Yearning (24 page)

‘You’ve come back.’

Was it a statement or a question? She couldn’t tell.

‘I’ve been wondering who took that old place. It’s been up for rent for months.’

Joni crooned and she stole a glance at his face. He seemed so familiar, so at ease, even with the distance of the years. His lashes still drooped sensuously from their lids, his skin still glowed bronze and smooth. Deep lines around his eyes made him appear as though he’d been laughing for a long, long time. Long earlobes hung from beneath his hair, those beautiful, lustrous curls that had so unstitched her. And there, just there, beneath the junction of his earlobe and neck, was the sensitive patch of skin she remembered as his sweet spot. God, he was still so beautiful. She suppressed the urge to reach out and touch him.

She’d expected that his physical presence would somehow disintegrate her, send her sparking in all directions, like water dropped into hot oil. Yet here he was, in masculine flesh and blood, and here she remained, dumb-founded and confused, but altogether whole.

‘God it’s good to see you, girl!’ he declared suddenly, slapping a hand over her thigh ‘You don’t know how
good
it is to see you.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It’s been a really long time.’ His tone was sad.

Her face flooded with colour. Her forty-year-old self was dissolving into her sixteen-year-old predecessor, filled with self-consciousness. Did he have to be so warm and familiar? Couldn’t he see the effect he had on her? Casting about she couldn’t find a single thing to say. Only the past existed within her, while the present unfolded outside of her. And there was no bridge to connect the two. She sat, suspended in the spaces, in a limbo of uncertainty and inaction.

Finally she found her voice. ‘I’m surprised you’re here.’

He smiled, glancing away from the road for a brief moment to glimpse her face. ‘Why?’

This was awkward. ‘I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like you to come back to a place like this. You always said “Don’t go back”.’ She hoped she didn’t sound bitter.

He made a sound. A familiar sound. A hurumph – a sigh, laugh and scoff in one. It amazed her how much of him was recognisable after so many years. The tension in her shoulders drained away as she warmed to his conversation.

‘Haven’t been back long. Good things are always worth coming back to.’

She glanced at him. His eyes stayed on the road. Enigmatic him. She smiled. She didn’t understand what he meant but it didn’t matter. The tempo and timbre of his voice was soothing. She wanted him to keep talking, to keep filling in the blank spaces just long enough for her to pull herself back together.

‘How long have you been back?’ he asked.

‘A few weeks.’

‘And you? Why?’

She started to squirm. She really didn’t want to tell him, but in her disarray she couldn’t think of an excuse. To hell with it, a hint of truth was just easier. ‘I needed a change.’

‘For the better, I hope.’

She glanced at him sharply. What was he getting at? What did he know? She wondered if he’d heard gossip about her and Max. Solomon’s gaze was fixed on the road ahead, a line of concentration in the centre of his brow. He seemed innocent enough.

‘Too early to tell yet.’

A pause. Solomon always put space between words. She could almost hear him thinking. He was never one to rush a conversation. She liked that about him.

‘How long have you been married?’

She glanced at him sharply. ‘How did you know?’

He waved the fingers of his left hand in the air. They were all bare. She looked down at the plain wedding band on her ring finger. Of course. What a giveaway.

‘About five years.’

‘Any kids?’

‘One. Joshua. He’s two. Number two is cooking.’ She rubbed her belly and he smiled.

‘Cool. When are you due?’

‘November.’ She couldn’t hide the dullness in her voice. ‘You don’t sound happy.’ He glanced down to her stomach.

‘I am. It’s just that – I’m not in an ideal situation.’ She didn’t want to go into the details. Not now. Not with him. Surely he sensed her discomfort? She hoped he’d be respectful enough not to push the point.

‘Marriage isn’t easy,’ he commented. ‘It’s a tough road.’

The subject now open, she couldn’t help but ask. ‘So, you’ve been married?’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Nah. That scene’s not for me.’

Her heart made a little leap of delight. She found herself smiling back at him.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you smile.’

