by Lily Malone
We’ve reached a roundabout and Brayden indicates right as we head into it, then left as we head out. The land opens up. It’s semi-rural here, almost like parkland.
‘You told me Love Minus Zero, No Limits, was the song you’d want at your wedding. Only you said you wouldn’t want it sung, you’d just want someone to read the words aloud.’
Gah. Colour floods my cheeks. ‘Please tell me I didn’t say that.’
‘You did.’
I groan and he smiles.
‘This is a compilation CD I made years ago. Every song reminds me of you, Jenn.’
The words start a fizz in my belly.
Brayden’s big thigh is so close to mine, I could reach out and touch it. I want to. But after all this time, I think I’ve forgotten how. So I lean into the window, where the blustering wind can cool the flush from my face.
A few minutes later, Brayden guides the Pajero through the gates at Busselton Golf Club.
The clubhouse looms before us, cream brick and nondescript. The Pro Shop is set to the right, with golf carts lined up beside it.
‘How do you know the Pro Shop is open?’
‘I called ahead.’ He parks, locks the vehicle, and I follow his broad back toward the buildings.
‘You called ahead?’ I stop mid-stride. ‘When?’
‘This morning.’ He holds the door for me. He’s in the shade. I’m in the sun. His eyes are hidden by sunglasses, but as he puts these to the top of his head, his expression is stern.
What would he do if I just sat on the path like a stubborn mule?
‘Anyone would think I was making you face a firing squad, Jennifer Gates. Don’t make me come out there and get you.’
I guess I have my answer. I let out one more sigh in the bright sun, square my shoulders, and join Brayden under the verandah.
‘I’m here, Jenn. You can do this.’ He steps back to let me pass. ‘I know you can.’
It’s cooler inside, and the air smells like golf shops everywhere: a cross between a sports store and a plastics factory. Ceiling fans beat the air above rows and rows of rain jackets and shirts, pants, caps and shoes. There are buggies, bags, clubs, in every brand — Callaway, Taylor Made, Mizuno, Wilson.
The Pro comes out from the corner where he’s been stacking boxes of balls.
‘I called earlier,’ Brayden says to him. ‘I asked about the Cobra Sapphires?’
I suck a quick breath. Brayden’s out of his mind. I can’t afford a new set of golf clubs and even if I could, my budget is second-hand garage sale, not a customised new set of Sapphires.
The Pro tugs a club from a tight white cover which has a big blue-stitched serpentine Sapphire “S” on the top. It’s a five-iron, and he slaps the graphite shaft in the palm of his hand before he hands the club to me. It’s like he’s giving me his most treasured prize.
‘Let’s take a look at you.’ The Pro has a software program that will measure my swing. He sticks electronic sensor tape to the bottom of the club then puts a ball on the mat and tells me to stand however I’m most comfortable.
I take my stance, feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, head over the contact point, arms hanging. God, but the club feels perfect. The grip is rubber and smooth. There’s just the amount of flex in the shaft that I like.
Rotating my shoulders, I bring the club up and back, twisting my neck up so I can check where the clubface lies.
My heart bumps in my chest, adrenalin taking over. I’m not sure anymore if it’s the beat of the ceiling fans I hear, or if it’s all just the rush of blood in my ears.
Maybe Brayden is right. Maybe this is what I need — a bright new shining golf memory with him — to exorcise the blackest ones with Jack.
I twitch the club back, forward; half swings to warm muscles I haven’t used in years. Then I settle — eyes on the small dimpled white ball between my feet.
I take the club back, swing through the perfect plane, and the ball explodes off the face of the club; contact so sweet, I smile.
‘You’ve done this before then?’ the Pro says, positioning a second ball.
It follows the first into his mesh practice net.
Then I forget about balls.
Back and forth I swing, with the club picking up the light like a medieval sword, until someone — the Pro I think — clears his throat.
When I look up, both men are watching me.
I see only one.
‘Did that feel good?’ Brayden asks.
‘You could say that.’
There’s a promise in those blue eyes that is bold as the sun and as he looks at me, something changes. Like a new set of rules just got inscribed on my insides.
