But as I watched him making his way through the throng to the bar, something in me knew he would turn around before he got there.
And he did.
He hesitated and, without buying a drink, turned and walked straight towards me.
I want you.
‘Hey there … Perpetua?’ He held out his hand, his eyes raking over my tight jeans, high-heeled red boots, and the cream lace top that I’d bought that day, landing back on my face, a strangely serious expression in them.
‘Hey,’ I laughed and shook his hand, just as though I played these kinds of flirty games every day. ‘How do you know my real name?’ No one ever called me anything but Peach.
‘I made it my business to find out.’
‘So, are you going to dance with me?’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
We danced all night and then went for a coffee, and as each minute passed I had this delicious sensation of falling away from all I’d ever known. It wasn’t that we talked about much. It was just bits and pieces of our backgrounds, where we lived and the music we liked. But the way he smiled, so quietly, as if there was a secret life going on inside him that he was inviting me to share … And his hands, those strong fingers tapping the table in time with the music coming from the nearby speakers. He had calluses on both thumbs and he laughed when he caught me looking at them.
‘Old blisters, and a splinter I can’t get out,’ he said matter-of-factly.
I dug the splinter out of his palm with the tiny pair of scissors I keep in my purse.
He was twenty-two, and working down on the docks, but he’d just finished his Year Twelve at night school. Getting a grip on Luke’s past was like trying to catch a fish with your hands. It slipped away before you could take a proper hold.
But I gradually learnt that his mother had had problems with drugs and money and men. He’d left school at fifteen, barely able to read and write. Teaching himself to read properly by buying the newspaper every day was the best thing he’d done by far, he told me. He’d look up words and write them down in a small book he kept in his pocket. He told me this without shame or pride. It was just the way things were.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘Nah. Ouch! Keep going.’ He laughed when I held up the bloody splinter. ‘You’re a surgeon like your dad.’
‘Split it?’ I said when the bill came.
‘No need,’ he said, picking it up. ‘I’ll see you home.’
‘But—’
‘Please,’ he said with that smile. ‘It’s late.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
And so he walked me home along the dark Collingwood streets. Past the rows of tiny cottages and the enormous cleaned-out shells of factories and disused warehouses waiting for the developers who had already begun changing them into edgy little apartments for the young professionals moving into the area. It was such a still night. A crane on a half-finished building loomed above us and trucks, graders and building materials lined the narrow streets. In a few hours the place would be filled with guys in yellow hard hats and overalls shouting at each other, but right then it was … perfect.
It is five to three on a Saturday morning. I am eighteen years old and my life is about to begin.
I will never forget the peculiar fragility of that night. The overstuffed rubbish bins, the stray whiff of jasmine in the air, the cans thrown carelessly in the gutter. Not that anything was happening. We were just two people walking three feet apart along a street after a night out, moving like shadows through the soft air. Any moment it might come undone. Any moment it might smash open and fall away. Lost forever. I knew that. I might have been half expecting it, and I suppose he was too.
At my door I was desperate to kiss him, but he took both my hands in his own and said formally, ‘I’d really like to see you again, Peach.’
‘How about tomorrow?’ I laughed, amazed at my own boldness.
‘You’re on.’ He grinned.
And then he did kiss me. Very quickly, as if we were signing a deal.
He was the first guy I’d ever seriously wanted. That he wanted me too seemed nothing short of a miracle.
Fluke and Peach. Peach and Fluke. In love … in love … in love!
In the beginning love is so easy.
I swim and I swim and I swim.
At twenty-five laps I’m completely done in, spent, wrung-out. I pull myself out of the pool feeling empty and much calmer.
‘You were really fanging it in there!’ the lifeguard exclaims with a grin.
I like his open face and his stocky hairy legs. I can tell he’d rather be doing anything else but standing around waiting for someone to drown, and I can sympathise with that.
He points at the dark sky. ‘You got a car?’
‘Nope.’
