Water under the Bridge

by Lily Malone

  ‘Man, you smell good,’ he muttered against her lips, breath warm on her cold cheeks.

  ‘You smell of smoke.’

  ‘Funny that,’ Jake said.

  Ella’s hands found a place on Jake’s hips and made fists in the rough material of the heavy navy shirt. On tiptoe, she pressed the length of her body against him

  How had she ever thought of leaving Chalk Hill? Leaving this? She’d be nuts.

  ‘Ella.’

  There was a warning note when he said her name, which Ella ignored. Her breasts brushed Jake’s chest, then did more than brush, and rubbing into him felt so incredible, she did it again.

  ‘You’re killing me here,’ he said, in those stunning, suspended seconds before Ella’s eyes fluttered shut. She dragged herself higher, using his clothes as the rope, and the last thing she saw was his mouth opening to meet hers.

  * * *

  Ella moaned into his mouth. A small sound that might have been defeat or triumph, love or lust, all of it rolled into one sweet package. It sent the blood pounding through his body, most of it heading due south.

  One of her hands found its way to the nape of his neck, kneading the muscle there, shaping his head to her.

  ‘Turn me inside out, you do,’ he muttered, taking another taste of her lips.

  Jake bent his knees, slid himself up her body and heard her gasp as the thick ridge of him sought and caught that sweet junction between her thighs.

  There were twenty firefighters in his top paddock, a bobcat or two and a light fire truck. He’d need all appliances down here, hoses trained on his porch, because if he didn’t put a stop to this, he and Ella were about to set this place alight.

  Jake made a monumental effort to lift his head, to step back. He tried to bring her down with words. ‘The day I get you on your own … No kids. No brother of mine hanging around. You better look out for that day. I’m too old for making out in the back of a car or the bloody hay shed. That’s not half what it’s made out to be. Hay is fucking itchy.’

  Ella’s chuckle died in her throat. ‘I wouldn’t know, Jake. I’ve never had sex bent over a bale of hay.’

  ‘Bent over the bale …’ He was on fire again, visions of Ella over one of the sweet-smelling rolled bales. Knickers around her ankles, hair in a mahogany mess and that famous swimmer’s bottom just asking for his hand to grip it, shape it.

  ‘Ella,’ he groaned again.

  ‘I want what you want, Jake. I have for months. Every which way, wherever you want. I’ve never felt like this. I’ve waited all my life to feel like this. With you, it’s amazing.’

  Here’s him, trying not to scare her with the weight of how much he loved her, and then she came out with all that.

  ‘Sam’s inside,’ he groaned, so sorely tempted to taste her lips again. ‘Abe is up at the fire. They’re expecting us. Ollie has been asking all afternoon when Sam will be here.’

  ‘So let’s go. It’s okay.’

  But she chased his lips like there was no rush in the world, and when her mouth found his, she kissed him like there was no Sam, no Abe, no Ollie. No one else in the world.

  Jake gritted his teeth and put her from him. ‘Let’s call Sam. He’ll want to see the bonny. When the sun goes down it will be amazing.’

  ‘Bonny?’ Ella echoed, through lips swollen with his kisses.

  ‘Bonfire. Come up with me in my car. We won’t try to get the Mazda up there.’

  ‘Good plan.’

  Jake hollered in the front door for Sam, and the boy came running. ‘Hey, Jake.’

  ‘Hi, buddy. How’s the arm?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘Ready to go?’ Jake said to them both and he whistled for Jess.

  With seat belts on, he shoved the car in drive and they were off with Jess loping behind. At the crest of the first rise where you could see up to the back of the farm, Sam said, ‘Wow,’ and Jake checked the rear-view mirror to find the boy’s eyes wide, staring at the stoked fire blazing orange as the daylight died.

  ‘That’s a pretty big bonfire,’ Ella said, eyes shining.

  ‘Not much point having a small bonfire, I reckon.’

  He parked about thirty metres off the action, and the three of them got out of the car. Jake had already laid out some deckchairs close enough to the fire to keep Ella warm, but not so close she’d be uncomfortable.

  ‘There’s Ollie,’ Sam said, rushing forward to his mate as Ollie’s dad waved.

