by Lily Malone
It’s a keyring. There’s a serpent picked out in bright blue stones.
‘The clubs are a present,’ he says.
Emmy claps her hands and bursts out, ‘Congratulations — ’
‘ — on your new business,’ Brayden concludes, cutting her off.
It takes me about three swallows before I can speak past the lump in my throat. ‘I can’t accept a new set of golf clubs as a… a present.’
‘Of course you can,’ Emmy says. ‘He just sold his house. He’s loaded.’
‘But…’ Am I the only one here who worries about Brayden’s court case and how he’ll pay for it? ‘The sale’s not even unconditional yet. Anything could happen.’
‘It’ll go through, Jenn. The agent’s confident. They already paid the deposit.’
I mumble something that is meant to be, “glass bloody half full Culhanes”, but comes out more like ‘gla-bl-ha-fa Culhanes’.
Brayden unzips the golf bag. ‘They’re not brand new, Jenn. They’re floor stock, demo clubs. He was happy to get rid of them. Emmy picked them up for me this morning.’
‘But…’ I mutter. ‘That’s too generous.’
It’s no use protesting. They’re both looking at me with so much love — it would be petty of me to spoil their surprise, or their fun. Plus both of them know I’m itching to check out my “present”.
So I peer inside.
Seven irons, a driver, a set of three and five-woods and a putter nestle in the dividers, club-heads gleaming silver in the sun. Reaching tentatively, I stroke one of the precious shafts.
‘This is too much,’ I say again, but I can’t keep the smile off my face.
I zip the bag, and throw my arm around Brayden’s neck, kissing him full on the lips. After a moment, I reach the other arm for Emmy and pull her close too.
‘I love you guys,’ I say.
‘Right back at you,’ Emmy says. ‘So don’t feel bad. Let him have his fun. Besides, wait till you see what he’s buying me for a house-warming present.’
‘You mean a house-selling present,’ I murmur.
‘Yeah,’ Brayden says. ‘Whatever.’
***
After that, Emmy takes Seb inside to make him some lunch and Brayden and I climb into the Pajero.
Margaret River is about half an hour’s drive south of Busselton, with the golf course another five minutes out of town, heading west towards the coast.
The man who comes out of the office to take our green fees hires a set of clubs to Brayden and a golf buggy for each of us, before sending us off on what he calls “the top nine.”
‘It’s a bit hilly up there,’ he says. ‘It’ll getcha fit.’
We stand on the first tee, which is actually the tenth if we were playing all eighteen holes, and we each make a few practice swings to warm up.
‘I love these clubs,’ I tell him. Who needs an old set of Durbridges? Eat your heart out Marnie James.
We toss a coin for who goes first. I lose, and Brayden tees off.
‘You’ve been practicing,’ I say, watching his drive fly straight and true.
‘They have a practice range at the mine,’ he says, picking up his tee. ‘Been hitting it hard. I thought I’d better lift my game if I had any chance of beating you.’
I’m smiling as I poke my tee into the grass and balance the ball on top. ‘I got news for you, buddy. You’ll do well just to keep up. Forget about winning.’
I step a couple of metres behind the ball, picture where I want to hit it as I line up the shot. Then I move to take my stance, let out my breath, and swing.
It’s the sweetest damn swing I’ve ever swung.
***
To reach the eighteenth men’s tee at Margaret River, there’s a fairly steep climb up from the seventeenth green. The tee block is bordered on three sides by native forest and from the top, the view stretches for miles.
Green-grey forest runs in ribbons across the haze of the far hills. The pockets of cleared paddocks are summer-browned, unless it’s a vineyard, in which case the fields are a verdant lime.
Somewhere — cutting through those trees, valleys and hills — the river that gives this region its name runs to the ocean.
Half a dozen kangaroos, two grazing, the other four with heads up alert, watch us from about fifty metres away, in the first cut of rough.
The air is so clear up here — it’s blown over the vast Indian Ocean with nothing to taint it since it left the African coast, and it thrums with the high energy of the surf. It’s ripe with the scent of salt and forest, earthy with the bore water that gets pumped on the course.
