‘I like him,’ grinned Melinda to her friend.
Oriel smiled shyly at Errol, performing a quick examination of his wide cream flannels. Under his own admiring stare at her pleated skirt and hip-hugging jumper she found she did not know where to look and, lifting her eyes to the outstretched arm of the statue, saw that some wag had placed a beer bottle in Sir Thomas Bent’s bronze hand. She laughed and pointed, diverting attention from herself, and shortly they all moved off along Bay Street.
David was to do most of the talking as they undertook the long trek to the beach. ‘Brought your togs, girls?’ The autumn days were still occasionally warm enough to bare one’s skin.
Oriel replied that they had. ‘We can use my mother’s bathing box to change.’ She turned her blue eyes to the cloudy sky. ‘Hope it doesn’t rain. It’s a bit muggy, isn’t it?’
‘She’ll be right,’ Errol assured her, grabbing hold of her hand. ‘Nothing’s going to spoil my day.’
Be that as it may, something was about to spoil Oriel’s. A while later, as they approached the Railway Hotel, a drunken man and woman staggered out on a cloud of beer fumes, and to Oriel’s great astonishment the laughing female squatted right in their intended path and proceeded to urinate. Watching it trickle its way to the gutter, she felt her face burn but kept walking, incensed that there were such brutish people in the world. Equally disconcerted, none of her companions said a word as they gave the inebriated couple a wide berth and went on their way to the beach as if nothing had happened.
‘Strike!’ exclaimed Errol, after a lengthy promenade. ‘I wish I had’ve known your bathing box was right down here before I arranged to see you – it’s almost outside my front door.’
Oriel felt silly, apologized and plodded down the sloping path from road to beach where a row of wooden huts nestled below a bank of greenery. Leaving the men in charge of the pram both girls went into the hut to change, emerging in neck-to-knee woollen costumes, rolled-up scarves knotted around their heads. Feeling the male eyes upon her, a self-conscious Oriel kneeled down quickly on her towel and adopted what she hoped was an attractive pose, but feared that she looked as bloated as she felt. Thankfully her friend looked much heftier. The men went off to change then, allowing Melinda to release her stomach muscles with a gasp. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up!’
The males returned wearing similar garments to the girls and sat beside them. The wind was uncomfortably warm but Oriel only noticed that it carried the pleasant smell of Errol’s body under her nose. Dialogue was a little stilted at first, consisting mainly of remarks about the other people on the beach. Bedevilled with the previous distasteful incident, Oriel tried to focus on an innocent group of pigtailed youngsters in sombreros, who were building a sandcastle, and other young couples enjoying their Saturday afternoon off. The sun made a temporary appearance from behind the clouds. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes.
‘Your hair’s gone a lot lighter since we first met,’ observed Melinda, fingering a strand of her own dark mop. ‘It’s a real plummy colour. Your dad’s is the same.’
‘Yeah, Dave was just saying to me how nice it looks,’ contributed Errol.
Oriel uttered coy thanks and wondered what else they had been saying about her, until to her chagrin she noticed his eyes flitting over Melinda’s body.
Totally innocent that she was providing entertainment for her male companions, the other girl stretched her flesh and prostrated herself on the towel to receive the hot rays upon her skin. Oriel flopped over on to her stomach too, tracing her toe in the sand, feeling the heat burn into her calves and listening to the rumble and shush of the tide in the background. Errol lay down beside her. She opened one eye against the glare, smiled, then closed it again, feeling his presence. For a while she lay there imagining herself in his arms, his lips crushing hers – then she leaped up with a yell. ‘Blessed March fly!’ She rubbed her thigh, making frowning examination and damning the insect that appeared for many more months than its name might suggest.
Her scream woke Alice, who started to cry. The child’s mother showed annoyance. ‘I’m gonna have to feed her now!’ And she wobbled off to the bathing hut.
