There were three distractions that caused the email catastrophe that morning. Unremarkable, ordinary office happenings – only to be expected while sipping coffee and settling into her Friday. But nothing unusual. Nothing that could completely explain the lapse in concentration.
It was only later that week when Emma heard the scientist on the radio talking about the myth of multi-tasking, that she had her answer. Small, insignificant tasks happening at once couldn’t be processed simultaneously. They needed her brain to alternate quickly from one thing to the other, then back again. Three small tasks needing quick flicks of attention – the phone ringing just as she remembered she still hadn’t booked the dishwasher repairman, which happened at the same time as a junior girl came into the office holding up a coat for lost property.
Three small distractions that each demanded the same response. Finish the personal email and get back to work. There was a momentary hesitation as she looked at the email – something grating at the edge of her brain as she pressed ‘send’ – but her neurotransmitters were on a furious collision course as they changed between tasks and hadn’t got the processing order right. The fear though, as she lifted her finger from the mouse was instant.
‘No!’
A terrible plummeting knowledge. An immediate, that-can’t-have-just-happened shock. Emma stood up with a jerk. Her office chair rolled back and crashed into the wall.
‘No!’
She reached down for her mouse and clicked into her sent emails box. The office receded into one black line of text as the oxygen slipped from the room. Hot panic rose in blotchy red patches up her neck as the implications of the email thudded sickly around in her head. It wasn’t possible that she’d just emailed those words to the whole group. It just wasn’t possible.
When her breath returned it came in short bursts. There were more than fifty people on the list. All over the world. How had she accidentally pressed ‘reply all’? She never replied all on large group emails. Only really confident people or self-important idiots did that.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Please God – you can’t do this to me!’
‘I don’t think it works like that.’ Lena appeared from the back office, stolid as a brick wall, her brow furrowed. ‘What’s happened, Emma? You’ll give old Moira a heart attack if she comes in and hears that sort of talk to the heavenly father.’
‘Oh shivers, sorry.’ Emma looked back at the photo on her computer screen – the gaudy taffeta, the big hair, the guarded, hopeful smiles. Every one of her 1993 graduating class now seemed to be staring out at her accusingly. Her stomach plummeted further. ‘I mean, umm, I’m really sorry Lena. I, err…’ She half turned, fumbling blindly for her chair and sank down. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
Lena dumped her pile of papers on Emma’s desk and picked up the waste paper bin in the corner of the room, efficient and purposeful. She held it out. ‘Here. Or head to the loos.’
Emma ignored the bin and put her head in her hands. When she un-scrunched her eyes, she noticed Lena’s blue lace-up leather walking shoes were topped with garish mustard-coloured socks. Her trousers sat a centimetre too high above her ankles in a practical declaration of Lena’s indifference to fashion. Why couldn’t Emma be sensible like her? Do her work, go home and walk the dogs, knit squares for charity blankets. Live a sort of life where group email fiascos were as unlikely as the Queen coming to tea.
‘Sorry but I’m going to have to go home for a bit. Something’s… come up.’ She stood and picked up her phone off the desk and slid it into her handbag.
Lena tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. ‘Emma, of course you should go if you feel sick but… what’s happened?’
‘I – It’s just a personal thing. Sorry.’ Emma brought both her hands to her mouth to mute the scream that was threatening to escape, then she pulled them down and squeezed two tight fists at her sides. ‘I’ve finished the stationery orders and sent the parent email about the Gala Ball. There isn’t anything else I needed to do urgently. I’ll come back in this afternoon or… make the time up later in the week. Sorry Lena. I…’
Emma looked across at her computer and imagined the responses pinging into her inbox. What would they say? She barely knew most of those girls now. Every year since graduation had removed her a little further from the group. Now, twenty-five years on, there was only the brittle knowledge that she’d never really been like them. Not smart enough or talented enough. Not from the right sort of family – her lack of breeding displayed so obviously in the width of her ankles, her pouchy, undefined knees, her plain face. To make matters worse here she was, now employed at their old school, her staff position a confirmation of where she had really always belonged. A supporting role to their leading ladies – their girls who wandered the park-like grounds of Denham House School in graceful, tittering gaggles.
‘I’ll call you later.’ Emma grabbed her handbag and stumbled outside and down the steps, brushing against the sign on the garden path that announced Denham House School Administration Office. She took the quickest path to the staff carpark, through the Wentworth Gardens and over the Great Lawn that sank like lush green carpet as she hurried across. The head gardener had a fetish for perfect blades of grass and the sprinklers were like a constant, guilty presence when everything was so dry.
