Playing by the Rules

by Imelda Evans

  In her agitation, Kate had got up and had been waving her hands around as though the movement would help to make her point. But now she stopped and reached out to Josh. She stopped short of touching him – she felt she had forfeited the right to touch him – but she reached out to him still, in a mute plea that he understand what she was trying to say.

  ‘I can see it now. It was my fault. Our relationship was always going to break up because it was a mistake from the beginning. It never would have existed if I hadn’t created it. He was just part of the plan!’

  ‘Kate —’

  ‘No, Josh, you have to listen! I have always been driven. That’s just the way I am. I’m one of those tedious, goal-oriented people, who know what they want and who make lists and visualise and chant affirmations, or whatever they need to do, until they get it. I wanted that life. I wanted to live in Paris, not as a tourist, but as a local. I wanted to have café au lait and pastries at a café where they knew my name. I wanted to work at the Sorbonne. And I guess I wanted a handsome French boyfriend to fill out the picture.

  ‘I used Alain, Josh. I used him like a jigsaw piece to complete my perfect life. I had a gap to fill and he slotted in quite nicely. I never thought about whether we had anything in common apart from the other parts of the jigsaw. He lived in Paris, he worked at the Sorbonne, he liked eating at cafés and he was tall – because they all have to be tall.’ She could hear the disdain in her own voice, but it didn’t come near to expressing what she really felt.

  ‘He could have been anyone, Josh. I see that now. I used him.’ Kate turned away, forcing herself to go on, although it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

  ‘And I’ll use you, too. If I come with you now, it won’t be for the right reasons; it won’t be for the reasons you want. It will be because my pride was hurt and you soothed it; because you picked me up when I was down, and I’m grateful; because you’re a sweet man who cares about my mum and yours; because you’re the sexiest man I have ever seen and I am demented with lust for you; because . . .’ Kate paused as an even larger wave of self-disgust threatened to take her breath away ‘. . . because you’re tall.’ She turned back to him, her mouth tasting of bile.

  ‘Is that what you want, Josh? Is that what you want to be? Just a list of reasons why you fit my life right now? Just a jigsaw piece in Kate’s grand life plan? Because that’s what you will get, with me. That’s what I’ll make you. I can’t be trusted. Not now. Maybe not ever.’

  She sank onto the barrier, her face in her hands, her energy spent. Realising that she had treated Alain like just another item on a shopping list had pierced Kate’s self-image so deeply it hurt. Admitting it to Josh had nearly killed her. She couldn’t do any more to save him. She would just have to pray that it was enough.

  Josh knelt on the ground in front of her, resting on his heels, and took her hands away from her face. Kate didn’t know what to expect. Right now, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had got in his car and gone. It would be no more than she deserved. But he hadn’t. And now he was looking at her, with an odd expression on his face.

  ‘Kate . . . no, Kate, don’t look away.’ She turned back to him. ‘Kate, do you love me?’

  Kate felt tears prick in the corners of her eyes again and she heard her voice as though it was someone else speaking. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I even know what it means.’

  Josh didn’t reply in words. Instead, he lifted her off the barrier into his arms, lowered his head to hers and kissed her. Kate felt the now-familiar rush of sensation take her over. Her lips parted to receive him, her body moulded itself to his and her heart leapt in her chest. But this time, the salt on his mouth was from her tears. He lifted his head and looked at her.

  ‘Kate, did Alain’s kisses feel like that?’

  Kate wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed.

  ‘No, they didn’t. But —’

  ‘But nothing! Kate, that feeling, between us, it’s never been like that for me before either. It’s like that because you love me! And I love you. And that is all that matters!’

  Kate tore herself out of his arms.

  ‘No, Josh, it isn’t! Maybe it is for you. You’re good at this. It’s like you said: spontaneous is what you do. What you are. You go wherever the wind blows you and you love it. I love that about you, but it isn’t me. The life I’ve built, the way I work, the plodding and the planning, that’s who I am. I don’t know how to be any other way!’

