Be Mine: Valentine Novellas to Warm The Heart

by Nicole Flockton

  ‘Of course. We are bumping into each other in Melbourne. Can you arrange lunch with Lily? Afternoon coffee? When does her meeting finish?’

  ‘OK. Will advise.’

  Lily seems quite pleased when we ‘accidentally’ bump into Harry and Damian while we are all tapping our tickets through the exit aisles at Southern Cross station.

  ‘There’s that man you get on so well with, isn’t it mum?’ she hisses in my ear, as we saunter behind them. Pleased for me then. Not herself.

  ‘You mean Harry?’ I can feel that my face has gone funny colours and my voice comes out high and fake-breezy. ‘Just an acquaintance.’ Then the idea hits me with a bolt of inspiration. Genius!

  ‘If they ask us somewhere, would you come with us? I’d like to get to know him better, without the awkwardness of just Harry and me.’

  ‘Oh Mum, of course I would! But I’m booked to lunch with our interstate colleagues, and then the video hook-up will run for several hours. Probably go for a drink after that. But you will be alright, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure!’ I say brightly.

  She grins. ‘Text me if you need advice!’

  Lily has to explain it all to Harry when he turns and asks us about lunch or coffee later. I swear Damian looks crestfallen. Whoo Hoo, a lead!

  ‘Maybe back in Ballarat?’ I ask. Lily hooks her arm in mine, and says, all support and enthusiasm, ‘Of course, sounds terrific! Why don’t you and Mum arrange it, and Mum can check when I am free when we go for a walk tonight?’

  Damian pricks up his ears and looks at Lily. His dark eyes are glowing with admiration. Harry nods. Lily gives us all a wave and sashays away.

  Harry discreetly raises his left thumb in the victory sign. He leans towards me and gives me a kiss on the right cheek. He seems to take a little while about it. ‘Looking good! He breathes, but I am unsure if he means me or The Plan.

  He leaves with Damian.

  Shoppers and workers stream in all directions. I feel almost flattened by the cacophony: the bellowing of the station announcers, impenetrable as usual, the trams clanging and rattling in the busy roads just outside, traffic honking and screeching. Good old Melbourne. How I used to miss it. Now, all I want is to go back to the sunny, peaceful country.

  Someone bumps into me, muttering an apology as they walk-run to the crossing. I look up at the big old-fashioned station clock. If I rush straight to the big discount store, grab a few of my favourite sport shoes in record time, I could be heading back within an hour.

  So that’s what I do.

  ‘Harry,’ I text on the train. ‘Bump into us on our evening walk. We will aim for the creek path tonight, while it is still very light. I expect Lily will need fresh air and to stretch her legs after a busy day in the city. I’ll let you know details.’

  ‘No problem. CU then. Sorry the train was a disaster. But funny!’

  I stare at his message, and I feel my lips curling in a reluctant grin. I suppose it was funny.

  Imagine if I’d pressed the alarm. Imagine if I’d pressed the alarm, and Lily saw me.

  I have a brief panicked fantasy of all the ridiculous lies I would have to tell Lily and others: I fell when the train jerked, and pressed against it? I had a terrible hiccup and set it off accidentally? I’m just really sorry, I have no explanation? Or perhaps, I would have to fake a sudden extreme pain in my chest or head, and be rushed to hospital, waiting for hours for doctors, having checks and wasting both mine and hospital staff time.

  What is it about Harry that makes me feel as if my sensible self, so carefully maintained and polished over the years, moored hard to the dock, has floated free towards new horizons?

  10

  That evening, Lily and I go for our stroll along the Yarrawee Creek path. Eucalypts planted in a long-ago revegetation scheme tower over us, creating a pleasant, soothing dapple of light and shade. Long strips of bark hang off the trunks like punk street fashion. Smooth pale trunks glow in the early twilight, and everything is rimmed with an edge of gold in the setting sun. Kookaburras call, wood-pigeons coo and bright rosellas sweep overhead in flashes of red, purple, green and orange.

  Lily chats happily about work and friends, sports and social activities. I keep thinking how lucky I am to have her. Just like this. Just Lily. The beautiful person she is.

  ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘I might be getting a promotion. All hush-hush still, but I’m so excited! It’s with the manager I really like, she’s just like me in lots of ways and we get on really well. It’s in a new branch of marine biosecurity, mathematical predictive mapping of invasive species. I’m really excited!’

  ‘Wow, darling, that’s amazing! Good on you.’ Although we are close, and I always end emails and texts with love hearts, I still struggle to say the ‘I love you’ words out loud to my children. Pathetic, I know.

  ‘I’m proud of you,’ I squeeze out. I will practice saying, ‘I love you,’ I think. Practice, and practice, and then one day, I might be able to.

  The kookaburra’s raucous laugh peals through the forest walk, and is joined by another. I shiver. I hoped it isn’t an omen.

  ‘I will need to go back to Brisbane if I get it,’ Lily is saying.

  Something cold squeezes my heart. Noooooo! My brain is screaming. ‘Of course you will,’ I say out loud. ‘That is where the action is.’

  ‘As it’s a big National program, I’ll need to be in Queensland most of the time. Probably fly out to critical areas in Darwin and Cairns quite often.’

  I listen to the excitement in her voice and try to breathe through the steel vice lodged in my lungs. To swallow down the grief-snakes biting my stomach. Of course, I have done all this before. When they went off to university. I worked like a dog those years to ensure they could live at university, and make the most of their time and opportunity. And then again when they got their fantastic jobs in Brisbane and Sydney.

  And yet, it seems worse every time.

  ‘Well, I’ll miss you, of course,’ I cough out, as breezily as possible. ‘But you can’t stay here.’

  I know it.

  Suddenly, I don’t want to bump into Harry and Damian the fast bowler. I want this precious time with Lily to myself. Who knows how long I will have her?

  So, against the plan, instead of turning her around to walk north for a while, to supposedly bump into Harry and Damian, we keep walking south. I stroll along with my Lily, enjoying her liveliness and happiness about the future, her funny comments and extremely organised plans.

  I don’t mention dating.

  I don’t activate my plan of mentioning ‘egg freezing’ or IVF.

  The thought of losing Lily again is making my desire for grandchildren recede into the far distance.

  I wallow in her nearness and her vivacious, lovely self.

  11

  When I meet Harry for coffee next morning, I apologise and try to explain.

  ‘Was Damian confused?’ I ask.

  ‘Not really. He’s a pretty easy-going bloke. Actually, if I keep telling the guys I’m getting fit and walking, they might be happy to take turns walking with me. We can keep the walking track plan active.’

  I look at my fingernails. Short, a bit ragged. A suggestion of grime ingrained in my hands. Gardener’s hands, hard, capable, slightly wrinkled. I wear 50+ sunscreen now and gloves, but I’ll never have the glowing white skin of an office worker.

  I don’t know how to tell Harry I might be reconsidering. Forget the grandchild. Practise gratitude for what you have and all that.

  ‘You know,’ I say, ‘Lily and I used to make up stories about the other children I might have had after her and Sam.’ I take a few swigs of coffee. ‘We played this game for years. There were twin boys and another girl, younger than Lily and Sam. We talked about them so much they became real. It seemed weird when we went home and they weren’t there. Crazy?’

  Harry is staring into my eyes. His are warm and bright, probably the kindest eyes I have ever seen. A straight up and down ki
nd of guy.

  ‘I’m not sure I should ask,’ he says.

  ‘What? Oh, you mean, why didn’t I have more?’

  I put sugar in my coffee, and stir it, even though I don’t ever have sugar.

  ‘Aiden didn’t want any more. I stupidly thought that it takes two to make a baby, and I wanted their father to want them. But Lily has since pointed out a million times that any pet they brought home, Aiden instantly loved. She says I should have just had more, if I wanted them.’

  Silence for a long moment.

  ‘I ah...suppose...that there are lots of reasons for not having children,’ Harry says. ‘Finances?’

  ‘We never worried about that. If we had waited until we could afford it, then we never would have had children at all. And it didn’t matter. You think you want all this stuff, but when kids come, that’s all that matters.’

  I stir my coffee again, drink some of the now sugary syrup. Feel a jolt of sugar and caffeine hit my brain.

  ‘Harry, I haven’t asked. Do you have children?’

