“I know.”
“Know?” Lily’s brow furrowed and she shot a quizzical glance in Freya’s direction. “About… Oh!” Suddenly, she was seriousness personified. She picked up Mabel and moved over to where Freya still sat at the table.
She held out a hand, and Freya took it. Lily’s fingers were warm in her own suddenly chilled ones. She stood, face-to-face with her neighbour.
“You thought Carly and I were lovers.” Amusement lit her face from within. “Freya, honestly.” The amused tenderness in her voice made Freya’s knees shake. Mabel squirmed for release, and Lily set her on the floor. When she straightened again, she was closer. Near enough to tuck one of Freya’s wiry curls behind her ear, near enough to trail a finger over Freya’s cheek, along the edge of cheekbone to rest on her lips. “Freya, you are so wrong. There’s only one person in my head. One person who steals my thoughts, controls my heartbeat.”
The words were locked in Freya’s throat. Lily wanted her. Oh, she’d intimated that before, played with the idea, but it had always seemed like a passing fancy, that Freya was just another in the line of playthings, sexual playmates, in a revolving door to Lily’s bed. Nothing serious. Nothing lasting.
Not like Sarah.
Lily’s finger ran across Freya’s bottom lip, slowly, a millimetre at a time, lighting the nerve endings in its wake. Freya’s core melted. Boneless; she was boneless, a molten waxen thing, tilting in Lily’s direction.
Lily’s finger dropped away and she took a step back. Freya swayed, disoriented by the abrupt withdrawal.
“Coffee.” Carly’s voice was bright with artificial bonhomie as she set two mugs on the table. “I still can’t find your sugar, Frey. I swear you hide it from me deliberately.”
“I do.” Was that her voice, so normal, so steady? “It’s at the very back of the cupboard over the sink, behind the lentils.”
Carly disappeared back to the kitchen.
“I’m not letting you run away from me again, Freya.” Lily’s voice was soft. “We can move as slow as you like, but we will move forwards. One day, I hope we can be girlfriends. Partners maybe, if we are lucky. Do you think that is something you can try for?”
“Yes.” Freya spoke the word without hesitation. It was right. It was time. “Lily, I’m sorry. For so many things: making it difficult for you when you first arrived, about the workshop space. For not being as welcoming as I should have been. I—”
“Shush.” Lily looked at their cats, now curled around each other on the couch. “I was difficult with you too.” She glanced towards the kitchen. “Let’s see what we can do to help Carly before we try and entwine our own lives.”
Chapter 19
The next couple of weeks passed in a blur of events. Andy was charged with a string of offences involving his entry into Lily’s flat, including threatening behaviour and property damage. He was released on bail and vanished to Mackay. Freya bumped into him at the supermarket with a trolley full of expensive brands. Kim was by his side.
“Good riddance,” Carly said when she heard that piece of news, and promptly put her head on her folded arms on the table and burst into tears.
She had the support of friends. Remy took her to Mackay and helped her choose furniture; Janie, who was quite a whiz with decor, took her shopping for curtains and rugs; and other friends dropped around with small items, unwanted things, they said, that would be oh so perfect for Carly’s new flat.
Carly stayed with Freya for ten days and then moved back to her flat. For a few days, either Lily or Freya stayed overnight with her, and then Carly decided enough was enough and said she was ready to stay alone.
Lily, who’d come prepared for an overnight visit, kissed her cheek and went home. After the ruckus of the previous couple of weeks, her flat seemed eerily quiet. Its warm timber floor absorbed the soft footfalls her bare feet made as she moved softly around, feeding Mabel and pouring a glass of water before sinking onto the couch on the balcony.
It was a Sunday. There was yoga in the morning, a class where she would take her usual position at the back of the room and let her body relax into the slow movements and poses and quiet space that was one of Freya’s classes. Her shop didn’t open on Mondays. It was her day to herself—if errands and housework counted as quality time alone. Mabel played at her feet, entertaining herself by batting one of the cushion tassels around with velvet paws.
Lily looked back into her flat. There were still small traces of Carly in the space, even though she hadn’t stayed over for a while. A tube of mascara sat on the counter. The brand of muesli she liked sagged on the kitchen table, and Mabel had found a shiny earring to play with. The flat felt empty without Carly. Lily had lived with Inga for nearly four years, and less than a year by herself since then. She’d often been alone, but never lonely. Now the flat had a quietness about it that was less peace and more lonesome. She picked up Mabel and smiled as the cat turned around and settled on her lap. The joy in her own space would return.
The doorbell rang and for a moment she considered not answering. But only for a moment, because the tingle of nerve endings made her think of Freya. With Mabel cradled in one arm, she swung open the door. Freya stood there.
“It was open. You could have just come up.”
“I didn’t want to bring up bad memories.” Thoughtful Freya.
“Andy has no place in my headspace, and certainly not in my home. If the door’s open, feel free to come up anytime.”
“Thank you.”
Now that Freya was in her space, Lily didn’t know where to start. Freya, too, seemed lost for words.
“Water? Tea?”
