Chapters (37)
He shouldn’t speak to her that way, Dan thought; I would never speak to her that way, infantilising her, treating her like a wilful child, assuming authority over her fate, as if she had no mind of her own, or couldn’t be trusted to use it. But look at her; she had no mind of her own. Sheila moved to be beside him, reading heartbreak and loss in his expression, and anger too, and bottomless disappointment. She hooked an arm through his, staking a claim, planting her flag.
Ali, in abject misery, hung her head and thought about Thea and Stella, and about Beatriz, and, finally, Michael. She couldn’t leave them all. She hadn’t understood this before, but their four hearts mattered more than her one, and if she abandoned them, their united pain would kill her. When she looked up, Dan was staring at her, dry-eyed. ‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ she said, choking on sobs, her face a mess of tears. ‘We’ve each made our choices.’
‘Don’t apologise to him!’ Michael said. ‘This pathetic soap opera ends here.’ He glanced at his watch, and this small action filled Ali with new despair, because she knew he’d be thinking about the traffic, calculating their arrival in Adelaide, hoping to avoid congestion in the city; and the fact that he was capable of such a dull, practical consideration amid the white heat of this crisis was why Ali knew she should take her place next to Daniel, whom she loved like no other, and who had come to find her on the strength of sixteen songs.
‘Time to go,’ Michael said, not with love, but with finality.
And so that she might spare Dan the pain of watching Ali gather her possessions and follow her husband to the car, Sheila said, ‘Come, Daniel, let this settle,’ and she walked him to the garden, and kept him there until they heard the roar of Michael’s Porsche, driven in anger, screaming away from the kerbside.
He sat for hours in the garden with Sheila and Dora, drinking gin, talking, playing music. They were wise women, and their love for Alison kept them from judging her, or criticising, but they were on his side here, and he felt held by them, comforted, and Sheila wanted him to believe it was a stage in the process, not a conclusion. Dan didn’t know, couldn’t believe; he just let the combination of the gin and their concern anaesthetise his pain to get him through the night ahead.
Alison was still on his lips, on his hands, and the fragrance of the night-time garden recalled the smell of her hair. She was everywhere, and she was gone. He talked and nodded and smiled, but he was quietly destroyed.