The Long Hot Summer (24 page)

So in spite of everything it's a happy day, simply because we are all together again. The family unit. The lunch is delicious and we drink lots of wine. The proposed separation and divorce are talked about briefly, but not in a heavy way. The children say they are sad but that it's probably going to be for the best. I try not to cry again.

Later in the day, when the family has departed, we sit alone in front of the fire for a while, listening to music and drinking wine.

‘You know, David, I think this whole idea is wrong,' I say. ‘I don't want to end our marriage. I never really have. I know I am to blame and I am so, so sorry that I caused you so much pain, but isn't there some way we can work this out? Surely we can resolve things between us somehow.'

His response is swift and definite. There is no possibility of reconciliation. He has made up his mind. It's over. He feels sad, but that's it. He will never, ever weaken his resolve.

Late in the evening the question of where we will sleep crops up. When he spoke to me in France, David suggested that there was no reason why we couldn't continue sleeping in the same bed. Nothing sexual, just for mutual comfort, because we were both so upset at the end of our marriage that maintaining some closeness might help. At the time I found the notion strange and said it would be much more cut and dried if from the outset we slept in separate rooms. Now I am feeling the reverse; that I would like to be close to him. In my heart I am thinking that if we physically touch it may help to bridge the gap. Perhaps if we make love, his resolve may even soften. But he has made up the spare room for himself. We will be sleeping apart.

When I wake in the morning, I am momentarily convinced that the whole thing was just a dream. I have imagined it. I can't possibly be getting divorced from David. He brings me tea and bread with butter in bed as he has done for so many years and I find myself incapable of speaking. A numbness has descended.

David has to drive to Sydney for a funeral. It gives me a day to wander around the house and the farm recovering from my jetlag. David is a great one for taking down phone messages on scraps of paper and leaving them lying around for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. By the phone in the kitchen I find
an old envelope with a list of messages. Some are obviously messages from me because I recognise the times I have called from France. He writes ‘my love' as the name of the person calling. Then at the end of the list are two messages written at times that could not possibly have been from me. I would have been in transit. For the caller he has written ‘my other love'. I ponder for a moment then phone him on his mobile.

‘Who is this “other love” person?' I ask.

He is uncomfortable and can't speak. He's in a noisy pub with a large crowd of friends. It's the wake. He laughs it off, but I still feel unsettled by it.
Other love
. What does it mean? But when he gets back late that night, I am already asleep.

I have an appointment the following day with a specialist in Orange because my throat has been giving me problems. My voice sometimes sounds harsh and gravelly and I am concerned I may have grown nodules on my vocal cords – a common problem for singers and people like me who talk a lot. As I am scheduled to give more than ten speeches – including several lengthy literary lunches – during the book promotional tour, I am worried that my voice won't last the distance. It's more than an hour's drive to Orange and David insists on taking me.

‘No matter what happens between us, I want to be around to support you,' he says.

In the car I am again incapable of saying much. I really don't know what to say any more. As we drive along he starts another conversation, somewhat hesitantly.

‘You know how you were asking me about that message beside the phone yesterday?' he starts. ‘The “other love” message? And do you remember when we were talking on the phone in France and you asked if there was someone else?'

‘Mmm,' I say.

‘Well, there is someone else. It's not definite yet. Nothing's actually happened. But I'm happy because I have the possibility of a new relationship.'

Total silence from me.

The words tumble out. When I was in France, he was phoned by a South African woman writer who was put in contact with him by some of the filmmakers he worked with during the 1980s. She was visiting eastern Australia for a few days and David offered to show her around. She visited the farm briefly and he drove her around the local countryside. He also showed her the sights of Sydney.

On the day she was returning to Africa he drove her to the airport. Out of the blue she made a declaration of love to him. He couldn't have been more surprised. She told him that from the moment she first saw him she felt overwhelmed and that she was convinced she was in love with him. Totally. Love at first sight. During her visit he had screened the ‘Australian Story' documentary and she had been deeply affected by it. Moved and filled with compassion for his situation. They spent a few moments in the car holding each other and kissing before she left.

He was overwhelmed. At the moment in his life when he felt at his lowest ebb, when his wife of thirty-three years had betrayed him not once but twice, when he felt his self-esteem had hit rock bottom, somebody had fallen madly in love with him. It had turned his life, and mine, upside down.

Sitting in the doctor's waiting room, I am light-headed and disorientated. I have sent David away to wait for me in the car. I can't stand the thought of being near him, but I don't quite know why. It's a strange sensation when you are hit with a piece of information that is so powerful and so painful to assimilate that you feel disembodied. I suppose it was just how David felt when he first discovered I was having an affair in France. Stunned with disbelief. Finally I understand. For two years, David has been asking me to put myself in his shoes; to imagine how he must be feeling, and I couldn't. Now I can.

