Claiming Noah (31 page)

The day before she was due to return home – back to Sydney, back to Liam, back to a life she had started to loathe – Diana met Richard for lunch. It was a Sunday, and Richard had his children with him for the weekend, so he suggested she bring Noah as well.

The three children got along well, despite the difference in their ages. They fed their leftover chips to the seagulls and as she watched them Diana thought about how nice it would be for Noah to have siblings.

After lunch, Richard suggested they go to the beach. Autumn had brought with it cooler currents, making the ocean too cold to swim in, but the sand was warm beneath their toes and the sun shone on their backs. The children set to work on a sandcastle, forming turrets from plastic buckets and digging a deep moat with shells, while Richard led Diana to the water's edge.

She knew he wanted to say goodbye to her. They hadn't spoken about their feelings, or what would happen when Diana returned to Sydney, but she knew it was on his mind, just as it was hers. She had tried not to analyse their friendship, but at night her thoughts of Liam and the state of her marriage had been replaced by the memory of Richard's face. She knew her marriage was all but over, as was his, and she didn't feel that them spending time together was wrong. She knew once she returned to Sydney she and Liam would most likely separate, and it didn't bother her. And despite her not having the courage to voice her feelings to Richard, she knew he understood.

After a few paces towards the water, Diana realised that Richard was no longer standing next to her. She turned around and walked back towards him. He was looking at her, his eyes clouded over by an emotion she couldn't decipher.

‘What's wrong?' she asked him. ‘Are you okay?'

He shook his head and reached his hand towards her, trailing the tips of his fingers across her jaw. She shivered from his touch, blinking her eyes closed, listening to the roll of the waves and the shriek of a seagull. She heard the children laughing, a high-pitched giggle she recognised as Noah's.

Diana felt the heat of Richard's body as he leaned towards her, moving his fingers past her ear until they curled around the back of her neck. She tilted her face to his, breathing in the smell of coffee and mint on his breath, and waited to feel the pressure of his lips on hers. His other hand pressed against her back, pulling her closer towards him until her body was nestled against his. The sound of the waves was replaced by the blood pumping in Diana's ears.

It took her a few seconds to realise she couldn't hear anything else. With her eyes still closed, Diana listened for the sound of Noah's voice. When it didn't come she opened her eyes and blinked a few times, trying to focus. Richard was looming in the foreground, but she leaned around him and looked towards the children. Sarah and Jack were still building their sandcastle. They had abandoned their shells and were digging out the moat with their hands.

‘Where's Noah?' she asked.

Richard turned around, following her gaze. Diana's head swivelled from side to side, scanning the ocean, the sand and the dunes at the back of the beach. She pushed past Richard and ran towards the children.

‘Where's Noah?' she screamed at them. Without waiting for their response she ran into the ocean, the water plastering her jeans to her calves. She searched the water desperately, looking for the red of his T-shirt, hoping she wasn't too late.

When she couldn't see anything she ran back to the children. ‘Where is he?' she yelled again, ignoring the look of terror in their eyes.

Sarah lifted her arm and pointed a trembling finger towards the sand dunes. Diana ran towards them, tripping once and receiving a face full of sand. She picked herself up and ran forward again, sobbing as she reached the top of the dunes. Her vision blurred through her tears as she scanned the area around her, terror stealing her breath so when she called Noah's name it came out as a whisper. Beyond the dunes was an expanse of bush that led to the national park. The scrub was packed tight; if he was in there it could take them ages to find him and in the meantime he would be scared and alone, surrounded by spiders and snakes and who knows what else.

As Diana took one last desperate look at the sand dunes to her right she saw the back of Noah's T-shirt, a flash of red behind one of the smaller dunes. He was bent over, collecting shells. He turned around when she called his name and his eyes widened as Diana lunged for him, drawing him into her arms.

Richard arrived at the top of the sand dunes a few seconds later. He smiled when he saw them and he visibly let out a breath. ‘You found him. Thank goodness he's okay.'

He moved to place his hand on Diana's shoulder, but she shook it off.

‘What's wrong?' he asked.

‘
This
is wrong,' she said, murmuring into the top of Noah's head. He was squirming, trying to get away, but she held him fast. ‘I shouldn't have taken my eyes off him. I nearly lost him again.'

‘But he's fine, he just wandered off. Kids do that.'

‘No,' she said, looking up at him. Sand clung to her cheeks from when she had fallen, stuck to her skin on the tracks of her tears. ‘I'm never letting him out of my sight again. He's the most important person in my life and I'm not going to do anything that makes me forget that. I'm sorry, but he's the only one who matters to me.'

She drew Noah closer to her, stroking the back of his head, brushing her lips against his ear. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Richard disappear behind the sand dunes.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

S
pencer arrived at Catriona's house one afternoon carrying a plastic shopping bag, which he placed quietly in a corner of the living room. Catriona had spent the morning sorting through things she no longer needed. She had removed James's clothes from the wardrobe and chest of drawers, folded them into boxes and stored them in the attic. Then she had done the same in the nursery, although she couldn't bear to put the boxes of clothes and toys in the attic. Instead she decided to store them in the bottom of the wardrobe until she could decide what to do with them. That was enough for now.

‘Do you want a beer?' Catriona asked Spencer as he loitered in the living room.

He usually made himself at home straightaway, flicking through her magazines or rummaging through the fridge, but today he seemed uncomfortable. Ever since she confessed to him that she had thought about ending her life he visited her daily, and she was surprised by how much she enjoyed his company. Sometimes they went out for a meal, sometimes for a walk, but often they just stayed in the house and talked. He invited rather than avoided difficult topics of conversation, and she found that voicing her concerns and fears helped her to deal with them. He encouraged her to start speaking to her psychiatrist again and Doctor Winder had put her back on antidepressants which, along with Spencer's company, helped the loneliness and depression to gradually lift from her shoulders.

