Vivian's Return Read online

  She went out into the kitchen. Her father had settled himself at the table with his Jacques Cousteau book, while her mother and her brother Lawrence washed and dried the dishes from supper. Her father looked up as she entered and marked the place in his book and shut it. He looked at her expectantly.

  “I have a date tomorrow. All day. Did you guys have any plans for the day that included me?”

  There was an astonished silence for an erratic heartbeat or two.

  Lawrence spun around, his jaw sagging almost comically. “You have a date?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mother looked over her shoulder, with a radiant smile. “Who is he?” she asked.

  “A real date?” Lawrence added.

  “Yes. His name is Paul Levissianos.”

  This time, Lawrence’s mouth gaped open. “That helicopter pilot guy?”

  “I have heard of him,” her father said. “He found that family who had wandered off into the desert when their car broke down last summer.”

  “He’s one of those long-haired dropouts. Ties it back in a hairband like a girl.”

  “It’s long, yes but he’s hardly a dropout,” Vivien replied evenly. “Dropouts don’t hold down challenging jobs.”

  “They don’t serve the community the way this man does, either,” her father added.

  Vivien focused on the word “man.” Said by her father, it sounded almost like a compliment, especially in the context he’d used.

  Her father’s green eyes locked her gaze. “Is he a good man?”

  A dozen different answers occurred to her. That he seemed good, that she trusted him, that they’d already moved beyond those considerations and the conventional defense she had already used with Paul himself—she didn’t know him.

  But her father’s gaze wouldn’t let her dissemble.

  “I’m going to fall in love with him.”

  Her mother dried her hands rapidly. “You’re young. This is your first date. There’s time. You don’t even have to see him again if you don’t like him.”

  “Too late,” Lawrence told his mother softly.

  Her father nodded. “Yes too late.”

  * * * * *

  Paul was ten minutes early but the entire family had risen, breakfasted and Vivien had already been pacing the floor for fifteen minutes when he arrived.

  She introduced him to her father first. They shook hands, measuring each other, while Vivien bit her lip anxiously.

  Her father spoke first. “Your father...he runs a crayboat?”

  “Yes. My brother Carlos is his deckhand.”

  “But you like to fly, instead.”

  “For which I blame my mother. She took me to an airshow in Perth when I was a kid and bought me a joyride in a plane.” He shrugged and smiled.

  “That’s the way it works when you find your true passion,” her father agreed, glancing at Vivien.

  “Yes, it does. The bolt of lightning, and you just know.”

  Her father sighed, almost sadly. “So it does.”

  * * * * *

  Paul’s car was old but the engine ticked over steadily and the interior was clean and tidy. The windows were all down, for the sun was already hot.

  “It’s going to be warm today,” Paul forecast with a pleased expression, settling behind the wheel.

  “I should have left my wet suit at home,” Vivien said, glancing at the bulky sports equipment bag on the backseat.

  He shook his head. “You’ll need it.”

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “I’m not entirely sure myself, yet.”

  “But you know what we’ll be doing when we get there?”

  “Wherever there is, yes.”

  “And there will be water.”

  “Oh, yes.” He seemed amused.

  Vivien realized they were heading out of town. Inland.

  “A lake?”

  “Where we’re going there isn’t a lake or a river for miles and miles.”

  “You promised me big waves.”

  “True.”

  “We’re heading inland.”

  “True.”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  He glanced at her, almost laughing. “True.”

  “Even if it scares me?”

  “Are you scared?”

  She bit her lip. “No.”

  “Good.”

  When he turned down the road that led to Geraldton’s little airport, suddenly it made sense.

  “We’re flying somewhere!”

  Paul laughed.

  “I’ve never flown before.”

  “Do any of your family get airsick?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “Well, we’ll soon find out if you do. But I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  He parked the car at the back of one of the private hangars. “Because you’ll be flying a lot, with me. The universe wouldn’t allow you to get airsick. Not when you’re with me.”

  “You wouldn’t let it?” she asked, amused at his arrogance.

  He shook his head. “We’re supposed to fly together. The universe will make sure that it happens.”

  Vivien shivered.

  “Let’s go.” He got out of the car.

  Paul used one of his employer’s small light planes, a four-seater, and flew Vivien to Kalbarri, a tiny holiday town on the mouth of the Murchison River, north of Geraldton. At the airstrip, a man stood waiting next to a helicopter that was the twin of the one Paul had been flying the day before. He flipped Paul a set of keys, which Paul caught left-handed, because of the heavy, cumbersome carryall in his right.

  “Vivien, this is Max. Max, Vivien.”

  Max peered at her, shading his eyes against the climbing sun. “So you’re the lady who caused all the flurry,” he said, shaking her hand. He glanced at Paul and jerked his thumb back at the helicopter behind him. “She’s tanked and ready to go.”

  “Thanks again, Max,” Paul murmured.

  Max shrugged. “No, man, it’s my pleasure. I owed you big.” He looked at Vivien. “He did me a favor once. You should ask him about it.”

