Almost Mine Read online

  I laughed out loud but then replaced my light expression with mock offence. ‘That’s my mother-in-law you are talking about, you know?’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed deeply as I, with my free hand, rubbed my small pot of a baby belly, ‘lucky me.’

  Lucy reached for the casserole dish to lighten my load. ‘A bit achy today?’

  ‘Just stretching I think.’

  We ambled. ‘It’s so good to have you back, Catey.’

  I eyed her with curiosity. ‘Where’d I go?’

  Lucy raised an incredulous eyebrow and I shrugged in bewilderment. ‘You, my dear girl, took a trip to Roy World and Nick and I thought that you only had a one way ticket. We missed you a lot, so it’s good to have you back where you belong. The three amigos just aren’t as fun with only two.’

  ‘You missed me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I wondered why Lucy’s voice faltered whenever I asked her about what she really thought of me. That’s the sort of person that I was; always in need of validation. I did wonder that out of the few people that were in my life, why did I need to know how Lucy felt about me more than anyone else? I figured that it was because with everyone else that truly mattered I already knew for sure, however much I denied it. But with Lucy something seemed put on, or forced, even. It was as if she was friendly toward me out of obligation and not because she wanted to be. It just really irked me. If I had another choice for a bridesmaid I wouldn’t have chosen the pixie look-alike next to me. I don’t meant to sound unappreciative, I know people are not lining up to be my friend, but with Lucy I knew that I could never let my guard down. I never knew if she had my true interests at heart or whether she was lying in wait, waiting for me to fuck up royally. Perhaps my trust issues were just too deep to overcome with everybody. Whatever this feeling was about Lucy, I’d work out what it was one day.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said because I realised I was distracted by my own thoughts for too long, ‘but I really don’t think that I went anywhere.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, well, I didn’t mean to,’ I grudgingly amended. ‘I tend to do that.’

  We turned left and continued on walking down the side path that lead to the rear of my dad’s cottage.

  ‘Do you miss him?’ Lucy went on.

  ‘Roy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  After a beat I answered. ‘I don’t know. I mean, he was my world for a long time. I can’t just forget what we had.’

  Sceptically she said, ‘What was that, exactly?’

  ‘I know what you think of him, but I did love Roy. It wasn’t all bad, you know.’

  ‘It wasn’t all sex, drugs and rock and roll? Sounds like a blast if you ask me.’

  If I answered honestly I’d just feel humiliated. ‘He was what I needed at the time,’ was all I could say in all truthfulness. I noted Lucy’s dubiousness and felt compelled to protect Roy. ‘I never claimed that it was fluffy, healthy love, but it was love, nevertheless.’

  Suddenly Lucy laughed as if she’d belatedly remembered a joke. ‘Do you remember when Roy met you after school with his face all pummelled as if he’d head-butted a truck a million times?’

  I smacked Lucy’s arm, almost dislodging the casserole dish from her hold. ‘Why is that funny?! Do you know how much blood I had to clean up?’

  She was unperturbed by my exasperation. ‘Did you know that Nick did that?’

  I reached my arm out and stopped in my tracks. ‘No way. I had no idea.’

  ‘Come on, Catey. You know how he felt about you. How he still feels about you.’

  I couldn’t speak. Of course I knew, but obviously I didn’t quite understand how deeply it ran. We continued walking.

  ‘He’d been down at Maisy’s getting the Sunday paper or something when he saw Roy and one of his mates,’ Lucy paused, recalling the name, ‘Martin, I think.’

  I blanched. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Roy was gloating about having control over you or about making you do something…I don’t know, exactly. Nick was pretty vague on the details when I pestered him about it. Martin was laughing, saying that you had a mouth like a —’ Lucy cut herself off when I visibly shrank with mortification. ‘Anyway, Nick just saw red and completely lost it. Roy didn’t have a chance to defend himself.’

  I struggled to put more than a two syllable sentence together, sounding as inarticulate as a moron. My throat ached as I fought all of my buried disgrace that threatened to spill out.