‘Sure,' he said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it on the armchair. ‘Whatever you're having.'

Catriona brought two bottles of beer from the fridge and handed one to Spencer, then watched bemused as he moved to take a sip and then he changed his mind and lowered it again. He hesitated for another moment and then reached down into the bag he had brought with him and pulled out a magazine, which he placed on the coffee table.

‘Reading women's magazines now, are you?' she asked as she glanced at the title.

He didn't smile. ‘There's an article in there about Sebastian . . . sorry, Noah. I guess that's what we have to call him now. About Noah and his . . . '

He didn't say
parents
, but he didn't have to.

Spencer sat on the couch and looked up at her. ‘You don't have to read it, if you don't want to. I just wanted you to know it was in there so you didn't see it by accident.'

‘I don't want to read it.' Catriona stood up from the chair she had just sat down on and walked back into the kitchen, trying to put some physical distance between herself and the magazine. Her heart started to race and her hands shook so much that she nearly spilled her beer on the floor. Catriona stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes, trying to compose herself. The severity of her reaction to hearing Noah's name surprised her. It wasn't as if she never spoke about him. She and Spencer had spoken at length about both Sebastian and Noah, and when she saw Doctor Winder a few days earlier she had spoken for over an hour about everything that had happened since she left the clinic. It was hearing Noah's name in conjunction with another couple that had shocked her.

When she felt calmer she returned to the living room and noticed that Spencer had put away the magazine. She sat on the couch, intending to ignore it, but she couldn't move her gaze from the bag. She could see the outline of the magazine within it burning up at her, mocking her for trying to get on with her life. It was as if that one glimpse of the magazine had undone all the positivity she had tried so hard to achieve.

‘What do you want to do today?' Spencer asked her, his bright tone obviously an attempt to distract her.

Catriona dragged her gaze from the bag to Spencer. ‘You know, you don't have to keep hanging out with me if you don't want to,' she said. ‘I'm feeling much better now.'

‘Whoa, hang on. Where did this come from? I thought we were friends.'

‘Are we?' Catriona said as she took a sip of beer. ‘We pretend to be friends, but it's not normal for a man and woman our age to be friends. Not without some other agenda.'

‘So, what are you saying? You don't want to hang out with me any more?'

‘We're about twenty years too old to
hang out
, aren't we?'

Spencer frowned at her, causing a deep line to appear between his eyebrows. Catriona forced herself to hold his gaze.

‘Why are you being so nasty to me?' he asked. ‘I enjoy spending time with you. We have fun together, we have a few laughs. What's wrong with that?'

‘Nothing, except that I'm a woman, and you're a man, and as much as we can pretend we're just being buddy-buddy here you know as well as I do that there's something between us. So, unless you're prepared to do something about it, maybe we should just call it a day.'

Spencer stared at her while Catriona tried to hold her resolve. She put her beer on the coffee table so he couldn't see her hands shaking.

‘Cat, I've told you before, it's not that I'm not attracted to you. I'm extremely attracted to you. But it's not that easy. You know it's not.'

The frustration bubbled up through her veins. She was sick of people making decisions about her life for her. ‘Don't just tell me what you think I want to hear,' she said, her voice coming out at a higher pitch than she intended. ‘You're good at that; you're very charming. But I'm not the bad guy here, I've done nothing wrong. If you don't want to be with me, then just leave. I didn't ask you to keep coming over here. I have other friends I can talk to, I don't need you.'

Spencer remained silent, and she wondered if she had gone too far. But then he spoke, his voice uncharacteristically quiet and his expression soft. ‘I do want to be with you.'

Catriona spread her hands in question, exasperation forcing a sigh from her mouth. ‘So . . . what, then? Are you waiting for James's blessing? Do you really think he's ever going to give you that?'

‘You're angry at him,' Spencer said as he moved from his couch to hers. Catriona crossed her arms and turned to face him. ‘That's why you think you don't want to be with him any more. And I'm guessing that's why you think you want to be with me – to get back at him. But what if you decide to forgive him for what he's done? What if you decide to take him back when he gets out of prison? His trial's in August, he could be out as soon as that. So, where would that leave me?'

‘I'm not having this argument with you again. I've told you it's over with James. And as for you and me – you either want to be with me, or you don't. It's really very simple.'

She went to stand up but Spencer grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. She looked at him in surprise.

‘I
do
want to be with you,' he said before he crushed his lips against hers in a kiss so fervent it left her breathless. When he finally pulled away they were both smiling.

‘Is that what you had in mind?' he asked.

‘I basically had to send you an invitation,' she said as she drew him towards her again.

She expected Spencer to pull away from her at some point, to have another attack of conscience and tell her that what they were doing was wrong. But she sensed no hesitation from him as his kisses and hands become more demanding. She untangled herself from him and got up from the couch, noticing the disappointment on his face, before she took his hand and started to lead him towards her bedroom. But at the bottom of the staircase, she stopped. What was she doing? Despite her anger at James she couldn't bring another man into his bed.

She turned around to face Spencer. ‘We'll go to your place.'

‘My place?'

‘Sure. Where is it?'

‘You don't want to go to my place.'

‘Then why did I suggest it?'

Spencer hesitated and looked around Catriona's living room. ‘Because it's nothing like . . . like this,' he said, waving his hand around with a flourish. ‘You're used to nice things; you'd hate it there.'

‘Is that what you think of me?' she asked, dropping his hand. ‘That I'm some middle-class snob? Honestly, Spencer . . .'

He tried to take her hand again, but she pulled it out of his reach. ‘That's not what I meant, I'm sorry—'

‘You obviously don't know me at all. Maybe you should just go.'