  Vivien smiled. “I will.” She glanced at Paul.

  He looked genuinely uncomfortable. “Time’s wasting. The tide waits for no one.”

  “Enjoy yourselves,” Max said.

  * * * * *

  Helicopters were noisy, Vivien discovered. Paul handed her a pair of earphones, which cut most of the noise but the steady low “thwacking” of the rotors resonated in her bones. As the helicopter didn’t have communications intercoms in the headsets, talking meant shouting and quickly strained the throat. So while Paul flew the little machine up the rugged coastline, Vivien stared down through the Perspex canopy and watched the land and sea slip beneath them and accustomed herself to helicopter flight.

  Despite the noise, Vivien began to like it almost at once. She had only flown one fix-wing flight, but even that short experience was enough for her to immediately and instinctively understand the differences between gliding and flying. You could hover, move forward more slowly and Paul stayed down low, so most of the ground details were clear.

  The bubble of Perspex that wrapped around them extended partly beneath their feet, so Vivien could look straight down beneath her to the shoreline.

  The coast around Kalbarri was nearly all national parkland and protected. It was some of the most spectacular and majestic country in the state. High sheer cliffs dominated and the sea rolled right up to their base. Unexpected pockets of beach appeared irregularly and it was one of these that Paul selected. He lowered the helicopter down and hovered over the pure white sand of the beach, looking out to the sea. “Yes, that’s perfect,” he decided aloud and let the helicopter drop all the way down to the sand and shut the engine off.

  The sudden silence was startling. Vivien took off her headphones.

  “Look,” Paul told her, pointing out through the canopy toward the sea. />
  Vivien looked.

  “Aren’t they the biggest waves you’ve ever seen?”

  They were. Because of the high cliffs on either side of the miniature beach, there was a powerful undercurrent to the water slamming against the base. When the energy of the sea hit the shallow sand of the beach, it was pushed up into a huge swell that rolled in toward the beach, broke into a comber at the last moment and died with a mash of froth and spray.

  “Don’t you just itch to get out there and surf one of them all the way into the beach?” Paul asked, his voice enticing.

  She smiled. “Yes!”

  Paul insisted she wear her wet suit, to protect her skin if she was dumped by the waves, for the bottom of the sea here was broken down rocks and shells and could strip her skin like sandpaper if she was rolled along the bottom beneath a wave. Paul joined her in the water for a while but then swam back to shore for some mysterious task.

  A little while later he signaled for her to come out of the water and she caught a wave into shore and walked out, water streaming from her.

  Paul handed her a towel, a shirt, a bottle of sunscreen lotion and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The hat was new, as was the sunscreen and the shirt looked like a man’s shirt. Paul’s?

  “Strip off your wet suit before it dries and put the shirt and hat on—the sun is too strong for you this far north. And use the sunscreen too. There’s not a lot of shade around here.”

  Curiosity bubbling up silently inside her, she followed his instructions and when she had finished, Paul took her hand and led her to the southern end of the beach, which was protected by the lee side of the cliffs from the worst of the wind.

  There, he had spread a blanket and some cushions and a picnic fit for a king was laid out. Sizzling on a little propane gas hotplate were a pair of steaks.

  Vivien’s stomach rumbled loudly and Paul laughed. “Well, that answers that question. Sit, I’ll get you some lunch.”

  “You brought all this with you?”

  “In the bag,” he agreed. “It packs up small but heavy. Do you want some salad?”

  The salad was crisp and cool. The steaks had been marinated in a mysterious, mouthwatering sauce. There was crusty Italian bread and fresh cold juicy fruit to finish. From an insulated bag Paul pulled out bottles of chilled mineral water to go with the meal. “Red wine goes better with these steaks,” he said, “but in this sun it’s likely to send us both to sleep. Besides, we’re swimming and flying, so....” He shrugged.

  The meal was simple but delicious. Vivien lay back at the end of it and sighed. “That was wonderful,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Paul smiled. “Thank my mother. She won’t give the recipe for the sauce or the bread out to anyone, so I’m forced to beg her to make it for me when I want some.”

  “She didn’t mind?”

  “She likes cooking and I gave her an excuse to stay in the kitchen.”

  “Do you still live with your parents?”

  “I’ve got a duplex down near the beach but I’m still welcome at home. I didn’t leave under a cloud.”

  “That’s not why I was asking.”

  “Oh? What were you trying to learn, then?”

  “Your age.”

  Paul grinned. “I’m older than you.”

  “I know. But I can’t figure out how much older. Sometimes, like when you grinned just then, you look only a few years older than me. But then you say something, or look a certain way and it seems like you’re older than the hills.”

  “Like when?”

  “Like when you talk about....” Vivien dropped her eyes from his steady gaze. “When you talk about wanting me.”

  “That’s just certainty, Vivien. Not experience.”

  She looked up at him again. “Exactly. How can you be so certain?”

  He shrugged. “I just know.” He picked up a nectarine and sliced it with a knife. “Here, taste this.” He leaned forward and offered her the slice of fruit, resting it against her lips. Vivien opened her mouth and accepted the fruit and the tips of his fingers brushed her lips. Her heart jumped. She ate the sliver of fruit.

