Handle Me with Care

by Rolfe, Helen J

Maddie pulled one of the plastic sun loungers out of the shade and towards the sun, lay down and pulled out a book, but it rested spine up on her chest as she looked down past her fuchsia-coloured toenails and out to the Coral Sea. Beyond the hot pink and lemon windsurf sails in the distance sat other land masses which she couldn’t identify, and she shut her eyes and let the sun lick her entire body, glad to be away from everything that was so familiar at times it was suffocating.

  ‘It’s nice to get away from it all, isn’t it?’ said Ally. ‘Uni is full-on at the moment. I needed this.’

  Maddie was so relaxed she knew she could doze off at any second. She hadn’t realised how much she’d needed this time away until now. She’d even left her phone at home, so great was the need to escape. There would be no staring at Caitlin’s number, her fingers asking her whether she should call or not.

  ‘Are you going to give me the silent treatment all afternoon?’ asked Ally.

  ‘I’m trying to.’

  The next minute Maddie felt warm, tiny pin pricks across her legs. ‘Hey!’ She opened her eyes to find Ally drizzling sand over her from between her fingers.

  ‘You’re lucky I’m too blissed out to go down to the sea and get some cold water,’ Ally warned. ‘Aren’t you reading your book?’

  ‘All in good time, all in good time.’

  ‘You know it’s great to see you so relaxed for a change.’

  This time Maddie didn’t even grunt an ‘Mmm’.

  ‘Have you given any thought to getting in touch with Caitlin?’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘And I’d rather not talk about her if that’s all the same with you.’

  ‘I wonder what she has that’s so important she needs to give it to you after all this time.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  ‘Ah, I chose to ignore it.’

  ‘You’re too nosey.’

  ‘Or maybe I do have the energy to get a little water from down there.’ Ally nodded towards the sea. ‘Look, that toddler has a bucket. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me borrowing it.’

  ‘Ally, you’re a giant pain in my arse sometimes.’

  The truth was Maddie was itching to know what it was that Caitlin wanted to give her after all this time, but more than that, she wanted to know whether Caitlin felt any remorse about what she’d said. Or, had she forgotten her words in the same way she had forgotten Maddie, the girl who had been her son’s world before he died?

  Recently Maddie had felt as though she had seen a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel that she had been burrowing around in for years. There had been cracks along the way, but nothing had ever brought her out safely at the other end. Did she really want to revisit the past?

  She pulled down her sunnies and lay back to enjoy the light breeze from the palms standing like soldiers in a row behind her, the laughter carrying down from the busier end of the beach where it was water sports central.

  The peace ended half an hour later when the boys made an appearance.

  ‘There you are,’ said Joel.

  Maddie propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Did you get bored without us?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said as he bent down to give Ally a hello kiss. ‘Have you been in the water yet?’

  ‘You must be joking,’ said Ally. ‘It’s too cold in winter.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Joel pulled off his cap as he waved to Josh and Todd, who were by now making their way towards them along the beach.

  ‘It’s a holiday.’ Ally lay back smugly. ‘You do what you want to do and we’ll do what we want to do.’

  Maddie sniggered because she knew exactly what was going through Joel’s mind even before he scooped Ally off her sunbed and charged down to the water’s edge, ignoring the squealing and shrieks of ‘don’t you dare!’ as he chucked her into the water.

  Josh was first to reach Maddie and perched on the end of the now vacant sunbed. ‘Ooh … she’s gonna be annoyed at that,’ he smirked. ‘It’s not exactly warm in there until you’ve swum around for a bit.’

  Despite her friend’s protests, Maddie could see that Ally was now happily ensconced in Joel’s arms and they were dunking each other and play fighting in the water.

  ‘You going in?’ asked Josh. ‘Relax,’ he said when Maddie tensed and got ready for the fight. ‘I won’t chuck you in.’

  She looked out at the sea, the waves gently breaking against the shore and leaving behind frilly lines of white foam, sizzling as the water retreated again.

  ‘Come on,’ Josh urged.

