John Davis - Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies

Oh, indeed, what does she do? He said, cautiously: ‘Depends on who she is. You know yourself properly – I don’t.’ He decided to say it: ‘Maybe she has an affair? Many women do.’

‘But,’ she protested, ‘I could never do that, that wouldn’t be me! I’m supposed to write about me …’

Ben Sunninghill gave an inward sigh. Had he blown it? Hope winced and subsided into its shell. He tried to make himself sound academic:

‘But maybe your heroine does. Half the ladies bored out of their minds in suburbia would, and the other half would understand, even applaud.’

‘But an affair doesn’t solve her basic problem!’

Oh well … ‘That’s your task, as the story-teller – to show us what it does or doesn’t solve.’ He sighed and abandoned the subject of adultery. ‘Or maybe she takes a job – any job, because she’s too old now to resume her career. Or’ – he shrugged – ‘maybe she leaves. To go off and do her own thing, whatever that is.’

She said emphatically: ‘But she loves her husband! And her family!’

Oh dear. Hope curled up in its shell. ‘Ah, that’s the tricky part. One of the most difficult parts. Remember what I said about the price? The heartache? The loneliness? The financial hardship?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s your job as story-teller to make all this real for the reader.’

Helen looked at him unsteadily. ‘But what makes her leave her family? Her loved ones?’

Ben said: ‘But they’ve already left her, haven’t they?’

‘Yes, but only … physically. Geographically. They’re still a family .’

Ben shook his head. ‘Yes and no. That’s the whole point. The family goes on, sure, but it ain’t what it used to be. The story is how the heroine who’s left behind handles that problem. Look at your friends and ask yourself what you think their problem is. The details of it. And look at yourself.’ (It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that she didn’t have a problem.) Ben pointed at the photograph of Clyde, and for the moment he was entirely altruistic: ‘Ask yourself how your life with Clyde has changed – for better or worse – and why. Is there the same excitement of facing the future together? Obviously not, now is the future. What’s the difference between that excitement of yesteryear, those hopes, and the reality of now? How much disappointment is there?’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘What do you talk about these days? The same things you talked about twenty years ago when you were fresh from university and he was a horny young sheep-shearer desperate to carry you off to his mortgaged station?’ He shook his head. ‘No, of course not you’ve said all that: but have you … supp lemented your conversations – together – so that you’ve still got things to talk about, to interest each other in? If not, why not? For example, do you both read good books, or only one of you? Do you even share the same interests now – or is it really only the common interest of survival?’ Helen was hanging on his words. ‘Yes, you love him, but not in the way you did when you first married him, when you were so crazy about him that you quit university. What does he mean to you now , Helen, twenty years on? And why? And is it enough, in all the circumstances, that you – or your heroine – must pay for it with the precious remnants of her youthfulness?’ He looked at her, and his altruism faltered. ‘What’s her sex-life like? Ask yourself what yours is like.’ Helen blinked. ‘Is it what it used to be twenty years ago, when you couldn’t get enough of each other? Of course not, nobody can keep up that enthusiasm. No, it’s changed, but to what?’ Helen blinked again. ‘Once a week, when he’s home – once a fortnight? Once a month? Why so seldom? Is it because you’re ageing? No. Is it because he ’s ageing? No, he’d do three times a night with a new chick. So?’ He tapped his head. ‘So it’s up here.’ He leant out and tapped her head. ‘But what ’s up here? Or in your heroine’s head? And what does she want to do about it, and how? That’s what the story-teller’s got to fascinate the reader with.’

Helen was following this intently.

‘But what makes her leave?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the catalyst? The final thing?’

Ben ached to lean forward and tilt her mouth to his. Instead he took the bottle from her and poured more wine into their glasses. He said quietly:

‘That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what the story’s about. What makes her, after all these years, finally find the courage to quit. To act, upon her convictions? That …’ he nodded at her, ‘is what women will sit on the edge of their chairs to find out. And if you succeed in making them understand that – empathize with that – you’ve been successful.’ He looked at her earnestly; and oh, he was within a whisker of leaning out to touch her; then his nerve failed him and he just gave his wide impish smile: ‘Make it this little New York Jewish jeweller who rocks up on his Harley-Davidson.’ He grinned, then stood up and jerked his head. ‘Come on – let’s crank up the generator to test this switch, then go’n have that swim.’

The switch worked like a charm. Helen was delighted; now she could go to bed without running through the dark house pursued by spooks.

‘Now you can start the washing-machine,’ Ben said. She hit the button with a flourish. The machine burst into shuddering life. ‘Eureka!’ she cried. Dundee began to make another puddle. ‘You and I are going to have a little talk tomorrow, Dundee!’

Ben smiled. ‘Well, I’ll ride back to the cottage and put on my swimming trunks. Meet you at the reservoir?’

‘Haveanotherdrinkfirst! Did you get all that? I’m having a lovely day! First a washing-machine again, then Dundee, then a thousand bucks’ worth of diamond, now no more goddam spooks hard on my heels!’ She leant boozily towards him. ‘Do you think I’m childish, believing in spooks?’

It would have been so natural to lean forward too, and put his mouth on hers. ‘No.’ Ben grinned.

‘I don’t believe in spooks. I just suspect there are some!’

‘I believe in ghosts.’

‘Do you? A big brave man like you? Maybe I’m not such a bimbo!’

Ben smiled. ‘I also don’t like the dark in big empty houses. That’s natural. Man has been afraid of the dark ever since the cave. And if you believe in God, and a spiritual life after death, what’s so improbable about there being a few maladjusted spirits knocking around?’

‘Right!’ Helen cried. She stuck out her hand. ‘Shake on that! You’re not Christian if you don’t believe in spooks!’

It was another moment when he could have enfolded her. ‘Or Jewish.’

‘Or Jewish,’ she assented reasonably. ‘So are we two reasonable people going to have another drink?’

‘Sure – but up at the reservoir while we’re having our swim. To freshen up.’

‘Brilliant! To sober up! I’m almost as bad as Billy.’ She leaned breathily towards him again. ‘Ben, will you do one more small thing for me tomorrow?’

Oh, he would do all kinds of things for her tomorrow. Including crawl on his hands and knees over broken glass. ‘If I can.’

‘You can! Oh, you can. Because you’re a man .’ She held up a finger. ‘Tomorrow, when Billy’s sobered up – and me, hopefully – tomorrow will you accompany me to his hut to kick his Aboriginal arse? Figuratively, I mean. But help me to give him a bollocking. I mean, I’ll do the bollocking, but I’d appreciate your moral support. So he doesn’t think I’m a helpless female on my own with whom he can be cavalier over his putative duties.’