Winter's End (2 page)

Humming a tune softly
to herself, she dug her fingers in again to dish out another handful. As she
turned to place them onto her pile, she caught sight of a worn out cover. It
was all too familiar.
“A Comparative Study on John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian
Urn.”
She swiped a gentle hand over the cover. It was now well-worn out
from overuse and it’s grey cover had dulled over the years. But the
illustration of the Grecian urn was still as impressive today as the first day
she had laid eyes on it. It seemed to her that like the poem, the image was
also captured in the timelessness of the poem it represented. As she sat
staring at it, her mind drifted back into her memories and into her apartment
she used to share with her roommate at twenty-two…

*****

Vivaldi played softly
in the background. Emma drummed her feet as she stood at her bench-top slicing
her carrots into juliennes.

“You sure you’ll be
fine?” said the young blonde woman slipping on a pair of red heels.

“I’ll be fine, Lauren,”
she replied, glancing over at her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Lauren gave
one last appraisal of herself in the lounge room mirror. “You should come, you
know. It’s Pete’s party after all. And you know him.”

“I know.”

“Learn to get out of
this flat once in a while.”

Emma smiled. “I
know.”

Lauren sighed. “Very
well then.” She blew a kiss in the air. “Don’t stay up. I’ll be late.”

Emma walked her over
to the door. “Have a nice time.”

“You can still come…”

Emma giggled and
pushed her out of the door. “Bye, Lauren.”

Closing the door
behind her, she looked around at the tiny flat. The walls were peachy in colour
and beautiful ornaments and candles grazed the lamp stands, shelves and coffee
tables.
 
A pair of lemony curtains were
tied back and bordered the long French doors leading to the balcony.

It was seven in the
evening and the lights of the city that sparkled into the flat, shown like
stars. Her potted plants of geranium and begonia in her balcony were in full
bloom and added to the romantic aura of the star studded night.

She sighed, realising
that she was left all alone to embrace the serenity of her evening. She took a
few steps forward to return to her cooking when a couple of desperate knocking
interrupted her.

“Who is it?” she
called out.

“Emma, it’s me,”
replied Lauren.

Emma opened the door
to an angst Lauren.

“Forgot my wallet,”
Lauren screamed out as she rushed towards her bedroom. “Changed my bag, forgot
the wallet.”

She ran back out,
gave Emma a peck on her cheeks and raced out the door.

Emma shook her head
in disbelief and closed the door. As she was about to return to the kitchen,
she saw Lauren’s
 
keys on the hall table.
Emma winced. Looks as if she would have to stay up then. Probably sleeping on
the couch would be a better idea, she thought, her hands on her hips as she
weighed out her options.

Another knock rapped
at the door and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Lauren,” she started,
opening the door. “Did you forget…”

There standing at the
door was a six feet three young man. His short hair was neatly dressed and
swept to the side. His glasses accentuated his blue eyes. He wore a stylish trench
coat over his dark, striped suit.

Her jaw dropped open.
No man had ever stood at her door looking like that.

“Hello,” said the
young man.

“Hello,” Emma
managed.

“I hope I’m not
bothering you. But I’m looking for Emma Abbott.”

Emma’s eyes turned
dark and suspicious. She looked him over again but with a different eye. “Why?”

The young man smiled.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Richard. Richard Winston.”

Emma stared at him
blankly, not recalling his name at all.

“I’m Robert’s
brother,” he added, hoping to clear up her obvious confusion.

Emma’s eyes lit up,
her mouth breaking into a smile and her tensed shoulders loosened up. “Robert’s
brother? Why don’t you come in?”

She led the way into
her flat. Richard closed the door behind him.

“Hi,” she smiled.
“I’m sorry about that. I’m afraid I didn’t recognise the last name.”

Richard returned her smile.
He took a glance at her flat, the sounds of Vivaldi in the air softening it
even more. “You live alone?”

“No,” she said as she
moved to the kitchen. His musk was strong, manly and captivating. Her legs
began to quiver from the attraction she felt for him; almost like a high-school
teenager. She knew she had to put some distance between them. “My room-mate, Lauren
is out to a party.” She grabbed a bunch of celery sticks and began slicing them
nervously. “So what brings you here?”

“Oh…,” he said. “I
came to give you this.” He held out his hand containing a book.

She recognised the
brown, carved urn on it. ‘A Comparative Study on John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian
Urn.’ Her heart sunk. “You’ve come to return it. Has Robert finished with it?”

“I suppose he has,”
he said, placing the book on the bench top. “Robert couldn’t come to return it
himself. He said he…,” he cleared his throat. “He had some engagement of some
kind,” he blurted.

“Oh,” said Emma,
slightly disappointedly.

“He… he said he would
have come by personally. But something came up suddenly,” Richard said in an
attempt to comfort her. It was obvious she had been looking forward to seeing
his brother.

“That’s alright.
Thank you though. For bringing it by.”

He put his hands into
the pockets of his trench-coat. He had his eyes cast down to the wooden floor
as he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another.

She watched him
briefly. “Well… thank you,” she said at last, breaking their awkward silence.

