The Grass Castle (15 page)

In the end, she decides she will have to go by bicycle. The spare key to the bungalow is hidden under a brick in the garden, so she can let herself back in when she gets home. She’ll have to find her car keys tomorrow.

She leaves without her helmet so she won’t mess up her hair, wheels the bike out into the street. Then she is on and flying, spinning the pedals, the cold wind freezing on her cheeks.

At the Kingston shops, she dismounts from her bicycle and wheels it along the footpath, looking for the right address. She hopes they haven’t chosen an expensive restaurant, but judging by the austere look of the place, the few tables and the subdued lighting, she figures it’s beyond her usual budget. She locks her bike to a signpost in the street.

She’s sweaty and breathless from the ride—so much for her ridiculous vanity. Her jeans are uncomfortably tight, her shirt and cardigan are skewed, and her hair is wildly wind-blown. She tries to pat down her curls, wishing she’d thought to shove some product in her daypack. She snorts at herself. A daypack in a classy restaurant like this! Her image is shouting
student
and she hasn’t even walked through the door.

They are sitting at a table in the back corner. Abby follows the waiter’s nod and sees Cameron waving, a bashful smile on his face. She pauses nervously to compose herself then walks slowly across the room. Cameron pulls out the seat beside him. He reaches for her arm and drags her down. Abby sees empty wine bottles on the table. Cameron and his mates are obviously well ahead of her.

She looks around the ring of faces: four men (including Cameron) and two women. Cameron introduces her, and she shakes hands and smiles. Michael, Jason, Imogen, Greta and Andy: no way will she remember them all. Michael leans back and calls to the waiter for an extra glass. It appears quickly and he fills it to the brim with white wine and pushes it towards her, sloshing wine onto the tablecloth.

‘Drink up,’ he says. ‘You’ve got some work to catch us.’

She glances around shyly, hoping she won’t have to initiate conversation. But she needn’t be concerned. Almost without pause they dive back into the discussion they must have suspended on her arrival: the latest political wrangle on Capital Hill. Abby is quickly aware she is with people who know politics, and all its shenanigans. She sits back and listens. There’s not much she can add to a discussion of this nature.

It’s an interesting evening. Cameron and his journalist friends talk and drink big—Abby can’t believe the amount of wine they go through. Periodically, two or three of them go outside for a smoke. Cameron doesn’t join them. Abby remembers his emergency cigarette in the valley after he hit the kangaroo, and she wonders if he is abstaining simply to impress her. He is certainly having a good time, joining the discussions and arguments with buoyant enthusiasm. Some of the conversations are heated. They escalate gradually. Cameron and his friends posture and gesticulate, and the volume of their talk increases. They lean forward, huff and snarl. Then they laugh. Abby can barely keep up with it.

Throughout the dinner, Cameron reaches for her hand under the table. He holds it and presses it. Sometimes he puts an arm around her shoulder, removing it when he needs to make an animated point. He’s so different among his peers—so much more combative and competitive. It’s fascinating to see this other side of him, but it makes her feel inadequate. He and his friends are so intelligent and informed. They discuss issues she knows little about: the conflict in Israel, US foreign policy, the modernisation and development of China and what this means for the rest of the world.

Abby feels her country upbringing. She feels parochial and small, comparatively uneducated. She thinks of her childhood in Mansfield: going bush with her father and Matt, camping, riding horses in the hills, skiing back-country, swimming in the river in summer. What does she know of the world? Most of these journalists have travelled widely. Europe, the US, Asia. They include travel anecdotes among their stories. In comparison, her experience is limited: Mansfield High and Monash University. She hasn’t had the money to travel, or the time. Cameron’s friends are older than her, and far more worldly.

She’s relieved when the topic shifts to rural unemployment and the death of country towns. At least she can weigh in on this: closure of facilities in country communities, lack of funding for infrastructure, the negative selection pressure for unambitious people, the impact of highway diversions on rural businesses, salinity, the problems of the Murray–Darling Basin. It feels good to participate at last, to have something worthwhile to say.

