Her Galahad

by Melissa James

  She pulled back, gazing at him with an emotion too painful to define, too intensely beautiful to ignore. "Oh, Jirrah," she breathed. A single tear slipped down her cheek. "It's too late for us." She buried her face in his shoulder, pressing her lips there in a timeless gesture of tenderness, of regret, of what might have been. "Nothing can change what's happened. Our lives can't be different. If only the past could be rewritten. If only the choices weren't so hard. If—"

  "Yeah," he growled, lowering his mouth to hers. "If only there weren't so damn many of them. Let's forget the 'if onlys' for now. Kiss me, mulgu."

  Her lips met his halfway, a kiss of earth and fire and sky as the world around them grew dark and cold. And while a city of four million people in rush hour whirled around them, making their way to buses, trains, taxis and cars, finding a way to get home, in a quiet place the souls of the dolphin and the wild black swan, two totems that could never belong to each other, connected spirits through touch with a sweet poignancy words could never give. And while they yearned for what was irretrievably gone, and dreaded what must come, they were more than content with the present moment.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  « ^ »

  Reality intruded before long, in the form of damp ground and cool evening air swirling through the park. Tessa shivered and pulled back a little. "It's cold."

  He nuzzled her neck. "I'm feeling pretty hot, actually."

  She laughed, a breathless little sound. "I'm hungry."

  "So am I." His heated gaze devoured her. "Somehow I don't think we're talking about the same sort of hunger," she whispered, trying to smile.

  "Darn," he sighed. "Hope lives on."

  She giggled, and he smiled at her. "Pathetic, isn't it? I'm reduced to such a pitiful state over you, I'm even making stupid jokes to see that beautiful smile of yours."

  She dropped her gaze. "Dinner," she reminded him huskily.

  "Yeah, yeah." He got to his feet, and reached down to help her up. "The woman has no soul. She talks of food when I get all deep and meaningful."

  Intensely grateful for the little joke, she held on to his hand as they walked back to the car.

  Driving through the side streets and back alleys of Sydney toward the Harbour Bridge, Tessa gazed out the window, filled with memories. Snaking through the ancient alleys used to be an adventure, a competition to see who'd discover the most strange or out-of-the-way store, or the most cosmopolitan place to eat— "Jirrah!" Her trembling hand pointed to the left. "Look!"

  "What? Is it Beller?" he asked, his voice tense.

  "No. Look!"

  His gaze found the bright row of rainbow lights covering the plain white building. He smiled. "The Malaysian Wonderland. So the old place is still there. Wonder if they still serve laksa."

  "Burning-hot meat soup for you, medium-hot seafood for me."

  He pulled into a parking space, which, since it was a Monday night, was easily available. "Want to see if it's still good?"

  "Should we?"

  He didn't pretend to misunderstand. She wasn't talking about Cameron finding them at this place. "It's there, Tess. We can't make it go away. We can either keep hurting at what happened to us, or we can go past it, and move forward."

  "By moving backward, into the past?"

  He took her hand, caressing the palm, filling her with hot, needing shivers. "By talking about something besides them, or even about finding Emily. By creating a new beginning for us, in a place that means something to both of us."

  Her eyes searched his. "I don't know."

  "It's scary for me, too. But like it or not, Tess, we are connected. We're Emily's parents. We'll always have the bond, no matter what happens with us. Can't we try to be friends?"

  "Instead of lovers, you mean?"

  "As well as lovers, if we can." He placed a delicate kiss on her wrist and palm, and quivering heat streaked through her like wildfire. "But I learned years ago not to cry for the moon. I'll take what I can get. For Emily's sake, we need to move forward. Kids aren't stupid. If we meet Emily and pretend to be friend she'll know we're pulling on an act." He lifted his face from her palm to look deeply into her eyes. "Let's face our past, mulgu, then we can walk into the future."

  Slowly she nodded. She unbuckled her belt and left the safety of the van to where he waited for her, his hand held out. She took it, and walked with him into their time of innocence.

