ALL THE SEATS OUTSIDE THE clubhouse were taken. Not that it mattered. She’d stay just for a few minutes, until he got so involved he forgot she was there. It was a four-hour clinic. What did they do all that time? Sport – soccer in particular – was a mystery to her. So many rules: out-of-play, extra time, and the mysterious offside. It was all too confusing. And it was cold. Even colder than when she’d woken, and run into the garden at daybreak. Her jacket was hanging on a hook by the door, forgotten in the rush. She breathed into her hands, did a little hopping dance. Fine for the kids, running around, kicking a bright green ball, keeping warm.
“You could do with a coat.”
Elena recognised the voice. About six months earlier she’d first seen him at practice. “Check out Mr Fancy Pants,” one of the mothers had said with unbridled scorn, tilting her head towards the approaching man in the cashmere coat, woollen scarf, possibly alpaca, gloved hands. City clothes, definitely not a local. A lawyer, perhaps. He’d introduced himself as Tom Walker, shaken hands with everyone, and came to stand beside Elena. She’d caught the scent of expensive cologne. He smelled nice. He was pale and had a thin angular face, eyes grey-blue, and was tall. At least six foot four, she guessed. Coolly handsome, his height and the expensive suits afforded him a certain elegance, yet approachable, he was genuinely approachable.
She puffed her cheeks and let out a long breath. A steam cloud formed in front of her face, like a cigar plume. “I’m going now. Back to the safety of the car.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Elena smiled and went to move off, no longer able to stand the cold. She spotted a couple of bikies up on the hill, seated on their bikes, looking down at the field. Her heart lurched. She was nervy, looking around for strangers. For Anderson. She decided it was nothing, shook away the thought.
“Not so fast.” Tom said, removing the same heavy coat he’d worn the very first time she’d seen him, and placing it around her shoulders, squeezing them briefly, gingerly.
“Now you’re going to freeze.”
Tom held a hand up, as though to dismiss the idea, and grinned at her, revealing perfect white teeth. Elena felt the beginning of a familiar blush, a creeping sensation at the base of her neck. She tried to feign a casual ease, but her heart was thumping in her chest.
“How about coffee instead?” he said.
She pulled the coat in tight, gave him a decisive nod. “Coffee I can do. Follow me there?”
“Will do.”
They went to Matilda’s down at the ocean beach, walked quickly from their cars, cheeks blasted by the freezing wind. Once inside, they sat at a table by the windows, the glass flecked with spray blowing up off the dunes. The café was warm, heating ducts blowing up warm air from the floor. Elena looked out at the sea of indigo blue. She loved weather like this, wild and relentless, the changing colours of the landscape, loved it from the indoors. Strong rips were churning up the water just to the right of Jonah’s Rock. There were no surfers out there today. In a chop like this, even they knew it was madness.
“I’ll get the coffee?” Tom said. “Anything to eat? They’ve got toast and stuff.”
Elena smirked.
Tom sat back against the chair, a smile playing at his lips. “What’s so funny?”
“Toast. This morning I … I made some. I opened the window, the toaster pinged and out they went, in unison. The last two slices no less.”
He laughed hard. “Well, you know what they say.”
“What’s that?”
“Morning can strike at any time.”
She laughed too, possessed by a mixture of tiredness and nerves. “You’re funny, Tom.”
“Call me Tommy. That’s what my family does. Mum, mostly. Still thinks I’m six years old.”
“Do you like it – the nickname?”
He shrugged in a noncommittal way. “I suppose. Never really thought about it.”
“Well, Tommy, I bet your mum’s toast doesn’t make escape bids.”
He snorted. “Dad’s a military man – nothing moves in that house without his permission. Not even the bread.”
Elena felt herself relaxing, warming up. She eyed off the Specials board above the counter: every imaginable variation of eggs, muesli with exotically named berries, enormous muffins in a display case like a museum exhibit, everything overlaid by the heady aroma of roasted coffee beans. She found what she was looking for right at the bottom of the list.
“I’ll have pancakes,” she said. “With the lot – maple syrup, bananas, butter. Do you think they have all that?”
“Sure they do. Comfort food here by the looks of it.”
