Hamish and Kate Read online

  Euan didn’t think before he spoke.

  ‘Thinking of you,’ he said the truth and was embarrassed when he heard the words as if they had come from someone else.

  Euan tried to take back what he had said. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he frowned. ‘How embarrassing,’ he said, not meaning to say that out loud either. He could not keep his thoughts private.

  ‘I just spoke without thinking,’ he said without thinking.

  There was a short silence as Clare watched him. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked quietly.

  Words often fail. A physical action was all he was capable of, and with deliberation and gentleness, Euan took Clare’s hand and held it like it was a prize of great delicacy and beauty. It was all he could do and all he wanted to do.

  Euan can freeze-frame that moment in the gardens and re-live it. He can step out of the frame and walk around Clare and himself, looking at the two of them as if time has stopped. He can remember the feel of her hand, the gentle resilience, the warmth of her skin and its texture. Sometimes, later in life, taking the hand of a stranger or accepting change after a purchase when he touched the hand of a female shop assistant, he would remember that moment with Clare. The intensity of an emotion more than the duration is what decides how much of a memory is retained. Over the years of Euan’s life, that memory of holding Clare’s hand, for only seconds, has been retrieved and re-played many times. There has been a slow purification of memory. That process is why it is often a disappointment to return to the places of childhood experiences. Euan has no wish to live that moment with Clare again, if that was possible, since he has the moment in the purer form in his mind.

  ‘Do you want to eat? Again?’ Euan asked when he remembered to speak.

  Clare laughed. ‘Yes, but not now. I have to go. I have to work.’

  Euan didn’t want Clare to leave, he thought the spell would be broken. He asked to spend the afternoon with her again and kept talking to delay her answer.

  ‘I really do have to work,’ she said. ‘I really do. I could come over tonight. But not now. I have to go. Call me and give me directions.’

  She left and Euan watched her walk away towards the University. It wasn’t until she disappeared that he realised he could have walked with her. He also had to return to work.

  Chapter 6

  Time does not flow as we wish when we are anticipating and waiting. Euan finished preparing a simple meal for Clare a long time before her arrival. He sat and waited, staring out of his windows over the backyard garden, willing time to go faster. He wanted the dead time before Clare arrived to be over, to join the ends of the span of time like they were a piece of fabric he could fold so that it had no length. The more he concentrated and wished time to speed, the longer the waiting time stretched. His life had no meaning before Clare’s arrival. Hours and hours passed and they were only minutes.

  The small garden had begun his waiting by returning his stares with colour, then the shadows lengthened and the backdrop faded into grey-scale and then whole areas merged into nothingness. The searchlight of sunset ranged higher and higher until the cirrus clouds caught the end of the day and held the last seconds of it. He watched and waited until the world outside his windows was black and he stared at his seated reflection. There were dull, rhythmic thumps overhead. He heard the repetition as if a single person was randomly pacing about the house. Life was continuing without him.

  ‘Hi,’ Clare said happily when Euan opened the front door for her.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Euan’s pleasure in inviting her into his home was stretched across his face.

  ‘I had a little trouble finding this place. There isn’t a number on the gate and the little pathway down to here isn’t easy to see in the dark.’

  Clare wasn’t complaining, she was talking for the sake of talking and Euan didn’t listen to her words, just the sound of her voice. He asked her to sit down. They sat in armchairs with a rickety table between them. The table doubled as a coffee and bedside table for Euan. They faced the windows but there was nothing to see but their reflections.

  ‘What’s out there?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Just a garden.’

  ‘Don’t you shut the curtains?’

  ‘There’s no-one to look in, so I rarely bother.’

  ‘I could have walked here, I didn’t have to drive. It’s a lot closer than I thought,’ she said.

  ‘Did you finish that work you had to do this afternoon?’ Euan asked.

