“Everyone matters more than me. No one cares about me. I was alone when my mum died. I was alone!”
“I’m so sorry. Cor, Coralie, I’m sorry. I came as fast as I could. I didn’t sleep for sixty hours. I finished that book on the plane!”
“I was alone then, and I’m still alone. I look after everyone else! No one looks after me!”
“I’ll look after you! I will!”
“How will we have another baby? We can’t even manage Flo.”
“We are, we can, we will!” He wrapped his whole body around her, even, somehow, his legs. “Coralie—I love you.Please.”
Luckily for their relationship, all the Rightmove flats had been shit.
•••
Adam’s third bookcame out in October. He didn’t savor the process quite as much this time round. The people who provided him with blurbs were more prominent (good), but the blurbs were correspondingly more measured (bad). The BBC’s Nick Robinson, who’d released a competing history of the last campaign, called the new book a “madcap dash.” “It’s rushed,” Adam said. “He’s saying I rushed it!” ITV’s Robert Peston, whose book on the referendum was its direct competitor, called it “a fine first draft of history.” “Fine?” Adam moaned. “First draft?!” Emily Maitlis, whom he knew socially, called it “whip-smart.” “Whip-smart? That’s a girl adjective! Maitlis knowsexactlywhat she’s doing!”
“It’s everyone’s dream to write a book,” Coralie said reasonably. “Have you considered just enjoying it?”
“No!” Adam said. “I havenot.”
It was worse than his birthday! (He was turning forty-two in December, what he grumpily called a “stupid nothing age.”)
“If you’re not going to celebrate your book, or your birthday, can I at least do something I like?”
For five years in a row, Coralie had been tortured by watchingthe Great Australian Summer unfold on her phone through Instagram. She didn’t want to miss out again. Florence, who had Australian citizenship, had never set foot in her homeland. Soon she’d be too big for the fold-down Qantas bassinet. Soon, as well (hopefully, if they could manage it), they’d have another baby, making the pilgrimage even harder. Adam mumbled something about key Brexit votes. Coralie said she’d go by herself. He gave up.
•••
When the planetouched down in Sydney, she cried and couldn’t stop. It was a huge sensory rush: the smell of sun cream on warm skin; the sound of the birds and the button at the pedestrian crossings; the shrieking and cackling of the Botanic Gardens’ bats, swooping in lilac skies. The towering ferns, the salt of the sea, the reliable daily benediction of the sun. She wanted to stop people in the street:Do you know how lucky you are?Walking along with Adam (sunburned) and Florence (in the carrier), she was shocked people weren’t shouting it back. Because Australia might be the same, butshewasn’t. She loved and was loved in return!
They had pancakes at Bills and took Florence to Taronga Zoo. They had Bourke Street Bakery sausage rolls, yum cha in Chinatown, and fish and chips after a swim at Bondi. They caught the ferry from Circular Quay to Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden. They walked to Elizabeth Bay. “And here’s the park and the koi pond,” she narrated into her iPhone to send to Zora. “And this is my old flat….” She trailed off and ended the video. Suddenly, the elements of the Richard Pickard story rearranged and fell into place. What would she say to Zora if, in her twenties, her boss chased her around her own bed begging her for sex?Gross, Zora—you’re gross.How did you get yourself into that mess?As if! No, the boss was a creep! God! She was almost winded by the scale of revelation. What had happened to her wasn’t right!
In Melbourne, they went to Marios for double avocado on toast and swam in Fitzroy Pool under theAqua Profondasign made famous by Helen Garner’sMonkey Grip. Afterward, she rushed to the big Officeworks and bought a stack of yellow-covered Spirax notebooks and a box of Artline pens. As a jet-lagged Adam napped with Florence every afternoon, Coralie rushed to get down the jumble of memory and impressions stirred up by the trip. It became a daily ritual: “Shh, Mummy’s writing,” she heard Adam say to Flo. In Brunswick Street Bookstore, he gestured widely at shelves of books: “This will be you one day.”
It wouldn’t, but it was kind of him to say.
Perhaps because their bodies were reliably warm, or because the air smelled so nice, or because most of the people who caused them stress were asleep on the other side of the world—whatever the reason—they had sex almost every day until Canberra, the last stop on their trip, when something gave Coralie a temporary eye-twitch and a sore shoulder, and the passion trailed off, then stopped.
Five minutes away from where they both went to school, Coralie and her childhood friend Elspeth gossiped in Elspeth’s Red Hill backyard. Adam pretended he knew how to barbecue with Elspeth’s husband, Jack. Florence ran nude under the sprinklers. Elspeth was pregnant. In March, she’d be having a boy. It was incredible to think they hadn’t seen each other in seven years. School felt only yesterday. The ice in Elspeth’s ginger ale tinkled. “And are you seeing your dad for Christmas?”
“Yes, ugh!” Darkness moved across Coralie’s field of vision as though a cloud had blocked out the sun. “Don’t ask!”
But reality had intruded. The holiday was over.
The days with Roger passed in a haze of horror, obligation, and good manners. Coralie cried as the plane took off and didn’t stop for more than an hour. She sobbed into Adam’s shoulder, all the while thinking,I want to go home.
But did she mean onward, toward London? Or back the way she’d come?
12
2018
She’d had her period on the flight out. A week after they returned, she was late. Had she conceived an Australian baby? She was ready to dream that she had.
On their first Saturday back, Adam did circus school with both girls. Coralie layered up with thermals, a jumper, a padded vest, and her biggest puffer to walk across the park and buy a pregnancy test. At Broadway Market, she wove through the crowds browsing Scotch eggs, Gujarati thalis, cheeses, flowers, and old black-and-white photos of Hackney. As usual, there was a clear divide between locals (rushing, annoyed) and people who’d put on their fanciest outfits to travel in from somewhere else. She didn’t feel like a coffee. That could be a good sign.
On her way out of the pharmacy, she spotted a familiar face. “Dan!” Her brother’s hair had grown very long since Coralie had last seen him. “How do you get your ponytail so sleek?”