  One finger slid along her jaw to the corner and followed the cheekbone up across her face to her nose, before following the central line back down to her lips. Vivien’s skin tingled at his touch and a tremor ran down her body.

  He was concentrating on the sensations transmitted through his fingertip and his gaze followed. She saw him focus on her lips and her body tensed. Was he going to kiss her?

  For that moment it seemed everything stopped breathing, even the wind died and the waves stopped rolling and sound fell away, while the world waited.

  Paul touched the tip of his finger to the center of her lips lightly and sat back. He ran his hand through his hair and the world came back to life around Vivien with an animated chatter.

  Paul’s brow wrinkled. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “I thought....”

  “You thought I was going to kiss you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wanted me to.”

  “Yes.” It was a reluctant admission.

  He smiled and it was the smile that made him seem so much older than her. “There’s time yet, for that. Lots of time.” Then his smile broadened into a mischievous grin. “I just had to touch your skin, just once.”

  Vivien found herself smiling back. “What if I wanted to do something like that to you?”

  “Do you?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You do.”

  Vivien could feel the blush starting from the bottom of her neck and sweeping upwards. “No,” she denied again.

  Paul just stared at her, staring her lie down.

  Vivien sat up and brushed sand from her hands. The delay in answering gave her a measure of control and she recognized that that was the clue to her answer. She looked at him squarely. “There is something but I don’t want to either do it, or talk about it right now. Now is not the time. Later, perhaps.”

  Paul nodded. “Later, then,” he agreed easily.

  It was as simple as that, she realized. He accepted her assertiveness completely.

  He was looking at the waves again. “So, have I fulfilled my promise?” he asked. “Were they big enough for you?”

  “Barely.” She hid her smile.

  He laughed a little and cut off another slice of nectarine for her and handed it over. Vivien ate the fruit and stared at the cliff at the end of the beach. “Do many people come here?” she asked.

  “The beach is inaccessible by land. This is the only way to reach it and not too many people have helicopters at their disposal.”

  Vivien looked at the cliff again. “So, no one has climbed that cliff before?”

  He swiveled around to look at it. It wasn’t particularly high, perhaps a hundred feet. But it was very steep, almost sheer. “No. No one has climbed it.”

  “Could you?”

  “Not without rope and pitons.” He looked at her. “Which we don’t have.”

  Vivien bit her lip. She could climb it. There were clefts and jagged horizontal layers. It would be like climbing a ladder.

  “No, we’re not,” Paul said quietly, almost as if he’d read her thoughts.

  “You don’t want to? Imagine what the view will be like from the top.”

  He looked at the cliff. She knew he was tempted.

  “I’m going to,” she declared, standing up.

  Paul shook his head. “Then I will too. I’m not letting you go up there alone.”

  * * * * *

  It took them nearly an hour and by the time they reached the top they were hot, sweaty and tired but the view, as Vivien had predicted, was spectacular. To the east lay an endless land dotted with clumps of tea trees and the odd scrubby eucalyptus. The wind swept over it and smelled dry and dusty. After a long look, they both turned back to face the water. The beach to their left looked like a miniscule crescent moon, with the helicopter as ornament.
/>   “Beautiful,” Paul murmured, breathing hard after his exertions.

  Vivien stayed silent. It was not so much the view, as the fact that she had climbed the cliff that made her soul sing. She had faced the challenge and made it. She looked down past her toes to the water directly below. It churned restlessly and the deep water at the base of the cliff was blue-green and beckoning.

  “I want to go for another swim,” Vivien declared, already feeling the cold touch of the water on her hot skin. The thought made her throat contract dryly. “Let’s go back down.”

  Paul nodded. “Good idea.”

  About forty feet from the bottom, they came to a horizontal chink a little wider than their feet, which allowed them to stand facing outward for a moment. The water surged beneath them and Vivien fancied she could feel the spray on her face.

  “Why don’t you jump?” Paul said. “We’re not that high and there’s no rocks under the water here.”

  Vivien looked down again. It suddenly seemed like a very long way down. “I will if you will.”

  Paul considered and nodded. “All right.”

  Vivien looked down again. “Oh, help,” she murmured.

  Paul took her hand. “Ready? One, two, three....”

  They jumped.

  It was a long way down—even longer than Vivien suspected. She curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, protecting herself from the impact. When it came it was breathtaking. The water closed around her. She went deep but was used to being pushed under by waves and simply let herself float back up to the top, dribbling air from her mouth. A couple of feet from the surface, she felt Paul’s hands on her waist and they came up together.

  “Again!” Vivien gasped.

  Paul laughed, showing his white teeth. She felt one of his hands on her waist lift and he pushed his hair back from his face. “We don’t have time.”

  His hand settled back on her waist. They trod water, both floating easily. The surge bumped them together. Paul watched her. In the little silence that fell, she could almost hear his thoughts.

  It’s happening. As we knew it would.