Each Way Bet, page 8
‘So what happened?’ Tim waved a hand, encompassing the bedroom and then her. ‘Why the swap?’
‘Oh, it was just a spur of the moment thing,’ explained Jill, ‘and I’m sure she didn’t get your message. She certainly never said anything about you.’
‘What – nothing at all?’ asked Tim, looking rather dejected – all over. ‘You mean, she never mentioned me?’
‘Oh, um – maybe . . . Look, do you want a coffee or anything?’ Jill, falling automatically into her hostess role, struggled to her feet, holding the sheet firmly in place. ‘I mean, not anything. You know.’
‘Thanks.’ Tim grinned at her discomfiture and then abruptly stopped, his face going pale. ‘My god! I’m so sorry! Christ almighty!’
‘That’s all right,’ mumbled Jill, knowing exactly what he was referring to, ‘don’t mention it.’
‘No –my god! I mean, I thought you were Emily! I would have never – that is . . .’
‘I said don’t mention it,’ said Jill through gritted teeth.
‘And when you started cheering, I thought I was – I thought that –’
‘When I started cheering?’
‘Yes! When I . . . just after I – anyway, I was beginning to think you didn’t want to but suddenly you started cheering! So I thought, well, naturally . . .’
‘I get the picture,’ said Jill tightly, deciding it wasn’t worth trying to explain that she had actually been applauding her daughter’s efforts at scoring – not his, ‘and let’s put it down to a misunderstanding. And never mention it again. Ever.’
‘I’m with you,’ Tim said with relief. ‘That is, I mean I agree. Totally.’
‘So, are you up for some coffee?’ asked Jill, immediately flinching at her choice of words.
‘No, I’ve taken enough of your time.’ Tim clambered off the bed, totally unselfconscious about his nakedness, which was eminent. Extremely eminent, Jill noticed, now that he was upright. In fact, he was a fine specimen of a man, in more ways than one, having what Jill’s eldest daughter would label an excellent six-pack, with biceps and thigh muscles to match. Damn Emily, she thought bitterly.
‘Sorry again.’ Tim glanced over just in time to catch Jill in her visual stocktake. She immediately snapped her eyes up and flushed before waving her hand airily, as if being pawed by a complete stranger were an everyday occurrence.
‘Forget it.’
‘Wish I could.’
Jill wasn’t too sure how to take that last comment. Did he mean it was too memorable an experience to forget? Or simply that the very memory was making him feel nauseous but he couldn’t get it out of his head? Sort of like the first time you see your mother or father naked – or, heaven forbid, both at the same time (which, in Jill’s case, had been exactly what happened when she had wandered innocently into her parents’ bedroom early one morning only to witness what was most probably, according to the timing, the conception of her youngest sister). Mercifully free of this image at the present moment, Jill watched ruefully while Tim looked around for his clothing and then bent over to retrieve his pants. Oh, merciful heaven!
‘Um, do you know anything about this do tomorrow? A family thing?’ Tim turned to face her and tugged on a pair of faded Levis. ‘I was supposed to be taking Emily.’
‘Oh!’ Jill took a deep breath and refocused. ‘She was meant to call you! You’re to take me instead, and meet her there. Is that all right? I mean, if you don’t want to . . . after, you know –’
‘No – that’s fine! I’ll need directions, anyhow.’
‘Thanks. Um, what time?’
‘I’ll leave that up to you. You ring me when you’re ready. The number’s in Emily’s directory. No rush.’
‘Okay.’ Jill massaged her right leg, which was starting to go numb. ‘Listen – if you don’t mind my asking, how did you get in here? Do you have a key?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Tim sat on the bed to pull a pair of black boots on. ‘But as I said, I rang earlier – left a message saying that I was ready . . . um, that I’d drop around later. Anyway, when I got here I saw that all the lights were off –’
‘I went to bed early,’ interrupted Jill defensively, ‘I was tired.’
