The Art of Persuasion

by Midalia, Susan;

  You couldn’t live at this pitch of feeling. You would die with the intensity.

  She took several deep breaths and made herself listen to the birds, until their cooing and squawking drove her mad.

  Fucking nature.

  She looked down at her dress: her little black lacy number. Her seductive flourish. She’d said goodbye to her bewildered friends, caught a taxi to Claremont Quarter and tried on the dress and knew it looked just right: both elegant and alluring, at two hundred hard-earned dollars. But now, looking down at this extravagance, this conspicuous symbol of hope, she was feeling silly and cheap, with her bare shoulders and hint of cleavage, trying not to think of what on earth she might say and what she might do with her body. Because the words coming out of her mouth would come out of a person with a heart and hands and legs and hips and breasts and all of her that wanted him. She’d been anxious and afraid and incredulous and brave and now she was stewing with anger. Was this what it meant to be in love?

  And then, at last. His shiny blue car slowing down, pulling into the driveway, and all her impatience and vexation and feeling ridiculous flew up into the sky and she was left on the ground feeling nothing in her body but the weight of her desire. His door began to open—why did it take so long to open a door?—and she saw his legs and his chest and finally his handsome, rather sombre face, and he was closing the door and he would soon be with her. He was wearing an oversized T-shirt and baggy shorts, a bright red towel slung over his shoulder. So. He’d been swimming. She saw him brush back his hair and look up at the porch as she stood up to meet him. He stopped. Stopped dead. Stared.

  ‘Hazel?’

  He climbed the steps carefully, still looking, always looking, but keeping his distance and mightily unsure.

  ‘I didn’t recognise you,’ he said. ‘Your hair.’

  ‘It’s still me.’

  ‘And…your dress…’

  She smoothed it over her hips, pushed her breasts forward, just a little.

  ‘Why…I mean…why are you here?’ he said.

  ‘Because you live here.’

  Still he didn’t move towards her.

  ‘I thought we could go dancing,’ she said.

  The towel slipped off his shoulder but he didn’t pick it up.

  ‘Dancing,’ he said, blankly.

  ‘Yes. Is that agreeable to you?’

  He didn’t speak, didn’t move.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Candace,’ she said. ‘Or rather, she’s been talking to me. She walked into a bar and I just happened to be there. Talk about lucky.’

  He flushed.

  ‘What she told me was—how can I say this—instructive. Enlightening.’

  He was looking anxious and frozen to the spot but she was feeling bold now, and fearless. Because she knew him and she wouldn’t let him leave her again, gathering all her strength into her two bare arms, walking towards him, stopping right in front of him.

  ‘I’ve come for you,’ she said.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Oh yes. Most definitely.’

  His hands dropped by his side. ‘I can’t do this,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t do what?’

  ‘This. Us.’

  ‘Oh, you told me that once before. When you lied to me.’

  He swallowed. ‘Because I was afraid.’

  She waited. He said nothing.

  ‘What were you afraid of, Adam? Please tell me.’

  He lowered his gaze, then looked at her again. ‘That you would find someone else.’

  ‘But I’m not your wife.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I mean…you’ll end up wanting someone much younger than me. You won’t want to spend the best years of your life looking after an ailing man.’ He shook his head. ‘Hazel, I’m much too old for you. I’m—’

  ‘Oh, Candace told me how old you are. And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I had you pegged at around seventy, sixty-five in a really dim light.’

  His face tightened. ‘It’s not funny,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that amazes me, too. You’d led me to believe that my sense of humour was one of my most attractive features.’

  ‘You don’t understand what it’s like to be me. I don’t want to be a—you know—a cliché.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She felt suddenly stung. ‘So what does that make me, then? The answer to your midlife crisis? Your little bit of fluff, just for fun?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean that.’ He was agitated now, his voice almost pleading. ‘I mean that it’s impossible. It can’t be done. There’s Jessie. He’s exhausting. He often wakes up in the night.’

  ‘And I often wake up in the night. Easily fixed. I can read him a story and we’ll both fall asleep again.’

  ‘But…but…he never stops talking.’

  ‘I have the same problem.’

  ‘He likes to be the centre of attention.’

  ‘Likewise. So we’re a perfect match.’

  ‘But you’ve only spent a few hours in his company. Hazel, you don’t know how difficult it can be. I’m afraid—’

  ‘That I’ll tire of him? Well, if I do, I’ll sit down at the table and put my face in a bowl of custard until I feel ready to play with him again.’

  There wasn’t the flicker of a smile on his face.

  She took a step back. Decided to change tactics.

  ‘I want you to listen to me, Adam,’ she said. ‘Listen very carefully. I’m a very serious woman, and you’re the most serious thing that’s ever happened to me. I know you’re a good man. You’ve always puts others before yourself. You wouldn’t sleep with me because you didn’t want to take advantage of my feelings for you. Although’—could she risk a joke?—‘I wouldn’t have minded a bit if you’d taken advantage of my feelings.’

  No smile there either.

