Tiddas (34 page)

The chefs were focusing on their work, the waitstaff flitted around the restaurant taking orders and delivering meals, and the tiddas read their menus, waiting for some direction from their hostess.

‘It's hard to believe that a building that once housed all the means to power the entire Brisbane tramway system now has theatre, bars
and
nice restaurants.' To everyone's relief, Veronica was trying to engage them all in conversation.

Nadine used the opportunity to speak, even though there was no natural segue. She took a deep breath. ‘I'm sorry about everything – my behaviour, what I said to you, Xanthe, is unforgiveable.'

‘It's okay, Nadine, it was partly true. I do run off a lot, and it must be annoying.'

‘No, you're trying to have a baby; you have to do what you have to do. And the way I said it, I'm sure I was vile. Please forgive me.' Nadine was contrite, sincere.

Xanthe smiled warmly, a lump in her throat.

‘And Veronica, my friend, your new style is enviable, really. You look fabulous. I could do with some help with my own image. God knows, it's getting tired. And you've inspired me.' Her words were genuine and touched her friend's heart.

‘Really?' Veronica couldn't recall ever inspiring anyone.

‘Yes, that's why I'm going shopping this weekend, new wardrobe, new look and hopefully new me.'

Ellen was tempted to say something, but wasn't sure a wisecrack would go down well at the moment, even with the kinder Nadine at the table.

Nadine knew her friend well enough to know Ellen would be biting her lip. ‘You know I love you, Ellen, don't you?'

Ellen nodded.

‘I mean, you give as good as you get most of the time, but I know I totally overstepped the mark last time. I promise I won't do it again.'

While everyone wanted to believe that was the truth, they were all privately sceptical. Still, Ellen believed her tidda meant it. ‘That's good enough for me. I've missed our little to-ing and fro-ing.'

Nadine sighed with relief, knowing she'd received some forgiveness, but she was really worried about her sister-in-law.

‘And Izzy.' She breathed deeply again. ‘I'm sorry you find me an embarrassment to your family. You must know I love Richard more than life itself.'

‘Of course I know that,' Izzy said, but it wasn't her love for Richard that Izzy was worried about.

‘And I love you too,' Nadine confirmed. ‘And I hate that your mum thinks I've shamed your family.' She hung her head.

‘Mum'll get over it,' Izzy said, only half-believing it. Her mother wasn't big on forgiveness but for her son she'd do almost anything. ‘What's going on though, Nadine? We're all worried about you, and . . .' She stopped short of mentioning Nadine's drinking problem.

‘I know it's not an excuse, but part of the reason I've been so crazy lately is that I'm ill.'

Izzy looked at her sister-in-law and immediately thought liver cancer. Xanthe thought breast cancer. Veronica's ex-doctor's-wife mind ran a list through her head, and Ellen just felt bad for all the bitching she'd done about Nadine over the last few months.

‘What is it?' Izzy rested her hand on Nadine's to stop it from shaking.

‘I'm going through menopause,' Nadine said dramatically.

‘Oh for fuck's sake, Nadine!' Ellen just couldn't contain herself. ‘It isn't a fucking illness, it's a fucking life cycle, like puberty for grown-ups.'

‘Thanks for the sympathy, Ellen; you'll feel differently as soon as you start getting the symptoms.'

‘Sympathy? God, you're so dramatic sometimes. Are you in character or something?' Ellen was right back where she and Nadine had left off months ago; the apologies and forgiveness and guilt had dissipated as quickly as they had appeared.

‘I think I've started as well, Nadine, but I think at our age, we're probably just peri-menopausal,' Veronica said, feeling some sympathy. ‘I've had night sweats, and I'm not sleeping well.'

‘Really? God, I have to turn my pillow over constantly for something cool. Richard is going insane. I kick the covers off both of us nearly every night.'

