Hamish and Kate Read online

  He thought of Kate with a pleasure that only comes from self-denial. She was so near but, as yet, did not know he was close-by. He wanted his life settled, so she could not complain at his sacrifice, as if he wanted to work in the USA, almost in spite of her presence. It was a useful delusion.

  In his first week, he socialised a little with Steve, who also worked at the Oceanographic Institute, and his friends and on his second weekend he was included when Steve attended a party at a home in Woods Hole. It was an outside barbecue, which Euan thought strange as he stood in the snow covered backyard. Euan remained with the small group of men he knew, Steve and his friends and the host, as they huddled around the brick-constructed, built-in barbecue. It had been dug out of a snow drift that morning, the evidence was a mound of shovelled snow piled nearby. Euan pressed as close as he could to the heat without getting in the way, all the time, of the cook. Each man held a drink in gloved hands and if alcohol froze at the same temperature as water then everyone, Euan decided, would have been inside, in the warmth. If he had known more people then he would have been inside as well.

  ‘This is too fucking cold,’ Euan exclaimed to the group when there was a break in conversation. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  He was laughed at.

  ‘This is nothing,’ the cook said as he gently bumped Euan out of his way. ‘I’ll be finished soon,’ he added. ‘Then you can all help take the food inside. Hang in there Euan.’

  ‘Goddamn,’ Steve said to Euan. ‘Don’t look now, but there’s this woman staring at you from inside.’

  ‘Where?’ Euan said.

  ‘She’s gone now,’ Steve said when Euan turned to look at the house and warm his back against the coals. ‘She was nice. She was staring at you for ages. I was hoping it was me.’ Steve laughed.

  ‘What did she look like?’ Euan turned back to face the fire and pushed his open hands close to warm them.

  ‘Long blonde hair. Oval face. Nice,’ Steve said. ‘Actually, here she comes now.’

  Euan turned back towards the house. Clare was walking towards him. Her arms wrapped around herself, as she was not dressed for outside.

  ‘Euan?’ she said.

  Euan smiled and nodded his head as if his identity needed confirmation.

  She walked into him, wrapping her arms around him.

  Steve was nonplussed. He had assumed Euan knew no-one, although Euan had not said so. Yet, an attractive woman, Steve thought, was hugging him. An American woman at that.

  ‘Come inside,’ Clare said when she let him go. ‘It’s freezing out here. I don’t know why you’re all standing here.’ She scanned the half-dozen young men staring at her.

  Euan laughed. ‘That’s what I said. And they laughed at me. Yeah, let’s go inside.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Clare said once they were inside the house. She was surprised and confused.

  ‘I work here now,’ Euan said, a little upset that Clare did not appear overly impressed to see him again.

  ‘Does Kate know?’ Clare said.

  ‘No,’ Euan said, he had a mischievous grin.

  Clare’s face darkened with both anger and worry. ‘You haven’t come here for her, have you?’

  Steve appeared next to Euan. ‘How do you know this guy?’ Steve asked Clare. ‘He’s only been here days, and I thought I was the only one he knew.’

  ‘How many days?’ she asked Euan pointedly.

  ‘A few. I was going to see you. And Kate. And Hamish. Eventually,’ Euan said.

  Clare appeared to be about to say one thing but changed her mind.

  ‘We met in New Zealand,’ Clare said, as she turned to Steve. Then her face brightened into the same mischievous look Euan had lost. ‘We were in love. Once.’

  ‘Not any more?’ Euan asked her, quickly.

  ‘No,’ Clare said. ‘Not anymore.’

  Steve looked at them both. ‘Goddamn,’ he said. He shook his head in amazement. He was easily astonished.

  Eventually Steve left to get something to eat.

  ‘I know it’s not my business, but did you and Kate get together after I left?’ Clare asked.

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘She doesn’t say anything. We don’t talk much anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Those last weeks weren’t the best. You were there. Well?’

  ‘No.’ Euan lied. If Clare didn’t know then odds were Hamish didn’t either. Which would make his reunion with Kate that much easier.

  ‘But you did sleep with her ‘though. You told me that.’