  ‘I know how much you love Jessie. And it doesn’t matter to me that you can’t give me a child, not at all. And—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You have a child who isn’t yours, biologically, I mean, because Jessie is yours in every meaningful sense of that word. Because you love him for who he is. Which is about as good as love gets, I would have thought.’

  He was listening intently now, his face softer. She knew she was getting closer.

  ‘You see, don’t you?’ she said. ‘That it will be the same for me. I’m not Jessie’s mother but I would hope to love him too. Just as I would hope to love you.’

  ‘Hope to love me?’

  She knew she almost had him.

  ‘Or would you prefer me to love you right now?’ she said. She moved a fraction closer. ‘I know that you love me. Or you said you do, anyway.’

  ‘But how can you doubt that?’

  ‘Because you’re standing here full of excuses and evasions and you won’t let yourself be happy. And I can make you happy, whether you like it or not.’

  Was that a smile shadowing his face?

  ‘And how do we know what might happen?’ she said. ‘In five, ten years time. In a lifetime. You of all people, Adam, should understand that.’

  She knew she had to touch him. She would shatter into tiny, useless pieces if she didn’t touch him. And so she moved towards him and cupped his face with her hands and at last he was putting his arms around her, drawing her close, and she felt his body trembling. Now his mouth was on her mouth and they were meeting in a kiss, softly, carefully, and she tasted the salt of the waves on his lips and felt her own longing, she had never felt such longing in her life. Then their kisses became more urgent, fierce, hard kisses travelling right through her, until he drew away and searched her face again. As if he still wasn’t sure.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?’ she said. ‘We could have talked it through.’

  ‘Because I was afraid you would say yes.’

  He guided her to his bedroom with a hand in the small of her back. He took her hands and kissed one palm, the other palm, and she felt herself shiver as he took off her inessential
dress, her bra, undies, stood back to look at her, caressing her body with his eyes. And she moved towards him again, because she would always be moving towards him, pulling off his T-shirt and running her fingers through the hair on his chest, kissing that chest which wasn’t like the chests of the skinny boys she’d known, but solid. Substantial. And he was cradling her breasts, taking her nipples in his mouth, running his hands down her flanks, around her hips, and then it was her turn to lead him, hurrying him to the bed, pulling off his clothes, pulling him down on top of her. But he made her wait again, stroking her hair, kissing her neck, her stomach, her thighs, and at last he thrust inside her and she heard herself cry out as if it was the very first time. And they began to move together, slowly, looking into each other’s eyes, needing to see the pleasure they were giving and taking. Hers. His. Wanting to tell each other: you couldn’t be anyone else. She felt herself rising and coming and taking him with her and she held him close as he collapsed onto her chest, throbbing inside her, his hair damp with sweat, and curling on his neck. She let him rest in her softness, because she had never felt so tender, so loving. It felt to her like loving, as she began to press the bones of his back, one by one, counting him back into life.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to happen,’ he said.

  ‘But I did. You did. And it’s lovely.’

  She knew if she looked into a mirror, she would see a different face.

  It was a new kind of time, and a different kind of space, lying on his chest, just making out the shadow of his face, featureless and blurry. Or she would move away from him, trace the shape of his nose, brows, cheeks, mouth, wanting to know him through touch. They couldn’t stop touching, never moving from the bed. They couldn’t stop kissing, greedy kisses and gentle kisses and nibbling kisses and he held her and told her she was beautiful and how sorry he was for treating her so coldly, so cruelly, pretending not to care and yet wanting to know that she cared, telling her—blushing now to recall it—that a part of him had enjoyed knowing she was attracted, which was so cruel of him, so—she put a finger on his mouth. She was done with apologies and guilt and remorse, forever.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do with you,’ he said. ‘And with my feelings.’

  ‘And now you do.’

  He began to stroke her hair.

  ‘You look like a street urchin with that haircut,’ he said. ‘Gamin.’

  ‘Gamine, actually. For the feminine.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, smiling, and then nuzzled into her neck, as he loved to do, as she loved him to do. Already there were patterns, gestures to delight her.

  ‘It is very fetching, your hair,’ he said. ‘Very arousing.’

  She felt light-headed, lighthearted, with joy. ‘And you’re the most arousing man I’ve ever had sex with,’ she said. ‘And I’ve had seventy-eight lovers, remember?’

  He put an arm behind his head, lay back on the pillow. ‘So I’m good, then?’ he said. ‘With the sex thing.’

  ‘Pretty good. Although number seventy-two wasn’t bad either.’

  He rolled on top of her, asked her to tell him something true.

  ‘I’m ridiculously happy,’ she said.

  Later they dined on toast and tea and she told him not to get crumbs in the bed because she hated crumbs in a bed and because she somehow knew she could nag and boss and berate him and he would never stop wanting her. And then they made love again, which was more like fucking this time, and she liked this too, the feeling that he could have been a stranger, because she was safe in the arms of the most unique and magnificent man in a universe where gravity had ceased to exist, where everything was flying apart and floating and she had never felt so free.

