How Do I Love Thee? Page 22

  Twice a week she worked at a local charity shop, enjoying the company of the other volunteers, mostly retired but some younger, like the tattooed Samoan who helped out until someone offered him a long-awaited job, and who had flirted with all the elderly ladies in the shop, even including Violet, making her laugh. And she was fascinated by the ever-changing clientele—from young mothers looking to clothe the wide-eyed babies who watched from their strollers, to quite affluent bargain-hunters snapping up old china and glassware, and the homeless man who was sometimes asleep in the doorway when she opened up the shop, yet was always spotlessly clean and pressed-looking as he greeted her with a polite little bow.

  A few of the children she had babysat in the past visited occasionally, bringing their own children, and that touched her. She kept a box of toys and games to amuse the younger ones while she talked with the older ones and their parents, who had grown into interesting adults.

  The day after her seventy-fourth birthday she backed out of a parking space, forgetting to check behind her, and crashed into a passing vehicle. Her heart almost burst through the wall of her chest at the horrendous impact. The other driver, a young woman with children strapped in the back seat, was gracious and even sympathetic, but after sorting out the insurance claim Violet turned in her driving licence and sold the car.

  Once a week she walked to the nearest suburban shops and carried home two bags of groceries. Returning home one day she tripped on a brick that had worked loose from her pathway, and broke her hip.

  In hospital a social worker pointed out that if it had happened inside the house she might have lain alone for days or at least hours, instead of being found by a neighbour checking his letterbox minutes afterwards. She bought a walking-stick and at home began to wear a gadget on a cord about her neck with a button to press in case of an emergency.

  Two burglaries were perpetrated in her street, and shortly afterwards the papers and TV reported a ninety-year-old woman had been raped and beaten in her own home. Violet’s remaining friends expressed concern at her living alone; one sent her husband round to install extra locks on the doors.

  One night Violet heard a noise at her bedroom window, open a few inches, and when she switched on the light there was a male hand on the sill.

  By the time she’d struggled out of bed with the intention of slamming the window on the hand, it was gone. After the police who answered her anxious call had left, she locked the window despite a hot, muggy night and slept as best she could with the light on.

  The sale of her house, plus the savings of a frugal lifetime, enabled her to move into an unexceptionable retirement home. Having seen her father demeaned and bullied towards the end of his life, Violet chose carefully, making as sure as she could that the place had a good reputation and was well run. She insisted the staff didn’t address her by her Christian name unless invited, and lodged a formal complaint when one of the caregivers made faces behind a resident’s back.

  She volunteered to reorganise the home’s library. Among several residents who pitched in to help was a silver-haired retired judge whose height and soldierly carriage allowed Violet easily to look him in the eye. He was well-read and liked to discuss books and ideas.

  The judge asked Violet if she’d like to join a card circle. ‘Trouble with these places,’ he said, ‘is there’s always someone popping off. We’ve lost one, need a fourth.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ Violet confessed. The only card game she’d played was Snap at a friend’s place when she was a little girl.

  ‘I could teach you,’ the judge offered.

  Why shouldn’t she learn a new skill? It was supposed to be good for aging brains. She dreaded becoming one of the poor confused souls in the home’s dementia wing, with their empty eyes and aimless, fluttering hands.

  The judge seemed to enjoy teaching her, and praised her quickness at learning. During the first real game she made several mistakes, but no-one shouted or sulked, and after that she looked forward to Friday nights and their regular game.

  She and the judge exchanged books they had enjoyed. At first Violet didn’t like to disagree with his often trenchantly expressed opinions, but when he was particularly scathing about one of her favourites she mounted a spirited defence that brought a sparkle to his eyes. She realised he relished a good argument.

  Arguing had never been her style, but the judge didn’t lose his temper and start hectoring. He listened intently to her, and when she paused proceeded quite calmly to demolish any inconsistency or weakness in her case. Violet could almost feel her brain being sharpened. She had never met anyone like him.

