Silver

Chapter 72 - then

Without me realising, a little thing crept back into my heart and planted happiness. I sat with my new friends Celia and Tammy and enjoyed caffeine-fuelled laughter at cafés near university. On the weekends, we visited Melbourne landmarks. Celia's mum was able to get the keys from the station master at Flinders Street Station, so that we could see inside the ballroom. The ballroom had a curved ceiling, arched windows and parquetry flooring. It was a doorway to a past world, where girls sat around waiting for a boy to ask them to dance. Celia played the Silly Buffalos on her zaplet, and we danced and laughed until the station master came to tell us that enough was enough.

Most days we floated in and out of alleyways and discovered new cafes and bars with quirky interior designs. Our favourite bar had pink flamingos as centrepieces on the tables, Middle Eastern lampshades hanging from the ceiling, and Chinese Cultural Revolution posters on the walls. They served mini lemon and lime martinis without asking for an identity card.

The city looked brighter than before and my future not so grim. When I walked through town after university, I felt the sun on my face and it warmed my soul.

But in the Autumn, just as the leaves along St Kilda Road were turning brown and the street sweepers came out twice daily, I received a call on my mobile one evening.

'I found your number. I know what was happening with you and Jarvis. You're that girl from your honeymoon aren't you? I knew something was up with him even then.'

It was Nina. My voice became a division of labour.

'I know you're listening, because you're curious about what I'm going to tell you. You've ruined my life and our son's life. And you've ruined Jarvis. He was madly in love with you. I found it all out. I knew all along. But you made him insane with love. I've had him committed. You need to know that, because you're never going to be with him. Your love, whatever you had together, has destroyed him.'

She hung up and all the feelings that I'd suppressed for him, the wall that I'd built around myself, cracked, leaked, flooded. I lay on my bed and sobbed the tears of a million children. I knew it, I knew that he still loved me. I'd felt it all along. I knew he'd cut me off despite his feelings for me. He'd sacrificed me, but in doing so, he'd sacrificed himself.

He was the love of my life. I couldn't let him perish in some institution. It was like he'd said, we depend on each other for survival, like a carrier crab and a sea urchin need the other, we need each other. I had to find him, whatever it took, even if I had to spend the rest of my life searching, I had to find him.