He seriously had no idea.
But instead of arguing, I said, “How long have you known that you loved me?”
He glanced away for a second, then he shrugged as if it didn’t matter anymore what he said. “The first time you came in my arms.” He nodded to himself. “I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life, and in that moment I promised myself I’d do anything to have you. To keep you.” We stared at each other. “But you didn’t want that,” he went on. “And if I’d told you I was falling in love you’d have taken out a restraining order.”
I nodded, because that was completely true. It had all happened too quickly and I’d mistrusted him from the start. He was being so honest, I had to admit, “I’ve loved you since the first time you came inside me, that same night. Your eyes looked vulnerable, or lost.” I shook my head. “I wanted to anchor you. You were so strong, but…”
“Only on the outside.”
We stared at each other, the distance between us like an aching chasm. “Don’t end this,” I begged shamelessly. “I haven’t told my agent about the baby, but when I do, she’ll scale back my career. I don’t need to do anything I don’t want to do.”
What I wanted was to be in his arms, to convince him with my body, but the table wasn’t the only thing separating us.
His face went still, and then he nodded, as though he’d expected me to say that and it disappointed him. Greatly. “Tell that to the film crew waiting in the shearing shed a mile down the track.” He nodded toward the front of the house where the ‘track’ had brought me from the main road.
“What?” My determination gave way to fluttering confusion. “Film crew?”
“Your agent sent them. Seems she didn’t get the memo.” His gaze bored into mine. “I’ve told my parents to wait in town until they’re gone. As you can imagine, I don’t want them confronting this.”
If I’d felt upset before, this was a hundred times worse. “I’m so sorry…” It was a completely inadequate thing to say, but I was so sorry I was sick with it. To lose your daughter, and then not be able to come home and tell your grandchildren…
If they’d disliked me before, they’d hate me now.
“I’m sure you are.” He looked at me a moment longer, then said, “I told them to book a room in town and get some sleep. They’ve been up all night.”
“I’m so sorry.” I held out a hand. “I’ll fix this.” Then I turned blindly. “I’ll tell the film crew to go.”
“Angela,” he said, when I would have walked out.
I turned reluctantly, because I could already tell from the tone in his voice that this was goodbye.
“I think it would be best if you weren’t here when my parents come back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Jack was throwing me out, and all I could do was nod. My earlier feistiness was gone as I reverted into the meekly accepting Angela of old. “Of course. It’s a family time. And please, tell them how sorry I am.”
He nodded. His expression was stiff, as if he was holding back something. Anger would be deserved, but I couldn’t spend time sorting that out. I needed to get the film crew off their property. So I went to the guestroom, threw my things in my bag and was crying by the time I had the girls in a goodbye hug.
They were full of patting concern, but I told them it was normal for the baby to make me cry, and I wasn’t unhappy. I was healthy and fine. I even managed a watery smile before I ran out to the car, threw in my things and drove on down the road to the shearing shed where the apologetic crew explained that to finish the documentary, they needed to interview me. Rosie had assumed I wanted that interview at the property, alongside Jack, to bookend the Sunshine segment. So they’d flown in.
I can’t remember what I told them. I wasn’t about to reveal Jack’s private news about his sister’s death. But I did demand that every mention of Jack be cut from the documentary. Then I shooed them back to Gillabindi, the nearest town where I needed to fuel up anyway. By the time I’d arrived, I’d stopped crying, and while they set up the cameras in the main street to capture the majestic row of fat-bodied Bottle Trees that ran through the center of town, I put on makeup.
Then, to the bemusement of the locals, we did the interview at the bar of one of the two pubs in town, with ten-in-the-morning drinkers gawping in the background. Twenty minutes of stilted lies about my excitement for the album and the happy future that was just on the horizon was as much as I could stomach. I left them to get generic ‘country town’ shots to background segments where I’d talked about my childhood, and I hit the road.
It took hours to get to the airport, and I filled that time with self-recrimination and an aching grief that I couldn’t be there to hold Jack while he mourned his sister. I understood completely now why he’d pushed me away, and how I’d confused him with my demands.
Of course he’d think I only wanted him for sex. But now that I’d seen him at home, and particularly having seen him gentled with love for his nieces and gutted by the death of his sister, I wanted every part of his life.
Had I told him that? I suddenly couldn’t remember. He’d said he wanted me. He wanted the baby. But then he’d thrown me out. So did that mean he needed time? Or did his perception of me as a ‘city girl’ mean he’d continue to push me away?
And was I a city girl? Or would I live anywhere to be with him, to raise our child as a family, together?
The fresh wave of sobs that followed that question was evidence enough that there was no ‘sacrifice’ in my mind about moving to be with him. I didn’t care where I lived, so long as I could wake up beside him each morning and fall asleep in his arms every night.
But how could I convince him of that?
I shook my head, gazing out the windscreen at the bleak outback landscape, where endless plains gave way to scrubby bushland, and the side of the road was littered with the carcasses of roadkill—mostly kangaroos and wallabies. The sight of those furry lives cut short, felt like a reflection of my despair.
