The Soulmate, page 3
I close my computer and check my watch. It’s 6.44 am. Then I tiptoe down the hall and peek into the girls’ room. It’s always a struggle to get them to bed at night, but on the other hand, it means they are sleepy in the morning, often not emerging until almost eight o’clock, with great tufts of head hair and smooshed faces. It’s not the first time I’ve taken advantage of this. During the summer, Gabe and I occasionally duck out for an early morning swim. Other times, we stay in bed to pass the time.
I find the girls sound asleep, their snoring mismatched. When I’m sure they’re still out cold, I slip out the back door. I lock the door behind me and take the path to the steps down to the beach. The rain is more of a mist now. There’s something about the ocean air – everyone always says it, but since we’ve moved here, I can vouch for it. You cannot go to the beach without coming back feeling a little better, I’d said recently, as if it were a universal truth. But I doubt the woman from last night would agree.
Gabe is standing on the rocks, staring out across the ocean, his wetsuit rolled down to his waist, looking like he’s stepped out of the pages of a surfing magazine. I’m close enough to admire his smooth, tanned, muscular back, when I notice something small and silver slip from his fingers.
‘You dropped something,’ I say, by way of greeting.
He turns, startled. His face is pink, as if he’s been crying.
‘Oh, babe.’ I touch his shoulder. ‘Talk to me.’
He winces, his eyes on the ocean. ‘I was just thinking about what I should have done differently. I can’t stop replaying it over and over in my head, wondering what I did wrong.’
I wrap my arms around his waist. He’s warm, even out here in the cold, and I feel his heart beating against me. ‘Don’t do that to yourself,’ I say.
‘She wouldn’t listen to me. She was so upset. I couldn’t talk her down.’ He rubs his temple with one hand. ‘Maybe I should have . . . I don’t know . . . tried to get help.’
‘Help was on the way,’ I say. ‘You were right to stay with her.’
Down the beach, a man in a raincoat walks his dog. I wonder how we must look, standing on the rocks, holding each other in the rain.
Gabe wipes his face with his forearm, then smiles. ‘Sorry. I’ll be fine.’
‘It’s okay not to be fine, Gabe.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘But I will be. I’m dealing with it.’
I suppose he is, in his own way. He’s been for a surf; got some fresh air. Gabe was raised by a single mother who believed that fresh air and exercise were the answer to all the world’s problems. And maybe they are, in a lot of cases. Still, given some of Gabe’s difficulties, I’d encouraged him to do some more work on himself in adulthood. And this was one of those times when I thought that fresh air and exercise might not quite cut it.
‘Would you like me to make an appointment for you with Thelma? It’s been weeks since you’ve seen her.’
Now I thought of it, it might have been months. When we’d first moved to the beach, he’d seen Thelma every week. Thelma was a local psychologist, a lovely no-nonsense woman in her sixties with wild grey hair and purple spectacles on a chain. Gabe had really connected with her. But only a few months into their sessions, she moved back to Melbourne and they’d had to switch their sessions to Zoom. I remember Gabe mentioning that he’d found it harder to connect over the computer. After a while, I guess, their sessions petered out.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Gabe says. I’m not sure whether he’s just saying it to placate me.
He takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine. I stare at them, entwined. Seeing his hand up close reminds me of what I saw last night. The way his hands were positioned the moment after the woman went off the cliff.
‘Gabe,’ I say, after a moment. ‘I’m not sure if it’s the right time to ask . . . but I saw you through the window right after she jumped. Your hands were . . .’ I untangle my hand from his and hold my arms out, palms facing him. ‘Like this.’
Gabe observes them for a moment, then looks back to the water. The guilt on his face is unmistakable.
‘I tried to grab her,’ he says.
I can’t help it – I gasp. ‘Gabe!’
‘I know . . . I know I’m not supposed to, but . . . you see someone leap from a cliff in front of you, you can’t help it.’
(‘Never try to grab them,’ said the police officer who came to our house after the first potential jumper. He’d been very clear about this. ‘If you do, they might grab you and then we have two dead bodies.’ It was the number one rule, he told us.)
