Nine Days

by Toni Jordan

  Ma does not notice the feeling of the air. I peek around the wardrobe and there she is in her bed, lying in the same position as she fell asleep in hours ago, a mound under her blankets, her hands in prayer under her left cheek. She sleeps like a child. It’s a blessing, that type of surrender. One I have not been granted. All night my mind races, my feet wriggle. Even when I stretch out I can’t seem to lie still.

  I reach under the bed for my slippers. It’s useless lying here, twitching and kicking. In the hall, I pause outside the boys’ room. Francis is snoring and I can’t see Kip’s face: he’s wedged a pillow over his head as usual. I open the front door to smell the air. It’s freezing. There is a figure across the road under the street light. A tall man, leaning, thinking. It’s Jack Husting.

  I shut the door and turn back down the hall. In our room, I stand beside my bed, brush the back of my hand against the sheets. They’re cold. It’ll be light in a few hours and I have a big day at work tomorrow. Today. I should really get some sleep. I almost fold the sheets down and climb back snug inside. Instead I lift my nightgown over my head and slip on the dress hanging on the back of the door.

  This time when I open the front door I feel his eyes on me. He watches as I walk closer, his head nods a fraction with each step I take. I look each way before I cross the street: a silly gesture. At this hour there’s no one about but him and me.

  And now here we are, together in the dark, me in my coat and slippers, him in trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. How he’s not shivering I don’t know. He’s a good six inches taller with the five o’clock shadow of a grown man before shaving. We are quiet for a long time.

  ‘Are you really here?’ Jack says. ‘Or are you sleepwalking?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I feel like part of me is asleep and part is awake. Does it matter?’

  ‘Too right it does.’ His voice is a raspy whisper, low and soft. He digs both hands in his pockets and looks up at the stars. ‘If you’re awake I’ll take a bit of care about what I say. Don’t want you to think I’m a dill tomorrow.’

  ‘And if I’m asleep?’

  ‘Then odds are you’ll forget all about this by the morning. And I am free to make a fool of myself.’

  I smile. Jack Husting is not the kind of man who would ever make a fool of himself. ‘Then I’m asleep. Besides, it doesn’t matter what I think. Your leave’s over. You’re off tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s true.’ He rubs one hand down his arm like he can feel it too, the pressure in the air. ‘Tomorrow I’m off.’

  In our houses, just a few dozen yards away, our families are sound asleep. We’re alone out here in the dark. Just for now, it’s a separate world we’re standing in and we’re the only two alive in it. The street lamp throws a circle of light. Perhaps that’s as far as our world extends.

  ‘How did your mum take it, you signing up?’

  ‘It’s hard for her. She’s not coming to the station to see me off. Dad neither. Took them by surprise, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s the difference between men and women.’ I watch his face, tanned and angular under the light. There’s a tension in the way he holds his arms. He’s pretending to be relaxed. ‘We women do what’s expected. You can do almost anything you care to think of.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I reckon that depends on the woman, and the man.’

  I feel a drop on my cheek. The air can’t hold the water anymore.

  ‘Oh no.’ I hold one hand out flat, fingers pressed together, to give the sky a chance to change its mind. ‘I’m not ready to go in yet.’

  Ready or not, before I finish speaking, thousands of drops are smacking against us, against the street, the houses and the fences. Sheets of water, all let loose. Loud too. My coat is wet through already, my cotton dress is sticking to my shoulders and thighs.

  ‘Come on.’ Jack has to shout and before I know it he is holding my hand in his bigger one and we are running, pelting across the street and around the corner and down the side of the shop, threading our way down the narrow concrete path, past the azaleas and the camellias that line the path. Their leaves are glossy and dark. Our palms are slippery from the rain. In the backyard, he lets go of me and I wrap my arms around my middle and shiver while he slides open the door to the stable. Inside, it’s dry and warmer than I’d expected, though the sound is even louder on the iron roof. The torrent is like a glass wall in the open door.

