He seemed to focus on her face with his head tilted, considering her question. “Behind you, in the bedside drawer.”
She found it and brought out the contents needed for the task. “Please, sit down. You might need tetanus shots, but that would have to wait until tomorrow.”
For long moments she thought Max was going to stubbornly refuse. Then he sat down wordlessly as she moved closer, her body tensing. Entering his personal space while he was conscious made her jittery. He was massive and strong, even though his face was haggard.
Max didn’t move. He was afraid that he would rant and rave like a lunatic if he opened his mouth. So he sat motionless, his eyes were locked on her, noting her tent-like, white, cotton nightgown that covered her from neck down. Giana became conscious of her appearance, her hair a riot of curls and her feet in rubber slippers. Max continued his assessment of her.
Focussing on the task at hand, she cleaned his cut gingerly and bandaged it. He was still staring at her, his face anguished.
“Max?” She put his hand on his shoulder gently. “Why do you drink so much? It is obvious that you are not used to it and your body is beginning to protest.”
Max looked into those champagne eyes of hers that were filled with compassion for him. His heart lurched in his chest as a sticky lump began to constrict his throat. He was going to cry out he thought, ashamed of the way he had fallen so deep in the rut!
She saw the fierce blaze of pain and instinctively touched his bristly cheek to console him. Max, let out an agonized groan and clutched her close in a grip that astonished her. His arms went around her to pull her into a tight embrace that knocked the breath out of both of them.
Giana was terrified. She wanted to run! This was absurd...and dangerous! But Max held her so tight that she could hardly breathe. His face buried in her breast, he gasped in a raw cry. His body began to rock soundlessly, shaking in silent tremors that shocked her.
She recognised pure savage grief when she saw it. She did what she would have done for any human being in pain. She wrapped her arms around him, unable to abandon him in the state he was in, cradling his head and giving him time to come to terms with it.
They held each other for timeless moments, with Giana standing between his legs cradling his head pressed against her, and his arms so tight around her that her ribs ached. He seemed to be in the grip of something she couldn’t comprehend. Something was torturing him. She ran her hands through his damp hair, down his tight nape and bunched up shoulders to soothe him, until his breath warmed the sensitive skin on her throat and the shape of his head was imprinted on her hands...until the silent, wordless storm had passed. Max raised his head to look at her. The faint sheen of moisture in them touched Giana so deep that stepped away hastily.
“No!” he whispered, his voice raspy. His hand caught her wrist and gently pulled her back towards him. “Please...Giana...stay...”
“No, Max! I...”
“I just...want to sleep! I haven’t slept in ages. Will you stay?”
She knew she would pay dearly if Carol came to know about it. She sat down at the edge of the bed, confused now, worried that Toby would wake up, and Annabel would get alarmed to find her missing. But she couldn’t refuse this man. Max had trusted her enough to allow her to see him this way. And he was in no condition to be left alone.
“Lie down, Max,” she instructed softly.
He lay down wordlessly and stared at the ceiling. She sat beside him next to the pillows arranging the covers. He turned then, and wrapped his arms around her hips and laid his head on her lap wearily. As though he was laying aside his burdens for the time being. Giana was speechless. The intimacy of the moment was too poignant for her to say anything. Without intending to do so, her fingers sank into the thick, damp locks and smoothed them away from his injury. The warm weight of his head on her lap did not feel like a burden. Her fingers brushed the wet eyelids that were closed in deep sleep; the big masculine body relaxed, assured of her presence. There she sat, in that dark, empty house with a stranger she had met only thrice.
Yet, she felt an affinity with this man that she had never felt with any other human being. Definitely not her ex-husband Ricky.
Within minutes his hold loosened. He slept, deep and easy. She waited for a few more minutes and raised his head off her lap to prop a pillow beneath. Then she picked up her torch, switched off the lights and left the bedroom.