She was grateful to see the farmhouse looming through the gloom of the fading day. As they approached, she noticed how dark the house was. Why was it she always lived in dark houses? He pulled into the drive, humming along to Joni singing ‘Both Sides Now’.

He braked to stop just beyond the verandah steps. The engine was still running as he turned to look at her again.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she mumbled into the soaked collar of her jacket.

He eyed her silently. Without warning he reached out and put his hand on her knee. Her gaze locked on his fingers resting lightly on her denim jeans. Brown, clean and slender fingers, joined to a smooth and sensitive hand. She remembered that hand. It was a hand that spoke when it touched. And the words it had spoken to her were still imprinted on her skin. Visions of the past snapped through her mind like a slide show of old photographs. Smoke drifting before his face. His curls entwined in her fingers. His jeans slipping from his hips. She sucked in a breath.

‘It’s really good to see you again.’

She could hear that he meant it. Swimming up from deep water, she searched for words but none came. She opened the car door.

‘I’d love to catch up – shoot the breeze a while. It’s been a long time,’ He ducked his head to maintain eye contact with her as she moved out of the car.

She nodded. ‘Yeah, sure.’

‘I’m in the phone book. It’s easy to look me up. I’ll leave it up to you.’

‘Okay. Be great.’ She wasn’t sure if she meant it or not.

The place where his hand had been tingled mercilessly. She stood in the rain and watched the car back out of the drive, headlights rising and dipping with the potholes, turning and fixing their glare onto the road back into town. His tail lights faded into the watery gloom.

‘Are you gonna stand out in that all night?’

Max’s voice brought her quickly back to reality. She wondered how long he’d been watching her from the front door. She became aware of rain running down her back and realised how cold she was. Shivering, she ran to the shelter of verandah, shaking off the rain and strange feelings of loss with it.

‘Who was that?’ His eyes narrowed at the tail lights disappearing around the bend.

She didn’t look at him as she unlaced her boots. ‘Just someone I used to know,’ she replied casually.

‘Who?’

Was he curious or suspicious? She couldn’t tell.

‘Just an old teacher.’ She knew that would be boring enough to satisfy him. ‘You’re home early.’

‘Can’t work in this.’ He waved his hand at the deluge. ‘How did the appointment go?’ He helped her out of her dripping coat and hung it on a hook on the wall.

‘The baby’s fine. The doctor’s nice.’

She stole one last look down the road into town before she followed him inside, closing the door on Solomon and the sodden winter world.

 . . . but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

The Song of Solomon

A strange wind carrying a whiff of spring buffeted the windows making her feel feverish and light-headed. Her body was confused – if she pushed back the covers, her skin prickled with goose-bumps; if she gathered them around her it filmed with sweat.

Was that her name she heard carried on the breeze, slipping through cracks around the bedroom window? Could she dare to imagine he’d called out to her on this wild night? She dozed lightly, the baby stirring within her, the wind disturbing her slumber. Vague images of Solomon’s hands making her moan and squeal infiltrated her dreams and she woke to the sound of a gum branch screeching against the window pane.

Night here was usually deathly quiet but tonight the trees tore at the window, twig fingers rasping and scratching the pane. She imagined their roots prying apart the floorboards in search of water, slaking their thirst from the salt beads on her forehead and between her shoulder blades. She rarely slept on windy nights. They made her restless with memories of her first time with Solomon. Tired of tossing, she got up to relieve herself in the outside toilet, grasping her flapping robe as she picked her way across the grass. She returned to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. The baby twitched inside her.

‘Be still, bubby,’ she murmured. ‘Mum is having enough trouble sleeping as it is. That damned man has got hold of her again.’

It had been easy to make contact with Solomon. Years of curious anticipation propelled her finger down the list of ‘Andrews’ in the phone book. He was the third and last Andrews on the page. Andrews, Solomon. She wrote the numbers on the back of an envelope with a shaking hand.

The day she finally called him was filled with wet late winter sunshine. Josh was napping and she dialled three times, but hung up before anyone could answer. She took a deep breath and backed into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Her head swirled with arguments, talking herself into and out of making the call. Fifteen minutes and twenty deep breaths later she lifted the phone again and dialled, waiting this time until he picked it up. It took her a moment to reply.