If I concentrate hard, in the distance I can hear the surf thunder.
Brayden digs his tee into the grass and lines up his drive.
On paper, I’m streets in front of him — we’ve given up keeping score — but he’s got enough masculine pride that he doesn’t like being out-driven by a girl. So I know this ball is about to get the cover whacked off it.
Watching Brayden line up his shot, half an eye on him, the other on the view, I’m struck by the beauty spread before me.
If there is a fairway to heaven, this one has got to be close.
Brayden’s swing connects with a resounding thwack. He turns to me and smirks, ‘Chase that, baby.’
‘You’re such a big strong man.’ I pat his backside, just a little condescendingly, as he shoves his driver in the bag.
We push the buggies downhill to the ladies’ tee, holding hands.
***
After we return the buggies and Brayden’s clubs to the hire office, Brayden helps me heft my new golf bag into his car.
Compared with this morning in Busselton, the wind has faded and it’s warm, especially after the climb and the exhilaration of our game. My armpits are sweaty and I know my face is flushed red.
There’s water in the car and I take a long drink. As I’m twisting the cap on the bottle, Brayden says, ‘There’s something I want you to do for me.’
‘What’s that?’
He pops the glove-compartment and pulls out a Fremantle Dockers’ scarf. ‘I want you to put this on.’
‘It’s a bit hot isn’t it?’
He chuckles. ‘I meant put it over your eyes. Like a blindfold.’
I can’t help my instinctive flinch. ‘Want to tell me why?’
‘No.’ He comes close, holding the scarf in both hands, motioning for me to turn around. ‘You’ll have to trust me.’
‘I’m not sure I can cope with many more surprises today, Brayden.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll cope.’
Gently, he covers my eyes. The scarf is long, and he overlaps it twice and tucks it in. It’s tight — he’s serious about not wanting me to see anything — all I can see is two semicircles of light if I look straight down, past my nose.
Brayden helps me into the front passenger seat. Feeling for the seatbelt, I strap myself in. He closes my door. Seconds later, he opens his own, and the car jolts as he shuts it.
The engine shudders to life. Coarse sand and gravel crunch as he reverses out of the carpark, finds a gear, and gains speed.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
It’s hard to hear. There’s so much engine noise and the scarf deadens any sound, but my sense of touch has never been more acute. I’m increasingly aware of the seat under my legs, and the vibrations and movement of the vehicle on the road. My body sways as he corners, and pitches when he changes speed.
For a while I can picture the roads in my head, but I’m not overly familiar with the area and pretty soon I’ve lost all sense of direction. Plus, I’m sure Brayden is trying to trick me. It feels like he’s taking me on a roundabout route, just to confuse me.
Once he slows as if we’re in the sixty zone of one of the small towns that dot the highway, but he says it’s just a caravan ahead slowing the traffic.
There’s sunshine in my window. It flickers when we’re driving through trees. I know
when we’re pointing west toward the ocean, because the sun beams through the windscreen and it’s hot on my throat.
I’m hot under the scarf and the fabric is scratchy. It smells like car polish.
‘Are we there yet?’
‘Not far now.’
I slump in the seat.
Not long after, he turns right, into a side road. We’re driving on gravel, bumpy with corrugations, and the sun no longer splashes my face.
He slows. Slows again, and brakes to a stop. I unbuckle the seatbelt. My hands itch to pull off the blindfold.
‘Not yet, Jenn. Wait here a sec.’ The car rocks as he gets out.
My passenger door opens and he’s there to take my hand. My palm is moist and unsteady in his as I put my legs out to feel for the ground. It’s a long way down.
Brayden leads me a few paces from the car and stops, and as I wait for him to tell me I can get rid of the blindfold, I tremble with anticipation.
Brayden unties the knot. Slowly, then faster as he gains momentum, the scarf falls away.
My eyes adjust to the new brightness and I look around, trying to make sense of what I see.
A grove of olive trees to my left, limes and lemons to the right.
