Esmé didn’t tell
Keith about her father for another six months.
He never mentioned the scars. He
never even let his eyes flick towards her sleeves. But on the hottest days, when a torrid
northerly would make Melbourne temporarily uninhabitable, she longed to be able
to wear short-sleeved shirts. But she never
did. She envied his ability to wear a
T-shirt.
One Friday night,
they had drunk a little more brandy than usual, and were both feeling
mellow. The café had a miniscule back
garden, with high creeper-clad walls, and a creaky old bench. They took their brandy snifters out with them
and sat at each end of the bench and talked.
It was a very warm night, and the air was filled with all the smells of
the city: garlic; meat cooking; car fumes; hot bricks; coffee; rancid cheap
scent; and also, enchantingly, the sweet heady orange-blossom opulence of the
cream flowers on the creeper. From a
restaurant a few doors down came the muffled lilt of swing, played by a jazz band
in the authentic style.
“So,” he said,
“how’s French goin’?”
“Bearably. I have an essay due on Monday.”
“You workin’
tomorrow?”
“Yes. Boring.”
“Pays the rent.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in a
companionable silence for a while longer.
