The Affair

by Bunty Avieson

  Let’s get this over with, she thought, gritting her teeth.

  Leo was standing on a boat about twenty metres away when she saw him. He was leaning against some vertical ropes just watching her, his head cocked to one side and beaming with that lopsided grin. He waved a pair of binoculars above his head in greeting. Nina had the impression he had been standing there, watching her for some time. She forced a smile and returned his wave.

  Every step towards him was agony. Every instinct screamed flee, run. But she continued down the pontoon, placing one foot in front of the other. As she reached the boat she set Tiger down to give herself a chance to compose herself.

  When she looked up there he was, just a few feet away from her. Baggy white shorts. Baseball cap. Open, friendly smile that encompassed everything in its path. Nina remembered him. Oh, how she remembered him. He radiated mischief and good humour. She felt herself falter.

  He held out his hand for her to board. Nina hesitated. She had not intended to get on his boat. How unrealistic she had been. She could hardly say what she had to say from here, calling out to him on board. Just a few metres away a man sprayed a hose across the side of a neighbouring boat. He was looking at Nina with interest.

  She took Leo’s hand and stepped onto the wooden deck, looking down into the small gap of water. Tiger had never been on a boat – his tail wagged and he panted with excitement as Nina released him from her bag. But when the floor started to sway he barked at it, backing away in confusion till he reached the edge of the boat.

  He looked so comical Nina had to laugh.

  ‘Oh, how I’ve missed that sound,’ said Leo.

  He was still holding her hand. Nina pulled it gently away. He was smiling at her, his eyes expressing his joy. Nina couldn’t bring herself to return his gaze. She dropped her bag onto the deck and looked around the boat, following the movements of Tiger who was poking his nose into bundles of coiled ropes. The boat was all polished wood and gleaming brass with one tall mast and a huge mainsail rolled up against it. Even knowing nothing about boats, Nina couldn’t help but be impressed.

  ‘Welcome aboard Bessie,’ said Leo. ‘An Admiral’s Cup contender from 1976, lovingly restored by me, and now the terror of the CYC and all of Sydney Harbour. She may not be modern but she’s fast.’ He was clearly in his element.

  Nina was concentrating on the shifting balance of her body weight as the boat swayed. It wasn’t unpleasant, just disconcerting. She kept her feet apart, standing as firmly as she could, feeling her weight pass from one foot to the other, then back again. Leo, by contrast, was darting about, light on his feet, gesturing and talking very fast, never taking his eyes off Nina.

  ‘She has one mast, one mainsail, one gib and, over there but not visible, a spinnaker. Down there is the cabin, sometimes called a saloon, where our champagne is chilling. It also has any amenities you might need while on board.’

  Then before Nina realised what he was doing, he had picked up her shoulder bag from by her feet and tossed it down into the cabin.

  ‘Rule one in sailing – no mess on top. Actually you shouldn’t have any mess down below either, but I’m not such a stickler for that.’

  Tiger watched the shoulder bag fly over his head and barked as it landed on a leather bench down below. He stood at the top of the wooden stairs, staring after it, looking at Nina, then staring back down into the cabin.

  ‘You can go down. It’s okay,’ said Leo.

  He dropped himself onto the stairs in one easy, graceful motion, scooping up Tiger on the way.

  Nina moved carefully to the top of the steps and looked down. It was beautiful inside the cabin. The walls were covered in wooden panels with gleaming brass fittings. Small round portholes let in a little light and the oil lamps cast a soft warm glow across all the polished wood. Two long seats faced a small table.

  ‘Come on down,’ said Leo.

  Nina put one foot gingerly on the top step. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to take the weight off it to step down. She felt incredibly clumsy and heavy. Leo, seeing her hesitancy, put his hand out and Nina took it. She clutched it and with her other hand clung to the doorway as she eased herself down the stairs. She felt better, more secure, when she reached the bottom. She sank onto the seat.

