The Feel of Forever

by Lyn Denison

  Her mother had left the outside light on for her but thankfully the family had been in bed when she quietly let herself in, not even able to find it in herself to watch Bailey’s car disappear into the night. And in the cold light of morning, the evening before had been even more surreal.

  Bailey had phoned before she left the next day. She was sorry and if Fliss needed anything she was just a phone call away. Fliss still had the scrap of paper with that scrawled phone number on it. Even now she didn’t know why she’d kept it.

  Bailey sat down again and placed the cell phone on the picnic table. “Mum said to say hello,” she said lightly. “She couldn’t stop raving about the gallery all weekend. She loves Mayla’s sculpture she bought and the necklace dad chose for her, too.”

  Fliss began stacking their plates, handing them to Bailey to stow back in the food cooler. “Yes, the necklace was beautiful.”

  “Mum worries about me these days—that’s why she had to check to see I’d made it back to the island.” Bailey pulled a face. “She’s not keen on me being here on my own without John, can you believe that?”

  “It is pretty isolated out on the headland,” Fliss said, and Bailey held up her hand.

  “Oh, no. Not you, too. I’ve been half expecting Mum to drop everything and come over so I’m not on my own. When I suggested I was a big girl now she told me it was her job as a mother to worry about me.”

  Fliss nodded. “Mum was like that, too, when I went to university. And now I have Chrissie, Mayla and even Petra, not to mention Marcus, filling in for Mum.” She glanced at Bailey to see a strange expression cross her face. But before Fliss could even wonder what Bailey was thinking, her mobile rang again. They both started at the sound.

  Picking up the phone, Bailey checked the caller ID. She seemed to still, then she glanced at Fliss and excused herself again. “Hi. It’s Bailey.” She took a few more steps away from the table, her back to Fliss. “When did you get home?”

  Fliss sat down and tried not to listen to Bailey’s side of the conversation, but it was almost impossible not to hear what she was saying.

  “All right. No, that’s okay.”

  Fliss turned away to watch the other family as they began to pack up the remains of their own picnic.

  “Yes. Much better. Thanks.”

  Fliss glanced at Bailey again, watched as she unconsciously slid her free hand into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “I know that. But not yet.” She flexed her shoulders. “All right. Yes. Bye.” For a few moments she looked down at the phone in her hand, before slowly turning back to Fliss. She walked over to the table, sat down and sighed.

  “I’m sorry, Fliss. No more interruptions.” She switched off the cell phone.

  Fliss made no comment.

  A car engine spluttered to life and they both turned to see the other car leave the car park. Only Bailey’s car remained.

  “Alone at last,” Bailey said lightly and Fliss looked across the table at her and quickly away. “That was Grant. He’s back from the States,” she said, almost absently turning the phone over and over in her hand.

  What did Bailey expect her to say? Fliss wondered. It was no business of hers if Bailey’s husband chose to get in touch. In fact, it was probably as well he did call. It reminded Fliss that he existed, that Bailey was married and therefore it didn’t matter why she’d returned to the island.

  Ask her anyway, she told herself, and she drew herself together. “Why have you really come back?” she got out thickly.

  Bailey set the phone carefully on the table and nervously brushed her hair back from her face. She met and held Fliss’s gaze. “For you,” she said huskily.

  Chapter Nine

  “Don’t! Please!” Fliss began, her voice breaking. She pushed herself to her feet and walked on stiff legs across to the timber and wire netting fence that protected a section of grass-covered sand dunes from erosion. She rested her hands on the rough wood, needing the solidness to calm her.

  For one wild, ecstatic moment she allowed herself to feel the incredible joy of knowing Bailey had come back for her. Eight years too late, warned her inner voice. Rationality then took over, reigning in those dangerously wayward thoughts. She reminded herself to keep remembering what Bailey had done. She had to remember the pain, the isolation she’d felt clutching her loss to her, knowing she couldn’t share it with a living soul even if she’d wanted to. There was only Bailey. And Bailey had gone.

  “Fliss,” Bailey said behind her, close but not touching her. She leaned back against the fence beside Fliss, and sighed. “Grant and I are getting a divorce,” she said flatly.

