the stunning young woman standing protectively beside Suzanne like some exotic long-legged water-bird.
Christine. His only love! Hell, weren’t they great days, when love had surged sweet and absolutely irresistible? So irresistible it sometimes seemed to him his emotional life hadn’t taken one single step forward. As for Chris? Her life had gone ahead in great leaps and bounds. It was a long hike from awkward adolescent, head ducking, shoulders slouching in an effort to hide her height, to fêted international model who regularly bagged the cover of well-known international magazines.
The moment he’d laid eyes on her that morning she’d been walking with immense style down Wunnamurra’s grand divided staircase. That catwalk training had been devastatingly successful, he’d noted cynically.
God, what a knockout! He, despite everything, felt pierced again by love’s maddening arrows. The poor schmuck who stared up at her as if she was a goddess favouring earth with a visit. Who could take that much heart-stopping beauty? He’d only stared, feeling his tormented heart banging away so loudly he’d thought it might leap from his chest. Such weakness dishonoured him. From that moment on his pride had made it easier…
“Mitch, how wonderful to see you again!” Her stunning, high-cheekboned face turned on the now famous smile. “It’s so good of you and the family to come.”
Some moments spin out forever. Memories invaded his mind, one scene opening out after the other. Always he and Chris together—riding, swimming, skinny-dipping in the creeks across Marjimba, exploring the Hill Country, exploring each other’s excitable young bodies. God knows how he’d found the gumption to move, but he had.
“Hey, we’re family, aren’t we, Chrissy?” He’d sauntered up to her, hadn’t attempted to hug her, or kiss her cheek. He’d settled for a sardonic handshake. She wouldn’t like the “Chrissy”, but he’d just wanted to let her know he’d never accept the usual baloney. “Wonderful to see you” rang ludicrously untrue after the way she’d treated him.
That had been twenty minutes before the trip to the family cemetery, where Ruth had been interred with the pomp she certainly didn’t deserve. Since then his emotions had threatened by the minute to get seriously out of hand. A big mistake. These days he was very much a man in control. He considered it a by-product of being dumped by the said Christine. He didn’t look for love any more. Love was a four-letter word. Now he settled for companionship. Sex. He was tempted, like the next man. And this way there would be no stress, no pain. Sometimes a lot of fun, but that was the end of it. Still, it was lousy when you couldn’t fall in love again.
Christine, his heart’s desire, was woven warp and woof into the fabric of his life, and it looked as if he’d have to wrestle with that one forever. She’d become so finely polished, like a diamond, he could hardly bear her brilliance. Neither could he look away. Enid’s “ugly duckling” had long since turned into a swan. He’d always known she would.
In her adolescence Enid and Ruth had hardly a kind word to say to Chris regarding her coltish, somewhat androgynous look, the insouciant “boy” in jodhpurs and shirts. Of course she’d cultivated the look deliberately, in retaliation, and quietly laughed about it as he kissed and caressed her beautiful, very feminine breasts.
Petite women, Enid and Ruth had privately and very publicly agonized over Chris’s height as though it were none of their fault. So Chris was six feet? Tall for a woman, certainly, but they had been so cruel!
Christine in those days had been like a creature of the wild trapped in a cage. And she had fled her unhappy home. Anyone who’d had anything to do with Enid and Ruth could understand that. Except she’d fled him when he’d thought they had never been more in love. Hell, he’d been five minutes away from marrying her.
She was nineteen, he just twenty-one, and stupid enough to think he was God’s gift to women. Girls had liked to tell him that. Hard to believe, but true. Not Christine. She’d called him many a nasty name, ranting and raging that she had to find herself before she could deal with him. Marriage. Kids. Had he ever considered, given their combined height—he was six-two—their children might finish up as basketball stars?
What was wrong with that? They’d fought terribly. He’d had every confidence he would win. He knew he’d acted as if he equated her pending defection to committing a serious crime. But it was the pain and the sense of loss that had enraged him. A grief so acute it had resulted in his saying a lot of things that should never have been said.
Hadn’t she promised when she turned fourteen that they were going to get married? He’d thought both of them had taken that promise very seriously. Neither of them had wanted anyone else. He realised how stupid all of that was—kids’ stuff—except his feelings had never changed. He hadn’t even learned to be truly unfaithful. The flesh was weak but the mind remained purely loyal.
Now Ruth McQueen’s death had brought Christine home. For how long? A couple of days? A week? Surely she could spare some time off? She loved her father and brother; she tried hard to love her difficult, distant mother; she seemed to have taken charge of Suzanne. She didn’t need the money—Christine had a very tidy trust fund—but she did need that sense of self her success had brought her.
Always beautiful to him, she had made big changes. Gone was the slouch, the dip of the head to make herself shorter. How often had he tried to encourage her out of that? She’d always looked great to him no matter what she wore. Easy, casual. Now her clothes were the epitome of cosmopolitan chic. Dressed head to toe in sombre black, she nonetheless resembled an elegant brolga among what was in the main a flock of dull magpie geese.
She had learned patience. She’d stood throughout the ceremony in a contemplative mood. It must have been easy enough to conjure up her never well-intentioned late grandmother of the acid tongue. She’d shown no sign of nervousness or the inattention which had warranted many admonitions in the old days. Occasionally she’d smiled. The smile, now famous, lit up her face, displaying her beautiful teeth. He still had her early toothpaste ad hidden away in a drawer. It was almost in tatters from the countless times he’d looked at it. Once he’d had an impulse to tear it up—ever after grateful he hadn’t.
Christine! What a class act.
A kind of rage fuelled him. He who loved this goddess risked losing his head. Just being in the same room with her after years of estrangement put him in a strange mood, where anger and the pain of rejection lay heavily on his heart. He was profoundly conscious time was passing. All his friends were either getting engaged or married. When the hell was he going to surrender? He had to know he wouldn’t want for prospective brides.
Christine hadn’t married either, though he hadn’t the slightest doubt her phone kept ringing off the hook. For years he’d secretly followed her career as revealed by the tabloids. Her name had been linked with several highly eligible bachelors on the international scene, including an up-and-coming American actor who apparently featured in some TV soap five afternoons a week.
Strangely enough, the actor wasn’t unlike him. His mother had pointed him out on a magazine cover. The same physical type—tall, blond hair, blue eyes. Was it possible it had struck Christine too in passing? Say, this guy looks a bit like Mitch. Remember Mitch? Your first lover. He would have fought for you. Slaved for you. Died for you. He would have sold the family farm for you. He would have done all of that. He really loved you.
In the end she had taken off. Defection. What she had left behind her was poor old Mitch Claydon with a broken heart.
Across the room his mother gave him a wave, indicating they were about to fly home. His expression, unconsciously taut, softened. He loved his mother. She was a good woman with a brightness about her. These days he did all the piloting. His dad preferred to go along as a passenger.
He and Christine had barely exchanged a word. He’d had more to say to her young cousin Suzanne, who had to be all of sixteen. In the old days he and Christine had thrown their arms around each other, kissing, hugging, even when they’d seen one another the night before. They hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. Then. Loving to spend all their free time together. They’d even