Letters to Claire

In short, I was lonely and horny, and as Ryan rabbited on to me about Georgie, I pledged that when I got back home, I'd try and find love. As for trying to explain to Ryan that Georgie would never love him, I'd tried that a million times before and I was too fucking tired to try arguing once more.

~~~~~~~~~

Ryan was quiet and introspective the following morning. No, actually, that's being polite. He was fucking depressed. He was sitting out the front smoking cigarette after cigarette when I woke up, and when I went and sat with him, neither of us spoke for a good ten minutes.

'I could just forget last night happened,' I said casually.

He took a pull on his smoke. 'Thanks mate. Appreciate it.'

And that was it. We didn't speak about it again as we showered, packed up and prepared to drive back to our respective homes. It was almost as if we didn't stay awake for hours after Georgie left, discussing life and women and work.

I went inside and picked up my phone. I drafted a text message, giving an overview of last night's events, and sent it to Claire's old number. I still had her phone. I still paid the bill. But her phone was locked, and whatever secrets it held, were never to be revealed. And yet still, I texted her, and still, I kept her phone charged.

Letters to Claire, I secretly called it. I needed someone to talk to, and in the absence of a wife, I texted a ghost.

~~~~~~~~~~

On Monday it was back to reality. Once upon a time I was a plumber, now I work as a school groundsman. The hours are great, the pay is ordinary and the work is cruisy.

The school is a medium sized, public primary in a shitty location and there are lots of kids who are fresh immigrants, lots who are Indigenous and lots who are just regular, poor, white kids. It's the type of school that people who have options try to avoid, but the reality is that sending your child there isn't the end of the world. The principal and teachers genuinely give a shit about the kids, even though most of them wouldn't send their own offspring there if their lives depended on it.

Because the school is in an area where people are always going to vote a certain way, politicians tend to ignore it. It's underfunded as fuck and you probably don't want to tally up what the teachers spend out of their own pockets on school supplies. Some of the parents, those who are upper working class, or from a trade background, help out and donate, too, and somehow, together, some kids get a chance at success they ordinarily wouldn't have.

The school garden explains everything. Most schools have them; a few raised planter boxes filled with herbs and tomatoes that soon look scraggly and go to seed, creating a fucking eyesore. They're supposed to be educational, and to show kids how food is produced, but nobody is ever interested.

Not at my school. The gardens are massive, well maintained and they produce an absolute shitload of fruit and veg. It's not because the principal is into horticulture or the kids are genuinely interested in growing strawberries, it's because there were children coming to school that were so hungry they were scavenging for something, anything, to eat.

In order to slow the destruction of the gardens, and to keep the kids fed, the gardens were expanded and children were tasked with picking, washing and displaying produce at the canteen. Children can go there and pick up carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes and fruit at no charge. Also at the canteen is a jar of vegemite, a jar of jam, and loaves of day old bread which one of the teachers had convinced a local bakery to give to us for free. We go through six loaves of bread a day.

It's sad in a way, but what pisses me off is the parents that do have money, that can provide for their kids, who refuse to. It's one thing to be dead on your arse broke and need a helping hand. Nobody begrudges that. But I'll tell you one thing I've learned from my time at the school; most parents who are dead on their arse broke will go to the end of the earth to provide for their kids, even if it means going hungry themselves. The ones who send their kids to school sans lunch, sans supplies, and in grotty uniforms, aren't the poorest of the poor.

I don't have to maintain the gardens. As the sole groundskeeper, it's preferable that I mow and slash, line mark and clean up vomit, prepare for assembly and maintain the decorative gardens at the front of the school. I help out with the garden occasionally, supplying a bag of fertiliser I've pinched from my father, who's a farmer, but the teachers and the kids do a great job looking after it themselves.

I'd moved a plover's nest out from the newly planted lettuce in autumn, something the principal told me she'd pretend she hadn't seen me do, and that was pretty much the last of my involvement until I got called back again in Spring when a magpie had decided to start swooping children. I'd so far avoided being attacked by the magpie, as had the lady who ran the canteen, so the two of us were asked to go and dig up some potatoes.

Marnie joined me straight after lunch. Neither of us had ever dug up potatoes in our life, but the concept was essentially 'just dig and you shall find', so I couldn't see any problems with it.

