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A new life down under? It’s not as perfect as you’d think.
Katie and Tom’s marriage is in trouble. As is their bank account. So, when Tom tells Katie that they need to talk, she knows it must be about one of two things, and neither are good. But when he blind-sides her saying that his boss is sending him to Australia – permanently – Katie realises it might just be what they need to save their marriage.
Trouble is, she doesn’t like the heat, can’t swim and hates spiders. Not to mention the bouts of homesickness – and Tom’s endless business trips. Katie is finding the hope of saving their marriage slowly slipping through her fingers. But Katie is determined to take the bull by the horns – and her Speedos by the strap – and tackles her new life.
When all is said and done which side of the globe will she decide to call home?
Previously published as Jacaranda Wife
Welcome Page
About The Chance of a Lifetime
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgements
About Kendra Smith
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
Katie’s eyes roamed round the pantry as her mind processed its own inventory. Rice? Yes. Adulterer? That’s a bit harsh, your honour. Filter coffee? Half a packet. Unfaithful? You could call it that. French stick? Might have that for supper. Marriage vows? Need to review. Feeling sick about what you did? Definitely. Great sexual thrill. You bet.
‘Sweetie?’ Katie jumped. Her husband Tom was standing by the pantry door, peering at her.
‘You’re home early!’
‘We need to talk.’ He stared right at her. Oh God, not a ‘need to talk’ moment. Did he suspect? She didn’t actually do very much… She forced a cheery smile. But it soon slipped right off her face.
‘What’s wrong, Tom?’
‘Been repositioned.’ He looked about five-years-old. He was adorable. ‘Like I said might happen.’
‘Repositioned?’ The voice didn’t sound like hers. ‘Where?’
‘Australia,’ he said, as if in a dream. ‘Sydney.’ She stared at him, felt shivery, then walked past him and went upstairs and threw up in their brand-new Villeroy & Boch toilet. She’d never liked heat or spiders.
‘Why Australia?’ she asked quietly, downstairs again, staring into his intense grey eyes. Sitting white-faced in their farmhouse kitchen, clutching her paper napkin and looking round at their beautifully painted duck-egg blue walls, the black and white photos, the blown glass ornaments on the shelf from Italy, shining with a multi-coloured halo from the spotlight below, noticing the dust, the mundane things while the rest of her head was in a spin.
Like when my father died, she thought, all I could do was keep loading the dishwasher and watch baked beans slide off the plates – as if I could keep the stabbing pain away by worrying about how to clean the filter.
Tom paced up and down the wooden floors, his suede brogues making loud clipping noises.
‘Do you mean the E word…’ Her world was crashing around her. ‘Emigrate…’ Katie whispered, slightly hysterical by then, the napkin pink paper shreds. ‘We’ve just had all this done…’ Her voice trailed off, her hand gesturing to the granite work surfaces, the wooden floor, the gleaming glass extension that had robbed the garden of at least six metres. But in fact who cared what they’d had done to the kitchen? She wasn’t really terrified about leaving granite work surfaces; what she was terrified about was leaving her house, her home, England, Britain…
‘K-A-T-I-E.’ Tom said her name in a very slow, deliberate way. ‘Martin has just offered me a job as head of New Asian Markets for Trent Financial – he says it’s exactly up my street, says my CV is perfect. He told me, Katie, that at forty-seven, I don’t have many options.’ He closed his eyes, leant his head back, clutched the grey granite work surface. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open again. He stared at her. ‘It’s a great salary and they’ll pay all our moving costs. It’s not emigration, it’s…’ he hesitated ‘…for a few years, a contract. An opportunity, that’s what it is.’ He smiled shakily at her. He’s trying to be his usual self, his alpha male, mused Katie. An opportunity for him maybe, but it might as well have been a job offer to Pluto; she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
‘But shouldn’t we—’
‘What? Wait for me to get another job? The country’s in a total recession.’ He folded his arms. ‘Bankers are getting fired everywhere, Katie, don’t you see?’ He sighed. ‘We are mortgaged up to the neck – especially with the bloody extra borrowing on the extension—’ She scraped her chair back, guiltily, remembering the cost.
‘You wanted it as much as me. Wanted to show off to all your clients…’ she whispered.
‘Katie, sweetheart – I’ve had a hell of a day,’ he said sweeping his fringe from his forehead and looking across at her. The look said don’t challenge me; don’t knock me when I’ve been kicked in the balls today and have managed to come up for air already. It said don’t try me when we are up to our necks in debt and I feel like I’m drowning.
She supposed that was the beauty of working for such a massive financial player as Trent Financial, and that was the beauty of having an ego the size of Tom’s – you could get redeployed anywhere. She remembered when she’d first met him; he was the Financial Director of the publishing house she was working for and several years older than her. She’d noticed him straight away. Tom with his long lashes, with his sandy-blond hair and schoolboy fringe, his oddly dark eyebrows, freckled nose and square jaw. He was rather like an older Prince Harry.
She’d been working there for two years, slowly inching her way up from Sales Assistant, (‘Can you photocopy this whole book before lunch? There’s a love’), to Senior Staff Writer. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d loved the work and loved the industry. Born with printer ink running through her veins, she used to say.
Tom had tested her one day. ‘Katie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Get that proof from the colour printer, will you?’ She’d ventured into the room where the huge colour printers hummed away. Coming out of the machine before her proof (‘How to meet Justin Timberlake this weekend!’) had been a pink and flesh-coloured ensemble of places where the sun don’t shine in the female anatomy. Her face had taken on a similar hue of magenta.