  ‘I could teach you.’

  ‘But what if you can’t? The way I feel now, it’s powerful and maybe it is love, but what if it isn’t enough? What if I try to put you in a box, and make you quiet and predictable and safe like the rest of my life? You’d hate me for it! And if I succeeded I would hate myself even more.’

  She stepped forward and framed his cheek with her hand.

  ‘You’ve offered me something amazing. Don’t think I don’t know that. I remember what you said about what you would have to be ready to do if you ever asked someone to come with you. You’re saying that you’re willing to make your life all about me and my happiness. And I can’t . . .’ she paused to choke back a sob. ‘I can’t express how honoured I am.’

  ‘Honoured! That’s not exactly the response I was looking for!’ Josh pulled away from her hand and turned to face the sea. Kate stepped closer to him.

  ‘But it’s true. I am honoured. It’s a huge thing you’re offering. But what . . .’ she gulped again. ‘What if it’s not enough for me? What if I can’t find a job in LA, or not one that uses my skills? What if, after a while, I resent you for taking me away from my life? How can you make me happy then? You couldn’t! And after a while, if, with all your effort, you still couldn’t make me happy? You’d start to hate me.’

  ‘That wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘You can’t know that! Or maybe you can, but I can’t. It’s too soon. I told you I wouldn’t fall in love with you. I said it couldn’t happen that fast. Maybe I was wrong about that. But I still can’t make decisions this fast. Not ones this big. I just can’t.’

  Josh stepped towards her and put a hand on her arm, but she shrugged it off. If she let him touch her she would never be able to say what she needed to.

  ‘Josh, if I had you and lost you, it would break me. And if you really love me, it would break you too. I won’t put either of us through that. If I stuffed this up, I couldn’t live with myself. I can’t do it.’

  Using all of what remained of her energy and resolve, she looked up at him, and said, ‘Please don’t ask me again.’

  Josh let his arms fall to his sides and stepped away from her. Without the protection of his body, Kate felt the wind bite into her – but his voice, distant and cool in a way she had never heard before, chilled her much more.

  ‘And that’s your final decision, is it, Kate?’

  Kate felt the presence of whatever it was they had between them lying on the ground in front of her. She could almost see it: sick, but not dead, like a wounded animal; bleeding, but still capable of being saved. She turned her head away and thrust a knife into it.

  ‘Yes, Josh, it is.’

  ‘Then I guess there isn’t any more to say. Get in the car. I’ll take you back to Jo’s.’

  And he did. He took her back, he helped her out, he showed her to the door and he left. And true to his word, he didn’t say one single thing more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Kate woke the next morning from a dream of being late for an exam. It was a familiar anxiety dream from her many years of study and it produced the usual results: a racing heart, a full-body sweat and an almost irresistible urge to leap out of bed and start running around like a headless chook. It took several seconds for her to wake up enough to realise that she did not have an exam – that indeed, she couldn’t have an exam, since she wasn’t actually studying any more.

  It only took a heartbeat for her to realise the significance of a dream that suggested that s
he had missed the chance of doing something really important.

  She rationalised that it was only to be expected. It wasn’t every day that one turned down a marriage proposal. It was not surprising that it had messed with her head. It didn’t mean it had been the wrong thing to do.

  But Kate’s heart and stomach were not getting with the program. Despite having eaten next to nothing the day before – next to nothing she had kept down, anyway – Kate once again had no appetite. And her heartbeat and breathing were so rapid and erratic that she seriously wondered whether she should call an ambulance and check herself in to the nearest hospital for an ECG.

  She meandered down towards the kitchen with vague thoughts of asking Jo what she knew about heart trouble – then she saw the note. It was on the fridge door and was from Jo, saying that she had taken Josh to the airport and when she got back she wanted to have a little chat with Kate.

