We started downstairs, went from huge room to huge room, looked out of the dirty windows at a dim day growing duller. Everywhere, we bumped into each other; in big spaces, we bumped into each other, sorry, sorry, hands unsure of where to go.
Upstairs. More bedrooms than a country pub, beds in all of them, clean coir mattresses, striped, some with neatly folded blankets on them.
In a large bedroom, not the master bedroom but big, wooden double bed, we looked out of the window, down at the newly cleared garden.
‘It’s going to look beautiful from here,’ Anne said. We turned inward at the same moment, looked at each other.
‘Beautiful,’ I said. She was beautiful.
There was a moment of decision, indecision.
I put out a finger and touched her lips, in the centre.
‘Oh Christ,’ she said, reaching up and taking my head in her hands.
I put my hands on her waist, long, strong waist, drew her to me. As our mouths and our bodies met, she tilted her hips and pushed her pelvis against me. My hands slid down over her buttocks, lifted her, pulled her.
When our mouths parted, I said, close to her skin, ‘Terrible urge to take off your clothes.’
‘Terrible urge,’ she said, ‘to have you take them off.’
Kissing again, lost in her mouth, my hands on the bottom of her sweater, pulled it up. We broke free just long enough for it to pass over her head. I started unbuttoning her shirt from the collar, she took her fingers out of my hair and unbuttoned her cuffs, pulled the shirt over her head.
White lacy bra. I held her by the shoulders, looked, kissed the round tops of her breasts, put my tongue into the half cups, felt the nipples, risen, insistent.
‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ she said. Her hand went behind her back and the bra fell away, trembling breasts, not small, not big, lolling in my hands, mouth torn between three places, more, nipples, hollows of the throat, ears, eyes.
She loosened my belt, waistband, silky hand sliding over my stomach, gripping me, chamois grip, pulling, squeezing. I groaned.
The bed drew us, shoes, socks, pants, underpants went. I was naked first, five-limbed. Cold, hot. Anne was on her back, mouth open, loose, lovely. I pushed up her long skirt, pulled her pantyhose down her legs, over the long thighs, tense, the curve of calves, delicate ankles. Small white lace knickers, dark and springy promise beneath. Off. Pale stomach, hollow. I rubbed my face against it, kissed it, felt a pulse against my lips, buried my face in her dense pubic hair, thighs opening, sweet musk, the place, moist, salty, impossibly delicate rose petals of flesh, my hands under her buttocks lifting her, feeling the muscles clench, her hands in my hair pushing me down, hips moving.
Anne brought me up, my tongue tracing a line to her bellybutton, tip pushing into the whorl, turned me over, tartan skirt off and in the air, floating to the ground, knelt above me, pushing her hair back with one hand, holding the engorged thing with the other, leaning forward, shoulders, breasts bigger, flushed with blood, kissing me, sucking my lips, her lips pulling mine in, her hand drawing the thin foreskin back, down, slowly, tight, drum tight, edge of pain, exquisite. And then the instant beyond pleasure, the touch, the warm, wet, tight, yielding, nipping, teasing, enfolding, gripping.
‘Yes,’ she said, sliding down, sitting on me to the hilt, ecstatic pubic junction. Beautiful, abandoned, impaled jockey, grinding, bending backwards, breasts flattening, nipples, ribs, hipbones, tendons in her neck sticking out, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh fuck, Jesus Christ, yes.’
We didn’t do the mill inspection; it would have to wait. We kissed goodbye outside, against her car, lingering kiss, kisses, almost started the whole thing up again.
I was about ten kilometres from home, happy, at peace for a moment, driving in the dark down a winding lonely stretch without farmhouses. A siren came on behind me, harsh, braying sound, happiness disrupted, rear- view mirror full of flashing orange light.
I slowed, went onto the verge, stopped.
The car pulled up close behind me but much further off the road.
I rolled down the window, waited.
A middle-aged cop, moustache, leather jacket, no cap, appeared at the window.
‘Licence,’ he said, tired voice.
‘What’s this about?’ I said. ‘I wasn’t speeding.’
‘Licence, please,’ he repeated.
I found it in my wallet, handed it over.
He shone his torch on it. ‘MacArthur J. Faraday?’
‘Yes.’
‘This your current address?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mind stepping out of the vehicle. Sir.’
‘Jesus,’ I said, got out. Bitter cold outside, no moon, north wind humming in the trees. The dog made his warning sound.
‘Quiet,’ I said ‘Stay.’
‘Turn and face the vehicle, please, hands on top,’ the cop said.
‘What’s going on here?’ I said. ‘There’s no…’
‘Do as I say, please. This’ll only take a minute. We’re looking for stolen goods.’
I turned and assumed the position.
‘Pace back, please.’
I took the pace, weight on my hands, unbalanced, leaning on the freezing vehicle.
A second cop came around the back of the Land Rover, short, pale hair slicked down, head just an extension of his thick neck. He had no visible eyebrows and a nose like the teat of a baby’s dummy.
He walked straight to me, swung his left leg, kicked my left leg out backwards, hit me in the back of the neck with a round side-on swing of his fist.
Everything went red, black, white, unbearable pain behind the eyes, in the bones of my head. I didn’t even feel myself fall, land on the wet tarmac.
The next thing I registered was a heavy weight, a foot between my shoulder blades, something cold and hard pressing against the cavity under my left ear.
The muzzle of a revolver.
The pain seemed to dissolve. Cold and rough tarmac against the face, chill wind down here at ground level, smell of Anne on my shirt, French perfume, delicious Anne. I registered that but all I felt was sad. Sad and stupid. The watchful years, the looking for the signs, the ingrained disbelief about everything. For nothing. This is a stupid way to go, I thought. Careless. What would Berglin say?
‘Bobby said to say goodbye,’ said the middle-aged cop. ‘Be here to say it himself, only he’s got better things to do.’
He pulled my head back by the hair, painful, changed the angle of the muzzle to make sure he blew my brain away.
Headlights. Coming the way I’d come.
‘Fuck,’ said the man. ‘Don’t move.’ He took the barrel away from my ear, pushed down harder on my spine with his foot.
A vehicle slowed, slowed, almost stopping. Went past us. Stopped.
I turned my head, saw the driver’s door of a ute open, stocky frame come out, curly hair.
Flannery. On his way to the pub.
‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘What the fuck’s this?’
‘It’s an arrest, sunshine,’ the neckheaded cop said. ‘Get back in your vehicle and drive on immediately. Now. Or you’re under arrest for obstructing a police officer.’
I couldn’t see the expression on Flannery’s face but I could see the shrug.
‘Okay, okay, I’m going,’ he said. ‘You could’ve asked nicely.’
He got back into the ute. Trouble getting it into gear, clutch grating.
