The Milieu Principle

by Malcolm Franks

The last night of August, and the Keg was filled with customers. Lights were low, the music played, and the wine and beer flowed. A typical night as the chatter swept through the ground and upper floor dining areas with gaiety and laughter. Good humour and bonhomie filled the building from top to bottom. Some sang along with the melodies from the music machine, others exchanged jokes and told stories of comedy to lighten the darkest moments of human existence. The mood of the evening seemed especially convivial on this night. It was a classic evening in Victoria.

  Matt was watching Grace from the bar as the jukebox played a ballad he vaguely remembered. The powerful voice sang the opening lines gently as Matt’s eyes settled upon her effortless movements, gliding from one table to the next.

  “That I feel myself surrender;

  Each time I see your face;

  I am staggered by your beauty;

  Your unassuming grace;

  And I feel my heart is turning;

  Falling into place…….”

  He marvelled at her inborn talent to be accepted by any and all, no matter their mood or temperament. It was a true art. Feeling Matt’s eyes upon her she looked up and smiled.

  As the song continued and both held their gazes Matt found himself being magnetised by her soft brown eyes and inviting smile. The mood drew him unerringly towards her tiny frame. He sensed she was all too aware of the powerful attraction.

  “Matt, Matt!” came the loud call from behind him. Holly had arrived. “Stop ogling my best friend. I’m here now.”

  And so she was. All make up and mascara, dressed in tight fitting jeans with her cleavage revealed by the low cut of her white cotton top. She towered over the bar, her ample bosom demanding attention.

  “That ship won’t leave harbour for some time yet,” she said, referring to Grace. “I’m always available though,” she laughed again.

  Matt smiled back, poured out her favoured Jack Daniels with ginger and passed it across the bar.

  “Jenna’s the only girl in town for me, Holly.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and there goes another flying pink elephant,” she replied.

  They began to tease each other relentlessly until Grace interrupted them, reminding Matt there were customers to be served. It was enough to move him away from the bar and into the waiting tables full of customers.

  “Not made your move yet then,” said Holly, girlishly.

  “What move?” replied Grace, coyly.

  “Don’t think about pretending with me, girl,” she smirked. “It’s as plain as the nose on your little china white face.”

  Grace peered up at Holly through her dark rimmed glasses and smiled weakly. Her eyes darted away towards where Matt was standing.

  “Admit it,” continued Holly, “you fancy him rotten!”

  “No I don’t!” was Grace’s half hearted reply. “I don’t fancy anybody. Anyway, it’s far too soon.”

  Holly looked at her friend with heartfelt sympathy. She recognised Grace was still struggling to move on with her personal life and this filled her with concern.

  “Take a careful look at the tight bum in those jeans and give me one good reason why not,” counselled Holly, nodding in Matt’s direction.

  Grace turned and smacked her friend playfully on the arm.

  “Oh do stop it!”

  Holly rested her fingers on Grace’s slender forearm and leant towards her best friend.

  “Don’t leave it too long,” she said in a caring, comforting tone of voice. “You need a man in your life, if only for a short while, and he’s a good man.”

  “With a girlfriend,” retorted Grace.

  “A girl who is a friend, you heard him the other night. Don’t cut off your little white nose, Gracie, nobody gets any younger in this life.”

  Midnight had turned when Matt brought in the last ashtray and emptied its contents into the waste bin. Grace appeared from upstairs with a black bag half full of rubbish.

  “I’m bushed,” she said with a heavy sigh. “This job doesn’t get any easier. I need a drink, a nice long refreshing alcoholic drink.”

  She was still smiling, always smiling.

  Matt poured out two glasses of the house red wine and sat opposite. They began to chatter, as friends do, when Grace stood up and went over to the jukebox.

  Typing in the code to bypass the money slot mechanism, she flipped through the record labels until she found the tune she was looking for. Returning to the table the melody of the earlier song came over the sound system. She took a big sip of her wine and smiled wistfully.

  “You were listening to this at the bar,” she said. “Does it hold fond memories for you, an old lover perhaps?”

  “It’s a pleasant tune,” he replied casually.

  Grace looked down at her wine, her fingers moving around the rim of the glass, in deep thought. Matt treated her silence with courtesy. He found his gaze drawn to her slender finger wending its way around and around. He waited until she was ready to speak.

  “This was our song, mine and Mark’s,” she eventually said, slowly.

  It was the first time Grace had mentioned his name.

  “We’d only been together for a few months before he …” she bit her lip as water filled her eyes, and concentrated her gaze on the red liquid in the glass. Matt placed a comforting hand gently over hers.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” he said quietly.

  “No ... No. It’s fine,” she continued. “It’s time.”

