I miss him so. I miss his kind-heartedness, his gentleness, his generosity.
How they disparaged him, my friends and relations! They insisted — in direct contradiction to all my evidence — that he was dubious and underhanded. Crooked, grubby.
‘What have you put your name to?’ Bea asked me one day at work.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you signed papers for him? Have you stood surety for him, or anything like that?’
‘You’re referring to Max?’
‘Come on, Izzie: you know I am.’
‘I haven’t, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t, and if he asks me to I certainly will.’
‘Listen, love,’ said Bea, sitting down on the chair in front of my desk where Max had sat when I had first met him. ‘Izzie, just don’t sign anything, okay?’
‘You all drive me mad,’ I said, furiously. ‘Completely mad. He’s a lovely, lovely man, and I’m the luckiest woman in the world to be married to him, and you all carry on as if he were a serial killer.’
‘It’s up to you, Isabel. I’m telling you. Don’t sign anything.’
‘Why shouldn’t I? Why do you all behave as if there must be some deep, shameful secret attached to him? I’m telling you, he’s the most straightforward, transparent, honest man I’ve ever known. Leave me alone, Bea.’
Bea did her heavy sigh and trudged out.
‘Sign these, ma Belle, my sweetheart,’ said Max one night not long after this conversation, brandishing a sheaf of papers and dropping a kiss on my forehead.
‘What are they?’
‘A surprise, my love. A small surprise for the belle of my heart.’
I unfolded the papers. ‘Can I look at them?’
Max burst out laughing. ‘Is it likely I’d ask you to sign anything without looking at it?’
I leafed slowly through them. They were legal papers, title papers.
‘Max,’ I said. ‘Max, what are you doing?’
‘I’m giving you Rain.’
I couldn’t believe it. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Look, we’re married now, aren’t we? We should share things. All my worldly goods, and all that.’
‘But this isn’t sharing. This is giving.’
‘I love you, Bella. I love giving things to you.’
‘Max, this is ridiculous.’
He spread his hands. ‘You’re going to beat the truth out of me,’ he said, shaking his head mournfully. ‘The fact is, I’m only doing it as a tax break.’
‘Max. Darling Max. Please be serious.’
‘Well, it seems a shame to be serious when I don’t have to, but I’ll do my best for a little while. Bella, my love, this is our house; we live in it together, but it’s all in my name, and you had so much input into it that it’s absurd for you not to own it. Rain is your invention, my darling. Your creation.’
‘We did it together.’
‘Yes, but you were the guiding spirit, the inspiration, the genius of it all. You know you were. This is only a logical extension of that fact. The other thing, my sweetheart, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, is that it actually is a good tax move for me. My accountant tells me I ought to cut down on my assets. He’s advised me on this one. I always take my accountant’s advice.’
‘But you can’t just give something away like that, can you? Aren’t there tax penalties to gifts, too?’
‘Arthur says to trust him,’ said Max, grinning. ‘As I always do. He’ll manage it all for me. But in the meantime we need you to sign these. Don’t do it now, but read through them so you’re sure you understand what’s going on, and tomorrow, if you can take an hour or so off, we’ll wander down to Arthur’s solicitor and talk about it so you understand it all and we’ll make it all legal.’
He was set on this, fixed on the course he had described. I tried to dissuade him, at first. I was uncomfortable about accepting so enormous a present. But Max could be stubborn, when he wanted something badly enough, and it became apparent that this was something he wanted. We signed the papers; the title was handed to me. Rain became mine.
I told Bea, after it had happened, of this transaction. I must say I told her with triumph, with a strong flavour of I told you so mixed with How could you say those things. She was nonplussed, though she tried not to show it.
‘Well, good,’ she said, staring at me across her desk. ‘Good. I’m pleased for you, Izzie.’
‘So you were wrong. Aren’t you going to admit you were wrong, Bea?’
‘Nothing’s proven about my rightness or wrongness. Not yet.’
She was unrelenting. I didn’t care — or not much, anyway. I had Max to comfort me. Max, and Rain. I’d never owned property before. When Steve and I married the house had been in his name. I’d never questioned that, though now I find it hard to believe that I could have been quite so pliant, so yielding to the master’s voice.
I wandered through Rain now, familiarising myself to the curiousness of possessing it. I ran my hand along the jarrah banister and gazed out the study window, feeling a kind of new richness — a material, selfish richness, which complemented my inner and less selfish spiritual richness. All this is mine, I said to myself, in active and questioning wonderment at the strangeness of it.
Max never mentioned it. It had been done; the gift had been given, and that was the end of the matter so far as he was concerned. We lived in the house together as if it belonged to us together, without reference to who its actual owner was.
Sometimes I would wake before Max did, and I would lie there studying him, not just his face, but the contours of his body. He was a lean man, tanned and sinewy, strong and incisive in his movements. His presence dominated: it was impossible to be in a room where Max was and not know he was there; and somehow this innate and effortless habit of authority made him seem all the more vulnerable when he was asleep. Sometimes he would lie on his back, one arm flung up so that the inner arm was exposed. I found its whiteness, its susceptibility, intensely moving. He had curiously pointed elbows. Is it ridiculous to swoon at a man’s elbows? I dare say.
