Frances had always enjoyed the idea of parallel universes in which multiple versions of herself tried out different lives – one where she was a CEO instead of an author; one where she was a mother of two or four or six kids instead of none; one where she hadn’t divorced Sol and one where she hadn’t divorced Henry – but for the most part she’d always felt satisfied or at least accepting of the universe in which she found herself . . . except for right now, because right now it felt like there had been some sort of cataclysmic quantum physics administrative error. She’d slipped universes. She was meant to be high on lust and love in America, not pain-ridden and grief-stricken in Australia. It was just wrong. Unacceptable.
And yet here she was. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to turn.
‘Goddamn it,’ she said, and turned left.
chapter three
Lars
‘This one is my wife’s favourite.’ The vineyard manager, a chunky, cheery guy in his sixties with a retro moustache, held up a bottle of white wine. ‘She says it makes her think of silk sheets. It has a creamy, velvety finish I think you’ll enjoy.’
Lars swirled the tasting glass and breathed in the scent: apples and sunshine and wood smoke. An instant memory of an autumnal day. The comfort of a large, warm hand holding his. It felt like a childhood memory but probably wasn’t; more likely a memory he’d borrowed from a book or movie. He sipped the wine, let it roll around his mouth, and was transported to a bar on the Amalfi Coast. Vine leaves over the light fitting and the smell of garlic and the sea. That was a bona fide happy memory from real life with photos to prove it. He remembered the spaghetti. Just parsley, olive oil and almonds. There might even be a photo of the spaghetti somewhere.
‘What do you think?’ The vineyard manager grinned. It was like his moustache had been perfectly preserved from 1975.
‘It’s excellent.’ Lars took another sip, trying to get the full picture. Wine could fool you: all sunshine and apples and spaghetti and then nothing but sour disappointment and empty promises.
‘I also have a pinot grigio that might appeal . . .’
Lars held up his hand and looked at his watch. ‘I’d better stop there.’
‘Have you got far to travel today?’
Anyone who stopped here would be on their way to somewhere else. Lars had nearly missed the small wooden Tasting Cellar sign. He’d slammed on the brakes because that’s the sort of man he was: spontaneous. When he remembered to be.
‘I’m due to check in at a health resort in an hour’s time.’ Lars held the wineglass up to the light and admired the golden colour. ‘So no alcohol for me for the next ten days.’
‘Ah. Tranquillum House, right?’ said the manager. ‘Doing the – what do they call it? – ten-day cleanse or some such thing?’
‘For my sins,’ said Lars.
‘We normally get guests stopping in here on their way home. We’re the first vineyard they drive by on the road back to Sydney.’
‘What do they have to say about the place?’ asked Lars. He pulled out his wallet. He was going to order some wine to be delivered as a welcome-home treat.
‘Some of them seem a bit shell-shocked, to be honest. They mostly just need a drink and some potato chips and they get the colour back in their cheeks.’ The manager placed his hand around the neck of the bottle, as if for comfort. ‘Actually, my sister just got a job working in the spa there. She says her new boss is a bit . . .’ He squinted hard as if trying to see the word he wanted. Finally, he said, ‘Different.’
‘I’m forewarned,’ said Lars. He wasn’t concerned. He was a health-retreat junkie. The people who ran these places tended to be ‘different’.
‘She says the house itself is amazing. It’s got a fascinating history.’
‘Built by convicts, I believe.’ Lars tapped the corner of his gold Amex against the bar.
‘Yeah. Poor buggers. No spa treatments for them.’
A woman appeared from a door behind him, muttering, ‘Bloody internet is down again.’ She stopped when she saw Lars and did a double take. He was used to it. He’d had a lifetime of double takes. She looked away fast, flustered.
‘This is my wife,’ said the vineyard manager with pride. ‘We were just talking about your favourite semillon, love – the silk-sheets semillon.’
The colour rose up her neck. ‘I wish you wouldn’t tell people that.’
Her husband looked confused. ‘I always tell people that.’
‘I’m going to get a case,’ said Lars.
He watched the wife pat her husband’s back as she moved past him.
‘Make it two cases,’ Lars said, because he spent his days dealing with the shattered remnants of broken marriages and he was a sucker for a good one.
He smiled at the woman. Her hands fluttered to her hair while her oblivious husband pulled out a battered old order book with a pen attached by a string, leaned heavily on the counter and peered at the form in a way that indicated this was going to take some time. ‘Name?’
‘Lars Lee,’ said Lars, as his phone beeped with a text message. He tapped the screen.
Can you at least think about it? Xx
His heart lurched as if at the sudden scuttle of a black furry spider. For fuck’s sake. He’d thought they were done with this. His thumb hovered over the message, considering. The passive aggressiveness of the ‘at least’. The saccharine double kiss. Also, he didn’t like the fact that the first kiss was upper case and the second was lower case and he didn’t like the fact that he didn’t like this. It was mildly OCD-ish.
He tapped in a rude, boorish upper-case reply: NO. I WILL NOT.
But then he deleted it, and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his jeans.
‘Let me try that pinot grigio.’
chapter four
Frances
Frances drove twenty minutes down a bumpy dirt road that jolted the car so hard her bones rattled and her lower back screamed.
At last she came to a stop in front of what appeared to be an extremely locked gate with an intercom. It was like arriving at a minimum-security jail. An ugly barbed-wire fence stretched endlessly in either direction.
She had envisaged driving up a stately tree-lined drive to the ‘historic’ house and having someone greet her with a green smoothie. This didn’t feel very healing, to be frank.
Stop it, she told herself. If she got into that I’m a dissatisfied consumer mode everything would start to dissatisfy her, and she was going to be here for ten days. She needed to be open and flexible. Going to a health resort was like travelling to a new country. One must embrace different cultures and be patient with minor inconveniences.
She lowered her car window. Hot thick air filled her throat like smoke as she leaned out and pressed the green button on the intercom with her thumb. The button burned from the sun and it hurt her paper cut.
She sucked on her thumb and waited for a disembodied voice to welcome her, or for the wrought-iron gate to magically open.
Nothing.
She looked again at the intercom and saw a handwritten note sticky-taped next to the button. The writing was so small she could only make out the important word ‘instructions’ but nothing else.
For goodness sake, she thought, as she went through her handbag for her reading glasses. Surely a good proportion of visitors were over forty.
She found her glasses, put them on, peered at the sign and still couldn’t make it out. Tut-tutting and muttering, she got out of the car. The heat grabbed her in a heavy embrace and beads of sweat sprang up all over her scalp.
She ducked down next to the intercom and read the note, written in neat, tiny block letters as if by the tooth fairy.
namaste and welcome to tranquillum house where a new you awaits. please press the security code 564–312 followed immediately by the green button.
She pressed the security code numbers then the green button and waited. Sweat rolled down her back. She would need to change her clothes again. A blowfly buzzed near her mouth. Her nose dripped.
‘Oh come on!’ she said to the intercom with a sudden spurt of rage, and she wondered if her agitated sweaty face was appearing on some screen inside, while an expert dispassionately analysed her symptoms, her misaligned chakras. This one needs work. Look at how she responds to one of life’s simplest stresses: waiting.
Had she got the damned code wrong?
Once again she carefully punched in the security code, saying each number out loud, in a sarcastic tone, to prove a point to God knows who, and gave the hot green button a slow, deliberate push, holding it for five seconds just to be sure.
There. Now let me in.