‘Hi Solomon. It’s me.’

He was enthusiastic; sounded genuinely happy to hear from her. He asked if they could meet for a coffee.
They arranged to meet after she’d finished her shift at the bakery the following Friday, and she looked forward to it with more enthusiasm than she’d felt for anything in months.

When she was sitting in front of him, she felt herself fluttering like a baby bird. She had to restrain herself from gushing and giggling. Solomon wanted to know all about her life. What journey had she taken in the past twenty five years? What had brought her back? She answered his questions as honestly as she could without giving voice to the words, ‘I’ve never stopped thinking about you’.

It was a relief to talk freely about Max. She poured her story into Solomon’s ears and he listened intently, licking the froth of his cappuccino from the edge of the glass. She talked about her children, her hope that they’d grow up marinating in a marriage plump with love, her disappointment that things had soured so badly. She skirted the truths of the past, unwilling to admit to Solomon how she’d longed for this moment of reconnection with him.

‘So,’ Solomon asked thoughtfully, ‘why are you still with Max?’

She stared into her empty cup. A universe of answers surrounded her. She could come up with reasons as convincing and solid and sensible as the town they lived in. Because he was the father of her children. Because she had made marriage vows – for better, for worse, and the rest. Because the sorry bastard had followed her here, promising to change. In the end the answers belonged to everyone else in her life. None of them were hers.

‘I don’t know.’

Solomon stared at her. ‘But you’re not happy.’

‘I am.’ She bit her lip and twisted uncomfortably in her seat.

A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He raised his eyebrows at her. She gazed down at the coffee grit sitting in the bottom of her cup. There was one other thing. Her babies. She stayed for them.

‘Joshua and the baby,’ she said emphatically. ‘They deserve a family, a home. A dad.’ She shrugged.

Solomon gazed at her. ‘What about you? What do you deserve?’

She turned the mug in her hands, unable to reply. Deserve? She didn’t think she deserved anything. Maybe peace. Yes, after all the crap she’d been through with Max, peace was something she deserved. And she had it now – but she wanted more. Now, looking into Solomon’s handsome face, she knew she’d always wanted more. She wanted him. Max? Max was lost to her. She couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust his moods or his need to have her in his life. She wanted Max for her children’s sakes. But, as much as she wanted this baby, she couldn’t bring herself to want its father.

By the time they parted, Solomon had her laughing out loud. They swapped mobile numbers and arranged to meet again a week later. She knew she had to be careful. Sheila, the café owner, would be gossiping to her mother the moment they stepped away from the shop. With the vast silence between them, she doubted her mother would say anything to her. But gossip travelled quickly in this small place, and on its journey it metamorphosed. Twenty-five years wasn’t such a long time in some people’s lives. There would be memories lurking in small minds
waiting to pounce on the tiniest moment and turn it into something it wasn’t.

Besides, she kidded herself, seeing Solomon was nothing, a harmless catch-up with an old comrade, nothing to be ashamed of or guilty about. She pretended to be unruffled by him, but the wistful girl of her past was closer to the surface than she’d wanted to admit. She came away from him that day bewildered with elation and fresh with an old desire prickling between her legs.

‘Damn it, Solomon, I wish I could talk to you,’ she whispered to the teapot. She smiled to herself and watched steam rise from her mug while doodling idly on the telephone message pad. She caressed the roundness of her stomach, aware of new life stirring, and wondered about him. She pictured his face, older now but still with the bright openness of his youth. How beautiful he was. How beautiful he’d always been. How she wished she could dare to ask him the questions that had been burning through her all these years. What had their affair meant to him? Did he believe, as she did, that they were soulmates, separated by misfortune? Did he still want her as much as she still wanted him? And what if he did? What then? If he wanted her to be with him she knew she would leave Max in a snap. But it would cause so much angst if she did. Her parents, Josh, Max, all of them would be wailing at her, telling her how stupid and selfish she was. Stupid. Selfish.