‘No worries. But I thought I’d try the door, just in case – and it was only latched. So I thought . . . um, I thought .. .’
‘You thought it was a message from Emily,’ Jill finished for him.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘And instead it was me being an idiot. See, I left the door latched before – because I don’t have a key either – and I guess I must have forgotten to unlatch it. Damn it.’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Tim brightly, standing up and pulling on a navy windcheater. ‘Could have been worse.’
‘Yes!’ Jill had a sudden series of vivid images depicting precisely how, and why, and where, it could have been worse. She blushed again.
‘So I’ll catch you tomorrow.’ Tim was starting to edge towards the door, obviously keen to make his escape now that all the explanations were over. ‘Just ring. Anytime.’
‘Fine. Good.’ Jill watched as he backed through the doorway, giving her a last wave as he disappeared. She heard his boots thumping down the staircase and then the front door open and close again behind him. She waited a few minutes to make sure he was gone before dropping the sheet and scrabbling through Emily’s drawers until she found a large T-shirt, which she pulled on. Now decent, she padded down the staircase herself and went over to the front door to latch it. However, it seemed Tim had already done it for her, so she just added the security chain for good measure.
Then she leant against the door, just as she had done earlier that evening. But this time she wasn’t feeling the overwhelming light-heartedness that had filled her on that other occasion. This time she felt dreadful. One night away from the house, only one night just to give herself a break, do some thinking, clear the air. One night – and already she had managed to stab both Jack and Emily in the back, and even if a great deal of it had been while she was half asleep – that was no excuse. There was no denying that she had given him a certain amount of encouragement – even if one discounted the actual cheering, which she most definitely did. Regardless of that, though, there was no getting away from the tacit willingness of her participation right up to the point of the hand. The hand! She could still feel the weight of it burning into her right breast like a red-hot brand. And the brand spelt out the word ‘guilty!’ – because that’s exactly what she was. Guilty as sin.
And it was little consolation that the only actual banging had been with her head.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emily
‘She’s met someone else.’ Jack ran his hand through his hair, slid lower into the armchair and stared morosely at the blank television screen opposite. ‘I know it.’
‘Balls,’ replied Emily heartily. ‘What do you think – that she’s with someone else right now rolling around in my bed doing the dirty on you?’
‘Yep.’
‘No way. I bet you she’s fast asleep right at this very minute. Besides, she would have told me if she was having some sort of fling and she hasn’t, so she isn’t.’
‘I reckon she is.’
‘And I reckon you’re wrong.’
‘Seriously, Em,’ Jack lifted up his half-empty tumbler of scotch and pointed at Emily with it, ‘it’s the only thing I can think of that explains the way she’s been acting lately.’
‘How about she just wants a break? Some time by herself without all –’ Emily paused while she waved an arm around the lounge-room – ‘all this?’
‘Time by herself?’ Jack repeated, obviously giving this innovative idea some serious consideration for a moment before shaking his head dismissively. ‘Nah. It’s another bloke. I know it.’
‘Hell, Jack. Where would she find the time to fit in another bloke?’
‘She’s got plenty of time. She’s not working, you know.’
‘Yeah, but she’s got Cricket, doesn’t she?’
‘Hmm, that’s true.’ Jack visibly brightened. ‘You’ve got a point there.’
‘See?’
‘And I reckon you’re right! Yeah, she wouldn’t have the time. Not with Cricket around – no way.’
‘Exactly.’ Emily nodded emphatically, although privately she thought Jill wouldn’t have a problem fitting in a fling or two. Surely Cricket had friends she visited, which would leave her mother with plenty of free time. And it wasn’t as if she did a lot of housework, after all.
‘So what’s it all about then? Has she told you?’
‘Sort of. But I don’t know that she expected me to discuss it with you, you know?’
