Farewell My Ovaries Read online

  She smiled and then couldn’t believe that she could find anything to smile about after last night’s humiliation on stage. But she smiled again and then she sighed a very satisfied sigh. And then she squirmed in her seat with guilty pleasure.

  Clunk! Meg was back with another coffee.

  ‘So . . .’ Meg scraped her chair again and Claire winced. ‘There you were in the toilets at your stepdaughter’s wedding with some young spunky surfer whose name was . . .?’ asked Meg, renewing her inquisition with indecent excitement. And before Claire could answer, she continued: ‘You got a name, didn’t you? Tell me you at least got his name.’

  ‘Connor,’ answered Claire, trying to sound cool as she shakily took another sip of water.

  ‘Connor? Not that friend of Dermott’s from St Joseph’s?’

  ‘What?’ Claire’s coolness instantly evaporated. He hadn’t mentioned that he knew Dermott. Why not? This was a very nasty development indeed.

  ‘I met him at the end of the night. Right after you’d made that fabulously theatrical exit,’ Meg added, raising the other eyebrow. Claire winced again at the memory.

  ‘It couldn’t be the same one. This Connor was from the wedding next door. I think he said it was the Willows–Papadopoulos bash . . . or something.’

  ‘Yep, that’s him.’ Meg was triumphant. ‘Gorgeous. Tall, sort of blondie-brownish hair . . .’

  Tawny, Claire silently corrected her. Tawny like a young lion.

  ‘Oh. My. God! You were with him? What were you thinking?’

  ‘Well, Meg, to tell you the truth, not much.’ Claire decided to brazen her way out of the situation. ‘You know my theory on this. Thinking gets in the way of sex. It wasn’t until I realised that I had to climb down out of my head and stop thinking that sex really started to work for me. And believe me, in that toilet I was thinking about sweet fuck-all.’

  ‘You know something, Claire, you’ve got too many theories.’ Meg shook her head and bit into a Florentine biscuit the size of a bread and butter plate.

  ‘Christ, not you too. That’s what Charlie said last night!’

  ‘You didn’t tell him!’ Meg was horrified.

  ‘No, no, are you kidding? I can’t believe I’m even telling you. But, Meg . . .’ And here Claire regarded her best friend with a look that stopped Meg mid-chew. ‘I do need to tell you, because something happened to me last night which was . . . I can’t quite describe it. I know it seems like some grubby little encounter in a toilet, but it somehow meant a lot more than that, and I’ve been thinking . . .’

  Meg put her Florentine down, leaned forward and gave Claire her best Mother Confessor impersonation.

  ‘Meg, I am forty-five years old. You’ve known me for almost half of those years. And you know I love my husband dearly and that I would never do anything to upset our marriage. I would never do anything which would rob Madeline of her mummy and daddy, but . . .’

  ‘But. We love the “but”,’ giggled Meg.

  ‘I’m being serious. I don’t know why it happened. I don’t really know how it happened. But I honestly felt something last night that I haven’t felt in years. I know that sounds like some soap opera cliché, but I just felt so alive. I felt really sexy. Like I used to. You know, sort of wild and abandoned, and I never thought I could feel like that ever again. And it made me think . . .’ Claire paused.

  ‘Think, yeah . . .’ Meg parroted.

  ‘Oh shut up. I’m being really serious here, Meg!’ Claire felt she was at the rag end of her nerves. Meg now saw this and duly shut up.

  ‘The thing is, this might never happen to me ever again, Meg. I mean, I’m middle-aged, and I have had this huge realisation that I will never shag a stranger in a toilet ever again!

  ‘I will never be on a bus to Queensland and end up giving a blow job to the guy in the seat behind me. I will never be at a Nirvana concert and feel some huge hard dick in the middle of my back, or in a band room with some guitarist going down on me over a crate of Heineken.

  ‘It’s all over, Meg! My sexual career is fucked and burned and finished! And you know what? I’m just not ready, Meg. I’m just not ready to say goodbye to all that. I can’t go quietly. I’m not finished. I don’t want to be a moth! So . . .’ and Claire paused here so Meg could really understand the gravity of the situation, ‘. . . what do I do now?’