Emma’s hand shook as she unlocked her car. She just needed to get home. Phillip would be completely sensible. He was good in a crisis. He’d know what to say. Nobody died. Pull yourself together. What’s the worst that can happen? Probably a lot since she’d inferred in the email that she knew something in connection with Tessa’s death.
As Emma pulled out of the carpark her phone began buzzing on the passenger seat. She looked down at the lit screen and relief washed over her. Marlee. Emma pulled over and took the call, balancing the phone on her lap and putting it on speaker.
‘Please don’t say anything awful. If I was near a cliff, I might be really close to jumping off.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Marlee.
Emma cringed with fresh horror. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m such an idiot! What have I done?’
‘Call it marketing. It’ll make the reunion a much hotter ticket now. We might even get Helena and her handbag dogs back from New York if we’re really lucky.’
‘Oh Marl, be serious! Did it look like I was saying I knew what happened to Tessa? Will everyone guess what I was talking about?’
‘Em, stop. It was twenty-five years ago. Nobody gives a toss anymore.’
‘Of course they do.’ Emma felt a mild burst of irritation. ‘If someone sends it on, I could lose my job!’
‘Would you stop torturing yourself? It’s bad for your metabolism.’
‘What? I’m not torturing myself… it was just the Year Twelve photo of everyone Selina sent. I was thinking about Tessa and it brought it all back. Now they’ll all think I’m a fruitcake.’ Emma balanced the phone between her legs, speaker up, and pulled back onto the road.
‘Well, you’re a very nice fruitcake. And anyway, the only bit about the email they’ll remember is that you don’t want sex with Phillip because he picks his toenails and flicks the dead bits onto the carpet.’
‘Oh shit. I can’t believe I said that.’ Thirty of those women might as well be strangers it was so long since she’d seen them. Now they were laughing about her most private thoughts.
‘I love it when you swear. Haven’t heard you swear like that since you were pushing Rosie out. Go you!’
‘Stop it.’
‘Well the toenail thing’s disgusting. I’m not surprised you haven’t had sex for months. It was funny.’
‘Glad you think so,’ said Emma, staring bleakly at the wash of autumn colour as she reached the edge of the city and the trees began to thicken. She jumped as a car tooted her from behind, then she stamped on the accelerator to start through the light which must have turned green a while ago.
‘Em, really, it’ll all be fine.’
Emma felt the pounding of her heart recede as she changed lanes and concentrated on the traffic on the bridge. The truck in front was blowing palls of black smoke that thinned and spread into the blue sky above the Tasman Bridge. She imagined the soot particles floating down onto the pristine waters of the Derwent River below and felt a strange urge to cry.
‘What if someone shows that email to Dr Brownley? What if people forward it on?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Em. Brownley’s too busy running the school to worry about something that happened when we were kids. How did you manage to press “reply all” anyway?’
‘I was distracted,’ said Emma. ‘I’m not checking my email for a week. I can’t bear to think about it.’ She tried to ignore the sick throbbing in her head as the truck pulled off to the left at the end of the bridge, giving out one more juddering thick plume of smoke. She flicked on the recycled air button, then reached into the middle compartment of the car and dug out an old packet of mints. The top one was dusty and had something suspiciously like BluTack stuck to it. Today could be the day she cleaned the car. She’d been meaning to do it for months.
‘Good idea not to check your email,’ said Marlee. ‘And if you’re tempted just get Rosie to check for you. But she should only tell you about the nice replies.’
‘Are you kidding? I’m not letting her near that email! Parents and sex in the same sentence? She’d die of shame.’
‘Mmmm. Maybe ask Phillip then, although I’m not sure that school gossip is really his bag. And he might have a problem with the toenail thing.’
‘Well that, and the fact that I’d have to do a naked jig to get Phil away from his own computer this week. He’s trying to finish the paper he’s giving at the World Soil Conference. Submission day looms.’
‘He’s such a barrel of fun, your fella.’
‘Oh, Marl. Leave him alone.’ Emma felt a heaviness descend as she thought about Phillip and his constant, distracted grumpiness.
‘Well, go and get the cottage ready for your next guests or something. Do not check your email. I’ll come over tomorrow night early and do it for you, okay? And tell me what I can bring. Salad?’
‘No, don’t bring anything. Rosie’s asked for roast lamb, so I’ll just do veggies. I’d better go. Talk to you later.’ Emma fumbled with the phone as she disconnected, then she unwrapped the top of the mint packet with her teeth and threw the dirty one into the side pocket of the car door. The next one looked perfect. She squeezed it into her mouth as she took the Cambridge exit off the highway. She looked across at the dry grey-brown paddocks dotted with dirty sheep and wondered if the brief bit of rain yesterday would make a difference to the garden. She needed to water the pots. There was plenty she could do around the garden to stop herself from checking the computer. Maybe the car cleaning could wait.