This is the property I wrote about weeks ago, with Carl Barron. I have to fish in my memory for the sellers’ names.
Stewart.
In front of me — wrapped in an autumn flush of deep ruby roses — is the timber rail that guards the house deck.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask him.
Brayden chuckles. He puts an arm around me and lets his thumb stroke my spine.
‘This is my new home, Jenn. It settled yesterday.’
‘This is yours?’ My heart does a flutter-thump. ‘What. All of it? You bought this?’
I have to remind myself to shut my gaping mouth.
‘You were so impressed with it that day you saw it, and you made it sound so amazing when you wrote about it, I had to have a look. Carl Barron showed me through that Saturday morning a month or so ago — when I said I was going to see my friend with the dogs that first time. Remember?’
‘Yeah I remember, you sneak. You could have told me the truth. I wouldn’t have said anything to anyone.’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’ Then he laughs, ‘Bloody Emmy nearly let the cat out of the bag today.’
‘She did?’
‘She told you the golf clubs were a house-warming present.’
‘I thought she just got it mixed up. I didn’t give it another thought.’
We’re gazing to the north-west. The farmland in the valley isn’t part of this property, but he’ll have cattle to look at all year round, and a lovely big dam. He’ll be able to sit out on the deck and watch the sun set every night over this million-dollar view.
Which reminds me. ‘They were asking more than a million dollars for this place, Brayden, and you just quit your day job.’
He takes my hand, swings my body in front of his. ‘I haven’t worked eight years in the mines to have nothing to show for it, Jenn. I told you that. Don’t worry about the money. I’ve done okay.’
‘You call this doing okay?’ I grumble. ‘A new set of golf clubs as a present. A million-dollar house purchase on a… a whim. Fifty thousand dollars in lawyer fees and a court case to mount. I’d call that doing a bit more than okay.’
‘So I’ve done well.’ He shrugs.
He’s walking backwards towards the steps that lead up to the deck, holding my hands so that I’m stumbling forward with him. When he reaches them, he picks me up by the waist and whirls me so my feet are on the bottom step and I’m facing him. Now, we’re eye to eye.
Only we’re not like that for long because he drops to one knee on the grass.
The setting sun fires bronze through his hair as he stares up at me, and what I see in his eyes makes everything squeeze hard, then shudder loose, in my belly.
‘Jennifer Gates, I bought this house because I knew we would be happy here — as husband and wife and family — for the rest of our lives.’
Husband.
Wife.
Family.
Tears well, then spill, and I can’t catch my breath.
‘You are the most incredible woman I have ever met. You’re funny and smart and courageous… you’re great at golf, and very good with a squid bucket, and I love you more than my own life. So please, will you marry me?’
My knees crumple and I’m level with him, squatting on the stairs with my hands on his shoulders so I don’t pitch forward. My grip can’t be soft, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
‘Even — ’ My voice breaks and I swallow hard because I need to get this out, and he’s looking at me like I’m a wonder of the world. ‘Even, Brayden, with what I told you last night, about my sex problems… you’d still want to marry me? What if we never have a normal sex life?’
He wipes my tears with his thumb. ‘I only have to do normal hey? No fireworks? I don’t have to make you see stars or faint with one kiss?’
‘Don’t joke… not about this.’
His smile vanishes, and he’s abruptly serious. ‘You’re going to be fine, Jenn. You’ll see. We’ll get you whatever help you need. We’ll take it slow. I’ve waited eight years. I can wait as long as you need.’
‘What if I can’t have children? Not conventionally, anyway. If I can’t have sex there might not be any family. You’re amazing with kids. You should have kids of your own.’
This time, he puts his big hands on my shoulders, and gives me the tiniest shake.
‘I think you’re worrying for nothing — you know that. You’re going to be fine. But if kids aren’t on the radar for us, we have Seb. He’ll be our family. I couldn’t love him any more if he was mine.’
So I’m looking into his those blue eyes I’ve always loved, when I tell him, ‘Yes.’