*
Max stretched his stiff body, grimacing at the bright sunlight pouring through the window. The pounding headache that flashed behind his eyelids and gripped his skull in a tight band was a brutal reminder of his bout with stupidity. Last night he had gone overboard. A call from his father-in-law had triggered everything that he had wanted to forget. They were asking him to return home to Bangalore. He had resisted every attempt on their part to communicate with them. He had chosen this lonely hell to live or die in peace, away from home. Away from the memories.
He touched his head where the pain was most acute. His hands felt the bandage. He leapt off the bed in a flash. The movement caused his head to nearly split open. He stumbled to the huge mirror on the dressing table.
Giana had come in the middle of the night? He had to stop drinking! He distinctly remembered her saying the same line.
Or had it been a dream? He touched the bandage and saw the shards of the broken bottle on the bathroom floor.
Giana had come!
Now he was sure that he had lost his mind. Why would a decent woman come into a drunken man’s home and help him get off his bathroom floor while he threw up copiously and wept on her shoulder like a weakling. He turned away from his unshaven, caveman appearance in the mirror in self-loathing.
The memory of the events that had happened last night was mortifying. Served him right! To look like a foolish drunken slob in front of her and then wallow in self-pity, clutching her close like a drowning man. And begging her to stay because he had been afraid to be alone. He cursed his idiocy and his lack of discipline...something that he had been well-known for once! What had possessed him to do that? He remembered almost falling apart in grief and then holding Giana close. She had been so kind...and soft...softer than compassion. And so...He couldn’t find the word. The bond between them went beyond words.
He sat on the bed with his head in his hands. He needed to apologise.
Then the most vital question hit him. How had she reached his house in the middle of the night? Did she have magical powers to appear wherever she wished to be? As if she wanted to save him? He let out a cynical laugh that pounded painfully at his temples. He was sure, now, that he was inching towards complete insanity.
Questions poured as he cleaned the mess in the bathroom. Suddenly, he was infused with a purpose. To meet Giana and find out about her nightly visit and more importantly to apologise. He would drop in at the cafe on his way to work.
He shaved and showered, dressed for work and went down into the kitchen to make breakfast. Surprisingly, he was hungry and ate heartily. As the freshly ground coffee brewed in the kettle, he turned the handle of the backdoor to find that it was unlocked. He had to stop drinking! He had forgotten to lock the door after taking the trash out the previous night. He poured coffee for himself and went out to sit, facing the thatch of dusty weeds in his backyard. He needed to clear the rubbish and hire someone to plant something worthwhile.
His vision was drawn to the boundary wall of the house next door, which was covered in bougainvillaea, in a riot of vivid scarlet, orange and pink. Someone was moving through the flowers in the garden and he caught a glimpse of a woman in white. Mesmerized, he crossed the little patch of grass that separated the two houses and stood in front of the locked gates of the neighbour’s garden.
It was a paradise. It was not the kind of landscaping that he was used to in his architectural ventures but a garden wild with primroses and gladioli and swathes of green, velvet grass, on which Toby was having a merry roll...
Huh?
Toby?
Max’s eyes widened as the child scrambled about with tufts of sun-warmed grass in his hair, a plastic bucket and a toy spade clutched in his hands. Laughing at his antics was Giana who stood in a lacy white top and a long white skirt hitched up into her waistband. She was spraying water over a patch of viridian vegetables, and admonishing Toby for plucking the baby tomatoes. As she turned around, she saw Max and dropped the pipe, her pink mouth rounded into an O.
Max could not explain the zing that shot through him at the sight of her. She looked scared and astonished at the same time. Her curly brown hair was let loose around her shoulders. He couldn’t help the insistent urge to brush his fingers through them.
“So, we are neighbours,” said Max softly, noting the hectic colour on her honey-toned skin. “And this is the paradise from where they outsource angels to drive some sense into foolish, drunken men.” Max waved an expansive hand over the general direction of the profusion of flowers.