  ‘Maisy must have had a fit.’ I muttered my attempt to divert the conversation away from my shameful behaviour that had caused such a fierce reaction from such a gentle soul. ‘She’s probably never had a brawl outside the milk bar before.’

  ‘A brawl? It was pretty one sided, or so the gossip says. My point is: never doubt that he loves you, Catey. Marrying Nick…I hope your eyes are open and that you appreciate what you have.’

  Her tone was amiable but her intention seemed ominous. Was she warning me?

  ‘I’m aware of what being married to Nick means. He knows what he can expect from me.’

  ‘I just don’t want to see him hurt. Either of you,’ she amended, but I noted that I was an afterthought.

  ‘I will give Nick what he deserves. I’ll repay him his respect and love…I know I can love him the way he loves me, I’m sure of it.’

  Lucy’s look was once again dubious.

  ‘Would you for once believe me?’

  ‘I would if you didn’t sound as if you’ve been rehearsing everything.’

  ‘I refuse to reply on the grounds that it may incriminate me.’

  Lucy chuffed. ‘Been reading crime thrillers again?’

  ‘I’m practically choking on love and romance and the rest of the fluff that comes with a wedding. It’s all I can do to escape from it all; blood and guts being my only outlet.’

  ‘Everything will settle soon enough. Plus, let’s face it; once the baby arrives all romance will go out of the window.’

  ‘So I should lap it up while Nick can’t keep his hands off me?’ Was I bragging?

  With one hand balancing Dad’s dinner, Lucy threaded her free arm through mine, the affectionate gesture taking me by surprise. ‘I’d lap him, lick him and rub myself all over him covered in scented oil if I were you. Take advantage of him while you can.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘Watch out, Nick.’

  My phone buzzed in the back pocket of my jeans. After retrieving it I acknowledged the caller with a sigh and hesitated before pressing the answer button.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Cate, will you please meet me? I really need to talk to you.’

  I consulted my watch without speaking then eyed Lucy’s questioning gaze.

  ‘Babe?’ the person on the other end said.

  ‘Give me about twenty minutes.’

  ‘Meet you at the billabong?’

  ‘Ok.’

  I pressed “end” and slid the phone back into my pocket.

  ‘Who was that?’ Lucy asked. But something told me that she already knew.

  ‘Oh, um, just a last minute wedding thing. I’ll take this in to Dad.’ I took the casserole from her.

  ‘Should we catch up later? Nick mentioned something about dinner.’

  ‘Yep, sure, if I’m up to it.’

  ‘So you’re really going to marry him?’ Roy asked me as we sat secretly in our private place by the billabong in the national park twenty minutes later. It was cold, freezing actually, as the snow-tipped wind whipped sharply from the white-peaked mountains.

  We sat subdued for a minute. A frog croaked in the mid distance and then a small splash from an overgrown gold fish, as it nipped at a lowly hovering dragon fly, rippled the otherwise still water.

  I didn’t even know why I’d answered his call earlier and I didn’t know why I had agreed to meet with him. I guessed that I wasn’t out of the habit of saying “how high” whenever Roy Ellis sai
d “jump”. And I also wondered how true the feelings of love that I felt for him were while I sat shivering and he looked as warm as toast in his thick leather jacket, not once offering it to me. How could I condone such egotism?

  The frog croaked again, punctuating the awkward beat of stillness between us as I contemplated telling him about the baby. I sat, centring my gaze upon a pink water lily that lay unmoving on the middle of the billabong, and took a breath.

  ‘You don’t love him like you love me. Like I love you,’ he said with, what I translated to be, an afterthought.

  I gave him a long, focussed look. ‘I’m pregnant,’ I confessed without removing my gaze. His eyes widened so much so that I thought that they may pop right out of his head. ‘Don’t worry, Roy. You’re safe. It’s Nick’s.’

  ‘Didn’t take you long to move on.’

  Derision escaped through my chattering teeth. ‘I haven’t moved on.’

  ‘What if there was no baby? Would you marry him then?’

  I couldn’t answer him truthfully, mostly because I didn’t know for sure, and he knew it.

