‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Please! I’ll die of loneliness if you don’t write.’
‘Sure, I’ll write.’
‘And I’ll be back before you know it.’
He’d taken her home early, feeling sober despite four beers. Usually when they walked, she fitted perfectly under his arm, with her arm around his waist and their footsteps falling into an easy rhythm. But tonight he kept having to slow or speed up; he couldn’t get it right. They walked towards the lit windows of her house, which was set way back from the sidewalk. A tall Victorian house, with a wraparound veranda and turrets over the windows. The shadows of her family were moving from room to room like they always seemed to be doing, always doing one thing or another, and he suddenly understood this might be it. This time, when they parted, they might never meet again.
‘We’ll have so much fun when I get back, Jacko,’ she said, as if reading his mind. ‘I just know we will. Imagine how amazing it’s going to be, to see each other after not seeing each other for so long. It’ll be a gas, Jacko. Really.’
Had it really been a simple as that? Mutual love, cruelly thwarted by protective parents? Now he sensed something less romantically tragic. He’d looked up to Lizbeth, but had she merely adored him the way one adores an affectionate, loyal puppy? She’d always found excuses to not meet his mother, whereas he was a frequent visitor to her parents’ much grander house. He remembered her mother’s charming manner, and his own complete submission to it. He’d eaten his first oyster in that house, and pretended it wasn’t. Denied his own class. So what mixed-up class were he and Milly now? Not working class anymore, but not solidly middle class either. If class was a language, they’d become fairly fluent in middle class, but working class was still their first language. Perhaps it held them close; bound by a common class in a middle-and upper-class enclave? No doubt, they would always dream in the language they’d grown up with.
Suddenly he realised he would always dream about Lizbeth. In fact, he didn’t think he could manage life without those memories. No matter how wonderful she still might be, she would never compare to his dreams of her.
When he walked back into the house, Milly was killing ants. She sprayed them with Windex, then wiped them away with paper towels. It was her annual winter campaign, but the miniature armies kept finding ways into her domain. No matter how many she killed, long trails of them appeared every day in the bathroom and kitchen.
‘Is that you, honey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You weren’t very long at all. Wasn’t Ernie in?’
‘Huh? No. He wasn’t. What’s for dinner?’
‘Hamburgers. Where’s the toilet paper? And the dog food?’
‘What? Store was out of the kind you like. I’ll go into town tomorrow. You want a drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
He almost always drank on his own, and he always asked her anyway.
‘Okay, hon. I’m going to make a drink.’
She looked up from her ant massacre, frowning. Then as he turned to go, she said: ‘Oh, why not. I’ll have a beer.’ It seemed to be a special occasion, and she didn’t want to be a wet blanket.
A SPANISH BUS
THREE YEARS EARLIER
August 14th 1992
San Miguel and Madrid. Noon
Jack was putting their suitcases in the trunk, mentally checking he had everything. Tickets. American Express checks. Wallet. Milly’s first passport and his battered, multi-stamped one.
‘Milly!’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to be late, goddammit.’
‘I am coming. We are not going to be late.’ Every syllable enunciated clearly and calmly. She limped down the hall.
‘Jesus, Milly, what are you, a crip?’
This was their private joke. It was such a terrible thing to say, to hear out loud, it always made Milly laugh. But not this time.
‘I am coming as fast as I can, jackass.’
‘Hey, no need for that,’ snapped Jack. A swearing woman was just plain trashy.
Jack took a wrong turn at the airport, and couldn’t get back to the long-term parking lot.
‘Godfuckingdamnit.’
Milly giggled.
‘What’s so damn funny?’
‘You. Your face.’
More giggling. A very girlish giggle.
‘Shut up, Milly. It’s not funny.’
There was silence for a few minutes, while they made the journey to the freeway so they could come off it at the correct exit.
‘Jack, remember when you were Jacko and I was Billie?’
‘What? Yeah.’
‘When did we stop calling each other that?’