‘All right?’ Tom had smiled, taking the proof from her hand and looking her straight in the eye. (This was his little test she later found out to see who’d sink, who’d swim in this particular publishing house that also churned out a number of distasteful top-shelf titles as well as her teen magazine.)
‘Fine. Want a cappuccino?’ she’d asked.
He’d given her a quick look and said with a faint smile, ‘Thanks. Latte. No froth.’ That was the first time she’d seen that look on his face, one that was a mixture of mirth and mischief.
She had learnt her trade there. An editor who would not give up until everything was perfect; a ‘small team’ (that’s three full-timers and three and a half days’ worth of Claire, the anorexic office assistant) so you were forced to learn each other’s roles. She’d learnt how to cheat so it didn’t show.
‘Katie?’ Tom was looking at her. He put his huge hand over hers. ‘Are you all right?’
God, where had all those days gone, she wondered and then shook herself, tried to smile at him and squeezed his fingers. They should eat. Yes, remember the beans. Eat in a crisis. She watched Tom pour himself his second single malt. She walked past him towards the fridge, then suddenly had to grip the side of the counter as hot blood flooded over her chest and rose, like crawling spiders legs up her neck and face: Australia?
‘Excited, Katie?’
Heavens, how, at this precise moment, can Tom look so pleased? She stared into his eager, saucer-wide eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was the plane’s turbulence or because she was travelling to a country 10,000 miles away that was constantly making her feel like throwing up. She screwed up her eyes and forced a smile.
Tom’s hand slipped into hers. ‘Two years will be OK, to get the banks off our back, clear some repayments, make headway?’
She nodded mutely, brushed invisible crumbs from her skirt. Then she turned away, looked out the window and watched as the lights of Singapore Airport disappeared below. The runway looked like a giant had thrown a luminous necklace onto the tarmac; bright, jewel-coloured beads were scattered everywhere amongst the inky darkness.
As the plane juddered higher into the sky, she remembered the cab drive yesterday. She’d nearly screamed ‘Stop the taxi!’ but instead had taken a deep breath and stared out the window. Her dewy gaze had fallen over the verdant South Downs dotted with tiny lambs. English Tourism had pulled out all the stops. The only thing missing had been a band playing ‘Jerusalem’.
She was jolted out of her thoughts by Tom handing her a menu. ‘Shall we eat?’
Tom leaned over the seat’s armrest and squeezed her hand. ‘Darling?’
Let’s see. I am flying to the other side of the world with two small children. We are hugely in debt, this is the only job Tom thinks he can take and I really, really can’t cope with heat. No, can’t eat a thing.
‘Starving,’ she lied. ‘But you choose.’ Her mouth ached from forcing herself to smile.
Tom frowned and looked at her. ‘How’re you feeling?’ He traced the outline of her cheek with his fingers. There were no words. She stared at her husband of eight years, gazing at his long legs encased in toffee-coloured chinos sticking out into the aisle. She considered what they’d built together as a couple: their two gorgeous boys; their beautiful Homes and Garden featured house, their circle of close friends.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’re cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet,’ the captain cut through her thoughts. ‘The outside air temperature is currently minus fifty degrees Celsius. Please fasten your seatbelts as there is going to be a bit of turbulence ahead.’
‘Daddy, where’s turbulence?’ Andy was yanking at the blind, peering out of the window. ‘Is it a bird? I can’t see it. WANT to see turbulence!’
As Tom released the catch for their impatient four-year-old, she flicked through the radio channels to distract herself. No good. A Joss Stone song took her skidding right back to last month… To the party, to how it all happened.
It had been somewhere around the boys’ bathtime and just before she had started making canapés that her world had spun on its axis – in more ways than one. They had been hosting a summer garden party; she’d spent several hundred pounds on food and wine and some lovely champagne – had even hired a few girls to help serve.
Tom had come in that evening, clearly agitated, the first sign things weren’t well at work. He had glanced at the receipt on the kitchen table for the food and had slammed down his fist.
‘Katie! How much have you spent?’
She had looked at him, then carried on placing delicate quails’ eggs onto blinis and sprinkling them with paprika, trying not to let her hands shake too much.
‘Katie?’
Some of it had come out then.
‘Restructuring… abroad is a possibility, we might have to go… Best for us, arrears on the house, share price crash at Trent Financial, lousy bonus…’ he’d said. Something about an American guy taking over.
She’d stood frozen to the spot and told him that she couldn’t discuss it now, that the nanny was bathing Andy and James and that there were thirty people about to arrive. She’d said that the show needed to go on. She had spent ages planning the perfect party; she wanted to do something properly. She had felt slightly uneasy about some of the snooty mums at James’s new school; she was, if she was honest, trying to impress them. She remembered him holding on to her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye: ‘This job in Australia might be our answer, Katie. They’re throwing me a lifeline.’
She’d been so shell-shocked that they had held each other tightly.
‘But it’s not definite?’ She’d looked up at him.
Something in his eyes had her worried when he’d said no.
Later, she had reverted to her usual method of recovery: downing the best part of a bottle of Moët. She’d noticed a couple of her new school mums nudge each other in the ribs. The damage is done, she’d thought, grabbing a nearby vodka jelly shot for good measure. A Lady Gaga song had been next, and then there was the incident with Adam… Oh God, that’s all a bit blurry too, she thought, as the song suddenly stopped and James interrupted her thoughts.
