Love as a Stranger

by Owen Marshall

  They soon drank what beer they’d brought from Mildura, the woman at the farmhouse didn’t offer more and Gareth became increasingly in need of alcohol. The nearest pub was almost an hour’s drive away, but after five days Gareth decided to take the van in the evening and have a session. Robert stayed back: he would’ve liked a drink, but the money saved was more important to him, even though Gareth thought him a wimp.

  Gareth didn’t come back that night, or the next morning, but just before midday a police car came with the news that he’d crashed into a creekbed on the way back and been killed. Robert had returned to Mildura with the policeman, even though the painting of the shearing quarters wasn’t completed. He never went back. The firm was unable to contact any of Gareth’s relatives, and there were only seven people at the funeral. Robert, assumed to be the mate Gareth knew best, received the commiserations of the others. He was asked to speak, and said that Gareth had served his country in the army, and was a good sort. In truth, Robert felt no connection, and no sorrow, except for the random futility of such events in general. He hadn’t even liked the guy.

  Now Robert sat looking over the busy street and offices, the resurrected sun in his face, then abruptly blocked by cloud, then bright again. Even Gareth’s appearance was difficult for Robert to recall, and he best remembered the uncultivated voice — going on and on about the fooken Irish, and the fooken military. Robert hadn’t taken any photographs while working in Australia, and he regretted that. Somehow, now that it was under threat, he felt an increasing need to document his life. Since being in Auckland he’d started sorting family photographs. There were hundreds more at home, though, and more on their computers. He would get them, sort them, that’s what he’d do: a useful occupation while he had so much time. He would strengthen himself by better understanding and valuing the life he had.

  With welcome unexpectedness an opportunity came for Sarah and Hartley to have a full day together. Robert decided to take up an invitation to attend a reunion of professional contemporaries in Christchurch, and although Sarah offered to go with him, he said he was fine to go alone. His former partner, Bill, now living in Auckland, was keen to fly with him, he said, and would make sure he didn’t drink too much. ‘I’ll be out of your hair for a couple of nights. It’s good to go while I’m feeling okay and before Mr Goosen needs me in again.’

  ‘What will you do there?’ Sarah enquired.

  ‘Talk about everything except dentistry.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘Bill knows I need to take it easy,’ said Robert. ‘He’ll do all the legwork. Why don’t you go down to Donna and the girls in Wellington?’

  ‘There’s plenty of things I need to do here. My glasses need checking. I might even get my hair done.’ Until meeting Hartley, she couldn’t imagine anything keeping her alone in the apartment when she could spend time with her daughter and grandchildren.

  When she told Hartley, he was full of plans for spending the time together, and wanted her to come to Titirangi for both nights that Robert would be away, but she said someone might ring, or call round, or people at the apartments would notice her absence. They could have the whole Thursday, though, she said, and Hartley put off his work at Hastings Hull. He made plans for the day, and wouldn’t tell her anything of them except that they would probably involve swimming. ‘I need to know what else to wear,’ she protested.

  ‘Nothing flash,’ he said. ‘The more time we can have alone together the better. Maybe a hat, too. Yes, bring a hat.’ She had swimming things and a sunhat, but she had a fair idea there would be sex, so she bought a tube of KY jelly, and put it behind the medicines in the small cabinet beneath the bathroom basin until the day came.

  Bill came for Robert at three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. A talkative man with high colour, who didn’t seem to understand that Robert wasn’t as fit as he pretended, and left him to carry down his own suitcase from the apartment until Sarah intervened. At the car, Sarah managed to get a word with him out of her husband’s hearing. ‘You won’t let him overdo it, will you?’ she asked. ‘He won’t say, but he gets tired very easily. He’s been looking forward to it, so he’s making an effort, but he can run out of energy so quickly.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ said Bill. ‘We’re all old buggers there, and things won’t be riotous. He’s allowed booze, isn’t he?’

  ‘A glass or two, no more, and he won’t want to eat a great deal. His stomach is so easily upset, but it’s mainly just getting enough rest. You never know how he’ll be from day to day.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Bill airily, but Sarah wasn’t prepared to do that until she was sure he realised how things were.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘He’s full of cancer. He’s had treatment for months and it’s ongoing. He’s really sick, although he’s between visits at the moment. This trip’s great for him, but he’s not the fit guy you remember. I really appreciate you looking after him, but that’s what it is, okay?’

  Bill was taken aback by the directness, slightly affronted even, but he recovered and was adamant he’d make sure Robert was fine. As a sign of this he went around to Robert’s side of the car and checked the door, and when seated himself leant across to make sure that Robert’s seatbelt was fastened. When they drove off, Bill tooted, Robert lifted a hand and gave his toothy smile. A few years before he would have privately scoffed at such a reunion, but in his present life it was a welcome adventure.