In her absence, having run out of things to say, the young men raced each other to the sea, plunged in, and after a brief tussle in the water, raced back to Oriel, peppering her with sand on their skidding arrival. Thus roused, they began to wrestle, then performed acrobatics, David lying on his back whilst Errol balanced upside down atop his knees. Oriel watched and grinned, but then her gaze began to flicker. In this unnatural pose she noticed that their genitalia were more prominent, and though her face turned crimson she nevertheless took sly peeps, trying to make out the various lumps and bumps that jiggled beneath the wet wool costumes, until Melinda’s voice made her jump and look away sharply.
Her friend had changed back into her clothes. ‘Miss here won’t stop crying and I haven’t brought anything to soothe her. I’m gonna have to take her for a stroll to send her off otherwise she’ll get on everybody’s nerves.’
‘Half a tick!’ David jumped up, unbalancing Errol, who fell to the sand. ‘Let me change out o’ me bathers and I’ll go with you. Don’t mind d’you, El?’
And before Oriel had the chance to realize it she and Errol were on their own. He smiled, pulled her to him and delivered a light kiss. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that all afternoon. I never thought I’d be so grateful to a March fly.’
She gazed at him adoringly and enjoyed the feel of his skin against her arm. His own arms were quite tanned and covered in dark hair, though his legs and feet were white.
‘I like your friend.’ The sun went behind a large bank of cloud and Oriel noticed the same effect on Errol’s face. ‘It’s a damned shame that someone so young’s widowed.’ His voice was grave. ‘But then there are heaps of Melindas left alone with little babies.’
He had told her on their second meeting that he had fought at Gallipoli.
‘Did many of your friends die?’ she asked softly.
‘Dozens – I mean personal mates. There were thousands more, obviously.’ His face displayed the horrors he had seen. ‘To wake with the knowledge that you could be dead before dinnertime – then just when you think that’s all over you come home and there’s an epidemic sweeping the country. It makes a bloke look at life differently. I feel as if I haven’t lived yet. Know what I mean? What I’m trying to say is, if you think I’ve been acting too wildly there is a good reason behind it.’
She was quick to soothe, exclaiming that she did not consider him wild at all. Gazing at him now she decided she would prefer his face to be for ever cast in solemnity. Only in laughter was there evidence of imperfection, whence the spell would be momentarily shattered, Oriel suddenly deciding that she was not really attracted to him at all. But then, as if he had guessed, the gap-toothed smile would be wiped away and once more she was entranced.
He continued as if she had not interrupted, his dark eyes smouldering. ‘When y’see your mates blown to bits you realize how short life is and you want to live it to the full – even if it does mean acting the lunatic like I was with Dave just now.’ He turned sheepish and grinned. ‘But if I ever embarrass or upset you—’
‘You couldn’t,’ vouched Oriel.
‘You’re a good listener.’ He leaned over to kiss her again. ‘Just what I need after being through that mess.’
‘Actually, you have embarrassed me,’ blurted Oriel. ‘Not with anything you’ve done but by your openness. You make me feel a fraud. Melinda isn’t a widow. She’s never been married. I invented the story because I didn’t want her situation to reflect on me. I was afraid of losing your friendship.’
The clean-cut face showed bewilderment. ‘How can it reflect on you?’ Then he laughed kindly and nipped her nose. ‘Just because she’s got an illegitimate kid doesn’t mean I expect you’ve got one tucked away too. I don’t judge people by the company they keep. Anyhow, she’s a nice gir
l – and so are you. I’ve never met anyone I’d want to court for more than a couple of days but I think you and me stand a good chance.’ He kissed her again.
Eyes closed, Oriel pictured herself in six months’ time, deeply entrenched in this relationship. She would have to divulge her illegitimacy before committing herself to marriage. Breaking away, she looked into Errol’s eyes and decided that she could not bear for it to last so long only to be rebuffed at the last moment. Hence she summoned the bravery to tell him, ‘I’m illegitimate too.’
‘So? Am I meant to storm off and leave you?’
She searched his face, trying to detect a change in his attitude towards her, but in fact he was more attentive than ever. She smiled her relief as he kissed her, a warmer, more affectionate kiss than before. She wanted to tell him how she felt but did not know how to explain and anyway did not have the time for he had jumped to his feet and was pulling her towards the sea.