  Harry’s face goes sad, and I feel terrible. He stares out the window of the cafe. I have never seen him anything but his cheery self, so I am shocked and worried. My brain goes into overdrive: had a child died? Does he have a druggie son? A lost daughter?

  My eyes are scanning his face, checking his body language. I’m leaning forward, over the table, towards him. I stretch out a hand, touch him, very lightly, on the back of his left hand.

  When those blue blazing eyes burn into mine, another tiny jolt shocks me.

  ‘No, never.’ His voice is sad. ‘I always wanted children.’ He is speaking so quietly that I have to focus to hear him. Something about his voice means that I always hear everything he says quite perfectly, although I am a bit deaf to other people’s voices in different registers. All those power tools, I guess, and loud bands in my wild days.

  ‘My wife,’ he pauses. Gulps. I feel really sorry for him. He must really miss her.

  ‘She sounds like she was amazing,’ I say. ‘One of my clients mentioned her the other day. Beautiful. Stunning, she said.’

  He kind of strangles a bit. ‘Well. She didn’t want kids. Worried they would affect her figure.’

  Stunned silence. What? Did I hear right?

  Another long pause. ‘Oh well,’ I whisper. ‘Women must be able to make any choice they want, for whatever reason. I see that now. Mine should have been to have six kids.’

  ‘Six?’ Harry grins with half his mouth and one eye. I feel like leaping the table and hugging him. But I don’t. I’ve learnt to leave that kind of mad spontaneity back with my youth.

  ‘It’s OK. That was all long ago. I know I’m totally blessed even having two.’

  Harry just nods. Then he says, out of the blue, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘I’m paying!’ I yell to the counter, but Harry pays anyway, and hurries out the door.

  12

  I need to find out more about Harry’s wife, and I need to do more work on Tori’s garden, so I head to Tori’s, calling her on the way.

  ‘Fabulous, Darling!’ she screams into my ear. ‘See you soon!’

  Tori is waiting for me in her front circular driveway, near the fountain. She embraces me, and for a moment I am suffocated in perfumed silk.

  I don’t totally trust Tori. I have no idea if she is discreet, or likely to scream my issues to the world. My gut is saying, don’t say anything personal to her. Something about her massive size, her brash, dyed, brilliant red hair and don’t-care attitude makes me warm to her; but for some reason also sends messages to my gut to treat her with caution.

  The herb gardens are my downfall.

  Tori and I stroll through her garden ‘rooms’, each more beautiful than the last. Even though I have designed them, the gardens still surprise me, with unexpected colour combinations startling me with their perfection; plants springing at unexpected times or in unexpected ways.

  Our long summer means the herbaceous borders are bursting with flowers. Tall spikes of delphiniums provide intense splashes of colour with their deep blue and pink bells. Fat, round blue and pink hydrangeas nod like satisfied mandarins. Hollyhocks raise dark pink flowers to the sky as though beckoning us straight into a child’s story book. Sweet waxy tuberoses and David Austin roses charm the atmosphere. Creamy gardenias are throwing out their heavy perfume to beguile lazy summer evenings.

  The herb gardens are buzzing with bees and wafting delicious scents over us as we enter. Strange, pointed, rounded domes, like tiny Russian palaces tower on thin stems – the flowers of the alliums - the leeks, garlic and onions I planted for effect. Rosemary and lavender add their rich perfumes to the warm air. Tiny yellow-hearted daisy flowers of sprawling, soft chamomile plants add charm. Blue spikes of sage flowers wave amongst mounds of flowering thyme.

  The happiness I feel in the garden makes me more trusting of Tori in this moment. Plus, curiosity is eating me alive. ‘Tori,’ I say, desperately, wanting to trust her, hoping I can trust her. My need is great to confide in someone.

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  I have a moment where I think: Tori is a client. An important client. This is crossing the line. I try to say, ‘Never mind,’ but the words stick.

  Tori, with her usual warmth and generosity of spirit, tuned into human emotions as always, stops and puts a plump warm hand on my arm. ‘Lilac, my love, do tell. I have never seen you like this. Quite distracted when I was describing the small quinces forming on my lovely quince tree. I also described the raspberries fruiting on my almond trees, and the banana vine growing on the roof.’

