‘Well it’s charming, anyway,’ he said kindly. Our food arrived swiftly, although that might just have been a reflection of how caught up in each other we were. Scallops for him and a marinara for me.
‘Bon Appétit,’ he said. ‘Hopefully the first meal of many together.’ We chinked our glasses and focussed on our meals - which were delicious - before continuing to get to know each other.
His business interests were scattered around the world. He lived a nomadic existence. Setting down roots in any one place for long seemed to be a challenge for him. Bachelorhood suited him and his globe-wandering lifestyle.
Of three green-eyed brothers he was the only surviving. His eldest brother, Brendan, had been killed a couple of years before in a diving accident. He was one of a team repairing pipes on an oil rig and had never resurfaced. His body had never been found and sharks were surmised to have taken it. His younger brother by a year, Daniel, had committed suicide many years ago, prior to my birth.
Although his tone was matter of fact, lingering grief resided in the heaviness which tugged at his face as he spoke. Eighteen years had passed, my whole life, and his family were gone. One by one they had died. Only he remained. I wasn’t sure whether that meant he was the lucky one.
‘I’m the sole survivor,’ he said with a bitter laugh, shaking his head and then grabbing his glass and swigging back the last of his whisky as though it was some sort of antidote for misery. It seemed to have the opposite effect as he struggled harder to let go of the dark expression which settled across his features.
We finished our meal, our dessert and our coffees, but he continued to order and consume one whisky after another, becoming increasingly disillusioned, a shadow of the man who had greeted me. I began to feel a little concerned, chewing on my cheek and then irritating a nail as I wondered how to deal with the situation. It wasn’t one I had prepared for.
‘You come from a long line of cursed human beings, Kate,’ he stated morosely, shaking his head. His knuckles had turned blue-white around his tumbler and I leant forward to reassure him. I wanted to remind him that he was a good swimmer, Deb had told me, and that he would not drown in this sea of dark circumstance. He had made it so far. But suddenly it seemed too presumptuous and I wasn’t convinced that my interpretation would fit with his and so I leant back and bit my tongue. ‘I’m sorry that I’ve passed that on to you,’ he mumbled.
I smiled nervously. ‘I don’t feel cursed Nick, although I understand that you feel that way after everything you’ve been through.’ My heart felt inexplicably heavy, like I was absorbing some of his pain. ‘This must be difficult for you. Seeing me and having to rehash the past.’
Did that explain the drinking? I gazed into the depths of my empty coffee cup and then back up to him. ‘I don’t want to add to your hurt. I don’t want you to feel guilty about me when you didn’t even know that I existed. I’ve been raised by wonderful parents who loved me. They were desperate to have a child.’ It was the truth, but in the moment it sounded like propaganda. I shrugged, trying to dispel the tension which held my shoulders in its fist. ‘If there was a curse, then I’ve escaped it!’
He regarded me for a long moment. ‘The circumstances of your birth and the way Deb hid your arrival have allowed you to be raised differently … very differently to how you would have been otherwise.’
I shrugged, ‘Fate has been kind to me in that way.’
‘Fate?’ he spat, immediately recognising his inappropriate response and softening his tone. ‘In the end, these things have a way of finding you, Kate.’
I nodded, not completely understanding the depths of his despair, guessing and then adding the alcohol to that. ‘You’ve lost a lot.’
‘Don’t pity me, please!’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘I handled the whole Deb thing badly. God!’ He dropped his head into his hands for an instant, almost immediately sitting up straight again.
The past. What would life be like if we could go back and change our mistakes? We’d change the future, maybe cancel ourselves out. I certainly wouldn’t be here. ‘Fate, Nick. You’re a successful businessman and Deb’s happy where she is.’
