Free Claudia's Big Break by Lisa Heidke

issue of it. Sophie knew I was there if she needed me. As for Alex, he didn’t talk about it either, at least not with me.
    Anyone could see that parenthood, while amazing and rewarding, had its downsides. I just felt sad that in those early months Sophie experienced more bumps and setbacks than she’d expected and it knocked her confidence. Still, it did make me wonder sometimes if it was better to remain unattached and childless.
    In some ways, Tara’s life was more complex. The question of why Tara married Anthony so soon after her affair with Jules had played on my mind for years.
    Tara’s relationship with Jules began when Jules kissed Tara one night after they’d been to see The Whitlams play at some dive in Fortitude Valley.
    â€˜I’m sorry if I offended you,’ Jules said to Tara, the next day, ‘but it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Tara wasn’t in the least offended — quite the opposite — and their relationship progressed rapidly, especially after Tara convinced her parents to let her move into a flat in St Lucia. ‘It would really help my grades if I lived closer to uni,’ she told them.
    Those naive Catholics! So, in a flat heavily subsidised by her devout parents, Tara got hot and heavy with Jules. All was perfect until ten months later on the morning of Tara’s twenty-first birthday.
    We’d been celebrating Tara’s coming of age at her flat the night before, drinking and dancing, dancing and drinking, until we could drink nor dance no more. Everyone gradually disappeared and crawled back to their rough student accommodation, all except Jules. Apparently she and Tara fell asleep on a rather comfortable rug on the living room floor. Naked.
    Early the next morning, a Sunday, in strolled Mr and Mrs Murphy, cake in hand, to surprise their gorgeous, studious daughter. There they stood in the middle of Tara’s lounge room, dressed in sober church attire, clutching a chocolate mud cake and staring at their daughter, who appeared to be buck naked and entwined with another girl. Horrified, Mrs Murphy mumbled something about ‘not wanting to interrupt’, fumbled to put the cake down and fled with her husband.
    Tara was beside herself with anguish when I caught up with her later that afternoon. ‘What the fuck am I going to do, Claud? I can never face them again.’
    â€˜Where exactly was Jules’s tongue when they walked in?’
    â€˜I’m serious. They’re going to kill me.’
    â€˜It could have been worse.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜I guess you’re right,’ I said after some thought. ‘It probably doesn’t get more embarrassing than that.’
    â€˜I can’t face them.’ Tara clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘And to top it off, Jules isn’t speaking to me. She’s pissed off because I didn’t lock the front door.’
    â€˜Well, yes, perhaps you should —’
    â€˜I wasn’t exactly thinking about that at three in the morning when my girlfriend stripped and offered me my birthday present.’
    â€˜Clearly,’ I replied. ‘Happy birthday, by the way.’
    It was a matter of days before her parents staged what could only be called an intervention, which involved repeating the rosary ad infinitum and praying to God for Tara’s salvation, as well as the usual tears and recriminations. It went on for weeks. ‘Why did you send her to an all-girls school, dear?’ was one of Mr Murphy’s often repeated but unanswered questions.
    Tara’s parents were beyond upset. They couldn’t have been more disappointed had she confessed to being a serial killer.
    Three months later Tara was engaged to Anthony, and six months after that they married. Although it was all over by the time Tara was twenty-five, they didn’t divorce until several years later. Tara didn’t want to upset her parents, but inevitably when she told