . that would be a crime against humanity.’

Meg smiled and Claire smiled back. Claire reached for her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze.

‘Thanks, Meg. I know this is hard for you. And I want you to know I appreciate you letting me tell you about it. I’d go mad if I didn’t have you.’

‘You’re already mad!’

Claire was saved from further interrogation by the sound of a high-pitched wail coming from the back deck.

‘Yours or mine?’ asked Meg.

‘Definitely yours.’

Meg pushed back her chair with a sigh and trudged out to referee, administer first aid or fetch and carry, whatever was required. She was back after a moment.

‘Just did a head transplant. Swapped Action Man with Cool Shoppin’ Barbie. Max is always teasing Sophia. It’s driving me up the wall.’

‘Are you sure it’s OK to leave Maddie here tonight? You’ll have five of them hurtling around . . .’

‘And I’d better get used to it.’

‘So,’ asked Claire, ‘how are you feeling about the baby?’

Claire looked on enviously as Meg reached for more cheese toast, stuffed her mouth full and kept talking. ‘You know the funny thing is that when I was a teenager I thought that by the age of fifty I would have grown-up kids, a dead husband and I’d be setting off on a Women’s Weekly World Discovery Tour. Instead I’ll be standing at the front gate of the school waiting for my kid to come out of kindy.’

‘Yeah, it’s bizarre,’ Claire nodded. ‘Remember when you thought fifty was really, really ancient?’

Meg did remember. ‘I guess that in the old days women in their fifties had to adjust to having grown-up kids and being empty-nesters. We’ll be lucky to have them out of the house when we’re seventy!’

‘Yeah. I know where I’ll be spending my fifties. Driving Madeline to basketball practice. In between having hot flushes and boiling up Chinese herbs.’

‘Yeah,’ sighed Meg, ‘there’s a whole new world waiting for us, I suppose.’

‘I was thinking how weird it is being a woman.’ Claire was in philosopher mode. ‘I mean, you’re going along innocently and then the curtains go up on the whole world of menstruation. Pads, tampons, period pain, ovulation pain. And then, when you have a baby, there’s this whole new world of maternity bras and cracked nipples. You cope with all that. And then you discover this whole other planet of hot flushes and hormone replacement. In the meantime men’s bodies just grow hair and then lose it, and that’s it!’

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Meg smiled. ‘I remember when I found out that your breasts could produce milk just by thinking about the baby. I still haven’t got over that. I mean, you’re going along with this perfectly nice bosom and then you discover that what you’ve actually got in your bra is a Fisher and Paykel Smart Fridge!’

She made Claire laugh and kept going: ‘Imagine if men suddenly found out their penis could do all this extra stuff! It would be like them driving around in their favourite car and then one day discovering: whoa, look—the top goes down!’

‘So here you are,’ said Claire. ‘You should be like me, staring down the barrel of menopause, and instead you’re going to be plunged back into a bucket of soaking baby singlets. How do you feel about it all?’

‘I dunno. Numb really. I still haven’t told Tony, so it’s like it’s not happening.’

‘Except you’re eating for two—maybe three by the look of your plate!’

‘Don’t, don’t!’ shrieked Meg. ‘Going back into the world of twins would kill me!’

‘So when are you going to tell him?’

‘I’m waiting for the moment of maximum impact.’

Claire shook her head in disbelief. How could Meg keep the secret? It was like one of those TV sitcoms where the couple are at dinner and he says: ‘So I’ve sold my motorbike and bought a sports car.’ And she says: ‘Does it have room for a baby capsule in the back?’ And he says: ‘Are you saying . . . ?’ And she says: ‘Yes, I am saying—you’re gonna be a daddy.’ And then they both hug each other and the whole restaurant breaks into spontaneous applause.

It wasn’t like that with Charlie. He had the books; he had the thermometer, the charts and a collection of multicoloured pens. He had wanted a baby as much as Claire had and was leaving nothing to chance. He would spend his evenings propped up in bed reading books on fertility, determined to take the voodoo out of the whole process. ‘You’re thirty-nine, so I reckon we’ve got a three-day window of opportunity each month,’ he declared.

Claire had heard of women missing an opportunity for conception because their husband was away on business or watching the footy on those vital days. But not her Charlie! There he was, front and centre, dick in hand and ready to weave his magic. When Claire was a day late with her period, Charlie had consulted his charts and announced, ‘Darling, you’re pregnant.’ So much for a surprise sitcom moment!

Now it was Meg’s turn to interrogate Claire. ‘So how’s your uterus then?’

‘Jeez, Meg! That’s a question you’d never hear on Parky!’ Claire used the salt-shaker as a microphone: ‘So, Julia Roberts . . . tell us about your uterus.’

‘No, no, not Parky. Think of me as Barbara Walters,’ and here Meg’s voice dropped two octaves, she leaned forward and turned her sincerity dial up to eleven. ‘So, Claire . . . stay with that feeling . . . for a moment . . . and tell me . . . how do you feel . . . if you’re honest . . . underneath it all . . . in your heart of hearts . . . really?’

Claire chuckled appreciatively and confessed. ‘Well, you know my periods have gone AWOL. That’s to be expected, I suppose. They reckon you know when you’ve had your menopause—when it’s twelve months since your last period. So it’s all retrospective. You never get to know which one’s the last. I think that’s so unfair.

‘I know you can take the pill and choose not to have a period at all, but I like getting mine. It’s like having your own calendar so you always sort of know where you’re up to. You’re either bleeding or your breasts are sore because you’re ovulating. It’s like the tide washing in and out. It just makes me feel sad that it’s not going to be there anymore. What happens now? Do I turn into a pond or something?

‘And sometimes I get so teary. I couldn’t find my car on Monday and I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Did I tell you I was lying in bed the other night and my toes and fingers felt incredibly hot?

‘But you know, on balance I feel fine. My hair’s still shiny. I’ve still got a waist. It’s early days, I guess.’

Meg nodded sympathetically, but she didn’t know that her Barbara Walters technique had not gotten anywhere near the truth. Claire didn’t want to admit, even to her best friend, that in reality she felt like a woman possessed.

A newspaper article about a female condition called ‘persistent arousal syndrome’ had caught her eye just this morning. This syndrome, recently identified by sexologists, left its victims in a permanent helpless haze of throbbing sexual desire. ‘My 800 Orgasms a Day are Sheer Hell.’ That was the title of an article written by a 52-year-old journalist who had outed herself in a South African newspaper. She wrote about having a ‘persistent sexual itch’ she couldn’t scratch. Then there was the woman who lost her job because she was in the toilets at work masturbating twelve times a day. She’d even had to attend to the odd emergency in the car.

In the car! Claire thought of her own emergency with a flush of embarrassment. While she didn’t think she had a condition which any professional could put a name to, Claire could sympathise. She thought the name of her condition was probably Connor Deprivation Syndrome. She just couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Later that afternoon Claire was still thinking about him in the shower. She scrutinised her naked body through the steamy patches on the full-length mirror. Her soapy hands circled over her stomach and down until they came across the ridge of her caesarean scar. Charlie was the only man who had ever seen it. He loved the ridge, intersected by vertical highways of shiny stretchmarks. He had licked and kissed the length of it even though Claire had protested and tried to push him away. Would it be a turn-off for someone else? That ‘someone else’ being Connor? And then there was the coppery bush below that. She tried to imagine herself without it.

As she was towelling herself dry Charlie barged into the bathroom with the comfort and full entitlement of a married man. Even after seven years Claire had not got used to him doing this.

‘Close the door, you’re letting the cold air in,’ she whinged. This was actually code for ‘Get out. This is my private space’.

Charlie closed the door and went about his shaving, which was always, for some reason, accompanied by tuneless whistling.

Claire always found a way to intrude on this annoying, pointless ritual. She now did it unconsciously. He started whistling, she started talking.

‘Hey, honey . . .’ This was said in a light and breezy fashion, as if she had just thought of it. ‘What would you think if I went and got a Brazilian?’

‘A what?’ Charlie paused, razor in hand.

‘A Brazilian. You know—everything waxed. What would you think?’

Charlie resumed scraping his face. ‘I would assume that either you were having an affair, or that you were trying to turn me into a paedophile.’

‘A paedophile?’ Claire stopped towelling.

‘Well, yeah. I mean, grown women have pubic hair, don’t they? Last time I looked they did anyway.’

‘But everyone says it’s unbelievably sexy.’

‘Who’s everyone? Have you been talking to Courtney Love’s pubic hair stylist? Get real, Claire. NO. Don’t do it.’ And with that Charlie opened the door, sucking all the warm comforting steam from the room, and slammed it behind him.

Claire stood blinking through the frame Charlie had wiped onto the wet surface of the mirror.

Fuck! What did she ask that for? She cursed herself for her stupidity. Now she was caught. Break the pact with Connor or break the faith with Charlie? Aaargh!

She was still thinking about Connor two hours later as Charlie parked his black BMW outside Phil and Helen’s house, an impressive sandstone pile in Rozelle. They had been invited to Phil’s fiftieth birthday party.

Two white rose bushes in massive terracotta pots were on sentry duty by the front step. Charlie sought Claire’s hand and threaded his fingers through hers. She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. They presented a picture of perfect marital harmony as the front door was opened wide.

Claire had found herself at a lot of fiftieths lately and she had decided they were her favourite birthday parties. By this age you could look back and clearly see the arc of your life. You were hopefully old enough, and wise enough, to be contented about where life had led you, but young enough to make a change if you weren’t.

Of course, every fifty year old Claire knew was fond of saying that fifty was the new forty. Was that just wishful thinking? Maybe it wasn’t. As Meg had said that afternoon, almost every fifty year old she knew still had children living at home. The kids kept you young . . . and exhausted . . . and poor.

There was always plenty to complain about. But the best of it was that the children kept your mind occupied so there was no time to dwell on your failing eyesight, greying hair and thickening waistline. An old friend of her father’s had once said: ‘Life is like turning the pages of an interesting novel, but once you have children it becomes a thriller.’ And so it was. Watching your friends’ children’s lives unfold was a book you just couldn’t put down.

A golden-haired apparition in a pair of jewelled high-heeled sandals, tiny white miniskirt and silver lurex midriff top stood in the doorway. Her smile was a flash of dazzling white intensity. ‘Claire, Charlie. Hi! Welcome. Come in. Grab a glass of champagne! Dad’s out the back.’

‘Gemma? It is you? You look . . .’ Claire was stunned.

‘She looks twenty-five is what you mean,’ Gemma’s mother called from the hallway.

Gemma giggled and sashayed back down the hall. Claire and Charlie watched her go and then looked at each other in openmouthed amazement.

‘I know. It’s terrifying,’ said Helen. ‘She’s sixteen. Phil’s had the baseball bat near the front door to keep the boys away since she was thirteen. Come in, come in. Lovely to see you.’

‘She’s gorgeous, Helen,’ said Claire.

‘But not as beautiful as her mother,’ said Charlie at his smooth best. It was true. Helen was a Vogue portrait of how to look glamorous in your fifth decade. She was blonde on blonde. Her hair was cut in a chic short style. An embroidered white slip dress showed off slim, toned and tanned limbs.

‘You’re especially welcome, Charlie,’ she laughed. ‘Gosh it was a beautiful wedding. Have you heard from the lovebirds?’

‘Not yet—but we’re taking that as a good sign,’ said Charlie.

Kisses and presents were offered up and accepted. Helen led the way down a tunnel of cream carpet and milky walls. The volume of the party increased with every step and so did Helen’s voice.

‘Can you believe the injustice of it?’ she shouted over the music.

‘When I was Gemma’s age, of course, I had the flattest tummy in the world but no one would have dreamt of showing it off in a midriff top. Now that everything’s going south, they’re in fashion. Arrgh!

‘Oh, there’s the door again—see you in a moment.’

Helen left Claire and Charlie to survey the party landscape. The living room had been overrun by the teenagers, who were bopping beneath the mirror ball to a dance track. Looking past them to the sandstone terrace Claire could see the twenty- and thirty-somethings had gathered near the bar.

The older men were leaning over the swimming pool railing looking into its translucent aquamarine depths as they talked. The older women had obviously decided that the light from the pool wasn’t doing them any favours and were standing by two tall glowing candelabras. Looking past them, Claire could make out the grandmothers and great-aunts sitting under a pergola threaded with coloured lights and magenta bougainvillea. Claire recognised a good many faces. Quite a few had been at Claire and Charlie’s wedding. This was one of the things you gained as you went along. Long and loyal friendships. She must remind her husband of that on the way home.

And, she reminded herself as she looked at a wall clock, she didn’t need to keep one eye on the time. She had left a message on Connor’s mobile that she wouldn’t be able to contact him tonight. And while she would miss the call, the erotic exchanges of the past few days were enough to make her feel light-headed still. As if millions of tiny bubbles were coursing through her veins like . . . champagne. And here it was in front of them on a silver tray.

Claire and Charlie took a chilled glass each. They clinked the rims together, smiled and wandered off in different directions. That was one of the other benefits of being an older married couple, thought Claire. There were many fabulous encounters to be had this evening. Flirting, sharing secrets, reminiscing. All with the security of knowing who you were going home with.

Claire headed for the birthday boy. She found him in the garden beyond a bed of massed gardenias supervising the roasting of an entire lamb on a spit.

‘Phil! Hello, darling. Happy birthday!’ Claire raised her arms in extravagant greeting.

‘Claire, you lovely thing. Look at you. You get more gorgeous every time I see you. How do you do it?’ He swept her into a bear hug and kissed both cheeks.

Claire mentally ticked off her gruelling beauty regime. Yoga, exercise bike, facials, pedicures, waxing, eyebrow shaping, haircut and colour, aromatherapy massage, low-carb diet, make-up, and replied, ‘Champagne, of course! You’re the one who looks great. I can’t believe you’re turning fifty!’ Claire shook her head with genuine amazement. But then again she couldn’t believe she was forty-five.

‘I know,’ said Phil. ‘I wouldn’t believe it myself if the girls didn’t look like a couple of old slappers.’

‘Phil!’

‘It’s true! My daughters look like the Banger Sisters—you know, in that Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon movie?’

‘Well, I hope you haven’t found any phallic plaster of Paris casts in their rooms. Any obscene doorstops.’

Phil laughed and slipped his arm through Claire’s as they walked back to the terrace.

‘My God, Claire. Imagine if they end up doing half the things we did?’

‘But they’ve got AIDS and herpes and all that stuff to contend with now. It’s different. And they’ll probably still be living at home until they’re twenty-five.’

‘Yeah. I don’t s’pose there’s any chance of them racking off to Queensland with a surfie in some old clapped-out Kombi. Do kids still do that stuff?’

Claire took a sudden interest in her toenail polish as they walked. Maybe kids didn’t, but that was what she was thinking of doing. What an embarrassing adolescent fantasy!

‘I don’t know what kids do anymore, Phil. I just hope that, by the time Maddie’s playing loud music and talking to boys all night, I’ll be sitting in my bath chair with my crochet and be half deaf,’ she said brightly.

‘Yep—here’s to senility.’ He clinked his beer bottle against Claire’s glass.

‘So, how do you feel about the half-century?’ She searched his face for any sign of uncertainty.

‘I’m a happy man. I love my life. Bring it on!’ He leaned back and looked to the stars. ‘Did you hear me? I’m ready for the next fifty. Bring it on, baby!’

Claire looked at the heavens with him. ‘Baby?’

‘God’s a woman, Claire. Gotta be. You can’t live in an all-female household and come to any other conclusion. And, uh-oh, I can see The Goddess Who Walks looking for me. Talk to you later, beautiful . . .’ and he strode across the lawn to the crowded terrace.

Claire watched him go and reflected that she had just been talking to a man. Not a boy or a man-boy, but a real grownup man. In his fifty years on this earth he had created all she saw about her. This house, this family, these friends.

Phil had a confidence about himself and where he was in life that Claire admired. And when she talked to him she felt like a grown-up woman. Whereas with Charlie . . . as his confidence in himself oscillated, so did her age. With Charlie she felt like either his wayward teenage daughter or his mother. Lately she felt more and more unsettled. She just knew that she didn’t feel forty-five—whatever that was supposed to feel like. And, quite frankly, if she didn’t look forty-five and she didn’t feel forty-five, who was to say she wasn’t thirty-five? Her gynaecologist, for a start.

Looking around her now, Claire wondered where she fitted in. She could choose between the maidens, the mothers or the crones, each gathered in their own corner. She chose the crones and walked towards the pergola. The grandmothers and great-aunts were pleased to see her.

‘Oh my goodness, Claire, hello. Let me introduce you,’ said Phil’s mother, Patsy, extending her wrinkled hand. Claire took it and felt the surprisingly firm grip of her bony fingers through the warm, papery skin.

‘Now, this is my eldest sister Olive and my youngest sister Ruby. This is Helen’s mother Katherine and her sister Leila and their friend Cosima—that’s a Greek name. And this is Ivy who lives next door and Mavis from across the road. This is Claire— a lovely friend of Phillip and Helen’s.’

The ladies all chorused ‘Hello’. Claire had already lost track of who was who.

‘There’s eight of us sitting here,’ said . . . was it Olive? ‘We’ve just been thinking we’re a sort of witches’ coven sitting here under the coloured lights.’

‘Although,’ she was corrected by Ruby, ‘there’s too many of us to be a coven because I think I’m right in saying there has to be only seven of us. So someone is a good fairy in disguise.’

The ladies all laughed. ‘Or,’ Mavis (?) continued, ‘we’re all good fairies at the ball and one of us is an evil stepmother in disguise.’

Claire immediately thought that if anyone was malevolent, it was probably her.

‘Oh,’ said Patsy, ‘you do look lovely, Claire. Isn’t that a lovely lace on that skirt, Ruby?’

‘Beautiful. Is it Chantilly?’ Ruby inquired.

‘I’m not really sure,’ said Claire as three different hands reached out to feel the fabric.

‘It’s Duchesse,’ it was definitively announced. ‘Oooh, lovely . . .’ the ladies cooed like a flock of grey doves.

‘I wore that at my wedding,’ said . . . er . . . Ivy? ‘I love the way the young ones now can wear the lace and the beads just for everyday. I think it’s marvellous to see all the beading coming back in, all the craft that goes into the fabrics.’

‘It’s all made in China these days, Ivy,’ Olive commented dryly.

‘Do you have any children, Claire?’ asked Cosima. ‘I have six,’ she went on, not waiting for the reply. ‘Six children, nine grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way.’

‘Congratulations!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘I have one 29-year-old stepdaughter who says she doesn’t want children until she’s in her late thirties—’

‘Oh, too old,’ Cosima interrupted and shook her head. ‘These girls! Ridiculous! There’s no chance to have a whole family at that age.’

Claire certainly knew the truth of that. Rose had told Claire that she didn’t feel ‘maternal’. Well, there weren’t that many women who did at twenty-nine. But it was a feeling which began as a small niggle and grew and grew until . . . there you were at thirty-five, contemplating snatching babies out of prams and running off down the street.

‘At that age your eggs have gone off,’ declared Olive.

‘And,’ Claire added, ‘I have one six year old. I think I was lucky to have her. I’ll be even luckier to have any grandchildren from her, let alone great-grandchildren.’

‘Why? How old are you?’ asked Cosima.

‘I’m forty-five,’ Claire replied. There was a clamour at this revelation.

‘Forty-five?’ No one could believe it. The general consensus was that Claire looked at least a decade younger. The women all instantly did the maths as if they were a gathering of shopkeepers. Then they debated the likelihood of Claire being a granny, as if she wasn’t standing right in front of them.

‘Oh, there’s plenty of time for her to be a grandmother. The older one will come to her senses. And with the younger one— when she’s in her thirties Claire will be just seventy. So she won’t have any worries there.’

‘But she might have a bit of trouble being a great-grandmother. With the way the young girls are putting off being mums these days, she’ll have to be a hundred!’

‘My daughter’s forty and she still wants to have a family. I’ve told her she’ll be lucky. There’ll be no grandchildren for me.’

‘The way these girls are going, grandmothers will be extinct. That will be dreadful. It really will.’

‘They won’t know what they’re missing. I couldn’t have coped without my mother. The children loved their Nonna. God rest her soul.’

There was a pause while all the women thought of their mothers, and their mothers before them. It was as if a minute of silent remembrance had been declared. Claire pondered what the extinction of the grandmother would mean. Who would buy violet-scented bath cubes? Who would make padded coathangers and gumleaf earrings? More than that. Who would take young children on their knees and let them lean out the window to catch a precious glimpse of the past gone from view. And of the future just beyond the curve of the earth?

Claire recalled that as a little girl she and her big sister Louise would be put on the train at Central Station in Sydney to travel to her grandparents’ sheep station. A parcel of land which had once been part of the grand holding of the Dundullimal run. They would get off at Dubbo railway station with their cardboard suitcases full of Christmas presents. They would wait for Pop to pick them up in his old red Holden and then drive to the property along dusty tracks through the paddocks to the festive sound of the carolling cicadas.

Claire remembered looking up into the velvety folds of her grandmother’s face. Her green eyes were faded to the shade of saltbush and her red hair had gone to ochre. She remembered hearing Nanna’s tales of the wonders of horse-drawn trams and gaslights in the city streets. The hard times of The War. She remembered how her grandmother could walk through her kitchen garden and name every plant that grew there. Borage, chervil, angelica, sorrel, curly endive, patty pan squash, red-topped turnip. But most of all, she remembered her Nanna Claire’s pantry.

Claire was eight years old and in the vastness of the western plains, where the sky vaulted from horizon to horizon, she found a refuge in the dim confines of the pantry. She would steal into that fragrant and mysterious place, locking the door behind her. The pantry was lit by a single globe, with shelves from floor to ceiling. And every shelf was full. The fruit and herbs from the garden were candied, crystallised and glacéed. They were pickled, preserved or made into relish, sauce, chutney, marmalade, cordial, jam or jelly.

