You laugh, rubbing your hands in glee.
‘Now. We need something to write in. Notes. Observations. So you’ll always have them. They might come in handy one day. I’m a great believer in it.’ His face lights up. ‘That little instruction manual.’
You shake your head—‘I couldn’t’—it’s too old, valuable.
‘Come on. Cough it up. Writers are always scribbling in books. It’s often the only paper we can find. It’s got some blank pages up the back, I remember.’
You slip it out of your pocket. He seizes it, flips through it, lingering over a line here and there.
‘She’ll be pleased, the old fox, chuckling away at it all, willing you on. She’s a joy-seeker, this one. Cheeky. I just know.’ He kneels, his hands travelling down your body. ‘Yes, yes,’ he’s whispering, his mind galloping ahead, kissing your scuffed knees with their runnels of black, the rim of ochre between your toes, your ankle bone. He stands and holds your arms, looks straight at you, smiles secrets.
‘My hidden … lovely … fabulous … crazy … school.’ As if he can’t quite believe it.
You smile, complicit. ‘Our hidden school.’
He nods. ‘God yes. I need to do it better.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, everything. Life. Houses. Love. The lot.’
Your fingertip presses his lips, sssh, he kisses your nail in obeyance. ‘But who’s going to be the teacher here,’ he murmurs. ‘I wonder, I wonder.’
‘Sssh,’ you whisper again, hurry in your fingers as you pull him outside, to the waiting dam, the allure of its silky softness and the shock of its coolness in the heat, the possibility within it. He has never walked into it, felt the ooze of the mud between his toes, you can tell.
‘The first classroom,’ you instruct, ‘come on.’ Dropping the notebook down into the dust and whipping off your top and kneeling and unbuckling his belt.
Holding, in laden water, feeling the drips of your sweat, feeling yourself turning to water beneath him as you wrap yourself around him, in tenderness, where it always must start—holding and holding in the stillness and feeling him firm; reaching down, guiding him in; need him, crave him; you are all fluid, all marine under the cavern of that sky, briny and tasty and trembling and rolling and now you are a skin-diver, drinking in his depths with your lips and your breath and the wetness of your cunt—letting his world, this world, wash over you, drown you.
Lesson 91
Total and sublime equality
That night, late, you open your notebook, the meticulous record from now on; your voice adding to the author’s over the coming days and weeks, the accumulation of your knowing in all its pages at the back. Your hands sweep across their waiting emptiness in exquisite anticipation. All the riches ahead that will fill it.
You flick back through her musings. A phrase leaps out.
Total and sublime equality.
Yes, of course.
It’s the only way it can work, can ever work. You dog-ear the bottom of its page, the paper so brittle with age it’s almost severed.
An invisible thumbnail beside her command—your first, secret indent in his book.
VI
‘You should flee Eros: empty effort! How shall I elude on foot one who chases me on wings?’
Archias
Lesson 92
You will recognise the presence of a happy woman the moment she crosses your path—by a sense of brightness and cheerfulness that enters with her
Love.
The sheer malevolent force of it.
Stealing your sleep, stripping the flesh from your bones, watering your bowels, scrambling your thoughts; maddened by it all, when you are away from him. Maddened by tremors deep in your belly and tiny jolts unfurling through your groin, those sweetest shudderings of all—for the promise that’s in them.
‘Wait, wait,’ he laughs. ‘We have to do this methodically.’
‘I can’t.’ You haul him down, hungry, always hungry.
He is careful, he is always thinking. You have a rash between your legs from his stubble but around your lips he never leaves a visible mark, so as not to draw attention to any of this. You are young, from the valley—this is a fierce mountain place—you are surrounded by mining men and he is everything this world is not. They will never know that you are snared in the heady days of this secret, illicit, cicada-shrill summer and you cannot escape, all these days when you both burn burn burn like a raging fire across a dry grass plain, consuming everything in its path.
‘I just want to drink you,’ he whispers, ‘to the limit.’ A finger to your lips. ‘But we must be patient, my love, we must take this slowly, only now and then, step by step.’
‘How do you mean? I don’t want to!’
‘Discipline, waiting, holding back—all of those things can be incredibly … potent. Be patient.’
But you, a wild thing in his midst. A force of nature, rampaging through his work, house, life; champing at the bit.
Lesson 93
You must put into her poor sore heart, if you can, a little more than peace—comfort
He has gone to Sydney. He needed the break for work, business in town.
Three days, three churning days. You, wild, with want. Pacing, daydreaming, clutching your stomach, laughing out loud and barely knowing you’re doing it. You cannot say why, to anyone. You hate it, the apart—but know instinctively you must respect his work, give him his time. He needs his space or you will lose him. You can’t bear it. You have to.
Now. Back. Finally. On the top step of his verandah is a flat black box tied with a wide satin ribbon of the deepest grey. Waiting.
You slip apart the bow.
