Above the Fold
Page 35
FORTY-THREE
The Ansett plane was packed. It made Luke remember an old joke. An Australian trying to book a flight and being told the plane was crowded in popular Oz speak: “Sorry, Okker, the Fokker’s chocka”.
The phrase had always amused him until now. Stuck in a middle of a row on a crowded Fokker Friendship, and experiencing the perils of airline seating when a passenger in front decided to reverse his seat for a snooze, tipping Luke’s coffee all over his lap. The hostess brought a towel, and promised lunch would soon be served. Lunch was a tomato and cheese sandwich in a box, and they arrived at Maroochydore to a gust of February heat, and a long trudge to a shed that served as the Sunshine Coast terminal.
Luke had forgotten about Queensland’s summer humidity, and was already sweating as he reached the building. It made him come to a halt, wondering why on earth he’d come here. But the sight of a crowd of holidaymakers all waiting to board a return flight discouraged further thought of a retreat to Sydney. Besides, he had a rental car waiting. Cars could be cancelled, however, and another packed flight would only take an hour if there was a spare seat.
For God’s sake, he admonished himself, get real. He headed towards HARRIGAN’S RENTAL sign, where he collected a Ford Falcon, received advice on the route north to Noosa that would take him a little over an hour, and, thus committed, drove away from the airport. He wondered what to expect. In London a few years ago he’d once gone to Australia House on a nostalgic quest, and asked at the information desk for a brochure on Noosa. “Haven’t heard of it,” said the woman in charge. “It must be new.”
Now no longer new, it had become a growing beach resort with a neat row of shops along the main street, lots of houses in stages of construction, and an estate agent, Warren & Cooper, whose FOR SALE signs were prominent. The agency occupied an office on a busy corner, clearly a prestige position. The Marsdens had told him this was the firm where Steven worked as an accountant, but Luke drove past it and headed for a small block of flats facing the sea. It was late afternoon; the town was quiet. On the beach a few people sunbaked, and in the distance two children were building sandcastles.
The address he’d written down was the ground floor apartment of this small building, and had been given to him by Sue Marsden. He was parked close beside it, but sat in the car wondering if Claudia would be at home? Or perhaps at the hospital? Or where? Certainly not here. The place appeared shut, no sign of any open window. Luke sat in the car, the thoughts that had beset him at the airport renewing more strongly than ever.
He was suddenly possessed by the absurdity of his impulsive trip. In Sydney it had seemed like a logical idea. Why not, after all these years renew the two most important relationships of his life? Except that one had been a lover, and one a great friend, and what the hell would the effect of his abrupt appearance be on them? Especially descending on her.
It was starting to feel like an appalling mistake, and there was just time to correct it. He could catch a flight leaving Maroochydore this evening, or else, having come this distance, take a drive to see the hinterland that Sue and Gordon had enthused about.
No, he thought, best to get the hell out of here. A few days of catching up with friends like Helen and Rupert, Harry now married to his Doreen, as well as Ben Warren and a few others, then hop it back to London. No bloody flights like the chocka Fokker; Qantas first class this time. After his long research trip the sharp end of the plane was a very legitimate tax deduction. Back to the house in Chelsea, heaps to do there, at least two rooms still to be painted, the paving in the back yard to be repaired, then meet up with his agent and publisher, as well as friends in England, and spend time with Louisa and Charles at Epsom. It was still the steeplechase season, and in a month or so, the Grand National in which Charles had a runner. He’d go to Aintree to watch the race. That all seemed eminently sensible; but this was bizarre.
Five minutes later he was driving slowly out of town, passing the real estate office again as a woman emerged. She instantly stopped and stared at the car and at Luke driving past. He could not avoid looking in the rear vision mirror, and could see her still outside the office gazing after him. So, he hesitated, then put his foot on the brake and stopped. After seeing the road was empty of traffic, he slowly reversed and went back to pull up alongside her. He opened the window, then thinking better of it got out of the car.
“Small world,” he said, because he could not think of anything sensible to say. And had, in fact, hoped to leave without saying anything at all.
“It’s not that small,” said Claudia.
“No, it’s not,” Luke felt a more reasonable reply was warranted. “I came to see you both …” He shook his head and corrected himself. “No … sorry, that’s not quite true. I came to see you. Because there’s hardly been a single day in nearly seventeen years that I haven’t thought about you.”
“It’s seventeen years and eight months.”
“It feels like forever. After all, we did meet when we were just a few days old. Those adjoining cradles should be counted.” He hoped for at least a smile, but none was forthcoming. Claudia just stared at him.
“So where were you going?” she asked.
“To the airport.”
“Why?”
“Because what seemed like a good idea now appears to be a really lousy one. You’ve made a completely new life. Why the hell should I barge in and ruin it?”
“Going back to Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“Then London?”
“Probably.”
“That’s an even worse idea,” said Claudia. “In fact, it’s quite insulting.”
“What do you mean insulting?”
“It ought to be plain what I mean. You turn up, take one look at the old bag, then decide to run for your life.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s what I’d say is really insulting, calling yourself an old bag.”
