Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [5]
I was near finishing up my Honours when, standing over a cage of rats I was planning to poison in the name of science, I had a terrifying vision of my future. I saw myself in twenty years’ time, eking out an existence on my meagre salary, married to some fellow cardigan-wearing academic with a beard, and spending my rare holidays going on brisk hikes in the Tasmanian wilderness or at Australian Sceptics Society conferences. Not for me folks - for a start hiking boots make my legs look stumpy. I was seeking a life of glamour and excitement and Prince Charming was clearly not going to find me amongst the lab rats. This all coincided with my school friends graduating from their commerce and arts degrees and finding employment in the corporate world. Still living at home, they proceeded to spend all their salary on new clothes, so whilst I was still wearing old t-shirts and faded Levi’s they’d arrive to meet me in their crisp new suits, swinging handbags that cost more than my entire annual Austudy allowance.
Scientific ideals be damned - I was going after the money!
As luck would have it, I found the university careers advisory service was advertising a graduate position in clinical research at the local headquarters of a pharmaceutical company, commencing the next year. Thanks to my sterling results in pharmacology, I ended up being the successful applicant and immediately enrolled in an evening degree course in marketing.
When I arrived at my first lecture, I thought I had arrived on a different planet by mistake, rather than just at a different university campus. These leather briefcase carrying guys and gals were students? They looked a different species to the scruffy, thoughtful and - let’s face it - slightly nerdy idealists I’d left behind in the science labs. Few of these new students were there to be educated. They had their hearts set on climbing the corporate ladder and thought a few extra letters after their name might fast track that process. Idealism was a commodity in very short supply. I was disgusted with myself for becoming one of them…briefly…until my first few pay cheques started arriving.
It was also about this time that Tony appeared on the scene.
2
One enchanted evening
When I think about it, it’s more accurate to say Tony re-appeared on the scene because I’d actually known him for years. He was one of my brother’s best school friends. At eleven, David won a scholarship to an expensive private school, the sort of school Mum and Dad could never have afforded to send him to ordinarily. Given this opportunity he provided excellent return on investment: becoming vice-captain, playing wing in the First XV and making the Honour roll in several academic subjects. Tony was also a star player, in the lock position, in David’s rugby team. Mum and Dad would sometimes drag Emma and me along to watch the team play and memories of my future husband back then are all of sweat and clashing bodies and striped rugby jerseys. I didn’t have a crush on him (remarkable in retrospect, as my infatuation net was cast fairly wide in those days) but I knew he was popular with the girls, impossibly cool and as remote from me as any member of a British glam rock band could be.
I can’t imagine Tony ever gave David’s dull and mildly chubby younger sister a second thought back then. He probably didn’t even give me a first thought. But by the time we were reacquainted I’d shed some pudge, discovered blonde highlights and finally got enough money to buy a few decent clothes. If not quite the swan I’d dreamed of, I was at least no longer an ugly duckling.
Anthony John Cooper is the elder of Douglas and Pamela Cooper’s two sons. Douglas was for a long period one of Sydney’s most successful stockbrokers and the Cooper boys grew up in a Federation-era trophy home with a pool and harbour views. Those who didn’t know Tony well assumed he would follow his father’s footsteps into a business career. Those