Maralinga

by Judy Nunn

  ‘I hardly think so,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Of course you will. You’ve conquered the breathing and that’s the main part. Swimming’s all about breathing.’ He grabbed his towel and started drying himself off. ‘You did very well, Elizabeth, very well indeed.’ He meant it. ‘You should feel proud of yourself.’

  ‘Thanks, Nick.’ For some strange reason she found herself basking in his praise.

  They jogged back up Jetty Road in order to keep warm, and when they arrived at the house she made the offer of a hot shower. It was only fair, she thought, the poor man was shivering as much as she was.

  He followed her upstairs to her apartment, where she showed him the bathroom and gave him a fresh towel.

  ‘No, no, you go first,’ he said, ‘you’re freezing.’

  He was insistent, so she led him through the lounge room’s French windows to the balcony where he could wait in the sun. Then she disappeared briefly to the bedroom and returned with a large woollen cardigan, which she tossed to him.

  ‘I’m sorry I don’t have anything more appropriate,’ she said, ‘I don’t stock men’s clothes, but that should keep you warm. I won’t be too long, I promise.’

  ‘Take your time,’ he called after her.

  He struggled into the cardigan, which, although not small, was a very tight fit on a six-foot man of his build, and sat looking out at the ocean. Things were moving along very nicely, he thought.

  She reappeared barely five minutes later. ‘Your turn,’ she announced, popping her head through the French windows.

  He stood. ‘You shouldn’t have rushed,’ he said as he stepped inside. ‘I was quite happy just –’

  She burst out laughing. The cardigan, loose-fitting on her, looked quite silly on him. Furthermore, it was mauve.

  ‘You look absolutely ridiculous,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t.’

  Her wet hair was scraped back from her face, she wore a simple red sweater and black trousers, and he didn’t think he’d seen a woman more glorious. She was barefooted too, which seemed to have a special significance, as if she were somehow undressed. The next step was only natural.

  As before, the kiss started out slowly and tenderly. Elizabeth had not anticipated it, but she didn’t resist. She was aware that she should, having vowed not to encourage him any further, but she found herself once again surrendering. Then, before she knew it, surrender had become desire. Suddenly the kiss was no longer a simple kiss and she was no longer a passive participant. She was aroused. She wanted him to make love to her. She wanted the touch of his naked skin against hers, the feel of him inside her …

  She broke away, flustered and breathless. Her moment of sexual abandonment had lasted only seconds, but she was shocked.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nick,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but I think you should go. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry if I’ve led you on in any way, but –’

  ‘Don’t apologise, Elizabeth, please,’ he said. She looked so very frightened. ‘I’m the one who should be apologising. I didn’t mean to take advantage …’ He stopped; he had meant to. Of course he’d meant to. And he would again, but only when he felt she was ready. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to frighten you.’

  He kissed her on the cheek and quietly left. He hadn’t frightened her at all, he thought. She’d frightened herself. It was only a matter of time now, and he was happy to wait. He was happy to wait for as long as it took – now that he knew she wanted him.

  He climbed into the car and drove off, unaware he was still wearing the mauve cardigan.

  It was over two months before they finally made love.

  She avoided seeing him altogether for the first month, offering flimsy excuses when he rang and asked her out. Then, in the first week of June, he turned up again on her front doorstep.

  ‘I thought it was high time I returned this,’ he said, holding up the mauve cardigan. ‘The boys at the base say it doesn’t suit me.’

  Elizabeth laughed. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed his company. She’d been too riddled with guilt to think of anything but her moment of weakness. How could she have lusted after another man, and so shamelessly, when Danny had been dead little more than six months? She was appalled by her behaviour.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Nick. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  After that, things moved slowly but nonetheless surely. During the next month or so he made regular stopovers in Adelaide en route to his Canberra meetings, and they went to the cinema or dined out. At first they reverted to the kiss on the cheek, Elizabeth trying to maintain the barriers and Nick careful to observe the parameters she set. But he made sure he had a hire car to hand these days and insisted upon driving her home. As a result, the nightly farewells at her front door followed a natural progression. The kiss on the cheek once again graduated to the mouth, just a gentle brush of the lips to start with, but it escalated rapidly and they were soon both aware that the inevitable was looming.

  Then, one cold winter’s night in July, as their lips parted and the steam from their mouths mingled, Elizabeth decided she couldn’t take any more. Yet again they’d done nothing except kiss, but yet again she’d been devoured by sheer carnal lust. He’d made no attempt to caress her or to thrust himself upon her in any way. But she desperately wanted him to.

  ‘Don’t go back to the hotel,’ she said.

  They went upstairs.

  Nick Stratton was an experienced lover and a highly accomplished one at that. In avoiding serious relationships with women, he had not avoided pleasuring them in bed. In fact, he’d made it quite an art form, for his own sake as much as theirs. A woman’s sexual pleasure was to him the most erotic aspect of copulation.

  Now, as he made love to Elizabeth, his pent-up longing to possess her, far from impeding his performance, only enhanced it. He’d kept himself in careful check for months and he had no trouble keeping himself in check now as he teased her to the brink of ecstasy and beyond. Then, when she’d slightly recovered herself, he started all over again. He revelled in the control he had over her and the pleasure he could give her.

