by Fiona Lowe
Anxiety hovered in his eyes. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You won’t. I trust you more than I’ve trusted any man since my father.’
You need to tell him. And she would, but not right now. This moment belonged to them. It was about hope and a step towards the future and she didn’t want it tainted by her past or his reaction to it.
Pushing away the unwanted thoughts, she said, ‘And if sex today isn’t quite right and uncoordinated, it’s not like it’s our only shot at it.’ She started undoing the buttons on his shirt and pressed her palms against the solid musculature of his chest.
His hands tangled in her curls, massaging her scalp. ‘So, you’re an advocate of practice makes perfect.’
‘Totally.’ She slid her leg between his. ‘And your kisses alone get me close to coming so I’m already yours.’
He gazed at her, eyes shining, and his face filled with delicious intent. ‘I am a pretty good kisser.’
‘I’ve been told that plumbers are good with their hands. I want to test that theory too.’
‘So, for you it’s all about the science,’ he said, slipping his hands on the hem of her jumper and tugging it over her head. A moment later, his fingers flicked open her bra and his mouth and hands were doing incredible things to her breasts.
Delicious and tingling excitement engulfed her. Desire twitched her muscles, craving to tighten around him, and she ached to feel him deep inside her. She moved quickly, rolling him under her until she was straddling him. Gazing down at his dilated pupils and flushed face, she gave thanks that he’d appeared in her life.
‘To be honest, Luke, for me, it’s all about you.’
And she bent down and kissed him. After that, they stopped talking, because they were far too busy using their hands and mouths to explore each other’s bodies. Finding their rhythm. And if the bears thought they were a bit too noisy, they didn’t comment and kept their eyes sternly averted.
CHAPTER
19
‘This is nice.’ Margaret smoothed her skirt as she sat down in the leather club chair beside the gleaming beaten copper fireplace.
‘I thought you might enjoy a change of scene,’ Sarah said, taking a seat next to her. ‘You used to come here a lot.’
‘Did I?’ The room was familiar, but at the same time agitation fizzed through Margaret like electricity. Why was Sarah here? She couldn’t shift the feeling that her daughter didn’t belong here. Touching her hair to check its set and straightening her royal blue woollen jacket, she glanced around with a ready smile and was disappointed to find there was no one else in the room to admire her.
A young man appeared—anyone under fifty was young—with a tray supporting two tall glasses both containing a distinctive stick of celery and a plate of her favourite nibble: smoked oysters on Savoy biscuits.
‘You darling boy.’ But he was smiling at Sarah and Margaret bristled. She ran her fingers along his arm. ‘How did you know this is exactly what I wanted?’
‘I know your secrets.’ He grinned and tapped his nose. ‘Always the best for you, Margaret. You know that.’
And she did know that; she’d spent her adult life making sure of it. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone, so she laughed coyly and blew him a kiss the way she always did with men, enjoying the buzz of lightness and the zip of power that accompanied flirting. She had no idea who he was but that was irrelevant. He’d just brought her a Bloody Mary and nothing else mattered.
‘Cheers.’ Sarah leaned forward, picked up her drink and gingerly stirred the red contents with the celery stick as if drinking it would be torture.
Kevin set his drink aside untouched.
The uncomfortable and jittery sensation that had been with Margaret since she arrived arced up, white with warning. Why was Kevin here? He didn’t belong here; this was the special place she came to only with Robert. She glanced around furtively and when she looked back, Kevin was gone.
‘Can you reach your drink?’ Sarah asked, sitting where Kevin had been.
Flustered, Margaret picked up her glass and took the first blessed mouthful. As the vodka hit her stomach and raced into her veins, she blinked, trying to focus. In front of her, the sombre wood-panelled walls of the private member’s bar shimmered with secrets. Her secrets. Robert’s secrets. Kevin’s secrets. All written in silver cursive script across the dark wood for everyone to see …
‘Where have you been?’ Kevin demanded, his expression stony and his skin the colour of granite. ‘Ellie’s been beside herself about tomorrow’s costume for Read Day. You promised her you’d make it. I’ve stapled red circles onto her white dress but she needs a hat. She went to bed crying.’
