Tall, Dark & Distant

by Julie Fison

  Did Georgia look silly? Yes, probably. Did she have make-up all over her face? Absolutely. But did she care? Not at all. She was having the best day of her life.

  ‘You can get off now, Georgia,’ Ella called. ‘I think Nik’s about to die.’

  Georgia slid off, reluctantly releasing Nik’s shoulders. She immersed herself in the pool, still tingling all over from the time she’d spent with her legs wrapped around Nik’s body. She was aching to put her arms around him as well, but Nik was pulling himself up on the side of the pool.

  ‘Come and jump off the jetty,’ one of the Simm boys called to Nik.

  Ella’s brothers showered Nik with high-fives as he emerged from the pool. One of them boxed him playfully in the ribs. Dim slunk inside to lick his wounds, followed by Alice, who was no doubt hoping to play nurse. Georgia stayed by the pool with Mei and Ella, watching the guys jumping off the jetty into the river that ran through the bottom of the Simms’ garden. Ella’s boyfriend set off for an almighty bomb dive, and they heard the thud of his body hitting the water, spray flying into the air. Another brother flipped through the air in a somersault.

  Then Nik stepped to the front of the jetty. He was a picture of perfection, his toned physique framed by the green river. Nik readied himself to dive. His abs tightened as he raised his arms. The boys went quiet, waiting to see what this tourist was capable of. Nik surveyed the river ahead. He launched himself off the jetty in a swan dive. His body glided over the river. Then his legs drifted too high, creating a hook shape instead of a straight line.

  Georgia squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see him land. She could tell what was coming, and the reaction from the rest of the boys on the jetty was enough to know how bad it was.

  ‘Ohhh,’ they moaned.

  ‘That’s gotta hurt,’ someone shouted. The boys fell about on the jetty, laughing.

  Nik pulled himself out of the water. His body was red from his ungraceful belly flop into the river. But he was grinning too, and lined up to give it another go. Another belly flop was followed by another and then another. The boys laughed harder each time, and amazingly, Nik seemed to enjoy being at the centre of the joke. Every now and then he’d look over at Georgia and smile, making her stomach leap with pleasure. She grinned back, not caring if she looked like an idiot. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him.

  So, Nik was a useless jetty diver. Georgia could live with that. In fact, it made him cuter. Sure, Georgia didn’t know much else about him. But she wanted to. She wanted to know everything.

  And she hoped that he’d want to get to know her too. As the evening wound up, she walked Nik to the front door.

  ‘Maybe we could go for a run sometime,’ he said.

  ‘How about tomorrow morning?’ Georgia blurted quickly, breaking another of Ella’s rules: Don’t appear too eager.

  But Georgia couldn’t help it. She was eager – desperate to see him the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. The summer holidays stretched out ahead and Georgia could see Nik in every part of it – running in the national park together, watching the sun set from the Boiling Pot lookout, sheltering under a tree from a thunderstorm. Sure, they were clichés, but Georgia didn’t care. They were also the ingredients for the perfect summer-holiday romance.

  ‘Okay,’ Nik said slowly. ‘I could meet you at the entrance to the park. How about seven?’

  ‘Great,’ Georgia said. She knew it wasn’t a great time to run in the park – everyone would be out then. But she didn’t want to be difficult.

  ‘I’ll see you then,’ he said. ‘Can I have your number, just in case there’s a problem?’

  Georgia listed the digits and Nik punched them into his phone. It gave Georgia a feeling of satisfaction to see him entering her number. She felt like she was becoming a permanent fixture in his life, in some small way. Then it occurred to her that Nik was taking her number so he could cancel on her. She tried to put her concerns out of her mind and instead concentrate on Ella’s last rule: Always leave a good impression.

  Nik placed his hands on Georgia’s shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. This time she wasn’t taken by surprise, but it still left her reeling just a bit. Georgia watched as he climbed into his car. The engine revved in a low grumble, and then the lights went on and he was gone. She had no idea what car he was driving. She just knew it was silver and looked fast. Georgia closed the front door and turned. Ella and Mei were right in front of her.