‘Sometimes when I'm driving, the heat on my back from the seat is so unbearable I have to lean forward.' Veronica continued with her symptoms and Nadine was grateful for some understanding, although the others didn't look overly concerned.

‘Aside from the hot flushes, I keep having these strange out of body experiences and they scare me,' Nadine said. ‘And I find concentrating hard, but this is the worst thing: I'm getting violent.'

‘What?' the other women chorused, concerned for what she had already done, and might do next. Up until now they'd assumed she was just making excuses for her bad behaviour when drinking.

‘Guess I better move the butter knife then,' Ellen said sarcastically.

‘Richard swears I nearly killed him a couple of times.'

‘What?' Izzy was shocked.

‘My hormones make me insane and his snoring was freaking me out and I tried suffocating him in his sleep. Twice!' A smirk crept across her face. ‘The only positive is that it gave me an idea for a novel.'

‘Nadine!' Izzy wasn't impressed.

‘I'm joking. I actually cried for a week with guilt.'

‘And so you should,' Izzy said, the only one of the women game enough to have a dig, because she was, after all, family.

‘Everything is topsy-turvy for me: my emotions, my mind, my body. I'm completely out of control and the hot flushes not only nearly made me go nuts, they're also embarrassing.' Nadine looked around the restaurant to make sure no-one could hear. It was rare for her do that, but tonight she was sober. ‘I was doing a book event when a uni student wanted to ask me some questions about his masters. I'm standing there feeling this flush come over me and my damned glasses fogged up.'

‘No way!' Ellen laughed.

‘I've never been so embarrassed in all my life. I swear he thought it was because of
him
!'

‘What did you do?' Veronica felt for her tidda, knowing exactly what she was feeling.

‘Nothing, what could I do? I gave him the advice and moved away as quickly as I could. Richard thought it was hilarious.'

‘So what are you doing about it then?' Xanthe asked, hoping that
she
didn't slip into peri-menopausal hysteria before falling pregnant, but then perhaps she wasn't falling pregnant because she was already there. She thought she could feel a hot flush coming on but then figured it was like getting an itchy head the minute someone mentioned the word lice.

‘I'm using HRT patches, they're great.' Nadine told them.

‘Where are they?' Ellen asked.

‘In the fridge.'

‘No, idiot, where on your body?' Ellen said, laughing.

And the tiddas all joined in. It was the first laugh they'd had together for some time.

As the laughter subsided the waiter came to take drink orders.

‘Nothing for me, thanks,' Nadine said to everyone's surprise.

‘Not drinking?' Izzy asked, happy her sister-in-law had finally come to terms with her problem.

‘I think we all know it doesn't help my moods or my behaviour.' Nadine looked at the table, unable for the moment to look at her friends. ‘I need some help, I know that.'

‘We'll help you,' Veronica said, concerned for her friend and knowing how much support her tiddas had given her in recent months.

‘I've got some ideas.' Nadine reached into her handbag and pulled out some brochures. ‘I need to get out of the house, out of my routine, and I need to
do
something rather than sit and write and create scenarios for other people, even if they
are
characters.' She handed around the pamphlets on Bikram yoga, rock climbing, rowing.

‘Wow,' Xanthe said. ‘You're going all out, aren't you?'

‘I need to be busy.'

‘I can take you to Bikram if you want. I'd love the company.' Xanthe was genuinely keen.

‘Great, and I'm open to other ideas as well.' Nadine was positive, happy. Best of all, she wasn't drunk.

Izzy wondered if her sister-in-law had replaced the grog with pills instead.

‘You just need some balance in life, Nadine. You don't have to go from one extreme to another,' Xanthe reassured her.

And you probably should go to counselling
, Izzy thought, but didn't say out loud.

Ellen woke up with Craig's leg over hers. She lay face down, naked, exhausted from an afternoon that had made her never want to leave her bed, ever. Craig snored quietly and she didn't want to wake him. She just repositioned her head more comfortably on the pillow and lay there looking at him; at the lines around his eyes, the bushiness of his eyebrows, the remnants of her lipstick around his mouth. She snorted at the thought of the Clinique red on his dick as well. She'd check that out later, when he was awake.