  Grace went on to explain how she had met Mark through work. They didn’t have normal jobs, neither being attracted to the nine to five living most couples settled for. A whirlwind romance she explained, the work bringing them close very quickly. Deciding to get married was an impulse on Mark’s part, but she had jumped at his proposition. Although their jobs had an element of danger she simply wasn’t prepared for the news when it reached her. It was hard to believe it should happen so suddenly.

  “I hadn’t seen him for three days when it happened.”

  The tears that had been welling up in her eyes began to rush down her white cheeks, dropping and then splintering onto the wooden surface. At first he watched in seeming helplessness as the full scale of her sadness began to reveal itself, and then his heart responded.

  Matt raised her hand, which lifted them both up from the table, and placed his arms firmly around the doll like figure before him. Grace burst into a sea of tears as she moved into his tight embrace, sobbing uncontrollably onto his chest.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept crying as her body heaved up and down in rhythm with her sobs.

  “Ssshhh,” Matt said softly, stroking her hair and gently placing his lips on the top of her head. He tried to comfort her in the only way he knew how, which was to hold and hug her as close as close could be.

  A dam had burst. The endless months of holding back the despair of Mark’s departure, holding back the grief, had finally been released. Matt had never felt the urge to protect as strongly as he felt it now. This gentle creature enveloped so securely in his arms gave him a feeling of immense strength and power. They stood for some time, long after the ballad had ended. Once her sobbing had eased Grace nestled further into Matt’s embrace. She wanted to feel secure, protected from the past and the uncertainties of the future.

  Matt slowly bent his frame, and lifted her into the air. Her arms snaked around his neck and she rested her head on his shoulder as he carried her light frame up the stairs.

  “This is the last stop,” he said on reaching the door to Grace’s room. Bowing his head forward, he kissed her softly on the tip of the nose.

  She looked up into his eyes, the warm expression behind his smile evidence of how much he cared for her. Slowly she lifted her hand and began to softly trace the outline of his face with her index finger. Down his cheekbone, round his chin and then she pressed the finger lightly to his lips.

  Reaching behind, she twisted the round wooden handle and eased the door open, to allow Matt to carry h
er into the large room and gently place her upon the Queen sized bed. The powerful bulbs in the hallway threw a beam of light over Grace’s soft, white face, the half open door reflected in her dark rimmed glasses. He could see her eyes were both welcoming and hesitantly nervous.

  His lips brushed her forehead first. Then they fell upon her right cheek before landing gently on her pink lips as she stroked the back of his head with her small hand. His mouth moved on to her neck and kissed softly at the white scented skin. He could feel her breathing gather pace and her body quiver with expectation at the continued touch of his lips. From the bottom of her neck he moved upwards towards the outline of her delicate chin.

  That’s when he felt the first drop of warm water on his cheek quickly followed by another, then another. He raised his head to look for the source and saw tears falling freely as she looked back at him in sorrow.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This was wrong of me.”

  Grace could not speak. She wanted Matt to continue but her brain refused to allow her mouth to open. Instead the tears continued to fall, rolling down the sides of her cheeks onto the bed linen, her hands tightly clasped around Matt’s forearms which were astride her frame.

  “We both need a good night’s sleep,” he whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Her grip on his arms tightened. She didn’t want him to go.

  Don’t leave me, she wanted to say. The words refused to escape from her mouth.

  Matt afforded Grace no further time to object. Pecking her on the forehead he offered a reassuring smile, and then lifted his arms from her tight grasp. With his thumbs he gently smoothed the droplets away from underneath her eyes, the light motion bringing her tears to a halt. He spoke no more. Matt rose slowly from the bed, turned towards the door and closed it quietly behind him.

  Neither of them managed to sleep.

  Grace rolled from one side of the large Queen bed to the other, trying to convince herself she had got caught up in a moment. Her outpouring of grief had galvanised her senses. It had made her want, no, need the physical presence of a man to counter those emotions. She had felt so safe in Matt’s arms, as if she had been wrapped up snugly inside a security blanket. All demons would be turned away at the door, all darkness deflected away into space. Nothing could break the impenetrable barrier he had provided in those few, short minutes.

  Grace wanted to joyously surrender her body to him right there and then abandoning all reason, all care. The touch of his lips had electrified her body, had galvanised her soul and then … and then, the image of Mark’s face had flashed into her mind.

  Go away. Go away, her inner voice screamed. Leave me alone, I need this man. But he would not go away. He was not ready to leave her.

  Matt had held her for a few short minutes but it was enough for her to know, enough for her to realise how much she liked him. And then, at the point at which Mark’s spell might finally be broken, he let her go.

