Three Over Par Page 12

  “Then why doesn’t he want to do anything about us?” I drop my head and stare at my open palms. “I want more than sex, Robbie. A lot more.”

  “You’ll get it. You just wait.” He pulls my ball from his pocket and tosses it on the ground. “Now, quit your moping, grab your wedge and make the most of your last lesson with the best teacher you’ll ever have.”

  I do as I’m told, playing the green of the eighth and the full length of the ninth. Robbie returns to professional mode. He wants this to count, to leave me a better player than he found all those months ago. And, once again, I try my best for him. It’s the only thanks I can give.

  In the carpark, we stand nervously next to the boot of my car, each trying to find words of thanks. I stare at the bitumen, wondering if I’ve made the right decision after all. If I can give up this warm, funny man. Then I remember what I’ve learned, that living is about taking risks with your heart, and I know there will be no more lessons. But I will never forget Robbie and the way he made me feel. The lust he reignited in my body. The pleasure he gave me.

  And no matter what happens, I will always be thankful to him for sharing me with Daniel.

  Robbie reaches out and tickles my stomach. “Earth to Lucy.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Thinking about what you’re going to do about Dan?”

  I blush, ashamed of myself, of my selfishness. We’ve shared a lot and not all of it sex. And he’s loved me all this time even though he knows I’m in love with someone else. I owe him my attention and compassion. Most of all, I owe him my friendship.

  “Stop it, you daft thing.” He draws me into a warm hug. “I might be a bit of a boofhead but I do understand.”

  My arms wrap tightly around him. “You’re not a boofhead. You’re a very nice man and I’m glad you’re my friend.”

  “I wish I could have been more.”

  “I know.”

  “Never mind.” He pulls away and grins. “The sex—” I begin to grin as he utters his mantra, “—has been fucking awesome.”

  “Oh God, Robbie.” A sob rises with my tears. I’m not sure why I’m crying but I can’t help it. I’m so overwhelmed with loss. “I wish it were different. I really do.”

  Once more, he gathers me into his embrace. We stay in the carpark under a miserable sky, holding one another, taking some comfort from the knowledge that in a parallel world, we might have found the love we so desperately sought.

  When he lets me go, he strokes his knuckles down my cheek. His index finger strays to my mouth. My heart aches with the look on his face, with the sad grey of his eyes and, when he bends to kiss me one final time, I let him.

  He steps back and shoves his hands in his pockets, his normally happy mouth compressed with sorrow. “You take care, Luce. And remember I’m always here if you need me.”

  “And me for you, Robbie.”

  As I pull slowly out of the carpark, I stare in the rear-view mirror. Robbie remains where I left him, hands still in his pockets, shoulders slumped.

  A tear trickles down my cheek. I swipe it away then look in the mirror again and this time, in the shadow of the clubhouse eaves, I catch a glimpse of Daniel’s cloudy face before he turns and trudges wearily toward the greenkeeper’s shed.

  The remainder of the week drags with interminable slowness, and my concentration is terrible. More than once I drift off while talking to one of my patients, my mind on Daniel, on our future. Questioning, for the thousandth time, if we have one. I tell myself we do, that all I have to do is talk to him, explain to him how I feel, tell him I know he feels the same, but in uncertain moments, mulish doubt continues to stamp its restless hooves through my mind.

  Perhaps all he really wants from me is what we share on the golf course. Perhaps I am nothing but a good fuck, and the necklace, his words, the looks he gives me, are all things I’ve misinterpreted. All figments of a desperate, love-warped imagination.

  Except it’s impossible to misinterpret the desolation I saw on his face as I departed the golf club. That he caught Robbie and me kissing is without doubt. Kisses are something Daniel and I share exclusively. When our mouths touch, it’s as though we’re connecting our souls, like discordant echoes merging into one magical note.

  That kiss was a betrayal I should never have allowed, and I can only pray he’ll allow me the chance to explain.

  Everyone notices my distraction. My elderly patients eye me with worry, muttering amongst themselves, speculating on what’s up. Several ask if I’m ill, but I smile and shake my head, assuring them I’m fine. Most aren’t convinced. I’m not convinced myself.