  ‘So?’ Ella asked. ‘Tell us everything.’

  Oh yes, another rule: Share the juicy details with your friends.

  ‘We’re going for a run together tomorrow,’ Georgia reported.

  ‘A date!’ Ella shrieked. ‘A running date, but still – a date.’

  Mei and Ella picked over the exchange at the door and every other detail of the evening. The way he ate his steak sandwich without getting sauce down his face – something not many guys could manage. The way he’d fought in the pool – he’d definitely been trained in martial arts or something. Even the way he pronounced Noosa was dissected. There was a hint of an accent there that wasn’t English, Mei was certain.

  ‘Your knight in shining board shorts,’ Ella concluded, as they collected the wet towels from the poolside.

  ‘Why would Georgia need a knight in shining anything?’ Mei pointed out. ‘She’s going to be a doctor. If anyone needs rescuing, she’ll be the one doing it.’

  ‘Okay. Just her boyfriend … with benefits,’ Ella said. She had it all worked out. He’d arrived with a bottle of expensive French champagne and he wore designer clothes. He also had the sort of confidence that came with privilege. Ella would know, Georgia thought. She has it too.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t know what type of car he was driving?’ Ella asked for the third time.

  ‘It was definitely silver … I think.’ Georgia knew this question would keep coming up until Ella had something more concrete than just a fast silver car.

  ‘It wasn’t a LandCruiser,’ Georgia offered confidently. Her mother drove one of those. ‘And it wasn’t a Mercedes.’

  ‘This could take some time if we go through all the cars it wasn’t,’ Mei pointed out drily.

  ‘Cameron, what’s a fast car that comes in silver?’ Ella asked.

  Ella’s boyfriend was stretched out on a sun lounger, eyes closed, but he looked up at the sound of his name.

  ‘What’s a fast car that comes in silver?’ he repeated, propping himself onto his elbows. ‘Lots of fast cars come in silver.’

  ‘Nik’s car,’ Ella explained. ‘Haven’t you been listening? We’re trying to work out what car Nik drives. We just know it’s fast and silver.’

  ‘Are you still talking about that poor dude?’ he said. ‘He drives a Porsche Turbo. I saw it on the street when I went to get drinks. I didn’t know it was his, but it was silver.’

  Cameron dropped back onto his towel and closed his eyes.

  ‘Extreme benefits,’ Mei concluded. ‘A Porsche Turbo.’

  Georgia couldn’t deny she was impressed. What girl wouldn’t want to be chauffered around in a Porsche? But she wasn’t so sure it was a benefit. If Georgia’s dad found out Nik drove a sports car, he’d probably ban her from going anywhere with Nik at all. He knew too many surgeons who’d picked splinters out of Porsche owners’ brains after they’d wrapped their cars around lampposts.

  ‘What else did you find out about him?’ Ella asked, as they went back into the house.

  Georgia shrugged. ‘Not much.’

  Piecing together Nik’s story was mostly guesswork. The evening had been dominated by the boys’ banter – rugby taunts and sledging the England cricket team. Nik had mentioned he was twenty. He’d been to boarding school in London but was ‘having a bit of a break from things’. Apart from that, he had given very little of himself away. The girls had no way to fill in the details. Ella could normally find out anyone’s past, present and even future with just a few phone calls. Everyone knew everyone in
Noosa. But no-one knew Nik.

  Or at least, no-one did yet, Georgia thought. But she was determined to change that.

  Nik sighed as the silver Porsche roared up the hill towards the mountains. He wondered why he had arranged to meet Georgia for a run. He already knew it was a bad idea. Dates with girls were always a bad idea. Even running dates somehow turned into something else with girls. He knew he should cancel. A girlfriend wasn’t part of the plan at all.

  He pulled out his phone and found her contact details as he drove. Georgia. Just the name made him sweat. To him, Georgia conjured up suppressed memories of a hot shed in the middle of nowhere, the stench of stale urine almost overwhelming the reek of fear. It was confusing to have a name he’d associated with terror for so long now belong to someone he wanted so much.

