The Boy in the Olive Grove (21 page)

NICK’S LOVE LIT MY DAYS
for the rest of the holidays. Hadleigh picked up immediately that my head and heart were in a space far away.

‘Spill. Who is he and why didn’t you tell me you had an assignation today?’’

Su Lin made coffee and winked at me.

‘Assignation! Get over yourself! Besides, look who’s talking.’ I glanced at Su Lin. ‘I bet you didn’t freeze her out when you vanished to see the world.’

He had the grace to look shame-faced for a whole two seconds. ‘Don’t change the subject. Who is he?’

‘Nick Southey. And don’t bloody tell Mum.’

He laughed for the rest of the week.

Su Lin, though, took the news much more
seriously
. ‘Listen, Bess. I suspect your mother isn’t going to like this at all. She’s not going to approve of any boy that she hasn’t personally selected. So be careful.’

Of course I’d be careful. It wouldn’t be difficult. Nick wasn’t home very often, and when he was I’d stay with Dad and Iris so he could pick me up from there.

Meantime, he sent me messages every day. They were light-hearted and they were loving.

At the end of the week, I caught the bus to Auckland, unsure how much of the story I’d tell my friends. If Charlotte was staying at Clo’s as well, then it would be the abbreviated version.

But Clodagh was alone when she picked me up from the bus station. ‘Charlotte and Maddy arrive on Thursday,’ she said. ‘They’ll go straight on to school from mine.’

‘Maddy!’ I clapped my hands. ‘Thanks a million, Clo. You’re an angel.’

‘But a cunning one,’ she said. ‘I want to hear all the news that would send Charlotte running for the pills.’

I grinned at her. ‘Good thinking.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘So there is more. Excellent.’

‘Did you tell Giles? What did he think?’

‘He’s inclined to think your brain is messing with you,’ she said. ‘We’ve had some riveting discussions.’

‘He hasn’t convinced you?’

‘I prefer to keep an open mind. It’s far too interesting to dismiss. Besides, I have the advantage of knowing that you’re not given to indulging in flights of fancy.’

She drove to her house, parking the car beside the other two in the garage. All the family were home — parents, grandmother and the devil twins — and the house was full of noise and movement. I thought briefly of Mum dining in splendid silence all by herself.

After lunch, with a skill born of long practice, Clodagh ensured that the boys disappeared. All she did was pick up our plates and then look thoughtfully at her brothers. They got the message, dumped their own plates in the kitchen and vanished. I was still laughing when we shut ourselves in her bedroom.

‘Tell,’ she said.

This time I chose to sit in the armchair Charlotte had occupied, rather than the beanbag. ‘Remember I told you about Nick Southey?’

‘The babe magnet? The one with the girlfriend?’

‘Ex-girlfriend now.’

‘Ah! And does he just happen to have a different girlfriend now? One he’s known for — oh, a few centuries, for instance? I like it! And you look really happy. You’ve been very quiet about him, though.’

‘Don’t be mad at me. I haven’t. Truly, I haven’t.’ I ran my hands through my hair, realising how crazy it all was. ‘It all only happened on Monday. Kind of, anyway.’ I told her about the ice-cream date and how he’d kissed me. ‘Then he went silent all the way home. I was a mess. He was my olive grove love. I knew that without a doubt. But he went all quiet and distant. Besides, I’d met Lulu.’

She said nothing for a few seconds, her face abstracted. ‘Between December and last Monday, he’s dumped the girlfriend and declared undying love for you? Did he feel a connection between you? Did you tell him about the past-life thing?’ She smiled. ‘Sorry, too many questions.’

‘Easy to answer, though. Yes to everything. He said he wouldn’t have believed it for a second except that he had no explanation for why he couldn’t get me out of his head.’

‘Wow, what a story.’ She went back to being abstracted. ‘I wonder if I’ve been with Giles before. I’ll have to think about that.’ She snapped back into the present moment. ‘So this Nick. What does he do?’

I fished the tablet from my bag and brought up images of Nick Southey as Nico Hamilton. ‘Have a look for yourself.’

