by Lucy Gordon
Yes, she’d read about it. But to be there …
‘What does it smell like?’
‘Smell …’
‘Smell. First impression.’
‘Dry and sparse and wind-blown,’ he said, frowning. ‘I used to stand on the cliffs here and smell the salt. In Africa I smell the sand. The wind … The locals call it arifi, meaning thirst, a wind that scorches with many tongues. It rips the heart out of a man. It doesn’t give a smell, it takes it away. It leaves you sucked dry. And the people … the kids … the damage …’ His voice died. ‘There’s no point thinking about it.’
‘You’re doing something about it.’
‘Not any more.’
‘You’re not going back?’ she asked, astounded all over again.
‘Not,’ he said harshly, feeling the frustration build. ‘I can’t. I might be forced to go back to something like you’re doing.’
‘Um …’ she said cautiously, stunned by his sudden anger. ‘Are we back where we started? Mardie Rainey, born in Banksia Bay, headstone for the local cemetery ordered at the same time as my birth certificate?’
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘I’m sure you did mean.’ She might be shocked into sympathy but she wasn’t letting him get away with this. ‘You’re summing up my life as worthless?’
‘I didn’t …’
‘Yes, you did,’ she said, but she wasn’t angry. She was simply sad. ‘How do you think that could make me feel?’ she said, meeting his gaze square on. ‘Seeing my husband die and watching my mother fade. Living here by myself, in my childhood home, and then opening the door to my ex-best friend who tells me what a waste my life has been. You’re right, I haven’t saved a single African child. We all can’t.’ Deep breath. ‘Why do you keep trying to hurt me?’
‘I’m not.’
‘I believe you are,’ she said steadily. ‘I thought … I thought I didn’t know you any more but it seems I do. I remember when Mum used to try and hug you, you’d turn yourself rigid, pushing her away. It took her ages to be able to hug. I think you’re doing exactly the same thing now. Why?’
‘Are you trying to hug?’
‘I’m not trying to hug,’ she said simply. ‘I’m asking what’s wrong. One friend to another. You’ve told me about Robbie. Now tell me about the next big thing. The thing that’s put the strain behind your eyes. The thing that’s making you want to lash out.’
‘I …’
‘Just say it, Blake,’ she said softly. She put out her hand and touched his—and she waited.
For however long it took.
The fire crackled in the grate. Bounce started snoring. Bessie wuffled and nudged cushions so the two dogs were closer.
She waited.
And finally he closed his eyes and said it.
‘I can’t go back to Africa,’ he said, and he tugged his hand from hers, as if he no longer had the right to the contact. ‘It seems I’m taking my frustration out in all sorts of inappropriate ways. It seems hurting you is one of them.’
‘Why not?’ she said at last.
‘I’ve had dengue fever three times. They tell me three strikes and I’m out. I’ve had my three strikes.’
‘You can never go back?’
‘Nowhere there’s dengue’
‘Or you die?’
‘I know the odds. I believe them.’
‘So what will you do?’ She managed a half smile. ‘Unless you’re serious about running sheep?’
He shrugged, not returning her smile. ‘Who knows? Feel sorry for myself. Go to school reunions. Hurt my friends.’
‘There’s three strikes,’ she said. ‘You’ve done them all. Now you’re out again. So the next thing is …’
‘I have no idea.’
She thought for a little. Thought about touching his hand again. Thought better of it.
The fire did some more crackling. Bounce did some more snoring. Bessie just seemed to … listen.
There was no hurry for what had to be said.
‘Burying yourself in anger would be the fourth thing,’ she said at last. ‘When Hugh died, I yelled at trees, at rocks, at my friends, at the kids who crashed into us, at anything. It didn’t help.’
‘Neither did anyone telling you to get over it.’
She smiled at that, wryly. Agreed with a vengeance. ‘All that did was make me want to slug someone even worse. Like I wanted to slug you when you criticised me.’
‘So now it’s you who’s angry?’
‘Maybe I am,’ she said. ‘Why wouldn’t I be angry? You’re judging my life as worth less than yours. You’re saying if you can’t go to Africa you’re nothing. But you can’t see what I get and what I give.’ She met his eyes, challenging. ‘I like my life, and I do good things. I make people happy. I make me happy and I don’t need to defend myself to you or to anyone.’
‘I know you don’t.’
‘Then stop beating yourself up about something you can’t change. You do the best you can. No one should expect you to do more than that, including the ghost of Robbie, including yourself.’ She hesitated. She wanted, quite badly, to take his face in her hands and kiss him. As comfort?
If it was only that, she thought, she’d do it in a heartbeat, but there was that between them …
‘Go to bed, Blake,’ she said instead. ‘Relax. Think of all the excellent things you can do in the world. There’s lots, I’m sure there are, in places where there isn’t dengue. Figure it out.’
She pushed herself to her feet.
He rose with her. Came too fast.
She was too close.
His hands came out and steadied her.
And the need grew.
A need from fifteen years ago?
That night in the kitchen … a kiss interrupted. It was between them now, a tangible thing. Fifteen years and a kiss unfinished.
Fifteen years of need.
A need that was as great now as it had been then. More so.
