Elianne

by Nunn, Judy

  The relentlessness of Alan’s existence lent particular joy to Saturdays, the one day of the week reserved for social activity, when he’d go out on the town with a couple of friends from his boarding-school days. Barry and Dave were now in their second year at university and although they were two years Alan’s senior the three shared a great love of jazz. They would visit a pub or a club that had a live band playing on a Saturday night, while the afternoons were more often than not spent in the beer garden of the Breakfast Creek Hotel.

  Known simply as Brekky Creek, the magnificent French Renaissance-style hotel nestled at the mouth of an estuary of the Brisbane River was not only the city’s most popular watering hole, but possibly the most famous in the entire state of Queensland. Here people from all walks of life gathered and had for generations past – dockside labourers, members of the racing fraternity, politicians, middle-class workers, tourists and students alike. It seemed everyone congregated at the Brekky Creek pub, particularly on a Saturday afternoon.

  Seated in the crowded beer garden, the boys had finished their meal and Barry had just left for the bar to fetch yet another round. They were drinking schooners and, as they’d already shouted a round each, Alan was beginning to feel the effects despite the gargantuan steak he’d devoured – Brekky Creek was famous for the size of its steaks.

  Although under the legal drinking age, Alan looked considerably older than his years and was never asked for identification. But then things were different throughout the country these days. Since the introduction of national service attitudes had become more liberal and fewer questions were asked. It seemed immoral, most tacitly agreed, that a man could be conscripted at nineteen to fight for his country, yet was unable to legally buy a beer.

  Alan watched Barry disappear into the bar. Crikey, he thought, I’ll be drunk as a skunk after another three rounds. He wasn’t a heavy drinker – he never had been; he couldn’t handle his beer the way Barry and Dave did – but what the heck, the four-piece cover band that was playing had put them all in a party mood and the day was unseasonably hot for late March: it just cried out for beer. He skolled the remaining dregs from his glass. Alan loved Saturdays.

  ‘Don’t go away, folks,’ the lead guitarist announced, ‘we’ll be back with some more Beatles in about fifteen minutes. We’re just going to grab a quick beer.’

  The band had finished its bracket with ‘Love Me Do’ and was taking a break.

  ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’ a female voice said.

  Alan and Dave looked up at the young woman who’d arrived to stand by their table, glass of wine in hand. To Alan she appeared vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t recall from where.

  ‘I’m Jane,’ she said, ‘Jane Campbell, I’ve seen you around at Tech.’ She offered him her hand.

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ At the Gardens Tuck Shop several days earlier, he recalled, she’d literally bumped into him on his way out with a coffee, but he hadn’t stopped to introduce himself as he’d been running late. ‘Alan Durham,’ he said as they shook, ‘and this is Dave Johnson.’

  ‘Hello Dave.’ She shook hands with Dave too, but rather perfunctorily, her attention remaining focused on Alan. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ Alan was a little nonplussed: she was extraordinarily forthright and he wasn’t accustomed to pushy girls. He looked around for a spare vacant chair that he could pull up to the table for her, but there wasn’t one.

  She plonked herself in the seat that Barry had vacated. ‘Just while the band takes a break,’ she said, ‘then I’ll go back to my friends.’ The boys followed her eye line as she waved to a nearby table where her two girlfriends were waving back. ‘You’re doing an engineering course, aren’t you?’ she said, turning back to Alan.

  ‘That’s right.’ He wondered how on earth she could know that.

  ‘I’ve seen you going into A Block,’ she explained in response to his puzzled expression. It was true that the Engineering Diploma Course was run out of A Block, but Jane had actually made her own enquiries to be sure. ‘I’ve had my eye on you, Alan Durham,’ she added with a cheeky wink.

  He laughed as if he’d enjoyed the joke, although he felt a bit self-conscious. He found the way she was ignoring Dave rather rude.

  Dave, however, was far from offended. To the contrary, Dave was signalling a look that was distinctly envious. She’s after you, mate, Dave’s eyes were saying. You lucky bastard!

  Jane was without doubt attractive. Slim, fair-haired and oozing self-confidence, she was the sort most would call ‘sexy’. Alan judged her to be around twenty or so.