  Sarah had barely got back to the apartment when Hartley rang. ‘He’s gone?’ he asked. ‘I could come round. I’m at the office and I could scoot round straight away.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’ve got all of tomorrow, and you never know who’s watching here. I’ll walk down to Magnus at half eight in the morning, as we said. I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘So am I,’ he said. ‘I haven’t thought of much else for days. It’ll be the longest time we’ve had together.’

  ‘We might have a row,’ she said. ‘A bust-up because we’re not really used to each other.’ She said it for the pleasure of the denial she knew he’d make.

  ‘Never. I can’t get enough of you. You know that. I don’t think we’d ever quarrel.’

  In fact, although she was looking forward to time with him, she also found delight in being alone in the apartment. That, too, was a rare experience. When Robert was there, she always suppressed the inclination to tidy up what she called ‘his end’ of the dining table, on which were scattered the photographs that he was sorting, along with a shifting array of computer, cell phone, letters, newspaper, his glasses, junk mail that he thought might contain bargains, the packet of Jaffas that was a familiar indulgence. She had a good straighten-up, cleaned the big window and French doors, vacuumed the curtains and carpets, pushing the furniture about with her knees.

  Afterwards she opened a small tin of salmon and ate the pink flesh on biscuits. It was good for once to have an evening meal without the television on, and she sat with her food and a glass of sav blanc, and watched the busy street three storeys down with the shadows stretched in the slanting sun. Soon, she told herself, she would sort out what to wear the next day, and she must remember to take the KY jelly from the back of the bathroom cabinet and put it in her bag. And she would sit close to the mirror and use her slender, pink electric shaver to remove hair from her legs, and the tops of her inner thighs, and cream away, too, the fine hair on her lower face that had become more noticeable in the past few years.

  Robert would be in Christchurch with Bill and the other dentists. She hoped he would be happy remembering good times. She worried about him: maybe he would overdo things and have a fall, or get sick. Sarah had little faith in Bill’s care.

  Hartley would be alone in his home among the trees, thinking of her and the next day. She was sure of that. She knew also that he’d given much thought to the secret location, but she rather wished he’d been more forthcoming. Maybe she
should wear trousers, not a skirt. She would be informal. The one clue he’d given was the need for swimming costumes, so surely they were going to a beach. In a reassuring, but illogical, way she felt that the accomplishment of household tasks entitled her to spend time with Hartley. The certainty of his anticipation added to her own.

  Hartley was early to the Magnus café. To leave a woman alone in a public place was discourteous. Such considerations were outmoded, and not the residual observances from his upbringing. A rough and ready equality had been the practice on the southern farm. Push in, keep up, or miss out. It was in the law firms that he had been instructed, sometimes primly, in the niceties that are expected to compensate for excessive fees. ‘Awareness and solicitude,’ old Mr Soper had often advised him. ‘Awareness and solicitude when dealing with our clients.’ For years Mr Soper had so successfully glossed his avarice with impeccable manners that he possessed a Queenstown apartment and a young Australian woman to go with it. Hartley’s courtesy was less cynical.

  The day was fine and still, dispelling his fears that the weather might spoil his plans. He stood by the café entrance, facing the way that he knew Sarah would come so he would see her even before they met, and when she was visible, walking easily despite a carry bag, and with a smile as she recognised him, he felt a strange pride and gratefulness that she was coming to him. Coming to him willingly despite being married to someone else; coming to him because she preferred that to any other purpose for the day. Coming to him when she knew he expected that they would make love.

  ‘So where are we going?’ she asked when they had kissed, squeezed hands and were walking on to his car.

  ‘We’re heading north.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see. How well do you know places past Auckland?’

  ‘I’ve been to Whangarei several times. I had an aunt who lived there, but she’s been gone for years now. And Robert and I went up to Cape Reinga one holiday just to say we’d been there. The same reason we went one year to Stewart Island, though that was a lot more interesting. We went back, and stayed longer the next time.’

  ‘We’re not going as far as Whangarei,’ said Hartley.

  Did it matter where they were going as long as they were together? A day, a whole day was a luxury. They talked and laughed, taking little notice of anything they passed, and even the few silences between them were full of easy understanding and the sense of their close presence. Together and in love. Nothing else mattered.

  They turned off the main road at Warkworth and drove to Matakana village. Sarah liked it, as Hartley knew she would. The owner-operated shops and businesses, the open space and easy pace, the pub built from a single kauri. They had coffee at a pottery and wandered through the showrooms enjoying the bright glazes on the platters, bowls and planters.

  ‘Let me buy you something,’ he said.

  ‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember it all.’

  ‘I’m going to,’ he said firmly. ‘Either you make a choice, or I’ll do it for you.’ So she chose a small blue jug that wouldn’t draw Robert’s attention when he came home.

  Omaha Bay was their destination: a long, pale beach, and behind it the expensive holiday homes of the Auckland élite. Hartley had a client who had offered him the use of one of these; not the most grand, but impressive nevertheless, with a double garage and a balcony opening from the upper bedroom, and lines of juvenile buxus in the recently landscaped garden.

  ‘Omaha?’ said Sarah. ‘How on earth is that a connection here?’

