Chapter Seven Sadie
If this was a movie, there would be some kind of smash cut between Jonah looking me in the eye and saying all right, Shaw, let’s get married , and our wedding.
A montage of us getting dressed, jumping in a car, and then suddenly he’d be sliding a ring onto my finger and someone – probably an Elvis impersonator – would be saying you may now kiss the bride.
But it wasn’t a movie, so what actually happened was that we spent the next twenty minutes quietly researching what you had to do to get legally married in Australia.
‘Basically, we need to fill in this form, sign it in the presence of an authorised witness, and get a celebrant to lodge it,’ Jonah said, showing me his screen.
We were both sitting on his bed now, cross-legged, leaning against the wall, computers in our laps.
‘Then, once it’s lodged, we can get married in a month.
’
‘A month ?’ That would mean us getting married at the beginning of February, only a few days before I – we, if we pulled this off – started at Lyons.
‘What do they have to do, call the banns?’
‘There’s a provision for cutting it short, but I don’t think we qualify.
’ He ran a hand over his beard.
‘I guess it’s to make sure people really think things through.
’
Jonah tipped his head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling before turning to look at me.
‘This is probably a good thing. If we got married like that ,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘and then the uni was like, “sorry, no partner hire for you”, then you’d be stuck with an entire husband you didn’t want.
’
‘Then we’d go to Plan B.
’
‘What’s that?
’
‘I kill you, inherit all the money your parents are going to leave you, and start a new life as a wealthy widow who solves murders on trains.’
Jonah chuckled.
I could feel his breath, hot against the side of my face.
Then he sighed.
‘We don’t know if this is even possible , Shaw.
Your contract says that they’ll consider partner hire, not that it’s a guarantee.
’
‘I’ll email HR at the uni and set up a meeting so we can figure it out.
But if getting married really is a month-long process, then we need to get the ball rolling.
If we need a celebrant to lodge the form, let’s find a celebrant.
’ I opened up a new tab.
‘Any preferences?’
‘Not really.’
He turned his head back to the ceiling.
‘You know, for the better part of the last millennium, you could get married simply by declaring that you were married. You didn’t even need any witnesses.
You could just say, “you’re my husband”, “you’re my wife” and boom, married.
’
‘I know,’ I said absently, scrolling through celebrant listings.
‘I was at your talk in the seminar series about it.’
I’d been interested, too – almost against my will.
He’d been using speech act theory to talk about the marriage ceremony and the problems it presented when depicting weddings on the Renaissance stage.
Phrases like I take you to be my lawfully wedded wife were the kind of speech acts that changed reality – you said it and then you were married – which made it tricky for actors to say them to each other, even though everyone involved was male and it was four hundred years before the legalisation of gay marriage.
Although getting married wasn’t quite as simple as just saying the words.
Marriage in England in the early modern period came down to two things , Jonah had said, gesturing at his PowerPoint.
A verbal contract which began the marriage, and a physical union which consummated it.
One of the downsides of being a redhead is how obvious it is when you blush.
At the memory of his lips curving around the word consummated, I felt the flush start somewhere near my belly button, creeping up towards my face.
‘Is that celebrant’s website seriously Going-to-Gretna-Green-dot-com?
’ Jonah was looking at my screen.
‘I’ve changed my mind.
I do have preferences.
I want that one.
’
I glanced at him, surprised.
‘If we’re going to go through with a plan this absurd,’ he clarified, ‘then we might as well have the thing solemnised by someone with a sense of humour.’
The celebrant had a Calendly on their website, so I made us an appointment for the following afternoon.
‘We should fill in the Notice of Intended Marriage form now, so we can hit the ground running.’
‘Okay.’ Jonah tabbed back over to it.
‘We’ll need an authorised witness to our signatures – a justice of the peace, a lawyer, a doctor, someone like that.
The celebrant can probably do it, unless you want your sister—’
‘No.’
He looked at me again.
‘I don’t want to tell Chess.
Not yet.
’
There was a long pause before he spoke again.
‘This is none of my business, but if you’re really going to be my wife, Sadie…
’
The words my wife coming out of Jonah Fisher’s mouth made me feel a lot of things, none of which I intended to interrogate.
‘…can I ask why?’
‘Because it might not even work. We might get a flat no from the uni on partner hire. This,’ I gestured between us, ‘might be nothing. I don’t want to worry her until there’s something to actually worry about.
’
Jonah didn’t say anything.
It was the exact same move he used in our lectures, when he asked a question and none of the students were brave enough to answer.
I had a bad habit of cracking and filling in the gaps, but he wasn’t afraid to let a silence get uncomfortable, to guilt students into responding.
It was unsurprising, then, that I broke first.
‘Chess is going to hate this.’
‘Because she hates me.’
‘I might not have always been very flattering about you.’ That was putting it extremely euphemistically.
‘And then there was that incident with your dad when we won the University Medal.’
It was one of the few times in my life I’d been genuinely angry with Chess.
