by Liz Byrski
Arriving at Irene’s house from the airport in the early evening he had expected Sylvia to be there. She had, after all, said she would see him at dinner. But there was no sign of her and it was not until he had dumped his bag in the spare room, washed and wandered down to join Bonnie, Irene and Hamish for a drink, that he felt able to enquire, as casually as possible, how and where she was.
‘She’ll be over for dinner,’ Bonnie said, handing him a glass of wine. ‘She’s moved into the cottage now, and she had something she needed to finish tonight.’
Will nodded and sipped his drink, attempting to look calm while waiting for the sound of the kitchen door. He passed the next hour in nervous anticipation masked by attempts at relaxed conversation. It was while Bonnie was checking the status of the meal that he heard the door open and voices in the kitchen.
‘Will,’ Sylvia said, crossing the room to him. ‘How lovely to see you.’
And the brief pressure of her body against him in the hug, the scent of her hair and the brush of her cheek against his, were like an injection of some powerful calm inducing drug. He felt safe again, just as he had as a child when his mother came to collect him from the hated boarding school and take him home for the holidays. He was flooded with warmth and with the confidence that nothing bad could happen while she was around. He made a mental note never to mention that because it was the sort of immature, needy, unsexy thing that she would hate.
It was hard for Will to get through the evening without giving in to his desire for physical contact, and when Sylvia returned to the cottage and the others retired to their rooms for the night, the feeling of her being so near but so far away was torture and he called her on the mobile.
‘I could slip out of the back door,’ he whispered into the phone. ‘No one would hear me. I could be there in your bed in less than a minute.’
‘No, Will,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re the one who wants to keep this a secret. What if Bonnie or Irene spots you skulking around the garden in your jocks?’
‘I’ll get dressed – ’
‘No! We’ll be together tomorrow. When Bonnie finds out, I want it to be because we told her, and I want that to be soon. Darling Will, it was lovely to see you tonight, and I was dying to pounce on you too, but you set it up like this and now we just have to wait.’
He eventually fell asleep cursing himself for bad management, for his failure to think ahead and lie to Bonnie about the day and time of his arrival, which would have allowed them a night or two together while Bonnie thought he was still in Perth.
The following morning he had appointments back to back and they finally met at his apartment early in the afternoon. Within minutes he was wondering what he had been worried about. The torture of the intervening weeks was washed away and it was Hong Kong all over again. They made love, ordered takeaway, made love again, watched a movie on the house system and made love again. It was only at midnight that Sylvia, who had fallen asleep, woke suddenly, kissed him and got out of bed to go home.
‘No!’ Will protested, sitting up and grasping her hand as she stood beside the bed. ‘Stay, you have to stay the night.’
‘And what if Bonnie notices that my car isn’t there, or pops across to speak to me early in the morning?’ She zipped up her skirt and went to the mirror to brush her hair, looking at his reflected face. ‘We have to be sensible, Will, either that or let’s get it out in the open.’ She walked back to the bed and leaned down to kiss him. ‘Don’t look so grumpy. I’ll meet you for lunch and see you tomorrow evening. Remember, Hamish is taking us all out for dinner.’
‘Yes, and I’ll have to share you again, and you’ll go home with them,’ he complained.
‘You sound like a sulky schoolboy,’ she said, laughing and roughing up his hair. ‘You need a good spanking by the headmaster.’
‘No, the headmistress,’ he said, tugging her back onto the bed on top of him. ‘Please stay.’
She kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck. ‘No, much as I’d love to. I don’t want to be asked questions by Bonnie or Irene and have to lie.’
The talk around the boardroom table had stopped and everyone was looking at him expectantly. Will shuffled his papers together.
‘I think we all need time to think this over,’ he said. ‘Let’s sleep on it and we’ll meet here tomorrow at ten and make a decision.’
Back at the apartment he flung his briefcase on the bed and stretched out on the sofa, mulling over the idea that had come to him during the meeting. He had organised it so badly, just assuming that Sylvia would be there with him, constantly available, fitting in with his plans. Next time he would organise it better, plan it with her in advance. Meanwhile, perhaps he could persuade her to engage in a little more subterfuge. He loosened his tie, kicked off his shoes and dialled her number.
‘I’ve had an idea,’ he said when she answered. ‘I’m supposed to go back to Perth on Friday, but suppose I don’t, suppose I rebook it for Sunday night but pretend I’m still going home. We could go off somewhere to the country for the weekend.’
There was silence on the other end. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘What would I tell Bonnie and Irene?’
‘Couldn’t you invent a friend somewhere that you’re going to visit?’
He could tell she didn’t like it, the deception, lying to Bonnie again, but he could also tell that she wanted to go. ‘Please,’ he wheedled. ‘Let me ravish you in the glorious Victorian countryside. We can go for walks, eat delicious food, taste wine, we’ll have plenty of time and no one looking over our shoulders. After that it’s only just over three weeks until I come back for the Boatshed opening, and we’ll tell Bonnie then.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ he said, and he believed it. He believed that away from Melbourne he could break down her resistance and get some commitment for the future, something that would withstand Bonnie’s possible disapproval.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right, it would be lovely, I’ll come. But I’ll also hold you to that promise. When you come back for the opening, we tell Bonnie.’