“Well, what other reason would you have you for running away?” Her voice sounded cold as she asked him cuttingly, “In fact, why the bloody hell did you really come here, Luke?”
“Because I’m still in love with you, of course,” he said. “I’ll never be in love with anyone else.”
“Really? Not the least bit enamoured with any of those women you shagged in Tokyo? The ones you and your friend Alfie cavorted with in his apartment over the cinema? I suppose that was just the spoils of war, was it, or a bit of party time?”
“Who the hell …?”
“I don’t suppose I have any right to feel upset about all the things you got up to. After all, you were free and unencumbered. So no judgement from me about sowing your wild oats, but you really went after a bumper harvest. Was it essential to have an affair in London with Rachel …?”
“I did not have an affair with her — in London or anywhere else!”
“No need to shout.”
“I didn’t have an affair with her,” he said quietly.
“According to my informant, you did.”
“Your informant?” Luke said. “My God, you’re going to tell me it was Barry Silvester!”
“Who else?” Claudia answered.
“And you believe him?”
“In the absence of other evidence, yes. I’m told it’s verifiable and on the record.”
“For Christ’s sake, Claudia. I won’t shout, but I did not have an affair with Rachel. I had dinner with her. I even saw a show with her. And I listened to her discuss herself and her career at great length, and was pleased and greatly relieved when she left to join her boyfriend in Los Angeles. Your bloody informant got it from ASIO, who got it completely wrong. They believed what a snide journalist wrote in The Daily Mail. As for Barry, he’s the reason I spent a month in Maralinga jail. The bastard dobbed me in.”
“No, he didn’t,” said Claudia.
“What do you mean, he didn’t? How the hell would you know?”
“Because he rang me.”
“Bazza did?
“Is that true?”
“He wanted me to know he wasn’t to blame, in case I heard …”
“He damn well knew I was in trouble,” Luke said violently. “Helen told him, and he did fuck all about it. Frightened for his cushy job.”
“If you’ll let me finish, Luke …”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. But Bazza is a sore point with me.”
“He’s a sore point with me, too,” she said sharply. “And always has been, as you should know.”
“Of course I know.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Are you ready to let me explain?” Luke nodded his head.
“Thank you,” she acidly responded to this. “I almost hung up on him, then asked how we could help you get out of there. He said helping you was out of the question, and he had an understanding with you that you went there at your own peril. When I tried to argue, that’s when he said you were a lone ranger who hadn’t bothered to be in touch with any of us, including me, all these years, and he rattled off your list of sexual exploits, just to bring me up to date.”
“But …” Luke tried to say.
“Shut-bloody-up, and let me finish,” she demanded. “He was very aware that it was upsetting me, and making me angry. He enjoyed telling me; I could sense how much he enjoyed it. I could almost visualise that sly grin of his. He was still rattling off names and details when I finally did hang up on him. Not a very nice man, your best friend Bazza.”
Luke paused to make sure she had finished, then said, “He’s not that, and hasn’t been for a long time, Claudia. You married my best friend.”
“Oh God,” she gazed at him hopelessly, on the verge of tears. “Did you have to say that? I was trying to help.”
Steven stood by the window leaning on his cane for support, and carefully positioned where they could not see him. He was able to watch them, but the window prevented him from hearing what was being said. He and Claudia had both known of Luke’s possible arrival, her mother had earlier rung in excitement to say that Luke had asked for the address. Sue Marsden had even checked on flights, and told Claudia there was only one plane to the Sunshine Coast that day. Claudia had been at home when this call came, and had then rung the hospital to say there was a small domestic crisis, and she would do a double shift tomorrow, but was unable to be there for today’s afternoon shift. She’d then driven to the agency office, and told him.
“The plane is due at three o’clock, so he could be here around about four. Trust my mum to stir up a panic like this. Sometimes I think she doesn’t have enough brains to give herself a headache!”
“Claudia!”
“You know the way she can carry on like a pork chop.”
“I like your mother.”
“So do I, sometimes! But this. Did I need it? I just don’t know what to do, Steven. I mean, I’m not sure if he’s coming, or if he is, then why he’s coming.”
“I think,” he said carefully, “that if Luke’s coming, the question of why should be fairly easy to answer.”
“Well, I don’t think it is easy. We haven’t seen each other, we haven’t spoken or communicated in any way for so many years. He’s spent at least half his life without me, and quite an exotic and busy life from what I’ve been told.”
“You mustn’t take any notice of that call from Baz. He’s as jealous as hell of Luke. Always has been.”
“I’m not thinking of Barry or his information. I’m thinking of the great bloody space that exists in both our lives. Luke and I were twenty. Now we’re thirty-seven. We’re different people.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I feel it. And I feel awkward, even a bit scared. If he’d written, or rung up … but just to arrive! Truly, Steve, I honestly don’t know how to handle this.”
