The Affair (13 page)

Amanda stopped cowering and with her hands on her hips, she blazed back at James. This looked to be a full-scale row. Nina wished she could hear what was being said. It made little sense. There was something quite nasty about this scene. These were deep feelings that were being expressed. The veneer of civility that hid their relationship had just peeled away and there was something rotten underneath.

As Nina watched, Frederick Wilde appeared at the doorway of his office and ambled slowly towards the couple on the verandah. At first they didn’t notice him, continuing their argument. James spotted him first, said something to Amanda, and in an instant their body language changed. They turned to greet him. The argument ended abruptly. Nina couldn’t see their faces but could tell from the broad smile of welcome on Frederick’s that as far as he was concerned, nothing was amiss.

‘If you bring that salad through I think we are ready,’ said Patty, coming back through the swinging doors.

Nina went to the verandah to call everyone to the table. As soon as she appeared James moved to her side, putting his arm around her shoulders. He wasn’t usually a demonstrative man and Nina wondered what had prompted the sudden rush of affection. Amanda ignored her, but it was hard to say if that was unusual behaviour or not.

Throughout lunch Nina watched them both. James was subdued, preoccupied and, it seemed, over-solicitous of his mother. He avoided Amanda
completely. Most of her attention was taken up with her boys, cutting up their food and helping them to eat it.

Nina waited until the drive home to broach the subject with James. She knew instinctively that she hadn’t been meant to see the altercation on the verandah. She was more than a little curious.

‘What was that fight with Amanda about?’

James’s head snapped around to look at her. He seemed defensive, caught out. She heard him take in his breath sharply. It made an audible hiss. ‘What fight?’

Nina stared at him. ‘What fight? The blazing row you had on the verandah before lunch.’

James’s pupils contracted and he looked instantly shifty. It was not an expression Nina was used to seeing. He was about to lie to her. She knew it with absolute certainty.

‘Oh, nothing. It was just about work …’ His eyes slid off Nina’s and returned to the road. ‘… Nothing to worry about. She doesn’t agree with some of the things I’ve been doing. She thinks it was a mistake to let go four cases of the 1990 Premium Shiraz. She thinks we should keep that back for a few more years and …’

It sounded plausible but he was lying to her. She knew it. He had never done that before. She would stake her life on it. She felt the ground shifting beneath her, leaving her shaky and scared. What was going on? She petted Tiger and watched the countryside rush by.

Nina busied herself with the newspaper. She didn’t want to look like she was sitting here waiting for someone. She had had enough trouble finally admitting that to herself. She took Tiger for an early walk around Rushcutters Bay Park. When he was exhausted, she brought him home for a midday nap. Then she had gone shopping, pushing the trolley around the supermarket aisles, mindlessly tossing items in with just one thought going around in her head. ‘I think I might pop back to the park. It’s such a lovely day.’

She smiled happily as she handed her money over to the salesgirl, laughed at the toddler who stood behind her in the queue kicking her in the heel, and then commented on what a glorious day it was to the carpark attendant. All the while she kept thinking about ordering a focaccia. Perfect with a coffee. Just the thought of it made her feel so very good.

It was as she parked the car opposite Rushcutters Bay Park that she allowed herself a burst of honesty. She was hoping to see him, the mad count, that unconventional, irrepressible, entertaining man. Really, that was the truth. There was no way around it. With that realisation came a moment of indecision, as that little voice, niggling away at the back of her mind, strained to be heard. Was that really such a good idea? Should she be doing this? The thought of James hovered just on the periphery. She sat for a moment in the car.

She looked out at an ordinary Saturday morning. The cars flashed past her, all strangers, disinterested, separate, going about their business. What do they all do? she wondered. She thought of Amanda, all bare legs and blonde hair draped over James. She thought of him going into the office that morning. She thought of the empty apartment. She didn’t consciously decide anything, she just allowed her resentment, anger and suspicion to surface.

Then, quite deliberately, she dismissed those thoughts from her mind.