‘Look, Em . . .’ Jack leant forward and waved the tumbler in her direction again. ‘Something’s been going on for a while. And if it’s not another bloke, then I need to know. Because if I don’t know, how can I fix it?’
Emily took a sip of scotch and tried to remember if Jill had actually used the words ‘in confidence’ when she spoke to her this afternoon. Anyway, surely it was in her sister’s best interests if she filled Jack in and gave him a chance to work things out with his wife before she left – or not. Emily sighed, leant back against the couch and regarded her brother-in-law pensively. He was staring at the blank television screen again, obviously lost in thought and looking pretty miserable.
Not that the evening itself had been all that depressing. After the boxes had been unpacked, Emily had helped Jack and the kids do a fairly good clean-up job around the house and they’d laid out the prizes, stuck up the various lists for tomorrow, thrown Cricket in the bath and then settled down to choose their bets. The form-guide had been passed around and scribbled all over and there was now a decent pile of completed betting slips all filled out and waiting for someone to take them down to the TAB first thing in the morning. Before all the other Melbourne Cup once-a-year punters found their way down there and formed long, snaking queues that took over an hour to negotiate.
At about ten o’clock, there had been a great fuss when someone spotted Cricket still in the bath, having set up an intricate game that involved some small figurines who were regularly leaping into the watery depths to their doom. She had been immediately, and forcibly, removed by her father and stuck in front of the heater to thaw out. However, even when she was finally deposited into bed half an hour later, her skin still had that peculiar wrinkled sausage look reminiscent of anaemic corpses.
No doubt realising that he, and nobody else, was in charge at that point, Jack turned into a rabid dictator for a short period of time. He harassed Megan and Kate off to bed forthwith and finally seemed to notice that his son had done a disappearing act hours earlier. While he sorted out his offspring, Emily replenished their drinks and retired to the lounge-room where she curled up in one of the two coffee-coloured crushed-velvet couches and reflected on the evening.
One thing was for sure, she now had a much better understanding of what was getting her sister down. Life in the Carstairs household could not be called relaxing by any stretch of the imagination. Not with a constant stream of kids to feed, dishes to do, animals both to feed and medicate, clothes to wash, rooms to clean, arguments to mediate, dishes to do, kids to bathe, homework to supervise, and then, just when you thought everything was done – more dishes to do. And Emily was guessing that there was a hell of a lot more to do when the tribe all had school and work the next day, instead of a day of rest.
On the positive side was the company. The kids were a nice bunch, and all so different that it was pretty interesting just watching the varying personalities at play. Matt so basic and transparent, Megan so helpful and intuitive, Kate so reserved and prickly, and Cricket so . . . well, try as she might, Emily couldn’t think of any fitting adjectives that accurately summed up her youngest niece. She was still sitting in the two-seater couch and musing about the family dynamics when Jack came in to join her. And it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to what was obviously uppermost in his mind – Jill.
‘It all started with Cricket.’ Jack sighed heavily and ran his spare hand through his hair again. ‘We never planned to have another one, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Not that we don’t love the kid.’ Jack looked across at Emily earnestly. ‘Don’t know what we’d do without her now. She’s a real character, that’s for sure.’
‘True. Very true.’
‘But Jill never sort of . . . bounced back like she did with the others. It was all a lot harder with Cricket. And then there was giving up her job.’
‘Why did she?’ Emily looked at him curiously. ‘I mean, she was enjoying it so much, why didn’t she just take maternity leave and then pop Cricket into crèche so that she could go back?’
‘Ask her,’ Jack said morosely, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on! You must have some idea!’
‘No, I don’t. I mean, we never really spoke about it, that’s just the way we’d done it with the others, so why not? I thought it was what she wanted.’
‘Are you serious?’ Emily looked at him disbelievingly. ‘You know your wife loves her job, then she gets pregnant accidentally, then she has the baby – and you never discuss whether she’s going back to work or not? You just go with the flow?’
‘Works well for me.’
