Page 22 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
It was lateSeptember before we arrived back in England. The company had been cleared of any blame at that stage, but a full enquiry would be carried out the following year.
I spent some of my time in Australia just hanging about Liam’s hotel and waiting for him to get home. I had also flown back to Perth for a few days and spent time with his mum and sisters in his old hometown. They showed me around the beaches and bars where Liam used to hang out, and I even saw the house he still owned, which he used to share with Olivia.
I had an irrational girl moment then. He was mine, and we were married, happy, and very much in love. But my belly still set itself on a spin cycle whenever I thought about his life before he met me.
Maggie told me that Olivia had a little boy the previous March and was living alone back in Sydney. Apparently, Olivia wasn’t coping well with motherhood and the impact it had on her social life so her baby was living nearby with her parents, who were raising him. Call it morbid curiosity or a plain ol’ female thing, but every time we went into town, I desperately wanted to bump into Olivia’s parents, just to take a look at the child myself. I believed he wasn’t Liam’s, but I just wanted to see him for myself. We never saw them, though.
Right before we left Australia, we managed a “mini” honeymoon and took a guided trip to the Kimberley, an area at the very top end of Western Australia and possibly the most beautiful place on the earth. We’d visited Windjana Gorge National Park, where we’d spent time riding four-wheelers, visiting caves, searching for fossils, and taking sunset boat rides. We visited ancient settlements, where I learned a lot about indigenous Australians and their culture, I saw crocodile’s in the wild, and more birds than I had ever seen in my life.
I’d always considered myself a complete homebody, but after spending over a month in Australia, I figured that as long as Liam was with me, it was somewhere I could most definitely call home.
***
I had spent my days since returning from Australia shopping for Christmas and putting the finishing touches to our house. Liam threatened to smother me with the next cushion, pillow, or throw he came home to, but I figured he was secretly pleased with the way the house looked, not that he seemed to be there much.
He warned me at the very beginning he would have to put in the hours for the first few years, and I totally understood that the business was still growing and establishing, but it sucked big time regardless. I was not sure if it was because I was at home all day or if it was that we were newlyweds and I just wanted to spend every minute with him, but as each week passed, Liam seemed to spend more and more time at the office. I couldn’t remember him doing this as much before we were married, but that was probably because I was still working myself and just didn’t notice it so much. He’d been going in on the odd Saturday morning and even on a Sunday evening if there was something important he needed to discuss with the Australian team. Time zones were another thing that sucked. Why couldn’t we all wake up and go to be at the same time? It would make life so much easier.
I was very much regretting giving up work and had decided that if I didn’t fall pregnant by Christmas, I would go and look for some kind of part-time job in January. I was even thinking of asking Liam or Luke if they had anything I could help with. At least that way I would get to see my husband a little more often.
I wasn’t sure that would be any better, though. The few times I’d turned up at the office with lunch, both Liam and Luke had eaten at their desks so they could keep working at the same time. It was boring. I’d expected a bit of banter from the two, but after the fifth or sixth time of having to sit and listen to them receive and respond to endless phone calls, I stopped bothering to turn up unannounced.
I tried arranging to meet Liam out for lunch, but he always ended up cancelling at the last minute. The last time I tried that, he completely forgot and left me sitting and waiting on my own for an hour before I gave up calling his mobile and finally called the office.
It was Mel that picked up and told me he was on a conference call and would ring me back later, which made me feel just great. I felt even worse when he never called me back and came home after I was asleep that night. In the morning, he was gone before I woke up.
I was bored with time on my hands, but these things happened I supposed. Tomorrow was Saturday, and I was hoping that Liam would take the day off so that we could go get a tree. I’d also like him to be present in the morning when I took the pregnancy test I went out and bought earlier.
I was lying on the sofa, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace, and listening to Leona Lewis sing about bleeding love when my phone vibrated.
Aussie Husband:Hey, pretty girl. You missing me? X
Me:More than you would know! X
I felt my nose sting and tears burned my eyes as I typed. I let the loneliness of missing him wash right over me then. I thought once we were back from Australia things would settle down and we’d get ourselves back into the routine we were in before the wedding. Back then, we’d often meet up straight from work for dinner, but we hadn’t done that in a long while. I felt as though I was just expected to sit around and wait for him to be free so we could see each other. We were newlyweds, shouldn’t I have been at the top of his list, his priority? Or did thinking like that just make me selfish?
I missed him. It was that simple. I wanted what we had when we were sneaking around behind my brother’s back. I wanted the nights out in bars and museums, theatres and art galleries. I wanted to drink too much and sing karaoke in front of people we didn’t know. Instead, all I seemed to do was sit at home and wait for my husband to remember I even existed. It didn’t help that Sasha was working all sorts of overtime so that she could take four weeks off over Christmas to go to Australia and spend time with Shain. That made it so I had barely seen anything of her over the last month, apart from the odd text, we’d hardley had a single conversation. They’d been working at keeping a long-distance relationship going, but I wasn’t sure if it was gonna work. Perhaps that was just me being selfish—again—and wanting to keep her all to myself, but we’d had a couple of nights out with him while I was over in Australia, and it was only then I noticed how much of a flirt he was and how often his head was turned when a pretty girl walked by.
Aussie Husband:We have one more conference call, and then I should be home. I think we may have won the contract. X
That really was good news, and I let out a breath that loosened the knot in my stomach. The business had been busy the last few weeks, and Liam had been putting together a proposal to supply oil rig workers to offshore platforms around Australia. Once again, because of the time difference, it meant a lot of late nights and early mornings; hopefully, this would now be the end of it.
Me:That’s fantastic. Shall I order some takeaway? X
My phone rang thirty seconds later.
“Hey, bub, sorry, I didn’t realise I was gonna have this long to talk, otherwise I would’ve just called in the first place.”
“That’s okay, it’s just good to hear your voice.”
“What you up to?”
“I’ve just finished my pole dancing class, so now I’m off to the strip club to put my moves into practice.”
I could hear him speaking to someone in the background.
“Sorry, gotta go, bub. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Love ya.”
The call cut off before I could reply.
