February 10th
Two days.
I blink awake to messages on my phone.
Mum:So glad you’re having a wonderful time, darling. Just what you need. Swim in that warm, bright sea and let your worries sink away. Tell me about the other volunteers, the food, the turtles! Xxx
An unknown number:Where are you?
Is this Nick? Or just a slip of someone’s fingers? I click out of it before I’m tempted to reply. There is also an email from Rose.
Kate, you write with such passion about a place that sounds so different from London, almost dreamlike. I never realised the Australian desert was so huge! How do you know it so well? Are you planning any more trips there soon? Any guided tours?
I frown. Maybe I shouldn’t drain the contents of the mini bar and then answer emails. I test out the thought of taking Rose on a desert trip with me, imaging us like Thelma andLouise, driving into an escarpment, having a kind of bucolic gap year. Would having Rose with me fill the absence inside? Would it be better to have her than you? I fling my phone away. What is wrong with me?
I get up and cast the curtains wide to watch the dawn come. I’ll find you soon. You’ll be real. Better than any of this.
February 11th
One day.
I drive around the city for hours, tears on my face, and end up in a car park north of Fremantle. The Swan River is beside me and I have the urge to jump in, swim and swim. I turn away and glance across the lot to the few shops in the corner: Tax Accountants, Cake Shop, Opportunity Shop, a rundown cafe.
What will I do if someone else is there to meet you instead of me?
If you’re alone, I could take you for lunch. Afterwards, we could lie in that big bed in my hotel room. We could talk and talk.
Why me?
Why did you do it?
Did we ever…?
I will wait for your apology.
But you won’t have any clothes to go out for lunch, not when they release you. I open the car door and slide out. There’s a buzzing feeling inside me: a sort of thrill. This is a plan. This is me preparing for you. So I walk towards the shops, remembering thatopportunity shopis the charming Australian name for a charity shop. Today the name feels entirely right.
In the window is a smart, dark-grey man’s suit. When awoman calls from the back of the shop—‘You alright, love?’—I point to it.
‘How much?’ I take a wad of notes from my pocket.
The woman frowns as she approaches. ‘We’ve only just put that out.’
I’m ruining her display. But it’s your size, and you’d look good in it. She tells me the price and I hand over the money. With a suit, we can pretend. We can go somewhere fancier than a rundown cafe, perhaps to one of the beachside restaurants with a view. I’ll get you drunk.
‘It’s a good suit, this,’ she says, as she struggles to remove it from the window. ‘You want the shirt too?’
I nod and take the pile of clothes from her. I even buy a sequined top for me, and hand over more cash.