“Why does she have to be a bitch to him?” Cat would say afterward to Lyn, and Lyn would say, “Well, why does he have to be so sleazy?” and then they’d have an enormous fight.
Twenty years later Cat lay in a sweaty tangle of sheets and thought, What if the three of them had been just plain mediocre netball players—or even bad, D-grade, fumbling-for-the-ball bad? Would Dad have still been there every week, smiling in his sunglasses?
Maybe not.
No, not maybe at all.
He wouldn’t have come.
Well, so what? Dad liked winning. So did Cat. She could understand that.
But Mum would still have been there. Shivering and sour-faced in her little fold-out chair, peeling off the lid on the Tupperware container full of carefully cut oranges.
That particular thought was somehow too irritating to deal with right now.
Once more Cat let herself submerge into deep, murky sleep.
“Cat. Babe. Maybe…Maybe you’d feel better if you got up and had a shower.”
Cat heard the sound of the blind being opened and sensed evening light filling the bedroom. She didn’t open her eyes. “I’m too tired.”
“Yeah. But I just think maybe you wouldn’t feel so tired if you got up. We could have some dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Right.”
A tiny “I give up” twist on the word “right.”
Cat opened her eyes and rolled over to look at Dan. He had turned around toward the wardrobe and was taking off his work clothes.
She looked at the perfect muscled V-shape of his back as he shrugged himself into a T-shirt, pulling it down in that casual, don’t-care boy-way.
Once upon a time—was it that long ago?—watching Dan put on a T-shirt used to make her feel meltingly aroused.
Now, she felt…nothing.
“Do you remember when we first started going out and I thought I was pregnant that time?”
Dan turned around from the wardrobe. “Yeah.”
“I would have had an abortion.”
“Well. We were pretty young.”
“I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
Dan sat down on the bed next to her. “O.K., and so?”
“And so I’m a hypocrite.”
“We were like, I don’t know, eighteen. We had our careers to think about.”
“We were twenty-four. We wanted to go backpacking around Europe.”
“Well. Whatever. We were too young. Anyway, it’s irrelevant. You weren’t pregnant. So what does it matter?”
He reached out to touch her leg, and she moved away on the bed. “It just matters.”
“Right.”
“It didn’t suit me to have a baby then so I would have got rid of it. I was even a bit proud of how O.K. I was about it—as if having an abortion was making some sort of feminist statement. My body, my choice, and all that crap. Deep down I probably thought having an abortion made me cool. And now…so, I’m a hypocrite.”
“Christ, Cat, this is the most ridiculous conversation. It never happened.”
“Anyway, I probably aborted this baby.”
Dan exhaled. “What are you talking about?”
“The night of your work Christmas party. I drank a whole bottle of champagne in the Botanical Gardens. I would have been pregnant then. God knows what damage I did.”
“Oh, Cat. I’m sure—”
“Before that I was being so careful whenever I thought there was a chance I could be pregnant. But I was a bit distracted by your little one-night stand with the slut.”
He stood up abruptly from the bed. “O.K. I get it. It’s my fault. Your miscarriage is my fault.”
Cat pulled herself up into a sitting position. It was good to be fighting. It made her feel awake. “My miscarriage? Isn’t it ourmis- carriage? Wasn’t it our baby?”
“You’re twisting my words.”
“I just think it’s really interesting that you said your miscarriage.”
“Christ. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. I hate it when you do this.”
“When I do this? What’s this?”
“When you fight for the sake of it. You get off on it. I can’t stand it.”
Cat was silent. There was something unfamiliar about Dan’s voice.
His anger was cold, when it was meant to be hot. Their fights weren’t biting and contemptuous. They were violent and passionate.
They looked at each other in silence. Cat found herself touching her hair and thinking about how she must look after three days in bed.
What was she doing thinking about how she looked? This was her husband. She wasn’t meant to think about how she looked when she was fighting with him. She was meant to be too busy yelling.
“I know this is really hard for you,” said Dan in his new cold, calm voice. “I know. I’m upset too. I really wanted a baby. I really wanted this baby.”
“Why are you talking like that?” asked Cat, really wanting to know.
His face changed, as if she’d attacked him.
“Oh, forget it. I can’t talk to you. I’m going to make dinner.”
He headed for the door and then suddenly turned back, and she felt almost relieved as his face contorted with anger.
“Oh. And one thing. She’s not a slut. Stop calling her that.” He closed the door hard behind him.
Cat found herself breathing hard.
She’s not a slut.
You used present tense, Dan.
Present tense.
And why are you defending her?
The thought of Dan feeling protective toward that girl gave her such a violent, unexpected thrust of pain that she almost whimpered in surprise.
“Where are you going?” Gemma had asked him the other day, as if she had a right to know. Gemma never talked liked that. Sharply. Looking straight at Dan, with a touch of accusation. Most of the time Gemma didn’t even notice people leave the room. Dan always said Gemma had the attention span of a goldfish.
And then there was Christmas Day. “Danny!” Angela had said and there was pleasure and surprise in her voice. Was that the right reaction for someone you slept with once and never heard from again? Someone who went slinking shamefaced off in the night, without even bothering to say, “I’ll call”?
She’s not a slut. Don’t call her that.