Trouble in Nirvana (26 page)

“Thanks,” Stephen said when she finished. “Do you live in Kullanurra?”

“I’m visiting my brother and Nirupam on their property. Tom lives next door.”

“Primrose is a professional flute player,” Tom said. “She’s anxious to get back to the city.”

“Not exciting enough here for you?”

“No work here for me.” Primrose sent a little frown in Tom’s direction.

“Have you met the Arts Society people?”

“No, I didn’t know there was one.”

“Yes.” Stephen’s face lit up with enthusiasm. “They help run the jazz festival each year.”

She offered a tiny, apologetic smile. “I’m a classical player.”

“They do have chamber concerts sometimes. There are some very good musicians in the area. You may have heard of Maureen Bellows? The pianist? She moved to Narooma with her husband when he retired after his heart attack.”

“Really?” That was a surprise but the woman must be at least seventy.

“Who’s Maureen Bellows?” asked Tom.

“A very good concert pianist,” said Primrose. “She’s world famous. I had no idea she lived down here. She stopped performing years ago.”

“Perhaps you should contact her,” suggested Stephen. “She knows what’s happening in the region. You’ve heard of the Four Winds Chamber Music Festival?”

“Yes.”

“She’s on the committee. She also teaches privately. Call me and I’ll give you her details.” He handed Primrose a business card.

“Thanks.” She slipped the card into her purse. What good would it do to ring Maureen Bellows? Although if she knew everyone...No, at most they’d have a chat and she’d find herself roped into being on some committee. She needed an income, a reliable, steady one. But most importantly she needed a home.

****

As they walked to the car Primrose pulled out her mobile phone. “I need to make some calls while I’m in range. Excuse me for a minute?”

“Of course.” Tom hesitated. Took the plunge. “Want to have a drink before we head back?” Would she remember what happened the last time they’d had a drink? He did. And the aftermath. The words he wished he could take back, spoken in the chill of the morning and the heat of disappointment at waking alone after a night of fantasies fulfilled. Words he’d regret for the rest of his life. If he’d reacted differently would anything have changed?

Primrose gave no indication she remembered anything. “I shouldn’t, I’m driving.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She hesitated, fingered the phone, glanced at him then away. “I’m very tired. I’d like an early night.” She pressed buttons on her phone and held it to her ear.

Tom stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the car while Primrose made her calls. She had her back turned but he could hear enough to know she was ringing someone about being available to play again.

She finished and dialled again. Her voice came clearly.

“Hi, Belinda. Primrose. Yes. Fine. How are you?” She half-turned and smiled quickly. One of those “sorry I’ll just be a minute” smiles from people who were busy and preoccupied with more important things. “I wanted to let you know I’ll be coming back. Could I stay a few days again, please?” Silence. “No, it didn’t work out.” Laughed. “Yes, I know. Miles from anywhere.”

He’d lost her. Tom knew it with a sagging heaviness in the chest. He’d lost her and couldn’t figure out how to keep her here. Didn’t know what to offer. He had nothing she wanted—except sex but that was no basis for a lasting relationship. As far as she was concerned he was a nonstarter. No children, no go.

And they had nowhere near enough in common for a lifetime together. Especially on the land. To survive all the hardships farming threw at you there had to be a deep commitment. Like that of Danny and Nirupam.

He bit his lip and kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot. All true. He knew it. Sensible and right. But love wasn’t sensible and often wasn’t right. The inescapable fact was he loved Primrose. But the last thing he was going to do was lay his heart on the line to be stomped on. She’d be gentle because she genuinely liked him. But she didn’t love him or at least not enough and no matter how soft and tactful she was that fact remained like a kick in the head.

Chapter Twelve

Primrose didn’t wait for Tom to reach the door to his house before heading down the drive as fast as she could safely go without crashing off the track into a tree. She could barely see as it was what with the sudden onrush of tears. Everything swam past, blurry. She drove on automatic.

He couldn’t wait to get out of the car. As soon as she pulled on the brake he had the door open and one denim clad leg out, tossing “Thanks” over his shoulder. And that one word was pretty much all he’d come out with the whole way home. Nothing to say to her. Sitting in the passenger seat staring into the darkness.