She took one look, her eyes popped and, probably for the first time ever in her life, she squealed. ‘He’s a
model
? You’ve fallen in love with a piece of eye candy?’ She scrolled through the photos. ‘He’s definitely to die for.’ She fanned her face. ‘Jeez. What a babe.’ She got serious. ‘But Bess, will you like that world? Glamorous women, buffed blokes, flying all over the place all the time?’

‘Clo, I’d have done it, just to be with him. But I’m glad I won’t have to. It’s not his career, he’s just doing it to earn his way through uni. Microbiology.’

‘So he’s not just a pretty face.’ She looked at the photo of him bare-chested in jeans. ‘No, he’s more than just a face.’

I took the tablet from her. ‘Wipe your chin, you’re drooling.’

‘Guilty!’

‘Clo, can we not tell the others? Su Lin — she’s Hadleigh’s secret girlfriend and a psych major — she says be careful with Mum. I don’t want to risk her seeing something on Facebook.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep quiet.’ Then, as she was apt to do, she jumped a few steps in the conversation. ‘You’ve made an appointment with Gwennie?’

‘Tuesday at nine. That okay with you?’

‘I’ll even drive you there. And I’m going to book a past-life session for me too.’

I started laughing. ‘You’re such a surprise box. Are you going to tell Giles, your family?’

‘Giles, yes. The family — Granny probably. Yes, I’ll tell her. Not the others though.’

 

I SLIPPED INTO LIFE
in Clodagh’s family as if I’d lived there for ever. They were busy, kind and friendly. I sent Mum several dutiful emails and got nothing in reply. Iris wrote several times. The orders were still coming into the factory, she told me, and Dad was bounding out of bed in the mornings. He wasn’t even grizzling about the healthy meal regime.

On Tuesday I had the session with Gwennie, starting with the whole story about Nick and including Su Lin’s warning.

‘I agree with your brother’s girlfriend. Your mother will object to your choice. And I have to give you another warning. Even though you and Nick were together in the past, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work this time.’ She held up a hand to stop my protest. ‘You’re very young, both of you. You’ve a lot of growing to do in the next few years. People change, go their separate ways. This may not happen, but be aware that it could. Don’t go blindly on with the relationship if it stops feeling right. But enough of that. How have things been?’

I outlined the dog-walking/babysitting fight. ‘It went nuclear. And Hadleigh says those jobs were entirely fictitious. She just wanted to make me do the waitressing. She probably hadn’t even talked to her friends about the other stuff.’

‘There’s a high chance he’s right. It’s no good getting angry, Bess. It gets you nowhere other than upset. In a situation like that, listen to her, then say something like
I’m not going to do those things, Mum. Thank you for thinking of me, it’s nice of you. But please will you check with me first next time.’

My face must have shown what I thought of that. She said, ‘Wait! There’s more. She’ll probably start the name-calling and so on. At that point you tell her you see she’s upset but repeat that you’re not going to do what she asks. Don’t give her a reason. Stay calm and don’t engage.’

‘She’ll keep yelling. You’ve no idea.’

‘Yes. I do know. Set boundaries.
Mum, I’m sorry you’re upset but if you keep on pushing this I’m going to stay with Dad and Iris
. Then go. You have to be consistent. Follow up on what you say.’

She hammered the disengagement idea. I was to look as though I was listening while screening out the crap she handed out. ‘If she starts being nice, be on your guard. Don’t take anything she says or does at face value.’

By the end of the session I was feeling battered and depressed — until she said, ‘Get out of home as soon as you can. You’re a remarkably resilient young woman, Bess. I’m impressed.’

Clodagh drove my resilient self to a café for vast quantities of sweet, sugar-laden food. Heaven on a plate. Hell on the hips. Who cared? Lulu would, but I didn’t have to worry about Lulu. It was me Nick loved.

‘You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?’ Clodagh said.

‘Yep!’

‘Not to be a wet blanket, Bess, but you’re not going to see much of him this year.’

‘I know. It’s going to be tough, what with Mum and all, but we’ll manage. We’ll be together once school finishes.’

