Happily Ever After? Read online

  Tony was quiet all evening and when he left us to visit the boy’s room Tracey interrupted our conversation to say, ‘I don’t think your boyfriend likes me very much.’

  ‘As if. How could he not like you? It’s just a bit boring listening to other people drone on about their school days if you weren’t part of it. I should know - I’ve been bored shitless by Tony’s rugby mates often enough. We should probably just change the subject.’

  ‘Yeah maybe.’

  I didn’t think much of it until we were driving home later.

  ‘Isn’t Tracey absolutely hilarious? I just love her.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he replied, not exactly bowling me over with his enthusiasm. ‘She’s clearly very smart. It’s just that I don’t know how she could let herself get that way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh come on now. She’s huge. You can’t say you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘She’s always been big. That’s just Tracey.’

  ‘Big? More like obese. And it’s not like she’s helping herself - did you see how much food she packed away tonight?’

  ‘Yeah well, she has put on a bit of weight since I last saw her but nothing’s as simple as you say. Tracey is overweight for lots of personal reasons that I’m not at liberty to divulge. Some things are not just a case of diet and exercise.’

  ‘But she has a pretty face. If she lost the pork she’d have a chance of meeting some guys.’

  ‘Tracey isn’t interested in meeting guys,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that explains it.’

  No, that didn’t explain anything. I shut up and sulked the rest of the way home.

  ***

  Tracey was not the only one of my friends who didn’t make the cut with Tony. There was also my wild child, dope-smoking, nose-ring wearing friend Heidi. Fortunately I was not the sort of girl who cut herself off from her friends to please her boyfriend. I just sidelined them. After all Tony was away so much I could still see them, just not when he was around.

  Did any of this cause me to reflect on the wisdom of marrying him? Absolutely not - I was in love. And it’s not like there weren’t upsides: he was completely reliable, he was rarely drunk or hung over and you certainly never had to nag him to replace the toilet roll. I hadn’t found he was addicted to alcohol or drugs or gambling, or discovered gay porn magazines under the bed or returned home from work one day to find him prancing around in my lacy knickers and suspenders. Compared with the things other women have to put up with, a few control issues seemed very small beer, and certainly not likely to be marriage-threatening.

  Funny thing is I turned out to be wrong about that.

  It wasn’t as if Tony didn’t know that things could go wrong - after all he’s spent hours of his life in the flight simulator practising procedures for when they do - but I think he thought you could always fix things, that ultimately we have control over our own destiny. Unfortunately that’s not true. Fate sometimes steps in, as we were only too painfully going to find out. If I was to identify a single factor that lay at the heart of all our subsequent marriage problems that would be it.

  But that was all in the future, so let’s get back to the cheerier topic of weddings.

  And weddings there were, several of them. One by one Tony’s friends started pairing off and making the big commitment. There was rarely a weekend, if Tony was in town, when we were not dispatched off to some historic stone church or a quaint chapel in the country to witness the nuptials of one of his school friends. I developed a close personal relationship with the lady at the David Jones wedding gift registry as a result. I loved all of this: the dressing up to the nines, the food and wine, the nights spent snuggling together in old double beds in country pubs and the fact that I was invariably on the arm of the best looking man in the room, but after a time I did start to get a bit restless. Was it ever going to be my turn?

  Work was going well for me by then. I was still not in marketing but had been promoted, which meant I had to travel around Australia quite a bit myself, supervising a big trial of our new blood pressure lowering drug. I got to know a few cardiologists, which (although I didn’t know it at the time) was going to hold me in good stead later on, and even was able to check in regularly on David, who was back in Australia by this time and newly installed as a specialist in Adelaide. His wife Amrita had recently given birth to their first child, a spikey-haired tot called Thomas, whom I loved to bounce on my knee. So all in all, life was going swimmingly, if not for my little marital itch that wanted scratching.

  And while I remained ringless, Pamela remained hopeful. She had no compunction about mentioning to Tony that she’d met so and so’s ‘very attractive’ daughter.

  ‘Yes Mum, but I already have a girlfriend in case you hadn’t noticed,’ he’d always say patiently.

  Then one day she breathlessly announced - right in front of me, no less - that Sarah was back in town, and apparently ‘still single’.

  ‘So?’ said Tony, ‘Why should I care?’ He rolled his eyes before sneaking me a reassuring smile and I breathed my biggest sigh of relief.

  Just be patient Ellie, I’d tell myself. I knew exactly what outcome the whining and demands had produced for the discarded Sarah and I was not going anywhere near there.

  In the end I had Mimi to thank for finally giving Tony the push along. After many years of beating off fevered suitors, she surprised us all by falling madly and passionately in love with Matthew, a boy from the bush who happened to be in Sydney showing some prize head of cattle at the Royal Easter Show. After a whirlwind romance, they married and she is now installed happily as a wealthy grazier’s wife and mother-of-three in western New South Wales. I miss her dreadfully, but we email regularly and she does get down to the Big Smoke occasionally for dinner and the theatre, where we always make a point of catching up.

