Spinning Around (27 page)

Suddenly I heard a thickly accented voice pronounce the name of the Siam Thai, and ask how I might be helped. I replied that I wanted to talk to one of the restaurant's patrons. A customer. One of the people eating there tonight.

‘It's an emergency,' I insisted.

‘Yes?'

‘She has purple hair. Her name is Jo Cleary.
Jo Cleary
.'

‘Yes?'

‘Would you mind if I spoke to her? Very quickly?'

‘She's here? She's eating here?'

‘I think so. She has purple hair.'

‘I'll go see. Wait, please.'

Clunk. I could hear the faint strains of Asian music. A distant buzz of voices. Staring at the dusty south-eastern corner of my bedroom, with our cheap, old-fashioned wardrobe huddled dimly against it, I imagined all the warmth and light and cooking smells on the other end of the line. Trendy couples finishing their coffee. Groups of friends trying to divide up various bills in an equitable fashion (always a doomed attempt). Empty bottles of wine. Bloated stomachs.

‘Hello?'

I sat up straight. It was a female voice. Young.

My heart took off.

‘Hello?' she repeated, more impatiently. ‘Who is it?'

‘Is that Josephine?'

‘Yes. Who's this?' Her voice, to my surprise, was pitched quite high. It lacked both range and sinew.

‘Is Matt there?' I asked. Each word was like a chip of stone.

A pause. The longer it stretched out, the more she condemned herself. I held my breath.

‘Who is this?' she said again, but with quite a different emphasis and far more depth of tone.

‘You know damn well who,' I replied.

‘What?'

‘Is he there?'

‘What?'

‘
Is Matt there?
'

‘Matt who? Matt Muzzatti?'

‘Is he there?'

‘No, of course not.' It was almost a whine. ‘Who is this? Do I know you?'

‘I'm his wife. His
wife
, okay?'

‘Oh.' She sounded nonplussed. ‘Are you looking for him or something?'

‘You're bloody right I'm looking for him!'

‘Well he's not here.'

‘Where is he, then?'

‘What do you mean, where is he? How should I know? What is this?' Her voice cracked on a plaintive, petulant note. ‘How come you're ringing me here?'

‘Don't give me that bullshit,' I said hoarsely. My diction was unsteady—my hands were shaking—but I ploughed on. ‘Don't even try it. I know you've been seeing him.'

‘So?' Anger flared on the other end of the line. I couldn't believe the gall of the girl. ‘Why shouldn't I?'

‘
Why shouldn't you?
Why, you—you little
shit
! '

‘Hey, fuck you!'

‘Fuck you, too!'

‘He's my father, okay? I've got a
right
to see him! And if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself!'

Click.

She hung up on me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The first day of the rest of my life

She wouldn't talk to me again. I rang back (after recovering a little from the shock) but she wouldn't come to the phone. So I was left sitting there in the dark, my head reeling and my mouth hanging open. Her father? My husband? Her
father
?

What insanity was this?

‘No,' I said aloud. It was a lie. Some sort of excuse. Surely Matt wasn't even old enough to be her father? He was forty-one. Forty-one minus—what? Twenty? Twenty-two?

Well, maybe he
was
old enough—but only just.

Suddenly I heard the noise of an engine. A jolt of adrenalin went through me before I realised that it wasn't the sound of our car; it had a deeper, more rhythmic pitch. But it seemed to be growing louder. It was throbbing away right outside our house.

I got up and went into the living room. Twitching one of the former owner's lace curtains aside (we can't afford new ones, yet), I peered out at the rain-lashed street. I saw glowing windows. I saw puddles of watery light pooling under the street-lamps. I saw a taxi pulling away from the curb, its rooftop sign dimmed, its interior empty except for its shadowy driver.

Though I craned and strained, I could see no-one else. There was no-one walking up the front path. Why should there be? Matthew had taken our car to work. He didn't need to hire a taxi.

Then I heard the hinges squeaking on the screen door out back.

He had gone down the side of the house and around to the kitchen, because he didn't want to wake the kids. He was soaking wet. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his white shirt was almost transparent, his faded jeans were scattered with darker patches on the knees and around the ankles. He wiped his nose with the back of his damp wrist, staggering slightly.