“Tea, please.” Freya followed her into the kitchen. “Carly rang. She said to tell you she’s fine. She told me she was now ready to go it alone in her flat.”
“I think she’ll be all right. It will be hard, though.”
“She has good friends. You.”
“And you.” Lily busied herself with teabags and boiling water. “She’ll be okay.”
The space between them had never seemed wider. Lily pulled the teabag out of her mug, left it on the saucer, fiddled with the tag. She pushed a mug over to Freya.
“I don’t know what to say to you.” Freya’s quiet words cut through the silence that sat between them. “This is our time to move forwards, a time for a beginning, but I don’t know where to start.”
The words, so tentative, so unsure, so un-Freya, settled Lily. They both could do this. “Will you go out with me, Freya? Tonight, maybe?”
“Out?”
“Yes. We’ve spent so much time within these walls: your flat, mine. Your shop, the workshop. We haven’t been many places together.”
“Breakfast, at the Green House.”
“Yes. With Carly, and with Remy looking on. I’d like to take you to dinner, just the two of us. Not in Grasstree Flat. There’s a little harbourside restaurant along the coast. Very informal. They always have a couple of vegan dishes on the menu. Will you come?”
She waited, heart pounding for Freya’s answer.
Freya nodded, a barely discernible up and down. “I’d like that.”
“Can you be ready by five? If so, we could walk on the beach first.”
Freya’s smile flickered over her face, as shifting as the moonglade. “That’s what people on a date do.”
Lily’s smile lit her eyes. “Exactly.”
There was a knock on her door just before five. Lily stood there, wearing a diagonally printed top over a maxi skirt. Her dark hair hung smoothly to below her shoulders, and her arms glowed bronze underneath the yellow light in the porch. Freya was caught in the moment, her feet glued to the floor, unable to tear her gaze from Lily.
Her heartbeat slowed from the fast patter that had consumed her since she had agreed to go on
a date with Lily. It would be all right.
Lily held out a hand and Freya took it, her fingers clasping Lily’s.
Close up, Lily’s pupils were wide in her warm brown eyes. Her lips parted into a slow smile. “You look beautiful.”
Freya picked at her loose Indian pants. “No. But thank you.”
Lily lifted their joined hands. “Don’t argue. It’s my eyes that are seeing you.”
The touch of her hand and the heat of her gaze warmed Freya equally. She stepped out in the shared entranceway between their shops. A Woman’s Pleasure was in darkness, only the blink of a blue security light above the door. Freya pulled her door closed with her free hand.
Lily drove her bright yellow hatchback as jauntily as the colour implied. The road to the coast was quiet, and the little car hugged the tight bends on the narrow road. Lily drove with skill, her hands sure on the wheel, using the gears like a pro. She didn’t seem inclined to talk, and Freya appreciated the silence. Words she should say bubbled inside her chest, but the time and place wasn’t this too-small car on a twisting road. There would be time over dinner.
Lily passed the turn to Mackay and continued south on the highway for another few minutes before turning down an unmarked gravel road that meandered through fields of sugar cane and pineapples to end abruptly at a boat ramp. Mangroves stretched north along the coast, but to the south a white sandy beach curved for a kilometre or so. The water was the clear blue of the Coral Sea. Lily parked the car beside the sign warning of saltwater crocodiles, and the two of them walked down to the sand.
A lone fisherman winched his boat up onto the trailer behind his four-wheel drive, but apart from him, the spot was deserted. Lily slipped off her sandals and left them at the edge of the gravel. Freya followed suit and they meandered down the beach to the water’s edge. The tide was low, and their feet sank into the glistening expanse of sand. There was no surf this far north; the offshore Great Barrier Reef took the curl from the water, leaving it smooth and glassy, with only the tiniest of wavelets lapping to shore.
Freya bent to pick up the empty fan of a pipi shell and cupped it in her hand. Such shells were scattered over the beach, but she studied the whorls and ridges as if they were new to her. It was easier than looking at Lily, standing a pace away. She ran a fingertip over the sharp edge. It was brittle and caught on her skin. Lily moved closer and her hands came out to clasp Freya’s, stilling their motion.
“Leave it,” she said. “Let’s walk.” With great care, she prised Freya’s fingers open, one by one, until the shell dropped to the sand.
She threaded her fingers through Freya’s and clasped tight. When she moved away, down the beach to where the palm trees leant over the sand, Freya was tugged along by their link.
Their path led them through the warm shallow waters that ran into the shore. Tiny crabs scuttled away in front of them, and fish darted away into deeper water. At the end of the bay, where a pile of granite boulders blocked the way, Lily stopped.
Her eyes crinkled as she said, “Shall we head back? I’m looking forwards to dinner.”
Freya turned to face the sea. Words she wanted to say bubbled up inside her, like a waterspout. Her toes curled into the sand. “There’s things I need to tell you. About Sarah. About me and Sarah.”
Lily’s smile slipped from her face and she raised their linked hands. “And I would like to hear them. Is now the time?”
