Nobody's Fault by Derek Haines (rm book recommendations txt) 📕

he walked passed her to go and finish tarping the load. To take his mind off his problems, Tony wondered what he could expect for dinner tonight. He hoped it was Fettuccine Antonio. It was a special dish his wife cooked for him. Home made fettuccine with a carbonara sauce full of bacon, liver and kidney. His mouth watered at the thought. He considered a good bottle of wine to buy on the way home to go with it. His mind left his problems for a minute.
Working all afternoon on the phones bought a little success. But not a lot. They would try again tomorrow. He had a call to say that a consignment he needed to deliver tomorrow morning was held up at Albury and had lost time. It was due at 4.00p.m. It would not arrive until 8.00p.m now. He had to wait for it to arrive, so he spent the evening catching up trying to empty his always full in tray. The truck arrived at eight thirty. He helped unload and locked up at nine thirty. On arriving home he didn’t find his Fettuccine Antonio. Instead he found three of his kids glued to the TV. One playing on a hand held computer game. He said ‘Hello,’ he got some grunts in return. As he went into the kitchen, he heard one of them say, ‘Mum said your dinner’s in the oven. She’s gone to bed.’ He opened the oven door. An unappetising roast dinner greeted him. Slices of dried beef, curled hard on the edges, peas like bullets, potatoes once golden, now dried and brown. Pumpkin nearly reduced to liquid. Carrots curling up in their death throws. All covered with a brown paste that once was gravy. He took it out of the oven and ate some of it. He drank all of the twenty five dollar bottle of wine he had bought on the way home. Tony thought, as the wine took its effect ‘This house is starting to feel very lonely.’ He had listened to his wife’s complaints over recent months, that he should spend more time with the kids. He appreciated she was at home all day. Surely though, she had listened to him about how tough business was. He was trying his best. The house was hers to keep. Her responsibility. His role was to keep the business afloat. To support his wife and children. That was a man’s role. His memory drifted back to Nick’s Fish and Chips, and wondered if his wife and four children could work as he and his family did. His wife did not have to work twelve hours a day and keep a house of children. And the children, lazing around watching TV. Could they work three hours before school and six hours afterwards? Times have changed he thought. But he hadn’t, thought Tony. I am still working as long as I did then.
That same night, David Holdsworth was also eating dinner by himself. His wife had left the morning before for Sydney, visiting her mother. She was spending more and more time there. David didn’t mind. He knew in his mind he had placed a lot of pressure on his wife over the years, and it was good to see she was spending time with her mother and family. They had been with each other almost twenty four hours a day in recent years with the business, apart from David’s regular travelling. Some time apart would not hurt. Their relationship had stabilised from its rocky start, and they had both grown up. David had learnt to take the time to notice his wife, notice not only her abilities in the business, but notice her. He loved his wife, and after the less than happy start, he was secure in the knowledge that their marriage was secure. He felt settled for the first time in his life. Now, with a little more free time they could enjoy the second stanza of life.
Steve Sharp was having a lovely meal with his girlfriend. Chilli prawns and a stir fry, downed with a crisp chardonnay. After his girlfriend’s children were asleep, they made love on the lounge room floor. Twice.
The next morning, Tony left for work at five thirty. He wife was still asleep when he left. As he started down the driveway in the early morning light, he stopped to look at the progress of the landscaping work. He had a swimming pool built where he used to park his truck when he drove. It had been finished six weeks ago. The landscape contractors his wife had hired, were to transform what was a dust bowl around the pool into a tropical oasis. Tony hoped his wife had a fixed price quote, because they seemed to be making very slow progress.
David had breakfast alone. With little to do for the day, he hoped it would be a pleasant day for a walk on the beach. After breakfast he played his violin for an hour. He hadn’t heard from his wife. She may get back this afternoon he thought to himself. Steve rang his girlfriend at seven thirty to tell her he loved her, and to wish her a lovely day.
Tony’s day became a Murphy’s Day. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. Nothing catastrophic, but just one of those days where nothing goes right. Everything ran late. Cheques he was expecting didn’t arrive. Two men off sick. And little luck from his A to K, L to Z ring around for new business. Having had these days many times, Tony just kept thinking, things will improve. It’s just a patch. After starting work at six, he arrived home very tired at eight thirty that night. It didn’t improve his day any to find another cremated dinner in the oven and his wife out. The kids didn’t seem to have moved from the TV since the night before. He was too tired to be annoyed. He ate what he could of his dinner and went to bed.
David had a quiet day. A long walk, played his violin. Lunch. More violin. Another walk. Read for a while. Waited for his wife to arrive. She didn’t. He made cheese on toast for dinner, at seven. Watched TV and waited for his wife to call. The phone stayed silent. Waking from a doze in front of the TV at eleven he went to bed. As he drifted to sleep, he realised he missed the activity of his business. He was bored. And lonely.
Steve had a pleasant day. He rang his girlfriend after his dinner and made arrangements for the weekend. With no kids! This weekend was their free weekend. He felt his life finding a new wonderful, comfortable level. A calm, a predicability, a purpose, and a future.

