Sweet Delights

by P. L. Harris

  “Nice set of wheels,” he said, as she loaded his bags into the boot.

  Nice set of pins.

  He was noticing her properly for the first time. His good Samaritan wore black bike shorts that showed a shapely set of legs disappearing into fluorescent pink trainers. The top half was quite comely as well.

  Keep your eyes to yourself.

  She pulled a small white towel from the back seat and handed it to him. He shook his head. “I’ll bleed all over it.”

  “Better that than the upholstery,’ she said. “It’s an old towel. Don’t worry about it.”

  What would worry a woman who was game enough to parade herself in the world with crazy pink hair? Nothing much, probably.

  “I’m Larry, by the way.”

  “And I’m Joy.”

  Joy to the world.

  He sank into the passenger seat and told her where he lived.

  IN LARRY’S KITCHEN, Joy surveyed the sad remains of a double sponge cake that looked as if it had been used as a punching bag. “That’ll never win first at the Ekka now,” she said.

  Oh, she was a funny one, this Joy.

  “What are you going to do with it now?”

  “Feed the mice,” Larry said.

  Joy laughed, a rich-bodied guffaw that wasn’t afraid of how much space it occupied in a room. It surprised him, considering the tininess of the body that produced it.

  “Umm, actually, it’s my grandson Timmy’s birthday today,” Larry said. “I was going to go over to my daughter’s place tonight to celebrate. I planned to decorate the cake with whipped cream and poke Smarties into the top to spell out his age.” Was that a sceptical look she gave him? “I’ll have you know,” he said with mock affront, “that I am a man who knows his way around electric beaters.”

  She might have smirked, but the expression was so fleeting that he could have imagined it. They both considered the sponge debacle. “Try plan B,” Joy said.

  Larry’s face crumpled like the cake. “Call an Uber and drop by a patisserie on the way?”

  “Why don’t you clean yourself up, and I’ll run you back to the shopping centre. You can buy another cake and collect your car.”

  He flapped a hand in the air, the spare hand that wasn’t holding a towel to his chin. “No, no, no. You’ve already been tremendously kind. I refuse to put you to any more bother.”

  “No bother,” Joy said. “But I’d love a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I believe that you have one on hand.” She glanced around the kitchen. “Where do you keep the teabags?”

  “I don’t have tea bags.”

  Joy raised an eyebrow. “No tea?”

  “Leaf tea,” he said, indicating a dark brown cannister next to an ornament shaped like a red speckled hen. “Next to the teapot.”

  “I’ve never had chook tea before,” she said with a smile.

  “It’s hard to take yourself too seriously when you start the day on chook tea,” Larry said. “I find it enormously cheering.”

  He made a special effort to hold himself straight. The back of a younger man, the stride of a young man, that’s what he wanted Joy to notice.

  “Make yourself at home,” he called over his shoulder as he sauntered down the hall towards the bathroom. “You’ll find what you need in the usual places.”

  The split in his chin wasn’t as bad as the copious amount of blood suggested. He pulled off his shirt and dropped it onto the tiles on top of the bloodied towel. Gingerly he bathed his face and wiped away drying trickles of blood from his throat. He rummaged in the second drawer and found a packet of butterfly Band-aids that hadn’t been opened since the kids were young. As he pulled the gaping edges of his split flesh together, he grimaced. Probably his chin did need stitches. Fortunately, the adhesive held when he pressed the Band-aid into place.

  “You’re a rakish looking fellow with your war wound,” he told his reflection. He tried to ignore his gravel-rashed elbow, which stung like the devil.

  When he re-emerged in the kitchen, he was wearing a baggy old Midnight Oil T-shirt, always his favourite. He patted his stomach, which was still flat. Not as taut as in his youth, the skin a bit sloppy, but he hadn’t let himself go like some of his cohorts on the golf course. How comfortable it was to slide onto a chair and see a woman’s face across the kitchen table again.

  “Milk? Sugar?”

