The Chance of a Lifetime

by kendra Smith

  ‘Katie…’

  ‘Listen, Tom, please. And that you will agree to going back home. If we both sign it, and agree, then it’s legal.’

  ‘OK, I’ll sign it,’ he sighed, sweeping the hair off his face, and reaching for a nearby pen. The Pooh Bear on top of the pen flashed bright red as he scrawled across the papers, initialling them.

  ‘We’re here, Katie.’ He shrugged his shoulders, as he placed Andy’s pen carefully to one side. ‘No going back now, is there?’

  6

  Waiting at the South Terminal to pick up Lucy and Adam, Katie tried to quell the cocktail of emotions in the pit of her stomach. Something between the night before Christmas when you are a five-year-old, and waiting to see the headmaster aged twelve.

  She twisted the straps of her handbag round her finger. She didn’t want to see Adam again… didn’t plan this. Since they all last saw each other, her heart and soul had moved to the other side of the world. As they came out of Arrivals, Katie clutched Tom’s arm, almost like a talisman to help her be strong. She whispered, ‘They’re here! Don’t they look great?’

  Tom looked up from his BlackBerry, then put it in his pocket, gave her a thin smile.

  There were squeals from the boys, ‘Lucy! Adam!’

  Lucy knelt down in the airport hall and held out both arms. They ran to her. They were holding balloons saying ‘Welcome to Sydney’ on them. Hi, how are you? Flight? Turbulence? Snotty air hostess… You look well. Window seat. Isn’t Sydney Harbour amazing? Camp stewards. Oh yes. Feel OK now, might be tired later. Haven’t the boys gone brown.

  Katie stared at Adam – his messy brown hair, chestnut eyes, broad grin – and her heart started thumping. Stop it. They both kept looking at each other a little too long before they leant in, smiled, then chastely gave each other a kiss on the cheek, but awkwardly banged into each other. That musty smell, thought Katie, closing her eyes and letting herself breathe it in, remembering the night in the garden at her party… No, stop it, Katie!

  *

  The next day they headed to a holiday house on the south coast near Batemans Bay. By now it was early October and although the days were hot, the air was chilly still in the evenings. They passed long vanilla-coloured sandy beaches on the coast road, miles and miles of marine national parks, took in the breath-taking beauty of the sea stretching out for miles. Windows open, the boys giggled in the back as the salty air stung their cheeks.

  The trip allowed Katie to think about everything her great friend sitting behind her in the car had gone through. She peeked tentatively in the rear-view mirror and saw Lucy’s head resting on Adam’s shoulder. She was asleep. Katie remembered how tiny Lucy had seemed after she’d discovered her first husband’s affair. She’d retreated into herself, withdrawn, despite Katie’s best efforts to take her for coffee, shopping – anything to get her back to her old self.

  About a year later, when the divorce papers had finally come through, Katie had forced her to have a ‘divorce party’ Initially shaky, Lucy had agreed and five of her close friends had helped her burn the remains of Mark’s belongings that he’d left at the house. They used a dustbin in the garden. Out went the wedding photos, next the dressing gown, after that a few of his old socks, next a pile of porn Lucy had found in his bedside table. She had thrown that in with quite a thump.

  They had all watched the flames, the ashes smouldering in the bottom. They had drunk several bottles of sparkling rosé that summer night. Lucy had to be put to bed. Katie had gently pulled off her shoes, tucked her up in her bed, and wandered the three doors down the road back home. The next day Lucy had phoned Katie. ‘Thank you,’ she had said quietly, and Katie knew what she meant.

  Within a year, Lucy had met Adam at a cookery class Katie had persuaded her to go to. Adam worked for a big restaurant chain, negotiated with the suppliers, planned their menus; but he never cooked. He was removed from all that. But he wanted to – one day – run his own online organic fruit and vegetable business. He was gorgeous, with an easy chilled-out manner, messy chestnut hair, always a bit unshaven. Not tidy, not neat at all…

  Katie’s heart thudded and she stole a look at him in the mirror, thought about how his shirt was always slightly untucked at the back, so unlike Tom… That little bit of hair that was always a touch too long, curling around his collar; she shook herself. She remembered how Lucy told her one evening in their regular wine bar in London that her big goal was to have a farmhouse cottage with a proper bell, like a cowbell, outside the door that you could ring, not a doorbell and that Adam had felt the same… wanted to grow his own vegetables, organic, start his online company, slowly.