  On Thursday I hover near Mrs. Haddon’s room, my heart skipping in anticipation of Daniel’s arrival. After days of indecision, I’ve decided my best opportunity to talk to him is at Hakea Lodge. All I want is to ask if we can meet somewhere private, someplace where we can talk without fear of interruption. Where we can at last allow our war-torn emotions some peace.

  I prep Mrs. Haddon in case I’m called elsewhere, requesting that she use whatever wiles it takes to ensure Daniel doesn’t leave until I speak to him. She grins her mischievous, sparkle-eyed old lady grin and promises to knock him out with her cane if that’s what it takes. Now my feelings are out in the open, she’s taken to my cause with relish.

  I wait by her door, fidgety with nerves and a light sweat glazing my skin. I glance at my watch again. Twenty-five past twelve. Daniel will be arriving any minute. As I turn to tap on the open door, Mrs. Haddon’s phone rings. I listen to her talk for a moment, and with each word, my hopes soak away like summer rain on desert sand.

  As soon as she says her farewell, I knock and step into the room. Mrs. Haddon sits in her tiny lounge area, good clothes on, stepping-out handbag propped on her lap, and a wobble on her lips. Looking like a stood-up sweetheart. My heart drops. For her and myself.

  I crouch beside her. “Was that Daniel?”

  She nods. “He can’t make it today.”

  I nurse her soft hand in mine. “It must be something very important for him to miss your Thursday lunch.”

  “I’m worried about that boy.” She shakes her head, hazel eyes wide with apprehension. “He doesn’t sound himself.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. It’s probably just something at work.”

  She takes a deep breath, clinging to my assurance. “You’re probably right.” She squeezes my fingers. “But what about your plan?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll think of something.”

  But what, I’ve no idea.

  That dilemma keeps me occupied for another day. By Friday lunchtime I’ve formulated another strategy, one I should have followed months ago.

  I will call him and invite him to my house for dinner on Sunday night. A proper date. The way a normal person would behave when she’s interested in another.

  Excited by the prospect of talking to Daniel that night, I bounce my way through the rest of my day despite an overload of work. Winter brings many problems to the nursing home. Falls by the more mobile residents become too common as they negotiate Harrington’s slippery and often leaf-strewn footpaths. But it’s the flu that frightens me the most. An innocuous cough can turn into life-threatening pneumonia overnight, and this year there is the added threat of a virulent new flu virus. So far, Hakea Lodge has been safe, though I know it’s only a matter of time before our first case surfaces.

  But on such a vibrant, propitious day, even that can’t dampen my buoyant spirits.

  The end of my shift comes quickly and for once I don’t linger to chat. My steps are long, my gait jaunty. As I wave goodbye to the gaggle of residents enjoying a bout of rare sunshine on the veranda and hurry to my car, the world seems infused with promise. I’m moving forward, changing my life. Reaching for happiness.

  All I need now is for Daniel to grasp my hand and join me.

  Even though I know I’ll end up cooking roast lamb with all the trimmings, I kill time lazing on the sofa with soft music playing
in the background, flicking through cookbooks. The pages pass too fast under my fingers for me to do little more than glance at the pictures, and my attention keeps drifting, imaginary conversations between Daniel and me rattling through my mind.

  The clock ticks slowly. I don’t want to call until after seven, when I can be sure he isn’t still at work, riding through the dark on his quad bike, making last-minute checks of the course before the biggest competition day of the week. A time when, I hope, he can’t make an excuse and fob me off.

  For dinner, I pick at a plate of cold meat and salad, chewing and swallowing mechanically. After dumping half the plate’s contents in the bin, I pour a glass of red wine and return to the lounge, staring at the phone with worry, as though it holds my future in its keypad. Which I suppose it does. But then, so does my car. I could, after all, drive to Daniel’s house, knock softly at his door and, when he opened it, let all my feelings tumble out of my mouth in a great avalanche of pent-up emotion.

