Lisa Heidke

It’s great.’
Nadia’s intrigued. ‘What about when you want to have sex? Can you ask for it?’
‘Please! Enough is enough,’ says Lizzie, her bosom heaving. ‘He’s satisfied, to a point, and I’m willing to go along with it because I get peace and quiet.’
‘I read somewhere you should make yourself available for sex with your husband whether you’re in the mood or not,’ says Emma.
Lizzie snorts. Several women gasp. I wonder whether that was my mistake with Max.
‘You don’t actually believe that, do you, Emma?’ asks Lizzie.
‘I know it sounds -’
‘Archaic?’ Lizzie says helpfully.
‘Maybe, but apparently we should adjust to the way our husbands perform and simply trust them -’ Emma continues.
‘Like our mothers did?’ Nadia says.
‘Men these days feel powerless, emasculated -’
‘Please,’ says Lizzie.
‘She has a point,’ says Dee. ‘It’s a gender-confused world.
Men are wimps; women have become she-men. You know, there’s a huge movement of women who want a return to family values.’
‘I know,’ agrees Lizzie, twirling her wineglass. ‘It’s all about keeping the family together.’
‘Protecting the children,’ adds Emma.
‘Save me,’ Nadia whispers to me, as she reaches across my chest for the nearly empty wine bottle.
‘Is she serious?’ I ask.
‘Absolutely. It’s all part of the Subservient Wives Clubs that are springing up.’
Clearly, I’m not in the club. I glance at my watch. It’s only 8.40 pm. Everyone takes a sip from their wineglass, contemplating their own suburban lives. No one asks me about Max, and I daren’t ask after anyone else’s husband because it might mean they’ll mention mine. Gazing around the table, I notice there isn’t enough wine, especially if we’re to continue discussing our sex lives, or lack thereof.
‘Who’s for more wine?’ asks Emma.
Relieved I’m not the only one who wants more, I volunteer to walk to the bottle shop with Emma. Once there, we agree to buy four bottles, then settle on six.
‘Everything okay?’ Emma asks during our walk back to the restaurant. ‘If there’s anything you need . . .’
Armed with a full glass of pinot gris, I relax and try to forget about she-men, Max, the house and my flailing career.
But, of course, I think about Max.
The last time we had dinner with school parents was at a trivia fundraiser four months ago. Max thought he was so clever, jumping up and shouting out the answers before our team could discuss the question and agree on an answer. To pay him his due, he did get them all right, up until the last one concerning an eighties band. An aficionado of seventies’ and eighties’ music, I knew the answer immediately and put it to the table. Max disagreed, shouting out, ‘Wham!’ Victory was snatched from our grasp when another table won with the right answer: A Flock of Seagulls.
‘So tell me,’ says Wendy, who’s sitting at the far end of the table and has barely said a word all night. (Mind you, I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself either if I lived in leggings that emphasised my eleventh toe.) ‘Is Mr Cutts really an alcoholic?’ Bryan Cutts teaches Year Four maths.
‘Absolutely,’ says Lizzie. ‘My kids say he smells of beer in the morning and drinks from a silver flask during the day. He hides it in his middle right-hand desk drawer.’
‘No,’ says Emma.
‘True,’ says Lizzie, making a cross over her heart with her right index finger. ‘Children don’t make up stories like that.’
‘Seems like a nice guy,’ I chip in.
‘Yeah, nice but a drinker,’ Dee says.
I drain my glass and zone out, wondering if, in a couple of years when the kids go to new schools, this group of women will remain in contact. Unlikely, when there’s nothing much to talk about besides Mr Cutts’ drinking habits and whether Miss Wise (Year One) really is a member of the Children of God sect. (I don’t believe she is.)
‘His wife left him, didn’t she?’ says Camel-toe Wendy, still banging on about Bryan Cutts, poor bastard.
‘Years ago,’ says Dee, refilling her glass.
I feel sorry for Mr Cutts, thinking how I’d probably be taking a flask of vodka to school if I had to teach thirty-one screaming nine-year-olds day in, day out.
‘How are the renovations coming along, Lucy?’ Dee asks.
‘Could be better. Tradesmen defecating in paint pots, that sort of thing.’
Dee stares at me in horror. I mentally slap myself. This is exactly how rumours get started. If I choose not to correct what I’ve just said, it’ll be all over the school by Monday morning. ‘Did you hear? Lucy’s builders poo in the paint pots.’ Bella would never talk to me again.
‘Kidding,’ I say. ‘But seriously, the wee is killing my hydrangeas. According to the builder, we’ve got rising damp, drainage problems, a non-flushing toilet . . . but it’ll all work out eventually, I guess.’
‘I thought Trish was coming tonight?’ says Wendy.
Nadia glares at her. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Is Trish okay?’ I ask Nadia. ‘I’ve seen her a couple of times lately and she’s stared straight through me.’
The other women look sheepishly into their wineglasses. ‘What with Alana -’ Wendy begins.
‘The concert was great the other day, wasn’t it?’ Nadia interrupts.
‘Very good,’ agrees Emma.
Am I missing something here?
The conversation drifts towards predictable talk about private schools versus public, selective versus non-selective, streaming as opposed to not . . . Thank God Max insisted on paying Isabella’s and Sam’s school fees up-front. At least I won’t have that financial burden to worry about. At the time, I didn’t think it made sense but Max insisted. Said that school fees would keep increasing every year so it made financial sense to pay them outright at today’s rates. For a brief moment, that little memory makes me wonder if Max has been planning his getaway for a long time.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ bellows a voice, causing everyone to turn around in surprise. It’s Trish and she’s glaring at me.
At first I think she’s joking. ‘Occasionally, they let me out for good behaviour,’ I reply.
But she starts screaming and now the whole