  Fliss’s whole body tensed. She turned Bailey’s words over in her mind, but she couldn’t seem to compute them. A divorce. That meant Bailey would be free, didn’t it? Fliss knew Bailey was watching her profile. She could almost feel Bailey’s eyes on her, as though she’d reached out and touched Fliss’s skin.

  “I don’t think that’s really any of my business,” Fliss said, her voice sounding unlike her own.

  Bailey was silent for long moments. “I’d hoped you’d think it was,” she said softly. “I’ve wanted to tell you, to talk to you about that, about everything, since I came back.”

  Fliss turned to face her, one hand still clutching the fence for support. “Did you ever consider I wouldn’t be interested in anything you had to say?”

  “Yes. I considered that. But I hoped you’d at least listen.”

  “I don’t seem to remember you listening to me back then?” Fliss said bitterly.

  “I did listen. I’ve played that scene over and over in my mind over the years. Why wouldn’t I, Fliss? It was the absolute zenith of my mountain of bad choices.” Bailey paused. “There was one thing you said that I’ve held onto all this time. You said you’d been waiting for me all your life. Was that true?”

  “At the time, I thought it was.”

  They were both silent as the past and present merged together.

  “Is there any chance you still feel that way?” Bailey asked thickly.

  “No.” Fliss said with some force. The word seemed to echo mockingly in the tumultuous atmosphere between them and she suspected she was trying to convince herself as much as Bailey.

  “Are you sure?” Bailey’s voice was choked. She moved her hand and covered Fliss’s as it rested on the fence.

  Fliss turned her head, met Bailey’s blue gaze and when Bailey leaned forward, she couldn’t seem to move away. Then Bailey’s warm, soft lips touched Fliss’s and she lost all sense of time and place. There was only the feel of Bailey’s mouth on hers, the tender enticement of her tongue tip, the familiar surge of her body’s awakening responses.

  Eight years faded away in a moment and Fliss was totally tuned to Bailey, the heady light musk of her perfume, the sensual nuances as her body molded itself to Fliss’s. She moaned, a throaty libidinous sound she scarcely recognized as her own voice. In a split second she knew she would be lost.

  Did she want that? It was a faint protest from deep inside her. Could she let Bailey step back into her life as though nothing had happened? And if she left again, what then?

  Fliss pushed her hand against Bailey’s waist and she drew back. “No,” she said through swollen lips. “No,” she repeated, louder this time.

  Bailey made no move to set her free or pull her closer. She simply looked at Fliss, her blue eyes reflecting the arousal Fliss felt.

  “I don’t”—Fliss drew a steadying breath—“want to do this,” she finished in a rush.

  “Fliss, please, I—”

  “Don’t.” Fliss stepped away from her, walked on shaky legs back to the picnic table. “I want to go home. I can walk if you don’t want to drive me.” She picked up some of their picnic gear. After a moment Bailey gathered the rest of it and Fliss headed to the car park, leaving Bailey to follow behind her.

  “Fliss, I’m sorry. Please talk to me about this.” Bailey pleaded as she unlocked the car door
.

  “I can’t, Bailey. I just can’t.” Fliss climbed into the passenger seat. “Please take me home.”

  They completed the journey in silence and only when Fliss had closed the door and heard Bailey’s car drive away did she allow her tears to fall.

  After a fitful night’s sleep Fliss took an early ferry across to the mainland and lost herself in the anonymity of a darkened movie theatre. It was an action movie, that’s all she recalled. She watched it in a daze. In the afternoon she wandered aimlessly around a shopping mall, gazing at but not really seeing the merchandise.

  She was walking past a news agency when Bailey’s beautiful face smiled back at her from the cover of a glossy magazine, one of the magazines Marcus referred to as the trashy kind. She paused, looked at that beautiful face and couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and picking up the magazine. She ran her fingers lightly over the photograph and she bit back a low sob. DIVORCE FOR AUSTRALIA’S FAVORITE COUPLE? The teasing words jumped off the cover. Fliss replaced the magazine on the stand and walked on, not able to read the suppositions of the journalist. If they discovered Bailey was a lesbian they’d have a field day. Could Fliss cope with that?