  ‘Please, don’t do this,’ he begged me as he took my cold face in his warm hands. He kissed me deeply, and it was only now that we had been apart that everything that I’d been trying to convince myself about Roy, about how bad he was for me, melted away under his warm fingers in this freezing creek-side haven. ‘Please, Cate,’ he murmured into my lips. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t do this.’

  ‘Would you marry me if I chose you? Do you have the energy to pretend with me for the rest of your life?’ He let me go, answering my question. ‘That’s what I thought. You don’t want me. You wouldn’t want this baby if it were yours, either, so why the charade?’

  He kissed me again but I separated myself from him and put on my most persuasive front. ‘This is not a game, Roy. I can’t make this decision as if there was no baby because the baby is the only person here that should have priority. I can’t trust you. Nick will look after me, he loves me, always has. He even loved me while I was at my most disastrous with you. I never have to worry about him flittering off whenever he feels like it. He’s secure and he knows that it’s me that he wants; you have no idea what a nice change that makes.’ I pushed myself up from the mossy ground and forced myself to walk away.

  ‘At least give me a chance to persuade you.’ I hesitated and he stood with me, wrapping his arms around my waist. ‘He’s safe, babe. You won’t be happy knowing that it’s me that you really want,’ he said more softly than I ever thought he’d be capable of. ‘You know you’ll be tied to me forever.’

  ‘Shackled,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Come on, Cate.’

  I lifted my eyes to see him and I told myself that I felt nothing for Roy Ellis. In reality, what I did feel for him was something that I couldn’t quite describe. It was like love, but then again it wasn’t. Like the drugs that satiated me, my feelings for Roy dulled the pain within me. And like the drugs, it took only hours for the effect of Roy to wear off…but then the hankering plagued me and all I needed was just needed one more fix. I loathed the saying, “treat them mean, keep them keen” but oh how spot-on it was. For a second I contemplated letting him back in. Then again, Roy served no purpose to my plan.

  I pushed myself away from him and without a word I walked away.

  ‘You’ll never want anything more than you want me!’ he called after me.

  No I thought defiantly as I navigated the safest route back to the main road. This baby is the only thing that I really want.

  Roy didn’t follow me as I made my way down the narrow dirt trail out of the national park. As I emerged out onto the street that lead to the Mathiesons’ homestead, and I saw Nick’s ute parked in the drive way, I realised that I’d forgotten about our plans to finalise the wedding menu with the caterer this afternoon.

  Nick didn’t live with his parents. His own home, that he’d purchased responsibly when he was eighteen, was being redecorated to accommodate a growing family. He was always older than his chronological age. He was twenty two, but he’d always worked, saved money; everything that he had, he earned. He succeeded at school and had a strong ambition to follow in his dad’s footsteps to work in the ever-growing winery. There was no house on the estate now, but with his family’s blessing, Nick was planning to build a homestead on the property sizable enough for a big happy family for when he took over the running of the business. And given that his dad’s overworked, sixty-two-year-old body was about to slow down on him, Nick may get his wish sooner rather than later.

  A light drizzle sprinkled over my face just as I neared the end of the trail and out onto the street. Because I couldn’t help it, I glanced back over my shoulder in the direction that I had come, wondering if I would see Roy, and thankfully he wasn’t there. Letting out a cleansing sigh that admittedly left a slight residue of how wonderful Roy sometimes made me feel, I took the steps that would lead me to my comfortable, fruitful and safe life.

  Making my way up the four front steps, I reached down to my belly as it again cramped under my fingers and massaged my muscles gently. I’d been ignoring this aching for a few days, but put it down to pre-wedding nerves — or prayed that it was just nerves. As I took the final step, bitter reality and suffocating pain forced its way in and made me acknowledge that today they were different: blindingly intense. My eyes lost focus as the pain tore through my insides and as hard as I fought to stop them, panic collapsed my legs and drew the ground out from beneath me. I fell to my knees as the pain intensified, spreading from my abdomen around my hips to my back, like a vice clamp that tightened with every breath I took.

