I peek in through the windows, which are painted with vivid flowers, flamenco dancers and straw-covered wine flagons, inviting the gaze and rendering the half-obscured candle-lit interior even more alluring.
Harry sits alone, looking groomed, handsome and dangerous. Why haven’t I noticed how masculine he is? How clearly rich and comfortable he is. Dominating the room. A man who has worked his way to the top and is enjoying all that success has brought him. I thought I had found a friend, someone to laugh with, but he is waaaay out of my league.
Hell, he probably has a blonde half my age tucked away somewhere. No wonder he choked when I suggested he marry Lily.
I turn away.
‘Lilac!’
I try to walk a bit faster, which is difficult but achievable in my platform shoes.
‘Lilac, wait, please.’ I assume it is his ‘Master of the Construction Site’ voice. Deep. Commanding. No-nonsense. A voice that stops you, despite your better instincts.
‘Lilac.’ He puts a warm hand on my arm, barely a touch, and withdraws it. His funny, kind, creased face is peering into mine.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing. It’s OK, I just...’
‘Lilac. Are you coming in? It smells delicious in there.’
‘I suppose it would be graceless and churlish to refuse?’
‘Yes it would, and I’m sure those words never could apply to you!’
He tucks my hand under his arm. I can’t help but notice his large warm bicep, rippling with strength and steadiness.
We sit, Harry calls the waiter and waits until she brings me a glass of Spanish rosé.
‘Now, what’s happened?’
‘Nothing, really, everything is fine, Harry.’ I give him my best smile and seek for a conversation starter.
He takes a sip from his dark beer, his bright blue eyes never leaving mine. Studying me. ‘Where is my sunny but accident-prone Lilac? Gorgeous outfit, by the way.’
‘There is no ‘your’ Lilac’ I reply, proud of the crispness of my voice. ‘And thank you.’
Harry looks down, a spasm crossing his face which I can’t interpret. He drinks again, looks up. His fingers tighten on his cold beer glass. I watch them whiten and then relax.
‘Someone’s told you, haven’t they? Who I am?’
‘Yes actually, and I feel such a fool. Why are you wasting time with me?’
Harry says, looking at me steadily, ‘You know, until that day at cricket, I’m not actually sure that I’ve laughed, at least not like that, a full and complete laugh, if you know what I mean, tears and stomach pain, the lot, since my wife died.’
‘That’s sad, Harry.’
He pauses then, and it is difficult to interpret the thoughts racing through his mind from his expression. Emotional pain. Despair. Frustration. I think he mumbles, ‘And for a long time before.’
‘It must have been truly terrible watching someone you love go through that. Deeply tragic. I’m sorry for your loss, Harry.’
‘Well it was terrible, anyway,’ he says. I am not quite sure what he means, so I throw out, to break the tension, ‘Glad my silliness gave you some time out.’
Harry puts his hand on mine. I look at it, with a kind of blankness, my eyebrows rising, as though my hand is a separate beast to me, behaving independently of my mind. I watch my hand lie there in Harry’s big brown fist. I watch it squeeze him back, as gently and hopeful as a Valentine’s wish, liable to vanish as soon as the calendar page turns. My brain hiccups and then freezes.
‘Not...not your silliness...’ he says. The waiter arrives to take our order. Harry releases our hands, brushes his hand over his forehead and mouth, drinks the rest of his ale. A craft beer of some sort, I note.
We order a multitude of small Spanish seafood, ham, tortilla and vegetable dishes. Harry puts delectable morsels onto my plate and watches me eating them, the big grin back on his face.
‘No diet then?’ he asks.
The eggplant in my mouth goes dry as ashes and seems to swell and choke my throat. I can barely stop myself from spitting it out. What does he mean? I force-swallow the mouthful and take a sip of wine to wash it down.
‘Ah, no. I have a healthy appetite. Landscaping is a physical business,’ I answer stiffly. Tori’s strictures flash through my mind. The beautiful, glamorous wife.
