Cooee (18 page)

He had a quick stuttery laugh, did Gavin; and nervous feet and hands; and he was too long; there was too much of him to occupy any given space, and he was uncomfortably aware of this. He was like a giant fifteen-year-old: he'd never properly matured, never got past the gawky self-conscious stage. If he'd had any physical coordination worth talking about he would have been great at basketball; but he hadn't. His head seemed to bob around in a manner disconcertingly separate from his angular shoulders. He had no social grace whatsoever. I found him painful to be with.

I couldn't understand what the attraction was. Kate had had boyfriends before, and to a man they had manifested more appeal than Gavin. But the liaison persisted and she appeared to enjoy it. Summer was coming on, when Gavin first appeared, and the pair of them spent much time in the pool at Rain.

Kate had always been shy about being seen in bathers, but for some reason (God only knows what) the company of Gavin seemed to confer on her a new aura of physical and sexual confidence: to my astonishment, she bought an expensive turquoise bikini, and freely let herself be observed in it.

Kate has always been plump, and pink and white, too, which are not promising coordinates for bikini wearers. But somehow, on her, it worked. Her body was firm and well-proportioned; she moved gracefully; the bikini was well-cut; and, although she did not tan beyond the palest café-au-lait, her fairness lent her a nymphlike aspect that was quite fetching.

A new Kate emerged, languorous and quietly confident, one whom I shouldn't have been surprised to find swimming naked in the pool on moonlit evenings, pearly and dripping in the silver air, the silver water. Gavin frolicked awkwardly around her, lanky and adoring. Max liked him more than I did.

‘He's not stupid,' he insisted.

I raised my eyebrows.

‘He's not. Look, you can't be stupid and be writing a PhD on Rousseau.'

‘I've known a fair few stupid people who had PhDs.'

‘Believe me, he's not one. And he's very sincere.'

‘I'd prefer another quality, I think. Sincerity is such a dispensable virtue.'

‘He's genuinely in love with her.'

I shrugged. But I didn't spend much time thinking about Gavin, because I didn't expect him to become a fixture in my life. I realised, of course, that they were sleeping together: when he started sheepishly to appear for breakfast, it was not a difficult conclusion to reach. I didn't think much about it, except to register a vague incredulity: it seemed to me going to bed with Gavin would be like going to bed with an extremely large daddy-long-legs.

Around this time, the business — mine and Bea's — started to expand. Bea and I had always managed quite happily, just the two of us; after struggling for a while, we made a small name for ourselves and hummed along very nicely for several years. Suddenly, it seemed, we were making more of a name, and people wanted more of us.

We had seen a gap in the market and had developed a good line in adapting old houses — especially terrace houses — for offices: streamlined, modern offices that nevertheless retained the spirit (and what people like to call the ambience) of the original houses, with their cool, high ceilings and narrow stairwells and elaborate cornices. It seemed our fame had spread. Bea one day had an invitation to quote on a row of old terraces in Sydney.

‘It's worth a fortune to us,' she said, leafing through the photographs the developer had sent her. ‘Look at this, Izzie — and this. They're great little houses, and it's the Rocks; it's very central. Such good publicity.'

I picked up the photos and agreed. The houses looked as if they were run down, but so far as you could tell they were still solid and well worth the effort and expense required for the conversion.

It was a question of who would go. We hadn't had much interstate work, but when we did it was usually Bea who went: she liked the buzz of it; and she had a brother in Sydney she liked to catch up with. This time, however, it didn't suit her.

She looked hopefully at me. ‘I don't suppose …?'

‘I don't mind,' I said, musing. ‘It does look interesting, and it would be a shame to miss out. A shame not to even try, at any rate.'

In fact I was tempted by the prospect. Steve had always disliked it when I travelled on business: arrangements had to be made for the children and, furthermore, my absence reminded him that he was not the sole provider, the great white hunter, to which condition he aspired.

By agreeing to undertake the task, I was able to demonstrate to Bea that I was now in a more independent and mature relationship, that I could carry my professional share of responsibilities, that Max was not going to jump up and down in a petulant fit because I was away for a few days.

Also, to tell the truth, I thought that I should like to show Max that I, too, had pressing business interests; I, too, had a professional life whose demands I was required to meet, able to meet. I hadn't been in Sydney for years and the opportunity was beguiling.

So I spent five days in Sydney — and, apart from missing Max, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even missing Max had its advantages: I knew that the absence was short, with a defined conclusion and an inevitable joyful reunion, which would be made the more rapturous because of the sting caused by the separation. I anticipated the reunion with such sharpness, such keen-edged imagination, that I could almost relish the period preceding it in the thought of what was to follow.

Bea found other things for me to do — contacts to follow up, an exhibition to attend — and I worked hard for three days and turned into a tourist for the last two days of the week. I travelled on ferries and enjoyed the breezes and the views from the deck; I wandered around the Opera House; I shopped in Double Bay; I had cocktails at night before dinner. It was all consistent with the kind of easy, well-heeled, prosperous existence to which Max had introduced me; and, charmed, I found that I was able to create and savour it myself even when he was not there to share it with me.

I told him this on the phone on the last night of my visit, and heard his deep delighted chuckle.

‘What you've taught me!' I said. ‘I've turned into a regular lotus-eater.'

‘Do you good. I've never known anyone who deserved to eat lotuses more than you do. I'm pleased I've shown you how to have a good time, even if you're having it without me.'

‘It's a talent to be fostered, I'm finding.'

‘And you're fostering it.'

‘I certainly am.'

‘Good for you, my darling Bella.'

