Simply Heaven Read online

  Mummy. I didn’t actually think grown men called their mothers ‘mummy’. Especially not in that ‘mumm-eh’ way you hear people say it in period dramas.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He is oblivious to my tone. ‘And her mother was one of those colonial charitable types. Always trying to save the Papists from themselves, you know? And I suppose Mummy’s sort of taken on some of her mantle over the years.’

  I’m already getting a picture of this woman. And I don’t think I like it.

  ‘Rufus?’

  ‘Melody?’

  ‘Is your mother a bit of a harridan?’

  ‘No!’ cries Rufus. ‘God, no! No! Mummy’s charming! Charm itself!’

  Yipes.

  ‘But?’

  ‘No buts,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Well, you have to. Honestly. You’ll love her. And I know she’ll love you.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘She loves me,’ he says simply, ‘and she wants the best for me.’

  Worser and worser. We all know about mummies who want the best for their sons. ‘Where are the smokes?’ I ask hurriedly.

  ‘In my jacket pocket,’ he replies.

  I light two cigarettes and pass one to Rufus.

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘fire ahead.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘Tell me everything. Tell me what I’ve been stupid enough not to ask about. Tell me what I’ve married myself into.’

  ‘You make it sound like a jail sentence.’

  I shrug. Jesus, I’m a hypocrite.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘From the top. Everything.’

  ‘Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘Are you rich?’

  ‘Sort of yes and sort of no,’ he says.

  ‘No, Rufus, that’s not an answer.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Rufus goes quiet, looks out to sea for a bit.

  ‘Please don’t be cross with me, Melody,’ he says.

  ‘That’s an unreasonable thing to ask,’ I tell him, ‘when I don’t know what it is I’ve not to be cross about.’

  ‘It’s nothing bad,’ he says, ‘really. A lot of people would be pleased …’

  I take him by the wrist, shut him up. ‘Then how come you’re behaving like there’s some dark secret? What have I got myself into? Mad wife in the attic? History of catalepsy? Possessive housekeeper? Which closet are the skeletons in, Rufus?’

  ‘We don’t have closets,’ he says, ‘we have wardrobes and wall cupboards. And the skeletons are mainly in the churchyard down in the village. Although every now and then a bone pops up and bobs about on the surface of the moat and scares the tourists.’

  I blink. ‘Oooo-K. Backtrack. Moat? Tourists?’

  I can feel his blush warming the night air. ‘Ummm … yuh.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me about this?’

  ‘Ummm … no.’

  ‘You didn’t think it might affect me? Just a bit? That I thought I was mixed up with a nice guy who did something in property, and now I find out he’s got a moat? What is that? Something to do with a castle?’

  ‘Um, yes, but they demolished the fortifications after the revolution. It’s more of a house now, really …’

  ‘… with a moat.’

  He’s quiet. Not a lot to say, really. He’s busted and he knows it.

  I take a deep, deep lungful of smoke while I wait for him to come up with some sort of reply.

  ‘Wouldn’t it rot your socks,’ I say reflectively.

  His arm, which was draped round my shoulder, has dropped to his side.

  ‘So if your mother’s a lady,’ I ask, ‘does that make you a lord?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘She’s a lady in her own right. Her father was an earl. The rest of us don’t have any handles. The Wattestones have the distinguished record of living a thousand years in the same house without once collecting a title.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ I say. ‘They must have been seriously mediocre to manage that.’

  ‘Yuh,’ he says lightly, ‘there’s a lot to be said for mediocrity if you’re aiming at longevity. Doesn’t do to put your head too far over the parapet.’

  ‘A shame, really.’ I try to make light of it, though to be honest my stomach’s in my boots. ‘I would have got a laugh out of being Milady Melody.’

  ‘You’d have had to take my name for that,’ he reminds me.

  ‘Ah, well, can’t have everything, eh?’

  ‘Are you all right with this?’

  ‘No, I’m bloody not, Rufus Wattestone. Jeez-us. What kind of drongo marries a girl and hides stuff like this from her?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know a lot about your family, it’s got to be said.’

