Demons Read online

  Everyone looked at Evan. Evan shrugged.

  Lauren: Woman Killed By Falling Man…

  With her husband working long hours in his office in the city, said Lauren, and she ‘between jobs’ while they renovated, Carly Ashburton spent her days watching the fine body of the carpenter working. He was Tim’s cousin, Jay, and he was doing it cheap. He was not much older than her son.

  Oh no! said Hannah. Lauren smiled.

  After she’d bedded him once she couldn’t stop; it was like a disease. Meanwhile, Tim drove home from work every evening to the sawdust and the offcuts and the water for the pasta bubbling on the two-burner camp stove and kissed Carly’s cheek without giving anything away. He was at it every lunchtime with his work colleague, Adele—a marketing manager not much older than his daughter—who lived, ironically, in a high-rise apartment just like the one Tim had dreamed about, with even a view from her bedroom window of their office building across the river.

  But of course, said Lauren, it was just a matter of time. Carly was already wondering where her infidelities would take her, her husband where his would take him. He was certainly getting more brazen. He and Adele sometimes even stood out on the balcony in their bathrobes smoking a post-coital cigarette (at home he never smoked), watching the seagulls rise and fall on the updraft from the river, their office just a stone’s throw away. It was like they were asking to be seen. As for Carly, she knew her affair with Jay the cousin-carpenter couldn’t last (he was already fitting the benches) so with one eye on the clock and one hand on her heart she started to go at him more furiously, in places and positions more outrageous than before, with a kind of reckless, catch-me-if-you-can abandon.

  Tim and Adele, meanwhile, had begun to share their after-sex cigarettes in silence. Eventually he had to tell her: he thought his wife knew. Adele’s first reaction was to laugh. What difference does it make? she said. What do you care? Tim tried to explain how, in spite of his strong feelings towards her, his very strong feelings, he said, he was still a married man, still had obligations and, he was not afraid to say it, still had feelings for his wife. Adele wasn’t happy, naturally. She thought she had Tim to herself and soon let him know about it. He said he understood how she felt, really he did, but, he continued, pleading, surely she could see it from his point of view? He never said he’d leave his wife, on the contrary, he went home to her every evening. But Adele wasn’t listening. I suggest you go home, she said, and sort a few things out—if, that is, you have any intention of seeing me again.

  Tim left work early that day a changed man (yes, Adele had freed him), determined to go back to his bluestone church and tell his wife how much he loved her, how he’d decided to quit his job and work from home from now on, how they’d plant vegetables and fruit trees, starting tomorrow, how he’d be close to her, always, and their new life could begin. The further he drove, the further away his troubles seemed. He now had almost to squint his mind’s eye, so to speak, to bring Adele’s face and body into focus or to feel anything for her.

  When he pulled into the driveway behind Jay’s ute and stepped out of his car that afternoon he felt completely strange and new. The air hummed with an unfamiliar silence. The light was all askew. Even his body felt different, unworn by those few extra hours of work. It was only when he was on the doorstep (the side door, they never went up the wedding steps at the front) that he was overtaken by an even stranger feeling. He shouldn’t be here, it was not his time of day; he’d thought only about what he was running away from, not what he was running to. He listened to the silence; there was no hammering, no sawing, no FM radio playing. Then in that silence he found what he now realised he was listening for: a whimper, a groan, the sound of a chair scraping across the timber floor. He listened a bit longer, then walked back to his car.

  Carly heard him: the footsteps on the gravel, the sound of the car door, the ignition, the motor, the whine of the gearbox as it reversed out of the drive. Jay had tied her to the kitchen chair, as she’d asked. From his position he wouldn’t hear much—if anything, she thought, as she squeezed her thighs a little tighter. She listened to her husband’s footsteps going. What would happen would happen. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and pushed her tongue a little harder against her teeth.

  Tim spent the rest of that afternoon in the pub at Diggers Rest. He drank light beer, so as to keep his head, and bought a bottle of white wine before leaving. He arrived home at ‘the usual time’. He and his wife drank the wine over a meal of mushroom tortellini and green salad while talking about their renovations. The smell of sawdust was thick in the air. They packed away the dishes and turned the television on. They went to bed early and slept back to back.

  So, said Lauren, as you can imagine, Tim went to work the next morning in a pretty foul mood. He had given his wife the chance to come clean. It’s not as if I haven’t tried, he thought: didn’t I agree to the country move, bend my will to hers, give her everything she asked? And this is the thanks I get? All right, he thought; if that’s the way you want to play it.

  While Carly Ashburton steeled herself the next morning to tell Jay the carpenter that their ridiculous affair was over, her husband, Tim, even before morning tea, had cornered Adele the marketing manager in the photocopy room, apologised for yesterday’s mess and begged to come around to her place after work to show her how serious he was.

