‘Are you cold?’
‘A little,’ she said.
He stood and pulled her into him. She felt protected, safe. He led her to the tent, crouching to let her enter first. Candlelight had created a warm cocoon inside. There was a low bed with a quilt. She sat down next to him. It smelled like smoke and dust, but she didn’t care. She pulled off her top, unfastened her bra. The cool air made her gasp and then she gasped again at the warmth of his mouth covering her breasts. She felt her body let go then and all the rage – the hurt, the pain of Mike’s betrayal filled her. Heat consumed her and she pulled at the rest of her clothes until she was naked. When she looked into Caleb’s eyes, she felt beautiful.
She gave her body to this other man. She heard sounds come out of her mouth that did not sound like her own. This was different. There was no map. She felt him harden between her hands, felt the power of controlling his breath, which quickened at her touch. She let him worship her. Pleasure her. She wanted to take everything. She imagined she could see the fire flaring behind the white canvas walls, the flames licking high into the cold night. Beads of sweat turned to rivers on her skin. Their bodies were slippery with it. She braced for the moment he entered her, waiting for how he would feel. For the difference. For the newness. He was harder, younger, better and she didn’t care if that made her brutal. She was brutal. Her hunger for him was startling and it shocked her, as though her body was not her own. Her cries echoed around the cave walls, raw, shameless. She had left her babies for this. She was selfish, awful and she wanted to be punished for it. She wanted him to break her. To banish the numbness. But he didn’t break her, he wouldn’t. His tenderness brought tears to her eyes and she sensed that he needed her to dominate him, too. And so she did. She watched his face contort as he cried out, half man, half boy.
The only sound was the beat of Caleb’s heart as she lay pressed against him. She felt light-headed. She didn’t dare move. Didn’t know if she could.
‘You okay?’ he asked, kissing the top of her head.
She nodded and gave him a small smile. She was okay. She had slept with a man who wasn’t her husband and the world hadn’t ended. They lay in comfortable silence, their eyes drawn to the fire smouldering, the flickering lights through the slit in the tent.
‘I grew up in this valley, you know.’
Nathalie sat up, with some difficulty, pulling the covers over her and looked at him.
‘Oh? I just sort of assumed you’d grown up in Lithgow, or a big local town and got work here.’
‘No.’ Caleb pulled on his underwear and his jeans and took a bag of tobacco out of his back pocket.
‘So, what does that mean, Caleb?’ There was a vulnerability in his voice. She could tell what he was telling her was imbued with importance.
‘I guess you could say that I’ve never really been able to get away from this place.’ He sat on the bed and rolled a cigarette while she dressed.
‘That’s full on.’
‘Want some?’ He passed her the cigarette.
‘Nicotine is my weakness.’ She caught his eye. ‘Along with younger men and alcohol.’
‘All things that are good for you.’
She laughed. ‘That was pretty good for me.’
‘I couldn’t tell.’
She shook her head and kissed him. He tasted so good. She took the cigarette between her fingers and let the smoke enter her lungs slowly. Her head buzzed with the familiar rush of it. ‘Are your parents still here? In the valley? I saw there were a few farmhouses dotted here and there when we first came in.’
‘I never knew my mother. Never knew my dad, either.’
‘Oh Caleb, I’m so sorry.’ Suddenly, he seemed very young. She resisted the rush of guilt mixed with shame that came at her.
‘It’s okay, I don’t like to talk about it. Being abandoned by your parents isn’t generally something one likes to tell other people. Macie’s been like a mother to me, really.’
‘Macie?’
‘No, she actually is. I don’t talk about it much.’
Nathalie placed her hand on his arm. ‘You can talk to me, you know.’
‘I know, it’s strange. I’ve never really wanted to dwell on all the stuff with my past but there’s something about you that makes me want to tell you everything.’
She touched his face, the soft stubble of his beard. ‘I feel it too. I’ve never been very good at showing myself to people. I mean, the more vulnerable parts of me. I haven’t been able to tell any of my friends about my husband’s affair.’
