A week ago I was standing on the beach watching sea birds diving for fish just metres from where I stood. Strange. Today I was wedged in with droves of others at a Home and Building expo. What was I doing there? Trying new things - pushing out of the usual routine- doing family things.
Afterwards my sister and I walked home across the park. We noticed our body language change from sharp jerky movements and quick, clipped speech to an easy fluidity which matched our pacing steps. Both of us need space to breathe - that much was established. We shall leave the crowd scenes to others who thrive in that environment - each to their own.
Enjoy the start of Chapter 3!

Chapter 3

When they arrived at the pizza aria Bill guided Rhona straight to a table in the corner near the window. There were only two other tables occupied and Tony, the owner, came up to them almost immediately.

“Got family staying Bill?” he asked as he handed out menus, smiling warmly at the lady.

Bill watched Rhona widen her eyes at this and look up at Tony who mumbled something in Italian. Rhona laughed, adding a comment in the same language. All of a sudden both of them were laughing and talking at once, accompanied by a good deal of arm waving and batting of eyelids.

“Have you been to Italy?” Bill asked her stiffly when Tony finally left.

“No, to the Community Centre.” Her face was a picture of composed politeness now.

 “Sorry?”

“Italian classes at the local Community Centre”, she replied “Have you?”

“Ah no.  England, Ireland, Scotland and some of France, but not Italy.”

“My!” She arched an eyebrow.

He flicked his drink coaster back and forth between two fingers.

“So”, he said, “tell me about your kids.”

“No.” She was suddenly serious, pushing her hand through her hair and leaning back in her chair away from him. “Play fair until we’ve eaten.” Tony came back to flourish about her all through the preliminaries. When he left Bill managed a tight smile. “It must be something about you. He doesn’t usually fuss so much.”

Rhona seemed wary but all she said was “It’s because you’re so tall and I’m only pocket sized.” She laughed suddenly and asked “Are you average in your family Bill?”

For the next half hour Bill talked about himself over the antipasto.

There was an awkward silence when his main course arrived. Rhona said she would join in again over coffee. She had already eaten before she left home.  Bill couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. There were a lot of things he wanted to know but nothing he could just blurt out over the pasta. Rhona filled the breach by asking him if he grew up in Auckland. When he told her he was from Wellington originally she asked “Did you do your tertiary study in Wellington too?”

He looked up sharply and laid down his fork. “How did you know I studied anywhere?”

“Oh”, she shrugged, “an educated guess. You told me you worked at the Museum.”

He said “I might have been the maintenance man for all you know” and waited for her reaction. She wasn’t fazed. There was a curious teasing expression on her face that looked suspiciously like flirting to him. She was saying “You couldn’t dress like you do on his salary, though I expect you would be pretty competent in the job if you tried it. In fact you probably have tried it.”

Bill grunted and went on with his meal. After a few moments he said “You make a lot of assumptions.”

She smiled innocently around her glass “Am I wrong?”

“No.” he said, smiling back. “I’m not telling you my whole biography you know.”

“So tell me what you want to tell me.”

 Rhona was watching the coming and goings in the restaurant with interest, but Bill concentrated on his ravioli and being interesting while he tried to think of a way to steer the conversation around to her.

The first sign he saw of any trouble was when he noticed Rhona crumple her serviette in her hand and stiffen in her seat. A professional looking couple had just come in and the woman was holding forth before they reached the centre of the room.

“How quaint Nick, it’s just like old times.” She had a high pitched voice

“Oh my God I don’t believe it- it IS Rhona.” The woman was shrieking as she bore down upon them.

“We were coming past, weren’t we Nick, and I looked in and I said to Nick “Oh My God its Rhona” and he said “it couldn’t be”, but it IS! Darling its YEARS since we saw you.” She was leaning over the table leering at Bill while her husband stood well back looking like an accessory to crime. Rhona appeared very small in the corner. “Hello Carla”, she said in a level tone. “Nick. Are you both well?” Bill noticed her beautiful broad smile was missing. Her eyes had faded to jade coloured flint.

“Oh you know darling. Up and down. I was just saying to Nick the last time I saw you was in our finals year. I heard the Man Eater had married an Accountant. Tell me it wasn’t true. I never believed it.”

“No Carla. It was true.” Bill saw she had drawn her spine dead straight now and her jaw was set in a way he hadn’t seen before.

Bill decided to pitch in “How do you mean?” he asked looking at Carla in a puzzled way.

She shrieked on queue “Didn’t you know? She had the whole faculty on its ear in her day. No one was safe were they Nicky?” The chap had wandered off to look out the window.