‘Thank you,’ I step toward him. ‘For knowing what I need, when I don’t.’
‘If I thought for one minute you not wanting to play golf was about anything more than what that arsehole did…’
I rise on tiptoes so I can put a hand against his incredible face and he stops talking. His whiskers brush my palm — silky smooth — not quite a beard, too long to prickle.
My breasts press his shirt, all the muscles of his chest beneath the fabric, hard and ripped. He smells of summer and salt, and as I shape my lips to his, that’s how he tastes. There’s a millisecond there where I imagine tequila.
The Pro clears his throat again. ‘What can I say? Those clubs are perfect for you. I wouldn’t recommend we modify a thing.’
Brayden lifts his head from mine and murmurs, ‘This guy has worse timing than me.’
It’s eight years since I felt Brayden’s lips on mine and I don’t want to stop now. I could kiss him forever.
His eyes, a shade darker than normal, are stormy with intent, filled with how much he wants me. I want to dive in those depths. Never come back.
My hand snakes to the nape of his neck.
Brayden puts his hand to my hip, applies the slightest pressure to stop me leaning in. ‘Not here, Jenn.’
Our location zings into centre stage in my mind and I’m suddenly conscious of how I’m glued to Brayden’s chest. In my left hand, the Cobra’s grip is warm, yielding. I’m clutching it like some kind of phallic walking stick.
I step back. Actually, it’s more of a leap that almost sends a shelf of equipment flying.
‘We’re playing nine holes here this afternoon,’ Brayden tells the Pro. I don’t know how he sounds so calm, I’m not sure I can speak. ‘Can Jenn take a set to play a practice round with? See if she likes how they feel?’
She already likes how they feel. She likes how you feel too.
‘I think we can manage that,’ the Pro says, smiling the way a salesman does when he thinks he’s on a sure thing.
I hate to get his hopes up, I can’t afford those clubs. But I don’t want to return them. Not yet.
Brayden lingers at the counter, talking to the Pro in low tones about hire clubs, course fees, buggies. Then the door opens, setting off a buzzer in the rear of the shop. Pope strolls in, and I can see Emmy outside using the reflection of the shop windows to adjust how her cap sits on her head.
Pope smiles automatically when he sees me, does a bit of a double-take as I pass him on my way out to wait in the sun with Emmy. Possibly the happy grin on my face dazzles him. It must be so bright.
Emmy takes one look at me and says, ‘Someone’s in a better mood.’
‘Someone is, Em. Your brother is amazing. And he just kissed me.’
Emmy punches the air. ‘Thank God for that. It’s about bloody time and I’ve been saying that for years.’
Chapter 20
I always learn a lot about people from how they plot their way around a golf course.
Emmy attacks the course with maximum enthusiasm and minimal subtlety.
Pope plays like a mathematician, calculating loft, club length, wind factor, club speed. He lines up every shot, plays the angles. If he finds himself behind the trunk of a tree, he takes his medicine — swatting the ball out horizontally so he’s back on the fairw
ay. He drops a shot that way, but he has an easier lay-up to the green. In golf, it’s called playing the percentages.
Brayden plays like Emmy, just with more swearing and less patience.
When Brayden finds himself in trouble — which is often — he’s the one who asks me how to fade his shot around a tree, or which club I think would be best to loft the ball over it. He wants to do anything except take the safest path to the flag. Percentages don’t enter his head.
So while the others creep up on the flag, tacking left and right like a yacht into the breeze, I hit straight up the middle. I’m not the longest hitter of a golf ball and Lord knows I’m rusty, but I’m consistent, I hit it straight, and I get the job done.
I spend more time hunting for the balls Emmy and Pope hook into the trees — or Brayden slices out of bounds — than I do hitting my own shots. I don’t mind. Just being on a golf course again is liberating. Each practice swing, every shot, leaches stress from me.
Emmy spikes her plastic tee into the grass mound of the ladies’ tee on the fifth. She balances the ball on top and lines herself up behind it. The look in her eyes reminds me of every fanatical dog that ever dropped a soggy old tennis ball at my feet and waited for me to throw it.
