by Liz Byrski
‘So when we’ve done whatever this is shall we go and have a meal somewhere?’ he’d asked, trying to get some clue about the evening ahead.
‘Maybe,’ she’d said. ‘Stop trying to find out by stealth. It’s a surprise, Frank. Try to trust me.’ And he was trying, really hard.
They headed south out of Fremantle and three-quarters of an hour later she pulled into a busy car park behind a large building.
‘This is totally off my patch,’ Frank said.
‘It’s quite safe,’ Marissa grinned. ‘It’s only Mandurah. I haven’t exactly abducted you.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling and taking her hand. ‘I’m such a control freak.’
She leaned over and kissed him. ‘It’s okay, but now you have to be really brave and close your eyes for a minute. Promise me you won’t look until I tell you?’
He closed his eyes and they started walking, her arm in his. ‘What if I trip?’
‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you.’
Frank swallowed hard and kept his eyes closed as their feet crunched across the gravel.
‘Not yet,’ she said, and he felt an increase in the noise level. They were near other people, quite a lot of other people, and even with his eyes shut he knew they had gone from the dark of the car park to somewhere that was brightly lit. He wondered how many people were looking at him walking along with his eyes closed.
‘Okay, you can open your eyes now.’
He blinked in the light. They were in the crowded foyer of a theatre, and right in front of him was a poster with a photograph of a face he knew almost as well as he knew his own. Goosebumps pricked his flesh and he turned to Marissa, finding it hard to speak.
‘Normie Rowe in concert. I didn’t even know he was over here,’ he said eventually.
‘That’s because you never read the arts and entertainment pages,’ she said. ‘So can you relax now? We’ve got the best seats in the house.’
‘I can relax,’ he said. ‘And thank you, Marissa. It’s the best surprise imaginable.’
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said with a smile. ‘The best is yet to come. Let’s go in.’
Brian was ready to go. Tomorrow morning he’d be on a flight to Sydney, the car and the rest of his possessions on the way by road and rail. There was a great sense of relief in leaving, he thought, in walking away from the past and starting again. For years he’d been hamstrung by responsibilities, the job, Gayle, Angie, the house – all the things that other people expected of him. Now he was free to please himself, take life one day at a time. Carefully he folded the remainder of his clothes and put them into the suitcase that contained all he’d need until the rest of his stuff arrived in Manly.
‘Seems like it might be for the best after all,’ he’d said to Gayle a few days earlier. ‘Nice place you got yourself.’ He was feeling quite warmly towards her again now. He still reckoned she’d got far too much out of him, although Tremlett had told him that she could have got a whole lot more if she’d decided to push it. The law seemed pretty unfair to him, but what could you do but grin and bear it?
‘I hope it all works out for you,’ he’d said. ‘And you know where I am if you need me, or if you’re ever in Sydney . . .’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And we’ll keep in touch about Angie. It’s a difficult time for her.’ They’d stood there for a few minutes, a chasm of awkward silence separating them.
‘Well, I suppose this is it, then,’ he’d said, moving to kiss her on the cheek. She let him but she hadn’t returned the kiss. It seemed a strange way to part, to end a marriage after all those years together.
Brian made a tour of the house, checking cupboards, putting his toiletries into his bag. Nothing left to do. Tomorrow the Flying Domestics would be in to clean up and the following day the new owners would move in. It looked awfully bare now, despite the fact that some of the furniture was staying. Gayle, of course, had never liked it and now he wondered how he felt. He’d been proud of it certainly, but perhaps . . . perhaps he had been a bit too concerned about how it all looked to outsiders rather than how it felt to live in.
He closed his bag and walked out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out of the house. He’d booked a hotel near the airport for the night. In the morning he’d deliver the car to the transporters and be on his flight by eight. He stretched uncomfortably. There was an unpleasant feeling in his chest. The curry he’d had for dinner had left him with indigestion. Dropping his bag into the boot he got into the driver’s seat, started the engine and looked back one last time across the darkened garden to the empty house; then he drove the Saab out through the gates for the last time.
‘So was it worth trusting me?’ Marissa asked as they made their way out of the theatre.
Frank put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘It was brilliant. It’s twenty years since I actually saw him perform. He’s still terrific, isn’t he?’
‘He’s really good,’ Marissa said. ‘And I guess I most enjoyed thinking about him and you back then.’
He pulled her closer and kissed her. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Marissa, it’s the best present I ever had. Thank you so much.’
‘Good,’ she said, ‘because now you have to trust me again.’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘So we are allowed to eat, and you know some strange place where the moussaka is better than mine.’
‘No moussaka is better than yours,’ she said, taking his arm as they made their way out through the jumble of people by the exit.
‘Are we walking or biking to the restaurant?’ Frank asked.
‘We’re walking this way,’Marissa said, leading him to an alley at the side of the building.
‘But we can’t get out that way,’ Frank protested, pulling her back.
