‘Logan says…
‘Oh, forget it,’ Ros interrupted impatiently. ‘It was a stupid idea anyway. I’ll take this tea through for you, Julia.’
Olivia looked after her sister. ‘I can’t just walk out on Logan and the others … not with this exhibition coming up.’
Can’t you? wondered Julia, detecting a certain wistfulness in the pale oval face. Maybe Olivia wanted a nudge towards ‘walking out’, an excuse to break away.
In the lounge Julia took up her favourite supper position on the floor by the brass coal scuttle, sipping her tea as she watched the family chatter about its day. She raised a weak smile when Steve stepped over Charley, sprawling on the floor studying a Mechanics magazine, and sat beside her.
‘I finished my s
ong this morning. Would you like to hear it sometime tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure when,’ Julia prevaricated. ‘I’ll be up with Hugh in the morning.’
‘I only want you to listen, truly,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s good, Julia, really good … a whole new kind of song for me. Look …’ he cast a brief look ‘at Richard, brooding half-heartedly in the corner of the room,’… I know I was a little crazy for a while there, but I’ve got my head together now. No more heavy stuff, OK?’
‘OK,’ Julia was relieved, but still careful. She lowered her voice. ‘And you’re all right now, about the other?’
The green eyes were clear and sharp. ‘Wait until you hear Julia, then you’ll know. I’ve still got the music in me, with me. And I put my foot down with Zak … no more work until I’m ready.’ He smiled then, one of Richard’s charming smiles, and Julia immediately smelt collaboration. ‘Tell me … are you and Hugh, really, you know … have you really got something going, or was that all just for our benefit?’
Julia opened her mouth to utter the white lie, and to her astonishment found herself telling the truth: ‘No it’s not for your benefit, it’s for mine. He’s the most fascinating man I’ve ever met. I l-like him very, very much.’
Her blush as much as that revealing stumble seemed to convince Steve. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, and she could see that he was. Why hadn’t she gone ahead and said ‘love’? it wouldn’t have been a lie either. She did love him, impossible as it seemed—all those much-discussed signs were there: extreme self-awareness in his presence, the shortness of breath, the tingling, the constant desire to touch him both mentally and physically. When had liking ‘very, very much’ turned into loving? She didn’t know. Nor did she know very much about Hugh’s feelings. He was attracted to her, she could sense that, but he was reluctant to pursue it, she sensed that, too. They were both aware of their extreme personality differences—perhaps, for Hugh, that was the deciding factor. He wasn’t one to be carried away by his emotions, or his passions, everything was tightly controlled by his intelligence. Julia on the other hand was willing to ride with her instincts. This newly discovered love was a heady experience to be explored, a kind of natural high. Was this how Steve had felt when pumped full of his drugs? If so, Julia could appreciate the attraction of maintaining the state indefinitely. She could only hope that her addiction didn’t end as miserably as Steve’s, but she refused to dwell on all the negative possibilities, there were too many of them. For now she would make the most of it, enjoy the next few days in Hugh’s company, and do all she could to nurture the attraction.
To this end she offered, the next morning, to type for him in the afternoon as well. To her chagrin, though Hugh accepted the offer, he went on to tell her that he would be spending the afternoon in Whitianga. She typed disconsolately for half an hour in his absence, wishing she hadn’t been in such a hurry to get away from Steve. His song, Julia had turned out to be a hauntingly catchy ballad of love, not the tale of hard-hearted betrayal she had feared it might have turned into!
Julia frowned at the lines of type fading across the page. That ribbon had to be changed. Recklessly, she decided to tackle it herself … perhaps the jinx would be merciful.
‘Oh God, what have I done?’ A few minutes later Julia surveyed the mess in horror. How had the cartridge got jammed like that? She poked at it with a ballpoint and somehow a foot of ribbon spat out at her. The more she fiddled, the worse the snarl became and Julia managed to cover the typewriter, herself, and several pages of typescript with inky fingerprints whilst trying to cram everything back. Long, sweaty minutes passed, then the grandfather clock struck doom.
‘Oh God!’
Time to go down and prepare the marinade for the satay. Tonight was supposed to be a double celebration—Steve’s new song and Michael’s completed play. She turned her back on the sneering typewriter and fled, vowing to be back before Hugh.
She scrubbed her hands in the kitchen sink, expertly cut up the two plump, fresh chickens with a razor-sharp cleaver and put the pieces into a glass dish. Handfuls of chillis, ginger-root, and onion were thrown into the blender, followed up with generous slurps of soy sauce, oil and water (so much for the precise science of cookingi). One loud and angry whizz, and whip off the lid to push down the ingredients with her rubber spatula …
‘Something smells interesting.’
‘Waahhh!’ Julia’s hand slipped and punched the blender’s control button. The thick, oily, sludge exploded with a roar out of the open top, splattering reddish blobs all over the kitchen, including the frozen figures of Julia and Hugh. Some of them even reached the eight-foot ceiling.
‘Turn that bloody thing off!’ yelled Hugh over the racket, lurching forward to slam his hand down on the button, switching the grinding mechanism off. ‘Damn you to hell, Julia, I thought you said you never had accidents in the kitchen!’
Some of the marinade had flown into Julia’s horrified open mouth and she coughed furiously to rid herself of the peppery heat. When the tears cleared from her eyes and she saw Hugh’s livid expression her gaze skittered down his suit and lingered …
‘Isn’t that the suit …?’ she croaked to a halt at his hissing, indrawn breath.
‘The very same! Thanks to a good dry-cleaner it survived its dunking … but this time you can pay in full for your damned stupidity!’
She couldn’t blame him, the suit was freckled all over with oily spots, and he had, after all, fronted up with the money for her car bill without argument. Poor Hugh, he was quite rigid with anger, wrinkling his nose at the potent smell enveloping them, dabbing at his face with a no-longer-spotless white handkerchief.
Julia began to giggle and the giggles grew. Soon she was leaning against the kitchen table helpless with laughter, fresh tears streaming down her face, stomach tortured by mirthful spasms.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry …’ she hiccupped semi-hysterically. ‘But you look … oh, Hugh, your poor dignity … you look as if you’ve got measles!’
‘And I warned you once before about laughing at me,’ said Hugh in a peculiarly goaded tone of voice.
He reached out a large hand and before Julia could move he had snatched her off her feet, hands almost completely spanning her waist. She was lifted high, dangling like a rag doll against his body, gasping with astonishment and clutching at his wrists to support herself upright. Her heart thundered at his expression. He was angry but his anger was tightly controlled, and Julia knew instinctively that he wouldn’t use his superior strength to physically hurt her. If she struggled he would let her go.