  ‘You need a blanket.’ He rifles through a pile at the back on top of the hay.

  ‘I’d rather be wet than smell of horse.’

  Charlie gives a mild snort and looks at me with liquid eyes. ‘You’ve offended him.’ Jack scratches his nose. ‘She didn’t mean it. You smell delightful.’

  ‘If you think that, you spent too long on that station.’

  ‘I did spend too long. I should have come home years ago. If I’d known about the neighbours, I would have.’

  ‘Is that so?’ I say, and it’s all I can do to stop my hands from shaking. ‘What is it about the neighbours that would have brought you home? They’re a shady lot, I suppose? Perhaps you didn’t think your parents were safe?’

  ‘I’m the one who’s not safe, Connie,’ he says. He runs his hand along the side of Charlie’s face and Charlie nuzzles him back.

  I take off my coat and squeeze the water out, then I fold my arms and look out the window at the rain. ‘Yet tomorrow you’re off. Enlisted of your own free will, did you?’

  ‘It seemed a good idea.’

  ‘I’m sure it was. I’m sure you’ll have all kinds of adventures. See the world, fight for King and country, all that. You won’t have time to spare a thought for us at home.’

  ‘You’ll be busy soon, as well.’ He turns away from Charlie and faces me, arms folded just like mine. ‘Your ma is telling anyone who’ll listen that you’ll be engaged to that newspaper man any day now. What’s his name again? Bored?’

  ‘It’s Ward. And she’s getting a bit ahead of herself, if she’s said that.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says, like I’ve just explained the workings of the internal combustion engine. ‘Like that, is it?’

  The rain seems not so heavy now, a dull background hum.

  ‘It’s eased up. I’ll make a run for it.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You can’t give me orders. I’m not one of your soldier boys.’

  ‘You’re right.’ He walks over and stands right in front of me, inches away. ‘Don’t, please.’

  It’s time to go back to my own bed, to the room I share with Ma. It really is. Time to go.

  ‘You’re still wet.’ With one hand he lifts the sleeve of my dress up to the top of my shoulder, then he runs the flat of his fingers down my arm, a gentle even pressure. He stops at the elbow and flicks off the water. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

  ‘Jack.’

  This time he reaches both hands out and holds my dress at the waist, a hand at either side. He scrunches it in his brown fists so that it’s tight around me, he squeezes the fabric. Two tiny trickles of water fall to the ground.

  ‘It’s you I think about,’ he says. ‘Every night when I can’t sleep, when I walk the streets. Tonight it’s like I’ve conjured you up.’

  I look in his eyes and it’s a mistake. They’re soft, the colour of dark honey. There are all kinds of thoughts buzzing, things I should say, should do, but I can’t move. I just look, and then it feels like falling.

  He pulls the dress now, little movements but strong. I can see his forearms tense, the muscle firm under the sodden white of his shirt, and I move towards him. Tiny steps, in my slippers. My arms are limp until I’m right up against him, pressing against him down to my toes. Then my traitor arms lift and rest against his chest.

  ‘Just let me kiss you, Connie. I’d die a happy man.’

  I barely move my head. He leans down closer, closer. He brushes the side of his face against mine—it’s rough, it stings and prickles. I feel his open
mouth on one side of mine, feel his wetness and his breath, and I try to be still but it’s more than I can bear. Before I know it I’m on my tiptoes, arms around his neck. I’m kissing him back.

  This kissing. The smell of him, the taste. I’m in Jack Husting’s arms and he’s holding me and there’s a fierceness I’ve never felt before. I can’t get enough air but it’s not air I’m wanting. He’s twisting me to my side, cradling me. He kisses the side of my mouth, the line of my chin, the space behind my ear and my mouth, over and over. I raise my head when I feel about to topple over and he puts a hand behind to steady himself. We start to sink and he sits on the floor, back against the wall, and I’m across his lap.

  ‘Connie,’ he says, into my neck. ‘I’ve got to send you back to your own bed.’

