by Wendy Harmer
‘Dad!’
Claire had a vision of her father cruising the gutters of Surfers Paradise in the Toyota Camry while her mother tripped up the street unaware she was being stalked.
‘How do you know she went to visit Clive? She could have dropped in to the club to . . . um . . .’ Claire couldn’t think of any reason you would drop into a surf-lifesaving club. To borrow a cup of sand?
‘I saw them together. They were talking in the car park. Near his Lexus.’
‘Did you see them in the Lexus? Together?’
‘No. I’d had enough by then and didn’t want to be spotted, so I came home.’
‘Well gee, Dad, it doesn’t seem a lot to go on.’
‘How about this then?’ Ron waved a glossy brochure in front of Claire’s eyes.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s an informative pamphlet for Jupiter’s Casino. And, if you look at this page, you’ll see that someone has used a black pen to circle the ‘Lovers’ Weekend Retreat’ package. You get a complimentary bottle of Australian sparkling wine, chocolate-dipped strawberries . . . and . . .’ Ron’s head dropped to his chest and his voice came out in a whisper, ‘There’s a spa!’
‘Oh come on, Dad. You’ve got a spa here in the bathroom. The telephone booths in Surfers have got spas! You’ll have to—’
Clunk! The front door slammed and June was in the hallway.
‘Yoo-hoo,’ she sang.
Ron hissed at his daughter, as if they were at a meeting of the French Resistance, ‘Take your mother out to lunch. Find out what you can. Tell me later!’ And then he was back behind the breakfast bar tinkering with the element on the toaster.
June burst into the room with her arms outstretched in extravagant greeting. Claire recognised the pose as one she herself often adopted.
‘Darling!’ Claire could hear the clink-clank of bracelets and necklaces as June pranced across the room.
‘Hi, Mum. Don’t you look gorgeous?’ Claire always ladled on the compliments. Everyone in the family had learned these were more welcome than a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates.
‘Oh don’t, child! I’m as fat as a house! But you! You look radiant! What are you up to?’ This was one of June’s standard greetings, but Claire felt guilty enough to blush.
‘Oh, I know! It’s that handsome Charlie. You’ve finally got my granddaughter out of your bed and you’re having a second honeymoon. You do look lovely!’
Claire was pleased. She didn’t often get unqualified compliments from her mother.
‘Although I like your hair shorter. I’ve never thought a woman over thirty-five should wear her hair past her shoulders.’
And she wasn’t going to get one today either. Welcome home.
By 2 pm Claire and June had consumed two dozen oysters, two chicken salads and were almost through two bottles of Veuve Cliquot. They were sitting in the window of Shuck, a hip little eatery in Tedder Avenue. June was sitting in full view of the passers-by. It was a lineball call as to whether it was so that she could see them, or so they could have the wonderfully uplifting experience of viewing her.
Lunch was an extravaganza of bitchy local gossip punctuated by June’s pronouncements on the riffraff stumbling out of the maze of crappy souvenir and fast food shops into the rarefied village atmosphere of the avenue.
‘Eating in the street. Terribly gauche. You just didn’t do it when I was young . . .
‘Look at the tummy on that one! Slovenly. I don’t know why the girls do it, unless they’re expecting men to tuck banknotes into their panties . . .
‘What is she doing wheeling a pram? Please tell me she’s the child’s grandmother. Women these days have children at such a late age. It’s just selfishness.’
Claire felt compelled to at least mount a case for older mothers. ‘Mum. I was thirty-nine when I had Madeline.’
‘I know, dear, but you were a late bloomer. You never looked your age. It’s a family trait. Well . . . except for your sister.’
Claire watched silently as June ran her bony fingers through the ash-blonde layers of her hair, adjusted her pearls and smoothed her apricot silk jacket over her neat chest.
Speaking of family traits brought Claire to the thorny topic of extramarital relations. She was just about to begin an artfully disguised interrogation when her mother placed her hands on the table and called the meeting to order.
