“You’re welcome.” Chris smiles and retreats behind the curtain at the end of the cabin, leaving us alone.
Marc chooses a sandwich and then looks out of the window. I get the feeling he’s thinking about what to say. I eat my sandwich while I wait, but he’s lost in thought for a long time, and eventually I say, “You okay?”
He brings his attention back to me. “Sorry. I was thinking.” He has a bite of his sandwich. “I’m not used to talking about myself.”
“I know what you mean. Me neither.”
He puts the sandwich down and leans on the table. “I haven’t told anyone about my time in Hawke’s Bay. Only Izzy knows.”
“Oh. Okay.” I’m flattered that he wants to confide in me, but puzzled that he apparently has a secret. “I won’t tell anyone. Especially Albie, if you don’t want the whole Ark to find out.”
He studies his drink for a moment. “I used to live in Napier. I moved there for a while toward the end of my Army days.”
“Did you have to do training there or something?”
“No.” He sighs. “It was because of a woman.”
For some reason, I’m surprised. I don’t know why. Did I really think he’d get to his early thirties and not have met someone special? I feel a pang of something and analyze it for a moment. Oh. I think it’s jealousy. How strange. It’s not an emotion I’ve encountered much in my life. Even when I was with Daniel, I rarely felt jealous, even when I saw him with female teachers at school.
Maybe it’s not jealousy, maybe it’s more envy. I’m envious that another woman was close to him. And yet it obviously didn’t work out.
He’s watching me as if gauging my reaction, although I’m sure my feelings aren’t playing on my face like a movie screen. Daniel always said he couldn’t tell what I was thinking.
Marc clears his throat. “I was very nearly married.”
My eyebrows rise. “Really?”
He nods. “Her name was Carmella, but she was known as Mel. She was the sister of a mate of mine. I was in the Army when I met her. We dated whenever I came home on leave, and about seven years ago now, I asked her to marry me. She said yes, and we moved in together and started planning the wedding. And then I had the accident.”
He looks out of the window. “They flew me home, and I was in hospital for a while, then in therapy. I fractured my pelvis and damaged a couple of vertebrae. I had to have titanium plates screwed in. I had to learn to walk again.”
I’m shocked. “Oh Marc, I didn’t know.” No wonder he has a limp and an achy back. He walks amazingly well considering.
“It was a tough time. Looking back, I think I was so tied up in my own problems I didn’t realize we were growing apart. A week before the wedding, she rang to tell me she was calling it off.”
My jaw drops. “Oh no.”
“She kept saying she was sorry, but she couldn’t give me a reason why; she just said she’d changed her mind. I was absolutely stunned. I’d had no idea she was unhappy.”
We sit quietly for a moment as I process what he’s told me. The story explains a lot about him. Why he’s so quiet, and keeps to himself. Why so many people think he’s grouchy.
“Was she seeing someone else?” I wonder.
He shrugs. “Never found out. I suspect so, as she married someone else within a year. Either she’d met him while I was on Scott Base, or maybe she didn’t like the idea of being married to a man who was less than whole.” His lips twist.
“You’re hardly less than whole,” I scold. “If I didn’t know about your accident, it would be difficult to tell there was anything wrong. Lots of people have backache.”
“I didn’t mean that,” he says. “I meant mentally.”
“What do you mean?”
“The accident changed me. I was happy-go-lucky before. Life and soul of the party, you know? I did a lot of sports—rugby, soccer, cricket, hockey. I was super fit. After the accident, I couldn’t do any of that. It was an effort just to walk. I felt resentful and angry. I had bouts of depression. I guess I wasn’t the person she fell in love with.”