‘I beg your pardon. It’s wonderful to eat with a woman who enjoys her food,’ he says, his voice a low growl. His brows are lowered. Strangely, I think he might be embarrassed instead of angry. ‘So many women I am used to are forever on this diet and that diet, when if they just went for walk or something...’
‘Couldn’t agree more!’ I say. ‘I’d rather do heaps more exercise than miss a meal. Now you know how to torture me!’
Harry laughs, his warm rich voice curling around me like an embrace. I feel safe, I can’t deny it. Special. He is one of nature’s charmers, in a quiet, unassuming way.
I better be careful. I’d fought for my independence for so many years, I am not about to give it up to a seasoned charmer like Harry.
‘So, your real name is Harris,’ I venture.
He grins. ‘Named after the beautiful Isle of Harris in Scotland’s romantic Outer Hebrides. It’s truly beautiful there, and where my people are from. Have you visited Scotland, yourself?’
Harry and I launch into an animated discussion of how we adore travel, the places we have been, the places we still want to go.
Finally, I look around me. ‘Harry, everyone’s gone!’
‘Ah! We still haven’t planned our campaign. Better get onto it. They won’t throw us out just yet.’
‘The Harris MacAulay name?’
He winces. Checks the time on his phone. ‘Actually, about now...’
Flamenco music begins somewhere in the back of the restaurant, growing louder. Rhythmic clapping begins, joined by stamping and clicking. A lone male voice rises in a passionate, soaring wail.
Four musicians come into the restaurant: a guitar player with an ornate ten-string traditional Spanish guitar; two other men, currently clapping in complicated off-beat rhythms, and a gorgeously clad flamenco dancer, stamping tap shoes and clicking castanets above her head.
One man strides forward, neck stretched and face screwed as he belts out a strong and eerie wail. The dancer takes up the thread of melody, and writhes, weaves and stamps her way around him.
I watch entranced, full of joy for such beautiful music and dancing, such a brilliant spectacle. I can’t help smiling at Harry, over and over again, as the magic takes me and holds me, increasing in drama and beauty until I believe my heart will burst. My own feet are tapping on the floor, my fingers dancing on my thighs. I am a physical creature, and for a mad moment, consider leaping up and joining in the wild and beautiful dance.
Harry is laughing, watching my face and laughing.
When the show is over, we all – Harry, myself, the wait staff and kitchen staff, who have all piled out from the back to watch – applaud until it feels like the skin is worn from our hands.
Outside the restaurant, I am transformed. ‘Thank you! Thank you! Oh, that was incredible!’ I feel radiant, blissful, transported.
Harry bows over my hand like a Regency rake, and grins his warm, infectious grin. ‘Maybe we can do it again some time.’
‘Yes. Oh Yes.’
I am staring at him, dazzled. ‘Did you...?’
Harry laughs again. It is so good to hear him. As he walks me to my car, he says, ‘Yes actually, I did arrange that. My reward is being with you, seeing you transported by the music. You made it special for me, bringing even more beauty to my enjoyment.’
He stops, shrugs, crinkles half a smile. ‘Listen to me. I’m a simple bloke. Construction. Put one thing on top of another, make sure it’s got a solid foundation. Plan it properly.’
I don’t know exactly what he is alluding to, but I don’t care. I give him a last wave and drive home on a cloud of wonder.
7
>
In our familiar coffee shop two mornings later, I say, ‘Harry, this is getting ridiculous. I’ve got to stop taking up your time with this craziness. Especially when we get carried away talking about other stuff, and completely forget to plan Operation Grandchild!’
‘I’m enjoying myself talking about the other stuff. It’s fun.’
‘But you must be so busy – as I am! How can you keep allocating time for my madness?’
‘Don’t worry about it, Lilac. That’s my affair. I’m semi-retired really. I employ good managers, who know when they need to come to me.’
He bites into his tiny Italian cake, the caramelised sugar adhering to his lip. He says, through the sugar crumbs, ‘Come on now. Let me have this little bit of fun!’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ I say.
‘Mmmmnn?’ Something about the way he rumbles that noise wakes the surface of my skin and heats my blood. I blink and give myself a metaphorical slap. That way lies danger. It is far too late in our friendship for a quick hook-up, which I had indulged in, not very often, and not very satisfactorily, over the years.