  The kitchen reminded Nina of a dolls’ house, everything smaller than normal and neatly compacted. Next to the small stove stood an ice-filled silver bucket with the unmistakable gold tops of champagne and wine.

  Next to that was an espresso maker and an unopened packet of Lavazza coffee, placed so she would be sure to see it.

  Nina winced.

  The cabin ended with what looked to Nina like a double bed piled high with huge sumptuous cushions. The whole scene looked sinfully opulent and romantic.

  No, Nina screamed inside.

  She turned to Leo. He was looking at her with unabashed delight. He was so pleased to see her.

  ‘I can’t stay … I’m sorry …’ she stammered.

  Nina felt another wave of guilt. This hurt. It was so hard. How could she not have realised it would be like this. No matter what she did or how she did it, she was going to hurt someone. To say she was hurting as well was too glib.

  She reverted to her planned speech. ‘I came here today to tell you I can’t see you any more. Leo, I’m sorry. I believe I have shared the most extraordinary time with you, but I was wrong to have started it in the first place.’

  Her words sounded stiff and formal to her own ears. They had struck just the right note when she tried them out in the shower that morning, whispering them into the tiled corner while warm water cascaded down her back. Now they sounded all wrong. But she had nothing else in her repertoire, nothing to fall back on, so she kept going, her voice flat and toneless.

  ‘I am married, which I guess you probably realised. And I have behaved very badly to my husband, who is a good and decent man and who I love very much. I cannot allow what was happening between us to develop any further. I must stop it. I’m sorry. Please forgive me for any hurt I may have caused you. I have been unbelievably selfish and I know now it is time for me to set things right.’

  All the while she spoke he watched her. He looked at her eyes, which seemed so heavy and sad. Her slim shoulders were tense, the bones forming sharp peaks. Her hands were not the fluttering birds he so loved to watch as she waved them about to make a point. They stayed firmly by her side. She seemed flattened somehow in the way she was relating to him. It was like a screen had gone up. He heard her words but only dimly, perceiving them vaguely at some level in the back of his brain but not really digesting their meaning. He was reading the anguish in her body.

  Something had happened to her to bring about such a dramatic change. Who was this bastard husband? Had he found out about them and threatened her? Had he hurt her? It seemed to Leo that she was holding herself very tightly in check. She was nervous, hovering on the edge of hysteria. He meant her no harm so it didn’t occur to him that the perceived threat may be coming from him.

  ‘My darling girl. How can I help you? What can I do?’ He put his arms out to embrace her, to pull her to him. It was instinctive but not what Nina was expecting. He wasn’t listening to her. She recoiled, leaping up off the seat.

  ‘No,’ she said sharply, stumbling away from him. The cabin was small and there was nowhere for her to go. She bounced off the wall and back into Leo’s arms. At his touch she flung herself away from him again, smashing her shoulder against the large oil lamp by the entrance and sending glass shards flying onto the cabin floor. The lamp tipped sideways, straining against its wall screws and spilling some of its fuel, then it swung upright again, somehow staying alight. Tiger, unnerved by the breaking glass and change in mood, started to bark and race around between their legs.

  The sudden loud commotion on top of her already taut nerves panicked Nina and the cabin felt suddenly unbearably claustrophobic. The smell of kerosene from the spilled lamp filled the air. Leo was too close. She could
smell his sweat and feel his physicality. He seemed to be everywhere, coming towards her, threatening to engulf her. She wanted to be away from him. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to be in fresh air. It was an urgent need that overrode everything else.

  ‘No, no, no,’ she cried out, grabbing her shoulder bag and starting up the stairs.

  ‘I have to go,’ she screamed.

