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  Like Being A Wife

  ePub ISBN 9781742741048

  Kindly ISBN 9781742741055

  A Vintage book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Vintage in 2010

  © Catherine Harris 2010

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Harris, C. (Catherine)

  Like being a wife/Catherine Harris.

  ISBN 978 1 86471 039 7 (pbk).

  Australian fiction.

  A823.4

  Cover and internal design by Natalie Winter

  Typeset in Bembo by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an accredited ISO AS/NZS

  14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer

  For Phillip

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Like Being a Wife

  The First Ten Minutes Are Free

  Our Breakfast Hostess, or How I Gained 15 Kilos – A Memoir

  A Grand Leap of Stupid Faith

  Mick, Agapanthus, the Unfinished TV Stand...

  Milk

  How Do I Begin to Explain This to You?

  The Prospector

  Hatched, Matched, Dispatched

  Too Many People

  A Happy Marriage Message

  Space

  Sabbatical

  The Real Thing

  Phoenix

  Not Like Cherries

  Hypochondriac

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Like Being a Wife

  The Capital Employment Agency was on the ninth floor and afforded good views of the highway and most of the hills backing the southern side of the city. I was looking for another job because my most recent occupation as a taste-tester for FoodTech was making me ill. Mostly it was the meats. It started with the Super-Sausage, which was supposed to taste like a combination of breakfast rissoles and a pork roast but reminded me all too much of fried liver. Then the next day I was presented with a concoction of braised beef cubes injected with a prune extract (apparently as a nutritional supplement) that smelled so awful I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. I explained to Val, my placement adviser, that my walking-out was anomalous behaviour (I’d been with FoodTech for nine years and had a very good track record as far as attendance and such matters were concerned), but I could see from the tilt of her head as I spoke that she was worried I might be a serial insubordinate.

  While Val filled out the vetting forms, I watched the chop and change of the traffic below. It was hot outside. The bitumen shimmered as the lights switched from orange and red to green, the cars scurrying across the intersection like ants running to get out of the sun.

  After a question about my typing, which I’m proud to say I can perform at the rate of eighty words per minute, Val tapped her pen a couple of times, then recrossed her legs and smiled at me. ‘I think I might have something,’ she said.

  At the interview, Carla, the department head, asked about my experience. I wore a navy cotton shift and matching jacket, and one of the men (who I would later discover to be Mark from due diligence) kept looking at my legs.

  I said that even though I had no background working in this kind of office, the skills I’d acquired as a taste-tester stood me in good stead for this type of employment. At FoodTech I’d had to rate many kinds of comestibles across a range of categories, from moistness, springiness and viscosity to pungency, piquancy and mouthfeel. Not only did I have to be consistent but, I explained, the organisation of the information was quite similar to filing and, as far as I could tell, was particularly compatible with the department’s cross-referencing system. This seemed to impress the panel. Then I recounted the example of Madhavi, a taste-tester from India I’d worked with who was a vegetarian. Contrary to what you might imagine, the meats weren’t a problem for her because we weren’t expected to swallow the food. Thus, I extrapolated, just because my curriculum vitae didn’t include any departmental work per se, it didn’t mean I couldn’t perform it.

  Much later I found out this was the argument that had persuaded them, and indeed was instrumental in my being immediately promoted from the rank of departmental administrative assistant to the more senior position of section complaints officer.

  I spent my first week in orientation. Doreen from human resources said that typically there were more people in the familiarisation sessions (because the majority of recruiting was coordinated across sections and was done en masse at the beginning of the financial year), but as I was a one-off counter-cycle appointee, this round there was only me. It was my first time in a boardroom. The table sat thirty. It was longer than my apartment and polished slick as a slab of melting ice. As Doreen ran through the PowerPoint presentations I took notes and imagined what it must be like to be Doreen, married with three kids, heading off to work each morning in my pastel-coloured suits and taupe high heels. Because it wasn’t an official department meeting there were no biscuits. The coffee machine was off.

  On Friday I was formally introduced to the rest of the office. At morning tea Carla tapped her mug with a teaspoon until everyone was quiet and then said, ‘I’d like to introduce Daisy Higgins, our new section complaints officer. Daisy comes to us from FoodTech, where she was a taste-tester for nine years. Please help us to make her feel welcome.’ Then she simulated clapping her hands (because her actual hands were still holding the mug and the teaspoon) and most people joined in with the real thing.