‘I nearly had her. She was right there.’ He closes his eyes.
I wrap my arms around him and squeeze him tight, trying not to think about how easily it could have gone wrong. At the same time, I can’t deny my relief. That’s why he was holding his hands out. It made total sense.
‘I’m sorry, Pip. I’m so sorry.’
I’m not sure if he’s sorry for reaching for her, or for missing. Perhaps both. Either way, I’ve already forgiven him.
‘Come on,’ I say, resigned. ‘Let’s get back before those girls wake up.’
The rain is getting heavy now. Gabe bends to pick up his board. I tiptoe over the rocks and am already on the steps when I turn back, remembering.
‘Oh, you dropped something before.’
Gabe stops. ‘Did I?’
‘It was small and silver.’ I peer back at the rocks, but whatever it was has disappeared deep into its crevices.
Gabe shrugs. ‘Probably a chunk of surfboard wax,’ he says. ‘Forget about it.’
And as we climb the stairs back to the house, I do exactly that. Forget.
6
PIPPA
THEN
I never get sick of telling people how Gabe and I met. It’s a good story. A bit shocking, a bit unbelievable. It sounds more like a daydream, or a scene out of a rom-com that somehow transposed onto my life.
It was a miserable, rainy Saturday. I’d spent the morning in bed, crying over a guy called Mark who, it has to be said, wasn’t very nice. We’d dated for six months, but he hadn’t met a single friend of mine, nor a member of my family, preferring instead to hang out alone, in his apartment. I told myself it was because he was an introvert, and meeting new people was stressful for him. It wasn’t ideal but it was something we’d work on, I thought. But then, after two of my friends had seen him at the local bar dancing and chatting up women, he’d stopped returning my calls. It was as though, suddenly, he’d forgotten he was an introvert.
On my third day of dedicated crying, Kat frogmarched me out of the house, ostensibly to walk her new dog. Mudguts was a rescue, a mixed breed, white with a brown streak across his tummy. (He’d been called Mudguts at the rescue home, a name he’d become irritatingly attached to, foiling Kat’s attempt at changing it to Droolius Caesar.)
‘Maybe I should try calling him again?’ I mused as I pulled on my coat.
‘You were ghosted, Pip. You’re not meant to call people who have ghosted you.’
‘What are you meant to do if you’re ghosted?’
Kat thought about this. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Lesbians enjoy talking about our feelings too much to ghost people. But I imagine you’re meant to lose weight, get your hair cut and post pictures of yourself living your best life on Instagram.’
‘But what if he thinks I have ghosted him?’
‘The three hundred and sixty-seven messages you’ve left him will assure him that you haven’t,’ Kat said sagely.
I knew Kat was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better. And so I wept quietly as we wandered around the Botanic Gardens.
Halfway into our walk, when it started to rain, I began to weep loudly.
Part of me enjoyed how theatrical it was – heartbroken, sobbing openly in a park. I was wearing pyjama pants beneath my puffer jacket, and ugg boots. I was the very image of a person at their worst.
The wedding that came into view as we walked around the pond felt like a particularly harsh blow, even if I didn’t envy them the weather. Guests stood huddled under umbrellas, crowded around the three rows of white chairs. At the front, under a small awning, a tall, good-looking groomsman and a nervous-looking bridesmaid held large white golf umbrellas over the bride and groom. Kat muttered something about how desperate they must have been to get married outside on such a day, but I was distracted by the groomsman. He was eye-wateringly handsome. And he was staring, unblinkingly, at me.
Given my pyjama pants/puffer jacket combination, the chances that he was checking me out seemed reasonably low. I chalked it up to the dramatic crying.
‘He’s staring at you,’ Kat said.
‘I know,’ I replied.
For the sake of the wedding, I reined in the tears as we passed them. Unfortunately, Mudguts stopped to do his business just a few metres from the scene.