That night I was unusually wakeful. I switched impatiently from one channel to another on the TV in the opulent hotel to which I had treated myself. (Bea had said the practice could sustain three stars; I stretched it to five.) I raided the minibar. I ate peanuts and tried a can of rum and coke, which I didn't usually drink and didn't much enjoy.

I went through the papers I had collected over the last few days and sorted them into order for Bea. I lingered over some of my sketches. The terraces had been less enticing than I'd expected: something could be done with them, certainly, but their fundamental dinginess was a matter of construction and siting rather than neglect, and possible remedies brought their own difficulties. I didn't think we should take it on, even apart from the travel that was going to be involved in the project.

Although I knew I was going to see him the next day, I missed Max with a nearly unbearable pang. I could not calm my restlessness and the night stretched ahead of me black and bleak. I stared out the window and saw that Darling Harbour, several floors below, was bright with lights and busy with people — people strolling, chatting, dining at the pavement cafés. Small brilliant boats, which I presumed were water taxis, bobbed and slid across the dark water.

As is the way with these modern glossy hotels, I couldn't open the window, which meant I couldn't hear anything. It gave the scene a bizarrely unreal and distant quality, as if I were watching it on television with the mute button on. The lights strung along the waterside were like jewels: it sounds clichéd to say so, but they had the prismatic glint, the twinkle and the lure of jewels.

On impulse I grabbed a jacket and went on down. It felt as if I were doing something immensely daring, something slightly dangerous and even risqué. Steve would certainly have been horrified (
No, no, lovely
, I could hear him saying.
You can't go down there on your own. You just hang on a tick and I'll pop on some shoes and come with you
); Max would have been puzzled that I even thought twice about it.

It was a mild night, only a flick of cool breeze coming off the water. People were everywhere. It had looked crowded and jolly from my bedroom window: being in the middle of it was at once more and less cheerful than I'd imagined: the buzz of conversation and laughter was intoxicating; but I was alone inside all the merriment, and felt conspicuous and isolated. I sat at a waterside café and ordered a brandy.

The alcohol bit into my veins and I started to relax. The café had a guitarist, a dark young man strumming a guitar. Something about him reminded me of Dominic: not so much his dark good looks, I think, as an expression in his eye, a tilt to his head. I found myself staring at him, pondering almost abstractly the set of his shoulders, the concentration of his closed lips. I was looking at him but I was thinking of Dominic, and was embarrassed to register a few seconds late that he was gazing back at me. I felt colour rush up my throat to my face, smiled apologetically, and transferred my attention to the pavement, the water, the boats.

Five minutes later I became aware that the young guitarist was standing by my table.

‘You permit?' he asked. His voice was soft and rich, accented. Spanish? I wasn't sure.

Confused, I nodded, and he sat next to me, carefully propping his guitar on the ground beside him.

‘I think I have not seen you before,' he commented, with one of the most rare and charming smiles I have ever seen. ‘You are tourist? Not local?'

‘I'm from Melbourne,' I said.

I could be your mother, I thought.

I was flattered by his attentiveness, his concentration on me. Something like this hadn't happened to me before. When I'd been young and a likely candidate, I'd been too carefully sheltered. And marriage to Steve had done nothing to loosen the shackles.

I was flustered, but there was something exhilarating, something fascinating, about the situation: here I was, with a son almost as old as this beautiful young man with the warm adoring eyes; and here was he, with his appreciative gaze and his ravishing smile, paying court to me.

A waiter brought him coffee.

‘Holiday?'

‘Work, mainly,' I said, wondering if this luscious creature was indeed picking me up and concluding that he probably was.

‘You are here for much longer?'

‘I go home tomorrow.'

He nodded, sipped his coffee. ‘You liked my music?'

It was all feeling more and more surreal.

‘You play superbly,' I said, politely.

He sipped his coffee again and turned his glorious brown eyes on me.

‘I can play for you. Just for you. You will enjoy.'

I started to demur.

He flashed his excellent teeth again.

‘I am not so expensive,' he said.

Suddenly I understood what was happening, saw how naïve I'd been.

‘No,' I said. ‘No. Sorry, but no.'

He lifted his gracefully arched brows, looking more than ever like Dominic. His eyes widened. Bedroom eyes, gigolo's eyes.

‘Please go,' I said.

He shrugged and went.

Two minutes later, I left, too. They charged me for his coffee, but I didn't have the confidence or presence of mind to argue the toss. I felt a fool, an absolute fool. Here I had been, preening myself on how attractive I was, how desirable I must be. Nothing but a fool, a middle-aged old chook deluding herself.

I strode back to the hotel (how different from the way I had sauntered out), let myself into my room with shaking hands. The telephone was ringing.

‘My beautiful Bella,' said Max's voice in my ear. ‘Just ringing to say goodnight, my darling. Together again tomorrow. I didn't wake you, did I?'

‘I was in the shower,' I said.

‘Sleep well, Bella, my love. I love you.'

‘I love you, too. I really do, Max. I really do love you. You know that, don't you?'

He sounded slightly surprised. ‘You know it, too, my love.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes. You sleep well, too.'

But it was a long time before I slept. The incident had deeply upset me, and I wasn't sure quite why. Partly, of course, I simply felt foolish. There I was, forty-one, silly enough to think that a boy making calf's eyes at me was smitten. I'd been a different sort of target, and it had taken me too long to realise it.

I think it was also a question of the things Bea and Zoë had said about Max, the way they had both so contemptuously called him a gigolo, the way their contempt had washed not only over Max for being a gigolo but also over me for my evident readiness to succumb to a gigolo.
Gigolo
, I kept repeating to myself. What an awful word it was, redolent of sleaze and self-interest and corruption.