Usually, Kevin wasn’t around enough to notice Margaret’s comings and goings but the last few months had been difficult. For a man who’d been fit and healthy all his life, he’d had two bouts of pneumonia already this winter and it wasn’t even August. The illness sapped his usually boundless energy, keeping him away from the mill and out of his workshop but firmly inside the house. He was spending far too much time at home for her peace of mind. She’d been forced to cut back her regular assignations with Robert and cancel trips to Melbourne. That week, Robert had reached breaking point and today she’d caved to his demands and her own needs. She’d driven to Albury to meet him at the club. A very inconvenient flat tyre and a long wait for the RACV delayed her trip home by over two hours.
Margaret pushed past her husband, slipped off her coat and walked straight to the bar. If Kevin was going to be difficult, she needed a drink. ‘The CWA meeting ran long.’
‘Three hours longer than usual? And they serve alcohol now, do they?’
‘Not enough.’ She splashed whiskey into a glass and didn’t bother to add water.
‘Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?’
‘Oh, you mean like you always tell me where you vanish to?’ She smiled sweetly and tried not to grind her teeth. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘At least when I vanish, I don’t break promises to our daughter!’ A coughing fit consumed him and as he leaned against the doorframe trying to catch his breath, she noticed his trousers. Kevin, like herself, was very particular about his clothing, having items altered to achieve the perfect fit. Now his shirt and pants hung off him and his belt was buckled two notches further in than usual.
She squirted soda into a glass and shoved it at him. ‘Good God, Kevin. This has gone on long enough. I’m sick to death of being kept awake at night by that cough. I’m sick of you being sick. Go back and see Andrew.’
‘I have.’
Something in his voice made her snap to attention. ‘And?’
Kevin closed the door. ‘Sit down, Margaret,’ he said wearily. ‘We’ve been lying to each other for years and it’s time we stopped.’
Every hair on her body rose in a whoosh and adrenaline instantly evaporated her delicious post-sex, post-alcohol buzz. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kevin. I’m very happy with my life.’
‘And that’s where we differ.’ He sat down hard, his chest heaving. ‘I haven’t ever been happy.’
‘Well, thank you very much! Nineteen years and three children, and this is the thanks I get for time served.’
‘Spare me the self-righteous shtick, Margaret. You have my grateful thanks times three for making me a father, but you know as well as I do that the use-by date on our marriage expired a long time ago. Hell, not even you can deny we’ve been living separate lives for years.’
‘It works.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for me. Not any more. I’ve been in love with someone else for a long time.’
The flash of jealousy hit her so hard she glowed green, stunned by its intensity. Years had passed since she’d loved Kevin, but no other woman was going to replace her. ‘And what? You think I don’t have someone else? Don’t tell me you’re fool enough to believe I’ve existed on your pitiful performance of sex twice a year for fifteen years? I ha
ven’t. In fact, this afternoon I was very much refilling the well. It doesn’t mean we have to upend our lives and the children’s.’
‘I’m afraid that’s already happened. It’s why I want to make my relationship official.’ He rubbed his palms against his stubbled cheeks and when he raised his head, he looked much older than his forty-nine years. ‘Yesterday, Andrew gave me some test results. I’m dying, Margaret, and I refuse to waste what little time I’ve got left with you. I’m going to die my way, surrounded by people who actually love me.’
Stunned, she stared at him. He was dying? He’d given up smoking years ago and harangued her to do the same and yet with all that coughing … ‘You’ve got lung …’ Her voice dropped as if saying the word loudly might give her the debilitating disease. ‘Cancer?’
‘No.’ He closed his eyes for a moment as if seeking strength. ‘This pneumonia that won’t go away … It’s a complication of AIDS.’
‘AIDS? I don’t understand …’ Her mind veered violently away from the images of the Grim Reaper campaign. If Kevin used drugs, she would have noticed track marks, odd behaviour. It wasn’t like they did everything separately; they kept up appearances for the sake of the children and their position in town. ‘You’ve never even had a blood transfusion. How on earth can you have AIDS?’
