Trouble in Nirvana (28 page)

“Damn.” He stuck his hands on his hips and glared into the distance.

“She went over to see you yesterday afternoon.” Danny offered. “To say goodbye.”

“I was over at Kilgore’s. Stayed for dinner.”

Danny propped the hoe against a tree. “Coming in to see Nirupam and Dawn?”

Tom blinked. “Yeah, sure.” That’s why he’d come over, wasn’t it?

Danny gave what any other face would have been a sly smile but on him simply looked hopeful. “I’ll give you Rosie’s address and phone number if you like.”

“Thanks.”

They invited him for lunch, but Tom couldn’t face a table full of commune folk, not without his Rose. Nirupam gave him a piece of paper with an address and mobile number on it. He folded it and stowed it carefully in his shirt pocket. She led him to the baby’s room from whence squawks of rage were coming. Primrose had done a terrific paint job on the walls.

“Make sure you call her.” Nirupam picked up the yelling baby from its bassinet and cuddled her against her shoulder. How could something so small produce such a racket? Survival was the answer, like he’d be trying to do without his Rose. “She was sorry she missed you yesterday.”

She could have called in this morning
he wanted to cry along with the anguished wail of the baby. Rose knew she could walk into his house any hour of the day or night and she’d be welcome. If she had he would’ve told her how he felt and damn the consequences. If he’d known she was leaving so soon. Why so soon?

“I thought she was staying another week,” he said.

“We told her not to go but she seemed set on it.”

Her voice rang in his head, the words she’d spoken on the phone outside the hospital to that person in Sydney, “It didn’t work out” and “Miles from anywhere.” No. She wouldn’t come back.

He touched baby Dawn lightly on the cheek. “She’s a beauty.” The baby turned her head and blinked blue grey eyes in his direction. Her little mouth was pink and soft in red cheeks, the skin still blotchy from the birth. Danny’s nose. She yawned.

Nirupam said suddenly, “You know, Rosie wants kids.”

She may as well have stabbed him. Had she forgotten? Surely not. And Nirupam wasn’t cruel. “I thought she wanted to play her flute.”

“She can do both.” Nirupam gave a little laugh.

“Not out here.”

“Why not?”

Enough! That wasn’t the real issue and they both knew it. “
I can’t give her babies, Nirupam
.” Did he have to spell it out for her again?

“Why not? If you two want to really be together you can make it work.” She smiled benignly and with that slightly mysterious Madonna look she wore sometimes. “I think you love each other. That’s all that really matters. The rest you can figure out. Tom, call her.”

“See you later.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek, touched Dawn’s soft head with gentle fingers and left before some unidentifiable emotion building in his heart exploded and expressed itself in a way he would regret exposing even to someone as understanding and kind as Nirupam.

Tom climbed into the ute and drove home on automatic. “Call her,” they all said. She left without bothering to say goodbye. Phones worked both ways. She could call him. Did she love him? He had no idea. He’d never asked and never told her how he felt, either.

He spent the afternoon fixing the last of the fences damaged in the flooding. Hard, hot physical work to occupy his hands and a head too full of writhing snakes to sit idle. He finished with the sun hovering red and round on the horizon, tossed the tools in the tray of the ute, whistled Delilah aboard, and headed back to the house. The empty, lonely house.

He’d never felt lonely before, always enjoyed the quiet and didn’t mind the solitude. In fact he much preferred solitude to a crowd. Or had done. For some reason the hollowness of his heart spread itself to the rooms. Rose was gone. Even though she’d only spent two nights here with him she’d been just a short ride away across the river. Her larger than life presence left a gaping hole in the whole valley. Nirupam and Danny would miss her too. Not at the moment, maybe, with all those friends hanging around and the thrill of the new baby, but later. They’d miss her drive and her enthusiasm and her wild plans—some of which had actually worked.

He laughed softly as he stripped off to have his shower. Locking Kurt in the shed with a snake. How he wished he’d been there for that episode. And if she knew how desirable she was stomping furiously about in those gumboots with mud on her face after wrestling Daisy in the cowshed...Talking to the chooks—he did that too. Swore at them sometimes. Gertie was a stroppy old biddy. She’d pecked him many a time. Came very close to having her neck wrung.

