Epiphany - the Silvering

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Rosetta flung open the door of the community hall. The murmur of a poet reciting a piece about unrequited love filtered from Room 5. Matthew had taken a seat in the end row when he’d finished his song. She’d been acutely aware of that. Throughout the other poets’ recitals, she had glanced over her shoulder in the hope of exchanging a smile and a wave. Matthew, seeming not to have noticed her, had stared ahead, dolefully almost. And then he had vanished.

Frosty air nipped at her fingertips when she stepped out onto the car park’s asphalt. Wrapping her shawl more firmly about her, she hurried across to the rows of cars by the far wall of the building. No sound of any vehicle reversing. He might not yet have left.

Where had her self-control been? Matthew had gone out of his way to sing an apology, not that he’d needed to, and she’d humiliated him by giggling. What must he have thought of her? If he’d meant what he’d said in his song, then it was probable he’d forgiven her for her rudeness when she’d stormed off on the night they went to Amaretti’s. He would never forgive her now.

‘Please, Guardian Angels,’ Rosetta whispered, ‘if Matthew hasn’t left yet, please guide me to where he is.’

She rounded the corner of the building and drew to a stop to scan each of the cars that formed a row adjacent to the community centre. Green Holden, beige Ford, red Toyota...beige Toyota...decrepit blue something-or-other...red Merc, red...was that a Jaguar? A cherry-red Jaguar? It was! Matthew was still here! She threw herself into a sprint.

She rollicked across the asphalt. Her calf-length skirt’s many panels tangled between her knees. She clutched both sides of her skirt and held the fabric taut, wishing she’d worn the boots with the lower heels. The stilettos on these were slowing her down. Any minute now, the Jaguar’s engine might start up. If she didn’t get there soon, she might never have the chance to clear things up with Matthew.

Rosetta urged herself onwards, alert to anything that might sound like a motor, but all she could hear was the tap-tapping of her boots and the jingle-jangle of bracelets, earrings and necklace, the result of her recent penchant for wearing an eclectic combination of new accessories all at once. She loved them all. Could never decide which to exclude. They were punishing her now: jolting from her ears, bouncing against her wrists, hammering at her collarbone.

Would he be angry? Too angry even to speak to her? Mama’s voice rang back from the past. Men hate women laughing at them. At the age of fifteen, Rosetta was shelling peas at the kitchen table. Her snipey seventeen-year-old foster brother had strutted in sporting a ‘chicken-boy’ haircut. Her laughter had been prompted more by surprise than anything else. She’d felt a searing thwack! against the side of her face: Mama throwing a boiled potato at her. ‘Leave Stavros alone,’ she’d ordered. ‘And never laugh at a man. Men hate women laughing at them.’

She could only try. At the driver’s side of Matthew’s car, Rosetta tapped on the frost-whitened window. In an effort to see inside, she slid the side of her palm across the window’s wetly cold centre, calling, ‘Matthew! You in there?’ She stooped to peer in. The driver’s seat was empty.

She rose from the car window and swivelled round. No-one in the car park. So if he hadn’t left, where was he? Might have gone to the centre’s poky little tea room where poets congregated for supper. She dashed back towards the lit-up porch where ferns, wild and abundant, gleamed dark and light green against a backdrop of overlapping ivy leaves.

The view through the swinging glass doors was disheartening. She could see no-one in the darkened tea room, and the chairs outside it were vacant. Backs of poets’ heads were visible through the doorway off the corridor. Matthew had not returned to his seat.

Puzzled by this, Rosetta sat herself down on a small brick wall beside the steps. She couldn’t return to the room now. It might disturb whoever was reciting. She checked the time on her phone, comfortingly iridescent in the darkened gloom, and decided to wait it out. The meeting would be finishing up with tea and biscuits soon.

She’d go back once the poets drifted out. In the meantime she would have a look at the little memorial garden that neighboured the community centre. She’d stumbled across it the night Adam made his first call to her and had loved the lattice trellis and red-leafed rose bushes. The rows of glossy leafed camellias were probably in bloom now that winter was here.

* * * *Rosetta rose from the community-centre steps, tippity-tapped down them and moved towards the memorial garden’s silver birch silhouettes and lattice archways with their backdrop of camellias.

A flurry of movement caused her to stop. The top of a head, with slightly wavy hair, bobbed above the hedge. A fist reached up in a mock cricket-bowling gesture. Great. Her hope of some quiet contemplation was ruined. Teenage boys. Going there to drink or get stoned. She listened out for the typical gravelly murmurs and shouts. Nothing. Was there such a thing as a quiet group of youths?