  When she was close to exhaustion, and when he felt his own climax nearing, he worked her once again into a fever pitch for the mutual finale, still maintaining the presence of mind to withdraw at the last minute – just to be on the safe side. He always did. He never took chances. But as he held her quivering body close, his own release meant little anyway. He would have preferred to have gone on forever, driving her into a frenzy of sexual delirium. His greatest personal pleasure lay in the exercise of his power.

  He rolled away from her and they both lay on their backs catching their breath.

  Elizabeth stared up into the darkness. She could feel, like tiny electric shocks, involuntary muscular spasms in the very core of her being, as if her body, like her mind, was trying to come to terms with what had transpired. When she’d recovered herself sufficiently, she turned to him. She couldn’t make out his eyes, but his face was clearly silhouetted in the moonlight spilling through the window that looked out onto the far end of the balcony.

  ‘I didn’t know it could be like that,’ she said.

  He’d guessed as much. He’d sensed tonight had been something of an awakening for her.

  ‘You’re a very sexual woman, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Am I really?’

  She was pleased he should think so, and felt rather as she had when he’d told her she’d done well in her swimming lesson.

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ he said with heartfelt sincerity. How extraordinary that she didn’t know it herself, he thought. ‘You’re not very experienced though, are you?’

  She wasn’t sure if the remark was an insult or a compliment, but either way it seemed to imply criticism. ‘I’m not a virgin, you know.’

  He smiled in the darkness. He’d made a simple observation, but she was instantly defensive and on the attack. How typically Elizabeth, he thought.

  ‘I’m aware o
f that,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. So it showed, did it?’ Her reply was arch. ‘Well, of course it would, wouldn’t it? I mean to someone as experienced as you obviously are.’

  Elizabeth had no idea why she was being so brittle and girlish. What did she expect of the man? That he take her in his arms and tell her he loved her? How puerile. She’d been like a bitch on heat. She’d wanted raw, animal sex and he’d given it to her beyond her wildest expectations. She should be grateful instead of behaving like a wounded ingenue.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice lost and bewildered in the dark, ‘I’m being unfair. I don’t know why.’

  ‘I do.’

  He leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp. She was startled by the light, but said nothing as she sat up drawing the bedclothes around her.

  ‘How old are you, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘I’m forty,’ he said. ‘I’ll be forty-one next month, and I’ve never married. Of course I’ve had many women during my life, of course I’m experienced. It’s natural.’

  ‘I know that, Nick. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’

  ‘And do you know what else is natural?’

  She sensed the question was rhetorical, but she shook her head anyway, like an obedient student in response to a teacher.

  ‘Your sexuality,’ he said. ‘Your sexuality is the most natural thing in the world; it’s nothing to feel guilty about.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘You’re a healthy, highly sexed woman. Now that you’ve discovered that, don’t be ashamed. Be proud.’

  He put his arm about her and they snuggled back into the bed, where they lay quietly, her head on his shoulder. He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t he wondered whether he was invited to stay the night or whether she’d like him to leave. He would prefer to stay. He’d like to make love to her again. In fact, he’d like to make love to her again right now, but he needed a little more recovery time these days. He remembered how in his twenties he’d needed virtually no recovery time at all, not for a second bout anyway.

  ‘Would you like me to go?’ he asked after several minutes’ silence, but she didn’t hear him. She too had been lost in thought.

  ‘I’ve only slept with one man before,’ she said, ‘and only several times during one very short weekend. That was over a year ago now. We were engaged to be married, but he was killed last October.’

  Nick made no response. This was sounding altogether too serious. It was tragic that her fiancé had been killed, but what was he expected to say?

  No response was necessary, however. Elizabeth was not seeking sympathy.

  ‘I loved him very much,’ she continued, ‘and I always will. But we were both young and both inexperienced. We never had time to get to know each other sexually.’ She turned to face him, propping herself on one elbow. ‘So you see, you’re quite right, Nick. Tonight has been a sexual revelation for me. And I’m grateful for your advice, very grateful indeed.’ She paused. She’d given the matter serious consideration and had come to a definite conclusion. ‘I did shock myself, and I was feeling guilty, but I heartily agree with you. To suffer guilt or to feel shame would be foolish. In fact, it would not only be foolish, it would be the height of hypocrisy on my part.’

  He threw back his head and laughed out loud. ‘My God, what a formidable force I’ve unleashed.’

  ‘Yes, you have rather, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, Elizabeth. No, I haven’t at all.’ He quickly sobered up, although he was still smiling – he found her mixture of worldly intelligence and blind naivety utterly disarming. ‘You’ve always been a highly sexual creature. Everyone else seems to sense it except you. Someone was bound to unleash you at some time.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound particularly flattering,’ she said, although she was clearly not offended.

  ‘I’m just lucky it happened to be me.’ He reached out and traced the tips of his fingers very, very slowly down her neck and across her shoulder and down the length of her arm. ‘I’m ready again if you are.’

  ‘Of course I am.’ Her skin was tingling.

