Each Way Bet (27 page)

‘Don’t tell me you’re going out there?’ Megan looked worried, as if first she had witnessed her father go insane and now it appeared that her mother was about to follow suit. ‘It’s raining!’

‘Me wanna come,’ muttered Cricket crossly, tugging on Jill’s pant leg.

‘Talk properly,’ said Jill absentmindedly as she cast a last glance at the umbrella on the roof. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m going out there. I can’t very well let your father sit up there all night, can I? In the meantime, you can get the leftovers out of the fridge and make yourselves a scratch meal. Watch a video or something.’

Jill left her children, and the cat, each still positioned on the couch, watching her progress as she closed the sliding door behind her and crossed the damp lawn. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle that was just heavy enough to irritate, and puddles were starting to form on the uneven ground. As she got closer to the shed, she could see Jack’s legs stretched out from underneath the umbrella, and also what looked like her blue plastic picnic hamper by his side. Her heart clenched, missed a beat and took a second to recover its rhythm.

‘How do I get up?’ she called.

‘Oh, there you are!’ Jack’s face poked around the edge of the umbrella. ‘I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.’

‘No, never,’ Jill replied airily, ‘although I do think you’ve taken leave of your senses.’

‘
Au contraire
,’ said Jack, with a deplorable French accent. ‘Just climb up that tree there. I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Okay.’ Jill walked around to the side of the shed where the
only remaining gum tree stood cushioned between the shed and the side fence. She put a foot into the bottommost fork and heaved herself up, climbing slowly until she was able to peer over the top of the corrugated iron roof. Jack, who was kneeling at the edge now, reached out a hand and helped her cross onto the roof. Then they scurried under the umbrella and out of the rain. While they got themselves comfortable, Jill took stock of her surroundings.

The shed roof had definitely not worn terribly well with the passage of years. The once shiny corrugations were now a dull pewter colour with rusty patches around each of the nail holes, and no fewer than six sodden, mildewy looking tennis balls were scattered around the outer edges. But the spot that Jack had selected for his sit-in was the most shaded area on the entire roof, with the gum tree’s branches spread out above them like a leafy canopy. Jack had placed the huge umbrella at an angle against the direction of the rain and the end result was a perfectly dry circular area, as long as you kept your legs folded underneath yourself or sat cross-legged. Judging by the sodden bottom half of his cargo pants, Jack obviously hadn’t.

But it was what he had placed in front of the makeshift shelter that drew Jill’s attention. There, stuck crookedly into one of the rusted areas of the roof, was the top half of her rose bush, looking particularly exotic against the dull colour of the roof around it. Jill stared at it for several minutes, and eventually decided it had never looked better. Next to it was the picnic hamper Jill had spotted and, as she glanced at it, Jack leant forward and unclipped it.

‘Champagne?’

‘Why, thank you!’

‘Cheese? Salami? Crackers?’

‘My god!’

‘Now you’re getting the idea.’ Jack poured some champagne
into a flute and passed it over. ‘You may genuflect later.’

‘Where did this come from?’ Jill shook her head in amazement, looking from the roses to the champagne, resting in a silver ice-bucket, and then to the red plastic plate of crackers, leftover dip, salami and small, uneven cubes of cheese. There were even serviettes.

‘The fridge, mostly.’

‘No, I meant the
idea
! Where did it
come
from?’

‘Oh.’ Jack put the plate of savouries down between them and sighed, stretching his legs back out into the rain. ‘I saw you, sitting out the front after your sister left. And you looked so . . . miserable. So I thought we needed to talk, somewhere the kids aren’t likely to come.’

‘No, they just think you’ve gone mad.’

Automatically, both Jill and Jack peered around the umbrella towards the house and there, still plastered against the window staring out into the backyard, were their four bemused offspring. They bobbed back under the umbrella again and grinned at each other.

‘I feel like I’m fifteen again, smoking in the shelter shed,’ said Jill.

‘I know what you mean.’ Jack poured himself a glass of champagne. ‘Remember the last time we came up here?’

‘Yes . . . I do.’

‘Fancy a repeat performance?’

‘In the rain? With our audience over there?’

‘Live a little,’ Jack leered at her. ‘We could start here and work our way backwards. Christen the house all over again.’

‘And I doubt the kids would mind if they opened the linen cupboard to get a towel and got an eyeful instead.’