I'd been at the school by four months at this point. I knew most of the teachers and support staff, but Marnie was a rare exception. She was always tucked inside the canteen, or rushing out of the school to do God knows what, before rushing back and cleaning or serving lunch to the kids and supervising the volunteers. She was always on the go.

We'd barely said a handful of words to each other, but what I'd seen of her, I liked. She was a little older than me, thirty at a guess, and pretty. She wasn't skinny, nor was she fat, but there was a solidness to her. Nice boobs, too, from the looks of things. Not that she dressed up; she always had her streaked blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and wore plain black polos with jeans and black, pull on boots, the kind that chefs wear. There were tatts all down her left arm, not like a sleeve, just a motley collection of ink, which weren't really my thing, but they suited her well enough.

'Hi,' Marnie said. 'Off to get attacked by a bird, huh?'

She smiled as she spoke. Her teeth were white and small.

'It's been pretty good so far. Do you have a broad brimmed hat? That makes it harder for them to cause you any damage.'

'Uh, no,' she replied. 'You wouldn't have a spare one around, would you?'

'I'll have a few of them in my ute. Do you have sunscreen?'

'Thanks, and no. Could I borrow some?'

'Sure, no worries,' I replied.

There was a roughness to her voice that didn't quite match the pretty face, but which was well in line with the tatts on her arm.

'Whereabouts are you from?' I asked.

'Are you asking where I was born, where I grew up, or where I live?'

I shrugged. 'Where you were born and raised.'

'Born in good old Radelaide, raised here, there and everywhere. I honestly couldn't even tell you where I was the most. Mum travelled a lot and I just went with her. She'd go from picking apples in Tassie to working as a night clerk in a roadhouse in the Territory, to serving coffees in inner city Sydney.'

'Where's your father in relation to all this?'

'Chasing cows around a paddock in Katherine, last I heard.'

We reached my ute. I rummaged around for the cleanest hat I could find, and handed her a five dollar Bunnings straw special. It was ugly as sin but she put it on anyway. Why not? Who the fuck was she supposed to be impressing, digging potatoes on a Monday afternoon in a low income school?

'How about you?' she asked. 'What was your early life like? Because don't take this the wrong way, but I can tell you're not from Ipswich.'

I grew up on a farm, a statement that seems to conjure up mental images that in no way fit the reality. My father was the second child and only son of wealthy farmers. He had three kids to three women before he was twenty, me being the youngest. He and Mum split when I was a toddler and I initially lived with Mum.

I went to live with Dad, in a small demountable house on his parent's farm, when Mum got a new boyfriend and the new fella decided he didn't want a six year old smartarse ruining his fun. My father loved me, and my grandparents adored me, and when my brothers came over every second weekend, I had a grand old time, so it should have been great, and no joke, at times it was.

There were also dark, heavy times. Dad was an alcoholic, and though he was functional, he sure as shit wasn't fun to live with. You grow up quickly when you share a house with a parental figure who drinks heavily. You become self sufficient and in some ways, almost a caregiver to the same person who should be a caregiver to you.

I'd love to say he stopped drinking when his parents died, but he didn't. He proved that you could manage a farm and drink at the same time. Nowadays, he's ostensibly clean, remarried, and has two kids to his new wife. He's living the kind of life he probably always should have lived, if you ignore the inconvenient three sons he sired when he was just a kid.

'Darling Downs,' I replied. She didn't need the back story.

'I thought there was still money out that way. Why come to Ipswich?'

'I was married and my wife died,' I replied, handing her a bottle of sunscreen. Standing this close to her, I could smell something on her, something that reminded me of Claire at some point in our marriage, though I couldn't pick what it was. Perhaps Marnie was wearing a deodorant Claire had trialled. 'She got the flu. She was vaccinated, but the strain she caught wasn't one that was included in that year's vaccine.'

'I'm sorry for your loss,' she said sympathetically. 'Did you two have kids?'

'One, Luther. He's three next month. The weird part is that neither he nor I got sick. Nobody did. Just Claire. Nobody even knows where she picked it up. We were living in Oakey, for fuck's sake. Not much happens in Oakey.'

'That's rough.'