What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
I’d snarled at her when I’d finally managed to yank her away from Professor Fisher, my face tomato-red with embarrassment.
Do you know who that man is?
Do you know how powerful he is in our department?
Fuck the five-year plan, I’ll probably have to wait for him to die if I want to do a PhD here now!
That’ll be soon , Chess had snarled back, because I’m going to kill him.
She bared her teeth.
He called you an upstart overrated nobody and said that your marks had probably been elevated because it would look like nepotism if his son won alone.
I’d looked back over my shoulder.
Jonah had his hand on his dad’s chest, holding him back, face as red as mine under his mortarboard.
And pure, unadulterated loathing had filled my heart, because now I was going to have to wonder for-fucking-ever if what Professor Fisher had said was true.
‘I really am sorry about that day,’ Jonah said, knee brushing against mine.
‘I know it was a decade ago, but in case I haven’t said it before…
I’m so sorry.
’
The main benefit of moving into the share house had been the gradual discovery of this man: Cardigan Jonah, Jonah the human, Jonah who was not simply the second coming of his shithead father.
I was forever leading with my fists, and I could win an Olympic medal in grudge-holding, but even I had eventually ended up in the kitchen that night, telling him I didn’t want to fight anymore.
Chess, though, steadfastly refused to believe in the existence of Cardigan Jonah.
For her, it was simple.
There was only Tweed Jonah, the son of a Tweedier Jonah.
Every humanising thing he did should be interpreted as some kind of trick, just another attempt to defeat me.
I might win a medal in grudge-holding, but Chess would win the gold.
Jonah let his head thud back against the wall.
‘I suppose the fact that I hate my dad too probably wouldn’t change your sister’s mind.
’
‘Probably not.’
It definitely would not.
That’s exactly what he wants you to believe , she’d hiss at me, so he can ride your coat-tails.
I was going to tell Chess about this wild, absurd marriage plot of mine.
There was no way I could not tell her.
I didn’t know how I was going to tell her, but I was going to tell her.
But there was no point in breaking my brain in half trying to figure out how I could possibly explain this to her until I knew it was something we could actually do .
Right?
The celebrant’s office was in Bondi Junction, and we stopped by the mall the next day before our meeting.
‘I think they’ll know we intend to get married by the fact we’ve filled out the forms,’ Jonah grumbled.
‘This doesn’t need to be a whole big charade.
’
‘I’m not saying it does, Fisher,’ I replied, herding him along, ‘but we need to make ourselves at least somewhat believable as a couple.’
He made a sound somewhere between exasperation and resignation.
‘Sweetheart.’
I stopped in the middle of the mall walkway and stared at him.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I’m contributing!
A real couple wouldn’t spit surnames at each other.
They’d use pet names, wouldn’t they?
’
‘Not that one,’ I replied.
‘That sounds like something you’d call a little girl.
’
‘I’m assuming baby ’s off the table too, then.
’
My mind completely refused to process the notion of Jonah Fisher calling me baby .
‘Honey,’ he tried, as we started walking again.
‘What am I, a sixties sitcom wife? Because I can tell you right now that I’m not cooking for you.
’
‘You better not. I’ve tasted your cooking.
’
‘Well, fuck you too.’
‘I’ll cook.
You can grow the vegetables.
’
This was, I grudgingly had to admit, a pretty good deal.
I loved gardening, and eight years of living with him – for all I’d tried to avoid him – had taught me that Jonah was an excellent cook.
‘We just need a few little things,’ I said.
‘Things that will suggest to people that we’re a couple without us having to make a big song and dance about it.
’
‘What are you thinking, dear?’
‘That I’m not a hundred and eighty years old.
Not dear .
’
I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
‘People always over-complicate this when they do fake dating in romcoms. They over-perform. They don’t pay attention to what actual couples do in real life.
Actual couples don’t go around making out in public, or dragging ‘just married’ signs and a string of tin cans behind them, or wearing ‘I’m with stupid’ and ‘I’m stupid’ T-shirts.
They do little things.
Holding hands, kissing each other on the cheek, those kinds of things.
Things we can definitely manage.
’
Jonah nodded, looking contemplatively into the middle distance.
‘But the easiest, most obvious one of all,’ I added, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into the Barbie-pink shopfront of a cheap jewellery store, ‘is rings.’
The engagement ring we chose was cubic zirconia, set in sterling silver.
A green stone was surrounded by smaller faux diamonds, spiky rather than smooth, like little shards.
It cost the princely sum of $27.
99, which Jonah insisted on paying: ‘I’m all for radically revised gender roles in the heteronormative institution of marriage, but I should still pay for my wife’s engagement ring.
’
There was that word again.
Wife .
‘I’ll buy the wedding bands, then.
’ I turned away, browsing through the trays.
‘Here – does this one fit you?’
He gave me his hand.
I slipped a ring onto his finger, still wired to a flimsy piece of cardboard with the price tag attached.
I’d never looked properly at Jonah’s hands before.
I’d seen them, of course, but I’d never really looked .
