Beginnings (19 page)

He was afraid David knew what he and Emma had been doing together.

He was afraid David would snap his neck.

Emma’s sudden disappearance the day after the
night they spent together in the backyard had but one probable cause: David had thrown her out. The improbable cause was that he had discovered what had happened and had beaten her to death with his bare hands.

For three days Jason was obsessed with the idea that David would come for him. That he would be beaten, or yelled at, or exposed before his parents. When the phone rang he was convinced it was David. He would hover nearby holding his breath until he was sure he was safe. When there was a knock at the door, he would take off down the hall and out the back so that he wouldn’t have to answer it. He was a bundle of nerves. In the morning he dreaded hearing his father call out a hello to his neighbour. Leaving for work, the two men would occasionally speak briefly across the fence. He imagined them having a quick man-to-man chat.

‘Your son fucked my wife,’ David would say.

‘It’s only fair that you fuck mine,’ his father would answer.

‘I think I’d prefer to snap his neck.’

‘She may not look like much but she knows what she’s doing.’

‘If it’s all the same to you …’

‘By all means, snap away. He has transgressed and he must be punished.’

But as the days passed and nothing happened Jason relaxed and reconsidered. If David knew Jason had been fucking his wife surely he’d have something to say about it? David had made no attempt to speak with him. Jason’s neck had not been snapped. Nothing had happened at all. David seemed to be living much as he always had, leaving for work early and arriving home late.

Jason wanted to know where Emma was. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her. He could barely breathe when he thought of what they had done together. To find Emma he must ask someone where she had gone. He could ask his parents, but he didn’t dare show an interest in her. He could break into her house to look for clues as to her whereabouts, as he knew where they kept the spare key, but when he attempted to do so he panicked at the first sound and scarpered. Or he could walk straight up to David and ask him where Emma was.

‘I’d like to fuck your wife again; do you have any idea where she might be?’

Three nights running he was on his parents’ verandah when David arrived home. He watched
him park his car in the driveway and make his way up the path and the stairs to the front door. Jason might have called out to him from that safe distance but instead, each time, he had stepped out of view.

This state of affairs could not go on forever. Jason cursed himself for being a coward. He must act. And now.

Before he was ready Jason found himself standing by Emma and David’s front gate. The sun had set. Light was fading. David had been home for half an hour or so. Jason pushed it open and forced himself up the stairs. He stood on the verandah. He felt unwell. He was actually trembling. He plunged his hand into his pocket where he found Emma’s G-string. He gripped it for luck and lifted the knocker with his free hand and let it drop. The great hunk of iron created an impressive noise. He could hear it reverberate through the house.

But then nothing happened.

He was going to lift it again but thought better of it and, taking his chance, he began to skip down the steps. He was halfway to the gate when he heard, ‘Who is it?’

The call came not from the front door, but from above.

Jason swung around and glanced up.

David was leaning over the top balcony railing with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

He flicked the cigarette off into the night.

‘I’ll come down.’

Jason climbed the steps reluctantly, his feet heavy. David took his time. To Jason it felt a lifetime. He hovered on the top step, well out of reach, just in case things turned bad.

When David opened the door, Jason flinched and stumbled backwards. He gathered himself, but only after he had reached down, taking hold of the lip of the top step. He stood up and found David watching him with a grin.

‘Evening,’ said David. He took a sip of his beer.

‘Emma said she was … book,’ said Jason, tangled by his own tongue. He hadn’t thought what he was going to say. What possible reason could he have for wanting to know where Emma was? He was an idiot.

‘What?’ asked David, with a chuckle.

‘Is Emma home? She promised to lend me … She’s been tutoring me,’ he stammered, finding the truth eventually. She
had
been tutoring him.

‘Nah, mate. She’s gone away for a few days. Up the coast with a girlfriend.’

‘She didn’t say anything … That’s okay.’

‘She didn’t say anything to me either, mate. Emma’s full of surprises. What book do you need?’

