Emily was at the television station for a team meeting when a call came through to her mobile. She was bored. Most of the morning’s discussions of program ideas had nothing to do with her and had instigated a lot of macho hooting and revelry and scribbles on the whiteboard—car racing and triathlons or something equally dull. She was just doodling a picture of a cupcake on her notebook when she felt her handbag vibrate against her leg.
She cast a furtive glance at Rod and Eddie, who were all but ignoring the three women at the table, and at Alice and Rupna, who looked as bored as Emily felt. Alice was studying her chipped nails. Rupna was on her laptop, and from the movement of her eyes and the lazy tapping of her scroll key, Emily was pretty sure she was reading a blog post of some sort.
Certain no one would notice, she slid her hand down and slipped the phone out of the front pocket of her bag. She didn’t recognise the number. A mystery number was far more interesting than anything else going on in this room.
Rising, she waved her apologies, mouthed that she’d be back in a tick, and stepped out into the dank-smelling hallway.
‘Hello?’
‘Emily?’ The man’s voice was vaguely familiar, a little unsure of himself, but friendly nonetheless.
‘Yes,’ she said brightly. ‘How can I help?’
‘Hi, this is Lincoln. Lincoln van Luc. We met at the chocolate tasting at Green Hills Aged Care a couple of weeks ago.’
Emily stopped picking at the peeling paint on the wall next to her. ‘Oh, hi.’ She tried to sound casual and confident, the vocal equivalent of a saunter.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Great! How are you?’
‘Good.’
She shouldn’t have said she was great. No one said great in answer to that obligatory, routine question. It made her sound hyperactive, bouncy, too keen. Or desperate.
Or snooty—like her being great was far superior to his being good. La, la, la, look at me; my life’s great! What about yours, sucker? How are you doing over there in your good life? You should try my great life. It’s GREAT!
Or one of those annoyingly positive people who saw the blessing in every tragedy and were so grateful for the lesson when their husband abandoned them, they broke their arm, their child contracted rabies and their house burned down while they were out shopping. It didn’t matter because it was a great lesson and they were so grateful for the experience! It was GREAT!
Oh, shit. He was still talking . . .
‘. . . so I was wondering if you wanted to catch up for a coffee?’
Coffee? As in a date? But what about Christmas? Christmas, who had sent her a lovely text to say how very lucky she was to have Emily as her friend?
But Christmas was the very same friend who had explicitly told Emily that she wasn’t interested in Lincoln and not to waste a good man in Tasmania. And while her best friend might choose to find happiness by cutting things out of her life, Emily liked to bring new things in. So why shouldn’t she go out with him?
‘Yes,’ she said, returning to the sauntering pace. ‘That sounds good.’ But then a surge of excitement rushed through her body and she couldn’t help adding, ‘Really good.’
•
Lincoln couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d dated someone in Australia. When he was overseas, with other workers or travellers, people were different. There were fewer rules. There were fewer expectations of a future together, fewer people you were answerable to—like interfering mothers, nosy neighbours or ex-partners—and fewer social obligations. Everybody knew that impermanence and transience lay beneath all their decisions.
So he hadn’t expected his skin to prickle with heat beneath his jacket on such a cold day when he saw Emily walking towards him along the edge of the mangroves in front of Rosevears Tavern, dressed in tight jeans and some sort of knitted wrap, but that’s what happened.
And then she was in front of him and she went for the hug and he went for the kiss on the cheek and he kissed her arm instead and there was a flailing of limbs and apologies and flushed cheeks and snorts from her (who doesn’t like a girl who snorts?) and then she accidentally stood on his foot and her ankle rolled and she fell to the ground with her foot in the air and her face contorted and she yelped with pain and dropped her handbag and the contents spilled across the footpath and he swore over and over and tried to stop her lipstick from rolling into the gutter and patted her shoulder while she writhed and clutched at her calf to hold her foot up in the air and he went looking for his mobile phone but couldn’t find it and didn’t know who to call anyway until a man stepped across the road from the beer garden and said, ‘Can I help? I’m a doctor.’
