He’s even more adorable than Lionel.’
‘Who’s Lionel?’ Abby asked.
‘Kleppy’s friend,’ Sarah said simply. ‘Ooh, there’s Margy.’ Abby’s next door neighbour was pulling up on the far side of the car park, a dumpy little woman whose looks belied the fact that she ran the most efficient disability services organisation in the State. ‘Hi, Margy. Can I sit next to you?’ And she dived off, carrying Kleppy, leaving Abby and Raff together.
‘Lionel?’ she said, because that seemed the safest way to go.
‘There’s Lionel who was Isaac’s gardener,’ Raff said, frowning. ‘I didn’t realise he and Sarah knew each other, but Sarah gets around more than I think. Okay, have a great hen’s party. I’ll pick Sarah up at four.’
‘Raff?’
‘Yes?’ He sounded testy.
She’d said his name. She needed to add something on the back of it. Something sensible.
But how to say what she needed to say? How to think about saying what she needed to say? How to get over the impossibility of even thinking about thinking about…?
Maybe she should stop thinking. Her head was about to fall off.
People were arriving all around them. Her friends. Her mother’s friends. Every woman in this little community who’d come into contact with her over the years seemed to be getting out of cars, carrying gifts into the golf club.
How many women had her mother invited?
How many gifts would she need to return?
‘Abigail?’ That was her mother calling. She was standing on the terrace, shielding her eyes from the sun, trying to see who her daughter was talking to. ‘Your guests are here. You should be receiving them.’
‘There you go,’ Raff said and eased himself back into his car. ‘By the way, I’m with Sarah. That’s a cute dress. Really cute. You should try wearing that in court some time.’
‘Raff?’ She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want…
‘See you later,’ he said.
He drove away. She stood there in her Elvis dress, staring after him like a dummy.
‘Abigail.’ Her mother’s voice was sharp. ‘What are you thinking? You’re being discourteous to our guests. And what on earth are you wearing?’
A cute dress, she thought, as she headed up to her mother, to her waiting guests.
What was he thinking?
Nothing. He’d better not think anything because if he did there was a chasm yawning and it was so big he couldn’t see the bottom.
He needed some work. He needed a few kids to do something stupid so he could lay down the law, vent a bit of spleen, feel in control.
Abby in an Elvis dress.
Abby, who was marrying Philip.
Any minute now the steering wheel was going to break.
‘Raff?’ His radio crackled into life and he grabbed it as if it were a lifeline.
It was Keith. ‘Yeah?’
‘There’s a bit of trouble down on the wharf. Couple of kids chucking craypots into the water, and Joe Paxton’s threatening to do ’em damage. I’m stuck up on the ridge ’cos John Anderson’s locked himself out. Can you deal?’
‘Absolutely,’ Raff said, feeling a whole heap better.
Trouble, he could deal with.
Just not how he was feeling about Abby.
The afternoon was interminable. She smiled and smiled, and thought she should have run. What was she thinking, letting this afternoon go ahead? Just because she needed to tell Philip first.
‘You’ll make such a lovely couple. A credit to the town.’ That was Mrs Alderson, one of her mother’s bridge partners. ‘We’re so looking forward to next Saturday.’
‘Thank you,’ she said and then realised that Mrs Alderson was carrying a rather long shoulder bag and something had peeped from the edge and Kleppy had just…just…
He was heading under the table, to the full length of his lead, looking satisfied.
She stooped to retrieve it. It was a romance novel, a brand she recognised. A really… Goodness, what was that on the front? She snatched it from her dog and handed it back, apologising.
Margot Alderson turned beet-red and stuffed it back into her bag.
‘I don’t know what you’re doing with that dog,’ she snapped. ‘He’s trouble. If you must get yourself a dog, get a nice one. I have a friend who breeds pekes.’
Kleppy looked up at her from under the table and wagged his tail. He’d done what he wanted. He’d had his snatch and he’d given it to his mistress.
‘I kinda like Kleppy,’ Abby said. ‘And you know…I don’t even mind a bit of trouble.’
Her mother’s friend departed, still indignant. Abby stared after her, thinking-of all things-about the cover of the romance novel. The cover showed a truly fabulous hero, bare from the waist up.
He had two kids in the cells waiting for their parents to come and collect them. ‘Take your time,’ he’d told them. ‘It’ll do ’em good to sweat.
Which meant he was stuck at the station, babysitting two drunken adolescents. Forced to do nothing but think.
Abby.
A man could go quietly nuts.
It wasn’t fair to interfere more than he already had.
He wasn’t feeling fair.
‘If I was a Neanderthal I’d go find me a club and a cave,’ he muttered.
He wasn’t. He was Banksia Bay’s cop and Abby was a modern non-Neanderthal woman who knew her own mind. He had to respect it.
‘I miss the old days,’ he said morosely. ‘It’d be so much easier to go set up a cave.’
It was over. The last gift was in her father’s van, being taken home to their spare room, Abby’s old bedroom, pink, pretty.
‘I wish you’d come home for your last week,’ her mother said, hugging her. ‘It’s where you belong.’
Abby said no, as she always said no. They left, leaving Abby sitting on the terrace with Kleppy.
Philip was coming by to meet her. She had to tell him.
Her mother’s words…
Where did she belong?
She didn’t know.
‘What do you mean you don’t want to get married?’
To say Philip was gobsmacked would be an understatement. He was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Maybe she had.
‘I can’t,’ she muttered, miserable. She’d tried to get him to go for a walk with her, to get away from the people in the bar. He wouldn’t. They were out on the terrace but they were still in full view.
Philip was tired from sailing. He didn’t want a walk. He wanted to go home, have a shower, take a nap, then take his fiancee out to Banksia Bay’s newest restaurant. That was what he’d planned.
