Page 11 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

Girls’ Night Out

I hate my life . I hate my life . I hate my life .

The words hammer away inside my head as I push against the heavy glass doors of the Royal Hotel and set a reluctant foot inside.

When did I accept that I wasn’t going to do or be anything special? When did I stop believing in myself? These are questions I need to think about. I also need to figure out what went so wrong in my life that I’ve ended up in this mess. And then work out how to fix it.

Compared to the hopeful, ambitious young Eva of my journal, I am hollowed out. It’s as though I’ve been hooked up to some kind of reverse IV drip for the last thirty-something years. The best parts of me have been siphoned off. And now I am so much less than I should have been.

But do I blame myself? Jonathan? Bad luck? Bad decisions?

Of course, life is a whole lot more complicated and slippery than I realised as a teenager.

A woman’s career has to be shoehorned into the narrow gap between home and family.

And even when there is a little space, talent and brains are no match for the misogyny and Machiavellian manoeuvring in the office.

My eyes sweep the room. The Royal doesn’t look much different to the bar I first walked into as a bright-eyed 22-year-old celebrating her first real job.

The card machines and tatty lounge chairs out the back are gone, replaced by a spectacular range of poker machines.

And tonight, I’m not breathing in thick second-hand cigarette smoke.

But everything else is pretty much the same.

A framed print of dogs playing poker hangs on the far wall. Next to the sign to the women’s bathroom is a stylised image of Marilyn, Elvis, James Dean and Humphrey Bogart crowded around a pool table. A title at the bottom of the poster describes the scene as The Boulevard of Broken Dreams .

That pretty much sums up this establishment. And my life.

The gallery of famous television faces is still there, mocking me with their pursed-lip half-smiles.

Unlike the rest of the decor, the gallery is refreshed annually.

The game show host who crashed and burned in Australia’s biggest Me Too scandal has gone, along with the bloke who was filmed snorting lines of cocaine off a stripper’s belly.

There are a few more female faces in the line-up now, but they’re still outnumbered two to one.

And to think that, once upon a time, I actually believed I could be among them.

Sure, I was young and ambitious. But I was also hopelessly delusional.

Of all the places to dissect my failed career and various other disappointments, I’ve chosen the exact spot where I once believed I could do and be anything and anyone.

Returning to the Royal is like returning to Sunday school, older, wiser and with a copy of On the Origin of Species tucked under one arm and the latest reporting from Ukraine jammed under the other.

I really didn’t think this one through.

Katie and Rachael aren’t here yet, so I make a beeline for the bar.

The kid serving doesn’t seem old enough to drink let alone be drawing a wage here.

I do a quick calculation. If I’m guessing his age correctly, I could have babysat his parents.

There’s a sobering thought, which I plan to correct immediately with alcohol.

The good spirits are still lined up on mirrored shelves behind the bar, all the dusty bottles untouched for the past thirty years or so. They don’t look any more appealing than they did back in 1995.

‘A glass of pinot, please.’

The barman looks at me as if I am speaking a foreign language.

‘A glass of red wine?’ I try again.

This time, the boy’s baby face lights up. He grabs a bottle from the fridge, proudly labelled ‘Bin Ends’, and fills a generous glass.

‘Thanks.’ I am already anticipating the hangover that will surely follow.

The manchild returns to wiping the bar with a rag that is already sopping wet and turgid with bacteria. Those Covid protocols already feel like a lifetime ago.

I look around for somewhere to sit and choose a semicircular booth in the corner that’s shielded from the main thoroughfare. The last thing I need is to run into a (former) colleague, keen to discuss my new status as an unemployed has-been.

I settle in and take a tentative sip of the wine. It’s even worse than I had anticipated but I’m not that easily discouraged. I take a second, more generous, swig and keep track of who is coming through the door.

According to my watch, I still have a few minutes to kill. On impulse, I pull out my phone and dial Jonathan’s office. I know it is the worst of bad ideas, but I can’t help myself.

‘Hello, it’s Eva Moore here. Can I speak to Jonathan, please?’

There is a delay at the end of the line that lasts a little longer than is comfortable. Maybe I’m just imagining that half-beat of hesitation, but I am suspicious of anyone answering the phone out of office hours, especially if they are young and female.

‘Oh, you just missed him, Eva. He left about half an hour ago. He should be home any minute.’