  He shook his head and watched Joy pour with a practised swoop. She had found plates, butter, and strawberry jam.

  “Shall I?” she asked, knife raised.

  “Please.”

  She cut two large slices from the relatively undamaged part of the cake and proceeded to slather her slice with enough butter and jam to send a normal person into a diabetic coma. Then she tucked in, hardly drawing breath.

  “I always forget how ravenous I feel after a lesson,” Joy said with a contented sigh. She leaned back in her chair and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.

  Larry put down his fork and pushed his plate aside, half of his cake untouched. He raised a single eyebrow, a skill he had developed in his teenage years because he thought that it would make him look interesting.

  “Pilates,” Joy said. “That’s where I was coming from when you ran into me. The physio practice upstairs...” With her index finger she pointed towards the kitchen ceiling, as if they were still in the forecourt of the shopping centre where they had collided. “They conduct classes every Friday.”

  He wanted to correct her. Actually, she had run into him. “That’s good,” he said lamely.

  “‘Fit after sixty’—you might have seen the advertising.”

  Sixty! Now that he’d had a chance to surreptitiously study Joy’s face, he realised that she was not as young as her spryness suggested.

  “Some of us are in our eighties,” Joy said.

  “Good lord.”

  “Pilates strengthens the core muscles,” Joy went on cheerfully. “Helps keep the pelvic floor in tiptop working order.”

  Did she slip him a sly wink, or was that something else he also imagined?

  My God, this tiny woman’s appetite for life!

  LARRY FOUND SOMETHING inside himself, something he thought he had lost after the death of his wife. Hope clanged around his head like outmoded utensils in the back of the kitchen drawers. What would he say if he were to see Joy again? — he didn’t know. He didn’t want to acknowledge the desires he was trying not to feel. But damn fool, he’d let Joy drive away without getting her phone number.

  All that was left of her was a hand towel that used to be white. He didn’t care about his shirt. Already a plan was fermenting. He would wash the towel and return it to her. Something that his wife had said about blood stains niggled, so he did a search online. Cold water, that was the secret. Afterwards, he machine-washed the towel and let the dryer tumble it into sweet-smelling fluffiness.

  He found himself fronting up to his old gym, handing over his credit card for assessment with an exercise physiologist. He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t going to launch into a rigorous program and drop dead from a heart attack because he hadn’t done more than walk around a golf course since Carol died. He wasn’t even an avid golfer, but it got him out of the house. Funny how he had let things slide. In his youth, he had loved bush-walking, but Carol hadn’t enjoyed camping. Her idea of roughing it was slow room service.

  When he retired, the plan was that they would buy a campervan or motorhome and would spend a year travelling around Australia. The trade-off for Carol was that they’d spend six months in New Zealand staying at Airbnbs. But sometimes he wondered: when every decision felt like a compromise, was either party ever truly happy? Then Carol became sick, and soon it wasn’t wise to travel overseas or remote regional areas.

  The following Friday morning Larry drove to the shopping centre. The designated senior’s car space was right in front of the concrete stairs leading up to the physiotherapy practice. He drove past it and parked further along the row. In his heart he was thir
ty. No way was he occupying a spot for the old and infirm.

  He reasoned that the Pilates class must run from ten to eleven, because that was when Joy had collided with him. All he needed to do was wait, then adroitly nip out as soon as she appeared at the bottom of the steps. He would raise his arm in greeting and call out: “Joy, fancy seeing you again!” He’d ask her to coffee at the little café a few doors up, maybe even an early lunch. No pressure.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Eleven ten. She should be down by now. Had he missed her? He couldn’t have missed her. Eleven twenty. He must have missed her. The mountain must go to Mohamed. With calculated speed, he mounted the stairs. He didn’t want to be puffing and wheezing when he arrived.

  A blond-haired woman in glasses behind the reception desk looked up at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I was wondering if Joy was in today?”

  “Joy?”

  “Yes, Joy from Pilates. She does a class here.”

  The receptionist smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, I’m new.” She turned and called into the curtained space behind her. “Does anyone know a Joy from Pilates?”