“I think so.” Freya turned to head back along the beach. Their linked hands still swung between them, and the water was tepid around her ankles. She bent to roll up the cuffs of her pants a little higher. “Sarah and I were together for seven years. That’s not long in the scheme of things. My parents are still together after fifty. So maybe if Sarah had lived, we would still be happy together, maybe not. I think it would be the former. We had so much happiness, and we had so much love. We made love often.” She smiled slightly. “No lesbian bed death in our home. It was an important, joyous part of our relationship.
“Her breast cancer diagnosis came out of the blue. I’ve already told you it was a late diagnosis and an aggressive tumour. There were already secondaries in her lungs and bones. She had radiotherapy, and she had one course of chemo. It was an attempt at staving off the inevitable and she didn’t react well to the treatment at all. She was miserable, tired, sick. She kept saying what was the point, and that she didn’t want me to remember her like this. She made the decision that she would cease treatment and face the future on her own terms. For her, it was the right decision. I’m not saying it should be that way for everyone, but although she only had a few months left, she regained her happiness, her serene nature, and her joy in living.”
Freya fell silent. Memories washed over her. Sarah’s face when she told her she was ceasing treatment, her stoic suffering. Her grip on Freya’s hand as she lay in the hospice, her breathing the erratic pattern that precedes death. Freya swallowed. Time had painted these memories with a patina of distance, but picking away at that covering left them raw again.
Lily was silent beside her, but her hand clasp was steady, unwavering.
“Sarah turned to alternate therapies. I don’t think they made a difference; things had progressed to the point where little would have helped, but it gave her back control of her life, and that was important.” She heaved a breath. “And Sarah stopped making love. Part of it was a lessening of desire as her body was so sick. But a large part of it was a belief that she had to rise above the physical. Prepare for her life to come, if you like. The next life. She wasn’t religious, but she was spiritual. She believed there was some greater plane after death, even if she didn’t know what or where or how. She started to read spiritual texts, some religious ones. Even things like quantum physics.” Freya smiled, remembering. “She used to joke that her body was dead or alive depending on who was looking at it. Her seeking of the spiritual led her to repudiate the physical.” Dimly, she was aware that she had halted, up to her ankles in the salty water. Lily stopped too, their fingers still tightly entwined.
“She was still affectionate. I knew she still loved me. We still cuddled, kissed, slept spooned together at night, still held hands as we took the gentle walks along the river that were all she could manage. But we never again made love.”
Freya dragged a deep breath and collected her thoughts, which were scattering away from her on the sea breeze. “I didn’t take it well at first. She was still my partner; I loved her in every way and that included lovemaking. I didn’t see why a spiritual path should preclude a physical one, especially not in the loving relationship we shared. But Sarah refused to consider the idea. She said, quite rightly, that it was her life, her body, and although she loved me as much as ever, she needed to focus her mind on the journey ahead. And she couldn’t do that if her energy and direction were dissipated by lovemaking.”
“What did you do?” Lily’s words were quiet, but they scythed through the turbulence in Freya’s mind.
“I begged. I said she may not need lovemaking anymore, but that I did, and I wanted—needed—that reaffirmation of our love. Sarah said she was sorry, so very sorry, but she had to put herself first and she truly believed her chosen path was the right one for her.
“I got a little desperate. I thought maybe she was insecure about her body. She was emaciated and her hair was thin. I didn’t care about her looks; they were never important. She was my Sarah and I loved her. But she was adamant. Deep down, I respected and acknowledged her right to do what she felt was right for her, but a part of me hated that she didn’t love me enough to make love with me one more time. A last time, to give me something to cling to. But it was, after all, her body and her choice.”
“What happened?” Lily raised their linked fingers and pressed the back of Freya’s hand to her lips. A soft touch, then their joined hands swung between them once more.
“I gave her an ultimatum. I said if she didn’t at least let me make love to her once more, I would leave as I couldn’t face seeing her die without something sweet I could cling to.” Tears glistened in Freya’s eyes. “The minute the words left my mouth, I knew I’d done something so hateful that I could never make it up or take it back. I’d demanded something she was not prepared to give, and which she had every right to withhold. We were in bed at the time. I was spooning her, big spoon to her little spoon, and I clasped her hand over her remaining breast. She was silent for a moment. Then she turned her head and spoke over her shoulder. ‘I can’t, Freya. And if that’s the cost, then I will pay the price.’ She moved away from me, and left me lying there, feeling so unutterably wretched. Miserable that I’d asked something of her she couldn’t give, hating myself for putting a condition on my love. I hadn’t meant it, of course. I would never have left her. I didn’t want to. I wanted to take every word, every breath, every kiss, every moment I could spend with her while I could.
“I apologised. I abased myself. I cried. I told her over and over how much I loved her and that I would never leave. She turned to me, kissed me once softly on the forehead, and told me that she knew, that she loved me as deeply and she was truly sorry she couldn’t give me what I needed. We cried ourselves to sleep.”
Freya’s words petered out. Her gaze followed a pelican as it came in to land on the water. “She died seventeen days later.”
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