‘Mum?’ He was reading Amazing Jokes for Kids and had been telling dreadful jokes since they had left Heathrow twelve hours ago.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Where can you see a really ugly monster?’
‘Don’t know, sweetie.’ She sounded like she’d swallowed too much Diazepam.
‘In the mirror!’ And with this he fell forward snorting into the seat in front of him. Perfect timing. Thank you, James. Katie smiled. It was a reminder of the monster in the mirror the morning after the party…
She had staggered, bleary-eyed to the bathroom with its unforgiving mirrors. Staring back at her had been an alien who had taken over a woman who was also five foot three, with exactly the same messy brown hair as her, hair that was showing signs of needing the roots done, and blue eyes that were extremely tiny and acutely red. It had put a large red lacy bra over too-big tits and wore crumpled Snoopy pyjama bottoms. The alien also had a round, soft belly and mascara smeared on its left cheek. Katie had pulled her shoulders back defiantly, sucked her stomach in. Nothing. The alien had just looked like a startled ‘before’ pic from one of those awful celebrity magazines, but sporting a crimson 36C. Trouble was, not only had she not recognise the woman in the mirror, she’d barely recognised the woman who had been in the garden with Adam the night before. But could she blame herself? After the shock of it all? Thank God nobody had seen what had happened that night. She looked over at Tom guiltily.
‘Listen.’ He turned to her. (Oh God, can he read my mind?) ‘Let’s take one step at a time,’ Tom said soothingly, fixing his gaze on her.
‘I know, I know…’ she said nodding energetically, hoping he hadn’t noticed her cheeks burning.
‘You know, maybe it will all be good for us in a strange way.’ He stuck his legs out and twisted his ankle round. ‘For our marriage – what do you think?’
I think I might faint.
‘Anyway…’ he leant in closer ‘…where’s the old Katie, hey? The girl who was up for anything?’ His eyes twinkled.
How can I tell him after all these years that the only reason I used to be ‘up for anything’ was because I wanted to be with him? thought Katie, watching him twist his silvery cufflinks round and round. I didn’t like cycling, didn’t like jogging, didn’t like the try dive on our honeymoon; in fact, I was scared shitless.
‘Well, she’s rather lost her way underneath a pile of duvet covers to iron, if you must know, Tom. There’s not a lot of “cracking fun” to be had with screaming four- and six-year-olds these days…’ She felt the upsurge of tears. What is wrong with me?
She stared at him, remembered how he’d always seemed to make London seem so vibrant to her, so ethnic, somehow, after her traditional English village upbringing. Tom had dreamt of being a top banker even then. Imagine, Katie, one day I might help build London’s future. That ego.
‘Sweetheart.’ Tom put his hand on her knee, and she jumped. ‘You know this is a good opportunity for us.’ He hesitated, squeezed her knee. ‘Our only opportunity.’
She stared at a solitary Twiglet under the seat in front of her. Did I pack Twiglets?
‘I know, Tom.’ She closed her eyes, pressed her fingers into her eyelids. She saw multi-coloured Twiglets dancing in front of her.
‘It’s still boom time in Asia,’ he added, as she flicked open her eyes again. ‘We can pay off our debts.’ He leaned in so close she could smell red wine on his breath. ‘And don’t forget the HMRC...’ Katie watched as he shook his head from side to side, recalled the panic in his voice on the phone that Monday, when he’d gone to a meeting with their lawyers to check just how bad the problem really was. That had been the nail in the coffin – it had made the decision to take the job definite.
He’d left that morning telling her he was sure it had all been legal – lots of his colleagues at work had used the agency, too, to avoid the hefty stamp duty. He’d given her a very hurried kiss on the cheek that day; she noticed he hadn’t shaved. Tom always shaved. Later that day she could barely make out his voice on the phone – when he’d told her they were unlucky, they did have to pay that stamp duty bill – thirty thousand pounds they just didn’t have.
‘At least I still have a job.’ He looked away from her towards an air hostess who was walking purposefully down the aisle.
‘Yes, darling, yes,’ she sighed, taking his hand. Yes, thought Katie, we’ve been given a chance; we really must use it. How would Tom or I have coped without a job, an income? With buying a smaller place, with me working? Working? What would I have done! Katie squished up her nose at the thought, then studied the pert air hostess handing out drinks. She was wearing fresh make-up and had a tiny belt round her petite waist. She was smiling.
Yes, but you used to look a bit like that, didn’t you, when you sold advertising space to heavy-duty clients in London? When Tom first met you, didn’t you? God, there she was again – her inner critic, the she-devil who danced on her thoughts. You used to get a thrill, phoning clients minutes before the ad went to press, to increase the cost. You used to wear mascara and lipstick on the same day. Used to know the absolute latest you could phone the printer and get ads changed without it costing the earth, but still charge it to the client. What happened, sister?
What’s happened is that I have had carnal thoughts about Adam, for Pete’s sake, Adam, Lucy’s husband.
What had she become? She watched the air hostess flash a lip-glossy smile at the two of them. Katie could provide a cost analysis of multi-seed bread at each supermarket, but couldn’t win Editorial Newcomer of the Year as she had in 2004 any more, even if Robbie Williams was holding the award, naked and covered in melted Green & Black’s. Where did that girl go? The ‘old Katie’?