‘I’m gay, Margaret. Homosexual.’
Horror stiffened her from top to toe. ‘No!’
‘Yes. I’ve known since I was twenty.’
The whiskey glass slipped from her numb fingers and bounced on the carpet. ‘But you played football. You’re good at sports. You can build anything. You love being outdoors, for God’s sake.’
Sadness circled him along with resignation. ‘I’m sorry, Margaret, but none of those things prevent me from liking men more than women.’
‘But you married me! We have three children!’ She knew she was gabbling but her mind was screaming, Did I know?
He shrugged. ‘It was 1972. I didn’t have much choice. Men in their late twenties were expected to marry, especially Jamieson men.’
‘But if you knew, why didn’t you leave town? Go and live in Sydney or Melbourne?’
‘I wanted my Mingunyah life and the man I loved.’ His mouth flattened. ‘Turns out he and I were both naive and stupid. We thought if I got Dad off my back by getting married, our lives wouldn’t change much. When Dad suggested I marry you, I thought it was the perfect solution, because in two years of our sort-of dating, you never made a single demand on me.’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, Margaret! The restraint you showed must have almost killed you. Gary and I didn’t bargain on the fact that the moment I slid that ring on your finger, you’d show your true colours.’
Gary! Her world tilted. She’d hated Gary, not because she thought he was gay but because he was always around and Kevin took his advice over hers. She trawled her memory. Had she known deep down they were lovers? No! She didn’t know any gay men. It had never occurred to her that—she shuddered at the thought of two men having sex—that was part of their friendship.
‘You loved Gary Longmuir? In that case, I’m even happier that I got rid of him. I hope it hurt.’
‘Of course it bloody hurt. I’ve loved him more than I ever loved you.’
‘That’s not true!’ Memories of their early marriage played across her mind. Certainly, their sex life had never been great. Usually, she’d been the one to initiate it, but Kevin had done it often enough that she’d never once entertained the thought he was homosexual. Even after she and Robert had started their affair, sex between her and Keven still happened occasionally.
She’d always thought his absolute insistence on using condoms after Ellie was born was because of her surprise pregnancy but suddenly the full implication of his diagnosis hit her. That was the year the HIV/AIDS pandemic swept the world. Had he known he had the disease then? Flashes of blood-stained tissues and blood-stained sheets—items she’d recently handled during his illness—bombarded her. Poisonous blood from a perverted disease.
Her insides collapsed, her gut turned to water and she leaped away from him. ‘You filthy, stinking faggot! Get out! If you’ve infected me or Ellie, I’ll kill you.’
‘You’re safe, Margaret. So are the children. And I anticipated this reaction,’ he said levelly, rising slowly to his feet. ‘I’ve already packed and my cases are in the car. I’m having lunch with Cameron and Sarah in Melbourne tomorrow and I’ll tell them. All I’ve said to Ellie is that I’m leaving for Melbourne before she wakes in the morning and that I’ll see her next week.’
A deadly calm stiffened her spine. ‘Over my dead body you’ll see her.’
‘If that’s what it takes.’ His nostrils flared. ‘She’s my daughter and I will see her.’
Hysterical laughter tore out of her. ‘You stupid fag. She’s not your daughter. She’s Robert’s.’
Kevin swayed and his hand wrapped tightly around the arm of the chair to steady himself. ‘That’s just biology. I’m her father in every way it counts. Ellie’s my baby girl.’ He lifted his chin, straightened his shoulders and his frail body suddenly looked like reinforced steel. ‘If you try to stop me from seeing her, I will fight you with everything I’ve got.’
She crossed her arms, confident of being on solid ground. ‘I doubt it will matter what you do. You’re a dirty homo. I’m her mother and the wronged party. The court will side with me.’
An uncharacteristic glint lit up his eyes. ‘I’ve lived with you for nineteen years, Margaret, and you’ve inadvertently taught me how to be a lying and scheming bitch. Do you really think councillor Robert Horton will welcome a very public outing of his bastard child? Do you think he’ll want anything to do with you after the news breaks? I don’t think so.’