‘Now, Claire, I’m very glad you’re here. Why are you here again?’ Her mother cocked her head to one side and fixed her brown eyes on Claire in a wonderful impersonation of a budgie.
‘Oh . . . um . . . just visiting a girlfriend who’s getting married for the second time,’ Claire said airily.
‘Hmph! Second marriages never work. You might as well stay with the first man you fall in love with, because you’re only going to repeat the mistake.
‘As I say, I’m glad you’re here because I want you to agree to visit on the first of next month for your father’s seventy-fifth birthday. It’s a surprise. Now Douglas and Louise are coming, so all you children can be together at the one table. It will be at the surf-lifesaving club, about eighty people. Clive Sinclair has been a marvellous help in organising the venue. Such a nice man. Very distinguished.’
Claire could feel a smile creep across her face.
‘I think the food will be Chinese barbecue, which is very up-to-the-minute. And I’ve had a florist send me various arrangements. At this point I’m leaning away from the pink gerberas and towards the yellow rosebuds. And then I’m going to whisk him away for a naughty weekend at the casino. So . . . what do you think?’
Claire pitched forward until her forehead met the linen tablecloth and she laughed. And laughed. She didn’t stop until she sat up and realised that her mother was boring holes into her with black pinprick pupils.
‘Mum . . . sorry. Sorry!’ she gasped as she actually drew in some air. ‘I’m just laughing because I think you are so amazing. I think it sounds fabulous. We’d love to come.’
Another half hour went by as June laid out her meticulous plans for Ron’s birthday. When she was on a glass of Frangelico liqueur, Claire finally summoned up the courage to ask what she really wanted to know.
‘Mum. How old were you when you went though menopause?’
‘Oh about fifty, I suppose. I think I was a bit younger than most.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’
‘Why didn’t you ask me about it? You were in your late twenties then and I think the only thing you wanted from me was my old Dior handbags. Young women are terribly self-centred.’
June took a sip of liqueur from a dainty glass clutched by immaculate coral-painted nails.
‘Did you have a hard time of it?’
‘Not physically, because I have always kept myself very trim. Everyone was flinging themselves around with Jane Fonda aerobics in those days, so I did too.’
‘But mentally . . .?’
‘Well, I don’t think it’s easy for any woman. But I think it’s more difficult when . . .’ June hesitated.
‘When what?
‘When you’ve been told all your life that you’re very beautiful and you’ve always used your sex appeal to get what you want.’
Claire sat back in her chair as if she’d been slapped.
June saw the expression on her face.
‘Oh I’m not talking about you, dear! You’re a marvellously accomplished woman in your own right. But I’d been married for thirty years. In that time your father’s transport company had expanded right through Asia. There were so many functions, client occasions. All I had to do was bat my eyelashes and look beautiful, so I did. It was painful when I got to my forties and realised I hadn’t done anything very useful with my life.’
‘But you’d raised three kids.’
‘Oh, you were easy. You pretty much raised yourselves. Of course, my mother had eight. Then you all left home. The time went by in the blink of an eye.’
‘Is that whe
n Monty La Marr came on the scene?’
Now it was June’s turn to be surprised. She twisted a pearl earring with her perfect nails.
‘How did you know about that?’
‘I just always suspected.’
‘He was wonderful, Monty.’ June tilted her chin in defiance.
‘Very handsome and an expert lover. If I hadn’t had him for those four years—’
‘Four years!’
‘Yes. Although your father thinks it was only a month or two, bless his heart.’
‘Why didn’t you leave Dad?’
‘Because I loved him, of course! Ron’s your father!’
Now there was logic from another era.
‘So, I guess you were going through perimenopause when I was a teenager and that’s why you were so hard on me.’
‘I was doing no such thing! I was only in my thirties then. I was hard on you because you were an absolute pain in the bottom!’
‘Don’t wait up for me, Mum, I don’t know how long I’ll be. I expect my girlfriend and I will be up half the night having a long girlie heart-to-heart,’ Claire lied.