  As he ran a finger over her name, the feeling of her wet thighs against his shoulders came back to him, like he was in the pool again. He felt the fabric of her bikini pressed against the back of his neck. God, she was hot.

  Shoulder wars – what genius had invented that game?

  Georgia had been doing his head in since he first set eyes on her in the national park. There had to be a law against looking that sexy at 6 a.m. But it wasn’t just that. Lots of girls were sexy. She was different – totally unlike any other girl he knew. (And he knew a lot.) She was … real. She couldn’t lie to save her life; she was way too honest and way too open. He’d never seen any of those things as attractive personality traits before. He preferred to keep things locked away. It had worked for him, so far. Well, it hadn’t exactly worked for him. He’d left a trail of screwed-up relationships from London to Buenos Aires.

  Guarded, remote, indifferent, selfish, thoughtless, unreliable … just a few of the adjectives that had been hurled at him as he’d walked (or in some cases run) away from relationships. Sure, he was all of those things. And a whole lot more. But that was just who he was. He didn’t see those traits as flaws the way girls did. They were essential for self-preservation.

  No-one could hurt you if you didn’t let them near you. He couldn’t guarantee that no-one else would get hurt in the process, but that wasn’t his problem. He wondered if he’d always felt like that. He guessed as a kid he’d been trusting. He’d trusted his father to take care of things. But he’d let Nik down in the worst possible way. Now there was no space in Nik’s world for trust and no reason for openness.

  Nik glanced at his phone again as he pulled into his garage. As much as he knew he should keep well away from Georgia, he also knew he couldn’t. He had to see her again. He would go for a run. One run. He just needed to see her once more.

  ‘So, which track should we take?’ Nik asked, looking at the map at the entrance to the national park. ‘You’re the local, I’ll follow you.’ He glanced at Georgia, trying to keep his eyes on her smile and off her legs.

  ‘The coastal track is the nicest but it gets pretty busy this time of day,’ she replied.

  As if to confirm her assessment, six middle-aged women marched past. Their perfume was so strong it nearly choked him. It reminded him of his mother. She used Chanel No. 5 as an air freshener – as if the fragrance would somehow cover the smell of despair in her apartment. Her home in Switzerland had a staggering view of Lake Geneva, but it still managed to be entirely depressing. His stomach clenched at the memory of his mother using her damaged hand to spray the perfume from the bottle.

  ‘On the coastal path,’ Georgia continued, ‘people are always dropping things like frangipani hair-ties. You’d waste a lot of time picking them up.’

  She paused, expectantly. Nik was aware that Georgia was waiting for an explanation of some kind about how he’d spotted the hair-tie. But he just smiled at her joke, his mind still on Switzerland. He noticed her face falter, disappointed by his lukewarm response. He smiled more enthusiastically and made an effort to keep his mind on the conversation.

  ‘The other tracks are out of the sun,’ Georgia went on, pointing into the bush. ‘They’re shady and a bit quieter, not so many people.’

  ‘Let’s take the quiet option,’ Nik said. It was too easy for people to hide in crowds.

  They pushed into the shadows of the rainforest. He didn’t need to look at her to know how well she ran. He could hear it in the rhythm of her breathing, even as the track got steep – she was definitely an athlete. Nik was glad he’d started training in Argentina a few weeks earlier. He’d taken up running again to get fit for polo. He hadn’t exactly been fanatical about it, but at least he’d done enough to keep up. And at least his runners didn’t look brand-new.

  ‘So, how long are you in Noosa?’ Georgia asked as they reached the cliff top at the end of the path.

  ‘I’m here for a while,’ he said, trying to keep things vague.

  Georgia tried again. ‘Where are you staying?’

  Nik waved into the distance. ‘Up on the hill.’

  ‘On your own?’ Georgia asked.

  Nik peered into the sea. ‘Sort of,’ he replied. He looked for something to distract her from the interrogation. ‘Look!’ Nik pointed at the waves. With his other hand, he turned Georgia round to face the water. ‘It’s a turtle!’

  She didn’t respond, and Nik looked at her face. Her eyes were on him, and he realised there were goosebumps on her skin. Her face was an open book – she’d liked his touch.