  ‘My guess is it’s after Omaha Beach in the Normandy landings where all those Yanks went ashore.’ Sarah didn’t see that was relevant to where they were, but she let the topic drop.

  Hartley was briefly interested in the number of rooms, the view, a quick calculation of the overall value, but Sarah had a woman’s more intimate response. She noticed the matched washing machine and tumble dryer in the laundry with the stickers for economical use of electricity still showroom new, the pristine carpets showing no wear even in the doorways. She opened the kitchen cupboards to reveal the stacked and matched sets of cutlery and crockery. Everything new and in the same impressive price range. What would it be like, she wondered, to go into the shops and in a day or two outfit a new home?

  Yet there was a sterility in the cupboards and drawers that gave no clues as to the personalities of the people who came there. Nothing was chipped, or worn, among the utensils there were no old favourites handed down from Gran, no scatter of corks, plastic ties and cheap souvenir spoons, no jar lids, broken sellotape dispensers, or the screw tops of rubber hot-water bottles. No sense of life’s accumulation that gives individuality to a place. ‘It’s rather like a huge dolls’ house,’ she told Hartley.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, without understanding, but willing to give affirmation. ‘I don’t suppose they come here more than a few times a year, and they don’t rent it out. Let’s go down to the beach and have a walk after being in the car. There’s plenty of time. I’ll just bring in all the stuff.’

  You didn’t need to arrange a house,’ she said. ‘We could’ve just been on the beach.’

  ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t sure about the weather.’ There was another reason, but he didn’t mention that. You couldn’t expect a woman like Sarah to lie down among trees or dunes to make love, have her clothes rubbed into the earth, or sand, and her hair roughed by the ground.

  He brought packages and a chilly bin from the car, put things in the fridge, refused any help from her.

  ‘What have you got in there?’ she said, knowing the care and time he would have taken over every choice, each purchase, and aware all of it was because of her.

  ‘Never you mind. All in good time,’ he said. ‘Anyway, get your togs on and we’ll be off to the beach. I’ve been before. It’s not far.’ It was a long time since she had heard anyone use the word ‘togs’. It carried associations of school baths and family picnics.

  Omaha wasn’t a collection of seaside baches, but more like a town suburb: sealed roads with kerbs, pricey homes with double garages, fenced gardens and television dishes. The beach of pale sand was natural, however, and not crowded. Hartley and Sarah sat on their towels, wore their hats low to avoid the glare of the sun, talked with an almost dreamy freedom, as if most days were spent together and in a similar way. They talked of likes and dislikes, expectations and realities, things funny peculiar and things funny ha ha. They didn’t talk of Robert, or of Madeleine. With their talk they drew a perimeter around themselves as if to keep time from moving on.

  ‘I wonder what was the closest we came to each other before that day at the murdered girl’s grave,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There must have been times since you’ve been up here that we were quite close, maybe even passed each other in the street, or in a shop, and didn’t know we loved each other.’

  ‘Well, of course we couldn’t.’

  ‘But everything was waiting for that connection, wasn’t it? The important things are set up, I reckon, and the opportunity comes round.’

  ‘I’m not much of a believer in fate,’ said Sarah. ‘It seems to me you make decisions and live by the results. There’s chance, but self-determination as well.’

  ‘Well, anyway, we met and we’re here. Bloody marvellous.’ His openness, his vulnerability, was almost boyish, and surprised her. How easily he would be hurt.

  ‘What was the murdered girl’s name again?’

  ‘Emily Keeling.’

  ‘What did she say at the end about loving and dying?’ asked Sarah idly.

  ‘She said, “Love me, I am dying”, according to the newspaper report.’ Each knew the other was thinking of the contrast between past tragedy and their present happiness, and neither felt the need to allude to it. To be alive, together and in love set them on a special height too fragile to be questioned.

  Afterwards they swam with others, drawing in breath and stomach at th
e first encounter with the cool, swelling sea, and then relaxing, lolling almost in it as they became accustomed to the temperature. The one-piece costume caused small bulges of white flesh at Sarah’s armpits and cut into her thighs, but Hartley thought how beautiful she was. They went far enough beyond the small waves to be in unbroken water, and swam rather clumsily and happily there together. She didn’t want to get her hair wet, but he ducked himself completely under the surface several times, and came up laughing, his soft, grey hair plastered like seaweed to his face. Because of that his features seemed more marked, his ears standing out, his eyes larger, darker.

  ‘This is the way to work up an appetite,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ll have an appetite for lunch,’ he said loudly.

  First, though, they left the water, sat a while on the towels again to let their bodies dry. The sand on their legs, dark and damp initially, was soon grey-white and loose, falling away with just a brush of the hand. There were other people, some lying passively in the heat, some loud with companions, some wandering at the water line, but not a crowd, and none close enough to intrude.

  ‘I haven’t been to a beach for ages,’ said Sarah.

  ‘There’s always that same smell, isn’t there? That smell of the ocean and the land at the same time.’