  Later still they talked about Jessie, as she knew they must. Adam told her how his son kept asking when she was coming for lunch again. How she’d made him feel all strong on his birthday. How the gnu was really awesome, his favourite animal of all time because of the horns and beard and everything and why did you have to say the g in g-nu? She could hear Jessie’s little voice in Adam’s story.

  ‘He’ll be very pleased about us, Hazel.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, let me put it this way. He was mad at me because I didn’t bring you home anymore. He told me I must have been really horrible to you to make you stay away.’

  Hazel laughed. ‘Well now you can tell him that you’re being nice to me. Very nice.’ She traced his mouth with her fingers. ‘I’m pleased that both of you like me so much.’

  ‘He’s never warmed to anyone as he has with you.’

  ‘I don’t know how that happened.’

  ‘Which may well be why it did.’

  ‘You’re so wonderful with him, Adam. Not that—I don’t mean to patronise you.’

  He laughed. ‘Feel free,’ he said. ‘Patronise, lecture, tell me I’m a fool. I don’t mind at all.’

  He pulled her from the bed and slipped her little black dress over her head, smoothed it down and zipped it up. Then he pulled on his shorts and led her from the room. He put a CD into the player and moved towards her, embraced her, and they began to dance, swaying in time…I do, I do, I do, I do, I do. Which made her laugh and tell him she couldn’t possibly respect a man who liked Abba. He told her he didn’t want her respect, just her sweet mouth and pert breasts and the curve of her hips, the birthmark near her collarbone. And they began to sway again, moving together slowly, dreamily, to the world’s most soppy love song.

  She moved away, smiled into his eyes. ‘I heard you were miserable without me,’ she said.

  ‘I was bereft. I ached. And those doorknocking days without you…But it was easier, in a way, a lot easier. I didn’t have to keep hiding my erection.’

  Then he told her he wanted to be serious.

  ‘But an erection is very serious,’ she said, and bit his cheek, softly.

  ‘I longed for you every single day,’ he said. ‘Everything I did or said or thought, everything. It always came back to you. You’ve upended me completely and I’m madly in love with you.’

  She had released him into extravagance. She intended to keep it that way.

  ‘What did you notice first about me?’ she said. Because she was greedy now, for his stories.

  ‘Your eyes. I’d never seen eyes like the grey of the ocean.’ He shook his head. ‘And then I started talking nonsense, didn’t I? Peppering you with stupid questions.’

  ‘I remember. You didn’t want to accuse me of being unpatriotic. Because I’d never heard of your Australian novel.’

  ‘It was the first thing that came into my head. You must have thought I was stark raving mad. I’m surprised you didn’t find another seat.’

  ‘Just as well the train was crowded, then.’

  ‘And I remember how startled you looked,’ he said, ‘because I caught you snooping at my book.’

  ‘Snooping? I was taking an interest, Adam.’

  ‘Oh, I know you were. You were really very obvious.’

  ‘And I thought you’d never make a move. Even when I came to your house for that first meeting. That was just plain good luck, being on your training list.’

  ‘You have no idea how thrilled I was, and so nervous too, when I saw your name on that list. I’d met you once and it felt so right but I thought it was so wrong. Wrong for you, I mean. And, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want you thinking I was a dirty old man.’

  ‘I wish you were a dirty old man. It would have saved us a whole heap of time.’

  ‘But it was only four weeks, Hazel. Even if it felt like the longest four weeks of my life.’

  ‘Try waiting seven years,’ she said, and laughed at his confusion.

  That night, as Hazel lay in Adam’s arms, she felt a blissful calm, and yet triumphant too, soaring on the wings of her persuasion. Because she had claimed him for herself and made him call out her name, she had given him his beauty and he’d offered her such kisses and she had never felt so sure of anyone, anything. This sense of bel
onging and deep peace and drifting…There was light streaming through a window because her eyes were open and night had somehow turned into day and there was an empty space beside her and the bedside clock glowed eleven am. Eleven am! How could she possibly have—She drew in her breath, heard clattering from another room and sprang from the bed and hurried to find him and there he was, he really was. In the kitchen, standing at the bench, whisking something in a bright green bowl.

  He looked up and gave her the widest, most comforting smile, as if he’d known her for years.

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ he said. ‘But then again, I did.’

  Rallying

  The sun was beating down like a tom-tom on her head and Jessie was beginning to grizzle and she’d told Adam a hundred times that they should have left him home. Was this the thirteenth speaker now, trying to rally and inspire? She was well and truly done with inspiration and all the hanging around in the heat. It will be too much for the child, she’d said: all the talk he wouldn’t understand, and then a long hot march into the city. But Adam had been insistent. Jessie had to know, he’d said, he had to understand that all around the world people were gathering to save the planet. Besides, who was going to look after him? Every single person they knew was here. Except for Candace, who would be rallying in Sydney, holidaying with a man Hazel hadn’t met: the fourth man since that day of revelations in the bar. Hazel hadn’t warmed to the previous three: Grumpy, Dopey and Sleepy, she’d called them in her head. Only four more to go and Candace could be Snow White. But I shouldn’t make a joke of it, she thought, because Candace is still looking for love and made everything possible for me.