•
Emily shifted her weight across the squeaking plastic-covered bed in the back room of the doctor’s surgery and sucked in her breath sharply through her teeth as Lincoln placed a fresh icepack on her ankle. Wordlessly, he took another pillow and gently raised her leg to elevate it a bit more. Then he passed her a plastic cup of water from the dispenser in the waiting room.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and sipped carefully on it. It was too cold. The air conditioning was too cold. She shivered.
‘I think I saw a pile of blankets in the room next door,’ Lincoln said, already rising again. He disappeared around the corner, leaving her to study the growth chart on the wall and the archaic-looking set of weight scales in the corner, the ones with the thingummybobs that slid from side to side.
He returned with a pale blue cotton blanket and covered her up. He sat down again in the chair by the bed.
‘You don’t have to wait here,’ she said for the hundredth time. ‘It’s truly okay. It’s no problem to catch a cab home. It’s just a sprain.’
‘I’ve already told you I’m not leaving you here,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I feel awful.’
They’d been going round and round like this for the past hour, him apologising and self-flagellating, and her brushing it off and trying to send him home, when of course she didn’t really want him to leave but she didn’t want to seem needy either.
‘Let’s change the subject,’ she said, wedging her right arm under the mountain of pillows behind her head. She stared into his beautiful but worried eyes. ‘Why aren’t you married?’ She gave him a cheeky grin. ‘My brother thinks you must be a criminal. Or crazy. Or divorced.’
‘I like your brother. I think we should meet.’
‘So what should I tell him?’
‘Tell him he’s a very good brother. Older? Of course he is. And you can tell him I’m not most of those things.’
‘Most?’ she said.
‘But wait,’ he said. ‘You’re not married. Are you a criminal? Am I sitting here with a fugitive?’ He looked over his shoulder.
‘Touché. Okay. Let’s do this. You go first.’
‘I was married once.’
‘When?’
‘I was twenty-two. It was silly and it only lasted eight months. Her name was—still is—Benita. I met her at uni. It turned out she was more into her soccer-loving friend Giuseppe than me.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘It’s okay. Now, your turn.’
‘Well, surely you’re aware there’s a man drought in Tasmania.’
‘What do you mean? Dr Birtle looks like a fine catch.’
Emily rippled with giggles while shushing him. Dr Birtle, who’d been half cut on rum and Coke when he crossed the road outside the pub to help her, had long greasy hair, wore thongs and reeked of cigarette smoke.
‘I’m still thinking you should get a second opinion on that, by the way,’ Lincoln said, pointing to her ankle. ‘I don’t know that you should take the word of someone who carries a hip flask.’
‘I think it’s fine. He seems to have bandaged it quite well. And he gave me Panadol.’
‘So, what else then, besides the man drought?’
‘Well, let’s see.’ She took a moment to think back on her failed relationships. There was the workaholic, the unemployed layabout, the one more into cyber people than real people, the one who used her as a rebound relationship, the one who used her for a one-night stand when she’d reasonably thought it was going to go further, the heartbreaking five-year relationship with a man who turned out to be just-not-that-into-her. ‘Gosh, this is rather depressing.’
‘In summary?’
‘I simply haven’t found Mr Right.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it sounds perfectly reasonable,’ he said. ‘You’re attractive. Have a job. Only one head that I can see. You seem like a nice, normal person—shocking clumsiness and disastrous first dates aside.’
‘Yes, there is that.’ He was flirting with her! While she was in bandages on a doctor’s bed! Well, this was all very General Hospital.
‘So I see no reason why we shouldn’t do this again,’ he said definitively.
She couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face.
‘But maybe we should meet sitting down next time,’ he added.
‘Or on horseback,’ she said, and clasped her hands together melodramatically.
Lincoln squinted. ‘Horses. Yes. They seem like sane, rational and safe animals. It seems completely sensible and statistically sound to balance on top of a half-tonne animal that can gallop at, what, a hundred kilometres an hour?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Then we should do that.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s a date.’
•
Lulu Divine was wearing a red and black woollen poncho and matching knitted beret and sat at the tiny table in Elsa’s bungalow looking for all the world like some sort of dangerous animal. A red-bellied black snake perhaps. No, that was too harsh. But perhaps a wasp. Yes. One that was sharpening its stinging tail right now.
