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‘But you had to bear it.’

‘We bear what we can. I don’t know that I bore it all that well either. I was a mess, too. For quite a long time.’

Angus was drawn by the calmness of her voice as she spoke, the straightforward assurance of her phrases, not unemotional but without bitterness or self-pity. The thing that had become more noticeable as she spoke was the look of patient observation in her eyes. He thought of what had occurred to him when he first saw her at the reunion, that she was careworn, as though she’d been through a lot. Had cared a lot. Kind. And now he added, beautiful.
She is such a beautiful woman.

The cheerful young waitress came back and offered them the dessert menu. Marion said what she really needed was to stretch her legs. Could they walk in the garden, perhaps, she asked the waitress?

‘Oh, yes, sure, it’s a lovely garden, you probably noticed when you came in. And just past that pond with the fountain,’ she indicated the direction, ‘there’s a path to the beach. It’s really close, you know, and it’s such a nice evening.’

Angus and Marion looked at each enquiringly. ‘Sounds great,’ said Angus. ‘And then maybe we can come back in and have a coffee before we head off to Melbourne.’

They found the path easily. After just a few paces they could hear the sound of the surf, and a little further on there was the water, lit silver by the moon’s clear white light. Marion was ahead of him, framed against the ocean, and he watched the movement of her hips as she walked. She was wearing a short white cotton jumper and pearly grey stretch pants. When the path ended at the beach and she turned and started walking along the sand near the water’s edge, he could see the shape of her buttocks moving under the fabric.

Suddenly Angus had an image of her body as it had been that night of the party in Eden, her girl’s body stretched out long and pale beneath him in the moonlight. How he’d turned her over, pulled her hips toward him, and the lovely rhythmic bounce of her buttocks then as he’d thrust steadily into her…And here she was again, twenty-five years later, walking before him, and she still had a very nice arse, generous but firm. He wondered what she did, what sport or exercise, to be in such good shape. He felt his penis start to stir and thicken, and felt suddenly self-conscious about the flab he’d allowed to gradually settle around his own belly.
Really got to get fit again
, he thought as he watched her move. He imagined resting his hand on that bottom as she walked, imagined sliding his hand down, between her thighs. Gripping them. His erection was growing. Substantially.
Oh boy
, he thought, but that was all he could think.

They walked on, not saying much beyond agreeing on the beauty of the scene. There were some sand dunes quite close to the beach, and at the end of them a little creek flowing into the sea.

‘Guess we’d better head back,’ Marion said, and they turned but
had not gone far before she veered away from the shoreline and into the dunes. Angus followed her. They sat together on one of these breast-shaped hills of sand, side by side, looking out at the ocean. Angus toyed with a strand of the tough dune grass, sliding it between his fingers. She turned to him, he was aware of her pale face so close to him, but he kept looking out. He felt her hand on his face, turning him towards her. She leaned in and kissed him.
This isn’t happening
, he thought wildly.
This isn’t happening.
Then he was returning the kiss, avidly. His hand was in her thick hair, holding the back of her head.

They kissed and kissed and then drew away from each other, gasping. She pressed her hands to her cheeks while she caught her breath; her eyes were very big. Dropping her hands she asked him, ‘Do you… do you remember that night in Eden?’

‘Every minute of it,’ Angus said. ‘I’ve never forgotten it.’

He leaned towards her, lifted the hem of her jumper up, up, and peeled back a cup of her bra, uncovering one of her breasts. He put his mouth there and kissed softly, several times, took the nipple in his mouth and flicked his tongue across it. She gasped and drew away from him. Her jumper was caught above her breast and she pulled it down. For a moment he thought she was going to get up, leave, but instead she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him gently onto his back on the sand. She ran her hands down his chest, stroking from his collarbone to below his ribs. Lower. Stroking his chest and his belly through his clothing. Down, stroking his hipbones, down his thighs to the knees. Again. Touching everywhere but his crotch.