He looked up at her
and hesitated before speaking. “Right…,” he said. He made a slight move to the
door and then stopped. “How… how is it that you know Robert?” he asked.

“I met him in the
coffee shop at the corner near the town library a couple of weeks ago,” she
answered. “He was doing an elective in poetry and we just got talking about
it.”

“Oh…,” he said. He
walked back slowly to the bench-top.

“I told him I was a
literature major and he asked me for some help in his assignment,” she
continued. “Would you like a drink?”

“Um… o.k.”

“Red wine?”

“Um… yeah. That’ll do
fine.”

She fumbled through
her cupboard and brought out a bottle of cheap merlot.

“I’m sorry,” she
shrugged holding up the bottle. “It's all I have. I always keep a couple for my
cooking.”

“No… no, it's
absolutely fine,” he assured her.

She poured him a
glass. “So we started meeting up a couple of afternoons. His latest assignment
was on John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. I told him I had a great book based on
that… and well… now you’re here.”

He settled himself on
a stool at the bench-top and then took a sip of his wine as he watched her
julienne the celery.

“You won’t have a
glass?” he said.

She shook her head,
giving him a small smile. “I don’t drink.”

“But you cook?”

She raised her head
and thought for a moment. “Have you had dinner, Richard?”

*****

Emma woke with a
jerk. Startled, she wondered what it was that caused the loud noise that
shattered her dreams. She heard angry voices coming from the kitchen.

“Jai?” she called
out.

“Jai dropped a chair,
Mummy,” returned Hannah in her tiny voice.

She heard a muffled
angry voice berate her.

“Jai?” she said
again. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,
Mum,” he popped his head out the doorway. “Just making breakfast for Hannah and
myself.”

She lay back tiredly
onto her mattress. “What time is it?” she thought. She reached out onto her
side to search for her wrist watch. Her hands grazed the edges of a book. She
picked it up and looked at it. She let out a small sigh. She must have fallen
asleep thinking of Richard.

She remembered the
last conversation she had had with him. He had been angry when he discovered
that she was selling the seven bedroom mansion she shared with Robert in London
to move to the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

He had marched out
into her garden with thunderous footsteps. She hadn’t seen him or she would
have retreated quickly. Instead he had caught her by surprise, his angry shadow
blocking the sunlight over her as she was crouched low onto the ground, weeding
her garden.

“I want to talk to
you,” he said heavily.

“Richard,” she blurted.
“Why…? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer but
stared down at her small frame.

“Alright,” she said,
standing up. “Let me just get washed and I’ll meet you in the lounge room.”

“You look fine,” he
said, grabbing her by the elbows and pulling her, into the house and into the
library.

“Richard!” she shouted
angrily. “What is the meaning of this?”

He swung her roughly
before him.

“You’re selling the
house.”

Her face clouded.
“How did you know?”

“So it is true.”

“I meant to tell you.
But not just yet.”

“You didn't even ask
me. You just up and went and put the house on the market,” he said in a low,
threatening voice.

“Mind you, Richard,”
she said sternly. “I don’t need to ask you.”

“And so you’ve
decided to move to the Isle of Skye?”

She moved away from
him. She couldn’t bear him looking at her so angrily. She pulled her garden
gloves off her hands and threw it onto her desk. “We’ve found a house and we’ll
be moving in a week,” she whispered almost to herself. “We had enough from the
estate to purchase it. We made the final settlement last week.”

“What about the kids,
Emma?” he said, still staring at her, his grey eyes almost scorching a hole
into her soul.

“The kids are
alright.”

“And me? What about
me?”

“What about you,
Richard?” she said, lifting her eyes cautiously at him. “You’ll go on with life
as usual. Date, find a wonderful partner hopefully, move on. We all have to
move on. Robert’s death has shaken us all but…”

“I’m not talking
about Robert!” he boomed. “Those kids mean the world to me. I was there when
they took their first steps. I held their hands and took them to their first
day at school, their first game. Hell, I’ve been there for them than Robert
ever was.”

“I know that,” Emma
insisted. “And I’m grateful. So was Robert. He has said so on so many occasions.
But you can’t blame Robert for being a poor father. He had been busy trying to
establish himself as a respectable architect.”

“Robert! Robert!
Robert!” he screamed. “You’ve always defended him. No matter what he did!”

“He was my husband!”

“And he was my
brother!”

They stared at each
other, their faces flamed with fury. But it was Richard who succumbed first. He
turned away and walked slowly to the door. Stalling at it, he fidgeted with the
door knob.

“I sometimes feel
sorry for you, Emma. You never knew what you had. You never realised what you
could have had,” he said in a low voice.

He slammed the door
shut so loudly she jerked.

Her eyes flew open.

“Jai?”

*****

Emma folded the last
of her washing. She ran her hands on the smoothly, pressed little shirt
belonging to Hannah. She smiled to herself as she laid it into Hannah’s
dresser. She could hear her tiny voice outside.

“It’s my turn,” she
was wailing at Jai.

Emma looked towards
the whirring sound that had caught her attention. The tiny automated toy
helicopter spun towards the trees that bordered the house.