Chapter 1
If Queen Elizabeth were to narrate my last year, there’s every chance she’d call it my annus horribilis.
While my castle hadn’t exactly burned to the ground, I had lost my job. There was also the tiny detail of my marriage falling apart. And by that, I mean my husband tripped and fell into my best friend, which meant she was also out of the picture. So was the mutual friend who was acting as sentry for their rendezvous. If only all love affairs came with a lookout, I may not have ended up here in the first place.
My dad had taken off on a European backpacking sabbatical, which had evolved into a spiritual hike of the Camino de Santiago. All of this without his girlfriend, who was less spiritual and more surgical. When her first reaction to his holiday plans had been, ‘Over my dead body’, his response was, ‘Tupperware forever’. She called time on their romance very shortly after that. As for Mum, well she hadn’t changed. She was still living it up in Sydney with her yachting weekends and Pantone apricot orange-coloured husband, Barry.
There was light at the end of the tunnel though and, by some miracle, it wasn’t an oncoming G-class diesel locomotive. It was a job. At home.
I was moving home.
Well, not technically home, per se, but within a few hundred feet of said residence. Despite his continual offers, I wasn’t prepared to move in with Dad, his pumpernickel bread, health supplements, or yoga retreats. I hoped that, one day soon, the Great Penis Drought would end, and that I’d get to bring a man home for a little health retreat of my own. There was little to no chance that I wanted to try and sneak a boy down a darkened hallway like a teenager, lest I get stuck for a lecture on contraception. No, Dad, it’s not just like putting a condom on a torch, no matter how illuminating the penis may be.
Instead, I was moving in with my cousin Penny and, for that, I was ecstatic. I honestly was. She was more a sister than a cousin and had been the first to call when she’d found out about the shit hitting the wildly spinning marriage fan. Live with me, she’d said. Pack it all in and get back to the beach.
While her offer had been tempting, I’d managed to resist for nine months. I was hellbent on the notion of proving to all and sundry, and then some, that I was perfectly capable of surviving without my husband, his bank account, or morbidly obese property portfolio.
During that time, I lived in a sixth-floor apartment in the centre of Melbourne with two other couples and a vertigo-riddled cat. Fast-forward to August, when I was made redundant from my job in the city library, and the decision to move home suddenly became a lot easier, and somewhat necessary, especially if I didn’t want to end up paying the landlord in that special nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way he initially suggested when I was twenty dollars short for rent one week.
When I was first married, I was the library teacher in a school of more than one thousand students. I eventually swapped that for the glamour of a public library, author speaking events, and working in the repairs room. Now, I was trading it all in again, leaving the bustling high-rise library for Apollo Bay Primary School, tucked neatly into Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Not only was it my childhood school, it also had a much smaller library with one floor, and only a nth of the books I was otherwise used to. The fact Penny worked there as the receptionist was a welcome bonus.
The job application process began within minutes of receiving my redundancy slip and had been relatively painless. Several interviews and background checks later, I got the phone call I’d been waiting for – I wasn’t a criminal! Also, I’d been offered the job. There’d be less books, less people, less drama; all the things I’d been hoping for. I was also looking forward to being closer to family again, catching up like old times over a pot of tea, a back fence, or a passive-aggressive social media post.
It didn’t matter that I was leaving my so-called life behind. Most of my friendship circle had disappeared in the great marital purge, so I didn’t feel bad leaving any of that. Those who had clung to my friends list had either told me that moving was a bad idea or supplied a constant stream of unhelpful gossip. They said I was running away with my tail between my legs and admit- ting defeat. It was throwing the toys out of the pram.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I respectfully disagree.
Everything was going to be just fine. Mired in paperwork, I’d had addresses changed, mail rerouted, and I’d done the big social media call-out announcing my new address to the select few who might one day need it. Not that I was holding my breath – anything outside the City Circle tram route seemed a little too over the hills and far away for most of them. When everything was done, and all my bills were squared off, I began the drive home.
Now, as I sat in my car outside Penny’s house, all that was left to do was get on inside, unpack, and make it through my first day at my new job. By six o’clock tomorrow night, I’d either be celebrating with a glass of fizz, or re-evaluating my life choices.
Currently, that life was crammed into a few boxes in the boot of my car. There wasn’t a lot to show for ten years of marriage. All I had left were some clothes and shoes, and not even my best ones, a few precious books, and some bric-a-brac. The divorce hadn’t yet been finalised. In fact, it hadn’t even been filed, but leaving a marriage was no different to fleeing a burning building – I took the important stuff and made a run for it before the roof caved in.
