The Soulmate, page 8
‘What happened to the USB?’ I ask when Freya takes off again.
A look of guilt crosses Gabe’s face. ‘Remember when you came to the beach, and you saw me drop something?’
I do remember. It was silver. Gabe had said it was surfboard wax. It makes sense now. Everything makes horrifying sense.
‘Hold hands, girls,’ Gabe says as we reach the road. He takes their scooters in one hand and holds Freya’s hand in the other. She chain-links to Asha who holds out her hand to me. A middle-aged woman smiles as we cross the street, a wobbly line of children, scooters and schoolbags. On the other side of the road Gabe puts the scooters down again, and the girls take off.
‘How are you doing that?’ I say. ‘How are you operating like a normal, responsible human being?’
Gabe takes my hand in his. ‘You’ve been strong for me so many times, Pip,’ he says. ‘Now it’s my turn.’
Mr and Mrs Hegarty are in their front garden. The Hegarty house faces ours, so they don’t have the ocean view, but their front garden is almost as spectacular. Several times I’ve noticed people slowing their cars to admire it. Mrs Hegarty waves at the girls as they scoot past, then rests her forearms on the fence, settling in for a chat. Mr Hegarty remains kneeling, holding a trowel.
‘The garden is looking great, Mrs Hegarty,’ Gabe says as we stop outside their house. Even under these circumstances, he can’t turn off his charm.
Mrs Hegarty practically levitates with pride.
‘We decided to get some weeding done while the sun is out,’ she says, removing her floral-trimmed gardening gloves. ‘Who knows when we’ll get another chance, with all this rain!’
The Hegartys are gold-star neighbours – no loud parties, always keeping an eye on things, happy to take our rubbish bins out or collect mail if we go away. They have a flourishing lemon tree, and we regularly come home to a bag of lemons on the doorstep. They adore the girls and have admired many a ‘street performance’ Asha and Freya have put on, as well as having regular chats with them at the fence.
Mrs Hegarty has told us many times how pleased they were when we bought the cliff house.
So many weekend homes around here, she said. It’s nice to have permanent neighbours. And ones with children!
To society, there is nothing purer than a family with small children. Except, perhaps, being elderly and enjoying gardening. We trust people based on the strangest, most arbitrary things, none of which have any bearing on whether or not you are inherently good. The Hegartys have no idea what we are capable of. No one does.
‘How are you both holding up?’ Mrs Hegarty puts a hand to her chest. ‘It’s tragic, what happened to that woman. And the paper said she was only fifty-two. So young! What on earth would possess her to jump?’
The newspaper hadn’t said Amanda Cameron had taken her life, but the Hegartys would have seen the police and rescue operation two nights ago and it didn’t take much for people around here to put two and two together.
At first, I think Mrs Hegarty’s question is rhetorical, but when she says nothing more, I realise that she is wanting an answer.
She discovered an incriminating video of me and her husband, I imagine saying. When she realised what I’d done, she decided her life wasn’t worth living.
Gabe’s eyes dart to me for just a second. Then he says, ‘We don’t really know.’
‘But you were with her, weren’t you, Gabe? Surely she must have given you some indication of why she jumped?’
He hesitates a moment. ‘She said her husband had been unfaithful.’
Mrs Hegarty tuts. ‘Well, I hope it was worth it. Now he’ll have to live with guilt for the rest of his life.’
She looks over her shoulder at Mr Hegarty, as if in warning. He keeps his head down. After a moment, she turns back to us. ‘Pippa? Are you all right, dear? You look unwell.’
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I don’t feel well.’
Gabe puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘I’d better get her home.’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Hegarty says. ‘Go. Just sing out if you need anything.’
She gives us a wave and Gabe and I shuffle off.
We’ve almost reached our driveway when she calls after us: ‘I’ll bring you some lemons!’
22
PIPPA
THEN
‘I‘m pregnant.’
We’d been married two years when I became pregnant with Freya. It was a good time for us, in a lot of ways.
