“It’s lovely. Beautiful,” Kim said. Standing, she walked over to kiss Charlie’s cheek. “Thank you.”
Becky followed suit. Rhys watched as Charlie fussed with her handbag, making a big deal out of hanging it over the back of her chair again to cover her self-conscious pleasure at his sisters’ reactions. Her cheeks were very pink and she ran a hand over her hair as though checking to make sure all was in order. Then, while he watched, she settled herself and took a steadying breath and slowly but surely composed herself.
It was an impressive feat of self-control. He’d already noted how self-contained she was. How disciplined.
She hadn’t been self-controlled in his bed that night, though. She’d been wild and willful and passionate. Abandoned, even. So much so that it had taken him weeks to get her out of his head.
“Who wants coffee or tea?” his father asked.
Rhys realized he was staring at Charlie, so he stood. “I’ll take care of it.”
The small domestic task kept him busy for the next several minutes. The coffee mugs had barely been drained when his siblings started making leaving noises. While they gathered their children, he made eye contact with Charlie and cocked an eyebrow, asking if she was ready to go. She shrugged and nodded, which he took to mean she was happy to leave when he was.
He turned to his mother, ready to say goodbye.
“Can you help me take the rubbish out before you go?” she asked before he could get a word out. She had that look in her eye again. The one that said she had something to say to him.
“Sure.” No point trying to put off the inevitable. His mother was as ruthless as the KGB when she wanted something.
“Won’t be a second,” he said to Charlie.
He collected the bulging bag from beneath the sink and made his way outside. His mother followed him, carrying a token juice container to justify their joint excursion. Rhys dumped the garbage in the bin and turned to face his mother.
“What’s up?”
“Why does anything need to be up?” she asked.
“Mum. Please. Subtlety was never your thing. Play to your strengths.” He watched as she tried to decide whether to pretend to be offended or to simply cut to the chase and start the inquisition.
“Charlie’s waiting,” he prompted her.
She gave him an exasperated look. “You know, I can’t wait till this baby of yours is old enough for you to understand how I feel right now.”
“My child will never have sex,” Rhys said. “I’ve already decided that. So he or she will never be in this situation.”
His mother’s smile was nothing short of patronizing. “Of course not. He or she will be perfectly polite and obedient, too, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“She’s not what I imagined, you know.”
The smile faded from Rhys’s lips. Finally, they’d come to the point.
“When I heard how you met, I had a picture in my head. A cliché, I guess. Big hair, short skirt, platform heels, too much makeup—”
“Thanks, Mum.” As a comment on his taste in women, it wasn’t very flattering.
“But she’s nothing like that, is she? I can see now why you believed her when she said the baby was yours.”
“She’s not a liar.”
“No. She isn’t.”
His mother fixed him with a determined look. “You should know that I’m going to ask for her number and I’m going to stay in contact. Not just because I want to be a part of this baby’s life. She hasn’t got any family, and she might have questions and I want to let her know that we’re here for her if she needs us.”
Rhys frowned. “It’s a nice idea. But she’s a very private person, Mum.”
“I want her to know she’s not alone.”
“She already knows that. She’s got me.”
His mother patted his arm. “Not in the way that I had your father. I know you’re doing your best, but it’s not the same as knowing that you’ve got someone by your side who loves you and is as excited about the baby and what happens next as you are.”
He stared at her, wanting to deny her words while, at the same time, knowing she was right.
“Charlie will be wondering what’s taking so long.”
He entered the house, heading to the bathroom to wash his hands. The kitchen was empty when he returned, but he could hear voices in the adjoining room. Charlie, his sisters and sisters-in-law. He collected his coat and went to join them.
He arrived in time to watch his mother press a scrap of paper with her number on it into Charlie’s hand, which, of course, necessitated that Charlie offer up her own. He swooped in before the other women of his family could get the same idea.
“Time for us to hit the road. I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow,” he said.
Charlie focused on his mother. “Thank you for a lovely meal. And I’m sorry about the, uh, sickness. The lasagna really did look beautiful.”
“It was our pleasure, Charlie,” his mother said.
“Thank you for our lovely presents,” Kim said.
Charlie lifted a hand in an awkward wave, but his mother stepped close and gave her a warm hug.
“It was lovely meeting you. I hope we see you again soon.”
Charlie blinked rapidly a few times as she drew back from his mother’s embrace. A few more farewells, and then they were on the porch, the door closed behind them.
Charlie was quiet as they made their way to his car. He waited until they were both buckled in and the engine running before speaking.
“Well. We survived. Mostly intact, too.”
“You have a nice family.”
“I have a loud, overbearing, opinionated, rude family. But it’s nice of you to say so.”