June was now sitting on her own shady balcony with a strawberry daiquiri she’d whipped up.
‘Claire, I haven’t waited up for you since you were sixteen. After that night you came back from Elephant Rock, I realised there was no point.’
‘How did you know about that?’
‘A mother knows these things.’
Oh great, that was all Claire needed—another detective in the family. She took her father’s arm and led him to the front door. She whispered in his ear, ‘Dad, she’s been secretly planning your seventy-fifth birthday. At the surf club.’
‘Oh crikey! I forgot about that.’ Her father slapped his forehead as the penny dropped. ‘Oh my lord! You must think I’m an idiot.’
‘The fact that you’re this jealous after almost fifty years of marriage? I think it’s the sweetest thing I ever heard. Don’t wait up for me either.’
‘I won’t. Thank you, darling. Thank you.’
Within half an hour Claire was standing outside the Kirra pub. If, later, you had asked her what she had thought about in the taxi on the way there, she would not have been able to tell you. She could tell you, though, that standing outside the front door, she was barely holding it together. She folded her arms across her breasts because she knew her nipples were already erect under the flimsy fabric of her white embroidered singlet.
There was a gentle breeze blowing on this warm November evening. Claire felt like a ripe fruit ready to drop from a tree.
She bent and smoothed the sheer fabric of the raspberry-coloured wrap skirt which was rippling against her bare legs. The air was cool where it played across the already-damp patches of her silk knickers. She looked down at the red toenails wriggling in white beaded sandals.
What did you choose to wear for what was supposed to be the best night of sex of your life? Claire figured it didn’t really matter as she probably wouldn’t be wearing it for long. She shook a few russet strands of hair off her face and hoped she might also shake off the doubt which was descending on her like nightfall.
Where was he? She’d only ever seen him twice in real life. Once at the wedding (don’t think about Rose) and once at Meg’s (don’t think about Meg). Of course, in her mind she’d seen him a thousand times. But had she sculpted a fantasy figure which was more handsome, more hard-bodied than the man himself?
Then Claire saw Connor walk out the front door of the pub and clearly the answer was ‘no’. She felt the ground give way as he turned his eyes on her. Even from here she could see they were a remarkable shade of blue-green. She could also see that his skin was more tanned than she remembered and that the tendrils of his curly hair had been bleached to the roots. It was as if he was in technicolour and the rest of the universe was rendered in shades of grey.
He was wearing an old pair of red board shorts, now faded to pink, and—oh my God—they were laced at the front. His loose singlet was also faded by the sun. It had been blue? Or green? It was his arms she took most note of. They were brown, lean and knotted with muscles. There was a sparkle of sea salt on his shoulders. Claire saw that his legs were equally long and lean. As he walked towards her she could hear the slap-slap of his rubber thongs on the footpath.
‘Hello . . . You must be Claire.’ He smiled and extended his hand in greeting.
She played along with his little game. She frowned. ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’
He stood and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Well, not really. Not as much as you will after the next—’ he looked at his watch—‘twenty-four hours. I’m Connor Carmody.’
Claire now took his hand, which was so broad and strong it made hers feel like a little girl’s.
‘I’m Claire Sellwyn-Wallace,’ she said, meeting his eyes.
‘Would you like to come this way to my car, Claire?’ he said, gesturing to the side of the building.
She walked in front of him.
‘Claire Sellwyn-Wallace. That’s a very nice name,’ he said as he walked behind her.
She had the sense of being stared at from her heels right up to the back of her neck. Projection and absorption, a two-way process. As soon as they were around the side of the building, away from the windows, he reached and put his large hands around her waist.
‘And that’s a very nice arse as well.’
Claire climbed into the front seat of his arctic-white utility. Of course he’d have a ute. Lockable, so he could keep his board and tools in it. And a wax comb hanging from the rear-vision mirror tangled in a shell necklace. There it was. Check.