She told herself it was a perfectly beautiful day and she should be out in it. There were other stirrings further below the surface, but she shied away from looking too closely at those. She stayed determinedly unaware of the workings of her own psyche. It was a technique she had perfected many years ago when she wanted to do something she knew would make her father disapprove.

She opened the car door, her mind made up. And with that her thoughts turned directly and unapologetically to meeting that mysterious, amusing stranger. She hoped he would be finishing his Saturday morning boat maintenance around about now and would pass by her tree on his way home.

Leo, also, had been wondering, hoping, wishing that he might find her by the tree. There was absolutely no reason why she should be there. It was illogical to assume that because she had been there once before, she would be there again, Leo
rationalised. But the feeling persisted all through the morning.

When he finally spotted her, on his way across the park, he was delighted and relieved but not really surprised. Of course she would be there. It was fate, he told himself. He bought a coffee at the kiosk and took it over, watching her all the way, waiting for her to look up.

Nina didn’t need to look up. She had been keeping a surreptitious eye out for Leo for the past half-hour. Though her head was carefully turned away from the yacht club and she gave every indication she was absorbed in the newspaper on her lap, she had angled herself in such a way that she had spotted Leo the minute he stepped onto the path. Then she had kept her head steadfastly turned away.

Nina’s look of sudden surprise, and Leo’s cry of ‘what a coincidence’ were both unconvincing. They immediately knew the other was lying, which lent a sense of mischief and flirtation to the already charged atmosphere. Nina moved over and Leo settled with his coffee into the roots of the tree. They picked up exactly where they had left off. It was as if the time between had dissolved completely.

‘When was the last time you climbed a tree?’ asked Leo.

Nina remembered exactly. ‘On my brother Larry’s twenty-first birthday.’

Leo raised one eyebrow.

‘We were both living in Vancouver, studying at
the university there, and we decided to go home for the weekend of his birthday to surprise our parents. Larry took a bottle of French champagne. You’ve got to understand that my parents don’t drink, never have. So Larry and I drank the bottle ourselves over lunch and got quite silly. It was something like minus five outside and it had finally stopped snowing. So we dared each other to climb the old oak tree in the garden. We used to spend hours up there when we were kids. Our names are carved into the trunk, just out of view of the ground where our father might see them.

‘The two of us got up there and I will never forget my mother and father standing below telling us to come down. It was the funniest thing.

‘You have to know my father. All our lives he had been telling us to go outside and climb a tree. We were never allowed to just sit inside by the fire and do something quiet. He always wanted us outside, being active. So here we are, up this tree, both half drunk and our parents are standing beneath telling us to get down out of the tree this minute. “Enough of your shenanigans,” my father kept saying. I can picture him now.

‘We were both laughing so hard we nearly fell out. Normally we wouldn’t dream of disobeying our father. But I don’t know what got into us that day. The more they told us to behave, the naughtier we got.’

Nina smiled happily at the memory. She was twenty then and had lived away from home for two years. Yet it was only at that moment that she had
felt like an adult, in control of her own life. Seeing her father, her tyrant father, as a comical figure so small beneath her and with the Dutch courage of too much champagne, the moment had marked the beginning of her realising her independence.

Leo smiled with her, trying to imagine Nina’s family. The childhood she described was so foreign from his own. They were relaxed in each other’s company and their conversation was peppered with nods of understanding and frequent eruptions of laughter.

Around them the world went about its business. People strolled, pushed prams, threw frisbees, jogged, shared picnics, snoozed in the sun, read newspapers and cut across the park on their way to somewhere else. Because of the position of their tree Nina and Leo had the impression they were at the hub of all this activity. Yet, surrounded as they were, they felt quite separate and everything else was just a colourful backdrop. So absorbed were they in each other that at first they didn’t notice when the light started to fade as dark clouds moved unexpectedly across the sky. Although only mid-afternoon, the park started to empty.

