The Fourth Season by Dorothy Johnston Read Free Book Online

her. They asked me if I went scuba diving,’ Ivan repeated, staring at me, as though he’d forgotten what he’d said a few seconds ago. ‘I told them I was frightened of the sea. Laila borrowed the car from somebody called Bronwyn. Brideson keeps asking me about her. Do I know Bronwyn? Is she in the group? Did Laila talk about her? Not to me, she didn’t. Laila told me sweet fuck all.’
    â€˜Ivan, why didn’t you call me? Why are you doing this?’
    Ivan put his head in his hands. ‘I—I can’t.’
    This time I felt no impulse to comfort him. ‘You could have texted me. Just to say you were okay.’
    â€˜I wasn’t okay. I’m not.’
    â€˜But Pete and Katya—’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Ivan said.
    I made more coffee. It felt oddly formal, sitting there opposite Ivan as though I was conducting an interview, yet everything about him was familiar, with the kind of close domestic familiarity that takes years to grow.
    â€˜I slept in the car. When the police had finished with me. I drove up to the Brindabellas.’
    When I asked why, Ivan said, ‘It was a way of looking down.’ And then, ‘I don’t know why. I don’t know why I do anything.’
    He fiddled with his coffee mug, then stared around the room as though reminding himself that the fridge was where it should be, and the stove hadn’t moved.
    When I told Ivan about Don Fletcher, I expected him to be angry, but he was past anger. He nodded as though my decisions, the way I lived my life, had nothing to do with him.
    Then he roused himself, saying roughly, ‘It’s a joke, our business. We’ve never done anything more than fight to keep out of debt.’
    I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘We’ve put food on the table,’ I said. ‘We’ve bought soccer boots.’
    We’d been unlikely partners from the start, yet we’d muddled on. Our business had stayed afloat, albeit a leaky vessel; our private partnership as well. And there’d been times that had been a great deal more than muddle.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Sandra,’ Ivan said again. ‘It’s just that I feel so terrible.’
    Terrible was a big word. I wanted to fight my way clear of such big words, and I understood, at that moment, that I didn’t want to mother Ivan. It was not the role for me. Some women seemed able to create a general haze of motherly concern, even, or especially, when they were under threat themselves. But I didn’t want to be that kind of woman and, even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t have known how.
    Then Ivan said, ‘This Don sounds dodgy. Aren’t things complicated enough?’
    I told him I couldn’t argue with that.
    . . .
    I’ve always felt that my adrenaline was in short supply. I resisted Ivan’s objections to taking Don’s money, passive and sporadic though they were, but resistance drained me of what little energy I had left. I slept badly and my arms and legs felt leaden. I grew too tired to bother about housework, too tired to wash my hair. I had tried to keep up an appearance of coping, for Pete and Katya’s sake, but each new day made a mockery of this.
    I was aware that Derek, my ex-husband, would take Peter for a while, and Katya too; Kat got on well with Derek and his second wife, who had no children of her own. I knew that they’d be better off away from Ivan, and that Peter, from the expression in his eyes when he caught mine sometimes, thought so too.
    Peter’s eyes accused me of having failed him and his sister, and this failure somehow went deeper than the trouble Ivan was in.
    . . .
    Then, one afternoon, a couple of days after Ivan had slouched home with those bags of shopping, he walked into the house with Katya, holding his daughter’s hand. I’d been about to take up my post waiting at the street, but he’d beat me to it.