Chapter Thirteen #2
‘Having feelings for someone is not an emotional compromise. You feel out of control with me?’
‘Yes.’
That’s because you are in love with me, idiot.
I watched him demolish a wing, absorbed by his mouth, licking the sauce from his fingers.
‘You promised me answers, Nick,’ I reminded him. I wasn’t letting him get away with avoiding truths. ‘You wanted me here for the weekend. What was the plan?’
‘I know, I know … Christ.’ He bit his bottom lip.
‘I didn’t really have a plan. I could feel you trying to put space between us this week after dinner on Monday, and that was hard.
I didn’t like it. I thought, after our meeting, I would spend time with you.
I do feel it,’ he conceded, quietly, ‘the connection between us. I haven’t been able to put boundaries in place either …
with you. I’m sorry. My plan was just to have you to myself for the weekend.
I wanted that. I want you. I wanted to spend time with you. ’
‘You want me? But you don’t want a relationship? Or to be in love with me?’
‘Abbey, I cannot have other people hold my heart. My family I have no choice with, but other than that? No.’
‘I would cherish it … if we are being honest. I would hold your heart and protect it for as long as I could.’
His jaw tightened, and he reached for my hand. The long look we gave each other was interrupted by the waiter coming to check on how our lunch was.
Nick watched me demolish the remainder of the wings and fries, and I washed it down with the last of the wine.
‘Honestly, watching you eat everything on your plate is the strangest thing I think I’ve ever been attracted to. I cannot say I have ever, ever noticed a woman eat before.’
I shrugged at that. ‘It never occurred to me to try to impress you, in any way at all. I am who I am.’
‘I know.’
‘Where to next?’ I asked.
‘Art gallery?’
‘Yes.’ I took out my phone.
‘Are you googling?’
‘Yes. There is a Turner exhibition on. I love Turner.’
‘I have never seen you google anything.’
‘I google things. Just not people. That seems like a weird thing to do. If we cannot accept each other at face value and allow the time needed to get to know one another, what is the actual bloody point? I cannot imagine there is much truth in social media.’
‘You are incredibly wise, Abigail Parker.’
‘You are starting to sound like Gran, Nick.’
‘There are worse ways to be.’
‘After the gallery, we’ll go to the footy.’
‘Footy?’
‘Yep, let’s go, we’ll pub crawl from the art gallery down to the MCG. We need to have the full Melbourne experience, so AFL it is.’
We were walking side by side in the winter sunshine, pushed along by the gale-force wind, up to the gallery, when he grabbed my hand and gave me a boyish smile that made my heart contract and my stomach flip. I lifted our joined hands to my mouth to kiss his.
I had never really paid attention to art until I was a teenager and through drama class, where I had this kick-arse teacher, I learned about different art movements and became absorbed. It wasn’t my fate to paint or draw, just to admire.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was a favourite, and I was absolutely delighted when we walked in, to the point where I may have squealed like a little girl at my good fortune.
I dragged Nick into the building and practically ran to the exhibition and then slowed down, becoming silent and absorbed in every single painting on display.
We read about Turner’s life. How he had fathered two daughters, but had only had a casual relationship with their mother, Sarah Danby, who he never married and how, after the death of his father, he had suffered through bouts of depression.
At every painting, Nick would pepper me with questions. What did I like about it, specifically? What didn’t I like? What did it make me feel?
‘Why are you so interested in what I like about them?’ I finally asked him as we sat in front of one. If there was a perfect time to see the popular exhibition, half past three on a Friday was a winner. Apart from four old ladies, we were alone.
‘Well.’ He gathered the thought in his head. ‘Art is rather subjective. It’s like perfume or cologne. It’s quite individual. What appeals to one person is not what appeals to another.’
‘Art is not that subjective,’ I argued. ‘People a lot wiser than me have decided that this art is worth more than other art. It appeals to the masses, it’s not that subjective. I think you’re right about perfume, though.’
‘You don’t have paintings like this on your wall at home though,’ he said, pressing his point.
‘I would find a spot for one if I had one.’ I went back to looking, but then something occurred to me. ‘Wait a second, moneybags. Please do not tell me you own one of these?’
‘Own one? No.’ He snorted. ‘I have three.’