There were biscuits in tins, slices in trays, sponges under lace covers and pies in deep dishes. On another shelf were spiced vinegars and dried herbs. And, above that, bunches of desiccated flowers, plum puddings. Highest of all were Christmas cakes and tantalising jars of coconut ice and toffee . . . sadly out of reach. The pantry was home for saved paper bags, string, corks, rubber bands, candles, jars of leftover soap and the trusty Fowlers Vacola bottling outfit. And, of course, Nanna Claire had a calendar in there—a free one from the butcher of black and white kittens in a basket.

Nanna Claire loved her pantry. It wasn’t until Claire was a grown woman and had her own walk-in cupboard that she understood why. Nanna knew the deep satisfaction of feeding an entire shearing shed for a week from its stores; the comforting quiet refuge where a few tears could be shed for no particular reason as the shelves were methodically rearranged; the triumph of emerging with a jar or two of homemade quince jelly to press upon relatives visiting from the city.

Never was there a room so full of love. And of all the places in the world Claire had been, there, among the bunches of dried lavender and tins of Anzac biscuits, was the place she was happiest. Her heart felt heavy with the memory. She missed her grandmother. She had never realised with such force that she wanted to be a grandmother herself.

There was silence as the women around Claire entertained their own private memories. The spell was broken as the dance music cranked up again. Cosima was the first to speak.

‘You know, I didn’t really understand the point of my life until the grandchildren came along. I was so busy when my children were little, but now they have their own. And a great-grandchild! A true blessing! Finally I can see why God put me here. You sow the seeds and many, many years later you reap the harvest—you see how life continues. I know there’s a part of me in them and I now can see that I will be walking the earth forever.’

Claire thought this was a beautiful piece of wisdom and she wished Charlie could hear it.

‘Oh that’s wonderful,’ she exclaimed. ‘I know someone who’s depressed about getting older. He says that you just lose everything as you go along.’

‘Oh that’s nonsense, you don’t at all,’ clucked Patsy.

‘I’ve lost my car keys,’ said Olive.

‘And we’ve all lost our husbands,’ said Leila.

‘But the difference is,’ said Olive, ‘I don’t know where my car keys are. I know where Lionel is. He’s in Hobart with his third wife—and I’m not going looking for him!’ The ladies hooted appreciatively.

A tray of champagne and savoury tarts arrived and Claire took the opportunity to make her excuses and circulate.

Where to next? Claire felt she wasn’t ready for the reality check she would no doubt get from the middle-agers near the candles. She decided to plunge into the midst of the singles. As she walked up the terrace steps towards this bunch of hothouse flowers she could hear their conversation.

‘She has!’

‘She has not!’

‘You go up to her and tell her a sad story, like your cat died or something, and see if she can frown. I’ll bet she can’t.’

‘How much do you want to bet?’

‘Four vodka jelly shots.’

‘OK, you’re on.’

Claire watched as a lovely young thing in a hot pink beaded slip and bare feet made her way over to a group standing by the pool. The target was a woman of indeterminate age whose face was well-known from television. Claire sidled up to the knot of young women who were watching the exchange across the terrace.

‘We’re talking Botox, right?’ Claire affected a conspiratorial whisper.

‘Yeah,’ answered a brunette in emerald green satin and heels which stood her over six feet tall. ‘That’s the least of it. We reckon she’s had a nose job, cheek implants—and check out those lips!’ she squealed.

‘Beesting lips,’ said Claire.

‘Beesting? More like she’s swum face first into a swarm of box jellyfish. You wouldn’t know whether to kiss her or give her some vinegar to get the swelling down!’

Their laughter was like a chain of small bells tinkling.

Miss Hot Pink Slip was soon walking back to the group and rolling her eyes. ‘Fuck you, Lucinda. I owe you four jelly shots.’ More laughter.

‘Oh come on,’ said Claire. ‘I think she looks pretty good for her age.’

‘Which is?’ asked another striking looking young woman in a slinky red jersey halter dress. A tumble of black curls reached halfway down her bare back.

‘Well . . .’ Claire’s newly acquired expertise at putting an age to everyone she met was failing her in this instance.

‘I’d say she’s at least fifty,’ the girl whispered.

‘Which isn’t that old,’ said Claire quickly.

Miss Emerald Green Satin bent down to Claire’s face. ‘No, it isn’t. But at that age you’ve got to put your tits away!’

‘Actually I think she could put her tits away. They’re definitely not hers!’

General falling about. Claire was feeling quite thankful she was wearing a demure black satin tuxedo jacket and her pearls.

Miss Red Jersey Halter Neck was the first to regain her composure. ‘Aaron says that you can tell if a woman has implants because when you run your hands over them they’re a different temperature to the rest of her body.’

‘Really?’ Claire was fascinated.

‘Apparently they’re a couple of degrees cooler.’

‘Eeew!’ There was general distaste at this. A waiter with a tray of Peking duck approached the group. He was waved away as if he was offering toxic waste. Claire was famished but decided that actual ingestion of food would be considered bad form in this company.

‘You wouldn’t have implants?’ Claire addressed the group.

‘Oh no . . .’ they chorused.

Miss Hot Pink Slip, now with a plastic cup of orange jelly in either hand, spoke. ‘You can get these fillet things now. They look just like chicken breasts and you pop them into your bra.’

Claire scrunched up her face. ‘I’ve heard of those, but it sounds a bit sad. I mean, a bloke’s bound to be disappointed when he dives in and comes up with two handfuls of wobbly silicone.’

‘Actually, my boyfriend asked if he could take mine home with him the other night,’ she laughed. ‘I said, “Go on, take ’em, honey—knock yourself out”.’

It was Miss Red Jersey Halter Neck’s turn again. ‘Did you know you can get fake nipples now?’

Claire did not know.

‘Uh-huh. It’s to give you that permanent “high beam” look. You know, so you look like your nipples are erect.’

Claire’s hands went involuntarily to her bosom. Bizarre, she thought, since she’d spent years trying to make sure hers didn’t show.

Miss Emerald Green Satin, who was obviously the wit of the group, said, ‘The trouble with those is, you have to be really careful that they stay where you put them, otherwise you start off the night looking like you’re turned on, but by the end they’ve gone for a wander and you look like you’ve got two warts!’

There was unbridled hilarity at this image. Claire thought this was the perfect time to put forward what was on her mind. ‘I’m thinking of having a Brazilian,’ she ventured. Her idea was met with general enthusiasm.

‘Oh, you must,’ said Miss Hot Pink Slip. ‘We all do. It hurts like hell, but the boys absolutely adore it. In fact, they’re all so spoilt these days that if you haven’t had it done they point-blank refuse to dine at the Y.’

Claire almost choked on her champagne. She’d never heard that expression before, but at least she now knew that Connor’s request wasn’t as outrageous as she’d first thought.

‘And it feels divine when you’re wearing satin.’ Miss Emerald Green seductively wiggled her hips.

‘Do it once and you’ll never go back. And neither will your . . . husband? Boyfriend?’ Miss Red Jersey Halter Neck asked diplomatically.

And that, thought Claire, is a bloody good question. ‘Oh, I’m just doing it for me,’ she said.

The girls all looked at her.

‘For you?’ said Miss Emerald Green. ‘Don’t be fucking insane! It hurts too much to do it for yourself! First thing I do when I’m away from my boyfriend is let the pubes grow back. I went off to Bali for three weeks this year and came back looking like a Kodiak bear!’

There was more giggling and laughter as Claire was treated to a graphic description of pubic hair waxing. It all sounded so appalling, she was now having second thoughts.

With another two glasses of champagne behind her, Claire headed for the group standing by the candelabras. She was nervous. She imagined they could tell. She knew these women, but was not part of their inner circle. Barbara, Laura, Gillian and Carolyn. She calculated their ages (between forty-nine and fifty-six), the number of children between them (ten) and the remaining number of husbands (two—at last meeting anyway). They were all beautifully turned out. Hair perfectly styled, designer outfits, full make-up, an impressive array of jewellery. There was not an elasticised waistband to be seen and Claire reflected that there didn’t seem to be an end in sight to the daily devotions at the shrine of female vanity. It was at this point she realised her feet were killing her and made a mental note to start carrying a pair of flat shoes in her handbag.

These women were just a few steps ahead of Claire in life’s journey. It seemed that in the decade between forty-five and fifty-five, a life’s worth of accumulated experience hardened into diamond brilliance. There were some, like Gillian and Barbara, who had grown a hard carapace of cynicism to protect themselves from pain. Others, like Carolyn and Laura, had grown into themselves with a calm and grace which Claire envied. They all seemed individuated at last. Where the younger women could really only be identified by the frocks they were wearing, these women were as different from each other as it was possible to be. Amongst them, Claire felt a half-formed girl-woman. She felt almost reverential in their company and a pressure to be witty and worldly wise.

Gillian was the first to spot her approaching. ‘Claire! Where have you been? We saw you come in about an hour ago.’

‘Hi! Just doing the rounds. Lovely party, isn’t it?’ Claire kissed everyone and the usual compliments were batted back and forth—‘Love your hair! What a fabulous colour! You look heaven in blue! I want those pearls!’ etc, etc.

‘So . . .’ Gillian had a hard edge to her voice which always made Claire feel uneasy. ‘What’s up? Tell us something we don’t know.’

‘Well,’ said Claire, who started by offering up a salacious tidbit. ‘I’ve just been talking with the young chicks over there about their pubic hair. Or, rather, lack of it.’

‘Silly tarts,’ said Barbara. ‘Can you believe they all go and get those Argentinians?’

‘Brazilians!’ the group shouted at her and roared with laughter.

‘Oh shit! That’s old age for you. I’m losing my mind! Anyway, it’s bloody stupid, if you ask me. Do you remember when we were their age? I mean, a man wouldn’t have dreamed of asking you to get it done!’

‘That’s true,’ Gillian agreed. ‘I had hairy legs, hairy armpits, hairy fanny—the lot. Mind you, in the seventies the blokes were hairy too. Hair down to their bums. Beards, moustaches.’

‘I think there was a musical about it, Gillian!’ teased Laura.

‘Give me a head with hair . . . long, beautiful hair . . .’ Claire sang.

‘I couldn’t give a bugger about most of my body hair,’ Gillian went on, ‘but I’ll tell you something—these ones growing out of my chin are a worry! When the kids eventually stick me in the old folks home I’m going to have written into some contract that the nurse has to come and wax my chin every fortnight!’

Barbara ran her fingers over her chin. ‘They’ll need a bloody angle grinder to get mine. Honestly, they’re like fuse wire!’

‘How about when you get the hairs on your nipples!’ added Laura.

‘Christ, I’ve had them since I was thirty,’ said Barbara, throwing back half a glass of red wine.

Inexplicably, Claire felt that the responsibility for keeping the conversation moving had fallen to her. ‘I went to the doctor this week and she says I’m perimenopausal,’ she blurted.

‘Well, at least you know,’ said Carolyn, resting elegant jewelled fingers on Claire’s sleeve. ‘I remember a couple of years ago I was standing in the supermarket and I was looking for this packet of biscuits. I couldn’t find them and I just burst into tears.’

The women all nodded. Here was a familiar scenario!

‘A woman came up to me and said: “For God’s sake, get a patch.” And do you know, at the time I had no idea what she was talking about.’

Claire wasn’t all that sure she did either. Although, obviously, it was some sort of hormone replacement device.

Barbara hooted. ‘I can imagine you walking around with a bandaid on your bum, saying, “Oh, that feels better.” But there’s a lot of hooey about menopause. You blink and it’s over. Of course I’m such an old hag now that even the butcher won’t flirt with me!’

Gillian’s voice cut through the merriment. ‘You’re talking crap. Your whole menopause was a hard road. Don’t tell Claire lies.’

‘Well, yes, I am bullshitting,’ said Barbara in a more sober tone. ‘Andrew left me in the middle of it. I hit fifty and he was gone. You know, I think it was all because of the doona.’

‘The doona?’ said Claire.

‘I had these God-awful night sweats. I’d wake up and feel like I’d been caught in a tropical monsoon. I’d be drenched in sweat. Literally dripping. And this would happen two, three times a night. I’d have to throw off the doona and actually change the sheets. It was worse then getting up to the kids when they were little.’

‘And then I’d be shivering. I’d feel chilled to the bone. Anyway, a couple of months of this and with Andrew being woken at all hours, he started staying in hotels. And that’s when he met her.’

There was a nod of heads at the mention of her. Each woman cast her in their own individual mould. She was either tall and brunette and professional, or an arty bohemian redhead, or a pedestrian little curly-headed blonde secretary. In each instance the prefix ‘young’ was added.

‘So what’s the latest there?’ Laura was obviously dreading the answer, but knew the question had to be asked.

‘Oh, he’s taken up windsurfing, would you believe? And they’re building a holiday house up the coast. I hope the arsehole drowns!’

Mercifully, at this moment a waiter offered miniature hamburgers. The group descended on them like birds of prey.

‘I’ve found all the herbal stuff to be very helpful with moods, tiredness, all that,’ said Laura. ‘Mind you, when I send Patrick down to the naturopath’s for Wild Mexican Yam, Blessed Thistle, Skullcap and Motherwort, he looks at me like I’m some sort of mad witch.’

‘Tell him it’s when you start asking for Deadly Nightshade that he has to worry,’ said Gillian.

‘Well, my worst thing is forgetfulness,’ said Carolyn, who had managed to eat a hamburger as daintily as she would a Belgian chocolate.

‘Considering what that prick of a husband of yours did to you, I’d say you should be grateful,’ commented Barbara acidly.

Carolyn turned to her and said in her mild and gentle manner, ‘I can’t walk around being bitter. In fact, the boys are over in Florence with him now. You know, I sometimes look back and wonder—if he hadn’t left me, would I have left him?’

‘But if you had left him, I bet you wouldn’t have written a fucking awful novel about him.’

‘Leave it alone, Barb,’ Gillian commanded in an icy tone. But Barbara had drunk too much to leave it alone.

‘It’s the truth. He’s a cunt. I read that book. It wasn’t just about you. It was about all of us. That’s the reward you get for staying home and raising the kids while he fulfils his God-given creative urge. You end up as a used-up old bag with a dry fanny.’

The group began to shuffle and look about uneasily.

Carolyn bravely stayed the course. ‘I can’t punish him. He has to live with what he did. As I say, I might have left him.’

Claire picked up the nuance in Carolyn’s voice. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that . . . I’ve met someone.’

Barbara rolled her eyes and lurched off, waving her glass over her head. ‘Christ, I need another drink.’ Everyone was glad to see her go.

‘So come on—details. Who is he?’ Gillian demanded.

Carolyn ducked her head and spoke into her champagne glass. ‘It’s not a “he” it’s a “she”.’

Claire’s eyes opened wide with surprise. A perfect sitcom moment. Fabulous.

Gillian was unimpressed. ‘Jesus, not another one! You’re not a fucking lesbian, Caro. You’re the most un-lesbian person I’ve ever met.’

‘Well, I am now,’ Carolyn sang.

Laura attempted to make this all seem as normal as possible. She asked sweetly, ‘So—where did you meet her?’

‘At embroidery class. She was my teacher. She’s five years younger than me and got one daughter at university. We’re moving in together.’

‘Look,’ said Gillian, ‘I think it’s a great idea for single women our age to move in together and share the electricity bill. But do we all have to fuck each other as well?’

‘It’s not just about sex. We laugh a lot, we’re great companions. I just think she’s the loveliest person I ever met. I feel like I’ve met my soulmate at last.’

Gillian was looking at her doubtfully and about to speak again when Claire felt she should come to the rescue.

‘Well, I think it’s brilliant. I hope you share the same shoe size.’

‘As a matter of fact, we do,’ Carolyn giggled.

Gillian: ‘And the same tube of KY, no doubt.’

‘Gillian!’ Claire and Laura chorused.

Gillian relented and gave Carolyn a peck on the cheek. ‘Half your luck. Don’t take any notice of me—I’m jealous. Not of the sex, mind you—since Viagra, there’s plenty of that. It’s getting to fall in love again. I’d love to experience that one more time. Got to be better than any plastic hormone patch.’

‘I wish I’d been to bed with a woman,’ sighed Laura.

‘I tried it,’ said Claire. ‘It wasn’t that I couldn’t love another woman. The sex didn’t work for me. It felt like one long session of foreplay. And—no offence, Carolyn—unfortunately I felt like a fuck afterwards.’

Clare could see Carolyn’s face turn fuschia even by candlelight.

Actually, the sex had worked for Claire in one way. It had made her understand what men loved about sex with women. She had been just out of her bruising affair with Ellery when she met Carrie. Claire and The Company had been playing at the Blue Mountains Festival when a petite blonde, toting a saxophone which seemed almost as big as she was, sat in one night on a jam session. She and Claire made great music together, which was always a turn-on. It couldn’t have been more than half an hour later that she found herself lying back on a double bed upstairs with Carrie sucking on one of her nipples. Claire was surprised, but undeniably aroused. She could also feel a wet spot on her thigh as Carrie rubbed against her.

Claire’s hands found Carrie’s breasts. They were small bumps on her chest, barely enough for a handful, but they were hot-wired to her crotch. The harder Claire squeezed, the more Carrie moaned and writhed against her. And then, with what seemed indecent haste, Carrie wriggled up the length of Claire’s body and presented a gingery thatch. Claire tentatively put out her tongue. She came up with an unappetising mouthful of hair and decided this operation needed a more considered approach. She laid Carrie on her back and dragged her to the edge of the bed. Claire kneeled on the floor and pushed Carrie’s thighs apart.

There it was. Two fat curved lips which formed a glistening shell. A pattern repeated over and over in nature. Clare had never been this close to a woman before and the first thing she thought was that all the ‘smelly, ugly cunt’ jokes she had ever heard from men were absolutely wrong. This was pretty and pink, and gave off a musky scent she was very familiar with.

The second thing she thought was that there was no way you could look at this shell with its mysterious slit in the middle without wanting to stick something inside it—your fingers, your tongue, your . . . er . . . dick.

She did all the things she imagined she would want a man to do to her. And then, with her tongue inside Carrie and her hands cupping her firm bottom, came the insight which Claire had never forgotten. I’m at the centre of the universe, was the thought that came into her head. The place from which all life comes.

She felt a weird compulsion to climb inside Carrie and pull the inner folds of her vagina right over her head. The image in her mind was of a tiny fairy creeping inside the petals of a rose and using the bump of the clitoris as a weeny pillow. This was clearly not an image a man would come up with, but right then Claire knew why most men loved going down on women.

Carrie had fallen into a shuddering heap with Claire’s fingers inside her feeling the pulse of her orgasm. But when Carrie had wanted to return the favour, Claire backed off. Within another hour Claire was downstairs and had recruited a Chilean bongo player to finish her off in a broom cupboard.

By the time Claire wrenched her mind back from the Blue Mountains to the conversation at hand, Gillian was giving men another serve, ‘Yep, they’ll never get over the fact that we’re the ones who give birth. They’ve all got womb envy, as I think Germaine Greer once said—’

Claire was distracted at that moment by the welcome sight of Steve Jensen in the doorway. Steve was a classic bad boy. The night had suddenly become a whole lot more interesting. Steve was winking and inclining his head at Claire in a code they both well understood. ‘Back in a sec,’ she gabbled.

She watched Steve manoeuvre his way through the throbbing crowd and, after a discreet interval, followed him. Inside the silent pearly shell of the bathroom, Claire leaned her back against the door and sighed. She watched as he bent over the bathroom bench and racked up lines of cocaine with practised efficiency.

‘Thunderbirds International Rescue arrived just in time, huh?’ he said as he busied himself.

‘God, that Barbara can be hard going,’ she breathed. ‘I mean, I like her, but she’s so . . .’

‘Fucked up?’ Steve turned and held out a rolled note.

‘It was a crap time for her husband to leave her. At fifty what chance does she have now of finding a new man?’

‘None. She scares the shit out of me.’

‘Most adult women scare the shit out of you, Steve.’

Steve grinned at her and sniffed. ‘Yup. That’s why I like ’em young and impressionable. Just down off the farm.’

Claire laughed. ‘You are a bastard!’

‘Thanks, Claire.’

Claire leaned over the bench and saw with a twinge of guilt that Helen’s Chanel skincare products had been cleared to make space for the drugs. If her theory held true, that you could tell what a man would be like in bed by the way he chopped out, then it was no wonder Steve was still single. She saw two sad little lines laid out with geometric precision.

Claire inhaled. She didn’t come across drugs that often these days but, if she had the choice between an after-dinner line and an after-dinner mint, the line would always win. But for how long? Meg had said it was time to put away childish things. This had to be one of them.

‘Look at us, Steve,’ she said. ‘At our age. Do you think we’ll be doing this in the twilight home for old folks?’

‘Fuck! I hope so. I hope that by then it will be legal and they’ll be handing it out in little plastic bags from Kellogs, to sprinkle on our muesli. More fun than the daily shot of Valium.’

‘So,’ she said, throwing back her head and sniffing, ‘any adventures in loveland recently?’

‘Just the usual assortment of anorexics, bulimics and neurotics. You know women are always whingeing about there not being any good men left, well the same goes for us.’

Steve leaned back on the bench and folded his arms across his chest. He seemed to be looking for sympathy, but he wasn’t getting any from Claire. She knew better. She knew that for years Steve had taken enough drugs to kill a brown dog. His life was, literally, a string of car wrecks. The last Porsche he owned he’d wrapped around a gum tree on the way back from Kangaroo Valley. Two of his ex-girlfriends were in re-hab. If there was any justice in the world, he should have been dead, or at least looked like Diego Maradona. Instead, he still looked unbelievably cute.