Lift high in wonder a high-collared cheongsam. The freshest, palest spring print from Liberty of London. You’ve never seen anything like it. Can’t imagine wearing it. It’s for another world, another life.
‘Specially made. Just for you.’ He leans against the door, watching. ‘I know your size.’ He comes forward. ‘I know your waist span’—he brushes your belly with a kiss—‘and your neck.’ His hands slip around it and his lips whisper a kiss against the dip of your throat. ‘I know everything.’ He asks you soft to wear the dress for him one day—not now—when you’re ready.
‘And one day you will be. We’re only just beginning with this … ’
Wet, at the thought. At what on earth is ahead, and you cannot imagine.
‘One day I will button those tiny little silken buds in a firm, taut line.’ A thrill of a stroke across your breast. ‘A uniform of constraint … and release.’
You blush, don’t know why. He picks up your little book. Turns to the back, to the fly-spotted card behind the cover, and writes.
RESTRAINT
‘Elegance is refusal, and refusal is seductive.’
Diana Vreeland
He snaps the volume shut. Lifts up your flannelette shirt. Kisses you, once, on your nakedness, kisses your rolling belly, and tells you that this is all for today, enough—you must remember this feeling, this desire for release, this sense of explosion on its cusp.
‘It’s not a punishment, this waiting; it’s a pleasure. The sweetness of anticipation … and the aching pain of it.’
You go to say something, he shushes you. ‘I have work to do, I need to crack on. This drives me as crazy as you. There’s a lesson in that.’
Your crestfallen face.
‘Tomorrow. All afternoon. I promise.’
Leaving you craving. Of course.
Craving as you wheel your bike along the Woondala road, squinting high into the ringing light, feeling like you’re gazing up, up, up into a dazzling universe of borealis like sheets flapping on an enormous clothesline, and paper lanterns sailing to the heavens and gold leaf and gargoyles and shooting stars and snow petrels and supersonic jets, a brave new world, crammed with all manner of loveliness—a world you can’t quite reach, that you don’t completely know about.
Yet.
Lesson
94
What women need to learn in their friendships is the sanctity of silence
Rain thrums on the roof in mid afternoon and he is in you, in silence, unbearably close. He treats lovemaking with such a reverence, you think; as he moves in you, there is something close to a holiness in it. You must remember this, jot it in your book. Reverence. So different to Mr Cooper. The gift of it.
The shuddering, up to your chest; the fluttering, deep in your thighs. And then you fall asleep, back to back, as the rain drums on the tin and lessens and stops and you press close, sleeping like Siamese twins feeding off each other. Keeping each other warm, alive, repaired, whole; being here together, in perfect peace. You have become mixed with him, someone else. There are no edges in your love, his flesh is yours and yours his.
Shaken gently awake. To a new entry in your book, open on his pillow, a rusty horseshoe splaying the pages.
SLEEP
‘Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).’
Milan Kundera
He only writes inside the back cover; scrupulously never ventures to any page before it. The trust unspoken between you—that he will not hurt you or exploit you, will not chip away or reduce you. The understanding is explicit: you can never take this to its natural fulfilment without it.
‘I have a big responsibility here,’ he has said, ‘you so young, eager, fresh. I never want to plunder that. Never want to make you cynical or bitter. I don’t get why sex always seems to … taint. It shouldn’t be like that.’
You smile as you turn from him, the rain patting softer now on the tin roof. Plumed by love; it is stealing your body, stealing your life—your future, your plans, your resolve—growing you tall, smiling you up, singing you into wakefulness. Stealing up through your limbs, stealing every part of you until finally it has snared the last resistor, your head that says no, this can never work, your father would never walk you down an aisle to this man, it cannot be, stop.
Too late.
Lesson 95
Begin again
‘Tell me about your mother.’
‘Why?’ Defensive. It’s never discussed. Any questions over the years about her, from anyone, have been bluntly headed off. Only with your father have you ever wanted to talk. And he won’t.
‘I just want to know about her. Understand. You. What’s really in here.’ He taps your skull. ‘Why did you say to Julian way back at the start that you came from “nobody”?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Hey. I’m interested. In you. A good relationship is all about listening. Understanding. No one ever listens enough. Especially me. I’ve been told I need to get better at it.’
‘But where does love fit into all of this?’
‘Ah. That’s about trusting someone enough to show them your true self. Being so comfortable with them that you can relax, completely. Be unlocked.’
You look at him. Take a deep, wavering breath.
‘I never knew her … really.’
Slowly, you begin; slowly, it all comes out. A whole afternoon of talk, the pain like a balloon of sadness within you, pressing against your insides, until at one stage the hot tears sneak through and he enfolds you silently in his arms and just holds you and holds you as the tears come and come, until you are quiet.
A wind-tossed boat, come to rest in a harbour, at last.
Thank you, you croak your gratitude at the end of it; for it feels like the first time you have ever properly talked about your past.
