by Wendy Harmer
Star light, star bright. I wish I may. I wish I might. Have this wish I wish tonight.
I wish I wasn’t here.
‘I’m . . . I’m cold,’ Claire said as she slid down his body and her bare feet touched the deck. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘Yeah, yeah, of course. I’ll get your drink.’ Connor retrieved the glass and stumbled in the door after her.
Claire groped in the gloom for the couch and curled up at one end. Connor sat at the other and held out her drink. It must have been Claire’s own hand which reached out to take it, but she didn’t recognise it. Her mind was thinking of a way to escape. She was hoping her body had already left.
Connor leaned back against the couch, stretched and pushed his curls from his forehead with two hands. He looked at the ceiling, sighed and spoke.
‘Fuck, you are amazing! I knew you would be. I knew I would regret this.’
Claire heard herself whisper. ‘Regret? What do you mean?’
‘I knew . . .’ And Claire was astonished to hear his usually sexy growl choked off in his throat. He wiped his forearm across his eyes.
‘When you said that we’d have the best night of sex ever and you asked me to think about what made sex great . . . do you remember?’
‘I remember,’ said Claire quietly.
‘I knew straight away. It’s love.’
‘What?’
‘It’s love. I know we were playing a game, but it’s not music or what you’re wearing or some smell, or a tattoo—which I didn’t have time to get done, by the way—but I would have for you . . .’ Connor sniffed back—what? Tears?
‘It’s none of that. Of course that stuff is exciting and can give you a hard-on—all that. But if you want to have the best sex . . . it’s “I love you” sex.’
Claire knew something was coming over the horizon as sure as the waves were rolling in outside the window.
‘And . . . I love you, Claire! I know you think that I couldn’t possibly. But I do. I knew it straight away from the first moment.’
Connor buried his head in her hair and his arm reached around her bare body to hold her tight.
Oh dear God, thought Claire. Who wrote this script?
Claire realised that she had. She’d written the entire episode in her head without thinking about the players at all. She’d written Charlie, Meg, Maddie, Connor and her parents into her own menopausal melodrama without really looking at the emotions of anyone but herself. Hadn’t everyone been telling her this in their own way? Hadn’t she seen the WRONG WAY GO BACK sign from the moment she’d met Connor? Of course she had, but she had been determined to play out her fantasy.
She turned to Connor in the half-light. She’d really never seen anyone so beautiful. So young and perfect it was painful.
‘Connor.’
She thought that for once in her life she owed someone complete honesty. She was old enough now to face up to it.
‘You know I can’t love you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I know.’
‘I’m not really real. I’m just . . . I’m just a middle-aged Fairy Godmother who’s lost her way.’
It was only 9:30 pm when Claire quietly opened the door to her parents’ flat. She knew her parents liked to go to bed by nine, but she wasn’t surprised to see a light still on in the front room.
‘Mum . . . Dad?’ she called softly as she tiptoed down the hall.
She wasn’t surprised to see the light on, but she was stunned by the sight of the person standing on the balcony puffing on a cigarette with a glass of wine in hand. For a moment Claire was nailed to the floor, then she lurched forward.
‘Oh . . . my God! Rose! What are you doing here? I thought you were on your honeymoon . . .?’ Claire dropped her handbag and stepped outside with open arms.
Claire was glad of the shadows on the deck. She thought that anyone who could see her in full light must guess what she’d been doing. Her lips were swollen and bitten, her hair was wild, her mascara smudged.
Rose didn’t seem to notice. She embraced Claire awkwardly and looked away.
‘Honey, I didn’t know you were in town.’ Claire found a glass and poured a drink for herself.
Rose looked at her with frank disbelief. Her voice was flat, toneless. ‘Yeah. We were cruising around the Whitsundays and landed back here at Southport on Saturday.’
‘I knew—’ Claire started. Fuck! Of course you don’t know, you stupid idiot, she cursed herself. ‘I knew you’d be having a wonderful time. On a boat? What a brilliant honeymoon. Did you have a wonderful time?’