  ‘You do, you know.’

  Even as I say it I recoil at my own hypocrisy. Because I’ve not been entirely honest myself. But it wasn’t me who started on the old assumptions. Rufus obviously thinks I’m as poor as an Indonesian pork butcher, and I never thought down about him like that. I hurry on. ‘I mean, what’s it all about, Rufus? Are you ashamed of me? Ashamed of your family? I mean, aren’t you a bit old for this sort of thing?’

  ‘Well, I thought – I thought it might make a difference.’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to do the old pop star “I want someone to love me for me” line now, are you?’

  ‘Well, it’s true, Mel.’

  ‘And that’s how much you think of me, yeah? That you had to check I wasn’t some sort of gold-digger? Thanks a bundle.’

  ‘Mel, you’ve no idea. At home, I’m an eligible. All I ever meet is girls in headscarves whose eyes light up like lasers when they hear my name. All they can see when they look at me is stabling and a banqueting hall. I’m not a person. I’m a career option. Wouldn’t you feel the same way?’

  I stay silent, beaming murderous thoughts in his direction.

  ‘And then I met you, and you didn’t have the faintest idea who I was or what you’d be getting beyond just me, and it was amazing.’

  If I were brutally honest, I’d have to admit that this particular appeal didn’t only work in the one direction.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Melody, but you’ve no idea what it felt like getting to make love with someone who was making love with me and not my acreage. And no-one’s ever told me to shut up, before. Well, apart from my family and a few teachers at school …’

  ‘Rufus?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘OK,’ he says. And we both do some staring over the darkened sea. There’s still a good hour until the ferry is due. I take a swig from the bottle, hold back a burp as the dying bubbles make a final break for freedom.

  ‘Rufus?’ I say eventually.

  He takes my hand again, doesn’t look at me. ‘Yuh?’

  ‘Some start to a honeymoon, eh?’

  He allows a small, nervous sound of mirth to break loose. ‘I suppose you would have found out sooner or later.’

  ‘I don’t have the clothes,’ I say. Though I’ve no idea why.

  ‘Sweetie, you don’t need clothes,’ he says. ‘Well, no, obviously … but really, it’s the last thing you need to worry about. The entire village is made up of people who wear jumpers. They’ve all got one long velvet A-line skirt each, which they trot out at New Year, and a white blouse, and—’

  ‘Oh Jesus!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You own a village?’

  ‘Well, we—’

  ‘What have I done?’ I ask, in a voice that seems to be a lot louder and a lot higher than I’d thought it would be. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Darling, darling, darling!’ Rufus lets go my hand, puts his arms round my upper torso and squeezes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m a total, witless spaz. I should have given you some warning. But look, it’s a shock, that’s all. It’s nothing like as bad as you think. Hones
tly. Look, really. Darling, you’ll see, you really will. None of it’s as bad as you think it is. Why are you in such a state? It’s not like I’ve married you and emptied your bank account, or turned out to be a passport hunter, or something.’

  ‘Just so many lies.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Rufus, I can’t deal with any more lies.’

  ‘Darling, what are you talking about? I haven’t lied to you. I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but …’

  Not altogether to my surprise, I’ve got tears on my cheeks. It’s been an emotional day, after all, and despite everything I’m still an emotional person. I wipe under my eyes with the cuff of his jacket.

  ‘Rufus, it hurts, you know? When you find out that everything’s different from the way you thought it was? It’s happened to me too often, and I still feel like my heart’s been burned by the last time, and I can’t do it any more. I thought, this time, you know, I’d got a fighting chance, that I’d met someone who was clean and clear and we’d live honestly, and we’d be true, and we’d get to live like real people …’

  ‘But we are. We are. God, what’s hurt you so much? Why do you think I made all those promises today? Do you think I didn’t mean them? What do you think I said them for?’

  I wipe my eyes again. ‘Oh, yeah. Promises. I’ve had a few of those before.’