Footsteps clomped beyond the hedge’s archway. Between the gap of camellia hedge appeared not a boy but a man, tall and attractive, shrouded in shadows, the owner, probably of that bobbing head and impulsive sportsman tendency. He turned and the moonlight caught his profile. Matthew!

She hastened her step.

He turned again and strode along the garden’s twisting path. She increased her step to a run.

Matthew was looking first at the sky and then at the ground. He planted a hand on the back of his neck and shook his head.

Rosetta’s heels were now clippity-clopping frantically, having altered from a trot to a canter to a gallop. The tug of her clunky earrings was jolting her ears once more, and her belt, an Egyptian hipster chain made up of coins, clinked and tinkled like a poker machine spewing out winnings.

Alerted to the noisy giveaway, Matthew turned.

Rosetta halted. Her chain-belt clanged in protest, then sank into silence. She launched into a leisurely stroll. If she acknowledged him too soon he might repeat that hurtful avoidance of eye contact that he’d carried out so blatantly when seated in the row behind her.

She had to calm her runner’s puffs before she reached him. Not the best time to recognise how unfit she’d become now that she was lathered in perspiration from tearing around the car park like a border collie rounding up sheep. Her North Sydney gym membership was severely underused. She would increase her visits to three a week, starting on Monday. Tuesday at a pinch. Wednesday was probably better.

* * * *Matthew couldn’t help but stare. There she was! So relaxed and unhurried. The memory of how she moved, talked and smiled had driven him crazy over the past few weeks. That slow, sensuous way she had about her, interspersed with bursts of energy when enthusiastic or passionate about something; her wide glossy mouth; her low, loud laugh and that walk: confident in a queenly sort of way with an unconscious swing of the hips. All those and more had taunted him when he’d thought back to that night at Amaretti’s.

Why was it that whenever he was around her, he was doomed to turn into a klutz? First, the near-accident when he’d transported her from Harrow’s to her home, then a butter-fingers attempt at hanging fast to a wine bottle and failing, and now a pathetic attempt at winning her respect with a carefully mulled over song, the words to which he’d lost track of once he’d spotted her in the crowd. At least he hadn’t forgotten the bit about wanting to be a friend. Surely that had to be seen as a peace offering.

He glanced eagerly across at her. She hadn’t progressed much from the spot she was in a few moments ago, when he’d forced himself to look away. Her chin was tilted upwards, and her head was turned to the right. He wasn’t at all sure whether she knew he was there. If she did, then she was deliberately taking her time in getting to him. Understandable of course. Why be in any rush to speak to someone who’d singled you out and mocked you publicly with a badly delivered ditty? No wonder she’d laughed at him! She’d laughed. The memory tore at him like a claw in his chest.

He could never live it down. Not ever.

And to add to that he’d gone and worn the loud shirt he’d got in Naples. Bernadette had hated that shirt. Yelled whenever he wore it. Said it looked like jellybean vomit. Lately he’d been wearing it in rebellion.

He gazed down at the pale pink flower he’d plucked up absent-mindedly after retreating into the rose garden to take a call from Charlie. It was the same species of flower the musician had insisted he hand to Rosetta. Funny that, how the guy was at the poetry meeting tonight. Funny how there were some people you continually ran into whether you liked it or not.

‘Matthew...’

In response to Rosetta’s sultry voice, Matthew turned to face her, temporarily tongue-tied by the dark, commanding eyes that met his gaze.

She smiled. Gorgeously.

‘Aw...hi,’ he said.

Remembering he’d been getting nostalgic over a flower, a pink one of all things, he promptly let it drift to the ground, hoping she hadn’t seen him cradling it in his palm.

* * * *Rosetta was lost for a second or two. Matthew was looking at her expectantly. He was smiling a little. She now had a chance to talk with him. Things couldn’t be better!

Standing before him, before tall, beautiful Matthew, felt surreal. Why did he always do that? Bring the same floaty feelings to her each time they met? She shouldn't be feeling divinely alive or delightfully airy with someone who mightn’t be single still. It wasn't right.

She had to say something. Anything. She contemplated the camellia Matthew had thrown to the ground. Beside it lay a dozen or so more, stomped into smoothness on the wet concrete path. ‘I always feel,’ she said finally, ‘a teensy bit sad when I see plants and flowers mistreated.’

‘Right,’ Matthew said. In one swift move he rescued the abandoned camellia. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she’d been referring to all the others. He hesitated, then held it out to her, adding, ‘Although this time it’s without any prompting.’