  She swayed and banged against the doorway. Tiger followed, shooting past her legs up to daylight.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion for Leo. As Tiger bolted past Nina he saw her start to stumble. He put his hands around Nina’s waist to help her. She thought he was trying to hold her back and thrashed out wildly, flinging her shoulder bag out as much to ward him off as to steady herself. She connected again with the brass lamp. The screws, already loosened, were no match for the heavy contents of her bag and the burning lamp started to come away from the wall. Leo let go of Nina to catch it, bouncing the brass fuel pot in the air. It was hot and wet with kerosene and slipped out of his grasp, flying upwards and spilling fuel all over him. Leo watched in horror as the bright orange-and-blue flame from the lit wick followed the kerosene’s course along his bare skin.

  He called out to Nina to stop but she was on the top step. She heard him call out her name. The anguish and pain in his voice tore at her heart, but she didn’t look back. She had to get out of there, off this boat. She shouldn’t have come. She had made it worse. This was such a mess. It took every ounce of willpower and concentration to make her legs propel her steadily forward. Once she had both feet on the deck it was just a few steps, then a small leap across to the pontoon.

  Tiger stood on the edge of the boat barking at the flames. Oblivious to what was unfolding below, Nina scooped him up and moved purposefully ahead. She heard her name again.

  ‘Neeennnnaaaa!’

  It was a long strangled cry of despair that would haunt Nina for years to come. She blocked her ears, kept her gaze averted and ran as fast as she could, wanting to put as much distance between herself and Leo as possible.

  As the flames licked up his legs and across his trousers, igniting more of the spilt fluid and spreading to his hair, Leo’s last sight of Nina was her retreating back, then he turned and threw himself onto the bed, rolling over and over to douse the flames.

  CHAPTER 17

  Saturday, 18 May 1991

  James had been distracted and fidgety all afternoon. Nina wondered what was up. When she asked, James stared back at her blankly, denying anything was afoot. Nina shrugged and gave up. She didn’t feel particularly playful. She felt sad. It was her birthday in a couple of days and she keenly felt the distance from her family. This would be the first year she hadn’t spent it with them. Her mother had been disappointed when she telephoned to say she wouldn’t be coming home as planned and had asked if everything was okay. Her tone had been concerned, which Nina appreciated, but still she felt defensive. Nina had said they were just having a few temporary financial difficulties. They hoped they would be able to come at Christmas. Then she had hung up the phone and her heart had been heavy ever since.

  Nina had thought briefly of the money in her sock drawer but there wasn’t enough for two air tickets and she wasn’t about to go home without James.

  ‘Why don’t we pop up the street for dinner?’ suggested James.

  Nina was surprised. He liked to eat at home, particularly on their new tight budget.

  ‘What about the Thai café? We could take Tiger.’

  Nina found this even more surprising. ‘You want to take Tiger?’

  ‘Yes. Why not? We can eat outside and tie him up at the table. It’s a warm night.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Tiger led them around the cul-de-sac, overexcited by the break in routine. He strained at his leash, sniffing out all the other dog smells. James picked a flower from the gardens of a neighbouring apartment block and handed it gallantly to Nina. It smelled beautiful and James looked so pleased with himself she felt her mood begin to lift.

  They chatted as they walked, peeking into windows of ground-floor apartments, then looking quickly away if the occupants happened to be there. They admired some of the different architecture and derided others. Like most of inner Sydney, Elizabeth Bay featured apartment blocks from many different periods and styles. Some were beautiful and ornate, a legacy from the elegant thirties. Others looked like they had been modelled on eastern bloc ghettos, thrown together in the seventies. Many had been updated, creating hybrid styles. They all jostled for space.

  James held Nina’s hand as they ambled along the footpath. At the top of the hill James wanted to cross the road, which made no sense to Nina because the restaurant they were heading to wasn’t on that side. Nina started to object but James was pulling Tiger’s leash out of her hand and she was forced to follow. James picked up his pace. Having wandered along as if they had all the time in the world, he suddenly seemed in a hurry to get there.

  ‘James, slow down,’ said Nina. ‘What’s got into you?’

  At first James didn’t appear to hear her, continuing up the street, then he abruptly stopped.