‘What’s in it for me?’ she said.
Rita wheezed through the oxygen mask on her face, the little rolling trolley standing by her side. It was unnerving, the mask. And it was only because she’d had a cough for a while and the weather had turned very cold, a thick layer of snow descending over much of Tasmania in the past two days, and the nurses had decided to give her lungs a bit of support. But the sight of it made Elsa uneasy, as though it were the hand of death clamped down over Rita’s nose and mouth to snuff her out. She shuddered. This was crazy. Where were all these morbid thoughts coming from? This wasn’t like her at all.
‘Have you n-no heart?’ Rita ticced and wheezed, her hand shaking in what was probably a Parkinson’s movement but did look a little like she was threatening with her fist.
‘I gave up on heart a long time ago,’ Lulu said quietly. ‘I never found it to be a reliable companion.’
‘That must be a lonely way to live,’ Elsa said.
‘I get by.’
‘Love is the gr-greatest gift you can give someone else,’ Rita said. ‘It is a huge honour and privilege to match a couple and wat-t-t-ch them grow through life. I’ve successfully matched four couples in my time. Four weddings. Thirteen children.’ Her voice filled with pride.
‘So why do you need me?’ Lulu asked.
Elsa stretched her stiff knee. ‘We’ve hit a stumbling block. Christmas has turned Lincoln down.’
‘So?’
‘I thought of you, with your great success in competitions. I thought you might have some advice.’
‘Elsa,’ Rita ventured, ‘are you positive that Lincoln should be with Christmas? There was no light.’
‘I know,’ Elsa said, ‘but I think something was wrong. I believe Christmas is the one.’
‘What light?’ Lulu asked, narrowing her eyes and folding her hands in her lap.
Elsa gestured to Rita to explain the theory of the light, and she wheezily complied. ‘Unfortunately, the light was not there between Lin-Lincoln and Christmas,’ she finished. ‘It was with Emily.’
Lulu thought about this. ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ she said finally.
Elsa’s mouth watered, hungry for another opinion to match her own. ‘Go on.’
‘All that means is that Emily is the show queen, someone who can turn it on when she needs to. Someone who can use her charm to influence the judges.’
‘You sound as though you’ve done this yourself,’ Elsa said.
‘I’ve had my time in the spotlight. But not everyone can sustain that brightness. I could. And I did. I was at the top of my game for as long as the competitions kept rolling round. But not everyone’s like me.’
‘No, they’re not,’ Elsa agreed.
‘Most people are shooting stars. They flare and then fizzle. Like reality television identities. They start strong, confident, arrogant even. They can fake it well. But they get the wobbles. It’s just a matter of time. True champions are rare.’
Elsa suddenly felt something like affection for Lulu, and reached for the pot of tea, adjusted the bright yellow cosy, and topped up her teacup for her.
‘In my experience, you can always see it,’ Rita said, as forcefully as the oxygen mask would allow. ‘You walk a dangerous line thinking you know better than the light.’
‘So what do we do?’ Elsa said, ignoring Rita.
Lulu scoffed. Elsa recoiled, surprised.
‘It’s not all about her. To win a buckjumping competition you need a horse as well as the rider. The first thing you need to know is whether your grandson is a shooting star or a true champion.’
Rita remained silent, though Elsa was sure she felt a wave of smugness shoot from her—retribution for being ignored and replaced by this younger ring-in from the bungalow next door.
‘What do you mean? Lincoln’s wonderful.’
‘Then why hasn’t he settled down yet?’ Lulu asked, a small smirk tugging at one corner of her sun-spotted lips. ‘Why is he still galloping the world on a whim?’
Elsa felt her hackles prickle against her thermal underwear. ‘Didn’t you do that too?’ she shot back.
‘Exactly.’ Lulu smiled thinly and Elsa wondered if there was some regret in the acknowledgement. ‘I never wanted to be tamed. Perhaps Lincoln is the same. From where I sit, it looks like he has no intention of settling down at all. I think you need to face up to the fact that you’re wasting your time.’
