A Woman of Courage (38 page)

She woke in the night with Craig asleep at her side. It was the dark of the moon and she could see nothing. Craig had said he did not like to sleep in air-conditioning and the windows were open with a mesh screen to protect them from mosquitoes. The slowly turning fan distributed its current of warm air. Hilary could hear waves stirring along the beach.

Their lovemaking had been all and more than she could have imagined. He had been gentle yet dominant, every nerve in her body responding as he made love to her. Really made love, as though love itself and not simply the act of love had been at the core of their union. She had heard herself cry out in wonder and at the last, after he had wound her nerves to their highest pitch so that they vibrated under her skin and every sinew of her body pleaded for release, she had felt a surge of fulfilment that had torn her and made her whole again, not once but again and yet again, and brought her in the end to the verge of grateful and unbelieving tears.

So wonderful. Such sanctuary and peace.

She imagined the stars beyond the windows. One hundred million points of light amid the blackness. She could have embraced them all, embraced everything. All was wonder and joy because she knew that after the barren months of seeking she had arrived at what might be journey's end.

She slept. When she awoke it was still dark but she sensed beyond the screened window the slow stirring of earth and sea as they readied themselves for the coming of the light. That was the true miracle. The coming of the light, the re-awakening of the dormant blood, the quickening of the spirit that proclaimed the wonder and joy of the coming day.

Careful not to disturb Craig, she slipped from beneath the sheet that covered her. She retrieved her shirt and shorts from the chair where she had dropped them. She put them on and went out to face the morning.

The sand was soft beneath her bare feet. Phosphorescence flashed in the slowly turning waves while overhead was the splendour of the stars. Hilary walked at one with the night. The jungle scent of the vegetation was a fecund presence in the darkness. Its mystery still had the power to beguile. She reached the point where the koleks lay unguarded upon the beach. There was a smell of fish and wood smoke from the houses beneath the trees. She stopped and stared at the sea. Conrad's Almayer stood at her shoulder but Almayer had been a lost soul. Hilary was not. She walked back towards the house. She was halfway when she saw a figure walking towards her along the beach. For a moment doubt flickered, then she saw.

‘Good morning.'

‘I thought you'd run out on me,' Craig said.

‘No doubt you thought good riddance.'

‘No doubt I thought nothing of the sort.'

It was a good, warm feeling. He took her hand and that was a good feeling too.

Above the eastern horizon darkness was giving way to the first pale birthing of the light.

‘I thought maybe some coffee,' Craig said.

It sounded like a good idea.

‘And afterwards…'

She looked at him, his features now faintly visible: the imperious jutting of the nose, the shadowed eye sockets. ‘Afterwards?'

‘Coffee has to be paid for.'

‘You plan to put me to work, do you?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Best get on with it, then,' Hilary said.

And they did.

Later, after showering and putting on the same clothes because she had no others, after breakfast and more coffee, they piled into the four-wheel drive and drove back up the rumble-tumble track to the road and turned north towards Batu Ferringhi and the Maharani Hotel. Hilary went to her room.

The first thing she did was ring Sara's school and then Jennifer. Sara was in class and unavailable but she had better luck with Jennifer.

‘I'm in Penang.'

‘Are you having a good time?'

‘Very good. I may stay on here a bit but I'll let you know what I decide. Could you please tell Sara for me? I couldn't get hold of her.'

‘You sound different,' Jennifer said.

‘How different?'

‘You sound happy.'

Hilary laughed. ‘Do I normally sound so grim?'

‘I didn't mean that. But there's something…'

Now was not the moment for confidences. ‘All well with you?'

‘Fine.'

‘Good. I must dash. My love to you both, as always.'

She hung up, packed her bag and wrote a note to Ruby Dyer.

Something has come up and I have moved out. I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday
.

Ruby would not be pleased but Hilary was not going to say she was sorry because she wasn't. She was full of joy because the prospect of life had returned.

She read the note through before signing it.
Something has come up…
How true was that? Even to think of it woke pleasurable tingles.

She left the note at reception, settled her bill and ran down the steps to the waiting vehicle.

‘I thought I'd lost you,' Craig said.

‘I had to ring my daughters.'

‘To tell them you've found the love of your life?'

‘I don't know that yet, do I?' She climbed into the ute. ‘I shall need to buy some clothes,' she said. ‘The ones I have are a bit raggy-taggy.'

‘That's a disappointment,' Craig said.

‘Why?'

‘I wasn't planning on your wearing clothes.'

‘Just now and then.'

‘That's all right then.'

‘I suppose you say that to all the girls.'

‘Of course.'

‘Shops,' Hilary said.

‘Your wish is my command.'

They drove to a mall on Gurney Drive where there were shops aplenty. Afterwards they went back to the bungalow where she had another shower – the climate made that a good idea – and put on some of her new clothes and Craig drove her to the E and O Hotel for lunch.

The E and O was a relic of the colonial past with a strip of lawn and a low wall at the back, with the slow grey sea visible through the dining room windows.

While they ate they talked. They had made love twice already. They were lovers not only in the physical but every other way yet knew virtually nothing about each other.

Until now it hadn't mattered. There had been a shared awareness that precluded the need for greater knowledge. Now it was time to move on.

He told her he was fifty-three. He had been born in a posh Sydney suburb but had found when he grew up that a conventional civilian life was not for him.

‘There were challenges in civilian life,' he said. ‘But none that interested me.'

He joined the army straight from university. He had graduated in electronic engineering so they were keen to have him. It looked as though he could look forward to a stellar career in the military.

‘Then I found I wasn't one for the military life after all,' he said. ‘I should have known: I hadn't liked the boy scouts either. I had no thoughts on what else to do so decided I'd explore a bit. In the course of my travels I came here and loved it. I'd inherited a bit of money – enough to get by in a low-cost place, which fortunately this was – so I decided to stay. And here I am.'

