The Game You Played (27 page)

Luke had begun speaking for both of us sometime after Tommy was born. When Luke spoke of things that he was doing, he used the
we
pronoun. Luke couldn’t change his plans because
we
needed him to do exactly what he was doing.

Taking his eyes off Tommy for a moment, Luke glanced at me. “We’ve still got a long road ahead of us to get where we want to be.”

There it was again.
We.

“Other couples manage,” I said. “You don’t have to work twelve hours a day.”

Tommy ran a short way then turned to check that his parents were still close behind him.

“To hell with just managing.” Luke’s voice rose in order to make his point. “We’ll be in a very good position a few years from now if we hang tight.”

“Even if it’s killing me?” My words fell like a rock, dragging space and time into a vacuum. I hadn’t spoken those words before. I hadn’t told him how I really felt.

He stopped still. I could sense the rising irritation in his raised shoulders, in the stubborn set to his jaw. “It’s fucking killing you to live in a great house in a great suburb and have your days free to do whatever you fucking want?”

“I never asked for a great house in a great suburb. And I am not
free
.”

Tommy was too far ahead now. We both jogged along the path to catch up to him.

Luke and I clamped down on our angry words as soon as we reached the playground. That’s what we did. Put on the
nice
show in public. Rip strips off each other at home after Tommy was asleep for the night.

When we reached the playground, Tommy made a beeline for the water-play canals.

Squatting, Tommy zoomed his plastic yacht backwards and forwards in a canal like it was a car.

Luke’s phone rang. I could tell by the almost supplicating, reassuring tone he’d swapped to that it was his mother.

Anger flashed through me. “Tell her to be gone by the time we get back.”

He held his hand over the phone. “Phoebe, we’ll talk about this later.” He sounded so
nice
, so fucking endearing. He always pretended to be something he wasn’t in front of her.

And now, if I started yelling here in front of all these people, I’d be the raving lunatic. Look at what her poor husband and child have to put up with. I had to conceal, conceal, conceal. An actor, pretending everything was wonderful.

“Tommy, do you want an ice-cream?” Luke said as he put his phone away.

Tommy thought for a second, his fist tightening on the boat, then shook his head.

“Okay, well I’m going to get one.” Luke fished his sunglasses out from a pocket and put them on.

I shielded my eyes from the sun. “Just get one scoop in Tommy’s.”

“He just said he didn’t want one.”

“He thinks he’ll have to leave the water to get ice-cream. Of course he wants one.”

“Then he should learn to say what he wants, not make other people guess.”

“He wants a fucking ice-cream, Luke.”

People gawked. My voice had inexplicably carried. How my voice had amplified like that in the middle of all this noise, I didn’t know. Maybe all my rage had condensed into that one sentence.

“Not in front of all the kids,” he mumbled.

Of course. He was on show now. People were looking and watching.
Who was at fault here? Which one of them started it? Who should we direct our disgust at?

Shaking his head, Luke moved off. And with that, he sealed it. I was the one to blame. Everyone here knew the story:
He was the hapless husband who was used to defusing his wife’s irrational outbursts. He was the one who never struck back. His wife might even be violent. Did the kid have any bruises on him?

When no further entertainment was forthcoming, the people turned back to their own kids. A couple of the mothers gave their children grabby hugs and kisses on foreheads. Just to demonstrate they were nothing like me. They loved their kids. Even their husbands. Hot meals on the table every night and sex on Sundays. They wore long cargo shorts and long pastel T-shirts and pastel hats. Which proved their devotion. No cleavages or cut-off shorts. Their husbands wore the same outfits their tiny sons did. Everyone looked so
good
and pure and shapeless. You could bottle them and sell them on a supermarket shelf like jars of applesauce. How would any of them know if their kid or husband was replaced with another? They wouldn’t.

Tommy splashed in the canal, oblivious to my loud, angry words. He was used to them. Used to Luke and I screaming at each other. We weren’t always careful. Things slipped through.