  * * *

  Like many backstreet Asian restaurants in Sydney, The Malaysian Wonderland was simple and bright, with fifties-style tables and chairs, plain white walls, linoleum floors and tacky cardboard Specials signs. The workers, university students working their way through, beamed at them, not even noticing the dirt stains on their jeans or flecks of grass on their jumpers. They sat at the gray-white flecked Formica table with red padded steel-backed chairs, ordering the same meals they'd always had.

  They didn't speak until the hot, steaming soup, thick with meat and noodles, anise leaves and bean curds, was before them.

  The silence was awkward. Both of them knew it was time to speak. She felt like a virgin on her wedding night, except she'd be baring her soul instead of her body.

  "It's still the same," she offered, after a few mouthfuls. "It's tasty, the seafood fresh—it's delicious."

  He grinned. "My eyes are watering."

  "That was always your criteria for a good meal," she laughed, relieved he followed her lead. "Your esophagus must have permanent damage by now."

  He laughed with her. "'Take what you want, said God, and pay for it.' I love chili."

  He began the real conversation when they'd almost finished their meals. "I think the best part of being in lockup was there were plenty of my people inside to look out for me. Especially the lifers, who knew the dangers. One was a sort of cousin of mine. Alfie and his mates kept the worst nightmare of a man inside the prison system from getting to me."

  Tessa spluttered on the last of her laksa. She wiped her face with a napkin, her eyes locked on her enormous patterned ceramic bowl, unable to look up.

  She felt her face being lifted. "Empathy, Tess," he said softly. "Look at me."

  Trembling with horror she obeyed—but she saw only warmth and compassion in his eyes. "You didn't think I understood, did you? I was the new boy inside, young and pretty—but Alfie and his mates stopped the dogs getting to me. I got in a cell with Boon, one of the good guys, devoted to his wife and kids. I was lucky."

  "Yeah," she muttered, her jaw working with emotion, long repressed, bubbling its way to the surface. "You were lucky."

  "But you weren't." He laced his finger with hers. "You had no one to turn to. Locked in a cage, hounded, forced to give your private self to someone you hated on a daily basis. It must have made you so angry, helpless to escape from him."

  She exhaled short bursts of air through her mouth for a few moments, not trusting words. She withdrew her hand in a cold, calculated move. "You were doing well until the last sentence. I almost believed you understood how I felt. But you don't and you never will." She pushed her bowl away, her hands trembling, eyes stinging. "Don't patronize me with your deep and meaningful psychoanalysis on anger and helplessness. You were locked inside the prison physically, outnumbered by them. You couldn't stop them from hurting you without help. I could have walked out anytime, but I didn't. I wasn't helpless. I was just a weak fool."

  "Tess, you're not—"

  "Yes, I am!" She couldn't stop the venom tumbling from her lips. "I'm a coward and a fool! I loathed him so much my skin crawled when he touched me—but he kept giving me presents, kept taking me places, throwing parties for me—and kept on trying to make me like his kinky brand of sex. He thought he could buy my love like he'd bought me!" She gave a shuddering sigh. "But I stayed three years for the sake of a family that sold me to the highest bidder like a slave, or a hooker. I love them still. I despise myself for it, but nothing changes the way I feel." She fixed a stare on him of outright challenge. "Go on, Galah
ad, fix that if you can. Make me your princess. Heal me of the unhealable illness—my own stupidity!"

  She felt the curious stares of other diners in the tight-packed room, but if Jirrah noticed he gave no sign. After a long moment, he spoke. "Stupidity? Is that what you see? No, mulgu. I see a woman who loves her family. A woman whose loyalty was never blind, but too strong to break easily. I see a woman who lived in a life most would envy, with a man any woman would want, yet she wanted neither, because she always saw the sick man beneath the glittering package he presented. I see a woman who stayed in a marriage she hated because marriage is sacred to her, and her family sacrosanct, and they begged you to stay. I see a woman whose awesome unselfishness, courage and integrity I deeply respect. You stayed for all the right reasons, and got out when you were forced to put yourself first. Where's the cowardice in loving a family who brought you up, sacrificing you wants so they wouldn't suffer? Where's the stupidity?"