His dark hair was cut short and flicked up at the front and he regarded Claire with mischievous brown eyes. He was wearing a pistachio green shirt (Paul Smith, Claire guessed) over a pair of well-worn jeans. His bare feet were slipped into tan and white tennis shoes with lime-green laces (Paul Smith again). He ran his own boutique advertising agency (she couldn’t imagine how). And, most importantly, he was forty-three, the age at which he could help himself to the buffet of women anywhere from twenty to fifty. Lucky, lucky Steve.

Claire knew he was a dedicated player. And, now that she was caught up in a thrilling game of pursuit and capture herself, she was reminded of the excitement of being single. Perhaps it was the curse of a lot of people of her generation. Once you’d spent enough time out there in the hunt, you had to have a good reason to put your gun back in the rack. For women it was your ovaries measuring time like a metronome. For men like Steve the benefits of sticking with one woman were becoming increasingly obscure.

When Claire had been introduced to him by Charlie at their wedding, he had had a steady date and it looked as if he was about to do just that—stick with one woman. That relationship had fizzled after three years and here he was, still single. Of course he had come up with a rationalisation for it.

‘I reckon there are a couple of ballots,’ he said. ‘The first lot of good women get married off in their twenties; the next round get snapped up in their thirties. And what’s left over after that? Just that—leftovers. Married women are the only way to go, I’ve decided.’

‘Holy hell, Steve! That’s a grim way of looking at things.’

‘Well, look at you. Charlie’s always telling us he got the last good woman in Sydney.’

Claire turned to check her lipstick in the mirror. She didn’t feel like a good woman.

‘No, Charlie’s got me wrong,’ she answered.

Fortunately, Steve was only listening to himself. ‘I’ve worked out that my ideal woman is in her early thirties. A hot-looking chick with a killer bod who’s climbing the walls because her husband or boyfriend is out of town. It’s a win-win situation.’

Claire felt her stomach cartwheel and realised that the description fitted Connor exactly. Could she be a female version of Steve? Surely not. She’d got married, had a baby. But she was still planning to have Connor. Did that make her more virtuous than Steve? Or less?

She didn’t want to dwell on it and started talking, ‘I never could understand why you didn’t marry Corinne. You two were brilliant together.’

‘Big bum. Bad hair.’

Claire couldn’t be shocked by anything Steve said. She’d spent too much time with the boys. ‘Oh right. So you’re looking for the “good woman” with the great bum and the bouncy hair. Like one of your shampoo ads. I think my sympathy for you just ran out, you weasel,’ she teased.

‘I’m not looking for sympathy—just a little understanding,’ Steve laughed.

‘And at this point I drop my knickers and climb into bed with you—is that how it usually goes?’

‘Pretty much.’ He turned to the mirror and ran his fingers through his gelled hair. Claire shook her head in exasperation.

‘So how are you enjoying the party?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Claire sighed. ‘I know teenagers are supposed to feel like this, but sometimes I feel that I’m of that age where— and this sounds ridiculous—but I’m in between. Like I don’t fit in anywhere.’

‘That’s cos we were kids in the seventies,’ Steve said authoritatively. ‘It’s the problem we have in advertising. How do you reach people like us? Although we’re always lumped in with the baby boomers, we don’t identify with many of their experiences. By the time I was a teenager, the boomers were well on their way. They’d marched straight from a Vietnam moratorium into an AV Jennings home with carport and conversation pit.

‘Since then they’ve been hogging all the good jobs, sucking down resources and breathing up most of the air—if you believe what you read. And then they gave birth to the Generation Xers, the cynical “Me, Me, Me” generation.’

‘That feels about right,’ said Claire. ‘So we are . . .?’

‘Wedged in between. I like to call us the Generation that Taste Forgot.’

‘Meaning?’

‘OK. Who was your favourite pop group when you were a teenager?’

‘Um . . . I was too young for the Beatles, so it was The Monkees.’

‘Check! See. By the time we came along, the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour had transmogrified into the Partridge Family.’

‘Oh God, I adored David Cassidy.’

‘Bingo! Did you read The Female Eunuch?’

‘Nope. Too busy taking the piss out of the femmos . . . and fucking my brains out.’

‘Exactly! Did you ever own any of the following—a pet rock, a boob tube, a Mao Tse-tung tea towel, a pair of purple jumbo cords or a transistor in a Coke can?’

Claire laughed. ‘Yes, yes. I had all that crap!’

‘That’s right, crap. We were the first generation to be delivered a serious batch of trash by mass manufacturing. And we bought it. We didn’t grow up with any -isms worth shit. Not feminism, pacifism, communism, environmentalism. Just consumerism. And now, when we’re in our mid-forties and supposed to be growing up, we want more. We don’t wanna let go.’

This seemed such a rational explanation for her obsession with Connor, and how she was shocked to find she was peri-menopausal, that Claire didn’t want to believe it. ‘That can’t be right,’ she said.

‘You paid good money for a pet rock—what the fuck would you know?’

‘But you make us sound as if we’re a generation of self-obsessed pains in the arse.’

‘No, no! I reckon that, considering the amount of change we experienced—as much as any generation before or since—we have handled it really well. I reckon we’re the bemused decade. Not cynical, not bleeding hearts. I reckon out of every generation we’ve laughed the most. It’s only now that it’s starting to look like a sad case of arrested development.’

‘Mind you,’ said Claire, ‘Arrested Development, good band.’

‘Figured you’d like them. Nice girls’ FM radio rap.’

‘Hey! Get . . .’

Claire and Steve were startled by the muffled sound of applause coming through the bathroom door.

‘Shite, the speeches!’ Steve grabbed Claire’s hand and dragged her into the hallway. With a quick smooch they parted and insinuated themselves at opposite edges of the guests assembled in the living room.

Charlie had obviously just given one of his celebrated introductions and had handed the floor to Phil. His speech made Claire cry. Then again, she always cried at birthday speeches. There was something so poignant about watching a human being trying to express their humble gratitude for just being alive. A halting speech at a party was such an inadequate gesture in the face of such a big concept. Claire thought they should be sacrificing a goat, standing around a bonfire in body paint or paddling a sacred canoe to an island graveyard.

Tonight a choreographed rendition of ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’ from Phil’s daughters was about as close as they would get to a corroboree. She clapped and laughed along anyway.

Claire tried to remember her own father’s fiftieth birthday. She drew a blank, even though she must have been twenty-one and engaged—married?—to Ben. Claire was no different to any other child. She was the centre of the universe. She couldn’t remember a time when her parents weren’t old.

She wondered when Maddie would realise that she was a good decade older than most of the other mothers at school. Probably never. Although Maddie had peered at her very closely one day and observed that Mummy had ‘burrows’ around her eyes.

Much later that night Claire found herself sitting around the table the grandmothers and great-aunts had vacated. The party was winding down. She could see Charlie on the terrace, engrossed in a conversation with Miss Emerald Green Satin. She guessed (correctly) that the young woman was entranced to meet Charlie Wallace, the famous radio announcer. She wondered when the penny would drop that Charlie had a wife. Oh . . . right about—Charlie looked over and waved; she waved back— now! Did Claire imagine it, or did she see two perky breasts deflate slightly?

Sitting around the table in various states of mellow inebriation were Patrick, Francie and Steve. The latter was taking the edge off his head full of coke with a joint.

‘So,’ said Claire, slapping her hands on the table. She was feeling quite chatty now, having had a couple more medications from Dr Steve. ‘I have a proposition for the group.’

Claire was, of course, well known for putting up one of her homemade theories for discussion.

‘OK, here we go. What’s on your mind, Claire?’ Patrick the barrister had a wonderfully analytical brain and Claire loved to hear his views on the world.

‘Yep. Let’s hear it,’ said Francie, a journalist who was working in the office of a local politician. She too had a lively mind.

Steve refilled his glass with sticky dessert wine and sat back to play his usual role of agent provocateur.

‘What’s the best night of sex you’ve ever had?’ Claire drained her wineglass with a dramatic flourish and reached for more.

There was a pause while the three of them considered this.

‘I’m hoping I haven’t had it yet,’ said Steve. ‘I hope I’m having it at about 2 am with that chick in the green dress Charlie is warming up for me.’

‘Wishful thinking, Steve-o,’ said Francie archly. ‘You’re past your sexual prime. I’m guessing you had your best night ever back in the late eighties and your drug-addled brain can’t remember it.’

‘That’s probably true . . . unfortunately,’ Steve agreed.

Patrick removed his glasses and thoughtfully chewed on them. It was a stagey courtroom pose they had all seen television lawyers use. Claire, Francie and Steve looked at Patrick and waited for him to make his opening remarks. Perhaps even call his wife as a witness.

‘It’s a bad question, Claire,’ he said.

‘Really?’ Claire asked. ‘Why?’

‘Because it’s too broad. You see, sex is good for different reasons. There’s all different kinds of sex and trying to compare them is like trying to compare apples and oranges.’

‘Or melons and bananas,’ said Steve, ever the naughty schoolboy.

‘OK then—what are all the different types of sex?’ Claire was pleased she’d at least engaged Patrick’s mind.

‘Well, let’s think. There’s affair sex, revenge sex, making-up sex. Making-up sex is something I seem to be having a lot of experience with at the moment,’ he said, looking over at his wife Laura by the pool.

‘What about breaking-up sex?’ Francie offered. ‘Or, even better, going back for one last bonk?’

‘That’s never good,’ said Steve. ‘It starts off OK but inevitably it ends up being truly shithouse.’

‘But there’s usually something so bittersweet about it that makes it utterly memorable,’ said Francie, who was obviously speaking from experience.

‘Are we talking memorable or good? Cos I’ve had plenty of memorable nights I wish I could forget,’ Steve said ruefully.

Francie continued, ‘What about love?’

‘Love you, like you, pleased to meet you. It doesn’t have a lot to do with mind-blowing sex,’ said Patrick. ‘Pure unbridled lust will certainly get you over the line.’

Claire instantly suspected that perhaps the reason Patrick and Laura were having arguments was because he was indulging himself in a little pro-bono unbridled lust.

‘I’ve had plenty of one-night stand sex.’ Steve again.

‘But that’s not really a type of sex, because you only know it’s one night in retrospect,’ Patrick pointed out.

‘Unless you go into it on that understanding. Then it’s got to be no different from “one last night”,’ Steve clarified.

Patrick had to agree.

‘How about anonymous sex?’ said Claire, instantly regretting she had mentioned it. Now she would have to explain what she meant.

‘Ooh, Claire,’ said Francie, who could be relied upon not to let the moment pass. ‘I’ve had “complete stranger” and “I hardly know you” sex, but “anonymous”? Do you mean where you never find out who it is? Tell us more!’

Claire felt obliged to explain since she’d raised it. ‘I remember this night, years ago when I was at a Nirvana concert, and I was on the balcony bending over this railing and it was pretty crowded—’

‘That was me,’ Steve cut in. Everyone laughed. Claire was relieved she didn’t have to go into forensic detail.

‘Can we think of any more?’ asked Patrick, who was warming to the theme.

‘Well, there’s first-time sex,’ Francie ventured.

‘Now hang on.’ Patrick held up his hand. ‘Are we talking good sex or bad sex? Because when you start going down that list . . .’

‘Yeah. There’s a long list of bad sex,’ said Francie. ‘How about obligatory sex?’

Now Claire asked Francie to elaborate.

‘I mean when you are in a relationship and you just do it to get it over with, or when you’ve spent the evening with a guy you don’t really like but you think you owe him one anyway.’

‘Jeez, Francie. You want to go out for dinner?’ Steve was at it again.

Francie ignored him and continued. ‘Or there’s political sex. By that I mean sex you have with your boss to climb the company ladder.’

Steve was quick off the mark. ‘You haven’t fucked that deadshit politician you work for, have you, Francie?’

‘Grow up, Steve!’

Uh-huh! Direct hit. Score another one for Steve.

‘How about same-sex sex?’ offered Claire.

‘Well, you see,’ said Patrick, ‘now you’re getting into the difficulty of classification because same-sex sex could come under any of the other headings we just mentioned.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘And in fact that leads us into the whole area of experimentation and perversion. Sometimes sex is about exploring your personal parameters. To see what you like and don’t like. Maybe it’s more about your personal intent. It might be better to try to classify sex into emotional categories, like . . .’

‘Like . . .?’ parroted Claire, who was intrigued.

‘Well, like “long anticipated” or “lightning strike”, “surprise” or “familiar”. And then there’s the one that would come out as the crowd favourite: “forbidden fruit”.’

‘Back to melons and bananas again,’ said Steve.

‘What would you call that kind of sex where you have to do it or you’ll go mad with frustration?’ said Francie. Everyone turned to look at her.

‘I reckon that’s the kind of sex most single 40-year-old women in Sydney are having.’

‘By themselves, or with someone?’ Claire laughed.

‘I’d laugh too if it wasn’t so bloody tragic.’ Francie turned down her mouth.

And Claire would have been sympathetic too, if it wasn’t that she’d tried to set Francie up with at least ten blokes over the years. Like Elaine on Seinfeld, she always found something wrong with them. They were messy eaters, angry drivers, wore their trousers too high or, Claire’s favourite: ‘He’s got spinach in his teeth.’ (‘For God’s sake, Francie, it won’t even be there in half an hour!’ ‘It will be. He’s got these gaps. It’s going to be like it for his whole life. We’ll be married for ten years and I’ll look over and he’ll still have spinach in his teeth, and I’ll have to leave him.’) It was at this point that Claire gave up on Francie’s love life.

‘Of course, we haven’t mentioned my personal favourite,’ said Steve, ‘which is—’ he paused for the dramatic effect— ‘chemically enhanced sex.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Claire, ‘and you would be an expert on this topic?’

‘I would. But I am willing to share. Right. Well, first there’s weed or hash, which is great. You’re so relaxed. It’s excellent for blow jobs. You can actually have a whole out-of-body experience with that combo. Amazing.’

‘Sounds as boring as hell for the chick,’ interjected Francie.

‘Shut up, Francie. This is my area of expertise!’

Francie sulkily shut up, but within moments realised she was completely out of her depth anyway.

‘Then there’s coke, which I’m not all that big on. I mean, it’s good if you’re getting into a whole bent-and-twisted scene and you wanna get the power thing going. It makes you perform like a god. Well, in your own mind anyway. But for straight-up shagging? Nup.

‘Of course, you can alternate coke and smack. The old yin and yang. But that’s too hard-core, even for me.

‘Mushrooms? Crap. I spent five hours with this chick one night checking out the skin on her elbow.

‘But if you really want to go right off, you get some MDMA powder—eccy powder. And you shelve it—you know, stick it up your arse. That way it comes on really quickly and changes your whole mood in one go. The whole warm-and-loving thing in one hit. You could hug a telephone pole. Shag a hole in a telephone pole. The orgasms are amazing.

‘Of course, if you can’t get hold of powder and you’ve spent the night on the Charlie and eccies, you want a Viagra. Half an hour before you need it. And you only need half a tab, which should keep you going for six hours. A whole tab could give you a hard-on for twelve hours which, let’s face it, is going to end up being pretty inconvenient.

‘So . . . I think that about covers it.’

Claire, Patrick and Francie were stunned. They looked at each other, then looked at Steve, then looked back at each other and still couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Gee, you’re all quiet . . .’ Charlie was suddenly standing there at the head of the table, wearing a cheery smile.

The four of them looked at Charlie, paused, then exploded with laughter. And the more they laughed the more pissed-off Charlie became. He was turning to go when Claire reached for the hem of his jacket and managed to gasp an apology.

‘Sorry . . . sweetie . . . we were just . . .’ She steadied herself on the side of the table. ‘We were just . . . talking about sex. I mean, sorry . . . you had to be here . . .’

‘I am here,’ said Charlie evenly.

Claire finally collected her wits. ‘We were talking about all the different kinds of sex there are. And we actually came up with quite a comprehensive list. Didn’t we, Patrick?’

Patrick started mumbling. ‘Yeah . . . er . . . make-up, breakup . . . um . . . political, obligatory . . . er . . .’

‘Commitment, one-last-bonk,’ added Francie.

‘Oh, yeah. Well I suppose I’ve never looked at it that way. Interesting. Did you mention baby sex?’ asked Charlie.

There was no comment from the committee.

‘You know, the sex you have when you’re trying to make a baby? That’s the best of all. Somehow the two of you have a spiritual connection. It’s the only time sex really makes sense because, after all, that’s what sex is really for, isn’t it?’

There was another silence.

‘But don’t you know you were only making a baby in retrospect?’ Now Steve was out of his depth.

‘Not always,’ he said, smiling at Claire and holding out his hand. ‘Come on, honey. It’s time to go.’

Since Charlie had managed to kill the conversation stone dead, it probably was.

When Claire finally found the hostess to say goodbye, Helen was in the kitchen making a cup of tea. She had taken off her glamorous white slip and changed into a navy velour tracksuit.

‘Oh, what a good idea. You look so comfortable,’ said Claire. Although, when she really looked, Helen didn’t seem relaxed at all.

‘I wish I could say it was the reason I’d changed,’ said Helen. ‘I haven’t told you I’m going into hospital for a hysterectomy on Monday.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Oh God, Claire, it’s been so awful. I haven’t stopped bleeding for months. Really heavy floods which soak through everything, even if I use two or three pads at a time. I suppose it was an act of blind optimism to wear a white dress tonight. It’s probably ruined now.’

‘Helen . . .’

‘And I’ve had really awful pain with it. Like ten times the worst period pain you’ve ever had. At the end of every day my stomach is so swollen it looks like I’m pregnant. My back hurts, I’m busting for a wee every ten minutes. Anyway, the gyno says it’s fibroids; he says it’s best to just take everything out.’

Claire didn’t know where to begin. She thought hysterectomies were something they did to old ladies in the 1950s. ‘It sounds a bit extreme. Isn’t there anything else they can do?’

‘Actually he says the growths will probably shrink after menopause, but I’m only forty-nine. It could be another five years or more!’

‘Oh, Helen . . .’

‘In the end I’m glad. I’ll just be relieved to have it over and done with. He’s taking my uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes. I’ll be on HRT for the long term.’

‘Are you worried about that?’

‘What? Increased risk of cancer, heart disease and loss of libido? Should be a breeze.’ Helen’s bottom lip wobbled and tears spilled down her cheeks. In a moment Claire was behind the kitchen counter and hugging her.

‘Oh, Helen, darling. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.’ Claire’s hands were stroking Helen’s hair. Claire could feel her snuffling into her shoulder like a baby rabbit. There was no use telling Helen not to worry. It was one thing to wish your ovaries a lingering farewell, another to have them stolen from you in a surgical strike. It was a crippling assault on your sense of womanhood. An almost fatal blow to your femininity. Well, without time to rationalise that it was all for the best, that’s how Claire felt anyway.

She could feel that she was on the verge of tears too. ‘All I can say is, take it slowly. It’s such a big thing,’ she said. ‘Remember, you are more than your ovaries. You have a wonderful life. Beautiful daughters, a husband who adores you, friends who think you are magnificent. And if you need time to grieve, take it. We’ll all be here for you.’

Claire grimaced to hear such a pathetic ‘Dr Phil’ piece of pat advice come from her mouth. But what could you say at the end of such a long night when your husband was standing at the door jangling the car keys? Claire wished she had a long afternoon to sit with her friend and talk it through. Instead they reluctantly untangled themselves and said goodbye.

Soon Charlie and Claire were heading east through the city for home. Charlie wasn’t much of a drinker, which meant they were spared the usual arguments about who was driving. The only drawback was that he was ready for a post-mortem long before she was.

‘So,’ he said as he expertly accelerated through the dark streets, ‘how was your night?’

Jesus, where did you begin? With Helen’s hysterectomy? Carolyn’s lesbian bombshell? Her suspicion that Patrick was playing around? With Brazilians and fake boobs? Steve sticking drugs up his bum? With her fears she’d never be a grandmother? She was thinking about where to begin when her ears started ringing. Or her handbag started ringing. Or, to be more precise, the mobile phone in her handbag started ringing. But by the time she realised this, it had been ringing for a while.

‘Are you going to answer that?’ Charlie was irritated. ‘It could be Meg and Tony calling about Madeline.’

Claire fumbled in her bag for the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi—it’s me.’

Claire felt a shot of adrenalin to her brain. She looked at the clock—1:39 am; she looked at Charlie who was looking at her; and she looked at the phone, which was glowing an urgent electric green.

‘Oh hi,’ she chirruped.

‘Just couldn’t get to sleep without calling you. Is it a bad time?’

Claire’s voice sounded like a cheery prerecorded message. ‘Well, you could say that. Charlie and I are just on our way home from a party.’

‘I’ve been thinking about fucking you. I can’t stop thinking about it. I think I might lie back here on the deck and look at the stars, contemplate eternity, while you suck my cock.’

He’s stoned, Claire immediately thought. ‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ she said brightly.

‘I’ve thought of another thing we could talk about. I want you to tell me the explicit details of the most dangerous, illicit sexual act you have ever performed.’

Claire thought that she was probably performing it right now with her husband not two feet away from her.

‘Well OK, I’ll do that and I’ll ring you back tomorrow. Bye.’ She threw the phone onto the floor.

‘Who the hell was that?’

‘Would you believe that was Carol ringing from London? She’s got to write an article about Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho and she wants me to help her with the Australian connection . . . you know, who’s played there. I said I’d call her tomorrow.’

‘Doesn’t she know what time it is here?’

‘Well, you know Carol! She gets these enthusiasms and time means nothing.’