Angus’s brain was nowhere, there were no words in his mind, he was all cock and his cock was in a state of utter upright disbelief. Then she half lay, half crouched on the sand beside him and rested the side of her face gently on his crotch, stroked his erection with her cheek through the layers of cloth. Stroking, stroking. He touched her hair, lying there looking up at the near-full moon, hearing the surf so close. He ran one hand down her back, had to close his eyes when his fingers touched the soft bare skin between her pants and
her jumper. He traced the contours of her buttocks, firm and taut as she crouched there beside him.
Oh god, oh fuck
… How he wanted to be there, holding her hips, gazing down at that gorgeous round arse, naked… He cupped his hand over a mound of her flesh and squeezed, and truly felt like he was close to exploding.

She sat up and placed her own hand where her head had been, cupping it over his full balls, his swollen cock. Angus didn’t think he’d had an erection like this in years. Twenty-five years. She gave a little squeeze.

‘Is that a promise?’ she asked.

‘If you want it to be,’ he answered.

‘For later.’

Not later!
begged his cock.
Now! Now!
But some other part of him, brain or heart, had come to life and was saying,
She wants there to be a later. Yes! Yes! Not just a quick root on the beach and skulk off.

‘For whenever you want.’

Simultaneously they each drew in a long, expressive breath, and sighed. Happy sighs.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘Drive back to Melbourne. Sing along to whatever music you want to put on the CD player. Not think too much.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I’ll take you home to your place. And we’ll see how much
later
it is then.’

She smiled at him. Grinned. Jumped to her feet and ran down the sandhill and along the beach making little whooping cries. He followed her, more slowly, somewhat uncomfortably. He felt like he was floating lightly above the whole scene though his feet were sinking ankle-deep into the cool sand. If he hadn’t known better he’d have thought he was as stoned as a cricket.

They had a coffee back at the restaurant and then Marion excused herself to go to the toilet. While she was gone Angus took his mobile out of his pocket and called home.

‘Hi there. It’s me.’

‘Hey,’ said Deborah. ‘How was the reunion?’

‘Great, really good. It’s kind of still going on actually, I’ve offered some people a lift back to Melbourne but it’s all taking a bit longer than I expected to get away.’ He had never lied to Deb before, never imagined that he would, or could. But the words came so easily.

‘Oh, well, take your time, Angus, no rush. I’m just finishing off some work stuff. You’ve eaten, right?’

‘Yeah, I’ve eaten. Thanks. How’s Ollie? How did Laurence’s party go?’

‘Fine, as far as I can tell. I picked her up just after eleven, no dramas. You know Olivia, she told me
all
the gossip and gory details – not!’

‘Sounds right. Well, I’m kind of on my way but I don’t know how long I’ll be. Don’t wait up for me, Dee, okay?’

‘I won’t. Drive carefully. And, Angus?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Please don’t call me Dee. Okay?’

‘Oh yeah. Right.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye,’ he said to the dead line.
I love you too, darling
, he thought.

CHAPTER 14

Sometimes Meredith had dreams in which she was a little girl again, sitting in her father’s lap, his arms strong around her. She awoke from these dreams contented, as though she had achieved something for which she’d always longed. She daydreamed of the same thing, too, especially when she was just crossing the line from tipsiness to being properly drunk.

Now that Laurence had shot up and was so much taller, suddenly, than she was, she sometimes had this urge with him, too. She could
see
it, almost: herself snuggled in his lap, protected, safe. She only tried it once, though, when she was pretty darn drunk. Laurence simply stood up and let her fall on the floor. ‘Too messy, Mum,’ he said, and left the room. That was something he said sometimes; no particular offence was meant. No offence, actually, was ever meant. But she never tried to do it again, no matter how pissed she was.

Occasionally she did sit, delicately, on her father’s knee. It didn’t feel inappropriate: he was a tall man, strong even as he advanced into old age, and she was by far the smallest in the family, slightly built and of barely medium height. And he didn’t seem to mind. Alex.
Daddy. He seemed perfectly content for her to perch there on his knee as they had a cup of tea and chatted, her elbows propped on the kitchen table. And because she was facing the table, not looking at him, Meredith found herself talking more freely. About boyfriends who had come and gone, for instance, or how she still dreamed sometimes of a proper career, except life was just too difficult as a single mum. And he would sip his tea and listen and say, ‘There now, poppet, I’m sure everything’ll turn out all right. I know you do your best.’