I rush to the change room and into the shower feeling exhausted but easier somehow. Lighter. What if I went back out there and asked the lifeguard out? I giggle to myself. I just know he’d say yes. Oh do it, Peach! Do it! My sister’s voice is in my head.
The hot water is wonderful. I want to stay in the shower forever but I don’t. I’m the only person left in the change room, so I stand naked for a few moments, looking at myself in the mirror. I push my head back and raise my arms and pretend I’m a ballerina.
I can hear the clatter of rain beginning again. Is there anything better than a summer storm after a few really hot days? Life becomes loose and unpredictable. My position in the universe suddenly feels utterly arbitrary, but it doesn’t matter. I’m one of those wooden toys bouncing on a bit of elastic, and I don’t mind at all.
I pick up my bag, drape my towel around my shoulders and head out. There is quite a crowd standing about in the entrance lobby waiting for a break in the rain. Some have come from the gym upstairs, but most, like me, have been swimming and have wet hair. The walk home is only about ten minutes and I don’t mind getting wet, so I push my way through the crowd towards the glass doors.
And run straight into Fluke.
He is in loose jeans and a faded blue T-shirt. He has a bright yellow towel draped around his shoulders. We’re up close and facing each other.
‘Peach.’
There is the strong smell of chlorine and wet bodies, but I get a whiff of him anyway, and it sends a shiver of longing straight through me. I step back, but we are in the middle of the small crowd so I can’t move very far. We are physically closer at this point than we have been in months.
‘Oh!’ I gulp nervously. ‘Hello.’
His eyes in this low light are as dark as I’ve ever seen them and hard to read.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello.’
‘How are you?’
‘Good, thanks. You?’
‘Good,’ he says and then laughs. ‘Oh, you know, okay. A bit of this and a bit of that.’
‘Yes.’
I love eyes that change. My eyes are bright cornflower blue and people tell me they are beautiful – but they’re always the same. In normal daylight Fluke’s eyes are a soft smoky grey but when the light changes they change too. You’re a man of smoke and mirrors, I used to tease him, and the longer I knew him the truer it became.
But here in the late afternoon, in the swimming pool lobby, with the summer storm beginning again outside, they’re as dark and mysterious as charcoal dug from the ground.
Black bristle almost hides the scar running down the middle of his chin, but not quite. I was there the night he got that scar. He fell during a fight outside a pub in Collingwood. I took him to the Saint Vincent’s emergency department and after three excruciating hours of waiting he had twelve stitches. We laughed all the way home. I remember grabbing his face between my hands before I left in the morning and staring hard into those smoky eyes.
‘Oh, sweet Peach, What you looking at?’
‘Just you.’
‘And what do you see?’
‘Not telling.’
Everything was up for grabs then. Everything was
sweet and waiting to happen.
‘You been for a swim?’ he asks now.
‘Yeah.’
I look away over the heads of the people in front of me towards the glass doors where the rain is bucketing down.
‘Got to get home,’ I say. At least leaving first will give me a shred of dignity.
‘You’re not going out in that?’ He smiles.
‘Oh yeah … I am.’
‘One tough girl, eh?’
‘Not so tough,’ I say sharply and push past him.
But he grabs my arm. ‘Wait, Peach,’ he says, ‘you’ll drown.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘So you’re in a hurry?’
‘I’m in a hurry.’
‘Can I ask why?’
We’re staring into each other’s eyes. He is friendly, cool and sure of himself, and I am nervous and hostile and weak with longing.
‘I’m just … in a hurry,’ I say again.
‘Then I’ll give you a lift.’ His hand is still on my arm and his eyes are on my face. ‘Come on, my car is just outside.’
Why have my insides gone to water? Why are my knees weak when I actually hate him?
