‘I know.’
‘In any case …’
‘Yes?’ I said. There was something tantalizing, even a little unsettling in the way she had tailed off: as if she didn’t quite dare to say what she’d been about to say.
‘In any case,’ she continued, after a moment, ‘this thing that you’re looking for – this intimacy … You wouldn’t have found it with us.’
‘Is that what you think? How can you be so sure?’
Lian picked up my plastic cup from the sand and tipped it over, shaking out the last droplets of tea. Then she screwed the cup carefully on to the top of the thermos flask. Her movements were slow and mechanical, suggesting that her thoughts – her real thoughts – were elsewhere.
‘This girl Poppy,’ she said at last. ‘She interests me. Out of all the people you met on your journey, there is something very special about her. She was the one who understood you the best, I think.’
‘Yes, but Poppy made it very clear that we could only be friends, nothing more.’
‘Of course. And yet … When she invited you for dinner at her mother’s house – did you not think that was an extraordinary gesture, on her part?’
‘Extraordinary? In what way?’
‘Well, it was generous of her. Also hopeful. And also rather … perceptive.’
‘Yes,’ I said – a little impatiently – ‘but as I explained, I didn’t get on with her mother, if that was the idea. I didn’t find her attractive.’
‘You think Poppy was trying to make a match between you and her mother?’
‘Of course. She told me as much.’
‘But there was someone else at the party that night.’
‘Someone else?’
‘Someone else.’
Who was she talking about? ‘No there wasn’t,’ I said. ‘There was a young couple – about twenty years younger than me – and then there was her uncle, Clive. That’s all.’
Lian gazed at me steadily. Another smile began to spread across her face, but she managed to suppress it when she saw my growing look of outrage.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I spoke out of turn.’
She hastily crammed the remaining picnic things into her basket, and stood up.
‘I’d better go and collect my girls.’
Still shocked into silence, I rose to my feet as well, and took her hand again, unthinkingly, when she offered it to me.
‘Goodbye, Maxwell Sim,’ she said. ‘And try not to be angry with the people who think they know you better than you know yourself. They mean well.’
She turned and began to walk away.
I hesitated for a few seconds, and then hurried after her, running to catch up: ‘Lian!’ I called.
She wheeled around. ‘Yes?’
Out of control, now – without stopping to think what I was doing – I seized her, and clasped her in my arms, and hugged her fiercely. I held on to her so tightly that she couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe, I expect. I held her like that for … I don’t know how long for. Until my own body shook, convulsively, with a single, gigantic sob, and I put my mouth against her hair and wept and whispered into it: ‘It’s hard. Really hard. I know I’ve got to face it, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever …’
I felt her palm against my chest, pushing me away, gently at first, then more forcefully. I eased myself away from her, and took a step back, and wiped my eyes and looked away: ashamed; shipwrecked; bereft.
‘I think you’re almost there, now, Maxwell,’ she said. ‘You’re almost there.’
She touched me on the arm, and then turned again, and walked away, back towards the pool, calling for her daughter.
I stayed on the beach until sunset.
It was interesting to watch the changing colours of the sky. I had never done that before. The greyness turned slowly to silver as the clouds began to fracture and let through some glimpses of the dying sun. Before long they were tinged by a more golden glow, then they began to break away and drift apart even further as the light itself softened and faded until the sky became gradually streaked with the palest of reds and blues. People continued to come and go on the beach. Nobody was using the swimming pool any more. The long day was finally closing.
Already I missed Lian. I hated the thought that I would never see her again. I missed my father, as well. I should really have gone back to see him – I only had a few more hours left in Australia, after all – but something was stopping me. Something was paralysing me. There was no urgency about talking to him, anyhow, now that I knew he’d be coming back to live in England. We would soon be having plenty of times together, plenty of good times.
I couldn’t sit here for ever. I would miss my plane if I didn’t leave soon. But I knew that there was something I needed to do first.
I needed to talk to someone. I needed to talk to someone really, really urgently – more urgently, even, than when I’d been drunk-driving around the Cairngorms in a raging blizzard, and my mobile phone had run out of battery.
Today, of course, my phone was fully charged.
What was stopping me, then?
I was like little Yanmei, standing poised on the edge of the swimming pool, summoning up the courage for a dive. But knowing that once it was done, once I had found that courage, there was the coolness of the water to look forward to, the long-delayed sense of release, of freedom …
Almost there, now, Max. Almost there.
What time was it in London? The time difference had gone haywire in the last couple of weeks. Britain had put its clocks forward by an hour for the summer, and Australia had just put its clocks back by an hour for the winter, or was it the other way round? Something like that, anyway. So if it was five o’clock in Sydney, it was … pretty early in the morning, in London. Too early to call someone? Difficult to say. The timing of this call was neither here nor there, in any case. Either this call was going to be welcome, or it wasn’t.
I took out my phone. I scrolled through the memory until I reached Clive’s name. Then I took a deep breath and pressed the call button.
The phone rang for what seemed like aeons. He wasn’t going to answer. But finally he did.
‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello, Clive?’
‘Yes, this is Clive. Good God – is that Max, by any chance?’
‘Yes, it is. Did I wake you up?’
‘You did, actually, but never mind. Doesn’t matter a bit. It’s just lovely to hear from you.’
Now – tell me if I’m repeating myself, but … did I mention before that the first thing I find attractive in someone, nine times out of ten, is his voice?
√-1
I stayed on the beach until sunset.
(Stop me if you’ve had enough of this by now.)
I watched the changing colours of the sky.
(You don’t have to read any more if you don’t want to. The story is over.)
I telephoned Clive and knew that everything was going to be all right.
(It’s been a long haul, I know. Thanks to all the people who have stayed with me. Really, I appreciate it. And I admire your stamina, I must say. Most impressive.)
And then …
And then a group of people arrived at the beach. A family group. They hadn’t come from Manly Wharf, they’d come along the coastal path from the opposite direction, from the west, and there were seven of them altogether. A husband and wife and their two daughters – they were easy enough to spot – but as for the others, well, that was harder to say. Grandparents, maybe? Aunts, uncles, family friends? I couldn’t be sure. The two girls were very pale, and they were wearing floaty summer dresses over their swimming costumes. The younger one seemed to be about eight, the older one twelve or thirteen – close to Lucy’s age. They ran straight down to the water’s edge and began splashing and paddling in the shallows. Their mother, who had long blonde hair, went down to keep an eye on them, while their father stayed on the path above the beach, and walked along it slowly, looking dreamy and preoccupied. He had grey hair – bordering on white – and was wearing a light-brown jacket over a white T-shirt that gave away rather too much of his middle-age spread. The whole ensemble made him look a bit like a caffe latte, served in a tall glass with a slight bulge in the middle.