A need that seemed a compulsion, an aching void that had to be filled.
Two halves of a whole, meant to be together.
The fire hissed at their feet, sap catching, making tiny explosions, fizzing to nothing.
A need so great …
‘Do you want me to kiss you?’ Blake asked, and the world held its breath. The world including Mardie.
‘Properly?’ she asked.
‘With your mother not watching.’ He was smiling, a smile that turned her heart.
‘I’ve spent fifteen years figuring out how that kiss should have ended,’ she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I wouldn’t mind knowing …’
She wouldn’t mind knowing what?
He had no chance to find out because he was no longer listening.
A prophecy carved in a ruined tree. M.R. xx B.M. Carved when she was ten years old.
Finally happening.
And fifteen years were gone, just like that. They were a man and a woman grown, but at some basic level they were still who they’d been, friends who’d spent half a lifetime together, who’d grown from boy and girl to man and woman, and who’d moved to this, the next and natural level.
It felt natural. It felt inevitable and it felt right.
Her lips melted against his. Her body curved into his, and she moulded into his hold, tilting her chin, taking as well as giving.
He tasted her kiss.
He tasted her mouth.
He tasted her body and he loved her, as he always had, as he always would.
She smelled of dog shampoo. In truth, maybe she tasted of dog shampoo.
She was wonderfully, miraculously perfect.
She was Mardie. His friend. His home.
She was too great a temptation to resist. She was too sweet to think of pulling away.
She was too much his Mardie to do anything but kiss her.
For this moment he surrendered absolutely. He let himself hold her as he wanted to hold her, to be in this place, by her fire w
ith her dogs nearby, to have her in his arms and to feel her loving him.
Mardie of the loving heart …
He’d fallen in love in the school playground all those years ago and he’d never fallen out. He loved her with every shred of his being.
Forget the dog shampoo. She tasted of nectar, ambrosia, more. She tasted …
Of Mardie
Mardie. His Mardie.
He hadn’t known he was off centre but he knew it now. Mardie. His centre.
She was on tiptoe, deepening the kiss, demanding as well as giving. Surrendering but besieging. Wanting as much as he wanted.
She wasn’t close enough. He was tugging her against him, her breasts were curved into his chest and she felt as if she was melting into him.
He wanted her closer.
Part of him.
Her hands were in the small of his back, clinging. He was still damp. The fabric between them felt as if it was nothing. There was only a vestige of decency.
The vestige of sense …
He couldn’t think that.
But … he had to think it or he’d sweep her up and take her to bed, this instant. It was all he wanted to do. For it felt so right, so meant. After fifteen years, finding his home.
Her hands were slipping to his hips. Tugging him closer still.
Sense.
All he wanted was to take her. All he wanted was to give.
Sense!
Somehow he found the strength to pull away, to break the contact, and heaven knew it broke more than that.
He did it. He held her by her shoulders, at arm’s length, gazing down into her dazed and bewildered eyes.
‘Blake …’ she whispered and her hands covered his. ‘You don’t want …’
‘I did want,’ he managed in a voice he scarcely recognised. ‘I do want. But I should never … I can’t have.’
‘Why can’t you have?’ There was suddenly a trace of indignation in her voice, the feisty Mardie surfacing under the lover. ‘It’s not as if I’m unavailable,’ she said. ‘Is it the thought of Hugh?’
She was suddenly glaring at him. Self-sacrifice, it seemed, wasn’t in her vocabulary. He wanted to smile.
He didn’t.
He’d wanted to kiss her and he had, but now … he felt as if he was at the edge of a deep, sweet vortex, being tugged inexorably into its unknown centre.
Away from everything he’d worked for.
‘I’m not giving up,’ he said, hardly aware he was speaking. ‘I can’t. To escape back to Banksia Bay … I no longer need to escape.’
She tugged back so his hands could no longer hold her shoulders. She looked confused. But then his gaze locked on hers and there was anger behind the confusion. Anger growing.
It seemed she was waiting for an explanation. It was as if he’d kissed her under false pretences.
Suddenly she was practically tapping her foot.
So explain. If he could.
‘Mardie, my parents sent me here after Robbie died because it made my mother ill to look at me,’ he said, trying hard to make sense of what he hardly understood himself. ‘My great-aunt took me in. This place had been her refuge for years and it became mine. My parents were … dysfunctional, to say the least. My great-aunt was little better, but once I met you, and your parents … This was safe as I’d never been safe. It was home as nowhere had ever been home. Even after ten years here I still felt overwhelming thankfulness that I’d found you. I could have stayed. But I had things to do, my Mardie-girl. I still have things to do, and I can’t do them here.’
‘Don’t call me Mardie-girl.’
Mardie-girl.
He hadn’t meant to.
Her father had called her Mardie-girl, and in private, as they’d grown older, it had started slipping out. Mardie. His Mardie-girl. No. She was right. Its use now was inappropriate.
And it had rekindled anger.