  Kate pulled the note off the fridge and turned it over. The back was blank. There wasn’t any more. She looked back at the fridge, but there were no other messages there, or anywhere else in the kitchen. She pressed the button on the answering machine, but all she heard was the robotic voice saying that there were no messages. Then she checked her mobile phone. Nothing. No voicemail, no message, nothing. She even checked her email. But that, too, was blank.

  He hadn’t contacted her.

  It wasn’t until she faced the reality of her empty inbox that she realised that she had been expecting him to. She berated herself for her stupidity. How could she have expected him to call after what she had said to him yesterday? She’d effectively told him she never wanted to see him again – after he’d asked her to marry him! Kate lowered her head to the table then lifted it and banged it down. What man would come crawling back after that? She was insane to even think it was possible, let alone expect it.

  But she had expected it. She had even, in secret places that clearly were not on speaking terms with her conscious mind, hoped for it. And now those hopes were dashed. He had gone. Gone to LA, to some hotel she didn’t even know the name of, and she was left here with the cold, depressing suspicion that she might just have made the biggest mistake of her life.

  ‘What on earth have you done to my brother, Kate?’

  As conversation-openers went, it was a humdinger. She had been expecting something along those lines, but delivered, as it was, in Jo’s no-nonsense style, the minute she got in the door, it was nonetheless a rather confronting question. She chose to play for time.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Her attempt at innocence wasn’t fooling anyone.

  ‘Well, you tell me and we’ll both know, hon. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s often distracted when he’s heading off to a job, but this was just weird. It was as though he wasn’t really there at all. And when I mentioned you – I asked if he had any message to give you, since you were too lazy to get up in time to come to the airport – he changed the subject.’ Jo stopped banging around the kitchen in pursuit of coffee and turned her dark eyes to Kate. ‘You spent all yesterday afternoon with him. I thought, after that, you’d be matey as anything. But then I find you are apparently avoiding each other. What gives?’

  Kate’s eyes opened wide as she listened to her speech. Had Josh really said nothing to Jo about yesterday afternoon? Was it possible? And if so, what could she say? What should she say? She had to say something. Jo was waiting for an answer and she had started tapping her foot. In desperation, Kate opted for the truth.

  ‘Well, if you must know, while we were at the beach yesterday, he asked me to marry him and I turned him down.’

  Jo’s coffee percolator slipped out of her hand and bounced three times before coming to a stop against the kickboard. If Kate had been going for effect, she would have been thrilled with the result. Jo seemed hardly to have noticed the percolator. She was frozen, staring at Kate, her mouth open.

  But Jo had not developed a reputation for being cool in a crisis for nothing. Within seconds, she had retrieved the percolator and was continuing to make coffee as though nothing had happened. Well, almost, anyway. Kate thought it better not to mention that Jo had put tea leaves in the part where the coffee ought to have gone.

  ‘Well!’ Jo set the percolator on the stove with a thump. ‘Well, that is interesting.’ She whisked around the bench and sat down primly on one of the stools next to Kate as though she was discussing the weather. ‘Well, that is interesting,’ she said again. Then the façade cracked. She leaped off her stool and hugged Kate with a strength that threatened to strangle her.

  ‘God, Kate! I’m not sure I can deal with this.’ Jo was trembling and Kate eased her over to a more comfortable chair and got her a glass of water. The irony of her being the one doing the comforting did not escape her, but nor did the fact that Jo had a genuine need of comfort. This thing going on between her and Josh – or rather this thing that had been going on between her and Josh, Kate corrected herself – didn’t affect only them. And Jo was the first to be hit by the ripples.

  Jo accepted the water and her trembling stilled, but she was still looking at Kate as though she was some kind of vision, and was paler than Kate had ever seen her. When she spoke again, her voice was strained.

  ‘Kate, I hope you won’t hate me for this, but I have to say it. I really am not sure if I can cope with this. With him asking you, with you turning him down, with any of it. You were supposed to be having a fling! A few casual dates! Do you not know the meaning of those words? Apparently not!’ she answered herself. ‘I think I might need to go out for a bit to try to get my head around it. Do you mind?’

