Love and Punishment Read online

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘It’s . . . it’s because of me. I’m just in a weird place at the moment. I don’t think I’ve got anything to offer . . . anyone. So . . .’

  ‘Hey, I understand! It’s fine. Fine. It’s all just, you know . . . fine with me.’ Dave jumped to his feet. ‘So I guess I’ll see you round . . . probably in the kitchen . . .’

  He backed out the door awkwardly and closed it softly after him.

  Francie threw herself onto the bed and pulled the covers over her head. The emotion came in waves, flooding and then receding. A tidal pool of tears. Soon she slipped under the surface and was asleep.

  Francie dreamed she was a mermaid. She was sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean. Her wet hair was wrapped around her face and when she scraped it away she could see she had a tail of glittering scales carved from solid emerald.

  She was listening to the waves sighing the loneliest song in the world. This song was so lonely that one of every kind of creature in the ocean came to ask her to make it stop.

  They crowded around Francie’s rock looking up at her. One seal, one whale, one dolphin, one turtle, one of every kind of fish in the sea. And there were shells, again one of each kind, floating just near her. There was a starfish, a seahorse, a spiny shelled lobster, all staring at her with despairing black eyes.

  Please make it stop, they all pleaded with her, but the song went on without end. Every peak of every wave sounded another desolate note.

  Then out on the horizon a sailing ship with golden masts appeared. As it came closer Francie could see two figures in white robes standing on the deck holding hands. It was Nick and Poppy. The ship came so close to the rock she was sitting on she could see they were wearing braided wreaths of silver seaweed and pearls on their brows.

  Francie tried to cry out to them, but the keening song of the ocean drowned her calls. Nick and Poppy were smiling at her and waving as the ship sailed right on past and into the setting sun. The last she saw of the ship was its black silhouette disappearing from view. The wash from the mighty vessel churned the water around Francie’s rock, washing over it and sweeping her away.

  As she fell back through the depths Francie tried to move her emerald tail but it weighed her down like an anchor. She reached her hands for the surface as she went down, down into blackness. Looking up through strands of her own hair, as thick and heavy as kelp, Francie opened her mouth to take a breath. All was liquid. As her lungs filled with water she saw the sun shining on the sea’s surface for the very last time.

  Francie sat up in bed with her damp hair plastered to her face and gulping for air.

  This time she saw that Nick and Poppy not only ruled her waking life, but the unfathomable immensity of her subconscious as well. She knew she had to make a swim for it or at least drown trying.

  Thirteen

  Francie watched Nick dodge the Saturday night traffic on Bourke Street. His hands were captured in the pockets of a charcoal coloured three-quarter length overcoat. His head was battened down against the wind. She’d never seen the coat before and thought how odd that was. She had once known every item in Nick’s wardrobe. He was like a snake, shedding his five-year-old skin and growing a new one.

  She felt she could recognise him amongst a million people by the way he walked. He strode purposefully and always looked as if he was late. Francie remembered that she had always called ‘slow down’. He had always called ‘catch up’.

  Even when they walked the streets of Paris and London, they were never quite together. He would walk to the corner and wait for her by a lamppost and she would stop halfway down the street to look in a shop window, waving at him to double back. The result was that it always took twice as long to get anywhere. Two steps forward, one back.

  As Francie watched she was reminded why she had first been attracted to him. He stood taller than most of the people strolling in the street tonight. They walked with blank, open faces while Nick’s brow was furrowed, as if he was pondering one of life’s big questions. She used to ask him what he was thinking about and was always surprised to find it was nothing in particular: the pattern of shadows on a wall, the beat of the windscreen wipers, the colour of leaves piled in a gutter. After a while she had stopped asking.

  And then there was his colouring. Most people were faded facsimiles of humans compared to Nick. His skin was an even, warm olive. His eyes a warmer, sweet caramel. A crow’s wing of straight blue-black hair fell over one eye. There was a branch of the Black Irish somewhere in the Jamieson family tree. It wasn’t until she saw him stalking the streets of Dublin that she finally placed him. He was a turbulent mix of the sailors of the Spanish Armada and the fishermen of the Gaels. In her mind’s eye he was often standing on a rugged Irish cliff looking out to a darkened sea.

  Of course, this was all fanciful romantic nonsense. The Jamiesons were actually from Bairnsdale, a fair sized pedestrian country town in Victoria. His father was a panel beater—a booze artist and bore. His mother was a teacher at the secondary school Nick had attended. On weekends she rescued Nick from late-night drunken inquisitions. On weekdays she marked his school essays with a thick red pencil. When Francie and Nick visited the family’s old weatherboard house during holidays, she saw how far his journey had taken him.

  In this blokey landscape of flannelette shirts, Blundstone boots and beer guts, how was a boy like Nick to survive? He once told her he was bashed by the local hoons when he landed the role of Sky Masterson in the high school production of Guys and Dolls. They’d broken his nose and two ribs. Almost fifteen years later Nick and Francie had driven through the outskirts of the town on their way to spend the weekend with his parents—past the ugly fast food outlets and tyre marts—and Francie had felt Nick’s past begin to weigh him down. As if someone had put a brick on his head.