  Larry moved from foot to foot. Presently, another woman in a navy uniform emerged from a corridor beside the curtains.

  “Who did you want to see?”

  He started to think that he was going mad. Had Joy made up the Pilates story? Was she a random nutter? Once he was in her car, she might have driven him off to meet a robber and assassin.

  “Joy,” he said, in a voice that was far from joyful.

  “Joy Madrigal?” Larry nodded eagerly. His heart skipped a beat. “We’re not expecting Joy back for a while.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Do you know how I can get in contact with her?”

  The uniformed woman’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, but we can’t pass on personal information. Privacy laws.”

  “But she lent me an item. I’d like to return it.”

  The woman opened her arms in apology. “Sorry.”

  Larry took a deep breath. Madrigal. Joy Madrigal, he hummed to himself as he trotted down the stairs.

  OH MR GOOGLE–—WHAT have we here? The computer screen drank Larry’s eyes. The significance of Joy’s pink hair descended upon him like a thunderclap. National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Of course! Why had he assumed that she merely indulged eccentric fashion tastes? In a fever, he tracked down a Facebook page that listed a long line of fund-raising activities ranging from shaving, cutting, and colouring their hair to all sorts of physical challenges. He found a photo of one group cycling from Brisbane to Cairns as a fund raiser for research. A bunch of helmeted men and women of all age groups, all wearing bright pink vests, stood beside their bikes. He scrutinised the group, zeroing in on the tiniest figure. He blew out his breath. She was something else, this Joy Madrigal.

  He could buy a bike and join the group. But he hadn’t ridden a bike for thirty years. Only then did he consider that Joy might have a partner. An arrow of fear pieced his heart. Wishful thinking, hopeless and irrational, was making a fool of him.

  Daily, someone posted on Facebook about the group’s progress, possibly someone in a pilot vehicle (surely, they’d have a pilot vehicle to warn motorists of their approach?) By the time the group reached Maryborough, two cyclists had pulled out. How tough it would be, riding into headwinds, the road seeming more uphill than down. Little did Larry predict how tracking Joy’s progress would make him so addicted to Facebook. But oblivious to his ardent wish for the group’s safety, during a shower of rain outside Bundaberg, the lead rider’s bike skidded on an oil-slick. Three of the cyclists careened into her in a tangle of spinning wheels, twisted metal and broken, abraded limbs. Fortunately, the riders involved sustained relatively minor injuries. Joy Madrigal had broken her wrist. She mightn’t be able to ride, but she could still contribute. She accepted an invitation to speak at a support group morning tea in Bundaberg. A white club of plaster wasn’t going to silence Joy Madrigal.

  Instantly, Larry knew what he must do.

  He drove to Bundaberg. In a function room brightened with pink streamers and balloons, the morning tea was in full swing when he arrived. Over a jangle of cutlery and crockery and a racket of animated voices, loud gusts of laughter erupted throughout the room. He squeezed his way to a discreet corner which had an unobstructed view of the stage. At a trestle table decorated with a white tablecloth swathed in pink sashes, a group of six women, including Joy, were seated. Larry’s heart quickened at his first sight of her. He thought pink hair suited her. Pink was a badge of honour and shining hope.

  An air of anticipation rippled through the room and the hubbub briefly subsided. When Joy was introduced, spontaneous applause broke out from the audience as she rose to her feet. Larry saw her take a deep breath, and he held his.

  “Five years ago, I had no idea whether I would be here today,” Joy Madrigal said. “Not because of this—” She held her plastered wrist aloft for a moment. “—because who could predict coming a gutser off your bike at the age of 68?” Laughter clattered through the audience. “But because no-one—doctors, research scientists, even astrologists—knew what the outcome of my treatment might be.” Her eyes swept the room. “I did not know whether I would be alive in five year’s time.” She raised both arms in a victory gesture and Larry saw a beam of sunlight move across the room. He held his breath, as if he were in the presence of something miraculous. “But here I am, one of the lucky ones, still cancer free.”

