Sunset, Sunrise

Prologue

September, 2012

My name is Maggie Clucas, a middle-aged white woman. Probably not even middle-aged any more, after all at sixty I don’t expect to live to one hundred and twenty. Mind you, that wouldn’t be so bad given that I’ve only just discovered how I want to live my live. Maybe I could life my live backwards and leave out all the bad bits. This life changing decision was made by choice. It was thrust upon me. I probably would have gone on forever living my life, fitting in with the demands of my husband, job, mother and anyone else that felt they had the right to put demands on my time and life.

Twelve months after the event I would put it down to the Fates stepping in, providing the answer to the question I had been afraid to ask for many years.

These thoughts raced through my mind as I stared out of the tiny window, gazing down on a sea of sandy ripples, lit up by the rising sun as they spread out across the desert. Up close the ripples transformed into a vast shimmering ocean of sand dunes. The slight bump on landing stirred up the butterflies racing around in my stomach. I gripped the arms of the seat thinking maybe this was a bad idea. Wheeling a wobbly suitcase through a noisy swirl of families I scanned the arrivals lounge.

‘Mrs Patterson, Mrs Margaret Patterson.’ I turned in the direction of a deep, heavily accented male voice. The only time I heard Margaret Patterson was when I had done something to upset James – which was more often than not. Most people called me Maggie. Then and there I decided I would change back to my real name. Every time someone called me Mrs Patterson I was reminded of those lost years, when I gave over my identity to become an appendage to someone else.

A tall, olive-skinned man dressed in jeans and a Bon Jovie t-shirt stood at the barrier holding a piece of cardboard with my name written on it. He waved at me. I wondered how he knew me. Then I looked around. Easy. I was the lone middle aged European woman, dressed in loose cotton pants and a long-sleeved shirt. I felt half naked among the sea of colourful hijabs and black burquas. The confusion on my face would have been the other big giveaway.

‘Mrs, Mrs,’ he called. ‘Over here, let me help you with your luggage.

***





Chapter 1

December 2012

We gazed out over Port Phillip Bay. It was a late summer, early autumn evening, the sun an orange ball slowly falling below the western horizon. Seagulls hovered around the lights of the Bolte Bridge goalposts, like moths to a golden flame.

In a rare gesture of softness my husband placed his hand on mine. The flickering light from the candles reflected in his dark eyes even as they cast shadows across his handsome face. For all his flaws, James was still a handsome man, just turned sixty, a thick mane of silvery hair that gave him the gravitas of an elder statesman. The soft light of the candles softened the lines etched into his tanned face, the result of weekends spent surfing down the coast at our weekender. I didn’t go there much with him anymore. James preferred his own company more and more in recent years. I hadn’t been down to the house for ages.

‘I want a divorce,’ he said. No emotion, no nothing. Then he waved the drink waiter over to our table.

‘What would you like to drink? A nice red? Shiraz?’ Just like that.

‘We’ll have your best Shiraz,’ he said as the waiter hovered behind me. I hadn’t said a word. What could I say? My husband of thirty-five years had calmly announced he wanted a divorce. I’d always known James had a cruel side to his nature but this time he had blindsided me.

I sat stunned, staring out at the twilight, looking down on the city streets lit up with their bright Christmas lights. I pulled my hand away from his, as if I’d just been burnt.

‘It hasn’t been good between us for years,’ he said in a calm and steady voice. But that was the way James operated. I was the one who argued. He would just sit there calmly as if there was nothing wrong.

‘There’s another woman isn’t there?’ I said, fighting to remain calm and composed.

‘Yes, there is,’ he said, ‘but you have to understand …’

‘… She’s not just any woman.’ I finished his sentence, knew what was coming as the words poured out from his lying mouth and I thought back to that morning.

***

The phone rang I looked at the call screen. James. He never rang me at work, just short curt texts to telling me not to keep dinner, more times than I cared to remember. Something had happened? His mother, my mother? My mind churned with anxiety as I answered the call.

‘I’ve got us a booking at Vue de Monde, seven pm.’