Maddy and Charlotte arrived on Thursday afternoon. Maddy leapt from the car, talking flat out,
wonderful marvellous brilliant to see you Bess how are you how’s things what’s going down tell me tell me tell all.

Charlotte was welcoming but wary. It was sad. I knew she’d never really be at ease with me again.

Several times over the next few days I so nearly spoke of Nick, but each time I drew back. The girls were gorgeous, I adored them to bits, but discretion wasn’t the strong point for either of them. I couldn’t let Mum get wind of my relationship with Nick, even if it meant my friends being angry and hurt when they discovered I’d had a boyfriend for months and not told them.

On Friday, I took myself back to St Annie’s to visit Miss Wilding. I appreciated that she didn’t ask if I’d come to explain my drunken binge. She wanted to know how my studies were going, had I settled into my new school? ‘We gave you a glowing testimonial.’

‘You didn’t tell them about …?’

‘Yes. We had to. I also said I believed you would never again be so …’

‘Stupid,’ I said, and she smiled. I gathered my courage. ‘I want to tell you why. If you’d like to hear?’

She looked hard at me. ‘It’s still difficult for you? I confess, I’d very much like to know, but not if it distresses you.’

‘It doesn’t. Not now. But it’s bizarre. Hard to believe. Charlotte knows and now she keeps her distance.’

‘You’re only making me more interested. Please, go on.’

I began the story of burning Iris in a life long ago. When I’d finished, Miss Wilding didn’t run screaming for a straitjacket. What she said was, ‘Unusual. I can understand why you couldn’t tell us after it happened.’ She treated me to one of her sharp looks. ‘Did you see anyone about it professionally?’

I told her about Gwennie. She knew of her. She was an old girl of the school.

‘Well done. I’d be inclined to think you dreamed up the whole thing if it was any other girl. Hmm, except Clodagh Peterson possibly. As it is, I’m going to need to think about it. I’ll keep it to myself in the meantime.’

I stood up to leave. ‘Thank you.’ I stuttered out my thanks too for the years I’d spent at the school. ‘It was my home. My real, true home. I was so lucky.’

She hugged me farewell and kissed my forehead. ‘Go well, Bess. I’m happy you came today.’

The week hurtled to an end. It seemed I’d only just arrived before I was heading home to my mother. I sat in the bus and brought up the photos of Nick. The old lady next to me leaned across. ‘My, but he’s a hottie! Who is he?’

‘Some random. I’m trying to find a model history essay.’ I crossed my fingers. It would serve me right if she turned out to be a history professor.

She cackled. ‘If I were you, I’d bookmark him. Stick him on your bedroom wall.’

The wall wasn’t where I wanted Nick in my bedroom. I counted the months till I could leave home to be with him. Seven. Such a long time. We’d already waited several hundred years.

FROM THEN ON
I lived for each contact with Nick. Knowing that he loved me had an unexpected spinoff, too, in making it easier to deal with Mum. Her accusations about my selfishness, thoughtlessness and general inadequacy mostly skated past me. I even began almost enjoying the quiet times with her when she wasn’t being icy, when it almost felt as though she might come to like me enough for us to have some sort of adult relationship.

A couple of weeks into the term, she said, ‘Mr Barber tells me your teachers are pleased with your work.’

She’d talked to the principal? She was actually saying something positive? About me? I just about fell on her neck. ‘Thanks for telling me, Mum. Did he ring you specially to tell you?’ No way would she have rung him.

‘He has recently joined my Rotary club.’

She didn’t offer any more information. But — wow. I sent Hadleigh a text:
The mother-load said sthg good. About me!!!!

I got one right back:
Watch for sting in tail
.

I did watch, but she went back to behaving normally, which meant no more compliments in my direction. She also had a major spit at the beginning of June when she tried to turn me into her project manager.

‘You’re to be in charge of the Horticultural Society blog,’ she said. ‘We require a posting twice weekly. You’ll need to photograph gardens and interview the people concerned.’

