Chapter Twenty-five #2
There was nothing more I could do right now other than try to rest my anxious mind. Focus on my day off from study. I took a lungful of clean Tasmanian air and felt it settle into my lungs, finding little pockets of calm in my body.
‘Thanks for pulling over,’ I said, buckling my seatbelt as I got back into Abel’s car.
‘Everything okay?’
‘It’s fine. Just Mum stuff. I won’t bore you with the details.’
He reached for his phone and handed it to me.
‘Here. Choose some music then, DJ.’
Our first trip was to the Hartz Mountains for a day walk.
It was a perfect blue day, still and sunny enough to strip down to a singlet as we walked, even with snow still clumping in perfect, bright swathes either side of the track.
Abel looked even more spectacular when he was in the wilderness, as though this was his natural environment. More at ease here than anywhere else.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had been on a walk in nature for pleasure.
I was a runner, and often that led me onto bush trails, but being up in the mountains was different and I didn’t need any convincing to see the beauty.
Even with the residual anxiety following my conversation with Mum, I was captivated by the scenery.
The views were breathtaking, spreading all the way to the clear blue ocean in the distance. The vegetation was remarkable and uncanny. How could things grow here so intricately and beautifully against the odds of harsh winds and freezing temperatures?
‘Pretty nice, huh?’ Abel was at my shoulder as I stared out at the vast expanse before us.
‘Yeah,’ I breathed. ‘Amazing.’
It was a Thursday, unusually quiet, according to Abel, and we had the summit to ourselves.
He took off his bag and sat on a flat-topped rock.
I followed suit. There was no wind and a full-bodied silence seemed to fill the space.
I closed my eyes and took in the cold through my nose and blew it out my mouth.
The air felt the cleanest and freshest I had ever breathed.
My body was still hot from the climb and the coldness was a delight on my skin.
Abel’s shoulder was against mine, and I could feel the warmth radiating off him.
‘Are you sure you want to leave this?’ he asked after a while. ‘This is just the beginning. All Tasmania’s offerings will blow your mind.’
‘Only with the right tour guide. And you’ve got better things to do than show me all around.’
‘Do I?’
The sun beat on my face, as I let myself try on the idea for a moment – Tasmania. Yes, I could love this place. But the reality of my world quickly stamped out any more fanciful notions. More than ever, it was apparent how much I needed to get back home as soon as possible.
‘What about you?’ I said, trying to shift my mind from Mum and the impending Greg disaster. ‘Do you find it exhausting? Coming and going all the time?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Work. Your climbing trips. You’re hardly here.’
He paused before answering. ‘I guess I’m a bit restless.’
‘Did you always feel restless? Or is it just since Tessie?’
‘Yeah. Maybe more since Tessie. But maybe I’m just restless.’
‘What about relationships?’ I tried to make my voice sound even, mildly curious, rather than desperately intrigued as I really was. ‘You must have had girlfriends that lasted long enough to want to be around?’
‘I’ve had … relations.’
I snorted. ‘Meaning you have sex? Like Alannah?’
‘I told you. Nothing happened with Alannah.’
The mountain silence filled the space again.
Eventually he said, ‘I guess there’s not really been a relationship important enough for it to be a problem.’
‘You don’t want to have a partner? A family one day?’
‘Of course I do – in theory. If it felt right. But otherwise, I’ll keep doing my own thing.’
I nodded. ‘I get that.’
‘What about you?’ he asked, something challenging in his voice. ‘Do you want a partner? Or is everything just going to come second to your mum and your sister and your career?’
Oof. That hit me right in the gut. ‘Uh …’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘They’re my priority, Abel. Yeah.’ Greg flashed into my mind and my next words came out more vicious than I’d intended. ‘And I’ll be honest with you, I’m not particularly enamoured with the male species at the moment.’
‘Thanks,’ he said with a semi-amused grunt.
‘You don’t count.’ I gave his shoulder a little push with my own.
‘Not male enough?’
I snorted. ‘Plenty male. Way too male. You know what I mean. Felix … And … Well, let’s just say the men that have featured in my mother’s life haven’t left me with much confidence in honourable male life partners.’
‘And kids?’
‘I don’t know. Jesus.’ I’d literally just asked him the same thing, but now I was on the receiving end, I felt interrogated. ‘If I got to a point where I felt like I was sorted enough to parent someone, then maybe I’d consider it. But I feel fairly at capacity at the moment.’
‘Because of your mum and Ebony?’
‘Yeah. Because of Mum and Ebony.’ My tone was defensive. ‘I don’t resent that, Abel. It’s just the way things are for me.’
He didn’t say anything, only gazed out at the view, something hard in his jaw.
‘What?’ I knew he wanted to say something.
He turned to me and we stared at one another. I could see his brain working and his lips barely keeping in what he wanted to say.
‘Just say it, Abel.’
‘I know you’ve been through a lot, Mary. And I have no doubt you have made the lives of your mother and your sister a lot more stable. But I just think, maybe you need to let yourself live your own life too.’
‘Well,’ I said curtly. ‘It’s easy to say that, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Maybe it is.’ He paused but I could feel he wasn’t done.
‘But I think it’s also easy to let your life be guided by the needs of other people.
And not to look at what you want to do and be brave enough to actually make it happen.