‘At least it might turn Megan off sex for another decade or so.’

‘God . . .’ Jill paled as she remembered the near miss of this
afternoon.

Jack’s face darkened. ‘Yeah, I just can’t get my head around it. My little girl. I can hardly look at her at the moment. She’ll have to be grounded for life.’

‘Do you know –’ Jill took a sip of champagne and turned to face Jack – ‘I would never have thought it’d be Megan. Matt, sure, and maybe Kate in a few years – but Megan?’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘But I’m looking forward to Justin coming over,’ Jill said with a slow smile.

‘That’s true!’ Jack narrowed his eyes. ‘By the time I’m finished with him, he’ll be volunteering for chemical castration.’

‘Or we can just perform it ourselves.’

‘Even better.’

They sat in silence for a few moments, savouring the image of Justin being forcibly restrained prior to the operation. Jill dunked a cracker into the dip and slid it into her mouth, then washed it down with another gulp of champagne. From where she sat she could see the rain dripping off the outer branches of the gum tree, and splashing onto the roof and the replanted rose bush. Automatically she looked down to the backyard, where the bottom half squatted in stunted splendour, and then back to the part that was now blooming straight out of the roof. She chewed her lip thoughtfully.

‘Sorry,’ said Jack, ‘about before. The rose bush – it was stupid.’

‘Yes.’ She reached out and took one of his hands over to her lap, tracing the edges of the Band-Aids that covered it liberally. ‘Look at you, you’ve been in the wars today, haven’t you? How’s your side – where the clippers got you?’

‘Bloody sore, actually. But I’ll live.’

‘Good. And I like the roses up here – it’s different. Who else has a garden on their shed roof?’

‘No-one,’ Jack grinned. ‘For good reason. But I
am
sorry. I
just didn’t think, I was so . . . so –’

‘I know.’ Jill took a deep breath. ‘And I’m sorry too. I should have spoken to you a long time ago, and certainly before I spoke to Emily.’

‘Yeah. That hurt.’

‘It wasn’t deliberate, you know.’ Jill pressed down the corner of a Band-Aid that was starting to curl away. ‘It just sort of . . . happened. And then when she offered me her place for the night – I couldn’t resist. I just had to get away.’

‘It’s that bad, is it?’

‘Yes. It’s that bad.’

‘Ah.’ Jack took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. ‘So you want to split up.’

‘What?’ Jill turned to him in surprise. ‘No, of course I don’t!’

‘You
don’t
?’

‘No, I don’t! Where on earth did you get that idea?’

‘But that’s what your sister said.’ Jack looked stunned as he tried to take this in. ‘That’s what I thought – all day. That you wanted to leave . . . break up. Separate.’

‘Oh.’

‘So did you? I mean, did you
say
that?’

‘Yes.’ Jill decided that this was her one chance to be totally honest, come what may. ‘I did. I told her that I didn’t know what else to do, that I was dying inside – that I was desperate.’

‘I see.’

‘But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since then, and there’re a couple of things I’ve realised.’ Jill turned his hand over again and stared down at it. ‘The main one is that I don’t want to lose you all.’

‘Us all. All of us.’

‘That’s right.’

Jack took his hand back abruptly. ‘That’s not good enough.
I don’t want you to stay just because you want to keep us
all
together. We always said we wouldn’t end up one of those couples who stay together for the sake of the kids and really can’t stand the sight of each other. We’d be better off apart.’

‘But that –’

‘So I need to know one thing,’ Jack continued without missing a beat, ‘are you still in love with me or not?’

‘I am,’ said Jill, surprising herself with her lack of hesitation. ‘I
am
! I really am! You idiot!’

‘You
are
?’

‘I am!’

‘Well, then –’

‘No, your turn now,’ Jill interrupted quickly. ‘What about you? And me?’

‘If you’re asking me whether I’m still in love with you, yes – I am. Don’t think I ever stopped. Except for that time you shaved me and took a chunk out of my chin. Oh, and when you told me to go screw myself when you were giving birth to Matt. Oh, and –’

‘Shut up,’ Jill grabbed his hand again and kissed it. ‘At least that’s one thing we’ve resolved.’

‘So, tell me,’ Jack looked at his hand as it lay within hers, ‘what is it? I’m confused.’