She swings — too hard, too fast, and nowhere near smooth enough — and the club breaks the tee like it’s a twig. Her golf ball flies six feet in the air. Pope and Brayden shout something along the lines of ‘look out,’ and I holler ‘Fore!’
Emmy sprints to her right with a hand shielding her head. The ball descends on a trajectory that sees it deflect neatly off her shoulder, bounce, and finish a metre behind Pope.
‘Don’t think I ever saw a ball go backwards before, Em,’ he says.
Emmy looks at us, and we all burst out laughing.
It takes a long time before any of us can swing a club after that.
***
In the end, Brayden and I cut the last two holes short so we have time to return our hire gear and get home before Amber comes to drop Sebby off.
I wait near his car, in afternoon sun that sends heat skywards off the bitumen, while Brayden returns the Sapphires to the Pro. He’s better than me at bullshitting about why I won’t buy them.
‘All done,’ Brayden says, striding across the carpark.
He unlocks the Pajero and we climb in.
It’s almost five o’clock when he drops me at the beach house. He doesn’t stay. He’s going into town to pick up some meat for a barbecue tonight, and some more beers.
Amber Bannerman’s BMW pulls up on the kerb soon after. Seeing Seb’s tousled curls in the back seat makes my heart swell. Lovely as it is to have a few hours to myself, I’ve missed him. I can’t wait to see him. Before Amber can even get him out of the car, I’m skipping down the steps.
She unbuckles Seb and lifts him out, hugging him tight before she hands him to me.
Amber doesn’t look much like anyone’s Nanna. Today she’s in a jade green sundress that falls just below her knees, with tiny orange flowers sewn through the hem and sleeves.
‘How did it go?’ I ask, nuzzling Seb’s cheeks with my nose, inhaling his sticky scent.
‘We chased seagulls on the beach near the jetty. We’ve had icecream and a huge play on the swings with two little girls on holiday from Albany. We’ve had a great time.’
‘Chatting up the girls already, hey?’
Amber leans into the rear seat to get the nappy bag. This, she carries behind me up to the beach house, where she leaves it on the porch.
I offer her a cup of tea, but she says she’ll get going.
‘Will we see you tomorrow?’ I ask.
She shakes her head. ‘Jack said he wants to get back. He’s been a bear with a sore head since he rang you this morning so I know something’s gone wrong.’
I don’t elaborate. If I can’t find it in me to tell Emmy, there’s no way I’m telling Amber. There is something on my mind though, and this feels like a good time to bring it up.
‘I have to come up to the city on Tuesday, Amber. I have some work to do, and I need to get some more of my things from Jack’s — I packed everything in such a hurry, both of us could do with some more clothes.’
Her shoulders drop, but she doesn’t comment. I know she wants Jack and me to patch things up, but I think now, she knows that won’t happen.
‘I’ll stay with Emmy on Monday night, but if you’re not busy Tuesday, I thought you might take Seb for me? I’m not sure how long for exactly. If I take him to Jack’s where the cot is and his toys, will that work for you to look after him there?’
‘That should be fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll clear my schedule.’
‘If this works — me working and living here I mean — I’ll be up in Perth once a week to do Nathan Blain’s listings. We could make the Tuesday a regular thing. Or we could try.’
Some of her reserve thaws. ‘I could do that. When you know what time, send me a text or call me.’
‘I will.’
Amber leans in and kisses Seb’s cheek. ‘Bye-bye, darling.’
Then she kisses me. Her lips graze my cheek, and her face is sad. ‘Goodbye, Jenn.’
‘Drive carefully when you head back to Perth tomorrow. Thank you for having Sebby for me this afternoon.’
She kisses him again, and curves her hand to the warm peach of his cheek. ‘It’s my pleasure. It will always be my pleasure. He’s a beautiful little boy. You’re a good mother, Jenn. You were good for Jack, too. I never told you that enough.’
There’s the faintest shimmer of a tear in her eye, before she turns away.
***
Emmy and Pope don’t get back until close to six. By then, I’m in full night routine with Seb. I can’t be bothered cooking, so he’s having his old faithful: Lamb Rogan Josh. He eats the contents of the entire jar and follows it with a half-tub of yoghurt.