  After the speech, I helped myself to a slice of buttered cinnamon bun and drank a cup of tea. The cinnamon bun was palatable with no metallic aftertaste, had a nice balance between springiness and density, and the icing was sweet but not too sharp, with just the right amount of salt for depth. Also, the butter was fresh and evenly distributed across the slice.

  All in all I felt the new job was working out well. I had my own desk with a computer and a telephone set up opposite the main entrance. The people were polite, and the food, when it was in evidence, seemed edible. For a moment I found myself scanning for the spit bucket (an old habit I was going to have to bre
ak), but quickly caught the oversight and swallowed the bun instead. It went down easily. Overall, I’d have rated it nine out of a possible ten.

  It didn’t take long for me to develop a routine. I’d wake up at six thirty am, shower, scan the newspaper, then walk to work. I liked the process of transformation, of being me, Daisy, at home in my domestic space, then stepping out of the apartment and into the day, melding with the stream of other office workers en route to their respective appointments, forming in clots at various intersections around the city. It was comforting to be part of a throng. After years of commuting by car to my single-unit laboratory carrel, it was liberating to be out on the street, in the world, knowing that beneath the courtesies and half-hearted public smiles I could be anyone doing anything.

  In the evenings I’d walk home via the supermarket where I’d loiter in the fruit and vegetable aisles watching as people made their decisions about what to have for dinner. I was the complaints officer roaming freely amongst unsuspecting subscribers, and in this way they became real to me.

  My first official complainant was Mr Gordon Brickman, a local resident from the outer-east who was going overseas and was upset because his offer documents wouldn’t arrive before his departure. Despite his tone, I knew better than to tell him to simmer down, and this impressed Carla no end.

  ‘You sound like you’ve done this before,’ she said, and I had to admit it did seem to come naturally: ‘Yes, Mr Brickman. No, Mr Brickman. Of course, Mr Brickman, whatever you say.’ It was like being a wife, I supposed, this going along, and it fit neatly with my ideas about public service, and what it meant to be married to the job.

  At four weeks Carla called me into her office. She gestured to the round, grey laminex-topped table adjacent to the desk, and we sat side by side as she conducted my first review.

  ‘How are you finding it?’ she asked.

  ‘Good,’ I replied. I’d drawn up charts for each of the possible complaint issues, then arranged them by degree of seriousness and likelihood and speed of escalation (based on complainant characteristics) so I could quickly calculate the importance of each call, determine the simplest way to remedy the problem and assign it to the most appropriate person within the organisation. It was very similar to what I did at FoodTech, though without the food.

  Carla nodded and ticked something on my evaluation sheet. ‘I hope you like to travel,’ she said. ‘You’re coming with us to Melbourne next week.’

  This was unexpected. It was my job to stay put. While the rest of the team attended supplier meetings on Fridays and ate dainty tea sandwiches for lunch, I kept the home office intact, forwarding necessary telephone calls and faxing forgotten memoranda. Melbourne meant stakeholder conferences and elevator towers and swipe cards instead of keys. It also meant being away from my desk. I knew Carla must have factored this in, but it worried me to leave my files unattended.

  On the plane, I recognised the lunch combination – a ham and cheese sandwich on wholemeal, an apple and a single wrapped Tim Tam – as one of four options I’d evaluated nearly a year ago now when FoodTech landed the Skylink account. I’d guessed as much, so packed my own food (also a ham and cheese sandwich, but smoked ham and Swiss cheese rather than cheddar, with Dijon mustard on rye). From experience I knew the Skylink sandwich would be too moist and would score highly on the sweetness and astringency scales, while the apple would be powdery and bland, with a spotty, bruised exterior.

  The flight itself was uneventful. I braced myself for turbulence during the descent, but the pilot executed a very smooth landing.

  As the plane taxied towards the terminal, I gazed out the window, watching the flurry of luggage carts and mechanical personnel. The seatbelt sign was still illuminated but nobody cared. By the time we reached the gate, most of the passengers were already up, extracting their bags from the overhead storage compartments.

  During the strategy meeting to plan for the logistics meeting, Carla said they should position the Australia Post executives on smaller chairs and have them sitting facing into the sun. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have been so aggressive, she explained to me later, but since the postal service mislaid all of the express applications, the minister had been breathing down her neck. Her back was up against the wall, she said. Something had to be done.

  Everyone at the meeting agreed. The situation absolutely couldn’t be allowed to continue. It was decided to postpone the logistics meeting until the following week and to bring it forward an hour to take full advantage of the brightness of the midday glare. Then the recording secretary called a short adjournment.

  Carla stirred her coffee. I watched the circular motion of the spoon as she outlined for me the history of the postal service’s uneven corporate account performance. It made a gentle clinking sound against the side of the porcelain cup.