I have never been the sort of woman who can love lightly, much as I would like to be. I can imagine the fun and danger of sex with Tinder-dates; have tried it, but when the moment comes it seems awkward and unsatisfying. Something in me craves that emotional connection. Once you’ve had love, like I had with Aiden, swapping body fluids with strangers just doesn’t cut it.
I am not made for celibacy either.
Already I like Harry far too much to add that kind of layer of complexity.
I envy Tori her regular and torrid, dramatic affairs of the heart, which are dealt with as tidily as the stray leaves on her swept, circular driveway.
Grandchild Strategy has been developing further over the previous day, as I sketch in new trees, flower beds and display beds in the design for Tori’s new section of garden. I am making a tiny corner of it a ‘blue garden’, and have been having fun choosing all the bulbs and flowers and balancing seasonal change factors. Like sculpture in 4-D, landscape design must factor in time as well.
I share my new Grandchild Strategy thoughts with Harry. ‘We had better include a few women, just in case. I’ve been assuming, but I could be wrong.’
‘Women, you think?’ Harry says. I sneak a look. He seems fine with the idea. Another tick. This man is too good to be true, maybe.
I say, ‘Yes, Lily might be gay. I have to consider it. And these days, lots of same-sex couples have babies. Perhaps even more have babies than do hetero couples,’ I add. ‘Even easier for me to arrange, really. Some of my lesbian contacts will have single friends.’
‘I’ve got a few contacts in construction: a few sparky women – electricians that is – a couple of engineers and a quantity surveyor. I only know their personal choices because a few of them got married last year after the gay marriage vote, and I was invited to their weddings. Some of the most joyful, and funny, weddings I’ve ever attended.’
‘How lovely! That’s beautiful.’
‘You just like people to be happy, don’t you, Lilac?’
‘Yes. I’m a bit of a wuss, aren’t I? Sorry!’
‘Well, you are having coffee with Mister Five Boards and multiple volunteer commitments. We might be as wussy as each other.’
‘Oh dear. There’s no hope for us.’
We fall to planning Grandchild Strategy, topping each other’s ideas with ever more outrageous scenarios. We are both laughing, holding our stomachs. Tears of mirth flow from my eyes. Harry is holding my hand and feeding me sections of sugar biscuit.
I let him.
8
On the weekend, Lily says to me, while we are sipping outrageous fruit cocktails and watching an over-the-top action urban fantasy movie, ‘This has been a weird week for me.’
‘Oh?’ I say idly.
A thought flashes. Sit up, pay attention. Put down the cocktail and focus the slightly hazy brain. ‘Oh?’ I ask again, with meaning.
‘Yes, I’ve been asked out by three different women. In one week! How strange.’
A peculiar noise emits from my mouth so I pretend to choke on a piece of pineapple.
‘And?’ I can feel my eyes brightening. Has she met The One?
‘What do you mean, and?’ Lily sounds cross.
‘So, did you go out with any of them?’
Lily doesn’t say anything for a moment. ‘Mum, I’m not gay.’
‘Oh,’ I say again, this time my voice and body subsiding and sagging like an accelerated time-lapse aging process. ‘So... you didn’t fancy any of them?’
‘Mum!’ Lily gulps more of her cocktail. Daughter-grimaces at me.
‘How do you know you didn’t?’
‘Mum!’ Lily says again, and leaves the room.
A short while later, I hear the front door close.
Oh well.
‘It was best to ensure all bases were covered,’ Harry says later in the sumptuous Ballarat Art Gallery bar. ‘It’s a plus, really, only disguised as setback.’
‘A plus?’ I am feeling miserable. I shouldn’t be interfering. I treasure my daughter. I should value her just as she is. So what if I never have grandchildren? Our relationship is a precious, and maybe fragile thing. I should respect her life choices.
‘Yes, it narrows the scope. It’s always good to have the boundaries and scope set in a plan. Easy to move forward.’