  When they first met at the cocktail party for the opening of the Melbourne Film Festival, there was a moment (Francie could not now remember why) when they both talked about ‘escaping and surviving’. At that moment their eyes locked and their romantic pact was sealed. Now, here they were, almost six years later, attempting to unglue themselves and ripping off sheets of skin as they tried to pull away.

  Nick looked up to see her and smiled. Francie felt her heart rush out to meet him.

  ‘Hi, hello, hi, good to see you,’ he said. He pecked her on the cheek. She would always remember that dry little peck.

  For her own part, Francie wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and smother him with luscious kisses. Instead she stood on tiptoe, her arms stiffly to her sides, and pecked him back.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you too. I . . .’ She stopped herself from saying it. ‘I like your coat. It suits you.’

  ‘It’s new.’

  Francie saw up close that it was expensive. Cashmere? She guessed Poppy had chosen it for him.

  As they walked down the street Francie realised they were actually in step. She sensed that Nick was concentrating on matching her, allowing her to set the pace. It made her feel once more as if she was a patient. This time she was being walked down a hospital corridor by a concerned relative. Thanks for coming. Yes, I’m doing fine. Almost better. Not long now and I’ll be my old self again. She knew then that Nick wasn’t coming back to her. She was blinking away tears as they walked, hoping he would think it was the wind blowing dust in her eyes.

  ‘So how are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, fine. How have you been?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘It’s cold, isn’t it? For late November.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s usually warmer by now.’

  They talked about the weather. How fucked was that? It seemed to be the only safe ground. Any other avenue of inquiry led straight over a precipice.

  Global warming, the drought, the science of long-range forecasting and the arcane practice of water divining were all pretty much played out by the time they got to Rosati’s Italian restaurant and bar. Patrons entered off a dark lane into a
n echoing space with an intricate terrazzo floor and walls featuring a Mediterranean trompe l’oeil of archways framing unnaturally blue water. It wasn’t an intimate setting. It was bright and busy and Francie knew Nick had chosen it precisely for its lack of intimacy. They filled up the next ten minutes with ordering their meals and taking turns to dip warm bread in a little dish of olive oil with an ease which Francie found heartbreaking in its ordinariness.

  While they sipped their martinis they reminisced about the meals they’d shared: a garlic and parmesan spaghetti at a Sicilian restaurant in Rome—utterly plain but unforgettable; a spicy goat and lemon tagine from a roadside stall in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco; and a hilarious Christmas dinner in India.

  ‘Remember that?’ Nick smiled. ‘The toasted raisin bread masquerading as Christmas pudding?’

  ‘And the skinniest Santa in the world?’ Francie was smiling too.

  ‘Do you remember what he gave us?’

  Francie did. ‘A little painted erotic cameo.’

  The word ‘erotic’ hung in the air like a blown light blub. She didn’t mention that she still had this memento strung on the end of her bed. Thankfully the meal arrived—mushroom risotto, spaghetti carbonara and green salad. Francie picked at her food.

  As she watched him eat she knew that she would probably never be this close to him again and she knew she had to say it: ‘I miss you, Nick.’

  He pushed his food away and said softly, ‘I miss you too.’

  Francie was about to reach her hands out to him, but she stopped herself.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this. Sit here as though nothing’s changed. And I’m not that hungry, so what did you want to tell me?’

  Nick sat back and pushed his black hair out of his eyes. He looked past Francie to somewhere in the blue water off the Amalfi coast. What did he want? She would wait until he found the courage to say what was really on his mind.

  ‘I just needed to see you. It’s great being with you here tonight. I mean, we can’t just throw away five years . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t me who threw it away, Nick. Remember?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He began arranging his cutlery at perfect right angles to the patterned border on the damask tablecloth.

  ‘It’s just that it makes it so hard on all our friends when we can’t be in the same room together and I thought, now that we’re both single . . .’

  Both single? Oh this was good! Really good! She’d seen him with Poppy, kissing, holding hands, and he still wanted Francie to believe he was single?

  ‘But you’re with . . .’ Francie could not say her name in his presence. ‘Her. And you were with her even before you left me. What are you talking about?’

  ‘We’re, um . . . having a few . . . problems. It’s hard to explain but . . .’

  Francie felt a hand grenade of hope detonate in her chest. The impact took her breath away and made her hands tremble. She quickly slid them off the table and folded them into her lap, where Nick couldn’t see.

  ‘I want to tell you first that I’m sorry for what happened, Francie. How it happened. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to anyone. And you deserved better. I really am more sorry than you’ll ever know.’

  Francie rehearsed his next words for him. I made a mistake. I still love you. I want us to be together again.

  And then she saw his face crumple and realised there were tears in his eyes. For the second time in this whole sorry saga there were tears. The first time was when they’d fallen into bed together and the tears had come just before he delivered a body blow which had made her want to die. What was coming this time? She dug her nails into her palms.

  Nick sniffed hard and cleared his throat. ‘Jesus . . . I feel like shit! My whole fucking life is unravelling! Johnno told me that you’re in therapy and I know it’s because of me. I need to know that you’re OK, Francie. I can’t sleep for feeling so guilty.