I giggled at his joke, and he laughed along, too. ‘Are there any other artists you love?’ he asked.
‘Degas. Most of the impressionists. A little romanticism too.’
‘My wife was the same.’
My head snapped towards him and I looked at him in awe, stunned at this offering, to the point where I felt tears sting my eyes. ‘Will you tell me about her? What was her name?’
He met my eyes and then turned back to Turner. I could see him wrestling with his choices and the decision to offer this to me; the reason why he was broken. The reason he wasn’t whole. The reason why he couldn’t take chances with his heart anymore.
‘Her name was Rebecca. I met her in Leicester Square one day. It was like a scene from a movie. A meet cute. This huge downpour started really very suddenly, and I didn’t have a brolly.
I ducked under the cover of a cinema entrance, and she did too.
’ A small, sad smile graced his face. ‘That was it. We made eye contact. I said something … forgettable. One day I was alone and then the next day I wasn’t.
’ He breathed as if he had forgotten it was required.
‘We had this whirlwind romance. I married her within six months of meeting her and we were happy. About three months later, she was pregnant with Summer. She was having what we thought was just severe morning sickness, but she also started fainting and just having periods of acting a little odd. She fell down some stairs in the garden carrying tea out for us. I took her to the hospital. They ran some tests, and they found it … a brain tumour. It was early days … in the pregnancy … and I …’
His voice caught and I took his hand, moving closer so that my body was completely against his. This was like lancing a wound, or at least I hoped it would be.
‘I begged her to terminate. They could have operated on the tumour at that point, and I couldn’t imagine not having Bec in my life. But she refused to risk Summer and it was completely out of my control.
‘Summer was born and Bec, Jesus, she was so sick already. I took time away from work, but it didn’t matter what I did, it wasn’t enough.
I had to hire a nanny for Summer and a nurse for Bec at the same time.
It was just so fucking horrendous and no matter how much I tried or how many doctors I dragged her to, the tumour kept growing.
It killed her within twelve months. She didn’t see Summer’s first birthday.
But it changed who she was, too. And this …
other person replaced the person I loved. ’
His face lost colour, as he said this, and his voice became a hoarse whisper.
‘She would rage at me, Abbey. I couldn’t leave her alone with the baby.
It was like all the light parts of her personality got consumed by the tumour and all that was left were the dark parts.
I felt the grief hardest then, while she was still alive, and I didn’t recognise her anymore.
She hated me, hated our life, hated our child.
When the doctor said she had to go into palliative care, I felt relieved that it was almost over.
What kind of man feels that, about his wife, about someone he loved?
’ He squeezed my hand tighter. His other hand rose across his chest, and I could feel the ache in mine like it was my pain.
‘Abbey, I loved Summer from the minute she was born. Honestly. But I missed Becca so much I just couldn’t function.
It was my job to protect her. My wife. I promised myself I would protect my family the minute Mum and Dad died, but I couldn’t.
I could not control any of it. I was in this black, cavernous hole.
I didn’t want to be in a world where Rebecca was gone, and I let the grief consume me.
’ His breath shuddered, and he pushed away a tear that would not obey his desire not to cry.
‘Ollie and Ev were so great, they got me some help and looked after Summer while I was sick. They looked after me. I don’t think I’d be here if it weren’t for them. ’
I wrapped my arm around him.
‘Whenever I feel overwhelmed, regardless of what is happening in life, I lean on them. I do my best every day to recreate the Rebecca that I loved for Summer, who doesn’t have a single memory of her mum.
I hope I’m doing a good job of that. On the anniversary of Bec’s death, I force myself to go on a holiday.
I go to the resort that was the first one my mother bought.
Hartwell was her company, her maiden name.
This year was the tenth anniversary of Bec’s death. ’
‘Our holiday?’
‘It’s the first one … the first one I have been on where I met someone who made me feel … not sad.’
I put my head down on his shoulder and he pressed a kiss into my hair, and we sat there together, in front of a William Turner painting called Shade and Darkness, while I processed the tragedy that had been his life. Was it any wonder he was terrified of letting it happen again?
I startled a little about ten minutes later when he spoke.
‘C’mon, Abs,’ he sniffed and wiped his eyes again. ‘I need a drink. Let’s pub crawl.’