CHAPTER 65
My mouth was sticky the next morning, my head still fuzzy. I could still remember most of it though, as the pictures were shown, more wine poured and a messy bout of tears was resolved in the old, old way. Maz looked up at me, bleary-eyed, and lifted a sheet to her nose with a wince.

“Which of us spilled the red on the dooner?”

“No idea. Won’t need a dry clean for a while. Stain’s there to stay, I think. I’ll stick the kettle on, and then we can strip the bed”

Her smile up at me was a little fragile, but she nodded.

“Good job we’re both off today”

“Good job we got some basics in yesterday, along with all that boose. I am neither safe nor legal to ride this morning”

“Kettle. And then we both need a shower”

As I headed for the kitchen, I thought back to our picture show, and realised that if some scars might never heal, they could at least scab over.

Breakfast was limited to tea and milky cereal, before we each simply picked up a book and another mug of tea and settled into a couple of patio chairs. As I lowered myself, there was a series of raucous ‘Kerr! Kerr!’ calls, and Maz suddenly brightened up.

“Over there, love! See them? Red-tailed black cockatoos!”

Big and very black, the red panels in their tails glowing in the sun, they were absolutely majestic. ‘Look upon my flight, you lesser birds, and despair’. That thought brought another, and I was suddenly laughing.

“Share the joke, MBS?”

I explained the sudden thought about the poem, and she was nodding.

“Works for me as well, but why the laughter?”

I managed to choke down my snorts long enough to blurt out “Pollymandias!”, and then we were both lost to sobriety, or maybe sanity, for a few moments. It seemed to break the spell, and a few shadows stepped back from the rest of our morning.

The decision for the afternoon was an obvious one, and we decided not to shower but pull on some clothes already worn, put clean ones in a bag and walk out to the beach. A couple of hours in and out of the water, a shower under the free ones provided by the city, then change in the loos before a fish and chip supper in the beach café, which was already one of ‘ours’, so we had to explain that yes, we were now living within walking distance before answering the inevitable business-related questions. As we ambled back home in the warm afternoon sun, Maz was shaking her head.

“We’re stuffed eery time we grab a meal now, aren’t we?”

“Yup. Fancy just getting in and locking all the doors? Permanently?”

She pulled me closer to her.

“Nice thought, but, well. The Butts would probably break in and find us”

“Got no cats to devour our bodies, though but”

I chuckled at her phrasing, indicating she was starting to pick up too many of Kul’s verbal tics, and she was almost indignant.

“Yes, but I am NOT getting into that ‘cool butt’ bit. That’s too close to the edge”

I let my hand drop a bit.

“Cool butt, though”

In the end, the sheets were still off the bed, but we had bath towels, and that was all we needed till later.

We definitely seemed to have crossed into easier territory after that night, and those shadows were getting less persistent with each day. We settled quickly into a social routine, with regular music and climbing club trips, as well as serious use of ‘the barbie on the patio’. We ended up with a solid work routine, our mode of transport varying with each day’s tasks, sometimes together in or one vehicle, sometimes separately. I was navigating the maze of vehicle registration, ‘rego’, rules for my older bike, Maz was arranging packed lunch meetings when we travelled separately, and it was becoming a very comfortable way of life. After a couple of months of that, I did notice that she had some favourite spots for our outdoor lunches, one of which was a park near the Causeway. I had picked up the munchies one day, a couple of bento boxes from Allendale square, and as I set them down on the picnic table next to the inevitable public ‘barbie’, I asked her why she was so fond of that spot. She waved a hand past the reeds.

“Little corellas, three darters, four species of cormorant, nankeen night heron, sacred kingfisher---need me to keep going?”

“You are obsessed, woman!”

“Nope. Just multitasking. I can eat one-handed, and I only need the little bins for here”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, me doing my best not to drop tice from the disposable chopsticks, and then Maz spoke again.

“Also lets me talk without anyone else hearing, Mike. That day…. The picture session. You said it, that almost every café owner knows us. Here, it’s just us, and that homeless man who camps in the pavilion over there”

She quirked a smile.