  ‘There’s a sausage sizzle on the go, Sam,’ Jake said. ‘Someone will get you a bun and a snag if you go ask for it.’

  ‘Okay.’ Then Sam remembered his manners. ‘Thanks.’

  Jake grabbed a beer for Ella and one for himself, and made sure she was comfortable. Then he sat beside her. He copped a bit of ribbing from the fire boys, but he had to expect that. There were a few elbow nudges, a couple of cocked eyebrows. If Ella noticed, she didn’t say anything, but her eyes stayed pretty much glued to the fire.

  ‘Has that effect, doesn’t it?’ Jake said, shuffling his deckchair closer to hers.

  ‘Can’t look away?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘You could never do something like this in the city. You’d have every cop and firefighter in the metro area breathing down your neck. Not to mention neighbours grizzling about the smoke on their nice clean washing.’

  ‘We’ve got more smoke coming from the barbecue than the bonny,’ Jake said.

  The fuel burned hot enough to not cover them in smoke, and most of the sparks simply spiralled skyward in an orange plume. The smell of sausages and lamb chops was stronger than the scent of eucalyptus leaves and branches burning.

  Simple things for a country life.

  He was glad Ella felt the magic.

  ‘I sent my email off to Marshall today … about Sam,’ Ella said, voice pitched so low it was a struggle to hear it over the crack and snap of the fire and the searing wheeze of the flames. ‘I wrote it last night.’

  Jake touched her shoulder, cupping the curve. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I rang the network in Sydney where he works and asked for his personal email address. I told them my name, and that we were doing a squad reunion for Erik Brecker’s swimmers from 2004–2007, and wanted to invite him.’

  It wasn’t quite what Jake meant when he asked the question, but he let Ella carry the thought through. ‘They bought that?’

  ‘I think so. The woman I spoke with said she’d even heard of me and of Erik. How about that?’ Ella’s face was caught in shadow and light from the fire, but her tone was sad.

  ‘She must have a good memory,’ Jake said.

  ‘Or she’s a fan of swimming.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘So you hit send?’

  ‘I did.’ Her hands lifted from where they’d been tucked under her thighs on the chair and she gestured as she spoke. ‘I wasn’t sure how else to do it but just to put it all out there. It’s hard when I haven’t had anything to do with Marshall in all this time.’

  ‘You’ve done the right thing,’ Jake said.

  When she lifted her face, the strain showed in her eyes, in the way her mouth turned down at the corners.

  The fire captain, Arnie Newman, yelled across at them. ‘Block your ears.’

  Startled, Ella put her hands to her ears. Jake did too. Seconds later, the siren from the fire truck boiled across the paddock, and two cheeky faces peered out of the fire truck’s window.

  Jake was looking at Ella, he couldn’t look away, and this time when she smiled he saw no strain, just joy as she gazed across at the two boys in the truck window, both laughing fit to bust.

  CHAPTER

  36

  The day before the official opening of the Chalk Hill Community Swimming Pool, Ella was on call at Begg & Robertson. Gina had the day off, and they hadn’t yet appointed a new receptionist, although Harvey had conducted a few interviews. Harvey was out of the office, which left Ella walking on eggshells around Bob.

&n
bsp; Bob who thought she lacked attention to detail.

  In the last few weeks, Ella had listed both Mick Nillson’s four-bedroom house in Mount Barker and Tynan Kennedy’s older-style cottage on a big block in Clivia Crescent, and she’d had good inspections on both. Hadn’t had to offer wine and cheese once.

  Ella responded to a couple of email enquiries sitting in her inbox, and returned calls to Mick and to Tynan’s wife to bring them up to date on the coming weekend’s Home Opens.

  Through both calls she could hear Bob in the background on the phone in his office, but by the time she’d finished everything was quiet.

  Over her left shoulder in the kitchen, she heard Bob clear his throat. Ella didn’t look up.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ Bob asked.

  She nearly fell off her chair. ‘Me?’

  Bob’s mouth stretched into something Ella supposed was a smile. She was so unused to seeing it directed at her, she couldn’t be certain.

  ‘I’m not looking at anyone else.’