  At a quarter past, the meeting reconvened. We took our seats along the far side of the table and, as everyone shuffled into place, Carla took the opportunity to introduce me to the chair of the committee on committees, Paul Turner.

  ‘Paul, have you met Daisy?’ Carla said.

  Paul shook my hand. ‘Daisy,’ he said. ‘Like in a flower bed?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Hmm. Interesting,’ he said. ‘Daisy, Daisy, Daisy. What kind of name is that?’

  I’d often wondered why more people didn’t ask why my parents called me Daisy. It was a natural question, I reasoned, given all the other names I could have had. Why did they choose Daisy, for example, and not Annabel or Mary-Lou? I could have been a Mary-Lou, I thought, though I wouldn’t tell him that.

  ‘What’s in a name?’ I replied instead, dodging the issue completely.

  Later that night, when I arrived at the restaurant, Paul called out, ‘Here’s Alice.’

  ‘No, not Alice, my name is Daisy,’ I reiterated, trying not to sound too defensive.

  Paul said, ‘Yes, but a rose is a rose is a rose.’

  Carla wanted to know what he was talking about so Paul explained about Gertrude Stein. From that moment on everyone at work called me Gerty.

  The first time Paul and I had sex we met at the Diplomat motel, a circular building girded by black-painted steel balconies directly over the road from the department, where he was staying for the night. He said the official purpose of his trip was business, but the real reason was me. I fascinated him, he said, as he brushed a strand of hair from my face. His breath smelled of Johnnie Walker and Tic Tacs. When we kissed he held me by the shoulders and ran his tongue slowly across the surface of my teeth.

  Even though Paul was much older than me, he was in reasonably good shape. ‘That’s a hundred situps each morning,’ he said, punching himself in the stomach. ‘Come hell or high water.’ And then he got down on the floor to demonstrate the strength of his abdominal muscles. Paul said his wife left him because she was selfish and a fucking bitch, but I could see he would be difficult to live with.

  Paul took to calling me at the office each afternoon at three. I’d prepare a complainant profile in advance so when the telephone rang it looked as though I was engaged in a bona fide conversation. ‘Section complaints,’ I would say in my normal 8 am–6 pm voice and then, as Paul described to me all the lurid thoughts he’d had about me during the course of the day, I would fiddle with my papers and say, ‘Yes, Mr Brickman. No, Mr Brickman. Of course, Mr Brickman, whatever you say.’

  Sometimes Carla would nod to me from her office across the hall. It was demarcated by a perspex dividing wall, set up in such a way that she could monitor the entire section from her desk.

  My probationary period concluded after exactly six months. I thought it ironic that my permanent contract came into effect on May Day. To celebrate I bought a pale lime rayon suit and a pair of six inch taupe high heels. I wore them on Friday to morning tea and then again that weekend when Paul and I had sex on the meeting table in Carla’s office. Paul hitched up my
skirt and ground into me, calling me Alice and Daisy and Dirty Gerty, but I didn’t come because I was worried about pulling a seam.

  Even though I was no longer officially with the agency, Val called to congratulate me on my new unconditional departmental standing.

  ‘Nice going,’ she said. ‘I had my doubts but you came through.’

  Which was flattering, in part, the recognition, though her superior air rankled. What I wanted to tell her was that I knew she’d had her misgivings about me, that I’d seen it in the way she’d looked at me, had heard it in the skew of her voice all those months ago on the ninth floor when she’d first interviewed me in her office, listening to her talking on about the significance of rules and procedures, as though I had no idea of the implications of the FoodTech incident, as if I couldn’t figure it out for myself, the potential consequences of my actions.

  But I didn’t. Instead, I replied, ‘Thank you, that’s so kind,’ in a distinctly sugary tone, noting the fruity aspect of my delivery, but prepared to risk the exaggerated sweetness because it balanced the sharpness of my other feelings.

  Not that I expected her to realise that. But it pleased me to deal with the world in this way – to know that at worst the situation would be well categorised and that no matter how discordant the many elements of the scenario might be, the experiment (if properly observed) could always be repeated.

  The First Ten Minutes Are Free

  I called a psychic. This is what she said: ‘You’re frustrated. You’re hoping for a major life change, something to give you focus, because you have no idea what you’re doing or why. Your job is boring. Your love-life disappoints you. You’re lonely, afraid and uninspired.

  ‘Deep down you know that you’re an extremely gifted person. Deep down you know you deserve more than this, this obscurity, this lacklustre.