  ‘You’re right. Let’s wait here for a minute and catch our breath.’

  Nina stared at her husband. ‘What is going on with you? You’re all over the place,’ she said.

  James gave her his bewildered look again and she laughed. It was so unconvincing. He was up to something and she knew it.

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he said, turning to look in the window.

  They were standing in the doorway of an art supply shop. A ‘closed’ sign hung in the glass pane facing them. The window had been arranged with various-sized brushes and half-squeezed tubes of paints lying scattered on the ground around an easel. On the easel was a large canvas. Something about it was vaguely recognisable to Nina. She moved to the front of the shop, to see the canvas in full view.

  The sight rendered her speechless. Her mouth fell open as she stared at the painted canvas. It was a scene so achingly familiar, and yet out of context in this shop window in Sydney. Nina felt as if in an instant the world had shifted on its axis and she was seeing everything askance.

  The painting in front of her showed a couple standing in front of a two-storey weatherboard house, while behind them, stretching as far as the eye could see, were the harsh arid prairies of what was unmistakably Saskatchewan country.

  Her voice, when finally she found it, was a squeak. ‘That’s … my … parents.’

  James held himself in check. He was tempted to rush in and explain but he was enjoying her surprise too much. ‘Why, so it is. It’s Ma and Pa Lambert!’

  Nina shook her head, incredulous.

  The figures in the foreground were small but easily distinguishable as Dorothea and Jake Lambert. A gust of wind was blowing her mother’s floral frock so that it billowed out beside her like a bell in mid-ring. Her father was wearing his fur-trimmed hat and overalls. The sense of space and desolation was breathtaking.

  She noticed on the front of the easel, resting against the painting, a small white card. She read it and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘To my darling Nina, happy birthday. Your loving husband, James. XXX’

  Nina looked at James, only half-understanding. ‘It’s for me?’

  James nodded.

  Nina was overcome with nostalgia, wonderment and gratitude. She could smell the dry earth, feel the chill of that late spring wind, almost see her mother smoothing the folds of her dress.

  She flung her arms around James’s neck, sobbing into his hair. ‘How?’

  James explained about the talented Canadian artist who owned the art supplies shop and had featured in the local newspaper. James had visited him, taking with him some of Nina’s family photos and from those he had created this painting. It was not a copy of Nina’s photos but his representation of life in that part of Canada, with the prairies, a couple of distant wheat silos, the expanse of sky and Nina’s parents
as the focal point.

  Nina’s face showed her complete astonishment. ‘Can I take it home?’

  ‘Well, yes, but there’s a slight hitch,’ said James.

  His bravado was gone and he looked embarrassed and shy.

  ‘Not yet. I told him it was your birthday but I wouldn’t have the money to pay him till next month, so we agreed he would finish it in time for your birthday but it would sit here in the window for a month. It’s been in the window all day. I was terrified you might see it before I had a chance to get the card to him.’

  ‘Oh, darling. How are you going to pay for it?’

  ‘Now don’t be so rude. That’s none of your business.’

  Nina looked at her husband with new appreciation. ‘You are the most amazing man,’ she said softly.

  *

  From the verandah Leo watched a woman walk slowly across the lawn behind a toddler. She was patient, taking large occasional steps, keeping pace with the child who took dozens of little ones. The little girl was unsteady on her feet and every few steps she careered off in another direction, stumbling then righting herself. An elderly man smiled at the scene. He was sitting on a bench by a meticulously tended garden bed, roses swaying gently in the breeze. He was clearly enjoying the beautiful sunny winter’s day and the sight of the happy child and its mother.

  Leo hated it. Everything about it irritated him. He tried to manoeuvre his wheelchair so he didn’t have to see the woman, her pretty curly-haired child or the contented old man. He rolled the chair back then forward, back then forward, till he was angled toward another corner of the garden. It was deserted and showed a bed of newly pruned rose bushes, scrawny and colourless. That suited his mood much better.