  The end of the day was a long time coming, the path of emotions leading to it jagged and steep. His wife had been having an affair, right under his nose, with his cousin, a tradesman half his age! Tim made some calls, answered some emails; at five he packed his briefcase. He felt like he’d been cut loose; anything could happen. He went to the toilet, washed his hands, and stared at the mirror. He was just stepping into the elevator when his secretary called out. His wife, Carly, was on the line. Did he want to speak to her? Tim paused, thinking, then the elevator doors closed.

  What did she want? And what was she to him now? He was free, had been freed. The elevator moved. But perhaps she knew he knew, perhaps she was ringing to confess? Why hadn’t he thought of that? He couldn’t hate her, he’d known her half his life, they’d shared everything together, and yes, the more he thought about it the more he came to see that, despite her infidelities (her mistakes, he told himself), he could still love her, even forgive her. With a bit of love and forgiveness they might put all their errors behind. His forthcoming rendezvous with Adele suddenly felt filthy and absurd. But he couldn’t turn back; he had to balance that part of the ledger too. He walked across the bridge—a white plastic bag swirled above the water on the breeze—and made his way to her building.

  She greeted him in her office clothes. There was a steely resolve coming off her. She wanted to talk. She was not going to delude herself, she said, she knew this was just an affair but, the fact was, she had only been able to go on with it by pushing the thought of his marriage—his wife, his children, his bluestone church—from her mind.

  She poured them both a glass of wine. Tim stood at the glass door to the balcony, the city buildings shining gold. He needed a cigarette but he knew it was too early yet. Now Adele was crying. (My God, what next?) Couldn’t you have kept lying? she said, between sobs. Couldn’t you have kept the thing here, in this apartment, between us? He’d still not had a chance to speak, and now he was getting annoyed. He wanted to give her a piece of his mind, but o
n the other hand he wanted to get her to bed, make love, and by doing so get revenge on his wife—that, after all, was why he was here. But he had no sooner said this to himself, begun to dwell on her faults and blemishes, than Adele became suddenly very attractive to him again. He looked at her leaning there with one hand on the bench, tears rolling down her cheeks, and with just enough cleavage showing for him to imagine his way in there, and realised how utterly ravishing she actually was. He put an arm around her, kissed her neck, but this only made it worse; she pushed him away, he approached again, then without either of them knowing how it happened they were kissing furiously, stumbling into the bedroom and falling onto the bed.

  Tim’s blood was now at boiling point: he wanted Adele, wanted to possess her and with that drive home the dagger of revenge for Jay’s possession of his wife. He was tearing at her clothes; he heard a button pop and hit the wall behind. He knew he was out of control but he was powerless to stop it. Then Adele rolled out from under him, literally rolled off the side of the bed and landed on the floor with a thud. Tim sat up, deranged, confused—one moment she was there, the next not. Her head popped up beside him. With all his experience of women—two wives, three daughters (two from the first marriage), many girlfriends—he still could not fathom that look. It was a mixture of horror and hatred. I rang your wife, she said, earlier this afternoon, and told her what we’ve been doing. She stood up, rearranged her clothes and looked down at him. I’m going out to eat, she said—and I don’t want to find you here when I get back. And with that she was gone.

  What happened next probably took little more than a minute but for Tim it must have felt like hours. He heard the door slam, her footsteps in the hall, the elevator bell, the elevator doors, the elevator descending. He got out of bed and went to the living area. He took a cigarette from the packet on the bench and the half-glass of wine he’d left there. He stepped out onto the balcony. The evening was cool. He could see the light on in his office across the river, the cleaner moving around inside. It was a good job, sure, but why did he do it? What was the point? He drank the wine and put the cigarette to his lips. Then he lowered it again. He leaned against the rail. He was a long way up. He butted out the cigarette and put the glass down. He stepped up and closed his eyes. He swayed slightly. Then he jumped.

  Right at that moment—at that very moment—Carly Ashburton was facedown on the floor of the church with a blindfold on, her fingernails scraping the boards while Jay the cousin-carpenter took her from behind. Strewn around the half-built mezzanine was all the evidence of a long afternoon’s indulgence: empty wine bottles and half-full glasses, various pieces of underwear, candle stubs on saucers, a stainless-steel phallus, jars of lubricant. Even now, as the daylight began to fade in the high stained-glass windows, with every part of her body hurting, with every muscle spent, she still bucked furiously beneath the carpenter’s heaving and still kept repeating in her head: Catch me, I don’t care. She wanted her husband to come home from work and find her spread out like that, all the evidence of her debauchery on show. She had wanted it all afternoon, but her husband didn’t come. She was exhausted, dry and torn, Jay under her instructions had to scoop great fingerfuls of lubricant from the jar, but Carly had drunk so much wine by now she was beyond feeling.