My heart sank, but I gathered my courage and embarked on step one of Gwennie’s system. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

‘I’m sorry, Mum. But I’m not going to do that. You need to check things like this with me first. I’m up to my ears in schoolwork this year.’

The storm broke over my head and I strove not to cringe. The fact that I’d spent weeks helping That Man got chucked into the mix.

Step two. I stood up, trying to let her know I meant what I said, trying to appear more forceful. How come I could yell at Dad’s workers, but not at my mother?

‘Mum, I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but if you can’t accept that then I’m going to stay with Dad and Iris for a few days.’

Her wrath swamped me. My hands shook as I packed up my books. I tried to shut her words out, I tried not to let them sink into my heart, but enough of them got through to hurt. As I ran from the room, her voice followed me: ‘I fail to understand why you go out of your way to upset me. No normal daughter would be so cruel. I don’t ask much of you. You’ll soon discover you can’t get far in life taking everything and never giving in return.’

I packed up my gear, phoned Dad and asked him to come and get me. I was shaking and near tears. Mum shut herself in her room. I stood in front of her closed door for a couple of minutes, wanting so much to knock, to go in and apologise, to hang my head and agree to everything she’d accused me of. She’d be expecting an apology and I longed for things to be calm between us. It was hard to walk away. But Gwennie’s voice hammered in my head:
She’ll aim to make you feel guilty. Every upset will be all your fault, according to her. You have to understand that it isn’t.

I stayed away for three days.

‘Pack your things and move in for good,’ Dad said when I got there. I knew he meant it.

Tears pricked at my eyes. ‘Thanks, Dad. Not yet, though. It’s okay. I can handle it.’

Later Iris sat me down for a serious chat. ‘Is it the money?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you’re staying?’

‘No. It isn’t that. I’ll get a job if I have to.’

She seemed baffled. ‘Then why don’t you leave now? She’s corrosive, Bess. I hate it — Charlie hates it. It’s not right and you don’t have to stay, so why?’

I drew circles with my finger round and round on the tabletop. ‘She’s my mother. It’s hard to cut your mother out of your life. We were getting on okay until this happened. She even seemed interested when I told her stuff about school. I thought …’

She took my hand. ‘You’re still hoping she’ll love you?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’ I sniffed back tears.

‘You realise all hell will break loose when she finds out about Nick?’

‘I’m hoping — I
was
hoping — that if things really were better between us, then she might be okay about it. Enough to still talk to me, at least.’ A boyfriend she hadn’t pre-approved was always going to be a risky proposition. Nick being connected to Dad’s world wasn’t going to help either. I should just tell her and leave. Except that I couldn’t, not yet, not without trying harder to be at peace with her.

The eight days of silence that followed my return home were bad. She spoke to me once to say, ‘Pass the salt.’

At least Nick helped me make light of it. ‘Any advance on the salt question?’ he’d ask. But I didn’t want to use our precious time talking about it. We told each other the little events of our lives, the daily trivia. His flatmate Dion had acquired a kitten —
cute and almost house-trained
. Sol went to sleep in a history lesson, so the rest of us snuck away, leaving him to wake to an empty room. Nick never talked about his modelling work, it was always stuff about his studies or his life in the flat, and I didn’t talk about Mum.

On a cold Wednesday evening in the last week of June, he called me and didn’t wait for my greeting. ‘I’m coming home! The day after tomorrow. A whole weekend free! Can you pick me up? Flight gets in at 7.30.’

‘You’ll be here? Two more sleeps? For real?’

‘Real and true. Can’t wait to kiss you, girl of mine.’

How strange. His absence until then had been bearable, just something to endure, but now two days seemed impossibly long.

 

I DROVE IRIS’S CAR
to the airport an hour early, just in case the plane was blown in on an obliging wind. It landed dead on time. I watched people alighting, walking across the tarmac. Then Nick was there, pausing in the door of the plane to say something that made the flight attendant give him a genuine smile.

Hurry!
I was jigging up and down. Impossible to keep still.

‘Nick!’ I rushed at him, flinging my arms around him.

He grabbed me up. ‘Hey, you’re real! I kept having nightmares that I dreamed you. You always vanish when I touch you.’