  ‘Okay,’ she grinned.

  She followed him down to the water, and when the ocean reached her knees the chill kicked in.

  Josh beckoned, already chest-deep in the water.

  This time away on the island was all about getting away from it all. But the taking it oh-so-slowly, bit by bit, was too painful. Maybe that had been her problem for years. And with that thought in mind, Maddie took a deep breath and dived forwards into the waves.

  She came up next to Josh, squinting in the sun.

  ‘Not that bad, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s freezing!’

  ‘If you swim around a bit, you’ll be fine.’

  He was right. Once she got used to it the water was absolute bliss. It surrounded you like nothing else could, bobbed you about as though rocking you into relaxation.

  When they emerged from the ocean, droplets of water dripping from their hair and bodies, Josh nodded out towards a couple in the Coral Sea being pulled along in an inflatable rubber ring in the shape of a doughnut. ‘Fancy giving that a go?’

  Maddie listened to whoops of joy as the speedboat propelled the couple through the water, their inflatable attached to a long rope. ‘Maybe tomorrow. I think I’ll lay back and read, just relax today.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ Josh smiled. ‘Wait up!’ he called to Todd. ‘I’ll catch you later, Maddie.’ And with that, off he went to try out the water sports with his mate, leaving Maddie wishing she could fall for someone as nice and as uncomplicated as him.

  *

  By the time they left the beach, clouds up above had formed a clique and were threatening to spill over at any second. The group decided that a barbecue on the sheltered end of the balcony would be perfect, and with Todd having gone AWOL with two Nordic blondes, it looked set to be a cosy foursome for the night.

  Maddie and Ally did most of the food preparation and left the boys to the ‘men’s work’ as they put it. Before long the sizzling sounds of the barbecue filled the air, and the scent snaked across the balcony mingling with the smell of the rain and carried off, thanks to the wind direction.

  ‘The veggie kebabs are great, girls,’ said Josh. ‘What’s the cheese?’

  ‘Haloumi. It doesn’t melt.’ Maddie answered.

  ‘That’s good to know. That way I don’t make a prize berk out of myself and use cheddar and have it melt over everything else.’

  ‘Now that would be funny,’ she said.

  ‘Er, not for the person cleaning the barbecue.’ Joel was already scraping at the cast iron surface and directing the gunk towards the hole at the front.

  ‘Did you remember to get ice cream?’ Ally asked as she finished up a satay skewer.

  The men groaned, too full for anything other than alcohol, which was a rite of passage on a holiday with friends.

  ‘Men: beer …’ Josh began in a mock deeper-than-deep voice. ‘Women: ice cream.’

  ‘I can’t believe we don’t have any,’ Ally moaned. ‘I really want some and we’ve all had too much to drink to drive the buggy.’

  ‘We’ve got chips and dips and a few slabs of chocolate.’ Josh leant inside the sliding door and pulled out a carrier bag.

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘I could take a walk down there, get you some. I could use the exercise,’ said Josh, patting his stomach. ‘What flavour?’

  Ally chopped and changed her mind several times about what flavours would be the mo
st enticing, and with Ally cosily tucked up on Joel’s lap, Maddie offered to go with Josh rather than act as the gooseberry for the evening.

  Armed with a golf umbrella, they set off into the hilly streets that were lit in some places, pitch black in others. They chatted about the island, their jobs, about Ally and Joel, and when they felt a few drops of rain, they launched the umbrella and walked side by side down the steep hill with the marina to the left, until they reached the ice cream parlour.

  Josh joined the queue – the storm that was brewing hadn’t deterred people from making the most of the island. Maddie took a seat just inside the doors and watched the lights from boats twinkling like stars as the water lapped around them and they held tight to their moorings.

  ‘What’s this?’ Maddie asked when Josh pushed a takeaway cup in front of her. She sniffed the top, instantly warmed through by the smell of chocolate.

  ‘I thought we deserved a treat seeing as we’re out to get Ally’s fix.’

  ‘I think you could be right.’ She caught the froth that had escaped through the small spout in the takeaway cup, and they looked out to the blackened water.

  ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to ask you about that night, when you left my apartment so suddenly.’ Josh wrapped both hands around his takeaway cup.

  She gulped. ‘Josh, this is going to sound terribly cliché, but …’

  ‘Let me guess: “It’s not you, it’s me”?’

  She grappled for the right words. ‘I hate to say it, but that phrase really sums it up.’ She paused before adding, ‘You’re fun, you’re kind, you’re gorgeous with a great body—’

  ‘Been looking, have we?’

  She blushed. She hadn’t meant to be quite so honest.

  ‘What I mean is that you’re what we would call a “catch” in a lot of ways.’

  ‘But not for you?’

  ‘Let’s just say that it would be far easier to knock you back if you were a nasty person with poor hygiene and bad manners.’

  ‘Ally told me about Riley, and that there’s been someone else since, but it didn’t work out.’

  For once Maddie didn’t mind that someone new in her life knew all about Riley. But the thought of him knowing about Evan made her uncomfortable.

  ‘Relax, Ally didn’t go into detail. All she said was that you had some things you needed to sort through before you could get into another relationship.’

  It was the truth, and at least this time she was pining after a living person; it didn’t feel quite so sad, so hopeless. She felt a certain amount of satisfaction that even though she hadn’t fully moved on, she was getting started.

  ‘We’d better get back before the ice cream melts and Ally sends us down here again,’ she said.

  They took their takeaway drinks with them and when Maddie offered to carry the shopping, Josh wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘I hope we can at least be good friends, Maddie.’

  ‘You can count on it.’

  When they got back to the apartment, Todd was off with the Nordic beauties still, and as Josh and Joel fell into footy conversation, Ally and Maddie dished out the ice cream. When they joined the boys on the balcony, Maddie watched Josh. She wondered why the emotional Catherine wheel of fireworks couldn’t pick up pace and whirl faster when she was with him. How could some men make that happen and not others?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Evan started his morning with a run. He had requested a trail map as soon as he had arrived on the island, but this morning he passed it up in favour of running on the regular roads. They provided challenge enough with their steep inclines and they were so quiet with only buggies to dodge instead of cars. He was also able to savour some spectacular views, and when he ran up to One Tree Hill, he took the opportunity to lean against the white wooden gazebo and look out over the Coral Sea. He stretched out his calves as he watched the shimmer from the winter sun dance across the water and felt the peace of this early hour before many people on the island had even surfaced.

  The gentle tap-tapping of his runners took him back to the hotel where he helped himself to the buffet breakfast of cereal, a fresh fruit salad of pineapple and three kinds of melon, plus a yogurt plucked out of the pyramid arrangement. Now that he was almost back to his former self, he had bypassed the fat-laden hot food options even though the smell of bacon and sausages was tempting.

  Following breakfast a sleep was non-negotiable; tiredness still caught him out, particularly now that he was running again. He had tried Maddie’s number several times since he arrived on the island, but with no answer when he tried yet again after he woke, he showered, shaved and kicked back on the balcony for a while.

  Evan ordered room service for lunch, preferring the solitude of the hotel room to take it easy before the wedding that afternoon, and when he was dressed he headed down to the entrance of the hotel to meet Jack.

  ‘Hey, mate.’ Evan shook his friend’s hand, patted him on his opposite shoulder. Dressed in their black morning suits with a three-quarter-length jacket, a silver waistcoat and a lilac cravat, both men were ready for the off.

  ‘Penny for them,’ said Jack as they climbed into the parked buggy.

  Evan took the driver’s seat as today’s chauffeur. He felt like a big kid taking a brand new go-kart for a spin as he started up the buggy. ‘Couldn’t be better, mate. I was just thinking about the stag do,’ he lied.

  ‘Yeah, that pole dancer was something else.’ Jack launched into a recount of his send-off into married life that had involved copious amounts of alcohol and landed them in a seedy place that Evan had been glad to escape from.