Charlie seemed to buy the lie. Claire looked out her window to the streetlights and fought the panic which had made her throat as rigid as a length of PVC pipe. She slowly uncurled her fingers and began to breathe. By the time Charlie was negotiating the Anzac Bridge, the memory of the party had been fogged in by thoughts of Connor. Her limbs felt heavy and she drifted into a low-lying cloudbank of desire. The last she remembered was being at eye level with the front laces of a pair of blue floral board shorts. She was unthreading the laces from the eyelets with red fingernails and . . .

When Claire awoke she was sitting in the front seat of the car. Her phone read 2:47 am. She was cold and stiff and her head felt as if it had been nail-gunned to the door. Fuck! Charlie had left her there. Because he was angry with her? Suspicious? Or because she was so inert he would have had to use the dead man’s lift to get her out of the car?

She opened the door and fell into a gardenia bush. The security lights arced into life and next door’s dog started barking. Well, thought Claire as she hauled herself out of the garden and picked a creamy blossom from her cleavage, this is a familiar scenario. Welcome to Saturday!

It was now almost a week since she had first set eyes on Connor Carmody.

‘Just nine more days to go,’ Claire Wallace said aloud to no one at all.

Saturday

Unfaithful Aphrodite

The first thing Claire thought when she opened her eyes was that she couldn’t last nine more days until she saw Connor. She would have to think of a way to get to Kirra Beach and get her hands on him long before then.

The next thing was Charlie. Did he know something was up? Well, she thought, nothing was, apart from a couple of steamy phone calls. If you looked at the situation rationally it amounted to no more than a two-minute fumble in a cubicle. Everything else was happening in her head.

‘Charlie . . .’ she called. ‘Charlie?’ She looked out the window, thinking he might be having a morning swim.

‘Charlie!’ The house was empty. She guessed he had probably gone for a walk.

Driving across town to pick up Maddie from Meg’s place, Claire considered her options. She could ask Connor to come back to Sydney earlier; but having him in the same town as Charlie was risky. She had promised him twenty-four hours. If he did come back, where would they go? How would she explain to Charlie that she would be away overnight? In the end Sydney was a small town; if she was spotted with Connor—don’t even think about it!

The best option seemed to be to invent an excuse to make an emergency visit to see her mother and father in Surfers Paradise. Once she was there she could come up with another excuse to disappear for the night and following day. She would meet up with Connor at Kirra Beach, which was not that far from Surfers. And then . . . Claire amused herself with thoughts of ‘and then’ for a few moments until she realised that she had some preparation to do before she could get on a plane.

She wanted a whole day at a body spa for her geisha routine. Full body scrub, facial, manicure, pedicure and the dreaded waxing. And it was Saturday. The first time she could get it done would be Monday. All this meant that she couldn’t make it onto a plane until Tuesday. Boring! And wouldn’t Charlie be impressed with that? His wife comes home with a bare fanny and then gets on a plane. Exactly how do you explain that you’re getting your pubic hair removed to see your mum and dad?

Of course Charlie didn’t need to get a glimpse of her before she left, but then she had to come home. So, being logical about this, she could get the wax job done up there on Monday morning, spend the time with Connor and then present herself to Charlie when she came home as a surprise! Only—and because she’d opened her big mouth to Charlie—it wouldn’t be a surprise. It would be evidence. Exhibit A! Aaargh!

Maybe she could stay up in Queensland until it all grew back? How long would that take? At least three weeks. Maybe she could avoid having sex with Charlie until it grew back. And wear pyjamas. That would be a possibility, except that she’d spent their entire married life sleeping nude. ‘I’m perimenopausal, Charlie, and I’m feeling very . . .’ Shy? Cold?

And then there was Maddie, who loved to have a bath with mum. That would make for a great piece of morning news at school: ‘Good morning, Miss Baggely. My mummy’s got no hair down there.’ Excellent!

Claire knew what she needed. A merkin! A pubic hair wig! She was thrilled with herself for remembering this word from a gruelling game of Scrabble, but had never thought she’d have cause to use it in a sentence—until now. Where did they get the hair for merkins? Claire realised hers would be disposed of in a disgusting ball of wax. And, really, how did they ever fool anyone, even in the 1600s (or whenever they were used)? She thought back to that girl at the party who lent her chicken fillets out to her boyfriend. You could do the same with a merkin. ‘Go on, take it, honey—knock yourself out.’

There was no simple way out of this. She would just have to make it up as she went along—start singing and then improvise when she didn’t know the words. She’d done that before, so she picked up her mobile and dialled.

‘Aphrodite Salon & Spa! Gavin speaking.’

‘Hello, Gavin, it’s Claire Wallace.’

‘Hi, doll! How are you? How can I help?’

‘I’m great, but I’ve got a bit of an emergency on my hands. I need a bikini wax this afternoon. Any chance in hell?’

‘Hmm . . . just the bikini?’

‘Well, I’m thinking I might go a bit further . . . I’m not sure.’ Claire tried to sound casual.

‘Oooh, I knew we’d get you on board sooner or later. You’ll love it! Lucky, lucky hubbie! Look I can shuffle a few things around and get you in at three. How does that sound?’

‘Great . . . I think.’

‘Just see how far you want to go when you get here. No drama. But honestly, luvvie, the whole pain thing is totally hyped. You’ll be fine. It’s nothing . . . you’ve given birth, haven’t you? Ha ha ha!’’

‘Thank you, Gavin. See you at three.’

A more faint-hearted person than Claire would have given the game away at this point, but they were not Claire. After all, when she was thirty-three Claire had conducted an affair with a married man for two years. During that time lies had become second nature for her and Simon.

‘I’m at the osteopath, getting my back looked at. Won’t be long, darling. Do you want me to pick anything up? OK . . . yep, milk and bread.’ This was said by Simon as Claire sat naked astride his back, rubbing his shoulders with massage oil.

‘Of course I’m not seeing him anymore, Meg! I’m not going to throw my life away on a married man.’ This was said by Claire as Simon was naked, pushing her head down under the sheets.

What were the categories of sex they had come up with last night? Affair, make-up, break-up and going back for one last bonk. She’d done all those with Simon. Claire had been astonished to find herself having an affair with a married man. The whole time she was doing it, she felt like some dumb cliché in a trashy holiday paperback. She’d just come out of therapy as well and should have felt like she ‘owned her own life’. Another dumb cliché.

She had met Simon one night after a gig at the Adelaide Festival. Of course there had never been a shortage of men wanting to meet her after a jazz gig, but she was usually wary of fans who knocked themselves out trying to impress. Flowers, bottles of French champagne and, in one memorable instance, a pair of diamond earrings. They all spelled ‘try hard’ to Claire.

She had attempted to work all this out in therapy with Hope. She had found Hope (how inconvenient to have a noun for a name!) at her rooms in Double Bay one afternoon when she was shopping. She had seen the sign ‘Relationship Counsellor’ on the wall of a terrace and, on impulse, knocked on the bright blue door. When a short, middle-aged woman with her head wrapped in an African print scarf and the kindest grey eyes Claire had ever seen opened it, Claire had thrown herself into her arms and sobbed.

Claire sat in Hope’s front room nursing a box of tissues every Thursday night for the whole of her thirty-second year. Even now she could remember the affirmations that Hope had clipped from self-help books and stuck on the wall, her favourite being: ‘Life is short. Try to make every mistake possible.’

After hearing tales of Claire’s life, Hope had settled on a pathology for her particular affliction. Her affliction being that she was thirty-two and sadly single. She decided Claire was commitment-phobic. But then again, there seemed to be only two choices in the early nineties—commitment-phobic or co-dependent. It was just like when you went to the naturopath’s with a sore toe and were told you were allergic to wheat. Hope, however, had made a pretty good case. The problem seemed to be that Claire’s father had been so ground down by her mother’s constant criticism that he had retreated into himself and become ‘emotionally unavailable’ to Claire. She in her turn had retreated from family intimacy. And then, because we are all doomed to repeat the patterns of childhood, Claire now only felt comfortable with a man who was distant.

This was a good theory, but it didn’t quite explain to Claire what she saw as pure bad luck. Louie had been ready to make a commitment. He always told Claire that he would never love anyone else. After he left her, she asked him why he’d said it. He answered off-handedly, ‘I hadn’t met Zoe then.’ And, in the end, you couldn’t argue with that.

Ellery? Well, that was stupid rebound stuff. An experiment with pure psychic pain. How low can you go? But despite being propelled through Hope’s front door because of him, Claire felt that she had been ready to make a commitment to any number of men. If they had reciprocated.

‘It’s about smart women and dumb choices,’ Hope said in her Colorado drawl. ‘Honey, you have to make yourself emotionally available to a man who is in the same head space!’

Yeah, and then Hope would have described her as co-dependent. The trick was to be self-aware, but not needy. Independent, but not distant. Open to change, but ready to steer your own course. All this sounded to Claire like that childhood challenge of patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. It didn’t take into account getting tricked by men who lied. And it didn’t take into account getting addicted to a man who gave you multiple orgasms for the first time in your life.

Enter Simon Hammond.

‘I’m single,’ he had said as her head banged against a bedroom wall in the Adelaide Hilton.

‘I’m separated,’ he said as her knees scraped on a floor rug in the Melbourne Regent.

‘We’re giving it one more go,’ he said as her back slammed against bathroom tiles in the Canberra Hyatt.

But by then it was all too late. At thirty-five she found herself with a husband, a wife, three kids and another one on the way. With expert bad timing, ‘the other one on the way’ was Claire’s. So, you could talk all you liked about being ‘emotionally available’. Christ, she’d even made her ovaries available, and still she was let down.

‘But you know I love you,’ he’d said as an ashtray ricocheted off his forehead at the Sydney Wentworth.

Ten years later Claire still thought about the child that never was. He would have been a boy, she was sure, and the same age as Max, Meg’s eldest, who was walking up the driveway now.

‘Hey there, Claire Bear,’ he said as a basketball bounced off her car window.

‘Hey there, Maxie boy,’ she said back.

Max led Claire indoors to a Saturday morning madhouse. The living room was given over to a giant cubby hut made of blankets and brooms. Madeline emerged dressed in a pink ballgown and greeted her mother with extravagant hugs. Meg’s twins, Steffie and Sophia, this morning taking the role of the Ugly Sisters, pelted Cinderella with cushions.

Claire retreated too, after copping a blow to the head, and eventually found Meg making a bed in the kids’ room.

‘Hi, gorgeous!’ Claire stepped forward for a hug as Meg bustled past her.

‘Fucking bastard,’ she muttered as she punched the daylights out of a pillow. ‘NICHOLAS ANGELUCCHI, GET OFF THAT BED RIGHT NOW, I’VE JUST MADE THAT!’

Nicky pinged off the bed and out the door as fast as he could.

‘What’s up?’

‘That bloody husband of mine!’

Claire was used to this opening line in conversations with Meg. ‘What’s he done now?’

Meg threw a blanket on the floor and slumped on the mattress. ‘I told him about the baby.’

‘And . . .?’ Claire sat beside her. She couldn’t imagine Tony would be anything but pleased.

‘Oh thrilled, of course. Thrilled with himself.’

Claire was relieved. So the argument was probably the usual ongoing squabble.

‘Last night we’re at his brother’s engagement party and the subject of vasectomies comes up. Have a guess what he said?’

Claire could only imagine that a classic Tony blooper was imminent.

‘He says he doesn’t want to have one because, and get this, he says he’s worried about what effect it will have on his masculinity.’

‘Oops.’

‘You’re fucking right, “oops”. I said to him—and, really, I didn’t care who heard me, I was that pissed off—“You self-centred egotistical bastard. What do you think having four kids and being pregnant again is doing to my femininity? My tits are halfway to my knees. My arse is dragging on the ground. I can’t remember the last time I went to the hairdressers or put on makeup. My wardrobe looks like a fucking ragbag. When was the last time I felt beautiful? When was the last time a bloke looked at me? Apart from you jumping on me whenever I look sideways?”—SOPHIE, STEPHANIE GET OUT OF OUR BEDROOM. YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED IN THERE. GET OUT RIGHT NOW!— Fuck him! I tell you what, Claire—you’re lucky you’ve only got Maddie. You can still have a life. I look around me and I have got no idea who I am anymore. I don’t even know what I think about anything anymore. I’m just putting one foot in front of the other, every single minute of the day. I haven’t read a book in months. I used to write. I used to read newspapers! I was sitting in the coffee shop in Ikea the other day, thinking, How the hell did I get here?’

Meg stopped and fell back exhausted.

‘Yeah,’ said Claire. ‘I mean, what the hell’s a coffee shop doing in a furniture store in the first place? Did the people come in looking for a coffee table and start thinking they wanted a coffee? Or did they come in for coffee and think, we might as well get a table to take away?’

Meg looked at her and, much to Claire’s relief, threw a pillow at her. ‘You stupid cow! I’m serious!’

Claire lay back on the bed with Meg and clasped her hand. ‘No, you’re not. For a start, I would give anything in the world to have had more kids. OK, maybe not five . . . maybe not at forty-four. I’m not saying that’s not hard. It’s almost impossible! But they are the most divine kids. They love each other so much, and they worship you.

‘And, guess what? You are the most beautiful woman! No wonder your handsome husband can’t keep his hands off you. I know he’s a bit of an idiot. No, that’s wrong—he is a serious idiot. But, Meg, you and the kids are his whole world.

‘And as for not having time to think? Here’s a bulletin. When you have time to think, all most of us think about is ourselves. And sometimes we’re not worth thinking about. Charlie is always saying: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. I reckon that’s crap. The more you examine life, the more it doesn’t make any sense. All that makes sense is what you’ve got crammed under this roof. These kids growing up with each other, into themselves, with you.

‘I was reading this article about people choosing not to have kids anymore. And then there’s my grandmother who had eight! She had fifteen grandchildren. So I reckon you and I are in the middle there where, no matter what we do, it doesn’t feel right. We’re just making it up as we go along. That’s all anyone’s doing, really. But what you’ve brought into being in this house— it couldn’t be better, it just couldn’t.’

Meg and Claire were quiet with each other, just looking up and holding hands.

‘So, what do you think, Meg?’

‘I think . . . the ceiling needs painting.’

And the two of them laughed and rolled around on the bed until they realised that five children were standing looking at them as if they had lost their senses.

When the beds were all made and the kids were having lunch in front of the television and the house had been restored to a semblance of order, Claire debriefed Meg on last night’s party. Meg had plenty to say and gave Claire the reality check she always looked for.

On Carolyn’s new lesbian relationship

‘Carolyn! Not tennis-playing, charity-ball Carolyn! My God! Still, it makes more sense than sitting in that big house in Vaucluse all by herself, waiting for Mr Booker Prize to come back from Florence. I suppose we should keep our options open. There’s this cute blonde I do canteen duty with . . . nah! What woman would have me with five kids?’

On Claire’s suspicion that Patrick, the lawyer, was unfaithful to Laura

‘I’d never send Tony to the herbalist for me. When I’m menopausal I’m telling him nothing. I’m going to keep the whole thing secret as long as I can. It’s like when women started blabbing about their cellulite. Up until then men thought it was some kind of ceiling insulation. Don’t even give them a chance to think about a younger woman. You have to keep being his wife, not his mother. Believe me, I know.’

On Claire’s worries that she’ll never be a Nanna

‘You’re being an idiot. Of course you will. Next!’

On breast implants and Botox

‘Wish I had the money for that. Then again, I’d rather have a new kitchen.’

On Brazilians

‘Forget it. Tony would hack through the Amazon rainforest to get to me. Let him keep on hacking, I say.’

On the categories of sex

‘I’ll bet no one came up with “married sex”. Look, you can talk all you like about all the different varieties of sex, but it comes down to the same old in-out. The only thing that makes sex different is who you have it with . . . I’ve just realised, I’m doomed!’

On Steve’s chemically enhanced escapades

‘Up his bum? No! Really? Holy hell!’

On Steve generally

‘It’s about time he grew up. He’s a twerp. He looks like an idiot walking around with those twenty year olds. I’ll bet they laugh at him behind his back. They reckon that using Viagra destroys your sperm in the long term. His will have to be using flippers and a kickboard soon.’

More on Steve

‘So who sticks it up there? Him or . . . No, it’s too much information. Don’t tell me.’

On Helen’s hysterectomy

‘Poor Helen! She’s lucky she’s got Phil. He’s a good man. And she’s got the girls. I reckon they’ll see her through. She’s too strong to let it get her down. I’ll send her a card. Although I’ll bet Hallmark don’t have any Happy Hysterectomy cards.’

And, finally, on Connor’s phone call

‘He called you in the car? Claire! Have you thought what would happen if Charlie just punched redial?’

‘He didn’t,’ said Claire. ‘Well, I don’t think he did. The phone was where I left it when I woke up.’

‘What did he say this morning?’

‘I don’t know. He wasn’t there.’

‘Aaargh! He knows, he knows, he knows!’

‘He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t! Stop this, Meg—you’re making me nervous.’

‘No, you are making me nervous. Just hurry up and get this whole thing over with. I can’t stand the suspense.’

‘It’s not suspense, it’s anticipation. Remember that? It’s half of what makes sex really good. Antici . . . pation. Anyway, I’m getting on a plane on Monday morning and I’m going to see him.’

Meg let out a huge sigh of exasperation and her head dropped into her hands. ‘What are you going to tell Charlie?’

‘That I’m going to see Mum and Dad. I’ll come up with some reason.’

‘How about that, since you’ve found out you’re periwhatsit, you’ve lost your fucking mind.’

Later that afternoon Claire was at home playing with Madeline and her harem of Barbie dolls. They had set up an elaborate ballroom scene in which one Prince Charming was to have his pick of seventeen gorgeous dollies with waist-length hair in shades of blonde from strawberry to platinum. You’d be forgiven for thinking that he was a very lucky Prince indeed, except that there was a button in his back which, when pushed, said either, ‘Will you join me at the ball?’ or ‘I love you’, or played a snatch of the ‘Wedding March’.

If only all men came equipped with a button like that, thought Claire. Instead it seemed most blokes she’d met came with phrases like: ‘I need more space’; ‘It’s not you, it’s me’; and ‘I’ll call you’. And thinking about that made Claire wonder again how she was going to find time to call Connor tonight. Charlie was in the kitchen making one of his elaborate Indian dinners. There was a video on the hall table.

It was Unfaithful, of all bloody things! That one where Diane Lane has the hot affair with Olivier Martinez and pushes her loyal and loving husband to murder. Charlie had brought it home, seemingly without a trace of irony, and told Claire he wanted to ‘see what all the fuss was about’.

Claire had already seen it and knew exactly what the fuss was about. The scene where Diane Lane is coming home on the train squirming with guilty pleasure after having sex with Mr Hunky Martinez. Claire only had to think back to last Saturday night to attest to how accurate that was!

‘Mummy, you have to choose now. Come on!’ Maddie saw her mother’s mind was wandering.

‘Oh, alright. Um . . .’

‘He has to choose the most beautifullest one.’

‘But, honey, they all look the same.’

‘Hurry up! The carriage is waiting.’ Maddie was keen to get on with this part of the game. There was a wedding to organise!

‘Alright, he chooses this one—and then they’ll go off and get married and have lots of babies together.’

Claire took every chance to talk to Maddie about having babies. Even if she was only six. Claire had bought her baby prams, bassinettes, cots and highchairs, and at last count Maddie was the mother of quintuplets.

How the child-rearing orthodoxy had changed in thirty years! Back in the seventies Claire would have felt guilty about pressing dolls upon her daughter. She would have been encouraging her to think about being a spaceperson or a firewoman. It would have been non-gender-specific jigsaw puzzles or even toy trucks. But Claire was determined that her daughter would come to see motherhood as the crowning achievement of her life. Yes, Claire wanted her to explore the universe, inspire the world. But she didn’t want her to miss out on the joy of a child.

Claire had waited so long for her own baby. The constant demands of her newborn daughter had been attended to as if they were a sacred duty. She had cried when she saw the tiny clothes hanging on the line. She had cried when she bought baby wipes at the supermarket. She had cried when she wheeled the pram down the street. Passers-by would have thought it was mad new mother hormones but, for Claire, it was an overwhelming surge of love and pride. She’d done it!

Claire had beaten Meg’s fourth by only a few months. Their shared pregnancy had deepened the bond between the two friends, although Meg often laughed at Clare’s dotty sentimentality.

‘Oh look, Meg, it’s gorgeous. It’s pink and got little lambs all over it.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Claire, it’s a nappy bucket. Get a grip.’

Claire looked at her daughter now and felt the same rush of emotion she had felt the day baby Maddie had first been placed in her empty arms. There was an old Scandinavian proverb a friend had written in a card for Madeline’s christening: ‘Never is a house so full as when a baby is sleeping in it.’ That was true. Claire hadn’t realised how much empty space there was in her life until Maddie. Having a baby was the chance to experience the purest love there was. While you loved your family and loved your partner, there was no love on earth to match what you felt for your own child. That’s what she wanted Maddie to have for herself one day.

Madeline crammed Prince Charming and the future Mrs Charming into their carriage. ‘No, Mummy,’ she said in her serious little voice. ‘They’re not going to have babies. They’re going on an adventure around the world—like Rose and Dermott.’

Not Maddie too! Rose must have got to her.

‘But, darling, what about me? Don’t you want to have babies so I can be a grandma?’

Madeline looked up at her mother and turned down her mouth. ‘No. Because grandmas are old and I don’t ever want you to be old. I want you to stay beautiful Mummy for ever and ever.’

‘But you know, Maddie, everyone gets old. That’s the way the world goes. Everyone in the whole world starts out a tiny baby and then grows up.’

‘I’m not. I’m never going to grow up. I am staying the same for my whole life. And I want you to stay the same too.’