  ‘Well. Sure. Tea please. That would be nice. White and one.’

  In eight months, she couldn’t remember Bob once asking her if she’d like tea or coffee, although to be fair to Bob, it wasn’t like she offered to make him one either. Not after her first few weeks in the office, anyway.

  Bob handed her the cup and then stood in the open door leading into the kitchen, right next to Ella’s space.

  Ella didn’t know what to do with him, or with herself. Bob never wanted to chat.

  ‘I bet you’re glad now Dad put the kybosh on you taking over Gina’s job,’ he said, nodding wisely. ‘You know. Now that you’ve got these listings, and you’ve got stuff going on.’

  Well, that tore it. ‘What do you mean, Harvey kyboshed it? You were the one who told him you didn’t think I was up to Gina’s job.’

  Bob’s eyebrows could have brushed dust from the ceiling. ‘Pardon?’

  And Ella wasn’t going to pussyfoot around. ‘You told your dad you didn’t think I could do the admin job. You weren’t sure about my attention to detail.’ She stressed the last three words.

  ‘I never said that. I thought you’d be great at admin and, to be honest, it meant less competition for me.’

  ‘Less competition?’ Ella sputtered.

  ‘Absolutely. I told Dad I thought you’d do a great job in admin. I’m the first to admit I’ve had pretty much a free run in here, especially since Dad started winding back. Then who rocks up but this famous lady ex-swimmer who gets the iconic Honeychurch house listing and gets everybody talking about how she sold Helen Nillson’s house! I didn’t mind the idea of you being out of sales at all.’

  Ella couldn’t think of a single word to say. Bob had been jealous of her? Ring-a-ding-ding Bob?

  ‘Then that means Harvey … lied?’

  Bob let out a laugh that might have blown the top off his tea. ‘Say what you want about my old man, he’s not silly.’

  ‘I’m not following. What do you mean?’

  ‘I reckon Dad played both of us, Ella. He told me you changed your mind about trying the admin role. He said you wanted to give sales one last crack.’

  And in the middle of that conversation, the office door opened and shut, and their illustrious leader waltzed through the foyer, rounded the corner and saw both Ella and Bob eyeing him like he’d kicked Irene Loveday’s scruffy white dog.

  ‘What?’ Harvey said. The smile on his face died.

  ‘You sneaky old bugger,’ Bob said.

  ‘Not nice, Harvey,’ Ella admonished.

  ‘What?’ Harvey said again, arms coming out to the side, palms up.

  ‘You told me Bob said I didn’t have enough attention to detail to do the admin job.’

  Harvey’s face relaxed. ‘Ah. That. I wondered when the two of you would talk long enough to get to the bottom of that.’ He registered the two cups of tea, Bob with his arms folded across his chest in the tiny kitchen, Ella in her chair. ‘So, does the cup of tea and a chat make you friends now?’

  Ella turned her chair to better face Bob. ‘I don’t know. Does it?’

  He nodded, compressing his double chin. ‘I think it might.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Harvey rubbed his palms together. ‘That will keep those Vesper and Son vultures from our door.’

  ‘This was all about competition with another agent?’ Ella said.

  ‘If I’d been Lou Vesper and I was looking to set up an agency in this town, first thing I’d do is find out the lie of the land with the current salespeople there. It’s unlikely they’d ever try to head-hunt Bob, him being my son and all, but they would have tried to get you, Ella. And I want you and Bob both here.’

  Harvey rubbed his palms again and leapt the threshold into his office as if he were twenty years younger.

  Bob put out his hand to Ella. ‘Friends?’

  She shook it. ‘Friends and colleagues who look out for each other, I hope. There’s so much I can learn from you, Bob. You’ve been living this industry most of your life and I’ve only just started.’

  With that, Bob and Ella let go their hands, and Bob returned to his office. Ella could see his smile as he settled in his chair.

  ‘Good ole me, hey?’ Harvey crowed from his desk. ‘Boss of the bloomin’ year.’

  * * *

  ‘You won’t believe what Harvey did,’ Ella said, as they carried lunch across the highway to the benches in the Chalk Hill war memorial and garden park, and she told him about her morning’s conversation with Bob.

