Someone Like You

by Victoria Purman

  Ry fought back, grabbing her wrists in a lightning-fast manoeuvre and then spun Julia around so they were both looking out onto the street. His arms slipped around her shoulders. ‘That car belongs to the one, the only, Anna Morelli.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  Ry chuckled. ‘Dan’s first girlfriend, that’s who.’

  A couple of hours later, Julia called Lizzie. She couldn’t let Lizzie stew any longer.

  ‘Can’t talk. Working.’ The sounds of the pub filtered down the line.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Surely you get a tea break. Go somewhere quiet. I have news.’

  ‘You’ve got your first big client?’

  ‘Yes I have, as a matter of fact. Two of them. But that’s not it.’

  Julia could hear the resignation in Lizzie’s sigh. ‘Yes, I know. Apparently I slept with Dan McSwaine. And then we followed it up with a knee-trembling kiss in the car park.’

  ‘Ooh, I didn’t know about the kiss. How exciting.’

  ‘You know about the sleeping with him part?’

  ‘Oops.’

  ‘Look, Jools, I really have to go.’

  ‘No, wait. I have to tell you something.’

  ‘Yes, I know about her, too.’

  Julia slapped herself on the side of the head. ‘How the hell did you know I was calling about her?’

  ‘She came into the pub, Jools. Her name’s Anna.’ Lizzie’s voice was full of weary acknowledgment. ‘She seems nice. I like her.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t think you’d react that way to meeting Dan’s old girlfriend.’

  Dan’s old girlfriend.

  Lizzie’s heart dropped like a stone into the pit of her stomach. That explained the look on his face. The one she couldn’t get out of her head. She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly to calm herself while she figured out what to say.

  ‘Wait ’til you see her up close. Lips like plumped up pillows. Better than Angelina’s. Eyelashes to die for. And they’re real.’

  ‘I suppose you also know that her car’s parked outside Dan’s place.’

  ‘Jools. Stop it.’

  ‘I’m just telling you—’

  ‘Jools.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to explain himself to me. He is free to catch up with an old friend, one he’s clearly very fond of. We don’t owe each other anything.’

  ‘Lizzie…’ Julia trailed off. ‘We haven’t talked in ages. What’s going on? I miss you.’

  Lizzie knew it was the truth. Between work, the renovation at the pub, spending time with Dan, organising the first Christmas market and keeping an eye on Harri next door, she’d had no time lately for her best friend. Lizzie realised that with the arrival of Anna, a spot had just opened up in her diary. The time she’d been planning to spend with Dan was now suddenly free.

  ‘Jools…I miss you too. Let’s catch up tonight. Why don’t we drive into Goolwa, grab some fish and chips and sit by the river?’

  ‘Sounds fabulous. I’ll come and pick you up. And if you want to talk about what’s been going on, I’m all ears.’

  Lizzie sighed. ‘Hope you’ve got more than two.’

  CHAPTER

  13

  ‘He’s too complicated, Jools.’ Lizzie crunched on a hot chip, the vinegary tang hitting her tastebuds the way she liked it. Sheets of butcher’s paper were spread out on the grass between the two women and they’d propped two cans of Diet Coke on each end to stop them blowing away. To their left was the Hindmarsh Island Bridge, crossing the River Murray in a curving arc, and to their right, the river flowed away over the barrages and out to sea at the Murray Mouth. It was peaceful, a light breeze rustling the paper and cooling the chips. The grassed area was away from the busy main road and a few people sauntered by with their dogs. Seagulls gathered overhead and landed nearby, squawking their demands, their uncanny radar for their target better than the US Military’s heat-seeking missiles.

  ‘What do you mean too complicated? I think blokes are pretty simple. Feed them, flirt with them, figure out of they’re a leg man or a breast man and seduce accordingly.’

  Lizzie allowed herself a smile and bit into another chip. ‘What was he like in hospital, after the accident?’