Claire sighed. Mother and daughter were thinking the same thoughts. Like Connor said, everyone’s thinking the same things. And ‘I don’t want to grow up’ was the most basic thought of all. Only you thought about it more and more the older you got.

If Claire could pick an age to stay at for ever and ever, which would it be? Not as a child—although time seemed without end then, you were already haunted by the unknown. She had watched Maddie have the night terrors when she was just three. What could she be thinking about? Just three years old and already trying to make sense of her existence.

And of course it wouldn’t be as a teenager, when it felt like your brain had been disassembled and put back together in a new and unfamiliar configuration.

Would she like to return to her twenties? Claire had married Ben when she was twenty-one. Looking back now she could see the main reason she got married was to get away from her mother. She loved him well enough and he offered her financial security and a place of her own. Claire smiled to remember her very first kitchen. The chocolate-brown laminex breakfast bar was set with stoneware plates on raffia placemats and serviette rings with signs of the zodiac. A row of pottery canisters sat on the shelf beneath a macrame wall-hanging she had made in the shape of an owl.

In truth the two years she was married to Ben (an electrician who looked a bit like Rick Springfield), she would have been better off in domestic science class. She had spent most of her time with Ben playing house. While he stripped down a Kawasaki motorbike on the balcony of their one-bedroom flat, she was in the kitchen experimenting with incinerated oven mitts, shattered Pyrex dishes, charcoal ducks, raw whole snapper and shrivelled shishkebabs. Eventually she’d hit on a sure-fire dinner menu. Prawn cocktail, beef burgundy with Spanish Rice-a-Riso and fruit salad with a dash of Grand Marnier (not forgetting the after-dinner mints!). Then she got bored with playing hostess and started to think she wanted to be Deborah Harry.

The insistent beat of the London nightclubs played in her head and she left Ben. She spent the next two years living with Meg in a basement bed-sit in Notting Hill. She worked in the kitchenware department of Marks and Spencer by day and mixed nauseating rainbow-coloured cocktails in dance clubs by night. So, no, she didn’t want to go back to her twenties.

In her next decade, between twenty-five and thirty-five, when she wasn’t on the road with the band she lived in ten different shared households in inner Sydney. With Meg. With Louie. With her sister Louise. With a stand-up comedian who kept fifteen guinea pigs in his room. With a heroin addict. With two lesbian Kiwi tap dancers. With an anal-retentive Scrabble freak. With a sculptor who got them all evicted when a block of his sandstone fell through the floor into the old wine cellar. Those years had been the most exciting of her life. She never seemed to sit down to dinner with fewer than ten people. There was a party every weekend. The television wasn’t turned on for two years.

While Claire was often nostalgic for these times, the reality had been exhausting. Relationships had broken up and reformed around her like amoebae. She had felt like the lead character in a soap opera which threatened to go on forever. By the age of thirty-five, when Meg was married with two-year-old Max and pregnant with twins, Claire had had enough. She put a deposit on an apartment in Rose Bay and set about creating a home just for herself.

And it had been just for herself. Because she sat there on her cream linen-covered squashy sofa and rose-printed cushions, which perfectly matched the floral prints on the wall and the cream rugs, and waited for someone to walk though the door and take her away from it all.

‘Be careful,’ Meg had warned. ‘If you create this perfect life for yourself, a man will look at you and think you don’t need him. He’ll think, where do I fit in?’

She had been right. She always was. Claire began to find every reason to sleep somewhere else. To leave her life like her bed—unmade. She had rung Meg from her hotel room in New York on her thirty-sixth birthday.

‘Guess what I’ve been doing today, Meg? I had breakfast at Dean and DeLuca’s in SoHo and then I went to Barney’s and bought a pair of Robert Clergerie boots and then I walked up Fifth Avenue into Tiffany’s, pretended I was a millionaire and looked at diamond bracelets. Tonight the guy from Sony Music is taking me to a nightclub!’

‘Oh my God, Claire! Your life is amazing! I made macaroni and cheese for dinner and threw up. Hang on, don’t go! Max wants to sing you “Happy Birthday”.’

‘appy birfday oo yoo . . .’

Claire had hung up and bawled like a baby. ‘My life is shit!’ she said, throwing her new boots against the wall. ‘My life is totally fucked,’ she said as the complimentary chocolates followed. ‘I fucking hate myself,’ she said as she downed the bottles from the mini-bar in alphabetical order. So, would Claire like to go back to that time? No.

Then Charlie and Madeline had come into her life. Her fortieth birthday was at the house in Dover Heights. She had almost everything she had ever wished for. Madeline was toddling across the room into her daddy’s arms. The frangipanis were in bloom. The night was blessed with a full moon, a full house and an even fuller heart. But then she had felt that old familiar feeling. Her period. The night was bloodied. Another moon cycle gone without another baby. Claire wished upon her birthday candles for just one more blessing. Her wish was never granted. Claire didn’t want to go back even five years. So how would it be if time stopped—just as Madeline wanted it to—at this very instant?

Claire watched her daughter’s head bent with concentration as she attached Barbie’s bridal veil with tiny fingers. She was looking forward to seeing her grow up. To see the gummy gap where her baby teeth had been. To watch the girlish contours of her face settle into their adult likeness. She was hoping the blonde wouldn’t completely fade from her hair. That she would be tall, but not too tall. Madeline was musical. She had pitch, rhythm, could hold a melody in her head. Would she want to sing like Claire? Or blind the world with some other brilliance?

Then there was Madeline’s first kiss. Mother and daughter shopping for shoes, sharing secrets. And ultimately, Claire hoped, a wedding. She had no doubt that Madeline would walk through the front door with a doubtful procession of blow-ins and boyfriends. But one day (and please forgive this feminist backslider) Claire wanted to be standing in the front row in her vivid lavender lace suit watching her daughter walk down the aisle like Cinderella with all the bells ringing!

Life won’t stop, thought Claire. And then there was Connor. She didn’t want it to stop before she saw him. She knew if she didn’t see him she would regret it forever. Like that grey cashmere Calvin Klein coat she should have bought in New York. Seven years later and she still thought about it.

Time was just going to keep on slipping away. And, inevitably, Claire’s feet would be swept from under her.

Rrrriiippp!

‘Ouch! That really hurt, Shelley!’

‘Yep, we’re getting to the sensitive bit now. I’m going to keep taking it off evenly either side and you can say stop when you want.’

Shelley didn’t seem to mind pain. Inflicting or receiving it. Claire could see that her ears and nostrils were pincushions for dozens of piercings. The jewellery—roofing nails, whatever— had been taken out for her day job as a beauty therapist. Claire suspected her night job involved wrist restraints and whips.

In between the strips of hot wax, Shelley was going at Claire with the tweezers. Now that really hurt! And no amount of insipid Celtic whale music emanating from the wall speakers could make up for the fact that Claire had never felt so undignified.

She was lying down wearing a back-to-front G-string with her knees apart and heels together. The only difference between this and the pelvic examination last Monday was that at least Shelley, in her pristine white jacket and flat shoes, was better dressed for the job. Oh—and the fact that, if your gyno dripped hot melted wax on your clitoris, she’d probably be up on charges.

‘You know,’ said Shelley cheerily, ‘some women get the grey hair lasered off after they have a facelift so there’s no clue how old they are.’

‘You mean, apart from their school photos,’ commented Claire. ‘Honestly! As if a bloke is going to call the whole thing off because you’ve got a grey pube! By the time he’s got that “up close and personal” he probably wouldn’t care if you had a dick!’

‘Oh, I’ve waxed a few of those.’ Shelley was obviously an enthusiast. ‘It takes ages and the blokes have to help hold the skin tight, otherwise you practically take everything with you.’

Rrrrriiiiiipppp!

‘Owww!’ Claire was sure she’d be missing a few vital bits as well. ‘How long will it take to grow back?’

‘About four weeks. But it will probably be uneven, in sort of patches.’

So, thought Claire, something to look forward to there.

‘But I reckon, once you’ve had this done, you’ll be back over and over again.’

Rrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiipppppp!

‘Eeeeowwwch!’

Don’t friggin’ bet on it! That one hurt so much it jolted Claire into a sitting position.

‘Now,’ said Shelley, ‘I’m at the stage where I can leave a bit, so it’s just a cute little landing strip, or I can go the whole lot. What do you think?’

‘No, no, not the whole lot,’ said Claire. ‘Just leave that little bit and that will be fine, really. It’s called a landing strip?’

‘Yep. All you need now is the bloke standing at the end of the bed with the fluoro ping-pong bats saying “ease ’er in, ease ’er in” and you’ll be in business!’ Shelley laughed and left Claire to get dressed.

Very, very funny.

Claire looked at her new ‘do’ in the mirror. Hmm . . . there was ‘nude’, ‘naked’, ‘bare’, and then there was what she looked like—‘bald’. Plucked-chicken bald. Mange or hair-loss-affliction bald. Eeew!

But as Claire pulled on her silky knickers, she did have to admit that, actually—wriggle, wriggle—it felt quite nice.

As she closed Aphrodite’s door behind her, Claire smiled to herself. Charlie had asked her not to get a Brazilian and she hadn’t. And as for that little bit left? Well, someone could almost chew that off.

Driving home that afternoon Claire was thinking about Connor. She noted that although it was now a week since he’d had his hands on her, each time she replayed the memory in her mind it became more intense. She wondered whether her night with him would be an erotic memory that would stay with her for years. Or would it be like a favourite passage in a pornographic novel which, after you turned to it again and again, eventually lost its potency. Well, this one had to last because she had promised herself that it would never happen again. With Connor or anyone else.

She was supposed to tell him tonight about the most dangerous and illicit thing she’d ever done. That was tricky: Claire wasn’t sure she’d done either. Thinking back she could remember a session of mutual consent bondage (if you could count a silk Hermès scarf as a restraint); a sex act in a public place (semipublic— it was in a lift—oh, and the Nirvana concert); an aborted effort to have a threesome (one bloke fell asleep); and her one hopeless attempt at lesbianism. It was all pretty tame.

Michael Hutchence would have thought she was pathetic. Paula Yates had once said of him: ‘The first time we went to bed he did six things in the first hour which I was sure were illegal.’ Claire must have led a sheltered life. She couldn’t imagine what they’d done. After the obvious one—the ingestion of various prohibited substances—she could only come up with smuggling endangered wildlife, littering and letting off fireworks.

So . . . she was about to do the most dangerous and illicit thing she had ever done in her life—because she’d never had more at stake—and she would ring Connor and tell him that right now. And she would also tell him that she surrendered. She had thought she held the reins of this fantasy firmly in her two hands, but it had bolted. It was threatening to kick the doors down and rampage through her life. She couldn’t wait any longer. She would see him in forty-eight hours. But she wouldn’t tell him while she was driving.

Claire parked the car near an empty playing field under a jacaranda tree veiled with pale purple blossoms. It was a warm November afternoon. She pictured Connor sitting on his deck at Kirra under the same warm sun. Thinking the same hot thoughts. Her hands trembled as she dialled his number.

It rang.

Claire felt all her limbs go weak, as if they were disconnecting from her body.

It rang some more.

Of course there was no telling where he was, who he was with. She’d hang up, ring him back. There was still time to stop—

‘Hello, Connor speaking.’

Claire could hear voices, music in the background. This was not the time to tell him anything.

‘Hi, it’s Claire.’

‘Hey . . . how are you?’

His voice was not the relaxed, throaty purr she was used to. He was with someone. Probably a woman. Probably his fiancée back from Brazil.

‘Can you talk?’

‘Not really. I’m here having a few drinks at the marina in Southport with two friends of mine. You might know them— Rose Wallace and Dermott O’Hanrahan.’

Claire imagined a rock had hurtled into the windscreen and smashed it into a million tiny pieces.

‘Of course they’re Mr and Mrs O’Hanrahan now. They’re just off a boat, been cruising down from the Whitsundays on their honeymoon. Dermott called me, and here I am. So how about I ring you back tonight?’

There was a pause as Claire fought to find her voice. And then someone spoke. Logic told her it had to be her, but it came from some throat she had no command of: ‘No, no don’t ring me! I’ll . . . I’ll call you tomorrow. Tomorrow night.’

‘Yep. Good as gold. OK, Mick, I’ll give them your best. Catch you soon, mate. Bye.’

Claire dropped the phone. In an instant she was out of the car, ripping off her jacket, gulping for air. In the next instant she was leaning over a wooden railing and throwing up her lunch.

‘You stupid, stupid, stupid bitch,’ she said aloud as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She spat the bitter taste into the gravel. ‘What the fuck did you ever think you were doing?’

‘Why did you bring this movie home, Charlie? Do you think I’m having an affair?’

It was late evening; the doors were open to the ocean breeze and Claire was curled up on the couch watching Unfaithful. She felt she could say exactly what she liked. There was nothing to hide anymore.

‘No. I brought home Jurassic Park and we weren’t going on holiday with a tyrannosaurus, were we?’

Charlie was sitting in an armchair in the amber light of an antique table lamp, nursing a glass of red wine. He turned to look at his wife. ‘Why? Are you thinking of having an affair?’

‘No.’ Which was perfectly true . . . now.

Claire looked back at him and asked him the same. ‘Are you?’

‘No. I just haven’t seen this movie, that’s all.’

Claire watched as the screen turned into a mirror. Claire was Constance, the beautiful wife. Charlie was Edward, the handsome, caring husband. Madeline took the part of their young son. And Connor was recast in this instance as Paul, the young, achingly handsome French lover.

Constance and Edward were a privileged couple. They’d been together eleven years. Their marriage was a warm and loving one. And yet Constance had chosen to embark on a reckless, passionate affair with a 28-year-old ‘kid’. Claire felt she understood the compulsion perfectly. Constance could have taken a taxi home, not gone up to the apartment, and not set the disastrous affair in motion. Claire could have stopped it too.

She replayed the scene in her head:

‘How’d you like a nice little pick-me-up? Come with me, honey, and let’s get this party started.’

‘Oh, thanks anyway, but I’ve got to be getting back. It’s my daughter’s wedding.’

The trouble was, once Constance/Claire had a smell of him, a taste of him, it was too late. For Constance it was his fingers brushing the back of her neck. For Claire it was her hand on his forearm and the smell of coconut, and suddenly every cell in her body was alive with the memory of all-consuming lust.

That’s if you could think of an educated middle-aged woman as merely a life support system for a primitive, seething colony of hormones. And Claire thought the description had fitted her perfectly. Until this afternoon, when her higher powers of reasoning had been re-engaged with the shocking realisation that she could be easily found out.

So here she was, watching Olivier Martinez and Diane Lane ravish each other on the floor, in the hallway, in the toilets(!), and doing everything she had thought about for the past week. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She only knew she was suffering from a particularly nasty case of fantasy interruptus.

In the film Constance and her two friends were in a café discussing having an affair:

‘They’d never find out. It would be something I did for myself to broaden my horizons, like a pottery class.’

‘Having an affair is nothing like that. It always ends disastrously.’

‘Well, that’s true,’ said Charlie.

‘Yeah, Charlie, I know,’ said Claire wearily. ‘It’s the oldest story in the book. Eve tastes the forbidden apple, or the pomme interdite in this case, and everyone gets kicked out of the garden.’

Charlie protested, ‘The same director made Fatal Attraction and in that it’s the husband who has the one-night stand and brings destruction on the family.’

Claire wasn’t buying it. ‘Yeah, but Glenn Close ends up being the deranged bitch bunny-boiler everyone hates. You know, in the French version of Unfaithful, the husband gets arrested in the end.’

‘What for?’

‘Because he kills the French guy.’

‘He what? Oh fuck—thanks, Claire! You’ve given the ending away now! I told everyone not to tell me. Thanks a lot. Shit!’

Charlie grabbed the remote and pushed the pause button. Claire was immediately on her feet standing between Charlie and the television.

‘I don’t know why you even brought this stupid movie home! WHY ARE WE WATCHING IT?’

Charlie looked up at her and took a considered breath. He was trying to keep his voice calm and even. ‘We were talking about it in men’s group the other night and I wanted to see it.’

At the mention of ‘men’s group’ Claire could feel herself taken over by a rage beyond reason. ‘Men’s group! Oh, now I get it! So you could all reaffirm your victim status. Your “nice guys never get an even break” pathology!’

‘As a matter of fact, we weren’t talking about that at all. We were talking about the challenges a marriage faces when that flush of passion dies. Because then it has to be replaced by . . .’

‘Is that what we’re in? A dead, passionless marriage?’

‘No, no, no—that’s not what I’m saying! But inevitably . . . inevitably it changes. You put kids and kitchen sinks and middle age together and every marriage is tested. And you don’t throw it away. You have to move through that and into another place where the love is deeper and you both—’

‘I can’t live without passion, Charlie. I might as well be dead!’

‘WELL, GO AND HAVE AN AFFAIR THEN! GO ON! JUST CHUCK IT ALL AWAY BECAUSE YOU WANT FIREWORKS AND BELLS RINGING EVERY NIGHT! IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!’

Now Charlie was on his feet standing over Claire. She stood her ground and spoke quietly with all the menace she could muster. ‘Well maybe I will have an affair.’

‘OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, CLAIRE! GROW UP. JUST FUCKING GROW UP!’

‘I’m going to bed,’ Claire cried. She burst into tears and rushed from the room, just like the little girl Charlie accused her of being.

When Charlie came to bed that night, Claire was wearing one of his old T-shirts. She was curled up away from him with her hands covering her bald patch. The waxing she’d had, which was supposed to ignite some erotic bonfire, now seemed like a damp, pathetic joke.

Sunday

The First Day of the
Rest of Claire’s Life

When Claire got out of bed on Sunday, Charlie and Madeline had already left to spend the day with Grandma Wallace. The overcast day and dark seas matched Claire’s mood. Her Connor fantasy had been switched off and the burning fire of desire was extinguished. There was just grey ash.

She wouldn’t ring him today. She wouldn’t even say his name anymore. The thought of Rose and Dermott finding out made her feel nauseous again. Maybe he’d already told them.

‘Hey, guess what, guys? I’m going to fuck your mum!’

Claire found her mobile phone and switched it off. She knew what Charlie had said last night was right. She had to grow up. But did that also mean she had to grow old? She thought back to last Sunday morning when the encounter with ( . . . ) had made her feel so alive. What was it all about? Why did she feel so alive then, and so dead now? Time to dig, she told herself. Time to dig deep, Claire, and answer all the questions waiting there below the surface.

She imagined herself back in therapy. Although it had been more than ten years since she’d sat in the chair in Hope’s front room, Claire had kept up the habit of self-analysis. She was calm and logical. These were two of her best qualities. She sat at a small writing table near the bedroom window and took out a notepad and pen. The first thing she wrote was:

decline in fertility = decline in passion?

Maybe, she thought. Maybe they were the same thing. You heard all the stories about loss of libido and so much of who Claire was was bound up in her sexuality. Like most women? While she knew all too well that the price of passion was pain, was the absence of passion peace? Or death? Would she find some way through the rapids to a mythical, still lake of bottomless love? Or would it just feel like she was becalmed? Going nowhere? Or worse—up to her neck in mud?

She didn’t have any answers to this question. Just more questions. The next thing she wrote was:

frightened of being old + ugly?

Yes, yes, yes. Of course she was. Her first memory was of being told she was beautiful. She was Dad’s white-skinned Claire of the Moon. Green-eyed, chestnut-haired Claire. Now she went to the hairdressers to have her hair dyed. She needed reading glasses. She felt she was fading. The colour was draining out of her before her very eyes. One day her singing voice would be gone too, and then what would she have to recommend her?

Claire wondered whether in fact her whole professional life had been just a musical sex act. The reviews she got spent a good deal of time talking about her sex appeal. She was ‘playful’, ‘sultry’, ‘seductive’, ‘alluring’. How much longer could she pull that off? For Claire’s whole life she had been able to turn a man’s head. She’d always felt she could guide a conversation her way with a toss of her hair, a languorous crossing of her long legs. Without that, what? Maybe move to Europe where they appreciated older women? Live next to the Eiffel Tower and have a lover on a permanent basis? Ridiculous. And this thought brought her to her next question:

one partner = boredom?

What was it about sex with someone new? Well, it wasn’t just the sex, although the feel of new skin—the surprise of a new body—was always thrilling. But it was more than that. It was a way to get to know someone at the most basic level. More than the sex, she liked the lying there afterwards. The instant intimacy in that newly created space between two people. Who was he? How did he think? What did he think of her? And, if she was honest, there was the satisfaction of bedding the brightest and best looking. She liked to mentally stick a small flag of conquest in their navels. Another dark continent explored. And so many new roads to take!

Although she sometimes regretted the experience or felt embarrassed, she didn’t feel guilty. She never wasted time on guilt. There was only the chance to learn something new about herself. So . . . did being with one man mean that her adventures of exploration were over? Then she wrote:

beyond sex, where?

When Claire thought about it, her whole life had been in thrall to men. But that’s what being female was all about. Unless you were lucky (unlucky?) enough to be a lesbian. So if you didn’t need sex anymore to procreate and your libido declined so you didn’t think about sex anymore, was there a new place you went to where men didn’t exist?

Like Planet Period and Planet Pregnancy and Planet Menopause, was there a Sexless Planet, where you went and learned embroidery or studied Ancient Latin or learned the piano? All the things you had ever wanted to do without men interrupting you. Was this a place where you became wise? And if it was, how come so few old women Claire knew had ever navigated their way there?

Her next question was just two words:

what now?

Claire knew the answer to this one at least. It was ‘let go’. Let go and the answers would come. At least now she knew the questions.

So she was sitting by the window looking out to sea thinking about all this when the phone rang.

‘Hello.’