Honestly, I have been so wrapped up in the demands of motherhood that I seem to have lost hold on lots of things, our financial mess, my sanity sometimes, who I am… what I nearly became… She looked down at her stained skirt (two hours in, James’s raspberry yogurt).
She glanced at her adorable boys. Six-year-old James with his messy hair and knitted eyebrows like his father, who seemed to know about the world already. Andy had finally fallen asleep, James’s four-year-old happy-go-lucky brother, a bundle of energy and love now exhausted, his face crumpled into a pillow, eyes twitching. Sometimes she made excuses to check them at night, watch them sleeping, watch their chests rise and fall in their Winnie the Pooh pyjamas, watch their tiny cherub mouths. We made those mouths, she’d think, standing in their bedroom doorway; it’s a miracle. We made those tiny nostrils, those curling eyelashes. She’d stand and gaze, smiling to herself for ages.
The boys had packed their own rucksacks. Their little treasures – the things that mattered most to a four- and six-year-old, including four pairs of pants, Pokémon cards, and a picture of Gramps they kept by their beds. They were so innocent, so trusting. Can we sit next to the window? Mum, will we see the pilot? Where does the poo go on a plane?
What would they think when their world was turned upside down? When they realised that this wasn’t just a holiday – it was a – what? Katie could feel her mouth go dry. She folded her arms tight around herself and squeezed. Would they miss their best friends? Their hiding spot in the garden (behind the shed), their goldfish? How on earth would they all cope with the weather? She hastily ripped open a plastic bag containing the airline blanket and quickly wound the comforting blue wrap securely around herself.
‘Hey pretty lady, what you thinking?’ That my insides feel like a too-tight womb. Instead, she smiled at him, clutched his hand and pulled her blanket up further to her chin as she slid down the chair.
*
Katie woke with a start to the pitch of the engine changing, a high throttle noise as the plane began its descent.
‘Mummy! Look! We’re here!’ James was pointing at the window and peering out of it. Katie gazed outside and caught her breath. She was expecting red earth and acres of arid desert. What met her eyes was a vast ocean of greenery (Australia, green?). There were bright splodges of purple dotting the landscape – jacaranda trees she later found out – sprinkled across the ground alongside pockets of sapphire swimming pools glistening in the sun. It looked like springtime – in September? She glanced at her watch: 3rd September 2010, the day her life would change forever. She stared out the window while twisting her wedding ring round.
The plane banked abruptly and the iconic Sydney Harbour show played out underneath them in all its glory: the sun was just coming up over the Opera House; the Harbour Bridge was a menacing, gun-metal grey in front of a milky-blue sky with streaks of sunrise. Minuscule ferries chugged along the water, leaving trails of fluffy foam behind them. Sailing boats, which looked tinier than pearls on a necklace, dotted the harbour.
Suddenly, Katie felt an enormous surge of panic. Australia was a planet from another galaxy. She clutched her armrest. She was allergic to hot – it made her eczema worse. She was particularly terrified of creepy crawlies, couldn’t imagine being twenty-four hours away from her roots, from her family, from her sister, Debra, from her best friend, Lucy… and Adam… Oh God. She leant back in seat 27A. If nothing else good comes out of this, it’s that I’ve put thousands of miles between me and Adam. My best friend’s husband. What an idiot.
‘Boys, we’re here,’ she said, attempting chirpy. Then she took a deep breath and stared at the majestic creamy white Opera House.
What in God’s name have I done?
‘Do you have any food in the bag, darl?’ A customs official with legs encased in khaki shorts was speaking. Shorts. The world stopped and Katie stared at his long socks, at his curly leg hairs escaping from the confines of his hosiery and wondered what a ‘darl’ was – a newly arrived English woman to Australia carrying illegal substances? Her overnight bag had just been pulled off the conveyor belt X-ray after being identified as containing suspicious substances. Honestly, she thought, do I look like I’d carry anything dodgier than old Marmite sandwiches and glitter felt tips?
‘Ma’am?’
It was the American ‘Ma’am’, not the British ‘Madam’, ‘Ma’m’ or even ‘Miss’.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Oh. Some McVitie’s digestives. Just a few packets.’ She beamed at him.
‘What are those? Can you please show me, Ma’am?’
Stop calling me Ma’am. Katie unzipped the bag to reveal her stash.
‘Milk chocolate ones – they’re my favourite,’ she whispered. ‘Not the plain ones.’ She leant in closer. Please don’t take my biscuits.
‘You know that you can’t take food into Australia, don’t you?’
She scratched her chin and looked at him. ‘Really?’ she said, clutching the packets to her breast. She was out of her depth. She handed over her five packets, defeated.
All she could see were uniformed men everywhere, in shorts exposing their hairy limbs: taxi drivers, bus drivers, the security guy at the door of the airport. Everyone was telling them to have a good day. She felt waves of nausea; it was pretty stuffy in there. Tom was muttering about a rental car. All Katie could do was stare. Stare at the women’s legs. Her eyes darted to her own feet, sheathed in sixty-denier John Lewis opaque black – dark sausage legs. Suddenly, this English Rose felt mighty out of place.
*
Tom yanked on the handbrake outside 34 Wattle Avenue, in what felt like one of the highest suburbs in the northern beaches of Sydney: Allambie Heights. Katie grabbed the rental paperwork from Tom’s lap and stared at it.
