A man stepped from the shadows of my front verandah. He wore jeans and an old leather coat, biker boots that thudded on the stairs as he came to greet me, his stride no less confident because of the slight limp.
Climbing from my van, I let the door slam shut.
I had dreaded this moment for nearly five years, yet in a secret corner of my being, I’d been yearning for it too. I found myself drinking in the sight of him, cataloguing the familiar features. The windswept dark hair, the striking face and intense pale eyes. The mouth that was, even now, quirked up in the enigmatic half-smile that, I realised regretfully, still had the power to tie my stomach in knots.
‘Lucy,’ he said, with a hint of accusation.
I stood my ground, watching him warily. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I want to talk.’
I glanced at the house, its windows clamped tight against the night. I took in the straggly hedge enclosing the yard, the deep shadows along the verandah. Finally, I braved Morgan’s eyes – the pale grey of the moon on a stormy night, yet fierce as those of a wolf. ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty.’
‘Morgan, I’m tired. Can we do this another time?’
‘And risk you absconding from my life for another five years?’
‘I didn’t abscond. I went to live in London.’
‘You didn’t even say goodbye.’
I pushed past him, gripping my keys, intending to escape into the house, but he grabbed my arm.
‘A letter would’ve been nice.’
I shook free and continued along the path, only turning back when I reached the verandah. ‘I’m sure Dad filled you in on all my goings-on.’
Morgan gazed after me, his expression lost in the shadows. Behind him, the street lamp burned dull yellow, painting a ragged halo about him. He might have been the villain from a book or movie, a pirate poised on the deck of his vessel, solitary, ever so vaguely heroic. Exactly the way I had conjured him so many times in my imagination.
‘You ran off that night,’ he said gruffly. ‘Before I could explain.’
‘Your explanation was clear enough.’
He shuffled, his boots scraping the brick path. ‘It came out all wrong. I made a mess of it, and by the time I’d collected myself, you’d gone. I’m sorry I hurt you,’ he added softly. ‘It wasn’t my intention.’
I wanted him to move into the light so I could see his face. I wanted to watch his eyes when I said the words I had travelled halfway across the globe to tell him. I don’t love you, Morgan. I made a mistake. It wasn’t love, after all. A girly crush, nothing more. You’re well and truly out of my system. Besides, I’ve met someone else, someone amazing, and we’re getting married . . .
I took a breath, but then he shifted into the lamplight and the words died on my tongue. There was that almost-smile again. The curve of his lips, the eye contact. The slight leaning forward as though drawn to me by gravitational force. I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets.
‘I’m not inviting you inside, if that’s what you’re hoping.’
‘Then will you walk with me?’
I almost said no. I almost turned and let myself into the silent house, escaped into the unfamiliar darkness. Almost. But here was an opportunity to hear the words I’d suspected all along. Words that would cure my Morgan fixation forever. I shrugged and went back down the steps, along the path, past my van and back out onto the deserted street.
We walked the block in silence. I drank in the damp air. Bright winter stars glittered overhead, and our shadows leaped along the footpath ahead of us, Morgan’s bearlike, mine willowy.
‘I’m listening,’ I prompted.
Morgan gave me a sideways glance. ‘I wish I could take back what I said to you that night. I wish we could forget it happened, start over. Go back to how things were before. I’ve missed you, Luce. Five years is too long.’
My words came out in a rush, my carefully rehearsed speech forgotten. ‘How can we ever go back? I’m not that smitten girl anymore, Morgan. You can’t give me the brush-off the way you did back then. All that stuff about the gap, about being old enough to be my father. I was twenty-one, not twelve. It was humiliating.’
He tried to take my arm, tried to swing me around to face him, but I shrugged him off and kept walking.
He caught up, kept pace beside me. ‘I wasn’t giving you the brush-off. It was more complicated than that. We had a past together. I’d known you since you were little. You were like family. Besides, you’d always been—’
‘A kid sister,’ I said bitterly.
‘Out of reach, I was going to say.’
The way he said it, the wistful catch in his voice. I almost dropped my guard. Out of reach? Stupid, how desperately I wanted to believe him. ‘Apology accepted,’ I said tersely. ‘Let’s just forget it ever happened.’
‘If that’s what you want.’
My skin began to flush hot and cold. A trembly sort of dread was setting in. I twisted my ring around so the diamond sat hard and solid in my palm. I gave it a reassuring squeeze, like a talisman.
‘It’s ancient history, okay? Water under the bridge. Anyway, I’ve moved on. Met someone, Dad must’ve told you? I’m getting married.’ My cheeks burned. Grateful for the dark, I put my head down and kept walking, but I could feel Morgan’s eyes on me.
‘So we’re good, then?’ he wanted to know.
‘Yeah.’
‘And you really love this guy?’
‘Why else would I be marrying him?’
‘Ron thinks you’re making a mistake.’
‘Oh, great. My father and my self-appointed big brother sitting in judgement of my life, how reassuring. For your information, I’ve known Adam for two years. He’s kind, intelligent, rich, and thoughtful. He has a good sense of humour—’
Morgan lifted a brow.
‘—and,’ I continued, flourishing my fingers as we passed beneath a streetlamp, ‘he bought me a freaking great diamond. What’s not to love?’
Morgan stopped walking and grabbed my hand, pulling me around so I had to look at him. He barely gave the diamond a glance, but searched my face.
‘Why are you trying so hard to convince me?’