I picture the car he shares with his mother, the inside with all her rubbish strewn around, her cigarette packets, the empty cans on the floor, parking tickets and food containers, and I remember the way he always cleaned it so carefully for her. Such a good son to such a shit mother. That was his role and he knew how to play it. Now he’s in nice-guy mode with me. Offering a lift to some chick he used to know. Some chick he used to like but who now doesn’t even register on his radar. He’s already feeling like a hero, I can tell. Nothing he likes better than to do someone a good deed.
I pull away blindly and by the time I get to the automatic glass doors and out into the rain I’m sobbing. Thank God he can’t see, because it feels as if my whole life is in my head and gushing out my eyes; the tears feel hot and alive, and I can’t stop them. Is this what they mean by bleeding profusely?
But as I head blindly down the steps and onto the footpath I feel a hand on my shoulder.
‘Peach.’
He doesn’t immediately realise that I’m crying but when he does his shoulders slump, his mouth loosens and the easy, confident smile disappears. The grey eyes flit to his feet. He’s embarrassed for me. One hand grabs my elbow like a vice.
‘Let me give you a lift, Peach,’ he says quietly. His eyes lift to my face and they stay there. ‘Come on. My car is just around the corner.’
‘No.’ I shake my head.
‘But why not?’ He moves closer.
I stare back at him. There is something genuine in his voice, a sincere bewilderment, and a long terrible moment passes where I realise how much I love him still and how that makes me hate him like crazy.
‘Because you’re the last fucking person I’d ever want to get a ride with. You hear me, Fluke? The last! Don’t ever try to be friendly to me again. Don’t even speak to me. Don’t even say hello.’
He drops my elbow and steps back, reeling as though I’ve hit him. The suddenness of my anger has shocked him. I can see that.
I turn and dash through the rain, almost colliding with a bike rider on the footpath. ‘Hey, watch out!’ the man yells. I turn right down a small street towards home, sensing that he is still there in the rain looking after me. I don’t turn around.
All the way home I’m on a mad high. Did I say that? Did I just yell at Fluke? I’m elated in a sick, crazy way. I have never let go like that before with anyone. If I’ve hurt him, then I’m glad. It’s out there anyway, isn’t it? Of course I know I’ll crash, probably sooner rather than later, but this high is real. Road rage. You’re driving and someone does something stupid and dangerous but instead of thanking your lucky stars that you missed out on being killed, the adrenalin kicks in and you start yelling and screaming and gesticulating after the event. It doesn’t do any good, and later when you think back you’re appalled at yourself, but I’m not there yet. This bit feels too good.
By the time I get to our front door I’m soaked through. I bounce up and down in my squishy sneakers and fumble in my bag for my keys.
Once inside, I call out to Stella to let her know I’m home. But there’s no answer.
I walk into the kitchen, seeing it properly for the first time in about a week. What I see is grot everywhere. There are half-finished bowls of cereal and unwashed cups and glasses on the sideboard, and newspapers scattered all over the table. I pull open the fridge to check if we have any milk, only to find Stella’s hairbrush, thick with hair, sitting on a rack next to the yoghurt. Yuck! I pull it out and shut the fridge door too hard. I grab my phone, itching to scream at her to come home right now and start cleaning up. But there’s a message from her saying she’s gone to the movies and will be turning her phone off.
I think about cleaning up the mess myself, but instead I dump my swimming bag in the middle of it and head upstairs, where I pull off my wet clothes, and crawl under the bedcovers.
My mother was a nun for ten years.
I have a grandmother in the country who is desperate to see me.
I reach for the box where I stuffed the letter, but just then my phone rings. It’s Cass.
‘I’m sorry for walking off like that earlier.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say, ‘but I’m busy at the moment. Can I ring you back?’
‘Peach, we can’t let it happen.’
‘But what can we do?’
‘She can still get the abortion, but she has to do it soon. Like this week.’
‘But she doesn’t want—’
‘It’s the Catholic thing,’ she cuts in breathlessly. ‘Her family.’
‘She hasn’t seen her family for years.’
‘I don’t believe in abortion either, except in extreme circumstances,’ Cassie says defensively.