She screamed. ‘Oh no, Errol, it’ll be too cold – and there might be sharks!’ But her wriggles to escape his hold were pathetic.
The water was freezing. Bits of seaweed licked at her ankles as she shivered happily beside him, casting the occasional anxious glance at the beach in case Melinda should return and ruin her idyll. Her body had just become acclimatized to the water when there was a sudden cool change in the wind and it began to rain. Oriel squeaked as the heavy drops pounded on her head. She would have made a run for the bathing box but a mischievous Errol grabbed her and held her closely, ducking their shoulders under the water where it seemed warmer all of a sudden. She felt his limbs entangle with hers, felt the mysterious shape of his lower body, the breath from his laughing face.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had begun. They emerged to soggy towels and a beach that looked as if it had been peppered with grapeshot. Oriel, hair and scarf dripping around her happy face, did not want the afternoon to end but other people were making an exodus and her stomach told her it was teatime. ‘I suppose I’d better get dressed,’ she sighed, breathless after their frolics. At his crestfallen nod she held his eyes for a moment, then jogged off to the bathing box.
She had not removed her costume, but was leaning over, head to one side, making futile attempts to dry her hair with a wet towel, when he came in. Alarmed but excited, her breast rose and fell as he hesitated a moment before moving forward.
‘Melinda and Dave might come back.’
‘There’s no sign of them.’ His eyes were dark with an expression she had seen once before on the face of the soldier who had manhandled her. Oriel did not recognize it as lust, for Errol smiled and held her tenderly, brushing his lips over her cheek, neck and shoulders. Naïve in technique she may be, but innocence did not prevent longing. The urges she felt might not be understood, but Oriel felt them all the same. With great gentleness he pulled her closer. A mysterious change had taken place in the anatomy that her eyes had tried to decipher earlier. Something hard was pressing between them. There was a fluttering in the pit of her stomach. His kisses became more desperate and she returned them, feeling a great heat, almost a fire, in her lower belly – and then he touched her, there, right at the seat of the fire and Oriel squirmed away from his hand and wriggled free.
‘I can’t, it’s wrong!’
Errol made one more attempt to pull her against him. She fought him off and he stood there breathing heavily with the front of his bathing costume poking out like a tent. ‘You’ve made it like this and now it won’t go down until it’s done what it wants to do. It really hurts. There was reproach in his voice. ‘I thought you cared about me.’
‘I do!’ Oriel clasped her hands protectively over her bosom.
‘After all I said this afternoon about the war, and how I felt. I thought you understood. I wouldn’t say those things to any other person, Oriel.’
Her heart turned over. Such was the hurt and betrayal in his eyes that she desperately wanted to comfort him in the manner that he sought, but her head still fought the urge to surrender.
‘You’re so lovely and desirable,’ he came forward again murmuring, his tone so seductive.
‘I want you too!’ she anguished, swaying in her wet costume. ‘But you see… Mother… I don’t want to end up with a baby.’
Relief flooded his face. ‘If that’s all!’ With kind little kisses, he coaxed her into another embrace. ‘I know how to prevent it happening. Things are different these days, people don’t have to worry about that any more. I swear I’d never do anything to hurt you. Trust me.’
‘If we were married—’
‘I might be dead by next week, I can’t wait that long. Feel what you’ve done to me.’
Her body almost exploded as he pressed against her. Ginger hands began to tweak at the wet straps of her bathing costume, leaving their white mark against her pink, sunburned skin. Once she had permitted this, both he and Oriel knew that she was lost.
* * *
When they made their furtive exit from the bathing box she expected all eyes to be on her, but in fact there were few people left on the beach for the sky was overcast and more rain seemed imminent. There was no sign of Melinda either. Oriel brushed at the clothes that were clinging to her still damp body and glanced shyly at Errol. ‘I suppose I’d better go home.’
He finished lighting his cigarette, then took her arm. ‘I’ll take you. I wonder where Mel and Dave got to?’
‘They’ve probably come back and thought we’ve gone.’ Her Cupid lips tweaked.