‘I’m not.’
He was very near. When he spoke, his voice was low, his gaze intent on mine.
‘What really brought you home, Lucy?’
The ocean murmured in the bay, and a distant truck rattled along Elsternwick Road. I thought of the letter sitting on my bedside back at the house, my grandfather’s spidery writing barely legible. I thought of the object he had tucked into the envelope, and I shivered.
‘Just a visit.’
‘I think there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘Why should I care what you think?’
Morgan let me go. ‘You shouldn’t care. Not if you’re certain Adam’s the man you really want.’
‘He is.’
‘Then I sincerely hope you’ll be happy together.’ He continued walking, shrugging deeper into his heavy coat, patting his ribcage as if absently searching his pockets, a sign he was deep in thought.
The action jogged a memory. A beach picnic, some years ago. A glimpse of Morgan’s perfectly flat stomach, tanned and hairy above the frayed waistline of his Levi’s. Not exactly a ripped six-pack, but an impressive effort for a man approaching forty.
I blinked away the vision. Morgan was now forty-three. Seventeen years and two months older than me. I didn’t need to calculate. Each year on my birthday, my first thought was always the gap. The gap mattered to me, because it mattered to Morgan. It had drawn a line in the sand that he simply would not cross.
I’m old enough to be your father, he’d told me that long ago night in the garden. Seventeen years is too much. You’re the same age as my son . . . besides, there’s still a chance to fix my marriage. Oh hell, Luce . . . we can’t do this, you know. Not now, not ever—
Eventually I had realised the truth. Morgan’s argument about our age difference was an excuse. A gentle way of breaking the news that he didn’t feel the same way, that he didn’t love me, would never love me, couldn’t. Weeks later, he and Gwen patched things up, and by then I had fled to the other side of the world.
Morgan stopped walking. ‘Did you hear that?’
A mournful yowl drifted from somewhere beneath us. Going over to the curb, he crouched unsteadily on the roadside. I joined him, and together we looked into the drain. A large whitish cat peered back at us. Morgan went to his knees and reached in. Grasping the animal by the scruff, he drew it out. Ribs and hipbones jutted from its filthy fur, its ears were bitten and bloodied. It struggled feebly, but made no attempt to scratch or bite. Morgan got to his feet, cradling the cat in his arms. It paddled its paws for a moment, but then settled against his chest.
‘They don’t call me the cat whisperer for nothing.’
He looked so pleased with himself, and the cat seemed so quickly at home, that I almost laughed. Warmth flooded through me. I touched my fingers lightly to the cat’s soft belly. ‘Morgan, they don’t call you the cat whisperer, full stop.’
Our eyes met for a second, and then Morgan looked down at the cat. ‘Someone needs a good feed,’ he told it. ‘Here you go,’ he added, delivering the creature into my arms. ‘My wedding gift to you.’
I started to protest. I didn’t want a cat. I was only here for a month and there was no way I could take it back to London with me. Besides, Adam was allergic. Then I gazed into its enormous green eyes. It was cold and half-starved, frightened. I drew it against me. It squirmed but then curled in the warm crook of my arms, burrowing against my chest. An unfamiliar feeling came over me. Tenderness, I realised. My arms tightened protectively, and the cat began to purr.
By the time we reached my verandah, it was sleeping.
Morgan unlocked the front door for me. I couldn’t quite see his face in the semi-dark, just the outline of his features etched silver in the moonlight. I took back the keys, but he lingered.
‘It’s good to see you, Lucy.’ Reaching over, he cupped the side of my face. His hand was calloused and warm, his touch distantly familiar. He traced his thumb across my cheekbone, and then leaned in to press a light kiss on my forehead. ‘I hope everything works out for you. You of all people deserve to be happy.’
I shivered, instinctively raising my face, but Morgan was already retreating across the verandah, his shadow briefly eclipsing the moonlight as he went down the stairs, into the yard. A moment later, his motorbike roared to life and he was gone.
For the longest time I stood there, watching the gap in the hedge, imagining what would happen if he reappeared. What would happen if he rushed back to me, pulled me into his arms and kissed me properly. Of course, he didn’t. I touched the place above my eyebrow where he had pressed his lips, and shivered again. Morgan was my first love. I would probably never forget him. But the last five years had changed me. The naive young girl was gone. In her place was someone less trustful, someone who guarded her heart more carefully.
I went inside and shut the door. Dad’s friend who owned the house was an artist, and all her rooms smelled vaguely of Venetian turpentine, which I found reassuring. Her walls were crowded with artworks and the rooms furnished with a comfortable jumble of second-hand finds and battered old antiques. Breathing in the sweetly tart air, I carried the cat upstairs to the sunroom, where I made him a nest from a cardboard box lined with an old jumper. I fed him tuna straight from the can, and then watched him sniff around his new home. Ten minutes later, he was curled in the box, purring noisily.
I stood at the sunroom window, my fingertips resting on the cold glass as I gazed over the treetops and houses, across Port Phillip Bay. The water looked icy and desolate. A small thornlike pain pricked my heart. If only, it seemed to say. If only you hadn’t rushed off that night. If only you had waited, bided your time, maybe then . . .
‘Sparks are overrated,’ I reminded myself.
Beyond the window, the stars and moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds. The water in the bay turned black. Tiny lights glittered along the esplanade, houses and streetlights, and there in the distance, a solitary vessel inched its way slowly out to sea.