  They had a pleasant, simple conversation as comfortable with each other as if they had been acquaintances for a long time. Clare told Euan about her geology studies and he knew the right questions to ask. Intelligence is made impressive by questions asked, not by dogmatic answers. Euan told her, in general terms, of his Physics work and tried to explain the beauty of higher mathematics like he was discussing art. Clare did not understand but his enthusiasm was attractive. Over the uncomplicated dinner, while sitting at the second of Euan’s two tables, the conversation became intimate as they told personal stories. Those stories were pivotal as they sat facing each other across the remains of the dinner Euan had presented.

  Clare and Euan were certain they were at the centre of all things.

  Clare stood. She held out her hand to Euan. ‘That’s enough. Let’s go to bed,’ she said. ‘Do you mind shutting the curtains ‘though?’

  Clare crouched over the naked Euan as he lay on his back on his bed. She took his hand and wrapped it around his penis to form a support, to keep it steady. She gently pulled her labia apart and downward and wrapped herself over him like she was protecting and preserving him inside her body. Clare’s simple action of authority, in taking control of their lovemaking, allowed Euan to re-play her arousing action in his mind while he watched the pleasure on Clare’s face. He was a passive participant and he enjoyed not having to second-guess the satisfaction of his partner. He was free to think while he enjoyed their sex, he felt in no hurry to reach his own climax nor did he have to decide when she had finished. He was always bad at predicting his partner’s orgasm and often came too early after thinking it was all over. He watched Clare and enjoyed her enjoyment. Her simple action opened the world of women to Euan. It was an exciting world where mutual sexual gratification, friendship, comradeship and love were all possible in the one person.

  Euan watched and smiled as Clare reached the end with a shudder. Euan came quickly and then rolled her over so they lay side by side, facing each other. He stayed inside her as they talked.

  Euan burned a second, permanent memory to add to the one holding Clare’s hand in the park. His memory was not of the active time of sex but the time afterwards, with a soft, melting penis inside Clare and the sound of her voice.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning Euan partly opened his eyes and wondered why the world was so dark. There should have been images of the garden in the morning sun. The curtains, he remembered. He drifted back towards sleep having decided to not get up and open them. His mind shuffled through scenes from the night before. He examined what Clare said and did and her intent and how he responded. He was a half-asleep film director viewing rushes to decide which scenes were worth keeping. He could smell Clare. He should get out of bed, he thought, but couldn’t be bothered. He was completely engaged in remembering but scenes became disjointed and out of order. He was an observer watching his own penis entering Clare, but she was no longer Clare. Her hair was dark and unkempt. He was in bed with someone else and Clare was sitting next to them watching.

  He had fallen asleep again and was dreaming.

  No, he wasn’t asleep. He moved his arm and touched real flesh that was not his.

  ‘Nice dreams?’ Clare was sitting on the edge of Euan’s bed. She was dressed and smiling like Euan was all that was important in the world. Her hand was around his erect penis.

  Euan slowly woke to full comprehension that Clare was real.

  ‘How can you be so cheerful?’ he asked as he placed
the back of his hand against his forehead as if to shield his eyes from the non-existent morning sun and then looked closely at her. ‘Why are you dressed?’

  ‘Some of us have work to do and can’t dwell on a night of passion.’ She pushed his hand out of the way, bent over and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Also, I have to take Hamish’s car back. Or, would you have preferred Hamish came and woke you up? Like this,’ she said as she squeezed his testicles.

  ‘I’m taking you skiing,’ she announced and stood up. ‘No questions. Tomorrow, for two nights. We’ll pick you up mid-morning.’

  ‘What about tonight?’ Euan complained.

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got a departmental thing. Sorry.’ She kissed him again on the forehead and she was gone.

  Euan wondered how his life had changed so quickly. He, apparently, had a full time girlfriend and now he was to be a skier, as well. He returned the back of his hand to his forehead and worried that he had found real love only to die by avalanche, or by falling off a cliff, or wrapped around a lift pylon.

  He got out of bed and opened the curtains to greet the morning and the garden.