  He drew her to him. His months of patience had not been in vain. The conquest of Elizabeth Hoffmann had proved well worth the wait.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Elizabeth had wholeheartedly embraced her sexual liberation. Or so she told herself. And she certainly made the pretence that she had, to herself and to Nick as their relationship blossomed into a fully fledged affair. But deep down she knew it was all bravado. She was in love with Nick Stratton. She tried to persuade herself that love and sex were separate issues and that she was confusing the two, but it didn’t work. She loved the man, it was as simple as that. She loved him in every sense of the word.

  Her liberation was true in one respect, however. She was surprised to discover that she experienced neither the guilt nor the disloyalty she would have felt only a short time ago for loving a man other than Daniel. She could love two men, couldn’t she? She could love two men in two very different ways. There was no shame in that.

  Daniel remained very much in Elizabeth’s thoughts. She was no less committed to solving the mystery of his death than she had been when she’d first arrived in Australia. Indeed, the controversial facts she’d learnt from Hedley Marston had fuelled her interest in the entire mystery that surrounded Maralinga. But uncovering the truth about Daniel’s death remained her first priority and she wondered briefly, now the situation had changed, whether she should try to enlist Nick’s direct help. Surely he would understand her need to determine the truth. Perhaps he even knew the facts himself – what if it were that simple? But by doing that she could be placing him in an invidious position. He might even be offended that she should so presume upon their relationship. She dared not take the risk, she decided. Their affair was hardly based upon solid ground.

  Elizabeth had no illusions about their relationship. Nor did she have any illusions about Nick. Perhaps he loved her in his own way – he was certainly obsessed with her, she was aware of that – but she doubted his true capacity to love. She felt a little sorry for him in some regards. He was a man who put up walls, and she wondered why. In any event, she was realistic about their affair. She never told him she loved him, knowing it wasn’t something he wanted to hear. He clearly wasn’t interested in any form of commitment, and one day, when the novelty had worn off, he would look for a fresh conquest.

  Nick was most certainly obsessed with Elizabeth. As their affair continued throughout July and into August, his interest, far from waning as it normally would, only increased. At first he put it down to her sexuality. He found her extraordinarily exciting in bed. So erotic, indeed, that at times he had to fight for control and it became a battle with his own body. A battle he always won, he made sure of that, but she was a test of his power. As the weeks passed though, he had to admit that even when they weren’t making love, she continued to fascinate him. She was clever and witty and funny, all of which he’d recognised from the start, but she was also strong and capable, a woman of integrity. He admired her.

  Admiration was a dangerous factor, and a warning voice occasionally sounded in Nick’s brain, but he felt safe in ignoring it. If he was becoming a little infatuated, did it really matter? The affair would eventually run its course, as all affairs did. They would tire of each other and move on. Elizabeth accepted the relationship on exactly the same grounds and made no demands upon him. Where was the harm in their mutual enjoyment?

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she said, saluting him with her wine glass. ‘It’s a Penfolds shiraz by the way.’

  ‘So I noticed.’ He smiled as they clinked glasses.

  ‘Bon appétit. Don’t let it get cold.’ She set about attacking her own steak by way of example.

  She’d insisted he tell her when his birthday was. ‘Next month, you said – “I’ll be forty-one next month”, those were your very words. Well, it’s next month now, so when’s the actual day? I haven’t missed it, have I?
’

  ‘The eighteenth.’ It had been simpler to give in to her badgering.

  ‘Ten days to go. Excellent. You must wangle a trip into town and I’ll cook you a birthday dinner.’

  He’d arrived on a relentlessly wet and wintry night to find the table in the lounge room romantically candlelit, with a bowl of crisp bread rolls and a bottle of wine in the centre. He’d been touched by her efforts, but he hadn’t seen her for over a week and there were priorities more important than birthdays.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she’d said, ‘everything’s perfectly organised – the dinner can wait,’ and they’d made a detour to the bedroom as she’d known they would.

  It had been a good forty minutes before they’d emerged.

  Now, as she watched him sawing his way through a steak that was like leather – doing his best to make it look easy, which she found rather gallant – Elizabeth wondered where she’d gone wrong. She’d given up on her own steak. It was quite inedible.

  ‘I’m sorry the steaks are so tough. I don’t know why they should be. The butcher told me it was an excellent piece of rump, aged and all that, which is supposed to make it tender, or so he said.’

  ‘How did you cook them?’ he asked, jaws working furiously.

  ‘Oh, not for too long,’ she assured him. ‘I know true meat lovers don’t like their steaks overcooked. I fried them up just before you got here and then put them in the oven to keep warm.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘That might be where the trouble lies. The salad’s nice,’ he said encouragingly. ‘I like the dressing.’

  ‘Oil and vinegar. I don’t dare make my own. I’ve tried to several times but it’s always abysmal. I’m a terrible cook.’ She topped up their glasses. ‘If I were you, I’d fill up on the bread rolls and wine and wait for dessert. Peter’s ice-cream and tinned fruit salad, with cheese to follow. Even I can’t make a mess of that.’

  ‘Ice-cream and fruit salad’s a real treat to an army man.’