  When the meeting concluded, a small knot of animated women clustered around Joy. Larry patiently waited near the exit and stepped out as she finally made her getaway.

  “Who’s been in the wars now?” he said in a joking voice.

  Joy blinked. “Larry?” For a moment he didn’t know whether her shocked expression registered delight or dismay. But the lines around her eyes crinkled and she laughed her deep-throated chuckle. “A bit of one-upmanship,” she said, “though I may have overdone it a trifle.”

  “How are you?” he said. “Apart from the obvious. I wondered if your accident would prevent you from speaking today.”

  She looked at him in amusement. “I broke my wrist, not my brain.”

  Larry knew he was only going to have one shot at this, so he’d better make it a good one. “Then while you’re in this delusional state, would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  Early that evening, he drove her out to Bargara to a restaurant overlooking a sparkling sea. He ordered champagne and they toasted her good fortune in attaining the magical five-year milestone. A full moon, bright and silver, rose above the water.

  Joy told him about her divorce, nothing acrimonious, they’d simply drifted apart; the tough years of having a drug-addicted son, the shock of breast cancer, the anxious road to recovery. He let her talk, encouraging her with little hmms and nods. Had anyone closely listened to her for a long time?

  “Even the fund-raising ride was tougher than I imagined—before the spill, I mean,” she confided, with a little self-deprecating shrug. “It was hardly the Tour de France, and we had frequent stops, but there were times when I felt like I couldn’t go any further.” She paused. Briefly, her gaze bored into his. “But of course, you must.” Then she gave him a shy smile, so unlike her usual persona that he had a flash of the effort required for her to maintain that indomitable façade. “I never considered quitting—until the crash.” She gave a little laugh. “At our age, we’re all a bit broken.”

  “Only in a couple of body parts,” Larry said. “Most of me is entirely intact.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it.” She gave him an impish grin.

  They sat in a pool of golden light from an overhead shade that hung low over their table. Larry wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he and Joy seemed to be suspended in an otherworldly space that he had no name for. He could tell her anything. About Carol, about his own dodgy heart, the arthritis that seemed to line some joints with gravel, the t
roubles he’d had learning to live alone.

  “It’s hard to cook for one,” he said. “The fridge is always full of left-overs.”

  “So I noticed.” And there was that disarming laugh again.

  After a lull in the conversation, almost emptied out, he leaned forward, his face beaming. “Do you know what I’m going to do when I get back to Brisbane?”

  “Shock me,” Joy said.

  Larry doubted that anyone could. Instead, he said: “I’m going to buy a motorhome.”

  Joy’s eyes widened slightly, then she chuckled. “That’s almost a rite of passage for baby boomers.”

  “My God, we live in such a beautiful country.” A Dorothea Mackellar poem about a sunburnt country came to mind. “It’s almost our civic duty to explore it while we’re able.”

  Joy clinked her flute against his, though hardly any of the straw-coloured liquid was left in either glass. “Perhaps not by bicycle,” she said.

  His hand glided across the white table cloth and met with hers in the middle. Briefly, their fingers intertwined. In that small act of tenderness and grace, something passed between them that required no words. Both their hands slid away.

  “Now for something wickedly sweet,” Larry said, and caught the eye of their waiter. “The dessert menu, thanks.”

  Years later, they still argued about which of them had made the first move, who had first fallen.

  Count Me In

  Sioban Timmer

  Tilly pushed open the heavy timber door and let out a sigh of relief.

  Thank goodness, the place was full.

  No matter how many successful events she planned, she always thought today would be the day no one turned up. The only seat left was a bar stool, smoothing the front of her shirt she looked down at the tailored black pants she had swapped for the skirt she originally laid out, good decision much easier to perch on a barstool in pants.

  She ordered a glass of wine and scanned the room. There were no familiar faces, as most of the sales had been online and no doubt Sienna would be late as usual. The bartender placed the wine in front of her with a nod and she sipped it slowly.