  She’d hardly slept the night before, she was sure she’d been caught, but still Tim wouldn’t accuse her. But neither could she bring herself to confess. Their dinner, during which they gave the truth a wide berth and instead ate mushroom tortellini and drank white wine and frittered niceties back and forth, had left her confused. As soon as Tim was out the door that morning she went to the fridge and took out the leftover half-bottle. She listened to the whine as his car reversed out to the road. She knew Jay would be arriving soon. She finished that bottle and opened another. She heard the ute pull up, Jay unloading his gear; she sculled her glass and poured another. It wasn’t possible to stop herself—just because her husband suspected something, did this mean she should turn away from the pleasure? If he wanted to stop it he would have. And anyway, she’d seen him eyeing off all those other women—the marketing manager at work, Adele, for one. She was not going to start ticking herself off now. She let Jay get started—he was fitting the skirting boards—before she locked the front and side doors, gave him the signal, drew him to her, and unclipped the bib of his overalls.

  They spent the next hour making love in the usual places and in the usual ways, though it was clear throughout that Carly Ashburton’s thoughts were elsewhere. Around mid-morning their passion dwindled. Jay put on his overalls and went back to work, Carly sat in the ramshackle adjoining living area with her wineglass and watched him. An hour later Jay said he had to go—he needed some timber to finish off. Carly Ashburton listened to the distinctive sound of his tradesman’s ute going through the gears.

  A wattlebird was warbling. In the paddocks on the far side of the main road the scream of a chainsaw rose and fell. She filled her glass again: she was already far gone. She could feel her life unravelling, like the sad uncoiling of a spring. All morning she’d felt it, and the drink would not quell it. She was angry. Did she need the sound of Tim’s cousin’s ute to remind her that this time yesterday she had heard, clearly, like the ringing of a bell, his car on the same gravel drive? He had been here, had heard her moaning, for all she knew with a glass held to the wall; he had heard everything and yet said nothing. What was his game? Was he going to punish her with his silence? Was this the beginning of some great and complicated revenge? Because in the end, she thought, what is more painful: the guilt of knowing you have transgressed or the absence of punishment for your transgression?

  These thoughts and more cluttered Carly Ashburton’s head while she drank what was left of the bottle. She’d almost reached the point at which something serious might happen, where everything would fall over into chaos. Then the phone rang. It was her husband’s work colleague, the marketing manager, Adele. He’s dead, she thought, he’s killed himself. He’s finally done it.

  I’m ringing about your husband, said Adele.

  He’s not here, said Carly Ashburton.

  We’ve been having an affair, said Adele.

  There was silence except for the sound of the two women breathing.

  I’m sorry, said Adele. The silence got deeper. Adele said: Listen. But Carly Ashburton hung up.

  She opened another bottle, poured herself another glass. Then with an almost athletic shove she got herself up off the couch, staggered a little, and walked into the kitchen. The breakfast dishes were on the bench. She scraped them, gathered them, put them in the dishwasher and turned it on. She wiped the brand-new benches. With her rubber gloves she did the bathroom. She cleaned the toilet, vomited into it, cleaned it again. She scrubbed around the taps with a nailbrush, cleaned her husband’s razor. The anger she’d been toying with rose up inside her like an indigestion. She grabbed her stomach, panted, threw the gloves aside. She put on a coat and went outside.

  It was raining; she’d not heard it on the roof. She walked, her feet crunching the gravel, down to the main road where the old church sign still stood. She had no idea where she was going. She started walking towards town but then jumped the barbed-wire fence and headed out across the paddock. The sodden ground gave way beneath her. The cows looked up, deadpan. She struggled up an incline until she came to the single tree at the top. It was dry underneath, with a scattering of
fallen branches and cow pats. She sat with her back to it, while down below the cows resumed chewing their cud.

  She could see the church, tucked into its cypress grove. She saw Jay’s ute arrive, him unloading lengths of timber and taking them in by the side door. After a while she thought she heard him banging, though it could have been another sound, coming from the farmhouse on the other side of the hill. She lay with her head on a fallen branch, listening to the sounds drifting up to her, hearing and sometimes feeling the drip-drip from the leaves. She opened and closed her fists. She spent an hour like this, maybe more, until she heard Jay’s ute start up. She watched it turn out of the drive and head towards town. She went back down the hill.

  Once inside she picked up the phone. There was a layer of woodpowder on it. His secretary answered. He’s not here, she said, he’s just left. Hang on—can I take a message? No, she said. She put the phone down. She drank from the wineglass and steadied herself against the bench. She went to his bedside chest of drawers and got out his bottle of pills. She emptied it into her hand and lined the pills up on the kitchen bench until they formed a row about half a metre long. She popped one into her mouth and washed it down. It would make her feel better, but it would take a little while to work. She took another. She wandered around the half-renovated church, stopping here and there to inspect Jay’s handiwork.

  She went back to the kitchen, gathered up the pills, took them back out into the living area and lined them up this time on the low coffee table. She put the wine bottle and the glass down beside them. She pointed the remote control at the television and idly watched. She took another pill, drank a little more. She climbed the steps to the mezzanine, walked through the unplastered stud wall, and from her husband’s chest of drawers took out his favourite porno. She went back to the living area and put it on. She watched, listened, a blur of flesh and moaning, as she sipped her wine, kissing and sucking the rim of the glass. She turned it off, and returned it to its place in the drawer. She went to the phone and called Jay’s mobile.