She smiled faintly but didn’t say anything else. He thought about what his mother had said about Charlie feeling alone. It was almost impossible for him to put himself in her shoes. Frankly, he was having enough trouble dealing with his half of this situation. But he wasn’t the one who would be carrying a baby to full term, and while his life was about to change significantly, it wouldn’t change as profoundly as Charlie’s.
He tried to find something to say that would bridge the gap between them. But there were no words that could undo the child that was growing inside her, and there was no magic wand he could wave to change their relationship. It was what it was.
Imperfect. Inconvenient. Unconventional.
Beside him, Charlie yawned, one hand lifting to cover her mouth politely. “Sorry.”
He put the car in gear. “Let’s get you home.”
CHARLIE’S “EVENING SICKNESS,” as Rhys soon dubbed it, was not a one-off occurrence. As she entered her tenth week she became far too familiar with the queasy, uneasy feeling that gripped her like clockwork the moment the sun went down. It didn’t take her long to learn that from approximately 6:00 p.m. onward she was good for nothing but lying on the couch with one of her many baby books, nibbling on dry toast or a banana.
She told Rhys as much when she canceled their second get-to-know-you dinner and he insisted on swapping out for a lunch so she would have her evenings free to wallow in her misery—his words, not hers.
“That’s very generous of you,” she said.
“Thank you. I thought so, too.”
She didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling. She leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the corner of her desk.
“I think a really generous person would volunteer to swallow several tablespoons of syrup of ipecac, to show his true solidarity,” she said.
“An interesting idea. Let me think about it for a few weeks and get back to you.”
“Some women believe the human race would have
died out long ago if men had to have babies, you know,” she said. “What with all the varicose veins and morning sickness and episiotomies.”
“I would totally be up for it if it was possible. But, sadly, it isn’t.”
She liked the way his voice got a certain note in it when he was teasing her.
“You’d better hope they don’t make a huge leap in reproductive science in your lifetime,” she said.
“No kidding.”
She was still smiling when she ended the call a few minutes later, and the next day he made her smile some more when they met in Surry Hills to try the Mexican restaurant she’d read about. They discussed the biography of Steve Jobs she was reading over bowls of fresh guacamole and crispy corn chips, sharing a pitcher of fruity nonalcoholic punch. Conversation shifted to his family as they shared a platter of fajitas, with Rhys filling her in on the various romances and courtships that had led to his siblings’ marriages.
“I still think it’s weird that you’re the only one who isn’t married yet,” she said as she used the last of her tortilla to mop up her plate.
“Just as weird as you not being married.”
Her response was out of her mouth before she could think it through. “It’s not the same. Not by a long shot.”
“Why not?” His gaze was direct and questioning.
She shifted, regretting her unthinking words. “I’m really thirsty. Do you want some more punch?”
Rhys cocked his head. “Am I missing something here?”
“No.” He didn’t need her to point out how good looking he was and how average she was and how that affected their respective chances for attracting the opposite sex. The man had eyes in his head.
The topic changed and she heaved a silent sigh of relief and made a mental note never to discuss Rhys’s marital status again. It was none of her business, anyway.
Still, she found herself wondering about his love life as he settled the bill at the bar. Probably because the waitress was pouring on the smiles as she served him.
There was no way that a man like him didn’t have a woman in his life, even only on a casual basis. Every time they’d gone out together he turned female heads—yet he’d never mentioned another woman in her presence.
So what? He doesn’t have to offer his whole life up to you on a platter. And you don’t have to offer everything up to him, either.
Not that there was much to hold back. But the principle was sound.
The following week Rhys couldn’t make lunch, so he compensated by coming to her place on Friday night with a bunch of bananas and a DVD. She was more touched than she should have been that he’d remembered bananas were one of the few things she could stomach.
They wound up talking through the DVD and eventually she turned it off so they didn’t have to do battle with the sound track. She told him about the coffee date she’d had with his mother, an event that could have been awkward and horrible but had been thoroughly enjoyable. Rhys warned her that his mother had a sixth sense for anything remotely private. Charlie put on her best poker face and told him that she’d already told Holly all the juicy details about their one night together. Rhys fixed her with a knowing eye and refused to rise to the bait. As the evening wore on he told her all the choice exploits he and his brothers had gotten up to when they were younger and she reciprocated with hair-raising tales from recruit training.
“I don’t know how you stuck it out,” he said when she’d finished telling him about how she’d had to complete a ten-kilometer hike—with a ten-kilogram pack—twice in order to accomplish it in under the required time limit. “I would have told them where to stuff their stupid requirements.”
He was lounging in the Eames chair, feet propped on the ottoman, his shirt open at the neck and pulled out from the waistband of his trousers. His shoes lay unlaced on the floor beside his chair. He looked big and rumpled and supremely at ease sprawled across her vintage furniture.