  ‘What are you studying at Tech, Jane?’ he asked.

  ‘Certificate in Business,’ she said with a dismissive shrug, ‘book-keeping, secretarial stuff and all that, but only as a back-up. I intend to go to NIDA next year.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Seemingly riveted by the announcement, Dave cast a meaningful glance at Alan.

  ‘NIDA?’ Alan asked blankly, ignoring the prompt that he should appear impressed even if he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, which Dave clearly didn’t.

  ‘The National Institute of Dramatic Art,’ Jane said, ‘it’s in Sydney. I’m going to be an actress.’

  ‘Wow, that’s impressive.’ He obliged with the response that was obviously required.

  ‘It sure is,’ Dave echoed.

  ‘Thank you.’ The smile she flashed them both was suddenly genuine and devastatingly attractive. ‘Of course I have to pass the audition first,’ she admitted with disarming candour, ‘and only a handful out of the thousands who audition ever manages to get in. But what the hell? I intend to give it my best shot.’

  ‘You’ll get in, I bet,’ Alan said. Heck, someone as good looking as her is bound to, he thought.

  ‘I bet you do too.’ What a stunner, Dave thought, bloody pity it’s Alan she’s after.

  ‘Hello, hello.’ Barry had arrived juggling three schooners. ‘Who do we have here?’ he said as he placed them on the table with care and only minimal spillage.

  Introductions were made and Jane rose to her feet. ‘Sorry, Barry, I’ve stolen your chair.’

  ‘No worries, I’ll get another one.’ What a stunner, he thought.

  ‘I don’t think there are any,’ Alan said.

  ‘No, no, it’s all right,’ she insisted, ‘I’ll go back to my friends.’

  ‘Why don’t we join up the tables?’ The suggestion was Dave’s.

  ‘What a good idea,’ she replied as if the thought had not already occurred. ‘I’m sure Sal and Wendy won’t mind.’

  Sal and Wendy didn’t mind in the least, and after the boys had dragged the tables together, the afternoon became quite a party. The band returned and opened with another Beatles bracket, which led to the inevitable discussion about which Beatle was whose favourite and which Beatles song was the best, and before long it was time for another round of beers. Alan insisted upon the shout being his although it was actually Dave’s; he wanted to sit the following round out – the mix of sun and beer was going to his head.

  ‘How about you girls?’ he asked as he stood. ‘Another carafe?’ The girls were drinking the house white, which was sold by the glass or the carafe.

  Jane stood also. ‘Yes, absolutely, but we’ll buy our own, thanks.’ She smiled, again disarmingly, and Alan thought that, despite her pushy introduction, she really was nice. ‘We’re liberated women, after all,’ she said and, collecting money from the kitty she and her friends had placed on their table, she accompanied Alan to the bar.

  As they waited in the queue she pressed herself intimately up against him, so intimately in fact that at first he thought it was a mistake, that she’d been jostled by the crowd. He edged away to give her a little space, but she edged with him, her left breast continuing to make contact with his right bicep, which was bare as he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. She even manoeuvred her body slightly so that he could swear he felt a nipple. She’s not wearing a bra,
he thought. The realisation was both shocking and tantalising. To think that through the thin fabric of her dress, he could feel so distinctly the shape and the very texture of her breast against his skin. With Paola he’d always been aware of the brassiere forming a barrier between them, a barrier he had never abused, much as he’d longed to.

  ‘After we’ve had another drink, do you want to go for a drive?’ she murmured seductively, her lips all but caressing his ear. She was obviously unaware of his self-consciousness.

  ‘I don’t have a car.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Where would we drive to?’

  ‘My place. It’s not far.’

  The answer didn’t surprise him. Alan had finally got the message and a series of overwhelming responses physical and mental were coursing through his being. His pulse had quickened, he was aware of a growing erection, and the prospect of sex with Jane was so intensely arousing that his mind had become a veritable battlefield. It’s just the beer, he told himself, but he knew it wasn’t. I can’t be unfaithful to Paola, his mind said, we’re promised to each other. Yes, you can, a voice from somewhere else countered. You ought to gain some experience before you get engaged. A man should have a degree of expertise before bedding a virgin wife, that’s what they say. Who the hell are ‘they’? his mind demanded.