  Julia took a minute to think and to remember those awful days. ‘He was a little flat at first. No surprise given he’d been heavily sedated in the first week, but he picked up as time went on. He seemed happy when he was discharged and even though he had some physical healing to do, Ry thought he seemed like his old self.’

  Lizzie pondered just exactly who the old Dan was. There’d been hints of that person, drifting to the surface every now and then but, for the most part, he’d been different since he’d moved to the point. Reserved, he’d retreated inside himself. A loner.

  ‘Did you and Ry ever wonder why he spent so long holed up in the house? Why he didn’t want any visitors? Why he slammed the door in my face?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘We figured he was being stubborn about us wanting to help him out, with food and doctors appointments, that kind of thing. We’d been all over him when he was in hospital, so he was probably sick of the sight of us.’ She peered into Lizzie’s eyes. ‘You think there’s something more, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘Why? What have you seen?’

  Lizzie took a deep breath and a swig of her soft drink. She shifted her gaze out to the river, concentrated on the water rippling in the breeze. A small wooden sailing boat in the distance bobbed up and down and, overhead, pelicans soared on outstretched wings.

  ‘I’m no doctor Jools, but I think it will take him longer to recover than you think.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  Lizzie felt the swell of secrets bursting in her chest but swallowed them back. I’ve been in that place where he is.

  ‘I went through some hard things in…when I came back from London. Mum had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. After she died, I kind of fell into a hole.’

  ‘You were only twenty. I’m not surprised you did. But you never said anything. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Lizzie shook her head and shrugged. ‘I couldn’t.’ She’d never told anyone.

  ‘Joe was here, back home, wasn’t he?’

  Joe. Her big brother. Her protector who had fallen apart, too. ‘He was here when he could be but he’d just scored a cadetship on one of the big Sydney papers. He was here for the end. For the funeral.’

  ‘Did you get any professional help?’ Julia asked, softly and cautiously.

  Lizzie nodded. ‘Yeah, I did. That’s why I’m pretty sure I know what’s been going on with Dan. You see, that was me, Jools. I hid away from the world, too. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed. I was a blank. Happiness, sadness, anger. I didn’t feel anything.’

  Julia covered her face with her hands. ‘Oh God, and Ry and I asked you to help him. We didn’t have a clue.’

  ‘How could you know? I didn’t tell you then. I haven’t ever told anybody else, besides my GP. I was too ashamed and scared that I’d have a label pinned on me for the rest of my life. You know what small towns are like. “There goes the girl who fell apart.”’

  ‘Oh, Lizzie. No one would have judged you. You do know how common depression is, don’t you? Look around you…you can’t be alone.’

  Lizzie looked at Julia, managed a sad smile. ‘It’s all very simple to say when it’s not you.’

  ‘You’re right. Sometimes we keep secrets when we shouldn’t.’ Julia took a deep breath. ‘I kept mine too. I was too proud to tell anyone but I was so miserable for so long in Melbourne. I found it really hard to make any friends at uni and it seemed like all those huge plans I’d had for my life were a pipedream. Who the hell was I? A young girl, fresh from Middle Point. I’d left Ry behind. I didn’t have my best friend. I don’t think I ever got as down as you were but they were really hard times. I hid in my room for months. Lied to Mum about it.’

  ‘You lie
d to me too, then. You never told me any of that.’

  ‘And admit that I’d made a huge mistake? That was never going to happen. You know how stubborn I can be.’

  ‘Stubborn? You were the brave one, Jools. You left and didn’t come back for fifteen years. You stuck it out. I was the one who came home.’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Lizzie. Can’t you see that you were the brave one? I jumped in my car and drove to Melbourne. Big deal. I was a forty-five-minute plane trip from home. You,’ she pointed at Lizzie, ‘You flew to London on a one-way ticket. Don’t you get it? I took the safe option. You were so much braver than me.’

  Lizzie blinked. She’d never felt brave. Ever. ‘That’s not true, Jools.’

  ‘When you got on that plane for London, I was so proud of you and kind of jealous. You had bigger plans for your life than I ever did.’ She reached for her friend’s hand and held it tight. ‘And look at us now. We’ve come full circle. Both of us here, back in Middle Point.’

