Chapter 1
‘Nina?’
The name wove towards her through the hot still air. To her right, the screen door wheezed open and she jerked to a halt, hands poised over the lump of dough she was kneading on the kitchen table. Confused, she stared in the direction of the voice.
Outlined within the framework, the shape dark against the glare, stood the figure of a man. He was tall and lean with square-set shoulders. The hat on his head was turned up at the brim. A slouch hat, Nina realised, suddenly aware of pale light glinting off the rising sun badge.
A momentary bewilderment skimmed her awareness. A soldier? Here in Tea-tree Passage? The war was over, had been for ten long months. The voice wove towards her again. Scarcely audible. Strangely familiar.
‘Nina. I’m home.’
Frank?
Oh, my God! It’s Frank!
The realisation sifted oddly through her consciousness like leaves. Leaves the colour of mulberries. Wafting. Settling. Falling in layers upon the dry core of her. For one impossibly long moment she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Her legs were heavy, like lead. They refused to function, and she simply halted, overwhelmed by the unexpected sight of him.
Disjointed thoughts slid against her awareness. Why hadn’t he written, let her know he was coming? She would have gladly gone into town and met him at the station, not let him come home like this. She’d heard nothing from him, apart from a letter almost six months ago. I don’t know when we’ll get home, he’d written. There’s a bloody long queue of us waiting for boats.
Automatically, her hands came up to straighten her hair. Then, remembering the flour, she let them flutter back to her side. Only seconds had passed since he’d said that first word, but it seemed like months, years. An eternity of time. And all the while he stood by the door watching her, waiting, as though unsure what to say himself.
‘Frank,’ she pronounced at last, her voice thick as though from years of disuse. Then: ‘Oh, Frank!’
The shock had made her lightheaded. The room spun and she put out a hand to steady herself. Tears blurred her vision, walls and floor merging for a moment into a smudged kaleidoscope of colour. She knew she should go to him, greet him in some as-yet unknown way, but the kitchen seemed miles wide, a vast expanse of table and chairs and linoleum separating them.
‘I’ve missed you’ he said simply and, unbidden the tears fell, tracking a course down her cheeks.
As though sensing her distress, he moved towards her. They came together beside the kitchen table, laughing, crying. Frank, this stranger who was her husband, let the door slam shut with a loud bang as he scooped her into his arms.
She was aware of inconsequential details: the rasp of his unshaven cheeks as his mouth moved over her own, the smell of tobacco, the stiffness of his khaki shirt – new, she realised with surprise – and a distant scream of gulls from the direction of the sea wall.
‘Frank! I didn’t know—’
He pressed a finger momentarily to her lips and the words were lost. ‘Hush. I’m here now. There’s time enough for talk later.’
A slow sigh escaped Nina’s mouth as his arms wrapped her in a tight embrace. It was so long since she had been held. She swayed against him, savouring the moment. There had been times during the past years when she had wondered if she would ever see him again, would ever be enclosed in those same arms. So many men hadn’t come home.
When at last she pulled away, Nina was dismayed to see her own floury handprints outlined against the khaki of Frank’s coat. ‘Oh, dear,’ she pronounced as she tried to brush them away. ‘Look what I’ve done.’
‘Leave it,’ he replied, grabbing her hands, holding her wrists to his mouth. ‘I’ve been through worse.’
He stared at her with sudden intensity, an eager yet uncertain look as he dipped his eyes and smiled. She met his gaze, studying his now-unfamiliar face – the smooth flat planes of his cheek, aquiline nose, hooded eyes – and sensed a momentary shock. This was not the same Frank whose image had been captured on that single photograph she had treasured through those long years of separation. This Frank was older, war weary. Small lines creased the corners of his eyes and mouth. A sprinkling of grey hairs lined his temple. There was a leanness to his face and a spareness to his body she had not remembered. And she saw, her attention drawn back to his eyes, a disconcerting blankness she was at a loss to explain.
Yet again, time seemed suspended, caught between the various floundering layers of her own self. In her mind the differing separate images of him scattered on top of each other, causing her to draw her breath. Small unconnected fragments. Here an eye. There, a nose, mouth. She sensed a wash of concern, almost maternal. A concern she might have lavished on her child, had there been one. Her mouth wavered into something she hoped resembled a smile.
Slowly Frank released one of her hands and moved his fingers down the curve of her cheek, all the while still watching, watching. Their eyes are locked, and she could not, for one long moment, bear to look away. Perhaps she was dreaming. One blink, one glance elsewhere, might cause her to wake and the scene to unravel its threads about her.
His fingers were warm against her face. Unbidden, a memory shuddered through her. How many times in the past four years had she prayed for this intimacy that has so long been denied? How many times had she lain in bed at night, running her fingers over her body, imagining they were Frank’s hands? How many—
She stopped and snapped her head upwards, acknowledging the room and the man who evoked such familiarity. This was no dream. Frank was home!
The touching was like a spell, a familiar yet distant recollection, and her heart hammered away in her chest until she feared it likely to explode. Surely Frank could hear the pulse? His hand touched her breast, stroking and kneading at the nipple through the flimsy fabric of her dress. A slow heat built inside her, a giddying surge of desire that stirred in her belly and radiated outwards. Four years, she thought again. It’s been four years.
His mouth trailed down, into that soft hollow at the base of her throat. Nina was aware, suddenly, of the ticking of the clock from the mantel over the stove. It sounded inordinately loud against the hushed stillness of the room. The clock, she thought, the idea random in her mind, was measuring out this homecoming, separating her thoughts and actions into tiny compartments. Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock! Even the screech of the gulls had faded to some distant place, now unheard.
Frank’s breath was warm on her skin. A sigh escaped his mouth, magnified unbearably. ‘Christ I’ve missed you. Missed this.’
He left no doubt as to the meaning of his words.