‘A book for school. She said she would lend it to me.’

‘I can’t help you with that stuff. Do you want to go and have a look for it? I can show you where she keeps them.’

‘Thanks, I’ll find them.’

David stood aside and let the boy through.

Jason made a beeline for the bookcase in the upstairs passageway and knelt on the floor. He was shaking. He had no idea what he was doing.

‘Have you and Emma been working together?’ asked David from the top of the stairs.

Jason jumped. He thought David had stayed downstairs.

‘English. She’s been helping me.’

‘She’s left us both in a lurch then,’ said David. ‘Never trust the pretty ones.’

Jason had nothing to say to this.

‘It’s all right if you think she’s pretty, mate. She’s fucking gorgeous. If I were your age I’d kill for a tutor who looked like her.’

Jason turned back to the bookcase and grabbed an orange-covered paperback, then stood up.

‘What is it?’ asked David, coming closer.

Jason had no idea what he had picked so he handed it to David.

‘That saucy minx,’ he said. ‘Did she ask you to read this?’

David held it up. It was
Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

‘It’s for school.’

‘Do you know what it’s about?’

‘Nup,’ said Jason, which was true.

‘I’ve never read it. But it’s meant to be filthy.’

The phone rang.

David went off to answer it.

Jason hovered for a moment in the passageway. He just could not work out David. Was he trying to warn him off? Was he trying to tease out some information? Or was what he said true? Had Emma just taken off? Were they both in the same boat?

Jason was sure of only one thing. He wasn’t going to wait around to find out. He made his way quickly and quietly out of the house. If Emma was done with him, he was done with Emma.

TWENTY-SIX

At her friend Sally’s beach house, Emma stood at the open balcony door, a glass of white wine in her hand, listening to the waves, with their occasional distant booms. Her bare feet were slightly sandy from a day spent on the beach. The floorboards were smooth and cool beneath them. Her skin was dry and salty. She still wore her bikini beneath her sundress. Around her shoulders she had draped one of the throws Sally’s mother had bought for the couches.

With nightfall came a sudden drop in temperature. She sipped the cool wine, enjoying its clean
taste. The night beyond the balcony was darker than Emma had remembered it ever having been. The houses to the left and the right of them were all vacant. The holiday season had yet to begin.

Looking out she could not see a thing. The ocean swallowed up everything. The pale grey floorboards of the balcony, and the reflections on the glass railing, seemed suspended in a void; not a star, nor lights from a passing ship, could she see.

Behind Emma, Sally was bustling about in the kitchen. She could hear the clatter of pots, the jingle of the opening and closing fridge door laden with wine bottles, and subdued mumbles as Sally spoke to her husband on the mobile that was tucked between her ear and shoulder. Food was being prepared, the earthy aroma of garlic wafted, the orange lampshades were ablaze, casting muted warm tones over the room.

After dinner the two women took their glasses and a bottle of wine and sat down to watch
To Catch a Thief
. On the lounge in the blue flickering light Emma snuggled up to Sally who welcomed the contact. They had no need to speak, having fallen seamlessly into the ways of their teens.

Sally stroked Emma’s hair. Emma closed her eyes. The movie was short and ended all too soon.
When Sally turned off the TV only the pale beam above the stove gave any light. Turning, Emma could look out down the coast to the lights of the houses around the village and those up on the hill that rose steeply behind it. She wandered over to the stove and switched the light off.

Sally stretched out on the lounge. The darkness shifted gradually as their eyes welcomed the scant light of the moonless night outside. Emma could not remain still. She roamed the room, viewing the shrouded world from the windows.

‘I love coming up here for a weekend by myself in winter,’ said Sally. ‘At night I lie like this, with all the lights off, and listen to the surf. There really is no one up here midwinter, Em. It’s bliss. People quite forget me. And I forget them. Do you know what that’s like?’

‘I do,’ replied Emma, ‘but now I’m very glad you’re here with me.’