I was obsessed by him, infatuated with him. I freely admit it. But it wasn’t merely obsession or infatuation. It was a dense, profound and lasting love. Luminous and expansive, it had invaded every particle of me. He was the love of my life.
The supposed love of Kate’s life, Gavin, hove onto the horizon when Kate was, I suppose, eighteen and studying not very hard at a fine arts course. Fine arts was the kind of woolly thing she would be interested in. He was a postgraduate, studying for his doctorate, which in Kate’s eyes, I suppose, invested him with some cachet. He was unimpressive from the start: tall, gangly, he would come to pick Kate up and (because she was never ready) would be trapped in conversation with Max and me.
Max was especially good at this kind of encounter: easy and fluent in his behaviour and his language, he was adept at the kind of genial bonhomie that comes in so useful in potentially strained situations. But Max never really succeeded with Gavin.
He had a quick stuttery laugh, did Gavin; and nervous feet and hands; and he was too long; there was too much of him to occupy any given space, and he was uncomfortably aware of this. He was like a giant fifteen-year-old: he’d never properly matured, never got past the gawky self-conscious stage. If he’d had any physical coordination worth talking about he would have been great at basketball; but he hadn’t. His head seemed to bob around in a manner disconcertingly separate from his angular shoulders. He had no social grace whatsoever. I found him painful to be with.
I couldn’t understand what the attraction was. Kate had had boyfriends before, and to a man they had manifested more appeal than Gavin. But the liaison persisted and she appeared to enjoy it. Summer was coming on, when Gavin first appeared, and the pair of them spent much time in
the pool at Rain.
Kate had always been shy about being seen in bathers, but for some reason (God only knows what) the company of Gavin seemed to confer on her a new aura of physical and sexual confidence: to my astonishment, she bought an expensive turquoise bikini, and freely let herself be observed in it.
Kate has always been plump, and pink and white, too, which are not promising coordinates for bikini wearers. But somehow, on her, it worked. Her body was firm and well-proportioned; she moved gracefully; the bikini was well-cut; and, although she did not tan beyond the palest café-au-lait, her fairness lent her a nymphlike aspect that was quite fetching.
A new Kate emerged, languorous and quietly confident, one whom I shouldn’t have been surprised to find swimming naked in the pool on moonlit evenings, pearly and dripping in the silver air, the silver water. Gavin frolicked awkwardly around her, lanky and adoring. Max liked him more than I did.
‘He’s not stupid,’ he insisted.
I raised my eyebrows.
‘He’s not. Look, you can’t be stupid and be writing a PhD on Rousseau.’
‘I’ve known a fair few stupid people who had PhDs.’
‘Believe me, he’s not one. And he’s very sincere.’
‘I’d prefer another quality, I think. Sincerity is such a dispensable virtue.’
‘He’s genuinely in love with her.’
I shrugged. But I didn’t spend much time thinking about Gavin, because I didn’t expect him to become a fixture in my life. I realised, of course, that they were sleeping together: when he started sheepishly to appear for breakfast, it was not a difficult conclusion to reach. I didn’t think much about it, except to register a vague incredulity: it seemed to me going to bed with Gavin would be like going to bed with an extremely large daddy-long-legs.
Around this time, the business — mine and Bea’s — started to expand. Bea and I had always managed quite happily, just the two of us; after struggling for a while, we made a small name for ourselves and hummed along very nicely for several years. Suddenly, it seemed, we were making more of a name, and people wanted more of us.
We had seen a gap in the market and had developed a good line in adapting old houses — especially terrace houses — for offices: streamlined, modern offices that nevertheless retained the spirit (and what people like to call the ambience) of the original houses, with their cool, high ceilings and narrow stairwells and elaborate cornices. It seemed our fame had spread. Bea one day had an invitation to quote on a row of old terraces in Sydney.
‘It’s worth a fortune to us,’ she said, leafing through the photographs the developer had sent her. ‘Look at this, Izzie — and this. They’re great little houses, and it’s the Rocks; it’s very central. Such good publicity.’
I picked up the photos and agreed. The houses looked as if they were run down, but so far as you could tell they were still solid and well worth the effort and expense required for the conversion.
It was a question of who would go. We hadn’t had much interstate work, but when we did it was usually Bea who went: she liked the buzz of it; and she had a brother in Sydney she liked to catch up with. This time, however, it didn’t suit her.
She looked hopefully at me. ‘I don’t suppose …?’
‘I don’t mind,’ I said, musing. ‘It does look interesting, and it would be a shame to miss out. A shame not to even try, at any rate.’
In fact I was tempted by the prospect. Steve had always disliked it when I travelled on business: arrangements had to be made for the children and, furthermore, my absence reminded him that he was not the sole provider, the great white hunter, to which condition he aspired.
By agreeing to undertake the task, I was able to demonstrate to Bea that I was now in a more independent and mature relationship, that I could carry my professional share of responsibilities, that Max was not going to jump up and down in a petulant fit because I was away for a few days.