He grabbed my arms across the table suddenly, startling me and drawing me into the confusing depths of his eyes. There was too much going on to begin to interpret, but I could feel some sort of transfer of emotion. ‘I was so drawn to her.’ His stare was penetrating. I felt him willing me to understand, to forgive. ‘Even at the end when I had no other choice, it was so hard to stay away. I did things to drive her away from me. I had to. I was a coward. I knew that if she came back to me I couldn’t let her go and I had to.’ Equally suddenly the strength left his voice and he released my arms, looking downcast.
‘Why?’
‘Smoke and mirrors …’ he answered mysteriously, explaining nothing. His glass was empty. He clinked the ice in it as though wondering what had happened to the liquid.
I looked at him expectantly and he sighed.
‘Poor Deb. It was my family, Kate. Put simply, at the end of the day they just didn’t want us together. You’ve heard it before. Rich bastards who don’t want any but their own kind around.’ His glass clunked down on the table and he held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t speak that way around you.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, fiddling with the serviette. I folded it and smoothed it out while I thought about what he had said. ‘So her family wasn’t acceptable to them?’ I asked, remembering how sweet her mum had sounded on the phone.
He seemed unsure exactly how to respond. His lips parted as though to speak, but then pressed together into a tight line. Finally he nodded. ‘In the beginning it seemed that simple, an ‘us and them’ thing. What I’d always known. But … if only, it was much worse than that.’ He regarded our surrounds, and I worried that he would order another whisky, but maybe he was just looking for the exit. Finally he spoke again. ‘If I’d known in the beginning the extent of ‘screwed-upness’ that existed in my family I never would have dragged her into it.’ He exhaled deeply. ‘It must have been so hard for her to deal with her pregnancy on her own.’
‘She was lucky, her mother supported her,’ I said. ‘I get the impression they were very close.’
He nodded. ‘They were.’
Nick seemed less formidable now than when I had first met him. His posture had changed and he had become stooped. The more he drank, the more his shoulders slumped. It was the place the alcohol was taking him to, the place where he couldn’t escape the sadness and regret.
‘She’s still around,’ I added, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Deb named me after her when I was first born. Julia. My adoptive parents called me Kate.’
‘Julia,’ he said, his voice reflective. ‘I remember her clearly. She didn’t have an easy life either.’
‘She gave up a lot to help Deb, resigned from her job to go away with her and left her boyfriend behind. Seems like an old-fashioned way of doing things … the adoption and keeping everything secret. But that’s what Deb wanted.’
‘She probably didn’t want my family finding out, or me I guess.’ He brought his hands to his face again, but this time used them to push his hair off his forehead. I noticed a faint sheen of perspiration across his temples. ‘If only she’d known …’
‘Known what?’
He hesitated before speaking. ‘My family are fiercely protective of their own. If they had known about your existence, no matter the circumstances, you would have had a home. Deb would not have been able to leave, to put you up for adoption.’
‘She might still have chosen to,’ I said, not exactly sure what to make of this new bit of information, but relatively sure that the type of protectiveness he mentioned would not be something Deb would have appreciated.
He chuckled, but it was a hard sound and a chill ran down my spine.
A fingernail had made its way into my mouth. I bit down on it and then released it. ‘It seems strange to me that in such a small pla
ce, no-one ever suspected.’
He nodded. ‘She did a good job of covering things up, or maybe we just weren’t paying enough attention. The family was preoccupied. Daniel had just died …’
‘I’m sorry, Nick.’
He shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. We were all a bit messed up.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘And so, I guess she had to go through it alone. Thank God for her mother.’
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘Somehow she made it through and met Jim and … well, she seems content now.’
‘Content. I envy her.’ He reflected for a moment and added with a grim smile. ‘Not possible for everyone.’
A fresh whisky and soda arrived and my stomach lurched. He took a deep drink. This was definitely his last, although I wondered how I would go insisting on that if I needed to. He sensed my anxiety and reached out to pat my hand reassuringly. ‘I’m really happy for her,’ he said. ‘She deserves it.’ He turned away for a moment and I glimpsed a tiny tear at the corner of his eye.