He was sick of her and she was love sick with him. She wouldn’t start anything with him—he understood why, he said so—but did that mean they couldn’t be friends?

Enough. Enough.

Primrose sniffed hard and released one tense hand from the wheel to wipe her eyes. He’d fade from her thoughts when she was back in the city, the way Martin had when she came here. Tom was the rebound love. Everyone had one of those and they were usually a disaster. A big mistake. Tom was a mistake.

The headlights splayed over the derelict Nirvana sign as she swung into the driveway. Nearly home. Primrose yawned. Big, big day. A cup of tea with Danny then bed. Another giant yawned attacked her. Over the rise and down to the house.

She frowned. The headlights sprayed over a strange minivan parked by the shed. Another unfamiliar van occupied her usual space. A couple of motorbikes. Two van loads of people?

Music. They were playing very loud rock music. Laughter rang out. Perhaps Danny had invited some people over to celebrate the birth. But he would have included Tom. Primrose parked and strode for the house.

Inside, the noise was deafening. The living room was full of bodies. People sprawled on the floor, the couch and overflowed into the kitchen. The hot air was thick with screaming guitars, pounding drums. Primrose threaded her way through the crush, stepping over hairy, tanned legs in khaki shorts, Indian cotton tie-dyed skirts and sequinned harem pants whose wild, tangle-haired owners smiled beatifically up at her from faces studded with silver jewellery in odd, painful looking places.

“Where’s Danny?” she yelled into the ear of a very long-haired blonde girl holding a stubby of beer.

She gestured toward the kitchen. “Cool news, ay?” A Kiwi.

Primrose nodded. The music was marginally less ear splitting in the kitchen, but a wall provided minimal shelter from the shockwaves. Her bedroom wasn’t much further away. Already her head was thudding and the bass pounded deep inside her chest like a pacemaker. Except she suspected it was out of sync with her own heart beat. What did that do to a body?

Danny was leaning against the laundry door, laughing crazily at something his companions were saying. Arms waved, drinks slopped on the floor, the beat went on.

He saw her and beckoned. “Hey Rosie,” he shouted into a sudden lull in the music. Primrose smiled at the faces turned toward her. “How are my g...” But the rest was drowned out by a bellow from the lead singer on the next track.

Primrose leaned close and yelled, “They’re great. Dawn’s a beautiful baby.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him out the back door into the relative quiet of the darkened back yard. Her ears were ringing already.

“I didn’t know you were having a party.”

“Neither did I.” Danny grinned happily. “Word gets around.”

“How long will it last?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Few days maybe.”

“What?” Primrose shrieked. “But Nirupam is coming home tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be great. Everyone will get to meet Dawn.”

“Does Nirupam know?”

“She won’t mind. These people are all our friends.”

“But Danny. . .” Where to start?

“What?”

Primrose licked her lips. She looked up into his face and saw nothing but joy. “Nirupam’s tired. She won’t want a noisy party going on.”

“Give me a break, Rosie. We won’t be playing this stuff when the baby comes home.”

“No. Of course not.” Primrose reached up to kiss his cheek. “I’m tired, too. I’m going to bed.”

“Okay. Good night.”

Rather than fight her way through the crowd Primrose walked around the verandah and slipped in through the front door again. She’d never sleep. The whole house was shuddering. Maybe the old weatherboard structure wouldn’t cope and the joints would fall apart from the vibrations. The nails might drop out. Tom could probably hear the racket from his place. He’d laugh. Loonies, he’d think.

The toilet was occupied and someone was in the bathroom. Primrose hovered outside the door for a few minutes then gave up and went to her room. They’d have to come out eventually. The toilet flushed so she peeped into the hallway ready to pounce. An overweight girl came out and thumped on the bathroom door. “Get a move on,” she yelled.

Primrose made her dash to the loo. No paper left! Just the empty cardboard tube, dammit. She had tissues in her pocket luckily. The spare rolls were in the bathroom cabinet.

When she emerged the girl was still there, oozing tattooed flesh out of a black tank top and tight black short skirt. She rolled her eyes at Primrose. Music thundered along the passage.

“Who’s in there?”

“Jen's having a bath.”

“What? Now?”

“Exactly.”