It also showed me that life was precious and I shouldn’t waste mine, or my baby’s, on longing and grief. I’d sobbed. Now I should plan. So I arrived at the airport with a fresh determination to move past regrets into action, and was lucky to make the midday flight out. The seat beside me was empty and that made me sad all over again but I didn’t cry.
I thought about what I would need to do to convince Jack that I was a country girl at heart, and that I loved him enough to make big changes to be part of his life. I wasn’t sure Rosie would be too keen on my plans, but I had other priorities now.
Being ditched as her client would have mortified the old me, but this new version of Angela was ferociously focused on my baby and my man, and I’d cut loose what I had to so I could hold onto what mattered. I only hoped I could weather any disapproval from Jack’s parents when they found out a ‘colored girl’ was having their grandchild.
Kamal picked me up at the airport, which was a comfort, and I managed to get home to his apartment without crying, but as soon as I saw Fritha there with an ugly bruise on her cheek, the pain that I’d so recently papered-over with determination, broke through.
She sat me on the edge of my old bed and wrapped me in her skinny arms as I tried to tell them my story, but each new heartbreak had to be accompanied by a wave of grief.
“And then his parents couldn’t even come home!” I wailed. “And it’s all my fault.”
“Poor baby. Poor baby,” she said over and over, rocking me gently while Kamal watched on helplessly from the doorway.
“He loves me,” I sobbed, inconsolable, now that I had the story out. “He wants me and the baby. But…I fucked it up.”
Kamal caught his breath, but Fritha shot him a quelling glance. “It’s all right honey. You let it out. Drop the C bomb if you want to.”
I shook my head.
“Then I can,” she said. “Kamal-sutra likes a bit of dirty talk with his sex. Don’t you, munchkin?”
“Frit
ha!” he snapped.
I gulped back a sob, then looked between the two of them, wondering what she was talking about. Kamal thought ladies should never swear, and he’d certainly never heard me swear before.
But Fritha was grinning and Kamal was turning an interesting shade of embarrassed. I glanced down at the bed we were sitting on, which appeared as neat as the day I’d left it, and hiccupped another sob, then I looked back to Fritha.
“I slept with him.” She looked inordinately proud of herself. “Little fucker’s got some moves. He may well have studied the sutras.”
Kamal’s face was so red by this point, I thought he’d burst an artery. At last he said, “I can’t do this,” and he left.
Fritha chuckled. “I do love to see the boys blush.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled up and emerged as a scratchy chuckle. “Bad friend,” I teased her.
“No. Good friend,” she corrected. “I’m sleeping with him tonight, so there’s a convenient bed here.” She patted the quilt beside her. “You can cry yourself to sleep in peace, but if you call out I’ll come running.”
I frowned. “With clothes on.”
“If you insist.”
I stared into her freckled face, remembering all the times I’d let her comfort me in the past, and how healing that had been. But with the tears drying on my face, some of my earlier resolve came back. I was going to be a mother soon. I was too old for pity parties.
So I shook my head. “I have to fix this. What should I do?”
“Don’t ask me.” She rested her head on my shoulder. “The one time I say no to sex, and the bastard thumps me.” She shook her head, spreading her long red curls across my sweater. “I don’t belong in the city, Ange. Men are complicated here. I’m going to fuck your cousin a few more times and go home.”
I put an arm around her shoulder, our roles reversed. “I’m getting out of Dodge too.”
“You belong with Jack. He’s prime real estate,” she said, and snuggled into my shoulder. “That chest is like…acreage. Tell me you haven’t got tired, licking it from one side to the other.”
I laughed at that, and had to admit, “There are plenty of things I haven’t done. Plenty of things I still want to do.”
“Then go after him!” She pulled out of my arms. “Go back up there and—”
“His sister just died.”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “Forgot that. Grief. Time.” She snugged back into my shoulder. “Then you gotta wait, A. You gotta let him heal.”
“But I want to be with him. I want to help him feel better.”
Fritha was silent for a moment, then she chuckled. “There’s a euphemism that isn’t used enough.”
“Not like that!” I slapped her arm, then I went back to rubbing her shoulder. “Okay, maybe yes, like that. But also just loving him.”
“Except he won’t see you.”
I sighed. “There has to be a way to get past that. Some strategy.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “You need to find someone who knows about men. And that sure as shit isn’t me.”
So that’s how I ended up back in Dakaroo, knocking on my parents’ door—of all places.
“Angela!” my father swung the door wide and pulled me into a hug. “What a lovely surprise.”
“I hope so,” I said, clutching my car keys in my hand. I probably shouldn’t have driven all the way, but I’d needed time to think, to talk myself out of this. Only, I couldn’t. The bald fact was that my parents had been married for forty years, and though my mother was a tyrant, my father was inexplicably happy with her. There had to be something I could learn from that.
“You’re brewing a grandchild I hear.” He led me into the house, which as always, smelt of cardamom and cloves. “Your mother is very pleased. Very pleased indeed.” His head wobbled as he walked into the kitchen, and I wondered if people in town still made fun of that. And why he’d never changed.
“I’m glad, Daddy-ji,” I said, and sat at the same laminated kitchen table I’d known as a child. “And chai would be lovely.”