'One day at a time,' I replied. 'It's getting easier now. She died just over a year ago. She believed in God, and we went to church each Sunday and Luther was christened, but I... I can't believe in God, you know? I had a half-arsed Catholic upbringing and it still didn't make a difference. That was the worst part for me, knowing she was gone and that I'd never see her again. I still don't know if I've fully accepted it.'

Marnie didn't respond. I'm not sure she knew what to say. I wasn't sure what to say, either, because I was struck with the uncomfortable knowledge that I'd probably over-shared. Nobody needed a fucking sob story.

We went to the shed and got out a wheelbarrow, a pitchfork and two spades. We chatted about the weather and the gardens, nice, safe, comfortable topics.

It was as we'd started digging that I asked Marnie how she'd found herself in Ipswich.

'I got pregnant with my eldest daughter,' she replied. 'Her father has had a few problems with addiction, and I knew that if stayed in Melbourne, where we were living, I'd end up the same as him. I knew I'd end up losing my kid. So I took a chance and ran up here. I stayed with an old friend and found myself some work.'

'You were using, too?'

'Yeah, here and there,' she admitted. 'It seems to run in my family. My Mum'll do, drink or snort anything.'

'My old man preferred alcohol.'

She reached down to pick up a potato. 'You never had problems?'

'No. No, I've been lucky. How old is your daughter?'

'Edie's five. I've got another one, Jasmine. She's eight months. I'd met a man, and we'd been together for two years... he wouldn't commit. I thought a baby might help spur him on, but that was a fucking stupid mistake. I haven't seen or heard from him since I was five months' pregnant.' She looked up and gave me a rueful smile. 'That's my tale of idiocy.'

'We all have them.'

'Come on, country boy, you're as pure as the driven snow next to me,' she half teased, half chided. 'A baby with a woman you were married to, church on Sunday, and a farming family. You basically scream 'innocent'.'

I cocked an eyebrow.

'Righty-o,' she conceded. 'Tell me.'

'My first woman was one of my father's ex-girlfriends. She was way too young for my father, and the affair didn't last more than a month. She came by a week after they split and we ended up going for it.'

Marnie's laughter rang out. 'Congratulations, because that's fucking disgusting. Did she compare you to him?'

'Mercifully not. I like to pretend I'm the best she's ever had.'

'That sounds like something a man would say,' she agreed, putting several potatoes in the wheelbarrow. 'Hey, silly question, but how long is this potato digging going to take?'

'Why do you ask?'

'I need to dash out and take care of something. I normally leave just after the lunch stuff is cleared away.'

I couldn't imagine what she needed to do so urgently.

'Now?' I asked.

She shook her head. 'Probably in the next twenty minutes. I'll have to come back to clean down the kitchen.'

'Are you allowed to come and go like that?'

'I'm a contractor, not an employee of the school. I get paid a flat rate for twenty-five hours work a week during school time, regardless of what I actually work, or how I structure my hours.'

'Okay,' I agreed. 'I can take care of this myself. You can go now if you want.'

'I'll stay twenty minutes,' she said.

She sounded relieved, but also seemed a bit embarrassed by what she'd had to ask. I thought that maybe she had her period or something and needed to buy tampons. If that was the case, she wouldn't want to be hanging around digging up spuds.

'You sure?' I asked.

'Sure,' she confirmed. 'Now tell me, why did you move to Ipswich? To get away from memories? A fresh start?'

'Probably both.'

She looked up and gave me a cheeky smile. 'Was a lady friend involved?'

'Nah, I haven't really had one of those since my wife died.'

'Sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate anything.'

'Nah, it's all cool,' I said. 'It's probably time I found a woman. And it'd be a bit easier to do here than it is back home.'

'Oh, I understand that,' she agreed. 'In a big town, you might wake up after a big night out and look over and think 'who the hell is that?' but when you're in a country town and you have a big night, you wake up and think 'oh fuck, I didn't, did I?''

I cracked up laughing. 'You know that well, don't you?'

She smiled as she continued to dig. 'And you, too, right?'

'Right,' I confessed. There was something not unpleasant but not quite comfortable about discussing sex with her. It probably wasn't unrelated to the fact that I would have happily nailed her. 'How about you get going? We've already got a wheelbarrow load and the maggies nowhere to be seen.'

