‘There you go, then.’ She kissed him lightly on the lips and pushed him away. ‘That makes a hundred and eleven. But tell me again.’
‘I love you.’
‘A hundred and twelve. Go and answer the phone.’
It was Sue-Ellen from the nursing home.
‘The ferry’s operating. Emma’s parents were the first over and they want to know if they can take their daughter home right away.’
Joss groaned. He really did need to check the child first.
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ he told her.
When he returned to his bedroom Amy was gone.
‘Amy?’
‘I’m in the shower.’
‘You promised to keep the bed warm.’
‘I lied. People do.’
He thought about that as he hauled open the bathroom door to find her under a cloud of steam.
‘I don’t,’ he told her.
‘Yeah, right.’
There was only one way to handle insubordination like that. Joss hauled the shower screen wide and swept Amy up into his arms. They stood naked as the water poured over them and he kissed her so hard she lost her breath and had to pummel him away with her fists. Breathless and laughing, she leaned back in his arms and looked up at him with love.
‘If you need to see Emma before she’s discharged, we need to go.’
Damnably they did.
‘Joss…’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thank you for last night.’
‘It’s the first of-’
‘No.’ The laughter died then. ‘Joss, it’s not the first of anything. It’s a one-off. Today you’ll get into your stepmother’s amazing pink Volkswagen and you’ll drive onto the ferry and out of my life.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’ She struggled to be free and reluctantly he loosed her. Not so much as you’d notice, though. She was still linked within the circle of his arms.
‘I’ve had a long-term engagement,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want another.’
‘But-’
‘No.’ She was holding him close but her voice was urgent. ‘Joss, you know I can’t leave here for six years. This place would die. So many people would lose so much. I can’t hurt them and you wouldn’t want me to.’
He thought about that. In truth, he’d been thinking of little else. Except for how wonderful this woman was.
How he needed to keep her.
‘You can’t stay here,’ she told him.
He thought about that.
‘Joss?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You need to return to Sydney.’
He did. Damnably, he did. There was so much to do.
‘Remember me,’ she told him. ‘But not…not with faithfulness. I’m not waiting for you and you’re not waiting for me. We’re free.’
Free.
Once it had seemed the only way to be. Now, as he kissed her one last long time, it seemed a fate worse than any he could think of.
Free?
Where was the joy in that?
They made their way back to the nursing home in almost as deep a silence as the way they’d driven home the previous night.
So much had changed-and yet so little. They reached the nursing home and they were surrounded by need.
Emma’s parents were waiting to see him, desperate to know her poisoning hadn’t caused long-term damage. Charlotte’s father had appeared, wanting to blast someone for his daughter’s unhappiness, Rhonda Coutts’s daughter had come to make sure her mother was being well cared for and was recovering. And more…
There must have been a longer queue on the far side of the river waiting to come to Iluka than the queue on the Iluka side waiting to get out, Joss decided. He fielded one query after another, always conscious that Amy was working close by. Amy was here.
Amy would always be here.
‘Now the ferry’s operating, Daisy’s happy for you to take her car back to Sydney,’ his father told him, and he had to raise a smile to thank her. Driving a pink Volkswagen would get him a few odd looks but those looks were the least of his problems. ‘That is,’ his father added, looking sideways at his son, ‘if you still want to go.’
He didn’t, but it was never going to get easier. Another night like last night and it’d be impossible.
His life was waiting in Sydney. Or…the chance of a new life?
‘He’s going.’ Unnoticed, Amy had come up behind them. She smiled at David, who’d driven in to the nursing home specifically to find his son. ‘He’s being kicked out of his lodgings, so he must.’
That was news to Joss. ‘I’m being kicked out?’
‘Yes.’ Her face was strained and pale but somehow she summoned a smile. ‘It’s far too crowded with two people, one dog and only ten bedrooms. Someone has to go. I drew straws and Joss is it.’
‘Will you keep Bertram?’ Joss demanded suddenly. He couldn’t bear to think of her in that mausoleum alone. But she shook her head.
‘Of course not. He’s your dog.’
‘I’ll buy you a pup.’
‘Thank you, but no.’
And into his head came a faintly remembered line. ‘I want no more of you…’ Where had that come from? Schoolboy Shakespeare? Wherever, it was apt.
It was time to go. He couldn’t commit himself to this woman. At least…not yet.
He still had almost a week of leave left. He could stop at Bowra and then…
‘You look like you’re aching to get back to Sydney already,’ David said, watching Joss’s face. He smiled at Amy and explained. ‘Joss always gets this far-away look when he’s making plans, and he’s making plans now. What’s on back in Sydney?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Joss said slowly. ‘I won’t know until I get there.’
There was one more heartbreaking moment as Joss stood in front of the little Volkswagen ready to leave. Bertram was sticking his head out the window and wagging his tail in anticipation, waiting for Joss to say goodbye.
This was no aching farewell of two star-crossed lovers. Star-crossed lovers didn’t get a look-in at Iluka, where everyone’s life was everyone’s business.
David and Daisy were there, plus almost every nursing-home patient and close to every Iluka resident as well. In these few short days Joss had won Iluka’s heart.
As they’d won his heart. He could see why Amy couldn’t leave.
‘Come back soon,’ they called, and he looked at Amy’s ashen face and thought not.