  ‘Yes.’ He raises his head and I find his throat with my teeth. ‘That’d be for the best.’

  ‘It just won’t do.’ He brushes the side of my breast with his hand and when I say nothing, only draw air into my lungs in a whoosh, he cups one breast and it’s heavy and full in his hand, the perfect shape to fit there. ‘It’s not right, Connie. We should wait.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Wait.’ My teeth close over his skin.

  With his right hand, he undoes the buttons at the top of my dress. One. Two. Three. He slides his hand inside and he bows his head as he does it, like a man praying. His thumb darts across my nipple, flicking the nub of it. Jesus Mary and Joseph. So this is what it is. What men and women get up to in their beds at night. He moves us a little so I’m resting against the hay.

  ‘This far and no further,’ he says. His voice is all crackles and sighs.

  But it will not be this far and no further. I will not let it be. Inside of me there is a heat. I want his hands on the inside of my thigh, I want to see them there, I want to feel it. I want, I want. I can hardly breathe for the wanting. It seems that all my life I’ve had nothing I’ve desired and I’ve given up having desires at all. Now I know what it feels like to want and I will give anything to have it. I can hardly form the thoughts but there’s a wetness at my core and a hardness at his and I feel a rush of something I’ve never known: a power. I am queen of a distant land and everything is at my command. I slip my tongue in the corner of his mouth and he groans like pain. I push my whole body against him and part of me watches him search for control but I know he will not find it, not here, not now. I tug his shirt from his trousers and he closes his eyes and tilts his head back. The world is mine.

  ‘Jack,’ I say.

  He is helpless before me. I touch his belt and my nerve falters but he follows my thoughts and does it himself: he unbuckles, readies himself, slides my dress up to my waist and I feel the air on myself down there. He is staring at me yet it’s his body that’s beautiful, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. As he closes in on me I feel a sudden panic, a fear of pain, and yes there’s pain but it’s sweet and sharp and it fades into more wanting and more and he’s still as stone for a while. And soon, again, the stillness is unbearable and it’s my wanting that drives us. I see now the closeness between these words: ‘wanting’ and ‘wanton’. I move my hips under him, circle and thrust. I cannot help it. There is simply nothing else that can be done.

  ‘Connie,’ Jack says. ‘Be still for God’s sake,’ but I will not. I raise my hips to meet him and together we plunge and grind and his face is a contortion of losing himself in me and for a few blessed minutes we are utterly together, meeting one another with our limbs and our mouths and our skin and our sweat and our breath. The feeling is impossible, astounding. No other living soul has ever felt this way.

  ‘I’m not asking you to wait,’ he says. ‘Do you hear me? I’m not asking you.’

  I am buttoning my dress, daring myself to stand. It seems that all the life has drained from my legs: they can barely take my weight. It’s a wonder that married women can stand at all, much less walk. He has brought some water in an old mug from out in the yard and I’ve made a shoddy try at cleaning myself and I’ve dried off with a towel.

  ‘I can hear you.’ My thighs are sticky. The sun will be up any moment. I need to get home and run a bath.

  ‘You have a life all planned out,’ he says.

  ‘All planned out by my mother.’

  ‘I’m going to war.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to offer you,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Just come back.’

  His shirt has hay sticking stuck to one side and his trousers look like they’ve never seen an iron. He runs one hand through his hair and transfers more hay to it. ‘It’d be some pretty poor kind of love if I didn’t want what was best for you,’ he says.

  I stop fidgeting with my dress and turn to look at him. ‘Is that how it is.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how it is. I’m going off, Christ, in just a few hours. You’re here and you’ve got to do what’s best for everyone.’

  I stand in front of him and run my finger along the line of his jaw and down the cliff of his chin and along the beauty of his throat. I can feel him swallow under the pad of my finger and he squeezes his eyes tight for a moment.

  ‘Although,’ he says, ‘the whole show will probably be over in a few months and then I’ll be back.’