  Lizzie laughed with her. ‘Maybe we’re not made to be anywhere else. You know what they say: you can take the girl out of Middle Point…’

  Julia joined her in the familiar refrain, ‘…but you can’t take the Middle Point out of the girl.’

  They fell back on the grass, laughing, staring up into the sky.

  ‘Lizzie, when we asked you to help Dan, we didn’t know any of this.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you,’ Julia said. ‘I’m so glad you told me.’

  ‘Me too.’

  CHAPTER

  14

  Dan didn’t quite understand why but he needed to tell Anna what had really been going on. He knew she wouldn’t judge him and since he hadn’t wanted to sleep with her for a good ten years, that took a whole lot of pressure off.

  It hadn’t always been that way. When they’d met, as students late one night at the Adelaide Uni bar, it had been instant, combustible. It was an intense two years with Anna. The whole time, his stubbornness butted up against hers, fuelled by the constant complaints from her family telling her that he was all wrong for her. That he wasn’t Italian enough for her. That he wasn’t sensible enough for her. But mostly it was all about him not being Italian. She fought it, as any modern woman would have. In the end though, it was probably their stubbornness about her interfering parents that kept them together longer than they would have otherwise lasted. They’d been given a mutual enemy to rail against and it pulled them closer. Eventually, they realised that fighting wasn’t passion – it was just painful – and they came to a mutual decision to end things. By the end of their years at university, they’d become friends instead of lovers.

  When Anna had married a few years ago, Dan had gone to the wedding and had felt genuinely happy for her. She’d married an accountant, Alexander who, interestingly, was not Italian. Dan figured it had been his job to wear down her parents’ resistance for the true love of her life. It had clearly worked. The Morellis had been so happy to see their daughter finally married that they’d embraced Alexander with open arms.

  And now Anna was in his kitchen, without her husband, sitting across from him at his kitchen table. Her huge dark eyes were bearing down on him and she was fighting a quivering lip. Jesus, was she going to cry?

  ‘Anna, I’ve been all right.’

  ‘If you’re so “all right”, why are you down here hiding away from everyone and everything?’

  ‘This isn’t hiding, Anna. Believe it or not, it’s actually living.’

  ‘Dan…’

  ‘You know what happened to me in the accident, right?’ His voice had grown louder than he wanted it to.

  Anna reached over and held his hand. ‘Of course I do. But your physical injuries should have healed by now, for the most part.’

  He dropped his eyes to the table. He had to be honest with somebody. Up until now, no one had actually really asked him how he was. And that one simple question, from someone he trusted, from someone he knew so well, from a woman he didn’t have to conceal anything from, unleashed what he’d been hiding from so many people for so long.

  He scraped a hand through his hair. ‘Sometimes I think I’m going backwards. Just when I think I’ve got everything under control, it hits me like a fist in the chest.’

  Anna propped her chin in her hand. ‘I’m interested in why you think that everything has to be under control.’

  He shook his head, allowing himself a wry grin. ‘Fuck you, Anna. Don’t go all doctor-y on me now.’

  ‘Comes with the territory,’ she smiled serenely. ‘Of being an actual doctor.’

  He thought for a minute on how to describe it. ‘I don’t like feeling out of control. I never know when it’s coming. I don’t want it… this thing…to have that power over me.’

  ‘You don’t remember me coming to visit you in hospital, do you?’

  ‘You came?’ Anna had been there? The revelation only served to remind him, once again, that Elizabeth hadn’t.

  ‘Of course I did. I had to make sure they were taking care of you.’

  ‘I must have looked like shit.’

  Anna let out a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob in disguise. ‘Yes. You did look like shit. But still a heartbreaker.’

  ‘My nose has never been the same. It’s crooked now.’

  ‘Where? I can’t see it.’

  ‘I was pretty banged up, you know.’