Fear and anger collided, staining her vision red. ‘Don’t threaten me, Kevin, or I’ll tell everyone about your perverted little secret. No one in this town is going to believe the crazy rantings of a poofter with AIDS.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, Margaret, go right ahead. I’m going to be dead within the year so the news will hurt you a lot more than it will hurt me. But it will hurt the children the most. An optimistic part of me hopes you want to protect them from salacious gossip and the hurtful judgement of the town who will ignorantly and erroneously call my life sordid. The problem is, I know you too well. It’s not the children you want to protect but yourself. If you out me, you’ll be tainted by all the misinformation about this horrendous disease. Robert will distance himself from you faster than a rat up a drainpipe.’
He suddenly doubled over, wracked by another coughing fit. When it passed, he straightened and this time his face was set harder than concrete. ‘By the way, I’ve seen a solicitor. Because we haven’t had sex in over a year and we’ve been living separate lives under the same roof, I’ve got a strong case for immediate divorce. I’m setting up a trust fund for the kids but you’re not getting a cent. You’ve got the diamonds and all the other jewellery. If you liquidate those assets and get a job, you’ll be fine.’ His hand closed around the doorhandle. ‘And I’ve got a buyer for the house. You might want to start looking for somewhere else to live.’
Blind fury rendered her almost speechless. ‘You prick!’
‘Goodbye, Margaret.’ The door closed.
‘But I won!’ she yelled. ‘You pathetic buggering bastard! I won.’
Something wet and cold startled her and she glanced down at her hand, surprised to see she wasn’t in Mill House but sitting in a club chair by the fire and holding a Bloody Mary.
‘Oh, dear. You’ve spilt your drink.’ Sarah mopped at the damp patch on Margaret’s skirt before offering her own drink as a replacement. ‘Who upset you?’
The hairs on the back of Margaret’s neck rose. ‘None of your business.’ She drank greedily, relaxing into the vodka and letting it sweep her up in its glorious and giddy slipstream.
‘Was it Robert who upset you?’
She laughed at the absurdity of the question. ‘Robert would
never do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because unlike that dried-up prune Mary, I give him what he needs. He worships me.’ She leaned forward, thrilling in the power she wielded over him. ‘He’ll do anything for me.’
‘Will he risk everything and divorce Mary for you? Will he acknowledge to the town that Ellie’s his daughter?’
She stiffened, instantly alert despite the confusion circling her. How did Sarah know about Ellie? Margaret had held on to that secret tighter than a drum and Robert would never tell. Kevin knew. She whipped her head left and right, looking for him, and gasped. Kevin was back, only this time he was standing behind the bar, pouring one of his ridiculous bright green cocktails into a martini glass. He waved at Sarah and then he grinned at Margaret—a taunting victorious smile. He tapped his nose. I know all your secrets.
‘You bastard, Kevin!’ She stood up screaming. ‘Poofters like you aren’t welcome here. Take your stinking, putrid, faggot body and get out before I kill you.’
‘Mum!’ Sarah’s hands tugged at her arms. ‘That’s not Dad. That’s Gary—’
‘Longmuir!’ All her secrets spun around him in a silver swirl, the words clear and bold. ‘No. I sent you away, you cock-sucking pervert!’
‘Gary! Call an ambulance.’
Margaret’s head throbbed with a pulsing ache in her temple. Fury blurred her sight but she had to protect herself. Protect Robert. She had to get to her secrets, grab them and hide them before anyone saw them. Panting for breath, she used every ounce of strength she had to pull against arms that held her tight. Nothing moved. Flinging out an elbow, she heard an oomph and then the vice-like hands fell away. She toppled forward, threw out her arms and steadied herself on a chair before taking a step.
Excruciating pain seared her mind. Silver lit up behind her eyes and then her legs collapsed under her. As she fell into a tunnel, the bright lights faded and everything turned black.
* * *
Anita squeezed Cameron’s hand as they walked out of the hospital, their mood sombre. ‘I’ve read that hearing is the last thing to go. Your mum might still be able to hear you, so hold onto that.’