She loved them, those moments of childhood intimacy restored. But these occasions were only a small part of the time she spent with her father. In fact, Meredith and Alex did a great deal together, more than anyone else in the family knew. She didn’t drink when she visited him, a deal she’d made with herself and stuck to, and she knew that helped – helped
her
, especially, to have that alcohol-free space. And wasn’t it amazing how much she could get done without a glass in her hand!

Olivia sometimes marvelled at what Grandpa had managed to achieve in the garden since she’d last been there, not knowing that Auntie Meredith had spent a whole morning turning that compost from one bin to the next, or barrowing mulch. Robert would say to Vesna, after getting off the phone from his father, ‘Gee, it’s great Dad’s doing so many different things in his retirement. I never even knew he was interested in concerts, or art galleries!’ Because even to Robert, Meredith preferred not to reveal the extent of her activities with their father. It was part of the specialness of their relationship, and she didn’t want to share it with her siblings.
Daddy takes care of things
, that was the good feeling that being with Alex gave her,
and he takes care of me, too.
How it was that Daddy knew her feelings and said nothing either, she didn’t know.

The only person she mentioned it to was Laurence, chatting away about what she and Grandpa had done as she mucked around with her quirky big journals, sticking in ticket stubs and scraps torn from
programs and brochures, filling comic-style frames with snippets of overheard conversation, jokes, dreams, asides. But Laurence, though he nodded sweetly and said, ‘Uh-huh, uh-huh’, was clearly only half-listening. He was absorbed in his own teenage life, and rightly so.

Meredith worked nights, at a bar in the city, and the hours allowed her the freedom to go to daytime exhibitions and plays and concerts. Meredith had an enduring sense that she could have been
a creative person
of some kind, if her life had been different. But the closest she had come was working as an artists’ model now and again. The gap between who she was and who that other, more creative person would be seemed impossibly wide, like… like waking up tomorrow and being Chinese. James was an artist, true, her own brother, but James was
the lucky one.
And she was
the baby
: her role was to entertain and admire, and in return she would be indulged.

Some of the shows they went to were free, but if tickets had to be bought Alex insisted on paying for them, which suited Meredith since she was always broke. And she, for her part, did the driving. One day a couple of months after his assessment, when a tang of summer heat was in the air, she arrived at midday to take him to a matinee performance by a visiting Japanese string quartet. Alex was all dressed up and ready to go – except that his shirt was grubby. There were food stains down the front, and as Meredith looked more closely she noticed that the collar was creased and dirty, too, and his tie had blotchy marks on it.

‘Daddy,’ she said plainly, ‘that shirt needs a wash.’

‘Does it, darl?’ said Alex, looking down.

‘Yep. How about you whip it off and get a new one?’

Nodding agreeably, Alex stripped down to his singlet there and then, in the living room. Meredith was taken aback. Her father had always maintained the proprieties of an earlier generation; it might be acceptable to remove a dirty shirt in the laundry, perhaps, but not in the living room! He handed the shirt to her and she headed to his bedroom, a little nonplussed. At the door she turned back, wanting
some further instruction, but her father was simply standing there blankly, waiting. She went on, into the privacy of his bedroom.

There was a wicker laundry basket standing empty in the corner and she dropped her father’s warm shirt into it. Opening the door of his wardrobe for the first time in years, Meredith was confronted with a jumble of clothing. Tracksuit tops, jumpers and skivvies, things that should be folded and sitting in drawers were instead hung awkwardly, wire hangers jammed into their necks, with shirts or suit jackets awry over their shoulders. Trousers were threaded by one leg over a hanger, dangling precariously. Some suit pants were still hanging from the proper wooden clamp hangers, but were widely separated from their matching jackets. Nothing, she realised, was paired. Nothing matched. Boots and shoes littered the bottom of the wardrobe, here and there a forlorn tie.