After two years in the job, Gabe had gone from promotion to promotion, pay rise to pay rise. We could finally afford those suits he’d been buying. We had saved a good deposit for a home. I was even starting to buy nice things for myself. Now, he was running the investor relations team and apparently he’d single-handedly brought in more than fifty per cent of the company’s investors that year. If they’d used a broker to find those new investors, he told me, it would have cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
Still, I was nervous about revealing the pregnancy to Gabe. Not because I thought he’d be unhappy. After all, when I’d suggested we try, he was the one to ceremoniously empty my birth control pills into the toilet. My anxiety stemmed from another issue I wanted to talk to him about, something I’d been increasingly worried about over recent months.
‘Now that we’re having a baby,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking about these late nights. I don’t see you a lot.’
‘You’re right,’ Gabe said. ‘I’ll dial it back. Time to focus on family.’
‘The other thing is,’ I said, gaining courage, ‘your drinking.’
I wasn’t sure when alcohol had become a fixture in Gabe’s life. It wasn’t necessarily a huge cause for concern. He didn’t drink every day; he didn’t hide bottles around the house. But when he did drink, he drank to excess – usually when he was out with work colleagues. Several times, he’d come home so drunk after a night ‘working’ he couldn’t get his key in the front door.
Gabe was quiet as he contemplated my comment. One thing I’d learned in our marriage was that some topics had to be broached delicately. During the year that he kept leaving jobs, for example, we talked about it – even just between the two of us – in terms of ‘opportunities’. It wasn’t that he couldn’t hold down a job; rather, he was lucky to have these new opportunities. Gabe took the same care with me, though he really didn’t need to. In that way, I was far less fragile than he.
After a moment, he nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right. With the baby coming, it could be better to stop the drinking.’
Gabe stopped drinking the same day, just like that. Overnight he developed a new interest – and it was preparing to become a father. The late nights ceased, too. Thus began the evolution of Gabe from young partying executive to family man.
Freya’s arrival, on her due date, was the conclusion of the metamorphosis for Gabe.
For him, it was love at first sight. He was besotted with Freya. His patience was endless. He paced the hallway with her at night, patting her and cradling her little head and marvelling at her existence. He came to her paediatric appointments and listened intently to the nurse’s suggestions. Whenever he saw another baby – in the street, on TV, in a commercial – he said he felt bad for the parents that their baby wasn’t as beautiful as Freya.
Admittedly, Freya was a pretty baby, petite and delicate with a heart-shaped face and piercing blue eyes. She was also a placid baby: content if she was being held, happy to observe. From day one I felt like she was watching me. Often, I wondered if I was meeting her expectations.
I was certainly prepared for motherhood. I’d read the books about the first three months, the ‘wonder weeks’, the eat–play–sleep routine. Gabe and I took a class in Baby First Aid. I’d set up a nursery with everything I might need. I’d purchased bottles and formula in case breastfeeding didn’t work out. I was ready for anything. I assumed I’d excel at it. Maybe that was the problem? Motherhood wasn’t really something you could excel at. You did the same thing, day in and day out: feed, sleep, change. Hold her while she cries. Visitors came and went, and I acted the part of loving mother for all of them. I even performed it for Gabe. Yes, I feel so much love. It’s mind-blowing. What did I ever do without her? But the truth was, I found it hard to feel much of anything. To me, Freya was a prop in a pointless show I had to perform in, over and over, to no audience.
We lived in a tiny inner-city townhouse at the time, near a strip of coffee shops and restaurants. Before long, Gabe and Freya were known by everyone. He was the sexy dad in the puffer vest, proudly striding the pavement with the adorable rosy-cheeked baby in her pram. He was the dad who chatted to other parents about sleep times and feeding schedules and came home to me with suggestions, like: ‘We should stop letting her sleep so much during the day.’ He was the dad who laughed out loud when she yawned or smiled or farted, because his daughter delighted him that much. It was almost enough to compensate for the fact that I felt nothing for her.