The doctor is efficient and speaks with a strong South African accent. I have to swallow a tiny camera inserted through my right nostril so he can examine my throat in detail. He tells me my throat and vocal cords are perfectly healthy, it's just that I must have been dehydrated which has caused the vocal cords to dry out. I need to drink lots of water during the day to wash them clean and prevent them from drying out again. The long hot summer in France probably contributed to my symptoms.

I ask him where he is from and he tells me Johannesburg. I immediately start telling him about
Mapantsula
, the anti-apartheid film David made there in 1987. As I speak, tears start rolling down my cheeks. Here I am telling this doctor – a total stranger – about my husband, of whom I am so proud. Telling him about a film that was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and won for David an Australian Human Rights Film Award.

But he's no longer my husband. He's my ex-husband. And soon he will probably be somebody else's husband. I have lost him and I have nobody to blame but myself.

Why am I so shocked by what has just happened? Surely this is what I should have expected. Should have known would happen. It is the logical outcome of the situation I created. It is what I deserve, given my outrageous behaviour and reckless disregard for David and for our marriage. I am getting my comeuppance. My just desserts. How could I have imagined that David would just sit quietly on the sidelines and wait for me to get my wild sexual urges out of my system? How could I have ignored the fact that he had been devastated and humiliated about every aspect of the last three years? The affairs. The book. The documentary. I have been selfish and self-centred and arrogant. So arrogant that I took for granted that David would not ever be interested in another woman. That any other woman would fall in love with him.

I have been a fool. And now I am to pay the price.

In the car on the way back from Orange we have the most terrible fight we have ever had in our lives together. We've had some pretty passionate rows over the years, but nothing to touch this. To this day I can't remember exactly what is said or what sparked his outburst, but it is terrifying in its intensity. I have no idea how David doesn't crash the car or have a heart attack. For the first time ever he expresses his anger about what has happened. A part of him now hates me so vehemently that I am convinced he could kill me, he feels it so deeply. His words are like a thousand knives cutting into my flesh and they go on and on for miles and miles as he drives. Slicing through me.

He wants me to leave. Now. Pack my bags immediately and get out. Go. He wants never to see me again. So many things have driven him to this point of fury. Not just the two affairs but the fact that I didn't tell him about being attacked by the Englishman. That I have had unprotected sex with my two lovers and therefore put not just myself but also him at risk of catching
a sexually transmitted disease. That I have seemed oblivious to his pain. That I have ignored his heartfelt letters. He goes on and on and calls me names so terrible that I could never ever repeat them.

When the car pulls into the farm shed I turn and grab hold of him. We are both shaking and crying. I just hold him and hold him and say I can't go now. I will go, but not now. I can't leave him in this terrible state. I am frightened for him. I am frightened for both of us. I cling to him and slowly he starts to calm down. To breathe more normally. We have passed through the eye of the storm and are now on the other side.

It's getting late. I prepare a simple meal with the little energy I can muster and we shadow each other, barely speaking. Going through the motions. Trying to regain a little normality. After dinner and a few glasses of wine, we start to unwind a little more. I light the fire in the sitting room and we sit together. He tells me that he has phoned his woman friend in South Africa to tell her that he has told me the full story. They had apparently agreed that they would keep their developing relationship to themselves until after we had formally separated or divorced. They wanted it considered as a separate issue to our marriage breakdown. From David's perspective they are two entirely different events and not connected in any way.

After the shattering events of this afternoon, I am consumed by a desire for closeness to David. As if some tenderness between us will somehow help expunge the horror of our fight. I move close to him on the sofa and put my arms around him. We kiss and speak softly, both apologising for the terrible scene, for the hatred and the anger and the bitter words. I desperately want to make love. Not to reclaim David from the arms of his new lover
but for my own comfort. A balm to smooth away some of the pain. David draws back and says it's now impossible for him to make love to me. That he can never make love to me again. He has promised his new woman that there will be no intimacy between us. He is saving his love for her.

David was my first true lover. Although I had a serious teenage boyfriend whom I loved deeply for three years before I met David, it was an immature relationship. Certainly it was less than satisfactory sexually, although I didn't realise it at the time. When you haven't had an orgasm you don't know what one feels like. You don't realise what you are missing out on.

David was eleven years older than me and had been through a ten-year marriage and many lovers. His maturity and experience were a revelation to me and I was totally engulfed by the joy of sex for the first time. The first few years we were together we made love every single day, sometimes more than once. It was an intense intimacy the like of which I had never experienced. In every sense David introduced me to the ways of love. His tenderness released me from inhibition and his passion freed me from the fears I had about my own sexual inadequacies. I had low self-esteem and a negative body image. David made me feel beautiful and desirable for the very first time.

Throughout our lives together our sexual bond remained strong. Through lengthy separations when David was away working. Through pregnancies, births and breast-feeding. Through the trials and tribulations of raising four children from toddlerhood to adulthood while managing two demanding
careers. We certainly didn't make love every day as we had once when young and first in love, but the passion still remained. I took it for granted. I suppose he took it for granted too.