Lesson 96
Make your daily round of life as harmoniously methodical as possible
The two of you are lying side by side on a flat slab of rock, reading, the heat trapped in the stone that’s pressing into your stomachs.
‘Tell me what didn’t work before.’
‘Why?’
‘We have to wipe the memory of it.’
‘That could be difficult,’ you grimace.
‘No harm in trying,’ he grins.
You place your little Victorian volume face down on the stone and rest your head on folded arms, thinking of the bleakest, loneliest hour you’ve ever had in your life.
‘There wasn’t any tenderness. Even his kiss. His lips were like these blocks of wood. They didn’t know how to do it, I could just tell.’
‘Ah ha!’ He snatches up your book, scrabbling in his pocket for a pen. ‘I have just the remedy.’
THE KISS
‘The moth’s kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve’
Robert Browning
He hands the book back to you with the solemnity of ceremony. Instructs you to turn over, to close your eyes. Leans over you, arms propped, blocking out the glare of the sun, and kisses you.
The softest tiptoe of a kiss.
Later, inside you, he murmurs, ‘Close your eyes.’ And he kisses your eyelids and whispers, close, ‘Wearing away our lips, from kissing each other’s souls.’
‘Excuse me, I should write that down.’
‘Mr Pablo Neruda, if you must.’
You pick up the notebook that’s increasingly shop-worn and try scribbling but abandon it as he kisses you, kisses you, kisses you and you, devouring, surrender and kiss back.
In the shining malaise of afterwards you tell Tol that you don’t get it, how a kiss can feel so much more intimate than actual sex, is that right, are you mad?
‘Oh no. You can’t fake it. Whereas you can with intercourse.’
‘Have you ever felt really, really lonely when you make love?’
‘Explain.’
‘Sort of like, the loneliest you’ve ever felt in your life. That there’s an absolute—shocking—lack of connection.’
‘Ooooh yes.’
‘Who with?’
‘Imagine feeling that through a long-term relationship. A marriage. And people do. A loneliness slicing through you. The kiss can signal a level of commitment that intercourse never can. There’s something about the most connected of them that points to the deepest, profoundest intimacy.’
‘Who with?’ you press.
He doesn’t say. ‘We have to wipe away all our memories of the past … ’
‘Show me again.’
He smiles. He complies. ‘It’s like a communication between equals, isn’t it?’
‘Equals,’ you savour, drawing him to you again.
As you both grow more passionate he suddenly pulls back.
‘I have to be careful not to leave a single trace on your face.’ A finger travels down your cheek. ‘But the moth’s first kiss, again. Always. That’s our kiss, yes. Forever.’
‘Yes. Come on. I need to get this right,’ you giggle.
Racing home in a high wind through the rearing, leaning, talking trees it’s as if the very bush has watching eyes and applauding hearts; that the whole world about you knows your rapturous secret but you don’t care, this cannot be stopped, it will journey on and on, further, deeper. To God knows what. Forever, he said. Forever.
You suddenly realise that you’ve left your notebook behind. All your deepest vulnerabilities, the raw underbelly of your life, the truth; you couldn’t bear for anyone to read it. You hesitate, should go back, no.
You trust him, you trust.
Lesson 97
Look as you will, you cannot see your girlhood face anymore
‘Where were we again?’ he teases next time, first thing. ‘I need reminding.’
Without a word you hook your hand around his neck and draw him in strong, a shepherd with their steady crook.
The moth’s first kiss.
You have mastered it.
Wiping away anyone else.
‘A fabulous kiss can be as evocative as smell, I think,’ he smiles afterwards, in appreciation. ‘One whiff—or one kiss like it again—and whoosh, it
can plunge you back to another time, another place. A brighter phase of love. There can be something so … restoring … about it.’
You wipe your lip and stop. He suddenly feels past tense whereas you—achingly, enormously—are present.
‘A passionate kiss can arrest a relationship’s slow, glacial slide towards indifference,’ he’s murmuring on, pottering about, forever thinking, teaching, musing. ‘Can wake a couple up—remind them of what they were.’ He turns back to you. ‘Thank you for that.’ Gravely, as if he’s tucking it into his heart.
You frown, wonder what he’s referring to. He has a whole other life in Sydney, you must never forget that, you barely know who he is. His former life, his current life. Beyond this hidden place, this secret summer. And he never tells you too much—he has a flat in Rushcutters Bay and a mother he never sees enough and a girlfriend who’s ex. You think.
Your hand is arrested at your mouth. He reads the confusion, the dawning. Retrieves your book and hands it across, instructing you to look at his page at the back—not now, but tonight.
Later, you read:
‘Wearing away our lips/from kissing each other’s souls.’
Pablo Neruda
In an instant, you are veered back. All complication wiped.
Lesson 98
Our value is—exactly what we choose to make it
Your gratitude, your guilt. That it’s starting to feel selfish. From your side, too much. That he’s giving giving giving and you’re taking and now you need to give something back. Isn’t that how the world works?
With My Body Page 13