I wanted to give Tommy a different mother. It was a gift—giving your child a good mother. But you couldn’t give what you didn’t have.

It was okay for Luke. He got the guy card. As long as he paid the mortgage, he was good. In the eyes of the pastel T-shirt brigade, there wasn’t one thing more he needed to do to be husband-and-father material. But the wife and mother, she needed to turn herself inside out, empty herself completely. Everything in life she’d been trained to do so far was useless. Her career, her personal time, her motivation to succeed—she had to let all that go. 

Something was stirring in my head. The heat of the day and the pastel clothing and the slow sound of a drum.

The phone buzzed in my pocket, and I slid it out to answer it.

A voice asked me,
“Are you going to go ahead with it?”

*

I was ripped back to present time.

Sitting in the park, staring at a phone in my hand that existed only in my memory.

A fuse blew in my head, and my brain turned to static.

Cold, dead static.

There
had
been a phone call that day.

Who was it?

I couldn’t recall the sound of the voice. Just what they’d said.

What had I been
going to go ahead with
?

What had I done?

Sunday midday

I STOOD, TERRIFIED OF THE MEMORY.

Terrified of myself.

I began walking, blundering. I had nowhere to go to be alone. If I went back to Nan’s like this, she’d be examining me with her uncannily sharp senses, putting me like an ant under her magnifying glass.

Rain misted in the air, making people fan out and look for shelter.

“Whoa!” A hand reached out from the crowd and took possession of my arm.

Dash materialised in front of me. “Finished writing up lies about me yet?”

I stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, until my mind adjusted.

The dinner last night.

The interview.

The story.

“Dash. Hi. I haven’t written it yet.”

“No?”

I made an attempt to sound light-hearted. “Not quite. It’s Sunday. I can’t be nasty on a Sunday. Better leave it to Monday.”

“Hey, are you okay? You look kind of—”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Need a friendly ear?”

“Thanks. But I just want to . . . walk. If you don’t mind, I’ll just keep going.” I moved off.

He stepped beside me. “Walking’s good. I can walk with you.”

“Don’t you have seminars to run?”

“I’m not speaking at one until nine tonight. Baxter and Eddie are doing the talks this morning. And the rest of the troops abandoned me. So, I decided to come down here and soak in a bit of the blues.”

“You like this stuff?”

“You don’t?”

“It’s not my favourite.”

“Maybe you just haven’t heard the best of it.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve been down here for a couple of hours, all alone. I was going a bit stir-crazy.”

I glanced his way. “I thought stir-crazy was when you were forced into a tight situation with people you didn’t want to be with.”

“Yeah. I get stir-crazy in my own company. It’s a curse.” He glanced at me. “I’m guessing you’re not like that.”

“No, I’m pretty comfortable being alone.”

“Is that a hint?”

Sighing softly, I stopped.

Behind us, between the exposed roots of a tree, an elderly homeless man slept. The branches of the tree above him were spread out wide. He’d be protected from the coming rain. Still, it seemed a miserable place to sleep. Briefly, I wondered if he’d ever stepped through this park when he was young, holding the hand of a woman.

“I’m just not feeling good,” I told Dash.

“Why don’t you come back to my hotel with me? You can relax, and we can watch a movie together. And if it’s boring, we can fall asleep before it ends . . .”

I gave him a small smile. “I can’t. Bye, Dash.”

Walking away quickly, I headed towards the cathedral. The spired sandstone building stood across the road from the park. Maybe I could just sit in there on a pew for a while. You were allowed to be upset in a church. I watched a series of cars pull up and park beside the kerb. People in suits and evening wear bustled from the cars. There must be a wedding on. There were always weddings at the church. The church let you in sometimes when it was a funeral. But not a wedding. You were on your own in terms of sanctuary when someone was getting hitched.

I spun around.

Dash was still standing there, watching me.