He nodded and took her hand, kissed her fingers.
‘Can I ask what happened to her? Your mum?’
He shrugged. ‘Not much to tell. She left me here. Macie found me in the gardens of the hotel. They think maybe she was a drug addict from Lithgow who couldn’t look after me anymore.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry Caleb. That’s awful.’
‘It’s so shameful to even say out loud. That as a child even my own mother didn’t want me.’
‘What mother does that? Sorry, as a mother it’s just difficult to imagine. Sure, we all think about running away from it all when they’re driving us crazy, but to really leave them forever?’
‘I don’t know, but if it wasn’t for Macie I’d probably have been dead.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Small. Too small to remember. A baby.’
‘And what? Macie raised you? Here?’
‘And Annabel, Macie’s mother, until she died of cancer a few years back. She was very kind. Like a grandmother.’
‘But who do you think she was? Your mother?’
Caleb shrugged. ‘Someone who couldn’t deal with having a kid. Someone selfish.’
‘You’ve never tried to find her?’
Caleb let out a defeated laugh. ‘She didn’t want me. Why would she want to know who I am now?’
‘You never know. Maybe she regrets it. It’s very rare for a mother not to love her kid. I mean, it’s ancient. It’s the survival of our species.’
‘She’s probably dead.’
Caleb got up and left the tent and she pulled on her shoes and followed him. He bent to stoke the fire.
‘I can see why you don’t like talking about it. I’m sorry.’ She put a hand on his shoulder.
‘It’s not exactly dinner party conversation. Not that I go to dinner parties. Well, I cook for them and I do meet people. Interesting people. Not your usual type.’
‘So, where did you go to school?’
‘Annabel home-schooled me. She used to be a teacher. Then I did high school and uni by correspondence. Essays written on my typewriter and posted to Sydney University. I still managed first-class honours in History, nailed Philosophy, too. Obviously all things I’ve needed living in the sticks.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘They wanted me to be an academic, but I couldn’t bear the thought of getting up in front of a lecture hall full of people. I’ve never much needed people. Especially people my own age. They always called me “gifted”, but I always took that as another word for different. Strange. There was a while there when I just wanted to be normal, not a 16-year-old doing uni subjects and falling in love with his female literature lecturers.’
‘Did you?’
‘I might have done.’ His eyes flashed.
‘And did they ever happen to come for a road trip into a far-flung valley?’
‘Macie was pretty protective like that. She would have sussed out if anything inappropriate was happening. When I was that young.’
Nathalie pursed her lips. ‘I see. And what about now?’
‘What?’ He gestured between them. ‘She knows I’m a grown man.’
Nathalie wanted to ask him if Macie felt like his mother. If he loved her like one. Why had Macie never mentioned that Caleb was like a son? Why had she spoken instead of the child whose picture was all over the walls of her study, but nowhere in her life? And how did Caleb feel about this disparity?
But she se
nsed it would be too much, too soon. Caleb had already opened up so much more than she’d thought him capable of. It had felt like they’d been in a silent confessional box and now the screen had been pulled across. She got up and stretched her legs, arranged herself in the hammock. She could feel the beginnings of a headache stretch across her skull as she began to sober up.
‘Do you have tea?’
‘Sure. Ever had billy tea?’
‘No, but I have a feeling you’re going to make it for me.’ She hesitated. ‘And then we should get back.’ She was about to say she didn’t want to be away from the girls too long but resisted. Caleb wasn’t part of that world. He was an escape, a guilty pleasure. A madness. Perhaps this was what she needed to do to heal after what Mike had done to her. Perhaps it had been inevitable. Perhaps now they were even, her and Mike could continue on with their lives.
She watched as Caleb set about putting tea leaves and water into a tin can and placing it into the fire. There was something about the way he did small things. Roll a cigarette, spoon out tea leaves – it was deliberate, careful. It made him seem like he was from another era, a time when there was space to breathe. She thought about his record collections, his books, his lack of technology. His small monk-like bedroom. He was a person from another era.
