Dots on my phone screen indicate Hugh is typing something back. Then they stop. Then start again. His dithering is making me nervous, and I stick the phone on silent and toss it in my handbag, because I’m a rebel. Or a coward.
When Justin returns, he’s back in his fabled ripped jeans, boots and a fresh white T-shirt under a well-worn brown leather jacket.
‘Wow,’ I gush, before I can stop myself. My situation is not helped by the fact that I’m still holding his shirt, like some teenage fangirl at a concert. This is worse than the birdwatching debacle. What did you do next? Grace will ask. Get him to autograph your boobs?
‘The leather is just . . .’ I stumble on, deflecting my enthusiasm towards the garment instead of the man who is modelling it. My fingers get in on the ruse and reach out to massage the sleeve of the jacket while I examine the stitching closely, like a Florentine leather connoisseur who isn’t very late for a flight.
Justin smiles kindly, a cool kid making amends in one simple transaction for all the attention I didn’t receive from Out-Of-My-Leaguers in high school. The internal access to the garage is blocked off with furniture, so we head back outside, where he locks the house and then clicks a button for the roller door. I check the time on my watch and calculate that we’ll just make it. And then I stand there, gaping.
‘It’s a motorbike,’ I inform him.
He takes the tote and my phone and keys out of my hands and stores them away in the saddle bag. ‘This is not just a motorbike, Kate. It’s an Indian.’
I don’t know what that is. I just know I’m not getting on it. Granted, the matte black and polished chrome complements the whole late-90s Jon Bon Jovi experience he’s offering, but this is just not for me.
‘But you’re an actuary,’ I argue, as if his sensible career choice somehow precludes him from the bad boy archetype.
‘And you’re late.’ He produces a second leather jacket from the trunk and holds it up while I thread my arms into it.
As I zip up the front, I can’t help wondering who wore it last. Some Hell’s Angel in figure-hugging, black leather pants instead of the classic black business skirt and tailored white shirt I’m wearing. At least my knee-length boots are vaguely protective, I guess. I figured they’d keep me warm until we got to Cairns, and then I could swap shoes and be good to go for the presentation.
Justin tosses me a heavy black helmet. ‘Nice catch,’ he praises me.
‘Seven years of rep netball at school,’ I hear myself answer inanely, feet still planted firmly on the concrete floor of his garage while my plane takes off and my boss fires and replaces me and I lose the house.
He swings a leg over the seat and pats the space behind him. I’m meant to climb onto it, I realise, but I’ve never hoisted myself onto a motorbike before. Is it just like a horse? Although, what am I saying? I couldn’t easily mount a horse in this skirt either. He hits the keyless ignition and the engine roars to life, scaring the daylights out of me and probably waking half the street.
‘Come on!’ he yells over the top of it. ‘You’re late for Hugh.’
He’s found my kryptonite. I approach and place one hand tentatively on Justin’s shoulder, pull my skirt up with the other, and throw my right leg inelegantly over the seat. The skirt is affronted. It threatens to split at the seams but opts instead for riding way up my legs, just as he reaches back, grabs my hands, brings them around his waist and slides me forward on the leather saddle.
Right. Michelangelo’s angel is now clamped between my thighs. Pressed up against him, I’m sure I’m leaving nothing to the imagination, but he has exorcised my free will and I can’t move to adjust things.
‘Is this outfit even legal?’ I yell while I work out the helmet. Shouldn’t I be wearing more protective gear?
He glances over his shoulder at my knee-high boot, bare leg and skirt hitched to the rafters, kicks the stand and yells, ‘It shouldn’t be.’
I’m still reeling from the compliment as he sweeps us out of the driveway, down our street, past the village centre and onto Lanyon Drive, glimpses of snow-capped mountains reinforcing how chilly it is as first light brightens the sky. We rush past a winter fantasyland of frost-covered farms, fog lifting in patches into a lightening blue sky, and my heart rate bolts. My thighs clench tightly around his hips with surprising force for a set of muscles that haven’t seen the inside of a gym in four years. When we reach the highway and I cling tighter around his waist, he opens the throttle and I know he’s showing off now.
Wait! I am a sole parent. I shouldn’t be taking such risks! Getting on a motorbike with a virtual stranger, without proper protective gear? But it’s too late now. Temperature in the single digits, giddy smile frozen to my face, I let out a couple of loud whoops, which only encourages him to floor it.
I feel more alive right now than I’ve felt in years. Maybe it’s because, on the back of this bike, I feel closer to death than I ever have before. A fraction of a second of lost concentration is all that lies between Cam and me. Such a fine line. Infinitesimal.
Justin roars through the early morning traffic, weaving in and out of cars on Pialligo Avenue, then across the Molonglo River. Cold air slices through me until I’m numb, and when we finally cruise past the airport hotel into the passenger drop-off loop, I’m disappointed the ride is over. I can see Hugh standing at the kerb in his suit, briefcase placed beside him on the pavement, checking his watch. What happened to the Qantas Club?
Justin sees Hugh, too. I know this because he revs the engine unnecessarily as we pull in right beside where Hugh is standing. Hugh doesn’t even register it’s me until I take off the helmet and shake my tangled curls loose with a flourish of thoroughly gratuitous drama, to the tune of 1000 revs per minute and some perfectly timed lighting from the sunrise.
By the time he clocks who I am, his gaze has helped itself to an unprecedented and unprofessional roam through my windswept hair, all the way down to my leather boots and up my thigh again, where it finally stalls.
Justin swings the front wheel of the bike into the kerb to steady it and leans it onto the kickstand. He takes my helmet and extends his hand as if I’m Daphne Bridgerton alighting from a horse-drawn carriage at a nineteenth-century ball. As I prepare to dismount, I realise those Regency women had longer and more voluminous skirts and didn’t inadvertently flash everyone behind them in the drop-off queue like I do as I swing my leg over the back of the enormous bike, stumble backwards over the gutter in a poorly executed Frosby Flop and tumble into the waiting arms of my exceedingly unimpressed boss.
Hugh steadies me, sighs heavily, glares at Justin over my head, props me onto my own two, very uncoordinated feet and bends down so we’re at eye level. ‘Are you drunk, Kate?’
The hide!
‘Excuse me, I haven’t had more than half a glass of anything in weeks. You saw me tip Grace’s glass down the sink last night in front of you.’
Alcohol doesn’t mix with grief, I’ve found, so I’ve been largely avoiding it. And that thought brings me up sharp. For twenty or so liberating minutes, I’d actually forgotten that I am heartbroken. No, it’s worse than that. You’re heartbroken after a break-up. You can grieve a break-up too, and grieve someone’s absence from your life, but when someone dies, it’s soul-deep. An impossible-to-grasp, endless absence not just from you, but from the entire world. You won’t run into them by accident in the supermarket. You can’t stalk them on social media. Your best friend won’t furnish you with gossip about their next steps. There’s just nothing. Forever.