His expression swapped to surprise as I walked back along the path towards him.

I didn’t understand myself right now.

Didn’t know myself. I didn’t know what I’d done in the past, but it must have been wrong. So very wrong. I wanted something—anything—to numb the terror inside my chest. The crash of the drum—the noise and reverberation through my head.

Waking straight up to him, I took his hand. “
Let’s go.
”

He didn’t ask questions. Wordlessly, we stepped through the streets. The city seemed restless to me. Darkening, and gathering a storm.

Our hair and clothing were damp by the time we reached Dash’s hotel.

We took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. Dash took my hand this time, leading me to his room.

His room was small, with a wide balcony that overlooked Darling Harbour.

He switched on the TV. “Any preference in movies? Comedy? Sci-fi?”

In response, I walked over and kissed him.

His hands closed around my upper arms. Pulling back slightly, he drew his eyebrows in tight as if he were figuring out a maths equation. “You said you weren’t feeling well?”

I kissed him again. Deeply this time. I didn’t know what I wanted or why I was even here. I just desperately needed to lose myself for a while. I didn’t want to speak.

He eyed me intently, as though waiting for affirmation. When it didn’t come, his eyes changed. He unbuttoned his shirt just enough to pull it over his head. His chest was as smooth and tanned as his face. He peeled off his shoes and socks and went to stretch out on the bed.

Propping himself on one elbow, he watched me, keeping his expression neutral. But his chest rose and fell at an increasing rate.

I pulled off my jacket and top and crawled onto the bed beside him.

Cradling my face, he kissed my forehead. It felt almost religious. Like he were sanctifying me. My cheeks were wet before I understood that I was crying.

He drew back, alarmed.

I shook my head faintly. “Ignore it.”

He shut his eyes, exhaling. “Would I sound like the worst person ever if I said I’ll ignore it if you want me to? But I can’t say I’ve ever slept with a sad woman before. Their sadness usually comes afterward.”

“I’m not sad.”

“You’re
something
.”

I half-smiled. “I don’t want to talk.”

*

I woke with his arms firmly around me.

We’d had lunch together, slept together again, watched a movie, and fallen asleep again. I hadn’t slept so deeply in a long time. I’d lost countless hours of sleep over the past few months, and I’d never seemed to catch it up.

He was so close I could see the tiny furrows and lines on his forehead and under his eyes and the curves of his mouth. A man who would never disappoint me (because I’d never see him again).

I didn’t feel better. Anxiety still raced through my veins, burning me. I hated myself and everything about me.

I glanced at my watch. Dr Moran would be contacting me soon. I needed to get out of here within the hour. I imagined taking her call here, with Dash listening in, and the conversation I’d have with him afterwards.

Why, yes, my psych does call me every day to check on me. Doesn’t everyone’s?

Gently, I wriggled from his grasp. If I could leave without waking him, that would be best. No small talk or awkwardness.

My clothes were hanging over a chair on the balcony. They’d been damp with rain, and the room didn’t have a clothes dryer.

He roused, and I stilled myself. With a short, deep breath, he woke fully.

Brushing back a lock of hair from my forehead, a small smile indented his cheek. “Happier?”

“Yes, happier,” I lied.

He rested his head on the crook of his elbow. “
Stay.
”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? It’s Sunday.”

“Didn’t you have a show to do later?”

“Yeah. I’ll smuggle you in. It’d give you more to write about. You’d see me in action.”

“And have to hang out with nerdy scientist geeks? No, thanks.”

A vague look of confusion entered his eyes. “You think we’re running seminars for
scientists
?”

“Aren’t you?”

He coughed. “I . . . There’s a lot of science involved.”

“Well, yeah. You talk about the study of human relationships, right?” I hesitated. “Please don’t talk about me.”

“Can I think about you?”

I grinned, in spite of myself. “No. Wipe me from your memory banks. I was never here. You never met me.”

“Okay, I’ll lock you away in my heart, then.”