  *

  The holiday house was a ramshackle weatherboard cottage painted lilac, with six bedrooms and a huge deck and barbecue at the back. It was moments from the beach. Tom had discovered a small shop on the front renting out snorkels and flippers. At first, James and Andy had only gone into the water up to their knees with the snorkels on; but after two days, they were lying prone, floating in the sea, bubbles escaping from their mouthpieces as they screeched, then coughed, discovering the underwater world beneath. When they were tired of that, they spent hours in the shade of the huge beach tent, building sandcastles, collecting shells and seaweed.

  Staring at the boys, Katie noticed Lucy watching them, casting her eyes admiringly over them as they played in the surf with confidence. Katie looked up to see Tom and Adam wandering to the local store to get the groceries and leaving ‘the girls together’.

  ‘How are things?’ asked Lucy. It was an impossible question.

  Katie looked at her. Where did she start?

  ‘I can’t begin to tell you how homesick I am!’ She tried to laugh, then her voice caught. ‘It’s early days really, I suppose,’ she said, burrowing her toes into the sand. ‘Boys seem settled one day, then the next they say they want to see Gramps. It breaks my heart, Lucy.’ She turned to stare at Lucy, watched as her friend cast her gaze out to sea.

  ‘Tom’s working harder than he was in London,’ Katie added ‘and when he is around he often goes surfing. Leaves me at home with the kids…’ She smiled, raised her eyebrows at Lucy. ‘In fact, he’s absent in more ways than one…’ She tried to summon a laugh, but looked down instead at her feet. Lucy looked at Katie and pushed her Alice band up higher.

  ‘Not the Aussie dream, then?’

  Katie shrugged and shook her head. She remembered the night after the party, when Tom had taken her into the study and logged on to the computer. She was feeling ill anyway from her hangover, but she almost threw up there and then when she had watched the cursor flicker in front of the figures. Tom had scrolled down, showed her the repayments, the bank fees. Thirty-six thousand pounds kept running through her brain – the total amount they owed from the stamp duty, to the repayments on the loan – and none of it covered by Tom’s stock options, which had all slumped in value.

  ‘Katie?’ said Lucy squinting in the sun.

  ‘Sorry, miles away –I suppose I’m enjoying bits of it.’ She glanced towards the sand and sea, tried to sound positive.

  ‘Not quite Brighton is it, sweetie?’ Lucy looked at the panorama in front of them and Katie followed her eyes. She stared at the miles of sapphire ocean shimmering into the horizon. There were about ten people on a stretch of pale, ice-cream-cone-coloured sand two kilometres long. Two surfers broke the line of the horizon, bobbing in the sea, waiting for the next wave. The water had been see-through blue with tiny fish darting past her ankles earlier on when she’d waded in. She had been able to see every grain of sand when Andy had been chuckling as Tom held his chubby little legs in the water yesterday. The day before, they’d wandered along the beach and had only seen three other people, and some surfers out to sea.

  It was achingly beautiful, so wild, so unlike the British beaches, or the ‘Med’ with its tiny patches of sand, normally crawling with tourists and sun loungers. She stared out at the long silver bays that stretched into the distance,
beyond the headland – patches of sand forming picture-postcard beauty next to the indigo blue of the sea.

  ‘It is amazing here, Katie,’ Lucy said, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Much more beautiful than I’d imagined. I’m sure you’ll grow to love it…’

  ‘I can’t love it here… I… I…’

  ‘What?’ She turned to look at Katie.

  ‘It’s not home.’ She pouted.

  ‘Where is home?’ said Lucy looking away again and fixing her stare on the surfers. She started to talk about England, about the house they had seen on the market, and whipped out her iPhone to show Katie pictures and explain how much she wanted to leave London.

  ‘Look, there’s the house – isn’t it dreamy?’ She looked at Katie and seemed to notice the peculiar expression on her face. ‘Oh sorry, I’ve upset you?’

  ‘No, no, but I do feel odd, odd having you both here…’ Katie felt a weird sensation wash over her, like she was tiptoeing on lily pads, not sure when her homesickness might swallow her up.

