Alberta Clipper (42 page)

Mark’s legs kept moving him towards the gate, but inside he felt a sense of total disorientation.  It could be any time, any day.  He was headed for a flight that would bring him to Sydney, although there was nothing there for him.  But Mark had a strong sense of there being nothing at home for him either.  If he had been offered a seat on a direct flight with immediate departure to Dublin at that moment, he wouldn’t have accepted it.  He could visualise himself as he walked along this random part of the earth at that second, the only other thing of any importance on the planet to him being the girl he hoped he was walking towards.  It was all so absurd.  He was almost forty years old, and this was what it all boiled down to.  He cared more about a woman who apparently didn’t care for him than he did about his job, his home, his life back in Dublin.  The reality of it made him despair.  But he kept on walking.  He had never felt like this before.  Not in all the many times he had been in love as a teenager.  Not about Jennifer.  Not ever.  And though it felt awful, Mark could tell that feeling like this, knowing you could feel like this, was worth something.

And then, without warning, he saw her, and for a second he thought that never feeling this way might be safer.  He saw her, and he saw his future without her.  But his legs kept on walking.

~

On one hand, Christine could see the craziness of staying put for another fourteen or fifteen hours.  Her father had suggested she book into an airport hotel, and at least get a night’s sleep.  She had promised him that she would.  But then, she
had
found
herself unable to leave.  She’
d stayed in the holding room that the airline had provided until she could no longer bear the chaos of it all.  She wanted more than anything to get away from the airport, but the idea of leaving it now, only to have to walk back in through the doors in the morning, was too much.  She had tried to imagine the hotel room she could check into, the comfortable bed, the shower, but her instinct had won out.  She had confirmed her flight to Sydney was leaving in the morning, and had made her way to where she had been advised it was likely to depart from.  Although there was no certainty of it departing from this gate, or of it departing at all.  But Christine had rationalised that the greatest chance she had of getting out of Bangkok was to stay in the terminal and be ready.  In the madness of the situation, there was some certainty in this terminal, this departure gate, this chair.  And that was all she wanted now.  Safety.  Certainty.  She could hear herself breathing in short, sharp gasps.  She closed her eyes.  It was over.  She was okay.  She just had to hold it together for one more day until she was with Aggie.  Just one more day.

“Christine.”

Just one more day.

“Christine.”

Tears that must have been there all the time, just waiting to fall, streamed down her cheeks from her closed eyes.  She kept them closed.  If she opened them to find that she had only imagined his voice, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Christine.”

This time the voice came from right in front of her face.  And it sounded different, quivering.  She opened her eyes.  And he was there.  His own eyes were red and wet.  She couldn’t speak, but the tears kept flowing and she sobbed, sitting there on the departure gate chair, Mark kneeling before her.  He wrapped his arms around her and she let him support her weight as her body gave in to the strain it had endured over the past three days.

~

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh Jesus.  How can you say that?  After what you’ve just been through?”  He squeezed his arm tighter around her shoulder, trying to ignore the metal armrest between
them as it dug into his ribs
.

Christine wiped her cheeks with her hand.  “I must look awful.”

Mark didn’t look at her.  “You look beautiful,” he said.

They sat
there
, her head on his shoulder,
Christine
hiding herself from the airport surroundings which she could now admit terrified her.  She didn’t need to be brave anymore.

“I’m sorry I always seem to be such a mess around you,” she said after a while.  “It seems I’m either storming off, or having a complete meltdown.”

“I’m trying to figure out if that’s a good thing or not,” Mark half-smiled.

Two men walked past them in silence carrying heavy looking bags, and Christine inadvertently pressed herself closer to Mark.  He held her tight.

“My Dad told me that you were trying to get out here,” she said quietly.

Mark didn’t know how to respond.  He said nothing.

“You need to tell me why,” she said.  “I need to know why.”  Christine sniffed loudly against his chest. 

Mark looked down at her.  Her hair was dark and matted.  “Because when I knew you were in trouble, there was no other choice.  I had to get to you.  That’s it.  It was very simple.”

“Nothing is simple,” Christine sat up in her chair and smiled bitterly at him.  She chafed her cheeks, making them look red and sore.

Mark took her hands from her face and held them in his own.  “Christine.  I tried to tell you before.  How I felt.  Nothing has changed.  Nothing’s different.  I still feel the same.  I love you.  More than I can articulate.”  He left her hands down.  “So when you were in trouble, I had to find you.  That’s it.  That’s all there is.”

Christine’s mouth was turned down like a pouting toddler
’s
, and the tears began to flow again.  She pulled at the grubby, thin scarf that hung loosely around her neck.

“And even after everything else?”  She sobbed through her words.

“Nothing else makes any difference.”  Mark tried to keep his voice low.  “Christine?  You are the only one judging yourself about, about Zoë.  No one else.”

“But it, I,” Christine found she hadn’t the words.  She wasn’t accustomed to talking about Zoë.  About how she felt.  About how she blamed herself.  Every day.  She just couldn’t put words on the feelings that consumed her.

“I love you.”  Mark held her shoulders.  He wanted her to believe him now. 
He wanted her to
look at him,
to really
understand
what he was saying
.  That he could be there for her.  Help her.  Listen to her.  Whatever it took.  “Christine.  I know how I feel about you.  But,” he whispered as she kept her gushing eyes trained on her own lap.  “But I have no idea how you feel about me.”

They sat in that position for a moment.  Christine wiped her eyes and nose with the end of her scarf.  She let
him support her weight in
his gentle grip,
until
he
presse
d her exhausted
body to his own
.

