For Aida, the weekend passed in an odd haze. Her skin tingled as if sunburned; she feared touching the metal of the refrigerator door, the kettle, or the taps in the shower in case sparks flew from her skin.
Acutely aware of her own flesh when she undressed, she touched the places where Elsie’s hands had been – the nape of her neck, the tender skin inside her upper arms, the backs of her knees – as though the imprint of Elsie would still be there and she could confirm if it was real. If Elsie had really touched her. She pressed her fingers into the empty, ribbed flesh of her belly, and ground her teeth against that pain.
When Aida lay down in bed, the memory of Elsie beside her was so tangible Aida could taste it. She buried her face in her pillow and inhaled the delicate scent of Elsie’s skin still lingering in the weave of fabric. Unable to sleep she tossed beneath the sheets and tears spilled down her cheeks to wet the pillow. Aida was confused, aching and sensitive. She was robbed and wanting. She was angry. The ethereal presence of Elsie in her arms masked their desperate emptiness, their clutching, but she was terrified that Elsie wouldn’t come back; that Elsie would leave her, too – like Jimmy and her baby and her parents had all left her – and surely she would be in this whirl of agony forever.
*
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
Aida opened the door and Elsie stepped quickly inside. Behind her she towed a fresh spring morning scent – green earth and pollen – and for some reason the scent caused Aida’s heart to thud with nervousness.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d let me in,’ Elsie replied.
Together they prepared tea. Although Elsie made herself at home in the kitchen, they were clumsy and bashful around each other. Aida felt overly cautious of Elsie’s bodily space in a way that she had never been, even on that first day, when she had snapped that poor poisoned hen’s neck. She noticed the attention Elsie paid to the space around Aida’s body, too; they navigated each other like little boats in a harbour.
They sat at the table to drink their tea. Aida sliced a sweet German cake she had baked over the weekend as a distraction. Aida’s grandmother – her father’s mother – had taught Aida how to achieve the perfect sugary crust. Aida recalled countless hours of her childhood, standing on a stool in the wood-stove heat of Grandma’s kitchen and listening to her instructions on making the richest gravy, the lightest butter pastry, the most tender mutton. Grandma died when Aida was thirteen, and Aida had poured her grief into the food she cooked for her family ever since. Her father must miss her cooking, Aida thought now. Her mother’s meat-and-three-veg was no match for the legacy Grandma had left with Aida: food that was nurtured, cooked from the heart. But she pushed away the thought of her parents, flinching as though stung.
Aida watched the delight on Elsie’s face as the hardened sugar melted on her tongue, and wondered if it was sacrilegious, somehow – the way the sliver of joy she felt watching Elsie’s face punctured the blanket of her despair, cutting air holes into it so she could breathe.
Their conversation touched on easy, benign things – the weekend, the unseasonably warm spring weather, Elsie’s chooks (that hen was broody again), and Aida feared that Elsie was trying to forget that thing that had happened between them: the coming together of their bodies in Aida’s bed late Friday evening. But Elsie seemed to relax, and the topic moved to her lamenting her sense of failure at the dinner party on Friday night.
If Elsie could mention Friday night, did that mean she was not regretting what had happened after the party? After all her guests had left, and Thomas was sleeping unawares.
Thomas. Was Elsie feeling guilty? Or did what had happened between them not count as an affair because Aida wasn’t another man, but a woman?
‘Tell me why you think your party was such a disaster,’ Aida said, to clear her own thoughts. ‘Did someone get food poisoning?’
‘No. Thank goodness.’ Elsie’s eyes widened. ‘At least I hope they didn’t. No one’s phoned to say otherwise. But what if they’re all too sick to telephone?’
Aida laughed and the tension left her body. Without thinking about it, her hand reached out and Elsie’s fingers curled into hers. All the awkwardness of only moments ago was forgotten. All it had taken was Elsie’s innocent smile and Aida’s easy laugh for them to understand that the wall they had anticipated may have sprouted between them wasn’t there after all.
‘About Friday,’ she said. ‘What are you thinking?’
Elsie’s cheeks flushed red. At once Aida felt both nauseated and something like lust swivelled in her belly. What on earth was happening? The unmistakable throb of her heart reminded her of her feelings for Jimmy but at the same time this sort of desire and an almost homesickness for Elsie’s skin felt completely different. New, intoxicating, deeply unsettling.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve . . .’ Aida hastened to add. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up.’
Elsie withdrew her hand. ‘No, I’m glad you asked. It means you’re still thinking about it.’
‘I haven’t stopped thinking about it.’
Elsie looked into her eyes. ‘Me, either.’
Aida felt a grin spread across her face and she looked through the glass in the back door, into the sunshine, to stop herself from bursting into tears.
‘I love Thomas,’ Elsie said.
From the gum tree in the yard, a magpie sent up sweet loops of song as Aida watched a thousand tiny expressions play across Elsie’s face: excitement, shock, relief, fear.