  Today, the bench they normally sat on was occupied by a group of four grey nomads—Jake could see two caravans with Victorian plates parked not far away—so he steered Ella towards another bench without such a great view of the Porongurups. The bench was in the sun, but the day wasn’t hot and sun could be tricky to find sometimes in the Chalk Hill winter.

  Ella lifted her face to the warmth and stretched like a cat.

  Since the night of the bonfire, Jake had met Ella for lunch most days, unless she had a viewing or appointment that meant she’d grab lunch on the run.

  He’d learned that a turkey, Jarlsberg cheese and cranberry sauce baguette was her favourite healthy thing for lunch (sometimes with baby spinach leaves), although she was partial to the bakery’s soup of the day if it was pumpkin. Her favourite unhealthy thing for lunch was a pulled pork pie and a Coke.

  He agreed with her on that, with the addition of a hedgehog slice and coffee instead of Coke.

  He knew why she liked disco music so much—because she used to sing it in her head when she was swimming—and that Bad Girls was her favourite album of all time. He’d even listened to it with her, one night after Sam had gone to sleep, jiving around her lounge room with Ella laughing in his arms.

  He knew the girls at school had teased her for having green hair from chlorine in the pool and that they’d called her Smella. That was why she’d dyed her hair blonde way back then.

  He knew her favourite flower was a grevillea called Moonlight.

  He knew he loved her and he wanted to wake up with Ella’s hair loose and messy on the pillow beside him, every morning of every day of his life, because his life had always been about the simple things.

  Ella picked open the plastic wrap around her baguette. That was when Jake noticed she’d redone her pale pink nail polish. The colour that made him think about—

  ‘Jake? Are you listening?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘I said Erik will be down this afternoon and he’s offered to look after Sam for me, if I had any last-minute pool things to do …’ She licked cranberry sauce from the pale pink tip of her finger and smiled her beautiful smile at him, and Jake was lost.

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘You can’t sit there, looking like that, and expect me to have a coherent thought, Ella. It’s expecting too much of a mere male.’

  Her smile was for herself this time, a small secret feminine curve of her lips that told him she knew exactly what she did to him, and she
liked it.

  ‘I said Erik is down tonight; he’s coming for the pool opening tomorrow. I thought we could christen the pool, you know, before every man and his dog shows up tomorrow.’

  Jake’s mind dove straight to the christen the pool part. ‘Christen as in …’

  There hadn’t been much christening of any kind going on, in any place. Between her house (which had Sam in it) and his house (with Abe), and both of them working, finding time for christening beds or kitchen tables, or anything at all had been bloody impossible.

  ‘A swim, Jake. A swim. The chlorine levels tested perfectly yesterday; it’s all good to go.’

  Oh. Christen the pool, literally. ‘You mean go for a swim?’

  ‘Don’t sound so enthusiastic,’ Ella laughed. ‘I thought we could be first to use it, you know. For swimming in.’

  ‘That’s a bit boring, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, you’ll get to see me in my bathers. I bought them new. The top comes down like this,’ Ella motioned with a finger. ‘It has teeny straps here and here. And the bottoms come up like this.’ She lifted her hip and traced an imaginary mark on her outer thigh.

  Something about tops and bottoms finally registered in his brain. ‘You bought a bikini.’

  ‘I did. I’ve never owned a bikini. If I’m going to start swimming again, I wanted something that isn’t one-piece and functional.’

  ‘Good girl. I knew there was a reason I loved you.’

  Ella leaned forward and kissed him on the nose. Jake wasn’t having any of that, because not only did he know about her favourite disco music and favourite baguette, and that she would smoke this favourite new bikini, he also knew her favourite way to be kissed.

  So he did that till she purred, and until the four grey nomads on the other bench clapped in appreciation and one of the ladies spilled the tea she was pouring from her thermos.

  CHAPTER

  37

  When was the last time she’d stood on the blocks of a swimming pool, staring down at the glistening water and those thick black lane lines?

  It would have been a few weeks after the Nationals that year, after Marshall quit Erik’s squad and the group got back into full training, ready for the long lead-in to Beijing Olympic trials.