‘It’s hot,’ he said, handing her a tin cup.
She blew and took a sip. It was good. Sweetened. She drank too quickly, scalding her mouth.
‘Don’t you ever want to escape? I mean, go and live your life? Meet someone?’ she asked.
She saw hurt flash over his face. ‘I mean apart from a crazy mother of three whose life is falling apart.’
‘You’re perfect to me.’ He said it with such earnestness that Nathalie’s chest ached and he seemed young again. So young. He reached for her and she knew that if she didn’t shut this down, they’d have sex again. She let him kiss her neck, her lips but she pushed him away gently.
‘I’d like to, believe me. But I have to go back. In case the girls wake.’
He nodded and shifted his eyes away. He poured water on the fire and it hissed and crackled. ‘We’ll come back tomorrow then.’
She said nothing. She didn’t know how to tell him what this was for her. A fling, an aberration, a ripple, a moment; something to think back on when she was back in her normal life. When she was being the mother she was meant to be.
CHAPTER 34
Alexandra
She’d slept late. Her eyes ached as they adjusted to the sunlight spilling over her bed. She sat up and looked out the window. The rain was a shadow of dark cloud in the distance as though the deluge had been merely a dream. A flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos rose from a bank of trees like a sudden sunrise, their screeches echoing across the cliff walls. The garden below looked new, dew-strung. She cracked the window open and smelled sweet jasmine. It smelled like summer again. She felt relief loosen a tightness in her chest and she stretched and stood up. The boys had woken at dawn and announced they were going downstairs to watch TV. She’d shooed them away and turned over. Sleep had come again, heavy like the smell of rain still in the air. Now she heard voices downstairs. Jasper rushed in and jumped on the bed.
‘Mum, get up. We’re hungry and the only cereal Macie has is cornflakes. We want Coco Pops. Can we go home now? It’s sunny.’
‘Thank God,’ she said, feeling a lightness at the prospect of going home.
Jasper pulled at her sleeve. ‘Pleeease Mum. I’m starving. I want Coco Pops.’
‘We don’t have Coco Pops,’ she said, feeling frustration buzz through her. ‘Just let me wake up. Off you go. I’ll be down in a sec. Ask Macie for toast then.’
‘She said she’s busy.’
‘Ask Caleb.’
‘He’s not there.’
Alexandra sighed. ‘Ask Emmie.’ Emmie was the only reliable one.
‘She’s looking for Pen.’
‘Okay, well, watch cartoons for five minutes, I told you, I’m coming. I just have to get dressed.’
Her body felt stiff and heavy as she dressed. Too many days of eating and drinking too much. Everyone would want to go home. Between the Nathalie and Emmie tension and being stuck indoors, it was time. They’d been meant to stay another few days, but she doubted anyone would want to. God, what had she been thinking bringing everyone out here? She splashed her face with water and put on some tinted moisturiser, mascara, lipstick and ran a brush through her hair. Just because everything felt like it had fallen apart didn’t mean she had to look like it had. She wondered if Maxwell had even noticed they were gone.
She heard a child crying as she walked down the stairs towards the dining room. Jasper was probably having a meltdown about the bloody Coco Pops.
Emmie was crouching with her arm around Will, who was sitting apart from the other kids at one of the dining tables.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked, noticing Will’s red-rimmed eyes.
He sniffed and wiped an arm across his face. Emmie handed him a tissue.
‘Will’s feeling a bit worried because Pen must’ve gone on a walk this morning but she’s not back yet.’
Emmie gave her a pointed look, silently asking her to play along. Alexandra smiled reassuringly despite a knot of worry forming in her belly.
‘Oh honey, it’s okay, she’ll be back. She’s just stretching her legs. I was just thinking of doing the same thing. We’ve all been stuck inside for what’s felt like days, haven’t we, but the sun’s out now.’ She was using her most comforting, motherly voice.