‘Hmmm,’ I murmur evasively. But I don’t agree with her. Not really. Why should the reason have to be extreme? If a woman doesn’t want a kid, then she shouldn’t have to have one as far as I’m concerned – it’s her body. But I don’t want to get into a discussion about it.
‘Det is an extreme circumstance,’ Cassie goes on. ‘Agree?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’m going round to see her this again and try to talk some sense into her.’
‘Right,’ I sigh. ‘Well, good luck.’
‘But you’ve got to come with me!’ she cries. ‘You and me together. We’ve got to do something … She can’t have a baby. She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She won’t be able to manage it. You know that. She’ll get sick of it and then get depressed and then maybe suicidal. And you know what will happen then, don’t you?’
I wait. No. Tell me what will happen then, Cassie. I’ve never heard her so agitated. It isn’t like her.
‘You know what will happen?’ she says again and waits.
‘What?’ I say, only because I know she wants me to. I just want be left alone.
‘They’ll take it away from her!’
‘They? Who is they, Cass?’
‘The government, of course,’ Cassie wails. ‘They take kids all the time from people. Don’t you know that?’
I say nothing. I’m getting cold now, and I wish she’d just get off the phone.
‘Peach, are you there? Will you come?’
I want to stay curled up for a while and forget everything. Then I want to have something to eat and go to Nick’s gig and dance all night.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’ My voice cracks and I don’t trust myself to say anything else.
Cassie takes a couple of seconds to register it. ‘But we can’t just give up on her?’ she says in a quieter, more reasonable tone.
‘Cassie, listen to me. She’ll do what she wants to do, the way she always does what she wants to do.’ Having said this, I realise that it’s true. Det is the strangest person I know, and the best
. She’s always known her own mind.
‘Peach, this is different.’
‘How?’
‘Can you see her with a … baby?’
‘No.’
‘And can’t you see that this will affect us too?’
‘I’m going now, Cassie. I’ll ring you later. I just can’t come, okay?’
‘I guess I’ll go on my own then,’ she says huffily.
I hang up and burrow under the covers.
When Det phones a couple of hours later she sounds so damned cheery and ordinary, so much like she always sounds, that I wonder if the pregnancy is a figment of her imagination. Or else one of my bad dreams.
‘Peach, you coming to see Nick? Cass has bailed.’
‘Yeah, okay,’ I say.
‘Will I meet you there?’
‘Yep.’
‘You sound weird.’
‘I was asleep,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you there in about an hour.’
Det laughs. ‘Attagirl.’
Cecilia 1962
It was ten past one on a Sunday morning, and Cecilia was travelling home from a local dance with her brother Dominic. Her matriculation results were yet to come out but she had the feeling that she’d done well. Dom was pretty drunk, driving too fast and roaming over to the other side of the road occasionally, but it didn’t worry her unduly. There wasn’t anyone else on the road, and all her brothers got sloshed whenever they had a chance. Drink wasn’t allowed in the dance hall, but the boys stood outside for a while before they ventured in, sufficiently inebriated to ask the girls to dance.
Cecilia was sitting on the passenger side, with her whole left arm hanging out the window, thinking about the boy she’d danced with most of the night and kissed briefly under the stars before she’d got in the car to go home with her brother.
The boy had slicked-back hair and green eyes. He’d been wearing tight black pants, desert boots and a short-sleeved checked shirt. He’d been home all summer helping his father with sheep. Muscles rippled down his arms in small hard waves, and he knew how to dance. It was a fifty/fifty dance, which meant half rock-and-roll and half old-fashioned numbers for the oldies.
They had danced well together, and talked easily. He was three years older than she was, already at university studying engineering. Cecilia was intending to go to university herself if she was accepted. When the dance was over he’d walked her to the car, and while they were waiting for Dom he’d put his arm around her shoulders, which felt awkward until, quite naturally, they moved closer and began to kiss.
The Convent Page 12