Craig Sherborne - The Amateur Science of Love

‘I wish I could just fold you in my arms.’

‘I tried to lay charges. I was told: bed-hopping disputes aren’t why police are paid. You made your bed, you can lie in it, they said. I feel dirty. I feel I have made a dreadful mistake. And I have a child shaking in terror.’

‘Let me come to you right now. I will need to organise transport…’

‘No.’

‘The train to Ballarat leaves here at noon…’

‘No.’

‘From there I’ll get a connecting bus.’

‘No, I said.’ A sharp no with a wet growl in it.

‘But I want to.’

‘Let’s have a break. Let’s do that. Let’s have a break from each other.’

‘A break?’

‘I need to take stock of things.’

‘A few days’ break?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘A week? How long?’

‘I need to get Ruth back to normal. I want just her and me and a wholesome feeling back.’

‘How long a break?’ I was aware of being weak in voice suddenly. I was starting to beg. I bent forward over my desk, hand cupped around the mouthpiece so only Donna could hear. ‘How long a break?’

‘Indefinite.’

‘That sounds more than a break.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you saying forever?’

‘I’m sorry, Colin.’

‘Are you meaning the end?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why don’t we say a couple of weeks? Let’s say a month while you get over this.’

‘What then? Looking over my shoulder for Tilda? Looking over Ruth’s shoulder? I can take on small baggage. But this is not small.’

‘Let me hang up now and call you tomorrow.’

‘Please, no calling.’

‘Or a few days. Have a rethink and I’ll call you in few days.’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘I’m taking Ruth out of here tomorrow. We’re staying with friends interstate to get away from this and feel safe.’

‘Whereabouts? How can I reach you?’

‘No. No calls.’

‘Donna, please.’

‘I have to go.’

‘Donna.’

I said I loved her. I said, ‘Remember our Neutral Motor Inn; remember our happiness there.’ I was pleading so loud I didn’t hear her hang up. There was just silence and the seashell noise of air through the phone wires.

I called back straight away. No answer. I tried again. Same thing. I envisaged her standing at her phone, fists clenched against the temptation to answer it, against reconnecting our voices, our lives: No more of this man I may love but who is too much trouble.

I waited a few minutes, dialled but got nowhere. She must have unplugged the line. This did not put me off. She would have to plug it in eventually. I spread the latest Wheatman edition on the desk and thumbed through it to look occupied, reading headlines aloud as if testing their petty poetry:

Vigourman was washing his cup at the staff sink. He dried it and put it on the tray beside the taps. He whistled a few notes with trills in them as if that would soften his officious mood. He kept whistling all the way up to me, scratching his sideburns. He complained how growing whiskers made a man itch. He leant close, put a hand on my shoulder.

He said, ‘Shouldn’t you go up to the hospital, to see Tilda? Don’t you think that’s your first priority?’

I bent down and rubbed my ankle. ‘My foot hurts.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘I’ve got a call to make.’

I dialled, delaying pushing down on the last digit until Vigourman had retreated. All I reached was the seashell static but pretended I had made contact.

‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello.’

I motioned to Vigourman that I’d go with him soon. I bowed my head, closed my eyes and rested that way a minute, stopped my life from anything more happening just yet.

Vigourman dropped me at the hospital.

He said, ‘You’ve come to your senses, I hope.’

Yes , I nodded, an automatic gesture.

‘Good man. That’s the way. Good luck to you in there.’

He turned out of the driveway so slowly it was obvious he was checking for equivocation: my duty was to go directly and beseechingly to Tilda, not duck around the side of the building or hesitate at the glass entrance. I did hesitate but pushed through the front door anyway. It required a barging with my elbow to release the suction of the hinges. The cool inside air puffed my hair pleasantly but put a taste of antiseptic into my breathing. I stepped outside to spit out the taste.

Vigourman stopped his car and wound the window down. I waved to him that I was simply having a good cough and clearing of the senses and would be heading inside in a second. He returned a wave and resumed driving.

The hospital was all shiny lino and scuffed cream walls. The corridor ran left a short way, and a longer distance right. I went right, expecting someone in authority to appear and give directions. The six rooms either side of the corridor had beds in them, neatly made with blue covers. There were no patients.

I dreaded facing Tilda without people present. There would be less of a scene with people near. Tilda would be inclined to curb her fury. The dread put such a weight onto my head and shoulders I had to lean against a wall and double over, hands on knees. What marriage did Tilda and I have now? What future was there for me if I lived cap in hand? What kind of man would accept such a life? The only honourable course of action would be to kill yourself. That would be the only future, suicide.

And with that I stood to attention. I issued myself the following instructions: go to Hobbs’ Timber, Tacks and Twine this instant. Get a length of rope—make sure it’s twice your height. An inch in width should be strong enough to take your heaviness and not slice the skin or snap from tension. Do not engage in conversation with old Jock Hobbs. He might pat his leather belt and scare you away with, ‘What’s this for, the rope?’

Or go to Ringo Point and flush out a snake and stomp on it, taunt it to bite you. A tiger snake, not a red-bellied black. Red-bellied blacks are far less poisonous. Do not fear the pain. Pain is only temporary and then nirvana. Don’t dither, do it. What are you worried about? The other side ? You don’t truly believe in God. Yet still you worry. What if death is not just the blackest darkness? What if you wake afterwards into this world’s complicated sequel—long-dead relatives pointing their accusing fingers; or Richard or Alice with ghostly infant faces wishing upon you the sewer life you condemned them to?

Do it, now, kill yourself and then good riddance, you’re gone.

No. I want to be alive. Even if it is only a second-best life. A life that will do . Who’s to say we aren’t all living that way—from Prime Ministers to Vigourmans, we’re all settling for second-best love; we just don’t let it show, we accept our fate in secrecy.

A voice from up the corridor spooked me. ‘May I help you?’

A thin woman, in a white smock a bit baggy for her. I tried to pick if I’d seen her around town. I had, in a just-another-face way. She’d had no presence like she had now in that white uniform. She looked into my eyes as if to challenge. There were deep spokes of skin around her mouth, a smoker’s wheel, made more obvious by her pursing.

I stood up. ‘I’m looking for my wife. My name is…’

‘I know who you are.’

She glanced at the watch on her lapel. ‘Tilda should have finished the little meal I gave her by now. Follow me.’

We went to the end of the corridor and turned right into an alcove where a metal ramp led outdoors. The nurse directed me along it. ‘She’s on the deck. I’ve set her up in a nice spot in the sun. Dr Philpott wants her to rest here for a few days, and I am going to treat her like a queen.’