  Chapter 8

  The car trip to the ski-fields took five hours. Hamish drove his car and Kate and Clare were the other passengers. They arrived at the base of the mountain in the late afternoon and then followed the gravel road that switched back and forth as it climbed. The landscape was dead, sharp and black, newly created by volcanic activity. Patches of snow appeared by the side of the road and joined to become continuous as Hamish drove higher. The landscape morphed into continuous white with some black, protruding, volcanic outcrops.

  The car stopped outside the University chalet, a rudimentary wooden accommodation set among a cluster of similar buildings near the base of the lowest chair-lift. Euan had never walked on snow before and when he opened the car door and tried to walk he slipped over immediately. He was surprised at the gritty crunch, he had expected snow to be silent and fluffy. He helped unpack the car and then while the others discussed dinner he went outside and played. He tried running and sliding on the hard packed snow, he fell into undisturbed snow drifts with a dry splash, he picked up armfuls of snow and dodged after he threw it into the air. He acted unselfconsciously, like a child at the beach on the first day of a long summer holiday. He never acted exuberantly in a calculated way, he was simply enjoying himself, but by doing so he unconsciously attracted the women he wanted to attract. Kate and Clare watched Euan through the window.

  ‘That looked like fun,’ Kate said when Euan had been called inside, when dinner was ready.

  ‘I’ve never been in snow before,’ he said. A smile was fixed on his face, and would remain there until morning.

  ‘The last time I remember doing that I was ten years old,’ Kate said. She grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him around and brushed the snow off the back of his jacket.

  Euan laughed. ‘Maybe you should try it again. I’m sure it’s just as much fun now as then. Snow’s not like anything else, is it?’ he said as Kate finished her brushing and he took off his jacket.

  ‘No, I guess not,’ Kate said. ‘Maybe I should try playing again, you tend to forget when it’s everywhere. When it’s a nuisance and in the way.’

  ‘How could you get sick of that?’ Euan pointed out of the window. The light was fading and the view over the stark white snow fields to the hard-edged world below the mountain was dissolving. It was as if they were entering their own, disconnected world.

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ Clare called out.

  ‘Great,’ Euan said and brushed passed Kate. ‘I’ll do the dishes after,’ he said to Clare. ‘I promise.’

  Clare and Euan went to bed soon after dinner had been tidied up. Euan was a little nervous as he undressed Clare. He was more concerned about what could go wrong than thinking about the obvious pleasure of a woman allowing him to undress her. It was cool in the bedrooms and Clare got quickly into bed, Euan followed. This time he was on top of her and as he gently pushed through the slight, initial resistance to penetration, Clare watched him, alternating her attention from one eye to the other and back again as if she could not decide in which eye Euan really lived.

  Everything was so perfect that Euan thought it could not possibly last.

  Chapter 9

  Early the next morning Euan stood at the top of a ski run. The snow was pure white, there was no leaf litter, because there was no vegetation, and no dirt. One side of the run was overshadowed by towering cliffs of jet black lava, frozen in motion. While the landscape was definite, it was either black or white, Euan was hesitant. He was unsteady on his skis but was standing, which was quite an accomplishment. He tried to look nonchalant but was scared as he looked down the suicidally, he thought, steep slope. There were some adults but most of the people dressed in bright colours, who plunged off the edge, were children. He regretted asking Clare to take him immediately up the access chair lift and not spend time on the almost flat nursery slopes. He thought he would have been horrified with embarrassment learning to ski next to children who did not look old enough to walk. As he waited at the top of the chair lift and looked longingly down to the bottom, where he could see the infants skiing on the flat, he had almost changed his mind.

  ‘It’s a lovely view from up here,’ Clare said as she patiently waited next to him. ‘But the reason we’re up here is to go down there.’ She pointed with her ski pole down the slope.