Giana shot back a look at the house nervously, a reflex action. She remembered in relief that her mother had already left for the cafe in the morning.
Max remembered her trepidation that first day at the cafe. He frowned, amazed by the blush that crept up her throat and face. She was really afraid of her mother.
“You shouldn’t leave your doors unlocked in the night Mr. Martineau.” Giana put her hair up in a quick scrunched-up bun.
Max regretted that. Such beautiful hair should be left open to play in the wind, he thought distractedly. “You wouldn’t have saved me if I had. So it was a lucky mistake. And I distinctly remember being on first name basis last night.”
Giana squirmed, embarrassed. “You did not need saving, though, yes...you should be more careful, if you don’t mind me saying that.”
She had not wanted him to know that they were neighbours. This was getting out of hand. It was easier when he was not conscious of his actions. But this morning, he seemed completely in control and breathtakingly gorgeous in his grey suit and charcoal silk tie. It made her touch the flyaway tendrils at her temple self-consciously.
“Thank you for coming in time. I am more than embarrassed to admit that I made a complete fool of myself. I am sorry that you had to rush to my aid,” Max rendered the apology with utmost sincerity. “And also, thank you for the best sleep I have had in a long time.” His voice dropped to a gravelly undertone.
If any more colour could be infused into her cheeks, she would soon look like a pomegranate, thought Giana, remembering the most intimate moment when he had clutched her close and later slept on her lap. She fidgeted with her skirt cloth, twisting it between her fingers. “It is really not necessary to thank me for such a trivial thing! How’s the cut?” she asked noting the fresh band-aid on his forehead.
“Nothing serious! Will you allow me to show my gratitude by taking you out to dinner? Bring Toby along and we can...”
“No!” The vehement response shocked her as much as it unnerved Max.
Wrong move, he thought, annoyed with himself. “Relax, Giana! I am not the ogre you think I am, even though I have given you two occasions to believe so. The other night when you delivered the food, I was in an awful state of mind. I know that I crossed the line...”
“Max...It is not that! I can’t...I don’t have the time to go out like that. It is the busiest time of the year with weddings lined-up and Christmas round the corner...and Toby keeps me on my toes... and...” her voice petered away, running out of useless excuses.
“And you are worried about your mother’s disapproval, right?”
“No!” she exclaimed, alarmed, spontaneously refuting the appalling but truthful suggestion.
“Okay!” he conceded, raising his palms, dropping the topic for the time being. “But you can come home for some time. We can have a quick meal. After all we are neighbours.”
Giana fidgeted with her skirt again, almost tearing it asunder. How could she tell him that she had hardly visited any neighbours since her elopement with Ricky? “I will come, sometime...” she began evasively.
“When?” Max pressed, seeing an opening.
“Sunday. I usually take half a day off to be with Toby. But the fete is scheduled the coming Sunday,” was her lame reply to the all-knowing look in his eyes.
“So, the Sunday after that?”
What was she to do! She should refuse...but the sudden craving to know this man without anyone prying into her actions overwhelmed her. Just this once, she told herself. After all she had never gone out, except for work, in the past three years since she had come back home from Goa in disgrace.
“Let me check my schedule,” she conceded, sweat breaking out on her forehead. Max’s blazing, charismatic smile in response to her words thrilled her.
“Done!” Max promised.
“But I have a request.”
“Anything!”
“I will come if you don’t drink. I will be bringing Toby along and I don’t want him to see...”
“I understand. You have my word that I won’t be drinking like that ever again.” He looked solemnly at her, knowing that he would never break that promise. “We have to get through the fete preparation this week, right? You are supposed to accompany me according to Fr Da’Cunha’s instructions,” said Max with a rueful smile.
Giana was hoping that he had forgotten. But he hadn’t.
“Max, you don’t have to. I can go alone!”
“Is your van back from the garage?”
She shook her head, knowing where the conversation would lead.
“I will pick you in the evening at six from the cafe,” said Max, firmly.