  Anyway, her wedding was a slap-up, no expense spared affair for two hundred in a hired marquee and I was chief bridesmaid. And whilst Mimi looked as spectacularly gorgeous as universally predicted, I, as my favourite Aussie expression goes, didn’t scrub up so bad myself. I was wearing a silk sheath in the deepest burgundy colour, which was very slimming; my hair was up and my make-up professionally applied. I looked in the mirror and thought, woo hoo, not bad - not bad at all. Tony obviously agreed, as he kept trying to ravish me during the reception whenever he got the chance. I also suspect Mimi, who got a teensy bit tipsy on champagne, had a word in his ear too, because something definitely changed that night.

  This is not to suggest he got down on bended knee there and then. Anyone who thought that didn’t know Tony very well. Rather it was that he started plotting his very carefully planned proposal.

  I first smelled a rat when he organised a romantic week’s holiday on an island resort in Fiji. Tony was one of those guys who is tied with an umbilical cord to his old school friends and up until this time all our holidays had been as part of a large group: skiing in Thredbo (hated that one; I am not a good skier), a hired house up the coast, sailing in The Whitsundays, etc. etc. This time it was just the two of us…hmm.

  We stayed in a luxury Fijian burre that was set apart from the other guests and had its own palm-fringed sandy beach. Our days were spent lazing by the pool or snorkelling amongst the tropical fish in the coral reef located just offshore. By night we drank fruit-laden cocktails and watched the Polynesian dancers strut their stuff. I discovered that Fijian men have a certain earthiness, a barely suppressed sexuality, which is apparent in their dance and their lazy loping walk, and found this all quite arousing, with Tony being the lucky beneficiary.

  The setting could not have been more idyllic, but my nerves jangled. Just like in those early days I was on tenterhooks. When was he going to ask me? Or had I actually got it wrong and he was not going to ask me? I tried to tell myself to relax and enjoy the holiday for what it was. What did it really matter? A lot, actual
ly, was the brutally honest reply.

  On the third day, over breakfast, Tony announced he had hired a small runabout and someone to navigate and we were to be taken to a deserted island for a champagne picnic lunch. Well if he’s not going to propose today, I thought, he’s never going to.

  Each day consists of exactly 1440 minutes, or 86 400 seconds if you like, but they are not all the same are they? You go to work for years, day in day out. You know you were there, conscious and contributing. You were definitely there - it’s on your employment record - but if asked for details on these individual workdays you’d be hard pressed to remember anything. Then there are the red-letter days, or sometimes longer periods, like when you’re travelling, where even if the events happened years and years ago it all seems like yesterday. It’s as if your body calls your senses to attention and says, ‘Okay: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste. Are you all present and accounted for? Good, then go to work. I’m relying on you all - it’s vital you remember everything.’

  This was one of those days.

  We arranged to meet our escort on the beach. I was wearing my orange print bikini and a sarong that was carefully draped to cover several bodily sins. The heat and light were dazzling and I could feel my skin burning under the sun’s glare. I’d taken off my sandals and I remember I had to hop-tiptoe inelegantly down to the shore across the hot sand before cooling my feet in the soothing waters of the Pacific. I curled my toes and enjoyed the scrape of the sand between them.

  Around my feet the water was so clear you almost couldn’t see it over the sand, but on the horizon the edge of the lagoon was an intense blue, a colour that almost seemed unnatural. I could hear the squeals and laughter of local children jumping off a grey timber pier that stretched far out into the lagoon.

  Then, Kane, our escort, grabbed my hand and hoisted me effortlessly on to the canopied runabout. Kane was a finely-boned and elegant local with milk-coffee-coloured skin and a straight narrow nose. Of all the Fijian men I met that week, he was definitely the sexiest. I marvelled at the way he navigated the boat through the channels, one arm rested in apparent casualness on the steering wheel, while he chatted to my about-to-be-betrothed. As I gazed on these two very different looking but equally attractive young men, I reflected how Mother Nature sometimes manages to get it just right.

  Now in case any of you are thinking that this is all going to turn rather raunchy, and we were going to indulge in a little threesome on the deserted beach, I am sorry to disappoint you. You’ll have to take your smutty mind off elsewhere and head to the library to get your own copy of Erica Jong or Judith Krantz. This is not that sort of a memoir. Call me terribly middle-class but I think for most of us that sort of stuff safely remains in the realms of fantasy. Tony has a distinctly conservative streak, and whilst I’m not entirely sure he wouldn’t have been a willing participant in all of that I know he would have rethought the idea of marrying me afterwards. Besides, in our chitchat Kane revealed he was happily married to a very lucky woman.

  No, Kane just deposited us and our picnic basket on our deserted island as scheduled, and beat a discreet exit for a couple of hours. The sand we crossed over was crunchy from the coral, and as we walked up the bank the lime green undergrowth shimmied seductively in the breeze.

  After a swim in the cool green ocean we set up our little champagne picnic on a red checked table cloth. My companion was surprisingly relaxed for someone who was about to pop the question, but of course he had little doubt what my answer was going to be.