I tried to force a connection. I held her skin to skin and stared into her eyes. I breastfed. I recited affirmations. I sniffed her head. I tried to recall all the reasons I wanted her, but I came up blank. If I’d had any – and I was sure I must have – they were gone now.
Once, while Gabe was at work, I dressed her in one of her most adorable outfits and just stared at her for hours, willing myself to feel something. When nothing happened, I put her into her crib in the nursery and left her there for the afternoon. If looking at her didn’t work, maybe absence would.
Gabe’s new zeal for fatherhood only made me feel worse about my lack of attachment. He was always thinking up something to do with her, to get us out and about.
‘It’s beautiful outside!’ he said one day, when the weather was average at best. ‘Let’s go have an adventure.’
Freya was only a couple of months old, and I was about to take a nap. By that point, I’d developed an unhealthy attachment to my bed. I sat around the house in sweatpants, living from feed to feed.
I glanced out the window. ‘It looks like rain.’
‘A drive then,’ he said, unperturbed. ‘Down the coast.’
If I’d said I was too tired, or I just wasn’t up for it, Gabe wouldn’t have minded. He would have taken Freya alone and told me to stay home and rest. But I wouldn’t have been able to rest. I’d have spent the day chastising myself for not going, for not taking part in my life, for not being grateful. After all, what more could I ask for than a day at the beach with a good-looking man and a cute baby?
What was wrong with me?
I started to cry. And once I started, it was impossible to stop.
Gabe dropped to his knees in front of me and I told him everything I was feeling. Every little wretched thought. I told him how I hated him for being so happy. How I hated myself for being so sad. I even admitted to the most shameful thought: that sometimes I even hated Freya for what she’d done to me. I told him I was dead inside.
Gabe listened to me the way he always did, with undivided attention. He didn’t interrupt, or tell me I was just tired, or suggest something to cheer me up. When I finished talking, he put his arms around me and said, ‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry I didn’t know.’
When I finished crying, he put me to bed, and looked after Freya around the clock, only bringing her to me for feeds. The next day, he took me to the doctor, and I was prescribed antidepressants. The doctor said it would be two weeks before I would feel an effect, and that until I did it would be advisable to always have someone with me.
Until then, I’d always been the organised one, but now Gabe did me proud. He set up a roster so that I was never alone. Usually, Mum, Dad or Kat or Mei came during the week, when Gabe was at work, but one Saturday Kat turned up when Gabe was home. He told me to get dressed and we got in the car. I didn’t ask why. I assumed we had another doctor’s appointment, but my mental state was such that I couldn’t even be bothered to ask the question.
When we pulled up at the beach, dread set in.
‘What are we doing?’
He handed me a wetsuit. There was a tent on the beach where you could rent a board. I thought he was joking. Surfing was the last thing I wanted to do. The weather wasn’t great. I had a bulge of baby weight around my middle. But Gabe had made up his mind.
We rented a board for an hour. Gabe helped me change into my wetsuit in the beach tent and led me into the surf. Then he stood there, waist deep in the water, while I lay on my stomach on the board. If I’d had an ounce more energy, I might have been able to protest. But I had nothing. It was easier just to go along with it.
The first time he pushed me onto a wave, I floated a couple of metres and then stopped. The same thing happened the second and third time. On the fourth, I caught a glimpse of Gabe looking back for the next wave as he held the board. There was something about his face. The determination of it.
The fourth time I used my arms to paddle, like he’d showed me. Given the effort he was making, the least I could do was go through the motions, I reasoned.
The fifth time, the wave was more powerful, and I rode it all the way to the shore. Gabe cheered so hard I felt something come undone inside.
He put me on the board again and again, until his lips were blue and his teeth were chattering. After forty-five minutes he suggested I try to stand and, more for his sake than mine, I did. And as the wave propelled the board forward, I found my footing – a lucky accident – and I rode that wave all the way to the shore. The feeling was visceral. Sensual. It was flying.