  What was she going to do about Bailey?

  Eventually she knew she had to go home. She had to go to work the next day. Reluctantly she caught the late water taxi back to the island and, exhausted, fell into a deep sleep, only to be woken by a fierce storm just after dawn. Unable to get back to sleep she headed off to the gallery early and made herself focus on a backlog of paperwork.

  “Fliss! Fliss!” Chrissie burst into the gallery later in the afternoon.

  Fliss stood up from behind the counter.

  “Oh. There you are.” She ran around and grabbed Fliss’s hand and pulled her into a bear hug, holding her tightly.

  Fliss could only go with the flow until Chrissie stepped back and grinned broadly at her.

  “Guess what?” she asked.

  “Can’t think of a thing,” Fliss said honestly. “Unless Joy Gayton’s lumbago is telling us this rain is going to ease up. That storm this morning was pretty fierce.”

  “No. It’s not the rain. Paul hasn’t got a girlfriend. Well, except me,” she added, glowing with happiness.

  “See. Didn’t I tell you so!” Fliss said with a laugh.

  Chrissie leant back against the counter. “I know. You did tell me.”

  “So? What happened?” Fliss sat back in her office chair and motioned for Chrissie to sit down too. “I know you’re dying to tell me.”

  “Well, I just got so mad with him and myself and I rang him and told him if he didn’t come home the very next day then he needn’t bother coming home at all.”

  “Wow!”

  “I know. Aren’t you proud of me, Fliss? I was forceful. To the point. And I was mad.” She sighed. “But seriously, Fliss, I was so tired of being ineffectual when I knew deep down I wasn’t like that. So I demanded Paul tell me what was going on. He told me to leave the kids with his mother and pick him up from the next water taxi.”

  “That night?”

  Chrissie nodded. “Then he drove us up to the hill in old Mr. Kingston’s paddock.”

  Fliss felt something shift inside her. That was where Bailey had changed Fliss’s life forever.

  “And he”—Chrissie’s voice caught on a sob—“he said he loved me, that he always had. He said there had never been anyone else for him since we met as kids. He said he’d always love me, but that he was dying.”

  “Dying?” Fliss gazed across at her friend and Chrissie nodded.

  “He’d found a lump weeks ago, in his groin, and he was sure he had cancer and didn’t know how to tell me.” Chrissie stood up, paced around. “Can you believe that?”

  “Did he go to the doctor?”

  “Oh, no. He just kept it all to himself and tried to forget it was there.”

  “Oh, Chrissie. What did you do?”

  “I just about got hysterical. I made him drive over to Doctor James’s house right then and there and we got him out of bed to look at the lump. And he’s got a hernia. Paul, I mean. He has to go into hospital next week. And he loves me.” A tear ran down Chrissie’s cheek. “Oh, Fliss, I’m just so relieved about that but now I’m really worried about the operation.”

  Fliss stood up and hugged her again.

  “I know a hernia repair isn’t an uncommon operation,” Chrissie said into Fliss’s shoulder, “but any operation’s serious.”

  “It’ll be all right, I’m sure.” Fliss rubbed her back sympathetically. “Paul’s healthy and very fit.”

  “That’s what the doctor said.”

  “So he’s forgiven you for dragging him out of bed then?” Fliss quipped and Chrissie giggled as she moved out of Fliss’s arms.

  “Yes. He was pretty good about it, even on the night. But then again, I was a little over the top by the time I got there. I think he just wanted to shut me up.” She shook her head. “Can you believe Paul kept it all to himself for so long? I love him so much, Fliss.”

  “I know you do. And I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  Chrissie looked at Fliss and frowned. “You know, you don’t look fine. Are you still not sleeping?”

  “I’m okay, Chrissie.”

  “No, you’re not.” Chrissie gave Fliss’s arm a little shake. “What aren’t you telling me now?”

  “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

  Chrissie stared at Fliss but Fliss’s eyes were the first to fall. “What’s going on?”

