‘I’m sorry about dinner at Mum and Dad’s the other night,’ said Clementine as she handed Erika her cup of coffee. They were in Clementine’s living room with its original (but non-working) fireplace, stained-glass porthole windows and wide floorboards. When she and Sam had first seen this room they’d exchanged glinting looks of satisfaction behind the real estate agent’s back. This room had character, and it was just so ‘them’. (In other words, the opposite of the ‘modern, sterile and soulless’ sort of place that Erika and Oliver went for; Clementine was beginning to wonder if her entire personality was a fabrication, nothing more than a response to Erika’s personality. You are like this, so therefore I am like that.)
Right now the living room seemed dowdy and dark and very damp. She sniffed. ‘Can you smell the damp? We’ve got mould popping up everywhere. Revolting. If it doesn’t stop raining soon I don’t know what we’ll do.’
Erika took the cup of coffee and held it in both hands as though to warm herself.
‘Are you cold?’ Clementine half-rose. ‘I could –’
‘I’m fine,’ said Erika shortly.
Clementine sank back in her seat. ‘Remember when we bought this place and the building report said there was a problem with rising damp and you said we should really think twice about it, and I was all: Who cares about rising damp? Well, you were right. It’s really bad. We’ve got to get it fixed. I got a quote from …’
She stopped. She was boring herself so much she couldn’t even be bothered to finish the sentence. Anyway, it was all a transparent attempt at exoneration. You saved my child’s life, while all I’ve ever done is complain about you, you are all that is good, I am all that is bad, but surely I get extra credit points for all this self-flagellation, a reduced sentence for pleading guilty?
‘The dinner at your parents’ was nice,’ said Erika. ‘I enjoyed it.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Clementine. Now she felt bad. She didn’t want Erika to think she meant she didn’t deserve her hero’s dinner. ‘I just meant with the broken glass and Sam storming off and …’
She drifted again, and drank her coffee, and waited for Erika to get to the point of why she was here. She’d called earlier and asked if she could come around. It was bad timing: Sam had taken the girls to a movie so Clementine could practise – the audition was only ten days away now, it was the final countdown – but of course, Clementine had said yes. She presumed it was something to do with the next step in the egg donation process.
Erika nodded at Clementine’s cello in the corner. ‘Is your cello affected by all the rainy weather?’
She had that faintly defensive look she always got when she looked at Clementine’s cello, as if it were a glamorous friend who made her feel inferior.
‘I’ve been having a lot more trouble than usual with my wolf,’ said Clementine.
‘Your wolf?’ said Erika distractedly.
Clementine was surprised. She was sure she would have talked about her cello’s wolf tone with Erika before, and Erika tended to retain that sort of stuff, especially because it was something negative. She loved bad news.
‘A lot of cellos have it, it’s like a problem note, I guess is the simplest way to put it. It makes a horrible kind of sound, like a pneumatic drill or a toy gun,’ said Clementine. ‘I tried a wolf tone eliminator for a while but then I felt like I lost resonance and tone, so I took it off. I can deal with it, I just have to gently squeeze the cello with my knees, and sometimes I can rearrange the bowing to meet the wolf on the down-bow so –’
‘Oh, right, yes, I remember, I think you might have mentioned it before,’ said Erika. She changed the subject abruptly. ‘By the way, while I think of it, I found one of Ruby’s shoes at my place the other day.’
Erika pulled out Ruby’s missing flashing-soled sneaker from her handbag and placed it on the coffee table, making the lights flash. They seemed especially lurid in the dark room.
‘I can’t believe it!’ Clementine snatched up the shoe and examined it. ‘We looked everywhere for that damned shoe. It was at your place? I can’t even remember her wearing it to –’
‘Good. So anyway, what I wanted to discuss today,’ said Erika. ‘The egg donation.’
‘Right,’ said Clementine dutifully. She put the shoe back in her lap. ‘Well, as you know, I’ve got the appointment with –’
‘We’ve changed our mind,’ said Erika.
‘Oh!’ Clementine’s mind whirled. It was the last thing she’d expected. ‘How come? Because I’m really happy to –’
‘Personal reasons,’ said Erika.
‘Personal reasons?’ It was the sort of phrase that you used with an employer.
‘Yes, so I’m sorry we took up your time doing the blood tests and all that,’ said Erika. ‘Especially when you’ve got your audition coming up.’
‘Erika,’ said Clementine. ‘What’s going on?’
Erika’s face was impenetrable.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘We just don’t want to go ahead.’
‘Is it because …’ Clementine felt sick. ‘That day at the barbeque. I was talking to Sam and at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about your, ah, your request, and I’m just a bit worried that you might have overheard and you might have misinterpreted …’
‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ said Erika.
‘You did,’ said Clementine.
‘Okay, I did, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not about that.’ She looked at Clementine and her eyes seemed somehow naked and raw within her folded-up face, but Clementine was at a loss to interpret what she was feeling.