  ‘We’ve all had promises broken on us, Melody,’ he says. ‘Everyone. It’s part of life. You can’t use that as a reason for suspecting everyone else …’

  I shake my head, fluff my hair up. Sigh. ‘I know. Rationally I know that, but …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I never really told you the whole thing about Andy, did I?’

  Chapter Six

  The Vanishing

  It’s the wondering that’s the worst. The not knowing. I know that this is the great cliché of the press conference and the tabloid interview, but the fact that it has become cliché doesn’t detract from the veracity of a statement. It’s the daily ritual of hopeful waking and numbing remembrance. The relentless wish-fear-expectation that today, after all these days, after fiery tears and wasted appetite and sick, sick self-loathing, will be the day they call, or break their silence with a letter, a postcard, an e-mail, or someone bumps into them in a shop, a bar, some far-flung tourist spot. For a while, you can ameliorate the pain by convincing yourself that they’ve not been in touch because they can’t: because someone or something, some circumstance or infirmity or Hollywood-style total amnesia, is stopping them from doing so.

  But that’s no alternative. That sort of magical thinking is corrosive. To wake up one morning and realise you’ve spent six months hoping that someone you love is in a coma, kidnapped and tied up somewhere, slowly desiccating in a roadside ditch, because all of these scenarios are more bearable than the idea that they hate you so much that they’d rather cut off all ties with everyone than have anything to do with you again: that’s bad.

  I knew, from the moment I put my key in the lock, that he was gone. And there I go again: manipulating the past to fit with what I would like to be the truth. I knew long before I went home. Of course I did. I knew as I was telling my mother that I didn’t know why he’d done it. I knew while my father was invoking the gods and my brother was talking about having a word. I knew from the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I got into the car, long sleeves to hide the bruises from the neighbours, to drive from Redcliffe to the South Bank. I knew from the weeping fits as I lay in my bikini by my parents’ pool, oversized sun specs disguising the discoloration around my eye. I knew during the dry-eyed nights spent scrolling through the empty menus on my cellphone.

  Four years in each other’s pockets, living as a couple, talking as a couple, thinking as a couple, and then – nothing.

  The door was double-locked: on the mortise, as well as the latch. In all the time we had lived together, Andy had never locked the mortise. It was all part of his surfie persona: jogging out of the house, letting the door swing behind him, joy-killer me trailing in his wake dangling keys and nagging reminders. If I hadn’t had a feeling before, this would have been enough to raise my suspicions.

  I knew for certain the moment I crossed the threshold. It wasn’t that the lobby was bare as a crypt. It wasn’t that posters had been ripped from the lounge walls. Or the missing boy-toys: computer, TV, PlayStation, hi-fi, all gone.

  It was the silence.

  The silence of desertion.

  I laid the keys down on the lobby console and walked into the house. Knew it was pointless, but called out anyway: ‘Andy?’

  Nothing. The air soaked up the name like blotting paper.

  Advancing into the lounge, I was aware of a strange mixture of emotions. Trepidation. A growing melancholy. And underneath it all, small and suppressed, but there, and familiar, a tiny, warm glow of relief.

  Apart from the missing electricals, the lounge looked pretty much the same. My blood had been cleaned up from the door jamb and the tiles, but everything else – the suite, the coffee table, lamps and knick-knacks, aboriginal carvings, the ikats hanging on the wall, the jokey bottle-top chandelier – gathered dust undisturbed.

  ‘Andy?’

  In the bedroom, it looked as though he had gone through the closets with a combine harvester. Drawers hung open, doors ajar, a tumble of cloth on a chair. And for a moment, as I caught sight of a pile of jeans and T-shirts at the foot of the bed, my heart executed an unenthusiastic somersault. God, maybe he’s still around after all.

  And the little voice said: and then you’ll have to talk about it, little Miss Victim. And you don’t want to do that, do you?

  I sat down heavily on the bed.

  Andy.

  It was my fault.

  Oh, Andy, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to go. You coward. You fucking yellow-bellied responsibility-shunning runmeister.