‘Another reason not to get married outside,’ Kat murmured, pulling a plastic bag from her pocket. ‘So you don’t have to say your vows while a dog shits nearby. You pick it up.’
‘Who are you, the Queen? In fact, I’m pretty sure even the Queen picks up after her corgis.’ But despite my grumbling I bent to pick it up.
And that’s why I was bent over, with a plastic bag over my hand, the first time I heard his voice.
‘Excuse me?’
It sounds dramatic to say the effect that voice had on me. I felt it in my body.
Kat and I turned in unison.
It was the groomsman. He was tall, broad-shouldered, strong. With his golden hair and skin, he reminded me of a lion.
Behind him, the wedding guests watched from under their umbrellas. Many of them were smiling or laughing, whispering to each other. It gave the impression that wandering away from a wedding ceremony in which he played an important role wasn’t unusual behaviour for this groomsman.
The bride was not laughing.
‘Sorry,’ I said, assuming the bride had complained about the dog pooping near her wedding. ‘I’ll just get this, and we’ll be on our way.’
I cursed the universe for putting this glorious man in my path while I was wearing pyjama pants and picking up poop. Although, it had to be said, the glorious man looked a little dishevelled himself. His white shirt looked conspicuously un-ironed and appeared to be untucked at the back. The pocket of his trousers was half pulled out, displaying their shiny silk lining.
The rain got heavier.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Mostly for Lucy, the bride, who will never forgive me for interrupting her wedding. It’s just that I noticed you crying and I . . . I felt this overwhelming urge to ask if you were okay. Then I thought: that’s stupid, you’re with a friend and I’m the groomsman at a wedding while the couple are exchanging their vows. But you stopped, and I thought, well, it must be a sign.’ He smiled. ‘Do you believe in signs?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
I didn’t believe in signs.
Gabe looked delighted by my answer. Kat disguised a laugh as a cough.
‘In that case, I’d like a sign that I should ask you on a date.’
Gabe raised his eyes to the heavens, and for a moment we all waited.
What happened next was freaky. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, and if Kat hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
The rain stopped.
A cheer went up from the wedding party nearby.
I looked at Kat. Her jaw hung open. Gabe also looked stunned. I felt a smile come to my face for the first time in days.
Neither of us noticed the groom approaching, but suddenly he was standing behind Gabe. ‘Sorry, mate, but can you do this later? It’s your turn to sign the register.’
Gabe ignored him. ‘I haven’t even introduced myself,’ he said to me. ‘I’m Gabriel. Gabe.’
‘Pippa.’
‘Gabe,’ the groom said, sounding less apologetic now.
But Gabe didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘I think it’s pretty clear that the universe has spoken. So . . . do you happen to be free later? I came stag to this wedding, but I’m sure I could get them to add one to the bridal table. Right, Ant?’
Ant exhaled heavily. ‘If you sign the register right now, you can bring an entire footy team to the reception, mate.’
‘What do you say?’ Gabe said to me.
‘She says yes,’ Kat said, when I found myself lost for words.
I felt like I was floating. Gabe got out his phone, and I keyed in my number then handed it back. The entire time, Gabe kept his eyes on me.
‘I’ll call you in a couple of hours,’ he said, before he was pulled back to the wedding. When he resumed his position, the wedding guests broke into a round of applause, and Gabe took a bow. Lucy, the bride, rolled her eyes.
I hurried home and washed my hair, did my make-up, tried on three dresses. Then I waited for Gabe’s call.
But it didn’t come for three weeks.
7
AMANDA
AFTER
Death isn’t so bad when you settle into it. In fact, there’s something soothing about it; watching everything but having no bearing on any of it. Hurts from life come with you, but they don’t sting – like a mosquito bite that has lost its itch, you know it happened, but you don’t feel it anymore. I wish I’d known this when I buried my mother. It would have helped me a lot. All I wanted my whole life was for my mum not to hurt anymore. To have the happy ending she always dreamed of but never got.