  One of the staff said laughingly they should form a debating team, and an idea was born. The judge and Violet headed the teams, with two other residents and one of the staff on each. The event was advertised to the residents and their families, the chaplain who visited each week roped in to arbitrate.

  The residents’ lounge was packed on the night of the debate, and Violet was taking deep calming breaths when the judge squeezed her shoulder and said, ‘You’ll be fine. Remember, this is strictly fun.’

  Fun? Violet thought. It was the judge’s fault. He’d been so keen he’d swept her and everyone along with his enthusiasm. It was all very well for someone with his years in court deciding other people’s fate. He might love the limelight but she wanted to leave right now.

  The chaplain took his place and motioned them forward. Violet straightened her shoulders and stepped onto the makeshift stage.

  She heard herself speak as if she were a ventriloquist’s doll, heard the audience laugh and clap, and hoped she wasn’t making too great a fool of herself. Then she just ploughed ahead until it was all over.

  The chaplain took her hand and proclaimed her team the winner. Bemused, she accepted handshakes from her team-mates, even a couple of hugs, and wondered how the judge was taking the defeat.

  He crossed the floor and hugged her too. ‘Congratulations. You were a worthy opponent.’ Then he kissed her—not on the cheek but briefly, warmly and firmly on the lips.

  A moment later he’d released her to speak to the chaplain, and she stood stunned.

  At my age, she told herself, this is ridiculous.

  She wouldn’t even think the words, falling in love.

  After breakfast next morning the judge came to her table and asked, ‘Are you too tired after your efforts last night to take a turn around the garden with me?’

  Violet felt herself foolishly flush and hoped he wouldn’t notice. It was unbecoming and inappropriate. ‘I’ll get a jacket,’ she said. The morning was cool and she needed time to collect herself. She grabbed for her stick and it thudded to the floor. The judge began to stoop for it but a passing staff member picked it up and handed it to Violet.

  In her room she put a jacket on and checked herself in the mirror. Her skin was lined and papery; and no-one had told her people lose their lashes with age, one of many cruelties inflicted by merciless nature. Fleetingly she wished for make-up, but remembered the several women here with powder sitting in their wrinkles and garish lipstick bleeding from shrunken lips.

  He was waiting for her at the door. They walked for a short while along a path winding between flowerbeds before it circled back to the wooden park seat under a big old oak. They sat there silently for a while, watching withered leaves float to the ground. Autumn was on its way.

  The judge said, ‘I hope you won’t think I’m a silly old duffer.’

  Violet turned to him. ‘You’re never silly. And we’re both old.’ She might be older than he was. He too had a walking-stick, a handsome one with a brass handle, but seldom used it.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I should be on my knees, but they’re a bit arthritic now. I was wondering, actually, if you would marry me?’

  The tree above Violet spun a full circle. ‘What?’ she asked faintly, a hand going to her heart, quite like a Victorian maiden. Hastily she lowered it, and the judge caught it in his two warm ones.


  ‘Is it too much to hope for, my lovely, elegant lady?’

  Lovely? Elegant? So very many years since she’d heard that word applied to her. Violet blinked. ‘Me?’ And then, ‘Your wife …’ The judge was a widower.

  She’d never seen him embarrassed before. ‘For many years I missed her very much, and I treasure her memory. Until I met you, I thought I would never feel the same about another woman.’

  Violet blinked again.

  He cleared his throat, looking down at their linked hands. ‘If you feel you can’t love me—’

  ‘I do.’ She said it before she had time to think. Caution raised a jeering head. ‘But I don’t know … Marriage. I mean, at my age. Would you want—do you mean—?’ She stuttered into silence.

  He smiled gently. ‘I won’t insist on anything that makes you uncomfortable. At my time of life anything more than companionship is a gift.’

  Violet sits under the bare tree as night threatens. She is cold now but remembers the warmth of the judge’s fingers curled about hers. She remembers the chaplain joining their hands and pronouncing them man and wife.