  He didn’t get down on bended knee, thank goodness. In fact he was lying on his side on the picnic rug, leaning on his elbow and looking at me, when he said, ‘Elle, I was wondering if you’d like to marry me?’ as casually as if he’d asked me to pass the salad. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect delivery and my eyes misted with tears as all my too-dear-to-be-spoken hopes of the previous three and a half years were finally answered.

  Tony, being Tony, had a custom-made ring, too. A little part of me couldn’t help feeling that it would have been nice to have been consulted over the design, but Tony was always a take-charge type of guy and I quickly dispensed with this churlish thought when I witnessed the magnificence of his gesture: platinum with one large glittering diamond and several smaller cousins congregating around it. It was a rock that would make any aspiring fiancée green with envy and I looked forward to flashing it around the office in a few days’ time.

  When Kane arrived back he asked in a tone of pretend indifference, ‘Did anything exciting happen while I was away?’ Obviously he and Tony had been co-conspirators all along and I was glad not to disappoint them with my level of excitement and happiness. He revved up the engine and the runabout bounced over the swell on our return journey, the sea spray whipping our eyes and cooling our faces, leaving a fine layer of salt as a memento. Once back on dry land, Tony tipped Kane generously and we went back to our burre to shower and celebrate our engagement in a more private and intimate fashion.

  Unfortunately the rest of our week didn’t quite live up to expectations. At dinner that night I must have eaten a bad prawn, or picked up some nasty bug from the swimming pool, but whatever it was, I fell violently ill and spent most of the small hours with my head delicately placed over the toilet bowl, only for this to be replaced later by, a-hem, another part of my anatomy. My fiancé was going to make a commitment to love me for better or for worse and it seems he was being offered an advanced preview of the latter. Instead of joining Tony on a planned snorkelling excursion to the outer reefs the next day, I feebly waved him off and spent the hours swinging in a hammock and sipping tepid lemonade, only raising myself occasionally from my lethargy to admire my new engagement ring.

  Then the following day it rained. And the day after that. Anyone who has been to the tropics will understand the significance of this statement - this was no gentle spring shower, there were sheets of rain coming down all day and night, flooding all the potholes until small rivers, and then not so small rivers, started running between the burres. Even with our resort-supplied golf umbrellas, a trip to the restaurant was damp and perilous and all outdoor activities were severely curtailed. My Action Man fiancé did not like this one little bit and paced about our burre - which suddenly seemed very small - like a caged beast.

  ‘When is this bloody rain going to stop?’

  ‘There is nothing we can do about it, so why don’t you read a book or something?’

  ‘I don’t want to read. I’m pissed off. I wanted this holiday to be perfect.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation,’ I said, smiling indulgently, ‘I’ve had the perfect holiday.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not meant to rain so heavily at this time of year.’

  ‘Well this is the tropics. You don’t get tropical rainforests without a whole lot of rain.’

  ‘I know that. Don’t you think I don’t know enough about the weather from my job?’

  Oh dear - our first pre-wedding spat. No doubt the first of many, but I didn’t want our little holiday together ruined by a silly, pointless argument.

  ‘You know what your problem is? You’re not getting enough exercise and need an endorphin release. I’m trying to think of another way I can relieve your tension.’

  I put on my best seductress look, went over to him, sat him down in a rattan cane armchair, got down on my knees, undid his fly, and proceeded to relieve his tension in the best way I knew how.

  After I’d finished - or rather he’d finished - he said, ‘I knew there was a reason why I wanted to marry you.’

  Then the sun came out for our last day and things got much better after that.

  ***

  So to the wedding, held the following February, nearly eight years ago now.

  Tony must have informed his mother of his intentions before we set out on our Fijian holiday because Pamela seemed resigned to, if a little ungracious about, the announ
cement. In all the time I’ve known him I’ve never seen Tony’s dad, Douglas, get excited about anything except fluctuations in the share market and his beloved Wallabies but he seemed pleased enough with the news.

  My parents were, of course, happy for me but a little anxious, being somewhat intimidated by the lofty Cooper family. They were at pains to ensure that their elder daughter’s nuptials were conducted in the appropriate style and I think Mum missed out on a new bathroom to help pay for it all. I also contributed some of my own savings and in the end we had a wedding that was so tasteful and elegant that even Pamela couldn’t (openly at least) disapprove. The service was conducted at Tony’s school chapel and the reception at a harbour front restaurant.

  Emma and Mimi were my obvious choice for bridesmaids. For a brief period my evil twin made an appearance and I contemplated having no bridesmaids - lest I be overshadowed by this beauteous pairing - but in the end good nature triumphed. Besides Tony wanted his brother, Andrew, and good friend, Angus, to be groomsmen and they would have looked mighty silly standing on the altar by themselves. And no, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t make the girls wear lilac taffeta with puff sleeves; it was actually very elegant navy silk.

  Before I started planning my own wedding I flattered myself that I’d be too sophisticated to fall victim to the worst excesses of bride behaviour. Before too long, however, I found myself agonising pointlessly over flower arrangements; quarrelling with Tony over the guest list, as if the whole world would turn on its axis if we sat my Uncle John near his Aunt Rosemary; and forgetting to eat for approximately three months, so that my dressmaker kept reprimanding me for having to take my wedding dress in further at each new fitting.