The eyes, the black eyes. Unseeing and seeing.
She said something to hurry away from that look but she stayed. What he was thinking she never knew. She had once asked; he said he had no idea. Later, she thought he was scared. He was handsome. She didn’t like that about him either. Too sure, she felt, too knowing—one more thing she later realised she had been wrong about. The knowing and the unknowing.
Him. To a tee.
When he saw her still staring at him, he looked away and down, his face flushed.
She longed to know everything about him, to tell him everything about her. But who was she? She had come down from Sydney to visit with a friend who had family in Adelaide and she had ended up staying, getting a job behind the King of Cornwall’s bar. There she met Keith Mulvaney. He was a boring man but kind in his way, things had happened, and who was she? The daughter of a Balmain sign painter who had died when she was thirteen, one of seven children who made their way the best they could. She had never met a man like Dorrigo.
Is the floor more interesting than me? she said.
Why on earth did she say that? She was a wicked woman, she was a disgraceful woman; she knew it, and sometimes she didn’t care if the world knew it, she would not regret it if she were on her deathbed now. She regretted nothing. She handed him his shirt.
No, he said.
He smiled. His smile, his bicep moving like a ball back and forth under his skin as he took the towel from her and buried his smile in it. Moving and unmoving.
But she thought he seemed unsure. All men were liars and he was no doubt no different—only one tongue and more tales than the dog pound. She had lived the lot, walked in each and every direction. She longed to have his lovely cock in her mouth now, in front of them all down in the dining room, that’d put some cream in their coffee.
Suddenly she wished he would just disappear. She wanted to push him away, and would have but she was terrified of what might happen if she touched him.
Dorry?
The asking and the wanting.
It could not be and it was, and she wondered if it would ever go, this feeling, this knowing, this us.
Dorry?
Yes.
Dorry, would it?
Would it, what?
Scare you, Amy said. If I said I love you?
Dorrigo made no answer and turned away, while Amy searched the blue bedspread for individual cotton strands, plucking at them.
Oh, she was a wicked woman and she had lied to herself and to Keith, but she regretted nothing if it had all led to this. She did not want love. She wanted them.
Though it was still morning, they lay back down together on their freshly made bed. His forearm ran over her breasts and his hand formed a nest under her chin. He ran his nose up and down her neck. She shuffled. His lips, open; her neck, rising.
No, he said.
When he was asleep she stood up, stumbled, gained her balance, stretched and went out into the shadow of the balcony. A distance up the beach there were some children squealing in the waves. The heat was like a maternal force, demanding she sit down. She sat there a long time, listening to the waves crack and boom. When she felt the shadow shortening on her extended legs she finally went down the three storeys to the rooms where she lived with her husband.
She smelt Dorrigo everywhere, even after she took a bath. He had scented her world. She lay down on her marital bed and slept there until well after dusk, and when she awoke all she could smell was him.
22
HALF DAYS, FULL days, free nights, whatever time off Dorrigo Evans could scrounge for leave he now spent with Amy. He had a new-found mobility in the form of a baby Austin baker’s van. A fellow officer had won it in a card game and, having his own car already, happily lent it to Dorrigo whenever it was wanted. Keith enjoyed Dorrigo’s visits and declared himself glad to have his nephew chaperoning Amy when he was away with his various commitments, which, as summer progressed, seemed to be ever more frequently.