He wanted to make sure that she didn’t have any awkward feelings about coming out to help him the previous night. He wanted her to be comfortable with him. That was what decent men did. The feral attraction he felt for her was irrelevant. But his gaze slid helplessly over her curves swathed in white, her face, a glorious honey and rose in the morning sun, those limpid eyes that could speak volumes about her feelings without uttering a word...
All that restrained, unsurpassed beauty that was turning his brain into a useless blob...
He would get over it! He swore under his breath as she bent to pick up the water pipe. It would subside if he ignored it sensibly. By this time next week he would have overcome the impediments and be comfortable in her company. They were neighbours after all.
Toby’s squeal of delight brought him out of his momentary rumination. Max saw the little one crawling into the vegetable patch under the shuddering brinjals and tomatoes.
“Oh Toby! No digging in the dirt!” exclaimed Giana, racing towards the fast disappearing little bum under the patch of green.
Max’s heart jammed in his throat, as another image clouded his thoughts. Joey! It was another reason he needed to keep away from Giana. She had Toby. And he...had nothing.
The mad scrimmage among the leaves erupted in giggles and shrieks and Giana emerged with her white dress smudged and a wailing Toby who had been denied his adventurous mission of worm catching. Giana caught him upside down and laughed helplessly, trying to extricate something from his chubby fist. She tickled Toby to release the squashed clump of earth from his clenched fist. Toby squirmed to be let off when his mother kissed him soundly.
The pain that Max felt in his chest was like a cleaver slicing through. Just when he had accomplished a sense of order in his thoughts, the bitter truth punched him in the guts.
He wanted Giana.
He stared at her in utter bewilderment as though she had the answers to all his burning questions. He wanted Giana with a ferocity that was incomprehensible. No! It was just attraction! A reaction to his loss. Get a grip, you oaf, he mentally yelled at himself, heaving a huge breath into his lungs. His shaky hands gripped the wrought iron gate.
The gales of laughter from the mother and child rang like pealing bells of pure joy. The sounds of their laughter mingled with the chirp of birds and the scent of flowers and sun-warmed grass in tha
t little patch of paradise. He craved to be a part of it. But it was not his to have. He loosened his death grip from the locked gates and stepped outside the periphery, the iron bars imprinted on his fingers.
“See you in the evening,” he called out grimly, all warmth chased away from his tone.
Giana looked across the garden at the man who had suddenly gone cold. She nodded at him and saw him stride back to the house as though a hot poker had been stuck through his spine.
*
Giana was besieged by doubts after Max had walked away that morning. He had extracted a difficult promise from her that she was not sure of keeping. Her doubts grew into a crescendo when Fr Da’Cunha called to ensure that she would reach the church on time with Max. Carol’s suspicious eyes were gouging into her as she finished her work at the bakery. Even more so when she heard that Max was their new neighbour, as though it was Giana’s fault. To add to Giana’s woes, the maid did not turn up just when she needed her to babysit Toby.
“I will take him with me,” offered Annabel who was going home early.
“And who will prepare for your exams while you do that?” sniped Carol. “You are going home to study.”
“But Mamma, how is she supposed to take care of him in a meeting? He would...”
“Well, that is her responsibility, isn’t it? It will keep her mind occupied with real issues rather than fanciful thoughts about things she shouldn’t be thinking about.”
The argument was dismissed even before Annabel could break into a protest.
As Giana walked towards the gate with Toby swinging on his mother’s hand, chirpy as a cricket swinging on a juicy blade of grass, her trepidation magnified manifold. She paused when she saw Max leaning against his vehicle waiting for her. Her smile was polite and restrained.
The hint of tears and the blush spreading on her face told Max that she had walked out of another bad scene. A glance at the cafe windows showed Carol watching her daughter. He nodded but didn’t get a response.
“Mak favy!” trilled Toby happily, launching into Max’s arms.
FLAWLESS Page 5