‘We can’t live here!’
‘What’s wrong, darling?’ But even as he said it, his tone was odd: like he was equally as uneasy as she was. They stared at the house – perched up on stilts, with a rickety wooden staircase leading up to the door. As far as Katie could tell, the house seemed to be stuck perilously somehow into the side of a hill. What an awful house, she thought, closing her eyes and shuddering.
‘I thought you said it was a nice house, Tom?’ Katie whispered at him as they got out the car. ‘It didn’t look like that on the website pictures.’
‘Katie, it’s all we could afford,’ he said putting his arm across her shoulders.
With that she pulled her shoulders back and was jerked back to reality. Right, make this work…
The estate agent was standing at the gate with a clipboard. She was smiling very hard. Katie wanted to haul the clipboard out of her perfectly manicured clutches and hit her over the head with it. I specifically said no hills because Andy is very heavy in his buggy.
‘Must be super views here,’ said Tom striding towards her.
‘Yes!’ She beamed, taking Tom’s hand and shaking it. ‘You and Mrs Parkes will just be able to get a glimpse of the ocean from your window in the en-suite! It’s amazing! How was your flight? Oh, aren’t your kids adorable! Let me show you the house.’
The house had cold, tiled floors. It had an outside laundry room. Why on earth was it outside? It had a huge overgrown Balinese garden pond with a tinkly waterfall; it looked like it was still being built. She closed her eyes with a sigh, imagining how her children would fall in and drown.
What was the estate agent thinking? There were huge glass windows offering no peace of mind to a mum who knew perfectly well that her kids would get out of bed at night and play lightsabre stabbing games and ram straight into them. It had an exceedingly high balcony leading off the – she nearly fainted when she saw it – children’s bedroom. Oh my God. Katie caught her breath. She couldn’t help compare it to her gorgeous London house, especially the kitchen: her beautiful sanctuary. Her heart felt empty thinking about the comfy sofas, the shabby chic ‘country’ kitchen – as rural as she could make it in Crouch End. It will do till we leave London, she’d thought then. She never imagined they would be quite this far outside the M25.
‘Mum!’ James was crouching next to her, yanking at her skirt. ‘Come look. There’s a pond in the garden. With fish! Daddy said, “Go get Mummy, she’s a fish out of water at the moment.”’
Katie frowned, then stood up and let James take her by the hand to look at the fish outside. As she walked past her new furniture, she couldn’t help feeling like she was in a strange reality TV show. One where they take a London housewife who used to spend far too much time fantasising about her best friend’s husband to Australia to sort all her problems out. Yes, thought Katie, sternly, we will sort this out and make a go of it. However, she thought, steadying herself on the side of the wicker chair as she got up, I really do feel queasy. She squeezed James’s hand and tried to smile.
Walking past the rented pastel furniture she realised she’d maybe been a bit hard on Red Lips. She had, after all, got them all the right rented pastel-coloured furniture for their new pastel-coloured Sydney life. But rented? It seemed weird to be spending fifteen quid a week renting a bedside lamp, it really did. Especially when they didn’t have fifteen quid. Then, out of nowhere, like a butterfly landing on a leaf, a feeling settled upon Katie’s heart: it wouldn’t be the only thing that was going to be weird…
*
Later that night, Katie sank into her new salmon pink cushions on the sofa and stared at her stark surroundings, thinking about her lounge in London, the one she had so reluctantly rented out. She recalled the night she had sat and looked at all the packing boxes, flat-packed, waiting to be assembled and stuffed full of their treasures and shipped off in a container to Australia.
She had watched the raindrops falling on the windowpane, then turned to survey her surroundings with all their things for the last time in their rightful places: the baby photos on the walls, the wedding pictures on the mantelpiece – she and Tom deliriously happy in morning suit and ivory chiffon, silk daisies in her hair – cushions scattered around the sofa, one from every holiday they’d had, the slightly too-bright Indian rug (Tom teased her about it) from Marrakech last summer. Our things, she had thought. Our life in a room.
Suddenly there was a bleep on her iPhone. Little sister Debs.
Hi K! How are you? How’s Sydney? Flite? Are you already having bbqs and swimming at the beach? Miss you. Big kiss for the boys. Dxx
She texted back:
Hi D, Not really. Feel fed up and ’bout as happy as a battery chicken considering escape options. Rented house has potential to kill kids due to dangerous water feature and alarmingly high balconies! Let’s chat soon. Exhausted. Lots love, Kx
She pressed ‘send’ and thought about her younger sister Debs. Remembered when they were kids, when they used to pretend they were reading in bed – especially in the summer. Debs with her nightie that she would rustle under the duvet in the dark, sparks flying with electricity, and laugh. Her hair was always so neat, so straight, cut into a bob to frame her face. Not like mine. She sighed. I got Dad’s hair – an unruly mass of curls ready to spring into a dreadful mop despite Mum’s Luxury Hair Gel. She was, she reflected, closing her eyes, much more like her home-loving dad than she realised.
*
Katie woke with a start. What was that terrible cackling noise? It sounded like a bird turning into a machine gun. O-oh-aa-aaa-ohh-ohh-aaaa… oh-oh-aaa…
She wandered into the bathroom, bleary-eyed. The enormous Aussie mirrors were unforgiving. Not like in England where you put a tiny one above the sink to reduce the necessity of looking at your flabby belly unless you stood on a chair and jumped quite high. Not here. The view was available in full three-way glory. Katie grimaced.