  She felt dazed and wondering, like that sleepwalker again—but waking to a whole new life, dazzling and wonderful. "I shouldn't have believed them, trusted them…"

  He took her hand in his once more, caressing her palm. "Had your family ever given you a reason not to until then? Had they ever let your down, failed to be there when you needed them?"

  She blinked, light-headed, bewildered, she said, "No … but Emily—I just believed them … and they talked me into not seeing her. They said I'd only grieve more. So stupid!"

  His eyes closed for a moment, as if struggling with his self-control. "You still loved me then, didn't you?" His voice was rough and gravelly with Strain. "You were grieving for me!"

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "Within eight months you'd lost me and our child. You were only twenty-two. You were catatonic, in mindless grief. You clung to those who love you! You wanted to believe in your family. I wouldn't have done any different!" His fingers kept stroking, caressing her palm, and the waves of peace she'd hungered for for so long washed through her soul! "If I try to forgive myself for not contacting you from lockup and saving you so much pain, can't you forgive yourself for loving your family?" he asked softly.

  The tears she'd kept dammed for so long demanded release. Her eyes filled, overflowed, and the runoff splashed onto their linked hands. "Please," she whispered, pulling away to wipe her cheeks, "take me out of here!"

  He got to his feet. "Let's blow away the cobwebs!" He held out a hand to her.

  Tessa never loved Sydney more than when she and Jirrah were lovers. He knew and loved the harbor city, and showed her places her father's family, fifth-generation Sydney residents, never knew existed. Out-of-the-way curio stores, with hidden treasures buried beneath dust and junk; three-story bookstores, with narrow, winding staircases to find long out-of-print stories of living magic. Dark stairs leading down to tiny, smoke-filled jazz cellars, playing the music they both loved. Little Irish and Old English pubs, with all the flavor and character only expatriates can give: the drunken, rowdy welcome that made her laugh, singing soccer and rugby songs and spilling beer over their feet. Old doll and bear hospitals, with strange and wonderful survivors of a bygone era. Side-street coffee shops where earnest students and intellectuals discussed the meaning of life and legalizing marijuana. Hotels where biker gangs hung out, with their rough-and-ready lifestyle and strange but rigid moral code.

  Places where Jirrah's people once walked in peace, fishing, hunting, bringing up their families until the explosion of muskets and the lash of the whip signaled the beginning of English occupation. Warrane, where the First Fleet landed, now Circular Quay; Jabecoulli, now the home of the famous Opera House. Warrabri and Were-were, places of good fish, now the Lower North Shore of Sydney Harbour, where the upper class of Sydney built their waterfront mansions.

  Windy Yorong, where Governor Macquarie's wife sat on her natural-rock chair to look over the pristine, mystical harbor of Sydney Town in 1816, nicknamed Mrs. Macquarie's Chair.

  They sat on the grass in the midst of the public park at Macquarie Point, watching ships and ferries and boats' passing lights twinkling in rainbow array on the dark and glittering harbor. Jirrah lay on his back and she fell beside him, gazing at the silver-dusted stars in a rumpled velvet sky.

  "So, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?"

  Startled by his question, Tessa didn't answer for a moment. "I want to find Emily."

  "So do I. But I hope that won't take the next sixty years. C'mon, Tess, think. I said the rest of your life, not this week, this month or this year."

  "You mean—"

  "Yeah," he answered softly. "When Beller's away for good."

  "I—don't know," she answered, frowning. "I've never thought beyond getting away from him, until this week."

  "I know—I felt the same when they recommended me for parole. But think about it now. Running from him has been your life for too long. Think of the future. What do you want from your life?"

  She wouldn't look too deeply, not even into her own heart, for what she knew in her heart she wanted most of all was too dangerous to think about. "What everyone wants, I suppose."

  "Loads of money, huh?"

  "I've had enough of that, thanks," she replied wryly. "I want simple things. Not having to run anymore. A place to call home. A teaching job I can stay in, and watch the kids grow up."

  "You like the job? You want to keep teaching in the country?"