The restaurant wasn’t overly full but Bill noticed Tony was charging about trying to distract the other diners from the side show- without much success. The woman was closing her performance, fortunately.  She blew kisses all round the room, as she made her exit with her husband, head down, in her wake. Grateful they were not staying, Bill filled his glass and took a long draught. He thought it was bad luck that his usual spot was by the window.

Rhona left the table briefly. When she slid back into her seat she made that little cat smirk she had on her face when he first saw her at the Museum. She sat stirring her coffee, eyes fixed with infuriating steadiness on the cup, until he said “You could talk to me or we could leave, whichever you prefer.”

She shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes. “Thank you for the meal”

“ Look, Tony has a table in the courtyard out the back. Why don’t we take the coffee out there?”

She made the little smile tighter. “Sure.”

Bill perched himself on the ridiculous metal chair in the courtyard and tried to wrap his legs somewhere out of the way. “That woman said she knew you at Uni’ – was that here?”

Rhona nodded, still stiff. “Yes, Born here; school here; everything here.”

 He heard a level of disenchantment in her tone. They looked at each other in silence until Bill shifted his weight on the perilous chair.  “Was it true, what she said about you?”

“She intended to make trouble. You could see that. We were never close.” Her quiet voice had a hard edge to it.

This is no lightweight lady, he thought. The question had to be asked: “Still married?”

She took a slow breath and recited to the ashtray “Married with two adult sons- now independent, one nineteen year old girl just left home, one girl aged fourteen at college.” Not one shred of emotion, neither pride nor resentment, that he could detect. He saw he was going to have to carry this.

“So. The other day, in the museum, what happened?”

She shrugged and said “Do you really want to listen to this?” When he nodded she blew out her cheeks and said “Nothing actually happened exactly.” She paused, looking away to his left before continuing. “I was there to be on my own- to see some art, some furniture, to catch up. So I went there but it wasn’t how I had planned- it made me feel exposed somehow – like I was being watched or x-rayed or something. It frightened me. So I went to find people- but it was like I was, you know, invisible again. Then I had to get out and you asked me if I was OK but I couldn’t say it all then, you wouldn’t have known what I meant.” She suddenly stopped for breath.

Bill did know what she meant and knew too that he was partly responsible. It wasn’t all his fault, but he knew some of it was. “It was me.”

“I beg your pardon.”  She was frowning, searching his face. Her own was so wonderfully expressive. He wanted to draw those features and capture the mobility there. He said

“Looking at you. In the furniture hall. I don’t usually, you know, watch people but…”

He watched for a reaction but there was none so he added “I saw you in the café too. When you spilled Sue’s coffee I was behind you. I wasn’t stalking you or anything I just saw ….”

He broke off and sat looking at her, wanting to do something for her to make it right. You should pull out now Billy, he thought.

His long hair was coming out of the tie. She reached over his shoulder and pulled the band right off, so that a silver ripple fell on his jacket. Taking his hand she turned it palm up, put the band into it and closed his fingers over it. He did not resist.

Rhona stood up abruptly, collected her bag and said politely “Thank you – a lovely morning.” The self effacing housewife was back. She held out her hand, saying goodbye.

He stood too, refusing to take it. “No wait. I won’t be a minute.”

She shook her head and walked past him, exchanging some Italian words with Tony on her way out.

Bill settled the account and hurried out of the restaurant. He came up beside her near the top of Parnell Rise. No one spoke. At St Stephens Ave he jammed his hand on the pedestrian button and turned, leaning down to her. He made his voice sound disinterested as he asked quietly “Is it the husband?”

Rhona kept her eyes on the traffic lights. “He is a good man– doing his best.”

“Huh, aren’t we all. Do you sleep with him?”

She looked away at the cathedral thinking how typical it was of a man to focus on these irrelevancies. She knew what he was really asking and said in an exasperated voice “Does it matter?”

“Yes damn it.” Bill hit the post next to them with his open palm. “It matters.” He knew instinctively she would not lie to him to save his ego. “So do you?”

The buzzer went. She made to move off but he held her back.

Rhona pressed the button again with her free hand, turning her face away from him. His voice was clipped as he said “Don’t think I make a habit of bullying unhappy housewives OK?” After a space he started again. “Look. I don’t talk to people like this. I especially don’t talk to women like this.”

She kept up her feigned indifference but they understood each other. As the lights changed he said “I live at Park Drive Apartments, unit 2. I have next Monday off. I will wait until 10.30 and then I’m out. You know where I’ll be.”

When Rhona looked up he was gone, striding across the road, oblivious to two lanes of traffic, not looking back. Not looking at all.