She sucked in her two-baby belly, as she liked to call it. It gave her a good excuse to explain away the extra rolls around her middle. Children? Oh of course, it took me years to get back into shape. What she didn’t tell people was how she used to sit at her local patisserie in London sampling the croissants, cream cheese bagels, flicking through celebrity magazines, pretending that she was researching the women’s magazine market when, in fact, she was just stuffing her face. Time to take control.
She looked in the mirror and let out a little yelp. Sucking in her belly she stood up straighter, thought about Tom, about how disciplined he was. His body was toned and taut from hours at the gym, cycle rides, pushing himself to the limit – had got that from his father, a man who’d been in the army for twenty years. ‘You’re a lean, mean cycling machine,’ she used to say with a laugh, as he’d trace his finger over the soft folds of her belly, up over her breasts, cupping them in his hands and smiling at her. ‘And you’re delicious!’ he used to say… When was the last time they…?
The bird was still making a racket when she came back, wrapped in one of James’s old yellow swimming towels. She joined Tom at the window and they both stood and looked at the landscape.
‘What is it?’
‘Kookaburra,’ said Tom softly, gently taking her hand. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’
A huge eucalyptus tree took up the majority of the view, its small blue-green leaves moving daintily in the breeze. Perched on a lower, silvery branch was an enormous bird, with a white-and-coffee-coloured Mohican and a whopping beak.
‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ said Tom, staring ahead.
Nodding, she looked out at the piece of Australia they could see from their window. She felt completely lost. Her reference points of crowded London streets, sparrows, the Tube, Evening Standard and parking permits had been replaced by vistas of gum trees and exceedingly loud birds. Not that she always liked the Tube, sparrows and parking permits; she just understood them. They were the points of reference in the satnav of her brain.
And it was baking – warm air enveloped them as they opened the window; the sun was already intense on her cheek. She felt yet another wave of dizziness wash over her and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. She’d just had a shower – how could she be sweating again? Oh my God, I feel utterly lost.
It was spring, a curious discovery. How exactly did she go from N8 to gazing at cappuccino-coloured kookaburras from her bedroom window? Lost, lost, lost. Like Dad must have felt when he gave up work. A lost soul. She remembered when he’d been made redundant from the carpet factory. Remembered him saying over and over to her mum, ‘But, Gloria, I don’t want to retire – there’s more in me yet. My whole life has been in carpets…’ It killed him, not having a job, no purpose. He had tried to manage the garden, but there was only so much strategising you could do with a quarter-acre plot in Hertfordshire.
Closing the window on the heat, Katie rested her forehead on the cool glass and wondered what her dad would have made of Australia. Would he have advised her that it was a chance for Tom? Would he have encouraged her to support him, knowing, as he knew well, that he’d have been devastated to have lost his job, unable to speak to his friends. At least here they could reinvent themselves somewhat. She let out a deep sigh. Fresh start. Chance to pay off debts. And yet, how would they cope? It just seemed so drastic to have come all the way here. Katie scratched her head. Why wasn’t Tom offered something in England?
Suddenly there was a ping from the phone lying on her bedside table.
A text from Lucy:
How you doing? You around?
How did she answer that? I want to throw up all the time with nerves and feel totally at sea. Suddenly the phone rang: Lucy’s number flashed up. OMG.
‘Hi, darling, I know this is costing a fortune but thought I’d quickly call. How—’
‘Fine, fine…’ Katie’s voice started to break; she just wanted Lucy off the phone. I want to chat, chat like we used to around your solid oak kitchen table, just three doors up from me, but it all feels so wrong. There is so much I want to say, huge enormous suitcases’ worth of feelings I’d like to share. Katie shook her head. But I just can’t, can’t. Lucy couldn’t understand.
She changed tack. ‘It’s hot here. Really hot! Visiting a school today – and it’s incredibly sunny.’
‘You OK?’ asked Lucy, concern straining in her voice.
‘No, Lucy, I’m not.’
‘You’ll settle down, Katie, I’m sure you will. You’ll turn around in about a year and feel just fine.’
‘I DON’T WANT TO TURN AROUND AND FEEL JUST FINE!’
She closed her eyes and could see bluey-purple swirls under her eyelids. God, she was exhausted already. ‘Sorry, Luce. I’m just completely out of sorts.’
‘It’s all right… um, Adam and I were looking at some photos of your summer party—’
Oh, God. What was on them? Me leaning in too closely to Adam? She felt a horrid cocktail of guilt and homesickness well up. She wanted to reach down the phone and hug her; tears were welling up again.
‘Lucy, I have to go,’ sniffed Katie. ‘I’ll call again.’ I can’t chat because I can’t speak.
‘Katie, wait, we’ve been looking at flights,’ said Lucy suddenly. ‘We’re thinking of visiting!’
This time, the very heady mixture of homesickness and nausea nearly floored Katie. Oh. My. God. I don’t want to see Adam again… It’s one of the reasons I agreed to move 10,000 miles away…
*
Tom pulled up on the road next to Yellowbank Public School and Katie stared out the car window at the scene before her. Some of it reminded her of English schools. The red brick, the odd lunchbox abandoned in the playground. Inside, she was comforted by the walls covered in a mass of brightly-coloured paintings; paper plate faces peering down with blue tissue-paper hair; the smell of cooked cabbage that seemed to unite all schools globally; and teachers clip-clopping past them in the corridor.