‘Here, have some water,’ said Emmie, rubbing Will’s back. He drank in large gulps. ‘It’s okay. It’s been a bit of a funny time, hasn’t it? But now that the sun’s out, why don’t we all go and feed the horse?’
Will swallowed hard, trying to get control of his emotions. ‘I took her breakfast in bed.’
Alexandra pressed a hand to her heart and shared a look with Emmie. Kids were so incredible. One minute they were acting like crazy criminals and you were ready to throttle them, the next they were doing the sweetest thing for you.
‘Mate, that’s so lovely of you,’ she said. Will was a bit different from the others but he was obviously just a sensitive little soul.
‘It was only a cup of tea and cornflakes with not much milk. She was sad last night, and I wanted to make her happy.’
Emmie and Alexandra exchanged a look. ‘I’m sure you did make her happy, Will. That’s so grown-up of you to do that,’ Emmie said. ‘Come on, I’ll grab some apples for the horse, and we’ll go for a wander. Come on kids, turn off that TV,’ she called out to the others.
Alexandra handed Jasper an apple. ‘Here. This is breakfast.’
‘I’m not eating horse food,’ he said, handing it to his brother.
‘Come on, everyone up. Grab an apple for the horse from the fruit bowl,’ said Emmie. ‘Seraphine, TV off now.’
‘But we’re still in our jammies,’ Sim said.
‘Horses don’t care about that,’ said Emmie.
‘Where do you think she is?’ Alexandra whispered to Emmie as the kids started to stretch like lazy cats and slowly get up from the TV.
Emmie shook her head. ‘I didn’t see her this morning. I’ve texted her. Fat lot of good that’ll do. Did a quick scout-around outside. She’s probably doing the route I walked with her the other day. She’s a runner. She’s probably just gone further than she realised.’
‘Have you seen Nathalie?’ Alexandra asked as the kids made choosing horse apples into a serious competition.
‘I want that one,’ said Findlay, pointing to the apple in Jasper’s hand, who ripped it away dramatically.
‘The girls said she was still asleep,’ Emmie said, her tone cooling.
‘I’m going to go and get her up to help. It’s nearly ten.’
Emmie made a noncommittal noise and wrestled an apple out of Seraphine’s hand. ‘Come on you guys, share. They’re all the same apples.’
Alexandra alighted the st
airs to Nathalie’s room, which was a few doors down from her own. She found it empty. She walked to the communal showers and pushed opened the heavy door. The sound of running water greeted her.
Alexandra stuck her head in. ‘Are you in here, Nathalie?’
‘Hi, yes,’ Nathalie called back. ‘I’ll be out in a sec.’
‘Okay. No rush.’
The shower switched off and moments later Nathalie emerged in a towel with wet hair. ‘Is everything okay? Sorry, I overslept this morning and I knew the girls were watching TV.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ve just got up myself. I felt about a million years old this morning. You haven’t seen Pen, have you? Will’s upset. He took her breakfast in bed, bless him, and now we’re not sure where she is. Emmie thinks she’s gone on a walk, or a run. The kids were watching cartoons while we were all sleeping. Great mums that we are.’
‘I think we’re all exhausted.’
‘Yes, it’s been an interesting few days,’ said Alexandra, shooting her a wry smile.
‘I’m sure Pen’s just going for a walk or something. It was pretty full on being holed up here. She’s probably needed to stretch her legs.’
‘Exactly. Sorry, I’ll let you get dressed. I just wanted to let you know we’re all going over to feed the horse. Distract Will a bit. Get the kids into the sunshine.’
‘Good idea.’ Nathalie rubbed her hair with a towel.
‘Are you okay? There’s been a bit of tension between you and Emmie. The spilled wine last night. I feel partly responsible. I’m the one who dragged us all out here when we’ve really only got the kids in common.’
The Valley of Lost Stories Page 22
