: Waltzing Matilda :
He's never liked it when women cry. Tears scare him; even the tears of his children when they were babies put the fear of God into his heart, although that owed more to the fact that he was utterly convinced that he'd done something to hurt them and the fear of his wife's reaction than the tears in and of themselves. He has never known what to do when his wife cries; in those circumstances he tends to disappear into his office with a cigarette and a large brandy and wait for the storm to blow over. Up until today he thought that the tears of his wife were the most terrifying things that he would ever have to deal with. After all, what could be worse than the woman that he loves sobbing, usually because of some minor misdemeanour on his part? Surely there is nothing that could top such a potent combination of guilt, fear and residual panic from the moment when the cloud of trivia in his mind clears and reason for the strange feeling that there is something that he's forgotten suddenly occurs to him. Apparently there is. Apparently there is no fear like the fear he experiences when he opens the door to his office and sees her there. Rivers of mascara and tears run down her cheeks and pool upon the crisp sheet of cartridge paper that she grips in white-knuckled hands. As he takes a closer look he sees that she is shaking; trembling with shock, fear or grief and mumbling something unintelligible. She looks rather worryingly like a person who has just parted company with a sizeable portion of her sanity but from where he is standing this doesn't necessarily seem like a bad thing. It means that he has a legitimate excuse for calling the psych ward and running away before she sees him but he's too late; she looks up at him, the mist clearing as she gazes at him with teary eyes, apparently waiting for him to make the first move.
'Are you alright?' he enquires after an interminable silence has elapsed but the question is somewhat pointless; he has never known someone who is okay to be so pale, nor to shake like a leaf or sob hopelessly. He has also never known her, the strongest woman that he has ever come across, to behave in this manner. He has seen her through some bad times – from meeting her shortly after her husbands imprisonment to her constant failure to obtain promotions when pitted against his superior wit but inferior political skills to the vague distress she experienced when she received her decree nisi – but never has he seen her lose control in this manner. Immediately he counts the weeks; the only thing that he could think of that would upset her to this extent might be to receive her decree absolute but he's not sure that even that could elicit this sort of reaction.
'Obviously not' she sniffs after another period of silence that only serves to increase his desire to take his letter opener to his wrists. Up until today he had forgotten that silence is as painful as a woman's tears, if not worse.
'Do you want to tell me what's happened?' he probes gently and she shrugs, passing him the letter which he squints at for a moment but finds that he can no longer read as the words are blurred together by the tears that have fallen upon the page 'tell me' he repeats hopelessly, laying the sodden paper on the coffee table and passing her a tissue, praying that soon the tears will stop and she will start to make something resembling sense.
'Michael…' another torrent of tears and he slides along the sofa, keen to put as much distance as possible between himself and her outpouring of emotion '…he's being released'
'Is that a bad thing?' he asks in bemusement as she gives him a cold look which tells him in no uncertain terms that her husbands release is most certainly a bad thing but he is unsure why. Considering the state that she had been in when he had been jailed – far less impressive today and consisting of little more than a single tear rolling down her cheek, a whole bar of chocolate eaten in record time and a night spent getting revoltingly drunk but still betraying unhappiness at the situation – he would have thought that she would be pleased to know that he had been paroled and was being allowed to continue with his life but it seems not and he cannot fathom why. After all, it isn't as though Michael would be keen to return to the hospital or darken the doorway of his estranged and soon-to-be ex-wife. Surely he couldn't be so insensitive, so stupid or so brave.
'Not for him but for me…' she gives a desolate sniff and more colour seems to drain from her cheeks, a feat which he would not have previously thought possible. All at once he realises what is about to happen and they both lurch at the waste paper basket which he manages to slip beneath her mouth moments before she throws up, tears once again streaming down her cheeks, alternately gagging and apologising as she parts company with her lunch 'can you give me a moment please' she eventually asks and he's on his feet in record him, running from the room, pausing only to pick up the dampened letter and have another attempt at deciphering it's contents.
Standing outside the door he can hear her heaving and retching and realises with a start that he would sooner be deaf than have to listen to her parting company with both lunch and dignity. The best he can do for her is to wave on any nurses – and they are legion – who come to linger by the door in the hope of witnessing her downfall so they can embellish the story as it travels like wildfire around the hospital. Eventually he glances back down at the letter in his hand, able to make out little of the first two paragraphs but he doesn't think that he needs to – she has often complained that Michael's solicitor, like a lot of lawyers, has a tendency to use twenty words to explain what he could say in two and it seems that the first two paragraphs are simply his exceedingly long winded way of explaining that Michael is due for parole. In any case, the last paragraph is the most interesting. From the few words that remain legible he gets the distinct impression that following his release from prison Michael will be homeless unless he cashes in on the one property that he possesses – the marital home. No bloody wonder she's in a state, he thinks to himself as he grits his teeth and waits for the surge of violence that he feels towards the other man to pass before tentatively opening the door and going back into the office.