‘We did . . .’
‘Can I have a cigarette, Rose?’
‘Help yourself.’
Claire took one from the packet on the table and could see her hands were shaking. She hoped Rose couldn’t see.
‘So . . .’ said Claire, pushing smoke from her lungs and trying to stay composed. Leaving Connor had been a big emotional scene. There had been more wild kisses and tears from both of them. Claire felt very fragile.
‘So, you’re here. Are you staying the night too?’ She desperately tried to keep her manner bright and breezy.
‘No. I’ve been waiting for you because I wanted to speak to you privately. I know why you’re here. I know you met Connor.’ Rose had turned her back and was looking out at the dark ocean.
Claire was glad Rose wasn’t watching her fumble for a chair and slump into it.
‘I saw it was your number when you rang him on Saturday afternoon at Southport. I picked up his mobile phone and handed it to him. That’s when I was sure there was something going on.’
‘Oh God, Rose . . . I . . .’ Claire couldn’t go on.
There was nothing to be said. Her worst nightmare was coming true and she wished she had jumped from the balcony earlier that afternoon. She stayed silent as her chin dropped to her chest.
‘I’ve known since the night he came over to Meg’s after the wedding. I saw him hang back and talk to you as we were all leaving. I saw the shock on your face.’
Claire thought back to that night. She recalled her erotic high with a flush of shame. Rose had seen it all?
‘I was hoping that he would go away. But I saw him walk out the front of the Kirra pub this afternoon—I didn’t know he was there—and then there you were, waiting for him. I saw you both.’
Claire found a scrap of voice for a small question, ‘You were at the pub?’
‘Yep, right there at the window, with a girlfriend. Dermott’s in Southport with his mates, thank God. I was going to come out and speak to you but, by the time I got outside, you’d both gone.’
Claire bit her lip. She was going to cry.
Rose was still looking out to the vast blackness.
There was no point in lying to Rose. Claire could see she was caught. She took a breath and began a pathetic defence.
‘I didn’t come to see him. I came to see my mother and father. I wasn’t going to see him. But then I thought that if I saw him face to face, I could finish this . . . whole fantasy . . . once and for all,’ she stammered.
Rose turned—there were tears sliding down her cheeks—and looked at Claire. ‘And is it finished now? Did he tell you that?’ Rose demanded.
‘I’m sure it is. I’m positive. It’s over,’ said Claire. She’d never felt more certain of anything in her life.
‘Oh God, Claire, I hope you’re right. Because it could wreck everything. There’s too much at stake here.’
‘I know, I know.’ Claire thought of Charlie and Madeline and felt chilled to the bone.
‘Because, if Dermott ever finds out . . .’
Claire knew Dermott would be disappointed in her too. This stupid episode would send a tidal wave through the family and sweep everything away. She could see the path of destruction so clearly now.
Rose continued, ‘If Dermott ever suspects for one minute what happened, he would kill Connor.’
Dermott kill Connor? That’s odd, thought Claire. What abo
ut Charlie?
Rose went on, ‘But I don’t think Connor has told Dermott. I don’t think even he’d sink that low and, besides, Dermott trusts me.’
This was sounding stranger by the second. Why would Connor tell Dermott anything? Why wouldn’t Dermott trust Rose?
Rose sat down next to Claire, threw her arms around her shoulders and buried her face in her hair.
‘Oh God, Claire! It was never serious between Connor and me. I slept with him. Twice! A month before the wedding! I can’t believe it. I’m so ashamed of myself!’
Claire felt as if she had jumped from the balcony—and a pile of cardboard boxes had broken her fall. She wasn’t dead, but she was seriously concussed.
‘I guess I was just scared about getting married. You know how it is when you suddenly realise you will only have sex with one man ever again?’
Claire certainly did know how it was.
‘And Connor. I mean, look at him! How could anyone resist? I think he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’
‘He is sort of good-looking, I suppose,’ Claire managed to croak.