  Meg looked confused. ‘A moth? What the hell does a moth have to do with anything?’ She reached again for her Florentine.

  Claire waved her arms in exasperation. ‘Look, just forget the whole moth thing. Forget your frigging chocolate biscuit and listen to me!

  ‘Fact one: in seven years of marriage I have not looked at another man.

  ‘Fact two: last night I almost had sex with a stranger half my age in a toilet.

  ‘Fact three: I am kicking myself that I didn’t fuck him senseless . . . for hours.

  ‘Fact four: right now, I feel that if I can find him again, I will do anything he wants me to. I will shag him in the middle of Oxford Street in broad daylight if he asks me.

  ‘SO WHAT, MEG, EXACTLY WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?’

  ‘Well,’ said Meg, defiantly picking up her biscuit between two crimson acrylic fingernails, ‘you should have the chance to find out in a couple of hours. Because he’s coming to Rose and Dermott’s recovery lunch at our place at two.’

  Sunday Afternoon

  The Going-Away Party

  Claire sat on a chair on Meg’s sundeck with Madeline clutched tightly to her chest. Madeline sensed she was being used as some sort of security blanket and was keen to get away.

  ‘Mummy, I want to go and play in the cubby with Nicky.’ Maddy pulled at her mother’s necklace more insistently this time.

  Claire kissed her ear and reluctantly let her go. Maddy skipped off without a backward glance and Claire suddenly felt unprotected, almost naked.

  She quickly walked over to Charlie and ducked under his arm.

  ‘Hi there, honey, how’s that hangover progressing?’ he asked. ‘You’ve found yourself a hair of the dog, I see.’

  Claire nodded and took another swig of vodka and tomato juice. A Bloody Mary was always Claire’s hangover cure of choice. She had once heard that white spirits entered the bloodstream faster than any other kind of alcohol and that the tomato juice replenished the potassium and other minerals that had been decimated the night before. A handful of painkillers had also gone some way to easing the dull ache in her head.

  She watched as Meg’s husband Tony carefully arranged his barbecue implements and bottles of gourmet oils. He turned to Claire, a vision of Italian maleness in his burgundy shirt, black cargo pants and slip-on loafers. He had a bottle of red in one hand and a string of fennel sausages in the other.

  ‘I was just telling Charlie, that was one amazing speech last night,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose you can’t be in radio as long as I have and not be able to string a few words together.’ Charlie was pleased with the compliment and awkwardly turned his attention to scratching the label from his beer bottle.

  Tony wasn’t finished. ‘No really, Charlie, there was something about it that was deep. You are a very thoughtful man, Charlie. Very thoughtful. I liked that stuff about your mother. You don’t often hear Australians talk about how much their mothers mean to them.’

  OK, here we go, thought Claire. This was one of Tony’s favourite themes—‘The lack of solid moral values in Australian family life’. While Tony once again laid out his case for the prosecution of heartless Aussies who pushed their confused mothers and fathers off to old folks homes in wheelie bins, Claire was all too aware of the friction Tony’s mother, Teresa, caused in the Angelucchi household.

  She thought of the hysterical phone calls she regularly fielded from Meg on the topic. ‘I’ve told him,’ Meg would cry, ‘that he has to choose between her and me.’ The most recent blow- up had ignited when Meg and Tony returned from the Gold Coast to find that Mother Teresa had repainted their kitchen in
a noxious shade of bright apple green and then, as a final ‘up yours’, rearranged the spice rack. ‘I feel like I’m cooking in a frigging fruit packing shed. And I can’t find the bloody cayenne pepper,’ Meg wailed. ‘This is my kitchen, Claire. You know how women feel about their kitchens! Like men feel about their cars. Imagine if we’d come home and Teresa had sold his beloved four-wheel drive and bought him a Tarago van. Imagine if she’d swapped the indicators and the windscreen wipers? He’d be really pissed off. Then he’d know how I feel!

  ‘I’ve told him that the interfering old bat is not moving in with us. If she comes here, I’m taking the four kids and leaving.’