He went to order, came back a minute later with a number, slightly bemused. They were the only people there. The coffee came straight away. It had the right effect – instantly alert, sharp-minded. She washed it down with some water.
“So the boys tell me you’re Daniel’s foster mum.”
Cheeks colouring, she looked down at the table, not sure why this had made her blush. “Yeah, for the past year.”
“That’s pretty amazing.”
“Not really. Some of the people doing this have fostered hundreds. I’ve got one.”
She couldn’t help thinking of all the couples, only a few suburbs away, in Glenhill, Moreton and Bowe, the pensioners and retirees who took in one child after another, nursing – loving – them back to a semblance of normality. Safety. All out of their own pockets. She had nothing on them. Wouldn’t even pretend to understand what they went through.
He studied her, blue eyes like frozen water. Up close, they were mesmerising, gave him a look somewhere between cold and vulnerable. “Still – most people wouldn’t think of it in the first place.”
She returned his gaze. What could she tell him? That she had been motivated by pure selflessness? Saintliness? It wasn’t even half true. The papers had been filled out in a fog of grief, almost on a whim. Driven more by desperation than anything else. That at the age of thirty-five – newly single, menopausal – this might be her only chance to have a child.
“It was nothing,” she said at last.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, not nothing, but you know what I mean. I just…” She trailed off, unable to think of the words which might convince him of her fallibility. Anything she said now would sound like false modesty. She sighed. “I’d do it again.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s been the best thing ever.”
Tom nodded. ‘There aren’t many like you.”
She lowered her eyes to the table again. For a minute, neither of them spoke. It hung in the air between them, the implied attraction, and the image he’d formed of her from a couple of meetings.
“Well, yeah,” she said at last, aiming to break the tension with a joke. ‘And thank goodness for that.”
She smiled but he didn’t smile back. Instead, he pursed his lips, as if considering. “That first day at the football oval, I saw you standing with the other mothers…” There was a short pause. “I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
Her chest tensed as she tried to think of how to answer. Usually, it never got to this point. She saw the desire in men’s eyes, their turned heads, the way their gazes lingered, but she simply looked away. Ignored them, mostly. But this strategy – her ‘Berlin Wall’, as Peter called it – had its flaws. What she hadn’t considered was that she might feel attracted to someone. To find herself caught between wanting to shut down Tom’s overtures, and the desire to respond in kind. After all, she’d said yes to the coffee. Whatever he’d picked up in her expression back at the football ground – coy, flirting, interested – he hadn’t been entirely mistaken. And at the back of her mind, Peter’s words, Claim your life back, El.
“Probably not appropriate breakfast conversation,” he added weakly.
“It’s certainly not the worst thing you could have said to me.”
“Well, anyway,” he continued. “I think you’re lovely. I just wanted to say.”
They were both relieved when the waitress came over, a young girl in a black tank top carrying a plate in each hand. Tom had ordered toast, four thick slices, stacked high on a platter-sized dish, a bread mountain.
“Toast?”
“I’m being ironic.”
Elena laughed. “So ... you’re the uncle?”
“The best uncle,” he murmured, noticing the girl coming back with another plate. She placed it down in front of him: a selection of jams, marmalade, a huge chunk of butter. “Actually, the only one so I win by default.”
“Semantics,” she said breezily.
“It’s hardly deserved. Phone calls, birthday presents, the odd weekend visit to footy practice. I could do more.” He paused, thoughtful. “I should do more.”
“That’s plenty.”
“You think?”
“I know.” Elena considered telling him about Anderson. “If you knew what some kids go through. Well, it’s bad.”
Tom nodded. “How does it work?” he said, slathering a thick layer of butter onto one of the slices. “You get to keep him long term? Make all the important decisions about his life? Schooling and things like that?”
“That would be ideal. If we could make the whole thing legal right now, and be done with all the bureaucracy. But it’s, ah … complicated.”
“But you’re his mum, right?”
She hesitated a moment, and knew he’d seen it, the flash of panic in her eyes.
Waving the slice back and forth like a marshaller bringing in an aircraft, he said: “Ah, sorry, you don’t need to answer that. I ask too many questions. Used to be a lawyer … for my sins.”