They’re not mutually exclusive things, you know?
Their happiness and yours. They can coexist but not if you just let yourself carry on being the martyr, picking up the pieces and assuming your experience of men will always be the same as your mum’s.
I think you’re stronger than that, and I think pretending otherwise is— Well. I think it’s a cop-out.’
I gaped at him. I was shocked. Hurt. As if I’d just been kicked right in the chest. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Especially given the conversation I’d had with my mother forefront in my mind. We didn’t choose the shitshow of mental health my mum had, nor what that meant for our lives.
‘Well, fuck you, Abel.’
I stood up and pulled my bag onto my shoulder. I stalked away, knowing I was breaking all sorts of wilderness rules, but the path was easy to follow and I was confident I wouldn’t get lost.
I marched down the hillside back to the car on my own. Quietly fuming, stewing on his accusations. To his credit, Abel didn’t try to catch up with me, even though he could have in two minutes.
Despite feeling that what he’d said was totally out of line, I couldn’t help reflecting on it.
And when I tried to think back on the decisions I’d made in my life that hadn’t been based around what I thought would ultimately be best for Mum and Ebony, it was true there hadn’t been many.
Had that done anyone any good? Had it really helped Mum or Ebony or me? I didn’t know.
By the time I got back to the car, my feet had blisters; I could feel them, raw and open, on my heel.
I should have worn my normal running shoes rather than the walking boots I’d bought in preparation for Abel’s wilderness tours.
He’d even told me I didn’t need to worry about boots today, but I’d wanted to wear them in.
Wear them in and wear out my feet, it would seem.
Abel had left the key hidden in the wheel-hub ‘in case I fall off a cliff and you need to drive back to Hobart’. Though maybe he’d just known we were going to have an argument and I’d be storming back to the car without him.
I unlocked the car and pulled out the first aid box in the boot, hoping to find a band-aid or a dressing to put on my wounded heels.
The box was enormous and hugely comprehensive: an actually properly useful kit.
There were asthma puffers, green whistles for pain relief, aspirin and GTN for heart attacks, anaphylaxis kits for intramuscular adrenaline administration.
I was still sifting through the contents when Abel arrived back at the car, only minutes behind me.
‘What do you need?’ His voice was gentle.
‘Band-aid. I’ve got blisters,’ I grumbled.
‘Sure.’ He began looking.
‘It’s a good first aid kit.’
‘It would be embarrassing if I didn’t have a band-aid as a retrieval doctor.’
‘You’ve got menstrual pads in there?’
He shrugged. ‘I may be a bachelor, but I’ve been with women and I understand the physiology. Sometimes a pad is quite a helpful item.’
I grunted. Damn him, thoughtful pain in the arse.
‘Are these bubbles?’ I pulled out a blue plastic bottle.
‘Don’t Forget the Bubbles. Don’t you know anything about building rapport with a child?’
‘Lollies?’
‘You give a child a lolly and blow a bubble and you can literally perform any minor procedure you need.’
I chuckled.
He had found the band-aids, some standard ones, some big ones.
‘Superhero or princess?’ he asked.
I didn’t want to smile. But damn him. Damn, damn, damn him. ‘Superhero, obviously.’
He smiled. ‘Yeah. I thought so too.’
He made me sit in the boot of the car and then he took my shoes off, and my socks. It was such a caring act it made my chest literally ache.
‘Ouch,’ he murmured, brushing his thumb along the inside of my ankle and tenderly applying a Catwoman band-aid to my heel.
‘Thanks.’
He sat himself in the boot too, the first aid box between us. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Mary.’
‘I know.’
‘I just want to see you—’
‘Thrive.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know.’
‘But it’s not my business. You do you. You’re great.’
I huffed a laugh.
We were silent for a while, my eyes on the gravel of the parking lot. ‘Things are shitty, Abel. It’s always been shitty or heading towards shitty. So, yeah, it’s difficult for me to relax and stop worrying about Mum and Ebony. Maybe my life will always be governed by that to some extent.’
He nodded. ‘I get that. I think I just feel the unfairness of it, and I get frustrated on your behalf. I want you to live your life, be able to make your own decisions. Choose where you want to be. Who you want to be with. And find some trust in yourself and your choices.’
I looked up at him, his gentle, Abel eyes resting on mine. It was impossible to stay angry with him. He really was a rare man, even if men were the worst and I felt as though I’d never be ready for another one in my life. ‘Thanks for even caring.’
‘Of course I care.’
His eyes were so intense I had to look away. My gaze landed back on the first aid box. It was so typically Abel. Practical, thoughtful, funny, charming, and—
‘You have condoms in your first aid box?’
He smiled, not a bit self-consciously. ‘There is no emergency that doesn’t include sex.’
I laughed. ‘Really? I’ll be honest with you, Abel, that is an incredibly worrying statement from a retrieval doctor. No emergencies that don’t include sex, huh?’
‘Okay.’ He was blushing. ‘That didn’t come out quite right. There are plenty of emergencies that don’t include sex. I’ll rephrase that, shall I?’
‘Please.’ I was still laughing.
‘Sex can one hundred per cent be classed as an emergency. True or false?’
I laughed even more. Gorgeous, gorgeous man. ‘True.’