As the sun started to set she began to get hungry. She needed to eat, but she didn't want to wake him. And she had no food in her flat. They'd have to go out or order in. She didn't care; she just wanted to be with him, near him, next to him, under him. As long as he was not far away.

Craig's phone rang and he jumped up, startled.

‘Leave it,' Ellen said.

‘I can't, it might be work.'

He got out of bed, strolling in all his naked glory to where his jeans lay tangled on the floor.

Ellen was agitated, anxious; she didn't want him to leave.

‘Yeah mate, no worries, about an hour, yep.'

She was getting angry and upset.

‘Gotta go, darl,' he said.

‘Come here first,' she said, still naked with the sheet across her.

‘Oh, you make me weak. I have nothing left for you, babe, you've drained me!'

‘Just kiss me.' She pulled him to her.

He couldn't resist, he didn't want to. They made love again, this time with a sense of urgency, and Ellen wondered if it was because he had to leave. To his credit, Craig wasn't a selfish lover, not one to ‘eat and run', as he so eloquently put it once. Post-coital, he cradled her, with what she thought was caring.

‘I need to tell you something,' she said cautiously.

‘This can't be good; it never is when a woman says that.' He took a deep breath. ‘Let me guess, you don't want to see me anymore,' he said flatly.

‘No!' She sat up. ‘I want to see
more
of you. Just you, and just me. I want it to be us.'

As the words came out she wished she'd scripted it better; less pathetic, less teenager-ish, perhaps even a little less needy. But there it was and once it was out in the universe there was nothing she could do about it.

‘Oh babe, why would you change this?' He gently pinched her nipple as if it were a toy. ‘What we have is good, no?'

‘It's good, yes, but I want more.' She took his hand in hers awkwardly.

‘Ah, now you're being greedy. You want more than this?'
He grabbed his larger than average dick, which they both knew was more than most women could handle.

‘I'm falling in love with you.'

‘Oh.'

Silence fell in the room; all either of them could hear was the traffic on the Story Bridge that had suddenly risen in decibels.

‘You'd better go,' Ellen said, not with anger, not in tears, just matter-of-factly.

Craig dressed quickly, walked to the bed where Ellen still sat, pretending to flick through stations on the television. He kissed her on the cheek.

‘I'll call you,' he whispered.

‘Don't bother,' she said. ‘No point.'

Ellen didn't want a man who wanted to see other women. Not anymore. She was angry with herself, with her friends for having encouraged her to tell him. It was against her nature to fall in love, to want only one man who would, as Craig had demonstrated, just leave anyway. The rejection stung.

Her phone beeped with a text five minutes later. She hoped it said he was falling in love too, that he was just scared. That he was on his way back. Instead it simply read:

Are you okay?

She responded:

I'm fine. But a man who wants to fuck you but doesn't want a relationship with you is an arsehole. Delete my number!

She waited for a reply but it never came. What could he say to that anyway?

Ellen showered, crying as the water ran down her face, down her body – the one that had been much loved and caressed over the course of the afternoon. She wasn't going to take the humiliating blow lying down, well not lying down alone anyway, so she pulled on a pair of jeans and a tight red top and walked with determined steps to the Story Bridge Hotel.

There were men everywhere when she arrived. The pub was known for being a pick-up joint. Plenty of bars, plenty of options, plenty of mistakes to be made at her local. She had never ‘scored' at the Story Bridge before, though. She could easily avoid the men there if she wanted; they were all looking at women ten or more years younger than her anyway. But tonight she was on a mission; a revenge root could be had, but all she wanted was a little attention. A little something to tell her she was worth more than an afternoon shag. Craig had made her feel worthless – and worse, she had let him.