  But that mulish uncertainty, that restless doubt I’d misunderstood him, still stomps around my head, and the phone seems the far, far safer option. If he rejects me, its remote plastic shell can hide my broken heart. As my patients have taught me so many times, when everything else is gone, sometimes dignity is the only thing that keeps self alive.

  At quarter to seven, too agitated to hang on any longer, I snatch up the phone and punch in numbers I’ve by now recorded to memory.

  I wait, breath half held, teeth sunk into my lower lip, fingers tight around the phone. Any heartbeat now and I’ll hear his voice and know my fate.

  The phone rings out.

  I blink and take a slug of wine, then call his mobile before my shredding nerves can fail me.

  “Hi…”

  “Daniel, hi. It’s—”

  “…reached my voicemail. Please leave a message and I’ll—”

  I grind my finger into the disconnect button and throw the phone on the table. It skids across the surface and falls to the carpet with a soft thud, as though it’s landed right on my heart. I sink back into the sofa’s depths and close my eyes, breath coming loud, my throat aching as if I’ve swallowed gravel. I’ve psyched myself up so much for this moment, the letdown seems unbearable.

  I let out a half-laugh and rub my face. God, I’m being stupid. So what if he isn’t home and his mobile is turned off or out of range? He could be busy. Out on the course. Out with friends. Living a normal life. Something I wasn’t doing, moping around my house with all my hopes pinned on a phone call.

  I sit up and reach for the television remote control. A movie will be on later, with maybe a lifestyle or game show to occupy me until it starts. Something to distract me until I try his numbers again.

  With the television blathering about a garden makeover, I pad into the kitchen for the bottle of red and settle in for a long night of box-watching and dialling Daniel.

  At eleven o’clock, my once love-buoyed optimism lies sunken in the fretful depths of my disquiet. Although I’ve tried every hour since my first attempt, his phone remains unanswered.

  And I’m beginning to feel increasingly lost.

  Saturday brings no relief. Any spare moment at work I spend trying to contact Daniel and, by day’s end, the certainty he’s avoiding me is concreted in my heart. Mrs. Haddon has no news either, but her concern has dissipated. To make up for Thursday’s missed lunch, Daniel organised delivery of a bouquet of perfect pink roses, complete with a card promising an extra-special lunch the next week.

  For a brief moment, the sight of those roses shoots a shameful squirm of jealousy through my gut. Then I look at Mrs. Haddon’s delighted expression and can only think how much she deserves them. How wonderful it is to see her happy, so content in her grandson’s love.

  A love I hope one day I will share too.

  Saturday night proves as unfruitful as Friday, only this time I give up much earlier and retreat to bed. Tomorrow I’m playing in the mixed stableford competition and, if Daniel is true to form, he’ll be at the club, as dedicated as always to keeping the course perfect. And this time, he won’t escape me.

  Sunday, I’m out at the club well before my tee time. I look but can’t see Daniel’s ute by the greenkeeper’s shed. I tell myself this isn’t unusual. It’s still early and he doesn’t normally appear until later on a Sunday. I’ve nothing to worry about.

  But for some strange reason a queasy fear clenches my stomach, and my palms are turning greasy in the cold.

  Robbie is in the pro shop, collecting fees and marking off the starter list. His smile is brief when I enter, and he takes my money and hands me my change and scorecard with not much more than an “Enjoy your round.”

  I frown a little at his uncharacteristic formality but put it down to the presence of other players. Or perhaps emotional soreness after our final lesson.

  Still, it annoys me. Although we are no longer lovers, I thought we’d parted friends. For several minutes I hover in the shop pretending interest in a new wedge, but to my acute frustration I’m given no other chance to talk to him. Golfers stream in and out, paying fees, buying drinks and pies, excited about their rounds. Foiled, I head for the door. As I slide it open, I glance back at Robbie. Our gazes catch and I think I see his expression tense into guilt, but then someone calls “Hello” to me and, by the time I’ve acknowledged them and looked back, his head is back down and all I can see is the top of his sandy head.

  From the first tee onward I don’t play well. My mind is too occupied with Daniel’s phone blackout and Robbie’s taciturnity.