‘I’ve booked it,’ he whispered to her that evening. ‘The best suite in the best hotel in Queenscliff. Friday to Sunday.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ she said, smiling at him, and the warm pressure of her leg against his under the table convinced him that she meant it.
TWENTY-NINE
‘It’s all right, Fran,’ Sean said, folding his arms and leaning back against the kitchen wall. ‘You can safely go away, I shan’t do anything terrible to the kitchen while you’re not here, and when you get back we can test cook the whole menu.’ A dark haired, dark eyed thirty-five year old from Galway with a melodious Irish accent, he had been the first applicant for the chef’s position, the first interviewee, and was head and shoulders above all the others in experience. He was also looking for a day job. Graeme, his partner, was breakfast chef at a central city hotel, so the breakfast and lunch schedule was perfect for him. Now Fran stood in the centre of the restaurant looking around with satisfaction, her suitcase alongside her.
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Sean,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want to leave the excitement.’
‘Sure’n there’ll still be enough excitement when you get back,’ he said. ‘Now look at herself there waiting for you, you’d better get going.’
She gave him a wave and looked around her as she walked to the door. ‘You were right, Bonnie, those white tables and coloured chairs are great,’ she said.
‘I knew it’d be okay,’ Bonnie said. ‘The day Mum and Hamish brought Lila in to have a look around I showed her the artist’s impression. Lila said the colour scheme was perfect!’
Fran laughed. ‘Good thing you didn’t tell me that at the time – it would have frightened the life out of me. Just over two weeks, Bon, and we’ll be open. I can hardly believe it.
‘You won’t take on any waitstaff while I’m away, will you?’
&
nbsp; Bonnie shook her head. ‘No, Fran, I promise, now come along or you’ll miss your flight.’
‘Fran,’ a voice whispered above her. ‘Fran, it’s me, Lenore. It’s five o’clock and I’m going power walking. Just thought I’d check if you wanted to come.’
Fran rolled over, forcing her eyes open to the unmistakable light of dawn. She had arrived at Lenore’s home, tucked in a narrow lane near Oxford Street, the previous evening, in time for dinner with Lenore and Jack and some of their acquaintances who were in Sydney for the trade fair. It had been a pleasant evening with good food and delightful company.
‘Oh good,’ Lenore said, ‘you are awake, I wasn’t sure.’ She was wearing a black tracksuit and purple sneakers and was bouncing easily from one foot to the other as though warming up. ‘I always go at this time. Forgot to ask you last night, and then I thought that if you got up while I was out you might be worried. It’s a glorious morning.’ She pulled the curtains back a little further, letting in more of the early light. ‘Do come, it’s such a great start to the day.’
Fran couldn’t imagine anything she would like less than power walking at five in the morning, except, of course, for a run. ‘I doubt I could keep up with you, Lenore,’ she said, hoping this would be sufficient discouragement. ‘I wouldn’t want to slow you down.’
‘No worries,’ Lenore said. ‘I can steam on ahead if I want and then wheel back to meet you.’
Fran dragged herself up into a sitting position and yawned again.
‘Great! I’m so glad,’ Lenore said, taking her semi-vertical position as acquiescence. ‘I’ll wait downstairs. I’ll have a nice glass of hot water with lemon ready for you.’
Fran weighed up the prospect of another couple of hours in bed against an ungracious response to her hostess and slowly hung her legs over the side of the bed.
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she told herself, thinking of the glee with which Caro would devour the story when she told her about her first morning in Sydney.
Lenore handed her the threatened glass of hot water and returned to the doorjamb against which she had been flexing her calf muscles.
‘Good to warm up a bit, especially if you’re not used to it,’ she said, beckoning Fran to join her.
Fran drank the water feeling incredibly virtuous and thinking longingly of her first cup of coffee of the day, which was always her first choice on waking. Warily she stretched her arms up and bent over at the waist, as she had seen Caro do, and hung there for a moment before copying Lenore’s stretches.
‘Good,’ Lenore said. ‘We can get going now.’ And she led the way out of the front door, along the lane and out towards Oxford Street where a waiter in a long white apron was hosing down the pavement in front of an Italian cafe, and a greengrocer was rolling up the shutter door of his shop.
Fran swung her arms and breathed deeply. There was something rather nice about the gentle pace of dawn in the heart of a city – now she was up and out, the prospect of exercise didn’t seem quite so horrific. Lenore bounced along beside her in companionable silence as they made their way down the slope towards Hyde Park.
‘I might just power on a bit now,’ Lenore said, pulling her baseball cap further down over her eyes as they hit the entrance to the park. ‘You take your time and I’ll meet you back here in about half an hour.’ And off she strode, her body a power pack of energy, her arms swinging back and forth.
