So Far Into You (24 page)

‘Come on, crazy lady, let's get up before I can't let you.'

***

It was a stunning late summer morning, blue sky and not a breath of wind. A veil of dew dusted leaves and grass, making spider webs wink with water diamonds. Morning sun spun through the window, turning the floors a creamy gold.

By the time Seth had the kettle boiled and coffee made, Remy had joined him. She wore well-worn denim jeans and a fitted turquoise shirt with an open collar, showing a silver pendant bouncing on a slim chain. Her hair was loose and he didn't think he'd ever seen her look more beautiful.

It was fun sharing her galley kitchen and he touched her often as they passed back and forth. She popped hot toast out of the toaster and juggled it to him, and he slathered the squares in dobs of butter and homemade jam. Fig for him. Mulberry for her.

They took toast and coffee to the patio, where the dogs trotted up from the back of the garden hunting for a thrown crust.

‘She's looking at me like I'm up to no good,' Seth said to Remy, who had Breeze at her feet, staring at him balefully.

‘Yeah, well, Occhy's looking at you like you're some kind of stud, so I wouldn't worry, hero. You can't win 'em all.'

Eventually, she sighed and stretched. Her hair tousled down her back in wheaten ripples.

‘I don't want to work today,' she groaned, stretching her feet on the warm bricks, flexing her toes.

‘Then don't. You're your own boss. Have a day off.'

‘I really can't. Unfortunately I have the type of customer who expects me to live up to my work commitments.'

Shit.
He'd known her second job would come up but he hadn't expected he'd have to deal with it so soon. He didn't want to come on too strong, but he couldn't pussyfoot around it either. He hated the idea of what she did for extra money. He'd hated it five years ago. He loathed the thought now.

‘You can help me if you like. If you don't have other plans.' Her eyes twinkled.

‘You need sound effects? Heavy breathing? I don't think so.' He reached for his coffee cup, scraped the toast plate over the table, clearing up.

Remy put her hand on his arm. ‘Seth?'

‘What?' His gaze dropped to where her fingers curled around his forearm, so pale against the dark hairs on his skin. ‘I won't pretend I like what you do, Rem. I'm not that kind of bloke.'

Her fingers gripped tighter. ‘Seth?' She said again, tugging.

He put the cup on the table. He couldn't stay angry. He was too happy to be with her.

‘I haven't made a single sexual phone call for money since the day you heard me on my porch. I don't do it anymore, okay? I stopped straight away. I'm talking about a different job.'

‘Oh.' He felt like an idiot. ‘Alright then.' And after that: ‘What do you need me to do?'

‘For starters, we better call in to your hotel so you can change into something old and comfy. You'll be getting your hands dirty.' She made a show of looking him up and down. ‘Leave the Armani on the hanger, okay?'

***

At the back of the Mulberry Mews aged care units in Oakbank was a communal garden: a long rectangle about the size of two cricket pitches side by side, bordered by a high slatted dark-metal fence with openings at regular intervals for white-painted metal gates. There were benches at the short sides of the rectangle with half-oak barrels on either side holding big magnolia trees. At the base of the trees, colourful flowers huddled.

Remy had parked as close as possible to the laneway, but getting all the gear into the garden still required considerable manoeuvring with a sack-truck and brute force. So far, Seth had carted four bales of pea straw, a stack of newspapers, four rubbish bins filled with compost and a variety of spades and tools from Remy's Rodeo along an alley which had the most crooked dog-leg he'd ever seen. He'd got so much straw under his shirt he'd taken the damn itching thing off, which meant he was half-naked in jeans and boots with Remy and a bunch of old people.

The old ladies loved it. They said the Mews hadn't had such eye-candy in the garden for years, and they giggled behind their hands: teenagers all over again.

The old men, on the other hand, kept asking what they could do to help. He could hardly set them to carting bales of straw or hammering pallet timbers, or upending bins of compost because it might have caused an early heart attack, so he settled for letting them rake up any vagrant straw outside the area Remy had designated for the residents' new vegetable patch.

It was ingenious really, these no-dig gardens. Remy had been telling him about them all morning as they'd loaded her ute with the things she'd need, then as they'd driven into Oakbank.