Gabe lost his mind. He cheered so hard people on the beach all looked to see what the commotion was about. For the first time in a very long while, I smiled.
‘Again?’ he said.
I nodded. That was the thing about Gabe. Yes, he could hurt me. But he was the only one who could make me fly.
23
PIPPA
NOW
I spot my parents from the end of our driveway. They are sitting side by side on the bench on our front porch, next to the boot rack where the girls’ tiny pink gumboots sit beside Gabe’s and my larger ones. I don’t remember them saying they were coming for a visit, but it’s not unusual for them to show up unannounced. They’re at our house a lot, even when we’re not having a crisis. Part of it, I think, is guilt, because last time they’d failed to realise the extent of what had been going on with Gabe until it was too late. Now, I think they are determined to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Unfortunately, it’s too late.
Mum waves wildly at the sight of us, but Dad continues looking at his folded newspaper; he is almost certainly completing the crossword. His glasses are perched on his nose, and he holds the newspaper in an outstretched arm, both for more effective pondering and to see it better. Mum jabs him with her elbow, presumably to tell him that we’re approaching, but he ignores her.
‘Nana!’ Asha cries, dropping her scooter to launch herself at Mum.
I feel an overwhelming urge to do the same, to feel the soft warm comfort of her, for my problem to be of a size and shape that my mother can fix with a hug. I killed a woman, Mum. Not directly, but indirectly. Do you still love me?
Freya takes the time to return her scooter to the shed before greeting her grandmother.
By the time Gabe and I reach the house, both girls are sitting in Mum’s lap, interrupting each other as they talk about preschool, about how it was their friend Liam’s birthday today, about how their friend Isla burned her hand on the stove at home and you should never touch things that are hot. Mum appears riveted by each new subject as she toggles back and forth between the girls.
‘Conspicuously and tastelessly indecent,’ Dad says without looking up. ‘Six letters.’
‘Vulgar,’ Gabe replies. He’s always been freakishly good at things like crosswords.
Dad frowns at the newspaper a moment, then nods and starts pencilling it in. ‘Good man.’
When he finally looks up, he’s smiling. But immediately his grin falls away. ‘Are you feeling all right, Pip?’
Mum, Gabe and Dad look. I do, in fact, feel unwell. Clammy and cold. My stomach feels off. ‘I don’t feel the best actually.’
Mum stands, letting the girls slide off her lap. She puts a hand to my head. ‘You’re not warm. But there is something going around at the moment. Off to bed with you. We’ll look after the girls.’
I have nothing like the strength to fight her. She is right: I need sleep. I am tired. Bone-tired.
She follows me into the bedroom, turning on the lamps and pulling down the blinds. She kisses my forehead. Then she leaves.
I change into my pyjamas and climb into bed. But sleep doesn’t come.
I wrap the doona around myself more tightly. I am wearing a T-shirt, pyjama pants, underwear and socks, but I feel cold. I wonder if I might really be coming down with something. I feel ill – not in my stomach or my throat or my head; it’s more of a full body ache, an overwhelming heaviness that pins me to the bed, renders me unable to lift so much as a finger.
How many times have I been thrust into this kind of situation? Well, not exactly this kind, but a situation that felt impossible, like something I’d never get beyond. Each time felt acute and breathtaking and, without a doubt, like things couldn’t possibly get worse. But this time it was true.
The walls in the house are thinner than I’d realised. As I lie in bed, I hear the familiar domestic noises with startling clarity – arguments between the girls, negotiations between Mum and Asha about what healthy food she must consume before she’s allowed to eat one of the Freddo frogs that Mum always keeps in her handbag. (At first, those Freddo frogs used to be accepted with delight and gratitude, but now they’d become a noose around her neck. Recently Mum had called me while I was at the supermarket, and when I asked if she needed anything she said, ‘Better get a bag of Freddo frogs to leave in your house. I live in fear of Asha’s wrath if I arrive without one.’) Dad and Gabe are still doing the crossword. It’s soothing to listen to.