‘From the accordionist? True!’ She collected the poor fragile bloom from Matthew’s large hand. His other hand remained by his side. Was he wearing his wedding ring? If he was, she knew he’d patched things up with Dette. And if he wasn’t…sadly, that didn’t mean much these days. Lena, before Andrew arrived in her life, was tricked into dating a ‘ringless’ man until his supposedly non-existent wife made a traumatised visit to her health foods shop. Eadie too at one stage, but ever-astute Lena had spotted him at the markets, wearing a papoose and Hubby with Bubby T-shirt.

‘Did you see him?’ Matthew said.

Rosetta blinked. ‘See who?’

‘The accordionist. He was in there tonight.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘He was in the third row. Directed me to a guitar that had been there all week.’

‘Really?’

Matthew was grinning. ‘Yes,’ he said gently. ‘Really. It was a Gibson s***h, too, the Rolls Royce of vintage guitars.’

The man with the dark mop of hair! If these coincidences kept up, she’d know that hair anywhere. She wanted to tell Matthew about the same guy turning up on a singles-cruise, playing the violin, but there was something more urgent to say, something she wanted to ask him. She steeled herself for the answer. Now or never. It was killing her not knowing where he was relationship-wise.

‘How’s Dette?’

‘Bernadette?’

‘Yes. How is she?’ Rosetta’s nails dug into her palms. Were he and his ex together again?

‘I don’t know, to be honest.’ He kicked at a stone on the path and shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen Bernadette, or the girls, since they left. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going.’

‘Oh G—’ About to say: Oh God, Rosetta stopped. The last time she’d gone to say that to Matthew was when he’d told her he’d left Dette, and she’d stupidly said: Oh good, a slip-of-the-tongue response. To avoid a repeat of that, she said: ‘That’s a bit of a worry for you, Matthew, not knowing where they are.’

Matthew regarded her with a perplexed side-glance. He placed a hand on the nearby trellis. Was that his left hand or his right? Her senses were scrambled. She was torn between watching and listening: wanting to hear his next words yet battling to calculate mirror-reverse with a fuzzed-out brain amid the distracting thumps of a bumpity heart.

‘I’m not worried,’ he said. ‘Not worried at all. I know they’re okay.’ Cynical half-laugh. ‘She has the decency at least to answer my texts. I last heard from her a couple of days ago.’

Left hand. It was his left. And definitely no wedding ring. And yet he’d just said he’d tried to contact his wife to find out where she was. Did that mean he was missing Dette? ‘These things have a habit of working out,’ Rosetta said cautiously.

Matthew appeared surprised by the comment. He unclasped the frame of the trellis and lowered his arm. ‘Nothing to work out there though,’ he said. ‘The marriage is over. We’ve both realised we’re not good together.’

Not good together. He was admitting to being really and truly available. Oh good! Oh God! Matthew’s rhyming offer of friendship had just got a thousand times sexier.

Rosetta drew in a breath. ‘The song was excellent, Matthew. Really great!’

Matthew’s sidelong look was sceptical. ‘You serious?’

‘Absolutely! I know a good voice when I hear one. I’m a singer myself. From one singer to another, it sounded unreal.’

‘You sing too?’

‘Sure do.’

‘Thanks. I...hope I didn’t embarrass you with it.’

Beaming, Rosetta shook her head. ‘Good rhythm. Nice and pacey. And your lyrics were excellent. I laughed a lot.’ She wasn’t going to add: for the sheer joy of seeing you there.

‘So it was the lyrics!’ Matthew placed his hands in his pockets. Smiled broadly. ‘I owe it to the accordionist for pointing out that guitar. A stanza without music has never made sense to me. What were the chances of running into him again?’

‘In a city like Sydney? Practically zilch.’ She told him about the singles-cruise encounter, when the same man they’d seen in Amaretti’s and the bar with the autumn-toned lampshades—who went by the name of Chippy—had traipsed after her around the boat, frustratingly playing the violin in a conversation-killing screech. ‘Pretty much ruined my hope of meeting anyone nice,’ she said, laughing. ‘One day I’ll get back at him for that.’

Matthew raised an eyebrow. ‘What’d I tell you? You’ve gained a fan.’

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ Rosetta began. How could she put this elegantly? ‘Um...well, meaning to apologise actually. I...Eeeeeeeeeeek!’

A prickly sort of terror seized hold of her.

Something was crawling across her wrist.

She flung the camellia to the concrete and brushed down both arms.

‘All okay?’ Matthew asked.

‘No!’ Her voice had turned squawky and alien.

She drew in a horrified breath. Clawed at her wrist again. Breathing was difficult. Her mouth slackened and struggled to form words.

She breathed out a groan and flicked again at her arms. ‘Spider,’ she sputtered. ‘Sp...sp...spider!’