His hands are fitted around her face, heart-shaped; the soft pink hands of a real estate agent. He’s smiling with her, his sandy eyes sarcastic but warm, and she grins back, squeezes the wiry muscles in his hairy arms, presses her cheek against his salty chest, ignores his breath. Under the live oak they’re alone, hidden; she feels salacious, indecent. Guilty. The tree’s canopy is a chestnut wall around them, its branches thick and bending so far its leaves sweep the earth. No one can see through the foliage — they’re hidden — the space the tree has created is like a secret playground or hideaway — something she yearned for as a child. For her whole life, in fact. Both nude, a camouflage of type under this fleshy tree, their limbs wrapped around each other’s until sweat causes them to part. The moth-eaten blanket underneath is scratchy, but protects them from twigs and ants and god knows what else. Afterwards she languidly watches a spider darn a web in the branch above her.
Clive tenses when he notices the spider. ‘Scaredy cat,’ she whispers, and laughs. There are park visitors not far away, a hundred metres, pushing children on swings, stretching and lifting weights, feeding swans. Kookaburras chuckle loudly. He runs his tongue along her neck, she kisses his dry eyes: they taste of dust, office chairs. The soily carpet around them is rich and tangy with the odour of foxes. As he flicks at a slow-buzzing wasp, a violin begins to play; someone is practising in the park. The dulcet timbre slides like water between the fronds, sweeping around and drowning them in their sanctum. A miserere to Adam and Eve, she thinks, and again rebuffs thoughts of Bonnie. Honeyed sunlight glitters through a gap in the canopy onto her face.
The best shag in years, she has to admit.
This morning she’d been patient with her mother, had waited for Eleanor to shower and then parked her in front of the television. Clive, seated at an outside table at the park’s cafe, had quickly finished a call on his mobile and kissed her hello on the cheek. Ash stressed to him that she only had an hour or so: her mother needed her. But in the mellow sunlight the apple muffins and cappuccinos had led to glasses of prosecco, he’d again made her laugh with ribald tales of office sex and dalliances in city lanes. She realised she was flirting, that she’d been flirting in her text replies and at the Woollahra cafe, that she’d always flirted with him. She asked him about Bonnie, and he promised he’d get his wife to organise a dinner at their home so Ash could meet their kids.
Then he leaned forward and placed his hand on her thigh and she smirked then stared at him curiously but he squashed his hand into her lap and she searched around nervously but no one was looking. And she realised she was wet, and that she needed sex badly, and could see the lump in his trousers. She went to speak but he put his finger to his lips, threw cash on the bill on the table, and took her arm.
He led her to this tree and prodded her gently through its thickset greenery and presented its hundred-year-old stronghold, its fruity privacy, its sensuousness. They’d looked closely at each other for a time, made jokes about the tree’s swollen above-ground roots, then lay between the jutting swells of bark. She wouldn’t remove her shirt, but after gently unbuttoning it he held her collar and prised it from her shoulders. Crossing her arms around her chest her eyes had swelled; she closed them to avoid the inevitable dissatisfaction on his face. ‘Look at me,’ he said, and she reluctantly lifted her face to his. He trailed his fingers around the birthmark’s edge, then leaned and kissed it, his lips moving from her collar bone to her ribs. ‘You know it’s never bothered me.’ She didn’t know this, she’d always hidden it, always worn t-shirts even when swimming with her friends. Didn’t even know he was aware of it. ‘This must be Sweden,’ he said as his tongue licked her neck, ‘And voila! Bonjour Paris,’ as he reached her breast. ‘Your birthmark’s a perfect map of Europe.’ At first she’d shuffled, uncomfortable, but his mouth moved over the stain and back again, and then downwards. He reached her thighs and she came quickly; he rolled up and entered her. She giggled at his loud grunts, whispered at him to shush.
She’s still slightly shocked that she gave in so easily, was so willing, in such a concealed but public place, with such an ugly birthmark with the husband of her supposed best friend. Uncertain if it was his grin, his dark, derogatory humour, his move on her, his indifference; or if it was simply the nearness of other people, the middle of the day, the scandal of sex in a family park. She still won’t think of Bonnie.