A puff of cigarette smoke emerged on his smile. Oriel tasted it as he bent to kiss her. Her heart was even now beating rapidly, everything had happened so quickly. The heat of his body remained inside her – though she was still almost ignorant of what he looked like, deeming it impolite to stare.
A shout caused Errol to look up. Dave waved and called down to them from along the road. ‘Melinda’s gone home!’
‘Righto, mate! I’m just taking Oriel home. See you later!’ Errol winked at his pal, licked his finger and stroked the air with it, then at Dave’s grin he shoved his cigarette between his lips, took Oriel’s hand and embarked on the long walk home.
When they finally reached the end of the road where she lived Oriel wondered how she could avoid inviting him in, for her parents would surely guess the change in her and perhaps confront him. However, Errol said that he must go home. Before parting company, he kissed her and arranged to meet her on the ground floor of the Federal Coffee Palace in Collins Street after he left work on Monday evening.
In a state of exhilaration, she skipped indoors to find Melinda had been there for some time. The maid showed relief and said she had returned to find Oriel gone.
‘Where’ve you been? Your mum and dad wanted to know why I got back without yer. I didn’t know whether you’d told ’em you were going out with a bloke so I said you’d called at the shop and yer dad done his block wanting to know why I hadn’t done the shopping seeing as I was the bloody maid.’
‘We were sheltering from the rain.’ Oriel’s face gave her away.
Melinda had been sweeping haphazardly at the kitchen floor but now stopped and looked worried. ‘I wasn’t sure whether or not I should leave you on your own with him. Him and his eyes all over the place. You didn’t fall for anything, did you?’
‘Of course not!’ Oriel donned her sophisticated air as she reached for a jar of cold cream to smooth over her burned skin. Who did Melinda think she was, trying to teach her how to behave? She was the one who’d fallen for the baby. ‘We’re meeting again on Monday night.’
‘Oh, I don’t know if I’ll be able—’
Oriel looked abashed. ‘Oh no, when I say we, I mean Errol and I.’
Anxiety turned to sulkiness. ‘Served me purpose, have I?’
Oriel laughed warmly as she took off her shoes and went to empty the grains of sand outside. ‘Mel, you know I didn’t mean that. We just want to be on our own.’ Dearest Errol, how would she ever survive until Monday?
*
* *
Her eagerness to see him again prevented any kind of work that Monday afternoon, though with her father’s books up to date there was little to apologize for. Anticipating that the rush-hour traffic might delay her, Oriel decided to go to town much earlier than planned and spend an hour or so looking round the shops rather than be late. Having told her mother that she would have tea in the city, she also had to provide a reason and decided to tell the truth, knowing Bright would be happy for her. Then, all smiles, she caught a train to town.
Today the shops, usually so alluring, held little interest for her, and before long she was standing on the corner of Collins and King Street outside the Federal Coffee Palace – a palace indeed, its seven storeys crowned with a domed tower. Stomach rumbling, she entered the exotic temperance hotel, feeling highly conspicuous as she searched for a quiet corner and slid into the first vacant seat to wait for service which came almost immediately. Provided with coffee, she crouched over her cup in eager anticipation of Errol’s face coming through the doorway – though there were still ten minutes yet to wait. Around her, other patrons lounged, dining or smoking, some writing letters or reading, the atmosphere serving to relax some of Oriel’s tension.
She sipped her coffee. The allotted time came and went. Fifteen minutes were added, and then ten more. She had been sitting at the table for over half an hour, people around her coming and going, before the cold reality dawned on her that he was not coming. The smell of freshly roasted coffee, the friendly tinkling of teaspoons upon china, the low drone of conversation, all paled into the background as her excitement turned to worry. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps, God forbid, he had suffered an accident on the way here. He wouldn’t have allowed her to sit here feeling abandoned without good reason. Had she made a mistake? Might he have said the first floor? Finishing the last dregs of tepid coffee, she abandoned her cup, looked around for a staircase or lift and finding the latter went up to investigate the first floor.
A Complicated Woman Page 20