She paused. 'You sure?'

'Yeah, it's not worries. I'm getting paid to be here. I'm happy to dig.'

~~~~~~~~~~

I saw Marnie once or twice more that week. A friendship of sorts had formed during the afternoon of digging potatoes and we smiled and nodded conspiratorially, showing that even though we didn't have the time to stop and talk, we would have if we could have.

Friday came, and I was on the cusp of asking her how she felt about meeting up for a beer or something when she beat me to the punch and asked what I was doing on the weekend.

'Not much,' I admitted. 'You?'

'I was going to take the girls to Queens Park to see the animals. Does your little boy like it?'

'Animals?'

'Yeah, there's a little zoo in the park. Wallabies, birds, snakes, that sort of thing. It's free.'

'Luther would probably be right into that.'

And I, too, would like to see her outside of work, because I had the gut feeling that she was as interested in me as I was in her.

We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet at the entrance of the animal enclosure at ten thirty the following morning. This would give me time to take Luther to his swimming lesson, get him showered and changed, and then meet Marnie.

It was a pretty positive end to the week. Even though my son was tired and shitty when I collected him from daycare, he perked up when I mentioned the wallabies and he promised to go to bed on time. That was a complete lie; he hates going to bed and always fights it, but at least he was no longer screaming for cake. Every fucking tantrum ends in 'I want cake'. Why the hell does my kid always want cake? Cake is nice, sure, but how did it become so important?

It was a mystery that would never get solved. There was no mystery as to why my house was clean when I got home, though, and that was because the cleaner had been. Claire had left behind two life insurance policies and a decent superannuation account. One of the policies was for Luther. The other had been for me, and it had allowed me to buy a decent enough home in a decent enough area, and still leave some aside for emergencies.

Maintaining the house wasn't a problem but trying to keep it clean was fucking impossible. It wasn't that I didn't know how to clean. I'd grown up with an alcoholic single father so I'd learned skills that other men hadn't.

In the years when I was too young to understand or help out, Dad's house had been disgusting. Dishes had gone unwashed. The floors were littered with crumbs. Empty glass rum bottles, and plastic Coke bottles, had piled up in the kitchen. I was about twelve when I had a friend over and my friend turned up his nose at the state of the place. That's when I learned to clean. Nowadays, the problem was having the time to do it. It was easier just to pay someone. I lived simply and I had no mortgage, so I could afford it.

Our weekly grocery order arrived at six. I unpacked, pausing only to put a frozen pizza and loaf of garlic bread in the oven for dinner. No wonder I could afford the cleaner, right? I still made all our dinners, even if it was just chucking something frozen in the oven, and packed my own lunches for work.

My mate, Floyd, messaged me just as Luther and I had sat down to eat. He and his wife had had a baby a couple of months back. The baby had been tiny, it had fallen ill shortly after birth and been hospitalised, and even after it's discharge, it had failed to gain weight at the usual rate. He'd been stressed to the max. He and his wife had actually been invited to the wedding Ryan and I attended the week prior but they'd had to decline.

I asked him how his daughter was, and he said they finally seemed to be crossing a bridge. She'd gained a fair chunk of weight in the last week, and was meeting all her milestones, so the doctors felt that despite her rough start, she wouldn't suffer any long lasting consequences.

His wife, on the other hand, had been diagnosed with postnatal depression. Her parents would be coming over the following weekend to help out, and they'd suggested to him that he take the opportunity to catch up with friends. Floyd had agreed it would be good to get out, and wanted to know if I was free.

I knew he just wanted to talk, and I was good with that. He'd helped me out massively after Claire died. He was the sort of person who'd come around, take me out, and not get offended when I was quiet and introspective and didn't say more than two words.

'Thanks mate,' he texted. 'Have a good weekend. Any plans?'

'I'm going to Queens Park,' I responded. 'One of my workmates is a single mum. We're going to take our kids to see the animals.'

'Animals?'

'Wallabies. Wombats. Goats.'

'Don't shoot anything.'

Once upon a time I'd been a keen hunter, though in my neck of the woods it had just been deer and rabbits. It seemed a lifetime ago. 'I'd shoot a load into her,' I admitted.