I put my palm against his face. ‘It’s me. Flesh and blood, and all yours.’

I led the way to the car. ‘You want to go straight to Clint and Daisy’s?’

‘No. I said not to wait up. We’ve got a party to go to, my girl.’

He leaned across, gathered me up and kissed me. The handbrake dug into my thigh, we were both skewed sideways but the discomfort only kicked in when that first, sweetest kiss was over.

‘I’ve missed you so bad.’ We spoke the words in unison, laughed and kissed again.

He rested his hand against my cheek. ‘We should get moving.’

I settled back into my seat, his arm across my shoulders. ‘You’d better tell me where this party is, then.’

‘At Jeff Perry’s. He’s celebrating big-time. Scored himself a job in New York.’

Alarm kicked through me. ‘Nick, we can’t! Jeff Perry was in Hadleigh’s class at college. There’ll be a million people there who know him. Somebody’ll tell Mum.’

‘Bess. Chill. She has to know at some stage.’

I squeezed his hands. ‘You don’t understand. She’ll make my life a misery. Or else she’ll kick me out and never speak to me again.’

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you’d better tell me everything. We’ll give the party a miss and you will spill everything about what’s really happening.’

I told him much more than I ever had to date about my relationship with my mother. I told him about Gwennie, how Hadleigh had finessed Mum over the waitressing gig and Su Lin’s warning.

He said nothing for a while, then asked, ‘Why do you stay? Charlie and Iris would have you. They adore you. Any idiot could see that.’

‘It’s dumb. I know that. But I want to move out without any drama. A natural progression, sort of thing. I’ll leave home, go to uni and still have a mother.’

Nick was quiet for ages. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. I’ll go along with you for now. We try and keep things secret from her. I don’t like it, though. I don’t like skulking around hiding.’

‘You’re not! Dad knows. And Iris.’

He smiled at me, the gentlest of smiles. ‘And that makes it better?’

‘Let’s not talk about it.’

‘All right. But I’m warning you, if I have to I’ll swoop in with a helicopter and rescue you.’

‘Will you take me away to your castle?’

We were back to talking lovers’ nonsense.

It was a cold but windless night. I stopped the car and we walked, not going anywhere, just being together and talking. He drove us back via a quiet country road where he stopped, took me in his arms and kissed me.

‘Sheer, beautiful torture,’ he whispered, holding me tight.

‘I want to be with you. I want to be yours.’ I didn’t care how or where. I wanted him here and now.

He lifted his head, glanced at the back seat, then took a couple of deep, determined breaths. ‘We will be. I promise you. But not yet. Not in the back of a car either.’ He kissed me, long and lingering. ‘We haven’t known each other long. Let’s not rush it.’

‘Okay. You’re probably right. I just wish …’

‘Things were different with your mum? That we didn’t have to hide?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on. Better get you home before Charlie comes looking for me with a shotgun.’

 

THE NEXT MORNING
, when Nick arrived ten minutes earlier than he’d said he would, I ran out and jumped in the car before Dad could embarrass me by giving him the protective father lecture. But my beloved had other ideas. ‘I accept hiding from your mother, Bess, but I’m sure not hiding from your dad.’

Dad shook his hand, his face so stern it looked wooden. ‘I’m trusting you with my girl, young Nick. Make sure you look after her.’ Which apparently is father-code for
don’t bloody have sex with her
.

Nick looked him straight in the face and said, ‘You don’t need to worry.’

When we were back in the car, I said, ‘Well, I did warn you. He’s not used to me dating. I’ve led a very monastic life until you turned up.’

‘I can handle it. Don’t stress.’ He dropped a kiss on my hair. ‘You know, I reckon I’ll be the same if we ever have daughters.’

We looked at each other.
Daughters? Sons, too?
My gut went fluttery. We’d talk about all that, but not right now. Not yet.

The weekend went by so quickly. We walked a lot and kissed a lot — unworried by either the rain on Saturday or the wind on Sunday. I took him to the airport, then went home to my mother, wondering if she’d notice my happiness. If she did, she kept it well hidden.