  ‘Anyway,’ Nik said, quickly pulling his hand away. ‘I’ve got some … things to do today, so let’s keep going.’

  ‘Ah, okay,’ Georgia said. She still looked vaguely startled.

  They ran on in silence. He could feel Georgia’s eyes on him, but he kept focused on the ground – trying to keep his mind off the goosebumps on her olive skin, doing his best to stick to the plan. But no matter where he looked, his mind began to wander up her long legs, to the smooth skin on the inside of her thighs.

  ‘That was fun,’ Georgia said when they got back to the entrance to the national park. ‘We should meet again tomorrow.’

  Nik nodded, even though he had already decided not to meet her again. Oh well. He could always cancel by text. It was easier that way.

  ‘How about six?’ Georgia said. ‘It’s cooler. I always run at six.’

  ‘Oh,’ Nik said. He didn’t do anything at the same time every day. A routine was the reason for the scar above his eye.

  ‘Six o’clock, then,’ Nik said anyway.

  Georgia ran off towards her apartment. He knew he should be calling her back and cancelling the run. He had a plan. He had to stick to it. What if she turned into a gold-digging psycho like his ex? His father had been very specific: Steer clear of girls.

  Instead, Nik called out to Georgia. ‘Ciao, bella!’

  Georgia turned and smiled – a shy smile that could have melted solid rock.

  Nik climbed into his car and headed back to the house – thinking of Georgia and feeling a bit more relaxed about the plan. A run in the park didn’t really break any rules. It didn’t actually mean anything; it wasn’t going anywhere. If he only saw her in the national park and always before eight, he knew he’d be pretty safe. His mind went back to the lookout at Hell’s Gates and the way Georgia had looked at him – her blue eyes, so lovely, so vulnerable. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t stay away from her either.

  Nik pulled into the garage at the top of the hill and walked inside. He could hear the cleaner vacuuming upstairs, but apart from that the house was empty. Nik took off his T-shirt and runners, then strolled outside and dived into the pool. He swam a few lengths and then turned on his back to admire the garden. It wasn’t something that he did very often. But the trees beside the pool caught his eye. Their flowers were exactly the same as the one on Georgia’s hair-tie. He wondered what they were called. Had she said this morning? He couldn’t remember.

  Nik considered asking Georgia back for a swim after their next run. She’d probably like to see the house, and he thought she’d appreciate the garden. He’d been terribly rude that morn
ing, just abandoning her in the park without even offering her a lift. The least he could do was ask her back for a swim – surely a swim wouldn’t be breaking any rules. And then he remembered that it did. He’d already decided to limit their time to the park. Who knew where things would go if he brought her back to the house?

  Nik met Georgia for a run every morning that week. Sometimes they met at 6 a.m., sometimes at 8 a.m. and on other days some-where in between. Georgia liked a routine, but there was no way Nik would stick to one. Boarding school was the last place he’d suffered a routine, but that was only because he had to. Now, he avoided them completely. They were risky. Not that he was going to admit that to Georgia, no matter how often she asked about why they met at a different time each day.

  He was well practised in avoiding awkward questions and nothing would prise that particular story from him.

  By meeting at a different time each morning, he was also able to convince himself that he was still in control of his not-a-relationship relationship with Georgia. He’d attempted to prove this point to himself by not showing up at all one day. But on that morning he got out of bed early anyway, put on his running kit, and drove into Noosa for a coffee, he told himself. Instead of stopping for a coffee, though, he drove straight to the national park where he met Georgia as planned. He was only two minutes late.

  Nik tried to convince himself that he was only meeting Georgia every morning to improve his fitness. And it was true, she was a great running partner – fast, strong and fun. He hardly even noticed the hills as they ran through the park, comparing notes on running shoes, listing the reasons why gyms sucked, sharing travel stories, talking politics and even discussing trees. Georgia was so easy to talk to and so refreshing compared to his usual crowd. He couldn’t imagine identifying different types of eucalypts with them. But the problem was that he wasn’t just running with Georgia in the morning. He was thinking about her all day and dreaming about her all night. And that made his fitness theory difficult to maintain.