Leo, attuned to the harbour’s ever-changing moods, noticed with a start that the boats were bobbing up and down furiously in the marina. The boats further out on the harbour were lit by the sun, their white sails glowing eerily against the contrasting grey light that was encompassing the park. As the first raindrops landed, heavy and pendulous, the last of the people in the park bolted in all directions.
It was sudden and surprising. Leo leapt to his feet. Nina was a second behind him. She looked about her at the deserted park, then with astonishment at Leo who was climbing the tree.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

Leo shimmied up the trunk to the first branch, just above her head, and grinned down at her. ‘Come on up,’ he said.

He leaned down offering his hand. Nina hesitated. There must be a thousand reasons why this was not a good idea, but right then she couldn’t think of one. Feeling reckless and a bit giddy, she kicked off her sandals and took Leo’s hand. Using her other hand for balance, she allowed Leo to take most of her weight and walked her bare feet up the trunk. She was amazed at how strong he was.

The first branch was almost two metres off the ground and once there she could lift herself up to the next branch and then make her way to the fork in the centre. Half-a-dozen branches shot off in all directions, creating a large natural cradle that was covered in leaves and soft moss. Nina felt perfectly safe with her bottom nestled into the cushioned surface and her legs dangling over the edge. Two massive branches, each twenty metres long, ran in opposite directions, parallel to the ground. Leo moved part way along one of these, testing with his weight how far out he could go.

Above them a thick canopy of leaves blocked most of the rain. The occasional droplet found its way through, bouncing off leaves at different angles, getting smaller and smaller until it was just
spray that struck their warm bare skin. Around them the rain increased its power, hitting patches where the grass had worn away, sending little sods of soil flying.

While the sun shower rained over the park and bay, further away the sky was still vivid blue and the sun shining. A rainbow appeared above the Cruising Yacht Club. Nina pointed it out to Leo but he had trouble seeing it from where he was sitting. He sidled back along the branch towards her. She made room for him in the comfortable moss-covered cradle. The rainbow was a beautiful sight. Perfect streaks of transparent colour, delicately arched and disappearing behind the apartment blocks on the hill.

They sat perched together, legs hanging over the edge, admiring its flawless beauty. The patter of the rain muffled the noise from the streets around. The park grounds were deserted and awash. Warm and sultry air sat densely around them. Nina was aware of Leo’s physical proximity. She felt the heat in every part of her body that was touching his. Both were covered in a sheen of perspiration. Where the bare skin of their thighs rested against each other lightly, they were wet with sweat.

Nina was aware of a delicious throbbing starting deep in her body. She instinctively tightened her thighs together. It created a space between their skin and cooler air wafted past. Leo moved his leg over, to reclaim the space. Nina was instantly and powerfully aroused. It hit her like a bolt of energy. She turned to face him.

Leo leaned forward and with agonising slowness took her lower lip between his teeth. He licked at it with his tongue, then ever-so-gently nibbled it.

Nina closed her eyes and groaned. She wanted him. It was the only emotion she was aware of. It filled her entire body, obliterating everything else from her mind. Her right hand crept around his neck and grasped his warm, sweaty nape, pulling his head into her, his mouth against hers.

Leo returned her passion, probing her mouth with his tongue. Nina leaned against the trunk, feeling it solid and hard behind her back, holding her securely in place. She gave herself over to the sensations that engulfed her. Leo kissed her slowly and deeply. His mouth tasted of fresh coffee, hot and sweet. He licked the rain from her chin, letting his tongue trail down her neck, across her collarbone to the swell of her breasts.

He undid the top button of her shirt and then another, exposing her breasts to the gently falling rain. It was as if every muscle, every cell had melted into warm, liquid honey. As Leo’s tongue made contact with her nipple she felt it as an electric charge that shot along the nerves throughout her body. She squirmed and moaned with delight.

Nina had little space to move about. She wanted to be underneath Leo, to feel his weight upon her, to pull him inside her. It was an unbearable ache. The different sensations of pleasure rolled over her, each one stronger in its intensity, building the tension in her body. She was half-mad
with lust. Take me, her mind screamed. Leo rolled his tongue slowly and languidly around her nipple, moving his head with agonising slowness down her body, licking and nibbling as he went. With one hand on each branch, and her back hard against the trunk, Nina braced herself as Leo pulled down her shorts.