  Throughout her life, Violet feels, she has been blessed. She has never suffered poverty or hunger, and had seldom been ill before her fall. Apart from normal schoolyard teasing she’d had a serene childhood, the single focus of her parents’ love and care. Of course she had grieved at their deaths, but that was in the nature of things. She’d had the affection and support of good friends, some dating back to school days—fewer now—and some newer but equally valued, easing the inevitable loss of older ones. Her job had given her great satisfaction and some confidence in herself, and although it had cost her a pang or two to leave, retirement had led to fresh interests that invigorated her. Living alone had not been a deprivation. She’d wondered how she would cope with the retirement home’s communal environment. But when it become too much, she was able to retreat to her own quiet room and shut out all others.

  She had never, she realises, wanted to shut out the judge. From the start he’d been stimulating, but never intrusive. And then … he’d found her lovely and asked her to be his wife, to enter with him a whole new country of light and laughter and intimate conversations. Encountering the love of a wonderful man so late in life was an unexpected, precious joy, for which she would be grateful all her remaining days.

  A staff member hurries across the grass. ‘Mrs Chatterton, you’ll get cold sitting out here!’ The girl is young and lissome. She passes Violet the walking-stick leaning against the seat and takes her other arm to guide her to the building. Her head comes to Violet’s eye level. Girls are taller now. ‘We wondered where you’d got to,’ she scolds. ‘The funeral was lovely, wasn’t it? Try not to be sad.’

  Violet smiles. ‘The judge had a good life, and he never wanted to linger after he got sick.’

  ‘He was lucky he had you,’ the girl says.

  Violet had sat at his bedside hour after hour. On the last day he opened his eyes and smiled tiredly at her. ‘I hoped we’d have more time,’ he said. Violet was crying and he lifted a hand but was too weak to wipe the tears away. ‘So short … I’m sorry.’

  For two years he’d been her friend, her husband, and he’d patiently taught her to be his lover. ‘Don’t,’ she said, smiling at him, recalling what someone had said to her long ago. ‘Don’t be sorry, my love.’ Endearments didn’t come easily to her and she had never called him that before. But now it slipped out as naturally as a breath. ‘Never apologise for a gift.’

  INTO THE LIGHT

  AJ MACPHERSON

  ‘I love thee … with my childhood’s faith’

  I bit into chocolate and chewed slowly, immersed in the magazine spread out on the counter in front of me. The lurid headlines tickled me: I Was Taken by Aliens—Elvis is a Vampire—I Was Married to a Werewolf. Total rubbish, but it was good for a laugh. As if anyone ever married a werewolf.

  At two-thirty in the morning on a windy autumn night, customers were infrequent, and the magazine a guilty pleasure. It was different on a warm summer night when a trickle of people leaving the Canberra clubs would stop in for cigarettes and soft drinks, the occasional drunken maggot trying to pretend he was sober as he paid for the fuel he’d just pumped into his car.

  Reminded, I peered out through the big window at the front of the shop. The driveway was deserted, the pumps standing like sentinels, boxy and isolated in the glare of the lights.

  I took another chomp out of the chocolate bar and turned the page. I really shouldn’t be wasting time like this. I had shelves to stack. But I had all night to do them, and nothing much to break the monotony but my snack and my trashy magazine. Better not drop any chocolate on the pages though. The boss wouldn’t like that.

  I really shouldn’t be eating chocolate either. But, of course, that didn’t stop me. So sweet.

  ‘You’ll spoil your supper, Sylvie,’ Dan said, behind me.

  ‘You know I won’t.’ Turning, I tilted my head so I could see him clearly over the rims of my glasses. I have twenty-twenty vision, but the fluorescent lighting in the shop hurts my eyes.

  He’s worth looking at, my love. Dan is big—all broad shoulders and husky thighs, work-scarred hands that look like they belong to a farmer. They’re beautiful hands, strong and capable, possessed of an almost uncanny intelligence when it comes to exploring the depths of an engine or mapping the erogenous zones of my body. The ticklish underside of my breasts. The sweep of skin leading from my collarbone to just behind my ear. The inside of my elbows.

  I love my lover’s hands.