She doesn’t, he thought, calling me Steve like that. He and Claudia had been alone in the office. Both George Cooper and Ed Warren were out at a meeting with the owners of the new housing estate, and Joyce, the office girl, was away with the flu. Steven had switched off the phones on Claudia’s arrival to give them a chance to talk, but now suggested they both have a coffee, sit down and try to discuss it calmly. Standing up, even with the walking stick, his legs were aching. He needed to sit. He’d turned on the phones again, and straight away the switchboard lit up and calls began, which he felt obliged to answer. So he sat doing this while Claudia made the coffee, and between these tasks they had tried to resolve their future, not certain whether Luke would actually arrive, and unsure what would happen if he did. Steven had tried not to state his own position, had done his best to be fair and objective, but all the time knowing how deeply he loved her, holding a vain hope that it might just be one of Sue’s typical alarms, and Luke might not turn up. That perhaps he just wanted the address to write to Claudia, or perhaps if he did arrive she would send him away. Vain hopes, he’d thought.
Yet she’d talked again of the missing space between her and Luke, the seventeen years they’d spent apart, while his secret thoughts were occupied with the memory of the fifteen years Claudia had been the cog in his own life, those fifteen years since he’d contracted polio, since she’d fought his father, given up her own life to care for him, and the magical thirteen years since they’d married and moved here. That, he hoped, had to count for something. But on the other hand …
Discussion came to a halt when George and Ed returned from viewing the new housing estate, the pair of them full of expansive plans after signing a beneficial deal with the landowners. Fifty new riverside homes to be built in the next two years; it was a real bonanza. Noosa was going to become a select new starry resort on the Sunshine Coast. Their firm was locked in, before the heavyweights from Brisbane even knew about it.
Surprised and pleased to see Claudia there, they suggested coffee be replaced by a glass of bubbly, and Ed went to the fridge to get a bottle of Dom Pérignon for a celebration. That was when George said he hoped Steven could soon decide on whether to accept their offer of a partnership.
“A partnership?” Claudia could not prevent her surprise.
“Hasn’t he told you yet?”
“Been saving it for a rainy day,” Steven said quickly.
“He’s a dark horse,” George Cooper told Claudia, with a grin. “I bet he planned to take you to some posh restaurant in Brisbane to break the news.”
Claudia nodded and agreed life with Steven was full of surprises. She apologised for not joining in the celebration, but they were expecting a visitor, and she had a feeling that he’d just gone past in his car, but obviously would find their flat empty so he’d be driving back this way in a few minutes. She thought she’d better wait for him outside.
“Why not ask him in?” George and Ed suggested. “Any friend of yours is a friend of ours. He’s just in time for the bubbly.”
“No, I think it’s best if I wait out there,” Claudia insisted, and went out before they could reply. This was how she’d been just in time to see Luke driving past, and glimpsing her in the rear view mirror, he’d reversed the car back to meet her.
“I was just trying to help,” Claudia repeated, “trying to look after him, to stop his dreadful bastard of a father putting him in an iron lung. I told you why, in my letter. And I was doing what I could to protect myself from being dragged into court, accused of God knows what by Pascoe.” She had managed to avert her tears, but still looked confused and upset. “Sometimes life is such a lousy awful mess.”
“It is. And I apologise for saying something to upset you. Which is why I should get the plane back to Sydney, and not stuff up your life. Your two lives, because this concerns Steve as well. As for what bloody Baz told you about Tokyo, excluding the aff
air that I never had with Rachel, it all took place in a few months of despair, and none of it was any good. It never helped in the slightest, never stopped me feeling sorry for myself, or made up for losing you.”
“You left out Hannah Johnson. Did you feel like that with her?”
“No,” Luke said quietly. “She was the only one who ever came close. But not close enough. It wasn’t possible for any woman to come close.”
“Don’t say that, then run off,” said Claudia. “Please, Luke.”
“It’s sensible.”
“I don’t want to be sensible,” she said with a sudden rush of anger. “If our lives are such a mess, why should we be ‘sensible’ and let them end up an even worse mess? I think being sensible is just about the most stupid bloody thing you’ve ever said, and I refuse to accept it because I don’t want you to go. I love you, and it’s bloody unfair to turn up like this, then decide it was a stupid lousy idea, and you’re not staying after all! In fact, it’s fucking outrageous. It really is!”
“When you get angry,” Luke said, “you look about nineteen.”
“I’m thirty-bloody-seven,” she shouted.
“I know you are, because I was in the adjoining cradle, but you look nineteen. You look adorable. Like you did when you came back from France, making loud noises drinking our malted milk, while I was wondering if you had a boyfriend, and hoping not.”
“You can’t say things like that then run away. You just can’t!”
“What’s the alternative? A cosy evening with you and Steve, all three of us trying to be civil.”
“I don’t see why not,” she said, “he knows you’re here. My crafty mother worked out you were headed in this direction.”
“Trust her,” Luke said, “your motor-mouth mum.”
“Exactly,” said Claudia, and then she smiled.
He stared at her without a word for a moment. Then he said quietly. “I can’t go when you smile at me like that, Claudia. You know what it reminds me of?”