Mostly she wings it by drinking. She wasn’t going to do alcohol tonight, but there wasn’t much choice when Michael thrust that first glass of wine at her. Plus the wine gives her confidence. She can never belong in a group of people like this, but the drink helps her to merge, to be less of a grinning idiot.

When the bill is passed around at the end of the evening, Abby feels anxious. She’s not sure she can cover her share—all that fancy food and the multiple bottles of wine. She’s relieved Cameron insists on paying. He doesn’t even let her see the bill, sweeping it beyond her reach then putting his card on the pile.

Afterwards, they leave together, stepping out into the cold Canberra night. Abby is sobered by the chill air. Cameron has her hand grasped firmly in his as he offers to walk her to her car. She points to her bicycle and he laughs: a hearty chuckle that warms the night. Then he leads her to his car.

‘You’re not riding,’ he says. ‘I won’t allow it.’

He unlocks the WRX and hands her in. Abby’s not sure how drunk he is, whether he should be driving—with the amount of wine he consumed, he ought to be smashed, but he seems to be holding it well. He goes to the driver’s side and slides in beside her, closes the door, starts the car, turns on the heater. Then he pauses and looks at her. He seems restrained somehow, as if he’s holding himself tucked in tight.

‘I think I’ve probably had too much to drink to take you all the way to your place,’ he says. ‘But my flat isn’t far from here. Would you consider staying the night? There’s a spare room.’

A knot of tension weaves itself in Abby’s throat, but what can she do? She agrees reluctantly. A taxi fare from here would be too expensive.

Cameron’s face is inscrutable as he puts the car in gear and pulls out into the street. He drives slowly, as if doubtful of his own judgement. His apartment block is along the foreshore, overlooking Lake Burley Griffin. He uses a keycard to open the gate to the underground parking. Abby sits silently in the passenger seat as he parks the car, then they get out into the echoing concrete space.

‘This way.’ He guides her to the lift, not touching her.

They stand in the lift as it glides up to the third floor. The corridor is softened by pale grey carpet. He walks ahead of her to a heavy white door and unlocks it, swings it open for her, flicks on some lights. Then he motions her inside, entering quietly behind her while she moves forward, drawn to the windows and the hint of winking lights on the inky lake.

The apartment is airy, ceiling to floor windows. Outside is a spot-lit balcony with leafy green plants. The living area is large; dark brown leather couches are scattered with green cushions. On the high white walls are Aboriginal dot paintings, some in earthy ochres, others in bright acrylics, cascades of coloured spots depicting abstract landscapes. With her hands behind her back like Prince Charles, Abby peruses them, exploring the shifts in colour and shape and depth. Cameron is standing away from her, hands in pockets, his face bland and closed as if he is suppressing something in himself. She puts a hand on the back of a couch, her heart skittering and her breathing fast. He glances at her then he looks away.

‘The paintings are good,’ she says.

He inspects his collection thoughtfully. ‘I like Indigenous work,’ he says. ‘They’re clever the way they see the landscape. You’d think they’d seen it from the air, but most of them just know how it is. The shape of the land. And it has such deep meaning for them. I like that. And the patterns. The way the colours sweep across the canvas, clashing then merging. It’s like a journey through time and space.’

The paintings must have been expensive, Abby thinks. And this apartment makes her humbly aware of her own student squalor. She wishes Cameron hadn’t seen her bungalow last night—her world of disastrous disorder. She wonders how he manages to afford all this—perhaps his rich parents have invested. But he is much older than her, thirty at least. He’s had time to establish.

‘How long have you been working as a journalist?’ she asks.