  Oh God, please don’t let this be happening…

  As quickly as the last one ended, another gripping pain took over my body, my panting breath in no way helping me to remain calm.

  …No, no, no, no please be ok baby…

  I silently prayed, hoping against all hope that this was normal, and that maybe this happened to woman as their bodies adjusted to a growing baby. I didn’t know what was normal. And even my dampening legs under my woollen skirt didn’t completely convince me as to what was happening, because it couldn’t possibly be happening to me.

  ‘Nick!’ I screamed through restricted breath and immediately I felt his hands under my arms, scooping me up and whisking me inside. ‘It can’t be happening. Right? Nick? The baby’s ok, isn’t it?’ My cry bordered on hysteria as Nick tried to hush me; but his efforts to speak came out in jagged breaths which terrified me further. ‘Everything is going to be ok, right Beth?’ I asked her as she followed closely behind. Beth didn’t answer.

  In his old bedroom that in times gone by we’d filled with laughter, I wept while Nick laid me on his bed.

  ‘Shh, sweetheart,’ Beth soothed as I sat gingerly on the bed next to me. ‘Nicholas, get a heat pack from the bathroom please, and pass me those towels.’ Beth lifted me gently as she spread the towels beneath me.

  ‘But I’m twelve weeks. I’m past the danger period —’ My voice was taken by another fierce pain and I pulled myself into a ball when another cramp took over my whole body. I released the agony with a scream into the pillow and it was then that Beth finally saw the crimson staining.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ she murmured sorrowfully.

  Nick returned a heartbeat later, holding what his mother had asked for, and I opened my eyes to see him hovering helplessly in the door way. He didn’t need to say what he was feeling right now; no baby, no Cate. I knew him well. He gave me a brief smile to show me that it was ok, that I didn’t need to explain, and then he stepped inside the room, handed the heat pack to his mother and left. I squeezed my eyes closed again, failing to hold back the flow of imminent tears, and when I opened them again he was gone.

  ‘Please, I need Nick, please, Beth?’ my voice rose with panic as I heard his car start up in the drive way. Beth sat on the bed and brushed my tear stained hair from my face.

  ‘Don
’t worry, sweetheart,’ she soothed, ‘what you need, what Nicholas needs, is time to let this heal. Right now it’s very overwhelming isn’t it?’ I nodded as fresh tears fell down my face. ‘Nick knows he’s not in control of this, you know how much that scares him, so just give him time to let this sink in. For now you need to rest. I’ll call Dr Crawford and then I’ll check on you, ok?’

  She stood from the bed leaving me with the mess that was consuming my thoughts. There was only one thing that I knew for sure; I needed Nick.

  Chapter 4

  The following day I found Nick at the winery, startling him when I tapped him lightly on his flannelette-shirted shoulder as he stood amongst the rows of naked vines.

  ‘Can we talk?’ I asked him as he wiped his hands on the front of an old pair of jeans. He nodded once and I took his hand, leading him out of the vast vineyard and onto the shaded porch of the work shop. It was overtaken by infectious wisteria that Nick’s dad had fought good and hard to rid the timber pillars of, but with no success. And for this I was grateful. Nick and I had spent countless hours out here, laughing, picking on each other and just being jubilant, comfortable childhood friends. And whenever they were in view, I found myself gazing upon the blossoms and the plush green grass that still appeared as soft and inviting as it did the night when we were seventeen and Nick had gently laid me down on it; he’d touched me with such unparalleled sweetness that night under the starry sky. I never wanted anything about this place to change, and remembering such a perfect scene helped me to put what I wanted from my life into perspective.

  As I closed my eyes and summoned the beautiful memory, I envisaged Nick above me and remembered his petrified expression; his shaking nervousness was vivid even in memory. He was, and still endured to be, the most endearingly real person that I knew, and it seemed, unexpectedly, that I was perhaps beginning to love him for that.

  I blinked once and I was back, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the top step of the porch with Nick, as he was no doubt waiting for me to tell him what he didn’t want to hear.

  Hunched, with his forearms on his thighs, his hands together as if in prayer, he spoke.