‘I’m only Mardie-girl to people I love,’ she snapped—but then she flinched and she closed her eyes. ‘Though that’s dumb,’ she whispered. ‘Because I do love you. You know I always have. Though not … not like this. Not like tonight. What I had with Hugh was real and wonderful, and the thought of you didn’t get in the way for a moment. But we’ve always … meshed. Only I never saw myself as a safe harbour. An escape. I saw myself as an equal. A friend. Fun, happy, silly, sad—you and me, mates.’
‘We were. I hope we are.’
‘Then why are you spouting nonsense about escape?’
‘I don’t know that, either.’ He raked his hair and raked it again for good measure.
‘Then I guess that makes two of us not understanding,’ she said, more mildly now. ‘I thought you wanted to kiss me. It seems I was wrong. Okay. You’ve stopped kissing me, so let’s leave it at that. You need to strip off and put those clothes in the dryer. You can’t do that with me around. I might get the wrong idea. No. That’s nuts. It’s all nuts. I’m confused, you’re confused. So let’s focus on what we know for sure. We have two happy dogs, one of whom needs medical help. Tomorrow we’re going to Sydney. So tonight I’ll leave you to your convolutions and your plans for the future, which doesn’t include kissing, and I’ll go to bed. Goodnight, Blake. Happy plans.’
And that was that. She clicked her fingers for the dogs and she headed out of the room and down the passage to her bedroom.
She walked inside, the dogs following her—side by side, Bounce glancing back at him with what looked like reproach—and she slammed the door behind them.
She left and he stood by the fire until it died to embers.
Once again he’d hurt her. He should walk away now.
She was driving him to Sydney. She’d have to put up with him the whole way. She’d see him during the week as they cared for Bessie. Then …
Did he really want to walk away?
No. But what was between them …
It wasn’t friendship. It was so much more.
That she’d guessed about Robbie left him winded. That she and her parents had respected his privacy, had guessed he was hurting, had let him be … that left him awed.
They’d loved him.
Love. It was a strange concept.
In medical school he’d met a girl as committed to aid organisations as he was, passionate about saving the world. They’d studied together, worked together, become lovers almost as a side issue. Become engaged.
Six months later she’d met an African aid worker and fell hopelessly, helplessly in love. ‘I’m sorry, Blake, it’s the way he makes me feel. I really love him.’
They were still friends. But … love?
The way a heart twisted?
The way he makes me feel …
The way he felt tonight, when he’d held Mardie.
No. Stop, right now. This is Banksia Bay.
Banksia Bay was never an option.
He didn’t think Mardie’s life was worthless, of course he didn’t, but … could he imagine himself working here? Taking care of coughs and colds? Playing with sheep on the side?
Being with Mardie-girl.
Just Mardie, he corrected himself. Not his Mardie-girl. What had once been granted to him with love, had now been withdrawn.
He couldn’t pursue it.
Because of Robbie? He’d forgiven himself years ago for Robbie’s death. One seven-year-old could never be held responsible for another’s moment of risk-taking, regardless of what his mother had thought and said. But still that sense remained, to do something worthwhile, to somehow compensate for the waste that was his brother.
He should be able to walk away from it. See a shrink. Move on.
But it had been with him for too long, was too great a part of his life. He had no hope of ever moving on.
And that meant walking away from Mardie? He knew it did.
The door swung open, almost of its own accord. He glanced across and it was Bessie. She’d managed to push past the loosely hinged doors. For some reason she was nosing her way across to him,
following his scent. Finding him. Putting a paw up, as if asking for a pat.
As if offering comfort.
He’d always wanted a dog. He’d always been so jealous of Mardie and her dog pack.
If he stayed here …
No.
‘You don’t belong with me,’ he told Bessie, more roughly than he intended. ‘Bounce is just down the hall. So’s Mardie.’ And before he could think further about it he led her out of the room, down the passage.
Mardie’s door was open. Bessie must have pushed it wide again.
He could just call …
He didn’t.
He propelled Bessie silently into the room and closed the door after her.
And went up to bed without saying a word.
She heard him return Bessie
She heard him close the door.
She lay awake and thought.
About two little boys swimming at midnight. About Blake’s parents. Packing him off to Australia. Loading him with guilt. The legacy they’d given their son …
Anger was no use.
That was the problem. Nothing was any use. What had been done was done, and Blake was living with the consequences for ever.
It was doing her head in. Anger, sorrow—there was even a touch of humiliation tossed in there as well. She had it all.
She thought and thought, until sleep finally gave her release.
She dreamed of twins.
She dreamed of Blake.
She woke to the sounds of chopping.
Blake. Doing his manly thing again. Sigh.
At least it wasn’t the chainsaw, she thought grimly, throwing back the covers and heading for the window.
The first weak rays of dawn were barely filtering over the horizon. Even Clarabelle wasn’t at the gate yet.
Blake was chopping.
He was back in his jeans, but he was bare to the waist. He was lifting the logs he’d sectioned yesterday, putting them on the block beside the woodshed and attacking. The axe came down over and over, with strong, rhythmic strokes.
The wood was green. It took three, four strokes to strike each log through.
He didn’t falter. One after another. Stacking the pieces and moving to the next. No pause.
She should call out that she had enough wood to last her for the winter. She wouldn’t be burning it green anyway, and next winter it’d split with half the effort.