“Could you come and hang onto this for a second?”
“Pardon?”
Matt had lifted the window upright and was watching her, waiting. She jumped up.
“Sorry!”
“If you could support this while I try the sashes. Just lean into its weight. It’s not heavy that way.”
Ally held the frame straight while Matt worked on the other side. She watched him through the glass. He was broad-shouldered, and his stomach was impressively flat. The muscles in his arms flexed as he slid the sashes up and down.
“How old are you?” she asked suddenly.
He looked at her through the glass, shaking his head. “You and your questions! What would you say if I asked you your age?”
“I’d tell you I was thirty-four.”
He smiled. “Fair enough. I’m forty-two.”
“You’re in good shape for your age.”
“See, when you add ‘for your age,’ it kind of undermines the compliment.”
“Do you work out?”
He crouched down, adjusting the length of the sash cord. “Oh sure.”
“How often?”
“Five or six days a week.”
“Really? How long each day?”
He looked up at her, “Oh, probably seven hours a day.”
“You’re having me on!”
He stood up, grinning. “I don’t need to go to a gym. I pick up heavy stuff all day, climb ladders, hammer. That’s all the workout I need.”
Ally thought about Bryce and all the money he spent on gym membership. “You don’t do anything else, really?”
He shook his head. “Except ride a horse occasionally, if that counts.”
Ally cringed. The Man from bloody Snowy River indeed. Meg would have a field day.
* * *
Matt was securing the last of the windows back in place while Ally collected up his gear and packed it into the truck. For the last hour a wall of dark cloud had been advancing from the south. The wind was building up, tossing the branches on the trees violently, cooling the heat from the ground. Ally felt the first large dollop of rain fall on her bare arms.
She let out a squeal. “It’s starting to rain!”
“I’m done anyway,” Matt announced, stepping down the ladder. He lifted it away from the wall and carried it to the truck.
The rain splatters came faster and faster until the sky opened and promptly fell on them. Ally squealed again, lowering her head as she went to run inside. She felt Matt’s hand on her arm, holding her back.
“Where are you going?” He had to shout over the noise of the rain pelting on the tin roof of a nearby shed.
“Under cover.”
“Why? It’s been so hot, let the rain cool you off.”
He still had hold of her arm. He was looking at her intently. Ally found it unnerving. She raised her face to the sky, closing her eyes. She could feel the rain soaking through her clothes, her hair. It did feel good, exhilarating even. When she opened her eyes, Matt was still watching her, smiling.
“My boots are getting wet,” she declared, and dashed across to the verandah. Matt followed her and she handed him a towel from the laundry. They stood drying off, watching the rain fall. It was getting heavier by the minute.
“It’s really set in now,” said Matt. “It’ll probably rain for the rest of the week.”
Ally sighed. “Typical Southern Highlands. Wet one day, raining the next.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“When I was growing up it felt like that. Every time it rained, the creek flooded and I had to stay home for days at a time. We couldn’t get out.”
“Most kids like any excuse to get out of school.”
“Not when it’s your only respite.”
Matt paused. “I get the impression you didn’t enjoy growing up here much.”
“No, not much.” Ally wanted to change the subject. “Can I get you a coffee, a beer maybe?”
“No, I’d better make tracks, get home before it’s dark and check there’s no water getting in anywhere.”
Ally remembered her grandfather’s drafty house, with gaps everywhere, and buckets placed haphazardly across the floor when it rained. “Leaks, huh?” she said knowingly.
He shook his head, “No, it’s just that I’ve left windows open.”
“Oh.”
He handed her back the towel. “Well, thanks for all your help, Ally.”
She shrugged. “It gave me something to do. It’s a bit lonely wandering around here on my own.”
“Sorry, I didn’t think about that,” said Matt. “Lillian will have my hide. I should have taken you up the road for a drink.”
“That’s okay.” Ally suddenly felt a little shy of him.
“Do you want to get some dinner or something tonight?”
“No, please, don’t worry about me. I think all I’ll be good for tonight is a soak in a bath.”
He nodded. “You’re going to feel it in your muscles later.”
“What do you mean later?” she grinned at him.
Matt smiled back. He seemed to be hesitating. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you around.”
Ally nodded. “Probably.”
“Bye Alaska,” he said, stepping off the verandah and back into the rain.
“Matt!” she scolded.
But he couldn’t hear her over the rain.
* * *
Ally was aching from head to toe. She walked wearily up the stairs and turned the taps on in the bath, before peeling off her grimy clothes. As she leaned over the bath to test the water temperature, Ally caught sight of her naked body in the full-length mirror. She sighed, this was why she never kept a full-length mirror in the bathroom. It was always a shock to be confronted by her thirtysomething body. For some reason, Ally’s mental picture of herself was as she was at seventeen. No wonder she was constantly disappointed.