Vue de Monde, the most expensive restaurant in town. The last time he’d taken me to dinner was at the local RSL, and only because the power was out in the house. Today wasn’t my birthday, or our anniversary. There was less chance of James remembering that than my birthday.

‘Why?’ I hadn’t meant to sound suspicious. The words just slipped out.

‘That’s so typical of you, questioning everything I say. Can’t I just take my wife out to dinner somewhere nice for once?’

Why did he always make me feel like I’d done something wrong?

I looked down at a dark stain on the hem of my skirt, where the beetroot had fallen out of the sandwich at lunchtime.

‘I haven’t got time to change my clothes.’

‘You looked alright when I left this morning,’ he said. ‘The booking is for seven pm, try not to be late.’

James barely spoke to me these days, unless he was pointing out, in his sanctimonious way, my many faults. I could have gone to work naked and he wouldn’t have noticed, unless it was to point out my less than taut stomach, the cellulite or the drooping breasts.

There had been a time when he thought I was the most beautiful girl in the world, back when I fell for his deep blue eyes, the dark mop of hair falling over his eyes, and the sweet words. I was a student teacher, he was studying law. He was dark and mysterious, I was young and naïve. We couldn’t keep our hands of each other. I’d just turned eighteen, first year at teacher’s college. He was twenty and half way through his law degree. It was the late sixties, the era of the sexual revolution, for some. Not for me, Maggie Clucas. Good girls didn’t have sex until they got married. We married young. There had been a pregnancy I had wanted that baby so badly. I thought he would too. After all, wasn’t that why people got married? James made it clear on the honeymoon that there was no room in our lives for babies. Not that he was cruel then, no it was because he loved me so much he couldn’t imagine sharing me with anyone. Naïvely I thought he would change his mind, after all we were still newlyweds, in the throes of a lust that I mistook for love and passion. I was young. I was in love and I chose him, thinking there was plenty of time for babies. Every year on the tenth of June I grieved for my lost baby.

***

James placed his wine glass on the white linen tablecloth and calmly explained why he was leaving. I felt as if I’d just been retrenched from a long term job, not a life-long marriage. No emotion, no feeling in his voice. Of course there was another woman. James would always want someone to look after him. I had been his unpaid housekeeper for thirty-five years, providing him with sex when he wanted. The good wife, that was me. Never creating waves, or disrupting his perfect life. And I earned my own money. He told me about Felicity, the new junior partner at McLaren and Partners. I’d never met her. It had been a long time since I’d been invited to a company function but I felt like I knew her. For the last year it had been nothing but Felicity this and Felicity that. Lately it had been Flick, familiar and intimate. I’d looked at her photo on the company website, the thick mane of dark hair flowing over slim shoulders, smouldering grey eyes, and Megan Gale’s body. Mine was more Dame Judi Dench than Helen Mirren, as James frequently reminded me.

The sun slipped beneath the horizon, taking my life with it as James calmly sipped the full-bodied Shiraz. He looked so handsome in his tailored suit. Nothing but the best for him. The arrogant bastard knew he looked good, just like he knew I’d never liked red wine. It gave me headaches. The glass sat untouched. If it didn’t affect James then it wasn’t worth worrying about. A half-eaten entrée, chosen by him, lay between us like pieces of broken china.

I knew there were cracks in our marriage, but over the years we’d patched them, or ignored them as life rushed on around us. While James climbed the career ladder I became the perfect corporate wife, working to pay for the MBA he said would make him a partner, his life’s goal. Now his name headed the company. For years I had coped with people pitying us our childless life. I had wanted to scream out loud, I’m not barren, just married to a man with a sterile soul.

When James left I blamed myself. Should she have paid him more attention? No, he would have had to be at home for that to happen. Now here I am fifty-nine, retirement plans on hold, and alone. I stared at my perfectly manicured nails and saw the hands of an old lady. All I needed now was a cat to complete my miserable descent into the lonely world of the divorced, middle-aged, white female. I should have listened to others but thirty-five years ago we were young and I couldn’t believe someone like James would fall in love with me, a timid, mousey student teacher from the suburbs.