  Stop it, he told himself, stop it!

  ‘Let’s see how we feel after another drink, shall we?’ he said calmly, playing it cool, buying time. They’d arrived at the counter and were next in line to be served.

  Jane smiled, in her book that was a definite yes. ‘Another drink it is,’ she said confidently, oblivious to the internal battle that had just raged.

  ‘What’ll it be, mate?’ the bartender asked.

  ‘Three schooners and a carafe of white, thanks.’

  They returned to the others, but they didn’t bother carrying through with the pretence of ‘another drink’.

  ‘Alan and I are going for a drive,’ Jane announced after barely five minutes.

  They stood together, Alan equally eager to be on his way. The gentle friction of her thigh against his beneath the table had erased any agony of indecision. All he could think of now was the fact that he was about to lose his virginity.

  ‘Aren’t you going to finish your beer?’ Dave eyed Alan’s virtually untouched glass: leaving a full schooner was nothing short of a crime.

  ‘Nup. I’ve had enough. Bit of a drive and some fresh air, that’s what I need.’

  ‘Right.’ Dave gave a nod and cast a knowing look at Barry that said he’s in there, lucky bastard.

  ‘OK, Alan,’ Barry chose to ignore Dave’s overt signal for fear of offending the girls – he very much hoped to score with Wendy, who’d already agreed to go on with him to the club. ‘Might see you a bit later then at The Downstairs. We’re heading off there in an hour or so.’

  ‘Rightio. Probably see you there then.’ The Downstairs was a jazz club they often frequented on a Saturday.

  As Sal and Wendy fluttered fingers in goodbye, they exchanged their own knowing glances. Neither was surprised that Jane had made her intended conquest: she’d offered a bet when they’d first arrived, the moment she’d seen Alan there with his mates.

  ‘God I find him sexy,’ she’d said. ‘He goes to Tech, I bump into him all the time, but he never even notices me.’ Going unnoticed to Jane was not only a novelty, it was an absolute turn-on. She couldn’t resist a challenge. ‘Well, he’ll notice me today all right. Bet you ten bucks I get him back to the house.’

  The girls hadn’t taken her up on the bet.

  ‘Your carriage,’ Jane announced with jokey dramatic flair as they arrived beside her shabby second-hand Volkswagen. ‘Hardly a thing of beauty, but she goes.’

  ‘They’re good cars, VWs,’ Alan said climbing into the passenger seat, ‘good and reliable. Engine needs a bit of a tune up though,’ he added when she turned on the ignition.

  She wondered why he didn’t have a car of his own. He was always well dressed, he’d hardly be short of money. She whacked the gearstick into first and took off. Besides, she’d learnt through enquiry that he came from a wealthy country family, a sugar plantation no less. No car, that’s strange, she thought.

  Alan tried not to wince. She was a truly terrible driver.

  The house that Jane shared with Wendy and Sal and two other girls was a short drive away in Fortitude Valley, an inner-city suburb to the north-east of Brisbane’s business centre. Known affectionately as ‘The Valley’, the once fashionable hub of shops and restaurants was starting to wane as outer-suburban shopping centres came into existence. The Valley, although still popular, was showing a slightly seedier side of late and in some of its surrounding backstreets were homes that had known better days. The ramshackle two-storey, five-bedroom house rented by Jane and her friends was one such, having been in its time the family home of a well-to-do retail merchant. Here the girls lived a buzzy, bohemian existence. They loved The Valley.

  ‘Come on in,’ Jane said, unlocking the front door, and he followed her through a very messy open-plan living and dining room, complete with overflowing ashtrays, into an even messier kitchen. ‘Anyone home?’ she yelled as they went, and Alan was visited by a sudden sense of misgiving. Eroticism having momentarily deserted him, he wondered what he’d let himself in for.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she said, oblivious to his unease, ‘Sunday’s clean-up day.’ She smiled happily. ‘But at least we have the place to ourselves, it’s usually deserted on Saturday afternoons. Do you want a beer?’