He bent down to start the ignition and threw the ute into reverse. He turned to look behind him and in the same gesture grabbed Claire’s thigh with his heavy left hand. It was a gesture which said, unmistakably, ‘mine’.
They didn’t drive far, just up the road to North Kirra. But in that short time Connor’s fingers had already insinuated themselves inside Claire’s silk knickers.
‘Uh-huh.’ The guttural sound came from somewhere deep inside his chest as he noted that Claire was very wet.
Claire thought about putting her hand to the front of his board shorts, but instead put it up to her mouth and bit her fingers to stop herself from moaning. When he stopped the car she looked and could see her own bright red teeth marks.
‘OK. Let’s get this party started,’ said Connor. He’d used that line before, she recalled.
As he retrieved his board and a carton of beer from the back of the ute, Claire sat in the shadows and looked up at the house. If she walked up those dark wooden stairs, she would not come down with her marriage intact. If she was going to cut and run at any time, now was her last chance. Go now!
Her body didn’t move an inch. Connor was walking back to the car. He opened the door and stretched out his hand.
It took them five attempts to get inside the front door. The first stop, when he pressed against her and bit her neck hard, was on the side of the car. The second, when he thrust his hand up her singlet inside her bra, was over the bonnet. By the time they got to the first landing of the stairs he’d undone the ties on her wrap skirt and dragged it off. At the top landing she was without her singlet and desperately holding her bra to her breasts.
It was against the front door that he found the waistband of her knickers and dragged them down, then fell on his knees to lick her.
When the door was finally opened, she fell back on the floor with him crawling up her body and trying to part her knees with his.
She managed to slide from under him, back across the polished floorboards, with one hand fumbling for her bra straps and the other clawing her undies back up her legs.
‘Stop, stop,’ she gasped. ‘It’s too much . . . too soon . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah. You’re right.’ He was breathing heavily. ‘I’ll get your things. Get you a drink. Sit down. Sorry. Sorry. Sit down.’
Claire scrambled to
a chair and shakily pulled her underwear together in the half-light. She tugged her knickers up her damp legs and smoothed her hair from her hot forehead.
‘Phew!’ She was still trying to calm her heart when Connor came back with her clothes and handbag.
He rested his hands on the kitchen counter and shook his head. ‘Jesus! I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to fuck anyone so badly in my entire life.’
After a long silence, he looked at Claire. ‘Whoa! It’s good that you said stop, because there’re so many things I want to do with you . . . to you . . . um . . . oh shit . . . Vodka and cranberry?’
‘That would be perfect,’ said Claire.
She needed air. She stood and walked to the windows, which were hazy with spray. She slid open the doors to the deck, stepped out into the breeze and looked at the Pacific Ocean. It was a rolling, rough swell, too scrappy to surf. The afternoon sun was dropping and turning the lapis lazuli edges of the watery horizon to ebony black. She breathed deeply and realised she had absolutely no idea who she was. She was cut loose from her own life and drifting.
Connor was there to rescue her. He stood behind her and she leaned back into his chest, as hard and broad as a mahogany hull. She took the drink he was offering, sipped from it and put it down. She leaned over the railing in front of him, all too aware of the picture she presented.
One of his hands slid around to her belly, holding her firmly, and the other was down the back of her knickers. His fingers were parting her warm cheeks and then slipping inside her.
‘God you’re so wet,’ he mumbled, and leaned over her shoulder. She pulled back her hair so he could get at her bare white neck. Then he kissed and chewed from her shoulderblade to her temple. Claire shivered as the breeze chilled her wet skin.
Connor grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her face around to his. He hesitated, his pupils expanding to take in the sight of her. Then he held her head in one hand, a breast in the other, and kissed her. A lover’s kiss.
It wasn’t what Claire wanted. She bit his lips hard and, taking his cue from her, he bit back harder.
Claire felt her knees fold from under her. She wrapped her long white legs around Connor’s lean waist and threw her head back. She looked up to see one lone star picked out like a glittering jewel in a sable sky.