Elena shrugged, felt the familiar tightening in her chest that the issue of Daniel’s permanency raised. She shifted in her seat.
He wiped the crumbs from his jumper, cleared his throat, and added: “You know, I could happily live here, spend my life slouching around in tracksuit pants, hanging out with my nephews. There’s something about this place that’s so … ” He exhaled heavily, searching for the right word, then shrugged too.
“Magical,” Elena offered.
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“Gotta be careful, though,” she said, starting on the pancakes from the side.
“How’s that?”
“You come for a visit and stay forever.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Something like that.”
The café was filling up, people being chased inside by the cold. A bunch of seagulls were huddled on the other side of the glass, out of the wind, eyes closed. Peaceful. So much for being stupid.
“I like you, Tommy,” Elena said suddenly, sincerely.
He looked at her warily, as though he couldn’t figure whether she was joking. Eventually, he decided she wasn’t. “That’s really good to hear,” he replied.
They ordered more coffee, talked for almost an hour.
Tom told her about himself. He had given up law a few years ago, defeated by the long hours, the tedium. Instead, he went to work in commodities trading. The job was an adrenaline rush, he said.
“The complete opposite of law.”
“In every way. There was a lot of travelling involved; you could be in Shanghai one day, London the next.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Yeah, it was. For a while, anyway.” He shrugged. “But living out of a hotel room gets old pretty quickly.”
He told her he’d been married to a younger woman. It hadn’t lasted because he had neglected her.
“I realised too late that she didn’t care about the big house or the fancy car,” he said. “She just wanted me.” He gave her a sad smile as he said this, his expression entirely devoid of artifice. Suddenly, he looked tired, deflated. He sighed. “Anyway. What about you?”
Elena refilled their water glasses. “I was married for a while. But it was … I don’t know.”
“Complicated?”
She gave him a strained look. “There’s that word again. It keeps coming up.”
He smiled. “That’s life, though. Complicated as shit.”
She smiled back, thinking she’d like to get to know him better. He listened to what she had to say. It was different to the way Peter had been. Peter, who had always seemed not quite there, even when he was. He had often apologised, acutely aware of this failing. Sorry, love, he would say, shaking his head, I just got a bit distracted there. What were you saying again? Elena would shrug, and Peter would give her a sheepish smile, but they both sensed the disconnect, and neither was sure how to address it.
Finally, they finished up, went out. Tom scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, seemed suddenly lost for words.
“So it’s about now when you give me your number,” he said, smiling.
Elena smiled back shyly.
“I suppose I could do that.”
She scrawled her number on a receipt from her bag, and handed it to him. There was an awkward moment, when they didn’t know what to say next. Then Tom put an arm around her waist, kissed her on the cheek. He stepped back, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, blushing a little.
“I’ll be in touch.”
She nodded, dropped her gaze.
When he turned, she watched as he crossed the car park, saw the bounce in his step. Walking briskly to the car, she wondered when he would call. Felt giddy at the thought, like a teenager.
She’d parked facing the sea, a handful of spaces from the door, got inside with a blast of Artic cold. The heating whooshed to life. For a couple of minutes she sat there, warming the engine. There were a couple of bikies on the verge outside the café. They looked completely out of place. On reflection, though, Sullivans Landing wasn’t as genteel as the brochures would suggest. It had its dark side: drug deals over by the toilet block, mysterious packages exchanged from the boots of hotted-up cars. She’d seen it all from the rotunda. It was the reason she’d stopped running here first thing in the morning.
Suddenly conscious she was staring, Elena shifted her gaze, did not want them catching her eye. Shifting slightly, she watched them from the passenger’s side mirror. The angle was perfect. Their eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. One wore a mask over his mouth – black with a painted white skeleton face – and a heavy vest, muscle shirt; the other a full helmet, more leather. Both had swollen bellies, thick necks and full beards, nothing like their glamorised TV counterparts. They looked menacing and dirty which, she supposed, was the whole point.
They gunned their engines, the sound destroying everything else. She kept a careful watch as they cruised the car park and back up the hill. And after a long minute, she followed. The road was clear as she drove home.