  Tomorrow would be awkward, unnecessarily so. They were unlikely to get this close again.

  “Damn you, Mark,” she whispered.

  Matt lay on his bed, looking out of the open window to his right side, up at the stars. He felt his body begin to relax and his heart rate slowly return to normal. Those few moments he had held Grace in his arms had made his nerve ends tingle with excitement. He inhaled deeply to draw in her scent still upon his clothes.

  He had found the mystery of Grace. It was heartbreaking to finally discover how sad she had been all this time. How long she must have bottled up those emotions. The urge to make love to her had almost completely overpowered him, as if this one act would somehow mend her shattered soul and bring her suffering to an end.

  “You were right to back away,” he told himself. “It would have been wrong.”

  Matt’s mind was in turmoil, knotted with confusion. Over these last few weeks his liaisons with Jenna had strengthened from a casual friendship into a deep affection. The events of the night had him thinking he’d let her down. He felt a commitment to Jenna, given he was entirely comfortable with her presence in his life.

  Yet in those few short moments with Grace his heart had pounded that little bit faster and his pulse had raced that little bit quicker in pure, unadulterated excitement. She had brought to the surface feelings he had never experienced before. Matt berated himself for the loss of emotional control, believing it to be a form of betrayal. The one human sin he despised above all others, and one he contemptuously believed was beyond his capacity to exercise.

  To cap it all, tomorrow’s first conversation with Grace was going to be awkward now he had revealed the true level of his affection. Matt realised, should he continue to hang around, the emotional attachment to Grace would only get stronger. It was inevitable.

  Tomorrow would be September. This meant the summer season was drawing to a close and the tourists would depart. Soon, there would be fewer flights to make and only a limited number of punters would start passing through the doors of The Keg. It was time to think the unthinkable, time to make his next move.

  The Milieu files loomed back into his consciousness. Deep down, he had always understood he was going to have to face up to this dark and sinister shadow over his life eventually, to address the problem once and for all. But not right now. He just couldn’t think straight.

  Matt rested for a few more minutes before rising. He walked over to the wardrobe and retrieved the laptop from behind the left door. Turning the lamp on at the desk he pressed the start button and settled into the less than comfortable wicker chair to wait. Heavier than expected, when he first saw it, it was nevertheless adequate.

  Double clicking the internet icon took him onto the web and he typed in ‘job opportunities in Whistler.’ If he was lucky he could get a temporary job there, where the tourists would go for the winter season. Tourism meant employment. Low paid and temporary employment but a lot of jobs and, with luck, cash in hand. He was right, there were hundreds.

  Matt looked at his watch, it was one-thirty in the morning. Knowing he had to be up at five thirty, he decided to wait and have a better look after he had finished his day’s work with Jack.

  The site asked him to leave an e-mail address and a password. It was too late to give the matter any considered thought so he typed in M44MDL, the password he’d always used, switched the computer off and climbed into bed.

  “Please let me sleep,” he said to the sky. “At least let me rest a few hours before I have to rise and face the day.”

  “I’ll fly,” Jack ordered curtly, to Matt’s obvious surprise and disappointment. The Canadian was wearing what he called his ‘desert jacket’ because of its sand colour and deep outside pockets, which was unusual for him. Although it was only six in the morning, the air was cool rather than cold.

  Thinking no more about it Matt released the moorings and climbed into the front of the plane beside his friend. Nothing was said as the floatplane eased away from the jetty and coasted to the middle of the bay.

  Soon, they were in the air. Jack remained silent as he pointed the plane to fly west. Already the sky was light blue. Matt looked down at the dark blue sea rippling gently, and looked forward to another beautiful day.

  The continued silence began to unnerve Matt. Throughout the few quickly passing weeks he’d known him, Jack had never been this quiet. Usually you couldn’t shut him up. He wondered if he had said something the wrong way. Perhaps his friend had picked up on the awkwardness between him and Grace since the other evening. The plane dipped sharply and headed for the water. Matt recognised Parry Bay looming up in front of them. Never the busiest of places, at this hour it was completely devoid of human activity. It was an odd place for Jack to set down.

  The floats gently skimmed the surface of the flat sea and Jack ferried the plane towards shore, stopping two hundred yards or so short of the cobbled beach. The plane sat on top of the sea, the water lapping gently against the floats. Matt couldn’t understand why they had stop
ped here.

  The Canadian fumbled for something in one of his deep jacket pockets. It took him a few moments to free the object and then he turned to face his passenger.

  Matt looked upon the pilot’s cold expression. He glanced down and saw the pistol in his friend’s right hand, pointing directly at Matt’s stomach. His eyes widened in surprise.

  “Jack, what are you doing?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Admissions