‘I'm not screwin' around,' he blurted out. ‘I thought you were.'

But my attention was focused on another matter of interest.

‘Is Josephine Cleary your daughter?' I demanded.

‘Yes.'

There it was. The truth at last.

‘Shit, Matthew!'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘I thought you were having an affair!'

‘I know.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I just ran into that bloke you hired. That detective.'

‘You
did
?'

‘He was tailing me, Helen. Jesus, how
could
you?'

We both of us paused, gasping for breath. I don't know what my face looked like, but Matt's looked tortured. His nose was red. His eyes were bloodshot. He kept sniffing and blinking, as rivulets of water trickled down from his hair.

‘You'd better get a towel,' I said automatically.

‘Fuck the towel! Jesus, Helen! Goddamn it!' And all at once he burst into tears.

Well, he'd been drinking. I worked that out when I approached him, and put my arms around his wet, shaking shoulders; I could smell the smoke and the beer. I said: ‘Where have you been?'

‘I've been . . .' He sniffed. Swallowed. ‘I've been out with Ray.'

‘Getting pissed?'

‘What do
you
think? I . . .' His voice cracked on another sob. ‘Goddamn, I thought . . . God, Helen!'

My own eyes filled with tears. I pulled away. ‘Miriam saw you!' I cried. ‘Kissing Josephine! What was I
supposed
to think?'

He mumbled something that I couldn't hear.

‘What?'

‘You could've asked me,' he repeated.

‘And you'd have told me what? That she was your daughter? Then why didn't you? Why wait until now?'

‘Oh Christ.' He broke away from me. He dragged out a kitchen chair and cast himself into it, covering his face with his hands. He looked so big, hunched in that little chair, but he kept snuffling and gulping and wiping his eyes.

I sat down next to him.

I waited.

‘You'd better tell me,' I said at last. ‘Who's her mother?'

‘You don't know her,' Matt replied. He gave a deep, shuddering sigh and leaned back, his arms dangling. ‘Her name's Megan Molesdale. We used to hang out when I first came to Sydney.'

‘Oh.'
That
was a blow I hadn't anticipated. It left me breathless.

‘I didn't even know,' he went on, despairingly. ‘She never told me. She disappeared—went to Indonesia—must have come back, but I never saw her again. Not until . . .' He made a weary gesture.

‘So you . . .'

‘She was okay. She was a bit of a flake. We were pissed when we did it the first time, then we got together once or twice after that. I dunno. I dunno why she didn't tell me.' He scratched his head furiously with both hands. ‘She should have told me!'

‘Well at least you know now,' I said, in a tone that was astonishingly tranquil. Inside, though, there was magma oozing from my heart. All this, and he had never dropped so much as a hint. He had cut me off.

‘She must have hated me,' Matthew suddenly announced. ‘She must have, because she made Jo think that this Cleary bloke she married was her father. Jo's father. Then when the marriage broke up, she got the shits with Cleary, and didn't want Jo seeing him. She told Jo the truth, then, but she wouldn't tell the poor kid who her real father was. Can you believe it? No wonder she's so fucked up.'

‘Who? You mean Josephine?'

‘Oh yeah.' Another deep sigh, as his head fell back. ‘Oh yeah.'

For a while he stared at the ceiling. The clock ticked. Rain thrummed against our roof. Finally I had to prompt him.

‘Go on,' I said.

‘Well, shit. She's a fuckin' junkie, you know? My own daughter. She's turned tricks, she's done B and Es, you name it. She left home when she was fifteen, she was on the streets for over a year—'

‘How old is she now?'

‘Nineteen. She just turned nineteen.'

I scratched my wrist thoughtfully. No comment.

‘A few months ago, she suddenly realised—I dunno, maybe someone told her—she suddenly realised that she could legally find out who her father was. It's on the birth certificate, right? So she tracked me down, got hold of me. We met.'

He threw himself forward and covered his face again.

‘God, Matthew.'

‘I felt so bad,' he squeaked.