It was gone when he turned back, but a look of deep regret had settled on his face. His eyes darkened as old ghosts consumed the colour. ‘I wish I could tell you that we were your average family, that Mum used to make us packed lunches for school and Dad used to take us fishing and that we’d argue but we’d make up and in the end we all loved each other and that was the main thing.’
I couldn’t help a grim smile, reflecting on Mum and Dad and their arguments, the tension which would linger for days at home sometimes. My fear. ‘I’m not sure where you researched your facts on the average family, Nick.’
‘No? Well, maybe you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘My family background is not a happy one. In fact, it’s hard to remember anything overly positive about it. Our family seemed more like a dictatorship. My mother was the ruler of the regime, even dominating my father, although he was the second in command of course.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘They’re gone now,’ he said, as though reminding himself of this truth.
I was unsure how to react. His body and face were a jumble of emotional cues. Celebration or sympathy? I remained quiet.
‘It’s easy to say. They’re gone, dead and buried.’ He frowned, and shadows eddied through his eyes. ‘But sometimes I hear them, whispering, doubting, and I wonder.’
I searched for words and came up a bit short. ‘Obviously they have had a huge impact on you …’ His laugh was bitter, cutting me off. I ploughed on. ‘But you can let the past go now. Like you said, they’re not around anymore.’
He raised his eyebrows and looked directly at me. The ghosts of the very people we were speaking of flitted within him. ‘You are so very right, Kate. They are not, but you are.’
I swallowed. Yes, of course. I was a powerful link to the past he’d probably been trying to escape.
He waved my unspoken apology away. ‘It’s a fact that’s all. Your origins are in my past and so unavoidably a lot has been coming back to me over these last weeks, but … I’m not alone anymore am I?’ He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded. ‘I’m still processing that, because in a way it seems like a miracle and I’m not sure I deserve one.’
We sat in silence for a while as the restaurant started emptying around us.
‘Deb and I were pretty irresponsible together,’ he acknowledged. ‘It was my fault. I was a crazy, hormone-fuelled kid, desperate to live in the moment.’ He shrugged and then sat up a little straighter. ‘I know I’m making excuses but our attraction was powerful. It blinded us to reality.’ He gestured to me. ‘That’s why you’re sitting across from me today.’
‘I’m the consequence.’
He nodded. ‘It’s unfair to reduce you to that, I know.’ He shook his head and ran his fingers through his messy curls. Guilt continued to nag at his forehead and he brought his hand up to rub his brow.
‘When we get to know each other better I’ll tell you more, I promise. I just don’t want you to run ten miles right now.’ He picked up my wrist and turned it over, lightly touching the blue of my veins. A slow shiver inched up my neck.
‘You will probably curse me for the Edwards’ blood in your veins, Kate.’
He dropped my wrist and gave me a lopsided grin. For a moment I glimpsed the boy inside as the darkness moved away.
‘You’ve got me interested anyway,’ I said with a shrug, trying for nonchalance, which was a very far removed state from my currently piqued curiosity. He beckoned for the bill.
‘I have to give you a reason to see me again, you see,’ he said.
‘Of course we’re going to meet again … if you can risk the Melbourne weather, that is.’ He glanced outside with dread.
‘Next time I’ll bring the thermals,’ he said, and I smiled.
The bill arrived and he paid and afterwards as he sat looking at me, I noticed that the quality of his smile had changed. It was less determined, a little more confused, only half of his mouth turned up, just like when we had first met. It was sadder. ‘You’re so forgiving. I wish I could be,’ he said.
We stood and moved through the now semi-deserted restaurant. ‘I might have felt differently if Mum and Dad had been awful. I don’t know,’ I said.
‘I’m glad you can love, Kate. Don’t ever let that go. Not even when life takes something so sweet and tries to throttle you with it. Don’t get bitter and twisted …’ I felt a flutter of anxiety. The realisation that life was harsher than I knew sometimes and, no doubt, some of that would head my way.
‘I’ll try,’ I said quietly.