  Kate shook her head, afraid that if she opened her mouth, it might be to weep or to ask her not to go. Was the whole Marchant family going to walk out of her life, just like that? Kate shook her head again, and told herself not to be silly. Jo was not walking out of her life, she was going for a walk; there was a difference. And if Josh had walked out of her life, she had no-one to blame but herself. She picked up the jacket that Jo had thrown over the back of a chair when she came in and handed it to her friend. Jo took it with thanks, kissed Kate and left, slamming the door behind her. It wasn’t until she had gone that Kate realised, from the burning smell, that Jo had also neglected to put any water in the percolator.

  Kate dragged herself through the next three days with all the cheerful sprightliness of a soldier with a full pack on a forced march. In the desert. In boots that pinched.

  She thought of nothing but him. Everywhere she went, she saw curly hair, or dark eyes or long legs. Complete strangers on the tram had her starting in her seat and twitching to get a better look, because they were the same height, or wore a similar jacket. Once, Kate actually called out his name as someone turned a corner ahead of her in the street. The next day, she nearly got herself run over as she stepped blindly onto the street to try to follow the progress of a car that looked, from a distance, to be British racing green.

  Of course, none of the sightings were actually of Josh. It was just Kate’s keening loss manifesting itself in wishful visions.

  More than once, she wondered if she had actually gone mad. How did one know? She couldn’t ask anyone. The only person in a position to answer was Jo and she seemed to have adopted a code of silence on the subject of her sibling. Since their conversation on the morning he left she had not mentioned him once, so Kate felt she couldn’t either.

  Then, on Thursday morning, the drought broke. As she was pouring her morning coffee (from a new percolator), Jo asked casually, ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’

  Kate choked on her cereal. She couldn’t pretend not to know what Jo was talking about. The subject had been hanging in the air of the flat like an ineradicable bad smell since Monday. It was a relief to finally have it out in the open. It didn’t mean she knew how to answer the question, though.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she replied cautiously.

  ‘I mean,’ Jo said, leaning across the bench, taking Kate’s sp
oon out of her hand and dropping it into her bowl, ‘what are you going to do about Josh?’ Kate felt the blood rising to the roots of her hair, but she had become so inured to that phenomenon of late that she didn’t care.

  ‘What am I supposed to do? He’s not here. He hasn’t called. I don’t even know where he is.’ It sounded weak, even to Kate, and Jo was having none of it.

  ‘Kathleen Margaret Rose Adams, don’t you dare try that on with me! I am your oldest and dearest friend and I am about to tell you some home truths.’ She held up one long hand and began ticking items off on her elegant fingers.

  ‘One. On Sunday, my brother, the biggest commitment-avoider on either side of the rabbit-proof fence, proposed to you. Do I need to point out to you that, in doing so, he broke all previously known intentions, not to mention the hearts of countless women who have set their caps at him? Do I have to spell out in words of one syllable how amazing that is?’ Jo looked at her fiercely and Kate meekly shook her head.

  ‘Two. You, disregarding all this, and the tiny fact that you are crazy about him —’ Kate tried to butt in, but Jo silenced her with a look that would have stopped people much braver than she was feeling at the moment. ‘You decide you should turn him down, for reasons unknown.’ Kate gulped but wasn’t game to say anything.

  ‘Three. You then proceed to mope around this flat like your bloody dog has died, with a face as long as a wet week and a complete inability to concentrate on anything.’ She snatched up the paper next to Kate’s bowl. ‘Exhibit A. This bloody crossword. You have, to my certain knowledge, started it at least seven times. And to date you have completed,’ she said, brandishing it under Kate’s nose, ‘a grand total of one clue. One. And this from the languages expert.’

  Jo threw the crossword back onto the bench contemptuously.