  Fliss shrugged. “Nothing you can do anything about, Chrissie, so don’t worry.”

  “The woman you were talking to on the phone, is it her?”

  Fliss sank down into her chair and ran her hand over her eyes. She shook her head. “I can’t talk about it, Chrissie.”

  Chrissie pulled the other chair over again and sat close to Fliss. “Why not, love? I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I think I know who it is anyway.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s Mayla Dunne, isn’t it?”

  Fliss’s eyes widened in surprise. “No, of course not. What makes you think it’s her?”

  “She’s often here at the gallery. And she’s a lesbian.”

  “She’s also twenty years older than I am.”

  “You’d never know that,” Chrissie began but Fliss held up her hand.

  “It’s not Mayla. I promise you. We’re simply good friends.”

  “You might feel better if you talk about it. That’s what you’ve often told me.”

  “It’s not just my story to tell.” Fliss shook her head. “I had an affair a few years ago. It didn’t work out. That’s all.”

  “But she’s still phoning you? Why, Fliss? Isn’t that just prolonging the agony?” Chrissie sighed. “Is there any chance you’ll get together?”

  “She wants to,” Fliss said softly.

  “Fliss, I don’t understand. Do you love her?”

  “From the moment I saw her.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t want to get hurt again.”

  “I can understand that.” Chrissie frowned. “Has she explained or apologized or something?”

  “All of the above. Well, I’m pretty sure she wanted to. But I didn’t really give her a chance.”

  “Why not?” Chrissie raised her hands and let them fall. “You fell in love with her. She broke your heart. She comes back and wants to explain. At least let her attempt to apologize. And if you are still in love with her why won’t you at least hear what she’s got to say?”

  “I told you, Chrissie. I don’t know that I can trust that she won’t hurt me again.”

  “Are you sure you’re not trying to punish her?”

  Fliss looked up at her. “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.” She glanced away uncertainly. She wasn’t doing that, was she? No. Her caution was justified.

  “Life’s so short, Fliss. When I thought I was losing Paul I realized that. I tol
d myself I wasn’t going to lower my pride but if I hadn’t—What I mean is, don’t let your pride keep you from happiness.”

  “There’s more involved here, Chrissie.”

  “The bottom line is, do you love her and does she love you?”

  “She says she does.”

  “And I saw your face when you were talking to her on the phone the other afternoon. If it can be all sorted out then forgive her and go on from here.”

  “If it was that simple, Chrissie, don’t you think I would have done it. She”—Fliss ran a hand over her eyes again—“isn’t out as a lesbian at work or to her family and friends.”

  “Oh, like you are?” Chrissie teased. “Has she been hiding it the way you have?”

  “In her job, well, she can’t—She has to—”

  The bell over the front door rang and before Fliss could stand up, Petra was around the counter and pulling Fliss to her feet. “It’s the boat, Fliss. Dad’s boat. It’s missing. You have to come.”

  Chapter Ten

  Petra’s face was pale and she was shaking. “They’re missing. Dad and Liam.” Her voice broke and she burst into tears. “Another fishing boat picked up part of a distress signal. Annabel rang and we have to go. It must have been in the storm this morning.”

  “You go, Fliss,” Chrissie said, calmly assessing the situation. “I’ll close the gallery and the café and join you. You’ve got Liam’s car, Petra? And you’re okay to drive?”

  “I’ll drive,” Fliss said, moving towards the door, her body numb. Their father’s boat was missing. She couldn’t take it in.

  At the Air Sea Rescue station everyone was on action alert. A helicopter had been dispatched to search the area where their father’s trawler was last seen.

  “They’ve got a good three hours of daylight,” Annabel said, looking worriedly at the overcast skies. “As long as it doesn’t start raining again. The seas are still rough though. It won’t be easy to find them if—” She swallowed. “The sea, the weather, can be so unpredictable.”

  “Dad’s a good seaman,” Fliss said, holding tightly to Annabel’s hand, sharing her fear. “He’s fished this area since he was a boy. He wouldn’t have taken any chances,” she added, as much for herself as her father’s partner.