Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy

Author:Peter Goldsworthy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

‘Do you still dream of me?’

‘Sometimes,’ I lied.

Megan was driving her mother’s car—the ink on her licence still wet, I suspected. We were heading in the wrong direction: past Scotty’s house, our supposed destination, where the band was practising that night, and out along the East Point Road.

‘We’re early,’ she said. ‘Let’s drive.’

It soon became clear that driving was not her intention: she halted the car in the shadow of the first gun emplacement, and turned towards me.

‘Tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘About the dreams.’

‘I can never remember dreams,’ I repeated the standard excuse, uneasily.

She moved closer, pushed her hand inside my shirt, and ran her fingertips over my bony chest:

‘You’ve filled out, Paul.’

I was still beanstalk-thin, the skin wrapped like tent-canvas across my cage of ribs. Perhaps she was trying to persuade herself, to excite herself in some way. I made myself play the role, reaching over and rubbing gently at her breasts with the back of my hand:

‘So have you.’

She laughed: always a stunning sight, that familiar piano lid, lifted. The sight and sound of that laugh reached into me and turned some deep tap: my pulse stumbled, blood lurched and changed course inside me.

‘Would you like to get in the back?’ she suggested.

‘I’d rather stay here in the front with you,’ I replied, and burst into nervous laughter at the old joke.

We sat watching each other.

‘There’s a rug in the back,’ she said at length. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

I threw the rug across my shoulder, and followed her into the nearest bunker. The sun was low over the harbour, the late afternoon light leaving the world gilded, flushed, dusty. Inside, in the warm half-darkness, she spread the rug on the sand, and draped herself across it.

‘Peel me a grape,’ she smiled.

It was a disappointment, at least for me. She was too selfish, I realised later. Too used to being desired, to never having to involve herself in any real way. As soon as I touched her she became floppy, inert, like something wanting to be kneaded. She loved to be touched, bitten, licked—but passively, as if on a pedestal, receiving some sort of sexual tithe.

‘You’re very good,’ she murmured afterwards. ‘I knew you’d be good.’

I snorted: ‘How did you know?’

‘You can tell.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘It’s in the eyes.’

She laughed, teasing, but I was too worried to be seduced a second time.

‘What if Scotty finds out?’

‘I’m not about to tell him. Are you?’

‘Are you joking?’

She stroked the bones of my chest again. I looked at her—the thick cloud of hair, the cheekbones, the eyes, the smooth, soft body I had dreamed of so often—and remained unmoved. The sum of all that beauty was somehow less that its parts.

‘You want to do it again?’ she said, meaning here, now.

‘No,’ I said, meaning forever.

We folded the rug, dusted ourselves free of sand, and drove back slowly towards Scotty’s—then on past his house once again.

‘Drop me at home,’ I said. ‘Tell the boys I’m crook.’

We drove on in silence.

‘It was too wonderful,’ I lied, as I climbed from the car.

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