  Evan looked up at the sky and then reversed out of the parking space. The air was still fresh with a faint whiff of the rain that had hammered the hotel last night, the trees gleamed with moisture, and the black clouds had been scared away by big, puffy white balls which dared to pass slowly across the cobalt sky.

  Jack waved at Will and Simon, both of whom looked equally as well-groomed, sitting in another buggy waiting to follow Evan.

  As he drove along, Evan still felt out of sorts, but he put it down to tiredness that still hadn’t fully abated with all the cancer crap that had been going on. It could be lingering after-effects from the physical strain of the op; perhaps it was being a human pin cushion with constant syringes being plunged into his arms at check-ups; it could just be the emotional imbalance at losing a ball.

  ‘You know we’ve all checked ourselves,’ Jack said quietly, even though the only company they had were the trees lining both sides of the road. ‘I don’t think any of us could say we’d ever done that before, at least not properly.’

  ‘I’m glad I could be of some help.’ Now that his mates all knew about the cancer, it was amazing the change that Evan could see within himself. Before, he would have cringed at talking about it; now it felt normal.

  Evan let Jack direct him to the chapel. Despite the size of the island, one hill looked much like another today.

  ‘Take a left up here,’ Jack instructed. Once Evan had made the turn he asked, ‘Do you worry that the cancer could come back?’

  ‘Yes, all the time,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Now drop it. This is your day, remember.’

  They pulled up outside the white wooden wedding chapel that sat on top of a hill overlooking Catseye Bay.

  ‘It’d be good to see you down at the oval sometime for a friendly kick about,’ said Jack, ‘even if it’s to tell the rest of us that we play worse than a bunch of primary school kids.’

  ‘Do you really need me there to tell you that?’ Evan asked as they made their way inside the chapel.

  The chapel was about as picturesque a venue as you could get for your big day, with its whitewash exterior, the bell tower and its traditional stained glass windows. Once inside, Evan allowed his eyes to adjust from the bright sunshine to the subtle interior tones. Rows of classical wooden pews sat on either side of the aisle, and tied to the end of each was a bouquet o
f white roses. The place smelt woody and warm, mixed with the floral notes you came to expect of a wedding.

  ‘You look nervous,’ Evan told Jack when they reached the altar. He was fiddling with his cravat as though the thing was trying to strangle him. He looked just like some of the kids at school on their first day when they were forced to wear the unfamiliar uniform. Still, Evan felt it was a good sign. Jack had been with Shelley for years and they had three kids together, so marriage was practically a done deal. Yet their love for each other still had the power to make his burly mate, who stood a good two inches taller than him, as nervous as a footy player in the AFL Grand Final about to kick the goal that could give his team victory.

  Guests filled the front rows of the chapel first. Shelley and Jack had invited close family and friends, but looking around it had to be close to fifty people. Still, it was set to be the relaxed affair they wanted. Evan watched on as more and more couples began to fill the place, and he realised that, while not having a significant other hadn’t bothered him before, since he had met Maddie, it did.

  ‘You do have the rings don’t you?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Relax, mate. They’re in here, safe and sound.’ He patted his breast pocket. ‘This is it, Jack.’ Evan nodded towards the doorway of the chapel where the sun dappled bride had begun to make her entrance.

  The guests gradually fell silent, and the sounds of a string quartet playing Ave Maria accompanied Shelley on her slow, deliberate walk down the aisle. Her three children followed: two holding the train, and the third gripping tightly to three boxes of rose petals ready for the aftermath.

  Evan’s eyes brimmed with tears when, instead of Shelley making her way towards his friend, he envisioned Maddie, the brown shades of her hair dancing in the sunlight as she passed through the church entrance, walking towards him. And as Shelley locked eyes with Jack, he imagined looking into Maddie’s eyes, taking her hand in his, feeling her soft skin against his own.

  Evan tried to focus on the ceremony. If someone had told him six months ago that he would be standing at the altar of his best mate’s wedding wishing it was his turn, he would have laughed in their face. How quickly things change. These days he saw the little things that mattered, the more delicate moments in time that often went unnoticed and the importance of family and friends in your life.