‘But what do you do?'

‘A bit of consulting for local firms. Apart from that there are a thousand things to do. I walk, I swim, I go out with the fishermen, I read, I listen to music… You want me to go on?'

‘You never married?'

Which was not what she was asking. Never mind the past. What she really wanted to know was whether he was married now.

‘I never did,' he said.

‘Why?'

He grinned. ‘Never found anyone fool enough to say yes.'

Hilary looked at him and at the expanse of sea beyond the hotel windows, the distant shapes of vessels anchored in the roads.

‘I like it here,' she said. ‘Where I was before I came here was very beautiful too. But it didn't feel right.'

Craig watched her. He said nothing.

‘I took a boat up the Mekong to Pakbeng, in Laos. There was a lodge for rich tourists and a temple in the hills with three golden figures beneath a cloth canopy. I thought it would be quiet. Sacred. It wasn't. The place was packed with tourists. I was a tourist myself so I couldn't complain but I felt we were treating the inhabitants like creatures in a zoo.'

‘You were also providing them with an income.'

‘I know. But it wasn't right. For me, I mean.'

‘We have tourists, too. And Penang is a busy place.'

‘I've only been here five minutes but I get the impression it doesn't seem to matter so much here. The tourists are just part of the whole. In Pakbeng they were everything. By being there I felt we desecrated the place. It was beautiful but I couldn't wait to get away. Penang is different. I think I could live here.'

Craig took her hand across the table. ‘Then do that,' he said.

She watched him, feeling the pressure of his hand. ‘For a week? A month?'

‘Try forever.'

‘You are serious?'

‘Never more so,' he said.

Indeed it was a serious business. Commitment to the man meant, did it not, commitment to his way of life? She tried to imagine herself spending the long years in this place. She could not get her head around it. Craig was offering a romantic hideaway on a tropical island out of the storybooks. A wonderful destination for a holiday, but for life? Hilary was not willing to commit herself to that.

What she was willing to do was give herself time to enjoy this charismatic man with his wonderful house and a way of life that for a time at least was a siren song of enchantment. Turn him down and she knew she would regret it forever.

He was still holding her hand. She looked at him across the table.

‘You do me great honour,' she said. ‘Let's give it six months and see how it goes.'

Six months was good. She could handle six months. It would give her time but not too much. If at the end of it she wanted to take it further and he was still willing, so be it. Either way, by then she would surely know.

I shall dare the sirens but hang on to my lifeboat.

Australia was a million miles away but that night, waking briefly in the slow pre-dawn hours, she remembered the cut and thrust of her business life and knew, even as she drifted back to sleep, that the chains of the past were not so easily broken.

LOOKING LAZY AT THE SEA

1

It was evening. They had been together six weeks and were sitting in easy chairs on the veranda of Rumah Kelapa. It was warm and still and the glasses containing their drinks were beaded with moisture. The sun's lower hemisphere was an inch or two above the horizon, its image shimmering and distorted like a reflection in a pool. It was a breathless moment of failing light and the cicadas were setting up their nightly chorus in the undergrowth.

‘What were you doing before you left Australia?' Craig asked.

‘A bit of this, a bit of that.'

‘That really spells it out,' he said. ‘But it's not important. I get the Australian papers, you see.'

She looked at him.

‘I've known from the first,' he said. ‘Where is Australia's missing millionaire? Brand Corporation boss seeks redemption in the mystic east. Has Hilary a secret lover?'

She didn't know whether to laugh or scream. ‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I assumed you didn't want to talk about it. I believe in privacy, you see.'

‘I never thought… I must speak to the girls.'

‘Why?'

‘What must they think, reading crap like that?'

‘You speak to them every week,' Craig said.

‘But –'

‘Have they ever mentioned it? Do they sound bothered?'

‘No –'

‘They aren't children. They are women. Give them some credit.'

He was right, of course he was.

‘The media comes up with such nonsense,' she said. ‘It's one of the reasons I've always wanted to own my own television station.'

‘But you never have.'

‘Not yet.'

He drained his glass. ‘Ah…'

‘Why ah?'

‘Because you said not yet. I was beginning to hope you had forgotten about the world out there.'

‘How can I possibly forget it, or the girls? But one thing staying here has done for me: it's put things into perspective. There was a time when business and the market were the only things that mattered to me. To succeed, beat down the opposition, overcome the obstacles… When you start with nothing that's important.' A self-deprecating smile. ‘I saw success in business as my highway to the stars. It
was
my life. Now I know it is only a part of it.' She reached across the table and took his hand. ‘I won't lie to you: it still matters. But I am very glad we found each other.'

It was a commitment of sorts, but not enough. They looked at each other. She saw Craig lick his lips but his eyes were steady.

‘I love you,' he said.

There. He had said it. He had unlocked the door and now Hilary found it easy to follow him into whatever might lie ahead for them both.

‘I love you too.'

She had never thought to hear herself say such a thing again but she had. She felt a weight lift from her heart and knew her commitment to this man was not only soul-felt but forever.

Hands held tight to hands. Eyes drank.

The sun had disappeared below the horizon, leaving only a diminishing scarlet glow that was reflected in the undulating waves. The noise of the cicadas was tremendous. In near darkness they finished their drinks and stood up, the mood between them as tranquil as the darkening sea. Hand in hand they went into the house.

2

‘It's time for me to take up the reins again,' Hilary said five months later. She spoke with conviction but there was sadness in her face that gave Craig hope, even when he knew there was no hope.

‘Why must you? You're rich enough, surely? Why do you have to keep on working?'