She used to be so smug when she saw ads for cellulite treatments before she turned thirty. Then there was that particularly ugly evening, bingeing on fruit and nut chocolate and cooking sherry, after she’d seen the first hints of cottage cheese dimpling on her thighs. Meg complained that pregnancy had ruined her figure, but Ally insisted that it happened anyway. Everything went soft, and worse, headed south. She piled her hair into a loose bun on top of her head. There was another horror. Those loose bits under her arms. They were certainly not there when she was seventeen.
She stepped into the lukewarm bath, the weightlessness having an immediate soothing effect on her tired limbs. The effort involved in soaping her body proved too much. Ally sank lower into the deep bath and closed her eyes. She could feel herself drifting off. She’d heard that drowning was a very relaxing way to go, though how the ubiquitous “they” knew that, she had to wonder. Ally started to daydream, imagining Matt arriving at the house tomorrow, calling her name, then walking up the stairs to find her floating, blue and lifeless, like a baby whale in the bath.
Then she remembered he wouldn’t be coming tomorrow. She sighed and dragged herself up out of the water.
The next day
Ally hadn’t set the alarm clock, but she woke around seven anyway. She lay in bed looking out the window at the dull sky. The rain was still falling, but not as heavily as last night. It was depressing. It brought back too many memories of endless days trapped at the house, with nowhere to escape but into a book.
The air was cooler today Ally discovered as she stepped out onto the verandah with her morning cup of tea. She had automatically taken two cups out of the cupboard before she remembered she was alone. She went back inside, rinsed her cup and the plate she had used for toast and stacked them to drain. She put the milk back into the fridge. There, her chores were done for the day. Now what?
The phone rang, saving her from making that decision for the moment.
“Hello Ally?” a deep voice asked when she picked up the phone. “It’s Matt.”
How many men did he think she had ringing her? �
��Hi Matt.”
“How are you feeling today?”
“I’m alright,” she said tentatively.
“Your muscles aren’t suffering too much?”
“Oh,” she said, realizing what he meant. “Not yet, I rubbed a lot of that mentholated stuff in last night.”
“At least you’ll get to rest today.”
“Mm,” said Ally, hoping he didn’t sense her despondency.
“Listen, I’ll be coming up to town later on, so can I take you for that drink, or even for a meal?”
Ally held her breath. Why couldn’t she speak?
“Ally?”
“Sorry Matt, I was just thinking. I have to wait for a phone call from Lillian.”
“Gee, that’s worse than saying you have to wash your hair.”
“But it’s true! She’s calling to let me know what train she’ll be on tomorrow. I have to pick her up from the station.”
“When do you expect her to call?”
“I’m not sure.”
There was a pause.
“I tell you what,” said Matt, “why don’t I give you my mobile number, and then, after she calls, you can phone me?”
“Okay, but I don’t know what time it will be,” Ally said, trying not to sound negative.
“That doesn’t matter.”
She jotted his number on the message pad as he dictated.
“So you’ll call?”
“Sure, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
Ally hung up the phone and stared at the numbers she had just written on the pad. What the hell was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just accept a simple invitation to go out for a drink? She was over Bryce, wasn’t she?
* * *
“You are over Bryce, aren’t you, or aren’t you?” Meg asked when Ally phoned her later.
“Yes!” Ally insisted. “It’s not that, I don’t think.”
“’Cause he’s been ringing me, you know, driving me bananas.”
“You’re kidding, what does he want?”
“Oh, he keeps whining about you leaving your mobile off and that he can’t get in touch with you.”
Ally sighed. “I haven’t had it on since I came down here. I didn’t want him bothering me.”
“Well, could you arrange to have him stop bothering me?”
“Sorry, Meg. I’ll talk to him.”
Beeps came onto the line. “That’s your call waiting signal,” said Meg.
“Is it? Don’t worry, I usually ignore it. I think it’s rude.”
“Ally! This is a business line. Look, all you do is press—”
“There. It’s stopped. And I wouldn’t have answered it anyway.”
“How can you stand it? It could be anybody on the other line.”
“If it’s important, they’ll call back.”
“But what if they don’t? You might miss something that could change your life forever.”
Ally frowned. “Yeah, like a pay TV salesman. Besides, you should stay with the original call,” she explained. “It’s common courtesy. I always feel second best when the person I’m talking to takes the other call, especially when they come back to you and say, ‘Sorry, got to go.’ I don’t need that kind of rejection.”
“Al, pull yourself together. It’s only a phone call,” said Meg dryly. “So tell me about this guy?”
“He’s not a “guy!’ Ally winced.
“What do you mean? What is he, a horse?”
“No, I mean, well, he’s just a friend, a friend of Lillian’s. And of mine, I guess. Well now he is, you know, a friend of mine. More than an acquaintance. Yes, I’d call him a friend.”
“You’re rambling.”
“I’m not.”
“What’s he look like?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“Is he ugly?”
“No!”
“Is he thick?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Does he smell bad?”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m just trying to work out what’s stopping you from going out with him.”