She sits on the floor, the waste bin propped between her crossed-legs, pouting like an obnoxious four year old with a stomach upset. Her eyes are rimmed with red and the only evidence of any make up on her person is in the tears that soak her crisp white shirt. He has never seen her look so small or so pissed off – clearly and understandably she regrets having her fall from grace witnessed by him of all people and he has to admit that he regrets witnessing it. It's not that he begrudges her having someone with her in her hour of need to dry her tears and attempt to offer some insufficient but comforting words, he just wishes that it didn't have to be him.
'Michael's staking a claim on the house' it's more a statement than a question and she nods desolately as he goes and sits beside her on the floor, taking the bin and putting it under the desk, noting with regret that he probably no longer eats tuna.
'Oh, it's worse than that, much worse' the words spoken with a soft snarl strike fear into his heart. He fails to see what could possibly be worse than her husband attempting to take her house from her but he has an unpleasant suspicion that he's about to find out 'At least if he was trying to make me homeless I could complain that he was being an unreasonable a r s e hole but he's being so reasonable that it f u c king hurts'
'What do you mean?' he asks with a note of caution; where he comes from, reasonable is definitely a good thing but she seems to resent him for not giving her something to complain about. He knows that she lives to complain but this seems ridiculous even by her standards.
'His lawyer wanted to throw me out on the streets and I could have lived with that. I'd have booked into a hotel, found a nice little flat in the city with off street parking, a doorman and all the mod-cons that are missing from the b l o o d y castle that Michael press ganged me into buying and then I'd have b i t c h e d about him until it was out of my system. It wouldn't have been enjoyable or fun or made pleasant watching but it would have been a damn sight better than this'
'What is this?' he asks although he is now almost entirely certain that he doesn't want to know. Instead he finds himself wrapping an arm uselessly round her shoulders, making soothing noises that sound like a poor imitation of a duck and wishing ferverently that Ric was there instead. He would know what to do if only he wasn't at the other end of the country on a conference about some kind of transplant or other.
'B a s t a r d suggested that rather than him having no choice but to throw me out on the streets he'd propose that we share the house. After all, the house is vast – far too big for one person – and we both know from experience that it's possible to co-inhabit perfectly happily while rarely being aware of one another' she pauses for breath but he doesn't say anything; he suspects that she is far from finished and he doesn't want to be the one to interrupt her diatribe 'I mean, have you ever heard anything so absurd? He seriously thinks that after everything that has happened I'm just going to open my arms and my home and live with him again? It would be a complete disaster – we never got on particularly well before any of this happened and forcing us together now will never work'
'Well it sounds like you've made your decision' he states carefully but he doesn't for a moment believe that this is the case; simply making a decision and sticking to it is far too easy for Connie. In the year that he's known her he's learnt many things about her, in particular that she is a woman who lives to make things difficult.
'But I haven't. That house, for all that it's big and draughty and costs the debt of a small third world country to heat, is my home. I don't want to leave and anyway, I doubt I'd find a flat big enough to house my shoes let alone anything else' she pales again and he reaches, once again for the waste bin but she shakes her head and pushes it away with a shudder as she catches a glimpse of the contents 'Even if I do go, I can't even b i t c h that he's being unreasonable because he isn't, he's perfectly willing to compromise. B a s t a r d'
'So what do you think you'll do?' he asks as she drags herself to her feet and reaches for her compact, peering at her reflection with a barely suppressed groan as she takes in her red-rimmed eyes, green-tinged complexion and complete absence of make-up.
'I suppose I'll have to play things by his rules until my solicitor comes up with something better. When I called him the most useful thing that he could think of to say was that since the house is in Michael's name we have "something of a problem", which I think is rather pathetic since he was supposed to be advising me when we bought the house just in case we were living there when the inevitable happened and it all fell to s h i t, but it could be worse; at least it's at the most six weeks' she snarls bitterly and snatches her coat from the hooks before throwing open the door and storming out, apparently not intending to finish her shift. He doesn't say anything; in her current mood he has no intention of standing in her way because, if he did, he is sure that it would be the last thing that he ever did.