“If you want in, you have to pay the price of admission.”
He made a derisive sound. “Who told you that bull? One of your sergeants?”
“My father, actually.”
He winced. “Open mouth, insert foot. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I can understand how it might sound a bit slogany to someone who didn’t know him.”
“He was in the army, too, right?”
She nodded. “He was in the engineers corps. Right up until when I was born. Then he had to take a compassionate discharge.”
“Because of your mum.”
“Yes. There wasn’t anyone else to take me.” She stirred, swinging her legs from the couch to the floor. “Would you like a coffee? Or a cup of tea?”
He eyed her steadily. “It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t mind talking about him.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t like the idea that he thought she was running away from something or avoiding a difficult topic. She’d offered him coffee because she’d thought they’d exhausted the subject of her father.
“Ask me anything. What do you want to know?”
“What was he like?”
“Hardworking. Loyal. Dedicated.”
“I meant as a father. Were you friends?”
She rested her hands on her knees. “We didn’t have that sort of relationship.”
“So you didn’t get on, then?”
“We didn’t not get on, either. I guess, if I had to say anything, I’d say that we didn’t really know each other very well. But that’s hardly surprising, really. As he said more than once, it would have been much easier if I’d been a boy instead of a girl.”
“He said that to you?” Rhys sounded offended on her behalf.
“He didn’t mean it in a bad way. He simply didn’t know what to do with a girl, that’s all. Still, the plus side was that I knew how to tune an engine by the time I was twelve. You’d be surprised how often it comes in handy.” She stood. “Sure you don’t want a coffee?”
“A glass of water would be great, thanks.”
She nodded and headed for the kitchen. Her movements were stiff and tight as she moved around and she almost spilled the first glass of water when she pulled it away from the tap with too much force.
She shook the water off her hand, aware of an irritated agitation within herself. She dried her hand on the tea towel and returned to the living room with a glass for each of them.
She handed one to Rhys, but he caught her wrist before she could retreat to the sofa again.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Charlie.”
“I’m not upset.” The high pitch of her voice belied her words.
Rhys held her gaze and after a second she looked away. She pulled her wrist free and returned to the sofa, setting her water on the coffee table. She stared at her hands for a long beat before looking at him again.
“The truth is, I don’t like talking about him because it feels like unfinished business and I know it will never be finished because he’s dead now. Which is stupid, really, because it would never have been finished even if he’d lived to be a hundred and fifty.”
She dropped her gaze. Rhys didn’t say anything and she felt an unexpected surge of gratitude for his sympathetic silence.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I think the thing is, he was a man’s man, you know? A soldier. He didn’t talk about his feelings. Ever. God knows how he managed to meet and woo my mother, because he was a man of very few words. But I guess he did woo her, or I wouldn’t be here, would I? And maybe he was different before she died.” She shrugged. “Either way, I think he was probably one of those people who should never have been a parent. He had no natural instinct for it. S
o he did his duty, but that was about it.”
“Did you join the army for him or for you?”
She gave a tight smile. “Good question. At the time I thought it was for me. But then I kept waiting for some sign from him that I’d finally got it right. Whatever ‘it’ was supposed to be. It never came, of course. But by then I’d worked out that the army and I weren’t a bad fit, after all. You work hard, they reward you. That made sense to me.”
“How did he die?”
“Pancreatic cancer. He didn’t tell me until the end. And even then it was one of the nurses who called me. He died the next day, before I could get compassionate leave to come home.”
“Hard yards, Charlie.” There was a world of sympathy in his voice.
“It wasn’t great. But it wasn’t awful, either. There are a lot of people with uglier stories to tell.”
Rhys frowned. “I’ve always hated that argument. As though just because you can find someone in the world worse off than you, your own stuff isn’t supposed to count or hurt.”
“I was trying to appear stoic, if you must know.”
“Walkers don’t do stoicism. We wail, we complain, we gnash our teeth and bitch and moan. We kick up a stink and rock the boat. You should try it sometime.”
“Maybe I will.”
His eyes were very warm as they watched her and she could only hold his gaze for a few seconds before she had to look away again. His phone beeped to signal an incoming email. She watched as he slid his phone from his pocket to check it. He put it away again almost immediately.
“Real estate agent,” he explained when he saw her surprise. “I looked at an apartment he was selling on the Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo a few weeks back and he hasn’t stopped bugging me since.”
“You’re not interested?”
“Nope.”
He stretched his arms over his head, straining the buttons on his shirt. Charlie caught herself staring and made herself look away.
“I should head home. Let you get to bed.” Rhys started to lift his legs from the ottoman. “Ow.” He leaned forward, gripping his calf, his face creased with pain.
More Than One Night Page 15