Jill sighed with the enormity of having to explain. ‘You’re not the only one.’

‘Well, now,
that
presents a problem. What’s his name?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Bad joke,’ Jack grinned. ‘Just trying to lighten the moment.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Sorry. Come on, tell me.’

Jill let go of Jack’s hand to take another sip of champagne and give herself time to formulate her words. ‘I know we decided when the kids came along that I’d stay home with
them, and don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.’

‘But . . . ?’

‘That’s right. But I’ve had enough. I thought I’d had enough of everything, you know,
everything
. Then having last night and this morning to think – and even sitting back a bit today and then – you know what really brought it home?’

‘What?’

‘Megan. When we thought she was pregnant.’ Jill took his hand again and this time wrapped it within both of her own. ‘And your reaction to it. A lot of guys would be pointing the finger and trying to blame someone, or running around punching walls or whatever. But you . . . not you. And, even before we found out that she wasn’t, I thought I don’t want to lose that. Or us.’

‘Good,’ said Jack shortly, picking up the savouries plate with his spare hand and tossing it out into the rain.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Jill, astounded.

‘This.’ Jack put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. ‘Now go on. Tell me.’

‘Okay.’ Jill leant forward and kissed him on the cheek before continuing. ‘So what it comes down to is that I’m hating the whole stay-at-home stuff now. I’ve been doing it for eighteen odd years and it’s really worn thin.’

‘Well, if it hadn’t been for Cricket, you
wouldn’t
still be doing it.’

‘I know, and that’s just it. I mean, I don’t regret her for a minute but . . .’

‘Crèche?’

‘No, for a number of reasons,’ Jill sighed. ‘Maybe if we’d sent her since she was little. But she’s all set to go the kinder up the street next year, with all her friends, and no crèches service that kinder at all. So she’d have to start over and . . . Cricket
being Cricket –’

‘She’s better off with people who know her.’

‘And her unusual method of, shall we say, verbalisation.’

‘And her swearing.’

‘That’s what I –’ Jill looked up at his face and realised he was laughing, so she elbowed him. ‘Idiot. So, any ideas?’

‘Boarding school. For the lot of them.’ Jack thought for a moment. ‘An all-girls one for Megan.’

‘This is serious. Jack, I’m not going to last another year. And then we’ve still got the preps year with half-day timings for the first few months. And all the things you’re supposed to
do
with them – reading and all that. I mean, ever since Cricket was born I feel like I’ve made all the sacrifices and –’ Jill put a finger on his mouth briefly to stop him interrupting – ‘I know it’s not been easy for you either, but I
loved
my job.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s like, when do I get to live
my
dream?’

‘If it’s that one you had about George Clooney, the answer is never.’

‘It feels like the answer is never anyway.’

Jack ran his hand through his hair and sighed as he gave her a squeeze. Then they sat together watching the rain fall on the roof beyond the umbrella. A breeze was starting to spring up and the branches of the gum tree dipped and swayed, sending droplets of water cascading in an arc before them. The crackers and salami, which had tumbled off the red plastic plate, lay sodden in the grooves of the corrugated iron, while the plate itself travelled ever so slowly towards the guttering.

‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jill lay her head down on his shoulder again. ‘I suppose I felt guilty that I wasn’t coping. And what could you have done, anyhow? What can you do now? There
is
no answer.’

‘Yes, there is.’

‘What?’ Jill drew back and looked at him with a frown. ‘What answer?’

‘It’s simple. We trade places.’

‘What!’

‘Well, not trade, exactly. You’ll have to find your own job, of course. But I’ll take a couple of years’ leave without pay and stay home. And you become the breadwinner.’

‘
What
!’

‘Don’t tell me you never thought of that?’ Jack looked at her curiously. ‘I would have thought it’d be obvious.’

‘Ah . . . no. Not really.’

‘So what do you think, then?’

‘I think . . .’ said Jill, doing just that, ‘I think that it’s got possibilities.’

‘So that’s that.’ Jack nodded, obviously pleased with himself. ‘I let them know that I’ll soon be taking the rest of my long service leave, followed by leave without pay. I might even get some drafting jobs to do at home. But we’ll start with eighteen months all up and assess the situation when we get there. In the meantime, you start job-hunting and as soon as you land one you’re happy with, I give notice and Bob’s your uncle. All settled.’