Emma pulled into their driveway and parked next to the huge jumbled stack of firewood that had been delivered yesterday by weird Wesley, pleased she’d been out when he came. It saved her from hiding in the study to avoid a freaky conversation about the roadkill he collected and buried at his farm to see how fast it would decompose and make his plants grow. Although if she’d been here, she might have convinced him to dump it closer to the shed. She was the one who’d have to stack it. Phillip wouldn’t have time, despite being the one who had pushed for them to move out of the city to be closer to nature.
She’d been reluctant to leave the centre of Hobart, but when Phillip had found the gorgeous old timber farmhouse with its high ceilings and picture windows looking out across the endless paddocks, it had entranced them both. It needed a little work, but he had convinced her that they would enjoy the challenge and Phillip was thrilled to have his work life right at the back door. As an environmental scientist studying the effect of microorganisms in different kinds of soil, Phillip was able to set up large-scale experiments and now had three huge greenhouses behind the sheds. She still missed the convenience of living in the city, but over the last year had thrown herself into renovating a small guest cottage that had come with the house, and renting it out to tourists.
She glanced across the paddock. Outside the cottage she could see Pia’s old white hatchback. Maybe it was good that she was home early. They could clean the cottage together. Another good distraction. Pia’s earnest Germanic nature hid a wicked sense of humour and she was glad Phillip had suggested her for the cleaning job. Some of his other PhD students sounded incredibly boring, but Pia was fun. She would cheer Emma up.
Inside the house, Emma called out to Phillip as she neared the office, but everything was quiet except for the comforting churn of the clothes dryer. Maybe he was in one of the greenhouses.
She changed into her cleaning clothes and headed outside, walking quickly across the paddock. She cringed as the email rolled around and around in her head. Silly woman. Silly, hopeless person. What a stupid thing to do.
At the door of the guest cottage, Emma took off her gumboots and opened the door into the kitchen. The only sound was the buzzing of a lone fly, bashing itself repeatedly against the kitchen window in a mad tapping frenzy. Pia must still be doing the bathroom or the beds.
Emma padded through the newly carpeted lounge room. As she reached the hall a murmuring sound made her look up. She felt a flicker of confusion at the sight in front of her. It was Pia, framed by a doorway at the end of the hall, with her back turned. Her bottom glared at Emma – two full white moons cratered with cellulite, split in two by a tiny strip of black lace. She was otherwise naked. Emma’s confusion gave way to a sharp cringe of embarrassment – the poor girl was obviously in the middle of getting changed! But why was she changing her clothes in the cottage?
The startled, bird-like chirp that escaped through Emma’s lips surprised them both.
Emma’s hands flew to her mouth as Pia swivelled around and shot her a look of pure alarm. She ducked down to the floor and bent forward, grappling to cover her huge breasts. Crouched over her knees, with her G-string rising up from between her bum cheeks, Pia looked like a terrified white rhino caught in the sight of a hunter’s rifle.
‘Emma!’
It was Phillip’s voice. Behind Pia he stood frozen, stark naked, with a huge, quivering erection.
‘Emma! Shit!’ His erection began to wilt.
For a moment, the sight of Phillip’s failing hard-on struck Emma as both hilarious and completely mortifying for all three of them. She let out a startled choking sound. Her feet were cemented to the spot. She noticed that the scene was bathed in a beautiful incandescent glow as the sun penetrated the room’s picture windows – every single, terrible detail was awash with bright, yellow-white light.
The scene seemed to unravel in slow motion, like a dream sequence. From somewhere, Phillip grabbed a towel. Then he hurdled over Pia, who was still squatting in the doorway.
The room was revolving. Then finally, reality hit her with a forceful thud. Emma’s knees began to buckle. The blood in her head fell away, like a tide that had turned. She held onto the wall, teetering with sick comprehension. Phillip was coming towards her, wrapping the towel around his waist and saying something she couldn’t hear. His mouth looked strange. She needed to get out.
Emma spun around and stumbled through the kitchen, then pushed blindly at the cottage door. She ran across the paddock, her feet still in socks, not caring about the rabbit holes or the thistles that bit at her ankles. When she’d covered the fifty metres uphill to the house she was panting. Her hand slid off the door handle as the sweat pooled in her palms. She jerked again at the door and ran down the hall towards the bathroom. Inside, she locked it behind her then clutched at the sink. A noise began rushing in her head. She felt a choking sensation, a spluttering, as she tried to calm her ragged breath. Then, as if from nowhere, wailing erupted, piercing the walls, the floors, splintering the silence of the house.