My father wasn’t a good man, you see. He was hot-tempered, stupid, occasionally violent. He was extremely good-looking and charming, apparently, but that was part of the problem. He swept Mum off her feet, wooing her with promises of happy ever after. Then, like a lot of charming, good-looking men, he never delivered on any of it.
The story goes that my grandmother warned my mother about him.
‘A blind man could see that man was a player,’ my grandmother said. But Mum didn’t listen. He was her soulmate, she said. She moved away from her family and friends to a small regional town. She gave my father every cent she’d saved, as well as the car she’d worked so hard for. She became pregnant within a couple of months of their wedding, starting the family they’d talked so much about. She tried hard to make our modest house a lovely home for my father – a waste of time, seeing as he was rarely inside it.
Everyone in our small town knew what my father was up to, myself included. I was a child, but I wasn’t deaf. I heard people talking – my friends’ mothers, the supermarket cashier, the ladies at the hairdressers. People gossiping about my father’s behaviour as if it were entertainment. The worst part about it was that most people treated it as Mum’s shame – as if his behaviour was a reflection on her rather than him. Mum seemed to agree with them, because to my knowledge she never once confronted my father, and if anyone so much as implied that he was less than faithful (like her best friend Sue did once, as gently as she could), she cut them out of her life.
I was ten years old when Mum and I saw Dad’s car parked outside my teacher’s house on our walk to school. Dad hadn’t come home the night before and Mum had told me he was ‘away on business’, which was how she usually explained his absences. I know Mum saw the car too, but she didn’t comment and so neither did I. We were about to cross the road when the front door opened and there they were. Their eyes were on each other and they didn’t notice us watching. Miss McKenzie was helping Dad put on his tie. Then she gave him the kind of kiss I’d only seen in movies.
‘Come on, Amanda,’ Mum said, tugging my arm. ‘We’re going to be late.’
When I arrived at school, I realised we weren’t the only ones who’d noticed my father’s car outside Miss McKenzie’s house. It was all anyone could talk about in the playground. Even my best friend Avana asked me if Miss McKenzie was going to be my new mummy.
At the end of the day, the other mothers made no attempt to keep their voices down as I approached the school gates.
‘Can you believe it? With the teacher, no less! Why not the nanny?’
‘When a husband strays as often as he does, you have to ask: what’s the wife not doing?’
‘Apparently she never . . . you know . . . so who can blame the poor man for finding someone else?’
Mum was standing a few metres away. I’m not sure if the other mothers were oblivious to her, or if they simply didn’t care that she was listening. I do remember how small she looked, caved in, as though she was trying to make herself disappear.
That night, when I came into the kitchen for a glass of water, Mum was crying.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’
She was startled to see me and quickly wiped her eyes. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Just fine.’
‘Is Dad still with Miss McKenzie?’
Now she sat upright, shaking her head. ‘Of course not. Why would you say that? He’s working and he’ll be home soon.’
Did she actually believe that? I wondered.
‘Your father loves us,’ she added. ‘He does. He’ll be home soon, don’t you worry.’
My father left us for Miss McKenzie a few weeks later. Mum never recovered. In the years that followed, she never had another partner. It wasn’t for lack of interest; Mum had lots of potential suitors. But whenever I asked her about it, she said: ‘Your father was the love of my life. There will never be anyone else for me.’
How exquisitely, stupidly tragic.
That was when I decided I’d never marry my soulmate. From what I could see, marrying your soulmate was reckless. A commitment like marriage was best treated like a contract, with a list of terms and conditions, and the potential to extricate yourself if the terms were breached. If I left love out of it, I would never end up the way my mother had, I reasoned.
Unfortunately, as so many of us do, I turned into my mother.
Max is sitting in front of the television, in his tracksuit and socks, when he hears the doorbell. On the screen, of all things, is that plastic surgery show, Botched. I chuckle at that. He used to say he watched it for me, and he always had a thick book in his hands, but I know he enjoyed it too, because he rarely looked at his book and often said things like, ‘Surely you’d just stop having surgery, wouldn’t you?’ I wondered quietly what he thought was keeping my face so smooth and taut at fifty-two years old.
