Black Ops

1 Lightning speared through the worn blinds of the Motel Voyager. Tom Stiles fastened his Jaeger-LeCoultre around his wrist, his face pulsing between light and dark. Rain plunged down outside. “Natasha, summer’s over,” Tom said, without turning from the storm outside. “I’m glad; I hate the heat.” Tom looked over the grey-brown carpet and followed the trail of hat, dress, b*a, and stockings to the bed. She lay beneath the sheets with her arm stroking the pillow which still retained the impression of his head. “It means I have to go now.” Natasha turned to the bedside table, unclipped a cigarette from her diamond-studded cigarette case and lit it. “So, I was just your seasonal lover, is that it?” “You are more than that, Tash, but we knew this day was coming.” “Save me the, ‘it’s not you, I still love my wife’ speech!” “I have to return to my daughters.” “Don’t give me that, Tom. Don’t tell me you have to leave; you’re volunteering to leave. You could take me with you … At least stay one more night. Come back to bed.” Tom did not turn around, but he could see her reflection in the mirror. She had pushed aside the sheet covering her body. He closed his eyes. He knew that one more glimpse of her thigh, or her silhouette against the crumpled pink sheets would weaken his resolve. Taking a sip from his hip flask, he picked up his heavy firefighting boots and walked out the door. He heard a glass shatter on the door behind him. Tom ran through the dark car park, hunched against the storm. His black BMW was parked next to Natasha’s dark green convertible with the number plate MG 1979. He turned the key in the ignition and the radio started up; the 3:00 a.m. news was just beginning. Tom thought he should sit through the rain. He turned on his mobile. Fifteen missed calls, all from Victoria. Well, what did he expect? He had been due home hours ago. Garth Brooks began singing Thunder Rolls, and Tom pulled out onto the Great Western Highway. The city’s silhouette throbbed in the distance, but the road ahead was devoid of taillights. Now and again a truck passed in the opposite direction. He came to a complete stop at the intersection in front of a red light and glanced at the clock—three forty-five. He exhaled for what seemed like the first time that summer. Home soon, he thought. Another summer of fighting fires was over; another few houses saved; some scares but no death, no scars, and no harm done … excluding the harm he had done to Natasha. He thought of her lying n***d beneath him again and let the thought go. Home soon. He exhaled again and asked himself if he really did still love Victoria. He had imagined taking Natasha home with him but that was not possible. Yes, he had contemplated it but knew it would destroy Victoria. And it was far too soon after the death of their mother to turn his daughters’ lives upside down again. The girls were still grieving, as he was, and they had become accustomed to Victoria being around. He had lost his parents when he was a child, and that pain defined him. There had been other women after his wife Helen’s death, women he had found every summer when he volunteered. He would search them for any resemblance to Helen and judge them against what was now becoming a faded, idealised image of her. But Natasha? He was falling in love with Natasha for the way she smoked a cigarette, the slight Russian accent that became more prominent when she swore, and her indefatigable body. He struggled then, as he always had, to make some connection between all these things. The death of his wife, the death of his parents and his brother … they were like withered bouquets left by the side of the road. The long tuneless white noise of death had followed him his entire life. He felt no sense of resolution; he often puzzled over an indistinct question that woke him, noiseless, always around midnight. But beside Natasha he slept at ease. A sheet of what looked like lightning illuminated the entire crossroads and shocked Tom into pressing the brakes even harder as he waited for the lights to turn green. Tyres screeched behind him. Suddenly, his body jolted forward, and the air bag exploded in his face. Pain seared through him. And then there was no horizon lights, no road, no car, nothing except pain from his spine to his fingertips and a sense of helpless, unbidden flying as if he had entered a recurring dream. Then the car seemed to gather him back in. A wheel rolled past the driver side window. Then, darkness.