I tune into Harry’s words. True. He was the planner who had built a construction empire, brick by brick. Back to Plan A then.
I sip my G&T and grin at him.
‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘Never, never, never give up.’
‘That your philosophy?’
‘More than my philosophy. It’s my DNA.’
We smile at each other.
9
It is all set. Lily is catching the country train to Melbourne for an important Marine Biosecurity meeting. Harry has idly asked around his colleagues, friends and acquaintances if any were going to Melbourne on a certain date.
It is truly beautiful, how the universe sometimes offers a gift. A fast-bowler, Damian Findlay, in Harry’s cricket club, is attending a meeting at Cricket Victoria.
The train takes off. Harry and I meet, as arranged, in the carriage.
‘I told him to sit there,’ Harry says, his excitement palpable. His teeth are shining white, and his crumpled, good-humoured face is lit from within. ‘I said I’d seen an acquaintance boarding the train, and would catch up with him later.’
We are squashed together in the narrow train corridor, my left side pressing against the safety rail, facing Harry, who is just outside the toilet. Faint disinfectant and train toilet smells permeate the corridor, but we don’t care.
‘You are kidding me? Right next to Lily?’ I say. ‘Did she look at him?’
‘She SMILED at him as he sat next to her!’
‘Harry, you are a wizard! But...’
‘What?’
‘She smiles at everyone. And by now, she probably has her ear buds in, listening to music, looking at social media on her phone, and reading her kindle. I wonder how...’
‘How we can get them to talk?’ Harry asks.
‘Should we press the emergency button?’ I suggest, in desperation. ‘You would have to express curiosity, or have a grumble, to the person closest to you, wouldn’t you?’
‘You would.’
‘But think of all the people having to get somewhere, the hospital maybe, a meeting, cutting it fine.’
Harry is grinning now. ‘No! Don’t you dare!’
I can feel my eyes open to their widest. A dare! How naughty! How...
I squeeze past him in the narrow space, registering strong sturdy clean male clad in natural fabrics. The huge red emergency button is there, just near the toilet, glowing like a beacon. My finger hovers. I look back at Harry, make an exaggerated wide-mouth grimace, and three things happen at once: the train jerks, I almost smash into the button and Har
ry grabs my hand and pulls me back in the nick of time.
We stare at each other, wide-eyed and laughing, but drop our clasped hands like embarrassed teenagers when Lily’s voice calls, ‘Mum!’
‘Lily, hello! I realised I totally needed new sneakers for HIIT – my old ones are hurting my feet, and I need to go to Melbourne...’ I babble.
She gives me a kiss, lovely daughter that she is. ‘This is nice. Come and sit next to me. I was just talking to a nice fast bowler, but I’m sure he won’t mind moving.’
‘Actually talking to?’
‘What do you mean, ‘actually talking to’? Are you alright?’ Lily is giving me one of those daughter looks. The one that indicates quite clearly that you are being a little mad.
As Lily turns to lead me back to her seat, I make an, ‘Oh no! Total Catastrophe’ face at Harry. I think Lily doesn’t get a chance to recognise him, as he is doubled over, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter, his hands covering his face. She does shoot him a dubious look, but quickly forgets him as she chats to me while we walk back to her seat.
‘Hi again, Damian. This is my mum. Just wondering if you would mind moving, if you can find another seat?’
Oh no. Damian is perfect. He leaps up, exhibiting beautiful manners, a lovely torso and neat quads, assuring Lily that it is perfectly fine. He will go and find another seat, no problem, there is someone else he knows on the train. Pleasant. Agreeable and accommodating. Nice diction, for a Ballarat sportsman. Educated. Clearly struck with Lily’s beauty.
Rats and double rats. You fool, Lilac!
As the train rockets onwards, Lily and I have a great time chatting and making each other burst into uncontrollable giggles with very silly observations about our fellow travellers.
When Lily puts her ear buds back in, and as soon as we are past the mobile blackspot area, I go for a stroll. In the corridor, I text Harry. ‘Where are you? Do we have a backup plan?’
Be Mine: Valentine Novellas to Warm The Heart Page 17