  She nodded. "I love the kids, the country, the slower pace—I like knowing I'm a needed part of the community."

  "Why not have your own kids? You always wanted half a dozen."

  The jagged shaft of pain sliced her open, raw and bleeding, but she shrugged. "I told you—I'm glad I didn't have a child with Cameron. What about you? You always wanted seven or eight kids."

  "Still do. I love kids."

  "Is that all you want?"

  He shrugged. "I have everything else I need. Family, good friends, work I love. I love carving and painting—the idea of creating something beautiful with my hands fulfills me."

  "You're a lucky man, then. I hope you find the life you want." She got to her feet and walked to the point, lifting her face to take in the cool wind.

  "Tess." His quiet voice came right behind her. "If you want me to stop this, I will."

  They both knew he wasn't talking about the conversation.

  "You can't stop now. I don't think either of us can." She pushed strands of flying hair from her face. "They deserve punishment for what they've done to us. It's simple justice. At least this way someone wins … and I might find my daughter."

  "God, you're amazing." He wrapped tendrils of flying hair in his fingers. "I thought you'd hate me for doing this to them."

  By lifting her face, he came closer—closer to temptation. "I can't hate you. You're the father of my child."

  "And you loved me once," he said softly. He only touched her hair, but they were almost hip-to-hip. Cool wind, warm bodies a breath from touching, and a current of hunger between.

  "Yes." She stared into his eyes, trying to rein in out-of-control yearnings. "I loved you once."

  The beauty of the wind-tossed night enveloped them as a magical spell, the clean salt air, the far-off stars, the lights of Sydney Harbour filled their senses. "And you still want me."

  Caught in the magic her palm lifted, caressing his cheek, trailing hungering fingertips over his warm skin. "Yes. I still want you." Only you. Still and always. Until the day I die.

  "You look like a witch." His gaze was rapt on her face. "A golden-eyed enchantress from the Dreamtime. You looked at me like this seven years ago," he said, his voice ragged. "You stood there in the sunshine with your hair flowing in the wind, your hypnotic eyes on mine, and put a spell on me I've never been able to break."

  The hoarse admission sent a piercing shaft of joy through her heart. "If I did, you did the same to me. I looked at you, and it was like you took my eyes—you took away my ability to see any man but you."

  He smi
led. "You were crazy—but a wonderful, addictive crazy. You said hi, then took my hand, led me around the side of your house and said 'I love you.' Just like that."

  A quiver ran through her, remembering that far-off time of innocent joy and love. "I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop it."

  "You didn't even know my name."

  She flushed, glad it was too dark for him to see. "I must have seemed insane. I was scared if I didn't tell you right then and there, you'd go away and I'd never see you again."

  "And then you kissed me." He stood against her, their bodies just touching. "You were shaking."

  She was shaking now, too. It was coming closer, so close, the loving she craved yet wanted to run from… "I was so terrified I wouldn't do it right."

  "It was incredible. Wild and scary and innocent and sweet." His free hand cupped the nape of her neck, giving whisper-soft fingertip caresses. She closed her eyes, drinking in the potent force of a simple touch. "You felt like a wild bird in my arms, just learning to fly—and you made me fly right beside you."

  Her gaze locked on his mouth. "That's how I felt. When you touched me, I felt like I was flying for the first time."

  "My girlfriend didn't know what hit her when I broke up with her that night. She thought—and so did I, until I met you—that we'd get married one day."

  She gasped. "You had a girlfriend?"

  "Not after I met you." He smiled in knowing sensuality, the touch of his caressing fingertips soft, soothing, erotic. "We'd been together almost two years at the time."

  "Why—?"

  He wound her hair around his finger, drawing her closer with gentle, compelling force. "I couldn't risk losing you. I thought you'd back off if I told you about Shelley."

  "I would have tried." She lifted her hand, drawing her fingertips down warm skin, rough stubble, filled with the pulsing excitement that always came from touching him. "I'd have tried, but we both know I wouldn't have succeeded. I couldn't stay away from you, from the way you made me feel."