Excerpt of Party of Three by Joan Kilby

EVERY MORNING at precisely seven forty-five Ally Cummings tapped the glass of the antique brass ship's barometer that hung in her house high atop Wombat Hill. George, who was always trying to psychoanalyze her, claimed she was anal retentive with father issues, but she simply liked to know what lay ahead.

Tap, tap. The needle swung left; the barometric pressure dropped twenty millibars.

Change was coming.

Deep inside, a tiny voice insisted, About bloody time.

Then her eyebrows drew together in a frown and her lips pursed as she brushed that thought aside. She didn't care for surprises.

George walked past, flipping the wide end of his blue silk tie through the loop and pulling it tight. "Are you working late tonight?"

Every Friday like clockwork George asked her that same question. Every week she gave her standard answer. "I have to stay to close the office at eight. Will you be all right on your own until then?"

"I'll manage," he said and headed for the kitchen. Ally twisted the diamond engagement ring on her left hand. Ever since George had moved in she'd had that horribly familiar sinking feeling their relationship was doomed. Surely it couldn't be happening again. George was perfect for her — predictable, reliable, as wedded to routine as she was. Yet, inexplicably her feelings had cooled.

This wasn't the first time she'd lost interest once she had the man in the bag, so to speak, but it was the first time she'd gone so far as to get engaged before dumping the guy. What was wrong with her? She wasn't cruel or callous; she didn't want to hurt people.

She followed George out to the kitchen and put on a pan of water while he read the paper. She wasn't much of a cook but she always made breakfast because she liked her eggs done just so, the whites set and the yolk soft, but not too soft. A lot of people felt like that; it wasn't only her.

George usually fit easily into her routines but today he grumbled when she put his poached egg in front of him. "Don't feel like this. I'll just have toast."

"But, George, Friday is Egg Day." Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were Egg Days. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were Muesli Days. It was called having a balanced diet. Sundays she left open just to show George she could be spontaneous. "Egg Day," he admonished her from behind the business section of the newspaper, "is a construct of your id, an attempt to impose order on a chaotic universe."

Ally suspected he made things like that up but she couldn't ever be one hundred percent sure. She hadn't spent seven years studying psychiatry, as he was all too fond of pointing out. His perfectly cooked eggs cooled on the plate while he spread boysenberry jam on a piece of wholewheat toast.

The waste killed her. "We should get a dog."

"Don't want a canine," he mumbled around a mouthful. A dab of jam trembled on his bottom lip and fell onto his white shirt. "I'm a cat person."

Siggy, George's gray Persian, lay curled in the clean cast- iron frying pan. Lazy, selfish, pampered beast. For one glorious Walter Mitty moment Ally saw her hand turning the gas up high and Siggy leaping off the stove with an outraged yowl.

Ally blinked herself free of the image. What deeply repressed psychosis would George diagnose from that? As if she would harm an animal. Scooping up the cat, who mewed in protest, she deposited him gently on the tiled floor. He stalked off, tail upright as a flagpole, tip twitching.

"In a few years you can have a baby," George offered magnanimously.

Ally itched at the patch of dry flaky skin on the inside of her elbow where her eczema was playing up again. The doctor said skin conditions were often stress-related and she was beginning to think he was right. She wanted children but she no longer wanted to have them with George.

When she didn't reply George lowered his newspaper and peered at her. He had soft brown eyes that she used to think were sensitive but now realized were merely nearsighted. "When are we going to get married?" he said. "It's time we set a date, especially now that I've moved in with you."

"There's plenty of time," she said, fiddling with her ring.

"You're always living in the future," he complained. "Why can't you be like Kathy and inhabit the moment?"

Inhabit the moment? Was this some new psycho-babble buzz phrase? "I can't believe you're comparing me unfavorably to your secretary, the woman you call Jezebel behind her back. She'd try to seduce the Pope if he came to town."

"At least she doesn't dress like a nun in civvies." Ally glanced at her white blouse, navy skirt and low comfortable shoes. Good quality, neat and clean. What was wrong with that? She wasn't like her sister, Melissa, who wore silks and satins from the vintage dress shop where she worked, or her mother, Cheryl, Vogue elegant in all black, all the time. She definitely wasn't like her father, Tony, who used clothes the way an actor did costumes, with a different getup for every role he played in his various money-making schemes.