  ‘Spinach and ricotta pastizzi?’ asked the interfering old bat at that precise moment.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Claire with a start, clumsily slopping tomato juice down the front of her white linen top.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Teresa loomed over her, a mountain of motherly concern. ‘I clean that for you straight away.’ She instantly produced a wet rag from a secret compartment in her filing cabinet of an apron and began dabbing insistently at Claire’s chest.

  ‘No . . . no really, Teresa. Thanks. I’ll go into the laundry and do it myself.’

  Claire set down her glass and scurried into the house. As she walked past the kitchen she could hear Meg ferociously banging plates in the fruit packing shed.

  She pushed the laundry door to and stripped off her top. Grubbing away at the bright red stains with a nailbrush, Claire caught an image of herself in the mirror over the tub. She was wearing the same bra she had worn last night. Flesh-coloured lace threaded with black ribbon. A small black bow nestled in her cleavage.

  Claire tousled her hair with her wet hands and then brought them to her breasts and squeezed. The memory of last night’s encounter was all too vivid. She could look down now and see a tangle of sun-bleached curls as somewhere below a hot, wet tongue worked on her nipples. She shivered with the memory.

  ‘Oh God,’ Claire mumbled on a deep inward breath.

  She pressed her crotch against the side of the tub and considered bringing her fingers there to give her the release she had been craving ever since last night. It would only take a minute, she was sure. But could she really masturbate in her best friend’s laundry? There was something so distressingly banal about the scene. ‘Ultralift Plus’. She was looking directly at a pump pack of Preen stain remover. She would have to save the delicious moment for when she was at home alone in bed plumped up against a pile of her own scarlet silk embroidered pillows.

  Or maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Connor would be here soon and she could somehow find a way to get his hands on her again. This time she wouldn’t push him away. This time she would get down on her knees right on top of that pile of folded towels over there and—

  ‘Claire?’ She heard a soft tap.

  ‘Claire, are you in there?’ Meg’s brown eyes peeped around the corner of the laundry door.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m here,’ Claire stuttered.

  ‘That bloody woman! I’ve made smoked salmon blinis and dips, but she insisted on bringing a monster plate of antipasto, pastizzis and lasagna. You’d think we were setting off on some fucking Long March across China. Jesus, she annoys me!’ Meg was huffing furiously. ‘I’ve just given up, truly. I’ve made myself a huge vodka and lime and I’m going to obliterate myself. Just watch me.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Claire agreed, taking to her linen top with renewed vigour.

  Meg took a mighty swig of her drink. ‘You’re still thinking about him, aren’t you?’ She could always be relied upon to get directly to the point. ‘Look, Claire, forget it. I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning and all I can see is a massive flashing sign saying WRONG WAY GO BACK.’

  Meg took Claire’s silence as a cue to keep talking.

  ‘There comes a time in your life, Claire, when—what’s the phrase?—you have to put away childish things. And having sex with strange young men in toilets is one of them.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Claire said. If there was one person who could make her feel like a silly little girl, it was Meg. She avoided Meg’s eyes and held her top to the light, deciding it was presentable enough.

  ‘You might feel all those feelings. Yes, you’re still sexy. Yes, you’re still young . . . well, young-ish,’ said Meg. Those perfect black eyebrows arching again. ‘But you have to forget it. You have to look at what’s at stake. You’re married to one of the best men in the world. The best man you’ve ever had, that’s for sure. You forget, Claire, I was there. I saw that procession of flakes and drop kicks you called boyfriends. And that endless string of one-night stands—most of which were horrible. Remember the bloke who let his Rottweiler sleep on the bed? And the one who wanted to have sex in his mum’s bed? There was Mr Gay. Mr Married. I remember all that. You might remember the sex, but I remember the tears . . . and the dog hair. Not to mention picking you up from the therapist once a week.’

  Claire finally found her voice. ‘But tell me you don’t think about it, though, Meg. The idea that Tony is the only man you’ll ever have sex with again—doesn’t that scare you a bit?’

  Meg laughed loudly. ‘Hey, I’d give anything not to have sex with anyone ever again! When you’ve got kids’ hands all over you from sun-up till sunset and then the Italian Stallion going at it night after night, believe me, my idea of erotic is being alone. All by myself, just me and my Maeve Binchy . . . in a bunker in Afghanistan.’

