Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

‘I’ll do my best,’ he promised and immediately felt foolish.

He closed the door. The job took a little longer in this frame of mind.

‘Good luck,’ he said as he handed her the jar. And felt even more foolish.

‘Tenth time lucky, maybe,’ he said two and a half months later when Linsey rang to tell him that they were still unsuccessful.

The next time he was summoned, Linsey greeted him as usual, though he was conscious of Amy hovering in the background. He went to head up the stairs but Linsey motioned him into the sitting room, where he sat down on one of the gilt chairs. The two women sat on the edge of the sofa, facing him.

‘As you’re aware, this is the last time for you to… assist us,’ Linsey began. ‘You’ve been as good as your word and we appreciate that, don’t we, Amy?’ Amy nodded, started to speak and then fell silent.

‘We had researched the matter extensively before we enlisted you,’ Linsey told him, ‘but we’re starting to think there may be something wrong with our-what would you call it?- our technique . Consequently…’ Her skin was taut over sharp cheekbones, and dark smudges shadowed her eyes. ‘Consequently, we were wondering if more… conventional methods might not be required.’

Michael felt a surge of elation. Of course he wasn’t averse to having sex with a beautiful woman-but it was more than that. While he had accepted the terms of the job and done his duty, as it were, he nonetheless harboured a nagging resentment that this beautiful woman didn’t want to have sex with him. In this role there was an affront to his manhood that he had chosen to ignore in his eagerness for the remuneration. He had taken their money, and done what they asked, but now an ugly thought came unbidden: Let’s see how she feels after having sex with a real man. Immediately ashamed, he pushed the thought aside.

‘Fine,’ he said gravely. ‘I understand. Do you mean now?’

‘Now is the right time,’ Amy aspirated the words. He could hardly hear her.

She looked down as Linsey put an arm around her. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, darling,’ Linsey murmured into her hair, ‘but we know it may be the only way. We’ve nearly run out of money.’

Michael took Amy’s hand and felt the tension that ran down her arm to her fingertips. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m not a monster.’

But in the end, he couldn’t do it. At the bedroom door he saw hopeless jealousy transform Linsey’s carefully disciplined features. Amy was even worse. She was actually trembling. Michael was a generous, considerate lover: it was one reason why so many women were attracted to him. Looking at Amy, intuiting her distress, he felt like a brute.

‘Tell you what,’ he said as Linsey turned away. ‘Tell you what. Let’s keep the thing going as it has been for another couple of months before we, you know, take drastic action. I won’t expect payment after today.’

He felt their relief wash over him like a flood.

‘Thank you, Michael. You’re a good man,’ said Linsey with simple grace. Amy just smiled. Her dimple had returned.

So the arrangement continued as before until, several months later, he received a phone call.

‘We’re pregnant,’ they sang into the phone. ‘Michael, we’re pregnant.’

Two days later there was a cheque for five thousand dollars in the mail. A note was attached saying that they were grateful and wished him well, and as the contract stated, he would neither see nor hear from them again.

But even as he breathed a sigh of relief, Michael couldn’t help feeling just a little cheated.

FOR AMY AND LINSEY, THE disappointment that had followed Michael’s visit each month only compounded their delight when a pregnancy was finally confirmed. The two women looked at each other in awe at what they had achieved.

‘We’ve done it,’ Linsey breathed.

‘With a little help from Michael,’ Amy giggled.

The two women had first met when Amy went to work as a temp at the Melbourne University Faculty of Commerce, where Linsey was a lecturer in economics. On Amy’s first day, Linsey burst into the secretary’s office, her brusque instructions 24 arrested mid-speech by the sight of the unfamiliar young woman behind the desk.

‘When I saw you,’ an enchanted Linsey later told Amy, ‘I thought of summer-of peaches and honey and lazy blue skies.’

What she actually said at the time was: ‘I need these by-um…’

Amy looked up from her typing. ‘I’m just a temp,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to show me what you want.’ And she moved over with a gesture of invitation to come to her side of the desk, where Linsey bent over the manuscript with fierce concentration, trying to ignore the drifting perfume and faint female odour that arose from the seated woman.

For the two weeks that Amy spent at the university, Linsey was distracted. She of fierce efficiency became quiet and absentminded. She worked like a fury on her lecture notes just so she could take them to Amy to format and copy. She replaced her uniform T-shirt with business shirts of crisp white cotton or cream silk. She washed her cap of shining brown hair every night and even tried fluffing it out a bit around her face. She thought constantly of Amy-dreamily imagined intimate dinners, films, concerts-but spoke to her only about work.

On Amy’s last day, Linsey was miserable. Confident and outspoken in a professional milieu, she was painfully shy socially.

So it was Amy who made the first move. ‘Are you free for a drink after work?’ she asked when Linsey came to collect her photocopying. ‘Yes? I’ll see you at Gerry’s around five then.’

At work, Linsey had never made any secret of her sexuality, but she wasn’t sure about Amy’s. They hadn’t developed a friendship or even an acquaintance in the time they had worked together, so to be asked out for a drink seemed like a good sign. But maybe Amy just wanted a reference, or to sound Linsey out about any permanent positions that might be coming up? These questions ran through poor Linsey’s head as she shredded her paper napkin in the twilight of Gerry’s wine bar.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amy said breathlessly as she sat down in the chair opposite. ‘I was held up while they filled in the agency forms.’

Linsey smiled, hoping her relief wasn’t too evident.

‘Not a problem. What will you have to drink?’

And so this ordinary, even banal conversation set in train the relationship that, with the help of Michael Finbar Clancy, would produce Miranda Ophelia Sinclair.

But whole oceans would pass under the bridge before these two-now known as Finn and Moss-would finally meet.

Amy, Linsey learned that night, came from a Methodist working-class family. She had three brothers, one an insurance assessor and the other two public servants. Her father was a train driver and her mother worked part-time at the local doctor’s surgery.

‘They’re good people,’ Amy told Linsey over a second glass of wine, ‘but not the sort to approve of… unconventional lifestyles. That’s why I haven’t told them.’

‘My parents try to be open-minded, but I know they’re really disappointed in me.’ A shadow of pain passed over Linsey’s face. ‘I have a brother and a sister. They try to understand. They’re quite supportive, really, but you can’t help knowing that they have to make an effort.’

Both women were silent, each lost for a moment in her own private sorrow.

Later, over dinner, Amy told Linsey about her music. ‘I go to classes,’ she confided. ‘It gives me somewhere to practise. Our house is pretty small and there’s nowhere to go to escape the sound of the TV. I know it’s ridiculous still living at home at my age-I’ve moved out a couple of times, but it hasn’t worked out. I moved back a few months ago.’ She shrugged. ‘Just haven’t got around to finding another place yet.’