“Does she realise we don’t have a lot of water?” demanded Primrose. She banged on the door. “Get out of there now! And don’t let the water out. We recycle it on the garden.”

The girl’s casual indifference disappeared in an instant. “Hey, cool it. You don’t have to be rude.”

Primrose felt her lips tighten into a thin line. “I’m not being rude, I live here and we have to be careful of our water.” Who was this person who calmly supposed it was acceptable to have a bath at a party in someone else’s house? Didn’t she have her own bathroom at home? Most people washed
before
they went out. She’d bet they hadn’t asked Danny. Not that he’d say no. And whose towel was she using? Since Kurt’s departure she’d begun hanging her blue towel in the bathroom.

The door opened. The woman who emerged pushed past with barely a glance at Primrose. The big girl charged in and washed her hands in the bath water. “Happy?” she asked, straightening with a grunt at the effort.

“Fine,” said Primrose. “You might mention the water situation to your friends.” She sounded exactly like Kurt. Fancy that.

When she returned to her room she jammed the chair she’d gained in the rearrangement of Mojo’s room against the door. No telling where those people would sleep tonight. It certainly wouldn’t be in her room. If they ever went to sleep. The music was still blasting into the night. Primrose stuffed torn tissue scraps into her ears and jammed her head under the pillow. She lay curled up in the dark wishing she was curled up in the quiet of Tom’s big bed with his calm, sleeping body beside her.

By four a.m. the best she could say was she’d rested her body although that was arguable as every nerve ending was screaming and every muscle tense as a violin string. No door to sleep opened or appeared likely to. Even after the music stopped around two, her brain was firing. Everything churned in her head. Fury at the thoughtlessness of those partying hippies, anger at Danny for allowing them an open-ended invitation, more anger at Danny for completely disregarding the effect these people would have on his wife and baby. Total fury at the image of poor Nirupam coming home to a house full of freeloaders when she was expecting a quiet reunion with her husband, bonding and settling time with her baby.

Then there was the outrageous volume of the music. Deafness inducing. Her ears weren’t just ringing, they were clanging. It was totally ridiculous.

And Tom. Interwoven through the whole mess was Tom with his lazy lopsided smile, his quiet sense of humour, his calmness, his ability to cope with everything from a stroppy cow to childbirth without raising a sweat or his voice. Plus he was smart and efficient, had drive and vision and was extremely sexy. Put plainly he was wonderful.

The thing was did she have the courage to forego children of her own? And did he feel the way Danny assumed he did? How could she tell?

Ask him. Primrose sat up straight, legs tensed ready to spring out of bed. At four thirty in the morning? He’d think she’d gone mad. She must look horrendous—one of Macbeth’s witches—a
black and midnight hag
.

And the truth was, she wasn’t sure enough of her own heart nor brave enough to lay her soul before him, swear she loved him enough to be childless, risk his polite “no, thank you.”

She lay down again. Back where she started.

****

Voices, heavy footfalls and a slamming door woke her. Primrose groped for her bedside clock, squinting in the brightness, mouth furry, brain clogged. A sliver of hot sunlight cut across the far wall through the crack between the curtains. Ten twenty. She collapsed back onto the pillow. Her head ached, a dull band of pain behind the eyes stretching to each temple. Dehydration. She swallowed. Tasted like sand.

How many people had stayed overnight? Primrose clambered out of bed to peer out the window and count cars. But she dropped the curtain into place swiftly. Someone was sitting right outside. The top of a thickly thatched head of dreads braided with red bands was level with the sill. Looked like a pile of old rope.

She sat on her bed for a moment gathering her scattered, throbbing wits, pressing her palms flat against the sides of her head to stop the pain. A cool shower might help. If she could get into the bathroom and if they’d left any water. She collected clean clothes, removed her chair barricade and ventured out. The toilet was mercifully empty and someone had even renewed the paper supply. The bathroom was vacant, but showed plenty of signs of use with damp towels hanging about, someone’s underwear and puddles scattered about the floor, a soggy lump of soap in the holder.

Primrose showered in her recently acquired economical style. By the time she returned to her room the headache had subsided to a low level ache. Bearable. Plus she hadn’t spied a single hippy intruder except the one on the verandah. Maybe they’d all left early this morning.