Love: Classified (14 page)

     I was in my element, with Magnus chatting about
the merits of the latest camping vans and equipment to the constable and Mrs Smart and I alternately enjoying talking to Dr Jenkins about keeping chooks and to the constable’s shy wife who was newly pregnant.

     Dr Jenkins, Mrs Smart and I asked her about what they’d name the baby and the kind of pram they’d buy and soon she came out of her shell. I told them about my God-daughter Bree’s christening which had been in a country church where the organist was very old, very deaf, and a very bad musician. Peta and Bree’s father had been there, of course, along with all the congregation, and we’d almost burst, trying hard not to laugh. When I started giggling, it set Pete off and sent Bree into a paroxysm of crying which almost drowned the awful music. Bree stopped when a loud noise came from her nether regions, followed by a squirting sound. Her heirloom gown was soon smeared with smelly goo
which had whooshed up from her nappy and to which a stream of black, buzzing blowflies were inexorably attracted. No wonder Josh fled soon afterwards!

     Magnus looked up from his conversation with the constable when he heard us laughing over this story, and smiled right at me.
I looked away quickly, conscious of the sudden swell of delight breaking inside me. I had to bite my bottom lip to prevent myself moaning aloud. How could one smile from him create such a ridiculous surge of pleasure deep in the core of my body? My powerlessness over my reaction to him and the way he seemed to sense it infuriated me.

     We ate under the grape vines, the gentle slopes of the hills darkening around us.

     “This food is amazing, Virginia,” Dr Jenkins said, to which Mrs Smart, the constable and his wife added their compliments.

     “Is it any wonder I recovered so quickly?” Magnus asked.

     “It’s nothing,” I said. “I’ve always loved cooking.”

I didn’t confess that I’d never enjoyed it as much as I had in the past glorious and countless days in cramped Matilda and on the riverside barbecue. Grinding spices, chopping herbs, kneading dough, I wondered what had come over me. Never in my life had I spent so much time preparing food. Never had I encountered a gourmet of Magnus’ calibre who ate and praised everything. Knowing he was waiting with a king-size appetite and that he’d eat with gusto and ask for more, I turned out meals that, even to me, seemed extra tasty. I loved watching his face as he took his first mouthful of shrimp risotto or creamy vitello tonnato. I felt a sense of triumph when he closed his eyes in sheer euphoria, an ecstatic smile on his lips. And of course that damned tidal wave would break inside me and shatter my composure so I’d have to turn away, as if I’d heard a bird or was suddenly fascinated by the night sky.

     “What would you like tonight?” I sometimes asked.

     “Veal involtini?” he’s say, pronouncing the Italian word as an Italian man would, his tongue caressing every syllable. Of course my crazy body reacted to this, as if his tongue was caressing me, and he’d grin as I tried to pretend absolutely nothing was happening to me when in fact it was cataclysmic.

    
And I’d concoct a meal he’d never forget, carefully rolling fennel, anchovies and thyme into paper-thin slices of meat and baking them in a sauce rich with tomatoes and garlic.

     “I look forward to every meal,” he’d say, “Yet I don’t seem to be putting on weight, am I?”

     “You look great,” I’d reply, every cell in my body meaning it.
But I look like a baby hippo,
I’d think.     

     “I love watching you eat,” he said one day as I slurped up fettucine smothered in basil pesto. “I was always having to coax my wife into having just one more mouthful. ‘I won’t be fat, just to appease you,’ she’d say. And I’d try to tell her that we’d never have a baby if she remained severely underweight but she wouldn’t listen. ‘You begrudge all the money you’re spending at the fertility clinic,’ she’d say. ‘You blame me, when it’s the so-called specialists who don’t know what they’re doing.’”

I was brought pleasantly back to the present when Mrs Smart suggested we walk off our meal with an amble along the river which meandered through her small block.

     I forgot my inhibitions enough to link arms with Dr Jenkins as we crossed the paddock in a group, Magnus making sure Mrs Smart didn’t stumble in the semi darkness.

     “Don’t you
love the smell of stubble at the end of a hot day?” I remarked, sniffing appreciatively as our shoes sent the sweet hay-scent upwards.

    “Oh yes,” Magnus answered, a few paces behind. “I really don’t understand why anyone lives in the city when they could be here. There’s not a sound except our footsteps, the water flowing and the roosting birds.”

     We walked to a bend in the river where there was a long fallen tree trunk on which Mrs Smart, Dr Jenkins, the constable and his wife sat to watch the stars come out.

     “You couldn’t live in the country, Virginia, could you?” Magnus asked. There wasn’t room for us on the log so we were standing a little apart from the others
, closer to the water. “Your job means too much to you, surely?”

    
“I do love my work, but I could do it anywhere, really, as it’s all online. But I’d have just as much fun on a country newspaper, or even earning a living from cooking. I’m easily pleased.”

    
We walked a little further and saw two grey cranes settling for the night on the bleached dead branches on the other side.

     “Every glorious day that passes makes it harder and harder to contemplate
having to go back,” he said softly.

     “I feel like that too. But I couldn’t let down my colleagues at the e-magazine, or my employers. And you have a life, don’t you?” I added, remembering the beautiful woman and the little boy. I kept them at the back of my mind, wanting the fantasy of living with Magnus to live forever, but I knew they were there, waiting for him.

     “I don’t have a life any more,” he said bitterly.

Back in Matilda when we’d said our thankyous and goodbyes to Mrs Smart and the others, Magnus was restless. Unable to relax until he did, I noticed that he took hours to get to sleep and that when he did, he dozed fitfully. Not until nearly dawn did he fall into a heavy, peaceful slumber and only then did I allow myself to fall asleep too. I’d taken my nursing duties very seriously and although he was better, I couldn’t forget how much he’d needed me after the fight.