At last she looked up at him.  “You make me feel safe,” she said.  “You always make me feel safe.”

The next few days had a surreal feel
ing
about them.  It seemed to Mark that he was just ex
isting, dreamlike.  Like he was
inhabiting another man’s body.  The sensation evoked memories of the weeks after his father had died.  That in itself shocked him.  He hadn’t reminisced about that time in so long, about how he had felt, walking around the same person in the same world, but trying to adjust to a new reality.  The semblance of a life utterly changed by some massive trauma. 

Back then, it had been the sudden death of his father
that had left him so thrown
.  Now it was the incredible events that had thrown himself and Christine together in Sydney, Australia.  Suddenly, all the familiar things in his life were absent, and he was taking tentative steps in these new surroundings.  He knew that it was a temporary staging, that he would soon return to the usual set, Dublin, his house, CarltonWachs.  But Bangkok had proved to be a catalyst in his and Christine’s relationship, and for the moment, Mark was willing to play along, and not ask too many questions of it all. 

They hadn’t talked much on the flight from Bangkok. 
He had got her onto
the plane despite her body shak
ing violently all though the boarding process.  She had only settled when the plane was in the air, above the clouds, and he had held her to him as best as he could all the while.  She had slept for most of the flight, and he had dozed, never once letting go of her hand in his.

Her brother-in-law
,
Jamie
,
had met them at the airport when they had finally arrived in from Bangkok late on Sunday evening.  He had welcomed them both sincerely, before
bringing them back to his not i
nsubstantial home in the Sydney suburbs, where Mark had been treated to a hero’s welcome by Aggie.  After she had held Christine and they had both sobbed without speaking for a minute or more, she had moved onto Mark, who had no
previous
experience of being embraced by an emotional, eight-months pregnant woman.  He wondered if Aggie had even heard of him before he had travelled to Bangkok.  He couldn’t be sure.  Either way, she had obviously been briefed by her father, and she seemed to regard Mark as her sister’s saviour.

The atmosphere in the kitchen as the four of them sat around the table was so charged, it only added to the sense of dreaming Mark had.  He could almost see the tangle of emotions, tumbling around them, a mixture of Zoë, their mother, Aggie’s pregnancy, the nightmare of Christine’s journey here.  It was almost impossible to have a normal conversation.  Jamie repeatedly got up from the table to get drinks, close windows, open windows, get more drinks.  The two men barely spoke, only to confirm aspects of the past three days as they came up in the sisters’ conversation.  Mark took beers as he was offered them, which was every twenty minutes or so.

He decided, as he sat there, that he liked Jamie.  Aggie seemed to him just like a slightly older, more neurotic version of Christine, obviously desperately uncomfortable in her massive physical state.  She shifted about in her chair, flexing her shoulders now and then, unconsciously kneading her lower back, her attention completely focused on her sister across the table from her. 

Mark watched Christine too.  Watched her speak, watched her listen.  Her reactions.  Her observations.  Every word she spoke, every gesture she made, served to reaffirm his conviction that he loved her. 

And neither Aggie nor Jamie commented once on their relationship or lack thereof.  Sitting there in the early hours of the warm Sydney night, it felt like they had been transported to a time and place where they were a proper couple.  Where
he loved her, and she loved him in return
.  So when Aggie decided that Christine must be exhausted and ordered her to bed, it came as no surprise to h
im that she led them to a
room
with one double bed
, hugged them both, and closed the door behind her.  Mark watched Christine as she undressed and lay down on one side of the bed, pulling the sheet and light blanket up over her.  Without speaking, he did the same, lying on his back, unsure as to what he should do, but sure that he should lie
t
here, with her.

Her back was to him, and she seemed to be asleep within seconds.  He fumbled with a bedside lamp, and the room went dark with only the Sydney moonlight sneaking through the shutters.  He stayed on his back, and tried to relax.  T
he room was silent, but for the
low hum of an electrical motor.  A door closed somewhere in the house.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he heard her say, although she never moved.

Mark closed his eyes, and slept.

“You don’t have to go, you know,” Christine whispered.  The room was starting to get light.  Her nose was inches away from his as she lay next to him.  He could feel her breath on his lips.

“Thank you.  But I think I do.  You’re here now.  Safe,” he added.  “I can go home and look your father in the eye and say that.  But I have to go home.”

The dream that had been the last two days with Christine was beginning to dissipate.  Real life,
which had been
waiting shadily in the wings, was beginning to come into focus.  The hours spent sitting around Aggie’s house, the pool outside, just existing, getting over the journey there, had felt like some impromptu holiday.  A holiday from his life.  But now the holiday had to end.  Part of him wanted to stay in Sydney forever, living with Christine, sharing a bed with Christine.  But Mark could see that they couldn’t go on like this.  Jamie was going on a trip that evening and would be gone for three days, and Aggie understandably wanted her sister to herself.  Mark needed to get back to Dublin.

“I’ll book a flight for tomorrow. 
Shay
will think I’m never coming back.”

“God, can’t you picture
Nina
’s
face when she hears about -
”  Christine smiled into her pillow.

Mark was quiet for a moment.  “Hears about what?” he said.  He stayed very still, his head on his pillow next to hers.

Christine looked at him.  “About this.”  She lifted her head and kissed him full on the mouth.  Mark’s insides contracted.  He hadn’t dare touch her since arriving in Sydney.  She knew how he felt about her.  He had made that clear.  No ambiguity.  They both knew what he wanted.  The decision had to have been hers.  And now she had made it.