“There are some office workers who walk a few laps of the lake each day, but I can see them coming, and the man with the trolley can’t hear us from there”

I found my mood chilling.

“What’s up, love?”

She tilted her head, looking straight at me, her brow furrowing, before she brought the binoculars to her eyes again, looking over at a group of dicks sitting in the shade.

“Not ‘up’, exactly. Interpretation… Reaction. Old ghosts. Mike, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Life. Got complicated rather quickly when you arrived. Geeta and Kul had said so much about you, and yes, I know we’ve had that chat. I had such hopes”

I felt my guts lurch, the fear rising like nausea, and reached out to touch a shoulder. Her hand rose to caress mine.

“No, love. Not what I’m trying to say. I don’t think I could… Well, I think Kul and Geeta, and Dal to be honest, despite all that crush stuff…”

She took a couple of long breaths.

“To be completely honest, they undersold you. You’re a diamond, Mike, and I am not going to make jokes about polishing, rubbing off rough edges, none of that. I think of Alan, and I see you, and that doesn’t mean I’ve overwritten him in my mind, but then I worry I’ll frighten you off if I push it. And I can’t lose you as well”

I found my voice from somewhere distant, and sought the words to go with it.

“Why would you lose me, love? How could I lose you? Two of us in this together; neither of us alone”

“Yes, and two more at the table with us. Always will be”

“Is that such a bad thing? I think neither of us would be the same person without them, and it’s the person you are now that I love”

She chuckled, but there was an edge to it.

“Would have made my wedding a little confusing if we had known each other then”

I found my voice cracking a little.

“Back then, I would have had my eyes elsewhere, love”

Once again, she turned her head to look me directly in the eyes.

“I know how stupid this sounds, but Carolyn was a very lucky woman, my love. I am so full of conflict here. I wish I had Alan, I wish you had her, but I am so glad that, right now, I have you”

A short pause, then, “I do have you, don’t I?”

I bent towards her, kissing her gently, my wordless way of confirming that yes, she did.

“And I have you. What’s brought this on?”

She twisted to bring her legs back under the picnic table.

“Stuff, Mike. Some hormonal issues. I have an important question to ask”

“Ask away”

“Where are we going? Us, I mean. As a couple”

“Well, I… In what way?”

“Long term, short term?”

I stared at her, realising right then that I had known the answer almost from or first meeting.

“Cool butt…”

“Sorry?”

I shook my head, annoyed with my own flippancy.

“Sorry. Just a memory of that first trip to the beach”

She barked out another laugh, this one sounding genuine.

“I was using what I had, love. Got you looking. Anyway: the question is still hanging”

I knew the answer, of course, but there was one persistent little accusatory voice. I told it to shut up, and gave the only answer I could.

“Simplest way to put it, I was thinking, but this isn’t, but it’s as full a reply as I can find: I can’t imagine not being with you, or rather, better version: I don’t want to imagine being without you. Does that answer your question?”

She left her binoculars to hang down from their strap and took both of my hands properly into her own.

It does, love. It does. It’s the answer I wanted, the one I needed”

I kissed her again, trying to make her feel the honesty of my answer, then pulled back to look at her once again.

“Second time of asking, Maz. What’s brought this on?”

She looked down as she replied.

“Hormones, partly. That night we looked at photos, I am not going to ask if you remember it, but, well, we had a bit to drink. We forgot something”

“I think we’d forgotten quite a bit by the next morning”

“I’m being serious here. We forgot precautions”

‘Hormonal’, she had said. Oh shit.

“Maz, love? Are you saying you’re expecting?”

She nodded, looking very unsure. Deep breaths, Rhodes. All my words would mean nothing without the final question.

“Marry me, then?”

Her eyes closed, in obvious relief, but being the woman she was, she opened them, made a comical ‘shall I shan’t I?’ face, then grinned in pure joy.

“Yeah, okay!”