Also, to tell the truth, I thought that I should like to show Max that I, too, had pressing business interests; I, too, had a professional life whose demands I was required to meet, able to meet. I hadn’t been in Sydney for years and the opportunity was beguiling.
So I spent five days in Sydney — and, apart from missing Max, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Even missing Max had its advantages: I knew that the absence was short, with a defined conclusion and an inevitable joyful reunion, which would be made the more rapturous because of the sting caused by the separation. I anticipated the reunion with such sharpness, such keen-edged imagination, that I could almost relish the period preceding it in the thought of what was to follow.
Bea found other things for me to do — contacts to follow up, an exhibition to attend — and I worked hard for three days and turned into a tourist for the last two days of the week. I travelled on ferries and enjoyed the breezes and the views from the deck; I wandered around the Opera House; I shopped in Double Bay; I had cocktails at night before dinner. It was all consistent with the kind of easy, well-heeled, prosperous existence to which Max had introduced me; and, charmed, I found that I was able to create and savour it myself even when he was not there to share it with me.
I told him this on the phone on the last night of my visit, and heard his deep delighted chuckle.
‘What you’ve taught me!’ I said. ‘I’ve turned into a regular lotus-eater.’
‘Do you good. I’ve never known anyone who deserved to eat lotuses more than you do. I’m pleased I’ve shown you how to have a good time, even if you’re having it without me.’
‘It’s a talent to be fostered, I’m finding.’
‘And you’re fostering it.’
‘I certainly am.’
‘Good for you, my darling Bella.’
That night I was unusually wakeful. I switched impatiently from one channel to another on the TV in the opulent hotel to which I had treated myself. (Bea had said the practice could sustain three stars; I stretched it to five.) I raided the minibar. I ate peanuts and tried a can of rum and coke, which I didn’t usually drink and didn’t much enjoy.
I went through the papers I had collected over the last few days and sorted them into order for Bea. I lingered over some of my sketches. The terraces had been less enticing than I’d expected: something could be done with them, certainly, but their fundamental dinginess was a matter of construction and siting rather than neglect, and possible remedies brought their own difficulties. I didn’t think we should take it on, even apart from the travel that was going to be involved in the project.
Although I knew I was going to see him the next day, I missed Max with a nearly unbearable pang. I could not calm my restlessness and the night stretched ahead of me black and bleak. I stared out the window and saw that Darling Harbour, several floors below, was bright with lights and busy with people — people strolling, chatting, dining at the pavement cafés. Small brilliant boats, which I presumed were water taxis, bobbed and slid across the dark water.
As is the way with these modern glossy hotels, I couldn’t open the window, which meant I couldn’t hear anything. It gave the scene a bizarrely unreal and distant quality, as if I were watching it on television with the mute button on. The lights strung along the waterside were like jewels: it sounds clichéd to say so, but they had the prismatic glint, the twinkle and the lure of jewels.
On impulse I grabbed a jacket and went on down. It felt as if I were doing something immensely daring, something slightly dangerous and even risqué. Steve would certainly have been horrified (No, no, lovely, I could hear him saying. You can’t go down there on your own. You just hang on a tick and I’ll pop on some shoes and come with you); Max would have been puzzled that I even thought twice about it.
It was a mild night, only a flick of cool breeze coming off the water. People were everywhere. It had looked crowded and jolly from my bedroom window: being in th
e middle of it was at once more and less cheerful than I’d imagined: the buzz of conversation and laughter was intoxicating; but I was alone inside all the merriment, and felt conspicuous and isolated. I sat at a waterside café and ordered a brandy.
The alcohol bit into my veins and I started to relax. The café had a guitarist, a dark young man strumming a guitar. Something about him reminded me of Dominic: not so much his dark good looks, I think, as an expression in his eye, a tilt to his head. I found myself staring at him, pondering almost abstractly the set of his shoulders, the concentration of his closed lips. I was looking at him but I was thinking of Dominic, and was embarrassed to register a few seconds late that he was gazing back at me. I felt colour rush up my throat to my face, smiled apologetically, and transferred my attention to the pavement, the water, the boats.
Five minutes later I became aware that the young guitarist was standing by my table.
‘You permit?’ he asked. His voice was soft and rich, accented. Spanish? I wasn’t sure.
Confused, I nodded, and he sat next to me, carefully propping his guitar on the ground beside him.
‘I think I have not seen you before,’ he commented, with one of the most rare and charming smiles I have ever seen. ‘You are tourist? Not local?’
‘I’m from Melbourne,’ I said.
I could be your mother, I thought.
I was flattered by his attentiveness, his concentration on me. Something like this hadn’t happened to me before. When I’d been young and a likely candidate, I’d been too carefully sheltered. And marriage to Steve had done nothing to loosen the shackles.
I was flustered, but there was something exhilarating, something fascinating, about the situation: here I was, with a son almost as old as this beautiful young man with the warm adoring eyes; and here was he, with his appreciative gaze and his ravishing smile, paying court to me.
A waiter brought him coffee.
‘Holiday?’
‘Work, mainly,’ I said, wondering if this luscious creature was indeed picking me up and concluding that he probably was.
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