After his bath, he snuggles up on the couch in his polka-dot sleeping bag between Brayden and Pope, tucked under Brayden’s arm. There’s an international one day cricket game on the television and Emmy teases me that my son is starting his Aussie male sport initiation early.
She and I are in the kitchen, Brayden’s iPod playing classic rock from some internet radio station on the other side of the world. It’s just loud enough to drown the cricket commentary — unless there’s a wicket, or a batsmen hits a six.
I’ve steamed potatoes for a potato salad. It’s my mother’s recipe: heavy on parsley, with hard-boiled eggs, olive oil, smoky bacon crisped in the microwave, and creamy dollops of natural yoghurt to bind everything together.
The white wine Emmy poured for me tastes divine. She started slow, but halfway through her glass, she’s picked up the pace. It no longer looks like each sip hurts her head.
While the salad cools, I take my wine and sit across from Emmy at the table. There’s a plate of crackers, a small tub of stuffed olives, and a pot of smoked salmon cream cheese dividing us.
I want to ask her about Pope — there’s something going on there, I’m sure of it — but my greed wins out. This means, my mouth is full of cream cheese and cracker when Emmy says, ‘You and Brayden are getting along well, Jenn.’
‘Mmhmm. We are. We’re also taking it slow. So don’t start meddling.’
‘As if I would.’ Emmy swirls the wine in her glass.
‘I could say the same for you and Pope, by the way. What’s the go there? He’s hardly left your side in twenty-four hours.’
‘We’re just friends.’ Emmy shuffles her feet beneath the table.
Any second now she’ll start that chair spinning.
‘As in, friends with benefits?’
She smiles. ‘Occasionally.’ Then she sips her wine and puts the glass softly on the table, but with such heavy finality I know the subject is finished. At least for now.
I dip another cracker, try an olive, toss the pip in a small china bowl; take another.
I sit forward, pitching my voice low. ‘What do you think about
Brayden’s court case, Em? Do you think a jury would find him guilty?’
She leans toward me, and we’re whispering like conspirators. ‘What worries me is if the police found out he was on his mobile phone or something when he crashed. I asked him if he was on his phone, or changing the radio station or a CD, or anything like that when it happened. He swears black and blue he wasn’t, but…’ she shrugs. ‘I don’t like thinking about it.’
‘He’s such a good driver,’ I say.
‘Exactly. He’s a brilliant driver. That’s why I find it so hard to believe he never saw the car till it hit him, or he hit it. Whatever. It’s just… strange.’
‘It could be a year till it goes to trial, he said to me.’
Emmy’s eyes are troubled. ‘Yeah.’
I take another olive. The salty taste scalds my throat.
‘Howzat!’ Two male voices shout from the lounge and a cheer goes up. Someone’s out.
‘Time for bed for my little man before they get him all revved up,’ I tell her.
‘They’ll be teaching him Aussie Aussie Aussie next,’ Emmy says with a grin.
‘Oi Oi Oi,’ I answer, pushing up from the table.
***
Emmy doesn’t want a big Saturday night after Friday. She’s yawned her way through the lamb and venison sausages and the fillet steaks Brayden barbecued. While the Culhanes wash the dishes, Pope and I chat as we watch insects dive-bomb the porch light. It’s an easy conversation. Life never gets too deep with Pope. It’s the surfer in him.
By ten o’clock, Emmy says she can’t keep her eyes open any longer, and heads for bed.
Not much later, Pope shakes Brayden’s hand and hugs me goodbye. He’s heading to the city tomorrow and he’s not sure if he’ll see us because the winds are offshore in the morning, and apparently Three Bears will be going off. That’s about the limit of my surfer lingo, but I’m pretty sure it means the surf’s up and he’ll be out in it. Or out on it. Or whatever it is they do.
Pope’s headlights sweep the peppermint trees as he turns, and Brayden and I wave from the porch as we watch his taillights disappear.
‘What a night,’ I breathe into the hum that’s left when the sound of the engine dies.