Fran walked on past the war memorial and the Pool of Reflection gleaming like glass in the sunlight. Ahead of her through the broad, tree-lined path, sunlight filtered through the branches of the trees, patterning the deep shade, and a couple of old men who had obviously been sleeping rough rolled up their blankets and struggled to their feet. Lenore was striding on, widening the distance between them, and Fran, keeping to a comfortable pace, thought of mornings at home, falling out of bed at the last possible moment, a mug of strong coffee drunk while defrosting a couple of homemade muffins or croissants. Then a second coffee while she piled on butter, jam or honey, one ear on the radio, an eye on the newspaper, and her hand tapping nervously on the pad while she listed things she needed to do. The edginess of that time defined the day, but on this glorious, still Sydney morning, it all seemed such an unnecessary waste of energy.
‘I’ll do it again tomorrow,’ Fran told Lenore as they sat at the table in the back garden drinking lemon and ginger tea and eating poached pears with Greek yoghurt. ‘Don’t go without me – I feel perfectly splendid.’
‘It’s a date,’ Lenore said with a smile. ‘It’s such a good way to start the day, and you look great, you’ve lost weight.’ She paused, looking at Fran. ‘You have such a great complexion, Fran, and the most wonderful eyes. You’re a really beautiful woman.’
When David walked into the coffee shop he felt as though everyone knew why he was there. He ordered his long black at the counter and sat at a table with the newspaper. The first time he’d seen Jodie here she had taken him by surprise, but that wasn’t going to happen this time. He had tried out various scripts for what he’d say but none of them sounded convincingly natural, so now he planned to trust to luck. As the minutes ticked away, though, his head began to throb with the tension. When he saw her open the glass door, he got up from the table and intercepted her on her way to the counter.
‘Hi ,’ he said. ‘Can I get your coffee for you?’
She paused. ‘Okay,’ she nodded. ‘Cappuccino, please.’
‘Are you on your own?’ She nodded again, and as she made her way to the table, David waited impatiently for the coffee, resenting the seconds that were giving her time to make up her mind to tell him to piss off. Finally he set the cup down in front of her, realising too late that she usually got a takeaway.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I forgot. Will I get them to put it in a beaker for you?’
‘It’s fine,’ Jodie said, picking up her spoon to skim off the foam. They sat in uneasy silence while David tried to calm himself. ‘I met your niece the other week,’ Jodie said. ‘She’s beautiful and Caro really seems to have taken to motherhood.’
David nodded. ‘Yes, yes, she does…’ He tried to force out more words but they stuck in his throat and there was another longer, even more awkward silence.
‘You didn’t return my call,’ she said eventually. ‘If you didn’t want to come to the party, you only had to say so.’
David flushed deeply, heat flooding his body and leaving its traces in an embarrassing glow on his face and neck. ‘It wasn’t the party,’ he said. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’
Jodie raised her eyebrows and sipped her coffee.
‘I’m thinking of going away,’ he said. It wasn’t at all what he had wanted to say and it felt really stupid now. Maybe she thought he wanted to say goodbye.
‘Soon?’ she asked.
‘Early in the new year. Turkey, maybe.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged, flushing again. ‘Feeling a bit unsettled here, I suppose.’
Jodie gave him a long look and then looked back into her coffee. ‘And going away will solve that?’
David thought he might be going to throw up; his tongue seemed stuck to the top of his mouth and he couldn’t remember ever feeling so useless and incompetent. ‘I don’t know,’ he managed to say, putting his hands palms down on the table. ‘I could possibly be running away, in which case it would only make things worse.’
Jodie set down her cup rather suddenly and rather hard, and shocked him by putting her hands on top of his. ‘I realise this is hard for you, David,’ she said, ‘but could we cut the crap and get on with it? If you want to apologise for running out on me and want to ask me out, could you just please do it, because then I can say yes please and it will all be much easier.’
‘Well,’ he said, sitting up straighter, exhaling deeply as though something had attacked his lungs with a pump. ‘Yes, in that case, yes, I’m really sorry, I behaved like an idiot and I want you to go out with me.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s saved us at least an hour. Tonight okay?’
He nodded, exhausted by the sudden release of tension. ‘Yes, brilliant but, Jodie, before … well … I need to explain about my health and …’
The hands that were resting on top of his grasped them suddenly, turning them slightly to get a firm hold. ‘David, I’m a nurse, I know all about it. I know what it means, what you can and can’t do. I probably know as much about it as you do.’ She glanced down at her watch. ‘Whoops, gotta get to work. Pick me up at my place at six-thirty, okay? Unless, of course, you’re planning to leave for Turkey before then.’
THIRTY
‘Come inside, tell me what you think,’ Sylvia said, opening the door and ushering Irene in. ‘It’s an odd sort of room, I can’t imagine what it could have been used for. Anyway, I’m calling it the design studio because it sounds professional and that might help me convince myself.’
Irene stepped inside, looking around. It was a narrow room that ran the length of the rear wall of the Boatshed, and it had the same white-painted walls and timber floor as the rest of the building; the line of windows looked out over the open water. Two cutting tables stood in the middle and at one end there was a drawing board with a stool and at the other, Sylvia’s electronic sewing machine and a couple of dressmaker’s dummies. Adjustable shelves had been fitted along one wall and some were already stacked with fabric. Nearby stood a long, shoulder-height rail designed to hang clothes.
‘It does look very professional already,’ Irene said. ‘I don’t know what you need for something like this but to me it looks perfect.’