Ally paused. “I just feel a bit uneasy around him.”
“Why, do you think he might be an axe murderer?”
“No!”
“Then what is it?”
“I guess, it’s just, well, he reminds me a bit of my grandfather.”
“What, he looks like your grandfather?” Meg exclaimed.
“No, not at all.”
“Then what is your problem?”
“He’s like my grandfather in other ways. He lives out of town on a property, alone, in an unfinished house. It just feels like my childhood revisited.”
“Ally, he’s asked you out for a drink, not for your hand in marriage. He could live in a frigging treehouse. You can still have a drink with him.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“And you might even get laid if you’re lucky.”
“Meg!”
“Oh, don’t be such a prude. As if you never had sex with anyone before Bryce. God, you’re so stitched up since you’ve been with him, you don’t know how to relax and have a good time anymore.”
Ally released an audible sigh.
“Now, will you ring him?”
“Okay.”
“As soon as you get off the phone from me?”
She hesitated.
“Ally!”
“Okay, I’ll ring him as soon as I get off the phone from you.”
“You’d better, and I expect a full report next time we speak.”
Meg put down the receiver as Simon appeared at the door of her office.
“Coming to the Carlton launch tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m your date. We can’t get a babysitter.” She hadn’t actually tried, and no doubt Chris’s mother would have been willing, but she felt a night apart might do them some good. A product launch was hardly the most exciting prospect. But it was at the MCA. And they always served good champagne.
“Do you want me to pick you up?”
“It’s okay, I can get a cab.”
“I’ll pick you up. Seven-thirty?”
“You’re a sweetheart. But the launch doesn’t start till eight.”
“Yes, but by the time we drive in to town, park—”
“We’ll be exactly on time!” Meg finished. “You’re so not cool, Simon. You let your team down.”
“My team?” he frowned, then rolled his eyes. “Oh, of course. The gay fraternity. Where everybody thinks and acts alike, and it’s Mardi Gras every night of the year.” He shook his head, turning to leave. “Don’t forget it’s black tie.”
“But I don’t have a black tie,” Meg called after him as he walked off down the corridor.
Nine p.m.
“Why won’t you dance with me?” Meg whined.
“Because you’ll embarrass me.”
“I promise I won’t.”
Simon considered her skeptically. “That’s what you always say, and you start off fine, then as soon as the tempo picks up, you start jumping all over the place like an orangutan in heat.”
Meg frowned. “That’s not very flattering.”
“My point exactly.”
“You’re not much of a date. Chris always dances with me.”
“Then you should have brought him.” He paused. “By the way, why didn’t you? Is he finally getting sick of being dragged to your work functions?”
“No.” Chris would go anywhere with Meg. He never complained like the other spouses did. “We couldn’t get a sitter, I told you.”
Meg sipped her champagne, avoiding eye contact with Simon. He could always see right through her, and he was using his X-ray vision on her now.
“You’ve never had any problem getting babysitters before. I thought Chris’s mother was permanently on call?”
Meg shrugged absently, looking around the room. “Oh look, there’s that actress who just had the boob job. I read
it in Who Weekly.”
“Is everything alright with you and Chris?”
“Omigod!” Meg breathed, looking wide-eyed over Simon’s shoulder.
“What?” he said, turning around.
Meg yanked at the sleeve of his jacket. “No! Don’t look now, he’s watching. Did you know he was coming? Who would have invited him?”
“Who?” Simon went to turn around again, but Meg took hold of his arm firmly.
“Not now!”
“Meg, how can I tell you anything if you don’t let me see who you’re talking about?”
“Okay, but don’t make it obvious.”
Simon shook his head, clearly exasperated. He turned around slowly and scanned the room. Meg stood beside him. “He’s over there, in the tux.”
“You’re not serious.”
“What?”
“Meg, every man in the room is wearing a tux.”
“Sorry. He’s standing by the bar, blond hair.” A smile played around Meg’s lips. “He looks a bit like Brad Pitt, don’t you reckon?”
Simon was squinting. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. If the lights were dimmed, to a short-sighted person, he might bear a vague resemblance.”
Meg dug him in the ribs. “Don’t you think he’s good-looking?”
“He’s a bit scruffy. He needs a shave and a decent haircut if you ask me.”
“Of course, but that’s because your kind prefer ‘thin and neat.’”
“Oh, here she goes again,” Simon frowned. “What’s with the blatant stereotyping lately, Meg?”
But Meg wasn’t listening to him. “Shh! He’s coming this way!” She swung around in front of Simon. “Just talk normally.”
“What, pretend you’re not a complete fruitcake?”
Meg affected a laugh. “Oh, is that right, Simon?” she said loudly, adding in a whisper, “Is he still coming?”
There was a twinkle in Simon’s eyes. “He is! He’s getting warmer. Warmer. Hot even! The excitement is building. I don’t think I can stand it!”
“Stop it!” she said under her breath.
“Is that you, Meg?”
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