‘We’re not going out,’ she said, ‘at least, you’re not.’ She pointed down the alley. ‘Look down there – someone’s waiting for you.’
Frank stopped to look. In the light from an open doorway someone was waving.
‘Frank?’ a voice called, and Frank held up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. ‘Frank Owen?’
The man began to walk towards him. Goosebumps prickled Frank’s skin and a huge lump swelled in his throat. ‘Norm?’ he said. ‘Is that you, Norm?’
‘The same. It’s been a long time, mate.’
Frank shook his head, unable to speak.
‘Go on, Frank,’ Marissa said. But he was frozen to the spot.
‘Jeez, mate, you haven’t changed,’ Normie said, and they stared at each other in the half-light, finally stumbling together, hugging, tears bright in their eyes.
‘You must be Marissa,’ Normie said eventually, taking her hands. ‘Thank you so much for this.’
She smiled. ‘It’s a very great pleasure. Off you go then, Frank.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’ he asked.
She put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. ‘No, not tonight. Another time maybe, but tonight is secret men’s business.’
As she rocked the Harley off its stand and started the engine, Marissa couldn’t stop smiling. It was a new feeling for her, this immense satisfaction of planning something special for someone she loved and having it work to perfection. It had amused her to see Frank trying to resist the desire to take control, to trust what she wanted to do for him. She would probably have been the same herself if she hadn’t been so emotionally exhausted by breaking her silence that she hadn’t had the strength to resist his effort to care for her.
‘So you think he’s the one, do you?’ Sonya had asked her a few days ago.
‘I do,’ Marissa said. ‘The one I was waiting for without knowing I was waiting.’
‘I guess we’re all doing that,’ Sonya said. ‘But you get to a stage where the waiting is unconscious, and there’s no longer any real expectation attached to it. And then it’s really comfortable.’
Marissa, who had been driving Sonya’s car at the time, taking her to t
he airport for a flight to Kalgoorlie, had turned to her in surprise. ‘I thought you were radically single and totally over the idea of meeting anyone.’
‘I am,’ Sonya said. ‘But that doesn’t mean that it will never happen – after all, look at you. You know, Marissa, I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last few months, part of which is that I tend to lock myself into certain positions. For years I thought I was locked out of my family, only required to appear and perform in a particular way from time to time. Now I’m chatting often to my sister, going to my great-nephew’s christening, and actually staying with Mum and Dad. How different is that?’
‘I’m so pleased for you. And what about Gayle?’
‘Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t marry again, but she’ll probably have other relationships.’
‘Plural?’
‘Who knows, she might enjoy things being less than permanent, but on the other hand there’s always Oliver.’
Marissa slowed the Harley and took the slip road off the freeway. She needed fuel and some milk and, remembering that there was a 24-hour petrol station on the northern side of Canning Highway, she made the slight detour and drew into the forecourt. She’d always liked being out on her bike at night. Maybe she could persuade Frank to get a bike. They could ride side by side, independence and proximity. She filled the tank and walked into the brightly lit store. A man was standing at the register, his back to her, grumbling about the shop’s lack of indigestion tablets.
‘D’you mean you haven’t even got a packet of Rennies?’ he said, and the guy on the cash register mumbled something and shook his head.
Marissa glanced around looking for milk; the fridges were at the far end of the store. She strolled down half listening to the conversation and, as she opened the fridge door, something made her look back. The man’s back was turned, but there was something familiar . . . She tensed, looking up at the closed circuit screen above her head. He was fatter, much fatter, and older, but then he would be, and there was something about the set of the shoulders, his voice, the reddish hair, the way he held his head. She was dizzy with the sense of recognition.
As she turned from the screen he was heading for the automatic doors. The hair on Marissa’s neck stood on end. Was it really him? Her breath seemed caught in her chest.
‘Blue?’ she said. ‘Blue?’ but he was outside now, getting into a black car. She dropped the milk carton and stumbled over it as she ran to the door and out onto the forecourt. ‘Blue?’ she cried, looking around, but he was gone, the Saab accelerating up the hill to the freeway, its tail lights disappearing amid the other traffic. It was him, she was sure of it.
Marissa walked back inside.
‘Everything all right, love?’ the attendant asked. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Yes,’ she said, nodding her head, ‘yes, I really think I did.’
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Jo Culbertson, Lisa Resch, Val Flowers and Jan O’Meara, thank you for that Sunday morning hens’ breakfast that was the inspiration for this book. Special thanks to Pete and Ray, the Vietnam veterans who talked to me about post-traumatic stress disorder and who prefer to remain anonymous; and to Normie Rowe for allowing me to put words in his mouth. And many thanks to my belly dancing friend Christine Nagel for advice and information on all the right moves.
As always, Cate Paterson, Sarina Rowell and Jo Jarrah have used their sensitivity and professionalism to make this a better book than it would otherwise have been and I am very grateful. Thanks too to the indomitable Jane Novak, and my agent Sheila Drummond for also being a special friend and sounding board.
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