But this peace in her heart is unexpected; the polarity between her desire for London and the tranquility she’s experiencing here, in Sydney, too extreme. She rubs her cheek against his chest, breathes in his smoky perspiration.
Eventually they dress, cover the scuffed earth with sprigs and toss the used reeking tissues in a bin. Clive lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. She turns for a last survey of the tree, is still astonished at how hidden its inner circle is. Its extraordinary limbs; its fleecy green branches, its above ground tubers, like the spines of half-buried dinosaurs.
‘How’s that for a root?’ he quips. She’s puzzled for a moment, then he makes a penis shape with his fist and thrusts it from his loins.
She barks a laugh. ‘You’re disgusting.’
Early afternoon is still, almost stagnant; she texts Eleanor, promises she’ll be back in an hour. They order lunch in the cafe, and she ruefully recounts a few days spent in Marrakesh, the lure of the kebabs and macaques and snake charmers in Djemma el-Fnaa, the pinkness of its mosques and temples. She can’t stop talking, moves on to a weekend in the Pyrenees, watching the pilgrims hike to Santiago de Compostela, the stone shells on their necklaces bumping against their chests. He smiles and shakes his head, fiddles with his fork in the salad on his plate.
‘I can’t believe you miss Europe that much,’ he says.
‘You’ve been there enough. Don’t you miss it?’
He shakes his head firmly. She thinks about holding his skull again, running her fingers through his thin rusty hair.
‘Nah,’ he says. ‘Not really my type of place. Too cold. And look around you. This place is safe compared to most of the world.’
For most people it probably is, she tells him. But safety isn’t all that makes life liveable.
Lightly they argue for a few minutes; he won’t be persuaded. She tries not to think about Eleanor and her epilepsy and her noose, about Bonnie, tries to remain content.
‘Aren’t your parents from Croatia?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, but I was born here.’
‘I loved Croatia. Have you been there?’
‘Yeah, once, but that was enough. I prefer Bali or Thailand for holidays. Better weather, cheaper beer.’ He shuffles in his seat and fiddles with the bowl of sugar packets, as if concentrating. ‘There’s a lot going on there. I’m thinking of buying some property — get in on the huge development happening. There’s an area in Cambodia where I could invest, I’ve been doing the research and it could make me a pretty penny. Mate, I could finally be rich.’ He leans back and uses a sugar packet to pick at his teeth. ‘Or richer, anyway.’
‘You’re well off. You and Bonnie.’
He frowns. ‘What’s that line? You can never be too thin or too rich. I’ve got my fingers in a few pies here, but it’s time to go offshore. As for Bonnie…Well. Times aren’t like they used to be. Know what I mean?’
She nods, even though she has no idea what he’s talking about. She wishes she never mentioned Bonnie.
‘Look,’ he says. He spreads his hands, shakes his head. ‘Bonnie and me…It’s been a long time, you know? We’re both a bit bored…She doesn’t mind what I do. But we stick together for the kids. Once they’ve left home or gone to uni…who knows. We’ll decide then. I do love her though…Sometimes I really think I couldn’t live without her. I guess it’s because she’s been my best mate for years. And we always made a great team.’ He chuckles. ‘Bonnie and Clive. Seems a shame to give up such a great pun. Ah well.’
Ash finishes her rosé, looks at her phone. No texts from Eleanor, but she begins to rise, retrieves her wallet from her handbag.
‘Hey, put that away,’ he says. ‘Today’s my shout.’
As they leave the restaurant he pulls his keys from his pocket and wiggles them at her.
‘I got a new car,’ he says, and holds the key chain high. It glints dully in the sun.
‘A Porsche,’ she says. ‘Fancy. But it’s time I head off now. Mother’s awaiting.’
‘One thing,’ he says as she kisses his cheek goodbye. ‘You know, I meant it that I could help your mum sell the place. A classic house in the eastern suburbs? She could get a fortune for it. A few million, even if it needs renos. Ten million maybe. It’s really worth her while. And yours. Why don’t you talk to her about it? At least you know I wouldn’t be trying to rip you off.’
‘Yeah sure,’ she laughs. ‘Clive, I’ve got as much chance of her selling the house as I have of returning to Britain. But if she changes her mind, you’ll be the first to know.’ She makes a gun of her fingers, fires at him.
‘Ah, you got me,’ he says, and salutes her.