  ‘Does that still bother you? I told you it was just once.’

  ‘No. It doesn’t bother me. Not anymore. I just think it’s a bit strange. I’d assumed you would get together.’

  ‘Well,’ Euan said, not knowing what to say. ‘Stuff happens and stuff doesn’t happen.’

  Clare smiled at his nonsense. ‘Physics tells you that does it?’

  ‘No.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘What if I told you that I came here for you?’ Euan said.

  ‘Are you telling me that?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Clare wondered what he was getting at. ‘If you were really saying that, then you would have said it much earlier. And not in person.’

  ‘What if it was to be a surprise?’ Euan asked.

  ‘Surprises have a habit of backfiring.’

  Euan laughed a little, as if in agreement. Of what he did not know.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What if?’

  Clare didn’t reply.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend then?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘No. Not a permanent one.’

  Euan laughed again. ‘You mean permanent like I was?’

  ‘It’s not really any of your business, Euan.’ Clare went cold suddenly. She lost interest in his little game.

  ‘Well, I might have come for you,’ Euan said lamely. ‘How do you know that I didn’t? As well as accept a job offer.’

  ‘How could you Euan?’ Clare was angry. ‘I know about you and Michael. We do have music in the States as well you know. We do have news of what’s happening elsewhere. I know what you’ve done. I’ve heard ‘Clare’s song’ a million times. It’s part of almost every documentary on TV.’

  Clare exhausted her anger. She was annoyed with the past Euan not the one standing before her. She calmed. ‘It’s a beautiful song Euan. It really is.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Euan said nonchalantly, which maddened Clare but she didn’t respond.

  ‘What happened then?’ she asked. ‘Why are you here? Did Michael’s band break up or did you leave them?’

  ‘I left them,’ Euan said quietly. He was unsure of himself for a moment. Clare’s knowledge of her song had unsettled him, he had been reminded of something he had hoped to forget.

  ‘Holy shit!’ a voice with a New Zealand accent sounded on the other side of the room. Clare looked sadly at Euan as if she was wishing him well for the last seconds of a happy life.

  Hamish walked up to Euan and Clare and wrapped his arms around them both. ‘This is great!’ he exclaimed. He shook them.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here Euan?’ he said.

  ‘Well, I am,’ Euan said. Hamish’s jovial attitude proved his ignorance.

  ‘And you two are getting back together are you?’ He shook them both again as if in emphasis.

  Euan looked at Clare and said nothing. Clare looked sad.

  ‘Did you bring Kate?’ Clare asked Hamish and glanced at Euan. She saw his reaction to her name.

  ‘No-one can bring Kate,’ Hamish laughed. ‘You on holiday Euan?’

  ‘No, I’m working here. Just like you guys.’

  ‘Really? That’s great. Where abouts?’

  Euan told him the building where he worked in Woods Hole township.

  ‘Clare and I work out at USGS, it’s on the way to Falmouth. Great place to work, eh Clare?’

  Clare a
greed.

  ‘I’ve started running, you know, like John Walker,’ Hamish laughed. ‘Just a bit slower. It’s a lot of fun. I should get you into it too, if you’re staying around.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d like that,’ said Euan, not knowing if he would or not.

  ‘How long would you be here, do you reckon?’ Hamish said and then called to someone across the room before Euan answered.

  ‘It’s for a year,’ Euan said. ‘At least a year. Depends on progress, as you’d know Hamish.’

  ‘Yeah, we all know about that. Tenure is impossible at the moment. Anyway,’ he said to Euan after waving to another person. ‘Let’s catch up sometime. Give me a call at work. See you later Clare.’

  Hamish left them and joined a group of people who then left the room together.

  ‘I’m going to mix too, Euan. Will you be all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ Euan said and laughed. ‘I can always go and stand outside next to the fire.’

  ‘I think they’ve finished with the barbecue. If you want something to eat it’ll be in the kitchen.’

  As Clare left him Euan asked. ‘Did Hamish say whether Kate was here or not?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he did.’