The noise of her grief grew, taking on a life of its own. It was the sort of crying she hadn’t managed since her mother died. Another bitter betrayal that had made her surprised and stupid and had caught her unawares. She quashed the thought as she heard footsteps running down the hall.
‘Emma! Emma, let me in.’ Phillip was jiggling the door handle. His voice was like a jug of cold water in her face. Her sobs slowed into jagged snorting breaths. She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand to stop them. Her face was blotchy in the mirror, stricken, strange.
She had an unsettling desire to open the door and apologise to Phillip for embarrassing him, just as she would have if she’d interrupted him in his office on a phone call, asking him if he wanted lunch and he’d point angrily to the earbuds hidden in his ears and mouth at her indignantly – I’m on the phone! – and she’d slink away, berating herself for not paying better attention, and wondering if he’d want seeded mustard, or the smoky tomato relish with his ham sandwich, because he seemed to have changed his preferences lately and she never seemed to be able to get it right.
But suddenly fury welled up and burned in her throat. It was unbelievable what she’d seen, and… horrible. She ignored the knocking, noticed her heart pounding, sat heavily on the rim of the bath before sliding down onto the floor and slumping against the toilet. She pulled a towel off the rail and rested her head on it. Please God, let me wake up. This day cannot be real.
Phillip knocked again, tentatively this time.
‘Emma, can I come in?’
Emma wanted to get up but it was like gravity had condensed around her. An invisible weight pushed down on her shoulders.
‘Go away.’ The words were raspy.
She unrolled some toilet paper from the wall beside her and pushed it hard against her eyes. How could he be sleeping with Pia? Was she an idiot? How dare they sully her cottage! She hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about the email.
How silly the email seemed now, and yet she felt another sob rising in her chest. She should be sharing that story with Phillip. The pain was like a tightening noose, making it hard to breathe again.
‘Emma? I’ll leave you alone… if that’s what you want. We can talk later.’
After another minute she heard his footsteps walking away. A prickling rush of sadness made her shiver. How dare he leave her?
Her mind and her stomach were spinning. Emma opened her eyes and stared at the pink art deco tiles of the old bathroom, noticed a daddy-long-legs spider and a web, high up in the corner of the ceiling above the shower. She sighed, then looked at her watch, bit her lip. She’d been in the bathroom for half an hour. She shook her head, trying to stop the awful images that seemed to have been branded into her brain. Maybe this was the end of her marriage. The idea made her chest pain spike.
What were her options? Did he expect her to want to talk about it? To forgive what he’d done? Could she really be one of those tolerant wives who stayed for the sake of their child? Fury bubbled at the edges of her thoughts. She spat into the toilet and flushed. And then, inexplicably, she began to giggle – the strangeness of the idea that she could be the wronged party who would, from now on, have the upper hand in the relationship.
A flicker of righteous anger gave Emma a surge of energy. Lying, cheating arse! How dare he? How dare he! She would never have believed it if she hadn’t seen it for herself. It just wasn’t… Phillip.
She unlocked the door and poked her head out into the silence. Suddenly the shadowy high ceilings in the old farmhouse hallway took on an uneasy edge. She felt a strange disconnection from the place, as if it wasn’t really her home.
She wondered what Phillip would say to try to justify himself. She’d always thought men who cheated were weak. Pathetic, selfish slaves to their inner caveman. Phillip knew her views on this. He’d agreed with her, hadn’t he? She distinctly remembered him agreeing with her last Saturday night during Midsomer Murders, when she’d said something mean about the wealthy playboy socialite who was having an affair with the pretty librarian. Although, Phillip was asleep on the couch for a bit of it, so maybe he hadn’t been following the plot. Then a terrible thought occurred to her. If this wasn’t his first time with Pia, it meant anything he said last Saturday didn’t count anyway. He’d been supervising Pia’s PhD for two years. What if they’d already been getting their gear off in his office at the university before he recommended her for the cleaning job? Do not think about it.
She shuddered and pulled out an overnight case from the hall cupboard. Her head was throbbing a sick, constant beat. She would go to her dad’s place for the night. Rosie was going to her friend’s place after school for a sleepover so it wouldn’t matter. She needed time to think. It all seemed too unreal. Too ridiculous.