‘Really? You sure about that?’ Emily asked derisively, raising her eyebrows. ‘And if it’s working so damn well, where, may I ask, is your wife?’
‘Point taken.’ Jack slid even further down into his armchair and took a gulp of his scotch. ‘Mind you, there are some advantages to the situation, you know. If she was here, what with people coming round tomorrow, she’d still be cracking the whip and making us scrub the joint up. Stupid stuff like picking up all the dog crap or cleaning the windowsills or something. I mean, who the hell looks at other people’s windowsills?’
‘Not me,’ said Emily truthfully, taking a sip of her scotch and avoiding the compulsion to leap up and examine the windowsills now that she knew they were an issue, ‘though maybe we should have cleaned up all the dog stuff. Someone’s bound to step in it.’
‘Whatever. So what do I do? You’re the bloody expert – give me some advice.’
‘Pick it up in the morning?’
‘Not the bloody crap, you idiot! Jill! What do I do about Jill?’
‘Hey, there’s no need to yell!’
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Jack held up a hand in apology. ‘I’m just wound up pretty tight about all this. So can you, dear sister-in-law, give me some advice about my wife? Like, what’s she upset about and what can I do about it?’
‘Here’s a novel idea.’ Emily tapped a finger to her head melodramatically and then pointed it at him accusingly. ‘Talk to her!’
‘Talk to her?’
‘Yes! A bit extreme, I know, but you’d be surprised at how many answers you get when you actually ask questions.’
‘Okay, okay – I get the hint.’ Jack gave her a wry smile. ‘But you could still help me know what to ask. Come on, give me a few directions.’
‘Hmm, don’t know about that.’
‘Come on. I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Another scotch?’
‘Done.’ Emily watched as Jack heaved himself out of the chair and, with a grin at her, picked up her near-empty tumbler and took it out to the kitchen. In an admirably short period of time he had deposited a fresh drink by her side and was back in his chair, waiting expectantly.
‘Come on, spill the beans.’
‘Well . . . I’m not telling you everything she told me, okay?’ Emily frowned at him sternly. ‘That’d be breaking her confidence. I’ll just tell you the highlights.’
‘They’ll do me.’
‘Okay. For starters, if you think we spend a lot of time talking about whether she’s unhappy or not, you’re wrong. The first I heard of it was today – although I must say I wasn’t altogether surprised.’ Emily looked over at Jack apologetically but he just nodded and waited for her to continue. ‘Maybe it’s like a mid-life crisis – you know, when you look around and everything isn’t how you expected it would be. But I think you’re right about this all being a flow-on from Cricket. Not Cricket herself, but her birth, and the job, and everything. And I think she’s just tired. Tired of the kids bickering, tired that they’re such hard work, tired of not having any time to herself, tired of being so needed, and tired of – yes, she did mention it – of you not communicating much.’
‘She said that?’
‘Basically. Not nastily, you know, just sort of – resigned.’
‘Oh.’ Jack lapsed into silence, staring moodily at his drink.
‘But, Jack, seriously, how long has Jill been doing this? The housewife bit, the staying home with kids thing. I mean, when you add it up, it must be nearly twenty years. And then, when she finally starts getting her own life together, she falls pregnant again! No wonder she’s depressed. And I can’t believe you guys never spoke about it.’
‘It wasn’t deliberate,’ Jack said defensively, ‘it just never came up!’
‘Sure,’ Emily replied sarcastically, ‘that’s understandable.’
‘Let it go, Em – it’s over and done with now.’
‘Very true.’
‘So how bad is it? Do you reckon she needs . . . I don’t know – therapy, or something?’
‘Therapy!’ Emily shrieked with laughter and then looked at him derisively. ‘She doesn’t need therapy, you fool, she needs a rest! Or a life!’
‘She’s got a life! And a bloody good one too.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me!’
‘Then if it’s so damn good, Mr Expert, why does she want to leave?’