If Queen Elizabeth were to narrate my last year, there’s every chance she’d call it my annus horribilis.
While my castle hadn’t exactly burned to the ground, I had lost my job. There was also the tiny detail of my marriage falling apart. And by that, I mean my husband tripped and fell into my best friend, which meant she was also out of the picture. So was the mutual friend who was acting as sentry for their rendezvous. If only all love affairs came with a lookout, I may not have ended up here in the first place.
My dad had taken off on a European backpacking sabbatical, which had evolved into a spiritual hike of the Camino de Santiago. All of this without his girlfriend, who was less spiritual and more surgical. When her first reaction to his holiday plans had been, ‘Over my dead body’, his response was, ‘Tupperware forever’. She called time on their romance very shortly after that. As for Mum, well she hadn’t changed. She was still living it up in Sydney with her yachting weekends and Pantone apricot orange-coloured husband, Barry.
There was light at the end of the tunnel though and, by some miracle, it wasn’t an oncoming G-class diesel locomotive. It was a job. At home.
I was moving home.
Well, not technically home, per se, but within a few hundred feet of said residence. Despite his continual offers, I wasn’t prepared to move in with Dad, his pumpernickel bread, health supplements, or yoga retreats. I hoped that, one day soon, the Great Penis Drought would end, and that I’d get to bring a man home for a little health retreat of my own. There was little to no chance that I wanted to try and sneak a boy down a darkened hallway like a teenager, lest I get stuck for a lecture on contraception. No, Dad, it’s not just like putting a condom on a torch, no matter how illuminating the penis may be.
Instead, I was moving in with my cousin Penny and, for that, I was ecstatic. I honestly was. She was more a sister than a cousin and had been the first to call when she’d found out about the shit hitting the wildly spinning marriage fan. Live with me, she’d said. Pack it all in and get back to the beach.
While her offer had been tempting, I’d managed to resist for nine months. I was hellbent on the notion of proving to all and sundry, and then some, that I was perfectly capable of surviving without my husband, his bank account, or morbidly obese property portfolio.
During that time, I lived in a sixth-floor apartment in the centre of Melbourne with two other couples and a vertigo-riddled cat. Fast-forward to August, when I was made redundant from my job in the city library, and the decision to move home suddenly became a lot easier, and somewhat necessary, especially if I didn’t want to end up paying the landlord in that special nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way he initially suggested when I was twenty dollars short for rent one week.
When I was first married, I was the library teacher in a school of more than one thousand students. I eventually swapped that for the glamour of a public library, author speaking events, and working in the repairs room. Now, I was trading it all in again, leaving the bustling high-rise library for Apollo Bay Primary School, tucked neatly into Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Not only was it my childhood school, it also had a much smaller library with one floor, and only a nth of the books I was otherwise used to. The fact Penny worked there as the receptionist was a welcome bonus.
The job application process began within minutes of receiving my redundancy slip and had been relatively painless. Several interviews and background checks later, I got the phone call I’d been waiting for – I wasn’t a criminal! Also, I’d been offered the job. There’d be less books, less people, less drama; all the things I’d been hoping for. I was also looking forward to being closer to family again, catching up like old times over a pot of tea, a back fence, or a passive-aggressive social media post.
It didn’t matter that I was leaving my so-called life behind. Most of my friendship circle had disappeared in the great marital purge, so I didn’t feel bad leaving any of that. Those who had clung to my friends list had either told me that moving was a bad idea or supplied a constant stream of unhelpful gossip. They said I was running away with my tail between my legs and admit- ting defeat. It was throwing the toys out of the pram.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I respectfully disagree.
Everything was going to be just fine. Mired in paperwork, I’d had addresses changed, mail rerouted, and I’d done the big social media call-out announcing my new address to the select few who might one day need it. Not that I was holding my breath – anything outside the City Circle tram route seemed a little too over the hills and far away for most of them. When everything was done, and all my bills were squared off, I began the drive home.
Now, as I sat in my car outside Penny’s house, all that was left to do was get on inside, unpack, and make it through my first day at my new job. By six o’clock tomorrow night, I’d either be celebrating with a glass of fizz, or re-evaluating my life choices.
Currently, that life was crammed into a few boxes in the boot of my car. There wasn’t a lot to show for ten years of marriage. All I had left were some clothes and shoes, and not even my best ones, a few precious books, and some bric-a-brac. The divorce hadn’t yet been finalised. In fact, it hadn’t even been filed, but leaving a marriage was no different to fleeing a burning building – I took the important stuff and made a run for it before the roof caved in.
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