  ‘Could be.’

  He clears his throat. ‘And if you were free when I got back, if you were free by some chance, I’d spend all my years becoming the kind of man you’d deserve.’

  ‘Would you now.’

  ‘Hypothetically.’

  ‘Hypothetically. Your mother would have a pink fit.’

  ‘More like deep magenta.’ He laughs. ‘She’s had her time. Now belongs to you and me.’ He kisses me again, deep and long. ‘And Connie,’ he says. ‘I do have one thing to ask you.’

  On the platform, I walk among the crowd of strangers and somehow nobody knows. No one stops and stares, no one points. It isn’t possible I look the same as I did yesterday, I just can’t. But Kip is standing beside me and even he can’t tell. He speaks to me like he would any other day. Even when I got out of the bath this morning, even though it’s not my usual bath day, Ma straightaway asked me if we had any eggs and where did I put the starch. Not one scrap of me is the same yet they notice nothing different at all.

  ‘Look at all these people,’ says Kip. ‘And so many soldiers! Be a wonder if they all fit on the train.’

  As well as becoming a woman, I am now suddenly someone who can design things for her own ends. It was a simple matter to be here at the station: Mr Ward is keen on my ideas and agreed that the embarkation of part of the second AIF for North Africa would make a fine picture for the Argus. There’s no photographer here yet. One is on his way after another job at a fire on the other side of town. I have a spare camera with me in case he’s run out of film, and I have the camera ready: out of its case, and I’ve set up the aperture and shutter speed. The lens I’ve chosen is wide enough to get most of the train. Kip is here because he has the day off from the Hustings, who have shut the shop to weep in peace over Jack’s departure, and because I asked him to come. Kip being here will ensure I behave. In a group of strangers, I don’t trust myself not to cry.

  Kip’s right about the crowd; it’s huge and growing. There are all sorts of people here: an older woman in a wide-brimmed hat holding a baby in a bonnet; men in their sharpest suits; a group of young women also dressed up to the nines, hankies to their eyes already; police and station guards patrolling. A whistle blows. The train is leaving. All the soldiers give one last look around and the stragglers climb on board. I’d thought we’d have more time than this. We’ve only just made it.

  ‘Would you look at that.’ Kip grabs my arm and points his own. ‘There’s Jack Husting.’

  He’s leaning out of the train window in uniform: khaki with big square pockets, a strap across his chest holding his swag in place. He’s looking everywhere. He is searching for someone.

  ‘So it is,’ I say.


  ‘Jack, Jack!’ Kip yells.

  His head spins and he sees us. I curse bringing Kip because now I don’t care a fig what anyone thinks. I want to run to Jack, hold him tight, beg him not to go.

  ‘Connie!’ Jack waves one arm above his head, out the window.

  ‘The train’s leaving,’ says Kip. ‘And the photographer’s still not here.’

  In front of the train, the crowd is milling and jostling. If I just fit through that gaggle of people, I can reach him.

  ‘Here,’ I say to Kip, and I take the strap of the camera and hang it around his neck. He sags a little then straightens at once: he wasn’t expecting the weight of it. ‘Just hold the camera, all right? Stay out of the crush and don’t let anything happen to it. And don’t touch anything. Especially not here.’ I point to the shutter release button, so he knows, so there’s no confusion.

  ‘As if I would,’ he says.

  Any moment now Jack’ll be gone. I run to the crowd, I thread my way through, using my elbows, pushing like a fishwife. He is still there, leaning from the window. I can see his mouth form words he doesn’t say, I can see him swallow. I reach up and he takes my hand. We look and look, but looking and hands aren’t enough. I wedge one foot against the rail of the train but it’s too thin. I can’t gain enough footing to hold my weight and any moment now the train’ll start to move and if I don’t watch it I’ll fall between the carriage and the platform. All at once I notice a soldier beside me, an older man in the same uniform. He’s as tall as Jack, or taller. He’s seeing someone off.