‘I didn’t mean I wish I was alone, Em. I love how we’ve run away together. It’s very romantic. Like
Thelma and Louise
, minus the guns and the tragic end.’

‘Or Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West.’

‘I suppose,’ said Sally, having no idea what they were like, ‘but it’s more like
Thelma and Louise
.
You got yourself into trouble and I whisked you away.’

‘And, darling, I thank you for it.’

‘Now to find Brad Pitt.’

They were silenced by the thought of that man.

Emma padded over to Sally.

‘But don’t you get scared up here alone? I would.’

‘You scared? I doubt it. Anyway it’s scarier in Mosman. The more people there are the greater the chance of a weirdo, don’t you think? All those big houses, silent as the grave, but not empty. I prefer these empty beach houses to those. Who knows who’s watching from suburban windows?’

Emma lay down beside Sally.

‘But I have never felt scared in Mosman. Last night I couldn’t sleep for worry.’

‘Poor baby! Sleep in my bed tonight then. I didn’t sleep well, as you know. I miss my husband’s body. Yours is nicer than his, so I should sleep wonderfully.’

‘Remember how we used to sleep together as girls? We were rather wicked young girls.’

‘You’ve always been more wicked than me, Em. I feel I’ve just come along for the ride.’

‘Do you regret it?’

‘Sometimes. There are so many things I can’t talk about to anyone else but you. Mark doesn’t really know who I am. Or what I’m capable of …’

‘I love our secrets, Sal. I love our past. I regret nothing.’

‘We’ve always been so different, Em.’

‘I know.’

They lay together for some time, each thinking her own thoughts, while listening to the surf. By the time they stirred, their eyes were so accustomed to the darkness they were able to lock the doors and make their way upstairs without the need of lights.

Sally lit a candle to shower by and Emma sat nearby on the closed lid of the loo observing her.

The golden light of the flickering candle and the white tiles made her tan seem darker still. Her wet skin shimmered as she turned this way and that.

Staring at Sally’s lovely long legs as she washed them with shower gel, feeling the pleasure derived from the close proximity of such beauty, Emma’s mind kept drifting back to her night with Jason.

What did it matter to her if he had gone straight to Jess with all that she had given him? Jess would never experience a night like the one she and Jason had shared. Just as Paul would never share the
nights she had with David, nor David the nights she had shared with Paul. She knew it was silly to be jealous of anybody. Her feelings had become entwined. She had tripped. She could untie them. She knew she had hurt David by leaving, but then her life was always going to be complicated. If she wanted to enjoy all that life offered she would have to be more careful.

She knew how fleeting beauty was. She was thirty-two. Her body was healthy and attractive. All too soon she would regret not having made more of this time when she could have confidence in herself, knowing herself beautiful, knowing a lover’s words were truly meant, and their lust was attached to who she was now and not the person she had once been.

Jason’s body was perfect and she had devoured it. The raw, undeniable effect beauty had on her was something splendid. She would not stop desiring it. Shallow? Maybe. But much in art was just as shallow. Beauty was intoxicating. Looking at Sally’s back now affected her physically. The power of the sight blasted through her anxieties. The two halves of Sally’s behind, the dimples in her lower back, were seductive. She was slim, no fat on her, lean and long.

Sally woke Emma out of her reverie.

‘Shall I leave it on?’ she asked. ‘Will you shower?’ she added, noticing Emma seemed dazed.

Emma nodded and stood to undress.

After showering Emma found Sally already in bed. She blew out the candle and in the sudden darkness stumbled towards the bed.

She already knew that she would find no rest, sleeping in a bed beside Sally.

She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Sally that evening, about the wicked things they’d got up to when they were younger.

She smiled as she drifted off to sleep.

Emma didn’t believe in wicked pasts.

She believed wholeheartedly in wicked futures …

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to thank my agent and publisher for their much needed guidance. Thank you.

And thanks and love to my family, friends and above all my partner for supporting me throughout. Without your love and belief in me I would never have persisted. A big thank you and all my love.

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