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I don't know!' he wailed. ‘I was so . . . it was so hard! I felt so bad! Everything was so tough for you, and now this. A stepdaughter? A fuckin'
junkie
? You didn't deserve it.'

‘But I was going to have to find out sooner or later.'

‘Yeah, but it was always such a bad time. We were all getting gastro, and then your sister was in hospital, and then they had to pull those floorboards up—'

‘But Matt, this was
important
! Really important!'

‘But you were losin' it, Helen! Do you think I can't tell? Your nerves were shot. And you were always mad at me . . . I felt so useless . . . '

‘Well Jesus, Matt, I mean—' ‘Fuck it, I
am
useless! I'm fuckin' useless! Breaking the mower, and everything—fuck, I thought you'd given up on me! I thought you were involved with that detective!'

‘What?'

‘I saw you with him. I saw him kiss your hand.'

Talk about a leveller. Talk about out of the blue. I nearly choked.

‘You're not, are you?' he whispered, lifting his face. ‘You're not foolin' around with that guy?'

The tone of his voice was heartbreaking. My tears began to flow.

‘Of course not!' I whimpered.

‘Then why did he kiss your hand?'

‘I don't
know
!' Sob, sob. ‘He just did it!' More sobs. ‘It freaked me out, it totally freaked me out!'

‘Oh, darlin'.'

He got out of his chair, kneeled down, and put his arms around me. They were still damp. His hair was still damp. His shoulder was damp under my cheek.

‘I didn't know what to do!' I cried, then quickly lowered my voice as I remembered the kids. ‘I didn't know what to do. I thought if Miriam was wrong, then you'd never find out— you'd never know that I was even wondering . . .'

‘But he was following me around! He was
trailing
me!'

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘When I saw him, I nearly decked him. I was off my skull. Jesus, I just spent two hours talking about the guy, and he suddenly shows up in the bar!'

‘What do you mean?' I was deriving some comfort from Matt's body heat, and the rumble of his voice as it reverberated through the bones of his chest into my ear. But I had to raise my head. I had to lift my eyes so I could look at his face. ‘Do you mean tonight?' I sniffed. ‘You were talking about him tonight? With Ray?'

‘Of course I was. I just told you—I thought you were foolin' around. I was goin' bloody spare.'

‘Because you saw him kiss my hand?'

‘And other things.'

‘Wait a minute.' I had to get something straight. ‘You saw me at the Al Fresco? You were there at lunchtime?'

‘That's right.'

‘How—how did you know where to find me?'

‘I didn't. I wasn't looking for you there. I was heading for your office. I always pass that place, when I head for your office.' Close up, I could see every crow's-foot and cavernous pore and broken capillary on his face, but it didn't matter. On the contrary, it made me feel good. Like me, he was human. Like me, he had suffered. Like me, he had skin problems and pouches under his eyes. ‘I was walkin' by,' he added, ‘and I looked in, because—well, you know. The prawn cocktail.'

‘But why were you coming to see me?' I wanted to know. ‘Why didn't you warn me?'

‘Well, think about it,' he said. Then, as I stared at him blankly, he climbed to his feet again (knees cracking) and collapsed back into his chair. ‘I've been out of my mind,' he growled. ‘Goin' spare. All these phone calls. You've been makin' 'em and gettin' 'em and I didn't know what to think. Some guy calls up—won't leave his name. You shut yourself in the bedroom and jump a foot when I come in.'

‘Oh, but—'

‘And then this morning!' he exclaimed, before my frantic gestures made him clap a hand over his mouth. (The kids! Of course!) ‘This morning I got the mail,' he said quietly. ‘What was I supposed to think about that?'

‘About what?'

‘Didn't you see?'

‘See what?' I was genuinely bewildered.

‘It was here on the table.' He looked around, his forehead puckering. ‘I'm sure I left it here. That postcard—and the stuff from the real estate agent. Wasn't it here?'

I shook my head.

‘Then where . . .?' He rose. He cast about for the missing items. ‘Hang on a second,' he muttered, and disappeared into the living room. I listened to him shuffling through magazines, his footsteps heavy and deliberate. I was getting a headache.