  Euan wandered off to look for something to eat. He wondered what seared and then snap-frozen meat, from the journey across the backyard, tasted like.

  Euan was standing on his own just outside the kitchen holding a plate of food and trying to eat it with one free hand when Kate found him. She took away his plate and placed it on a nearby table. She wordlessly took his hand and led him to an unoccupied room. She turned him to face her and then laid her head on his shoulder as she put her arms tightly around him. She was crying.

  Steve had seen Kate take Euan by the hand and he had followed them. He peered into the room and saw an even more beautiful woman wrapped in Euan’s embrace, and she appeared to be crying. With pleasure, Steve assumed.

  ‘Goddamn,’ he said quietly under his breath and shook his head as he backed away. He decided to stay close to Euan, wondering how many attractive women he might also get to meet. ‘Those foreign guys must be really attractive to women,’ he thought. ‘Goddamn!’

  ‘Why are you here, Kiwi?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I’ve got a job,’ he said but did not sound convincing. Kate did not believe him.

  ‘A real job?’

  ‘Of course. At the Oceanographic Institute. It’s all done and I’m settled in. You’ve got me for, at the least, a year. Probably much longer.’ He laughed a little. ‘If I’m brilliant, that is,’ he said.

  ‘Oh Kiwi! I said don’t follow me,’ Kate said.

  ‘I love you Kate,’ Euan said as if he was arguing with her. ‘I wasn’t going to leave it like that.’

  She took his hand and gently rubbed the back of his fingers with her thumb.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. Traces of tears were still in her eyes.

  ‘Hamish and I were married.’

  Part 4

  Chapter 1

  Euan had been physically unwell following Kate’s departure from New Zealand. It was as if his immune system shared his grief and ignored the intrusion of any and all foreign agents. He spent days unable to get out of bed. The physical manifestations of his grief magnified his distress as he worried that he could not suffer Kate’s departure sufficiently because he was so ill.

  He received a letter from her at the end of the second week, by which time he was back at work although weak and distracted. It was a disturbingly distant communication. He had half expected his determination to be with her again to have been magically communicated somehow. He re-read the letter many times, sometimes it signalled some faint hope but at most readings it presaged despair. It was the physical link to Kate, an item in her own handwriting, that disallowed discard. The contradictory contents distressed him greatly.

  Euan devised a plan. Once again, an improbable plan filled with obstacles. To live with Kate he had to work in the USA. He had to finish his degree and then obtain a postdoc at the Oceanographic Institute where Hamish, Kate and Clare all worked. He applied himself and, through his doctoral supervisor, cultivated a remote relationship with scientists at Woods Hole.

  No-one suspected that his keenness for scientific work hid an ulterior motive.

  Chapter 2

  ‘We’re going,’ Michael was insistent. His face was stern, angry even.

  Euan looked sheepish and unconvinced. The two of them sat at a table, with a beer each, in the cafe near the University. It was late at night and the owner prowled nervously among the sparsely populated tables. The venue was almost empty and he wanted to close.

  Euan and Michael’s conversation had been had before. A stalemate was continuing.

  ‘How can you not want to go?’ Michael was exasperated. He ran his hand through his long dark hair, in imitation, he realised as he did the action, of annoyance mannerisms of unskilled old-time movie actors.

  Euan stared at his beer on the table before him, his fingers wrapped around it, and said nothing.

  ‘Well?’ Michael was angry. ‘Are you going to say anything at all?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Euan said without looking up, his drink hijacking his attention.

  ‘Well, let me put it this way,’ Michael said caustically. ‘We’re going.’

  ‘I just said that I can’t.’

  ‘We does not necessarily include you, mate,’ Michael said abruptly.

  Euan raised his head, looking like a lost puppy.

  ‘Yes. You’re right,’ Euan said with resignation.

  ‘Fuck, Euan!’ Michael sat up and scanned the venue, noticing how empty it was. If we played here, he thought, it wouldn’t be empty.

  ‘What?’ Euan asked as if he did not want to understand Michael’s outburst.