  Dan is a mechanic by trade, perhaps an inevitable evolution to where he is now: owner of an independent petrol station that’s slowly sinking a little deeper with each raid in the fuel-discounting war.

  Such a paradox, my love. In some ways he looks exactly what he is, a man who’s made his living through the strength of his back, the sweat of his brow, but in other ways his looks can deceive. He’s frequently mistaken for a strapping, handsome, very famous Australian actor. Sometimes it’s a male model. He still blushes when girls ask him if he was on those billboards for men’s underwear.

  He wasn’t but he could have been.

  He lifted one of those knowing hands and brushed the back of his knuckles over my cheek. I shivered, and turned my face into the warmth of his touch.

  He bent down and I tipped my head back, offering my lips for his kiss, a spark igniting in my belly as his mouth moved on mine, tongue slipping sweetly within.

  ‘Sexual harassment,’ I muttered, when I could speak.

  Dan laughed and nuzzled the sensitive spot behind my ear. Biting my lip, I gripped his shoulder.

  ‘Fraternising with the boss,’ he countered, and applied himself to investigating my neck and shoulder with teeth and tongue, until I started thinking there was something much better to do to pass the time than read tabloids. Better even than chocolate.

  I sank my fingers into the hair curling over the collar of his neatly ironed chambray work shirt, scratching my nails lightly against the back of his neck.

  It was his turn to shudder.

  He claimed my mouth again and I strained to meet him, body canted awkwardly in my chair, nerves clamouring in a swelling chorus as he moaned against my lips, slipped hot fingers beneath my shirt to trace the curve of my breast.

  I sensed it when he came back to himself, the returning awareness of where we were. Foreplay beneath the fluorescents.

  ‘We could close early,’ I suggested.

  The arctic blue of his eyes deepened to indigo, and once again I pressed my teeth against my lower lip, my arousal intensified at this further evidence of his desire. His gaze dropped to my mouth and a heady triumph threaded through the lust coursing beneath my skin.

  Then he blinked, and I stifled a groan. I could practically hear the clatter of keys as the mental calculator beneath that shock of tawny hair kicked into action. We couldn’t afford to close early, and it wasn’t as simple as locking the d
oor while we ducked out to the storeroom to sate the hunger surging between us. The pumps would have to be shut down, and that was no simple flick of a switch.

  ‘Never mind, darling,’ I said, ignoring the pulse fluttering deep within. I pushed my glasses up my nose and shook my hair back. Resolutely, I turned back to face the front of the counter and the pumps, and picked up my abandoned chocolate bar. He hesitated, feet shuffling. I could feel the indecision rising off him, like a mist leaking from his pores.

  I tilted my neck and cast him a look laden with promise. ‘We could hurry home, later.’

  ‘Oh, I love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’ I peeled the wrapper back from the chocolate.

  ‘Don’t get any on the pages,’ he said, as he had a hundred times before. I never had.

  ‘I won’t.’ His hand lightly brushed the length of my hair and another shiver prickled my skin. Swivelling in my chair, I drank in the sight of his broad back, the luscious curves of his hamstrings, watching him until he disappeared into the storeroom to finish taking inventory.

  Turning back to the magazine, I gazed blankly down at the page, aware of how little time we’d actually have to finish what we started before sleep overtook us. Dan usually closed down the pumps around four-ish, once the last of the three-am shift workers had been through.

  Well, I still had my chocolate fix. I found an article that looked like it might be interesting and settled in. I didn’t think Dan would mind if I skipped packing the shelves tonight—shacking up with the boss was not without its perks.

  An indeterminate time later the buzzer went off as the front door opened, and I reluctantly looked up from the page. Stretching the reading crick out of my neck, I tilted my head, blinking over the top of my glasses.

  An unkempt young man slouched past the shelves of dog food and toilet paper, moving towards the drink fridges at the back.

  With just that single, quick glance at him, I felt the fine hairs on the back of my neck and my forearms lift away from my skin. An instinct gained from years of experience on the graveyard shift alerted me. There was something off about this one.