  ‘I know. I will,’ he said nervously. Instead of being mesmerised by the drop off like it was the edge of a cliff, Euan dragged his eyes away to look at Clare. He tried to smile. ‘It looks easy. I just need to get started, don’t I? It is quite steep, I mean. Oh, I don’t know.’ Euan’s face lost the last of his false confidence. He wanted to plead with Clare for forgiveness, for whichever of his failings that had led to his punishment.

  Clare laughed, which did not help. ‘This is an easy run. You’ll be fine. You won’t even notice this run by the time we go home,’ she said. ‘Remember, lean down the slope, don’t lean back. I’ll watch out for you.’

  Euan believed her. He slid over the edge and immediately lost control as he panicked and leant back to resist the slope. After a series of ungainly movements he was lying in the snow detached from his skis. He heard approaching laughter, but it was only Clare as she skied down next to him. People skied passed and did not give Euan a second look, no-once noticed his embarrassment.

  Euan laughed too. He spent a long time putting his skis on again and he caused Clare to fall and slide while he was leaning on her for support. He eventually reached the bottom of the slope but more in the way of a toboggan than someone on skis. The elation of his success made him forget his fear and indecision at the top, where he found himself again before he had a chance to think about it.

  Clouds formed below the ski slopes later in the morning making a false floor of shifting hills of white while Euan and Clare skied in glorious sunshine. The mountain was free to float. Euan noticed a distant companion for their own mountain, a perfectly symmetrical volcanic mound, a few hundred kilometres away to the west. It was also above the floor of clouds and was accompanying them on their journey. Occasionally the clouds would break open for a moment and Euan could see the real world below, he felt like an inhabitant of Olympus whose only enterprise was pleasure.

  Clare had to drag him away late in the afternoon, by which time most of his runs down the slope did not result in him falling over. He could even turn, of a sort, and occasionally he could stop where he intended.

  The next morning the weather was perfect, again, and after two runs on the same, beginners slope of the previous day Clare suggested they go in search of Kate and Hamish. They zigzagged across the mountain using chair lifts and T-bars looking for the other two. When they found them the two couples rendezvoused at the top of a steeper run serviced by a chair lift.

  Kate skied off the edge first and Euan watched her as she moved effortlessly down the slope. Clare thought he was repe
ating his hesitancy of the first morning.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked with concern. ‘Is this too steep for you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘It’s more fun than I thought possible. Thanks for bringing me here. This is really great.’

  Euan nearly fell over, from surprise and from the collision, when Clare leant over and kissed him.

  ‘It’s fun when you’re doing this holiday stuff,’ she said. ‘But it’s different when you have to get to school or go to work, when you have to drive in it, decide when to put snow tires on your car. All that stuff. Sometimes you just can’t go outside because it’s too cold and there’s too much snow. When you come and spend time at home with me you might change your mind.’

  Clare dropped off the edge and was gone.

  Euan repeated her last sentence as he watched her slide away. Did that mean she assumed a long term commitment? Or was he to be allowed to visit her after she returned home to the USA? He was both excited and disappointed. She expected them to remain a couple, at least until the end of the following year or so, but she had confirmed that she would leave. If Euan wanted Clare he would have to leave New Zealand and live in another country. He didn’t know if he wanted that. He would have a momentous decision to make.

  He shook himself out of his reverie. He was, again, racing ahead and assuming difficulties. He had Clare, who he thought he could love, for at least a year and half. How could that be a problem? He didn’t care about the future, there was only now. He wanted to follow Clare down the slope to where Kate was waiting.

  Over the years to come, what he would do in pursuit of her would amaze him.

  Chapter 10

  Months passed and Euan felt he wanted less of Clare. He understood that it was his fault and nothing wrong with her. He wanted the intense moments repeated, holding hands in the park, the time after first sex or their first days when they were away skiing. He was discontented with the mundane activities that took up most of their lives together. They became normal people but as he shared more with Clare she became less special. It worried him that he spent time away from her and did not feel the same as the afternoon before their first night together. Whole days passed when he did not think of her.