‘I thought that when I told him I was getting married, he’d just give up. He told me I was marrying the wrong man, but I know I haven’t. But then you told me he was at our wedding! Then he turned up at Meg’s!
‘Thank you for going to see him. Thank you. You must have felt so embarrassed standing out there in front of the pub as if you were meeting your toy boy or something.’
Claire smiled weakly. Is that how it had appeared to everyone?
Rose stood now and looked at Claire.
‘I know it was the wrong thing, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I guess I used him in a way. Like you said, it was a fantasy.’
Poor Connor, thought Claire, he’d be regretting the day he ever set eyes on the Wallace women.
‘You can’t imagine what it’s been like for me!’ Rose declared fervently.
‘I can imagine,’ said Claire. ‘An emotional roller-coaster.’
She felt like crying herself. Because she’d made a fool of herself? Because now there was truly no way back to Connor, even in her fantasies? Because she’d come so close to the edge of disaster?
‘It’s really possible, isn’t it, Claire? To keep the passion alive? I look at you and Charlie, and Ron and June, and I see that love can last the distance.’
‘It is possible,’ said Claire quietly. ‘But it doesn’t come easily. You have to keep working at it. It’s what your father always says.’
‘So what did you say to Connor? What did he say about me?’
Claire thought that now was the time for a lie. Rose was just like she had been at her age. Unable to see that she wasn’t the centre of the universe.
‘Well,’ said Claire, ‘we just talked everything over and I think I finally convinced him. I told him how happy you are and in the end he’s a nice bloke. He’s getting married soon and I think that will be the finish. I don’t think you’ll hear from Mr Connor Carmody again.’ Claire stood and took Rose in her arms.
‘And if he ever tries to tell Dermott . . .?’
Claire kissed the top of her head. ‘We’ll hire a hit man.’
‘You know, Claire—and this is a weird thing to say—I feel like I can be married now. That I have really truly said goodbye to being single. Being with Connor proved something to me.’
‘What was that?’ asked Claire.
‘That even if it was the most amazing sex of my entire life— and I mean, God, Claire . . . amazing—that, if you don’t love the person, then that’s all it is—just sex.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Claire.
She stood holding Rose in her arms as five floors below another wave finished its journey across the ocean and crashed to the shore.
Tuesday
Going South
It was 7 am when the phone rang by Claire’s bed. She grabbed it and simultaneously pulled the cord on the cedar blinds.
Aaargh! The morning sun blasted into the room and threatened to inflict permanent retina damage. No wonder retirees occupied these beachfront flats. Anyone with a serious hangover would have to be hospitalised.
Claire snapped the blinds shut and tried to focus on the telephone. Not easy after four hours sleep. She had been in bed by midnight, and then lay awake until 3 am trying to convince herself that the odd heart palpitation didn’t mean she was going to die.
‘Hi, gorgeous! It’s me, Meg. Your daughter wants to speak to you.’
‘Hello, Mummy.’
‘Oh hello, my sweet darling,’ Claire cooed down the line.
‘Mum. I forgot my library book. Can you go home and get it?’ Madeline, like all six year olds, imagined her mother was Superwoman.
‘Well, not really, honey. I’m in Queensland with Grandma and Grandpa, but I’ll pick you up from Meg’s after school. OK?’
‘Will you bring me a ’prise?’
‘Of course, darling. See you later. Put Meg on. Bye. Have a lovely day at school.’
‘Bye, Mummy. I love you.’
‘And I love you, Madeline. Bye!’
‘Are you bringing me a surprise too?’ Meg was starting the inquisition at an indecent hour.
‘You don’t stop, do you, Meg?’ Claire’s heart felt lighter than it had for a long time.
‘So . . . tell me.’
‘Meg, I did not have sex with that man,’ said Claire. It was the Bill Clinton defence. But in this case Claire hoped it would hold.
‘You better not be bringing back any dresses with suspicious stains!’