Steam from the hot water wreathed the bathroom. He stepped in and closed his eyes, letting the stream pour down over his head, washing away the grime and sweat of the day. All he needed to do was grab her, kiss her silly and tell her he loved her. Take his chances. Easy now. Impossible then.

Tom stopped soaping. His eyes flew open. Was that his problem? What if she’d been waiting for him to make a move? What if she’d been as unsure of his feelings as he was of hers? He’d been very forthright in his dismissal of her. “Find someone else” he’d shouted that morning. For all her sophistication and confidence was she as tentative as he in committing her heart? Was she prepared to compromise on babies? Adopt, for instance? Or take donor sperm? He’d swallow his pride and accept even that to make her happy, if it meant she’d accept him.

He didn’t know if she would do any of those things. He’d never asked her.

“Bloody idiot!” he shouted and received a mouthful of water. She’d just been dumped almost at the altar. Who wouldn’t be tentative? And he was so thick he couldn’t say it—couldn’t say “I love you”. And so doughy he hadn’t acted when he had the chance. Yesterday, when she’d kissed him. Too scared. Not waiting to hear what she wanted to say. Making assumptions. Wrong ones? What sort of man was he?

The answer wasn’t pleasant.

****

Primrose had every intention of driving direct to Sydney along the coast road, but an invisible fence, a barrier protected the Moruya town limits on the far side of the river. She crossed the bridge, travelled two hundred metres and her foot lifted from the accelerator, her hands spun the wheel. The Golf slowed and turned back the way she’d come as if on automatic pilot.

What now? Couldn’t go back to the commune, couldn’t face her old life in Sydney. Couldn’t bear to see Tom. When, on the far side of the town a sign pointing to Moruya Heads appeared, she swung left heading for the coast.

The road continued south when it reached the ocean. Primrose drove aimlessly with the vast Pacific glittering on her left and scattered beach houses nestled in the bush on her right. She stopped in the tiny settlement of Congo and walked down onto shining, soft white sand. Stopping to slip off her sandals she stood with the sun beating down on her head, staring out over the endless rolling breakers, her mind as empty as the sky.

The heat slowly began to eat into her consciousness and she returned to the car for a hat and sunscreen. She walked to a little general store and bought an ice cream and cold spring water then returned to sit on the shore on one of her towels.

People were surfing further along to the right. Groups of swimmers had set up umbrellas here and there but the beach was relatively deserted. Primrose finished her rapidly melting ice cream. She could stay here on the South Coast. Why not?

Find a part-time job somewhere. Cleaning, shop assistant. Something. Anything. Nobody said she had to make a living from music. It was a matter of pride. All in her own head. She’d spent so much time practising and studying and worked so hard to get her degree that giving up and finding other employment seemed like a betrayal, a failure. The way she’d always considered Danny as a failure because he dropped out of Uni and never finished his degree. Never finished anything. But did it matter? In the grand scheme of things who cared? The pressure and the subsequent mess in her head came from inside her mind, not from an external source.

Tom had said something along those lines soon after they met.
Personal problems follow you around no matter where you are. And until you admit to yourself your attitude may be the cause, you’re stuck with them.

A weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. Who cared, indeed? She was free to do what she liked. She answered to no-one, there was nothing to prove to anyone. Danny had always understood that. He was happy with his life and the choices he’d made. That took a strength and courage she’d never appreciated until now. But he had Nirupam by his side. Primrose answered to no-one because there
was
no-one.

She squashed the self pity before it took hold, dug her fingers into the white gold sand and let it trickle from her grasp.

The blue Pacific stretched before her. A priceless view with sparkling clean air that refreshed and invigorated. Rents would be a fraction of the city’s. Imagine living within a stone’s throw of this? And close to her family. Any sort of work would do to pay the rent and she could teach flute and music theory privately. Schools might be interested. It wouldn’t be easy but it was possible.

She’d played Zoë’s CD in the car this morning and the music was exciting. Frighteningly good. She could try out for The Buttercups. They may not want her but she could try. Plus the retired pianist Maureen Bellows may be persuaded to do a recital with her, or know another pianist who would be interested. There were opportunities here if she made them but she was nothing if not determined and they’d be on her own terms.

