This is part three of The Second Domino. I apologise for taking so long with it as I've been caught up with Delicate Touches but I've made my changes and feel I've gone as far as I can with the Domino Series. I may revisit Ruth at some point in a breakout story but that's for later. For those interested in trivia, the last part of this was actually written in Stockholm. Stora Essingen is an island on the way to Birka and it found its way into the story as well.
Thanks for your patience.
Shaima.
Having taught English for so many years I think there's one quote from English literature that sums up my marriage to Tom. It's the opening sentence from A Tale of Two Cities. 'It was the best of times it was the worst of times.' It has been used and abused by people of all political shades and who knows? Maybe I'm guilty of the same thing but it's a fitting way to open this final excerpt in my mini-biography.
One of the positives about my time with Tom were the children we brought into the world. Anna is the apple of my eye, my little rock in a stormy sea and Hans just bounces about the house looking for adventure. One's quiet and the other never stops talking, he even talks in his sleep and he gets that from me!
As I mentioned in my previous excerpt, I met Tom when he took my position and in true tradition we disliked each other. He thought I was too cut-throat and I thought he was wet. I'll cut a long story short and just say that we grew into each other and within six months we were married and if that sounds too short a time you'd be right. It was so quick it made my head spin and even my oh so stable mother asked me if I knew what I was doing. I told her I was fine and she left it at that but a few years later when everything was falling apart she asked me why I'd let it get to this stage and to be honest I still don't know. Maybe I'm more like my mother than I thought, stubborn to the end, refusing to let go even when I have nothing left to hold onto.
Speaking of my mother, she was the one who held it together when I was trying to balance my work life with my career. Tom to his credit tried to be a good father but he was too much into his books, he was a writer trying to write the next great Australian novel and maybe one of these days I'll read about him in the paper. In his defence I can't even say he was abusive, deceptive or even rude, he just had no fight in him. I'd start an argument over something he'd done or forgotten to do and he'd just hold up his hands and say sorry and do everything in his power to make me calm down. It used to really rile me up because I could see that deep down he was a good man, it's just that we weren't good together.
Tom was the dreamer, building castles in the air and then creating dragons and damsels in distress, and then noble knights to rescue the aforementioned damsels whilst around about him the house was going to rack and ruin. I'd come home to find Hans had scrawled on the walls with crayons whilst Tom was sitting writing and Anna would be trying to bandage her knee because she'd come off her bike and given herself gravel rash. I'd hit the roof and he'd apologise but a few weeks later I'd be back to my old routine, putting out fires and in the end I finally threw it all in and had mum take control of the babysitting.
It didn't start out like that of course, in the beginning I did love him, after a fashion but with the benefit of hindsight I can admit I was in love with the idea of loving him because only then could I silence the nagging doubts every time I saw a woman who appealed to me. It used to happen on a regular occasion and eventually I owned it, partially and would come out with snide suggestive comments in the company of women.
Eventually that attracted the attention of women who were that way inclined and the first was Rita, a twenty-something language teacher. She could say I love you in fifteen languages and could also curse in those same languages. Rita was also openly gay and I protected her from certain parents who wondered out loud at parent/teacher nights why a lesbian teacher was even at the school.
Rita and I never got involved but there were certainly occasions when something could have happened if I'd given over, or she'd made a move.
That was not the case with Ruth however. I first met Ruth when we moved into the place in Ringwood North, I'd been assigned to a local secondary school in Heathmont where Gail was working and with the increase in salary I decided to up sticks and move house. It was certainly a nice house in a good neighbourhood although Tom complained that the yard was too big, he hated lawn mowing with a passion.
My next door neighbour was Ruth and she was a good ten years older than me but she seemed younger, and I'm not just talking about her looks, she had an innate curiosity and a wicked sense of humour. My ex husband never knew how to take her. I remember vividly her off the cuff comment about the neighbours across the street, two gay guys.
"That's our pillow biters," she indicated them with a wave, "lovely couple and if you want your hair done cheap then Paul's the man for the job, he even gave me a Brazilian last year."
Tom just stared at her and I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud. She was right about Paul though, he was a fantastic hairdresser although I wasn't into the Brazilian trend.
Ruth had three children, Damien was the oldest at fourteen and her youngest, Helen was the same age as Anna and went to the same school. She'd been married for sixteen years and divorced for three years but she openly admitted she'd been a single mother throughout her marriage. Her ex had been a long distance truck driver who was only ever home once a week and was usually too tired or too drunk to play any part in raising the children. She and I bonded straight away, she calls a spade a spade and isn't afraid to speak her mind. She was originally from a town in northwestern Victoria, commonly referred to as the Mallee country. She left when she was seventeen and only ever goes back to see her parents on their farm. She's always said that the only good part of the Mallee is the road that leads out of it.
Ruth took over some of the babysitting duties because she was an accountant who worked from home part of the time and taught business finances at a Tafe college a few hours a week. Ruth was stable, controlled and above all else, elegantly dressed. I rarely saw her in anything else than business attire or a dress, even the tracksuit pants she wore to the gym were designer labels.
Ruth had one other quality though, she understood my situation better than I did. Probably because she was next door and could plainly see what was going on under her nose.
Her ex husband was not like Tom, he'd cheated on her from the moment he said 'I do.' I never learned his real name, she just called him the working sperm bank or that bastard. That last word has a unique double meaning in Australia. In everyday usage it's friendly and congenial, everyone's a bastard, we have nice bastards, bad bastards, sick bastards, funny bastards and then there's 'that bastard,' which is a way of referring to someone who actually is a bad bastard.
I remember the afternoon it all started. I'd come into her house to collect Anna and Hans but I was busting for a piss and headed straight for her bathroom. Too late I saw my mistake when I heard a gasp and turned to see Ruth in the bath, she'd thought it was her oldest son, Damien.
"Oh, shit, you startled me."
"You and me both," I glanced at the toilet, "maybe I'll go next door."
"Park your arse," she replied, "but lock the door for fuck's sake, Damien's started puberty and while he's not the Oedipal kind he does like you."
"In what way?" I locked the door and moved back to the toilet.
"The fourteen year old boy way," she smirked, "I remember my brother at that age, he walked around with his hands in his pockets playing pocket billiards. I'm surprised he didn't fuck an apple pie to be honest."
"Tell him I'm gay then," I pulled my knickers down and sat down.
"Oh no I won't," she snorted, "that'll just make it worse, you should see the pictures he's got on his computer and I've installed every fucking child lock invented as well as one's yet to be invented but the little bastard finds a way to get around them."
She studied me for a moment and then suddenly the penny dropped.
"Are you really?"
"Gay? No, I'm bisexual but the longer I'm married to that useless sack of shit the gayer I get," I stared straight ahead, "don't worry, I'm not perving, I'm," I looked down as my flow started, "I'm pissing."