•
To: Lincoln van Luc
From: Barney Jones
Subject: Get your arse out here!
Mate u have got to get out here!! The outback will blow your mind!
U have to see it. I can’t believe we live in this country and really know nothing about it. You think it’s vast and empty but it’s teeming with mind-blowing sights. Just yesterday I came across a fossil dig that uncovered so many gigantic dinosaur bones they couldn’t move them. They’re 98 MILLION years old!! There are rib bones TWO METRES long!! Leg bones so big they don’t even fit on the back of a ute! They’re so big I could lie down on them like a bed. And these blokes, you know, real outback blokes, just standing around swatting flies like this is just an ordinary day in the dirt and I’m thinking, shit, shouldn’t you be getting some sort of security guard for these things? And they’re just laughing their arses off at me and saying, well what’s anyone gunna do with ’em? Feed ’em to the dog?
I’ve got more sculpture ideas than I know what to do with—dinosaur-bone furniture design! My sketchpad is full and I’m drawing on bits of bark.
Hey, and there’s a job going here right up your alley. Something about researching fossilised ferns that are coming to the surface and also fossilised plankton from some inland sea.
Get out here, man.
Rubble
•
The day after her first big day out alone, Christmas was thankful to have Mim take her in hand and lead the way confidently through the streets, to a taxi, and to a restaurant for Saturday brunch. It was more like lunch, since the doors opened at midday, but she’d done as Mim had suggested and fasted all morning until they got there. An array of bicycles and motorcycles lined the parking bays at the entrance to the building and a large chalkboard hung on the dark grey wall outside. It was just the two of them, Mim having sent Hank and Margot out on chores related to their upcoming trip to America, and Christmas was pleased. She was so grateful to be staying with Mim and her family, but she craved some time alone with her old friend.
Mim ushered her through the sombre front of the restaurant to the back, which was brightly lit. At a table for two, Mim sat in the chair and Christmas sat opposite on the bench seat along the wall, with huge white cushions at her back. Patrons filled the spaces either side of Christmas and she smiled good-naturedly at the woman next to her as they jostled their handbags into the small gap between their hips.
‘You must always book ahead here,’ Mim said, signalling a waiter, who appeared a moment later, briskly speaking to Mim while she nodded. She halted him a moment to address Christmas. ‘You choose your drink—coffee, tea, juice—and then the platters will start. Many types of food. You will find something you like.’
‘Orange juice, thanks.’
Mim ordered the juice and a coffee for herself and the waiter disappeared. What seemed like only seconds later, the first platter arrived—a huge white square with an eclectic mix of cake, salmon, cucumber, eggs and salad. Christmas began on the salmon and salad; Mim started with the cucumber in a white cheese sauce.
‘I still can’t quite believe I’m here,’ Christmas said, ‘with you, I mean. After all that time of writing letters to each other, like you were some sort of imaginary friend, and now here we are, in the flesh. It’s a bit like having brunch with a storybook character or something.’
‘You are exactly how I imagined you would be,’ Mim said, accepting the coffee from the waiter and directing the juice to Christmas’s side of the table.
‘Really? How so?’ Christmas asked, amazed. To her eyes, Mim was similar, certainly, but she seemed to have lost the softness of girlhood and the romantic indulges she’d loved reading in her poetry. Now, she seemed so practical, so business-like and efficient.
Mim progressed onto the cake and closed her eyes with pleasure as she moved it around her mouth. Then, ‘You are genuine.’
‘Genuine?’
‘Not pretentious. Not, ah, I don’t know the word I’m looking for . . . maybe, plastic?’
‘Plastic?’
Her friend giggled then, and Christmas suddenly saw that teenager she’d seen in the photos all those years ago. ‘You have heart,’ Mim said, affectionately.
‘Thank you. That’s a really lovely thing to say.’
‘As for me, I am a stressed-out mum with an unnerving daughter and no idea what to do about it. There is something going on with her but she won’t confide in me.’ Mim’s face scrunched in sadness and Christmas’s heart lurched.
A waiter hovered, wanting to take the first platter and move them onto the next. Clearly, seat space was at a premium. But Christmas refused to be intimidated. She’d waited more than half her life to have this meal with Mim.