  I have to laugh. ‘I’m so sorry! How ridiculous! I’m with you now.’

  ‘Yes, my love, and you are coming inside for once, to relax in my conservatory, and have a glass of chilled pink bubbles.’ She puts her hand on my upper arm. I try not to shrink away. ‘No! This time you are coming. I can’t have my star landscaper discombobulated.’

  What was the harm? Against my better judgement, I permit Tori to lead me inside, fluff up wildly-coloured and botanically improbable coloured cushions in cane chairs in her magnificent conservatory, and push me into one. In a matter of moments, a self-effacing housekeeper brings a tray containing two chilled glasses bursting with pink bubbles, while a younger maid delivers an ice bucket with the bottle inside.

  I’ve barely had a sip, when the housekeeper returns with a tray of dainty biscuits, small slices of healthy bread, olives, dips and vegetables.

  I open my mouth, but Tori says quickly, ‘All lactose-free. No need to worry.’ She smiles her huge, warm hostess smile, and I smile back. Not everyone remembers. I take another pink bubbly sip. I hope it will silence all the alarm bells ringing about confiding in Tori. The need to know is killing me.

  ‘I’m breaking all my rules here, Tori! Pink bubbles in the day! Shocking.’

  ‘Do you good to have a break from yourself. Besides, one teensy little drink won’t hurt, will it? You’ll burn it off in seconds darling, with your metabolism.’

  I laugh, and feel better. It is hard not to relax under the brunt of Tori’s relentless good nature and charm.

  ‘So, my darling,’ Tori says, loading my plate with savoury treats. ‘Time to tell Tori.’

  I have another bubbly sip, enjoying the fizz up my nose and through my oesophagus.

  I make Tori tell me about her book club’s latest scandals, the hospital Board’s dramas, and really naughty tales, which I hope are not the least bit true, about several Ballarat City Councillors. I’m playing for time, trying to find a casual way to ask her about Harry.

  ‘Why would I tell you anything, Tori, you terrible woman?’ I ask through my tears of laughter.

  ‘These people deserve it,’ she merely says, looking both severe and amused. ‘Now you, darling. If you don’t cough up soon, we’ll have to start on another bottle.’

  ‘Ok.’ I pause, consider. ‘Oh look. There is really no delicate or indirect way to ask you.’

&nbs
p; ‘Out with it, or I’m calling for another bottle. Actually, maybe I will anyway.’

  ‘No! No, please! Have mercy. I’m tipsy already.’

  But while I am talking, another bottle does appear, gets opened, and somehow part of it ends up in my glass. I take a healthy swig of water. Hopefully Tori has drunk most of the first bottle, not me. Half a bottle of bubbles is way over my capacity these days.

  ‘Harry is an interesting man,’ I venture.

  ‘Oh ho!’

  ‘Stop it Tori. I won’t be able to continue. Harry and I are JUST FRIENDS, OK?’

  ‘Sure, you are.’

  I tipsy-grin, then concentrate. ‘He seems so lovely, a really nice person. I can’t believe he is a tough major-contract construction engineer. He is really grieving his wife.’

  Tori twinkles at me. ‘Yes, she was amazing. Gorgeous looking of course. Everyone loved her. Such a tragedy. He hasn’t been the same since. As I said, he just goes around trying to save everybody.’

  ‘Something he said...I must have misunderstood. Did they have kids, do you know?’

  ‘No. Poor Zara. It was one of her greatest regrets. She was often so jealous of those other women with children.’

  ‘Did they try IVF? So many people these days, it seems, have to have a few IVF cycles.’

  ‘Zara certainly hinted she was going through the mill with her fertility. And I don’t want to put you off; but she did hint that Harry was very unforgiving about their lack of children. More than once she cried in this very conservatory about Harry’s lack of understanding.’

  Something cold slithers in my guts. I can’t believe it; can I? It seems so contrary to what I know about Harry; but we are all so many different people at once. And I’ve only just met him. Suddenly, I feel quite sober, and the thought of any more pink drink is nauseating.

  ‘You were close?’ I drink more iced water from the carved crystal water glass.

  Tori gives me a look. ‘We went to the same plastic surgeon. I get the smaller work done here, but we both went to a fabulous guy in LA for the major stuff.’