‘Christ,’ I said. ‘Is that how you see me?’
I held out my left hand and helped her up from the grass.
‘That’s the exterior impression,’ she said. ‘I’d have to sit you down in a good light and take some time to get the inner Hardy.’
‘God forbid. I can see you’ve got the skills, though. If I put that on my office wall, I could up my fees.’
She laughed and dropped her charcoal stick into a pocket of her skirt. We walked towards the fountain; she carried the sketch pad and a paperback book. I reached for her free hand and she let me take it. I’d forgotten the bandage and winced when her hand went round it. She let go quickly. ‘What’s this?’
‘Tell you later. Would you like to go for a drink or something?’
She stopped and I stopped. Her book hit the cement path. We were kissing before either of us knew what was happening. It seemed like years instead of months since I’d had a woman that close to me, and I felt a surge of pent-up energy. We pressed close and hard, mouths and bodies; the camera pressed sharply and uncomfortably into my chest, but it didn’t matter.
She broke away and stepped back. ‘God,’ she said. ‘Can you come back to the studio now?’
‘Yes.’ I picked up the book. It was Robert Hughes’ The Fatal Shore. I carried it in my wounded hand as we hurried through the park. My good left hand gripped her right. She took a key from her skirt and opened the door. We ran up the stairs and we were both breathless by the time we stood by the bed. The breeze through the open windows was moving the curtains and the turned- back covers.
She unbuttoned her shirt and I touched her small, firm breasts. She undid my belt.
‘You’re doing all the work,’ I said.
‘Shut up,’ she hissed. ‘Kiss them!’
I bent and kissed her nipples, which became hard. Her skirt had an elastic top; I pulled it down and put my hand inside her pants.
‘Everything off,’ she said. ‘Everything!’
We stripped and began a slow exploration of each other’s bodies, holding back and delaying until the first of the strangeness of it was over and the excitement caused us to hurry. I had forgotten how strong a woman could be, how firmly arms and legs could grip and how solid a body could be when you drove into it, urgently and full of need.
When we finished the bed was a mess, with the sheet and blanket on the floor and two of the pillows under Felicia’s hips. We moved apart and I shoved the pillows into place under our heads, hooked the sheet up over us and held her in my arms. She moved easily and loosely with me, as if we’d been doing this for years.
‘Oh, that was good!’ She wriggled her head free and looked at me. ‘I could draw you better now.’
‘Some parts, anyway.’
She snuggled back. ‘If you’re married or living with someone don’t tell me yet.’
At this point, in the past, I’d had to lie or fudge it. Not now. ‘I’m not. I was divorced more than ten years ago, and I haven’t lived with anyone for… about a year.’
‘Over it, are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever had a lover die on you?’
‘No.’
‘It’s different from an affair ending. Worse in some ways, of course, but different.’
‘Are you saying you feel unfaithful?’
‘A bit like that, but not really. It’s all right. I’m glad you knew Barnes. I’m bound to talk about him.’
‘Bound to. So am I.’
She moved away and sat up with the sheet pulled up around her shoulders. ‘It’s bizarre, isn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t have to be. Not if we don’t let it.’
‘Not just a quick fuck for you, then?’
I reached up and pulled her down gently. ‘No. Nothing like that, Fel.’
‘Good. Let me up. I’m going to make coffee.’ She found her striped shirt on the floor and put it on; she gathered up two empty coffee mugs, both from the same side of the bed, and went out. It wasn’t a bad room to be post-coital in- low bed, polished floor, clothes in those white wire Swedish drawers and some framed drawings on the walls. There were no male clothes or items around. Paperbacks lay around the bed in piles- mysteries, poetry, travel-but books are gender-neutral.
Felicia came back with the coffee and we sat on the bed and drank it and didn’t say anything. I looked at the drawings-nude studies, front and back, male and female.
She saw me looking. ‘Barnes,’ she said.
I nodded.
‘I cleaned all his clothes out, shoes and that.’ She wept then, long and hard, with her body-shaking and the grief buffeting her, until she was drained and quiet. I sat close to her on the bed, sharing the space but not touching her while she went through it. At last she pulled up a bit of the pale yellow sheet and wiped her eyes. A lot of black stuff came off on the sheet, and I realised that eyeliner was the only make-up she wore.
‘OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m…’
‘Don’t say sorry. It’s all right. You’ll miss him and things about him for years, probably. I still miss Cyn, sometimes.’
‘Cyn?’
‘My wife. Someone else’s wife for ten years or more, but still…’
I put my arm around her shoulders and she relaxed against me. ‘And who was it a year ago?’
‘Helen.’
‘D’you miss them all, Cliff?’
‘There aren’t many.’ I pointed to the bean bag and the cane chair and the wicker chair on the balcony. I patted the bed. ‘We wouldn’t need many more seats than this for my roll call. A few, but…’
She laughed. ‘I know what you mean. They’re always with you if you let them, but they don’t have to be.’
‘Right.’
She took my right hand. ‘You haven’t told me about this.’
I told her what had happened in Coogee. She got off the bed and straightened one of the pictures on the wall. ‘What do they want, for Christ’s sake?’
I shrugged. ‘Barnes’ paintings? Documents?’
‘I don’t know anything about any documents. The paintings and photographs’re with a friend in Bulli. I’ve been thinking about them. I’m going to go down and get them. I’ll offer them to Piers Lang for an exhibition.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Leon Willowsmith’s arch-enemy.’
‘Sounds good to me. I’m waiting for everything-for O’Fear’s release, for Anna Carboni, for Michael Hickie to fill me in on some business matters. I want to talk to the Bulli cops and some witnesses. Can I come with you to the coast?’
‘Is it just business?’
‘No.’ I put my hands on her smooth shoulders and she came back onto the bed, and we did some of the same things and some new things, and it was even better the second time.
13
We ate and drank whatever was in the fridge. Felicia touched up her drawings and developed some of her pictures in a darkroom that was part of the flat’s second bedroom. I dipped into Robert Hughes and wondered whether I was related to the old lag Henry Hale, who arrived on the Third Fleet and endured the hell of Toongabbie. My maternal grandfather had been a Hale. I praised the photographs, which seemed to capture every detail of the park and add something to them. Perhaps Felicia’s grief. But we spent most of the time together in bed.
At nine o’clock the next morning we were on the road to the south coast. I was wearing the clothes I’d worn the day before; but I keep a towel and swimming trunks, a sweater, shorts, thongs and sneakers and a jacket in the car, so I wasn’t ill-equipped for the trip. I had my Autobank card and my answering machine was switched on. I had the device to monitor it sitting in the glove box of the Falcon, about ten centimetres from the Smith amp; Wesson. 38. I had a woman who made me laugh and felt like a friend and a lover and a sparring partner. What the hell else did I need?
It was a grey but not threatening day. I’d done work in Wollongong and Port Kembla and some of the farther-flung south coast towns before, but some years back. I thought I was familiar with the route, but Felicia had to jog my memory at a couple of the turns and bypasses.