Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [20]
I foolishly thought that I might speed up the process by helping him out, but that idea didn’t last long. I am way too impatient for such painstaking work. After he’d witnessed my woefully inadequate efforts a few times, I was shooed out of the room, never to be invited back. He suggested I turn my hand to the garden, where he obviously felt I could do less harm.
So I did. I knew zero about gardening before I started, but I educated myself with the help of a couple of evening courses. The first step involved clearing out the ivy and bramble-festooned backyard, which, even with the help of Dad, took me many months. I still have the calluses on my hands. The garden was so overgrown I was worried I would find a serial killer’s burial plot underneath - and no, I’m not joking here, my imagination does run to these sort of things - but in the end I just found lots of old paint cans, a rusty wheelbarrow and an abandoned toilet. Ultimately, I discovered I quite liked gardening and spent many a happy Saturday afternoon visiting plant nurseries or studying the science of composting, courtesy of Gardening Australia repeats on TV.
My other favoured domain was the kitchen, where I could blot out the rest of the unfinished house and pretend I already had my dream home. Inspired by my new multi-function oven, I started buying a lot more recipe books and experimenting with different cuisines, a skill my meat-and-three-veg mum had ill prepared me for. I had a very appreciative client in my husband, who had always had a keen appetite just as long as I remembered not to lick the serving spoon in his presence.
Let me qualify that - I had an appreciative client when my husband was around.
After a while his absences began to pall. What made it worse was that Tony was now back flying the Boeing 747-400 on long haul international flights, which meant he went away less often but for much longer periods. In case you hadn’t noticed, Australia is a bloody long way from everywhere else. It was always Tony’s ambition from when he was a small boy to be a 747 captain and nothing in the ensuing years had made him change his mind. Personally I would have much preferred him to fly domestically but he’d made it clear to me that this point was strictly non-negotiable. I’d knowingly signed up for this life - wife of a long haul pilot - but it somehow seemed different now that I was living alone in a ramshackle house with no-one else for company.
One morning as I was watching him pack his bag in preparation for a trip of several days, I couldn’t help expressing a few petulant thoughts along this line.
I’ll never forget the look I got. ‘You knew what you were getting yourself in for when you married me,’ he said, with a slight hint of warning in his voice. ‘There is no point complaining about it now.’
‘I know. But while you’re off seeing the world and staying in luxury hotels I’m stuck here alone in The Munsters’ House. I can’t help getting the creeps sometimes.’
‘The hotels aren’t all that great. And it’s not as if I’m on holiday. I’m working bloody hard and earning the money to pay for the renovations.’
I slunk away chastened, like a small dog caught pooping in the wrong spot.
It was true he was working, but he was also living out a childhood dream and few of us are lucky enough to do that in our careers. I sometimes silently sulked that he never saw things from my point of view, especially when he missed both Christmas and my birthday during our first year of married life.
‘Why don’t we get a dog?’ he suggested when he returned from that trip. ‘We have enough room. It would be a good companion for you and extra security at night.’
Hmm, I wasn’t sure. I was working long hours and thought my absences would be a bit unfair on a poor pooch. And on a more selfish note my garden was finally taking some shape and I didn’t want it trashed by some unappreciative and bored canine. I decided to sleep on the idea for a while.
Even so, I started checking out pet shops hoping for inspiration. It came in an unlikely form. One day I spied a single