But other bits could have been from Mars. A low fence around the school, she filed this thought in her head to think about later. There were structures in the school grounds that looked like Portakabins, with air-conditioning units poking out at the side.
Their feet crunched through parched gum leaves on the dusty path. James and Andy ran on ahead. Tom was whistling. ‘Do they teach in there?’ Katie asked. ‘Or are they still finishing the building work around the school?’ She squinted in the harsh sun. The school secretary, who was showing them the grounds, spun around on her heels and gave her a peculiar look. She narrowed her eyes and leant in close. Katie was overwhelmed by musky cheap perfume.
‘You just got off the boat, didn’t you, darl?’ she said, arms folded across her chest. ‘Those are classrooms.’ As she spoke her intonation rose at the end.
‘Right, I see.’ What boat?
Back in the headmaster’s office James played with a basket of toys while Andy searched through a box of yogurt-coated raisins looking for a black one, flicking all the yogurt ones out of the packet. The headmaster just smiled. It was all very relaxed, very unlike anything she’d ever seen, frankly. All I’ve ever wanted was a quiet life in the Home Counties, thought Katie, frowning, watching the little white blobs land on the floor. But OK, let’s give Australia a go, she thought determinedly, pushing her bangles up her arm. This is our challenge; the one Tom and I need. It will either put back the spark, or combust the whole thing. With this thought, she wiped some sweat building on her forehead with the back of her hand. But first, those fences. She turned to the headmaster, pulled her shoulders back.
‘Um, headmaster, sir, um, Mr Edmunds?’ She cleared her throat.
‘Yes, Katie – I’m the “principal” here – but call me Stu.’
Stu?
‘Mr Edmunds, oh, yes, Stu.’ She crossed her legs and leant in. ‘I just wondered if I could ask you about the fences.’ She pointed to the window. Tom, tapping a cinnamon-brown brogue on the floor, looked over at her.
‘They seem rather low,’ she carried on.
‘Katie—’ The principal peered at her, took off his glasses. He was a round man, in his late fifties, wearing cream trousers and an open-neck shirt. He looked like he was about to play golf, not lead a school into academic excellence. His hair was greying and he was also wearing a long-suffering expression.
He spoke to her in a soothing way, like he was addressing someone holding a hand grenade with the pin out. He said he hadn’t lost any children yet. He explained that this was not London; it was a fairly nice suburb in Sydney. He said that it wasn’t a private school. Katie swallowed hard, and looked at Tom who at that point pulled on his shirt cuffs and coughed. The headmaster then took off his glasses, cleaned them and smiled at them both. As he did this, images of men in balaclavas crouching in bushes around the playground filled her brain, and Katie let out a yelp.
‘Kath-er-ine?’ Tom’s voice was remarkably restrained.
‘Sorry, yes.’ She looked up, put her hand to her mouth as her silver bracelets crashed into one another. Tom’s eyebrows were raised and he was staring at her.
‘I understand.’
She looked over at James who was sitting next to Andy by the toy basket. ‘Darling, would you like to go to this lovely school? Next week maybe?’
Her son stared at them all and twisted a ring of hair round his finger. Then he shrugged and went back to a basket of books.
‘What’s the uniform like?’ gushed Katie, to fill the silence. The headmaster seemed to prefer this to the last question. He explained they wore ties and bush hats. What on earth is a bush hat? she wondered.
*
Katie walked Tom to the main road. It was his first day in the office and he needed to be there by mid-morning. He gave her arm a squeeze. ‘Listen, sweetie, I’ll get a cab to work; you take care. Go have a rest. You know,’ he said, arm outstretched to hail the next cab, ‘I think we made the right choice about the move – and school,’ he quickly added as a yellow cab swerved into the side of the road. ‘Bye, boys!’
Smile, just smile. She had so much going on in her head from low fences to infidelity. It was easier just to turn her mouth up at the ends and not think too hard. Move her lips to the required position and hold them there. A Stepford Wife smile.
She held James and Andy’s hands and watched Tom get into the cab. She waved. Then she slowly walked towards her purple rented four-wheel drive jeep.
‘C’mon, boys! Last one to the car is a smelly—’
‘Sock!’ they chorused.
When they got to the car she was quite out of breath. She stared at the huge shiny vehicle. It looked like an over-ripe aubergine. Fumbling for her keys in her bag she realised she hadn’t a clue how to get back to the rented house.
A traffic warden was coming her way. Oh crumbs. Did they have to pay? She tripped over on the kerb, dropped her bag and steadied herself.
‘Morning, ma’m? Everything OK?’
‘Yes, yes, look I have the money, really I do, I just…’ Throw him off the scent. ‘Um, had a Very Important Breast Appointment and I wasn’t sure of the zone. I’m really sorry.’ She clutched her left breast and looked pleadingly at him. ‘Don’t give me a ticket…’ She scrabbled in her bag for change, dropping coins on the grass. She was terrified. She had accumulated a number of parking tickets in London, adding up to the cost of a small villa in the Dordogne.
‘You right?’
As he said this, his voice went up at the end. Am I right? thought Katie. I really don’t know. Am I? Perhaps not in the head. But have I parked illegally?
‘Sorry I don’t understand. We only arrived last Wednesday…’
‘You haven’t parked illegally.’ He smiled at her.