He had the fingers of a violinist, long and slim and nimble.
I had a sudden, vivid flashback of what it had felt like, that night in the kitchen.
Those fingers, wrapped around mine.
I shivered.
‘Darling,’ he said softly.
Oh no.
Had I accidentally said something out loud?
‘Darling,’ he repeated.
‘As a pet name. What do you think about darling ?’
‘I, um… I don’t hate darling , actually.
’
I took the ring back off his finger.
‘Not darl , though.’
‘Agreed. Never darl .’
‘What about the ring?’ I brandished it at him.
‘Are we agreed on this?’
‘I never really imagined my wedding ring would come in a pack of three.’
‘So much the better. You’ve got spares if you lose one.
Or if the gold finish rubs off.
The fact that these are three for twelve dollars doesn’t give me a lot of faith in their staying power.
’
I threw the packet of rings up in the air and caught it again.
‘Not that they’ll need much staying power.
Three years isn’t that long.
’
‘Yes it is.’
‘We can buy two packets, if you’re worried.
’
‘No, that’s not what I…
’
Jonah exhaled.
‘You know there’s no way I can ever repay you for this, right?
’ he said at last.
I opened my mouth.
‘Don’t pretend I’m talking about the rings.
You know what I mean.
’
He took one of my hands in both of his.
Another shiver shot up my spine, and it took every skerrick of willpower I had not to let him see it.
‘Thank you, Sadie,’ he said.
‘It’s fine.
’ Deeply uncomfortable with his level of sincerity, I tugged my hand free before he could see that all the hairs on my arm had stood up.
‘It’s not that big a deal.
We wear a couple of rings and stay flatmates for a few years.
Then we can get divorced, go on our merry way and spend the rest of our lives pretending to be bitter exes.
’
I shepherded him over to the cash register.
‘Imagine how easy it’ll be working together then.
We already have so much practice fighting.
’
Jonah made a harsh, barking sound in the back of his throat that might have been a laugh.
‘Let’s face it, Fisher,’ I said, tapping my credit card against the reader.
‘I was born to be your ex-wife.’
The meeting with the celebrant turned out to be simple.
She was a tall South Asian woman with curly hair and a bright smile, and she talked us through everything we needed to do calmly but warmly, her signature on our forms as our witness an authoritative scrawl.
‘I assume you picked us because you want the full Going to Gretna Green experience – getting married as quickly as possible, but with minimum fuss,’ she said.
‘I’ll get everything sorted, and we’ll get you married before you need to leave for your new jobs.
You don’t need to worry about a thing.
’
The meeting with HR at the university, though, was not so simple.
‘We were not aware that this was your situation, Dr Shaw,’ one of the people on the Zoom call said coldly.
‘Or yours, Dr Fisher.’
Jonah had his arm around me – half so we’d pass as a couple, half so we could both fit into frame.
I could feel him shaking.
I took a deep breath and tried to channel Francesca Shaw, The Lawyer Who Eats Lawyers.
‘When would it have been appropriate for us to disclose our relationship? During the hiring process? When it would substantially disadvantage our chances?’
‘Sadie’s chances in particular,’ Jonah said.
His arm was still shaking, but his voice was steady.
‘There’s plenty of research demonstrating the internalised bias hiring committees hold against married women in their twenties and thirties, because of the assumption they’ll take time out for maternity leave.
’
‘This can hardly be an un-anticipated circumstance,’ I added.
‘Your contract has an express clause around partner hire where the partner is appropriately qualified.’
I reached up and laced my fingers through Jonah’s where they rested on my shoulder, trying to provide him with some steadiness and show off my engagement ring all at the same time.
It was an attempt to visually suggest something I did not want to – and that my inner Chess absolutely would not let me – put into words: that if they didn’t use the partner hire clause to hire Jonah, they would lose me too.
‘No one could be more appropriately qualified than Jonah,’ I said.
‘The fact that he was shortlisted for this job is ample evidence of that.’
We put up a good fight and the university reps tersely agreed to look into it, but afterwards, neither of us were convinced that it was going to work.
‘Well, it was fun while it lasted,’ Jonah said heavily.
‘Thanks for trying.’
‘Don’t despair just yet,’ I said.
‘Maybe they just have terrible personalities.’
He smiled, but it was humourless.
‘I don’t think I’m going to get a eucatastrophe this time, Shaw.
’
I sighed.
I didn’t either.
And even though that would be awful, I was also kind of relieved.
If they turned us down – if they sent us an email saying, LOL, nice try, but permanent academic jobs aren’t just lying around for anyone with a wild scheme and a ring to scoop up – then I wouldn’t have to tell Chess about any of this.
I was at ESU, tying up some loose ends, when I got the email from Jonah.
FW: Employment contract (Lecturer, Level B) was the subject line.
Then a text, two seconds later.
It worked.
Followed swiftly by another.
So I guess we have to start telling people?
We bickered over the details of the plan, but the way forward was clear.
Academia was a small, incestuous world.