Claire laughed. ‘No, no, no. It’s all good. I do not have any surprises for you . . . or for anyone. Seriously, I’ll be home by this afternoon. I’ll talk to you then. You’ll be proud of me.
‘Hey—you’ll have had the ultrasound. You might have a ’prise for me!’
‘Oh jeez, Claire, don’t say it. Bye. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Claire fell back to sleep and was woken fifteen minutes later by another call.
‘Hey there, it’s a great spring morning. Now eighteen degrees and all major arteries flowing smoothly into the City. Time to rise and shine, campers!’
‘Charlieeee, fuck offfff,’ Claire whined.
‘But seriously. Have you seen my Tina Turner watch?’
‘Are you kidding? This is a joke, right? Charlie, you got that in New York, I dunno . . . eight years ago. Why the hell would I know where it is now?’
‘OK, OK, just asking. It’s her birthday. I just wanted to wear it today, that’s all.’
‘Charlie if you had a watch, you’d realise it’s seven fifteen am.’
‘It’s eight fifteen here.’
‘Yep. It’s called “daylight saving”, Charlie, and the Sunshine State doesn’t believe in it. Lemme go back to sleep.’
‘Oops. Sorry, baby. See you this afternoon. I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Claire lay back in her bed and looked at the ceiling. Anyone else want to pop in and tell her they loved her?
‘Morning, Claire of the Moon,’ said her father, peeping around the bedroom door. ‘You awake?’
‘I am now, Dad.’
‘I just wanted to come in before your mother does and tell you I love you.’
Claire laughed and threw her hands into the air. She’d now won the quadrella!
‘Yay! Thanks, Dad.’
Her father sat on the end of the bed and looked at the eiderdown. He smoothed it with a wrinkled hand and cleared his throat with a cough before he spoke.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking. And I want to tell you this before you go home. If I had my time over with your mother— and goodness knows, I’d do it all again in a minute—I’d give her all my heart from the beginning.
‘Looking back, I think that’s why she had the affair. Because I always tried to keep a bit of my heart all to myself in case . . . Well, I don’t really know why, just in case of an emergency. I was wrong.
&nb
sp; ‘You go home and love your husband and daughter with all your heart and soul. Don’t be scared. That’s all I want to say.’
How could her father have known this about her, Claire wondered.
‘Oh, Dad, I love you so much,’ she said passionately, and threw her arms around him.
‘RON! Get out here now and put your joggers on,’ June called from the hall.
‘Are you going to get up and come for a walk too, Claire?’ June appeared in the doorway, adjusting her natty white sun visor embroidered with yellow and pink hibiscus flowers, which perfectly complemented her yellow and pink velour jogging suit.
‘Aw, Mum . . . I’m so tired.’
‘You could do with a walk! I can see there’s a bit of extra poundage creeping onto the top of your legs. You’re forty-five if you hadn’t realised. It’s a critical age for a woman.’
That night Claire was at home, standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing her hair, when she saw Charlie’s head appear behind hers. She felt him haul up the hem of her white satin dressing gown and, holding her bottom cheeks apart with his warm hands, insinuate his large erection in between.
Then he took a handful of Claire’s hair and pulled it so her neck was bare. If anyone on this earth knew how to bite Claire’s neck over and over until she was a quivering wreck, it was Charlie Wallace. So he did this, and gently pulled on her nipples at the same time, until her knees began to give way. Then he pushed her forward over the black marble sink.
‘Charlie,’ Claire began. ‘Oh, not here, what if Maddie . . . OH GOD!’
Charlie thrust himself into Claire from behind so hard that her head smacked into the mirror. And he didn’t even apologise. Or ask her if she wanted an aspirin. Who was this man? Not her husband. Where had they taken him? What had they done with Charlie?
There was a whole new sensation Claire hadn’t felt before. She felt so bare, so smooth. It all felt deliciously slick and different. Very different, in fact.
‘Hmm, that feel’s pretty good,’ Charlie crooned. ‘But I don’t know whether I like the look of it or not. Lemme have a closer look.’