“Very good,” he said smiling, and busied himself preparing it. I knew it was his particular pleasure to make the chai, because his wife wouldn’t let him near the food. And when we were looking at each other across the table and I’d taken a sip of mine, he said, “Your mother is upset that she didn’t hear from you. You used to phone us each week.”
Every Sunday night since Danny and I had moved to Sydney. I shrugged. “She made me angry.”
“She makes me angry all the time,” he said, as if that was to be expected. “Why would that stop you showing your love?”
“Is that love, Daddy-ji?” I put down my cup. “Because I don’t understand about love. How does me phoning her make her feel loved?”
“It shows her that you are a dutiful daughter.” He waved a finger at me to emphasize his point.
“And what does she do in return?” That was the question I’d wanted to ask since I was old enough to talk. Why did we all have to show her love, and she just made demands?
“In return?” He looked at me as if I was teasing him. “She guides you with her wisdom.” He nodded at this as if it was the answer to everything.
“You mean she tells me what to do?”
“And have you benefitted from her knowledge?” he demanded, tapping a finger on the table.
“No. I’ve felt belittled, criticized and ridiculed,” I replied. But even as I was answering honestly, I was wondering who this new woman was, who could speak her mind, and whether she’d have the courage to do the same thing to her mother in such a calm, rational way.
“Then that is your fault,” he replied, wobbling his head as he always did when he spoke. “No person can make you feel bad without your permission.”
I’d heard that quote before, but it just didn’t cut it for me. “That’s all very well if you’re an adult, but how can a child protect itself from verbal attacks? She’s been telling me I’m lazy and stupid and vain since I was tiny. Do you have any idea how hard that is to get over?”
If it wasn’t for Fritha and Jill and Louella giving me perspective, I’d probably have ended up neurotic or a doormat.
“No, I do not,” he replied, starting to lose his affable smile. “I know only love from your mother, no matter her words.”
“So you ignore them?”
The pause before he replied spoke volumes. “I see through her moments of irritability to the loving woman within.”
Moments of irritability?
I supposed a lifetime was made up of moments, and I could have been infuriated by that, but I was here to learn, so perhaps this conversation was instructive.
“So what makes the tirades bearable?” I asked.
“She is an excellent cook,” he replied immediately. “And an affectionate wife.”
I stared at him across the table, about to say I’ve never seen a single affectionate gesture in my life, when I suddenly realized I was riding Fritha’s euphemism train. ‘Affectionate wife’ must be code for ‘good lover’, but I certainly wasn’t about to discuss that with him.
Instead, I said, “And you’re telling me those two good things wipe out all the bad?”
He nodded immediately, and I was so stunned, I picked up my chai to sip it and give myself time to think. Louella’s mother had said a similar thing: Keep his stomach and his loins satisfied, and ninety percent of your job is done. But how could it possibly be as simple as that?
I’d had so much sex with Jack, he would know we were amazing together. So that just left food. But he’d practically ordered me off Daven Downs. How could I cook for him?
“Are you staying?” Daddy asked me.
I shook my head, realizing I had what I came for. “Tell Mummy I’m sorry.” I put down my cup and stood. “But I’ll phone her Sunday night.”
He smiled. “Then our conversation has been helpful.”
“For her,” I replied begrudgingly.
> He led me to the door. “Be kind to her, Angela,” he said, and hugged me again. “When you are a mother, you will see how hard it is. She lost a baby before you,” he said softly, as if someone might overhear us, “And it changed her. Do not tell her I told you that.”
“Of course not,” I said automatically as my mind struggled to assimilate this new fact. Then I hugged him again and an impulse made me add, “I love you Daddy-ji.” I hadn’t said that since I was a child. “And I love Mummy-ji too,” I added begrudgingly, because I couldn’t deny that if anything happened to her, I’d rush to her side. And what was that, if it wasn’t love?
“This man,” my father said as he pulled back to hold my hands. “The one who is responsible for your baby. Will you be marrying him?”
I could see he was struggling not to judge a situation he knew so little about.
But I didn’t want him worrying, so I nodded. “Yes he is,” I replied. “I’m just not sure when.”
“I would like to meet him,” my father said, with his adorable head-wobbling.
And just as I had as a child, I wobbled mine back. “And one day you will.”
But when would that one day be? Back in Sydney, phone calls to Fritha and Louella strengthened my resolve to go back and pursue Jack. Fritha’s Go nail that fucker was too forceful, while Louella’s I’m sure once the baby is born he’ll come around seemed too passive.
I was going to miss them both, but before I could leave, I had to front up to Rosie and tell her my plans. I knew she wouldn’t be pleased, but I had no choice. So the day after I’d seen my father, I was sitting in her beautiful office in Pyrmont, with the picture window behind us like a postcard of the glistening blue Sydney Harbor.
Rosie put down her tiny espresso cup and said, “When you told me you’d have to pause your career for a baby, I didn’t imagine it would be so soon.” She wasn’t exasperated, but I could tell I’d derailed her plans.
“As it turns out, I was pregnant at our first meeting.” I shrugged apologetically. “But of course I’m deliriously happy about that.”
Husband Stay (Husband #2) Page 29