“How sweet. But hearts can be replaced by mechanical devices, you know. They’re not that special.”

“Okay, you got me. You’re dead to me.”

I kissed him on the forehead—“Good”—and padded across to the balcony door in my underwear.

I whirled around at a sudden noise behind me.

People burst into the room. Half a dozen. Men and a giggling woman in a shiny red nightclub dress, her makeup half-on. I recognised the men from Dash’s group at the Christmas in July event.

Dash jumped up from the bed. Grabbing a cushion, he held it in front of his groin. “Saskia, quick, save yourself,” he said playfully. “It’s too late for me. They’ve seen my naked body, and they won’t be able to control themselves.”

I hurried out to the balcony.

But the small crowd followed, cheering me.

I now had the choice of squeezing through a wall of men in my underwear or putting my dress on here. I decided to pull the dress on.

Dash, now in underwear, pushed through the middle of them. “Give her some breathing space.”

“Isn’t that the reporter chick from the other night?” A tall, Black American man squinted at me, like I was a strange species of animal he’d never seen before.

“Yeah, Baxter,” Dash told him. “Now if you could all give us five minutes, I’d like to say good-bye to her properly—”

“No, babe.” The woman pulled me by the hand. “Don’t go. Stay and party. I’m outnumbered by the boys.” She had a pretty (if smudged by makeup) face and was somewhere in her late thirties, her breath smelling of vodka and lemon.

“Better get out and pull some more women before the seminar tonight.” A rotund man (that I remembered was named Eddie) slapped Dash on the back. “That’s what we’re here for.”

Dash shot me an uncomfortable look. He gestured to me to leave, and I tried, but the woman was hanging onto me for grim death.

A tall man with a hawkish nose above small blue eyes and a buzz cut nodded. His name had been—what?—Billy. “Get some tail, Dash, or you’re going to have nuthin’ to talk about. Can’t convince the people if you’re all talk, no walk.”

“You didn’t get any last night yourself.” Eddie leaned back against the balcony railing. “The tail turned tail.”

A round of laughs followed.

Billy shrugged. “My game was tight. I don’t know what happened with that blond bitch at the second bar. She was flirting back. I was heading toward sealing the deal. Then she went cold on me.”

“Awww,” squealed the woman. “Must’ve been worried her boyfriend was going to turn up any second.”

“I snatch ’em away from underneath their boyfriend’s noses,” Billy told her.

“My man, you do not,” scoffed Baxter.

“Dash could.” The woman eyed Dash openly, flirtatiously. “He’s cute. Super cute. Not really fair for the rest of you to wheel him out as an example of a guy who can pull chicks just by using a few pickup tricks.”

I stared at Dash. “That’s what you guys are?
Pickup artists?
”

“Please,” said Eddie, pulling a fake affronted face. “
Professional
pickup artists.”

“No.” Dash swallowed tightly, his voice flattened. “We’re not
that
. We don’t use cheap tricks. We don’t cheat. We call ourselves relationship experts. We give advice, and we take it seriously. And yeah, we use evolutionary psychology.”

They weren’t scientists.

I thought back. He’d never claimed that they were.

“Were you lying to the poor girl, Dash?” The woman used a tone that was more teasing than scolding.

“I didn’t lie to her.” Taking firm hold of my hand, Dash pulled me away from the group and led me inside.

I grabbed my shoes from the floor.

“I don’t get it,” he told me quietly, his eyes hurt. “You researched me. Dash Citrone, right? You knew what I do for a living.”

“Can we just go back ten minutes? We were about to forget each other. Please.”

“If that’s what you want. And I’ll go back to being confused as hell by you.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you still doing the article?”

His face fell as I shook my head. He swung the door open for me as I left.

“Shame you’re not doing the write-up,” he called down the corridor. “I would have liked to know what you thought of me.”

I looked back over my shoulder. “Good things.
Mostly.
”