She went into the bedroom and threw the suitcase onto the bed she’d made hastily that morning, ignoring the lump under Phillip’s side where he’d left the wheat bag she warmed up every night to soothe his sore neck. She tossed in a jumper, a clean pair of knickers, her pyjamas and slippers and zipped it up, then she dropped it onto the floor with a loud bang, extended the handle and pulled it down the hallway. She listened to the clatter of the wheels on Phillip’s precious polished floorboards. Hopefully they’d leave a mark.
Harriet drummed her fingers noiselessly underneath the table, wondering how long she could endure Justin Broderick’s incessant nasal whine. Honestly, the man was a wind bag. She looked down at her fidgeting fingers and stilled them. Something suspiciously like a liver spot seemed to have appeared amid the fine wrinkles and veins of her right hand. She sighed with irritation and flicked her robes off her knees, readying herself to interject.
The judge saved her the trouble. ‘Mr Broderick, I’m sure the jury understand the distinction. It’s not a difficult one. Do you have anything else, or could we perhaps finish on time today?’ Justice Sadler looked pointedly at the wall clock over the door. It was ticking around to 4.04 p.m.
‘Apologies, Your Honour. If Your Honour pleases, there is one further witness I was hoping to call this afternoon. Perhaps Your Honour might consider…’ He paused and raised his eyebrows at the Judge then tilted his head to one side. The courtroom remained perfectly silent as Justice Sadler returned his gaze without speaking.
‘No? Of course. Well, I’m sure arrangements could be made to bring her back again on Monday, Your Honour.’
‘Very good, Mr Broderick. If we can move through questioning the witnesses a little faster on Monday, we should be in a position for closing statements after lunch wouldn’t you say?’
‘Certainly, Your Honour. The Jury could expect to retire to consider its verdict well before the end of the day.’
‘What do you say, Ms Andrews?’
Harriet stood as Broderick sat back down.
‘Yes, Your Honour. I’d say even before lunch if my learned friend can be less loquacious on the points of law that aren’t at issue.’
‘Quite. Well, I’ll see you back here on Monday at 10 a.m. then, Counsel,’ said the Judge.
Harriet gathered her papers as the jury was warned about not discussing the case with anyone over the weekend. Then the court clerk’s voice boomed across the room. ‘All rise!’
There was rustle and scrape of activity as everyone in the courtroom stood. The judge straightened up her wig, picked up her files and left through the back door. The courtroom hummed into life.
Harriet sat back down at the bar table and pulled her phone from her jacket pocket beneath her robes. As she turned it on, half a dozen text messages flitted onto the screen. Jonathan had sent one an hour ago asking her to call when she finished in court. She wondered if it was about the drink they’d arranged to have.
‘Your girl’s not standing up very well. I don’t think the jury like her,’ said Broderick, after the last juror had disappeared through the jury room door. His robes fell open, revealing the strain of his generous belly against a well-cut suit. ‘Pity you didn’t take the manslaughter deal.’
Harriet’s smile was more of a grimace. She was tired of the game. She kept her voice low so the defendant, still in the dock across the room, wouldn’t hear her. ‘It’s the cricket bat that gets me, Justin. He used his son’s Christmas present. And not just once or twice. Fourteen strikes. Was he practicing his cover drive, do you think? Or just a good hook to the boundary? It’s all there you know.’ Harriet motioned vaguely to the brief of evidence as she picked up her papers. ‘It was self-defence and you know it. I’m just surprised she didn’t kill him years ago.’ Harriet took no pleasure in her flippant response, but she couldn’t help it – thirty years at the bar did something to your soul. She picked up her folders and zipped them into her wheelie case.
Justin Broderick was an old-fashioned chauvinist. In his world view, a bit of wife-beating was a distasteful reality of life, best left behind closed doors. Still, her client had been losing the plot on the stand today. The woman was sounding unsure of herself. Unreliable. She was in the throes of major depression and certainly wasn’t the same woman who had given her witness account to police straight after she’d fatally stabbed her husband in his sleep and then turned herself in. But Harriet wasn’t about to give Broderick the satisfaction of seeing this case had her worried yet.
Harriet turned to the solicitor next to her. ‘Better run. Let’s meet at my office at seven-thirty on Monday morning to go through the evidence before closing statements.’ She leaned down and lowered her voice. ‘And… check on her, will you?’ Harriet motioned towards their client who sat motionless, staring down at her knees. The young man nodded fervently, making his glasses jiggle on his nose.
Harriet walked out of the courtroom. As she crossed the foyer, she nodded farewell to the clerk behind the glass panel and caught a glimpse of her own small, black-swathed figure in the window as she waited for a large, defeated-looking woman in front of her to exi. . .
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