  ‘What what? You idiot,’ Michael said. ‘We’re going to London, and you have to come with us. We’re a band. You’re in the band. How could we go without you when it’s your song that’s done it.’

  ‘You don’t need me to play,’ Euan said. ‘I mostly just listen anyway. And, it’s not just Clare’s song. There is a bit more music than my four minutes.’ Euan forced a smile. Michael did not smile, although he was one of the most amusing people Euan knew.

  Michael stared straight-faced at Euan’s smile as if wondering what the facial extension signified.

  ‘OK,’ Michael said. He was matter-of-fact, as if he was a business man missing an opportunity. ‘Tell me yet again, why not?’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ Euan said.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So everything.’

  Michael sighed. ‘Can’t you, like, do it quicker?’

  ‘You make a degree sound like a race,’ Euan said.

  ‘I’ve given up on my race. So we, note that word Euan, so that we can do this stuff.’

  ‘I know,’ Euan agreed. Michael had abandoned his own post-graduate degree to concentrate on the band. He had done a wonderful job, Euan knew.

  ‘You’ll end with some shit job at some shit University. Instead of doing this. I don’t get you,’ Michael said.

  Euan would have agreed with him, except for his plan to work in the USA.

  ‘OK,’ Michael continued, as if he was trying to extract difficult information. ‘What stage are you at?’

  ‘I’ve just started writing.’

  ‘Which would take? How long?’

  Euan thought for a moment. ‘Six months. If everything goes OK and I don’t have to re-do anything substantial.’

  Michael stood up and looked down at Euan. His eyes blazed. If he didn’t know Michael better Euan would have thought he was about to be struck by his friend.

  ‘Do it in three,’ Michael ordered. ‘Then follow us.’

  Euan was silent.

  ‘We’re going next month,’ Michael said. ‘Two months after that I want you in London.’ Michael turned to leave, then came back, leant down so his face was confronting Euan. He whispered harshly.

 
‘And don’t come to band practice again, prick. Go and work your arse off in your fucking little office.’

  Michael violently shoved Euan’s shoulder. Euan understood the whispered and physical threat was a form of affection. Euan called to Michael as he wove through empty tables towards the exit.

  ‘Maybe I will,’ Euan said.

  Michael did not acknowledge Euan.

  Chapter 3

  One of Euan’s airport farewell’s was hopeful. He sat excitedly at the departure gate at Auckland airport waiting to board his flight to London. It was a little more than three months since his last face to face meeting with Michael. That didn’t matter, it was close enough, he thought. The business of music was a mishmash of inexact requirements. He smiled and chuckled to himself, as he remembered that last meeting, then looked around worried what the other waiting passengers might make of the young man giggling to himself. No-one noticed or cared.

  He had a shit degree, he smiled again. He had rushed the writing. Still, that didn’t matter, not too much. A senior scientist from Woods Hole had promised to get him an appointment. But it would take time. Months, possibly a year, it would depend on funding. However, Euan had a promise. And in the meantime, which was the cause for his private humour, he would fly to London and be a famous, maybe even rich, musician while he waited for a reunion with the love of his life.

  His flight was announced. He stood, thinking he was about to pass through some figurative gateway leading to the best years of his life.

  He had no idea what was before him.

  Chapter 4

  Helen worked for the management company responsible for Michael’s band in London. She had been assigned to them upon Michael’s arrival. It was the first time a band had been her sole responsibility. She was a little nervous to begin with and when she met Michael her nervousness increased. She had never met a band of musicians who were intelligent, well spoken and considerate. She was defensive to begin with, worried about proving her worth. She stridently argued her promotional decisions, until she realized her job would be easy and more productive, if she formed a working partnership with Michael. She relaxed a little, although never obtaining complete self-confidence. The two of them ran the tiny empire the band became. She learned as much from him as from her superiors in the management company. It was a pity, she thought, that she didn’t like their music. It was too complex and difficult to gain a large audience. However, London was disparate enough to accommodate a variety of music styles. She also knew that excessive, short-term success would lead to her being redeployed. She did not want that. She was happy planning for greater success while learning and being a productive member of Michael’s mildly successful music venture.