  Driven by nothing but foolish fancy, on the eighth I touch my starfish necklace for luck and hook my ball into the trees. My partner, a pedantic rules stickler and member of the ladies’ committee who I never enjoy playing with at the best of times, raises her eyebrows and mutters something about hitting a provisional ball. The other couple we’re paired with, a husband and wife team, commiserate with me on my bad shot, unaware it’s purposeful. I push my buggy down the fairway, stupid hope springing in my chest like a bouncy cocker spaniel.

  In the familiar place, I duck under drooping trees and linger, half hidden in the foliage, searching for a hint of khaki, a flash of sun-streaked hair, the solid, muscular form of Daniel’s perfect body, but he remains elusive. I find my ball resting against a Casuarina trunk close to the out-of-bounds posts but still in play. Leaning against its rough bark, blinking rapidly, I stare across the tangled barbed-wire fence into the clearing where I experienced passion on a scale I fear I never will again.

  He isn’t there. I’ve been stupid to think he would be.

  I stalk back to my bag and yank out a four iron, then return to my ball and give it a temper-powered smack, shooting it along the ground and back out across the fairway and into the trees on the other side. I finish the hole with a double bogey and a wipe on my score card and a mood as swirling and grey as the sky above.

  It isn’t until the thirteenth that I begin to notice the old men pottering around. Warren Cartwright with a whipper-snipper. His wife, Diana, wandering behind with a leaf-blower. Malcolm Davidson zipping past on the quad bike triggers the realisation something is terribly wrong. I’ve never seen anyone on it but Daniel.

  Dread extends nasty cold fingers across my chest and clamps it tight. My fist curls around my buggy handle. I stare back down the fairway at the bike as it weaves through trees toward the old quarry. At the hunched, skinny form revving the throttle. At the man playing greenkeeper. The man who is not Daniel.

  I turn to my partner. “What’s going on, Trudi?” She tosses me an uncomprehending look. I point at the disappearing bike. “Where’s Daniel?”

  She smiles in a way that turns my bones to melting ice. “Haven’t you heard? He tendered his resignation. Apparently he wants to move to Sale to be closer to his sister.” Her lips purse in disapproval. “Not very nice, if you ask me. Leaving us in the lurch like that.”

  The clamp around my chest tightens. I try to breathe but the
air is too frozen and too hard for my lungs. If I need a sign for how Daniel really feels about me, then this is it.

  I’ve been a fool. A stupid, deluded fool.

  He doesn’t love me. It’s all been a fantasy. I saw what I wanted to see, when in reality, there was nothing there at all. Only lust. Our pure primitive drive for sex.

  My hand closes around my starfish necklace, but I find no warmth there. The silver is icy, the green enamel frigid. I let it fall against my skin. It throbs against my neck like the pulse of something already dead.

  I play the remainder of my round like an automaton. I can barely bring myself to speak to Trudi. It’s hard enough telling her my score at the end of each hole. The others sense my mood and keep their distance, and no doubt I’ll be the source of clubhouse gossip post-round, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. All my emotions are anaesthetised by disbelief.

  As I approach the eighteenth green and see the pro shop, anger begins to filter through my deadened shell. Robbie knew and he didn’t say a word. No phone call, no warning. Silence.

  The two men I thought loved me feel nothing at all.

  Chapter Nine

  For the first time since I moved to Harrington, I arrive at work on Tuesday heavy-stepped and broken-hearted.

  Monday passed in a haze of misery. I picked up the phone three dozen times, aching to call Daniel, to call Robbie, for someone, anyone, to tell me I haven’t lost them both. That I haven’t lost my friend as well as my heart. Gutlessness and fear left me unable to tap out the numbers, and so I lay, on the couch, on my bed, tearful and afraid, with my battered spirit telling me that I somehow deserved this. That I risked it all and lost.

  I pass Mrs. Haddon’s room but keep my eyes straight ahead, fixed on the pale blue wall at the end of the hall. A well-seasoned ache builds in my chest, as though someone has fixed a coil around it, slowly winding it tighter and tighter. It might be adult-onset asthma but I know it’s not. It’s merely grief, the horrid, breath-stealing monster which sporadically haunts all our lives.