  ‘I don’t want this show Poppy and I are doing to push you over the edge. It’s just a few songs and stuff and I know when you see it, you’ll get it. It’s not just about me and Poppy, it’s about love, loss, forgiveness . . . you know, universal themes.’

  Francie’s hands stopped shaking and balled into fists. The warm spot in her chest hardened into a rock which was sinking fast. Her descent was so rapid she couldn’t breathe. Nick saw her falling away from him and reached his hands across the table. They clutched at thin air. He’d been good in that medical soap opera on TV, Francie remembered.

  ‘You have to understand! It’s not about us, as such, but I want to do the right thing. I’ve told Poppy that I don’t want to do it unless you’re fine with it. So, do you think . . . ?’ And here Nick faltered.

  You totally insensitive . . . Francie looked around the restaurant to see if anyone else had heard him. She had to be imagining this!

  Francie looked at the painted balcony on the wall and thought, that’s what this conversation was. Two-dimensional. A scene painted on a concrete wall that was supposed to look real, but was obviously fake.

  At last Francie heard herself speak in a thin squeak, as if she too were a cartoon.

  ‘You want my blessing? How would you like it written on the program, Nick? Inspired by? Dedicated to? By royal fucking appointment? You can shove your universal themes up both your arses. I’ll tell you something everyone understands—lying, cheating, cowardice. Just plain cruelty is something everyone knows about too. Why don’t you call it The We Don’t Give a Fuck About Francie’s Feelings Show? That’s got a nice ring to it!’

  And then she was standing, wrestling her scarf from the back of the chair, dragging her bag over her shoulder, while Nick slumped down in his seat.

  ‘Yes, I am in therapy,’ she hissed. ‘But not because of you. I’m just starting to realise this isn’t about you. In fact, none of the past five years have been about you at all. The last time we saw each other, Nick, you said we were finished. Even as friends. I think you were right.’

  From the footpath Francie looked back one last time to see Nick already talking on his mobile phone. She walked down the dark lane towards the lights of Flinders Street glowing brightly ahead of her.

  Fourteen

  ‘Well, what we have here is a classic case of a clinger and an avoider.’

  Faith Treloar was pontificating from the red velvet thinking chair. Francie was opposite her in the blue chair and she noticed that, for the first time since she’d been coming here, Faith hadn’t pushed the box of tissues across the small table. She was instead sitting back with her hands folded over her ample bosom. The row of amethyst rings twinkled in the lamplight.

  ‘I want you to answer a few questions, Francie. Try to be clear. Try to be straight.’

  Francie shifted in her seat and sat up as if she was in school.

  ‘Did you ever feel that you loved Nick more than he loved you?’

  Well, of course! Francie had always felt that. But not just about Nick. She had felt this way most of her life . . . about everyone. There was an intensity of feeling that was never requited. She loved so fiercely that no-one could be expected to return what she felt. But this, surely, was the way it would always be. If someone had returned her love with the same fierce passion? She couldn’t imagine it was possible.

  ‘In what ways was he emotionally unavailable to you?’

  Photographs. There was always an argument about photographs. Nick always said he preferred to remember things as they happened—catch the emotional moment in his head. Looking back, Francie wondered if it was because photographs were evidence that they were a couple.

  The one-armed cuddles. It had become a joke between them. Nick would throw his arm—singular—around Francie. She would tackle him in a full-frontal bear hug and then whine until he offered up his other arm. Was it technically a cuddle if you only used one arm? A joke, but another sign that told Francie, somewhere deep down, that he was keeping himself at a distance.

  And then there was the way t
hey walked. She’d thought about that on Saturday night. Nick never wanted to be in step with her. As if it showed that he had been tamed like a domestic animal. As if it said to the world ‘we are together’ and every avenue of escape was barricaded. But she had learned to live with the distance he put between them and figured that if she loved him hard enough he would come closer.

  ‘Did you ever feel that you had to work hard to earn his love?’

  Didn’t she try to be perfect? Isn’t that what her mother had told her to be? She had loved making a home for Nick and he had loved her back. She liked to please him. His pleasure made her feel loved. Her mother had also warned that they leave you anyway. But what was the alternative? To change her very nature? Francie would just do it better than her mother ever did.

  ‘Did you mother him? Try to protect him from the world? Help him make his way?’

  She had joked with Johnno that if Nick came back to her it would be because he wanted his washing done or to borrow some money. She had saved her wages and paid for most of their trips away together. But she hadn’t resented it.

  When he landed the role in the television soapie, Nick had brought home flowers and champagne. He was written out of the series after six months, but Francie had been happy to support him while he made the next round of auditions. She and Nick had a partnership. He was talented and acting was such a hazardous profession! Francie had never doubted that one day he would be really famous and she would be able to leave the newspaper, have a baby and maybe write a novel. It’s just that they had broken up before it was her turn.

  Francie was beginning to feel irritated by all these questions. Her answers didn’t add up to a portrait of a neurotic relationship. She and Nick had been together for five years—longer than any of her friends. They’d loved each other. It had seemed a perfect arrangement. Right up to the last day, when it wasn’t.