The new patch was about eight metres long and three metres wide. It was fenced by a border made from the pallet boards Remy kept in her stable. Now he knew what she used them for.

Seth's first job had been to cobble the border together while Remy laid wads of newspaper on the grass. ‘To stop weeds,' she said.

Next came thick chunks of pea straw, laid as they broke from the bale. ‘That's the base for the roots to grow into,' she said.

Then it was layers of compost. Homemade.

‘I think you're prouder of your compost than you are of your jam,' he'd grizzled, as he'd lugged bin after bin along the alley. Those bins were the most cumbersome. He almost lost one off the sack-truck and a few of the old blokes had looked at him like they suspected he'd rolled up for work drunk.

Next came more pea straw. Then Remy clambered over the bed, scattering handfuls of blood and bone.

After that, one of the old blokes was allowed to water it in while they had lunch. A lady named Madge brought ham and salad sandwiches on a silver tray. They were cut in delicate white-bread quarters that made him feel like he was crashing a kid's birthday party. Another brought chocolate and cherry teacake, and someone offered him lemonade.

By then it was about two o'clock and the old codger with the hose had watered things into a landslide.

‘Okay,' Remy said, licking chocolate crumbs from her fingers. ‘Great job, Ernie. Turn the water off now.' Then to Seth she said: ‘Now we get to the good part.'

‘Great,' Seth said, envying her enthusiasm until she hit him with a hundred-watt smile that got his inner batteries all fired up.

Winter in the Hills got pretty cold, which was why autumn was so important to get vegie seedlings established while the soil retained its warmth.

Carefully Remy pricked out the broccoli seedlings and made holes through the layers of compost and straw. She packed the holes with more compost and planted straight in. Next to her, Seth did the same with the baby spinach.

He'd put his itchy shirt on while they ate lunch, probably to stop Madge and Lucy ogling his chest, but it had come off again now. The small of his back gleamed with sweat and Remy could smell him whenever they came close. She'd never minded the honest smell of a day's sweat on a blue-collar man, and she sure didn't mind it now.

Sunlight gleamed on his body, and outlined the hairs on his chest, and Remy had a hard time keeping her hands to herself.

‘What are you smiling about?' he asked, poking her in the ribs, poking again when all she did was giggle, leaving fingerprint smudges on her shirt. ‘It's a secret, is it?' Poking again as she tried to push his hands away.

‘I say, Remy?' Old Ernie began.

Remy stood up in the straw, straightened her back. ‘What's up, Ern?'

‘Are you sure you've got that bean trellis in the right spot there? Won't it shade everything else?'

‘Ern, this isn't England, remember? You're in the southern hemisphere now,' said Lucy, between characteristic quick blinks. Lucy had been a spectator from start to finish.

‘Luce is right, Ernie. They'll be fine, love,' said Madge.

Ernie scratched his head. ‘Bugger me, I'm an old duffer. I forgot about the different hemispheres.'

Bless him.
Remy had seen photos of Ernie with his wife, Peg, at Peg's funeral a year or so back. He'd been a dashing young man in his day. An egg farmer. A good footballer.

‘Shows what I know, mate,' Seth said, standing up from the bed of straw. ‘I didn't even know what hemisphere we were in made a difference.'

‘You always got to check which way the sun moves. No point putting all the tall stuff where it gets all the sun and shades everything else out. My dad told me that about tomatoes. I never forgot it,' Ernie said.

Seth stepped out of the straw and kept chatting. Ernie forgot about being an old duffer and started telling Seth all about the gardens where he grew up in Somerset, and Remy was grateful to Seth for his sensitivity.

Sensitivity.
Now there was a new thought.

Remy dug in the poles for the bean trellis—making a teepee and lashing the overlapping tops with twine—then planted the bean seedlings at the base where they would climb.

‘Job done,' she announced, stepping back. ‘Can you water them in, Ernie? Just a light spray.'

‘Think I'll manage that alright.'

‘It'll be so exciting to have our own vegies. They taste so much better than what you get at the shops,' Madge said, giving Remy a hard squeeze.

‘Not so expensive, either,' Lucy added.