     I was wrenched awake by the sound of his shouts.

     “No!” he was saying. “Don’t slip away. For God’s sake, stay!” He tossed on his pillow, his hair damp with sweat, his pupils huge.

     “Magnus,” I whispered, crawling onto his mattress to try to soothe him. “Magnus, it’s okay. We’re in Matilda. On the riverbank at York. It’s all right.”

     I was stroking his hair, trying to prevent him thrashing around, when he registered where he was.

     “Virginia?” he asked. “Is it you?”

     I nodded.

     “I must’ve been having a nightmare.”

     “You were, but it’s over. It’s almost day time.”

     He breathed a long sigh of relief. “I thought it was real,” he murmured, shaking. “I thought it was happening all over again.”

     “What? What did you think was happening?”

     “I fought for her, Virginia, I did…” he began, feverishly. Then, cutting himself off abruptly he said, “No, I can’t talk about it. I can’t tell you.” He hid his face in his hands and I heard the muffled words, “Just hold me.”

     I knelt and took him in my arms, feeling the nightmare loosen its grip on him. I felt his body slump against me in a contented sleep. But I wasn’t content. I wanted him as I’d never wanted anything in my life. And I knew I was chasing rainbows.

     I lay awake beside him, wondering what he’d done, what had caused him
to borrow his sister’s van, place an ad in a newspaper and end up here, in a little country town in Western Australia with Virginia Brook of all people.

The lazy days sloped past, imperceptibly turning into weeks. The bruises that had covered much of Magnus’ body were now completely gone and his face, once swollen and purple in places, was as beautiful as it had been before he took on the bikies. But every time we accidentally touched, when we were doing the dishes or playing cards or doing the grocery shopping, I pulled away as if he’d burn me.         

     One evening I
was preparing an aromatic twice-cooked duck curry and soon the van filled with the perfume of roasting coriander, cumin, fennel and mace.

    
“ Matilda smells the way she would have when my sister Daisy was a hippy and spent most of her time driving from one Indian bazaar to the next,” Magnus said, coming in from the bottle shop with a bottle of wine in a bag and sniffing admiringly. “It’s amazing that you can find all those spices here in York.”

     I served the curry on a big platter surrounded by
potatoes, rice, lime leaves and basil. He carried it to our card table and poured the blonde, fruity wine into two glasses. The sun had gone down and the river was flowing, slow and stately, below us.

     “I’ve never eaten so well in my all life,” he said, raising his glass to me.

     Unable to help myself, I demanded, “Doesn’t your wife cook?”

     He shook his head and gave a short, derisive laugh. “It was beneath her to do any kind of domestic work
. She was the spoiled daughter of a wealthy Peppermint Grove lawyer. Not only didn’t she cook, clean, wash or iron, she treated people like cleaning ladies and gardeners with disdain.”

     “Couldn’t you have asked her not to?”

     “She treated me with disdain too,” he admitted. “According to her, I knew nothing of style, or etiquette, or any of the things that were so important to her. I was of use to her only if I could earn money. And when she realised I had no intention of ripping people off so I could become rich, she was openly contemptuous.”

     “How did you stand it?”

     “I loved her. I kept thinking I could win her round. That I could show her, by example, that money wasn’t the only thing that could make her happy. Then, something calamitous happened and I needed her support more than I’d ever needed anything and she turned her back on me. More than that, she threw all my belongings out of the bedroom window and onto the lawn. Now I’m half glad we didn’t have a child together. I wouldn’t want a child to suffer through an acrimonious divorce, which is what it will be.”

     “I thought the little boy in the art gallery was your son,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

     “I wish he were,” he said. “Fergus is Daisy’s little boy.”

     I swallowed hard, relief
pouring through me. I quickly slammed it down. He wanted children. How could I be glad he didn’t have any? How could I be so selfish? “You adore him,” I said. “I could see that.”

     He nodded and smiled in that enigmatic way of his, his eyes quizzing mine. I had to grip the edge of the table to prevent myself rushing into his arms. Being clumsy, though, I’d have upended the table and sent the curry flying.
He’s only giving me all this attention, and those suggestive looks, because he’s on the rebound from a disastrous marriage,
I told myself. I knew I’d never get over the loss of him if I allowed myself to love him. He’d leave me as soon as he could find an attractive woman who knew her way round a kitchen.

     “I hope you don’t mind me telling you all this,” he said gruffly.

     It was all I could do to shake my head.

Another night he spoke of his boyhood, of the struggle his father had to make a living, of his patient, stoic mother. Often, he told me about his adventures with his friend Huw, laughing when he recounted their cubby houses hidden in the bush, their first attempts at smoking, the fun they had building a raft out of old tins and planks, and feeling it sink under them as soon as they launched it.

     “I hadn’t even thought about those days
until here in York, with you,” he said.

One morning the temperature soared to more than forty degrees and I knew I’d have to swim or risk getting heat-stroke. He was already in the river, splashing in the shaded water when I finally emerged from Matilda in a turquoise sarong and a bathing costume that I hadn’t worn for years and was a size too small for me. I was very aware of my breasts spilling over the top but thought I’d die of heat exhaustion if I didn’t cool down quickly.

     He wolf-whistled when he saw me.

     “You don’t have to do that,” I snapped, keeping the sarong wound tightly around me as he floated and splashed.

     “Do what?”

     “Whistle, as if I look half decent. You only do it to make me feel better.”

     He swam fast towards the shore, his face angry.

     “I whistled because it was my instinctive reaction on seeing you practically naked,” he said, striding towards me. His board shorts did nothing to hide his erection and I quickly looked away, my eyes savouring his muscled chest gleaming in the sunshine, the droplets of water cascading from his lean, shining body.