Ally was the ordinary one in her family, the sensible one. The only whimsical note in her conservative style was her colorful collection of brooches. "There's nothing wrong with the way I dress."

George checked his watch and with an impatient sigh, tossed down the newspaper, which slipped off the breakfast table in separate sheets. "Now I'm going to be late," he said dabbing ineffectually at the purple jam splotch on his shirt. "I have a lot of work to do before an important meeting this afternoon."

The implication that this was somehow her fault strengthened the traitorous thoughts that had been tiptoeing through her mind for weeks. She didn't want to marry George. She'd made a huge mistake. If she needed proof, there was the fact they hadn't made love in months and she didn't care. That couldn't be right.

She worried all through breakfast and getting ready for work. A breakup was inevitable. Working up the guts to say she wanted out was hard but had to be done, and soon. It was only fair to George who, like his predecessors wasn't a bad man, just not the right one for her.

Who was? And why did she keep making mistakes when it came to men?

As she passed the barometer on her way out the door she stopped and contrary to her usual custom, gave it a second tap. The needle fell another twenty millibars toward Stormy.

George, briefcase in hand, touched his lips to her cheek leaving behind the faint scent of cloves. When was the last time he'd really kissed her? she wondered, and a mocking internal voice replied, when was the last time you wanted him to?

This made her sad. Once upon a time they'd been in love — or at least she'd convinced herself they were. Suddenly she needed to know. "George…" She flung her arms around his neck and planted her mouth on his. Incredibly, he resisted at first. She persisted and finally he opened his lips. His tongue bumped blindly against her teeth like a warm slug. So much for excitement. She felt nothing inside, not even a flicker of tenderness.

Drawing back, she avoided his eyes and handed him a furled black umbrella from the hall closet. "Take this. There's a storm coming."

"You and your barometer." He chucked her under the chin and favored her with a gently patronizing smile. "Look outside — the weather's perfect."

Through the lounge-room window she could see the town nestled in the valley below, red tile roofs and church spires sticking up through the gray-green eucalyptus trees and darker pines. On the far side of the valley, clear to the distant rolling hills, the sky was a pale crystalline- blue, not a cloud in sight. For a split second the gap between hard scientific evidence and what she saw with her own eyes gave her a queer feeling in her stomach, as if she'd been turned upside down.

But she knew what she knew. Change was coming.

Taking a deep breath, Ally said, "When I get home tonight, we have to talk."

"Fine," George replied, unconcerned. Either he didn't know the underlying meaning of the expression or he didn't give a rat's you-know-what about anything she might say.

Ally retrieved her own umbrella and locked the front door behind them, then waved goodbye to George as he backed his cream-colored Mercedes-Benz out of the driveway and drove off to his office, thirty miles away in Ballarat.

Every day, rain or shine, she walked the seven blocks down the long hill into Tipperary Springs. She had a car, small and nondescript, tucked away in the garage, but Ally liked listening to the birds and seeing the flowers bud and bloom in people's gardens. This morning the air was heavy and still. The noisy rainbow lorikeets that fed in the flowering gums outside the Convent Gallery were silent, and in the center of town the purple and yellow pansies that filled the planters along Main Street were wilting after days of heat.

Ally passed her mother's art gallery. Through the open door she saw Cheryl setting out the guest book on the front desk. She lifted her sleek champagne-colored head, saw Ally and smiled. Without breaking stride, Ally waved. A few weeks from now her parents would celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Ally was in charge of ordering the cake, sending out invitations, arranging for food and drink. Her family tended to rely on her for things like that but she didn't mind; organization was what she did.

Ally headed toward the rental agency where she worked. The agency acted for cottage owners who rented out their properties. Tipperary Springs's population of four thousand swelled on weekends and holidays when city dwellers and tourists flocked to the resort town, an hour west of Melbourne. Besides taking bookings, Ally made sure there was a bottle of chilled champagne, complimentary chocolates and fresh-cut flowers in every cottage.