Madge kissed Seth on the cheek and Lucy giggled behind her hand, then Remy and Seth packed up the tools.

‘I'll be back next weekend to check on everything,' Remy said, poised at the metal gate leading to the front of the Mews. ‘Water them every second day, Ern. Just lightly, if it doesn't rain.'

‘Got more chance of winning Lotto than getting rain, I reckon,' Ernie said.

Chapter 22

They'd stopped at the bottle shop on the way home from Mulberry Mews where Seth bought a bottle of French champagne that was now in Remy's fridge. He had a shower and shave, dressed in clean clothes, hung out his towel and fed the dogs.

The sound of the shower running in Remy's ensuite helped cover the growl of his stomach. It had been a hell of a long time since the ham and salad sandwich at lunch.

Pizza ingredients covered the kitchen bench. He contemplated getting a few started. He didn't cook much, but how hard could homemade pizza be? Remy had set out jars of pesto on the bench, olives, a wedge of pumpkin, tomatoes, zucchini and a knob of mozzarella cheese.

To distract himself from the food, he wandered to the big Baltic pine bookshelf on one side of the fireplace. The top shelf held fantasy books, sword and sorcerer stuff like
Lord of the Rings
and a series of books by Raymond E Feist. One of the Feist paperbacks was so worn it was held together with an elastic band.

The second shelf sported a stereo system and speakers and either side of that was a collection of old glass bottles. Seth picked up one of these and turned it in his hand—Seppelt's red wine vinegar. His phone buzzed in his pocket as he went to put the bottle back.

He checked the caller ID.

Funny, he'd anticipated this call from Ailsa all week. Now he had her on the phone, all he felt was pity. For him, for her, for all the time with Remy he could never get back.

‘Hi, Ailsa. How are you?'

‘Seth, darling. I'd be better if you'd tell me these rumours about you and Remy Hanley aren't true.'

‘That might depend on what rumour you're talking about.'

‘Rina said you kissed her.'

‘Kissed Rina? I can tell you definitely, that rumour's not true.'

‘Kissed
Remy,
Seth. You know what I meant. Please don't play games. I'm not in the mood and not a fool.'

From Remy's end of the house, the hum of a hairdryer replaced the spray of the shower.

‘I'd never call you a fool, Mother. A meddling old woman maybe, but not a fool.'

Stunned silence greeted him, but Ailsa recovered fast. ‘I'm going to forget you said that, Seth. I'm going to put that comment down to whatever lies she's been filling your head with.'

‘I'll be in Perth later this week. I'll come to see you then. I'm not doing this now.'

‘Seth, don't you dare hang up. It's not me who—'

He disconnected the call and turned his attention back to Remy's bookshelf, his gaze angrily roving the shelves.

The bottom rung held photo albums. He pulled the first one out. It was a thick, material-covered album, and as he flicked through it, he found photos that he assumed were Remy's mother's. Many were similar to pictures his parents had: black and white photos of beaches around Margaret River, a photo taken on the Busselton Jetty, a day trip to the caves.

He was about to put the album back and see if he could find one of Remy's—he wouldn't mind seeing a picture of Remy in her school uniform—when one of the photos caught his eye. He was having his second look, his third look at it, when the sound of the hairdryer stopped.

Seth put the photo album back, feeling a bit guilty for snooping. He crossed back to Remy's fridge, took out the bottle and popped the cork over the sink.

‘Oh I love that sound.' Remy's voice floated to the kitchen from the front bedroom.

‘I'm pouring you a glass now.'

He found a couple of champagne flutes in a cupboard and was filling them with the frothy liquid when Remy walked into the living area.

Seth put the bottle on the timber countertop and exhaled on a whistle.

Her hair was loose and straight and not quite dry, tumbling to the small of her back. Her feet were bare. A gold chain glittered on her ankle. Her jeans were tight. Her t-shirt was white. He shut up before his inner poet added:
and he took her to bed to spend the night.

‘What?' she said, hesitating as she crossed the floorboards, glancing at her front like she thought she'd find tomato sauce spilled all over her shirt.

‘Nothing.'
You look beautiful
didn't cut it. Beautiful didn't come close. ‘You look amazing, Rem.'