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Contemporary Fiction
 TABLE
FOR THREE
EXTRACT
From
Chapter One:
Tina
had worked the room as best she could. Marnie's fund raisers
weren't that useful as a source of business. Most of the women
here tonight were relying on the fact that their marriages would
last the distance to assure their financial security. But there
had been a few who had learnt by the lessons of their friends.
And they were the ones who had accepted Tina's business card.
Not that she'd been obtrusive about it, not at one of Marnie's
dos. But business was business.
She glanced at her watch and decided it was time to slip away.
When you were in the office as early as she was, late nights
were best kept to a minimum.
She scanned the room looking for Marnie to say goodbye but without
success. Still, that didn't matter. They'd chatted a while and
caught up. Funny, even though they didn't see each other that
often, it took very little effort to fall back into the same
easy relationship they'd had as girls. And she felt the same
with Lee.
It was more than twenty-five years since the three of them had
shared the house at Bondi and despite their busy lives they'd
always kept in contact. Which was why she'd probably picked
up on Lee's mood tonight. She had seen her expression as one
of the guests, a well-known actress, had posed for a roving
social photographer. It was clear to Tina, that her old friend
was still living with regrets.
Outside, the night air was cool and she slipped gratefully into
the leather-seated comfort of her silver BMW. The car was one
of the symbols of her success. The way she saw things, she had
worked damned hard and deserved her rewards. The luxury vehicle,
her designer wardrobe, the house at Cremorne Point were all
tangible evidence that she had fulfilled her dreams.
When she'd first arrived in this city she had promised herself
she would own a home on the harbour by the time she was thirty.
When it finally came to the crunch, she had seen the sense of
ploughing her money back into her fledging business and her
goal had been deferred a few more years. But eventually she
had kept that vow to herself. First with an apartment, now with
her beautifully renovated North Shore home.
Not bad, she occasionally congratulated herself, for a migrant
kid from a working class Brisbane suburb. A kid whose own mother
had told her often enough to forget her crazy dreams. There
had never been any support from home. How could there be from
a father who gambled away every spare cent, and a mother who
lacked both language and any other saleable skill?
George Christo had emigrated from Greece not long after the
war. He'd met his Maltese-born wife in the crowded migrant camp
on the outskirts of Brisbane and got her pregnant soon after.
Following a hasty marriage, Maya Christo had found herself solely
dependent on a husband who showed little inclination for hard
work. As soon as her baby daughter was old enough to be looked
after she had become the primary breadwinner. Ill-paying, arduous
factory work had been the only possibilities and, as her daughter
grew up, Maya Christo had taught her to expect absolutely nothing
in life. People like them, she warned repeatedly, weren't ever
going to get more so what was the point of wishing for something
that would always be out of reach?
It was an attitude Tina had accepted without question until
the turning point that had come when she was eleven years old.
It was from then on she had begun to realise that her own life
had the potential to be very different from that of her parents.
At forty-two she could clearly call herself a success. She had
wanted it all, and made damned sure she'd got it. Yet in the
long run the financial success she had promised herself hadn't
been enough, and only in recent years had she come to realise
that. Money hadn't filled the emptiness she felt inside, the
sense of something missing. It had taken the relationship with
Dean to prove that.
Now as she headed for home she realised she was going to lose
the battle she'd been fighting subconsciously ever since turning
the key in the ignition. It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't
be the last that she gave in to her impulse.
Twenty minutes later she drove past the turn off to her home
and continued towards Mosman.
The impressive two-storey house was in one of the suburb's most
expensive streets. Sometimes, if it was late enough, she would
park in the shadow of the trees and in the evening silence imagine
the life that went on behind those intricate wrought iron gates.
A life where Dean belonged to someone else.
Tonight, she didn't stop. As she drove slowly past, there were
no lights visible behind the high brick wall. Perhaps the two
of them were out or had gone early to bed. She felt herself
grow tense as her imagination went into overdrive. This was
crazy. She was crazy. Why was she torturing herself like this?
Turning back towards Military Road, she told herself again that
it was time to come to a decision, to take control of her life
as she had always managed to in every other way.
Weakness was an emotion she had always despised.
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