‘I can’t say I know what it’s like to be a mum, but my sister has three boys and she worries all the time that she’s not doing enough. I think all mothers beat themselves up when the truth is they’re doing a superb job.’
‘You think?’
‘Absolutely. And, hey, you can cook! My sister just opens a can here and there and pops some toast on,’ she said, cheekily—she was only joking . . . kind of—and was pleased to see Mim’s face relax again. ‘Margot will be fine. Being a teenager is tough, remember?’
Mim nodded, thoughtful.
‘But we got through it,’ Christmas assured her. ‘And so will Margot. Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re a woman with a career and a loving relationship. I’m sure you’re a much more powerful role model than you think.’ She hoped her words had reassured Mim, at least a little, and given her back just some of the kindness she’d shared with Christmas so far.
‘Okay,’ Mim said, smoothing her brow with the back of her hand. ‘Enough about me. Tell me all about your life, everything you’ve done for the past twenty years.’
They stayed in the restaurant for as much time as they could tease out of the anxious waiters, who eventually delivered all three huge platters of food (Christmas had had to loosen her trouser buttons to go on after the second). And when they finally wobbled out the door, they linked arms, swung their handbags happily, and strolled the nearby shops, and Christmas felt as though she belonged here in this beautiful city, at least for the day, with her friend at her side.
A couple of days later, left to her own devices once more, Christmas found herself drawn back to the river, emerging from the Metro at Pont Neuf under the bright and hot summer sun and heading west towards the seven arches of the Pont des Arts. On the way she lingered at the bouquinistes, the book dealers with their numbered metal pop-open stalls and hundreds of secondhand books, posters, postcards and magazines laid out under the green leaves of the overhanging trees.
‘Bonjour, madame,’ the dealers called, proffering books with yellowed pages; aged books with faded ink and fraying edges wrapped in protective plastic; hardbacks, leather-bounds, paperbacks; copies of French Vogue; and packs of ten postcards of cafe scenes, which she found hard to resist, handing over some notes before putting them in her satchel. She also bought a novel in French, even though she couldn’t read it, because it had a stunning cover with a picture of sunlit wheat fields. The men shouted at her and waved her towards prints of the Mona Lisa and the Eiffel Tower, certain now they’d found an easy target.
‘Non, merci,’ she said, over and over, smiling and waving them gently away until they shuffled off in their sneakers and money belts towards the next set of tourists coming along the path.
Traffic rumbled past as she continued on her way to the Pont des Arts. At the pedestrian bridge, she stepped onto the wide wooden boards and took a deep breath. Far off in the distance, rearing many times as high as the highest building in view, was the real Eiffel Tower, standing dark and strong against the smoggy air, commanding the skyline.
The bridge was crowded and she couldn’t hear her footsteps above the ceaseless rush of traffic on the road on the other side and the gushing of the river below as it charged into the pylons. A busker played the saxophone, his case open at his feet, sending out soulful notes to the crowd gathered around him, many sitting on the bridge. Christmas stopped too, listening to him play as she took in the sights around her.
She watched couples with their arms around each other, their faces beaming as they touched the thousands of padlocks chained to the railing as symbols of eternal love. Some took photos as they clipped their own padlocks to the metal grille or shared a picnic on a blanket, right there on the bridge under the mellow sunshine, a glass of wine in hand, feeding each other crusty bread dipped in olive oil. A man sat cross-legged against the padlock railing, a scarf around his neck, a notebook and pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Further along the bridge, another busker played an accordion. Someone cut into an orange and the sharp citrus tang hit her nostrils, propelling her back to The Apothecary, standing there with Lincoln and the smell of his aftershave. And her body rocked, hit with an invisible force.
Her breath caught in her chest. All she could think of was Lincoln and that kiss—the perfect kiss of truth, telling her it had to be over.
But why? Because she had some rule that said so?
Standing here now, the beauty of Paris flooding every one of her senses, optimism made her feel dizzy with possibility.