  Rolling on to my side, I wrapped my arms tight around my torso and drew my knees towards my breasts. It felt better, for a moment. Protected.

  A sound downstairs. The front door. The familiar lurch – relief, terror, urgency. He’s back. He didn’t leave. He’s just been – clearing up. Wanting to make things … Oh God, what do I do now?

  I sat up and listened. He was walking about. Soft-sole shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. I could barely breathe. Tears on the edge of spilling from my eyes. I crossed the room and stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for him to let me know he was there. Waiting for him to come to me.

  Then Costa’s voice, calling from the kitchen. ‘Sis? G’day?’

  I deflated like a popped balloon. Gripped the newel post and called back, ‘Hi. I’m up here.’

  Costa enters the hallway, all big and dark and handsome, sunglasses perched on the top of his head, teeth and T-shirt stark white against his suntan.

  ‘What are you doing here, Costa?’

  ‘Came to see you were OK,’ he says.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Can’t a brother look out for his little sis? Ma told me you were coming home and I wanted to see that …’

  My legs turn, suddenly, to jelly. Andy’s gone. He’s left me, and he hasn’t even left a note. Four years and not even a goodbye. I slump heavily down on the top step and bury my face in my hands.

  ‘He’s left me, Costa,’ I say. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Ah God,’ says Costa. ‘Ah God, I’m sorry, sis.’

  And he comes and sits next to me as I start to cry.

  Chapter Seven

  In at the Deep End

  By the time I’ve had a proper night’s – morning’s – sleep, the person I wake up to is no longer an evasive mystery man, but is, instead, my Rufus, only a Rufus with a more solid background. The day before yesterday, all I saw was the man: himself, no context, no surrounding colour, just Rufus drifting in a gentle space that allowed me to project anything I wanted on to it. And now – well, it’s still the same person, still the man I fell in love with, but
now there’s a background coming into focus. I see the smug green of Merrie England, I see a cross-hatching of half-timbered magnificence, I see black swans on a moat and a hideous old crone in a headscarf bossing the servants. But most of all, eyelashes brushing the sun-freckles on his cheeks, I see Rufus once again. The other stuff I can deal with.

  It’s just that I don’t realise that I’m going to have to deal with it quite so soon.

  In fact, reality intrudes in the middle of the afternoon when, after the traditional honeymoon lie-in and a leisurely lunch of bread and tomatoes, we’re in the pool doing what honeymooners are wont to if they have a pool to themselves. Our bathers are on the floor and I’m up against the wall, arms braced over the edge to give us some traction, my legs round my husband’s elegant hips, soles of my feet pressed firmly on to his lean brown buttocks. And Rufus has a strong grip with one hand on the drain edge and a stronger one with his other on my shoulder as he grinds the old throbbing member into the flower of my being. Whatever. We’re both red in the face, and my hair is plastered over my cheeks and forehead, and we’re doing a lot of kissing because the pool is, after all, attached to a town house and we don’t want to upset the neighbours in this grimly, sentimentally, Catholic country by making a lot of noise. Well, not much, anyway. Pawl Borg next door didn’t seem to mind what he did with his Rotovator at six this morning, so I’m not so overbothered. So we’re panting, and splashing, and I’m just starting to get that first amazing wave of feeling that starts at the toes and works its way all the way up my body until it explodes out of the top of my head, and I’m going, you know, uh-uh-uh-uwooooah, like you do, and Rufus has a big, silly, pleased-with-himself grin on his face, and he’s going, ‘You like that? You like that?’ like you do, when a voice suddenly rings out from the interior of the house.

  ‘Huh-lo!’ it cries. A woman’s voice, plummy as a plum-duff, at the same time silver like a little tinkling bell and brassy like a hunting horn in the fog. I don’t know how it’s done. I think it’s genetic, actually. ‘Anybody home? Rufus? Darling? Where are you?’

  Zzzzzip. Rufus’s cock shrinks to vanishing point faster than Dennis Quaid in Innerspace. ‘Oh, shit,’ he says. Then: ‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.’