  Claire laughed too. ‘Actually, that sounds alright. Can Colonel Gaddafi be in the bunker in this fantasy as well? I quite fancy him.’

  ‘Besides,’ and here Meg grabbed a hearty handful of flesh through her singlet, ‘have you seen these stretchmarks? My stomach looks like a bloody piano accordion. You’re lucky you can even think about stripping off with a young bloke. If I’d been in that toilet with Mr Surfie Boy, you could have heard the screams of horror clear across the harbour.’

  ‘Oh, Meg, come on—I’d have you!’ Claire grabbed Meg and kissed her.

  ‘Didn’t we already try that?’

  ‘We did not!’

  ‘Well, that was about the only thing we didn’t do. But my point is—that was then and this is now. So I guess what I’m telling you is . . .’ And here Meg took Claire’s face in her hands and their noses met. ‘It’s time for you, my darling girl, to grow up.’

  ‘Aw, Mum, please don’t make me,’ said Claire, collapsing on Meg’s chest. ‘I want to stay a trollop for ever and ever!’

  ‘You are mad!’

  Claire looked at her friend and saw past the unruly mop of hair caught up in a leopard-print scrunchie, the remaining chewed outline of red lipstick and the chin which was beginning to soften and sag slightly, and saw one of the sexiest women anywhere. In Claire’s eyes she was still gorgeous.

  Meg and Claire had always been a pair to contend with. During their golden decade, Meg and Claire had trawled their driftnet from the Bahamas to Bali; from New York to Notting Hill. They could work any room. No social situation was too daunting and there was no man who could escape when they teamed up. Meg was the outgoing one. Bubbly, voluptuous— an irresistible force of nature. Claire was the cool reserved one who evoked an air of mystery and promise.

  They’d had a system they called ‘good fuck, bad fuck’, although they always argued about who was who. Together they would case the scene for any prospective talent and, once he was identified, Meg would go in for the initial hit-up. A spilled drink, twisted heel, an innocent, ‘Ooh, I think you are in my seat,’ and then, once the hapless individual had taken the bait, she would play him, and bring him alongside for Claire to apply the gaff hook.

  A sardonic teasing was Claire’s speciality. A ‘come here, little boy—think you’re up to the mark?’ routine which would usually scare off the tiddlers. Although, if she was honest, Claire would have to admit that this ploy also caught a certain percentage of wanky pseudo-intellectuals—poets, musicians and artists—who had caused her a good
deal of grief over the years. Blokes she often wished she had thrown back.

  Their after-dark partnership had ended ten years ago when Meg, at thirty-four, had met Tony right here in Sydney. She had been impressed equally by his dark Italian good looks and his black Alpha Romeo Spyder. Tony was just back from Europe, ready to trade in his playboy existence and begin making his way in the world. Within months he had married Meg and they planned to open a restaurant together in the Blue Mountains. Within another couple of months the Spyder had been driven away one afternoon and replaced by the Angelucchi family plumbing truck with a baby seat in the back.

  The first of four kids had arrived only eight months after their wedding and Meg had given up a fledgling career as a magazine journalist and tackled the role of wife and mother with an enthusiasm and ability which had surprised everyone, not least herself. She had become a brilliant cook and a truly gifted hostess; she ran a household which was a marvel of organisation. The only fat, black blowfly in the ointment was ‘Teresa the Italian Mother-in-Law’. Claire sometimes wondered if the reason Meg fought with Teresa so much was that she was becoming the archetypal Italian mama herself. This modest weatherboard house in Randwick was never big enough when both of them were in it.

  Thump! Thump!

  And that would be Mamma Mia herself pounding on the laundry door now.

  ‘Meg . . . Meg! Come out now! Visitors!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. Remarkably, I still have my sense of hearing,’ muttered Meg.

  ‘Coming,’ she called.

  ‘Oh, holy hell, what if he’s here?’ wailed Claire.

  ‘Well, for starters I’d put my top on,’ said Meg, draining her vodka and lime in one go. ‘Will he recognise you with your top on, by the way? Or do you want to go out and say hi in your knickers? That would certainly start the afternoon with a bang, if you’ll pardon the pun.’