  ‘You had two black eyes like a boxer after their first fight.’ She stopped, considered him. Thought for a minute. ‘Do you actually remember what happened that night?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘Not much.’

  ‘Do you remember how you got to hospital or what happened immediately after the accident?’

  ‘No, none of that. Apparently, when I first came to, I said some things that made people laugh.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘They told me the first words out of my mouth were “pub” and “Elizabeth”.’

  A slow smile crept over Anna’s face. ‘Elizabeth. That’s Lizzie, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ And he smiled too, at hearing her name.

  ‘Why don’t you pour us a glass of wine and we’ll talk.’ Anna chuckled and waved a hand dismissively in the air. ‘What the hell am I talking about? Forget the wine. Got any vodka?’

  Dan lay still on the unfamiliar bed, flat on his back, one hand under his head, the other resting on his stomach. With the window wide open, the damp sea spray blew over him from toes to forehead, and the repetitive splash and drag of the waves on the beach lulled him into a peaceful drowsiness. The sky was just clear enough, the moonlight just strong enough, for him to see around Ry and Julia’s spare bedroom. A quick glance and he judged it was bigger than his whole living room. The white walls and whitewashed furniture looked classy and the white sheets he was resting on felt crisp and clean under his skin. There was a huge photograph on canvas on one wall, an image of two backlit surfers, their boards flicking into the air in a huge swell.

  Dan had staggered over late, after he and Anna had spent hours drinking and talking. When they realised they’d downed a whole bottle of vodka between them, they decided the wise choice was for Anna to stay the night. He’d basically pointed her in the direction of his bedroom and she’d fallen forwards on to the mattress, asleep within seconds. And since he didn’t have a spare bed – and there was no way he’d fit on the orange vinyl sofa he’d inherited with the house – he’d knocked on Ry and Julia’s door asking if he could crash.

  Ry and Julia’s bedroom was next door and he could hear their voices, indistinct, mumbling, as if they were trying really hard to be quiet because they had a guest. He smiled to himself. There’d be no shout-out-loud sex for those two tonight.

  And thinking about sex made him think of Elizabeth. He kicked off the sheets, wanting to feel the chill breeze all over him. When hadn’t he been thinking of her lately? It wasn’t just the booze that had left him slightly pissed and feeling sent
imental and maudlin. He’d talked that night until he was almost hoarse, Anna listening, asking him questions now and then, letting him get it all out. It was easy to talk to Anna. She knew who he was before the accident. She knew that this wasn’t the real Dan, she could remember the person he used to be.

  And most importantly, she wasn’t Elizabeth.

  There were things he didn’t want to talk to Elizabeth about. He couldn’t burden her when she’d gone through her own hell, what with losing her mother and her grandmother, and having to deal with that all on her own. Sounds like her useless big brother had flown the coop and left her to handle everything. She’d really only been a kid when it had all gone down but had found the strength to get through all of it. To keep brushing her teeth, isn’t that what she’d said? To keep getting up each morning and hoping for a regular day?

  There were a lot of things he wanted from Elizabeth. Laughs? He definitely wanted more of those. Her baby blues? Yeah, he could stand looking into those eyes a few million more times. And sex? He wanted more of that too, kind of obsessively.

  The one thing he didn’t want was her pity. He didn’t want her to think of him as some kind of basket case who needed fixing, someone she needed to look after. She’d spent enough of her life taking care of other people. It stunned him to realise that he wanted to look after her. He wanted to see her smile, needed to make her happy, and his life would be complete if he could make her come on a regular basis.

  What did he want for himself? Not much. He just wanted to feel like the old Dan. Was that really too much to ask? The one who had confidence and didn’t need to hide down here in this beachside town in case anyone from his old life saw him and reminded him who and what he used to be. Some days lately, when he’d been busy working on the pub renovation with Lizzie, he’d felt closer than he had in a long time.

  His best day? Hands down, waking up with Lizzie in his bed, watching her asleep next to him after a night of unforgettable sex. The best thing about that day? She made him happy. And he sure as hell wanted more of that.