‘Started my cadetship when I was twenty-two,’ he says, his gaze still fixed on the artwork. ‘After the
Herald Sun
I worked in Alice Springs for a while. That’s when I bought most of these paintings. I got to know a few of the local blackfellas and I bought some of their art. I probably didn’t pay as much as I should have. I still feel guilty about that.’ He looks at her. ‘I’ve been in Canberra close to four years now, climbing the journalistic ladder. It’s a good time to be a science and environment writer—plenty of stories. You have to make mileage where you can.’

Abby sees his jaw tighten. Her breathing escalates and she can’t look away. ‘The spare room,’ she says weakly.

‘This way.’

She follows him down a short corridor.

‘The bathroom,’ he says, pointing. ‘And this is my bedroom.’

She peers in reluctantly. It’s another spacious room, lamp-lit, with a large bed covered by a tasteful dark brown doona and several cushions.

‘The spare room is down the end here. The sheets are fresh.’ He shows her to another neat, elegantly decorated room, and suddenly she can’t help laughing.

‘What did you think when you saw my place yesterday?’ she says. ‘I’m surprised you managed to keep a straight face.’

‘I didn’t,’ he smiles, sharing her mirth. ‘You were just too drunk to notice.’

She wonders what he sees in her—a broke student, still studying, with limited experience of the world. What’s he looking for?

He moves close and she feels the bigness of him. A strong hand reaches and sweeps her hair from her shoulder then he leans forward and gently, so tenderly, kisses her neck. She lets him bend her against him, his arms wrapping smoothly around her back, his lips on her neck, her face, and then her mouth. He is leisurely and unrushed. It feels good, but she hadn’t planned on this—perhaps they are diving in too deep too quick. A little bit of restraint might be better. She likes to have time to think.

‘Maybe I should go,’ she says, pulling half-heartedly away.

‘You don’t have to,’ he says quietly. ‘We can sit and talk for a while. We can just hold hands.’

She stands there, her heart juddering, her hands lightly resting in his, and she reads the words in his eyes. He wants her, that’s clear. Wants her badly, mystifying though that is. And she wants him too. Wants to feel his hands beneath her clothes; her skin is singing for him.

He closes his arms around her again, and kisses her till her knees soften. Then he slips the cardigan from her shoulders, his fingers unbutton her shirt. His lips and hands are warm and she’s suddenly happy to give in to it, craves it in fact: the feel of his hard body against hers.

He pulls her against him and leads her to his lamp-lit bedroom.

In the morning, Abby wakes in the light cast through the large uncurtained window. Beside her, Cameron is slackly asleep, the weight of his arm threaded around her. They are naked: a tousled fawn sheet screwed up between them, the doona half-pulled across their waists. She feels the heat of his skin against hers, the hairiness of his thigh alongside her own, the flush of his breath on her shoulder.

It was good sex. Cameron is a man well in tune with his body, and he focused on giving her utterly satisfying orgasms. But the after-effects of the wine hang heavy in her head. Despite the ecstatic release, she is anxious. Doubt surfaces. Without meaning to, she has succumbed to an entanglement of sorts. It’s against all her personal rules. What is she doing?

She moves slightly, wondering if she can disengage from Cameron without waking him, but his arm tightens instinctively around her; there will be no easy escape. He shuffles close, eyes still shut, his lips tracing the line of her shoulder and collar bone. Then his lids sweep open and those dark eyes connect with hers. She feels other parts of him awakening and she knows they are destined for more lust before she can extract herself and go home. She gives in and allows her skin to meld with his. It’s a sensual kind of poetry, despite her blurry alcohol-laden head.

Afterwards, cosy and sated, she lies back, closes her eyes and lets him pull her up against him. He curls himself around her, heavy and hot, her buttocks pressed to his groin, his lips tasting her shoulder. Dragging the doona up, he wraps her in the cocoon of his heat, and she has never felt more keenly possessed. It amazes her she can feel so physically comfortable with someone she barely knows. The easy intimacy frightens her—it’s possible this man might worm his way under her skin, and how would she deal with that? She’s going to hurt him: that much is certain. How can she navigate her way out of this?