Clearly there isn’t any ‘business’ meeting happening tonight. My stomach lurches dangerously. And I can’t blame the Bin Ends. Not entirely anyway.

I stutter my thanks and end the call. Jonathan isn’t in the office. And he’s not coming home. That pretty much confirms it. Ernest Friend is right. My husband is having an affair. I scull the rest of my wine in a single desperate gulp.

‘Wow! Someone’s thirsty!’

I look up. Rachael and Katie are standing in front of me, their expressions landing somewhere between horrified and deeply concerned—they know the quality of the wine here as well as I do. You do not knock back the house red at speed unless something is badly amiss.

I bite my top lip and do my best to ward off a blubbery breakdown. I am only partly successful. My chin quivers, sending a single tear snaking down my left cheek.

Rachael sizes up the situation and switches into drill sergeant mode. It’s how she deals with men, her marketing team and miscellaneous emergencies. Tonight, I am the emergency that requires immediate military intervention.

‘We need a bottle of wine. Immediately. Katie, you hold the fort until I get back.’ Rachael marches to the bar. I almost expect Katie to salute as she shimmies into the space next to me.

She curls an arm loosely around my waist and gives my shoulder a squeeze.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I am so sorry. You didn’t deserve to lose your job.

Do you want me to try to pull some strings?

I’m stuck with chinless Charlie at least until the company has balanced its books for this financial year.

I may as well make the most of it while it lasts. ’

A few more tears escape the net of my eyelashes, followed by a series of strangled hiccupping noises.

Katie gives me a worried look. ‘This isn’t only about the job, is it?’

The hiccups mutate into loud, snotty whimpers.

Katie swivels her body toward the bar, desperate for reinforcements. Right on cue, Rachael returns to the booth, waving two bottles of wine.

Seeing that the situation has deteriorated significantly in her absence, Rachael scoots over to my other side. I am now the sloppy, blotchy filling in a friend sandwich.

‘Okay, Eva, I’m going to let you sob for three minutes exactly. Then you’re going to tell us what the hell is going on.’

Given permission, albeit temporarily, I let the floodgates open. My shoulders heave and I burrow my head into my hands. When I resurface, Rachael is peering at me sternly.

‘Two minutes remaining,’ she warns. A mobile phone rests on the table in front of her, the numbers on its screen racing toward zero as she continues her countdown.

‘One minute.’

The time call triggers another crying fit. But the situation is so absurd that I am now also giggling between sniffles.

‘Ten—nine—eight—seven—six—five—four—three—two—one.’

Rachael considers me over the top of her wine glass.

‘Okay. Out with it. Katie and I met up outside and we agree you are acting very strangely. I mean, just coming out is weird for you. Although that is good weird. Slamming down drinks on your own is bad weird. Going on a crying jag in a public bar is beyond weird—it’s disturbing. So, what’s going on with you?’

I retrieve a Kleenex from my bag and blow my nose. ‘It’s Jonathan.’

‘Well, no shit, Sherlock.’ Rachael and Katie exchange a look usually employed by exasperated parents in seventies sitcoms. ‘But we have a starting point. So, there’s a problem with Jonathan. Now, I’m assuming that because you are out with us, he is not dead or dying. So, what has he done?’

‘I think he’s having an affair.’ I gather my courage. ‘Actually, I think I know he’s having an affair.’

There. I said it. It is out in the world and not just bouncing about in my head. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not but it doesn’t make me feel any worse.

‘I presume you have a good reason to think this? You’re a trusting creature. You’d almost need to walk in on—Oh God! Please don’t tell me you walked in on—’

I shake my head violently, partly to dislodge the image that leaps into my head.

‘No, not that. But almost as bad.’

I lay it all out for my two closest friends. My deteriorating marriage. The online accusation from Ernest Friend. The new clothes. The obsessive gym sessions. The business meeting that isn’t.

It’s a good twenty minutes before I stop talking. Rachael and Katie limit their contributions to refilling my wine glass and the occasional sympathetic murmur. Finally, I collapse back into my seat, dry eyed and completely spent.

‘So, what are you going to do?’ Katie asks, knocking back an enormous gulp of wine for the sisterhood.

The door to the back bar opens and closes. Annie Lennox singing ‘Who’s That Girl?’ drifts in from the eighties disco night. Katie and Rachael don’t comment. I appreciate their self-restraint.

‘Well, I’m looking for suggestions. What do you think I should—’