‘Claire, it’s Dad.’

This was unusual. It was always her mother who rang, and handed the phone to her father as if it was some new-fangled contraption he had no notion of.

‘Dad, is anything wrong?’

‘It’s your mother . . .’

Claire’s eyeballs hardened in her head like two green marbles. Her entire body solidified into a block of fear as she waited for the news she most dreaded.

‘I think she’s having another affair.’

Claire shook her head in an attempt to get all the gears in her brain to mesh and form a coherent thought: WHAT? What do you mean AFFAIR? What do you mean ANOTHER? What do you mean MUM? These were three words which shouldn’t be found in the same universe together, let alone the same sentence. For the umpteenth time in her life, Claire felt like giving her father a good shake.

‘DAD—SHE’S SEVENTY YEARS OLD!’

Her father’s voice was trembling and small, as if he had handed the phone to a mouse.

‘I know, I know. But your mother’s an attractive woman, Claire. And a husband always knows these things. It’s Clive Sinclair from the surf-lifesaving club. He drives a Lexus.’

‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE, DAD. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT CAR HE DRIVES! IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT CAR ANYONE DRIVES! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?’

‘Please don’t swear, love.’

‘Oh gawd!’ Claire threw herself into a chair. ‘Alright, Dad, sorry. Let’s just take this slowly. I presume Mum isn’t there?’

‘No. She’s gone to see him again.’

‘It’s eleven o’clock on Sunday morning! I really don’t think she’ll be having a hot affair over morning tea. You’re losing it, Dad, you really are. And, anyway, what do you mean—another affair?’

‘The first one was in 1982. About eighteen months after you and Ben got married. Douglas was at university and Louise was living in London. I didn’t ever tell anyone. There was no one in the house left to tell.’

‘Who did she have this affair with?’

‘Monty La Marr. Look, I can’t talk now, Claire, she’s just come in the front door. Can you come up? I know it’s short notice, but I . . . and I know I’ve never asked you before . . . I’d really like to get your advice. You’re a grown woman now and you know about these things . . .’

‘Of course I’ll come, Dad. I’ll fly up tomorrow morning after I drop Madeline at school. I’ll ring you from the airport, OK?’

‘That would be good, love. Thank you.’

‘Bye, Dad—I love you.’

‘I love you too, darling.’

Claire stood by the phone and couldn’t think what to do next. If Charlie had been in the house she would have run to tell him. Instead she decided to take a bath. It was her favourite place to think.

As the water ran she tried to imagine her mother having an affair. Impossible. But then again, she would have been forty-seven in 1982, only two years older than Claire was now. She walked back into the bedroom and found a photograph album in the bottom of the wardrobe. She turned to a family portrait taken on the day of her marriage to Ben. There was Mum, looking like Linda Evans playing Krystle Carrington in Dynasty. She was wearing a sky-blue ruched jersey dress with shoulder pads as vast as the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Big hair, frosty pink lipstick and matching fingernails. She looked amazing for a woman in her mid-forties. More than could be said for Dad in his tuxedo—he looked more like a rumpled Jed Clampett than Blake Carrington.

But Monty La Marr? From the famous Marie and Monty La Marr who lived next door? Claire tried to imagine June and Monty having a go at each other in the kitchen during a break in one of their marathon games of canasta. She imagined Ron and Marie sitting there sipping moselle and waiting for them to reappear, flushed and bright-eyed with a plate of chicken liver pâté and Jatz crackers. Jesus, it didn’t bear thinking about! Still, maybe it wasn’t that far-fetched. Maybe she did have an affair and she’d passed the infidelity gene on to her daughter. But could she be doing it again now?

There was no doubt that June took care of herself. She was an infuriatingly vain woman. You could not calculate the number of hours which had been consumed as Claire and her sister were dragged around dress shops when they were young. June was always perfectly turned out, manicured, bejewelled, coiffed, on a permanent diet, still a size ten. She could easily pass for . . . what? Sixty-five? Sixty?

And it was also true that Ron looked older than his seventy-five years. June delighted in telling the story that one day Ron had been spotted with a young blonde half his age, when it had actually been his wife. But were there any eligible men June’s age in Surfers? If her mother had found one, Claire could only marvel. There must be fifty single women over seventy to every available man. Claire was sure there would be a perfectly reasonable explanation, once she got to Surfers Paradise. Which of course was only twenty minutes away from . . . Kirra Beach.

Lying back in the bath, Claire looked down at the breasts topped with fawn nipples just cresting the vanilla-scented bubbles. They looked like that French dessert Oeufs à la Neige, eggs in the snow. Her red toenails were a bunch of cherries. She was edible. Beautiful. God bless the Sellwyn genes. Was she vain, like her mother, or just self-assured of her own desirability?

She ran her hands over her body and down to that unfamiliar bare patch below. She was starting to like the feel of it. She’d never realised how soft the skin was under all that hair. It was the same soft velvety texture as . . . go on, Claire, give up, think about him . . . the head of a penis.

She groaned and slid under the water. Of course, from the moment her father had asked her to come up to Queensland Claire had been thinking about him. She stroked herself and felt her clitoris come alive with the silent mantra of his name. Go on. Say it again. Connor.

Claire stood up out of the bath and reached for a towel. She padded into the bedroom, climbed back into bed and pulled the rumpled sheets over her head. Her skin was still damp and she made her own little sauna under there. From her toes to her cheeks she could feel herself becoming warmer. She could see her skin turning rosy pink.

‘Oh, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,’ she sighed into the pillow. Her fingers were cupping and caressing the unfamiliar smoothness. So, so soft, so warm, so slippery, so—

‘Hello, what have we got here?’ Claire saw Charlie looking down at her as he slowly turned back the sheet to reveal her startled eyes.

‘What are you doing home?’ This sharp interrogation came out of Claire’s mouth before she could think about it.

Charlie didn’t respond to her tone, but kept talking in that deeper-than-dark-chocolate voice that signalled to Claire exactly what was on his mind. It was a voice no one on the radio had ever heard, except maybe when he had interviewed Tina Turner.

‘Well, Maddie and her grandmother have gone to the movies so I thought I’d come home and fuck my wife for the afternoon.’

‘What!’

Claire watched as Charlie started to peel off his clothes. His leather jacket and T-shirt were off in one movement. His jeans, shoes and socks off in the next.

‘Remember how we used to do that, Claire? Spend a rainy Sunday afternoon in bed together?’

Now he was down to his underpants and Claire could see the unmistakable outline of an erection. Uh-oh! Her hands suddenly flew to her miserable postage stamp of hair.

‘I was . . . I was just getting out of bed. How about I make us some lunch?’

‘I know what I want for lunch,’ Charlie growled. It was a line straight out of a porno movie. This wasn’t like Charlie! Not at all. He was crawling across the bed on all fours with a hungry look in his eyes.

‘You’re lying in bed thinking about him, aren’t you?’

Claire clutched the sheet to her breasts. ‘Who? No. I’m not thinking about anyone.’

‘Oh yes you are. You’re thinking about that French boy from the movie last night, aren’t you? You dirty—’ Charlie tried to pull the sheet out of Claire’s hands—‘. . . little—’ she clutched it tighter—‘. . . girl.’

Eventually he wrestled the sheet from her and slowly pulled it down, revealing her naked body. ‘You’re thinking about that handsome young man. Thinking about those lips kissing your stomach and then his tongue licking your . . . holy shit!’

Charlie sat back on his knees and looked down at Claire with amazement. ‘What have you done to yourself, woman?’

‘It’s just . . . I don’t know.’ Claire felt her face grow hot. She tried to cover herself.

‘No, no—let me have a look.’ He took her hands in his and held them firmly by her sides.

‘It’s just some silly thing I got done yesterday. I was having a bikini wax and sort of got carried away. I mean, it’s nothing— it will grow back and . . .’

‘So what’s this little bit left in the middle then?’

‘They call it a landing strip. I don’t know why. Well, yes I do, I suppose, it’s for the obvious reason that—’

The phone rang.

Charlie groaned with frustration. ‘Oh, don’t answer it. Just leave it.’

Claire immediately reached for the phone with one hand and pulled the sheet back up over herself with the other.

‘Shit!’ Charlie flopped down on the bed beside her, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

‘Hello.’ Claire was glad for the interruption to her interrogation.

‘Claire. It’s Dad again. I was just thinking. You’ll need an excuse for coming up here. Otherwise she might suspect that I suspect . . . something.’

‘Have you turned into Inspector Clouseau? Of course I’ll have an excuse. I won’t just walk in the door and say, “Hi, Mum, Dad reckons you’re having an affair!” I’ll tell her I’m coming up to see a friend or something.’

Claire was watching Charlie’s erection wilt as she spoke.

‘Yes,’ said her father, ‘that should do the trick.’

‘Don’t worry, Dad. I’ve read enough crime novels to help you solve the case. So stop worrying.’

‘OK then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.’

Claire hung up and turned back to see Charlie propped up on one elbow looking at her.

‘Your father thinks your mother’s having an affair?’

‘Yep. And not an affair—another affair would you believe?’

‘She had one before?’ Charlie was as puzzled as Claire had been an hour earlier.

‘Apparently she had one with the bloke next door in 1982 when she was forty-seven.’

‘Really? Well, well, well! Dear old June, eh? Mind you, I’ll bet she was a hot-looking chick. And she was the right age too. Runs in the family.’

‘What runs in the family? What do you mean?’ Claire decided to head Charlie off the path with a stagey show of indignation. She got up out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.

Charlie was watching his planned afternoon of sex evaporate and protested, ‘I mean “hot-looking chick”. Did you think I meant “having an affair” runs in the family?’

‘Well, it sounded as if that’s what you were saying.’ Claire was bending down and making an elaborate show of looking for her slippers so she didn’t have to face Charlie.

‘Well, come on—a bloke could be forgiven for thinking that. His wife goes and gets a median strip out of the blue.’

Charlie was now sitting up, looking at Claire. She was standing at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips. Danger.

‘It’s called a landing strip for a start and, forgive me, but I just thought it could be a bit of fun. That maybe you might like it. But now I see that you couldn’t possibly think I was doing it for you and I WASTED MY TIME!’

Claire was going for an Academy Award.

‘I’m going to ring the airline.’ She turned and trudged from the room.

‘CLAIRE! COME BACK TO BED!’ Charlie called. ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!’

He punched the mattress, pelted a pillow at the door and fell back on the bed.

By the time Claire and Charlie were in bed together on Sunday evening, Charlie had begun to thaw. He had been angry all afternoon. Claire knew she was being an unreasonable bitch, but she wanted to punish Charlie. For what, she wasn’t quite sure. For everything. For no reason. Just because she could.

They were both sitting up, reading in silence, when he put down his book and said, ‘I’m finished with the men’s group.’

Claire put down her book as well and looked at him. She felt a surge of love as she looked into his sad blue eyes.

‘Really?’ Claire was hopeful, but sceptical. She’d heard Charlie say this before and almost expected him to add ‘and I’m taking a UFO workshop’.

‘Yeah. I am. I realised, watching that movie last night, that Diane Lane—what was her name in the film?’

‘Constance,’ said Claire quietly.

‘Yeah, that Constance had to make a choice between her loving considerate husband and her passionate young lover. And I thought—why does she have to make that choice? Why can’t a man be both?’

Well! This was too good to be true. Claire had been trying to communicate this to her husband for months. But how could you come out and tell your husband of seven years that you wanted him to stop being so considerate. That you now found sex with him predictable and safe, and you wanted him to climb down from his head and back into his dick. That loving his wife didn’t mean he couldn’t tear her clothes off and ravish her on the stairs. She now realised that it was exactly what Charlie had planned that afternoon when she had rebuffed him. An afternoon of wild passion. Was her hot little fantasy making her blind to what was right in front of her?

Charlie continued, ‘Do you know that on Thursday night I was sitting in a room with six other men listening to a woman trying to teach me how to be a man?’

‘A woman was leading your men’s group?’

‘Yeah. How sad is that? So I thought, I know how to be a man! I mean, you wouldn’t have a man telling a woman how to be a woman.’

‘I dunno,’ said Claire. ‘That Dr Phil—you know the one off the Oprah show?—he’s always telling women how to be women and he’s made a fortune.’

‘Anyway,’ said Charlie as he kissed Claire’s cheek and turned off his bedside lamp. ‘I just wanted you to know that. That’s all.’

Charlie turned to face the wall and settled in for sleep.

She sat looking at his back for a long time. She loved Charlie so dearly. Just when she was despairing of him, he always surprised her.

She made a promise to herself that she would go to Queensland and she would not see Connor. She would come back home and take up this conversation with her husband where they had left it.

And this time she really, really meant it.

Monday

Travelling North

‘So, I’ve got an hour and a half until I get on the plane. Here’s Maddie’s blankie. I know, I know—she’s six, she should be over it by now, but what are you going to do? I figure that, as long as she’s not carting it around at uni, I couldn’t give a rats,’ said Claire.

‘Any other instructions? Mashed pumpkin? Reheated breast milk?’ Meg took the pink ‘Barbie’ backpack and dumped it on her kitchen table.

Claire smiled. ‘Thanks for the sleepover tonight. Charlie says thanks too. He tried to get out of this dinner, believe me, but he was booked in months ago as guest speaker and—’

‘Hello? It’s me—Meg. You don’t have to make any excuses— Maddie’s part of the family. The kids love having her here. Have you got time for a cup of tea?’

Claire sank gratefully into a chair. She’d been up since 6 am packing, cleaning the house, getting Charlie out the door and Maddie off to school. She watched Meg rinse a cup. The grey sky reflecting off the green walls gave her the colour of a cadaver.

‘Honestly, you’ve got to get this kitchen painted. It’s so disgusting! It’s nauseating this time of morning.’

Then she realised that Meg was actually vomiting in the sink.

‘Ow, jeez—sorry, honey! I forgot. Doesn’t it get any better the fourth time around?’

‘No. You feel just as sick, but the shock’s worn off. You’re just depressed that you’re sick, not surprised.’ Meg was now chomping into a gingernut biscuit. ‘They reckon ginger biscuits are supposed to stop morning sickness. The only way that could work is if you’d used them as a contraceptive device. They’re bloody useless, but I’m addicted.’

Claire laughed to think of Meg getting about with a gingernut biscuit in her undies. ‘So, do you still think it could be twins again? I hate to say it, but your tummy looks huge. When are you going in for the ultrasound?’

‘Tomorrow morning. When are you coming back from Surfers?’ Meg asked innocently.

‘Oh well, it just depends on how long Mum and Dad need me there,’ Claire answered innocently.

‘Liar.’

‘Wha—’

‘You’re a bloody liar!’

‘Meg, Dad called me, I didn’t call him! I haven’t spoken to . . . you know . . . whatsisname . . . Connor . . . for ages. I told him not to call me. That’s it—it’s over.’ Claire was acting her little heart out.

‘Oh yeah?’ Meg was having none of it. ‘I’d ask you to show me your pubes, but that’s a bit personal, so open your overnight bag and let me see. If there’s a long dress with buttons down the front of it . . .’

Claire could have kicked herself for telling Meg every detail.

‘Come on, I dare you—open that bag!’

Claire sat exactly where she was and put her head in her hands. Meg took this as her licence and pulled everything out of the suede holdall onto the kitchen floor. The contents would have suited a hooker on holiday. A good deal of it was flimsy underwear, scarlet, black, pink with ribbons, and then there it was—a long, slinky, silver satin wrap dress. OK, it wasn’t buttons, but one pull of the ribbon at the waist and all would be revealed.

‘See, no buttons.’ Claire smiled weakly.

Meg just shook her head. ‘Oh, give me a fucking break! So you’re taking your mum and dad out to where? The Playboy Mansion?’

Meg shook the garment under Claire’s nose. ‘Let’s just call this Exhibit B, shall we, Claire, since I’d bet my arse you’re sitting on Exhibit A.’

Claire could see herself on trial.

‘Would you like to explain to the court, Mrs Wallace, why this dress was in your luggage?

‘I have no idea how it got in my bag. Someone must have put it there.’

‘I put it to you, Mrs Wallace, that you packed this bag yourself. It was a pre-meditated packing. Isn’t it true that you were taking this dress to Queensland at the express request of the co-respondent, Mr Connor Carmody?’

‘I . . . I’m . . .’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Wallace, speak up—I’m sure the court would like to hear your answer. Unconvincing though it may be.’

‘I . . .’

‘And would you like to stand and lift your dress, drop your knickers and show the court Exhibit A—your bald pudendum?’

‘Objection, Your Honour! The evidence before us falls far short of what is required for a guilty verdict.

‘And, as has been laid out clearly before the court a number of times in this trial, there is a mitigating circumstance. Mrs Wallace is perimenopausal and not of sound mind or—’

‘Objection overruled. I see no point in continuing this farce. The court grants the decree nisi and full custody to the applicant husband. Mr Wallace may walk from this place a free and decent and honest single man, with a marvellous speaking voice. That is all.’

Claire couldn’t find anything to say. Meg deposited her cup of tea on the table.

‘I hope you enjoy your little farewell ovaries party. But don’t come crawling to me if it goes wrong, that’s all.’ Meg was in a shit mood, as you would be if you’d just hurled in the kitchen sink.

‘I don’t know why I’m taking the dress, Meg. I really don’t. I’ll probably just go up there, referee Mum and Dad, and come home.’

‘Leave it here with me then, as an act of faith.’

‘No!’ Claire’s voice was sharp. ‘I just want to take it. Call it hanging on to the last little bit of fantasy, if you want. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘So I see Madeline isn’t the only one in the family who needs her security blankie.’

Ow! That hurt. Claire and Meg stood and glared at each other. This was a battle of hormones. Pregnant and peri-menopausal. Claire bit first.

‘This is none of your business, Meg! How I decide to conduct my marriage—my private life—is up to me.’

Meg was at her poisonous best and tore into Claire. ‘It is my business, since you are leaving your child here with me while you go off on this . . . What is it exactly, Claire? Some weirdo Hollywood fantasy? Some last pathetic effort to prove you can still wiggle your arse and cause a testosterone tsunami in Tokyo? At your age it’s just fucking sad. That’s all. Leave it to Sharon Stone. GIVE UP! GET OVER YOURSELF!’

She turned her back on Claire and looked out the window so she wouldn’t have to see the shock on her best friend’s face.

Claire fought back. Equally venomous. ‘You don’t have to take Maddie! I can pick her up from school right now and take her with me to see her grandmother and grandfather.

‘Maybe there’s a part of you, Meg, that wishes you were still out there like me. Maybe you are terrified that it’s all over for you.

‘And maybe you’re shit scared that, if I go up there and do everything that you fantasise about every day while you’re here in this green shitbox packing school lunches, it will remind you of everything you can’t have because you are trapped here until you fucking die. THIS IS YOUR LIFE. YOU ASKED FOR IT. GET USED TO IT!’

There was a thunderstorm of tears. Like when a cold front and a warm front smack into each other on a hot summer’s afternoon and produce hailstones the size of golf balls.

Claire and Meg threw their arms around each other.

‘Oh, don’t leave me, Claire! Don’t fall in love with him and leave me. I couldn’t bear it. I’d die without you!’

‘Meg, don’t have any more babies after this! I know you’ve got the biggest heart in the world, but leave some room for me. Will I ever have you to myself again?’

They cried and kissed, hugged and cried and kissed some more. Until Claire had to run for a taxi and almost missed her flight.

Claire stood on the tarmac at Coolangatta airport blinking in the mid-morning sun. No matter how carefully you dressed in Sydney anticipating the warmth, it was always hotter here than you thought. She felt like taking her clothes off already.

She could be at Kirra Beach in five minutes. But she was determined. That’s not where she was going. She climbed into a taxi and directed the driver to downtown Surfers Paradise.

She took her mobile phone out of her handbag and looked at it. It would be the easiest thing in the world to call him now. In fact, she could call just to say that she wouldn’t be seeing him. But she knew she couldn’t do that. Once she heard that voice it would all be over. Instead she called her father.

‘Hi, Dad. I’m here. Just leaving the airport now.’

‘Good, good. Your mother’s not back until lunchtime, so we’ll have some time to talk.’ Her father sounded nervous. Claire guessed this was because he was going to have to address Big Emotional Stuff and he wasn’t good at it.

‘Did you tell Mum I was coming?’

‘I told her you were coming up for lunch because you had some business to do in the late afternoon. I told her I wasn’t sure what it was about. Perhaps you could go out shopping or something, so she doesn’t suspect anything.’

Claire couldn’t believe that her own father was conspiring to get her out of the house. She was afraid of what would happen if she left the safety of her mother and father’s four walls.

‘OK then. See you soon.’

Claire ended the call. At this point she could turn off her phone and there would be no way he could get through to her. But what if Charlie rang, or Meg wanted to call her about Maddie? She left it on and tucked it back in her bag.

Claire looked out the window of the taxi and watched the suburbs slide by. If she could just stop thinking, she would be fine. She would be back in Sydney by this time tomorrow and her life would be exactly as she had left it.

The Gold Coast. Claire loved this part of the world, although most people she knew turned their noses up at it. Cheap and tacky was the usual pronouncement. But Claire’s mother and father had taken family holidays here since the mid-sixties. Almost forty years ago. She sighed in disbelief.

She loved the glimpses of what it had been like back then. When every small-time entrepreneur from down south had stampeded here to create their own versions of California or Miami—to open a motel and make a fortune selling the sand, surf and sun to the swinging generation. You could still see the rundown ‘Sun Deck’ and ‘Paradise’ motels, with murals of the Mexican desert or Hawaiian palms painted on the walls. Their green concrete beer gardens were cracked and long deserted, their empty swimming pools painted such an intense shade of blue that you had to squint to look at them.

