Page 50 of Nothing Without You

Evie turned in her chair to watch her mum and David waltzing on the dance floor. Other guests were also up dancing, and she enjoyed the music as she watched couples shuffle across the parquetry floor.

She inhaled sharply, her body tensing when she sensed someone behind her. It was Chris, and he dragged a chair from a nearby table so that he could sit down right next to her. For a moment neither spoke, both watching the dancing.

Her mother waved at them and Evie waved back. ‘They look happy,’ Chris said, his deep voice sending a wave of emotion flooding through her. ‘At last.’

She nodded and took a long sip from her wine. ‘At last.’

‘Do you see your dad much?’ he asked. ‘Your mum said the three of you lost contact for a number of years.’

‘No, but we talk on the phone. I spend most of my time working. He’s busy too.’

There was a long gap of silence and she wished Rose and Lily would return.

Chris’s next words were barely audible. ‘What happened Evie? What happened to us?’

She turned to gaze at him, struck by the familiarity in his eyes. The slender features of his youth had given way to a rugged, robust appearance. Once-boyish traits had matured, sculpted by the passage of time, and the defined lines of his jaw now framed a resolute, determined expression. She looked at him for a long while and he stared back, his blue eyes searching for answers. He spoke softly. ‘What happened?’

Looking away, she took a cigarette from a packet and lit it, drawing deeply before answering him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just tell me and I won’t ask again. You know what I’m talking about.’

Laughing, she threw him a smile. ‘Oh, come on Chris. You know exactly what was going on. You and Geraldine, up in your bedroom every Thursday afternoon while I was at music lessons. Apparently, the entire house used to shake.’ Flicking the ash that gathered at the end of her cigarette into the large ashtray in the middle of the table, she looked back at him, still with a smile on her face. ‘Good on you for getting it when you could. I mean we were so young and the word was, you were just ‘sowing your wild oats’.’

Chris’s face scrunched up, as if he was trying to remember.

‘It’s okay,’ Evie continued. ‘We’re adults now. You were just a kid, and I guess she was more available than I was at the time.’

‘I have no idea what, or who, you’re talking about.’

Giggling as the effects of the champagne started to have an effect, Evie stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray. ‘Geraldine Goldsberg. I never would have guessed at the time, but you know what, good for you.’

It was as if a light bulb went off and Chris stared hard at her. ‘Geraldine Goldsberg. Are you kidding me? Whoever told you that rubbish? Geraldine? Are you joking?’

‘It’s okay. We’ve all got our own lives now. Look, here come your sisters. Rose wants me to visit her in Gladstone.’ Rose was good value, and Evie felt like she could talk to her. They understood each other. They had talked while eating the buffet dinner, Rose also filling Evie in on what Chris had done since he left school.

Rose hadn’t held back, obviously keen to rattle off her younger brother’s accomplishments. ‘He had a girlfriend for a long while, but they went their separate ways a few years ago, and he hasn’t had a steady girl since. There’s been a run of others but nothing serious. He spends so much time with the business that we’re worried he’s going to burn out. Not everyone can make that much money by the time they’re thirty.

Rose told Evie how Chris started making surfboards once he left school. He sold them to his friends to start with, but then a big-name board rider from Sydney got hold of one of his boards and loved it. ‘That guy backed Chris, and together they formed a company, Vivre. They design and sell boards in Australia and overseas. He’s worth a motza,’ Rose said. ‘And the business is going gangbusters this year. They’re starting to make skateboards and other surfing accessories. He’s a big name in California.’

‘Vivre,’ Evie said the name out loud, the word running off her tongue. ‘What does that mean?’

‘I think he said it’s a Spanish name.’

‘Oh.’

Now she wanted to ask Chris what the word meant, but from the set look on his face it would appear he wasn’t up for light conversation.

Rose wrapped her arms around him. ‘What’s up big brother? You look like you’re cranky about something.’

He shook his head. ‘Do you girls remember Geraldine Goldsberg, from school? I was friends with her.’ He glared towards Evie, a look of disdain on his face. ‘Evie seems to think I had sex with her, when she and I were a couple.’

Lily put back her head and laughed. ‘That would have been some accomplishment if you had. She was a lesbian back then, and she still is now. I see her from time to time. She’s always worked at the Hacienda in the Valley. Of course, that’s not general knowledge about her love for girls, but to us who knew her well, it was. Always was, and always will be.’

Rose added in. ‘She could wrestle better than a bloke. That’s when the house used to shake, when her and Chris practised fighting upstairs. I think Dad thought something sexual was going on, but we all knew Geraldine would take you out if you even mentioned her getting a boyfriend, or being with a boy.’

Evie’s heart sank into her stomach, and she stood up as her mother came towards them. For a moment she looked at Chris whose demeanour hadn’t changed, an unhappy look fixed on his face. When she went to walk away, he reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘Is that why you didn’t turn up that night and never said goodbye to me?’

Wrenching her arm away from him, she rubbed it, the touch of his fingers on her skin sending electric shocks through her body. ‘I overheard a conversation. The person said you were having sex with Geraldine. What was I supposed to do?’

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