‘Never stop trying, Katie.’ His diminutive use of my name felt familiar. I liked it.
The waiters looked relieved as we headed outside. It was still blustery and the clouds weren’t sure whether they were coming or going. I wrapped my arms around myself to stop bits of me from flying away, although my bag still tried and my hair was a lost cause. ‘You can’t drive,’ I stated matter of factly, ready to restrain him if need be. The whites of his eyes were really quite bloodshot, although he was still amazingly coherent.
‘No,’ he acknowledged, touched by my concern, ‘I’ll get a cab.’
‘You’re not going to fly either, are you?’ I asked, my hand on his arm, suddenly realising that he didn’t have a jacket. Maybe the brisk air would help to clear his head.
‘No, I’ll fly back tomorrow. I’ve got some business to sort out tonight anyway.’ I looked at him dubiously, but he was obviously a seasoned drinker. If I had consumed a quarter of the quantity of whiskey he had I would have long since given the tourists a display of sour-smelling abstract art on the pavement.
‘Okay, well it’s been great to meet you in person.’ I looked up at him through the many wisps of hair which whipped across my face, and noticed that his hair was just as wild.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Your hair is crazy.’
He chuckled, trying to smooth it with his fingers and giving up. ‘Yours too.’
Suddenly his expression became complex again and I felt an irrational desire to be a child for him, to rewind time. An unexpected bead of moisture tangled with my eyelashes and I blinked rapidly to dispel it. ‘I hope that we can do this again sometime soon, Nick.’
He grasped me unexpectedly in another tight hug, lifting my feet off the ground and making my head spin. For a moment I felt his possessiveness, his heart reached out to mine and his mind tried to push the world away. It was as though he wanted the moment to last forever, or maybe that was my desire, but it could not and he released me, whispering in my ear, almost regretfully as he did so.
‘Do you dream, Kate?’
The abrupt transition was confusing. A question without sufficient context. He set me on the ground and held me at arm’s length, his expression earnest, his eyes suddenly sober, a furrow across his brow deepening over one eye as he examined me.
What had I missed?
‘Of course I dream,’ I said, trying to shrug away my disquiet. The look of fear which crossed hi
s face, like he was treading on ground which might suddenly open up and swallow him, didn’t help.
‘Good dreams?’ he asked, drawing his arms away. My heart sank although I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I had a sense of it then. A sense that all wasn’t right, that he already knew my answer. Although, that was ludicrous, of course.
‘Sometimes ...’ I answered, feeling disoriented, sensing the clock tick, but time standing still. ‘Sometimes, not so great. Just like everyone.’
‘No,’ he said, and I looked into the depths of his emerald eyes. For a moment there was something else reflected in them like an infusion of colour in the space between everything, before my mind shut it out and it was gone.
‘Not like everyone.’ His voice was slow and heavy, burdened by secrets and my heart pumped something cold and slithery through my veins as I realised that one day those secrets would surely be mine as well. I too might be saddled by weights too heavy to bear. It was only him and me now, after all. A feeling of doubt sidled up from my stomach but I swallowed it down heavily. I had needed to make contact with him and now that I had, I couldn’t go back.
Still I spoke cautiously. ‘What do you mean, not like everyone?’
‘You’re an Edwards. You are not like everyone else. I think you know that already.’
And then he was gone, turning away and slipping through the crowd, leaving me surprised, muddled and all alone.
8
DEB AND NICK
The unexpected shades of the lake took my breath away. Clear around the edges, but God had been playful, turning the centre into a kaleidoscope with turquoise swirls which turned to azure, and then indigo in the darkest water.
I had been perched on the back of Nick’s sleek black and chrome motorbike for a little over thirty minutes, when we broke through a cover of almost tropical vegetation at the crest of a hill and in front of us lay this surprise. An expanse so wide it seemed almost like an inland sea, a bay, surrounded by dazzling white beaches and rocky outcrops, and further back by the bush and hills.
Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy Page 7