She remembered they had once rented a house on the beachfront at Burleigh Heads, probably about . . . there! They used to sprint over the crab-hole pitted dunes and dive into the ocean. She saw the very spot slide by the window. It was now occupied by a block of designer apartments.

Their school holidays had always stretched to infinity. It was Christmas all year round. There was always more mini-golf to be played, a visit to the Porpoise Pool to feed the seals, or a ride on a ferris wheel with the wind off the beach whipping through your salty hair.

Dad loved the Currumbin bird sanctuary because the rainbow lorikeets’ feet got stuck in Mum’s hairspray and shat in her perm.

Claire remembered the bloke—so sunburned that the creases in his skin were charcoal—who rented you a Surf-O-Plane on the beach so you could catch a breaker while waving to Mum at the water’s edge in her floral one-piece cossie.

And the other bloke—Dad said he had ‘the best job in the world’—who sprayed coconut oil on the girls in their bikinis .

Coconut oil! Claire now realised why that smell so often jolted her brain back to memories of adolescent lust. On her family’s last visit to their holiday house, when Claire was sixteen, she had crept across the wooden verandah to meet Shane, a golden-haired surfie boy who drove an emerald green panel van. He parked next to Elephant Rock as the sun went down and she climbed in the back with him amongst the empty KB tins, the Castrol oil bottle bongs, the blocks of coconut board wax. There was a full moon and a big swell that night. Claire felt as if she’d paddled out to where it was six foot and perfect . . .

Claire was only five minutes away from her parents’ highrise apartment when she cracked. She reached for the phone and rang the number.

‘Hello, The Green Wave. Connor speaking.’

‘Hi. Guess where I am?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I’d lost you.’

‘In Surfers. Can I see you tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know this isn’t what we planned . . .’

‘And that’s why it’s better like this. I forgot to tell you that that’s what makes a night great. No amount of planning can make any difference. It’s the unfolding. How a night unfolds to make it like no other. Meet me outside the Kirra pub at six o’clock.’

‘OK . . . and Connor?’

‘Yeah?’

‘If you go for a surf today, don’t shower.’

Claire snapped the phone shut and felt every tiny cell in her body burst into flame.

‘So run through this again for me, Dad.’ Claire was pacing the beige carpet in front of the windows of her parents’ fifth floor beachfront apartment.

Her father sat in a lounge chair watching Claire silhouetted against the brilliant sea and sky. There was a vertical roll call of blues behind her. Azure, cerulean, cobalt, cyan, gentian, indigo, sapphire, saxe, turquoise and ultramarine.

Claire was not looking out the window. She was trying to focus intensely on the matter at hand for two reasons: firstly, because she really did want to help her father and, secondly, because apparently she had a death wish and might be tempted to jump.

‘Well,’ said Ron, who was perched at the front of his chair with his hands clasped between his knees, ‘as I’ve already outlined, there have been three different flower arrangements arrive here in the past week. She says she’s brought them home from charity lunches, but that seems a bit circumstantial.’

In his mind Ron was back chairing a Balmain Lawn Bowls Club committee meeting where he had always felt most comfortable. Claire was equally determined to keep proceedings focused, but informal.

‘How come she’s going to all these lunches without you in the first place?’

‘You know me, Claire. I don’t feel comfortable at social outings. I never have. I just seem to cramp your mother’s style. It’s better we do things apart.’

‘Well, maybe it’s not better, Dad. Not if she’s lonely and started having an affair—which, by the way I do not think is true. What else?’

‘She’s been out a couple of times that I know of at least, to visit Clive Sinclair down at the surf-lifesaving club when she expressly told me she was going shopping.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I followed her.’

‘Dad!’

Claire had a vision of her father cruising the gutters of Surfers Paradise in the Toyota Camry while her mother tripped up the street unaware she was being stalked.

‘How do you know she went to visit Clive? She could have dropped in to the club to . . . um . . .’ Claire couldn’t think of any reason you would drop into a surf-lifesaving club. To borrow a cup of sand?

‘I saw them together. They were talking in the car park. Near his Lexus.’

‘Did you see them in the Lexus? Together?’

‘No. I’d had enough by then and didn’t want to be spotted, so I came home.’

‘Well gee, Dad, it doesn’t seem a lot to go on.’

‘How about this then?’ Ron waved a glossy brochure in front of Claire’s eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s an informative pamphlet for Jupiter’s Casino. And, if you look at this page, you’ll see that someone has used a black pen to circle the ‘Lovers’ Weekend Retreat’ package. You get a complimentary bottle of Australian sparkling wine, chocolate-dipped strawberries . . . and . . .’ Ron’s head dropped to his chest and his voice came out in a whisper, ‘There’s a spa!’

‘Oh come on, Dad. You’ve got a spa here in the bathroom. The telephone booths in Surfers have got spas! You’ll have to—’

Clunk! The front door slammed and June was in the hallway.

‘Yoo-hoo,’ she sang.

Ron hissed at his daughter, as if they were at a meeting of the French Resistance, ‘Take your mother out to lunch. Find out what you can. Tell me later!’ And then he was back behind the breakfast bar tinkering with the element on the toaster.

June burst into the room with her arms outstretched in extravagant greeting. Claire recognised the pose as one she herself often adopted.

‘Darling!’ Claire could hear the clink-clank of bracelets and necklaces as June pranced across the room.

‘Hi, Mum. Don’t you look gorgeous?’ Claire always ladled on the compliments. Everyone in the family had learned these were more welcome than a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates.

‘Oh don’t, child! I’m as fat as a house! But you! You look radiant! What are you up to?’ This was one of June’s standard greetings, but Claire felt guilty enough to blush.

‘Oh, I know! It’s that handsome Charlie. You’ve finally got my granddaughter out of your bed and you’re having a second honeymoon. You do look lovely!’

Claire was pleased. She didn’t often get unqualified compliments from her mother.

‘Although I like your hair shorter. I’ve never thought a woman over thirty-five should wear her hair past her shoulders.’

And she wasn’t going to get one today either. Welcome home.

By 2 pm Claire and June had consumed two dozen oysters, two chicken salads and were almost through two bottles of Veuve Cliquot. They were sitting in the window of Shuck, a hip little eatery in Tedder Avenue. June was sitting in full view of the passers-by. It was a lineball call as to whether it was so that she could see them, or so they could have the wonderfully uplifting experience of viewing her.

Lunch was an extravaganza of bitchy local gossip punctuated by June’s pronouncements on the riffraff stumbling out of the maze of crappy souvenir and fast food shops into the rarefied village atmosphere of the avenue.

‘Eating in the street. Terribly gauche. You just didn’t do it when I was young . . .

‘Look at the tummy on that one! Slovenly. I don’t know why the girls do it, unless they’re expecting men to tuck banknotes into their panties . . .

‘What is she doing wheeling a pram? Please tell me she’s the child’s grandmother. Women these days have children at such a late age. It’s just selfishness.’

Claire felt compelled to at least mount a case for older mothers. ‘Mum. I was thirty-nine when I had Madeline.’

‘I know, dear, but you were a late bloomer. You never looked your age. It’s a family trait. Well . . . except for your sister.’

Claire watched silently as June ran her bony fingers through the ash-blonde layers of her hair, adjusted her pearls and smoothed her apricot silk jacket over her neat chest.

Speaking of family traits brought Claire to the thorny topic of extramarital relations. She was just about to begin an artfully disguised interrogation when her mother placed her hands on the table and called the meeting to order.

‘Now, Claire, I’m very glad you’re here. Why are you here again?’ Her mother cocked her head to one side and fixed her brown eyes on Claire in a wonderful impersonation of a budgie.

‘Oh . . . um . . . just visiting a girlfriend who’s getting married for the second time,’ Claire said airily.

‘Hmph! Second marriages never work. You might as well stay with the first man you fall in love with, because you’re only going to repeat the mistake.

‘As I say, I’m glad you’re here because I want you to agree to visit on the first of next month for your father’s seventy-fifth birthday. It’s a surprise. Now Douglas and Louise are coming, so all you children can be together at the one table. It will be at the surf-lifesaving club, about eighty people. Clive Sinclair has been a marvellous help in organising the venue. Such a nice man. Very distinguished.’

Claire could feel a smile creep across her face.

‘I think the food will be Chinese barbecue, which is very up-to-the-minute. And I’ve had a florist send me various arrangements. At this point I’m leaning away from the pink gerberas and towards the yellow rosebuds. And then I’m going to whisk him away for a naughty weekend at the casino. So . . . what do you think?’

Claire pitched forward until her forehead met the linen tablecloth and she laughed. And laughed. She didn’t stop until she sat up and realised that her mother was boring holes into her with black pinprick pupils.

‘Mum . . . sorry. Sorry!’ she gasped as she actually drew in some air. ‘I’m just laughing because I think you are so amazing. I think it sounds fabulous. We’d love to come.’

Another half hour went by as June laid out her meticulous plans for Ron’s birthday. When she was on a glass of Frangelico liqueur, Claire finally summoned up the courage to ask what she really wanted to know.

‘Mum. How old were you when you went though menopause?’

‘Oh about fifty, I suppose. I think I was a bit younger than most.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

‘Why didn’t you ask me about it? You were in your late twenties then and I think the only thing you wanted from me was my old Dior handbags. Young women are terribly self-centred.’

June took a sip of liqueur from a dainty glass clutched by immaculate coral-painted nails.

‘Did you have a hard time of it?’

‘Not physically, because I have always kept myself very trim. Everyone was flinging themselves around with Jane Fonda aerobics in those days, so I did too.’

‘But mentally . . .?’

‘Well, I don’t think it’s easy for any woman. But I think it’s more difficult when . . .’ June hesitated.

‘When what?

‘When you’ve been told all your life that you’re very beautiful and you’ve always used your sex appeal to get what you want.’

Claire sat back in her chair as if she’d been slapped.

June saw the expression on her face.

‘Oh I’m not talking about you, dear! You’re a marvellously accomplished woman in your own right. But I’d been married for thirty years. In that time your father’s transport company had expanded right through Asia. There were so many functions, client occasions. All I had to do was bat my eyelashes and look beautiful, so I did. It was painful when I got to my forties and realised I hadn’t done anything very useful with my life.’

‘But you’d raised three kids.’

‘Oh, you were easy. You pretty much raised yourselves. Of course, my mother had eight. Then you all left home. The time went by in the blink of an eye.’

‘Is that when Monty La Marr came on the scene?’

Now it was June’s turn to be surprised. She twisted a pearl earring with her perfect nails.

‘How did you know about that?’

‘I just always suspected.’

‘He was wonderful, Monty.’ June tilted her chin in defiance.

‘Very handsome and an expert lover. If I hadn’t had him for those four years—’

‘Four years!’

‘Yes. Although your father thinks it was only a month or two, bless his heart.’

‘Why didn’t you leave Dad?’

‘Because I loved him, of course! Ron’s your father!’

Now there was logic from another era.

‘So, I guess you were going through perimenopause when I was a teenager and that’s why you were so hard on me.’

‘I was doing no such thing! I was only in my thirties then. I was hard on you because you were an absolute pain in the bottom!’

‘Don’t wait up for me, Mum, I don’t know how long I’ll be. I expect my girlfriend and I will be up half the night having a long girlie heart-to-heart,’ Claire lied.

June was now sitting on her own shady balcony with a strawberry daiquiri she’d whipped up.

‘Claire, I haven’t waited up for you since you were sixteen. After that night you came back from Elephant Rock, I realised there was no point.’

‘How did you know about that?’

‘A mother knows these things.’

Oh great, that was all Claire needed—another detective in the family. She took her father’s arm and led him to the front door. She whispered in his ear, ‘Dad, she’s been secretly planning your seventy-fifth birthday. At the surf club.’

‘Oh crikey! I forgot about that.’ Her father slapped his forehead as the penny dropped. ‘Oh my lord! You must think I’m an idiot.’

‘The fact that you’re this jealous after almost fifty years of marriage? I think it’s the sweetest thing I ever heard. Don’t wait up for me either.’

‘I won’t. Thank you, darling. Thank you.’

Within half an hour Claire was standing outside the Kirra pub. If, later, you had asked her what she had thought about in the taxi on the way there, she would not have been able to tell you. She could tell you, though, that standing outside the front door, she was barely holding it together. She folded her arms across her breasts because she knew her nipples were already erect under the flimsy fabric of her white embroidered singlet.

There was a gentle breeze blowing on this warm November evening. Claire felt like a ripe fruit ready to drop from a tree.

She bent and smoothed the sheer fabric of the raspberry-coloured wrap skirt which was rippling against her bare legs. The air was cool where it played across the already-damp patches of her silk knickers. She looked down at the red toenails wriggling in white beaded sandals.

What did you choose to wear for what was supposed to be the best night of sex of your life? Claire figured it didn’t really matter as she probably wouldn’t be wearing it for long. She shook a few russet strands of hair off her face and hoped she might also shake off the doubt which was descending on her like nightfall.

Where was he? She’d only ever seen him twice in real life. Once at the wedding (don’t think about Rose) and once at Meg’s (don’t think about Meg). Of course, in her mind she’d seen him a thousand times. But had she sculpted a fantasy figure which was more handsome, more hard-bodied than the man himself?

Then Claire saw Connor walk out the front door of the pub and clearly the answer was ‘no’. She felt the ground give way as he turned his eyes on her. Even from here she could see they were a remarkable shade of blue-green. She could also see that his skin was more tanned than she remembered and that the tendrils of his curly hair had been bleached to the roots. It was as if he was in technicolour and the rest of the universe was rendered in shades of grey.

He was wearing an old pair of red board shorts, now faded to pink, and—oh my God—they were laced at the front. His loose singlet was also faded by the sun. It had been blue? Or green? It was his arms she took most note of. They were brown, lean and knotted with muscles. There was a sparkle of sea salt on his shoulders. Claire saw that his legs were equally long and lean. As he walked towards her she could hear the slap-slap of his rubber thongs on the footpath.

‘Hello . . . You must be Claire.’ He smiled and extended his hand in greeting.

She played along with his little game. She frowned. ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’

He stood and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Well, not really. Not as much as you will after the next—’ he looked at his watch—‘twenty-four hours. I’m Connor Carmody.’

Claire now took his hand, which was so broad and strong it made hers feel like a little girl’s.

‘I’m Claire Sellwyn-Wallace,’ she said, meeting his eyes.

‘Would you like to come this way to my car, Claire?’ he said, gesturing to the side of the building.

She walked in front of him.

‘Claire Sellwyn-Wallace. That’s a very nice name,’ he said as he walked behind her.

She had the sense of being stared at from her heels right up to the back of her neck. Projection and absorption, a two-way process. As soon as they were around the side of the building, away from the windows, he reached and put his large hands around her waist.

‘And that’s a very nice arse as well.’

Claire climbed into the front seat of his arctic-white utility. Of course he’d have a ute. Lockable, so he could keep his board and tools in it. And a wax comb hanging from the rear-vision mirror tangled in a shell necklace. There it was. Check.

He bent down to start the ignition and threw the ute into reverse. He turned to look behind him and in the same gesture grabbed Claire’s thigh with his heavy left hand. It was a gesture which said, unmistakably, ‘mine’.

They didn’t drive far, just up the road to North Kirra. But in that short time Connor’s fingers had already insinuated themselves inside Claire’s silk knickers.

‘Uh-huh.’ The guttural sound came from somewhere deep inside his chest as he noted that Claire was very wet.

Claire thought about putting her hand to the front of his board shorts, but instead put it up to her mouth and bit her fingers to stop herself from moaning. When he stopped the car she looked and could see her own bright red teeth marks.

‘OK. Let’s get this party started,’ said Connor. He’d used that line before, she recalled.

As he retrieved his board and a carton of beer from the back of the ute, Claire sat in the shadows and looked up at the house. If she walked up those dark wooden stairs, she would not come down with her marriage intact. If she was going to cut and run at any time, now was her last chance. Go now!

Her body didn’t move an inch. Connor was walking back to the car. He opened the door and stretched out his hand.

It took them five attempts to get inside the front door. The first stop, when he pressed against her and bit her neck hard, was on the side of the car. The second, when he thrust his hand up her singlet inside her bra, was over the bonnet. By the time they got to the first landing of the stairs he’d undone the ties on her wrap skirt and dragged it off. At the top landing she was without her singlet and desperately holding her bra to her breasts.

It was against the front door that he found the waistband of her knickers and dragged them down, then fell on his knees to lick her.

When the door was finally opened, she fell back on the floor with him crawling up her body and trying to part her knees with his.

She managed to slide from under him, back across the polished floorboards, with one hand fumbling for her bra straps and the other clawing her undies back up her legs.

‘Stop, stop,’ she gasped. ‘It’s too much . . . too soon . . .’

‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right.’ He was breathing heavily. ‘I’ll get your things. Get you a drink. Sit down. Sorry. Sorry. Sit down.’

Claire scrambled to a chair and shakily pulled her underwear together in the half-light. She tugged her knickers up her damp legs and smoothed her hair from her hot forehead.

‘Phew!’ She was still trying to calm her heart when Connor came back with her clothes and handbag.

He rested his hands on the kitchen counter and shook his head. ‘Jesus! I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to fuck anyone so badly in my entire life.’

After a long silence, he looked at Claire. ‘Whoa! It’s good that you said stop, because there’re so many things I want to do with you . . . to you . . . um . . . oh shit . . . Vodka and cranberry?’

‘That would be perfect,’ said Claire.

She needed air. She stood and walked to the windows, which were hazy with spray. She slid open the doors to the deck, stepped out into the breeze and looked at the Pacific Ocean. It was a rolling, rough swell, too scrappy to surf. The afternoon sun was dropping and turning the lapis lazuli edges of the watery horizon to ebony black. She breathed deeply and realised she had absolutely no idea who she was. She was cut loose from her own life and drifting.

Connor was there to rescue her. He stood behind her and she leaned back into his chest, as hard and broad as a mahogany hull. She took the drink he was offering, sipped from it and put it down. She leaned over the railing in front of him, all too aware of the picture she presented.

One of his hands slid around to her belly, holding her firmly, and the other was down the back of her knickers. His fingers were parting her warm cheeks and then slipping inside her.

‘God you’re so wet,’ he mumbled, and leaned over her shoulder. She pulled back her hair so he could get at her bare white neck. Then he kissed and chewed from her shoulderblade to her temple. Claire shivered as the breeze chilled her wet skin.

Connor grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her face around to his. He hesitated, his pupils expanding to take in the sight of her. Then he held her head in one hand, a breast in the other, and kissed her. A lover’s kiss.

It wasn’t what Claire wanted. She bit his lips hard and, taking his cue from her, he bit back harder.

Claire felt her knees fold from under her. She wrapped her long white legs around Connor’s lean waist and threw her head back. She looked up to see one lone star picked out like a glittering jewel in a sable sky.

Star light, star bright. I wish I may. I wish I might. Have this wish I wish tonight.

I wish I wasn’t here.

‘I’m . . . I’m cold,’ Claire said as she slid down his body and her bare feet touched the deck. ‘Let’s go inside.’

‘Yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll get your drink.’ Connor retrieved the glass and stumbled in the door after her.

Claire groped in the gloom for the couch and curled up at one end. Connor sat at the other and held out her drink. It must have been Claire’s own hand which reached out to take it, but she didn’t recognise it. Her mind was thinking of a way to escape. She was hoping her body had already left.

Connor leaned back against the couch, stretched and pushed his curls from his forehead with two hands. He looked at the ceiling, sighed and spoke.

‘Fuck, you are amazing! I knew you would be. I knew I would regret this.’

Claire heard herself whisper. ‘Regret? What do you mean?’

‘I knew . . .’ And Claire was astonished to hear his usually sexy growl choked off in his throat. He wiped his forearm across his eyes.

‘When you said that we’d have the best night of sex ever and you asked me to think about what made sex great . . . do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ said Claire quietly.

‘I knew straight away. It’s love.’

‘What?’

‘It’s love. I know we were playing a game, but it’s not music or what you’re wearing or some smell, or a tattoo—which I didn’t have time to get done, by the way—but I would have for you . . .’ Connor sniffed back—what? Tears?

‘It’s none of that. Of course that stuff is exciting and can give you a hard-on—all that. But if you want to have the best sex . . . it’s “I love you” sex.’

Claire knew something was coming over the horizon as sure as the waves were rolling in outside the window.

‘And . . . I love you, Claire! I know you think that I couldn’t possibly. But I do. I knew it straight away from the first moment.’

Connor buried his head in her hair and his arm reached around her bare body to hold her tight.

Oh dear God, thought Claire. Who wrote this script?

Claire realised that she had. She’d written the entire episode in her head without thinking about the players at all. She’d written Charlie, Meg, Maddie, Connor and her parents into her own menopausal melodrama without really looking at the emotions of anyone but herself. Hadn’t everyone been telling her this in their own way? Hadn’t she seen the WRONG WAY GO BACK sign from the moment she’d met Connor? Of course she had, but she had been determined to play out her fantasy.

She turned to Connor in the half-light. She’d really never seen anyone so beautiful. So young and perfect it was painful.

‘Connor.’

She thought that for once in her life she owed someone complete honesty. She was old enough now to face up to it.

‘You know I can’t love you. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know.’

‘I’m not really real. I’m just . . . I’m just a middle-aged Fairy Godmother who’s lost her way.’

It was only 9:30 pm when Claire quietly opened the door to her parents’ flat. She knew her parents liked to go to bed by nine, but she wasn’t surprised to see a light still on in the front room.

‘Mum . . . Dad?’ she called softly as she tiptoed down the hall.

She wasn’t surprised to see the light on, but she was stunned by the sight of the person standing on the balcony puffing on a cigarette with a glass of wine in hand. For a moment Claire was nailed to the floor, then she lurched forward.