Must put ‘laid-back traffic cops’ on my ‘pro’ part of living in Australia list. Katie smiled back, relieved.
‘Thanks. Listen, I don’t know how to get home.’ She stared at the busy road, traffic whizzing past, clutched the boys’ hands tightly.
She glanced at him and then looked down at his shorts.
‘Home? Where’s that, darl?’ he said, scratching his chin, squinting at her in the sun.
‘London.’
‘We had fairy bread at school today. Talia’s mum brought it in,’ announced James. ‘Mum?’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Under the table, dear.’
Katie always remembered too late not to serve couscous to her children. Her children who thought it was terribly funny to flick it at each other in a game, thinking she couldn’t see. She could not let it lie there on the floor. Today, she had tried to concoct Moroccan-inspired lamb with couscous leftovers, which now lay sprayed under the table.
‘What’s fairy bread, poppet? Ouch. Don’t kick me, Andy.’
‘Bread, with coloured hundreds and thousands on it,’ replied James, peering under the table. ‘Really yummy. It’s the Australian national dish. Can I have some sprinkles on my lamb chops?’
No, you cannot. ‘We’ll see,’ she muttered as she crawled out from under the table, commando style, trying not to spill couscous from the dustpan holder.
The phone was ringing.
‘Hey, Katie, it’s Ann. Just calling to see if you did need any spare uniforms?’
Katie had met Ann on the boys’ first day at Yellowbank Public School. She remembered how she’d run in, lunchbox under her arm, late, and crashed straight into a woman in a purple halter-neck dress.
‘Sorry!’ she’d gasped, picking up the contents of the lunch from the ground.
‘Don’t worry.’ Ann had smiled. ‘We were late on our first day too!’
That was a few weeks ago – it took some time to graduate from arching eyebrows in an I-recognise-you-from-the-playground-way, to smiling, then a little wave, then finally on to chatting in the playground about life, the universe and what a bush hat was (hat with a very large brim). Growing roots in new soil took time.
‘You there?’
‘Yes, hi, sorry – bit distracted,’ said Katie. ‘What’s fairy bread, Ann? Is it your national dish?’
There was a snort down the phone and Katie smiled. I think I’m going to like her. She pushed some wayward curls out of her eye and switched the phone to her other ear.
‘Very funny! No, fairy bread is kids’ paradise, honey,’ explained Ann laughing. ‘It’s white bread, buttered thickly and covered in hundreds and thousands. It is not a national dish, sweetie. It has no nutritional value whatsoever! See you tomorrow around morning tea – I’ll drop off the stuff.’
‘Oh great, thanks for the tip. See you then. Bye.’ What time?
Morning tea? Surely she means morning coffee, thought Katie, going towards the computer to google ‘Australian Idioms’. She was distracted by a Skype alert from Lucy; her heart did a little lurch as she realised how much she missed her. Lovely Lucy. My mother would have skipped on the spot if Lucy had been her daughter instead of me. Katie smiled to herself. Lucy knew how to propagate any plant you showed her in the garden; she was nearly always the first to clear the table and lend a hand.
Lucy followed in her mother’s footsteps – even looked quite like her mother, pearls and all. Lucy wanted the rural life, the two point four kids, the tradition, the Family Home. Lucy’s first husband Mark, on the other hand, used to unhappily go on a few country retreats with Katie and Tom for the weekend but he was always edgy – glad to get back to grimy London, to breathe in the pollution particles again. The country air just used to aggravate his hay fever. He wasn’t the country type.
Turns out, he wasn’t the monogamous type either. Lucy woke one day to find him gone. He’d had an affair with his dental nurse. Seduced by her pearly whites, obviously. He then decided he wanted to find himself – and the meaning of life – by going on a six-month spiritual study tour to Bali.
I’m part of a new breed, thought Katie, sighing. A breed who ‘cut corners, my darling’ as her mum would have said. But there was some common domestic ground between Lucy and Katie: Adam. Katie stared at the icon that told her Lucy was waiting for her to reply. What was she thinking? Adam was Lucy’s second chance, her new beginning after her cheating, lying first husband… It was only a kiss… She clicked on the mouse.
And suddenly there she was, smiling and waving at Katie from the computer. Skype was an amazing thing. Lucy was going in and out of focus as she moved the little camera on her computer.
‘Hi, darling, how are you?’ Lucy was grinning at her, wearing baggy red and white checked pyjamas. Her cheeks were rosy like she’d just come in from a run, her wispy blonde hair scraped back in her trademark Alice band. She had about a hundred hair bands. This one was red gingham too.
‘Fine, yes! Great. Hot!’
‘Really? What time of day is it over there? How’s Tom?’
‘Fine, fine, in Jakarta, went yesterday…’
‘You must miss him.’
Katie scratched her head, leant forward towards the camera and nodded automatically.
‘You?’
‘Fabby, thanks. Adam’s been house-hunting! Leaving grotty London!’
‘I used to say that, Luce, and looked what happened to me!’
‘Well, that’s why I wanted to Skype you – we’ve booked our flights!’
Katie held on to the desk where the computer sat, leaned back in her chair, hoped she had a ‘Gosh how great’ face on. ‘Wonderful!’ came out of her mouth as her smile froze. She was glad she was on Skype and that Lucy wouldn’t notice the twitch in her eye. The rest of the conversation went in a blur about things like the time difference, what to bring, how hot it would be. Katie walked away from the conversation in a trance.
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