She’d been stupid. So stupid. Lincoln was lovely. Funny. Warm. Yummy to look at. They got on well. They worked together well. They both loved chocolate. They were creating a book together. He was single. She was single. And he liked her. He’d kissed her.
And she’d hurt him.
Why oh why had she pushed him away?
The saxophone busker finished his tune and the gathered crowd applauded and toasted him with wine and threw money into his case while he bowed.
Christmas began to jog to the left bank, across this bridge redolent with passion and amorous intoxication, which seemed to vibrate and urge her on. The stories in each and every one of those padlocks called to her. Go find love, Christmas.
She had to find a cafe with wi-fi. She had to contact Lincoln. Right now. Before it was too late.
•
Lincoln was just finishing up for the day. He’d been working on the book. For the past half hour he’d been writing about alkaloids. Theobromine was the alkaloid found in Theobroma cacao, and was part of the methylxanthine class of chemical compounds. He was trying to discuss the way certain medicines, such as analgesics and anaesthetics and recreational drugs like cocaine, were derived from alkaloids, and explain why dark chocolate makes us feel good. But it had all got very scientific. Very dull. There was far too much discussion of atomic structure. He needed to include more information on the interesting things. Like the way plants used alkaloids to kill or repel insects, for example.
Then again, most people would probably think that was dull too. He held down the backspace button on his keyboard.
Then he clicked undo. Maybe they wouldn’t think it was dull. He didn’t think it was dull, but then he was a botanist. He really didn’t know what the average person thought. But then wasn’t the point of a book like this to give people information they didn’t know before?
He needed Christmas, and that thought made him instantly angry because he’d felt guilty after going out with Emily and that was stupid because Christmas had made it clear that she thought kissing him was a mistake, uttering those exact words as she pushed him out the door. It was humiliating, frankly. And that made him even crankier about the fact that he was still hung up on her. Worse, he’d been hurt, something that was not easy to admit, even to himself.
She was making him crazy.
He rubbed his hand over his chin. Maybe it was the beard. There was too much hair on his head and face, messing up his thoughts. Like tree roots growing into pipes and clogging them up. And it was winter. Everything slowed and shut down and froze up in winter. Except at the equator. The Amazon just kept going, like a twenty-four-hour marketplace. The jungle that never slept. But maybe here in Tasmania his brain had gone into hibernation.
He cast an eye at Caesar, lying on his back with his paws in the air, his long belly hair just begging to be rubbed. He thought about his grandmother. And he felt the walls closing in around him. He was starting to feel an uneasy sense of permanence towards this dog. When he checked for job prospects overseas he immediately wondered what would happen to Caesar. And then he wondered how he could leave his nan all alone with no one to visit her.
He got up and paced the room.
His phone beeped with a text message. It was from Christmas.
Hi. Just wanted to say how sorry I was about the way we said goodbye.
Lincoln read it twice. What should he say to that? It was okay? Well, it wasn’t okay. He understood? But he didn’t.
Still, just getting that text from her made him soften a little, let go of some of the anger. Then hot on the tail of that came burning questions.
Finally he typed, Why did you push me away?
He waited a long time for a response. For several agonising minutes he even thought she might not reply at all. Then his phone beeped.
It’s complicated. But I’d like to see you again when I get back, apart from working on the book. Would that be okay? I’d like to make it up to you.
Now it was his turn to take his time. Part of him wanted to say that of course they could see each other, that nothing would make him happier. But another part thought that maybe it was a good thing she’d pushed him away when she did, because he’d become far too invested. And now he’d asked out Emily, again, and why shouldn’t he see her? She was nice, funny, clumsy, and she didn’t make his heart gallop like a racehorse, and that meant he could keep his head when he was around her.
At the same time, he couldn’t bring himself to totally smash down Christmas’s efforts. He wasn’t a complete prick.
He decided to keep it simple.
Maybe.
•
Maybe?
On the other side of the world, Christmas read his message and her heart plummeted. But what did she expect? She’d shot him down hard. She deserved to be on the back foot now. And at least he hadn’t outright turned her down. There was still a chance. She’d created this and would have to be happy with a small, partial opening in the window of opportunity. But she didn’t dare to ask for further clarification.
It was simply best not to ask.