But one night, a year or so into our relationship, things changed. We were hosting a dinner for some of Max’s colleagues and their wives. The dinner had been catered and served by staff in aprons, as usual. My role, as I’d come to understand, was to be fabulous, effortless, comforting.
The evening started much like they all did. I chatted with the wives about botox and face lifts, the latest place to go skiing, the most exclusive new villa to book for a holiday in Tuscany. Conversation at these functions was achingly repetitive, but it meant I could contribute without having to try too hard. Usually, I was more interested in what the men were discussing. To be clear, those topics were also achingly repetitive, but the subjects tended to offer more opportunity for a discussion beyond getting the name of a new aesthetician or travel agent.
The men’s conversation tended to be louder and more aggressive. They stood with their legs spread and their arms crossed, determined to tell you what they thought. Max was the only one who didn’t stand that way. He didn’t talk over the top of anyone or argue his point belligerently. He waited for a natural pause in conversation before he offered his opinion. If someone started to speak over the top of him, he stopped and listened to them before responding. Perhaps on a different person this would have conveyed weakness, but with Max it was the opposite. In any room or situation, it was clear that Max was the most important, the most powerful person present.
At these dinners, it was only when the staff invited us to be seated at the dinner table that the men’s and women’s conversation merged. Usually at this point discussions moved into more personal matters, like people’s health, their children, perhaps a scandalous news story that had caught people’s attention. This night, though, the men brought their pre-dinner conversation to the table; they were speaking of the plight of the unemployed. It wasn’t an unfamiliar topic. The wives were often involved in some sort of charity fundraiser that the men had been roped into attending. Typically, the conversations were sympathetic, if empty, trotting out someone’s sob story, mostly to affirm the speaker’s own privileged place in society and express gratitude for their individual circumstances. On this night, however, the conversation took a different turn.
‘But this is Australia!’ Steve said, nodding for a waiter to fill his glass. His cheeks were already pink with passion, or maybe with red wine. ‘This is the land of opportunity. People need to stop looking for handouts and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, am I right?’
Steve had inherited his very successful industrial cleaning business from his parents and been appointed CEO on his thirtieth birthday.
‘I’ve always hated that expression: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It gives the idea that anyone can do anything with hard work.’ My voice was quiet, my tone polite. I wasn’t drawing attention to the antagonism or prejudice of Steve’s comment, but I felt the energy of the room change as our guests absorbed the comment.
‘You don’t agree, Amanda?’ Steve looked amused.
‘No. There are a lot of reasons people can’t help themselves. Mental illness. Disability. Criminal records. Language barriers.’
I was thinking of my mother, of course, who’d spent a large part of her life unemployed despite attending hundreds of job interviews, each position more menial than the last. Her pelvis, which had been shattered in a car accident when she was twenty, meant she couldn’t work in a job that required her to be on her feet for long periods of time, and considering the kind of jobs she was qualified for, this made her virtually unemployable.
‘And that doesn’t even take into account the people who are working hard but just can’t get ahead because they are supporting their entire family,’ I added.
‘I’m not saying it’s easy,’ Steve said. ‘But opportunities are there, if you work hard enough.’
I couldn’t help it; I rolled my eyes. ‘And how would you know?’
A hush fell over the room. Steve’s expression became slightly less jovial. I felt Max’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t quite read his expression.
‘Oh, please. You’re not one of those bleeding-heart lefties, are you?’ Steve said. ‘All I’m saying is that handouts aren’t the answer.’
‘I disagree,’ I said. ‘In many cases, handouts are the difference between people feeding their children and not feeding their children – even for hard-working people.’
Steve held up his hands in mock fear. ‘All right, all right! I don’t want to offend the lady of the house. Let’s agree to disagree.’
Agreeing to disagree was the last thing I wanted to do, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to change Steve’s mind, and I could see our exchange was making the other guests uncomfortable. I was about to let the matter rest when Max spoke up.
‘But you didn’t answer Amanda’s question, Steve,’ Max said. ‘How would you know? When was the last time you had to pull yourself up by the bootstraps?’
Everyone turned to look at Max. His expression was calm, considered . . . and something else. Perhaps faintly amused?
Steve looked abashed. ‘All right. Why don’t we get off this topic and –’
‘Why? Because you’re not as qualified to speak to this complex issue as you suggested? Because you’re afraid that adding nuance to a bullish, one-sided commentary will diminish your argument?’
‘With all due respect,’ Steve started.
‘Actually,’ Max interrupted, ‘nothing about this conversation has showed Amanda the respect she is due. So I’d suggest you think carefully about what you’re going to say next.’
Everyone looked at Max as he sat back in his chair, resting his arm around the back of my seat.
That was the moment I fell in love with Max.
25
PIPPA
NOW
‘I‘m going to tell the police about my connection to Max,’ Gabe says at 2 am.
He paces the room in his boxer shorts. His thoughts on the matter have suddenly become infuriatingly, intensely clear. He wants to confess. He must. It’s so Gabe of him. But my thoughts are not clear. They are slippery and suffocating, flipping from one conviction to another so fast I feel dizzy.
‘You can’t, Gabe! You concealed the fact that Amanda was the wife of your former boss – a man who fired you. Do you really think that if you go to them with this information now, they’ll believe you had nothing to do with her death?’
‘It’s the truth,’ he says. Gabe’s voice sounds scratchy and hoarse. It reminds me that while I’ve seen Gabe in many different states – angry, manic, depressed, overjoyed – I haven’t seen him like this. I haven’t seen him afraid.
I’m afraid too. Afraid of losing him. If I’m honest, this has been my fear since the moment we met. Something about him has always felt fleeting, even after marriage, even after children. ‘But what if they don’t believe you?’
He sits on the edge of the bed. ‘Then I’ll go to jail.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No. That can’t happen.’
I’ve always been a visual person. All over the house I have pinboards and blackboards and whiteboards decorated with brightly coloured post-its or whiteboard markers. When something is coming up – a birthday, an event, a deadline – it is right there, displayed for everyone to see. Gabe is not a visual person. For a while, I put his important dates on my boards too. It didn’t work, but I derived a perverse sense of pleasure from pointing out the occasion he’d forgotten.