He stands, taking me with him, and when we’re straight his lips meet mine. It’s not a long kiss, but it’s incredibly sweet, and when we’ve finished, he hugs me tight.
‘Only very good?’ I mutter beneath my breath.
‘What’s that, love?’
‘You said I’m “very good” with a squid bucket. Not “brilliant”.’
He laughs. ‘You’re the best squid catcher, ever.’
Epilogue
There’s a word for what I’ve got.
When my April appointment finally rolled around, Dr Whethers called it Lichen Sclerosis.
I can’t explain the relief I felt to have a real, medical-sounding, text book name for my dodgy vagina.
Dr Whethers was lovely. She reminded me a bit of Molly — the old lady at the beach — except even though she’s younger than Molly, the doctor’s hair was shot through with silver.
She listened like she really cared, and for the first time in a long time, she gave me answers, not just more questions.
Lichen Sclerosis, she said, is one of those weird (my word, not hers) auto-immune diseases that affect mostly women, but also some men, when their immune systems get confused and start attacking healthy cells. It can happen vaginally, like for me, but it can also affect other parts of the skin, like the chest and throat.
‘On a scale of one to ten, Lichen Sclerosis isn’t such a bad thing,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky.’
I half choked on a sad smile and told her, ‘If I was lucky, I would get it on my thumb.’
That made her laugh.
She told me it gets misdiagnosed often, as dermatitis or allergies, because it manifests differently all the time, and when I complain about doctors not picking it up, she said I need to cut them some slack. Apparently I’m young for it to happen to me. It’s usually one of those after-forty things women have to look forward to, like mammograms. A biopsy is the only way to diagnose it. I’ve had one of those now and the needle wasn’t a lot of fun.
If it’s left untreated, the skin around the vagina can thicken to the point of closing, which is what makes the act of having sex so hard. Som
e women end up so irritated and sore, they can barely wipe with toilet paper without making themselves bleed.
Dr Whethers said I may well have had it before Seb was born, but it got far more aggressive after. She has a theory that when a woman has a baby her immune system tamps down to help her body accept the foetus. Dr Whethers told me if I got pregnant again, I’d probably notice instant natural relief. She thinks this is why the condition flared after I had Seb: my hormones, or my refreshed immune system, kicked it into gear.
There are maintenance treatments. No drugs. No cure.
I’m stuck with it for life.
Dr Whethers prescribed a high-potency topical steroid cream that I’m to apply twice a day, for six weeks. She said she liked to attack the disease early. ‘Get on top of it before it knows what’s hit it.’
At the end of six weeks, I have to see her again. So I’m a work in progress.
I hope the steroid creams do the trick. Plan B involves skin grafts, and I really don’t want to go there.
***
Brayden and Seb come to Perth with me for my six-week check-up. They’re not in the surgery, though I think if I’d asked Brayden to hold my hand, he would have. He’s gone to see his case officer while I’m at the doctors. Seb is with Amber and Jack.
The case officer was appointed by Brayden’s defence lawyer and his role is to take Brayden through the events leading up to the crash: what he was doing that day, what he’d been doing the night before, and then he writes a statement that the lawyer may use in his defence. Today they’re working on that statement.
The case officer is cheaper than the lawyer, so it makes sense to give him the grunt work.
The police charged Brayden with one count of dangerous driving occasioning death, and three counts of dangerous driving occasioning injury. His lawyer tried to get the occasioning death charge downgraded, along the lines of driving without due care, but the prosecution wasn’t into this, so there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge. The most likely scenario is Brayden will have to go to trial. All we can do is wait and see.
The lawyer suggested we commission an expert to reconstruct the crash scene. We’ve done that and it turns out the side mirrors on the truck were set at such an angle it’s possible the mirror obscured the oncoming car. The expert drew pictures with lots of lines and mathematics and he talked to us about the speed of both vehicles — Brayden’s truck slowing, the oncoming vehicle cruising steadily — and showed us how the car could have stayed behind the mirror the entire time. This is why Brayden never saw it coming. Like a blind spot I guess.