IX
A Stone in a Pond

David Holdsworth celebrated his eighth wedding anniversary alone. His wife’s sojourns to Sydney had become an all too regular event. Of late, when she was home he felt a chill from her. He knew there was a problem. He just didn’t know what it was. Or worse, who it was. His stomach had that totally empty, upside down, inside out feel to it. The feeling that fear, panic and horror bring to the base of one’s gut. He didn’t know what was wrong. But something was wrong. And very, very wrong. She had said when she left the afternoon before that she was just going down to Sydney overnight, for her sister’s birthday, and would be back for a special anniversary dinner for two by five this evening. It was ten thirty. The special dinner he had prepared all afternoon sat turning into stodge in the oven. He was at the crossroads of emotions. Sheer unadulterated worry that she had had an accident driving back, crossed and enmeshed with an uncontrollable rage at the thought that his wife was with another man. His emotions were out of control as he sat totally still, looking out of the window to a black sea. His eyes glazed, and near tears. A single tear fell onto his cheek.
At eleven, near panic he rang his sister-in-law’s telephone number.
‘Hello.’ came a sleepy voice.’
‘Is she there?’ was all David could tear from his pursed lips.
Recognising David’s voice, but not sure in her half sleep, ‘Is that you David?’
‘Yes. What time did she leave?’ asked David bluntly.
‘I’m not sure David, maybe she is at mum’s. Have you tried there?’ his sister-in-law stumbled, knowing as she did that her sister had been caught out. She knew she was having an affair, and she was now caught in the lie. She scrambled for a sensible word to add.
‘Ok, I’ll try. By the way, Happy Birthday.’ David added in a sarcastic tone.
‘What David? What’s that supposed to mean?’
David slammed the phone down. The lie was up. He rang his mother-in-law. One of his wife’s young layabout brothers answered the phone. He hadn’t seen her in months.
Returning to his view of the black night sea, David’s mind went just as black. His heart fell to the floor. He clenched his fists to stop the shaking. He felt himself dying inside.
At one thirty am, he started to build a monument. In the hall, just near the front door, so as to be very noticeable to the next person to open the front door. David carefully built a monument to his wife. Neatly arranged in a pyramid were, an alarm clock, carefully dismantled into every component, with the hands stopped at eleven o’clock. The time he knew the truth. It was the time his marriage died. Recent photos of his smiling wife and himself were torn into two pieces and laid with the tears nearly together to symbolise their union being torn apart. A small white bear he had given his wife in hospital many years before when she was very ill, with a big red heart on its chest, and I LOVE YOU, embroidered on the heart, was placed in front, with a small steak knife embedded into its heart. The hand written music of a song he had written for his wife, torn into small pieces and added as snowflakes. Small ornaments of sentimental value to his wife, and a wedding photo, he added to the monument. The last addition was a small note that read, ‘I LOVED YOU.’
He finished his symbolic work at three thirty am. Then tried to sleep. He didn’t. He just cried. She arrived home early the next afternoon. Pausing briefly in the hall to glance at David’s monument. Its message obvious.
She left for the last time the next morning after spending the night in the spare bedroom. All David was left with was the telephone number of an auto electrician who his wife was now going to be living with. She thought he should have it, ‘Just in case you needed to contact me to make the necessary arrangements for separation and divorce.’
‘I won’t make it difficult.’ she had said. ‘We need this over quickly.’ she added as if it was a commercial transaction.
She kissed him on the cheek just before she disappeared from his life.
David cried the day away. He felt very alone. Betrayed, violated, empty, hollow, worthless. Lost. And guilty. What had he done so wrong? His mind lost and confused, he wondered if this was the feeling he had inflicted on his first wife. And children. Was this his punishment? He consoled his conscience a little, at least knowing he hadn’t run off with another woman. He hadn’t inflicted that hurt. David now faced a fear he had not faced before. Loneliness. Desperate loneliness. For the first time in his life, he could not runaway from life. It had runaway from him.
All his hopes for the future had been