A Woman To Remember

An impotent rage simmered beneath the cool façade he presented to the dentist and his nurse as he thanked them and said goodbye, and then to the receptionist as he paid his bill. In cash.

‘I hope you enjoy your stay here in Australia, Mr St Clair,’ she said, reminding him that he still sounded like an American.

‘I’m sure I will,’ he returned, trying to keep the grim satisfaction out of his voice. ‘Enjoy’ was probably not the right word, but he had no doubt that this visit was going to be memorable. At last he had a name to put to his obsession. A name and a past. He would leave no stone unturned till he came face to face with the woman who’d haunted him all these months.

And when he did?

God only knew what he was going to do. Be cause he didn’t.

‘Would you mind if I took one of those old magazines with me?’ he asked the receptionist. ‘It has a picture in it of an old friend of mine.’

‘Take it, by all means.’ And me too if you like, her eyes seemed to be telling him.

Unfaithful bitch, he thought as he strode over to the corner table. They were probably all unfaithful bitches, all the beautiful women in this world.

He snatched up the magazine in question, not giving the girl a second glance as he stuffed it under his arm and strode angrily from the room.

CHAPTER THREE

HIS mother was waiting for him in the coffee-lounge, a cup of capuccino in front of her, a jam and cream doughnut to her left, a newspaper to her right and a plastic shopping bag at her feet. She shut the newspaper on Luke’s approach and folded it, frowning up at him as he scraped out the chair and sat down.

‘What’s wrong with you now?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you get your tooth fixed?’

He resisted the urge to scowl. Five minutes he’d give her, then he’d be off in a taxi to the nearby airport, where he would rent a decent car. He needed his own wheels. And the privacy that went with them.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. My tooth’s fine. The weather’s fine. Life’s fine.’

‘Then why are you still in such a foul mood?’

‘Lord, what is it with you? Do you have some special mother’s antenna that can pick up my mood at twenty paces? I’ve just walked in and sat down. How could you possibly gauge my mood? I hadn’t even spoken when you made your instant judgement.’

‘You were walking cranky,’ came her simplistic but accurate observation.

He couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. There was no hiding anything from his mother. Which reminded him. He slipped the magazine from under his arm onto a spare chair and thought of something to say to distract her.

‘Tell me, Mum. Were you ever unfaithful to Dad?’

‘Heavens to Betsy! What a question!’

‘That’s no answer. That’s an evasion.’

‘I needed a moment to catch my breath. Might I ask what’s brought such a question on?’

‘Well, you’re a good-looking woman. From photographs I’ve seen when Dad married you forty-five years ago you were pretty stunning. Stunning women have temptation put in their way, whether they’re married or not.’

Grace wondered which stunning married woman her son had been getting mixed up with, but tactfully refrained from asking. This time.

‘I won’t say I didn’t have my offers,’ she answered truthfully. ‘And I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, once or twice. But I managed to stay faithful to your father. Technically speaking, that is.’

Luke blinked his shock at her. ‘Technically speaking?’ he repeated rather dazedly. ‘What do you mean... “technically speaking”?’

‘Well, I did let a man kiss me once for a few seconds longer than I should have.’

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘I thought it was pretty terrible of me at the time. But he was awfully good-looking. And very charming. I was flattered to death that he fancied me. He was only in his early thirties and I was a silly forty-one at the time, thinking I was over the hill and desperate for some attention. He gave me some.’

‘And would have given you a whole lot more if you’d let him,’ Luke said drily. ‘Who was he, this Casanova?’

‘No one you ever met. He was Danish, visiting Sydney one summer. Your father met him down the local pub and was silly enough to invite him home for supper one night.’

‘And you let him kiss you that very same night?’ Luke could not contain his surprise.

A small blush of guilt stained his mother’s normally pale cheeks. ‘As I said,’ she muttered, ‘he was very charming.’

‘So how did it happen? And where was Dad, damn him?’

‘Watching TV, as usual. Eric offered to help me with the washing-up, and he sort of cornered me against the kitchen sink. At first I was shocked. But when he started kissing me, I have to admit I liked it. Oh, I stopped him before things went too far, but after he left I thought about him a lot. I knew which hotel he was staying at—since he’d made a point of telling me—and I actually rang his room one day. But when he answered I panicked and hung up.’

‘I see...’

