the one who OK had great abs but did he really need to be so ready to go shirtless at the end-of-year picnics, were getting it on.
‘Have you seen Three Sisters, at the Mercury?’ Brenda asked. ‘It’s the most wonderful production.’
‘Yes. I know.’ Evelyn had gripped the ridged handle of the Stanley knife for popping balloons hard in her fist. ‘It made me want to have an affair too.’
Now Brenda’s eyes flicked across the playground to Evelyn’s and away, and she pushed her hair back with one hand and kept on talking, and Tania shifted awkwardly on her feet. She should go over and apologise. She should lie and blame the drink, or invent some marital strife or a sick parent, an entity from outside that had taken over her body and opened the mouth and made it say rude hurtful things that she could not help. Why was she such a bitch? The bell rang, releasing her, and she looked amongst the running children for her daughter’s shining head, her windmill arms. God damn it, the asphalt was vertiginous, there was that hole again, she wanted to fill up with pastries, buns, the sort of stodge she used to cram in her mouth when she was younger and it didn’t matter. Distractions, distractions. Food, then sex, then endless preschool craft then school help, remedial reading, and now she had to do something else or she was going to turn into one of those uber-fit freaks you saw at aerobics, the women who did two classes back to back, anything to fill the hours between mothering and lunch. Or – she felt the whisper slide across her mind – she would find someone, a man, a way to lose control.
That night she sat next to Nathan while he watched Newsnight. In the ad break he said, ‘Have you heard anything about the job?’
Evelyn said, ‘No.’
‘It’s really slack of them. You should call.’
‘I had a lover,’ Evelyn imagined saying, ‘that I’ve never told anyone about.’ Nathan would turn to her, then back to the TV, then press mute and swivel sideways on the sofa. ‘Tell me about it.’ Oh it would be good if he already knew. Would she say the next bit? Could she talk about that, the way things were with her and Daniel, the things they did to each other, the person she was before she became this respectable (narcissistic, bored, paranoid) housewife? How would it go? He’d shrink back a bit. Be embarrassed. Ask if she had ever been abused. Or want to try it, and get it wrong.
Nathan wouldn’t let it drop about the job. Evelyn told him again she had sent the questionnaire off and was waiting to hear, but perhaps should start looking for other work anyway. Kimiko needed help in the old flower shop.
‘But you wanted to be involved? I don’t get it, you were so set on doing something that counts.’
Evelyn shrugged. ‘Maybe making people nice bouquets for their birthdays is important. Wedding flowers, funeral wreaths, doing something beautiful, better than a windowless room with your ear getting sore from the phone the whole day.’
‘You could do that and then I’d bring you flowers.’ He pressed the remote and the screen fizzed to black and her husband stood over her, smiling down, and said, ‘Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t work for that guy. You’re too cute to be in politics. Some dork will just try and get you into bed.’
After he left for his card game Evelyn turned the stereo up full bore and lay on the floor and let the vibrations run through her until Louisa came and shook her wrist and said, ‘Turn it down, Mum, I’m trying to get to sleep.’ She poured a glass of wine and reached for the phone to call her sister, then remembered that Dorothy, pregnant again, was in bed at the same time as her kids these days.
She looked for Daniel in the phone directory. Seven D. Hills in Auckland. She could try the numbers one by one, though Daniel would surely not be here, wouldn’t have a listed number, maybe not even a phone. He was probably somewhere like Prague, being revolutionary with a Czech hottie he’d met at clown school. Or he would answer. And then what? He wouldn’t know it was her, couldn’t tell from her breathing. ‘This is Evelyn, obsessing about you.’ Obsessing was too strong a word. What this was, was trying to integrate. Either integration