In Another Life

In Another Life
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday October 11, 2014

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be anymore,” said a woman’s voice. I swivelled to take in the two 50-something suburbanites at the next table. A busty redhead was resplendent in purple. Her friend, a diminutive blonde, was listening attentively. The cafe buzzed with the mid-morning coffee crowd.

“I don’t know whether to be a walk-over or a ball-breaker,” I heard the redhead say. And then she caught my eye and harrumphed: “Now there’s a topic for your article!”

I was startled to be recognised, preferring to be an incognito columnist. But the redhead smiled and shuffled her chair towards me. “You know what?” she said. “I’m 51. Divorced. Worked all my life, own my own place. And the single men I meet? They want a maid. A hooker. Or their mothers!”

Her blonde friend trumped her: “My husband moved in with his mother when we split up. Then he took up with a much younger woman and is bringing up step-children. I just don’t get it. He wasn’t that interested in his family the first time round.”

I nodded. “The divorces are just starting in our crowd,” I replied. “Some of them come out the blue. And then you find out they’ve been miserable for years.”

The redhead snorted. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m happier alone.”

It was an odd conversation to have with strangers. But I admired this pair of straight-shooters for sharing their marriage autopsies. The fairytales were over. Divorce was finally losing it sting. Warily, these two friends were improvising new lifestyles.

I too, thought I could choreograph my life. I’d skip easily into marriage and motherhood. If I worked hard, my career would go exactly to plan. I’d engineer good luck, circumvent bad.

In my twenties, I mapped out my television ambitions with the same precision that I applied mascara and blow-dried my 80s bouffant. As a current affairs reporter working in Sydney, I fantasised about Kerry Packer pegging me to succeed Jana Wendt.

The one time I saw him in the Channel Nine corridors, he was barrelling towards me with an entourage of suits in tow. I flattened myself against the wall and squeaked ‘Morning Mr Packer!’ as he passed. For a second, I saw his slitted eyes flick in my direction. (Later, I decided he must’ve been eyeballing the poster of Ray Martin behind me).

Aged 25, I made prophecies about Mr Right and how I’d have two kids, two years apart. I’d take motherhood in my stride, keep a nice house, win the Pulitzer prize.

I remember a girls’ lunch on the back veranda of our rented cottage in Shenton Park. I was married, aged 30. The first of our babies had arrived but I was still staring at blank windows on pregnancy sticks. I gazed longingly at a friend’s newborn. Then someone piped up: “So, if one in three marriages ends in divorce, one of us will be separated before we’re 40. Who’s it going to be?”

We cast sideways glances at each other, mentally calculating whose union we envied most, whose marriage would sag under strain. I thought: “Well, it ain’t gonna be me.”

Five years later my marriage was over. People gossiped. I’d become a conspicuous failure.

Working full-time and with a 3-year-old, I learnt resilience. I signed the divorce papers, hung onto the house. I scrimped to pay the mortgage, worked punishing hours. Only once did I miss a kindy concert.

But on those nights my little boy stayed with his dad, I lay in bed – bereft – and re-imagined where I went wrong. Guilt would tunnel through sleep, and I’d wake feeling queasy and drained.

Somehow, I’d followed the path of the one man I’d vowed never to emulate. My father was a serial groom: five children by three marriages. The fallout from his two divorces littered three states. His own nervous breakdown was amongst the wreckage. No-one plans such heartache.

In the cafe, my new acquaintances had waved their goodbyes. I surveyed the customers queueing at the coffee machine. Who was contentedly partnered? Who was lonely? Who thought they’d found ‘the one’ and now lived with disappointment.

My first marriage feels like a pale version of a previous life. Our treasured small boy is suddenly a gangly teenager. He has a kid brother and sister. A step-father who adores him. Will I tell my lad I planned it that way? Or that everything happens by chance. Or, if you’re lucky, with perseverance.

Last night, I took a moment to admire the pragmatist I met by happenstance at the pub ten years ago. Sprawled on the sofa, he was absorbed in the Grand Prix, but I interrupted him anyway. “Has your life turned out the way you planned it?”

“Too early to tell,” he said. “You’re blocking the telly.”