‘Do you, Luke? I doubt it. I loved your father, and he was a good lover when he was younger. But time and familiarity can do dreadful things in the bedroom. Boredom sets in, and your father did work terribly hard. Most nights he was too tired. Our sex life had deteriorated to a quickie once or twice a month, and I was silly enough not to know what to do about it. So, of course, I was a ready victim for the likes of Eric, who really was a sleazebag of the first order.’

Luke frowned at his mother. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Mum? You didn’t really go with him, did you?’

‘Of course not! I went out and bought myself a sexy black nightie and started doing a few of those things I’d only ever read about in books before. Things really looked up after that.’

‘Mum! I’m shocked,’ he said, then grinned at her. ‘You devil, you.’

She blushed some more, though she did look rather pleased with herself. He felt inordinately proud of her at that moment. She’d been handed temptation on a plate, when his dad had foolishly been neglecting her, but her essential goodness had come through in the end.

Luke’s mouth thinned as he accepted that not all women were as strong, or as decent. Some were weak, self-centred creatures, who went out and took what they wanted, and to hell with the people they hurt in the process.

A waiter appeared by the table and asked Luke if he wanted to order. He declined, giving the excuse that his mouth still felt numb from the injection he’d had—which was true—but the real reason was that he could not stand to sit there any longer. He had places to go. Leads to follow. A woman to find.

‘Would you mind if I loved you and left you, Mum?’ he said as soon as the waiter had departed. ‘While I was at the dentist’s I remembered I’d promised Ray to look him up the next time I was home.’

‘Ray? Ray who?’

‘Ray Holland. He’s a photographer.’ Who I’m hoping and praying still lives and works in Sydney, he thought grimly.

‘Never heard of him. There again, the only photographer friend of yours you ever talk about is Theo, and that’s never very complimentary. I remember poor Theo had the hardest job talking you into going to the opening of his photographic exhibition last time you were home, and then the next morning he rang and complained that you’d disappeared ten minutes after you arrived!’

‘Yeah, well, over the past few years poor Theo’s work has gone from really good stuff down to the most pretentious crap. I thought if I stayed there any longer that night I might be tempted to tell the truth and offend him.’

‘Where did you get to that night? You didn’t come home, if I recall.’

‘Come now, Mum! You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you? I gave up reporting in when I turned eighteen.’

‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Luke. You were fifteen. The most difficult and rebellious boy God ever put breath into! I can see you haven’t improved much either. You’re still difficult.’

‘What about rebellious?’

“‘Rebellious” is not an adjective suited to a thirty-two-year-old bachelor. Let’s just leave it at difficult.’

‘Yes, let’s,’ Luke said, and stood up, sensing that his mother was about to deteriorate into emotional blackmail of some sort. She had that gleam in her eye which heralded that her female curiosity was far from satisfied.

Women could be quite ruthless when they really wanted to know something, he mused. If cool reason didn’t work, they tried every trick in the book—from Chinese-water-torture-style demands, to sulky silences, to floods of tears.

Luke could bear just about all those methods except tears. They were the undoing of him every time.

‘I must go, Mum. I have a lot to do today. And before you suggest it, no, I don’t want you to drive me. I’m going to rent myself a car.’

‘Will you be home for dinner this evening?’ Grace asked archly.

‘What are you cooking?’

She lifted her nose in a disdainful sniff. ‘I have no intention of telling you if that’s all that’s bringing you home.’

‘In that case you can surprise me. See you around seven, sweetie,’ he said, distracting her with a peck on the cheek while he scooped the women’s magazine up from the adjoining chair.

Grace watched her son stalk across the coffeelounge, well aware of the hungry female eyes which turned to follow him. Her sigh held a weary resignation. That boy is up to no good, she thought, her own eyes zeroing in on the magazine curled up in his right hand.

And it’s all to do with some woman, I’ll warrant. A woman featured in that magazine he’s been trying to hide. A married woman, no doubt, whom he met the last time he was home and whom he’s off to meet again in secret.

Oh, Luke... Luke...

Grace shook her head unhappily. When was he going to learn that there was no future with a married woman? No future at all!

Luke paced up and down the living-room of Theo’s apartment, impatiently waiting for his friend to come out of his darkroom.

He still could not believe his luck—or the ease with which he’d reached his objective! Within an hour of leaving his mother he’d been leaving the. offices of the magazine with the address of Ray Holland in his hot little hands. Half an hour later Luke had been walking into the man’s studio in Randwick, and once again his luck had been in—he’d caught the freelance photographer just before he had to leave. Luke had come to the point immediately.

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