CHAPTER 3
“Take a seat. Please”

He slumped into one of the armchairs, setting his briefcase upright on the floor beside him, where it promptly fell over.

“Harry… “

He stopped abruptly, looking down at his clenched hands, then slowly relaxed his fingers before looking back up at the two of us on the settee.

“There have been rumours, you know. I wasn’t sure… Short form, then. Mary, could I have that tea after all? Please?”

She brought an extra mug from the kitchen, and the three of us sat silently as she poured and handed him the cup.

“What do I call you? Harry seems a bit awkward”

“What everyone else does”

“Ellie? I always did wonder about why you pushed that one. Bit too glib, I thought, and I was right, wasn’t I? So, please, executive summary”

I looked quickly at my wife, then jumped in. Soonest humiliated, soonest over.

“Lots of cliché stuff, really, so I won’t go into the usual rigmarole”

“Sorry, but start with a bit of clarity, er, Ellie. This dressing up, or the other thing?”

“Er, it’s not dressing up, if that’s what you mean”

“So it’s a gender thing, then. Go on”

All my prepared speeches went out the window as he did indeed cut right to the chase.

“Yeah, this is me. I have a, a, a treatment regime. Yes, hormone therapy, and it’s been a real sore point between us, between Mary and me. Especially when, you know, it began working”

I gave the obligatory wave at my chest, and Terry nodded.

“I can see. I can also see you look like some bloody concentration camp escapee. And burnt to hell”

“Australian Summer, long distances on the bike. Anyway, we argued, me and Mary, so I went… You know the rest. Just stopped pretending while I was there”

He looked hard at my wife, then asked the obvious question.

“So… what about the two of you now?”

Mary took my hand.

“Neither of us really knows, Terry. It’s all very new; I mean, I’ve known about the, the STUFF for ages, but it was when… I picked Ellie up from the airport. She’d sent me a text, just a happy Christmas thing, see you when I get back message, so I thought I’d take a chance, and then she’s walking towards me, and so comfortable in her skin, and I’m utterly confused. Shush, Ellie”

She gathered her thoughts, then tried again.

“We’ve talked since she came home, and yes, saying ‘she’ and ‘her’ makes more sense. I’m going to put words in her mouth now, because she’s not the only one who can do some thinking. I married Ellie for all the right reasons, that’s what I think, and I’m pretty sure it goes both ways. I nearly gave up, though, and I’m still not sure if I can cope, but not today. Not giving up today, I mean. I’m sort of coping today. Helps that… The important thing is that she came back”

Terry gave me another hard look.

“I’m guessing there was some doubt she would”

I nodded.

“I had those thoughts, yes. Met some people. They talked sense. I listened, and so far, they’ve been on the money”

Terry stared at the little pile of camera shop CDs on the coffee table.

“Have you eaten?”

I shook my head, and he pulled out his mobile.

“Do you mind if… I married my wife for much the same reasons you two speak of. Would you mind if she joined us? She has a very sensible head on her. If you’re happy, I’ll ask her to pick up a takeaway”

I couldn’t see any logical reason why not, and after ordering a mix of stuff from the New Lotus, he rang his wife.

“Hi, love. I’m being a dirty stop-out at the Ellisons tonight, and you’re invited… No, you have a job… New Lotus. It’s all paid for, in my name… Those rumours… Yes. Half an hour? See you then, love. I’ll cover the taxi. Bye for now”

He put the phone away, and gave us a smile.

“Glad I’m keeping a sober head on tonight. Which brings us to another bloody obvious question, begged by you ringing me in the first place: what about work?”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter.

“Exactly why I did ring you! What about work, full stop? Sort of your call, by definition. Just, I know, we all know, it’s coming up to the really busy time, and I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch at the end of the year”

“There’s always remote working”

“Not as easy. You know as well as I do there’s times when you need something from the juniors right there and then; can’t do that online. Same with second opinions”

Suddenly, Terry was laughing out loud, before turning to my wife.

“He, sorry, she has a mantra on that, and it boils down to working out how much we can let a client take the piss before it comes back on us, how far we can take the piss from the client, and how much piss-taking the Revenue will accept. And all of those depend on what everyone’s got away with in the previous year”

Mary shook her own head, in clear disbelief.

“And there was me believing my husband was an honest man. Er. Anyway, I am so glad I only have teenagers to wrangle. I know how their supply-demand pipeline works”

Terry and I waited, until she succumbed.

“It’s ‘WANT! NOW!’. Then five minutes after they’ve got it, angst, guilt and everyone hating them. Come to think of it… Ellie?”

“Yes, love?”

“I sort of think there’s some common ground there. Not for now, though”

Ten minutes later, Terry’s phone chirped.

“Just going out to sort Julia’s cab out. I’ll leave the door open, if that’s okay”

He took a couple of minutes, as Mary and I sorted plates and cutlery, and then the front door clicked shut as they entered the living room. Julia sighed, before hugging Mary.