Then there was Tom. There was nothing to be done about Tom. Unsuitable and unrequited love was something to be endured. Heartbreak wasn’t a new experience. Her heart was used to being in pieces. A woman couldn’t rely on a man to provide happiness in her life, nor vice versa, and it was unfair to expect it of Tom. This overwhelming love was her problem not his. If she stayed they would undoubtedly meet so she had to be prepared. She also had to be prepared for an eventual new partner in his life. A woman who accepted him as he was.

A tear ran down her face quite unexpectedly. She’d never be prepared for that. Never. She wiped her hand across her face. Don’t cry. If she started she wouldn’t stop. Mustn’t mope. Time for action, a new phase of her life was about to begin. She stood up and flapped her towel to remove the sand. Back to Moruya. First, book into a motel, then buy the newspaper and start looking for a job and a cheap place to rent. If she bombed out here she’d move south and try Narooma or drive north to Bateman’s Bay.

****

Her phone rang later that evening when she was contemplating pizza or Chinese for dinner. She glanced at the display. Private caller. Maybe it was Zoë returning her unsuccessful earlier call about meeting The Buttercups. Or a reply to one of the messages she’d left about accommodation.

“Hello.”

“Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

“Tom?” She sat down on the bed as the breath silently and abruptly left her lungs. Wasn’t this part of her life over? How was she to grow a hard shell if he rang her?

“Yes. Why did you just leave like that?”

“I didn’t. I tried to say goodbye yesterday. You weren’t home.”

“You could have called in this morning. I was home all day.” He sounded hurt rather than angry. A friend who’d been slighted.

She hesitated. Had he rung just to tell her off for not calling in? “I’m sorry. I should have, I suppose.” The truth was she hadn’t been brave enough.

“Yes, you should have.”

“I’m sorry.” What more did he want her to say? “I suppose I can say it now. Goodbye. Thank you for everything.”

“Rose, I wanted to see you before you left. I wanted to say...I wanted to tell you...” Silence for a heartbeat then he muttered a disgusted, “This is hopeless.”

“Tell me what?” Was he about to hang-up? He couldn’t. What was hopeless? “Wanted to say what?” she whispered through a throat so tight she could barely squeeze the words out.

His breath feathered into the phone then he drew in a deep breath. She couldn’t speak. Her mouth wouldn’t work. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears. Please don’t let him hang up.

“Rose, I’m sorry.” She sniffed hard and dragged in air. An apology? He wasn’t the only one to blame in their fiasco of a relationship. He said, “I guess I’m too late. You won’t be coming back.”

“No!” Now her voice worked, the words tumbling out all in a muddle. “No, I mean I am back, I didn’t go. I’m in Moruya.”

“Moruya? Why?” Surprise in his voice. And delight?

She swallowed. “I couldn’t leave.” It came almost in a whisper. “I don’t know why but I couldn’t.”

“Where are you?”

“The Moruya Motor Inn.”

“Room?”

“Fourteen.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

Primrose disconnected in a daze. Was he rushing to declare undying love? Hard to tell by his tone. Was she brave enough to tell him of hers? Why else would he be in such a hurry?

She stood immobile for several moments. Tom was coming here to this motel room. Whatever his reason, this was her last chance. Shower. Clean clothes. Hair. She sprang into action.

Thirty minutes. Barely enough time to wash the sunscreen and sand from her skin. Shampoo and dry her hair. Make-up. Iron her jeans. Was there an iron in the room? She flung open the wardrobe door. Yes.

The ute pulled into the parking lot as she was folding and jamming the ironing board back into its space. She’d know that engine sound anywhere. He must have driven like a mad thing to make it in thirty minutes. Even though he’d said he would, it was a safer forty minutes. Unless a baby was on the way.

Footsteps sounded outside. She opened the door to his knock and stepped aside, unable to look him in the eye in case she collapsed onto him. But she didn’t truly know what it was he wanted to tell her. Hoped but didn’t dare hope. His fresh showered scent washed over her as he brushed by her and stood at the end of the bed with his hands on his hips, glaring.

He filled the little room, used up all the air, sucked her in like a magnet. She could barely breathe for love. But she didn’t know what he would say, couldn’t assume. She stayed in the tiny passageway to the door and drank in the sight of him. The brown hair was damp, wetting the collar of his blue cotton shirt like yesterday when she’d picked him up. He’d prepared himself to meet her. The way she had to meet him.