  ‘Have you met any new friends – any possible soul mates?’ asked Lucy gently.

  ‘Yes, I have, actually,’ Katie replied with a shaky smile. ‘A school mum, Ann – someone I can trust. Do you know what I mean?’

  Lucy nodded enthusiastically. ‘Brilliant! That’s a start, isn’t it? Listen, when you do finally leave here, when Tom’s contract is up – just think, you can join us!’ She smiled broadly and shoved her sunglasses on top of her head and stared at Katie. ‘I’ll find the village and the flower arranging classes and you can slot right in!’ Lucy laughed, threw her arms around Katie and hugged her. She seemed very pleased with what she’d said.

  ‘Good idea.’ Katie made little sandhills with a shell and didn’t look up. When would they leave? Only Tom knew really – once their finances were sorted out. She wondered what else she could sell to ease the burden.

  ‘Truth is, I hate the heat, I’m terrified of spiders… and I’m even a little nervous about the damn possums that scamper along our roof.’ Katie looked up at Lucy and squinted in the sun. ‘Give me squirrels and sparrows any day!’

  Just then James rushed up. ‘Mummy! Look! We’ve found shark eggs!’

  Since when did my six-year-old know how to spot shark eggs? thought Katie, amazed. She hauled herself up and ruffled his hair. ‘Go on, show us.’

  ‘Mr Ellis our science teacher showed us some pictures and said you get them on some of the beaches – look!’ He pointed to a coiled object, a spiral of shell housing the egg.

  ‘The baby shark inside is called a pup,’ he explained.

  ‘Hey, would you mind if I just took a dip?’ Katie pointed to the ocean. She hadn’t been in the sea for a very, very long time, but somehow she wanted to today. It felt right; she wanted to see if she could do it.

  It was freezing at first but once she was nearly submerged, she savoured the icy thrill of it. Coming up for air, she started, very slowly to put one arm over, count to three, turn, breathe, other arm over. Slowly, she swam parallel to the shore, counting her stokes. She looked up just as a wave came over her and she took a mouthful of water and spluttered. When she caught her breath, she spotted a yellow beach house in the distance – her target. God this is hard, she thought, taking a deep breath and squinting in the sunshine.

  She could just make out Tom and Adam wandering back along the beach, carrying a few bags. She was exhausted. Trying to make sense of the tangle of thoughts in her brain, she treaded water for a bit. She waved to Lucy on the shore. Home. She thought about the word. ‘The place where you live’ – that’s home. Can anywhere become home? Can you slowly change it? Or is it you who changes? No, she thought, submerging herself again in the water and slowly swimming to shore with weary limbs, England is home for us – once we pay off our debts, we just need to get back there.

  7

  The sound of the cicadas grew louder and louder in the backyard. Tiny fairy lights were strung along the wooden fence, glistening in the twilight. A dog barked in the distance. She could smell the dust in the ground, the medicinal smell of the gum leaves in the air. The boys were scampering about inside; she could hear them running barefoot along the wooden corridors, shouting about popcorn and arguing about which movie to watch.

  Katie watched Adam wander round the garden, a beer loosely held in his hands. His hair was still wet from swimming earlier that day; dark brown curls were unfurling near his collar. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and his face was bronzed by the sun.

  Suddenly he turned round and caught sight of Katie by the washing line. She froze. She didn’t want to be alone with him. She’d just come outside to hang up the beach towels. He smiled his long, lazy smile at her, pulled on his earlobe nervously.

  ‘Hey, Katie, fetch the sausages, will you?’ She jumped out of her skin. It was Tom shouting at her from the deck above. He was on barbecue duty and although he could no more scramble an egg even if Gordon Ramsay was wielding a sharp knife by his chin, when it came to barbecues, some sort of Neanderthal instinct kicked in, and he liked to feel he was in charge.

  ‘Sure, darling,’ she shouted up and quickly strode back into the kitchen, taking a quick backward glance at Adam in the garden, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her. She felt a shiver up her spine and shook her head to block the memory of the party.