  ‘Sure.’ A beer was the last thing he wanted. ‘Thanks.’

  She lifted two stubbies from the refrigerator, opened them and handed him one. ‘Come on up to the less mucky part of the house,’ she said, and he followed her once again as she led the way upstairs to her bedroom.

  He discovered to his relief that she was right. Upstairs was certainly less mucky, at least Jane’s bedroom was. In fact Jane’s bedroom was something altogether different.

  He gazed around at the posters that adorned the walls, mostly reproductions of Lautrec and Degas. There were several lamps with ornately painted French lampshades, the bedspread was of plush red velvet, the corner table and two small chairs were covered with lace cloths and on the dresser was a collection of porcelain pots and vases together with a pair of candelabras that appeared antique. The overall effect was cluttered but attractive.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, ‘you’ve done a great job.’

  ‘Thanks. I like it.’ She sat at the small table and took off her sandals. ‘I haunt second-hand shops as you can see. My aim is to create a Parisian look.’

  ‘I’d say you’ve certainly succeeded there,’ he said, ‘not that I’d know of course, I’ve never been to Paris, but it looks pretty authentic to me.’ He sat on the other chair, wondering whether he should follow her example and take off his shoes.

  ‘Well, when you live with four girls you need a world of your own to disappear into and this is mine. Aren’t you going to take your shoes off?’

  ‘Sure.’ He was feeling more relaxed by the minute: she was very easy company.

  She downed a swig of her beer and studied him as he took off his shoes. ‘Why don’t you have a car, Alan?’

  ‘I will in July.’

  ‘Oh? Why wait till then? Why not get one now?’

  ‘It’s a family thing, same with my brother and sister, Dad gives us a new car when we turn eighteen.’ He failed to notice her reaction. ‘What I’d really love to do is buy a vintage vehicle and restore it, even an old jalopy would do, but Dad’d be furious if I didn’t wait for the big presentation.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’re only seventeen?’

  Uh oh, he thought, I’ve stuffed things up. ‘That’s right. But not for long,’ he added hopefully, ‘I’ll be eighteen in July.’

  ‘Good God, I thought you were at least twenty.’

  ‘Yes, most people do. I’m sorry, Jane. I didn’t intend to
mislead you.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. How could you? I was the one who made a line for you, remember?’

  He remembered all right. ‘Does that mean you don’t want to . . .?’ he left the rest unsaid, which he thought was tasteful.

  She was intrigued. How can a seventeen-year-old be so mature? she wondered. Her brother was seventeen and he was an absolute dill.

  Her hesitation seemed answer enough to Alan. ‘Would you like me to leave?’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ And how can a seventeen-year-old be so damn sexy? she asked herself. Putting down her beer, she circled the little table to sit on his lap. ‘I am feeling so randy, don’t you dare leave,’ she murmured, draping her arms around his neck and kissing him, her breasts nuzzling enticingly against his chest.

  The response was immediate. Alan’s body leapt to attention, there was no disguising his arousal, and she laughed. ‘Shall we get undressed first?’ she suggested.

  He stripped as hastily as he could, and when he’d dumped his clothes on the chair he looked up to find her stark naked, carefully folding back the plush velvet bedspread. He was momentarily awestruck. He’d never seen a naked woman before – well not in the flesh anyway: he’d seen plenty of centrefold pictures in the magazines furtively handed around at boarding school.

  She removed the coverlet altogether, placed it on the floor and lay down, propping on an elbow, not even bothering to cover herself with the sheet.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, hoping he didn’t sound gauche and feeling self-conscious about his rampant erection. He needn’t have.

  ‘So are you,’ she said approvingly, and patted the bed.

  He joined her, the mere touch of flesh upon flesh setting them both aquiver; she too was ready, and as they kissed, his hands explored the exquisite contours of her body. He was becoming excited beyond measure, but even as she parted her thighs to allow him access, he realised there was something he’d overlooked.

  ‘Oh hell . . .’ He broke away from her, calling a breathless halt to the proceedings. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Jane,’ he said cursing himself for not having stopped off at a chemist’s shop.