“I had wondered, with all the rumours. What a sodding mess. No, not you, Ellie, just the situation. Get the food dished out? They gave me a load of prawn crackers free. And I’m waffling, not crackers”

By unspoken mutual agreement, we set the serious discussion aside while we ate, and I ran through the photos once again. Gracie brought a gasp, as did my appearance in that first group photo. Julia was aghast.

“How much… I mean, looking at you there, how much weight have you lost? Good god!”

“A few stone. About three, I would say”

Terry was more incisive.

“Any of those the ones you said talked sense?”

“Yes. Jacky, from Toronto. The one on my left. The rest are a local family, shared a meal with us”

“Carry on, then. I’m waiting to see some kangaroos”

“Most of the ones I saw were ex-roos”

When we arrived at the timer shots from the Lake Cowan lookout, and those of the wide salt pan that the ‘lake’ consisted of. Julia asked what the temperature had been.

“High forties. Even hotter under the trees on that dirt road”

She sighed.

“Where was it you were thinking of doing the clothes on a beach thing, Ellie? And just walking till you fell over?”

How the hell had she read my mind?

“Sorry?”

She sighed, then looked at Mary.

“Do you have a spare room, love? It would be nice to, you know, lubricate the tongue. If not, we can get a cab home and pick up the car tomorrow. Sorry, but this is the sort of heavy shit I can’t do, smile, and walk off from”

“Yes, we have”

“Terry, love, you know what I want to discuss. Please, pop home, sort an overnight bag, hit the offy on the way?”

He simply nodded once and walked out. I waved at the staircase.

“The other bed is still made up because that is where I was sleeping before I left. Is it clean linen, love?”

“Yes. I put clean stuff on before I went to pick you up. I thought, you know”

“I know. Julia, if this is something you’d prefer not to talk about?”

“No. This needs airing, just to get some sense into Ellie here. Stroppy teenager stuff, in essence. What do you have in already?”

Mary grasped the meaning before I did.

“Dry white in a box. Australian, oddly”

“Could I have a glass of that, please? And any more scenery shots, Ellie? Save any people till he’s back?”

Mary did the honours for the three of us, and by the time I had talked them through a whole disc of shots of Albany rock formations, parrots, dry lakes and Esperance wildlife, Terry was back. Mary let him in as I brought a pint glass for each of us, and once sorted, Julia began.

“This is awkward, because it feels like making this about me, when you two have the sodding great pachyderm to sort out. I was a stupid teenager.

Mary coughed.

“In my experience, all teenagers are stupid, in some way”

“Yes, well, I was most definitely one of them. Fell for a boy, who, in hindsight, was an arsehole. I was sixteen. My parents went on holiday to Sharm, dragged me along with them. I didn’t want to go, because hanging round a bus shelter where He might be was my dream. We were booked for ten days, and that’s a lifetime”

Mary almost whispered, “WANT! NOW!”, and Julia nodded.

“Exactly. So I did the romantic thing”

Shit.

She reached out for her husband’s hand.

“Never was one for the cutting stuff. No bathroom cabinet full of pills in an Egyptian hotel. So I tried the other thing I’d read about”

I was slowly grasping what she meant.

“Swimming out?”

“Yes. Go out so far you’re unable to get back in. That’s what I suspected you were thinking of, Ellie, just into a desert rather than the sea. Am I right?”

All I could do was nod in guilty confirmation.

“What happened, Julia?”

“Oh, I did the whole stupid thing. Sneaked out to the beach early, made a pile of my clothes with my shoes on top, started swimming. Really pleasant, the water, nice and warm, and then I’m a bloody long way out, and I’m waking up to what I’m doing, but of course, it’s too late, which is the whole point of that way of doing it. And I realise I really, really don’t want to drown, don’t want to die, so I’m swimming back to shore, or trying to, but I’m shattered, and the wind’s rising and taking me even further out. That’s when I get the other thoughts, that I really deserve to die, because I’ve upset my parents so much, been a right stroppy little cow, all the guilt Mary spoke of”

She took another large mouthful of her wine.

“Where are you, Ellie, right now? You doing the guilt thing yet? Thing is, I can’t see anything to feel guilty about. You are who you are, and you’re doing your best, both of you.”

Mary was weeping, but she asked that obvious question.

“What happened in the end, Julia? With you?”

“Oh, I was lucky. There’d been reports of shark activity; a helicopter patrol was out, spotted me, picked me up. All they did was drop me off at the shore, just another stupid foreigner. I managed to get back for breakfast, just been out for an early dip, Mum, honest. Couple of years later, me and Terry were courting. We had a true confessions thing one night, pissed as rats, the way you are at that age. He said something soppy about being my helicopter, so I made it a joke about choppers, but… But it let each of us see who the other really was. That’s what I’m hoping for with you two”