“You need a courtesy car, love?” asked the manager, his head down as he filled in forms.
“Yeah,” she said. What did it matter if she got caught for driving without a license? Dan didn’t love her anymore. All the rules that mattered had already been broken.
There was a framed photo of a baby on his desk.
“Your baby?” asked Cat.
“Sure is!” The man stood up and grabbed a set of keys from a hook.
“I’ve got a little boy about the same age,” said Cat.
“Oh yeah?”
“He’s just started walking,” she said, as they walked out of the office. “My little boy.”
“Yeah?”
He took her to an aggressive-looking ute with a gigantic sign on the back: SAM’S SMASH REPAIRS, YOU SMASH ’EM, WE FIX ’EM.
“Hope you don’t mind the free advertising,” he said.
“No. Good slogan.” Because mothers were nice like that, generous with their praise.
His face became animated. “You like it? I thought of it. Says it straight.”
“It sure does.”
She gave him a smiling little waggle of her fingers as she drove slowly out of the driveway, the mother of a little boy, the sort of woman who feels a little nervous driving a big wide truck. But when she pulled out onto the highway, and put her foot hard on the accelerator, she felt the evil tentacles of her true self spreading and multiplying.
The sort of woman with an impending court case.
The sort of woman with a dry hung-over mouth going home to no one.
The sort of woman who automatically looks for the next side street when she sees a police car in the distance.
She and Dan decided to separate.
Separate.
She practiced conversations in her head:
“How’s Dan?”
“Oh, we’ve separated.”
“My husband and I are separated.”
Sep-a-rat-ed.
Four sad little syllables.
She went back to work seven days after her miscarriage, two days after Dan moved his things out of the flat.
It was the first time in her life that she had lived on her own. No sisters. No roommates. No boyfriend. No husband. Just her.
Cat the silent observer appeared to have moved in permanently. She felt herself watching everything she did, as if every move were significant.
Here I am waking up. This is the new quilt cover with big yellow sunflowers that Gemma gave me. Dan hasn’t even seen it. And I’m tracing each petal with my fingertip.
Here I am eating Vegemite on multigrain toast, a single, professional woman, living on her own, preparing for another long day at the office.
“Good morning!” Her secretary, Barb, popped her head around the cubicle door. “How are you? Oh God, you look terrible.”
This last sentence sounded to Cat like the most genuine thing Barb had ever said to her. She had long ago accepted that in spite of her excessively bubbly demeanor, Barb actually held Cat in the greatest contempt. It didn’t matter because she was an excellent secretary.
“Are you sure you’re well enough to be back?”
Nobody at work had known about the pregnancy.
“It was just a very bad flu.”
Cat looked up from her computer and caught Barb’s eyes rest momentarily on her ringless left hand.
“Well. Take it easy. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
Barb had been Cat’s secretary for two years, and this was the first time she’d ever offered to make her coffee. She was way, way above that.
Cat took a shaky breath. If Barb started being nice to her, she would fall apart.
“No thanks,” she said shortly.
One night, Frank and Maxine turned up at the flat, their arms laden with a strange collection of offerings.
Multivitamins. Frozen casseroles in neatly labeled Tupperware containers. An indoor plant. An electric wok.
“Why are you bringing me a wok?” asked Cat.
“It’s mine,” said Frank. “Thought I’d try my hand at that oriental stuff. But I never used it.”
“I told him you had a gas stove,” Maxine said irritably, but Cat saw her pat him gently on the lower back as she bustled by, filling up Cat’s freezer.
“What, no bun?” asked Cat in mock surprise.
Maxine pulled out a white paper bag. “Yes, of course. Make yourself useful, Frank. Put the jug on.”
Cat watched them acting as if they’d been these types of parents all her life.
“So, how’s the relationship going then?”
“Oh, your mother’s always been the woman for me!” said Frank.
“Bloody hell, Dad,” Cat said. “You barely spoke to each other for ten years.”
He winked at her. “I still adored her from afar.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake!” said Maxine.
“You two,” Cat reached for a piece of bun, “are very weird.”
“Weird, eh?” said Frank.
They both smiled at her, as if they couldn’t be more pleased to be weird.
There were moments when she thought she might survive. And there were other moments when she would catch herself thinking about her life as if it was a party she couldn’t wait to leave. If she lived to say eighty, then she was nearly halfway there. Death was the hot bath you promised yourself while you endured small talk and uncomfortable shoes. You could stop pretending to have a good time when you were dead.
One day at work, there was a mini-commotion outside Cat’s office door. She looked up to see a knot of cooing, rapturous women and sheepishly grinning men.
Somebody called out, “Come see, Cat! It’s Liam’s baby!”
Cat carefully plastered a delighted smile across her face and walked out to join them. She liked Liam, and this was his first baby, a little girl born back in November. Liam was worth a little fake delight.
“Oh, she’s beautiful, Liam,” she said automatically, but then she actually looked at the baby, clinging like a little koala against Liam’s chest, and she found herself saying, “Can I?” Without waiting for an answer she eased the baby out of his arms, responding to an overwhelming, physical desire.
“Someone’s feeling clucky!” cried the women.
The warmth of the baby’s body nestled against her own was an exquisite ache. The baby looked up at Cat pensively and suddenly smiled—a huge, gummy grin that sent the crowd wild.