  That night the four of them spent the evening having a barbecue, catching up with events from the UK. Somehow Katie ended up sitting next to Adam. She tried not to notice his thigh next to hers; tried to tell herself that she would normally wash her hair twice, yes she would, dry it nicely and put far too much conditioner in it by accident; tried not to mind when his hand was on her shoulder, as he got up from the bench; tried not to notice how distant Tom was, how drunk he was getting across the table from her.

  Katie coloured in the picture of their new Aussie life for Adam and Lucy. They listened, they laughed about her fear of spiders. They all drank far too much.

  The next day the sun filled the sky and they spent much of the afternoon on the beach. Tom spent a large part of the day reading The Financial Times, which Lucy and Adam had brought with them. He turned the pages noisily. Every time Andy or James came up squealing with their water guns, he angrily shooed them away.

  ‘Tom, darling, they just want to have some fun,’ Katie reminded him. ‘Why don’t you leave your BlackBerry at the house?’

  ‘Because someone around here has to work – bring in money,’ he snapped, punching at the screen. ‘We might be on holiday, but the office copy me in on the emails; I really should be back there,’ he said, running his hands through his hair.

  Katie stared at him. Fear clutched her chest when she remembered the repayments. She tried to hold his hand but he brushed it away. There was no way he was going to switch off. ‘OK – I’m going for a swim,’ she said quickly.

  ‘I’ll join you.’ Adam came up behind her and handed her a snorkel.

  ‘I’m not very confident in the water.’ She smiled up at him, taking the snorkel, couldn’t help her hand brushing over his. ‘But the fish life is meant to be amazing – saw some when we were paddling with Andy.’

  He smiled broadly at her as they waded into the water and stood with the sea lapping at their legs. She almost expected him to take her hand, but quickly walked ahead just in case. She enjoyed the icy feel of the water around her knees, then her thighs and then the delicious moment it seeped into her bikini bottoms and there was no going back. Adam waded ahead and she stood looking at his back, his muscular shoulders as he bent over and washed out his snorkel. She studied his faded board shorts, slightly frayed at the edges. A tiny fish darted past his ankles and he turned to her and smiled, chestnut eyes fixed first on her eyes, then swooping down to her cleavage. She felt herself turn red, despite the cold water, and she sank lower under the waves.

  A short while later they both hovered on the surface, breathing deeply, and watched the mystery of the seabed unfold: tiny fish darted by, along with little crab
s. She watched as a bright blue fish, with white stripes and a long fin, darted by. Later, when she looked it up on her iPhone, she found out it was an Eastern Blue Devil. She smiled, pointed at it for Adam to see; he grinned back at her.

  After some time, Katie looked up and was surprised to see how far they had drifted. She started to tread water and glanced back at the beach. Lucy was waving at them. She looked over at Adam and nodded to the shore, shouted that they should go back to the beach. They both slowly swam back to shore. God, this is much tougher than it looks, thought Katie, glad to be able to stand up finally and feel the sand under her feet.

  As they wandered to the showers on the beach to rinse their snorkels, she noticed that Tom and the kids had gone. Lucy wandered up to them, an old straw hat pulled firmly over her head.

  ‘Hi, guys. How was it?’

  ‘Oh amazing, wasn’t it, Katie?’ Adam said, taking the snorkel from her and rinsing it out.

  Katie nodded and washed her face in the shower, then wrapped her towel around her.

  ‘Yes, you don’t get that on your doorstep in England, do you?’ Lucy winked at her. ‘But it’s not my thing, I’m afraid.’ Lucy made a face. ‘Don’t like the salt water. Hey, I’m just going to pack up.’

  Katie nodded and smiled at her. ‘OK.’

  Katie and Adam walked slowly back to the patch they had claimed over the last few days. The sun was still hot, even at five o’clock.

  Lucy started shoving the combined detritus of water bottles, sun hats and half-eaten sandwiches into a bag. ‘I’m bushed,’ she said. ‘And I don’t feel very well. Adam, I’m going back. By the way, Katie, Tom’s got the kids. I suggested they went back to watch a DVD. It was too hot for them.’ She smiled. Katie noticed how pale she looked, despite the sun.

  ‘Thanks. You all right?’

  Lucy nodded and gave a faint smile. ‘Too hot for me. Now I know what you mean! It’s fine on holiday, but all the time…?’ She grimaced.