‘Oh . . . my God! Rose! What are you doing here? I thought you were on your honeymoon . . .?’ Claire dropped her handbag and stepped outside with open arms.

Claire was glad of the shadows on the deck. She thought that anyone who could see her in full light must guess what she’d been doing. Her lips were swollen and bitten, her hair was wild, her mascara smudged.

Rose didn’t seem to notice. She embraced Claire awkwardly and looked away.

‘Honey, I didn’t know you were in town.’ Claire found a glass and poured a drink for herself.

Rose looked at her with frank disbelief. Her voice was flat, toneless. ‘Yeah. We were cruising around the Whitsundays and landed back here at Southport on Saturday.’

‘I knew—’ Claire started. Fuck! Of course you don’t know, you stupid idiot, she cursed herself. ‘I knew you’d be having a wonderful time. On a boat? What a brilliant honeymoon. Did you have a wonderful time?’

‘We did . . .’

‘Can I have a cigarette, Rose?’

‘Help yourself.’

Claire took one from the packet on the table and could see her hands were shaking. She hoped Rose couldn’t see.

‘So . . .’ said Claire, pushing smoke from her lungs and trying to stay composed. Leaving Connor had been a big emotional scene. There had been more wild kisses and tears from both of them. Claire felt very fragile.

‘So, you’re here. Are you staying the night too?’ She desperately tried to keep her manner bright and breezy.

‘No. I’ve been waiting for you because I wanted to speak to you privately. I know why you’re here. I know you met Connor.’ Rose had turned her back and was looking out at the dark ocean.

Claire was glad Rose wasn’t watching her fumble for a chair and slump into it.

‘I saw it was your number when you rang him on Saturday afternoon at Southport. I picked up his mobile phone and handed it to him. That’s when I was sure there was something going on.’

‘Oh God, Rose . . . I . . .’ Claire couldn’t go on.

There was nothing to be said. Her worst nightmare was coming true and she wished she had jumped from the balcony earlier that afternoon. She stayed silent as her chin dropped to her chest.

‘I’ve known since the night he came over to Meg’s after the wedding. I saw him hang back and talk to you as we were all leaving. I saw the shock on your face.’

Claire thought back to that night. She recalled her erotic high with a flush of shame. Rose had seen it all?

‘I was hoping that he would go away. But I saw him walk out the front of the Kirra pub this afternoon—I didn’t know he was there—and then there you were, waiting for him. I saw you both.’

Claire found a scrap of voice for a small question, ‘You were at the pub?’

‘Yep, right there at the window, with a girlfriend. Dermott’s in Southport with his mates, thank God. I was going to come out and speak to you but, by the time I got outside, you’d both gone.’

Claire bit her lip. She was going to cry.

Rose was still looking out to the vast blackness.

There was no point in lying to Rose. Claire could see she was caught. She took a breath and began a pathetic defence.

‘I didn’t come to see him. I came to see my mother and father. I wasn’t going to see him. But then I thought that if I saw him face to face, I could finish this . . . whole fantasy . . . once and for all,’ she stammered.

Rose turned—there were tears sliding down her cheeks—and looked at Claire. ‘And is it finished now? Did he tell you that?’ Rose demanded.

‘I’m sure it is. I’m positive. It’s over,’ said Claire. She’d never felt more certain of anything in her life.

‘Oh God, Claire, I hope you’re right. Because it could wreck everything. There’s too much at stake here.’

‘I know, I know.’ Claire thought of Charlie and Madeline and felt chilled to the bone.

‘Because, if Dermott ever finds out . . .’

Claire knew Dermott would be disappointed in her too. This stupid episode would send a tidal wave through the family and sweep everything away. She could see the path of destruction so clearly now.

Rose continued, ‘If Dermott ever suspects for one minute what happened, he would kill Connor.’

Dermott kill Connor? That’s odd, thought Claire. What about Charlie?

Rose went on, ‘But I don’t think Connor has told Dermott. I don’t think even he’d sink that low and, besides, Dermott trusts me.’

This was sounding stranger by the second. Why would Connor tell Dermott anything? Why wouldn’t Dermott trust Rose?

Rose sat down next to Claire, threw her arms around her shoulders and buried her face in her hair.

‘Oh God, Claire! It was never serious between Connor and me. I slept with him. Twice! A month before the wedding! I can’t believe it. I’m so ashamed of myself!’

Claire felt as if she had jumped from the balcony—and a pile of cardboard boxes had broken her fall. She wasn’t dead, but she was seriously concussed.

‘I guess I was just scared about getting married. You know how it is when you suddenly realise you will only have sex with one man ever again?’

Claire certainly did know how it was.

‘And Connor. I mean, look at him! How could anyone resist? I think he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’

‘He is sort of good-looking, I suppose,’ Claire managed to croak.

‘I thought that when I told him I was getting married, he’d just give up. He told me I was marrying the wrong man, but I know I haven’t. But then you told me he was at our wedding! Then he turned up at Meg’s!

‘Thank you for going to see him. Thank you. You must have felt so embarrassed standing out there in front of the pub as if you were meeting your toy boy or something.’

Claire smiled weakly. Is that how it had appeared to everyone?

Rose stood now and looked at Claire.

‘I know it was the wrong thing, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I guess I used him in a way. Like you said, it was a fantasy.’

Poor Connor, thought Claire, he’d be regretting the day he ever set eyes on the Wallace women.

‘You can’t imagine what it’s been like for me!’ Rose declared fervently.

‘I can imagine,’ said Claire. ‘An emotional roller-coaster.’

She felt like crying herself. Because she’d made a fool of herself? Because now there was truly no way back to Connor, even in her fantasies? Because she’d come so close to the edge of disaster?

‘It’s really possible, isn’t it, Claire? To keep the passion alive? I look at you and Charlie, and Ron and June, and I see that love can last the distance.’

‘It is possible,’ said Claire quietly. ‘But it doesn’t come easily. You have to keep working at it. It’s what your father always says.’

‘So what did you say to Connor? What did he say about me?’

Claire thought that now was the time for a lie. Rose was just like she had been at her age. Unable to see that she wasn’t the centre of the universe.

‘Well,’ said Claire, ‘we just talked everything over and I think I finally convinced him. I told him how happy you are and in the end he’s a nice bloke. He’s getting married soon and I think that will be the finish. I don’t think you’ll hear from Mr Connor Carmody again.’ Claire stood and took Rose in her arms.

‘And if he ever tries to tell Dermott . . .?’

Claire kissed the top of her head. ‘We’ll hire a hit man.’

‘You know, Claire—and this is a weird thing to say—I feel like I can be married now. That I have really truly said goodbye to being single. Being with Connor proved something to me.’

‘What was that?’ asked Claire.

‘That even if it was the most amazing sex of my entire life— and I mean, God, Claire . . . amazing—that, if you don’t love the person, then that’s all it is—just sex.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Claire.

She stood holding Rose in her arms as five floors below another wave finished its journey across the ocean and crashed to the shore.

Tuesday

Going South

It was 7 am when the phone rang by Claire’s bed. She grabbed it and simultaneously pulled the cord on the cedar blinds.

Aaargh! The morning sun blasted into the room and threatened to inflict permanent retina damage. No wonder retirees occupied these beachfront flats. Anyone with a serious hangover would have to be hospitalised.

Claire snapped the blinds shut and tried to focus on the telephone. Not easy after four hours sleep. She had been in bed by midnight, and then lay awake until 3 am trying to convince herself that the odd heart palpitation didn’t mean she was going to die.

‘Hi, gorgeous! It’s me, Meg. Your daughter wants to speak to you.’

‘Hello, Mummy.’

‘Oh hello, my sweet darling,’ Claire cooed down the line.

‘Mum. I forgot my library book. Can you go home and get it?’ Madeline, like all six year olds, imagined her mother was Superwoman.

‘Well, not really, honey. I’m in Queensland with Grandma and Grandpa, but I’ll pick you up from Meg’s after school. OK?’

‘Will you bring me a ’prise?’

‘Of course, darling. See you later. Put Meg on. Bye. Have a lovely day at school.’

‘Bye, Mummy. I love you.’

‘And I love you, Madeline. Bye!’

‘Are you bringing me a surprise too?’ Meg was starting the inquisition at an indecent hour.

‘You don’t stop, do you, Meg?’ Claire’s heart felt lighter than it had for a long time.

‘So . . . tell me.’

‘Meg, I did not have sex with that man,’ said Claire. It was the Bill Clinton defence. But in this case Claire hoped it would hold.

‘You better not be bringing back any dresses with suspicious stains!’

Claire laughed. ‘No, no, no. It’s all good. I do not have any surprises for you . . . or for anyone. Seriously, I’ll be home by this afternoon. I’ll talk to you then. You’ll be proud of me.

‘Hey—you’ll have had the ultrasound. You might have a ’prise for me!’

‘Oh jeez, Claire, don’t say it. Bye. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

Claire fell back to sleep and was woken fifteen minutes later by another call.

‘Hey there, it’s a great spring morning. Now eighteen degrees and all major arteries flowing smoothly into the City. Time to rise and shine, campers!’

‘Charlieeee, fuck offfff,’ Claire whined.

‘But seriously. Have you seen my Tina Turner watch?’

‘Are you kidding? This is a joke, right? Charlie, you got that in New York, I dunno . . . eight years ago. Why the hell would I know where it is now?’

‘OK, OK, just asking. It’s her birthday. I just wanted to wear it today, that’s all.’

‘Charlie if you had a watch, you’d realise it’s seven fifteen am.’

‘It’s eight fifteen here.’

‘Yep. It’s called “daylight saving”, Charlie, and the Sunshine State doesn’t believe in it. Lemme go back to sleep.’

‘Oops. Sorry, baby. See you this afternoon. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

Claire lay back in her bed and looked at the ceiling. Anyone else want to pop in and tell her they loved her?

‘Morning, Claire of the Moon,’ said her father, peeping around the bedroom door. ‘You awake?’

‘I am now, Dad.’

‘I just wanted to come in before your mother does and tell you I love you.’

Claire laughed and threw her hands into the air. She’d now won the quadrella!

‘Yay! Thanks, Dad.’

Her father sat on the end of the bed and looked at the eiderdown. He smoothed it with a wrinkled hand and cleared his throat with a cough before he spoke.

‘You know, I’ve been thinking. And I want to tell you this before you go home. If I had my time over with your mother— and goodness knows, I’d do it all again in a minute—I’d give her all my heart from the beginning.

‘Looking back, I think that’s why she had the affair. Because I always tried to keep a bit of my heart all to myself in case . . . Well, I don’t really know why, just in case of an emergency. I was wrong.

‘You go home and love your husband and daughter with all your heart and soul. Don’t be scared. That’s all I want to say.’

How could her father have known this about her, Claire wondered.

‘Oh, Dad, I love you so much,’ she said passionately, and threw her arms around him.

‘RON! Get out here now and put your joggers on,’ June called from the hall.

‘Are you going to get up and come for a walk too, Claire?’ June appeared in the doorway, adjusting her natty white sun visor embroidered with yellow and pink hibiscus flowers, which perfectly complemented her yellow and pink velour jogging suit.

‘Aw, Mum . . . I’m so tired.’

‘You could do with a walk! I can see there’s a bit of extra poundage creeping onto the top of your legs. You’re forty-five if you hadn’t realised. It’s a critical age for a woman.’

That night Claire was at home, standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing her hair, when she saw Charlie’s head appear behind hers. She felt him haul up the hem of her white satin dressing gown and, holding her bottom cheeks apart with his warm hands, insinuate his large erection in between.

Then he took a handful of Claire’s hair and pulled it so her neck was bare. If anyone on this earth knew how to bite Claire’s neck over and over until she was a quivering wreck, it was Charlie Wallace. So he did this, and gently pulled on her nipples at the same time, until her knees began to give way. Then he pushed her forward over the black marble sink.

‘Charlie,’ Claire began. ‘Oh, not here, what if Maddie . . . OH GOD!’

Charlie thrust himself into Claire from behind so hard that her head smacked into the mirror. And he didn’t even apologise. Or ask her if she wanted an aspirin. Who was this man? Not her husband. Where had they taken him? What had they done with Charlie?

There was a whole new sensation Claire hadn’t felt before. She felt so bare, so smooth. It all felt deliciously slick and different. Very different, in fact.

‘Hmm, that feel’s pretty good,’ Charlie crooned. ‘But I don’t know whether I like the look of it or not. Lemme have a closer look.’

Charlie pulled himself out of her and retied his black silk kimono.

‘No, don’t move until I tell you,’ he said sternly.

He turned Claire to face him and lifted her onto the bathroom bench. He pulled her dressing gown up to her waist and held her open thighs with two strong hands. He knelt on the tiled floor and in a moment his tongue was roaming all over her and then inside. Claire’s hands went to his head. If there was another thing Charlie Wallace knew how to do it was . . .

‘Nope. I don’t like it. I don’t like that little patch of hair there.’ Charlie stood up and looked down at her.

‘But in this case I think we can improve upon perfection.’

He reached up into an overhead cabinet. Claire could see his erection bobbing beneath the silk robe in the shaft of bright light from the ceiling. Claire wondered what the hell he was playing at.

He put his shaving gear on the bench next to her.

‘Put one leg here and the other one here,’ Charlie ordered.

He sat on a bathroom stool in between. He could see right into her. She could feel his hot breath on her.

Claire gripped the edge of the bench and leant back as he got down to business. Amazingly, the work which would have taken Shelley at the Aphrodite Salon & Spa a mere three minutes took Charlie almost ten times that long. Clearly he would never get a job as a beauty therapist.

He was dedicated to his job. A perfectionist. It was just that his mind kept wandering. He couldn’t keep his fingers out of there, or his tongue. But as soon as his squirming client started to enjoy herself too much, he would stop and resume his intimate inspections in a businesslike manner.

‘OK. Climb down and bend over,’ Charlie commanded. He turned his attention to the few wisps of hair which remained. And then he set down his tools, took off his robe and fucked Claire until she thought she would lose her mind.

After this Charlie left the room and climbed into bed. Claire unfolded herself from the bench and looked into the mirror.

What had just happened? Whatever it was, it was a long time coming. She smiled at her reflection and thought she might go into the bedroom and see if there was any more of it on offer.

Claire crawled into bed next to her husband and snuggled under his armpit, throwing her arm across his hairy chest.

‘Mmm, Charlie . . . that was very, very nice,’ she sighed. ‘But tell me one thing.’

‘Hmm?,’ he answered lazily.

‘Were you thinking about Diane Lane as you fucked me?’

‘Nup.’

‘You were, you were! You bastard. You were!’ Claire squealed with laughter.

They wrestled playfully, kissed and lay back down beside each other.

‘Charlie . . .?’ Claire asked thoughtfully.

‘Yeah. Now what?’

‘What’s the best night of sex you’ve ever had?’

He didn’t hesitate with his answer. ‘The night we conceived Maddie. Do you remember?’

‘Remind me . . .’

‘It was November. I remember because the jacaranda tree was in bloom, like now. There was a big moon shining in through the window onto the bed and I remember thinking that you looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen you.

‘And when I was inside you I felt like . . . I just remember it being the most perfect moment. The two of us were so close. I couldn’t tell where I began and you started. We touched eternity together and brought a child back with us. That was the exact night she came to life.’

‘We are so lucky aren’t we, Charlie?’ Claire could feel she was about to cry.

‘We are, we are. And do you know something, Mrs Claire Wallace? You are about to get a whole lot luckier.’

Charlie grabbed Claire’s hand and thrust it under the sheets.

‘EEEK, CHARLIE . . . I KNEW SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT! YOU’RE BALD . . . YOU’VE HAD A BRAZILIAN!’

‘Fancy going down to a carnival in Rio?’

Postscript

It was a year later and the jacaranda trees were again blooming in Sydney. Claire stood on Meg’s back deck in the afternoon sun and surveyed the wreckage of Meg’s backyard.

‘They’ve done a wonderful job with that granny flat, Tony. Should really increase the price of this property,’ said Charlie.

‘Yeah, it took them long enough,’ said Meg, dumping a stack of plates on the table. ‘They’ve still got to do some tiling in the kitchen. It’s driven me mad. Honestly, Claire, never renovate while you’re having a baby.’

‘Hello? I think I might have told you that,’ Claire protested.

Meg was now making room for the antipasto platter.

‘You know, I managed to build an entire human being in the same amount of time it took those six idiots to put in a bathroom? I’d just walk by while they were having lunch and say, “Guess what, boys? I put in a full nervous system and a pair of eyes last night and I didn’t even use any plans. Do you reckon you could manage to install a shower by the end of the week?”’

Claire laughed.

‘MEG, MEG! Teresa is woken up. I bring her out to you or do you want to feed her here?’ Grandmother Teresa called through the wide open shutters of the new family room.

‘Bring her out here!’ called Meg. ‘You know, even after five kids she still can’t handle me breastfeeding in front of people.’

‘But I’ll tell you, Charlie,’ said Tony. ‘The mother moving in with you is a good thing. We wouldn’t have been able to do the renovations without the money she put in, so we are grateful to have her here.’

‘You might be, Tony,’ Meg muttered to Claire.

‘You might like to move your mother in with you one day, Claire,’ Tony added.

‘Not bloody likely,’ Claire muttered to Meg.

‘Here she is!’ said Teresa as she deposited the squirming black-haired bundle in Meg’s arms.

‘This one named after me and is the best-looking one,’ Grandmother Teresa announced.

Meg kissed the top of the baby’s head.

Claire saw Maddie come running up the yard, breathless with excitement.

‘They’re here, they’re here,’ she called.

Claire and Charlie quickly walked to the edge of the deck and stood there with hands entwined.

Rose appeared first, with the blue bundle in her arms, and Dermott walked behind lugging the bassinette and enough gear for an army on bivouac.

‘Here he is. Here’s our boy!’ called Charlie. He ran down the stairs to help Dermott with his load.

‘Charlie, Charlie darling, baby boy. Come here, come to Grandma and Grandpa!’ Claire called impatiently. ‘Come and meet Meg and Tony.’

‘Charlie is my nephew,’ boasted Maddie to anyone who would listen.

‘You are a lucky, lucky girl,’ said Meg. ‘It will be a long time until Stephanie, Sophia and Teresa get to be aunties.’

Rose and Dermott walked onto the deck and exchanged double Italian kisses all round.

Rose handed the baby to Claire in exchange for a glass of champagne. Claire looked down at the perfect face peeping through the folds of his bunny-rug.

Charlie stood behind her and wrapped his arms around them both. ‘You know something, Tony? You never really make sense of getting older until you have a grandchild. Claire says it’s like sowing the seeds long, long ago, and then bringing in the harvest late in the summer. You feel like you’ve got enough warmth and sustenance to get you through the winter.’

‘You are a thoughtful man, Charlie, very thoughtful,’ said Tony, shaking his head in admiration.

‘What’s his full name, Dermott?’ Meg asked.

‘Well it’s Charlie, not Charles, Charlie Eamonn O’Hanrahan,’ said Dermott proudly.

‘Very Irish. Lovely.’

‘We had a bit of a fight over the middle name. I wanted Connor, but Rose put her foot down.’

Claire, Rose and Meg paused and took an even closer interest in the baby.

‘Whatever happened to him?’ asked Meg, looking at Claire with two perfectly arched eyebrows.

‘Well, last I heard,’ said Dermott, ‘he broke off with his fiancée, met this 48-year-old woman and moved to Brazil.’

‘Hope he made it to the carnival in Rio,’ said Claire, looking at her husband with a cheeky grin.

‘Yep,’ said Charlie, smiling at his wife. ‘They reckon once you’ve been there, you’ll always go back.’

Acknowledgments

I would not have been able to write this book without the inspiring guidance of three amazing people.

Firstly Richard Walsh, who has been everything a writer could wish for as a mentor—good tempered, frighteningly erudite, witty, constructively critical, always available and up for a fabulous gossip. Thank you for asking me to write this book Richard, and the ones to follow. Thank you for your faith in me. I owe you a great debt.

Then there’s my literary agent Hilary Linstead who has always encouraged me in every creative endeavour and whose support and belief has not wavered in twenty years. I am so grateful for you Hil.

And finally my dear husband Brendan, who was expecting to have his wife come home after eleven long years of breakfast radio and instead ended up with a demented woman having a passionate affair with a computer. Thank you darling for creating the garden where Marley, Maeve and I can grow and blossom.

Love and more thanks to all my dear friends and family who shared the excitement as Toad of Toad Hall found a new fangled entertainment—Mary and John Finkelsen, Laura Waters, Helen Di Martino, Geoff Toovey, Amanda Smith, Hannie Rayson, Annie Looby, Francie and Squidda Collins, John Pinder, Anna Wallace, Sancia Robinson, Helen Thomas, Mitchell Bailey, Michael Kelly, Graham Brown and Margaret Wicks.

To all the experts at Allen & Unwin who have given me such a warm welcome into their esteemed publishing house—Annette Barlow, Christa Munns and Jo Jarrah—it has been a real pleasure working with you.

Table of Contents

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

SATURDAY NIGHT: THE WEDDING

SUNDAY MORNING: THE POST-MORTEM

SUNDAY AFTERNOON: THE GOING-AWAY PARTY

MONDAY: TWO WEEKS AND COUNTING

TUESDAY: AN INDECENT PROPOSAL

WEDNESDAY: THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS

THURSDAY: ALL ABOUT MEG

FRIDAY: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

SATURDAY: UNFAITHFUL APHRODITE

SUNDAY: THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF CLAIRE’S LIFE

MONDAY: TRAVELLING NORTH

TUESDAY: GOING SOUTH

POSTSCRIPT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS