Chapter Two
1109 Words
CHAPTER TWO
'I won't be coming home tonight.' Edgar's voice boomed down the phone. 'Mum's just gone into palliative care. They think...’ he faltered, ‘it will only be a few days.'
He was on a business trip to Melbourne and as he always did, he'd called into see his mother, who was in a nursing home with dementia.
'Oh, honey, I'm so sorry,' Eva said. 'Do you want me to fly down?’
'Not unless you really want to. She won't know who you are. She doesn't even recognise me. Lynn's here now and Roderick's flying in tomorrow.'
'In that case, I'll stay here, if you don't mind. I'm sure you'd rather not have a crowd in there in her last days. But I'll be thinking of you. Phone me tomorrow.'
She sighed with relief as she put down her phone. She could think of nothing worse than keeping a bedside vigil for her mother-in-law, nice old lady that she was, and watching her fade away. The last thing she wanted to be reminded of right now was death. Of course now that she tried not to think about it, death was all that came to mind. She saw her mother in the hospice during her final days with cancer, shrinking into her bones until she became a stranger; her tiny room thick with the suffocating stench of death.
Yvonne Rawlings was ninety-five. She’d lived well above her allotted life span, whereas Cora Stewart had been only forty-five when she died.
'A life cut too tragically short,' the priest had said at the funeral.
'It was her own fault!' Eva wanted to shout. 'She loved being the martyr. Never thought she was good enough to do anything but clean school toilets. After my father left it gave her even more reason to be a victim. It was inevitable she'd get cancer.'
She got up from the recliner lounge by the swimming pool and went inside to the bar in the entertainment area. It was just after three pm, too early to start drinking, but what the hell. She'd have a couple now just to soothe the crawling itch inside her, then she'd go to the bar later. She was not going to allow herself to think about Charlie's death.
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'Same again?' Gerry asked.
He was only asking out of courtesy. Her answer was always 'yes'.
He poured another champagne and slid it over. She liked sitting at the bar—she was in control. She could talk to Gerry in between customers when she was in the mood, and when she wasn't he sensed it and left her alone. Men eyed her when they came to order a drink, and if she liked the look of them and felt like some company, she made eye contact and let it go from there. If she didn't, she ignored them.
The Red Door was her favourite hotel; she liked the ambience of discreet cosiness. This was not a place where people came to party; the clientele were mainly couples who ate and went home, or businessmen meeting for an after-work drink. No-one knew her here. Though she and Edgar lived in luxury and he had his share of wealthy men's toys, he preferred a quiet, low profile life. Once that would have frustrated her; now it suited her.
'You okay, Eva?' Gerry said, whipping out the cloth from the back of his pants and wiping down the counter.
'Yes, why do you ask?'
'You look upset.'
'Do I?'
She gulped her champagne. The effect of the drinks she'd had at home had worn off and it always took a couple of glasses of pub champagne to feel that warm buzz in her head. 'It's twenty years today since my husband died.'
It slipped out before she could stop it. Gerry regarded her for a moment. It was the first piece of personal information she'd offered him. 'I'm sorry to hear that. No wonder you're upset.'
He pulled a beer for a customer then turned back to her. 'So how did he die?'
'Heart attack.'
It came out so glibly she could almost believe it herself. Well, the doctors believed it. Not even an autopsy ordered. It was a stroke of luck that Charlie had had a heart scare a year prior and was on medication for high blood pressure.
Gerry gave a sympathetic nod. 'My Mum died ten years ago. It's true what they say—you never get over it. Sometimes I still cry when I think of her.'
It was hard to think of Gerry, a big, hairy bear of a man, crying. He picked up a big bag of peanuts and started refilling the snack bowls on the bar.
'Do you believe in God?' Eva asked.
He stopped in mid-refill. 'Geez, you're getting deep and meaningful now. And so early in the night.'
He emptied the bag and threw it in the bin. 'Yeah, I do. It's like an insurance policy. If there is life after death, then I'm a shoo-in. If there's no life after death, so what? It hasn't cost me anything, except a few prayers occasionally.' He grinned. 'When my footy team's losing.'
There was a rush at the bar, which kept him busy, then he came back over and said, 'What about you? Do you believe in God?'
'No. I was brought up as a Catholic, but I'm not a believer.'
He pursed his lips. 'I've got a mate who's Catholic—cattle ticks we called them when I was a kid—and he says it's harder to shake off than a dose of the clap. They've got you by the balls as soon as you're born—all that guilt and suffering and reward in heaven crap, it's pumped into you in your mother's milk.'
Eva said nothing, thinking of her mother and the sternly religious upbringing she’d had.
'Sorry if I've offended you,' Gerry said, 'but you asked.'
'You didn't offend me. There could be some truth in what you say.'
He grinned. 'It'd be the first time ever. Another one?"
Eva nodded. She felt a presence beside her and turned to see a sleek, silver-haired man in a business suit smiling at her.
'Can I buy you this one?'
In her mind's eye she saw herself in the taxi going home—light-headed, loose-limbed, the man's hand travelling up her thigh, the ache of desire, knowing the s*x would never satisfy her but not caring, the rough passion, tangled limbs in sweaty sheets. Then getting up to show him out and collapsing back into bed, where she would drift into an uneasy sleep—until Charlie’s apparition appeared.
An intense weariness was seeping into her bones. 'I'll give it a miss,' she said to Gerry.
'Thanks, anyway,' she said to Silver Hair, slid off her stool and walked out. She could feel their stares burning into her back.
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